There's a couple things I would've done differently were I to draw it this year (like giving my girl MORE hair) but I still really like it!
It's been about a year since I finished it originally so I see some area's that I might touch up later x3
They rotated their marching order, and Wyll feigned ignorance on romantic matters when Gale tried to heavily hint that he might be getting somewhere with Ileleste.
Maybe?
Gods, his mother would kill him, fooling around with a married man. So he said he was getting divorced. They all say that, his mother said. She despaired of his roaming, but it wasn’t his fault. No-one ever saw him. He doubted his mother could find someone who could, because his mother, gods love her, never saw him either.
Tara mewed at him, asking to be let into his guarded thoughts. He set his pack down and picked her up instead, nuzzling into her sun-warmed fur. ‘What do you think of Ileleste?’
‘Does it matter what I think?’ she said. ‘You’ll do as you always do, which is whatever you want.’
Short about Gale, his childhood, and his mother. WIP excerpt from next chapter of Witch Ways but also works as a oneshot.
Or: What happened when I started to think about how Gale learned his first spell.
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Gale fell asleep with his hands still on Echo’s back, with the pleasant weight of her against his chest. Unsurprising: it felt reassuring, grounding. It felt like he must still be alive, that neither orb nor tadpole could have claimed him, since this sensation of life was so present and near. He could feel her heartbeat aligned with his own; he could feel every time their breaths synced and their chests pressed together as one. He was once again struck by the beauty inherent in mortality, in physicality: her body, her presence, her warmth. The smell of her hair and the bony poke of her chin against his chest. Base, human sensations of intimacy that meant more than words could say; simple pleasures he’d all but forgotten in the years he’d spent with his ethereal paramour.
Whatever ephemeral heights of ecstasy he’d experienced with his goddess, Mystra could never emulate the simple, animal need of proximity. He found that proximity quite comforting now, particularly so soon after he’d nearly met his end.
Halfway to sleep, he could almost pretend he was somewhere else. He could fantasize of holding Echo like this in his tower. He might have heard the far-off bells of the temple of Oghma strike the hour, or smell sea air drift in from his balcony doors. He could pretend he had her wrapped up against him in his own four-post bed, enshrined in blankets and pillows, sunk so far into the bedding that they might be cocooned against the waking world.
His thoughts stayed on home as he drifted further into sleep, but it was not his lover in his dreams.
He dreamed of his mother.
Morena had long fingers on her fine hands, exactly the sort you'd want for magic. His childhood home was often filled with the sound of her piano: lilting melodies would drift through the halls, oftentimes when she thought he was asleep. He remembered when she'd tried to teach him piano, so young he’d only recently learned to walk. She'd laid her hands on the backs of his and showed him each key, told him their names one by one.
She taught him magic the same way. Her long fingers covered his, held them in the correct position. Morena guided him through the motions of his first cantrip, whispered the words in his ear as she spoke them, moved his hands in the gestures as she performed them. The result had made him gasp: a sudden burst of light that coalesced into dots which swirled around the spot she had pointed out – the spot she had used his hand to point out. The lights danced for them and little Gale nearly fell out of his seat in his excitement, already eager to learn more.
Morena waited another year before they moved on to the next one: this time, from the school of illusion. She'd held his hands cupped together, told him how to feel the emanations of the Weave. Gale had long felt it; he hadn't known what to call it before, but he'd always felt that pulse of magic in their home. Magic and music were staples in the Dekarios household, and he’d grown up with them as much as he’d grown up with her cooking and her laughter.
The Weave, Morena had said, her voice beautiful, musical.
The Weave, he’d repeated.
What a perfect name for it: how succinct and yet evocative. At first, he’d thought of it in the same terms as learning each tone on the piano. He learned very quickly that his beautiful Weave was not the sheets of music, not the names of the notes.
The Weave was the instrument, and it was his mother who first taught him to play.
She moved his hands with hers, spoke the words with him, and together they formed the illusion. When Gale opened his hands, a tiny blue bird sang from his palm. It lasted only a moment – it disappeared as he tried to touch its head.
Morena smiled at him.
It goes away, love, as soon as you don't believe in it.
Another year, another cantrip. Soon, she didn't have to hold the back of his hands anymore.
Soon, her small spells came to him as easily as running, walking, breathing. Soon, he gave up on learning the piano – he couldn’t see the point. Rather, he cast a spell and it played itself. His mother was not as pleased as he imagined she would be.
It's lovely, dear. Brilliant, she'd said, with so much love and encouragement in her voice that he couldn't place what didn't feel right about the compliment. But music comes from our hearts, not our spellbooks.
He didn't understand that at the time, but he did later. Gale never followed his mother's path when it came to music. He couldn’t compose a symphony so beautiful that it would bring tears to a person's eyes, couldn’t lose himself on the keys of the family piano as he’d watched her do so many times.
But he could compose magic. He could lose himself in his craft, in the sublime act of creation; he could twist and tangle the Weave around his fingertips, mold it into something terrifying, something beautiful, something in between. The Weave felt alive under his touch, an entity with a pulse like a heartbeat, a heartbeat that centered a macrocosm of all that ever was and would ever be. For years he’d watched his mother play the piano, watched her fingers dance across the keys with a grace so natural it was as though she’d come into this world already composing.
Gifted, they’d called her – and perhaps it was a gift. Because one did not become as skilled as she if they did not love what they created.
Gifted, they’d called Gale – and there was so much joy when he created. He composed his symphonies of aether and starlight.
When he showed his mother, this time, she'd rejoiced.
You wear your heart in your craft, my love.
Then came Elminster. Then came Blackstaff Academy. Then came Mystra whispering Chosen, then prestige, then widespread renown. Then came Gale of Waterdeep: laughable to think such an esteemed Archmage had cast his first spell with his mother's palms pressed against his knuckles, with her good natured laugh fluttering against his ear.
Then came his fall.
Hubris took away his life, his home. He stopped visiting her, avoided her to avoid harming her. Hubris took away the sound of that piano, muted to him now in his absence. Hubris separated them. Then came a year alone, a year staring down his own doom as he waited for the last tether of his strength to snap.
Yet that wasn’t the end, was it? Fate turned again, and ambition beckoned him closer.
Now came the brain – now came the Crown. Through hubris came opportunity he hadn't realized. Would that not be worth the cost? Would that not be worth the pain and the struggle? To step away from the indignities he’d suffered, to realize his potential in such a way as to safeguard his future? To pull himself into a position where doubt could no longer reach him – to ascend?
But then he remembered the home that smelled like her cooking; he remembered the piano that played in its halls. He remembered her smile and her laughter; he remembered the way her face lit when she saw his joy at conjuring those dancing lights. He remembered her long fingers, and how graceful they felt against his knuckles.
There would be no more visits, no more conversations over tea, no more family dinners and shared recipes. There would be no more reading by the fire as she played her latest composition just for him. There would be no grandchildren for her – no child whose hands Gale could hold in his own as he taught them what beauty might be found in creation.
The more steps he took towards power, the further he stepped from her. The closer he came to godhood, the further he moved from the man he was.
would anyone like to see a slightly nsfw slow burn Galexfem!tav fic that turns from touch starved pt.1 to pt. 2 outright nsfw sex-addict debauchery over time? I am interested in it personally but would anyone else be interested if i made it public? 👉👈
