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.
There’s been a slight delay with the main episode this month due to technical issues, so I hope you enjoy these two powder recipes, one for attracting romance and desire, the other for repelling it. The recipes for Come Hither Powder and Get Thee Hence Powder can be found in Pestlework, now available on Amazon and in the Willow Wings Witch Shop.
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Every so often, a witch’s work needs to be done in secret, and we must be cunning and full of tricks in order to make sure our magics are not discovered until they’ve had a chance to work. Borrow a bit of that guile with The Fox’s Gift, from the pages of The Sisters Grimmoire. (For more fairytale spells, you can purchase a copy on Amazon or from my shop!)
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MUSIC CREDITS
“Carpe Diem” and “Lord of the Land”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
So as I was finishing up the last chapter of Witch Ways I realized Echo's fungal zombies only get a passing mention in like one chapter, then I bring them up again like everyone should just remember them?? So anyways I decided to put this visual guide together.
Amanita
' the corpse's jaw cracked as a fungal frond broke through the upper neck. The top of the cranium split, revealing slivers of Amanita's red cap between the broken skin. A thin white tendril pushed through one eye socket and the limp jaw quivered, then pulled itself closed.'
Amanita was the leshy that Echo summoned at the tiefling party, later put inside a corpse to make it more ambulatory (the leshy, not the corpse, but I guess-) I picked amanita because of Skyrim, but also because the mushrooms are cute (as pictured). Then later I found out that death cap is in the amanita genus, so I decided Amanita would be Echo's most dangerous zombie.
Lepiota
'Lepiota had come second, with long, white, feathery-gilled sprouts that looked almost like wings.'
As per the first description, Lepiota has long white frills that look like wings or maybe a robe. I chose this mushroom because I thought it'd be pretty (you know, on a zombie, yeah) with its delicate white frills flowing around it like a feather boa. Like the other fungal zombies, Lepiota was made at the battle of Grymforge. Lepiota is in the family Agaricacaea and it's name was almost Agaric but I figured that'd be too similar to Agaricus (they share the family)
Ramaria
'Ramaria had been the first, and its pink frills had demolished most of Thrinn's white hair'
Ramaria, since its host is Thrinn, was the first fungal zombie Echo made! I chose Ramaria because it looks like coral and water is an identifying element for Echo (to contrast with Gale's fire). It's also pretty. Honestly like 80% of the reasoning on these is aesthetic. Ramaria's frills are pink, which is nice and feminine on the fungus-infested corpse (this Barbie is reanimated!)
Agaricus
'Agaricus had come third, with its white bubble-top mushrooms sprouting along its hosts arms and neck, looking like a festively chubby little patch of clouds.'
Agaricus is another large genus like Amanita but I chose it because it is the genus of button mushrooms. And button mushrooms are delicious. (Let's all imagine Gale's horror as Echo snaps a mushroom off her fungal zombie and tosses it into the stew) Also I thought it'd make for a cool visual to have big clusters of tiny button mushrooms that look like plague sores spread all over the zombie. Idk why I made this the delicious one there's clearly something wrong with me.
Cortinar
'Cortinar, with large brown spouts that looked like mold, only a few of which rose off its skin as proper fronds.'
Last but not least there is baby Cortinar, named for the mushroom genus Cortinarius. I chose this one because not only does it have some crazy looking guys like in the picture (with the cap flipped up like it's throwing up its arms going I GUESS) but it also has some mushrooms in the family that look like the purple caps we see in-game in the Underdark. I wanted at least one zombie that shows how much meeting the Myconids influenced Echo's magic.
And that's the family. I am not a mushroom expert in any way. All my information (and pictures) comes from Wikipedia. I just think they're neat.
A book she's never read. A plant she's never seen. A song she's never heard.
That was the price of Gran's magic. She would take in people from any corner of Toril, for but the price of a single request. Over the long years of her life, such requests had grown the library that sprawled across the carved shelves within the hollowed-out tree they called home. Gran had an extensive collection even before Echo was born – of books, plants, and songs all.
Some days she wondered if she’d been told the truth in how she’d come to live with the old hedgewitch. Had her mother truly been a young Elven courtesan who could not afford – neither socially nor financially – to raise a child? Or had Echo been currency, a babe traded for a spell, like to the hags in dark old tales?
Did that make Echo a book, a plant, or a song?
Gran might’ve been a hag, but Echo didn’t think she was. She lacked their cruelty, for one. She’d been raised with the belief that one must always bring into the world more light than what you take; Gran had said we owed it to be our best selves, our kindest selves, our most selfless. Even her price was a riddle wrapped in a kindness: a book, a plant, or a song.
Because even a book written by your five year-old daughter would be one Gran didn’t have. Every plant grown in a garden not her own was one she hadn’t seen. And every song sung by a stranger was a version she hadn’t heard.
Healing was freely given, spells and aid dispensed to those brave enough to seek their door with price in hand. Magics that were taught to Echo, passed down as in the old ways, from mother to daughter. Secrets shared between women the world would be content to call witches up until they needed their help.
Echo didn’t think Gran was a hag. But neither did she think the world ever deserved her.
