you put the stars to shame 💙✨

The song Elenion played tonight had not always had an ending.

They sang softly on the tower balcony while the stars shone silver-blue above. Their fingers moved over the lute strings without much thought, following the melody where it wanted to go. Beside them, Gale leaned back with his eyes turned toward the stars and one shoulder pressed warm against their own.

Halfway through the second verse, Gale went still.

Elenion kept singing for another breath before they dared to look at him.

"That line," Gale murmured. "I said something like that once, didn't I?"

"…You did."

The song had been unfinished and wordless the first time Gale heard it: on another night beneath the stars, long before Elenion had known what to call the peace they felt beside him.

Back then, the night had been colder.

Elenion wasn't supposed to be on watch duty. They just didn't want to sleep. Didn't want to be alone with their thoughts, especially not with the tadpole writhing behind their eye.

So they sat alone by the campfire, no closer than they had to be to feel its warmth. Above them, the moon and stars caught on the deep-blue celestial patterns of their lute as their fingers drifted over the strings.

The song didn't seem to know where it wanted to end. It wandered from one phrase to the next, circling the same few notes as if searching for somewhere safe to rest. Elenion let it wander beneath their hands, quiet enough not to wake the others.

"Hello, Elenion."

Their fingers stilled.

Gale stood just beyond the firelight, his hair mussed from whatever sleep he had managed. The moonlight made his face look softer than it did by day. Younger, maybe. Or just tired.

Either way, it was incredibly unfair how badly Elenion wanted to sneak away from camp with him and see how long that careful composure lasted.

"I hope I’m not intruding," he said.

Elenion looked up, a sly smile already on their lips. "On my tragic moonlit solitude? Devastatingly." Their voice dipped. "You may as well come closer and ruin it properly."

Gale raised an eyebrow. "A generous invitation."

"I’m known for those."

"So I've heard."

That should have been the easy part. Flirt, smile, tilt their head just so. Gale would either blush or flirt back, and they'd both continue this little game of theirs in the morning. Desire was simple enough. Desire did not ask questions Elenion couldn't answer.

But he only stepped closer, his gaze flicking to the empty space beside them.

"May I?"

Elenion tilted their head. "May you what? Interrupt me? Sit with me? Attempt to seduce me beneath the stars? You'll need to be more specific."

Gale blinked, color rising faintly at his ears. For one satisfying heartbeat Elenion thought they had won.

Then his smile softened. "Sit with you, if I may."

Oh.

That was much worse.

"Suit yourself," Elenion said, as if their pulse hadn't just done something humiliating.

Gale sat beside them, not too close, but close enough that the night felt a little less cold.

For a while, he didn't say anything. That was the strange part.

Elenion knew what to do with silence when it wanted something from them. They could fill it with a joke, a smile, a song. Turn any quiet moment into a stage if they had to.

But Gale’s silence didn't seem to want anything from them. He only folded his hands loosely in his lap and turned his gaze toward the stars.

Elenion plucked one quiet note, then another, if only to avoid looking too closely at Gale in the moonlight. After a moment, the same melody came back, softer than before but still uncertain. Gale didn't ask for more. Didn't demand a song he knew, or a story, or something brighter. He simply listened, eyes on the moonlit sky above, as if even this unfinished song were worth hearing.

It was infuriating.

Only after the melody had circled back on itself twice did he ask, "What are you playing?"

"I don't know yet," Elenion admitted. "I was hoping it might develop manners and introduce itself eventually."

Gale laughed softly. The sound loosened something in their chest. Somehow, that was worse than if he'd flirted or blushed. Worse than anything Elenion had meant to want.

"A bold compositional strategy," Gale said.

"I prefer to call it trusting the artistic spirit."

"Of course. Far be it from me to question the artistic spirit."

"Wise of you."

Gale smiled, then looked back up at the sky. The stars shone bright above them, silver-blue and impossibly distant.

"It does suit the night," he said.

"The night?"

"The song." He lifted one hand, tracing a loose shape through the dark. "Or perhaps it's the stars. They look almost like notes from here, don't they? Scattered across the dark, waiting for someone to find the shape of them."

Elenion's fingers stilled.

That was an irritatingly beautiful thing to say. Worse, it made the melody feel different in their hands.

Gale hummed thoughtfully. "It sounds," he said slowly, "like something adrift, but not lost. Waiting for the right star to find it."

Elenion stared down at their lute.

They should've said something clever. Should've made fun of him, or deflected with a wicked comment about sleeplessness and all the ways two people could spend the night.

"That is a dangerous thing to say to a bard," they managed instead.

"In my defense," Gale said with a small smile, "I did warn you I occasionally try my hand at poetry."

They rolled their eyes, because it was easier than admitting they wanted him to keep talking.

Their fingers found the melody again, and this time, it didn't sound quite so alone.

Elenion let the last note fade.

Gale's shoulder still rested against theirs. The silence was different now, no longer something strange and waiting to be filled. It settled between them as easily as Gale’s hand in theirs.

“What are you thinking about?” Gale asked softly.

Elenion looked over at him. Moonlight softened the silver in his hair, and they had to resist the absurd urge to look away as if they were still sitting beside that old campfire with nowhere to put all the quiet.

"I was just remembering how insufferably handsome you were when we met," they said.

Gale raised an eyebrow. "Were?"

"Still are. Fishing for compliments, love?"

"I am merely pursuing accuracy."

"Shamelessly."

His laugh was quiet, familiar now, and it still loosened something in their chest. Only now Elenion knew what to call it.

They looked back down at their lute. “I was thinking,” they murmured, “about how peaceful I felt beside you before I had any idea what to do with it. Back when admitting I loved you felt like the most terrifying thing in the world."

Gale's face softened. His thumb traced a gentle circle over their knuckles.

Elenion played the line again, letting a shimmer of pale blue stardust trail from the strings.

"Adrift, not lost, beneath the blue," they sang. "The stars drew a path, and it led me to you."

Gale hummed beneath the phrase, quiet and careful, his voice finding the spaces around theirs as if the song had always been waiting for him there.

The song finally knew where to rest.

This just might be the only time I ever actually write a lyric for one of Elenion's songs instead of just describing what the song is about. I have zero confidence in my lyric-writing ability but for this story, I thought it wouldn't make much sense or be very impactful if I didn't say what the line Elenion sang was so I gave it my best shot! Actually thought of it a while ago because this fic concept has been living in my brain for ages, and this event just inspired me to finally write it.

BG3 Pride Month Calendar:

Locations

Snapshots and Photobooth

There are some really lovely maps included with these two mods but some of my favorite places include the "Null Room" in Photobooth and the "Emperor's Bedroom" and "Alternate Elfsong" maps in Snapshots, because there is a lot of space for when I decide I want to make my own little set. I also use the maps more or less as created, but it's fun to really customize things to a particular vision sometimes.

above is something i put together from scratch in Photobooth's Null Room last night; i wanted a more neutral wall for a more modern setting and i tried to suggest that it's in a larger room with lighting

and here are some shots where i've only enhanced the lighting and either adjusted where things are to better serve the composition (Snapshots—Alternate Elfsong, left), or added a few extra elements for visual interest (Snapshots—Selunite Courtyard, right)

this shot was built from scratch in the Emperor's Bedroom map; the only remaining elements from the original map here are the window/curtain, the walls, and the tapestry

Stuff

Adorable Decor

If you have rakor's MoveHere, many of the furniture/decor items have adjustable colors, so I always check (though FridgeTroll also offers several in a variety of colors, so you don't have to worry about that if you don't care much) You can use Easy Cheat to summon individual items if you don't want to summon the whole category (which is nice once you know what your favorite items are... like pillows >_>)

P.S.—this mod is fucking huge, so I also recommend having a Tutorial Chest summoning mod to yeet unwanted items into when you're done with them (though I think the mod author also gives you the ability to remove and destroy any items you're done with, i just like cleaning up inventory as I go)

Props 2 U

Modern props! I've been using the furniture the most, but there's a lot in there. I find some need to be resized, but MoveHere or Realm Builder should be able to help with this.

My best friend, Utrennyaya, releases a mix of fun props on Nexus and on her Patreon (and has made props for use with several of her pose packs); which reminds me that I still have a date with some adorable skeletal horses... >_>

More Furniture and More Decor

Great if you want a smaller/more manageable mod than Adorable Decor (though I have both because they don't overlap as much as you think they would); I love More Furniture's selection of chairs and I will sometimes pull up the More Decor bag just looking for little items to fill out a set, though there's a lot more than just trinkets in that bag. In both cases, the items from More Decor and More Furniture are summonable with Easy Cheat.

Tools

EasyCheat

Get almost anything you want directly into your inventory. Changed my fucking life ;_; you can search for items by item name, mod name (i think), or by category (like "food" or "helmet") and maybe more; you can also use it for teleporting to specific locations in the game, but I still haven't figured out how to consistently get good results. Should check if anyone's published a good cheat sheet...

Lighty Lights

Lighting can make a set just as much as the stuff you fill it up with, so this is a big one for me. I've taken some shots I'm really proud of before I ever knew LL existed, but between the lighting options, the PM tab and now Bonezone, this opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

It can feel overwhelming when it's still new, you can definitely overdo the lighting and just blow everything out (I did this the other day, lol), and there are elements of it that I'm still learning how to use even after a year, but I've not regretted any of the hours I've spent with it.

Note: if you're using LL, I personally recommend trying to apply your lights with photomode's default post processing settings off (if you go the post processing tab and open the drop down for presets, select "original"). Some people prefer leaving that alone, but I feel like I have more control over the contrast and saturation this way.

my first time using this mod (left) vs something i did last week (right) lol

screenshots of one of the above pieces with and without my added lights

here is a shot from the Bare Moon Bath House map where I used lights in various shades of green to try and give the scenery a green cast that felt natural and enhanced the native sunlight coming in from outside (I also used a couple lights to give the impression of another window in the foreground, where there was none)

Backgrounds

Not one I really use much, but I'm including because you can use it to do things like blocking unwanted lighting sources out of frame, or to create more abstract sets, like these below.

these were built in the Null Room with shapes generated with the Backgrounds mod and assets from Feel the Rhythm

Realm Builder

I have not used this personally yet, but people seem to like it. I'll have to try it out at some point. To my understanding, this would replace at least two mods I use all the time: MoveHere and MMMPMS (both available for free on the Faerun Fashionists discord server, but the latter mod is no longer being updated or maintained). I just don't like change, so it will take me a while to try this new one out—but why have two mods if there's one that does both jobs?

Note: I do use Otis and Reshade for most of my shoots these days, mainly for tweaking contrast, saturation, and light balance in-game, applying bloom if it feels appropriate, and I do prefer the IGCS Depth of Field tool over the native DoF sliders however the native camera and post processing tools are still great on their own (those last two shots for my friend's lookbook were shot with the native camera and using photomode's post processing tab).

Some of these mods have been around for a while, so maybe no one needed me to point these out, but I used a lot of these so often that I kind of wanted to shout them out.

Valeria, Eli, and Aisling all belong to @wild-surge/@utrennyaya <3

The song Elenion played tonight had not always had an ending.

They sang softly on the tower balcony while the stars shone silver-blue above. Their fingers moved over the lute strings without much thought, following the melody where it wanted to go. Beside them, Gale leaned back with his eyes turned toward the stars and one shoulder pressed warm against their own.

Halfway through the second verse, Gale went still.

Elenion kept singing for another breath before they dared to look at him.

"That line," Gale murmured. "I said something like that once, didn't I?"

"…You did."

The song had been unfinished and wordless the first time Gale heard it: on another night beneath the stars, long before Elenion had known what to call the peace they felt beside him.

Back then, the night had been colder.

Elenion wasn't supposed to be on watch duty. They just didn't want to sleep. Didn't want to be alone with their thoughts, especially not with the tadpole writhing behind their eye.

So they sat alone by the campfire, no closer than they had to be to feel its warmth. Above them, the moon and stars caught on the deep-blue celestial patterns of their lute as their fingers drifted over the strings.

The song didn't seem to know where it wanted to end. It wandered from one phrase to the next, circling the same few notes as if searching for somewhere safe to rest. Elenion let it wander beneath their hands, quiet enough not to wake the others.

"Hello, Elenion."

Their fingers stilled.

Gale stood just beyond the firelight, his hair mussed from whatever sleep he had managed. The moonlight made his face look softer than it did by day. Younger, maybe. Or just tired.

Either way, it was incredibly unfair how badly Elenion wanted to sneak away from camp with him and see how long that careful composure lasted.

"I hope I’m not intruding," he said.

Elenion looked up, a sly smile already on their lips. "On my tragic moonlit solitude? Devastatingly." Their voice dipped. "You may as well come closer and ruin it properly."

Gale raised an eyebrow. "A generous invitation."

"I’m known for those."

"So I've heard."

That should have been the easy part. Flirt, smile, tilt their head just so. Gale would either blush or flirt back, and they'd both continue this little game of theirs in the morning. Desire was simple enough. Desire did not ask questions Elenion couldn't answer.

But he only stepped closer, his gaze flicking to the empty space beside them.

"May I?"

Elenion tilted their head. "May you what? Interrupt me? Sit with me? Attempt to seduce me beneath the stars? You'll need to be more specific."

Gale blinked, color rising faintly at his ears. For one satisfying heartbeat Elenion thought they had won.

Then his smile softened. "Sit with you, if I may."

Oh.

That was much worse.

"Suit yourself," Elenion said, as if their pulse hadn't just done something humiliating.

Gale sat beside them, not too close, but close enough that the night felt a little less cold.

For a while, he didn't say anything. That was the strange part.

Elenion knew what to do with silence when it wanted something from them. They could fill it with a joke, a smile, a song. Turn any quiet moment into a stage if they had to.

But Gale’s silence didn't seem to want anything from them. He only folded his hands loosely in his lap and turned his gaze toward the stars.

Elenion plucked one quiet note, then another, if only to avoid looking too closely at Gale in the moonlight. After a moment, the same melody came back, softer than before but still uncertain. Gale didn't ask for more. Didn't demand a song he knew, or a story, or something brighter. He simply listened, eyes on the moonlit sky above, as if even this unfinished song were worth hearing.

It was infuriating.

Only after the melody had circled back on itself twice did he ask, "What are you playing?"

"I don't know yet," Elenion admitted. "I was hoping it might develop manners and introduce itself eventually."

Gale laughed softly. The sound loosened something in their chest. Somehow, that was worse than if he'd flirted or blushed. Worse than anything Elenion had meant to want.

"A bold compositional strategy," Gale said.

"I prefer to call it trusting the artistic spirit."

"Of course. Far be it from me to question the artistic spirit."

"Wise of you."

Gale smiled, then looked back up at the sky. The stars shone bright above them, silver-blue and impossibly distant.

"It does suit the night," he said.

"The night?"

"The song." He lifted one hand, tracing a loose shape through the dark. "Or perhaps it's the stars. They look almost like notes from here, don't they? Scattered across the dark, waiting for someone to find the shape of them."

Elenion's fingers stilled.

That was an irritatingly beautiful thing to say. Worse, it made the melody feel different in their hands.

Gale hummed thoughtfully. "It sounds," he said slowly, "like something adrift, but not lost. Waiting for the right star to find it."

Elenion stared down at their lute.

They should've said something clever. Should've made fun of him, or deflected with a wicked comment about sleeplessness and all the ways two people could spend the night.

"That is a dangerous thing to say to a bard," they managed instead.

"In my defense," Gale said with a small smile, "I did warn you I occasionally try my hand at poetry."

They rolled their eyes, because it was easier than admitting they wanted him to keep talking.

Their fingers found the melody again, and this time, it didn't sound quite so alone.

Elenion let the last note fade.

Gale's shoulder still rested against theirs. The silence was different now, no longer something strange and waiting to be filled. It settled between them as easily as Gale’s hand in theirs.

“What are you thinking about?” Gale asked softly.

Elenion looked over at him. Moonlight softened the silver in his hair, and they had to resist the absurd urge to look away as if they were still sitting beside that old campfire with nowhere to put all the quiet.

"I was just remembering how insufferably handsome you were when we met," they said.

Gale raised an eyebrow. "Were?"

"Still are. Fishing for compliments, love?"

"I am merely pursuing accuracy."

"Shamelessly."

His laugh was quiet, familiar now, and it still loosened something in their chest. Only now Elenion knew what to call it.

They looked back down at their lute. “I was thinking,” they murmured, “about how peaceful I felt beside you before I had any idea what to do with it. Back when admitting I loved you felt like the most terrifying thing in the world."

Gale's face softened. His thumb traced a gentle circle over their knuckles.

Elenion played the line again, letting a shimmer of pale blue stardust trail from the strings.

"Adrift, not lost, beneath the blue," they sang. "The stars drew a path, and it led me to you."

Gale hummed beneath the phrase, quiet and careful, his voice finding the spaces around theirs as if the song had always been waiting for him there.

The song finally knew where to rest.

This just might be the only time I ever actually write a lyric for one of Elenion's songs instead of just describing what the song is about. I have zero confidence in my lyric-writing ability but for this story, I thought it wouldn't make much sense or be very impactful if I didn't say what the line Elenion sang was so I gave it my best shot! Actually thought of it a while ago because this fic concept has been living in my brain for ages, and this event just inspired me to finally write it.

BG3 Pride Month Calendar: