Who Are You

In other circumstances, Gale might have enjoyed her bossing him around. But right now he was more focused on keeping his feet under him. The world spun slightly as Gwen led him over to the table, sitting him down. The world righted itself, at least for the moment.

He grit his teeth as his side pulsed angrily. Oh yes, he'd definitely gotten hit there. He glanced down at his hand, seeing it stained red. "Oh. Yes, I think I certainly got hit."

@fatedmuses

Normally, before, casting was simple. She had had her training, extensive experience, and a closer connection to Ilmater. The parasite, though, had caused some complications. She had noticed her healing abilities had diminished, but slowly were growing again. It made sense; the illithids would want their thralls to be weaker to control, after all.

"I need you to lay back," she ordered, resting a gentle yet firm hand on his shoulder to guide him. She pulled open his robe to get a better look at the wound to decide what was needed.

A gash which was still bleeding, a decent depth and width to it. She had seen worse but she had had better tools to handle those than she had here.

Stabilize it and deal with it further at camp.

Gwenifar had enough in her for a small healing spell. Muttering the incantation, a glowing gold light emitting from her hand and flowed to the wound, stitching together the deeper parts of the wound which would be more severe.

"You won't bleed out now," she explained, "but I'll still need to tend to it further at camp." She had some potion recipes she could rely on. She wondered why he hadn't bled out before, but adrenaline could be quite an efficient reaction. More than likely, he was relying on that while...

Looking for her?

The realization settled in a soft, slightly exasperated smile came to her features as she brushed some hair out of his face.

Gwenifar was a goddess, as far as Gale was concerned. He loved her more than he loved himself, would do anything and everything for her. He loved every part of her, even her faults.

He wrapped his arms around her in return, smiling into her kiss. "Some of us have more rough patches than others," he teased. Although it was the truth. Gale, despite feeling better about himself with her around, still knew he had his... quirks. Things people didn't like, or quickly grew tired of. Gwen weathered it all with good grace. Sometimes he thought she might even like those parts of him.

@fatedmuses

"Oh, hush." She pulled back slightly, tapping his nose with her light scolding. Gwenifar would not stand for him admonishing himself in front of her. She was quite fond of his diamond and rough patches in equal affection. She pressed a brief kiss to the tip of his nose.

"Every bit of you is magnificent, as far as I'm concerned," she told him. "I would find a perfect diamond to be rather a dull gem, I think. It would have no character, nothing to make it special. But a diamond with rough patches, imperfections? That is a unique diamond, one in a million, I would say. And I would admire that one far more than any other."

She rested her hand on his cheek, a soft smile coming her to lips.

Gale wished he had her optimism. Wished he could believe they would fix this some other way. He rested his forehead against hers, a few tears falling down his cheeks.

"I love you," he whispered, brown eyes filled with sorrow meeting her blues ones. "I don't want to die. Not yet."

He couldn't promise he wouldn't do it. That he wouldn't destroy himself for Mystra's forgiveness. But... he didn't want to. Not anymore. And maybe, when they saw the heart of the absolute, they could reassess the situation.

That was all he could give right now.

@fatedmuses

He did not wish to die. He did not want to go willingly. Then there was still something to be done, some way to persuade him that there may be another option. There had to be.

Gwenifar would refuse there not being any other option.

She gently took his hands in hers, keeping her gaze locked with his. She softly squeezed his hands in reassurance. Stay here, stay with her. Stay.

"That is all I can ask," she said, pressing a kiss to his fingers. "Just...If we see what we're dealing with, we can figure something out. There's rarely only ever one option."

Ah. Now that was a good question. If Alras had ever studied officially, he couldn't remember it. Not that he could if he tried, those memories were lost to him forever. He was fine with that, personally.

"I suffered some... memory loss on our little adventure. Wish I could tell you where I studied, but I don't even know."

He couldn't help the laugh that escaped him as Ingleif spoke about Gale again. "He can be a little... stubborn, but he was probably the least chaotic of our traveling companions. Minus his lovely new fiancee, there." Gwen was quite possibly the opposite of chaos. Maybe that was it then. The two of them evened each other out.

@fatedmuses

Amnesia, then. A handy excuse to hide one's origins. Even as Ingeleif stood there, in a crowded room, he could feel the people fade into almost shadows as he detected what was before him. Steely grays narrowed at the swirling around the other, but only for a brief moment before the room returned to normal.

Ingeleif took a sip of his champagne as if no time had passed.

"An Ilmatari Cleric is hardly ever chaotic," he said. Normally by the book and most would find dreadfully dull. The fact she had lost her temper a bit, though, was a slight deviance from the other clerics he knew. "They tend to just stand there and take it, from what I've observed."

As the question conversation returned to him, Ingeleif raised an icy blond brow, a light smirk tugging on his features.

Gale tried not to let his disappointment show on his face. Of course, Tara wouldn't be allowed in. They'd been very strict so far, and for good reason. Even if it left him irritable and bored in bed all day.

"Hmm? Oh, well, she's a tressym, you see," Gale answered. "I had thought perhaps she might find herself immune. Not that there's any good way to test that, I suppose, short of her coming into contact with the illness herself."

But if he'd contracted the pox, surely she would have also been exposed to it? Nothing could be guaranteed in these circumstances, however.

@fatedmuses

She did not understand why she felt some relief at Tara being a tressym. Surely it was merely out of concern about the pox and it spreading. That made sense. After all, the cats around the hospice hadn't shown any signs of it. Although Mother Clarice had kept them out of the wards.

The idea of seeing a tressym was also tempting. They were rather rare on the Sword Coast, from what Gwenifar had managed to read. And the wizards passing through the village to Candlekeep hadn't had tressyms as familiars. If it were any other situation, she may have given in to the temptation.

"I'm sorry," she shook her head. "But that wouldn't be very fair for me to give permission for you to have a visitor, even a tressym, when the others cannot." There was a glimmer in her eye, though. "Although, once you're up to going out into the courtyard, anything can fly in and out of there, for the most part."

TADBITFOOLED: Independent, Multimuse OC Roleplay blog for Baldur's Gate 3. Features 6 Custom Tavs, 1 Dark Urge, and various other characters. Selective and private

Gale chuckled, rising from his chair. "So you've said, but please, indulge me." He could still scarcely believe that all Gwen wanted was him. She had proven it time and again, and yet... There were days when it still seemed a surprise.

He hurried through the bookshelves, knowing exactly what he was looking for and where he'd kept it all these years. A simple book on Herbology, possibly out of date by now, it had been 10 years, after all. But that didn't seem to matter so much as the intent behind it.

When he reappeared, he offered it to her, still smiling sheepishly. "I... bought this, shortly after our initial encounter. I went to bring it to you, but you'd already left." It had been too little, too late, unfortunately, but he could give it to her now, at the very least.

He had never stopped thinking about what might have been. What they could have had, if he'd been quicker. Less... obnoxious. Truthfully, she might have dismissed him out of hand, and she would have been right too. Nowadays, his past behavior made him wince, to think back on.

@fatedmuses

Gwenifar watched as he made his way to the bookshelves, furrowing her brows in confusion. Something which he had shelved? While they both enjoyed books, reading, and learning, she hadn't expected whatever it was to be out in the open for them.

Her shock at the herbology book was evident on her face. It was a vibrant green cover, with wonderful details on it. Still in pristine condition, written by the same person who had been the one she carried about in her early days of being a cleric. The beaten up second hand book she'd managed to get during a trip to Candlekeep. Discarded for being out of date, she had poured over it, writing notes in the margins, updating it with what she had noticed during her own experiments. It had long fallen apart but...

It had been one of the books she had lent to Gale until she could get books into the infirmary, all those years ago. To hear he had done that...

She felt a bit of a sting in her eyes and raised a hand to wipe away the tears.

"I'm sorry, it's wonderful, I appreciate it," she began to explain, thinking about that awkward young woman still trying to figure out her footing in those days. "I just..."

She shook her head. She had stalled leaving, she recalled. A bit of curiosity on if she'd see that insubordinate wizard again. But she'd talked herself into think realistically. Thinking that...

How could someone like him give her a second thought?

Apparently, her young self had been terribly wrong.

"I thought about you, at times, as well." She gave a bit of a small smile, shaking her head. "Even if I didn't understand why I did." Silly daydreams would pop up and she would've chased them away. "I thought it was a ridiculous notion to think you would think of...Me, then. And how I was."