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It’s colder than you expected. Halsin didn’t mention that. You knew that the land was cursed, that the shadows were alive and sap both your sanity and strength. You were ready for it. You didn’t think about the temperature.
There’s a chill here like something was breathing down your neck. You still haven’t gotten used to it.
You glance at your companions after fighting against a horde of necrotic plant creatures. Whatever they were, they were clearly not alive, with the glow of the rot-magic emanating from their vines.
It’s only your second day in this cursed place and your party doesn’t look any better than they did yesterday. Astarion looks wary and miserable. He probably hates this place for the same reason he didn’t enjoy the Underdark: there is no trace of sunlight here. The only light comes from your torches and the Blood of Lathander Shadowheart is wielding, casting a soft glow on your surroundings. Shadowheart, on the other hand, looks—distracted, fascinated with the darkness enveloping your party on all sides. You’re concerned, but before you can think more of it, Gale meets your eyes, like he was seeking you out.
You’ve come to rely on Gale over the course of this adventure you were all forced into. Most nights, he is the reason you have warm food in your bellies. He’s a human with a lot of knowledge to dispense, and he takes every opportunity to do that, even to the point of sounding arrogant. Everyone does their part to keep the camp, but it would be particularly difficult to imagine the journey without Gale by your side.
Gale gives you a worried look, one he’d been giving to you more and more often. You pretend not to notice and hurriedly face the other way. You feel tired all of a sudden.
You think to yourself that the fact Gale hasn’t brutally mutilated an innocent girl in their sleep is a pretty good point too.
Sometimes you wonder if it’d be better that he’d have been the one to lead your motley crew instead. He certainly has the makings for it. He’s a reliable man, usually level-headed and preferring to err on the side of caution where you might be stubbornly facing in one direction. He insists on compromise, insistent on working together even though he confessed to you, one night, that he hardly has anyone he can call a friend outside of his tressym.
“I find that hard to believe,” you said. You took the first watch, though not everyone was asleep yet. From beside Gale’s tent, you idly watched Wyll fiddling with a broken lute he found on the road. Gale can talk like he’s used to speaking to himself, expressing himself in full-bodied words more common in academia than in casual talk, but he is unendingly curious, something that, to you at least, was something that endeared you to the wizard.
“I’m glad to hear that. I thought my time spent wallowing at my tower alone had rusted my social skills.” He laughed in relief.
It had, you nearly said out loud. There are instances where it’s obvious, but you decide to keep the comfortable, shared silence.
The flaps of his tent closed after he bid you goodnight. The air was cold, but you ran hot so you didn’t mind. You thought about Gale, as you often do, these days.
He was good at that. Making you feel comfortable in his presence. Like you could trust him. He has some secrets, but who in your camp doesn’t? Every one of them has their own story half-uncovered. You didn’t even know yours, your memory extending as far as waking up on the nautiloid, and the fight to get out of it in one piece.
But the battered state of your mind makes you uneasy. The random pulses of pain and the violent thoughts were symptoms you would have attributed to the parasite, but none of your companions have experienced anything like that. It’s just you. And even in this camp, the gathering of the infected and the hunted, you were the odd one out.
You listened to the wind rustling the leaves overhead. You wondered what your mind knew that you didn't.
Ever since you awoke on the nautiloid, your memory has been spotty. Trying to separate what happened in the first tenday of your adventure from your last is a useless activity.
There is an emptiness inside you that has been there as far as your memory will allow you to remember. Nothing feels real. Almost as if you’d wake from this any moment now, to whatever life you used to live. And this would all be a dream hastily forgotten.
But it’s not a dream. You know that.
The sticky feeling of blood in your hands felt real. The smell of it, sticking to you for days. The red crust under your fingernails that never seemed to disappear.
You are a person that rings hollow, and you are terrified one of these days your companions will see you for what you are: a monster.
You don’t understand why they believe you can lead the way to salvation. You don’t know where you’re going. You can’t even see past today.
But you try anyway. To atone, if not for anything else.
Tonight is no different. Tonight, the camp is tucked into an area you guessed was a less harsh patch of the hostile environment. It felt like picking which area of the mouth of an owlbear would be better to lean your head in. You don’t know why they trust you to know.
You don’t know why they still trust you at all. They’ve never seen you the same after what happened with Alfira.
Your offering of gore, the blood drying in your hands, damning you with each second as you waited for them to wake up, one by one. You didn’t even try to hide it or wash it away. What difference would it have made?
There was still a corpse there, right in your camp. The bard, trusting and sweet, was still dead.
Was she awake when you did the horrible deed? Was she breathing when you painted the ground with her innards? When you burst her eyeballs in her skull? You could almost feel it burst under your thumbs, the sensation familiar, deep in the recesses of your mind.
The gnawing headache at your brain grows. Pulsing, pounding.
Their tolerance of you is a reflection of everyone’s desperation, willing to let you stay because they cannot afford to be picky with company now. No one in the camp’s hands were clean but you doubt they’ve ever been this stained.
She didn’t die immediately. You know this, somewhere in your broken mind. It makes you sick that you’ve never felt more alive than the morning after.
You’ve been doing good. No murders in the night since then. But you’d be lying if you said there aren’t nights when you wake up with a start, afraid to see where or who your knife-hand has fallen on.
You wonder if they’re suspicious of you, still.
You set up camp, because you are tired and Astarion is whining about the trek and Shadowheart seems absolutely taken with the curse wrapping around all of your necks, threatening to invade and twist and unmake and Gale—well. His gaze is filled with determination, though his posture betrays his exhaustion. There’s something he wants to say, you’re sure, but unfortunately for him, it’ll have to wait until camp is set.
The headache persists. Your head throbs.
After a while, you sit by yourself in front of the campfire. On any other occasion you’d prefer to have been standing to the side, away from the comings and goings of the people in camp trying to get food or putting and taking from the chest. But that was before.
In these lands, the very ground itself seems malicious, trying to lick at the skin of your boots. The light provides some comfort against the oppressive dark.
Gale sits himself beside you. You don’t acknowledge his presence but you let him sit so close your knees touch. The point of contact is nice. Comfortable.
The fire is warm, but more importantly it is bright. Already you begin to feel better. Less like your soul is being syphoned away.
Gale calls your name, staring at you with sincere eyes you cannot meet.
This is a fragile alliance. A party brought by circumstance and tied together by desperate need to live, despite it all. They are all so wildly different, each with their own goals to accomplish—but this is what you have in common. This is what brings you together: you want to live.
“It’s alright, Gale. I’m not hungry,” you say first. That is not what he wants to speak about. You know that.
You surprised yourself with how furious you became at Gale’s pathetic acceptance of the fate thrust upon him by his goddess. How could he not thrash around, rebel at the circumstance! His plan to take this with hands behind his back and his head bowed down as the blade dropped on his neck made your blood boil, made your teeth ache with the urge to tear.
Good fucking gods, every single day you’ve though about killing yourself, each method more gruesome than the next. Driving a knife through your own heart. Bathing in acid. One by one removing your senses until you die of blood loss. Eyes are the last to go, so you can see what you’ve made of yourself.
It’s a common fantasy, a permanent solution to your problem: you. But no one is supposed to die. You don’t succumb to the urge because you have people to lead. Sins to atone for. You of all people don’t get to have a break from your torturous mind. That’s your fucking burden to bear and you will bear it as long as you are able.
It’s your job to save them from this. They trust you, when they really shouldn’t, and godsdamned if you’ll let one of them get killed because some fucking prissy goddess can’t fix a problem herself.
Lot of good all these deities have done in Faerun, you curse as you look at the darkness surrounding you from all sides. You can barely see anything past it, even with darkvision. Just more twisting trees and the glowing rot leaking from the land like pus from a wound.
“You’ve been reckless lately. More so than usual—alarmingly so. Make no mistake, I am not here to complain about the efficiency of dealing with our enemies. I am most appreciative of that fact. But I do get concerned with how you tend to act after.”
“What do you mean, Gale?” You ask. He has this habit of beating around the bush and though you’d usually find his wordiness endearing, today has been long.
It weighs on your shoulders, every time you leave camp, every night you set it up again. Another day. Food. Loot. Trade. Kill. Day in and day out. Live live live. Another step in front of the other. Every day, asking you to live longer.
The light at the end of the tunnel is getting ever farther as you walk closer, but you keep these thoughts to yourself.
Your companions deserve to be alive. They deserve to hope . Just because you lost yours doesn’t mean you’re about to break their morale. You know they’ll make it.
But you? No. You don’t even deserve to see it.
“Yes, you’re right. Well, truth be told, I worry about you…” Then he says your name again, so gently, like his tongue was cradling the syllables in his mouth. “Not as our leader. As you.”
“You don’t have to.” You interrupt, uncomfortable with the sincerity. You can take care of yourself. Whoever he thinks he’s fussing over—it’s not you. You don’t need the concern, cloying and all too sweet. All too easy to use. He doesn’t know you , doesn’t understand the wickedness in your head and your heart.
“Ah, you’ll find that I want to.” He flashes a charming smile. “Clearly, you aren’t looking after yourself, so someone has to.” He points to himself.
Your headache pulses. You imagine in a world without these urges, the charm might have worked. Maybe you’d be brave enough to look him in the eye, tell him honeyed words that you have so desperately wanted to. If you were just normal , someone unburdened by the blood singing under your skin, this would go differently.
Oh, yeah? You imagine yourself saying. Do it then.
But this isn’t that world, so instead you scoff, because Gale is orchestrating his own death in two different ways and if you think about it too much you might drive yourself insane. Isn’t that fucking hilarious, that the first person you let inch into your heart is going to die, either by your foul hand or a deity that thinks him so invaluable she would ask him to kill himself for the sake of the world?
This sweet, trusting man. Arrogant and unbearable. You want to kill him yourself. You want to save him. From Mystra. From you.
He looks embarrassed with his attempt at flirting and hurt at your reaction. You want to tear your heart open. You want to atone. For this. Fuck, for everything. Maybe you’ve already doomed him by letting his affection get to you. Does he know how close he is to your heart?
You just swallow the lump in your throat. You can see some people in the camp pass a glance at the both of you, and you sigh. “Can we go to your tent?”
For once, Gale shuts his mouth and nods. He sits down after you enter the tent, quiet still. You bite your tongue. Think, if only for a few moments.
“I don’t need your help.”
“I think you’ve made that clear.” He replies curtly.
“I—“ you grit your teeth. “You can barely take care of yourself. And now you want to save me— “
“I never mentioned saving! And my apologies for daring to care about you—”
“You’re a hypocrite, Gale. You know how tough this journey’s been. You say you’ve been watching me. You know my mind is broken, possibly beyond repair. But I’m not dead! That’s my choice, every godsdamned day to put one foot in front of the other and hope that I at least get to do the one good deed of saving you before I go. My choice to stay in this godforsaken place because you’re my people.
You continue, “Did you think no one would care? That we would all proceed like normal, go about our daily lives saying thank fucking Mystra, good on her to tell Gale to kill himself and like a stupid little dog he followed through with it. You’re not on her leash anymore, so act like you have a choice, damn it!”
Your chest is heaving. There is prickling behind your eyes.
You realise you would do anything to keep him alive. You would raze down hordes of innocent hundreds by yourself if it meant the poison in his veins were cured. It would be adding to your tally of sins. It would weigh on your heart. But aren’t you already damned?
Aren’t you both?
“I don’t want you to die,” You say, voice weak and shaking. You hate how it sounds. “I would never forgive you.”
There is a pause, like he’s taking you in.
“I don’t need you to forgive me . I just need you to be alive.” He says. He says, so softly in the face of your rage, like he’s trying not to break your heart.
His mind is set. This is how it will be: you will live and he will die.
The irony of it is not lost on you. You, who have been begging for death. You, who have been trudging through this journey to lead them to a future you could not imagine being a part of.
Gale has so many reasons to live. His mother. His tressym, Tara. His brilliant mind, which would do much more good in the world if it was lent to research than here, fighting for their lives every day. This is not the life Gale should have lived. This is not how he’s supposed to go out.
He’s supposed to be back home in Waterdeep. He’s supposed to live a full life, passing on after making great contributions to the world, remembered for who he was: an intelligent, kind man, brilliant in both the head and heart. You ache to imagine yourself with him.
You don’t deserve it.
“I love you,” your shaky voice whispers. You had all the intention to keep it unspoken until you were in your grave, but Gale needs to know how much of a hold he has on you. That the thought of him makes every day a little easier.
That, selfishly, he needs to stay for you.
He wipes the wetness from your cheeks. You lean into his hand, despite yourself, and you can’t stop crying now that you’ve started. You idly watch the slow drops on the ground, even as your eyesight blurs. You can’t face him.
You want to have this. To have him. You place your hand above his, intertwining them as they rest on your cheek. You bring it to your lips and kiss the back of his hand.
Your blood gnashes in your veins, protesting the vulnerability without violence.
You’re so tired of atoning.
His arms wrap around you, wordlessly, and your head rests on his shoulder. Away from his gaze, you speak up, voice still soft. “You deserve to live.”
“So do you.” He replies. You shake your head.
“You’ve seen what I can do. There is something wicked in my heart that I cannot cure. Every day I—“ You breathe out, shaky. You’ve never admitted this to anyone, didn’t even want to acknowledge the event to others in the fear they realise you’re a foul creature and cast you out. Remove your reason for being alive: your clan. “Every day I wake up and check my hands for blood. I don’t deserve you. I don’t even deserve to live.” You remember how blood feels. Sticky. Sweet. Familiar.
“You do.” He insists. Places his hand on the back of your head, cradling you. He treats you so gently, like you haven’t mauled and killed and lied. “Because I say so. I want you to live. I want you to have a good life, even beyond the tadpoles and the Absolute. Beyond me. ”
“Then we’ve hit an impasse.” You remove yourself from him, looking him in the eye now. “You won’t die and I won’t.”
He grins in a way you can feel work into your heart.
You’re going to have to face the inevitability of each other’s deaths someday. Your adventure is a perilous one. You’ve already had many close calls, least of which the danger that you yourself pose to the others.
“I want to show you something, soon,” Gale says. You can feel his voice vibrate in his chest. You hum in response, your eyes already closed. The day has been long, taxing both emotionally and physically, and it’s only now catching up to you. “I don’t have nearly enough energy right now,” Gale chuckles. “But know that the depths of my feelings… You’ll see it. I promise.”
You trust him. Gods, you really do believe him.
You cling to his words: you deserve to live because I say so.
What makes mortal conviction any less powerful than a god? If Gale thinks you should live, then you will.
Maybe it can be that simple.
Perhaps you do deserve a slow, painful death. You know, somewhere in your broken mind, that Alfira wasn't the only victim of your cruelty. Maybe that would be the just thing to do, to wipe you off Fae’rûn. To rip this rare-found peace away from you.
Tomorrow will be another day. Another fight. One foot in front of the other. Live live live.
Your past will catch up to you someday. Your hands have committed countless unforgivable atrocities.
But tonight, your hands cover Gale in an embrace.