Chapter Text
The wizard’s heart sank. He nodded his head resignedly and sighed, a great weariness seeping into his bones on the coattails of his disappointment. He snapped his fingers once, crisply, and the simulacrum blinked out of existence.
He had hoped to have the chance to speak with Tav privately, one last time. To thank them for their generosity and grace in having allowed him to travel on with the group -- despite the risk that the unstable magic inhabiting his body presented. It had been… incredibly selfish of him to accept that generosity, he knew. Had regularly chastised himself for. To unnecessarily subject his companions to such danger should have been… unthinkable.
But… and here a rueful smile touched his lips. He was only human, after all. Weak. Flawed. Heart subject to the same faintness, and all the same yearnings, as any other mortal. He had been alone for so long, sequestered in his tower. It had been an… unforeseen pleasure. Connecting with others again. Even if the circumstances that had brought them together were rather less than ideal – what with their lives and the fate of all Faerun hanging in the balance, as it were.
He had wanted to thank Tav… to have the chance to say goodbye. And, if he were to be completely honest with himself, had hoped not to have to face this last long night with only his own grim thoughts and the sorry regrets churning in his gut for company.
And so. His projection had invited Tav to join him in the clearing, but… they hadn’t come.
He’d waited for hours, arms wrapped about his own knees, gazing up at this star-smattered sky of his own creation. Only to eventually receive some apologetic missive back, explaining that Tav had gotten “caught up” in a few things and suggesting that perhaps they could catch up with each other the next day.
Gale didn’t blame them. Not truly. As the fearless leader of their band, Tav had had more than enough resting on their shoulders recently: comforting Shadowheart over the loss of her faith, searching for solutions to Karlach’s overheating engine, promising to help Astarion free himself from Cazador… even Tav could get spread too thin. He could hardly begrudge them a moment of respite.
But if he were to follow Mystra’s directive and use the Orb to destroy the Netherbrain (which he *must*… he knew he must…), there would be no “later” to speak of. This would have been the last chance he had to say… well, anything that he might have wished.
And now, it seemed, that chance would be squandered.
He tried not to feel sorry for himself. Tried not to stew in bitterness or resentment at his lot. It was, after all, no one’s fault but his own. He, alone, had sought out the Netherese tome. Without Mystra’s knowledge. Against her clear prohibitions. It had been his own foolishness, his own folly. He was the villain of his own story, he knew.
Fatal consequences for a fatal error. And now… now it was time to reap what he had sown. Gale was many things… but he had never been a man to shirk from taking responsibility for his own actions. Now would be a poor time to start.
Still. It would have been nice… to *not* spend this last night completely and utterly alone.
As he stared up at the illusory scene he had created, shimmering green, magenta, and turquoise streaks painting a magnificent aurora in the sky… he thought of the beauty in the world that he would miss. That he would never see again. Regretted the world he would be leaving behind.
The hollow ache in his chest throbbed further up into his throat, as he reflected that there were not many in the world who would regret his passing in turn. A washed-up wizard, the victim of his own hubris. A form of cosmic justice, most would likely construe it as. More so than a pity. And to be frank, Gale couldn’t say he entirely disagreed with that assessment.
But somehow, the fact that he deserved such a sad end… didn’t make it hurt any less.
*****************************************
Barcus’ eyes, well-accustomed to the dark, found Gale’s silhouette in the distance. Beneath that wondrous blanket of stars.
The soft steps of the gnome’s hesitant approach were initially drowned out by a chorus of illusory cricket chirps. (One could never accuse the mage of being less than extraordinarily meticulous when it came to the drafting of his illusions.) Despite Barcus’ attempt to place his foot gingerly, he stumbled over a vine and cursed loudly. Gale’s neck snapped swiftly around, heart pounding as he was startled out of his reverie. But the alarm on his face soon softened into pleasure, a small wry smile turning up one corner of his lips, and the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly.
“Barcus, my friend.” Gale turned to face the gnome fully, and offered a soft, genuine smile though a deep well of sadness remained behind his eyes. “Why, I wasn’t expecting to see your face around the campfire tonight. I thought… well, with the other gnomes staying at the Last Light Inn, I thought you might be more likely to seek accommodations there. Don’t tell me you’ve become so used to sleeping on the ground that a feather bed no longer meets your discerning tastes?”
Barcus gave a short bark of laughter. “No… I’m just fine with beds. But I… I suppose I found myself missing my travel companions. We’ve been travelling together for some time and… well… you know how it is,” he tittered nervously. “When you’re used to someone…” He shrugged sheepishly, his glance flitting briefly to Gale’s face and away again. To some safe spot in the middle distance. “… you’re used to them.”
Gale smiled at him fondly. “Indeed I do, Mr. Wroot. Indeed I do. Well.” He clapped his hands together enthusiastically, almost too enthusiastically. Showman-like. Brimming with false cheer. “It is, I must say, quite the unexpected pleasure seeing you again. And I would be quite remiss not to take full advantage of your fine company. Especially on a night of… beauty and wonder such as this.” He gestured grandly at the painted sky, then patted the neatly folded blanket beside him in invitation. “So, please –- join me!”
Engrossed in admiring the sparkling sky, Barcus did not immediately sit. When he turned to glance back at Gale, the wizard’s bright smile had melted away a bit. Doubt, embarrassment -- and behind that, what almost looked like… a flicker of desperation? -- flitted anxiously across Gale’s face, like a couple of spooked bats under a moon lantern. Gale cleared his throat awkwardly. “That is, ah… only if you are so inclined, of course.”
A vague creeping unease tickled at Barcus’ consciousness. A note jangling slightly off key. Something about Gale’s tone, or wording before. As if… not only had he not expected to see the gnome tonight. But as if perhaps… he hadn’t expected to see him again at all. Barcus’ brows drew together in subtle confusion. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
The gnome stalled for a bit of time as the gears in his head turned, trying to work out the puzzle behind Gale’s current mood (and suspiciously brittle façade). If there was anything Barcus was good at (not a given, he supposed… if any stock were to be put in Wulbren’s opinion of him, anyway)… but if there was anything he was good at… it was solving puzzles. Devising shiny new solutions to rusty old problems. Such was the essence of tinkering, after all. So… perhaps he could be of some small help tonight with whatever was troubling Gale?
The man had always been exceedingly kind to him, after all. Even when Barcus was in one of his grousing, grumbly, prickly moods… which the gnome had to admit was not exactly an uncommon occurrence lately. He was getting older, after all. In addition to all the evil cultists suddenly gallivanting about, and Wulbren’s misguided genocidal intentions… his joints ached, his eyes weren’t what they once were, and the friends he’d once expected to spend his later years beside… well. Never mind that.
He had his reasons for being a bit dour and snappish.
The point being… that despite all that… Gale had never been anything but kind to him. So the thought of the wizard struggling, alone and afraid, with something big enough to leave such a… sad ghost behind his smile… well. That just wasn’t acceptable. Not in Barcus’ book. Not so long as he had a good brain and two good hands to help with.
Barcus sat.
“What, umm…. What are you doing out here?” His eyes were yet again magnetically drawn to the starry sky above… shot through with majestic swirling blues, purples, and greens. “This is your doing, I presume? Why, it’s… truly a marvel, Gale. I’ve never seen anything like it. Anything even close. How on earth did you even… engineer all this?”
Gale ducked his head, cheeks warming a bit at the gnome’s wondering tone. He released something between a chuff and a soft chuckle, letting air escape through his nose in a brief release of tension. “Well, the darkness is still present of course. Just… veiled and at arm’s length for now. Not a trick I can repeat often, but tonight… tonight is different.”
He offered another small smile to Barcus, but this time the smile looked wan and felt hollow. At the strange admixture of melancholy and gravitas in his tone, that vague unease in Barcus’ chest tightened yet further.
Oblivious to Barcus’ growing anxiety, Gale continued on with a wistful sigh, “I love this time of night, you know. There’s an almost… reverent silence that accompanies the peak of darkness… when you’d almost believe the dawn will never break. The cradle of eternity. The timelessness of lovers. That most… beautiful of fantasies.”
The note of sad yearning, of resignation, in his voice. It sounded as if Gale thought… that he would never experience the joys of which he spoke. Almost as if he had decided… that this world and its pleasures were not for him.
Alarm bells were now stridently keening in Barcus’ head. Anxiety made his mouth dry, his palms sweat. Made him nearly too tongue-tied to speak. He was beginning to fear that the stakes of this conversation might be... far greater than he had initially realized.
Barcus narrowed his eyes. Examined the wizard’s face more closely.
“Gale… i-is everything… well. Are you…” He struggled for words. Sighed in frustration. Stared at the ground. Ran a nervous hand over the top of his bald head, before letting it drop heavily back into his lap.
This was not the kind of thing Barcus was good at.
Flowery words. Pretty poetry. Inspiration. If only… if only the roles were reversed. Gale was a master of language and literature, as he was a master of… so, so many things. But Barcus… Barcus was simple. Concrete. Liked things that he could see, touch, manipulate with clever fingers. Fix with 10% ingenuity and 90% sheer stubborn persistent force of will.
Barcus could build a fancy machine, mend a broken clock. But… this? What even was this?
He really hadn’t the first clue as to the nature of the problem. Let alone a notion as to how to fix it.
Barcus had never felt more out of his depth... more useless... more inadequate, nor more terrified of the possible consequences of his own inadequacy.
But Gale was hurting. His friend was hurting. And Barcus knew the least he could do was try.
So he swallowed the panic rising up in his chest. Steadied his trembling hands. Blinked several times. Slowed his breathing. Cleared his throat. Ignored the nasty little voice in the back of his head telling him that he was more than likely to screw this up, as he screwed everything up (a voice that sounded an *awful* lot like Wulbren’s, come to think of it).
Took one final deep, determined breath. Looked Gale straight in the eye.
“Gale…”
Soft, concerned grey eyes mirrored sweet, startled brown ones.
And asked, in a voice low, sincere… that, in the end, quavered only slightly:
“...are you all right?”
***************************
[AND NOW... for the exciting continuation! Part 2 of Chapter 2!]
Gale half-opened his mouth to reply, only to stop himself mid-breath.
It was tempting. The idea of unburdening himself. Of not having to face his tragic end alone. Especially when Barcus looked at him with those earnest eyes. Leaned in with his brow furrowed in such genuine concern. Making Gale feel truly seen in a way he hadn’t been in… well. Perhaps in a way that he never had been.
But… what would burdening another truly accomplish? It wouldn’t change his sad fate. What must come to pass, must come to pass. This path had been lain out before him by his Goddess, after all. The last precious chance at redemption he’d despaired of ever being granted. And… though the cost might be a bit higher than he would have wished… Gale had to admit that, at this point, he wasn’t entirely convinced the world wouldn’t be better off without him.
Selfish. Reckless. Eternally unsatisfied with his lot. Putting all sorts of innocent lives at risk due to his constant overweening desire to have more, be more… be favored above all others. Be good enough to hold his lover’s interest – a bloody Goddess’s interest. The desire to prove, once and for all, that he was not only worth having… but worth keeping.
And what a man, through his greed, his ignorance, his hubris, he had shown himself to be. A magical cripple. A once-bright star, well on its way to burning out forever. Too frail to carry the weight of his own lofty ambitions without reducing himself, all he had loved, all he had ever yearned for, to cinders and ash.
Shame ate at him. Rose up inside him like an all-consuming beast. After all his mother had sacrificed to see his dreams made real… all Tara, Elminster, his teachers at Blackstaff, Mystra herself had done for him. The high expectations everyone had held of him since he was a child – that intrepid, precocious child, with an unmatched appetite for learning. With the imagination to strive beyond the limits of what any had previously been possible.
After all of that, it came to this. Such a bitter, ignominious end.
Elminster’s chiding voice came back to him (“You know where you went wrong, m’boy…”). And Gale did. He knew where the blame for his present circumstances lay. And as much as he might yearn for the comfort of another’s sympathy and understanding in these final hours, he knew that he hardly deserved it.
Gale might deserve to suffer for his folly, but Barcus hardly did. So why should he cause his small friend needless distress? His heart squeezed painfully at the thought. The poor fellow had more than enough on his plate already, what with trying to save the Gondians from his radicalized friend’s violent tendencies. And trying to save his “friend” (much as Gale loathed to even grant that man the title) from himself.
And after all, it was entirely possible Barcus would never learn of Gale’s true fate. That after he disappeared, Barcus would surmise that Gale had returned to his Tower, and his tressym, and… was simply too busy researching esoterica or giving lectures on the mysteries of the Weave, attending to urgent wizard business, to return his letters.
And wouldn’t that, blissful ignorance, be the kinder way?
So after taking a long moment to consider his response, Gale swallowed. Forced himself to smile-- a brittle, too-bright smile -- but a smile, nonetheless.
Decision made, he snapped his eyes back up to Barcus’ face. Expression sharp and clear.
“Ah, my dear friend,” he announced congenially. “I’m more than touched by your concern… but don’t trouble yourself, truly. All is well. I’m a bit over-tired, perhaps, given our heroic exploits of the past few days. But nothing at all that a good night’s sleep and a spot of hot tea won’t-- ”
Barcus scowled and interrupted, his voice landing like the crack of a whip: “Don’t. Don’t treat me like I’m a child. Like I’m… too stupid to know when I’m being lied to. Like I’m not worth including in any of the…” Here he interrupted himself with a short bark of laughter, raising his palm jerkily heavenward in a gesture of futility. “… important conversations.”
Wulbren’s voice, dripping with condescension, echoed inside his head: “Be quiet, Barcus. The adults are talking.” And Barcus felt his heart shatter a second time. He clambered to his feet, swung away from Gale, and stalked several steps off (before Gale could see in his eyes how deep that particular wound ran.)
The gnome blinked up at the sky in frustration. Clenched his fist tightly and struggled to rein in his emotions. Losing his temper wouldn’t help, he told himself. It wouldn’t. This— whatever this was— was a problem that needed solving, he firmly reminded himself. And solving problems… well, that required a level head. This much Barcus knew.
After giving his heart a small chance to recover, the gnome sighed deeply, turned wearily back to face the seated wizard. For a moment, his small shoulders slumped … making him appear even smaller than his size. As wholly insignificant as he felt. But finally summoning his courage, he stared directly into the wizard’s eyes, the line of his lips hardening. Wasn’t it he who had encouraged Barcus to stand up for himself— convinced him that he deserved better? Were those all just hollow platitudes? He couldn’t believe that. At least… he didn’t want to.
“I thought… Gale, I thought our friendship was different. I may not be a– a– world-renowned wizard, or a battle-hardened champion… but I thought…” He stared down at his boots. Idly kicked a stone. Forced himself to look back up at Gale. “Well. I had thought you respected me. At least… at least a little.” His voice trailed off, and he forced a smally dry chuckle. “Well, it was nice while it lasted. I suppose.”
“Barcus, I— ” Gale’s eyes grew moist, and he ducked his head guiltily. He leaned forward, drove his palms into his eyes, and said nothing for a long moment. But finally lowered shaky hands and looked back up at Barcus with pleading eyes. “You’re… right. You’re entirely right. And… I’m sorry. Please. Sit.”
Barcus grumbled an unflattering phrase or two under his breath in Gnomish… but ultimately plopped himself heavily down beside Gale with a small harrumph.
Gale placed his hand gently on his friend’s knee and offered him a timid smile.
Barcus’ arms remained crossed, but the irritation on his features softened slightly. He waited. If he’d been standing, he’d be impatiently tapping his foot. As it was, he plucked a few lush illusory blades of grass and rolled them between his fingers.
“Well,” he said curtly. “Here we are then. Sitting. *And?*”
Gale took a deep shuddering breath. “And… at times, I can become… rather terribly mired in my own despair, and… needless to say, am not necessarily functioning at… peak intellectual capacity in such moments.”
Barcus blinked at Gale. The corner of his lip quirked up the tiniest bit despite himself. “Did… the Great Gale of Waterdeep just call himself… a dummy?”
Gale smiled weakly back. “He may just have. But… if you can forgive me for my earlier dissembling…” Here he paused to look over at Barcus, with fragile hope sparking in his big wet brown eyes.
Barcus sighed and rolled his eyes, “Yes, yes, fine,” and waved the wizard on.
“…I owe you the truth. The whole truth. And beyond that, I… well. I find myself in rather desperate need of… a discrete friend’s counsel. So perhaps we can begin this conversation again.
“You asked if I was all right, and… the truth is… well. I will be. Soon. In point of fact…” he looked up at Barcus with a small, brave, lopsided smile. “… I am perhaps just one hard day away from being without any troubles at all.”
A sudden jolt of cold fear slithered down Barcus’ spine. What in all of Toril was *that* supposed to mean?? Wizards and their insistence on maintaining an aura of dramatic enigma.
“Gale, for the Earthcaller’s sake, speak plainly!”
Mincing words at this juncture was pointless, Gale realized. And selfishly… he was eager to unload the oppressive weight of this burden. To not be quite so alone. Out with it, he told himself. Just straight out with it. Like ripping a bandage off.
“Barcus, this…” Gale swallowed thickly. “This may be my last night alive.”
Gale went on, but Barcus didn’t hear him. The pleasant droning of his voice faded into the background. Barcus began to feel a bit floaty and detached from his body. Rather like he’d felt after being whipped a bit too hard and long and gone without water a few too many hours down in Grymforge.
Surely, he must have misheard.
“What— ” he choked out a nervous, slightly hysterical chuckle, and cleared his throat. Held up his hand. “—pardon, what was that? These ears aren’t as sharp as they used to be. Ludicrous, I know, but I actually thought you said…”
“This might be my last night alive,” Gale repeated. His heart stuttered in his chest. Speaking the words out loud brought it all out from the realms of plans and fears and amorphous dread. And made the plan disconcertingly real. Concrete. Imminent. Final.
“So, I… I wanted it to be under a canopy of beauty and wonder.” He gestured at the panoramic beauty above them. “I thought this place might bring me peace. That it might make the weight of what I must do feel a little lighter. But… I am not so sure.”
Barcus’ face blanched yet further. Taking on an almost chalky appearance. He looked… well, terribly shocked. Far more shocked than Gale would have expected, given that the Orb and Mystra's mandate were common knowledge amongst his camp companions... and at first, Gale was confused by this. Then,,, a gentle understanding filled his eyes.
“Ah, I see. Yes. Of course. Right. I suppose you didn’t join our little band until after… my apologies. I thought you already knew, err… the basics.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “But no matter— ” he said with false cheer, holding up a declarative finger— “I shall enlighten you now.
“I’ve been given a charge, you see. By Mystra. The goddess of magic.” He swallowed. “MY goddess,” he repeated, more quietly. With a deliberate weight to the words that Barcus detected… but couldn’t quite interpret. He stared back at Gale blankly. Awaiting this promised ‘enlightenment.’
Gale sighed. “Well, to give the very abridged version, as a result of some… very poor decisions… made, as most poor decisions are, in the name of love…. I now have the equivalent of a magical bomb lodged in my chest.” He pulled the collar of his tunic aside to show Barcus the Orb’s mark.
Barcus leaned closer to Gale's chest to examine it. Near enough that he could feel the warmth of his skin. Perhaps it was just the dark of the Shadow Cursed Lands, on top of a cowardly gnome’s overactive imagination, but the inky strands extending outward from its circular center almost seemed to squirm and writhe beneath Gale’s skin like a living entity. A *hungry* living entity.
It was frightening, but also… fascinating, he had to admit. Cocking his head slightly, eyes alight with a scientist’s curiosity, Barcus gave one of its visible tendrils a ginger poke… but at Gale’s sharp shuddering intake of breath, quickly withdrew his hand with a muttered apology.
“It hurts, then?” he murmured, scanning Gale’s face with anxious concern.
“Some days more than others.” Gale offered him a small, wry smile. “Nothing that can’t be managed with the sacrifice of the occasional priceless magical artifact.”
Barcus raised an inquisitive brow.
“It… eats them, you see.”
“*EATS* them??” Barcus gave a short, astonished snort.
In response, Gale gave a small helpless shrug.
This was shaping up to be just about the strangest conversation Barcus had ever had. (And that was… out of a great many strange conversations. He was no longer a particularly young gnome, after all. Nor a particularly sheltered one. He’d seen enough things in his travels through the Underdark and the Abovelands that it sometimes felt as though he’d seen it all. But apparently… he’d been wrong about wrong about that. Very wrong indeed.)
“And… just how long have you been living with this… magical bomb in your chest, Gale?”
Gale gazed numbly off into the stars. Distant, cold… untouchable. False. “A bit over a year now, I suppose.”
“Over a year,” Barcus muttered in dazed disbelief, lowering his head nearly to his knees, and sliding a sweaty hand to the back of his scalp.
But he recovered quickly, and looked back at Gale with sharp, focused eyes.
“And yet… you fear that this… ‘orb’ is going to suddenly blow? Why *now*?”
Gale huffed a small, humorless laugh. “Oh, no. Believe it or not, the Orb is actually… safer now than it has been since the fateful day of its acquisition. Mystra’s doing. She recently saw fit to, ah …” Gale flitted his hand ‘magically’ about in the air in front of him, a note of bitterness creeping in his tone. “…stabilize it, you see.”
Barcus sighed. The same weary cynicism that had him convinced his rescuers would demand all his worldly possessions in recompense for the “kindness” of cutting him down from that accursed windmill… whispered rather loudly to his brain that he really, really wasn’t going to like what came next.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me that means you’re miraculously cured and everything’s absolutely fine now.”
“I’m afraid not,” Gale replied, with the saddest smile that Barcus had ever seen.
“You see… Mystra has asked me to find the seat of the Absolute. And once I have, I must… *detonate* the Orb. To… *neutralize* the threat.”
Barcus blinked stupidly back at him for a moment.
“You… what? But… how? Gale, you can’t, not without…”
His voice now had a rather embarrassing quiver to it, so he stopped talking. Wiped his mouth nervously. Bit down on his cheek ‘til it bled. Forced himself out of his own growing panic and back into clever, practical artificer mode.
Furrowed his brow in thought. A weapon. An explosive weapon.
Ah. Of course. That must be it. Clearly. How silly of him not to have realized. His shoulders relaxed. “So, there must be… she’s given you some sort of… release switch, then, to separate it from your body? To allow you to… launch it?”
Gale looked at Barcus sadly. The silence was heavy. Deafening. It said everything.
Barcus’ jaw clenched. His heart skipped. Not only did his muscles re- constrict… he now began to tremble.
“She… your goddess is asking you to—*KILL* —yourself?”
Gale looked down at his feet, face reddening, throat choked with shame. He didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to lay the depths of his folly bare -- again. Lose the respect of yet another person whom he cared about. But… the whole truth. That’s what he had promised. And Gale was a man who kept his promises… however much it might hurt.
He winced. Took a deep shaking breath. Rubbed his hand over his face. Looked back up into Barcus’ face.
The shock seemed to be falling away at last… indignant rage rising its place.
“Well, that— ” Barcus managed to squeak out, as a fist tightened hard around his throat… coughed, cleared his throat, tried again. “That has got to be the *STUPIDEST* plan I’ve ever heard!”
Gale held up a hand defensively. Voice soft with regret, and a noticeable undertone of pleading, he confessed, “It’s… a bit more complicated than you know. To understand the weight of Mystra’s command, you must first… understand the depths of my folly.”
He rested one hand gently on the gnome’s knee. Drawing what strength he could from the contact.
“Barcus, I’ve… done things that I’m not proud of.” He ran his hair through his hair nervously. “All for the sake of… foolish fantasies. I was selfish. Ambitious. *Inconceivably* arrogant. I…” A long pause, before he finally threw his hands up helplessly in the air, barked out a scorn-filled laugh. “Well. I thought myself in love.”
He looked up at the glittering stars (a beautiful, illusory dream of his own making), as tears of shame trickled down his cheeks. “Fancied myself a suitable… consort for a goddess. *If* you can imagine. But, rather inevitably… her interest in me eventually... began to wane. I saw it. Felt it. Her attention wandering to others. Younger, more… vital prodigies. And I… well.” His voice caught. “You have to understand that Mystra… she was everything. All I had ever known.”
Gale looked away again, cheeks burning. “So I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. In my attempt to prove myself worthy of my station as Mystra’s Chosen, I sought to bestow upon her… a priceless gift. But instead, found myself invaded by the remnants of a dark, corrupted magic, the consequences of which… you have already seen.
“My recklessness put not only my own life, but the lives of many others in jeopardy… and, well, it is hardly hyperbole to say, the very sanctity of the Weave itself. Given the magnitude of my error…” he shook his head, wiping tears from his cheeks. “No. My life is not too great a price to pay for a chance at redemption.”
“Ah. Mm-hmm,” Barcus said. Faintly. Taking this new information in. He darted a quick glance toward and away from Gale again, momentarily overwhelmed. At last, tartly replied, “I suppose chocolates and flowers were out of the question, then?...” And lunged to his feet again. Pacing. Agitated. Muttering quietly under his breath.
Gale rose to his feet, too, overcome by a sudden instinctive panic. Realizing that this could be the moment when he loses his friend. One of the few he’s managed to hold onto – beyond his tressym, of course. He lowered his head, afraid to see the disappointment and disgust that he imagined the gnome’s face to be wearing.
Gale’s head dipped yet further, his voice dropping to a shaky, scraped-out whisper.
“I am… so sorry, Barcus. Truly. That I’m not the person, the… hero… the friend… you thought me to be.”
Only to drolly add, a moment later, “If it helps any, it turns out I’m… not quite the person I’d hoped to be, either.”
Gale’s annoying self-flagellation snapped Barcus out of his mental paralysis. He swung back around like a viper to face the wizard again. “Oh— ha! Well, aren’t we the comedian.” And barely suppressed the urge to kick the stupidly tall, stupidly stupid wizard in his stupid shins.
But instead, began babbling with manic fervor, as potentially useful equations and alchemical formulations began zipping through his head, “Fortunately, ah, for you… you know, well… *me*— and unlike a certain goddess, Barcus Wroot knows how to build and launch an explosive *safely*!”
“Barcus— ”
He waggled his finger in front of Gale’s nose to stress the point. “No— no wizard suicides required, thank you very much. I’ve a new formula I’ve been working on, as a matter of fact, and I’m sure that with enough preparation, and… and enough resources…”
“Barcus.”
“… and perhaps a magical enhancement or two, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood wizard, I can produce an explosion powerful enough to blow that ‘Absolute’ from here to—
“BARCUS,” Gale managed to interject at last. “The… the task that Mystra has charged me with. It may not be… the only way. But perhaps…” He sighed. Smiled softly at Barcus in what he hoped was a calming, reassuring manner. “Perhaps it is… the right way. It’s… it’s all right. I’ve... come to terms with it.
“Come to *terms* with it? Oh, you’ve ‘come to terms’ with it. Well, that makes it all right then!” Barcus snapped hotly back.
Then forced himself to take several long, deep breaths. And count to twenty. (Ten hadn't been nearly enough.)
“Gale, is this… truly what you want?— to *die* for the promise of Mystra’s forgiveness? You’re… you’re going to sacrifice yourself on her altar? All after she… left you behind? ABANDONED you?”
Barcus’ voice broke on the last few words.
Yes, that wizard’s stupid goddess had left him behind.
And now Gale was going to leave Barcus behind.
Abandoning him for a greater cause.
Just like Wulbren.
Barcus felt his composure breaking completely, saw the disaster looming on the horizon... but could no nothing to stop it.
“I wish,” he began in a shaky whisper, “that for once, just for ONCE…” his voice rose rapidly with his emotions, and culminated in a near shout, “… I could bloody well be ENOUGH!”
The logical part of his brain knew he was being a bit childish. A bit ridiculous. A bit unfair. Treating this as such a PERSONAL betrayal. After all, Gale owed him nothing. They hadn’t been friends since childhood. There wasn’t… well, *anything* between them. Not really. Nothing that gave Barcus the right to offer his input on Gale’s major life decisions.
Like whether or not he was going to die.
No, he may not have the right. But that wouldn’t keep his heart from breaking, Barcus realized despairingly. Wouldn’t keep him from falling to pieces. Oh, no. Not at all.
Gale took in Barcus—fists clenched tightly at his sides, shoulders shaking violently with suppressed emotion, the tight angry line of his mouth— and had to admit that he was hopelessly confused as to what was actually happening here.
He cocked his head curiously, cautiously remarking, “I’m… not sure I follow. Not enough? Enough for… what? Barcus, what d– “
“Enough to MATTER!" Barcus shouted back. “Enough for— for my *feelings* to matter.”
But the angry spark faded as quickly as it had come, the gnome’s ears drooping and his shoulders sinking in desolate resignation.
Gale’s heart skipped a beat. His breath quickened.
“Your… feelings?” he probed gently, stepping a tentative step closer to Barcus.
Knelt before him, even, to put them closer to eye level. Did everything he could to signal his openness, his eagerness to understand.
Stared deeply into eyes as grey as the sky above a stormy sea. And for the first time… wondered if it might be possible…
But other than Barcus’ heaving breaths, he was met with a stubborn, stony silence.
“Barcus,” he softly prompted again. “What… feelings?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Barcus mumbled defeatedly. “Nothing does. Not anymore.” He turned away.
“Enjoy your…” gesturing vaguely back over his shoulder at the sky. “….sunset,” he managed to choke out. And hoped it came off as a bit more genuine and less bitter than he knew it probably had.
And before Gale had even had the chance to process his words, or their meaning… let alone examine his own feelings... before Gale could set a hand upon his shoulder… before Gale could so much as blink… off he had stomped.
Leaving Gale’s head spinning in confusion. And his heart somehow, simultaneously, racing with possibility… and aching with loss.