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arcane tower
"New sounds through damp and dark oppression break / Is it the foe, that foul, contemptuous heel?"
In the corner of her eye, Athanasia sees her companions tense, readying for a fight. She doesn't blame them. Ever since they'd unwittingly fallen into the Underdark, it's been one battle after the other, each coming a little too close for comfort.
Gods, how long has it been, anyway? It's hard to tell in the absence of the sun. They'd been in the blighted village—Moonhaven, her mind supplies—combing the place for supplies en route to the goblin camp. The alchemist's house looked promising enough, and one thing led to another, and... well. She's always been one to indulge her sense of curiosity, pulling on every thread with no regard to where it may lead.
At any rate, it's not like the whole giant spider situation is her fault. Gale and Astarion were equally enthused about unlocking the tome of necromancy—albeit for different reasons—and Shadowheart... well, she won't bring Shadowheart into her mental gymnastics. Anyway, the group spotted the amethyst down in the spider matriarch's abode, and being the most mobile of the group, it just made the most sense for Athanasia to fly down and retrieve it.
How was she to know that the invisibility potion would wear off as soon as she laid hands on that accursed hunk of stone? She may be a tad impulsive at times, sure, but it's not as if she actively sought out a battle with angry teleporting spiders.
She vaguely remembers releasing a thunder wave at the spiders closest to her. Vaguely remembers shrieking back at her group, perched on the cliff behind her—"Gale, feather fall!"—before jumping into the abyss before her. From there, it'd been minotaurs, exploding fire mushrooms, exploding poison mushrooms, a godsdamned bulette... an average day in the Underdark, she supposes, not that they've met any living souls to compare notes with. The plan had been to travel west, in hopes of finding either an exit near the goblin camp, or, at the very least, a sigil circle they could use to get the hells out of here—
The creaking of the automaton brings Athanasia back to the present. It's waiting for a response, she realizes. So too are her companions—any longer and Astarion is likely to say something about killing the damn thing, and only the gods know how it's programmed to respond to death threats.
Is it the foe, that foul, contemptuous heel? A line from a play, she realizes. The Roads to Darkness. She'd been thumbing through the pages of that very book earlier. Looking into the robot's eyes, Athanasia responds, carefully enunciating the words: "Or art thou friend, a rescue from my lonely wake?"
"Come out of love for me, not love for blood and steel..." The automaton almost seems to relax, as much as a hulking mass of steel can, anyway. "Command as you see fit, my lord, my liege."
Weapons lowered, tension defused. Gale remarks, "Don't get me wrong. I love poetry as much as the next wizard, but using it to command an automaton... seems a bit self-indulgent to me."
Shadowheart laughs, a biting thing. "Oh, please. Don't pretend you wouldn't do the same thing, if you had thought of it first."
Athanasia ignores the exchange behind her. Her companions disperse to look around—she knows Gale is particularly excited at the chance to snoop around another wizard's tower—yet she remains before the automaton. Eyes fluttering shut, she tries to remember the other poems she'd read in their earlier explorations. Another stanza finally comes to mind: "The silence stretches on—I'm all alone. / Please, can I hold your hands, for just a while?"
"Of course, my love. Don't be afraid, sweet girl." The automaton—this must be Bernard, she realizes, the one from the letter—takes her hands. Gentle and safe and warm, despite the biting cold of the metal, left behind far from the sun's reach. "What can I do? Say, would you like a hug?"
His voice, softer now, reminds Athanasia of her parents, soothing her after childhood nightmares. Her eyes water. She thinks of Lenore, of Yrre. Thinks of a letter left behind, autumncrocus on a grave, evidence of a life once lived. Thinks of Bernard and the other automata, left in stasis as the fungi and cobwebs slowly reclaim the vacant tower. Thinks of a love that meant everything yet changed nothing.
"Yes, please," she murmurs. A poor substitute for the feelings churning inside her, impossible to put into words. She blinks away the tears, hoping her companions are too occupied to witness the exchange.
"Come here. For just a moment, let it out." A hug, tight and low and sharp, but somehow also the warmest, most sincere thing she's felt since waking up on the nautiloid. "Remember: you are loved, Lenore. So much. You're doing great. And everyone will be / so proud of you." A pause. "As I already am."
Their unofficial leader is noticeably absent.
Gale stirs the cook pot absentmindedly. He's no stranger to cooking alone, especially given the reclusive life he's led for the past year. But at the beginning of this journey, Athanasia had been quick to appoint herself as his assistant chef, as she'd called it. "We can hardly leave all the cooking to you," she'd said on that very first night. "Though... I'm more versed in baking than cooking, so I'll follow your lead."
And so they'd settled into a routine, every night without fail. It means more to him than he'd ever care to admit. During his self-imposed exile, Gale had forgotten what it was like, that simple, domestic joy of cooking with others. If he forces himself to forget the orb and the tadpole and his innumerable failings, if he focuses instead on Athanasia humming as she chops vegetables, he almost feels like a person again, if only for a moment.
A routine, every night without fail—that is, until tonight. It's strange, this absence gnawing at his heart. Gale hadn't realized how much he'd begun to take her presence for granted.
He stares into the soup, still stirring. Turns over the last few hours in his head, trying to recall when Athanasia's mood changed. He'd seen the automaton embrace her, had heard her voice, whispering: The silence stretches on—I'm all alone. / Please, can I hold your hands, just for awhile? But even before then, she'd been uncharacteristically quiet. Distant. That feeling, like she'll soon disappear to a place far beyond his reach—it unsettles him, just as it had when he found her beneath the sussur tree.
She'd seemed her usual upbeat self, even after the spiders, the long fall into the Underdark, the minotaurs, the bulette... so, something about the tower itself. Having confirmed that the tower was free of all hostile creatures, they'd decided to make camp for the night—unlikely to help things, if it's indeed her source of melancholy, Gale thinks. He stirs the soup. Should he go to her? He likes to think that, although their time together has been relatively short, they've come to see each other as close confidantes—he hopes the feeling is mutual, anyway—although perhaps he is fundamentally misunderstanding her character, and his presence would do little to help ease her burdens—
The ladle is unceremoniously snatched from just as his thoughts begin to spiral. Astarion stands before him, Necromancy of Thay tucked securely under his arm, spooning his portion of the soup into a clean-enough bowl pilfered from the tower.
Gale quirks an eyebrow. "Well... dinner is served, then. I suppose."
Astarion just rolls his eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Gods, would you stop brooding and just go to her?" Gale thinks he hears Shadowheart snort, somewhere in the distance, but when he looks over, she appears deep in her meditations as usual. "I'd like to commune with the dead in peace, if it's all the same to you. You're ruining the atmosphere."
Dearest Yrre,
I don't know if you're coming back, if you'll even read this message, but if you do come back, could you wait for me? I'll only be gone a few tendays, but the thought of coming back to this empty tower, with nothing but Bernard to fill these halls... I don't know how much longer I can take this. I miss you. I miss you so much.
I can't shake the thought of how different things might have been if only I'd been less stubborn. Working on your lightning inventions, my magic. Eating together. Laughing at your stupid puns. Waking up next to you. Despite everything, I still love you.
So please, if you read this, can you wait? I'll be back. I won't be long.
Forever yours,
Lenore
[A few sentences are penned below, in a different hand.]
I waited. I waited until Tarsahk. I'll always wait for you, but you didn't come.
Gale finds Athanasia upstairs, almost missing her with the way she's nestled among the bookshelves.
For a moment, Gale isn't sure if she had noticed him approach. She's sitting in the floor, knees pulled to her chest, a letter forgotten on the ground beside her. Her eyes bore into the floor, and with one hand she absentmindedly traces patterns into the dust. But then her gaze snaps to his, expectantly. He clears his throat. "Apologies for the intrusion. I—we weren't sure if you were coming down for dinner, so I thought"—he raises the two bowls carefully balanced in each of his hands—"I'd bring it to you while it's still hot."
"Why, a Gale of Waterdeep special, home-cooked and hand-delivered! Made with local Underdark ingredients, I presume?"
Athanasia smiles and motions for him to sit beside her. It might've seemed perfectly normal, if he were a less observant man. If he spent less time observing her, a traitorous part of his mind whispers. Gale shoves the thought aside, places the bowls on a stable-enough nearby stool, and takes a seat beside her.
Well, he can play along for now. "Nothing of the sort this time, unfortunately," he replies. Then he leans in conspiratorially, trying to ignore the part of himself that secretly delights in their proximity. "Though that does give me inspiration for our next meal, should we fail to reach the surface by then. Sautéed torchstalk, perhaps, to stave off the cold down here."
"And," she continues with feigned haughtiness, hardly missing a beat, "a sprinkling of timmask spores, for extra flavor."
He laughs. "Perhaps Astarion should count himself lucky for his sanguine diet."
"Saving Astarion, are you? I'm going to tell Shadowheart that you're secretly trying to off her."
"Now, let's not be too hasty. After all, you're my co-conspirator, are you not? I imagine we'd both like to remain in our resident cleric's good graces." He can see from the look on her face—playfully devious, a house cat who's caught wind of new prey—that she's already readying her retort. But he had come here for a reason, so as much as he enjoys their easy banter, Gale forces the words out before he can lose the nerve, "I wanted to ask... I saw you earlier, with the automaton."
Athanasia's smile falls, and he cringes internally at himself. This is very much not the speech he had rehearsed in his head on the way upstairs—but, no matter, he presses on. Verbosity has hardly failed him yet. "I don't mean to pry. It's just... well. You've been a steadfast companion to me, to all of us, and if there's anything I could do to help ease your burdens—"
"Gale," Athanasia interrupts him gently, and he flushes—at his name leaving her lips, at the feeling of her hand on his arm. She smiles again, more muted, more tired. More honest, he thinks. "I'm... well, I'll not insult your intelligence and say that I'm fine, but I will be. This place just weighs heavily on me, I suppose."
Her voice trails off and she drops her hand, eyes returning to the floor. And then, she hands him the letter. A few moments pass in silence as he quickly reads it over. Finally, she continues, voice small and halting: "It feels strange, to piece together one's life from the things they left behind. Lenore just seemed so... so lonely. And then I think about the way things seemed to end for her and Yrre, and it just... hurts. They loved each other, and yet—ugh, I'm sorry—"
Athanasia burrows her face into her knees, but not before Gale sees the beginnings of tears in her eyes. The longing—to reach out to her, to take her pain unto himself—is hardly new to him, but it surprises him now in its depth. The logical part of Gale's mind knows that he is falling too hard, too fast. Knows he should content himself with stolen glances, her affectionate touch. Knows it is unwise to wish for more, given the orb and the parasite and, well, even if it weren't unwise, he hardly deserves her, does he? He's half a man with nothing to offer, stripped of power as he is. And yet he wants—and that has always been the problem, hasn't it?
Gale's heart aches, almost physically. Pushing the spiraling thoughts aside, finally, finally—Gale rests a hand on her back. Selfish, he berates himself, even as another part of him argues, this is how Athanasia herself chooses to comfort others. That thought grounds him. If nothing else, he can allow himself this. Athanasia angles her head to peer at him, eyes still shining with unshed tears. Like gems, that traitorous, greedy part of his mind says.
"Is this alright?" he whispers, afraid to hear the answer, afraid to break the spell.
"Always," she whispers back, sitting up and leaning sidelong into his embrace.
Gale tries to ignore the way it makes his heart soar. "It's human instinct," he ventures instead, "to mourn loss. But perhaps it does them a disservice to think only of their ending—to write off the love they shared. And like you said, we're merely piecing together clues. Fumbling around in the dark, as it were. Perhaps they had a happy ending after all." Gale thinks back to earlier in the day, the moment they'd shared beneath the sussur tree before exploring the tower proper. The way Athanasia had brought him out of his self-loathing through a simple thought experiment, and—You’re more than just your magic, Gale, as wonderful as it is. I hope you know that. He channels that thought as he continues, "Perhaps Lenore made it to Baldur's Gate. Yrre, tired of waiting in the tower, thought to follow her."
Athanasia gazes up at him through her lashes, head still resting on his shoulder. Gale tries not to flush at their proximity—and immediately fails as she gives him a playful smile. "They had a dramatic reunion, right outside the city gates. Sparks flew, literally." She brings a hand up, and then the darkness around them is illuminated with a soft glow. Dancing lights, Gale realizes, only different—electrified, infused with Athanasia's particular brand of lightning magic. He casts his own version of the spell. The orbs flit around them, interleaved, close yet never touching.
"And now they have a dog, Myrna the Second," Athanasia continues.
Now that her mood has seemingly lifted, Gale can't help but seize the opportunity to tease her for once. "While I hate to ruin the story, I must remind you that Baldur's Gate prohibits any animals larger than the size of a peacock—" She smacks his arm, and he just laughs.
"If you would let me finish—" Clears her throat, repeats herself with a dramatic flair. "And now, they have a dog, Myrna the Second, who is enchanted with a glamour to appear as a peacock to all outsiders." She laughs, a twinkling thing, then murmurs, "Sincerely, though, thank you. I thought I wanted to be alone, but this helped, more than you probably think."
There is a lump in his throat. "Anytime."
"Now, about that dinner—"
They eat together, right there on the floor, chatting about magic, their companions, childhood antics, their favorite foods, and everything in between. Gale knows he shouldn't hope for more, but in this liminal space, in this other wizard's tower, far from the sun and any other living soul, he lets himself imagine. Athanasia, in his tower, nestled among his bookshelves. In his kitchen—she hums, kneading a loaf of bread as he tends to the cook pot. On his balcony—napping in a sunlit spot with Tara curled up in her lap, a book lying forgotten beside them. No orb, no parasite, only domestic peace. He thinks back to Lenore's letter. I can't shake the thought of how different things might have been if only I'd been less stubborn. Working on your lightning inventions, my magic. Eating together. Laughing at your stupid puns. Waking up next to you. Despite everything, I still love you.
Gale looks at the soft lights around them, locked in their perpetual dance. This is enough, he tells himself, heart aching. It must be enough.