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“Gale! Fucking do it already!”
“Fireball!”
Keighley is dragging an unconscious Astarion toward the portal to camp when she hears the exchange between Karlach and Gale.
She looks up and screams, “Gale, no!” just in time to see a meteor of fire engulf the army of goblins and bugbears surrounding the enraged barbarian. Karlach is the only one left standing, axe raised in victory, only to drop to her knees and keel over onto the charred bricks below.
One desperate prayer to Kelemvor and the decision to loot another day later and the party is back at camp just as the sun sets. Karlach and Astarion, both unconscious and being seen to by Shadowheart, and Keighley is boring a hole in the back of Gale’s head with her stare as he stirs dinner in a pot over the fire looking entirely too unbothered by the afternoon’s events.
Keighley misses dinner in favor of sneaking into Astarion’s tent so he could get a bite to eat. Then she makes her rounds once everyone is back in their tents. She skips Gale despite always saving him for last as a way of getting more time with him. Not tonight though. She’s far too deep in her own resentment to stand listening to his goodnight wishes.
“I’d like for you to stay at camp.”
Gale was packing his things when she said this and his brow furrows as he looks up at Keighley standing over him.
“What? For what reason?”
Somewhere behind her, Keighley can hear Astarion chuckle, “Ohh, Mummy and Daddy are fighting.”
“After yesterday I figure it might be more beneficial to have Shadowheart along in case we need a healer.”
“You’re plenty proficient in healing, and I thought today we were looting anyways?”
“I’ll be sure to put aside any magical artifacts you may need but we can’t be too careful.” Keighley’s rehearsed this over in her head a dozen times since waking up and it sounds as uninspired as the first time.
Gale’s gaze is unbearable, soft brown eyes hardened. She suddenly feels nauseous as the tadpole wriggles in her skull and waves of anger and fear ripple through her and echo until she realizes it isn’t her own. Her knees hit the dirt as she presses her palms into her eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched in a fearsome grimace.
“Gods, I didn’t mean to do that,” Gale groans, hands grasping his wobbling knees.
There’s a growl and it’s the only warning Gale has, just barely dodging Keighley as she lunges at him, and nearly knocking over his telescope and other fragile belongings.
“How dare you! When you asked for privacy I left your brain alone!”
“Keighley. Keighley!” Gale dodges and makes to move away from his tent only to trip over a stack of tomes and fall on his ass, “It was an accident!”
Hands up in defense of the assault, he looks to his traveling companions for assistance only to find the shock of their leader’s break in bearing on full display. Karlach, Wyll and Shadowheart are wide eyed while Lae’zel and Astarion look properly entertained, impressed even, at the turn of today’s events.
“Did you get what you were looking for? Did you need the front row seat?” Keighley seethes, chest heaving as she stands over him.
“I didn’t need the tadpole to tell me you were angry with me, the silent treatment was more than enough.”
He makes to move onto his knees slowly but, without any other outlet for her rage, she kicks his shoulder and falls with his back in the dirt. He takes a deep breath the best he can with the leather of her heel digging into he meat of his pectoralis major.
“How am I supposed to feel when one of my friends incinerates another? And with her condition? Her engine could’ve blown and what then? You didn’t even have the decency to look the slightest bit guilty after she died!”
“First of all,” he begins as levelly as he can, “casting fireball wasn’t my idea. Being overrun by goblins and bugbears was hardly the plan on our return to the temple and Karlach, being the sturdiest of us, came up with that little nugget all on her own.”
Keighley’s eyes raise to look at the tiefling and she nods before Keighley returns her gaze to the wizard underfoot.
“Second of all, unlike everyone else I don’t have the luxury of letting my emotions dysregulate lest we all get blown sky high.”
The circular tattoo on his chest shimmers a faint blue during this and Keighley, the red only just beginning to fade from her vision, almost misses it.
“What do you mean ‘blown sky high’, Gale?”
“If you’d be so kind as to remove your boot from my chest, I’ll tell you,” he’s avoiding her stare, looking up, then his jaw flexes. She’s never seen him look angry before but this... this is definitely Gale simmering.
The comedown from her own strong emotions isn’t a pleasant one. She suddenly feels a sick prickly feeling in her gut seeing Gale in the dirt and looking away like that. Always sweet and charming, comforting smiles and jokes only she laughed at half the time and now... her foot flinches away from him as if she’s stepped on glass.
“I-I’m sorry,” the cleric offers her hand to him but he pushes himself onto his feet, effectively ignoring her, and dusts off his robes. He takes a deep breath before meeting her eyes again, the fire not completely gone but dimmed to a smolder.
“I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with my... condition.” The wizard recounts his tale, Gale’s Folly of romance and ambition, calling himself a villain for wanting to be on equal footing with his goddess lover.
“Here,” he drops to knee in front of Keighley, “place your hand over my heart, I’ll show you the rest.” His look is almost pleading, resigned.
“I can place my hand over you while you stand.”
His scoff is a small sound, a puff of air through the nose that’s filled with derision, “Not eager to see me on my knees again then? It’s fine,” he holds out his hand for her, “I’m down here because I suspect this is going to hurt a little.”
“Gale, if it’s going to hurt you then just don’t-”
“Gods, Keighley, just give me your hand!”
Her hand shoots forward grabbing his own and his chest heaves with another breath before holding her palm to his chest, right over the tattoo- the orb- as he called it. The familiar twinge of the tadpole wriggling behind her eye catches her off guard but she feels Gale’s mind brush against her and she realizes he’s opening up the connection. Why he insists on them touching for this is beyond her at the moment but she suddenly gets flashes of memories from his perspective.
A massive library in a cozy looking home bathed in sunlight suddenly darkened as a book opens in his hands. An abyss claws its way out of the pages and cuts him to the bone, shredding his being before settling in his chest and demanding to be fed. Keighley can feel it all.
It leaves her gasping, her knees buckle and her other hand falls on Gale’s shoulder as she falls to the ground. Gale’s face is still twisting in pain until she squeezes his shoulder, his brow slowly raises, relaxing from it’s furrowed state and he opens his eyes, severing the tadpole’s connection.
“That is...” Keighley struggles to find the right words but Gale attempts to finish her sentence as he hoists them up from the ground, still holding her hand.
“Why I’m the villain of this tale. I should have told you much sooner, I admit. Traveling with a vessel that could level a city, if shaken too harshly, is a bit-”
“I was going to say, ‘a lot to handle on your own,’” she interrupts, “You’re no villain, Gale. We all have our fair share of issues to be solved and we’re all friends at this point. We bear the weight together.”
Gale’s brows are raised slightly, apparently not expecting her response, “I’m... humbled that you’re still willing to have me stay but wouldn’t you like to ask everyone else if they’re willing to bear this particular weight?”
“If it pleases you,” Keighley turns toward the party of misfits that have watched their conversation with varying degrees of attention, “Gale has a magical bomb in his chest we’re going to cure him of, any arguments?”
She says the words kindly enough but the stern smile on her cherubic face makes it clear she’s not going to actually entertain any arguments. Lae’zel makes a small noise of dissatisfaction but says nothing else, Shadowheart and Astarion shrug at one another, same as Wyll and Karlach.
She turns back to Gale, “So, you’ll stay?”
Gale simply nods and his silence sets her on edge.
“If you’d like to join in looting the camp I always... appreciate your expertise. If not, I imagine reliving all of that was quite tiring and I understand if you would like to stay back for today.”
His brow quirks, and he looks at the mess of books and other belongings scattered across the ground before responding, “I do think I’ll take some time for myself, given the option. Thank you.”
Gods, she’s fucked this up. But she nods and turns toward the group, “Karlach?”
The tiefling straightens, her tail flicking from side to side, “Yeah?”
“Do me a favor and keep your axe in enemies heads and I’ll decide who’s throwing fireballs where, got it? A journey to cure ourselves will be for nothing if we turn it into a suicide mission.”
“You got it, soldier. I’m not much of a planner anyway.”
With that settled, Keighley, Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Karlach leave for the goblin camp. Looting goes well enough, any stragglers hiding in the camp are easily dealt with. Their packs are full of weapons and wares to sell at the grove on their way back. It isn’t until they find themselves in a hidden temple beneath the camp that the women realize they’ve not the desire nor the capability to solve puzzles without their resident wizard present.
That doesn’t stop Keighley from trying nonetheless.
“Shadowheart, I’m starting to understand your disdain toward the Selunites,” Keighley growls as she turns the moon puzzle for what feels like the hundredth time. Shadowheart is relaxed on a stone bench while Lae’zel and Karlach have resigned themselves to a halfhearted game of trying to throw and stick daggers in the cracks of the cobblestone walls.
“Worst of it is that they’re pompous enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if they put the solution somewhere in the room,” Shadowheart sighs and steps over the puzzle where the light beaming in through the ceiling has begun to turn slightly orange.
“We need to get going, Keighley. We still have to stop and sell at the grove and it’ll be dark by the time we make it back to camp.”
Godsdammmit all. “Fine,” She relents and there’s an immediate shift in her companions energies.
“Fuckin’ finally! I was starting to hate that sound more than Lae’zel’s grindstone,” Karlach is quick to collect her pack, the sound of blades tightly packed together making a jingling scratching sort of sound in the leather bag.
“Chk. We should’ve gone back for the wizard so we would be done with this today. The creche is near and we waste time on puzzles.”
“I didn’t see any of you offering to help!”
Keighley’s outburst is greeted by another stunned silence that makes her stomach roil. Since when did her fuse become this short? She’s never been one to yell and that makes it now twice in one day.
“Shit, sorry. Let’s- Let’s get out of here. I think I need some fresh air.”
The visit to the grove is a short one, leaving their packs lighter and their pockets heavy. Keighley held on to a number of books she hadn’t had the chance to skim over, tucked away in her bag for her and Gale to peruse hopefully in the near future, as well as a few pieces of jewelry that hummed with magic that she stowed away in a side pocket.
The girls can smell dinner before they even see the break in the trees. The boys put their time at camp to incredibly good use and made a hearty stew with a mountain of homemade butter buns for the group. Spirits seem lighter when their stomachs are full.
“You guys did a stellar job,” Karlach praises, dragging a bun through the last drops of broth in her dish, “we should leave you all back more often.”
Wyll laughs, “My help was limited to cutting meat and potatoes. Gale did all the cooking and baking. Quite the wizard with a camp stove as well it seems!”
The joke is a bad one but they laugh anyway, Keighley smiles to herself as she watches them make merry the way they have all evening. Everyone seems to have forgotten or at least moved past Keighley’s outbursts and Gale’s sordid tale. All except the two in question. She knows he’s feeling something too, because when she accidentally makes eye contact with him during dinner he doesn’t look at her the way he did before this morning. She can’t tell what about his gaze makes her look away so quickly. If it’s his gaze or her desire to run away that makes her want to scream.
“I think I’m going to turn in for the night,” she forces a smile, “ya’ll have fun. Thank you for the amazing meal and matching company. See you in the morning.”
There’s a quiet chorus of “Goodnight, Keighley,” that’s nearly drowned out by the sound of her own heartbeat.
What the hell is going on with her? She can’t breathe, her chest heaving, feeling suffocated by the tent walls around her. The decision to leave wasn’t much of a decision at all, scrambling for her leather bag and her pouch of bones, she lifts the canvas of her tent closest to the treeline and runs into the woods without a second thought.
She knows she can’t go too far from camp alone but she just needs to get far enough. She finds a break in the trees, tosses her bag against a nearby rock and pulls a bone from her pouch before tossing that too.
She heaves a rattling breath and it grounds her enough that she can mumble out the spell and the small bone in her hand grows into a weightless scythe. The magic thrums in her palms, feeling the weight of death, of nothing, and begins the practiced spins and flourishes usually reserved for a quarterstaff.
Keighley whispers a prayer to Kelemvor as she moves, asking for guidance, for the peace she felt weeks ago when she didn’t have an illithid tadpole in her head. When she wasn’t in charge of anything or anyone and she didn’t have friends outside of the church or the desire to please anyone besides her uncle who is always happy with her. Always proud of her progress as a cleric and her desire to help others and her never ending well of kindness she shared with those in mourning. Who wakes her up early on weekends just to walk together to get the freshest pastries at their favorite bakery.
Her grip tightens and her movements with the scythe are heavier despite it being weightless. She wants the weight. She wants to feel something break under her swing and it sickens her. She misses who she was weeks ago when she didn’t have all of this rage, when she didn’t know what it felt like to crush an illithid’s skull with her boot.
When did she become this monster who wants to hurt? Who yells and pushes people she actually fond of? When did she start caring about these strangers and how they look at her?
Lost in her emotional maelstrom she fudges a movement and loses balance, her ankle twisting as she hits the forest floor with a curse. She’s breathing hard and she’s covered in a fine sheen of sweat that feels amazing against the cool night air. Keighley peels her shirt over her head, bunches the breezy fabric into a ball, buries her face in it and finally screams.
It’s muffled but her cry in anger turns into a warble that shakes her bare shoulders, and for the first time since she was a child, she mourns for all she’s lost. All she’s become. Ashes on a funeral pyre.
The deafening beat in her ears is finally gone and she can hear the sound of something running in the direction of the small clearing. With barely enough time to look up, Gale crosses into the small clearing at breakneck speed, breathing fast as he scans the area in an obvious panic before locking eyes with Keighley.
“Gale?!”
“Are you hurt? Why are you half dressed?”
Keighley can feel her face heat as his eyes focus intentionally on her face. “I-I- Why would I be hurt?” She unfurls the fabric in her fists and quickly pulls it over her.
Gale moves in closer once she’s covered, eyeing her blouse with a slight blush across his cheeks.
“You screamed. You’re in the middle of the damn forest at night, I thought you were in trouble.”
Keighley knows she’s far enough from camp that even if her scream wasn’t muffled, he shouldn’t have been able to track her down this fast.
“Gale, did you... follow me?”
He shifts uncomfortably, “I-I did. You were quiet at dinner and I wanted to talk to you in private but you ran from your tent and- I thought-”
She cuts off his rambling with a growl, “I needed to be alone.”
“I could tell as much when I saw you with the scythe and I was leaving until I heard you scream.”
Keighley can feel her anger beginning to bubble up again at the thought of him just watching her in her downward spiral, invading what little privacy she thought she had. But she had screamed, and he came running to her rescue despite her being so cold to him lately. It’s like a knife twisting in her gut. This man is a masochist for sure.
“Well,” She sighs, “as you can see, I’m fine,” then pushes up off the ground. As soon as she does, she groans, nearly toppling over again because of her ankle.
Gale’s eyes widen and he’s got his arms around her before she can hit the dirt, “What the hell, Keighley! You are hurt!”
The pain of his closeness is damn near worse than her ankle, “I forgot I twisted my ankle, it’s fine. J-just let me go.”
She’d ignored him last night, humiliated him this morning, and yet he doesn’t hesitate to just lift her like she weighs nothing because she’s slightly inconvenienced.
“How do you forget you hurt yourself? Keighley- Just let me-”
She pushes against his chest, the warmth of him too much as he tries to keep her off her sore leg and she can feel the rumble of his growl once he’s fed up with her pushing.
His touch is firm and precise as he quickly bends, curling one forearm around her back and the other over her knees and lifts her in a pseudo-bridal carry where her chest is flat against his and her chin rests on his shoulder.
“If you stop fighting me I’ll put you down in a moment,” is all he huffs before he starts walking.
Keighley is just trying to focus on her breathing as the horrible rushing in her ears starts to return. She’s not a child but he’s handling her tantrums with the same sort of patience one would be afforded. It’s suffocating her.
He’s true to his word and sets her down on the flat rock she’d thrown her bag against earlier. Her eyes are closed, head tilted down as she tries to slow the incessant drum in her chest.
“I’m beginning to think I’d rather have your ire than your silence,” his voice is soft, teasing, and very close to her. He’s kneeling in front of her, again, his smile pitiful and she isn’t sure if it’s for himself or her.
She sighs, her head falling into her hands, choking out, “You don’t deserve either.”
There’s a beat of silence that follows, as if he’s waiting for her to continue.
“And yet...”
“Why did you follow me out here, Gale? I’m obviously not in a good place.”
“Isn’t that reason enough?”
She looks at him then, his eyes are soft, brow furrowed in genuine concern. It’s too much.
“Just be angry with me,” she croaks, “you have to be. I attacked you, stepped on you over an accident. I felt your anger and fear and still lashed out at you because I didn’t want you to see how ugly my thoughts-”
His hand touches her calf, stopping her rant in it’s tracks.
“I don’t want to be angry with you, Keighley.”
She blinks, “That’s it? You don’t want to be, so you aren’t?”
His head nods from side to side, “You apologized, didn’t even flinch when I told you about my condition, and gave me space to take out any other conflicting feelings I had on dough for about eight hours. So. Yes. I’m not upset with you in the slightest.”
Her laugh is breathless, he really is unbelievable. She can hardly stand to look at him and pinches the bridge of her nose in a groan.
“I’m not like this.”
“‘This’ meaning what exactly?”
“Impulsive and emotional. I-I’m clinical. I take on everyone’s problems with a smile. Before today you all looked at me like- like I was infallible and and I *felt* like I was. And now I’m...”
“Muffling screams in the woods to get away from it all?”
Her head shoots up and he’s smirking humorlessly, “Your shirt is covered in your lip color.”
Sure enough, she’s covered her favorite gold tunic in black smudges. A ghost of a laugh puffs out of her and his eyes follow her thumb as she brushes it over her bottom lip only to find it clean. “Shit,” she chuckles at herself, “no hiding that, I guess.”
“Keighley,” his smile is comforting, “no one is going to think less of you for feeling overwhelmed. We’ve all given you a lot and you’ve taken care of us in stride.”
“Your problems aren’t what overwhelmed me, it was how I treated you. I did it to myself. I’m fairly certain you’re my best friend a-and I hit you. What kind of person does that make me?”
Gale doesn’t say anything, but he’s got a smirk on his face that makes her eye twitch.
“What’s with the face?”
“I’m your best friend?”
Keighley runs her hand across her face, fingers digging into her eyes, “Gods spare me- yes,” she groans, “I’m so fucking bad at this.”
Gale laughs, “Bad at what?”
“Friends. Being one. Having them. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I find it immensely difficult to believe you don’t have dozens of friends waiting for your return to Baldur’s Gate.”
Keighley rests her chin on her fist, hunching over so she isn’t looking down at him, “Tell me, oh great wizard of Waterdeep, what is your definition of a friend?”
“A friend is... a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.”
The hairs on her arms go on end when Gale says the word “sexual” so nonchalantly but when her mind catches up to her she gawks in disbelief, “Did you just recite the actual definition of the word ‘friend’?”
He’s smirking again, “Was it my tone? Or have you also looked it up in a dictionary before now?”
“Gods,” She’s smiling as she covers her face because he’s ridiculous and she can’t help wanting to laugh.
“Fine, so. To feel affectionate toward a person you know. I have the clergy and my uncle. That’s the extent of my social circle. I’m twenty-eight years and this lot,” she gestures in the direction of camp, “know more about me than anyone at home, save for my uncle. And you-” she sighs, “you know more than the rest.”
Gale untucks his leg from under him and moves to sit next to her on the rock with a quiet grunt, “That sounds eerily familiar.”
Keighley raises a brow questioning this statement but says nothing so he continues.
“After the orb lodged itself in my chest I hid in my tower for a year without company save for Tara. Not even my own mother knows about my condition. Traveling with strangers who all share a mind-melding tadpole leaves little room for one to hide who they truly are. That kind of vulnerability shared between allies is bound to lead to friendship at some point. I think it would be rather odd if none of us could see any redeemable qualities in one another.”
Keighley doesn’t do much more than breathe, absorbing what he’s said, her eyes drifting away in thought.
Gale bumps his leg against her own, demanding her attention- for her to look at him, “And for what it’s worth, you’re my best friend as well.”
“Even after today?” She squints an eye, not quite believing him.
“Eh, if you recall, the last woman who’s boundaries I pushed discarded me with a parasitic explosive in my chest. As far as I’m concerned you let me off pretty easy.” She can tell it’s meant to be a morbid joke but she has to cover her mouth to not make a horrible comment about his bitch of a goddess.
Keighley groans, covering her face with her hand and rubbing at her sore eyes once more, “I yelled at the girls today too. Over a puzzle. I kept thinking how you could probably have solved it if I hadn’t lost my mind this morning and then Lae’zel verbalized those same thoughts. I just-” She chokes a bit and clears her throat, “I’ve never hit anyone I’ve cared about before and the hate I feel toward myself makes me want to puke. I don’t feel like I’m not myself anymore. I’m just what’s left.”
Gale’s knee bumps against hers again, “Hey,” he chides, bringing her eyes back to his tender gaze.
“As someone who cares about you, I feel I’ve done you a great disservice in failing to ask how you’ve really been feeling since that first night. Everyone has been pre-occupied with their own problems while you’ve merely added them to your personal to-do list. I should’ve been checking in on you, and I’m sorry.”
Keighley’s eyes well with tears and she swipes at the damn droplets desperately as they start falling, her sniffle she tries to morph into a cough. “I uh- um,” Keighley reaches over to her bag to busy her hands, reaching into the pockets and pulling out the enchanted jewelry she’d picked up for him today, “Thank you. Here, these are for you.”
Gale’s brow wrinkles at her sudden shifting of the conversation but goes with it, thankfully. He cups his hands under her own and she drops the handful of necklaces and rings into his own. Gale doesn’t mention her sniffling and just accepts her gifts, setting them down in the space between them. It looks as though he might start sorting them for a moment before he looks up at her, enchanted artifacts aside.
“Would you stop taking care of everyone but yourself, for a moment? Please?”
No sooner did the words leave his mouth does Keighley fall against him. Her chin finds the same spot on his shoulder as when he’d carried her earlier and her eyes tighten shut as she hugs him to her, just taking the comfort he’s been offering her this whole time.
His forearms span the width of her back as he holds her snugly against his chest, the warmth no longer feels as though it’s smothering her. She shifts slightly so she’s not pulling him as far and he squeezes her tighter, grumbling, “Mind your leg,” as he’s more concerned with her ankle than she is and causes a watery laugh to escape her.
“Is... I know we hugged once before but is this okay, Gale?” Keighley’s voice is low and tinged with uncertainty.
Gale rubs his hand against her side soothingly, “If this is what you need, it’s more than okay. I’m always available if you’re in need of a hug.”
The two of them sit quietly in each others’ arms for a while. Enjoying the comfort that their friendship has brought to each of them, knowing that neither of them has scared the other away just yet.
Keighley eventually pulls away with a relieved sigh and casts Cure Wounds on herself so that the two of them can walk back to camp together. Gale collects the enchanted jewelry to put in his pocket when he realizes one doesn’t have the same touch of the weave as the others. It’s a silver ring with a deep blue gem embedded in the band.
“Here,” he holds it out to her, “I can’t consume this one, it must’ve gotten mixed in with the others.”
Keighley shakes her head with a smile, “No, it was for you, it’s just pretty. You can sell it if you want, though. I just thought it might be nice for you to have something that wasn’t intended to be food.”
Gale gets that little wrinkle between his brows before he smirks and slips the ring onto his right hand with a quiet, “Thank you.” Then the wizard and cleric walk back to camp in comfortable silence.
If any of their other companions notice their closeness in the following days, they were wise enough not to say anything. They merely appreciated whatever inverse relationship suddenly formed between their leader’s temper and the amount of time spent with the resident wizard.