Chapter Text
For the attentions of my Goddess, for Mystra,
Committing to paper feels somewhat foolish, given that you can see and feel all I do, even now, even now that you have turned your gaze away from me forever.
Perhaps I am being dramatic.
Though there is the chance that you are turned from me entirely. Casting becomes ever more difficult. Even the most paltry of spells can tear at the edges of the orb, even the most simple levels of concentration are elusive in the face of the pain that grips me in the worst of it. And, I am learning, the pain does not seem to cease; in fact, the pain seems somehow to layer on top of itself, pull against itself, like pulling apart overworked dough after hours of heavy kneading.
A clumsy likeness, but I hope you will forgive me.
I hope you will forgive me.
Sometimes with over-worked dough there is nothing to do but throw it out, start again, and in my worst moments it feels like that is all I am to you, but that cannot be it, can it? You can see and you can feel all I do, so you know, do you not, that I am more than just something that can be thrown away? Your magic has been a part of me since I can remember, and your blessings have made me the greatest of my generation and, I do not think it is too arrogant to say, a potential to rival even the greatest of your Chosen. That promise? That cannot be discarded, even if I am expendable to you, even if your intimate favour is not within my gift.
I believe, I truly believe, that there is some way I can prove to you that I am sorry.
For I am sorry, for whatever I have done to you.
I apologise unreservedly for my impatience, for I know it is one of my chief faults, I have been told throughout my life. When I was a child my dear mother chastised me for being too ready to grow up, to experience the world. She told me to enjoy my childhood, but I did not see what there was to enjoy. I could see my destiny, even as a boy. I could feel the pull towards greatness. All I wanted was to learn more, to spend more time in the weave, even before I knew that you lay at the heart of it. When Elminster first appeared to me, I knew exactly who I was going to be, who I wanted to be. I could see it so clearly; he would not look at me with the strange look I would learn was pity, but would look upon me as his equal, his treasured friend and colleague. I would not be the child that he did silly tricks for, but the greatest wizard in the realms, the one that he would make space for, welcome as the new hero of Faerun.
I apologise unreservedly for my pride, though this has always been my greatest strength, in my opinion. There are many things I would never have achieved without being sure, without taking risks, without believing in my talent and my skill. Certainly, my teachers at the academy gained a few more grey hairs from my exploits, but if I had not believed in my ability there would have been so much that I did not achieve and, if I might be so bold to say, so many discoveries that the academy would not have had the privilege and pleasure to be witness to. For every tedious detention there was a spark of interest in my tutor’s eyes. For every chastisement, a tight smile of acknowledgement. They knew I was destined for great things, and I cannot believe they could be wrong.
I apologise unreservedly for loving you, since that seems to be my chief weakness. That I wanted to bring all of my gifts to you in devotion, and I was still found wanting. I ask you, as I always ask you, in prayer and in deed, what I could have done to prove to you that I was yours? That I believe I was born to serve you? That when you came to me finally, after years of my devotion to magic, in your restored majesty, that it felt like all of the loneliness of my childhood and my youth was worth it, that you, in all of your magnificence, were proof that every lonely hour, every day feeling that I lived in solitude even when surrounded by people had been rewarded, because what greater reward was there than to feel loved by your calling? I recalled when I was a boy, and I read my first book of tales of knightly love, and I held that book to my chest hoping I could pull it into my body, I loved it so. Then, when magic came to me, it felt like that love once more and, then in your arms, I felt the true bliss of every sense. My heart was full of love for you. My mind full of the possibilities of the weave, stretching out for eternity. My senses full of all of the gifts you gave me. Is it so wrong, that I wanted to feel that forever? That I wanted to show you how I loved you? Was it so wrong of me, to love you like that? I cannot believe it was. That is is.
And yet, here I am, cursed to die without your eye on me, the very magic I thought would bind us together consuming me entirely. Punished for my hubris, a fitting tale from the storybooks. I the villain, not the hero, struck down entirely. I cannot believe this is how it ends for me. That I truly am so villainous, for trying to restore you, to aid you? How can this be the end of my story?
You owe me nothing, of course. A god owes their followers nothing, and their acolytes must swear their devotion. But as my love, Mystra. As my love. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
Forgive me.
Gale of Waterdeep.