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WORDS OF LOVE (YOU WHISPER SOFT AND TRUE)
Halsin has lived a very long time, and taken many lovers. He’s lain with Elf maidens under the boughs of oaks. He’s had a Nelanther pirate claw his back and cry his name until he was hoarse. His heart does not stir lightly…but it’s stirring now.
It’s ridiculous, in a way. He is a centuries-old Archdruid, not some lovelorn ninety-year-old with a crush.
It shouldn’t make the breath catch in his throat when Linda glances his way—despite the beauty of her clear, gentle eyes. It shouldn’t make his palms sweat when the human woman draws close to his tent with her daily sweeping, but he can’t stop himself from admiring the way the morning sunlight turns the white in her hair to spun silver and gilds her wrinkled cheeks with gold, can’t stop himself from wishing to touch such riches. It shouldn’t make his stomach twist into delirious knots when she says his name, shouldn’t make his heart pound that she wants him near.
Oak Father preserve him, Linda makes Halsin feel all of that and more. Does she even notice? Somehow, he doubts it.
When he tried, the night of their very first meeting—when she kept drawing his attention, with her gentle kindness to the tieflings, with her ability to manage such a large group with serenity and warmth and make them all feel welcome in her camp (and he can’t seem to think of it as anything but her camp, her domain), with her genuinely sweet smile that seemed to plant a seed of peace in his heart even when it was turned on others—when he tried to make a very subtle invitation to spend the night with him beneath the beauty of the stars, after her gaze drifted over his strong arms and broad chest and shoulders…
It surprised him, that her casual refusal of nature stung, though he understood immediately she hadn’t realized what precisely he was intimating, that her objection came from her distaste for the outdoors. And that stinging did not prick so deep that it prevented him from finding his sleep with that sweet smile so bright behind his closed eyelids.
Now they are in the Underdark, on their way to Moonrise Towers. Soon they will face the poisoned corpse of what was once Reithwin and the surrounding lands. He will have to attempt to atone for his past sins and undo the Shadow Curse—this one chance to make right his greatest shame, or his oldest and dearest friend can never be saved.
Perhaps it’s foolish, but as they trek through the luminous and deceptively lovely realm beneath the earth, he can’t help wondering what Thaniel would think of Linda. Her strange turns of phrase, her brisk efficiency, her boundless kindness.
He thinks that perhaps his old friend might adore her, if they’re ever given a chance to meet.
Every day that passes, she invades Halsin’s thoughts more and more. His gaze finds her first thing when he wakes in the morning, eyes noting every detail: the way her small hands curve around her teacup or the rare cup of coffee, the way she makes a point of greeting everyone as they wake and come to the fire, the way her lashes flutter and a sound of deep contentment escapes when she takes that first sip of coffee in the morning.
A rare treat for him, as well, though he knows Linda has no idea what that sound does to him. But he still has hot blood in his veins, and she is so…beautiful? Wonderful? Both? More?
Halsin is no Wizard, to always have the perfect words to woo a lover. He only knows that every moment in her company warms him in ways he has not felt in over a century. Not since the Shadow Curse hooked its claws into his life. When he ventures out to forage for the group, he can’t seem to stop himself from counting the footsteps that will take him back to her.
But one day he finds what he believes is a sign. A place just beyond the Grymforge, far enough to escape the oppressive heat of the lava but near enough to their campground to be safe enough for Linda to venture there with him. A vista overlooking one of the Underdark’s gloam-shrouded valleys, a swath of dusky dimness lit by the vivid luminous colors of the domain’s various magical mushrooms. There’s even a distant ice-blue glow that makes him suspect there’s a sussur tree somewhere out there. He wishes he could show her the glory of such a tree.
The spot from which he can show her the true beauty of this place—until now, she’s remained in camp, understandably frightened by the dangers of the local fauna—this spot is spread with extremely rare, rather soft, ultramarine grasses and dotted with some of the sky-blue and dawn-pink lichens Halsin knows from his studies hold no danger for adventurers.
The loveliness of it all, the glowing wonder of it, jolts him when he finds it on his way back to camp. Linda would love this, surely. She hasn’t had the chance to experience nearly any of the beauty of this place, and Halsin understands why. But he would protect her, and it’s close enough to their camp…
He should ask her, he realizes. To come with him to this place. To let him show her how truly wondrous the Underdark really can be. To allow him the privilege of telling her about the different beasts that make their home here, the various mosses and mushrooms and impossibly rare vegetation that grow here. Perhaps he’d be showing off a little, but if so, what harm?
It strikes him suddenly. He can ask Linda for more than to come with him to gaze upon the glory of the Underdark. Why stay in the shadows pining for her? Why not allow himself to hope for the fantasies of his dreams to become a reality? Why not declare himself? Why not ask her for the privilege of…whatever she would deign to give him?
A kiss? A night?
More than a night?
By Sylvanus, his heart feels as if it might burst out of his chest at the thought of telling her the truth—that he wants more than to sit around the campfire with her. That he yearns to lie beside her beneath the stars or the moss-glow-studded darkness of the Underdark’s false sky, to run his fingers through the tangled cloud of her hair and learn if it’s truly as soft as it looks, to cup her face between his careful hands and kiss her until she makes that sound that so far seems reserved only for the bliss of fresh coffee, to feel the warmth of her skin against his own.
That when he looks into her face, he feels the burden of the Shadow Curse ease back its claws a little. That when she sits beside him or murmurs his name or strums her guitar and sings to them all, that it pulls back the brambles that sometimes hold his heart so tightly he feels he might choke on the hurt of it all.
Halsin can invite her to this place and tell her the truth of things. Ask her if there is any hope of warmth in her for him. If not, he will accept her friendship. He cherishes the friendship she has given him already. He wonders how he could have possibly managed after the goblin camp and the burdens of setting the Grove to rights without her gentle presence. If that is all he can have, it is surely enough.
But he realizes he could never forgive himself if he does not at least try for more.
It’s more than a little ridiculous, Halsin tells himself, to be so nervous over something so simple. How often has he done this? Told someone he had feelings for them? He has had so many lovers before. Surely confessing himself to Asavir, his pirate from two centuries ago, carried more risk than telling Linda…
Oh. He hasn’t even thought…
What exactly is he going to say to her?
That her eyes remind me of the forest, then he pushes that aside. She isn’t exactly a lover of nature. That her smile is enough to warm a man to the backbone on the coldest winter night. That when she sings, my heart lightens. That her name reminds me of music in the first flush of spring. That her heart is as warm as summer sun. That I can’t stop thinking about how it would feel for her to lay her hand against my cheek, to be able to turn my face into her touch and kiss her palm. That I’ve ached to take her in my arms and simply hold her for a moment, her head resting on my chest. That I’ve been dreaming of the way she might whisper my name when I…
No. No, he can’t say that. Not that last, not at the first. She isn’t an Elf, it isn’t the way of humans to speak so. Perhaps the part about her singing, though? The lilting way she sings is so uniquely her and he feels no shame in admitting he could listen to it for a century without tiring of it.
Perhaps I should start there?
Halsin draws a steadying breath, trying to ignore the faintest embers in his cheeks. He is an Archdruid. The Chosen of a god and the protector of nature. This shouldn’t be so…utterly nerve-wracking. He is not a lovesick boy.
But I am a lovesick old man, Halsin acknowledges with a wry smile. And I will not be ashamed of it. Who could resist falling for someone like her?
He rises from in front of his mostly-unused tent, every intention of going to Linda, kneeling beside her, whispering that he has something he wishes to show her, something he wishes to discuss with her. He is just drawing abreast of where Karlach sits by the fire when Linda speaks—not to him, but to Astarion and Karlach.
“Well, it was on my honeymoon, so that made it worse. It wasn’t exactly peak romance.”
Halsin hesitates. A sudden suspicion that he’s forgotten something potentially very important begins to take root in his mind.
Karlach’s laughter is normally enough to bring an answering laugh from the Druid (the tiefling Barbarian is just so very exuberant in her enjoyment of the world), but this time it only pulls a smile to his lips.
“Well, don’t leave us hanging. What happened? Did it break you up, or what?”
Linda’s laugh reminds Halsin of someone ringing a silver bell. He adores that laugh. Adores how she can laugh, even with all the darkness surrounding them. And he loves the undercurrent of amusement in her voice when she talks about how she and her husband—her husband—slept in something called a car rather than wherever they originally intended, how they left as soon as the sun rose, how it was awful at the time but they laughed over it later.
“We’ve been married fifty years, this summer.”
Halsin shifts on his feet, heading past Karlach, aiming for the traveler’s chest. His skin prickles with magic as the bear within him shifts, half-rousing at his sudden urge to flee. He needs some excuse for getting up, for coming over to the campfire. Something besides the invitation and the confession strangling in his throat.
A husband. A husband.
Of course Linda has a husband, why didn’t it occur to him? Yet…why is her husband not here with her? Surely she has need of him now more than she ever has? But oh, a foolish question. Linda is seventy-seven years old, she said once. Likely her husband is near the same age. What human of that age would venture forth to places like this unless compelled by such unfortunate circumstances as mindflayer parasites and Shadow Curses? Linda isn’t an adventurer, she’s a victim of those circumstances, someone simply trying to make the best of an impossibly difficult situation.
Does her husband know what’s happened to her? Where she is? By Sylvanus, does her husband even know she’s alive? Pity stirs in the Druid’s heart at the thought—he has lost loves before, to sickness, to battle, to misfortune. But he cannot imagine the thought of someone he loves (loved for fifty years) simply…vanishing, and the agony of not knowing what became of them. If they’re hurt, or sick, or dead.
“Fifty years?!” Karlach sounds impressed and flabbergasted, both. “Gods, how have you managed that?”
When Linda speaks of how loving someone for that long is a journey taken a day at a time, how life happens around you, tasks and children, and then the realization comes that time has passed without notice…he aches for her, for the sorrow in her voice. He wants to go to her, rather than pulling a whittling knife he doesn’t need from the traveler’s chest to give his hands something to do while he listens. He wants to wrap his arms around her and simply hold her. Nothing more than that. Just to offer some semblance of comfort.
When she speaks of love, how love changes over the years, how it’s hot and fast in the young but simmers with age—like a pot of soup, warm, delicious, and safe, she says—he cannot deny it hurts him. It is not jealousy. He is not one for jealousy. He is not a possessive man. But he can hear it in her voice. Her deep love for this man that Halsin has never seen, her aching need to find him again, to return to him. A wealth of love in her voice, deep as oceans, and all of it for her husband. There is no room for Halsin. Could never be room for him or any other, so long as her husband lives. It is not her nature to love any other way.
And when Karlach says that Linda must miss her husband, and Linda says only, Yes…Oak Father preserve him, it is all he wants, to erase the pain on her beautiful face and from her generous heart. He would bring all of his considerable power and resources to bear, to reunite Linda with her husband. Someone like her should never know sorrow or grief.
But there is nothing he can do.
It takes him too long to rein his emotions back in when he returns to his tent and begins to whittle to give his hands something to occupy them. He had allowed himself to dream, to hope. There is no shame in that. Yet perhaps he set his heart—lonely, perhaps lonelier than he ever realized—too much on the possibility of more with her. Did he assume she would say yes simply because he knows himself to be a handsome man, well-versed in love and desire? Why did he not consider she had someone waiting for her?
Halsin tries to settle his emotions while his hands follow familiar movements with the whittling knife. He has loved unrequited before. He has enjoyed, cherished the friendships of those who did not return his feelings, or even know of them. He is no child, new to being a touch heartsore.
Perhaps…perhaps more than a touch.
He has always let desire flourish where it found root. His blood is hot, has always been so. But it is more than that, here. More than the wish to taste Linda’s kiss, to return it a thousandfold until his heart quickens from want while her arms steal around his neck. It’s more than the ache to take her in his arms and feel her against him, to show her an exquisite care and gentleness in his passion that he rarely expresses. More than the dream of hearing her murmur his name in his ear while she cuddles close to him under the stars.
Damn, the Druid thinks, and his smile is rueful. Even now, I think of how I want her. How I care for her.
Because he does. He can suppress the want—it has no place between them now—and he can temper the caring until it gives the illusion of nothing that smolders like unrequited love and hunger. His own feelings do not entitle him to hers.
It will take him awhile to settle himself. To get an appropriately tight grip on all he feels: the disappointment he must work through, the affection still burning warm as a campfire in the dark, the thwarted wanting. But it would be wrong of him to push Linda to arms’ length while he sorts his feelings out. Before all else, he is her friend. He promised her his comfort, his counsel, his companionship. He will not snatch it away simply because his heart aches somewhat more than a little for impossibilities.
So when Linda pulls out their camp supplies to make dinner in anticipation of the others’ return, Halsin sets aside the figure he’s been carving for an hour—and if it’s beginning to take the shape of a soft-cheeked, elderly woman with hair tangled in a silken briar-cloud and a guitar in her clever, wrinkled hands, what harm is there?—and he goes to help her prepare the various Underdark mushrooms he’s foraged.
Halsin tries not to preen under her admiration for his knowledge of the Underdark flora or his knife skills as he dices savory bulbfruit, crisp bluecap mushrooms, and ripplebark with quick, efficient movements. He tries not to notice the warmth of her, somehow setting his skin alight even though their current camp is surrounded by a river of lava and he shouldn’t be able to feel her. Tries not to let gooseflesh come up on his arms when she reaches across him for an ingredient, her shoulder brushing his chest and her hair wisping against his cheek, the scent of laundry soap filling his nose.
It always astonishes him, that she smells so very good in such surroundings.
There is no artifice in him when he moves behind her, her back against his broad chest, the gentlest pressure, so he can cup the hand holding the knife in order to show Linda the precise movements for slicing open bulbfruit and removing the barbed, inedible skin.
Somehow, she cannot feel how his heart quickens at her nearness. He thanks all the gods of the forest for it. It’s the only indulgence he allows himself, showing her the trick of skinning the strange, onion-like vegetable. He moves quickly away after. His skin prickles at the sudden loss of her warmth.
Yet if he stands so close for too long…
Halsin is both impossibly grateful and utterly crestfallen when dinner is ready and the others return. He’s pining like some unschooled youth in the first throes of first love when he makes his way to his bedroll that night. It must stop.
He is going to have to sort himself out quickly, he reminds himself without pity. They have a momentous task ahead, and afterwards, he has sworn to aid the group in dealing with the mindflayer parasites. He cannot afford to be distracted by the tangle of emotion in his heart, the futility of dreaming things that cannot be.
By the Oak Father, but she is such a pleasant distraction, even now. Perhaps…perhaps, tonight, just this one last night, he will allow himself to dream a little. To imagine what could have been, if their paths through life were different. To close his eyes and pretend that her soft singing drifting from Wyll’s tent as she prepares for bed is meant for him. To pretend that he did take her to that glorious vista, did show her the Underdark in all its otherworldly beauty, did confess how she sits in his heart like an ember, warming his tired soul. To pretend that she said yes to him.
It’s a foolish fantasy. But it comforts a little, the pretending. Tomorrow, he can return to reality. Tomorrow, he can stop being a lovelorn old man in a haze of bittersweet yearning and act his age, act with the decorum befitting his rank and experience.
Tomorrow…but not tonight. Tonight, he lets himself dream.