Work Text:
“Professor Gale Dekarios! A prolific day indeed, I’ve never been so proud!” Tara boasted, perched atop Gale’s desk in his classroom. Gale shuffled the supplies on his desk: quills, paper, ink, little jars of spell materials.
“Not even when I graduated?” He offered, a small jeer to contrast the nerves that he knew he was probably radiating as Mystra with the weave.
“Endings are rarely more noteworthy than beginnings. Hope over finality. Would that your mother was here to see this!”
“I’m glad she’s not. I wish I shared your confidence, Tara, but we both know that teaching was never an aspiration of mine. I fear I still don’t have the patience for it.”
“You won’t be doing it every day. Twice a ten day is hardly arduous work. And I do believe you’re very much capable of teaching full lectures. A class of eight should prove child’s play!” Tara hopped up to the top of the bookshelf behind Gale’s desk. “And child’s play for you is bored to tears for the rest. I’ll stay, if you’d like. All the better to admire what a good job I did of raising you.”
“Oh how thoughtful of you, to recline atop a bookshelf and nap solely to grant me your moral support” Gale jabbed.
“Young man, if I hadn’t just gotten comfortable I’d have you head for that cheek you’re showing!” Her derision made Gale chuckle
“And you call me young? What have you done that you try to soften me so? You haven’t been chasing the chickens out in the campus garden have you?” He teased, knowing his beloved familiar had always had endless budge for his sass.
“Such insolence from the polite, headstrong mage I once knew, I fear that elf influenced,” she was cut off at the chimes to signal commencement of class.
“His name is Astarion, not ‘that elf’.” Gale admonished once the ringing ceased. He moved to open the classroom door. “Thank you for staying.” A soft smile was directed at the tressym before he pulled the door open.
“Hello, my new friends!” He cheered, stepping aside as eight children filed into the room, smiling and chatting and draped in the small carmine apprentice robes that Tara had first seen on Gale at the inception of their partnership.
The tressym stared, aghast at the pupils presented. “I am Professor Gale Dekarios, and it is a pleasure to meet each of you fledgling mages.” He assured, “Sit where you please, however,” he extinguished the candelabras with a wave of his hand, leaving them all immersed in darkness. “Your seats are enchanted, such that you won’t be able to assume them unless you’ve produced a dancing lights cantrip.” In the darkness, Tara could hear his tone, and no trace of his previous trepidation lingered.
The room filled with the chatter of the young ones reciting their knowledge, some with more success than others. Tara conceded her perch and leapt to Gale’s shoulder. He startled, having been amused by the children’s efforts. She waited a moment as he continued to appraise them, and could tell he was evaluating each based on their ability. “Children, Mr. Dekarios?”
“I thought that perhaps with some guidance from one who has been where they are would stop, well, prevent any of them from falling into the same failures that I once did.” He answered softly so that he didn’t disrupt the lesson. “Hope over finality.”