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Tara batted at the stack of papers on Gale’s desk, trying to nudge them into proper alignment.
“Really, Mr. Dekarios - you’ve hardly been at Blackstaff for three months and your office is already in disarray.” Efforts hampered by her lack of thumbs, she fluttered over to settle primly on the windowsill, the only other surface empty enough to sit down upon.
“It’s the end of term, Tara,” replied Gale, reaching down to retrieve one of the many piles of assignments that had sprouted from the floor like mushrooms. “And I have a perfectly adequate system for organizing them.”
She very much doubted this, but let the matter drop. It was not what she was here to discuss.
“How are the wedding preparations going? Mrs. Dekarios told me that you’ve finally convinced Octavia to wear something other than her work robes.”
The thought was still a little surreal. Despite all of her best efforts and a considerable number of introductions, she’d thought Gale doomed to a life without mortal companionship, too preoccupied with being Mystra’s chosen - but apparently all he’d needed was a few months’ worth of near-death experiences to finally settle down. Her Gale was always willful.
“The convincing was mother’s doing, not mine,” Gale said. He scribbled a note on the assignment in front of him, and muttered something under his breath about the difference between Enchantment and Illusion. “She was very insistent.”
“Well, sometimes one makes concessions.”
Tara paused for a moment.
“And it wouldn’t be fair to Octavia if she were the only one making them.”
Gale narrowed his eyes at her. “Where is this going, Tara?”
“I believe it’s time to reconsider the issue of the beard, Mr. Dekarios.” The tip of her tail twitched around her feet. “A man should look his best on–”
“No, absolutely not,” he responded, scribbling another note with more force than necessary. “And unless you also want to be shaved for the wedding, I suggest you put the matter to rest.”
Tara sighed. “It would make your mother happy.”
“Mother has not commented on the beard once, Tara. If it would make her happy, it is only because you would stop complaining about it.” Gale ran a hand over the offending facial hair in thought. “And Octavia - who, mind you, is going to be my wife - is extremely fond of it.”
Tara let out a noise between a hiss and a grumble, but spoke no more on the subject. Her boy was always so very stubborn - but fortunately, so was his mother.
***
Regardless of her frustrations with Gale, tea with Mrs. Dekarios was always a lovely affair. This week she was serving herring: lovingly filleted and placed on a gold-rimmed plate for Tara, chopped, seasoned, and spread on toast for herself. They had exchanged all the usual pleasantries - questions about Mrs. Dekarios’s book club and Tara’s continued work on her Catflap of Displacement, before Tara decided to get down to brass tacks, as it were.
“How is the wedding planning faring, Mrs. Dekarios?” asked Tara, paws primly crossed on the tablecloth.
“Quite well, considering the short notice,” responded Morena, pouring herself another cup of tea. “Octavia is being a dear about it - I think she finds it all very overwhelming.”
“And Gale?”
“Oh, as opinionated as always.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Being busy with his new position at Blackstaff leaves him with much less time to argue. And besides, I raised him to have good taste.”
Tara recalled a recent afternoon spent hunched over Gale’s kitchen table, mother and son debating the merits of different kinds of lilies for so long that Octavia had decamped to the library, only re-emerging when Gale had Sent her for dinner.
Privately, Tara thought that Morena’s preference for a more reserved bouquet was more elegant, but her son’s insistence that they incorporate at least some commonly-used alchemical flowers had won the day - something about symbolism and respect for Octavia’s profession. Octavia did not seem bothered either way, and thanked them both profusely for handling things before vanishing to the library again before the two of them could begin debating napkin colors.
“Do you think that perhaps a bit of… additional grooming may be in order?” ventured Tara.
Morena tilted her head. “Grooming? Octavia may be a bit… practical, but she’s certainly not unkempt.”
“The beard, Mrs. Dekarios.”
“Tara, my dear, I doubt there is any force on Toril that could convince him to shave, except for perhaps Octavia.”
The tressym grumbled under her breath. Octavia was not in the habit of convincing Gale to do things he did not want to. In fact, she could count on one paw the things that she had asked of him. To be fair, they were very important things - such as not reducing himself to a cloud of Netherese vapor, or trying to claim the Crown of Karsus for his own, but aside from requesting that he do a better job organizing his potions, Octavia was annoyingly unperturbed by Gale’s other personal choices.
“Besides,” Morena continued as she took a sip of her tea. “Our Gale is quite the adventurer now. I think the beard only adds to the image.”
She winked, and Tara sighed.
“Hardly rugged,” she replied. “No one ‘rugged’ has a favorite silk pillowcase.”
It was purple, embroidered with little silver stars along the edge, and had been the first thing that Gale had requested from home once Tara had caught up with him on the road to Baldur’s Gate.
Morena gave her a small smile. “Perhaps, but he did manage to defeat an elder brain. If anyone is allowed a little bragging, I think it’s him.” She stared off into the distance for a moment. “He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, Tara– if the beard is part of that, well, so be it.”
She shuffled her wings, and settled back onto the table. It was clear that she would get nowhere with Mrs. Dekarios, either.
“It does make him look rather scruffy, though,” she said at last. If Tara could not have a strategic victory, she could at least have a moral one.
“Oh, horribly.” Morena laughed. “But have you seen Elminster?”
***
It was late afternoon by the time Tara reached Gale’s tower, having been waylaid with some particularly delectable gossip about one of Morena’s more eccentric neighbors. It was still early enough that she felt confident letting herself into the tower unannounced - after having caught Gale and Octavia… engaged on the floor of the library more than once, she preferred to arrive before either of them were home from work. She fluttered up to the kitchen table, tucking her paws beneath her as she waited for their return.
It was ridiculous, she thought, that he would put up such a fuss about a simple act of grooming. He’d been perfectly satisfied with his appearance before his meddling with the Karsite weave - and tressym though she was, Tara recognized that her Mr. Dekarios was considered quite handsome. In that horrible year with the orb, though, he’d grown both withered and wild - like a yellowed, gnarled plant desperately stretching toward whatever scrap of sunlight it could reach. Sometimes, she got glances of it again; her Gale briefly transformed in her minds’ eye as he paced his library murmuring to himself, or passed the heel of his hand over his scar.
Why must he insist on remaining in the past?
Heavy footfalls up front steps heralded Octavia’s arrival as she swept into the tower, wriggling out of the sturdy boots she wore before sweeping into the kitchen. Today she smelled of something green and astringent, but not overwhelming - alchemy, Octavia once explained, was almost as bad as working in a kitchen for collecting fragrances. Had she come home reeking of brimstone, as she sometimes did, Tara would have insisted on a bath. Some things could wait.
“Hi Tara,” she said, opening the cabinet where Gale kept the cans of jerky that Tara so favored. For all Octavia’s more vexing characteristics, Tara appreciated both her thumbs and her habit of offering snacks without prompting. “Gale’s going to be a bit late - three of the apprentices are toads right now. Also, it looks like we’re out of beholder.”
“Pigeon, then?” Tara tried not to sound too put out. If she was going to ask Octavia for a favor, it wouldn’t do to look down on her hospitality.
“There’s a little left. I’ll ask Gale to get some more when he goes shopping.”
A few moments later, Octavia produced a small saucer heaped with strips of dried pigeon before busying herself with the teakettle.
“Whatever’s going on with Gale’s apprentices must be contagious - mine got into the fuc– the tincture alcohol last night.” Octavia cleared her throat, and heated the kettle with a snap of her fingers. “Half of them didn’t show up for lessons, and the others were so hungover they might as well have stayed home. I’ve never had to prestidigitate so much–”
Tara wrinkled her nose. Octavia could be… descriptive. “I think I have a very clear picture as to the state of your class, Miss Octavia.”
“Alright.” She situated herself on a stool opposite the tressym, placing the tea set between them. “You’re welcome to wait for Gale here, if you want. Like I said, he’ll be a while.”
“I was actually hoping to speak to you.”
Octavia raised her eyebrows. “Without him?”
No use prolonging the inevitable. “I was hoping that you could prevail on him regarding the beard.”
Octavia snorted. “The beard?”
“Yes Miss Octavia, the beard. It is atrocious, and would cause quite the sartorial stain on your wedding day.” She could at least take this seriously.
“You’re talking to the wrong person,” said Octavia, gesturing down at her visibly mended work robes, “I’m not fussy about clothes.”
A topic that Tara also had many thoughts on, but one that could rest for the moment. “But you also understand the importance of concessions in these things, do you not? Mrs. Dekarios has prevailed on your wearing a dress, after all.”
“And that’s about me, not him.” She took a long drag of her tea. “You can take it up with Gale, although I don’t think you’ll get any further than you already have.”
“But he values your opinion! And I think we can both agree that he looked better before– You’ve seen the portraits.”
Octavia stared at her for a long time, a line forming, then deepening between her brows.
“Tara,” she said at last, “Why do you hate it so much?”
Could Octavia even comprehend the terror of those first horrible weeks, as the curse from that wretched book devoured her oldest and dearest friend? Or the long, dark months after, as the tower grew sparse and treasure after treasure was sacrificed to sate the orb’s endless hunger? Did she know what it was like to see flashes of those things out of the corner of her eye, no matter how often she reminded herself that Gale was safe and whole?
“I find it unbecoming,” replied Tara, her tail coiled more tightly around her body. “For an archwizard. Something he is once again, I might add.”
Octavia propped her chin on her fist. “It’s different, though. Not being Chosen and all.”
The tressym’s ears flattened in response. “There is nothing–”
“Wrong with that,” Octavia interrupted. “Gods know I’d tell him where Mystra could shove it if she decided to ask him again.
“He could at least look the part,” sniffed Tara. “And not like some… some shut-in scholar who hasn’t left his tower for a year.”
Another pause. Octavia looked down at her teacup, tilting it back and forth on the countertop like she could divine something from the dregs.
Gale had dabbled in tasseography for a brief period as a boy, Tara recalled, although he’d been too impatient at the time to develop any kind of expertise. Waiting had been so difficult for him then - the curse of prodigy meant that anything the world held back from him was taken as a personal affront, and she wondered what the Gale who summoned her would think of the one currently de-polymorphing apprentices at Blackstaff.
“He’s not, you know. A shut-in,” said Octavia at last. “Or Mystra’s Chosen, or a lot of the things that he was before…”
She motioned vaguely in the air, a gesture as understandable as it was inadequate.
“He’s different. I’m different. All of us are.” A look of open fondness washed over her face. “But I’m very happy. And I think Gale is, too.”
Tara did not appreciate the apiary that Gale had installed for Octavia on the roof of the tower, nor did she enjoy no longer having to share her spot on Gale's lap. His potions might be a little neater, though that did not alleviate the new chaos of Octavia shouting down the stairs instead of Sending, or leaving her work robes draped over the banister instead of putting them straight into the wash.
But for all its new faults, the tower was warmer, too. Gale had friends, real, mortal ones that would come over for dinner or meet him at the Yawning Portal, trading stories until night gave way to early morning. The Blackstaff was a strict administrator, but fair, and having to reformat his course evaluations was the closest Gale came to serving divine capriciousness. And when he returned home to shed his boots and cloak and greet his wife-to-be, his beard could not obscure that he was absolutely radiant.
A faint pop from the teleportation circle upstairs heralded his arrival.
“Yes,” said Tara. “I do believe he is.”