Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Just a few more stars, thinks Gale. Just a few.

The night seems to be holding its breath in anticipation as he lifts his arms unhurriedly into the stillness. While normally he beckons the Weave, tonight he is beseeching it. Praying that his goddess will look kindly upon him, and grant him this one last behest before he squares his shoulders, steels his heart, and follows her mercy into the final abyss.

Sitting there with his legs crossed beneath him, he unfurls his fingers once more, sending motes of starlight waltzing upwards into the sky - celestial echoes of the fireflies that flit through the grass around him. Within moments these new stars are indistinguishable from the array already glimmering overhead, melding with the ribbons of colours that shift silently above the horizon.

Gale pauses for a moment, angling his head to consider his handiwork. The inhospitable rockfaces are so much softer in starlight, the twisted trees so much friendlier with their boughs draped in new leaves. Even the grass, previously thin and brittle, is now lush and verdant and dotted with wildflowers - a perfect summer meadow in which to lie back and observe the heavens.

It is all an illusion, of course - save for the faded damask rug spread out beneath him, and the bottle of vintage wine propped carefully against a fallen log nearby. He doubts that even at the height of his wizardly prowess, he could have dispelled such shadows as smother these blighted lands. But for now - for this one particular night - he can bid them stay back.

He casts his gaze across the sky, over the restless auroras bejewelled by a thousand steadfast stars. Though these are scant facsimiles of the real stars that lie hidden behind the curse’s shroud, the sight of them is still akin to greeting old friends long missed. He knows many of them by name, and he has murmured each appellation under his breath as he surrenders the sparks of their beings into the waiting night.

Is it enough? he wonders now, as he stares upwards at this dazzling display. He knows that Dhamari longs for the brush of starlight almost as much as he does - and the very last thing he wants this night to be is a disappointment.

Gale bites his lip, cants his head the other way, and despite the sombre weight that has settled upon his heart, he finds himself smiling a little at the thought of his companion.

Just a few more, he thinks again, and with reverent hands he caresses the lessening darkness.

At length, through the trance of his concentration, he hears the pad of sandalled feet and a robe’s hem whispering through the grass. He turns his head, and that same small smile softens the lines of his face as he watches Dhamari’s approach. The drow’s steps are visibly uncertain in the suddenly plush grass (much like Tara, Gale thinks fondly, whenever she encounters an unexpected surface beneath her paws). One of Dhamari’s long ears is cocked quizzically lower as he glances this way and that; he is clearly (and literally) wrong-footed by this serene oasis in the midst of such darkness and decay.

Gale waits until Dhamari is closer before speaking. “There you are,” he greets him, his voice low and, he must admit, slightly hoarse with relief.

He lowers his hands, dusting the last flickerings of starlight from his fingers. He realises that he’s almost lost track of time as he's been sitting here, casting star after star into the Weave-touched sky; and that, in and of itself, feels like a precious gift. Time had once known his command as readily as ward or flame (though perhaps with slightly more effort required). Now it has come to command him instead, over tendays of travel, and fighting, and fear - that inaudible yet ever-present tick, tick, tick of knowing that between the tadpole and the orb, his life is but a thread coming steadily unravelled, and the frayed end of it no longer hidden beyond his sight.

Dhamari pushes past a low-hanging branch and proceeds out into the clearing. “Your… projection, said you wanted to speak to me,” he says, with the slight nose scrunch he always displays when he thinks Gale is being overly showy with his arrangements. “I don’t understand why you can’t just - ohhhh….”

His words stumble to a halt - as do his feet - as he looks upward. His lips remain parted as his gaze goes wide with astonishment.

Gale’s smile broadens. He leans back on his hands, watching the sorcerer. Even from this awkward angle, he can see how the auroras are dancing their reflections across Dhamari’s moon-like eyes - and it is a beautiful sight.

“What do you think?” he asks, not without a touch of pride. “I decided I should try to do a bit better than the limited show I gave you the last time, in my tent.”

It takes a moment for Dhamari to answer. “It’s breathtaking, Gale,” he whispers, entranced, all annoyance forgotten. “You… you changed all of this?” Another moment passes before he tears his eyes from the sky and looks around again, taking in the details of the enchantment.

“Indeed,” answers Gale. He breathes in deeply, basking in the familiar scent of rosewater that has cleansed the tinge of metallic rot from this place. “The curse is still present, of course, just… veiled, and at arm’s length for now.” He slowly passes a hand across the glimmering vision he has created. “Not a trick I can repeat often, but tonight… tonight is different.”

Pulling his hand back, he cants his head towards Dhamari and pats at the rug beside him in silent invitation. Dhamari considers him for a beat, then pads over.

“You told Astarion it was the easiest thing in the world,” the drow accuses, albeit in a mild voice, as he lowers himself into a sit next to Gale. “When we were slogging through that hag’s swamp.”

“There, I would have had no Shadow Curse to contend with,” Gale points out. As he twists around to retrieve the bottle of wine behind him, as well as a pair of matched silver cups, he goes on wryly, “And perhaps I exaggerated just a mite. At the time, I was still rather dedicated to ensuring my place in our little band of misfits, and overstating my abilities seemed like the wiser course. I doubt you would have been so charitable in our first meeting if you thought you were saddling yourself with a merely mediocre, former archmage.”

“True,” admits Dhamari, with a blunt readiness that might have once proved faintly alarming to his companion. “But while you are many things, Gale, I don’t think ‘mediocre’ has ever been one of them.”

Gale huffs a wan chuckle at this, but does not answer. Instead, with an effort, he works the cork from the bottle’s throat. Rather than pouring with his own hand, he summons an ephemeral ghost of it, and directs it to tip a small measure of wine into the first of the cups set before him. He's become more reliant on the mage hand spell since the orb; particularly after his magical exertions tonight, he can feel the protesting spasms in his fingers, and prefers to entrust the careful decanting of the wine to his conjuration's steadier grasp.

“I discovered this stowed away in the cellar under Last Light,” he explains, as he watches the deep red liquor flowing like blood into the waiting vessel. “Blackstaff, fourteen fifty-three. I’d guess that some poor trader thought to brave the curse and found refuge at the inn. Obviously they never managed to complete their route.” He sends the mage hand over to Dhamari with the wine and adds, looking up, "Quite an excellent vintage.”

Dhamari keeps his eyes on the wizard as he accepts the offering. “You didn’t bring me out here to talk about wine, Gale,” he says, though he’s quick enough to take a sip of it.

“No,” murmurs Gale, his brow furrowing a little. The echo of his hand pours more wine into his own cup, then sets the bottle down; with its task completed, he allows the projection to dissipate.

Leaning back again on his free hand, he brings the drink delicately to his lips, giving himself a few moments to reflect on the bright, familiar taste. But soon a soft exhale ripples the crimson surface of the wine. He’d brought this bottle with him in the hopes that a taste of home might bolster his courage, and his spirits; but Waterdeep, like so many other things, is now far beyond his reach. The tang of it only serves as a melancholy reminder.

He sets his cup down with a sigh, and props himself on both arms. Tilting his head back, he studies the prismatic starscape overhead, and beside him, Dhamari does the same. For a minute or so the two men sit there in the stillness; Dhamari nursing his wine as he waits, and Gale wondering how to express all that is weighing upon his heart.

“I love this time of night,” he says eventually. His voice is pensive, low enough that it does not break the hush around them, but melds into it. “There’s an almost reverent silence that accompanies the peak of darkness - when you’d almost believe the dawn will never break.” He lifts a hand and curls it in the air before him, as though to catch a bit of the starlight that glimmers above.

“The cradle… of eternity.” A pause. “The timelessness of lovers.”

Now he looks at Dhamari, and a smile touches his lips as he adds more softly, “That most beautiful of fantasies.”

Dhamari blinks slowly at him, smiling automatically in reply; but a question hovers in his eyes as he regards the wizard, and he waits only a moment before voicing it.

“Gale.” He puts his own cup aside, shifting where he sits to better face the other man. “Why did you ask me to come here?”

Gale’s lingering smile skews. “I wanted to see you. Spend some time with you, alone.” He hesitates, just for a heartbeat, but it’s enough to tug the curve from his mouth as he finishes sadly, “While I still could.”

Dhamari goes very still - all except his ears, which slowly droop as he stares at the other man. But he doesn’t say anything - not yet - and so after another moment Gale looks away, settling his gaze again on the miraculous mirage of the sky.

“This may be my last night alive,” he explains. Such a simple, straightforward thought, and yet the emotions behind it are anything but. “I wanted it to be under a canopy of beauty, and wonder.” He flicks another glance to his companion, and his lips quirk wanly again as he adds, “And with company to match.”

Dhamari doesn’t even grant him a suggestion of a smile this time; instead he looks away from the wizard, his face stiff with dismay.

Yet Gale feels a slender hand slip out, ghosting over the top of his thigh and coming to rest upon his knee, and for a fleeting moment his leaden heart quickens in reply.

“I thought this place might bring me peace,” he goes on in a murmur. His eyes trace the translucent colours that hang above the meadow, like celestial curtains fluttering in an unfelt breeze. “I thought it might make the weight of what I must do feel a little lighter. But now…” He sighs, his shoulders slumping, and the motion seems to drag at the corners of his mouth again. “…I am not so sure.”

He remembers a remark that Dhamari had made, as he lay beside Gale with his face pressed forlornly into the other man’s shoulder. How even here, nestled in the safety of the wizard’s tent, the camp outside bright with warding flames, he could feel the cursed shadows stalking just beyond the bounds of safety, ready to pounce.

Gale can feel them too, lurking outside the sanctuary of this tranquil glade. But it is more than that. Ever since he’d set foot in this strange, corrupted land, he has sensed it - the unseen, unknown, yet nearly tangible Heart of the Absolute. Its power taunting him, its pulse mocking him, as with every flaunted beat his own heart falters - knowing that the Absolute’s destruction can only come at the price of his own.

No matter how many stars he sends into the sky, their ethereal song is not enough to drown the whispers waiting beyond the Weave’s caress. Their light insufficient to cleave the darkness he sees beckoning at the end of this road.

He feels Dhamari’s fingers tighten around his knee, as the drow uses the leverage to lean forward. Dhamari’s nose is scrunched again, but with an entirely different emotion from before - somewhere between acrimony and distress.

“You don’t have to do this, Gale.” Buried in the thickness of his voice, Gale can hear the echo of every argument they’ve had about it, in the days since Elminster had relayed Mystra’s command and Dhamari had stormed out his response. Every reason to disobey, every furious lash against it; every plea to reconsider, when the drow’s anger at last was drained, and he clutched at Gale’s hand as though this on its own might be enough to hold him in the realm of the living.

“You speak as if it would affect you alone,” Dhamari presses. “How many will die if you unleash what’s inside you?”

He seeks out Gale’s despondent gaze, trying to hold it steady, yet his eyes shiver - a sure sign of duplicity. Not that Gale truly needs this clue to read the falseness in the drow’s words; by now he is well aware of how little Dhamari cares for the fates of strangers.

Gale is not offended by this subtle attempt at manipulation. In fact, he’s rather touched by it - that his normally blunt, straightforward companion would go to such lengths to try and sway him.

All the same, he dismisses Dhamari’s question with a heavy shake of his head.

“Fewer than if the Absolute goes unchecked,” he returns bleakly.

He leans forward a little, and his eyes squeeze briefly shut.

“I don’t want to kill, Dhamari. And I don’t want to die. But inaction will lead to bloodshed all the same. I could not live with myself if I stood by and did nothing, knowing I had the chance to lessen the damage, if only by a fraction.”

His stomach quivers inside him at the thought, threatening to send up the few morsels he’d managed to force down at dinner. He swallows hard against it; he has no desire to stain this scene - or the rug, or his clothes - with vomit.

Instead he reaches for Dhamari's hand, and watches how his own hand shakes as he tangles his fingers with the drow's.

“I am… terrified," he croaks out. "I will not claim otherwise." For an instant his grip tightens to the point of discomfort, yet Dhamari does not pull away. "My face could scarcely conceal it even if my words sought to deny it. But fear or courage or reason cannot change the charge I’ve been given."

Gale draws in a deep breath, trying to steady his wobbling voice as he talks himself through his grim task.

"There is no point in running from the inevitable." A nod, terse and set. "Better to meet it, on my own terms."

Dhamari's gaze darkens. “But they’re not your terms," he grits out, a note of desperation in his voice. "They're -"

He breaks off; it's clear that he is struggling not to say what he actually thinks, and after another beat he merely finishes with an unsatisfied-sounding, "- hers."

Gale glances at him, brows drawn together, and exhales lowly. “Perhaps not." With his free hand, he brushes half-consciously at the earring that still glints beside the angle of his jaw. "But the path is set, and I will not stray from it - even though my heart quakes.”

The drow's expression flattens. “No," he snaps, with a jerking shake of his head. His fingers clench around Gale's hand in reply. "I will not let this be the end. I will find another way, I swear to you.”

The fervour in his voice sends a mournful pang through Gale's chest, and for a moment he wishes it were enough to turn him from this course.

“Thank you," he murmurs, with such immense earnesty that it comes out hoarse. He gently lifts Dhamari's hand and brings it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the other's twilight skin. "But even if we do find another way… perhaps this is the right way. The end fate wishes for me."

A thick sort of hiss leaves Dhamari's trembling lips. "No," he pushes out again. "No, Gale, you can't -"

But Gale only smiles sadly at him now, and quells Dhamari's protests with a tender touch to his cheek.

"Shhhh." With the back of his forefinger, he traces one of dark tattoos that cradle drow's eyes.

“Stay with me a while, will you?" he requests quietly, as his finger curves up Dhamari's temple and over his forehead. "Day will come all too soon, even in this place.”

Dhamari's gaze glimmers in dismay, like reflections of twin moons on a midnight lake. Biting his lip, he lists into the wizard's touch for a moment, then nods roughly.

“I’m not going anywhere, Gale." He scoots closer, pressing deliberately up against the other man, and tips his head sideways to rest upon Gale's velvet-clad shoulder. "I’ll be right here, by your side, whatever dawn brings. We'll face it together."

A grateful sigh wafts from Gale's lungs as Dhamari's slighter weight settles against him, seeming to ease some of the dread gnawing within. This closeness still such a fresh, unfamiliar feeling to both of them; he wishes there were more time explore it. Together.

He returns their still-joined hands to their previous place atop his knee, and leans a little against Dhamari in return.

"One moment with you could sate me for a lifetime," he murmurs, "and prise this fear from my heart." He gives a gentle squeeze to the sorcerer's hand. "I’m so very glad you came, to share this with me.”

After a contemplative pause, he goes on, "I know this is all unreal, but I created it for you." He flicks another sidelong glance at Dhamari, trying to gauge the other's demeanour, and adds more huskily, "You must know that you're… that you're very special to me."

Dhamari lifts his chin so that he can look up Gale. Despite his chagrin, a sheepish suggestion of a smile crosses his face and causes one ear to skew.

"You are… special to me too, Gale," he admits softly.

Encouraged by this, Gale allows himself a low exhale. He had tried to rehearse this particular part of the conversation, plotting out the path from each word to the next like constellations on his tongue. He'd considered what he might say about Dhamari himself, all the aspects of the drow's character that have drawn Gale steadily to him, and have found a way to enshrine themselves within the wizard's hopeful heart.

The biting determination. The blunt refusal to be tamed. The way he trembles in fear, yet invariably finds a way to push past it. The untapped capacity to be a force for good, if he is simply offered the chance to become something better than what the world would make him. And most of all, the unabashed wonder that fills his eyes, on those all-too-rare occasions when he realises there can be more to his existence than the shackles of what came before.

But as Gale sat there in his tent, faced with the prospect of a dismal and likely deadly tomorrow, he'd found to his dismay that his customary eloquence had fled. And he was forced to admit that even without such circumstances, it had been so long since he professed anything like these feelings, these yearnings, inside him.

So now there is nothing else for it but to fumble his way through, and hope that the inadequacy of his words does not detract overmuch from the candid expressions of his heart.

Gale sits forward, folding Dhamari's hand between both of his own; he focuses on tracing the sinuous contours beneath his fingertips as he speaks again.

"If things were different," he tells him, sombrely, "if we were home, I'd have taken the time to do things properly. To… say it all better." His brows tug together, and apology laces his tone - regret for rushing through what should have been months spent in slow-flowering appreciation of one another. "But time is short."

Beside him, Dhamari straightens up as well, angling his head to regard the wizard with… confusion? Anticipation? Gale can hardly tell - but it doesn't matter.

He steadies his grasp on Dhamari's hand, looks up to stare into the inky pools of Dhamari's eyes, and at last whispers his confession into the glimmering night:

“I’m in love with you.”

Chapter Text

“I’m in love with you.”

For several heartbeats it hangs there, a threadbare yet ardent hope hovering between the wizard and the drow.

Dhamari swallows, staring back at Gale as his emotions stutter inside him like a novice attempting an unfamiliar spell. Yet outwardly, he feels paralysed.

Gale's admission is not… a surprise, exactly, considering the nights they have recently begun to spend together, seeking companionable solace from the ever-deepening darkness of their surroundings. But these affections have grown so gradually - not yet defined, always skirting around the edge of the unspoken - that to hear Gale put such certain voice to them is… daunting.

Dhamari feels his hand tense a little within Gale's grasp; he looks down, breathes out, trying to relax. After another moment he glances up again, wetting his lips with a nervous tongue.

“And you can say it - just like that?” he asks, dazed, his voice rather hoarse. All concern for his companion's dire predicament has been startled from him by this turn in the conversation.

Gale's hands once again tighten around Dhamari's. He leans closer, and even in the softness of starlight, Dhamari can see the conviction that deepens every line of the other man's face.

“I can," Gale tells him. No hesitation, no doubt; then softer, almost desperate, "I must." He shakes his head once. "A part of me feared I might very well explode here and now if I did not say it. I love you, Dhamari."

The grim quip is lost on Dhamari, as faint consternation steals across his face. Love is a foreign concept to most drow, in his experience; passion is expressed through lust, or possession, or power, and any attachment between individuals usually proves fickle and fleeting. So it had been with Tazzlyn, his 'partner' back in Sshamath. They'd been two male drow seeking distraction and escape within each other's company, forming their own odd brand of belonging against the backdrop of their matriarchal society. But Tazzlyn was still one of them, still haughty and volatile and cruel when it suited him, and for Dhamari it was a bond of convenience and protection, nothing more.

Love had never been a part of it. Love was never something Dhamari even considered he could feel.

But now he sits here in this quiet glade, his hand wrapped in the unbearably comfortable warmth of Gale's grasp, and wonders if it could be possible. He's still not sure he can recognise love as other races deem it; but this, he decides, has to be something like it, because he has never felt such a strange ache inside him that could be so easily soothed by the voice, the touch, the presence of another person.

Gale is unlike anyone Dhamari has known before. He holds all the knowledge and wit of the most accomplished drow wizards, yet bears only a sliver of their arrogance, extending his expertise without jealousy or bargain. His clear ambition is tempered by equal compassion; it still surprises Dhamari that one has not been snuffed out by the other. And his magical prowess is nigh unparalleled - and yet with all his power he seeks only to offer a helping hand, never a tyrant's fist.

Gale is kind and cordial, dazzling and disarming, and the first person to genuinely care about Dhamari since long before he left the Underdark - care that, for all its lack of definition till now, is harshly, deeply reciprocated. Because more notable than any of these individual qualities has been Dhamari's slow realisation: it is with Gale that he feels truly, inexplicably… safe. And for someone who has spent nearly his entirely life bowed before the brittle edge of fear… that feeling is a remarkable one.

Dhamari lets out a wavering breath, bites his lip, and looks up again. He shifts his hand to give Gale's fingers a heavy squeeze in reply.

"I… I feel the same about you, Gale," he says at last. The words are low and tentative, pacing an unfamiliar path across his tongue - yet he means every one of them.

At this, the apprehensive furrows between Gale's brows smooth away into a smile. A weak chuckle huffs from him as his head bobs ruefully for a moment.

"That's a relief," he admits faintly. His voice carries the same emotional exhale that had accompanied his first deep confession to Dhamari, when he'd finally understood that the drow had no intention of casting him away despite the danger he posed. His mouth skews, and he adds in a dryer tone, "It would be a shame to spend my final hours making an ass of myself."

"Yes," agrees Dhamari, his own voice still a bit rusty.

He looks down, away, shifting awkwardly where he sits; until the crook of Gale's finger nudges beneath his chin, coaxing his head up again. Dhamari lifts his eyes and blinks once. Gale's face is… much closer now, with that same wry yet tender smile tugging at his mouth.

"May I?" the wizard requests, as one knuckle brushes ever so lightly over the drow's lips.

After only a fractional hesitation, Dhamari nods. Closing his eyes, he leans in to meet the other man, and they share a gentle, wine-touched kiss. A slight shiver runs through Dhamari, as it has each of the few times they've kissed before - still an unfamiliar sensation, but by no means unpleasant.

He can feel a wash of warmer colour on his cheeks as he separates from Gale, and he rubs at it with the back of his hand. "I… like when we do that," he mutters shyly. He flicks a glance at the wizard, and tries, "You're a… a good kisser."

Gale chuckles again. "And you're a bad liar," he retorts, but it's said easily enough. "I lived the life of a hermit for some time before I met you. Safer for all, but… not conducive to pleasures of the flesh."

"It isn't as though I have many standards to judge by," Dhamari points out. His shoulders hunch slightly. "I told you, I… I've never done this before. Not… not like this."

I've never been in love before, he wants to say. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it now, if it is all going to simply end tomorrow. But his throat seems to close at the thought, and he stays quiet.

Gale watches him, his warm eyes considering. "Then I shall accept your remark as the compliment it was intended to be," he amends, quite sincerely. "Thank you." He cups Dhamari's cheek in his hand for a few entrancing heartbeats, then draws away.

"On a related subject," he continues, "there is… something else I would venture to ask you."

An oddly cautious note enters his voice as he proceeds, "I suspect I already know the answer, but… I would like to ask it all the same. To put us on the same page, so to speak."

Dhamari goes quite still at this, as every nerve and tendon in his body seems to tighten. The lingering warmth of their kiss dissipates. Suddenly he wishes he could pull his hand away; instead, he swallows hard and slides an apprehensive look at Gale.

He knows what's coming. He has known for days that it was only a matter of time before the subject was brought up again, and properly.

But he doesn't want to hear it, he doesn't want to hear Gale's low and otherwise soothing voice say it, and so his only option is to throw himself ahead of the wizard's thoughts, and say it himself.

He sucks in a breath through his teeth. "You want to ask if you… if you can… make love to me," he rasps. It scrapes out of him like a boot stumbling on stone, and he hastily looks away. His face is flushed again, and his hands are clenched - one against his abdomen, the other still ensconced within his companion's hold.

There are other words for it, of course - plainer, rougher, and far more fitting for the experiences Dhamari has had, at Tazzlyn's hands or others'. Indeed, 'making love' seems like a shallow mockery of a phrase, when scratched across those unwanted memories.

Yet even as Dhamari tenses beneath the notion, he thinks - he hopes - that such is how Gale would choose to describe it. A little bit gentler. A little more palatable.

But Gale surprises him with an almost immediate refutal. "No," he says, quite firmly.

Dhamari jerks his head up in confusion. Gale wraps his other hand around Dhamari's as well, and leans forward.

"No," he repeats, low and earnest. "Not to you. With you."

Dhamari wets his lips, more than a bit discomfited. "Is there a difference?" he asks thickly.

Gale's expression spasms - not quite pitying, but noticeably pained.

“Night and day," he answers, still soft-spoken. "The difference between a recital, and a duet.”

But poetic words cannot soothe Dhamari's trepidation in this regard. He averts his face again, exhaling shallowly.

"Why - why do you want to?" he asks, his jaw tight. It's as much a genuine question as a way of stalling for time, as he tries to tamp down the anxieties that are roiling around inside him like mushroom spores. "Because if all you want is to be - distracted, from the thought of what might happen tomorrow -"

"No," utters Gale again, before amending, "Or rather - that is merely a small part of it."

Slowly, gently, he lifts Dhamari's hand and settles it against his chest.

"I am asking this," he goes on quietly, "because passing even a few nights in your company has reminded me how extraordinarily pleasant it is, to be physically close with someone who means so very much to me. Because I want to share myself with you, in a way I have often set aside, in the past, in favour of more… esoteric relations." He pauses for a moment as a soft grimace crosses his face. "And, quite candidly… because I would like to know that this orb-wracked body of mine can still feel something that is not pain, or the numbing echo of it."

Dhamari winces imperceptibly at this last remark. Even with the orb stabilised by the archmage Elminster's hand, he knows that Gale still suffers from its effects. He has seen the unnatural weariness that lines the wizard's face when Gale overextends himself, heard the tautness of Gale's breathing beside him as the pain finds a stronger hold in the shadowed hours before dawn. Even now, his hand caught within the cradle of Gale's grasp, he can feel the way the other's fingers are trembling from more than doubt or fear.

And still, Dhamari must give the man due credit - despite such clear-stated desires, there is no sense of wheedling in Gale's words. No coaxing or cajoling, no attempt at all to sway the drow's opinion; only a simple explanation of his reasons, and now silence, as he awkwardly awaits an answer.

Dhamari has no wish to cruelly deny him comfort during this, perhaps their final night together. And yet the thought of laying with Gale makes him cringe, sending a dreadful weight into the pit of his gut.

"Gale, I… I like being close with you too," he falters out at last, hoarsely. "Truly I do. But I… I can't."

He clamps his eyes shut, his voice a shudder.

"I'm sorry. I just - can't."

A heartbeat passes, and then he feels a light compression of his hand in response.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," Gale tells him. He exhales lowly. "As I said - I suspected the answer, but I wanted to be certain of it. Ambiguity tends to be detrimental in these matters, and very often leads to embarrassment for all parties."

Tentatively, Dhamari slits his eyes open again, and from their corners he casts an uncertain glance at Gale.

"You're… you're not disappointed, then?" he asks haltingly, as with increasing bewilderment he searches the wizard's face for any signs of just that. Or angry? he wonders, with another flicker of apprehension, although he keeps this addendum to himself.

But Gale only smiles at him a little. "Not a bit," he assures, and if he is truly harbouring any discontent at Dhamari's refusal, the drow cannot find it. "In fact, now that we understand one another, I would like to propose an alternative to such activities."

Dhamari exhales audibly. He can feel some of the tension sliding from his hunched shoulders, the feverish flutterings inside him slowed by cautious relief. He looks at Gale properly again, and gives a slight cant of his head.

"Go on…."

Gale's smile quirks in suggestion.

"There are… other expressions of intimacy," he offers. "Other ways of sharing in each other's company - ways that have nothing at all to do with our physical bodies."

As Dhamari's ears tilt curiously, Gale gently turns the sorcerer's hand over, and wafts a fingertip over his palm.

"Do you recall," he muses, "during that first night we spent together, when I borrowed a spark of your magic?" He touches the end of his forefinger to Dhamari's corresponding digit. "The feeling of that connection we shared, if only for an instant?"

He waits for Dhamari's nod before going on, "Now - imagine that feeling amplified a hundredfold. A thousandfold, as our very spirits intertwine with visions of the Weave." He lifts his gaze, and now Dhamari can see a glint of that old enthusiasm in his eyes.

"I could conjure up any sight that you could dream of - and a few you could not. I could use the Weave to make us feel sensations beyond reckoning. Speak your desire, Dhamari - and I shall compose it for you."

The offer is a strangely enticing one, as Dhamari remembers the visceral, energised feeling of his magic humming between them. The thought of sharing that experience again sends a slight shiver dancing through him.

"You must be tired, though," he says. "After… all of this." He arcs his chin at the starscape above them.

Gale smiles again. "I've a bit of magical stamina left in me yet, I promise," he assures, "and I should very much like to use it for your benefit." He threads his hand with Dhamari's once more, giving it a small squeeze. "Please - allow me to share this with you."

Dhamari feels an echo of the wizard's smile nudging at his own mouth, and at last he nods. "I'd like that," he says softly. "Very much."

"Splendid," murmurs Gale. He pulls himself slowly to his feet, drawing Dhamari with him, only releasing his grasp when the drow is fully upright. He spreads his hands in invitation. "Now - what shall it be?"

Dhamari fiddles with the end of his sleeve as he glances around the meadow. His eyes follow one of the fireflies flitting through the grass, as though he might find inspiration wandering in its wake. Imagination, he knows, is not one of his strengths, and Gale has already granted him one of his few tangible wishes - to see the stars again.

"I… I'm not sure," he admits, a bit sheepish now. Gale wants this to be about him, but he wants it to be about Gale. For a fleeting instant, Dhamari wonders when such selfless thoughts had managed to worm their way into his character. Finally, after another few moments, an idea forms.

Dhamari looks up again. "You… you said all this would be better, if you - if we - were home," he recalls. "So… what if we were? Your home, that is," he adds, as though Gale might somehow misread this remark as a desire to return to Sshamath. "Not mine."

Gale's shadowed eyes seem to light up at this suggestion.

"Yes," he declares - low, yet undeniably eager. He brushes a finger across his chin in consideration. "How about… the perfect night in Waterdeep?"

He straightens, lifts his hand, and all around them the Weave begins to shimmer and coalesce; swirling, deepening, wrapping them in its sensual embrace. Dhamari tips his head back, watching as the stars themselves begin to shift, spiralling into restless galaxies along the currents of Gale's will.

"Come," Gale entreats, as the tranquil vision of meadow and sky is swept away into the Weave's unformed brightness. "Let's imagine how it would be…."

Chapter Text

"The scene is this: you and I stand in the room that is the centre of my universe."

Gale's words seem to echo briefly around Dhamari, then settle again before him, as a vast arc of the wizard's hand brings the Weave steadily back into substance, and into focus.

Looking around, Dhamari experiences an odd jolt of recognition. He remembers this place - or rather, recalls the memory of it. That brief glimpse he had gotten when Gale first opened his mind to the drow, and shared with him the harrowing experience of being inflicted with the orb.

But this time, the feel of it is quite different. Tranquility, rather than trauma. Sanctuary, instead of sorrow.

Gale's study is warm and wood-panelled, cosy with a scholar's clutter, yet several tall, latticed windows keep the space from feeling confined. To one side sits an ornate wooden desk, its drawers and cubbies patterned with pleasing geometric designs, its surface strewn with a wizard's ruminations and curios. Opposite, a lively fire crackles in a marble hearth; it casts an inviting glow over a couch and armchair cushioned in worn red leather, and illuminates the slew of papers and scrolls scattered across the low table in between.

Gale glances about with a wistful smile as the room solidifies into being.

"The sculptures, the paintings," he picks up after a moment, spreading out his hands to indicate each feature in turn. His voice has taken on the storyteller's timbre, granting import to the scene around them. "The walls, enlivened by the spines of a thousand books."

There are indeed rows upon rows of books, and not just packed into the shelves that are built into nearly every available wall space; tomes line the top of the desk, and are stacked on stools and tables, and teeter in tall piles all around the room wherever there is an out-of-the-way bit of floor to be had. Dhamari thinks back to the dozens of books currently heaped in Gale's tent like a dragon's hoard, and wonders where in this room they were ever intended to fit.

Gale pivots to face Dhamari, and his smile broadens as he continues his narrative.

"Our bellies have been sated with a delicious home-cooked dinner - crafted by yours truly - during which you, much to your astonishment, found yourself enjoying each and every one of the seven courses." He flicks a deliberate finger at Dhamari, and actually grins now. "Even moreso because you remain eternally grateful that I didn't tell you what was in the dessert."

Dhamari huffs a slight laugh at this. Gale has never allowed him to forget that incident, back in the early days of their travels together, when the wizard had first taken the party's meal duties upon himself and then made the mistake of disclosing the ingredients that comprised them. Upon learning that one evening's repast contained cleverly disguised cabbage, Dhamari had promptly spat out his mouthful of food - which until that point had been perfectly edible - and an outraged Gale had tossed up his hands, declaring that he would cease explaining his art if the efforts were not to be appreciated.

"I take you by the hand," Gale goes on now, extending his own hand in offering; Dhamari steps forward with a smile and winds his fingers around Gale's. "And together we stroll leisurely through the marvel of literary architecture that is my study."

Their steps across the polished floor are softened by several mismatched yet tasteful woven rugs, as Gale leads Dhamari through the towers of books and towards the curtain-framed double doors at other end of the room. The drow sniffs curiously at the air as he goes, and is unsurprised to find that the scent of this place is almost identical to that of Gale's tent - old wood and candle wax, bound leather and rosewater.

"The grand piano plays the Lliirian Suites all by itself," Gale enumerates, with a gesture towards the gold-embellished piano that stands in a corner, and now Dhamari can hear the soft, yearning notes drifting from its enchanted keys. "And, as we look out beyond the arches that lead to the terrace, we see the weary sun take its daily dive into the sea."

The doors open silently at their approach, and a flood of brilliant sunlight spills into the room. Even in this illusion, Dhamari is forced to halt, squinting fiercely for an instant as his sensitive eyes adjust to the sudden brightness.

In that momentary pause, he feels Gale slip his hand free. Blinking his eyes open again, Dhamari watches as the wizard paces out onto the terrace, his fingers brushing at the leaves of a mauve-flowered potted plant as he passes.

For several long moments, Gale stands quietly at the balcony; silhouetted against the dying sunlight, his head turning slowly as he surveys the familiar view. One of Dhamari's ears tilts lower. Caressed by the connection that is this Weave-wrought environ, he can sense the longing that has returned to tint Gale's mood with its melancholy melody.

The drow pads forward, past a high-backed wooden bench and a small round table, the latter now miraculously bearing the half-full cups and wine bottle they had previously set aside. He retrieves the cups, then steps up beside Gale, carefully pressing one of them into the man's hand before taking a drink from the other.

"It's… quite a view," he says, leaning a little to peer beyond the balcony's rail. To either side stretches out the fabled City of Splendours, its buildings awash with descending sunlight, while ahead and far, far below, golden caps glimmer upon the dark waves of the sea.

"That it is." Gale takes an automatic sip of his wine, then closes his eyes for a moment, his chin lifting as he breathes in deeply.

"Smell that salt on the air, Dhamari," he invites. "From here we see the merchant ships as they sail slowly by, headed towards the Great Harbour on that final stretch of their long journeys upon the sea. Linger a while, and soon we will hear the palace bells pealing out across the city, heralding the sun's last quaver of light."

A long breath leaves him; and then, like he can no longer hold it in: "Gods, I miss it."

There is an audible ache in his voice as he passes another look around. "The sights, the sounds… even the people, many though they are." He sighs softly. "And then to return here at the end of the day -" he makes a brief motion at the doors behind him "- and leave the clamour of it all outside… to settle back in the calm, and the quiet… a glass of wine in my hand, Tara in my lap, of course… both of us bathed in the light of the fire, and the glow of utter civility."

Looking helplessly up at him, Dhamari can think of nothing to do but give a wordless squeeze to the wizard's free hand. As though reminded of the drow's presence, Gale seems to rouse himself from his drifting lament, and glances at Dhamari in return.

"Make no mistake," he adds, sounding a little easier. "I enjoy a grand adventure as much as the next wizard. But the truth is, I'm something of a homebody at heart. I've rarely spent so much time away from my tower. And this adventure of ours… well. It's become a far grander, far grimmer endeavour than any of us could have predicted."

Dhamari tilts his head. "Then let's sit for a while," he suggests simply. He turns away and moves towards the bench, giving a light tug to Gale's hand as he goes. "We can forget about all of that, and just sit, and enjoy being here. That was the idea, was it not?"

Gale breathes in again and releases it slowly.

"You're quite right." He puts the setting sun to his back, and smiles when he sees how the drow has perched himself on the edge of the bench.

"My favourite spot," he declares, with a fond gesture of his cup. He steps unhurriedly over and takes a seat beside Dhamari. "Many times, evening turned to night and back to daybreak once more while I sat here, lost in words."

Dhamari gives him a tiny squint. "That isn't what we're going to do, is it?" he asks carefully. "I do enjoy when you read aloud, but… not all night."

Gale chuckles faintly. "Only in the loosest and most metaphorical sense," he assures.

He sets his cup down on the table beside him, and instead ghosts his fingers over the gilded cover of the tome resting there (which Dhamari is certain was not present when he first glanced in that direction).

"This one here," Gale tells him thoughtfully, "is called 'The Art of the Night'. It details the first thousand nights of a newlywed king and queen."

He shifts a little where he sits, angling himself more towards Dhamari.

"They turned everything they did into an art," he explains, softer now. His eyes have narrowed, the lines at their corners deepening as he regards Dhamari keenly. "The art of conversation. The art of taste, time honoured and newly acquired."

He reaches for Dhamari's hand, deliberately weaving their fingers together.

"The art of the body." He gives the drow's hand a slow, gentle squeeze. "The exploration and acceptance of the self, and the other."

At this, Dhamari's brows draw fractionally together. Watching him, Gale cants his head, and then adds easily, "Although, I think we can skip over that particular chapter. Per your comfort."

Dhamari lets out a rueful breath, nodding gratefully. He compresses Gale's hand in reply, but does not interrupt, only looks up expectantly at the wizard.

"The art of creation," Gale muses on. "Drawing purpose out of chaos, spinning dreams into reality. The art of the night itself."

He leans a little closer, his mouth quirked with an encouraging smile, and murmurs, "I say we take a page from their book."

Dhamari's answering smile is intrigued, but also rather shy. "This is all still… very new to me, Gale," he reminds the other man, as one ear dips lower. And as inviting as Gale makes these things sound, Dhamari is not convinced he has the proper temperament to appreciate the nuances of such… abstract diversions.

"Then we'll start writing the prequel," suggests Gale, pivoting gracefully in his line of thought to fall in step with the drow's more cautious pace. He drops his chin, regarding Dhamari for a moment from under the dark line of his lashes. "What do you say?"

Dhamari considers him. "I say you're being cryptic again, Gale," he replies after a moment, though a hint of amusement hovers on his lips.

Gale's eyes crinkle further, and he huffs another laugh. "Then I shall endeavour to be more direct," he says, with exaggerated gravitas.

He retrieves the book from its place on the table, and Dhamari catches a brief glimpse of the cover: two human-like figures, their bodies arched and sinuously entwined. But above the coil of their forms is inscribed the word 'illusion', and with Gale's words also in mind, the sorcerer understands that what would ordinarily be an uncomfortably erotic image is, in truth, as much a symbolic union as a literal one.

Gale opens the heavy tome and hefts it in his palm with practised ease, flicking through a few pages until he finds the object of his intent.

"Come here," he coaxes, as he scoots himself sideways and lays the open book on the bench between them. There is something so tender, so familiar in the way he says it, that Dhamari feels a warm glow flit through him in response.

As Gale carefully smooths out the pages, the drow glances curiously down. On either page is a stylised drawing of an open hand - one right, one left - accompanied by diagram-like lines and various notes in a script he cannot make out.

He looks up again. "What does it say?" he asks Gale.

Gale merely smiles at him. "The words aren't important," he answers. "What matters is what we can feel through its pages."

He skims his fingertips over the book as though in demonstration, but his gaze remains steadily on Dhamari.

"Why confine ourselves to the pleasures of mortal flesh, after all?" the wizard questions softly. "It is but one stitch in a vast tapestry. Let me show you more."

Leaning in, Gale sets his right hand deliberately upon the page nearest Dhamari, aligning his palm and fingers with the contours drawn out in ink. At his touch, the markings on the page begin to shiver and glow, and Gale's hand brightens as well with a violet blush of magic.

He flicks a look up at Dhamari - expectant, and encouraging. The drow glances from the book, to Gale, then down again. Catching his lower lip between his teeth, he abandons his cup on the floor nearby; then slowly, gingerly, he stretches out and mirrors the wizard's stance, laying his left hand upon the tome's opposing page.

Immediately his breath hitches as the magic wends its way from beneath Gale's hand to engulf his own, threading a connection between them that hums and vibrates like a harp's plucked string. It is a taut, heady feeling; it makes Dhamari want to swell his lungs, arch his back, as though his singular, ground-snared body simply cannot contain what blooms within.

"Close your eyes, Dhamari," whispers Gale. "Let the currents of magic carry you. And we shall weave our very souls together upon a sea of endless starlight."

It requires surprising effort, but Dhamari does as instructed; exhaling silently as his eyelids fall shut, and yielding to the embrace of the magic glimmering around them.

A moment later he feels a startling touch to his hand, and a gentle tug upon his arm, and suddenly the unbearable constraint of his body is - gone. His eyes fly open again - or do they? Because now he is looking down at himself, and those eyes are still firmly closed, that hand still set unwaveringly upon the tome laid between himself and Gale. And Dhamari - his inner self, his spirit, whatever Gale would call it - is instead floating freely, save for one glowing, intangible arm that is stretched out before him, caught by that unexpected touch.

Dhamari quickly looks up and sees Gale hovering above him, his hand extended to offer the lightest of holds on the drow's. Like Dhamari, the wizard has also taken on a luminous, translucent form - more outline than solid contour, a suggestion of a human figure, yet still readily identifiable as Gale. The sweep of his waved hair, the beard that frames his smile, the broadness of his chest and belly; and even here, the ever-present mark of the orb, bright upon his see-through skin.

Dhamari notes that they both seem to be naked, but the thought is a curiously detached one. Somehow it doesn't seem to matter, as though the concepts of exposure or embarrassment simply have no claim upon the radiance of these ephemeral forms. Reflections of their mortal vessels, yet magnificently untarnished by such mundane concerns.

Gale's fingers give another light nudge to Dhamari's shimmering palm. Come with me, he requests, but the words do not issue from his mouth; rather, Dhamari seems to hear them echoing inside his head. It's not entirely unlike the communication afforded them by their squirming tadpoles; but where the parasites' connection is abrasive, intrusive, Gale's invitation wafts over Dhamari like a fresh breeze.

The drow nods in acquiescence. Gale smiles, straightens back, begins guiding him upward, and suddenly the tower, the city, the sea - all of it is falling away, as their spirits mark a spiralling ascent into an infinite, star-resplendent sky.

Breath is a thing of the physical, yet Dhamari seems to catch it all the same. His weightless figure twists this way and that, drinking in the impossible scope of their surroundings. Vast clouds in colours he cannot name, some nearly too bright to look at, their swirling brilliance set against the deepest reaches of night. And the stars - in all the nights he's spent with his head tipped back, staring up at the finally sunless sky, he has never imagined that such an endless array could exist. Some look close enough to touch, as though he could reach out with hand or foot and send them spinning from their places like leaves upon the surface of a lake. His wondering gaze traces their glittering swathes, stretching farther and farther from where he hovers; until at the very limits of his sight they appear so densely clustered together that it seems improbable there is any sky left at all between them.

A decadent dizziness comes over Dhamari, and something nearing a laugh echoes from his nonexistent lungs, as he wonders if it is only Gale's fragile touch that anchors him here, and keeps him from tumbling away into eternity.

Gale, he starts, but finds there is no need to go on; he can feel the other man's euphoria at his reaction thrumming through the magic that connects them.

I remembered what you told me, about the first time you laid eyes upon the stars. Gale drifts lower, closer, reaching with his free hand to caress his fingertips over Dhamari's translucent cheek. His touch is what Dhamari imagines a flame would feel like, if he could somehow sink himself into a fire without being burned. I wanted you to feel that again. That freedom. That ecstasy.

Dhamari smiles, tilting his head into Gale's hand. I feel it, he answers, and the wizard smiles back at him.

When you wake, it will be back at our camp - back in our small, dirty, bloody patch of existence. Gale curves both of his hands around Dhamari's face, and his touch sends tingles of light pulsing through the sorcerer's celestial form.

But stay with me now, he implores. There are endless worlds out there. Countless ways to declare love. Infinite ways to express it. Too much for one night….

Gale leans forward, and lays a single soft kiss upon Dhamari's parted lips.

…But we shall try.

He draws back, lets go, and for one stumbling, terrifying moment, Dhamari fears he will fall away into oblivion. But then Gale's starlit hand is around his own again, gently guiding it up beside him. As Dhamari watches, the wizard's fingertips brush so delicately over the tender underside of his wrist, then up across his palm, until at last their hands are pressed evenly against each other. And then their fingers seem to simply meld together, and suddenly there is only one hand for both of them, and it is luminous with the surge of magic that joins them.

Dhamari has no words for the intensity of the sensation this incites - the energy, the vitality, as Gale's deep connection with the Weave becomes his own. His head falls back, and he shivers in delight, as restless strands of lightning begin to thread themselves through his incorporeal form.

Gale drifts back, sinking a little into the emptiness below, and once more lifts his face to Dhamari. His voice rolls through the drow - bold, beseeching:

Let me be the fire ignited by your storm.

More than an offer, it is an invocation - as devout as any spell he casts, and Dhamari is set alight by its potential.

More lightning flowers from within, jagged and volatile; it courses through him, flooding down his arm and into Gale's. He feels the swift flare of the other's magic in response. White-hot flames rise to lick across Gale's skin, spreading unchecked until the outline of the man's figure is blurred by their brilliant tongues: a fire not extinguished by the drow's torrent, but fed by it.

Encouraged by the wordless blaze of Gale's reply, Dhamari lets loose the storm inside himself - it arcs from him, envelopes him, until he is incandescent with its power. Forks of lightning fracture the auroral clouds, and the reverberation of their voices causes the very stars to quake as it echoes endlessly through the sky. An impossible wind picks up, sending silent drops of rain dashing against the air; all around the ripples of their impact warp the clarity of the night.

Yet where the sorcerer's magic normally spits and writhes with chaotic intent, here it is… steadier. Dhamari feels a strange concord in this tempest, as though Gale's calm, purposeful presence is the counterpoint that guides his usual dissonance into harmony. The fury, the fear, that so often limns his magic is remarkably absent. There is only the storm, and he is its heart - vibrant and unfettered, as he rivals the stars with his vivid beat.

The Weave wraps itself around wizard and sorcerer, pulsing through them, twining their spirits together. Soon Dhamari can barely distinguish where his song ends and Gale's begins. His very existence is seared with Gale's flames, and his own lightning courses through his companion, and it brings such ardent exhilaration that he wants nothing more than to lose himself in this magnificent weaving of magic.

And for a while, he gets his wish. Words, thoughts - these are no longer necessary, as both men give themselves over to the expressions of other senses.

Dhamari has never imagined that a bond with someone could bring such freedom. That such vulnerability before another person could also grant such ecstasy.

If this is love, as Gale would declare it - then Dhamari's only fear now is its ending.

Chapter Text

As lightning flashes around him, and flames flicker between the clouds - here, in the eye of the storm, his very existence spun in starlight, Gale is exultant.

He has not opened himself to the Weave like this in what now seems like an age. Not since before the tadpoles, before the orb, when he still had claim to the title of Mystra's Chosen, and the Mother of Magic yet deigned to dance with him through the wonders of her domain. He'd almost forgotten the rapture that came with sharing such an experience, the transcendent bliss of bonding through senses unshackled by any physical form.

And yet, even as he burns euphorically here beside Dhamari, each of their spirits enlivened by the other's magic, Gale slowly realises that it feels - different.

His analogous interactions with Mystra had been breathtaking, of course. Exquisite. Incandescent. And many other qualities which even he did not possess adequate vocabulary to describe. But through them all, some part of him had known that the piece of the goddess granted to him was but a fraction of her divine totality. Even during the most wondrous of encounters between them, she had always held herself back, offering only enough of her affection to sate him.

But here, with Dhamari, there is no such restraint. Here, amidst the endless possibilities of this summoned starscape, the drow refuses to be quelled; and Gale is not only permitted, but invited, to share in the unabashed splendour of the sorcerer's tumultuous soul. He can feel each of Dhamari's emotions as clearly as his own: the fascination, the ferocity, and most of all the fullness of the devotion that binds them together through the Weave.

The disparity is astounding, and Gale is stunned by it. After all, he had given himself to his goddess, in body and mind and heart - and in return, he sees now, she had offered the equivalent of a metaphorical hand to kiss. A beautiful, beckoning, beguiling hand, to be sure; one over which he might have spent a lifetime rhapsodising, if offered the chance.

And yet, when set against the unbridled intimacy of the magic now flowing between himself and Dhamari… Gale has no doubt whose hand he would rather hold.

So hold it he does, so tightly that Dhamari's fingers become his own. He draws the drow close again, basking in the fire that has been set ablaze by the other's spark-strewn spirit. And the bright melding of their magic engulfs them both, until they are but two more brilliant stars echoing across a storm-tossed, celestial sea.

Yet even this glorious eternity is little more than an illusion, and so must have an ending. At last Gale feels his command of the Weave growing frayed and threadbare, and he knows, with a deep knell of regret, that it is time to return to reality.

Dhamari is still pulsing beside him, a vaguely drow-shaped figure formed in pure lightning. Gale focuses, wrapping his intent around the sorcerer - a soothing blanket to ease his storm and guide him gently back to camp, where the comfort of his bedroll can embrace him.

But Dhamari is - resistant to the idea. His presence seems to clench, the bond between his hand and Gale's tightening rather than sliding loose, and through his awareness Gale hears a fervent, almost desperate denial:

I don't want to wake up. I don't want this to be over.

Gale can hardly blame him; the thought of returning to their dreary camp, steeling themselves once more against the rotting shadows before clawing a path deeper through them, is far from appealing.

But the Weave's shimmering strands are slipping from his grasp, and already the visions are unravelling around them - the colours fading, the nebulae dissipating, the myriad stars dispersing into darkness.

Gale tugs again at Dhamari, trying to bring him back before the dream is entirely undone. But Dhamari's spirit clings to him, and instead of sending the drow away into solitary slumber, Gale finds himself tumbling back to earth alongside his companion.

The clearing that catches them is nothing like the vision of serenity that had cradled them before. The rockfaces are slick with a fierce, driving rain, and the half-bared branches of the trees are setting up a muffled clamour as the wind drags at them with its teeth. The once-ethereal night is now dim and thick, broken only by an occasional crack of lightning cutting through the shadows overhead.

Gale is drenched. Disoriented by the abrupt change in atmosphere, he wipes a wet bit of hair from his face and uncertainly pulls himself into a sit. The rug beneath him is as soaked as his clothes, the ground around him once more hard and uninviting with its coating of brittle, rain-beaten grass. The fireflies are nowhere to be seen. Only a few glimmers of magic still hover around him, the last remnants of his woven yearnings.

There is a sharp, lonely ache buried in the afterglow of his euphoria - not unexpected after leaving the intimacy of the Weave behind. Yet he barely has time to pull in a steadying breath against it before Dhamari is beside him again.

The drow's normally wild hair is a sodden waterfall down the back of his skull, and his long robe clings to his limbs as he crawls up against the other man. Thin tendrils of lightning still shiver up and down his body as he sets his palms on Gale's shoulders, pressing the wizard back.

"Not yet," the sorcerer implores thickly, his voice echoing a low growl of thunder from above them.

Gale rapidly blinks rainwater from his eyelashes. "I'm afraid I haven't anything left in me," he pants out in apology, as he struggles to make sense of his enduring elation against the backdrop of these once-again-dismal surroundings. "In any event, we shouldn't linger here." While the stalking shadows have yet to reclaim this small patch of their territory, he knows it is only a matter of time.

But Dhamari leans forward, resting his rain-streaked forehead gently against Gale's own.

"Not yet," he murmurs again, sounding ragged this time; and with sudden clarity Gale realises that it is not the wonder of the Weave's embrace which Dhamari is loath to relinquish - it is Gale himself.

A dazed little breath leaves him. Instinctively he shifts beneath Dhamari's weight, extracting one arm from behind himself and folding it around his companion. His hand wends up through Dhamari's lank hair, and there it stays, holding the other man tightly against him. His own heartbeat may be perpetually smothered by the orb, but he is almost certain he can feel Dhamari's - rapid and heavy as the sorcerer resettles into the material world.

Moments pass, slow and sodden and each more precious than the last. For the first time since he was charged with his fateful task, Gale faces a true moment of doubt. He closes his eyes, turning his head a little so that his cheek brushes against the drow's as the rain continues to beat down upon them both.

How can he simply let go of this? How can he cast Dhamari away as though what they have just shared - indeed, what they still share - is not enough to see them through all the darkness that awaits them?

But bracing two bodies up on one trembling arm soon proves untenable. "Dhamari," he grunts, opening his eyes again, and he gently but insistently levers himself against the drow.

Reluctantly Dhamari slides back, just enough to allow Gale to sit up again. The sorcerer's breathing is shallow, uneven, and his expression is unquestionably raw, as fading delight and returning distress war across the sharp angles of his face.

He says nothing as he stares at Gale. He doesn't need to speak - the plea that has returned to the dark wells of his eyes says enough.

But then a curious wrinkle of concentration appears between his brows. He bites his lip, reaches out, and slowly traces two trembling fingers along the faint, unnatural lines that run from below the wizard's left eye and down his cheek.

A brief tingle of lightning follows the movement, and Gale's breath hitches audibly. The spark is not painful by any stretch, but nevertheless he can feel the way his nerves flurry and hum in response.

"What… what are you doing?" he asks hoarsely, at once perplexed and enticed by the sorcerer's electrified touch.

"Can you feel it?" queries Dhamari intently, instead of answering. He wafts his thumb alongside Gale's mouth, and another little jolt dances across the man's skin, darting from raindrop to spattered raindrop like stepping stones over an abyss.

Gale's eyes flutter closed, his forehead tightening as his lips quirk. "Yes," he murmurs, surprised by the question. "Yes, of course I can."

Now Dhamari's fingers brush across Gale's brow, as though trying to smooth away the lines there. "What does it feel like?" he presses lowly. It seems important to him.

Gale opens his eyes again, only to squint immediately as a lash of wind throws more rain into his face. He ponders for a few moments, trying to focus as distracting paths of lightning continue to roam over Dhamari's sopping form.

"It is like… taking my weary body down to the beach, after a trying day back home," he decides at last, slowly, "and immersing myself in the brisk, chill bite of the sea."

Dhamari cants his head, and after a beat or two he admits, "I've never done that."

Perhaps it is the fact that Gale could have so easily guessed this about him that draws a weak chuckle from his chest.

"It is… startling," he expands on the comparison. "Shocking, even, if you'll pardon the play on words. But - pleasantly so. Invigorating. It makes one feel…."

He blinks once, and then his eyes crinkle softly at their corners, and after another moment he finishes, "…alive."

Dhamari smiles at him - taut and slight, and yet through the cobweb remnants of their connection, Gale senses something distinctly satisfied.

"Then that is how I want you to feel," breathes Dhamari. He cups Gale's face in both hands now, stroking his fingers from the man's temples to his jaw, and lightning dapples the wizard's skin like reflections of moonlight on a restless sea.

Gale lets out a heady breath at this stimulating feeling - only to have it cut off as Dhamari leans in and kisses him soundly. A muffled noise of surprise escapes him. The drow has never been this forward before; it seems that their bond in the Weave has emboldened him.

Not about to offer complaint, Gale readily reciprocates, kissing Dhamari back with unexpected need. There is something curiously grounding in it. A simplicity, an immediacy, not congruent with the ethereal abstractions of the Weave, that seems to focus all of his awareness on Dhamari; the wet hands that grip his face, the unpractised lips that press a little too hard against his own.

But it's not long before Dhamari's touch trails elsewhere. His lightning-laced fingers follow the fronds of the orb over Gale's jaw and down his neck, and his mouth moves purposefully in their wake, as though with each fumbling caress he can somehow dispel the calamity that waits within.

Every hair on Gale's body seems to stand on end as Dhamari's lightning tickles across him. He swells his chest as he feels the orb stir in response, its thin coils flaring upon his skin. Not angry, at least, not dangerous - not yet - but a sullen grumble, like a dozing beast whose rest has been unceremoniously disturbed.

As Gale tucks his chin down and looks on, mesmerised, Dhamari hooks his fingers over the embroidered collar of his tunic and tugs it lower, offering more of Gale's skin to the drowning rain. The body of the orb is exposed, and Dhamari presses his lips to it, tracing the bright sphere with more careful, unversed kisses.

Its glow intensifies beneath his attentions. Gale squints his left eye slightly as the orb's veins pulse upon his cheek.

"Easy there," he entreats faintly. "Easy…."

But there is an uncharacteristic gentleness in Dhamari's magical ministrations. Gale's trepidation is quickly washed away, replaced by an enchanted little smile as he gazes down at the drow.

"That is… remarkable," he breathes. He knows firsthand how difficult it is to apply any sort of restraint to the volatile tempest of storm magic. That Dhamari, of all people - ordinarily so destructive - is able to coax his lightning over Gale without ever actually shocking him is nothing short of miraculous.

Intent on his activities, Dhamari does not answer; he merely smiles a little, nuzzling his face against the curve of Gale's neck as he sends more lightning shivering along the man's throat.

Letting his head fall back, Gale weaves his hand through Dhamari's hair again and allows the drow do as he will. The rain is still hard and relentless upon his face, but in truth he welcomes it; the downpour is a refreshing change from the rest of this cursed environment, where the cycles of nature have lain stagnant for decades.

He finds himself sagging back onto the soggy rug, and rather than struggle to remain upright, he gives in. Dhamari's weight follows, pressing upon Gale's torso as he leans down and continues to stroke slow, stimulating threads of magic over the wizard's face and chest.

Another roll of thunder coughs overhead. Gale smiles crookedly up at the perpetrator, then closes his eyes, breathing deeply of the scent of petrichor. And for just a little while, with Dhamari's lightning humming through his half-numbed body - Gale can actually feel his own heart beating again.

Some interval later - a few minutes at most, though it feels like far longer - he realises that the easy motions of Dhamari's fingers have stopped. Gale's nerves are still pleasantly alight as he gingerly cracks one eye open against the rain and peers at his companion. The drow's head is laid upon his shoulder, his hand resting where the now-dimmed lines of the orb disappear beneath Gale's collar. A few tendrils of lightning still meander across his body, but they are feeble and far between.

Gale passes his hand once over Dhamari's drenched hair. The sorcerer stirs at his touch, dragging his face up to view the other man.

"There," he murmurs, sounding spent. "I gave you your answer. You can feel something besides pain."

The flickerings of a grin pull at the corners of Gale's mouth. "So I can," he grants softly. A delighted sigh deflates his lungs, and he continues on, "Thank you."

He uses his other hand to dredge away some of the hair plastered to his forehead. While the rain appears to be slackening off a bit, it has by no means ended, and the night around them remains decidedly inhospitable. Gale shivers - once, but with vigour.

"We should make our way back," he suggests at length, gently. "Try to catch an hour or two of sleep, before the others wake." He pauses, then adds with a wry huff, "I don't imagine this deluge will have earned you any kind looks in camp."

"I don't care," grunts Dhamari, sounding half asleep already. His reply draws a faint chuckle from Gale, who cranes his head to lay a brief kiss on the other's brow.

"Come on," he encourages. "Before we both catch our death of cold out here thanks to your inclement personality."

There is no reply from Dhamari, who remains where he is. Gale gives him a slight nudge, and then a light stroke along his ear, and it is only when he tries to bodily shift beneath him that he realises - the drow has indeed succumbed to the fatigue of their magical exertions, and fallen asleep.

Gale shakes his head and huffs again, an endeared little smile ambling across his face. "Taking me at my word, I see," he murmurs fondly. "Or one of them, at least." Dhamari never does seem to take the whole of Gale's meaning to heart, preferring to pick and choose what serves him best.

The drow is fully a head shorter than the wizard, and narrowly built, and so does not prove overly difficult for Gale to gather into his arms. The journey back to camp is another matter. Leaving the rug and wine to languish in the clearing, Gale cradles the dozing Dhamari to his chest, bows his head against the rain, and sets off between the rattling trees. His extremities feel slightly numb, and his body quivers with exhaustion; several times the drow's weight threatens to stagger him as he picks his way over the uneven terrain.

Yet there is a noticeable glow inside him, undampened by shadow or storm; a stubborn flame of elation that refuses to be snuffed out. It invigorates him, buoying his steps as he follows the trail of faintly glowing markers he had earlier laid out for Dhamari's guidance.

As he'd surmised, the camp is just as drenched and dark upon their return as the clearing they had left; every torch, as well as the central fire, has been doused by the fervent outbursts of their resident storm sorcerer. Not for the first time, Gale offers a mental nod of thanks to the pixie Dhamari had freed from its lantern cage; its blessing means that even without the ward of torchlight, the party remains safe from the curse's hungry grasp.

Instead, with some slight difficulty, Gale conjures a tiny light of his own to follow as he trudges across the muddied ground of their campsite. More than a few objects usually positioned outside of various tents have been scattered by gusts of wind, but the tents themselves appear to be upright - although quite empty. Gale suspects that the rest of their companions have hunkered down in one of the abandoned buildings nearby, and a quick glance in that direction reassures him, as he spies a hint of firelight glowing beyond a dilapidated wall. Not the most ideal shelter, true - but certainly more resilient in a storm than the feeble canvas of their individual abodes.

Dhamari's grey tent is small and sparse in comparison to most of the others, and appears to have weathered the tempest without much difficulty. Gale dips his head and awkwardly shoulders his way inside, exhaling a low groan of relief as he kneels and deposits the drow onto his bedroll. Even after months on the road, the most Gale is accustomed to carrying is an armload of books pilfered from one neglected place or another; Dhamari, slight though he is by human standards, weighs at least half a bookshelf's worth of tomes.

Sitting back on his heels, Gale utters a weary cantrip and crooks a hand in the air. There's a sensation like a brief, powerful draught of warm air, and then both he and Dhamari are as dry as if they'd been sitting for hours before a crackling fire.

With a soft sigh, Gale tugs at the blanket lying near his knees and carefully draws it up across Dhamari's slumbering form. He regards the drow tenderly for a few moments, then leans over him again, wafting the back of his finger ever so gently over Dhamari's tattooed temple.

"Sleep well," he whispers; and then, hardly more than a breath, he dares to add, "My love."

The notable ache in his knees is strangely easy to ignore as he pushes to his feet again and ducks out of the tent, making sure to secure the flap as he leaves. The rain has diminished to a steady spatter, and Gale doesn't bother to hunch his shoulders against it as he squelches across camp to his own dwelling; doesn't even attempt to dry himself with another cantrip before stretching his tired body out upon the sea of bedding that awaits him. Somehow, the renewed dampness of his hair and face feels… poignant. A precious reminder, like the steady glow inside him, of the remarkable night he has just spent in the company of the one he loves.

He lifts a hand into the dimness before him, and using the scant bit of magic that remains to him tonight, he watches again as a few frayed echoes of Dhamari's lightning shiver across his palm.

Gale smiles to himself. He closes his fingers around the sparks dancing there, and sighs again - easier, contented, even - as he settles back into the pillows.

A not-insignificant portion of his mind is still blurred with amazement in the aftermath of these last hours; and he knows that, come daybreak, he will have pivotal questions to answer - and critical decisions to make.

But for now, with the darkness of his thoughts driven back by this nascent flame fluttering within, Gale lets his eyes fall slowly closed, and allows sleep to claim him.

Chapter Text

Dhamari is jolted awake by the sounds of the camp stirring outside - most specifically, the outraged exclamations of a very incensed vampire.

"Look at the state of this place! Where is he? Where is that miserable drow?!"

Dhamari hastily sits himself up, kneading at his face for a moment in mind-fogged confusion. He can't remember the last time sleep had clung to him so heavily. Particularly since entering these shadow-cursed lands, when nearly every night his rest has been tainted by fearful, disturbing dreams.

But as he shakes the sleep from his limbs, he is astonished to discover that he feels… refreshed. Invigorated, in a way he has rarely experienced since losing his capability to trance.

Moreover, the images that resurface from the night before are a far cry from from disturbing. Dhamari blinks a few times as, with barely an effort, he sees again the breathtaking visions flowing across his mind's eye - sunset and starlight, thunder and fire, and -

Gale.

Another jolt runs through him.

He remembers the feel of Gale's hands, trembling and warm as they clasped his own.

The breathless smile on Gale's glistening face as he gazed up at Dhamari, and reflections of lightning turned the umber of his eyes to honey gold.

Dhamari's pulse quickens with a sudden, almost dizzying surge of what he can only describe as… hope. Sucking in a sharp breath, he scrambles to his feet.

Perhaps it was all a fervent, desperate dream. Perhaps in reality nothing has changed, and he will emerge from his tent to find Gale still glumly resigned to martyrdom, and their feelings for each other still tempered by uncertain silence. But he needs to know for sure.

He pushes out of his tent, only to hiss out an immediate curse as the slick, muddy ground nearly sends him sprawling. Regaining his footing, he quickly glances around.

Dawn has little to offer these lands in the way of illumination, and the camp seems even drearier than usual due to the lack of firelight - a situation that is already being rectified, as a disgruntled Lae'zel sets about re-lighting the torches that stand around the perimeter.

The camp itself looks rather the worse for wear - baskets turned over, travel chests askew, personal effects scattered from their proper places - all of it still soaked through from the unanticipated downpour. At least a dozen smaller branches have been ripped from the spindly trees, and the ground is strewn with their blood-hued leaves.

Dhamari startles a little as Karlach goes careening past. The tiefling is chortling with delight, sending up sprays of mud as she chases Scratch through shallow puddles of rainwater. Dhamari turns his head - not fast enough to avoid the spatter that finds his cheek, but he can't even bring himself to be irritated, as foreign yet undeniable delight rushes through him.

He had not dreamt it. The rain, the wind - the storm - all of it was his.

His… and Gale's.

A grin finds its way onto Dhamari's face, and he looks ahead again. To his disappointment, Gale is nowhere in immediate sight, but the remainder of their companions have clustered around the waterlogged remnants of the central campfire. All of them look rather bedraggled, and everyone apart from Halsin wears an expression of definite reproach.

"Ah, Dhamari," the druid calls over in greeting. "Good to see you made it through the storm." He is crouched by the half-charred logs of the fire, poking through them in search of a dry piece. "When you did not shelter with us, I feared you might have been caught in the open. Is Gale with you?"

Before Dhamari can muster an answer, Gale himself pops out of his tent across the way.

"Right here, safe and sound," he announces, his tone so uncharacteristically bright that everyone within earshot turns towards him in surprise. Gale blinks once. "Er… good morning."

Shadowheart narrows her eyes at him. "I wouldn't particularly call it that," she says thinly. "Not unless you happen to enjoy being huddled in a wretched shack all night, wondering if it's going to be blown over on top of you at any moment."

Astarion, meanwhile, rounds on Dhamari, pinning the sorcerer with a scarlet glare. "You're responsible for this, aren't you?" he demands. "Who else would summon up a freak thunderstorm out of bloody nowhere?"

"It was a most unusual occurrence," Halsin tacks on. "Such a storm is unheard of since the curse befell this land. Although I think the trees quite enjoyed a taste of fresh water." He tilts his head, eyeing Dhamari rather knowingly. "Do they indeed have you to thank?"

Dhamari glances across at Gale. Their eyes meet, and Dhamari is forced to hastily bite his lip to keep his expression neutral. He clears his throat.

"Yes," he manages, and decides that it is best to leave his answer there.

Wyll folds his arms, lips pursed. "A bit of warning wouldn't go amiss, next time," he rebukes. "I lost a full two pages of the letter I was writing. Completely ruined."

"Not to mention dousing every bit of fire we had," adds Astarion heatedly. "Did you even think what would have happened, if we weren't protected by that pixie's little trick?"

Dhamari shifts his weight, feeling more and more uncomfortable in the spotlight of his companions' scrutiny. "But we are," he responds curtly. "So there was no real danger." He begins stalking along a diagonal past the fire - not quite towards Gale's tent, not quite that obvious, he hopes - but at least putting himself closer to the wizard.

Unfortunately, the matter seems far from settled.

"Well then," says Shadowheart, snaring him in his tracks with her exceptionally pointed tone. "What were you and Gale up to, while the rest of us were nearly drowning?"

Dhamari feels an unwanted flush intruding across his cheeks. He flicks a defiant look at Shadowheart from the corner of his eye.

"None of your concern," he retorts, hoping that the harshness of his reply will deter her from further questions.

"I think it becomes our concern, if the end result leaves the entire camp a wreck," she argues glibly.

With another glance at Dhamari, Gale swiftly intervenes. "It is a private matter," he explains, slightly stern. "There was something I wished to… discuss, with Dhamari. Alone. And we'll thank you - all of you - to leave it at that."

"Oho," chimes Karlach, emerging from behind one of the tents with Scratch now in tow. "Private matter, was it?" She pauses near Gale and leans over, giving him a deliberate nudge with her elbow. "Possibly adding a bit of magical excitement to… how did you put it that one time… 'run-of-the-mill physicality'?"

Now it is Gale's turn to colour a bit. "Mind out of the sewers, if you please, Karlach," he replies primly. "It was nothing of that sort, I promise you."

Astarion snorts. "Well of course it wasn't," he sneers, before adding in a still-audible mutter, "Neither of you would even know what to do with each other."

Dhamari's flush deepens. Gale groans and drops his face into his palm. "Oh, good gods…."

After a moment the wizard releases a short sigh and looks up again, lifting a placating hand.

"I'm sure that Dhamari is very sorry for having wrought such havoc on our camp," he says, quite evenly; yet Dhamari can make out a tell-tale quirk in the corners of his lips. "And we'll both be more than happy to help set it right again. Won't we?" he adds, with a prompting look at the drow.

Still purple-cheeked, Dhamari scrunches his nose, and he answers only after a noticeable pause.

"'Happy' is not the word I'd use," he grumbles. "But yes. I will… help."

Having finished lighting the remainder of the torches, Lae'zel now marches up to Dhamari. Each step makes an unpleasant squelching noise. "And you will start," she tells him, with a flat stare, "by removing all the moisture you brought down."

Dhamari eyes her for a heartbeat. He huffs once, but does not argue.

"There we are, then." Gale spreads his hands genially as he regards the rest of the group. "Shall we get to it? And then I'll see if I can't whip us up a breakfast that truly defies the dismal atmosphere of this land."

Reluctantly, Dhamari turns his back to Gale and moves a few paces from Lae'zel, who is still watching him in expectation. He lifts his hands, angling them towards the muddy ground. For one petty instant, he considers leaving several party members out of the radius of his spell; but that is liable to merely invite more unwanted commentary.

He reaches into the Weave, making a sharp pulling gesture with both arms.

"Aresce!"

Around him, and across the entire camp, water sluices upward - from earth and wood, tents and clothing - and then evaporates.

Lae'zel passes a swift, scrutinising look around, then nods curtly. "Acceptable," she deems.

"I'm so glad," mutters Dhamari.

With the deluge dried, the camp does not take too long to put back in order. As the rest of the party goes about righting and retrieving their scattered belongings, Dhamari focuses on clearing away the sundered branches and using directed funnels of wind to force back the majority of the leaves. He is surprised by how effortless his magic feels - and how precise - and wonders if this is some after-effect of his experience in the Weave.

Keen to find out, he glances across his shoulder at Gale; but the wizard appears quite occupied, sifting through sacks of food supplies over by the resurrected campfire while Halsin coaxes the newborn flames to greater strength.

Dhamari's ear twitches. A moment later he bites his lip against an involuntary smile, as hears a few idle notes humming lowly from Gale's throat.

He is not the only one who has noticed. Shadowheart drifts over to Gale and stands there for a few moments, eyeing him deliberately.

"You're in an oddly cheerful mood," she points out, just shy of an outright accusation. "Considering you've spent the last tenday being more of a mope than any of us."

Gale straightens up, a boule of bread in one hand and a string of sausages in the other. "Why, thank you, Shadowheart," he replies, nearly beaming at her. "Must be the weather."

"Hmmmm," says Shadowheart dubiously. She casts a pointed glance towards Dhamari, who quickly busies himself with another fallen branch. "Or the person responsible for it, I'd wager."

Soon the enticing aroma of fried sausage overtakes the unpleasant tang that always seems to hang on the air of this region. Gale manages to convince Lae'zel to slice up the bread boule - "Such excellent bladework should not be overlooked, even when there are no enemies to be fought", which earns him a sceptical 'chk' in reply - while Gale himself divvies out bowls of fresh fruit from their dwindling reserves ("That's the last of the goodberries, I'm afraid, but I do believe we've earned the boost").

With the meal readied, the party converges again on the campfire to help themselves. Dhamari drags his heels at the rear of the group, more interested in snatching a few moments alone with Gale than he is in filling his belly.

Fortunately, Gale seems to be of similar mind. As the dull clink of bowls and cutlery pushes through the weighted air, the wizard grabs Dhamari by the hand and quickly tugs him behind the nearest tent.

"While the others are busy with breakfast," he starts earnestly, turning to face Dhamari, "I wanted to talk to you for a moment. About our night together."

Dhamari leans to make sure that they are indeed out of sight and earshot of their companions, then twists back towards Gale. Just a closer glimpse of the man's face brings another small smile flowering to his lips.

"You first, then," he says, with a slight nod.

Gale offers a smile of his own. After a heartbeat's consideration, he muses lowly, "Have you ever walked to the very edge of a great precipice - somewhere in the Underdark, perhaps - and shuddered at how easy it would be to… step into the void?"

Dhamari tilts his head; but sensing that this is not an actual question, he remains quiet. After another beat, Gale continues on:

"Ever since Elminster told me of Mystra's… expectations of me, I have felt like I've been walking along such a cliff face." His expression pinches at the thought. "With a great drop to nothingness never out of my sight."

He shakes his head, and the smile returns as he regards Dhamari.

"But you…" he murmurs, his voice thickening as he reaches for the drow's hand again. "You led me away from the edge."

Gale leans forward, and Dhamari can almost see the spark dancing in his previously shuttered gaze.

"Without your words, your touch - I fear I would have sought purpose and solace in that void. And I see now what you have been trying to tell me, in these last days." Another headshake, accompanied by a rueful huff of breath. "Death has been such an ever-present spectre before my eyes, I had forgotten how to see anything that might still glimmer beyond its suffocating veil." He gives Dhamari's hand a firm, grateful squeeze. "You reminded me what living can feel like."

Dhamari's eyes squint a bit as he offers a crooked smile. "That was the idea," he answers. "But I'm glad to hear you say it." He compresses the wizard's hand tightly in reply.

"Keep focused on that feeling, Gale," he urges. "I think you're going to need that resolve, and soon."

"Indeed." Gale straightens, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders in determination. "I'll guard my resolve like a lit flame in a…" He pauses, then chuckles briefly. "…well, in a gale!"

Dhamari responds with a very flat look, shaking his head in disbelief at the man's humour. Then he lowers his gaze, smoothing his palm slowly over the back of Gale's hand.

"So, then…" he prompts, his voice tightening with a sombre note. "Does this mean you've decided not to commit suicide?"

Gale pauses at the question, and his own grin fades as he ponders.

"It may still be that unleashing the orb is the only sure way to destroy this so-named 'Heart of the Absolute'," he acknowledges reluctantly. A quiet breath leaves him. "And, if needs must - I will do it. That said," he goes on, when Dhamari immediately frowns, "I am… open to alternatives. And I would very much like to find one."

Dhamari's lungs deflate in relief at this reply, and an astonishing lightness steals over him. As though the weight of the wizard's intentions has been physically lifted from his body, just as surely as from Gale's own mind.

"Good," he says, slightly hoarse even as he nods decisively. "Because we will find one. I promise you."

Gale hums a low noise of appreciation. He cradles Dhamari's hand in both of his own, his fingers slowly shifting around the drow's like the revolutions of an astrolabe.

"I hope the end is much farther away than I had suspected," he admits quietly. "I hope last night meant as much to you as it did to me. And I hope we will have more time together." His warm eyes soften. "Together... alone."

One of Dhamari's ears dips shyly. "It was… extraordinary," he agrees, though even this feels like a shallow descriptor for the experience they had shared. "You showed me… wonders I've never dreamt of. Helped me feel things I didn't know were possible. I… I hope there is more to come as well. Much more."

Gale smiles at him. "I'll see that there is," he assures. "Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me."

He lifts Dhamari's hand to his lips and kisses it gently. Dhamari watches as Gale's mouth ghosts across his fingers; something bright swells inside him, and it nudges him into venturing one of the questions still lingering after last night.

"Gale…." As before, unfamiliarity renders the words rather hesitant and awkward. "Did… did you truly mean it? When you said that you… love me?"

Although Dhamari is actually quite certain of Gale's sincerity in this matter, he finds himself needing to hear it again. Not just in the depths of night, wrapped in easiness and peaceful visions; but here, in the stark half-light of a shadow-cursed dawn, where the soft bloom of starlight cannot obscure the clarity of Gale's confession.

Gale looks up in faint surprise; but he meets Dhamari's gaze, and unwaveringly holds it.

"I'm many things to many people," he says steadily, "but I'm never a man to throw the L-word around lightly. I said exactly what I meant: I love you." For an instant, his brow furrows with the intensity of his words. "You should never, never doubt that."

Dhamari's eyes widen a little; and then he smiles, more broadly than seems feasible for the narrowness of his face. With his hand still in Gale's possession, he awkwardly stretches one finger out and brushes it coyly over the wizard's bearded cheek.

He is still not entirely sure what this means for them, this bond that has drawn their souls together. But he is certain of his desire to venture forward, at Gale's side, and find out.

Gale's mouth quirks beneath his touch. As though reading Dhamari's thoughts, he goes on, "I understand this is uncharted territory for you. I'll not ask you to say it back. I hope you will, of course," he adds, "one day - but it is enough know that you feel as I do."

Dhamari nods rapidly. Not wishing to give the other man any reason to doubt, he hastens to affirm, "I do. I do, Gale. Very much."

"That is all I need to hear." Gale lays one last kiss on the drow's hand before relinquishing it to him; Dhamari immediately uses it to rub bashfully at the back of his neck.

"I… thank you," he says lowly, after a slight pause. He shifts his weight as his face warms again. "That is - last night, for not -"

But Gale amiably cuts him off. "No - thank you," he overrules. "For showing me what I have been unknowingly missing all this time, by miring myself in such isolated misery. And," he adds, with an arch of a brow, "it seems I've still more to learn about you than just a mindset for survival. What you did after we emerged from the Weave… I wasn't aware that your magic could ever be turned towards such a… delicate touch."

Just as happy to steer away from the subject of what they did not do last night, Dhamari nods quickly. "I wanted to ask you about that," he says. "Because… it can't. Not usually. Well, you've seen how I wield it -"

"I've certainly heard it," Gale interjects drily. "I've been thinking of finding myself some ear plugs to don whenever we go into battle."

Dhamari huffs briefly. "Yes, well, that's my point. When we were in the Weave together, and then afterwards - even now - using my magic has seemed… different. Like I'm more in control of it. Like I can… do more."

Gale strokes at his chin, considering the sorcerer keenly. "Most intriguing," he remarks. "I can't say that such was my intention, but - it is not unheard of. An intense and prolonged connection with the Weave has been known to exact all manner of surprising effects upon a person's magical abilities." He cants his head, and asks, "Tell me - how does it feel to you? Emotionally, I mean."

Dhamari looks down for a moment, and a small crease appears between his brows. Lifting his hand in front of him, he lets his lightning flare so that Gale can see. The storm is instinctual, a natural part of him; summoning it is as easy and thoughtless as filling his lungs with air.

Controlling it is another matter. There has always been a sense of… resistance in his magic. As though that much raw, chaotic power was never meant to be contained for too long by mortal command.

Yet now he watches the coils of lightning crackling around his hand, and knows they are his to direct. No longer braced against him, twisting within his grasp, but ready - even eager - to be unleashed along the current of his call.

"It feels… good," comes his slow reply. "Clearer. Sharper. Almost… harmonious." He glances up again and gives a lopsided shrug. "So… strange, yes, but - good."

Gale hums lowly. "Then I'd say this is an aspect worth exploring," he suggests, with an encouraging spread of his hand. "As opportunities arise. There may yet be untapped depths of magic for you to plumb, even merely within the confines of storm sorcery."

Dhamari nods thoughtfully, flexing his hand as the lightning fades. He glances up again, and studies Gale for a silent moment.

The wizard's hair remains slightly frazzled from the storm, and there are sleepless crescents imprinted beneath his eyes; yet his entire demeanour has been wrought anew. Steady, upright - no longer a grim, wavering shadow slumped beneath the prospect of tomorrow. His eyes are bright, his mouth broad with his continued smile, and a quietly elated Dhamari finds himself stepping forward, reaching to waft his hand over the collar of Gale's tunic.

"…Will you kiss me again?" he requests thickly, and though his face warms further, he doesn't stumble when he says it.

Gale beams at him. "There's nothing that would give me greater pleasure," he replies softly. He cups Dhamari's face in one hand; as Dhamari stretches onto his toes to meet him, Gale bends down to bestow a lingering kiss on the drow's waiting lips.

An emphatic, throaty cough sounds from behind Dhamari. He startles, hastily breaking the kiss, and then whirls around, his expression dark with embarrassment.

Wyll is standing by the corner of the tent. His eyes are averted politely upward, yet even the way he's biting his lip can hardly conceal his smirk.

"I've come to tell you that unless you want to face the enemy on wobbling legs, you'd best claim what remains of breakfast. Because there are two furry stomachs circling the fire, both with a keen appetite for sausage."

Gale straightens up, clearing his own throat briskly. "Ah. Yes. Quite. Thank you, Wyll. We'll be along in a moment."

"A moment is all you'll have," Wyll warns easily. He dares to look over at them, winks deliberately, then heads back towards the fire.

Still flushed, Dhamari scrunches his nose at the warlock's retreating figure. He shakes his head brusquely, then turns to look at Gale again.

"Well," he says, his voice flattening out as reality reasserts itself. "I suppose we ought to… get to it." He tilts his head, and after another moment asks carefully, "Are you ready for this, Gale?"

He isn't talking about breakfast. Gale gives a faint chuckle.

"Not in the slightest," he admits in a wry voice. "But, since when has that ever impeded our merry band?"

He steps up beside Dhamari, offering his hand. Dhamari inhales, nods once, and grasps Gale's fingers tightly in reply. And with a fierce clench of his heart, he silently dares anyone - Mystra, the Absolute, even Gale himself - to try and prise their hands apart again.

"Come on, then," says Gale, instilling a note of grandeur in his voice as he makes a sweeping gesture with his free arm. "Time for us to brave this murky dawn. Let us cleave the stifling shadows, and discover what fate has in store for us." He looks down at Dhamari, smiles firmly, and finishes, "Together."