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As the days march on, the rot and ruin spreads. Tendrils of pestilence radiate outwards from the place where the orb cracked open his breastbone and made a home near Gale's meekly beating heart. His world condenses into a center of agony.
He remembers strength, the Weave imbuing him with incomprehensible power. It is the only thing that had ever made him feel truly good. He wonders if he will ever feel good again—ever be anything but an enfeebled has-been, wasting away in his bed. Some days—more often—all he can do is curl up around the hurt.
The hunger is his entire world condensed into a gnawing void. It weakens him, renders him faint. It hollows him out until he can think of nothing but those rending claws—can do nothing but rest, curled up around the hurt, nauseated and dizzy, waiting for the master to make him animate.
Astarion is not sure if he remembers what it was like to be strong, to feel well. He has muscles, now atrophied from disuse. Is the reverie he clings to of a virile young elf pulling back a bow string a memory or just a very lovely dream?
He watches the shine leave the amulet. It becomes worthless, just dull silver and a gemstone without sparkle—becomes nothing just as he is nothing. Gale, who only ever wanted to give, can now only take. And still it is not enough. His chest still burns and heaves. He is a leach—a leach upon both the Weave and his family.
He takes from Tara, his only companion, who over-extends herself searching for scraps of magic to feed an affliction for which he has only himself to blame. The shame of his malady is nearly as painful as the orb.
Astarion Ancunín crumbles during that year in the tomb. The darkness crawls in and suffocates anything that might have remained of the elf. He is unsure if he was ever anything at all.
He is meant to be a leach, but even a leach can take. He can only have what he is given and he is given nothing. He begs like a dog. He had been reduced to a mutt in the kennel and now he is less than that. He begs the master to give him something—anything at all—until he is too far gone for begging.
Despite being so very limited, Gale's solitary hours feel endless and miserably slow. So he begins to write poetry to fill them. He writes journal entries and arcane essays. He leaves little notes for Tara regarding supplies they need for the tower.
He does not write to his mother. He does not know what he could possibly say to her. Everything he could share feels meaningless in light of all the words he cannot say. He can't bear for her to understand the full extent of his shame, though she is the only person who wants to hear of it.
Astarion is always surrounded by bodies. The bodies of his "siblings" in the dormitories. The bodies of strangers in ballrooms and beds. He is never alone, even when he wishes to be, but he is always lonely.
A body tells him he is beautiful and he knows this already, even without a mirror. He knows he looks delectable draped in borrowed pearls. He tries to derive some pleasure from this. The luxury of pearls and lace is better than being fully nude. A body runs a hand up high on his thigh and Astarion retreats into a place without bodies.
Gale does not want to die. Before his folly, he had thought himself on the cusp of truly living. Instead of achieving a state of near immortality, he now faces a future that offers only certain death. The orb grows hungrier by the day and Gale finds himself to be an inadequate vessel.
If he must die, let him do it where none will suffer for his mistake. His supplies will take him just far enough into the Underdark to vanish without trace. He leaves no wiggle room for returning. He writes one final missive containing those hardest of words.
The fear is pervasive. Astarion recognizes it as the same animal fear that he sees reflected in the rats he consumes on the rare occassion he is given a living one. This is usually considered a reward and he is seldom rewarded. Regardless, most rewards are but a precursor to a punishment.
If he cannot escape this fear and he cannot escape the chains of compulsion, then the only freedom to hope for is that of a true death. He should have gone willingly into death's embrace when he had the chance. Perhaps it would be warm as the sun.
Astarion asks him to be a mirror, to detail all of the parts that make up a whole. For once, Gale struggles to find words genuine enough to do him justice. He has grown unnaccustomed to sincerity after a year—no, a lifetime— languishing in his tower alone.
Instead, he tells him of things refracted within their new-found light—accounts of hunger and pain; of want and need; of scars and tools to be used; of loneliness within and without; of dying and things worth living for. Astarion desires only personhood, so Gale keeps his pedestal at a reasonable height.
What is an amorphous monster to do in a world without chains? Astarion doesn't know, so he focuses on being strong and well. He drinks deeply and discovers what his muscles can do. He learns how to move swiftly and aim true.
Gale spins tales about impossible things. The wizard has quite the imagination with his endless chatter about possibilities and agency and inviolable bodies. He speaks of warm beds and full bellies and of life after death. Astarion knows there is no guarantee of safety anywhere in the world, but he learns there are places where fear doesn't dwell.