Archive of Our Own

"…and on the way to school they met a fox in a fine coat and hat."

Once read aloud, Morena would angle the picture book towards them, even though Gale's eyes were closed. Tara inspected the illustration. Bold graphic outlines and a washy blue background. A wooden boy and his cricket; its cuff links and coattails looking out of place for one who lived in the pocket of his boy's shirt. The Fox's nose a black lingering danger in the foreground. The book was a favorite — even if it was a bit young for them now, they were old enough to read it all themselves, after all—but to be read to now was a comfort. If in the right mood, Morena would even do character voices. She hadn't been in the right mood for a while—but then again, Gale hadn't pouted until she gave in either. Good heavens, he'd barely been well enough to look at the pictures. A tenday since it all began, the bags under his eyes hollowed and darkened, the pox wept, Tara purred always at his side. She could've sworn she'd heard tell about the purr of a tressym being healing. An aside from Morena or something from a book, surely, her own mother had never told her such things but she'd joined her boy so young. Tara purred anyway. It was something to do, something to be done.

Like Morena and her storybook. Which, of course, had been abandoned not even halfway through. The pages crinkled on Morena's lap as she leaned forward and caressed Gale's forehead. The illustration, the cricket's arms lifted in some fruitless attempt at stopping the boy, wrinkled in a way Tara knew Gale would hate if he hadn't been too tired to notice. Morena's fingers carded through the wavy strands of hair that curled up at his temples, wet and tangled with illness. His lips twitched, curling into a half smile at his mother's touch. Morena's voice was brittle when she told Tara she'd sent for a healer. She didn't explain that healers would be taking him away.

There were many things Tara was supposed to just know, but didn't. So many things obvious to Morena, so much so it would not cross her mind to explain them. Humans want to shop the market rather than eat a frog so considerately captured for them. Even if tressyms do, little boys do not always land on their feet and recoil if you use your rough tongue to clean their wounds. If your boy is sick enough the healers will take him away. They will not even allow his mother to accompany him, they will not say when he will be home or even if. It will not even occur to them to tell you.

Tressyms —and cats too if you can believe it — have enchanted whiskers. Dwarfs and humans may carefully style ridiculous looking substitutes, but none hold a candle to what can be done with proper ones. Elegantly balanced locomotion, magic detection, and advanced spacial reasoning to name only a few; but ever since she'd been Gale's, they doubled as a homing device. He was always there in the back of her mind, in the same way her tail was when she wasn't using it. Proprioception via fond connection; she was certain if they were separated, she'd know which direction to go from the weave 's gentle tug at her cheek. Now that her boy was alone, frightened, and very ill, and she found that a steady ache of desperation plucked at the edges of her whiskers and down the line of her spine.

And so, if anyone had been looking out of the grubby window located on the third floor of the Hospice of Saint Laupseen’s contagious ward ¹ at half past midnight, they would have seen a very young tressym batting and yowling at the window’s iron bars.

Something fluttered down beside her on the window ledge. “Which one is yours?”

That it so rudely appeared in her space was only the first problem. This owl smelled not of feathery dust nor rat blood on talons but of weavemoss. This was another wizard’s spirit familiar and, all things considered, far worse company than a standard owl. Even if birds of prey weren’t half as wise as the children’s books said, they were a great source regarding what scurrying snacks were about. Tara hadn't eaten all day.

“Which one is yours?” The owl tried again.

Tara twitched the end of her tail. “The little boy in the corner.”

“I can’t see mine from here, but I know he's in there.”

“It’s not proper, who ever heard of taking a boy away?”

The owl blinked wide yellow eyes but said nothing.

“I should be allowed in to sit on his chest and rumble. It’ll help," Tara sighed. "It's been helping."

The owl reshaped itself into a mouse, clawing at a crack. “Change, then, and come on.”

“I can't do that.”

“Worse so for you,” it squeaked. “Who ever heard of a familiar only ever being one thing?” ² The hair along Tara's spine ruffled, Gale had only ever needed her just as she was. While it was not the first time she suspected other mage’s familiars found her odd, it was the first time that being herself had been anything but a boon.

The mouse pressed his paws into a gap in the masonry and gave Tara a look she tried not to interpret as pity. “I might be able to jiggle the lock, if you can squeeze through the bars, maybe...”

Tara nodded.

It took them a few minutes, and a few form changes, to finally get the window unlocked and open enough for Tara to squeeze through. Gale, almost 8 years old, a small lump in a bed in the corner, sleeping under thick rough blankets. Iodine and witchhazel made Tara’s nose twitch. She hopped up on his chest and Gale roused with a jolt.

“Tara, you’re here,” he mumbled, a dazed smile on his face. She turned circles on his chest to get comfortable and Gale shifted her to his side with a groan. “…The spots hurt when you step on them.”

Tara roughly groomed one of his cowlicks. “Go back to sleep, Mister Dekarios.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Tara tucked her face under his chin, “It just wouldn’t do to be anywhere else.” If only she could hide in the front pocket of his pyjamas and be able to join him anywhere at all, with little fanfare, with no one even knowing. She could hardly believe herself; jealous of insects in storybooks. Tara listened to the dull thud of her Gale's heart and wondered what a cricket would know about being a boy anyway. All they knew how to do was sing.

It took three nurses to get her away from Gale when they found her wrapped in his arms come morning. A wild animal in the hospital was unacceptable, and everyone knew familiars were spirits, anyway. Everyone knew that.

It’s the contagious ward, for the gods’ sakes, Morena fussed later, what did Tara expect? Tara expected to be allowed to sleep on her boy’s bed, as she had every night since the one they’d met. If he was contagious or half dead, then that was even more reason. Tara had to promise, not just try, but promise, not to do it again. Less for the hospital’s sake, but for Morena’s. She was already pale and gaunt and crying, up all nights, could Tara not make this difficult time more unbearable?

As if being too far from her Wizard, her boy, her precious pet whose star shown bright even on the gloomiest Simril³ didn’t ache Tara every moment? It must have been another thing she couldn't understand; some human thing, irrational, unexplainable. When your heart is ripped out and halfway across the city you must promise to not go make it whole again. It will somehow make it harder.

When Tara was upset, she'd curl up in a small nook under Gale's bed, his blanket would fall over the side, a built in curtain for wide feline eyes to see under. It smelled of him still. Now that Gale was gone, this is where she stayed. She'd show up for breakfast and to talk down Morena from her crying spells, but otherwise, she was under the bed.

Or so Morena thought. While Tara kept her promise to not break into the hospital again, she stood guard on the windowsill outside his ward at night. Her little wizard was close enough through the window's cloudy glass to see his frame, all distorted. Like the time Morena took them to a beach outside the city; Gale convinced her to swim with him, to open up her eyes in the salty water. Not a tressym's way. Swimming. But she'd do anything at least once. For her boy, anyway. Despite the chill of Nightal⁴—and how it ushered in the crackling cold that overtook Waterdeep every year — the memory of hot sand on her paw pads and the light sparkling off the surface of the sea kept something inside her warmer, even if she still had to brace her wings against the wind.

Later, she would learn that these vigils granted Gale relief. Strength. It would become their first secret from his mother. Another set of human truths, there are some promises that must be—if not broken—bent, some things are too precious to name —much less explain— and there was no reason at all to tell one's mother everything. Morena would have considered it a broken promise. A lie. But, what luck, that living wooden boys and growing noses were merely children stories.

It was weeks until Gale recovered enough to be allowed home, a pox mark scar on his forehead all that remained of his adventure. Morena acted as if his return was the most unexpected thing in the world, as if their boy was not one that made the impossible possible.

The sun was just beginning to get low and pink when Gale stepped out of Blackstaff tower, Tara trotting along at his side. It was one of the many nights that Morena was to work late, and Tara was meant to replace her eyes and ears, as if she were not at least half as mischievous as Gale. On days such as these, after lessons were over, they would often wander the Melody Mount Walk, the underground tunnel lead to the New Olamn⁵ bard's college nearby, and so named for the endless song thoughtfully maintained by the students, endless and enjoyable. Precocious, funny and small— the growth spurt that would finally make him two heads taller would mercifully come next summer—Gale Dekarios charmed adults. Teachers, librarians, guards, the guy who sold his favorite street noodles. But those closer to his own fourteen, not so much.

Speaking of charmed guards, Saff was there. Saff was always there. Standing guard on the inside of the Melody Mount Walk on the city's main side. An adventurer in his youth, his cloudy eye struck through in a fight with a pack of kobolds that could see shadows of light and dark but little else, a quick laugh that flashed a silver canine tooth knocked out in a tussle in the underdark, baubles braided through his red and gray beard, and a rough life's full of thrilling stories for Gale. Some days after studies he would come to listen to the old man's stories, other days he would cross the tunnel to visit the New Olamn's lore library. Once Gale eventually wore them down—the way he always did—he was allowed to sit quietly in the first floor stacks only - literature and poetry, oral narration and performance.

"On your way to the library, then, lad?" asked Saff.

Gale nodded, mouthful of Tahllap noodles⁶ from a vendor nearby. "That's the plan."

"Gonna be pretty empty today. Last sheaf⁷ and all."

"Speaking of" —Gale dug around in his pack and pulled out a small box of baked goods —"a present for the holiday. Got some for my master's at school and thought…" Gale shrugged.

"A gift for friends and neighbors. Heh. Never going to say no to that," Saff chuckled and knelt to scratch between Tara's ears, "Ye got one for the ever suffering librarian too?"

"Mmhmm. There are these particularly delicious variety of spiced cookie that is common in Baldur's—"

"Hey Dekarios!" A gaggle of other boys entered the cave, sneering and jostling. His master's other apprentices, all older. Most 18 to his 14. All people that Gale desperately wanted to like him. Every mastered spell and modified magic he thought was clever, they dismissed. He had never been quite sure how to get them to like him.

"Going to Olamn?" Yelled one, "So 're we."

Another said, "We're going to a bard party, but we don't have to tell you all about that do we?"

"You have to have got yourself some tail over there, eh? You're not always going over there to read the books, are you?" asked Darren. He was by far the slimiest of the three, with his constant devil's advocation for Thayan magic. Two heads taller than Gale and with with a lopsided grin that surely turned into a scowl before any conversation with Gale was over. Darren put his arm on Gale's shoulder and led him forward through the tunnel.

Gale turned to wave goodbye to Saff. "A party? For the last sheaf?"

"Yeah." A grin spread out across Darren's thin lips, "we could probably get you an invite, if we could show them you're cool…"

"Trust me, you want to come to a New Olamn party," Another said.

"Yeah, they put out even if you have noodle breath." A third boy slapped at the noodle container in Gale's hand. Gale fumbled but righted it in the nick of time before it ended up all over his boots.

Gale took another bite trying to put on the most nonchalant face he could muster. Putting out being something that was far too terrifying to consider outside the safety and dark of his bedroom once he could hear Tara's heavy snores. With a mouthful of noodles he prayed for the topic to drop before he'd finished his purposefully too big bite. He'd never done a great job socializing even when he was the same age as the rest of his cohort. But this was a party. For Last Sheaf. One of the cozier holidays, full of celebration, eating all the last fruits of the year, the one last hurrah before the last carriages left the city for the winter and Waterdeep became more austere. Well, as austere as Waterdeep could get. Bards, full of joy and inspiration, must have had incredible parties for the last gasp of fall. Even if they didn't, the bards there might be different than the few he knew from frequenting the stacks at New Olamn.

Darren squeezed Gale's shoulder. "We could get them to think you're cool if you go get some treasure…"

"Treasure," Gale snorted, "yeah, sure, and what colour orb of dragonkind did you want?⁸"

"I know a way. There's a secret passage, a portal, in this very tunnel. Takes you a couple days north to Rassalantar⁹."

"And what would be worth the horse feed to get to Rassalantar?" Gale asked.

"Big shot criminals use it. Why you think your dwarf guard is always here? Obviously the city's trying to catch them. There's a bog by Rassalantar where they hide their treasures."

"…And bodies they don't want found." Added another boy.

"Naturally." Gale swallowed.

"Go get a piece and bring it back and we'll take ya. Unless you're chicken."

"Or ain't got no interest in anything normal. Kissing. Drinking. Having fun at all. Not that any of us would be surprised."

"I like normal things." Gale said. "And bards— it is always nice to meet other magical minds, you know I think one can learn from all the different disciplines since—"

"I knew you'd say some auroch piss like that."

"Yeah, alright then, come on, I'll show ya." Darren said, pulling on Gale's arm.

The other boys followed.

"How do you know about this, Darren?" Gale asked.

He smiled that greasy little smile of his and shrugged. "You aren't the only one who knows people, ya know? Just coz I don't know Elminster personally doesn't mean I'm a nobody."

He shoved Gale against a part of the wall. Gale felt it thrum under where his hip collided with the tunnel wall. It wasn't the steady beat of the song, it was different, odd, magic.

"…So bring a piece of treasure and… are you all going to wait for me?" Gale set his box of noodles on the ground.

"Yeah, yeah. We'll wait for you." Another laughed. "So hurry up."

"Well, Tara?" Gale gestured towards the wall.

Derek snorted, "Aw, you gotta ask your familiar for permission to do anything?"

"No I was…" Gale frowned. "It's… it's ladies first, of course."

Tara scowled at Gale but went through the portal anyway, she was never going to let him go alone. He mentally prepared himself for the earful he would get as soon as the others were out of range.

They emerged beside a forest edged by prairie. A herd of goats wandered the pasture. It was just like the little idyllic paintings his mother preferred, landscapes all pastel and kitsch. Past the goats, there was a warm light in the window of the closest hearth, and dots of other thatched houses and smokestacks on the horizon. In the other direction, the trees grew thicker, a grimy muddy feeling over it all. The swamp must be that way. It wouldn't occur to him until later that this was the first time he'd ever really been out of Waterdeep. A half days ride to the southern beaches outside the city hardly counted.

"What in the name of the gods has gotten into you, Mister Dekarios?"

Gale started walking towards the grimy feeling. "You didn't say anything while the plan was being hatched, Tara."

"I wouldn't dare to lower myself to talk to those… sharpjaws and knuckleheads."

"But I do. Just because you come to our master's lessons and pretend not to understand common doesn't mean I can."

"And to go to a party with people that are easy and of ill repute?"

"No, it's—" Gale sighed and then cleared his throat. A mimic of Tara's little grumbly voice. "Fire mephits rarely make good friends, Mister Dekarios."

"What is that to mean?" Tara puffed up her feathers. "Is that supposed to be me?"

"Who else would it be?" Gale scoffed,"But rarely doesn't mean never, Tara. You were wrong! He was! He is! Maybe you're wrong again."

"—And you blamed your little mephit summoning adventure on doing your Elemental studies. Elemental studies, my hairy tail, you’d summon yourself a whole rotten menagerie, if you could. Will have, if you adopt these ones. Good heavens, I'd far prefer the mephit's company, him and all his cousins can come burn down your mother's sitting room with the all those boys inside."

"Tara, where's your sense of adventure?"

Tara grumbled uselessly. "On the other side of that portal, if you can believe it." She followed him anyway, of course, she always did. Gale might have not always had friends his own age, his mother around, or the social sense to realize when the older boys were fucking with him, but he always always had Tara.

It was the bog alright, but they'd been going in circles, and it was Utkar after all. The hamlet was farther north than Waterdeep and so, the air was crisp and painful in Gale's nose. The dampness that collected around Gale's boots made it feel far colder than it was. Fog hovered over the bog water and the waning sun threw itself in faint gold through the trees to the west, the little light that reached the murky surface of the swamp transformed into a shiny mirror. What a dichotomy for the poets, to be so miserable in the face of so much beauty.

It was the fog that let Gale see them before he heard them. First a moving shadow blocking the golden light. An odd shape cutting and angle across the fog. Two voices. Two men. Perhaps carrying a quiet third.

"How deep in we gotta go to drop him, you think?" One asked.

"Don't want a wolf pulling him out a few steps in, now do ya?" Another answered.

"We're a fair bit further than a few steps in."

"Ugh. Fine. Just a bit further then, if we can pick up the pace."

Gale was a talented wizard. Gale was fourteen and had never fought anyone-unless one included boyish roughhousing and the incident with the shocking grasp. These were adults. Carrying what looked like a dead body. It can be so easy to look back and point at what should have been done, but in this moment, Gale's body urged him to run. He turned on his heel, eyed Tara, and in an instant understanding between them, they both broke into a run. The boys said this was a dumping ground for criminals and their ill gotten gains. But it was as Gale pulled at the weave —whispering, fingers twitching desperate somatic symbols, conjuring an invisibility spell—that he realized, one might want to keep their treasure close. Bodies, however, should be as far away as possible. A filthy bog days outside of the city where the body would bulge and rot before the disappearance was even reported was an ideal spot. There was a dull thunk of a body dropped in to shallow water and the quiet rumblings that Gale could not hear over the thrum of his heart.

There was a light in the distance. The hearth of the house. The one near the portal. Surely. He pumped his short legs as fast as he could go. Just run. Run. Run. The beating of Tara's wings in his ear. Gnarled roots, the fallen logs, the underbrush, the jostled landscape with each stride. His lungs burned too hard to think. So when the light danced, he didn't notice. Artifacts left over from the black spots in his vision. Merely a jostle of his head. No, the light danced. It danced. Run. Danger. Stop. Gale skid, fell to his side into the mud, the momentum sliding him forward. He gasped for Tara. He tumbled. The ground lost beneath him. Sliding then falling then stinging his back as it hit the water. Water. Cold. Cold. The frigid water would have punched the air out of his lungs if the landing hadn't, his muscles too shocked to move would not allow him one last breath before the taste of putrid water was on his lips and then over his head.

Tara was just behind him when she looked away. A small crane of her head to see if the shadows had grown longer behind them. Then thudding, clumsy steps through sloppy mud. A muffled gasp of her name. She turned back to see sloppy footprints turning into full body gouges in the mud, the ground giving way to some fissure. Full of foul water and muck. It was just then that she saw the will-o-wisp move, dance, flicker, in the corner of her eye. She'd been paying far too much attention to the sounds of the strangers, the smell of them, to have noticed it. It glowed so faintly, weakly, aching to suck the life from someone.

"Gale!" Tara yelled as she followed the wisp down into the pit. The creature threw some sparks and Tara dove into them. Waves of static fuzz and pain shot through her bones, but she could take it, and that could not be said for Gale if the electricity arched into the water below. The electricity resonated through her skull, made her lightheaded, yet she flew forward fowards. Teeth bared. Fur on edge. Yowling. Wisps were easily avoided, the books said, their traps are obvious, the books said. The books had not mentioned that they were such cowards. The wisp retreated somewhere out of view. Who could blame it, this ravine trap was for hunting not an arena for fighting.

Tara shook the last of the static out of her brain and with a growl and flick of her tail, summoned all the magic she could. She wove a great hand, shaky and clumsy. The connection, the pull between them was agony, crushing in against her chest. She clawed through the filth and detritus, depositing handfuls of slop from the pit. One handful sputtered her name and was deposited with greater care than the rest and. Her hand faded.

"Oh, my darling. Are you alright?" Tara watched Gale sit up and try to wipe the muck from his face.

"Tara!" His voice a frantic whisper, "The wisp? The men?"

"I think they went a different way. Must have thought we were an animal." She went to inspect him. "Shame, really, we could've thrown them in and for the wisp's supper."

In her frenzied raking, Tara had pulled out quite a few other things alongside Gale. What had once been a deer, half rotten logs, and several partial skeletons. Presumably the wisps previous meals. Gale was nestled between them, hands still gripping the tatters of a coat he'd presumably grabbed onto while underwater. The coat had a buttoned pocket, and as Tara gave him a moment to catch his breath, she watched as her boy unbuttoned it and rummaged inside. There was a little turquoise rock, about the size of a Taol¹⁰ and a few gold pieces. Tara supposed the person must not have been from waterdeep.

"A cabochon should do the trick for treasure, shouldn't it?" Gale asked.

"Even after all this, you're still concerning yourself with your errand?"

"I'm not coming back covered in muck and empty handed. That would be worse than not having tried at all." Gale mumbled a prestidigitation spell to get most of the muck off him. "Chicken or not, I'm not coming back a failure."

"Fine," Tara sighed. Ever since The Elminster had taken an interest in her pet, he was incorrigible. Not that he hadn't been before, but when they were both still fledglings it had been different — kittens are meant to get into mischief as kittens do —but it was obvious now, frustrating now, that she was growing up faster than him. And with her slight maturity, any restraint to foolishness had become her domain. Gale never had to develop much of a taste for it. Who left her in charge? How was she meant to teach a boy how to be a boy? Why was this her job and why did it sting to imagine not having it? Perhaps this was just the way that humans raised their young—a group project from cradle to grave. That’s why they collected themselves in cities and towers. That is what drove them to huddle their structures along the edges of Mount Waterdeep and rebuild on the ashes of something that came before.

"There is something about the guys — some unspoken brotherhood that they understand and I just— don't." Gale said quietly. "And if I never translate it into something I understand, it will be unfortunate, but I still want them to like me."

"They're just jealous, you know." A line Tara had picked up from his mother, she'd even got the exact Morena Dekarios cadence down. Lilting and playful, as if what she were saying was obvious and true as the sky being blue, rather than a lie. Something to say to make Gale stop talking about it.

"At magic, I'm unquestionably better." Gale used the edge of his shirt to shine the turquoise stone. "But I don't think they're jealous. And I don't think you do either."

The trudge back to the portal was almost uneventful, but for the sky. A tapestry of light unmatched by any Waterdeep night at this hour, the dimmer stars not hidden by the lime lamps and magic. The look in Gale's eyes, by the gods, Tara was sure that if they were not wet and exhausted, she'd have had to fight to get her boy home. With one last look up, Gale walked through the portal.

He appeared back in the Melody Mount Walk tunnel and the other boys were not there wait for him.

But Saff was.

Sitting back up against the side of the tunnel, idly picking at a hand loom, a limp cigarette hanging lazily out of his mouth. He didn't look up. "Been off work for at least an hour. Was starting to think you weren't coming back."

"Where are the guys?" Gale asked.

Saff gave him a pitying look. "Saw 'em about ten minutes after I saw you. Leaving. Overheard 'em. 'S why I'm here." He was smiling, but gone was the smile from his eyes. A sour sweat hung around him, his shirt sleeves rolled up, almost like he were sick. Or afraid. Tara ruffled her feathers at the aura.

"Oh."

"You know, son, there are dangerous people out there that use these sorts of things, if that treasure is real, they're the kinda people you don't want knowing you've been digging around." Saff sighed. "You're a smart kid. Blackstaff at 10. Helping me pick Field of Triumph¹¹ horses for seasons. Now, this job don't pay too well and you know me, I've kept it for years and years. People gotta stay fed."

Gale swallowed, "Yeah."

Saff did one little motion, as if he were going to touch Gale's head and Tara struck. After the night they had, no one was going to touch her boy, it was just a swat, her nail snagging on his skin and a shard coin¹² fell out of his palm.

"Can't let me work my own magic, eh?" He pulled his hand back, "Just a bit of slight of hand. Haven't you ever had someone pull a coin out of yer ear? But I guess you aren't the type to get paid off."

Gale's eyes were huge. "Paid off?"

"Not to tell. You gotta promise me."

"But the others—"

Tara could have bit him, she could have clawed some sense into him, what in the gods names did he thinking, he wasn't thinking. How could her smart boy be so stupid? Human sense, so dense and dull, Gale couldn't smell the man's fear.

"Fuck 'em." Saff grumbled, "So, those stuffed robes teach you what a geas is yet?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what's that, again? Refresh an old man's mind."

"A enchantment. Force someone to carry out some action for you or be hurt."

"Correct. You can keep someone from doing something wit it too. Now, did ya find any of that treasure you were looking for?"

Gale dutifully retrieved the stone and gold coins from his pocket. "I know. Stealing is wrong…"

"Now, I wouldn't go that far." Saff chuckled and looked at Gale's treasure with a frown. "But it's best to know what yer dealing with first so it don't blow up on ya, huh? No use hurling spells 'n thinking not or however that sayin' goes¹³?"

"Yeah. Uh. If I hurl spells but think not of consequences, I am nothing."

"There ya go. Consequences. You know?"

Gale's chin wobbled. Tara waited curled and ready to launch at Saff's face. Hells, she knew she didn't want Gale to breath a word of this misadventure to anyone. Almost drowned, nearly caught by bandits, several dead bodies, wil o wisped... And he'd tell. Gods, he'd tell. It had never occured for Tara to wonder if she'd kill for Gale before. Now she'd had to consider it twice in a night. Now Gale would have to beg her not to kill the boys that encouraged him with all this bloody foolishness.

"Hey, hey now, I'll even let you keep yer treasures if'in you don't fight the geas." Saff handed the stone back to Gale. "Just a month. I figure those boys won't believe you after that long."

"They might not believe me if I told them tonight."

"Aye. Maybe so. They're right little shitheads. Regardless…" He pulled a little pipe flute out of his coat pocket and played a tune. The enchantment stirred the air with the smell of cigars and cherries. Tara could almost feel herself being pulled in to the charm, she leaned in, chasing the dreamy sensation of being pet just so around the ears. Tara had listened in as Gale's teachers covered the geas, but she did not remember any of them mentioning how dreamy and inviting it could be, perhaps it was unique to the caster. The guard cleared his throat, "You're not to mention any of what you saw or did tonight to anyone nor anything I told ya."

Gale nodded.

"Tara ain't too pleased I don't think." Saff pointed at her with a little chuckle. "You ain't gonna tell on us either, are you, little lady?"

Tara sniffed and began to clean her whiskers. It was hardly surprising that she wouldn't be telling anyone about such a miserable evening. There were so few people worth conversing with, and she certainly wasn't going to get an earful from Morena about this. She had never spoken in front of the guard before, she doubted he even knew she could speak.

"She won't." Gale stuttered, "She won't tell."

A booming laugh and a hand outstretched to pull Gale upright. "Alright, get cleaned up and get on home. You're a city boy, you oughta know by now, but it'll do you well to remember you're never alone in Waterdeep. For worse and better."

Gale cast a spell and cleaned his muddy boots up as he left the tunnel. The bard college's never ending music ringing in his ears. Another to mend his clothes, another for the smell. There is nothing to be done about the scrapes, but Tara doubted that Morena would notice them.

"Why would I tell anyone about such a failed night anyway?" Gale asked Tara as they headed home.

An unfaceted stone, nothing particularly fit for a fine lady—perhaps in a jewel cutter's hands it may have been turned into something extraordinary—but as far as anyone would know, it was just a light blue cabochon. If not a memory of narrowly avoided consequences, just one of another day Gale got most of what he wanted. Not particularly useful as a spell component. Pretty enough. A serviceable stone. A stone he found in a putrid swap, gasping for air.

The next summer came and went, and her Gale finally taller and unfortunately with a whisper of hair on his upper lip. It was then that his Master wanted to focus on the creation of enchanted objects. Tara may not have forgotten the terrible evening she suffered in the swamp, but she had forgotten the stone.

Until she saw it again. Fine engraving on the reverse side said that this was Tara and she was Gale Dekarios'. And vice versa. A telekinesis enchantment embedded inside, his project, humming and ready to pull Gale out of any bog he could find himself in. Enchantments are ludicrous to create, the price, frankly, unreasonable. With such costs, it must have looked like folly to make an enchantment for one's pet. With only a semiprecious stone. Gale never told any of his classmates about that night in the swamp, the men, or the treasure he brought back. Her clever boy, her clever clever boy had made sure they saw it every day, unknowingly, but shining and brilliant on his familiar's neck.

Tara peered down from the balcony from her favorite spot, one hidden from the street, where she could watch the world go by with no one knowing the wiser.

She watched Morena Dekarios walk down the street, it was a cold spring day and she pulled on the light jacket she wore to better cover herself. She looked terrible.

A year ago, seeing her unexpectedly would have made Tara's heart leap. She would have flown down to greet her, have gotten scratches from those long red fingernails. Tell her some gossip she'd want to get out ahead of Gale on. Sometimes, even, if the mood struck, Gale's mother would bring Tara a treat. Now that Morena Dekarios was outside, downstairs, by the broken mailbox and crack cobblestones, Tara's heart broke. Gale's mother knocked in a playful pattern — shake and a haircut — but she chewed her nails as she waited by the door. Knocked again, her hands cupping to try to see more deeply into the small window. She tried her key, it slid the bolt from the door, but Tara cast an arcane lock on it of her own design, the only way in was a small cat flap through it that she designed. The only people that could go in or out of that door were Tara and Gale. So far it had only been Tara.

Tara went inside and hopped on the bed. "Terrible news, Gale."

"More terrible than—" Gale gestured at the sky. Yes. More terrible than anything.

"Your mother is here."

"Oh. That is quite terrible." Gale shifted onto his side and brushed back the mop of tangled hair. "I should have known from the knock."

"What do you want to do?"

"…Ignore her. Don't let her in."

"She's already tried her key, and you know your mother. I'm sure realising there was a ward preventing her entry is going to go *swimmingly*." Tara hissed. "What do you expect me to do?"

Gale made a soft grunt of acknowledgement but no further answers came. Tara could bite him, if she wasn't sure that the blood would make her sick. Anything that came out of him now, reeked of death. The bathroom was a disaster, even with her prestidigitation.

More knocking came. And more. Morena stood outside in that wind for nearly an hour knocking. Knowing her, probably asking people walking by if they'd seen her son. And. Ah. Finally. There it was. A sending to Tara with a simple command.

"This stops this instant. I'm downstairs. Let me in."

Tara paced for a few minutes while composing a reply. A lie. A lie would be best. Gale was of no help, of course, but the orb had gotten worse of late. He was all skin and bones and had to sleep as much as she did, now. She finally settled on:

"Morena, I'm afraid we're Mystra sent to Calimport, an issue too big for their Guild Arcane¹⁴. Will bring back a nice Syl-Pashan Sup¹⁵."

Another sending from Morena came immediately:

"I've not heard from Gale in months, he doesn't even return sendings. What am I to think? Tara, you'd tell me if something was wrong?"

He hadn't returned sendings. That was unexpected. Tara summoned her softest voice and laid down next to Gale, tucking her head under his chin. His awful beard poking her head. "Have you gotten sendings from your mother you've not responded to?"

"Yes. When you were out for a tenday."

"Looking for things to help with your tummy troubles? Why didn't you didn't tell me when I got back?" Tara's tail flicked at the air. "If you needed help composing—"

"Spent hours agonizing over the 25 words," Gale cut her off. "The return message fizzled in my fingers."

"The return message? That's… a new development," Tara said. Internally, she began to panic. It was getting worse. Far far worse than she ever imagined. "Outside of odd circumstances, I didn't even know those could fail."

"Hard to consider these circumstances anything but odd. I didn't want to worry you." His voice burned with shame. Perhaps it should.

Tara sighed. "There has been a great deal to worry about already, but I've not keeled over yet. If I am to help you—"

Gale fidgeted with the ring on his middle finger. He once had a whole handful of them - tacky silver filigree, large gems, brimming with magic, overflowing with ostentatious pride - but they'd all gone to feed the orb now. The tan lines had just begun to fade. "It's getting worse."

"Absorb that last ring, will you? And I'll go on the hunt tomorrow—"

"This one doesn't have an enchantment. It was my father's. I don't know if I ever told you that. Merely sentimental. I put it on when we began to absorb the others. I missed having something to touch there."

Tara cursed all the gods under her breath. "Take my collar off. In case it's time before I get back."

Gale took it off without a word but Tara could smell it on him. The defeat. It was a step too far.

"Gale," Tara grumbled, "you will eat that, won't you? If it's hungry? If you explode and kill us all, I'll be furious."

"I'll absorb it, yes." He said quietly, as if she hadn't known him long enough to hear when he was lying. As she couldn't feel his skin prickle and his smell shift.

"Okay," she lied back. It would have to be a quick hunting trip. They'd sold all the most exquiste books, sometimes at terrible losses, and Gale had absorbed everything else. Tara Dekarios had found herself stooping to cat burglary—and was surprisingly good at it, despite being no cat —not that she'd ever tell him. She continued, "So. I've lied to her, Mister Dekarios. Some chosen mission that your mother already understands is hush hush. We're in beautiful Calimport, if you'd like to know. "

"I don't. I really don't."

"Don't vex me."

It wasn't just Morena. It was all of it. It was the night of the orb, stomach twisting pain and then that little Gale that lived in the back of her mind fizzling away. That connection, that familiar connection, vanishing completely. Replaced by static. A phantom limb that ached, the most lonely feeling she'd ever had. She was been sure he was dead, that she felt their connection bend and break because he was gone. Why else would he be lost from her? If she'd not been purely herself, an accomplished wizard in her own right, her own creature, her own person, if she'd been some spirit bound as an owl or a mouse, she would have been completely destroyed too, wouldn't she?

But it wasn't just loneliness. She'd never tell Gale how exhilarating it was, even through the terror and agony, how him disappearing from her mind was both dissolution of what she understood she was and who she could be. She'd always been her own person, yes. But there was a difference here. Waterdeep life may have been all she knew, but many tressyms were solitary, she could go into the world, free and new, just like her brethren. She could fly away and never come back and never think on it again if she wanted.

If she wanted.

But she wanted her boy. Perhaps she'd never been a proper familiar, beyond that feeling in her head. She'd only ever been his friend. And her friend was dead, but if there was a chance, however minuscule, how could she go on not knowing? Tara chose Gale. He was hers and she was his, a perfect circle of companionship she would have no other way.

But. Choosing it. Choosing it was even better. It was something she could sink her teeth into, a choice, eagerly chosen. She did not need to be his pet or his familiar or his sister or mother or an owl or a mouse or or or. She was only Tara. That's all she ever needed to be.

Tara returned Morena's sending.

"Of course I'd tell you if there was something wrong. You know Gale. Busy as a bee."

Surely, Morena knew those human truths she forgot to tell Tara. That Tara had worked so hard to learn on her own, that there were some lies to be told and promises to be broken, some things too painful to explain, and until they'd untied this particular bloody knot, there was no reason to tell her at all. If they failed—not that Tara would entertain that possibility for a second despite the many maps she pretended not to see. The ones Gale had spread out across the tower like last wills and testaments—they wouldn't be able to tell her anyway.

Gale wrapped his arms around Tara and began scratching her head. No one managed the nuances quite like him, the intricacies.

"Now you're just trying to get on my good side." Tara purred, despite herself.

"Unquestionably," Gale worked the spot on the back of her neck, right where her collar would sometimes itch her. "Is it working?"

"I have very high standards, mind," she hummed, "Keep scratching."