Chapter Text
Astarion hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Truly.
Eavesdropping — on Gale, of all people — required a modicum of interest he simply did not possess. The wizard was tedious, pedantic, and unnecessarily verbose — all without being the slightest bit interesting about it.
So, no, Astarion did not mean to eavesdrop. On Gale.
But when the timbre of Lyric’s blood shifted from moonlit sonata to thunderstorm breaking… well. That caught his interest.
He followed the ozone-bite of her magic to a clearing on the lower edge of camp, not far from the muddy shoreline. He saw her sword and violin first, propped up against a large, flat stone next to the wizard’s quarterstaff.
It was… annoyingly domestic.
He forced himself to look away before his scrutiny could deepen into a scowl.
Lyric and Gale stood in the center of the clearing, facing each other, as if they were about to dance. Or duel.
He was smiling down at her, earnest, open, sincere — everything Astarion wasn’t.
She was gazing up at him — warm, engaged, attentive. Not in an “I’m imagining what your insides would look like as outsides” kind of a way. That would have been acceptable. Understandable, even. More in an “I care about what you have to say (even though it’s probably insufferable)” way.
Astarion might have been annotating. A little.
“You’ve shared that you perceive magic as music,” the wizard was saying. “A little reductive, perhaps — but an apt metaphor nonetheless. Magic is structured, in the same manner that music is structured. It requires precision, intention, craft.”
“I don’t play from sheet music, Gale. And I don’t cast that way, either.”
“Of course you do. You may well have internalized the structure in way that feels instinctive, but the structure still exists.”
This was worse than a lecture. This was a debate.
And it did absolutely nothing to explain the spark of electricity in the air.
“That’s possible,” Lyric replied carefully. Astarion didn’t miss the way her smile thinned around the edges. Gale, predictably, did.
So — she hadn’t told the wizard about the murder-sized holes in her memory. That was… something. He filed it away to think about later. Ask about, maybe, if he could be sufficiently distracting in other ways to startle an honest answer out of her.
Meanwhile, Gale was still talking. Because of course he was.
“… if we proceed from that assumption, then the key to unlocking your full magical potential becomes identifying that underlying structure and refining it into something less improvisational, more intentional…”
“Gale.”
The wizard blinked. “Yes?”
“I don’t need to ‘unlock my full magical potential.’ I just need to know why my Thunderwave… feels off.”
“Oh. I see. Well, then—”
This was painful to watch. He should go. Do something useful. Or glamorous. Wash his hair. Paint his nails. Take Scratch for a walk and pretend it was Shadowheart’s idea.
He didn’t.
Gale was recalibrating. “I’m afraid I have to ask for a bit more specificity. When you say your Thunderwave ‘feels off,’ are you referring to the angle of the projection, the radius of the area of effect, or the magnitude of the wave itself?”
“I’m not sure.” Lyric frowned. It was not an annoyed frown. It was a thoughtful frown. A contemplative frown. A frown that suggested Gale had somehow managed to ask something insightful while mistaking precision for wit. “The… impact was late. Like the beat slipped. I’m sorry, I’m not sure how else to explain it.”
“In that case, perhaps a demonstration is an order.”
Astarion bristled. Gale was looking at Lyric like she was a puzzle he wanted to solve — like a puzzle he deserved to solve, as if he had been the one quietly collecting clues for the past tenday.
“A demonstration…?” she echoed, letting the word stretch into a question.
Gale nodded. “If you can replicate the issue — outside of combat, in a controlled setting — then we may be able to diagnose it. Here.” He took several steps back, creating space for her to cast. “Aim out over the water. I’ll observe.”
Lyric shrugged and sang a note from the low end of her register. Astarion may not have been “studied in magic,” as Gale never tired of reminding him — of reminding all of them, really — but he was still a High Elf. Or at least, he was enough of one to feel the Weave reshape itself to her will. Arcane power blurred into sound, and sound into music. Pressure gathered, then exploded through her fingertips with concussive force.
Not thunder. Percussion.
Gale stared at her, his jaw working soundlessly.
Lyric waited with the infinite patience of an ambush predator.
“I think the reason your Thunderwave ‘feels off’ is that it's not Thunderwave,” Gale said finally.
Lyric frowned. “Of course it’s Thunderwave.”
“It’s similar to Thunderwave. But Thunderwave has very specific verbal and somatic components — and you didn’t perform either of them.”
Astarion sighed. Deeply.
Lyric smiled as if she found that bit of inanity... charming. What in the nine hells was wrong with her?
“Point taken,” she said. “In that case, the spell I cast that looks like Thunderwave, and sounds like Thunderwave, but isn’t Thunderwave…” She waited for Gale’s earnest nod before finishing, “that feels off.”
Astarion couldn’t help himself. He used the tadpole. Why haven’t you stabbed him yet? he asked.
Her gaze flicked to his, finding him easily in the deeper shadows of the trees, and she did the worst possible thing he could imagine:
She blushed.
He groaned. Out loud. Even Gale looked up. “Did you hear something?” he asked.
Lyric shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Go away, Astarion.
I want to! I can’t bring myself look away. You have abominable taste, darling. You only just freed yourself of the gith, and now— ugh, I can’t even say it.
I’m asking about magic! Not proposing marriage.
Gale clearly didn’t believe her, but was also too polite — or smitten, whatever — to contradict a pretty lie. “Ah, well. Must have been a squirrel.”
Marriage? Gods, spare me. I’m not worried about marriage, I’m worried that your good sense has gone the way of your memory. And stop blushing at him. It’s indecent.
“Must have been,” she said out loud. “They’ve been especially aggressive lately.”
Gale smiled vaguely, which probably meant he was rehearsing his next lesson. If he started lecturing her on the behavior patterns of small woodland creatures, Astarion was going to drown himself in the river.
…Promise?
Lyric’s smile turned wicked — and Gale absolutely noticed. His pulse jumped. Astarion ran both hands through his hair.
Whatever you’re planning, darling, I’m telling you now — it’s a terrible idea.
“Why don’t you show me how you cast Thunderwave?” she suggested, all gray eyes and guile. “The verbal and somatic components, I mean. The hands-on approach worked so well when you taught me how to conjure Mystra.”
This time, it was Gale who blushed. “The moment we shared in the Weave was precious to me,” he admitted through the fluster. “And you were as adept a pupil as I could hope for. Very well.”
Wait. What moment?
Astarion prodded her through the tadpole. She ignored him, her attention focused — wholly, deliberately — on Gale. They were standing closer now. Gale was showing her how to shape her fingers for the cast, first by demonstrating, then by taking her hands, gently correcting—
He sent her an image. His fangs at her neck; his hands pinning hers again moonlit stone.
She stumbled. Gale caught her instantly, a gentle hand under her arm. “Are you all right?” he asked. Astarion caught a glimpse of Gale through Lyric's eyes — his face too close, his brow creased with concern that felt entirely too real for the moment.
Something unpleasant curled low in his chest — sharp, hot, humiliating. He refused to look at it.
Lyric.
“Just a little dizzy,” she lied. “I’ll be fine.”
Gale frowned. “It probably isn’t my place to say this, but I feel like we’ve become … friends … over the course of our admittedly brief acquaintance, and as a friend, I hope, a bit of leeway may be permitted?”
“Of course.”
“I know you and Astarion have… an arrangement.” His gaze dropped, briefly but meaningfully, to her neck. “I’m a little concerned — we’re all a little concerned — that it may be to your detriment.”
She swallowed. “All?”
“Shadowheart, Wyll, Karlach.” He smiled gently. “I believe Lae’zel’s exact words were ‘Chk.’”
Lyric—
She made a soft, broken noise — something between a sigh and a laugh. “That sounds like Lae’zel.”
Astarion stopped himself. Or maybe that sound stopped him. Either way. He wasn’t going to beg. He couldn’t — wouldn’t — apologize.
Where did even that leave him?
Lyric shoved him out of her head. Hard. It hit him like a physical blow — would have knocked the breath out of him, if he’d bothered to breathe at all.
He rubbed a hand across his chest. It felt too tight and hollow at the same time.
He took one last look at them — his hand under her arm, steady, supportive; her fingers on his chest, splayed over a heart that still remembered how to beat — and fled, escaping into the woods.