Chapter Text
Gale shuddered at the uncomfortable squelch beneath his heel. The city had not yet cleaned up the corpses of Absolutists and chunks of Netherbrain littering the streets. The thick, sour-sweet scent of decay made brainstorming appetizing meals for the trip back to Waterdeep nearly impossible.
It felt strange being the last one to leave. Even with his own journey home ahead, Gale couldn’t shake the silly the feeling he'd been left behind. When they arrived at Baldur’s Gate, the city felt new but not unfamiliar. A week after the cult’s defeat, as his friends said their goodbyes one by one, a little warmth seemed to slip away with each of them. The initial excitement of novelty was now faded, leaving a cold, lonely energy in an otherwise crowded metropolis. Only Astarion remained.
The vampire flicked a black ball of goo from his own boot. Shielded from the sun by a dark leather getup and a black parasol, he looked more like Gale’s shadow than an elf. The outfit looked stifling, and Gale was surprised he insisted on showing him around the shops in it. It was suspiciously hospitable.
“You know…” Astarion crooned as he lazily spun his parasol.
Gale tensed at the little melody in Astarion’s voice; it was usually the beginning of a chat that ended in a sales pitch.
“I accept.”
Gale blinked. “…What?”
“You’ve really done an excellent job selling Waterdeep to me. I’d be a fool not to see it for myself. And since you’ve clearly been dying to invite me…I accept.”
Scrambling to disengage, Gale pretended to deeply inspect a sack of parsnips. The last two months had been awkward enough without this conversation. He was still a little sore from the day Tav came to him, wringing her hands and confessing her choice of Astarion over him. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised; Astarion intended to seduce Tav the moment they met. However, once they arrived at Baldur’s Gate, it was clear that Astarion’s phony affections had become sincere.
But now she’d abandoned him as well.
Suffice it to say, he and Astarion weren’t exactly close, but he did feel bad for him. Being left behind by someone who helped free him no doubt came with complicated feelings.
Gale stared deeper into the parsnips. Unleashing a vampire—and a thief—onto Waterdeep was hardly the gift he wished to bring home after spending nearly a year and a half as its most dangerous threat. But… Surely after all that transpired, Astarion was reformed. He chose not to ascend, after all. Still… Anyone with a shred of conscience would balk at consigning seven thousand souls to their doom, and Tav did influence him in that decision.
Although… he considered. If I were in his shoes, perhaps I’d feel—No! He squashed the thought before his empathy got the better of him, again. Absolutely not. I’m going home. Alone.
He traded the parsnips for carrots. “No desire to enjoy the city as a free vampire? Think of the possibilities!”
“I’ve sampled them all,” Astarion shrugged. “The city’s charms have grown stale.”
Back to the parsnips, “Why not make a new name for yourself here? Maybe explore a trade. Say—do these parsnips look spoiled to you?”
“How the devil would I know?” Astarion pushed the parsnips out of his face with a huff. “Listen, I know we’ve had our differences...”
He slipped over to another produce cart. “I’m sorry, but it’s not a good idea.”
Astarion grabbed his wrist, chasing Gale’s evasive gaze until his ruby-red eyes finally had him cornered. “Please," he implored. "There are too many memories here. I—”
“—Yes sir!” a gravelly voice cut through the market chatter. Seizing the distraction, Gale briskly went to investigate the source.
Within a small, abandoned lot, a man with a face resembling a rotting jack-o-lantern stood atop a cart stacked with crates. “I too had the gout,” he preached to a crowd before him. “Until Ilmater came to me! He bestowed upon me a blend of herbs and in one week—cured! From terrible tonsil stones to revolting rheumatisms, there’s nothing Reverend Doctor Professor T.J. Spindlepump’s Miracle Tonic can’t fix!”
“Reverend, doctor, and professor?” Gale said, rocking back on his heels. “Perhaps he also runs a diploma mill.”
Launching into a flashy demonstration, Spindlepump plucked a frail figure on crutches from the onlookers. With great ceremony, he dabbed the tonic onto the man’s trembling legs, and within seconds the “patient” snapped one of his crutches over his knee. Applause, gasps, and murmurs of approval echoed off the surrounding buildings.
“Well, there’s a trade for me,” Astarion mused. “Doesn’t seem so hard—and it’s for a good cause.”
His eyebrows twisted upward. “It’s snake oil, Astarion,” he said. He wasn’t that naïve, was he?
He clicked his tongue, “but look how hopeful they look!”
“You’ve clearly never been desperate enough to fall for one of these schemes. I'm not proud to admit it but I once lost five hundred gold to a charlatan like that.” His voice grew hushed. “At the time I was so desperate, I would have sold my entire library for a cure.”
Astarion tilted his head, assessing the “Reverend-Doctor.”
“I tried to track the man down to get my gold back,” Gale continued, “but the ‘elixir’ left me so ill I collapsed behind a public latrine, and not a clean one. Fortunately, Tara found me before I reduced the city to a crater… Boy, did she have questions.” He frowned as the salesman pressed a bottle into the trembling hands of a gaunt young man with matted brown hair. “Turns out hope can bankrupt you just as fast as greed.”
Possessed by muscle memory, Gale’s hand wandered to his sternum, instinctively seeking to soothe a pain no longer present. Tracing the orb’s brand seared into his skin unearthed a memory from what seemed like lifetimes ago: the feeling of his damp cheek sticking to the floorboards of his pantry; sweating and shaking, surrounded by half-eaten food torn from his shelves in a trance fueled by deep and unyielding desire. He crawled to the desk in his study, sending books and inkwells clattering to the floor as he searched for something, anything, to quiet the pounding in his skull. Surely, She would help if he could only reach her…
Then he awoke feeling disoriented but relieved. Clutching the fractured idol of his goddess against his chest, it became clear just how much trouble he was in. Even now the words “arcane hunger” failed to define the profound malevolence burrowed deep within his fragile body like a botfly.
Realizing where his thoughts had wandered, he lowered his hand to his side. There was no sense in indulging past grief. The Crown of Karsus was in Mystra’s keeping now, right where it belonged; that’s what he told himself at least. The three hard tugs it took Mystra to take it from him his hands suggested otherwise. When Tav persuaded him to surrender the crown for his own sake, a quiet part of him hoped the gesture might win her back. But once she left, the unsettling question crept in behind her: did he agree to it for himself or for her?
He turned back to Astarion to find him drifting toward Spindlepump’s cart, parting through the crowd like a snake through blades of grass. Though he looked out of place, no one noticed him; he was as natural to the scenery as the cobblestones. Each hip swayed over a heel softly meeting the ground. With his arms folded in front of his chest, he made a single orbit around the pitchman and returned to Gale with a small bag in hand.
Gale looked at the bag in astonishment. He hadn’t registered the theft—Hadn’t even seen Astarion’s arms move. The art of it all. It was like watching Tara snatch a sparrow mid-flight. Even if the intent was questionable, there was beauty in it. Having spent most days at camp while Tav and Astarion went out, he never witnessed just what Astarion was capable of. The man moved like smoke.
“Two hundred gold,” Astarion said, curling Gale’s fingers around the leather bag, “and when we reach Waterdeep, I’ll find your charlatan and collect the remaining three.”