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Gale hadn’t meant to become the chief cook and bottle washer for the band of misfits he traveled with. He hadn’t volunteered, and he hadn’t insisted. He hadn’t even complained in those early days where dinner—if you could call it that—was best consumed with large gulps of water, washing down burned bits and congealed clumps like pills rather than food.
Not that he wasn’t well suited to the position. Morena Dekarios was an excellent cook, and Gale had spent much of his childhood learning the skill at her side. Despite all his scholastic and professional accolades, one of his proudest moments was when Morena had declared Gale’s Hundar sauce superior to her own. Looking back later, Gale recognized the parental cheerleading for what it was, but it didn’t change how much he enjoyed his own Hundar sauce.
There had only been the two of them as long as Gale could remember. And Tara. But Tara wasn’t much for cooking, or laundry, or all the small tasks that were imperceptible but necessary to running an orderly household. If something needed doing, it was up to him or his mother to do it. Often it was Gale, as he was the fussier of the two of them.
Gale learned early how to identify gaps and fill them in. Quietly, when quiet was called for, or cheerfully, when the mood needed restoration. He made the tea before tea was asked for, and he knew which cup was cracked and always kept that one for himself.
This earned Gale praise and attention, and though it certainly wasn’t the lesson Morena Dekarios intended, Gale the ‘helpful boy’ learned to pay for his place in the world through usefulness. When Gale found himself faced with this new chaotic bunch of weirdos—and their impossibly broad spectrum of needs—he chose a role that met the most basic of those needs. It seemed to Gale that keeping all the bellies full would be the best way for him to be of use.
Gale glared at the handful of limp and pale vegetables on his chopping block, muttering the scathing retorts he wished he’d made to a certain insufferable vampire spawn who insisted on chirping every meal Gale put before the group.
‘And why does he care?! He doesn’t even eat!’ he exclaimed to a particularly wrinkled rutabaga as he viciously lopped off the leaves.
‘Talking to yourself, Gale?’ Shadowheart appeared from around the tent, smirking.
‘Yes, well, there are circumstances in which it is the only way to have an intelligent conversation.’ Gale smoothed his ruffled feathers with a placid smile. ‘Needs must.’
To his surprise, Shadowheart laughed, then perched herself on a crate next to his work area. Gale returned to his chopping but ceased the muttering.
‘He only does it to wind you up, you know.’
Gale flicked up his gaze briefly but said nothing.
‘I hate your meals, too,’ she said blandly.
Gale felt irritation flare under the orb but said nothing. With the way he’d been provoked already today, he didn’t trust what might come out of his mouth.
‘It’s a very social ritual, isn’t it? Mealtimes, I mean.’
Gale slowed his chopping and made a quiet noise of agreement. These were more words in a row than Shadowheart had ever spoken to him before, and something about it bounced the needle on Gale’s emotional indicator.
‘If you’ve never been isolated, let me tell you that re-engaging can be overwhelming.’
‘I’ve been alone in my tower for a year,’ he muttered.
‘Pshht! You did that to yourself. It wasn’t forced upon you. It wasn’t done to control you or break you.’ Shadowheart pulled her knees into her chest and hugged them. ‘Give him a break. Believe it or not, he’s trying. Trying to remember how to be with people again. Hells, how to be people, again.’
Gale continued chopping in silence, but felt something shift. Was she talking only about Astarion? That was the thing he was learning about Shadowheart. She didn’t share. Not straight on, anyhow. Shadowheart’s admissions tended to slip out sideways, and you might occasionally catch one from the corner of your eye.
‘It smells good,’ she said, and hopping down from the crate, she wandered back to her tent.
Nights passed, and Gale cooked. Gale cooked and people came to sit. They’d arrive just as the soup came to a simmer, and so predictably that one day he replaced the crate nearest the fire with a proper chair, even providing a small cushion for comfort.
‘Hey, Magic Man. Whatcha making us tonight?’
‘Soup again, I’m afraid.’ He gave Karlach an apologetic sort of shrug. Rations were scarce in the shadow cursed lands.
‘Oh, you’re going to have to work harder than that to turn me off, mate.’ Karlach closed her eyes and inhaled the sharp, briny steam. ‘Everything in Avernus tasted awful. Like, really awful.’
‘I imagine so.’
‘Yeah, so when I first got there everything really sucked, right? Like, I was months being…err…altered, and I just thought the food was awful because I was like in a prison. Food always sucks in prison, eh?’ He could see out of the corner of his eye how Karlach’s knee bounced. ‘But then I got out—well, sorta out. Out of the prison anyhow—and like, I remember when I found out that all the food sucked. That might have been the worst day, y’know? Like, I suddenly realized that this wasn’t temporary. This was life now—it sucked, and wasn’t going to ever stop sucking.’
Gale glanced up at Karlach. She blinked too fast and twisted the hem of her tunic like she was trying to wring the color from it. She gazed into the murky broth, but that’s not what she saw.
Gale scraped his cutting board into the soup pot.
‘Were those pickles?’
‘They were.’
‘In soup?’
‘I’m afraid I have nothing left but dried meat and pickled veg.’ Gale handed her a spoon and gestured to the pot. After all the rabbit food they’d eaten during their stay at the Grove, he’d been certain he never wanted to see another chard as long as he lived. Just another thing he would add to his every growing list of misassumptions. ‘The recipe is Jaheira’s.’
Karlach winced, and her lips puckered around the spoon in her mouth, and Gale deflated.
‘Sour,’ she said, then seeming to clock his disappointment added, ‘No! It’s great, really! I just wasn’t expecting sour. Maybe warn people so they can get in the right mindset.’
Gale laughed, softly. The suggestion that he should issue warnings in advance of serving dinner would have upset him a couple months ago. Now it was just good advice. ‘Thanks, Karlach. I’ll do that.’
He learned the sound of their footsteps. The speed and weight of them. Lae’zel hesitated, Astarion stomped. His cooking pot had become a waypoint, and it wasn’t a question of if he’d have company as he cooked, but of who it would be.
‘Gale?’ The light skipping cadence gave her away.
Grub Grub threaded between and around Gale’s ankles, and he reached down to scritch orange fur. The cat was an indicator as well.
Instead of motioning to the chair, as he did with most of his company, Gale toed a small crate over, making a platform that would allow Yenna to work alongside him.
‘I have a problem.’
‘And I have twelve carrots that need dicing, so it seems we’ve found each other at a particularly auspicious moment.’
Her mood brightened even before she delved into her problem.
Gale knew, everyone had different needs.
Halsin brought him mushrooms. He placed the cloth bundle on the worktop and rumbled a compliment to the chef.
The chair creaked faintly under the weight of the large elf, the sounds of bubbling broth and chopping filling the silence between them. Gale could wait. Many months of this taught him that all he needed was patience.
‘Gale, I hope you know how truly appreciated you are.’
‘Yes, well, ingredients have been easier to come by since we got to the Gate. I even met a spice trader in Rivington recently, and I think I’ll be able to make a passable—’
‘It’s not about the soup, Gale. I think you know that.’
Gale stilled. He closed his eyes and his chest hitched once with a soundless laugh. ‘It benefits us all,’ he said simply. ‘We still have to eat, don’t we?’ Gale felt his cheeks grow warm.
‘We do,’ Halsin agreed. He narrowed his eyes, choosing his words. ‘But you feed more than their bellies, and I’m not sure that we’re always very good at expressing our appreciation. Sometimes it looks more like expectation. Even if the pot went cold, you would continue to belong to us.’
It happened rarely, but Gale was at a loss for words. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Halsin, of all people, saw. Halsin was a caretaker, very much the same, and so very different from himself.
‘Thank you,’ Gale finally managed. ‘Thank you for saying so.’ It was hardly the verbose response he’d like to have produced, but the druid seemed to understand and held his eye a moment before glancing back over his shoulder.
‘You seem to have another customer,’ Halsin said with a small smile. He clapped Wyll on the shoulder as they passed each other—Halsin leaving, and Wyll arriving.
‘Gale, can I ask you something?’
Wyll sat down heavily in the chair next to the cooking fire and sighed as though he were venting the troubles of the entire realm.
‘How can I help?’