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What Astarion can see of himself is hideous: long, dark tentacles covered in what appear to be spines, and hands fundamentally unsuited to the delicate work of embroidery or to knife-play. Everything about his body is foreign to him now. The sound of his voice, the way he moves, even the colors he perceives have changed. He once thought that he'd want to rush to the mirror to see himself the moment he could. Now that it's a genuine possibility, Astarion shattered the mirror he kept by his bed without daring to look.
He will move on soon, once he decides where to go. Perhaps he’ll seal himself in the Tourmaline Depths. Perhaps he’ll live out his days in the Underdark like the rest of his kin. Perhaps, indeed, he ought to end his life now, while he still remembers who he once was. But first, there is this final evening at the Elfsong Tavern. His companions are on the roof of the building, celebrating their victory. All but one, that is.
Gale bursts through the doorway with an expression that burns with desperation. When he catches sight of Astarion, he sags with relief, leaning heavily on his staff, and practically limps over. Poor, feeble Gale. The final battle took a great deal out of him.
"You're still here, thank the gods," breathes Gale, dropping his staff as he approaches their shared 'bedroom', which is really just two beds and the adjoining space cordoned off by a curtain and a divider.
"Not for long," Astarion admits. It's deeply awkward to try to speak in his new form, and he sounds nothing like himself. He reaches out and touches Gale's mind instead and finds him unresisting. Surface-level emotions flit across that brilliant brain of his, a veritable treat for any of Astarion's kind: concern, gratitude, sadness. There's no trace of revulsion. Astarion uses their connection to speak into his mind with the voice he used to have. “But I won't stay. If there is anyone in Baldur's Gate who knows me, I don't want the memory corrupted by what I am now.”
"I may quibble with the premise that your memory would be 'corrupted', considering that your choice is what saved the city, but I can hardly argue with the idea that you should make new memories. Which is why I'm very excited for you to return to Waterdeep by my side." Gale smiles at Astarion, showing his teeth, in a way that he finds to be horrendously naive. It’s hope that he senses in his mind now.
"You'd take me to Waterdeep? And what, hide me away in a room in your tower?"
Gale scoffs at the idea, the concerned expression on his brow intensifying. "Of course not! Nothing could be further from the truth. I will introduce you to my mother, and to whatever friends I may have left at my disposal when I return, and I will give you everything you may need to live well.” He lifts a hand, raising one of his fingers in the air and leaning closer. His voice takes on that tone of self-assured optimism that Astarion knows so well. “Brains included. Nothing has changed, as far as I’m concerned. All our plans, our wildest fantasies, still apply."
This is too much for Astarion. He stands, or practically floats to his feet. “I have lost everything that I was, and you dare to say that nothing has changed?” As he speaks, Gale staggers backwards as if shoved in the chest, onto a seated position in his bed. Where Astarion once had to concentrate on the tadpole to produce such effects, he can do them now with hardly a thought. Gale’s mind flickers with surprise, pain, and a certain measure of indignant pride. "You would take me, the monster that I am now, and parade me around to your family and friends as if I were still your lover? You would tell everyone that this is Astarion?" There is undisguised disgust in his own tone of voice. One of his large, four-fingered hands lifts to his head and moves down, gesturing to the body which Astarion still cannot bear to look at.
"But you are Astarion," says Gale, and he's never sounded more stupid.
"You may think it's love, what you're showing me, but it's only a mockery of it. I would know you, not the creature that replaced you. I could never accept someone else taking your name or your shape and pretending to be you. It would be no better than falling in love with a doppelganger and forsaking your true lover."
"No," says Gale patiently. He is endlessly patient, it seems. It drives Astarion mad. "Because you are yourself. Not someone pretending to be you. If this is how you feel, Astarion, why did you transform at all?"
“You think I chose this?" Astarion doesn’t need to hear the answer aloud. Thoughts flicker in Gale’s head, remembrances of all the times when Astarion openly embraced the power of the tadpoles. It hurts to know the person he loves could so fundamentally misunderstand him. "All that time, I thought using the tadpoles would make me stronger— but it only weakened me. It made me powerless to resist, no matter how much I revolted against the idea of transformation. My thoughts were not my own. My mind was not my own. And now my body is not my own, either. I was just beginning to discover who I really am, and now I'll never know."
"Oh, my love." Now comes the horror in Gale's eyes as well. Astarion is briefly satisfied that he has at last made Gale understand the depth of the problem. But Gale stands from where he was knocked back onto his bed and pulls Astarion into a tight hug. "My love, I am so sorry that it happened this way. But I will not forsake you now. No matter if I should have to repeat it until the stars burn out, I love you. As you were before, and as you are now. I was wrong to say that nothing has changed. For you, it certainly has. But there is still a new you to discover. One that I, at least, intend to learn inside and out.”
The physicality in his new form is overwhelming. His skin is more sensitive than Astarion thought possible. Gale’s hands press into his flesh as if it’s made of gelatin, but every inch of contact between them feels like a jolt directly to his brain. The words, too, sink into his sensitive places. He mourns for Gale, that he loves so freely and honestly a person so undeserving of it, but at the same time Astarion cannot deny his own pull towards his lover, the familiarity of this ache. Though Astarion cannot cry tears in this new body, he is surprised to feel the depths of his own emotion. He’d thought mind flayers only performed feelings, but now, his own sentiment all but consumes his thoughts. As it swells to a peak, some sort of mucus rises to the surface of his skin, bursting into a brilliant display of light between the two of them.
Gale draws back from his embrace at once, staring in fascination. "What is this?" On his face is the curious pleasure of the academic who has made a new discovery tinged with a measure of anxiety.
Astarion is just as surprised, but he’s far less pleased by the development. It feels disgusting. He'd rather not make a habit of spreading his bodily fluids mid-conversation. "I don't know. Hells, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
"It's beautiful.” Gale’s hand moves away from Astarion’s back and comes to rest on his arm, trailing his fingers through the mucus and pulling away, marveling at the way it shines even after it leaves his body. ”Actually, as illithids go, you're very striking. You seem to have a number of unusual features. The spines on your tentacles, this glowing excretion... those large, red eyes of yours, which remind me so much of your eyes before. I don’t know if you’ve seen," he says, tactfully, though Astarion can see in Gale’s mind’s eye the shattered pieces of the mirror, “but you even have little ear-like flaps on your head. I’ve never read about a mind flayer sub-species that fits your description, however.” Fearlessly, even desirously, he runs his hand over one of Astarions tentacles. "Ah. The spines are fleshy, at least. That will prove less harmful to my own health. Perhaps this is a consequence of your vampirism. I will have to study more on the subject. But the point is, as I said, you make a striking figure.”
Astarion draws back, wary at the idea of being poked and prodded, but Gale follows suit, lifting his hands in the air as if in a gesture of surrender. He can hear the meaning in Gale’s thoughts, too, a mild self-rebuke and an assurance not to touch Astarion without first receiving his permission. "I was beautiful before. Now ..."
"You are still. But I never loved you because of your beauty. You can take any shape that pleases you, my love, or remain as you are, and I will still think you are the most exquisite being to walk the earth. Or float, as the case may be." Gale smiles at him again and folds his hands behind his back, turning from side to side. "So? What is it to be?" It’s clear he thinks he’s won. There is still an anxious undercurrent behind his movements, as though he is desperate for Astarion to believe that he is just as enamored with Astarion’s new form as he says he is.
But Astarion doesn’t need to take him at his word; he can hear the sincerity ringing through every word and echoing in Gale’s mind. A mind that remains unguarded to Astarion, a measure of Gale's full trust. If Gale loves him still, and he still loves Gale– and gods does he love Gale– perhaps something of himself remains. "I thought I might hide away in the crypts under Cazador's palace," he admits.
Gale's expression softens and he takes a step closer. "To quote a lover of mine, don't you think you've been dead in the ground for long enough? Wouldn't you like to try living again?" He lifts a hand again, but having learned his lesson, leaves it hanging in the air by the side of Astarion's face.
After a moment of consideration, Astarion leans into it. "I suppose I might as well give it a shot."