Archive of Our Own

They say that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

To Gale Dekarios that seemed like solid wisdom that has miraculously never applied to him. His plans didn’t go awry – what others called misfortune, he considered to be nothing else than pure, untamed opportunity. Men don’t achieve greatness unless some great adversity is first brought before them and Gale believed, profoundly, that greatness was in the stars for him.

His plans might have not been best laid but they sure went awry, regardless of how certain he’d been that even the direst consequences were within his abilities. That is all that needs to be said on the plans of men.

The plans of mice, on the other hand, now more than ever remain a pressing concern. He’s come to realize that mice are scheming little bastards and generally always up to something.

Because, to summarize, Gale began the year in pursuit of an ancient book, with plans to bestow upon the Goddess of Magic a kindness that no mortal has thought to give her yet. Perhaps then, he hoped, she would look at him and see him as more than just a passing fancy. Not just another mortal but a partner in truth. Those were grand dreams but in his mind the path ahead was so vividly clear that he could not help himself but follow.

He is ending the year with whiskers and paws and with far humbler dreams of simply living another day.

His stairway of descent begins with the Orb. 

All of the sudden, the dreams have died a cruel, gruesome death. He’s on the floor of his home, burning from the inside and Tara is screaming in his face. For a while he is certain that that will be his final memory – the helplessness and the thing inside him eating at his power, his life, everything he’s worked and toiled for. 

Then, he doesn’t die. But Mystra is gone and everybody knows. She’s left behind her a colder world, a world in which there is nothing left for Gale but scrutiny. 

The thing inside hungers and he’s terribly weak. He drags himself from day to day, feasting on the artifacts that had been his pride and joy. He’s living on the scraps of hope that somehow this challenge, too, will prove conquerable but with every day, he feels lower. He’s running out of life. His nights first become filled with night terrors, picture-less flashes of death and decay, then turn sleepless altogether. 

Despair of this kind leaves its mark on a person. Something in Gale’s mind begins to break apart and the ugliness that pours out feels less like just the present misery and more like an accumulation of a life wasted. 

The man that saves him in that moment of weakness is the same man who has always saved him before. Elminster doesn’t have a solution for him – and that’s another level of terrifying because somewhere in Gale’s mind there’s an eight year old boy who still firmly believes there is nothing Elminster can’t fix – but he listens to him. 

He sits at his table and lets Gale ramble on about every miserable thought that’s been swirling his head for the past two months until he’s crying too hard to speak and his sentences collapse first into phrases and then into words. He doesn’t chide him or get angry. When Gale asks after Mystra, he simply shakes his head.

“Do not ask this,” he says. “My boys, do you not have enough sorrows? This is a matter of the fate of Gale of Waterdeep and it is shaping to be a dire fate, indeed. Focus on him – leave Mystra out of it.”

“I thought she was my fate.” Gale sniffles, a bit pathetically and Tara brings him another box of tissues. He hasn’t wept in front of Elminster since he was a very small boy. It’s yet another reminder of how far he’s fallen. All those years of being , simply wiped away and now it was like he’s standing back at the beginning.

“Ah. You are far from the only one to think that way. Our Lady of Mysteries compels and fascinates us. To a wizard of some skill, she is nothing short of a guiding star. But listen to me, Gale. She is in the skies and you are on the ground. That is your lot and it is not a lot you can ever change – you’ve been coming to this conclusion yourself, I believe, if far too late to do you any good. You cannot live a life down here constantly looking up at her. You’ll wear yourself down to nubs and it won’t leave a mark on her.”

“I… hoped that I meant something to her. I mean, I wanted to. I should have listened when she told me I didn’t need to prove anything, I know. It was my fault. But I couldn’t help but feel…” He trails off, suddenly aware who he is speaking to.

But Elminster is calm.

“You did mean something. Mystra never bestows her attention on the unworthy. But what that feeling is for her is much different than what it is for us. She is not a woman, though she retains some memory of being one – she is magic itself. She could not love you any more than the wind could; or the sun or the stars. It is no fault of yours. It is simply what she is. You can move the earth and the hearts of thousands but you will still find that the heavens are a little more immovable.”

Gale sits, silent. His cup of tea is growing cold. His thoughts are swirling around Mystra, Mystra, Mystra – and then they’re yanked from her orbit. What’s been hidden behind her splendor is much darker and entirely his.

“I am going to die,” he says, staring somewhere into half-distance. He wonders if she is listening, then decides he is a fool for wondering. “Right? That’s what’s happening. I can’t lie to myself anymore and I can’t keep thinking about her. I’ll have to find somewhere remote, somewhere I can’t hurt anyone when I go. Perhaps the Underdark would do. I… will die. I’ll die . And she will just… move on. She won’t even help.”

Elminster says nothing at first. Gale wishes he’d reach out, hold his hand, perhaps. He wishes desperately that an older, wiser being would pull him close and take this fear from him.

But there’s none.

He’s not a child anymore. He was supposed to take care of himself – and he failed. That’s on him. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

“That Orb in your chest,” Elminster says finally, voice so thick with purpose that Gale snaps out of his self-deprecation. For the first time in months, his mind feels capable of focus. “Is made of Karsite Weave. Mystra will not help because it is a danger to her very existence.”

“I… didn’t know. I swear! I swear I had no idea, Elminster, you have to tell her! I thought – I was told – it was a part of her . I would never –”

Elminster raises a hand.

“Peace. Do not worry about that now, my boy, and listen to me. In Baldur’s Gate there is a wizard by the name of Lorroakan. Some years ago, he came into possession of a book called The Annals of Karsus. In it, Karsus writes about what he refers to as the Regalia of Karsus – a Crown, a Sceptre and an Orb.”

“An Orb…” Gale mouths.

“The book itself has been written mostly in cipher, or so they say. Lorroakan has hoped to unlock its mysteries but it appears he has made little progress with the task in the past decade. In fact, he is to my current knowledge entirely taken with another project, whatever that may be. He’s a rather secretive sort of Mage, you see, and perhaps not the most discerning of our kind, though that is neither here nor there. But he might be glad to receive a little help with the cipher – or at least, he might be persuaded to part with the book with the right compensation.”

Hope flickers to life in Gale’s chest. 

He has a thousand questions. He wants to know more about the book, about Karsus. He wants to know what it has cost Elminster to get that knowledge and reveal it to him now – surely against Mystra’s orders.

But there is one thing that he needs to hear most of all.

“The Annals of Karsus… Do you think that perhaps I could – that my condition might be…”

Elminster smiles at him, gentle and tired. He reaches out and lays an aged hand on top of Gale’s.

“Gale of Waterdeep,” he says, “you don’t need to die yet.”

Thus, like any rational man willing to explore any avenue that might prevent his untimely demise in a giant explosion — if only because such a death would be a massive inconvenience — Gale packs his things, swears Tara to secrecy and rushes to Baldur’s Gate. The city is as busy and unclean as the adventurers of Yawning Portal always promised it would be but the sight of Sorcerous Sundries still sends his heart fluttering dangerously. All these books . He promises himself right there and then that he cannot die yet. Not when there is so much still to read and discover.

Unfortunately, the wizard known as Lorroakan reveals himself to be a complete and utter prick. His arrogance is only matched by his love of cheap hair dye. First, he refuses to meet Gale face to face. Then, once Gale helps himself into his office anyway, he has the gall to get upset and call for security.

No amount of bargaining helps. Lorroakan has no use for aid from Mystra’s former Chosen. Nor does he need gold.

“It’s a shame, Gale of Waterdeep. Were you any other man, I would be willing to negotiate the Annals of Karsus in exchange for a particular… quest.” Lorroakan tsks. “But I have heard about you. Heard too much , that is. I will not have your misfortune-summoning hands meddling with my project. I kindly ask that you direct yourself to some other wizard. Or perhaps to a temple of Beshaba.”

“Wait, let’s not be hasty! How about this: I sincerely promise to keep my misfortune-summoning hands to myself – if you give me the book. Hells, just let me borrow it. Just for a tenday. It doesn’t need to leave your treasury, just let me bring some parchment and–”

“My dear colleague, I believe the book we ought to bring you first of all is a dictionary . A no means no . Now please, remove yourself from the premises before I do us both the indignity of calling the Flaming Fists.”

Reluctantly, Gale goes.

Apparently, Lorroakan is even less pleased with him when he catches him breaking into the Vaults.

This time, Gale is not kicked out – instead, he has to run to escape with his life as the apparent Chosen of the God of Condescension and Petty Drama sics three different elementals on him.

Once, that would have been no challenge for him. But the Orb inside him devours him day by day and Gale knows, just as innately as Lorroakan does, that this is not a fight he can win. Better to live to try another day, though he is beginning to suspect that the endeavour is going to be more difficult than previously anticipated.

Difficult doesn’t mean impossible, though. Gale can work with difficult – he’s done difficult things many times before and he’s always found the perfect route to success in the end. He has no other options when his entire life is on the line.

A tenday of failures later, and his hopes are beginning to die. Every single bleak, pessimistic thought that’s been brewing in his head since the Orb is suddenly resurfacing. He wakes up in the morning and watches the colour drain out of the world by the evening.

The despair is so much worse this time because he is so close.

But then again, there is no guarantee that even The Annals of Karsus will help him here. Elminster couldn’t promise a cure – all he could say was that the book had information and that he believes that Gale will be able to find a solution.

Gale can’t imagine going through all of this only to end up disappointed again but the way things are going, it’s looking remarkably likely. Perhaps Lorroakan was not too off the mark when he mocked his misfortune-summoning hands.

These types of thoughts of course only lead a man to one place. One would hope that place would be the Vaults of Sorcerous Sundries but unfortunately, for Gale the place is a tavern called the Blushing Mermaid where he proceeds to get himself terribly, irresponsibly drunk.

The rest of the night is something of a blur. 

Someone flirts with him – rather insistently – and Gale rejects them, also rather insistently. A sailor slips him a letter, telling him the Captain wishes to speak to him. In the storage room, the Captain pours him more drinks until she gets the entire story out of him. He thinks he remembers her speaking to him kindly, consoling him with an old woman’s voice that reminded him pleasantly of his mother. And something else, something more dangerous.

He certainly remembers her offering him a solution and the moment where his drink-addled brain woke up and realized he was dealing with a Hag. 

The rest is a blur. He thinks he must have tried to fight her – but surely, he would not be that stupid? Then next thing he knows, he’s waking up on cobblestone outside, his body aching but brimming with energy. 

It takes him a bit to realize that his limbs aren’t right. He feels light-footed and quick. His hands don’t work but something else does. A tail he does not remember having is flicking back and forth and his fur is standing up in fright. 

In the morning sun, his shadow is small and four-legged, barely large enough to cover two stones. He looks down and sees paws. The dark, tabby fur is unfamiliar but everything else is not – he has seen these paws each time Tara jumped into his lap. It’s an instant of confusion, then he understands what that means.

The Hag has cursed him.

He’s a cat.

He’s a cat . 

He doesn’t have much time to panic at this realization. The doors of the tavern swing open to a drunk patron reeking of sex and vomit. The moment he notices Gale, he stumbles over with so much glee on his face that Gale has just enough of a warning to jump away before the kick could connect. Hissing and spitting, he scurries backwards, which only makes the man laugh louder. It’s a loud, obnoxious, bleating sound that hurts his ears and reminds him uncannily of Lorroakan. 

Through the open doors, he gets a glimpse of Captain Grisly watching with amusement.

Then the man swings at him again and Gale runs.

He runs and runs and doesn’t stop until he’s reached the Elfsong Tavern and becomes aware that he has no way of getting to his room. His chest is heaving, his heart is pounding and he feels like he’s going to die. This body does not tolerate exertion well; he thinks he should be sweating buckets but instead he can’t even pant like he wants to.

It’s only at that point that he notices what he should have felt from the beginning.

His heart is pounding but it’s the only thing. 

The Orb is gone.

In his life as a wizard, Gale has been in many a ridiculous situation.

He’s bargained with demons, fought enchanted knitting needles with a personality disorder, befriended a cursed book that spoke in puns and helped a few unfortunate classmates un-do their transformations into newts. Among other things. One cannot be a wizard and not be ready to be faced with scenarios only a thoroughly drugged mind could conjure up.

When he finds himself a cat, the first thing he thinks of is admittedly along the lines of ‘Gods damn it, this year keeps getting worse’. 

But true to his character, the next idea in his mind was ‘That twat Lorroakan will not be looking for a cat, this is great.’ Perhaps this, too, could be an opportunity in the making.

In his current form it takes much longer to walk. The city somehow smells even worse and dodging in-between legs of people much, much taller to him is so uncomfortable that he ends up sticking to rooftops with a newfound respect for Tara. He swears that when things get back to normal, he will never needle her about going on a stroll again. Nor will he let her comment on his sense of balance. As a man, Gale has on occasion been defeated by particularly steep stairs. As a cat, he can climb walls ten times his size and jump rooftop to rooftop with confidence he didn’t know he was capable of.

Unfortunately, just because Sorcerous Sundries was not a Gale-friendly place, it doesn’t mean it’s cat-friendly either, albeit for completely different reasons. His best attempt to sneak in is squashed mercilessly the moment Tolna Tome-Monger grabs a broom. 

The Weave cannot help him, he finds. It’s gone just as surely as the Orb is. But strangely, there’s no sense of loss – it’s as if instead of being ripped away, it simply melted into other senses, leaving behind no empty space.

He supposes that the Weave has not been truly his for a while now, anyway. 

At least this way, he isn’t dying. It could be called a fair trade, if Gale felt like being generous. All of his pride, his life-essence – in exchange for life in its barest terms. What a joke. He’d rather die as Gale of Waterdeep than live a full lifetime as just Gale, no power, no friends and no recognition.

The night finds him huddling under a bush in the park, startling at every sound that his sensitive ears are picking up. His stomach is growling, but what are his options? He has no way of preparing food. He could hunt but…

In his mind’s eye, he can see himself chasing down something small and delicious. He can visualize biting down and feeling hot blood bubble into his mouth past clenched maw. The cat’s body likes this idea. His stomach growls and his legs twitch with restless energy, eager to start the chase.

It’s his mind, his human mind, that balks at it all. Over and over, he imagines people seeing – Mystra, Elminster, his mother. Imagines what they’d think, if they knew of this new low he’d reached.

And then the traitorous thought springs up again: do you really want to live that badly?

By dawn, Gale is more afraid of the answer to that question than of the shame of surviving in this form. It lets him get him and survive, when everything else has failed him.

The first few days are rough.

He can’t hunt very well. Or at all. He ends up scavenging scraps in the trash and tries his best not to think about what he is eating. More than a few times, he wanders into another cat’s territory and has to run – embarrassing as it is, he doubts that would be a fight he could win, either, in his present state. He learns to be afraid of people and of noise.

The body is hard to adjust to.

It’s small, furry and difficult to groom. It feels wrong even as he tries not to think about it. And his senses are all off. His eyesight is sharper than he knows what to do with but the colours are washed out and unclear. His ears are oversensitive and there are a million smells he has no reference for – his human nose has never even come close to smelling them before. It’s so overwhelming it keeps him awake until he collapses from exhaustion.

But by the end of the first tenday, he is beginning to learn.

His new senses become more familiar to him. He remembers which streets to avoid and where to look for food. Before he knows it, the city opens up before him in ways he’s never known. Baldur’s Gate is full of nooks and crannies and he learns that unless he tries to break inside homes, nobody will pay any attention to him.

It stings a little, at first, to go from a God’s Chosen to practically invisible. But mostly, he is glad for it. Nobody needs to see his shame.

Strangely, with all of his daily activities ripped away from him, he also feels a release of pressure. He spends his days exploring the city and observing its people. He talks to other animals, sometimes — delighted at being able to do so. At first, he found them to be poor conversation partners, being uneducated and quite generally unconcerned with things such as philosophy, art, science and sometimes even morality. Other cats and corvids especially give him the impression that he’s conversing with a deranged serial killer. But of course, there’s no concept of that in the animal world. They are simply what they are, and entirely free to be thus.

There’s something radical in all that, something Gale of Waterdeep has never known but might have saved him. With time, he thinks he’s learning in that department too, although he can’t exactly put his finger on what.

The easiest way of getting food, he discovers, is begging it from the elderly. There’s a middle-aged dwarf named Derryth who runs the Bonecloak Apothecary and allows him to sunbathe on her windowsill. Her husband, on the other hand, is a menace. Gale is torn between avoiding him for his own safety and trying to do something to help Derryth. If he was still a wizard, he would have figured out some creative curse to teach the man a lesson but as a cat, all he can do is twist himself between his legs and attempt to trip him on the stairs. On more than one occasion, this earns him a hard kick.

He avoids the Blushing Mermaid but over time, he begins frequenting other taverns. It’s easy to steal food from inebriated patrons and when he rests under a table, he enjoys listening to the stories of sailors and passers-by. Most of them must be fabricated, of course, but it’s nice to hear about the life still going on elsewhere.

It’s on one of these nightly trips that he notices something peculiar.

There’s a man. This, of course, is not the peculiar thing because taverns are full of them. He’s an Elf, but that’s not strange either. They are, after all, known for their hedonism. His graceless flirting is a little odd, but that’s not what perks Gale’s interest.

His scent is strange. 

Gale can’t quite place it. He can smell perfume, but underneath is something else. A whiff of stale earth and decaying grass. And a sharper, more dangerous smell — even if he can’t name it, his body’s ancient instincts scream danger. With being a cat came an innate awareness of the food chain and most importantly, the ability to recognize an apex predator.

He remembers the Hag and wonders what else could be old and lethal enough that wildlife would be born wary.

The answer occurs easily enough. The Elf doesn’t look particularly dangerous. Like most of his kind, he’s dainty and lean and when he talks, his hands dance all over the air nervously like pale spiders. They’re strange hands, all skin and bone and pointed claws. Just as pointed as his ears or his teeth when he laughs.

It stands to reason that a feline would be able to smell the wrongness of undeath. 

The man is a vampire.

Unfortunately, the woman he is with doesn’t seem to notice that. Her face is flushed and she’s leaning into his space, giggling and blushing with every bad joke. She seems young and her makeup is smudged like she recently spent a long time weeping but couldn’t be bothered re-applying it, all of which points towards her not making the most reasoned choices tonight.

When the two of them depart the tavern, Gale follows. He doesn’t know what the vampire is intending with her, but he can make an educated guess. 

Fortunately, it’s much easier to stalk people as a cat. Not just because his senses are keener, but because nobody in their right mind would assume that a cat is stalking them. Although the vampire does glance at him a couple times with suspicion. But he must not take his own observations too seriously because this suspicion doesn’t prevent Gale from witnessing a very embarrassing situation in a dirty alleyway. 

The gentlemanly thing would be, of course, to look away but Gale tells himself that since he’s a cat now, it’s not that weird if he watches. It’s fine. It’s morally acceptable. It’s not like this body derives any pleasure from seeing human intercourse, anyway, and he can’t afford to let them slip away.

Perhaps, though, he should be a little less obvious about it though.

”Is that cat watching us?” The woman asks suddenly, her fingers all twisted in his hair.

“What?” The vampire struggles against her grip to look up from where he’s kneeling between her legs but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, Gods, he totally is. Look at him, he’s just sitting there, staring.”

Now Gale feels very awkward. So awkward, in fact, that the only thing he can do is keep sitting there and pretend like he just happens to be sitting there for his own mysterious purposes that have nothing to do with the two of them getting it on.

”What a pervert,” the vampire says, approvingly. He seems pleased to have freed himself and is fixing his hair self-consciously.

“Doesn’t it bother you? What if it’s some freak druid wildshaped into a cat?”

”Well, we are in public. It just stands to reason such a thing would happen. But perhaps you are right… If you want to — ah — continue this somewhere private, my place is nearby.”

”You know what?” The woman says, smoothing her frilly skirt back into place. “I would love that. This place is dirty and I’m very interested in what else you can do with your tongue.”

He’s on his feet very quickly.

”Oh, lots and lots. Darling, I can’t wait to taste you properly.” He even licks his lips when he says it but apparently that doesn’t disturb her because it’s immediately followed by an intense, loud makeout session.

No! Gale shouts in his head. Are you stupid? That’s not the kind of tasting he has in mind!

But perhaps this can be a good development. If he can figure out where the vampire lives… Well, he doesn’t know what he’d do. It’s not like he can file a report to the Flaming Fist. Nor can he hold a stake.

It’d be good to know though because maybe one day he will be a human wizard again and then he will be able to pay his thirsty friend a nice visit. To kill him, that is. Not for anything else. He feels like he’s not being clear enough about that.

The place he mentioned turns out to be a mansion on the Upper City wall. It’s a gothic monstrosity with two twisting towers, stone gargoyles, crumbling wall paint and black iron bars on every window — it makes a man wonder how nobody has ever looked at it and wondered if its occupant has ever tasted sentient flesh.

At that point, Gale’s conscience makes him act. 

It’s not the smartest thing he’s ever done but as he launches himself forward and sinks his teeth into the vampire’s ankle, he’s pleased with the shout of pain that elicits. 

“Fuck!” 

The vampire kicks out his leg and Gale flies back — only to jump him again. He swipes with his claws, hissing and spitting, mostly at the taste of bloodless, undead flesh infecting his mouth. Ew. He could spend a lifetime without tasting that.

“What in the sweet hells is this thing?” 

Timidly, the vampire backs away, clawed hands raised placatingly in front of him.

”Is that the cat from earlier?” The woman hides behind him and attempts to hold onto his arm but he shakes her off without even a glance. He takes another step backwards and smiles. It would have been a charming smile if it wasn’t screaming absolute murder.

“Here, here, kitty…”

So much for apex predator, Gale thinks and pounces, again and again. He claws and mauls and bites and to be quite fair, the vampire dodges most of his attempts but he can’t proceed with his dastardly seduction plan either. He’s growing visibly more frustrated with that.

”What is wrong with this cat?!” He wails, trying and failing to kick Gale away. Oddly, Gale thinks he’s not trying particularly hard either. His movements seem almost lethargic at times. But then again, so did his flirting so maybe that’s just his personality. Or perhaps he’s had a long day murdering people and whatever else vampires do and can’t be bothered to put his all into it anymore. Occasionally, he throws an anxious glance towards the manor, as if he’s worried that someone’s watching this go down from the barred windows.

His partner, on the other hand, is much more distressed. 

”It’s probably diseased. Ew, keep it away from me.”

Ah, Gale thinks as a brilliant idea occurs to him. He stops attacking the Elf, circling him slowly — then jumps the woman instead. 

She screams and tries to physically climb her cannibalistic lover but he’s having none of it and is generally being as helpful as a wet rag in a bushfire. You’d think he’d try just a little harder to protect his dinner.

”Get away! ” She’s flailing backwards, looking between him and the vampire wildly. Her smeared eyeliner only makes her look more frantic. Then, she must reach some internal breaking point. She sneers and snaps: “You know what, I think I’ll just go.”

This spurs him into action.

”What? Wait, no, darling, but we’re already here. I promise I’ll—“

”No, no, no. I’ve had an absolute night. And a day. I can’t take one more thing, I can’t. Fuck my boss and fuck Devin and you know what? Fuck you too. This whole thing’s been a mistake.”

She gives Gale an incredibly wide berth when she runs off. 

The vampire looks after her petulantly.

”Am I supposed to know who Devin is?” He calls and stomps his foot like a child.

Job well done, Gale skitters off, exceedingly pleased with himself. At last he’s finally been able to do some good with his life – one way or another, that poor woman will probably live now. 

He barely makes it to the city wall when a projectile hits the ground next to him and he realizes that the vampire is throwing rocks at him — with terrible aim.

”You nasty thing, you ruined everything! Gods damn it all! ” If Gale didn’t know better, he’d say that he sounds close to tears. 

Yeah, tears of rage maybe, he thinks to himself, leaping into a sprint. If the string of cursing is any indication, his defeated adversary is not feeling particularly sad.

He climbs the wall deftly, grateful for his body’s ability to allow him this escape. It’s rather strange — becoming a cat made him feel scared of most people and beings, but in this case, he thinks he’d fare much worse if he was a man. For once, his new place in the food chain is proving beneficial. 

Reaching the top, he sits, twists his tail around himself and watches as the great, heavy doors of the mansion swing open. A blonde young man skips out, laughing. He gives Gale a cheeky little wave.

“Good job out there, Astarion! Got beaten by a kitty-cat, did you? That’s new.”

The vampire — Astarion, it seems — slumps, like the energy suddenly went out of him. The rock he was about to launch at Gale slips from his fingers and rolls down the cobblestone.

”Fuck off, Petras,” he mutters. “It’s not my fault. She wasn’t his type anyway.”

”Then why pick her?” The other one tilts his head mockingly. “I almost believe you enjoy the punishment. Is that it?”

“Just leave me alone.”

”The Master’s going to have your hide for this, you know. He’s not happy. Well, he laughed himself to tears, but he’s not happy -happy. It was generous of him to give you another chance, and you squandered it. Because you couldn’t fight off a cat. ” He laughs again. 

Astarion stares blankly ahead.

“But anyway, I personally am glad that you’re a masochistic freak. More for you, less for me, everyone’s happy. Well, except for the Master. Poor, poor Master, going hungry tonight because of you.”

There’s still no response and that seems to frustrate Petras.

”Hello? Are you even listening?” He scoffs. “Good grief, Aurelia is right. You’re having one of your little episodes again, aren’t you?”

”I’m just hungry,” Astarion mutters, so quietly that even Gale’s new ears struggle to pick it up. “If he just gave me something to eat, just something…”

“Ugh.” The other vampire is not sympathetic. He grabs him by the collar and starts dragging him in. “You deserve to get things for free now, do you? Hm? The Master’s fair. He knows the rest of us work hard. The rest of us obey. The rest of us understand that we owe him our life.”

“And how does that work out for you, sweet brother ?”

For a moment, Gale thinks they will fight. There’s a long history of anger there, he gauges. The air itself seems thick with all kinds of nasty feelings looking for release. And vampire spawn – which is what they are, he knows now – are hardly the most civilized of creatures.

But they don’t.

The suffocating tension remains between them, thick as a poison cloud.

“I’m not the one who’s going to be screaming my lungs out in the kennels, so I’d say it’s working pretty well.” Petras is no longer mirthful. “Seriously, what is it with you? You better get it together or he’ll get sick of you for good.”

His brother seems rather amused by that. From just this exchange, Gale has gathered that he doesn’t think very highly of Petras and his intelligence. He might genuinely be unwell but he’d bet his entire private library that his silences are an act of carefully aimed deliberate condescension. 

Petras seems to think so too.

“Oh, fuck you.”

The last thing Gale hears of the two of them before the mansion door slams shut behind them is the slightly hysterical cadence of Astarion’s cackling. 

Over the next few tendays, Gale has a new interest taking most of his attention. It’s like a spark has flickered back to life inside his heart, with all the intensity of a freshly-born obsession.

He spends most of his days split between making his regular rounds around the city and staking out the vampire dwelling – the Szarr Palace, he learns. Home to Lord Cazador Szarr, a man with a rather unfavorable reputation amongst magical archivists and sellers of enchanted items. Gale has heard much about his dark temper and penny-pinching habits, but nobody has ever accused him of vampirism. Or if someone has, he supposes they haven’t lived long enough for the rumors to truly take off.

Regardless, that’s one trivial mystery he never particularly cared to resolve but now had an answer to – everyone knew that there’s something wrong with Cazador Szarr, just not what , precisely.

Even at his own home, the man is reclusive. He hosts lavish parties every fifth day of every tenday, but Gale has never managed to sneak into one – or rather, he doesn’t dare. Getting in could be easily done but he doesn’t know for sure if he’d get out again. It’s not dying that he fears. It’s the opposite. Everything inside that Palace is eternal, twisted in misery and undeath. The idea of that perfectly fits in the slot where the healthy fear of death once rested, before the Orb.

Gale sees very little of Lord Szarr, himself, so the only things he really knows about him are that he’s a rather gluttonous vampire, even by the standards of his kind, that he enjoys lavishness but hates paying and that his tightly-leashed sadism is reserved for his servants and Spawn.

There’s seven of them, from what he’s observed. Three women and four men, all of them rather pleasing to the eyes. On one hand, he’s glad that the citizens of Baldur’s Gate are mostly safe from the Vampire Lord’s madness. On the other, he can’t help but pity his underlings who are taking the brunt of it. 

Pity is as far as it goes, though.

They aren’t what one would refer to as ‘good people’ and whatever innocence they might have had is long gone now. Every night, they scour the city, hunting for victims to bring to their Master. One of them is even a wizard – though a rather mediocre one, in Gale’s opinion – and he is not above utilizing spells to procure his share of bodies. The others make do with their charm alone, though they are far less effective by comparison.

He’s tried to intervene again but found that skill with the Weave or not, the other Spawn are all somewhat more lively than Astarion was. He got terribly lucky that night, and didn’t even know it. Faced with his siblings, he barely makes it out alive. The blonde human – Petras – even attempts to eat him on one memorable occasion and Gale is forcibly reminded that vampire spawn can scale the city wall just as easily as he can, if not better. In the end, he has to squeeze himself into a small hollow where a few bricks had fallen off and wait for the dawn to chase Petras away.

The animals he speaks with also warn him away from the Szarr Palace.

“Bad place, that one.” The orange tabby’s ears are flat against her head. “Many rats, yes, but rats are how they get you. The two-legged ones hunt them but they like bigger prey.”

“You seem to know a lot about that place,” Gale observes. 

Her tail swings violently and he averts his gaze in respect.

“Yesss,” she hisses. “I roamed like you do, once. My children roam the streets, still. Many, many of them. But year by year, there is less of them.”

“The vampires eat them?”

“Eat, yes. Hold them down, bite them, tear them, gnaw on their bones, rip their flesh.” The old cat is seething. “Even the kits. The two-legs usually spare the kits but not them . The littlest one found my nest, once. Ate them all. They cried. I watched. Then I left. But I don’t forget, I will not forget. My Lady Sharess shall know his face one day and give him her vengeance.”

That would probably be the Gnome spawn, Gale assumes. He lowers his head.

“I am sorry. To survive such a horrible loss… I hope your children found peace.”

“Silly boy. I have more children. Many, many children.” 

“Ah, yes. So you’ve said. My apologies, My Lady.” Privately, Gale thinks he will never truly understand cats. They’re magnificent creatures, but seem to be generally averse to being known. If every living being seeks understanding, cats are the opposite – they revel in the unknown and thrive in the margins. In their eyes, their sorrows are just as much their property as their joys and they willingly part with neither.

Same could be said for the vampire spawn he’s tracking.

The personhood they display is a mirror, reflecting the person in front of them. But hidden under the mirror, sometimes there’s flashes. On the nights when their eyes don’t burn so strongly with the necrotic energy that’s animating them, Gale catches other things.

It fascinates him, as much as he loathes having to watch people get taken to their deaths night by night. For the lack of anything else to do, he wonders what it feels like to live that way. He’s never wondered that before the Orb. 

There’s so many ways of living, so many experiences that he’s been completely neglecting, it seems. He’s only ever considered a single path – and Mystra stood at the end of it with her siren’s call, beckoning him closer. And on he went, blind and deaf to anything else. Did he think of his mother? Of Tara? Of old friends and new ones he might still make? Books unread, poems unwritten, wine untasted?

And now he’s stuck like this. Precariously alive, but only because he’s been ripped from all human dignity and comforts and placed solely in the role of a passive observer. 

It’s enough to drive him crazy. Or it would be – day by day, night by night – but now he has this.

There’s something strange about Baldur’s Gate’s vampire coven. Can a single man truly consume so many people? It all seems somewhat excessive and Lord Szarr himself concerningly passive in all other areas of operation.

If there’s one thing that Vampire Lords are not , it’s passive. 

He doesn’t see Astarion-the-Vampire-Spawn for quite a while. 

Truthfully, Gale isn’t entirely sure how he feels about getting him in trouble. It saved a life – and that will always objectively be a good thing – but he can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that he only succeeded because he happened to kick someone who was already down. 

It’s hardly something that steals his sleep but the first time he sees him exit the Szarr Palace, he follows, despite previously intending to follow the long-haired human wizard. Usually, tracking Leon is consistently entertaining, in the sense that it reminds him of watching his classmates mess up during his Blackstaff days. Mystra help him, but that man executes his somatic components with all the fluidity and grace of a first year student on exam day. Not that Gale approves of casting Charm on innocent people to kidnap them – he simply thinks that if a man is already in the business of doing that, he could stand to not be bad at it. Even criminals must have standards.

Speaking of criminals, just as he predicted, following Astarion proves far less interesting. He spends the first half of the night pickpocketing people on the street and then uses the money to buy an egregious amount of alcohol in a futile effort to get absolutely trashed on an Upper City grocery store rooftop. Gale doesn’t approve but he can understand it. It’s probably been a rough few tendays for him.

He gets a little bit reckless, forgetting that lacking circulation, a vampire would rationally be unable to get properly inebriated, despite his best attempt to defy biology. Fortunately, when Astarion spots him, he doesn’t seem to care much. Not even when Gale walks out in the open and sits down directly in his line of sight, testing his luck further. 

“Ew, it’s you.” He tries to throw an empty bottle, but it’s so half-hearted that Gale doesn’t even bother dodging. It hits the ground about halfway between them and rolls away undamaged.

Ew? Gale thinks, somewhat offended. You try licking yourself clean.

“I see you’re still alive,” Astarion goes on, because he cannot read Gale’s thoughts and because he appears to be the sort of person to monologue at a cat. “Too bad. I was hoping you had the thing. You know – that , what’s it called? Hydrophoby. It’d be fun to have that, I think. There’s so many people I’d bite.”

Who still calls it hydrophoby in this day and age? He must be ancient.

“Not going to jump me this time, are you?”

Gale just watches him calmly. A silence stretches on between them.

Then Astarion laughs. It’s not a very joyous laughter, Gale notes. It doesn’t fit his face. Perhaps he intends to keep his emotions light, even to himself, but what comes out is self-pity and bitterness.

“Gods, that was a new low. It’s going to be at least a century before I stop hearing about it. So thanks for that.” 

Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have been trying to kill people, Gale thinks uncharitably. I think that’s just a tad lower than failing to fight off a cat.

Unfortunately, he cannot voice any of that. Or do anything more than watch the man try to drink off his fit of despair. It brings back memories of his time in the tower, back when he was still coming to terms with everything. The loneliness, the solitude, the complete powerlessness to do anything about it. He wonders if that’s how it all looked from Tara’s point of view.

Sometime after deepnight, Astarion stands up and kicks one of his empty wine bottles off the roof. He stretches, wincing slightly at some unseen ache and takes a long look at the city stretching beneath. Then he puts his hands on his hips.

“Well,” he says, more to himself than to Gale, who is a cat and would not normally be spoken to by properly stable individuals, “Back to work it is. Cheers.”

In the days after, Gale often sticks with Astarion, mostly because Astarion talks to him. Or at him, at least. Or, to be entirely honest, most of the time he just seems to be practicing his one man comedy routine with only Gale and the Gods as witnesses. Which is probably for the best. The quality of his material is about what you’d expect from a centuries old depressed vampire.

Gale hasn’t even realized just how lonely he’d been until then. Sure, Derryth sometimes talks to him when she gives him food and he has regular chats with the animals, but there’s something very refreshing about being asked about his opinion on a pickup line. 

“How about this? Oh, sweetheart, are you Duke Portyr’s bag of holding? Because I want to be elbow deep ins– No. Ugh. Absolutely not.”

Sound judgment. Gale blinks slowly. 

“Oh, or this? Darling, I’m sorry, but I must ask, is there a Nymph in your family tree?”

Just don’t follow it up with something about wood or riding wolves and you’re good.

“I have no lycanthropes in mine but if you want to take a ride, I can also howl on comm– ew, no. What is wrong with me?”

Here we go. He stretches lazily. A year ago I was an archmage and now I’m listening to this. Perhaps death in a fiery explosion has more dignity.

Truthfully, he doesn’t know why Astarion bothers. He doesn’t actually use any of these lines, at least not where Gale can hear it. He somewhat suspects he feeds them to Petras in an act of deliberate sabotage.

The other option, and the one he prefers, is that the man is just trying to retain a playful personality and cheer himself up. It all seems rather deliberate, but there’s nobody there to perform for. Certainly not Gale the Cat.

It could almost be endearing, if Gale didn’t know very well what kind of person Astarion is. 

He steals and pickpockets almost habitually. Not even gold – he takes people’s keys, wedding rings and lockets, things that hold some importance to them, with no other intent behind it than to be cruel and then he tosses them somewhere at first opportunity. A lot of his commentary is that way, too. Like he’s trying to make up for every bit of harm he can’t physically inflict. Like he’d shrivel up and die if he expressed a single honest compliment. 

And while he can delude himself that unlike his siblings, Astarion at least doesn’t seem inclined to try and hurt or eat him, this consideration certainly doesn’t extend to humanoids. He lures people to their doom without the slightest regret and the fact he peppers it all up with silly jokes and lighthearted commentary only makes it seem that more callous. He doesn’t even have the grace to treat people’s deaths with their due solemnity. It’s just another note in his depressive comedy routine.

On more than one occasion, Gale feels tempted to intervene. 

He doesn’t.

I wouldn’t get that lucky the second time, he tells himself but the truth is more unpleasant. He just doesn’t care that much anymore. The helplessness is changing him and he cannot reason his way out of it. No matter what he does, someone will get hurt. It’s easier to be sympathetic to innocent people than to vampire spawn but at least the spawn keep him entertained. 

Sure, he could probably move on to paying attention to what the Guild is doing. Or the Zhentarim. On some days, that’s precisely what he does. But that crime is just people hurting people. One can only stomach so much of that before it all starts getting too much.

It’s easier to hate the undead than your fellow man.

It’s also much more fascinating to watch the undead than a fellow man.

So he doesn’t do anything about it. He usually sticks around for the first part of the night – he certainly goes away before the intercourse begins. Sometimes even before that , if what’s happening is particularly nauseating. It just all leaves a bad taste in his mouth now that he understands what is actually going on.

Gale doesn’t visit the Hanged Man tavern too often and neither do the vampires, from what he’s observed. It’s a rather lawless place – so lawless, in fact, that they have an entire wall dedicated to notices they receive from the city government multiple times per month.

It’s where you go to find trouble.

Or, he supposes, to find people who won’t be missed.

The problem is just that the Hanged Man isn’t frequented by the people down on their luck. Or at least not by regular people down on their luck. There’s no grieving wives, husbands who caught someone in their spouse’s bed, no youth drowning in unrequited love or merchants drowning in horrible debt.

It is, instead, a place for troublemakers. It’s where you go to hire an assassin or sell stolen goods and it’s very likely also where you die from a knife in your back or a broken neck because you mouthed off to the wrong person. It doesn’t take much.

It’s also a place Astarion seems to prefer for his hunting grounds.

Gale suspects it’s because he spends half the night just pacing aimlessly around the city trying to make himself laugh and he needs to hurry up if he wants to find someone before dawn. He also suspects that throughout his long life, Astarion might have received a ban from an inn or two. 

He doesn’t seem too happy about going there but he manages himself well enough. He has a good sense of when to threaten and when to appease.

At a table in a corner sits a man called Big Ulf. He’s a human arms dealer of exceptional size – and appetites – and Gale knows from first hand experience that he has been kicked from Elfsong and Low Lantern recently for causing disorder. A bruiser with a violent temper, he’s precisely the sort of person to thrive at the Hanged Man.

Watching Astarion pull his routine with him is fascinating.

Gale himself has never been much of a flirt. He had a preference for thought out, sincere gestures. Such as attempting to return a piece of the Weave to the Goddess of Magic. 

What else could I even offer her? I couldn’t take her out for lunch. I couldn’t bring her home to my mother or cook for her. There’s not a single trinket in the realms that would please her. We’d never have a slow morning in bed or a winter day cuddling in front of the fireplace. And thinking this way, perhaps Elminster had been right and he and Mystra truly lived in two different worlds entirely. Perhaps he never truly had her in any meaningful way.

It makes him feel uncharacteristically bitter watching the seduction. He lies down in a shadowy corner right next to the door so he can leave the moment he gets fed up.

Astarion has a specific way with people. He’s personable, but he’s not a people pleaser. There’s no hint of desperation or shy timidity to him, despite the fact Gale knows fully well he’s both desperate and very reluctant. Perhaps he’s found that it doesn’t work for him. Or perhaps it’s simply his nature to bury everything vulnerable deep inside himself. Either way, he holds himself with confidence Gale wishes he could emulate. He teases and jokes and complains over the drinks and the other patrons. He makes you feel as if his approval is worth something; and he makes you feel like you want it. 

For a while, Gale considered him some kind of miracle worker. But of course, he’s not.

“How about another round?” He suggests to Big Ulf, resting his cheek in his palm. His goblet is empty. Gale thinks Astarion drinks too much. He thinks Big Ulf notices that too. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d get pulled in by the usual routine – he certainly doesn’t seem to care what Astarion thinks of him. 

“Yer paying? I’m not made of gold, yeah?” 

“I didn’t take you for a cheapskate,” Astarion teases. He wrings any harshness from his words by leaning forward and spreading his legs suggestively. “Perhaps I’ll go ask your friend over there, hm? He seems generous.”

It’s a dangerous thing to say. And the wrong one.

Ulf wraps his big hand around his wrist and Gale can see those muscles clench when he squeezes. He stands up before he can think what he’s doing, stalking closer. This could get bad. He’s never seen it get bad before.

“Careful, lad. Don’t got no use for a sharp-tongued whore.”

As a general rule, people cannot help an instinctive reaction to violence. The sense of self-preservation is a birthright to all living things, a gift from the most ancient of ancestors. Perhaps that’s why the most uncanny thing is how Astarion doesn’t react.

He laughs as if Ulf had given him a witty remark – completely unfazed, as if he wasn’t threatened by a man twice his size. He leans forward, even as the grip on his delicate wrist tightens.

“We both know that’s false, darling, or you wouldn’t be wasting your time with me.” Jumping on an empty bench, Gale can see him much more clearly. There’s something vivid in his eyes, a glimmer of life inside the corpse. “You know what I think? That you’re the sort of man who knows what he wants.”

His companion grunts for him to continue so Astarion tilts his head, so close that their lips are nearly touching.

“So,” he says, smiling, and Gale knows the thing reflected in the pits of his eyes is loathing. It burns cold, rather than hot, but it’s the most potent thing he’s ever seen. Far more potent, even, than the vile magic animating him. You could torch the whole world to ashes on hatred like this, he thinks, and it would not be enough . “Let’s get to the point. Tell me what you want.”

“Upstairs.”

It seems almost impossible that Ulf cannot recognize that the only thing keeping Astarion from ripping his throat open is the invisible muzzle kept by a man half a city away. But he doesn’t. Somehow he’s blind to the danger. Just as he is blind to the hatred and the revulsion. He doesn’t seem to think anything of it when Astarion pulls him in and kisses him with that same unchanging smile.

He sighs contentedly. An act, Gale thinks but he’d never been able to tell otherwise.

“Oh, you’re lovely. Upstairs, then. Come, let’s make this a night you won’t forget, huh?”

Gale watches them leave, tail flickering wildly. Big Ulf certainly won’t be missed. No big loss had been done tonight. Rather, for the first time, he feels that perhaps the victim had dug his own grave; and earned it too.

He doesn’t stick around to see them stumble back towards the Szarr Palace. He doesn’t know why. There’s just an itch, a small preference. He’d rather remember the hatred in Astarion’s eyes than whatever else he might find there in the aftermath.

Gale prides himself on being stubborn, when there’s need for it. But recently, he thinks, he’s given up on that part of himself. 

He shouldn’t have.

For the next few days, he avoids the Szarr Palace and anything to do with the vampire coven. Instead, he goes back to the Blushing Mermaid. 

His memory of that fatal night is foggy but he retraces his steps. He received a written invitation from the Captain first. Then he went to the storage. But the storage he sees before him now feels wrong . It can’t possibly be the same room. 

He brings his nose to the floor and gives it a cautious sniff. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting – but the scent of moss and mushrooms tells him he’s on the right track. 

Eventually, he realizes what’s up. 

It’s a fake wall. 

Good job, Gale, he tells himself, irritated. What a wizard you are.

On the other side, he finds a cavern which is odd because he doesn’t remember that either . A couple of masked people are skulking around in an obviously malicious fashion, so Gale avoids them because he’s not stupid. Well, he is walking unarmed into a Hag’s lair so perhaps he’s a little stupid. But he’s being smart about it. Obviously.

He feels a little less smart when the Hag is obviously expecting him. 

She’s leaning against the wall in her true form, bulky and unproportional. Mystra, help me.  

There’s nothing quite like beholding a Hag. Her eyes are black beetles set deep in her face and her skin hangs loosely, like vines from ancient stone. There’s mushrooms growing on it – and beneath it, in places. Fragile, glistening tendrils are poking from open pustules. She’s hunched over like a crone, with the bloated belly of a starving child. 

Gale is so distracted by his revulsion that he almost misses the doll in her hands. 

Until he damn thing starts laughing. 

What the Hells?

He takes a step back, glancing at the door then up at the Hag.

“Oh, dearie. Skittish little thing, aren’t you?” She coos. “Don’t you worry a thing. You’re safe with Auntie Ethel.”

Auntie Ethel?

“Now, come here, petal. Come closer.”

Gale doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to. 

But the Hag gives him a grin full of fish-bone teeth and his body acts on its own. 

No, no, no. Stop that, he thinks desperately. His heart is hammering in his chest and his fur is sticking up. He tries to dig in his claws.

His body doesn’t listen.

It drags him all the way to the Hag, step by painful step, and stays still when she scratches his skin. He’s trembling. He can’t tell if it’s fear or revulsion.

Ethel cackles.

“Here’s a good kitty.” She strokes his head appreciatively. “Now, you listen to me, Mr. Dekarios. You had a good mother, did you not? I can tell. She raised you to be a good neighbor. Such a polite young man. All these months, and not a peep from you. You minded your business. There’s no reason for that to change now.”

You turned me into a cat, Gale desperately wants to say. Of course that’s going to change.

She seems to know exactly what he’s thinking. She sighs and shakes her head, disappointed. 

“Come on, dearie. No reason for you to be like this. The transformation had to happen, no ‘but’ about it. If you only heard the things you were saying that night! No, I could not let you just walk away. But it’s for the better, isn’t it? Without me, you’d be dead and gone by now. Your little… problem would have devoured you from the inside – and who knows how many lives you’d take with you when you went? That’s one way to leave a mark on history, I know. Thousands would curse your name when they buried their dead. But I don’t think that’s what you want. Not a good boy like you.”

I was working on a solution, Gale thinks petulantly. 

“I know you don’t want to be ungrateful. You just can’t help yourself. Even your Goddess knew there was no curing this in you – how many times do you think she patted your head like a precocious child and turned the other way? No wonder she grew sick and tired. Even the Gods have a limit. You might enjoy keeping a silly little puppy that can do a silly little dance on command but you certainly don’t marry it.”

He doesn’t want to consider how she knows about that – about Mystra, about the Orb. He thinks he must have told her. Just when he thought he couldn’t sink any lower.

That’s why I don’t drink. Why couldn’t I just stay home?

“So here’s how it’s going to go. You are going to stay the polite young man your mother raised you to be. You’ll mind your business and I’ll mind mine. This is your only chance to be happy. Enjoy the sun! Explore the world! Or perhaps go explore what is going on with the Szarrs!” 

She cackles at the way he flinches. I certainly couldn’t have told her about that, so how does she…  

“Oh, petal. Don’t think there’s anything in this town that happens without me knowing. Not even in that Palace. The rot runs deep and true in that family. Dead goes to bed with dead, evil lies with evil to beget something worse . Dearie, even I shudder at some of the things that go down behind those walls. Humans, Gnomes, Elves – you’re all such nasty, cruel creatures at heart. No better than animals.”

The doll in her hand echoes her words in a haunting cackle.

“ Animals, animals, animals! ” The words bounce off the walls of the cavern, filling the whole space and making Gale’s ears ring.

“Now, I don’t mean to be harsh, petal, but I expect you won’t come sniffling around here again. Oh, I know you didn’t mean it that way. You were just curious. But now you know better. You won’t come bother me again, will you? Here’s a good boy. Go, be on your way.”

He feels the moment her spell on him releases – and he runs. Past the traps, past the masked people, past the false wall and out into the sun. The bartender shouts when he notices him but Gale doesn’t care.

His heart is pounding and his stomach is rolling. He just knows he has to get out . 

All in all , he considers later, this was a horrible, stupid idea and it was never going to end well . 

But he’s learned something important.

The spell Ethel has placed on him. It’s on the doll. 

It has to be.

The whole time, this made little sense to him – he doesn’t remember making a deal with the Hag. And the Fey have their rules. Without having a deal, her magic has no anchor. She couldn’t permanently polymorph him.

Unless, of course, she made an anchor.

It’s a solution. The only solution he has.

If he could find someone to remove the curse on the doll… But who? And they’d need to fight through the masked guardians and confront the Hag herself. Hardly a job for just anybody.

And how would I even recruit anyone? It’s not like I can just walk up to people and start asking.

The more he thinks about it, the more hope gives way to despair. The things Ethel has said weigh on him. If he removes the spell, his ticking time bomb returns to him and who knows if he can defuse it in time.

Is this truly his only chance? 

In the end, he tries not to think about it too much.

He keeps busy.

Derryth’s husband has had a little accident with a ladder – truly unfortunate. For a while Gale has high hopes but somehow the man survives. Derryth seems very put off by that and she hardly pays much attention to him in the aftermath. Her business seems to be going poorly too, though Gale hopes it’s simply a slow season.

For the lack of anything else to do, he returns to his old routines.

When he sees Astarion again, it’s completely by accident because Gale is stalking a smuggler in the heavy rain and Astarion is skulking near a dumpster, trying to keep dry and forlornly contemplating a sandwich.

“Ah, my feline friend! Come here!” He beckons at Gale.

Gale, despite himself, goes. He’s a bit curious, he has to admit.

“That’s a good kitty. Here.” Astarion tosses him the sandwich. It falls apart on impact, revealing bread and lettuce – uninteresting – but also what seems like decent quality Waterdhavian cheese and smoked ham. His mouth waters. This is people food. It’s been a while since he’s had people food.

The issue is just that he doesn’t trust Astarion. He sniffs the ham warily then prods it with a paw.

“You have some trust issues, for a cat. I didn’t realize mangy strays could afford to be picky.”

I guarantee that you’re mangier than I am, Gale thinks at him. 

It doesn’t make much sense to him. Why would Astarion even have a sandwich to begin with? He remembers what the orange tabby told him about the rats and the vampire spawn. He’d sooner eat Gale than a sandwich, so perhaps it’s simply bait for some unfortunate creature he can snack on because he’s too lazy to give a proper chase.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need to ask a thing because Astarion explains on his own.

“Just once, I wish people gave me something I could actually eat. Or rather, if they’re going to imply I look homeless, I’d prefer if they didn’t give me anything at all. Nobody’s teaching the youth about backhanded compliments these days – or would that be backhanded charity? Either way, they should cease.”

He does look scruffier than usual, now that Gale thinks about it. At first he attributed that just to the rain but it's not just that. He looks exhausted. His fancy shirt is falling apart at the shoulder. He’s trying very hard not to think about the whys or look him in the eyes.

Deeming it safe – probably – he starts on the ham. It doesn’t taste quite the same as it did on his human tongue and he’s not too fond of the fact it’s been rolling on the dirty floor but it’s still such a breath of home that he feels some of his strength return. He has to find a way to return to Tara and his mother. He has to.

“Oh – but don’t just go accepting treats from any undead you meet, you know. They’re not all as nice as I am.”

I have noticed that, Gale thinks dryly. 

“Not that I blame them. You’d be a delicious little snack. I’d love to have a sip, if I could. Alas.” He sighs deeply, as if he’s profoundly pained by his apparent inability to eat Gale. It’s a curious little tidbit and it makes Gale wonder about the why – so far he’s chosen to believe the best but somehow he already knows that’s not entirely realistic.

Regardless, he makes sure to keep his distance while he eats.

Astarion watches him silently. He slides down the wall, eventually pulling his knees to his chest. Gale considers that perhaps seeing someone enjoy actual food is making him sad but he discards the thought. He doesn’t strike him as the type. 

Once he finishes, he’s at loss of what to do. If he was an actual cat, that’d probably be the time to start grooming. But he’s a person and he’s not going to start licking himself in front of someone.

So he just sits there, respectably far from the potentially cat-eating vampire. 

May Mystra help him, but he’s never quite known what to do with other people’s sadness. Not even when he could speak. 

And Astarion doesn’t particularly look upset. Just tired. He’s frowning ahead at nothing in particular and toying with the rip in his shirt. His foot is tapping a nervous pattern, which is rather unusual for him.

Hesitantly, Gale inches a little closer. And then a little closer still.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing – he’s not stupid enough to try and offer comfort. But he thinks: This man has lived like this for centuries. Someone, at least, should be there to see this. A life suffered should at least be witnessed.

He’ll remember this, he thinks. He doubts it’ll mean much to Astarion. But if he ever makes it back to his family in Waterdeep, he’ll keep the memory of him in his mind when he needs a reminder of just how lethal life can be.

“I think I had a cat, once,” Astarion says suddenly, surprising himself. He frowns even deeper. “I don’t know where that came from. Maybe it’s just a story I told someone in an inn. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

He bites his lip until it bleeds. Then his face twists and he stands up with a yell, clutching at his hair. 

Gale jumps away, frightened.

Astarion shouts again and kicks the trashcan with unexpected strength. It’s sent rolling down the alleyway with enough noise to wake the dead. Or snap the dead out of whatever insanity is plaguing him. 

He pants, eyes blown wide. Then the next thing, he’s pacing up and down with his face in his hands.

“That’s it. I’m losing my mind. Damn him. Damn me. Damn us all.” He braces against the wall, not even noticing Gale slowly backing away. “It just never ends. Damn it. Damn it. How am I supposed to –” He chokes on his words.

It takes him a while to calm down. His breathing deepens and slows and his shoulders stop shaking. He straightens up, stretches and fixes his rain-soaked hair.

“Well,” he says, voice perfectly pleasant. “Back to work it is.”

In his spare time, Gale makes an effort to find someone who could potentially purify the doll. That’s easier said than done. There’s no shortage of clerics in Baldur’s Gate but just because someone is a cleric doesn’t mean they’ll be willing or capable of taking on a Hag.

The most promising lead seem to be the Harpers. Surely, saving the city from a magical threat is within their domain? Gale would hope so, at least.

He’s run into Harpers before while spying on the Guild but now that he’s actually looking for them, he finds them terribly evasive until finally, a rat that claims to work for the High Harper tells him that most of them are out of the city at the time.

”Big one Jaheira went out to Reithwin.” Its whiskers twitch. “Many big ones went with her. None came back.”

The rat seems upset about that but Gale has no patience for it.

”Well, who did Jaheira leave in charge?”

His question seems to confuse it; he has to ask it multiple times before it seems to comprehend.

”Ah, new boss, you mean. Big one Rion doesn’t speak to us. Big one Rion also locks the pantry and says no cheese. It’s bad for us, she says. And she’s yelling at the little ones when the sun goes down. Says they must sleep when they don’t want to. I say, big one Rion isn’t the new boss. We are many. We are brothers. We have rights. We band together.”

What Gale gathers from this is that this Rion is in charge and the rats are unionizing. 

”Can you tell me where I can find Rion?”

”The House, naturally.”

”Right. Naturally. And where is the House?”

”Cannot say. Isn’t allowed. Brothers write new rules.”

Impatiently, Gale sits on his haunches and flexes his claws. He never gave much thought to the animal food chain but somehow he just assumed that rats would be just a little bit more respectful towards their natural predators.

”Friend,” he says calmly. “Do not worry. I am an ally and I give full support to your brotherhood. If you let me, I wish to speak to Rion on your behalf and remind her of the local law.”

”Hmm. Rules…” The rat seems genuinely confused. It turns around in circles. “Brothers said rules… But friend is nice. Friend is helping. There is a bridge and a pond. And House for sad people. Look nearby. That’s where our House is.”

”Thank you, friend. May your brotherhood find victory. And cheese.”

Of course, the rat’s instructions are awfully vague. Rats in general tend to be horrible with directions, from what he’s observed.

The first time he tries to look for this House, he ends up finding what appears to be a Sharran enclave. A scowling half-elf chases him away before he can manage to sate his curiosity.

Well, she’s a cleric, he thinks to himself. Too bad Shar is a problem-causer and not a problem-solver. Nothing good ever comes from relying on the Lady of Loss.

Eventually, he does manage to find the right place, only to discover that Rion is the High Harper’s daughter and not her second-in-command.

He files the location away all the same. In a pinch, it seems like she will do. If nothing else, she might know who actually is in command of the Harpers. And for now, he has no way of contacting her, regardless — it appears that unlike her mother, who has studied the druidic arts, Rion has focused solely on her swordfighting.

Do I even want to turn back, though? If the Orb is restored, I’ll die…

What’s adding to his dilemma, strangely enough, is that all of the sudden the heaviness that made him avoid Astarion is the thing pulling him close.

There’s no real routine. Sometimes, the man is gone for a tenday or more. Sometimes he emerges, but says nothing and sweeps through the streets like a ghost. Usually periods like that are followed by outbursts. Gale has never seem him cry but he’s seen him shout, throw things and claw at himself often enough. Then, of course, there’s also what he assumes are normal days and days of unusual agitation. It’s strange to get to know someone entirely by their moods – but Astarion has precious little else going on in his life that’s his own design.

It was the heaviness of that imagined sorrow that scared him off initially. It was as if everything Gale thought in his darkest moments was proving real . It exists. It’s possible to find despair that deep existing in the same world that has previously seen him reap success after success from the comforts of a living home. It’s entirely possible that things never get better. It’s entirely true that there are fates more unbearable than death – and Gale is terrified about what that means for his own fate.

It turns his stomach. He’s been holding onto the barest scraps of hope for the past year and even brushing past these thoughts feels like it might fully tear him apart.

More than that, he hates just watching . That’s not the kind of person he is. If he was content to watch the world and never change it, he would have been a monk and not a wizard. But then, he thinks, even if he could speak – or act – the bleakness of Astarion’s reality would surely swallow anything he tried throwing at it.

But now that he has a choice to make – stay as he is and make the most of it or attempt at human life again, possibly dying in the process – the life of a vampire spawn is oddly inspiring. 

He sees first hand the toll it takes to exist in a state of total ruination. Night by night, Astarion is just barely keeping his head above the water but in spite of it all, he tries to make himself laugh. His grip on sanity seems dangerously fragile at some points and like a sailor used to braving storms, he knows exactly when to let it go to preserve his life. He just seems to trust that his mind will still be there to restore when the pain ends. What Gale considered life-ruining is just part of natural ups and downs for him. 

There’s a strange sense of wisdom in that. In fact, Gale thinks that if Astarion were to tell him that things will turn out alright, he would actually believe him. Maybe it wasn’t an older, wiser being he’s been waiting for, but a practiced survivor. Someone who actually knows what it’s like. Someone who takes every fall and lands on his feet every time.

Recently Astarion has taken up the habit of people-watching for the purpose of making up increasingly ridiculous life stories for individuals that stand out to him. He’s almost like a child that way, swinging his legs wildly from the rooftop.

“Look at her. Red scarf with that petticoat? I bet she got it from a lover. Her husband is someone important but he can’t keep her sated so she prowls the streets. Oh – and him . Hm. He brews illegal substances in his basement. When he was a child, he saw his friend get murdered by the Bhaalspawn in the crisis and since then, he’s fallen headfirst into the life of crime. Not for money, he does it for the love of it. His cousin caught him at it so he locked him down there too. He promises to release him if he’s a good boy but secretly he hopes the cousin will waste away instead and take his secret to the grave.”

That’s a human. I don’t think your theory works, timeline-wise. There’s no way he’d have been alive during the Time of Troubles.

“Hm. Hmmm. This one reminds me of a patriar I once knew. It’s the same kind of high and mighty look. She fucked grease mephits. I bet he does too. I bet he has all kinds of horrible diseases going on in there because he sticks elemental noses where the sun doesn’t shine.”

Now you’re just going too far, Gale thinks. The people taking a walk down the Upper City promenade are just normal citizens, nothing so drastic or nefarious. But these people-watching sessions always devolve into this eventually. It’s like Astarion cannot think of anything else than complete depravity.

It has been known that people who spend too much time in their own company become rather eccentric with time. Gale must count himself very fortunate this has never happened to him. And never will.

“And see the Gnome with the top hat? Creeping in the corner? I know he’s into feet. Unfortunately common Gnomish affliction.” He seems to consider something. “I’m thinking, if Yousen steals my socks one more time, I will rip out his eyeballs and feed them to him. Perfectly justified, wouldn’t you say?”

Seems unnecessarily violent. Gale’s tails twitches. 

“I’m glad you agree. The bond between a man and his socks is a sacred one. And, well, it’s not like I have any other socks. I don’t want to know what he does with them, the nasty little pervert, but I’m not about to be walking around barefoot because of it.”

Juvenile, he thinks but he lets him have it. Astarion smells like decay and congealed blood tonight and whenever he messes with the rag around his left hand, he gives Gale a nice long look at the oozing pits where his claws were. It seems like he is waiting for his vampiric regeneration to kick in and passing the time by speculating how everyone is secretly a horrible person.

It’s rather sad, more than anything.

The scenarios are clearly just for fun — but the hatred and disgust underneath are terribly real. And, Gale suspects, learned the hard way.

He doesn’t have much of a stomach for anger, himself. He’s finding that even at his bleakest he couldn’t quite maintain it. It was tempting to rage at Mystra, at his colleagues who turned their backs on him, at all the friends that proved untrue. He wanted to because if he wasn’t going to have justice he wanted to at least have rage.

Yet against his best attempts, the only hatred that comes naturally is aimed at himself.

Maybe I should feel sad for myself too, he ends up thinking. Strange. I think I’ve been mourning everything except me.

The fact that things between him and Mystra collapsed not into mutual detestation but this cool dispassion… Well, it speaks volumes, does it not? 

Perhaps Ethel was right and she indulged him like you would a child. A humiliating thought. But then Gale turns his gaze to the promenade until he finds a young noblewoman with a purple ribbon in her flowing hair and he decides to give the whole thing a shot. Astarion is still going on about his many disturbed thoughts but he ignores him entirely.

She’s secretly a Goddess who keeps a mortal lover. Maybe it’s because he entertains her or maybe it’s because he reminds her of the humanity she’s lost. Maybe divinity is lonely and ruinous and they’re both yearning for something but it’s not each other. And she never breaks the delusion, just lets him keep making his world smaller and smaller. Then when he can’t stand it anymore, not all of that just for him to still mean so little, she reminds him of his place and tears that small world apart. And she abandons him. Just like that. As if he hasn’t given her all of himself. 

His heart is pounding in his chest. His eyes do not water because they can’t but his mind doesn’t seem to understand that. The grief feels like one unending wave and he has no release for it — it’s an ocean and he’s stranded in the middle of it, miles and miles from the coast. And not just grief; a new awareness, a truth he could never manage to face head-on before.

It’s not fair. It’s not right . Why am I the one taking the fall — all the falls?

This isn’t making him feel any better, he eventually has to admit. Even if he’s right and Mystra did wrong him, he’s just trading one unpleasant feeling for another.

The woman on the street below laughs and says something to a man at her arm. Under her blood red lipstick, her teeth are white and smooth like bleached bone. She smiles like she’s used to being admired.

Her laughter draws Astarion’s attention.

“Let’s see. Many years ago she and a friend of hers had a wild night. Drugs, whores, Kobold brandy, the whole ordeal. The next morning, she woke up and her friend was dead in her daddy’s pool. She turned her life around and never thinks about it now. She went on to marry her friend’s fiance, after the two of them bonded over the shared grief. And sometimes… Sometimes she dreams about it.” Another inspection of his maimed hand seems to please him. He flexes his fingers and kicks his legs.

“Hm, but did she kill her or was it all an accident? Personally, I think she did it. Or wait – the fiance and her planned it together. Yes , that fits better. And she’ll spend the rest of her life convincing herself she’s innocent, it wasn’t really her plan, she just went along with it. She had no choice, really. She was young and he was one of the most powerful men in the city. What was she going to say — no ?”

The fate can be so cruel , Gale thinks, not without amusement. It appears Lord Szarr might have earned a slave but the world lost a novelist. In a better world you could have earned a fortune this way, my friend.

Gale never intended to sit on his decision forever but admittedly, the passage of time eludes him in this form. He’s worked so hard to build up his routine; it appears that not even the premise of restoring his humanity is enough to snap him out of it.

Derryth and her husband have departed for the Underdark for new materials. He’ll miss her but even more pressing is the loss of food supply. His nightly companion is once again ominously nowhere to be seen – not that Astarion has ever fed him, aside from that one time – and he’s come no closer to figuring out what Cazador Szarr might be up to but that’s alright. The Sharrans are of more interest to him at the present. 

The senior members don’t let him skulk around but he catches snippets of conversation between novices sometimes, when he’s lucky. It appears they’re preparing for a mission — a team will be selected to retrieve something that they call the Astral Prism. The novices don’t seem to know anything more about it, though. Not even who will be on the team. Their speculation about that is the only reason Gale has even come to learn as much as he has.

All of this has possibly very little bearing on his life. Except… Shar is a bitter enemy of Mystra. 

If he could learn more about their scheme and possibly prevent it, perhaps Mystra might see that he never meant her any harm. Perhaps she might even come to forgive him.

But do I want that? 

If Elminster proposed it during his visit, Gale would have jumped at the opportunity. Any doubts he had about her abandonment would have been easily wiped away, given the chance,

Now, he’s a lot less sure.

Living this way — no Mystra, no mother, no Tara, no home and no friends — has taken a lot out of him. But it’s taught him not to fear being alone and strangely, without the fear of losing Mystra blocking the way, there is very little desire to keep Mystra. After all, he’s never been any less lonely at her side.

He’s chewing on that and enjoying the sun on the city wall when he hears about missing carrier pigeons. The crow telling the story seems quite terrified when it recounts the details.

”A beast on the Temple!” It shrieks. “A fearsome beast! Mark my words, it’s coming for our children! It’s coming for our women and our elderly! The end is nigh, praise Kelemvor!”

Naturally, Gale investigates.

The beast in question is hardly a beast at all. He knows it the moment he sees the nest and the familiar tri-coloured fur poking from it.

”Tara?” He calls. “Is that really you?”

Quick as a rattlesnake, the Tressym jumps to her feet.

”Not a step closer!” She arches her back and spreads her wings in a way that means business. “I’m warning you, fiend!”

Gale has never been happier to see her. He could almost cry.

”Tara, it’s me, Gale. I’m in a bit of a pickle here.”

“Mr. Dekarios?” Tara lays down her wings and sniffs at him cautiously. For a moment he worries she will not recognize him. Then, her whiskers twitch and her tail shoots upwards in a warm greeting. “My, look at you. When I suggested you need to make a change, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

”It wasn’t what I had in mind either. I ran afoul of a Hag, I’m afraid. Oh, Tara, I’m so glad to see you. The past couple… How long has it been?”

”Half a year since your last letter, Mr. Dekarios. You rascal, you caused your mother and I such worry! To just… go and vanish like that! Why, we feared the worst has befallen you.” She tries to scold him but her words come out choked.

Gale hangs his head in shame. 

”Sorry. I never meant to worry anyone. I hope mother is well?”

”As well as expected, with a missing son. And your Aunt Meredith is not too pleased that you missed her wedding after confirming your attendance, either.”

Now that’s a fearsome thought. 

”I am terribly sorry to have missed that. I’m certain it was a lovely event. But surely she must understand that a little something came up and I couldn’t make it, or cancel. Due to having four legs and no thumbs.”

Tara, having come closer, rubs her head against him. With this hearing there’s no missing her pleased purring.

”You and I both know that your Aunt is many things, but understanding is not one of them, Mr. Dekarios. You best be ready to grovel. But my! What a handsome fellow you are. I much prefer this to the beard. Your mother will laugh so much when we tell her about it. It’s such a shame she’s not here to see it.”

Gale tries to laugh away his embarrassment.

”I’m glad you think so. It’s grown on me a bit too, I must admit, but I can’t stay like this. Or maybe I should stay like this. I can’t tell. Oh, Tara, I have such a difficult decision to make.”

”Whatever do you mean?”

”It’s the Orb. I… How to explain this? I never managed to get that book from Lorroakan so I can’t know for sure if there even is a solution waiting there. Maybe it’ll save my life, maybe it won’t. But whatever the Hag did to me, it removed the Orb, at least while in this body. I might have found a way to restore myself but…”

”But if you do that, your Orb problem returns. I see.” Now serious, Tara sits down in front of him. “Well, Mr. Dekarios, the decision is yours. But I must tell you that I have never lacked any faith in your ability to figure out a solution, whether through the Annals of Karsus or otherwise. I believe there is nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it. And — not to speak selfishly, but I must say it — I would horribly miss a good scritch if you stayed this way, even if you are quite the lovely young man.”

He sniffles but it comes out as a yowling whine instead.

“I don’t think I can ever measure up to the faith you have in me.”

Tara tsks gently, as if scolding a child.

“No such talk. You always have and always will. I know my boy, Mr. Dekarios, and I know his mind. It’s a brilliant mind.”

If he was still human, Gale would be crying by now. His chest constricts painfully, then releases and his throat closes up instead. Like some terrible thing has finally woken up and fluttered upwards, filling his mouth with the raw taste of fear.

“I’m hardly the same person I’ve been. So much has changed. Tara, I don’t know if I can still…”

“Nonsense. You will always be my boy. People change, that’s just the nature of the world. You will continue to change with every decision you make, for better or for worse. But rest assured, I will always be here. The wheels of Fate will have to spin very hard if they seek to tear the two of us apart. Now, tell me what you have been up to. I do hope you’ve been feeding properly; you seem a little skinny. Perhaps I ought to catch you a pigeon or two.”

“Ah, thank you but please do not. I just can’t get the hang of eating things raw…”

They talk for most of the day. 

Gale explains Lorroakan’s unwillingness to part with the book and his situation with the Hag. He describes his exploration of the city and talks about the various people he’s met, only cautiously omitting the vampires and the Sharran enclave so he doesn’t cause Tara further worry.

“Well, I suppose if you find the right people to take on the Hag for you, I can bring you a potion of animal speaking. That might solve one issue.”

“It certainly might. Of course, I still need to find someone to fight for me. And…” He hesitates. “I’ve been considering finding some aid for dealing with Lorroakan too. I can’t as much as walk into Sorcerous Sundries without arousing suspicion – but if I could get someone else to break into the vault for me…”

“A fine plan. And something leads me to believe you might already have someone in mind.”

Gale pauses. Does he?

His tail flicks.

“It’s… complicated. I’m still not sure if I should take the risk, regardless. It’s just not my life on the line. If the Orb detonates, it could kill so many.” Thousands would curse your name as they bury their dead, Ethel said. It haunts him. “And… To be honest, I’m not sure I’m brave enough. To go back, I mean. This isn’t ideal either, but going back to that . I wouldn’t know where to begin fixing things.”

Tara, being Tara, does not judge him. Even after months apart, she’s the same as always. Calm, thoughtful and his rock through any storm. Her unblinking gaze sees right through him and into those hidden, dusty corners he’s never shown anyone.

“It’s your choice, Mr. Dekarios. I would suggest you take some time to think about it. Weigh your options well and conclude your business, if you must. It might take me some time to get back to Waterdeep and retrieve a suitable potion. Let’s say… shall we meet here in – say – a tenday?”

“A tenday? That’s an awfully short due date. I was thinking a little more like… Uhh…” He trails off when he sees Tara staring at him, unblinking.

“Mr. Dekarios,” she says. “Please be serious.”

“Alright, alright. I hear you,” he relents. “A tenday it is.”

The person he’s been considering is, of course, Astarion. Gale doesn’t doubt that he could do it, if he put his mind to it. Despite being very much larger and clumsier than him, at the present, there’s something catlike about him – that rare ability to pass through the world unnoticed and unconsidered. 

People notice him when he wants to be noticed. They adore him when he wants to be adored and there’s no creature better suited for the spotlight. But the sad, lonely person Gale follows around when he’s not on the clock might as well be a spirit. 

In Gale’s mind, it would be a sweet conclusion to this misadventure – doing some good for someone , at least. There’s many things he’s not sure about but that old desire to change things for the better still holds steady.

All of this depends on many factors, though.

He doesn’t know where Astarion is or if he’s well. With what he understands about the Szarr Palace and its inhabitants, he probably isn’t. He doesn’t know if Astarion would ever agree. Surely, a proper reward might sway him but Gale has observed him to be a somewhat irrational person.

And most of all, Gale isn’t sure what he’d unleash if he set him free. 

He deserves the chance, surely. As well as all the others. Vampire spawn or not, they were people once.

But he can’t unsee the anger or unhear the loathing Astarion seems to hold for all living things. It’s the kind of anger that demands someone pays for it – but who will be paying? Just Cazador Szarr or the whole wide world?

It’s a pleasant thought, helping. But one that deserves some further developing.

Fortunately, he gets a few days to think about it because his companion is nowhere to be seen. And then when he emerges on the eight day of the tenday, he’s walking with a limp, wearing someone else’s clothes and carrying a basket. 

It’s an unusual look for him and privately Gale thinks it doesn’t suit him very much. The fitting is clearly meant for a much taller and broader man; possibly one of his human brothers or someone else in the household. The doublet hangs off him awkwardly, giving the unfortunate impression of a child playing dress-up, and the dark colors wash him out entirely. He had to fold the legs of his trousers to stop them from dragging but every now and then, the pin comes loose and he’s forced to stop and re-do it. It seems to pain him to do that, but he doesn’t complain.

He also doesn’t acknowledge Gale at first, though the corners of his mouth quirk upwards when he notices him following. 

Once the Szarr Palace is far behind them and out of sight, he seems to relax. Oddly, the limp gets worse then as well. He pauses to fix his pants and looks up to where Gale is sitting on a stone fence, watching.

”Ah, my feline friend. I hate to disappoint you, but I hope you’re not expecting food. I’m running errands today.”

You’ve fed me exactly once and even that was a lucky coincidence, Gale thinks to himself. If I expected food from you I’d starve.

He’s somewhat curious what kind of errands a vampire could be running at this time of the day — surely, he’s not going to the market.

The puzzle pieces click together when they head towards Stormshore Street. An old wizard by the name of Halbazzer Drin offers his services there for infamously inflated prices. Gale has heard about him back in Waterdeep, both the good and the bad. They say he’s not a particularly bright man, but proficient at what he does. His talents as a wizard are rather specific: he’s pioneered a few cleaning spells and is alleged to be unmatched when it comes to removing mold from fabric, but that’s about it. If the signs at his shop are an indication, he’s recently branched into overall repair as well. Gale is tempted to say that this speaks volumes about the state of the economy because it used to be said that Mystra herself could not convince Halbazzer Drin to consider anything other than cleaning.

Astarion seems to consider the prices displayed; he tilts his head to the side and purses his lips. Then he turns and leaves to pickpocket some hapless unfortunate a few streets down.

It’s not that Gale approves of paying with someone else’s wallet but in this case, he understands the desire completely. If he’d known there was so much money in the art of casting adjusted prestidigitation approximately fifty times per day, maybe he’d have reconsidered his studies. Alas though, it’s a little late for that now.

”Burning the deepnight candles again, are you, Sir?” Astarion calls out when he finally enters, towards the figure hunched over the workbench.

The old wizard startles fiercely, to Astarion’s apparent – and vocal – glee. Gale observes him from the doorway. He has a sour face that hasn’t seen many smiles throughout his life and an impressively bulbous cranium. Between his slicked back hair, patchy beard and saggy skin, he looks positively drained of vitality — as one would expect from someone who’s lived and breathed nothing but cleaning spells for the past eight decades or so.

Interestingly, the sight of his visitor brings him to life immediately.

”Ah, lad. You’re a vision for the sorest eyes and the dullest heart.”

”Lad? Sir, I’ve known you since before you could grow a beard and I was already much older than you back then.”

”In that case, cease calling me Sir. It makes me feel old.”

”Well,” Astarion laughs, somewhat unkindly, “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Sir.”

The sourness is back on Halbazzer’s face. He hunches and clutches a fistful of fabric, looking very much like an overgrown turtle retreating into its shell.

”If you’re going to mock me then take your boney arse elsewhere. Begone.”

”Oh, no. That is far from my intention, I swear. My apologies. I have a need of your services, Sir. I’m afraid you’re the only one who can save me tonight.” Pressing a hand against his chest dramatically, Astarion hands him the basket.

The old man inspects the clothing inside. Gale recognises Astarion’s usual outfit, bloody and ripped apart as it is. He can’t imagine how that happened — it looks like it’s been mauled by animals. Like he ’s been mauled by animals, while still wearing it. 

Well, he thinks at Halbazzer, here you go. Say something. 

But the man doesn’t seem especially surprised, nor concerned. It’s clearly not an unfamiliar situation for him. His face stays perfectly professional and coldly discerning.

“One of these days, you’ll bring me an easy job,” he says. “Fifty gold.”

Astarion manages to keep his temper impressively. Perhaps because he knows he’s not going to be paying with his money either way.

”Fifty ? You’re joking. Your price list says ten.”

”For clothing, yes. You are bringing me rags. I’m being generous. I have half a mind to tell you to sod off.”

”How about—“

”I will not barter and I’m certainly not running a charity.” Halbazzer barks. “You either pay up or you take yourself elsewhere.” 

“ Fine .” A look inside his pickpocketed wallet makes his eyes narrow. “Oh, Gods damn it. I don’t have that much. Look, can I just come back later? I’ll go home for more money.”

”Hmph,” the old man grunts into his workbench. His thick lips sag downwards dourly. “How much are you missing?”

”About… twenty.” 

Did you really mug the poorest rich person in Baldur’s Gate? Gale wonders. Or perhaps just someone smart enough to know not to walk around with money. What rotten luck.

Halbazzer grunts again.

“I can give a fifty percent discount to an old friend,” he says, surprising Gale. Then, not looking Astarion he adds with a tone of disinterest so profound it can only be fake: “If you’d like to catch up. Your call.”

It takes Gale a couple moments.

Oh, Gods. No. His skin crawls. Old friend? I’ll eat a pigeon raw if the two of them were ever friends. Gods. This fossil?

However, the situation seems clear to him. It’s perhaps less disturbing than it seems at first glance but he still doesn’t like it. Astarion must have started a dalliance with him a few decades back when Halbazzer was young — presumably to weasel out of paying — and then kept it going because the life he’s living is a hazard to his belongings.

But the wizard aged and Astarion never would. 

They say age functions differently for Elves, who often outlive their sexual partners, but there’s no mistaking the brief look of revulsion on Astarion’s face. It’s either the aesthetics or the situation itself; but it clearly matters to him .

Gale fully expects him to say something biting or at least politely refuse. It’s hardly a hassle for him to go out and mug someone for twenty more gold pieces. It’s downright illogical to agree to the proposal, not when it’s a preciously rare opportunity to say no instead.

But the idea of refusal doesn’t seem to occur to either Halbazzer or Astarion himself. It’s like the old, familiar path is too well-paved for either of them to deviate now. 

Without even as much as a hint of resignation, Astarion just smiles and shifts his weight. Like that initial revulsion is not worth as much as a second thought. 

“How could I possibly say no? I do love our chats. And it’s so important to maintain old friendships, of course – provided that it’s quick. I’m in a bit of a rush tonight.”

Halbazzer sighs.

”Have I ever demanded too much of your time?” He asks, heavy with self-deprecation.

Gale ducks out, feeling disturbed to his core and certainly having no desire to see this.

He had blindly hoped, for Astarion’s sake, that at very least the world is simply ignorant of what was happening to him. It happens sometimes. Someone can slip through the cracks and suffer nobly but silently. A whole city can move about, unaware of the storm raging inside the walls of a household.

But this…

It paints quite an uglier picture. 

How often can a man grapple with disappointment, he wonders while he waits for Astarion to emerge. It all sits poorly with him. 

The image of that ravaged fabric feels burned into his mind. Not because of the person it belonged to, although he has with time become somewhat fond of Astarion, but because of the broader horror it represents. All that violence – and the complete lack of reaction it inspired.

Gale has never been an outdoorsy person, but he once spent a summer at his Great Aunt’s cottage in a village near Silverymoon. It was a bleak sort of summer and the villagers were bleak, ruthless sort of people. But even in that harsh wilderness, a shepherd protecting his herd usually awarded a moment of sympathy to the wolf in a beartrap before he sent an arrow through its eye. Just a heartbeat worth of consideration before a life was snuffed out and the grass was washed with red. Not out of respect for the enemy, Gale imagines, but out of respect for pain.

Certainly, there’s very little any citizen would or could do for any of the vampire spawn of Cazador Szarr – just as the spawn do very little for the citizens — but how was any living thing supposed to stay sane knowing that their pain doesn’t even warrant a brief moment of discomfort in the eyes of others? 

He’s not unfamiliar with slavery as a topic of academic discussion, but perhaps for the first time Gale is actually seeing first hand what it’s like to exist as property in a world of people. The texts never touch on these details and nobody seems to want to talk about how just a change in status is enough to keep you locked from the basest of basic decency.

True to the wizard’s words, it doesn’t take long. Astarion emerges in his usual clothes, clean and mostly repaired. A few persistent tears remain along the inner seam of his pants and bits of pale, undamaged skin glow through, as vivid as moonlight through heavy clouds.

He eyes Gale curiously.

“You’re still waiting? Persistent beast. Polite, too. Very respectful of my privacy.”

Gale cannot give him his pity or voice his concern. Best he can do is try to wrap himself around Astarion’s legs but the man just about jumps out of skin and sidesteps him easily.

“Whoa, no, bad kitty. Shoo , keep your distance. I just got this cleaned, I’m not picking mangy cat fur and fleas from it.”

Shamed, Gale doesn’t attempt that again.

It earns him a suspicious look.

“I really do hope you’re not actually a wildshaped Druid. You’re far too clever sometimes.” 

Gale’s heartbeat picks up but Astarion apparently has no interest in further pursuing this line of thought. He’s already moving on, heading down the street with a fast-paced walk that has Gale rushing to catch up before he can make up his mind.

“I hate humans,” Astarion says after the shop fades in the distance. There’s no real heat to his tone. He just seems deeply weary and very old. 

“So obsessed with the passage of time. Celebrating it, bemoaning it, despairing over it, it’s always something with them. They can’t ever seem to cope with their own short lives and they make it everyone else’s problem. Who cares? Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? He lived longer than I have, in some manner of way.”

Gale might have felt somewhat offended if he hadn’t heard him complain about every other species the same way. And if it wasn’t justified, in this case.

It’s an interesting point, regardless. It resonates with him. His own impending mortality has torn his life apart in every meaningful way – he’s certainly felt the colossal, overwhelming shame of being in the state of dying, like it was some kind of personal sin of his. Nobody warns you about that. 

Gale never considered this but it seems to him that he and Astarion are both victims of time in completely opposite directions. It’s hard to say which is worse: leaving behind incomplete, tainted memory or being made into memory while still alive. Too little, or too much, but trapped either way.

Some time during this night, he finds his mind is already set in stone.

“Well, Mr. Dekarios, here’s your potion. I took the initiative to label it for you.”

Tara has indeed done that; she’s not only put a label on the potion itself but also added a piece of parchment that said “ I need to speak to you urgently, please drink this” .

“Tara, you are wonderful. Clever thinking! Do you think you could use mage hand to tie it to me?”

“Naturally.” Her pink nose twitches curiously. “Have you made up your mind then?”

“I think so,” Gale says, carefully. “I thought about it. I want to… I think there are things I can only do as a human. And there are things I must do. I have this sense that… Ah, this will sound so full of myself.”

“Nonsense, Mr. Dekarios. Whatever it is, I’m certain it’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion.”

He tries to smile at her but his face doesn’t allow that. It comes out as a fanged grimace, but strangely he still thinks he will miss this body.

“What did I do to deserve you? I don’t know about a perfectly reasonable conclusion but… After my folly, I wondered about my place in the world for quite a while. About what I even still had to offer to it. Not magic, with the Orb. And certainly not wisdom.” His voice cracks slightly and he clears his throat. “Oh, well. But recently I started thinking – even if all I have to my name are simply eyes to witness and ears to hear, then I still have something to do. And I know I do. Perhaps this whole misfortune has been a lesson, indeed. Just not how the Hag intended it.”

Tara sits right next to him and wraps her tail around his own. It’s a warm summer night and the sky above is dark and rich with stars.

“I am glad. I hoped to explain this very thing to you so many times. You’re a brilliant man and young still. You have miles and miles to go, Weave or no Weave. More than that, you have a kind heart. There’s nothing this world needs more than a kind heart.”

Gale’s not so sure about that but he knows better than to argue with her.

“I try,” he says instead. 

The plan is that Tara will wait for him on the roof of the Open Hand Temple while he finds Astarion, makes him drink the potion and hopefully convinces him to collaborate. Then, ideally, Astarion will do the speaking for him and recruit the High Harper’s daughter – who will hopefully know a decent cleric.

“There’s a lot of maybes there, Mr. Dekarios,” Tara commented. “Are you sure about this? Why not cut the middle man and go straight to this Rion lass?”

Because if I want a skittish vampire and a somewhat temperamental Harper to work together, I need to start with the skittish vampire, Gale thinks but doesn’t say. He hasn’t exactly been forward with Tara about who or what Astarion is.

“She’s less familiar with me,” he explains instead. “And being a Harper, she might be more suspicious of drinking strange potions delivered by strange animals.”

“And this… Astarion will not be?”

“I have absolute faith that will not hesitate to drink whatever I hand him,” Gale assures. “He doesn’t think things through. And I think he’s not very concerned with being poisoned.”

“Hmm. If you say so. I do have to say that this reminds me of someone, though.”

“You are an endless well of support tonight, Tara.”

She flaps her wings nervously.

“I am simply making sure you have planned this out properly. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

He waits on top of the Lower City Central Wall at dusk and until the spawn depart for their hunt. They usually leave separately; Gale has the unfortunate impression that none of them particularly like each other. The sheer impatience is making his skin crawl until he finally sees his target, chatting with one of the female Elves.

They split ways at the Elfsong and that’s when Gale makes his move.

“Ah, Ser Whiskers on the prowl again – huh. And what’s that?”

Careful not to jostle the potion tied around his back, Gale jogs closer, screaming his heart out just to make sure Astarion understands he’s supposed to be paying attention to him.

At first, he seems willing. He kneels down and inspects the potion, finds the note.

And then he reads the note and his whole demeanor changes.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. You’re not doing that to me.” He stands up and steps sharply backwards. “Whatever you have going on, I don’t care. I don’t want to know. Fucking hells. I can’t have one nice thing, can I?”

Confused but unwilling to give up, Gale pushes forward. Astarion steps back again then swings his way.

“Shoo. Get lost.”

Not without saying my piece. Don’t get stubborn on me now.

For the lack of anything else to do, he leaps for Astarion’s ankles. With a potion on his back it’s a relatively tricky move; he has to sink in his claws just to keep his grip. Astarion howls and swears and tries to shake him off. It would be rather comical if it wasn’t so serious.

“ Nasty little – I don’t care if you’re a Druid or the Duke’s missing son, I’m turning you into a handbag.”

Just drink the damn potion, you loon.

“Fine. Fine. But if this is a poison you better hope it finishes the job quickly. And if it’s not you better have something smart to say. Gods above.” 

Just like Gale predicted, he drowns the potion as if he doesn’t particularly expect it to actually be deadly. Or doesn’t particularly care – it’s hard to tell.

“So, Ser Anklebiter, what makes a man turn into a cat and stalk innocent citizens through the streets? Were you born with this perversion or was it acquired?”

“I’m not a Druid, actually. I’m a wizard. And I didn’t exactly polymorph myself intentionally, sorry to disappoint – did you know you have a Hag in the city?”

Astarion looks decidedly unimpressed.

“You don’t say. Do you have any other brilliant news to share or would that be it?”

Gale’s ears twitch with embarrassment.

“Ah, sorry, let me start over. You stand in the presence of Gale of Waterdeep, at your service. Very sorry for the inconvenience. And your ankles.”

“Pleasure.”

This is awful. I am making a horrible impression.

“Hold on, don’t leave yet. Just… hear me out, please. I know this is sudden, but I really need your help.”

“With the Hag, I presume?” Astarion asks, sounding bored.

“With – Well, yes . And also another thing. There’s this wizard located in the Ramazith’s Tower–”

“And why, pray tell me, would I do that?”

“What?” Gale blinks furiously.

Astarion braces himself against his knees, looking at him down his nose.

“Why would I help you? It sounds like an awful chore and frankly, it’s not exactly my problem. Wizards are always fighting wizards. And the Hag is not someone I want for my enemy.”

“I was hoping out of the kindness of your heart would be reason enough. Naive, I know. But just in case that’s not to your taste, you have my promise that I’ll help you in return. You want to be free, don’t you? I happen to be a wizard of some renown. I believe I could manage a Vampire Lord. Probably. If nothing else, I can at least help you run – to Waterdeep, or wherever else you might like to go.”

Astarion freezes. Then he starts laughing. It’s a dry, humorless sound. Whoever waxed poetics about the melodic cadences of Elven mirth clearly hasn’t met Astarion; he sounds more like he’s hacking up a hairball than actually enjoying himself. Gale waits it out with patience, telling himself that this would probably be a lot to take in for anyone.

“You’re a cat.”

“I am obviously talking about after my condition is dealt with.” He feels himself getting a little bit frustrated. How is he not getting it?

“You’re still a shit wizard that got stuck as a cat. The only thing you could possibly do to Cazador is make him pull a muscle from laughing. And to be clear, I’d actually pay to see that, if it wouldn’t be so unpleasant for me.”

“It was a Hag. Any wizard could get caught unaware, regardless of his skill,” Gale says, sourly. “I assure you I am usually quite competent. That was just a personal low.”

Astarion sneers menacingly. 

“My good man, you have whiskers and eat garbage. Respectfully, I think I’ll pass on your generous offer. Now, is this all?”

“Hold on. Wait a moment. You’re not even hearing me out.”

“I’ve heard enough, I think.” There’s a bitterness in his voice when he gets up to leave. “It would have been kinder if you just let me pretend you’re actually an animal.”

There’s something Gale is not understanding. He’s certain.

“I’m not sure I deserve this hostility. Haven’t I earned enough goodwill to at least get the benefit of doubt that I might have your best interests at heart?”

They are not the right words to choose, perhaps, but they set off something in motion. Real anger flashes in Astarion’s eyes but at least he’s being seen .

“What goodwill? I don’t know you. For the past… I don’t know how long, you’ve been following me around. Why? Did you enjoy watching my shame? Huh ? Did it please you? Not that I blame you, of course.” He laughs again, cold and cruel, and the anger drains from him. “I mean, look at me. Where else are you going to get a show for free?”

“Ah. I… Hmm.” Suddenly Gale is very uncomfortable. He’s completely failed to prepare for this. He never even considered it. 

“Alright, I admit in retrospect that the ethics of it all are a little bit… dubious. But I swear to Mystra I never had any untoward intentions, towards you or anyone. If I could have announced myself to be a sentient being back then, I would have done so with full transparency. I certainly never watched. I have decency, thank you very much. And if you don’t believe my word – this body has no libido, regardless.”

Astarion clearly does not believe him. Now Gale can tell his hostility for what it is – embarrassment. Betrayal, even, though he’s far too proud to show it. He’s not the sort of person that tolerates being witnessed by others. Each unguarded moment Gale has been privy too would have never happened had he known.

“Ha! Alright, you’ll have to try a bit harder if you’re trying to convince me that cats don’t have a libido. I have ears, you know.”

“Yes, it’s hard to miss them.” Gale catches himself and clears his throat. “I’m not saying it’s the case for every cat – just for me. I can’t empathize how much I am not actually a real animal. I don’t know how it all works and it’s beside the point, anyway. I admit I was initially just curious about… well, vampires. Not like I had much else to do with my time. And you were the only one who didn’t attempt to eat me on sight. Thank you for that, by the way.”

This seems to amuse Astarion. 

“Trust me, that’s not by choice. Let’s just say I’m on a diet.” Seeing Gale’s blank look, he elaborates: “I can’t just go hunting for my own food, you see. The Master won’t have it – I need permission. As do my siblings, most of the time. They just seem to get it more often than I do. You didn’t actually believe I go around cuddling strays, did you? Did you think I was kind ? A moral vampire, somehow?”

Gale did, in fact, assume exactly that. Not fully, but he’s slowly begun to want to see the best in him. Suddenly, he feels rather uncertain and Astarion delights at pulling the rug from underneath him.

“Gods, you did. Well, darling, that’s a first. Sorry to disappoint you. I’m just as much of a monster as the rest of us.”

“I don’t believe that’s true,” Gale says, to his own surprise. “But even if it was. I’d still think you deserve better. Please, just hear me out. I simply need you to talk to someone for me – and steal a book later on, if you’re willing.”

The words he’s picking don’t seem to land. Each thing he says twists Astarion’s face further until he’s angrier Gale has ever seen him. It makes little sense to him; he wasn’t like that even about the worst of his lovers. He let Halbazzer Drin coerce him without even as much as token resistance – but offer him an ounce of kindness and the bite comes out, it seems. 

“Go fuck yourself. You don’t know anything about me or what I deserve.”

“I don’t presume to. Look, I am sorry. I didn’t even think of how all of this would look. But I am being genuine.” Gale tells himself he’s not going to plead – but he’s pleading a little bit. He’s working with a very limited grace, he knows, and he’s already probably wasted most of it. “I understand it’s a big risk for you.”

“A big risk, he says. A big risk is… I don’t know, rehabilitating a pet bear or opening a business at the Docks. Attempting to kill a Vampire Lord with an unknown wizard you just met, on the other hand, is a medically concerning level of stupidity.” Astarion spreads his arms for emphasis.

He has a point, Gale has to admit. He’s considered this – especially because he doesn’t know if the Orb would even allow him to take on Lord Szarr in the first place. The conclusion he’s reached is one he wishes he didn’t have to point out.

He takes a deep breath. It could go either way, but it’s the only reasoning he can offer. It’s worth a shot, anyway.

“Like I said, a big risk. But from what I’ve seen, the only options you have are this and letting things remain as they are. How much longer can you keep it up? A decade? A century? How many centuries will it take? It’s no way to live.”

It’s not an assessment Astarion can deny but it’s not one he likes hearing either. Probably especially not from Gale at the moment.

“Do not presume,” he hisses through clenched teeth, “to talk down to me. Whatever you’ve seen, whatever you think you understand – it’s nothing. It could be so much worse. I’m terribly sorry if you’re looking for some miserable damsel to save so you can feel better about your own incompetence, but that’s not me. I don’t need your pity or your help.”

That seems to be all he has to say on the matter. Gale crossed some invisible line; he senses the finality in Astarion’s tone even before he turns on his heel and starts to leave.

“Wait,” he calls after him desperately. “Don’t leave. Think on it a little.”

Astarion waves but doesn’t turn around.

“I have work to do tonight,” he calls back at him. “Can’t afford to waste more of my time.”

That’s a boldfaced lie and it incenses Gale further. He’s known from the beginning that it would be delicate work – but he didn’t expect Astarion to obstruct every attempt at reasoning quite so stubbornly. Or work so hard to his own detriment.

He recalls that burning anger – and the notable absence of it when he had an actual opportunity to refuse.

“You’re being a coward,” Gale shouts after his retreating figure. “I didn’t take you for the type to just roll over and give up. But they’ve trained you well, it seems. You’ll just keep on waiting, won’t you? There’s a whole world out there, Astarion. You just need the courage to try and see it.”

There’s no indication that Astarion hears him. He just leaves, merging with the shadows until the city swallows him whole.

If Tara thinks anything of his foiled plans or his bad mood, she’s kind enough to not say.

“We’ll go to our contingency plan, then. I’ll acquire another potion and you’ll speak with Harper Rion.”

Gale nestles his paws closely under his body and hunches. He knows by the soothing tone she’s using that he must look somewhat pathetic.

“Let’s just wait a little bit longer.”

Tara sighs heavily.

“Honestly, Mr. Dekarios. What am I to do with you?” 

I wish I knew, he thinks. 

It’s a tenday later and he’s about to tell Tara to proceed. 

They’re both sitting on the Open Hand Temple rooftop, sharing a fish she’s stolen from the docks – one of the few animals Gale is willing to consume raw, to Tara’s neverending disgruntlement. It’s a warm, magical summer night. The air is still and there moon is large and bright. In short, it’s the sort of night that Gale would spend on his balcony, using his telescope to watch the movements of stars and planets above. The yearning for those times is so strong he feels the walls of his heart buckle and bend under it.

That’s when they hear the rustling.

“Careful now, Mr. Dekarios.” Tara steps in front of him and spreads her wings. “Stay behind me.”

“Tara…” Gale complains, humiliated. “Please. I’m not that helpless.”

She ignores him.

“Something evil’s in the air. I can smell it.” Her fur stands up.

Gale is about to tell her that he doesn’t smell anything when suddenly there’s a pair of glowing eyes crawling over the precipice of the roof. Whatever it is, it makes no sound and moves with predatory grace. His blood turns cold.

Only for a moment – then he recognises the scent.

“Hold on, Tara.” He jumps before her. “I know this one.”

“Ah, Ser Hail of Waterdeep. Finally. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you?” Astarion wipes his hands on his pants. He puts one finger up and pulls out a potion. “One moment. This should help.”

He downs the thing like he’s taking shots, Gale notes.

“Disgusting,” he complains. “Did it work?”

“I would say so,” Gale says. “I have to say this is a bit unexpected, though. And it’s Gale of Waterdeep, thank you very much.”

“Sure, I’ll remember that,” says Astarion in a tone that promises he won’t. “Was your mother exceptionally fond of weather events?”

“Mr. Dekarios, I would very much like an explanation,” Tara cuts in. Her eyes narrow. “This wouldn’t happen to be your friend, would it? The reason you’ve been moping?”

“I haven’t been moping, I was thinking of a new plan. Please don’t give him the wrong ideas,” Gale rushes in at the same time as Astarion exclaims: “ You’ve been moping? ” with clear delight.

Tara ignores them both.

“I hate to point this out, Mr. Dekarios, but he’s rather dead.”

“I know,” Gale assures her. 

“And I hate to ask this but is she a wizard too, or an actual cat?” Astarion intervenes. “She's not your girlfriend, is she? I don’t know if I should judge or not. This feels… wrong but whatever rocks your boat.”

“Mr. Dekarios!”

“Quit it, both of you.” Gale feels a headache brewing. “Alright. Tara, this is Astarion. Yes, he’s a vampire. No, it’s not a problem. Probably. He’s on a diet, I hear. Astarion, this is Tara. She’s a Tressym, not a cat – it’s an important distinction. And she’s my friend , to be clear. Family, even. There , are we done now?”

There’s a beat of silence as they assess each other.

“Sure.”

“I’ll adhere to your judgment. But don’t think I didn’t notice you keeping this little detail from me.” Tara flicks her tail angrily and sits down.

“It just didn’t seem that relevant,” Gale feels like defending himself. “You’re always telling me to be more open-minded. How is this any different?”

“There’s open-minded and then there’s putting your hand in a tiger’s mouth and trusting it won’t bite. But I digress.”

“She’s not entirely wrong,” Astarion adds, inspecting his claws. “You took quite a gamble. I can’t imagine why.”

Gale sighs.

“Why are you here, Astarion?”

The playfulness drains from Astarion’s face. He lowers himself into a squat and braces against his knees. The intensity of his gaze makes Gale shiver.

“...Could you really do it? Could you kill Cazador?”

Instantly, Gale understands the severity of his question.

“I haven’t met him, so I can’t say for sure. But I believe I have a chance. I know this sounds far-fetched but I used to be an Archmage back home.”

“I know.” Astarion surprises him. “I asked around. Turns out, quite a few people have heard of you – in the right circles, of course.”

Gale doesn’t exactly love that. He has half a mind to ask what they’re saying about him – but he has more pressing concerns.

“Is that why you changed your mind?”

At first, he expects Astarion to deny it. He chews on his lip and his eyes are narrowed.

“...You may have had a point. As much as it’s not your place to make that observation. It’s never going to end, but I’m used to that. Or I thought I was – then you went and put this idea in my head. Now I can’t seem to shake it off.”

“Freedom,” Gale guesses.

Astarion’s face twists, not with longing or approval but with hideous grief.

“I can’t take it anymore,” he says, quietly. “Not one more night. I just can’t. It’s wretched.”

“It’s not wretched, it’s natural. You weren’t born to suffer, Astarion.”

“Easy for you to say.” Astarion seems to steel himself. That brief vulnerability has passed. “So that’s it, then. I’ll do what you ask and you’ll kill Cazador for me.”

“Yes, although there is something–”

“I’m not done.” He cuts him off. “If by some chance, you can’t kill him. If you go there and he’s just too strong or if you no longer feel like risking your life – then you’ll kill me .”

“What?”

“You’re a wizard, are you not? You can use a spell – or something, I don’t know how it works – and do it in a way that destroys the body completely? I don’t want anyone touching it. Give me that much and it’s fine with me. Though I’d love it if you still went back and finished the job, one day – and make him suffer while you’re at it. Those are my terms.”

It’s like Gale is seeing Astarion for the first time, on that windless summer night. Lovely and tragic, he’s putting on a brave face that’s not quite fitting right. All of his courage is in asking for death – and all of his voiceless fear in asking to never be touched again.

He's barely spoken to the man but in that moment, he’s inexplicably fond of him.

“I’m not going to kill you! Gods above!” He exclaims. “There’s dozens of other solutions before we even approach that, let’s not be so drastic! It doesn’t need to be you or him – I can easily open a portal to… wherever you want. Do you have a family?”

“No. And I’m not going to run.” Astarion sneers, flashing rows of perfect, pointy teeth. 

“You can come to Waterdeep with me, then. I promise, nobody will hurt you there.”

“What, as your pet? So I can live in your tower, depending on your kindness? Trade one Master for another? No, thank you.”

“It’s not like that,” Gale objects. “I’m not…”

“It’s exactly like that. I’ve walked that road before, don’t tell me where it goes. The hand that feeds is the hand that beats – it’s the same hand, always. And everywhere I went, there’d still be him, for as long as I lived. Nowhere is safe.”

He seems resigned to that, like he’s thought about the idea over and over so many times, it’s lost all sharp edges of anxiety.

“Besides, I tried to run before. It wasn’t… I’d rather be dead, I think. If it doesn’t work.” There’s no fear in his voice. Just certainty and ancient rage so deep and so smothering that nothing could possibly grow beneath. “The bond between a spawn and his Master is very much ‘till death do us part. And unlike with marriage, that’s not just a formality. There’s no breaking it off. As long as he lives – or I live – he owns me. Body, mind, soul, it’s all his to use. All he needs to do is give a command.”

“I understand but–”

“You don’t. You can't. I refuse to exist by his terms. If there's a single choice I still have the power to make then I choose to be the enemy of my enemy, not just his victim. And I refuse to spend a lifetime hiding while my slaver still lives. If that's something you can offer that that is what I want from you.”

Gale is silent. Even with his own biases, he can’t say that Astarion is in any way laying down and giving up on life – as much as he is picking a fight, by whatever means he can. He has a thousand questions but he shelves them.

“...Alright,” he says, with the solemnity the topic deserves. “I don’t like it, but it’s your choice to make. It won’t come to that, though. I’ll make sure Cazador dies, one way or another.”

“Mr. Dekarios!” Tara exclaims. “You can’t possibly be on board with this–”

“I would much prefer that, to tell the truth.” Astarion seems relieved. “I very much want to live.”

“What will you do?” Gale asks, curious. “Write a novel? Go around biting people? Take up the lute?”

“Ugh, do you think me this boring?” He runs his fingers along the seams on his knees – now firmly repaired, Gale notes. “I… don’t know, really. I didn’t think about it much. Biting people seems fun, I suppose – Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’ll try to find someone who has it coming. Not like that’s hard. And I think I’ll have a long, hot bath. Maybe a new doublet?”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can help with.”

Astarion snorts inelegantly.

“Just focus on killing Cazador first. One thing at a time.” He rises to his feet. “Alright, Gale of Waterdeep, I’m your man. What do you need me to do?”

Convincing Rion is simultaneously not that hard and yet the most difficult thing Gale has ever done. She’s certainly eager to get some action and prove herself to her mother. The problem is entirely that Astarion has apparently never seen a bridge he didn’t feel the instinctive urge to light on fire.

He’s not very happy with Gale – the Orb disturbs him.

“I knew something smelled off about you,” he said when Gale explained. “Just make sure that if you blow up, you make sure Cazador is in the radius. And I’m preferably not.” 

Gale has happily assumed that was that and he got it out of his system but apparently not.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he tells Rion at some point when she points out his nature. “I don’t bite. It’s bad for my physique. Mind the cat, however. He’s prone to detonation.”

“Detonation?” Rion raises her eyebrows. She’s a young woman and restless, but Gale has to give her the credit – nothing seems to disturb her. She’s even accepted Astarion’s little undeath issue without as much as a flinch and minimal threats of staking.

“Astarion, I recall that I asked you to help. ” Gale’s tail flicks in annoyance. “Tell her it’s complicated and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll detonate randomly.”

“He says it’s complicated and that he doesn’t think he’ll blow up anytime soon.”

“Walk me back a few steps. Why is the cat blowing up?”

“He’s actually a wizard.” Astarion shrugs, as if that explains everything. 

“No, tell her I had an issue with volatile Netherese magic but that there is a book in the vaults of Sorcerous Sundries that will help me get it under control. But – ah – also tell her that the whole thing was an honest accident and she has nothing to fear from me. I have no ill intentions.”

Rion watches expectantly. She gestures at Astarion as if to say ‘Well, what is he saying?’

“As I said, he is a wizard. He needs a book so that he doesn’t explode and kill us all. He wants you to know the whole thing was an accident, though.”

“Mr. Dekarios, I do hate to say I told you so but–”

It’s a long night. 

Eventually, Rion manages to get the gist of it.

“I don’t think I trust the two of you as far as I can throw you. Separately or as a whole,” she says. “Actually, I can’t decide which one I trust less . The Tressym excluded, obviously, I’m sure she’s lovely. But a Hag in the city is serious business. I have heard of children going missing. Leave it to me.”

Within a single night, she and her brother Jord manage to gather a few Harpers and a group of Hag survivors headed by a cleric of Helm named Adrielle. 

Gale is told under no uncertain terms to stay back and let them handle the fighting. 

“Please don’t die,” he tells them before they enter the Blushing Mermaid. He looks at Astarion. “Tell them not to die.”

“He’s saying you shouldn’t go and die on him.” Astarion cracks his hands. He’s acquired a knife from somewhere – Gale didn’t even see him do it, but he’s certainly hoping he doesn’t intend to take on the Hag that way. He didn’t even ask him to participate in the fight in the first place. Rion, on the other hand, did ask but he’s certain that Astarion wouldn’t listen to Rion if he didn’t already feel inclined to do the thing.

“And you too, naturally. I’d feel really bad if you went and died.”

“Sweet, but don’t worry. If I’m lucky she’ll make me a cute little kitty-cat, too.”

“I seriously wouldn’t bet on that.”

It’s the longest hour in Gale’s life.

He’s pacing up and down the street until Tara is sick of him. Every shadow seems like the Hag out to get him and each patron passing by is a minion about to flash a blade. 

Then it’s suddenly over.

He feels the curse fall apart as pressure lifting from his bones. The change itself is gentle. His flesh reshapes itself gratefully as if it knows it’s simply returning to the form that has always belonged to it. 

What isn’t gentle is the Orb.

Suddenly it’s there again, all-consuming and pulsing in his chest like it’s trying to worm itself through flesh and bone. His ribs bend under the force of it and his vision goes white. For a few agonizing moments there’s nothing but pain, pain, pain.

He almost doesn’t notice Tara press a ring into his hand but thankfully, the Orb does. 

It’s not enough to extinguish the fire but it calms it down enough that he can breathe. He lies on the dirty cobblestone for a while, panting at air and utterly spent. Tara curls next to him.

“I’m glad you’re back, Mr. Dekarios,” she says. “Don’t forget, we will find a cure for this too.”

Wordlessly, Gale extends a hand – a hand! He has a hand again! – and gives her a good scratch under the chin.

By the time the group of blood-soaked adventurers returns from the Mermaid, he’s already gotten himself mostly together. Adjusting to his old body is not as easy as he assumed. Suddenly, his old vision seems too poor and his old limbs too heavy. His hearing is muffled and his balance gone.

He’s so happy he could weep.

“Gale of Waterdeep, I presume?” Rion asks, offering him a hand. He takes it gratefully and lets her pull him to his feet, marveling at the sensation.

“Correct.” His voice comes out croaking and raspy and he clears his throat furiously. “Apologies. I’m a little bit… out of practice.”

“Take it easy. And your… bomb situation?”

Gale groans.

“It’s not a bomb, it’s a knot of Netherese Weave, for the lack of better explanation. A highly volatile and sophisticated magical artefact that happens to be absorbed within me. It’s under control for now. But I need to get my hands on the Annals of Karsus sooner than later.”

“I hope it’s sooner, rather than later. Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t look too well.”

“It’s the beard, I’m afraid.” Tara licks her paw. 

Rion, of course, cannot understand her but Gale is startled to remember Astarion is still under the effects of the animal speaking potion when he starts laughing.

“I have to say, I like the beard. Very wizardly.” There’s a veiled scrutiny in his gaze. With his normal eyesight returning, Gale is pleased to notice that his eyes are red like bloodstones, an intense splash of color in his washed out visage. “I did expect you to be… older, to say the least. Wrinkler, for sure. Maybe some goatee action?”

“I’m in my thirties,” Gale says and receives a blank stare. “Surely you don’t expect every wizard to be ancient and balding. Some of us are prodigies.”

The curve of Astarion’s smile is sharp and unpleasant.

“No, of course not.” He looks up at the sky with a scowl. “Well, this was fun, but it seems like I have to leave. It’s going to dawn soon.”

“Already?” The sky still looks sufficiently dark to Gale. “Ah – Miss Rion, I hope I’m not being presumptuous but I imagine you and the Harpers might be interested in killing a Vampire Lord?”

She exchanges a look with her brother. It’s Jord who answers for her, supporting his broken arm with a grimace.

“That goes without saying. We have a… family friend who would probably be delighted at the opportunity, too. Very much delighted. But not tonight.”

Astarion scoffs.

“You better not be trying to outsource this. Don’t be lazy. We have a deal .” 

“I know. I’m just trying to improve our odds, that’s all. Surely you approve?”

“Pardon my curiosity,” Rion cuts in before Astarion can offer some scatching retort. “But mind explaining what exactly is happening with this… vampire business? You didn’t exactly elaborate earlier.”

“Ah – to be entirely fair, I never did manage to figure out what Lord Szarr is up to. The Hag implied it’s something vile but who knows.”

“Hold on, Lord Szarr? As in Cazador Szarr? Hmm . I can’t say I’m too surprised. There have always been… rumors.”

“That’s him. Astarion?”

Astarion shakes his head and crosses his arms protectively over his chest.

“Vile is right. Though I never got the impression he had any grand plans, if that’s what you mean.” He doesn’t seem willing to say much more and Gale doesn’t have the heart to press him.

“Right. Let me thank all of you once again. I don’t know how I’ll repay this debt – but I promise I will.”

Jord gives him a polite nod but Rion punches his shoulder.

“Just focus on not exploding, alright? I don’t want to have to explain to my mother why our lovely city is a crater when she returns.”

Gale finds himself almost overwhelmed with the graciousness of it all – he expected that the Harpers would be willing to help kill the Hag at least, but he didn’t expect kindness . Especially not about his condition.

Pressing a hand against his chest, he gives her a clumsy bow.

“I’ll do my best. Oh - and I should warn you. Your messenger rats are forming an union.”

As soon as the Harpers and the Hag survivors – looking somewhat traumatized but otherwise no worse for wear – depart, Tara does too.

“I will go look for more artifacts for you, Mr. Dekarios. It seems like you will be needing them soon. Please try to resist getting into trouble, I’ll try to return as soon as possible.”

She wraps herself around his legs and Gale gives her a few throughout scratches for good measure before she flies off. With her gone, he suddenly feels very lonely. 

Things have changed since he arrived in the city. And yet his heart struggles to believe it. There’s an ocean worth of dread in him, all centered on wounding up so terribly alone again. He wonders what Mystra thinks about all of this.

“Can I walk you back?” He asks Astarion instead because it’s better than standing around thinking.

“If it pleases you. Not all the way back, though. Unless you want to be served for dinner.”

“That’s not on my itinerary for the day, I must say.” He gets a thought. “Will you be alright, though? You didn’t – er – find anyone tonight.”

“Succinctly put.” Astarion walks with a fast pace and he doesn’t bother looking back to see if Gale is following. Between the Orb and his general weariness, it’s a struggle to keep up. 

“My offer still stands, you know. You don’t need to go back. I can still make a portal. Hold on, can we stop for a bit? I need to catch my breath.”

Astarion stops abruptly.

“I can hear that, yes. You really are out of shape, aren’t you?” He clears his throat awkwardly. “It’s… fine, though. For your information. Slow nights happen. That’s why there’s seven of us. Usually Leon manages to catch someone, at least.”

“Hmm. Him. He’s a horrible wizard. Just horrible. If you told me he found his first spellbook a year ago, I’d believe you completely.”

Astarion looks at him incredulously. Then he throws his head back and laughs. For someone so wrapped in misery, he laughs quite easily, Gale notices – but this one sounds genuine, at least.

“He’s a wretched little brown-noser, that’s what he is. But I’m glad I’m not the only one you stalked.”

“I told you I followed you all. It wasn’t personal.”

“I’m sure in your head that makes it all so much better.”

A few more streets and Gale has to admit defeat. His strength is sapping so quickly, he doesn’t know how he will get to the Elfsong at this point. Astarion has to help him walk, for which Gale apologizes profusely.

“Just focus on walking before the sun comes up and I catch fire. Sweet hells. Does the concept of exercise not exist in Waterdeep?”

“It’s the Orb.” Gale doesn’t really have the energy to waste but he feels pressed to defend himself anyway. “I usually have much more stamina.”

Then he realizes how that sounds.

“I don’t mean–”

But Astarion is already running with it.

“Oh, I hear that one nightly. I’m sure you do, dear.” He cackles for good measure.

They’re about halfway there when a silver-haired Elven woman intercepts them. One of the other spawn, though Gale never managed to follow her enough to know more. He’d known her to be particularly vicious and if the way Astarion freezes is any indication, he agrees.

“Brother, how sweet to see you out here!” She skitters close playfully. “Who’s your friend?”

Astarion pulls Gale away in a manner that makes him feel unnervingly like the last cookie at a slumber party. 

“How about you mind your business? Go find your own man.”

“Don’t be so frigid. It’s fun to share – wouldn’t you agree?” She turns that question to Gale with a heavy lidded gaze; then her nose scrunches. “This is… an unusual scent. Are you sick?”

It takes Gale a moment to realize she means him.

“Fascinating. So you can smell the Orb, then? I’m assuming this means it’s having some kind of effect on my blood. I suspected as much, but it’s nice to have confirmation. Oh – Gale of Waterdeep, at your service, of course.”

“The Orb – what?” Then she processes the rest of it; she takes a step back. Her eyes are wide and glowing in the muted streetlight. “You know . Astarion, what the hells are you doing?”

Astarion’s grip on his shoulder tightens threateningly.

“Wonderful. Good going, wizard. Look, Violet, how about you just… keep this to yourself? It’s none of your business.”

Violet giggles nervously.

“Should I? The Master would love to hear it, I think. You sly weasel – you’re scheming against him, aren’t you?”

“ I am not. I would never. Violet, please . You can’t tell him. He’s going to think that I–”

“He’s going to put you back in the tomb for this,” Violet cuts him off, viciously. “You’ll be locked up for years and years and years . He’ll put you down like a disloyal dog.”

“ Violet –”

“Bringing him rotten meals. Hoping to poison him, hm ? Or perhaps just hoping to run? Elope with some new love? You never learn .” She’s tripping over her words with a manic ferocity.

“Violet, is it?” Gale finds himself intervening. “I understand you don’t wish to be… implicated in anything. But if you could just stand to the side for a couple days, I promise your Master will be dealt with. You won’t have to fear him again.”

“What are you doing?” Astarion hisses in his ear. His claws are digging into Gale’s shoulder.

“Are you going to kill him? You ?” Violet clicks her tongue in disbelief. She’s bouncing on the soles of her feet, betraying her own nervousness. Death has hollowed her cheeks and bleached her skin but she still looks terribly young beneath it all. Young – and scared. “Brother, you let him talk you into this? Poor thing, I pity you. You must be so desperate.”

Astarion doesn’t have a response for her. Gale doesn’t think he’s even breathing.

“I can’t ask for your trust–” He begins in his stead when they hear the booming sound, like a giant bubble burst somewhere above their heads. Deep in the city, there’s screaming.

Narrowing his eye at the sky, Gale can just barely make out a large dark shape descending. Whatever it is, the spawn seem to see it much clearer.

“Oh, Hells.” Violet mouths. “Run!”

She takes off and Astarion follows, dragging Gale behind. 

There’s not many people about at this time of night but those that happen to be awake are rushing indoors. Muttering under his breath, Gale casts knock on one of the first houses they happen to pass.

“Come on,” he shouts at Astarion. The thing above them is loud enough to drown out all normal conversation. It moans and clicks like a living beast. Even without seeing it, Gale can hear something large swinging back and forth. “Inside!”

“I can’t!” Astarion howls back, panicked. He claws at Gale’s wrist desperately.

It takes Gale a moment to remember he’s dealing with a vampire. Of course he can’t enter a private residence.

“Brother – the tavern!” Violet calls at them. She’s not slowing down to wait, though. Gale sees her as a pale blur far ahead of them.

“Shit. Tavern, then. Go, run.”   He shoves Astarion back, urging him to move. It seems to take him a few moments to shake himself from the stupor. He’s still gripping Gale’s wrist, looking up at him for guidance. Once he registers the command, he doesn’t waste a moment. He runs, dragging Gale behind at a pace he can’t hope to match.

The Orb is pounding in his chest, making each breath an agony. His stomach churns with nausea. 

Come on, come on, he tells himself. Just a little bit further.

Then he trips. 

One moment, he’s stumbling. The next, he’s on the floor and his vision goes black. He paws at the ground, trying to force his clumsy limbs to cooperate but there’s no strength left in them. His arms shake almost too much for him to pull himself upwards.

“Get up! ” Astarion tries dragging him, throwing an anxious glance upwards.

The thing is close now – Gale can instinctively tell. They only have moments left.

“Go, run!” He shouts at Astarion.

He sees him hesitate. Wide-eyed, he looks back at where his sister vanished then down at Gale. 

Then he makes up his mind and knees down.

“Damn it all. Up!” He spits at Gale. 

“But you– ”

“You absolute moron. Violet got away. If you die now, I’m already fucked.” His voice is trembling. He throws his face to the sky with dull resignation.

Gale doesn’t see whatever it is that Astarion sees. The only thing he gets is the second-hand horror but that’s enough. 

Mystra, help me, he thinks at first. Then: This has been such a godawful year, this might as well happen.

The shadow of the tentacle drops over the two of them and he knows nothing more.

There’s flashes.

Unpleasant moisture. A rotten, acidic scent. A pod.

Then a Mindflayer shoves a tadpole into his eye and things start happening very quickly. The Nautiloid – that’s what the ship must be and in any other circumstances Gale would be delighted to see one up close – shakes and creaks and begins losing altitude. 

Then he’s falling and with the last of his vanishing strength, he attempts a portal.

It goes understandably horribly.

Wonderful going, Gale, he thinks to himself. Now not only will you be a Mindflayer, you’ll be a Mindflayer stuck in a portal. Just when I thought I had enough body horror for a year or ten.

He tries to call for help but there seems to be nobody around. There’s a chance other survivors will show up eventually and that’s the hope he’s clinging to.

Just when he’s about to start to despair, he hears them. Footsteps and a faraway conversation. Twisting himself as far as he can, he sticks out his hand and shouts.

Someone answers.

Cold, soft fingers wrap around him and pull. Another, warmer hand assists and then Gale is tumbling out of the portal and onto the ground. Hard, rocky ground – far from the polished cobblestone of Baldur’s Gate. His vision spins and he has to blink furiously to adjust to the intense sunlight.

When he does, he has to do a second take.

Standing in the heat of the midday sun, Astarion is standing with a hand on his hip and looking mildly irritated. Next to him a half-elf he vaguely recognises from the Sharran cloister is frowning down her nose at him.

Gale clears his throat. He has a feeling he’s going to have to do a lot of talking in the near future.

“Greetings, again.”