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The Shadowcursed Lands were made to make one miserable.
It wasn’t just the sensation that everyday was a long ruck through gray colored sludge. It wasn’t just the heavy, oppressive feeling of the very air, closing in all around them, over their heads, stifling like a hot summer day, but painfully cold and dead. It wasn’t the never ending darkness. It was the monsters, the grotesque, twisted husks in the forms of something once humanoid and the notes they left behind as they descended into something disturbing and evil.
After a meager meal of dried fruit, jerky, and bread, all of which felt stale, everyone disappeared to their corners of camp. They may have had energy left, technically, but the once-House of Healing had sapped their willpower to continue. Even Astarion, normally unfazed in the face of evil and blood, had been revolted by the sights in that theatre. Talara sat in front of the fire, arms wrapped tightly around herself, watching the flames leap, feeling none of their heat on her face. The Shadowcurse took the warmth from even fire. The images of the day were seared in her brain, flashing in the shadows just beyond the light.
There were whispers behind her. Shadowheart, Wyll, and Gale, it sounded like, arguing about something.
“You’re her best friend,” Talara heard Gale whisper.
“And you’re her, well, whatever you two are,” Shadowheart said. “Please, talk to her.”
“You and her are closer than any of the rest of us. Be with her, she needs it. Needs you.”
Talara looked up as the sound of Gale’s footsteps approached. She knew she looked haunted, empty, and terrified, and he looked much the same. They’d seen the same scene after all. He’d watched as she vomited in the corner of room when the battle was done, revulsion churning in his own stomach.
Gale silently extended both hands towards her. Talara allowed him to pull her to her feet, lead her a few paces from the rest of the camp, still close enough to avoid the worst of the curse. He didn’t say a word, just ran his thumbs against the back of her hands, over and over, waiting. It was a moment before she ducked her head and slumped against him.
He held her steady as she trembled and cried. She’d faced the unspeakable evils of the place, and then killed a man in cold blood. When she and Shadowheart couldn’t stabilize the victim on the table, they’d done their best to offer him a quick, merciful death with generous anesthetic and a quick snap of his neck, courtesy of Astarion. It may have been a mercy, but it still wasn’t a pleasant decision. Gale brought one hand to cradle the back of her head, the other around her torso, grounding her in place.
Talara’s sobs came to an end. “I hate this place.”
“I hate it too, the way it makes you feel among the many reasons why.” The way it will end went without saying.
“You’re suffering so much, over things you can’t change.” Gale reached for the pin that kept her hair in place and pulled it out, running his fingers over her loosened, but tangled, hair, encouraging her to relax.
As much as she hated the Shadowcursed Lands, she knew she was also dragging out their time there, and that was the bulk of the remaining reasons she hated this place and felt like it sucked the very soul from her body. Time was not on their side. It never had been. Talara always knew, deep down, Gale was to be hers for a limited time, and their deaths could be around the next corner, but it was different being aware of the possibility versus something so inevitable. It was different to feel the hope that they could just maybe make this last slipping away with every step. It was breaking her heart continuing down this path, but the heartbreak was unavoidable, and the only way to stop it would be to turn back time and change the words she had said, the images she showed him. Even if she did, by some miracle, change the past, it just meant her heart would break in a different way. She was in too deep, and far faster than she would have thought she’d ever be comfortable, but what was growth if not being comfortable enough in that which should be pulling at scars so hard that they burst open anew?
“I still wish I could change it. I wish I could save these people.” I wish I could save you.
“You have. The best you can possibly do is end their pain. It doesn’t make it easier, I know, but it remains true.”
Talara sobbed again. “But so many suffered and died already.” From her pocket, she pulled out the two rings she’d found earlier.
Gale recognized the feel of the enchantment. “A warding bond?”
“She used it to kill her husband. She married him with these rings, went out to fight for Shar, but he took all the damage. She married him to kill him. This should be the way you protect someone you love, but it’s been twisted. I should find a way to destroy these. I wouldn’t even let you consume them if you still needed to do that. And yet...” The temptation to use it, to protect him from harm, more than she already did, remained.
Talara put the rings back in her pocket. “I can’t imagine hurting you, hurting any of you, to save myself. All the stories in here, they weigh so heavy. I think of everything here from when I wake up to when I sleep, and I can’t even sleep well. I don’t think I can sleep at all tonight after what we saw.” Her stomach churned again.
Gale kissed the crown of her head. “Is there anything I can do to relieve this burden? You have but to say the word.”
Talara took a deep breath, smelling the dust of travel and exertion of the day, but also sandalwood and mahogany and the faintest hint of rosewater. It was a scent that took her back to the riverbank after the Tiefling party and how safe she felt in that moment. “Can I stay with you tonight? I don’t want to be alone. I need to know you are there. That anyone is there, but you’re the—you’re my preference.”
“Of course. There is no where I’d rather be than with you, no matter the circumstances.”
No one questioned when they dragged their bedrolls next to each other, just like how no one questioned the pile of Karlach, Wyll, and Shadowheart, Lae’zel near enough that she could be counted, but not actually part of the pile. Astarion declared he was on initial watch, so they should all get some sleep. Initially, Talara tried to keep a respectful distance, but then Gale pulled her close, gathering her against him.
“Is this alright?”
Talara nodded against his chest, feeling the steady staccato beat of his heart under her cheek.
“Know that, no matter what, you are welcome here every night.”
She shifted, looking up at him, a small smile on her face, one he returned in kind, and lifted her head to kiss him, short and sweet. “Thank you. For being here. For everything.”
“My pleasure. Whatever you need.” Gale kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.”
They slept well that night, safe in each other’s arms. No bad dreams, no flashbacks or memories could find them. But as her eyes opened in the strange gloom of what passed for morning, Talara felt worse.
I’d hoped to take this slow, let it build like a subtle crescendo, but… That hope had flown out the window with Mystra’s stupid order. The sands shifting through the hourglass had changed Gale’s words from tentative and unsure to bold and incredibly direct. Not twenty-four hours after the news, as she wiped a splatter from blood from her face, he’d told her that their little brush with danger had not only served to make her more attractive in his eyes, but was arousing. He’d said it discreetly, but within earshot of everyone. Wyll had the decency to pretend not to hear, but everyone else from Astarion to Lae’zel had made either a comment or a face in the time afterward.
Those words had stuck with her. She had imagined pulling Gale aside more than once, into some half-destroyed room, as long as it had a door. Any door. They could lock it with a spell, even if it took longer to lock the room than the purpose they were locking it for.
How was she supposed to go back to being on her own? How was she supposed to let the man next to her go?
How was she supposed to mend the third broken heart of her life, the first one she’d broken herself?
Gale stirred and Talara felt the overwhelming desire to kiss him. To kiss him like she could anchor him to this plane with the strength of her feelings alone. She could feel her heart strain under the emotions, the tears pricking in her eyes, and pulled away instead. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, the phrase went. I’d rather have the little we can than nothing at all, she had said just over a short one and a half months ago. Maybe both she and the phrase were wrong, if it hurt this much before it was even over. She stoked the fire back to life, started on making a breakfast.
“Hey, soldier.”
“Morning, Karlach.”
“You’ve been crying again.”
Talara wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“It’s about Gale, huh?”
She nodded.
“None of us want him blow himself up. Especially for the sake of that goddess of his.” Karlach took out a knife and started slicing some cheese.
“Can the rest of you please tell him that?” Talara snapped. “I know you all think that my affections are the magic key to keeping him here, but it doesn’t seem to have convinced him yet!” She exhaled. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
Karlach stabbed the knife into the cheese and turned towards her. “Yes. You should have. You don’t talk, Talara. You take it all on yourself, and try to carry it all. You can’t. None of us can. So talk to me. Get some of this off your chest.”
“I hate this place. It’s cold and damp and miserable. Everything here is dark and twisted. And I look at all of you and I feel worse because I’m going to lose you and I’m going to lose Gale and I can’t stop it.
“He seems so determined to go through with it. I just want him to stay. Not just because he’s a friend, but because a world without him feels bleak. I’ve been heartbroken before, but it’s never been my fault. I never should have told him anything. I should have kept all this in, but I never imagined that...I never imagined that Mystra would ask him to do this. I had this stupid hope that we’d get the tadpoles out and we’d keep the orb stable and live happily ever after, like some kind of fairy tale.” The tears started gathering in her eyes again.
“It’s not stupid to hope. Hope is what makes life, what’s the word, tolerable. And you deserve that fairy tale. You both deserve a future you can enjoy. With a whole towerfull of little genius musican-wizards.” Karlach rested a hand on her back, rubbing a soothing circle.
“And you deserve a life that won’t kill you outside of the Hells.”
Karlach grinned. “Fuck yeah, I do. But you aren’t less worthy of a good ending than I am.
“There’s no way it’s easy, knowing that you only have so long, but live while you can. You have a chance to love and be loved, and not everyone gets that. Not loving doesn’t make goodbyes easier, it just leaves you with a lot of what ifs.
“We’ll find a way out of this—we have to. Can’t have my friend’s boyfriend breaking her heart.”
Talara smiled weakly back at Karlach.
“Yeah, I think that’s what I’ll tell him. If he breaks your heart, I’ll chase him down and kill him again. You feeling any better?”
Talara sniffed. “I guess.”
“Let’s finish up breakfast. Empty stomachs make everything worse.”
When Gale came to breakfast, Talara was feeling a little better. Karlach had told the truth, that if she hadn’t chosen to try with Gale, she’d be plagued by what-ifs forever. At least she didn’t have those, yet. And she could deal with the what-ifs when, and more importantly, if, they came.
Gale quickly kissed her cheek. “Best night’s rest I’ve had in ages. I might just ask you there every night. Is everything alright?”
“I think it just might be.” There was still the time they had—however long it might be. It was still enough time to try to tie him to this plane. It was still time enough to convince him—and if she could, convince Mystra—to find another way to earn forgiveness. Talara would make every second count.