Ah, right to it, then. Gale takes a deep breath and sighs it all out as he dishes their food into mismatched plates. For anyone else, it might be enough to feed a family, but carnivores are hungry. Gale stacks Pom's plate slightly higher, but they've both got more than one person's serving.
"At first… I thought I was going mad. I had some suspicion that it was related to the Katalyth, but given everything else that happened, I worried that the same things that happened to my body might be happening in my mind. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. I was… afraid, I suppose." He places each of their plates in front of them on the counter. "Eventually, I found out others heard it. Jayce and Viktor heard it. And it wasn't exactly a comfort, but it seemed to suggest I was in no immediate danger."
He pushes vegetables around on his plate, feeling guilty, awkward, and a little afraid. "I wasn't trying to hide it, I swear. It just… didn't come up, and I put it off. Not exactly a pleasant conversation to have, as you might have noticed."
Pom grits his teeth as he takes his fork, not yet eating; his hand shakes, and he can't pull in a breath to stifle it.
"I'm supposed to tell you things," he returns, a growl rumbling in the lower tones of his voice. He swallows, biting it back, evening out his tone. "I'm supposed to come to you when I'm hurting or afraid. You think that don't work the other way around?"
"I know. Of course, logically, I do know that..." Gale says, his words precisely articulated. He's all so mixed up, his emotions and his souls. Gale, the man, the wizard, sounds professorly, using intelligence as a shield, logic as a wall between himself and negative emotions. His feline ears, however, are flattened, and his tail whips back and forth behind him. And, gods help him, the growl in Pom's voice thrills down his spine and settles low in his abdomen. He doesn't know whether he wants to discuss, fight, or fuck about it.
Gale clears his throat and tries again. "I know that's how it's supposed to work, but that hasn't been my experience of romantic relationships in the past. I would do anything to support you, and I know that I can ask the same of you, but it doesn't feel like I should." He wants to look away, but knows he shouldn't, so he holds Pom's gaze while he fidgets with his earring, pressing it against the pad of his thumb until the points dig in.
Pom's bestial features respond in kind to the flattening of the ears and flicking of the tail; his own ears twist themselves, lying flat against the sides of his hair; his own tail doesn't flick, but remains still, stiff, raised just behind him in a way that looks anything but relaxed. Fighting to stifle the rising aggression in his voice, he swallows again as his eyes flick to the earring and back.
"And what is your experience, in the past?"
He knows Gale has had some relationships, more than he has; he's aware there's at least one that still wounds Gale to this day, though he never quite got all the details. It didn't matter - or so Pom thought. Maybe he should've asked, should've paid more attention to how things are supposed to be, how it's supposed to work. Instead, he's jumped into this and manages to fumble it at so many turns. He continues without pause.
"How can I make you feel like you can talk to me? That I'm not— I'm not..."
Ultimately, Pom isn't entirely sure what he is or what he's not. Maybe he is like those relationships Gale had before, and just didn't realize it.
"That's... complicated," Gale says, pressing the earring harder into his thumb. He can't puncture the skin there so easily anymore, not with his thick, leathery paw pads, but he can still dig the points of the star in as a self-soothing distraction. When he notices he's doing it, he stops, drops his hand back down to his side.
"I'm not unwilling to tell you the whole sorry tale, it's just not a short one. We should eat while I talk, before the food gets cold." He reaches up to rub Pom's ear, scratch at the skin behind and around it, physically smooth away the tension and aggression that has him raising his hackles. "You haven't done anything wrong. We're all broken in our own ways, and this is just one of my cracks."
As Gale reaches for Pom's ear, he backs up instinctually, putting a fraction of an inch more between them before he catches himself; he chooses to close the gap between them a second later, leaning into Gale's hand. Frustrated as he is, he wants that contact, craves it in a way almost completely foreign to him. Back home, only Purl was allowed to touch him so tenderly, and even then, it came with complicated emotions he could never put words to. Here, Northly has been allowed so close, her hand on him ever a calming presence.
But he longs for that caress from Gale, feels it curl in his veins and wriggle into the pit of his stomach, nestling in his abdomen like a creature he barely recognizes. How much of it is him, and how much are his Natural Souls, he cannot tell; at this point, he's not sure he wants to know.
But he does want to know Gale's history, what issues he has that may complicate things between them at any point. Pom needs that degree of control over his life, especially in this new endeavor.
"I've got no room to talk about cracks," he says, his temper relenting. He has so, so many of his own. "But... I want to know. We're in this together, and I want to know what I can do to help. I don't- I don't want you to be afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid of you, never, not once," Gale replies, a little more harshly than he'd meant to, just because he wants to emphasize the truth of it. He sighs and pulls Pom in for a soft, lingering kiss, something opposite the volatile wants of their souls. Then he pulls back and gestures at Pom's plate, saying, "Eat and I'll talk."
Gale picks up his own plate and fork, turns his back to the counter, and hops backwards so he can sit on it. Not something he had been wont or even able to do before, when he was merely human. He would have considered it poor manners besides, and now he simply doesn't care.
"I suppose I start at the beginning, and it will make sense why it's relevant soon enough, so bear with me." He takes a bite of turnip and chews thoughtfully for a moment. "I'm not understating when I say that I was a magical prodigy, doing things as a child that adults struggle to master. When I was eight, Elminster Aumar, probably the most famous, possibly the most powerful wizard in my world, came to my mother and I to offer to be my mentor." There's no small amount of pride in Gale's voice, brushing up against the edge of arrogance. "Eventually, I gained the attention of Mystra, the goddess of magic herself. We met formally when I was a young man. She was my teacher first, then my friend, and eventually, we became lovers."
Pom does as he's told following that kiss, soothed by it in spite of his voracious Souls. He sits, eats, listens, does his best not to finish his meal in a matter of seconds. Instead, he takes his time watching Gale, trying to measure his posture, to sort out how the wizard feels about the topic through his body language as well as his words. It's like studying a monster on the field: Pom has never been one to read people well when it comes to what they say, but behavior is harder to mask, more ingrained. Learning to disguise that behavior is how he's managed to hide from his own past for so long.
Despite being from a world with neither magic nor goddesses, and only having what context Gale has given him, the beginning of his tale makes sense enough. Pom wasn't a prodigy, no, but he was good enough with blades to be wanted - to be used. He was primed from a young age to be a tool, and it took him all too long to realize it. However, he hears the pride in Gale's voice, and stifles and immediate observations: he remembers that too, how proud he was when he told Sweet Thing he was a monster - that he was too dangerous to be let out. He'd been so stupid.
He has a feeling he's not going to like the end of this tale.
"She's the one you were trying to get back, right?" To recapture her love, as Gale had once put it on a night that seems like a lifetime ago. He taps his chest, referencing Gale's own mark there.
Gale nods. "Just so, though that was a bit later. We were happy for a time,
or at least I was. She made me one of her Chosen, a god's emissary to
intercede in mortal affairs. Gifted me with a fragment of her powers. I
should have been happy with that, but alas... I sought to surpass the
mortal boundaries of my power. Mystra grew disinterested in me, and I
sought to regain her affections. I read of a tome containing a fragment of
the Weave — Mystra is more than the goddess of magic, she is magic itself.
What more romantic gesture could there be than returning to a goddess a
lost piece of herself?" He shakes his head and taps his chest. "What I
found... I don't know exactly what it is, but it is a malignant, hungry
thing. Mystra was furious. Wouldn't speak to me, but I felt the moment my
Chosen status left me... If only that were the worst of it." Gale
apparently knows how to leave a cliffhanger.
Pom's eyes flick to Gale's chest. Well, that definitely makes the whole orb thing that much worse - not only did Gale end up with it in his chest because he was trying to win someone's affection back, but then she left him alone with it. He recalls what Gale told him before: he lost nearly everything, from his standing to his beloved goddess, to his physical health and the magic that is so important to him that he'd die for it. That he was willing to risk all that says he was either painfully arrogant or amorous... or perhaps both, as seems more likely the case in Pom's limited knowledge of his partner.
Gale then locked himself away to search for a solution, only to be spit out a broken man certain he's doomed to make everything worse, and all because he'd been a fool. A man who thinks others might be better off without him. Pom can't imagine a world where Purl never spoke to him again after they'd fought - where they didn't try to understand one another. They were all they'd had in the world.
And Gale had been left alone. Somehow, that stings most of all.
Then again, maybe this Mystra didn't understand Gale, or never loved him in a way that Gale wanted - that he needed. From the sound of it, gods and goddess are like the most powerful Elder Dragons, wyverns so indomitable that they barely pay attention to anything smaller than them. And why would they when they're the apex beasts of the world? What's a human to a being that has lived through a thousand battles, its muscle and veins so tempered from fighting that they've crystalized within its body? They can freeze smaller creatures with a single breath, light forests ablaze with one powerful exhale, poison entire regions just by existing there. There are Elder Dragons who've supposedly destroyed entire civilizations on their own.
So along that line of thinking... what's a man to a goddess?
Gale sighs around another bite, swallows, and continues. "Yes, I'm fairly
certain she could have. Each god has his or her domain in which their power
is nearly unlimited, and magic is hers. She left me in silence with the
consequences of my actions. You've heard the next bit of the story, of
course. A year spent in isolation, save Tara, who refused to leave.
Kidnapped by mind flayers, the monsters who put the tadpole in my head." He
taps his skull, as if Pom needs the reminder. "A motley band of adventurers
bound together by the mutual desire to find a cure for our affliction — and
save the world in the process." It doesn't sound like that's the end of the
sorry tale. Gale still has that face like a dog abandoned at the shelter.
He taps his heels against the cabinet doors underneath him, restless.
"During our quest, Mystra sent my mentor Elminster with a command for me.
She bade me to make my way to the giant brain that serves as the neural hub
of the mind flayer hivemind. There, I was to detonate the orb, destroy the
brain, and with it the mind flayers."
She could have helped him, but didn't. Didn't even speak to Gale directly, instead sending his mentor to tell him to detonate the orb in his chest like a powder keg. Making him wade through probably a whole nest of these 'mind flayer' things to do so.
Pom might not know much about love — genuine, unconditional love, not just the platitudes he sings songs about to entertain the crowds — but he knows it means being seen as more than a tool in someone's eyes. 'We were happy for a time, or at least I was,' Gale had said. She'd grown disinterested, only paying attention again once he'd made her angry - and then, once more when she had a new use for him, one that would rid her of him at the same time. Sure was damn convenient.
As someone who has long been used, Pom tries to be empathetic, and perhaps he is in his own way. Unfortunately, all he recognizes in himself is anger, fury, wrath utterly and irrepressibly riled further by territorial instincts. That this Mystra — that anyone — would do that to Gale, his friend, his partner, makes his ears dip back, his eyes glow brighter, his fangs push from his gums until they bleed. He doesn't know if he wants to tear into anything and anyone who would come near him, or sink his fangs into Gale himself so that no one else could have him.
Either way, it's not a normal reaction, and Pom recognizes that, too. He grips his fork so tight that the metal dents between his fingers, keeping his expression as impassive as possible.
"And what... happened then?" Ignore that growl in his timbre, Gale. He's holding it back.
Some part of him thrills at that anger, wants to rile it, hungry for any
sort of passion, even if it's violent. Better to burn up than freeze. And
the thinky, human parts of Gale are touched that Pom would be so upset on
his behalf.
Mostly, though, he feels guilty. Guilty for all his bad choices to date,
guilty for upsetting Pom, guilty for not being better. "That's the story to
date, more or less, at least where Mystra is concerned. We were still on
our quest when Patho-Gen snatched me up." He sighs, sets his plate aside.
"The plan isn't without strategic merit. I told you how big the blast would
be, and it would save countless others risking their lives in battle. One
life weighed against millions. The fallen wizard and his self-sacrificing
redemption, now that would make a moving ballad, I should think."
"That ain't redemption, Gale." He almost bites off his own tongue, trying to reel in his tone as his eyes flick toward the wizard. "It's being used by someone you trusted. Someone you cared for. Someone who might've never cared for you at all while she doesn't do a damn thing because of what? Spite?"
Gale isn't sure why that stirs his own anger. Maybe because some part of
him still wants to defend Mystra even now, his goddess whose symbol he
still wears. Maybe because he doesn't want to face the fact he was a pawn,
doesn't want to consider the possibility that she never cared for him —
maybe isn't even capable of that kind of care for a single mortal. He
doesn't want to admit that so much of his life was a waste. At least if he
dies to save the world, it will have meant something.
"Gods can't intervene in mortal affairs directly. She can't do anything to
stop the mind flayers herself." He hops down from the counter, too restless
to stay seated. *Even if you think her plan is cruel, you can't deny the
pragmatism of ending one life to save millions.
Pom snorts audibly, pushing the air sharply from his nose. The more he learns about these gods and goddesses that other worlds have, the less he likes them.
"Pragmatic, sure. But spiteful and not a fair trade at all."
Gale laughs humorlessly. "When has life ever been fair? When has it ever
been anything but clawing for scraps of happiness? Desperately trying to
build something from the bones of disaster, only for it to be washed out
again with the tide? Life isn't fair unless you make it fair — and even
then, there's always someone more powerful to knock you back down in the
dirt."
"Gale of Waterdeep, City of Splendor; It sounds like a lot, but he's
just a pretender. A tarnish-ed Jewel, an Archmage of Shame: Now only his
tressym is using his name. That's my story, after all." He throws his
hands up in a shrug, the gesture too harsh and jerky to be disaffected like
he wants to pretend to be.
Gale spits Pom's own words back at him, lyrics to a playful ditty he'd improvised while thinking he'd eventually get to the good part of the story: the part where Gale of Waterdeep no longer needed that fancy name, only to be himself, the man Pom adores. Pom's face falls in response, color and fire draining out of him like blood from an open wound. He's felt nothing but regret for how he hurt Gale's feelings the day he made that song up, how he was an insensitive idiot who, unable to express himself in any genuine way, did so through jest and song. People liked that - they tended to like it more than who he really was, deep down.
Gale hadn't liked it, and Pom places the remorse he feels alongside his finest mistakes. He'd die a second time before he hurt Gale like that again, but here it is: his own song still ruining the man he cares so much for.
He pushes himself to his feet, but his limbs shake beneath him, his anger moving away from some goddess in another world and toward someone he can reach; his claws curl on the table, scraping loudly against it. "It isn't true. I- I said I was sorry."
Gale forgave Pom the day he made up that little tune, but that doesn't mean
it hasn't been echoing in his mind ever since, as surely as the Katalyth
song haunts him.
"That's the thing, though — it is true and you shouldn't be sorry for
saying it. I'm no good at brevity myself, but it makes a fine summary of my
story. I buried Gale Dekarios to create the persona of Gale of Waterdeep,
only he wasn't much better. And once you realize that—" He bites back the
rest of that thought, not wanting to speak it into existence, even if he
does believe it.
Gale insists it's true, and something in Pom snaps. He slams his hands into the table; it cracks from the impact, his claws digging straight through the old wood around his plate.
"Once I realize what, Gale? You think I wouldn't want you? That no one would when they figured out you were just as fallible as them? You are worth more alive than most people I've met, Gale. Dekarios, of Waterdeep, it don't matter."
He grinds his teeth as he crosses the room toward the counter where Gale sits, advancing on him like predator on prey, dragonblight clouding at the corners of his mouth. There's that fury he's been holding back, the ire having boiled over in his veins in the span of seconds. His hand grips one of the cabinets, keeping him from getting too close, physically leashing him two steps away.
"You've got smarts, you've got cunning. You're compassionate. You care, and that's worth something. Even without your magic, you've got so much to offer. So much you can't do if you're dead." He pulls in a breath, another cloud of sparking smoke billowing from him. "And that you can't see that because someone tossed you aside like a broken tool is the only thing to be ashamed of here."
Yes, that's exactly what he thought, that as soon as he is revealed to be fallible, to be anything less than powerful and useful, that people leave. Even though Pom is saying what he wants to hear, that he is loved and wanted for more than merely what he can provide, in some ways that hurts too, being told that what he believed his whole life was a lie. Because it didn't start with Mystra, though that had been a devastating blow. He can't remember a time he didn't think he needed to be perfect to earn love.
He doesn't say any of that. He knows the logic is circular and flawed, smart enough to know cerebrally that he is wrong, but talking about it doesn't change the way he feels. Pom doesn't seem like he much feels like talking either. Gale lunges, grabbing Pom by the front of the shirt like he means to throw him. He doesn't, though. Instead, he hauls him forward to kiss him hard, that previous tenderness gone like smoke.
Though he stumbles forward as Gale pulls on him, Pom immediately reciprocates with a similar volatility. His temper runs so hot, dragonblight clouding between them as it seeps between their lips; even the hunter can feel its oppressive nature wearing on him, an electric pulse running the length of his spine, making his hair stand on end as though he were about to be struck by lightning. In the back of his mind, he thinks that they've been here before, fought back their ferocity because they needed to talk, to understand one another.
But even as he parts from Gale, he finds himself pressing against him again, one hand carving grooves into the counter around him, the other gripping the wizard's arm so tenaciously that it'll leave a mark. He can't fight it this time. He's hungry for more; he's always hungry now, but no longer in a way he recognizes.
Gale has seen that smoke before, even smelled the acrid electric scent of it up close, but he's never tasted it. It's ash and electricity and something cold that settles into him, feels almost like the sussur blooms in a way that he can't explain, because it doesn't utterly shut out his magic the way they had. He's not sure what it's doing, only that it's doing something. Any other time he would be curious. Right now? He doesn't even particularly care. Pom presses in close and Gale hops up and backwards again, onto the counter, but only so he can wrap his legs around the other man, hooking his ankles to lock him in place.
He tips himself forward to kiss Pom again, so close that their noses brush before he stops himself again, a little bit of thinky Gale peeking through the beast. "I am sorry, you know," he whispers, "That I didn't tell you."
That almost-kiss has Pom leaning in, his eyes closed, only for them to flutter open again behind his glasses as Gale's nose brushes against him. His head dips at the apology, his brow tight, heavy with a quiet guilt.
"I know." There's still too much of a growl in his voice; the hand on Gale's arm clings tighter before relenting its hold, as though he became aware he could hurt Gale just by trying to keep him close. He presses their foreheads together. "I'm not mad. Not at you."
But he is still mad, that much is certain. He tries to keep Gale from assuming the worst by finding his voice again. "I'm mad at everyone else. At anyone who ever made you feel like you weren't worth keeping around. Like you weren't worth their attention. Like you had to be some kind of way for them to even think on you. It—"
There's an audible snap from the fabric of Gale's sleeve; his grip is too tight again, his claws tearing holes in the garment. Oops.
"It makes me furious. Makes me wanna tear them apart. Just Shift and rip through them with my teeth like a monster. Cut them down before they ever get the chance to hurt you again."
And beneath that, another impulse: to tear Gale apart himself so no one else can ever hurt him. It's a sickening thought, a possessiveness he'd thought he'd never feel again - but there it is, permeating this new person he's supposed to be... and he hates that most of all.
Pom admitting to such violence probably shouldn't fill Gale with warm feelings like the summer sun, but it does. He doesn't even think it's the owlbear's desire for aggression. That reaction is all Gale, if he's being honest with himself, because, even though others have loved him, he's certain that no one else had ever wanted to fight for him. For the first time in his life, Gale has found a mirror for his own intense passion.
"They don't matter, not anymore. I wanted you to know and to understand, but all that matters to me now is being here with you. But you don't have to reign in all that fire, either. Just save it for something more important." He grabs Pom by the collar with a grin, then yanks him closer. "Like me, for example."
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"At first… I thought I was going mad. I had some suspicion that it was related to the Katalyth, but given everything else that happened, I worried that the same things that happened to my body might be happening in my mind. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. I was… afraid, I suppose." He places each of their plates in front of them on the counter. "Eventually, I found out others heard it. Jayce and Viktor heard it. And it wasn't exactly a comfort, but it seemed to suggest I was in no immediate danger."
He pushes vegetables around on his plate, feeling guilty, awkward, and a little afraid. "I wasn't trying to hide it, I swear. It just… didn't come up, and I put it off. Not exactly a pleasant conversation to have, as you might have noticed."
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"I'm supposed to tell you things," he returns, a growl rumbling in the lower tones of his voice. He swallows, biting it back, evening out his tone. "I'm supposed to come to you when I'm hurting or afraid. You think that don't work the other way around?"
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Gale clears his throat and tries again. "I know that's how it's supposed to work, but that hasn't been my experience of romantic relationships in the past. I would do anything to support you, and I know that I can ask the same of you, but it doesn't feel like I should." He wants to look away, but knows he shouldn't, so he holds Pom's gaze while he fidgets with his earring, pressing it against the pad of his thumb until the points dig in.
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"And what is your experience, in the past?"
He knows Gale has had some relationships, more than he has; he's aware there's at least one that still wounds Gale to this day, though he never quite got all the details. It didn't matter - or so Pom thought. Maybe he should've asked, should've paid more attention to how things are supposed to be, how it's supposed to work. Instead, he's jumped into this and manages to fumble it at so many turns. He continues without pause.
"How can I make you feel like you can talk to me? That I'm not— I'm not..."
Ultimately, Pom isn't entirely sure what he is or what he's not. Maybe he is like those relationships Gale had before, and just didn't realize it.
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"I'm not unwilling to tell you the whole sorry tale, it's just not a short one. We should eat while I talk, before the food gets cold." He reaches up to rub Pom's ear, scratch at the skin behind and around it, physically smooth away the tension and aggression that has him raising his hackles. "You haven't done anything wrong. We're all broken in our own ways, and this is just one of my cracks."
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But he longs for that caress from Gale, feels it curl in his veins and wriggle into the pit of his stomach, nestling in his abdomen like a creature he barely recognizes. How much of it is him, and how much are his Natural Souls, he cannot tell; at this point, he's not sure he wants to know.
But he does want to know Gale's history, what issues he has that may complicate things between them at any point. Pom needs that degree of control over his life, especially in this new endeavor.
"I've got no room to talk about cracks," he says, his temper relenting. He has so, so many of his own. "But... I want to know. We're in this together, and I want to know what I can do to help. I don't- I don't want you to be afraid of me."
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Gale picks up his own plate and fork, turns his back to the counter, and hops backwards so he can sit on it. Not something he had been wont or even able to do before, when he was merely human. He would have considered it poor manners besides, and now he simply doesn't care.
"I suppose I start at the beginning, and it will make sense why it's relevant soon enough, so bear with me." He takes a bite of turnip and chews thoughtfully for a moment. "I'm not understating when I say that I was a magical prodigy, doing things as a child that adults struggle to master. When I was eight, Elminster Aumar, probably the most famous, possibly the most powerful wizard in my world, came to my mother and I to offer to be my mentor." There's no small amount of pride in Gale's voice, brushing up against the edge of arrogance. "Eventually, I gained the attention of Mystra, the goddess of magic herself. We met formally when I was a young man. She was my teacher first, then my friend, and eventually, we became lovers."
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Despite being from a world with neither magic nor goddesses, and only having what context Gale has given him, the beginning of his tale makes sense enough. Pom wasn't a prodigy, no, but he was good enough with blades to be wanted - to be used. He was primed from a young age to be a tool, and it took him all too long to realize it. However, he hears the pride in Gale's voice, and stifles and immediate observations: he remembers that too, how proud he was when he told Sweet Thing he was a monster - that he was too dangerous to be let out. He'd been so stupid.
He has a feeling he's not going to like the end of this tale.
"She's the one you were trying to get back, right?" To recapture her love, as Gale had once put it on a night that seems like a lifetime ago. He taps his chest, referencing Gale's own mark there.
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Gale nods. "Just so, though that was a bit later. We were happy for a time, or at least I was. She made me one of her Chosen, a god's emissary to intercede in mortal affairs. Gifted me with a fragment of her powers. I should have been happy with that, but alas... I sought to surpass the mortal boundaries of my power. Mystra grew disinterested in me, and I sought to regain her affections. I read of a tome containing a fragment of the Weave — Mystra is more than the goddess of magic, she is magic itself. What more romantic gesture could there be than returning to a goddess a lost piece of herself?" He shakes his head and taps his chest. "What I found... I don't know exactly what it is, but it is a malignant, hungry thing. Mystra was furious. Wouldn't speak to me, but I felt the moment my Chosen status left me... If only that were the worst of it." Gale apparently knows how to leave a cliffhanger.
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Pom's eyes flick to Gale's chest. Well, that definitely makes the whole orb thing that much worse - not only did Gale end up with it in his chest because he was trying to win someone's affection back, but then she left him alone with it. He recalls what Gale told him before: he lost nearly everything, from his standing to his beloved goddess, to his physical health and the magic that is so important to him that he'd die for it. That he was willing to risk all that says he was either painfully arrogant or amorous... or perhaps both, as seems more likely the case in Pom's limited knowledge of his partner.
Gale then locked himself away to search for a solution, only to be spit out a broken man certain he's doomed to make everything worse, and all because he'd been a fool. A man who thinks others might be better off without him. Pom can't imagine a world where Purl never spoke to him again after they'd fought - where they didn't try to understand one another. They were all they'd had in the world.
And Gale had been left alone. Somehow, that stings most of all.
Then again, maybe this Mystra didn't understand Gale, or never loved him in a way that Gale wanted - that he needed. From the sound of it, gods and goddess are like the most powerful Elder Dragons, wyverns so indomitable that they barely pay attention to anything smaller than them. And why would they when they're the apex beasts of the world? What's a human to a being that has lived through a thousand battles, its muscle and veins so tempered from fighting that they've crystalized within its body? They can freeze smaller creatures with a single breath, light forests ablaze with one powerful exhale, poison entire regions just by existing there. There are Elder Dragons who've supposedly destroyed entire civilizations on their own.
So along that line of thinking... what's a man to a goddess?
"Could she have helped you?"
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Gale sighs around another bite, swallows, and continues. "Yes, I'm fairly certain she could have. Each god has his or her domain in which their power is nearly unlimited, and magic is hers. She left me in silence with the consequences of my actions. You've heard the next bit of the story, of course. A year spent in isolation, save Tara, who refused to leave. Kidnapped by mind flayers, the monsters who put the tadpole in my head." He taps his skull, as if Pom needs the reminder. "A motley band of adventurers bound together by the mutual desire to find a cure for our affliction — and save the world in the process." It doesn't sound like that's the end of the sorry tale. Gale still has that face like a dog abandoned at the shelter. He taps his heels against the cabinet doors underneath him, restless. "During our quest, Mystra sent my mentor Elminster with a command for me. She bade me to make my way to the giant brain that serves as the neural hub of the mind flayer hivemind. There, I was to detonate the orb, destroy the brain, and with it the mind flayers."
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Pom might not know much about love — genuine, unconditional love, not just the platitudes he sings songs about to entertain the crowds — but he knows it means being seen as more than a tool in someone's eyes. 'We were happy for a time, or at least I was,' Gale had said. She'd grown disinterested, only paying attention again once he'd made her angry - and then, once more when she had a new use for him, one that would rid her of him at the same time. Sure was damn convenient.
As someone who has long been used, Pom tries to be empathetic, and perhaps he is in his own way. Unfortunately, all he recognizes in himself is anger, fury, wrath utterly and irrepressibly riled further by territorial instincts. That this Mystra — that anyone — would do that to Gale, his friend, his partner, makes his ears dip back, his eyes glow brighter, his fangs push from his gums until they bleed. He doesn't know if he wants to tear into anything and anyone who would come near him, or sink his fangs into Gale himself so that no one else could have him.
Either way, it's not a normal reaction, and Pom recognizes that, too. He grips his fork so tight that the metal dents between his fingers, keeping his expression as impassive as possible.
"And what... happened then?" Ignore that growl in his timbre, Gale. He's holding it back.
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Some part of him thrills at that anger, wants to rile it, hungry for any sort of passion, even if it's violent. Better to burn up than freeze. And the thinky, human parts of Gale are touched that Pom would be so upset on his behalf.
Mostly, though, he feels guilty. Guilty for all his bad choices to date, guilty for upsetting Pom, guilty for not being better. "That's the story to date, more or less, at least where Mystra is concerned. We were still on our quest when Patho-Gen snatched me up." He sighs, sets his plate aside. "The plan isn't without strategic merit. I told you how big the blast would be, and it would save countless others risking their lives in battle. One life weighed against millions. The fallen wizard and his self-sacrificing redemption, now that would make a moving ballad, I should think."
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Gale isn't sure why that stirs his own anger. Maybe because some part of him still wants to defend Mystra even now, his goddess whose symbol he still wears. Maybe because he doesn't want to face the fact he was a pawn, doesn't want to consider the possibility that she never cared for him — maybe isn't even capable of that kind of care for a single mortal. He doesn't want to admit that so much of his life was a waste. At least if he dies to save the world, it will have meant something.
"Gods can't intervene in mortal affairs directly. She can't do anything to stop the mind flayers herself." He hops down from the counter, too restless to stay seated. *Even if you think her plan is cruel, you can't deny the pragmatism of ending one life to save millions.
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"Pragmatic, sure. But spiteful and not a fair trade at all."
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Gale laughs humorlessly. "When has life ever been fair? When has it ever been anything but clawing for scraps of happiness? Desperately trying to build something from the bones of disaster, only for it to be washed out again with the tide? Life isn't fair unless you make it fair — and even then, there's always someone more powerful to knock you back down in the dirt."
"Gale of Waterdeep, City of Splendor; It sounds like a lot, but he's just a pretender. A tarnish-ed Jewel, an Archmage of Shame: Now only his tressym is using his name. That's my story, after all." He throws his hands up in a shrug, the gesture too harsh and jerky to be disaffected like he wants to pretend to be.
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Gale hadn't liked it, and Pom places the remorse he feels alongside his finest mistakes. He'd die a second time before he hurt Gale like that again, but here it is: his own song still ruining the man he cares so much for.
He pushes himself to his feet, but his limbs shake beneath him, his anger moving away from some goddess in another world and toward someone he can reach; his claws curl on the table, scraping loudly against it. "It isn't true. I- I said I was sorry."
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Gale forgave Pom the day he made up that little tune, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been echoing in his mind ever since, as surely as the Katalyth song haunts him.
"That's the thing, though — it is true and you shouldn't be sorry for saying it. I'm no good at brevity myself, but it makes a fine summary of my story. I buried Gale Dekarios to create the persona of Gale of Waterdeep, only he wasn't much better. And once you realize that—" He bites back the rest of that thought, not wanting to speak it into existence, even if he does believe it.
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"Once I realize what, Gale? You think I wouldn't want you? That no one would when they figured out you were just as fallible as them? You are worth more alive than most people I've met, Gale. Dekarios, of Waterdeep, it don't matter."
He grinds his teeth as he crosses the room toward the counter where Gale sits, advancing on him like predator on prey, dragonblight clouding at the corners of his mouth. There's that fury he's been holding back, the ire having boiled over in his veins in the span of seconds. His hand grips one of the cabinets, keeping him from getting too close, physically leashing him two steps away.
"You've got smarts, you've got cunning. You're compassionate. You care, and that's worth something. Even without your magic, you've got so much to offer. So much you can't do if you're dead." He pulls in a breath, another cloud of sparking smoke billowing from him. "And that you can't see that because someone tossed you aside like a broken tool is the only thing to be ashamed of here."
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He doesn't say any of that. He knows the logic is circular and flawed, smart enough to know cerebrally that he is wrong, but talking about it doesn't change the way he feels. Pom doesn't seem like he much feels like talking either. Gale lunges, grabbing Pom by the front of the shirt like he means to throw him. He doesn't, though. Instead, he hauls him forward to kiss him hard, that previous tenderness gone like smoke.
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But even as he parts from Gale, he finds himself pressing against him again, one hand carving grooves into the counter around him, the other gripping the wizard's arm so tenaciously that it'll leave a mark. He can't fight it this time. He's hungry for more; he's always hungry now, but no longer in a way he recognizes.
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He tips himself forward to kiss Pom again, so close that their noses brush before he stops himself again, a little bit of thinky Gale peeking through the beast. "I am sorry, you know," he whispers, "That I didn't tell you."
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"I know." There's still too much of a growl in his voice; the hand on Gale's arm clings tighter before relenting its hold, as though he became aware he could hurt Gale just by trying to keep him close. He presses their foreheads together. "I'm not mad. Not at you."
But he is still mad, that much is certain. He tries to keep Gale from assuming the worst by finding his voice again. "I'm mad at everyone else. At anyone who ever made you feel like you weren't worth keeping around. Like you weren't worth their attention. Like you had to be some kind of way for them to even think on you. It—"
There's an audible snap from the fabric of Gale's sleeve; his grip is too tight again, his claws tearing holes in the garment. Oops.
"It makes me furious. Makes me wanna tear them apart. Just Shift and rip through them with my teeth like a monster. Cut them down before they ever get the chance to hurt you again."
And beneath that, another impulse: to tear Gale apart himself so no one else can ever hurt him. It's a sickening thought, a possessiveness he'd thought he'd never feel again - but there it is, permeating this new person he's supposed to be... and he hates that most of all.
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"They don't matter, not anymore. I wanted you to know and to understand, but all that matters to me now is being here with you. But you don't have to reign in all that fire, either. Just save it for something more important." He grabs Pom by the collar with a grin, then yanks him closer. "Like me, for example."
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