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Astarion faltered, forced to drop the act of looking disgusted. "You don’t have to do all of that-"
"If upsets you, then won’t." Philios insisted. "No dragons here, not needed."
Astarion sure as hell hoped they didn’t run into any full-blooded dragons in their travels.
He scoffed, lifting his hand out of his pocket to wave it dismissively. "Do whatever you want, then. I’m not going to force you to do anything either way. Speak dragon, don’t speak dragon. It could matter less to me."
...Since when did these pants have pockets? He looked down, and remembered the hole his knife had made. Oh, right. Where did he put that sewing kit?
Astarion turned back to the inside of his tent, and he was met once again with the glass covering all of the floor. Oh, right, he’d almost forgotten about that. His lips tipped into a frown, what a mess... He wasn’t sure he had anything to sweep it up with, unless Philios would like to donate his tail to the cause. Maybe Gale had some sort of cleaning spell, he’d just claim that he’d forgotten the vase was there and tripped.
From behind him, in the entryway, he heard Philios snuffling around again. Astarion turned his attention away from the broken glass to try and see what on earth he was doing.
Philios had picked out one of the pillows from the part of Astarion’s stash that rested on the "doorstep", and stood up so that he could appraise the one that he had chosen.
"Sun?" Philios asked, pointing towards the riverbank. "Cat...sun?" He tucked one of his hands against his chest like the cat in the picture book to try and get his question across.
Astarion followed his pointing to look out towards the river; the camp was very quiet now, with everyone important having left. Just the two of them, it was slightly eerie, but also a relief that nobody had been around to witness Astarion petting Philios’s head like he was some sort of therapy dog, ugh.
He was asking Astarion if he wanted to go lay down in the sun again. In the most undignified way ( he was not a cat) , but...He wasn’t against the idea, as a whole. After all, that had been what he wanted to spend his day doing in the first place; rather than being made to follow around the most ungrateful party in the world and act as their little lockpicking kitten.
Astarion forgot about the mess that was the inside of his tent for the time being, stepping outside and holding his hand out for Philios to hand over the pillow. The dragon-man happily handed it over, the tip of his tail thumping against the ground.
"Yes, actually, I think I’d like that very much."
Gale was crying. Wasn't that fascinating? What an experience! Liquid welling up and spilling out the corner of the eyes and down the back of the throat. Remarkable sort of a release valve for feelings like... feelings like...
Gale was crying. Wasn't that fascinating? Who was Gale, anyway? Well, Gale was himself, obviously, but what did that entail?
Gale was crying, and became aware of things outside of Gale's body. Sounds, scents, sensations. Other people! Perhaps he could use them as a means by which to understand Gale, in comparison. They did not appear to be crying, so that was one differentiator already.
One of the people was very large, and very red, and quite on fire. A language leapt to mind, a plane - fire, Ignan, elemental power. Was it a faux pas to address a fire elemental with water running down one's face? This was a thing Gale should have known, but how embarrassing to have forgotten!
"Pardon me, madam, but I appear to be in a state of dishevelment. Would you be so kind as to give me some direction on who I am?"
The tears seemed to be drying up, which was good - wouldn't want to cause offense - but the magnificent elemental woman didn't seem to understand him. Was his accent so poor? Was Gale an unpracticed orator?
She was turning, speaking to the others, and it took him a moment to switch languages and follow her words.
"He's talking nonsense. Gods, I'm glad he's stopped crying, but he looks so confused-"
Common, not Ignan. There was... a strong, sinewy gith, from the Astral Plane, and a rather handsome devil from the Hells, looking respectively impatient and concerned. Perhaps that was why the woman was using Common - a conclave of the planes! So was Gale a representative as well? Is that what Gale did? An ambassador of some sort?
There were two others, besides. He'd almost missed them, simply because they weren't in front of him. Another woman, half-elven and gleaming with divine magic - not a Celestial, but perhaps one of their chosen - hovered at his side, hands spread as though she'd been in the midst of casting something.
"Ah, madam. Perhaps you could help - am I here to represent something?"
"You're representing a tremendous nuisance," said a voice, though it wasn't the woman - the last of their number was an elf, an undead, which had been propping him up this whole time yet been so still that Gale (and it was Gale, wasn't it? That was who he was? Gale?) hadn't even realised at first. The voice gave vibration to a hollow chest that had no breath or heartbeat to stir it, but made for a most comfortable backrest indeed. It tremored, and that inspired something in Gale.
He... wasn't sure what it inspired. It was uncomfortable, whatever it was; he did not want to be the cause of the tremor in the undead's voice.
"I'm terribly sorry about that, sir. I suppose there must have been some sort of an accident? I do hope I wasn't the cause of it. Only, I can't quite seem to - I think something's gone rather wrong. I seem to be missing some quite pertinent information, such as who I am, and who you are, and why we're here."
"You're Gale," the undead said, and what a lovely voice! If only it had told him something new.
"Ye-es, but who is that, exactly? I believe myself to be living, probably male, possibly human. I... hm. I have leftover tension pains in my limbs, as though I may have recently experienced physical stress. Perhaps a teleportation error? I speak Ignan, Common, Celestial, and Infernal, though I'm afraid the nuances of the Gith tongue elude me. I'm on the ground, and you're quite considerately supporting me. Sorry about that. Should probably sit myself up. I have been crying recently." Gale ticked each fact off on his fingers, and found himself disappointed to discover that he ran out of facts before he ran out of digits. "That's everything. I'm not a newly made homunculus, am I?"
"I've seen this before," the woman with the Celestial acoutrements said, talking past Gale to the three who were standing together. "It's a gift of Shar's mercy, the memories taken away to free someone from their past. But this- this isn't my Lady's doing. I think the spell harmed his mind."
"If you're familiar with it, you must know how to fix it - so fix it," the undead said, sharp and impatient. "He didn't even introduce himself as "Gale of Waterdeep', or mention his library. He's - what else has he lost? You have to fix him."
"I may not be able to. But as he's not experiencing my Lady's gift, there is every chance it will be less permanent than Her mercy. For now, let's just get out of here."
He felt, behind him, the undead move to say something more - then lapse back. The dead man shoved Gale off him instead, though with surprising gentleness and dexterity for one of the undead, and dragged Gale to his feet as well when he rose.
"Well, you heard her. Let's get out of this wretched place, shall we? We can fix the wizard later."
Wizard? A wizard? Was that the thing that he was?
And still Gale was no wiser about who they were, or who he was, or why they were all together in one place. The place appeared to be a once-fine temple, all shimmering black stone and statuary, now in a state of disrepair and positively littered with the bodies of people in cult robes. Now that he was a tad bit more aware of his surroundings, he noticed that his current companions were a motley bunch - all armed and armoured to the teeth, positively glowing with magical items, but very much on their own. No sign of any retinue, no other trappings of ambassadorial business. Not a convocation of the planes, then. Something else. What else could draw such a motley group together, and leave them the lone survivors amidst a terrible battlefield?
He caught up to the undead, who'd already begun striding off and leaving the others to follow.
"Pardon me, but you seem to have some idea what's going on around here. And of who I am. Is this some sort of mercenary outfit, perchance?"
The man gave him a very odd look, then laughed bitterly.
"Gods, I wish it was! Then perhaps I'd be getting paid for this. No, my dear, we have far less say in our fates than that."
Oh. He liked it when the undead called him "my dear'. What a strange man Gale of Waterdeep must be, to feel his heart stir at the casual blandishment of a dead thing when he could not even remember his own breakfast.
"Well, could you tell me anything about - not to be selfish, I'm sure you're all deeply fascinating in your own rights as well - but about me? Please?"
He didn't understand the look the man gave him, as though the question hurt to hear. But he responded, anyway, and that was something.
"You're - hang on, I nearly had this memorised because it was so tremendously pompous for a man who'd needed help getting unstuck from a portal - Gale of Waterdeep, a wizard of some renown. You have a cat, a library, and a fondness for a good glass of wine. And when the mood takes you, you're known to try your hand at poetry." The man stopped there, lips thinning in something that wasn't a smile but held an odd humour. "I do wish you didn't do that last bit, you know. I've always detested poetry. But I might be persuaded to tolerate a little, if it might bring you back to yourself."
It sounded familiar. It had that tip-of-the-tongue quality, the sort of thing that hangs in the back of the mind but can't quite be summoned to the fore. There was more information there, but Gale could not work out how to connect the undead's recitation to any of his own thoughts.
The fond way he'd spoken about detesting poetry heartened that part of Gale that had responded to being called "my dear'. Perhaps he was this being's dear. Was he? How dreadful, then, not to know - but the man was politely distant, hardly showing him any great affection, so it did not seem likely. A former lover parted on good terms, then? It would hit that balance of fondness and distance.
"Thank you," Gale said. "I'll try not to write any poetry at you. Could you - this may be an awful question, but you seem to know me well. Who are you? What am I to you?"
The undead was silent a long while. The elegant points of his pale ears swept down, just a tick, in something that Gale could instinctively recognise as unhappiness. For lack of anything he better knew, Gale continued to keep pace at his side anyway, following him along a half-paved road in a deep cavern and toward a smaller tunnel that branched off into darkness. The others were still there, walking behind at a distance that spoke to some discretion.
"My name is Astarion," he said, after that long while, and the tremor was in his voice just as it had been when he'd spoken to the woman who served Shar. "I am... I am someone who's known you for a short time, and trades books with you. We sometimes read the same thing and compare notes. I don't care for your taste in wine, but it's better than the others'. Your tressym likes me."
A tressym? He was companion to a tressym? How exciting!
"We haven’t known each other long?"
"A handful of tendays. We have been under certain time constraints." The undead - Astarion, a pretty name - looked over his shoulder toward the others, and called back to them. "We should pick it up. He's still out of it, and I don't want to explain everything when there might still be some dreadful Bhaalist waiting to interrupt."
Something about Bhaalists sounded familiar. That was a god of some kind, like Shar. Presumably, those had been what all the dead cult-robe-wearing people were, then. The name span off two others - Bane, Myrkul. A third, Jergal.
"Do we serve a god that's opposed to Bhaal?" he asked. Astarion gave him a particularly strange look, far more piercing than any other he'd been treated to thus far.
"... well, I don't," he said slowly. "I don't really know what your status is with your god, any more."
"I have a god?"
"I really, really do not want to keep talking about this here. I know your curiosity is both boundless and tactless, wizard, but could you hold it until we get back to the inn?"
Wizard! The word finally sank in, dragging meaning along ith it. Third time’s the charm, isn’t that - that was a saying, wasn’t it? Well, it would explain a few things. His facility with languages, and the fact that he was wearing robes when everyone else wore some sort of armour.
How short a time could it really have been that he'd spent with this man, though, for him to seem as familiar and sad as an old flame? Perhaps the death had been recent. Perhaps Gale of Waterdeep was the sort who felt that a relationship should end at the graveside and not continue beyond it. That... felt wrong, though. Gale of Waterdeep was the sort of man who fought cultists in dark caverns beneath the earth, and had cameraderie with devils and gith and undead and Shar-worshippers. The name Shar struck something in him as dark and unkind. Perhaps Gale of Waterdeep was something else, then. No noble diplomat or ambassador, nor brave hero, but something... grim.
His mind, still piecing itself together and drawing thin rope-bridges from thought to thought across great chasms of ignorance, supplied that tressym did not tolerate wicked hearted companions. Gale of Waterdeep could not be wholly awful, then. There were so very, very many questions to ask, and so few answers to them. The bridges between thoughts felt so tenuous.
He was becoming aware, in addition to the tension in his limbs and increasingly sore feet from the long walk that seemed to be meandering back up toward the surface, of two additional sources of discomfort. A headache, as alive and vicious as though something writhed behind his eye, and a weight in his chest. The headache seemed more pressing, yet he felt a greater dread about the chest pain.
"Yes, my-," the man cut himself off, cut the lightness out of his voice. There had been something instinctive there, something pleasant, that he did not want this Gale to hear. "Yes?"
"Am I unwell?" Gale asked. "Some sort of long term condition, perhaps?"
Astarion gave a high, unhappy laugh.
"Oh yes. Definitely that."
"What's wrong with me?"
"You really don't want to hear it right now, I promise you."
"I really do, actually." Gale stopped where he was, planting his boots on the platform they'd arrived onto that led toward a set of stairs. He tried crossing his arms, then putting his hands on his hips, but neither felt quite natural in his attempt to be stern. He waggled a finger in lieu of anything better, and that felt oddly right. "I think I've been very trusting, following a vampire, a gith, a devil, a genasi and some sort of ominous cleric. I think I deserve a little more than being asked to wait until we get to some mysterious inn."
In the background, the great woman made of fire whispered "what's a genasi?" to the devil.
"All right, then." Astarion had that same high, false cheer in his voice as his laugh. "You used to fuck a goddess, and did something so stupid trying to impress her that there’s a bomb lodged in your chest. You had a chance to explode so she might forgive the fine pink mist of your corpse, and didn’t."
"Astarion, stop," the devil said, his voice low and warm but carrying a sharp, warning edge to it. "This isn’t the place."
"Isn’t it? He was quite clear that he wanted answers!"
A bomb? A goddess? Gale was the sort of man who consorted with gods, powerful enough to carry a curse and defy a goddess’s offer of redemption? Goodness. Gale was evidently the sort of man who got around a little as well, if his instincts toward the undead elf were anything to go by. A vampire, a goddess... he wondered if he’d known any of the others as well. Perhaps the handsome devil, or even the angular, fascinating gith.
Some bickering had broken out between the devil and the undead. Wyll, apparently, was the devil’s name, which didn’t sound like anything particularly infernal. The argument was about tact, and timing, and cruelty, the latter of which Astarion was being accused of as though it were habitual to him, yet as though Wyll believed him to be better than that. A devil that believed in others being above base instinct?
He reappraised. The cleric was only a half-elf, divine-touched though she may be. He himself appeared very much to be a mere human, despite his own dalliances with divinity. The great burning woman did not even know what a genasi was, and spoke Common as though born to it. He’d take her for a tiefling were it not for the metal in her flesh and flames licking across her skin, but perhaps that was his mistake - assuming that she were the creature of fire she appeared to be, and not a tiefling with an unlucky situation like the thing in his own chest. Perhaps it was not, then, that each of them were of some plane or representative of a certain type of sapience, but rather that each of them bore a peculiar burden. An honest devil, a cursed wizard, an elf whose life persisted past death. The gith and the cleric surely had their own as well, if the pattern was to follow.
The cleric joined him quietly, watching the vampire and devil argue.
"Don’t mind them," she said mildly. "He’s never encountered a problem he can’t make worse."
"Shadowheart," as though that explained everything. "I’d suggest you don’t push too hard at trying to get yourself back. It tends to hurt more than it helps."
She’d spoken with familiarity about missing memories, and mentioned a spell. If Gale was a wizard, Gale ought to know about spells. He ought to be able to identify what happened, or know how to counteract it, or... something. He asked her about it.
"I wouldn’t be able to say exactly what the spell was... it’s not one I usually handle. I think I caught the verbal element, at least - "Mens tua infirma’, perhaps?" She tapped a knuckle to her lips in thought. "I doubt anyone else could give more than that. The fight occupied us all. I honestly thought you’d countered it until things died down and you were... well. I hope you still recall the state you were in when you woke."
The words of the incantation rang some distant bell, but whatever knowledge it signalled was across one of those deep chasms with nothing yet to bridge it. Gale frowned. His face seemed inclined to it, falling easily into a thoughtful knotting of the eyebrows. If he could not recall the spell, at least he’d learned that - Gale of Waterdeep was a man who frowned easily. His thoughts on the matter would have to stay there for the moment, though, as Wyll and Astarion had resolved their disagreement. Astarion made a snarling face, all sharp teeth and ill-temper, and vanished ahead of them while Wyll hung back to walk alongside Gale, leaving him bracketed with a cleric on one side and a devil on the other.
It felt less natural than walking alongside Astarion.
The rest of the way back to the inn, Shadowheart fed him small tidbits of information to see which ones might trigger recollection and which ones would not. The city they traversed upon surfacing was called Baldur’s Gate, which set off a memory that Gale of Waterdeep wanted to visit a bookshop there. It did not set off the memory that apparently he had already visited the bookshop, in the company of these very same people, and duelled the wizard who ran it. The burning woman was called Karlach, a tiefling originally from the city, and he did not remember this but he did remember facts about Avernus when her time there was mentioned. The devil was not a devil but a warlock, and he again had no memory of seeing the man’s transformation into his current form but he certainly knew the history of warlock pacts and the risks therein. The gith had recently had a falling out with her lich-queen-goddess, and he knew of Vlaakith but not of Lae’zel.
Shadowheart would not tell him the name of his own goddess (former goddess?) until they were at the inn.
"Prompting memory is a risky process," she said, still in those cool, calm tones. "Best to try less immediate associations at first. My Lady sometimes has us test the extent of Her mercy by discovering what memory yet remains after Her priesthood have ministered to supplicants. We do not wish to find a jagged edge remains and causes undue pain."
"Only due pain, eh?" he said, then wasn’t sure why he’d said it. It was a tasteless joke, and she gave him one of those same odd looks that Astarion had given him.
"Yes. Only due pain."
Gale may not have known who he was, or who they were, or why they were travelling together, but he recognised a sign that the conversation was suitably dead.
The inn room, when they arrived, was large and spacious, portioned off to half-private beds, and it appeared that the group had the entire floor to themselves - they needed it, evidently, given they’d somehow smuggled a large dog and a half grown owlbear into the city. And a very, very large man, who towered over even the burning woman.
"Halsin, one for you. He took a spell when his attention was elsewhere, and it’s robbed him of his senses. My Lady does not deal in restoring what has been lost." The cleric put a hand on Gale’s back and steered him firmly toward the huge - elf? Were elves meant to be that size? Had some enchantment fallen over the man to leave him looming so very large and broad?
Or - no. There was a lot of new information all at once, very little of it connecting yet, but he needed to pay attention to the details. The worked leathers, the heavy scent of forest, the motif of leaves and branches - this was a druid, likely one of some power. The druid cast a mild look at the cleric, something like exasperation and chastisement. It was not a friendly look, but deeply sad, and it vanished entirely in favour of something open and friendly when he turned to Gale.
Gale of Waterdeep was quite evidently a man who kept most interesting friends.
"I see something ails you grievously indeed, my friend - you look at me as at a stranger." The druid’s great hand fell atop Gale’s shoulder and began to lead him away - off toward a partition in the far corner where the undead already lurked. The sight of the pale man stirred something in Gale again, something familiar yet quite strange without context.
"I- yes, I’m afraid that is the case. And as much a stranger to myself, I’m sorrier to say." Gale hung back, not yet following the hand upon him, and kept his voice low. "I have no right to ask this of a stranger, and no reason to trust that you’re even the right person to ask, save some sense that you must be, but - that fellow, Astarion. Were he and I... did we ever have... was there anything between us?"
Halsin blinked at him, then smiled at some joke that Gale wasn’t privy to.
"You’d not be the first to fall for his charms!" he laughed, though softly so as not to carry. "It is his manner to entice those around him, but he’s no spurned lover of anyone’s here, nor anyone his. I doubt he means anything by it, if he has been flirtatious toward you."
"He’s been rather rude, if anything."
"Yes, that sounds like him." Halsin’s great, heavy hand still sat on Gale’s shoulder, and he gave a reassuring pat. "Fear not. Whatever has robbed you of your senses can be undone - though I’ll admit, you’d usually be best place to undo such a curse. We shall see it mended, and you may resume your arguments with Astarion."
Arguments? Neither an old flame, nor the friendship based on wine and books he’d assumed?
"He said my tressym liked him!"

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