foxblood

[foxblood]

Auntie Ethel 👁

[foxblood]

The Threads of Memory VI - Unmasking

Editor's Log 5/24/25 - More gore in this chapter now - Made some changes to names - More scenes w/ Velim's family

TW: blood/gore, surgical gore, minor self-mutilation, non-consensual drugging, kidnapping, captivity

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30

Gale slammed the desk drawer, then kicked the table leg.  Mystra’s statue teetered towards the precipice.  Tara tried to will it the last millimeter over the edge, but the goddess stood firm.  Gale cursed at his stubbed toe and tore his coat off the rack.

“Mr. Dekarios, slow down,” she huffed, trotting up beside him. 

He yanked his boots on.  “There’s no time, Tara,” he massaged his chest, the ache of the orb more present than ever.  His stomach growled too, but he ignored it and Tara’s protestations as he hurried out the door.

Tara dogged his steps.  “Mr. Dekarios, it will kill neither you nor Velim to take care of yourself.  They would not want you running yourself ragged on their account.”

“They’re a doctor, Tara, they would have to say that,” he lengthened his stride, “Gods, if I just walked them home when they asked.”

Tara sprang from the ground.  Gale lurched forward as she landed on his shoulders and made new runs in his coat.  She anchored her claws in the fabric and hunkered down, ears pinned back.  “Velim would mean it,” she insisted.

“Tara, please.” Gale considered brushing her off.

“Gale, please,” she hissed back.

“Come with me if you must, but we cannot waste time,” Gale pinched the bridge of his nose and forced a deep breath into his lungs, pushing the orb back.

Tara kneaded his shoulder.  “I’ll make another loop of the Sea Ward.  Promise me you’ll eat when you return?”

Gale released the breath in a truncated sigh, misting in the cold air.  “I promise.”

“Very well, Mr. Dekarios.”  He winced as Tara flushed off his shoulder, her wings ruffling his hair.

The townhouse door swung open before Gale could knock.  The kobold saluted him, dropping the rope she used to reach the doorknob.  “Jada saw you coming!”

A violet tiefling made a beeline down the hallway and Jada scrambled out of his way.  He glared at Gale, dark red eyes suspicious in the way that teenagers are of most adults.  “You Gale?”

“Yes it’s a pleasure to --” Gale attempted a greeting.

“Come on,” the tiefling cocked his head down the hallway and slammed the door behind Gale, “don’t bother taking your shoes off.”

Gale hesitated to step on the carpet, but the muddy footsteps tracked up and down the hall indicated that the floors were the least of this family’s worries at the moment.

Jada tugged at his coat when he waited too long. “Velim’s wizard should hurry.” 

Helena held up her finger when Jada ran up to her, and Jada bounced from foot to foot waiting for her to finish her hushed conversation with one of her older children -- a human girl, maybe 15.  The human girl looked Gale up and down as she passed, flipping her box braids over her shoulder as she passed him by.  Helena smoothed the plaits in her graying beard.

“Velim’s wizard is here!” Jada chirped.

“She can see that, Jada.” The tiefling scowled down at her.  Jada stuck her forked tongue out at him.

Helena shook Gale’s hand, her palm warm and grip stone-solid.  “Mr. Dekarios, a pleasure to finally meet you.  I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Like a wedding!” Jada chirped, and the tiefling shushed her.

Helena cleared her throat.  “You’ve met Jada.  This is my son, Garus.  Kitty has been running messages to Georgie all day,” she gestured after the human girl, “Have you met Georgie?”

The barrage of names left Gale’s head spinning.  “Is Georgie another one of your children?”

Helena shook her head.  “No, no, Georgie is Velim’s fledgeling.  She’s working with Harold on the council to find a man named Unger the Gold.  Did Velim tell you why they were on leave?”

“Yes, they mentioned Unger the Gold in passing once or twice,” Gale said, “I have my tressym doing flyovers of the city, in case they’re out and about.”

Helena shook her head.  “Oh dear, Velim doesn’t vanish like this on a whim.  Your tressym isn’t likely to find them.”

Gale’s chest spasmed, pins and needles running up his arms.  He excused himself and sat down.

“Are you well, Mr. Dekarios?” Helena asked, thick brows knitting together.

“Yes, fine,” Gale choked out, “please continue.  How may I help?”

Helena looked at him skeptically.  “I understand you’re tenured at Blackstaff Research Institute?”

“I am.”

Helena produced a Vulture’s badge from her pocket, four black stars marking over a decade of service.  “Jada found this in the grass beneath Blackstaff Academy.”

Gale studied the badge, his heart dropping.  “I’ll ask around, but I don’t know what they’d be doing there.”

Velim reached inside their open chest cavity, hooking the blade of their scalpel beneath the aorta and slicing through with a hollow pop.  Their heart slipped free of the pericardium and into their hand, sputtering blood onto Gale’s pale skin.  They held the organ out and let it drop from their palm and into the maw of his chest.  Gale’s face twisted in pain as the teeth ground their heart to slivers.

“We’re gonna run out of ether at this rate,” Unger’s voice grated.

“Looks like someone’s tried to get at it’s heart before,” a woman said.

Velim bit down on the gag, gasping around the sweet chemical stench of ether.  Their vision swam, eyelids heavy.  They lolled their head aside to see their captors better and the echo of pain radiated up their neck.  The needle snapped off in their throat, a gush of blood splashed hot then cold on their bare skin.

“Awake again.”  Another voice, one Velim recognized but couldn’t place.  Like Unger’s, but softer.  

A hand grabbed Velim’s hair and wrenched their head back.  They choked on the flood of ether soaking the gag, their lungs and throat burning.  The skin around their mouth cracked and bled.

The maw yawned.  Velim wrapped their finger around the back of their pulmonary artery, the pain coming half a second after they sliced their finger on the way through the rubbery resistance of the vein.  They tipped their heart off their bleeding hand and into the mouth again.

“I don’t mean to cause you pain,” the maw said.

Pain is just pain, Velim tried to say, but heard only the wet inflation of their lungs.

“We have opium,” suggested the woman.

Velim’s eyelids fluttered, searching for the sound of her voice.  The leather straps firm on their upturned hands strained against the weak twitch of their limbs.  Their back ached like they’d been skinned.  They winced as Unger plucked off another scale.

“Couldn’t spare opium for me,” he grunted.  His legs clanked on the polished tile.

We had no opium, they wanted to say.  The gag still stank of ether, burning their eyes and tearing down their raw throat.

“Try this,” the voice that was Unger’s but softer said.  Velim couldn’t see what he held up, but felt the slice of a scalpel in their arm and rough fingers pushing a hard seed beneath their skin.  They whimpered.

Unger ripped out another scale and laughed when their body twitched.

They cut the inferior vena cava and fed their heart to the seething black void in the middle of the room.  It floated off their hand, coaxed forth on black tendrils that blackened the muscle.  Their claws cracked and crumbled away to ash.  The scales peeled back, the skin beneath blackening and muscle withering.  The bones of their hands charred, each fragment drawn into the void.  It smelled of afterbirth and vinegar.

Gale put his head down.  No trace of Velim but their badge in the grass beneath the infirmary.  His head pounded, the ache in his chest demanded attention.  Security checked the watching eye on the bridge, the wards on the doors, no sign of Velim or anyone else that night. He found himself walking the Sea Ward, and almost didn’t recognize the stairwell or the worn wooden sign for Lonzok’s Arcane Supply.  He opened the door, the familiar warmth of magic and incense greeting him.  

Lonzok looked up from the bookshelf he was stocking, his spectacles shining strangely in the gray daylight filtering in through small windows set high in the wall.  “Surprised to see you in the daylight,” he grunted, “in for the usual?”

Gale sighed.  “Yes.  No time for browsing today, I’m afraid.”

Lonzok presented the tray to Gale.  It rattled with its usual selection of odd trinkets.  Gale looked at the offerings, each a pittance for the waxing hunger of the orb.

“Do you have anything… more?” Gale asked, “something with a greater charge.”

Lonzok smiled knowingly and tucked the tray away.  “As a matter of fact, I do.  Came into it not long ago.”

Gale leaned in.  “What do you have?”

“If it’s concentrated magic you need, I can get you a pint or two of black dragon blood.  The genuine stuff, not some swill from a caged dragonling.  Fresh from the source, it’s potent if you know how to process it for extraction.  I’d cut a deal for a repeat customer,” Lonzok explained, setting a vial of blood on the desk.  

The orb lurched for the viscous red-black liquid.  Gale picked up the vial.  The orb throbbed, hungry.

“That’s already purified,” Lonzok explained, “fresh from the living beast.”

Gale felt the power of it, the weave primed for extraction.  The orb lashed.  Gale considered the things in his tower he hadn’t yet sold -- ancient tomes, the statuette of Mystra, the artifacts and trinkets he couldn’t bear to be rid of.  Dragon blood of this potency may silence the orb for a month, time enough to search for Velim unimpeded.

“Very well,” Gale conceded to the hunger, “let us deal.”

Dim light filtered through the slats between the boards of the crate.  Splinters dug into Velim where the wood wore their raw skin ragged.  They ached like a bug shoved in a box.  They willed their leaden limbs to move.  Their right arm throbbed numbly where Lonzok drove the seed beneath their skin.  The sutures pulled tight, professionally done.  The woman must be a surgeon, whoever she is.

Gods, they put some faith in that thing, Velim thought as they tested the flimsy hempen binds on their wrists and feet.  The cloth gag still stunk of ether, stinging the cracking skin of their lips.  Magic buzzed discordantly outside the thin barrier of wood. The moans of another trapped creature echoed forlornly.�� A storehouse or a warehouse, not the place with the operating table.

Acid dripped from their claws and onto the rope.  Sulfurous smoke billowed up from the burning fiber.  They winced at the heat on their scoured skin as acid pooled on the floor of the crate.  Sulfur fumes choked Velim’s senses as the wood beneath them eroded.  They closed their eyes against the sting and woke again with a gasp that ravaged their scorched throat and sent them into a coughing fit.  The ripped the gag out of their mouth and retched.

Heartbeat loud in their ears, they ran their hands over the rough floor of the crate until their claws caught in the deep gouges the acid left behind.  Another dose of sedative coursed through their body in response to their adrenaline, dragging them back under.  Velim focused on the creaking pain in their shoulders and shifted their weight against the side of the crate until it tipped over and they crashed into the floor, unconscious.

The creature moaned again, morose at the sound of the padlock on the heavy door clicking open.  Velim’s arms buckled as they tried to push themself out of the twisted position they’d fallen into.  It clicked and howled in indignation, drowning out the clanking footsteps approaching Velim’s crate.

The storehouse sat third in a row of identical boxy brick structures set back from the docks on the Sea Ward and invisible in the hustle and bustle of ships and sailors.  The steel service door was locked with a padlock that whirred with wards Gale felt over the hot seething of the orb in his chest.  The keeper, a tall elven woman, grunted with the effort of turning the key.  A series of locks tripped inside, clicking in the static silence of sleet pattering on the ground.

She hauled the door open, putting her full weight against it to get it moving.  The swing of the door passed over four wards carved into the concrete floor, each glowing in turn as they activated.

“Quite the advanced security system you have there,” Gale commented in an effort to fill space, “the circuit goes all the way around the structure of the building?”

“You'd have to ask Lonzok.” The keeper held the door for him.

Gale peered down the long brick side of the building until the keeper gently nudged him inside.  The trilling of the manticore caged on the far wall drowned out the sound of sleet on the roof.  It paced, howling at them through the narrow slots between bars and working a single large claw through like a cat pawing at the crack beneath a door.

“Don’t worry about Milo,” she nodded at the beast, “we're holding her for a menagerie.  She's loud, but pretty girl wouldn't hurt a fly.”

Gale lowered his voice, doubting her assurances.  “What a treasure trove this place must be, have you worked for Lonzok long?”

She nodded. “Old School friends, he calls on me when he has a beast he needs kept down.”  She stopped at a wobbly wooden table and simple chair with a heavy leather coat draped over the back and picked up the pry bar leaned against it.

Gale stared at the coat.  Even in the dim warehouse, it seemed familiar.  The wear on the shoulders and cuffed sleeves nagged at his mind.  He looked at the coat, and at the tall woman.  “Are you working with a Vulture?”

“That’s mine,” Unger clanked out of the stacks of crates.  He crossed his arms, his brass legs shining, “took you long enough.”

“And you are?” Gale held out his hand. 

“Unger the Gold,” Unger crushed Gale’s hand in his grip.  He sniffed, his crooked nose twitching, “used to be a Vulture.”

The coat still bothered him, and he stared at the oilcloth hood until his guts dropped into the void. “It’s a bit small for you.”

“You callin’ me fat, wizard?” Unger scowled, then laughed and slapped Gale's back, “I'm kiddin’.  Let's get set up.  And just so you know: it looks like a person, but it ain't.  You seen the product for yourself already, so you know.”

“Come on, Unger, while the sedative still works.” The keeper handed him the prybar.

Unger approached a crate, askew from the others surrounding it.  As he wedged the prybar beneath the top, the crate exploded with a thunderous crack that sent the broad man flying into a wooden barrel. It split open, spilling a viscous silvery black substance over his head.  Unger wiped at the oil clinging to his face.

Gale covered himself against the hail of splinters that rained from the shattered crate.  He blinked the dust out of his eyes and grabbed the Vulture’s coat, holding it up like a shield as the dragon uncoiled from the crate and fell on Unger.

Unger’s body convulsed as Velim’s weight knocked the wind from him.  They snarled with jagged teeth, a screech rolling from their ragged throat.  Unger thrashed, but the acid dripping off Velim’s claws sizzled in the mechanisms of his brass legs and they seized.  The stench of burning flesh filled the room as they dug their fingers into his throat, the tissue coming away in strings of charred flesh. 

The keeper readied a spell, but Velim flung their’s faster.  A flash of green streaked between rows of crates, and the keeper screamed as her face melted away.  She pawed at her curdling flesh before falling. 

Velim staggered back from Unger’s body and collapsed.  The concrete floor leached what remained of the warmth from their body.  The sudden brightness from the lantern on the table drove a blade of nausea into their stomach, and they hissed as they leaned heavily on a nail lodged in a shard of wood.  The nail pierced their right palm, and they yanked it out as they forced themself to their knees.  The room spun and their hand throbbed dully, the sedative blunting the pain as another dose surged into their bloodstream.  They gripped the wood shard like an anchor, spine curling over and pressing their forehead to the cold concrete.

Velim braced their right arm against the floor.  Their vision resolved on the neat stitches between quills and scabs, and they drove the nail beneath them.  Blood welled up and obscured the site, but they continued levering the nail up until the sutures broke.  The sedative numbed the pain as they clawed for the little metallic seed and ripped it out of their skin.  They shook it off their claw and it made a hard little splat on the floor in the moment before they finally doubled over and vomited stomach acid onto the concrete.

“Gods, Velim!” 

The sound of their name pierced through the nausea and they rose on their knees as footsteps approached them, meeting the voice with a clumsy lash and wordless snarl that connected weakly with the stranger's shoulder.  The familiar voice yelled as Velim doubled over again and a violet woolen coat dropped to the ground, an acid burn eating away at the sleeve.  They blinked hard against the onslaught of the sedative, but their muscles went rubbery despite their resistance.  Heavy fabric settled over their bare back, pushing them further into the concrete.

Warm hands held them steady, their leaden head lolling back.  The stranger pulled the coat around their shoulders.  Their coat, they knew it by the smell of the beeswax they sealed the leather with, deadening the sharpness of sweat and blood clinging to their body.  He cradled their face, pushing mats of hair out of their eyes.

“Velim, can you hear me?” Gale asked, his voice low.  The manticore howled at the commotion.

Velim grimaced at his question, flashing their teeth.  Gale thought they might try to bite him, but they just lurched forward into his shoulder.  He cradled their head against his heart, their body shivering.

“That’s alright, just listen to the sound of my voice,” Gale’s heart slammed against his chest.  The orb reached out for them, caressing their face with burning filaments of weave.  He could have them.  Right now, drain them away to nothing and feed the orb a piece of Tiamat so powerful, a meal so satisfying, that it might not bother him for the remainder of his natural life.

The thought arrived so quickly and so selfishly that a knife twisting between his ribs may have been less painful.  He pulled Velim closer.

“I’ve got you,” Gale counted the steps he’d taken around the building, how many steps to the intersection closest to his mother’s house, “just hold on to me, I’ll get you out of here.”

“Please don’t…” Velim stammered, their voice giving out to ragged breathing.

“I won’t -- I-I’m --” Gale checked his calculations one more time, “I've got you.  Just hold on, I’m getting us out of here.” He adjusted his grip, hooking his arm around their waist and adjusting their arms over his shoulders.  They held onto his neck, the tips of their filed claws grazing his shoulders.

“Complicare viam,” he spoke, the words becoming truth in a gust of cold wind.  

Sleet dripped down the back of his shirt and melted on Velim’s hair.  He held them until the vertigo of traversing dimensions subsided, then hauled them to their feet.  They stumbled, knees buckling beneath their own weight.  Gale propped them against the wall of the alley to button their coat and pull up their hood.  He thanked the gods that the scabby black skin on Velim’s legs looked like boots in the dark.

Velim blinked up at the cloudy sky, letting Gale ease their arms through the sleeves of their coat.  He took their weight again, stooping so Velim could rest their arm across his shoulders.  They struggled to lift their legs, each step half-dragging through the mud until they found a stumbling rhythm with Gale pushing them forward.  

“Almost there,” Gale panted as they turned the corner into his mother's neighborhood.  The gas streetlamps flickered eerily off the sleet melting into the gutters.

Velim’s knees buckled as they lost consciousness, bringing them both down in the cold street.  Velim blinked back awake with a low groan, ice chilling their skin.  Gale glanced down the street at his mother’s stoop, just a half block away.  The orb throbbed in his chest, still reaching for the dragon in his arms. 

“Not far now,” Gale pushed wet hair out of Velim’s eyes, “I’m going to carry you.”

Velim nodded, letting Gale sweep his arm beneath their knees.  He staggered back to his feet and shifted their weight against his chest, each step fell forward harder than the last until he reached the short staircase leading to his mother’s stoop.  He braced himself for the final exertion, breath wheezing through his teeth, and surged to the top of the stairs where he let Velim down gently, holding them until they found their feet again.  Once he was sure they wouldn’t fall, he reached for the knocker and slammed it against the door until someone answered.

“What?” Charrel’s anger dropped away as she took in the scene on the front step.  Her long ears fell slack in surprise as the frustration that had rocketed her out of bed dissipated in a cloud of inert steam. “By the Gods, Mr. Dekarios,” was all she could manage in a small voice.

“Prepare a room and wake my mother, it’s an emergency.” Gale mustered his most authoritative voice, but Charrel was already helping him drag Velim across the threshold and lower them down on a bench in the foyer.

Velim traced the designs carved in the velvet upholstery, watching Charrel and Gale bicker.  Gale locked the front door, then warded it, and stormed up the stairs past Charrel yelling for his mother.  The commotion faded into footsteps above them.  The feeling came back to their toes with a prickling sensation.  Their arm and hand throbbed.

Gale and Charrel rushed back down the stairs, and Velim’s stomach churned as they were hoisted to their feet and carried up the stairs.  The patterns in the wallpaper morphed, birds stretching their feathers and turning to watch Velim pass by.  Gale and Charrel carried them into a bedroom lit with the low glow of an oil lamp on the desk and set them on the desk chair.

“Get out,” Charrel demanded of Gale.

“Get out?  What do you mean ‘get out’?” Gale’s voice didn’t rise above a harsh whisper, but his grip on Velim tightened.

“I mean what I say, Mr. Dekarios, now get out and let your friend some modesty,” she hissed, but her hands were gentle in prying Velim away.

Velim noticed the callouses on her fingertips as she eased them onto the bed, and thought dimly that she must play some kind of string instrument.  Gale’s vigor dissipated as he released them, holding their hand.  They left a smudge of blood behind on his palm as they finally slipped free of his grasp.

“Gale,” Morena lingered in the door in her housecoat.  Beside her, Delores and Dorothea blinked sleepily through curtains of curly brown hair mussed from sleep.  

Gale hurried out of the room and closed the door behind him so Del and Dot couldn’t see inside.  

Dot blinked up at him, her stormy gray eyes narrowed suspiciously as she pulled her curls back into a messy bun.  “Who’s that?”

“Is that who the matchmaker set him up with?” Del asked through a yawn.  She wiped the tears out of her cloudy eyes.

“Go back to your rooms,” Morena said through her teeth.

Her daughters looked at her skeptically, but both turned back on Gale in their own time.

“Go back to bed, it’s none of your concern,” Gale snapped.

Del blinked, full awake.  She ran her hand through her hair, but it fell back into place.  “What’s none of my concern?  Don’t you have your own tower to bring your dates back to, or would you rather spend the night in your childhood bedroom?”

“Delores,” Morena snarled.

Del matched Gale’s confrontational stare.  Dot grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her back to her bedroom.  She waved to Gale as she slipped back into her own bedroom across the hall and closed the door.  Morena walked past Gale, gesturing him towards the sitting room.  She pinched the bridge of her nose.  Gale followed, shoulders slumping under his mother's scrutiny.

Morena sat in her rocking chair and folded her hands in her lap.  Gale sat on the long sofa across from her, avoiding her stern gaze.

“Gale, would you like to tell me what happened?” She asked, her voice measured.

Gale shrunk, his body responding to a tone of voice he had known before his feet reached the floor from the couch he was sitting on.  He gripped the brocade upholstery and blinked back tears.  When the onslaught didn’t stop, he buried his face in his hands.  His mother waited.

When Gale looked back into his mother’s stone eyes, the words spilled from him in an unstoppable tide.  He stared at the blood smear on his hand as he told his mother about his search for Velim and what he intended to do with the dragon.  He covered the aching black scars beside his eye when he explained the reason for his drastic measures.  He sobbed outright when he begged her forgiveness for all the time he’d been gone.  He was still crying when Morena sat down beside her son.  She rubbed his back and leaned against his shoulder, humming a soft lullaby beside him until he stopped sobbing.

The throbbing in Velim’s arm woke them.  They rolled over and covered it with their palm, pressing down on the flimsy bandage until the scab slipped.  Daylight streamed through the gaps in the curtains.  Velim squeezed their eyes shut against the light until the stinging pain drove them out of bed.  They leaned on the wall, picking up their coat from the back of the desk chair on their way to the bathroom, and closed the door behind them.

The water inside the tub steamed, the washbasin full of clean water.  Some kind soul whose face they couldn’t recall left fresh clothes and towels on the table beside the bathtub.  They dug for the bag of holding sewn into the lining of their coat and removed their surgery kit and a roll of gauze, dropped it on the table, and peeled away the stained bandages.  They dunked their wounded hand and forearm into the washbasin and scrubbed with soap until both injuries were red and raw, then studied them.

One all the way through puncture and one gash too open to stitch up.  They turned their hand over and flexed it where the nail had pierced their palm, matching the two holes dorsal and palmar.  They tested the movement, touching each fingertip to their thumb in turn.  It ached when they moved, but like a bruise and not a ruptured tendon.  When they turned their forearm over, some of the quills sat at odd angles.  They opened their surgery kit and picked out a set of forceps and one of the clean towels, then leaned their forearm on the table and plucked off the skewed quills.  They blotted at the blood welling up from the base.

They stripped the night dress and clambered into the tub.  Their body ached in the hot water, and slipped under the surface and let the world go thick and quiet until their lungs burned for air.  When they surfaced, their fingers were wrinkled.  They combed out their hair and washed the blood and sweat from it, soap clouding the water.  When the water cooled, they stepped out and scrubbed until the raw skin bled from the pinprick scabs where the scales were plucked.

They reveled in the feel of clean clothes and properly tightened bandages, the shirt supple from years of wear but missing the tie so it sat wide over their collarbones and left the scars down their chest plainly visible.  They held the collar closed as they approached the bedroom door and paused to listen for strangers in the hallway.

“Oh, good!  You’re awake,” Tara exclaimed, emerging halfway through a porthole above the wardrobe.

Velim startled back into the bed, knocking their already aching legs on the bedpost.

“Oh, my apologies,” Tara sat primly on top of the wardrobe, “I should have announced myself.  In any case, no need to listen for danger.  Morena sent the girls away this morning, and Gale received his scolding last night.  It’s only myself, Mrs. Dekarios, and dear Charrel.  Mrs. Dekarios sent me up to check on you.”

“Where is Gale?” Velim asked, rubbing their aching shin.

“Taking urgent meetings with his colleagues at Blackstaff,” Tara explained, “he’s been making calls since before dawn, I expect he should return past lunchtime.”

“I see,” Velim fussed with the fresh bandages on their arm.

“Fear not, doctor, I’ve been keeping vigil since I heard.  No ruffian is getting through that window without a good deal of scorching,” she flicked her tail at the closed curtains, “Mrs. Dekarios is expecting lunch downstairs.  I would appreciate it if you joined us.”

Tara disappeared back through the porthole and Velim heard her soft landing on the hallway carpet.  Velim followed Tara’s flagging tail down the hall until she vanished around the curve of the main staircase and left them alone on the landing.  Velim hesitated, tracing the carpet runner down the sun-dappled stairway -- much like the stairway in the Hazelight home, with windows set into the eaves letting the light in.  The stairs Everon chased them up with a kitchen knife.  They were whipped for it when they got the knife from him and chased him back down and into the arms of his waiting mother.  The chill of her hateful glare waited just around the corner.

Velim ignored the way their stomach clenched and took it one stair at a time until their hand passed into a sunbeam on the railing.  Their remaining scales flashed, inky black and glossy.  They pulled their hand away as though the gentle warmth burned and crossed their arms tight across their chest as they turned on their heel and walked quickly back to the bedroom.

The door clicked closed.  Velim sucked in deep, hungry breaths while their heart slammed against their ribcage.  They blinked back tears, and repeated against the tight wall of their throat, “I’m safe.  No one is going to hurt me here.”

The panicked animal at the back of their mind railed against them with worst-case scenarios.  They looked for a place to hide, some dark and tight corner of the room, and found the nook between the bed and the far wall.  Their head swam, body swamped by hyperventilation and the aching twitch in their fingers threatening to throw open the windows and jump out.  

Velim staggered into the corner and curled up, digging their claws into their knees and focusing on the pinpoint pressure on the joints.  Panic hammered at their defenses, tremors climbing up their spine.  Hot tears ran down their face, tracing odd patterns between the scales on their cheekbones.  They sucked in deliberately slow, stuttering breaths through their clenched teeth.

“Oh dear,” Tara mewed from her perch on the wardrobe.  She sighed and shook out her wings with a soft rustle, then left again.  She landed softly in the hallway.

Velim’s heart was just beginning to slow when Tara returned, gliding off the dresser and trotting up to rub against Velim’s knees.  Velim peeled their claws off their legs and scratched behind her ears.

“Doctor, I’ve arranged for lunch to come to you,” she explained.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in, Mrs. Dekarios,” Tara called.

Velim’s hand stilled, their body freezing tight.  

Tara pushed her head up into their hand.  “You’re okay, Doctor.  Morena already knows, and I’m afraid this conversation must occur while Mr. Dekarios is still out making his calls.  And besides that, we really must get some food in you.”

Morena set the serving tray down on the desk, the smell of hot coffee mixing with her rose perfume.  She pulled out the chair and sat across from Velim, taking her own cup of tea from the tray and sipping it.

“Gale tells me you prefer coffee, Charrel brewed it with cloves and ginger for their warming properties,” Morena said, studying the tea leaves drifting to the bottom of her cup, “she insisted I tell you that.”

Velim pressed their thumb into their injured palm, still stiff and cold despite the hot bath and now clammy with panic.  They swallowed the fear in their throat.  “That’s kind of her.”

Morena waited.  Velim felt her eyes on them, studying their loose hair and the pattern of scabs on their arms.  The scrutiny sent their heart hammering again.  The frigid hatred of Ulana Hazelight haunted the chair Morena currently occupied, as though she was hanging over Morena’s shoulder with her chestnut hair pulled back in a tight weave of braids and whispering all their horrid actions into her ear.

Tara leaned against their knees, but they made no move to pet her.  The shade of Ulana Hazelight froze them in place, but she dissipated as Morena got up from the chair and took a seat on the unmade bed beside Velim.  She leaned down and offered Velim a handkerchief.  

Velim flinched at the movement.  They wiped their eyes and blew their nose, then balled the handkerchief up in their palm.  “Thank you.”

Morena sat herself on the bench at the foot of the bed, adjusting her skirts and pulling her embroidery project from her pocket.  She hummed quietly as she worked the needle through.

Velim’s heart calmed and they unwound themself from the corner.  They leaned against the wall until they found their balance, then relocated to the desk chair and picked up the coffee, warming their hands on the mug.  The warm drink settled their stomach enough for them to realize how ravenous they were.  Morena continued her embroidery.

“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.” Velim balanced the fork on the empty plate.

Tara jumped into their lap with a huff and balanced herself in an indignant loaf on their knees.  “Far more trouble had you died, Doctor.  Do you have any idea what kind of state Gale was in when you didn’t arrive for dinner?”

“I’m sorry for that, too, then,” Velim sighed.

“Are you done?” Morena asked without looking up.

Velim watched out the crack between the curtains at the empty courtyard below.  “Yes.”

“Come sit, please.” Morena moved to one side of the bench and patted the empty seat beside her.

Velim sat, crossing their arms across their chest as though they would stop being a dragon if they just hid enough of the evidence from sight.  Tara had enough of that, though, and followed them from the desk chair to the bench.  She settled in Velim’s lap, pushing under their folded arms until they reluctantly extracted a hand to pet her.

“Thank you for bringing Gale back,” Morena said, her stern face drawn, “last night, he came home for the first time in more than a year.  I am grateful to you, and glad to finally meet you, although I wish the conditions were within your control.”

Velim traced the timeline in their mind.  One year previous Gale had his run-in with the Netherese magic, and then vanished from public life.  They wondered if he had to take desperate measures to control the parasite from the beginning.  

When Morena noticed that Velim was lost in thought, she continued with a small smile, “Gale is working to secure another option for disguise.  Until then, we will keep the blinds drawn.  You may stay here for as long as you like, but I believe it would be best for both of you to leave the city while the investigation runs its course.  I can only turn away your visitors so long.”

“He hoped he would return in time for lunch,” Tara sighed, “I always tell him that bureaucracy takes time.  When Mr. Dekarios hurried out the door this morning, he was so hopeful that he would return and prepare breakfast before you woke.”

Velim smiled at that.  “He knows he doesn’t owe me for dinner, doesn’t he?”

“Oh please,” Tara scoffed, “he talks about repaying the favor all the time.”

“Has Gale told you much about us?” Morena asked.

Velim began to relax, the tension easing out of their shoulders and leaving a throbbing ache in its place.  “Some, mostly about his sisters.  I understand he’s much older than them?”

Morena nodded, working her needle through the eye of the crane in her embroidery hoop.  “By ten years for Noelle and fourteen for Dorothea and Delores.  He helped raise them after his stepfather died.”

“Stepfather?” Velim echoed.

“Yes, stepfather,” Morena confirmed, “I met Gale’s father when I was still very young.  He fled his familial responsibilities in the Silver Marches, but he had to return shortly before Gale’s birth,” Morena trailed off, studied the stitches of her embroidery, “ten years later, I received his will as the only surviving inheritor for the family.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Velim watched her work the thread back through, pulling a downy gray feather into the bird’s body, “he never mentioned that.”

“He never met his father, and I don’t speak much of him. He doesn’t have much to tell you,” Morena pulled another feather into place, “I’m sure you’ve had more than your fair share of losses.”

“Yes, haven’t we all?” Velim tried to shake the oppressive memory of their years at the Hazelight home from their mind, a shadow cast over Ortheon Hazelight’s proud expression at their first amputation.  Instead, the hurt pinged against the memory of Luz’s body in the mass grave at Ulivin during the smallpox outbreak.  They settled on the grief of that memory instead.

Morena waited for Velim to elaborate, but they stared down at the tortoiseshell patterns in Tara’s fur and said nothing.  She set her embroidery in her lap.  “Is your family aware of your condition?”

Velim shook their head.  “Only Jada.  Peiotr and Helena don’t know.”

“Have you considered telling them?” Morena asked.

Velim shook their head again.  “The less who know, the better.”

Morena angled her body toward them.  “I have a proposition for you, and I would like to put it to you before Gale returns so that when he brings it up, you already have your answer.”

Velim waited for her to continue.

“I’ve staffed his father’s ancestral home in the Silver Marches with a skeleton crew for years to keep the place functional.  Willowdarn Manor, it’s been in the Halavar family for ten generations, and Gale is the last of the line.  It rightfully belongs to him, but I’ve never extended the offer because of its remote location.  Now, it seems a blessing,” Morena laid a hand on Velim’s shoulder, “I would send you both out there while the ruckus dies down and rumors of Tiamat’s Spawn running rampant among the townsfolk dissipate.”

“Does anyone else know about Willowdarn?” Velim asked, anxiety churning in their chest.

“Just myself and Gale, as the home is his birthright,” Morena assured them, “if you decide to go, we must make the arrangements quickly before the roads become impassable.”

Velim considered their options, glancing at the curtains and imagining the city beyond boiling with talk of another sacking on their doorstep at the hands of Tiamat’s own black dragon.  It wouldn’t be long until a mob with torches and pitchforks made their way to Morena’s door intent on tearing them limb from limb.  A desolate swamp sounded like paradise in comparison, but perhaps that was the dragon talking.

Morena gathered her embroidery and stood up to leave.  “Take your time and consider my offer,” then a small smile crossed her face, “I can't hold Peiotr off for long, so while you may remain in here until supper, I must insist that you join us for the meal.”

“Then I thank you for the warning,”  Velim smiled, and felt a buzz of warmth as Morena returned it on her way out the door, “Tara, would you be joining us at Willowdarn?”

Tara hopped off their lap.  “No, Doctor, someone must care for the tower while Mr. Dekarios is away.  I’ll keep an eye on your flat, as well, but it would just be the two of you.”

“And the staff,” Velim clarified.

“Yes, and the staff,” Tara echoed, flitting up to the top of the wardrobe, “get some rest, Doctor, I’ll send Gale up once he’s home.  Is there anything you’d like me to retrieve from your flat?”

“There’s a journal on my desk, if you can carry it,” Velim requested, thinking of the magical circuits scratched into the pages, “do you know where it is?”

“I absolutely can, and I do,” Tara purred, then was gone through the porthole.

Velim wondered how long Tara had been watching and how much she had known.  They had never heard of a familiar keeping secrets from their wizard before, but as they sat in Gale’s childhood bedroom wearing his sister’s old clothes, they figured there was a first time for everything.

[foxblood]

does anyone want to play themes and motifs with me

[foxblood]

The Threads of Memory V - Contact Tracing

Editor's Log 5/21/25 - This chapter has plot now too! More obvious plot, anyway. - Velim gets some family time. - Velim also does some breaking and entering. - As always, basic edits for readability.

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The driving rain kept the crowds off the dim back streets of the Sea Ward.  Gale pulled his collar up as the rain pelted him sideways beneath the shield and mixed with the icy mud caking the street.  It clung to his boots and stained the hem of his robes as it lapped over the wooden walkways.  The damp ached in his joints and the orb pulsed ever-hungrily in his chest in a hot and cold throb that kept his teeth chattering and his shirt sweat-stuck to his back.

He missed the stairwell on his first pass and backtracked.  The first few stairs were slick with ice and he leaned heavily against the wall, but the landing was dry and the shop behind the door hummed with magic.  The orcish shopkeep glanced over his gold spectacles at Gale and gave him a slight nod as he tinkered with a tiny brass automaton.  Arcane fire flickered blue-white in the sconces, catching on curling wisps of smoke rising from an incense burner on the top shelf.

Gale approached the counter.  The shopkeep set his automaton aside to make room for a large velvet-lined tray.  It rattled with trinkets and small weapons.

“Saved some things for you.” He tapped the side of the tray.

Gale recognized some of the enchantments on sight, outdated and sold at a steep discount.  A dagger glowed silvery blue inside its sheath, reacting to the shopkeep’s orcish blood.  Two rings sent a short magical pulse back and forth to one another at ten second intervals, electricity arcing between them once per minute.  The orb salivated at the offerings, tendrils of weave reaching for the tray and passing over each trinket, selecting the best cut of meat from the butcher’s counter.

Gale plucked out the dagger and the rings and a couple of tarnished amulets.  The shopkeep considered the items Gale had selected.

“Eleven dragon, seven shard, nine nib,” he grunted, picking up his automaton to tighten a couple more screws while Gale got his coins together.

Gale produced a string of taols from his pocket and untied the knot, sliding six of the heavy bronze coins off and pushing the stack across the counter.  The shopkeep swept them off the table and dug in a locked drawer.  Gale held out his hand, but the shopkeep dropped two shards and a nib on the counter.  Gale gathered the change and the trinkets.  He nodded at the shopkeep and braved the rain again.

Velim watched Gale leave Lonzok’s Arcane Supply, cloaked in Everon’s skin and the  smoke rising from their pipe.  Gale passed them without looking up, and they tried to parse the magic pulsing around him.  No change, the Netherese weave in his chest overwhelmed anything else on his person.  Once he gained a long head start, they followed him.  At the end of the street, he blinked out of sight with an invisibility spell, and Velim took a sharp turn down an alley in case they'd been spotted.

Velim cut across the city, clinging close to walls and tight alleys for some protection against the driving rain until they reached Gale's block. They took shelter beneath a shop awning and leaned against the cold brick, lighting their pipe again and puffing until the smoke worked the cold promise of sleep out of their system.  Gale turned onto his street and they ducked into the shadow of the alley.  Gale climbed the stairs to his tower, digging in his pocket for something Velim couldn’t see.  When he reached the top, he pressed his hand to the warded door and for a moment, nothing happened.  He got in on the second try, the wards illuminating him in a soft white glow.

Home safe, they thought, snuffing the pipe before the rain could.  They backtracked, avoiding the sludge clogging the gutters and entered the same stairwell they Gale emerged from not long before.  

The shopkeep -- Lonzok, Velim presumed -- glanced up from his tinkering, and his gaze lingered on them for longer than they liked.  “Let me know if I can help you with anything, Vulture,” he said, pushing his spectacles up his nose and returning to his work.

They studied the shelves of magical scrolls, picking at the tangled strands of weave for some indication of where Gale had passed.  No use, everything around them vibrated with such varied intensity that they couldn’t pick a necromantic charm from a fire spell.

They flipped through a reference of magical ailments from the shelf and approached the counter, dropping the book in front of Lonzok.  “You strike me as a man who’s seen everything.”

Lonzok’s eyes flicked up at them, then returned to the automaton.  “I might be.”

Everon’s snide smile curled across Velim's lips.  They flashed the badge pinned on the inside of their coat.  “I’m working on a case, but I’m afraid I’m no expert in magical ailments.”

The shopkeep nodded at the badge.  “Some tenure you got there, eh?”

“Indeed,” Everon’s voice felt slimy in their mouth, “might I describe the symptoms to you?  Perhaps you could point me in the right direction.  Of course, I’ll pay for the expertise.”

The orcish shopkeep pushed his gold spectacles up his nose with his screwdriver and leaned forward on the counter.  “Lay it on me.”

Velim studied the wrinkles in his face, the wiry hair receding at his temples, the smell of incense covering something mustier.  They thought they’d seen that nose before, broken several times.  

“Well,” they began in the same flippant tone that made them imagine throwing Everon off a cliff every time they heard it, “my patient is suffering from a critical case of spell parasitism.  It sits right above their heart and leaches magic into the environment at an alarming rate, forcing them to consume weave in order to stabilize it or it simply drains their own stores until they die.  It’s an uphill battle that we seem to be losing, but I’ve neither seen any similar ailment, nor am I Weavemaster enough myself to identify and cut out the cause.  Perhaps you’ve seen something similar?”

“So you want to cut it out?” The orc leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap, considering.

“I am perfectly capable of performing the removal as soon as I know what it is that I am removing,” Everon assured the orc with such a condescending tone that Velim was sure he’d throw them out for insolence.

Lonzok watched them closely.  “I seen kids do something similar before.  Took a find familiar spell, but didn’t finish so the weave gets stuck in their throat.  The half-formed critter eats the kid’s magic ‘til they’re drained, and then they wither away to nothin’.”

Velim cocked their head to the side, but swapped their curious consideration for smug neutrality and hoped he hadn’t noticed.  “My patient is certainly capable of completing a find familiar spell.”

The shopkeep eyed them.  “Well, I only seen the like in kids.  And only twice.”

“And how did you fix it?” Velim pressed.

The orc laughed.  “Didn’t fix it.  Kids died, both of ‘em that I saw, anyway.”

“Are there any records?” they asked, studying the stitching of their leather gloves.

“I didn’t keep none.  Try Blackstaff Academy’s infirmary staff, they probably got that on file somewhere,” the orc suggested, “sure they see it all the time.”

“Well,” they slid a few shards across the counter and tucked the book into the safety of their coat, “I thank you for your expertise.  The spell misfire is a start.”

“‘Course.  You come back if you’re in need of my expertise again, Vulture.” Lonzok tossed the coins in the locked drawer on top of the taols without taking his eyes off the disguised dragon’s back.  The draconic weave cast a haze around their body. His Truesight spectacles cut through the tangle of illusion magic they cocooned themself in, and he recognized those eyes from his brother's nightmares.  Cold air gusted in as they left the shop.

The orb ached in Gale’s chest, but not as badly as the night before -- keeping him awake until the wee hours of the morning with each painful throb against his ribs no matter how many times he fed the damn thing.  All the blood in his face pooled in bruised circles under his eyes.  Even so, he’d dressed and combed his hair in expectation of Velim’s arrival.  They came at least once a tenday now, dinner in tow.  As they settled on his balcony to watch the golden afternoon sun, he again considered telling them the truth.

 Tara settled beside Gale on the bench as Velim laid out the evening’s offering on the small table.  They sliced the bread with one or two quick strokes each, fanning the pieces out on the board around a wheel of white-bloomed cheese.  Gale watched, feeling just a touch embarrassed, but knew better than disturb their perfectionist’s trance.

When they finished, they tucked themself on Tara’s other side and leaned back with their glass of wine while Gale cut a piece of cheese off for Tara.  Gale’s earring glinted as he leaned over, the ring through his ear smooth and unblemished.  Mystra’s spinning wheel -- Velim wondered if he was trying to return the Netherese weave to her, if it lodged itself in him when he laid eyes upon it, and if so did that mean his left eye was dominant?  They thought they felt Mystra’s eyes boring into their back from the living room, but she was turned toward the door.  They made sure on their way in.

A cold breeze blew off the ocean.  Gale pulled into his sweater, the crow’s feet tight at the corners of his eyes.  Black tendrils traced angry red welts in his skin like charcoal driven in with a tattooer’s needle.  Velim spread some cheese on a slice of bread and took a bite, waiting for him to fill the silence.

“I read something interesting,” Gale began, “an excerpt from a pamphlet published in Neverwinter some two hundred years ago.  It’s only a sentence, but it makes mention of some sort of draconic plague that swept the countryside east of the city.”

“What was the pamphlet about?” Velim asked.

Gale waved his hand.  “A political piece using Azan the Red as a metaphor for some noble family or another with draconic blood.  Largely your run-of-the-mill slander, but I’d never heard of any such plague in that area.  The passing mention suggests common knowledge at the time of publication, referencing an actual plague.”

Velim scratched behind Tara’s ears thoughtfully, “perhaps some kind of fallout from Azan’s gravesite.  He was slain east of Neverwinter, 100 years before, but…” they trailed off, “no, he would have been scavenged so thoroughly and quickly, there’d be nothing left. You know how fast snatch teams form when a dragon falls, let alone one of Tiamat’s ilk.  He'd be in a million little pieces by then.”

“Are you sure they would descend so quickly as to preclude the possibility of some sort of magical contamination?” Gale pressed, topping up their wine.

Velim’s stomach flipped and they swirled their glass to stare into the little red whirlpool.  The bounty hunters, the magical artifact dealers, the adventurers looking for heroic renown, all would have circled Azan like buzzards from the moment of his blessing.  Long before he was the red dragon, as soon as Tiamat pierced his chest with a crimson claw and set that fire.  Their own heart constricted around a sharp and distant memory.

“Velim?” Gale’s voice pierced their concentration.  He raised a hand like he was going to reach for them.

Velim straightened up.  “It’s possible that he expelled his intrinsic weave as a last act of defiance,” they admitted, “but the stories of Azan don’t depict a man likely to let that go, even as vengeance -- and an event like that would have been recorded, anyway.  Nothing pisses the snatch teams off like a magicless dragon.”

“Ah, true, dragons are not known for giving their power away.  Quite the opposite -- I believe the potency of their bodies is due to their tendency to cling to it, as though their very bones hold it tight,” Gale clenched his fist in illustration and Velim felt sick, “makes for excellent enchanting and magical foci.  Unfortunate for the dragons, of course.”

Velim chuckled, hoping they didn’t sound too strangled.  “Yes, they do, don’t they?  No, I think Azan’s body was scoured down to the last mote within days of his fall.  It’s more likely a run of the mill fever they’re referencing.  The mosquitoes east of Neverwinter --” they blew out a slow breath, “those things kill hundreds every damn summer, and I could see the illustrative link between a red dragon and a particularly bad year for fever.”

“Your insight humbles me, as always,” Gale smiled at them, “I had not considered the bugs.”

“You must always consider the bugs, Gale,” Velim relaxed as the topic shifted.

“Or perhaps the pigeons,” Tara added, “and rats.”

Velim nodded.  “A good harvest year, and you could end up with any number of illnesses from the influx of rodents.  Good grain farming east of Neverwinter, too.  Maybe a hemorrhagic fever?  Blood might also provide a link to the red dragon.”

Tara hopped off the bench and trotted back inside, her absence leaving a cold gap between Gale and Velim.  Velim used the performance of the setting sun as an excuse to take a deep breath of the salty air off the harbor and stretch. Gale pressed his hand hard to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing through the new surge of pain while Velim was looking away.  He finished his glass of wine, willing the alcohol to numb him a little.

“Another?” Velim asked, brandishing the bottle.

“Yes please.” He set his glass on the table.  

Velim topped them both up, even though their’s was still half full.  “Your episodes aren’t normally this long.”

Gale willed his hand not to shake when he picked his glass up again.  “Impossible to hide anything from you, isn’t it,” he smiled at them, “no, I am…”

Velim waited, his face twisting into a conflicted grimace.  The confession stuck to the tip of their tongue, caged by the lack of solution.  No treatment to soften the violation of his privacy.  Their heart sank.

“It’s worse than it has ever been,” he clutched his sweater until the fabric wrinkled, “and my poor mother has no idea why I’m ill.”

Velim doubted that.  Morena seemed more perceptive than he gave her credit for, based on their brief correspondences and what Madame Toussau shared with them.

“I keep turning her away.  Gods, I know it hurts her.  Del tells me I’m killing her, but if she knew --” he swallowed a sob, “If she knew --” he stopped himself again.

Velim looked down at their bare hands, the ring of Mortal Guise shining in the gold light, and back at Gale.  Hugging him was not an option, he would feel the scales through their shirt or on their cheeks.  They couldn’t hold his hand, either, or he would feel the claws.  They settled for resting their hand between his shoulders, relying on the thick knit of his sweater to disguise any brush of claws.  He leaned into their touch, his body radiating feverish heat.

“I understand,” Velim said softly, desperate to confess what they knew, “it’s lonely, having to lie to the people you love.  Worse, when you know the truth would hurt more.”

The cries of seagulls circling closer for a chance at pillaged dinner swallowed Velim’s voice.  Gale’s heart stuttered in momentary panic.  He wondered how they could have found out, but their touch brought him out of his head and his breath rose and fell beneath the weight of their hand.

“I’m grateful you’ve let me in as much as you have,” Velim brushed their thumb across the ridge of his shoulderblade, suppressing their frustration, “it’s no burden to bear alone.”

Velim measured his breathing and the constant flow of magic spilling off him until both eased.  Gale wiped his eyes and straightened up, and Velim dropped their hand back into their lap.

“Thank you, Velim.”  Gale didn’t look at them, instead throwing back the remainder of his wine.

Velim finished their glass and watched the sun fall below the horizon, turning the clouds red.  “I have a meeting with Peiotr,” they said without standing.

“How soon?” Gale asked, still gasping slightly.

Velim looked at the sunset.  “I’m already late.”

“Gods, I didn’t mean to keep you,” Gale leaned back on the bench and stared at the planks of the ceiling above, wiping his damp eyes again, “I can clean up, if you need to hurry.”

“I don’t mind making Peiotr wait,” Velim wrapped the remainder of the cheese in the waxed cloth it came in, “this is good for another meal.  You ought to keep it.”

Gale watched them work, packing the food away with the same precision they laid it out with.  An ache settled behind the orb.  They already knew so much about his condition and remained eager for his company.  The memory of their magic surging into his chest rose to his mind unbidden.

Velim carried the leftovers into the kitchen.  Gale followed them, lingering in the cool draft from the balcony.  He watched them scratch the sweet spot behind Tara’s ears when she hopped up to direct them, dropping an enchanted trinket onto the counter.  Tara’s head tilted into the touch, but the greeting lasted only a moment before both of them were back to business. Tara flitted across the room and handed the enchanted locket to Gale.

He wanted to admit the full truth, but when he tried to speak up his throat tightened.  He closed his fist around the heart-shaped locket, the stones set into the silver dug into his palm.  The warding bond pulsed warm and soft in his hand.

Velim tsked at dusk settling over the city as they opened the door.  “Peiotr is going to get on my case about running around in the dark again.”

“Blame me for talking your ear off,” Gale smiled despite his aching heart, “I’ll see you soon?”

Velim shot him a half-smile.  “Whether you like it or not.  Take care, Gale.”

Gale pounded against the locked doors of his own voice, demanding that he tell them the truth.  Instead, he said: “take care, Velim,” and closed the door.  

The wards lit up, the magic brushing past his face as he pressed his forehead to the wood.  Tears welled, and he squeezed his eyes closed to keep them from spilling over.  His breathing came in short, painful gasps.

“Mr. Dekarios?” Tara meowed, rubbing against his legs.

Gale staggered away from the door and dropped onto the bench.  It creaked beneath his weight.  He buried his face in his hands, but tears wet his palms and his frustration boiled over in shuddering sobs that pulled his chest taut around the orb.  It reached for the locket clenched in his hand, and he threw it against the opposite wall.

Tara picked the locket back up and hopped up beside him.  “Mr. Dekarios, use it before you get worse,” she scolded, prodding his hand loose with a paw and dropping the locket back into his palm.

“I can’t keep lying to them, Tara,” he sucked in a hard breath as the orb surged for the locket with dogged hunger, “I can’t keep doing this.  It’s not working.”

Tara pushed his hand against his chest, the orb devouring the weave with a fiery ache that pushed a frustrated groan out of his throat.  He dropped the spent thing in his lap.

“Perhaps we should tell them, then?” Tara suggested gently, “Velim is a clever creature.  If the two of you put your heads together, you may get somewhere.”

Even in her absence, Mystra’s weight settled upon him.  The amethyst set eyes of her statuette watched him, and he glared back.  “If they knew what I had done, they’d think me a fool.”

“I think Velim would forgive you.” Tara curled in his lap and began purring.

Gale’s throat constricted again, his voice hoarse and soft.  “And if they didn’t?  This damned thing would take everything from me.”

The statue of Mystra stared forward, accusatory when Gale met her crystalline eyes.  A promise of unending retribution for his folly, and her ever-present watchful silence.  He looked down at the floor.

“Vely!” The young kobold chirped with delight, wrapping herself around Velim’s knees as they entered the cramped townhouse in the Trade Ward.

“Jada!” Velim returned the enthusiasm, helping the kobold scramble onto their shoulders.  They smiled at Peiotr when he appeared in the hall, tapping his foot impatiently.

He sniffed, his moustache working like a furry caterpillar.  “You’re late, Vely.”

“Yes, yes, dinner ran long,” Velim reached into the back pocket of their coat for a sheaf of paper, “but I have the pages.”

Peiotr harumphed.

“Dinner with the wizard,” Jada sing-songed from their shoulders, “when does Jada get to meet the wizard?”

“Jada gets to meet the wizard when the wizard gets to meet Jada,” Velim said, pushing past Peiotr for his office.  They dropped Jada on the seat next to the door.

Jada crossed her arms.  “Jada does not like that answer.”

“Bummer,” Velim said before Peiotr closed the door.

Velim handed Peiotr the sheaf of paper.  He put on his spectacles and studied Velim’s neat slanting hand.

“This ain’t all I asked you for, Vely,” he said, “where’s the rest of it?”

Velim considered the stacks of books on their bed, the journal full of anatomical and magical diagrams.  “That’s all I have Peiotr, I’ve got a case that takes precedence.”

Peiotr sighed and folded his spectacles again.  “I thought you were on leave?”

“Personal case.”

“Personal case,” Peiotr grunted, “for what?”

Velim cleared their throat.  “Patient-doctor privilege, Peiotr.”

He waved his thick hand at them dismissively.  “Not your wizard again.”

The blush prickled at their ears.  “Not Gale, no,” they lied.

Peiotr set the sheaf of papers on his desk.  “I can argue for an extension on the manuscript,” he held up his finger as Velim perked up, “but not unless you’re reinstated by the Vultures.  Far as the publishing house is concerned, you got nothing going on but this.  Unless I can get them an official dispatch or statement of injury or something, Vely, they’re going to drop us.”

Velim ran through their list of contacts.  “I can find someone to sign off on that.”

Something crashed on the upper floor, followed by shouting voices.  Peiotr rubbed his temples.  “Sit down, Vely, we’ll go over what you’ve got when I get back.”

Peitor lumbered out of the room as Velim fell into the plush chair on the other side of his desk.  They listened to his voice rise as he stomped up the stairs, met by a cacophony of childish excuses and blame, and took the moment to close their eyes.

Peiotr jostled their chair on his way back in and they startled awake.  He eyed them as he sat down.  “You gettin’ enough sleep, kid?”

Velim rubbed their eyes and pulled their pipe from their pocket.  “Of course not.”

Peiotr grunted disapprovingly, but didn't ask them to put it out.  “Let's see what you've got here.”

Velim picked up the paper slipped under their door, cracking Georgie’s seal.

Case dropped, Unger expelled from council.  Drinks tomorrow?

-G

Velim dropped the note on top of a pile of books with a long-suffering sigh.  Another problem: reinstatement and imminent deployment to some dead-sick backwater.  Peiotr might be glad for the excuse, but Gale couldn’t afford the hiatus.  They sat at their desk and rested their tired head on their arms, bed still occupied by the expensive arcane library gathered from any bookseller willing to exchange dragon parts for a rare tome.  Their arms itched where missing scales grew back in jagged quills that caught on their clothes, and their head pounded with a bloodless ache.  

A request for investigation would out Gale’s condition, get him reported to Blackstaff Institute and ejected from the city or worse.  Lying about his condition on the request would be out of the question: they were known for providing extensive evidence of a problem, Harold would call them out on it immediately.  And what of Unger?

Georgie might be in a celebratory mood, but Unger was expelled, not dead.  This was the same man who personally euthanized seven victims of Ilanezar’s Rage with a woodcutting hatchet, and then killed another fledgeling who opposed his brutal methodology.  They signed off on the euthanasia, admittedly, but not the use of an axe.  The memory still made them shudder.

And another thought chewed away at their mind.  Gale mentioned Azan, brought him up unbidden.  The last known Red Dragon of Tiamat who perished outside of Neverwinter during his assault on the city over 300 years ago.  Was he trying to tell them something?  Did he know about them the way they knew about him, and if so, what did he intend to do about it?  

They needed action.  Something to stop the running thoughts.  The orc at the shop mentioned Blackstaff Academy had records of spell parasitism.  Parasitism of smaller spells, albeit, but perhaps someone had figured out a treatment they could replicate on a grander scale for Gale.  They needed a solution, and maybe that was the key.  They could offer it up to him tomorrow with their confession -- they thought as they slipped out of their apartment and down the dark streets towards Blackstaff Academy.

The infirmary building floated apart from the main tower, connected by a narrow bridge.  Velim breathed through the vertigo as they walked along the underside, stepping over the crossbeam supports until they reached the end and circumvented the watching eye patrolling the bridge.  The city glittered underneath them, and when they climbed up the side of the infirmary to an open window they paused to collect themself before slipping through the gap.  They landed on the floor in the hallway, quiet except for the coughing of a sick child in one of the wards.  They made their way into a quiet room full of record books, a place they’d been only once before, and made a beeline for the shelf of research reports filed by ailment.

They traced the files, locating the books containing all instances of parasites on campus.  Four tomes in all.  They stacked them on the floor and flipped through, lighting the pages with a flickering flame perched on the tip of their finger.  Enchanted leeches, mind flayer larvae, slug vomiting, run-of-the-mill pubic and scalp lice, and -- here -- familiar parasitism.

Velim released an excited breath as they read on, drinking in the details of magical output and interaction with the lymphatic, neurologic, and vascular pathways of the host.  The affected areas were drawn with multicolored tangles of veins that lifted off the page, rotating slowly so the reader could understand the whole apparatus in three dimensions.  Yes, this was something they could cut out, if they could just figure out how to map the pathways in a living body.

They didn’t hear the door open, or the muffled clank of footsteps on the carpeted floor.  Their mind reverted to animal panic as someone grabbed them from behind, confused and thrashing for seconds before the thick arm tightened around their throat and choked the blood from their brain.  They pawed at the fabric of their assailant’s sleeve, but their filed claws failed to break skin as they lost consciousness.

[foxblood]

Yeah I guess the murder hobo Dark Urge run is cool or whatever but the good Dark Urge run is hilarious because is basically one of those “big city hot shot has accident, gets stuck in middle of nowhere, meets and connects with regular people, and learn to become a better person” stories. Like you’re basically Lightning McQueen in the Cars movie, if Lightning McQueen was the star player in murdering people

[foxblood]

Fanfiction writers be like:

"here's the immensely time consuming 100K word novel-length passion project I'm working on between my real life job and family! It eats up hundreds of hours of my one and only life, causes me emotional harm, and I gain basically nothing from it! Also I put it on the internet for free so anyone can read if they want. Hope you love it!" :)

[foxblood]

Can I offer you a shitty meme in these trying times <3

[foxblood]

The Threads of Memory IV - Professional Concern

Editor's Log 5/16/25 - This chapter has plot now - More Elminster - As always, basic edits for readability.

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30

Ashemmon’s Arcane Circuits: Construction and Practical Use for the Adept kicked up dust when Velim dropped it on the floor beside their desk.  They leaned back and pressed their palms into their tired eyes.  Their sketch of the nerves of the chest cavity was scratched over in a red ink diagram of an arcane circuit that, according to the tome, would cause an immediate explosion and not constant overload mediated by regular additions of weave.  More books -- about Mystra, about Mystryl, about conjuring and Netheril and explosive alchemical concoctions -- crowded their neglected bed in teetering piles.

There was only one library left in Waterdeep they hadn’t scraped to the very bottom of the barrel: Blackstaff Institute’s restricted research library.  They pushed their chair out from their desk with a frustrated huff, knocking over another pile of books.  One fell open, sending a shower of sparks into the air.  They kicked it closed, useless thing cost them 180 dragons.

No correspondence from Gale.  A tenday since the Liar’s Masquerade.  A tenday since they pressed their bare hand to his chest and felt the magic raging inside him.  Ten whole days of agonizing over checking in or leaving him space, of wondering if he was dead and devoured in his tower by the roiling weave trapped inside his own body like a harpy in a birdcage.  Ten days of dense academic text, of leads to nowhere, and of trying to find a single book about Mystra that wasn’t so far up her ass it may as well have been an enema.  They shrugged on their coat and slammed the door behind them.  Their neighbor glared at them, and they glared back on their way down the stairs.

The reference desk at Blackstaff commanded respect.  The counter of polished mahogany reflected the stacks on the mezzanine above.  The gray-haired librarian looked at Velim over her spectacles as they set the copy of Mystra-ryl: An Account of Mystra’s Works From Apotheosis to Present in front of her.

“Find what you needed?” she asked.

Velim sighed.  “No,” they unpinned their Vulture’s badge from the inner lining of their cloak, “I’m afraid what I’m looking for might be a darker issue.”

She studied the enamel badge, pursing her lips at the four black stars that marked Velim’s decade plus of service to the Waterdeep health corps.  She slid the badge back across the counter to Velim.  “I can’t let you into the restricted sections without a senior mage’s signoff, regardless of your tenure.  My apologies, doctor.”

Velim’s expression pinched.  “It’s a matter of life and death, sera, can’t you make an exception?”

She looked them up and down.  Their stomach growled audibly in the quiet of the library.  “Rules are rules, sera,” she said.

Velim stared at her.  Their eyes burned for lack of sleep, bloodshot and bruised even through the illusion.  The librarian took the book from the counter and began checking it in.

“My stars, is that Velim?”

Elminster’s booming voice made Velim’s shoulders tense.  They turned, and in a hushed voice said, “Elminster, you’ve got good timing.”

“Do I, now?” Elminster stopped at the desk, not bothering to lower his voice despite the librarian's tsk, “how have you been, dear doctor?”

“Fine,” Velim said, “listen, Elminster, I’m working on a case.  I’ve exhausted every avenue, and I think I might find what I need in the restricted research section,” they nodded to the librarian, “I’ve been told I need the approval of a senior mage for access, no exceptions.”

Elminster stroked his beard.  “Have you now?  And what case is this, doctor?”

“A critical case of spell parasitism.”  Velim looked at him pointedly.

“Very well,” Elminster agreed.  The librarian produced a separate logbook for Elminster to sign, and locked a shackle with a key attached around his wrist.  Runes glowed around it, “I’ll accompany you, I hope you can find what you’re seeking.”

“Nothing leaves the restricted section,” the librarian warned, “as you well know, Mr. Aumar.”

Velim nodded, following Elminster as he turned in a rustle of robes and led them to a heavy door in a back corner of the library.  It opened into a windowless gray room.  

“Dismal place,” Velim commented, glancing around at the wrought iron cages and unadorned sconces.

“Yes, well,” the joviality drained from Elminster, “some of these volumes pollute mundane symbols and imagery in their proximity, so we must forego any visual interest.”

Velim chewed on that.  “I see.”

“Come now, wyrmling, what you're looking for is over here,” Elminster led them to a glass cabinet, “what should you have done had i not arrived?” He wondered aloud. 

Break in, Velim thought.  “I don't know, glad you showed up when you did.”

Wards etched into the cabinet door hummed as he held up his shackled wrist.  He handed them a black tome, “I’ll warn you at the top, dear wyrmling, that you can't fix him.”

Velim flipped through the pages: written in draconic script, but a language they didn't recognize. “Why?  What ails him?”

Elminster closed their book so he could stack two more on top of it.  “It's not within your power.”

“All due respect, you have no idea what's within my power.” Velim's arms ached under the weight of additional books. 

Elminster closed the glass and led them to a simple table with two chairs.  “Now you sound like a proper dragon,” he bade them set the books down and tapped their forehead, “keep your wits about you, wyrmling.”

The sweet vibration of magic sang through them.  “What did you do?”

“Read and see for yourself,” the old wizard sat across from them and pulled the brim off his hat low over his eyes, “I’ll indulge myself in a catnap, if you don't mind.”

The old wizard started snoring before Velim opened the first volume: Spellplague Accounts from the Court of Karsus -- which they could now comprehend, they realized.  They began taking notes. 

Netheril, flying empire of arcane might, crumbled beneath emperor Karsus’ botched apotheosis.  In his folly, he unwound magic itself.  Titans fell, billions perished across the nine realms, and his court became trapped in agony as their broken minds upheld the pillars of arcana until a new goddess rose from the roiling chaos.  Born from a mortal girl, her body sacrificed and torn asunder, Mystra’s new form knit itself together from raw magic. 

Newborn Mystra locked the door on the grand magic of Netheril, but parts of it remained stranded beyond mortal grasp.  The magic of Netheril was mortal -- mortal accomplishment, mortal folly -- and could only ever return to her if delivered by mortal hands.  In dark corners of the nine realms, fragments of old Netheril remained, awaiting a mortal wielder.

Velim's stomach growled again.  They closed the last book, their head throbbing. 

“Sounds as though you could use some dinner.”

Velim startled, they'd forgotten Elminster was there. 

He gathered the books.  “Come on, wyrmling, you've been at this for hours.”

“Have I?” Velim blinked, picking up a couple tomes and following behind. 

“Four, to hazard a guess,” Elminster locked the cabinet, “did you find what you were seeking?”

“Maybe,” Velim said. 

Elminster walked them back to the reference desk and bid them goodbye, with the added insistence they pick up dinner on their way home.

Two meat pies and a bottle of sherry later, they found themself on Gale’s stoop.  They stared at the warded door and smoothed their hair, trying to argue themself out of this misstep.

“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice, demanding.

Velim started and searched for it's source until they landed on the prim and plump tortoiseshell tressym sitting at their feet.  “Gods,” they sighed, “you scared me, love.”

“Can I help you?” her tail twitched, “Gale is not seeing visitors right now.”

“I -- um --” He’s alive, at least.  Alive in spite of the gods.  Velim patted the bundle under their arm, “yes, I thought as much.  I brought him some dinner.  After everything that happened at the party… well, I wanted to see if he was alright.  It would be a black mark on my reputation as a doctor if I left him to his own devices too long.”

The tressym narrowed her eyes.

“Are you Tara?” they asked.

“I am,” her tail twitched again, “I’ll let him know you’ve come.”

Tara jumped the railing, her wings flicking out as she flew up and out of sight.  Velim tapped their foot on the wooden porch, scolding themself for coming by.  He clearly didn’t want visitors but -- their mind went to the hot meat pie -- who doesn’t benefit from a hot meal and bracing drink?  Just something to keep his strength up.  Something to keep the Netherese magic smothered.

They'd buried more lively plague victims, they thought as Gale opened the door.  Dark circles hollowed his eyes against his pallid complexion, and black scar lines stood out on the agitated skin of his face, trailing down his neck.  His left eye squinted, a twitch in the eyelid.  Even in his exhaustion, he lit up when he greeted Velim.

“Hello, Velim.  I’m sure I must be a sight,” he pressed a finger to the corner of his left eye, like he wanted to rub the twitch out, “I’m afraid my condition’s been a smidgen more problematic than usual.”

“I suspected as much,” Velim pulled back the cloth protecting dinner from the winter chill rapidly taking hold of Waterdeep, “I thought you’d benefit from a hot dinner.”

“I’m afraid I can’t --” Gale ran a hand through his messy hair.

Velim held up their hand to stop him.  “I don’t need to come in, just take the food off my hands.”

Gale’s face dropped, as though all the energy flowed out of him in a single breath.  “Thank you, Velim.  I’m sorry I’ve worried you.”

A stiff wind would blow him apart, and Velim resisted the urge to ask if what ailed him was, in fact, a fragment of Netherese magic.  Instead, they handed him a warm pie and the sherry.  “It’s not something you can help.  I’m a worrier.  Part of the job.”

Gale lingered in the doorway, reluctant to close it even though neither of them could find something to talk about that wasn’t the malevolent force lodged in his chest.  Velim’s fingers twitched again, their mind running through his symptoms for a way to cut it out.  Chest pain, magic overflow -- inflammation of what may be pathways of magic in his body, fatigue.  Nothing new to learn without full examination, some blood, maybe some bile.  Nothing Gale would offer willingly.  Nothing they could do if they didn't know the exact pathways and exact angle of scalpel.

“Thank you, Velim.  Thank you again, your visit’s been a balm to a bad day,” Gale gave them a sad smile, “I’ll call on you as soon as I feel well enough.”

A blush rose in their cheeks.  He still couldn’t see it, but they looked up at the porch roof anyway.  “I’ll call on you before then.  I won’t be able to leave it be, life’s boring without you keeping me busy.”

“That’s,” Gale’s body attempted a blush, but was too bloodless to do anything but bring a little color to his cheeks, “I would like that, seeing you.  Even if it’s just at the threshold.  Thank you for dinner, Velim.”

“My pleasure,” they said.

Gale still hesitated to close the door.

“I’ll see you soon,” Velim pulled the remaining pie close to their body against a cold gust of wind, “I need to go.  I’ve got errands to run before the dark sets in.”

“Of course.  Goodbye, Velim,” Gale still waited before he closed the door, some part of him wishing Velim would demand answers.  The orb throbbed in his chest, greedy tendrils reached for them across the threshold.  He closed the door, then.  The wards sealed with a whoosh.  

Velim stood there, dinner in hand and a walk across the Trade Ward ahead of them.  They descended the spiral staircase and merged with the crowd milling around the entrance to a tavern on the opposite side of the street, eating the second meat pie before it had the chance to get any colder.  They popped the collar of their jacket and did up the top button with one hand.

The streets grew dim as they ventured further into the city.  Passersby kept their heads down and the beggars didn’t bother asking for change bundled in their motheaten woolens, pointedly ignoring the Vulture.  Velim took a shortcut through a narrow alley and emerged a different person, their world now tinted with the magic of an additional disguise spell.  No one looked at the elven man with his hood pulled up as he ducked into an apothecary storefront and locked the door behind him.

The alchemist looked up from his book, clutched in one taloned hand.  His red scales shone darkly in the candlelit shop, and he flashed the elven man a toothy grin.

“You’re late,” the shopkeep set the book on the table.

“Held up.”  Velim spoke with a voice that made their hair stand on end even when it came from their own throat.  They pulled a glass vial containing seven shining black scales from their pocket and set it on the table.

The shopkeep’s grin widened.  “Your friend paid out, I see.”

The elven face twisted into a cruel smile to match the alchemist, one Velim knew well enough from their nightmares. “Of course.”

The alchemist took out a metal tray, delicate filigree scissors, and an amber bottle with a rubber dropper from beneath the counter.  Velim took pains to appear bored as he cut a sliver from one of their scales and let it drop.  He recorked the vial, then dropped a bead of clear liquid from the amber bottle into the tray.  Both men leaned back as a green flame shot between them, leaving another layer of black soot caked on the ceiling.

The alchemist hid the tray below the counter and cupped the vial of scales in his hand like a delicate bird.  He produced a heavy leather coinpurse and pushed it across the counter towards the elven man.  Velim tucked it away in their coat 

“Nice doing business with you,” Velim said with the voice they hated.

“Always a pleasure, Everon.” The alchemist chuckled at the dragon scales clutched in his talons with cannibalistic joy.

Velim pulled up their hood and shoved their hands deep into their pockets, refusing to look anyone in the eye.  They ducked into another narrow alley and emerged on the other side without the secondary illusion.  Clouds gathered overhead, blowing a chill mist off the sea.  Those left on the street scattered in anticipation of rain, but Velim kept walking.

Most of the market was gone, the tents taken down and wares boxed up.  The bookseller at the end lingered.  She perked up when she was Velim’s dark figure cutting a quick pace down the street.

“Took you long enough, Vulture.”  She leaned on the cart with her crates, her horse huffed impatiently.

“Held up,” Velim apologized, “you still have it?”

“Saved it for you,” she said. Velim handed her the heavy coinpurse.  She counted out 97 dragons and produced a thick book wrapped in cloth from the cart.  Velim pocketed the few dragons’ change and peeked at the cover of Argent of Disruption, wrought in gold on the purple cover.  They nodded and turned for home, hoping this book held the key to freeing Gale from the grasp of the Netherese magic.

[foxblood]

daytime reblog. <3

The Threads of Memory III - Liar's Masquerade

Editor's Log 5/14/25 - Added additional drama - More Elminster shennanigans - Gale and Vel fight :,( - As always, edits for readability

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30

The sun slanted through the picture windows of Gale’s bedroom, illuminating the gold shot in his burgundy robe.  It was tighter around his waist than he remembered, so he dug through his drawers for the waist cinch Dolores got for his birthday last year -- an attempt to provoke him into appearing that ultimately failed.  He laced it up, then readjusted his shirt and checked the fit again.  Much better, though the orb pulsing against his ribs threatened to suffocate him.

“Is this a good idea, Gale?” Tara asked, lording over him from atop the wardrobe.

“Yes,” Gale insisted once he drew in a deep enough breath, “I promised Velim the Liar’s Masquerade.  Orb be damned, I’m keeping that promise.”

“Don't overextend yourself,” Tara huffed, “I won’t be there to help you.”

Gale affixed the gold cufflinks and swung the heavy velvet cape around his shoulders.  He clasped the gold chains in the front and turned himself around for Tara.  “What do you think?”

“Magnificent, but your wheel mask won’t match.” Tara tucked her paws neatly beneath her.

Gale held up a finger and picked up a box from his desk. He unwrapped the mask from the tissue paper and held it out to Tara, who sniffed the leather and studied the gilded detailing.  The ribbons hung loosely to either side as Gale studied his masked face in the mirror.

“Fits perfectly.” He grinned.

“Aren’t you going to shave?” Tara demanded, stretching.

“Hardly time for that now,” Gale tied the mask and adjusted his half-do to hide the knot, “and I think Velim likes a bit of scruff, anyway.”

Tara scoffed and jumped softly down, sitting herself in the pool of sunlight in front of the balcony.  

Gale flourished his cape in the mirror.  “I have a good feeling about this, Tara.”

Velim tugged the crocodile skin gloves up until the leather pulled taut.  They traced the scutes on the back of their hands, polished to a shine equaling the real thing, and secured their green shirt with brass cufflinks.  The black brocade of the doublet shimmered as they tugged their sleeves until green showed through the slits.  Satisfied, they affixed the scalloped shoulder cape with a brooch in the shape of a dragon’s wing and tested the look of the ensemble with their skull mask in the mirror.

They turned and admired the clean lines of their body, smoothing their neat braids.  They leaned in, pushing the Ring of Mortal Guise out of place so their eyes flashed acidic through the mask, scales like pebbles carved the contours of their face, their hair went deep black and glossy for just a moment before they pushed the ring back into place.

This wasn’t a good idea.  Even if the ambient magic at Blackstaff disguised their presence, even if scales were part of the costume, it still wasn’t wise.  Their inner child wailed in upset, but they snapped back at it to shut up and locked the door behind them, tying on the skull mask as they walked.  

             A carriage waited on a waterfront street, a black stain against the sunset.  Gale leaned out, nearly toppling over in his enthusiasm.  He steadied himself on the doorhandle, the velvet cape flowing around him.  

He caught Velim’s eye and blushed.  “Velim, you look like the specter of death itself.”

“Thank you,” Velim climbed into the carriage and tucked his cape out of the way, “red suits you.”

Gale’s heart stuttered.  “Burgundy, yes, thank you.”

“Burgundy, right,” warmth pricked at their ears, but they knew it wouldn't show through the illusion, “a masquerade isn’t my usual affair, I’m trusting you to guide me through the intricacies.”

“Gladly,” Gale chuckled, “I'm a prince with a draconic retainer -- you need only stand at my side.  Are you fond of them?  Dragons, I mean?”

“I am,” Velim watched the people in paper masks make their way from one festival block to another, “Maybe I'm just envious of their wings.”

“Brilliant and potent creatures, indeed,” Gale agreed, “perhaps you relate to them?”

Velim’s stomach flipped and they fidgeted with their cufflinks.  “In an aspirational sense.”

The sound of the ground beneath the wheels changed from cobblestone to smooth brick as they traversed the bridge to the towering obelisk of Blackstaff Tower.  The carriage turned to a stop in the long round driveway in front of the main doors where lamps flickered with arcane fire.  

Velim stepped down from the carriage, extending their hand.  Gale took it and dropped in a flourish of burgundy fabric, thumb tracing the scutes on Velim’s glove before releasing them.  Velim slipped their arm into his, and the blush that started at their ears reached their face.

A translucent specter drifted over holding his ghostly lantern aloft.  Wisps curled around him as he pointed them towards the gardens and ballroom entrance with a gnarled finger.  They fell in line with the crowd, masked figures draped in fine brocades and lace.  The long trains of ladies’ dresses drifted, flowing on an unseen breeze.  Eyes behind masks acknowledged them with curiosity, and one of the specters passed them goblets of wine.  Gale held his out in a silent toast and Velim met it with the chime of crystal.

Shifting frescoes of the gods, each wearing a mask befitting their domain and internally luminescent, adorned the vaulted ceilings of the ballroom.  Mystra held court above the other gods with a distaff in one hand and a drop spindle in the other, twirling a silvery strand of weave on and on and on.  Her dispassionate eyes watched Velim cross the floor, and they fought the urge to shrink away.

A tug on their arm drew them back to Gale.  He watched them, eyes soft brown and hopeful.  They straightened as he led them through the crowd.

“I’d like to introduce you to some of my colleagues,” Gale suggested, “I hope Martha is in attendance, she’s a magical disease specialist and I think you’d get on like wildfire.”

Velim scanned the crowd, people gathered in corners or spun with partners on the wide dance floor.  Their stomach turned, feeling eyes on the back of their neck.  “It would be my pleasure.”

Gale’s face lit up as he spotted a conical gray hat rising above the banquet tables.  “Come on, there’s someone I must introduce you to.”

He cut through the crowd, locking Velim’s arm with his so he didn't lose them.  The man in gray robes to match his gray hat looked up and gestured wide with his pipe in one hand.  Fog cascaded from his hat brim in a thick curtain, obscuring his face.

“Gale, my boy!” his gruff voice puffed out. He remained faceless behind the falling fog besides the end of his long gray beard.

Gale embraced the older man, momentarily vanishing in the mist.  “Elminster, I thought you were bound for Menzoberranzan until next year!”

 “And miss the mischief of Liar’s Night?  Perish the thought,” he held Gale at arm’s length, “you’ve donned a new mask, I see.  How have you fared?”

“I thought it time for a change,” Gale ignored his second question, “Elminster, allow me to introduce you to my companion,” he placed his hand on Velim’s back and ushered them forward.

Velim ignored the skipped beat of their heart and shook Elminster’s hand firmly.  “Doctor Velim Tav, a pleasure to meet you, Elminster.  Your ecologies saved me more than once in the field.”

“Who among us does not owe our survival to one volume or another,” Elminster waxed, “I should thank you for bringing Gale back into the fold.  You know he’s never brought a date to the Masquerade before?”

“He said something like that,” Velim shot Gale a crooked grin, noting the blush creeping over his collar with satisfaction.  Elminster’s magic washed over them like a wave on a calm beach, far from the storm Gale produced.  The assured power of it sent a chill down their spine.  Elminster held their hand for a little too long.

“And what do you do that my ecologies serve you so well, doctor?” Elminster asked.  His pipe disappeared beneath the curtain of fog and a series of four smoke rings pushed back out.  He swayed like he was already a couple drinks down.

“I'm a senior Vulture with the health corps,” Velim explained, “a surgeon, but most of my job is just contact tracing.”

“Fascinating!  No easy task, chasing down the plagues that terrorize the gentle folk,” Elminster exclaimed, “I see why Gale brought you along, I sense a formidable mind.”

Velim grinned, but their smile faltered when they noticed Gale rubbing his chest.  “I won’t deny it.”

“Elminster, could I bother you to take Velim off my hands?” Gale asked, “I need to step out for a moment.”

“Gladly!” Elminster offered his arm to Velim, “come, I’ve much to ask you, wyrmling.”

The coy nickname felt like a blade to their throat, but they kept their face calm and easy as they slipped their hand through the crook of his elbow and let him lead them to a sofa upholstered in violet suede.  He snatched a glass of wine from a tray that floated about unattended, and the glass disappeared beneath his mask of fog before reappearing empty.  He set the empty cup on the side table.

Velim lifted their glass to their lips, but barely took a sip.  “I’m starstruck,” they feigned embarrassment, “this event is fancier than anything I expected, and now I'm drinking with a Weavemaster.”

“And what were your expectations, wyrmling?” Elminster asked.

“Researchers and teachers, but no one so lofty,” they inclined their head to Elminster, “I’ve only known Gale a couple months.  I didn't realize he kept such formidable company.”

Elminster leaned back and wispy smoke starlings fluttered toward the ceiling.  Velim thought they caught Mystra looking at them when they followed the smoke up. 

Elminster’s voice grabbed their attention again.  “My, my, don’t you work quickly!  To think, an entire year of absence, and all it takes is a month of you to bring Gale back into the fold.  I thought that condition of his would turn him recluse forever.  Pray, how did you come together?”

“You’ll laugh,” Velim warned.

Elminster leaned forward.  “Oh, please tell.”

“His mother signed him up for a matchmaker.” Their lips twitched in a smile.

Elminster let out a sharp laugh.  “And he allowed her?” then he looked at Velim, “and you?”

“Doing research for a book,” they waved the notion off, “I didn't have experience with matchmaking, and thought going through the motions might inject some realism into the project.  Found a matchmaker who was amenable to the idea.  I think she said she specializes in ‘niche cases’.”

“And haven’t you found yourself in a sprawling narrative,” Elminster prodded, “Gale’s quite storied himself.  The epic you could write about him!  Oh, Mystra, the man is more than you’d believe.”

Velim plucked another goblet of wine off a tray as it floated by and handed it to Elminster.  “Is that so?”

“Indulge me in some fatherly concern, would you, wyrmling?” Elminster’s head tipped to one side.

“Please.” Velim waved him on.

“What are your intentions with Gale?” he held his glass up to stop them from answering, “I only wish to save him from additional heartbreak.  I can tell he's fond of you already.”

Velim thanked the ring for hiding the blush creeping up to their neck.  “Perfectly platonic,” they assured him, “I’m only looking for a like mind and a little company.”

Elminster’s head remained cocked to the side, the cascading fog obscuring his expression.  Velim settled the twitch in their fingers by drinking again.  Elminster finally lifted his glass beneath the veil of fog.

“Good!  Good.  After all that’s transpired, a friend will do him well,” he rested his hand on Velim’s arm, stronger than expected, “I believe you, wyrmling.”

“I don't know much about why he retreated from public life in the first place,” Velim admitted, resisting the urge to pull away.

The brim of Elminster’s hat dipped conspiratorially.  “The folly of a man in love,” he leaned back, “Mystra, forgive him.  I’m so relieved he’s returned,” he clasped Velim’s hand in his, “thank you, Velim.  Truly, I worried about him.  He's refused all visitors since -- well, never mind.  I'm glad for him, that's all.”

“My intervention is a happy accident,” Velim smiled at him, “may I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Elminster leaned in for the conspiratorial question.

“Do you know what his condition entails?  My curiosity is both professional and personal,” Velim explained.

Elminster sat back, serious.  “My dear wyrmling, I’m afraid his condition is not mine to reveal.  It lies between him and Mystra alone,” his joviality returned, “may I ask you a question?”

Velim gnawed on the rebuttal.  “That seems fair.”

“What brings a dragon to Blackstaff?” Elminster’s voice dropped so low they had to cock their ear toward him to hear. 

Velim's mouth opened and closed.  They threw back the goblet of wine and hunched forward, cradling the empty glass between their knees.  “I wanted to see what it looked like inside.”

Elminster barked a laugh and his voice drew the attention of other bejeweled partygoers.  “Is Gale aware of your --” he sent a smoke dragon gliding to the ceiling, “condition?”

People gravitated toward the sofa.  Velim straightened and deposited their empty glass on a passing tray. “I'd appreciate it if you kept it between us.”  They breathed deeply.  Just a dragon, yes, just a normal dragon.

Elminster puffed out more smoke rings.  “Your secret’s safe with me, wyrmling,” he raised his voice, “Lyle, my boy, get over here!  How’d you like to meet a Vulture?”

Gale clutched his chest as the orb surged against his ribs.  A faint violet glow bled through the fabric of his shirt.  “Why?  Why now?” he choked, “Why must you act up now?”

He groaned at the pain driving him into the depths of his body, leaving his extremities numb.  His heart spasmed against the pressure.  He sucked a cooling breath between his teeth, forcing his lungs to inflate until they suffocated his racing heartbeat and held it until the orb’s spasm died down.  The violent magic pulsed up his neck and face, sparks scattering in his vision.  Slowly, his body resolved.  He worked feeling back into his fingers and the orb settled as a knot of pain against his heart.

Gale breathed long and slow, wiping the sweat from his clammy forehead.  He pushed onto the balcony and let the cool air wash over him.  The wind caught the conversation and jaunty music exuding from the ballroom, it drifted to the city below.  The tremor in his hands slowed, and he returned to the din of the ballroom to rescue Velim from Elminster’s probing questions.

He found them surrounded by a throng of people, Elminster officiating the conversation as a halfling peppered them with questions. Gale dimly recognized him as Lyle Thornberry, an expert in healing invocation.  Lyle pressed them on specifics of mechanical treatment for invocation hyperplasia.  Velim considered the small man with their back straight and their drink full.

“The best way I’ve found to prevent recurrence involves understanding the arterial anatomy of the afflicted area and a strong grasp of necromantic magical principles.  I rarely come across both in the same person, but a few years ago during an outbreak of Proudrest’s disease in a duergar settlement north of Cairnheim I had the pleasure of working with a drow necromancer on a particularly nasty case of IHP,” they swirled their wine in the glass, making sure no one looked too sick yet, “an inexperienced druid treated the patient ten years previous: gutshot by an arrow tainted with bloodbloater venom.  The druid somehow rerouted what remained of his bowel, but the residual invocation caused the tissue to proliferate.  By the time I arrived, it took him a month to digest a single meal and the extra bowel weighed so much he was bedbound.”

Gale joined the crowd.  Some of his colleagues had gone a little green.  Velim shot him a smile.

Velim continued, “So the drow and I, a bit sick of feeding porridge to Proudrest patients, decided we’d take a shot at solving his problem.  We got him sedated and open and spent the next two hours mapping out the extra lengths of intestine -- his duodenum alone measured about ten feet long.  To remove it all, we sectioned each piece off in two foot lengths.  She killed the vascular tissue, and I removed the ischemic section of bowel.  Some fifteen hours later, we had a mountain of dead bowel and a duergar with a normal digestive system.”

“And the duergar survived?” Lyle pressed.

“Ate his first meal and passed it within six days of the operation.”  Velim nodded as though that was that.

Lyle’s eyes went wide.  “You wouldn’t happen to have this drow’s name?”

They shook their head.  “No name, she insisted.  Told me she didn’t care to share personal information with someone who could be raw material tomorrow.”

Lyle seemed crestfallen, but the others around him murmured in sick wonder at the feat.  The band slowed one song, and Gale saw his opportunity to steal them back.

He cleared his throat, and Velim looked at him with soft relief.  “Velim, I hate to whisk you away so abruptly, but perhaps we could have that dance?”

Velim set their glass down on the table and swept between his colleagues, nodding at Lyle and Elminster as they took Gale’s arm.  “Yes, please.”

The crowd remained pressed around Elminster as the pair extricated themselves.  Velim saw the tension around Gale’s eyes through his mask.

“Are you feeling alright?” they asked.

“I am now.  Shall we?” Gale offered his hand as he stepped onto the parquet dance floor.

Velim hesitated, their eyes darkening with concern.

Gale closed his fingers around their’s.  “Just let me lead.”

The violin struck up first and Gale guided Velim’s other hand to his shoulder.  His fingers trailed over the back of their arm before resting at their waist.  Veilm’s heart rocketed into their throat and they swallowed it down by looking at their feet as they began to move.

“Your feet aren’t going anywhere,” Gale said, drawing Velim’s eyes back to his face.  A little jolt of disappointment crossed his mind, their face as unflappable as always.  How was it that they made him fumble and blush with a single look, but he couldn’t unsteady them at all?

Velim ignored the unsteadiness at their core and yielded to Gale’s lead as he spun them.  The music picked up, the rest of the string section taking hold of the melody with a rapid rising and falling rhythm.  Velim’s heart stuttered in their chest as they leaned into the heat of Gale’s body.  Magic flooded off of him, leaving Velim buzzing down to their fingertips.

The music slowed to a gentle waltz, dancers pulled one another close.  Velim found themself gazing into Gale’s soft brown eyes and a spark of fear shattered their enchantment.  They pulled away instead of pressing closer.

The orb stuttered in Gale’s chest and he winced.  Velim’s hand slipped out of his, and he followed them off the parquet and into a corner.  Gale drew the gazes of his colleagues in their own conversations.

“Would you like to show me around?” Velim suggested, tugging at the collar of their doublet, “I could use some air.”

“Yes, I would.” The tension at Gale’s temples relaxed and he pulled Velim’s arm tight to his body.  

He led them out of the ballroom and into emptier and emptier parts of the tower.  The sconces on the wall lit as they passed.  Velim looked over their shoulder at the dark hallway behind them, the chatter of the ballroom gone around four corners and a staircase.  When they tracked their path back, they couldn’t remember if the third turn was a left or right because they’d been too busy looking at the embroidery on Gale’s robes.  Velim resisted the urge to pull away as Gale led them onto a balcony sitting area spotted with other pairs sheltering from the busy ballroom.  The wind gusted into Velim’s face.  They swayed with the dark sickness of vertigo as they glanced at the black horizon. 

Gale paused when they pulled away and approached the railing of the balcony. They braced both hands on the wrought iron and looked over the edge and into the glittering abyss.

“Velim,” Gale’s voice was lost in the wind, but he rested his hand on their shoulder.  They startled, shoulders pinching at his touch, but he squeezed and they relaxed slowly, “come on, I've got somewhere warmer in mind.”

“Where are we going?” Velim hoped their voice wasn’t too tight.

Gale’s warm smile and the gentle press of his hand against their’s soothed them.  “The rare books library.”

Velim counted the turns back to the ballroom, and still couldn’t remember the third turn.  They counted their breathing.  5 seconds in.  5 seconds out.  Gale stopped in front of a blank wall and turned around to face them.  Their heart blocked their throat, but he held both his hands out with palms up.  When they took them, he stepped backward through the solid wall.  Velim stumbled into the low-ceilinged room lined with stacks of books locked behind filigree brass grates.  Gale released their hands to gesture at the room around them.

Velim sucked in a breath of dry, cool air.  They turned around, the shelves lit with a dim sunset-toned light that glanced off the brass and dark wood and Gale’s hair and skin, turning everything gold.

“For preservation,” Gale explained, his voice low with near-religious reverence, “but to remarkable effect, you’d agree.”

Velim peered between the brass bars at the books on the shelves inside.  Everything from gilded volumes to crude leather wraps around stacks of mismatched parchment and paper.  Some had characters on their spines that Velim didn’t recognize.

“The grimoires of every headmaster of Blackstaff and many of their most famous alumni rest here,” Gale pointed at a deep brown leather book, the spine frayed at both edges, “that one belongs to the original founder of Blackstaff Academy, Khelben Arunsun.”

Seeing true lust in Gale’s eyes over the ratty book relaxed Velim some.  Safer, once they were certain the possession in his voice was directed at an inanimate object.

“Do you intend to donate your own, one day?” Velim wondered.

Gale pulled away from the grate.  “You flatter me.  I don’t believe I’d make the cut.”

“Somehow, I do.” Velim turned, tracing the ridges of filigree around the next shelf.

They peered at a thin paper volume behind the bars.  Gale followed, tentatively tracing the brocade at the nape of Velim’s neck.  They suppressed a shiver.

“Gerund Isaac recorded his spells in a shorthand he developed himself,” Gale tapped the brass filigree in front of the slim volume, “some say there are more arcane secrets in that little pamphlet than in the whole rest of the collection.”

“Some shorthand,” Velim chuckled breathlessly, wondering how hard they had to blush for it to show through the illusion, “I’d like to learn it, might come in handy someday.”

Velim’s breath caught in their throat as they turned around, the tight aisle leaving no space between them.  Gale’s hand trailed the collar of their doublet.  Their face burned, finally appearing through the illusion.  Gale’s lip twitched, suppressing the satisfied grin.  Velim rested their hand on his chest, letting his magic surge through their fingers and light up their body.

This was a bad idea.  They knew it.  They couldn’t let this happen, even as he started to lean in and they didn’t stop him.  He’d feel their teeth, feel the scales and ridges along their cheeks.  They’d be caught.  Their heart raced.

Gale’s knees buckled.

Velim took his weight against their shoulder and eased him onto the floor.  The magic coming off him grew hot and violent, tendrils whipping against their face.  A faint violet glow emanated beneath his robes, singeing the fine fabric in a perfect circle.  Gale’s face twisted in pain.

“Go, you have to go,” he choked.

“No.” Velim pushed through the surging magic and leaned him against the bookshelf.  His head lolled back, pulse pounding in his neck as they undid the fastenings of his robe and pulled open the neckline of his shirt until the source of the magic storm was exposed, throbbing with violet light.

“Gale, my boy, are you in here?” Elminster’s voice drifted over the stacks.

“Elminster, here!” Velim yelled, their voice razor sharp.  They tried to probe the glowing thing and winced, their fingertips threatening to vibrate apart.

Elminster whipped around the stacks.  “Gods,” he breathed.

“Please go,” Gale begged.  He arched his back, vision coming in and out of focus.

“No,” Velim said again, “Elminster, what is it?  What do I do?”

“I cannot intervene.” Elminster’s voice was tinged with panic.

“I can.  Elminster, tell me what to do!” Velim snapped, bearing their razor teeth.  Their scales shone through the illusion as the orb ate away at the weave in the Ring of Human Guise.

Elminster swallowed hard.  He knelt down next to Velim.  “Do you have something to draw blood?”

Velim ripped off their glove and bit into the pad of their thumb with a grunt.

Elminster nodded too fast.  “Gather your weave, and hold it --”

“Right,” Velim skipped ahead, assuming the next steps, and thrust their pierced thumb into the scorching light until the light swallowed their hand.  The weave burned up their arm, attempting to rip the scales away from their flesh.

Suddenly, the torrent reversed.  The light dimmed, drawing weave out of Velim.  They sucked in a breath, the room airless as the thing in Gale’s chest ripped the magic out of their body.  Elminster yanked them back as their vision tunneled.  The rare books room fell silent but for the sound of their panting.  Velim laid on their back, swallowing down the nausea that came with overextending themself, flesh too tight around their bones.  The illusion of the ring snapped back into place.  Gale sucked in gasping breaths, tears of relief running under his mask.  

Elminster stood and dusted off his robes.  “I’ll go call your carriage.”

He vanished in a flurry of sparks.

“Thank you,” Gale said finally.

Velim grunted, still warding off vertigo.

“It came on so fast,” Gale’s voice hitched, “I’m sorry, I never would have put you at risk if I’d known --”

“It’s fine,” Velim said.

“I could have killed you,” his voice broke, “I’m sorry.”

Velim finally got up, sitting beside Gale and leaning into his shoulder.  “I got it.”

Gale sobbed, curling inward on himself.  Velim found their discarded glove and pulled it back on so they could run their fingers through his hair until the tremors in his body slowed.  Their burnt arm sang with pins and needles.

Elminster returned.  He helped both Velim and Gale to their feet and through the portal to the driveway.  

Velim saw Gale into the cab before climbing in themself, and resisted the urge to ask him additional questions.  They lasted nearly to the Trade Ward.

“What is it?” Velim asked.

Gale sighed.  “Please, Velim.”

“If you just told me what it was, I could help,” they implored.  The horses’ hooves clicked along on the cobblestone, drowning the noise of the continuing Liar’s Night festivities.

“The burden is mine to bear.”  Gale massaged his chest, threads of weave reaching across the cab for Velim.

“I can help you bear it.” Velim folded their hands in front of them.  They had discarded their death mask on the bench beside him and looked at him with plain intensity.

“You can’t,” Gale insisted, “the pain is mine alone.”

Velim sat back with a scoff.  “Do you hear yourself?  Pain isn’t ‘your pain’, it’s just pain, and I’m a doctor.  If anyone -- anyone in the world -- could help you bear it, it’s me.”

“Why can’t you believe me?” he argued, anger causing the orb to shove his lungs, “Velim, you cannot fix what ails me.”

“I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what it is,” a muscle in their jaw twitched, the contours of their face sharp in the gloom, “that kind of mentality kills people.”

“What mentality?” Gale resisted the urge to open the door and roll out, maybe die in the gutter.

Velim’s lip curled in a snarl, their teeth sharper than Gale remembered. “You know it.  ‘No one can help me, no one understands,” they mocked.

“That’s hardly my mentality,” Gale protested.

“It is, I’ve seen it.  I’ve seen other Vultures murdered over it, because people can’t bear to accept they might not know everything.  Can’t see that -- hey -- maybe someone who deals with this shit for a living could know something that helps, but an outsider is an outsider and they’d rather bury us and the fucking problem,” Velim ranted, then clenched their jaw shut again.

“... I don't intend to kill anyone,” Gale said, taken aback, “least of all you.”

“That’s not what I --” Velim ground their teeth, “I know, I know that’s not your intention,” they smoothed a hand over their braids, “just… consider telling someone about it.  Anyone.  It doesn’t have to be me.  Pain is just pain.  Other people are going to bear it with you whether you want them to or not.”

Velim stared at him in the dark, their eyes strange and luminous.  The carriage shuddered to a stop in front of his tower.  He stood on shaky legs as the driver opened the door for him.

“I’ll consider it,” he said before the door closed.

[foxblood]

2/3 of these people do not do cardio

[foxblood]

Don't distract Gale pls, he's yearning

[foxblood]

The Threads of Memory III - Liar's Masquerade

Editor's Log 5/14/25 - Added additional drama - More Elminster shennanigans - Gale and Vel fight :,( - As always, edits for readability

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30

The sun slanted through the picture windows of Gale’s bedroom, illuminating the gold shot in his burgundy robe.  It was tighter around his waist than he remembered, so he dug through his drawers for the waist cinch Dolores got for his birthday last year -- an attempt to provoke him into appearing that ultimately failed.  He laced it up, then readjusted his shirt and checked the fit again.  Much better, though the orb pulsing against his ribs threatened to suffocate him.

“Is this a good idea, Gale?” Tara asked, lording over him from atop the wardrobe.

“Yes,” Gale insisted once he drew in a deep enough breath, “I promised Velim the Liar’s Masquerade.  Orb be damned, I’m keeping that promise.”

“Don't overextend yourself,” Tara huffed, “I won’t be there to help you.”

Gale affixed the gold cufflinks and swung the heavy velvet cape around his shoulders.  He clasped the gold chains in the front and turned himself around for Tara.  “What do you think?”

“Magnificent, but your wheel mask won’t match.” Tara tucked her paws neatly beneath her.

Gale held up a finger and picked up a box from his desk. He unwrapped the mask from the tissue paper and held it out to Tara, who sniffed the leather and studied the gilded detailing.  The ribbons hung loosely to either side as Gale studied his masked face in the mirror.

“Fits perfectly.” He grinned.

“Aren’t you going to shave?” Tara demanded, stretching.

“Hardly time for that now,” Gale tied the mask and adjusted his half-do to hide the knot, “and I think Velim likes a bit of scruff, anyway.”

Tara scoffed and jumped softly down, sitting herself in the pool of sunlight in front of the balcony.  

Gale flourished his cape in the mirror.  “I have a good feeling about this, Tara.”

Velim tugged the crocodile skin gloves up until the leather pulled taut.  They traced the scutes on the back of their hands, polished to a shine equaling the real thing, and secured their green shirt with brass cufflinks.  The black brocade of the doublet shimmered as they tugged their sleeves until green showed through the slits.  Satisfied, they affixed the scalloped shoulder cape with a brooch in the shape of a dragon’s wing and tested the look of the ensemble with their skull mask in the mirror.

They turned and admired the clean lines of their body, smoothing their neat braids.  They leaned in, pushing the Ring of Mortal Guise out of place so their eyes flashed acidic through the mask, scales like pebbles carved the contours of their face, their hair went deep black and glossy for just a moment before they pushed the ring back into place.

This wasn’t a good idea.  Even if the ambient magic at Blackstaff disguised their presence, even if scales were part of the costume, it still wasn’t wise.  Their inner child wailed in upset, but they snapped back at it to shut up and locked the door behind them, tying on the skull mask as they walked.  

             A carriage waited on a waterfront street, a black stain against the sunset.  Gale leaned out, nearly toppling over in his enthusiasm.  He steadied himself on the doorhandle, the velvet cape flowing around him.  

He caught Velim’s eye and blushed.  “Velim, you look like the specter of death itself.”

“Thank you,” Velim climbed into the carriage and tucked his cape out of the way, “red suits you.”

Gale’s heart stuttered.  “Burgundy, yes, thank you.”

“Burgundy, right,” warmth pricked at their ears, but they knew it wouldn't show through the illusion, “a masquerade isn’t my usual affair, I’m trusting you to guide me through the intricacies.”

“Gladly,” Gale chuckled, “I'm a prince with a draconic retainer -- you need only stand at my side.  Are you fond of them?  Dragons, I mean?”

“I am,” Velim watched the people in paper masks make their way from one festival block to another, “Maybe I'm just envious of their wings.”

“Brilliant and potent creatures, indeed,” Gale agreed, “perhaps you relate to them?”

Velim’s stomach flipped and they fidgeted with their cufflinks.  “In an aspirational sense.”

The sound of the ground beneath the wheels changed from cobblestone to smooth brick as they traversed the bridge to the towering obelisk of Blackstaff Tower.  The carriage turned to a stop in the long round driveway in front of the main doors where lamps flickered with arcane fire.  

Velim stepped down from the carriage, extending their hand.  Gale took it and dropped in a flourish of burgundy fabric, thumb tracing the scutes on Velim’s glove before releasing them.  Velim slipped their arm into his, and the blush that started at their ears reached their face.

A translucent specter drifted over holding his ghostly lantern aloft.  Wisps curled around him as he pointed them towards the gardens and ballroom entrance with a gnarled finger.  They fell in line with the crowd, masked figures draped in fine brocades and lace.  The long trains of ladies’ dresses drifted, flowing on an unseen breeze.  Eyes behind masks acknowledged them with curiosity, and one of the specters passed them goblets of wine.  Gale held his out in a silent toast and Velim met it with the chime of crystal.

Shifting frescoes of the gods, each wearing a mask befitting their domain and internally luminescent, adorned the vaulted ceilings of the ballroom.  Mystra held court above the other gods with a distaff in one hand and a drop spindle in the other, twirling a silvery strand of weave on and on and on.  Her dispassionate eyes watched Velim cross the floor, and they fought the urge to shrink away.

A tug on their arm drew them back to Gale.  He watched them, eyes soft brown and hopeful.  They straightened as he led them through the crowd.

“I’d like to introduce you to some of my colleagues,” Gale suggested, “I hope Martha is in attendance, she’s a magical disease specialist and I think you’d get on like wildfire.”

Velim scanned the crowd, people gathered in corners or spun with partners on the wide dance floor.  Their stomach turned, feeling eyes on the back of their neck.  “It would be my pleasure.”

Gale’s face lit up as he spotted a conical gray hat rising above the banquet tables.  “Come on, there’s someone I must introduce you to.”

He cut through the crowd, locking Velim’s arm with his so he didn't lose them.  The man in gray robes to match his gray hat looked up and gestured wide with his pipe in one hand.  Fog cascaded from his hat brim in a thick curtain, obscuring his face.

“Gale, my boy!” his gruff voice puffed out. He remained faceless behind the falling fog besides the end of his long gray beard.

Gale embraced the older man, momentarily vanishing in the mist.  “Elminster, I thought you were bound for Menzoberranzan until next year!”

 “And miss the mischief of Liar’s Night?  Perish the thought,” he held Gale at arm’s length, “you’ve donned a new mask, I see.  How have you fared?”

“I thought it time for a change,” Gale ignored his second question, “Elminster, allow me to introduce you to my companion,” he placed his hand on Velim’s back and ushered them forward.

Velim ignored the skipped beat of their heart and shook Elminster’s hand firmly.  “Doctor Velim Tav, a pleasure to meet you, Elminster.  Your ecologies saved me more than once in the field.”

“Who among us does not owe our survival to one volume or another,” Elminster waxed, “I should thank you for bringing Gale back into the fold.  You know he’s never brought a date to the Masquerade before?”

“He said something like that,” Velim shot Gale a crooked grin, noting the blush creeping over his collar with satisfaction.  Elminster’s magic washed over them like a wave on a calm beach, far from the storm Gale produced.  The assured power of it sent a chill down their spine.  Elminster held their hand for a little too long.

“And what do you do that my ecologies serve you so well, doctor?” Elminster asked.  His pipe disappeared beneath the curtain of fog and a series of four smoke rings pushed back out.  He swayed like he was already a couple drinks down.

“I'm a senior Vulture with the health corps,” Velim explained, “a surgeon, but most of my job is just contact tracing.”

“Fascinating!  No easy task, chasing down the plagues that terrorize the gentle folk,” Elminster exclaimed, “I see why Gale brought you along, I sense a formidable mind.”

Velim grinned, but their smile faltered when they noticed Gale rubbing his chest.  “I won’t deny it.”

“Elminster, could I bother you to take Velim off my hands?” Gale asked, “I need to step out for a moment.”

“Gladly!” Elminster offered his arm to Velim, “come, I’ve much to ask you, wyrmling.”

The coy nickname felt like a blade to their throat, but they kept their face calm and easy as they slipped their hand through the crook of his elbow and let him lead them to a sofa upholstered in violet suede.  He snatched a glass of wine from a tray that floated about unattended, and the glass disappeared beneath his mask of fog before reappearing empty.  He set the empty cup on the side table.

Velim lifted their glass to their lips, but barely took a sip.  “I’m starstruck,” they feigned embarrassment, “this event is fancier than anything I expected, and now I'm drinking with a Weavemaster.”

“And what were your expectations, wyrmling?” Elminster asked.

“Researchers and teachers, but no one so lofty,” they inclined their head to Elminster, “I’ve only known Gale a couple months.  I didn't realize he kept such formidable company.”

Elminster leaned back and wispy smoke starlings fluttered toward the ceiling.  Velim thought they caught Mystra looking at them when they followed the smoke up. 

Elminster’s voice grabbed their attention again.  “My, my, don’t you work quickly!  To think, an entire year of absence, and all it takes is a month of you to bring Gale back into the fold.  I thought that condition of his would turn him recluse forever.  Pray, how did you come together?”

“You’ll laugh,” Velim warned.

Elminster leaned forward.  “Oh, please tell.”

“His mother signed him up for a matchmaker.” Their lips twitched in a smile.

Elminster let out a sharp laugh.  “And he allowed her?” then he looked at Velim, “and you?”

“Doing research for a book,” they waved the notion off, “I didn't have experience with matchmaking, and thought going through the motions might inject some realism into the project.  Found a matchmaker who was amenable to the idea.  I think she said she specializes in ‘niche cases’.”

“And haven’t you found yourself in a sprawling narrative,” Elminster prodded, “Gale’s quite storied himself.  The epic you could write about him!  Oh, Mystra, the man is more than you’d believe.”

Velim plucked another goblet of wine off a tray as it floated by and handed it to Elminster.  “Is that so?”

“Indulge me in some fatherly concern, would you, wyrmling?” Elminster’s head tipped to one side.

“Please.” Velim waved him on.

“What are your intentions with Gale?” he held his glass up to stop them from answering, “I only wish to save him from additional heartbreak.  I can tell he's fond of you already.”

Velim thanked the ring for hiding the blush creeping up to their neck.  “Perfectly platonic,” they assured him, “I’m only looking for a like mind and a little company.”

Elminster’s head remained cocked to the side, the cascading fog obscuring his expression.  Velim settled the twitch in their fingers by drinking again.  Elminster finally lifted his glass beneath the veil of fog.

“Good!  Good.  After all that’s transpired, a friend will do him well,” he rested his hand on Velim’s arm, stronger than expected, “I believe you, wyrmling.”

“I don't know much about why he retreated from public life in the first place,” Velim admitted, resisting the urge to pull away.

The brim of Elminster’s hat dipped conspiratorially.  “The folly of a man in love,” he leaned back, “Mystra, forgive him.  I’m so relieved he’s returned,” he clasped Velim’s hand in his, “thank you, Velim.  Truly, I worried about him.  He's refused all visitors since -- well, never mind.  I'm glad for him, that's all.”

“My intervention is a happy accident,” Velim smiled at him, “may I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Elminster leaned in for the conspiratorial question.

“Do you know what his condition entails?  My curiosity is both professional and personal,” Velim explained.

Elminster sat back, serious.  “My dear wyrmling, I’m afraid his condition is not mine to reveal.  It lies between him and Mystra alone,” his joviality returned, “may I ask you a question?”

Velim gnawed on the rebuttal.  “That seems fair.”

“What brings a dragon to Blackstaff?” Elminster’s voice dropped so low they had to cock their ear toward him to hear. 

Velim's mouth opened and closed.  They threw back the goblet of wine and hunched forward, cradling the empty glass between their knees.  “I wanted to see what it looked like inside.”

Elminster barked a laugh and his voice drew the attention of other bejeweled partygoers.  “Is Gale aware of your --” he sent a smoke dragon gliding to the ceiling, “condition?”

People gravitated toward the sofa.  Velim straightened and deposited their empty glass on a passing tray. “I'd appreciate it if you kept it between us.”  They breathed deeply.  Just a dragon, yes, just a normal dragon.

Elminster puffed out more smoke rings.  “Your secret’s safe with me, wyrmling,” he raised his voice, “Lyle, my boy, get over here!  How’d you like to meet a Vulture?”

Gale clutched his chest as the orb surged against his ribs.  A faint violet glow bled through the fabric of his shirt.  “Why?  Why now?” he choked, “Why must you act up now?”

He groaned at the pain driving him into the depths of his body, leaving his extremities numb.  His heart spasmed against the pressure.  He sucked a cooling breath between his teeth, forcing his lungs to inflate until they suffocated his racing heartbeat and held it until the orb’s spasm died down.  The violent magic pulsed up his neck and face, sparks scattering in his vision.  Slowly, his body resolved.  He worked feeling back into his fingers and the orb settled as a knot of pain against his heart.

Gale breathed long and slow, wiping the sweat from his clammy forehead.  He pushed onto the balcony and let the cool air wash over him.  The wind caught the conversation and jaunty music exuding from the ballroom, it drifted to the city below.  The tremor in his hands slowed, and he returned to the din of the ballroom to rescue Velim from Elminster’s probing questions.

He found them surrounded by a throng of people, Elminster officiating the conversation as a halfling peppered them with questions. Gale dimly recognized him as Lyle Thornberry, an expert in healing invocation.  Lyle pressed them on specifics of mechanical treatment for invocation hyperplasia.  Velim considered the small man with their back straight and their drink full.

“The best way I’ve found to prevent recurrence involves understanding the arterial anatomy of the afflicted area and a strong grasp of necromantic magical principles.  I rarely come across both in the same person, but a few years ago during an outbreak of Proudrest’s disease in a duergar settlement north of Cairnheim I had the pleasure of working with a drow necromancer on a particularly nasty case of IHP,” they swirled their wine in the glass, making sure no one looked too sick yet, “an inexperienced druid treated the patient ten years previous: gutshot by an arrow tainted with bloodbloater venom.  The druid somehow rerouted what remained of his bowel, but the residual invocation caused the tissue to proliferate.  By the time I arrived, it took him a month to digest a single meal and the extra bowel weighed so much he was bedbound.”

Gale joined the crowd.  Some of his colleagues had gone a little green.  Velim shot him a smile.

Velim continued, “So the drow and I, a bit sick of feeding porridge to Proudrest patients, decided we’d take a shot at solving his problem.  We got him sedated and open and spent the next two hours mapping out the extra lengths of intestine -- his duodenum alone measured about ten feet long.  To remove it all, we sectioned each piece off in two foot lengths.  She killed the vascular tissue, and I removed the ischemic section of bowel.  Some fifteen hours later, we had a mountain of dead bowel and a duergar with a normal digestive system.”

“And the duergar survived?” Lyle pressed.

“Ate his first meal and passed it within six days of the operation.”  Velim nodded as though that was that.

Lyle’s eyes went wide.  “You wouldn’t happen to have this drow’s name?”

They shook their head.  “No name, she insisted.  Told me she didn’t care to share personal information with someone who could be raw material tomorrow.”

Lyle seemed crestfallen, but the others around him murmured in sick wonder at the feat.  The band slowed one song, and Gale saw his opportunity to steal them back.

He cleared his throat, and Velim looked at him with soft relief.  “Velim, I hate to whisk you away so abruptly, but perhaps we could have that dance?”

Velim set their glass down on the table and swept between his colleagues, nodding at Lyle and Elminster as they took Gale’s arm.  “Yes, please.”

The crowd remained pressed around Elminster as the pair extricated themselves.  Velim saw the tension around Gale’s eyes through his mask.

“Are you feeling alright?” they asked.

“I am now.  Shall we?” Gale offered his hand as he stepped onto the parquet dance floor.

Velim hesitated, their eyes darkening with concern.

Gale closed his fingers around their’s.  “Just let me lead.”

The violin struck up first and Gale guided Velim’s other hand to his shoulder.  His fingers trailed over the back of their arm before resting at their waist.  Veilm’s heart rocketed into their throat and they swallowed it down by looking at their feet as they began to move.

“Your feet aren’t going anywhere,” Gale said, drawing Velim’s eyes back to his face.  A little jolt of disappointment crossed his mind, their face as unflappable as always.  How was it that they made him fumble and blush with a single look, but he couldn’t unsteady them at all?

Velim ignored the unsteadiness at their core and yielded to Gale’s lead as he spun them.  The music picked up, the rest of the string section taking hold of the melody with a rapid rising and falling rhythm.  Velim’s heart stuttered in their chest as they leaned into the heat of Gale’s body.  Magic flooded off of him, leaving Velim buzzing down to their fingertips.

The music slowed to a gentle waltz, dancers pulled one another close.  Velim found themself gazing into Gale’s soft brown eyes and a spark of fear shattered their enchantment.  They pulled away instead of pressing closer.

The orb stuttered in Gale’s chest and he winced.  Velim’s hand slipped out of his, and he followed them off the parquet and into a corner.  Gale drew the gazes of his colleagues in their own conversations.

“Would you like to show me around?” Velim suggested, tugging at the collar of their doublet, “I could use some air.”

“Yes, I would.” The tension at Gale’s temples relaxed and he pulled Velim’s arm tight to his body.  

He led them out of the ballroom and into emptier and emptier parts of the tower.  The sconces on the wall lit as they passed.  Velim looked over their shoulder at the dark hallway behind them, the chatter of the ballroom gone around four corners and a staircase.  When they tracked their path back, they couldn’t remember if the third turn was a left or right because they’d been too busy looking at the embroidery on Gale’s robes.  Velim resisted the urge to pull away as Gale led them onto a balcony sitting area spotted with other pairs sheltering from the busy ballroom.  The wind gusted into Velim’s face.  They swayed with the dark sickness of vertigo as they glanced at the black horizon. 

Gale paused when they pulled away and approached the railing of the balcony. They braced both hands on the wrought iron and looked over the edge and into the glittering abyss.

“Velim,” Gale’s voice was lost in the wind, but he rested his hand on their shoulder.  They startled, shoulders pinching at his touch, but he squeezed and they relaxed slowly, “come on, I've got somewhere warmer in mind.”

“Where are we going?” Velim hoped their voice wasn’t too tight.

Gale’s warm smile and the gentle press of his hand against their’s soothed them.  “The rare books library.”

Velim counted the turns back to the ballroom, and still couldn’t remember the third turn.  They counted their breathing.  5 seconds in.  5 seconds out.  Gale stopped in front of a blank wall and turned around to face them.  Their heart blocked their throat, but he held both his hands out with palms up.  When they took them, he stepped backward through the solid wall.  Velim stumbled into the low-ceilinged room lined with stacks of books locked behind filigree brass grates.  Gale released their hands to gesture at the room around them.

Velim sucked in a breath of dry, cool air.  They turned around, the shelves lit with a dim sunset-toned light that glanced off the brass and dark wood and Gale’s hair and skin, turning everything gold.

“For preservation,” Gale explained, his voice low with near-religious reverence, “but to remarkable effect, you’d agree.”

Velim peered between the brass bars at the books on the shelves inside.  Everything from gilded volumes to crude leather wraps around stacks of mismatched parchment and paper.  Some had characters on their spines that Velim didn’t recognize.

“The grimoires of every headmaster of Blackstaff and many of their most famous alumni rest here,” Gale pointed at a deep brown leather book, the spine frayed at both edges, “that one belongs to the original founder of Blackstaff Academy, Khelben Arunsun.”

Seeing true lust in Gale’s eyes over the ratty book relaxed Velim some.  Safer, once they were certain the possession in his voice was directed at an inanimate object.

“Do you intend to donate your own, one day?” Velim wondered.

Gale pulled away from the grate.  “You flatter me.  I don’t believe I’d make the cut.”

“Somehow, I do.” Velim turned, tracing the ridges of filigree around the next shelf.

They peered at a thin paper volume behind the bars.  Gale followed, tentatively tracing the brocade at the nape of Velim’s neck.  They suppressed a shiver.

“Gerund Isaac recorded his spells in a shorthand he developed himself,” Gale tapped the brass filigree in front of the slim volume, “some say there are more arcane secrets in that little pamphlet than in the whole rest of the collection.”

“Some shorthand,” Velim chuckled breathlessly, wondering how hard they had to blush for it to show through the illusion, “I’d like to learn it, might come in handy someday.”

Velim’s breath caught in their throat as they turned around, the tight aisle leaving no space between them.  Gale’s hand trailed the collar of their doublet.  Their face burned, finally appearing through the illusion.  Gale’s lip twitched, suppressing the satisfied grin.  Velim rested their hand on his chest, letting his magic surge through their fingers and light up their body.

This was a bad idea.  They knew it.  They couldn’t let this happen, even as he started to lean in and they didn’t stop him.  He’d feel their teeth, feel the scales and ridges along their cheeks.  They’d be caught.  Their heart raced.

Gale’s knees buckled.

Velim took his weight against their shoulder and eased him onto the floor.  The magic coming off him grew hot and violent, tendrils whipping against their face.  A faint violet glow emanated beneath his robes, singeing the fine fabric in a perfect circle.  Gale’s face twisted in pain.

“Go, you have to go,” he choked.

“No.” Velim pushed through the surging magic and leaned him against the bookshelf.  His head lolled back, pulse pounding in his neck as they undid the fastenings of his robe and pulled open the neckline of his shirt until the source of the magic storm was exposed, throbbing with violet light.

“Gale, my boy, are you in here?” Elminster’s voice drifted over the stacks.

“Elminster, here!” Velim yelled, their voice razor sharp.  They tried to probe the glowing thing and winced, their fingertips threatening to vibrate apart.

Elminster whipped around the stacks.  “Gods,” he breathed.

“Please go,” Gale begged.  He arched his back, vision coming in and out of focus.

“No,” Velim said again, “Elminster, what is it?  What do I do?”

“I cannot intervene.” Elminster’s voice was tinged with panic.

“I can.  Elminster, tell me what to do!” Velim snapped, bearing their razor teeth.  Their scales shone through the illusion as the orb ate away at the weave in the Ring of Human Guise.

Elminster swallowed hard.  He knelt down next to Velim.  “Do you have something to draw blood?”

Velim ripped off their glove and bit into the pad of their thumb with a grunt.

Elminster nodded too fast.  “Gather your weave, and hold it --”

“Right,” Velim skipped ahead, assuming the next steps, and thrust their pierced thumb into the scorching light until the light swallowed their hand.  The weave burned up their arm, attempting to rip the scales away from their flesh.

Suddenly, the torrent reversed.  The light dimmed, drawing weave out of Velim.  They sucked in a breath, the room airless as the thing in Gale’s chest ripped the magic out of their body.  Elminster yanked them back as their vision tunneled.  The rare books room fell silent but for the sound of their panting.  Velim laid on their back, swallowing down the nausea that came with overextending themself, flesh too tight around their bones.  The illusion of the ring snapped back into place.  Gale sucked in gasping breaths, tears of relief running under his mask.  

Elminster stood and dusted off his robes.  “I’ll go call your carriage.”

He vanished in a flurry of sparks.

“Thank you,” Gale said finally.

Velim grunted, still warding off vertigo.

“It came on so fast,” Gale’s voice hitched, “I’m sorry, I never would have put you at risk if I’d known --”

“It’s fine,” Velim said.

“I could have killed you,” his voice broke, “I’m sorry.”

Velim finally got up, sitting beside Gale and leaning into his shoulder.  “I got it.”

Gale sobbed, curling inward on himself.  Velim found their discarded glove and pulled it back on so they could run their fingers through his hair until the tremors in his body slowed.  Their burnt arm sang with pins and needles.

Elminster returned.  He helped both Velim and Gale to their feet and through the portal to the driveway.  

Velim saw Gale into the cab before climbing in themself, and resisted the urge to ask him additional questions.  They lasted nearly to the Trade Ward.

“What is it?” Velim asked.

Gale sighed.  “Please, Velim.”

“If you just told me what it was, I could help,” they implored.  The horses’ hooves clicked along on the cobblestone, drowning the noise of the continuing Liar’s Night festivities.

“The burden is mine to bear.”  Gale massaged his chest, threads of weave reaching across the cab for Velim.

“I can help you bear it.” Velim folded their hands in front of them.  They had discarded their death mask on the bench beside him and looked at him with plain intensity.

“You can’t,” Gale insisted, “the pain is mine alone.”

Velim sat back with a scoff.  “Do you hear yourself?  Pain isn’t ‘your pain’, it’s just pain, and I’m a doctor.  If anyone -- anyone in the world -- could help you bear it, it’s me.”

“Why can’t you believe me?” he argued, anger causing the orb to shove his lungs, “Velim, you cannot fix what ails me.”

“I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what it is,” a muscle in their jaw twitched, the contours of their face sharp in the gloom, “that kind of mentality kills people.”

“What mentality?” Gale resisted the urge to open the door and roll out, maybe die in the gutter.

Velim’s lip curled in a snarl, their teeth sharper than Gale remembered. “You know it.  ‘No one can help me, no one understands,” they mocked.

“That’s hardly my mentality,” Gale protested.

“It is, I’ve seen it.  I’ve seen other Vultures murdered over it, because people can’t bear to accept they might not know everything.  Can’t see that -- hey -- maybe someone who deals with this shit for a living could know something that helps, but an outsider is an outsider and they’d rather bury us and the fucking problem,” Velim ranted, then clenched their jaw shut again.

“... I don't intend to kill anyone,” Gale said, taken aback, “least of all you.”

“That’s not what I --” Velim ground their teeth, “I know, I know that’s not your intention,” they smoothed a hand over their braids, “just… consider telling someone about it.  Anyone.  It doesn’t have to be me.  Pain is just pain.  Other people are going to bear it with you whether you want them to or not.”

Velim stared at him in the dark, their eyes strange and luminous.  The carriage shuddered to a stop in front of his tower.  He stood on shaky legs as the driver opened the door for him.

“I’ll consider it,” he said before the door closed.

[foxblood]

writing mood™️

[foxblood]

Commission I made yesterday ! Forgot to post it :)

Baldurs gate 3 might just be my favorite hyperfixation ever.

[foxblood]

For the morning crowd. Happy monday.

The Threads of Memory II - In Case of Rain

Editor's Log 5/11/25 - More Madame Toussau, Peiotr, and Morena (can't promise you a matchmaker and leave her in one chapter) - Additional explanation for Velim's lapse in employment - Some more Vulture culture exposition - As always, basic edits for readability

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30

Dark clouds gathered above the Dekarios household, but inside was warm.  Charrel, Morena’s elven housemaid, ushered Peiotr and Madame Toussau out of the cold, directing them to leave their wet boots in the entryway.  Peiotr took Madame Toussau’s coat and balanced on his toes to hang it.  Madame Toussau suppressed a giggle.  Charrel returned and ushered them both into the sitting room, where Morena was working on her embroidery.

“Quite a gloomy day,” Madame Toussau commented by way of greeting, crossing her legs as she reclined against the arm of the couch and spotting Tara on a high bookshelf, “well hello, Tara.”

Tara preened, her tail swishing out a steady metronome.  Peiotr followed Madame Toussau’s eyes and did a quick double take.

“Gale’s tressym,” Madame Toussau explained, “I understand she goes where she pleases.”

Morena set her embroidery on the coffee table.  “She keeps me company.”

Peitor approached Morena, who offered her hand.  He took it and smiled from beneath his red moustache.  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Dekarios.”

“Morena is fine, thank you, Peiotr,” Morena returned her hand to her lap, “please, sit.”

Peiotr’s nose flushed.  He cleared his throat and situated himself on the couch, sinking into the cushions.  He leaned forward for his teacup, grunting with the effort.  The handle all but vanished between his meaty fingers, and he slurped self-consciously.

“The tea’s very good, ma’am,” he grunted.

Morena turned her eyes to Madame Toussau expectantly.

“Well then, to business,” Madame chirped, producing a sheaf of paper from her knapsack, “I know you’re both wondering how the match fares.  Luckily for all of us, Dr. Tav agreed to provide me with a copy of their notes.”

Peiotr chuckled at some inside joke.  “Sly little bastard.”

“From what I understand, this is only a fraction of all they’ve written.  They mentioned omitting the planning for their novel, among other things,” Madame Toussau licked her finger and shuffled through the pages, ignoring the rise in Morena’s brow, and handed individual pages to both Morena and Peiotr, “there’s plenty here to give we curious onlookers some insight.”

Peiotr’s brow furrowed as he read, and Morena skimmed the neat slanting hand impassively.  Peiotr guffawed suddenly, prompting Morena to glance up.  He stood up and leaned over the table, pointing out the passage to her.

“Means nothing to you, I’m sure ma’am, but Vely ain’t one for overstatement.” His eyes crinkled, the delight in his voice unsuppressed.

“Do read aloud, I’m curious,” Madame Toussau implored, leaning forward.

Morena sighed and straightened to speak.  “‘I find him inexplicably easy to get along with.  We spoke at length about my work with diphtheria in the Silver Marches, and he kept asking questions even knowing the answer would disgust him and would not allow me to sanitize my response at all,’” a smile tugged at the corner of Morena’s drawn mouth, “yes, Gale refuses to let anyone leave out the details.  Drove his professors mad.”

“Vely doesn’t talk about their work much,” Peiotr took the page back, “they worry it puts folks off their supper.  If he’s got them talking already, I think we oughta plan the wedding.”

Madame Toussau chuckled, covering her mouth.

“Let’s not be hasty,” Morena scolded, “they’ve had only four meetings,” even so, her expression softened, “Peiotr, how did you meet Dr. Tav?  I understand you aren’t related.”

“‘Course not, ma’am,” Peiotr cleared his throat, “excuse me.  Met them when one of my kids -- all adopted, Helena can't have kids, but she wanted a big family so I got her one -- anyway, he brought home this book.  Called Under the Eye of the Sun about an outbreak of Rugloes’ disease on the High Moors.  You know what Rugloes’ is?”

Morena shook her head.  Madame Toussau hummed in a way that meant no.

“A disease, far as I understand it, that makes trees out of people.  Vely explained it to me better once, but I can’t ever remember the specifics,” Peiotr waved the explanation off with a grimace, “I know talent when I see it.  Went about hunting the author down to see if they were signed, and found Vely giving a talk at the big hospital on the hill.  Invited them to dinner and never let them leave, now we got eight kids.”

Madame Toussau smiled. “I’m glad Dr. Tav found themself a family.”

-------------------

The bronze guise of Silvanus reached an arm across the marble arch for Mielikki, and she on the other pillar pulled her bowstring taut.  The plaque above their heads announced “Waterdeep Botanic Gardens”.  An old couple sat on the benches beneath the gate, shoulders close together behind the half-sodden pages of the Waterdeep Digest.  The manicured meadows beyond swayed straw and scarlet against the mist that blew in from the ocean.  Gale sat on the vacant bench across from the old couple and pulled his robes tighter around him as the damp worked its way through the wool.  He dug a pamphlet out of his pocket.  The thin paper stuck together, the cover advertising the 10th release of the Journal of the Netheril Archaeological Society.  He glanced at the entrance after each line of self-important text until Velim appeared on the path, and went to meet them.

Velim looked both ways as they crossed the entryway, then pulled off their hood and smoothed the neat braid behind their head.  A shy smile crossed their face.  They buried their hands in the pockets of their duster, the leather worn light at the elbows and shoulders.  

“Sorry I’m late,” Velim waited for Gale to fall into step beside them, “not really my neighborhood.”

“No matter, it puts us back on even footing,” Gale smiled back to put them at ease.

“It’s my own fault for leaving on time.  I should have planned to get lost,” they pulled a gloved hand out of their pocket to run their finger over the water condensing on the arched railing of the bridge as they crossed the creek.

“I assumed you had a great sense of direction.” Gale inhaled the wet autumn day as they stepped onto a path covered in leaves falling gold from the ginkgo trees above them.

Velim’s eyes turned toward the canopy.  “Can't read a map to save my life, I'm afraid.”

Gale offered his hand as they climbed a steep stone staircase, but Velim kept their hands in their pockets and he pulled it away.  “Do you travel with a companion, then?  Someone less directionally challenged?”

They shook their head.  “I find my way.  Would you like to grab lunch in a bit?  My treat.”

“That’s not necessary,” Gale said.

“Let me buy you lunch.  I just got the advance for my next publication. Something to work the chill out of our hands isn’t going to hurt, and I was late this time,” Velim insisted.

“Is that so?  Which publication?” Gale asked, “something grand?”

“No, not my contribution,” they brushed the fine hairs on the underside of a cherry-red leaf and read the stone with the name of the plant engraved upon it, sanddusk creeper, “but the illustrations are something else entirely.  It’s a textbook documenting the physiological impacts of magic mediated illness.  The artist -- Darien Pourtier is his name -- he does the finest copper etchings I've ever seen.”

Gale remembered an old school friend, his skin running down his face in flabby drops when a healing spell intended to clear his acne backfired, and imagined his condition painstakingly etched in copper.  The thought made him queasy.  “Are you an expert in magic mediated ailments?”

“No,” they leaned over the railing where fish swarmed at the banks of the pond, begging for food in flashes of red and gold, “maybe I am now.  I’m the ghost writer, just translating for the experts who can't be bothered.  The only magical ailment I’m intimately familiar with is invoked hyperplasia.”

“Because the only intervention is surgical, yes, I have no doubt you would be,” his expression tightened, the oozing face of his school friend stuck in his mind, “a terrible condition indeed.”

“Healing invocations are dangerously deceptive,” Velim considered their words, “an inexperienced caster sees a wound close, and believes it's turning back time on the injury, but it's just magic accelerating natural processes.  Fail to remove all the magic, and the body devours itself,” they sighed, “I find its continued prevalence exhausting.  It seems every cleric learns cure wounds and thinks that a lack of pain is a lack of risk,” they worked the top button of their coat with one hand, “but I don’t mean to be a critic.  Were you a student here?”

“I spent a great deal of time as a joint researcher between the archaeology department and the Blackstaff Research Institute, but I was always destined for Blackstaff’s program.  In fact, an old colleague of mine in the archaeology department was the first person to show me this,” he gestured to the turning leaves above them, catching the mist and releasing it as heavy droplets, “for the record, some critique would not go amiss when it comes to reckless use of magic.  You're right to say so.”

“I'm glad you agree, I've met plenty who don't see it my way,” Velim watched droplets slide off a dome of magic above themself and Gale.  When had he cast that spell?  Now that they were paying attention, they could feel the threads of weave leading back to him.  Effortless.  A small voice in the back of their mind wondered if he might teach them, “you’re quite skilled.”

Gale followed their eyes to the shield above them as the rain pattered softly on the canopy.  “What, that trick?”

Velim couldn’t cast a shield spell with that ease -- not at all, as the acid eaten holes in the floor of their apartment would attest.  “I didn’t see you cast it.”

“Are you familiar with the Arts?  Past the consequences of ill-used healing spells,” Gale asked, admiring his own work as other walkers on the path scrambled for cover in the intensifying rain.

Velim let the pause drag on too long, “I only learned enough to avoid burning myself, really.”

Gale’s eyebrows rose.  “A sorcerer?”

They shoved their hands into their pockets again.  “Yes, but you can skip the parentage questions.  I have no idea where I got it.”

A flush rose to Gale’s cheeks, turning them redder than the cold already had.  “My apologies, I don’t mean to suggest -- I’ve met many sorcerers with less intellectual acumen, if you’d allow me a smidgen of judgment.”

Velim smirked at him, but their hands remained firmly in their pockets.  “The best of us don’t attend arcane academies.”  Gale was too distracted by his own embarrassment to notice the bitterness in their expression was directed at themself.

“Neither of your parents were gifted?” Gale recovered.  The shield above them never wavered.

“I can’t say, I don’t know them.” Velim waited for Gale to press further.

Gale shuffled his feet through the fallen leaves.  “I see.  I’m sorry.  I lost my father before I could remember, myself.  Do you mind if I ask how?”

His condolences gave Velim time to filter their past.  “I don't know if they're dead, actually,” they watched Gale’s face change in surprise, “I fell off a watchtower when I was 11, severe head trauma.  Woke up in a hospital during quarantine.  I couldn’t leave, and I had no way to tell anyone who I was or where I came from, so I began my apprenticeship as a surgeon as soon as I had hands that worked.  A bit of an ‘all hands on deck’ situation.”

“No one came looking for you?” Gale pressed.

Velim shrugged.  “Of course not,” they changed the subject when they saw Gale’s expression of concern, “when you were working on that joint committee with your colleague, were you investigating that site in the Silver Marches?  The one with the egg?”

“The project was to map the annual travels of each known enclave in Netheril based on historical accounts and weave traces modified by the mythallars.  No time for old Ortenkus, I’m afraid,” he turned, the grin of a teacher about to drop knowledge on his student forming at the corners of his mouth, “the towns of the Silver Marches, you know they follow the paths of the enclaves?  The very roads of northern Faerun mirror those ancient cities.”

Velim returned his smile, grateful to put their past back where it belonged.  “I didn’t.  Did the mythallars raise the earth out of the swamp, or is there something further at play there?  It seemed nigh-impassable to me.”

“Unfortunately not,” Gale trailed off when he noticed Velim wasn’t looking at him anymore, their focus on a pair of arguing voices obscured by the trees between paths, “probably just a lover’s spat.”

Velim cocked their head to one side.  “Probably,” they echoed.

“Are you concerned about someone seeing us together?” Gale’s voice dropped, hoping worry that the time they spent together may be complicated by his own past came out as concern for Velim’s well-being instead.

They shook their head.  “No, not at all,” and turned to him, “just an old habit.  Few folks like when a Vulture shows up.  You learn to keep an eye out for people who might make a bad choice.”

Gale’s posture loosened.  “I see, and those two are about to make a poor decision, in your estimations?”

Velim glanced through the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the arguing pair.  “Maybe.”

“Speaking of Vulturing,” Gale began, “isn’t this the start of your busy season?  With the winter sniffles rearing their heads and the veil thinning.  Are you expecting dispatch soon?”

Velim hummed.  “No, I’ve been on leave since spring.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?” Gale pulled them away from the arguing voices, coaxing them into a quieter part of the garden.

“Some fallout, some politics,” Velim plucked a loose leaf off the tree above and studied the pattern of veins on the underside, “a near-miss with a botched phylactery.  Ended up killing the mayor and two other vultures, got carted out and placed on medical leave, then Unger got it in his head to get back at me by filibustering my return.”

“Phylactery as in lich?  Gods, you’re lucky you’re alive.” Gale laughed.

“Always am,” Velim agreed.

“Who is Unger, if you don’t mind me asking?” Gale prodded.

Velim sighed again, this one far more exasperated.  “Unger the Gold, a former fledgling of mine.  Third job in he contracted Rugoles’ and I had to amputate both his legs to keep it from spreading.  Guy hates labwork, blames me for not letting him die like a real orc in the bush.  I tried to make it up to him by recommending him for the council position, but…” they shrugged.

“I see,” Gale winced at the thought of waking up without his legs, “why do they call him Unger the Gold?”

“His brother’s a tinkerer, built him a pair of brass prosthetics.  Unger the Gold sounds better than Unger the Brass or Unger the Legless, I guess.  You know how orcs are about their monikers,” Velim shook off the conversation, “how about we grab some lunch?”

“Sounds like a fine idea, this way.” Gale led them down a path that cut between the trunks of two thick maples twined together through some feat of magic or botany.

Velim hesitated at the path’s start, but jogged to catch up before they got caught in the rain.

“I have something to ask you, and you may feel that it’s coming on a bit strong, but I assure you that my intentions are purely platonic,” Gale waited for Velim to match his stride before continuing, “do you have plans for Liar’s Night this year?”

“None I couldn’t be persuaded to change, I'm walking with the rest of the Vultures in the parade,” the path narrowed and Velim bumped Gale with their shoulder, “are you in need of a plus-one?”

“No -- well, yes.  Blackstaff Tower holds a Liar’s Masquerade annually.  Normally I attend alone, but considering my extended absence I thought I might benefit from some company.  Of course, if you aren’t comfortable you need only say the word and I won't mention it again.”  Gale leaned into them, following Velim when the path widened again and they pulled away.

Velim kicked through a pile of wet leaves before responding.  “I find it difficult to believe you’ve never had a date for the masquerade.”

“I never left alone, I simply arrived alone,” Gale waved the notion off, but his face grew redder, “Once I had a full dance card.  It’s only that after a year away, things that once were second nature are no longer.”

“I’d be happy to accompany you,” Velim assured him, “you’ve really never brought a date?”

“Not for any lack of experience.” He pulled the collar of his coat up.

“Happy to be your first, then,” Velim shot him a crooked smile that made birds flush in his chest, their teeth sharper and eyes greener for just a moment, “I’m sure I’ll make some poor soul jealous.  Are we planning to match, or let the cards fall where they may?”

Gale feigned a cough to keep his voice from cracking.  “No time to draft up something new, we may as well don the costumes of yesteryear.  I expected you to need more convincing.”

“Oh, no, I adore a masked party,” Velim buried their hands deeper in their pockets, but their step skipped ahead and stretched the shield that carried them both beneath a curtain of rain, “they make for good people watching.  I should warn you that I can’t dance.”

“I’m not exactly in prime shape myself,” Gale ran a hand through his hair, the smell of cooking meat wafted from a covered walkway scattered with food carts, “I’ll survive a crushed toe or two if we find ourselves in a dancing mood.  I didn't think you the type for parties.”

“You thought right,” Velim admitted, ducking into the walkway, “but variety is the spice of life, and I’ve never been to Blackstaff Tower.  You might show me around?”

The rain continued falling long after both their bowls were in the bin of dishes beside the noodle cart.  Velim leaned on the railing separating the walkway from the cobblestone paths of the garden and watched the rain slide off the roof in thick rivulets.  Gale leaned against the column beside them.

“Quite the day for a stroll in the garden,” Velim glanced sideways at Gale, “I’m tempted to ask you to walk me home.”

“I would be honored,” Gale said with a little bow, “shall we take the path less traveled?”

The deluge parted for them as they stepped into the rain together.  Gale looked at them with a sly glint in his eye.  They didn’t notice so much as a twitch of his fingers, and realized he never dropped concentration.  They had no time to process his feat as Gale stumbled on the uneven path.  His knees buckled as the orb spasmed in his chest.  

Velim caught his elbow, his weight dropping them both for a sickening second before Velim used their weight to shove him upright again.  They searched his face for the ailment, noting the pinch of pain at the corners of his eyes and braced him with one hand firm on his arm.  They supported their own shoulder with their other hand as the weakened muscles strained.  Gale blinked hard, his mouth opening in silent apology.  Velim dragged him to a bench and sat him down.  The chilled rainwater soaking into his coat soothed the tearing sensation radiating through his chest.  The orb grasped frenetically for Velim’s hand.  He pulled away.  

They sat apart, Velim’s hands tucked safely back in their pockets as they waited for the tension in his body to ease.  Gale massaged his chest as he sat back against the bench and let the chill slip over him.  Raindrops fell fat and heavy against his hot skin.  He spoke the word, circled his fingers in the air, and the shield reappeared above them.

“Has this happened before?” Velim asked.

Gale took a deep breath, his lungs straining against the pressure.  “Yes, occasionally.  It’s no trouble, really, I’m sorry to bother you with it.”

“Rain check on walking me home,” Velim joked, their bedside manner snapping into place, “have you seen a doctor about it?”

“Yes,” the affirmative was always the correct answer, “nothing for it, I’m afraid.”

“How long do these episodes typically last?” Velim ran down their list of questions, filtering the ones that seemed too personal for a concerned exchange between friends, “and do you have something to take for them?”

“Not long,” Gale’s voice wavered, “I’m afraid I don’t have the medicine on my person.”

Velim searched his face, and Gale thought with a jolt that they knew he was lying until they blinked and glanced at the mosaic of leaves dotting the path.

“Very well,” they conceded, “when you’re ready, I’ll hail you a cab.”

Gale considered refusing, but he knew a command when he heard one.  He dragged the last moments out, the rain cascading over the shield spell and turning the world into a watery smear of red and gold.  “Shall we?”

Gale stood up before Velim could offer their hand, so they kept them in their pockets and matched his slow pace.  The rain drowned the sound of their footsteps, mixing with the sloshing of the puddles that gathered at low points in the walkway.

“My apologies for cutting our time short,” Gale said once the pressure dissipated into an uncomfortable ache, “I enjoy our time together, if I had my way we'd be out past dark -- and don’t think my outburst is in any way related to a lack of desire to see you home safely.  Please.”

“I enjoyed myself,” Velim assured him as they entered the courtyard, the dead wildflowers giving off the aroma of sodden hay, “and I imagine I’ll enjoy the Liar’s Masquerade just as much, but promise you’ll get some rest and see your doctor beforehand.”

“I promise.” The orb pulsed hot in his chest.  Liar, liar.

Velim flagged down a carriage on the street.  They pulled up their hood and saw him safely inside, then tried to offer the driver payment.

“No, no,” Gale pushed a few nibs into the driver’s open palm, “not after you bought lunch.”

Velim put their change back in their pockets.  “I’ll see you on Lair’s Night, Gale.”

“You will.  I promise you, you will.” Gale sat back in the cab as the driver kicked the horse.  He dug his fingers into the scar, the faint black lines of the mark molten beneath the surface of his skin all the way up to his eye.  His vision blurred with each hard beat of his heart.

The shield spell vanished with Gale and the rain resumed falling on the oiled leather of Velim’s duster, pressing the cold through the waxed seams.  They waited for the carriage to turn out of sight, scolding themself for offering to let Gale walk them home in the first place.  They should never have considered extending that offer to someone who knew them not at all.

The cold pulled the scars on their chest taut.  They rubbed along the line of them, from sternum to clavicle on each side, smoothing the scales and the prickling scar tissue beneath.  Their shoulder ached where Gale’s weight strained the weakened muscles.

Velim closed and deadbolted the apartment door behind them, standing over the letter slipped under their door.  Water dripped off their hood onto the envelope as they bent to pick it up.  They turned it over, studying the wax seal: Waterdeep blue, but sealed with an amateurishly carved defensive cat.  They opened it, still dripping in the entryway.

I hope you’re enjoying your enforced vacation.  

Velim smiled at the looping script, recognizing Georgie’s handwriting immediately.

The investigation goes as well as you might expect.  Unger’s running out of things to stall over.  Yesterday he audited your finances and tried to accuse you of fraud for spending less than your allotted funds on the zombie job in April.  Two days ago, he brought in a witness he’d coached to say you experimented on her.  She broke within three questions, I think the one that got her was “can you provide any physical evidence of harm done by a surgeon” and then couldn’t identify your sketch.  I’ll be the first to admit you vanish in a crowd, but it’s not like you’re a shapeshifter.  Pretty clear she’d never seen you before in her life.

The other council members are peeved.  I overheard Harold discussing a vote for expulsion if he doesn’t drop the issue by next tenday.  We may have you back in time for sick season yet, gods know we could use you.  It's making the other Vultures skittish.  They figure if you’re getting it this bad after 15 years, there’s not much reason to stay in the job.  We all got into this field because we don’t like working under a taskmaster, and gods know we’ve all got demons on our asses.  If anything, this whole investigation just went far enough to show off how squeaky clean you are compared to the rest of us.  I sure as hell wouldn’t have held up to half the shit Unger’s thrown at the bench.

Don’t know what you were thinking when you wrote that recommendation, but that’s what you get for pitying this bastard.  Better get back soon, don’t know if I’ll survive the next plague outbreak without you keeping me sane.  I’m up for dispatch in two weeks now.  I hope this wraps up by then, but I’ll keep you posted long as I can.

Your (grateful) fledged,

G

Their stomach churned at Unger’s accusation of malpractice.  They crumpled the letter in their pocket, tossed their boots aside, hung their sopping coat up, and sat hard in their desk chair.  The wood creaked.  The gloom cast the room in premature darkness, and they breathed in the cold and damp coming through the poorly sealed window until their stomach settled.  If the experimentation and finance gambits didn’t work, he might start looking further, and he clearly possessed no respect for the fact that a Vulture supposed to be dead to their old life upon signing up.

They begrudgingly admitted that Georgie was correct.  Writing Unger a recommendation was the worst thing they could have done, even worse than just taking the position themself when Harold offered.  Poor guy, now he was dealing with Unger instead of them -- not that they would have made his life much easier.  They wondered if Unger considered the recommendation an additional slight, barring him once again from fieldwork.  At least Unger hadn’t brought up their draconic blood, but who knew if it was orcish honor or a basic inability to make it seem incriminating that prevented him from doing so.

Velim groaned, stretched their tight shoulders until the scar tissue pulled, and lit the oil lamp on their desk.  They may as well draft their statement regarding the accusations while it was on their mind.

[foxblood]

ehh sketch of gale. i still love my wife

[foxblood]

Finally grabbed some screencaps of Velim in game.

I'd take the flamboyant robe off, but it's far too good not to use. Alas.