rdekarios

[rdekarios]

Good morning sleepyhead~

IM BACK FROM MY 2ND HAITUS WHATS UPPPP

[rdekarios]

OC Tag Game: Which Fictional Character Are You?

Thank you so much @aoifethephoenixqueen for the tag!

To play, go to the following website and take the test as your OC: Statistical "Which Character" Personality Quiz.

I have absolutely no idea who this is 😂 Hardly a surprise, I don't watch much TV or film.

However, she was also an 88% match to Jane Bennet, who I know well and which feels a good fit for Seraphina! Kind, gentle, overly-trusting, reserved.

Honestly, just give me all the Regency vibes 🫠

No pressure tags: @tragedysorbet, @monowires, @tynithia, @violet-dekarios

[rdekarios]

Nestled amongst your books and papers, Tara bore witness to your greatest triumphs... and your greatest failure. You made yourself a walking cataclysm, the annihilation brewing within you just about held at bay by your constant consumption of magical objects. Tara saw it all, but never left your side.

[rdekarios]

I like thinking how casual is Dark Urge about his name

[rdekarios]

I think Gale dog ears his books, he puts whatever he can find as a marker (banana peel? A shoe? Whatever is at hand), he scribbles on the margins, annotates them, drinks tea and eats next to his books and sometimes he stains them. I believe Gale loves books as a source of knowledge, of joy, and when you love reading you read wherever you are, your books become stained, water damaged, there’s sand and grass between the pages, lost bills, unintentional pressed flowers. Books are meant to be loved, to be LIVED, they’re not meant to stand pristine in a bookshelf shrine.

He lends books, he doesn’t care -much- if people don’t give them back because he’s more interested in sharing knowledge. He never forgets a stolen book, though, and he holds grudges if people give the books back without reading them at all.

Maybe he does take care of some books, irreplaceable tomes perhaps, but his fingers itch to annotate, to make the pages his own.

His bookshelves are exceptionally well catalogued, though, he has a whole system. The same can’t be said about his potions and ingredients, as Tara graciously reminds him haha.

It’s my tumblr and I can headcanon whatever I want.

[rdekarios]

LMAO the way I NEVER skip his dialogue 😂

Gale: *takes a deep breath*

The companions: Oh gods. Here we go again

Tav: *sighs dreamily and grabs the popcorn*

[rdekarios]

Gorgeous! And adding the fic to my tbr 😉

A Heart As Cold As Ice

... if it was perhaps a dark fairytale! Can the gallant Gale of Waterdeep melt the heart (and curse) of the mysterious maiden of ice? Will there be a happily ever after, or will Gale's heart grow as cold and still as his lady love's?

The absolutely magnificent @naarisz took my very vague ideas and turned them into a masterpiece. I cried a little when I saw it. The softness of the pose, the opalescent colours of the ice, the frame of icicles, it's all so dreamy and darkly romantic and I love it SO MUCH

You should absolutely commission if you get a chance, it was such a lovely experience and I'm smitten with the finished product. Thank you so much @naarisz 💜

(And maybe check out the fic, it's not as fairytale perfect as this but I think it's pretty darn good)

[rdekarios]

And yet another thing I love about Gale’s romance is the boat ride in Act 3, where he tells Tav they will ‘always be enough’ for him.

There’s a dialogue in Act 2 that happens if Tav is deciding between Gale and another romance partner. Before ultimately choosing Gale, Tav can explain that they “Didn’t realize you felt so strongly, Gale.”

And Gale will say:

You can see how devastated Gale is at the thought of not being ‘enough.’

Then in Act 3, if Tav convinces Gale to give up the Crown and let go of his ambitions entirely because they love him as he is, Gale will say:

What has always struck me about his declaration in the boat is that it’s what Gale himself needed to hear.

He chose a declaration of love that cuts to the heart of his deepest insecurities. A declaration that says everything he’s ever needed in order to feel secure and loved. It’s the most powerful statement of love he could think of—

—and he gives it to Tav 💜

[rdekarios]

"It's easy to judge a situation when you're not in it."

[rdekarios]

🚧 wip 🚧

BE NICE IM PROBABLY GOING TO REDRAW THE ENTIRE SKETCH BECAUSE THIS ISNT THE POSE I WANTED BUT I LIKED HOW IT CAME OUT SO IM SHARING ANYWAY

[rdekarios]

My beautiful wizard ~

[rdekarios]

Gift 🌅

Astarion & Orya - for @/mrsecho on 🦋

I am really proud of this 3D render I created for my lovely friend. Her character Orya is so sweet - I always enjoy reading Rachel's HCs and stories for her, so I was delighted to be able to render this beautiful scene for her ❤️

I really hope I did it justice! 🥹🥰

[rdekarios]

Non-sexual intimacy prompts 😊 ♘: Cuddling in a blanket fort & ♟: Patching up a wound

👏You👏are👏treating👏me👏

Thank you (for helping me procrastinate) 🫶

Based on this ask, my all time favorite: ✨Non-sexual intimacy✨

Patching up a wound for Celeste and Halsin Cuddling in a blanket fort for Celeste and Gale

VP by @rdekarios and I cannot get over this picture 🫠

Patching up a wound - Celeste and Halsin

“Halsin.”

His name, spoken in that soft, coaxing tone of hers — so gentle, so quiet — nearly made him roll his eyes. Not out of frustration with her, never her, but because the battle had only just ended, and his blood still hummed with the ache of survival. His body was taut with purpose, muscles still alert and heavy with the instinct to move, to heal, to help. Rest was not yet a luxury he could afford.

“There are people in need, duckling,” he muttered, the words ground between his teeth. His wounds, while not insignificant, were nothing compared to what others had suffered. He had work to do. Lives to touch, hands to hold, pain to ease. That was his duty. That was his place.

But Celeste’s hand reached for his forearm, halting him mid-stride.

“You are bleeding, big bear,” she said, and the words were so full of concern and love, that they struck a chord he did not wish to acknowledge just yet.

“Celeste,” he sighed, torn. Not because he doubted her care, or because he wished her away, but because he feared that to yield now would mean to surrender completely. He could not lose himself in her, not yet. Not while others still cried out in pain.

“I know,” she said gently, and her smile — soft and certain — unraveled something tight in his chest. She pressed her hand more firmly against his arm, turning him ever so slightly until their eyes met. Her gaze was steady, full of that fierce tenderness that never failed to undo him.

“Please, allow me to take care of you. You are wounded—”

“— As are others,” he interrupted.

“And bleeding into the tunic I just washed for you,” she added with a raised brow and the barest hint of mischief.

That earned her a low, reluctant chuckle from him. He sighed again — he was doing that a lot around her lately — and folded slightly under the warmth of her presence.

“If I let you tend to me,” he said, “will you leave me be afterwards?”

Her grin curled at the edges, playful and knowing.

“Just a moment,” she said. “A moment of care, that’s all I ask.”

He shook his head with fond exasperation. “You promise to let me return to my duties?”

She huffed, folding her arms, but that grin remained. “If there’s a kiss between your duty and mine, then yes.”

Halsin couldn’t help himself. He reached up, cupping her cheek with a blood-smeared hand — unintentionally marking her — and leaned in. Their lips met, gentle and unrushed. She smiled against his mouth and leaned into him carefully, mindful of his wounds, her arms wrapping lightly around his waist.

The sigh she gave was worth more than sunlight through the canopy or spring after a long winter. He felt his body slowly begin to yield to her, to the moment, to her presence. The storm of battle receded just a little in her arms.

“Thank you,” she whispered, drawing back just enough to guide him down to sit on a nearby log. Halsin sank onto it with a groan, not of pain, but of surrender.

His body suddenly remembered its wounds. The ache flared, exhaustion rising in his bones like tidewater.

Celeste’s hands were already at the straps of his armor, deft and practiced. Her touch was efficient, gentle, reverent. She kissed his temple and passed him a waterskin, which he accepted without protest.

“Thank you,” he murmured, taking a long drink.

“It’s alright, my heart,” she replied in Elven, brushing his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead. Her touch, her voice, it rooted him. His eyes drifted shut as he leaned into her hand, forehead pressing softly against her belly.

She stepped in closer, cradling his head to her middle. Bowing slightly, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. For a long moment, she simply held him like that. Tike earth holding root. And he let her.

He wrapped one arm around her waist, grounding himself in her warmth. In the bond they shared. The certainty of it. The love, unspoken but steady, that had taken root between them.

Then came the pain — a sharp lance shooting up his arm and into his shoulder. He flinched and pulled back, glancing down.

The gash in his arm was deep and bleeding freely.

Celeste only smiled. Kissed his brow again, and without a word, knelt beside him. From somewhere — a pocket, the air, a spell? — she summoned a clean sponge and began to wash the wound with the same care she showed when gathering herbs: precise, respectful, unhurried.

Their eyes met briefly.

He found her smile there, soft and sure.

And for the first time since the fighting had ended, he felt himself begin to breathe.

Cuddling in a blanket fort for Celeste and Gale

Gale took the stairs two at a time, his stride invigorated by the long-awaited reprieve from the day’s endless obligations. The summit had been fruitful—if one measured such things in carefully worded agreements and lukewarm promises—but his thoughts had drifted more often than he would admit. To her. Always to her.

Theoretically, Celeste might have attended. She was more than welcome, even expected in certain circles by now. But, as ever, her wisdom surpassed his. She had simply smiled and excused herself from the affair, murmuring something about needing the evening, needing stillness. Gale hadn’t questioned it. He rarely did anymore. When Celeste needed solitude, she meant it.

The moment he stepped over the threshold of their tower, the familiar scent of lavender and ink greeted him—hers. It wound around him like an embrace, and his shoulders dropped in unconscious relief.

Boots abandoned, robe carelessly discarded across the banister, Gale made his way to the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of wine and two glasses with the practiced ease of a man who intended to make amends for his absence, however minor.

He fully expected to find her in the garden, curled in the hammock with a book and a summoned light dancing across the page. It was her favored ritual when alone: feet bare (as always), shoulders relaxed, her mind someplace far from politics and prophecy.

But she wasn’t there.

Nor was she in her study, not in her chair by the fire, not at her desk with quill in hand. His brow furrowed with mild curiosity, not concern. Not yet.

“Celeste?” he called, already halfway up the stairs again.

“Library!” came her voice, clear and untroubled.

Relief bloomed, and Gale allowed himself a quiet smile. He took the remaining stairs in strides, pausing only to knock politely—pure habit—before entering. He never waited for a response. She rarely minded.

What he found within the library, however, was not the Celeste he expected.

She had removed every cushion from the chaise and floor pillows from various corners of the room, gathering them in a great haphazard pile. A bedsheet floated above, corners suspended by mage hand, the interior illuminated by the delicate shimmer of dancing lights that glowed softly through the thin fabric.

Celeste was nestled underneath, sprawled on her stomach like some star-blessed scholar in exile. Book splayed open before her, a steaming cup of tea within reach, quill abandoned nearby.

Gale laughed, genuinely, helplessly delighted. “My love.”

“You’re early,” she replied, as if that were the only notable part of this entire tableau.

He set the wine and glasses on a nearby table and dropped to his knees without pretense, leaning in to kiss her. Her lips met his with a slow-burning warmth, and to his mild surprise, it carried the unmistakable pull of longing — soft, certain, yet unmistakable.

“You’re reading smut again, aren’t you?” he murmured against her mouth, brushing an errant strand of hair from her cheek with a tenderness that came so easily now. “For Wyll?”

“I am. The pile is still excruciatingly high,” she sighed, flopping onto her back in theatrical dismay, “and I want him to have a good selection when they return from Avernus. But unfortunately, this one lacks nuance.”

“Odd,” he teased, inspecting the kiss-warmed flush to her cheeks. “You didn’t seem entirely unimpressed.”

Celeste sat up, cross-legged now, and met his gaze with a warmth so radiant it knocked the breath from his lungs.

“Well, dear Archwizard,” she said in that voice he adored—mischief lined with affection, wit edged in devotion—“it has come to my attention that my dear husband spends far too much time away from home. I was, once again, left to suffer the unbearable fate of solitude.”

“A tragedy,” Gale said solemnly, lifting the sheet and crawling into her little sanctuary. She welcomed him at once, curling into his arms like a melody finding its harmony. Her lips pressed against his throat, slow and unhurried.

“Unfathomably cruel,” she agreed.

“You’ve certainly made the best of your dire fate,” he murmured, casting a glance around their makeshift tent. “Is this… a blanket fort?”

“A woman must do what she must,” Celeste replied, rubbing her nose gently against his beard.

Gale chuckled into her hair, brushing his lips against her temple. “Did you bring wine?”

“I was hoping you would,” she said, grinning.

He tilted his head and smirked. “Then it seems—despite my monstrous absences—I’ve done at least one thing right this evening.”

[rdekarios]

Perfection, as always 😭❤️

The Vanishing of Celeste Dekarios, Part 8 - Celeste

summary: A very sarcastic Tara is able to shed some literal light.

author's note: One of my beta-readers called this "angst gold". You are free to do with this information as you see it.

Theme song: Frederic Wiedmann - A Song of Love and Loss

content warning: mentioning of trauma, past abuse, torture, "torture magic" and blood

word count: 4,9 k

Excerpt below

Start at the beginning

AO3 Link

Somewhere between fevered delirium and the brittle edge of consciousness, Celeste dimly registered the return to her cell.

The pain in her legs whispered through her body like an echo from a distant shore —present, but dulled, no longer urgent. Her heels scraped over rough stone as her captors dragged her along the corridor, the sound oddly rhythmic, almost ritualistic. When they released her at last, her body hit the floor with a graceless thud, the cold stone jarring her ribs and spine. Her stomach twisted in protest, nausea rising sharp and sour, but she forced it down, lips pressed together in a trembling line. She did not make a sound.

The chains came next. Iron closed around her wrists with merciless familiarity, tighter than necessary — as usual.

She didn’t flinch.

Pain had long since ceased to be an event. It was a state of being now, ever-present and steady as a heartbeat. It sang in her bones, a low hum beneath every breath she took.

Celeste had not overcome it. She had merely accepted its presence, like one accepts the dark or the passing of seasons. Pain no longer shocked her, it simply was.

Whatever spell the mage had used on her, whatever profane unlocking he had conducted with his delicate words and brutal precision, it had left doors open in her mind that she could no longer close. The silence of the cell only gave the memories room to rush — merciless, vivid, and uninvited.

She had tried to ignore them. Even during the so-called interrogation, she had felt them, rising from the depths of her mind. And she had turned away, clinging to logic, to the present, to the sheer instinct to survive.

But now, there was nothing but time and darkness.

No voices to distract her. No battles to fight. No plans to make, no songs to sing, no arms to fall into when the weight of the world became too much. There was only the silence of stone, the cold breath of the earth, and the endless, yawning ache within her chest.

And so the memories came. Unbidden. Unrelenting.

Visions, not blurred by dream or dulled by distance, but sharp as daggers and drenched in crimson. Rituals steeped in blood, each one more elaborate than the last. Stone altars carved with runes of death, slick with the lifeblood of the innocent. She could feel it still — the warm spray against her chest, the copper tang on her tongue, the scent of it thick in her lungs like incense.

The perfume of murder. The perfume of devotion.

The center of her being.

And her voice rose above it all, clear and golden, melodic and devout. Chanting in perfect harmony, each note flawless, even as it drowned the desperate, dying screams beneath. There had been reverence in her tone. Awe. Worship. Power.

She saw it all.

Not as a nightmare. Not as delusion. But as truth.

Her truth.

The truth of a High Priestess of Bhaal. His daughter. Anointed in blood, crowned in death.

And she remembered every step that had led her to that unholy altar.

The long, slow descent into darkness — paved with purpose twisted into fanaticism, with sacrifice mistaken for sanctity. The fire that burned not in rebellion, but in devotion. Every lesson carved into her flesh. Every betrayal dressed as blessing. Every punishment meted out with a father’s “love” and a god’s cruel indifference.

Celeste was aware, now more than ever, that she had not simply become a monster.

She had been made one.

Shaped and shattered, forced into a mold never meant for her, one too jagged, too hollow, too cruel to hold any child. She had been broken down, piece by piece, and rebuilt in the image of a god who had never known love — only sacrifice, only silence, only death.

Those who should have protected her — priests, mentors, her blood kin — had instead offered her up to him. Had whispered dogma into her ears and left her starving for affection. Had praised her for every wound inflicted, every life taken, every plea for mercy unanswered.

And she had obeyed.

She had excelled.

Because what other choice did she have?

Even now, the memories came dressed in ceremony and praise. They shimmered like holy things. And that, more than anything, was what made them monstrous.

She had been holy. She had been worthy.

And she had bathed in blood to earn it.

Celeste curled in on herself on the cold floor, her chains clinking softly in the dark. Her body ached, but it was nothing compared to the hollow scream inside her — the scream that had no voice, only sorrow.

Gale could never know. No one could.

No one could ever know that the veil had lifted. That the fragments her mind had mercifully buried — the screams, the chants, the blood-drenched altars and hollowed prayers — had returned. That she remembered everything.

That the silence had been broken, and now the truth throbbed behind her eyes like an open wound.

Continue on AO3

[rdekarios]

How about the perfect night in Waterdeep, yes? Let's imagine how it would be...

[rdekarios]

The funniest part of romancing gale is knowing that mystra is most definitely watching your tav or Durge throwing it back on that man during his romance arc shenanigans. He’s actively doing magic during every romance scene, meaning that mystra is canonically duty bound to at least listen. Gale is essentially doing the fantasy equivalent of sending your ex a voice memo of you fucking your new partner in every romance scene. the scene channeling the weave? mystra’s there. astral projection glow in the dark fidget spinner bonefest? mystra’s there. the regular bed option? he summons the bed using magic, so mystra’s there too. scene where he takes you to the astral plane (aka mystra’s literal goddamn house)? mystra’s there. every time. she’s sitting in her little magical cuck chair in the corner watching her ex abuse victim boink his new (likely more age appropriate partner). and you know what? hell yeah. gale deserves a little bit of petty fuckery in his life. go off king

[rdekarios]

Tag Game: Pick Your Tropes

Tagged by @optimisticgrey ❤️ Thank you dear!

coffee shop or florist | au or fix-it | enemies to lovers or childhood friends | angst or fluff | love at first sight or pining | modern au or historical au | break up & make up or proposal & wedding | get together or established relationship | soulmates or unrequited | fake dating or secret dating | obvious pining or domestic fluff | hurt/comfort or crack | meet the parents or meet cute

Procrastinating from writing by choose writing tropes. Sure, Rachel 😜

Tagging anybody who wants to play 😁