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[thirsted]

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ASTARION

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[corporeity]

[ Gale shakes his head, swift and certain in this alone. ]

I’ll not be a martyr tonight, Astarion. [ Despite his months to year desiring that role. ] I’ll speak for us both. Calmly. Rationally. I do not need to lie, when I say that I wish we were innocent. I do, with the whole of my being. More than anything.

[ with surety, ]

For as long as I have had you in true, since you told me you loved me in the Spring, I have not wanted for death. I do not want for it now. I have parted from Mystra and Armand, who would both ask it of me. And I have chosen you. I will keep choosing you, every day I’m given the chance to do so.

[ Whether that means accusing him before the mob, facing a vampire lord and all-powerful goddess, or finding peace, at last, in Waterdeep. ]

[thirsted]

[ It's more than anyone else has ever given him. Will ever give him. So much, to have and to hold, that it stoppers Astarion's last protest, though the faint glint of it — that a self-nomination threatens to make the one offering he knows to be a sacrifice to be made in vain — holds in the shine of his gaze. ]

I loved you before then, [ he murmurs, as though from the depths of a dream. ]

Before I told you. When I look back, I think it must have been long before.

[ His hands settle on Gale's chest, over the fabric covering the mark on his skin. ]

I still love you. I will always love you. And only you, like this.

[ I have chosen you. ]

Kiss me, quick. And let's go see those devils in the town square.

[corporeity]

[ Always and only. More than anyone has ever — could ever give him. A goddess has many Chosen, but a Chosen may have only one goddess. Not so, with Astarion, who shares his all-consuming, undivided affection.

It does not erase the fear in his heart, but it does quiet it. A dull thud, at the back of his mind. A jittering in his human heart. ]

Before? [ an awed whisper, as if it’s some grand surprise. Maybe it always will be, for one cast aside. ] Gosh. I feel dizzy, just thinking of it.

[ The when of it all. Astarion looking at him and loving him and him not knowing it — ]

I love you, my dear.

[ Smiling small and soft. Words hushed as he leans in quick, though he’s unable to stop himself from lingering in the kiss, fingers threaded through his lovely curls. Straying, as always, to the pointed tip of one ear, when they part. ]

To the devils, then. It seems a magistrate’s work is never done.

[ His plan solidifies in his mind, in service of multiple aims. Those who accused themselves and each other poorly were not armed with evidence. They lacked conviction. They wanted for self-flagellation — not to protect something precious. They did not present whole of the data, only what damned them. Gale will not make the same mistakes. He couldn’t, when he thinks the world of the accused.

It is one thing to stand behind someone as they are named, and another entirely to place yourself beside them, sharing the glares and splitting the barbs that will invariably come.

Three will go to the gaol tonight. Gale would rather he takes a spot from Astarion and Dom both. Failing that, despite all his lofty talk of truth, the waters will soon be too muddied for his boyish pupil to be called forward. To spare one the cage, to spare another a crueler trial. These things, to Gale, are worth it. ]