[As Gale sinks into the abyssal dark that permeates Astarion's mind, he quickly realizes that it's not just Astarion's emotions he's feeling, but ones with which he's entirely too familiar, so akin to his own that they might as well be ghosts of his own past and present. That feeling lives in his chest now, clawing against his insides when doubt takes him; it consumed him as Mystra commanded he die for her forgiveness, leaving him resigned to a terrible fate; it emptied him as he lay on the floor of his study after opening a book he thought contained a missing piece of his beloved goddess, and found out otherwise.
It's the thought of being changed and broken, unrecognizable as despair devours every last shred of hope, leaving only a shell in its wake. It's a horrible, hungering thing, ravenous and uncaring.
Gale has faced such demons before; Astarion has buried his vulnerabilities for so long — he's had to do so to survive — that it occurs to the wizard that he might not know how to face them, how to keep moving until he's beyond them.
And that is where Gale can offer support. He gives his hand another squeeze, and retreats into his own mind to draw forth a memory.
For a moment, the world is only the two of them, connected by their hands and minds entwined; then, the sunrise emerges slowly from the darkness, pushing away the void as it creeps upon the horizon. There are reflections on the water, the dawn breaking across the Chionthar before them, the light reaching all the way to the roof of the Baldur's Mouth.
It might not be his happiest memory, but it's one Gale holds fondly, one he can recreate vividly within his own mind - and Astarion's. He speaks aloud, his voice barely above a whisper.]
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It's the thought of being changed and broken, unrecognizable as despair devours every last shred of hope, leaving only a shell in its wake. It's a horrible, hungering thing, ravenous and uncaring.
Gale has faced such demons before; Astarion has buried his vulnerabilities for so long — he's had to do so to survive — that it occurs to the wizard that he might not know how to face them, how to keep moving until he's beyond them.
And that is where Gale can offer support. He gives his hand another squeeze, and retreats into his own mind to draw forth a memory.
For a moment, the world is only the two of them, connected by their hands and minds entwined; then, the sunrise emerges slowly from the darkness, pushing away the void as it creeps upon the horizon. There are reflections on the water, the dawn breaking across the Chionthar before them, the light reaching all the way to the roof of the Baldur's Mouth.
It might not be his happiest memory, but it's one Gale holds fondly, one he can recreate vividly within his own mind - and Astarion's. He speaks aloud, his voice barely above a whisper.]
Do you see the light, my love?