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"A hand? Anyone?"
This apprehensive tone had become a habit. Perhaps it was appropriate, as it was hard to compare if present circumstances were more dire than the first time he'd shouted those words a tenday prior. Gale had once again found himself caught in a transitory physical state. The last time - between the corporeal and the planar, successfully having transposed his body but a good yank had proved necessary to get unjammed from the weave fabric he'd become entangled in. This time - between standing sure-footed on solid ground and in a freefall from high enough to shatter a golem like a glass ornament.
His arms ached, his fingertips screamed, his legs dangled. He could swing them, carefree as a boy on monkey bars, if he liked. He'd tried and tried to pull himself up but there was nothing to gain any purchase on, he was hanging freely over a completely sheer edge. Gale's life in his own hands, as was mage-typical but this time demanding peak performance from his weakest attribute.
"Hello? I need some assistance down here!"
Still so unhurried despite the fear souring his stomach. Of course, there was the added humiliation of having err'd in a manner most mundane. Many a novice has launched themselves across the schoolyard casting thunderwave, and even though he was no longer an apprentice, and even though he was upcasting, and even though he had cast it hundreds of times, and even though he was once Mystra's Chosen, ensuring one stood on stable ground was a prerequisite to that particular spell's success. As was minding strategic proximity to a Sussur Tree both before, during, and after a planned casting. And he hadn't done that, so now the wizard hanged. The kaboom of failure still ringing in his ears.
A downy Sussur petal floated from high above as Gale contemplated. He could only watch it come, fall with all the grace of any prima ballerina, twirling and dipping into a final flourishing arabesque on his filthy cheek. He'd laugh if his chest wasn't burning. As awful as having the wind knocked from your lungs was, having them stretched so thin you couldn't fully draw breath appeared underrated in the pantheon of bodily anguishes.
"Not sure how much longer I can hold on for! Please help!"
He could scarcely hear his own call over the clamor of conflict above. In this harrowing state of helpless suspension between life and death, whose thrills did nothing to slow his ever-churning mind, Gale had no idea how much time was passing. It didn't feel long enough for someone to be impressed with him, but simultaneously like forever.
It might be better if he fell to his death unnoticed, he supposed. Plummeted like a stone, pitifully unable to save himself with the magic he'd spent his life crafting. Of course, the matter of the orb meant he wasn't allowed to juice even this fantasy for whatever drops of comfort could be suckled. To indulge in this despondency would mean to accepting he'd condemn innocents to arcane obliteration, and he felt his self-loathing reach new depths whenever he teased himself with the thought. So in a pivot of his musings, when he felt his fingers at last beginning to slip through the dirt, Gale spared a passing grateful thought to Withers. Unmaker of big mistakes.
As Gale closed his eyes and pondered exactly how much of his viscera would need to be recovered for Withers to fix him, and if anyone would bother, he saw a flash of the face of a battle-worn woman, felt the pull of their strong and sure grip, and then Gale was on his belly in the dirt. Yanked hand-first out of his own mess once again.
"Up you go! Sorry to leave you hanging, city boy." And by the same hand as a tenday ago, no less.
Celia released his arms and knelt next to him, putting a hand on his back. "Are you alright Gale?"
He heaved his first needy breathfuls and flexed the aching soreness in his hands, but hurried a "oh never better" to his barbarian companion while he recovered.
"Good!" Celia smiled and helped him to his feet, her eyes never dropping vigilance as their battle came to an end just paces away. "Because we're getting out of here."
Celia, plainly put, had a lot of energy. She had naturally taken the role of "leader" without much a question, somehow managing their motley crew of personalities into tenuous deference. So while everyone else was quiet in various states of rest and exhaustion, it was Celia who approached her companion with her hands behind her back and an affable "Hello Gale" on offer.
"Good evening, Celia." Gale felt a twinge of unease at the lilt in her voice, knowing she was entering this conversation with a caution he hadn't seen in her yet. Questioning, likely. He nodded as she motioned to sit beside him by the fire. "What's on your mind?"
"Sooo," Celia started, drawing out the syllable. "How are we feeling after today's most recent 'near death experience'?" She leaned into Gale's space beside him as he whittled a block of cheese into something like shreds next to the simmering cookpot.
"Well, the perils of adventure, they do test the mettle of the soul." Gale smiled with a quickly summoned playful mischief. "But I'm glad not to be a puddle at the bottom of the Underdark. And since I have failed to properly say so until now, thank you, once again, for coming to my rescue. I'd be lost twice over now without your generous hand."
Softness crept into Celia's expression for a long moment as she stumbled in Gale's sincerity. Though they'd all known each other for a short time, he was the only one that had this effect on her. Celia tried not to think too hard about it yet.
"Of course! Always happy to help a friend in need." She tried to regroup conversationally, allowing the warm moment to hang before focusing on her intended topic.
"Especially deceptively noodle-armed wizards." Celia pinched Gale's bicep, kneading the muscle hard enough to tease him.
Gale jumped in his seat, the orb flashing brightly through the thick purple velvet as he spun towards her, cheeks just starting to redden. "Is a man not entitled to a little personal space and privacy?"
"I've seen you, Gale. Gods know we've all seen each other near naked as the day we were born at this point." Celia grinned, poking his abdomen and filing his ticklish flinch away for later reference. "You looked strong enough but today's events suggest that isn't the case. You're either built like a show pony, or it's an illusion."
Gale's cheeks burned now as he met her gaze with indignance. "While I am no stranger to vanity, the toils of arcane mastery are greater than your estimations. A wizard need only dedicate themselves to their art to relegate all bodily corpulence a nonissue."
"A wizard needs to do what keeps him alive." Celia leveled at him, smile breezy as she sat back. "I need you, Gale, to stay here with us. Not get lost forever in a bottomless hole."
Gale cast his gaze toward the simmering stew, sighing to calm himself. She had come with earnest concern about his strength, not his physicality. He ate a few shreds of cheese as the fire crackled through the quiet and offered Celia the bowl. "What have you come to suggest?"
She accepted the cheese, intoning with gentle sincerity, "I want you to workout with me."
Gale bobbed his head thoughtfully. "Rather reasonable request."
"If you had been able to pull yourself up, you wouldn't have needed anyone to come to your rescue." Celia bumped his shoulder. "Not that I mind."
"Under most circumstances, I would have more objections. This will cut into my reading time considerably. But I had quite a lot of time to consider my priorities while I was hanging around." He bumped her shoulder back, meeting her eyes again with a small smile. "It felt awful, you know."
"I know." Celia nodded. "But I think we can make sure that doesn't happen again."
She offered him a hand and encouraging smile, Gale studied it before accepting it in his own. Roughened, callouses dotted her hand much like her freckles, but soft and sure. It seemed to fit well in his own, although Gale supposed that feeling might just be a quality of good leadership. And tried not to think more about it.
"We'll start first thing in the morning, city boy."
Celia monitored Gale's prescribed reps in silence, lounging on her side nearby. He'd never be able to keep to any of the other regimens in camp, so she stayed with him each morning to talk and mark progress. Things always changed quickly in the beginning and she wanted their wizard in optimal physical condition as efficiently as possible. Who knew how much time they had, after all?
Their first goal was simple - Gale needed to do reliable pullups. The next time he was dangling over a ledge, he needed to be able to pull himself back up. He couldn't do it under pressure, and he couldn't do it when Celia evaluated him, but the achievability of this goal kept them optimistic.
Celia smiled watching his pushup form, self-satisfied with her own insight that he'd be enough of a fast learner to not need much correction. She was admiring how the sweat beaded on his bare shoulders when a thought struck her, "You know who you remind me of?"
"Your skinny, illiterate cousin that died young in a fatal quipper excursion?" Gale found the edge in his voice unappealing as soon as he tasted it. Mornings and calisthenics, neither had ever done much for his mood.
Celia bowled past his response, wagging a finger his direction. "Goose." Her face blazed with the same certainty and conviction in her tone.
"Did Goose... Die young, tragically and preventably?"
"No, Goose is part of a fable where I'm from."
Gale's face lifted a little, "Fables call to mind both dashing, roguish heroes and didactic figures of folly. Dare I to hope I invoke the former?" Gale paused at the height of his push to look over at her, tossing his curtain of hair out of his eyes.
Celia laughed openly, propping her chin on her palm, "You're either depending on the day, but don't get too ahead of yourself, pretty boy." She winked.
Celia sat up then, starting her story with loud, unabated enthusiasm while her audience was captive. "Now Goose, also known by his actual name Rockput, was the biggest, scariest looking rothé in the herd. All he'd have to do is look at another bull or a wolf and they'd back right down."
"But Goose was kind of lazy, he liked to rest on his laurels, so when the other rothé would ask him for help he would say he already had a job to do. And some of them were okay with that and some of them were annoyed, but everyone mostly let it go and never gave him too much fuss. They were all okay going along to get along, you know?"
"Might makes right." Gale conferred, his rhythm growing unsteady as his arms tired.
"Funny you should say that! One day, Goose got into a serious tangle. A real fight with another animal. He had no true warrior's spirit because he'd never actually had to fight before. His opponent was a much smaller beast he should've been able to stomp out, but it wouldn't back down. And so, his humiliating loss became legendary."
Gale's face fell at the unflattering comparison Celia was painting him into. His body dropped into a rest, having completed his sets. "So he got his name because he lost to a goose?"
"Oh no, it was a wolverine."
Gale shook his head, still breathing deeply. He raised an open palmed hand in emphasis, annoyed, "Then why was he called Goose?"
"Because he honked like one when he got bit on the hoof!" Celia beamed, then opened her mouth wide and honked at him with startling accuracy. Gale laughed harder than she'd ever seen, burying his head in his crossed arms on the ground. Everyone from home had long mastered the honk, but Celia loved how it always made outsiders smile.
"The wolverine only got off him because Pinebottoms charged the both of them. Then, after that, Goose had to get his act together to fight his way out of the shadows of shame."
From his place on the ground, Gale's tired smile flinched off his face as quick as it came. "Of course... As do I, I suppose. That being the point of your lesson."
"Listen, it's not a lesson, and the point of the story is that life has a way of humbling you the moment you think you're so big that you can't be made small. I thought that might sound familiar to you."
Celia offered Gale her hand, positively sunny. "You are not just your best asset. You don't have just one purpose."
Gale took her hand and let her pull him up, as was becoming comfortable. "You're really quite good for a pep talk, Celia."
"And you can be more than just a city boy that specializes in fancy words." She tapped the mark of the orb in the center of his chest.
Gale scoffed, covering the orb as though immodest, "The day I hang up my wizard hat is the day Cania thaws out, but I'll take your point to heart."
"I would never want you to! But I'm still going to call you Goose meanwhile."
So stood the agreement, every morning had a routine. Gale's distaste for the adjustment had ebbed into appreciation. More than just physical fitness was developing. Stories, personal histories, broader knowledge of Faerun. There was a veritable wealth to share between the two of them Gale was not sure he would have discovered had they spent less time together.
It had become quality time. They looked forward to it, this gracious stability in times otherwise tumultuous.
Everyone was at their limit. Fighting half-blind every step of the way through the darkness to cross the threshold of Last Light Inn, only for the fight to continue as they were interrogated by a living legend. Stepping over the dead like mudded cobble, as though they hadn't been known to them. Friends, even. Nobody needed to talk for there to be consensus, this had been the longest day of the journey.
Camp came together with all the carefulness of a thrown brick as everyone bedded down. Shadows licking at the edges of their minds making them wake in fits, even if their bodies were too exhausted to fend off sleep.
Despite it, when what amounted to morning arrived, it was Gale who woke Celia with a gentle tap on the shoulder. Daily discipline was paramount. While Gale was well-acquainted, scholarly rigor required nothing less than the tenacity to practice every single day, this had become about more than just him.
The rivers of change had flowed between the two of them. He made her heart pound, she made his heart stop. They had saved one another's hearts from annihilation at least a dozen times even between them. They'd entrusted each other with glimpses of the truth in their hearts with the weave's unfettered connection. The obvious had gone all but stated and so she still smiled through the weakness and bleariness up at him as she rose to her feet. Right now, she felt she'd always be happy to see him.
Stumbling a little, they found a suitable tree branch and Celia hopped up to grab it. Straightening her form, she did a single pullup and then dropped to her feet.
"Not to be as obvious as spots on a horse, but this place is awful. I can feel it leeching the energy out of me. Let's see what you've got left in you, Goose." Celia stepped back and gestured, watching Gale wring his hands in anticipation.
He reached up to grab the branch, relaxed his legs as he dangled, and pulled. And through all the wobbles and aches and exhaustion - today, his chin rose to meet the branch.
Gale lowered to the ground and his smile hadn't yet reached his eyes when his stomach tumbled into his sternum.
"You did it!"
His heart froze with fear and then soared in embrace - Gale was aloft. Butterfly wings tickled his ribcage gelatinous. Their tiny reverberations carried through his body, shaking from laughter, from delight. From whatever magic makes it possible for a man his age to still be able to feel this way.
Celia snuggled into Gale, twirling him in her arms with abandon. Yesterday may have been awful, but that only made the joy of this moment grander. Pride bubbled through her with all the sparkle of champagne. Even if they were tired this proved they were still getting stronger. They were getting closer to a cure, Gale would be safer now, she never wanted to let him go, his crow's feet gave her heart palpitations, and wow somehow he smelled amazing-
The flush on her cheeks felt foreign as Celia set him down, unwrapping her arms slowly. She straightened and cleared her throat, sheepishly meeting his eyes as she assumed a more platonic countenance. Should that still be what they were.
"I'm so relieved! You know, now that you can finally pull your own weight and all." She moved slower than usual, bumping him gently on the shoulder with her fist.
Gale reached out, taking her fist in his hand. Celia's fingers half unfurled by reflex as she stood still, watching him open her hand the rest of the way to lace their fingers together. He lifted their joined hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles. "Thank you Celia."
It was overwhelming, the splendid comfort of him. Bashfulness still evident on her cheeks, even as that melted away Celia found she was in a rare moment where she didn't have anything to say.
"As of late, I have rightly been made to feel small by life." Gale cupped her face with his hand, thumb resting on the apple of her cheek.
Celia turned her head and placed a kiss to his palm, covering his hand with hers. Matching his slow tenderness. Crossing this bridge at last made the world grow still, made her want to take her time. "Haven't we all?" she breathed into his skin, sincere.
"But nothing has ever humbled me as much as how you make me feel."
Gale's words bloomed inside Celia, growing wild in a lush flood of warmth.
Endemic. Irreversible.