Chapter Text
The tavern she follows Gale into is populated, but not crowded; Tara rides on her shoulders, a comfort against the unfamiliar. She’d met them at the gates and insisted they get food elsewhere, the tower ‘not yet ready to host’—as though Ferris and Gale were unused to roughing it. Ferris had tried to sneak a glimpse at the inside of the tower when they dropped off their things, but the entryway held a simple wooden bench and some pegs on which there were some coats. The door was quickly closed in her face, the scent of magic thick and cloying and very much Gale. It was clear the enchantment had been sitting for a while, but it was assuredly him.
She’d stayed close to Tara and Gale as they’d made their way down winding streets and side roads, eyes tracking the shapes of buildings, the names on signs in case she got lost; she needn’t have worried, because the tavern was not down by the docks as she’d feared, with all its twists and turns— it was much closer, perhaps seven streets away. She’d be more sure if she knew what was and was not considered a ‘street’ here, some of them passing for alleys or cut-throughs in her opinion.
Prior to Baldur’s Gate, she’d only ever lived in a place with two ‘streets’, one going vaguely north-south and the other going roughly east-west. There was another path, worn from years of foot traffic, but it was not a road.
Learning what did and did not constitute a proper street had been one of her roommate’s earliest jobs, along with teaching her what was and was not proper clothing for a city.
Ferris feels a bit shabby on the tail of her memories, especially because the people of Waterdeep dress much more richly and heavily than the people at the Gate; something about the fabric, likely because of the lingering chill once the sun sinks low. She wishes she’d been wearing her coat, then decides it’s best that she not have it on at all with how battered and worn it is.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one," she murmurs as she ducks inside under Gale’s arm where he holds open the door. “A bard, a tressym, and a mage walk into a bar—“
“I haven’t heard that one, but I will stop you.” Tara lofts herself from Ferris’ shoulders, hopping up to Gale’s; her claws briefly dig in as she weighs, measures, judges the leap. “It sounds like a dreadful joke, if there is a punchline.”
Gale pulls out a chair for her, and she falls into it gratefully. She’s not in her armor, not anymore, and the sprawl is much easier. Her worn, plain clothing stands out, but there is little she can do about it at this moment. Maybe, at some point, she can think about getting new lengths of cloth and making herself something nicer, but right now all she can think about is how nice it would be to lay her head down on the table and sleep.
“None of that,” Gale flicks her forehead and she startles back to full alertness, rubbing her palm against the center of her brow to soothe the sting as she scowls up at him. “You can sleep once we’re home.”
Home.
How I love to share that word with you.
It’s such an odd thing to feel queasy about, the word ‘home’. It must show in her eyes, and Gale gives her shoulder a pat. “Ah, my wording was poor— to the tower, my tower, which I hope you will think of as home for the duration of your stay.”
He steps away quickly, and Tara jumps down to sit off to the side, tail flicking as she watches him go. “He means well,” she examines a paw, as though there would be even a hair out of place. “Do try to remember that.”
“I know, Tara. He has only ever had our best interests in mind, even at detriment to himself.” She remembers the beat of his heart and the pull of the Weave, the way his hand lay over hers as he looked up at her on his knees and poured his follies at her feet.
In the middle of the goblin camp.
While they were being attacked.
“His timing could use work.”
It earns her a scoff. “That I would agree with. Mr. Dekarios has never mastered the art of tactful timing.”
“Look at you two, bonding.” Gale returns with two bowls of a rich stew, a plate of fish, and what looks like half a loaf of crusty bread under his arm. “Warms my heart.”
“We’re talking about you— and no, before you ask, not good things.” Ferris helps him set everything down, careful not to spill and dirty her shirt any more than it already is. There’s a stain she isn’t sure about, it could be blood or clay. “What is this?”
“Ah,” his chair scrapes across stone as he scoots it in, watching Ferris stir the stew and poke through chunks of potato. He passes her a thick piece of bread, delight clear in his eyes. “You’ve probably never had this before- it’s good, I promise.”
It has been a long while since she last ate something that someone other than Gale prepared; half their party had been able to burn water, and the rest of them were only somewhat capable. Ferris had been in the ‘capable but indifferent’ category, more likely to grab a handful of berries off a bush or pull ramps from the ground and make do; she and Halsin often exchanged discovered delicacies on the path. Part of her wants to protest, to question, but he looks so expectant that all she can do is bring a spoonful of the stuff to her mouth and hope it won’t burn her tongue. There were definitely potato pieces and, as she chews, clams. It’s peppery, which she doesn’t mind, and there’s onion too.
“Well?”
“I don’t know, it’s strange.” She swirls her spoon around again, looking for what she thought was a clam. “I’m not used to soup being creamy.”
“Here, dip some bread in,” he passes her a chunk of bread, already torn off and sized for dipping despite her own bread resting near her hand. “It’s a chowder. This is clam chowder, specifically, but there are other kinds.”
Tara sets in on the fish, ignoring Gale as he begins to explain the ingredients involved in various chowders as Ferris continues to eat, nodding occasionally as Gale continues to pass her chunks of his own bread.
“Your chowder will get cold if you keep talking instead of eating,” Tara finally chides. It startles Gale into stopping his explanation of the two different types of clam chowder (‘tomato based, if you can believe’). Ferris passes him her bread, takes the heel of the other from his hand and dunks it into the remainder of her soup.
“Yes, well. It seemed necessary to reassure— not that you’re a picky eater, Ferris, but you seemed like you weren’t too keen on strange food, and I thought explaining would help.” A skin has formed over his chowder and he stirs it back in without hesitation, letting the crust of the bread soak. “My apologies, if I was boring you.”
Ferris slumps in her chair a little, poking her bread down with her spoon. “It’s not that I wasn’t keen…it’s strange to eat something that you didn’t make, that’s all.”
Gale lights up and she knows she’s said the right thing— it’s a relief, and she forces her back to straighten as he eats, a pleased smile on his face the entire time. She manages to finish her bread, but the soup itself is far richer than she’s used to and she pushes her bowl across the table toward Gale.
“Aren’t you hungry? We’ve been on the road for ages, a good meal will do you a service.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve eaten my fill, don’t worry. It’s far richer than I thought.”
He looks skeptical but takes her bowl regardless; she knows that he’s been trying to get her to eat more on the road up The Sword Coast, knows that she’d worried him those first days where all she did was sleep. It was as though all her emotions, every single one, had been used up entirely. It was impossible to feel, so she slept instead.
Even if she didn’t feel like eating or drinking, Ferris did so just to see the relief on Gale’s face. He didn’t deserve to suffer because she couldn’t feel anymore.
“Are you ready to go?”
His voice pulls her out of her musing and she nods, pushing back from the table and wincing at how loud the chair sounds. “Lead on, wizard.”
He bows for show and she rolls her eyes, a familiar dance at this point. It’s a short walk but the night has gotten colder; when Ferris pulls at her sleeves it exposes her shoulders, and when she shrugs her shirt back into place it makes her hands ache, bones remembering old injuries even if they’d long since healed perfectly.
“Why do you call it a tower?”
It’s been bothering her since she’d seen what her roommate would have called a ‘townhouse’, sandwiched in its neat, tidy row. She hadn’t bothered looking up to see more than the few feet above her head while at the door, but now as they walked down the road she felt much smaller.
“Wizards live in towers,” he said simply, hand hovering over the knob. “It’s mostly stone.”
True, she thought. It was a strange house, built from stone and wood that stacked up impossibly high and touched shoulder-to-shoulder with the others in the set. Stable, old, and reliable. Likely crusted with salt behind. In his defense, it did look much like storybook tower if you ignored the others, a fortress against the water.
It was probably far less drafty than a storybook tower.
“This place was not cheap.”
Gale cannot hide his smile; one of the things everyone grasped early on was Ferris’ knowledge of coin as a concept…but not as something traded. It was an assumption, a gamble, but it amused him and she counted the quirk of his lips as a victory. “Perhaps.”
“Hmm.”
She doesn’t get a chance to do more than make a noise in response because Gale swings open the door and spreads his arms as though he is introducing her to the grandest spectacle she’s ever seen. “Welcome to Waterdeep.”
“Thank you for having me,” she curtsies and steps inside.
The entry is unremarkable, as she had seen before dinner, and there’s a few steps up into a short hallway where there’s what looks like a small storage room across from the open door of the kitchen. It’s dark, but her eyes are sharp and she sees that the ceilings are tall and the kitchen well appointed. There’s a garden window that looks out onto…something, and the steps down into the room are rough-hewn stone.
“The lower levels of the house are not as glorious as the rest. The room across the way was formerly the housekeeper’s quarters, but I don’t maintain any staff. It’s just me and Tara, so there’s no need. My own hands and mind are more than capable of keeping— oh, well now it’s you and me and Tara, I suppose.” Gale sends lights dancing around the kitchen, lighting all the nooks and crannies. “You know how I enjoy cooking.”
“I do,” she makes to step down and explore, but a hand at her lower back startles her into motion and up the narrow, rickety stairs. “Gale—“
“Here you’ll find a more formal sitting room and dining area,” he removes his hand quickly and she breathes out through her nose; Wyll had once compared her to a horse or a dog, the way she released tension and held breaths, and it’s apt enough. “If you want to entertain, this would be the place for it.”
She’s not sure who she would be entertaining, but Ferris does not mention that. There’s another set of steps and a sort of half-landing with double doors, and she makes a motion toward it. Gale’s eyes light up.
“Ah, perhaps we save that for tomorrow, when the lighting is better.”
She knows without asking that it’s the library.
This time, he doesn’t touch her— Gale gestures broadly to yet another set of stairs and Ferris snorts out a laugh. “No wonder your knees protests.”
He follows her closely, Tara at their their heels. “There’s a washroom through there,” he tips his head at a door across from the one they’ve arrived at, which he opens with some aplomb. “And this will be your room, as long as you have need of it. Of course the rest of the tower is open to you as well.”
The sight shouldn’t make her heart stop but it does because, for the first time in her life, Ferris has a room. Not a shared room, one all her own. With a door that locks. It’s a novelty, a privilege, a luxury, and Gale had waved away the awe with a casual hand.
She has never in her life had this level of privacy. She has either slept under the stars in a field, in a close-quarters camp, an old hall, or a shared room.
She does not like to think about the room with the lush bed and nothing else, the room with the door that locked from the outside.
“There’s no balcony, which I apologize for, but the view from the windows is still spectacular and the window seat should be quite cozy— Ferris, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she croaks out. “It’s a lot. I’m so sorry.”
She is not sure what she expected; Gale is nothing like the cruel men she’s known before, yet part of her was so sure there would be a rug pulled from under her the second the front door closed.
Gale, blessedly, catches on quickly. “Well, it’s been a very long day. Series of days, rather. Perhaps we should call it a night?”
“Perhaps we should.”
There’s no expectation, you’re alright. She swallows back the tears that threaten to gather, and hates the familiar taste in the back of her throat. His eyes are dark, but incredibly kind.
“Well, all of your things are already tucked away, feel free to arrange any furniture to your liking. I wasn’t quite sure how one stores armor, so there’s a dress mannequin, which hopefully doesn’t startle you, I didn’t think about that— anyway, give me a shout if you need anything, I’m just upstairs. Or you could send a message, I suppose. That was always your specialty.”
“Thank you, I will.” She lingers in the doorway, uncertain. “Gale—“
“Goodnight, Songbird.” The touch to her shoulder is light, not a hold or a caress, but a fleeting warmth, a reminder that he is there if she needs him and nothing more. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
The stairs creak in protest as he makes his way up, dancing lights leaving her in the darkness of the landing. She casts her own, scattering them into the room as she surveys. The door locks from the inside, as she’d thought. They are high enough up that there’s no chance of anyone looking into the window and Ferris strips of her clothes in a rush, glad to be out of them; her skin feels too tight, but there’s nothing she can do about that. Investigating the washroom is too much of a chore, but there’s a basin and pitcher that fills with water when she pours it— cleverly enchanted and, from the smell of it, by Gale’s hand. She doesn’t bother heating it, choosing to scrub herself down with an icy rag before remembering that she has nothing to sleep in.
She kicks her violin case under the bed, out of sight and perhaps more viscously than she should have as she makes her way to the wardrobe, hoping that something inside will serve. If she’s lucky, Gale hadn’t emptied it and had done what he usually did when it came to ‘cleaning’: shove everything out of sight and pray for the best until he had more time.
Blessedly, there’s an assortment of old clothes and, other than smelling a little musty, they seem completely fine. Ferris runs her hand over the plainer under clothes, finding a kirtle worn soft with time and use, tugging it off the hanger and over her body. It would be a long shirt on Gale, so it ends up as a proper dress on her; her shoulders are narrower than the man it was made for, and as she pokes through things the neck gapes and slips off her shoulder. She shrugs it back into place over and over until she’s satisfied her curiosity…and neatly folded all the clothes he’d shoved at the bottom of the wardrobe, creating her own inventory and sorting method beyond ‘pile’.
The bed is large and inviting, and she crawls under the covers.
Ferris tries not to think about the last time she lay in a bed this nice.
She chokes on a scream as she wakes, frozen for a horrifying moment on the edge of a nightmare, shadows that linger at the corners of her vision as her limbs unlock and she sits up to curl over her knees. If she can control her breathing, she’ll be fine, if she can just—
The door is locked. The door is locked and no one here would hurt you. The door is locked, you’re alright—
Ferris squeezes her eyes shut and presses her forehead against her knees, willing the shadows away; they creep closer out of spite, and she realizes she is crying when her breath hitches and aches in her throat.
You’re alright.
She whispers more than sings a lullaby to herself, an attempt to calm her breathing and steady her mind— then the floorboards creak and she bites her tongue hard enough that copper floods her mouth.
“Miss Ferris? We heard you cry out, are you alright?” A light scratch at the door frame, and a gentle voice. When she does not immediately answer, Tara continues. “Mister Dekarios was worried, so he sent me to check on you. Why he didn’t come himself is anyone’s guess—“
“I’m fine,” she croaks, pinching her arm and sending healing magic through it. Her mouth fills with cloying jasmine for a moment before it fades. “Just a nightmare.”
“I see.” Tara sounds skeptical, and Ferris knows the conversation is not over from her tone. “May I come in?”
“The door is locked.”
She knows that both Gale and Tara could unlock any door they wished with magic, and she steels herself against that knowledge, against the click of a lock. The illusion of safety, ruined on her first night.
“Would you be so kind as to unlock it, then?” There’s an amount of exasperation in her voice. “Mister Dekarios has instructed me that your door is only to be unlocked by your hand, excluding emergencies.”
Ferris wonders what constitutes an emergency, but obediently pads over to the door. The heavy bolt slides with a rasp, and she opens it just enough that Tara can slip inside; she hesitates to bolt it again, but Tara stretches out lazily and peers up at her. “Go on. I am perfectly capable of getting in and out of this room without opposable thumbs.”
It thunks back into place and Ferris feels slightly better. “I told you, it was just a nightmare. It’s been some time since I’ve slept alone.”
“Hmm.” Tara hops up onto the bed.
“Not like that,” she sits down with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. “Just…I’m used to there being people around. Being able to hear someone snore a few feet away, or someone muttering in their sleep.”
“You could open the window for the noise of the sea,” Tara suggests; Ferris shivers and she makes a knowing ‘ah’ as she looks her up and down, noting the thin kirtle. “Cold?”
“Almost always.”
Another duvet drops onto the bed, the tang of magic fading as quickly as it came. It’s citrus-bright, and Ferris likes the way flashes across her senses, pleasing and sweet; there’s something familiar in it, a note of spice that echoes in Gale’s magic too. She wonders who it originated in first, the tressym or the boy. “Easily solved.”
“Oh!” She unfolds the fabric carefully, enjoying the weight of it. It’s slightly warm in places, and she looks over at Tara. “Did you warm it?”
“Hmm?” The tressym, in the process of cracking the window, glances back. “Oh, no it’s the spare at the foot of Mister Dekarios’ bed. The others would need to be aired out.”
Ferris tries not to think about that too closely as she spreads it out over her legs, pulling it up as she burrows down; the added layer of weight and warmth feels safe, as well as the familiar smells of magic and Gale. She sighs, snuggling deeper. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” Tara glides the short distance back to the bed, circling once before she curls against Ferris’ side facing the door. “Is this alright?”
“Yes, it’s fine.” One of Tara’s ears flicks, but she says nothing. There is silence, save for the sound of the ocean, before Ferris works up the courage to ask the question that lingers in her mind. “You don’t mind me staying here, right?”
“I—pardon?”
Ferris closes her eyes. “I show up on the coattails of your wizard, quite suddenly, to live in your home. You’ve been kind, but surely it bothers you; I’m a burden, an inconvenience at best, and you didn’t ask for any of it.”
Tara’s ears flatten. “You are most assuredly not a burden, Miss Ferris, nor are you an inconvenience. Mister Dekarios is free to invite whomever he pleases to stay in his home, for whatever reason he chooses. ‘On his coattails’, really—as though you don’t have your own merit. I’ll not stand for that kind of talk.”
A month ago she was covered in blood at the top of the city of Baldur’s Gate. Now, Ferris is tucked into bed getting lectured about self-esteem by a tressym that is likely older than she is.
Life is strange, she thinks.
“So no,” Tara finishes. “It does not bother me. You seem a good sort, you don’t wish Mister Dekarios harm, and he is glad to have you here.”
“You don’t mind checking in on girls having nightmares?”
The tressym goes quiet for a moment. “He asked me to do this, said he could not come himself.” Clearly there had been a conversation that Tara is not letting her know the details of. “I do not know you, Miss Ferris, but I would like to. Someday, when you are ready and when whatever haunts the shadows no longer frightens you, I hope you’ll consider me enough of a friend to tell me.”
Two hot tears slide from her closed eyes and when she blinks them open, Ferris feels more spill over. “I can’t promise that I’ll tell you,” she breathes. “But yes, I would like to be your friend.”
“Fair enough,” Tara purrs, standing with an arch of her back that makes her wings stretch and quiver before she tucks them back in and hops onto Ferris’ stomach, settling down once more. “I think our wizard would like that very much.”
Our wizard.
The sound of the sea echoes softly back through the streets and in through her window, cracked to let in as little as little cold air as possible. Waves crash against stone and cliff, and it begins to lull Ferris back to sleep; between the water, her exhaustion, and a purring tressym, she can feel it overtaking her again.
“I think he would, too,” she murmurs, warm and pleased. The duvet smells of lavender and books, and she falls asleep imagining happiness.
It’s not that she’s been avoiding Gale and Tara, after those first hesitant days—it’s just that it’s been hard to pull herself out of bed the last month. She hears them come and go, and makes enough appearances that no one thinks to question her absence; when she begs exhaustion they believe her. Waterdeep stretches out beneath her window, Gale makes bread each week, a tentative schedule shapes itself around her whether she wants it to or not.
“You can go anywhere in the tower,” he tells her as he makes tea, not at all surprised to see her come down in her makeshift nightdress. He’s quick to glance away when it slips a bit too low, and she would thank him for it if the words didn’t choke her. “And I do mean anywhere, feel free to explore. There’s an attic as well, accessed through a hatch in my bedroom, but do be careful up there. I cannot guarantee safety, and there may be spiders.”
She smiles and nods, and accepts the tea as he passes it to her. Gale, dressed a touch more formally than she’s used to, leaves shortly after and Ferris is left to her own devices.
There’s a stack of books on the table in the sitting room, and she takes the thickest one before retreating back to her room. She doesn’t come out again until dinner, pulling on what looks like a housecoat that she ties like a robe.
Days fade into nights into days again, and the only one that remains stagnant is her.
She’s overwhelmed, she’s embarrassed, and she cannot bring herself to wear something of Gale’s out of the tower. It’s clear from her avid people watching via her bedroom window that her traveling clothes will not serve, and she has nothing else.
That, and she has no idea what to do, where she would even go.
Presented with the entirety of the world, on her own terms at last, and she’s frozen into indecision.
Unfortunately, life decides that enough is enough, and comes to call.
Gale knocks at her door, clears his throat. “Ferris? I am not one to give orders, nor do I wish to force anything upon you, but it can be avoided no longer— my dear mother is coming to lunch and wishes for your presence.”
She opens the door, one of his old kirtles pooling too-large on her shoulders and tied off at the bottom to bring it to her knees. Ferris turns her head away, not wanting him to see her shame. “Alright.”
“Just wear whatever you have that’s best, I will try to make this lunch as painless as possible. She’s a lovely woman, but I understand that she can also overwhelm the unsuspecting. But she’s been asking after you, of course, and I’ve done my best to delay but she had decided that the time has come for you to become acquainted.”
Tara weaves her way between Ferris’ bare legs, not entering her room but also clearly surveying; Gale’s careful spy, who will no doubt report on her rumpled bed, her armor on the low chair in the corner rather than on the mannequin he’d so graciously left for that intended purpose.
“I—“ she starts, hesitates, falls silent. It’s her own fault she doesn’t have any clothes, her own idiocy and lack of confidence and pride coming to a head. “Alright.”
She is too agreeable, and she can see the concern creeping into Gale’s eyes. Tara stalks away down the hall and he glances after her. “We’ll see you downstairs then. I’ll make tea.”
Tea seems to be Gale’s method of solving problems now that the world isn’t in danger of ending and a well-placed Fireball won’t serve. “I’ll be there shortly.”
She is fucked.
She’s beyond fucked.
“Time to make the best of it,” she sighs to the empty landing.
Waterdeep is cold, and rather than change out of the old kirtle she pulls her threadbare shirt over top; the linen is warm from her body, and sacrificing even a little heat seems like too much. The effect is a little rumpled, but with a spare sash from the bottom of the closet as a belt, she secures the end of the linen around her waist, doubling its thickness.
An old robe hides the weight she has lost, and adds volume to her skirts. Passable, if she was going into a village with her sheep— but unfortunately for her, Morena Dekarios is not a sheep, and it seems she’s rather a lot smarter than one as well.
Ferris slips quietly from her room and down the stairs, remembering to make noise as she approaches the kitchen.
“There you are! Here is your tea, and I don’t believe you’ve had anything to eat yet, here—“ when he turns to pass her a tray laden with tea, warm bread, and fruit, Gale does a double-take. “Are those…are those your camp clothes? Or traveling clothes…”
She suddenly feels incredibly shabby. “Both. I don’t have anything else.”
Not entirely true, but she doesn’t think Gale means the armor and tabard sitting in the corner of her room. The skirt is ragged at the hem and she’s brought it up a few inches during their travels, but there’s no saving it. The shirt is the same as she wears with anything else. The one that she wore under her armor, the one that she had escaped with- the only thing she didn’t do was sleep in it. She still wasn’t sure if Gale knew the wardrobe was full of his things, whether he expected her to move things in in their place, but she truly had nothing.
“Gods, we don’t have time for this; Tara could you please check and see—“
The tressym’s ears perk up, swivel to the door. “I’m afraid it’s too late,” she says, just before the knock comes. Gale pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath.
“Well, this is not how I anticipated things would go, but it should be fine all the same.”
Ferris trails after him, a few steps behind as he makes his way to the door. “Should I get my sword?”
“For the love of the Ten, do not get any weapons—hello, mother!” He opens the door before Ferris can ask about her dagger instead, revealing a woman a few inches taller than Ferris herself. “Do come inside, I have the kettle on and everything set up. Ah, and this is Miss Büller.”
Morena’s eyes are kind, like her son’s, but much more stern and she seems more than a little confused at the presence of another person.
“I didn’t know you’d taken a ward, Gale.” She hangs her overcoat on a peg and gives Ferris a once-over. Blessedly, the entryway is dark and the state of her skirt and general appearance is disguised from human eyes; she suddenly remembers she hadn’t redone her braid in three days. “Hello dear.”
“It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Dekarios.” Ferris raises her eyebrows at Gale behind his mother’s back as Morena gives him a hug.
Are you going to say anything?
He fumbles for the correct words and she luxuriates in the delight of seeing Gale lost, all verbosity fled in the face of telling his mother that the woman in his home is not, in fact, a child. It does not help that Morena Dekarios continues on talking as they all make their way into the kitchen, Gale trailing her and Ferris trailing the both of them.
Tara, the traitor, has made herself scarce.
“What’s he like as a teacher, dear—the Academy has been trying to get him for years but my son has never shown an interest in passing on his knowledge. Until you, it seems.” Her gaze is appraising, and Ferris gives Gale one last chance to find his tongue before she does it for him. When he say nothing, hands fluttering uselessly, she gives a winning smile.
“I wouldn’t know, madam.”
This makes Morena pause. “Has he not been teaching you?”
Ferris tugs the end of her braid, tipping her head to Gale. “I am not his ward, Mrs. Dekarios.”
“This is the friend I was telling you about, mother,” Gale adds, gaining some of his steam back now that Morena has been interrupted. “From Baldur’s Gate, here to recuperate and rest after the incident with the Netherbrain.”
Hazel eyes pierce her, and Ferris is reminded of the hawks that used to land on her arms when she called to them. “A friend.”
It becomes evident, in that moment, Gale had not told his mother that said friend was a woman. And a younger woman, at that. Tara coughs from the garden window.
“That’s right.”
“I had nowhere to go, the place I lived was destroyed,” Ferris adjusts the way the skirt she’s made falls over her knees. “Your son graciously opened his home to me as a place where I can recover and collect myself.”
There is a slow realization that comes over the woman as she looks from Ferris to Gale to Tara and back, expecting someone to tell her that there is an elaborate joke being played.
“This is the friend you wrote about.” Morena Dekarios looks mildly scandalized. “Gods above—“ she turns on him. “Gale this is not appropriate—how old are you, dear?”
Her gaze shifts to Ferris, and she purses her lips, considering her answer. It will, she correctly surmises, end in a lecture no matter what she says.
“Twenty-six.” Something about Morena’s tone did not inspire lies. “Last month, I think.”
“You think?“ He doesn’t have time to ask more than that.
“Twenty-six!” Morena’s exasperation is clear and sharp as she cuts Gale off. “A young lady of your age needs friends—to be twenty-six and without a confidante, well.”
“Are Tara and I not fitting company?” Gale asks it almost jokingly, but he looks tired, and a little lost. Sad, almost. Ferris brushes their arms together, bumps her shoulder against him. It gets her a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“For a young lady? Hardly. Poor thing, she’s locked away in your tower like a princess.” If Morena hears Gale’s muttered ‘she can come and go as she likes, mother’, she does not indicate it. “I’ll ask some of my friends to send invitations, the ones who have daughters around the same age. Some company wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Mother, what are you talking about?”
“Well, she is too young to be your wife, we may as well have her out and about.”
Ferris and Gale both start babbling at the same time, panicked into speech.
“Wife?”
“We aren’t married!”
“I’m an adult! I’m just small, I’m half-halfling, but I’m just as much an adult as any human!”
“Wife?! I’d at least have the decency to announce any engagement to my own mother.”
“Who the hell says I’d marry you anyway?”
“Oh don’t act like it would be a hardship, I’m not all bad.”
“You once mistook flirting as a request for magic lessons!”
“Astarion was the one flirting, on your behalf I might add, and I’ll have you know his intentions are very hard to read on a good day.”
“Gods, what a disaster.”
“Only a disaster? You sell yourself short, bard.“
“Enough!” The two of them turn from their sudden argument back to Morena, the woman’s head in her hands as she lets out a deep sigh. “Apologies, Miss Büller, for my assumption at your age upon first seeing you. By human measurement and by halfling, you are an adult.”
Ferris gives her a light curtsy and a smile before hopping back onto the stool at the counter top. “It happens often enough, think nothing of it.”
“A kindness, which I thank you for. Now. Married or otherwise, this still does not explain why you are without appropriate clothing.”
Ah. So she had noticed.
“Madam—“
“You are living with my son, whom I raised better than this,” she hisses the last bit, swatting at his arm again. “How could he be unaware of the fact that you have no other clothes? And for that matter, call me Morena.”
“Ma’am.”
“Morena.”
“Mrs. Dekarios.”
“I will allow it. Now, explain.”
Ferris’ hands twist into the over-long sleeves of the old robe. “Gale was unaware, it is not that he was inattentive—your son has been very kind in welcoming me to his home; it is…that is to say, this is my fault. I have not settled into a more domestic, normal life well. It is a startling change, and my solution has been to sequester myself as best as I can. I find myself overwhelmed.”
Gale is looking at her oddly, and she blinks— without realizing it she had slipped back into what everyone had jokingly called her ‘courtly manners’. His eyes soften but the moment is lost when Morena Dekarios turns on him.
“This young lady has been struggling and you were what? Speak.”
“I was out getting a job,” he throws up his hands in exhaustion. “A teaching position at the Academy, as it happens. It is no excuse for my lack of attention, and I see that now.”
“You, a teacher?” Ferris blinks. “Oh those poor children.”
“There will be no changing of subject,” Morena snaps. “Now, Miss Büller—“
“Ferris, please.”
“Miss Ferris, you will fetch your coat and boots. Gale, the same. We are going for lunch, and then we are going to get you some suitable clothes.” It is a terrifying thing to be the focus of Morena Dekarios’ attention in a way that Ferris had not felt in years. The last time was under the gaze of her own mother, across a grand ballroom—she pushes the thought down.
She bites the inside of her cheek. “I don’t have a coat.”
“You don’t—Gale, dig up something. There is a chill and even wearing what looks like an old kirtle as a petticoat won’t be enough.” She sits in heavy silence before Gale returns with a caplet that will be large on her, enough to cover and then some.
“Happy belated birthday,” he murmurs in a joking tone.
“Absolutely not, you will do better,” Morena is already up and moving, wrangling Ferris into the fabric in a way that makes it look purposely over-sized rather than borrowed clothing. “You’ve embarrassed me enough.”
Everything is happening too quickly, and her head is spinning. Ferris’ vision edges with black as her focus narrows to where Morena touches her, where the table presses against her back and the edge digs in, grounding as the world tries to slip away. Gale, she can’t see Gale, but she can smell him, knows he is there from the scent of lavender and books; she takes a breath, then another, another still. If Morena notices, she does not say anything and the smell of parchment comes closer.
Now, speak now or be overwhelmed.
Ferris clears her throat, regretting her boldness the second hawkish eyes find her again. “If I may make a request,” Ferris forces her voice to steady. “Could we perhaps save the tailors for another day?”
“Whatever for?” Morena asks. “A month! You have been here a month and my son has let you wander this tower in rags!”
Ferris has seen Gale look mildly embarrassed before, but this is a new level—he looks truly chastised, smaller than she has ever seen him as Morena chews him out.
It should sting, but the assessment is correct. Both her shirt and skirt have seen years of hard wear even before the Baldur’s Gate incident. Even the caplet is old and has likely not left the wardrobe since Gale was a decade younger; she does not recall caplets being in fashion at any point, but Waterdeep is far from home, and she has never accused of being fashionable. “I know, and that is more my fault than his. I told you, I sequestered myself away of my own accord. Cities are not familiar, the press of noise and the buildings…I may have attended university in Baldur’s Gate but even that did not afford me run of the city.”
“But as the daughter of merchants—“
“You assume much.” Ferris is too tired to do this, and she feels Gale’s hand at her elbow; she jerks away. “I am nothing and no one—just a bard, the daughter of no one of note who was granted the opportunity of education. I may speak well enough, but that’s just another learned skill to survive in a place I never belonged.”
The last bit comes out with a snap and she turns away for a moment, desperately trying to collect herself. Morena looks as though she’s been slapped across the face, and Ferris cannot bear the reminder that she was the one who caused the look, that a slip of her temper had severed a tie in her haste when the woman had wanted nothing but to help.
“I’m sorry,“ she begins, but Morena make a soft sound.
“No. No, I assumed much, you are correct. I apologize.” Ferris does her best not to flinch away when Morena steps forward, taking her hand. “Even if you were used to cities, what you went through, what you accomplished is unprecedented. It would be a lot for any person, let alone a young woman.”
Gale looks ready to jump between them when his mother pulls Ferris into a tight embrace. This time she does flinch, surprised and stiff as her eyes search for his and plead for interference—it proves unnecessary, the older woman releasing her a moment later.
“How about this,” she fusses with the caplet again, clearly needing to occupy her hands and Ferris does her best to fight the urge to jerk away from unfamiliar touch. “I come back tomorrow with a dress that will fit you, with some light altering, and we will go out then. Nothing today, we can sit down to tea and simply learn about one another. Does that sound less overwhelming?”
It does, and Ferris resists the urge to slump into a chair. “It sounds amazing, thank you.”
Gale seems openly relieved, and Tara magically appears in the garden window, between the mint and the basil. Ferris sticks out her tongue and the tressym’s tail flicks in annoyance but she wisely says nothing as she grooms her paw.
“Let me get you a fresh cup,” Gale reaches for her tea but Ferris shakes her head, downing it quickly before he can protest. He only tugs the heavy clay mug from her hands when she goes to put it down. “Now I really need to get you a fresh cup.”
Morena settles in across from them, her own cup of tea much more delicate than the handmade mugs that she and Gale use daily. Ferris has not seen real porcelain in ages, and the pattern on the cups is lacy and delicate. She wonders if she could embroider it onto something, or if it would be inappropriate to wear a thing that could be found on a cup. “The joys of running a home, Gods I remember the early days. I thought it would be difficult to settle into but…” she trails off, looking between Ferris and Gale. “Whatever is the matter?”
They exchange a glance and Ferris shrugs.
“Mother, Ferris—she’s not here to help manage the house either; we aren’t secretly married, she really is a guest.”
“I should have gone first, actually.” Ferris clears her throat, looks around the room, clears her throat again. “This is um. My first time living in a proper house?”
One that she wasn’t a prisoner in, at least. Ferris doesn’t think that should count.
Morena sets down her teacup. “Gale I think my hearing is going—“
“No, no you heard her correctly. Ferris, my dear, please. I am begging you. Please explain.”
“Well, before I went to Baldur’s Gate for university I didn’t…well…I lived in a tent most of the time, in winter my father and I had a more permanent setup but it was less a ‘home’ and more like an old mead hall. And then in university, I was in a shared room before I was moved into…well. It wasn’t like this.”
She quickly changes the subject and Gale leans into it. “Ah, yes university accommodations are quite different—what a change it must have been.”
“Never lived in a house,” Morena mutters into her tea. “Oh dear.”
“Now I know I am not anyone’s first choice, but I can manage my own household,” Gale reminds his mother gently. “I did so before and I will do so again. If Ferris chooses to help or to learn, well. I’ll gladly accept a feminine touch, but as my guest it is not necessary.”
He politely refrains from adding that Ferris has little by way of ‘taste’, and her idea of decoration is nicer embroidery on something. The glance they exchange, however, speaks volumes.
“What does ‘managing a household’ even entail? Does it need repair? I’m quite good at masonry.” She means it as a joke, but it is true enough.
His mother looks scandalized. “Masonry?”
“Oh yes, I would often repair walls along the way to grazing land.”
“Ten preserve me,” Morena closes her eyes and looks like she wants to pass away.
“Oh,” the bard frowns. “I take it that masonry is not involved.”
“No, Ferris.” Gale pours his mother more tea and does not hide his laughter, all attempts at keeping a straight face crumbling in the wake of Ferris’ open disappointment. “Not in the least.”
The rest of their tea passes without incident, Ferris discussing the intricacies of shepherding, Morena teases that she’ll have to ask around about which families have eligible bachelors, and Gale runs through his schedule with the Academy. Well, mostly Ferris listens. It’s easy to listen to Gale, voice calming and sure and familiar. She lets it carry them from one topic to the next, speaking when spoken to. It’s safest, it means she does not give away too much, or say something that would seem out of pocket in polite company; she has never been very good at schooling her tongue in the presence of higher authority—in fact, the more authority someone had the more likely it was that she would say something to offend…likely on purpose as she gazed up at them through her lashes, wide eyed and innocent.
“The style of skirt you’re wearing,” Morena pulls her from her thoughts. “It’s uncommon here. Very practical.”
“Ah,” Ferris straightens it out. “Thank you. I know it’s plain and has seen better days, but I made it myself and the familiarity of it brings some measure of comfort.”
The older woman glances between the faded brown fabric and Ferris’ sheepish smile. “It is incredibly strange to hear you speak formally when you’re still dressed like a shepherd. I don’t mean it as an offense, but as an observation.”
“I could always speak more plainly,” she replies. “But I don’t think it would go well.”
The change in her voice makes Gale snort into his tea and Ferris kicks at him under the table; she knows there’s a hint of an accent there, something that no one could ever place, and she can see Morena trying even as she finishes her tea. Ferris’ eyes trace the pattern on the porcelain, following the weaving lines of glaze as they intertwine.
“Well,” Morena stands. “I will return tomorrow, so prepare yourself.”
Ferris nods, unusually demure in the face of his mother’s orders and she follows after Gale as he holds out his mother’s coat. “Of course, Mrs. Dekarios.”
“I will get you to call me ‘Morena’ eventually,” the woman smiles at her, motherly in a way that sets Ferris’ teeth on edge. She isn’t used to mothers. “There is time.”
It’s the last thing she says before ‘goodbye’ and Gale slumps against the door the second it closes; Ferris immediately feels guilty.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, fisting her hands into her skirt. It’s the wrong thing to do, because Gale’s eyes follow the movement and it draws attention to the way the fabric holds on by literal threads at the band she ties around her waist.
“Don’t be sorry, Bird.” He runs a hand over his face. “I should have—I was so busy, and I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter what I’d assumed, does it?”
“What did you assume?”
She’s curious what Gale thinks about her, because clearly in his mind she is whole and confident and normal. From the top of the stairs, she is the same height as him. Gale moves a few paces forward so he is directly before her, eye to eye.
“I assumed you’d be alright.” It hurts the same way a slap across the face would hurt but he catches her before she can retreat. “You are so strong, Ferris. You were always so strong…I didn’t think, and I apologize.”
It is not an incorrect assumption for him to have made. She was strong, is strong— she had to be. There was no time to curl in on herself and panic about the world when they needed to save everyone else in it, no space to collapse and cry and rot. She was strong because the other option was death, looming for her entire adult life, and Gale had taken that strength as normalcy.
“I’m not what you think I am,” she murmurs. “I have always been whatever others have needed me to be, to the point where I’m not sure who I am without the weight of expectation.”
He telegraphs his movements, giving her time to move away if she wishes, and settles a hand on her hip, the other straightening the worn fabric of her skirt as carefully as he can. It’s a gentleness that lends itself to silk and lace, not rough cotton dyed with tree bark and roots. “Well, we will both have to discover a new normal, won’t we?”
Ferris bites her lip and glances away, taking a step back; Gale lets her go, accepts the retreat but she doesn’t go far. A few steps between them is all she needs to breathe and feel balanced as she straightens once more. It’s a posture he’s come to know well, the one that says ‘my word is law’ in a way that no one questioned despite her youth and small frame.
“We’re going to have to,” her eyes are hard, but Gale is not too concerned; Ferris has always been iron in the flames. “We’ve no other choice.”