can you imagine how wild the whole of gale and tav's romance is from gale's perspective?
you keep secrets. shameful, terrible secrets. youre dying. every step is just a little bit harder than the last. youre a disgrace. if people didnt look at you with disdain, they were looking at you with pity. and youve got nobody to blame but yourself.
every moment, youre expecting the other shoe to drop, for tav to finally say enough -- you wouldn't hold it against them, youre more trouble than youre worth -- but then...?
it doesnt matter what it is. magical item consumption with no reason given. an awkward exit from an imagined kiss shared in the cradle of your ex's palm. revealing you could kill yourself, them, and everybody in a city-wide radius. defending you against one of your most powerful colleagues because he came baring mystra's will. dissauding you at every turn, to stay alive, to ignore a goddess's orders, because they think youre worth the space you take up. loving you ardently, hastily, easily, as though you have anything to offer them back. staying with you as you oscillate between self-destruction and ascension. never once stepping away from your side, even as the stabilised orb burns in your chest, begging to be used, and the crown, almost within reach, taunts you with your wildest dreams.
and that's just it, isnt it? you have the chance to give tav everything they could ever want at last, after so long of being a burden, and they tell you no. they tell you no. i want you.
you, the burden? you, the disgrace?
yes, you.
gale falling in love with tav wasn't like how the great novels describe. there wasnt any one moment that led to a grand realisation. there were no great leaps of faith toward each other.
falling in love with tav was like a warm candlelight and an even warmer hand in an endless void of black.
falling in love with tav was a gentle tug, a smile, and a 'this way.'
how could he not follow?