Chapter Text

Part 1: Magnficent Mansions

Chapter One: Arrival

After boarding the coach  at Beregost, Gale had spent the entire final leg of their journey with his nose pressed almost to the coach window, watching the great tor rise from the Sword Coast cliffs as if he were a student making the pilgrimage for the first time rather than a man of forty who had visited twice before.

Alyss leaned back against the leather seat and watched him but said nothing, because some things did not require commentary.

Now they stood at the gatehouse, their bags levitated neatly beside Gale. He had insisted on the levitation, and took it in good humor when she called him a show-off. The gate stood before them, and the smell of parchment and sea air mingled in the coastal breeze. Gale exhaled slowly, like a man settling into a warm bath.

"I've been trying to think," he said, "of the last time I was this happy, and I find I cannot. Which is either a testament to this place or to the present company." He turned to look at her, and his expression was quietly, genuinely radiant. "Probably both."

At the sight of his smile, Alyss's heart swelled, and she answered it with her own. "Which of us do you think is happier right now? I can't imagine anyone happier than I am, but when I see that smile on your face…" She trailed off, leaning in to turn their smiles into kisses.

He met her halfway, one hand coming up to cup her face. It still surprised her sometimes, that a man capable of such precise, controlled magic could also be so entirely unguarded in moments like this. "A contest with no loser," he murmured. "My favorite kind."

For a moment Candlekeep and its gate and the faintly disapproving look of the Avowed monk waiting to process their entry all ceased to exist entirely. "You know," he said, "I spent considerable time planning this. The topics I want to research, and the particular texts I hoped to find. Standing here now I find I cannot remember a single title on that list." A quiet, wondering smile. "You've ruined my concentration, Alyss Dekarios, and somehow I don't mind in the least." The name settled in his mouth differently now than it had in the weeks before the wedding. He had tried it out occasionally before it was really hers. Then, he’d said it experimentally, as if testing whether the world would allow such a thing. Now that it actually belonged to her, it rolled off his tongue like it had always been hers. He glanced past her at the waiting monk, who had the long-suffering patience of a man who processed honeymooning scholars more often than one might expect. "Shall we?" Gale offered her his arm. "Our books await."

***

The monk accepted their papers with a small bow and began the formal recitation of Candlekeep's rules in the tone of a man who had said these words so many times they had ceased to carry individual meaning. No fire spells near the stacks. No summoning within the reading rooms. No removing texts from the premises.

Gale listened attentively anyway, because he was fundamentally incapable of not listening to a recitation of rules, even ones he already knew. Even ones he intended to break (though he would never break these particular rules).

Just past the Gatehouse, the path opened onto the inner grounds. Alyss took quiet note of the bath and steam house as they passed it. Then came the smithy and stables, where the ring of metal on metal and the soft sounds of horses and a few more fantastical mounts drifted out into the afternoon air.

They paused briefly before a modest stone temple dedicated to Oghma. Four large gargoyles sat on the cornices, and as Alyss looked at them she felt the unmistakable presence of living things underneath the stony exterior. These weren’t merely decorative, they were actually watchful. "They're not statues," she said quietly.

"No," Gale agreed, with the appreciative tone of a man who finds good protective enchantment genuinely pleasing. "They're not."

Beyond the temple and a modest granary, they found the House of Rest. Inside, the three-story guesthouse was calm, unhurried, and quiet in a way that felt deliberate rather than empty. The stone floors were worn smooth by centuries of scholarly feet. The walls were hung with simple tapestries in deep greens and browns, and the air held a faint smell of beeswax and old wood.

Alyss looked around with a slight frown, surprised by the absence of bustle she'd expected from such a large accommodation.

"The House of Rest is just what the name suggests," Gale said, catching her expression. "A place for resting. All revelry happens next door at the Hearth. We'll spend our fair share of time there too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were talked into playing there at least once. Possibly several times, depending on how long we stay."

"Only once," Alyss said, then she smiled, because they both knew that wasn't true.

***

Their room was on the second floor. It was a generous corner room with two tall windows that looked out over the inner courtyard. In the corner next to one window was a small fireplace with two chairs arranged cozily before it. Opposite the larger window, a solid wooden bed frame was piled with quilts of deep blue. In another corner sat a writing desk already stocked with fresh parchment and ink, and bookshelves lined the wall next to it, partially occupied by texts previous guests had left behind.

Alyss set her violin down on a table and went immediately to the window, pressing her fingers to the stone sill as she took in their new surroundings. "Gale," she said quietly. "Come look."

He appeared at her shoulder, and she leaned back against him. His arms came around her pulling her closer. He rested his chin on the top of her head. "Are you happy?" he asked, after a moment. The question was not quite casual. It was one he had been carrying since before the wedding.

Alyss turned in his arms, her own wrapping around his waist and completing the circle. "Deliriously," she assured him. "There are certain decisions I come to slowly, but when I finally make them, I am completely and utterly sure." She smoothed an errant lock of his hair back into place, her fingers traveling from there to trace his jawline before settling over his heart. "And you? Is being a husband everything you imagined it to be?"

"Better," he said simply. Then, because he was Gale and simple was never quite enough: "I had imagined it, you know. More than I would have admitted to you at the time. I was imagining it long before I had any reasonable expectation of it." A slight, self-deprecating tilt to his mouth. "I am given to imagination. It is both a gift and a recurring source of embarrassment." His hands settled at her waist. "But what I imagined was incomplete. I had the broad strokes right." His eyes moved over her appreciatively. "But what I failed to imagine was how it would feel to watch you sign your name differently and know that was a choice you made, and that choice was for the rest of our lives." He paused. "You did not come to it quickly, and I appreciate that. I want you to know that I never once doubted you. I only ever doubted whether I was truly worth giving the rest of your life to." His thumb traced a small circle at her waist. 

"Are you still doubting?" She shook her head with fond exasperation. "I’m beginning to suspect you say things like that just so I will prove how very much I think you are worth it." She snuggled closer into him. "Even if you do have ulterior motives, I don't mind. I will show you how worth it you are a hundred thousand times if I must," she reminded him. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me for a lifetime at least, possibly for eternity."

He laughed — a real one, the kind that reached his eyes and loosened something in his shoulders — and gave her a squeeze in reply. "Caught out," he admitted, against her hair. "Entirely and deservedly." He held her close and she could feel the steady beat of his heart under her palm. "One lifetime," he agreed. "Minimum." A glint of something lighter crept in. "Though I should warn you, eternity is a long time to share a library with someone. You may find yourself revising the terms." He glanced meaningfully at the bookshelves across the room, then back at her. "My opinions about shelving organization have been reviewed as ‘madness-inducing’ and ‘utterly repellent’ by some of the finest minds in Waterdeep."

"Gale." She fixed him with a look of pure, fond suffering. "I have lived with your library for three years. I once found a manuscript titled “How to Create A Personal Sigil” filed under C for 'Curses' rather than under the author's name, the title, or any organizational principle recognized by any institution in Faerûn."

"That was a special case. I know very well how to create a sigil, but I wanted the book for its information about the three-fold curse of Mystra, so you see—"

"I see how that helps you."

"Exactly! I have always been able to find it perfectly well when I need it."

She stared at him. 

"You married me anyway," he pointed out.

"I did," she agreed, with a sigh of profound theatrical resignation that dissolved immediately into a smile she couldn't suppress. She patted his chest twice, the way one might acknowledge a hopeless but beloved case. "Even though I have to dig through layers of manuscripts every evening in order to find the surface of our dining table."

"The dining room has excellent light."

"Eternity," she reminded herself aloud, as if testing the weight of the word. Then she smiled up at him. "It's absolutely worth it," she declared, turning her face up to his for a kiss. 

***

The sky outside the window had begun to glow orange and gold by the time Alyss stepped back from him with a decisive air.

"Our studies will have to commence tomorrow," she said firmly. "Tonight, we need baths and dinner, then I claim you all to myself. And you won't get rid of me altogether by diving into the books. I have ensured we will share a study room."

Gale's expression fell a tiny bit at the delay in getting to the books, but that was immediately overruled by something considerably warmer. "A shared study room," he said. "You planned that."

"I did," she confirmed pleasantly. “Though they have far too many rules about what you’re not allowed to do in the study rooms.” 

He went quiet and a bit pink as he considered what exactly she had intended on doing in the study rooms. "Baths, then" he said. "We could go together." He tilted his head toward the door with an expression of such careful casualness that she nearly laughed. "The baths are communal, but there are private rooms. I may have requested one in advance."

She raised an eyebrow. "You planned that."

"I did," he returned, with a small, satisfied smile. “And they have far too many rules about what you're not allowed to do in the private bathing rooms.” A beat of mutual appreciation passed between them, then he offered her his arm.

"Dinner at the Hearth afterward," he said. "And then—" his voice dropped slightly, the casual tone giving way to something quieter — "I believe you mentioned having me to yourself for the remainder of the evening."

"I did mention that."

"I have no objections whatsoever," Gale said, and opened the door.