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tumbleweed-run · 7 months

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A Perfect Date With Gale

@arachnethebard perhaps not what you intended but this is what happened

Since you got to Waterdeep with Gale he's been insistent that the two of you go on a 'perfect' first day... despite the fact that the two of you are already engaged.

Perfection is such a difficult thing to achieve.

1600 words because I'm physically incapable of brevity.

PG (for once)

Gale has been talking about giving you a “proper first date” for entire month you two have been in Waterdeep. Never mind the fact that you two are engaged. He’s been focusing on it near daily. Every time he brings it up you smile and nod. It’s not that you wouldn’t enjoy a nice night out exploring the city, but it’s not about that.

“Tomorrow night,” he announces one night as he enters the study. You’re petting Tara, tactfully ignoring a light smear of blood around her mouth… the tower is always miraculously free of rodents.

You find new clothes draped over a bench in the bedroom the following afternoon. You admire them for a moment, almost hesitant to touch them. They’re finer than anything you’ve worn in years, possibly ever. But despite your mild apprehension over the likelihood of destroying them before you step foot out of the tower, you don them. Gale did go through the trouble, and expense, procuring them for you.

Gale greets you outside the room, looking as though he’s been waiting the entire time you’ve been inside. You chuckle to yourself at the thought, given that it was once just his room.

He’s wearing almost traditional wizard’s robes but these are new, a deep maroon with gold accents. He’s begun to stray from the purple he wore almost exclusively when you first met him. There might be something deeper behind that if you dared to think about it for a moment. You know there’s some meaning behind the gold and emerald earring he has in. Your hand instinctively goes to it’s other half, resting around your neck.

“Shall we?” He offers you his arm, eyes sweeping over your form. His smile tells you he’s pleased with the way you look in what he’s selected.

You spend much of the walk taking in the city at dusk. Waterdeep is so different from Baldur’s Gate, and yet so very similar. Gale happily talks for the both of you.

The building you stopped in front of was beautiful to say the least, all the street facing windows were stained glass in the shape of the city’s crest. The two large heavy doors were opened and a rather bored looking man in fine clothes stood just inside them. The braziers over the steps was brightly polished brass throwing the light far into the road as if beckoning people in.

You were busy, once again, marvelling at the building you at first missed Gale’s eyebrows knitting together. He was speaking to the man in the door way, both in hushed tones. The man seemed simply uninterested in whatever Gale was telling him.

“Now I’m positive I’ve reserved a table,” Gale’s voice had pitched upwards giving away his apparent distress. “I came down myself a tenday ago and booked it.”

You saw a light go on in the bored man’s eyes. “Ah,” he said nodding, “I see the error. The table you booked is for next year. All our bookings are.”

Gale’s mouth simply hands open, a light red brushing just above his beard on his cheeks.

“Gale,” you say softly, hand going to his arm, “It’s fine we’ll find something else for tonight and come back… next year.”

You resolutely, do not laugh.

Gale, still flabbergasted into silence, looks between you and the other man. For a moment he looks like he wants to argue with one of you but wisely, wisely, nods to you instead. You lead this time as you turn away from the lovely building.

Gale seems over his shock sometime later and sighs heavily. “It’s unlikely we’ll find something worthy of our first date tonight.”

He sounds so put down your heart breaks for a moment. You don’t give into the feeling and instead hook your arm through his. “Whatever we find will be perfect,” you assure him.

He offers you a small, but doubtful smile.

You two wander, arm in arm, in the cool evening air. Gale doesn’t really seem to be looking for a new option but you are. And it appears down a dirt-packed road, you grasp his arm and point.

Gale sputters again, “The Yawning Portal?”

He seems incredulous that you would even suggest it.

“Well they’re not likely to turn us away,” you risk a tease, “and besides you’ve spoken if it dozens of times. Let’s go!”

Gale relents almost immediately when you turn to him with pleading eyes, and as soon as he does you nearly drag him down the road. You laugh, out loud this time, when Gale shuffles his coin purse further beneath his robes.

The proprietor barely spares you an eye roll as you two enter in your finery, he’s too busy to care. You run directly up to the dry well first and peer down, you can’t see anything but darkness. Gale gently redirects you to a table in the corner with an exasperated smile. Once he deems you safely secured into a relatively unoccupied corner he disappears towards the bar. Immediately you love this tavern with its rowdy clientele and atmosphere similar to many you had frequented in Baldur’s Gate.

Gale returns with two mugs full of ale. “Food will be out in a moment,” he assures you, near shouting to be heard over the noise.

You beam at him and reluctantly, he grins widely back.

One thing for Waterdeep is even in it’s most questionable of places the food is mouthwatering, a testament to Waterdeep’s reputation for the finest food on the coast. The two of you huddle together to hear each other without yelling as you eat. Gale surreptitiously points out some of the notable patrons that are there tonight. He lets you watch in rapt interest as a few bold adventurers lower themselves into the dry well, making for the Undermountain. Only once they disappeared did he launch into an explanation of the dungeon they were entering.

Seemingly too soon the food is gone and your mugs empty. You don’t want the evening out to end just yet, you realize you miss your own little adventure (perhaps not the constant near-death aspect) and this place helps easy some of the sadness. Besides, as Gale’s mugs drained he leaned closer to you, words breathed against your ear and neck as he filled you in on everything he knew.

You offer to get another round, immediately missing the warmth of his body pressed to yours as you stand.

As you return you spot him watching you. The look on his face is openly dreamy, even when he realizes your watching him.

The widening of his eyes is the only warning you receive before you trip into a rather stout dwarf you had somehow missed in your path. Your stumble sends the ale spilling down your front and most unfortunately directly over the dwarf’s head.

In an instant he’s got both hands wrapped around your arms, the mugs falling to the floor. “Now, what in the hell is wrong with you,” he snarls yanking you forward nearly bending you in half so you’re closer to his level.

You haven’t even fully registered what’s happened when just as quickly as he’d grabbed you, the dwarf is gone.

Not gone, you realize. Instead, he’s now pinned against a table by Gale. He’s got one hand on the dwarf’s collar holding him and in the other he has a small spark of flame dancing in his palm. His face is dark, both literally and figuratively. Hair loosed by his sudden movements, falling forward and shielding his eyes from you.

This…

is new.

“... made a mistake, no need to get rough,” Gale is speaking and you suddenly realize the room’s gone quiet enough that you can hear him perfectly well despite the distance between you.

In opposition to what he’s saying, the flame grows against his palm.

The smell of beer hits you first, your front completely soaked in it. Then the realization that the dwarf is similarly covered sinks in. Gale is more likely to accidentally set the man ablaze than he is to diffuse the situation.

That is what he’s trying to do, you hope.

“Gale,” you speak just above a whisper, hand coming to rest on his back gently.

You don’t want to cause the flame to catch.

“It’s alright,” You assure him, hand rubbing in a soothing pattern, “We’re alright. Right?” The last is aimed at the dwarf who is glancing nervously between the flame and you now.

“Yeah,” He nods almost imperceptibly, “no harm done.”

Whatever had come over him abruptly left Gale, in one movement he both released the dwarf and extinguished the flame.

“Well then,” you nod with an over-enthusiastic smile, “a round for everyone!” The coin pouch you hold up is Gale’s.

Everyone is instantly merry, the volume once again rising so you can no longer hear those around you.

“That’s not how I wanted our first date to go,” Gale says much later in the evening as you two are in the bath.

You’re seated between his legs, leaning back against his chest, hand lazily drawing patterns on his knee in the water. Your ruined clothes are discarded on the floor somewhere near. The scent of rosewater is diluted only slightly by the smell of a tavern

The laughter that bursts out of you is unexpected but after a beat even Gale joins in, head dipping back against the edge as he does.

“It was perfect,” you insist turning your head to look at him.

Both of his eyebrows go up. “For us,” you amend. You twist just far enough to press a kiss to his lips.

He hums against your mouth. “You still smell like you bathed in ale,” he teases, nose wrinkling.

#gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #bg3 #gale x tav #gale x reader #izzy writes #fun fact this was almost longer #help how do i do short #incapable #also the earring thing is little idea for Gale and my one tav #so now all of you must suffer it as well #also is gale's use of magic a little less wizardy and more sorcerer?#perhaps but Tav is an unreliable narrator #or there's also evidence gale might be a wizard studied sorcerer #also dm rolls plot device

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mollysunder · 5 months

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Before the first season of Arcane premiered Riot released this interactive visual novel for the Riot x Arcane event. The setting was a hybrid of LoL and Arcane's universe, Piltover literally on top of Zaun, Cait is the Sheriff, but characters like Silco exist. The whole premise for the story is that Jinx stole some hextech and tapped into the Arcane oand opened a rift between worlds.

That's a lot. Personally I enjoyed this more to just see some characters out in the wild. Silco gets to be his charming self to you, the self-insert reader that's trying to find the culprit of the heist, which he knows was his kid.

Here's Jayce hating on Silco for something Jinx did.

This came out before the show did, so it's interesting to see how the game wants us perceive the characters' dynamics before we get further depth from the show. Most of it's related to Jinx because she makes herself the center of controversy.

For characters like Vi, who's already an enforcer that works directly under Sheriff Caitlyn in this world, she's clearly over Jinx's actions and wants to squash any further escalations.

Sevika is just as harsh and plainly sick of Jinx. I do find it interesting that the novel makes it clear tha Sevika believes that Jinx deserves some kind of punishment, though Jinx did endanger them all by ripping realities into eachother.

The only sympathetic voice outside of Silco in this story comes from Viktor, who after finding out Jinx was responsible for the Rift between realities asks you to remember that she's a real person that lived a life just like him. He goes so far as to contemplate another way to solve the situation and avoid a confrontation that may end with terrible consequences. (It's wild because the show then dedicates a whole scene to him defusing one of her bombs).

My favorite part is near the end where Silco tries to stop Jinx from harnessing anymore Arcane energy because it threatens to upend their reality.

I WISH they got to talk like this to eachother in the show, but so much was happening already. Even better Jinx gets the last words in and it justlays out what's ALWAYS been there.

This scene helped me understand that Jinx was always going to fire her rocket at the council, because she and Silco have both always been motivated to by power. They both know what it's like to be perceived as "weak" and they way it destroyed their lives respectively. It's kind of the reverse of what Mel and Ambessa have going on, you've got the diplomatic intrigue parent and the militarily minded daughter who wants to go further and absolutely will when you're not looking. And that's always been the thing with Jinx, if you give her any form of power, either a gun, a grenade, a rocket, or even magic she will take it and she will use it.

Right after this confrontation you have to defeat Jinx with the Power of Friednship or something (it's been a while). But even as put an end to the near calamity Jinx created there's at least one voice before it ends affirming Jinx's personhood.

It's weird honestly, Jinx didn't turn into vapor or anything, the story's pretty vague about what happens as you try to defeat her.

Well the novel's good when it's good anyway.

#arcane #jinx arcane #silco #viktor arcane #vi arcane #sevika #jayce talis #I'll be real the visual novel isn't that great and you should use more for character flavor rather than anything concrete #i personally believe if jinx find another way to steal magic he would support her reality rippong wizardy #it's good parenting #heimerdinger #riotxarcane #not even sure if anyone from the show was consulted officially but it does include silco #oh and in this au everyone knows who jinx is apparently #silco and jinx #in this universe everyone is aware of jinx's reputation so it's nice to see there's still two people arguing for her #that last conversation really makes me think about how much silco sees his younger self in jinx

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