❛ i thought you’d like some company. ❜

𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬: no longer accepting.

"I could never deny yours, though," Gale answers, "I suspect the desire's mutual."

Of course. It's been several weeks now since their peculiar run in by the river, all fire and fate and Wyll's great pact. Karlach's endeared herself, however, in little but a wink of that measly time, and in a way, Gale admires, that's plainly humbling. She's loud, most certainly, and savors every pittance of time. He envies her zeal, her love for life yet roaring in her eyes, and sharing in her presence, she lightens him considerably. (He's a doomed mortal, too.) And she warms his bones.

A smile, genuine, springs on Gale stubborn like an itch. With some embarrassment, to his notably gentlemanly horror, he realizes he's nowhere to seat his guest. And that won't do. Rising from his stool, he offers it with a meager wave of his hand. Morena, it should be noted, raised no beast of a man, so before Karlarch can argue, he turns for his books.

"As it were, you've happened to catch me at a rather opportune moment. I've been well entrenched turning theories around you lately," Gale offers, looking over his shoulder. In a heartbeat, he seems to find the exact journal he'd been looking for. He rifles through it, nods, and beams back up. "You burn quite fantastically, for lack of a better word, but a scholar longs to study, to bring a balance between two opposing forces. It's a matter of equilibrium, the very law of harmony, and for as fiercely as you incinerate, I can just as quickly numb."

He raises his hand. About it, a tundra, a gust of winter chill, glows.

Oh. He can touch her, right? "May I?"