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On his first day in Hell, Gale volunteered to cook. The suggestion was met with a bitter chuckle from Karlach and a sad smile from Wyll.
"Don't bother, wiz."
"It's better to save your strength."
He insisted. It only seemed appropriate to fall back into their routine.
The mystery meat ("Don't think too hard about it," his friends said in unison) was tough and fibrous and oddly dry. The water was in short supply. Some of the vegetables he brought were already spoiling.
Gale tried his best. The result could very generously be described as basic stew and tasted truly awful. The first spoonful made Gale think of ash, mold, dirt and refuse. He had tasted none of these things, but he could vividly imagine a dish made out if all of them as he swallowed.
"There is something nice about a properly cooked meal," Wyll said. Karlach just snorted.
"It all tastes like that. Don't bother," she added between spoonfuls, but there was something akin to a smile on her face, and that had to count for something.
On his second day in Hell, Gale stubbornly kept at the cooking. He'd brought spices and he dished them out generously, as he tried pan-frying the mystery meat instead.
"… If it makes him feel better," he heard Wyll's low voice at the very edge of his hearing.
"You think if he wastes time on it, he won't lose it and bolt?"
"Karlach…"
"She promised! She promised to help! And where is she now, huh? Oh right — back in Baldur’s Gate, resting and recovering, and we're here!"
"Karlach."
"She's not even Baldurian!"
The voices quietened and faded into the everlasting noise of Avernus.
When the dinner was ready it tasted like peppered ash. Instead of crispiness and richness, the pan-frying endowed the dish with odd slimy stickiness — markedly different, but no better than the day before.
Wyll, the gentleman as always, ate cheerfully and even attempted to compliment the chef. Something about the value of variety.
Karlach ate in silence and didn't even look at Gale as she left to keep watch.
On his third day in Hell, Gale spent a very long time staring at the pot. Perhaps Karlach was right. The difference between his cookery and the mystery jerky they had before was negligible. Everything tasted terrible. It was not worth the effort.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Wyll and Karlach exchanging glances.
He inhaled deeply — the air was unpleasantly hot and faintly smelled of sulfur — and got to work cutting up the last surviving carrots. He had one last trick up his sleeve.
Prestidigitation — a simple cantrip with the power to change the temperature, smell or taste of an item. Every young wizard's first spell. The training sword of the magically inclined.
Gale flicked his wrist over the piece of carrot and pictured the taste of lemon, pepper and the sweetness of caramelised onions. The spell went off without a hitch, the familiar tingle of magic travelling down his hand. Gale took another deep breath and popped the carrot piece in his mouth.
The result was astonishingly bad.
The first sensation was burning. One would not even call it heat or spice, it was simple, hot pain on his tongue. On the heels of that unpleasantness, just as the initial shock subsided, the unbelievably sour taste competed with charred bitterness.
"You alright there, magic man?"
At that moment, Gale was coughing violently and trying to spit the vile taste from his tongue.
"Comparatively," he managed to wheeze out.
"You'll get used to it eventually," Karlach stood a step away from him with her arms crossed, which was odd in its own right, "If you stick around long enough. Wyll took his sweet time, but he doesn't mind it anymore."
"Oh no, my fiery friend, this one is entirely my own doing."
Gale righted himself and bit on another carrot piece. The now familiar ashen taste with moldy undertones was positively pleasant after the sample of… well. Hell would be a tired thing to call it.
"But if you permit me to look on the brighter side of things, it was a refreshing change of perspective," he continued, after hastily swallowing the carrot.
"What did you do?" There was definite amusement in Karlach's tone that Gale was only too happy to indulge.
"Prestidigitation. A spell with many minor effects, but the one I was trying—"
Karlach laughed. Loudly, gracelessly, starting with a weirdly high-pitched noise that was barely recognisable as laughter.
Until this very moment, Gale didn't realise how much he missed this.
"It doesn't work like that," she said, laughter still in her voice.
"Oh, I am aware now."
She shook her head.
"Wyll tried it too in the beginning. I kinda guessed it wouldn't work, but worth a try," she shrugged, "I told you not to bother."
"You know very well that I'm not so easily dissuaded."
"We'll see."
It was quiet for a moment. Her smile slowly faded from her face. Something hung in the air, waiting to be said. Gale didn't let it.
"You're not getting rid of me this easily, Karlach," he reached out to rest his hand on her arm, and felt the smallest flinch, "I may not be the camp cook anymore, but my spells and my research skills are at your service. And," he leaned in conspiratorially, "I've been told I make for a riveting conversation partner."
His answer was a single amused snort. He'd take it for now.
He really did mean it.
Days passed and turned into months. Fresh wounds scabbed over. He did not develop a taste for imp jerky, but he indeed got used to it. He experienced near-starvation, extreme temperatures and the kind of sadness he almost thought he'd forgotten.
He stuck around. Karlach smiled a little more often.