Elminster stabilizing the orb brought some relief, but the lack of distraction from them also made him all the more aware of just how much his bones were not up to what they were trying to do. There were hours they spent in the Shadow-cursed lands where it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other, his legs and his knees and his back all aching. There were moments, when the adrenaline of a fight wore off, where he wanted so badly to just fall from the ground and die from how much pain he was in, even if he hadn't gotten hit. There were days, when he was able to spend in camp, that when he wasn't cooking, he just retreated to his tent, summoned up what comforts he could muster, and tried to find a position in which he could read that didn't hurt anything too much, and sometimes it hurt too much for him to even read easily.
Even if he didn't talk about it, he supposed it proved a little too much to conceal. Perhaps not too surprisingly, it was Halsin who first offered to help, offering to try to make Gale poultices that might help with pain. Unfortunately, his supplies were limited, and they couldn't waster too many resources on such a thing. But ultimately on the worst days he let him make and put a paste on his knees that did indeed sooth them, and a couple of nights Gale accepted a concoction from him that helped him sleep.
Then, after Karlach gained the ability to touch people, but still remained very hot to the touch, she proposed seeing if they could make use of some of the heat. On days when they were both in camp, she took to rubbing Gale's back while he was waiting for the cookpot to boil, and sometimes ran her hands along his limbs as well. It made them briefly stop hurting, sometimes, which he was grateful for.
The first big surprise was when Lae'zel approached him and offered to teach him some exercises that would "loosen and hone one's body to reduce discomfort." Her lessons didn't help as much as she might have hoped, with Gale sometimes having to stop because the pain was too much. Still, the effort she went to couldn't help but move him, especially knowing she hadn't exactly been raised to respect those weaker than her like he was.
Shadowheart and Wyll didn't really have the kind of knowledge that could help with physical aches and pains that weren't caused by things the former could just heal. But the latter especially tried to help with encouraging words, and even offered to help lift or handle heavier things involved the cooking for him, and sometimes, on days when she too was in camp, the former would expend a restoration spell or two, which could sometimes make the pain go away from as long as an hour.
Even Astarion would occasionally offer to do more straining tasks for him, or offer to steal a new book he might like for days in his tent. Not that there was all that much out there to steal at the moment, and Gale would've been fine paying for them anyway, but he was also glad that he eventually refrained from comment otherwise.
And then, of course, there was Sara. The one who was likely was the first to fully realize how much pain he was in, and the one least certain about what, exactly, she should do about it, even though he was pretty sure it made her poor heart hurt as much as his knees did. Except that he knew she took in into account when she made some of her decisions about what they were doing, letting them go slower or stop and rest when many a group leader in their situation wouldn't, or even letting him just go back to camp or stay there sometimes.
He was pretty sure it was also going through her mind when they made love for the first time, no doubt aware the bed, while it was genuinely for her comfort, was also very much for his as well. She made an effort to scooch about so he could keep his knees on the mattress when he went down on her, and then she kept him on his back for the rest of it. And even so, when they walked back to camp together afterwards, she had eyes and questions both focused on how he was holding up. "Better," he was able to tell her with perfect truth. If nothing else, he could say that not all the soreness in his body at that moment was unwelcome.
Even if, unfortunately, there were subsequent nights when they actually did end up stopping in the middle of things because something made him cry out in sudden pain. Sara quickly forbade him to apologize for it. "If ever a time comes," she said, "that the only way for you to be able to enjoy this is to just lie back on soft, expensive pillows and let me to all the work, than so be it." Gale did hope it never came to that.
It also, no doubt, was part of the reason she booked them into the Elfsong before she even went back to her own humble abode, and found it had been ransacked in her absence and would need work before anyone could live there comfortably again. Although their first night there proved a difficult one, with Lae'zel revealed as kidnapped, and Sara sobbing her guilt out in Gale's arms, while he held her and soothed her, and talked softly to her until she was finally able to fall asleep. When they awoke the next morning, Gale was definitely in less pain than he had been most mornings before that, though his knees and back still hurt, as he told Sara when she asked him about it in those first minutes of early morning, when it seemed perfectly permissible to lie there and whisper a few things to each other before they had to get up.
"You know," she murmured to him then, "this was good for my own back, too. I suppose I've now gotten far enough along in years to want to spend nights in a proper bed. Though a trip to a good bathhouse with hot water might also help as well."
The thought of being immersed in heated water was a very appealing one indeed. "Wait until we get back to my tower," he said to her, knowing it always made her feel better to hear him speak about them getting there, someday. "I've got a beautiful bathtub that we could probably both squeeze into, or perhaps I'll just get a bigger one, and I can easily fill it with nice, clean, warm, water. We can both take a soak every night."
"Every night," Sara repeated, a little breathless. It occurred to Gale that a private bath was probably not something she had had access to in the past.
She deserved it, though, and, Gale thought, it would be good for both of them to be able to rest in a comfortable home, once all this was over. He supposed that wouldn't make all his aches and pains go away; he might well has to simply deal with them for the rest of his life. But comfort, and love, and friends to help, would and had already made a world of difference, when it came to them.