#// arvane de riva

[larkinna]

"Don't let him scold you too much. Vi was worried about you."

crow goes hunting by ted hughes // 1 // crow’s first lesson by ted hughes // 2 // the lacuna by barbara kingsolver // 3 // domestication syndrome by dhole b // i am a dog. i have blood all over my teeth. by sciencedfiction // crow’s theology by ted hughes // 4 // how to be a dog by andrew kane // the scream by ted hughes // unknown // for your own good by leah horlick

[larkinna]

This is Arvane de Riva and I think about them a (not) normal amount

And Drace Mercar, though she is slowly turning into a full-blown OC at this point!

btw show me screenshots of your rooks. i want to see them.

[larkinna]

wip wednesday

Thank you for the tag @inquisimer <33 University is kicking my ass right now so I'm very rusty when it comes to writing, but I fished this out from the depths of my docs. Set a few months after Veilguard, Arvane de Riva feels homesick after spending time at the Dellamorte villa and goes home -- Viago doesn't know how to deal with it.

Tagging @drysia and @mxssful and anyone else who would like to do this! :)

xx

It’s the fifth night in two weeks that Viago finds Arvane in his own estate. He didn’t mention the first four, letting them pass in and out like a wayward ghost and he hesitates to wake them now, steps faltering in the doorway before he stops entirely, the words crowding on his tongue. 

They are half-slumped over an armchair by the fire in the living room, legs dangling over the arm of it, head hanging low in their slumber. Dark hair spreads over their shoulders like a curtain, overgrown bangs brushing cheeks, and Viago instinctively thinks they should cut it, it will get in the way – as many things do. 

He has learnt to grow around their absence – there are always contracts to fulfill, ledgers to write, and poisons to make. But this, this he cannot seem to be able to let go of, between all the avoidance and the– hurt is a word his mind skips over, instead latches onto affronted as an alternative.

Hurt means caring enough. It means admittance, something he has never been good at when it came to people too close in his vicinity. 

They always come after nightfall and are gone by dusk’s first light without a single exchanged word. They don’t send letters anymore, and if not for these nightly visits, Teia’s gossip, and the corpses left in their wake after another statement made in the name of a House not theirs, Viago would think them dead. 

Instead he makes do with what he can have, even if it feels like a slow death from one of his own meticulously made concoctions, and like splinters under the skin, and hairpin fractures, and and and–

He doesn’t mean to move but still his body does what it wants on its own accord, and the floorboards crack–

Not very befitting of a Crow, much less a Talon, this awkward display of balance. 

Their eyes are on him in a single second, razor-sharp and ready to leap, body tense, hand reaching for the dagger that’s certainly hiding in their boot. For a moment stillness reigns, then their arm drops (no dagger, only a naked hand adorned with rings) limp in their lap – their eyes don’t, keeping Viago frozen in his place and leaving him wondering when the air grew so chilled. 

Was it before or after the gods’ defeat? When they recklessly, foolishly, idiotically pulled their stunt on the Antaam? When he held their life in his hands, once, twice, three times? Was it a gradual unseen descent? Or such a swift beheading that he only noticed too late that it happened at all? 

An amber flash, a slow blink, a crackle in the fire and he still doesn’t know how to ask for things. 

Courtesy would tell him to make small talk, but he loathes it and knows Arvane cares about it only if it’s amusing – and Viago doesn’t feel like entering into a wit of words with them. He knows a losing game when he sees one. 

They lean back in their seat, and the stalemate shatters. 

“I ate your last churros,” they say then, because of course, and Viago doesn’t know whether to hack a chuckle or make a sound somewhere between exasperation and fatigue. “Lo siento.”

They don’t sound sorry at all. 

He stands stock still, hands clasped behind his back – he doesn’t lean, not on the doorway, not on one foot, not on anyone, and he doesn’t trust himself enough to sit and be closer to them than he already is. 

“Shame. I had it made for Teia.”

“In that case, forward my sincerest apologies to her.” Something glints in their eyes, and Viago can’t tell what it is. That failure stings, more than what is sensible.