#Dragon Age: The Veilguard spoilers

[luina-raven]

It never came to me - this makes so much sense!

It makes everything even more sad - I‘m gonna go cry now!

Just losing my mind at the implications that the companions have all been trying to help Rook grieve Varric, and Rook doesn’t know

Emmrich, wise and long-familiar with grief, being told by Neve and Harding what happened; understanding why sometimes he overhears Rook’s muffled voice in the Infirmary, talking to no one. He takes Rook to the Memorial Gardens and mentions he talks to his parents, thinking Rook might be comfortable with the same. Rook lights candles and rings bells but Emmrich watches, sorrowed, to see Rook still seems in deep denial.

Neve takes Rook to the Wall of Light; a Shadow Dragon Rook knows just what this means but any Rook can understand the solemnity, the power of remembrance. Neve reenergizes Brom’s light and looks to Rook, hoping Rook will mention wanting to make one for Varric. Rook is kind and comforting to Neve, but Neve is lost in wondering why Rook doesn’t take the chance to open up. She can’t figure it. Maybe Rook just can’t face it, not yet. Maybe Rook does something privately. She isn’t sure but it nags at her.

Davrin’s not big on talking about feelings. He’d rather just move on. But he sees the way Rook seems a little hollow sometimes, a little distant; he sees how Rook takes so quickly to Assan. “Hey Rook,” he says, and invites them to come with him and Assan to safe places in Arlathan, where the woods are clean and green and growing, where real sunlight dapples through the trees. Rook always seems to love these outings, seems lighter afterwards. But Davrin feels a little confused in that Rook never seems to realize the outings are mostly for them.

Taash is another person not big on feelings. But they know how much feelings can twist you up and mess with your head. When Lace tells them about Varric they feel badly for Rook, and think to how they feel when they’re struggling. Epic fights, dragon fights, drinks with the Lords. Taash is perfectly capable of doing all that on their own. But maybe bringing Rook along will help get them out of their head a little bit. Does it help? Taash isn’t sure.

Bellara’s double-versed in grief after what happens to Cyrian. Rook helped her through trying to reach him, and Bellara wonders, in her own pain, if she can help Rook a little bit too. Especially if Rook is elven, teaching Rook about the braziers and the challenges is another tool she can share about her or their people, another way that might help Rook with their grief. Neve’s told her that the Wall of Light didn’t seem to help Rook much, but maybe a different funeral tradition could help them instead. Rook helps her light the braziers and Bellara feels her heart lightening, though she wonders at Rook, who seems more moved by Bellara’s reactions than anything else.

Lucanis is nearly as allergic to dealing with feelings as Davrin is, but he immediately clocks how Neve and Harding are acting, and asks what happened before he joined them. They tell him about Varric and that they’re worried about Rook, that Rook seems to just be shoving those feelings down without dealing with them. Lucanis is no stranger to that, but while it’s fine for him, he doesn’t want to see someone who risked their life to save him share that struggle. He brings Rook to Caterina’s funeral planning to show Rook it’s okay to admit the loss and honor it. When that doesn’t seem to make a dent, he falls back to his standard - lavish meals, small gifts, coffee. He knows it would help him. He just wishes it helped Rook too.

Lace hurts the worst after losing Varric and Lace is where Solas’ magic comes the closest to faltering. Rook can see Lace is down, she’s quiet, she’s afraid after what happens with the gods escaping; but Solas’ magic holds and Rook can still never see quite why. Lace would love to sit over drinks one night and share stories about Varric, but she sees that Rook doesn’t seem ready, and she doesn’t want to push. Instead she writes letters to Ma, to the Inquisitor, to Cassandra, to Aveline, maybe even to Hawke. She writes out her stories with Varric’s old quill and she carries a bolt of Bianca with her. A dozen times she goes to talk to Rook about him, and when she tries Rook turns away or changes the subject. It hurts, but Lace knows she can’t make Rook talk about him, and she hopes in time it will get better.

This just absolutely crushes me the more I think about it 😭

Edit: Varric’s death is Rook’s personal companion quest every other single companion tries to help them with, and can’t 😭😭😭

[doodlingfoolishness]

The world too bright, confused and dizzying. Liesl shuddered, stumbling, trying to climb the stairs. She slumped against the banister, chest heaving. “I saw him. I saw him.”

“Rook, breathe. Take a moment. You’re here —” Lucanis’ voice, trying to reach her. A hand on her shoulder. “I thought I’d lost you —”

How could he think that? It had only been a few hours. It had only been a trick of Solas’, a cruel fiction. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream. She rounded the corner, staggered through the door.

The infirmary, familiar.

The infirmary, empty.

Varric’s leather coat, neatly folded on the bed, Bianca broken. There was dust in the leather creases of his jacket.

Gone. Gone. Gone. Like Harding. Like Bellara. It was all real. They were all lost.

On her knees, weeping. Shaking arms, strong around her. She sank into them, hands scrabbling for something to hold onto. A shower of violet wingbeats, Lucanis burying his face in her hair, his voice raw and broken.

“It’s all right,” he breathed, over and over like a prayer, and nothing could be further from the truth.

[hyperions-light]

Obsessed with that specific conversation branch that Solas has with Rook before Weisshaupt, where he talks about the spirits that used to represent the feeling of returning home

And how Elgar’nan destroyed the name of that feeling, and Solas begged them to fight. But they didn’t, and they all died

And he like. Directly blames himself for that. He thinks it was his own failure, because he didn’t convince them

And it’s so good and so. Frustrating!!

Because like, no! It wasn’t your fault, actually! They made a choice, for themselves! They chose not to fight, and even knowing what would happen they might have chosen it, anyway!

It didn’t. Have ANYTHING. To do with him!!

But he acts like it did !!!

Like. Solas. Babygirl. People are going to make their own decisions and sometimes they’ll make the wrong ones. And it’s so fucking !! Arrogant of him ! To assume he could have changed their minds, or had ANY impact on them AT ALL. It wasn’t his choice to make!!!

He’s such a good character… he’s so frustrating! It’s great and I love it! I love talking to him in VG I could have done it for several hrs tbh..

[hobgoblinsandpeachfuzz]

they are just so sweet i love them

[starfleetteddybear]

Oh I love this train of thought.

Soft Dom Emmrich this, brat tamer Emmrich that. This are good beliefs and I endorse them. However. This man also needs to be a quivering puddle underneath someone he loves and trusts. I think it would fix him. I think being consensually stepped on by the person he's in love with could, in fact, make Emmrich realize that he does not have to be utterly in charge of himself at all times of day. I think having his back blown out by someone he's allowed to say, "I love you I love you I love you," to, very loudly, while it's happening could fundamentally change his brain chemistry in such a way that he starts to understand that 'living forever' is a batshit concept and not even remotely a good thing for him, mental health wise. I'm not SAYING that Rook can fuck the lich thoughts out of him, but I am saying that regular applications of Emmrich's beautiful nose to Rook's pussy and/or cock could, in fact, make the anxiety attacks less frequent and more manageable when they do happen. I think Emmrich needs to be, very occasionally, spanked. These are fundamental beliefs of mine and I intend to evangelize to the masses. The sermons will be long and prevent any attendees from getting into Heaven. However I do believe it's worth it.

[vaguely-concerned]

I feel that during the first coffee date walk through the market, rye has a fraction of a millisecond's kneejerk trauma freakout of '...wait. wait. am I really catching feelings for a rich boy again. with how that went down last time. am I truly that stupid' (once derogatorily referred to quite openly at a party as 'young master anaxas' pet mortalitasi' to which the young master anaxas only grinned and shrugged and STILL you don't break up with his smug controlling ass for good for six more months because you have a desperate bottomless yearning pit where your self respect should go, twice shy lol). and then he actually looks at lucanis standing next to him getting harding spearmint to help with bad dreams and generally being so quietly thoughtful and sweet through the prosaic yet necessary medium of grocery shopping it makes me feel a little unwell to truly contemplate. and rye is like '*the softest fondest eyes anyone has ever turned on anything* ...you know what. I suspect we don't have to worry about that repeating, I think we're probably safe. I am comfortable being this level of stupid. (slowly dawning marital intent even at this stage)'.

(part of the reason rye buys NONE of illario's bullshit at all right from the beginning is that he's basically vaccinated against this exact type of dude after that relationship lol. charming suave guy who in the beginning pays you a lot of lavish attention and takes pains to make you feel special every time you're in a room with him -- but shallowly and mostly, it slowly dawns on you, when there's something he wants from you (and he's often doing it at the expense of someone else, raising you up to put someone else down and you won't believe this... it can turn into a seesaw at a whim. yay). and beneath that there's just a seething pit of resentment and inferiority complexes and bitterness left to fester until he can make it everyone else's problem and that IS going to start to bubble up between the cracks with you too if you stick around for long enough. no thank you been there done that wasted my youth and potential on it and all I got was this lousy shiny set of new emotional intimacy issues haunting me for life! trust me illario I HAVE, as it were, chosen the wrong dellamorte before, which is exactly how I know I didn't this time. go get him lucanis I've got your coffee

hilarious mental image: rye and illario sitting quietly together while everyone else is busy milling about during a cursed dellamorte family dinner (the vibes are so bad. you know the vibes are bad. sitting as still as you can and hoping for calm skies is your best bet without lucanis or teia favourite child privileges to work with) and rye out of the blue gazing thoughtfully into nothing over the edge of his glass with half-lidded eyes to go 'you know. you remind me a lot of my ex. not in a good way' and illario with absolutely no shame and hilariously also something that's the closest he ever gets to real sympathy going 'yeah, I get that a lot'. best talk those two ever had, unironically. their bond leveled up to its final form that day. *soulsborne boss defeated text* MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING REACHED)

[snowberrries]

hallen "rook" de riva (they/them) | antivan spellblade

[starfleetteddybear]

I have posted on ao3 chapter 4 of “An Enduring Affection.”

I am super looking forward to y’all’s reactions to the developments. Rook finds out some news that would be very interesting to Lich!Emmrich. 👀

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61150690/chapters/158039056

[fanfoolishness]

The first attempt was full Crow. A job, a contract, remember your training, remember killing with style and flair. It didn’t work. Lucanis tried, and I don’t think Spite held back deliberately, but neither gave that extra mile.

The second attempt? Spite sees the cruelty of Ghilan’nain firsthand. She has taken one of the team. She was hurting Lucanis and Spite. She is going to take Rook. No she won’t! There is no extra style here, no grace. There’s pure desperation, there’s escape! Kill! Live! They both give the shot everything and more.

It’s the difference between a poised and beautiful Wizard Howl classily performing magic for the King as a job, and a messy-haired, torn-clothes Howl in a windstorm bawling at Sophie Hatter about how much he cares about her.

Thinking desperately about the difference between Lucanis's first attempted hit at Ghilan'nain, where his body is perfectly poised and straight like an arrow, even before he and Spite reconcile.

And on his second attempt, with Ghilan'nain having just foiled his attempt again, Harding or Davrin just lost, and Rook in her grasp, his attack is beautiful still, maybe even more so. But it's not acrobatic, not poised. Even when having reconciled with Spite, in the face of this loss, Lucanis leaps out of pain and desperation, and this time he strikes true.

And then he loses Rook anyway.

[arlathen]

SOLAS' MEMORIES [►]

[profoundlyfaded]

Let’s talk about Emmrich, specifically let’s talk about flirting with him after he first joins the team because I’m seeing a lot of discourse expressing frustration that he appears unmoved by your attempts to gain his attention, except, he knows what your doing. He’s holding back and let’s explore why -

Taking a step back, let’s look at who Emmrich is in terms of that public facing persona:

A Professor, who actively teaches.

An expert in his field who is prolific enough that Bellara, a Dalish elf living in relative isolation, knows who he is.

He written books, Davrin talks about this.

He’s wealthy, wealthy enough that Harding mistakes him for nobility.

All these factors have likely won him a lot of attention. Emmrich tells you in the romantic interest scene with the skull that if your interest ‘goes beyond charming flattery’ then he’s interested in exploring that as well.

This line tells me that flirting with him, at least at the start, is something he considers transactional. He gets it a lot when people around him might try and charm him for various reasons; could be students looking for better grades, or others studying his field of expertise attempting to gain recognition from him, even, perhaps, the odd person who might view Emmrich as a possible sugar daddy (you’re all thinking it).

So, Rook rocks up, shows interest in him and he’s seen it all before - until Emmrich realises that Rook means it, the interest is genuine, no subterfuge. We see that through the gradual reciprocation of flirting; that soft line about picking extraordinary moments for compliments, the relaxing into the flirtation during the first visit after bringing out tea, showing you his magic.

He knows you’re flirting, he’s just making sure it’s genuine first.

[fanfoolishness]

You carry the hurt with you. You feel it down there too. You just don't know what it is.

[bookishmeow]

We must protect Assan at all cost!

[albaharu]

Continuation of Rook!Oghren ; I was like "i need to do some solrook toxic enemies to lovers after the trapped-forever-together-with-someone-you-hate bad end. it has to be a dwarf and a grey warden so solas hates him extra... WAIT" anyways soghren otp 5ever

[pausegame]

Emmrich + helping other companions *:･ﾟ✧

[hyperions-light]

Davrin is suuuch a fake idgaf-er about those griffons from day one

You’re just their bodyguard? Okay then how come Assan immediately comes up and rubs against your leg first thing? How come you’re the one who thought of his name? How come you can individually call out the griffons in the cages to reassure them?

Uh huh. Suuuure you’re “just their bodyguard.” I DONT BELIEVE YOU, YOU CARE ABOUT THEM SOOOOO MUCH ! YOU LOVE THOSE WEIRD LITTLE CATBIRDS!