#adina's a very Visceral character and i looove writing ppl who are hyperaware of their bodies and what theyre experiencing

[arealcrow]

don't think

2.2k, d&d (radiant citadel, pre-campaign)

Adina attempts to talk to his father, and attempts to calm down afterwards.

The dimly lit halls of the upper floor of the St. Carmine family home are oppressively quiet; a stark difference from the mid-day hustle and bustle of the streets outside of its imposing walls. Adina hesitates as he goes to knock on the dark wooden door of his father’s office. Despite his clarity of purpose and confidence in the intel he’s acquired, a shadow of anxiety passes over him. Shoulders straight, head up, face clear- an attempt to ground himself. He takes a final deep breath to steady his nerves, a quick gaze around the empty hallway, and then knocks on the door.

“You may enter,” his father’s voice calls, voice clear as a cold winter’s day. The speed of the reply makes him wonder if he somehow heard the approach of his boots, even muffled as they were by the carpet. 

He shoulders his way through the heavy door and is greeted by a look of surprise on Ornaryn's face. The drow's shoulders fall, and he can feel the disappointment that doesn’t quite reach his father's face.

"Ah- Adina. I wasn't expecting you today. What do you need?" He says. His polite tone does nothing to soothe the sting Adina feels. 

"Do I need an appointment to talk to you now?" Adina asks, and doesn't wait for an answer to sit down in one of the plush armchairs facing his father's desk. The noise of the heavy door clicking closed behind him makes him feel claustrophobic. He doesn’t ask if his sister gets this same treatment when she drops in to see Ornaryn, because he knows the answer.

"I guess not," Ornaryn sets aside his quill, "but it would certainly be appreciated more than you interrupting my work like this." 

"It'll be worth the interruption," he leans forward to set a sheaf of papers on the imposing wooden desk. It's bound in twine and marked with the wax seal of the harbourmaster.

"What.. is this?" 

"Cargo manifests. They're supposed to delivered tomorrow, so there's plenty of time to make any adjustments you need," His pitch is confident, but the addition he makes is quieter and wavers slightly with anxiety, "I heard you've been having trouble with the situation at the docks, thought this might be useful."

Ornaryn looks down at the papers, and then narrows his eyes at Adina over the thin rims of the reading spectacles he's wearing.

"You heard I was having trouble," he starts slowly, and Adina's anxiety starts to rise. He can tell his father is choosing his words carefully. "And instead of trusting that I can manage my responsibilities, you decided to involve yourself where you don't belong? Do I have that right?"

"Involve myself where I don't belong? Sorry, did my last name change overnight? Because as far as I was aware, being a St. Carmine means that-"

Ornaryn raises one thin, purple finger to cut him off, "I'm not finished."

Adina swears he feels a chill pass over the room. 

"Being a St. Carmine means having common sense, Adina. Does your mother interfere with my business without my knowledge? Do you assume I don't know how to navigate the problems that arise with my work? Because it sounds like you think you could do my job better than me." 

Ornaryn’s words blanket the room in suffocating fog; Adina swears he can’t breathe. He watches his father lean forward to take the sheaf of cargo manifests, only to set it aside. In its place he sets an open letter; he can see the broken wax seal on the edge is their own family's crest.

"The safehouse you went to, after your escapade at the harbor master's party, was raided and seized. You were tailed to the bar you tried to lay low in, and were tailed from there all the way to the safehouse. You had the barest thought to try and lose your tail, and you could not manage that. We are lucky that two of our people cleared the property of anything that could be used against us after you were there. We are doubly lucky that you were not followed here. 

And as if ruining the security of one of the family's most used assets wasn't enough, the little friends you decided to run and gloat to are now seeing healers after a close call with the city guards. On our gold. Now I have to figure out how to get rid of the warrants that have been put out on them."

"They’re not my fr-" Adina starts to mumble. 

"I don't care about what they are to you," Ornaryn snaps at him, cutting him off, "If you could look past your vanity and ego long enough to really see the situation, you would realize that we can't afford this kind of mess. We don't make money by wasting it recklessly; our wealth and our resources- our hired swords- are not your playthings. We don't keep a low profile by sending someone like you, who is clearly under qualified, on an important reconnaissance task, just so you can lead the dogs right to our door. Has your mother not taught you the stakes? Or does it just not penetrate that selfish head of yours how much we stand to lose from one of your fuckups?"

This isn't the first iteration of this lecture he's been subjected to, but there's an icy sharpness to Ornaryn’s words that Adina's never heard before. The words strike to his core like a spike of black ice.

"I was trying to help, I thought-" he says, words uncharacteristically quiet. The noise building in his head is thick as a roiling storm cloud, it's hard to hear his own thoughts underneath it. 

"Don't," Ornaryn says sharply, "think. We don't need you to think. Just do as you're told."

He sinks his nails into the plush velvet arm of his chair, feeling their pointed tips sink like needles through the material. Too many words swim in his head for him to string them together. Jabs he's thrown his father's way in past fights and bones he has yet to pick, running together and threatening to overwhelm him.

"You are dismissed, Adina," Ornaryn says with a cold finality. 

Heat simmers under Adina's skin, warming his blood until he feels feverish. He wants to bite out a reply, some parting blow, but the words don't come. His head is filled with noise, his face is warm, his hands are itching. 

So he does as he's told. He stands and leaves the room without another sound. The hallway around him is a blur as he moves, trying to outpace his own thoughts. He passes the door to his room, the door to Mona's, and doesn't take a second glance behind at the large set of double doors at the end of the hallway that hides his parent's suite.

When he finally stops, he's in the bowels of the house, in a wide open room that serves the family as a training space. Wooden practice weapons sit in their neat and ordered places on the wall, arranged carefully by his sister when the room was first being furnished. She'd insisted that individual alcoves for the weapons looked better than a standard weapons rack. Tucked in the corner of the spacious room is a small sitting area, complete with armchairs and a coffee table. Another addition by his sister- so she can cozy up with a book and watch him exercise.

He loosens his belt for a moment to peel off the shirt he'd had tucked into his pants, taking care not to catch any edges on his furled wings, and throws the piece of fabric haphazardly over the back of an armchair. Out of habit, he pats himself down for weapons and slowly remembers that he disarmed before attempting to talk to his father. Probably smart. He ditches the belts he attaches his sheathes to, and then the ones that have loops for his toolkits. His tools and pouches were left with his weapons, all of his effects hurriedly dropped in his room when he first arrived home earlier that evening. Once he’s sure his only remaining belt is secure, he makes his way out to an open area of floor space.

He starts stretching his legs, and then works his way up, to his tail, and then arms and wings- rolling out his shoulders slowly. There’s a wall of mirrors behind him he would usually use, but instead opts to face the obstacle course that takes up a third of the basement’s floor space. Another design by his sister, a special gift just for him. As he stretches, he eyes the padded and wooden structures, trying to formulate the route he wants to take. Between the things to climb, roll through, and balance on, as well trapezes and other perches hanging from the ceiling- he's spoiled for choice. 

Once he feels looser, a little more grounded, he leaps forward towards the first hurdle. He throws his entire body into the motion, wings churning the air around him as they help to propel him forward. From there, he moves on autopilot, instinctively taking jumps and dives where he sees them. 

As he moves, his mind works. The adrenaline and feeling of air rushing past him as he moves keeps his head clear, like he's finally moving fast enough to rise above the clouds in his head. His father's words echo in his head. 

'if you could look past your vanity and ego'

'selfish'

Adina dives forward from the perched he'd climbed to, hurtling towards the ground in a freefall that makes him feel all at once free and alone. Wings extend at the last possible second they can to keep him from crashing into the floor. His arms move without thought, going through the motion of stabbing down into the floor pad as he lands despite his lack of weapons. It's a good landing, doesn't hurt his ankles or knees, but he wants to collapse when he feels solid ground beneath him for the first time in a few minutes. His run of the course is usually enough to clear his head, but he can feel his mind spinning and his vision blurring, and he knows it's more than just the day's exhaustion affecting him. 

'how much we have to lose'

There's a warm and slick feeling trickling down from Adina's hands, starting at his fingertips and dripping up his arm. It's a feeling that defies physics, the memory dripping down his arm like he's stabbed into someone above him. He tries to wipe it away, tries to wipe his arms off on his pants but through his hazy eyes he can see the blood still covering his hands. The sound of desperate gasping fills his ears, overtaking the sound of his own pulse racing; the sound of someone's last breath- no- many people's last breaths, layered over each other like the winds of a storm.

"Adina? I've been looking for you," a voice calling to him across the room cuts through the thickness of his thoughts. His head snaps up and he sees six figures swimming in front of him. He blinks once- four figures, blinks again- three figures, blinks one final time, just one figure. A shape he recognizes, one of his mother’s hired bruisers.

“You’re..” he trails off, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before he starts again, “You’re done healing and resting up already? I only saw you guys last night- and Ornaryn said-” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Itzel cuts him off with a noncommittal hand wave, “Bernie’s still sleeping. I got bored. Your mom left some stuff for us to follow up on, figured we’d get a head start without him.”

He wouldn’t ask anything of them for another day at least, especially not after inadvertently leading the city guard to them. But if Itzel is itching to move just as much as he is, he’s not going to say no.

“Sure. Yeah. Sounds good,” Adina glances down at his hands to find that they feel normal and look clean. Still, he feels shaken, and he doesn’t want Itzel to see him in this moment of weakness. He adds, giving the door a pointed look, “I’ll meet you in the hall. Gotta get dressed and armed.”

Itzel nods and leaves without another word, always a man who prefers action to small talk. It makes him easy to work with, Adina reflects as he watches him leave. He only heaves himself up off the mat once the door has clicked shut behind the man. It takes him half the time to redress than it did to remove his various belts and shirt, no longer trying to ground himself and his thoughts with the actions. He makes quick work of grabbing his weapons and tools from his room before he finally joins Itzel in a hallway leading towards the back of the house. It’ll lead them to a side entrance, a door theoretically built for servants that the family uses more than their main entrance.

“Are we going or what?” Itzel asks.

It crosses his mind, briefly, that he hasn’t seen his sister in two nights. She might not know where he is, or that he’s even been home. He doesn’t have long to dwell, urged forward by impatient words into another night of danger.