#all this angstiness brought to you by me falling off the docks in minrathous one too many fucking times

[inquisimer]

7 or 35 for Arlow from the Rook story prompts, whichever catches your fancy more c:

thank you mo!! going with 7, as it suits a headcanon I've been meaning to write out for a while re: Rook's inability to swim.

Arlow has hydrophobia and water-related trauma, and though she can swim (physically at least) by the time of Veilguard canon, she could not when she originally joined the Crows.

Mind the CWs - in the early days, especially before he is Fifth Talon, Viago is far more focused on ensuring Arlow's survival and usefulness as a pawn than he is on kindness.

7. Rook being taught an important skill

Arlow de Riva & Viago | T | 1460 words | cw: child abuse, hydrophobia, whump

-

She cannot swim. Viago learns this, not because she tells him—for which she will face his wrath later—but because one of the other fledglings teases her for it. She decks him, which is fair, and the trainer brings them both before Viago for admonishment.

He taps gloved fingers on the edge of his desk. Sends the boy off with Heir to learn the value of trust within his House. But Arlow—Arlow he keeps for himself. As always.

“Is it true?”

She’s standing loosely at attention, hands clasped at the small of her back, chin jutted out a bit too defiantly to convey respect. Her gaze is fixed somewhere over his shoulder. She nods, just once.

Of course it is. His question was only a formality—she would not have assaulted the boy over a falsehood, he knows. He made her more resilient than that. Still, his jaw tightens; his lips purse into a thin line.

She is not meant to keep secrets from him. Even by omission. Anything could be a weakness; anything could leave them vulnerable, and she is meant to be the one piece on the board that he can move without thinking—without doubting. He lets his anger bleed into his eyes, into the flare of his nostrils, and he sees her teeth dig into the flesh of her cheek. So, she knows that she is in the wrong.

Of course she does, because she is not stupid. An idiot, and a fool, sometimes, but not stupid, never stupid. They take contracts on, in, and around the water with great frequency. Under the water, even, on the rare occasion. With this, she puts herself at a disadvantage, she puts herself at risk—and by extension, puts him, puts their House at risk.

Unacceptable.

In theory, she could weave spells to breathe and propel herself through the water. But such a thing leaves her vulnerable, in turn, to dispels and Purges and magebane, to simple exhaustion at the end of a fight. More importantly, no mage casts well under the pall of fear—and he suspects that this is not a simple lack of skill, because she knows that he will teach her. Harshly, and with a demand that offers no yield, but he has always taught her, as needed, no matter where her abilities faltered.

No, she kept this hidden, for a reason, on purpose. Concealed carefully for years, which is vexing on its own. She should not be able to hide such a weakness, not from him, not for so long. Concern gnaws behind his careful mask. How deeply embedded must the claws of terror be—in her gut, her throat, her chest—that even knowing the consequences, knowing that eventually her secret must recoil with a snap, she had not been able to unclench the protection her mind had warped around it.

Frustration simmers in his mind as he turns over his options. She would need to learn—to swim, yes, but also that she cannot keep secrets from him. Not of this magnitude; ideally not of any magnitude, but absolutely not one that leaves them so blatantly vulnerable.

Learn is not quite right, though. That lesson has already been taught. She must be reminded. This insubordinate impulse burned away and the instincts of fear replaced by the muscle memory of rote training. He stands, suppressing a sigh.

It will not be pleasant. But it must be done.

���Come.”

She falls into step at his shoulder, not looking half as contrite as he would have liked, though her lower lip pulls into her mouth when he scowls.

He watches her from the corner of his eye. As they walk, she keeps the normal surveillance, checking idly for tails or threats or movements of interest while he winds their way down the roof paths and through the market. In this way, he sees the exact moment when she realizes their destination; her teeth release her lip and her eyes widen, ears flattening against the side of her head. Her fingers tighten around the spellblade at her hip, but she does not stumble, stays in perfect step in his shadow.

Her tongue darts out over her lips. “Viago—“

“No.” The word is steel and sharp and in one syllable it is the verbal whipping she was clearly expecting before. She flinches, and lapses back into silence.

In the shadows farthest from the bustle of the city, there is a dock without any vessels and this is where Viago leads her. Still watching from the corner of his eye, so he sees when she loses control and begins to shake. Little shivers that pass over her from tip to toe, like a breeze rippling through an endless wheat field, as much at the mercy of her fear as the chaff and straw in the wind.

The lapping of the water against wood is not bothering him today, but her ears twitch with each wave that comes to shore. Ignoring that, he stands aside and jerks his head, indicating her to walk ahead of him.

She hesitates, and he glares. Hesitation gets an assassin killed. She knows this, and he knows that she knows how to quash the instinct. That she is receding like this, falling backwards into bad habits, is almost as maddening as the secret that she kept.

The secret that he failed to notice.

He does not move his head again—Viago does not ask for things twice, and Arlow does not need to be told more than once. Not by him. This time she pushes past the hesitation; a thread of relief slips through his anger and frustration.

Her shakes come more violently as his presence at her back forces her forward at a steady pace. Released from her blade, her hands fist at her side and she stares resolutely at the sky, as if keeping the murky, dark waters of the Rialto Bay out of her gaze will remove them from proximity as well. Finally, when the toes of her boots align with the last plank of the dock, she stops.

“Give me your weapons,” Viago orders. Mutely, she unhooks her blade and her focus and passes them to him. “Your leathers, as well.”

Her fingers slip on the fastenings of her cape—not yet the finery of a full-fledged Crow, but a mark of…something, something like security and belonging, nonetheless—and it takes her several tries to strip it and her armor from her skin. Left only in a thin tunic and leggings, barefoot and shaking from the cold now, as well, her toes curl over the wood and she looks back up at the sky.

He does not give her any warning before he pushes her into the water.

Because she is expecting one—he can tell. She thinks he will ask her to jump, force her to take the fear into herself and swallow it, disperse it, tie it away in her gut where it cannot see the light of day. That is what they would have done, had she revealed this to him in the normal course of things, and they had come to this point under different circumstances.

That would have been a lesson. This is the reminder.

There are guildmasters who would find their pleasure here, take this as a hobby rather than a necessity. But Viago’s stomach sinks as Arlow does beneath the water. This is not a pleasure. And it is only a necessity because she made it so.

He glowers at the bubbles that mark her depleting breath, counting a measure of sixty before he lowers his walking stick into the water, handle-end first so that she can see where moonlight catches on the metal snakes, and latch on.

Back on the dock, she sobs and splutters, spitting the bay water out of her lungs and struggling to replace it with air even as fear seizes them. Better here than on a job, he tells himself, schooling the sour taste on his tongue into careful neutrality. Better here than at the mercy of a rival House. Better here than anywhere without him, anywhere that he could not supervise and smooth out this chink in her defenses that she has allowed to fester.

He presses his walking stick into her shoulder and she gasps, winces, turns her eyes—wide and glassy with fear—up to him.

“Viago, please, let me—“

“Do not beg,” he says. Not coldly, not quite, but not kindly, either. Stern, unyielding; like the hands that break a poorly healed bone before it can be properly set. “Know yourself. Control yourself, and you will control this.”

He shoves and she rolls over herself, back into the water once more.