#and is that my boy viago in the back?

[vaguely-concerned]

The Wigmaker Job Reread thoughts

Feat. numerous bonus general Dellamorte boys thinky thoughts, because I can’t help myself when this particular brain state comes over me I will just. keep writing.*

SO I'm rereading The Wigmaker Job and folks, I uh. think Lucanis asked Illario to come along on this job mostly because he's incredibly lonely lmao. Not entirely sure he's recognized this himself and completely sure he would not have the language, ability or instinct to convey this to Illario in a coherent way if he did, but I really do think that's what it is. (He certainly doesn’t make it easy for Illario to actually pitch in meaningfully on the job itself at any point that’s for sure!) And what’s more, I think Illario does realize it, better than Lucanis himself… and did decide to go along with it, huh. I’ll try to show my work a bit later on in the post but for now, we have a lot of rambling ground to cover, let’s get going! 

(Obligatory disclaimer that these are just my personal impressions and reflections slash barely hinged stream of consciousness and if your read on something is different that is totally fine; as usual I am mostly talking out loud trying to explain to myself what the hell I’m thinking more than anything else lol. I’m going to be touching lightly on themes of suicidal ideation and child abuse in this, but only to the extent that is already present in the short story itself. I’ll mostly skirt around the body horror elements too, if those get to you!)

— “The man who’s taken the contract is no ordinary Crow,” Felicia explained, careful to keep her voice steady. 

Ambrose uncorked the wine with a wave of his hand and began pouring it into a crystal decanter. 

“He’s Lucanis Dellamorte.” 

The bottle clanged against the crystal. A crack splintered down the glass. 

“Ah.” Goose bumps pebbled the Wigmaker’s neck. He set the decanter back on the counter and sighed. “Shit.” 

*** 

In an unassuming inn, on an unassuming road, Lucanis Dellamorte sat with a whetstone in hand, his favorite sword resting across his knees. The monotonous movement of grinding stone against metal soothed him. Seven daggers of various size and shape lay polished and glistening on a rough wool blanket at his feet.

The opening mood whiplash of Lucanis’ name being spoken only in hushed voices among the Venatori, smash cut to Lucanis sitting there peacefully sharpening his knives (this is genuinely and unironically what he does for fun. This is his idea of a good time outside of work. Give him a cup of coffee to go along with it and his day is perfect. He’s been contentedly sharpening seven daggers and a sword while Illario gets dressed. Sometimes his attraction to Viago ‘I’m going to make a spreadsheet about who to kill about this I find that relaxes me’ de Riva makes so much sense to me.)? Of course amazing the first time around, but coming back to it now that I like. Know him. No actually that is exactly who and what he is huh got it in one fhsdkj. He’s wearing a sensible neutral toned knitted sweater beneath his brooding hotboi leathers and this is what you need to understand about him.  

I wonder if we were originally going to get more of the Erimond family in the game itself, other than just the notes we do find. It’s not every day a family produces someone even Cole can’t find a good word to say about, it would be fascinating to see what else it’s capable of haha. 

— This whole description of Lucanis’ sensory hypersensitivity especially to sound (hypersensitivity, as we see later, that extends to magic, despite describing himself as being as magically adept as a brick, however that works!) taken together with his, I feel I must reiterate, sharpening his knives for fun… I know diagnosing fictional characters is a flawed premise at the outset but as far as I’m concerned and with a whole game to add to my evidence pile this man is SO autistic and if you read him through that lens it does explain some things hahaha. 

— “Any excuse to primp.” 

“Hey—I’m only here because of you,” Illario grumbled. “We should be halfway home right now. Only ‘the Great Lucanis Dellamorte’ could delay a summons from the First Talon herself.”

Lucanis set his sword aside. Illario was generally thick-skinned— except when it came to their grandmother. “Caterina can hardly complain. She’s the one who beat into me my commitment to contracts.” 

Memories of sweat-filled days without food or water came unbidden. Lucanis’s back tingled from where his grandmother’s cane had bruised his flesh for letting his guard down or fumbling his footwork. For years, he’d hated her. But his time as a Master Assassin had since taught Lucanis that Caterina’s cruelty was her way of making sure that he was prepared for this life—that he survived. 

“All that effort training and grooming us, and the old woman still won’t step aside.” Beneath the bitterness in Illario’s tone was something rotten. 

“Your time will come,” Lucanis assured him. 

“Will it?” Illario’s piercing gaze met Lucanis’s in the mirror. “People talk. You’ve always been her favorite.” 

He’d heard the rumors. For all their secrets and intrigue, the Antivan Crows were a chatty bunch. 

“My talents lie elsewhere,” Lucanis said, gesturing toward the arsenal around him. “You’re the one with the silver tongue.” 

“So, if she named you heir to House Dellamorte, you’d refuse?” Lucanis opened his mouth to respond, when he realized someone was creeping up the stairs.

. . . 

“Lucanis?” Illario pressed. 

He held up a hand and clutched the worn leather grip of his sword. Illario’s pretty-boy mask slipped as a coldness flooded his features. A retractable dagger shot out from under his sleeve.

Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that — etc. but I want this exchange here in its entirety for stuff I’ll talk about later and also hey what the hell and so on. So much going on here. Lucanis’ acts of quiet rebellion by means of a sort of malicious compliance/competence — he’s following Caterina’s teachings to the letter and getting to have some in the spirit room left over for himself. He’s found a loophole to put off going home to something he dreads in an elegant practiced way, I definitely think this is a tactic he’s employed before.to claim some bits and pieces of agency. ‘How can she complain that I’m exactly what she taught me to be?’ suppressed anger/resentment under there. 

The fact that Caterina still hasn’t named either of them as heir at this point continues to be insane, of course, as is the fact that her blatant favoritism is a matter of public knowledge to the point of ‘As you know, Bob —’ connotations and neither of them even thinking to pretend to deny it. Wild shit. If she wanted to create an environment for seething toxic resentment, she couldn’t have done it better if she’d dedicated her life to nothing else lmao. Illario: I think I should be First Talon! Lucanis: I agree (please don’t make me talk to people)! Caterina: Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask? (Would Illario make a good First Talon? I don’t know, what does that even mean, really. But as has been said many a time before it would have been a much more natural use of their skillsets and natural inclinations to have Illario in the people-facing role and Lucanis to watch his back/stab anyone who disagrees, especially if what you’re after is stability. Oh well.) 

The special element of humiliation that it is a matter of public knowledge and tactical consideration across town that you’re the least favorite child… Illario’s obsession with winning the public opinion and being able to control his own image to the outside world is ah. Perhaps understandable.

Many thoughts and feelings about how they’ve individually made sense of/created narratives around the abuse in their upbringing. I didn’t end up going that deeply into that specifically in this post but it is an incredibly important element of their relationship. 

They come back to having this conversation again at the end — everything in this story right down to the structure of it is Lucanis desperately trying to avoid something and finding it implacably still there waiting for him no matter what he does. He’s playing for time as best he can and pretending that if he doesn’t think about it it won’t happen and he won’t have to deal with it, but no matter what happens in between it will be waiting for him at the end — Illario is not letting this go, and neither is Caterina. We open with it, and we close with it; it’s inevitable no matter how you bargain or try to go for the ‘well if I’m real lucky I could just die before that becomes relevant!’ gambit. Oof. Sorry Lucanis this isn’t something you can solve through stabbing no matter how good you are at it I know that’s terrible news for you but here we are my sincerest condolences 

— So cute to see their little double act of casual smalltalk/bickering as a diversion in action already here, in exactly the same way they break it out during the café meeting in Veilguard! Courtney Woods is really good at moments of establishing character like this, showing both the brewing conflict between them and how well they know each other and the ways they can wordlessly communicate because of it all in one scene. How unspeakably comfortable and uncomfortable they are together in ways only family can manage to be haha. 

— Illario complaining that Lucanis let him get a whole outfit made thinking they were actually going to the party and mentioning how long they (not he, they, Lucanis came along for all of that) were at the tailor’s (Lucanis, implied to be very dryly: “I recall.”)... listen. Especially once you hear the banter in the Treviso market about how Lucanis once sat around waiting for six hours while Illario tried on gloves to find exactly the right pair — that is clearly Lucanis making gentle fun of him, but he is also inadvertently revealing something about himself in that he stayed for six hours to keep Illario company through that. I think coming along on shopping trips where he knows nothing is expected of him except to hang out, make light snarky comments when asked for his opinion and wait might kind of be Lucanis’ idea of a good time socially hahaha. Nr. 1 shopping wingman in Thedas. His main ‘I’ll follow you to hell and back with only light complaining’ arena for Illario. This is part of the pattern of not telling Illario the whole plan and deliberately keeping him continually on the backfoot during this whole story — which clearly, not fair to him and not a great look, Lucanis, you’re not being very nice — but I feel like this is also another entry in the pattern of Lucanis desperately craving company and not quite knowing how to ask for it nor perhaps realizing that’s what he’s up to. Also I get the sense he thinks Illario finds getting ready for missions like this and picking out what to wear fun. Which to be fair he’s probably right about, if he just didn’t also go out of his way to make Illario feel like an idiot in the process lmao. 

— At the bottom, they found an elf in a scarlet coat guarding a large steel door. She greeted Lucanis with a cordial smile. “Master Dellamorte. And . . .” 

Her friendly façade faltered as she spotted Illario. 

“Master Dellamorte the Lesser,” Illario offered with a grin. 

“My cousin,” Lucanis clarified. 

Appeased, the elf asked, “Where does your business take you tonight?”

If you wear your self-loathing and resentment on your sleeve for long enough while everyone around you ignores it as a joke it becomes an accessory! And other Illario Dellamorte hot fashion tips in this edition of Treviso Weekly. Fhdskjas the things these two motherfuckers say that they consider completely normal and sane things to say — to each other and to say about themselves and each other in public… 

— Lucanis peeked over the side. No one looked up. One of the world’s greatest wonders is mundane to these people. 

“How do they get it to float?” Illario asked, tapping his boot tip against the aqueduct.

This is so quietly sweet to me. Illario does look up, because he is also a Crow. Courtney Woods is really good at creating these under-the-surface feelings — I love the small details she puts in to emphasize Illario and Lucanis connecting over their common background, over being two Antivans in Tevinter, in being Crows, in being Caterina’s grandsons. (...and also the places those connections fail or fall short. Ouch and owie.) At a point later in the story, Lucanis thinks to look up because he hears Illario’s voice in his head making a joke, reminding him. 

Moving in tandem, Lucanis and Illario dropped to their chests and shimmied to the edge overlooking the courtyard.

Lucanis seems to value these moments of connection through common experience because they don’t require him to speak or explain himself, which he clearly finds extremely hard to the point that he’d rather not even venture the attempt/doesn’t even know how to start. These are wordless ways he and Illario know each other, intimacy/connection that’s natural and effortless where that is clearly incredibly difficult for him in many other settings — body knowledge of another person’s company with the person he (thinks he) knows the best in the whole world, the most familiar and comforting presence in his life. They were boys together, they learned how to move together, they’ve eaten at the same table all their lives. In the Crossroads when he finds the smell of coffee and home there, it’s home because Illario was there with him. Hmghfsk. Agony. Suffering.

— “So, the Wigmaker.” Illario wiggled his fingers ominously. “Tell me about him.” 

“He’s weird,” Lucanis replied bluntly. He found the moments before a job crucial for focus, but Illario was never one for comfortable silence. 

“Specifics, cousin. No one hires us to kill normal people.” 

“I gave you a dossier.” 

“Yes, but I want your assessment.” 

“I wrote it. It is my assessment.” 

“Humor me.” 

Their dynamic in this is so heartbreaking to me in that like… okay this is going to be heavily vibes based and integrating some of the things we get to see of them in Veilguard so bear with me here while I try to explain this to myself. But what Illario is trying to do here is clearly to get Lucanis to engage with him outside of the professional sphere. Of all people in the world at this point in time, I think Illario is the one single person who best knows and also cares the most about Lucanis as a human being, not about what he can do for him. He loves his cousin, he wants to know what Lucanis is thinking, he wants to be engaged with him; he’s trying his fucking damnest to pick the locks to get to the person beneath the Crow, as it were! Maybe to a Lucanis he remembers from long ago, when they were children and the connection between them was effortless and open, not yet marred by all the ways trauma and the unequal dynamic enforced on them has forced them to shut parts of themselves down to survive. I feel there’s a where did you go that I couldn’t follow and when did it happen, why did you leave me here alone, come back sort of undertone to it, both here and in The Wake. As well as in Veilguard itself, come to that! ‘That is not my cousin, that is a demon, a stranger with his face’ is a sentiment that may, perhaps, have deeper roots than Lucanis popping back up from the grave like a jumpscare. Another metaphorical/emotional truth made mockingly literal, as it were, just like Lucanis’ Freeze response and deep sense of being a monster somehow in a way he can’t put his finger on is older than Spite or the Ossuary. (Zara thought making ‘the Demon of Vyrantium’ literal would be great value for shits and giggles, and this is also a Narrative Pattern in this corner of the story, the unspoken emotional metaphors in this fucked up little family heightened and made real through the literary device of magic. It’s good stuff. Veilguard does pretty solid work with metaphors overall, honestly.) 

Meanwhile Lucanis both seems to long for that connection too (there’s a reason he asked Illario to come along with him for this even though he refuses to like. Actually give him the information he needs to actively help out particularly effectively) AND to feel threatened/inadequate when Illario asks for it. I’m not sure he entirely knows how to give Illario the closeness he’s asking for anymore, and the pain both of not being able to give someone you love what they need from you and the feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with you that you can’t understand how to do that, as well as threatening the system of values Caterina has instilled in him so deep: the job always comes first, anything that could stop you from prioritizing that is dangerous, even love. (Especially love, you only get to keep that if you do your job perfectly first.) There’s also the resentment of ‘why are you asking me for more when I already tried to give you this information/closeness in a way I’m actually capable of, if only you’d be serious and pay attention for five minutes’, a feeling of not being understood or seen. A sort of I crave your company but every time I have it it only reveals how I’m fundamentally broken despair and stuckness as well, as we see the sort of fraught irreconcilably mixed emotions in all of Lucanis’ attachment relationships in Veilguard. 

Even at this stage, Lucanis’ is a psychology held together with workaholism and ‘I’ll just bottle this all up in here and then someday, on the bright side, if I’m lucky, I will die and not have to worry about it! If I can’t see it it can’t see me and it’ll be okay’ logic, and Illario’s attempts at breaking through, born of increasing desperation, love, and justified concern as they may be, are disruptive to those defensive structures and Lucanis instinctively rejects them. (Indeed, very much in the same way as Spite’s presence in Lucanis’ psyche works eventually, and eliciting the same initial reactions in him: avoidance, distaste, fear and anger. Davrin too refuses to stop poking and back off at subtler signs, and evokes a lot of the anger and rebellious little shitness for lack of a better word that Lucanis also has with Illario. Which I think ironically is also a sign that Lucanis kind of weirdly trusts him or at least trusts that he understands the parameters of their relationship clearly, it’s one of the few places he lets himself be openly angry right from the get go.) Thus the irritable pulling away/dismissiveness, and thus Illario’s (accurate tbf!) sense of rejection and dismissal and (I think inaccurate or at least incomplete) perception of Lucanis’ motivations for it. Though, again, who can blame him for reaching the conclusions he does with what Lucanis is able to give him to work with here. And so the misery carousel keeps going round and round.  

Illario and Spite speak the same truth to him: WE ARE TRAPPED. WE NEED TO GET OUT SOMEHOW OR IT’LL KILL US. (Inferred and indirect: HELP ME) And because Lucanis’ survival instincts naturally go towards Freeze, being asked for action of that specific kind is what he’s least able to deliver, because it’ll inevitably hurt someone he loves, no matter how he moves. So he just. Doesn’t. Rook finds Lucanis trapped in a chamber deep in his brain I think has existed in a less Fade-enhancedly literal form for much, much longer than the most recent barrage of trauma. The set dressing is new, the underlying logic is old and firmly established.

Lucanis’ instinct to keep the current patterns going as painlessly or numbly as possible, to ‘keep still’ and only work within the structures Caterina has set up for them — because in his mind a flawed yet stable status quo, yes, even a toxic one, is better than the risk of unbearable and irretrievable loss and chaos at its disruption, as they have in fact experienced before under traumatic circumstances — is incredibly destructive to the both of them, and it’s born out of an incredibly deep love and protectiveness. He’s trying to keep Illario safe, in exactly the same way he thinks he’s doing for everyone he cares about by staying in the Mind!Ossuary later, but it’s a child’s/survival instinct’s flawed logic and causing so much harm in the process. Logic that indeed is inherited from Caterina, whose solution to that same logic is what Lucanis is scrambling to protect Illario from the same way he tries to protect himself (if only Illario would understand that and stop rocking the fucking boat!!!, right…). Don’t struggle against the riptide, go limp, if you try to swim against it directly you’ll always lose. (And from Illario’s point of view: well, if you loved me you’d at least try, and not just wait for it to finish the job and finally drown us.) 

In this short story you can feel how they’re trying so hard to speak with each other in the only ways they know how, with the broken mangled tools Caterina left them with, and they can’t understand each other and very soon it’s going to be too late. I’m going to go lie down on the bottom of the ocean for ten thousand million billion years. 

— More observations of the patterns between them in this generally because it didn’t fit anywhere else lol: here’s the feeling I get. Illario makes bids for connection, Lucanis seems to bluntly brush him off even as we see from his internal dialogue just how fond he is of Illario — I think even some of the more dismissive comments he makes in his head is more along the lines of the affectionate amusement we see him have around people he cares about and their foibles in Veilguard too. If you listen to how he talks about Viago and Caterina especially, there’s that same laconic observation of their peculiarities as a part of how he loves them. HowEver. He and Illario do not have the tools or understanding to express to each other that ‘oof, no, that hit on something too tender, back off’, other than to try to jab back harder and sharper. And so resentments build and deepen on both sides without ever getting any outlets. A relationship where you don’t have the right or means to say ‘no’ is never going to be a healthy one, and saying ‘no’ is the one thing Caterina has most forbidden. In other relationships Lucanis solves this by creating distance internally — Caterina is in his inner world, but she’s the outermost lock, kept further away from his deepest self. He does not resent her ‘anymore’ (he says and probably thinks. I think he might ah. Have deferred it more than resolved it but that’s just me lol), but he has protected himself from her within the means he had to do it with and found a way to maintain his attachment to her in that state. And yet he is incapable of and/or unwilling to do that same process with Illario, to let go of the closeness he can maintain there. Illario is the innermost lock of his psyche, the person who has meant the most to him and as unguardedly as he’s capable of, who he’s held the closest all this time… even after finding out what he did. 

Illario is the safest, closest relationship he has… which also means that he is the one who gets parts of all the anger and resentment and frustration that cannot be there with Caterina in particular because that would be Dangerous Territory in a multitude of ways. I think Lucanis tries to mitigate this by more deliberately pouring that stuff into his job, but it’s still down there unresolved at the core, bubbling away, the fumes rising and infecting his interpersonal relationships in subtle ways. Even the ‘read the goddamn brief Illario’ move and refusing to budge is just another version of the malicious compliance/competence as rebellion that this whole mission is towards Caterina. (Unfortunately this is how it works sometimes when you’ve had to push things down that hard for that long; it comes out with the people we love the most and who deserve it the least.) And even then it’s mostly in undercurrents moving beneath the surface— it’s something that happens in an obfuscated and buried enough way that you can’t simply break it open all at once and let air in to stop the wounds from festering. If Illario did try to bring it up directly, I do not think Lucanis at this point would be capable of staying with it, he would flinch away and dissociate/freeze and deny it was even a thing at all (be unable to recognize it as a thing at all). And Illario clearly knows this too — you get the feeling that he’s been trying and trying and trying to get through here and found no way. He’s at the end of his rope, and not just about the First Talon conundrum.

Whenever they are speaking to each other, they are also speaking to Caterina through each other because you can’t really bargain with God directly (especially one that’s known to be a wrathful god given the provocation), but there’s enough of her and her meanings fused into you over the years that it’s almost the same thing when you talk. And sometimes it’s hard to see past her to your brother actually standing there with you.   

I’m going to SCREAM Lucanis loves Illario so much that he would prefer to die, would condemn himself to hell in his own mind forever rather than face having to lose him or deliberately harm him, AND YET!!!! AND STILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! He is letting him down and leaving him behind and making him feel small and stupid in ways so incredibly profound and sad without even realizing it all the time. No one in this family has ever been equipped to talk about anything ever and I doubt they’re about to start now and I need to tear into something with my TEETH

Anyway. Breakdown over, on with our regularly scheduled tevinter nights reread post with slightly less anguish lol. 

— [Lucanis] clapped a hand over the mage’s mouth and slammed his skull against the wall. “Knock it off.

What does he have to go and be so casually funny for at all times. The undisputed master of the perfectly tuned in levels of comedic mild exasperation. Stop stop I already love him. 

— Illario waited with a chair and rope. 

“Sit down.” He beamed. “Enjoy a little Antivan hospitality.” 

While his cousin secured their prisoner’s bindings, Lucanis retrieved his sword from the wall. e mage was coming to. His unfocused eyes took stock of his situation. 

“I won’t talk,” he spat. “Even if you torture me.” 

“I’m too busy to torture you,” Lucanis said, and ran him through with his sword. 

. . .

Illario frowned. “If I’d known you were just going to kill him, I wouldn’t’ve put so much effort into the knots.” 

“Check his pockets.” 

“Ah—” Illario said, pulling a scroll from the mage’s jacket. “Found something.” 

The seal was broken, but the imprint of two dragons was still visible in the wax. “Venatori.”

 “Thought as much. What’s it say?” 

Illario unrolled the parchment and scanned the page. “‘Gallant brothers and sisters . . . In our veins runs true Tevinter blood, passed down from the dreamers—’” Illario’s head snapped up as Lucanis began pulling his sword from the mage’s chest. “ Careful! Remember the tanner job? You ruined my best shirt.” 

Lucanis smirked and continued extracting the blade. 

Illario took two wary steps back, then continued reading.

Unfortunately I do love it when Lucanis is a troll fhsdkj 

— Lucanis’ inner logic that he can buy the tiniest sliver of autonomy and meaning by consistently offering up a sacrifice of perfection — that’s the silent deal he’s struck with Caterina, an exchange she’ll accept as long as he doesn’t try to get too clever with it, and his subsequent panic in Veilguard when he’s too worn down to be able to perform to perfection anymore (and with that, in this internal logic, goes his right to autonomy or freedom)……….. He really does make me so so SO sad. He needed so much therapy even before the Ossuary. Some deeply entrenched ideas about the basic transactionality in even the closest relationships here. (Where I think Illario is kind of his exception to. That’s an assumed mutual unconditional love even when some terms and conditions probably would be in order actually situation for him.) 

Also I think this is a useful look at how the Crows operating on ‘might makes right’ lines could be harnessed if you’re of a mind — basically anything goes, as long as you’re good enough to get away with it and/or don’t step on enough toes that the rest of the crab bucket momentarily team up to tear you down. And Lucanis chose to use that little loophole to go ‘well you see I’d sort of like to get to be kind sometimes actually’. Which, y’know. Eccentric for a Crow, to be sure, but are you going to be the one to tell the Demon of Vyrantium himself, Caterina Dellamorte’s most speacialest and scariest little murderboy, that he can’t keep protecting servants of the households he hits because it’s making the whole team look kind of soft??? The whole business runs on ‘I’m bigger and stronger than you so don’t try any shit’, and Lucanis has successfully built up the image of being bigger and stronger than anyone who’d think to try any shit well enough to get away with it, as Caterina has achieved for their house overall. (It’s not like him sparing witnesses gets in the way of the interest of other houses or anything anyway, he’s creating potential trouble for himself more than for anyone else which I hardly think anyone would feel compelled to protest against. If it’d been something that threatened anyone else’s bottom line, a completely different story, but I think Lucanis understands the system well enough to know where he can get away with it.) And again, all he has to do to earn it is to deliver unflinching inhuman perfection at all times! So that’s not a stressful set of psychological parameters to have to function under at all, especially when you feel yourself start to fail as you’re falling apart after horrible new waves of trauma lmao

Which I think is partially also what the ‘You think I’m not good enough?’/’Are you?’ exchange is about — it’s an extremely unhelpful and mean thing to say the way he does (especially in front of other people! Other people who, to Illario, are basically strangers!), but it’s also said out of howling protectiveness and a deep recognition of this stark truth. You can get away with it if you’re good enough, and if you’re not good enough you’re dead. Something Lucanis is blithely ready to risk his own life on all the time for perfect strangers, and is completely unwilling to accept when it comes to Illario’s life! Lucanis’ love has that light element of  possessiveness/proprietariness to it from time to time — the ‘he is ours’ sentiment that both he and Spite maintain for Illario in love and in hate. I have a lot of sympathy for it because it obviously comes from a place of painfully earnest love and fear in someone who has lost people in horrible ways at a young age, but there is something paternalistic in that protectiveness too, a lack of trust in Illario to take care of himself and willingness to cross lines in Illario’s own autonomy to ensure that he’s safe. (Not healthy or anything but considering the shit Illario pulls in this game… a little bit of can you fucking blame him I’d be three seconds away from an ulcer about it at all times too going on here haha). ‘It’s okay if you don’t agree or don’t forgive me afterwards, it’s all worth it if it means you’re safe, if it means you’ll survive’. Sins of the grandma dude. Sins of the grandma. The generational trauma starts coming and it won’t stop coming. 

— I also think it’s relevant that Lucanis can count on some things from Caterina consistently, as long as he upholds his part of the ‘deal’ between them to be her perfect poor boy slash best knife who’ll never let her down. However devastating the cost of her regard and support is, it’s only Illario who’s left completely to fend for himself in this family dynamic. A little bit of what the fuck does he have to lose going on here. Lucanis, I suppose. For a long he has Lucanis to lose, but Lucanis is starting to act an awful lot like he’s not that invested in living too much longer. So where does that leave you if you’re Illario. With a very dumb plan that was never going to work, apparently. 

— While hunting his mark, Lucanis had opened the wrong door and walked into an orgy. Getting out of that had been interesting.

Nothing of substance to add here except that the mental image is hysterical, of course, and only more so after having a whole game to get to know him. Also this is just my personal read but I don’t think Lucanis would use seduction, even as a tactic on a job, by choice — my feeling is that his act as a servant in Vows and Vengeance would be more indicative of the social stealth skills he’d use when that’s what gets him where he needs to be. (Very tired service worker towards the end of their shift might in fact be the role he was born to play he has exactly the vibes for it.) 

A good assassin knows his tools, and I think Lucanis realizes that flirting, even in a professional capacity as it were, is one of his blunter and more inflexible ones and so mostly wouldn’t use it haha. If he understood someone to be attracted to him in a way that required nothing much of him actively and would somehow aid the job I’m sure he’d use the opportunity it provided well enough, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t believe it’d ever occur to him to go there as an opening move. The theoretical understanding is mostly there, the practical application… maybe less so. He knows he’s not very good at it and so wouldn’t rely on it if he could help it; that’s Illario’s sandbox to play in. Again this is just my personal opinion, so feel free to disagree of course, I know people have a range of reads on this element.  

— His skull felt raw. The backs of his eyeballs itched like he hadn’t blinked in days. Whatever magic Ambrose was using for his creations was tearing at the seams of the Veil. 

“Something’s wrong.” 

“Yeah,” Illario agreed, zeroing in on a group of half-dressed revelers, “we’re up here, away from the fun.” 

Lucanis snapped his fingers in front of his cousin’s face. “Focus.” 

“I am.” 

“On the job.” 

“To be fair, you never told me the plan.” 

Lucanis shrugged. “Find Ambrose. Slit his throat.” 

“Sounds complicated.” 

“It will be. The Veil’s thin here. Thinner than I expected.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “One wrong spell and this place will be swarming with demons.” 

“Then let’s kill the bastard and scram. I want to see what this city has to offer.” 

“Our ship sails at dawn.” 

Illario waved a dismissive hand. “Plenty of time for some good, old fashioned debauch—” 

“I see him,” Lucanis interrupted.

Lucanis does this really nasty thing with Illario where he first pushes him away and then punishes him for being disengaged with him/what they’re doing, or asks him for something he then rejects when he gets it. (I think he has some of this pattern in other relationships too but without the punishment or idk… familiarity/presumptiveness/feeling of natural entitlement to their attention part. Illario is his brother, the attachment there is safe/established enough that the part of him that doesn’t think he’s worth someone’s attention doesn’t kick in as it does in pretty much every other relationship. He’d never blame Rook or any of the Lighthouse crew for pulling away from him that same way, that’s a deep well of ‘well yeah valid I also don’t really want to have anything to do with me tbf :/’ self-loathing waiting to open up, ‘protecting’ him from making a presumption like that or imaging himself to have rights or worth interpersonally in basically any other context or relationship at the outset. But with Illario the love is always assumed. Both ways. You have a right to me on that level, and I have the right to you. The only person he takes for granted. Because that’s family. Oh boy.) 

See also: the way he barely acknowledges Illario greeting him when he comes back from the Ossuary and more crucially as far as Lucanis might expect Illario’s perspective to be beneath any repressed suspicions, from the dead — very understandably so, considering the Dire mood and implications and ‘...where’s Caterina’ of it all, but it’s also a larger pattern he has. I think he feels such deep love for Illario that he doesn’t quite get that he also has to like. Show that deep love for it to be understood by the other party. And it sure comes across as very dismissive from the outside, or if a person is perhaps primed to have that insecurity already by the entrenched family dynamics at play. Oh boy 2 electric boogaloo. 

Buddy you are setting the person you love the most up to lose again and again and again… and it would break his heart to truly realize that, probably, but I don’t know if he’d know how to stop doing it, either. 

This seems to be all completely subconscious, to be clear. These are clearly patterns established from when they were extremely young, and it’s hard for fish to conceptualize being surrounded by water other than when the absence of it leaves them gasping and dying, I suppose.

Shallower thought: So Lucanis is also not clean-shaven here! Probably a more casual didn’t bother to shave/not quite as meticulously maintained five o’clock shadow going on as with Illario, but perhaps a tiny bit of the pot calling the kettle black here, Mr. Lucanis ‘long black leather overcoat’ Dellamorte isn’t unconcerned with looking cool, in his more restrained way. (As we all know ‘looking cool’ is the foundational base of a Crow’s Maslow’s pyramid of needs to the point that Spite went ‘can do!’ immediately upon contact with Lucanis’ soul and never stopped dhfkjs.)

— “They’re never what you envision, are they?” Illario noted. 

“What did you expect?” 

“Hair, for one. Maybe a funny little dog.” 

That got a chuckle out of Lucanis, if only briefly.

The thing is that I love these two dumbasses so incredibly much. You see. This exchange of funny little observations is a huge part of how Lucanis interacts with Rook especially out on missions too, you can see where his patterns for having close relationships come from. Also restating my point from other metas that Lucanis seems to come alive a bit with collaborative humour, that’s clearly a social dynamic he finds soothing and also engaging, a way he knows how to take an outstretched hand. Since that seems to come from his relationship with Illario when it’s at its best… pain and suffering in my heart again needless to say

— Lucanis pays a lot of attention to people’s clothes and is very good at understanding what they’re trying to signal with their outfits. Overall he’s excellent at understanding people’s ways of thinking in the abstract/from a distance, as long as he doesn’t have to interact with them directly and interpersonally. Because then he falls to absolute pieces under the slightest pressure and runs. Again the best my particular brand of autism representation probably not even meant to be representation I’ve ever seen lol. 

— Camille had just taken a sip of watered-down mulsum, when a handsome stranger grabbed her glass and downed the rest. 

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed. The party drowned out her words, but Lucanis could still read her lips. “That’s my drink.” 

Illario simply smiled. “Guess I’ll have to buy you another.” 

Lucanis groaned—not only at the line, but that it worked. Even from his position, he could see Camille was hooked. He shouldn’t be surprised. This was old hat for Illario. But it was always amazing to see what one man’s smile could accomplish.

Lucanis’ mildly baffled and somewhat begrudging admiration for Illario’s social skills is so funny. As far as he’s concerned this is some kind of black magic beyond his ken. It must be a bit of pretty privilege involved in this case tho because what the fuck how did that land. Hey whatever works Illario you spent all that time on your outfit for a reason never let anyone tell you your slutty little unbuttoned shirt isn’t serving a tactical purpose I’m not about to tell you how to do your job

the fact that Illario is in fact a very good Crow. he's just not Lucanis. that's his original sin huh. never getting away from that one.

— Do u think Illario’s move with putting the keys on the tray instead of pocketing them and going back to Lucanis is maybe one of his small spiteful acts of rebellion. Ah. Family traditions. Truly they bind us together. 

— The Lucanis in this story is so much more… contained than the Lucanis we get to meet in the game, for good or ill. In Veilguard he is constantly fraying at the seams and cracking open under all the pressure he’s under, which for sure and of course is Not Great and causes him a lot of pain and distress — but also the whole that’s how the light gets in etc. thing, it also means it’s easier for things to find their way in to him and for him to let things out. Meanwhile here, there’s more the sense of immense tension —  a harder, more determined/deliberate lack of being able to move than the total helplessness of being stuck in the mind!Ossuary, but with some of the same quality. Illario tries to get in to find him and in his way I really do think Lucanis is trying to reach out to Illario as well as he knows how, but there’s a rigidness there that stops anything from really getting through or changing. Illario’s guilt trip letter after Sea of Blood saying that control is the quality he’s always most associated with Lucanis makes a lot of sense when you read this short story, even though I think Illario is mistaking ‘control’ for ‘deadening anything too vulnerable or ‘frivolous’ until I’m just a tool that can do a job’. That letter is transparently Illario deliberately pressing down on a bruise he knows to be tender, but it feels like there’s some kernel of truth to it beneath that which makes the sting all the worse. 

— Up ahead, Lucanis spied the servants’ entrance. If he could reach it, there was just enough space to wedge his body into the covered niche above the door. Not easily, of course, but nothing ever was. 

*Resigned Lucanis voice* Nothing is ever easy. (He does literally say this word for word in one of Bellara’s quests, and in exactly the tone you’d expect haha. He is my favourite person of all time)

— Lucanis thought about securing the entrance—leaving it unlocked could raise suspicion—but chose not to in case Illario decided to work tonight. He could already hear his cousin’s honeyed excuses— But seducing a beautiful woman is work! He snorted and pushed farther inside.

I do believe a certain amount of affectionate dunking is part of Lucanis’ love language and it’s too bad that’s kind of become a sore point/unequal power balance between him and Illario because it is frequently so funny fhdakj. Also kind of sweet to see the precedent for Lucanis sort of… keeping people he loves in his head like this, the locks in Inner Demons are clearly literalizations of a process he already sort of does naturally. He listens to the Illario and Caterina in his head multiple times during this story. I’m repeating my ‘this man is so desperately lonely in a way he doesn’t know how to solve’ point for emphasis. A common affliction in many of the Veilguard main cast, Solas of course being the most egregious and ongoing example. This game has Themes and it’s sticking to them haha <3<3<3 

— The cold opulence of the place reminded Lucanis of a Chantry rather than a home. 

Very interesting observation, now that we’ve seen Villa Dellamorte for ourselves! Is all I’ll say. (*Spite voice* Home? …Smells like linseed oil and dust)

Atlases bearing the visages of past Archons held up vaulted ceilings glittering with mosaic depictions of Tevinter’s golden age. The cost of such a commission must have been astronomical—both in coin and lives. How many slaves had gone blind gilding each individual tile? How many backs had been broken from hauling and placing stone after stone? 

There was patriotism and there was obsession. Neither was worth it.

Again. Very interesting observations from a man raised in a mansion built on spilled blood and with Crow decorations anywhere you turn right down to the wallpaper haha. Tevinter/specifically the Venatori lets him indulge in some ‘clean’ anger and disdain that he can’t have back home because it’s, y’know. Home. He may not have a lot of illusions about the Crows, but he also is deeply bound to them. Lucanis will sublimate his anger into ANYTHING including turning it on himself before he lets it touch something he loves. 

— Brief detour away from the general/worldstate agnostic approach of this post to my personal shenanigans, but…. Lucanis ‘breaking into morbid nursery rhymes internally while on a murder spree’ Dellamorte 🤝 Ellaryen ‘absent-mindedly reciting funeral rites in his head in the middle of a fight to keep his rhythm and also start to get it out of the way ASAP while people fall like flies around him’ Ingellvar. Made for each other, truly. 

— Too bad we never got to see Lucanis using a garotte in the main game, that’s clearly one of his go-tos normally. I suppose trying to do stealth sections with Taash on the team is a tall order even for Lucanis Dellamorte. The Crows AXE their regards!!! ]>:D

— The dead weight of the first man pulled the second one up until they both hung around the limestone Archon’s nape like a loose cravat.

Once more, I love Courtney Wood’s writing style. What a mental image. The tone of light comedy as Lucanis 9-5s his way patiently through all these guards is pitch perfect. 

— Spread out. Lucanis mouthed the words as the guard gave the order.

This dude really is out here doing his job like it’s a video game level he’s done a hundred times before hahaha. He’d be skipping dialogue and sequence breaking all over the place if he could. (Speedrunner Lucanis for modern AU, there’s a concept anyone can have for free that’s hilarious. He does cooking videos, knife maintenance videos and insane video game speedruns interchangeably on his channel and never speaks a single word nor leaves a note through text in any of them god bless. He has three followers no update schedule goes years without making a video and has never spoken to anyone online. He is my babygirl.) 

— One for silence.

Two for surprise.

Three for good measure.

Four’s exercise.

Five for a slaughter. 

Six for the thrill.

Seven means more sovereigns.

“Eight marks the final kill,” Illario said, coming to stand next to him.

The whole nursery rhyme, and Illario coming in with the unspeakably sinister final line here, considering what we know happens not even that long after this job! Again the connection there is between them, though — they were thinking about the exact same thing, counting it out with the same old remembered words. 

“Do you still recite that old nursery rhyme? The one Caterina made us memorize during training?”

Lucanis moved to retrieve his throwing knives. “What can I say? It’s catchy.” 

“That’s a word for it.” Illario glanced at the swaying guards overhead. “You know, if the Vints ever learn to look up, you’re screwed.” 

“They’d have to stop looking down their noses.” He narrowed his eyes. “Your tunic’s rumpled.” 

Illario flashed a sheepish grin. “You weren’t the only one tussling with guards.” 

“Tussling, huh?” Lucanis shook his head. “That’s a word for it.” 

“I’m happy to kiss and tell, but shouldn’t we do something about this?” Illario wrinkled his nose and nodded toward the sticky fluid seeping out from underneath the slain guards.

My nebulous vibe has always been that they’re basically the same age with Lucanis a tiny bit older, but IMMENSE younger sibling little shit energy from him in this moment fhdksfas glorious. Sheepish grin is also a very fun look on Illario I wish they’d leaned in a bit more on that capacity for him in-game. If he read as more calculatedly bumbling it’d change some of the scenes a lot in terms of feeling, I think 

— “Never known you to have a soft heart,” Illario muttered. 

Lucanis’s right cheek muscle twitched. “She won’t talk.” 

“This isn’t Antiva. We’re not heroes here.” 

“We’re not heroes anywhere, cousin.” 

Illario rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. The Venatori already have your name. If they learn your face—” 

“I’ll grow a beard.” Lucanis smirked. “They’ll never see me coming.” 

Illario’s frustration deflated. He grinned reluctantly. “That cavalier attitude’s going to get you killed.” 

Lucanis turned the key until the bolt unlatched. “It’s served me well so far.”

a) so it’s Illario who’ll refuse to take things seriously if he doesn’t feel like it, is it, Lucanis lol, b) ‘I’ll grow a beard’ :’) well. He did. Do you think Illario thinks about that every time he looks at him now, c) owie owie owie the foreshadowing 

I think being a hero is not important to Lucanis at all, being a professional/being able to do the job is. (Being the perfect professional buys him getting to do hero things when his heart calls him to, but the role of hero itself is clearly not a priority or something he particularly wants.) 

Lucanis clearly mostly works alone — I wonder how often Illario has come along before. We know he has pulled ‘soft heart’ moves before this, from in-game banter, but probably without Crow witnesses. How much does even Caterina know about? Might be some proof in the pile of how much he trusts Illario that he’s so blatant about it here. 

— Lucanis gestured for Illario to follow as he slipped through the entryway. They stood for a moment, quiet and still, allowing their eyes to adjust. Ten paces ahead, a stairwell materialized in the shadows. eir descent was slow going. Wrought iron made for easy creaks and groans. Each step was a test of patience—and balance. Lucanis went first, showing Illario where to place his feet.

And 

“He was my cousin, but we were more like brothers, really. Always getting himself into every sort of trouble. And I was always right behind him, you know? Always.” Illario’s voice suddenly grew thick with emotion. “Now there’s nobody for me to follow.” (From The Wake)

:) ahahaha. Ha. 

Both of them independently using the ‘but we’re more like brothers’ phrasing exactly the same way too. Alright. Okay. I’m fine

— All at once, the room became aware strangers were present. One by one, they moaned a horrifying chorus of despair. Lucanis stumbled back, his mouth dry. Something inside snapped. Death’s too good for this bastard. 

Illario touched his arm. Only then did Lucanis realize how quickly he was breathing. He closed his eyes. Remember your training , he told himself, and suddenly, he could hear the tapping of his grandmother’s cane, the hard elegance of her voice. There is no place for emotion in killing. It’s sloppy. File it down. Make it useful.

Illario being able to notice Lucanis being incredibly upset when he’s too overwhelmed to register/be aware of it himself and bringing him back to himself with nothing more than a touch to the arm is not devastating to me at all. It’s fine. In Inner Demons, even Viago and Teia fail to recognize that Lucanis is about to come completely apart psychologically, but again… I think Illario really does know his cousin better than anyone in a lot of ways. (And less than anyone in other ways, but hey, that’s family for ya lol) 

Make it useful, he repeated to himself. With slow, controlled breaths, Lucanis flushed the rage pumping through his veins until he could think clearly. 

I’m actually so happy they went away from focusing on the concept of wrath/passion as the touchstone for Lucanis’ character and angled it more towards the interpersonal issues he has with anger and with his sense of self than his rage at cruelty and injustice like this — that starts to step on the toes of Anders’ narrative space as a bisexual possessed disaster without bringing anything particularly new to the equation, which would have been a shame. Also as I’ve made no secret of I love what they are doing with him in the game SO MUCH I can turn him gently around to gaze at him forever 

— “What are you doing?” Illario whispered. 

“Breaking their shackles.” 

Illario stared. “That’s not the job.” 

“Fuck the job.” 

I think Illario is the only person Lucanis would ever say that in front of at this point. (See also: his point about honesty in their line of work towards the end.) This is a BIG admission from him, that there could be anything more important than the work Caterina raised them to — than Caterina’s approval and recognition. And what a horrible hurt that must be for Illario — ‘you’re willing to risk incurring Caterina’s wrath for total strangers on a whim, and yet not for me??’. (They both seem to recognize that death is secondary as a motivator here, Lucanis would rather die than let Caterina down, that’s the easy way out, and he’s putting that on the table frfr with the shit he’s pulling here.) Also part of what makes Illario fear Lucanis is rapidly spiralling/hurtling towards the edge of a cliff, probably, this acting on impulse is clearly not an everyday sort of thing for him. We know he’s made decisions of his own on jobs before, but probably not on this scale/in front of another Crow. 

There’s going to be room for so much ‘...why could you change for them and not for me? (why are they worth choosing to live for, and I wasn’t?)’ hurt on Illario’s side towards Rook and the Lighthouse crew after the events of the game. Maybe not as much on the Minrathous route, but even there. Like he doesn’t have much of a right to that after pulling the attempted fratricide card (that’s going to be the refrain of the rest of Illario’s life huh :’) entirely self-inflicted yet awful to have to live with; the Illario Dellamorte post Veilguard story), which only makes it worse to contemplate! Fun times in viddy games.  

— A+ body horror writing going on here, of course, hate every single thing about this thanks for asking!

—To his right, Lucanis sensed Illario readying his dagger. He gently grabbed his cousin’s wrist and shook his head. Illario gawked at him, his jaw clenched. 

The Wigmaker began the walk back toward the stairs. A groaning lament followed as he passed. When he was close enough to touch, Illario tensed—as if to lunge forward. Lucanis tightened his hold, his thumb finding the pressure point at the base of his wrist. The dagger fell from Illario’s grasp. Lucanis swiped it up before it clanged to the ground. 

What are you doing? Illario mouthed. 

Again, Lucanis motioned him to stand down. 

Once they heard Ambrose climb the stairs and close the door, Illario wrenched his arm free. 

“Have you lost your mind? We had him!” 

“He doesn’t deserve a quick death.” 

“Did you forget the mess you left upstairs? What do you think will happen when Ambrose finds his bodyguards slaughtered?” 

“Hopefully he panics. I want him scared.” 

“He’ll flee,” Illario asserted. “And this contract will be forfeit. Your life will be forfeit.”

Illario ‘cousin I am trying to have a fucking INTERVENTION with you here why am I more concerned about whether you live or die than you are!!!’ Dellamorte. His cousin is seemingly losing his fucking mind and playing with the one thing Caterina values above all and possibly would sacrifice even Lucanis for: the integrity of their House among the Crows. He’s seeing Lucanis determinedly, near methodically setting himself up for death no matter what path he ends up going down. This would be. Stressful. To have to witness, I imagine.

I do think Lucanis is passively suicidal in the way that he would vastly prefer to die on a job before he’d ever have to face the impossible choice that awaits them with the First Talon title back home — where he’s forced to let down either Caterina or Illario, possibly to spend the rest of his life on something he doesn’t want and might cost him his relationship with Illario, and is unable to deal with the thought of it so he just Avoids for all he’s worth. And he’s worth a lot that way. Which Illario clearly also recognizes and might be part of this freakout — having to watch your cousinbrother casually preparing to fall on his own sword for what seems like basically no fathomable reason (for these STRANGERS and not for me!!?!?!) and not be able to get through to him no matter what you try... you know. It’s kind of just a bad time all round for Illario too. He goes and chooses to do all the wrong things about it, of course, his talent for making everything worse in every way he possibly could is unparalleled (affectionate and derogatory), but I have a lot of empathy for where he’s coming from emotionally in a lot of ways. While you exist I’m nothing, and when you are gone I am nothing. And after you come back. Guess what. I’m still nothing. Imagine that. The Illario Dellamorte story. 

(Lucanis has also seen a lot of really horrible shit on the job lately, Venatori bullshit being what it is. That stuff must start to build up after a while, him finally snapping here makes a lot of sense.) 

— “Illario—” 

But the other Crow wasn’t finished. “I thought the plan was to have a few laughs, slit some throats—not release a demon swarm!” 

“Plans change,” Lucanis replied. His gloved palm covered the door handle. 

“Well, for the record, I preferred the other one.” 

“Noted.” 

Aw. This is my main proof that Illario does in fact understand the plea for company behind Lucanis asking him to come along on this job. Possibly better than Lucanis understands that himself, which could perhaps be. Exasperating to deal with — but he did also come along and with only light complaining etc. I umm. love them both. Some more musings about how Illario has clearly been the person most responsible for/involved in Lucanis having any kind of social life before Veilguard times: 

Comment Lucanis has around some more party districts of Minrathous in-game: “The nightlife was always more Illario's thing. He said I should get out more. Fulfilling Crow contracts didn't count.” (Illario is a terrible little fuckboy murderlad but consider what he’s had to deal with over the years…braver than any us marine etc. he’s been the one trying to convince Lucanis to take care of himself and maybe even have a good time at some point for like 20 years, a monumental task we know it takes a village/Lighthouse to make headway with. A man who has had to say ‘hey we should do something fun. No not a job with extra garrotting Lucanis Maker’s breath I was thinking a party or something’ more times than any of us have had hot dinners) 

+

Lucanis, trust me! Take this contract and we’ll be the toast of Treviso. Would I lead you astray? But I can imagine your face at that question. A better question, then: Would you truly leave me to my own devices? What would I do without you? Come, cousin, it will be just like last summer. I’ll buy the wine afterwards. —Illario

Letter we find in the room in Villa Dellamorte where it’s implied Illario has been staying since staging his little failcoup — it’s right across the hall from where he’s imprisoned his grandmother btw and I have a pet theory that it’s Lucanis’ old room. Illario Dellamorte what is wrong with you (so many things).

Illario has seemingly been drinking and reading this letter — this letter that Lucanis kept after receiving it, so Illario must have found it among his belongings at some point after his ‘death’ and has also kept it around ever since — in the same room where there’s a burned letter from Zara in the fireplace, even though the house is filled to the rafters with the Ventatori and trying to hide evidence of that connection is thus uh. Well it seems a bit late in the game to be worrying about that, is all I’m saying. It lends some credence to the idea that him crossing out Lucanis’ name in the family tree and scribbling ‘DEMON’ over it probably does carry some real emotional charge and isn’t just a tantrum/uncomplicated show of jealousy. 

So historically Illario has gone out of his way to spend time with Lucanis, and he seemingly is usually the one to reach out/take initiative in that? Lucanis clearly appreciates it — he kept that silly little letter (I am INCONSOLABLE about it btw), that comment he makes about the blight-beached boat in the Hossberg Wetlands that ‘Illario and I went on a sailing trip once. The boat ended up like that one, minus the blight (paraphrased yet very dear to me)’. Social connection is a need Illario has recognized in Lucanis before and offered even when Lucanis himself wouldn’t think to ask for it, is what I’m trying to say. I think. *sigh* listen you’ve gotten this far in the post hopefully you realize I am not entirely sure what I’m saying most of the time I’m trying to nail light to a wall here please have patience with me fhaskj

— Lucanis seems to navigate by sound a lot (which makes sense, considering how much of his job happens in the dark). Spite navigates mostly though a sense of (supernatural) smell. They’ve got a lot of eye imagery around them, but sight is not actually the most central sense for either of them. Nothing more coherent to add to that just observations haha 

— you ever think about the fact that despite everything caterina is ultimately unwilling to let go of Illario, and Illario is unwilling to let go of her. Me neither. 

— “Where are the bodies?” Illario asked. 

Effe shrank into herself. “I moved them.” 

“Not by yourself, you didn’t.” He turned to Lucanis, a smug sneer on his face. “I told you she’d talk.”

Proof Illario is not in fact an idiot and recognizes the basic logistics of a matter, and why his ‘oooh I think Zara must be back in Vyrantium already how inconvenient…’ ploy must be extra ‘...uh-huh cousin’ sus to Lucanis in Veilguard fhdjask. Trying to keep his terminator grandmother safely under lock and key while his cousin is back from the dead and possibly is now a demon with his face because of you and also you have to keep track of what lies you’ve told to what people must be incredibly stressful tbf I wouldn’t be keeping a particularly cool head either 

— Back down the hall, something wet slammed against the studded door. 

Effe’s bravado crumbled. “What was that?” 

“Take her,” Lucanis told Illario. “Find the others.” 

“Other what?” His eyes darted to the elf. “ Slaves? Absolutely not.” 

Lucanis continued as if Illario had agreed, “There’s a statue with a passage—like the one we used before. It’s not far. You should be able to escape in the chaos.” 

Illario blanched. “Did you not hear me? I said—” 

“Athima will help you. She’s the elf we met earlier.” 

“I don’t give a damn what her name is. I’m not—” 

“Once Ambrose is dealt with, I’ll meet you at the docks.” 

“Lucanis!” Illario shouted. “We are not revolutionaries.” 

Lucanis inhaled, his nostrils flaring. Illario was right. The Antivan Crows were assassins, not freedom fighters. Back home, people liked to romanticize, but Lucanis knew what he was. Still, his fingers twitched. 

“They are not responsible for their master’s mistakes.” He locked eyes with his cousin. 

Illario tried to remain resolute, but it was like touching hot steel. Sighing, he cursed and turned to Effe. “Come on,” Illario snapped. 

She glanced toward Lucanis. He gave her a reassuring nod. 

“My cousin may be a snob, but he’s true to his word.” 

“Are you? ” she asked, referring to his promise about Ambrose. 

“The Wigmaker will die tonight,” Lucanis affirmed. “But you have to go. It’s about to become very dangerous.” 

How much do you want to bet Illario is going ‘fuck it’s like trying to have a staring contest with Caterina herself’ on the inside right here, with all the emotions that may involve lmao. Lucanis is getting Illario out of there before shit really hits the fan too, notably — where Illario might see mostly lack of respect for his skills/what he could bring to the fight (there’s not none of that from Lucanis’ side either, but less than I feel Illario might be imagining), I think there’s a protectiveness, an unwillingness to risk Illario when the real madness shakes loose. *Lucanis voice* I mean it’s fine if I die obviously. but you don’t get to. get in the fucking car illario  

I think Lucanis adds the ‘My cousin is a snob, but he’s true to his word’ to reassure Effe that she can trust Illario/make Illario seem less scary/intimidating to her — both invoking the familial connection and the gentle dig to show that ‘see, I trust him, I’m not the least bit threatened by him, you don’t have to be either’. I don’t imagine ‘snob’ would be particularly upsetting to Illario either so while it is another datapoint in the grand tradition that is Lucanis-led public Illario slander, this might be one of the least egregious examples of it lol. (Implied lack of skill would hit way harder than anything about their social standing, I’m imagining)

— Lucanis has such a desperate need and desire to care for someone, as evidenced by how he reacts when he gets a whole Lighthouse full of people to do exactly that and springs into action like he’s been born for nothing else. He is that predator turned sheepdog all anxiety all the time he transparently projects onto Assan in that one banter with Davrin. That instinct has clearly been deep in him all this time, waiting for the right ground to grow in. To further his parallel with Davrin in so many things, there is a big part of him that is a protector as much as the part that’s a hunter, and it has finally found its place.

And like… can you imagine being Illario seeing that. Or this. Obviously it’s the right thing to do morally but on the petty small emotional and interpersonal level. Unbearable fhjksa.  

— Lucanis felt no sympathy. They were, all of them, Venatori supporters, who either knew what Ambrose was doing or chose to turn a blind eye to indulge their own vanity. Ignorance is bliss, not innocence.

Extremely interesting thing to think for someone raised in the Antivan Crows! I do think he actually holds himself to that standard, though — he doesn’t consider himself in any way an innocent. Even in situations where he is actually innocent, like how he feels about his time in the Ossuary. It’s easier for him to conceptualize that the demons/spirits in there were as innocent as anyone else trapped down there than to accept that maybe he didn’t deserve what happened to him either.

We’re also seeing the groundwork here for one of my favourite aspects of his character: the fact that he has an enormous, nearly unstoppable and instinctive on a kneejerk sort of level capacity for empathy — something he uses to great effect as a tool in his professional life to understand and predict his targets and the people around them, and which makes him an extremely devoted friend in his personal one — and yet is much more sparing with his sympathy. Those are in fact separate mental processes! And it’s fascinating to see someone in which the divide can be so clean and stark. (Not to keep beating this particular drum, but something deeply neuroatypical going on with this man long before the whole demon thing, he’s just found his niche and functions to the point of excelling in his particular field lol. Uneven skill profile: can intuit the thought processes of Tevinter fanatics or how word spreads through a community (as seen with the inn owner at the beginning) to a T from about two casual glances and find a way to stab anything up to and including a god cloud, cannot for the LIFE of him have an emotional conversation with his brother who he’s known all his life or understand what he’s thinking, because that all falls apart at the drop of a hat when he has to actually engage interpersonally himself and understand and interpret his own feelings on top as well in real time. Relatable. Is all I’ll say.)   

— The mage’s jaw pulsed. “You think you can come into my Imperium and act as judge and executioner?” Lucanis opened his mouth to respond, but Ambrose anticipated his answer. “Don’t say, ‘ Sì! ’” 

That earned a genuine smile from Lucanis. “Normally, there’s no judgment—only a contract. But for you, Ambrose, I made an exception.” 

The Wigmaker raised a brow. “Oh? What makes me so special?” 

“You upset my delicate sensibilities.” 

It was Ambrose’s turn to laugh. 

“I thought a Crow could stomach anything—for the right price.” 

Lucanis leveled the Wigmaker with a pointed look. “Not red lyrium.” 

“Morality is not static. Right and wrong are a matter of perspective.” Ambrose’s words were practiced and tired as if he had given the same reasoning a hundred times. 

Lucanis continued his advance, refusing to engage in the Wigmaker’s rhetoric. Nothing irritated him more than self-righteous excuses. If you’re going to do something terrible, just own it.

For your bounteous amounts of fuckery you have been promoted from the ‘contract’ category to ‘enemy’ category! Congratulations Ambrose it’s your special day. Also this makes a lot of sense with how he seems to feel about Solas too. 

— Hopelessness flooded the mage’s eyes. “One day, someone will turn your work against you. Only then will you have some semblance of the emptiness you’ve made me feel.” With his good hand, he gathered what was left of the wigs, hugging the locks to his chest. 

Lucanis experienced a twinge of disappointment, kindling for rage. He expected more fight from a high-ranking Venatori. He thought of the Wigmaker’s workshop, of the prisoners, their bellies full of poison, hanging like butchered pigs in stale, suffocating darkness. “Get up, Ambrose,” he growled. “You don’t get to do that—you don’t get to quit.” 

…

Panting heavily, Lucanis regarded the creature’s collapse without joy or anger. A vermilion fire engulfed the carcass, leaving nothing but a brittle husk. The other abominations stirred. 

“You have your vengeance,” Lucanis rasped. 

But his words did not reach them. They stared, snarling and ready. He squeezed the grip of his sword, preparing for another fight—then the pressure behind his skull eased. Without the Wigmaker, the demons had no anchor in the waking world. Gradually, the abominations disintegrated into ash. With the source of their anger gone, the spirits of vengeance returned to the Fade, allowing the dead to rest. 

Only then did Lucanis exhale and let relief wash over him. 

“Contract complete.” 

Again I’m glad they didn’t go with building on that in the end because I like what they did do with him so much better, but you can see here where they were laying the groundwork for more of a ‘righteous wrath’/outward facing central pillar for Lucanis’ character here. I’m on record as adoring the internal angle/more of the focus on disrupted self, and I think they also built really well on the subtextual family dynamics going on through this story, that’s a much more fascinating angle for me personally. This instinct for/longing to indulge in stubborn opposition sure does still exist in him, though, that’s such a fun part of him to make externalized as a whole little guy riding shotgun in his soul 

— That’s one way to make a point, Lucanis thought, coming to a stop.

Have I said enough about how much I love him. Because I do. One of his early very good ‘...wtf’ moments, so plenteous and marvellous in the game itself. (Not including all the body horror he’s actually looking at here b/c it’s truly disgusting and upsetting, excellent job as always Courtney Woods) 

— Sensing its weakness and spurred on by the demons of vengeance within, the other abominations began to surround it. 

That’s it, Lucanis smiled encouragingly. Good little demons. Turning his sword over in his palm, he cut across the roof.

Lmao. It’s interesting that Lucanis has a slightly… odd relationship with spirits/demons already here, for a non-mage and someone from an Andrastian culture — he’s able to think of them sort of as a natural part of an ecosystem that you can turn to your advantage if you’re careful and respect their unpredictable nature as part of the natural landscape as it were, and he extends his remarkable capacity for empathy to them in the way that he thinks about what their motivations and drives are in the same way he does with people — ‘you have your vengeance’. The baseline Chantry doctrine about spirits is basically ‘Always Chaotic Evil, Stay Clear’, but Lucanis seems to think of them as like… fellow predators. You know the way wolves and ravens will sometimes ‘team up’ and have symbiotic relationships? Kind of like that. Which is very him hahaha I mean sure Crows hire people for things all the time and if you can pay them in just doing your job anyway… it makes a lot of sense that this is the dude who’d think to earnestly strike a deal with a spirit despite the cultural narratives he was raised with, is what I’m getting at

— Lucanis reached the docks just before dawn. Knowing Illario as he did, he passed their ship’s allotted berth to check the nearby taverns. After a quick glance up and down the harbor, Lucanis settled on the Nug Queen purely because it was the cleanest establishment of the lot. When he entered, limping and bloody, the barkeep glowered. 

“Walk out the way you came,” the dwarf instructed. He had a tawny mustache that was twirled and waxed at both ends. 

“I’m looking for my cousin,” Lucanis explained. (🥺He’s literally just looking for his cousin…)

. . . 

Lucanis prepared to leave—then he heard Illario’s silvery voice flattering one of the waiters. 

“Oy!” the dwarf called out as Lucanis staggered toward the row of booths lining the left side of the tavern. “Exit’s that way!” 

His bellowing drew Illario’s attention away from the handsome servant. Upon seeing Lucanis, he jumped to his feet. “Andraste’s holy cabbage, you look like shit.” 

“Get that man to stop yelling at me,” Lucanis said. He plopped down in the booth, taking a moment to rest his eyes, while Illario soothed the irate proprietor.

‘Get that man to stop yelling at me, Lucanis said’ is my favourite line in this whole short story and always has been fhdskjfhsa it’s just so good. ‘Illario snooze that guy for me I never figured out how to do that non-lethally’. And Illario drops everything and DOES get to work on snoozing that guy. They’re headed right for disaster but I. adore them.  

Andraste’s holy cabbage HIGH on my list of extremely good Andrastian oaths btw thank you Illario. 

I wonder if this inn was supposed to be an in-game location at some point, it gets such a striking (and hilarious) description.

‘Silvery voice’ :’) well that got lost along the way haha. I honestly think the dialogue as written in the game could have landed differently with some changes in voice direction — if the actor wasn’t doing quite so much of an obvious Ze Evil Voice performance, the read on him might be slightly more ambiguous. (His immense susness would still be the same, of course, that’s just built in structurally, but I maintain that that storyline is more about chipping away at Lucanis’ denial that he’s been holding on to for so long down in the Ossuary until it has to crack open and crumble, less about the whodunnit of it all. We know who dunnit and so does Lucanis deep down basically from the first moment, I believe, he just can’t bear it. Not unlike the way Harding deep down knows what the red shade haunting her is, but is unable to accept and take that in until she confronts it, actually! Lucanis and Harding have some parallels going on in the deep there. People pleasers grappling with how to hold on to their healthy anger. Lovers of turnips. *Lucanis voice* Everyone likes turnips.)

Lucanis shambling around bleeding and absent-minded on post-adrenaline autopilot after that utter horror show (again I sheltered you from the body horror here but. Holy cannoli) until he finds the safety of Illario and then collapsing into the booth and almost nodding off b/c Illario will take care of it he knows how to talk to people, even though Lucanis never really relaxes he very nearly does here…………. You see the trouble is that the love is very much there. It just makes everything worse, but it is there. Always. And I’m afraid not even the Ossuary could change that, even when it changed everything else.  

Like… From Illario’s perspective Lucanis just sweeps in bleeding and limping with an imperious demand after shooing him away before — because he doesn’t have the inside view that the bluntness is because Lucanis feels safe with him. This is the sort of ‘pls solve this thing I don’t understand and find overwhelming and annoying’ a child extends to a parent/attachment figure ‘imperiousness’ to me, not an order from a superior. From which I think you can read some things about their dynamic growing up, aside from my ‘Illario has been 80% of Lucanis’ social skills most of their lives’ running joke lol. 

Both of them can form surface relationships with other people, mostly with transactional elements to them — Lucanis with the Villa Dellamorte staff growing up and people he meets and helps on the job, the ‘friends’ Illario sarcastically accuses him of making earlier in the story, and Illario clearly leaving a Necropolis-sized graveyard of shallow connections both romantic and otherwise behind him without ever getting deeper into it himself, gratification and a feeling of control and competence and entertainment all in one with no true intimacy behind it — but I think Lucanis is right when he tells Rook that Illario has been his only actual friend, before them (and the team, obviously). And for all his extroverted fuckboy antics, I think Lucanis is Illario’s only real friend too, I doubt any other relationship has ever reached him at the core but Caterina and Lucanis. They have been. SO weirdly socialized, they struggle so very badly to make real connections outside the family in their individual ways, feast or famine as their approaches are. And part of that is that in their childhood they’ve been forced to try to meet their emotional needs with each other in ways that were doomed to fail; things you should get from a safe parental figure and a group of peers, community, not your brother who’s basically the same age as you and just as traumatized and psychologically malnourished. Things they will not get from the Crows, a community that is also the constant threat that ate everyone else in the family, and not from Caterina, who aside from the general cultural Crow brutality in overseeing their upbringing is too busy negotiating with the ghosts of five children, eight grandchildren by making sure her last two grandsons survive, not realizing that it means she has not taught them the first thing about how to live. Or, perhaps as likely, that is just not particularly a priority to her, she values her control over them and thus perceived control of the future and continuance of House Dellamorte way beyond their happiness. (God it’s all such a real-feeling mess because the love is also there and real, it’s just that that makes everything worse and even more tangled. Family!!!!) 

Caterina has set up this dynamic of Lucanis as the golden child (he can do no wrong and thus is allowed to do no wrong nor want anything for himself she didn’t let him have; never making a mistake in life is something that is normal to demand of yourself and possible to achieve etc.) and Illario as the fuckup kid, the lesser one, we keep him around for sentimental value of course he’s family but he’s largely ornamental lol. (Sorry about your life, Illario. I’m not sure whether being her favourite or not being her favourite leaves someone with the worse deal psychologically long-term, but your situation is particularly undignified and thankless I will grant you that.) Illario is much more faithfully the Crow Caterina raised him to be, where Lucanis uses his competence and Caterina’s personal affection for him to get to keep and protect some of the parts of himself the role of Crow should forbid. And she STILL openly and unabashedly loves Lucanis more, while Illario cannot do a single thing that pleases her no matter what he tries. Lucanis at least has Caterina’s recognition and affection, what does Illario have? What does he have that could make him anything in this Crow eat Crow world? 

Which is why Illario needs Lucanis to choose him over Caterina with an intensity and psychological urgency that again, is more like a child needing a parent to put them first or treat them like they matter to develop the sense of a worthy self. (Or Caterina to choose him over Lucanis, but that’s never going to happen while Lucanis is still alive, and probably not even if he really were dead.) Lucanis can’t give him that, because he is unwilling and unable to give up either of the two attachment relationships he has left, even if it means he has to mangle and push down his own self to maintain those bonds. He will freeze to hold on to what little he has, even when what he has also hurts him and they are hurting each other. At this point in the short story I think Lucanis wants Illario to be honest with him the way Lucanis is honest with Illario (which unfortunately also means Illario gets some of his more unpleasant sides), and Illario can’t give him that because when he tries Lucanis straight up refuses to listen — can’t listen, because what Illario is saying would disrupt everything Lucanis is trying so desperately to hold together at any cost. Again, Lucanis asking Illario for something he then punishes or ignores him for actually giving. They’ve had to be everything to each other and they just can’t be. Not even through any fault of their own, that’s just how it works. And Lucanis starts to find his way out of that during the game, make other connections that do help, but I'm not sure Illario does or will. Don’t look at me and don’t speak to me I’ll never be okay again 

- “Drink?” his cousin offered, returning with two glasses and a bottle of wine. “It’s expensive.”

 Lucanis accepted with a faint nod. 

“Some say a bribe spoils the vintage,” Illario mused while pouring, “but I think it tastes all the sweeter.” 

“Effe and the others. Did you get them to—” 

“Yes, yes,” Illario snapped, “I did my good deed for the year.” 

The two paused to sip their wine. 

Lucanis rolled the liquid over his tongue. Bribery had not spoiled this bottle, at least. 

“Camille didn’t make it,” he said finally. 

“Who?” 

“The guard captain.” 

“Ah,” Illario said, nodding in recognition. “Well, that does free me from promises I didn’t intend to keep. And Ambrose?” 

“You have to ask?” 

“Fair enough.” 

THANK YOU, LUCANIS!!! THAT IS THE THING YOU SHOULD BE SAYING!!!! THANK YOU FOR GOING ALONG WITH MY NONSENSE THAT I JUST SPRANG ON YOU ILLARIO!!!!! I’M HAPPY TO SEE YOU AND THAT YOU’RE ALRIGHT WOULD NOT BE OUT OF ORDER PERHAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD I love him more than anyone in the world but he’s infuriating sometimes especially when dealing with Illario fhdskja. You can tell how much he does trust/value Illario because this is the first time he relaxes a bit in the whole story — the mental image of Lucanis standing there with his huge puppy eyes dripping rivers of blood onto the floorboards in his fucking… batman ass getup like ‘🥺is my cousin here’ is so. It’s so much — but again you have to SHOW that somehow too Lucanis he can’t read your mind. I think it’s what he’s clumsily trying to do with telling Illario about the guard captain, a little bit — that’s an olive branch/trying to give Illario the peace of mind he just gave to him about the fallout of the mission, even if it’s a sadder outcome — but that’s also a sign that he’s completely missed on understanding what Illario would value here. (For Lucanis someone he flirted with being torn to ribbons five minutes later would be a big deal no matter what, probably, for Illario it’s all just business. Whomst??? Oh her lol.) Illario tries to fall into their pattern of companionable bullshit because that seems to be as much as Lucanis will accept from him as a show of care, but even that Lucanis breaks him off on, with what to Illario seems like doubting his skills/ability to carry out the job Lucanis handed him (Lucanis seems to want to know for his own peace of mind more than that, tho, from my vibe here; he did make a promise to Effe). 

“That his?” [Illario] gestured toward the dark stains on Lucanis’s coat. 

“Mostly.” 

His cousin’s brows drew together. “Do you need a healer? The ship will have one, but if you can’t wait—” 

“I’m fine,” Lucanis stated. 

“All right,” Illario said, topping off his glass. “We’ll just pretend that’s wine you’re dripping all over the table.” 

“What do you want me to say?”

How many times do you think Illario has had to rock up to Thedas emergency care with his cousin like ‘well he says he’s fine and to not worry about him, which in my experience is Lucanisese for ‘I’m about to bleed out and die on the spot’.’ As someone who has now been on that side of Lucanis’ ‘*actively bleeding from the eyes* I’m fine don’t worry about me’... y’know I’m not saying Illario was right or anything (he never is (affectionate) that’s his charm) but I do have a certain amount of sympathy one does start to lose one’s mind after a while. Yeah I am making silly jests and japes to avoid talking about this part because it’s so painful to me to contemplate thanks for asking. To be serious, though: being forced to watch Lucanis do this to himself, and then being asked to pretend he can’t even see it to enable it… that’s a big ask and one you should not be making of him, Lucanis. He’s not doing it intentionally, and it’s because he is also in so much pain over this that he has no idea how to handle, but it doesn’t stop it from being fucked up and unfair. 

‘I don’t understand what you want from me/I don’t know understand how to give it to you’ and ‘So we’re just going to pretend that nothing’s wrong and you’re fine and nothing needs to change, you can keep going like this indefinitely?’ 

Illario’s gaze grew hard. “How long are you going to keep doing this?” 

“Doing what?” 

“Caterina’s bidding.” 

The wine turned in Lucanis’s mouth. “Illario. Stop.” 

“If I was in charge, you wouldn’t have to do this anymore,” he cajoled. “You could quit.” 

Lucanis stared at his cousin. “I don’t want to quit.” 

Illario sat back. The distance between them suddenly felt much wider than a table. 

“Even if it kills you,” Illario whispered. 

“Death is my calling,” Lucanis stated, matter-of-fact. “Just as yours is to become First Talon.�� He smiled, hoping to ease the tension, but Illario’s posture remained taut. 

“And if Caterina disagrees? If she thinks you’re the better man for the job—” 

“I don’t want it, Illario,” Lucanis insisted. 

“But you wouldn’t refuse.” 

“It’s impossible to refuse Caterina,” Lucanis admitted reluctantly. “Only prolong her, until she sees reason.” 

He knew it wasn’t the answer Illario wanted, but it was the truth. And in their line of work, honesty was hard to come by. 

Illario exhaled and lifted his wineglass in salute. “To reason, then.” 

“To reason,” Lucanis echoed. 

The two Crows clinked the rims of their glasses together, then prepared for the long journey home

Sobbing and crying and dying. So much stuff going on under the surface here. This particular conversation clearly haunts Lucanis for a long time after, it’s where most of the Illario lines in the Mind!Ossuary are taken from. ‘You’ll choose her over me every time, even if it means death and leaving me behind alone. No matter what I do I’m never going to be good enough for her or you, no one is ever going to choose me or put me first or think I matter at all’. Delicate overtones of ‘You love even the work more than you love me’. The more mundane layers of jealousy, of being the unfavorite, the Cain and Abel of it all. The I can’t grow when you always get all the sun.  

The distance between them suddenly feeling much bigger to Lucanis… in a way I think that’s Illario’s side of ‘it wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the truth. And in their line of work, honesty is hard to come by’. Just for a moment Illario drops the act, he stops trying to reach out to try to find him again, to do his ‘job’ in the relationship of smoothing it over and pretending everything is fine or at least sustainable, and the distance that has slowly grown between them over the years is laid bare. Lucanis would ignore that forever if given the chance, but here Illario finally refuses to play along and forces him to feel it.

After a whole story of Lucanis being ruthlessly competent at his job to the point that he turned it into a challenge run for extra style points just because he can (and because it would be quite emotionally convenient for him to die before he has to go back to Caterina and probably be named her heir), we see him try to (avoid having to) have ONE real conversation with someone he loves and he’s so awkward. He’s reduced to pleading for Illario to stop. (There are notably no please and thank yous between Lucanis and Illario — mutually, also notably  — but that ‘Illario. Stop’ carries big helpless ‘please don’t’ energy)

I’ve talked before about the way Lucanis speaks of Caterina like she’s a weather system, or an act of God — something that can’t be resisted, only navigated with immense care and a hope for the best fear for the worst attitude. He expects Illario to have reached the same conclusion, raised side by side and in the same household as they are… but he hasn’t. They are different people by nature and the roles within the family have given them different perspectives — on what’s possible, and on what’s sustainable. It’s. hey. It’s a lot. 

— God. can you imagine being Illario when Lucanis returns from the grave with some FUCKING RANDO Caterina dragged into the house five minutes ago, and not only is he, surprise surprise, already entrenched as their favourite and they don’t like Illario (they don’t even know all the reasons why they shouldn’t like Illario yet, they just think he has rancid vibes! Which to be sure he does he’s big enough to admit it it can’t be helped the rot will out!! but STILL!!!!!), on a Treviso saved run Lucanis also lets them waltz through all the locked doors in his mind that Illario has been clawing his fingers bloody against for decades while screaming for him within the span of a goddamn afternoon’s work of Fade shenanigans. and through all of it they are *throwing up noises* FLOURISHING together whether as friends or something else in a way that practically shows like a healing glow around him. Rook ‘steal your cousin-brother (you kind of lost the right to stay his favourite when you y’know. Murdered him)’ Dragon Age swooping in to end this poor pathetic little man’s entire career in the last way he hadn’t already managed to ruin it himself. You know what. I kind of get it, Illario, that would send me finally stark raving bonkers insane too. After all that I think I too would have marched over to the ancient elven mean girls like ‘sure I’ll join you in burning down the world if you spare me some gasoline I need to do something hugely self-destructive and unwise and take everything down with me’. Obviously Illario sucks in many many-faceted and inventive ways but holy shit dude. In his shoes could you sit through the café scene without choosing violence.  

— Do I have to put in a disclaimer here that even though I have understanding and empathy for just how shitty Illario’s situation is pre-game and am expressing myself with comedic hyperbole about it, what he ends up doing to Lucanis is obviously extremely bad not justified and not okay in any way etc. and I do not endorse cousin murder as a way to solve your interpersonal problems, nevermind entrusting the task to your known mad scientist girlfriend with blood magic benefits if you did mean for it to be a clean quick death. Lucanis did not deserve any of what happened because he’s an imperfect communicator and like any of us has some less than perfect interpersonal patterns, and he’s still an intensely loveable character to me with these flaws. Is that something I have to state for the record after writing 12k+ words about him like this. One would hope not but you know. I’ve been on this site for a long time now and I am carrying around some stress fractures of the psyche about it, at least this way I know I’ve done what little I could to make myself perfectly clear in this our how dare you say we piss on the poor public square lol 

— The hilarious/hopeful thing is that I don’t think this relationship is necessarily doomed because of the very specific ways Lucanis is nuts haha, he has not willingly let go of anything he loves one single day in his life and he’s not about to start now — if Illario can bring himself to take that outstretched hand and do his part of the work I feel there could be hope for it. Not for it to ever be what it was before, of course. But to be something, still. Once Lucanis recognizes some of his own shortcomings in the dynamic I think he would try to work on that on the Forgive route at least, Illario matters that much to him. 

— rare W moment for Illario towards the end here and we simply must grant him those: Zara clearly meant to merely use him as a means to get to Lucanis, but he did seemingly somehow manage to get her properly wrapped around his little finger for real eventually. Enough for her to be very bitter about it after death, at least. Listen Zara play too close to the fuckboy fire and get burned to a crisp puh-lease this man is a professional. If he’s your amatus why is he obsessed about what his grandma and cousin are going to think of him after this and killing you mid-sentence. Smh 

— god I have said so much in this (...obviously. my face is in my hands why am I like this this is my curse), but I’m still not sure I’ve managed to get at what I was actually like. trying to say. Oh well. At least this chunk of thoughts is out of my head now, maybe I’ll get some room in here for something else and maybe even sensible for a while (doubtful but one should live in hope) 

*in a 'that's a threat' kind of way. also well done for making it all the way to the end you're a real one

[kabsey]

Hey, I really love your thoughts and writing... how about "Boys Night" from the Wholesome Prompts? 🙂 Anything come to mind?

Thank you so much! <3 I had so many different thoughts for this prompt, but this is the one that stuck. Not quite a boys' night per se, but it is a boys' chat and it is at night 😊

-------

When the knock came, Viago glared at the door over the top of his reading glasses. The runner wasn't due for another hour, and he could not imagine who else Marta would allow to approach his study when she knew exactly how tall the stack of his correspondence had grown (she was the one who brought him the post, after all). Rook or Teia wouldn't have even bothered to knock.

Which left Viago no choice but to pause in his writing with a stifled sigh and a curt "Yes?"

The door opened, and the figure who entered explained all: the First Talon went where he liked. If it had been Caterina, Viago would have set his letter aside and risen to greet her.

Instead Viago resumed writing, though he paid Lucanis the courtesy of asking, "Is this urgent business, or can it wait a moment?"

"It can wait."

Lucanis crossed to the bookshelf, his near-silent footsteps drowned out by the scratching of Viago's quill. From the corner of his eye, Viago watched him peruse the shelves with his hands clasped behind his back. Two fingers on his right hand twitched in an uneven rhythm, a fidgety agitation that no lesser Crow would dare display in front of a Talon. From Lucanis Dellamorte, whose knuckles were striped with crisscrossed scars from Caterina's cane, it either spoke to his comfort with Viago or a mind very ill at ease. Possibly both.

Viago ended the letter with the correct signature (he had a variation for each of his regular correspondents, making a fake easier to spot) and set the page atop the outgoing post to let the ink dry. He wiped the nib of his quill, capped his bottle of ink, and placed both items in his desk drawer with his glasses. The soft sound of the drawer closing drew Lucanis's attention, and Viago gestured for him to take the seat across from his desk.

When he was seated, he opened his mouth to speak, but Viago cut him off with a raised hand.

"I can guess why you're here," he said, folding his hands back over his desk. "You want to make Rook a Dellamorte."

Lucanis raised an eyebrow, but a corner of his lips lifted in a self-deprecating smile. "I suppose my intentions have been fairly obvious."

Viago huffed a laugh. "Yours and half of Antiva's."

Lucanis's smile vanished. "Meaning?"

"Meaning I have received inquiries from the head of every House and even some of the merchant guilds besides." As if Rook would stoop to playing bodyguard to some bloated princeling.

For a brief moment, Lucanis's eyes flashed violet. Viago tensed and curled his fingers around the knife strapped to the underside of his chair arm, but Lucanis shook his head and turned to the thin air to his right, one hand lifted in a placating gesture. "Calm down."

"Apologies," he said as he looked back to Viago, and Viago relaxed his hand. "We're just surprised to hear it. Does Rook know? She's never mentioned it."

Viago frowned. "Of course she does. Do you think I would simply ship her off somewhere with no consideration for her opinion?"

"No, of course not," Lucanis assured him. His gaze dropped to Viago's desk as he fell silent. Viago wondered what the demon had to say about the matter. He probably didn't want to know.

"As far as I'm aware," he said, and Lucanis's eyes immediately returned to his, "Rook has no intention of accepting any of these other offers."

Some of the tension left Lucanis's frame, and Viago felt almost reluctant to continue, though he knew frankness was the better road.

"But you should know, I don't believe she intends to accept yours either."

Lucanis stiffened, tense again to the point of shock. "You... What makes you say that?"

"She's expressed to me that she's happy in my House." Viago was not one for providing comfort, but he knew his words were a blow to Lucanis, so he attempted to choose less direct phrasing than he might have. "She's endured a great deal in the past year. You both have. For the moment, she seems to crave the stability of the familiar rather than jumping into something new."

Lucanis's eyes fluttered briefly shut, in an attempt to control either the demon's reaction or his own. But when he opened them, he nodded.

"I'm glad you told me," he said. "It's something I hadn't considered. Perhaps I should have." A hint of a sad smile crossed his face. "You have to be the one to break it to Teia though. She was so sure Rook would say yes."

Viago raised an eyebrow. "You spoke to Teia about this?" Before Lucanis could answer, he shook his head. "Don't listen to her on the subject of Rook. She's always wanted her for herself."

Lucanis stared back at him, lips parted. "She has?"

"Does that surprise you?" Viago asked. Perhaps Lucanis had not paid much attention previously to the movement of Crows between Houses. Teia was notorious for attempting to charm away promising talent.

"A bit," Lucanis admitted. "You don't seem troubled by the idea."

Viago waved a hand. "We have an arrangement."

Lucanis looked even more nonplussed. "You do?"

"Of course." Viago stroked his beard as he considered the future. "We should probably include you as well moving forward."

An odd red flush crept across Lucanis's face. "Include me? In your... arrangement with Teia?"

Viago frowned. "You don't wish to be involved? Your grandmother always—"

One of Lucanis's hands shot up to stop Viago's words, while the other pinched the bridge of his nose. "Viago, I am starting to think—and really, sincerely hope—that we are talking about two different things."

Viago's frown deepened. "We're discussing Rook joining your House."

Lucanis's shoulders shook with silent laughter, and when he looked up, he was smiling. "We're discussing Rook joining my household. I'm going to ask her to marry me, Viago."

"Oh."

That had been such a foregone conclusion that Viago usually forgot it hadn't been formally settled, except for the moments when Teia griped about Lucanis taking too long. They'd already spent whole evenings with her sharing her thoughts on centerpieces and color coordination and other details that Viago couldn't follow, though he attempted to appear interested enough that he would not be kicked out of their bed.

He looked at the rest of the correspondence he had meant to address in annoyance. The runner would arrive any moment.

"You don't need her Talon's permission for that," he groused.

Lucanis only laughed again. "Of course not. But I would like to know that we would have the blessing of her family."

"Rook isn't—"

The automatic denial died on his lips at Lucanis's knowing look. He much preferred when the First Talon bestowed that smug expression on his rivals. Viago closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

"Fine. Yes. You have it. Go find her and let me work in peace."

Ever a wise man, Lucanis said nothing more but simply rose and left Viago alone in his study. For all that Teia enjoyed the idea, he had a very difficult time reconciling Rook with a word such as "wife." When he tried, all his mind would conjure was the memory of an underfed girl with a messy braid and bare feet. But not that long ago, he would never have been able to associate the word "hero" with Rook either.

Since he'd managed the one, he was fairly certain that with time, he would manage the other.

[rookamell]

Playing Games

Pairing: Rook/Lucanis

Summary: What if there was some sort of mask festival in Antiva the night before the Rookanis wedding like they have in Rome in the Count of Monte Cristo? What if Teia insisted Rook had a bachelorette party? What if I was thinking about that scene from mamma mia? What if Lucanis was slightly drunk and Rook was a dramatic little bitch and I wrote a stupid little drabble about it?

Rook leaned against the wall, watching as people danced through the marketplace, laughing and clapping along. She was tired, but this was nice, not being the centre of attention for once, being able to sit back and observe, and just be.

Even though she wished Lucanis was here. She hoped he was having fun, wherever Illario, Viago, and Davrin had taken him.

“What is such a beautiful woman doing standing by the wall while there is dancing in the streets?”

The voice by her ear when she thought she’d been alone startled her so badly she reached for her knife. She turned toward the stranger, intending to at least break the nose of whoever it was for scaring her, when she saw the man was wearing a crow mask that covered only half his face. The bottom half was bearded and his mouth was grinning mischievously, while dark brown eyes twinkled at her from beneath the mask.

A crow mask? She thought, smirking at him. Really?

Not that she would’ve expected him to be especially inventive when it came to masks, but still.

Her own was in the shape of a lion, but also left the bottom half of her face bare. Both of them wore ridiculous matching costumes, and she assumed Illario had picked his just as Teia had picked hers.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Teia had made them both swear they would not spend tonight together, but apparently he had had other ideas and Illario did not care as much as Teia about tradition. Or he was too drunk to care, judging by the wine she could smell on her assailant’s breath. It sent a shiver down her spine.

Well, if he wanted to play games, she could indulge him.

“I could ask you the same thing, signore,” she said lowly, and his grin widened.

“I was looking for a partner that would match me,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand.

“Oh?” 

He brought her hand up and kissed the knuckles delicately. Absurdly, when her eyes met his again, she blushed.

“I think I may have found her,” he said, “But she still has not told me why she is alone.”

“I am getting married in the morning,” she said, and couldn’t help her giddy smile at the proclamation. “My friends and I are celebrating.”

“Ah!” He said, covering the hand he held with his other one. “A last night of freedom for you both, yes?” 

His accent always got worse when he’d had something to drink. And he was acting like a boy. It was driving her wild.

“That is one way to think of it, signore,” she said lowly. He grinned boyishly, leaning forward to kiss her, but she pulled back. She wasn’t done with her game yet.

“Signore!” She said in a scandalized tone, pulling her hand from his and touching it to her chest. She turned away from him dramatically. “I am afraid I cannot possibly kiss you!”

She whipped back toward him, affecting an aura of deep worry.

“My betrothed, you see, is a Talon of the Crows!” she took his gloved hands in her own, took a step toward him, thoroughly enjoying her performance. She knew he was too. There’d been a chapter just like this in one of the books he liked.

“He would surely kill you if he knew!”

“I am sure he would not mind,” he said lowly, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips trailing over the edge of her mask.

“No man could think to keep such a treasure to himself.”

She blushed again. At his voice, at his words, at the way his pupils dilated beneath the mask. She caught his hand and held it to her face.

“He could,” she said stubbornly. “I assure you, you risk your death!”

“For you, bellissima,” she almost purred at the way the Antivan rolled from his tongue, the way he leaned toward her again, “I would risk much more.”

And beneath it all he was still her Lucanis, so when he kissed her, it was soft, and sweet, and filled with love. They both grinned into it, and for a moment the noise around her faded away, and there was just him and the taste of red wine on his tongue.

“So,” she said when he pulled away, still close enough that their noses touched, her performance finished for the night, “Was it worth your life?”

“That and more, amore,” he murmured, nuzzling her cheek with his nose. “Why don’t we leave the others to their revels?”

“Teia will murder me,” she said half-heartedly, though his hands on her waist and the small of her back were making Teia seem like less and less of a concern.

“No she won’t,” he said. “It’s past midnight, and she wouldn’t hurt you on our wedding day.”

He kissed her neck, the mask scratching against her cheek slightly. 

“I need you, cuore mio.”

She needed no further reason to take his hand and let him lead her away from the festivities. None at all.

[atoastbw]

the conversation thread where Emmrich asks Lucanis for relationship advice is so cute but also really funny when playing as an Antivan Crow Rook, so I decided to write a little something imagining how a later conversation between Rook and Lucanis would unfold

“Overheard your conversation with Emmrich the other day.” Rook mentions one night, as he and Lucanis are preparing dinner for the team. 

“Hmm, and?” Lucanis replies somewhat noncommittally, focused as he is on chopping the vegetables. 

“So… you had a crush on Viago?”

“That was a long time ago.” Lucanis’s eyes are still on the veggies, but despite his attempt at being nonchalant Rook hears the slight embarrassment in his tone.

“Uh huh.” Rook slides in a little closer next to him, bumping his hip with his own. With a cheeky grin, he asks, “And now, you’re with me. Do you have a thing for us de Riva boys? Should I be worried about you getting cosy with anybody else from my house?”

“Don’t worry, I only have eyes for you.” Lucanis looks up then, with an affectionate smile. “The only de Riva to have captured my heart.”

Rook feels a swell of emotion. He started this conversation intending to just tease his boyfriend a little; he certainly didn’t expect such a heartfelt response. “Lucanis…”

“Besides, even if I wanted someone else - not that I would ever want to - I don’t think Spite would let me. He won’t admit it, but he’s grown attached to you too.”

There’s a sudden shift in the air, and then, “Rook. Smells good.”

Rook chuckles. “Thanks Spite, I like you too.” 

Seemingly pleased, there’s another shift, and he knows that the demon has receded back into wherever in Lucanis he likes to reside. Rook smiles brightly at the man next to him. “And I like you a lot as well, Lucanis.”

“Good, because you’re not getting rid of us that easily.”

“Wouldn’t want to,” Rook says. There’s a pause, but because he can’t resist, he also adds, “But seriously though, you liked Viago? I hope you didn’t tell Teia.”

Lucanis playfully rolls his eyes, exasperated. He’s about to retort, but before he can say anything, Rook leans down to capture his lips in a kiss. It takes a second, but Lucanis quickly kisses him back, and Rook can’t help but smile against his lips, heart light with adoration.

Thanks Viago, you picky bastard, Rook thinks warmly. If you weren’t so particular, I wouldn’t be able to have this.

[hextechmaturgy]

lucanis' romance is disappointing because like many other aspects of this game you can practically smell all the wasted potential

spoilers below!

we know from the stories that came before veilguard that cousins lucanis and illario grow up knowing caterina has a favorite grandson she intends to make first talon one day. it's implied and sometimes outwardly said that lucanis is indeed a better assassin than illario, and being a better assassin in a FAMILY OF ASSASSINS is a big deal. at the same time, we find out that illario is the more personable between the two. lucanis says he can charm just about anyone and zara calls him 'amatus' right before illario fucking kills her, so we know that's true. we find out through banter that lucanis had a crush on viago and failed miserably to show him because his only idea was to get him a knife, and, should you have an active romance with him, he will also admit to your companions that you are his first relationship

lucanis spends his entire romance backing away from you. he barely reacts to your flirting, he ducks away from a first kiss to 'clear his head', he won't shut up about coffee, and the moment you commit to him is just a quick scene where he SAYS he made you dessert, meanwhile, pretty much every other character is kissing you and declaring how much they care for you, emmerich's first kiss happens relatively early into the second act and it's such a sweet scene.

all this tells me is the writers were going for 'fail boy's first romance', packed with the slow burn of someone who has no idea how to show you how much he cares for you. it's sweet! i romance alistair every time for pretty much the same reasons. there's something very disarming about a strong, capable man who turns to mush around you because you're just that precious to him, because he's afraid you'll cringe and run away at his inexperience/awkwardness/eagerness.

but while i think that idea was perfectly executed with alistair, i think what we got for lucanis is extremely weak, to a point where i started wondering if my game was bugged and i had missed a romance flag somehow, or soft locked myself into someone else's romance. that's when it becomes a problem for me. when i flirt with him and he DOESN'T REPLY, it's not even him looking awkward, it's him not looking interested. he certainly sounds cute and awkward around neve, why does he show her that side and not rook? it felt like they were meant to be together, especially with the whole 'pick between treviso and minrathous' storyline, but i checked out neve's romance and that one is really good, one of my favorites in fact, SO WHAT GIVES? it's not that lucanis is reserved as a character, it's more like the game wasn't programmed with his reserved nature in mind. so he shows you he's committed by making you desert... couldn't we have had a scene where we watch him baking, instead of hearing him say he did it? we run into him preparing a surprise and he's out of sorts, or he asks us to go on another grocery run and you piece together what he's planning from peeping the ingredients. SHOW DON'T TELL IS THE MOST BASIC OF WRITING ADVICE, SO PLEASE ???? they did it with kaiden in ME3, he cooks for you and burns the garlic because you're just so distracting. there were multiple opportunities for cute and unsure, neve's romance is surprisingly tender and this one could've been too.

as it is right now, lucanis' romantic interactions feel like game bugs, his pet demon seems to be far more entertaining than him/is generally mega underutilized (can you imagine a scene of spite getting done with lucanis' bullshit and sleep walking some more to tell you he's smitten), and if you are planning to have lucanis as your romance, you should go into it knowing that after your first good, dare i say EXCELLENT first romantic chat at that coffee shop ("like a kiss goodbye" charmed me there and then) you'll be waiting until literally the end of the game for any sort of pay off. there's a good romance to explore here, the complete opposite of zevran as far as crow romances go, but sadly these fun dynamics will only get decently explored in fanfiction i fear

[sirnotsircos]

Monroe "Money" De Riva

dunno what is it but the Crow background in Dragon Age: Veilguard has got me obsessed with creating fandom content again so here's a little (too long) backstory for my sweet prince Money and how they meet Viago.

It's worth noting that Money uses They/Them pronouns however only discovered this in their later teens, for the purposes of gender exploration and a reasonable amount of self insert-ness going on here, Money is referred to with the pronouns assigned at birth in this first installment of self indulgent writing.

4.3 K words

Canon typical death and gore

themes of abductuion and trafficking discussed

Crows and Coin

All along the borders of the Tevinter Imperium, the bright dancing lights of the circus filled the dark nights of war time. For years a traveling band of performers moved from city to city, town to town, collecting cheers and coin, bringing smiles and laughter and whisking away worry. During the winters they would lug a big tent around, park near a town for weeks at a time and bid visitors welcome, and during the summer just a stage and clearing would do.

In the front wagons was the coin, the acrobats, the stage manager, in the middle wagons the provisions, the chests of contriband, stowaways, and in the rear the set, and the crew. Money, no older than six when she’d wandered into the tent during the circus’ brief stint in the Free Marshes, was never allowed anywhere near the middle wagons. They were always filled with crates, the extra plain looking ones with long sealed lids and too much hay, then there were the people she couldn’t talk to. Sometimes they were dressed in dark boring outfits that stood out only on account of the fact they were travleing with a circus, and other times they were garish and spoke loud with sing songy accents.

Either way, Money was to stay away.

 Baron made sure all the kids’ stayed away in fact. There was “real honest work to be done” and work Money did. When Baron had first found Money she’d had no name and matted eggplant hair that needed shaving, there was a generally irritated grunt that meant her and that’s all she knew. She’d only been named Money after he found she had a pension for finding it and stowing it in her pockets or shoes and anywhere no one could find easily. A joke, Money would later learn to appreciate the morbidity of. 

“Gon’ call you Money, you’ll never be without it,” Baron chuckled to himself, “but ye’ got to give me mine back.” 

Baron was a big man, his real name wasn’t Baron, no one used their real name in the circus. He was a qunari with a wild mane of white-grey hair and horns he kept cleaved at the root and filed down. He wore hats at all times, the only time Money could remember seeing Baron without one was when it fell off in his sleep, if he slept at all. He had ashen skin but he bathed in red mud and kept covered so that he passed as an unusually large human. He was loud, his laugh louder, and his anger loudest.

It was Baron who’d petitioned for Money to stay, he’d been the keeper of most of the kids who resided with the circus infact. It had also been Baron who started Money on her words and letters, and Kelon, the eldest boy, on her numbers. It was Hymn, the second oldest who taught her to look sweet so she’d get in less trouble and Huin the second youngest who showed Money where Baron kept his best sweets. Although Money’s hands grew calouses in the six years she lived with the circus, she stayed for family and the coin was a happy coincidence. 

At twelve Money was broad shouldered and kept her hair shaved to a shadow, it was a habit now and people stared less than the few times she’d let her curls grow out. Baron had always preached that the first rule of working for a circus is that you work for the circus, you are not the circus. Keep it simple. Money had no intention of performing or entertaining, she liked hanging out in the rafters and hauling the sand bags best. And so when she was too lazy to lather and shave her head she rubbed inked mud across her hair and wore hats like Baron. Keep it simple. 

The first really cold night of the year, the circus crossed over into Antiva for the first time. Aslo, the ringmaster said it was warmer and he could delay the hassle of the big tent for longer but Money knew it had something to do with their guests. Since they’d joined the caravan at the outskirts of Minrathous they’d been making a pretty direct haul towards Antiva with less stops and shows than were typical for this area. Money knew better than to ask any questions, and in all honesty she wanted to see the Antivan Coast enough that she was glad for the pace with which they were moving. 

As soon as they crossed the border Baron grew grim and tense and all together displeased. He led the caravan onto lesser traveled bumpy roads, the kind that made Money’s legs feel like jello when they’d finally stop for a rest. Four days into Antiva, they made camp no more than a kilomete outside of a town, the first place they’d set up a show since arriving in the country. It was warm enough for no tent as Aslo had guaranteed but the show was trimmed down so when it would get to it’s coldest everything would be packed away. This was also the first night their guests left their carriage since joining, they stretched their legs during dinner but kept to themselves.

Kelon said the woman looked like her name was Frivolousia with her long gown and incredibly intricate braids, and the man looked like a Craig with his poor form and rounded shoulders. 

“I dont know,” Hymn, with her long golden hair and sprite-like features, stared after Frivolousia and her long red gown, “there’s nothing wrong with dressing for your station.”

“Hm?” Money looked over her shoulder and stared intently, that woman looked like a bloody blotch to her. 

“You don’t ever think about wearing gowns like that?’ Hymn asked whistfully.

Money shrugged.

“If you had all the money in the world to buy whatever you wanted, what would you wear,” Hymn posed the question to all of them.

“First Warden Vestiges!” Huin puffed his chest out.

Kelon rolled his eyes, muttering something about clothes being the last on his list of things to buy if he had that kind of money.

Hymn turned to Money expectantly.

“Um-” Money chewed her cheek, “a cape?”

The books Baron would read to her always had people in capes on the front. “What's that fuzzy stuff called again?”

“Velvet?” Kelon raised his brow.

Money shrugged again.

For Money, shrugging either meant yes, no, maybe or sometimes possibly, I dont know. Money didn’t talk much. Luckily for her, the regular crew learned to understand what she meant most of the time.

“Okay so a velvet cape, a blighted tin can,” Hymn pointed to Money and Huin respectively, then to Kelon “and naked?”

Kelon huffed and began to defend himself, Huin spraying a mouthful of potatoes across the table. Hymn was equal parts proud of herself and vexed by the onslaught of starchy spray. It was a night like any other show night, they ate early and all together, the kids got shushed half-heartedly a handful of times despite the rest of the company being equally as raucous.  

As night fell and the camp settled Baron took up his normal post of insomniac. He fed the caged animals extra rations he knew Aslo wouldn’t appreciate, checked the wagons, the tent stakes and the horses. All was just as it should be, as it always was. Except for a door, a carriage door. It was a middle carriage. The door hung open, not ten minutes ago when he’d passed it the first time, it was closed. He peered inside from ten feet away, darkness swallowed the interior. The only thing Baron could make out was the distinct gleam of thick liquid running in a thin trail off the step.

Money awoke with a start, the wind rattling the canvas wall of the tent next to her. She was a light sleeper, always had been. Once awake it was nearly impossible for her to fall asleep, especially with Kelon’s snoring. He sounded like a bear, gruff deep gargling snores swelled in his chest with every long breath. Money hugged her blanket close and stepped down into her boots, keeping the laces loose so she could slip them back off once she got to her destination.

There was one place she could always go when she needed to sleep, Baron’s wagon. 

It wasn’t until she was nearly halfway to where Baron had parked his wagon that morning that Money felt the heavy silence that lay over the camp. There was no light, no stray lanterns or dimly glowing tents, not even the cats that somehow followed the caravan wherever they went were wandering about. The stillness felt oppressive. Money almost wanted to freeze in place feeling as though the silence was watching her, judging her for moving. The thought of being outside in the open any longer than she had to be overruled that instinct. 

She scurried along, staying close to the sides of the tents and wagons. When Money reached Baron’s wagon she found the flap wasn’t tied down and someone had been rummaging around. Baron wasn’t a particularly organized man but he had piles and his piles had a method to them. These piles did not. Money noticed the chest he usually kept as the foundation for his stacks of books was open, the inside cleaned out. 

A hand came down right infront of Money’s eyes and clapped down over her mouth, another wrapped around her shoulders tight. She howled. Money didn’t have a flight instinct, she’d never had that luxury before so she never took it now. Her hands were up and clawing in an instant, flesh raked off under her nails.

“Fu- Maker!” was Aslo’s hiss of pain.

In one sweep Aslo spun around, letting go of Money as he went. She sailed through the air for what felt like much farther than the six or so feet she did. She hit the ground hard, grass shredding beneath her as she skidded to a halt. In a second she was scrambling to her feet, Aslo was already launching his foot into her. Aslo was slow and not entirely prepared for most sorts of fights, however he was neary six and a half feet tall and his foot was heavy enough to throw Money back into the ground. 

Then came the fire. 

The sky was dark and starless, though any other stargazer that night in western Antiva would have had a clear view. Dark smoke had filled the air, billowing off the benches set around the perimeter of the stage. As Aslo’s foot made contact with Money’s chest the flames that had been eating away at the wood of the benches finally hit the black powder barrells used in the show’s pyrotechnics. Flame and combustion filled the air, wood splintered everywhere. Aslo stumbled back and winced away, his long gaunt face darting back and forth between the explosion and Baron’s wagon. 

Money wheezed in a breath, the hit left her chest feeling empty and aching. The air was hot now, the cool crisp air of the evening gone with the flames. She pushed herself backward as Aslo looked away and rolled herself under the trailer next to Baron’s wagon.  She came out the other side and scrambled to her feet, not wasting a moment’s breath looking backwards, she bolted. She ran away from Aslo, and away from the fire which lead her back towards her tent. As she ran, tent flaps were thrown open, people scrambling out. 

Those who’d traveled with the circus for as long as Money remembered scrambled for water buckets with bare feet and sleep quaffed hair. Those who Money didn’t know, the new hired hands from Minrathous carried drawn blades and already laced boots. Baron always had laced boots. Shouting filled the camp, and soon followed the clear ringing of blades on blades. Money’s veins froze in her skin when she realized what she was hearing. 

Everything was moving fast, too fast. The flames were roaring now, the sky swirling and everyone who rushed past Money was nothing but shadows.

A great big hand found her shoulder, and at first her breath caught in her chest and her fists balled. She pulled away hard and as she raised her fist she looked up into two familiar glassy grey eyes. Baron. 

“Money,” he was panting, thick dark blood covering his front, “what are you doing out here?”

“You’re bleeding-” There was a lot of blood.

“I’m fine, Money you have to get inside-” Baron grunted as Aslo barrelled into him. 

Aslo was younger than Baron, but Baron was bigger and a fighter through and through. It wouldn’t have even been a contest if Aslo hadn’t already skewered him through the ribs with a tent stake. Baron roared and swung a big fist in a wide berth, making contact with Aslo’s head. Aslo was nearly thrown to the side, if Baron had been at full strength Money had no doubt Aslo would be out cold.

Money held a shriek down, her throat pulled tight. The blood that had previously painted Baron’s front was now flooding with his own. It was darker and swelling so quickly Money couldn’t imagine it all coming from inside of him. She rushed forward. Her hands, small in comparison to Baron’s hulking frame, pressed down on the wound. Somehow it was to stop the bleeding — or maybe leaving the stake in there already did that — or should she be cleaning it or —-

Baron shoved Money away with his forearm, not hard enough to throw her off her feet but enough to get her out of the way as he rolled to his feet between her and Aslo. Before Aslo could even get to his feet a series of sharp thuds hit him, one in the neck, two in the chest. Three gleaming daggers. Aslo gasped and rattled, then sputtered and fell face first into the grass. Hissing. Choking. Then stillness.

Baron and Money turned in unison, the source of the daggers a young man, no older than his early twenties, in fighting leathers was perched atop a trailer. He was sporting a cloak, heavy and bearing the viasage of feathered wings.

“Crow,” Baron grunted, his chest heaving to take a single full breath. He was rattling.

The young man barely acknowledged them. Instead he turned his back and slid off his perch. He drew three more small throwing daggers and in the flash of an eye launched them towards what Money thought was object darkness. The thuds and groans that echoed after the singing of the blades begged to differ.

“Crow,” Baron called again, this time his voice was commanding, as if he had business that could not be ignored.

The young man turned to face Baron and looked him over thoughtfully, his styled moutache twitching with what Money could only guess was annoyance.

“Please,” Baron huffed, his big hand nudging Money, “there are children here…”

“They are not our marks,” the man said dryly, “they will not be touched.”

“Not good enough!” Baron shouted, a cough ripping through him and sending him onto one knee.

Money turned to him but he kept an arm out and held her at a distance.

“Money go,” he huffed.

‘No!” Money sobbed, hot tears welling in her eyes.

“Not with me, she’s not,” the man Baron called Crow scrunched his nose, “she’s a kid.”

“Exactly,” Baron was more ragged breaths that voice now, blood seeping into the fabric of his trousers.

The man stared at Baron, a strange look that Money didn’t bother to decipher crossed his features. He played at being stoic but he had yet to leave. Baron withdrew his hand from his back waistband. A roll, several layers of thin paper thick, of twine tied documents in his hand. “A contract,” he started, “for her safe delivery from this camp to a city.”

The man’s chin dipped sideways, his brow knit with peaked interest.

“The payment,” Baron thrust the papers forward past Money’s face, “Qunari  battle plans, logistics, code phrases- you name it, it’s here.” 

The man looked around, a cautious scan before jumping over the trailer and striding towards Money and Baron. He closed the distance quickly, he was agile and nimble and Money barely saw the grass beneath his feet shift. He snatched the papers from Baron’s hand and with a quick glance at the outermost document his eyes lit up. He looked over the roll and surveyed Baron carefully.

“Who were these meant for?” he asked, his eyes intense and probing.

“Highest bidder,” Baron gave a rueful grin, his eyes drooping, “Magisters passed —  biases ‘n all that.”

Crow raised a brow and he looked Baron over again, a gloved hand reaching forward almost reluctantly. Money made to intercept what she thought was no doubt a blow, the man was a killer after all. He swatted her hand away like it was nothing and yanked Baron’s knit cap from his head. 

“Ah,” Crow blinked, “we Crows are more open to… possibilities.” 

He placed the cap on the ground and held out his hand. Baron stared for a moment, Money could tell he was losing lucidity. It took a deep steadying breath and a few good long blinks but Baron mustered the strength and focus to raise his hand, coated in his own blood and clasp it in Crow’s. They shook hands, both Baron and Crow grimaced. The moment they let go, Crow wiped his gloved hand on his leathers and stood, depositing the roll of papers into a pouch at his hip.

“Very well,” Crow nodded, “a Crow always fullfills his contract.” 

In one swift movement Money was limp in his arms, braced against his chest and he was off into the dark tree line, a spattering of crows following him into the night.

***

The trees were dense and lucsious for this time of year, the sun barely poking through save in whispers of gold through the shifting leaves. Money felt heavy, like her body was an hourglass and all the sand had flowed to her back pinning her to the ground. This was a level of exhaustion she’d not felt since she was on the streets weighed down by hunger and illness. Only then the emptiness that gnawed at her was hunger, tangible pain born from neglect. This was different, so ravenous and crippling the bruising in her chest merely an inconvenience in comparison. Money had never lost anyone, before Baron and the circus she simply just didn’t have anyone.

She kept her eyes closed, the glowing greens and golds of nature untouched by her own cataclysm, mocking her. She wished she were melting into the plush earth below her, swallowed whole and forgotten.

“You can’t fool me, kid,” Crow’s melodic voice broke her solitude, “I know you’re awake.”

Crow. Rage boiled in Money’s gut, her muscles suddenly alive with vendetta.  He’d started this, him and his contracts. Money had never taken to sharing Baron’s rage, she’d always had been hard to stir any great emotion in. The world was cruel whether you screamed about the injustice or not. And yet, she was on her feet, bare against the tangled vines and charging. The thought that Crow was a trained assassin and not so easily sundered as to fall to a child’s fit of grief, hadn’t crossed her mind until she was already sailing downwards. Crow had side stepped her charge with ease and pressed a guiding hand to the back of her neck, steering her left away from a still smouldering fire pit. 

Dirt filled her mouth as she grunted on impact. Crow didn’t touch her after that, waiting patiently for her next move. In a series of clumsy movements Money rolled to her feet, dug into the earth and surged forward again. This time as Crow side stepped she reached out and latched onto a knife hoslter strapped to his thigh. She latched on and didn’t let go even when he parried her again, her momentum sending her spinning to the ground. Her weight on his leg was enough to pull him down too, the two kicking up dust and dirt. 

He’s down. A small victory considering he was a trained assassin and she was a child.

“Alright, that enou-” Crow began to chastise when Money interrupted him with a solid fist.

She made hard contact with his nose. She’d never punched anyone before. It hurt. Crow’s eyes nearly buldged from his head and he growled in pain. In one smooth movement his arm threaded up between them and came down on the side of Money’s head sending her world into orbit. He planted a foot at her stomach and shoved her away from him. 

“Mierda-” Crow huffed, his hand scooping up and amount of blood running down his face even Money was startled by, “-stupid fucking contract-”

He spat a glob of blood a little too close to Money for her liking.

“What is wrong with you?” He grunted rolling to his feet.

“You,” Money growled,the bruising in her chest was starting to feel much less like a mere inconvenience now. 

“Why?!” 

Money’s voice caught in her throat. Why? He’d technically killed Aslo. Why? Why did Aslo kill Baron in the first place? Why? Baron was the only good thing to happen to her. Why? 

Money threw herself onto her side, her eyes blurring with hot tears. She made it to her knees before a deep sob came, the blurred silhouette of Crow swayed awkwardly before her. 

“Why-” she breathed shakily, “whe were you there?”

“What?” Crow blinked.

“You ruined everything,” tears rolled down her cheeks, “why?”

“I’m a Crow I dont owe you-”

“WHY?!” She’d wanted to sound stronger, she’d wanted to be demanding like Baron had. Instead she found she was begging.

Crow hesitated, his bloodied hands awkwardly hovering above his hips and pockets. He settled with crossing them, tensing only a little as his blood spoiled his sleeves.

“We had a contract,” he spoke carefully, “the man I killed, he was in the contract.”

Money didn’t know what she was hoping for, what she thought knowing would do for her. She could have guessed that much, it still didn’t answer why. 

As if reading her mind Crow sighed.

“What your father gave me-” Crow sounded less sure of himself now, “ in exchange for your life… the Qun reports are a very large bounty, one so large perhaps the Crows would be willing to dismiss a contract to obtain.”

Aslo was trying to save himself.

Blood boiled in Money’s veins. Crow had been the one to kill him and that fact was melting her from the inside out. She felt it consuming her, revenge.

“Don’t do that,” Crow stepped forward and nudged Money’s foot with his own, “he’s dead, he got what he deserved.”

Money was starting to feel exposed with how Crow seemed to be able to read her. She didn’t like being so known. She took a long, deep breath. The air of the forest was cool and smelled sweet. She stared ahead, keeping her eyes still and willing the tears to stop. She didn’t need him, not with her, not in her head, not as a bodyguard. 

“Stop that,” Crow cleared his throat, “stop wallowing. That man was a slave trafficker, he smuggled nobels who deserved worse than death to safety all for a little  gold. There were a lot more people than just you who deserved a pound of flesh, but they couldn’t. I could. The crows could. You didn’t even have to pay to see him gone.”

“Who was he?” Money looked up at Crow. No one used their real names in the circus. 

“Marus Caldori, a slaver and real piece of work,” Crow scowled, the least neutral expression he’d had all day save after Money broke his nose, “he had many enemies throughout the Free Marshes.”

“And they paid you to kill him?” Money ground her teeth together, she imagined the other people who’d wanted him dead. 

“They paid for the Crows to kill the Orlesian nobles you had traveling with you,” Crow looked away, “ but his name was mentioned in the contact.”

“Why then —you killed him?” Money frowned.

“I Kirkwall, while we followed their trail north I met he parent’s of a little boy and little girl who were taken in the night, sold into slavery in the Tevinter Imperium by one Mr. Marus Caldori.” Crow uncrossed his arms and looked over the drying blood. “Some contracts are more worth taking than others, but all contracts are necessary.”

Money imagined all the Aslo’s Crow had gotten the chance to kill, all the wrongs he’d gotten to right. Perhaps she was conflating his accomplishments, perhaps she was thinking better of him than he really was.

“Why’d you become a Crow?” Money looked up at him, annoyed now how much taller he was than her.

“W-what?” Crow’s facade faltered for no longer than a breath, “that’s… none of your business.”

“Revenge?” Money pried, Crow knew too much for it not to be, “did you get it?”

Crow was quiet for a moment, his lips pressed together in a firm line. 

“Soon,” Crow conceded, “I’m working my way up.”

Money nodded, she thought hard about it, “I could be a crow.”

“You?” Crow laughed, an actual smile on his blood crusted lips, “ A crow?”

“I broke your nose,” Money grumbled.

“I let you,” Crow huffed.

“You didn’t let me!” Money pouted, “I got a good hit in!”

“Sure” Crow rolled his eyes, “and I certainly was not holding back at all against a child.” 

“No need to be embarrassed,” Money shrugged, “so, uh, how does it work? Being a crow?”

Crow looked her over as if he was making a final judgment. His arms crossed again and for a moment he looked unsure. 

“Well,” he held a hand out to Money who was less than enthused about taking the soiled glove, “for starters what’s your name?”

“Money,” she scrunched her nose as she took his hand.“De Riva,” Crow said in response, “you’re new house name. I’m Viago, your house Grandmaster. Don’t make me regret this… starting with your name, what the fuck is that?”

[likethelightfromorionabove]

In the middle of the night last night I became possessed with the concept of Forgiven Illario wrestling with the feeling that Lucanis got “everything he ever wanted”. Which of course then manifested into a conversation between him and my Crow Rook, Minerva.

The Dellamorte villa was always quiet. Even when she was a frightened young fledgling and the former Talon had brought her to be presented to Caterina, the air had hung silent. Minerva had been surprised to learn that two boys near her own age lived there as well at the time.

However, when she grew older, she had learned the silence was merely the mask of the grief that hung in the air. It permeated every inch of the sprawling manor, making it difficult to breathe. Today was no exception.

Minerva had tried to avoid visiting the villa. An easy task, given that it wasn’t completely necessary. However, Viago and Teia were bickering and a flash rainstorm had left her and Lucanis drenched. Somehow his villa seemed the lesser of all evils.

How wrong she was.

Perhaps she should have been grateful. She was at least in dry clothes, even if they were borrowed from Lucanis. But her hair was still damp enough to  chill where it clung to the skin of her neck and Illario was sitting on the sofa across from the only lit fire, reading a book.

Anger welled in her chest. They hadn’t spoken since that night at the opera house, though what was there to say? The choice of mercy was Lucanis’ alone, even if it was not one Minerva could understand. 

Maker did she want to understand…

“Perhaps you ought to commission a painting,” Illario drawled, not looking up from his book. However, the telltale smirk he always wore when he was flirting was evident. “It would save me the discomfort of feeling as though I’m being watched.”

Minerva’s hand balled into a fist. After all that had happened, he was flirting with her. Of course he was. Everything, even Lucanis’ forgiveness was a joke to Illario. Or something to be exploited. The day she realized that had created a burn in the back of her throat Minerva could never shake.

“I can tell when you have something to say, Min,” he snipped, closing his book with a sharp deliberate snap. He turned to face her, staring her down. They both allowed the tension to swell, leaning into the silence swallowing the villa. “Say your piece. You know I hate the hovering.”

Minerva let out a soft scoff, but her throat closed around the words. If she asked, he would answer, likely even honestly. Through everything, she wanted to believe she was still one of the few people he was honest with. Then again, Lucanis had believed that too.

“Minerva…” 

Maker she hated how he could purr her name and her heart would skip a beat. Even though she knew, even though she had seen… “Why did you do it?”

Her voice sounded broken, reflecting the damage in her chest. Illario seemed surprised by the sound. However after the flicker of bewilderment faded from his eyes, he gave her a nonchalant shrug. “Does it matter now?”

“It matters to me,” Minerva rasped.

“Clearly,” Illario hummed, “A great deal more than it does to him. Interesting considering you were only present for the final act.”

“Viago put me on a contract!” Minerva snarled, her lip curling over her teeth. “One which I don’t recall you voicing much opposition for. I think I recall you telling me to ‘earn back my place’?”

“I voiced what I had to in order to keep Caterina from demanding your head,” Illario snarled back, launching to his feet, “The same as Viago. You don’t throw it back in his face. It was not my fault you made a mistake, Minerva.”

Her hands balled up so tightly, Minerva could feel her forearms starting to shake. Illario’s eyes were tracing over her, far too intimately. Lingering on where her hair dripped on Lucanis’ shirt, causing the fabric to cling to her skin. “Is this supposed to be your answer to my question?”

He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. With a flick of his head he turned to the window, staring at the rain pouring down on the streets. Minerva could hear her anger thundering in her ears. Just before she made the decision to leave the room, he turned his head just over his shoulder. “He has always got everything I ever wanted. Including you.”

 “I am not sleeping with Lucanis,” Minerva hissed, stifling a snarl in the back of her throat.

Illario whirled around, his face contorted in fury. “You came back, after over a year, only looking for him!” he hissed, his own fists forming at his sides. “You needed another assassin and only The Demon of Vyrantium would do. Within minutes of your return, you had set off again, with the sole mission of finding him.”

“I had a job—“

“And you only wanted Lucanis!” He closed the distance between them, so abruptly that Minerva didn’t have the chance to reach for her daggers. However, when he reached her, Illario only cupped her jaw in his hand, tenderly stroking along the skin. His other hand raised to tuck the rain-soaked curls falling across her forehead behind her ear. For a moment they just looked at one another, trading heavy, silence laden breaths.

“He has you in every way that matters, cara mia…” Illario whispered. He lingered with her only another fraction of a second before he released her. He brushed past out of the room, leaving her rooted to the spot. Shivering despite the fire roaring in the hearth. 

[selunesdreams]

Chapter 5: Honorable Intentions

“So how does Spite feel about Illario?”  “SPINELESS. WHINY-” “About how he feels about most people.” “And that is…?” Taking his coffee from the counter, he sipped it slowly before responding.  “Impatient.” “Even me?” She batted her lashes. “Do you ever think he’ll just get fed up and-” “Why don’t we talk about something else, mm?”

Pairing: Lucanis x Fem Rook/OFC x Spite???

Summary: With both Spite and Rook keeping him on edge, Lucanis looks for distraction in meal prep...

Word Count: 2.6k

Things of note/warnings: 18+ fic, MDNI! warnings: I use the word cock ONCE. (sorry) Please read on AO3 if you need to track warnings, they will be inevitably detailed better there (or just want to be real sweet and give me hits/kudos/comments).

─── ⊹⊱♤⊰⊹ ───

Aunt Viama stood barefoot on the couch, peeking through the window nervously. 

“Viago, take Fiamma to her room!” She hissed, “Dante, what is she doing here?”

“Relax, she doesn’t bite. It’s probably a contract,” said Fiamma’s father, as the two children snuck to their favorite eavesdropping spot in the hall and exchanged a look.

“Are you kidding me? My sister’s been in the ground one week! You’re grieving! We’re grieving!”

He motioned her aside and opened the door, ignoring her objections.

“Caterina, to what do I owe the honor?” He beckoned her inside with a polite gesture.

Calm and collected, the First Talon entered the den, her cane tapping against the wooden floor. A boy, roughly Fiamma’s age, clung to her coattails as she walked. Lucanis trailed behind them, his head bowed. 

“I’m sorry to trouble you during such a painful time, Dante,” she kissed him on each cheek in greeting, “but my grandson has gifted your daughter something that was not his to give away.” 

“What did you do, Fiammetta?” Viago demanded, pinching her arm.

“It wasn’t me. It was Lucanis!” she whispered, slapping his hand away and running to her bedroom. Throwing herself under her bed, she retrieved one of her mother’s old hat boxes and pried off the lid, sifting through her trinkets in search of the opal. The sound of Caterina’s muffled voice carried through the wall from the next room.

“I encourage my grandson to steal whatever his heart desires, if he can get away with it, presuming he’d go after sweets or knives. Instead, he takes books and gems.” She huffed. 

“The makings of a good Crow,” Dante said. “An eye for knowledge and beauty.” 

Caterina made a noise of disapproval. “Any other would have been inconsequential, but this one…has history. I was having a new setting made for this one and he swiped it before I could get it to my jeweler…”

With a pounding heart, Fiamma carefully took out the gem and cradled it in her palm one last time, before she closed her fist around it, stashed the box back under her bed, and shuffled into the den.

“Miss Caterina.” She straightened her posture, extending her hand. “Please don’t be mad. Lucanis just wanted to make me feel better.”

Dante’s mouth fell open in surprise as Caterina bent down and plucked the opal from his daughter’s hands. His eyes widened as she held it in the light, examining it. “Is that…”

“Yes.” Caterina retrieved her coin purse from inside her coat and slipped it inside. “You are a very honorable girl, Fiammetta. My grandsons could learn a great deal from you.” 

Behind her, Lucanis raised his head, his brown eyes heavy with embarrassment. “I’m sorry for getting you in trouble, Fiammetta.”

“Nonsense, Lucanis. She isn’t in trouble for your oversight.” Caterina snapped.

Fiamma’s father crouched beside him. “It was a kind gesture, Lucanis.” He said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure you meant well.”

Caterina nodded. “I apologize for the intrusion, Dante. My deepest condolences…but if you don’t mind lending me just a bit more of your time, there’s some Crow business I’d like to discuss.” She glanced around. “Is there somewhere we can chat?”

Dante rose to his feet. “Of course. I’ll have Viama put some coffee on.” He turned to Fiamma and kissed the top of her head. 

“Why don’t you take Lucanis and Illario to play with Viago? I’m sure he’s not far...” her father murmured, frowning with gentle disapproval as his gaze drifted toward the shadow in the hallway. 

As the adults departed, Viago emerged from the hall, nudging Lucanis with his elbow and gesturing towards the front door with a subtle tilt of his head. With a shameful look, Lucanis tore his eyes away from Fiamma’s and followed her cousin outside. 

Charging forward, the youngest Dellamorte seized her hand, shaking it a little too hard.

“I’m Illario.” He said earnestly. “Can I see the rest of your house? I bet it’s not as big as my Nonna’s!”

Fiamma blinked, her gaze moving past him to the door as it shut behind the older boys. Forbidden from leaving the house without her father’s escort, she had no choice but to stay behind.

“Um…sure.” She said, trying to hide the disappointment in her tone. “Do you like art? My papa has lots of paintings in his office.”

Illario grinned, giving a charming bow, as if reenacting something he’d seen an adult do. 

“I like whatever you like.”

─── ⊹⊱♤⊰⊹ ───

Not even a dragon attack could close the Treviso markets. The following day, they opened as usual, with a nervous undercurrent of chatter among the merchants. Lucanis browsed the stalls, taking the opportunity to shop while Rook slept in. Viago and Teia had already left to handle Crow matters at the casino, and he needed some time to clear his head.

Spite’s unpredictable nature gave him an aversion to sleep these days, and thanks to Rook, he wouldn’t have slept last night even if he wanted to. Lying on Viago’s couch, he stared at the ceiling, struggling to dismiss the images her words had evoked as his cock strained uncomfortably against the front of his trousers. Worse, Spite took a maddening amount of delight in Lucanis’ discomfort, and even more so at Rook’s mischievousness. It worried him - how would Spite react to Rook the next time he took control? He couldn’t risk sleeping, couldn’t risk Spite climbing into bed with her when she was inebriated, vulnerable, alone…

“MAYBE ROOK WANTS YOU IN HER BED. SPITE IS JUST HELPING.”

He shuddered and deposited a few gold coins in a merchant’s palm, wrapping up his purchase and heading back to Viago’s apartment. If he was lucky, Rook would wake with a nasty hangover and have forgotten the entire evening.

Upon his return, the house was still quiet. Lucanis deposited his groceries on the counter and lit the stove, setting a kettle of water atop it, before venturing down the hall to knock softly on Rook’s door. He cracked it open, knowing if he let her sleep any longer, she’d be furious at him for not waking her. 

Through the gap, he watched her lift her head, brushing her tousled hair from her face to look over her bare shoulders at him. Her white sheets slid down, settling just below the curve of her waist, and he shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. Holding them over her breasts, she squinted at him and rolled onto her back. 

“Lucanis?” She muttered, shielding her eyes from the light pouring in through her windows, “What time is it?”

He averted his gaze, preferring to stare at the sun than endure this any longer. 

“Midday.”

She jerked forward. “Why did you let me sleep so late?” 

“I thought you might need it.” He said, turning back to the hall, “Get dressed and come get some coffee. I’ll make breakfast.”

Lucanis moved with measured steps, his eyes glued to the floor until he reached the kitchen. He prepped Viago’s glass coffee maker, admiring the craftsmanship, and pulled out a cutting board, peeling and mincing several cloves of garlic. 

Rook wandered in soon after, hair freshly brushed and clearly having capitalized on the availability of her old wardrobe. She wore a lace-necked blouse, a crow brooch pinned at the base of her throat, and a pair of loose, black trousers. Around her shoulders, she had draped a velvet purple cloak that fell just above the soles of her leather boots. 

He glanced up with a raised eyebrow, then returned his focus to the tomato he was coring.  

“I made coffee.” He said stiffly. 

“Of course you did.” As she went to pour herself a cup, her hip brushed against his. 

“SMELLS LIKE LAVENDER AND CITRUS BLOSSOM.”

He cleared his throat, picking up another tomato. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Morning hangover aside?” she sat down across the counter from him and took a sip from her mug. “I appreciate you trying to relieve me of some of my guilt yesterday, but let’s keep the vintage away until after we’ve killed a few gods, hmm?” 

He smiled, letting a huff of air escape from his nose. “Of course.”

“How did you sleep?” 

“Fine.” He lied, dicing a bell pepper while admiring Viago’s kitchen knives. They were sharp enough to make a clean kill if they needed to. Maybe that was the point.

“Can I help?” She nodded towards the stove. Did she remember a single thing she said last night? Was she toying with him? Or too embarrassed to bring it up? 

“YOU BRING IT UP!”

“The pan should be warm enough. You can oil it.”

She stood and rummaged through Viago’s cabinets, retrieving a bottle and uncapping it. “So how does Spite feel about Illario?” 

“SPINELESS. WHINY-”

“About how he feels about most people.” Lucanis scraped garlic and onion into the sizzling oil, adding an assortment of spices. 

“And that is…?”

He incorporated the tomatoes and a dash of cream, stirring as he tried to ignore her curious gaze over his shoulder. Taking his coffee from the counter, he sipped it slowly before responding. 

“Impatient.”

“Even with me?” She batted her lashes. “Do you ever think he’ll just get fed up and-”

“Why don’t we talk about something else, mm?” Lucanis suggested, pulling out one of his market bags and retrieving a few eggs. He steered Rook aside, placing his hands on her shoulders so he could reach the stove.

“THE COUNTER. SHE’D LIKE TO BE BENT OVER-”

“Oh. Sure.” She returned to her seat. “Thanks for making me breakfast.”

“It’s not entirely unselfish. Viago has a nicer kitchen than the Lighthouse does.” He said, breaking the eggs into the stewed tomatoes.

Rook rested her chin on her hands. “True.”

“Is it nice being back?” Lucanis asked, removing the pan from the stovetop and dividing its contents across two plates. He gave her one, then took out a baguette and sliced off a few pieces for them to share. 

“In some ways. When I was on Viago’s bad side, it wasn’t always so nice.”

Lucanis settled beside her, mopping at his eggs with his bread, letting the yoke bleed into the tomatoes. 

“I might still be on his Viago’s bad side. Who knows?” Fiamma said and took a bite of her food. She uttered a soft moan of pleasure, and Lucanis dropped his silverware. Rook remained oblivious and continued eating. 

They finished breakfast in silence, the hallmark of a well-prepared meal, and Lucanis rose, picking up her plate and mug and taking them to the washbasin. They needed to get out of here, for more reasons than one. 

“I told you, Viago is used to picking up after me,” Rook said with a grin. 

So she did remember last night. 

“If he has a good side, I’d like to stay on it.” Lucanis said, scrubbing the dishes clean. Rook joined him near the sink, grabbing a towel and holding her hand out. He passed her a plate, and she dried it carefully. 

“Are we…good?” She asked, pushing the plate aside to take the next one. 

“We’re good.” Lucanis said, shaking water from his hands and wiping them on his pants. “Let’s get back to work.”

─── ⊹⊱♤⊰⊹ ───

The days that followed dragged on. Devastated by Neve’s absence, Bellara became determined to find a dragon hunter and a Veil Expert, furiously taking notes and charging ahead with renewed vigor. And find them she did. After excursions to Rivain and the Necropolis, Emmrich Volkarin, a Mortalitasi, and Taash, a Qunari with a talent for fire-breathing, joined their team. Emmrich arrived with an animated skeleton assistant, Manfred, who was quickly becoming Rook’s favorite recruit. More odd, but enjoyable personalities, to add to their collective. 

“So Lucanis, you’re an Antivan Crow?” Taash asked, their feet kicked up on the dinner table as Lucanis prepared dinner.

“Yes. Like Rook.” He replied from the stove. Rook could feel his disappointment from across the room - he undoubtedly missed the accommodations of Viago’s kitchen. 

“Do all Antivan Crows have demons?”

“What? No!” He spun around. “Spite was put into me by the Venatori.”

Since their arrival, their new companion had bombarded Lucanis and Rook with endless, bizarre questions about Crow customs. Varric would have relished the chance to spin his wild tales for Taash. Unfortunately, he took most of his meals in his chambers and wasn’t keen on visitors other than Rook.  

“Demons typically infect mages through manipulation, but Lucanis’ situation is…rather unique.” Emmrich explained. 

“Oh. That’s messed up.” Taash removed their feet from the table and leaned forward. “What’s Spite like?”

“Angry. Impulsive. Annoying.” Lucanis said, taking the soup he was making off the fire. 

“If he’s so unhappy, why doesn’t he just leave?”

“It would likely kill me.”

“No offense, but why would he care?”

Lucanis hesitated. 

“Because we have a deal.”

Rook’s head snapped up as she set Emmrich’s bowl down in front of him. “You made a deal with a demon? ”

Manfred let out a hiss of discontent, stomping his feet in a panic. 

“Oh, Lucanis…” Emmrich lamented, shaking his head. “That was a very foolish thing to do…”

“Zara was waiting for Spite to break out of my body like a moth in a cocoon. I convinced him we wanted the same thing and promised I’d give it to him.”

“And that was that?” Asked Taash. 

“Her. Dead.” Lucanis said, bringing the soup to the table and ladling it into the bowls Rook had set out. The large doors to the kitchen swung open, and Davrin entered, Assan playfully nipping at his heels. He took the furthest seat from Lucanis at the head of the table. The two hadn’t gotten on particularly well ever since Davrin found out about Spite. 

“Play nice,” Rook warned in a low voice, handing the Grey Warden a goblet and filling it with port. She took a seat beside Lucanis, whose end of the table always filled up slowly, everyone wary of his demonic passenger. 

As she blew on her spoonful of soup, Rook caught sight of Bellara entering with Harding and, to her astonishment, Neve. The three appeared to be mid conversation, putting her slightly on edge.

“Are they really gods, though?” Harding asked, looking up at the detective.

“They’re gods. Or the closest thing to them.” 

“Neve!” Rook breathed, setting down her silverware and bracing her hands on the table. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.” she said, not sparing her so much as a glance as she took her seat next to Davrin. “I am.”

The cold shoulder stung, and Rook lowered her head, taking a measured inhale. Neve’s feelings were her own, and she had the right to be disappointed.

“A couple of new people have joined our team since you left,” Harding, seeking to ease the tension, chimed in. “This is Professor Emmrich Volkarin, he’s our fade expert. That’s his assistant beside him, Manfred. And there’s Taash, our dragon hunter.”

“Hey.” Taash said.

Emmrich gave an elegant wave. “Charmed.” 

“A dragon hunter?” Neve asked Taash, “Minrathous could have used you.” 

Rook stiffened as something grazed her knee beneath the table. Startled, her eyes flicked to Lucanis, who offered a tight smile and reassuringly squeezed her knee.

Mierda. This was trouble. 

“So what’s going on?” Rook asked Neve, tearing her gaze from Lucanis. He withdrew his hand and glanced down awkwardly, returning to his dinner.  

“Back home? What isn’t?” Neve sighed, mustering all the civility she could. “Look, you made an impossible call without enough information. I get it. It’s the corner the gods put us in. It just…might take time to shake off.”

Rook dipped her chin. “Of course.” 

“You are back, though, right?” Bellara asked. 

Neve lifted her wineglass and took a deep drink. 

“Yeah, Bel. I’m back.”

[emryx]

When two NPCs with maybe 5 total minutes of screentime have you so obsessed you give them a child 🏃🏻

BEHOLD—my Teiago fankid, Elias de Riva (plus an info dump about him and his parents below because I’m very normal abt them but you can skip that and jus look at all the art if you want 🫣)

Realistically, it’s really hard to imagine a scenario where these two have a kid. But that’s what fanart and hcs are for 🙌 As of right now, I hc that around the time of the dialog from one of the crows abt Teia and Viago being "on again" is when he's conceived. But they don't really find out until after the ending of Veilguard. Any symptoms Teia might experience beforehand are just written off as stress or straight up ignored because of how much they have on their respective plates with the Antaam and the gods. Viago even calls her out for never going home and insists she takes a contract to “kill a vacation.” So I don't think it'd be too far fetched for her to look the other way until things are settled in Treviso again because of timeline stuff.

No clue how they react after the initial news rn but that can come later. They start being a little less childish with their back and forth break-ups at least once the seriousness of it all sinks in lol

Viago did not like the idea at first, I know that much. Mans was STRUGGLING with Elias in the early stages. Babies are loud, unpredictable, often inconsolable little heathens that he can't analyze or have a consistent system for. It would drive him nuts. A tiny human who can't yet care for itself and constantly needs to be held and directed, paired with his touch-aversion, OCD, and need for set routines? Yeahhh…Teia understands, but on one hand that woman just went through 9 months of her own hell and she's shoving that boy into his arms sometimes regardless of his bad days LMAO

It helps, in the end. Pushes him to gradually get used to it over time. Viago starts to realize there is somewhat of a system to the whole dad thing and fatherhood grows on him because I said so.

He holds a lot of resentment and hatred towards his own father. As a bastard of the king and one of his drunk mistresses, I doubt Viago’s upbringing was too great. The whole “demon teeth” comment was enough to hint as such. He wouldn't be thrilled about taking care of a baby, but the thought of entrusting his son to nannies? Strangers?? No. That's something his dad would and did do and he’s better than him. This is his kid; He doesn't care if it's gross, he'd rather feel uncomfortable sometimes for the sake of Elias’s comfort than stoop as low as the king.

On top of spite, the paranoia with poison extends to Elias in a way; one of my favorite hcs I’ve seen is Viago being exposed to assassination attempts on the king or his mistresses/servants while he was growing up before joining the crows, whether it’s via stories or witnessing first hand. The thought of entrusting Elias’s life to anyone else gives him flashbacks to being a child himself, scared to eat or drink anything prepared by anyone because of how many times others were killed that way around him. Even doing extensive checks and handpicking a trustworthy nanny is not reliable and doesn’t guarantee safety. We love a paranoid dad.

Teia on the other hand? | think she'd like a family tbh. Maybe she didn’t react well to first finding out she was pregnant, but otherwise the idea grows on her quickly compared to Viago. As an orphan, she didn't get much of a family—the crows became her family, Caterina as her "nonna" and some of the older Talons as her weird uncles. Being able to experience what she never had with a child she can ensure has a good life feels fitting for her character. Heals a bit of her own inner child too, yk? 🫠 She’s such a caring woman despite her occupation and she’d make a good mother. Scary, but good LMSKSKX

Life as a crow is harsh. Being the child of not one but two Talons?? On one hand that kid is very protected but on the other he has a huge target on his back. If Viago was worried about people thinking House de Riva and House Cantori had an alliance, I can only imagine what a wholeass child would stir up. They both would prepare him well for the future in their own ways. It’s not canon to him, but the thought of Elias being ridiculously resistant to poisons because Viago started building his immunity up so young is funny to me 😭

Anyways ramble over. Some creative liberties were taken, such as his eyes being more golden like how Teia’s are described in Tevinter Nights. I may give Elias his curls back because he looks goofy next to Teia and Viago with his emo hair JAKAMC

I love their little family…

[ab121500]

Anyone else give their Rookanis kids fun bird nicknames?

Personally, I just love the idea of all of their kids having a bird codename. Like, you've got "The Crow" with Lucanis and "The Rook" with Aylewin, thats already two black birds. Rook canonically loves puns man, why wouldn't they nickname their kids after birds?

So my six kids (so far, really debating if they should have more or just get some fucking cats) each have a bird nickname because I think its funny. Like Villa Dellamorte being referred to as The Nest or The Aviary.

Unfortunately, there are not that many corvids, so they don't all get to be a part of that family of birds. But they all are black birds!

So! The nicknames (and why they have that name) are under the cut. That way people who don't care can scroll faster.

So! We've got the eldest; Lace. Her nickname is The Songbird/The Blackbird, depending on who you ask. Friends and allies call her the Songbird. She's a mage, a bard, and she also is most prone to find the least violent way out of a situation. That being said, like her avian counterpart, she is extremely persuasive. Blackbirds, specifically the Eurasian Blackbird, have very melodic songs; and Lace has a very melodic tone of voice. She's good at getting people to listen, which is part of why she's so good at negotiations and crow politics.

Second up is Emily. She's nicknamed The Raven. She's a rouge, and usually blends into the background. She attends basically every single event, but no one recognizes her unless she wants them to. This is similar to the common raven, which i'm sure most people confuse with Crows, jackdaws, or Rooks (for non-us folks, apparently the us doesn't have rooks). Most folks, in my experience but I do know one bird expert who does know the difference at a glance, see a black bird and go: "oh hey, a crow!" This ties back to her specially being espionage.

Numbers 3 and 4 are twins, and they have the same nickname. A pair of rouges, Varric & Davrin, the first boys in the family, are both known as The Starlings. These two are NEVER seen without the other. Varric is the more friendly and sociable of the two, while Davrin is much more hostile at a glance. Their bird counter part is kind of similar: sociable little birds who form packs (Usually you see at least two or three, in my experience you rarely see a single one of them) but also are an invasive and mean species. These fuckers steal food from other birds (and elderly dogs who don't give a shit anymore) but they are also incredibly smart. Tieing back with the Twins, both are good at what they do. Varric specializes in distractions and misdirection, using his ability to read people and his training from his Uncle Illario to really know how to play people. Davrin, on the otherhand, uses his smarts in much more deadly ways. He's a star pupil of Viago, and is the number one poisoner in House Dellamorte.

Number 5, Bella, is nicknamed The Jay. Shes the oddball, the outlier. This isn't because she's mage. In a family raised for generations to kill and kill effectively; she's a healer. While Lace is a pacifist until she has to react, Bella will not fight back. She can handle blood and gore when its related to healing/helping others. When it comes to assassination? No thanks. In the bird world, Jays are an oddball. Most birds in the corvus family are solid black, or at least most of their body is black/they have large black patches. Jays are not like that. They are often colorful! Jays, specifically the Blue Jay, are also incredibly smart and know how to mimic human voices and hawk sounds. In the case of Bella, her incredible knowledge of the body and the science involved with it aids her healing, but she is still related to assassins and knows how to help with the dangers of that job.

Finally, we're on number 6! Elli, a warrior and explosives expert, gets the nickname of The Grackle. No one is quite sure where he gets his temper, but at the very least, he knows how to calm it. He is very much a: Act first, question later type of person. He's loud and doesn't care. Grackles are among my favorite birds because these little fuckers are LOUD. And they have the best fucking calls. I love them. They also just so happen to be considered a pest in a lot of places because of how obnoxious and messy they are. Plus, they tend to bully other birds. This stupid, aggressive, and messy sort of attitude is similar to the youngest (for now) Dellamorte. He definitely gets in the most trouble, and they have to work out specific cases for him because he does NOT do subtle. His explosives expertise is used by most houses. Guarantee the Crows wish he was alive at the time of Veilguard because the Antaam have NOTHING on this idiot who likes to make shit go boom.

Yes, all of their kids are named after someone else. Most of them use nicknames (not the bird ones) to differentiate. Lace, Davrin, Bella and Varric are all pretty obvious. But Emily and Elli are named after Emmrich and my Inquisitor Ellia.

I've got SO much lore about these fucking kids. This is literally just the tip of the iceburg. Thanks hyperfixations!

[deathvalleyqueen]

listen no matter how convinced in my bones it was Illario that betrayed our beautiful mullet man, it could be someone else. Maybe but really logically think about this. Who within the Crows would gain the most with Lucanis gone? Not emotionally - I am talking about position and power. Illario. Viago and/or Teia potentially but from what we have seen them already through the expanded media - they are so much lower on my suspect list. Honestly, Viago ain't even on it - if he really wants to bruh could become King of Antiva but that's whole different theory I have. Teia could, but she has never given me vibes of someone with a level of ambition for power that you would need to betray someone close to you like this and she calls Catarina 'Nona' so I am guessing she was close with the whole Dellamorte family. Illario though - from the wigmakers job to the scenes we have seen with him - he reeks of ambition. For all we know a rivalry could have been ingrained him by his parents when he was small - maybe Illario's parent and Lucanis's parent who were siblings were bitter rivals both grasping at the positon of their mother's heir - maybe there is more for us to find out why Catarina ended up raising both boys... I even think I remember one of the Devs mention we will learn more about Lucanis's parents in later parts of the game.

This isn't a new thought of mine. Honestly since the Wigmakers Job -I didn't trust Illario. The whole heir talk never sat right with me. Lucanis is either named heir or would be named Catarina's very shortly. While Lucanis doesn't want the position (and my guess the neon target on his back that comes with it) of First Talon, he would take it if that's what his grandmother wants (Wigmakers Job) even though Lucanis thinks Illario maybe is better suited for the position. But like the good Antivan Boy Lucanis is - if his Nona asks him - he will. Illario on the other hand seems to want this more than anything else. To me the whole 'who is heir' thing reads sooooo a Game of Thrones in my mind - it just gives me such strong Targaryen infighting energy.

Also Illario while he has a very handsome face - it just gives me "don't fucking trust him" energy. Also from the recruitment mission video (maybe mild spoilers here) but that man is putting on act - he sounds way more upset than I think would be called for given the fact Lucanis is very likely alive now, there is this anger in his voice that feels out of place. Would you not be excited to find out your beloved cousin who was more brother to you - is in fact - not fucking dead? I also think the fact he doesn't go with Rook on the rescue - is so telling. The excuse made - super lame and I don't think it's bad writing. I think it's breadcrumbs and foreshadowing. And what has honestly been said about the Crow related questline - we are going to see the politics of it all...

Lastly - Why Spite? Wynn was a Spirit of Faith and she in fact had been a woman who believed in what the Circle was doing - Faith makes sense. Justice with Anders - makes so much sense because of who he is and what he experienced. Compassion for Cole also makes sense if you read Asunder. So why was Spite of all things able to be bound to Lucanis? They had tried others but Spite is what took. I think it's connected to the person who betrayed him, put him in the position that he was in for year... that whatever Love he may have had for that person turned into Spite... get what I am throwing down.

IDK this is living in my head in a nice 4 bedroom condo rent free right now.

[jukkaricity]

Veilguard Appreciation Week 2025 - Day 4

Dusted off my beloved boy Hugo de Riva for this one. It's a bit of a Rook x Bellara vibe, but maybe it's just all in my head.

Today's prompts for the @veilguard-appreciation-week:

Treviso, Determination, "Bitter and sweet, like a kiss goodbye."

“This is getting absurd. It’s just some coffee, Bel.” It had been raining throughout the whole day, but it seemed like Bellara didn’t even notice. Hugo was soaked, cold and hungry; however, his companions' enthusiasm made up for all the inconveniences.  

“We haven’t tried there yet!” Bellara lit up, trotting towards a stall with a red canopy above it, the seller already shuffling uncomfortably. “We’ve been at this stall six times already. I’ve seen the shopkeep more times just today than I saw Viago all of last year” Hugo chuckled, readjusting his grip on a massive basket filled with various ingredients they purchased already “And each time shopkeep said he has no clue what we’re talking about” 

“Oh, oh right, maybe.” Bellara stopped abruptly, causing Hugo to stumble on his feet trying to avoid bumping into her. “I mean, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try again?” She turned to him with that mix of worry and determination that usually was reserved for her work in Arlathan. He couldn’t help but allow a soft smile to sneak up on his face. 

“What about Cafe Pietra?” Hugo suggested finally, hoping to spare the shopkeep from another round of interrogation about coffee.  “He goes there every time we are in Treviso”

“Oh! Right! That’s great! We should try that.” Bellara perked up immediately and led the way through the market. She got the hang of the market much faster than Hugo expected and it seemed she figured out shortcuts between the shopping stands that no one else ever thought about. Clearly, dealing with space-time anomalies gave her an unfair advantage in market navigation."

“It would all be much easier if we remembered the name of the blend” Hugo set the basket on the ground letting his back rest for a while. They tried asking the Crow barista about the coffee that Lucanis drinks, but he either really didn’t know or was simply concerned about potential consequences of divulging such personal details about a Dellamorte. Hugo couldn’t really blame him for it. He’d rather kiss Emil the Adder than tell anyone what wine Viago drank with his dinners. 

“I know! I’m so sorry.” Bellara sat down on some crate at the side of the road, her face in her hands “I mean, how many types of coffee could there be?”

“In Antiva? More than is worth counting.” 

“This is all my fault. I should have written it down.” she jumped up and started pacing. “I asked everyone for their requests. How will Lucanis feel if I don’t bring the coffee for him?”

Hugo watched her for a while thinking about their options. It was still raining, a drizzle really, but it was a long day and it was already getting late. There was still a walk back to the Lighthouse from the Eluvian in the Diamond. 

“Don’t worry.” he smiled as a plan formed in his mind “Why don’t you sit down here for a bit and make sure we got everything else from the list?”

“What? Why? What about you, Rook?” Bellara swirled as she halted suddenly. “I’ll go… check something and will be back with you in a moment” Hugo assured her and with a small wave he disappeared into the evening crowd. 

"’Bitter and sweet, like a kiss goodbye.’ Oh, Lucanis. You are absolutely ridiculous." Hugo grumbled to himself inspecting massive shelves in the dimly lit storage on Cafe Pietra. The air was stale and smelled like a mixture of coffee and spices. Finding the right building wasn’t too hard, but sneaking in was a different story. He could have explained the whole situation to the Crow Guard outside. But that would take time. And would not be nearly as fun as sneaking in. 

“Who would have thought? Master assassin getting all romantic on coffee.” He shifted through various sacks and boxes but none of the coffee beans smelled right. Hugo himself was an avid wine and tea drinker, coffee made him feel dizzy, so he avoided the stuff. Years of hearing Viago complaining about how easy it was to poison coffee in comparison to other drinks had absolutely nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. Still Hugo regretted not committing the name of Lucanis’ favourite coffee to memory, when they last sat down in the cafe outside. Raised voices from the side of the cafe made him crouch down in anticipation, but after a while the commotion died down and he continued further inside.

Finally, a faintly sweet aroma caught his attention. It came from a neatly arranged stack of coffee bags—much smaller than any others Hugo had seen so far. 

“Truly, tastes matching the reputation” he mumbled, shoving two sacks into his bag and leaving a stack of coins on top of the remaining pile. He froze as the front storage door creaked open, a gust of fresh air sweeping in.

“Bel! Bel, I think it would be best if we go now.” Hugo grabbed her by the elbow emerging from nowhere, causing Bellara to nearly drop the list she was re-reading again. 

“Oh, alright, wait. What with the coffee?” Bellara looked around like she’d been ignoring the market for the last couple hours. “Oh no, it’s so late. Alright. Right, I’ll think of something to say.” 

“I’ve got the coffee.” Hugo assured her, shaking the bag on his back. “I’m pretty sure it’s the right one.” 

“But when? Rook! What did you do!?”

“Nothing you should worry about if we hurry up.” Hugo laughed, grabbing the basket from the ground and rushing into the market hoping to disappear before anyone came looking. 

[serensama]

A word with friends

Thank you to @hedwigoprah for creating this game and to @jenn2d2 for assisting in her stead and coming up with this wonderful prompt this week! Love you both ❤️

This week's word is Perspicacious:

Definition:

Quick in noticing, understanding, or judging things accurately or of acute mental vision or discernment.

Also Perspicaciously, Perspicaciousness , or Perspicacity.

This week’s is longer because I missed last week’s redolent which I also slipped in :D

How long will I be able to keep up this prompt driven fic? We shall see! (The ongoing fic/document will be updated in my masterlist in case anyone wants to read the whole thing hehe) ^_^

———

Lilya hated when he did this. Acted like he was a hurt or offended older brother after he ascended to Fifth Talon. She was no longer a fledgling under his wing but someone he had trusted to shield him, to be his blade and confidante. But no, in one fell swoop she felt like their history had been wiped clean and he was just that Crow who checked in on her from time to time to see if she’d been killed yet.

The man hissed as he sat down, rubbing his leg under the table - something he only ever did in her or Teia’s presence- taking his time to collect his thoughts. She did not dare to move or breathe too heavily in case it seemed like she was too affected by his reaction to Illario, lest he find reason to go back out and strike his cane upon him again like he was her whipping boy. Not that she was worried about him. Viago wouldn’t seriously hurt him, he respected Caterina too much, and as much of an idiot as Illario was, he was still a well trained Crow. It would take more than a few hits with a stick to break him.

Knowing Illario he was probably already at the Diamond, charming some pretty noble with stories about his injuries, that they were from rescuing a child from a runaway horse, or perhaps from fulfilling a contract killing a rival assassin to save the King of Antiva. Some bullshit. Illario was always good at spinning fanciful tales that for some reason only she could see through. How that was possible was a mystery to her, for he was such a terrible liar.

The silence stretched on between them, Viago drumming his fingers against the polished blackwood of his desk, absentmindedly pushing his writing pad to the correct angle, fixing his slightly askew quill in its holder. Oh, was he waiting for her to say something first? Not bloody likely.

The last time that happened the two of them got into such a heated argument, she hastily accepted a contract that was too dangerous for her to do alone, but she was so stubborn and angry that she went off and did it anyway.

When she came back home, no worse for wear, in less time than the mission had allotted for- Viago didn’t talk to her for a week. He looked so furious at her she truly did think he was going to poison her.

Lilya had gone to Teia at a loss at what to do, the Seventh Talon only laughed and told her to allow the man to stew and he’d get over it in time. The older woman then drew her into a hug and whispered that he hadn’t slept well for days after her departure, for fear a messenger would come with news of her death. She had to resort to drugging him- which he was furious about and ended things with her for betraying his trust, which lasted a total of four days before she found him slipping between her sheets once again. Give him time, she soothed, he was scared. The idiot’s never been that scared before.

Viago glared up at her and still said nothing, only throwing something at her. Lilya quietly swore as she tried to catch it, fumbling a couple of times before it settled in her grip. The Crow flashed him a flat stare, not willing to add any heat in her gaze in case he decided to piff something else at her head when she wasn’t paying attention.

“Tell me what you see,” he instructed plainly, leaning further into his seat, the air still thick with tension as he waited for her response.

Lilya turned the bottle in her hands a couple of times and inspected the ornate crystal atomiser in her hand, the dark indigo of the bottle reflecting beautifully in the light.

“It is a bottle of perfume”, she replied, unsure of what he was expecting from her. She could already hear Viago in her head, the man never missed an opportunity to lecture her over doing anything he deemed stupid. ‘You’re too smart to be this dumb, Lilya!’ was by far her favourite backhanded compliment he gave her.

Viago waited for her to elaborate, only to be met with more dumbfounded silence. He groaned and shook his head in dismay, his eyes piercing her with such an intense stare she almost wanted to call down a fiery meteor to squash and cremate her just to escape his ire.

“Really? Is that it? Is that damned boy that good in bed for my Little Bird to completely lose her perspicacious nature?” he challenged, “Is a fuck all it takes for you to lose your head these days?”

He knew how much his needling affected her. Even before he rose to Talon, his remarks always cut the deepest and she would do whatever she could to earn back his favour. She didn’t know how he held this power over her or when it came about, but in truth she wasn’t even upset about it, because she knew that even if they argued constantly, even with their confusing, tangled mess of a relationship- Viago always had her back. Just like she had his. That level of trust was impossible to find in life, let alone within the Crows.

Lilya huffed and went back to re-examining the beautiful bottle in her hand. Taking a step closer to the nearest candle, she rotated it and found an etching in a fancy flowing script on the metal rim of the pump her eyes hadn’t picked up earlier, D A. She recognised it, embarrassment quickly colouring her cheeks from her initial oversight.

“It’s a perfume by Doña Abella.”

“And?”

“It is in her crystal atomiser, meaning whoever purchased it was someone with a lot of money.”

“Anything else?”

“It is in her signature bottle, meaning it is a personalised scent she crafted and not made by one of her master perfumers. Whoever commissioned this spent a lot of time and a lot more coin on this, whoever they were. Doña Abella rarely makes new perfumes and if she does, that particular scent only belongs to that customer alone- it is what makes her work so exclusive. Whoever this person is must be important or has very close ties to someone very important.”

Viago let his hand fall onto the desk, his annoyed expression fading into a proud smirk at her assessment. He knew that she’d know that much just by seeing it, and at the very least, the knowledge he imparted about art and beauty had not fallen on deaf ears- even if his other more pertinent teachings remained unheeded.

“Correct. It is a bespoke scent crafted by Doña Abella herself. Reportedly it took months to create, the client was very particular, never happy until they captured the scent perfectly for their intended recipient.” He watched as Lilya’s brows rose just a little, clearly impressed by the dedication of the customer.

“Is it safe to smell, to spray?” she asked, a part of her practically preening at how the Talon's gaze softened with approval at her question, waiting until he silently permitted her to do so with a simple wave of his hand. With a measured squeeze of the pump, she was greeted with a light but moreish fragrance. She knew instantly why the perfumes were in such high demand, barely half a pump of it and the entire room was redolent with the aroma of iris, pink pepper and a warm salty musk she couldn’t quite place but she knew she wanted to bathe in the scent if she could. “That is… wow. That’s amazing. Whoever this was for sure is loved for someone to go through all this trouble.”

“…Quite. And yes, a remarkable scent to be sure.”

“So, what’s the deal with it? Are you sending me to handle the customer or the person they were hoping to give it to? Oh, please don’t tell me we have to kill Doña Abella… She's a national treasure. So many dream of purchasing a bottle if they ever have enough money. One fledging I trained with in the capital said she was going to buy a bottle when she became a Crow… pity she didn’t make it out of training.”

The Fifth Talon’s smirk faded.

“No, your contract has nothing to do with this. A full dossier will be sent to your room, you’ll be expected to leave by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“Then why did you ask me about the perfume?” Lilya frowned, questioning the obscure impromptu lesson in observation from her Talon… unless… oh Maker. Did he create that for… her?! Was that what his rage was about? His disappointment? Was he really trying to get back together with her? Hadn’t they gone over this? Wasn’t he madly in love with Teia anyway?

Viago’s stare hardened again like he could read her mind, his disapproval bubbling over once more.

“Because Illario gave me that. Instructed me to give it to you. Tell me, Lilya, why is the man that you previously claimed was just a dalliance to pass time, giving you such a gift if all you are is a mere tumble in the sack?”

Lilya paled.

Okay. At least he didn’t want to get back together.

“You said it yourself. The recipient of such a gift is surely loved. If it were only a matter of coin, it wouldn't cause me any concern. But the Dellamorte spent time. Effort. No man does that for someone he does not intend for more.”

She didn’t know. Couldn’t know. She had to speak to Illario. To clear the whole mess up before it got too out of hand and-

“The harmless sex in the alleyways, hotel getaways and missions you took together I could have forgiven. All Crows indulge in that. But the moment you took him here, into our - my! - House? You both crossed a line that people in our positions cannot do. Not without blood spilling for you both. What have you gotten us into, Little Bird? How am I supposed to save you from this?”

———

Softly tagging: @rookamell @hightowerqueen @himluv @thedissonantverses @gingervitus @introvertedfangrl @trash-nerd @davrinsleftpectoral @eiluned @kabsey @serstolas @cocoboots in case you wanted to play ^_^

[stitchzin]

Letter from a Crow

As soon as Rook disappears, Lucanis is the one who decides to tell Viago, the word spreads as Rook's friends begin to read books on how to rescue her. Lucanis goes to Caterina, they meet at the Cassino, and says he stopped her from confessing because he didn't wanted bad luck. Now he feared he would never hear this again.

"She wanted to call me Vhenan... do you know what it means... It means, my heart."

"My poor boy..."

"Raise your head" Illario appears behind him. "You won't avange her while having it down." They were a weird family but they were there, healing some woulds.

But Viago's family was Rook and Teia. And both don't know what to do this time. One day the owner of one of the city's theaters enters the Cantori Diamond, and gives Teia a letter that looked like it had been read several times.

She said that regardless of whether Rook was found or not, Viago should read it.

Rook was unique in relation to many crows, she did not move from the main house after she started earning her money. In fact, she even has a rented room near the theater, but she only used it when she had her nights with friends. Her "real" room was positioned next to Viago's room. Every morning he opened her door and said "Those who earn money lying down are whores, get up", even if Astraea was already awake.

He drank coffee Rook drinked her chocolate, talked about various subjects, nobility and Crow gossip, new poisons and the weather. Teia adored that, It was rare that she and Rook shared the breakfast table, but it was pure entertainment to watch Rook and Viago have the same mannerisms.

Viago was training when Teia delivered the letter, the exhausted body of a man who tried to throw his emotions on anything but those around him. He had returned from a visit to Caterina, who had been through something similar. There was no way of knowing what the first Talon had advised him, but it had had an effect on him.

And reading that yellowed paper, with purple ink and a dried jasmine branch on the page made him freeze. Rook had had the courage to say what he had never said explicitly. And without her there for him to provoke, or correct.

He didn't know what to do.

The only person he wanted to talk to about his favorite's disappearance was herself. Teia and he sat on the balcony drinking wine. The balcony of Rook's room, surrounded by her things he asked the servants to keep it neat. The vases of jasmine that never died made everything smell like her. And he read it again out loud.

Nesryn,

I remember the day I arrived in Treviso, the way I followed Viago because I thought I could rob him he was covered in silver and good quality leather, only to witness a murder. I didn't even feel afraid it was so quick and ellegant. He dragged me by the ear to you, thought I was one of your children and apologized afterwards and turned his back. I think he thought my Vallaslin was a theater painting because of its unique lines.

Despite everything, the following week I followed him, he told me to mislead people and I did it, he told me to deliver messages and I went.

He would give me a candy, a bag of fruit or a silver coin. If he was having a good day, a full meal before correcting my acrobatics. Funny two weeks. But... If I hadn't stolen keys from that smuggler and entered that warehouse and freed him of that trap, he might never have taken me to Villa De Riva. If Viago had been impressed by my peculiar way of moving between the rooftops before, he didn't show it until that day, always so critical. In my 12-year-old mind he hated it, but today I know he corrects it, because he cares.

"Astraea is your name now, Sitara is dead in that desert." I didn't want to stop being Dalish, and when Viago said he would never ask for such a thing, I accepted. I think he just accepted that I would always be this slightly wild thing with blue hair.

I arrived at the Crows knowing much more about hunting and survival than murder and became my unique self, always thinking of a way out, a new trick. Even so, with all this transformation I still saw myself arriving at your house. With bruises, cuts and sore muscles. Learning to make medicines, cook with you or play one of your instruments. You asked me to leave thw Crows, and I asked where. Still you were there when I became a crow, and when I did so well at my job that I earned the family name.

I heald high for many years.

When Antaam arrived, when he caught you, I had to show my gratitude by saving you. Obviously, the Talons weren't happy, but I trusted Viago. Even though I was afraid of being abandoned again. After a lot of yelling, Viago sent me away. I knew he was risking his neck by doing this, so I obeyed. And I didn't regret saving the friends I made at the theater. Nor did I regret traveling together. We passed through villages while I hid half of my face. There I saw a different family, light conversations at the table, lessons on sewing clothes, who would wash the dishes, putting feelings into poems and songs.

It was a beautiful time. And thank you for showing me this family that was made up of our friends. It was beautiful to see worlds within the world, realities marked by a veil that separates them from the rest. Dancing gave me new ways to practice sword and dagger, so beautiful that you had me as a nighttime attraction, using a ribbon to disguise the murderous beauty of my hands.

The thing is, my world is different from yours. In my life, I learned to get up when I fall, to keep walking because no one will save you, to endure pain so that it becomes a surmountable difficulty, to feel the effects of poison before receiving the antidote and to build up resistance. It wasn't easy. But that's what my family taught me. And that's what saved me many times.

Nessie the issue is... staying with you, away from Treviso without being able to return reminded me that Viago is my family. He and I are within the same veil. And the difference between you two is brutal.

You told me that "It's possible to live even after discovering that the world has gone bad, as long as I don't allow the world's evil to seem normal."

Viago told me "We carry death in the shadows, and at the same time we look in the eyes and say: not today."

We have different lifes, different sayings to keep our heads held high in the world we live in.

Being in this family these days rekindled my light and I'm going to use it to deserve to return home. That's why I'm leaving with Varric and Harding. I promised I would only send a letter to Viago through a contact, but life is as untamed as I am.

I'll see you again in Treviso.

Love, Astraea De Riva.

[empresskadia]

I have never in my life have wanted to write a scene more than Lucanis and Rook getting down and dirty skinning dipping in Tevinter like narrative sketches have shown.

Like y'all, featuring my Rook because she is on my mind,

She’d really never have guessed that the infamous Demon of Vyrantium could, well, could have such ideas. If there was one thing Rook had learned about Lucanis, it was that beneath the armor and reputation, he was a romantic at heart. But this? This wasn’t romance—it was reckless abandon, the kind of thing Viago would absolutely chew her out for if he ever found out.

“Wow, Lucanis,” Rook started, already grabbing the hem of her shirt. “I didn’t know you were such a bad boy.” Her words were teasing, but there was something about the way he looked at her—his eyes glinting with mischief in the soft glow of the moonlight—that made her heartbeat pick up.

She didn’t wait for him to answer, didn’t need to, before peeling off her shirt, pants, and boots. The crisp air kissed her bare skin as she dove into the water. The lake was stunning, the surface shimmering under the moonlight like liquid silver, but it was the thrill of it all—the sheer ridiculousness of skinny dipping with Lucanis, of all people—that made her laugh as she surfaced.

“You call this reckless?” His voice was a low rumble from the dock, amusement dancing on his lips. He was already shedding his coat, boots, and that damn tunic, his movements unhurried but deliberate. Rook had seen Lucanis fight a dozen times, but there was something almost mesmerizing about watching him now—so at ease, so unlike the legend she’d first heard whispers of in De Riva's darkest halls.

“Oh, this isn’t reckless?” she called back, treading water. “Viago’s going to kill me if he finds out. But, hey, you only live once, right?”

“You think I’d let Viago near you if he even tried?” Lucanis chuckled as he stepped into the water, the sound intimate as it echoed across the quiet lake. “Relax, Rook. For once in your life, stop overthinking.”

That's all I got for a start for now, but the romance!!!

[dragonagegayz]

🎶Six Songs Soundtrack🎶 Bas Edition (plus some)

Are we shocked im coming to do my other boys?

Rules: If you're tagged, make a post with links to music and/or lyrics describing six things/events about your OC/story.

Bas De Riva

1. Event that describes your characters past

So silent

No violence

But inside my head

So loud and clear

You're screaming

You're screaming

Cover up with a smile I've learned to fear

Just sunshine

And blue skies

Is this all we get, for living here?

Come fire

Come fire

Let it burn and love come racing through

Oh I'm still alive

I'm still alive and

I can't apologise, no

2. How others see them

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything

What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know goes away

In the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns

Upon my liar's chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I'm still right here

3. How your character sees themselves

I know I'm made of clay that's worn

Blinded by imperfect form

But I will trust the artist molding me

I am creation, both haunted and holy

Made in glory

Even the depths of the night cannot blind me

When You guide me

Creature only

Look inside my heart and find a perilous ravine

Carved within the beauty, the darkness in between

Standing in the balance of complete and incomplete

I identify the echo of what is and what will be

I know I'm made of clay that's worn

Blinded by imperfect form

But I will trust the artist molding me

(Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah)

In a room that's growing dim

Illuminated from within

The pull of tension's empathy

4. Their closest relationship (romantic or platonic)

Lucanis and Bas (romantic)

Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me

Not to take me home

It was simple, it was sweetness

It was good to know

You look perfect, you look different

I don't wonder about your indifference

If I said you could never touch me

You'd come over and say I looked lovely

Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me

Not to make me cry

It was simple, you are sweetness

Let's just sit a while

Depollute me, gentle angel

And I'll feel the sickness less and less

Come and kiss me, pretty baby

Like we'll never have sex

Illario and Bas (ex-romantic)

Don't

Don't you want me?

You know I can't believe it

When I hear that you won't see me

Don't

Don't you want me?

You know I don't believe you

When you say that you don't need me

It's much too late to find

When you think you've changed your mind

You'd better change it back

Or we will both be sorry

Don't you want me, baby?

Don't you want me, oh

Don't you want me, baby?

Don't you want me, oh

Viago and Bas (platonic)

5. Major fight scene

I'm the hand of God, I'm the dark messiah

I'm the vengeful one

(Look inside and see what you're becoming)

In the blackest moment of a dying world

What have you become?

(Look inside and see what you're becoming) oh

6. End Credits

Alone at the edge of a universe humming a tune

For merely dreaming we were snow, mmh-mmh

A siren sounds like the goddess

Who promises endless apologies of paradise

And only she can make it right

So things are different tonight

We'll go together in flight