#antivan crow rook

[plasticfreckles]

🪶 crusty first kiss rookanis enjoy 🪶

By the time they come out of the Diamond and into the marketplace, even the crystal peddler is closing up.

"Mierda."

"What?" Rook comes to a halt next to him. Little less than a week ago, he would have stepped away from just how close she stands to him.

"I meant to buy groceries. We're out of some spices."

Rook is quiet, like she's working up courage to speak her mind. Strange.

"I mean.. I've got groceries at home, if you still got time."

"How would you know the contents of the cooking rack?" Lucanis asks, despite motioning for her to lead the way. "I've not seen you use it once."

"Because someone always hogs the stove." She playfully knocks her shoulder into his arm. "No, I meant in my pad. It's just- well, up the roofs, but down the road. You get it."

She takes his hand and guides him down the road, up the trellis, over beams and through strategically broken windows.

"It's probably smelly in here," she says as she pulls out a keyring from under her cloak and opens a doorlock hidden behind an overgrown trellis. "Haven't been here in.. oh, over half a year."

"Hit the Antaam and hauled out of Treviso."

"For all the good that did, yeah. Oh, dear, sorry about that!"

Smells like stale air and rotten onions. Spite makes gagging sounds next to him as they both thread themselves through the open frame.

"Kitchenette's over there, you can just pick up whatever you like - let me open another window." She says over there as though her room wasn't so small it was already crowded with two short Crows and a demon.

A grunt, as she breaks open another of her windows. "Curse this forsaken rookery."

Sweet. Rook lives in a rookery.

"I'm sure her name hasn't been Rook her entire life, Spite. Or that she lived in a rookery all her life. How would a babe even get up here?"

If Lucanis had been told a year ago that he would comfortably talk to a demon inside him out loud while his dear is well within earshot, he would have fallen off a beam cackling.

Rook laughs. "It is a little funny, he's not wrong." Smart girl.

"Varric's chosen Rook for the chess piece, though. Says I think in straight lines. Can't imagine why."

"What's wrong with your own name?" Instead of going through her cabinets, he watches her light what seems like enough candles to burn down half of Treviso as she weaves a path through the clutter on the ground. Messy girl.

"He has this old friend of his, from where he comes from, who he'd given it as a nickname. Also an elf. Shorter than both of us, still, apparently. But she was Daisy first, I guess."

"I'm taller than you are."

"And I heard what Teia said to you about me. How you found the one Crow shorter than yourself." No bite or judgement, none at all. He's said worse to Davrin on a good day.

There's a spell of quiet, as he turns to actually take inventory of her reserves and she collects things she wants at the Lighthouse off the floor into an enormous backpack. Clothes, mostly, from the sound of it.

At least, quiet except for Spite logging every individual smell he registers. Every herb, every spice, the old must of damp fabric on wood planks, garlic so rotten the cloves have turned liquid inside. Lucanis' own cologne and Rook's strange mixture of cocoa and wet soil, though he dismisses those as Known and therefore uninteresting.

"Your kitchen is well-stocked, Rook." When she leans against the side of her tall cupboard, her plumed jacket hangs haphazardly over the doorknob behind her. By the door, her overstuffed backpack and a strapped milk crate filled with shoes.

"Don't sound so surprised. I remind you my shit-frys were at least edible, as opposed to whatever Harding does to the poor produce."

"That you call them shit-frys makes me all the more concerned." His sigh is playful, and she knows it. She hands off a basket to him, to collect the kitchenette's loot in.

She moves her hair over her bare shoulder, watches him collect containers of dried herbs, pink salt and ground garlic, syrups, jams. Some jerky, preserved damson.

"I don't actually put shit in it, you know." Through the sleeve of his shirt, she pinches at his arm.

"Do I know that?" She plays at offense when she catches his glance.

"Shit-fry's said faster than random assortment of fried vegetables. If I had grains, I'd call it Crow Feed."

It hits him like a blind bird hits a tall window, the domesticity of what they're doing here.

The achingly familiar weight of her skin on his. The unconditional trust as she lets him raid her kitchen. The fact that, when he'd asked to touch her back just that morning, to rub the visible tension from the muscles along her spine, she'd brushed her hair over her chest and turned away from him.You don't have to ask, Lucanis. You never have to ask.

The way that, even though he holds himself still as marble, his muscles still soften to accomodate for her touch.

Her forehead rests square against his triceps. Fingers curl in the fabric of his waistcoat, the other hand covering the edge of the countertop with the familiar ease of having suffered many injuries at its points.

Lucanis doesn't dare move. The spell of the moment would be broken faster than a splinter takes to skin. Spite runs across all four walls and the ceiling like a rabid cat.

"Never thought I'd see this place again," she admits, quietly. "Funny. I always hated it here. That I could never dream to live anywhere better. That this rancid, abandoned nest covered in birdshit was all my life would ever amount to."

The fingers in the fabric of his waistcoat pat gently against his small back as she collects herself with a deep, steadying breath.

"If you miss it that much," Lucanis starts, slowly. He holds himself so taut he can feel her brows pull together, even through his shirt. "You can always come back. A hideout from the hideout."

He moves to meet her gaze when he can feel her move to look up at him.

"Are you coming, too?"

"If you lead, I will follow."

Spite hurls curses at him in languages Lucanis never heard in his life, for reasons he isn't privy to, but it doesn't matter.

Not with the way Rook looks at him, right now.

"I really want to kiss you, Lucanis," she whispers. Her eyes flick up at his, down at his mouth.

"So do I." Spite chokes on the lump Lucanis tries to swallow out of his throat.

"Oh, good."

And then she leans up and does.

It's short, doesn't even last a heartbeat, and somehow it's both the smallest and the biggest thing that ever happened to him.

Her hand settles, surprisingly warm, on his low back. Even Spite is quiet, crouching in the sink with eyes wide as saucers. Rook's palm is still shielding him from the countertop corner.

People kiss like that all the time. Good-morning, good-night, I'm-still-too-sleepy-to-speak, I-just-felt-like-kissing.

It means nothing, and it means everything.

She comes back up for another.

YES. Again. More!

And another.

Her lips are parted now, wrap warm and soft around his.

Or his around hers.

Lucanis isn't sure.

The noise out of her throat, from balancing on her bad knee, rings loud as a chantry bell to him.

He's still holding on to the sweet potato.

Drops it to steady her, hand near her elbow. The sound turns curious, but she leans into the touch. There's renewed strength behind her lips now.

"Maker provide me," Rook huffs when she comes back down. She abandons the countertop corner, her nails slide onto his welt pocket.

When he looks at her lips, somehow there's more glitter on them than before.

"I could get lost in your puppy eyes for the rest of all time."

Lucanis has neither breath nor words.

So he ducks his face down to hers again.

🪶

this is spite

ALSO I PUT MY THESIS INTO THE HANDS OF MY COORDINATOR TODAY IM FINALLY FREE WHEEEEEEEEEE

also idk what first kisses w someone you actually care about are like dont come for me the reason I write like a wattpad preteen is bc when it comes to intimacy i AM the wattpad preteen

@lanafofana what we talked about is coming i promise <3

[~rina]

[ashalsdream]

Azazel de Riva & Davrin (Dragon Age: The Veilguard)

[silurisanguine]

A private joke.

When two highly trained assassins find something amusing, hope the joke isn't on you, and that they only have eyes for each other.

[nocturni3]

🗡️🐦‍⬛Antivan Night; improved and fixed some mistakes my sleep deprived ass made lmao🐦‍⬛🗡️

[possessedopossum]

Diversity wins! The assassins who're about to kill you are a gay couple

[ealyblu]

Finished my first playthrough so here's a little 'best of Maude de Riva' (beware of spoilers)

[achlysfx]

Choosing alt options is fun, especially when it riles up the Crows. 😎

[360iris]

taash asking lucanis “so you’re an antivan crow?” and him replying “yeah. like rook.” melted my little heart (contract assassin bird family you all mean so much to me, i can’t believe i’m going to have to sacrifice them next run, they’re my familyyy)

only for tassh to promptly go “do all crows have demons?” and have lucanis like “😟 what?! no.”

[arrowhawkart]

Meet my Rook: Adaian Tabris De Riva.

They were an Antivan Crow elf kiddo taken in by Zevran and my Tabris while they were dismantling house Arainai, who later went back to infiltrate the Crows to try to prove themself to their objectively incredibly cool dads who saved the world once and also systematically dismantled an entire Antivan Crow house.

[ID in Alt Text]

[igniskat]

"Your work here is done."

Illustration inspired by Act 3 of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

[plasticfreckles]

🪶 rookanis date plans nobody thought through enjoy🪶

"Ugh." Rook wrings out her hair. The groan comes from so deep inside her Lucanis thinks she might keep it under her toenails. "I'm never getting the stench out."

"Harding did offer you a hairtie, you remember." Not that Lucanis wore one, but he hasn't washed his hair in so long the grease alone might well be a helmet.

"I've put years into getting my hair to retain this curl pattern. Silk bedsheets and beetroot treatment only."

"Beetroot make your hair purple, as well?"

She shrugs, after flipping her wet curls through the air like that siren in the children's tale. The droplets that fly around her may as well be actors of the commedia, so well they play their part.

"It does, but I don't mind. Think it looks cute. Also if I stand in the sun right, it's pink. I got magic hair without being stuffed in a circle!"

She kneels down to pet a stray cat, but the smell of death and blight on their clothes makes it hiss and retreat into the shadows.

Rook huffs.

"You know what I'm doing the next time we're in Treviso?"

How should I know? You never let me talk to her. - She isn't talking to you. - Because you never let me!

"Coffee?" He knows it's not coffee. She's one of those cursed with coffee making her tired. Coffee, she reserves for ending a night, sitting on Treviso's rooftops with Crow Feed and a candlestub (or with bread and a book on a wobbly staircase in an old god's bachelor pad, as the case may be).

But if he doesn't guess now, Spite will start putting words in his mouth. And he rarely has nice things to say. I have no words you'll like.

"Before that. Can't show up like this."

Why not? He thinks. Sure, her pants are a little too tight for her luscious thighs, but all Crows wear tight pants. Even if that were reason the turn her away, she's too short for normal people to notice. Not under her cloak, anyway.

You're not normal people, Lucanis. It occurs to normal people they won't let her sit down because she stinks, not because she's got great legs. Normal people don't stare at their boss's ass like it was Andraste at the Stake. Spite manifests so close to him he can feel his serpent's tongue in his ear canal. He rubs his ear into his pauldron.

"She's not our boss," Lucanis hisses, and were Rook not an elf Crow, she might not even have heard.

As it is, when Lucanis returns his focus to figuring out where Neve had wandered off to, she frowns at him.

"What's he say?"

"It's not important." Lucanis shakes his head. You're not important, Spite says.

"You sure?" If their condition were Spite's prison, he would shake the bars in frustration so hard the walls would come down.

"The picking irritates him. Please, don't."

She leans back against the cart behind her, arms crossed.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to rile him up." She moves over a little when he walks over to join her against that cart. It's a good vantage point on the winding street into the market.

"Why don't you tell me your plans for Treviso before Neve returns with another contact?"

Rook leans her head back into her neck and bares all her teeth when she laughs.

"Want to join?"

"For coffee, certainly."

"Bathhouse, too?"

His clearly off-guard expression makes her laugh so hard she moves to hold her belly and bangs both elbows on the cart.

Quinces and pomegranates fall off the cart and tumble down the road.

🪶

this is experimental and idk if i like it yet. i think I've flirted twice with the man and am lowkey terrified of having messed up my chance at romance with him by playing blind but oh well

WE TAKE OUR Ls ON THE INTERNET WHOOP [Also its 1:30 in the night and the youth club beneath us has been playing the same 2 notes on their bass for like 5 hours now :)]

[~rina]

[another-rogue-trevelyan]

I’m in Lucanis hell so here is Lucanis and Elora’s first meeting

——————————————————————————

All Lucanis wanted was a decent cup of coffee, and Viago de Riva was making that impossible.

After finishing his most recent contract, the First Talon had sent Lucanis to House de Riva with some sensitive information. Instead of being quick and easy, it seemed Viago had a thousand things he wanted brought to Caterina’s attention, not the least of which being his latest batch of recruits.

“They’re coming along in the de Riva tradition - stealth, combat, and poisons. We’re surprising them with their poison trial tonight, and I’m hoping we don’t lose as many as we did last time. You would think I didn’t spend hours instructing them - wasted hours, apparently.”

Lucanis sighed, accepting he was going nowhere any time soon. “You said you have a large cohort this time?”

“Five. Certainly more than usual.”

“And did you give them all ridiculous code names like you do your poisons?”

Viago grinned. “We all need a little levity in this line of work, Lucanis. And yes, they’re chess pieces this time - King, Queen, Chevalier, Priestess, and Rook.”

“Hate to be the King. That’s asking for assassination.”

After what felt like hours, Viago finally dismissed him back to House Dellamorte. It was too late in the evening for Café Pietra, so he’d have to settle for coffee at home.

He passed by the Fifth Talon’s artwork in the halls, largely of plants he could use to kill people, and paused briefly to enter a large sitting room. Plush velvet chairs, a roaring fireplace with intricate carvings, expensive decor - no one could say Viago didn’t have taste. He was just pausing to examine a sculpted bust on a pedestal when he heard a crash behind him.

Lucanis whipped around, knives out, and bounded to the door in two silent steps. He stood back to the wall, weapons at the ready - one gifted to him by Caterina many years ago - and slowly peered around the doorframe. Then he relaxed and lowered his knives.

A young elven girl had stumbled into one of Viago’s porcelain vases, sending it crashing to the floor. The girl was clinging to the pedestal it had been placed upon. Blonde hair stuck to her forehead, which even in the dim firelights Lucanis could see was slick with sweat. She was shivering, sickly and pale, her green eyes bloodshot. She stumbled a few steps toward a large flowerpot and promptly vomited into into it.

“Mierda!” Lucanis sighed. The girl could be no older than sixteen, at most. She finished heaving, tried to stand, and promptly stumbled. Lucanis caught her just before she could smack her head on the corner of another one of Viago’s displays.

“Are you an initiate?” Lucanis asked as he painstakingly lead her into the sitting room.

“R…Rook,” she coughed out. Lucanis guided her onto the sofa, laid on her side in case she vomited again, and started searching through Viago’s cabinets. He knew Viago well enough to know he had a stock of poison antidotes in every room. Despite himself he chuckled when he found what he was looking for - a small vial labeled, “up and adder.”

“You’re lucky Viago uses the same poison in every initiate trial. Here, drink this.”

The elven girl - Rook - shakily took the bottle and drank it. She looked relieved a few minutes later when the shaking began to ease, but she was clearly exhausted.

“I don’t understand,” she slurred through heavy eyelids.

“What don’t you understand?” Lucanis asked.

“You’re supposed to let me die.”

She was asleep before he could answer, a bit of color returning to her cheeks. Lucanis took one of Viago’s expensive blankets and placed it over her.

“Not everyone needs to die,” he murmured, and went home to make himself a cup of coffee.

[thecherrypitpie]

Pre-Release HCs - My Antivan Crow Rook

(naming poll still active - leading option: Cosima de Riva)

Bitter about being forced into the Crows

Daughter of King Fulgeno II & a palace servant who had ill-advised aspirations of being an official mistress

Was promised to the Crows very young (given that she's a royal bastard), but her mother changed her mind & disappeared with her

Grew up on the run, dependent on the hospitality of local lords & merchant caravans her mother could barter and/or seduce protection from

Spent several years in Seheron from which she derives her accent

Brought into House de Riva only a few years ago as Viago's protégé

Speaks Common, Antivan, Orlesian, passable Rivaini, and some Qunlat

A devoted fan of the opera

Always desiring a little treat

Collects artisinal soaps & scented oils in fancy little bottles

Has a long list of devoted "lovers" across northern Thedas whom she corresponds with regularly & visits whenever possible

They aren't actually her lovers, but rather people in tenuous situations for whom association with either a female lover or the Crows could offer some protection

Fascinated by magical relics & studies what she can in her spare time

Uses Viago's money to fund research expeditions in search of artifacts

Particularly fond of plums

Uses Viago's poisons in her nail polish (a la the Warden from Holes as played by Sigourney Weaver)

note: if Cosima wills the naming poll, i will be retroactively giving her a long-dead twin named Damiano because Cosima was added to the list as a nod to Cosimo de Medici

[therookandthecrow]

I've concocted another Rook who may be the first Rook I play for a reason stated below, and this time he's an Antivan Crow. I don't have a name for him yet.

I know for certain that he's Viago's half-brother through King Fulgeno the II and that his mother is a half-elven bard (not the Orlesian kind of bard).

He was raised with his half-brother Viago by House De Riva. He's supposed to have a Spanish/Italian blended accent, but sounds British for some reason, and he's going to romance Lucanis.

I must admit, I never thought that I'd choose to play as a human Rook, albeit 3/4 human with the slightest ear points.

Furthermore, his rivalry with Lucanis is going to lead to an inevitable romance. This Rook doesn't even know that he's 1/4 elven, let alone that his father is a King.

I may need to wait to play Aloisius until there is a mod released to let elves be taller than the purported 5' 8" (?) limit.

I'm going to want to play the game right away, and if I can't make my canon Rook a 6' 3" elf without mods, then I will wait to play him until a height slider mod exists.

Not only that, but I refuse to change my headcanon on his height due to a limitation on how tall elves are "supposed to" be.

[mika-lover]

my rooks

(1st run) nifft ingellavar: mid 30s (35?), mourn watch, calm, self-actualized, has a unassuming naive, gentle nature but very scary in combat

non-binary, trans, he/they, warrior (shield toss?)

was adopted by three mourn watchers(talos, mithra, and kojira), pretty normal childhood, had a teenage phase where he was a troublemaker in nevarra , very honest, relatively easygoing, not ambitious

relatively close with vorgoth and mryna

gets along with davrin and emmrich the most

romances lucanis (them choosing something that was not decided for them, very sweet)

preferred choices:

(2nd run) rocco de riva: late 20s (27), antivan crows, from a dalish ?? clan (something something they werent a typical dalish clan as in they passed down essence of a forgotten one within certain members) that was experimented and killed by a blood mage, may have magic but its sealed away,,,recarnation of who???!! (june?????haha idk if i will do this plotline) taken in by a trainer in the crows who found him

trans, he/him, rouge (duelist)

has a funny mentor/sibling relationship with viago, besties with teia, tough, nonchalant, humorous, charming, troublemaker during his fledgling days, very ambitious, workaholic, very softhearted with animals and children ( lowkey wanted to adopt/mentor jacobus)

gets along with lucanis and neve the most

romances davrin ( they did not realize they can find a different path, a future , just for them, both have conflicting thoughts about purpose)

preferred choices:

(current run) malakei thorne: mid 20s (25), dead name raya, grey wardens, grew up in the countryside, orphaned at a young age, older brother protected him, they gets infected with blight when they are stuck in a cave-in, ends up killing brother out of mercy since the blight was worsening quickly in him, stuck in cave with dead body for 10 days before saved by grey warden thorne, is offered to do the joining, lives, and takes grey warden thorne name and has a father-child relationship

she/he/they, trans, rogue (saboteur)

besties with antoine and evka, a tinkerer in machinery and alchemy, very playful, ambitious

gets along best with bellara and neve

romancing ????

preferred choices:

---

notes:

accidentally realized i made nifft have the same hair color and age range of one of my da ocs (lavellan's runaway daughter) and decided to just make them twins separated at birth and the parent who had him dumped at the necropolis

New note>> Help wait?? Did i just accidentally make my lavellan inquisitor the father to my mw rook??? Bro doesnt know he has a another child😭😭 him and dorian need to find out NOWWWWW ,,, not varric being the uncle figure who meets regis son first?? Now aisha has to be like a shadow dragon or veil jumper who nifft meets during a side quest? How are they gonna find out hes nifft father? Shit… be funny if solas was the one who exposed it? Bro was like father like son and both of them are gonna be like HUHHH

[herrshepard]

Rook & Neve :)