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sternentreue · 7 days ago

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15 and 16 for the Rook and their partner ask game, please!

Okay first of all! I'm so sorry that this took forever but you will see why. I have this (bad) habit of getting carried away if I have too many feelings and thoughts about something and then I go on and write three pages about it before I have to stop myself. I tried to shorten everything but this was actually harder than leaving it as it is and took even longer, so I decided to just leave it. 😭 I think you can almost call this a oneshot asdfjkl I'm sorry!!!

15. What was the partner's reaction to Rook being imprisoned in the Fade? How did they cope? How did they react upon seeing Rook again?

Lucanis was devastated. Rook pulled the dagger from Ghilan'nain and the shockwave flung him back. He had to check on Rook, had to know if he was all right. But he was dazed, he could only hear muffled noises and, as hard as he tried, he couldn't see Rook. But he saw something else - someone else - an elf? But not Rook, another figure was standing there, walking past him, proud and with determined steps. Then they were gone, and as he was pulled up by two pairs of arms and dragged along, he gradually regained consciousness. The earth shook, the air grew hotter and everything around them seemed to turn to ash. Where was Rook? He tried to turn round, frantically scanning the spot where Ghilan'nain had died, but there was no one there. He suddenly realised what was happening around them. Elgar'nan wanted to burn them all alive. But he couldn't leave, not until he knew where Rook was.

“Where is he?” He shouted, trying to wriggle out of Davrin's and Taash's grip.

“Gone. We have to get out of here.” Davrin's voice was loud and insistent, but the strain in his voice made it obvious that he had to force every word.

“I'm not leaving, not without him!” Lucanis turned, his eyes gleaming with purple smoke, and with a flap of his wings he pushed his companions away.

“Not. Without. Rook!”

He had to go back. Spite could still smell him, he still had to be here somewhere. Lucanis thrashed around as Davrin and Taash tried to hold him down while the ground beneath their feet gradually began to burn. A sharp demonic scream rang in his ears and then suddenly everything went dark.

When he regained consciousness, he was alone in the familiar surroundings of his pantry. Someone must have brought him here. A sudden twinge in his chest reminded him painfully of what had happened. Rook was gone. He was somewhere, all alone, and they had simply abandoned him. Like an echo, he heard Rook's voice in his head, desperately calling for him. His eyes began to burn and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets to stifle the sensation. He took a deep breath, trying to focus. Maybe he had just had a bad dream. Maybe he would see him sitting at the kitchen table at any moment, surrounded by their friends and with a charming smile on his lips.

The kitchen was deserted. Lucanis walked on. Maybe he would find Rook outside in the courtyard, his axe balanced casually on his shoulders, sweaty and glowing from his afternoon training. Not even Assan was to be seen. Lucanis felt his heart beat faster, his stomach began to churn. His steps quickened. Maybe he was in the library - it was empty. He walked quickly up the stairs, past the frescoes and stopped in front of the tall iron door. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears now. He had never been here before. Rook was always there for them all, always had an open ear for them and a shoulder to lean on. And so, it was an unwritten law that none of them would enter this room otherwise, to give him the opportunity to withdraw once in a while. Lucanis dropped his forehead against the cool surface.

“Not. Here. Any more.” It haunted his mind.

He felt stupid as he knocked on the door - anything to maintain the last vestige of this illusion. There was no answer. It felt familiar, just as back then when he was trapped in his own mind, unable to escape it. He knew he was doing the same thing again. He put up a wall, an illusion, to protect himself from the vicious truth that would await him as soon as he entered the room. Back then, Rook had helped to free himself from it. Now he had to face it all alone.

Lucanis opened the door and entered the room. It was cold and empty, stripped of its soul. Only a few mementos here and there suggested that someone had settled in here. He slowly crossed the room, stroking the furniture with his fingertips as if to reassure himself that this was real. His gaze fell on a crumpled shirt that had been carelessly left on the couch. He recognised it; Rook always wore it when he was training in the courtyard. Lucanis slowly sat down on the couch and took the shirt in his hands. He imagined how the fabric would feel when it was warmed up, when it was smooth against Rook's skin, how it would feel when he would wrap his hands around Rook’s waist. He felt that twinge in his chest again, growing stronger by the second, and the room began to blur before his eyes. He pressed his face into the fabric and when he recognised the smell that was so familiar and so dear to him, he began to sob and his whole body shook with grief.

Spite sat next to him. He had fallen silent.

Coping was the hardest part. The sleep deprivation of the past months and the unbearable sorrow were gradually catching up with him. His body was unable to take it anymore and he no longer cared if he fell asleep - because it was the only time when his heart wasn't torn apart by the thought of Rook. But there was irony in that; Spite wouldn't let him sleep. He wailed in his head, night after night, not understanding, unable to comprehend.

“Where. Is. Rook?”

Several times a night he awoke in a different spot in the Lighthouse, awoken by the whimpers of his own voice, his throat hoarse. Spite couldn't bear it, his inaction, his inability to do anything. And so he languished, in a constant state somewhere between semi-sleep and nightmare. Lucanis was a heap of misery. The circles under his eyes were even darker and deeper than usual, his cheeks sunken. He cooked constantly to keep himself busy - mostly Rook's favourite dishes - but when they sat at the table together, he hardly ate any of it. There was nothing he could do to contribute to the search for Rook. He could only rely on the mages to find a way.

And when they finally set off, armed with the fake lyrium dagger, to look for Rook in the Fade, he didn't dare to hope. The fear of being so disappointed and hurt again was too great. What if they didn't find Rook after all? What if they did find him, but he was no longer alive? He didn't want to, couldn't, think about it. But Spite pushed him on. Spite still had hope, had been revitalised by the search for Rook. And he was playing his part. Lucanis still couldn't explain how, but Spite had gained full access to his sense of smell and guided them from the location where they had lost Rook - to a spot where Spite claimed to smell Rook and where the pressure behind his eyes became particularly uncomfortable. And lo, Emmrich did manage to open a rift. Lucanis’ heart began to beat faster and hope sprouted within him. Was it really Rook? Had they found him?

He called out to Rook, almost wanting to throw himself into the Fade to get to him. He reached for his hand and once again he felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he felt Rook's familiar warmth. He was here. He was actually here.

Rook knelt on the cold stone. He didn't seem hurt, but he was distraught, searching their faces for something familiar. He looked as if he hadn’t really recognized them yet. In his mind, he was still there. Lucanis knew the feeling all too well. He knelt down in front of Rook and carefully took him in his arms.

“You are here. You are here with me.”

He tightened his grip and slowly Rook returned his embrace and they sank into each other. Lucanis swore to himself that he would never allow fate to separate them again.

16. How did your Rook react to getting trapped in the Fade and separated from their partner?

For Firion it was slightly easier. At least that’s what he liked to tell himself. He was a master at suppressing his feelings. When he saw Lucanis’ lifeless body in front of him, his gut had twisted, he felt sick and he wanted to throw up the lump that had formed in his throat. But the feeling was quickly replaced by the anger and rage he felt by the experience that Solas put him through. He knew this wasn’t real. He knew he was trapped in a place so far from reality that he knew he couldn’t trust anything he saw in there. Lucanis couldn’t be dead. He was with him the whole time. He couldn’t quite place the exact moment when he was torn from reality but Lucanis wasn’t there. He was somewhere else, he was with the others, and he was safe. He had to believe it.

The prison, however, still took its toll on Rook. He wandered aimlessly, searching every nook and cranny for clues on how to get out of here. The vast expanse was oppressing, the dark shadows crawled on him and made him jump in his moments of inattentiveness, the thoughts on Lucanis, how he laid there lifeless and turning to stone haunted his memories and every time he tried to subdue them by focusing on the path ahead - just to be replaced by the images of Harding getting impaled and thrown to her death. Could she still be alive? He felt guilty, the prison made sure of that. Not because of her sacrifice per se, he knew it was her own choice, but because he couldn’t be there. He couldn’t be there to look for her, to see if there was a chance to bring her back, to tend to her injuries. He couldn’t be there to retrieve her body or to tell her family that she was gone. Or to console Taash. And every minute that he spent in this prison was a minute that he couldn’t make plans on how to find Neve. He had to get out, no matter what.

[Questions for your Rook and their partner]

#thank you so much for the ask!!!#as you can see I had a lot to talk about 😭#sorry this took forever I hope you still want to read it asdfjkl #maybe this is something I could upload on ao3 #rook ask game #rookanis #lucanis dellamorte #rook dragon age #firion aldwir #dragon age #datv #rookanis fanfiction #da fanfiction

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