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choccy-zefirka · 10 days ago

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...It is imperative that my most esteemed house gain the upper hand in this ongoing duel...

...My honored ancestors have made it abundantly clear in all their messages, written in blood on my mansion's walls, that they will not return to eternal rest until their rivals are taught their place...

...The Watch, therefore, must ensure that the noble undead lords and ladies of my lineage are armed with the appropriate blades and enchantments, as befits their station, not just the remnants of what they were buried with...

...I thus expect you to swap the decaying armor they currently carry for the finest work of your blacksmiths, with decor to match the glories of my family's past and the purity of our blood...

...Remember whose coffers bear the load of the Grand Necropolis...

...We have always been giving to the Watch most generously. Perhaps it is high time you showed proper appreciation for your betters...

...Should my forebears win the duel, I shall double my donations to the Watch, and provide you with special compensation of your choosing...

...The reward for bringing the upstart from our so-called rival "house" to heel will be much to your satisfaction, I assure you...

Professor Dieter Nessler, foremost expert on the provenance of enchanted antiques and one of the Mourn Watch's liaisons to the noble houses of Nevarra, taps at his mahogany desk with bejeweled fingers, his gaze traveling back and forth between the two scrolls he has recently received. They are laid out before him, unfurled, one pressed down by his impeccably polished obsidian inkwell, the other by the massive ink blotter with a procession of dancing skeletons carved into its side. Letters from the highborn: different in penmanship, identical in meaning.

Which house to support, which house to support... Perhaps if that much-promised reward were paid up front — then he could write something non-committal and vaguely affirmative to both noble scions, and then act depending on the situation...

His thoughts — which have already started carrying him away in a gently rolling gilded carriage, laden with multiple chests of coins and gemstones — are interrupted, most rudely, by a loud knock on his study's door. Nessler scowls like he'd just taken a sip of lemon juice — several sips even, each more unbearably sour as the knocking persists.

Before he deigns to answer, he carefully tucks the letters away into a desk drawer — just in case his unbidden visitor turns out to be someone like Volkarin.

The man may be a renowned corpse whisperer, and thus useful to stand next to, in a nonchalant, handshake-ready pose that might lead the right people to assume that they are friends... But when it comes to actual negotiations with the highborn, he is a nuisance at best and an active saboteur at worst. Of course, what would Volkarin, with his talk of always doing what's best for the living and the undead, know of proper conduct in noble company? Once a butcher's son, always a butcher's son.

"Come in," Nessler says at last.

The door nigh flies off its hinges, revealing someone much shorter, curvier, and more... pink than Volkarin.

Ah.

Nessler's grimace gradually stretches out into a sugary sweet smile, befitting this sugary sweet thing.

It's her.

His apprentice, the official paperwork calls her. But one glance at her makes it abundantly clear: that word is not meant for her.

Apprentices come to the Mourn Watch to be taught... And what could the senior necromancers possibly teach this rosy-cheeked dwarf — with her head of cascading curls, like candied rose petals; her pouty, gloss-covered lips; her ridiculously frilly dresses that she supposedly sews herself? She is no Watcher; she is an adorable round-eyed doll, lashes going bat-bat, little feetsies going stomp-stomp, soft mouth moving, trying to shape long, complex sentences that belong on the lips of people with actual brains inside their skulls.

"I apologize for bothering you at this late hour, Professor, but... With all the respect in my heart, this cannot continue! The so-called War of the Banners is spilling too far out of the nobles' crypts! Just today, I had to patch up a classmate who caught a stray javelin from around the corner; they were lucky I was not the only person around to help, because I obviously cannot cast magic, and without a well-timed healing spell, they might have lost an arm! And the peaceful undead are suffering too; the upper hallways will be turning into refugee camps for skeletons at this rate! What we need — again, with all my respect — is a small questing party to delve into the main mausoleums and take down the heads of houses! Maybe they can be pacified with words, but if not... We might have no other choice, serah. I think — "

She thinks. How precious.

Maybe she has gotten into her cute little head that this is how she will earn herself a promotion. Well, obviously that stratagem of hers is doomed to fail. But the doll need not fret: there are other, more time-tested ways of advancing through the ranks... Especially for one in possession of such soft, ample bosoms, barely contained by her ribbons and lace.

With a lazy flick of his wrist, Nessler spins a fine, glittering thread of magic and pulls a second chair out of a far corner closer to his desk. Much, much closer. Opposite his own seat, in fact. Within arm's reach.

"Come, come, Beata. Sit. Take a breath."

She obeys, as all good dolls should; but the moment she is in the chair, she begins to chatter again, about all the things that are so far beyond both her station and her intelligence.

"Thank you for agreeing to listen to me, serah! Having such a prominent professor in my corner truly means a lot; now if we could also get a hold of Master Volkarin... I have no way of contacting him, as I only ever got to sit in the back row at a couple of his lectures, but you do mention so often what excellent friends you are..."

"Beata, Beata, Beata..." Nessler murmurs, leaning forward ever so slightly. The little doll tenses up, clearly confused. Ah, the silly thing. So adorably unaware of the effect her curves have on tired mortal men trapped in their study all day.

"You are a promising Watcher, but a little headstrong. Still in need of a lot of... guidance..."

He breathes out the last word in a trailing whisper, just as his hand closes the distance between them and rests on her knee. Then, gently moves up her full, delightfully jiggly thigh...

There's a sharp ripping noise: his doll has leapt to her feet, ignoring the fact that one of his rings has snagged against her silky stockings.

"What... What are you doing?!" she shrieks, all color pooling away from her face and collaring her throat instead. "I came to talk to you about serious matters; there are lives at stake — and you... and you...!!"

Now her imitation of an intelligent being is no longer convincing. Or endearing.

"Such serious matters are the concern of real Watchers!" Nessler barks, ramming his fist into the edge of his desk in frustration. "Yours is not to meddle; yours is to wear your pink dresses and look pretty!"

"I am a real Watcher too!" she protests, twisting the hem of her skirt in her dimpled hands, her eyes growing redder by the second. "I read the arcane lore, I passed the exams, I took extracurriculars on the symbolism of shroud embroidery and repairing skulls with gold! I even trained in sword and shield combat, because I have no magic to defend the Necropolis! Will you truly never take me seriously — because of what I look like?!"

"What you look like is what you are, little doll," Nessler says.

The thought of those delectable breasts moving further and further out of his grasp stirs a scraping, seething anger deep within his gut, so he neglects to watch his tongue as carefully as he perhaps should have... And the secret nickname slips out.

"Very well," the doll says, fighting back a small, teary hiccup. "Then I will go to my quarters and take out my makeup brushes and apply the cutest skull war paint a doll has ever worn, and deal with the undead myself. Have a good night, serah."

She slams the door so hard that one of Nessler's most prized paintings — a portrait of himself surrounded by the most noteworthy members of the Watch, yes, Volkarin included (though Hezenkoss has been thoughtfully blocked out in bold black paint strokes, now that she has become an... undesirable) — thunders cacophonously onto the floor, its frame smashing to pieces. If the doll survives this foolhardy quest of hers, the cost of repairs will be deducted from her stipend. And only then will Nessler see to it that she is expelled, and sent back to whatever Pink Hat Atelier for the Brainless that she crawled out from.

***

Emmrich has heard much about Beata Ingellvar. The woman who fearlessly went into the ever-shifting maze of the aristocracy's burial grounds, and struck down the two feuding undead nobles before they could amass even more forces for their never-ending vanity war. Their living descendants nearly collapsed to the ground in a conniption fit in front of the entire Watch — but the crypts went quiet. Meaning no more trembling, harried civilians staggering about in search of a healer, clutching a swollen forehead or limping on a red-soaked leg that got grazed by a wildly swinging blade. No more poor, frightened darling wisps fleeing the sounds of clashing steel with the softest "meep-meep" of desperation. No more innocent dead pushed out of their own coffins by skeletal mercenaries on the march under the banner of some lord or other.

They should all be deeply, wholeheartedly grateful to the young Watcher for intervening when she did. Yet not all accounts Emmrich received from his colleagues have been as glowing as his own mental image of Ingellvar — victorious warrior with a would-be tyrant's skull under her boot, sword aloft, hair billowing.

Many have called her air-headed, unserious, childishly scattered and scandalously debauched at the same time. Dieter Nessler, the pompous Arschgeige (not a word for Manfred's innocent metaphorical ears, that), has gone so far as to claim she barged into his study prior to her expedition into the nobles' crypts and attempted to seduce him, slamming herself down on his desk and putting his hand on her knee before he kicked her out and she shuffled off into the night, wailing and sobbing over being unwanted.

That last part is particularly hard to believe. Especially now — after Emmrich has joined Ingellvar on her new mission (such a great honor and monumental responsibility!). After he has seen what she is like, both amid the carnage of the battlefield and back in the safety of the Lighthouse.

She may quite literally wear her passion for the color pink on her sleeve, but is that truly such a condemnation of her intelligence?

That simply makes no logical sense.

Not when her eyes — a lovely shade of deep blue, almost lavender; but that is neither here nor there — are so quick to scan the wretched crags of blighted wilderness, and her mind is even quicker to calculate the angle at which she needs to toss her shield, so it can slice apart a blister of infection and make the sticky red tendrils retract.

Not when she falls so easily in stride with Neve on the trail of a cultist through bustling, ever-rainy Minrathous streets, and lights up with a bright smile, dimples indenting in her cheeks (also neither here nor there), when she points out a clue that the detective can use. Which is often a sliver of torn-off fabric on some splintered crate or metal fence. She does know her fabrics...

And certainly not when, not even one hour after their proper introduction, she knelt beside the unfortunate man the Venatori had dragged in as a slave — as fodder for their blood magic rituals — and extended her hand, comparing the bumps and indentations on her skin to his. "You were a tailor, weren't you!" she beamed. "How fortunate! I am certain the Mourn Watch will find you work as a free man! There is always a demand for prettying up the dead!"

And oh, whenever they return from their long travels, sore bodies beckoned by the softness of the couches the spirits have helpfully provided — the conversations she has with the others! Again and again, as he hurries past, on his way to his books and to his lessons with Manfred, Emmrich indulges in lingering halfway up the stairs, listening in.

He often finds Ingellvar — Rook, to her new comrades — helping Bellara restore the brittle vestments the Veil Jumpers found in a casket within yet another floating ruin. And also bombarding the dear girl with technical terms about the types of weaving and stitching used by her ancestors; which Bellara does not seem to quite follow, but takes in with rapid, enthusiastic nods.

Or unsheathing an impressive arsenal of makeup brushes to paint intricately rendered, almost three-dimensional dragons on Taash's bare forearms and midriff in the bright shades of vitaar — while wearing a mask and gloves to protect herself from the toxic body paint, and gushing in a muffled voice about color grading and about how the final design will look like it’s flapping its wings with every flex of Taash's muscles.

Or using very similar brushes, each softer and more delicate than the next, to explain to Harding how to unearth ancient inscriptions without eroding the stone with cleansing potions. "I remember going a little way back into the passage where they found me as a baby, to see if it does connect to the Deep Roads; and I actually found some writing there... It was certainly not Tevene or Nevarran, and absolutely not Trade — so it might very well be old dwarven! I can take you there some time if you want; maybe your new powers can help read it."

She is so bright, so quick-witted, brimming over with knowledge in fields Emmrich only has a cursory familiarity with. Oh, there is so much he could have learned from her!... If only she let him.

She has never been outright hostile to him… not like Taash. She has taken him out into the field, certainly, especially into places abounding with unquiet spirits, and thanked him for his contribution after each fight. But outside the necessary interactions dictated by their shared cause, she has never sought him out, never visited him on her daily Lighthouse rounds, never invited him to talk about his day, like she has the others.

Perhaps it is the difference in their age that makes her assume they have little in common. Perhaps she knows what the other senior Watchers think of her, and is wary of her attempts at friendship being met with the same disdain. That is only fair, but still... He cannot help a certain twinge of pettiness. Bitter, juvenile — indeed, spiteful. Spite himself even... eloquently said to him once, when he walked behind Rook by Lucanis' side, "He does not! Let me! Talk to Rook! And Rook. Rook does not let you! Talk to her! All by herself!"

Aptly put.

And the feeling certainly does not sting any less when he ponders how she is the only other Mourn Watcher on their little team. The only other person who might have commiserated during his occasional bouts of homesickness; who might have laughed at an inside joke about Vorgoth's mist form; who —

Ah. But it is not fair to her, is it? She endures enough old man hand-wringing with the Dread Wolf visiting regular visions upon her.

But still.

Emmrich is in the middle of mulling all of this over for what might well be the thousandth time, laying wide awake in his bed, well-hidden behind a bookcase, when on the other side of his secret rest nook, down comes a thunderous avalanche of... books? Followed by a familiar inquisitive hiss.

He is out of bed in an instant — well, two instants, as the pose he has frozen up in is hardly… conducive against back stiffness. Hastily smoothing back his hair with his hand and throwing a dressing gown over his shoulders, he rushes out to assess the aftermath of Manfred's mischief. Only to find that his assistant — who is waving enthusiastically, quite proud of... whatever it is he did — is not the only one staring at him over the chaotic mound of covers and spines and rustling pages. Rook is also here, petrified in mid-step, with her arms wrapped around the stack of books that she has already started putting back.

"Oh, Emmrich!" she clears her throat. "It's all right, you can go back to sleep. I apologize for being here at this late hour — I needed to borrow a book on rare varieties of blighted monsters, to see if it has something I can translate from Nevarran for Davrin... About the Gloom Howler... And Manfred, he, well — he noticed me, and decided he needed to help. I will put everything back. And will be quieter next time."

Emmrich inhales sharply, feeling something tired and frustrated and altogether unkind bubble to the surface.

"Oh, if only there was a way to avoid all these sneaky theatrics," he snaps. "By, perhaps, having a conversation with me?"

Rook flinches, and Emmrich instantly regrets his tone.

"I... That was uncalled for. I am sorry, Rook, I am still half-asleep and let my petulance get the better of me. Would you perhaps allow me to help clean up? And Manfred — please remember not to tug at books so forcibly when trying to dislodge them."

The skeleton nods and hisses eagerly, clapping his gloved hands together.

As the two Watchers set to work — Rook stocking the lower shelves and Emmrich whisking the rest of the books up in a soft turquoise cloud of magic — her delicate, thread-trimmed eyebrows knit into a frown.

"You seemed quite upset because I never visit your part of the Lighthouse… Not when you are there, at least."

With a singular swooshing, conductor-like gesture, he guides yet another floating book to its place — and handwaves her observation away.

"An irrational feeling to have. The first sign of my mind beginning to slip, I fear."

She does not join in his self-deprecating chuckle.

"Please. Let me finish making sense of this.”

There is a hint of urgency in her voice — an echo of a past hurt. It is important for her to be listened to, uninterrupted; to be taken seriously.

So Emmrich nods, slowing down his silent book concerto — focusing slowly on her.

Her stance relaxes; she exhales in relief.

“Thank you. As — as I was saying: I am just realizing that I have been avoiding you far too much. That was… poor leadership on my part; I should not have made you feel excluded... Especially among, uh, non-Nevarrans who do not appreciate your skull collection. I really should have known better; I know what it is like to feel like you don't belong..."

Her tone shifts again, and she dips her head, eyes hidden in shadow. Emmrich's stomach twists a little. Whatever did the Arschgeige put her through as his apprentice?

"It really is quite all right, Rook. You and your friends are young, always rushing off far ahead. I am perfectly content where I am. Sometimes one merely has odd thoughts when it is five in the morning."

She clutches the latest book she's picked off the floor closer to her chest.

"I believe it's three in the morning. And Emmrich — "

There is something more than her usual distant politeness in the way she says his name. Something soft and tremulous and vulnerable, like the heartbeat of a captured bird. Lilac eyes meet his, and she holds his gaze the longest she ever has.

"I am sorry for… shunning you so unfairly. The truth is, my rational mind knows you did not do anything wrong to deserve this; you have been nothing but kind to all of us! But..."

She pushes down a shuddering breath.

"Whenever I look at you, I keep thinking about... my former mentor, Professor Nessler. He liked boasting about your supposedly rare and beautiful friendship, and — "

"Hah!"

Emmrich did not intend for the loud, wry laugh to escape his lips so abruptly �� yet it does, while before his mind's eye, a jeering little boy dances. A future Mortalitasi of noble blood, dressed to the nines, his squeaky boots not losing their sheen even as he gleefully kicks the filthy butcher's son lower and lower into the ground... Until a conjured icicle hits him on the side of the head, sending him thunk! right beside his target.

Hey, he was mean to you! Can I kill him? Pretty pretty please?

Johanna no!

Johanna yes?

"Rare and beautiful friendship? With a man who did not give me the time of day since we were twelve, and up until the point when I earned my first accolades?"

Rook snorts. A soft flush seems to have crept over her cheeks — at about the same time Emmrich burst out laughing. That is, quite naturally, neither here nor there.

"That does sound like Professor Nessler. And more the fool me, for thinking you would sincerely associate with him!"

Emmrich shakes his head, and she smiles, finally letting go of her book and setting it down on its proper shelf.

"I know, I know — no diminishing my own intelligence. Other people do that aplenty."

"They are the foolish ones, Rook. But... If I may — "

Emmrich has taken his rings off for the night, but he instinctively rubs the band’s imprint on his index finger while gathering up his thoughts.

"What did Dieter do to you, that the sheer notion of me being his friend unsettled you so profoundly?"

She casts her gaze away, jaw tightening.

"I cannot... I am not ready to talk about this right now."

"Of course!"

Her eyes slowly travel back to his, light blooming back in their depths.

"But you know what I am ready for? Tomorrow, after we report back to Myrna and Vorgoth about that new haunting... Would you like to visit the Memorial Gardens with me?"

"Oh Rook, I would love to!"

For a split second, Emmrich's heart beats faster. Neither here nor there.

#dragon age #da:tv #emmrich volkarin #mourn watch #rook ingellvar #emmrich x rook #emmrook #age gap ship #cw for beata being sexualized and harassed by her professor :') before meeting an older man who actually respects her

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