#varric revealing that rook is a card sharp in that letter is the least surprising thing in the world in hindsight

[vaguely-concerned]

to begin with I think previous relationship trauma (max got real Weird and unpleasant about rye showing off too much with his magic in ways that reminded him that his prized pet mortalitasi actually wielded vast power of his own outside of what max could confer upon him through his name and money) and uh magical masking for lack of a better term (having long since realized how nevarran magic is viewed by outsiders and knowing he already has enough of the mannerisms of an extremely weirdly socialized crypt baby that he needs another social weak spot like a hole in the head) would make rye avoid doing necromancy specifically in front of lucanis for a long time whenever he could help it, especially as lucanis is quite vocally dubious about necromancy and the necropolis itself initially.

(rye watching lucanis like a hawk as he drags him along into the depths of the necropolis and to hezenkoss’ party to try to determine if this is going to be the sticking point and — with the muscle memory of trauma that has a lot less to do with lucanis in actuality and a lot more to do with rye’s unconscious dialogue with his own history — how he can maybe shape himself into something more acceptable, if so. like… DON'T BE WEIRD!! HE IS GOING TO THINK YOU'RE WEIRD AND LOSE INTEREST FOREIGNERS CAN BE WEIRD THAT WAY!!! THE SKULLS COULD BE A DEAL BREAKER WE MUST CAREFULLY DETERMINE THE LAY OF THE LAND BEFORE WE GO THERE!!! SOME TASTEFUL SUMMONING OKAY, HE’S KIND OF INURED TO SPIRITS BY NOW SURELY, BUT HOLD THE BONES UNTIL WE KNOW FOR SURE. the ‘I can deny whole parts of myself forever if it means that you will stay’ gambit (do NOT try this at home it’s an understandable siren song to be drawn towards when previously wounded but it does not in fact tend to end well this has been a PSA))

by the end of the game rye knows with his brain that lucanis would not in fact drop him like a hot coal over the bones, but what your brain thinks it knows and what your heart thinks it knows… not always the same thing, huh. Even with the proven knowledge that lucanis loves him to the god killing end of the world stage and beyond, I think some deeply buried raw part of rye would still hold on to this remembered flinch and do its best to not be known. 

The masking translates into other things than magic/necromancy as well — while Rye does feel genuinely in over his head as to the task before him in the Veilguard story (it’d be kind of wild to have any other reaction, considering lol), he habitually performs a level of haplessness that’s not truthful too, for a multitude of reasons — to make himself seem unthreatening, to convey the ‘hey I’m just a little guy (please don’t metaphorically and emotionally hit me I’m literally just a little guy max)…🥺’, to hide and sheathe the sharper edges in and not let on that he a) is actually pretty clever in a way the societies of thedas might not prefer for an an elf, even one who’s a watcher, to be seen to be and b) can be a vindictive bastard once roused… it can be an interpersonal swiss army knife to just give the gentle impression that you have no fucking idea what’s going on at all times fhdsakj. Varric didn’t buy it for even five milliseconds, but that’s part of what made Varric what he was to Rook, most people are quite willing to go along with that projected image for their own comfort (make yourself seem harmless and easy to dismiss and you will be left alone to do your own thing in the background uninterrupted quite a lot of the time hashtag rye ingellvar life hack. Wait. why am i so lonely I could cry I’ve only cut off all avenues of genuine expression in myself. This is surely completely unrelated) or because it occasionally awakens a protective impulse in people (davrin goes there sometimes), or whatever. the little black dress of social navigation that is being chronically underestimated.

rye’s relationship to his necromancy is also borderline, vulnerably religious and deeply complex in many ways independently of any of this, especially after his (perceived) exile from the necropolis. He does break the ol' dance macabre out on a couple of notable occasions over the course of the game — occasionally when he’s hanging out with emmrich, and when the Formless One tries to pull its bullshit in rye’s own damn childhood home living room (the GALL!!!). within the context of the necropolis itself he’s willing to let lucanis witness his Watcher Persona (‘don’t worry that’s my jobsona you won’t have to deal with that outside this house of many mansions if you don’t want to! :) ’). But I feel like that fearful ‘if I never put it to the test I’ll never have to find out if that is where the good thing breaks bad and everything will be safe, I’ll never have to know’ impulse is also a big part of it. Again, a largely a subconscious one, of course, I don’t think he would be aware of this consciously, but it’s a system of thinking that’s always active beneath.) 

And furthermore I think lucanis would eventually pick up on this — through such nefarious tactics as ‘actually paying attention’ and ‘genuinely wanting to deeply know rook as a person’ (*rye voice hissed out in distress while clearly sweating nervously*: ah shit… I planned for every eventuality but this one… fuck’).  and once lucanis understood why (at least to the extent that it involves ‘rook anxiously cutting himself into pieces trying to render himself palatable (to me???!! :( )’) it would probably kind of break his heart. and also make him carefully cradle rook’s face between his palms and go 'hey. hey please look at me? do you really think cutting off a whole part of yourself to make me comfortable is what I want. Have I done and said something that made you feel that way, and how can I avoid ever doing that again. do you think I love you so cowardly' (his face is doing the thing it does in the coffee scene with harding through this whole thing, needless to say. rye is toast immediately it is so over for him he’s done for pray for him), and caught completely off guard rye is like '🥺...nohoho😭😭😭' and promptly sobs into lucanis' shoulder for like half an hour while lucanis kisses his hair and rocks them back and forth (and spite is like ‘???!!?! well lucanis seems to be handling it but this is like advanced mortal shit I’m not sure I quite get this one yet’). 

Justttt… Them talking about it finally once Rye is capable of talking again and Lucanis bemusedly cradling rook’s hands in his and venturing ‘...did you think I somehow missed all the fifteen foot tall corpse statues before I married you or…?’ (‘HAH! well when you put it like that my clever ruse does lose some of its integrity you’re right’.) You know one of those precious conversations where someone is able to pick through the strange and twisted overgrown paths in your brain with you to figure out why the hell you do this thing you tend to do and maybe clear some new less troublesome paths in the process, in a way that feels safe and doesn’t make your neurons shut the whole show down nothing to see here please come back later? Yeah, it’s one of those, they get pretty good at those which is good since both of them have some uuuuh Issues to get through.

One of Lucanis’ most endearing qualities to me (they are many and diverse) is the way he seems to really enjoy listening to people he cares about talking about things they’re interested in, even if his own investment in the subject is negligible at the outset. (see him working intrepidly to understand the basic deal with necromancy and finding satisfaction in understanding the necropolis’ financial role in nevarra (lmao I love you lucanis) in emmrich banters, or quickly warming to and engaging with taash’ descriptions of how to fight dragons despite ‘*sigh of deep sincere exasperation* having had enough of dragons’.) so considering how much he canonically enjoys just listening to romanced rook speak about literally whatever and his own unique position in regards to spirit matters (and of course the helpful fact that he is completely unbothered by dead bodies as a baseline), I feel like there’s every chance that he’d actually get quite invested once rye opened up and talked more about it with him unfiltered. Being so ravenous for and open to the corners of your partner’s soul you don’t quite understand or even necessarily have instinctive ‘liking’ for on first brush but growing to understand and love them over time because it is all them (and also getting tricked into liking yourself a bit more by being seen through their eyes oh no I knew there was a catch) feels like a very central thing in their relationship. Permission to be everything you are including all the unlikeable annoying unsettling or difficult things you hide from other people not only granted, I am begging you on my knees for it share it all with me my hunger for you is endless sort of thing. The mutual ‘Please be your full weird self with me I want to study you for the rest of my life’ going on. Unspeakable. 

They both have had to exile their anger so far away from them to in their upbringings (Lucanis has had to navigate Caterina all his life, and Rye was raised to understand that raging, raging against the dying of the light is ultimately futile, young watcher, can you not skip this particular developmental stage for your own good and our convenience we've got stuff to do these corpses aren't going to bury themselves (it would be so gauche to ask them to)), I think having a space to safely explore being angry and sharp and unpalatable together is like. Revelatory there. Lucanis is the first (perhaps only) person Rook actually confides in about his deepest beliefs and duties as a Watcher eventually, and like… sex is not nothing, to be sure, I think they have some very good tender life-affirming AND room to express some rarely seen corners of the soul stuff going on that way… but THAT conversation is the final frontier of intimacy for him honestly. Once that is open he’s let himself be seen in life and death and there’s no fear left at all. 

I feel like Lucanis does make his own peace with the Necropolis in the end aside from just accepting it as an important part of Rook’s life in the way that like… you know, when you’re an abomination with all the cultural baggage that comes along with it in most andrastian nations, there must be a comfort in knowing there’s a place you can go where you are not going to be even the fiftieth weirdest thing in any given room at any given time. He wouldn’t want to stay there all the time, but it’s nice to have those normality checks sometimes. Reassuring, in a way, even with all the grinning skulls bouncing around.    

Annnd as a final note (why am I like this)... a little funny and weirdly moving that I imagine Lucanis would in fact have the exact opposite reaction from Max’ to seeing Rook be ruthlessly unapologetically competent (that is, not only entirely unthreatened but also incredibly underlyingly enduringly horny). Rook in battle already makes him resort to effusiveness otherwise reserved for descriptions of coffee, we could be in for some incredible scenes here in a post-game scenario (I’m imagining him with his eyes full of stars, grabbing davrin by the lapels and shaking him a little in sheer overwhelmed emotion as he’s like “have you ever seen rook fight???? mierda it’s like watching light moving over water” *davrin patting him on the shoulder and covertly rolling his eyes like ‘yeah yeah buddy’ as rook falls upon the enemy like a wolf upon the fold in the background*).