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Davrin doesn’t hate the Dread Wolf. Long ago, the stories of the Creators became nothing more than fables meant to educate children; the Dread Wolf’s alleged actions nothing but allegory. It’s not the first he’s been wrong, and he has some understanding of why the man did what he did - some of it, anyway.
He and Rook had argued before leaving for Tearstone Island; a stupid argument borne of his own hangups about love and loss. Who else but him would pick a fight with someone because he loves them too much? Rook had taken it well; promised she wouldn’t die because she “wouldn’t die without riding that at least once,” gesturing to his crotch, all of the intensity between them slackening into laughter, because that’s just what his Mel does: she brings people together with laughter.
Mel is gone. Not dead, or so his fool mind tells him, but she disappeared into the Fade just after they defeated Ghilan’nain. It’s been three days without a whisper from her, not a cry for help in their dreams, or any indication that her life remains tethered to her body.
He splits the log, the axe not quite making its way through the wood, so he grasps both halves with his hands and forces it apart, and tosses the pieces into the growing pile in the corner of his room. In his mind, he imagines Rook’s running commentary - increasingly explicit comments about his arms or how the callouses on his hands might feel as he touches her in places he’s yet to be. He smiles through his grief, wishing they’d just taken that step instead of waiting for it to be special. Once, he could have taken her to bed and thought nothing of it. Love makes him overthink and now he may never know the feel of her, or the way she whispers his name when she finds her release.
His Mel curses a blue streak - the product of ship life as a Lord of Fortune. Would she curse in bed? Speak all manner of filthy words? Or would her words be soft, free of the language that peppers every other word she speaks while clothed? He doesn’t know. He may never know.
He grabs another log and brings the axe down on it, splitting it easily, and he stares at the two pieces of it, blank, before shaking his head, as if to clear the thoughts, and tosses them aside.
Assan had been in Rook’s room, stretched out on the green couch she claimed as her bed. She’d refused all of Neve and Bellara’s offers to find her a proper bed, but never explained why. Before her disappearance he hadn’t allowed Assan to sit on the couch - teaching discipline he had called it, but now lacks the heart to deny him the comfort of a space that smells like Rook. Deep down he knows Assan had almost certainly lounged on her couch before this - Rook excelled at being the softness to his discipline, sneaking Assan treats or food off her own plate. It was her who encouraged the softer, gentler side of Assan better than he ever did; who saw a different path for the griffons before he could envision it. Guardians of the forest. That will be seen widely as his legacy to the griffons, but it was Rook who gently guided him down that path with Assan.
In an hour, Lucanis and Emmrich are meeting with him to discuss building their own dagger. He’ll carve the wooden mould, Emmrich will seek out someone to work the lyrium, and Lucanis plans to advise on the shape of the blade, ensuring it matches the real thing as closely as possible. Lucanis knew the dagger best after Rook. “Maybe it will let us get her back,” Lucanis had said this morning, a falsely optimistic line of thinking steeped in desperation.
He grabs another piece of wood and chops it, imagining his best approximation of Solas in the wood as he splits it apart. All he’s seen of the man are his murals and the description Rook gave him. “Dunno if he’s hot - he’s, like, kind of a sad dad, but not in a sexy way, y’know? Sorta mopey but smug about it. Has no hair anymore because I guess he got sick of styling his long, rebel mohawk thing he wore when he was a wee little rebel shit. Tall - loads taller than you, but he doesn’t have your chest. Or your arms. Or your smile. Or any of the things that make you the most perfect fuckin’ specimen of a man to walk Thedas. Chiselled face, though. Like, fuck, he could slit someone’s throat with his jaw alone.”
Why her description of their enemy makes him smile despite everything is a mystery, but he tosses the logs into the pile and grabs a fresh one, imagining a jaw sharp enough to slice through flesh.
Davrin may not hate the Dread Wolf, but he hates Solas.
***
“My name is Melody, but I’m not a song. I’m a fuckin’ bird, so Marcel gave me a better name. But, after you fuck me you can call me ‘Mel’ in the afterglow when I’m all soft and sentimental and shit for you.” Rook had been stoned off gingerwort tea and huddled against his chest when she told him her real name, her Ferelden accent thicker than usual - a trait he’s noticed about her when she’s intoxicated. Rook finds her accent strange; once she confessed she felt like an imposter because she’s a Rivaini woman who looks Antivan and sounds Ferelden, and revealed that she’d been born in Antiva but kidnapped by Tevinter slavers when she was young. Her mentor, Marcel, had been her saviour.
Taash is the only other person who knows she’d been a slave, though she admitted that she thinks Neve and Lucanis suspect it, given her reaction to one of Solas’ memories. She doesn’t want to be defined in their minds by her past. “I’m a treasure hunter and a sailor. I’m Rivaini and a Laidir because Marcel offered me his name before he died. I’m an equal opportunity lover and I know how to fuckin’ curse. I’m not a slave.”
Still, it isn’t lost on him how much she’s supported the Shadow Dragons - by offering them wares she’s found during their travels and choosing Minrathous over Treviso when the dragons were attacking both cities. The others remain quiet on the matter; they all have pasts and Rook’s just happens to be more shrouded than others.
“I fuckin’ hate my accent,” Rook had slurred into his chest that day, half-asleep, and he didn’t know how to respond at the time; to tell her how it sounds like a song to his ears; that she makes even the most egregious blasphemy and curse words sound like magic.
“You travel the continent by ship as a treasure hunter; your accent is the product of your travels,” he’d told her, confident he would charm her and change years of mixed feelings about her heritage.
She’d laughed at him. “I’ve never been to fuckin’ Ferelden.”
He stares at the dagger mould he’s carving, lost in thought, and wishing more than anything to hear the sound of her laughter, even if it’s directed at him and his failure to woo her. Out the open wall of his room, the sky remains an ominous red, a reminder that Elgar’nan wields a dagger with the means to tear the world asunder, and all they have is a half-finished mould.
Time to get back to work.
***
Emmrich is the first to notice the flicker in the courtyard, pulling him from his thoughts with a shout and his fist on the door. Neve is standing by the fade tear, a finger’s width but growing in length and Emmrich is rushing towards the main building of the Lighthouse to fetch Taash. Lucanis arrives next, tossing the coffee cup in his hand to the ground, where it shatters, leaving a small puddle of coffee and he glances at the man, who says, “a worthy sacrifice. Neve had brewed it anyway.” Assan circles behind them at a distance, repeating the chirp that he knows to be Assan’s personalized greeting for Rook.
“Assan can smell her, which means she’s through the tear,” he says, just as Taash and Emmrich arrive in the courtyard. Taash pushes in just as Emmrich announces he can see a light and he and Lucanis follow, grasping an arm, the skin cool to the touch.
Rook always ran warm; she’s never been cold. Is it her? What if Assan got it wrong and they’re about to drag Solas out of the Fade? He’ll make Rook’s knockout punch to the First Warden look like a hug if Solas shows up, consequences be damned.
Still, he pulls with Taash and Lucanis, straining against the raw magic intent on holding its prize and they pull an arm free. Brown skin with a gold undertone, with gold bangles around her wrists and a gold bracelet circling her upper arm, which is tattooed with Marcel’s signature on the inside of her bicep. “It’s her!” he shouts unnecessarily as Emmrich casts some manner of spell in an attempt to further open and stabilize the tear and Neve puts a barrier over the lot of them. Her other arm is next, followed by her face - her dark brown eyes wide, the dark makeup that is a constant around her eyes smudged from weeks of wear.
“Oh fuck. Fucking fuck. Get me out of this shithole!”
“Well, we know it’s her and not a demon,” Lucanis quips and he’d laugh if he weren’t focused on his hold on her arm, a silent promise that he’ll not lose her again, because where she goes, he goes.
Another heave frees her to the waist, her midriff bare in her Lords of Fortune-designed armour - a traditional Rivaini design, the rich blue cape slipping free and dangling on the ground.
“Fuck this!” Taash says and they grab her around the waist, and with one more yank, sends them all flying to the ground, with Rook landing on his lap with a groan. Neve and Emmrich rush to deal with the fade tear while Rook looks at him, a single tear rolling down her cheek.
He’s never seen her cry before. Every time he thought she might cry she’s given him a wry grin and an ill-timed joke instead.
“Never thought I’d see your handsome mug again,” she says, reaching up to touch his face and he throws his arms around her, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Mel, Mel, Mel,” he whispers in her ear, clutching her tightly to his chest. Assan rushes over, chirping his greeting for Rook, who reaches over and scratches him behind the ear.
“You’re only ‘sposed to call me that after we fuck,” she murmurs, a half-hearted protest that once would have made him laugh, but now makes his eyes sting.
“You were supposed to come back,” he says, uncaring that the others hover, waiting for permission to pile on, clinging to the woman who has become family to them all.
“I fuckin’ did,” she retorts and he laughs over the sob in his throat, because of course she would crack a joke.
Mel isn’t a song; she’s a bird, but not every bird sings. Some talk back and Rook? She’s as loud as they come and as the others crowd in, embracing Rook, all he can think about is how quiet his life has been these last few weeks without the laughter that follows everywhere she flies.