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The first few days, he was eerily quiet. Straight-faced, grim, eyes forward. He didn’t speak to anyone beyond barking orders as they searched for Rook. It was as if the ability to smile had vanished from his muscle memory.
Spite took over with more frequency in those first days - the demon would appear even when Lucanis was fully awake, like a manic episode the demon would launch into a frenzy, exhausting Lucanis’ body beyond exhaustion.
But when Spite retreated into his mind, Lucanis kept going. He never stopped. If he didn’t sleep much before, he definitely wasn’t sleeping now.
Taash had made it their personal mission to watch him, and were the ones that went with him whenever he got up in the middle of the night to head to the eluvian again on another search.
They had taken to camping out beside it now, expecting Lucanis or Spite to show up at any time.
Emmrich had attempted to soothe Spite a few times, and usually the necromancer was the only one the demon listened to, but even he was having no success these days. Spite didn’t want soothing, he wanted Rook back.
Bellara and Emmrich were focussed on attempts to recreate Solas’ lyrium dagger. In Rook’s absence, they needed some kind of plan to deal with the gods.
Taash and Lucanis kept scouring the Crossroads for signs of Rook.
Tearstone Island had been turned to glass, but they visited it again to pick up any trail, any scrap of evidence of where Rook had ended up. Spite had sent its energy into the Fade to try and locate where in the vast magic plains Rook could be, but something blocked him from seeing the location.
The second week, Lucanis stopped eating. He didn’t savour his coffee anymore, didn’t even use his good coffee beans. Now he boiled Neve’s horrible bean water and skulled it down for the energy, and went right back to work.
He wouldn’t even look at Neve’s empty office. By the second week, he didn’t even speak to anyone. He just gestured when he wanted to give an order or answer someone.
The dark circles under his eyes were getting bigger by the day. His body was shaking with the effort to keep himself upright.
At the turn of the third week, they found out Neve was being held in Minrathous. Somewhere. It wasn’t Rook, but it was a target and he’d take it.
But their eluvians had gone dark, they had no way of reaching the city unless they went overland from Nevarra.
Such a trek could take days, weeks even with the darkspawn, Antaam and Venatori no doubt patrolling the Tevinter borders.
It didn’t stop Lucanis trying. Taash and a small group of Lords went with him to try and break through. Their losses were not insignificant, and they had to retreat. But they learned valuable information - Solas was in the city, aiding the remaining Shadow Dragons. And Elgar’nan had Neve.
As soon as they returned to the Lighthouse, Lucanis went straight back to the Crossroads to resume his search for Rook. But even the Caretaker couldn’t feel any trace of him in the Fade. it would only tell Lucanis that Rook was trapped. As it that wasn’t obvious.
Two weeks and three days. That’s how long it took for him to break.
Bellara was crossing the courtyard to see Davrin about something, when she heard crashes in the kitchen. She flinched at the noise, head turning to the closed doors. The crashes shattered the silence of the Fade, and she heard Lucanis scream.
She jolted, almost forgetting what his voice even sounded like with how quiet he’d been lately. Tentatively, she reached for the door. The noises must be echoing, because it attracted Assan from his spot in the grass. The griffon nuzzled into Bellara’s side and chirped sadly.
“Go get Davrin boy,” she said softly. She looked down, and realised that Assan wasn’t there.
She looked back to his usual spot, but he wasn’t there either. Of course. It hit her in the chest like a punch. Assan wasn’t here anymore. Neither was Davrin. She’d been on the way to his room…completely forgetting he was…that they were both…
The crashing noises jolted her out of her sadness.
They were harsh against her sensitive ears. She pushed open the door to find Lucanis - Spite, actually, he was glowing purple and his wings were thrashing erratically - had all but destroyed the kitchen. With each scream he threw something else to the ground and shattered it, scattering their belongings and destroying everything not tied down.
“Lucanis?” Bellara’s voice was small against the angry din in the kitchen.
“ Not. Lucanis.” Spite growled, not sparing her a glance as he continued his rampage.
“Spite.” Bellara corrected. “Spite can you….you need to calm down. This won’t - this won’t help,”
“ Lucanis isn’t helping.” Spite hissed. “Lucanis is weak. I will take over. I will find Rook. He can’t find Rook.”
“Spite you know that isn’t Lucanis’ fault, we’ve all been looking right? You’ve been there with us, with Taash and me remember?”
“Rook. Is. GONE.” Spite upended the kitchen table entirely, and Bellara shrieked and jumped back out of its path. “ Need to find Rook. Get him back! He should. Be. HERE!”
“Spite! Spite you need to bring Lucanis back,” Bellara said, holding out of her hands to the agitated demon. “We’ll go looking again, okay? You and me, we’ll go back to the Crossroads to ask the Caretaker, maybe this time we can make sense of its riddles.”
“No. Useless. ALL USELESS.” Spite growled. “I. Want – I will – I WANT –”
She’d never seen the demon stumble over his words before. Somehow that was more devastating than his anger. “Spite…”
“I want Calien .” Spite’s voice broke when he said Rook’s name, and Bellara’s heart broke along with it. “MINE – OURS. Our Rook, our Calien. I can’t…we can’t…find him.”
“Spite…” Bellara whispered, having managed to creep up beside the demon now. Her eyes were glistening with tears. She could hear in Spite’s voice that the demon was starting to realise that Rook had gone, and couldn’t be found.
“Help us.” the demon pleaded, looking up at her for the first time since she entered the room. “Bring him back to us.”
“I’ll try Spite, I’ll try my best.” she promised.
The purple wings folded to his back and vanished, and the black and purple etheral glow disappeared as Spite retreated, and Lucanis took back control of his body.
“Bellara…” Lucanis sounded so tired .
“Lucanis,” Bellara reached out, but the assassin flinched away from her.
“No.” he said, jerking himself out of her reach. “You don’t need to do that. I’m fine. Spite is just –”
“You’re not fine Lucanis, none of us are.” Bellara said insistently. “It’s okay to not be fine right now, I’d be worried if you were fine.”
“Being not fine isn’t going to find Calien.” Lucanis turned from her, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I don’t have time to not be fine. I have to keep going, I can’t just give up.”
“No one’s asking you to give up Lucanis, but you need rest –”
“No!” With a shout, Lucanis swept the contents of the counter onto the floor. He picked up his chef’s knife and hurled it at the wall, the blade embedding itself into the crack of the stone. “I can’t! Can’t you see I CAN’T Bellara! If I stop, if I sleep, if I waste a single second I will never – I will never…”
Rather than finish his sentence, Lucanis just screamed again and threw the nearest things next to him. But Bellara squealed when he reached for the next object, and he paused. He was looking down at the tea set Rook had bought him from Treviso.
He had used the cups for his coffee ever since, stored his best coffee beans in the beautiful teapot. He and Rook had shared so many cups of coffee late at night together with this set. He’d never received a gift before he met Rook.
His hand moved refelctively, picking up the cup Rook always used. He cradled it in his hand like it was the most precious object in all of creation. Staring down at it like he had lost his mind. He only became aware he was crying when he saw teardrops splashing off the porcelain.
“I will…never see him again…will I?” he looked up from the cup, to Bellara.
He looked like a lost little boy. His eyes so full of sorrow Bellara couldn’t breathe.
“Lucanis…”
“I’ll never see him again. He’s - he’s gone. He’s gone. ” Lucanis put the cup back, but then he just crumpled to the ground.
And that’s when he started to sob. Bellara gasped, and threw herself down next to him, pulling him urgently into her arms to offer comfort. Lucanis clung to her, his face buried in her neck, arms wound so tightly she fought for breath, but she didn’t tell him to let go.
He sobbed against her, heart-wrenching noises akin to a wounded animal. It was like the floodgates were opened and he couldn’t stop. He could barely take a breath before the next wave of tears crashed over him. It was gut-wrenching, the agonised wails that shook his body.
“It’s okay…it’s okay…” she whispered brokenly, unable to say anything. She pet his hair, knowing that words wouldn’t make anything okay, but having nothing else to offer. “It’s okay…”
“Calien… ” Lucanis rasped. “I...I never told him – I never, I never had the courage to tell him I – I never got to tell him…”
“He knew.” she said softly. “You know that. He knew.”
“I thought we’d have more time. ” he sobbed. “That we’d go home to Treviso, when this was all over, and I could tell him. Somewhere better, some perfect time with the perfect words. He deserved to hear it once before – I was a coward. And now he’ll never hear it.”
“He knew, Lucanis.” she whispered, holding him tighter. “And he loved you too. You know that.”
That only made Lucanis sob harder. But still, she held him.
“ I love him .” the broken, defeated way he spoke, muffled against her shirt, made her tears finally spill down her face. “I love him and I never told him. I can’t…I can’t ever…”
“It’s okay…it’s okay…” Bellara kept repeating that phrase as she wept, the two of them holding each other so tightly they were likely bruising each other. But she didn’t stop holding him or telling him it was okay, until Lucanis finally fell into an exhausted sleep. A sleep so deep even Spite didn’t emerge in his place, the demon just as exhausted.
She helped him into his bed in the pantry, and then stood alone in the chaos of the ruined kitchen. Tidying helped. Cleaning up let her distract herself, put a stop to her tears and made her focus on something other than all that had happened.
Davrin and Assan were dead, Neve was missing or worse, Rook had vanished. Elgar’nan was ready to destory the world.
But fixing a broken plate. That was something she could do right now. That was something to focus on.
And everything else, that could come after. Somehow.