Work Text:
After a successful meal of indeterminate time of day with the team Rook is taking a walk around the lighthouse. As seemed to be always the case he found his feet decided that he needed to be near Neve's study. Or the occupant at least.
Ascending the stares his ears prick at the familiar chirping of the additional souls of the room.
As the door opens before him he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He opens his arms wide as a couple wisps dance their way around and past him
"You seem at home with wisps" Neve says barely looking up from her notes laid out before her.
"I am, I was. Still am. They've always looked after me" Rook says, his eyes still fixed on a wisp flitting about above his head now Neve turns slightly in her seat, crossing her knee over and leaning back.
"Define always"
Rook seemingly unbothered continues reaching up to touch the glowing orbs in the air. "Well, I suppose as long as I've remembered anything." Neve pauses.
Thoughts race through her mind. The question came to mind immediately, and it definitely would fill a gap in her knowledge of the man, a gap that had been bothering her. The problem was wondering if it was ever a good time to ask.
Well if she never asked, she would never have asked to know. So she steels herself and tries to keep a conversational tone. "You don't remember your parents?"
"Not sure how long I had either of them" His answer came immediately and ringing of distraction. The kind of answers Neve usually heard from a templar that had no interest in passing along any useful information or even spending a minute pretending they did.
"Oh." The flatness of her response breaks Rook from his intrigue on a rotating wisp. Silence falls for a moment, he fidgets awkwardly with his hands like someone learning to count.
"You know some say they found necromancy, I think it found me." Neve looks concerned. As far as comforting responses went this wasn't the worst but it was in the same suburb. Rook holds out his open hands in a gesture of apology.
"That sounded bad, let me start again. I'm assume you know everything the watchers know about where I was found-"
"No"
"No?" Rook asks, sure he must have heard wrong
"I won't lie to you. I did some research. I found out about your uprising, why they sent you away from Nevarra. I even found some of your thesis papers from your time as an apprentice" A pointed look suggests that the subjects of these were to be brought up at another time if ever at all.
"And, well I know you were recruited young. I know you lived with them." She takes a slow breath and looks up at him. His belief that she knew everything giving her a nudge to treat this less like she was investigating a missing person.
"Rook you've seen where I grew up. I know a lot of reasons for a child to be raised away from family, and I know almost none of them are good. By the time I found that out I- we..." She shuffles uneasily, switching the crossed over knee. "By then I didn't want to read about you anymore. That felt too personal, even for me"
Rook approaches the desk, he bends and slides one hand across the surface. Soon enough her nearest hand is covered "You kept track of everything I ate for the first month. And this is where you draw the line?" She starts to pull her hand away, the jab poorly timed.
"Neve, I understand you wanting to ask. This is something I would tell you that I just, I can't." They make eye contact for an agonising moment. He takes a moment to breathe then follows with "I've been told I was found as an infant, wrapped in funerary cloths. I was crying, of course. Surrounded by wisps though" He shifts his weight between his feet. Bowing his head to let long strands from his fringe interfere with the view of his glistening eyes "I would have been alone, but wisp after wisp gathered around me. Eventually a master of rites found me, covered in dust and husk dry. The wisps followed her everywhere she took me."
Neve looks up unblinking. She didn't move much, instead trying to imagine a baby in any of the spaces they'd explored of the Necropolis and grimacing at what came to mind.
"They don't create heat you know, not normally. But I think the movement of them or their light... Well you read my work" Neve nods, he wasn't to know that she had obtained a paper copy of two of his works. Including the very one being discussed. "Thermaturgical applications of wisp energies. I did start it"
"And it makes no sense" She opens and closes her mouth as though to protest, he smiles
"I know it doesn't. I wrote that trying to make sense of a memory I have. It happens sometimes. I'll go to sleep, I'll nearly be there and then I start feeling a pressure under me. Like I'm laying on cold stone, or sinking into it. Shivering, neck stuck in place but needing to look around. And then these glowing circles started appearing. One by one. Flitting around at first, chirping as they hover and fly about. And then I can remember they get closer, until they're touching me. Touching each other I think too. I'm surrounded and glowing, and I remember feeling warm then." His bottom lip shakes momentarily, he exhales slowly. Neve's other hand covers his, squeezing it gently. Her eyes are downcast but piercing. She remembered attempting to read that particular paper wondering if this was a flight of fancy, a deed of mischief or just an obligatory paper to avert some form of academic punishment. And part of her wished she could go back to thinking those were possibilities.
"I loved growing up a watcher. In some ways it was perfect. They're not what you might consider affectionate. We leave our reverence and time largely for the various stages of dead. The living are sort of, temporary. One day you will be them and then another day not long after you will have been them longer than you'd have been alive. Sometimes I think it makes it harder to be alive when you look at it like that." Neve squeezes the hand prompting him to look up.
"Did someone raise you? Other than the wisps I mean" He looks off to the side for a few moments "Must have. I doubt Vorgoth was suitable for wet nursing" Neve physically shakes her head to try and remove that mental imagery
"No, I mean. Well who would you eat with? Or write to?" Rook shrugs "I don't know. If I was writing to someone to tell them things now, I think it would be... You" Neve smiles, again she looks at Rook's open, honest face and decides that perhaps she'd found out enough for today
"Sweet talker" she chides warmly "Is this your way of saying we should talk less?"
He smiles "Not at all, but I won't complain if you add letters in sometimes for some variety