Chapter Text
Employed by masters and beginners alike, the Antivan Defense is a reputable and tactically sound opening that tends to lead to dynamic and sharp positions. By advancing the pawn and imbalancing its opponent, Black asserts control and begins the fight over the centre of the board.
In the grand scheme of things, these little thoughts couldn't have come at a worse time. Innocuous things, really - they crept in like particularly stubborn wisps and, between one breath and the next, have made a home of the space between Rook's ribs.
Wisps tend to do that. Oh, they are adorable, make no mistake, and it'll be a cold day in hell (-is there anything we can even say for certain about hell? Given recent events and their current living situation, Rook would refrain from expressing any theological certainties for the next decade or two, provided they all make it through the end of the world more or less intact) before Rook will not feel right when she sees a score of them floating at her side, but that bears no consequence on the objective fact that they are persistent wee fuckers who will not take no for an answer. There is also the matter of the fact that, for most of Rook's life, a wisp inhabiting whatever will be left of her bones once all was said and done was a foregone conclusion - a fact of life and death, if you will. Such facts have become immaterial and uncertain now, but surely amidst all this unknown, it's a comfort to know that whenever that time comes, it will feel a little like this. Maybe.
Over the past few weeks, as the Lighthouse welcomed its new occupants, and the lot of them slowly coalesced into an odd little group, there have been several such persistent wisps of thought finding their way under Rook's armour in idle moments - stray notions she tries to bat away, with little success.
And how can Rook be successful in this, when the root cause of the problem insists on being so damned distracting?
"Here you go."
A fresh cup of coffee, steam still rising in soft tendrils, materialises at Rook's elbow. Unbidden, her mouth waters at the scent of it, dark and rich and welcoming. Looking up, Rook finds the source of her erstwhile frustration, all prim and proper and clad in shadows.
(Well, shadows and a fastidiously buttoned up-do, complete with starched collar, cravat and crow-shaped little jewel pins which catch the firelight in the corner of Rook's eye and- get a grip, were you a magpie in another life?)
"Thank you, Lucanis," she manages to get out as she lets the warmth of the cup seep into her palms.
With unexpected delicacy for a man of his profession and recent experience, he shrugs a shoulder, turning to top up his own cup of coffee, "It is nothing."
It is most certainly not nothing, when she knows how the man treasures his coffee and his quiet, both things that Rook has been infringing on for the past few days. He’s wont to say that, though, as it is not the first time Rook has heard it from him.
It started easily.
This probably bad habit took shape this fortnight - sleep had been hard to come by, since this all began - between the terror of the Blight and the odd chance that she might meet the Dread Wolf in his strange prison whenever she closed her eyes in the room with the aquarium, Rook has been spending her nights in various corners of the Lighthouse, scouring for books and notes, any fragment of information that might help them understand their enemies, not sleeping more than a few hours at a time.
After one too many such nights spent in a cramped armchair at Varric's side as he snored, or tucked in an alcove that appears only occasionally in the shifting corridors, Rook's back had started protesting the abuse, and she sought refuge on one of the kitchen sofas, blissfully warmed by the crackling fire. The first night she spent in the kitchen, banged up and bruised after a jaunt through Arlathan forest, the heat of the fireplace had been so welcoming, and her eyes so heavy that Rook had slipped into a dreamless sleep just a few lines into reading a traveller’s journal that Harding had found in an abandoned camp by the river.
She woke up what must have been hours later, still in the dark; sleep-warm under a soft blanket, the scent of bread baking in the oven by the fire, and her papers neatly lined up on the little table nearby (instead of rumpled under her head and partially drooled on - which only happened once, ok?)
Lucanis had been making a pot of coffee, either his first or last of the day, and Rook had watched him through her eyelashes, sleeves rolled up above the elbows with his lean forearms on display. Half-convinced she was dreaming, she‘d watched his elegant hands as he was wiping the flour off them with a rag. He had been eerily quiet, barely any noise coming from that corner of the hall - just the boiling coffee and the hum of the stove, as if the man himself were just spirit, not flesh and blood too. Rook had murmured something as she stretched awake, which had him turning his head to her.
“It’s still early,” he said quietly, in lieu of a good-morning, “you can go back to sleep.”
“Nghh,” which honestly is as eloquent an answer as anyone can expect this early, “gotta check for-” yawn “-letters. See the Caretaker. Do the rounds.”
This was undercut by the way Rook tried to rub her eyes, but ended up with a face-full of pillow, and momentarily lost her train of thought. It took her a few seconds to realise that it was not one of the tattered velvet little pillows usually scattered on the couches and armchairs, which Bellara so liked to hold onto as she talked over tea, but rather a properly dressed sleeping pillow, heavy with down and encased in silk. She’d frowned at it as she’d tried to rise to a seat, then turned her bleary gaze to Lucanis.
He’d been looking at her, his eyes sharp and expression carefully blank, and she surreptitiously tried to get stray hairs out of her mouth before speaking.
“This wasn’t here when I fell asleep.”
“No, indeed,” a quirk of his mouth, and while he most certainly thought her a slop, at least - Rook realised then, he was amused with her. “Your head was mostly off the couch and your papers on the floor.”
Rook had felt the blush rising in her neck and cheeks - more than anything, his teasing, wholly warranted, had shocked her with its warmth.
Whatever else he was, the assassin she hired for the singular purpose of killing gods was kind.
Still half-asleep, struck dumb and flushed stupid under Lucanis’ dark gaze, Rook grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of her neck under the limp knot of her hair, curls astray.
“Thank you” she murmured, “Honestly, I didn’t even know we had pillowcases, much less silk.”
Lucanis hummed in answer as he lifted the pot off the stove, and filled himself a cup
“Your Dread Wolf took his sleep very seriously,” he said, contemplative, “his linen cupboards were extensively stocked, if - eclectic. Elven god of treachery he may be, but his pillowcase collection, in particular, was rather impressive.”
He frowned, as if willing away any unwanted thoughts of a god’s sleeping habits, which Rook emphatically agreed with. Still, linen cupboards in the Lighthouse. Huh.
“Would you like a cup?” he offered, lifting the pot again and effectively interrupting a train of thought regarding the immortal elf she’d seen trying to tear the Veil down and colourful pillowcases.
Shaking that image away and sitting up straight, though her legs were still tangled under the blanket, Rook nodded vigorously.
Taking out a delicate cup from a shelf - purple ceramic glazed with an intricate painted handle, which did not look like Solas’ style, but then, what do I know? - Lucanis brought both to her, setting the cup on the low table and minding her papers as he poured.
Rook’s breath caught in her throat, momentarily arrested by the tableau before her. The light from the fireplace danced on Lucanis’ skin, painting him in gold and shadows. Light against the curve of his cheek and the slope of his forearm, dusted with dark hairs and freckles and faint, silvery scars. His fingers were long and graceful, and the bones jutted gently from under the skin. His long hair fell over one shoulder as he bent at the back slightly, so he would not spill a drop. Shadows gathered at the edges of him, dark in his hair and beard, dark where his vest hugged the curve of his waist and the breadth of his shoulders, dark in the hollow of his throat. All at once she was wide awake, painfully present in her own body. There was a faint tremor in Rook’s chest, some distant earthquake at the edge of her awareness. Her mind was quiet as the proverbial grave except for that, and the sudden prickling of thirst in her mouth. Wisps crawling over wisps up her throat.
She’d like a taste of-
Oh.
Blissfully unaware of her churning mind, Lucanis had finished pouring her the cup, and moved to withdraw. Sucking in a breath, Rook grabbed for her cup, anything at all to distract her from what her hands suddenly felt the urge to - to grip, to hold.
“Thank you,” she managed, honest and frazzled.
“It is nothing.”
That covered up his retreat, a safe distance away and back to the stove and the bread which he deemed ready to remove from the hot oven. He seemed comfortable with letting silence lie between them, which Rook was grateful for. She’d sipped her coffee, strong as a shot, and picked up her reading in the hope that the traveller’s notes on owls would distract her from the pit in her stomach.
And it kept going.
Ever since that night, Rook had been toeing a careful line, minding her own business for the most part. But tired bones make for dreadful aches while travelling the next day, and fighting stray cultists in odd streets is a pain in the arse. No matter how else she turns it, in the end it is much easier to doze in the kitchen than alone in the Lighthouse proper.
Lucanis is not always with her there, of course, but his presence behind the pantry door provides comfort all the same. Back in the Necropolis, there was always the hum of movement nearby, whether it was made by the living, the dead, or the rooms rearranging themselves. It was never quiet , not truly, not the way these rooms would sometimes feel, deep down the Lighthouse corridors, while everyone else retreated to their own quarters across the courtyard. Sometimes it feels as if the Dread Wolf’s own solitude is built into these walls, silent and all-consuming. The Fade had its own peculiar noises, the sky humming in the distance as little islands orbited them, but Rook has yet to get used to them, or to the uncertain, perpetual twilight.
So, to the kitchens it is, and if Lucanis is bothered by her, he makes no mention of it. Mostly, he lets her work in silence, except for the occasional offer of a cup of whatever he’s making - coffee or tea, or one time a heartburn-inducing concoction that Harding’s ma swore by. Rook always thanks him, and tries to ignore the way her skin burns if their fingers brush during these exchanges.
On other evenings, he would disappear for hours at a time, locking himself in the pantry. There would be noises sometimes, scratching and banging against the walls, followed by a deep silence, which Rook, in turn, made no mention of. It seemed only polite to offer back the same courtesy he gave her, meaning peace and quiet. He sometimes emerged from his room, not befuddled, exactly, but seeming mildly disquieted, and asked her the hour. She would answer, he would nod, and then they would go back to their respective activities. She read and annotated all scraps of information and correspondence they could find, while he would cook for all of them. There would be dinner, and drinks, and comparing notes with Harding and Bellara; Neve would offer dry commentary and sharp ideas, or Lucanis would interject with a pointed observation, and they could piece together a plan for their next days. At some point, the sky would darken in a simulacrum of night, which would be a sign for them to retreat to bed.
Most nights, Rook checks on Varric. Sometimes he trades warm barbs with her, and advice, and calls her kid . Often though, he’s already asleep, grey and frail, turned away from the door and Rook is afraid to look at him for too long, scared shitless that the rise and fall of his breath has stopped while she wasn’t paying attention. On those nights, she half-runs back to the pantry, and reads until her eyes feel like they’re bleeding. If she can make sense of runes and spells and ancient rituals, she will be able to figure this out, and it will be fine. It will be fine. There has to be a way for it to be fine.
The quiet comes to an end like this.
It’s after a particularly hard day spent crawling through Minrathous in the rain, brawling with Venatori and looking for missing people, and Rook’s head fucking hurts. There’s a considerable bruise taking shape on her leg, but healing magic has always made her temples ache and nose itch, like allergies; there was unanimous agreement between her peers in the Mourn Watch that she’s far better suited with the dead than the living. Those quips used to make her feel like she belonged, but the truth of it now makes her feel rather useless.
The only thing that lessens her headache is the rhythmic, peaceful noise of Lucanis working through the kitchen, organising newly-bought spices in a meticulous system no one but Bellara is privy to. He’s muttering under his breath, either to himself or to Spite, and Rook finds that the sound of it calms her enough for her to focus on her notes.
For once, her reading for the evening is on a comfortable topic - burial customs in the Imperium differ wildly from those back home, but there is something to be said about the ritual and the certainty of it. Death comes and people mourn, that is the way of the world, regardless of time and place.
(A part of her is still horrified and fascinated with every new thing she’s learned of Solas’ past and plans. What sort of world was that, where elves like her never died? What do you even do, without that unerring certainty? How do you function, outside the bounds of death? No wonder she can’t grasp at the Dread Wolf’s mind, no wonder he seems so adamant on changing this world - they might as well speak different languages.
Still, she must find a way to bridge that gap, if she is to stop both him and the blighted gods.)
She’d been enthralled by the Wall of Light, which Neve had graciously introduced her to when they passed it by. They ended up making a paper seller nearby very happy - Neve buying her newspaper sheets, and Rook with booklets about the Wall.
It’s an easy enough read, but Rook’s mind is sizzling and scatter-brained, jumping from thought to thought without the words making any sense - it’s as if she’s just missing something beyond the scope of what she can see, an itch she cannot scratch, some truth at the tip of her tongue, something she cannot put her finger on.
Then, all at once, her headache is back in full force, her leg is throbbing with pain and so she just throws her pages on the table in a flurry of nerves.
The sudden movement startles Lucanis in the other corner of the room, now alert and scanning the room, until his eyes land on her. Shame pours through her at her outburst. They’re all essentially strangers, who wordlessly laid claim to a portion of this island, and the kitchens aren’t hers. This, specifically, is not her place to occupy and make a mess of.
“I’m sorry,” she offers, “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Nothing to it, Rook,” he answers gently, assured now that they are in no immediate danger.
“I can-”
“What’s-”
Both stop at once, looking mutely at each other. With more grace than she could muster at the moment, Lucanis gestures for her to go first.
Dragging her hands across her face and pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers for a second, Rook finally manages, “I can go, if you’d like. Gather my things, and all.” Sheepish, she tries going for a grin, but it feels off as soon as she does, and Rook knows her face is more a grimace than charming. Shaking her head, willing it away as she reaches for her scattered papers -
“You don’t have to go,” he shrugs. “Not on my account.”
Her smile now feels less forced, but still miles away from her usual self, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not good company right now.”
She sees him parse that, and she really should go, but then she hears him, “You don’t have to be. I thought we were just,” he pauses, considering. Then, the corner of his mouth juts up in a quick, self-deprecating smile, his eyes crinkle gently, “-working? Winding down in peace and quiet. That is enough for me.”
“Not much peace and quiet happening up here, I’m afraid,” she says, tapping her own temple.
“Ah,” he nods, knowingly. “Well, no one could accuse me of that either. So, we are both in good company.”
A huff of laughter escapes Rook at that, entirely unbidden, if tired. She settles back onto her couch, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them. Lucanis seems pleased with himself at that, and, turning to the stove, asks over his shoulder, “Coffee?”
“Please.”
The ease has returned for a bit, and Rook relaxes, watching him prepare the little pot, pouring the water, then the meticulously ground coffee, screwing the upper part together and letting it heat on the stove. It shouldn’t be so calming to follow him moving around, but there is a certainty to Lucanis’s every gesture that soothes a noisy, ever-shifting part of her mind - whether on the battlefield or in the kitchen. No matter how silly this infatuation is, Rook can’t help the warmth that washes over her when she knows he is nearby. There’s no harm in it, surely . Such things come and go. Rook rests her cheek against her knees, feeling the pounding headache slowly retreating.
The little pot is whistling in an unduly short time, and he brings the coffee over, sharing it between them in what has become a familiar ritual.
“Thank you,” she smiles, looking up at him.
Rather than withdraw, he leans against one of the armchairs across from her.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, carefully.
“Nothing, exactly,” she takes a sip of the coffee, finding her words. “I’m just… thinking in circles.”
“About?” he prompts, tilting his head the slightest bit.
“Death,” she snorts humorlessly, before counting on her fingers, “The gods. Solas. The Blight. And last but not least,” and here she deflates, the bravado leaving her. “Varric.”
It takes her a moment to find her words, at that. There’s a bitter cocktail of fear and anxiety in her throat, sitting like bile. Logically, it needs to pour out of her at some point and - maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to have someone to confide in here. Just once, to get this off her chest, before letting it go.
"Without Varric this will be - harder than I thought,” she says quietly. It’s not a truth that Rook allows into the open, because once it is out there, it will eat up any certainty she can muster that she is doing the right thing; but it is late and she is exhausted, and once she starts, she is not sure she can stop, the words rushing out of her.
“Most times, I don’t even know what to do, and it’s hard to go out into the world without him. I’m just- thinking of what he would do in my stead, but I don’t know- ” she lets out a frustrated sigh, hands gripping her cup so tightly she’s afraid it’ll break.
“All my life, I’ve never left home. Not until he found me,” she breathes.
Lucanis takes a moment to watch her, his eyes dark and sharp, before venturing to speak.
"All the same, you are out there and he is not,” he counters, his voice measured. “You’re the one leading us, and deciding where we go from here, and not him."
Rook listens, her eyes burning.
"I do not say this out of malice. You, Harding and Neve all sing his praises, it’s clear as day you depended on him. I say it because you lead us, for better or worse.
“In all my years of work,” he continues gravely, “if there’s anything I learned, it’s that with an uncertain leader, death is only moments away.” There is a finality to that, like the toll of a bell, and Rook finds herself barely breathing. An impossible weight is crushing her, making her ears ring to a point where she is not certain she can hear any longer.
The rub of it is that he is right, she cannot afford to- to be like this; not when people are depending on her in a matter of life and death, and the shame of it is hot in her cheeks, it feels like drowning-
Until Lucanis’s voice breaks through the haze she descended into, a blade through water.
“And he trusted you, just as you are . Doesn’t that count for something, Rook?”
Oh.
Her eyes fill and she looks away quickly, roughly wiping her cheeks. She’s quiet for long enough that it becomes uncomfortable, and Lucanis rights himself up,
"I am sorry. I did not mean to overstep."
"No!” Rook jumps, a manic edge to her. “That is, no apology necessary. You are right, of course. It's nothing I haven't thought of before, but hearing it said out loud..." she trails off.
"Makes it real, no?" and his voice is still kind, always kind to her, but bitter.
It becomes real, Rook realises, the same way his grandmother's death is real; the same way Spite is real, forced inside him forever; the way Treviso's occupation is real, too, regardless of his wishes. It dawns on her that this is why the two of them can sit in silence for whole evenings at a time: neither wants to spell out painful truths here, and it’s easy to pretend in the comforting darkness of this kitchen that they are not real, at least for a little while. And though it is not the same - because Varric is still here , tucked away in the infirmary, even if he is cold and grey and Rook worries he will never leave this place again - she has to be the one to talk first , before these unspoken things fester in her; in them both.
"The truth is... I don't know what to do, without Varric at the helm," she whispers, allowing herself this confession, before her courage leaves her. To her surprise, Lucanis seems less fraught at his, and the corner of his mouth lifts minutely.
"You will figure it out."
The rush of heat in her cheeks is incriminating, but the unguarded certainty in his voice left her defenseless. As if it were a fact of life and death - dawn comes in the east, day follows night, and Rook will figure it out.
"You say that like it's easy."
"No,” and a spark of humour colours his voice, combative for just the sake of it. “I say that like you are capable of it. Which is objectively true."
"You barely know me," she huffs, a mouth creeping up in a smile despite herself.
"I know enough."
He seems to gather himself at that, and Rook thinks he will stop at that, but then-
"I know you broke me out of a prison I would have died in."
Whatever she was going to say stops in her throat. He's utterly still, nothing about his demeanour belying the emotion that coloured his voice a mere second ago. Nothing, except his eyes, so dark she feels her breath catch in her throat. Rook curls her fingers into her palms to mask the tremor that passes through her.
"You were tearing through the guards by the time we got there," Rook needs to argue, aware she'll just be running at the mouth, but that is better than letting it lie and saying something - imprudent. "Whatever the Venatori were doing was going badly for them, between you and the demons, and in the meantime, you'd have found Calivan and your phylactery, dealt with both, and you'd have found a way to dashingly fly away from it all," she finishes in a breath and perhaps it is time to shut up.
"No, I would have not," he says, terribly final.
He lays down his cup, half-full, and Rook follows the line of his forearm, up until the point where thin scars peek from under the rolled sleeve of his shirt. Her eyes fly back up to his face, and he does her the courtesy of pretending he didn’t catch her. In the quiet dark of his kitchen, with only Rook present, his voice sounds like sandpaper. “Spite can only keep a man alive for so long.”
THUD. His hand clenches around the little table, wood splintering and rattling their cups. Suddenly he’s twitching, head twisted to the side as if in pain. Startled, Rook recognises the sparks of purple at the edges of him, the shimmer of magic in the air, but before she can do more than jump to her feet, Lucanis slams his other fist down, gasping for air.
Stupid, stupid. Forgetting that it’s not just her , here with Lucanis. Before she knows it, Rook is on the other side of the table, crouching at his side. He’s bleeding from his nose again, a thin trickle sliding down his lip and beard.
“I’m not breaking our deal, Spite,” he forces through clenched teeth, and Rook is powerless before this. He’s close enough to touch but Rook is terrified to make it worse. She desperately wishes to hold him here, anchor Lucanis to his body; but there isn’t any spell she knows of that can calm an abomination, only wisps and peaceful spirits, and besides there’s no guarantee that he wouldn’t be the one hurt and not Spite. Paralysed. Useless.
He hasn’t said anything else, and she doesn’t dare use magic, but braves reaching for his shoulder, tentative and-
“Lucanis?” she asks, half-whispering.
A wheezing breath, and then, “I’m here.”
Both of them exhale at the same time, and the fight leaves Rook’s body. Her knees give up on her, and she slides down into a seat. Under her hand, Lucanis is still gasping for breath.
“I’m here,” he says again, more for himself than for her.
“You are,” she repeats.
They stay like this for a moment, and then another, and Rook withdraws her hand, before her touch can become unwelcome. Slowly, she watches the tension bleed out of him, and he lets his head fall into his hands.
“Are you alright?” she asks, uncertain.
“He’s quiet for now,” he says, which is not an answer, but he turns to wipe his face, and then looks at her.
All at once, Rook realises how close they are. She feels his breath on her face, smelling faintly of coffee. She sees the shadows under his eyes, deep and tired, and the red trace of blood bright against sallow skin. She may sleep poorly, and little, but Lucanis sleeps even less than that, and she sees the exhaustion in him. His eyes are searching across her face, and he grimaces.
"I told you,” he begins, prompted by whatever he sees, “you don't need to worry about me. I know what I owe you, Rook." It’s a promise, a repeat of an earlier conversation between them. His contract, his deliverance. Holy to him, sure, but there’s also something in her chest that rebels at that; at the thought that he would know her so little, just as someone who acts in order to collect debts. She doesn’t know how, but it is suddenly vital, absolutely imperative, that she clears this up between them, find a common language.
Or at least, find a way to begin speaking.
Alight with a conviction she hasn’t felt since the night she followed Varric into Minrathous, and everything went to hell, she finds his eyes.
“And I told you,” she retorts, borrowing his own tone from earlier. “We will owe each other much and more, before this is over.”
He hums in response to that, and Rook’s not wholly sure that he believes her yet, but something in his face shifts, enough for her to know that it’s a start.