Work Text:
Neve chased the sound of soft piano music to the Lighthouse library, where she found Harding and Bellara sitting on the stiff, green couch in the center of the dilapidated rotunda. Harding had her nose buried in a book; a cursory glance of the cover suggested it had something to do with ancient dwarves. Bellara, with a furrowed brow, muttered to herself and sketched a diagram of an Eluvian in her notebook.
“Sorry to interrupt—” Neve said, “but where’s the music coming from?” She cast a wary look around the room and up to the ceiling that stretched above them, unable to define its end. This entire place was foreign, and she didn’t quite trust it—especially if it had once belonged to The Dread Wolf.
Harding peeked from behind her book, and Neve noted the smattering of bruises that still discolored her healing face. “Hey, Neve!” Despite everything they’d been through so far, the dwarf still managed a smile.
Bellara motioned with her head toward a circular doorway set into the wall behind the couch, its perimeter studded with a trio of glowing blue lights. “Rook,” she said. “He found a room with a bunch of instruments in it. He’s been in there for almost an hour, I think. Isn’t it nice? I think it’s kind of nice.”
Neve focused on the music, listening to the melancholy tune with more intention than she had before. Stopping Solas’s ritual had required them to carve their way through waves of demons that had traversed the splitting Veil and infiltrated the waking world. Harding was a master with her bow, and Varric with his beloved crossbow. Neve, of course, had brandished her ice magic with expertise. As for Rook, he had wielded his sword and shield as though born with them in his hands. It was clear he was experienced, if maybe a bit reckless. He dove into the fray with abandon and raw power.
But a musician?
Neve couldn’t help but feel surprised that this melancholy, graceful melody was coming from such a brash and brawny warrior.
Bellara jumped to her feet with a gasp, pulling Neve away from her thoughts. “Sorry!” she called over her shoulder on her way out of the library, toward the room where the dormant Vi’Revas glowed in silence. “I’ve got to try something!”
Harding chuckled. “She’s been working around the clock to figure that thing out.”
“Here’s hoping she’s done it,” Neve said.
“Yeah, I don’t like feeling stuck in here.”
“Harding, I’m…sorry, about Varric.”
A sad smile plied the corners of Harding’s lips. “Me too,” she said, tracing the cover of her book with her fingers. “I wish he were here. He could be a bit of a wild card, but he always knew where to go next. What to do.”
Neve nodded. “What about Rook?”
“What about him?”
“It seems like we’re in good hands, but you know him better than I do. He was Varric’s second?”
“Varric trusted him. He always said Rook could find his way out of anything.”
“Guess that’s proven true so far.” Neve folded her arms and tapped her fingers, thinking. She didn’t trust anybody at first meeting. Rook was no exception, though it hadn’t taken long for her wariness to dissipate. It helped that Varric and Harding had vouched for him, but it was also her own impression that he was clever and reliable. They’d managed to stop Solas, recruit Bellara, wade through the horrors at D’Meta’s Crossing, and track down the ritual dagger—all within the span of a few days. She had seen what he could do, and now she found herself craving to know more about who he was.
Harding returned her attention to her book, and Neve followed the music to the circular doorway it came from. Her prosthetic clanked against the stone floor of the library as she walked. When she came near, the stone entrance rotated and shifted on its own, revealing a long hallway punctuated by a softly lit room at the far end. Now unobstructed, the music grew louder and more clear, disguising her steps as she traversed the hallway.
Rook sat with his back to her at a chipped, oak piano in the center of the room, silhouetted against a series of tall windows on the opposite wall, his fingers flickering across the keys. The song he played now was not one she was familiar with, but its contemplative melody reminded her of the music she sometimes heard wafting out of open Chantry doors in Minrathous. She leaned against the wall and listened until the last note had dissolved into the air; then she gave three claps and said, “Bravo, Rook.”
Rook sprung to his feet and whipped around, the legs of the piano bench scraping as it moved backward across the floor. “Sorry—I didn’t hear you come in.” A suggestion of red crept up his neck and into his face.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Neve said.
“Oh, that’s alright. Just nearly had a heart attack, is all.” He clutched at his chest and straddled the piano bench, facing her.
Neve pointed toward the piano with her chin. “What was that song you were playing? I’ve never heard it before.”
“Oh, an old folk song from the Anderfels,” he said. “Not sure what it’s called, actually. My mother would sometimes play at our Chantry, and she taught me a little.”
“It was beautiful,” she said. “Is that where you’re from, the Anderfels?”
Rook nodded. “Grew up in Hossberg. Minrathous reminded me a bit of home, actually.”
“Did it? In what way?”
“Well, I’d never been there until, you know, demons rained destruction and I had to fight for my life on its streets—”
“Pretty much like any other day in Minrathous. Does it happen often in Hossberg, too?”
Rook chuckled. “Fortunately, no.” His expression sobered. “I just mean it seems like there are a lot of people in both cities who get stepped on. People who take the brunt of every bad thing that happens, who might as well not even exist as far as the ones in charge are concerned.”
“That’s…accurate,” Neve said. “It’s not all bad, though. I’ll have to take you back for a tour when there aren’t demons raining from the sky.”
“I’d like that,” Rook said, smiling in a way that crinkled the corners of his eyes and formed a dimple in his cheek. Neve was unsettled by the effect it had on her heart rate.
Needing a change of subject, she asked, “So, if your mother played the piano at the Chantry, does that mean you’re religious? I hear people from the Anderfels can be…zealous.”
“Oh, yes. We’re avid crusaders for Andraste. Off with the heads of the nonbelievers!”
“Just to be clear,” Neve said. “This is a joke?”
“My parents were potters. We attended services and observed the holidays, but we weren’t zealots. It was just kind of…what we did. I haven’t really set foot in a Chantry since leaving home. I guess part of me likes to think there’s some reason to it all, but…I don’t know.”
He shrugged, and a thoughtful silence ballooned between them. Rook quietly inspected the piano bench, picking at a splinter jutting out from its edge, and Neve quietly inspected him. The light that filtered in through the tall windows cast shadows across the floor and backlit the tips of his short, toffee-colored hair. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, revealing a smattering of aged scars on the sun-kissed skin of his arms, and his broad shoulders sagged beneath some unseen weight. Neve was curious about what he carried—aside from the obvious.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you,” Rook said, looking back up at her.
“What for?”
“For dragging me out of Arlathan in one piece after the ritual. I owe you my life.”
Neve dismissed the sentiment with a wave of her hand. “Oh, Harding was there too. Team effort.”
“Well, thanks for your part,” he said. He stared into the middle-distance, and Neve could almost hear the wheels spinning beneath his skull.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just…wish things would have gone differently. I know we’re all clear on the risks, and part of me is relieved we didn’t let Solas follow through with his scheme, but…I should have come up with a better plan, or…maybe just let Harding take the shot.”
The image of Varric’s lifeless body sprawled on the steps at the ritual site, pierced through the chest with Solas’s glowing lyrium dagger, flashed before her eyes. She swallowed a lump before it could fully form in her throat.
Rook continued. “The gods maybe wouldn’t have escaped. Varric wouldn’t be—”
“No,” Neve interjected, shaking her head. “We can’t do that. Dwelling on what might have been is never a good idea, trust me. It’s done, and we did the best we could with the information we had. You did the best you could. And the gods' escape is on Solas, not on us. It was his brilliant idea to slash open the Veil in the first place.”
Rook bit the inside of his cheek. “Thank you for saying that, but I—”
“You’re a good leader, Rook, and I trust you. Harding and Bellara do too.” She was a little surprised at how easily the words came—at how genuinely she meant them.
Rook pursed his lips for a moment before responding. “Well…I—Thanks, Neve.”
She surveyed the various instruments in the room. “Do you know how to play any of the others?” she asked.
Rook shook his head. “Just the piano. But what about you? You’re a Tevinter mage. You must know all kinds of stuff.”
Neve bristled at the assumption. “There aren’t many mages in my family, so I wasn’t afforded a proper education.”
Rook’s face reddened again and his eyes grew wide. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—sorry.”
Neve softened at the sight of his fluster. “It’s okay.”
“You’re just so…good, at everything, I thought…”
“Just comes naturally,” she said with a smirk and a half-shrug.
“Noted,” he said.
“To actually answer your question, no; I don’t know a thing about making music.”
“I could show you some, if you want?”
Neve had little time or use for learning the basics of a musical instrument, but the way he was looking at her, not unlike a child awaiting a gift, somehow worked. “Alright,” she said. She clenched her jaw as soon as the word escaped, part of her wishing she could suck it back in. The other part of her inexplicably fluttered.
Rook waved her over and swiveled on the bench to face the piano. She stepped across the room and took a seat next to him, her arms and knees tingling where they brushed against his.
He showed her where to place her fingers on the keys, and then he played a basic melody with his right hand, just a few notes, at a lower octave. She mimicked them, only slipping up once at the end and hitting the wrong final key. “Oops,” Neve said.
Rook laughed and nudged her with his elbow. “Ah, that’s okay. You’re making it your own.”
“If that’s your story.”
He repeated the melody once again, and once again she repeated it—this time without mistake. He nodded and shifted his fingers over a few keys, the tendons in his forearms jumping as he played a string of different notes. Neve imitated the motion, moving a key too far. She self-corrected and tried again with success.
“There you go,” Rook said. “I knew you’d pick it up easy.”
They continued this way for several more minutes, Rook hitting a few notes and Neve copying the melody, until they had strung together something that somewhat sounded like a song. Rook turned to her with a half-grin and said, “You’re a natural.”
Neve rolled her eyes and said, “Sure.”
“I mean it,” Rook said, angling himself more toward her, their knees touching. “You really—”
Before he could finish, Harding burst into the room, beaming and breathing a little heavy. Neve jumped to her feet, feeling like she’d been caught at something. Rook stood more naturally, and Harding’s eyes darted between them briefly before she spoke. “Bellara figured it out,” she said. “The Eluvian’s working!”
“All right,” Rook said. “Time to gear up, then. I’ll grab my things and meet you downstairs.”
Harding nodded and ran out of the room. “Not bad for your first lesson,” Rook said as he and Neve followed her.
Neve scoffed. “I’d hardly call it a proper lesson. I really only played a few notes.”
“Well, we’ll have to continue another time, then,” Rook said.
“I guess we will.”
They emerged back into the library, and Neve headed for the main entrance to grab her things from her study. Rook started climbing the stairs to his room, but just before she reached the door, he called across the room. “Oh, and Neve?”
She stopped and turned around, her insides squirming at the way he said her name for reasons she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, explain.
“You can call me Renik.”