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There is nowhere in all of Thedas quite like Treviso during Satinalia’s Carnaval.
She’d timed her return from Par Vollen perfectly, she never did like to miss Carnaval. Especially when she had an excuse to be in Treviso for it. Salle…well, Salle never really celebrated it properly. A few feasts and private parties in almost the same boring frame as its resident talon… nothing like this.
Here? Here the puddled streets come alive with people. Moving and swaying like the waters of which the city famously floats upon, becoming a life form all its own between still-slumbering walls of brick and black marble. It breathes against nobles and commoners in polarizing masks, the more extravagant the better, as anonymity becomes the law of the land.
The reprieve from manners and modesty, the breaking away of tradition and commitment…
“Not that Antivans need an excuse to be controversial. But carnaval is where we make even Orlesians blush with what we get up to in our masks,” Viago had told her the first time he brought her to Treviso fourteen years ago.
Arrested by the sights of Treviso, her young mind was slandered by the getups and what it let people get away with. Avicia had never seen so many bouncing gowns and pillowy cuffs all in one place. Men in dresses, women in men’s breeches, romantic trysts in dark corners, parties of which the clothed variety was neither here nor there. Out in the square outside the Chantry, a gathering was attempting to knock over a druffalo imported from Ferelden. And she knows that by now, there will be demonstrations naming Antiva’s ruler as a fool. And she knows somewhere out there also…Viago’s mouth curls against a smile at this.
Treviso dripped in decadence and sin as black and as wet as the obsidian waters the city rests upon. The sea of strangers, clogging the streets like thickening arteries, were so easy to get lost in.
Perfect for an assassin.
She sifts through gaps between people, dodging pillowy skirts and masks with enlarged noses. Avicia finds that carnival is the only time she can move through the streets hidden. Her curled horns are mistaken for embellishments on whatever masks she wears, and so long as her leathers conceal every stretch of silver skin, she can move freely without being gawked at. Though more and more Tal-Vashoth are beginning to integrate themselves into society, she was still usually the tallest person in the room. And amongst the Crows especially, an oddity and point of suspicion…
It felt good to no longer be the centre of attention.
She picks and prods at a knife at a stall, turning the handle over in her hand. An elegant thing, though she suspects it is better suited to mantling a wall than between anyone’s ribs. Still, it’s to be a gift…one she hopes the recipient will like. It never felt like enough for her to come home alone without something to make him smile. And it sparks the part of her brain that thrills at the sight of him with a dagger in his hand…
“Beautiful, my good lady…but perhaps you’d prefer a necklace? Something to adorn that lovely neck of yours,” The merchant’s smile is too wide.
“Depends, can the necklace withstand being wrapped around a throat twelve times?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. Tosses a sack of coins at him for the dagger.
Just as she turns to keep walking, she pauses when her skin prickles. She’s caught someone’s attention.
In-between pockets of light from over-arching lanterns, at the other end of the market, is a masked man staring at her. Leaning against the wall, he would be otherwise innocuous were it not for her trained eye. But she knows. A shiver runs down her spine when she catches the smile under his mask, the corner of his mouth tilting like he’s been daring her to look at him for some time now.
Quickly she slips through gaps of people like water through fingers. Maintaining her pace with grace despite the clamouring of bodies. The last thing she’ll do is make this easy for him.
A firework begins its fiery ascension into the night sky, bursting with a howl as colour ignites the area in a brilliant purple. Revealing the man has pushed off the wall and is quickly advancing. His presence permeates and it must only be because he allows it. That impresses her all the more, knowing if he did not want her to know he was following, she simply wouldn’t. Determined to remain on her tail, and skilled at keeping his sight set even as she blends into the waves of people. Isn’t she special.
A dance it is, then.
Suddenly turning a corner to see if he’ll follow or if he wishes to remain that obvious, she exits the dense street and presses forward as it opens up towards one of Treviso’s many mazes of canals. Her footsteps are quick along the edges that dip into the waterways. Gondolas are packed with people clambering along the waters. Sailing together till they form one giant, makeshift raft to make merry on.
Oh, how she could use some good wine and even better company. But Avicia has little time for celebrations. She is being tailed after all, and her admirer isn’t one to let up.
Another corner is cut as Avicia returns to the bustling streets, but she knows better than to think she’s lost him. Yet as she turns to look across her shoulder, she finds him strangely missing.
Until she looks ahead, and at the end of the street she spies him there. Waiting to pounce.
Bastard, he’s cutting off her exit.
The man’s smile is bolder now. He basks in the attention, because they both know if he wished to be hidden from her. He would be. She knows he is allowing this, and it is as infuriating as it is thrilling. Her mind wanders to what exactly he aims to do with her, should she cross that threshold and step willingly into his trap. If he even expects her to.
‘You’re impossible’ A voice rings in the memories she keeps lovingly tucked away.
And just as she is about to press forward down the street, she gets an idea.
Avicia walks until suddenly she breaks out into a sprint. Her legs carrying her deftly up along a formation of crates set out like stairs. A woman gasps at her sudden elevation, a man whistles impressed. And in seconds, she’s on the rooftops.
Treviso’s rooftops feel like a gasp of fresh air room the suffocating streets below as the roof tiles clink and clatter beneath her boots. Jumping like a flea across buildings in the hopes that the chase will force a confrontation. She’s emboldened to pick up her pace when she hears the unmistakable sound of running not far behind her, signalling he’s hot on her trail. Just where she likes him.
The Crows are in flight across Treviso’s rooftops. Flittering over chimneys and descending quickly across sharp edges only to roll back onto their feet as the chase refuses to give in. Both of them are eager to see where this takes them, both of them in competition.
Avicia runs and runs, always being faster than she looks. Until suddenly.
She’s falling.
Avicia holds in her instinct to scream as she feels the wind whipping up past her face, even in descent she’ll not give up appearances. And thankfully, she centers her body enough that she lands on her feet if incredibly hard. Knees cracking against her weight as she pants, suddenly glad for all the times Viago surprised her by pushing her off the edges of rooftops during her training. Because otherwise, she’d have landed on her head.
“Fucking tiles,” Looking down, she spies the offending tile that had come out from under her heel where it now lies smashed on the ground within the alley. An open mockery of how she could’ve ended up. And it would have been deserved.
Avicia stands upright, dusts herself clean. Just when she’s about to look up to see if her admirer is close by. She suddenly feels a gust of swift movement from behind her and a presence that is unmistakable…
“You…” His breath was right up against her ear, hushed. And she knows she’s in trouble. She can feel the pointed beak of his mask nudging against her jawline. “Have a talent for making my heart stop,”
She hums in acknowledgement, her blood going hot at the familiar guttural thrum of his accent. Her body knows it’s him before her mind can catch up. Leaning back against him until his chest presses right against her back. Oh, and the guilt she feels when his heart is practically thundering against her spine despite how hard he tries to keep his voice steady. The hand that snakes itself around her waist shaking just ever so slightly as he clearly wrangles his composure back with a professional’s effect.
“With my drop-dead good looks?” She offers, and she can hear her panicked breathing hovering along her words as she tries to come off as her charming self. Alright yeah, it was a close call.
“ Si, and because you don’t watch where you walk,” He’s relieved to have her in his arms for multiple reasons. Though he still intends to chastise her. Idiot. “Even I saw that tile was loose,”
“Maybe it was all a part of my plan,” She fucking lies, leaning her head low and pressing her cheeks against the side of his mask. I’m here, it’s alright.
“Usually, the plan is to not get caught by your pursuer. I don’t know how they do it in House De Riva but…”
“Who’s saying I’m caught?”
He pauses, confused. Hand tightening against her waist as if to remind her he has no intention of letting her go after six months apart.
“You feel very much caught to me,”
“Is it me who’s trapped in this alley with you? Or are you trapped in this alley with me?”
Avicia spins suddenly, tired of this game after having nearly just died a minute ago, her hands pushing on his chest until he lands with a thud against the alley wall
Avicia closes in on him until it’s only inches of distance that separate their waiting mouths. Here, they are nestled together where they are both most comfortable; deep in the shadows in each other’s grip. Here, they are both in their element, confident in sizing up their marks…
And size him up she does. Crowding over him as she lets her eyes rake across him. He’s decked out in a jet black leather coat, beneath lies a fine suit she’d love to run her hands up and down when she gets a chance. His mask covers half of his upper face and was shaped like a black crow skull - obviously. But from this close, she could see his soft brown eyes looking up at her. An invitation lies within them.
The mouth of the alley opens onto Treviso’s manic streets. Yet, they are as oblivious to the world as it is to them in this very moment. For she can hear nothing but her breaths, his breaths, both mingling into the rhythm of them alone.
“Lucanis…”
His hand closes around hers. Pressing it to his still rapidly beating heart. Maker, she had missed his hands. The fireworks cast their purple glow across their masked faces - blossoming across his masked features.
“I mean it, mi vida,” Lucanis’s eyes are indeed soft, but there’s a twinge of something truly vulnerable in there that yanks at her heart strings. “Look where you’re going next time. I enjoy the chase…but not when it’s to get myself between you and the ground-”
“Not even you’d be quick enough for that,”
“It didn’t stop me from trying,” He says very seriously.
She hums in acknowledgement. “You know…you found me quite quickly,” She says to him. She’d been back an hour… an hour . And she’s a little miffed she couldn’t do more shopping. Sure she’d gotten the dagger, but she’d been gone six months…
“I’m the First Talon,” Is all he offers her, grinning under his mask. “It would be poor form for me to have not tracked you down the moment you got back to Treviso,”
“You know I was coming to you eventually,”
“I could not wait,” And the way he says that sends a thrill through her.
She rewards his impatience by throwing her mask down, quickly forgotten to the floor as she tips his mask up with her fingers. Flicking the beak up before she dives down to capture his lips with hers.
They both adore to waste time when they kiss - slowly dragging their lips across each other lovingly as if they aren’t born and bred killers who dance with death daily. Perhaps they’re both in on the hope that by dragging it out, the more likely this moment could be their last. Maybe a knife was prepped for them in this alley but even so, it probably wouldn’t stop them even then. Avicia can imagine no sweeter bliss than to die on his lips like this…
Lucanis grunts into her mouth, a gloved hand coming to cup the back of her head to deepen the kiss like he doesn’t have anywhere to be at all. And she feels it, the feeling of coming home. Lucanis is Antiva; the allure of lantern-lit street corners in his eyes, the way they blend into something alluding to hazel-gold in the light. She can feel quick trysts in dark corners in the gentle strength as he holds her hair, can smell leather and the salty air that clings to him always.
She’s home.
His tongue licks at her bottom lip, pleading for entry which she enthusiastically gives. She could never deny him a thing. But it seems he must deny her, for as soon as he opens her mouth he pulls away. She can feel the strength it takes for him to do, mentally scolding himself for indulging himself too much. It takes about the same amount of strength for her to not chase after him, especially with how his head is trapped between the wall and herself.
“Maker, I missed you,” His lazy, blissed-out look makes her wish he would take her in this alley, right here right now. The same look he gives her when they wake up together in her apartment in Salle.
“Then why did you stop?” She smiles down at him, pressing a hand on the wall beside his head. She likes this position they’re in. She’s not going to run off.
“Because you are not my only mark tonight,” He admits, clearly annoyed he cannot languish in this alley with her. “I’m on a contract…bumping into you was the happiest of coincidences,”
So it was luck that brought him to that market. At least now she knows her skills at blending in haven’t entirely faded.
“Let me come with you, vito mio,” She offers instantly, mostly so he won’t feel guilty for pursuing her when he was supposed to be hunting.
“You should enjoy carnaval,”
“I won’t enjoy it without you,”
He smiles. “You just got back from abroad, you should rest-”
“I can rest when I’m dead, Lucanis,” He was such a worry-wart. “Are you worried I’ll wind up stealing your mark?”
He rolls his eyes. “Never,”
“Yes, you are,”
She laughs loudly when he squeezes her waist, her secret weak spot. “Oi!”
“You’re easy to incapacitate. And I need to use the rooftops to get to my mark, and we both saw how that nearly ended for you,”
“Maker, it was one dodgy tile…”
“You stick out also,”
“Well that’s not very nice,” She jokes. “Not during carnaval I don’t,”
“You will always stick out to me,” His arms sadly unwind from her waist, but he brings a hand to cup the side of her face. “I’d pick you out in any crowd,”
“Alright sweetness,” She chuckles, holding onto his wrist as she leans into his hand. “I mean it though, let me come with you on this contract. It’ll be just like old times,”
He deliberates, and passing over his face are months worth of memories of gods, blight, and trickster bald elves. “I certainly hope not,”
“You know what I mean,”
“I do….alright,” He finally conceded. “House Dellamorte and House De Riva will take this contract. So long as you don’t fall from anymore heights,” He says.
“I thought you said you’d catch me?”
“I said I’d get between you and the ground,” He corrects, allowing her to flick his mask back over his face, before he bends low to pick up the discarded mask from earlier. Already helping her put it on before she can take it from him.
“Are you going to tell me what the contract is about 0r is it a surprise?”
Lucanis simply smiles, before he begins to head out of the alley.
She chuckles, looking up at the thin slit of sky dictated by the alley. The stars were out, fireworks punctured the night, and Treviso was brimming with chaos, and she got to chase that chaos with her lover. Such was an Antivan homecoming…