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Rook
It isn't Friday, no. But Rook is on her way to Lucanis anyway.
For all that she's suffered this week training beneath her matriarch, she considers it her due. A treat, payment in kind for the extra bits of herself that she's given, and her indulgence of choice is always: Lucanis.
And so she is sneaking through the hidden passageway that allows access into the villa (if one knows where to look; Lucanis showed her years ago).
They've tread this path together a hundred times, learning its routes (which are quickest, which are quietest) and its every nook and trip hazard. First, she recalls, they went slowly by candlelight (their fingers interwoven). Then, candle-snuffed, they navigated by hushed whisper and grasping fingers (with only one hand each of course — the other: held in reserve, held within the other's). These days, most often, they fill the passage with the sounds of their play — giggling and jockeying: racing games and sneaking games and teasing games.
There are no sounds of kids-at-play now. Not tonight.
It's dark. Pitch-black and quiet.
Dream-like, a wraith: she passes through and into the darkened estate. Her steps are whisper-quiet, her careful toe-creep avoids the scattered gravel and the step traps and the loosened stones designed to impede trespassers.
But Rook is careful, always.
(Sometimes… it isn't enough.)
There's a warm glow that isn't usually there once she's inside the villa — the kitchengirl is up late. An annoyance. It means Rook will need to take her less-favored path through the halls to avoid detection. The riskier path.
She doesn't like this path and her intuizione agrees: there is an insistent twinge, a lumbada being danced against the base of her skull, behind her left ear.
(And so, really: she should have known.)
There's a blind corner along this path that Rook has never trusted. It would be a good spot for an ambush, she's always thought. So of course tonight: she's ambushed.
“And what could a little de Riva be doing, sneaking about in my house?”
Illario.
He's surprised her and he presses the advantage, boxing off her routes of escape, pressing her back to the floral wallpaper.
"Could it be me she is looking for?"
She snorts. "No, I'm here for Lucanis."
“Lucanis,” he sneers. “He’s nothing. No one. I’ll show you.”
He grabs her wrist, a tight choking hold that hurts her, and pulls her, spinning her. Her torso crashes into his and he steadies her, wrist pulled high to his shoulder, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
“Come now, am I not also a Dellamorte?”
"Barely."
"Barely?" His snort is incendiary. "Watch your words, little de Riva, or I'll punish you for them."
"Get off of me, Illario. Let me go. Lucanis is expecting me."
She's not sure how, but Illario catches the fib. "No he isn't."
"Get off of me," she repeats. He presses closer.
“Everyone can see what you’re offering, little Rook. If my cousin doesn’t want it, I don’t mind taking it, instead.”
He pulls her, leering.
“Have I already mentioned how much I like these pajamas, little Rook?” He is goading her. (Thin, linen; the long-sleeved tunic and pant set leave little to his imagination, pressed up against him as he has her.)
But he forgets: she isn’t immobilized this time. And just because she’s in her sleepwear, it doesn’t mean she isn’t prepared for violence. (She is a Crow, after all, and a good one.)
Illario, the idiot, has no idea. She hasn’t pulled away. She’s allowed him to pull her in and keep her there. (He must think this conversation is going in a very different direction.)
(… He’ll soon see.)
“Please, Illario,” she whispers, nodding to her captured wrist. He releases it, an eyebrow arching. His other arm cages her. Her newly-released hand moves to cup his jaw in her palm, tenderly.
(Her other hand is working surreptitiously to access the blade she’s got strapped to her thigh.)
Illario’s eyes narrow but his god-awful grin broadens. Like a cat, he presses his cheek into her palm.
(Gotcha, she thinks, in reference to both blade and boy.)
Three actions, simultaneously:
She drives her small pen-knife deep into the meat of his thigh — it won't do much damage, thin little thing of a few inches that it is, but the wound it leaves behind will hurt worst in this soft and fleshy location. For weeks, he won't move without remembering Rook —
And the hand that had been tenderly cupping his face stiffens, clawing; she shoves him away from her by his beloved-fucking-face —
He's so surprised, he forgets to keep his grip on her (which is exatly as she'd hoped) and she's free.
(Ok, a fourth thing — she stomps her heel into the soft interior arch of his foot, one last injury added to her insult. A return for all his.)
She'll give Illario credit for this: the lurid names and incandescent oaths he shouts down the hallway after her are creative. Profanely visceral. She's impressed he knows some of these words.
…
Lucanis is there, only feet away. He was apparently cleaning Cesario's tank as she flung herself through his doorway, breathless and more disheveled than usual.
"Rook? You're here." He wasn't expecting her, not tonight (it isn't Friday).
"Hi," she pants. Her chest heaves, perhaps a little exaggerated, as she brings her breath under control.
(There they are, briefly: the eyes that burn, that smolder, that cut her into ribbons — the eyes he shares with his cousin, Illario — before giving way to a more familiar expression: caution and concern.)
"Everything… alright?"
"Mind if I visit tonight?"
"Never," his lopsided smirk confirms.
She crosses the space to him and wraps her arms tightly around his shoulders. Lucanis gives immediately — exhaling sharply and returning her embrace.
"What's wrong?"
"Everything but this."
His laugh is near-silent, a heavy exhale, but she feels it through her entire frame. He agrees.
She tucks her nose into his neck. (She has to crane a little; Rook, always slight and under-developed, is now a little taller than her longtime friend.)
"Go on," he prompts, though he doesn't loosen his embrace. "Get in bed while I wash up. I'm done with Cesario."
She doesn't budge. He doesn't budge her.
"Rook?"
"Just… don't leave?"
"Never," he promises again.