Chapter Text
Two years ago, Lucanis Dellamorte thought he would die in a prison beneath the sea, utterly forgotten by the rest of the world, bound to a demon he despised. The circumstances of his presumed demise were unexpected, but this was how he had always thought his story would end: killed in the prime of life, as the world marched on without him. Such was the life of a Crow.
He was born a Crow, and he would die a Crow, and there was not much else to it. He had spent his entire existence having this very fact drilled into him. It was an unquestioned fact he accepted much the same way he accepted that the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
For someone like Lucanis, dying was simple, surviving marginally easier.
But living? Now, therein lied the rub.
Upon leaving the Ossuary, he had expected that after finishing the job from his unlikely rescuers, he would return to the Crows and the life he had always known.
Rook was an unexpected, delightful complication.
Rook was everything he was not: kind, and trusting, and joyful. Able to believe in a brighter future despite all evidence to the contrary. To know her was to love her. To meet her was to be embraced by her glow.
And despite how hard he had fought against the feelings in his traitorous heart, no matter how hard he tried to push her away … they fell in love.
Yes, Rook had made him want more. More for him and Spite. More for him and Rook. More for himself. A slower, gentler life than he had known. This small, simple existence they had carved out for themselves amongst the chaos of the rest of their lives was a sanctuary, and part of him wished to live in this space forever.
But nothing could last forever.
~
Lucanis sighed and rolled out a crick in his neck as he surveyed the papers littered across his desk, various accounting documents for House Dellamorte. He had never been one for figures, despite Caterina’s insistence on teaching him the inner workings of the house to prepare him for this very role.
Normally, when he would grow particularly frustrated, Rook would come to his side and help him sort out the confounding numbers. But he wouldn’t have Rook to help him, at least not for the next few days. She was leaving today for a conference in Nevarra with Emmrich, something about the Fade and metaphysicals and other words that made Lucanis’s head spin. Rook had explained it to him countless times, but it was as confusing to him as these damned numbers.
Rook bustled into the room then, a bag slung over her shoulder. She set the bag down on a settee and began rifling through it, running a hand through her blonde hair and the many intricate braids it was set into.
Beside Lucanis, Spite’s mouth creased into a frown. “Smells like vinegar.” Lucanis furrowed his brow. Over time, he had become accustomed to Spite’s unique language and way of experiencing the world. When words failed, the demon fell back on his strongest sense of smell. Sadness was petrichor. Joy was honeysuckle. And vinegar was the sharp, bitter smell of nervousness, fear. Lying.
Now that he was looking at her, Lucanis noticed her right foot lightly tapping, and the skin around her left thumb was bitten nearly to the quick.
It could just be nerves about the conference, though he knew that couldn’t be it. Rook utterly transformed when talking about her work, face alight and hands moving a mile a minute as she spoke about the intricacies of the Fade and magic and necromancy. Lucanis loved to watch her speak of such things, even if he could barely parse the words she was saying, just to see that look on her face.
“Is something the matter?” He asked. Rook’s body jumped slightly, as if startled, and her entire body tensed. She turned to him slowly, an obviously forced smiled on her face. “Wrong? No, nothing’s wrong.”
“Spite seems to think something’s wrong.”
She fidgeted with one of the rings on her fingers.“It’s -- it’s nothing. Nerves, I’m sure.”
“Rook.”
“I don’t want to trouble you. It’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, then what is the issue?”
She sighed, an anxious, shuddering sound, then steeled herself, looking Lucanis in the eye. “I’m late.”
“Late for … the conference?”
“No, Lucanis.” She fidgets with the ring on her right hand again, a gift from Emmerich. “I’m late. For my courses.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
His heart stalled and his mind went blank. Of all the things Rook could have said, he was not expecting … that.
“Are you … sure?”
“Am I sure that I’m late? Yes. Am I certain that it means anything? Of course not.”
He felt a but coming. “But?”
She shook her head, resolute. “But nothing. It’s nothing, Lucanis.”
“Well, that is a thing that can happen, certainly, being late?” He had received all sorts of anatomy lessons as part of his Crow training.
“Yes, but not for me. I am always on time.” Despite the gravity of the situation, he still can’t help but fight a smile. Rook’s strict adherence to punctuality was one of her many traits that he loved.
She shook her head. “But like I said, it’s nothing to worry about. Just forget I even said anything.”
Lucanis wanted to laugh at that. How could he? He felt like she had just dropped a spirit bomb in the middle of the room and wanted to pretend like nothing happened.
She stepped forward and pressed a light kiss to his lips. “I’ll be back in three days.” She pulled away and placed a hand on the side of his face, rubbing a hand soothingly along his temple. “I love you.”
She stepped through the Eluvian, its surface shimmering with magic, and then she was gone, Lucanis left in the staggering silence of the villa. He stared, open mouthed, at the now still surface of the eluvian, mind reeling.
Rook might be ... With his ...
Pregnant.
With a baby.
A child.
His child.
He stumbled to the liquor cabinet in the corner of the room and poured himself a tevinter ale. The sun had not even reached its peak in the sky yet, but he didn't care. He needed something stronger than coffee. He tried to steady the frantic pattering of his heart and the breath coming out of his lungs, to no avail.
"Mierda," he finally managed to choke out, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"What is late?" Spite hissed in his ear. Lucanis nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd nearly forgotten about the demon. How to explain life and reproduction to a being that experienced neither, at least not like mortals did? Moreover, how to explain why the mere notion had sent him into a tailspin?
“It’s nothing,” he insisted, echoing Rook’s words.
“You’re lying,” Spite said. Of course Lucanis couldn’t lie to Spite. He sighed.
“Rook may be …” He could barely say the word aloud. “Pregnant.”
He prayed Spite had picked up enough on his time on the mortal plane to understand. Spite's face -- his face, Lucanis thought bitterly, not for the first time -- perked up. "Another Rook?"
Lucanis sighed. Of course that would be the demon's primary take away. But at least someone was happy. He felt shellshocked, as if he had been hit with a stunning spell, as he tried to grapple with the enormity of what Rook had just implied. Rook could be pregnant. Pregnant with his child. Their child. The thought was so absurd, so frightening, as to be nearly impossible to conceive of.
He thought of Rook, his heart somersaulting the same way it had back when they were still getting to know one another, when those first feelings of love had started to bloom.
Rook.
The love of his life.
Her magic smelled like the breeze on a warm spring day, the first after months of cold and snow. The scent had taken him by surprise when they first met. Though her hair reminded him of the sun peaking from behind the clouds, the magic she wielded was anything but - death and decay and rot, the magic of sapping one’s life force and using it to animate the dead.
And yet …
And yet she was light, and joy, and everything good in the world. She did not shame him for his faults or his failings, his past or his present. She accepted him, every part of him, even the parts that weren’t him, the parts that belonged to Spite, and she loved them all.
There was no doubt in his mind that Rook would make a fantastic parent.
But what of him?
When he was younger, he had been told he was lucky to have been born into the Crows. Luckier than the orphans plucked off the street or, worse, bought at auction, forced to sleep in the warehouses they called training facilities, beaten and tortured into the perfect assassins, fighting over the little scraps they were given. Killed if they did not measure up.
Lucanis, meanwhile, had grown up in luxury. He had never wanted for food or shelter. He slept in a four poster bed and had his meals served to him by an army of servants. There were lessons, of course, strict ones, to mold him into the heir to the Dellamorte line, but they were nothing when compared to the stories Teia sometimes let slip.
The Dellamortes had led their house for generations, the title of head always passed down through the familial line. He was now head of House Dellamorte. Caterina could no longer lead. Illario was imprisoned. If Lucanis had no children, House Dellamorte died with him.
But if he did …
He tried to imagine a future in which he and Rook wed and had children, raising them in this gargantuan house that felt more like a mausoleum at times. He pictured a small child with his hair and Rook’s eyes -- kind, innocent, trusting -- as he brought a switch down on their knuckles, just as Caterina had done to him and Illario when they did not measure up.
The thought made him sick.
What was the alternative? Severing ties with Rook, burying his heart in a lead box and sinking it to the ocean. Marrying someone else, someone handpicked for him by his grandmother. She would be a good choice, to be sure. Smart and beautiful and capable of giving him as many heirs as he desired. Perhaps in time they’d grow close, maybe even friends.
And every day he’d die by degree.
He had to get out of this room, where the Eluvian stood there mockingly, begging him to run into it and after Rook. He found himself walking into his and Rook’s bedroom. He sat on the bed and placed his head in his hands. What the hell was he going to do?
As he looked up, his eye caught on something poking out of a book on Rook’s nightstand. He knew he shouldn’t pry, but curiosity won out. Rook would forgive him this transgression given the events of the day.
He plucked the mysterious object out of the book. A pressed flower, its pink and white petals flattened but still full of life. Andraste’s Grace. It was sandwiched in between a thin piece of vellum on top, allowing the flower to still be seen, and another, thicker piece of paper underneath. Both pieces of paper had been cut into small rectangles. A bookmark.
Lucanis peered closer at the bottom page and realized he recognized it. A wedding invitation, for a wedding he and Rook had attended several months back. He ran his thumb reverently over the homemade bookmark and felt himself getting pulled into a memory …
~
An unexpected side effect of saving the world was that they were extremely sought after for all manner of events. Galas, birthday parties, the opening of a new restaurant.
The most frequent invitations by far, however, were weddings.
If it were up to Lucanis, every invitation would be swiftly ripped up and thrown into the garbage, or, if he was in a particularly beneficent mood, politely declined with a letter bearing the Dellamorte house sigil.
Rook’s approach was a bit different.
After a lifetime spent confined within the Necropolis, she eagerly ate up new experiences like the meals Lucanis cooked for her.
It was a song and dance they did. Rook would excitedly propose attending, Lucanis would roll his eyes, Rook would pretend to pout, and Lucanis would give in without question. The most frustrating part of all of this, though, was that Rook was right. He did enjoy himself at these outings. But not because of the events themselves.
Because of her.
Rook, who twirled around the dance floor without a care in the world, losing herself in the melodies. Rook, who smiled and shook hands and hugged adoring fans not because she needed to, not because she felt obligated, but because she wanted to.
On this particular night, they were attending the wedding of a pair of lower nobles in Orlais. Lucanis acted the part of heroic worldsaver and political figure, shaking hands and making small talk, and trying not to laugh at Spite’s more colorful comments about the guests’ attire.
When he felt he had reached his limit for socialization, Rook spirited him away into the gardens surrounding the estate. The gardens seemed to stretch for miles, full of sweeping topiaries cut into the shapes of wyverns, dragons, lions. The farther they walked, the further away the sounds of the celebration became, until it was nothing more than a pleasant buzz in the distance. It felt like he and Rook were in a world all their own.
Rook reached down and plucked a flower from the ground, bringing it to her face and smelling it. Lucanis recognized the plant. Andraste’s Grace. A pretty flower, to be sure, but a simple wildflower that had likely escaped the groundkeeper's notice amongst the more exotic and beautiful flowers planted in the garden. But that was Rook, finding beauty in the smallest of things, the things others overlooked.
She sighed wistfully as she looked back at the glittering estate in the distance. “What a beautiful ceremony, don’t you think?”
Lucanis hummed in agreement, taking in the sight of her before him. She was dressed in a deep green gown adorned with crystals, the moonlight making them sparkle. She was breathtaking.
“Although I would have gone without those canapes,” she continued, nose wrinkling in disgust. “At our wedding, we’ll have –” She stopped short and looked at Lucanis, a look of shock on her face.
Lucanis considered what she had just said. Our wedding. He loved Rook. He was devoted to Rook. He never wanted to be without her. But to hear her speak those words aloud, to so casually say that she wished to marry him, to spend the rest of her life with him? It was the most gratifying thing he had ever heard.
He drew closer and wrapped an arm around her. “Go on. Tell me what food we’ll have at our wedding.”
She looked up at him, suddenly shy, then beamed and launched into talking about menus and hors d'oeuvres.
Lucanis’s heart swelled, and took a mental note of everything she said.
Just in case.
~
Lucanis blinked, and the memory was gone, the phantom scent of wisteria hanging in the air.
He stood on shaky legs. He needed to get out of this house, needed to clear his head.
It was going to be a long three days.