Chapter Text
"One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a death
Four for a birth
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for secrets never told
Eight for Heaven
Nine for Hell
And Ten for the devil his own damned self"
- Crow Counting Rhyme
When the world is saved, and the bodies are burned, and the proper words said, Rook slowly settles back into life in Dock Town. She hasn’t anywhere else to go, really, but perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Ashur and Tarquin and the rest of the Dragons welcome her back into the fold easily enough, old misdeeds forgotten in the light of their victory.
The others have their own lives to return to, their own work. Bellara is back in Arlathan delving deeper into her archive. Davrin is up in the Anderfels training the newest griffon recruits. Emmrich has his new apprentice as well as a full contingent of ten students (“Ten, Rook. It is entirely untenable!” he told her the last time she visited the necropolis). Taash, last she heard, is hunting down some sort of sea-faring dragon harrying Lord of Fortune ships. They're at sea for the next month or so.
Neve she still sees at least, about town pulling her Threads into place, dipping into the Shadow Dragon base to compare notes, occasionally tracking Rook down for fish from Hal’s or a cheeky pint down the Cobbled Swan.
Rook wishes she saw more of them, all of them. These people who she bonded with through blood and sweat and purpose, who became a family of sorts. Family, for Rook, is sort of light on the ground. But that’s not the way of things, and she’s made her peace with it, she thinks.
As for Lucanis … Well, she doesn’t hear from Lucanis. She assumes he’s gone back to Treviso, working to restore a broken, blighted city. He hadn’t spoken to her at all after that final battle. Just gave her a curt nod which she understood to mean that their contract was complete, and then he walked away.
Rook had been unsurprised. He hadn’t been able to look at her properly since the dragon attacks. She regrets everything, and would change nothing. And they are alike enough that she understands. If their roles had been reversed — if he had abandoned her city to burn in order to save his own — she’s not sure she could forgive him either.
The dragon attacks, their aftermath, had put an end to whatever unspoken thing had existed between the two of them. That delicate, tender shoot that might have grown into something else. If, indeed, it hadn’t existed only in her head to begin with. Rook finds that thought strangely comforting. At least that way she didn’t cause him any additional hurt on top of everything else.
She assumes he comes to Minrathous occasionally to see Neve. But they don’t talk about that, and she’s never seen so much as a hint of his presence in her city. Rook would rather not know the details of their budding romance even if she does want them both to be happy. They can do that without her input.
Still, pub nights with Neve are always nice. She feels a bit flattered that the mage still makes the time for her.
“So there I was, expecting I was walking into some secret cult meeting,” Rook says, swinging her wineglass around in a wide arc to encompass the room.
“Sure,” Neve prompts. “As one does.”
They’re tucked into a cozy table in the back of the Swan, and the other woman is leaning her elbows on the table, her own glass dangled between two fingers as she listens to Rook’s story.
“Perfectly normal part of my day,” Rook agrees.
She realizes vaguely that her usual slight northern accent —beaten back by force over years of practice — has gone broader and wandered further north the tipsier she’s gotten. Rook used to be self-conscious about her accent in front of Neve, with her posh tones and her even posher ensembles, but that was before she realized that the detective was putting on an act. She comes from the same streets as Rook, she just developed a different strategy for surviving them.
“And so I’ve got meself strapped to the gills with bombs,” she continues. “Like, I am swimming in gaatlock and poison, prepared to take on a nest of Venatori.”
“Except you can’t swim,” Neve says, wobbling forward just a little, her voice slurring. “How many times have I fished you out of the water from the dock, Rook? We live on an island.”
“How many times I gotta say?” Rook replies, gesturing wildly again. “People — ‘scuse me — people are meant to be on land. Land. Anyway. Strapped to the nines, I was. And I walk into this room full of people wearing creepy masks expecting, dunno, blood magic. Lotta evil wizards and such. I’m braced to start blowing shit up, and then …”
“Then?” Neve prompts her, obligingly.
“Everyone starts taking their fucking clothes off.”
Neve throws her head back and laughs, a warm, throaty chuckle that makes Rook preen a little.
“Only you, Trouble, could end up accidentally infiltrating your way into an orgy.”
“You laugh, but I lost my favorite coat extricating myself from …”
Rook trails off, her attention caught by something strange. A figure in dark purple leather has just sidled its way to a table by the fire, positioned in a shadowy spot just out of the reach of its golden glow. Rook’s pulse spikes for a moment, but the figure in question is shorter than any she might fear to encounter. Hm.
Rook smiles and tips her chair back until she’s balancing on just two legs.
“You’re going to fall,” Neve warns.
“I’m not,” Rook sticks her tongue out and continues to balance precariously. It is a little harder than usual after the wine. “Either you’ve got a little bird watching over you, or someone in this pub is about to have a very bad night. Shit. I hope it isn’t me.”
“What are you on about?” Neve asks, following the direction of Rook’s tilted chin when she points out the Crow by the fire.
“Your fella think you’re in some kind of danger, Detective?”
“I don’t think they’re here for me,” she says, voice going flat and no-nonsense. “I haven’t heard from Luc in months. And he very much isn’t my fella.”
Rook quirks her head at this, her chair thumping down once again onto all four legs. That is a surprise. They had seemed so close at the Lighthouse.
“I — I’m sorry, Neve. I didn’t mean to poke fun, I just —”
Neve waves off her apology.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I think the reality of my life disappointed him a bit. Me and the Threads. Which is quite hypocritical considering he kills people for money.”
“That’s shit,” Rook says, scrubbing at her face and wishing to be just a little bit less drunk in this moment.
“Never let a man put you on a pedestal, Rook,” Neve says. “It gets to be a damned uncomfortable perch.”
Rook reaches out and lays a hand over Neve’s where it sits on the table, and gives it a squeeze.
“I can imagine,” she says. “Wait here, I’ll shoo the little bird away. Crows should know better than to try and operate in our neighborhood without a heads up, anyway.”
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Neve says. “Hey, don’t start a brawl or anything. Ok, Trouble? I’ve had entirely too much wine for that.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She waves a salute to Neve before sauntering over toward the hearthside table, pretending the sway in her step is intentional rather than the result of one too many libations. Rook is a few feet away from her quarry when she gets a really good look at his face. He’s got a mop of dark hair and chubby cheeks that haven’t yet had time to lose their baby fat.
Venhedis, he’s just a kid. Against her will, Rook’s mind is shunted back to Jacobus — that persistent cough that she hadn’t known how to address, the sacrifice he made at the end just to eek a little justice out of an impossible situation.
Her stomach turns uncomfortably, and Rook is tempted just for a moment to run outside and hurl her guts out in the bushes rather than confronting this poor boy. She hates the Crow apprentice system. The idea of training up children for murder.
Sure, Rook had been younger than the kid by the fire when she killed her first man, but that had been desperation, self-preservation on her part. It had been nails and teeth and a jagged piece of wood shoved into the gut of a slaver who had followed her down an alley one night because he thought she looked like an easy target. It hadn’t been cold and systematic. It was just life.
She takes a beat, gives her stomach a moment to settle, and then continues to snake her path through the crowded tavern toward the fledgling. When she arrives, she slips unceremoniously into the seat across from him.
“How’s it going over here, kid?” she asks, giving him a smile that she knows to be a perfect balance between friendly and threatening. Varric taught her well.
The boy chokes on a gulp of the ale he’s definitely too young to be drinking and looks at her in wide-eyed surprise. Rook takes advantage of his shock to slip the mug of ale away from him, takes a swig herself. She makes a face. Too hoppy.
When there’s no immediate response from the little Crow, Rook takes the initiative.
“You know who I am, yeah?”
It’s not really a self-absorbed question. People generally do know her now, since the whole debacle with the Elven gods. It’s mostly annoying, but it does have a few benefits. One of them being that when she wants to intimidate someone, Rook generally has to do very little to achieve the desired effect.
The boy snaps his mouth shut with an audible clack of teeth, and nods.
“Good,” she says. “That should make this a lot easier. What’s your name? You got a name?”
“B-Bruno, Señora,” he replies with at quavering voice. He really can’t be older than thirteen. It’s ridiculous.
“Bruno,” she nods in acknowledgement. “Good name. And I’m Rook, but you know that.”
“Si, Señora.”
“What you may not know, Bruno, is that this is my neighborhood. I’m sort of Dock Town’s unofficial protector. Me and the nice lady at the table ‘cross the way.”
She gestures in Neve’s direction, and his gaze follows.
“And look, this isn’t on you, really, but your higher ups should definitely know better. What I’d appreciate, Bruno, is a heads up the next time the Crows do business in my neighborhood. That make sense? It’s sort of a domino effect thing, you see? I let you start leaving dead bodies all over the place, soon everybody’s gonna think they can do it, too. And we really don’t have the space for that. You understand?”
“I-I understand, Se—”
“You don’t need to keep calling me that, kid,” she interrupts. “It’s just Rook.”
“Rook?” he attempts, uncertainly.
“That’s right,” she says, getting a little too carried away with the casual act and taking another swig of the terrible beer. “Oh, no. That really is awful. Alright, so we’re both on the same page now. What you’re gonna do, Bruno, is walk away from whatever job it is you’re on tonight, go back to your Talon, and tell them exactly what I said. That way nothing has to get messy.”
She doesn’t exactly like threatening children, but needs must. Rook stares him down to make sure he understands the implication. Luckily, he seems to catch on quick. Though she’s still a little afraid she might make him cry. Do his eyes look glassy? Rook thinks they might be glassy. Dammit.
“I —Yes … Rook. I will deliver this message,” he says at last.
“Good lad. Off with you, then.”
He pushes he chair back quickly, and it screeches against the Swan’s old wooden floorboards.
“Oh, just out of curiosity,” Rook says, grabbing hold of his forearm as he attempts to sidle past her to the door. “Who were you here for?”
The boy’s body goes completely still.
“Seems like the kind of thing I should know,” she says, hoping to jostle him out of whatever little internal panic he’s having. “In the interest of open and honest communication.”
“I …” he swallows most of his remaining words, leaving Rook with nothing but a garbled mess.
“Simple question, kid. Who was it?”
“It was you, Señora,” he croaks. “I was sent here for you.”
Huh. It’s not exactly shocking news. Hadn’t she joked about it earlier in the evening. Someone’s about to have a bad night, hope it’s not me. Har har.
The truth is that a lot of people are angry about what happened to Treviso, including not a small number of Antivan Crows. Now that the blighted gods are dead, that anger has to go somewhere. Rook is a very visible target for all that ire.
A Crow contract on her head isn’t great news by any means, but maybe Rook’s feeling cocky in a bad penny sort of way. If Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain didn’t manage to kill her, she can probably manage a few Crows. Especially if Bruno here is the type they’re going to send after her.
“Fair enough,” she says, with a little nonchalant shrug. Not like it was this kid’s idea, after all. He’s clearly just a pawn. “And who was it that sent you, exactly? Your Talon? Who’s house are you, Bruno?”
It would be good to know exactly whose anger she’s attracted, after all. Might be easier to nip this in the bud than to keep looking over her shoulder for stray corvids.
“No,” he shakes his head, Rook can feel his body trembling under her grasp. “Not my Talon. Please, Señora. Not House Cantori. It was the First Talon. The order came from him.”
Rook’s heart skips a beat. Her extremities go cold. Lucanis?
She knew he resented her for her choices, she even thought it might come to blows at certain points in their acquaintance. After Jacobus, for one. Then the little matter of the impending end of the world got in the way.
Rook’s not even certain she blames him for taking his shot now. Only … The truth is, Rook’s always been a romantic, deep down. She had imagined that if Lucanis ever decided she needed to die, he would want to do the job himself. Give it a personal touch. Take her final breath into his own lungs as he drove the dagger home. It would almost be a kiss. They had a few of those, once upon a time. Almost kisses.
The idea of herself as a contract, though. It’s so impersonal, so calculated. She’d arranged the story of them into something tragic and a little sordid, something straight out of one of Bellara’s serials
In reality, Rook’s just a loose end for him to tie up. Maybe it’ll be better for morale if she isn’t around anymore. Maybe it’ll curry favor with a few of the more influential Talons. It’s nothing personal at all. Just business. And he sent a literal child to do the job. Like she doesn’t even rate a full-blown Crow to do her murder.
It fills her with stinging sorrow. He really doesn’t care at all.
When Rook shakes out of her reflections, she finds that her grip on the kid’s arm has turned vice-like. Her nails are digging into his flesh. Venhedis, she must be scaring him.
“One more thing before you go, Bruno,” she says, carefully releasing him from her clutch. She looks up into his dark, terrified eyes. “When you see the first Talon, tell him I said don’t send me any more fucking children.”
The boy nods, realizes he isn’t being held in place anymore, then stumbles away and makes a beeline for the door.
Without thinking, Rook tips her head back and downs the rest of the horrible ale. She is suddenly far too sober for the situation. She sits there at the table for a moment, studying the wood grain and trying to form a coherent thought, but she can’t quite manage.
Eventually, she stumbles back over to Neve’s table.
“Little bird flown the coop, then?” the detective asks as Rook flops back into her chair.
“What?” Rook asks. “Oh, yeah. Sent him on his way. Said the Crows should clear any Dock Town contracts with one of us from now on.”
“Well, that’s a job done then,” Neve says. “Tempt you to another glass?”
There is not enough wine in all of Tevinter, Rook thinks. But she doesn’t want to get sloppy in front of Neve right now. For one, she’s not exactly sure how you tell a woman that her ex is trying to have you killed. For perfectly understandable reasons at that. Probably you don’t. Probably you keep that shit locked down.
“I think I ought to call it a night,” she says. “Rain check?”
“Sure, “ Neve says. “You alright there, Trouble? You look a bit peaky.”
“Nothing some of that fresh Minrathous air won’t fix,” Rook says standing and clapping a friendly hand on Neve’s shoulder in farewell. The other woman catches it, gives it a squeeze.
“It’s only about twenty percent air,” she says. “The rest is smoke and eau du fish.”
“And we wouldn’t want it any other way,” Rook shoots back as she walks away.
“No, we wouldn’t,” she hears Neve reply softly behind her as she heads out the door.
It’s raining when Rook emerges from the pub. She lifts her face up to it for a long moment, relishing the cold sting of the droplets against her skin.
She’s pretty sure she’s got a bottle of gin back at her flat, a welcome home gift from Elek. That might help the situation a little more than the rain.
She should be frightened, shouldn’t she? A normal person would be frightened if the best assassins in Thedas were out for her blood. Instead she’s just sad. And tired.
Rook has allowed the Demon of Vyrantium to take up so much space in her mind without even realizing it. He’s got a little room all to himself. She tries to keep the door shut, locked tight, but sometimes it’s impossible to stop herself from creeping over, peeking through the keyhole.
You really don’t think about me at all? She whispers through the crack under the door. Ever? There’s no response. Of course there isn’t.
With a sigh, Rook starts off for home, pulling her cloak up over her head as she goes. She pretends she isn’t keeping an eye out for figures in purple leather all the way there.