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2660 GS; Citadel
Katari ‘Rook’ de Riva sits among the sparkling, towering buildings of the Citadel and takes a long, enjoyable sip of tea. The man—a volus, if she isn’t mistaken—holding a gun to her head seems to take great offense to this.
“What are you—I told you not to move!”
Rook ignores him. She hasn’t fought in three wars just to be intimidated by a suit wearing mole-person. Instead, she contemplates the tableau she finds herself in the center of.
On one side: seating for a little cafe, the fifth on her journey to find the best tea in the galaxy. All the tables but hers are empty now, civilians having taken off when the procession of volus and C-Sec invaded the idealic scene. Sprawled low in her chair, Rook still towers over the standing volus, her jewel-horns sweeping up and back. He carefully avoids impaling himself on them, arm raised high to better put the gun to her head; it mostly just sits beneath her chin.
On the other: a C-Sec squad, spread out. A few asari, one salarian, and two turians standing in the middle. These two hold her focus. Not the leader of course (he seems the usual sort of stuck up the stereotypes always depict) but the second. Towering over seven feet, silver skinned and gray plated, his vivid clan markings are matched only by the blue of his eyes. There’s a visor across one eye now, but the face settled behind the scope of his rifle—that hasn’t changed.
“Sir,” Garrus Vakarian (is he still a lieutenant?) murmurs in the ear of the second turian. “I have the shot.”
“Not while there’s a civilian present,” the other snaps. Louder, he starts trying to talk the volus down. Something something fraud, jail instead of death, blah blah blah. Rook doesn’t really care. She’s too busy drinking in the sight of Garrus. It’s been three years since last they saw each other. Does he still make terrible jokes? Would he show her how to work the omni-tool she’s just received?
Does he dream of her, the way she does of him?
9:57 Dragon; Skyhold
Rook stands in Tarasyl'an Te'la, Skyhold, heart of the Inquisition, and mourns her hard-fought peace. She can’t even baffle at the path that has led her here, standing among the greatest heroes of the Dragon Age: First Warden Sereda Aeducan, Hero of Fereldan; Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall and advisor of Prince Sebastian Vael; Inquisitor Fennes Lavellan, Herald of Andraste and Guardian of Thedas.
By all rights Rook shouldn’t stand among them. Her titles don’t fit with the gravitas of the rest. Saarebas. Crow. Tal-Vashoth. She is nothing but the misfit leader of a bunch of assholes (Davrin’s words) that stumbled their way into stopping the end of the world from getting even worse. In the years that have followed the Siege of Minrathous, she sometimes thinks even that is a bit of a stretch.
Yet here she is anyway, pressed into a room with advisors and heroes, standing over a map of Thedas and wondering how much more of it will burn before the Dragon Age stops fucking them over.
The Iron Bull is reporting on intelligence, pulled from Bellara and her new lyrium surveillance devices. “They stopped on the Lost Continent, but left quickly when they realized there’s nothing but death and ash there. Now squads are being dropped in key locations across Thedas.” Pieces are scattered across the map. Rook has gone up and down Thedas enough times to see the pattern: small towns and cities, but key locations along the highway.
“Supply lines,” Lavellan murmurs. “Commander—?”
“I’ll send warnings immediately, Your Worship.”
“I’ll write my brother,” Aeducan adds. “We can start using the Deep Roads where possible.”
“I thought pieces of the Blight were still an issue,” Hawke says.
“Less of an issue than aliens.”
No one has an argument against that.
Rook says, “Have we figured out what they want, yet?”
“Language is still an issue,” Montilyet reports. Her lips are pressed so thin, the usual crisp voice is hollow. “They’ve taken prisoners. Kill anyone who doesn’t surrender.”
“It’s Corypheus all over again,” Lavellan says. “They want total dominion.”
Corypheus. The Evanuris. Even Qunandar. It always comes back to taking control. Grasping at power. Rook is rather sick of it.
The Iron Bull shifts closer to Lavellan, the dragon tooth around his neck swinging with the movement. “We won’t let them. What do we know about their fighting?”
Rook steps forward, ice crackling over her hands. Very carefully, she builds a model of the aliens, about three feet in height. “Right. After my first combat with them, I got a few bodies to Emmrich. Few things: they do have similar organs to us, everything except their lungs which are kept inside their bones. He thinks if we manage to break a few limbs, they’ll probably drown in their own blood. The problem with this is they are incredibly durable. Moreso even than qunari. These plates are natural, but they’re also metal. Weaknesses in their natural armor are here, here, and here. Two eyes, noses, and mouths like us, but no outward ears. These mandibles are the most delicate part of them and while breaking it won’t kill them, Emmrich says there’s a shit ton of nerves. Same for these spur things—those are pure bone though, so they’re tough.”
“Break the face, cause pain,” Bull grins. “Well, that’s similar enough.”
“And their unnatural armor?” Aeducan presses.
“Forget that,” Hawke adds. “It’s the weapons I’m worried about.”
“Getting there. The armor is a much more advanced version of ours. Bellara, Neve, and Dagna are trying to find a way to mimic it. At its most basic though, it’s leather and ceramic, plus some extra stuff. Weaknesses are at the joints where the metal can’t cover. The weapons…” Rook trails off, melting away her sculpture with a wave. “They work off of lyrium.”
Immediately, half a dozen voices start talking over each other, cussing and wondering how the fuck a bunch of aliens got lyrium. Rook waits for Hawke to lose her patience and snap at them all to shut up.
“We haven’t seen any mages, though they’ve found a way to mimic a shield across their armor. The weapons are—think of them like crossbows, but a hundred times faster. They shoot little metal pellets that can and will crush through armor and bone.”
This doesn’t make anyone happy. Unfortunately, war rarely leaves room for happiness.
Lavellan makes a considering noise. “You’re positive they all use lyrium?”
“Yes.”
“What are you…?” Hawke trails off, then grins widely. “Oh, you genius.”
Lavellan makes a sharp gesture at Montilyet. “Write to the Divine. We need the Seekers and Templars spread among all our troops.”
It takes a second for Rook to track the idea. After the Inquisition remained as a neutral peacekeeping force (alla the Grey Wardens), the Seekers and Templars returned to the Chantry. Rook’s heard their training methods have changed, but the powers certainly haven’t.
They are still perfectly capable of nullifying magic. And lyrium.
It’s the first bit of hope they’ve had in the week since the aliens first attacked. Naturally, this is when the doors burst open, an elven runner strangling one of the dirth’vians Bellara invented last year. The mirror is the size of a palm, working much as eluvians do, minus the travel part.
Lavellan stands tall. “Kina, what—”
“Par Vollen,” she gasps. She thrusts the dirth’vian forward. “They’ve destroyed Par Vollen.”
2660; Citadel
Annoyed now that her reunion is being delayed, Rook cuts in above the volus. “Would you like him dead or alive?”
The silence is sharp enough to cut. Garrus’s mandible twitches with a suppressed grin. That’s still the same then. “Ma’am,” the other says, “Please stay calm—”
“Sir—” Garrus tries.
“Quiet Vakarian.”
“No one has to get hurt!” the volus quivers. Rook rolls her eyes. Before this mess, she had enjoyed going around unrecognized but now she’s a little offended. When was the last time someone tried to take her hostage?
Dumb question. Solas, of course.
Garrus twitches again, eyes burning across the space between them. Rook drags her eyes over him, lingers at his waist, his crest. She’s not close enough to hear his subs, but she bets she could get him purring without even touching. First though: the nuisance.
Rook flicks her eyes to the gun at her throat. Garrus tenses, tilting his head to his superior. He removes his finger from the trigger.
Are you going to deal with this?
Orders. You do it.
Rook doesn’t usually care for permission, but just this once it’s nice. With the speed and elegance that once killed gods, her arm lashes out, pushes the gun into the air. It goes off; the volus yells. Lightning crackles at her finger tips, races across the strange suit, hotter and hotter until something burns, another thing pops and the yelling gets very loud very quickly.
Letting the body drop, Rook returns to her tea. The last sip is still warm, bitter across her tongue. She pouts into the empty cup, ignoring the racing C-Sec officers. The volus is very dead, or will be soon enough. Rook has never left an enemy alive before, and doesn’t plan to start now.
Well. That’s not true. One enemy survived long enough to become something much more.
9:57; The High Reaches
There’s blood in Rook’s mouth. She’s not sure if it’s her own, or someone else’s. Fen’av is so slick, only years of familiarity keeps it in her hands; Stormcharger flits about her, crackling with magic residue. For a brief, fleeting second, Rook wishes she had Solas. A giant wolf-god would be very helpful right now.
Her shield shatters under fire and the second is over. Rook is too busy surviving to linger on what ifs. Rolling away, Rook finds her feet running, tossing out a shield over herself and Lucanis. He dives sharply, Spite’s wings glowing mauve in the growing dusk.
Once upon a time, this would’ve been the time to celebrate Wintersend. Instead, she’s knee deep in viscera at the foot of the High Reaches, fighting aliens to keep them from the food stores being transported to a desperate, under siege Minrathous. They should’ve simply gone through the eluvian the Veilguard brought with them, but it had shattered under the first dropped bomb.
In the wake of bombing Seheron and Par Vollen, the aliens had dropped a small capsule into Minrathous, perfectly aimed for the castle. It had played a recording of some sort, but since no one here could understand the words, the meaning was ignored.
Privately, Rook thinks they were calling for Thedas’s surrender. Less privately, Rook thinks they’re fucking idiots to think Thedas will give up after they annihilated an entire race.
(She’s trying very hard not to think about how few qunari live outside Par Vollen. How few of her own kind are left.)
How the fuck did they know they were using the Deep Roads? A spy? But no, the language barrier. The thought is pushed to the side as she tackles Davrin away from the tat-tat-tat of more bullets.
“Wagons?” she gasps in his ear.
“Almost behind the line.”
“Fall back.”
In the next moment they’re moving again. Rook finds the divot where an explosion landed, slides in, and throws a fresh shield up. It’s a terrible vantage, but it’s the best she has right now.
The aliens are now using Seheron as a launching point, aiming straight for Minrathous. They haven’t bombed the city (yet), but they’ve made travel to and from impossible. There’s only a single eluvian in the city, and even if they did try to evacuate, where would they put everyone? Not even the Lighthouse would hold them all.
Too few eluvians, too poorly placed for an invasion like this. Rook curses the idiot that didn’t think to take the chance to move them during peace time. (She’s the idiot.) Now they’re too delicate and too precious to transport. Exhibit A: this clusterfuck.
Another bang, louder than the tat-tat-tat. Rook can tell that the aliens brought different kind of weapons, but the intricacies are lost on her. Yet as she watches, she notices a few things: the louder bang comes much more slowly and it comes from further away.
One of the wagon drivers falls dead, a hole in his skull. Taash quickly moves the body, taking its place.
Well then.
Breathing slowly, Rook takes a small sip of the lyrium potion at her hip. There’s a dearth of them these days, and Rook only has the one. But she needs all of the power she can gather for her next move.
Stupid plan 2.F, here we go.
In a burst of magic, she fade-steps higher up the mountain. Once, twice. Pausing in a crouch, she waits. Bang. Tracking the sound is easy enough with qunari hearing. Careful to keep her horns and hair hidden from any light that might give her away, Rook scans around her. There. One of the aliens is prone across a large rock, a massive weapon propped up in its hands.
Rook doesn’t give it the chance to kill anyone else. The next fade-step brings her to the rock, Fen’av in hand. She plunges for the opening around its neck, where the leather skin is thin. At the last second it twists, a strange, high sound coming from it. Fen’av glances across its carapace.
Rolling to its feet, the massive gun shrinks, collapsing on itself and quickly replaced with a smaller version. The whole movement happens in a blink, and the Crow in Rook can’t help but be impressed. The soldier decides she needs to kill it quickly.
Plan 2.F is derailed when she hears a high pitched whistling sound. It’s strange, drawn out, not quite like an arrow flying but close. Rook has heard it often today.
Her shield goes up. It shatters into a million pieces as the ground explodes close by. Her and her enemy are tossed away, then another bomb comes, and another. All she can do is hold her shield up, casting again and again in the split second that comes between the whistling.
When it ends, Rook is sticky with sweat and dirt, bruised down to her soul with mana-depletion and pain. Every breath comes in a labored gasp, sucked through a vibrating head. Dust clears, revealing what had once been an entrance to the Deep Roads.
It doesn’t matter that she can’t breathe. With one glance, a horror opens up in her that sucks all air out anyway.
The entrance had been a wide cave entrance on a steep incline. One end of an underground ravine, it had been a natural point to hide an eluvian inside and use as a base for this part of the world.
Now, mountain trembling under her feet, Rook stares down and down and down, past the ravine and into the roiling bit of black and purple ooze that lay at the bottom. Even as she watches, the rot climbs the walls, corruption eating across a vein of lyrium and turning it red and angry.
Whirling, Rook pulls her own dirth’vian out, calling for the Inquisitor even as she starts shouting, screaming.
“RETREAT! FULL RETREAT! ITS THE BLIGHT!” There’s no chance the full battlefield could hear her, but those closest do and take up the call. On and on the message is passed, and all thoughts of pushing out the aliens are abandoned.
Lavellan answers the dirth’vian. “Rook?”
“Blight has escaped,” she gasps, running rapidly along the mountain ridge, looking for a way down. “Forget numbers. You have to evacuate Minrathous.”
To her credit, Lavellan doesn’t ask further questions. Her face goes hard, Mithral’s vallas’lin seeming to darken with her scowl. The mirror goes blank and Rook is left trying to escape.
She runs straight into the alien she’d been fighting, though that seems like a distant worry now. Rook yanks it to its feet, pushing it forward blindly. It stumbles, mandibles pulled tight.
“Run, you idiot.”
One hand pulls on its arm, the other takes out the lyrium vial. She downs half of it, feels the burning high of too much, too fast. A quick glance over her shoulder reveals the Blight has reached the open air. With no archdemon to control it, it’s a mindless poison, hunting for everything living, ready to corrupt so easily. Away from the underground lyrium, it should at least slow.
She hopes.
Even as she says it, Rook doesn’t know if its true. They’d killed all the archdemons, the Evanuris. Nothing is left to call on it. But, as Solas had once told her, with it brought to this world there’s no way to force it out.
The alien stumbles again, slowing her. Then she realizes the ground itself is heaving, cracking.
The ravine. The bombs.
“Motherfuck—”
Open air greets them both before Rook even has a chance to curse.
2660; Citadel
The turian Rook learns is called Chellick sends Garrus to take her statement. This is such a delightful turn of events that she doesn’t even glare at his clear distaste for her race. The body of the volus is dragged away.
“Hello, officer,” Rook chirps brightly. “I don’t suppose you’re here to give me a refund on my tea? My lovely afternoon was interrupted.”
Garrus sighs, but it’s more fond than exasperated, and his mandibles keep pulling into a smile. “How about I buy you a drink later to make it up to you?”
Rook gasps, hand to her heart. “How forward. I like it.”
That earns her a real chuckle as Garrus slides into the seat next to her. With great control, Rook resists the urge to throw herself into his lap and start undressing him. With the way Garrus looks at her, lingering on the feathered cloak, the tight pants, the completely indecent amount of tit on show—Rook is pretty sure he feels the same way.
The glee of finally finding him softens, turns gentle. “I missed you.”
His purr rumbles, just barely on the edge of hearing. It tells her everything she needs to know. “You fight anymore planets in the last three years?”
“One or two. Mostly I’m pseudo-retired.”
“Let me guess: real retirement bored you to tears.”
“Only a little.” Rook wants to bottle his laughter, keep it for the next time the world goes to shit. Instead, she nudges their legs together. “And how goes the great officer?”
Subs stuttering, Garrus pulls his mandibles in tight. Rook has a handful of all purpose plans, and she’s wondering which this will call for. (She’s hoping for something in the M category. It’s been a long time since she had the chance to kill for him.)
“Complicated,” Garrus finally admits. Then, as if this moment of weakness is already too much, he straightens up and pulls up his omni-tool. “I do have to take your statement though.”
“Oh, of course, Officer.” She rolls the title around on her tongue, lets it linger in the air. Garrus glares, but the low buzz in his chest gives him away.
“Rook.”
“Would you prefer I call you sir?”
His knee jerks. She takes that as a yes.
“Katari.”
“Oh, alright. Ruin my fun, why don’t you.”
He rolls his eyes, a habit she knows for a fact turians don’t have. Rook decides to assume he picked it up from her. “Full name and birth-planet?”
“Katari de Riva, Anoras.”
“Permanent address?”
“On Anoras. Or would you like my cross street?”
His mandibles twitch again. “Reason for being on the Citadel?”
“Husband hunting.” This is only partially a lie, and the way he chokes on his tongue is worth it.
“Reason for being here?”
“Tea. I’m told all galactic delicacies land here.”
This earns a far more exasperated sigh. He clicks something else. His ‘tool beeps plaintively. Ah, she’d forgotten about the database thing.
Garrus goes very still. “Rook.”
“Garrus.”
“Would you care to confirm you are Captain de Riva, personal advisor to Ambassador Hawke?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t care to confirm, no.”
Those lovely blue eyes finally focus on her again. She preens. “So much for husband hunting.”
“Why do you think I agreed to this stupid job in the first place?”
The ‘tool gets put away. His visor blocks one eye, but Rook thinks he looks dashing with it, so doesn’t steal it away. “Well. You have diplomatic immunity, so I think I’ll just let this go.”
Rook didn’t expect it to be that easy, but can’t deny she’s glad for it. “So… drinks?”
Something complicated flickers through Garrus, brought through by the twitch of mandibles and low vibration of his subharmonics. Quietly, with real regret, he says, “I have to get back to work.” Rook’s face does something out of her control, because he catches her hand. He’s wearing the dumb gloves she hates. “There’s a new club, Flux. Meet me there at 1800?”
“I think time keeping here is dumb, but yes. I’ll be there.”
There’s no stopping his grin. Rook is glad to see it again.
9:57; Falling
There’s no way to breathe while falling. Air rushes past too quickly, the weight of your body pulls your lungs flat. Rook knows this; as a Crow, Rook has been trained for this. Even still, the first terrible second of weightlessness passes without her noticing.
Arms wrap around her middle, yanking her close. The next second falls away.
The alien spins them in the air, putting itself under her. Rook can see the ground rapidly approaching over its shoulder. Its eyes are terribly wide and blue.
Three seconds now.
Rook calls for her orb, Stormcharger lighting up with life. She pulls all the manic power her last sip of lyrium gave her, shoves it through the orb, feels the power heighten.
She casts a shield.
Four seconds.
They hit the ground.
2660; Flux
Even with contact with other species, Thedas still hasn’t adopted clubs. Pubs, taverns, dance halls, gentlemen’s houses, yes. But clubs?
Sliding into the press of bodies and loud pounding music grants Rook a terrible moment of being overwhelmed. Then it washes over her and she keeps moving. There are more species than she recognizes, grinding against each other in what she thinks is meant to be dancing. The crowd is almost too much and she’s grateful when she reaches the pocket of air around the bar.
The seats have leather cushions. Rook focuses on that instead of being aware of how blocked in she is. On the other side of the bar, a turian with a few purple clan marks pauses in his glass cleaning.
“You… you’re one of those Anorans, right?”
“Yes. Qunari, specifically. I hadn’t realized many visuals had spread.”
He puts away the glass, leaning against the bar with one arm. It lengthens his waist, the light glinting off his narrow crest. With the noise, Rook can’t hear, but she’s fairly sure he’s purring.
“News briefings have been going out since your embassy was announced.” He tilts his head, giving a tantalizing glimpse of his throat. “What brings you to the Citadel?”
A hand wraps around Rook from behind. She doesn’t stab it; the scent is familiar, metal and oil and heat. Three fingers spread across her stomach, dragging on the skin bared by her jacket all the way to her waist. With effort, Rook doesn’t laugh.
“I do,” Garrus growls, subs rough enough to vibrate her body. “Can I get a Palaven Bullet and Thessian Sunset?”
Straightening, the bartender’s crest flattens. “Right away.”
Spinning in her chair, Rook hooks one foot behind Garrus’s spur and pulls him close. He goes willingly, looking lovely in his black and blue suit. When she tilts her head up, he presses a gentle kiss to her lips, then holds their foreheads together.
“Jealous, tesoro?”
“He doesn’t deserve to kiss your boots.”
“Considering where my boots tend to land, I don’t think anyone should be kissing them.”
Garrus snorts. “Oh, I remember. Absolute trouble magnet.”
Rook squawks a disagreement, jabbing a finger into his chest to better emphasize her point. “Excuse me? You got us into plenty of trouble.”
“Yes, but who invited whom to fight a planet?”
9:57; Deep Roads
Rook is honestly surprised to wake. That being said, alive is generally her preferred state. Being sprawled somewhere in the Deep Roads, rocks and debris blocking where they must have fallen from—less so.
Feeling like she just went three rounds with an archdemon (which is a feeling she can attest to), Rook begins the herculean process of getting up. By a miracle, Fen’av and Stormcharger are both present and undamaged. The bag of emergency supplies she usually carries is missing a few odds and ends, but generally made it through.
Oh, yes, and mustn’t forget the massive alien.
Slowly, she approaches the supine form, nudging the two metal weapons further from its hands. There’s a slowly growing patch of blue under its body; it smells metallic enough she thinks it might be its blood. This is a perfect chance to leave it to an ignoble death in the Deep Roads. Suitable punishment for releasing the blight once more on Thedas.
Unbidden, Rook remembers arms wrapping around her, positioned to take the impact.
“Motherfucker.” With a heaving sigh, she crouches, hand hovering. She barely has any magic left, and her healing has always been half-assed anyway. Yet she has to try, damn it. Rook has spent too much time with Bellara and Davrin not to have absorbed some of their do-gooding.
The neck and head are the only uncovered places. When her hand lands, the leather skin is softer than she expected. Reaching with her magic, Rook is faced with a mental image of a body she can’t even begin to fathom. There are several things wrong, she thinks, but the best she can do is pump what remains of her magic into the body, rapidly expediting the natural healing process.
Good deed done, Rook promptly collapses on her ass. Shivers start up, wracking her body. That’s bad. Very bad. She needs her dirth’vian, needs to get out of here.
The body twitches with a groan. It’s very painful sounding, very familiar to someone who has spent so long among warriors. Rook thinks again of those very blue eyes.
Fuck.
“I wouldn’t move, if I were you,” Rook says. It won’t do any good, but she’s always been a talker. A babbler, even. Too many thoughts and nowhere for them to go. (It’s why Varric named her after a bird.) “I need a few more hours before I can even try healing you further.”
A strange noise comes from them, like a high pitched whine. She puzzles over it as they move their arms slowly together, head pulling up just slightly. An orange screen appears of their wrist, they tap a few things, then all at once they sag, some amount of relief obviously gained.
Rook is fascinated by this sequence, but tries not to show it.
“If you have technology like that, why did you even come here? For the lyrium? Couldn’t have tried trade first? I mean the dwarven taxes per ounce are absurd—” Rook cuts herself off sharply. “Fuck. I’m concussed.”
Another rolling sort of growl comes from her guest. They leverage themselves up, leaning against a pile of rubble. They have face markings, similar to her current vitaar, but blue. She’s seen these aliens several times now, but usually in a fight or when dead. This is her first chance to just take them in.
Taller than even qunari, but narrow like elves. Their knees are inverted, hands three-fingered. The plates along their face make her think they don’t have body-language the same way humans do.
Their eyes are very blue.
Setting aside this bizarre fixation, Rook forces herself to lean against the adjoining wall and take better stock.
They’re in a part of the Deep Roads, pillars and statues (old and crumbling) leading further in. Dust is thick here, the heat of nearby lava pools nearly oppressive. Only one way prevents itself, considering the cave in behind them. It’s an honest miracle neither of them were crushed. (She thinks very hard about how she isn’t trapped. The hall is wide, open. She can breathe. She can.)
Rook’s hands brush against something on the ground. She lifts a piece of glass, staring. Thin, carved with runes. A piece of her dirth’vian.
Furious, she pitches it deeper into the hall, where it gets lost in the dust.
“Absolutely, fucking bullshit—dragon shit even. There goes the easy way out.”
The alien makes a sharp clicking sound. This draws Rook’s attention. They watch her, head tilted like a bird.
“What? This is your fault you know.”
The clicking this time almost sounds offended.
“If you had left us alone, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I would be basking on a beach, or hunting a wyvern, or literally anything besides another war. Instead, I’m stuck in the Deep Roads with an alien dragon-bird-thing while the blight starts ravaging Thedas. Again.”
Blowing out a sharp breath, Rook claws her composure back with broken nail beds. “Existence is a choice,” she reminds herself. The old refrain is comforting, the Qun well worn on her lips. “Asit tal-eb.”
The bird clicks again. Rook wishes the language wasn’t so strange. “Yeah, still don’t speak alien.”
The alien huffs. Almost as if they could understand her sarcasm. Wait.
“Hold on.” Rook narrows her eyes. “Can you understand me?”
They go very still. Then, slowly, nod.
“Oh that is such bullshit.” Rook knocks her head back, horns scraping against the rock. “Of course you do. Of course. Andraste and Qun preserve me, Fen’Harel take me. I’m going to lose my shit one of these days.”
Rook runs through a few more curses just to make herself feel better. Then, finally, says, “Right. I don’t suppose there’s anyway for you to let me understand you?”
The mandibles pull tight, head tilting the other way. Rook doesn’t really have the patience for this shit.
“Right, let me rephrase since you can understand me. We’re in the Deep Roads, an interlocking collection of thaigs and highways that have largely been abandoned since the evil, sentient rot that eats people to turn them into mindless zombies moved in. My only communication device shattered in the fall. So, unless you want to get eaten by the blight, our best bet out is working together. As much as I want to turn your skull into a chalice.”
This earns a silent stillness. Then they press on the orange thing, make a truly upset growl, snarls, and starts shuffling over to her. Rook allows this out of the goodness of her heart and in the name of diplomacy.
(Also, she can’t move. She’s probably going to pass out soon.)
They pull closer, gesturing to a space just behind their jaw. There’s a thin little scar there. Then they hold up a tiny piece of metal, no bigger than a bug, that they pull out of a hidden pouch in their armor. They gesture from the metal to her, then tap behind her ear.
“Surgery. In the Deep Roads. Oh joys.” Despite her sarcasm, Rook does let the weird alien put the strange metal in her head, then rub a weird goop across it. Because that’s just the sort of day she’s having.
When it’s done, they press on the orange thing again. There’s a strange buzzing in her ears, then the buzzing stops and is replaced by a low, duel toned sort of voice.
“—should be working now.”
His voice sounds male. Of course, that doesn’t really mean anything. “Quick question. Do you use male pronouns?”
The alien opens and closes their mouth, once, twice. “Uh. Turians don’t really have those, but sure?”
“Ah, alright. In that case.” Rook elbows him in the side, hard as she can. It’s not very considering the circumstances, but it makes her feel better. “What the fuck! Are all the men where you’re from insane?! You released the blight!”
He scootches away from her, then sags as if all his energy has been sapped. “Right, you keep saying that. I have no idea what it means.”
“Of course you don’t. Why would you care? You just invaded our planet, slaughtered everyone in Qunandar, and then released an ancient unstoppable force of malice. You must do this regularly.”
His mandibles pull tight. “If you humans weren’t so intent on playing with technology you don’t understand this wouldn’t have happened. You barely touch space flight and immediately decide to open an inactive Relay.”
Rook, concussion and all, processes this a tad slowly. “I cannot express this enough. I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”
He scoffs, the lower part of his voice practically a growl underpinning his words. “No need to lie. We know the humans on Earth opened the 314 Relay, despite galactic law—”
“Hi. Yes. Me here, woman who just saved your life. I would love if you could start making sense. Because unless you’re talking about the dirt under us, I don’t know what Earth is. Or a Relay.”
He startles into silence, staring at her closely. His mandibles go slack. “You… aren’t an Earth colony?”
“I’m going to go with no.”
“You’re humans.”
“Do I look human?”
“We assumed humans had a few subspecies—”
“Oi! Dwarves and elves both predate humans, thank you very much. And qunari came from the Lost Continent.”
His mouth clicks shut. Rook leans back, exhaustion pushes at her edges. Having been in a variety of situations, Rook qualifies this as a shitshow. Not an apocalypse (yet) but definitely a shitshow. Dragon level shit even.
The vibrations lower into something somber, almost too quiet to hear. Rook decides this has been a long enough day. “I’m sleeping. When I wake, we’ll work on getting out of here.”
“You trust me while you sleep?”
“Don’t have a choice. I used the last of my mana for the shield that caught us. Need to heal before we move on.”
The bizarre alien doesn’t have a response to that. Probably for the best; Rook is already asleep.
2660; Citadel
Rook pouts at Garrus. “Oh, come on. It was a part of the planet, not the full thing. Don’t be dramatic.”
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling again. Rook counts the win.
Drinks appear, which Rook sips at gratefully. For just a second, she basks in the glory of peace. Garrus is warm at her side, the drink cool in her hand. Somewhere far away, Inquisitor Lavellan is bullying racist pricks into giving Arlathan and the Dales back to the elves. In a little bit, she’ll be naked and in bed with Garrus. Years she’s been fighting, and for just a minute she can put down her blade.
Garrus presses a kiss against her lips.
His ‘tool gets a call.
9:57; Deep Roads
Rook wakes up again, which is almost pleasant. She’s alive, so that’s nice, but there’s a horrible crick in her neck and she’s still stuck in the Deep Roads. Less nice.
The alien is also asleep. She takes the chance to heal herself, eat some of the very little food she carries, then gets to work plotting. With a lack of actual map in hand or a contract to point her in the right direction, she does what she did as Captain of the Veilguard: makes lists.
There are two grand problems for Thedas right now: alien invasion, and resurgence of the blight. Now, concussion gone and turning over the conversation with her new informant, she thinks she’s safe to say that the aliens are invading for a totally moronic reason. Maybe if she can get this alien out, he’ll report that the reason is moronic and they’ll all leave. That’s a pretty big if but it’s at least something.
The blight… that’s a whole different issue. In the wake of the Sixth Blight, the corruption had retreated into the core of the planet, tucked into corners of the Deep Roads. With no more archdemons or Evanuris to call on it, they all felt pretty certain that, though it lived on beneath their feet, they wouldn’t have to worry about the blight again.
Apparently giving it a direct path towards freedom negated this wish.
Previous Blights stopped when the archdemon was killed. The Evanuris might have pulled it into this world first, and manipulated things to have it spread, but they worked through archdemons. Now very dead archdemons. Which means she has to go even further back. To the initial start of it.
Her newest companion wakes during her contemplation, flexing his limbs curiously.
“Healed what I could,” Rook says distractedly. “But you weren’t as bad off as I expected.”
“I used medigel yesterday. But, er, thank you.”
She grunts an answer, then looks at her haphazard diagram. The alien peeps over her shoulder. Generously, she doesn’t stab him for moving into her space uninvited.
“I can’t read your language. What is this?”
“Plans. Possibilities.” For the sake of the rule of three, she adds, “Schemes.”
That strange, rolling growl comes again. She realizes its laughter. “Right. Well. Care to share your schemes?”
“Depends which possibility we go with.” She taps one part of the dust. “We find a direct route out of here, you return to your people, tell them we have nothing to do with this Earth, and you get the fuck out.”
“I like that possibility.”
“Two. We find the closest thaig, raid it for supplies, and camp out until a rescue part shows up. This is safer and less likely to end with us loss and starving. It also leads back into possibility one.”
“I don’t know what a thaig is.”
“Three.” Rook lingers on the final column she’s drawn, and the final note she’s added. Harding would want this one. “We go deeper, looking for the source of the blight. My team will expect me to choose this one and likely find a way to meet us.”
“Why would we ever want to go deeper? Didn’t you say this thing is a type of rot?”
“Not a natural one.” Rook stares some more. Then she wipes her foot across possibilities one and two, leaving three for anyone that comes after to find. “Right. Three it is.”
“Whoa, wait.” Rook stands fluidly, putting her close, but not quite, at eye height with the alien. “I’m a lieutenant of the Hierarchy. I need to return above ground, make contact. You know, the usual things. I didn’t sign up to go hunting some weird rot thing.”
Rook stares at him, examines his body language, the sheathed weapons. At this point, they’ve saved each others lives. At this point, she probably could use the backup. (At this point, her team might be dead.)
“Well, lieutenant, let me make one thing clear. Your people came and attacked us, completely unprovoked. You annihilated the homeland of my people, very likely dooming us to a slow extinction. And then, as if that isn’t bad enough, you’ve now gone and awoken our worse nightmare, the thing that has killed millions of us over centuries, including two wars that nearly destroyed the world in my lifetime alone. The one chance my people might have is if this piece of blight is connected to a titan we can kill. Titans live in the deepest parts of the planet. Since we’re already down here, we are going to find it, kill it, and hopefully stop this strand of the blight. You’re going to help me or so help me Maker I will kill you myself. Clear?”
He stares at her, mandibles tight and eyes blinking once, twice. He swallows. “You can call me Garrus.”
“Rook. Now let’s move.”
2660; Flux
Garrus jerks back with a muttered curse, already apologizing. “Sorry, sorry let me just—” He cuts off. His mandibles pull tight. Rook downs her drink in one shot, standing smoothly.
“Where’s the fire?”
“You don’t have to come.” Despite his words, Garrus starts shoving his way through the crowds, bullying a path for them. He stops at the coat check for his sidearm.
“You check your gun?”
Dryly, he says, “I was hoping for a normal date.”
“I think we’re allergic to normal.”
The gun is produced. Garrus checks it quickly, then steers them outside. Without pausing he puts on a burst of speed, leading them down some stairs, around a few corners.
“Clinic I know just triggered her emergency alarm. Has to do with my current case.”
There’s no more time to ask for details. Like all doors on the Citadel, this one is metal and automatic. Garrus crouches low; Rook throws a shield over both of them, Fen’av in one hand, Stormcharger lifting from the other. Neither have armor.
“Mark.”
“Breach.”
The door slides open on Garrus’s word. War-honed skills break down the situation in the split second she has. There’s several armed and armored thugs, holding onto a small terran doctor. Garrus puts a bullet in that ones head, letting the doctor drop and hide. Rook shoots a wide arc of ice at the rest. It pushes them back, allowing her to move in.
A fade-step brings her directly in front of Doc; Fen’av gets buried in the closest enemy’s neck. With their technology, the rest of them break from the ice easily. Bullets start flying. Rook throws another shield over Garrus, then drops as an ice wall rises between her and the rest of the room.
The doctor is a lovely little woman, eyes impossibly wide. There’s a bruise forming on her arm where the thugs gripped her too hard.
“Hey Doc. Sorry for the delay.”
“Wh-who are you?”
“I’m with Garrus.”
A bullet shatters the ice wall. Rook responds reasonably with a bolt of lightning. Down side of all this fancy tech: lightning fries the internal wiring. Her target drops like a sack of potatoes.
Three more terrans burst in, guns firing rapidly. The remaining thugs drop in seconds.
“Well, that was easy.” Smoothly, Rook helps the doctor up, then bats her lashes at Garrus, just because she can. “You never take me anywhere fun, tesoro.”
“I’ll plan a drug raid next time,” he answers with all sincerity. Then, he turns to the new collection of terrans. “Commander Shepard. I wasn’t expecting you.”
Commander Shepard is a tall woman with burning hair and the greenest eyes Rook has ever seen. She also carries more weapons than seems possible. Behind her, the man and woman that followed her in are more reasonably armed; the woman has a sneer caught across her face when she looks at Rook.
“Officer Garrus Vakarian? I came looking for you.” Shepard’s attention flicks to Rook, lingering on the outfit, the floating orb, the glowing blue knife. “Though I’ve heard enough about Anorans I won’t say no to your help either.”
Rook considers Garrus first. He knows this woman, by reputation at least. His mandibles are tight, his head tilted just slightly down, fingers flexing at his side; all signals for turian hostility. Considering the grudge held by terrans against turians (understandable) it’s odd for something to bring them together. It’s especially odd when terrans are even less trusted by the galactic community than Anorans.
Any playfulness falls from Rook like shedding feathers. Straightening, she holsters her weapons and gives Shepard her full attention. In turn, the commander blinks, eyes sharpening as she regards the shift in the air.
“I’m listening.”
9:57; Deep Roads
The Deep Roads suck. Rook could probably wax poetically about how much, purple prose creating lurid descriptions of the living hellscape, but nothing is so honest as the truth: they fucking suck.
Garrus follows her pace easily, looking around with obvious curiosity. Rook tries her best to mentally orient herself towards any of the thaigs she knows are in this area. It’s easier said than done.
“So why are we looking for a thaig?”
Rook scrapes a bit of dust from a sign, trying to will herself to understand ancient dwarven. It doesn’t help. “Two reasons: firstly, thaigs were central hubs in the Deep Roads, meaning we’re more likely to find a new path downward in one. Secondly, the Legion of the Dead use them as bases during Blights and other outings hunting darkspawn. If there’s any chance of us finding usable supplies, it’s there.”
“Setting aside my disturbance at something named ‘Legion of the Dead’, explain again why we aren’t going up to freedom again? With less yelling this time.”
Rook heads left at the crossroads. She takes a small sip of water and keeps her ears out for any underground springs. “Do you want the short answer or the long one?”
“Long one.”
Rook pauses, turning to him with narrowed eyes. “It’s technical magic bullshit.”
She doesn’t think turians shrug, but he does this hand flick that seems to mean the same thing. “I’ll probably have a better chance understanding with more context.”
Accepting the point, Rook restarts their march, marshalling her thoughts. Unbidden, she thinks of Emmrich’s smooth voice as he explains a particularly tricky bit of magic. “Before any of the living species existed here, the titans lived. Think of them… think of them as the living cores of the planet. And I don’t mean that metaphorically; they are literally thinking beings connected to the very crust of the planet.”
Garrus makes a small disbelieving sound. Rook doesn’t blame him.
“As you can imagine, titans do very little moving around. Maybe they did eons ago—who knows. What we do know is that at some point they went to sleep, started dreaming. I have a personal theory their dreams are what created spirits in the first place, but I have no proof of that. In their dreams, their created the dwarves as a sort of homunculi. Except than the elves showed up. To skip over the bits that aren’t pertinent, the elves and dwarves went to war. Elves were losing, and badly at that. And then…”
Rook has to swallow, thinking again of that vision of Harding, possessed by the angry spirit of the titan. The last bit of consciousness.
“The elves couldn’t kill the titans, but the titans controlled the dwarves through dreams. So they cut away their ability to dream.” Rook shutters. Tranquility is not a cruelty she’d wish on anyone. “It drove them mad. The dwarves were easily pushed back, but the dreams of the titans were corrupted. Pure magical force, turned inward, destroying itself and all that it touched. Two of the Evanuris managed to trap it in a corner of the Fade. A few thousand years later, a few idiot mages released it and since…” Rook gives a vague wave, as if that in anyway could encapsulate the destruction and misery that the Blights have brought.
For several long minutes, their walk returns to silence. Rook doesn’t fill it with all the details she’s privy too: how the elves came to be, the rise and fall of Arlathan, the terrible way mages were treated in the aftermath. For all that the Sixth Blight lasted eight months, Rook feels like she aged a hundred years in that time. Surely she counts as a wise elder now?
Eventually, Garrus says, “I don’t know why dreaming would matter so much but isn’t there a way to reverse it? To make the titans dream again? Assuming that doesn’t kick up another war.”
Rook trips over her own feet, catching herself on the wall. Curing Tranquility… Is it possible? It essentially severed the soul from the fade, but if a new tether could be created then maybe…
“Maker help me.” Rook shakes her head straightening up. “I—maybe. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to cure Tranquility.” Pursing her lips, she pushes out, “Thank you.”
Garrus drags his hands over the weird crest at the top of his head. “Well. My people are sort of slaughtering yours for no reason so. Consider it an apology.”
“Help me cure the blight and I’ll forgive you.”
2660; Presidium
Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, temporary Ambassador to the Citadel stares down Rook. Then she examines Rook’s companions. Rook again. The companions. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, she throws her hands up.
“Andraste save me, you couldn’t have waited for the Inquisitor to show up?!”
“In my defense,” Rook says, despite those words never working once. “They approached me. It’s not like I went looking for a new contract.”
Hawke holds up an imposing finger. Rook doesn’t believe the stories that Hawke took down the Arishok with one hand, but she does believe that Hawke could probably flatten her. “Don’t remind me, de Riva. I just wanted a few templars, maybe an enchanter.”
This does offend Rook a little bit. “Hey! You know I’m better than a full squad combined.”
“But you’re a trouble magnet.”
“You’re the last one that can say that!”
Hawke pauses, then nods the point. “Touche. Perhaps this combo was doomed from the start.” Hawke pinches her nose, visibly gaining hold of her temper. “Commander… Shepard, was it? Please detail exactly what you’re looking for here.” Before I kill Rook goes unsaid. Rook is doubly offended. For once, this literally isn’t her fault.
(Honestly, it usually isn’t. Usually.)
Shepard snaps her feet together to stand at attention, her two marines mirroring the movement. Garrus, Tali, and Wrex are already busy loading their shit onto the Normandy. “Ma’am. Commander Jane Shepard of the Systems Alliance; Specter. I’ve been tasked with the apprehension of Saren Arterius and given freedom to outfit my ground squad as I deem fit. Rook proved herself a capable combatant, and moreover, will be an unknown for Saren. I’m requesting you release her from her current duties so she might be contracted to my crew, ma’am.”
Hawke mouths ma’am to herself, then looks to Rook for an explanation.
“Just… assume everyone around here operates with Orlesian levels of formality.”
Hawke, being a born and raised Fereldan, gave that comment the disgust due. Then she turned to Shepard again. “Right. Just call me Hawke. I don’t have any titles, and am literally just a stop gap in this position. The Inquisitor is finalizing things for her shift here, at which point I will return to solid ground, where I belong.”
“When is she expected?”
Hawke shrugs. “Considering the amount of assholes she deals with on a daily basis? A month, maybe.” Shepard makes a face at this, and Hawke nods. “Yes, I understand how that doesn’t work for you.” Her eyes slide to Rook. “You seriously want this?”
“Garrus is going.”
For just a moment, Rook catches sight of the soft grief in Hawke’s eyes. She, of all people, know what it’s like to separate from a lover. She had lost Varric, after all.
“I cannot tell the Inquisitor you took off for a booty call.”
“Well, if we want to get technical—”
“As we’re well known for.”
“—then technically I am present as a favor for the Inquisitor. Technically I’m not part of the Inquisition, nor am I a Marcher, thereby removing me from either of your power. Technically I’m still a Crow of House de Riva.”
Hawke throws back her head with a long groan. “Fucking Crows. Wasn’t Aranai going to kill you all?”
“He settled on being a Talon.”
Still staring at the ceiling Hawke says, “The Veilguard?”
It’s a last ditch effort for Rook not to leave Hawke dealing with politicians on her own, and they both know it. Nonetheless, Rook answers fully. “Split up and dealing with various tasks that I don’t ever actually oversee. Everyone keeps forgetting we were a militia group and not an actual organization.”
Hawke mutters a fresh curse at this. Finally, she straightens up, donning some level of respectability as she looks to Shepard. “Commander, am I to understand that you are requesting Rook de Riva for a completion of a Crow contract?”
To her credit, Shepard doesn’t hesitate or ask questions. “Yes, Ambassador.”
Hawke grimaces. “Since I don’t particularly want to die, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. Just try not to start a diplomatic incident, alright?”
“Sure.” Rook grins. “How hard can that be?”
9:57; Thaig
It take far too long, but they do eventually stumble across a clearly used road, and from there a thaig. There’s several emergency kits stashed about, so Rook can only assume this is some sort of League of the Dead barricade point. Scribbling a note, she shamelessly steals all the rations she and Garrus can carry. There’s a nearby river they stocked up at, so it looks like they might even avoid dying slowly.
Garrus is using the strange orange thing to scan everything she hands him, head tilting more with every piece.
“Everything here is dual-chiralic.”
“Yeah, I have no idea what that means.”
“There’s dextro or levo based life forms, food included. A dextro species like turians need dextro food. Dual-chiralic means it holds both and should be safe for me.” He does what she thinks is his version of a frown. “This must mean all your people are dual-chirality.”
All Rook gets from this is that Garrus can eat the same food as her. She counts that as a win.
Having walked for far too long after barely surviving a battlefield, they use what’s around to make camp. No bedrolls, of course, because that would be too easy. The League probably doesn’t expect any of them to ever live long enough to sleep.
Rook is too tired to care about her audience, so she goes ahead and removes her horns for the evening. She’ll be sleeping on hard rock, she might as well enjoy the benefit of laying comfortably. Garrus doesn’t ask, but she can feel his eyes on her as she finally lets herself rest.
In the way of things, Rook doesn’t wake up ten hours later, comfortable in Rialto with breakfast in bed. Instead, the sharp whistle of an arrow is the only warning she has to wake up and roll. There’s a smell in the air, rot and decay and mold. It’s a terrible combination and one she knows well.
She kicks Garrus awake. Like Rook, he slept in his armor. She’s glad for it now. “Darkspawn! Get cover.”
Whatever else he is, Garrus is a soldier; he’s up, weapon in hand, within a second, throwing himself behind cover. It’s a small group of darkspawn, easily dealt with. Rook is rather fascinated to see turians’ strange weapons working for her instead of against.
She whistles at his last shot: a lone dwarf, a good hundred yards away and running further in. A single press of the trigger, and Garrus drops him. “I can name half a dozen assassins that would kill for that thing.”
Garrus stands, the weapon folding in on itself. “We’ve noticed you don’t use guns.”
“Don’t have any. All of them that powerful?”
“Nah, there’s different types.” He eyes her for a moment, then offers, “I can tell you about it, if you’d like.”
Yes, Rook would like that.
2660; Normandy Dock
Rook is far too used to carrying very little, so packing up is mostly an ordeal of collecting the various knives hidden around her quarters. Even Ashley seems grudgingly impressed by the number. They make their way towards the Normandy quickly after that. Time is apparently of the essence.
(Isn’t it always?)
“So, Captain—”
“Please don’t call me that,” Rook begs. “It’s a curtesy title from Orlais and the Imperium. I just go by Rook, these days.”
Kaiden hesitates, then agrees. “Rook. What did the Ambassador mean, about the crow contract? Is it a type of special op?”
Rook doesn’t bother to muffle her laughter. “Oh, I’m telling Viago. The Talons will love calling it that.” It takes her a minute to gain control. “Sorry, sorry. No. Crows are a guild from Antiva. We never fail a contract, it’s our only code. Anyone with brains knows not to interfere.”
Ashley has the balls to ask, “What kind of guild?”
“Hm? Oh, the Antivan Crows are assassins. The best in Thedas, actually.”
Even Shepard looks a little shocked at that.
9:57; Deep Roads
Terribly, Garrus turns out to be interesting. Rook has always known that the people she kills are people, thoughts, feelings and pasts included. She’s never cared. She still doesn’t, really. Turians hurting Thedas still need to die.
Garrus, however, is here and present and fighting at her side. Rook has always grown attached to things quickly (Viago called her Magpie until she chose a name) and this is no different.
“But if there’s that many species, why isn’t the Council bigger?”
Garrus does the finger-flick-shrug, sliding down a tricky bit of rock to get to the next level. “Asari and salarians founded it, they have control. Turians only joined after putting down the Krogan Rebellions.”
“Well, that’s just bullshit. Fucking hate politicians.”
A hand catches her as Rook slides down, then quickly lets go. She’s still close enough to hear the vibrations in his voice; this one is amusement, she thinks. “I’m not surprised.”
They continue walking, signs of movement growing more frequent. The fact that they’re this deep means it must be darkspawn. Dwarves rarely venture in these places.
Garrus hums in that pointed way of his, watching her. Turians, she’s learned, don’t communicate with contact and body language in the same way Thedasians do.
“Yeah, yeah, my turn, I know. We’ve covered the species here, what do you want to know next?”
Considering for a moment, he says, “What’s your home like?”
What a lovely, painful, cruel question. Rook considers how best to answer. Her homeland is ash and bone thanks to his people; everything she remembers of it is horrible. Her nightmares are still haunted by saarebas. The Lighthouse is the first thing to come to mind, but she doesn’t actually spend much time there. It’s a safehouse, a (ha) place of safety in a storm, but not where she lives. Not where anyone lives anymore.
“I guess… Antiva is home. Rialto, specifically. It’s set on a cliff, and House de Riva has our headquarters there. When Viago took me in, he threw me into the training ring my first day and demanded to know if I had the will to live.” Rook grins at the memory. “I flattened three other fledglings before he offered me a meal. I spent the next four years training, trying to break into his office just to prove I could. He’d micro-dose me with whatever poison he had on hand each time I got caught. I probably know that place better than anyone.”
“He sounds… intense.”
“I went from a slave to an assassin,” Rook says drily. “Viago gave me freedom, and for that I will always be grateful.”
A beat, then very quietly, “Slave?”
Too late Rook realizes what she said. To anyone who knows anything of Par Vollen, who cares to examine her face for the scars around her lips, it would be obvious what she used to be. To an outsider, with no knowledge of Thedas… She supposes she deserves the question.
“Your turn,” she says instead of answering. “What’s your family like? Are they military?”
Reluctantly, he allows the change. “Everyone is in the military. There’s a three year mandatory serving period. Most stay in it though. My dad—Castis—he got all the way up to Colonel before he decided to move to C-Sec. He’s a detective now. Mom—Keena—worked in Intelligence. She retired when she got pregnant with me. Then there’s Solana. She’s in her last year of basic right now. Wants to be a medical researcher.”
Rook tries to imagine what a normal family looks like and can’t fathom it. Viago and Taash and the others are as close to a family she’s ever had.
“I wonder what it’s like… to grow up in peace.”
Garrus pulls her to a stop, mandibles twitching. “Even if you don’t grow up in it, you’ll know peace. Soon as we kill this planet.” (His hand is terribly warm.)
“It’s not the planet,” Rook sighs to hide her fluster. “Just a piece of it.”
Standing this close, she can feel the vibrations of his laughter. It’s a very pleasant feeling.
2660; Normandy
Rook pauses in the nose of the ship. It’s a tight fit, considering all the do-dads and the pilot himself. The stress of it pushes at her edges, so she moves on. Kaiden gives her the tour, pointing out areas of interest, the bunks (which she absolutely won’t fit in), the mess (how she misses Lucanis), and the hold (the only place that doesn’t make her want to die).
That last has Garrus, so she thanks Kaiden for the tour, then heads directly for him. He’s edging closer and closer to a massive vehicle so she’s fairly certain she has about three seconds before he gets caught up in techno-babble and she loses him for the night. With a deft movement, she leans against the vehicle right in front of him, just before he can reach out and touch.
Garrus has the grace to look sheepish.
“Ah. I was only going to be a second?”
Benevolently, Rook doesn’t laugh in his face for that blatant lie. Instead, she leans carefully against him, hands spread across his shoulders. It takes only a little bit of lifting on her toes to reach where his hearing canal is.
“I saw you put your things in the life support room. I’ll give you until dinner to play with your new toys. After, I expect you to make up for lost time.”
Subvocals buzzing, Garrus tries to steal a kiss; swift as a snake, Rook twists her way out of his grip, darting towards Wrex.
9:57; Underground?
“Oh fuck no,” Rook snaps, backing away from Garrus.
“Rook. You said we need to go deeper down. Scans show this will open up in a hundred yards or so.”
Rook eyes the so called path Garrus has pointed out. It’s little more than a crack in the wall, barely wide enough for the two of them to edge through sideways. They’ve reached a point in the Deep Roads where there’s less ‘roads’ and more just ‘deep’. Garrus’s weird little scanner thing has proven itself helpful in identifying possible pathways.
Even so, Rook is unwilling to proceed. Just looking at the crevice is making her skin crawl. Objectively, she’s known they were trapped, earth and rock locking them in. She’s done a very good job of ignoring that so far. But this? This is making her careful strategy of not thinking crumble.
Garrus looks to her pursed lips. Her vitaar has long since ashed away, and she has so little left she hasn’t bothered re-applying it until they find the titan. It makes her feel naked, the scars around her lips visible. Garrus hasn’t asked, but she knows he wonders.
“Rook.” He sounds unbearably soft. Rook thinks about punching him in the face to make herself feel better. “It’ll open up.”
He sounds so fucking sure.
“I hate you.”
She doesn’t really, which makes this worse somehow. Time is impossible to measure in the Deep Roads, except for the fact that his stupid orange thing keeps time so she knows they’ve been stuck traveling for ten days. Ten days isn’t long enough for her to forget what his people have done, but it is long enough for her to get attached, to stupidly think of him as a friend.
This whole situation is fucking stupid.
Unscrewing her horns and tucking them in her bag, Rook edges slowly into the path. Immediately breathing becomes harder. Stone presses against her on all sides, the darkness impossible to penetrate with Garrus and his light behind her. He follows, armor scratching loudly. The downward incline makes stepping dangerous, her face getting cut terrible.
(She thinks of another tight room, chains holding her down. A needle, going in and out, in and out. Katari doesn’t remember her Tama, but she remembers crying for her that day.)
“Talk,” Rook demands. Her voice is too thin, too high. (Too much like a child.)
“Did I ever tell you about my first deployment? I got stuck in a varren den.”
Garrus babbles behind her, hand hooking through her finger and keeping them close together. She focuses on his voice, on the cadence of his breathing, instead of her memories.
(She couldn’t scream as they cut off her horns, her mouth bleeding from the thread—)
Too long are they edging through that tunnel, breathing shallow as they squeezed onward. Garrus keeps talking though, never once stopping. Rook is stupidly glad for it.
Finally, days and days later, Rook’s forward hand meets air and she stumbles with the sudden space. The pocket they’ve found is barely the size of a water closet but it feels luxurious compared to the last however-long. Garrus comes out a moment later, watching her. Rook is bent over, heaving in huge breathes. There’s no airflow this deep underground, but she still feels like she can breathe for the first time.
When she’s under control again, she examines the cave. Another path, at least wide enough for them to walk single-file, leads further down. It’s easy to see due to the heavy veins of lyrium wrapping through the stone. When Rook peaks down the new path, she can make out the far off glint of red light.
“We’re close now,” she says. “Red lyrium further in. That means blight.”
Garrus shakes his head. “So much eezo. But your mages are different to biotics. I wonder why.”
“I’ll be sure to ask the researchers when this war is over.”
Garrus smirks briefly before refocusing. “Should we take this chance to rest?”
Yes, probably. Yet their current location is so small that there isn’t enough room for them both to lay down. In the end though, being prepared for anything coming takes precedence over comfort.
Garrus removes the upper part of his armor, making him only slightly more comfortable to lean against. Their legs are too long to stretch out, so they end up tangled and curled together. Rook casts a lightning rune a little down the tunnel to alert if anything comes. Pressed tightly together, dirty and exhausted, is less awkward than it probably should be.
Garrus, Rook notices, smells like metal and heat. It reminds her of Viago a little, and that is just comforting enough that she starts to drop off. She reaches that half-place in and out of the Fade before Garrus speaks.
“Is it because of your time as a slave?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
It’s a yes and Garrus knows it. His rumbling shifts to a lower register, like the purr of a great wild-cat. This is also more comforting than it should be and Rook is starting to resent how much she likes Garrus. Somehow, that doesn’t stop her from whispering, “All mages in Qunandar are slaves.”
His purring gets louder.
2660; Normandy
Dinner is a strange affair. At the Lighthouse, the Veilguard would all pile in when Lucanis and Harding declared dinner ready. On Normandy, everyone keeps different hours due to rotating stations. Meaning, everyone sort of came in and ate as they had time. That first night, there is a brief moment when the ground squad, Shepard withstanding, ends up together at the table.
Tali, food having been consumed (somehow?), clears her throat. “Um. Rook…?”
“Yes?”
“Is it… I mean, I heard.” She doesn’t finish.
Wrex cuts in, snorting loudly. “The kid wants to know if you were really an assassin.”
“Oh. No.” Everyone relaxes, faintly. “I still am. Being a Crow is for life.”
Tali squeaks. While the two human squadmates seem fairly disturbed, Wrex nods approvingly. “How’d you end up in a guild like that?”
“Viago—he’s my Talon, the head of House de Riva—he found me when I was… a teenager, I guess? Took me in, put me with the rest of the fledglings. Been one since.”
Tali says, “You don’t know how old you were?”
“Qunandar—er, the country my people originate from. We didn’t track ages or birthdays. You grew up with the other imekari of your tamassran until she assigned you your role. Age has nothing to do with it.”
Kaiden clears his throat. “The… tamass?”
“Tamassran.”
“Right. Does that mean mother?”
Rook knows her face goes through a complicated series of emotions, but can’t stop it. Mother is such a bizarre term to her. She knows objectively what other people mean when they use it, but qunlat doesn’t have words for mother or father—simply one word that more accurately means ‘the ones that sired me’. Even all these years outside of Qunandar, the idea to hold the people who created you such reverence still feels strange.
“No,” Rook says slowly, shooting a pleading look at Garrus. He does his turian shrug, as if to say he’s staying out of it. “Qunari don’t view parents as other species do. A tamassran orders two qunari to breed, and when the baby is born takes it. They’re more like priestesses?”
Ashley looks vaguely horrified. “They just… take children? From their parents?”
“Well, yeah. The Qun says everyone has a role to play in society. A tamassran’s role is to raise children until she can figure out what their role should be.”
“But what about your siblings? Aunts, uncles? Grandparents?”
Rook blinks at Ashley. “We don’t have those.”
This is apparently more horrifying than being an assassin. Ashley storms away.
“Sorry,” Kaiden says, standing as well. “Family is a big deal for her.” Much slower, he follows his teammate.
Wrex cackles. “I think I like your people. Think we can swing by this Qunandar?”
Rook’s face goes immediately stony. “No.”
An awkward silence descends. In the middle of it, Garrus clicks his teeth, the turian equivalent of clearing their throat. “We, uh. Turians destroyed Qunandar during the 314 Incident.”
Tali makes a noise of understanding. Rook supposes she of all people would understand something like that. “So how’d you end of an assassin then? Did your tamassran put you there?”
The thought of a tama handing over a saarebas to the Crows is funny enough to make Rook cackle. “No, no. I went AWAL while deployed in Antiva. That’s when Viago took me in.”
For some strange reason, this doesn’t appear to clear up Tali’s confusion. Rook almost feels bad for her: if this is tripping her up, hearing anything about Rook’s later life is likely to make her brain explode.
9:57; Underground
Waking up against Garrus is somehow worse than falling asleep against him. For someone made of metal and bone, he’s very comfortable. Rook makes a point to ignore this as she puts her horns back in and gets ready for the march ahead. She also ignores the way Garrus has become more likely to touch. Small things; catching her elbow, a quick press to her back, hand brushing against her waist. It’s a marked difference from the first days together.
Red lyrium greets them quick enough to make all other thoughts disappear.
Deeper and deeper they go, blue quickly overtaken by red. The tunnel gets wider just as Rook catches the unmissable scent of blight. She holds an arm out and Garrus stops pressed against her back.
“Blight,” she whispers. “Which means darkspawn, probably. And the titan, hopefully.”
He breathes out, chin hooking over her shoulder so they can more easily speak. It makes his mandible brush against her cheek with every word. She shivers.
“You have a way to fix the titan?”
“An idea. But the titan has to be dormant for it to work.”
“So we got to fight the planet first. Great.”
“Part of the planet, Garrus.”
“Sure, sure. Don’t suppose your team is likely to show?”
Rook grimaces. She hopes the Veilguard knows her well enough to guess her plan, and she has no doubt they’ll come for her (they always come for her), but have they found the titan? Have they magically happened to time things perfectly?
Her luck is never that good.
“Let’s assume no.”
Garrus rumbles, a little higher and more uneven than usual. Worry, she thinks it means. She lets herself lean against him, just for a second. He presses their temples together.
The moment is over as soon as it begins. They have a planet to heal.
After they beat it into submission.
2660; Normandy
Hunting Saren is a special kind of shitshow. On her bad days, Rook is inclined to compare it to the Sixth Blight and hunting the Evanuris. Just another asshole working with powers he doesn’t understand. Oh, Rook has no problem believing the myths about the Reapers (it seems like something that might as well happen), nor is she surprised someone is actually siding with them.
She just wishes that at some point peace could exist for longer than a handful of years.
9:57; Titan’s Heart
Most of the darkspawn are dwarves. That doesn’t make it easy to fight their way through them, but far worse is the massive heart itself. It burns blight-red, the air around it vibrating with living malice. The ground and rocks fight with it, which are much harder for Garrus to shoot.
He manages it anyway.
At the end of it, shields and golems broken and discarded, darkspawn bodies littering the massive underground oasis they’re in, Rook feels like more bruise than person. Yet even so, she doesn’t hesitate. They can’t actually kill a titan, at least not in any real way, but they’ve weakened it, sent it into a pseudo dormant state that she might be able to take advantage of.
Fen’av burns in her hand, slick with her own blood. She pours magic into it, more and more until she’s dancing on the edge of mana-depletion.
Fen’av. Wolf’s Fang. Lyrium Dagger. The very thing that turned a titan into this. So many names for a small thing of terrible power. The power to touch the dream world. The Fade.
Katari de Riva stabs the titan’s heart with all the power and magic left in her.
Green washes over Rook, sharp and fast. In that way of the Fade, things slow down and stretch, time broken in dreams. Only snatches of things will stay with her in the coming years.
Flickers of spirits, demons. Reaching out, curious of this cut in the Veil. One, older or perhaps simply more solid, stepping in front of the others.
“Will you help me?” Rook asks.
“It is my honor,” the spirit of Wisdom replies.
The strange light of Wisdom slides forward, through the Fade, the cut, into and on and through the titan’s heart. Rook feels something severed being re-forged. A millennia old breath finally released.
In the distance, a giant, six-eyed wolf watches.
Time snaps back, light of blue and green slamming into Rook with all the force of a dragon. She goes flying back, ears ringing with the crackle and scream of the earth. Seconds and years later she blinks her eyes open to find Garrus, the weird alien she’s been stuck with for so long.
“—ook? Rook? Come on, don’t die now.”
“Did it work?”
Garrus keens in relief, helping Rook sit up. Above, the heart glows a perfect lyrium blue, washing through the veins of the earth slowly but inevitably. There’s a perfect blight-free circle around them.
Rook just cured the blight. She cured the blight.
With a hysterical laugh, she throws herself at Garrus, wrapping around him as tightly as she can. For all his startled oomph he doesn’t hesitate to squeeze just as tightly.
“Oh, you beautiful fucking alien. I can’t believe—Garrus. You genius.”
“You’re the one that thought of it.”
“Only because you suggested it.”
His subs dip, low and smooth and so loud it shakes her whole body. When he nips her neck, teeth gentle pinpricks, she bares her throat. And when Garrus twists to lay her out beneath the glow of the cured titan, Rook reaches for him just as eagerly.
He tastes like victory.
2661; Citadel
The memorial doesn’t feel like enough. Rook stands besides Wrex and Tali and Joker and everyone else that served on Normandy (and still lives). Shepard’s body hasn’t been recovered, lost in the void. Though she has no expertise in space, Rook can’t help the guilt chewing at her. If she’d been on the ship, could she have saved her friend? If present, would she have gone down with her Commander?
Now, Rook will never know.
Garrus is a hard line next to Rook, standing at attention as the other military personnel do. He’s strangled his subs silent to hide the keening. Everything hurts today, made worse by how bright and beautiful the Citadel is. Shouldn’t there be rain right now? Shouldn’t the whole universe mourn the greatest warrior to save it?
Inquisitor Lavellan, like the human ambassador and three Councilors, says a few words. Like all the rest, Rook hears none of them. Not for the first time, her friend is dead.
Not for the last, Rook mourns.
9:57; Skyhold
Rook lingers in the shadow of Skyhold. The small shuttle across the bridge holds most of the attention of the guards. The envoy, with Rook’s help as translator, has negotiated peace with Thedas. The turians will pay reparations and personally help uplift Anoras (named so by the Inquisitor) for no cost. Garrus had kept his word and reported everything he learned from Rook; with his intelligence, the war stopped.
There’s half a dozen turians crossing the bridge, accompanied by the Inquisitor and her advisors. The last in the line lingers, eyes impossibly drawn to where Rook stands. They’re still so impossibly blue.
Garrus takes the chance, closing the distance between them in three long steps. The guards bristle, but Rook waves them down. The hands-width between them feels impossibly wide.
Garrus clicks his teeth. “Rook.” He stops, unable to continue. To put into words the three weeks they’d spent trapped together.
Rook nods. She won’t make him say it out loud. He’s terrible at that. “I know.”
He keens, the sound quickly strangled. “Your people will be able to travel now. See the galaxy.”
“When things are settled here. I might like a vacation.”
Mandibles twitching, the grin doesn’t quite catch. The rest of his party are almost at the shuttle. They’re out of time.
Darting forward, killer talons silk-soft, Garrus cups her cheeks to press their foreheads together. One heartbeat, two, and then he’s pulling back. The gesture feels heavier than Rook understands.
Back into the stars, Garrus disappears before she can find a way to ask.
2661; Citadel
“You’ve wanted to be a Specter forever.”
Garrus doesn’t answer immediately. Rook stands in the doorway to their room, staring at the bag half-filled on the bed. She’s just gotten back from meeting The Iron Bull. With Garrus acting so strange over the last week or so, she’s not really surprised to see the bag. Just hollow.
He jumps at her voice, keening with apology when he turns. “Not like this. Not with them destroying everything she worked for.”
Rook doesn’t argue. She wouldn’t call the news about Shepard a smear campaign, but it comes pretty close. Garrus and Rook, both so attached to the Commander, hate it deeply.
“Let me get my bag ready.”
“Rook—”
“Garrus.” Rook swallows once, twice. Then she steps forward and hooks what she’s holding around his neck. “You’ve left me before, kadan. You don’t get to do it again.”
He’s smart enough not to argue. Only holds onto the half dragon-tooth necklace.