i think about words a normal amount

Chapter 2 - Friction (Day 2 - Dreams | Nightmares)

After the Wigmaker job, Lucanis is affected by an old nightmare.

Chapter 3 - Finally (Day 3 - Crow | Snake)

Lucanis fights a waiting sea of Venatori, but cannot escape his fate.

Chapter 4 - Filthy (Day 4 - Weapon | Demon | Talon)

Lucanis tries to wash the Ossuary away.

Chapter 5 - Found (Day 5 - Blood | Water)

Lucanis grapples with how to fit into the team that rescued him.

Chapter 6 - Future (Day 6 - Past | Future)

Lucanis and Illario have a tentative talk a year after Illario's imprisonment.

Chapter 7 - Family (Day 7 - Free Day)

Lucanis unwinds with Rook in the Villa's grotto after a very long year.

Going to tag my tag list just this once this week. I know some of you have been following along (and thank you again 💜💜💜), but I also know the last week was overwhelming with the sheer influx of three simultaneous fandom events running. No pressure at all to interact, just tagging if anyone is interested now that it's all finished!

@notyourmamasdeerbat, @rosha84, @bigshrimp365, @genjyoandgojyoandhakkai, @vixenofcadmea, @gatesofminrathous, @ripzaraschips, @eiluned

“Afraid I’ll sink your ship?” she asked, wading towards where he approached on the limestone landing above her.

Lucanis couldn’t help but snort.

“Not after escaping such a thing twice. But then, I’m not the one that cannot swim,” he replied, coming to a halt where the ledge dropped over water. He rested his hand on the hilt of his rapier, watching her cautious approach with a smile slowly growing more radiant than the brazier he stood beside. “Keeping cool?”

“Trying to,” Rook complained. “How much longer do you think this heatwave will last?”

Lucanis shrugged. “More than a week is uncommon here. Soon, I’d hope.”

“Tired of sleeping in a room buzzing with magic?”

“I—” he began, but he lost his thread of thought at the sight of her body rising up out of the shallows, wearing not so much as a smudge of makeup. His eyes followed beads of water as they trailed from the wet strands of her wet hair over the swell of her breasts and down her stomach, terminating in the water surrounding her hips. All he could do was blink as if she’d struck him—the sight of her here, like this, quite possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“You were saying?” she chuckled.

With effort, he dragged his eyes back up to hers. “I’m happy to if it means you’re comfortable.”

“Sweet talker,” she grinned up at him.

Bending, Rook produced an icy bubble from somewhere near her feet, then stuck her hand through it, shattering the spell and grabbing the bottle of wine hidden within. Lifting it to her lips, she drank deeply, prompting him to sigh.

“Mi amor, have you been drinking and swimming?”

“I haven’t gone where I can’t reach the bottom,” she purred coyly, then held up the bottle in silent offering.

Crouching, he swiped it from her hand. When she folded her arms on the rock at his feet, resting her chin on wet forearms and staring up at him with such adoration, he couldn’t help but smirk again. “Still not a good idea,” he muttered.

The brilliance of her smile nearly blinded him. “You know what I think about that.”

“All too well,” he said, and drank from the bottle too. “At least you chose a good vintage.”

Turning, he placed it behind him, out of her reach. When she arched an eyebrow, he gave her an ingratiating grin Illario might have been proud of. “We’ll finish it later.”

“You’re no fun,” she pouted, so prettily he nearly caved, but she spared him, turning and wading back into the water. She dragged her arms behind her, fingertips fanning ripples out behind her like the train of a dress she might wear in the Magisterium. “Care to join me? The amount of velvet you’re wearing on a day like this is obscene.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

In an impressive display of unabashed haste, Lucanis stripped naked of the many layers and hidden weapons the pomp and circumstance of his office required, then vaulted off one hand into the waist-deep water below. Following in the wake she left, he slipped through the water like a shark intent on its prey, until he crashed into her and threw his arms around her hips, his momentum propelling them into turquoise waters.

Rook squealed, a noise he’d never heard slip from her lips. As she wound limbs around his shoulders and waist like the tentacles of an octopus trying to pull him down to its lair, he laughed in delight so loudly, the cave walls repeated it back to him.

“Relax. I have you,” he assured her, his amusement still rumbling in his chest as he splayed fingers across the small of her back, his strong legs more than able to keep the two of them afloat.

Though she nodded, she inched higher up his body. Lucanis seized the advantage, pressing his lips to the side of her throat, the taste of salt from skin and sea alike intoxicating him more effectively than the wine ever could. She tipped her head back at his mouth’s slow exploration, but she gulped rather than rewarded him with the contended sigh this usually elicited.

“You hate this, don’t you?” he asked, lifting his head to kiss her cheek.

“Can we go back to the shallows, please?” she whispered, her fingers grasping at the muscle beneath the tendrils of his wet hair hard enough to nearly make him wince.

“I have a better idea. Release me from the vise grip of your legs, loath as I am to say such a thing.” Rook didn’t move, just continued to gawk at him with eyes brimming with more trepidation than he’d ever seen in them, even when they fought gods. “I have you,” he reiterated. “The water does not go very deep here. I will not let you drown. I promise you.”

“You better,” she grumbled, but slowly unwound the legs she clung to him with.

Lucanis grinned, then rolled them gently onto their sides, the arm around her waist like iron, the other beginning a lazy side-stroke. “Kick your feet with mine and we’ll get there faster.”

Rook said nothing, her lips pressed too tightly together in a thin, white line, but she listened to his instruction again. Together, they worked their way across the wide grotto, until his hand bumped into the underwater ledge he’d sought.

Sliding both hands around her waist, hoisted her up on it to sit in water grazing the lower ribs that now sagged in relief at being on solid ground. The momentum of the lift pushed him underwater, and he exhaled all the air from his lungs, allowing his body to sink for a moment, his arms drifting up over his head, admiring the sight of her concerned face looming high above him through the water. A smile more gentle than the rippling tide overhead bloomed across his own.

Pushing off the sandy bottom, he broke the water’s surface silently, and reached out, holding her knees as they dangled over the ledge beneath the water. “Not so bad?”

“I wish you’d let me keep the wine,” she admitted on a shaky breath, making him chuckle and brace arms on either side of her legs.

Hoisting himself up, he pressed a soft kiss against her lips, relishing the spill of wine still lingering on them. “Better view here, though, right?”

“Definitely,” she murmured, taking her turn to watch water drip down the rigid arms he held himself on and everything but the scenery. “Will you sit with me?”

“In a moment,” he told her, slipping back into the water and gliding out into the grotto’s center. “Some of us do like the deeper water.”

The scuttling clacks of crab legs on more pebbled rock shelves near the crevasse had drawn Spite’s attention, and for a few blessed moments, Lucanis had the rare opportunity to be… just Lucanis. Muscles still coiled from his earlier talk with Illario melted in the cool water, beneath the loving gaze of the only person with the privilege of seeing the man beneath his many masks of Talon, demon, or weapon. The longer he drank in the way her slow smile lit up the moodier side of the grotto from her perch, the more warmth that had nothing to do with the heat of the day bled from his chest, down his limbs into the tips of his very toes and fingers.

He’d never known anything like it.

“What?” he asked, after another moment of her regard.

Beneath the clear water, she kicked her feet slowly, in time with his own keeping him aloft as if trying to figure out the mystery of flotation. “It’s just nice seeing you enjoy things you’re quite competent at.”

Lucanis snorted. “Does treading water count as competent?”

“Want to see what happens when I try?” she asked, arching an eyebrow, and he gave her a slow shake of the head, amused. She paused, tilting her head. “It surprises me you’re fine being in the water like that, given… you know…”

Rook gestured vaguely to where Spite watched crabs fighting over kelp with glee. He wondered how she knew he was there.

“The water did not ask to imprison me. Besides, demon or not, I still require it to live.”

“A surprisingly well-adjusted take.”

“Perhaps.” He could feel the rare moment of peaceful leisure with her already loosening his tongue. Though he doubted skinny dipping with a woman terrified of swimming was the appropriate place to ask her to marry him, perhaps he could practice Illario’s recommendation to speak from the heart. “I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days, you know.”

“Just the last few days?” Rook demurred, her lips tugging to the side in the way that had so effectively snared him.

“Fresh.” He splashed her for the insolence, and she squealed again. Beaming, his eyes widened as he drank her in. Maker, he still didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her. “I just… Now that things are less…” He sighed. Illario had not been wrong about words not being his strong suit, either. “I’ve been thinking back on times when things were not so easy. Water featured prominently in some of my darkest days.”

Rook said nothing, giving him the space to gather his thoughts and speak them. Her unending patience with him touched a smile to his lips as he eased onto his back and floated, looking up at the moons shining down on his patch of water though the hole in the ceiling, something tightly coiled around his heart—something he’d carried into and out of the Ossuary—easing its grip for the first time in years beneath the weight of those fathomless eyes of hers regarding him with such love.

“I thought it a fitting way to go, one I deserved. What better way to kill an assassin than one of the deadliest forces in Thedas? I grew reckless in my contracts, certainly. But most nights, I dreamed of waves. I longed for them,” he admitted to the moons. He stole a glance at her face. It was ashen in a way that reminded him of his first night in the Lighthouse.

“That’s a bleak way to want to go, Lucanis,” she said, and hated how her voice had lost its easy playfulness from just moments ago.

“It was,” he agreed. “It has always been my least favorite way to finish a contract. There is such a violence to it that blades cannot compete with. I meant it when I said I would not let you drown. I could not bear to watch such a thing.”

“But it’s acceptable for you?”

Lucanis closed his eyes—possessing no desire to think about that particular question—closely observing the way the water held his body aloft. He let slip a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Did you know the Venatori sank their ship as they dragged me to the bottom of the sea?”

“No,” Rook murmured, so quiet the gentle lapping of water against the walls nearly drowned it.

He nodded. “There must have been wards around the ship to allow it to travel underwater. But for a year now, I’ve wondered if Illario told Zara that water crashing down on me was my greatest fear. Or deepest desire, maybe.” Shrugging, he lifted his palms to the ceiling and the moons beyond, then realized he’d watched Illario do exactly the same not two hours ago. He lowered them back into the water. “What does it matter in the end? Nothing they tried killed me.”

A beat of silence heavier than the water holding him filled the room.

“Do you wish it had?”

Righting himself so he could tread water again, he opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze steady but intense. Rook didn’t flinch under it, and that same warmth blossomed throughout his body again.

“No. Not anymore.”

“What changed?”

Swimming the few strokes back to where she sat, he purloined her move, folding his arms over her thighs and gazing up at her as if the moon and stars he’d been looking at couldn’t possibly outshine her. “You taught me to not be alone. And I was, for so long, mi vida. Even with Illario at my side. Now… you’ve helped me see what living truly by living fully actually means.”

Rook’s eyes crinkled the way he liked best, and she smoothed her hands up his arms beneath the water, over his shoulders, until she cradled his face, brushing her thumbs over his cheekbones. For half a second, he regretted that the ring he’d bought for her lay in his discarded clothes on dry land, but he understood proposing after such a grim confession was nothing short of madness.

“I wish things hadn’t been so desolate for you, my love. But it’s good that you’re starting to say it aloud, and thank you for entrusting me with it.”

“You’re the only one I would allow to hear it.” He turned his head and kissed her palm.

“Not even Illario?”

“Especially not Illario.” Lucanis paused. “I saw him today.”

Rook’s eyebrows crept up to her hair. “Why?”

“It’s been nearly a year since we rescued Caterina,” he supplied, since telling her the main motive was not an option. It didn’t make it any less true. “Since we imprisoned him.”

“A year since you were made First Talon, too.” A hum was the only answer he could offer. “How did it go?”

Lucanis thought for a moment; he hadn’t sorted through it all in the short time since he’d left that spire.

“Strange. He seemed… remorseful? Wistful?” Lucanis sighed. “It’s always hard to tell what his true motives are. But…”

When he didn’t finish the thought, Rook stroked his wet hair back. “But what?”

It took another minute of slow, deliberate breathing before he could open his mouth again.

“Seeing him made me realize I miss him. Even after everything he put me through.” Lucanis closed his eyes for a moment, soaking in the scratch of her nails over his scalp. “Why does that feel harder to admit than wanting to drown in a wave? Have I finally lost my mind?”

“No, Lucanis,” she told him gently. “It’s because family is the most important thing to you.”

“I suppose, but you’re my family now,” he protested.

“But I will never possess the bond you two have from being forged in the same fire, and as a blacksmith’s daughter, I can tell you that is an incredibly hard thing to break. It can be bent, certainly. But even the most twisted blade can be reshaped.” If he hadn’t been in water to his neck, he would have buried his face in his arms. Instead, a lone tear trickled down his cheek. She caressed it away with her thumb. “Do you think you will return?”

He cleared his throat. “I told him I would. I think I meant it.”

“That’s a good start, Lucanis.”

“Perhaps.”

“Come sit with me,” she instructed gently, patting the rock ledge beside her.

Nodding as he released her legs, he hauled himself up on the ledge and sat beside her in the water at long last. Wordlessly, she pulled his head into the crook of her neck where he usually slept, her arm steady around his shoulders. They sat in a silence more precious to him than all the gemstones he could possibly buy her, watching the water sparkle beneath the moons.

“We used to sneak down here as children, you know,” he said, after some time, his voice dropping conspiratorially low even after all these years. “We’d race toy boats when we were younger. Race each other when we were older. It was the one place in the Villa that felt… alive, I suppose.”

“It does feel different than the rest,” she agreed.

“When Illario started bringing… friends… as we approached the end of our training, I stopped coming down here. It’s nice to be back. But it’s better with you here.”

Squeezing the arm she held him with, Rook nodded at the rocks where the crabs still divvied up their kelp. “Is Spite still distracted by them?”

When Lucanis peered over at them, Spite looked up at him, beaming with violet delight. “The little ones are WINNING!” the demon crowed, snapping and swiping his hands like pincers as his attention returned to the crustaceans. Lucanis laughed, running a hand over his face.

“I’d say so.”

Without further warning, Rook pounced on him, slinging a leg over his and straddling him with shocking speed for someone so afraid of the depths just behind her knees now. He locked his arms behind her, pulling her close as she settled onto his lap, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders.

“Would you like to take advantage of that, and maybe get even with teenaged Illario?”

“That’s a little spiteful,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips as she leaned in and brushed hers over them.

“You love it,” she murmured, so close now she filled his vision as she rose up over him, slipping a hand down his chest and beneath the water.

Lucanis looked up into the eyes he adored, their steely-blue depths so like the Nocen Sea from which she hailed, but filled with a warmth the waters he’d once been plunged into could never hope to possess. He tilted his chin up, ready for her to crash down and drown him in something far better for him than old nightmares of tidal waves.

“Maker help me, I do, sirena.”

When she kissed him in response, slow and sweet and steady, the taste of salt, and wine, and her enveloped him in an embrace even more comforting than her arms.