Dami81's Workbench

I’ve finished revising #11 (Hope) and updated it with today’s date. Over the past two weeks, I reread everything from #0 to #14 and made edits here and there. 

I’m still working on #13, but progress has been pretty slow, so it’s been a bit of a struggle. 

As for #15, I’ve already written it in my native language, and I suppose I’ll have to start translating it at some point.

"He’s apologizing for you?" Rook asked. "Strange days."

He shifted his attention pointedly to her, but Viago pressed on.

"On that, we would agree."

Teia planted the heel of her boot squarely on Viago’s instep. Without so much as a flinch, he added, "And perhaps more."

Rook wondered whether the Fifth Talon had started drinking this early. Or perhaps an overdose of his daily poison.

"You’ve disappointed me. I expected better."

Andrea lifted his head and looked at Viago. As he opened his mouth to speak, the next rebuke from Viago speared straight through him.

"You’re a Crow from House de Riva. But you still don’t understand what it means to bear that name. How many times have I told you to think before you act? What’s that head of yours for? Decoration?"

"I won’t cause another breach, sir." Andrea pushed the vow through the copper tang on his tongue. "Use me for the aftermath. Any punishment. Any assignment. Let me pay for what I’ve ruined."

Viago’s gloved fingers pressed harder against the desk.

"You cannot pay for this. Grasp the scale of the damage. Even if the other Talons demand your execution, I won’t be able to say a single word in your defense."

Then came the order of exile, as good as a death sentence.

"Pack your things and leave Treviso immediately. Act rashly again, and you will never set foot on this land."

Marco thrust an arm out, blocking Andrea as he lurched toward Viago, nearly catching him in the crook of his arm. "Control yourself," he whispered. Andrea tried to shove the arm aside, but Marco held firm.

"Please reconsider," Andrea begged. "Anything else. Whatever you require of me, I’ll do it. But not that. Please—"

"I told you to leave."

The next morning, Viago returned to his residence. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, but the air in the study still held the chill of dawn. He secured the front of his coat as he approached the desk. A document lay among the papers, one he did not remember seeing there. He picked it up and settled onto the sofa. After reading Andrea’s report through, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

Report in hand, he went to Andrea’s room. "Are you awake?" He knocked, but no answer came. When he was about to try again, the front door rattled below. He moved toward the stairs on silent steps.

From the second-floor landing, Viago watched Andrea climb the stone stairs. The younger man’s auburn hair and ecru tunic were sweat-damp, his chest working faster than usual. The cropped breeches molded to his legs, fair shins exposed beneath the hems.

Andrea noticed Viago and stopped halfway up the stairs.

"You’re back early."

"You’ve been busy this morning."

"I ran to the harbor. To warm up."

"The contract." Viago lifted the report. "Did you stab her through the heart to make certain?"

"I stabbed her through the heart first. Then I severed her vocal cords."

Viago met those pale green eyes, the report tucked under one arm. "I did not teach you that. Honesty without discretion can be its own kind of foolishness."

A bead of sweat fell from Andrea’s chin to the stone.

"I cannot lie to you."

Viago scowled. One corner of his mouth ticked.

"You don't understand what you’re saying."

"If punishment is called for, I will bear it without complaint."

"That will do. The terms of the contract were fulfilled to the letter. Rest."

"Yes, Fifth Talon."

Teia, talking with a Crow trainer beside the balance beam, spotted Andrea and walked over. Her fluffy black hair was swept back from her face, one pointed elven ear fully visible.

"I heard you were away on a contract. Glad you made it back safely."

The incident more than a week earlier appeared to have remained sealed between him and Viago. Diminishment and guilt shaded into one another. Andrea assumed the role that propriety allowed him.

"It’s been a while, Seventh Talon."

As he stepped out into the courtyard, she tapped him between the shoulder blades.

"Why so formal between us? Call me Teia."

He was aware of the fledglings within earshot, and of who she was—Andarateia Cantori, head of House Cantori and the Seventh Talon. Still, he did as she asked.

"Alright, Teia. They said dinner’s ready. I think we should start wrapping up."

"In a moment. But Andrea, you seem rather drawn. Has Viago been sending you out too often?"

"He held out past the point where most would have closed the matter. I owe him confirmation that he wasn’t wrong about me," Andrea murmured. "He is a Talon. I serve under his command."

Teia pinched Andrea’s cheek, amused.

"I could have been your Talon."

Andrea laughed under his breath and lowered his eyes. "Had you given the order, I would have served you."

Viago probed a fledgling’s arm and side, gauging the damage. "I-I’m fine," the boy stammered. Viago nodded, and Heir blew her whistle to signal the end of training. The fledglings lined up in front of Viago, saluted, and rushed off toward the bathroom. Andrea moved aside to let them pass. The fledglings greeted Teia politely, but cheerfully too. Teia ruffled a few heads of hair and patted their shoulders.

The two of them approached Viago. He was adjusting the cuff of his shirt. Andrea dipped his head.

"I’ve returned, sir."

"How did the contract go?"

"It was fulfilled to the letter."

Viago looked Andrea over. From his face to his upper body, down past his waist, and to the tips of his shoes. Then back up to his pale green eyes. He seemed to be checking for injuries, for any sign his Crow had been in a fight. Under that long-denied attention, Andrea straightened his back. His heart fluttered, and he blurted out some needless bravado.

"I pulled it off cleanly this time. The mansion’s security was sloppy. The target died without ever realizing what was happening."

Viago corrected him with chilly restraint.

"Next time it won't be that clean. Don't get sloppy. See that you don’t embarrass House de Riva."

Teia shushed him, placing a finger on Viago’s lips.

"Be nice, Vi."

Viago grunted and angled his head fractionally. Teia neatly tucked back a few strands that had fallen across his forehead. At the familiar sight, Andrea’s mouth curved faintly.

"Report the rest at the residence. Have dinner here before you go," Viago said.

Andrea wandered the northern lands of Thedas with Varric and Harding, following in Solas’s wake. When he had shaken off some of the glassy unreality, suspicion about the organization’s additional measures stole over him, then soon dissolved. There wasn’t any sudden assault by assassins. He was never taken in chains to Velabanchel, the infamous prison, for torturers to strip his sanity from him. His previous actions had not been betrayal, but from another perspective, could they not be interpreted as such? Perhaps. It hardly mattered. His life went on. Mapping out a future still proved beyond him, so he tried to hold on to the immediate task and his companions.

Somewhere between battles, campfires, and the occasional ridiculous little mishap, Varric gave him a nickname: Rook, after the chess piece. Andrea liked it and began calling himself by that name.

As a mercenary, Rook wasn’t picky about the jobs he accepted: petty errands, odd alchemical work, searches for missing people, stolen-goods retrieval, merchant escorts, bandit hunts. Often enough, even assassinations. Without a feared name to raise his price, the pay was nearly insulting, and he didn’t care. His slight frame often led clients to underestimate him at first, but once they saw what he could do, they changed their minds. Some of them offered extravagant terms, hoping to bind him to exclusive service. Rook refused them all.

In the meantime, other names gathered around him. Ghost. Lynx. Needle. People called him whatever suited them, but the meaning was usually the same: something impossible to catch, swift in motion, and deadly when it struck its mark.

"You a Crow?"

Rook scowled.

After that, he tried to scrub the Antivan lilt from his voice. He grew fluent in the common tongue and in Tevene as well, but when exhaustion wore him down or anger got the better of him, the old cadence always slipped back in. Of course it did. Aside from a year and a half of training in Salle during his late teens, he had spent his whole life in Treviso. Before his exile, he had never crossed Antiva’s borders.

Even so, the world had widened. For the first time in his life, Rook felt boundless freedom. The feeling both quickened him and urged him past restraint. In the end, he plunged into a life of debauchery.

Most of his earnings vanished into revelry. Varric and Harding worried, but whenever the schedule allowed, he made for a tavern. He drank himself into a stupor until morning arrived like a jump cut. Strangers—sometimes men—caressed his shoulders and neck. The scent of their bodies was intoxicating, close enough to drown out thought. Amid laughter, touch, and whispered promises, pieces of himself scattered into the noise.

His once neatly trimmed hair had grown long, now reaching his shoulders. The layered cut accentuated the androgyny of his features. When a woman in a tavern teasingly smudged a thick streak of kohl along his lash line, it became more than mere play. After that night, he stood before the mirror each morning, painting the shadow back on.

-

Half a year after he was driven from Treviso, a mysterious letter had been left beside his pillow in the night. When he broke the seal and unfolded it, Rook recognized the familiar handwriting.  

Varric had previously mentioned that he’d known the Fifth Talon for years. He’d eventually acknowledged, too, that he had asked the Fifth Talon for permission to recruit a troublesome Crow. Rook had beaten down what that implied. But here it was, condensing into a question: was Varric still in contact with him?

Unease stabbed into Rook’s gut. He tried to throw the letter into the fireplace. But his fingers froze. Shuddering at the memory of that last cold stare, Rook read on.

Idiot: I hope you're reading this. If the trail really has led you to Tevinter, it'll be harder to get messages through. The Antaam in Antiva are prickly about anything to do with our neighboring kingdom. Back home, things have cooled, but they are not forgotten. Killing all those Antaam may have felt righteous in the moment, but the Talons are still complaining that your actions ruined weeks of setting up a larger, more effective strike. I am one of those Talons still complaining. Consider this trip with Varric a contract. Crows don't fail contracts, especially Crows from House de Riva who may need to improve their judgment. But there is more at stake than honor. Whatever this Solas is up to needs to be stopped. I've seen enough of his handiwork to know that. Don't get careless out there. Don't fail, and don't get yourself killed, or I will come after you in the Fade myself. Viago

Rook's vision blurred. He shot to his feet and paced the room, back and forth, all nerves and agitation. At some point, he found himself standing in front of the fireplace again. The flames licked at the edges of the letter. He glared at it.

Each step down the stairs felt heavier than the last. On the first floor, Andrea scanned the hall for Viago. Near a half-lit pillar along the side of the hall, a noblewoman in a porcelain fox mask had positioned herself beside Viago, her lacquered fan playing against his sleeve a shade too deliberately. Viago trapped the fan between his gloved fingers and angled it away. His gaze shifted to the hall and landed on Andrea. He crossed directly toward him.

"There you are." He adjusted the white mask where it sat askew, as though Andrea had only kept him waiting at a dance. A snarl lurked beneath the fondness in his voice. "You took your time. I almost thought you’d lost your way and I’d have to collect you myself."

Viago placed a bracing hand at the small of Andrea’s back, ushering him toward the entrance. But he checked his stride when the younger man nearly buckled.

"It was… instructive," Andrea said. "I went a little farther than I meant to. It’s starting to catch up with me."

"In that case, we had better make our exit. Do you need support?"

Andrea shook his head. Viago put an arm around his shoulders regardless. The scent of orris tempered the sickly reek. Andrea dipped toward Viago for a heartbeat, then righted himself. "Thank you, sir," he murmured. They walked out of the mansion together.

I really couldn’t be bothered to revise #4, but after rereading it, I realized it was kind of a mess… so I ended up fixing it after all. I added some dialogue and setting details to strengthen it a bit.