lethendralis
This (Spite/Fenris) is your fault, @auphaniim.
Now get in the mines.
“Want. The big. Sword.”
Lucanis sighs; he can already feel the headache developing. “You cannot have the sword,” he says. “We use daggers, Spite. Swords are not subtle.”
The white-haired elf says, “That cape is not subtle.”
“We trade. The cape for the sword.”
“No, Spite.”
The elf rolls his eyes. “Control your abomination, mage. If you can.”
Lucanis opens his mouth, the words, Spite is not— on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows them, because it’s… a lie, is it not? Instead, he says, “I am not a mage.”
A raised eyebrow. “Just possessed, then.”
Spite says, “We share.”
“Oh,” says the elf. “You’re not the first one of those I’ve known.”
Spite skips over every question Lucanis wants to ask in favor of his own. “It had. A sword?”
“No, it had a staff,” the elf says. “It was a mage.” His lip curls with distaste as he says it and, frankly, it’s the first time Lucanis has agreed with him.
Spite, too, hums his disapproval—although Lucanis is fairly sure Spite has no problem with mages and is only agreeing because he thinks the elf would like him to.
The next time they meet, the elf gives them two things: a name (Fenris; Spite likes it, hisses Fenrisss, approving, in Lucanis’ subconscious) and a sword (not as large as his own, but big enough to require both of Lucanis’ hands to hold it straight and steady).
“Yours. Is bigger,” Spite observes.
Fenris raises an eyebrow. He says nothing, but the smirk on his face is enough.
“Spite,” says Lucanis. “Don’t be ungrateful.”
“Learn to use this one and I’ll bring you a bigger one,” Fenris tells him.
Spite says, “Cuts. Like yours?”
“Swords don’t cut,” says Fenris. “They slash.”
Slasssh, Spite says in Lucanis’ head. He likes that, too.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Lucanis asks as Fenris shows him—or rather, Spite—the basics
Fenris gives him a grim look. “Tevinter,” he says.
“But you…” Lucanis begins and, for once, Spite is quicker on the uptake than he is. Quicker—and obviously not happy. He doesn’t give words to the feeling, though, only hisses in frustration and grips the sword tighter, enough so that Fenris has to correct his grip.
Later, after they’ve worked at it for a good hour or two, they sit on the ground with their weapons at their sides. Spite isn’t interested in a rest or a drink. Instead, he studies Fenris for a while before saying, “Free.”
Fenris—focusing on a tiny imperfection in the edge of a blade—looks up, but says nothing.
Spite asks, “How?”
Fenris’ brow furrows slightly. “It wasn’t easy, demon.”
“Spite.”
A raised eyebrow, slight tilt of the head.
“Spite.”
Fenris shrugs. “Spite. I don’t think your idea of freedom and mine are the same thing.”
“What is. Freedom?”
That, at least, earns him a low chuckle. “Freedom is…” but he pauses.
Lucanis waits to hear what he will say. To go where one wants? To do as one pleases? To choose one’s own path? He knows that these are all things Spite wants. They are things he wants, too.
But Fenris says none of these things. “Freedom is choice,” he says to Spite. “Being able to say no. That’s freedom.”
Lucanis hasn’t thought about it that way before. A Crow can refuse a contract. He has done so himself. But Spite is not a Crow and he has never had a say.
“What’s freedom to you?” Fenris asks, but Spite doesn’t answer. He has subsided so far it’s almost as though he has disappeared and it’s only Lucanis who shakes Fenris’ hand and takes his leave.
He wakes up in the Lighthouse the next morning with ink-stained fingers and a scrap of parchment lying on the desk next to his head.
FREE touch eat CHOOSE HAVE friend
He hands it to Fenris at their next meeting. “I think… this is for you.”
The paper is smudged, worn into wrinkles at its edges. Lucanis has looked at it a lot over the last few days.
Fenris studies the paper intently for a few minutes, piecing together the words. When he’s finished, he meets Lucanis’ eyes and there’s something new in his expression, a kind of thoughtfulness and a grudging respect.
“Spite?” says Lucanis. The demon has been reluctant to show himself lately, burying himself in Lucanis’ subconscious and leaving Lucanis in more peace than he has experienced in some time. He has even slept.
Spite responds, though, flaring up behind Lucanis’ eyes and settling into his skin. “Swords?” he asks.
Fenris smiles a little—Lucanis wasn’t sure it was possible—and tucks the torn piece of parchment away. “Swords, then.”
Lucanis is learning what Spite learns, sharing a mind as well as a body, but it feels strange, in a way. He’s not used to Spite leading the way when they’re awake together; he’s used to being in charge, maintaining control at any cost, drinking coffee like it’s cheap wine to stave off sleep and the loss of agency it brings. This feels different—not a fight, but almost a dance, something they’re choreographing together instead of in opposite directions.
After they train, Fenris says to Spite, “You don’t want your own body, then?”
Spite says, “Hands! And feet?”
“He’s obsessed,” Lucanis says.
“Do you want to share?”
There’s a hesitation. Lucanis can feel Spite’s reluctance as though it were his own, but Fenris waits.
“Share,” Spite says finally. “Want. To be fair.”
Fenris nods, but Lucanis frowns. This is his body—or it was his first. “It’s not a timeshare,” he says. “This is my body.”
There’s a tense pause. Spite is practically vibrating, eager and angry and struggling to find words Lucanis won’t give him.
It’s Fenris who throws them a lifeline. He’s clearly talking to Spite when he asks, “What do you want?”
Spite’s frustration runs along Lucanis’ shoulders and down his spine. It’s Fenris who has asked the question, but it’s Lucanis Spite is talking to when he says, “Let me out.”
Fenris says, “He doesn’t want your body.”
“I know,” Lucanis says. “But we cannot be separated.”
“I don’t think he wants that either.”
Lucanis throws up his hands in defeat. “I don’t know what he wants. This—” gesturing to himself, to Spite, “—was not in the plans.”
“Touch,” says Spite. “Eat. Choose.”
“Freedom is choice, Lucanis,” Fenris says. “That’s what Spite wants.”
“Touch what I want,” Spite agrees. “Have things. For me.”
Lucanis blinks. It has been months since he and Spite were freed; months since the Evanuris were returned to the Fade; months since Lucanis gave up on an easy answer to their forced cohabitation. He’s spent all of those months looking for an answer—any answer, if not an easy one—and, in the meantime, trying to piece together a life that works around Spite’s continued presence.
Lucanis wants his life back. He hasn’t thought about Spite’s life.
“What do you want to have?” Fenris asks Spite.
A thoughtful hiss. “Paper. Ink.” Pause. “Candles. Magic?”
“You cannot have magic, Spite,” Lucanis says.
“You,” says Spite, and it surprises both of them into silence.
Eventually, Lucanis asks Fenris, “Does he mean you or me?”
“Fenrisss,” says Spite, who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself.
Another silence.
“You want to… move into Fenris?”
Slowly, Fenris says, “I’m quite happy not being an abomination.”
“No,” Spite hisses. “Not like Lucanis. Want. You. Like touch. Like blood. Like have.”
Fenris looks at Spite. Lucanis looks at Fenris.
“I’d like my blood to stay inside my body,” says Fenris.
“You keep. Your blood,” Spite agrees.
“All right,” says Fenris, and there’s a funny look on his face, a sort of smile hiding behind a quizzical frown. “The rest, we can talk about.”
Lucanis says, “I’m sorry. Did you just say yes?”
Fenris shrugs. “I’ve had worse propositions.”
“Mierda,” Lucanis whispers, more to himself than to anyone else. Then, “Don’t I get a say in this?”
“Do you want to ask me too?” There’s definitely a smile hiding somewhere around the corners of Fenris’ mouth now.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” What Lucanis is planning on doing, at the next available opportunity, is drinking something strong enough to forget that this conversation ever happened.
“In that case,” Fenris begins, but he’s interrupted by Spite.
“Not your turn,” he says, clearly aiming it at Lucanis. “Have. Your own. Things.”
Fenris says, “I am not a thing to be had.”
And it surprises Lucanis, the way Spite stops, retreats, as though he knows this matters in some way he doesn’t entirely understand. Spite knows about slaves—a spirit of determination this close to Tevinter could hardly fail to—but he is still shaky on the ways people and things differ in the physical, the mortal, world.
“He knows,” says Lucanis. “People, he wants to have. Things, he wants to bite.”
“You might want to try them the other way around,” Fenris says dryly.
“Bite. Now?”
“Perhaps next time,” says Fenris. “You and Lucanis have some things to work out first.”
“Mierda,” Lucanis says again, but without heat. This is not how he imagined his life going. Then again, he cannot complain about Spite’s taste in men. Things could be worse.
He picks up Spite’s sword and Fenris stretches, long and lean and effortlessly relaxed. “Next time, I’ll bring along a bigger one,” he says.
Spite says, “We teach. You daggers?”
“Those,” Fenris points out, “aren’t bigger.”
Spite says, “Swords for strength. Daggers for surprise.”
Fenris says, “I have my own surprises.” He lets his markings flare up, brilliant blue to Spite’s electric pink, and—very carefully—traces the tip of one finger not along Lucanis’ chest, but through it.
Spite is thrilled. “Teach us,” he demands.
“I can’t teach that,” says Fenris. “You’ll have to be satisfied with swords.”
“Swords. And. Bite.”
Lucanis buries his face in his hands.
Fenris just smiles.
