#crowspoise

"And that matters all of a sudden?"

Lark is crooked smiles and messy hair. He walks through life without missing a step despite the sea below or the crows above.

Lucanis had been quiet since the moment he'd gotten here. Preening his feathers until it was time to strike like it was some sort of ritual. Maybe it was. Lark didn't care. Lucanis was the only one who didn't fuss over every little inconvenience.

Until now.

With... whatever this was.

He was a liar. Lark considered it part of his charm. Most people didn't notice and he saved personal relationships undue strain as a result. Lies of convenience. White lies. Extravagant lies. They were all the same as long as it smoothed over cracks in the foundation.

And with everything that he was, there were more cracks in his Rook persona than he cared to admit.

He moved close, perhaps too close, to Lucanis. Nose to nose, he smiled.

"Are we going to have a heart to heart about it?"

Kiri looked up from the mess of papers sprawled over his makeshift desk. He wasn't sure how the Crow found him. They'd moved camp so many times in the last weeks that even he wasn't sure where they were anymore. Half in armor. seated on the ground and bent over a few crates shoved together, one could say it wasn't the best time.

But what did that mean in moments like these? No one had time.

"Yes."

He was hiding a great many things. He had information to ruin nobles and topple governments. Not that much of it mattered now. Everyone was dead.

The statement was coming from paranoia, then. Or some act he hadn't been aware offended him. The assassin slipped past every defense and wandered into his tent unannounced. Privacy was a luxury rarely afforded to him.

With help from the crates, he stood. Starting an altercation on the ground would be asking to die. Even if he was sure things between them weren't there yet.

"Everyone is hiding something." He was tired, tone flat. "If you wish to make accusations, I'd rather you skip to them."

sender kills someone and the blood spatters on receiver :) @crowspoise

her mouth had opened to speak when she felt the warm spray of blood. eyes and mouth instinctively closed, the familiar feeling causing her to shut down if only for a brief moment. shoulders sagged, hand rose and almost began to wipe away the blood before she thought better of it and simply let it remain. maker knew she would just be covered in more blood soon ANYWAY.

"and to think, i was going to try to question them -- you know, do a little good guard, bad guard. but i suppose your way works just as well," came her tease. feet took her closer to the body before giving it a well placed nudge with her foot, turning it over and beginning her age old tradition of completely looting their pockets for tricks, tips, and tomfoolery. and gold. mostly gold.

          @crowspoise  ( spite )  spits out a mouthful of blood on receiver

rook  stares  down  at  the  crimson  mess  spreading  across  their  leathers,  their  expression  shifting  from  mild  disgust  to  outright  horror  before  their  expression  turns  muted,  disappointed,  like  a  cat  or  dog  just  spat  up  on  her  and  not  a  demon  in  the  body  of  a  grown  assassin. "spite—what  the!?" silver  brows  knit  together,  disgust  plain  on  their  face  as  they  attempt to wipe  the  sticky  wetness  away  only  to  smear  it  further. they  take  a  cautious  step  back,  almost  as  if  the  blood  might  somehow  crawl  after  them. "this  is—ugh.  did  you  do  this  on  purpose?  be  honest.  i  pissed  you  off somehow,  didn't  i?  this  is  not  how  we  deal  with  our issues, buddy—"

       Death and blight and much more besides ; it practically emanates from her armor like an aura. Viscera had jammed her crossbow, forced her into close proximity with these hellish new darkspawn with only the dagger in her right hand. She'd never been this filthy in the Inquisition, leading from the vantage point as was her wont. The sticky, grimy feel of her boots against the Lighthouse's fade-touched cobblestones sours her mood all the more, and a pain in her hip blossoms to assist as she limps past Lucanis' accustomed perch, just outside the dining hall.

@crowspoise asked: Justice,  like  beauty,  is  in  the  eye  of  the  beholder.  Some  see  an  innocent  victim.  Others  will  see  evil  incarnate  getting  exactly  what's  deserved.

if she had been told this when she was younger, just a chantry sister - she would have disagreed. but she's learned, from years of toeing the line between good and evil, that there is more of a gray area than most people would like to admit.

"i could not have put it better, or more poetic, myself."

she considers the life of a crow for a moment, not dissimilar to her own past.

In the low light of the tepidly fed fire, the fellow crows eyes appeared to glimmer and gleam, depending on the angle one glimpsed them at, their unnaturalness emboldened by the flinty edge lurking within. A lesser man, with not even an inkling of a crow in their midst, would've taken it as some unusual luster, and not wickledly glinting knife edge that it was.

The rest had all filed out awhile ago, one by one, placated in their questioning or otherwise haggard by their own fatigue, until it was just the two of them. The dining table covered in a myriad of reports, missives, and playing cards from an attempt to salvage the evening. The days earlier events had been a sour reminder of the grim reality of their lot. The steadily ramping slog, which would see them further than simply waist deep in uncharted waters before long. Fires, which weren't so easily put out, nor the ones he was accustomed to.

He didn't necessarily resent nor begrudge Lucanis for the pointed comment, but it didn't mean he had to like it. Because whether he liked it or not, Crows circled Crows. They held lofty expectations of excellence, and an opportunistic bouts of uncompromising contempt — which were often swiftly followed by violence, if the source didn't correct their course. The livid bruise dappling the curve of his feather-patterned cheekbone gives a particularly nasty throb, and it's almost enough to drown out the minor complaints from the cuts and other bruises. They were easier to ignore by degrees, by virtue of a lived in experience. It was a statement as much as a warning, and the de Riva heard it plain.