#datv rook

When they stepped up the stairs to the ruins camp, their collective energy made Strife shift and cross his arms. The others held back as Rook approached the stoic man.

He had all the brooding and self importance of Viago, but, as capable as this revered elf was, Rook couldn’t muster the fear of danger from him. Maybe it made him cocky. Maybe it made it look like bloodlust, never backing down from a fight. Never losing.

They reported on D’Meta’s Crossing.

Met the Witch of the Wilds.

Viago silenced a group of young Crows sharing and scaring the fledglings with tales of The Witch of the Wilds turning an Arainai Crow sent to kill the last of the Wardens. They warned if they didn’t go for the kill in every duel, she would be able to take over their bodies and murder their whole house. Viago made them drink his new poison and they vomited for a week. Viago also made everyone else take the poison, but at lower doses. They only vomited for the rest of the day.

She knew about Solas. She looked into his eyes as if she saw him there in his head. Solas screamed at her in old elven Rook couldn’t understand. He bit the inside of his mouth until he was drinking blood trying to keep the others from noticing how affected he was.

Bellara broke the entanglement. She can repair the Vir'revas.

She said aloud what Rook had been keeping in the depths of his guts. Our Gods Are Back. How DO we stand up to that?

Everyone gasped, expecting the boat to tip, but his acrobatics and finesse barely made a ripple.

“What would that have accomplished? What does this?” Neve took Harding’s help loading into the small boat. “You made us all accomplices to your bloodlust, Crow.”

Rook’s eye widened. “Bloodlust!?”

“That human was instrumental in erasing an entire town, Neve.” Bellara also took Harding’s help.

“I could go back. Invite him to the team. Maybe he would be a better leader.” Rook stood.

Harding shoved him back down and waited for the boat to settle before loading in. The detective grasped at the walls of the boat, desperate to stay out of the water.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Crossing her arms and hoping to look less 'scared cat' and more 'cool cat' she stared over the glassy lake.

“Now I’m ridiculous.” Rook seethed. Varric was wrong. Wrong about everything.

You did what you had to do. Solas’ voice tickled the back of his mind.

“Not the time.” Rook mumbled.

Neve’s eyes snapped at him. But she could sense the weft of blood magic, see the winging on Rook’s face.

“It’s done.” Harding pushed off. “If he has the talent for it, he will survive. If not...”

“A whole town, Neve. People I knew.”

“I get it,” the detective relented. “I shouldn’t call you 'Crow', as if you haven’t a name.”

“It’s not like anyone uses my real name.” Rook pulled his hood over his head, trying to keep Solas out.

“Rook’s not your name?” Bellara watched Rook and Neve in turn hoping someone would clarify.

“It’s a nickname.” Rook sighed. Better than Viago's for him, he supposed.

“Varric gave it to him when we first picked him up. Because a rook is a young Crow?” Harding couldn’t quite recall.

“Who’s Varric?” Bellara stunned them all.

Harding hid her face in the shadow of the growing night. Neve watched Rook for how to proceed.

“Varric Tethras. Rook, Scout, Slick.” Rook pointed at the owner as he named them.

“The author?” Bellara knew is books.

A pang in his head stopped him from saying more. Somehow over the water the connection to the Fade was easier. Solas was trying to find information. Rook was trying to keep him out.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry.”

you've just watched a blood sacrifice. you hear screams for help. you enter a clearing and see a massive wad of blight writhing and calling for you.

But the earth quakes again. And you're face-to-face with

you're feral instincts engage. all freeze, flee or faun has been slowly beaten out of you since childhood. every encounter is a duel to the death.

but it's yours to fight. you hold the others back. dwarfed and tiny and probably pair well with a nice dark red.

you may have been ready for death since childhood. and every time death cheats you. so what's one dragon?

Rash Idiot. Viago screams in your heart as you square up to impossible odds.

But a voice calls to the dragon and it flies before breath, before bite. all that remains is to unknit a bawling ball of blight.

A nepotistic nonce, a wealthy welp happy to be the voice of gods who will eagerly destroy your life with you as the weapon, now asks for mercy.

No point arguing with a dead man. Besides, casual delivery of death is your specialty.

He was bundled tightly in his bedroll and cape to stave off the chill of the night air, but not, as it seemed, the chill of a caged blood mage elf with zero patience. Thanks to Viago, every moment of training refused him any comfort of a warm night by the fire. Yet his body had worked him into a cocoon of perfect warmth. It took every ounce of will power he had to sit up. Not until his stomach pinched hard did he stir.

He tightened his cape close around his neck and pulled over his hood.

“I’m beginning to understand why so many forest elves wear long hair.” He held his small mug in hopes there was hot drink to spare. He approached the Jumpers slowly.

Bellara snagged it and filled it. Steam coiled around her graceful neck and played in the long locks she let loose for sleep. “No one calls us forest elves.”

“Why not? I get called a city elf all the time. Even though I was born in the wild.” He waved his hands lightheartedly over his head. It was an expression Antivans used for The People.

Bellara held his mug out to him, unamused. “You are Dalish?”

Strife scoffed somewhere in the makeshift infirmary, letting the visitors know he was always listening. And judging, apparently.

Rook took the mug gingerly, all the excitement for the morning, a new chance to get to know Bellara before Neve woke was already crumbling. “Well, technically.”

The others stared at the Crow. Hood to boot a Crow. Strip off the clothes, the posture, his cadence, the Antivan flair to his vowel sounds. Whatever Dalish was in him was long stamped out.

He took a sip, trying to ignore the glares. The liquid seeped down his throat like lava. High tones of mint played off an umami that satisfied like coffee.

“Ma serannas.” Rook raised his mug to the cook in the Antivan style. They all stared at him. Bellara blinked a few times before moving.

“You sound…Dalish.”

“Why are you so surprised?”

“Most city elves sound like…”

“Shemlen?” Rook chuckled. A human Jumper leered at him.

“We don’t say that here.”

“Of course not.” He chalked that up to another point lost. “But it’s said a lot by a lot of elves in Salle, where I grew up. I studied how to be Dalish. Not from them. They are mostly freed slaves or refugees. I had the best. Tutors and all. And then I got contracts where being Dalish got me into or kept me out of all the right places.”

“It’s not a disguise.” Bellara turned and sat across from the fire. “It isn’t a character to play. For murder.”

“Assassination. Murderers don’t-“ the Jumpers shifted and whispered to each other. Rook slouched a bit, trying to make himself as small as he was feeling. “…never mind. I am Dalish. Dalish born. In the south, somewhere. Near water. I just had to relearn a life I would have had if not for some unscrupulous marauders.”

Bellara avoided him a long moment.

“Is that authentic enough?”

“Nere.” Her lips puckered trying desperately to contain a smile.