#spiteweek2025

Quiet was an old friend, but not tonight. This silence stuck to the edges of grief like muffled corrosion, rusting away at sharp edges and leaving something dull and cold behind. Viago made little sound himself as he walked up the stairs and down the stone corridor. There was no need to disguise his passage, but years of habit lent a very scant comfort in an unfamiliar place, and that was in short enough supply.

He paused at the door, unexpectedly ajar. An image of his house in Salle, long since left to caretakers while strangers invaded his country, flashed across his mind as he hesitated. Rook's room. Carina's room. The door open, with her sitting on the bed in a mess of papers, looking up as he walked by to shoot him a smile. Or stick out her tongue. It didn't matter how silent his footfalls, she always knew when he was there.

Her door was only ever open when she was at home.

She wasn't.

Viago's knuckles in his right hand still ached with the memory of punching Lucanis when he'd told him that she'd been lost. Taken by Solas and stranded in a prison meant for gods, exchanged for his freedom like a piece on a chessboard. Discarded. Tossed aside so someone else more 'qualified' could carry her fire.

He didn't like how familiar that felt.

With a light brush of his fingers against the wood, the large door swung inward, bathing him in the watery glow from an impossible vista. A vast underwater expanse just beyond the glass, fish moving by in schools like birds in flight. Rook had described it to him in one of her letters, of course, but being who she was, she had left a few details to the imagination.

I've got fish in my room. Great stonking fish that just watch all the time. It's worse than living in the dormitories, except for the smell. You know how much I hate water. Especially a lot of it. There was one bad night where I dreamed they were spying against me for Solas somehow. Spite ate them. I'm still not sure if that really happened.

Stepping into the room, Viago swung the door back into place as quietly as it had opened for him. As he turned back he froze, seeing for the first time a person seated on a couch. Even in the hazy glow, the silhouette was impossible to mistake. Lucanis.

Smells like. Poisoned tea. Revenge and lavender.

"Demon," Viago nodded in acknowledgement, choosing to ignore the personal commentary. A flash of purple around the eyes. Now somewhat familiar, but still entirely unsettling. Rook had explained. He hadn't liked any of it.

Spite.

"Spite," he agreed, walking forward. The glowing gaze followed him as he moved into the room and came to a stop at the bookshelf. A small mirror. A rather nice chess set. An open box of ribbon-wrapped packets of letters. He recognized several of them addressed in his own hand, Teia's and others.

She never did remember to burn her correspondence.

"Spite, why are you here? Alone?" he asked, putting the letters back into their box, unopened.

Lucanis won't. Visit Rook.

"Visit?" Viago looked up sharply, irritation sharpening the question to a razor edge.

It is ROOK. All. Home. Smells like. Rook. And dust. ALL. Rook.

Spite brandished a pillow from the couch, and a waft of rosemary, mint, and skin painted the picture of her hair across his thoughts. Color she crafted, ground into oils, leaving her a distinct purple among a sea of blacks, browns and reds. The scent was light, but unmistakable for anything else if you'd spent any time close enough to her to notice.

She slept on the couch? Idiot.

Viago nodded vaguely at Spite, sweeping his eyes around the room more thoroughly. He recognized some of her things, but the couch and small table in front of it were crowded with a whole collection of items he didn't recognize, or didn't make any sense to him. Jars and bottles, a bar of soap, several different types of candles. An empty bottle of wine filled with coffee beans. Two boxes that looked familiar among the other things, but he couldn't quite place them as hers.

Why. Are you. Here alone?

"I suppose I am here to visit as well," Viago ran a hand through his hair. "Clear a spot for me, demon. Explain your collection."

Spite! the purple flashed and a scowl appeared, but he began to move some of the jars and bottles closer to him, creating an empty spot at the other end of the couch.

"Yes, I am aware," he waved a hand dismissively, and sat down. "Tell me what you found."

Home. Old. Fish and bees.

Viago picked up a square wooden box that Spite pointed to, about as long on each side as his hand and light for its size. As he tilted it open, he recognized that it was a smaller version of the palette training boxes he had some of his more promising fledglings use to appreciate wine and finer foods. Each box telling the story of a place where something was made or grown. He carefully opened a small, black velvet bag in the bottom corner with the de Riva crest stitched in glossy purple thread on the outside. Though the scent was clearly faded from what it must have been almost two years ago, it painted a distinct picture of a memory at least a year older than that.

Summer night in Salle, barest of breezes in his office carrying the scent of mint, rosemary, tiger grass, warm beeswax. Undercurrent of polished wood, ozone, and a slight hint of fermented fish.

"Yes, I see. Home," Viago closed the lid gently and put the box back down, fighting the feeling that it was somehow heavier with the weight of that memory. He didn't need to open the smaller, paper box inside with his personal crest on it, but it tugged at a spot in his chest even untouched.

"Where did she get this?"

Rook. Made it. To remember. Gave. Treviso to Spite. And Lucanis.

On the crowded table in front of them sat a much larger box, newer with an etched design of crow feathers along the edges. Viago could almost picture what she would choose. The Diamond. The canals. The gardens around the abandoned Chantry, still tended anonymously. A gift to a man who hadn't seen home in years, and a demon who didn't understand what that meant.

For herself, something much smaller. To carry with her in unfamiliar places. He wondered why she'd carried his office in Salle with her this whole time, of all things.

"Are you sure? You know I can get you any kind of furniture you need," Teia had asked abruptly, tapping the letter he had been writing to his seneschal with her gloved finger. Her eyes had searched his face when he didn't answer right away. "It won't be easy, and I know you don't like to wait." "I can be patient," he had replied, feeling sour even as she shrugged and patted his shoulder lightly.

Probably for the same reason he'd brought his desk with him to Treviso almost two years ago, even with the monumental inconvenience of getting it up into his space in the Diamond. Teia hadn't complained, but he knew she questioned his sanity more than once during the several hour endeavor to get it into the room on the top floor undamaged. More damaged, if he were being honest with himself. It had seen better days, as well-made as it was. Burns, scratches, and at least one hole that he left, choosing not to fill or repair it. You could almost count the number of times he'd called Rook an idiot by tallying the damage.

Almost.

She hadn't been 'Rook' then. Just an idiot.

A wine bottle waved under his nose ripped Viago abruptly into the present. His hand shot out instinctively to catch the bottle mid-wave, and he looked to see Spite's purple eyes regarding him solemnly. There was still a bruise across the bridge of his nose where Viago had broken it. Healing magic could have taken care of that by now, but apparently Lucanis had left the injury.

"What is this then?" Viago took the bottle irritably, tipping it slightly to look inside. He had thought it was entirely filled with coffee beans, but up close he could see that there were other objects inside, less distinct through the dark glass.

Home. And family. US.

"Family?" Viago pulled the cork and looked inside, tilting the contents back and forth to see them better. The scent of roasted coffee beans was overwhelming, but behind it was … ah, a charred skewer, very small bits of burned food stuck to the side. Acrid ink from a broken nib. Blood on a few of the beans. Some sort of dust. A throwing dart that looked suspiciously like one of his own. Two very large feathers and one small purple one. A small, burned potato. And, at the very bottom, the bone from the tip of a finger.

He re-corked the bottle and handed it back to Spite, who put it carefully with the boxes.

Wine box. Home. Rook will know. Where to. Find us.

Spite nodded at him sagely. Viago suppressed the urge to point out that it was not a box and just passed a hand over his eyes instead. Leaning forward, he looked around at the other items, but apart from the soap, couldn't see any connection to each other or to Rook.

"What of the rest? Candles and jars?"

Smell like. Her.

Spite passed Viago the soap, a candle, and two very carefully selected jars. Her soap, of course. A jar of her hair dye, long since used, but with a faint smell of rosemary and mint, sharper without the smells of skin and hair. Some kind of thick balm with a faint trace of lemon peel that he didn't recognize. Turning the container, he read the very unhelpful label reading 'Finger Food,' which it clearly was not. The smell was inviting, but that meant little by itself.

Sighing, Viago removed one of his gloves and lightly touched the tip of his ring finger to the surface, then dragged the small amount of cream onto a piece of paper pulled from a pouch at his belt. Emollient, slightly acidic, not noticeably poisonous or toxic. He lifted his finger to his tongue to see if he could taste any trace of something unusual, only to have Spite abruptly hiss and bat at his hand.

NOT. FOR. EATING.

"I was—" Viago stopped, looking at the demon's expression. "I understand."

Spite learned. Lotion. Candles. Not for. Eating. Rook. Explained.

Cuticle cream. The thought rose up as he rubbed his finger and thumb together. The name wasn't that bad.

The demon picked up a small, dark bottle and handed it to Viago after he'd drawn his glove back on. Time had long erased the label on the front, but as soon as he took it in his hands he recognized it immediately. He pulled the small cork, and sniffed gently. Acrid, bitter, orange and almond. No trace of fennel.

"She called this 'Felicitations' of all things," Viago snorted, remembering the absolute disaster she had made of their small lab developing this. "It's the first one registered as hers, alone."

Rook had spent days refining, redoing, and improving on the first Crow poison she'd encountered as a child, an inadequate variation on A Letter from the Crows she'd given an equally ridiculous name. As then, he was momentarily tempted to tell Illario that his amateurish effort at potion-making had engendered something far more deadly in her hands. He enjoyed knowing something the other assassin didn't far too much to entertain the idea for long.

"You have her homes," Viago gestured to the boxes and the bottle. "And you have things that remind you of her. Why bring them together?"

So Rook is. HOME. Spite will bring. Rook here.

"Bringing together something of her and her homes," Viago sifted through what the demon had said, piecing together words unsaid, an unexpected ache in his chest. "To help bring her home?"

YES. Thoughts real. Here. Spite is helping.

"The Fade, you mean?"

Yes.

"And Lucanis?" he asked.

Viago had wondered how much Lucanis and Spite shared. Rook's explanation had been obscure, but the more Spite talked, it made a terrible sense. As far as he could tell, they were distinct, even if forced into the same body together. He had enough work inhabiting his own flesh to feel a deep unease at the idea of ceding any level of control to something else, much less an unwilling spirit. However, nothing like abominations were described by the Chantry. Not that their ignorance in this area was any kind of surprise.

We. Kill. Venatori.

"As do I," Viago conceded with a curt nod. There was little he could directly do to find Rook, any more than Lucanis or Spite could. He felt that frustration aching like a burn that didn't take healing, worsening the longer Rook was gone. Raw, exposed nerves demanding action where there was none to be had. He sat staring at the fish in and uncomfortable silence with Spite. After several moments, he felt the smallest shift in the air, like the direction of the wind had changed outside. The man next to him stilled completely after a sharp intake of breath.

"Viago? When did you—" Lucanis asked slowly, then cut off. Out of the corner of his eye, Viago could see him rub a hand across his face as he shook his head. "Mierda. I apologize for Spite. He keeps yelling about home, but keeps bringing me here whenever I try to get some sleep."

"It's the only place she is that he can get to right now," Viago replied as he stood, tilting his face towards the other man. "Emmrich wanted to meet with us on the hour. He may have news."

"I—" Lucanis bit back another question, his expression pained. "Thank you. I will be there."

Viago nodded, and turned to go, careful to avoid the bottles and other detritus the demon had collected around them while they talked. He could hear Lucanis moving some of them around as he started to walk out, and paused briefly without turning around.

"You should make time to let your detective friend fix your face before you see Rook again. You look like shit."

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