#wrathwrites

Seven dead Venatori and not enough gold between them to impress Rook as she empties their pockets.

Or rather, empties the pockets of those left intact enough for any posessions to have survived the skirmish. Lucanis shadows her, head on a swivel and eyes gleaming with the demon's violet light, on the lookout for any still alive and inching for their weapons.

Davrin watches them from where he's slowly working his hands over Assan's left foreleg, back and forth back and forth to chafe at the leftover frost from Rook's magic. There's something to be said about Crows and working in pairs, much like their avian counterparts, but even a whiff of that theory's bound to send them running for opposite hills.

He opts, instead, for safer territory. A question that's been bugging him since he first witnessed Rook swapping out elements as easily as he does an axe for a chisel with the woodworking.

"What's with the ice storms for this lot, Rook? Wouldn't fire be more effective?"

"Against one, yes, but ice is easier crowd control. They can't use blood magic if I freeze the source and cut them off from it, first," she replies. Pauses. "If it's airborne, that is. If I went after the true source we'd all be dead, with how much they hack and slash at us."

Wait. "So you can, what, freeze blood when it's still in our veins?"

"Yep. It freezes just like everything else, there's just more magic involved to overcome body heat. That... complicates the process."

That's... more than a little terrifying, actually. Davrin gently tweaks Assan's floppy ear, mutters into his feathers, "and this is why you need to be careful around mages, boy." Assan clicks his beak and rattles his head in a shake that works the length of his body, using the momentum to reclaim his foreleg and flare his wings in a quick snap.

It's a familiar gesture, a resounding no Remi would've laughed herself sick over, and Davrin sighs as he gets to his feet, rubbing his knuckles atop Assan's head. Stubborn, feather-brained little idiot will be the death of him yet.

"Hey, Rook?"

"Yeah?"

"Think you could call down some fire to unstick my sword from that one's chest? Might need it yet for traipsing around Arlathan."

It starts with a cup of tea, and ends with… uh. She'll get back to you on that one.

Chapter 1/?

"Rook! You're awake! And on your feet - should you be on your feet? You should be resting, right? Your knee -"

"I'm fine, Bellara."

She stops dead at the foot of the stairs and peers up at him with the same intensity she fixes upon her artifacts. Sets her hand on the banister and leans forward. "Really?"

Dammit. "I will be fine," he amends with a sigh and inches down another step, gritting his teeth against the complaints from his knee. He's whole again, freshly healed and awake, but he's tender in the places where magic's cheat against the natural remedy of time, and tendon and bone being spun back into place is a... fragile affair.

And not one that takes kindly to stairs. He's tempted to just haul himself up and over and call it a day, let his back take the brunt of such a fall this time.

The notion must show on his face, because Bellara's suddenly right there, immovable as mountains and stubborn as a mule. Try me, her frown says, and he... really doesn't have the energy for it.

"You should be resting," she says, all soft concern and gently fluttering hands uncertain where to land.

"I've been resting since we got back."

"Rook -"

"I just want to stretch my legs a bit, nothing more, I promise," he says, and doesn't protest the arm she eventually locks around his waist, the hand she fixes upon his wrist to pull his arm over her shoulders and keep it there.

He thanks her instead, when he's safely on the ground floor and not flat on his face. Again when she remains tucked against his side as he makes for the door, not a comment or giggle to be heard for his unsteady, hitching gait.

"How is your leg, exactly? I tried my best but I'm not as well-versed in healing as Emmrich. He said it could potentially scar?"

"It has -"

"Oh no, I'm sorry!"

"- hey no, no it's okay, I don't mind. You did a good job, Bellara. And... I prefer your healing, anyway. The magic, I mean. It's... warmer. Than Emmrich's. More comfortable."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

Something's changed. I'm not sure what, but it's nothing good.

Are you alive? Are you safe? I have to hope you are. I have to hope this finds you, and that you're well.

I fear... I fear my time's up. I can see it in their eyes, hear it in their laughter, the extra guards posted wherever my duties take me.

Don't come for me, not unless you know for certain you won't be harmed. Not unless you know you'll have the strength to walk away and not look back. I don't know what you'll find.

Live, Mewyn. Be free. It's all I ask.

When one door closes another opens, and a Crow flies the nest.

A little observation from a barista about one of her favourite Crows customers.

There is death in Rook's stare. The endless cold of the dark before and after life. It's not murder, no. It's certainty.

Spite holds where he lingers on one knee, fury a scaling burn behind his eyes, curiosity a spoonful of honey on his tongue. What is she planning with the maggot she's hooked?

"You think Lucanis weak? Weak, after what you put him through? You're a fool!" She slams her staff down, crack, and a shockwave of ice tumbles the maggot to his ass. Bites down on his ankles like those traps from the forest. He yells. He h u r t s. Ohhhh.

"You think him weak for his support? His team? What do you have, hmm?" Closer she creeps, fingers Fade-touched where they weave at her side, eyes gleaming with the promise of banked power. Spite slinks closer, too, reclaiming the dagger Illario kicked from their hand in passing. Rook can handle herself, vicious little thing that she is, but she is theirs and it would not do to lose her now.

"What do you have, Illario? The bones droped at your master's feet? A nest abandoned by all the Crows you've betrayed? Nothing?"

A flick of the wrist bats aside the knife he aims at her throat, a twirl of her staff the next at her knee. Her hand outstretched - and Illario screams, pulling taut and contorting as she turns her palm just so.

"You think I'm his weakness to exploit, but you don't know a thing, do you? I'd live for him, die for him. I'll kill for him."

That stare fixes on him, them, as she slings her staff aside and draws the balde from the sheath at her thigh instead. Lucanis' blade, the gift, the plea and promise -

Stay alive out there, Rook.

I might, if you ask me nicely.

"All he has to do..." Rook croons as steel kisses that bared throat, a siren song Spite has no hope of resisting, wings flaring as blood wells in a thin line.

Lucanis.

"... is ask."

Guess who completed a playthrough of Veilguard?

Guess who has a writing muse back swinging from hibernation?

Guess who has a oneshot done already?