#xkatchy

unofficial artfight on @xkatchy of her de Riva Rook OC Cioba.

Can we stop whitewashing dark-skinned characters?

Teia Cantori has beautiful dark skin, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the post by @woundedsoul12 on the left shared by @teiaweek2026. To the mods credit, they removed it after I messaged them.

Fandom: Dragon Age the Veilguard Pairing: Rook de Riva/Davrin Rating: Teen Summary: A year since the defeat of the Evanuris and Ciobi Cantori de Riva finally found her happy ending. Words: 815 Additional Tags: Gift Fic, Rook de Riva, Antivan Crow Rook, Griffons, Slice of Life, Love/Romance, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Domestic Fluff

A special gift for the lovely @xkatchy! I saw your Davrin/Rook prompt and I had this idea for a long time of him singing to Assan so here it is! With a little bit of domestic fluff on the side!

Cioba didn’t know what had woken her, but when she opened her eyes, darkness greeted her, morning still a few hours off by the look of the sky outside of the window. Lavendel was quiet, most of the town asleep as they should be, the blight gone nearly a year past. Thankfully, the silence stemmed from safety and not a threat waiting around the next bend in the path, and it took Cioba a moment to steady her breath.

Though, breathing was getting harder each day.

Running her hand across her stomach, she felt the flutter of her child as it shifted its position, sitting uncomfortably on her bladder. With a curse, she rolled to her side, finding her feet even if she couldn’t see them, and waddled to the window. Davrin wasn’t in bed so he was out there somewhere, probably unable to sleep either.

The door opened with a soft creak of its hinges, and she padded outside on bare feet, taking a deep inhale of the cool morning air. Lavendel’s fields were teaming with flowers of all kinds, but her favorite had become Brona’s Bloom, its sweet fragrance always a calming scent when she needed it.

Of course, Davrin had filled their small home with them when he’d learned that.

HIIII

First of all THANK YOU for your wonderful comments and your enthusiasm, I'm so !!! 🫶🫶🫶

Second of all - this will hopefully be the topic of another fic I've got on the backburner, about Teia's rise to Talon-hood. it'll be a while yet before that materialises lololol, I have only a very sketchy outline and on pride, freedom and Treviso took a LOT out of me, but I'm playing around with so many ideas of what might or could have happened to her, that she got to the point where we meet her in 8LT, and later in Veilguard.

In short though, we know she was taken in by the Crows at roughly 8 years of age. We know she considers Caterina her mother, BUT she is very distinctly of a different house. Now, there are all lot of ways as to how that might have played out, and I'm only doing guess-work here and finding what feels fun to me, but I would imagine that when she was first, ahem, recruited, somehow both Caterina and the then-Cantori Talon were involved (I'm delighted at the idea that she might have tried to pickpocket Caterina, because that would be a fun little way to outrage the First Talon, AND set a precedent for the way they bond over beautiful things in 8LT. But that's just me) What were these two Talons doing in Antiva City 30 years ago? idk, you decide. I imagine between the two of them, Cantori took her in as being the weaker house, but Caterina couldn't help but also be charmed by the brazen little street urchin.

This is where HC territory truly begins. Here is what we know: given the sheer size of Villa Dellamorte and the way Lucanis personally identifies with Treviso, it's a safe bet that Treviso is the Dellamorte city, the same way Salle and Rialto belong to de Riva and Cantori. We know Crows have specific territories, but also that they forge alliances - so it could be possible that the Cantori Diamond was a concession in that sense, and a show of allyship between the two Houses. I imagine it might have been an establishment Teia was spent a lot of time in as a child, since her relationship with Caterina didn't wane over the years, so for that you need proximity. Perhaps House Cantori moved between Rialto and Treviso a few times a year! Perhaps Fledgelings were trained in one place and Crows worked in another! I don't know, but Teia needed to be in Treviso.

Now then, the scene is set, and from here we get certain glimpses over Teia's life, in lines such as the infamous "cruel men seemed drawn to her" or "we cannot let the cruelty of others define us" - between that and what we know from Zevran of how Crows were treated back then, the picture is quite not pretty. I don't think House Cantori would have been particularly kind, or particularly stable - and yet, it is a point of pride for Teia to be a part of it. You don't get a whole back piece you keep on display about something you're not proud of. As such, I imagine Teia's meteoric rise to power happened against a backdrop of cruelty and intrigue, with the Diamond as the seedy setting. No one in their right mind is going to consider a twenty-something year old, no matter how charismatic, the right choice for head of House, not unless every other option is so much worse.

Of course I feel like sharing, this isn't a secret at all :)

Flying Waters is actually my favourite song in the entire game! I was in its top 0.4% listeners on Youtube Music in 2025 which honestly doesn't surprise me even the tiniest little bit ksfjklsjdflasdf

Out of boss themes, I'b osessed with Aline and Une vie à peindre (specifically peinder, and not t'aimer. like t'aimer is good, but peindre just hits sooooo much harder for me).

HAPPY N7 DAY!!!! I am so sorry you had a rough day!!! Hopefully your tumblr dash brings you some happy. The art, fic, and love that comes out of N7 Day is overwhelming in the best way. I love it so, so much. I'm always fried by the end of the day because I expend so much emotional energy. XD

4. What are you looking forward to?

Both of my kiddos don't have summer camp or summer school this year, so we plan on doing a bunch of activities with them. Both for learning opportunities and for fun. I'm really looking forward to being able to not only have a fun summer they can talk about in the fall with their new classes, but also, getting myself back out there after everything this past year.

12. What is something you want right now?

To get my energy back. To not be so ill after my medication. And to finally move on from all of this medical stuff and live again.

53. 5 Things that make me happy

My family

Writing

Coffee

Chocolate