The Jewels of Antiva
RP blog for Teia Cantori and Cioba Cantori de Riva
RP profile for Andarateia Cantori
profile for Rook de Riva
follows and likes will come from @/xkatchy
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@jewelsofantiva
The Jewels of Antiva
RP blog for Teia Cantori and Cioba Cantori de Riva
RP profile for Andarateia Cantori
profile for Rook de Riva
follows and likes will come from @/xkatchy
She laughed. There she was with a terrible wound, her blood dripping onto his bed and floor.. and she was laughing. Giggling, as though this were somehow amusing. His brows furrowed, not in annoyance but in concern. She was beginning to show signs of delirium, and if he couldn't find a way to slow the bleeding, her body would go into shock.
"Slow your breathing. Stop with the giggling. This is serious, Teia -- focus on slow, steady breaths."
His eyes fell again on the wound. From this angle, his belt might serve as a makeshift tourniquet. It was crude, but it would buy him time to find an antidote, an antivenom, something. Worst case, he would sear the wound shut with a flame. Not caring how it looked, he removed his belt, the sound of leather against leather filling the silence as he leaned over and wrapped it around her shoulder. He could see the moment it registered when her entire demeanour shifted, the pain finally breaking through.
"This will be tight. Ignore it and do not move. Focus on your breathing, nothing else. Just breathe slowly and look at me."
The thought of drawing the poison out crossed his mind, but it was far too late for that. Instead he turned his attention back to the wound, using what little time the tourniquet afforded him. The skin was red from blood and trauma, but it was the darkened veins and capillaries that caught his eye. Blue, spreading outward like frost. He risked touching the skin nearby. Cold -- colder than blood loss alone could account for.
He exhaled slowly...
"I need to burn it out of you, Teia, to stop the spread. The antidote will not work quickly enough, and I need to stop this bleeding first."
Teia wanted nothing more than to reach out and trace the sharp angles of Viago's face wtih her fingertips, to run her fingers through his hair and tug playfully at the silly point of his beard. But Viago was scolding her, telling her to breathe and be serious. Was she not serious? Certainly not as serious as *he* was, but then no one would ever manage to reach the pinnacle of seriousness that Viago de Riva maintained.
Her thoughts were turning sluggish and pooling in her hands but Teia struggled to reform them into the right shapes. The sudden snap of Viago's belt drew a gasp from the elf. Her eyes widened momentarily in fear, half-buried memories clawing their way out of the hidden recesses of her addled mind. The smell of meat and rot, eyes flashing with rage as tongue spit venomous words—knife-ear, gutter trash, useless urchin—leather belt creaking as the butcher slapped it against his sweaty palm and advanced towards her…
Just as quickly as the nightmare surfaced, it was chased away once more. The sudden pain that shot through her as Viago pulled the makeshift tourniquet tight had Teia crying out in pain. All at once she seemed to sober, lucidity brightening her eyes as they met Viago's. Dread curdled in her stomach, the severity of the situation finally apparent.
"Burn… antidote… p-poison?" Teia asked him in a small and shaking voice. Her mind whirled, trying to fit the pieces together. A slow and shaky breath went in through her nose, out through gritted teeth. Teia nodded.
"Do it…" she breathed more than spoke, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Not only could Viago smell the blood seeping through Teia's clothing, he could feel the warmth of her life bleeding out against his hands. Gloved hands. Hands that were far too dangerous to touch.
Maker damn it. Of all times, he had been in the middle of poison work.
But before he could curse the situation any further, he heard her slurred speech -- each word worse than the last. Viago abandoned any thought of guiding her to a chair and instead bent his knees, scooping her up in a single fluid motion, still using his coat as a barrier between her skin and his gloves.
"Save your breath. Just tell me, what does the wound feel like?"
It could be blood loss, or it could be poison. Something that hadn't reacted immediately, or a dose too small to act at once. Either way, there was no time to change. He laid her on his bed, stepped back, and stripped off his gloves, tossing them into the corner. The outer layers followed until he was down to his shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow.
Then he bent another rule. He touched her with his bare hands.
He knew how dangerous it was -- if she had been poisoned, contact with the wound could transfer it to him. But her slurred speech worried him too greatly to hesitate. Instead, he drew the blade from his calf, confirmed it was clean, and used it to cut away the leather around her shoulder.
"I would apologise for not asking, but there is no time. Describe the pain. Take slow breaths."
When the leather fell away, the wound was bad, but not deep enough to account for this volume of blood, and nowhere near an artery. A poison that prevented clotting, most likely. Which meant Teia would bleed out on his bed if he didn't act quickly.
A very undignified yelp sounded from Teia as she was suddenly hauled off her feet. A giggle followed, and distantly she realized she felt almost drunk. It was certainly good that Viago had opted to carry her, then. The room had been starting to spin just a bit.
Viago had asked her a question, hadn't he? Teia tried to focus on him, remember what he'd asked, but the sharp glint of metal erased all thought.
"Are you goin' t'kill me...?" she asked in a small voice, unsure how that made her feel, exactly. If she was ever to die at another's hands it was most likely to be Viago's. That didn't bother her. But they'd been fighting, hadn't they? She'd hoped that they would reconcile--they always gravitated back to one another, didn't they? If only she had known that they wouldn't, that the argument would be their last...
But then Viago was frowning down at her shoulder, not her face, and the cool breeze off the bay caressed the heated skin that had moments ago been beneath blood-soaked leather.
"I--pain?" Teia frowned and reached up with her left hand to brush the hair from her eyes, but immediately regretted it. Pain lanced through her shoulder, ice cold shock blossoming into angry heat. The wound pulsed and with every beat sent tendrils of fire across her chest and down her arm. She wasn't sure when it had happened, but her fingertips seemed to have gone numb. All this she tried to articulate to Viago between pained breaths and soft gasps, stumbling over the words as she did.
Viago was no stranger to confrontations -- it was part of the very nature of being a Talon. More often than not, a fellow Crow would take strong issue with his reasons and methods, but he refused to change his ways. His ways kept him alive.
Crows always had enemies, but he suspected only one other Crow might rival him for the sheer volume and wealth of those who despised them and wanted them dead. That would be the First Talon. And so, because of that, he would never adjust his lifestyle to suit others.
But there was one exception. One Crow. One Talon.
She made him change his ways, just slightly, inch by inch, rules bending until they neared their breaking point. He would find reasons why it was acceptable to touch, to stay near Teia Cantori. Those reasons were excuses, and not always convincing ones.
Viago was well aware that the best way to kill a man was through the fourth and fifth rib. What he had not expected was that the attack upon his heart would come not from a blade, but from the most beautiful, sharp, witty, and skilled person ever to grace Thedas.
It was the day he realised how close he was to breaking his rules for Teia that caused their final fight. Since then, his world had turned grey. He pretended not to care... told himself it was for the best, that he could live without Teia in his life. That each letter that arrived did not pique his interest, that the swift glance to check the handwriting meant nothing.
While Teia counted the hours, Viago counted the minutes since she had last graced him with her presence. Their fight had stung more than any venom ever could, and Viago felt he deserved every bit of that pain.
It was a cool, unremarkable night at House de Riva, Viago at his alchemy bench -- positioned, as always, so that he could see every entryway to his room -- when a shadow fell across his balcony.
The thud that followed was not graceful, and whoever had disturbed him had made no attempt at discretion. Meaning they wanted Viago to know of their arrival. That did not make him any safer, if anything, it could be a distraction. He stepped back from the bench, eyes fixed on the figure at the balcony, intending to double-lock his door, when his gaze caught the shadow of curls he often recognised in his dreams.
"Teia?" The word came out as a gasp, and he did not care how he sounded as he saw her hunched over, one hand pressed to her shoulder in the unmistakable posture of injury.
Another rule bent. He abandoned the door and crossed the room, glancing upward first to ensure she had not been followed, before reaching for his coat to use as a barrier between the contaminants on his gloves and his fellow Talon. He helped her to her feet and urged her inside.
"Typically one knocks at the door when visiting."
Teia gave a rueful laugh that ended in a grunt of pain as Viago helped her up. She was not proud of how heavily she leaned against him as he guided her in from the balcony, but the room had started to tip sharply. The flush in her cheeks seemed to burn even hotter with proximity to Viago. How long had it been? Nine, nineteen, ninety-nine days… Did it even matter? Just the scent of him was intoxicating—the soap he used, the reagents he was working with, the cologne that didn't quite mask them.
"Would have taken too long," Teia explained in a slightly breathless voice. "I was already above you. Seemed silly to come back down and have to ascend all… those… stairs…"
Teia had been stabbed before. Multiple times, at that. The wound in her shoulder wasn't particularly deep. She could still move the arm, albeit with quite a bit of pain, but mobility meant nothing had been cut deep enough to be severed. To oversimplify it, the injury was pretty standard. What wasn't standard, however, was the heavy sensation creeping down her arm. Or the way the blood in her arm and chest was starting to burn through her veins. Or the darkness that gathered in the edges of her vision like a harbinger of doom.
" 'Sides. If I'd knocked, wouldv'e given you th' choice to slam the door in m'face. Aren't you happy t' see me?" Her words were starting to slur, but that was understandable, given how thick her tongue was starting to feel.
for @crowderiva
She never should have taken the contract to begin with. By the time the parchment made it to Teia's desk, the intended target had made his way to Salle. By all accounts, it should have been passed on to de Riva to complete. It was more than just a contract, then. It was a reason—an excuse—for her to travel south to Salle.
A month prior, she wouldn't have needed an excuse. Her presence in Salle would have been accepted, desired even. But it had been nearly three weeks (nineteen days, eight and half bells, to be exact) since the Fifth and Seventh Talons had exchanged words, much less occupied the same room. And while Teia resolutely refused to admit it aloud or otherwise show any hint of being bothered, she was.
The contract itself was simple in nature. Identify the target, take him out. No method requested, no message to be sent, no extravagant details. Perhaps it was because of this that Teia's guard was down and her attention lax. That and the fact that she was painfully aware that this was the type of soiree that Viago himself could very likely make an appearance at. The knife was nearly in her back before she even registered the presence behind her. She twisted, avoiding a lethal strike but catching the blade in the meat of shoulder instead, and quickly dispatched the target's shadowguard.
Somehow, Teia had gotten the drop on the target and left him dead behind a curtain. She stumbled lightheaded out of the decadent ballroom, realizing with a sinking feeling that while the night was warm, it was not nearly warm enough to warrant the flush spreading over her skin. The wound in her shoulder continued to bleed slowly, but more concerning was the way it seemed to pulse with both heat and cold at once.
There was only one thing to be done, and as Teia dropped off the pergola onto the balcony outside Viago's private suite, she sincerely hoped the weeks apart had softened the edge of the argument they had last shared.
The Jewels of Antiva
RP blog for Teia Cantori and Cioba Cantori de Riva
RP profile for Andarateia Cantori
profile for Rook de Riva
follows and likes will come from @/xkatchy
Moving things over from @cantorisdiamond and @diamondofderiva
Open to 1x1 Discord RP for Teia and/or Cioba as well ~~~