charmed by the scene where Lucanis complains about Neve's coffee in her office from the perspective of a nevemancing run because it essentially goes like
rook: chaos in minrathous, you say?😏 sounds fun 😏😏 though everything is fun with you 😏😏😏
neve: is it now 😏😏😏😏
lucanis: this coffee tastes like ass I've GOTTA make viago try it
Whooo, this took me a while, but thanks a lot for the prompt, it was much appreciated! 🥰
6. A time Rook was severely injured.
I apologise if this didn't turn out exactly the way you might have thought... but I guarantee you, there is some severe suffering involved! 😂
A gift from the Wetlands
“I… I really don’t feel good. It’s… bad, isn’t it?”
A rasping voice, a wet cough. A trembling hand rested on a heaving chest.
Davrin cocked his eyebrow at the sight before him.
Shortly after their return from the Hosberg Wetlands, Akela had collapsed unceremoniously on the sofa in the kitchen. Sweat beaded on his brow. He tried to swallow several times and it looked like hard work. Then his body seized up and he retched out a series of violent coughs, before he coiled in on himself in pain.
Davrin averted his gaze.
“You should have been more careful, Rook. There’s nothing we can do for you now…”
Akela moaned.
Davrin sighed.
“Davrin, I think…” Akela pressed out weakly, then hesitated, looking up at the elf with feverish eyes. Davrin scooted carefully closer, exasperation and worry warring for control within him.
“Davrin, I think I might be... Blighted.”
A snort broke out of Davrin. This was getting ridiculous.
“You’re not Blighted, Rook. You caught a cold.” The elf shook his head as finally amusement won over.
Akela stared at him. Processing Davrin’s words seemed like hard work too, judging by the bemusement shining out of the man’s eyes where quick wit usually dwelt.
“But Davrin… I feel like… shit... I’ve never felt like that before… I swea–” Another cough split the man’s lungs, followed by a heart and ear wrenching sneeze.
Shielding his ear, Davrin brought some space between himself and the sofa again.
“Yeah but that’s not because of the Blight, trust me. I’ve seen my share of folks dying from the Blight...” He trailed off.
Akela threw a watery, pleading gaze at Davrin.
“This here”, the elf continued, folding his arms and nodding curtly toward the limp form on the sofa, “got nothing to do with the Blight. This is because you’re a wimp who can’t handle some cool weather and wet boots for a day and a half.”
Hopeful eyes turned hostile, and Akela felt around for a hand-sized item to haul at the sneering elf. The tin mug he found missed its mark by more than two feet and clanked noisily to the ground.
“That was pathetic!” Davrin laughed. “You really are out of it, huh? Who’d have thought that all it takes to stop a Crow is a whiff of bad weather. Seems like folks in the Anderfels will have nothing to fear on that front any more.”
Out of throwables and strength to argue, Akela opted for a rude hand gesture toward Davrin before he buried his throbbing head under an arm with a groan.
“Alright, alright, let me see if Harding and Lucanis have returned with those herbs from the market yet. That should put you back on your feet. Try not to die in the meantime, yeah?”
A resonating sneeze was all he got for an answer.
I hope you enjoyed @im-on-fire-today ✌️😂 He did get better, I promise!
Seriously though, the Wetlands look deadly with all the water you run through and the cold and the snow... and the Blight. It's not something my guy's cut out for. He was taught to endure cut wounds and light torture... Not wading through icy water for days on end 🤒
Visibility tags for some people who might enjoy this too ❤️
A good chunk of my heart belongs to this little Rook x Rook family, in a world where @kabsey ‘s Ilene is Rook, @blackwall-my-tiny-husband Zalan and my Lilya get to live happily ever after with her three children from her previous marriage (Xavier, Adan and Miri), and their little miracle baby, Mireya (Mimi).
Thank you so much @blackwall-my-tiny-husband for taking the time to colour these in for me! I love them so so much and seeing them come to life means so very much to meeeee 🙏❤️
Lydia got up from the armchair and stretched. She wasn't supposed to work today at Anders' clinic, but she was asked to cover for a psychiatrist who had a family emergency. She knew that at the end of the month, the clinic had a tight budget, so she often agreed to work pro bono. Especially that Fridays were a free walk-in day for youths.
The office was small but sufficiently equipped with simple, comfortable furniture. A place where patients from low-income families could feel at ease, not out of place. Couch, two armchairs, coffee table, plants. Warm colours on the walls, soft drapes on the windows. Anders wanted it to feel less like a shrink's office, more like a cosy cafe or the living room of your favourite relative.
Her last patient just left. Lydia wondered if Mercar was going to show up today or not. She doubted her change of plans went unnoticed - both she and Anders started to recognise his people following her around. It seemed that today, a whole group stuck to her; it was hard for them to blend in. She even suppressed the urge to wave to one of them who was evidently photographing her.
A knock pulled her out of her thoughts.
"Doctor Ingellvar?" the clinic's receptionist opened the door. "I know we're closing, but there's a last-minute patient. What should I tell them?"
"Let them in," Lydia shrugged. One more wouldn't make a difference to her. Besides, it was better to see another patient than ruminate about the qunari crime boss. She smoothed out her dress, and approached the filing cabinet to retrieve a fresh questionnaire along with spare pieces of paper. She heard the doors closing.
"Hello, how can I…" she turned around and stopped mid sentence. It was him.
Riley Mercar was standing there in his expensive suit, in the middle of a little shrink’s office, in a small pro bono clinic in the shadiest part of Docktown. She hasn't realised how tall and broad he was - he was bleeding out lying in a dingy alley last time she saw him.
Now he didn't say a word. Just stood there and looked at her. She felt like prey being assessed by a hungry predator. Or a prize, she thought, and a shiver went down her spine.
"Mister Mercar, I presume?" Lydia snapped out of the stupor first. She smiled amicably and put away the questionnaire - she tried really hard not to show her excitement. And fear. "Please, sit down. How can I help you today?"
Tag the harem @jenn2d2 @blackwall-my-tiny-husband @davrinsleftpectoral @serialsforbellara @sandcastlekings @serensama @kabsey @lycheecatee @mushrooms-x-moss @redaresss @hedwigoprah @sunny374940 @tarasmom @handsignals @zennihilation @chaosherald
In which Ilene has snuck in during the Mercar/Dellamorte wedding and found Riley alone and in a not so festive mood
Tag the harem @sorcerousadventurer @jenn2d2 @blackwall-my-tiny-husband @davrinsleftpectoral @serialsforbellara @sandcastlekings @serensama @kabsey @lycheecatee @mushrooms-x-moss @redaresss @hedwigoprah @sunny374940 @tarasmom @handsignals @zennihilation @chaosherald
Riley shouldn't be doing this. He was walking down the aisle in just a few hours. It was the alliance of a lifetime- Crows and Dragons, what a deadly combination.
And yet the whiskey burned in veins as he crushed Ilene beneath him against the wall. His head was buzzing, vision blurring. Almost enough that if he squinted just right, he could imagine blonde curls tucked behind the point of her ears.
"I thought you were supposed to be getting married, Mercar?"
The words were like a slap to the face as she sneered up at him. Viago and his fucking attack dogs, though this one barked much louder than she could bite.
Maker, he missed Gemma. Her smile, her soft touch, the way she could ground him when nothing else could. But she was gone, leaving him to face this cruel world without her at his side. Like the silver band in his breast pocket, the one Gladius gave him a lifetime ago. That wedding had been small, simple, full of love. Nothing like this sham he was forced to endure.
But if he had to go through with this shit, he might as well take what little comfort he could.
He grabbed Ilene's face roughly, her cheeks pinched easily between his thumb his finger as his other hand slid to angle her head back with an iron grip in her hair. She was tiny compared to his bulk, and her gasp only fueled his fury as he leaned close enough to inhaled her excitement tinged with fear.
"I am getting married, de Riva," he growled against her mouth as his lips ghosted hers. There was no softness in his eyes, just feral anger as her felt anticipation shiver across her skin like cold dread. "And you are supposed to be off limits. Guess we both have to play this one close, yeah?"
I wasn’t tagged or anything, and I’m not entirely sure if this is a WIP or just a random snippet that misfired in my brain. It is Wednesday though (at least I’m pretty sure it is), so have some Rookanis makeouts.
—————
Lucanis felt both outside of himself and deeply, viscerally present. The smell of her skin, the taste of her lips… she had awakened a part of him that he had rarely acknowledged, content to let it hibernate through the long winter of isolation and duty. But now, with her, the first buds of spring pushed up through the soil beneath his skin and wound grasping tendrils of pleasure around the trellis of his bones. He wanted to consume her… to claim her… to climb inside her…
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), poem 85 from “The Gardener”, 1914
Translated by the author from the original Bengali. New York: The Macmillan Company.
A couple of Ossuary Lucanis doodles plus 1 Post VG Lucanis and Rook. I'm pretty sure the second he starts getting actual sleep nightmares would not be uncommon, at least early on.
(Also I tried to add Spite to the Post VG sketch somehow but nothing was working for me.)
Thank you for the tags @grad-writes and @doctormur !!!
I did write a smidgen for Dr, Who? But thought this might be something different to share ^_^ (excuse the dodgy photos of the Cintiq, it's easier to send progress shots to friends from my phone heheh)
Here is my sketch for a scene for AWWF. I really don’t know what I’m gonna do with Illario’s face… or his armour. But wish me luck.
And I dunno if this qualifies as WIP because it’s actually done. Well, this part is anyways. And @blackwall-my-tiny-husband was kind enough to colour it in for me again 😭😭
Papa Zalan with baby Mimi (Mireya, in both Healer!AU and Ribbonverse). I have to laugh at myself because I didn’t even realise I had started using an 8pt mechanical pencil to draw the baby— I was just sitting there asking myself why it looked so different 😅 (I still not only mix up layers but tools as well lols hahaha)
Another bit from the Healer Lilya AU: Lilya (who belongs to @serensama) is a widowed healer living in the Treviso alienage with her three children. She and Zalan (Ilene's mutually proclaimed sibling, who is still a Crow and belongs to @blackwall-my-tiny-husband) fall in love. Ilene eventually becomes Rook.
Previously written bits (in order):
Lilya meets Zalan by @serensama
This story
Ilene meets Lilya
Dragon attack
Feldspar babysits by @blackwall-my-tiny-husband
-------
Once Ilene was good and sure she'd lost her Antaam fan club, she crossed the rooftops in the direction of her planned escape route through the alienage. Viago had recently ordered her to step up her campaign of harassment and sabotage against the invaders—"a mission uniquely suited to her talent for making a nuisance of herself," as he'd put it.
He wasn't wrong (not that she'd ever tell him that). Tainting supplies and ruining batches of gaatlok were child's play to her, and a taunting game of cat and mouse left the Antaam patrols distracted and overextended. She always let them catch just enough of a glimpse that they knew she was a Crow, but they had no clue which House she belonged to. And the Butcher wasn't stupid enough to launch a retaliation campaign against the Crows as a whole.
With a final leap from the overhang of a bakery, she alighted on the outer wall of the alienage and then quickly dropped out of sight into its shadow. She pulled free the beaked mask she worse and took a grateful breath of the clean night air. With deliberate care, she tucked it carefully into her satchel—it not only concealed her features and freckles but also contained a rudimentary filtering system she'd designed in the lab with Carina and Hugo's help. If the Antaam tried to deploy qamek against her, it would hold off the worst effects long enough for her to escape, and it meant she could use some of the more noxious compounds of her own arsenal.
Once the mask was secure, she pulled off her cape and reversed it. The iridescent Crow feathers disappeared, and once she retied it, only homespun wool of a kind any elf would wear could be seen. She always chose her hour of escape carefully—too late for the drunkards, too early for the bakers—but it didn't hurt to be cautious. Groups of Crows gathered openly throughout the city during the day, but a lone Crow caught out at night was easy prey for the patrols and a loss not worth retrieving for their House.
She started away from the wall and toward the main road, but after a few steps, a faint reflection of the flickering torchlight caught in her peripheral vision. The most likely culprits were a bit of broken glass or the eyes of a stray cat. She continued without pause and waited to see if the reflection moved with her. When it did, she whirled on one heel and stamped her other foot to frighten away whatever animal it was.
Instead a little girl with dark hair peeked at her from behind the scanty cover of a hedge, her elven eyes still casting a hint of a sheen.
"What the fuck?" Ilene muttered, and the little girl giggled.
Ilene cast a quick glance up and down the narrow track that veered away from the road and toward a short row of run-down alienage houses. Every house in every alienage was run-down; these at least looked maintained and occupied. The windows all held the faint glow of a banked fire, but no door stood open and no worried parent emerged to collect their child.
"Your feathers were prettier," the girl informed her.
Ilene glared at her and put her hands on her hips. "What are you doing out here?" she hissed. "Where are your parents?"
"Sleeping," the girl said.
"And?" Ilene prompted.
"And?" the girl repeated, tilting her head so her long hair slipped over her shoulder.
With what she considered admirable restraint, Ilene confined her response to a tense whisper. "And what are you doing out here?"
With an excited expression, the girl pushed herself through the hedge and closer to Ilene, without even the slightest bit of fear at approaching a stranger—a Crow—in the middle of the night. "Adan said this is when you can find fireworms."
Ilene frowned. "Adan is your... teacher?"
The girl laughed but then quickly smothered the bright sound with her hands and glanced at the closest house. When she spoke again, it was in an exagerrated stage whisper between her cupped hands.
"My brother."
Ilene glanced at the hedge the girl had come from. "Did your brother tell you to look there?" Maybe it was a prank meant to get the little girl in trouble. A highly dangerous prank considering the current state of Treviso.
The girl shook her head. "He didn't say where."
"So you were... what? Going to check every bush in the alienage?"
Crossing her arms over her nightdress, the girl pursed her lips into a pout and lifted her chin. "I can find them," she insisted.
Ilene rolled her eyes and cast one last look at the slumbering houses, but no salvation came. Could she live with herself if she walked away and then heard about a little girl's body found in the morning?
With a frustrated growl, she knelt down. "If I show you a fireworm, do you promise to go straight home and back to bed?"
The girl's eyes went wide, and she nodded her head rapidly up and down like a demented puppet. "Yes! I promise promise!"
Ilene snorted. "One promise is enough."
She glanced along the dirt track again, this time paying closer attention to the scrubby weeds that poked out along the verge. When she started toward the far end, the girl fell into step close by her side, skipping along as if on her way to a picnic. She started to spout the kind of gibberish children were prone to, but when Ilene shot her a glare, she went quiet (though not without another impressive pout).
When they reached a patch of reddish-orange wildflowers amid thorny stems, Ilene stopped and knelt down. The girl squatted beside her, holding up the hem of her nightdress in two small fists.
"The roots of these plants are a fireworm's favorite food," Ilene said. "Usually they stay deep underground, but in the middle of the night, they wiggle up to eat." She removed one glove and dug a finger into the dirt, then stopped to fix the girl with a stern look. "Fireworms produce a gas from their skin that ignites in the open air. They can survive for a very short time, but if you try to catch one and stick it in a jar, it will burn itself up and die. You understand?"
The girl gave a solemn nod. "I just want to see. I don't want them to die."
"Good," Ilene grunted.
She resumed poking in the dirt until she felt heat amid the cool, wet earth. A little deeper, and she felt the slippery skin of her quarry.
"Okay," she said. "I'm going to pull one up. We get a quick look, then let it go home."
The girl nodded again, eyes fixed to where Ilene's hand burrowed into the soil. With a gentle hooking motion, Ilene snagged the worm and then slowly tugged it through the disturbed dirt. When her skin breached the surface, she quickly dropped the worm. She and the little girl watched as the little red creature wriggled and a tiny ribbon of fire, the size of a candle flame, raced along its dorsal ridge. It quickly burrowed its way back into the loose earth, its fire extinguishing one segment at a time until it disappeared.
"That was super, super wonderful," the girl breathed.
Ilene huffed a laugh. "One super is enough. Now your promise."
True to her word, the girl sprang up and began to sprint toward a nearby house, throwing a singsongy "Thank you!" over her shoulder. Ilene watched until she pushed open a door that led to that cozy firelight and listened until she heard the faint click of a latch. Then she shook her head and got to her feet, brushing the dirt from her hand.
The bakers would be rising soon, and she planned to be safe in her roost before they did.
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