One of my prompts was to create stick figure art for any fic and I chose Hunting Days by @mythals-whore & if you're a fan of davrook and haven't read it yet, this is your sign to read it neow
(comment link for accountability once it's been reviewed <3)
in which Davrin grapples with living in the fade, fighting elven gods and being a newly single parent(:
1.9k words below the cut OR read on ao3(: (dividers here!)
Davrin is not unused to waking up early—not that such a think seems possible to accurately measure in a place of never-ending daylight—but between the blight induced nightmares, an ill-natured griffon and despite a rather comfortable bed, sleep had evaded him entirely.
Over his years being a Grey Warden, the nightmares had stopped bothering him quite so much. It wasn't that he could tune them out in the same way he'd learned to do with the song, but at the very least he'd learned to roll over and get right back to sleep. Rest was far more important than worrying about monsters who weren't in his immediate vicinity. And after the chaos of losing Lancit and Remi, twelve griffons he swore to protect, bring brought into the Fade and fighting a blighted dragon, Davrin needed all the rest he could get.
Unfortunately, he'd discovered that griffons could be infinitely more disruptive. Davrin had done his best to hold out, determined not to reward that behavior. But after pulling the duvet over his head, he'd discovered that while their squawks were disruptive, their beaks and claws and entire body weight were even more so.
After Assan had seen fit to leap on top of him, it was all but sheer survival that sent Davrin from his room.
Shirt twisted awkwardly about his shoulders and with one trouser-leg scrunched up somewhere around his shin from where he'd shoved his feet into his boots, Davrin entered the kitchen in a hopeless pursuit to find the creature something to eat. He could only imagine that was the source of Assan's apparent distress and complete disregard for Davrin's own sanity. Trouble is, he hadn't spent long enough in this gods-damned place to know where anything is, or whose dried meat he bribed Assan with for just the chance at a moment's peace.
Davrin leans back against the dining table thinking that he wasn't previously aware of the unbelievably obnoxious smacking sounds a griffon could make. Each one grates on his last sleepless nerve. It's a small consolation that the griffon's temper seems quelled for the moment.
Davrin sinks into one of the dining room chairs, running a hand roughly over his face.
None of it feels quite real yet.
Though given the nature of Warden dreams, he doesn't exactly have the privilege of hoping to wake out of one to find himself still out in the Anderfels, Lancit and Remi still alive, the rest of the griffons with them.
Guilt slices into his ribs as he peers at Assan, still distracted with his grossly inadequate meal—not that Davrin even knew what qualified as adequate. Remi would have known.
But she's not here, because he'd failed.
Davrin was sent to the Anderfels to protect the griffons, of course, but their trainers were a part of that too. The two of them had spent months carefully tracking information on the griffon behavior and diets and training. They were the experts. And now Davrin is left with a lone griffon, and not a clue how to train him, let alone care for him.
"Oh, no."
He startles, kicking the adjacent chair in a show that would be impossible to hide.
"Maybe I should have said before I asked you to join the team," Rook goes on, the gravel in her voice providing an edge of solemnity. "but we don't need anymore brooding around here. Our resident assassin has that covered."
She pays him little mind as she trudges across the floor. Judging by the rats' nest at the back of her head and the mis-buttoned shirt that hangs awkwardly from one shoulder, Davrin infers that he isn't the only one who'd evaded rest.
Davrin arches an eyebrow at her as she rounds the table. "I didn't know that position was taken."
Rook halts like a sleepwalker before the sideboard, eyes boring holes in the wall before her.
"Well I suppose…" She gives what can only be described as a self-effacing laugh. "I suppose it's open for the time being."
She scowls at the contraption in front of her as if it's insulted her personally. Somehow he suspects it would be in far worse shape if it had. It's a bulbous thing made of copper or maybe bronze, a glass tank of some kind perched atop it. Halfheartedly, Rook pulls a mug from one of the hooks above it, sets it below the spout and turns the knob.
Nothing comes out.
Rook blows out a breath, nodding to herself as though this is just what she expected.
"You think he'll come back?" Davrin finds himself asking.
He hadn't had much time to get acquainted with the assassin, and he wasn't privy to whatever words the two of them exchanged. What he did see was the look of murder in the crow's face as the blighted dragon decimated his city.
Instead of giving him a real answer, Rook says simply: "If he doesn't, you can brood all you like."
If she's trying to sound flippant, she's not entirely successful. Davrin may not know her well—not at all, if he's honest—but there's a slight clip to her words. An effort that wasn't there on their first meeting. After all that transpired in that short span of time, he could hardly blame her.
Davrin arches an eyebrow in her direction. "I can give it up for the moment if you'd like a turn."
"I don't really brood," she tells him. Her lips twitch at one corner, hinting at some joke he doesn't yet understand. "Though I've been known to rage."
"Arguably more effective," he offers dryly.
She returns a noncommittal shrug.
"It really depends on the source of your problems," she admits distractedly, fiddling with the lid of the contraption. After a moment of near-violent tampering, she manages to twist it off just to scowl cryptically at the innards. She replaces the lid with a ferocious clank. "But it usually involves killing Venatori, and that does tend to soothe me."
It's not entirely of his own volition, the slight parting of his lips, the slight curve to them. But it doesn't feel as foreign as it should, either.
The smile melts away the moment his eyes drift just left of his own feet, where Assan has apparently finished his breakfast, feathered head now sat solemnly on his talons. In the absence of snagging beaks and scratching talons, Davrin can admit to himself that he could have shown a bit more sympathy for Assan's plight, considering.
He sags against his chair.
"What if you don't know how to find the thing you want to rage at?" He snorts humorlessly. "I don't even know what it is."
And Davrin doesn't really expect an answer, knowing that she couldn't possibly have anything substantive. He was the monster hunter. That was meant to be his job.
Rook leans back against the sideboard now, arms crossed over her chest. Her carefully crafted irreverence is nowhere insight as she cuts through his darker musings with an earnest promise:
"We'll find out."
A long silence follows the words, punctured only by the sound of Assan sighing as he settles somehow deeper into the floor. It finally strikes Davrin, just how out of character it is for him to be so quiet. Almost lethargic. He'd grown used to the chorus of griffon squawking, the sight of them tumbling through the dirt and chasing each other through the skies.
His stomach churns.
"The griffons—"
"They're not."
The answer comes so quickly that he can't help the way his gaze snaps up to hers. Still hanging just outside the ring of firelight, her eyes seem like pools of ink.
"If the Gloom Howler—" Her lips twist in an effort to reign her obvious gripe with the name. "—wanted them dead, it would have killed them, not taken them," she reasons.
He turns this statement over in his head and finds that the reasoning stands to scrutiny.
Still.
"You don't know that."
"I don't," Rook agrees, eyes skating over him in a quick assessment. Sizing him up. She'd looked at him like that before. "But what's the alternative?"
He catches the notion that it's a genuine question, but doesn't quite grasp her meaning. At his arched eyebrow, she continues with an element of exasperation.
"If they're already dead, what's the point in looking for them?" She asks, apparently still gathering steam. "If the corruption in the magisterium runs too deep, what's the point in fighting it? If the gods are too powerful to fight, then why try to stand against them? Why not roll over?" Her tongue runs over her teeth, and when she looks toward the flames for one strange moment, they're reflected back in her eyes. "We can't miss the target before we've even taken the shot."
The flippancy of her words sparks an amusement for which he can't find the source. Davrin supposes there's something to be said for a simple answer to a difficult question.
He huffs something resembling a laugh, " I didn't have you pegged for an optimist."
She cuts her eyes back to him, expression contorted into one of genuine incredulity.
"You call that optimism?"
Davrin shrugs. "That's good enough for me."
A shout of laughter escapes her.
"Andraste's tits," She grumbles, an uncharacteristic warm to her face. "Everything they say about Wardens is true."
"I guess it comes with the territory," Davrin watches, bemused, as she returns ton her original task, attempting to reassemble the various parts she'd twisted off the contraption. She winds up sticking a few bits and bobs in what he strongly suspects is the water tank before returning the lid to it.. "We spend most of our time in shit-hole outposts—or the deep roads. Almost all your friends die young, and you know…" You know you won't be the exception, he doesn't say. "Being a Warden is knowing there's more darkness waiting around every corner."
Rook takes this in with quiet thoughtfulness, a far cry from the brash irreverence she seems to lead with—though it might not be fair to say. She'd proven she knew how to lead the other night, both in her expeditious decision-making, and the way the others followed her orders without complaint. It made it easy for him to do the same.
"You're not wrong." She says finally, leaning hip and hand against the sideboard. "But if the griffons are already dead, and Treviso is doomed and the gods are impossible to kill—" She shrugs. "then it's already over. So I have to believe otherwise."
"Some people might call that denial," Davrin tells her, mostly to uncover her response.
An eyebrow arches in obvious challenge.
"And to think some idiots might call it 'hope'." Her words carry an edge of bitterness, but there's a cant to her lips as her eyes find some shadowy corner of the room.
It doesn't make any sense at all, that he hears the words in a familiar voice.
Eldrin had never said those exact words, Davrin is sure. Somehow she still manages to sound just like him. Everything about her starts to make a little more sense.
"Ugh," She shudders violently, as if shaking herself out of a particularly disturbing daydream. "I hate brooding. I feel dirty." Her nose wrinkles. "Think I'll get ready to rage instead. Eluvian in ten if you want to join."
She's already breezing past him, clearly unwilling to wait on a response.
Davrin wonders if that's as good as an invitation around here. The door clangs shut unceremoniously behind her, and Assan lifts his head as though just having noticed she'd been here at all. Davrin frowns down at him, just as that pair of doleful blue eyes turns to meet his.
"C'mon boy," he says, unwilling to take no for an answer.
They could both stretch their wings just a bit—and invitation or no, he wouldn't put it past Rook to leave without them.
ty for the tags @serensama @necromanticsoul @gingervitus & @woundedsoul12 <3
Because there is no noise in the apartment, and there is no light from down the hall. And even before he makes his way down the short hallway and into the living room, he knows she won't be there.
What he couldn't have prepared for is how entirely she erased her presence in just one afternoon. The sweatshirts and stray socks she seemed to strip at random and leave haphazardly over every surface are missing. The pile of films that had accumulated on the corner of the tv stand are gone, as is the precarious stack books on the bedside table. Even the kitchen sink is absent the usual duo of coffee mugs.
And for several insane moments, Davrin isn't sure what makes him angrier: the fact that she left without a word, or that she was always capable of this level of cleanliness and never bothered with it.
Davrin runs a hand over his face—but then, he isn't exactly surprised.
Of course she left.
I will tag @seaglassmelody @hedwigoprah @tkwritesdumbassassins @juniper-and-dragonthorn @mageofquandrix @maagisterpavus @waxlyricalmoon & @handsignals should you guys feel like sharing anything 🫶
@woundedsoul12 has kicked off the last WIP Wednesday of the year 🥹 and as a treat i grant you the first snippet of Hockey AU
on this, the final WIP Wednesday, I will pass on the tag to @imrowanartist @juniper-and-dragonthorn @thedissonantverses @davrinsleftpectoral @chaosherald @gingervitus @seaglassmelody @aiyestel @master-of-elements @dags-over-caravans @bubblecat-co & @mageofquandrix who has definitely not already seen this ;)
divider here(:
"Do you have a preference?"
The sluggishness must have followed him off the ice, because it takes Davrin too long to understand that she's referring to the absurdly long list of liquor she's been offered. He finally manages to offer the only brand he remembers, hoping a little desperately that it's on the list. And if her slightly-uneven lips twist to one side in disapproval—well it wouldn't be his worst failure tonight. Despite the wordless rebuke, she agrees to his suggestion.
It isn't until several moments later that Davrin realizes he is the intended recipient. He frowns first at the glass as its set in front of him, and then to the wide-eyed bartender before turning his eyes on the apparent whiskey connoisseur sat not two seats to his left. Her lips press together as she sips, the slight purse makes the fullness of her upper lip even more prominent. Once she's swallowed, she turns to look at him, eyes darting to his untouched gift an back to his face in quick succession.
She shrugs by way of answering his unspoken question, "Rough night for you."
Davrin snorts. If a stranger in a bar has picked up on his uncharacteristic brooding, he's worse off than he thought. No wonder Taash had left him to his devices.
"Worst night of my career," he agrees, finally sliding his hand from the pint to the lowball glass.
"At least you still have one," she says breezily.
"For now."
She hums in something that doesn't quite sound like agreement, though it's not necessarily dissent. Almost carefully neutral. Which isn't exactly the kind of overwhelming support one might expect from a stranger at a bar, but then this interaction has barred anything he'd call 'usual'.
There's a sort of mischief dancing in her eyes as they flit over him, "Here licking your wounds?"
Davrin snorts, "Something like that." He takes another sip of his whiskey, the burn of it far more satisfying than the beer. She's still looking at him, head slightly canted to one side with a sort of bemused expectance. He mimics her earlier perusal, flicking his eyes over her once before asking, "What's your excuse?"
Her lips part slightly as one corner of her mouth rises in apparently increasing amusement.
