The first duel, Lucanis and Rook. Unedited.
Rook was sweaty and winded.
The practice dummy in Solas’ study had become his realm of focus. Every weapon he had, arrow, knife, dagger, sword and rapier was employed and ended stuck in perfect placement that would instantly kill were only one to have hit.
It was a meditation he could slip into where Solas could not follow. And he had not told anyone about finding the study. So he enjoyed the moments he could just be Fenrir de Riva, weapon aficionado, prolific Crow, and an Antivan elf. Anywhere in the Lighthouse if he was smelt, seen or perceived, there was a question, a lead, an explanation, a what if. He breathed hard as he drank some water and wiped his head with a rag, staring out into the fade.
It was still so awkward. He hadn’t felt at home here a single second. The air felt weird. It smelt like the real world, but didn’t. And the island was fickle. Sometimes what you needed opened right before you, sometimes it was taken away the moment you reached for it. Rook fiddled with the lyrium dagger. It had a strong lack of gravity. When he held it, it seemed to want to be exactly where he wanted it. A strange hiss escaped from the middle of the room, and Rook turned and threw the dagger in one graceful and involuntary movement. It sunk deep into the forehead of the dummy, making it glow for a second before fading to its inert color.
Lucanis froze, leaning out from behind the dummy. “Mierda!”
“Sorry.” Rook sauntered to the dummy and drew out a knife.
“No you are not.” He smiled. “And you’d have to be quicker than that to hit me.”
“Oh?” Rook lifted a brow, “a challenge?”
“Knives?” Lucanis laughed a bit, knowing they both knew he was the more savvy with a knife. “I. Play?”
“Sure, Spite, spice it up. We are facing gods.”
“Elf. Spirit. No?” Spite fluttered his wings in anticipation for the duel. “This is the first duel I’ve partook since The Ossuary. Perhaps years before that. And you are already winded. You sure?”
“Viago would make me duel until I was half dead. Against the best of de Riva. I’ve still got my legs…And for the last time, Spite I AM NOT A SPIRIT.”
Lucanis laughed as if he put Spite up to the ribe.
They circled, both standing with perfect posture, pacing the boundaries of their dueling ring. As if on silent cue, both Crows bowed deeply in the style of their perspective houses: Rook with his head turned, his right ear toward the ground as he bent his waist 45°, Lucanis pointing his right foot out, calf raised, and flourished his hand as he only bowed his head.
Rook heard the slicing of the air before he was fully upright, he swung his right hand in a sweeping circle and a knife ricocheted onto the marble floor. Rook leapt and dodged a second that narrowly missed his thigh and shot out a return, narrowly missing Lucanis’s cheek and snipping half an inch off of a lock of hair.
Lucanis’s laugh was meant to disarm, but Rook knew it was an admission of perfected technique.
As Lucanis regained balance Rook swiped a few knives from the dummy and hid behind it while another knife sliced the burlap open and straw tumbled out. Rook arieled as a third knife wizzed past. He landed and put all his momentum into two consecutive knives. Both narrowly missed Lucanis as Spite lifted the older Crow further than physically possible.
“Noted.” Rook smiled and narrowed his gaze. “Must be nice to have help.”
“It isn’t help, it’s an advantage.” Lucanis whipped a knife at the floor. It bounced and sprung back up toward Rook with zing. Rook barely batted it away with the last of the knives he held. Lucanis dove with a purple flash to a knife on the ground as Rook countered for space, crouched, watching his opponent for any tells, quickness, repeated moves, a blip between Spite and Crow. Lucanis was more at home with the spirit, but Spite was too eager for Lucanis’s more carful approach to fighting.
Rook threw his last knife at Lucanis as his head was just whipping around. It was about to stick him in the upper arm when a wing unfurled and slapped it to the ground. Lucanis smiled. “I’d send my regards…but-“
He launched the knife with a bit of the same magic that Rook recognized in the faint power his lyrium infused scars allowed. He had never used the boost in front of the Veilguard. Or another Crow outside the de Riva house. And for all the infighting, some secrets were prudent to hold. Using Spite’s power to bring the blade at an impossible speed was indeed an advantage.
Rook focused on the blade with the keen precision of his elf eyes and with the bit of will he was able to muster found the hilt of the knife, snatching it out of the air and using the power of Lucanis’s throw and his own, weaker, fade-induced strength he spun and loosed it high enough over Lucanis but feigned a follow through low that when Spite leapt from the fake, Lucanis was launched into the blade, that stuck firmly in his bicep.
Lucanis fell back. Spite raged and tried to leap at Rook. The result was Lucanis seemingly tripping and falling forward into a roll that he still landed on his feet. Stifling the demon.
Rook scrambled to his feet, ready for the demon’s instinct, that thankfully never materialized.
“Ow!” Lucanis yanked the blade from his arm. “Ow.”
He glared at Rook. Rook stood and brushed his hair off his forehead and shrugged.
“What in the Maker’s name was that?” Lucanis waved an open palm at Rook. “You glow?”
Rook was already pulling Lucanis’ shirt up and tending to the wound. “We can get Emmrich to heal this.”
“We let our duel wounds heal the natural way. - It helps. Us. Learn. -“
“We can’t have you not at full strength.”
“Don’t change the subject, de Riva. What. Was. That?” Lucanis pulled from Rook and stared. “Do not make me pull rank!”
“My scars.” Rook sighed, thinking of the shortest version. “I was nicknamed after Fenris.”
“The white hair and glowing?” Lucanis let Rook wrap the stab wound as it slowly seeped.
“Just the hair it was lighter in my youth. A pack of human boys, fledglings, thought it would be fun to cut the lines to match. The artificer and mage Viago hired when he me dying on the gymnasium floor promised me life if I would let them experiment without telling Viago. Maybe it was a test of Viago’s? I don’t know.”
He rattled through the memory quickly, hoping to change the subject.
“They…what?”
“They tried to make lyrium tattoos. What they made was a permanent nuisance that sometime I can power into added force.”
“And you never told…anyone?”
“I don’t use it. It hurts and makes me tired. I can’t afford to flake out on the road. And I don’t know if I can trust anyone to know this.”
“Except me?” Lucanis looked at Rook with his big brown eyes.
Rook stared down into them and was lost suddenly. Lucanis stood and leaned toward Rook. “It’s a simple question. Do you trust me?”
Rook froze. His breath stalled and his brain went blank. It was just eyes. And the sotto of the words.
“I-“ his lips parted and he leaned toward the man.
The knife Rook had just pulled from Lucanis was now under Rooks chin. Rook leaned into it. Lucanis’s lips were just out of reach.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Lucanis was inches from Rook. Each could feel the other’s hot breath.
“Yes.” Rook replied.
“Then I will keep your secret.” Lucanis flicked the knife into the heart of the dummy right next to where three arrows already were buried. “Should you explain this to Emmrich, or I?”
He was out the door. Rook took a moment to gather his wits and adjust his pants and took off after Lucanis.
“This is unacceptable!” Emmrich cut off the gauze Rook had bound Lucanis’ arm in. “You could have killed him, Rook!”
“I could have. It’s harder to miss on purpose. These days.”
“The skill he threw that knife was unmatched.” Lucanis beamed.
“Into your ARM!” Emmrich grabbed an elf root potion and handed it to Lucanis. He winked at Rook and took it in one swallow.
“It was exquisite.” Lucanis’s face twisted with the bitter potency of the potion.
“Thank you.” Rook blushed.
“You’re children!” Emmrich held his hand aloft over the wound and the smallest fingers of the fade wove the wound together from the inside out.
“It was nice to duel again.” Rook watched closely.
Emmrich pushed him away from blocking the light. “If you ever want to, Emmrich, it would be good practice for me to duel a mage.”
“Who would heal me when you stab me?” Emmrich rolled his eyes.
“Bellara?” Rook was back blocking the light as he tried to watch the spell work.
“I was being sarcastic.”
Emmrich duel here