Warnings- smut (18+ ONLY!), fingering, praise, romance, established relationship, porn without plot, no description of Rook so you can imagine whatever you want!
Notes- Dedicated to my darling @ollypopwrites who has been fueling thoughts of our beloved necromancer! It's so nice to send filth back and forth again! Please do check out her fics too cause they're hot and fantastic!! And I purposefully made this gender neutral so this can be enjoyed by everyone (I romanced Emmrich with a trans woman Rook) but you can picture whatever you wish! Enjoy!!
@flightlessangelwings-updates is my update blog so please follow that and turn on post notifs to stay up to date. I also post on AO3 under the same name
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“Darling, your beauty would make even the strongest of men weep,” Emmrich purred as he slipped his last ring off his finger and placed it beside Rook.
“Do I see tears in your eyes, Emmrich?” Rook smirked.
“Quite surely,” he replied as he reached for his gold band on his wrist.
“Wait,” Rook grabbed his hand, stopping him, “Leave those on.”
Emmrich’s eyes trailed up to meet Rook’s gaze. The sincere look he found there made his heart swell, “As you wish, darling,” his tone dropped, “You know I could never deny you anything you wanted, my dearest.”
Rook’s skin warmed as a soft sigh escaped, “Emmrich…”
He had Rook stripped naked and seated on his desk, legs spread open and his rings laid out on either side. Emmrich remained fully clothed, the only flash of skin was the top buttons undone at Rook's insistence, wanting to see more of him. The glimmer of gold framed Rook’s figure perfectly, and the necromancer had to take a step back and admire the sight on his desk.
“Beautiful, darling,” he muttered as he took in a sharp breath at the way Rook looked at him.
“Come here,” Rook reached for him.
A chuckle emitted from Emmrich’s throat as he complied, leaning forward into his love’s embrace and crashing their lips together. He swallowed the moan Rook let out as they tasted each other. A rush of heat of his own pulsed through his body, making his pants strain with the ever growing and ever insatiated need for Rook.
“Mmm,” Emmrich groaned into the kiss as his hands roamed all over Rook’s body. He studied every dip and curve, memorizing every inch of his love. He huffed with amusement as his tongue tangled with Rook’s and he found a particularly sensitive spot. “I could never get enough of you, my darling.”
Rook’s mind spun already just from his kiss. And Emmrich’s touch was almost intoxicating, “Neither can I, Emmrich,” Rook mumbled as he moved down to nibble on a sensitive spot of the neck.
“Decadently sweet, my darling,” Emmrich murmured against Rook’s skin as he licked at the tight muscle on the base of the neck, making Rook mewl.
Rook clung to Emmrich’s shoulders, tugging at his shirt and wrinkling the fine fabric. But Emmrich didn’t care, in fact he hardly noticed as his mind was consumed with his lover. It was only when Rook’s hand made its way to his hair and gave the greys a tug that he groaned.
“Emmrich…” Rook sighed as tender hands caressed up and down.
“I have you, darling,” he gave Rook one last kiss before he broke away to admire the sight before him once again.
“And you always will,” Rook replied without a hint of doubt or hesitation.
The necromancer hummed as his eyes trailed down his beloved’s body. His hands followed his gaze, starting at Rook’s jaw. Cupping it gently to kiss Rook again, Emmrich ran his hands down to pinch at Rook’s nipples, and he delighted in the reaction that pulled. He gently massaged Rook’s chest for a moment before he adjusted his posture, holding onto his love by the hip with one arm while the other snaked in between the legs.
“Rook.”
“Please, Emmrich,” Rook all but begged, “You can’t stop now.”
His eyes darkened as he cupped between Rook’s legs, feeling the arousal that built up there. “Dearest,” he whispered as he carefully pushed a finger inside.
Rook’s mouth dropped open and eyes shut. All Rook could do was pant as Emmrich quickly added a second finger. The connection was a feeling unlike anything else Rook had ever felt before, and it caused a flutter within Rook’s chest.
“Maker,” Emmrich gasped as Rook’s warmth enveloped his fingers.
“Move, Emmrich… Please.”
He placed a tender kiss on the lips before he rested his forehead against Rook’s. He groaned, feeling his cock strain as his fingers slowly pumped in and out of his love. The sounds that came from Rook’s mouth were tantalizing, and it only spurred him on more. Encouraged with every moan and cry, Emmrich moved a little faster, savoring every little sound he heard.
But there was another sound that added more to the moment: his bracelets. The way they clanged and chimed with every thrust of his arm harmonized with Rook’s moans perfectly. And it was beautiful music to the necromancer’s ears. He grinned against his love as he realized this was what Rook intended all along... Clever.
“Darling…”
Rook’s eyes blinked open and were met with Emmrich’s loving gaze. A deep sigh warmed their faces as Rook’s heart skipped a beat. But, just as Rook was about to say something witty in response, Emmrich’s fingers found just the right spot deep inside. “Oh!” Rook cried out, “Emm…”
“That’s it’ darling,” he purred as he pumped his fingers in and out, slowly and reply, feeling every soft spot inside of Rook, “Show me, love,” he murmured as his voice went hoarse from his own strain, “Show me how beautiful you are when you come undone.”
All Rook could do was cry out in ecstasy as the room spun. With every thrust of Emmrich’s long fingers, coming undone became closer and closer. Waves of pleasure crashed through Rook as tingles erupted all over. Heat rose between the two lovers as Emmrich murmured soft praises in Rook’s ear as he thrust his fingers as deep as he could reach.
“Emmrich…” Rook moaned as a climax quickly built up inside.
“Come, darling. I’m here to catch you.”
His voice was that final push that sent Rook tumbling over the edge. Emmrich’s fingers hooked inside, stroking that sweet spot deep inside of Rook over and over again as screams of pleasure echoed in the room. Rook’s legs trembled on either side of his slender body. Leaning on him for support, Rook’s orgasm made the room feel like it was on fire and inside a tornado at the same time. It was overwhelming pleasure in the best way possible, and Rook knew it was something that could only have come from Emmrich. His expert touch mixed with his unwavering adoration was the perfect formula to make Rook come completely undone. And Rook would have it no other way.
As tears started to form in the corners of Rook’s eyes, Emmrich knew it was time to back off. For now at least. He slowed his movements, coaxing just that last bit of climax from Rook’s body before he stilled his fingers inside. Every little moan and whimper went right to his core as he felt the sticky evidence of Rook’s release on his palm.
Rook was a mess, and had never looked more beautiful to Emmrich.
“Exquisite, my dearest,” he hummed in Rook’s ear before kissing it.
The only response Rook had was a breathy laugh. A gasp then escaped Rook’s throat as Emmrich slowly pulled his fingers out, his bracelets jingling slightly at the careful movement. Immediately, his arms wrapped around Rook and held on tightly. He placed a series of light kisses on the side of his love’s head, his lips lingering on the temple for just a moment longer.
“Emmrich…” Rook breathed before kissing the necromancer deeply.
“Darling,” he whispered between tender kisses.
Rook’s hands landed on Emmrich’s chest, gently trying to push him back. But, Rook found him unmoveable. Breaking away from the kiss, Rook questioned, “Emmrich?”
“Darling,” Emmrich smirked as he kissed Rook’s forehead, “You didn’t believe I was finished with you just yet, did you?” his voice dropped as he dropped to his knees before Rook, looking up with a fire in his eyes, “My love, we are just getting started.”
Hi. @heylittleriotact keeps creating fics that will not leave my mind. This was literally supposed to be something else but it turned into a scene from their newest work, Leakage instead 🙈😖. Perfectly controlled service top Emmrich is my go-to but when we occasionally get to see him lose his control and composure it's sooo🙏🤌🤌🤌
I took a few liberties with this one bc there are a few more...uhh...things happening at this point but you'll have to read to find out 😘 Check it out below! Reader discretion etc etc.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Emmerich Volkarin x Cis!Fem Rook [note: references to the fact Rook is Curvy but there’s little to no description of her appearance.]
Summary: He had pieced together everything she hadn’t actually said out loud. Rook had been a bit smitten since he had first moved into the Lighthouse, and she hadn’t been very subtle about it either. It was a very clear conclusion: he didn’t believe that she would put herself first and he was going to have to do it for her.
Rating: M (18+ MDNI)
CW: canon dialogue divergence, height difference, self-doubt, enthusiastic consent, check ins, communication, breast play, fingering, semi-public sex, body worship, squirting, masturbation reference, after care, very slight d/s negotiation if you squint, Emmrich is almost too gentlemanly for his own good, Rook talks too much when she’s nervous, scaring the hoes (each other), grown ups being grown up about relationships.
Word count: 6.7k
Notes: I just wanted to have Rook fingerbanged in a graveyard and then feelings happened ok. EDITED: Thank you to @flightlessangelwings for the moral support and assistance with this fic I'm so happy to be yelling about porn with you once more.
Read on A03
“So, Emmrich I wanted to tell you something,” Rook started. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing with…all of this. I’ve never been with anyone. Romantically, I mean.”
Rook began to panick at the look on Emmrich’s face. She probably should have worded it better, but she had just said the first thing that came to her mind before she lost the nerve to say it. The night had been going so well, and she thought she was watching it fall apart right before her eyes.
“Not the first everything! I’m not a virgin,” she quickly went to correct herself. The blunt way she said it didn’t seem to soothe the shocked expression he wore. “I’ve had one or two flings over the years.”
“One or two?” Emmrich repeated slowly, as if trying to process it.
“What I mean is,” Rook kept on, “it’s all just a bit… new.”
The pause in conversation was enough to make her wince, as she awaited his response. What Rook had considered more than the difference in years between them was the difference in experience in this particular area. Weeks living with the team had meant stories had been told, and with every polite mention of a past suitor or relationship Rook had felt her stomach tie into a knot.
It had hit her in the middle of the same night that the only thing more terrifying than saying it out loud to him was for him to figure it out while they were in the middle of being intimate.
“We can move slowly.” he assured her with a smile, the same one that always seemed to put her at ease.
“Hopefully not too slow.” Rook couldn’t help herself.
Emmrich chuckled, “as you wish, my dear.” Then he added, “I’m… glad you chose me.”
“It’s been good so far,” she breathed, shifting in her seat a little.
“Oh!” He seemed so pleased with himself. “Excellent.”
“Anyway…” She looked around. “Should we enjoy the garden?”
“Certainly.”
The heat of embarrassment had long left her face, she was still warm, but it had dulled to a low simmer of excitement and contentment. With her arm tucked in his, they walked the gardens without any purpose. No rites or gathered flowers, just enjoying the general splendor as wisps danced to and fro, and meandering spirits appeared and disappeared in the periphery.
When Rook saw the looming Love in Life and Death monument she gently pulled him toward it. Her thoughts lingered on that first kiss, the gentility and sweetness of it, much as the rest after had been. The slightest hint of becoming more had been either interrupted back at the Lighthouse or by some wandering Mourn Watcher there in the gardens.
It was not that Rook was rushing it, but it was hard to ignore the press of impatience.
“I think this is my favorite spot in the gardens,” Rook said as they neared it.
“And why is that dearest?”
He knew why, she was certain by the slight glint of mischief in his eye. It made her stomach flutter, and she pushed past the nerves of feeling put on the spot.
“Just the general atmosphere,” she shrugged, but she was grinning like an idiot, she knew.
Emmrich hummed a response, taking her hand and unlooping her arm from his. She let him spin her so her back was to the monument, a recreation of the very evening that brought them to this moment. Rook felt the stone at her back as he led her, and immediately lifted herself onto her toes, looking up and ready to accept a kiss she was sure was coming.
Emmrich held her in suspense for a few moments. His hand gently cupped the curve of her jaw, the coolness of his rings against her warmed cheeks an intoxicating contrast. He tilted her head back further, eyes roving over her face and settling on her lips. The other hand very gently landed at her waist, not overbearing by any means, and Rook carelessly curled her fists around his pressed shirt as the anticipation began to become too much. Finally, he looked her in the eyes.
“This is where I ought to say something devastatingly debonair,” he said gently.
Rook laughed a little, “I am on the edge of my seat.”
“I sorely hate to disappoint, my dear,” his thumb gently rubbed the skin over her cheek bone, “but I find myself too enchanted with the idea of putting my lips to other uses to come up with anything.”
Rook’s breath hitched, she felt her smile falter in pure shock at the intense zap of desire that shot through her. “That — that’s you not knowing what to say?” She replied. “Maker, Emmrich.”
He laughed a little, unguarded and like he was a bit surprised himself. “May I?”
“Please.”
Emmrich kissed her. Similar to most of their previous kisses, it was sweet, a bit chaste except for the way he lingered in each one. The stone at her back kept her steady as his hand flexed its grip on her waist, the other sliding down her face to dip just below the collar of her shirt at the juncture where her shoulder met her neck. His long fingers splayed and tilted her head, his thumb just over the pulse point of her throat. He had to feel her heart hammering.
But he kept a reasonable distance between their bodies, just close enough that they were touching without him pressing into her at all. Each pass of their lips over each other was a test of her patience, as she surged and retreated, trying not to push the heat of them too far when he met her with the same controlled gentility. Her fingers loosened in the grip she had of his shirt, trying her best to follow his lead despite the urge in her to pull him tight against her and nip at his lower lip until he gave her an opening to slip her tongue in.
“You don’t have to hold back on my account,” he murmured against her lips.
“You’re the one holding back,” she teased.
He kissed her a little firmer then, but just as quickly as the flame had spiked he pulled himself back again. Frustration started to rear its head in her, her impatience reaching its boiling point. She could push through, she could barrel headfirst and approach this the way she had with her previous partners.
Faking it until she made it, acting confident and assertive and figuring it out as she went was not just her leadership style. It was how she had approached anything she felt uncertain about. But this was different, he was different.
So she pulled away and asked, “is it because of what I told you earlier?”
Her voice was a bit smaller than she would have liked, the self-consciousness so plainly obvious she felt that heat of embarrassment start to take over again. The slight tang of panic overtaking the excitement she felt before.
Emmrich pulled back a little to look at her. The desire in his eyes was somewhat clouded by a flicker of doubt. He was considering what to say; how to say it kindly, how to make sure it couldn’t be misunderstood. Rook almost didn’t want him to say anything at all. Maybe she should just grab him by that impossibly stiff collar and kiss him breathless so he couldn’t think about how much she hadn’t experienced in comparison to him.
“There is a bit of concern, I will admit,” he finally said. “The last thing I want is you to feel as if anything intimate is expected of you, Rook.” His expression tightened, “your eagerness is infectious, and I am enjoying it thoroughly.” His smile was tilted to one side, still tense in his self-deprecation, “almost too thoroughly, if I am being honest. But your comfort must come before all else.”
Oh, he was too good to be true. Rook had to blink a couple times, take a moment to process what she was hearing. What it felt like to be cared for. It was just a little foreign, and for a split moment she wished she was in her armor, not the soft and thin casual clothes that left her unprotected. The vulnerability was stark and a bit scary; like he had pieced together everything she hadn’t actually said out loud. Rook had been a bit smitten since he had first moved into the Lighthouse, and she hadn’t been very subtle about it either. It was a very clear conclusion: he didn’t believe that she would put herself first and he was going to have to do it for her.
And he was probably right.
It was a crossroads moment, one that was so obvious it couldn’t have been more clear if it was narrated by some unseen omniscient presence. Rook could choose in that moment to fall back into old ways, to make their connection a fleeting and desperate grab for intimacy in the face of the apocalypse. To let it be something that she would inevitably feel the need to run from when things got too uncomfortable.
Her past entanglements hadn’t been bad, but they had not been anything more than frisky fun. They were shallow and lasted no longer than a few months: both parties knowing they weren’t staying in the long run so they took and took from each other until there was nothing else either person was willing to give.
Rook could easily let this be the same. She could act crass and brave; all she had to do was pull Emmrich’s mouth back down to her own and whisper something filthy enough to make him believe she wasn’t afraid.
Or she could accept this offer of care and hand it back in kind. She could embrace the vulnerability of the fact that he wanted very much to be good to her. He had been so careful, ensuring that without a doubt she was interested in him before he even considered acting on his attraction. He had made every step very deliberately, so that even in this stage of exploration of what this could maybe become his intentions were always clear.
“I trust you, Emmrich. Do you trust me?” Rook asked.
“Of course,” he didn’t hesitate.
Rook touched his cheek, the scratch of five o’clock shadow beginning to sprout there was a tangible and grounding sensation against her palm. She didn’t miss the way he leaned ever so slightly into the touch either, bolstering her and making her certain of her decision.
“I promise I will let you know if I need things to slow down,” she assured him, “if you promise to believe me when I say I’m alright.”
“And you will tell me?”
There it was, that sliver of doubt.
“Yes. I will.”
Emmrich grabbed her hand from his face, a soft squeeze and the smallest of circles traced on the back of it as he smiled at her. With a gentle tug he placed her hand over her shoulder and leaned in again, lips pressing close and his body crowding her back against the stone. Another chaste kiss, but this time his hands sprawled over curves, grabbing through thin cloth and she lifted herself on her toes to meet him.
With each press of their lips, he seemed to let go of another bit of reservation. Rook felt herself matching each one, the tension building up again, her prior discomfort from the vulnerability dissolving the moment he groaned so quietly against her lips. He shifted slightly, turning his head and trailing his kiss to the corner of her lips. He was pulling away and suddenly nothing seemed like a worse idea.
Rook felt a noise slip past her throat, something between desperate and frustrated. Her hand tangled into his hair and pulled him back to her lips properly, giving the tiniest nip over his bottom lip before her tongue pressed in her teeth’s wake. Emmrich’s mouth opened in a gasp, before he teased his tongue against hers.
Like most things she was finding with Emmrich, even making out in the gardens flowed and ebbed in a well-balanced way that kept her on her toes. Were their prior conversations not so serious, she may have teased the good professor for snogging in the Memorial Gardens like some hormonal apprentice. The difference in height between them kept him from pressing his hips to hers, even as she lifted herself and he leant down to meet her. But her heart leapt at the idea of him grinding against her while they kissed and kissed and kissed.
Very slowly his hands slid over the curve of her waist past the swell of her hips and onto her backside. With a whine she kissed him harder if possible, and then he squeezed. The gasp she let out had her faltering in their kiss, and then with ease she was not quite expecting him to display he lifted her.
It was only the short distance to place her in a sitting position on the lowest stone tier of the monument behind her. The second supported her back as her feet dangled and she immediately opened her legs to allow him closer. At this height it was a bit more comfortable, he slotted directly against her, just about the same height as him standing and leaning over her.
Suddenly his fingers were undoing the buttons of her blouse, all the while he ducked his head to kiss at her pulse point. Rook tilted her head back, giving him all the access he could ever need, each press of his lips, teeth and tongue giving her full body goosebumps and pulling a moan from her throat.
Her shirt was open just wide enough for him to pull it down over one shoulder, his mouth painting the curve of it. A swell of cleavage had been revealed, a nimble hand spanned one of her breasts. He kneaded softly, pressing just enough to create the slightest friction of his palm against a hardened nipple and make her gasp suddenly.
Rook felt the point of no return creeping up. The sudden recognition that they were in the middle of the garden making her open her eyes to scan around them. There was an atmospheric fog that seemed to settle around the gravestones at all times, but it wasn’t enough to offer real cover.
“Emmrich,” She whispered, it sounded less like she was trying to get his attention and more like a plead given that his thumb began to circle her nipple through the cloth of her smallclothes.
For a moment she had forgotten she was trying to get his attention, the lull of the sparks it ignited in her was such a delicious temptation. He offered her a reprieve by simply squeezing her breast, allowing a logical thought to pierce the haze of arousal.
“What would your fellow Mourn Watchers say — ah,” she faltered as his teeth dug gently into the skin of her neck and he sucked, “—if they found Professor Volkarin necking in the gardens?”
“They’d say I was the most fortunate man alive or dead, certainly,” he murmured, lips not quite losing contact with the skin of her throat. “But only if they were somehow not rendered speechless by the sight of you, my dear.”
Focus, Rook.
Beating a pair of blighted Gods seemed an easier task, but she managed to find her mind.
“Emmrich,” she insisted.
Instantly, his hands and mouth stilled. But there was a moment of tense silence as he stayed where he was, his breaths coming in small pants, fingers still twitching to touch and grab. Surprisingly, he said nothing, just gathered himself for a moment. She didn’t want him to fall back into propriety, but she had to ask.
“What if someone sees us?”
“Would you like to stop?” He tilted his head, still angled so he was below and looking up at her.
“That’s not what I asked,” she challenged. “As much as I want you to ravish me right here, we don’t need to be on the Mourn Watch’s bad side for desecrating the Memorial Gardens.”
There was the slightest change in his eyes, a momentary narrowing before he came back to himself. Something going on in his mind she couldn’t quite figure out.
“I assure you,” he lifted himself to kiss her lips, “no one will be coming to disturb us.”
“How do you know?”
“I am a senior necromancer,” Emmrich told her with the slightest lilt of haughtiness, “there are privileges that come along with the position.”
“I see what you’re getting at,” she smiled. “Reanimated royal cooks and a private night in the garden,” she moved to undo the chain on his collar, the first step to undressing him, “you really are trying to impress.”
“My dear, this is only the beginning,” he delicately grabbed her hand so she had to stop fussing with his chain, and kissed each knuckle. “But if you truly are uncomfortable continuing on —“
“No,” she insisted. “No, I’m fine,” she nodded her head, “not the first time I’ve been a bit risky, and if you say no one will stumble upon us...” she leaned in to kiss him again.
Emmrich arched a brow at her. “One of your two dalliances? In public, really?”
She couldn’t tell if he was being jealous or judgemental. The only response she could find was, “come on, with the life I lead? You think no one’s ever fucked me behind a bar before?”
The unmoving look he gave her was full of as much patience as the unknown other emotion she couldn’t place. She was doing it again. Another attempt at making herself feel less self-conscious,
leaning on bravado that was her only saving grace in moments of uncertainty.
“I see.”
“I was more worried about your delicate sensibilities.”
Emmrich gave a short laugh.
“I feel like I keep saying wrong things,” she admitted, “can we get back to the kissing bit?”
He acquiesced, but this time the kisses didn’t start slow and gentle. Emmrich picked up exactly where he left off, overwhelming her with heavy draws of his tongue into her mouth. She was glad for it, reaching back for that fire that was stoking in her, and determined not to let anything douse it again.
Despite the fervor in his kisses, his hands were more soft. Teasing touches over her breasts again through fabric, still keeping some distance between them even as he was slotted between her thighs. Impatiently she grabbed for him, pulling him close so she could kiss above his collar. He smelled of some kind of cologne or maybe aftershave, lavender and sage and myrrh, she took a deep breath at the pleasantness of it before she nipped at the skin.
He let out a sigh, thumb grazing over her nipple through fabric again, and she was spurred on. She felt exposed with her top half open, while he was perfectly well kempt except for where she had wrinkled his shirt with grabbing hands. Boldness crested in her as she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him flush against her.
There was the telltale hardness of him, blocked by all the layers of his clothing and hers, but unmistakable. He grunted, a deep low sound that gave her chills, and immediately she felt the firm grind of him against her. There was far too much clothing between them for her to truly get off from it, but his mouth had dropped to the swell of her cleavage, hot tongue running across the skin and in combination it was enough to make her moan.
Emmrich stopped moving immediately, and she threw her head back with a disappointed noise. His fingers toyed with the edge of her underclothes, just barely reaching under, grazing the bare underside of her breasts. Rook sucked a sharp breath in, eyes flying open to find his lingering there where his fingers were. They flicked back to hers, and she nodded her head, running her hand up over his cheek and through his hair.
He kissed her first, sweetly this time, a soft and heart wrenching sincerity to it that she didn’t have time to process before his hand slipped completely underneath her bandeau. He sighed into her lips, squeezing the flesh in his hand. When his thumb traced over her nipple without the fabric as a barrier she moaned, louder than before and her fingers tightened in his hair.
He did it again, seeming to feed off the reaction. “You make the loveliest sounds, dearest.”
She chuckled a little, not really having the mind to find something to say back. He groped and kissed, and she rocked her hips into his seeking any kind of friction she could get. Emmrich pressed harder into her, and she heard him choke back a groan as she rolled her hips, and he shifted just slightly to pull his hips away.
A truly petulant groan left her as she grabbed at him again. “You're still holding back, Emmrich.”
“I am,” he admitted plainly.
“Don’t,” she urged. “I’m fine.”
“Trust me, my dear, I know,” he simply said, pulling his hands carefully from underneath her bandeau. “My plans for this evening are going just as I had hoped.”
Rook felt her stomach drop, “but —“
“Give me your hand, please,” he held his out and she didn’t hesitate to press her palm to his.
She expected him to be a gentleman and help her down from the ledge he had put her on. She preemptively felt the disappointment of desire unsatisfied, her stomach turning at the idea of finishing a walk around the garden so unsated with her underclothes sticking wetly to her cunt, a constant reminder of what almost was. Emmrich took her hand and she felt the slide of metal against her skin, he placed three of his gold bands on her ring finger and one on the middle finger. All six bracelets he normally wore on his right wrist were also slipped onto hers.
Rook inspected them with a tilted head, not a perfect fit but not too tight or loose enough she worried about them slipping off. The gold bangles jingled against each other as she examined the unfamiliar weight of them. She was confused, and his arm looked so bare without them, it felt incredibly intimate.
“What are you doing?” She asked him.
His hands rested on her thighs, sliding up to the belts around her waist, “if you’ll allow it, I’d like to remove these,” he ran his ringer over one of those buckles.
“Of course I’ll allow it,” Rook frowned.
“Wonderful,” he started unbuckling.
She just watched him, before her unadorned hand reached for the fabric tied at his waist. “Can I?”
“No, you may not,” he smiled, with a shake of his head still tilted down to where he was undoing her trousers. His eyes lifted to hers, amused, at the huff of annoyance she gave when she let go of the fabric.
“How are you planning on fucking me with out undressing at all?”
Emmrich had gotten the buckles undone, untucking her shirt from the trousers and began unlacing. He was quick with it, not faltering over any knots or clasps. “It seems your previous partners have made some egregious errors in their courting of you,” he told her gently, “forgive my language, but I am not going to ‘fuck you’ at all.”
The curse sounded so out of place on his tongue she almost had no idea what to say besides an inarticulate grunt of, “what?”
He untied his own sash around his waist, unfolding it and draping it across her lap. He reached underneath it, grabbing at the trousers that hung open on her and started to tug them down. Rook lifted her hips to let him, watched in confusion as he undid her boots, set them aside and sliding both underclothes and pants all the way off of her so her bare bum sat against the stone.
As he folded her trousers very neatly to set them aside, she finally found her wits again, “Emmrich? You’re sending a lot of mixed messages right now.”
He kissed her lips, stepping back between her legs. “I’m not going to take you carelessly,” he told her.
“Maybe I haven’t been clear,” she smiled, “I’d very much like it if you had your way with me, threw me over a gravestone or something.”
“The idea is incredibly tempting, my dear,” he assured her. “Do not mistake me, having you at my mercy is quite often on my mind.”
“Well you can’t say it like that and not follow through,” Rook reached for his shirt again.
“Rook,” he breathed a laugh, grabbing her hands to place them on the edge of the stone. “That privilege is something that must be earned. I will not even allow myself to look upon you in all your naked glory before I have done so.”
Rook tilted her head, “but you have -“
“Please, humor me, darling,” he kissed her. “Let me do this the right way.”
This was a dance she had no idea the steps to, but she nodded her head, ready to let him show her. It was strange, to be treated like something precious. It left her feeling off kilter, unsure how to show the same care back — but if he minded he hadn’t said so. She was so full of want for him, she hadn’t been secretive about it, but maybe he liked that. It certainly seemed like he did, given the strain in his trousers.
As Emmrich kissed her his hand slipped to the outside of her covered thighs, roaming down until he finally made contact with the skin of her calf, all the way down to her ankles, across the top of her foot. He followed a trail back up the same way, this time his hand sliding under the cummerbund draped over her lap.
In her wildest fantasies she had taken care to imagine the drag of metal across her skin from his grave gold, but she felt the weight of it on her own hand. It was somehow even more intimate to be wearing them herself, while his hand was bare as he squeezed the generous flesh of her thigh.
He began massaging lightly, the press of his fingers never moving into painful, and she groaned a little at the soothing feeling. His head tilted down for her neck again, and she was finding his favorite spot to kiss was right were he could feel her pulse beating. The tickle of his moustache painting a complex mix of sensations while he so gently sucked on the skin there.
“I fear your skin may become an insurmountable vice of mine,” he said gently.
His right hand slid down to her knee and back up the inside of her thigh. His other was tracing the curve of her torso, over her side before resting with his hand just underneath her bandeau not quite touching her breast pressing enough to feel her ribs. The anticipation was going to kill her, she was alight, nerves on fire as she wanted more — of this almost touching where she wanted him and for him to just touch her — she wasn’t sure what she would have preferred.
His right hand had avoided the apex between her thighs, coming up to trial a line over the curve of her stomach. From her belly button and down to where the thatch of hair began, his fingers scratched gently through them before detouring to her thigh again. When he finally traced his fingers over the slick inside of her thigh, her arousal smeared there, he gasped slightly.
“Maker, preserve me,” his voice was light as he spoke more to himself than her.
Rook whined, biting her tongue against a string of desperate begging.
Gentle fingers traced over her outer lips, rubbing and making her choke on the breath in her lungs. A tortuous slow exploration of her, Emmrich’s breath coming a little faster as he seemed to keep forgetting he was showering her neck with kisses — stopping with every dip into a new depth even before he reached where she was wettest for him. A gentle circle of her clit had her head thrown back with a moan that was so loud, she was almost embarrassed as he rubbed against the seam of her.
When his fingers trailed down to her entrance, he hesitated where he found how wet she was, and then groaned. “Forgive me, I —“
He dipped a single finger slowly inside of her and then pulled his hand from her. Any protest she had died when he lifted the finger to his mouth, sucking on the bare digit, and moaning at the taste of her.
“Emmrich,” Rook gasped.
But he just kissed her. The hint of her own arousal on his mouth making her feel more lewd than she had ever before, and the heat of his kiss taking any logical thought away from her. His hand slipped under the fabric again, his hand angled so he could slip a finger in her a grind his palm against her clit gently. Even when Rook gasped, unable to kiss back, his mouth was on hers, tongue flicking and teeth grabbing.
Another finger slipped into her, her arousal making the stretch easy but no less exhilarating. His bracelets around her wrist jangled against each other as she gripped at his shoulder, trying to find something to ground her, trying to touch any part of him she could. The stone at her back held her upright, and she threw her head back at a shock of pleasure when his hand finally took hold of her breast beneath her smallclothes, mouth dipping to skirt the edge of the cloth and take another pert nipple through it.
An orgasm was approaching almost embarrassingly quickly. She spoke his name again, a desperate plea that he responded to with only a moan of his own. Her cunt clenched around his fingers, hips jolting forward, and her fingers nearly aching with the grip she had on him.
“Yes,” he murmured, pulling away to watch her. “There you are, I have you.”
Rook crumbled, panting and moaning, each roll of her hips gracefully matched by his hand. He pinched her nipple, and her legs drifted further open, back sliding down the stone a bit so she was at an almost uncomfortable angle. His hand never stopped, palm grinding against her clit, fingers pumping at just the right angle with the slightest crook of them upwards dragging against something truly sinful within her. It curled her toes and made her back arch against her will, all the while she kept fluttering her eyes open to watch him watch her.
His mouth was parted, just slightly smiling, he may have looked cocky, too pleased with himself, except for the raw focus in his eyes. It was like the world had fallen away entirely, and she was the only one who existed to him. Hungry, pleading and slightly awestruck. He was beautiful.
The waves of pleasure in her died down, and she opened her mouth to say something to him — but the train of thought flew away when he slipped his fingers out of her and used them to start rubbing a slow pattern over her clit. Testing the sensitivity, and watching for every micro expression.
Need flared brightly in her again. So soon after, she felt insatiable, like she had to keep that feeling of release going forever. And he was happy to oblige her.
“Again?” He asked.
“Yeah — yeah, again,” Rook gasped. “Please!”
Emmrich faltered at the begging, something flashing over his face that spelled out nights of wrung out pleasure and his firm hand correcting her when she slipped up. His pace quickened, his body pressing as close as he could to her without impeding his task.
“This is what you deserve, Rook,” he told her between kisses. “To be undone, at the hands of someone who knows how to piece you back after.” He pressed his forehead to hers, “I can hardly believe you chose me.” When she tangled her fingers into his now completely ruffled hair and tugged slightly, he groaned, “I am beyond fortunate you did.”
It was hard to fully process what he was saying. “Wanted you — from the beginning,” was all she could manage.
Emmrich stuttered a laugh, rewarding her with a pinch of her nipple again. “Insatiable minx.”
Her second orgasm came with a similar speed, but this time carried on so long she could hardly form words. Perhaps pleasure made time roll on slower than she could tell, his unrelenting pace making her eyes roll back into her head and all words cease. An internal chant of begging for more rang in her own ears but she couldn’t quite make her lips form the words.
It was entirely overwhelming, the feeling of wanting to be splayed out for him. To let him have her whatever way he wanted. She wanted to beg him to never ever stop until she was crying and mindless.
“Good. Give me another,” Emmrich said, more a demand than a question as his other hand slipped out of her bandeau and beneath the cummerbund lain over her legs. All while one hand still played with different pressures and ministrations on her clit, the other pressed two fingers to her again.
He caught himself, “is that alright?”
All Rook knew was that she wanted more, had to have more. She was all desire, all greedy lust, ready to do whatever he asked as long as he didn’t stop. It was terrifying, it was liberating, but it felt safe.
“Yes,” she gasped. Finding a shred of her mind through the haze to laugh, “if you think you can manage it.”
His fingers plunged into her at the challenge, wrenching a gasp from her. “Challenging me in this area is not your best idea, Rook.”
“Are you sure?” Rook grinned, drunk on pleasure, “I’m getting exactly what I want out of it.”
“You’re much too capable of speech, darling,” Emmrich grinned back. “I shall have to rectify that.”
He was still fully clothed, and no intimate part of her was exposed to him, but it was perhaps the filthiest thing she had ever done. He had said it was just the beginning, and she believed him wholeheartedly. Even with the slick sounds of his fingers pumping in her, the way she had abandoned any kind of self-preservation to moan, and his mouth latched onto her nipple through the fabric. There was so much more on the horizon, and she was already on the verge of begging him to abandon his vow to ‘properly’ court her.
Something was happening that she was unsure of, a stirring in her cunt that was not entirely unfamiliar. A brand new pressure, something that had teased itself in her before but never was allowed to fully bloom. In a slight panic, Rook opened her eyes, shock and awe written in the way her lips opened to pant through the sensation.
He cooed at her, gentle encouragement and praises that made her want to please him so badly it was concerning. “Lovely, my dear,” she caught him saying, “you fall apart so beautifully for me.”
“Emmrich, I —“
A sigh, “my name on your lips is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s — I’m going to —“ she felt like she had to warn him.
“Yes, please,” he murmured, sounding just as desperate as her, “you’re so good to me.”
Rook fell apart again. Emmrich pulled his fingers from her as he felt her tighten around him, and to her own shock, she felt a dam break in her, a burst of wetness painting his fingers and the stone beneath her.
Emmrich let out a whine that made her ravenous, it was needy and raw . Urgently, he kept rubbing over her clit, and it happened again. The sound wet and messy and altogether filthy. She felt tears stinging her eyes, her legs shaking and wave after wave of pleasure rolling through her body. Everything felt more vibrant, colors, sounds, every physical sensation magnified.
“Magnificent, Rook,” his voice lowered again. “Absolutely perfect.”
The praise hit her hard and she sobbed when he repeated the same ministrations once more. When he went to do it again she gasped, feeling like she might actually die. She was too sensitive, the stone at her back was beginning to bite and she was honestly a little scared at how her body wanted to have more still.
“Wait,” she gasped. “Wait — it’s too much — I —“
Emmrich immediately stopped, pulling his hands away to rest on her thighs. “It seems I got carried away.”
“No, no,” Rook shook her head frantically, trying to put words together in a rush to console him. “No, it was perfect.”
“Breathe,” he reminded her, rubbing soothingly on the skin.
Rook took in a heavy breath. He was watching her closely, but he leaned in to kiss her brow. While she caught her breath, leaning boneless against the stone, he started to clean her up, using the fabric still draped over her. Gently he wiped the mess away between her legs, and on his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed, still getting her breath back. “I made a mess I didn’t even know I could make.”
Emmrich faltered for a moment, swallowing audibly. “The last thing you need to do is apologize, Rook, I’m glad I could enlighten you.”
He was being strange. For a moment he didn’t touch her at all, his hands firmly on the stone on either side of her, hips leaned back and taking deep breaths.
“Are you alright?” Concern made her sit up straighter, his bangles clacking against each other on her wrist when she reached out to touch his face.
Emmrich’s eyes were glued to the jewelry on her skin for a moment. “I’m fine, dearest.”
He flicked his eyes to hers, another wry smile on his lips that didn’t fit the bliss she was feeling at the moment. The pupils of his eyes were blown out so wide the green of his eyes were barely visible. Still he patiently watched while she caught her breath, leaning boneless against the stone. He was still straining against his trousers. Each breath he took was measured, and intentional.
“Let me get use of my legs back,” she said suddenly, “and I’ll take care of you.”
“No need, darling,” he assured her.
“But you just —“
“Pardon me, Rook, but I know perfectly well what I did,” he cut her off. “It was what I intended to do, I just seemed to have… miscalculated my ability to keep my composure.”
“You don’t have to keep your composure with me,” she insisted.
“I truly appreciate that,” he said with eyes closed as he straightened up, tall and proud, despite sporting quite an obvious erection. “But tonight was about you.”
“It can be about us.”
“It is,” he said gently, then continuing to clean up. “But you said you’d let me do this properly. You deserve to be courted selflessly.”
Rook leveled him with a look, half exasperated at this surprising new stubbornness and increasingly fond of his commitment to making her feel special. He laughed a little.
“Put that look away, Rook,” he said, “it’s an erection, it’s hardly going to kill me.”
“But I want to make you feel good.”
Emmrich gathered up his cummerbund in his hands, licked his lips slightly and looked at her. “You’ve given me a great gift,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “the evidence of your pleasure will be more than enough to satisfy me.”
Rook was spent, or should have been anyway, but the flare in her body was instantaneous. He helped redress her while she imagined him alone in the laboratory back at the Lighthouse, holding the fabric to his nose while he stroked himself. Would he wrap it around himself, stroke himself through it? And what had she been missing out on her entire life when his special brand of seduction and devotion was already driving her quickly towards madness?
“Emmrich,” she said, looking down at him where he was on one knee as he started putting her boots back on her feet. “Thank you.”
Warnings: Talks of death, angst. Will become explicit in later chapters.
Little note - Taash's journey will be covered briefly in this fic, and as such their pronouns will be altered in line with the events of the game <3
Emmrich Volkarin had the misfortune of having the sharpened mind of a logician, and the malleable heart of a hopeless romantic. The two, in concert, had not always been conducive to romantic success.
He had fallen in love many different times and in many different ways. There were the small, fleeting loves that ignited in a burning summer, where the heat rose too quickly, too fiercely, consuming what little fuel existed before collapsing into ash. There were the easy loves, ones he slipped into like a pair of well-worn slippers, but that very familiarity meant they frayed and worn out far too soon.
Some loves were born of wild, heady promises, their allure so intoxicating that they obscured the bitter taste of the realities lurking beneath the surface of those who clung to them. Others, he realised in hindsight, had never truly been love at all - mere illusions conjured between yearning souls. Two people who had believed they’d discovered fire, only to find it was nothing more than a borrowed light from another time and place.
So, when Grace declined to pursue a deeper connection with him, Emmrich was not surprised. She was, after all, exceptional, and he—well, he was on the cusp of an age where the soft heart in his chest had become more a liability than an asset.
That heart was not broken, but it was certainly bruised enough to hurt.
Sat alone at his desk, he could not help but mull over the events of that evening, of his idiocy. What a careless, insensitive fool he had been to discuss his own fears of mortality to a Grey Warden. To a member of the order who signed their own death sentence the second they joined.
And how weak and foolish he must have seemed, to be so scared of the very thing he surrounded himself with, devoted his life to, and that she had to face far sooner than he. At the time, it had seemed like the easiest thing in the world - to tell the beautiful, kind woman who had accompanied him all about his deepest fears. To offer pieces of himself up to her, in the faint hope she would return the favour and he could hold the bright shards of her up to the light, to take in every refraction of her technicolour spirit.
Alas, it was not to be. He would be grateful for the shades of her he was allowed to admire from a distance, and devote himself to her cause under the banner of friendship.
It was still a privilege after all, to be her friend.
There must be a way for him to help her, to use his talent for study and research to unravel the mystery of the blight. Antoine’s findings in the wetlands had been intriguing, but Emmrich had begun to feel out of his depth. His expertise had always been in the Fade—spirits and the magic that bound them. Yet, as he spent more time in the crossroads, he began to suspect that everything might be more interconnected than he had originally thought.
The blight had been unleashed from the fade itself by the Gods, from their prison, and they had the ability to control it. It was a tool. A deliberate creation of the Evanuris used as a weapon in their quest for domination. Perhaps if this tool was further investigated, understood, it could be repurposed or dismantled…
He had his own sample now. He had taken it from the wetlands, determined to help. To do something.
Many times now, he had ventured into the crossroads alone, notebook and equipment in hand, eager to uncover what he could learn. He conversed with the spirits that lingered there, studied the strange figures—ancient elves turned to tree bark—and pored over the letters he discovered, piecing together clues that might unravel the riddles of the Fade.
Each time he returned to the lighthouse, Grace would be waiting in the study, curled up in his armchair as if she belonged there. The fire’s warmth would tint her cheeks a soft pink. A book was always in her hands, though she never marked her page when he returned. Instead, she would set it down and watch him, her eyes bright with curiosity, her gaze softer than usual. She listened intently as he paced, rambling through his discoveries, weaving together theories that were still half-formed, until they began to make sense. Occasionally, she would ask pointed, sharp questions, pushing him to think deeper, to consider new angles.
One evening, utterly exhausted, he returned so tired it took him until he’d hung up his coat, removed his collar pin, and unfastened his sash before he noticed Grace curled up in the armchair by the fire, fast asleep. Her knees were drawn to her chest, her head resting against the backrest. Her beautiful red curls cascaded over her face, and the book she’d been reading lay forgotten on the floor.
He had quietly taken his coat and covered her with it, brushing her hair away from her face, gently removing her shoes, before settling into the armchair opposite—the one that had mysteriously appeared one day after she had spent several hours in his company.
He supposed that wouldn’t happen any more. He wondered if, soon, there would only be one armchair in front of the fire once more.
“Neve said you wanted to see me.”
Emmrich broke away from the thought he’d been engrossed in. Standing in the doorway, arms folded, was Taash. Her sharp gaze swept the study with barely concealed disdain, lingering on the cluttered shelves and tables. Her eyes landed on Manfred, busy dusting a bookshelf, and he turned and gave a small, surprised hiss to see her watching him. He slowly turned back and started dusting a little more diligently than before. It had become clear to Emmrich that Taash’s habit of staring unblinking intimidated him a little.
“Ah, yes! Come in, make yourself comfortable,” Emmrich said brightly, gesturing toward a chair at the other side of his desk.
Taash did not move. Manfred slowly peered back over his shoulder again, before slowly shuffling across to a bookshelf further away, never stopping his dusting.
“Right, then,” he muttered, clearing his throat. “I have something that might interest you.”
He slid open a desk drawer, rummaging through a chaotic pile of parchment scrawled with diagrams, notes, and occasional smudges of ink. After a moment of muttering and rustling, he retrieved a small flask filled with luminous blue liquid.
A self-satisfied smile curled his lips as he set it on the desk with a faint clink. The liquid shimmered and swirled within, catching the light like sun-dappled ocean waves.
So far, his attempts to bond with Taash had been met with... resistance. He had expected this. People not of Nevarra were often at best skeptical, at worst horrified by his dedication to the necromantic arts. But knowing that didn’t make the misunderstanding sting any less.
Taash, in particular, was somewhat of a fortress. She kept her distance when they traveled, her aversion to his craft evident. She disapproved—loudly—of his use of necromancy in combat, though it had saved her life more times than he cared to count. Not that he’d ever remind her. He preferred his bones unbroken.
He tapped the flask with a finger. “I read the list of numbing herbs you requested from the market to ease your discomfort. I thought I’d try distilling the main ingredients into a more potent liquid—enhancing its effectiveness and eradicating any unpleasant side effects. I added a few extra components for balance. Dragonthorn, for instance, to act as a stabilising agent.”
“Does it taste like crap?”
“Erm, well,” Emmrich faltered, shifting in his chair. “The art of alchemy is not exactly renowned for its—”
Before he could finish defending his hard work, Taash reached over, swiped the flask from his desk, and pulled the cork out with her teeth. She sniffed it, her sensitive nose wrinkling almost immediately.
“Smells like crap.”
Emmrich sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. “I didn’t design it for flavour, Taash. It's a potion, not a refreshment.”
“S’fine,” she said, “Probably tastes better than Harding’s cooking.”
“Don’t worry, alchemy is something of a hobby of mine, and I’d say I’ve developed quite the talent for it. I assure you, it’s perfectly safe—though, of course, I’d recommend starting with small doses and gradually increasing them with each use.” He smiled warmly at her, he liked Taash. She possessed a wonderful knack for brevity.
“Is that why you took some of the blight?” She asked, the shade of her voice never shifting. Making it difficult to know under what context she was asking him. More disdain, perhaps?
“Ah, you noticed. I was hoping to exercise a little more discretion.” He sighed and pulled out a notebook from another one of his desk draws, brimming with added bits of paper and further notes.
“I thought that, as we were collecting samples for Antione to inspect, it may be useful for me to conduct a little research of my own.”
His gaze drifted from his notes, to a small bunch of Andraste’s Grace in a bottle next to his inkwell.
“The blight is changing, evolving, showing signs of mutation”
“Like.. a disease?”
“Quite. Think of the Blight as a corrupted form of life. It acts as a parasite on its hosts, but unlike a mere fungal infection or plague, it’s far more dynamic. It doesn’t just corrupt; it repurposes . I’ve observed elements of cellular degradation in reanimated corpses that mimic necrotic tissue, but also evidence of regeneration—twisted and unnatural, of course, but regeneration nonetheless.”
He was no longer talking to Taash, but more to himself, to the books and notes and space around him. To the world. To anyone or anything who would possibly listen.
“The Blight is beginning to present differently. In places like the Hossberg Wetlands, there are physical manifestations—boils, cysts, pustules of Blighted growth spreading the corruption outward. These cysts are brimming with dark ichor, capable of infecting anything that comes into contact with them, but what’s most concerning is that these manifestations aren’t passive. They spread. If left unchecked, I suspect these growths could contaminate vast areas, rendering them uninhabitable for generations. The Hossberg Wetlands are just one example—a fertile region turned into a festering swamp. Who knows how far it could spread, and as for the wardens…”
He let his head fall into his hands then. He had not slept. Candles had burned down to nubs in their holders, cups of cold tea sat untouched in a sombre crowd around the room, marking the places he had stood, pulling various books from the shelves, sitting in his chair in front of the fire and fiddling with various pieces of equipment which he may find a use for. Piles of books which had not proven to be of use to him were becoming columns on the stairs, on the balcony, on the floor. Poor Manfred was trying his best to keep up with the clutter the professor left behind him, his curiosity teetering into concern.
“You shouldn’t be poking around with that. It’s dangerous. It’ll make you sick. Then what would Rook do? She needs you.”
Emmrich sighed heavily, his fingers digging into his scalp. “I don’t know if I can help her. The Order is so secretive... Maybe if I could access—”
“No,” Taash interrupted, her voice firm. “Not as a warden.”
Her words snapped his attention up. He blinked, his exhaustion momentarily breaking down the walls of logic he had so carefully constructed.
Taash rolled her eyes and made a sound of frustration. “Rook likes you. It’s obvious. She spends half her time around you flirting and making stupid puns to get you to laugh.”
Emmrich blinked again, slower this time, as if the weight of her words was just sinking in. “She... was making those terrible puns... to flirt with me?”
“Yeah. I didn’t say she was clever.”
He cleared his throat and straightened in his chair, though the motion did little to make him seem any more composed. “I think you’re mistaken. Grace is vivacious, yes, but she’s equally warm and affectionate toward many of our companions. Including you. It’s just her nature.”
“Ugh. You’re just as clueless as she is.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That’s Kashlock. With you it’s Taamlock.”
The bemused look did not leave his face, just as the frustrated one did not leave Taash’s.
“With the others she’s flirting for fun. Kashlock. With you it’s serious. Taamlock. You want each other. I can smell it. It’s disgusting.”
Emmrich felt the heat creeping up his neck to his ears, his face crimson. He opened his mouth to respond but managed only a spluttering noise.
“Look. You like her. She likes you. She needs you around. Don’t fuck around with the blight and get yourself killed. ‘Kay?’
Still speechless, Emmrich could only gape at her as she turned on her heel to leave.
“Bye.” she said
“Wait, Taash..”
He did not want her to leave so soon, even though he could not place the exact moment their dynamic had soured, he was certain of one thing: they could not afford to remain at odds. Besides, if she had anything more to add around Grace’s behaviour, he would be more than interested to listen.
“Please, feel free to stay for a spot of tea,” Emmrich said, gesturing toward the chair opposite him. “Manfred has been experimenting with infusions. I’m sure he could add some ginger—I recall you’re rather fond of it.”
Manfred paused his dusting, turning to hiss enthusiastically.
Emmrich knew better than to expect a warm reaction. But the gesture, however modest, was meant to ease the wariness she held for him. Time spent in conversation, he hoped, might convince her that her mistrust was misplaced. Yet, her continued guardedness was beginning to sting. He hadn’t seen her smile - not once - and it was becoming more and more difficult not to take it personally.
Taash remained where she stood, her boots rooted firmly to the wooden floorboards. She didn’t move forward, but neither did she retreat.
With an inward sigh, Emmrich decided to treat her as he would one of the Necropolis’ elusive cats: patient, unobtrusive, and willing to let her make the first move.
“You call him a ‘he.’”
“I’m sorry?” Emmrich asked, glancing up from a book.
Taash’s gaze hadn’t wavered. Her eyes remained locked on Manfred, her brow furrowed as if puzzling out a riddle she hadn’t yet solved. Emmrich knew she hated riddles.
“Manfred,” she said, her voice slow and deliberate, “You call him ‘he.’ How do you know he’s a ‘he’? Does he have… boy bones?”
“Ah.” Emmrich closed the book softly and returned his quill to its pot. “His bones are from a variety of donors, male and female. Some skeletal components require a match from the same biological sex, but others fit together without regard to such concerns. However,” he said, smiling gently, “just as with us, Manfred’s identity has nothing to do with the bones themselves.”
Taash blinked, her frown easing ever so slightly. “Oh.”
“It’s quite simple, really,” Emmrich continued. “He just let me know.”
“But I thought he could only hiss?”
“He finds his own ways to communicate. Many spirits, especially ones as curious as Manfred, wish to join the living and experience life. When they do, they start as something simple—a facet or idea that represents them—and, with encouragement, develop into more complex beings. For some spirits, I suppose gender becomes part of that identity.”
“Only some spirits?”
“It isn’t universal,” Emmrich explained, leaning back in his chair. “Some spirits feel no need for such distinctions. Gender, after all, is a construct. Perhaps they pick it up from the body they inhabit, the living beings they observe, or simply from something that brings them comfort. It helps them feel closer to what they wish to become.”
He watched as Manfred stopped dusting to offer a soft hiss and wiggle his skeletal fingers at a stray wisp that had floated through the window.
“Spirits,” Emmrich added, watching the exchange with quiet amusement, “aren’t so different from us in many ways.”
Taash’s lips pressed into a thin line. “So you didn’t question it at all?”
“Why would I?” Emmrich replied. “Who am I to argue when someone tells me who they are?”
“Huh.”
Emmrich let the silence linger before clearing his throat. “Now, about that tea? I assure you, Manfred’s steeping technique has improved immensely.”
Taash hesitated, her eyes darting briefly toward the skeletal steward before returning to Emmrich. For the first time, she seemed to seriously consider his offer.
“All right,” she said at last, lowering herself into the chair. “But tell him not to hiss at me. It freaks me out.”
Manfred inclined his skull politely, then shuffled off toward the teapot.
A fleeting smile crossed Taash’s face as she settled into the chair. It was small, but Emmrich caught it all the same.
⎯⎯⎯⎯ ♜ ⎯⎯⎯⎯
Emmrich’s resolve had only deepened since his conversation with Taash. The mystery of the blight had taken root in his mind, consuming him with an urgency he couldn’t shake. He and Antoine had been exchanging letters, delving into theories and testing various hypotheses out in the wetlands. Yet, it had been days since he'd heard from Antoine, and a nagging worry gnawed at him. Had they reached a dead end?
With his trusty notebook in hand, Emmrich had just stepped out of his study when he heard raised voices drifting from the atrium. He paused, torn. He should turn back, respect their privacy, or announce himself to avoid the suspicion of eavesdropping. But then he heard Grace’s voice, sharp and fired up and he halted. Something in the tone of her voice made him hesitate.
“I’m not arguing with you about this, Davrin. Varric put me in charge. I’ve made the call.” Grace’s voice was taut, each word pulled so tight they might snap. It was a sound Emmrich recognised well. That edge of strained control, of barely holding herself together. He’d heard her like this before, countless times - pushing forward even as the weight of the world tried to drag her back twice as hard.
“You are not my senior Warden,” Davrin shot back, his tone colder than Emmrich had ever heard.
“I’ve been a Warden for much longer than you—”
“Length of service doesn’t correlate to rank,”
“Davrin. You’re not listening to me. I’ve been a Warden longer than you, and I have much less time left…”
“No. Stop that. You’re the only one with the link to Solas, and that’s our play against the other Gods.”
“You mean The God of Lies? The God of Trickery? We can’t trust him, Davrin. Maybe it would be for the best if—”
“Absolutely not.” There was a sound like hands being slammed on a table.
Grace didn’t back down. Her voice didn’t waver, not even a little. She was a wall.
“You need to protect Assan! You need to get the griffons back—they’re the last ones alive.”
“They will die anyway if the Gods win!” Davrin hit back. “The griffons, the people—they’ll all die if we don’t make the right decision now. You think I’m being noble? I don’t give a shit about trophies or statues or glory, Rook. This is the right decision, and you know it.”
Something shifted then, that once moved could not be put back.
“I can hear the Calling.” She said, simply and brutally. A lance through his heart.
No one moved. No one spoke. The warmth went out of the room as though her words were a spell that leeched the heat from the stone.
From the shadows, he stepped forward, his boots heavy against the stone floor. Her head snapped up toward him, her face draining of color as her eyes met his. He caught the flicker of surprise, quickly replaced by something else—guilt, perhaps.
“How long?” His voice was calm, too calm, the kind of calm that masked a storm.
“Emmrich…” Grace began, her tone soft, placating. “Apologies, our conversation just got out of hand. I didn’t mean to—”
“How. Long.”
The words came harder, sharper this time, slicing through whatever excuse she was about to make.
She hesitated, her eyes darting away before she spoke. “It started just before I met Varric.”
“Bullshit,” Davrin cut in, his voice a whip crack. “You’re lying. You’re just saying that so I’ll let you kill the damn dragon.”
Grace sighed, running a hand over her face. “I’m not lying, Davrin.”
“Why does it matter who kills the dragon?” Emmrich interjected, though he already dreaded the answer.
Grace turned to him, her expression grim. “Because the only way to kill an Archdemon is for a Warden to do it. When the Archdemon dies, its essence transfers to the Warden who strikes the killing blow. And that Warden dies too.”
“What?!” His mind raced, struggling to piece together the implications. “That’s absurd. What’s the science behind it? How does that—”
“It’s confidential. Warden secrets.” Grace said flatly, her tone closing the subject.
“Is now really the time for secrecy ? ” Emmrich snapped, his voice rising. “What if I could help? I’ve been studying the Blight, it’s connection to the Fade - it’s changing , there has to be a way to—”
“Even if there was a way,” she interrupted, her voice quieter now but no less resolute, “it’s too late. The Gods are moving on Weisshaupt. We just got word from Evka and Antoine.” She glanced at Davrin, her gaze steeling. “Get ready to leave.
Emmrich felt his breath catch again, his mind scrambling for some way to hold onto the unraveling threads. “Grace—” he started, but she was already turning away.
“There’s nothing else to discuss,” she said without looking back. “Prepare what you need. We’re all going. And we do what we must.”
And then she was gone, her silhouette vanishing into the dim corridor beyond, leaving Emmrich standing in the silence.
Perhaps, it was not merely a bruise that bloomed across his heart after all.
He could not leave it like this. The image of her marching toward certain death, stubborn and resolute, gnawed at him with a relentless hunger. If he did nothing, if he stayed silent, if he didn’t act—he knew he would never forgive himself.
He followed her into her room, as she began grabbing hold of various things littered around and stuffing them into her pack or her pockets.
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
She owed him nothing, he reminded himself, but that didn’t stop the hurt clawing its way up his throat. She wasn’t his to lose or mourn, and yet here he was, desperate for something from her—anger, indignation, anything to hold onto before they faced a god.
“No point.” Grace shrugged, her voice clipped as she rifled through her pack. She didn’t meet his gaze, didn’t even pause as she tucked a couple of small potions and a delicate gold locket into her pockets. “If I told anyone I was this close to the end, they’d look at me differently. Like I’m weaker. Like I’m already gone. I don’t need that. I just need to finish this, to make my death mean something. I will not go to the deep roads”
His laugh was bitter, humorless. “You are vexingly reckless! Persistently charging headfirst towards death as though it’s the only option. You’re the first in a fight, the first to take a hit you haven’t calculated. You gamble with enemies that would gut us all for sport, tamper with artifacts you don’t even bother to study—”
“Oh, don’t start—”
“And you never learned to swim ,” he snapped, his voice rising. “Yet you fight at the water’s edge in armor that would sink you like a stone, without a single care for the consequences!”
Her anger ignited, the dam breaking as she spun on him. “Because I don’t give a fuck about the consequences!” she shouted, the words raw and cutting. “The consequence is I die, Emmrich! That’s the only outcome for me, one way or another. At least if I kill the arch-demon, I get to choose how.”
His breath hitched, the fury in his chest burning hotter. “And I suppose it matters very little to you that we’d have to watch it happen? That we’d be the ones to carry your broken body back after you’ve thrown your life away?”
“It shouldn’t matter,” her voice was quieter now “That’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what we do? Watchers bury the dead, and Wardens become them.”
“You think it’s that simple?” he asked, his anger softening into something rawer. Anguish.
Her eyes flicked up to his defiant fire still burning, but now tempered with something else. Guilt. Fear, maybe. “I don’t—”
“You do,” he cut in, stepping closer. “You think I care so little about you?”
She opened her mouth as if to respond, but no words came. Her fists clenched at her sides, her jaw tight. He saw her retreating further into herself, fortifying the walls she’d built long before he’d met her.
“You don’t have to do everything alone,” he said, his voice softer now, fragile. He let his knuckles brush lightly against the back of her hand hesitantly, as though the simple gesture could break something between them. He wanted to hold it—to hold her—but didn’t dare.
Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “It’s easier if I do.”
“Easier for whom?”
She turned away from him then, her face half-hidden in shadow, but not before he caught the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes.
“For everyone. For me. For you.” Her voice cracked, but she pressed on, “I’ve done everything alone since I joined the Wardens. Gave myself to the cause completely. Became a really fucking good Warden. And you know what I learned? If you keep your distance, it’s safer. I stopped talking to my family. I never fell in love. I protected my heart. I stopped thinking about tomorrow or the day after that, because it hurt too much. I figured... if I never start anything, I never have to face it ending.”
“Grace…”
How desperately he wanted to kiss her, to give her something worth fighting for. To show her he didn’t care if she was dying, or blighted, or infuriating. She deserved hope. She deserved a chance at something more than the void she kept her distance from. She deserved moments of softness, of connection, before her time ran out.
He may have feared death, but Grace feared living - and that, he thought, was a far greater tragedy.
“Would you do me a favour?” His voice trembled slightly, but he steadied it when her eyes—deep, green, full of unshed water—turned back to him.
“Be a little less reckless, please. I know what calls to you. I know the temptation for someone as stubborn and fiery as you to do everything on your own terms.”
He reached out then, the urge to wipe away the tear that had escaped her eye as strong as gravity itself, but he dropped his hand before it could reach her skin. He resisted, unwilling to push her away further with the wrong touch.
“Give me a chance. Give us a chance. To find another way. The Archdemon must die, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it.”
Her blaze reignited. “I will not ask another Warden at Weisshaupt to make that sacrifice.”
“I know,” he said quietly, “but no one is asking you either.”
He sighed, closing his eyes for a brief moment, trying to push down the growing knot in his throat. “Please, Grace, for me. As someone who thinks of you as more than just a Warden... more than just Rook. .. would you—”
She kissed him then.
It was gentle. Her lips brushed his with a softness he hadn't expected, the surprise so complete that he had no time to respond before it was over. She stood on her tiptoes, her lashes wet and heavy, her lips soft and kind, and it felt like the world held its breath for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Emmrich,” she whispered as she pulled away “In another time, another life... I could have been someone different for you.”
He wanted to protest. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t need her to be anyone else but this , but she was already stepping back. Already pulling away. Her Warden’s mask slipped back into place, the distance between them stretching wide once more.
“Time to go,” she said, her voice steady, her eyes never meeting his as she turned and walked toward the door.
He stood alone once more, her taste lingering on his lips, and Emmrich thought of what a great and terrible shame it was. She was hurtling headlong toward death, while he had spent his life clawing his way in the opposite direction, desperately trying to outpace it. They were like two stars in opposing orbits, drawn together for a fleeting moment before spinning away, unable to meet where their paths might align.
And in that cruel divide, there was no space for them to pause, no time for their lives to intertwine in the quiet spaces between battles and burdens. Instead, they were left with a single kiss to taunt them with what might have been.
That’s when he saw it, on her dressing table, only slightly concealed beneath a hand mirror. An envelope with his name on it.
The temptation to tear it open and devour the words it contained was strong, but the fury and heartbreak that surged within him were stronger. There were things she had left unsaid, things she was willing to put down in a letter for him to read after she was gone. After she was dead.
He had spent his life with the ability to bring back the last words and thoughts and feelings of the recently deceased, and in many ways it was a privilege and a blessing. In others, it was a heartbreak. Many times, he had heard the souls of the dead come back to spill out the final things they did not have the opportunity to say in life. A lot of the time, they were said only to him. In a crypt, alone. Words of love or regret, that fluttered out of their mouths as the most precious and delicate whispers with nowhere to land. He always listened, and made notes of what was said and by whom. How tragic, that people so often died with so much left to say.
He left the letter where it was. He would not read it. It was not a whisper he wished to hear.
He would hear whatever she had to say from her rosy, full lips. Or he would not hear it at all.
Please tell me about the little death. I need to know more 🙊
here is a snippet ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧
"Oh, Oliver, you’re such a naughty boy." Emmrich’s voice dragged him down from the cloud of his orgasm. His face flushed crimson, right up to the tips of his ears. He swallowed hard and rubbed his nose, his breathing beginning to steady.
"Emmrich, forgive me, I—"
"Did I tell you that you could have an orgasm? I don’t think so." Emmrich let out a disapproving sound. "I’m afraid I’ll have to punish you for your misbehavior."
A sharp pang twisted in Oliver’s stomach.
"Punish me...?"
"I have to correct you," the professor sighed, as though reluctant to carry out the task. "Stand up."
Oliver rose to his feet, though a bit unsteady. His knees were red, even with the cushion beneath him. He looked at Emmrich, unable to believe there was another man in the world who could appear so composed while sporting an erection.
Emmrich took a seat on the couch and motioned for Oliver to approach.
"You’re going to lie on your stomach across my lap," he instructed. Oliver obeyed, feeling Emmrich’s hard, erect length pressing against the side of his hip. Resting his head on his arms, Oliver exhaled softly as Emmrich’s hand began to gently stroke his backside. With the other hand, he traced the curve of Oliver’s spine.
"Take a deep breath, darling," he murmured. "Since it’s our first time, I’ll go easy on you. Just five smacks as punishment. But I expect improvement, understood?"
"Yes, Emmrich," Oliver nodded.
"Good. Let’s begin."
When Emmrich’s hand came down, Oliver hadn’t anticipated the force—nor the sharp sting amplified by the rings on his fingers. The pain shot through him, burning and sudden, drawing a gasp from his lips as his body tensed.
"Emmrich—"
"I can’t hear you. You need to count."
Oliver swallowed thickly, his core tightening reflexively.
"O-one," he whispered.
"Good," Emmrich praised, rubbing the spot where his hand had struck.
The second hit was worse. Oliver’s body writhed over the older man’s lap, but Emmrich effortlessly held him in place with his free hand.
"Oliver..."
"T-two," the word stumbled out, shaky and uncertain.
"Two," the professor repeated with approval.
There was no soothing touch after the third strike, which landed on the opposite cheek this time. The sharp clash of his rings against Oliver’s skin left a burning imprint, the shape of Emmrich’s fingers clearly marked. Tears welled up in Oliver’s eyes, his chest rising as he suppressed a sob.
"Th-th-three," he stammered.
"You’re doing so well, darling. Just two more. Breathe," Emmrich said softly, his hand caressing again.
Oliver couldn’t quite describe the storm of sensations flooding him at that moment. He was aroused in a way he had never experienced before, yet each strike sent a piercing ache through him that made his body tremble. He was teetering on the edge of tears.
It was a kind of release. A catharsis. It was...
Emmrich’s hand came down on his skin with force once more. This time, Oliver couldn’t hold back the sob. He buried his face in the couch, his body trembling.
"F-f-four... Emmrich..."
"Almost there. Breathe, my dear Oliver. Just one more."
Oliver pressed his lips together and nodded, bracing himself. The pain arrived quickly—this last smack was the hardest of all, the sheer force pushing his body forward. The sharp sound echoed through the room, the rings on Emmrich’s fingers snapping against his skin, leaving a burning trail behind.
Tears spilled freely as Oliver began to cry, his body betraying his overwhelming arousal. His slickness had created a small mess on Emmrich’s pants. Gently, Emmrich lifted him upright.
"Sshh, breathe. You did so well. You took your punishment like a good boy," Emmrich murmured, holding Oliver close. He guided him to straddle his lap, legs spread. He wiped away his tears, though he let him cry freely onto his shoulder. "You’re incredible. You’re so wet for me. I adore you," Emmrich whispered, pressing a kiss to Oliver’s shoulder. His hand slid down to Oliver’s soaked intimacy, tracing over the natural lubrication pooling there. He brought his fingers to his mouth, licking them clean, careful not to linger too long so the coldness of his rings wouldn’t unsettle the younger man. "I don’t think you even need preparation to take me. You’re a good boy, completely undone, just for me. Will you let me have you, Oliver?"
Oliver’s sobs had begun to subside, soothed by Emmrich’s words and touch. His body hummed with anticipation. He took a deep breath through his mouth, nodding several times before leaning in to kiss Emmrich deeply. The professor gripped his own length, guiding it to Oliver’s slick entrance. With his free hand, he pressed down gently on Oliver’s hips, encouraging him to lower onto him.Oliver’s body welcomed him effortlessly, his wetness making it easy as he sank down until Emmrich was fully seated inside him. He stilled, overwhelmed, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. A gasp escaped his lips, while Emmrich’s breathing grew heavy. The professor kissed the curve of Oliver’s neck, then his shoulders, leaving warm, damp marks with his lips.
"Breathe, darling, breathe," Emmrich exhaled softly. "Don’t move until you remember how to breathe."
Pairing: Rook Ingellvar x Emmrich Volkarin (Neve Gallus x Lucanis Dellamort | Lace Harding x Taash)
(A03 Chapter Index) | (Tumblr Chapter Index)
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The opening to the chapter is, essentially, depicting the circumstances depicted in the Codex entry A Distressing Sight.
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The excursion with Harding, reaching the northern shores of Ferelden and the once glittering jewel of Amaranthine, should have been the perfect escape. It was a simple day trip, suggested when Harding had found Emmrich examining the Vi’Revas in the Lighthouse’s lower chamber. She wanted supplies, comforts from home despite being from further to the south, near Redcliffe. It was evident as soon as they joined the throng towards the city gates that desperation permeated through everything. Whispers of a new Blight tainted every conversation, but Emmrich could hardly begrudge them their fear. Amaranthine had fared poorly during the previous Blight; from Arl Rendon Howe’s treachery to Queen Elissa Theirin’s desperate push to save the city at the end the Aramathine Conflict, it appeared as though the city was fated to fall only to be rescued by the smallest whisper of grace. While the city had been rebuilt, and the physical wounds had healed, the devastating era was in the living memory of most of the population.
The city was unlike any of the others across Ferelden, Harding explained. ‘The Queen had a lot of the older buildings removed in the rebuild when she was Warden-Commander. She imported a lot of the stone from dwarven mines and outposts associated with Orzammar because it was stronger. It probably saved the city when the rifts opened,’ she continued, pausing outside a building that contained the city council’s meeting chambers and assize courts.
White stone stood gleaming above a still bustling market; although if Emmrich had learnt anything from Lucanis’ regular visits to Treviso, it would take the entire annihilation of the city to stop a market.
‘My da worked on this building,’ said Harding softly. ‘I always like coming to look at it.’
‘He’s no longer with us?’ Emmrich asked, catching the wistfulness of her tone.
Harding shook her head. ‘A few years ago now. He was older than ma, and she just woke up to him gone. But he built amazing things. He oversaw the repairs to Redcliffe’s gatehouse after the Venatori occupation during the Mage-Templar War.’ She smiled. There was warmth but unguarded sadness in the expression as she turned away.
‘They never truly leave us,’ he said, following her. ‘He must have been very proud of you?’
She huffed a soft chuckle. ‘Constantly moaned I didn’t come home often enough, but there was always too much to see. Too much to do. When the world gets opened up to you like it did for me, you just want to keep going.’ She fell quiet for a moment, looking at her hands. ‘But yeah, he was proud of me.’
Emmrich was beginning to see the value in that philosophy. Just two days ago, he’d been standing in the searing heat of Rivain, surrounded by flora and fauna he had only read about but never dreamt he’d see. Now, he was in the famously rugged coastlands of northern Ferelden, listening to a newly found colleague give him a brief history lesson of a much storied city through the lens of her father’s contributions to the rebuilding efforts. In a further two days' time, he might find himself in Treviso or Arlathan Forest with more aspects of the world to discover.
Their path brought them to a Chantry, a building carefully incorporating old styles and new design. Ferelden Chantry’s were famous for their humble sized buildings compared to the towering houses of worship across the rest of Thedas. Within the Necropolis, the Chantry of the Eternal Vigil towered up by ten stories, with white towers topped with spires and flying buttresses holding it up, dominating the view in every area of that level of the complex. The Eternal Vigil itself constantly echoed from its halls, audible all though the upper chamber, and could even be heard in the city above on a quiet day. The song of life and death spoke of the central tenets of Nevarran belief about the path all must take to find oneself at the side of the Maker. The song never ended thanks to a ceaseless cycle of choralist singing in shifts; not unlike the unending singing of the Chant of Light in Val Royeaux’s Grand Cathedral.
‘It was badly damaged in that final battle of that conflict,’ said Harding. ‘But it has some really old stained glass frescos, apparently, so it was saved.’
‘This is the reputed site of Andraste revealing the Chant of Light, is it not?’ Emmrich asked. ‘That is what Brother Bedine writes in his travelogue.’
‘So they say,’ replied Harding.
‘Are we permitted access to look?’
‘The doors aren’t locked,’ she replied with a shrug.
While she entered with him, Harding sat down in one of the pews, head bowed and eyes closed in contemplation. Around him, the soft singing of the Canticle of Threnodies filled the eaves and he paused for a moment to contemplate the Andrastian interpretation on the creation of the Fade. He’d always been uncertain about the story, more so now that he had seen the Black City in such close proximity. Its towers had more in common with the Elven ruins he had seen than any human design dating back to a similar era.
Emmrich continued his journey to the chancel, where Bedine had described a wheel window that shone beams of light down onto a mosaic of Andraste’s first teaching. The overcast day dimmed the spectacle Bedine had written off, but at least the ancient work had been saved despite the damage that had been clearly wrought in this part of the Chantry. He crouched to get a better look, the careful workmanship evident in the laying of each tiny tile, creating the face of Andraste within the larger fresco of her first teaching. True to Bedine’s explanation, it was not the usual presentation of Andraste hinting at an origin older than the Chantry’s traditional depiction. He glanced up while reaching into a pocket for the notebook he carried when he saw a tall fire, red flames licking up towards the grey sky. He walked towards the window, pausing when he had a clear look beyond.
He knew, of course, the mainstream practice beyond Nevarra was to burn the remains of their dead. Mere days had passed since he’d discussed the matter with Harding after expressing her fear of Manfred. It had been something he’d been able to put to the back of his mind long ago. He’d assumed he would not leave Nevarra long enough to witness such a spectacle. Besides, Lichdom meant he could release himself from the worry of what would become of his remains. He would still be within his body; flesh cast aside for gleaming bone and a never ending pulse of magic thrumming through his being.
Unless he died here, or some other location far from the Necropolis. He needed to be alive for the very first part of the ritual otherwise his soul would be lost to the Fade.
Outside a body, tightly wrapped in a shroud, was brought forth on the shoulders of eight men while cold nausea wrapped around Emmrich. He looked to his right, half expecting to find Rook beside him, her steely eyes on the ritual, watching with the quiet dignity befitting a member of the Mourn Watch when observing any funerary practice. Dignity he was struggling to maintain.
‘Perhaps we should go, Professor?’ Harding suggested from his left.
Back in the sanctuary of his laboratory within the Lighthouse, Emmrich sat with his pen poised over his personal journal, not even noting the drip straining the page. The paralytic fear of what his fate would be should his life end outside the carefully crafted plans he had set out for himself froze him in place. It was enough to reconsider this venture; he could return to the Necropolis and consult from the safety of his lectern.
And yet, there was a spiralling laugh. And a twist of orange and lilac. Besides, he wasn't sure that he could endure the look of disappointment Rook would surely give him were he to announce he was decamping to Nevarra. She had already anchored some part of him here, a friendship and bond, something not felt in years, building between them outside of his growing desires for her.
He needed to move. A walk to clear his head of the conflicting thoughts. He had barely closed his door when Bellara’s voice rang up from the library.
‘It feels like we’re at war,’ she said, her voice uncharacteristically solemn. ‘Lots of little wars.’
Moving closer to the mezzanine’s balustrade, Emmrich looked down to see Rook pacing with her arms crossed over her chest. Silence had fallen over the assembled team. Only the brush of her velvet coat was audible until she spun. She dropped her arms with a sigh of frustration.
‘I don’t think our allies amount to being able to fight a war, especially lots of little ones,’ Rook concluded, pausing beside her chair and placing her hand on the backrest revealing a cream skirt indicating that she had not left the Lighthouse through the day.
‘No,’ Davrin agreed. ‘You need an army to fight a war, and they’ve got two.’
‘So, how do we fight back?’ Bellara asked, looking down, fear crossing her face.
Rook clicked her tongue, pushing a lock of hair over her shoulder. ‘Just because they don’t amount to an army, doesn’t mean we can’t look to them for help. The Veiljumpers,’ she said looking at Bellara, ‘after D’Meta’s Crossing, Strife must have some desire to push back?’ Bellara nodded. ‘And the Crows,’ she continued, turning to Lucanis, ‘driving back that dragon must have earnt us something?’
Lucanis nodded. ‘You impressed Viago. Not an easy feat, especially for someone outside the Crows.’
‘The incursion into the Necropolis is not going to be left unanswered either,’ Rook continued, glancing up in Emmrich’s direction, revealing she had been aware of his presence despite not commenting on it. He nodded slowly. ‘We have the Mourn Watch at our side, so what else?’
‘This note was waiting for me when I got back,’ Harding said, holding up some folded parchment. ‘Lady Morrigan has requested a meeting at the Cobbled Swan in Minrathous.’
Rook pushed away from her chair to resume her pacing, a slight stiffness still present in her movement. ‘Has she found some trace of the gods?’
He headed down the steps to join the conversation as Harding informed the group that Morrigan wasn’t a frequent visitor to crowded Taverns in the middle of besieged cities.
‘I’ve also had word from Antoine and Evka in the Hossberg Wetlands,’ said Davrin. ‘Antoine says there is something strange is happening with the Blight there. Sounds an awful lot like what you described in D’Meta.’
Rook held up her hands to pause the stream of information coming at her and walked to the table in the middle of the room. ‘Let me get this straight a moment,’ she said, pushing the books aside and opening what appeared to be her personal journal to a blank double page. She picked up one of the lead pens often left there. ‘We have the Veil Jumpers, and D’Meta’s Crossing,’ Her hand slid across the page leaving an elegant scrawl of words in its place. ‘Then the Crows, a dragon, the Antaam and whoever their human traitor is. The Watch, thanks to the Venatori.’ A pattern emerged with the addition of the Necropolis at the bottom left, she was placing the words geographically. ‘Morrigan in Minrathous’ she continued, speaking more to herself than the group, ‘and Wardens in the Wetlands with weird Blight on their hands.’ She looked up at Davrin. ‘The First Warden wasn’t all that impressed when we last met, wanted to arrest me actually, so will he be there?’
Davrin laughed. ‘I don’t keep track of his movements,’ he said, ‘but the First Warden is a political mover. It’s Warden-Commander Janos you need to be wary of, get on his wrong side and there’s no chance to get the Wardens on board. Even if the First Warden is more involved than he might normally be, he can’t stop you from asking a few questions. Evka and Antoine know you're keen to help, and if we get out there fast enough, your involvement might not even get back to him.’
‘Ghilan’nain has lain low since we hurt her dragon,’ she said, straightening to address the whole group. ‘And Elgar’nan has yet to show himself, but where they go, the Blight spreads. So, it’s a lead and there are no better people than the Wardens to track the Blight.’ She tapped her pen against her thigh. ‘The Wardens and Morrigan seem like our best leads on finding the gods, but the others may have leads on how they plan to act,’ she concluded after a moment.
‘Are they really gods?’ Taash asked, speaking up for the first time since Emmrich arrived. ‘Or just really powerful, ancient mages? It isn’t clear?’
As she spoke, the door opened and Emmrich looked around. By his count they were all there.
‘They’re gods,’ drawled the dark haired woman with a Tevinter accent. ‘Or the closest thing to them.’
The oldest members of the group, the ones there from the start all shifted. Lucanis straightened to attention with her name a soft utterance he breathed out while Rook spun around in a flurry of velvet. Bellara squeaked as Neve Gallus strode to the table, every other step a metallic clink from her prosthesis. Rook watched with narrowed expression, eyes steely as she tracked the newcomer come to a halt beside Bellara. The two women briefly clasped hands in greeting and delight stirred in the elf’s eyes.
‘You’re back,’ said Rook, the words lingering between a statement and a question.
‘Yeah, I am,’ she replied, a touch of frost in her voice and eyes when she turned her attention to Rook.
Rook nodded curtly. ‘Then, a couple of new people have joined since you’ve been gone.’ She pointed in Emmrich’s direction first. ‘This is Professor Emmrich Volkarin. He’s our Fade expert, and a fellow Watcher - ‘
‘Charmed,’ he interjected, with a slight bow in her direction as she cast an appraising glance over him.
‘- and Taash, our dragon hunter.’
At the introduction, Neve looked away, turning her attention to the Qunari. Neve looked Taash up and down, another appraising look and a downturned expression on her face as she turned the information over before her shoulders dropped.
‘Minrathous could have used you,’ she said sadly.
‘What’s going on? In Minrathous?’ Rook’s voice was softer than usual.
Neve clasped her hands together and fixed Rook with a daunting stare. ‘What isn’t? Look, you made an impossible call without enough information, and you did what you thought was right. I get it. It’s the corner the gods put us in.’ She looked away from Rook to the floor. ‘It just might take some time to shake off.’
Rook nodded her head, expression saddened and resigned. Emmrich was aware of the decision she’d been forced to make before seeking him out in the Necropolis. No one, bar for some remarks of gratitude from Lucanis, had spoken of the terrible decision that had left the Tevinter capital overrun by the Venatori.
‘But you’re back right?’ Asked Bellara, turning to fully look at Neve, reaching for her hand again.
‘Yeah, Bel, I’m back,’ she reassured her friend, taking Bellara’s hand in both of hers.
‘With everything that’s happened in Minrathous, Rook, I’ve got even more reason to go after the gods,’ Neve replied, not exactly warmly but with less frost than she had begun with. ‘If anyone has a shot at this, it’s the people here. I’m still on the job. Count on it.’
A hopeful smile lifted Rook’s face, warmth kindling in her eyes. ‘Then let's follow up on some of these leads.’
‘I’ll let Morrigan know we’re ready to meet,’ said Harding.
‘And, Antoine and Evka are holed up in a village called Lavendel,’ said Davrin. ‘Can your mirror get us there?’
‘Bel?’ Rook inclined her head towards the Veil Jumper.
‘We’ll have to go out into The Crossroads, the Heights, but if Harding can help we should be able to skirt any lingering Darkspawn, if they’re back’
Rook frowned. Emmrich had deduced early on that the Heights were considered the most dangerous part of The Crossroads, habitually infested with darkspawn. Harding nodded.
‘Right, you should all rest, the fight might come sooner than we expect,’ said Rook.
The dismissal in her voice was clear. Bellara linked arms with Neve while Lucanis darted around the group to catch them up, falling in step before reaching the door. Harding had already begun speaking with Davrin to discuss seeking out which mirror would get them as close to the Warden’s location as possible, while Taash approached Rook.
‘Hey, there’s a situation out in Rivain that could use your attention,’ she said. ‘Might help get the Lords on side.’
Rook bent to the table, pen on the paper in the approximate location of Rivain in relation to the rest of the notes, humming in encouragement to continue.
‘Isabella has been getting supplies out to Treviso for months, she‘s got a lot of Crow ties, but the contact has gone missing in the coastlands near to where we tracked the Vinsomer,’ Taash explained.
‘So, tracking down what happened to the contact, and finding the supplies?’
‘Might help with the Crows as well?’
‘Extra collateral with anyone will help,’ agreed Rook, setting down her pen. ‘Are you settling in okay?’
Taash blinked, then her eyes flicked towards Emmrich, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows prompting Rook to look over her shoulder. His fellow Watcher raised her eyebrows then turned back, Taash’s expression schooled back into place.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘It’s not what I’m used to, but I can get home easily enough when I need to.’
‘Anything you need, just ask.’
Taash nodded her head in thanks then followed the others. Dreamlight briefly flooded the room before enclosing Emmrich and Rook in the usual cool darkness of the library. She half turned in his direction, tilting her head towards him.
‘I’ve been meaning to thank you,’ she said, her fingers absently twisting through a lock of hair. ‘For healing me the other night, but I feel you may have been avoiding me?’
‘No.’ The lie tasted like ash. ‘There is a lot to catalogue.’ True. ’Harding and I also visited Ferelden after she found me examining the mirror downstairs. Amaranthine, in fact.’ Also true. ‘She said I couldn’t just visit Orlais, and not Ferelden.’
Rook chuckled. ‘They are patriotic people,’ she said. ‘You’ll be more travelled than me once this is all over. I’ve not been to Ferelden either.’
She looked at him, that steely indomitability swirling in her eyes, pinning him in place. Again. The sensation settled heavily in his chest, banishing any desire to leave her side. Her fingers had ceased their fiddling, but she chewed on her lip as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t capture the words. He was in no better situation, mind blissfully blank under her attention.
Then she sucked in a deep breath, looking away, down at the map she had sketched with her notes. ‘Well, thank you.’
As with the others, the note of dismissal was clear. With a bow he left her to the quiet fortress of her thoughts. But when she didn’t arrive for dinner, he fixed her a plate with a goblet of wine, which he set down before her in the library. She’d been staring off into the middle distance, and she startled when the plate clinked on the table top. She blinked, shaking out her thoughts.
‘She’s never going to forgive me,’ Rook said quietly as he took his usual seat opposite her. ‘Neve, that is.’
He remained quiet for a moment, focusing on the haphazard collection of chairs and green sofa that had become a regular meeting spot, desperately not looking as she moved her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck and sharp line of her jaw.
‘If that were true,’ he replied, keeping his voice as soft as hers, ‘I doubt she would have come back.’
Rook swallowed, dragging his attention back to her neck. ‘I don’t really know her well enough to say,’ she admitted. ‘I thought she was going to rain down all her icy fury on me when we finally reached Minrathous. But she just looked tired. Broken. I did that.’
‘You didn’t send those dragons,’ he told her gently, watching her take a gulp of wine. ‘And if what I’ve been told is true, which I suspect it is, you saved hundreds of innocent lives in a city that had no defences.’
‘The people of Minrathous were undefended,’ said Rook, settling the goblet down. ‘Even without the Venatori having a stranglehold on the city, the Magisterium would never have used their defences to help the people who actually need it. They’d have driven the dragon off the upper city,’ she continued with a flick of her hand, ‘left the lower city to burn, and still called it a victory.’ She tapped the table with her index finger, her nail rapping loudly off the polished wood. ‘I could have stopped that happening.’
‘At the expense of what you did save,’ Emmrich countered gently. ‘War produces casualties, you know that. Would you rather Lucanis’ wrath? Potentially further fuelled by Spite?’
She sighed. ‘No.’
After taking another sip of wine, she began moving the food around her plate. He winced at the scrap of metal against the porcelain. Noticing the gesture, she put the fork down and rested her arm on the table beside the plate.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘And thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘This,’ she said with an encompassing wave of her hand. ‘The food. The talk.’ She leant back in her chair, fixing him with that anchoring gaze he wanted to drown in. ‘You know the others are going to gossip if you start bringing me food whenever I don’t show up for dinner.’
Emmrich couldn’t help but meet her gaze. ‘Let them,’ he replied, flicking his wrist in dismissal.
Rook’s lips pressed together then lifted into a smile that tightened his whole body.
-- --
The Canticle of Threnodies is the sixth book/song to the Chant of Light, they are considered dirges and laments that recount the creation of the world and the fall of man. Threnodies 8:3 appears on screen in the opening of Dragon Age: Origins
The Chantry of the Eternal Vigil, and the Eternal Vigil, are made up elements for this fic, but it's derived from Cassandra Pentaghast's experiences when she grew up within The Grand Necropolis following the execution of her parents. For Cassandra, this constant singing was something she grew to hate, along with The Grand Necropolis. In some criticism of Dragon Age:The Veilguard was the criticism that this element of Necropolis life didn't feature, but The Grand Necropolis is meant to be massive, bigger than Egypt's City of the Dead. It stood to reason that both Cassandra's experience and what we have in-game could exist together.
