My depression finally let me finish something lets fucking GOOOOOOO
Meet my new Rook, he is very small and very angry and the only thing that makes his bitch ass hero journey worthwihle is the company and affection of his friends and this beautiful old man.
Rules for your Copy and Paste: Free form a blurb or drawing based on the weekly lyrics prompt. It doesn't have to include the prompt just whatever you're inspired to write, write it! Then tag some friends so they can play as well. It doesn't have to be finished on Thursday just post it whenever you can (you have a whole week between Thursdays).
This week's offering we are going more light since we have been so angsty. Maybe. If you want.
I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all - Lover by Taylor Swift
So this is a little Emmrook. Some Marina de Riva x Emmrich. It got... ridiculously long and can now be found on AO3 here. But enjoy a little blurb under the cut
Also please tag me if you do a banger. I love to read and share them
“I am a Crow, Señor Volkarin.” She was quiet. Something broken as she fixated on a lone moon blossom. And his heart breaking with her. “I have been raised to die with every contract. And we fight ancient gods. Neither of us is guaranteed tomorrow.”
She sighed then. Filled with longing as she looked up. Soft caramel eyes meeting his as a gloved hand reached to skim along his cheek. “But what I am guaranteed, mi alma, is you.”
“And you feel if I walk the path of lichdom, you will lose me.” It wasn't a question. Her meaning was clear, but she nodded her head anyway as a leather clad thumb ran over his bottom lip.
“Sí, mi amor. I know I will. And while I will never tell you what to do with your life-”
She paused as she tilted her head to the side. Studying the panes of his face as her mouth slightly parted. Loving every crease. Every line. Adoring him just as he was, and hating the thought of him changing.
A dangerous creature with her favorite balm in hand. Her sanity fraying at the thought she might lose the only thing she had found worth living for.
“If you become a lich querido, you will do so without me at your side.” She withdrew her hand then. A shiver as cool air met his skin where her warmth once was. A warning of his future should he choose wrong. “I have loved you these months, mi amor. But I want them all.”
Meet Lorent - a Crow, a rogue, and a tall and scowly bisexual boi with Dominant tendencies... A slight change from my usual sopping wet lanky beaft characters with no self-confidence, but he's got a heart of gold under all those layers of sarcasm...
Terrible Fic Idea #97: DA:TV, but make it Gilmore Girls
If there's two things I walked away from Dragon Age: The Veilguard with, it's 1) a never-ending love for the Lucanis x Crow!Rook romance, and 2) a never-ending love for Viago de Riva.
There are a whole host of fics where Viago, willingly or unwillingly, acts a parental figure for Crow!Rook. But I, being me, couldn't help but wonder what if Viago was Rook's biological parent?
Or: what if Rook was the bloodline heir of the Fifth Talon?
aka The Shadow of Your Heart fic
Just imagine it:
As part of their training, fledglings of House de Riva are sent to seduce a target when they are 16 years old.
Viago's target is the daughter of a well-to-do merchant and his elven mistress who lives in a manse outside of Salle by the name of Dionisia Vitale. He finds the woman tolerable enough company, but is deeply uncomfortable letting anyone touch him in such a way, and after completing his task leaves her with the impression that things had been so awkward between them because he prefers the company of men.
So it is a surprise when Viago receives a message from Dionisia six months later asking to meet... and even more of a surprise to find her heavily pregnant. ("All children of mine are bound to the Crows," he tells her, feeling an odd moment of sympathy for his father. Viago had brewed the potion to inhibit his fertility himself. Obviously the formulation is ineffective on his bloodline... "Then they will have a profession, at least," Dionisia quips in that charming way of hers that might have made him love her, if he thought he could love anyone at all. "All that I ask is that they know you, and once they begin their training they're allowed to know me still.")
And so Zoraida de Riva is born three months later, on the last warm day of the year 9:31, shortly after the end of the Fifth Blight.
Zoraida's childhood is as normal as it can be having a career-driven assassin for a father and a loving, if often physically distant, elf-blooded mother.
Zoraida is halfway through her training when Viago rises to the rank of Fifth Talon, violently deposing his predecessor - in part because of her plans to install Viago as a puppet king in place of Fulgeno II and use Zoraida to keep him in line. But this changes very little. If anything, the bloodline heir of the house is treated worse by their trainers in the attempt to prepare them for anything and everything Thedas might throw at them.
Otherwise, canon proceeds apace, with Viago struggling to balance being a father with his political ambitions, and Zoraida putting an unholy amount of pressure on herself to live up to her father's reputation. She becomes a fully-fledged Crow at age eighteen (never having been sent to seduce anyone, Viago not wanting to risk becoming a grandfather at 32) and for a while all goes well...
...until Zoraida decides to impulsively rescue a group of captives from Antaam slavers, and Viago has to send her away on a long contract outside of Antiva until tempers calm down.
Over the course of her travels with Varric, Zoraida becomes Rook, and gains a dwarven story-telling uncle and a dwarven best friend who's neither intimidated by her ancestry or looking to use her connections to get ahead. Rook knows this contract is meant to be a punishment, but it might be the best thing to ever happen to her.
When Neve suggests they hire a specialist to deal with the gods, Rook can't help but make a face. Lucanis Dellamorte may be the mage killer they need, but he's still on the list of people Viago suggested she get close to growing up (and which Rook completely ignored, because she's willing to do a lot for her father, but hanging out with his boss' grandkids isn't one of them).
Then she meets Lucanis and he's hot and competent and kind - and Rook just about has a mental breakdown about pursuing him, because it's one thing to disappoint Viago, but it's another thing entirely to prove him right and have to live with his smug face every day for the rest of her life.
Meanwhile, Lucanis does not immediately realize Rook is the latest alias for La Princesa de la Casa de Riva, but has an arc of worrying if she's using him to get ahead in addition to his canon arc of unwilling possession and year of torture before he puts the pieces together. They eventually get their act together, but there's an additional layer of everyone in our lives wanted us to get together; are we acting on our own desires or in response to theirs? atop of everything else.
The Veilguard succeeds in killing the gods, stopping the Blight, and trapping Solas in the Fade, but that's largely secondary to the interpersonal drama playing out between missions.
This should be compounded by the fact that none of the other companions are aware of the fact that Viago is Rook's father. There should be complex theories involving intersecting love triangles ripped straight from Bellara's serials, which Rook and Teia do their best to encourage before the game is eventually given away by a very confused fledgling who was not expecting to be set upon by two very powerful mages and a fire-breathing Qunari looking for gossip.
(Even Lucanis is pulled into the game, treating it as another one of the training exercises Caterina used to put them through, and at one point has Taash convinced that Viago and Rook are half-siblings, while simultaneously having Bellara convinced that Rook and Teia are half-siblings who've fought over Viago's affections since they were teenagers.)
Additionally, Illario's plot line should be played up for maximum drama, in which he genuinely tries to seduce Rook to his side, sensing that her backing would serve him better as First Talon than Zara's. (He should give it his all, but be stymied by the fact that Rook is just as much of a demisexual as his cousin is, and not quite know what to do with someone who values their House more than their own personal ambition.)
Bonuses include:
Rook's mother being alive and in the background throughout, happily selling cheese across Northern Thedas and doing her best to cultivate drama on her daughter's behalf. Her home on the outskirts of Salle acts as a second HQ for the Veilguard, and she's deeply involved in pulling Rook out of the Fade prison.
Teia being the ultimate stepmom, despite the fact she refuses to admit she's old enough to be anyone's mother.
About twice as many quests involving the Antaam invasion and Illario's attempt to take over the leadership of the Crows.
All the scenes of Viago being parental just off screen. He's not the best father and his idea of father-daughter bonding tends to involve more poisons than most people are comfortable with, but he tries and Rook wouldn't change him for another.
Navigating what it means for the future Fifth Talon of rising House marrying the First Talon of a dying House (while the Seventh Talon of another rising House is waiting for the current Fifth Talon of a rising House to pull himself together and propose to her already).
And that's all I have. I feel like there should really be more, but basically it's just all the things I love about Viago and Rook being found family being slightly altered so that Viago is Rook's ill-equipped but trying his best teen father. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you do anything with it.
Our two Crows have a much needed conversation and have a little date out in the markets of Treviso. Ending off with a delicious cup of-- much needed-- coffee.
