Thunder Without Rain
Relationship: Rook/Lucanis, Rook/Spite/Lucanis Rating: E Wordcount: 200k words, 47 chapters, COMPLETE Tags: Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Veilguard sequel fic, Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Antivan Crows, Smut, Grief/Mourning, Past Abuse, Blood Magic, The Chantry, Codependency, Complicated Relationships, Tranquility, Rook and Lucanis are both traumatized to hell and back, Self-Harm, Eventual Happy Ending
Summary
Solemn, devoted Lucanis. He doesn’t know how heavy his regard is, how the force of his attention sends shivers down her spine. Dutybound Lucanis, who would never ask her to stay in Treviso; does he think it’s kinder that way? That the question, once vocalized, might clip her wings? He offers deaths at every turn, like each life is a bauble that caught her eye at market. The world holds perhaps a score of throats he wouldn’t slit at her word. It's sweet, in its way. Comforting, sometimes, having the most fearsome Crow in Antiva at her shoulder. Galling, occasionally, when people look at her and only see the threat of Lucanis’s shadow. Lucanis, holding her after the latest round of nightmares. Anchoring her to sanity with his soft beard against her cheek, his hands on her ribcage while her heart tries to beat itself out of her chest. Every night in his arms is another night she’s grateful she outlived the gods. Life would be simpler if she loved him a little less.
Or: The gods are dead, the world's a mess, no one is happy about the new Talon, and Rook's haunted by regret. Rook, Spite, and Lucanis figure out how to live despite it all.
