twoforsurprise | One Short Day In Antiva City

One Short Day In Antiva City

Davrin might have forgotten Lucanis' offer about the tailor, but he had not. Not all of their excursions were for fighting demons or cultists or darkspawn, and eventually Rook was going treasure hunting on the Rivani coast with Taash and Harding. And just them. Quite adamant that only Taash and Harding were needed, in fact.

Andraste preserve them, Rook was apparently becoming interested in matchmaking.

It worked out, though. The timing. Lucanis ever so casually mentions that Davrin promised to assist him in some errands in Antiva and Rook is just so happy they're not at each other's throats that they're told to not take however long they need. Lucanis makes a mental note to pick up something nice for Rook when they're in Antiva City.

Ah, Antiva City. A less beautiful Treviso, Lucanis used to say. That was before the Ossuary, before the occupation, before the blight. Now it's hard to not see everything that's been lost. He doesn't insult Davrin by assuming the man can't keep up with the Crow routes along the rooftops and across ziplines, so much faster than the weaving crowded streets up the hill the city is built on overlooking the harbor the few times they need to duck down to street level.

"Should be right around - ah, there it is," Lucanis declares once they're half way up the hill, the financial district of the city settled between the Palace at the top and the harbor and all the wealth the shipping industry brings. This time when he drops down to the street level it is where they'll stay for the time being, heading to an understated store front with a simple hanging sign that looks like an embroidered rose carved into the wood of it.

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This was...unexpected wasn't the right word. Unexpected didn't start to cover this. Was he in a different section of the Fade? Was Spite in him? Where was Emmrich when he would be useful?

He have himself a full second to let all that wash over him, then focused back on the job at hand. Wherever he was, it was where Spite needed him- and presumably Lucanis needed him- to help. Somehow.

A dark shadow passed over them and he turned slightly to watch, the scene so close to Rook's meditation room, yet an entire world away from the calm aura their leader tried to cultivate there. He wonderful, fleetingly, if Lucanis avoided that room. But there was no time or true interest for scenery. Not with this separate, but maybe oddly more whole, Spite/Lucanis staring purple at him.

"What did you do?"

Emmrich would probably be useful here. On the other hand, he might be too distracted by everything to be much help. Hard to say sometimes. Now though it was just Davrin and Spite. And, somewhere, Lucanis.

"Brought you as far as I can," Spite explained with a hiss. "Lucanis is here. Always here."

He gestured deeper in, teeth bared. A long open corridor of broken ruins and shields holding the ocean out, once beautiful tile broken up by coral and centuries of small earthquakes. Let us out he had said, so many times.

"Locked doors. I can't get to him. You might."

Half of the Fade was symbolism and double meanings. Davrin was not a fan of either. There was nothing to do, though, but push ahead. At least he could still literally walk forward instead of having to complete some symbolic gesture. He made his way to the first closed door, but continued to interrogate Spite the best he could as he went.

"How did our mages not notice he was still- what? Enchanted?"

Had the Venatori blood magic never been fully purged? Hidden, maybe, by the presence of Spite.

"No enchantment. Him."

Just him. His guilt, his shame, his fear. Feelings made reality in the Fade. Especially strong ones. Little in Lucanis was stronger than this.

And the symbolism and double-meanings was just getting started.

Murmurs became audible as they walked, voices becoming clearer and clearer. Outside their obvious path pieces were breaking off, floating in the water. Some... didn't fit. Dining chairs or tables. A piece of art. More fitting to an expensive house in Treviso than what the Ossuary was supposed to be like.

'I was supposed to have a useful demon, and instead I have a useless abomination! Wonderful!'

A sarcastic voice, an echo without a person.

'What ARE you hiding, little demon?'

That one more recognizable. Zara. Obviously pleased. Just the sound of her voice had Spite growling as he followed after Davrin.

"Here, always here! Can't get past the locks."

"Show me the locks."

The Fade was feeling, and Davrin always felt very strongly he should have his sword and shield. He could break them, kick them in as he had a hundreds others. He hope- no, no room for doubt. Lucanis needed it done. He could do it. This wasn't quite the hunt he'd been working on the past few weeks, but it wasn't one he would allow himself to fail. Find the Crow, kill anything that got in the way. Easy. Especially having had the advantage of already killing Zara once.

"Lucanis!"

Funny how things in the Fade worked like that. Davrin felt he should he armed -- Lucanis always pictured Davrin fully armed and armored. He felt he should have it, so it was there.

Helpful, the first door was sealed by those fucking blood magic crystals that the venatori used. The red a bright vivid color that seemed to bleed out compared to all the gray, something that hurt to look at. Smoke poured out of the unsealed door. Going through it -

Not the Ossuary. Rows upon rows of bookshelves, tasteful artwork, bespoke carved chairs with comfortible upholstery. It was the library of the Estate, but the warmth of the fireplaces weren't going. A plush toy lay forgotten next to one of the smaller chairs, a little stuffed wyvern.

Notes were scattered around, bits of paper with Lucanis' handwriting about the ring, his mother's, about Illario... and near the other end of the library, a pillar of white light like an indistinct spirit that solidified into an older woman who Lucanis bore a resemblance to - the absent Caterina, no doubt. Spite hissed softly, moving closer to Davrin like he was trying to use the warrior as a shield.

It's instinctual, to accept being the living shield between the threat and an ally, and Davrin consciously decides not to dwell on Spite of all creatures falling into the category of someo-thing to protect. He simply hefts his shield up, sword drawn and ready for the Old Woman before them to turn into a rage demon or the like, and presses onward.

If Rook were here, all those notes and little details would no doubt have been read and categorized. Davrin wasn't Rook. He noted the stuffed animal, the general decor and layout of the room, but didn't stopped to read what, likely, would be helpful insights into Lucanis. Some that might help now, some that could help later, if they continued their hunt after all this. He was too focused on the threat ahead.

"I've only got time for the demon I know. Go on, get on with it."

She ... remains an old woman. Not that she needs to turn into anything else. There's an oppressiveness to her being. A sense of presence, like a massive thunderstorm on the horizon approaching. An act of nature that cannot be fought, only endured. She is an old woman shorter than Davrin - shorter than Lucanis thanks to being stooped with age, she has a cane, but she's still dressed in the Crow blacks. She still reads as overt threat.

"The demon you're protecting!" the old woman, Caterina, says with a sneer. Judgemental. The sense of disappointment almost choking with the oppressiveness. Outside of the high windows in the library, water, and ocean, more shadows move. The bookcases start leaking. Sea water, mostly.

Some blood.

"I sent Rook to save my grandson and they bring back an abomination."

"Rejection and relief. Tenderness and terror. Fear of disappointment. The hurt comes either way, but if you deserve it, it hurts less," Spite hissed behind Davrin.

The old woman stayed an old woman. Davrin remained at the ready, sword and shield as they were, but didn't progress any further. Nor did he engage directly with the crone just yet. While he would have picked any number of other guides for fighting in the Fade, Spite was what he had. At least he was in a talkative mood- though, he probably always was. He just didn't get the chance to indulge in it much.

Eyes on the old woman, he spoke only to Spite. He was getting less optimistic this was something he could just stab his way through, but there was still a chance.

"Despair demon or something else?"

"No demon! He's mine! No others!" Spite hissed, angry. Expressing thoughts using a voice was by far the least efficient way of communication, and he was not one to hide his frustration. "Lucanis. All Lucanis!"

The prison. The guards. The locks. All of it.

Damn it. Demons were straight forward - except for Spite, but there was blood magic involved there. This was different. This was a lifetime of just drink coffee and work bubbling up. As a man who just drank tea and stabbed Darkspawn, he understood it. But facing it?

He lowered the sword, but kept the shield up. Just in case he got lucky and it turned into a fight after all.

"You can't know that's how it'll go."

He kept his eyes on the woman, but he was speaking past her, around her. To the omnipresent Lucanis that had apparently made this.

Problems you could stab were so much more straightforward than accepting the lies you told yourself to keep living your life, of all the pain shoved into dark corners of the mind to ignore until they made themselves impossible to ignore, every contract coming due at the same time.

Most simply had to have a nervous breakdown about it. Spite made things more complicated when it came to dealing with it. Gave another option.

'That demon is too dangerous, it puts everyone at risk when it's around.'

Illario's voice, haunting through the room. The mixture of blood and sea water was pooling around their feet.

"Being wrong means people die," Caterina said, eyes cold and hard. "Can that risk be taken after we have already lost so much, because of his failure?"

He was going to have to talk to her, wasn't he. The woman he was only glad was alive for Lucanis' sake- and the general idea that most people didn't deserve to die just because you disagreed with them. Worse, Davrin had to talk to the idealized version Lucanis had in his head of the woman.

Gods, he would never complain about telling Spite a bloody horror story again.

"First, the traitor doesn't get to talk about people getting hurt." One voice at a time to argue with, please. "And if your- ugh, if you care Lucanis like he thinks you do, a little thing like a demon won't change it. Not when it's why Lucanis is alive."

That was the stick of it, wasn't it. This wasn't even the real Caterina. This was what Lucanis saw of her - what he felt about her, feared about her. Maybe that was better. Maybe this Caterina was more reasonable, someone who was certainly motivated by love. Her eyes still hold the threat of disappointment in them, of disapproval, but she faded away into a pillar of light that dissipated into a cloud of wisps. The water began to rise up farther, and at the other end of the library a door that wasn't there before stood open, showing more of the Ossuary beyond it.

"Good, good! He listens to you," Spite encouraged, pushing Davrin towards the open door.

... He hadn't actually been certain this was going to work, but was clearly pleased to be right so far.

Well. At least a demon had faith in him. He'd be sure to report that back to the remaining wardens. But he had some clue what they might be facing now and, reluctantly, put the sword and shield away. This was going to be all...talking. About feelings. He could do this, but Lucanis was going to owe him a hell of a dinner date.

He runs towards the next door, nearly as ready as Spite was to get through all the locks.

The Ossuary, mainly - with bits and pieces of Lucanis' childhood home merged in haphazardly, with those having the most blood and sometimes the echoes of screams. More notes, Lucanis' handwriting, the tight neat lines getting messier and messier until it started appearing on the walls, STAY AWAKE scrawled out in some dark substance.

'Still fighting?' Zara's voice taunted. 'Tiresome. There's no point, you know. Nothing awaits you anymore. You're long dead.'

It's how they had held him for so long. Somehow they convinced his family he had been dead. A body changed with blood magic made to look like him, apparently. Caterina had suspected the truth, though, and never given up on him, but the others - they'd had a funeral. Apparently he had a gravestone somewhere.

The next sealed doorway was guarded by another figure - the pillar of light solidifying into none other than their team leader. Rook, hands on hips, looking pensive as they looked up as Davrin approached.

"I'm worried you were right. There's nothing left of a person in there, this is just a demon," they said, brows furrowed.

He knows now it's Rook's face but Lucanis' worst case version of them. For a man that claimed to have spent a year thinking nothing, he had a hell of an active imagination. The literal writing on the walls spoke to that. More than that, really. This wasn't just Rook. It was the both of them, Davrin winning Rook over back when he was first brought in, speaking now.

"That's not-"

He wants to say that was never his worry. But that was a lie. That had been a fear, then. That the crow was more a danger, a liability, than asset. Not that the Lucanis they interacted with was just a demon in human flesh, but how very easily he could become that. How inevitable it seemed. Just like-

Of course.

"I was wrong. It isn't like the Calling. It's not an unavoidable end, where the demon's song and whispers just become too much. Maybe it's never been like that for any abomination. Or maybe you- Lucanis, the blood magic, how it all happened in this nightmare of a place made it different. I don't know. But you and Spite- I was wrong. And I know for a fact the real Rook is waiting for just the right moment to rub that in my face."

He doesn't turn to look at Spite. The demon wasn't a good friend. He was still going to drug and tie Lucanis up for sleeping for the foreseeable future. But he didn't think Spite was only waiting for a chance to rend Lucanis' flesh to pieces and wreck havoc on an unsuspecting world, either. What he was waiting for? To be determined. But it was a start.

A very good question, though Spite had minded less and less the drugging and tying part, as long as Davrin kept him entertained with conversation and stories. The regular time to, well, play with Assan had also done wonders on the Demon's ability to play nice.

"Are you sure-? I mean, look around. Maker. This can't be the mind of someone right, let alone a Crow, right?" Rook said, gesturing down to where 'STAY AWAKE' had been written on a wall. "You're really giving up a chance to say 'I told you so'?"

"Don't worry. I'll have other chances."

He turned to look at the writing briefly, but could only offer a small shrug of his armored shoulders in reply. If he'd gotten thrown in here when they first met? Yeah, he'd be rooting for them to lock every door they could find, throw away the key, and hand Lucanis off to whatever Templars still remained in this Blighted world. But he knew now. Maybe even understood, at least a little.

"We're a group of cast offs and survivors that think we can use one ancient god to kill two others. Nothing's right with any of us."

He had been disappointed to the point of anger that Lucanis couldn't, as Rook put it, stab a cloud. There was something horribly wrong with all of them.

To be fair, Lucanis was just as disappointed in himself about his inability to stab a cloud, only lashing back at Davrin for his anger about it. Everyone else got the self loathing when they tried to comfort him.

The anger was easier to handle, in a way. He could get angry back. Comfort was something unfamiliar to Lucanis. Unfamiliar except from one source, before the Lighthouse.

"I sure hope you're right," Rook said with a sigh, disappointing into the same motes of light that Caterina had, revealing a door to pass through.

"One more," Spite said. Guessed, really, but he could smell it nearby and suspected this would be the final guard to the door of Lucanis' heart.

"Please just be a dragon," Davrin sighed under his breath as he moved forward to open the door and enter whatever Lucanis' Fade-touched mind had in store for them next.

"But if it was something that could just be stabbed, Lucanis would've gotten it already, huh."

"Wyvern!" Spite corrected, though- "Would be protector, not guard. Likes them."

Sharing a brain space with Lucanis, Spite was very familiar with Lucanis' boyhood love of the creatures and how it had never left him. Another thing tucked away to the safety of his own mind where it could not be disapproved of.

'If I were in charge, you wouldn't have to do this anymore.'

Illario's voice, echoing. Funny how similar those words were to Davrin's own wonderings of what Lucanis would be if not this. There was, ironically, another that considered another life for Lucanis. It was why the betrayal hurt so much.

Zara's voice again, echoing, murmurings of experiments, taunts, 'envy is the hardest to cultivate, the circumstances must be perfect'.

But Lucanis was not envy. Moreover, there had been no outcome in which he ever would be -such a strange thing to keep in mind of her words. There was a reason why he was so sure she would be coming for Illario next.

Down, down, through crumbling hallways, phantom shouting, an unfamiliar woman - 'Lucanis, go with your cousin - hide! Don't come out!'

Illario's voice again, but so much younger, grief stricken but determined - 'I'll keep you safe.'

The man himself, well, Lucanis' version of him - standing before a massive doorway, arms crossed. The betrayer himself. And yet-

"Sharp jagged edges. Hurt with every breath. Grief and relief, hope and anger," Spite hissed softly, again falling behind Davrin like he had with Caterina. Unsure if danger. While the others had mostly only addressed Davrin, Illario looked right at Spite before addressing Davrin.

"He's a danger. To everyone. And you're protecting him?"

"Sorry, Lucanis," he murmured.

He had to try. Because he'd never had as complicated a relationship as Lucanis clearly had with Illario, so he couldn't understand why his opinion still mattered. Because even knowing how tightly twined his Crow's identity was with the traitor, he'd caused pain beyond belief to the people he claimed to care about for the sake of a pathetic power grab. Because some things could be seen in shades of grey, but not that. Not for Davrin.

He pulled his sword again and stalked forward. He was going to kill him.

"I'm looking at the real danger."

((Also figure this way if you don't want/need a paid for Davrin rn you can use the points for a different journal.))

"You! You didn't even want him on the team!" Illario accuses, stepping back, drawing his own knives at the ready. It's difficult to assess how much of his abilities are truly him, how much a reflection is on the real Illario. Lucanis trained with him up to a certain point, knew him better than anyone else. But then their training split paths, and the one Illario followed was one Lucanis looked down on, dismissed, didn't even see the knife until it was already in his back.

What else had he missed?

Not to mention, this wasn't really Illario - it was Lucanis, so there was so much of him that mirrored exactly what Lucanis moved like, the speed and skill he had, even if he lacked Spite's boosts. He wouldn't go down without a fight.

Spite held back and watched - but not the fight. Watched around, like he was waiting for something else to happen.

It takes a few exchanges of sword against dagger, shield against thin air as Illario moved before he made contact, for Darvin to call spawn shit on this.

"C'mon, you know he isn't this good. Stop building him up and think about what's really there."

This was, obviously, also about everything else Illario wasn't actually- a faithful brother, a loyal grandson. Somehow more innocent than Lucanis himself. But it's easier to phrase it in reference to his swordsmanship alone.

yaaay

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Davrin you're incredible

so much lore ignored

peak "I'm a hammer so every problem is a nail"

Hasn't failed yet

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(⁄ ⁄•⁄-⁄•⁄ ⁄) thank you for the points

<3 Thank you for the threads!

Re: <3 Thank you for the threads!