Chapter Text
For perhaps what feels like the hundredth time this evening, Rook looks across the dining table, over the lavish spread of food strewn across it, and meets Emmrich's glance. For the hundredth time struggles not to blush at the frank approval in his gaze, the gentle smile, and what she hopes is no small amount of attraction. She's certainly attracted enough to him in damn near every aspect from his silvered hair and tidy moustache, to those beautiful manicured and bejeweled hands, to every inch of his slender form she can make out underneath his exquisitely tailored clothing.
Please don’t embarrass yourself, Rook tells herself. Gods and spirits, Emmrich has been nothing but kind and solicitous to her and Rook does not want to scare him away now. He’s gone to the most amazing lengths to create this evening for her. A delicious dinner of more courses than she’s ever had at once, cloth napkins, silver flatware she's had to carefully watch him to see what to pick up next, and she has to somehow try and be worthy of it. She knows he’s wary of their differences in age; her only in her mid twenties and he twice that and then some. She doesn’t want him to know all of this is new, not just the fancy surroundings.
“You're my first… proper gentleman. I've never been courted like this,” she says as she gestures around to their surroundings.
Emmrich, all the spirits of sea and sky bless him, recovers smoothly enough that it's almost imperceptible. “We can move slowly. And… I'm glad you told me.”
Rook looks down at her empty plate for a moment, gathering her nerves. “Emmrich, would you like to take a walk? An… after dinner constitutional, as I'm sure you'd call it?” She softens the question with a small smile. “I'd like to tell you some things about myself, and talking over this table is making me feel a bit too much like I'm defending some sort of thesis to you.”
Emmrich carefully folds his napkin, setting it next to his plate. “A splendid idea. The gardens are particularly lovely this time of evening.” He pushes his chair back from the table, rising and walking around the table to offer his arm to Rook. “Shall we?” Rook places her hand on top of his proffered arm, gratefully thinking that now at least now she won't have to talk while looking directly into those kind eyes. If she's to be rejected, better to do it without having to see his disappointment as well as hear it.
Emmrich places a ringed hand on hers, and steers them towards a cobbled walking path, surrounded by silver-tipped mint-green flowers blossoming on vines that grow around wrought iron fences bordering the path. Rook tries to memorize every single detail of this stroll, from the touch of his fingers on the back of her hand, to the way his hip feels when it brushes against hers, to every single wisp that winks in and out of existence around them.
“Emmrich,” Rook starts. Steel your courage, you coward. You're a Lord of Fortune and you have nothing to be ashamed of. If he doesn't want to deal with you, that's his issue and not yours.
“I am incredibly—” A swallow here, do not cry, do not let your voice crack. “Incredibly fond of you. Every time you do something ridiculously sweet like plan a dinner date in the Necropolis, I wonder what exactly you see in me. Some pirate, barely fit for the polite society you keep.” Her hand involuntarily clenches around his forearm just for a moment. “I just want you to know what you're in for. And if you're not interested afterwards, then we can part ways as just colleagues and there'll be no hard feelings at all on my part.”
“Rook, my dear, you do yourself a disservice. A dashingly beautiful Lord of Fortune, deigning to tolerate an old professor's affections?” His fingers gently stroke her knuckles. “Any man or woman would be grateful to be the recipient of your particular charms.” He teasingly nudges her hip with his. A charmer to the very last. “I cannot imagine what secrets you have that would scare me off, but I am willing to listen with an open mind.”
Oh, he is so good. Too good for her by far. Rook takes a slow breath, willing herself just to keep talking. “Emmrich—” He will loathe you. “I didn't have a particularly happy upbringing. I don't know how to do this.” Rook waves her free hand in emphasis, accidentally scaring off a particularly curious wisp that disappears into the evening gloom. “If you're courting me, I don't know how to respond to you. I don't want you to think I don't appreciate it, because I do. I don't even know how to explain this to you, because this; these kind of talks, it's not something I ever learned.” Do not cry. If you cry, you may as well fling yourself into the dirt like a child having a fit. “I was born a slave in Tevinter.” There. She's said it and it's out in the open at least.
“Rook—”
“Not even just born a slave. Bred. Tevinter nobles and Magisters do it the way you'd breed a favoured horse or lapdog. My mother was a singularly beautiful bedslave of my master, and my father was not unskilled in magics that would serve a noble household.” Let him be disgusted and drop my hand. I can stop talking and leave this all in the past where it belongs. “They didn't know each other, but for a slave it doesn't matter. A potion to encourage the man to perform, and a spell to ensure the act ‘catches’ afterwards, and creating a new generation of slaves is almost a hobby. And when you're powerful enough in Tevinter, waiting a few decades to see the results after you've already extended your life through blood magic is nothing at all.” Her words spill from her mouth faster than they ever have. Past laid bare. “I was made to be an experiment.”
Rook stops at a curve in the path, tall marble mausoleums surrounding them from any passing onlookers. Half in shadow now, and near trembling, Rook goes on, further, deeper than she's ever said to anyone outside of the Lords before. She slips out from Emmrich's gentle hand, and pushes up the sleeves of her dress, more conscious of these markings than she's been for what feels like eons. Neve lent her the dress and it's far finer than anything she's ever bothered to wear on her own. Emmrich deserves that at least. “These aren't just the tattoos of some dashing pirate. They're lyrium. Carved into me when I was fifteen.” She does not look up into Emmrich's eyes, unwilling to see the pity she knows is there. She does not want pity; does not want a pampered, dignified, perfect human to say oh, I understand what you've been through, because an easily spotted lie is meaningless. Like spending a counterfeit coin knowing you won't be there to see when the lie is found.
Pale white-blue whorls trace up her forearms from her wrist, up past her sleeves. Rook has their paths memorized, winding up to her collar bone before merging to swirl down her sternum towards her navel, splitting back apart to travel down her hips to her ankles. Another set starts its engraving at the nape of her neck, mapping its spiraling path towards the base of her spine and from there down the back of her legs. Rook does not know whether any of the symbols are some sort of magical sigil, written in ancient Tevene that she was not permitted to learn. Or if they were just aesthetically pleasing to the one who owned her and burned them into her flesh. Does it matter? They’re hers now, and not her master’s. But she needs to tell Emmrich what they are, before he touches them.
“So if you’re expecting me to play the part of some gently-born lady to attend your fancy dress balls and rub shoulders with Nevarran royalty, you’ll need to look elsewhere. I’m not that. I’m not anything; not really. I fell in with the Lords out of luck more than any amount of skill. I just—”
“Rook.” Emmrich says her name sharp enough that Rook's mouth snaps shut. That must be the tone he uses to silence an unruly class of students when he’s in the role of professor. “Rook,” he says, this time gently. Emmrich steps in front of her and his hands come up to cup her face, thumbs slowly stroking her cheekbones. “Dearest, take a breath.”
She does, cheeks burning with embarrassment from spilling her secrets, babbling like an idiot, and Emmrich’s warm hands intimately curled around her face are certainly not helping matters. Looking into his eyes, she tries to see if the pity she’s afraid of is there. But no, just a tender concern. At least she hopes it is.
“Rook. I have none of these expectations of you. You entered into my life as a brash, bold, determined woman, and I would not ever dream of trying to fit you into some role you’re not suited for. This expectation that I would expect you to be some sort of trophy to parade in front of the nobility is only your misplaced fear, and not part of reality. I enjoy your company for you and what you have selected to share with me. That is the Rook I wish to form a relationship with.” He leans down, and very softly presses his lips to her brow, murmuring into her skin. “Darling Rook, nothing about your past would turn me away, and I am gratified that you chose to share even the smallest parts of it with me.” Another kiss, feather-light on her temple. “Tell me anything you wish, and I will listen.”
All the romance serials of Bellara’s describing mouth swabbing and tongue filled kisses, and none of them will ever measure up in her mind to Emmrich smoothly brushing his closed mouth against her skin. “...just wanted you to know what you’re in for, that’s all,” she murmurs.
Emmrich chuckles at her defeated tone and draws his hands down from her face down to her shoulders. He slowly turns her so her back is resting against his chest. He does not remove his hands, but rubs his thumbs in comforting circles against the back of her shoulders through her dress. “Rook, do you see that monument there, slightly to the right of the pink lilies? The one with the black veined marble and the jade plinth?”
“Mmm-hmm.” It’s nice, she supposes, but the warmth of Emmrich against her back is far nicer right now. The scent of his robes is palpable and she suppresses the urge to turn around and nuzzle her face into them. Sage, she thinks.
“A very noble family is interred in the catacombs under there. A lineage that extends nearly 15 generations, and if none of their members have never held the crown of Nevarra, it would not be from lack of fraternizing with even higher-ranked nobles.” Even from here, Rook can see the monument is expensive, the grave writing looking to be inset with real gold. She wouldn’t be a proper Lord of Fortune without being able to properly appraise something like that. “One of my first tasks as a full Mourn Watcher was to do the renewal rituals of the monuments in that section. Only simple charms to keep stone free of moss and metal clean of tarnish. Unfortunately for me, one of the daughters of that house was currently being escorted at that time by a high ranked Watcher, and demanded my credentials before being allowed to touch anything.” There is no bitterness in Emmrich’s calm voice, but there is something else. A quiet sadness. An old hurt.
“I, of course, had none. An orphaned son of a butcher and a cook and I had no way to lie around that fact. My skills and studies meant nothing to her, but the lack of bloodline meant everything to her. I was dismissed and another, more suitable, Watcher was found. The Watcher escorting her later apologized to me, as my skills were never in doubt to anyone in the Mourn Watch, but sometimes politics forces a compromise. It would not do to make an enemy of nobility.” Emmrich’s hands still massage her shoulders and he kisses the top of her head, breath warm against her black waves of hair.
“Fucking bitch.”
“Rook!” Emmrich says, shocked, and she can tell he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “That isn’t the point of the story.”
“What? She was. Probably still is too.” Rook steps out of his hands and turns around to him, looking up into his eyes. Now it’s her turn to reach up to hold his face, drawing her fingers along his jaw, his high cheekbones. “You’re so perfect, and the best Mourn Watcher I’ve ever met, and if that bitch thinks your parents’ lines of work isn’t good enough to scrub the gunk off of her great-great-grandparents’ graves, then fuck her whole family sideways and their failed bid for a crown.”
Now he does laugh, and Rook thinks it’s one of the finest sounds she’s ever heard. “I appreciate the sentiment, my dear, even if the language and wording is perilously close to blasphemy, here in the Necropolis of all places.” His hands reach up to rest lightly on her wrists. “But you see, nobility means very little to me, when compared to what is in one’s heart.” He takes her left hand and presses it to his mouth, leaving a kiss there that burns like a brand, all the while keeping eye contact with her. “And yours is a heart I would treasure over any golden monument.”
That’s enough to have Rook push her fingers up into Emmrich’s hair, curling around the nape of his neck, pulling him down into a kiss. A full kiss this time, her lips opening to his, tongue darting into his mouth. If she doesn’t have his skill or experience, she is determined to make it up with enthusiasm at the very least. When they break apart, Emmrich’s pupils are dilated and his breath is a gasp, so she hopes she’s accomplished her goal.
“Ah,” Emmrich says after needing to pull away for air, “I do hope… that means you have determined my affections for you are true.”
“Oh, very true.” Rook places a kiss on his cheek. “Sorry for burdening you with sad childhood stories.”
“Nothing about you has been, or ever will be, a burden.” And when Emmrich says it in that tone, she half imagines it’s true. Maybe it is. “I am distressed that it has upset you so much to tell me, but I do admit to having some curiosity about your tattoos. They are unusual to say the least.” His eyes are looking at them where they are visible above the scooped neckline of her borrowed dress. “But the fact they are a permanent reminder of when you were a slave? Horrifying. I had no idea of your upbringing.”
“It’s not something I bring up often. Isabela knows, so does Varric. Neve, I think, suspects. Maybe Lucanis too, because escaped slaves from Tevinter sometimes run to the Crows, and he's had dealings with blood mages besides. But for the most part the Lords tend to leave their past in the past. If we don’t volunteer information, there’s probably a reason.” Emmrich’s hand is still on her wrist, and so Rook pulls it to her mouth, placing a kiss on his knuckles, dragging her mouth along his rings. She’s more confident now and decides to press her luck. “I’ll tell you anything you’d like though. Ask, and I’ll let you strip me bare of my secrets.”
Emmrich’s sharp intake of breath lets her know she’s hit the mark with that tease at least. “A tempting offer.” He pulls away, eyes still locked on her, and offers his arm again. “Shall we continue our walk?”
“Yes, if only because I think you may be ever so slightly worried the esteemed Professor Volkarin might be caught kissing in the gardens.” There are still wisps floating around them in various states of curiosity and she isn’t quite sure what the likelihood of them being gossipers would be. But she loops her arm through his again, resting her hand on top of his gold bangles.
Emmrich snorts at that. “Professor Volkarin would never.” He starts their walk again, aiming them towards a path that winds its way through a flowerbed of irises and something Rook doesn’t have a name for, but blossoms in majestic fuschia profusion. “Student Volkarin had enough close calls in his youth to map out the best secret alcoves.”
Rook laughs at that, something easing and relaxing in her stomach. A tension she’s held on to since the first time Emmrich made his attraction to her known. “Maybe we save those for a second date then.” There is something indescribable about Emmrich that makes it so easy to be free around him. To trust, to tease. “An easy question first. What’s your favourite colour?”
“An easy one indeed. Lilac.”
“Of course you went to a flower,” Rook gestures to the gardens around them, amused.
“It’s such a pretty shade of purple. It brings thoughts of spring. And yours?”
“Blue,” Rook states definitively. “One of my first, happiest memories I remember, really truly remember. I was on Isabela’s ship, the Mermaid’s Kiss. She had just told me I could stay on board. I don’t remember her specific words, but I remember that feeling of absolute relief. And I went up to the main deck and there wasn’t a cloud anywhere. Just that endless bright blue sky and the ocean mirroring it. That was freedom.” She tries to find words to better describe it. She’s never been a poet. “Infinite possibilities.”
Emmrich frowns slightly. “First though? How old were you?” Of course he would pick up on that. Ever the professor, finding the clues laid out in her thesis.
“Mmm. Goes back to these,” she says, tracing a delicate spiral of lyrium tattoos on the back of the arm that Emmrich is still holding. “Most things in my life do. If you want to start finding out my secrets, may as well ask now while I'm in a particularly chatty mood.” She looks up and smiles at him. “The company this evening has loosened my tongue considerably.” She tries to make it sound light-hearted, like it’s just a silly secret she’s sharing. A joke to share around a tavern table and nothing else.
And Emmrich is not fooled, not in the least, she can tell. “I’d ask you nothing of your past that you’re not willing to speak of freely, my dear. Unburden yourself if you will, as the Memorial Gardens are well used to hearing secrets; as am I. One of the first things a Mourn Watcher learns is how to listen to a griever with an open heart and keep silent after.”
Another loosening in her center, a crack in her armour she has carefully wrapped around her heart. Emmrich will break through every bit of it, she can tell. For a wild moment she pictures herself lying on his cold marble autopsy table, chest laid open, one of Emmrich’s fine long hands cradling her heart as delicately as if it were glass, the other hand weaving patterns of brilliant green healing magic through the air. Easily mended, my dear. I have you, he murmurs in his dulcet tones. Rook blinks, banishing away the vision, until just the real Emmrich is standing there in front of her.
“Alright.” Looking around, she searches out for a bench and spies one that curves in a C-shape around a large terracotta planter filled with Dark Embrium flowers. She sits on it, smoothing her dress over her knees to hide the nervous tremble in her hands, and Emmrich lights a nearby lantern with magefire, casting a soft glow on them. When he settles next to her, he offers an upturned hand, and she gratefully takes it, interlacing her fingers with his, their rings clinking together.
“So. Born a slave. Bred for looks and magic. Master Aleron is who owned us, and he wasn’t a Magister, which I think wasn’t due to a lack of ambition, but rather he wanted less oversight or investigations into his personal household. My mother was a slave who lived in his country house, and that’s where I was til maybe five or six years of age. Aleron had heard of a way to imbed lyrium into the flesh of people, to give them magical talents, make them more biddable. A servant, a slave, a bodyguard. Able to be drained of their mana at any time by their master, and they would only thank you to be of service afterwards.”
Emmrich is angled towards her enough that she can see the expression on his face. Horrified. “...monstrous.”
“For anyone outside of Tevinter, probably. And the only reason it hasn’t caught on there is because of the phenomenal cost and failure rate.” Rook laughs, but it’s bitter this time. “I’d wager the lyrium set into my hide is worth more than your grave gold and the entirety of my dungeoneer’s findings together.” She pushes her shoulder length waves of hair back from her face with her free hand, tapping her pointed ear. “And it only works on elves. From what I know, humans and qunari just… go mad and die. Not an outcome you want to risk if you’ve spent a year’s worth of your estate’s income on branding them. And even with elves, it’s not a sure thing.”
Emmrich is a quiet ear, only a thumb moving comfortingly on the back of her hand.
“Aleron decided to mitigate his risk, by breeding what he thought would be a perfect specimen to handle the lyrium. After all, when you’ve already extended your life through blood magic, waiting a dozen years to see if your slave is viable isn’t that long to wait. He picked two of his slaves through whatever methods he thought would produce what he needed.” Rook waves her hand dismissively. “And nine months later, there I was. He let my mother raise me for the first few years and then when I was old enough to learn the training he wanted me to have, I was moved from the country estate into the city proper. I worked as a kitchen serf, which I think was to prevent me from thinking too highly of my position. But I also learned how to speak the trade tongue and Tevene, though not how to read anything but the most basic terms. I was drilled in service, acrobatics, defensive fighting, and when my magic appeared when I was maybe eight or nine, that as well.” Rook half smiles towards Emmrich. “It’s probably not useful, but if we ever need someone to do a back handspring into a cartwheel, I have the team covered.
“I don't remember seeing my mother after my magic appeared, but my father was present off and on. He wasn’t allowed to interfere with my training, but he secretly looked out for me when he could. Giving me chalk and slate when he found broken ones in the rubbish, candies that he could slip into my pocket, whispering little stories when we were working near one another, that sort of thing. He taught me how to draw, and how to twist grass into a whistle and anything else he could sneak to me. He was perhaps the only bit of kindness I ever had in that household, because Aleron barred it from me entirely. And perhaps he didn’t think my father would have recognized me, or even remembered a single night he was drugged into laying with my mother.” Rook shrugs. Tevinter mages and nobles always underestimated what their slaves knew. “But I think I looked quite like my mother, and my father did remember, so he did what was in his power to ameliorate what suffering he could. And it was. Failing at any of my training was punished, sometimes with spells of pain, or beatings left unhealed til the next day.” Oh, much more than that, but Emmrich does not need to know those details.
Emmrich has been silent til now, letting her spill her words, perhaps afraid if he broke her chain of thought, she would stop entirely. Keep it back inside where it’s been for years. But some of her training is that she’s learned to observe without being noticed, and now she can see Emmrich’s throat working to swallow around a knot, and how his lower lip is thinning as if he’s biting it.
“Emmrich. Emmrich.” She reaches across with the hand not currently entwined with his and turns his face to hers. His eyes are downcast but she knows there would be tears threatening to spill there, because of course lovely, sensitive Emmrich would be affected by this story; this stupid, pointless tragedy of her early life. She’s selfish to throw this all in his lap. “Emmrich, I’m fine, I promise. I can stop. You don’t have to hear any more. I survived, it’s fine.”
Emmrich starts at that, lifting his hazel eyes to stare directly into her blue ones. “It is absolutely not fine. The cruelties inflicted upon you and your family… do not ever say that is fine.” Rook is struck by the forcefulness in his voice. When mentioning to anyone in the Lords in her past about being a slave, the prevailing thought is ‘well, you lived and surviving those Tevinter assholes will just make you harder to kill later.’ She’s not the only former slave, not nearly, but very rarely will any of them talk about their former lives besides the occasional drunken boast around a campfire or tavern. “You deserved none of it, Rook. None of you did. I cannot bear the thought that you think you did in any fashion.”
And she can see he cannot. There is nothing but compassion in his gaze, beautiful and pure. She knows without a doubt she could tell him any detail, any torture, any pain, and he would listen to it all to shoulder whatever he could from her. So she knows she won’t. She’ll gloss over it as much as she can, because saving Emmrich from pain is worth anything.
How odd it is this man has so thoroughly wound himself around her heart so quickly.
She runs her thumb along his upper lip and then kisses the tip of his nose. “You want me to finish the story? I don’t have to.”
“My dearest, you shall not end it here. Not on both a cliffhanger, and an unhappy ending. My heart cannot take it.” He shifts on the bench slightly, moving her so her head rests on his shoulder, his left hand still clasped with her right one.
“Fine. If I’m to keep you up all night with dreams, I want them to be good ones, and not nightmares.” She feels the sharp laugh in his chest more than hears it, but she does hear him say ‘incorrigible’ under his breath.
“We’ll skip most of it, as all you need to know I was exhausted most of the time, working in the kitchens from before sunrise, practicing magery and physical training til after sundown. Half-starved because Aleron felt hunger would be a good teacher. Porridge every day so you don’t die, of course, but perhaps if you properly cast a levitation spell you’ll have bread and honey in the evening.”
“So at fifteen or thereabouts, it came to fruition, and Aleron, along with several other of his slave mages, carved their marks into me.” Rook pauses, unsure of what to share and what to keep hidden. “It was the most painful thing I had experienced until then, and I’ve never felt anything as painful since. I was trained to hold still and to submit. What I wasn’t told is that the process is so traumatic, even if the person survives, their memories are nearly erased. Hence the constant drilling of basic spells and physical actions for years. Even if my mind couldn’t remember, my subconscious would.”
Rook barely remembers any of it, outside the pain that was like a wave that crashed against her. As if she were a sand sculpture on a beach and the tide of it swept everything away. She'd pieced it together over the years, through nightmares and flashbacks, trying to determine which ones were real while knowing she'd never be sure.
“My father saw me several weeks later, and I could only vaguely recognize him, lost in my haze. I knew my master, but the rest of the household were nameless and faceless. I don’t know if my father knew what the plan for me was, but I think whatever hope he had for my future was broken in that first conversation. And I nearing womanhood, my next training would have been for the bedchamber. He tried to tell me things, about my mother, about stories he told me, but trying to remember them was like trying to grab onto mist.”
“Horrific to have tried to help his child from a distance, only to lose you nearly completely,” Emmrich says in a quiet voice. Tinged with sadness.
“Mmm, and I with so little memory of him. Some memories eventually did come back, but that childhood will always be blurred, I think. His name was Laidir; that I remembered, and kept for myself afterwards. Whatever my mother called me is long gone to time, and Aleron only called me Lepus. Little Rabbit.”
Rook stretches out her legs and rubs them together; there is always an underlying chill here in the Necropolis and the bench is cool stone and not wood. Her time in Rivain has spoiled her with the hot sun and warm winds. And while this dress from Neve is lovely, flowing swathes of emerald cloth, in Tevinter fashion, comfort will always come second to style.
“The end result was my father smuggled me out one night, months later, with a small mind enchantment set on me to run as fast as I could to a certain dock, hand over a carved pewter coin, and it was supposed to buy me passage somewhere. But the best laid plans, as they say. He stayed behind, and from what I can tell, self-immolated himself with a spell along with half the slave quarters to cover his tracks and to hide my escape. But something went wrong. Either he was betrayed, or my mind was so thoroughly befuddled I lost myself and ended in a Tevinter galley. Lost one slave collar, only to end up in another. And these ones were physical in the form of leg irons. The scars are still there if you get a chance to look closely.”
“We can look at healing them, if you would like,” Emmrich murmurs. “Old wounds are devastatingly tricky, but the attempt can be made.”
“I never see them, so they don’t upset me, truly, Emmrich. But the offer is appreciated.”
“As you wish, dearest.”
“I do promise this story eventually has a happy ending. Or a happy middle, at least. It just takes a few more steps. I remembered kitchen work well enough, and worked in the galley, serving the slaves and sleeping wherever I wasn’t liable to get kicked in the ribs for being in the way. A year passed maybe, before a storm foundered the ship and I found myself sucked out to sea, arms wrapped around some bit of mast or railing. Days drifting in the sea, trying to keep myself warm with spells. And then Isabela and her crew appeared on her ship, yelling to see if I was still alive. She’d heard news of a shipwreck of course, and there’s always the possibility of easy treasure to be recovered.”
Rook’s voice is softer now, because this is where she considers her life, her chosen life, to have started. “One of her sailors dove down to fetch me, while I clung to his back. Carried me all the way up the side of the ship to drop me on the deck, right at Isabela’s feet. ‘What a strange little minnow we’ve caught.’ she said and ordered another sailor to fetch a water ladle and a bit of food. I kept down what I could, and slept a day and a night in a borrowed hammock. And when I came to and she summoned me to her cabin, I begged to be allowed to stay on board.”
“She must have accepted, obviously.”
“Oh, better than that. She recognized my tattoos. An old friend of hers suffered the same way in Tevinter and also escaped his bonds. She knew he would have been furious if she didn’t extend her help to me, so she took me on. Closest thing I have to a mother now, but never say that in earshot of her. I met her friend later on, and he taught me as much as he could about the markings, how to use their abilities.” Rook chuckles and stretches out an arm looking at the tattoo that pokes out above the wrist of her dress. “I met Varric at the same time, and learned a lot from the pair of them that summer. Enough for Isabela to let me become an official Lord. As official as that group can get, anyway.” Rook pauses to think that she really should see if Emmrich and Varric have been properly introduced. She doesn’t know why she keeps putting it off, even though she knows in her heart they would get along brilliantly. He'd have another person to regularly talk to; not just her and Neve and Harding. Maybe she'll do it tomorrow.
“See, a happy ending. I learned sailing, treasure hunting, and fighting when at sea, and magic and reading when we were in port. Rivaini hedge witches and seers bear no love for Tevinter and were more than generous with their knowledge when they knew I was a former slave.”
“And now you’re here, fighting two gods to save the world. Who could foresee the paths our lives would take from the strangest of beginnings.” Emmrich sounds in better spirits, at least.
Rook stands up, stretching out her spine but not letting go of Emmrich’s hand, unwilling to lose that contact just yet. She stands in front of him, and picks up his other hand, bringing them both up to her face, kissing his knuckles. “Thank you for listening, Emmrich. I promise the second date will be better.”
Emmrich laughs and then says teasingly, “Yes, I seem to remember you were intrigued by the idea of secret alcoves.” He pulls a hand free of her grasp, and traces a pale blueish-white lyrium trail up her forearm, hesitantly. “These though? Do they still pain you? If I touch them so? I would not wish to distress you.”
“Fine for the most part. Sensitive sometimes, and especially so if I’ve drained my mana hard that day. I think they work to try and refill it, and the sensation can be overwhelming at times.” She lets her magic pulse through them, illuminating her skin like the essence of a lightning bug. Emmrich inhales sharply and watches the light flow through her, entranced. The word lovely forms on his lips, but he’s silent, arrested. The ones on her wrists and collar bone are visible, the ones concealed underneath her dress light up through the fabric, and she watches as Emmrich tries not to follow their lines down the neckline, between her breasts, and further down. Always the gentleman, Rook thinks. But look anyway. I want you to see, want those beautiful hands of yours to map every mark of mine, drag your tongue along these rivers of magic. They've caused me enough pain, so let them cause something better for once.
She’s halfway to speaking her thoughts out loud, before a flurry of wisps burst out of the nearby foliage, fluttering and sparking with interest. Rook freezes in place, and several of them split off from the group, whirling about her arms and torso, following the luminescence. Emmrich's grin is indulgent, all traces of his earlier melancholy well gone by now, banished by the wonder of seeing Rook's body light up the Necropolis shadows and the mischief of the wisps the unusual magic is attracting. “Our resident wisps find you most intriguing, it appears.”
“Yes, and one appears to be intriguing itself up my skirt right now.” Rook takes a step back, lifting up the hem of her dress to expose an ankle that currently has a wisp twining itself around it in happy loops. Emmrich chuckles, and effortlessly casts a small charm to brush the wisp away at the same time Rook draws her own magic back in, letting the radiance of her tattoos fade back away.
Now with no magic between them, and the remaining wisps withdrawing, Rook feels… awkward. She’s said so much, none of it fit for polite courting conversations, and she’s not sure where to go from here. More than anything, she feels exposed. But Emmrich, brilliant Emmrich, perhaps senses her hesitation and steps closer. One hand comes around her waist to rest along the small of her back, and the other curls around the nape of her neck. His fingers very softly grasp her hair, to tilt her face up to his. And then he merely waits, and she can see that he’s waiting for her response. “Yes, please,” she whispers and only then does he bow his head the rest of the way to claim her mouth with his.
Oh, this, this is a proper kiss, Rook dimly thinks, before her hands rise up to clutch his vest, pulling him closer. It’s pure heat that pulses from her mouth and sends a jolt to her groin. When he does pull away for air, she wonders if she’s as flushed as he is, if his heart is hammering the way hers is.
“Maker’s balls, Emmrich,” she says in half a gasp, half a laugh. “This is what what you call moving slowly?”
That’s pride gleaming in his eyes, she can tell. “When it comes to the depth and breadth of experiences to be had, a single kiss is as slow as one can reasonably manage, darling. Too much?”
“Next date, you’re finding me one of those shadowy alcoves,” she says, and draws him back down to her again, swallowing the laugh that spills from his lips.