An Actually On-time Wip Wednesday?

an actually on-time wip wednesday?

time is fake and even though @lucaanis tagged me for a wip wednesday last week....i forgor :c but I'm posting now! and I'll even put two things in because i am nothing if not a juggler of wips!

and a low-stakes low-pressure tag fooooor: @guacamolleee @lottiesnotebook @the-bear-and-his-sunbird @griffongrey @veilguardiumleviosa and YOU if you are so feeling it!

below the cut: some cousins Dellamorte from my wip Courting Habits, and then a zesty little Nova and Caprice palate cleanser from a Thedas Weekend fill I'll be posting on Saturday

“So where is our lovely Rook?” Illario asks, languidly swirling his wine in the glass. Lucanis looks up at him, cautious. Perhaps he has every right to be. “She has business in Rivain,” Lucanis says. Illario watches as something shutters in Lucanis' eyes, something soft and vulnerable swiftly hidden away.  Well, isn't that intriguing? “You two seem to be attached at the hip these days,” Illario comments offhandedly, casually flagging the closest waiter for an order of cicchetti. “Or, should I say, you seem to have your hands full with her. She's a lot of gaatlok in a little barrel.” “It’s…not like that,” Lucanis says, lips pressing thin together. “We are colleagues. That is all.” “Surely you are friends at this point,” Illario says, even as an unexpected bitterness chokes his throat. Surprising, and unpleasant. It nearly sets him off his wine, the idea that Lucanis is making friends with the assortment of people from all over Thedas that Rook seems to be collecting.  Since they were boys, it has always been the two of them, together against every odd. The two of them, helping one another survive Caterina's brutal care and the demands of her training, then the jobs they took as full Crows. Master Dellamorte and Master Dellamorte the Lesser. Another one of Illario's little private jokes, but one can only stand overshadowed and unfavored for so long before they simply stop laughing.  He loved - loves Lucanis. He wanted Lucanis dead. Part of him - most of him, the part that knows a Crow always finishes the job - still does. But if Lucanis is out making friends like the social butterfly Illario knows he isn't all of a sudden, where does that leave Illario? “I owe Rook my life,” Lucanis says softly. “But I…there is nothing more than that.” Illario considers. If Lucanis had taken a lover, at any point in their lives, Illario would know it. Certainly he knew when his cousin was nurturing a crush - all two or three of them, and only one of them serious enough for him to try and act on it - but there's more to this. More that Lucanis isn't revealing.  “And here I thought you simply had a taste for de Rivas,” he comments, falling quiet as their waiter approaches with plates of cicchetti. “Well, if it is as you say -” “When have I ever not meant what I said?” Lucanis asks wryly, rolling his eyes. “I said I would grow a beard, and look at me now.” “ - of course, my mistake, how could I have forgotten you're a Crow of your word?” The familiarity of their banter makes Illario's guts clench. “But if there's truly nothing between you and Rook, because you mean what you say, then perhaps I ought to…” “Ought to what?” “See if she might like to be attached at the hip to me, as well. Physically, rather than metaphorically. But only casually, of course.” Lucanis falls silent, and that silence tells Illario everything he wanted to know. Illario allows the silence to linger, to build, to let Lucanis get a little uncomfortable with the idea while Illario fusses with the plates, making sure the edge of his sleeve doesn't drag in the sauces. He is very fond of Fonte’s cicchetti, each little plate arranged for maximum aesthetic desirability, each flavor chosen to compliment the wine at the table. “I don't think that is a good idea,” Lucanis says at last, in the same tone he might say thanks, but I'd rather die than voluntarily drink this tea.

“You want me to come up with new verses for the Chant of Light about the Crows, while wearing a Revered Mother’s robes and getting you off at the same time?” Nova says flatly. “I'm sorry, would you also like for me to juggle Viago's adders while I'm doing all of that?” “It doesn’t have to be the whole set of robes,” Caprice points out, opening the balcony door and gesturing for Nova to take her leave first. “It can just be the hat. And listen, you don’t have to come up with them on the fly. I can help.” Nova snorts, leaning against the finely-wrought railing of the balcony and enjoying the night breeze. It’s still warm, still uncomfortably muggy in her leathers, but the night is young and she’s with her lover, and they’ve just killed a very rich man who absolutely had it coming. The whole of Val Royeaux spreads out before them like a tapestry, wondrous and exciting. Dangerous, even. “Go on then. Dazzle me.”  “Blessed are they who fly before the corrupt and the wicked and do not piss themselves,” Caprice says. Their Orlesian accent is far worse than Nova’s, but they haven’t let something like a bad accent stop them before and they certainly won’t let it stop them now. “Blessed are the paid killers, the champions of the Just Desserts.”