Chapter Text
She thought they would have more time. Weeks weren't enough time, certainly—how could you ever have enough time to fully prepare to take on a pair of terrifyingly powerful gods?—but Rook had been sure it would be sufficient to do something, to rally their allies and make sure their minds and bodies and equipment were all prepared, all in the best shape possible. It would have been long enough to allow the vague plans swirling in Rook's head to coalesce into something more concrete than "get close and then make those fuckers bleed."
She'd been sure of it, but as she stands in the doorway of the Cobbled Swan, mouth agape as the moon is pulled through the void of space until it turns the sun's light a sickly, oppressive red, she has the sudden, overwhelming certainty that it wouldn't matter whether they had a day or a year to prepare.
Bellara had told her, once, that Elgar'nan was said to have power over the sun and moon in Dalish legends. Rook hadn't thought too hard about what that might mean, at the time, but now she sees his work for herself and wonders if they could ever have a chance against someone so powerful.
Rook can swing a hammer with the force to break an ogre's skull. She can send Antaam fighters to the ground with a well-timed bash from her shield. She is strong, and quick for her size, and she's gotten much better, in the past months, at reading a battlefield. At figuring out where best to position herself in relation to her enemies and allies. She's good at killing, when people need to be killed.
She has no idea how to fight someone powerful enough to drag a moon through space. She has no idea if it can be done at all.
"How can we stand against them?" she asks quietly, her voice barely audible even to herself as people start to shout and panic in the streets. "What the fuck do we do?"
"You do that which you've been working towards, all this time," Morrigan says sharply, although her hand comes to rest lightly on Rook's forearm, softening her words. "You possess a weapon that can kill gods. You have a team that's prepared to act, and allies ready to support you. What you do not have, Rook, is the luxury of doubt or hesitation. You will defeat Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain because it must be done."
And that's the truth of it, as unsatisfying as it may be, Rook realizes. She cannot fail, because the alternative is unthinkable. It doesn't matter if she's suddenly half-paralyzed with fear and shock; she needs to shake it off, return to the Lighthouse, and make a plan with the rest of the team.
"It must," she says, forcing her voice to sound less shaky than she feels. "I need to—"
"Go," Morrigan urges. "I have my own tasks I must see to. May your hand strike true, Rook." The air around her shimmers and then, in a flurry of feathers, she is gone.
Rook is frozen for another moment, but then a tremor shakes the ground under her feet, pulling her out of her stupor, and she makes a mad dash for the Shadows' new safehouse, doing her best to weave through the growing crowd of terrified, confused citizens. Thankfully, while the safehouse is mostly empty when she arrives, Tarquin is in his usual place, examining an array of letters and sketches spread out in front of him and seemingly unaware that the end of the world has begun.
"The gods are making their move," she says, with no preamble. "Elgar'nan is making a fucking eclipse happen out there."
"He's making an eclipse?"
"The moon," she says. She can feel her panic rising. She needs to be back at the Lighthouse. She needs to make a plan with her team. "He moved the moon. I have to go back, I just—" She shakes her head. "I wanted you to know."
"Wait," Tarquin says, as she turns to leave. "What the fuck are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know," Rook says heavily. "We're—" she barks out a loud, slightly hysterical laugh. "We're going to try to stop them. If we fail, people will die. People will suffer. Probably they'll suffer no matter what we do, but if I'm still alive, I'll keep trying to help. Prepare for the worst, I guess."
"That's not helpful at all," Tarquin snaps.
"I know." Rook sets a gentle hand on his shoulder; he flinches, surprised by the contact, but doesn't shake her off, doesn't move away. "I'm sorry. The best I can do doesn't feel like it's worth very much, at the moment."
"Come off it," he grumbles. "Don't give me that. You've done plenty, even after..." He shrugs off her hand and inclines his head towards the eluvian in a back room of the safehouse. "You'll get this done, too. Go be a hero, Rook. We'll do what we can here."
The eclipse has come to the Fade, as well. Even after seeing the beginning of it in Minrathous, the sight of the vivid red sky makes her steps falter when she bursts out of the library doors at speed. Everyone else is already moving, those few who had been away rushing back as quickly as she had, and they all gather in the dining hall for a frantic strategy meeting.
"How much time do we have?" Bellara asks, once the initial burst of panicked discussion dies down. "How long do we think it'll take them to finish making their dagger?"
"It's impossible to know for certain," Emmrich says, "but I believe we should have several hours after the moment of totality before the ritual needed to create the dagger can be completed."
"Then we take a few hours to prepare, but no more," Rook says, falling into the voice she only uses in the field or when strategizing beforehand. Forcibly making herself in the image of a leader, no matter how terrified she feels. "Do whatever you need to do. Make sure your equipment's in good shape, see the Caretaker for enchantments and upgrades, take time to rest, if you can manage it. We need to be at our best."
"We're not as prepared as we wanted to be," she says, making eye contact with everyone around the table. Her team. Her support. Her family. "But that doesn't mean we're not prepared at all. It doesn't mean we can't get the job done. Morrigan was right when she told me we will defeat the gods because it must be done; there's no other option. It shouldn't have had to fall on us to make things right. It shouldn't have had to, but it did, and I can't think of a better team to have by my side as this story draws to a close."
Everyone nods, or murmurs agreement, or meets Rook's gaze with a determined stare.
"Go get ready," she says. "Meet in the eluvian room in three hours."
Rook winces at the red sky when she steps out of the dining hall. The color is so sharp it makes her head hurt, and both the sun and moon look wrong in a way she can't describe, just slightly out of proportion to each other. The corona around the sun shimmers like the instabilities of the Veil in Arlathan Forest, and a dull but growing pain in her head seems to spark and crackle in response to its fluctuations. She purses her lips and drops her gaze to the ground, refusing to look up until she's back inside the library.
Rook finds it soothing in times of stress to be sure her weapons and armor are clean, sharpened, and well-enchanted, and the past few weeks have been difficult enough that she's spent a great deal of time keeping her kit well-maintained just so she won't go mad. She's already started to have nightmares about failing again when they next meet the gods on the field of battle, and while there are an infinite number of details over which she has no control, she can at least be sure her gear is in perfect shape, ready to be used at a moment's notice.
It's the final push, Rook thinks, as she collects her gear and does one final check of every piece. We finish this, and I can go to Nevarra with Emmrich. She pauses, frowning as she carefully rewraps the leather grips on her greathammer, and speaks the next words aloud.
"I can go home with him." The word home hangs in the air long after she's said it, an unfamiliar but much-longed-for weight in her mouth. She doesn't know what it's like to make a home with someone, but she wants it with a longing that's only grown more intense the longer she's had to think about it.
It still surprises her that she's managed to find such an affectionate, grounding relationship after so many years spent convincing herself that something like it was so out of reach that it wasn't worth hoping for. It still surprises her that Emmrich not only returns her feelings but does so with a truly impressive intensity, a fierceness that makes time with him feel like she's soaking in warm mid-morning sunshine.
The memory of the men at Weisshaupt who saw her as a joke and an easy sexual conquest, as someone who wasn't worth treating with kindness or respect, doesn't haunt her as closely as it once did. Time spent with Emmrich, who seems incapable of turning off the torrent of affection that wants to spill forth from his hands, his lips, his every action, has helped quiet down the voice that tries to tell her, even now, that true affection, that love , is outside of her grasp. His affection helps; so does the more platonic affection and regard of her team. So does the fact that she'd broken the wrist—not entirely intentionally, but she doesn't regret it one bit—of one of the Wardens who'd treated her the worst, just over a month ago.
Rook's heart is healing, but of course she knows it isn't healed completely. She knows that's probably not possible. The beautiful weight of Emmrich's affection still scares her sometimes; it feels like more than she deserves, or more than she should be allowed to have. An old, familiar shame rises in her throat like nausea when she remembers how firmly she'd believed that no one would want to treat her well, that she didn't deserve better than the scraps of false affection she was given. It hits her late at night when she can't sleep, or in the middle of a tense mission when she makes the wrong call. She feels small, stupid, too incompetent to lead a team or find love.
She's better at telling Emmrich, now, when any of her old anxieties start to take root, and once they start to talk it over, the fear never lingers for long. A few months into the relationship, she still barely understands how he could possibly have been just as drawn to her as she was to him, but she's stopped trying to second guess it, for the most part. It feels stable, secure, and Rook wants nothing more than to hold fast to it when everything else feels uncertain.
She turns away from his quarters when she leaves her room, though; there's someone important she needs to check in with before she wraps Emmrich in her arms and takes as much time as she can to be with him before their final confrontation with the gods.
"I wish you could come with us," Rook says, sitting gingerly on the edge of the cot next to Varric's.
Varric chuckles. "Terrible idea," he says, patting his leg brace. "I'd just slow you down."
"Still," she says. "It would be better if you were there. I just...I hope I haven't fucked everything up somehow. I hope we're as prepared as I think we are."
"Rook," Varric says, his voice softening. "Kid, hey."
"I wasn't ready to lead when you asked me to," she says. "I've sort of figured it out, I think, but now that everything's coming together, now that we're approaching our last chance to make things right, I don't know. What if I've made some terrible mistake I don't even understand yet? You know how to do this shit; I've been floundering since day one."
"Rook," he says again, even more gently. "You think I know what I'm doing when I'm out there? I'm a bullshitter and an improviser, not a master tactician. You're doing great. You've made it this far, you and your team. You got this. You don't need me out there with you."
"Maybe," Rook allows, "but I still wish you could be there."
She furrows her brow as she takes a closer look at him. He seems just as bruised and sore as he had been the last time they'd spoken, although she can't quite remember when that was. "Varric, are you okay? I just...it was so long ago that Solas injured you, but you don't seem to have healed much at all. Has Emmrich been taking care of you? Has he been checking your wounds?"
He waves off her concern. "My wounds are fine," he says. "Just, lingering effects, you know. I can't move around as quickly as I used to."
"You almost never come out of the infirmary."
"I'm old. Old and tired. Rook, don't worry about me. You have enough on your plate."
It does worry her, though. After a few more minutes of conversation and encouragement, Rook looks back as she leaves and sees him slump back into sleep before she's even out the door. This time, she'll remember to ask Emmrich about Varric's recovery; something doesn't seem right. Something needs to be done.
But despite her best intentions, despite her genuine concern, the thought recedes into the background, as it has every other time it's come up. By the time she's out of the hallway leading to the infirmary, she's completely forgotten, as she has a dozen times before.
Rook sighs as she turns towards Emmrich's room. The confidence she had tried to project for the team has slowly dissipated, and now she just feels tired. She wants to hold Emmrich for the few hours they have before they leave. She wants his warmth, his sweetness, the stability of his manner. She wants him to tell her that she's strong, that she's competent, that she's more than capable of leading the team to victory.
She wants to believe him when he does.
The next few minutes remind her, with the force of a greathammer to the knees, that what she wants doesn't matter.
Emmrich greets her with a gentle smile when she slips into the room, but there's a hesitation to his movements and a melancholy in his voice that seem to extend beyond the worry they all share about the mission to come.
He tells her he's been working on his will, which Rook supposes makes sense, if you actually own things of value. Still a bit off-balance due to his tense and melancholy mood, she throws out a comment—a joke, she intends it to be, but it falls flat the moment the words leave her mouth—that she doesn't own enough to make it worth the effort.
"A will can still be valuable," Emmrich says. "Even possessions that have little monetary worth may have great sentimental value, and you may want to see them distributed to the people who would best appreciate them."
Emmrich stares at his hands, then, resting atop the folded and sealed will on his desk. "Rook," he says carefully, "this process has also led me to think about the situation we find ourselves in, and—and what we are to each other."
"O...kay?" Rook responds, frowning.
"I don't regret giving up on my dream of lichdom," Emmrich says, "but the fact is that I no longer have anything standing in between myself and that final nothingness. And Rook, so many years separate us. Being with you has been—I hardly know how to describe how happy your company has made me. But death will come for me first, long before it comes for you, and I hate the thought of your pain upon seeing me pass. I hate the thought of burdening you with such sorrow. I don't think it would be right for me to do so."
Rook stands frozen in place, her hands suddenly numb. "What?" she asks, her voice shaking. "What are you saying?"
"I only want to avoid causing you future pain," Emmrich says, slipping into what she's always thought of as his professorial voice, and she wonders, with a growing sense of dread, if this is a speech he's already rehearsed. "I hate to think of you grieving for decades after I'm gone. It seems unfair to allow you to tie yourself to me."
"To tie myself? Do you think I'm with you because I feel beholden to you?" She doesn't know if the fact that he'd think this of her is more insulting or just sad.
"Not in so many words, no, but—"
Rook takes a deep breath. "That sounds like a very polite way to say 'yes.'"
Emmrich sighs. "Dearest, I only worry the gap in years will bring you pain down the road, and I fear that I've been irresponsible by ignoring this issue until now."
Irresponsible?
"Emmrich, I—" Rook takes a step towards him, but the cold determination on his face keeps her from coming closer. Where is this coming from?
The entire conversation is getting away from her, and she still doesn't understand what, exactly, the issue is and why he's chosen to raise it now. "I've never minded the age difference between us. I didn't think you did either."
But that isn't entirely true, Rook knows. They've been subtle, but she's caught a few off-hand comments from Emmrich, or responses to things others have said, that made her wonder if he was self-conscious about it. She'd thought that the best way to show she had no negative feelings about the difference in their ages was simply to be happy with him, to let him know that she cares for him, that she finds him incredibly handsome and appreciates his experience. She'd thought that would be enough. Now she wonders if she should have handled the situation differently.
"I knew how old you were when you first kissed me," Rook says, trying a different approach. "I knew how old you were when I was too afraid to tell you how badly I wanted you because I was so certain you wouldn't feel the same way. It's never stopped me from wanting to be with you. That isn't going to change."
Emmrich's lips are pressed into a thin line as he regards her. "Rook," he sighs.
"It won't change," she repeats. "I know what I'm getting into."
Emmrich snorts. "Do you?" he asks. "At your age?"
"Excuse me?" Anger bursts in her chest, hot and sharp, and she presses her hands into fists, inhaling sharply as her fingernails bite into the meat of her palms. "I am thirty-six fucking years old, Emmrich. I am not a child."
"True, but there's a certain level of life experience—"
"You trust me to lead this team, help you take down Hezenkoss, kill blighted dragons, and coordinate with all our allies, but not to know my own heart? That's where you draw the line?"
"I'm only saying," Emmrich replies, infuriatingly calmly, "that I fear you haven't taken the full context of the situation into consideration. The difficulties that could arise between us, due to that difference. Surely you can understand my position."
"I understand," Rook says, her anger now a bonfire behind her ribcage. "I understand you perfectly. If I believe in our relationship, if I don't want to be suddenly cast away, it means I haven't taken everything into consideration. But if you are willing to throw everything between us away because of something that might not even happen, something you've never had the courtesy to even discuss with me, that's a reasonable, well-considered conclusion. "
Rook closes her eyes and takes a handful of slow, deep breaths. Everything is spiraling out of control, and she can't understand where this is coming from. Why Emmrich's never raised any of these issues before, if he's so upset by them.
"Emmrich," she says gently, grasping at straws and hoping she's right, "are you scared? I am too. We have no idea what we're about to face. I...I wanted to hold you for a little while before we have to leave, just to remind myself of what I'm fighting for. What we have waiting for us when this is over. Please don't push me away just because you're afraid."
"I'm not—why won't you take this seriously?" Emmrich snaps.
"Because it doesn't matter!" Rook shouts, fully losing her composure. "Grey Wardens aren't known for our long lifespans. There's no reason to assume you'll die before me. But even if you do, why do you think I'd regret loving you? Do you think my grief would poison my memories of you? If I were to live for thirty more years after you're gone, that would be thirty years to be grateful I had you in my life at all.
"We are about to launch an assault on two gods, one of whom is powerful enough to move the fucking moon across the sky. Neither of us might have a lot of time left, but right now I don't care which of us might die first. What I care about is being with you now, in these last calm moments. If you want to throw that away because you're afraid, I can't stop you, but I wish you'd be honest about it."
"Rook," Emmrich says placatingly, as he finally rises from his desk. He reaches out for her. "I'm simply trying to be realistic. I don't want you to—"
"No." She steps back from his outstretched hand and turns away, not quickly enough to hide her tears from him. "Don't tell me this is for my benefit. Don't fucking lie to me, Emmrich."
"Dearest—"
Rook's blood boils at the endearment. "Don't call me that," she snaps. "Not while you're doing this. Don't pretend you're being kind."
She's hurt and confused and she desperately needs to be somewhere, anywhere other than this room. "I have to go," she says, striding to the door. "I have gods to kill. If all you're going to do is insult me and break my heart, there are better ways for me to spend my time."
"Rook," Emmrich calls, scrambling after her. When she turns at the door his hands are outstretched, but he can't quite bring himself to touch her. And if he can't manage that, there's nothing keeping her here.
"I'm used to this," she says. "You know that. I just didn't expect it from you."
Rook closes the door behind her before Emmrich has a chance to reply.
Rook slumps onto the stiff, uncomfortable chaise lounge in her room, staring into the shimmering light of the aquarium. She'd rather not be alone right now, but she doesn't want to barge in on anyone else's final preparations or intimate moments. She doesn't want to be a burden.
She needs to be in leader mode anyway, she reminds herself. She can't let this distract her, even if she's not entirely sure what Emmrich even meant by all of it.
Was he truly trying to end their relationship? Yesterday she would have said that worry was borne of her own past, her own insecurities, but having just heard him dismiss her age and experience and, apparently, her ability to commit to him at all, it seems to be the most likely explanation. It makes no sense when compared to everything else he's said to her, every sweet moment they've shared, every chance he's taken to make her feel cherished, precious.
She doesn't understand.
But she can't seek understanding in this moment; she has to push her anger and sorrow and confusion away. She has to fold it up and tuck it in the breastplate of her armor, like—
Rook hauls herself off of the chaise, choking on a sudden sob as she walks to her armor stand and pulls out a small, neatly-folded scrap of paper she'd slipped between the plate of her armor and the leather padding beneath. It had been waiting on her bedside table beneath a bag of candied chestnuts Emmrich had picked up on a trip to Nevarra the week before. For my sweetheart, the note reads. May this humble indulgence bring you a measure of the delight I feel every time I stand in your presence. Even the smallest moments bring me joy, because I share them with you.
She'd nestled the note into her armor then, a gesture that felt both silly and deeply profound. She'd wanted to carry Emmrich's thoughtfulness and affection with her, to have something to touch if she needed the reassurance, and now—
Now she wonders if he'd meant any of it at all. If he'd ever truly wanted her to come home with him. She doesn't understand how to square the last ten minutes with the months that had come before them, months of affection and intimacy and what Rook had read as deep, genuine sincerity. How could that have led them here?
Rook sighs, refolds the note, and hesitates for a good while before tucking it back into her armor. She isn't ready to give up yet, but now she needs to focus on the task ahead, not on the dull pain in her chest.
In the end she simply stares into the aquarium for the final hour before their departure. She allows her mind to wander if it feels the need, but she always pulls her thoughts back to the impossible task she's asking her entire team to accomplish. At least she feels that they're as ready as they can be, aside from the scramble brought on by the eclipse. Personally, if not logistically.
The problems that have plagued the team have been addressed, and while Rook knows better than to think that everything's fully resolved, she at least gets the sense that everyone's found some level of closure. She's glad of it, not just because she needs everyone to focus on the fight ahead instead of on their personal issues—and she reminds herself that this applies to her as well, that she can't afford to dwell on Emmrich and get sloppy—but because she's come to care deeply for everyone, and she's still touched that they felt comfortable enough to ask her for help in the first place.
If nothing else, she thinks, I guess I learned how to lead a team. I think Varric would have been proud of me, maybe.
Rook blinks her eyes, trying to bring the fish back into focus. Why had she thought about it that way? She'd spoken to Varric not even an hour ago. She knows he's proud of her. You're doing great, he'd said, so why is she somehow certain that she doesn't know what he thinks? Why is she somehow certain that he had never said that at all?
Pain lances through her head, and as she winces and presses her fingers to her temples, she feels something slip into place inside herself—inside her memory, somehow—like the parts of a puzzle box folding elegantly together. The sensation is strange and not entirely pleasant, but it's so brief she can't be sure, seconds later, that it had even occurred. The pain swiftly recedes, allowing her to find her train of thought again: she'd made herself into a leader, even if she'd bumbled around much of the time, and even Varric thinks she's doing all right. He trusts her to get work done in the field while he's laid up in the infirmary.
Something about that digs at her thoughts, like a splinter lodged deep into a wound. Is Varric really in the infirmary? Isn't he—
Another quick and elegant adjustment to the puzzle box as her head throbs. Another spike of pain and discomfort that passes too quickly for her to properly remember it happened at all. Rook slumps forward, holding her head in her hands, and breathes deeply until her head feels normal again.
She watches the fish in still silence for the rest of the final hour.
The journey to Tearstone Island is subdued. The boat they take is one of the Lords', large enough to hold them all but not much more, and only a few murmured conversations take place on their way to the island, even as packed close as they are.
If anyone notices Rook's tear-reddened eyes—or Emmrich's, for that matter, because the one time she can't help but glance his way she sees signs of distress on his face as well—they're kind enough not to say anything, although Rook assumes everyone is deep enough in their own thoughts at the moment that they aren't paying that much attention to each other.
Rook checks and re-checks the straps on her gauntlets and stares at the eclipse's reflection in the blood-red sea and does her best to think only about the fight ahead. They need a win this time. They can't fail. If they succeed, she'll have time to fix things with Emmrich, if he wishes it. If they don't, she doubts it'll matter in comparison to the horrors they'll have to contend with.
Once on the beach, they formulate a plan for their approach. Davrin offers to lead a team to distract and hamstring the bulk of the Antaam forces on the other side of the island, allowing Rook's team a clearer path to where the ritual dagger's being completed, and while Harding offers as well, suggesting a stealthier approach, Rook shakes her head and gives the role to Davrin.
"I want you with me," she tells Harding, which perks her up a bit. "You can help us move more quickly through this unfamiliar terrain."
"Got it," Harding says, already squinting at the hillside ahead of them.
"Neve," Rook calls. "I want you with us, as well." Neve nods, moving to stand beside her. Rook tries to ignore the way Emmrich's posture sags just a bit when he realizes he's not coming with her. She knows she'll only get angry and upset, if she lets herself. "The rest of you, go with Davrin and help draw the Antaam's attention away."
"It looks like our paths will converge there, or close to it," Harding suggests, pointing to a structure in the distance.
"Then that's where we'll meet," Rook says. She takes a deep breath. "There isn't much to say that hasn't been said already. I trust you all not only with my life, but with the lives of everyone in Thedas. That's what we're fighting for. Everything's on the line today; we cannot fail. Whatever it takes, we need to get the job done."
Rook clasps Davrin's hand, their gauntlets clanging awkwardly together as she does so. "Be safe," she says. "Be strong."
"In war, victory," Davrin responds. "We'll get it done."
Emmrich tries to pull Rook aside as Davrin's team is about to depart. "May I have a word, my da—Rook?" he asks, stumbling over the pet name he knows she doesn't want to hear. She appreciates that, at least. "About earlier, I—"
"No," she says firmly, before he can continue, even though all she wants is to hear him explain. "We can not do this now. I have to keep the team safe, I have to get us through however many Antaam and darkspawn and who knows what else is between this beach and the gods. If I'm distracted, if I—fuck, Emmrich, to be honest with you? If I give myself any space to feel as miserable as I know I am right now, I won't be able to see this through the way I need to. I don't have the luxury of taking any of my focus off of the mission at hand. Neither of us do."
Emmrich looks stricken, but he nods and chooses not to argue. "I understand completely," he says. "You're right, of course you are. Please, forgive me." He gives her a brief, formal bow and turns to make his way back to Davrin's squad.
"Afterwards," Rook says quietly. Emmrich pauses but doesn't turn around.
"When this is over. When we're home safe. If you have something to say to me, you can do it then."
"I will," he says, still facing away from her. She sees the hard line of tension in his shoulders and wishes she could wrap herself around him, kiss the back of his neck the way he likes, hold him until that tension fades. But she can't. She doesn't know if she'll ever have the chance to do so again.
"Be safe," he says, as he walks away.
Rook turns resolutely away from Emmrich's retreating form and walks over to Neve and Harding, who are having a quiet discussion as Harding points to a barely-visible footpath winding up the steep hillside ahead of them.
"What was that about?" Neve asks, when Rook joins them. "And don't tell me 'nothing,' because there's no chance I'll believe you."
"I can't focus on it right now," Rook says heavily. "That's what I told him, too. I need to be able to keep my mind on the mission in front of me."
"Okay, but..." Harding frowns. "Something happened, didn't it? You can barely look at him."
"Earlier, Emmrich...he..." Rook shrugs and starts to make her way across the beach to the path Harding had spotted, leading up the hill and into the island's interior. "I'm not entirely sure what he was trying to do, but it sounded like he was trying to end things because he's older than me."
"What?" Both Neve and Harding stop walking and turn to look at Rook, incredulous expressions on their faces.
"I thought that since he never brought it up to me, he didn't think it was a problem—which it isn't!—but now it is, apparently. I think..." Rook sighs and shakes her head. So much for not getting distracted. "I think he's scared. I already asked if I could go home with him after this, if I'm able to, and he said yes. Either he regrets agreeing to bring me with him in the first place, or he's so afraid of taking that step that he's pushing me away."
"Or," she adds, tilting her head back so the tears she feels gathering in her eyes won't fall, "I wasn't worth keeping around for very long after all."
She doesn't want to believe it. She doesn't think she believes it. But she can't banish that lingering worry that in the end, she just wasn't enough—not attractive enough, not interesting enough, not intellectual enough—to hold Emmrich's attention for long. She worries that in an act of genuine but still hurtful kindness, he'd come up with a reasonable-sounding justification to break things off, a lie designed to preserve her dignity.
"Rook," Neve says, in a gently scolding tone, "you know that's not—"
"I know," Rook replies wearily. "I know. But I don't understand what he wanted or where things stand between us. I don't understand why he felt the need to spring this on me now. And I—I can't focus on it at all. I can't give it my attention. I have to be thinking about those fuckers"— she points angrily at the place they're assuming is where the gods will finish their dagger—"and the fact that if we don't manage to stop them, the entire continent will fall to the Blight. I don't have time for heartbreak. I don't have room for it. I can't."
Rook takes a deep breath, pausing before they crest the hill they've been climbing. "So please let me ignore it for now," she says. "When this is over and it's safe to cry, I'll let myself feel something. I just can't afford to, yet."
It's obvious that neither Neve nor Harding are particularly pleased with the situation, but they nod, tight-lipped, and tell Rook they're sure things will work out.
Rook isn't sure she believes it, but she grits her teeth and does her best to press her doubt down tight and pack it away with all the other feelings about Emmrich she isn't letting herself acknowledge for the time being.
Thankfully, there are enough Antaam soldiers and human mercenaries along the path to the highest towers on the island that Rook's mind is soon mercifully blank, lost to the familiar ebb and flow of battle. She's gotten good at taking down Antaam in the past few months, for all that they love to shout insults at her as she does it, and the more of them she kills, the quieter the inside of her mind gets.
It's a small mercy, and a welcome one. Rook's almost able, after they've taken out four more outposts of Antaam and mercenaries, to forget about Emmrich entirely. To forget how heartbroken she knows she is. To bury it under the noise and terror of their current mission.
She's almost able to forget, until they run into Davrin's team just over two hours into their climb to the top of the island. They're looking a little worse for wear, scuffed up a bit but thankfully not seriously injured, and it's clear that they were able to cause a lot of chaos for the Antaam forces, disabling one of their ships and ruining a large number of their supplies as well as picking off quite a few soldiers as they cut their way through the camp. Rook has to fight to keep her attention on Davrin as he gives his report, and not on Emmrich's tired, red-rimmed eyes as he watches her intently.
She almost breaks. She almost catches his gaze, draws his attention deliberately. She considers it, even though she knows she shouldn't.
But then there are the wards to unpick, and Rook tells Neve to handle it, since she's experienced with blood magic, and then—
And then Neve is gone.
"Shit, shit, shit," Rook sputters, her fist banging into the now-dark eluvian Neve had been pulled into. The glass cracks under the force of the blow, sending fine lines spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. "What the fuck, I—I didn't see it coming."
"None of us did," Lucanis reminds her. "You can't blame yourself for this, Rook."
"Watch me," Rook growls, whirling around to face him. She towers over Lucanis when they're this close together, and she sees him shift his weight just a bit, just enough to make it easier for him if he needs to put space between them. It makes her feel powerful, but it also makes her feel like an ass.
"Sorry," she mumbles, taking a small step back so she isn't crowding him so closely. "But she was—she was just here. I—we—should have been able to keep her safe."
"Perhaps," Lucanis says with a shrug. "We cannot know, now. What we can do is press forward; it stands to reason that Elgar'nan is keeping her close."
It disturbs her, a little, that Lucanis is able to be so calm. It angers her, too, but before she can snap at him, say something she knows she'll regret, she reminds herself that he was trained for this. He has been trained to be cool and implacable in the face of anything, to school his emotions and reactions. He's suddenly lost someone very dear to him, just as Rook has, and yet she can only tell by the hard set of his jaw, the tightness around his eyes. His voice doesn't waver at all.
"You're right," she says, trying not to sound as defeated as she feels. "You're right. We need to keep moving."
The group splits again. Rook inclines her head at Emmrich as she heads for the door, giving Taash and Harding a moment of privacy. "Emmrich, Harding, you're with me. We'll see the rest of you at the ritual site; focus on getting Lucanis in position."
It's a bad decision, maybe, but Rook makes it anyway. She's just lost a teammate—a friend , and a dear one at that — in a sudden horrifying moment, and she wants the stability of knowing Emmrich's nearby, even if his presence is equal parts comfort and torment. Still, she's sure the fighting will only get worse from here, and the three of them have come to work well in battle together.
Emmrich nods solemnly, murmurs a few words to Bellara as he departs, and follows Rook and Harding into the next section of ruins and jagged hillside. He doesn't say anything to either of them until the first wave of darkspawn pulls itself over the rocky edge of the cliffside path and barrels towards them.
Rook knows she can't let herself be distracted by Emmrich, but it takes a moment for her emotions to fully get on board. She hears him call out behind her, coordinating ranged strikes with Harding while Rook wades into the fray directly, and for a moment she wants to abandon the battle entirely, drag him off behind a rock somewhere and cry and shake him by the shoulders and ask him why he doesn't want her anymore.
An ache in her leg swiftly brings her focus back to the task at hand. The injury she'd suffered months before, the deep tear in her thigh from a darkspawn's javelin, has finally healed. What was left behind, however, is a dark scar and a persistent dull pain that appears when darkspawn are around, an echo to the sense granted by the taint in her blood. She's grateful for it in this moment, as painful as the memory of that injury is; it helps ground her, helps redirect her attention to the battle in front of her and not to the heartache curled like a tangle of thorns in her chest.
The darkspawn start to appear in greater numbers as they press on, pouring out of Blight-infested ruins and dragging themselves from sickly, red-tinged pools of corruption. Rook is grateful for the runes inscribed into her greathammer that wreathe it in fire; with every enraged swipe of an arm she blocks, every solid blow she lands into skull or ribcage or twisted knee, a burst of cleansing fire sears the darkspawn's blighted flesh, causing their rotting skin to blister and blacken and begin to slip from the bone and muscle beneath.
Rook may consider herself a bad Grey Warden, but she certainly has a Warden's hatred of darkspawn. It's horrifying to face so many; even in her worst campaigns in the Deep Roads, she'd never encountered this number in a single day. Still, even in the midst of her horror she feels a fierce, angry thrill to have the chance to eradicate so many.
The adrenaline of battle can only carry them so far, as they face larger and more aggressive groups of darkspawn on their way to the top of the island; all three of them are panting heavily as they reach the steps that will lead them to where the ritual is taking place.
Rook signals for a minute's reprieve, and they lean against a low stone wall, breathing deeply and readjusting their armor. Emmrich presses a hand to both of them in turn, quickly healing the small wounds they've sustained, but no words are spoken between them until Rook decides it's time to move once more. She doesn't know what to say, but she knows she has to say something before things draw to a close one way or another.
"I'm not going to tell you it's been a pleasure to have you both with me through this mess," she tells them in a low voice, when she pushes herself back to standing, "because that's admitting defeat in advance. I'll tell you both it'll be a pleasure to stand over these monsters' corpses with you—with everyone—and know we won. It'll be a pleasure to celebrate, when this is over. To go—" she catches herself before she can finish the thought, coughing harshly to cover her misstep. She doesn't know if she'll be going home with Emmrich after all this, anymore, and if she doesn't have a home with him, she doesn't have one at all.
"Agreed," Harding says, reaching up to clasp Rook's hand, mercifully setting her incomplete statement aside. Emmrich, after staring silently at their joined hands for a moment, wraps his gloved hand around them both.
Rook wishes she could feel his body heat. She wishes there weren't layers of leather and enchanted steel between them. She thinks about how closely he'd clung to her only that morning, before she'd left for Minrathous and everything had gone wrong. How he'd shuddered and sighed so beautifully as he spent himself inside her. She wonders if such a blissful moment will ever be hers to enjoy again.
"A pleasure I look forward to," Emmrich says, bringing Rook's focus back to the present moment where it belongs. Where she must keep it, if she has any hope of succeeding. "May our victory be both swift and decisive."
There's nothing more to be said, or at least nothing that can be said in the moment, so Rook strides up the steps, grateful to be flanked on either side by people she trusts completely.
We have to win, she tells herself. It's like Morrigan said. We will, because we must.
The battle against Ghilan'nain is a disaster.
Rook finds herself alone, dashing across the battlefield and frantically attacking Blight boil after Blight boil in an attempt to free those Ghilan'nain had taken captive. Harding. Lucanis. Emmrich. Ghilan'nain taunts her as she runs, flooding the area with so many darkspawn that Rook feels at times as if she can scarcely maneuver between them. She feints and rolls, dodging around as many as she can in a desperate bid to undo the coiled, writhing masses of blighted tendrils holding her companions hostage before she runs out of time. If she stops to fight the entire horde, she knows, she'll be too late to save them.
Harding is freed first, and her ability to pick off enemies from afar and draw attention at critical moments allows Rook the breathing room to peel first Lucanis, then Emmrich, from their prisons of thick, blood-warm tentacles. Lucanis darts swiftly out of Rook's sight, gripping the lyrium dagger tightly as he surveys the field to find his opening. Bolstered by Harding and Emmrich's presence, Rook's able to smash through the clusters of boils feeding the shields Ghilan'nain keeps summoning to protect herself.
It's a subtle difference, but each time she erects her shield anew, it looks smaller, weaker. Hairline fractures shimmer against the dull, Blight-red surface, signs of strain in either Ghilan'nain's will or the Blight itself. Rook doesn't care which it is; whatever makes her easier to kill, that's what she's hoping for.
Suddenly Harding shouts Emmrich's name in panic; when Rook turns to look behind her, she sees a hulking, twisted darkspawn closing in on him, a heavy fist larger than his head pulled back and about to strike. She moves without thinking, pulling her shield from her back as she runs and throwing herself in the way of the blow, just barely managing not to crash into Emmrich and send him flying.
Rook's fast enough to protect Emmrich, but not fast enough to protect herself. She can't quite get the shield into position quickly enough; the darkspawn's fist glances off of it, slamming into her upper arm and forcing her to drop it as first intense pain and then a prickling numbness radiate from the point of impact. She grits her teeth as she grasps her greathammer with both hands; the numbness means her blows won't be as strong, but she bites out a quick prayer to whoever's listening that it'll be enough to get the job done. That she'll be enough.
Emmrich shoots her an unreadable look as she dashes away, swinging her hammer at another cluster of pulsating Blight.
Just as Rook starts to think they're making headway, just as she sees the telltale flash of Spite's wings in the corner of her vision and only barely stops herself from looking directly at Lucanis like an utter fool, giving away his position, everything goes to shit.
When she tries to recall the details, days and weeks and years later, they are all tangled together; she thinks she remembers them, but they're all layered on top of each other, as if each event had happened simultaneously. Lucanis leaps for his target and a tendril of Blight tugs Rook off her feet and Emmrich shouts in terror and Ghilan'nain taunts her and Davrin calls to Assan and Lucanis lands the killing blow and Davrin falls and he. He falls. He falls and Assan screeches, a horrible and heartbroken cry, and follows.
They move as one, Rook thinks numbly, as she watches. They found their turlum.
Rook is thrown to the ground when Ghilan'nain collapses; despite the shock of pain in her left side as she catches herself, she's able to drag herself unsteadily to her feet when the waves of energy radiating from Ghilan'nain's wound ripple and pulse with greater force. Elgar'nan is there, she thinks, but it's difficult to focus on anything but the energy flowing and expanding around her.
"The dagger!" Emmrich shouts from somewhere behind her. "Rook, you must break its contact with Ghilan'nain's body, or—"
Rook doesn't want to know what'll happen if she fails. She steps forward against a wave of magic so thick it has a physical weight, something she has to press through, and makes her slow, painful way to Ghilan'nain's corpse. Her hand slips the first time she grabs for the dagger and a wave of pain radiates up her arm; something in her hand must have broken in the battle, or earlier in their ascent. She grasps at it with her left hand, then, gritting her teeth as she pulls it free. Her arm is only half-responsive, somehow, her hand heavy and clumsy, but she finally manages to wrench the dagger free from Ghilan'nain's strangely dense flesh.
She hadn't realized, until the sound stopped, how loud the magic leaking from around the dagger had been; the battlefield is eerily quiet now that it's back in her hand. She stares at the dagger as if seeing it for the first time. As if she'd been expecting something else.
In the silence, it's easy to hear the scrape of a boot on stone behind her. She turns, expecting Emmrich or Harding, but it's Solas who pauses a few steps away, hands clasped behind his back. Solas who begins to speak about victory, about sacrifice. About surviving. Solas who walks placidly beside her as the ground crumbles beneath her feet, as she loses her footing again and again and the empty expanse of the Fade breathes hungrily beneath her. Solas whose lip curls into a snarl as he wrests the dagger from her grip, even as he solemnly tells her he regrets his actions. That he only does that which must be done. That he'd done his best to mold her into someone who could be trapped here, who could replace him in this miserable place.
"This is as far as you go," Solas says, standing over Rook as her hands give out and she finally loses her grip. He doesn't raise his voice as she falls, but she can hear him clearly even as his figure shrinks into nothingness above her. "This is how it must be, Rook. Surely you know that as well as I."
Other voices, familiar ones, follow her down as she falls, speaking her self-doubt into the still, stagnant air.
You abandoned me. Abandoned my city.
I sacrificed myself for you, but you still failed. What was the point?
You never had what it took to lead this team.
Do you think I couldn't find someone better, if I chose to? You were a pleasant diversion, nothing more.
Varric should never have chosen you to lead.
Failure.
Pathetic.
You need to remember your place.