Chapter Text
Lucanis.
Lucanis!
Lucanis!!!!
Lucanis surfaced from his not-quite-sleep at Spite’s shrieking demand. He tried not to take possession of his body until he figured out where they were, what was going on. A good Crow waited, was patient. Planned. Prepared.
Prepare later, Spite told him within their mind and let him see what was going on. Changes! Bad changes!
They were kneeling against the wall in Zara’s bathing room, but the witch wasn’t in her pool of blood as usual. Instead she paced and shouted furiously in front of a few other Venatori, wrapped in a silk dressing gown. Lucanis was idly curious how long he’d been out this time, but didn’t press Spite. The demon’s command of time passing was occasionally less than accurate, being a creature of the Fade and not the physical world.
What set her off this time? He asked Spite. The demon’s control of their body was such that they didn’t flinch when Zara sliced one of her mage’s throats, the man collapsing to the ground. Lucanis felt Spite’s bloodthirsty delight as they recognized a familiar face: one of the mages who so delighted in torturing their body. In his mind, Lucanis made a point not to call them by their names, even though a Crow always collected all information possible. But this dead man wasn’t anyone notable outside the Venatori, just a lower-class mage who thought he deserved more in this life and was willing to make others suffer for it. Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t echo the demon’s vicious gleefulness as the body stopped twitching.
“No word?” shrieked Zara, striking another mage. “No word at all?!”
The Venatori cupped his cheek through the hood and shook his head. “No, my lady.”
“You’re worthless,” she hissed, waving her hand at them furiously. “Leave me!”
Spite, Lucanis pressed again. What happened? The air in the room practically stunk with fear, for once not theirs’ or other victims’, and Lucanis could imagine Spite rolling around in it like a dog on a trashpile.
In response, he was hit with a flurry of images and scenes thrown at him by Spite, jumbled with information and flavored with emotions. This was easier for the demon than words, both because of his limited history of communicating with physical people, and the silencing spell that Zara had laid upon their body. She had wished to stop Spite’s hissed insults and remarks, but unintentionally made it more difficult for the demon to communicate with the hidden Lucanis. Spite drew strength from fighting back, persevering, shouting at Lucanis occasionally, but they tried to keep actual talking to a minimum. Instead he was hit with a bucket of sensations and images, like a contract delivered by a child (or Illario in a mood). Lucanis tipped the bucket out onto the table in his mind and sorted the images out carefully, setting aside the emotions to get to the information underneath. Their situation became clearer as he pulled out memory after memory.
The Venatori had aligned themselves with so-called Elven Gods, hoping that working with the being of higher power would assist with their conquering of Tevinter. More and more of them handled a newer Blight, making Spite and Lucanis both shy away from it in horror. But now Spite showed him images of news coming that someone had defeated the gods. Lucanis remembered at least part of that--Zara’s fury was taken out on his body, after all, and he’d had to retreat to the safety of his mind-kitchen to prevent himself from coming forward and giving their ruse away. Retreading that thought, he wrapped part of his soul around Spite to cushion the demon from the memory as it sped across their shared mind. The familiar sort of protective hug like when he’d drape his body over Illario’s as children after training, a kind of heavy human blanket.
And now the news more recently was that the vicious qunari who’d killed the gods had defeated another, and was starting to build an army. The Venatori had tried to get spies in his team, even going so far as to blood-control other qunari to report in, but to no avail. No one had much information on the warrior, just ‘qunari’ and occasionally ‘pirate’. The Venatori that met him and his team never survived, so Zara herself had stayed away from engaging the man directly.
See? Spite asked. Lucanis felt the savage delight thrill down his veins, and struggled to prevent the demon from quickening their breathing. Fear, Spite purred. They fear. This Rook.
Yes, he told Spite, but how can we use that? The blood magic chains, invisible that they were, had wrapped themselves around their body so heavily that it was barely possible to lift an arm without instruction.
“Demon!” shouted Zara, drawing their attention. “Attend me!”
Spite hauled their body up out of the kneeling posture, and Lucanis allowed that the demon was getting better in their body; clenching Lucanis’s toes to prevent his legs from falling asleep in uncomfortable positions like that was a trick Caterina had taught him when he was a child. He also noted that the begrudging movement was unlike his natural Crow’s slink, and felt a small surge of power. Zara found the way Lucanis used to move attractive, and whenever Spite was able to walk awkwardly or clumsily it gave the demon a boost from his domain. Spite used this extra burst to wrap more protections around Lucanis’s mind, bringing him forward to witness the world better. If Lucanis ‘slept’ too long he was in danger of losing himself, but the more he experienced his captivity the higher likelihood of them being found out--and creating worse problems.
They slid the silk robe off of Zara’s shoulders as she stepped into her blood pool, turning away from her to set it on the rack meant for that purpose. Lucanis watched as Spite tried to lay it out so that it would cause wrinkles, being instructed to not destroy the witch’s clothing months ago. Zara began her nightly ritual of inspecting her body: peering into the hand mirror to look for wrinkles, weighing her breasts in both hands to assess sagging, looking back over her shoulder to examine her ass. She conjured a simulacrum of herself at one point and eyed it, all the while Spite set out the myriad of lotions and oils she would apply later.
Or rather, have Spite apply them, grumbling mentally all the time. If blood works, the demon would mutter, why. Other things? After the first few times that step led to them being under her on the overstuffed goosedown mattress, Lucanis pulled away from this chore to retreat to the kitchen. He was sure it became a regular coda to their daily routine, but other than disgust and fury, Spite did not seem to find it as violating as he did. Bodies bad, Spite would mutter in irritation later. Why have them?
As Lucanis didn’t have a large history in positive physical contact after his parents’ deaths, he couldn’t quite explain it to Spite. All the same he missed living in his own body, but enslaved as they were, it wasn't like he could feel the wind on his skin from the ziplines or the thrill of his muscles working during exercise, or the heat of spices on his tongue. Better to hide away and not be taunted with things he would miss. But Lucanis promised himself he would once more experience all those things, and more. He would not die someone’s slave. He would be free if he had to kill every person on his path.
Zara stepped out of the blood bath into the towel that Spite held out for her, and used one hand to caress their cheek and tip up their head. She smirked when she saw Spite narrow their eyes and clench their jaw; the blood would quickly dry, become tacky and stiff, pulling on their skin and starting to smell. Spite found it just as unpleasant as Lucanis did. But the blood also sunk into their skin, strengthening the control the mage had over their body.
“Precious toy,” she purred, smearing blood through their hair with her other hand. “When was the last time we played properly?”
Lucanis leant into Spite’s spirit, lending his strength to let the spirit clench their jaw instead of reply.
The witch laughed, patting their cheek and then slapping it sharply. Spite didn’t let their facial expression change. At that Zara’s own face quickly moved to dissatisfaction, then she sighed and moved away. “Perhaps later,” she muttered to herself, then paused. Her sharp red-brown eyes moved back to them, standing where she left them, blood already crusting on their cheek and hair. “Even after all this,” she said, sliding a hand down their bare shoulder and arm, cupping the back of their tricep, thumb with wickedly sharp nail dragging lightly down their skin. “Still so pretty, pet.”
Lucanis gathered up his strength, preparing to hide back inside himself again, but he felt Spite grip his spirit firmly. Wait, the demon urged. Something different.
Indeed, instead of ordering them to the bed or vanity table, Zara stared at them with narrowed eyes. Then with a sudden movement, she snatched up her silk robe and strode to the door. “Get my shape-warpers,” she snapped at the guards, and Lucanis’s stomach dropped. What kind of tortures would they force on his body now? “And the handmaids,” Zara added, turning back to look at Lucanis and Spite. Lucanis urged Spite to keep their face blank.
Soon the rooms were filled with wary mages and frightened servants. Zara paced around Lucanis, occasionally stroking a part of the body. “Finish getting rid of these,” she pointed out, claw-like nail tracing down the occasional scar still left on his skin. During Spite’s ‘implantation process’ torture, Lucanis had noted his scars were disappearing. It was like his history was being erased, like his experience and past jobs were worthless. Lucanis felt himself disappearing inside his own body long before he and Spite decided to hide.
“Shave him and clean him,” she instructed the handmaids, plucking at his chest hair. “Prepare him as you would a gift.” A cruel smile crawled across her face, parting blood-red lips on sharp teeth. “Because that’s what you will be, my little demon,” she told Spite--and Lucanis. “The ox--beast wants to play with gods and demons? We’ll give him his own little toy to amuse him, to keep him away from Antiva.”
A cold chill made their body almost shiver, and Lucanis wasn’t sure if the trepidation was from him or Spite.
The removal of his scars was excruciating. In the Ossuary, Lucanis would pass out or deliberately disassociate during the torture, waking up later to find himself back in his cell, often with fewer scars than he went in. Withstanding pain was a common part of Crow training, and as a Dellamorte it was expected he would be a key target for kidnappers or people who wanted leverage over the First Talon. It was only in the Ossuary that Lucanis became familiar with pain caused by someone who just wanted to cause pain, not for any material gain or leverage. He accessed his training more than ever in those first few months before Spite was shoved into him. But to be awake for it was another thing entirely. The mages that were specialized in creating Zara’s pet monsters, her shape-warpers, did something to pull old wounds to the surface, and Lucanis found himself reliving the way those had been created mentally.
The third or fourth time he felt Caterina’s cane on his back (their original creation brought memories of the pain and shame what he felt at the time, thickened with the current roux of mourning his grandmother that came with every thought of the old woman) Spite shoved Lucanis back into their mind grumpily. As Lucanis tried to pace his own mind-prison, every Antaam he’d seen flickered through his memory. More than one of them leered at him the way the Venatori did, and Lucanis had to throttle them back down as soon as they rose up. Would this Rook be any different?
After the mages had finished removing all his scars, the handmaids ended up moving them to another room because Zara didn’t want his hair clippings on her floor--nevermind that it was already sticky with bloody footprints from her bath. Spite shifted uneasily in their shared mind-space as the servants washed them down; the touch wasn’t as abrasive as when the guards would perform this task, and their hands didn’t wander. The shaving oils and creams were almost soothing in their coolness, and the servants took their time, not wanting to nick the skin of their mistress’s pet.
One of them cupped Spite’s cheek in consideration, an echo of Zara’s previous touch, and the demon prodded Lucanis in confusion. Wait, the Crow told him.
The servant looked at another, who raised her eyebrows in return. Somehow they decided on something silently, and neither one touched his beard except to tidy it up. Zara frequently had him shaved clean depending on her preference, but had been ignoring that level of maintenance due to the current struggles with the loss of her god. She no doubt meant that the servants should shave him the way she liked, body hair shorn from ears to toes. Instead they plucked single hairs out of the sharp line of his beard, shortened the hair around his mouth.
Spite, the demon purred in their head happily. Rebellion!
Lucanis approved, wishing he could somehow acknowledge it without giving himself away, but experience told him that the servants and slaves were blood-oathed to reveal his presence to Zara.
As the handmaids worked over their body, Lucanis felt Spite prod his memory for information on qunari. He shoved his imagined leering Antaam away. The words ‘pirate’ suggested not an Antaam, and could mean any number of variations outside of the Qunari warrior body types, which generally ran exceptionally tall and muscled. In general his information was rather limited: there were as many variations on qunari bodies as there were humans, elves, dwarves, or any other species. He showed Spite ways to fight ones with long horns, curled horns, shorn horns. Weak spots, how to fight someone larger, taller than they were--but that was most people, Lucanis admitted in the privacy of their mind. He could feel the demon’s sharp cackle at his chagrin.
He tucked himself away as the handmaids ‘prepared’ him for other purposes, absently grateful for the prep work that the qunari might be too impatient to perform after receiving his gift. To deal with the anxiety of it, he mentally planned a five-course meal for seven people--the number that this Rook was supposedly traveling with--trying to account for different preferences, flavor profiles, dietary restrictions. Hopefully, if the ‘Veilguard’ was lenient, he would be allowed access to the kitchen, able to finally physically cook once more.
And then, because he was still a Crow underneath it all, show them exactly how bad a choice that was.