finally finished my little #zallario toxic romance oneshot that like 3 people might be excited for XD

archiveofourown.org/works/63551596

#veilguard #dragonage #DAfic #illariodellamorte #zararenata

The little Blackbird preens as he pulls his dagger from her handmaid’s neck. Crimson splatters the tiles. His feathered masters would likely consider his technique sloppy, but there is an art to leaving one’s mark, to letting your enemies know that you should be feared, that you prioritise the spectacle of bloodletting, that you appreciate the artistic beauty of a long, slow death. They are more alike than he knows, she and him. He will be easy to take in hand, pretty little bird that he is. She shall tempt him with shiny trinkets his namesakes treasure so much—the power and renown he covets, the pride and admiration he’s been denied by his crone of a grandmother, by her little pricking talons who think their poison blades are enough to fend off Gods. They won’t even be able to fend off the agents she’s already threaded throughout their cities like catgut cinching an open wound, the coin dropped into the purses of the greedy, the morsels of promised strength and influence granted to those few chosen to be emissaries of the Risen Gods. For all their skulking in the shadows, all their blades and venoms, garrots and poison-tipped arrows, they had no chance of stopping the storm about to be unleashed upon their little gemstone city.

The Witch was playing him. You don’t get so good at lying without being able to recognise when someone else is trying to play you for a fool. His grandmother had been his greatest teacher, feining for years that he and Lucanis were equals, that she valued them both the same, but when it came down to trusting one of them with the important things, vital assignments, critical targets, it was always Lucanis that received the contract. There was a time when being slighted by his own grandmother only made him try harder. He trained until his body ached right down to the bone, experimented with new poisons, drew up infiltration plans just to keep his mind sharp, but no one took notice, save for perhaps his perfect, boring cousin. Even when Lucanis brought him along as his second, even when it was he who executed the kill, Caterina only had eyes and praise for his cousin.

it's late but it's still Wednesdays so have this #zallario WIP no one asked for 😅

#wipwednesday #veilguard