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sirnotsircos · 4 months ago

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Fleur De Morte Ch.1

Hello! There are 4 Chapters to Fleur De Morte. I'll post them as they are edited and ready to go.

This takes place in Dragon 9:49, so three years before Veilguard, and if you've read "Eight little Talons" I've set that in Dragon 9:48 about 6 or so months before this fic. At this point Money is 24!

When I tell you I have a timeline I meant i have a timeline!

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Monroe wiped their mouth with the back of their hand. What was left of the colourless ointment rolled off on their skin and dissolved in the warm water of the wash basin. Monroe licked their lips, a mild waxy taste, akin to lipstick, but nothing more. What a waste. Monroe mourned the Pillow Talk they never got to use, sitting dormant in its vial stashed somewhere amongst the cluttered vanity. They’d been so close to drawing all the wimpers and moans, all the truths and secrets from those perpetually wine stained lips.

Monroe slid into the seat of their vanity and sorted away their potions. The perfumes and oils lined up in order of most expensive first for prying eyes and the actual poisons and serums slotted into the spring loaded compartment to the side of the unit. The afternoon, while not unpleasurable, was entirely underwhelming.

Avitus, a magister born to piss away his wealth and status, had arrived too soon and unannounced. Monroe had been expecting to chase, not to be chased. A hazard of being trained by Teia, and in a way Viago. Seduction, a tool and efficiency, a virtue.

At around midday there would be a recess in meetings that would make for a splendid surprise encounter. No time to ask questions, no time to wager risk and doubt. Just passion. It was charming in a way, how Avitus had the same idea. Monroe sighed, they almost felt bad. Avitus was the youngest son, thus the one who shouldered the least responsibility. Despite this he did a lot of talking and arguing and a lot of making a reputation for himself. He spoke with the commanding air of the mediocre idealist and none of the substance required to inspire action. He was an extra chair for his family to occupy, nothing more.

But he was loyal, hence the Pillow Talk.

He was also a perfect mark. Monroe had been contracted three months ago to infiltrate the inner circle of Drusus, the oldest of the brothers, and perpetuate his assassination. In all actuality it was Viago’s contract, one worthy of a Talon. Drusus was a big target, someone who demanded either a lot of manpower or a lot of time. Viago could afford neither, but he could contract someonelse's time.

Monroe caught the scent of the eucalyptus bunch hanging in the window before they heard the minuscule whine of the shutters. They saw a flash to the right, sending them left just in time for a dagger to sail past them and hit the mirror’s frame with a thud.

In the window sat Teia clad in traveler’s leathers, her curls coiled up in a tight spiraled braid. It was getting dark, the winter months saw the sun setting as early as four in the afternoon. She had no doubt not been seen, she was never seen.

“The fuck-” Monroe was on their feet, three throwing daggers clenched in their hand from a compartment nailed to the underside of their chair.

“Money,” Teia grinned, Monroe swore they heard a laugh at the edges of her voice, “you were slower than I expected.”

“I dodged,” Monroe shrugged, tucking the throwing knives away. They stood and opened their arms, Teia climbed down from the windowsill and met them in a hug, “What are you doing here?”

“Being dead,” Teia grinned.

“Huh?” Monroe quirked an eyebrow.

“Can I?” Teia gestured to the vanity stool and sat as Monroe nodded, “I died, have to lay low, hence the window.”

“You died in Minrathous?”

“Yep.”

“For how long?”

Teia shrugged.

This clarified nothing. Monroe assumed it was something way above their pay grade.

“Vi’s coming by the way,” she was going through the bottles of perfume on the vanity, scrutinizing the labels. “Can I have this one?”

“When I’m done,” Monroe shrugged, eyeing the expensive bottle, “it’s a gift from a suitor.”

Teia wiggled her eyebrows and placed the bottle back on the vanity. Her fingers danced across the bottles, the charms and tassles swayed and clinked against the glass. In the lantern light of the room Monroe could see Teia clearer, and her state of subtle disarray. Her hair was damp, freshly washed, her skin red and dry, scrubbed clean with no normal after bathing aftercare.

“Rough ni—” Monroe was cut off by a quick succession of knocks, five exactly. Teia and Monroe shared a knowing look.

“Hello?” Monroe sang, sounding blissfully unaware, while blissfully aware. Viago was probably fuming, undercover wasn’t his thing. The fact that to the outside world he was standing outside a high end escort’s room must have been causing some kind of internal meltdown to occur. Monroe revelled in it.

Silence. Uncomfortable silence.

“Are you in?” Came Viago’s voice, obviously through clenched teeth.

Teia stifled a giggle. Monroe mauled over a handful of ways to drag this out, a few phrases to make him squirm. They settled on a pause, just long enough to be intentional but just short enough to interrupt the moment Viago got impatient enough to speak up.

“Just a moment,” Monroe mused.

When they opened the door Viago’s face was drawn up in a scowl, his eyes wide with annoyance. He’s going to kill me, was Monroe's first thought. Their second thought was that they were glad Teia was there, because Viago was always nicer when Teia was there.

“Hello, handsome gentleman,” Monroe gave a grin, less sly and suggestive than the one they normally greeted their guests with.

“Caria,” Viago sounded pained even uttering the faux name, “are you busy?”

Monroe blinked politely, “Am I?”

“Not particularly,” Teia hummed, inspecting an ornate compact housing rose coloured powder.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he huffed, threw up his arms and strode in annoyed, “you’re already here?”

“You’re slow,” she grinned.

“I-” Viago cut himself off, “ you left a mess.”

“I never leave messes,” Teia blinked innocently.

“Never?” Viago raised a brow and grinned.

“No thank-you,” Monroe made a face, “no mom and dad sex talk.”

“We weren’t —” Teia began.

“That’s not what —-” Viago rolled his eyes.

Monroe just held up their hands and shivered with the deep feeling of grossness that washed over them.

Teia, as it turned out, had a boat to catch that evening, Monroe’s temporary apartment was close enough to the docks that she had convinced Viago her visit was strictly logical. Viago, on the other hand, was staying in the city for some time, first to help in Teia’s extraction and secondly to start the end game for the Drusus assassination. He had four agents stationed in Minrathous, one was a low level servant, hired for garden work, another a coachman, and the third, aside from Monroe, was working as a caretaker in the meeting halls. Every other agent seemed to be assigned to find the where and the how, Monroe of course was tasked with the when, which in the world of assassination is the hardest part.

Dinner was ordered up to the room, Viago spent a very long time testing the different elements with all sorts of brews and concoctions, and they ate. Well Monroe and Teia ate, Viago grazed, still entirely unconvinced of the quality of the meal. Rich boy. Monroe liked to take jabs at Viago’s decadent sensibilities. It was part of the reason he never went undercover, that and the poison paranoia. Monroe often joked that Viago had only recruited them because he needed someone to do all the jobs he didn’t feel like doing himself. Viago agreed readily every time. He’d even referred fondly to Monroe as his “most worthwhile investment” a handful of times.

“You know they charge me for the whole plate,” Monroe mumbled surveying the scattered remains of Viago’s plate, only the moist inside of the bread were eaten, the hardened outside of the cheese sliced off, the centers of the sliced sausage missing.

“The centre is the hardest part to poison,” Viago shrugged. Liar.

“There’s kind of a nice metaphor in there somewhere,” Teia hummed, picking at the centreless round of sausage from his plate.

“Hm,” Viago rolled his eyes playfully and unhooked a small flask from his hip, taking a swig with no hesitation and no grimace. Wine. Sometimes it was diluted poison.

“I have bottles you know,” Monroe gestured to a crate in the corner with a hinged lid that housed non-perishables and wine, lots of wine.

“ Your wine?” Teia gasped, “you mean bottles of snake venom?”

“Deathroot extract actually,” Monroe corrected, “venom gets lumpy after a while.”

“My apologies,” Teia hung her head, “ I did not mean to insult you, master poisoner.”

“I know-” Viago said through tight lips, “ you two are making fun of me, but neither of those would work well with wine. You taste both.”

Monroe made a mental note, as much as Viago’s poison paranoia was a quirk to pick and prod at, he was in fact a master poisoner and more deadly than Monroe and Teia combined. Poisoning took time and patience and Monroe wasn’t particularly good at utilizing either, they were much better at luring and striking. Which is why they’d been so surprised when Viago had contracted them for this job. Not that Monroe hadn’t gone undercover before but they were usually short term jobs or travel personas. Monroe had been living as Caria for months now.

“Speaking of assassination,” Viago turned to Monroe, “report.”

“I’m doing good, thanks for asking,” because, in his own way, he was, “ Avitus came by earlier, wanted to see me before he left for a trip next week.”

“Avitus doesn’t have a trip on his itinerary,” Viago’s brow furrowed, he no doubt memorized every shred of information his agents had fed him.

“Nor does Drusus, and yet —” Monroe nodded towards the vanity, “he’s leaving tomorrow night for a meeting outside of Vyrantium.”

A trip so close to Vyrantium, a city nearly completely under siege by the Antaam, could only mean there were nefarious talks underway. While Money knew little of the reason behind the contract, they'd guessed it had something to do with the Antaam's sudden increased in fire power and the suspicious lack of Venatori intervention in the last few months in Vyrantium. While Avitus was too simple to be a Venatori mastermind, Drusus was a different story.

Teia pushed her stool back as Monroe pulled open the left drawer, amongst a litany of combs and hair oils they fished out a bound pack of papers.

“Letters, notes, missives,” Monroe explained, “some given, some taken.”

As Monroe unfolded the bundle they explained each piece, some were patterns they’d noticed, preferred lounges, regular meetings, pseudonyms they managed to narrow down. Most importantly, Monroe had managed to tip a waitress into translating a document they’d swiped whilst Avitus had bathed. The letter detailed a trip, of course written in code, but the same one Avitus and his brothers had used in their other communications before. Drusus was set to leave Minrathous a full week ahead of his brothers.

“Reduced collateral,” Viago hummed.

“If the goal is to keep his solo travels secret he’ll have a smaller personal guard,” Teia agreed, “all we have to do is get eyes on him before he leaves the city.”

“He’s traveling by carriage,” Monroe said, pulling a ledger page from the bundle, “the rest are traveling by boat, so he’s headed in-land. He’ll be leaving from the west side of the city.”

“I can have people ready -” Viago cut himself short.

They’d all heard it, the second top most step gave a whine as someone ascended to the third floor. Viago stepped clear of the door, should Monroe have to answer a knock he’d rather be unseen. Teia did the same, pressing herself against the wall next to the vanity. They waited for a moment, Monroe humming to themself as they gathered the bundle silently, tucking the papers into Viago’s outstretched hand. Then it came, three light knocks.

“Morraine,” Monroe sighed quietly, “staff.”

Viago and Teia released their breaths but stayed tucked away.

“Coming, love,” Monroe called. On the other side of the door stood Morraine, she was half Monroe’s height and had wirey grey hair scooped up in a slouching bun, in her hand was a bottle of wine with a fine gold seal.

“That man’s sent you something right nice,” she muttered curtly then rummaged around her apron's big pocket, “an’ a letter.”

“Thank-you, Mory” Monroe smiled sweetly, “between you and me, I think the wine would be better enjoyed by the staff?”

Morriane smiled for the first time, her grin filled with greyed teeth. She enjoyed wine.

“Certainly,” Morraine nodded happily, bringing the bottle to her chest as if it were treasure.

“The letter?” Monroe reminded her. Moraine could’t care less, tossing the letter over the shoulder as she turned. Monroe caught it as it fluttered through the door frame, the thick cardstock and ornate seal confirming it was a letter from Avitus. For what was supposed to be secret correspondence, Avitus had an inability to be unremarkable. Every letter he sent was always gilded and gaudy.

“Test it,” Viago huffed when Monroe began breaking the seal.

“Vi-” Monroe ceased their protests as the letter was snatched from their hands.

Viago ran a series of tests, a spritz of some kind of root juice here, a swab and mix there. In a turn of events both Monroe and Teia saw coming, the letter was unpoisoned.

It was a last minute request, a secret rendezvous under the stars. Romantic both Monroe and Teia had agreed, stupid Viago frowned. Monroe got the feeling, as Avitus had left earlier that afternoon he’d not gotten his fill, yet his afternoon meetings couldn’t wait any longer. It should have been expected. Another chance for Pillow Talk perhaps.

“It’s dark enough,” Viago looked out the window, off towards the docks, “Teia we should get going.”

“ Goodbye mi amor,” Teia reached up and grabbed Monroes shoulder, pulling them down so she could place a kiss on their crown, “you’re too tall.”

“Sorry, I’ll shrink for next time,” Monroe grinned, pulling her in for a hug, “I’ll be back soon.”

“You will,” Viago agreed, “this is almost done.”

“Next job, Vi,” Monroe spoke through Teia’s bun, “can I just be the end game guy, I miss good coffee.”

“We’ll see,” Viago smiled to himself, he’d never tell Monroe how much he’d missed them. Although, he considered throwing out a stray comment about needing them back sooner rather than later to help control Jacobus and his thirst for action. Instead he settled with a rare bout of sincerity, “you’ve done good work.”

I’m proud of you.

They both left through the window, Viago considered leaving the way he’d come but figured Morriane would be too deep in her bottle to notice if he came or went. Monroe locked the shutters, as nice as Teia’s unannounced visit had been, they preferred their guests to use the door. The room was quiet and empty, the same quiet and empty it had been since they got here. There was no squabbling or grotesque shows of awkward affection, no feldglings to rile up on a midnight excursion or Heir attempting to tame said intensity the next morning. Instead it was pretty peaceful all things considered, Minrathous was a city filled with action and scandal but Monroe found themself rather alone in it all.

Soon, they reassured themself as they say at the vanity to ready themself for their late night rendezvous.

#dragon age veilguard #rook #rook de riva #viago de riva #teia cantori

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