Chapter Text
Taliesin stepped into the dormitories, stretching out the stiffness from his journey back from Antiva City. The contract had gone smoothly, but three weeks away had left him yearning for a real bed...and a night where he didn’t have to sleep with a blade under his pillow.
His steps slowed as he reached his door.
Something was wrong.
The lock had been picked...deftly, but not perfectly. The door was slightly ajar, a near-invisible thread stretched taut between the frame and the hinge. A tripwire.
Taliesin inhaled slowly, shifting his weight carefully as he assessed the situation. There was no immediate sound of movement inside, but that meant little. Whoever had broken in had been through enough to set traps, and that meant they were waiting for him.
With practiced ease, he crouched, taking out his smallest dagger. He found the trigger mechanism beneath the doorframe and carefully severed it, rendering the first trap useless. He pushed the door open with the tip of his boot.
A second trap.
This one was more creative...thin wire looped around a precariously balanced bucket of something dark and sticky-looking. Probably glue, or worse.
Taliesin sighed. He disarmed that one, too, stepping inside with his daggers drawn, ready for an ambush.
Then something tackled him.
Taliesin twisted, shifting his weight to counter, only to hear a loud, delighted cackle as he was sent stumbling back against the wall.
"HAH! You should have been tripped up by the second one!"
Taliesin blinked at the grinning mess of limbs currently clinging to him. "...Dario?"
"Miss me?" Dario beamed, hanging onto Taliesin’s shoulder like an overexcited cat.
Taliesin took a slow, steadying breath. He had just navigated a field of actual traps for this nonsense.
"I was prepared to kill you," he said flatly.
Dario snorted. "Pfft. You wish you could kill me."
Taliesin pried him off with an exasperated sigh. "I was gone for three weeks, not three months. What in the Void was that?"
Dario grinned, bouncing on his heels. "Oh, just my way of punishing you for missing my big moment."
Taliesin narrowed his eyes. "What moment?"
Dario threw his arms out. "I made full Crow, obviously! "
Taliesin’s eyes widened. "...Seriously?"
"Seriously!"
Taliesin blinked, taking that in. Then he groaned. " And I missed it?"
Dario smirked. "You did. And it hurt, Taliesin. It hurt me deeply. So, naturally, I decided you needed to suffer."
Taliesin pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are insufferable ."
Dario just grinned wider. "And you are out of practice if you spotted the tripwire but not the second one immediately."
Taliesin scoffed. "I spotted it just fine. I just didn’t expect you to be the bastard behind it."
"That’s your problem, then," Dario said smugly, flopping onto Taliesin’s bed without an ounce of remorse.
Taliesin rolled his eyes but couldn’t help a small smile. "Fine. You got me. Barely. "
Dario smirked. "And now you owe me drinks."
Taliesin sighed, but this time, there was no real annoyance behind it. " Fine. But if you try to poison me, I will throw you into the harbor."
Dario cackled. "No promises."