Chapter Text
There is no such thing as a heartless girl, Emily knows. With every beat of the organ in her chest, she wonders acutely why everyone seems so keen on calling her that because of her chromatic vision. Sometimes though, she tells herself that they might be right. She feels, but with a detachment that surely can't be so normal. At least she supposes. She should cry more, shouldn't she? But her eyes are desperately dry and though everything aches she doesn't want to wail.
Somehow it wouldn't be... right.
She just feels so empty sometimes. She wonders if it would be easier not to feel anything at all. No sorrow, no more. Not even this feeling of hollowness that eats her inside. Why can't she just cry? It wasn't difficult before. It came naturally. Now, her sobs are dry, forced and they hurt, they hurt so much but there is no water on her cheeks.
She can't even tell at this point if it would be more appropriate to show pain or not. She is to be Empress, after all, and a ruler doesn't show weakness. Yet, she is far, very far from the throne and nobody knows except for the Madame; and Emily hears the whispers, all of them.
There is something wrong with her.
Because she doesn't put her grief on display? Or because she doesn't even feel it?
How on Earth is she even supposed to when everything is so unreal? When everything that was her world crashed down in the span of a few hours? It all came apart because of those assassins.
She knows she won't forget them (and she won't ever forgive), nor the few days she was locked in darkness (and really, isn't she always?), watched over by the same men who Corvo fought against. With nothing but silence and sorrow hanging in the air, Emily can't say if in the end it hadn't only been a dream.
"You will pay for this"
They hadn't ever mocked her. In fact, they never said anything, but their masked eyes never left her. Acknowledging her words with small head motions, but no words. Never refuting her furious claims. And it felt slightly gratifying, like a small victory she would have stolen in the middle of her defeats. And she could be allowed to hope she could one day get back at them for everything they had done to her.
It was cruel. She couldn't have back then, and she still can't and maybe she never will by herself. A girl, against a gang of assassins? But Emily promises herself, it won't always be the case. One day she will be Empress, and one day she will get all of their heads.
She wants to forget everything that happened since her mother's… She wants to be back at the Tower, with mother and Corvo; she wants to be happy. She wishes she could go back in time, and she believes in much but this, this won't happen. She can't erase what happened, she can't make it disappear. She can't get her mother's back. Neither Corvo.
But going back to the Tower, this she can. And be happy… only when revenge will be hers. Only when she knows the assassins are dead and gone, only when she knows nobody will come after her again. Then she will be happy.
Back at step one. She had to make herself forgotten, invisible and trusted – beyond a shadow of doubt – again. But it was okay, she was patient.
She decided that exploring the Golden Cat would bring her nothing (except disgust probably, considering the kind of grown-up business the adults practiced in the rooms). She learned her lesson. Escaping is out of the question until she can find something – or someone – to help her. Food, knowledge, perhaps an accomplice.
She went to spy on the Sisters – or as the naked men called them, “sweetie” or just the Courtesans (but it wasn't their name, not between them). They were nice, and unaware of Emily's plots and grim thoughts when she came to talk to them, or more often, to listen to them when they had their back turned. Sometimes, the Sisters caught her, and laughed, cheerful and innocent, like they didn't with the men.
“Aren't you a sneaky little one? I didn't hear you come in!”
Until Emily's presence became so usual the girls forgot to tie their tongues around her. They spoke freely, and informed her of many, many things.
So Emily was a little girl, but with the knowledge of an adult. And knowledge is very useful to plan escapes.
She learned the nasty old Spymaster was now ordering the city around, with the title of Lord Regent, and she couldn't understand why he was on the throne her mother used to sit on, and she was in a bathhouse.
She was afraid of being Empress, but she didn't want anybody else to rule. Selfish, probably. Still, she knew the former Spymaster wasn't nice and she wasn't surprised to hear he threw out so many people in the Flooded District. He never wanted to help the sick ones. Her mother thought it was important though.
But then her mother… Emily just wanted to be back at the Tower.
But she couldn't be back until she left this place by herself, because nobody would be coming for her. She was alone, and she was a little girl. A weak thing, unaware of the world.
Or so everybody believed her to be. And she wouldn't let them think the contrary. It was easy to play the innocent, the kind and spoiled child of an Empress who threw a tantrum every time she didn't have drawing material, who spent most of her time silent, traumatized by her mother's...
The last part was true.
Well, it gave her a convenient excuse to act as she saw Corvo do, listening while always remaining discreet.
Even if sometimes, it burnt in her chest. If her gaze lingered too long on strange shadows, she would think about them again. Any thought in the wrong direction and she was gasping in pain, finding herself having to lie down and cry, cry cry until it felt as if her entire body was dry. One of the Sisters found her once, and told her it was okay to cry when she was sad, that there was no shame in it.
Emily still hated it. Her weaknesses weren't laid bare for anybody to see, or at least shouldn't be.
“You lost somebody?” and the child almost covered her ears, flinching at the word “lost”. No, no, she couldn't think about...
Emily nodded frantically, and the Sister hugged her slightly, before remembering she wasn't supposed to be the one to comfort her. A Courtesan wasn't the right company for a probably noble kid. They all barely knew about the young girl who had a room for herself, only that she came with the Pendletons and didn't leave. They feared she was to be one of them. She was too young, far too young for that. But the Madame didn't think about ethics, only business.
“It's okay. Grief is hard. It burns, it eats you inside out again and again until time lessens the blow and dull the pain. Over time, you'll forget, and it is for the better.”
Emily sobbed, yelled she that didn't want to forget, that she would never forget, that she would make them all pay for this, for what they had done.
The Sister didn't ask who it was that …, but the next weeks rumors was on the whole establishment that the cute, innocent, poor girl lost her soulmate, and they all looked at her with pity and understanding.
Emily had the mind to tell herself it was better, for them to be unaware of the truth. To justify the blatant lack of colorblindness that would cause her trouble later for sure, with “diplomacy”. But it only made her feel more lonely. They didn't understand. They couldn't, they all brought it back to an insignificant whim she might have had. It wasn't that. It wasn't romantic love, or whatever they called it. She lost someone much, much more important than a potential person that would have made her see in chromatic before fading away without giving her the opportunity to know them.
It was a much deeper strain, a wound that would never truly heal. A strong sense of loss and longing; and melancholia when she let it settle.
But she didn't want to! She didn't want to mourn, she wouldn't because she didn't know what truly happened. If her mother could still be… alive? If Corvo was still somewhere. She wouldn't believe until she was certain of it.
Once she was Empress, she would kill the men who caused that. She would kill them all. There would be no more assassins.
Until then, she would have to wait and stop her sighs each time somebody apologized for the loss they couldn't even understand.
She knew what the Golden Cat was, she knew exactly what the Courtesans were barely paid for, and yet she hadn't completely understood what was really going on in the bathhouse until a scene was turned upside down and she was the one to find a Sister crying. Thankfully she wasn't alone, because Emily wouldn't have known what to do with it. How could she comfort an adult?
The Sisters were huddled in a circle and Emily had immediately felt out of place. She didn't belong in the room, in their sanctuary. She didn't share their sorrows. It wasn't her right to witness such an emotional vulnerability when she wasn't part of them.
And yet, when one of the Courtesans met her eye and motioned for her to get closer, she didn't hesitate a second. There was a dirty tissue tossed haphazardly and a cover on the legs of the one in the center. Alyssa, she was called. A cheerful woman, always nice to Emily, so nice sometimes it stung and Emily would prefer it if she resembled her mother a bit less. But there, she wasn't smiling anymore.
There, she was upset. There, the other Sisters promised to protect her as she always did for the rest of them, backing them up.
“If he ever comes back, we'll strangle him for you. This is no way to treat a woman. This is our job, but we aren't to be treated as anything less than humans because they pay for us to coo at them.”
Once, the Madame told Emily the Sisters were all princesses and the men came to admire them. Now Emily knows the true story. She knows what the guards were speaking of when they joked about the Golden Cat. Loyalty will not come at this price. When she is Empress, she will make it illegal to ever hurt any of the Sisters. It is their job, and she won't allow it to cause them pain and sorrow anymore.
Neither Alyssa or any of the Sisters ever speak of this again to Emily.
But she hears the whispers when they believe her to be gone. They suffer. Most had no choice when they brought them in. They didn't want to be here, and some adapted but some refuse to. Some want a better life. But what will they do, outside, when the streets are swarming with rats, gangs and very dubious guards? At least in the Golden Cat they are paid. It could be worse.
Emily disagrees. She doesn't think it should be a reason for not even trying, since they are dissatisfied of their lives. But now she understands. She understands that they all hurt, and it isn't easier to deal with for them than for her. And she understands adults can be as scared as children.
“We all have our fears. Yours are the strange shadows that cling too hard on walls. Ours are the men walking through the doors everyday” Myrae, the one who comforted her explains and for some reasons it makes much, much more sense than the usual 'adults are fearless' vision. They all deal with their demons, but they don't speak of it.
“She hides her pain. Do you think she doesn't trust us?” Myrae asks several Sisters late at night, when she knows Emily is sleeping for long.
(Except that this time she isn't because she woke up in the empty place again and it frightened her so much that she came back each and every night, that perhaps one day she would be stuck in there; that when she left it she couldn't go back to sleep)
“I don't think she trusts many. It's normal, whoever she was close to before caused her to end up here, by their choice or by their absence. I think she's too young, but she's seen too much. Have you seen her play with dolls, or play games in general? She says she misses her old doll, but I think it's more because it's a thing from her past she could cling to than because she really wants to play with it. Still, she doesn't stop watching. She's a tough girl.”
“She had to harden up. Her soulmate is dead and she's in this bathhouse, of all places.” Myrae feels sorry for the girl. She genuinely wants to help the child, but there isn't much a Courtesan could do out there, in the city. She wouldn't even know what to do.
“She always seems to hate it when anybody talks about soulmates.”
“She lost her own. She's so young, it's possible she never even knew him. Be gentle with her, she's still a child even if she sometimes acts like an adult. We're the only one here for her, we have to preserve what innocence she still has left.”
“How can we? You know where we are.” Alyssa sighs. “It would be easier if she wasn't here.”
“But she is, and we can't break her out. You know it's impossible.” Sam, the youngest of the current group is the most idealistic, persevering one, but even she doesn't believe in the idea of making Emily escape.
Impossible…
The women eventually scatter, quite defeated by their helplessness but the idea never stops ringing in Emily's mind, even hours later when it's closer to morning and she's so so tired.
Escaping is impossible.
(But Emily has seen the impossible, so she knows it can always be done. She just has to figure out how.)
This night, the place is not empty. This night, as always, she runs between rocks, always wary of the colorless void underneath. She isn't afraid of the place, but she doesn't want to fall. She does fear the eventualities, would her feet slip and no longer meet ground. There doesn't even seem to be anything solid beneath the gray gap. Would she fall forever? She likes the place, but it feels bizarre, so unfamiliar that sometimes she tells herself she would rather not walk there anymore.
But this night, she has company. He materializes in the middle of shadows and he's young, though he looks tired – but his eyes! They are like a bottomless pit. They're odd, completely black, and it feels as if she will lose herself if she stares too long. As if his pupils are an abyss swallowing every color.
The man is pale, and there are purple bruises underneath his eyes. Emily thinks maybe he drowned.
She isn't comfortable anymore.
“Emily Kaldwin. We finally meet.” it probably sounds like the creepiest thing she's ever heard. How does the man even know her?
She has a hundred questions to ask, but suddenly each and every one of them fade from her mind and all she can comment on is the uneasiness she feels at the sight of his eyes. Is that how colorblind people feel when they meet any dark-eyed person? It's so strange.
“Why are your eyes so black?”
“Four months now that you're locked away, kept hidden by the men in power who took you for their plaything. Four months since you've last seen Corvo. Where is he now?” the man continues, ignoring her.
“He's alive?!”
Now, she feels like crying. She wants him back so desperately. She needs help, she needs someone. Someone she can truly trust. The Sisters are friendly, and she knows she can rely on them but… Corvo is probably the last piece of her previous life. The last person who can make her feel at home.
The man seems to hesitate, and settles on not acknowledging her words once again.
“You are hurt, you are angry and you want power. What would you say, if I told you I can help you get your old life back?”
“Is Corvo alive?” she asks pointedly, letting anger seep through her words. She will not get some stupid speech. She wants Corvo, not the help of some suspicious stranger. She is curious, beyond doubt, but in a less innocent way than she used to. She is curious of what this man can do, how far will his 'help' go.
She is curious because she doesn't want to admit her situation is quite hopeless.
“Yes he is.” the man sighs, looking slightly annoyed. “I am the Outsider, and I can give you the power to destroy an Empire.”
“I don't want to destroy it. I'm going to be Empress!” she replies, surprised that the Outsider would even suggest it. What good would it be if she destroys what she is trying to get?
And now she is even more wary. She has heard of the god, and most stories didn't depict a very nice individual.
(But then most stories say it's a Leviathan and some even write him as a squid or a winged serpent; so perhaps she should stop believing stories. The Outsider is most definitely a young man, unless her eyes are tricking her)
“With my mark, you could call on magical forces. You could change your fate, get the crown back. Live with Corvo again. But without, you will still be another powerless little girl. In many futures, Corvo escapes but in some he meets his end in the same place where he was imprisoned and you are left alone.”
She doesn't like the way he speaks. She doesn't like at all the way he makes it sound as if it is a real choice, when it is nothing but the only possibility. Choose between freedom and… nothing. There is nothing here; except for the Sisters but she can't help them, and though they are probably the kindest people she's met they can't take care of her. They can't help her get back to the Tower. Magical powers can, though they are not the best way.
Yet, is there really a best way when she's been taken away from the throne by the assassination of her mother?
“I accept it.”
There is no other way. She flinches at the thought of using supernatural powers, much like the assassins did, and she hates it but it is her only option. She can't get out otherwise. She can't have her previous life back otherwise. The man smiles and she doesn't like him, but at the same time she's glad, happier than she's been in months. Because there is hope now.
Shadows loom around her left hand, and when they dissipate there is a mark as black as charcoal.
When she wakes up her hand is pale, clean and unmarked.
(when she thinks of the shadows, the dark design appears. And she smiles, and smiles and she cries.)