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Chapter Text

After three weeks trapped in a cage at the Albarca Baths, most of it spent in either a magic-suppressed haze or fighting for his life like a pit hound, Daud had finally accepted the fact that he was going to die there.

An ignoble death--but likely the one he deserved. He'd spent most of his life as a rabid dog anyway, tearing out the throats of those who crossed him, his only leash the draw of coin.

Fitting, then, that he should die like one.

He could feel the corrupted bonecharms eating away at him: at his body, his mind, whatever passed as his soul. Whoever designed them knew what they were doing--and what would make the best show.

The one around his neck kept him from dying, but any damage done to his body hurt a hundred times over. The one affixed to his wrist made his blows stronger but slower. The two clipped to his belt gave him more stamina physically, but they leeched away his connection to the Void, tightening like a vise to choke off access to the powers that he'd had for the majority of his life.

They were smart enough to not give him time to compose himself between fights. They'd drop some dumb cocky bastard into his cage, lock the hatch behind them, and lower the suppression field just enough that he could stumble out of the chair they kept him strapped to. And as soon as the fight was over they slammed it back on, the high-pitched droning that only he could hear paralyzing him so they could drag him back to the chair, and his opponent out of the cage.

After a while, he'd stopped trying so hard to leave them alive.

"Break time, pet," a female voice cooed from above. Daud inhaled a shaky breath as the heaviness weighing down his body lifted, just a bit, just enough that his senses came back into stilted focus. The manacles on his wrists and ankles--superfluous, when the field was fully on--were now open, and he sat up unsteadily, glancing up through the cage's wires.

It was a witch: one of Delilah's scattered coven. If she'd been at Brigmore fifteen years ago, she showed no recollection of him. She was usually the one to oversee the short periods he was allowed free rein--just enough time to relieve himself, and to eat what scraps of food they deigned to give him.

At the beginning, he'd refused to do any of it. To eat, to fight, to bow to their demands. But just as he'd asked Corvo Attano to spare his life all those years ago--despite not deserving it, despite having no right to ask that of the man--his damnable self-preservation won out in the end.

"What's on the docket today?" asked a different voice as he dragged himself out of the chair. Another woman: the one who seemed to run the operation. Lee?

Daud limped over to the food left on the ground just below the hatch: a jug of water, half a loaf of moldy bread, dried strips of some kind of unidentifiable meat. Apparently someone had been in a good mood, too, since they'd dropped down a couple of pears that were only partially rotten.

"One open mat and three scheduled fights. Two with the Brute here, one with Jenny."

The small area below the hatch was about the closest place in the cage that Daud got to having any kind of privacy. He settled down wearily on the floor there, leaning against the wall and picking at the stale bread.

"And the challengers?"

"Jenny's is a rematch, that half-brained dockworker that came in last month. The Brute's got one of our regulars and some out-of-towner calling herself the 'Masked Felon'."

Daud blinked.

"Isn't that the name of the thief who ransacked Dunwall during the rat plague?" the witch asked idly.

"Tacky, right? Can't even come up with her own stage name. I didn't--oh, shit, there she is, quiet--"

Had Daud any energy, he might have gotten to his feet at the sight of the slim figure that appeared at the edge of the cage. He probably would have had some kind of reaction aside from dull surprise, too. But as it was, he just sat there blankly, looking up at the mask that had haunted his dreams and nightmares for years.

That was Corvo Attano's mask.

"Ladies. Am I early?"

That was not Corvo Attano.

"By about three hours," Lee replied, peevishly. "We haven't even got the bets in yet."

"I'm not in a rush. But I did want to inspect the facilities. This is the device that keeps him in check?"

Daud tilted his head to one side as the newcomer stepped out onto the top of the cage. That unblinking, haunting mask looked down at him with the same impassivity of its former wearer, and some inkling of emotion finally slid through the fog that had clouded his mind for the past weeks.

Quietly, Daud began to laugh.

"That's right. We can vary the power; it's lower right now so he can shit, eat, take a piss. No sport if he's half-dead, after all. He--what the fuck, is he laughing? He's never made a sound before this--"

"Thank you," Emily Kaldwin said sincerely, "For that information."

Then she flickered out of sight.

Daud braced a hand on the wall, wobbily levering himself to his feet as shouts and shrieks echoed through the bathhouse. There was the telltale crackles of a stun mine, the quiet hiss of a crossbow. Glass shattered somewhere, followed by coughing and swears--and then everything was silent.

A few moments later the suppression field switched off, and Daud inhaled a sharp, gasping breath as the Void flooded back into him.

He nearly ended up back on the floor, his knees buckling beneath him as pain seared in his chest, burning through his veins. But then the hatch above slammed open with a heavy thunk, boots dropping onto the ground nearby, and abruptly Daud was being steadied by the slender hands of the Empress of the Isles.

He squinted at her father's mask, still as ghastly as it was fifteen years ago.

"Am I hallucinating?" he asked, wincing as the words passed his lips. His voice was rougher even than usual, raspy and disused after weeks of refusing to speak.

"Possibly," Emily allowed, tilting her head to the side. "Void knows what state you're in. Hold on."

The words were less a request and more a direct order--though the realization of that fact came just a second too late. Daud lurched forward violently as the Void twisted around them, bile rising in his throat as Emily transported them up through the hatch and out to the front of the building. He gagged, swaying drunkenly against her as she slung his arm over her shoulders, his vision swimming.

What in the Void was that power? His transversals were always smooth, quick things, and from what he'd seen of Corvo, his were the same. This was some kind of gut-wrenching monstrosity that latched onto something in the distance and just yanked.

"If you're going to throw up, don't do it on me," Emily warned. "I like this coat."

"As the Empress wishes," Daud mumbled.

Emily scoffed, half-dragging him up toward the rail carriage, seemingly uninterested in addressing the plethora of unspoken questions that hung between them. She dropped him into one of the seats and then leaned over, yanking off the bonecharms at his neck and wrist and tossing them onto the track to be crushed.

She reached for the ones at his belt, too, but Daud hastily batted her hands away and fumbled to remove those himself. And while he couldn't see through Corvo's appalling mask, he was pretty sure she rolled her eyes at him.

"I have a ship docked down below the Acantila Repair Station," she said as he discarded the charms. "As soon as we board, we're setting sail to Dunwall."

Daud managed a grunt of acknowledgement as the carriage began to move. With the magic of the bonecharms no longer boosting his energy, the weeks of neglect and torment all decided to hit at once: the exhaustion and the pain finally allowed to catch up with his battered body. He struggled to focus as Emily continued speaking, but the gentle, soothing sway of the rail line dragged away whatever coherency he had left.

He sank back into the cushions, and from there into sleep.

Chapter Text

Reuniting with Billie was...good.

"Outsider's eyes, old man, if you don't stop squirming I will throw you off this boat."

Exasperating, but good.

"You try to spoon-feed me again and I'll jump off myself," Daud snapped. Billie growled, slamming the bowl of soup onto the table at his bedside; liquid sloshed out over her fingers.

Daud inhaled a low breath, exhaling it slow and steady and careful.

"I'm injured, not invalid," he said, trying to soften his voice. "I can do this much on my own, at least."

Billie nodded, tight and terse, her mouth pinched into a thin line as she wiped her hand off on her thigh. But when she glanced up at him the frustrated set of her shoulders eased, just a little, as he attempted to offer her an encouraging smile.

Honestly, he wasn't even sure if his face knew how to properly make the expression anymore.

"You were bad off, coming out of there," she said quietly. "When you didn't wake up...we wondered if you were ever going to."

Daud had slept twenty straight hours after being hauled aboard the creaky little ship, his body stubbornly refusing to function now that it could finally rest. He'd woken to a splitting headache and Billie passed out in the chair next to his bed--and while his first reaction had been to assume he'd finally died and gone to the Void, she'd explained things well enough once she'd come to.

She'd tried to apologize, as well, which had just been uncomfortable for them both.

"This helped," Daud said, tapping his chest, over the bonecharm tucked beneath the bandages against his skin. He'd felt its effects as soon as he opened his eyes, wounds that shouldn't be healed already scabbing over, warmth suffusing his battered body. It was high quality: powerful restorative magic sealed into the carved bone. "Yours?"

Billie shook her head.

"I've never managed to make anything beyond simple charms. That was Emily's work."

"Ah," Daud murmured. He let his hand fall back to the bed.

He hadn't seen the Empress since she'd dragged his sorry ass out of the Albarca Baths--and Billie had yet to explain why she'd done such a thing in the first place. Only that after retaking her throne, Emily had gone back to Billie and demanded to know where he was, and then pulled all of her considerable weight and resources to follow the rumors to find him. Daud didn't press much; he knew that whatever her reasoning, it would be Emily's story to tell.

He couldn't imagine that she'd gone through the trouble of locating him just to have him executed, but he couldn't really blame her if that was the case.

"If you think you're up for it, she wants to talk to you," Billie offered, watching him closely. "But I could probably get you a few more hours of rest if you need."

Daud let out a low sigh.

"It's fine. Besides, it isn't like I have any right to deny her."

Billie frowned.

"You know, I heard what happened after I left," she said carefully. "About your fight with Attano. How you didn't..."

She trailed off, unwilling to voice the words.

Daud heard them anyway.

How you didn't even try to fight back.

"I can take you back to Karnaca if you want," Billie finished, eventually. "Emily helped save your life at the Baths, but beyond that, you don't owe her anything."

Daud's mouth twisted in a bitter smile.

"We both know that isn't true."

Billie's frown deepened, looking like she wanted to say more. But after a few moments she just nodded and disappeared out the door, and Daud turned his attention back to the forgotten soup. He picked it up, sipping it from the bowl--and, encouragingly, the tremor in his hands was only barely noticeable.

He closed his eyes and soaked in the warmth from the broth, trying to gather together the shards of himself that had chipped off during his captivity. With every night, every fight, they'd broken him just a little more: grinding him down with black magic and deprivation and pain. The constant thrum of the cage's suppression field--some kind of twisted version of the Overseers' music boxes--had kept him in a constant state of nausea and disorientation; the bonecharms had torn out chunks of his health and his sanity both.

When Emily pulled him out of that place, she'd had no way of knowing that she was just salvaging pieces.

A brisk knock on the wall had Daud opening his eyes, feeling slightly more composed. Said Empress stood in the doorway--thankfully sans her father's mask--and Daud set down the bowl before inclining his head in lieu of bowing, bending at the waist as much as he could while sitting in bed.

"Your Majesty."

When Emily didn't reply, he looked back up, studying her as she studied him. Her wanted posters had done a decent job of capturing her likeness--but they'd failed to capture the weight of her presence, an air of regal command she exuded without seemingly conscious thought. He wondered if that was a new trait; she'd only just reclaimed the throne when he'd been captured, and he knew that prior to the coup, she hadn't been the most attentive ruler.

He watched as her gaze swept over him, lingering on the mark on his hand--her own was covered, wrapped in fine blue silk--and taking in the bandages wrapped around his torso, the bruises on his skin, the gaunt cast of his cheeks. Her eyes were sharp, piercing, and when they finally settled on his own, Daud could see her father in her.

"You're smaller than I remember," Emily said frankly.

Daud huffed a brittle laugh.

"I'm old, Majesty."

And she'd been only ten years old when he'd murdered her mother, scared and screaming and small.

"I suppose that's true," she allowed, stepping further into the room. She grabbed the back of the chair Billie had been sitting in, dragging it across the floor to a less familiar distance, and sat down with a rigidity that was carefully lacking in her words.

She hadn't forgotten that day any more than he could.

Feeling tired suddenly, worn down and drowning in all-too familiar regret, Daud eased back to lean against the wall.

"Would you like to tell me what you want, Empress?" he asked plainly. "I thank you for saving my life, but I doubt you did it on a whim."

Emily frowned, glancing away.

"No," she agreed. After a moment she looked back up, jaw set and eyes resolute. "I need your help."

Daud stared.

"With what?"

Emily held his gaze without flinching for only a few seconds longer before the mask finally cracked. Grief splintered her impassive expression, and something seized tight in Daud's chest as he saw a glimpse of that same terrified little girl from fifteen years ago.

"It's my father," she said softly.

Daud stiffened, shock rippling down his spine. Corvo Attano was-- He was damn near legendary, and Daud didn't have a habit of holding many people in that high of regard. The Royal Protector was like a force of nature, unstoppable and relentless as the sea; stalwart and strong in a way that almost seemed--and sometimes was--inhuman.

Daud had heard that Delilah somehow managed to capture him during the coup, but the idea of Corvo not managing to escape her grasp--not coming out on top in the end, as he always did--had never even occurred to him.

"What happened?" he asked, sharp and intent.

It was only belatedly that he realized he spoke as if he was back demanding a report from one of his Whalers, but Emily didn't seem to notice. She even straightened her back, looking up to meet his eyes, and Daud wondered if Corvo asked after matters of state in a similar manner.

"When Delilah attacked us, she used some kind of magic to take his Mark," she explained, and Daud had to file away the surprise that elicited for later. "Then she trapped him in stone somehow. I thought that after I took her down her the spell would be broken, but he..."

Emily looked away then, her hands clenching into fists in her lap.

"She turned others to stone, too. Nobles that offended her, guards and Overseers, even the hounds. But they've all woken up. My father is the only one who hasn't."

Daud frowned, drumming his fingers against the bed at his side. He'd never found out if Delilah had been a witch before or after the Outsider had marked her; either way, she'd had powerful magic. But the statues of herself she used as sentries had been the only instance he knew of her using stone as a medium. Stealing someone's Mark, though--that seemed like something that should have been beyond her abilities.

"Have you asked him about it?" he asked, unable to keep the sour expression from his face.

Emily grimaced.

"I tried. He wasn't terribly forthcoming. He only said that I already knew someone who could undo the magic, someone who was familiar with both him and Delilah. When I mentioned it to Billie, she said the only person that could be..."

"Was me," Daud finished grimly.

Void, he should have known that black-eyed bastard had something to do with this.

"You wouldn't have been my first choice," Emily said, bluntly. "Or the second, or third. Honestly, I could have done without ever seeing your face again. But you're the only one who can help, and I--"

She looked away, biting her lip.

"I need to get him back," she said softly. "Please. He's all I have left."

Daud didn't know if she meant the words to sting. They did, either way, and he accepted the stab of guilt with a vindictive relish that Billie would probably disapprove of.

He was the reason Emily was missing her mother. He was the reason that her only remaining family was a man marked by the Outsider, who'd been sealed in stone because Daud somehow hadn't managed to properly dispose of Delilah Copperspoon all those years ago.

He was the reason for so many wrongs in her life.

Daud pressed a fist to his chest, bowing his head in Emily's direction.

"Empress, I swear that I will do everything in my power to aid you."

His atonement was long overdue.

Chapter Text

Despite almost two decades of complete silence, Daud wasn't terribly surprised when the Outsider deigned to visit him again.

He was even less surprised that the bastard's choice of timing was still awful.

"Fucking typical," he groaned, bile rising back up in his throat as the walls of the ship's lavatory faded into the cool blue hues of the Void. The inherent vertigo that came with being pulled into a different reality had his stomach roiling again; he clutched the toilet bench as he retched, pathetically grateful that it hadn't disappeared as well.

This couldn't have waited until after his dinner was done reintroducing itself?

A cool palm laid across the back of his neck, a soothing balm against the uncomfortable heat of his skin, and Daud was too exhausted to even flinch.

"My old friend," the Outsider murmured, combing his fingers through Daud's sweat-drenched hair. "How much you have grown these past few years."

Daud rolled his eyes, spitting out the taste of bile and half-digested soup.

"I'm not a child, and it hasn't been a 'few' years, it's been fifteen," he replied testily, shuddering as his stomach considered rebelling again. "Can we skip the pleasantries? I'm busy."

"You should be taking better care of your body," the Outsider replied--scolded, even, and Daud might have laughed at the audacity if he had the energy. "It will take some time to recover; these past weeks haven't been kind to you."

"And yet it's only now that you want to chat," Daud snarled.

He wasn't quite able to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

It was one thing to have lost the Outsider's interest entirely. It was something else to know that the black-eyed bastard had been watching all that time and yet still left him to rot. That he dared to turn up now, after years of silence and weeks of torture, and pretend that he felt any kind of concern--

"Daud," the Outsider interrupted his thoughts gently. "You lost my attention--but never my favor."

Daud closed his eyes. The memories of the past weeks, of the pain and the violence and the humiliation--they were suddenly all too much, a battering ram of tangled emotions that left him cracked into pieces on the lavatory floor.

"What do you want from me?" he asked tiredly. "What could you possibly want from me now?"

Gentle hands turned him around, helping him lean back against the bench. He looked up into Void-black eyes as something approaching fondness softened the Outsider's ageless face.

"I have a gift for you," he said.

"I don't want it," Daud replied, automatic and a little petulant. But he still waited as a small device coalesced in the Outsider's palm, and took it when it was offered.

It was an orb of some sort, cradled within the curve of a scraped-out whale bone, affixed there with thick wire. He couldn't tell what it was made out of; it was smooth and shone like glass, but it was also warm, and a dark amber brown that obscured a gently pulsing shadow deep inside that he suspected was part of the Void itself. The entire thing was no larger than an apricot, and he looked at it dubiously before glancing back up at the Outsider.

"What is it?"

"Call it a guide," the Outsider suggested, irritatingly enigmatic as usual. "A connection to the Void that will help you in your search."

Daud curled his fingers around the device, mouth twisting in a wry expression that managed to not be entirely unkind.

"Ah, so that's why you decided to finally interfere. Corvo always was your favorite."

The Outsider scoffed, flickering out of existence to appear, floating, a few yards away.

"I don't have favorites, Daud."

"If that isn't the biggest lie you've ever told--"

"Keep it with you," the Outsider interrupted, and Daud was instantly sobered by the serious expression on his face, so unlike the usually-capricious god. "At all times. Do you understand?"

Daud grunted, tucking the little orb into his pocket.

"Fine. I promise I won't toss it overboard."

The Outsider's eyes narrowed. He seemed to find that acceptable enough, however, as the next moment Daud found himself back aboard the Dreadful Wale.

But then the nausea that had settled during his time in the Void came back with a vengeance, and he hastily leaned back over the toilet to throw up, groaning miserably.

"You couldn't have just visited me while I was asleep?" he complained. The orb in his pocket pulsed, warm and almost--amused.

Daud didn't have much time to examine that curiosity as a knock sounded on the door.

"Daud? Are you...alright?"

He grimaced, a little niggle of guilt tugging on the back of his mind. He had to pass Emily's room to get to the lavatory; he must have woken her.

"Yes, I'll be out in a moment," he rasped, swaying unsteadily to his feet. He washed out his mouth with some water, spitting it into the bowl with a grimace.

When he opened the door, Emily was still standing there, wearing a small frown and her usual outfit. Perhaps he hadn't disturbed her sleep after all.

She looked him over with a quick, keen eye, taking in his sweat-damp shirt and pale face. Her gaze refocused briefly as she looked past him into the empty lavatory, tilting her head to one side.

"Have an unexpected visitor?" she asked lightly.

Daud blinked in surprise, but made a low noise of affirmation. He supposed he shouldn't find it too remarkable; he could also feel it when the Void was nearby, after all.

Emily shook her head, stepping out of his way in the narrow corridor. After he took a few shaky steps she reached out--then paused, hesitantly, before reaching out again: taking hold of his elbow and helping him limp to his room.

Honestly, Daud couldn't remember what fight he'd sprained his ankle in--he couldn't even remember spraining it at all--but it was an annoyance that made itself evident with every step. The cane Billie had fashioned out of a bit of old pipe and leather helped to keep him upright, but walking was still an exercise in slowed pain, and he'd forgotten it anyway in his haste to reach the lavatory.

"He always did have the shittiest timing," Emily mused as she helped him sit down on his bed. Daud leaned over for a moment, resting his forearms on his knees as he sought to catch his breath, curling his lip.

"I'm sure he finds it entertaining. But this was...unexpected. He hasn't spoken to me in years. Not since--"

He cut himself off. After a moment, Emily sat down across from him, and he looked up at her in surprise.

"Since you saved me?" she asked. He nodded reluctantly, and she continued, "I found out when I was investigating Breanna Ashworth, and Billie told me more. About Delilah trying to steal my face when I was a child. That you stopped her."

"Not well enough, apparently," Daud replied bitterly.

He'd thought that banishing Delilah to the Void had been clever, at the time. He was tired of killing, and the fate of being forced to contemplate her mistakes for eternity had seemed a satisfying punishment. It was what he was going to do, after all.

Emily shrugged one shoulder.

"Even if you had killed her then, I'm not sure that would have kept her from clawing her way back from the Void anyway. But she won't harm anyone again. I made sure of it."

Her voice was steady and sure, and Daud believed her.

Billie had told him about how Emily used Delilah's own magic against her, trapping her in the painting of a world where she ruled. Daud had to admit it was ingenious; even if the witch ever did figure out what had happened, it wasn't likely she would try to escape such a tempting reality. The solution was kinder than he would have thought--and certainly kinder than whatever he imagined Corvo would have done with her.

The Lord Protector's dealings with the conspirators fifteen years ago had been bloodless, but they were far from merciful.

Daud belatedly remembered the trinket he'd been given. He reached into his pocket, rubbing a thumb over the smooth surface of the orb before pulling it out and presenting it to Emily, bemused by the odd twinge of delight that seemed to prickle his fingertips.

"The Outsider gave me this," he said as her eyebrows shot up. "Said that it would help with your father. How, exactly, he didn't deign to share."

"Of course not," Emily sighed. "May I?"

She reached out, and Daud figured he was sticking to the rules so long as the thing was within reach, so he dropped it into her hand without fuss.

Emily squinted at the little device.

"It looks...kind of like an eye."

Daud scowled, alarmed.

"It damn well better not be one."

He still remembered that horrific 'gift' he'd found on Corvo in the flooded district, the leathery heart twisted by technology that spoke with the voice of a dead woman. He'd only touched it very briefly before shoving it back into Corvo's coat pocket, rattled and struggling to hide it from his Whalers and the half-conscious Lord Protector.

Emily turned the trinket over in her hand consideringly, lifting it to her face to peer closer.

"It's warm. Almost as if it's alive. And it feels...kind."

Daud grunted his agreement. Whatever the thing was, it certainly wasn't some inert bauble. There was magic there, Void-touched and persistent like runesong. And it definitely had some kind of awareness, if the amusement he'd felt earlier was anything to go by.

"He told me to keep it close," Daud said as Emily handed it back. "No instructions other than that. If I manage to figure out what the damn thing is for, I'll let you know."

Emily nodded. She stood up, waving him down when he attempted to follow suit.

"Get some rest. I'll show you the information we've already collected tomorrow, after you've slept."

Daud inclined his head, acknowledging and grateful, exhaustion already creeping sluggish through his veins. As soon as Emily shut the door he laid down on the bed and curled up on his side. No position was entirely comfortable as his wounds pulled with any movement, but it was a damn sight better than what he was used to.

He only belatedly realized that he hadn't put the orb away, but he was too tired to get back up--and he imagined the Outsider wouldn't take it well if he just chucked the thing in the direction of the table. So he cupped the little device in his hand with a sigh, ignoring the soft pulse of bewilderment when he cradled it close to his chest to keep it secure.

Daud fell asleep to the orb's quiet curiosity humming in the back of his mind.

Chapter Text

Daud didn't know if he should be impressed or dismayed by the amount of books piled in the Dreadful Wale's engine room.

Both, probably.

"It's every piece of literature on magic and the Outsider that I could find," Emily explained, winding through the towers of tomes as Daud limped along behind her. "Treatises from the Academy, speculation by heretics, personal journals and banned books. Most of it came from the Royal Archives; some I liberated from Anton's old library and the Abbey."

Daud lifted one eyebrow, reaching out to straighten a book that seemed dangerously close to toppling off its stack.

"How long until the Overseers notice they're missing?" he asked, amused.

Emily shot him a smirk over her shoulder.

"Tragically, Holger Square has been very disorganized since the coup."

Daud snorted. It seemed Corvo's daughter had inherited his lack of regard for the legalities of ownership.

Emily stopped in front of a large shipping crate, nodding toward the piles of papers and books laid out across it, most of them water-stained.

"That's everything we could recover from Brigmore manor, and what the witches left lying around the Tower. I've gone through some of it, but to be honest, I'm out of my depth. The information on Delilah's painting magic seemed promising, though."

Daud nodded, a little absently. His fingers itched to make sense of the chaos strewn across the crate. He'd seen a chalkboard in the cargo hold; maybe he could commandeer it from Billie.

"You mind if I take some of this back up to the workshop?" he asked. Emily shrugged in easy allowance--but she seemed bemused, so he elaborated, "The stairs. Kind of a hassle."

Understanding flickered across her face.

"Of course," she murmured. She almost looked guilty, as if she felt bad for forgetting that her mother's murderer might be in pain.

Perplexed, Daud just nodded, shuffling the papers into a stack and tucking them and a couple of the witches' journals under one arm.

"I'll start with these, then. I've already read most of the Academy's research--" and here, Emily's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "--but I remember Sokolov had a few books on how the Void interacts with reality, if you happen to have brought those along. They might prove useful."

"I'll look for them," Emily replied, a little abrupt. She turned away from him, a clear dismissal, and Daud shot her a puzzled look before making his way slowly back up the stairs.

Billie had put a chair in the workspace that had apparently belonged to Sokolov himself, and Daud sank into the cushions gratefully, setting the books down and spreading the papers across the table. He still had Emily's healing bonecharm hanging from his neck, but there was only so much that magic could do--and there was even less to be done about the fact that he really was just getting old. Even though he'd only spent a few weeks in that cage at Albarca, every day there felt like it had sheared off years off his life.

He didn't want to think about what might have happened if he'd stayed longer.

The orb in his pocket--the Eye, he'd grudgingly taken to calling it--thrummed with a restless energy, tugging at Daud's attention. He pulled it out to squint at the little device, his own exasperation apparently shared if the twinge of irritation that sparked at his fingers was anything to go by.

"The bastard couldn't have just given me a damned instruction book?" he muttered.

The Eye...laughed, maybe: a little hiccuping pulse of surprised-amused-agreement that Daud felt more than heard or saw. It was a bizarre sensation, but not one he wanted to examine too closely--so he just shook his head and set the odd thing down on the desk near the pile of journals.

By the time Emily reappeared in the cargo hold, he had most of the files organized into separate stacks--useful, less than useful, complete rubbish--and was reading one of the witches' diaries from the Tower. He grunted his thanks when she deposited a pile of books at his elbow, grabbing a blank notebook and scribbling down notes.

The next time Daud raised his head, the oil lamp in front of him had burned down to half its capacity, and his stomach was very crankily reminding him that he now had access to food that wasn't riddled with mold.

He stood up, grimacing as his joints protested, and moved in the direction of the galley--but he only got a few steps away before a flash of outrage prickled between his shoulderblades. A rush of affronted displeasure washed over him, and he turned back, squinting at the Eye sitting on the table in annoyance.

"Really?"

The cursed thing had the audacity to feel smug when he picked it up, and Daud shoved it back into his pocket with an irritated noise.

Billie was at the stove when he limped into the galley, gutting a fish with the same finesse he'd once seen her use to slice open a man. She glanced up as he entered, dropping chunks of the meat into a bubbling pot of stew.

"Haven't seen you that focused since we were hired to torch the Prismall Estate without burning the apiary," she said, nodding toward a stool in the corner. He sat down, catching the apple she tossed his way.

"It's been a while since I've had to do this kind of thing," he admitted, biting into the fruit. It was sweet and crisp and fresh, and he polished it off quickly, core and all.

Billie snorted.

"You always did love puzzles. Just...don't burn up too quick, alright? We've still got two weeks before we land in Dunwall."

Daud acknowledged her concern with a slight smile and a small incline of his head. Satisfied, she turned back to the stove.

They stayed in companionable silence for a while, Billie cooking and Daud watching her with the kind of mindlessness that came with letting his brain settle back down after an influx of new information. Billie had never been in charge of cooking duty with the Whalers--it was one of the few things she didn't manage to excel at--but by the aromatic smell and easy way she moved around the kitchen, she'd clearly picked up the skill at some point.

When she bent down to pull out a canister of what looked to be flour, Daud spotted a small silvergraph of her on the wall, where she stood proudly in front of the Dreadful Wale. A melancholy smile curved his lips.

"Were the Whalers really that dreadful?" he asked lightly.

Billie flinched, as good as if he'd struck her, and he immediately regretted asking. But he couldn't take back the words--and after a moment, she replied, refusing to look at him.

"This one was."

Daud's eyes softened, something bittersweet and regretful coiling around his heart.

"I forgave you a long time ago, Billie," he said gently.

She clenched her jaw, shaking her head, not responding. He wanted to reassure her further, but he understood the need to refuse absolution, and he knew that any words he could say would fall on deaf ears.

When he'd looked down Corvo's blade, Daud had asked only for his life--not for forgiveness.

That was something he would never deserve.

"Outsider's fucking balls it's cold out there."

Daud blinked as Emily Kaldwin, Empress of all the Isles, stomped into the kitchen swearing like a sailor and looking like a half-drowned cat. She marched over to the crate in the corner and grabbed a bottle of mead, yanking the cork out with her teeth and turning toward Billie with a disgruntled scowl.

Then she caught sight of Daud sitting in the corner and froze in place like a trapped hare.

Daud watched, fascinated, at the range of emotions that played across her face. Dawning horror, intense regret, deep-seated embarrassment--and then, at last, resigned dread. She closed her eyes for a moment before straightening up, carefully removing the cork from her mouth and looking at him with a dignified expression.

"How is your research coming?" she asked, voice stilted and formal.

Behind her, Billie's shoulders shook with violently suppressed tremors.

"I have a few leads that I'm going to follow up on," Daud replied mildly. "But I need to know more about what happened with Delilah, first."

"Of course," Emily said regally. She clutched the bottle of mead close to her chest and swept out of the kitchen, her boots squeaking against the floor as she left a trail of seawater in her wake.

Billie made a noise like she was being strangled.

"Breathe," Daud advised as he slipped off the stool, getting a wheeze and a wave of a hand in reply. He felt the Eye hum in amusement as he followed the sodden Empress back out to the cargo hold, returning to his chair in the workshop as she hung up her dripping overcoat.

She took a less-than-ladylike swig straight from the bottle of mead before sitting down across from him, her posture straight-backed and stately.

"What would you like to know?"

Daud flipped open the journal he'd been using to take notes.

"Tell me," he said, "How that miserable witch managed to become part of the Void."

Chapter Text

Emily Kaldwin, Daud discovered, haggled with an expertise more reminiscent of a tightfisted Tyvian fishwife than an Empress.

"I'm surprised you got it down that low," he commented as they exited the noisy Bastillian market, a small chunk of cinnabar now tucked into the rucksack slung over Emily's shoulder. She glanced at him as he crossed out another item on their list, using his cane as a rest for the journal.

"He was just trying to up the price because I look Gristolian."

"You are Gristolian."

"Only half," Emily replied defensively, and Daud wondered what the xenophobic Dunwall court might think of their Empress clinging so adamantly to her roots. "Cinnabar is really only exported from Serkonos, so most northerners don't realize it's actually toxic--but, since it's pretty, he's used to getting away selling it overpriced to tourists who don't know how to handle it properly."

Daud lifted an eyebrow as he put the notebook away.

"Learn that from your Trade Minister?"

"Waverly Boyle," Emily corrected easily, continuing down the street. "She was one of my tutors before she became Lady Chancellor."

"I remember hearing about her election in Cullero," Daud mused as he limped after her. "Though when I'd left, rumor was she'd disappeared with a certain Lord Brisby."

"She did," Emily agreed. "For about a month. Then she used the pistol and coin my father gave her to leave him and return to Dunwall."

Daud's lips quirked up in a small smile. He hadn't wanted to believe the gossip that came out of the Boyle party all those years ago; hadn't wanted to believe that Corvo would be so cruel as to just hand a woman over to her stalker. To have his faith justified was...pleasantly unexpected.

Of course, Corvo Attano never really could be accused of being predictable.

It was why the Outsider had marked him. It was why Daud had anticipated his advance through Rudshore as much as he'd dreaded it. Corvo was--he was fascinating, as much as Daud hated the word. The man had lost the love of his life, spent six months being tortured in Coldridge Prison, been betrayed yet again by those he thought his allies--and he'd still managed to stay just.

He hadn't been merciful, no. There was little room for mercy in his line of work. But despite all he'd suffered, Corvo hadn't succumbed to the mindless rage and bloodlust that might have swallowed a lesser man. He'd disposed of most of the traitors who conspired against the throne with no little amount of poetic justice, but Waverly Boyle had just been a pawn. And Corvo had let her live, just as he had--

"Do you really think this will work?"

Daud blinked away the wandering thoughts, looking up at Emily's question. She'd slowed to a stop, pausing before the storefront of an art supply store. There were rows of easels and paint canisters lined up in the window display--none of which would be useful to them. Not with the magic they were going to attempt.

When you were trying to reproduce a power-mad witch's fifteen year-old spells, oil paint and oxhair brushes weren't exactly up to the task.

"I don't know," Daud admitted honestly. "But her painting magic is the only thing that we can reliably manage to duplicate."

Emily's mouth turned down in an unhappy moue.

"Possessing my father isn't going to bring him back."

Daud pinched the bridge of his nose, noticing not for the first time that speaking to Emily sometimes reminded him of trying to train one of the younger, more bullheaded Whalers.

"We aren't trying to possess him," he said patiently. "We're trying to locate him. His spirit's somehow been disconnected from his body, and all we need is a quick look through his eyes to find out where it is."

After Brigmore, Daud had made a point of researching the different magics practiced around the Isles: because even if he never intended to be within a mile of another witch, life--especially his--had a way of not going as planned. He'd looked more into the Gristolian bent of using invocations and reagents that the Brigmore witches practiced, the ritualistic tendencies of Tyvian spiritualists; the potions and curses of Serkonan shamans.

What he'd found was that magic was malleable, and that it tapped into the Void in a way that almost completely bypassed the Outsider's sphere of influence.

"Delilah had twelve years to become part of the Void," Daud reminded her. "Even if we were able to somehow do what she did--which isn't guaranteed--I'm not particularly keen on getting that intimate with the black-eyed bastard, myself."

Emily finally relaxed a little bit, a small huff of laughter escaping her lips.

"You don't want to walk the world for eternity as a demi-god?" she asked wryly.

Daud snorted.

"Empress, I'm not even sure I want to walk the world for the rest of the days I do have left."

Her smile faltered. Daud cursed himself for the discomfort that replaced it on her features; he wasn't sure why his grim fatalism bothered her, but just that it did was enough to make him regret saying anything. Then the Eye hummed its concern as well, trapping him between two sources of sympathetic consideration that he really didn't know how to deal with.

Emily cleared her throat and motioned vaguely down the street of shops.

"What next?"

Not complaining about the change of subject, Daud started ticking off ingredients on his fingers.

"Cinnabar and lazurite from Serkonos," he said, mentally going down the list. "Whalebone ash, deep-sea squid ink, Pandyssian chalk... I think that's all of the reagents we can get here. The rest will have to come from Dunwall."

Emily nodded.

"It'll be enough to give us something to do for the rest of the voyage, at least. And Billie said she already had some jars we could mix the pigments in. Just a mortar and pestle left?"

"We should be able to get those at a pharmacy," Daud said. "There's one on the edge of the Sergoula District."

Emily cast him a contemplative look as they continued down the street, showing no signs of impatience if she was tired of having to wait for him to limp along.

"You're from here, right? Like my father."

"I grew up in Cullero, if that's what you mean," Daud replied absently, frowning as his cane caught on an uneven bit of sidewalk. "But I travelled through Serkonos a great deal when I was younger, and more recently."

He'd discovered quite quickly during his self-imposed exile from Dunwall that the northern Isles held no appeal to him anymore. Tyvia was too cold; Morley was too dreary. Gristol was Gristol, and so firmly under Corvo's purview that he didn't even bother. But he'd still spent over four years flitting around before finally booking a ship to Serkonos; before finally caving in to the desire to go home.

The dread that it wouldn't be the same--that his homeland had become just as twisted as he was, that he would be punished for daring to believe he even deserved a home again--had sloughed off his shoulders as soon as he'd caught sight of Cullero's familiar shoreline.

"Before you ended up in the Albarca Baths?"

Daud flinched.

The fond memory curdled like old milk, morphed into broken recollections of blood and blue tile and pain.

"Yes," he replied shortly.

He'd only meant to be in Karnaca for a few days. A week, at most. Just long enough to arrange for some supplies to be shipped back to Cullero, and maybe pick up a couple bottles of proper Orbon Rum. He hadn't expected--

Emily tilted her head to one side, gaze curious and too perceptive by far.

"How did you end up there?"

He hadn't expected the ambush. He hadn't expected an attack from a would-be gang with an interest in the occult who'd seen the bonecharm at his belt. He hadn't expected to be corralled, penned back into the bathhouse in his attempt to retreat; successfully caught all because he didn't want to--

"I made a promise that I shouldn't have kept," Daud replied harshly.

He'd sworn that he wouldn't. Not after her.

But he'd never regretted that vow so much as when the suppression field switched on and sent him screaming to his knees.

Daud gripped the handle of his cane, white-knuckled. His free hand was trembling as well and he shoved it into his pocket, curling his fingers around an oddly-subdued Eye. He saw the pharmacy just a few blocks down and jerked his chin in that direction.

"There," he said, ignoring Emily's concerned frown. "Find one made out of stone. Preferably granite."

"Daud? Are you--"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" he snapped.

He felt bad as soon as he said it--but she didn't even rise to the bait. She just looked at him, with those piercing brown eyes that were just like her father's, and inclined her head briefly before heading over to the pharmacy. Daud didn't even wait to make sure she made it inside, limping to a nearby bench on suddenly-shaky legs; he sank down onto it, struggling to breathe through the tightness in his chest.

The bonecharms that the cultists forced onto him had wreaked havoc on his body. The open cage had left him exposed, laid humiliatingly bare. The fights had broken him down to something mindless and feral.

But nothing had been so torturous as the suppression field.

It had stripped away everything, taken his coherency and his powers and left him trapped: truly vulnerable for the first time since he was a child.

Helpless.

Daud looked down at the loose cobblestones next to his boots, breathing ragged. He twitched his fingers and pulled, and when one of the rocks flew easily to his hand, the panic finally began to abate. He embraced the electric feel of the Void rippling around him, dizzy with relief as he dropped his head into his hands.

But then something hard pressed his temple and he pulled away, blinking in confusion, as he found the Eye still resting in his palm.

And it was...singing, almost. A soft, soothing lullaby in the back of his mind, wordless but familiar. Gentle warmth radiated down his wrist, through his arm and around his chest, and the kindness, the comfort that Daud felt from the little device finally unravelled the rest of the distress constricting his chest. He inhaled a shaky breath, letting it out slow and even, matching his breathing to the Eye's steady thrumming.

It took a few minutes, but eventually he managed to properly calm down, the tension dissipating in a slow receding tide that left him wrung-out and exhausted. He unfolded his fingers from their death's grip around the Eye, studying its whiskey-colored surface.

"So you're supposed to be some sort of guide, huh?" he murmured.

The orb hummed in concurrence, somehow managing to project an air of pleased self-satisfaction that had Daud's lips quirking in a tiny smile.

"I guess that black-eyed bastard finally managed to be useful after all."

Chapter Text

Daud had always liked the sea.

It was why he’d settled so readily in Dunwall after arriving from Serkonos, instead of going further inland. It was why he'd allowed himself to be swindled--just a little bit--when buying a small house on the beach a few hours west of Cullero. It was why, when Billie had thought to encourage him toward retirement, she'd left him a book exclusively on port cities.

Even when a certain leviathan decided to start mucking around in his life, his fondness for the smell and taste of salt brine hadn't abated.

Daud tilted his head back to study the stars glittering in the night sky above, sitting atop the roof of the bridge as the Dreadful Wale cut through the water. They were just a day out from Dunwall--less, if the weather continued to be as serene as it was--and he'd found himself feeling almost nostalgic, the emotion buoyed by the Eye that hung from a chain around his neck, Emily's healing bonecharm now relegated to his belt.

The Eye was singing again, a tune that Daud had finally placed as an old Serkonan lullaby. He remembered it, distantly, from his childhood: from listening to his mother hum as her deft hands turned herbs and reagents into tinctures.

The orb had become something of a self-indulgent comfort since that day in Bastillian: a constant, reassuring presence that kept him from drifting too far into his own head. It soothed the distress when his mind betrayed him, nudged him toward bed when he forgot to sleep; chided him gently when he ate too much or too little.

Daud had started feeling bad about just shoving the little device into his pocket with pens and tools and whatever pieces of food he'd commandeered from the galley, so he'd finally looped a length of chain through one of the metal wires and started wearing it beneath his shirt. It laid warm and soothing against his skin, just over his heart.

He’d just found the Tusked Leviathan amongst the constellations when a sound drew his attention; the Eye's song quieted to a murmur as Daud peered over the roof to see Emily pacing the deck far below.

She looked haggard, exhausted and frayed, and when she abruptly stopped lean against the mast and bury her face in her hands, Daud was hit with the painfully intense desire to just go and give her a hug.

He had already transversed down to the deck before the absolute absurdity of that impulse fully registered.

Horrified at himself, Daud clenched his fist again to escape through the Void, but it was too late: Emily's head snapped up, the grief on her face quickly replaced by defensive anger when she caught sight of him.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

Daud cleared his throat, adjusting his grip on his cane.

"Are you...alright?" he asked lamely.

Emily stared at him as if he was the least intelligent person who had ever breathed, and honestly, Daud couldn't really blame her.

"No."

He winced at the incredulity in her voice.

"No, of course not," he murmured. As he flailed around for something to say, the Eye pulsed gently against his chest, humming soft encouragement. He hesitated a brief moment before asking, "Is there anything I can do?"

Emily held her glare for just a few moments longer before letting out a sigh, her shoulders slumping from their defensive set.

"Just...focus on helping my father," she said tiredly. "We'll finish making the pigments out of what we got in Bastillian, and as soon as we reach Dunwall I'll get what's left on the list so you can start painting."

Daud blinked.

"Me?" he balked. "I'm no artist. Besides, it said the magic works best when cast by someone with a connection to the subject."

That look in Emily's eyes was back: the one that seemed to evaluate his intelligence and find it extremely lacking.

"The Outsider told me that I could find the person who could undo the spell," she said testily. "Not that I would be the one to do it. And you were the one he gave that...whatever it is."

She waved a hand in his direction. Daud might have been amused at the Eye's affronted twitch if he wasn't too busy trying to wrap his head around the idea that he was going to be the one in charge of the magic. That he was the one whose Corvo's life depended on.

This was not a responsibility that he was prepared or deserving to shoulder.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Empress," Daud said carefully.

Emily's eyes flashed. She took a sharp step forward, her hand cutting through the air between them.

"I don't give a rat's ass what you think, and I wasn't fucking asking!"

Her voice rose into a shout as she spoke and Daud flinched, visceral and entirely involuntary, queasy panic stealing the breath from his lungs. His hand clenched into a fist as he instinctively prepared to run, his Mark glowing bright in the darkness.

It was only with a supreme amount of effort that he kept himself from transversing away, and he hated it, hated himself for the response and hated Emily for the compassion that immediately gentled her gaze.

The Eye pulsed in sad, quiet comfort against his chest, and Daud hated it, too.

"I'm sorry," Emily murmured, her stance loosening into something nonthreatening, the contrition in her voice unwarranted and unwanted. "I didn't... I'm sorry. I just-- I need you to try. Please, just...try."

Daud nodded, words unable to make it past the tightness in his throat.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

She avoided his gaze as she headed back inside, guilt written in the hunch of her shoulders as she gave him a wide berth. It wasn't until the hatch clanged shut behind her that Daud was finally able to suck in a deep, shaky breath. He gasped for air as he leaned heavily on his cane, clutching for the reassuring warmth of the Eye around his neck.

'Skittish and wounded as you are, she cannot help but be reminded of her father.'

He froze.

The thought rose, unbidden, in the back of his mind. It was unexpected and entirely foreign, the words a knowledge that he didn't have access to and that voice--

"Oh no," Daud breathed, the panic of before morphing into dread. "No, no, absolutely not--"

The Eye hummed inquisitively as he yanked the chain over his head. He stared at the little device in mute horror, the whalebone digging into the meat of his palm as he curled his hand into a helpless fist.

It couldn't be.

But he knew it was.

Hysteria bubbled up in Daud's throat and he had the sudden, entirely reasonable desire to hurl himself off the side of the ship, because surely a watery death was preferable to the absolute farce his life had become.

But as he compressed the fear and trepidation down into neat, compartmentalized knots of emotion, burying them deep in his chest, Daud found that the only feeling he had left was anger.

He pulled his arm back as if to throw the Eye into the sea, to return it to the wretched god it had come from--

"What do you think you're doing?"

--and felt cold fingers wrap painfully tight around his wrist.

The Outsider was known for being dispassionate. He was known for being capricious and fickle but ultimately aloof: a mercurious presence that occasionally meddled in human affairs, but who had no actual emotional investment in the matters of men. His association with the sea was usually apt, depicting a god that could be tumultuous but was, at his core, impassive.

He was not impassive now.

Black eyes glittered with fury; the air around them crackled with untapped power. The previously-calm ocean now roiled, rocking the boat beneath their feet, water licking up over the sides and onto the deck. Daud felt the bones in his wrist creak as he tried to pull his arm away.

The threat of violence hung heavy between them, an ominous reminder of lines of disrespect that weren't to be crossed--but all of Daud's usual wary deference toward the god had vanished the moment he heard Corvo Attano's voice speaking through some Void-touched trinket.

"How dare you," he hissed.

"Daud," the Outsider warned. His voice echoed with the promise of lightning and thunder: of storms that swept through entire fleets and left nothing behind.

"Is he dead?" Daud demanded, clenching his fingers around the Eye. "Did you trap him in here? You bastard, what have you done?"

"I saved him."

Daud stilled.

The absolute certainty in the Outsider's voice was enough to give him pause; enough to pierce through the tunnel vision of outrage. He eyed the deity suspiciously.

"What do you mean?"

The Outsider tilted his head, watching Daud for a moment longer before he finally let go of his arm.

Daud took an immediate step backward, holding the Eye protectively close to his chest. It pulsed in surprise--and now that he had an inkling of what it was, he very carefully did not examine why that surprise was followed with a quiet, pleased hum.

"As much as I could," the Outsider continued, "I saved him. This was all I was able to retrieve before he slipped from my grasp."

Daud blanched, looking down at the device in his hand.

"His eye?"

The Outsider sighed. The reaction was a bizarrely human response, as was the long-suffering expression on his pale features.

"It isn't actually an eye, Daud," he said patiently. "It is merely a piece of him, a small portion of what you mortals might call a soul. And even that fraction was hard-won."

Daud frowned.

"What happened?"

The Outsider's lips curled back in a snarl.

"Delilah," he spat, with a vitriol Daud had never heard in his voice before. "When she became a part of me, the Void changed. Even now the echoes of her presence linger. But before Emily locked her away, she had already claimed pieces of the Void for herself; sections of the dark that even I can't touch."

When the Outsider had pulled him into the Void to give him the Eye, Daud had thought there was a difference in the eerie non-reality. He'd assumed the dissonance was due to not having been there in nearly two decades: that his memories were at fault. The entire dimension had felt darker, colder, more hostile than he remembered. The once-distant sound of whalesong had been a constant thrum of pressure against his eardrums, jagged and discordant.

It had felt wrong.

And the ramifications of the Void itself being twisted was something Daud couldn't even begin to fathom.

"I cannot reach him, Daud," the Outsider said lowly. "Do you understand? He is in a part of the Void that no longer belongs to me."

Daud never thought that a god could sound frustrated.

It was terrifying.

He looked down at the Eye in lieu of actually trying to comprehend the level of cosmic fuckery that he'd somehow gotten tangled up in, wondering just how aware the soul inside was. Certainly enough to know what was going on around it--and definitely conscious enough that it had strong opinions, if the way it had compelled him to comfort Emily earlier was anything to go by.

"Why didn't you give this to Emily?" Daud asked, glancing back up. "Out of all the... Why me?"

The Outsider lifted his eyebrows.

"Because you are the only one left who walked the Void before it was tainted by Delilah's touch."

Daud blinked.

Did you know that there are only eight like you in the world, bearing my Mark?

The words echoed in the back of his mind, soft and sinuous. The Outsider had said them fifteen years ago, admittedly, but even so...

"What happened to the others?" he asked quietly.

The Outsider tilted his head back, studying the velvet-black sky above. There was something almost melancholic on his face, if distant and uncanny on features that weren't quite familiar with expressing emotions.

"The Abbey dogs have a nose for blood and a taste for heretics," he replied. "And my Marked tend to burn up faster than most."

Daud frowned, studying the orb in his palm. The idea that he and Corvo--and Emily, at this point--were the last of the Outsider's chosen was less of a comfort than it probably should have been.

"You really hadn't marked anyone since Corvo?"

The Outsider shrugged.

"I had no need or desire to mark another."

Daud knew quite well how easy it was to lose the Outsider's interest. That he'd been content to observe the past fifteen years without meddling was nothing short of remarkable--but, then, Daud imagined it took a remarkable sort of person to keep the deity's attention.

Void, Corvo really was the favorite.

"Find him, Daud," the Outsider said softly.

And when Daud looked up into those fathomless black eyes, he felt a frisson of fear crawl down his spine at the expression of too-human worry that had no place on the face of a god.

"Find him before he's lost for good."

Chapter Text

Daud awoke on the day of their arrival in Dunwall with a roiling stomach and the desperate hope that the previous night had just been some terrible hallucination.

'Your dreams are more turbulent than the sea, and even darker still.'

No such luck, then.

"Are you capable of speaking in anything other than tedious prose and vagueities?" he groaned, pulling the Eye away from his chest so he could squint at the bothersome little device. He'd tried talking to it after the Outsider had left, closing himself in his room and trying not to feel too much like a fool, but the Eye'd had remarkably little to say--and what it did was less than useful.

The orb pulsed noncommittally, which felt weirdly like the mental equivalent of a shrug.

'The one who is all things tried to grab at the shards that fell through his fingers, but his reach was blind, and his selection indiscriminate.'

Daud sighed, dropping the Eye back against his chest and reaching up to scrub a hand over his face.

Corvo's broken mind and his broken body. Maybe between the two of them they could paste together a functioning human being.

'Brooding,' the Eye murmured, 'Is a practice best left to birds.'

"Void's fucking sake Attano--"

A brisk knock sounded on the door and Daud bit off the words, fuming at the Eye's flicker of smug amusement.

"Daud?"

"Come in," he called shortly, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed, grimacing when his feet hit the cold floor. He pulled on a shirt as Billie poked her head in; she stepped inside when she seemed to find him acceptably decent and conscious.

"We're just a little ways out from Dunwall," she reported. "Emily's already packed up all the painting supplies and hauled them topside. She's...very eager to reach the city."

"She's antsy and you're in here to keep from strangling her," Daud translated blandly.

Billie shrugged without remorse, plopping down in the rickety chair in the corner.

"You didn't show up for dinner last night," she challenged, worry creasing her forehead.

"Wasn't hungry," he lied, half-hearted and unconvincing.

The glare Billie shot him was completely unimpressed; Daud felt a fond smile curving his mouth.

He had noticed that she didn't tend to hide her emotions anymore--whether that was due to her allowing it or just being unused to having people around, Daud couldn't tell. But it was a reassuring, welcome change from the hardened woman he remembered; it was a relief to know that she had been able to escape the oppressive bleakness of Dunwall--and him.

It taken him far too long to realize the injustice he had done to her and the rest his Whalers.

The Eye stirred.

'She has never,' it murmured, 'Thought of forgiving you.'

Daud flinched.

Billie's frown deepened in concern and he had to look away, scowling down at his hands.

Things hadn't been always great in Dunwall. Towards the end, after what he'd done, they'd been downright horrific. But there had always been a little bit of warmth to come back to with his motley little crew, even after he'd moved them to the drowned buildings of what was once the Financial District.

The Whalers had been assassins. They had been thieves and mercenaries, street kids and refugees. They were the downtrodden and the forgotten, brought together by weary desperation and burned-out flickers of hope and Daud's own firmly guiding hand.

They had been his family.

And he'd forgotten, over the years, that their loyalty was a privilege and not a right. Or perhaps he'd just willed himself to ignore it, too blinded by bitterness and greed to recognize the Void-cursed existence he'd condemned them to.

In the beginning, he'd sworn to himself that he would do everything he could to protect them--and in the end, he had failed. He'd failed miserably.

Perhaps worse, he'd never even given them the chance to live in the first place.

"Billie," Daud asked quietly, "What would you have done if I hadn't brought you into the Whalers?"

She shrugged, accepting the change of subject for now.

"Died, probably," she replied easily. "Why?"

He looked at his hands, scarred and callused, his knuckles still scabbed from his time at Albarca. He couldn't count all the times they'd been slick with blood, literal and metaphorical both.

"I'm sorry."

Billie inhaled a startled breath.

Daud refused to look up.

"I'm sorry that I brought you into that life. I shouldn't have-- You were a child."

"Daud," she said softly.

"I thought that I was giving you a chance," he rasped. "Teaching you how to defend yourselves, how to make your own place in a world that would take everything from you if it could. But I never even gave you a choice, did I?"

He curled his lip.

All his talk of free will and self-actualization, and he'd been no better than the Outsider himself.

"I took you at your most vulnerable and I turned you into assassins," he said, astounded at his own audacity. "I could have done something else, done anything else, but instead I dragged you all into that miserable existence with me--and then acted like I was in the right, that I was doing something good for you--"

"Daud!"

Warm hands curled tight around his own. Daud jerked his head up, staring into Billie's distressed brown eyes, and it was only then that he realized he was shaking. His chest felt carved-out and hollow and he could distantly feel the Eye's concern: a hesitant, almost abashed sense of guilt that Daud didn't have the energy to parse.

"Don't apologize," Billie said fiercely. "Not for that, and not to me. Never to me."

"You deserved better," he said softly.

"People never get what they deserve, the good or the bad," she retorted. "You gave us everything you could."

Daud huffed out a bitter laugh.

"A leaky roof and a lifetime of avoiding the authorities?"

"A family," Billie insisted, tugging on his hands to get her point across, holding his gaze to keep him from brushing off the sincerity of her words. "A home where we could feel safe. The ability to live how we wanted, unconfined by society or station. You gave us courage, Daud. You gave us hope."

"Billie--"

She reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder, her eyes warm and fond and bearing a gratefulness that made his heart ache.

"The things we did, the people we killed--we'll all have to live with those sins," she said softly. "But we made our choices, and we were only able to make them in the first place because of you. So don't ever think that you didn't do right by the Whalers."

She moved then, the motion slow and deliberate--and even though he saw it coming, Daud could only sit there in blank stupefaction as she pulled him into a hug.

"You saved us," she murmured.

And Daud stayed still for a long moment after, unable to move or think or breathe. It lasted far too long to not be awkward, but Billie didn't pull away. So he finally reached up, carefully, wrapping his arms around her back, pressing his face into her close-cropped hair. Her grip on him tightened for just a moment: a reassuring squeeze that seemed to restart the function of his lungs.

As the tension slowly leached from his body, the Eye stirred once more, its vague sense of guilt from before returning.

'She never thought to forgive you,' it said delicately, 'Because she believed there was nothing to forgive.'

Daud closed his eyes.

With what he thought was an admirable amount of self-control, he very carefully did not hurl the stupid trinket against a wall.

The brassy call of a foghorn sounded in the distance, shattering the moment and making him twitch. Daud raised his head as Billie pulled away, her eyes lifting toward the ceiling.

"That's the signal that we've just hit the Wrenhaven; I need to go bring us into port." She looked back at him with a gentle, teasing smirk. "Think you can stop brooding down here for five minutes?"

Daud lifted an eyebrow, mouth quirking at the corners.

"No guarantees."

Billie rolled her eyes with a huff and levered herself to her feet.

"I suppose some things will never change. You should probably get your things together--I'm sure Emily will want to head out as soon as we dock." She made a face. "If not sooner."

Daud chuckled, surprised at how easily the sound fell from his lips.

“I’ll be up in a moment,” he promised.

Billie watched him for just a moment longer before nodding, patting him on the shoulder once more before heading out of the room. But she paused when she reached the doorway, glancing over her shoulder.

"Daud?" she asked.

"Yes?"

Something fond and sincere softened the lines of her face.

"I'm glad you're back."

Daud smiled, small and honest, as she disappeared out the door, warmth blooming in his chest.

"Me too," he said softly.

'You have been alone for so many years, you have forgotten the comfort of simple human touch,' the Eye observed speculatively.

Daud rolled his eyes.

"Mind your own fucking business, Attano."

It didn't help that the cursed thing was right.

He felt something curious prodding at the back of his mind, then, idly pulling up memories and sifting through old thoughts that he'd thought sufficiently buried. Flashes of the past darted behind his eyelids and Daud only had a few moments to be alarmed at the intrusion before it abruptly stopped, a pulse of surprise fluttering through him.

'The only blood you have spilled since that day was against your will,' the Eye said wonderingly.

Rattled, Daud reached up to snatch the orb hanging from his neck. The chain snapped with the amount of force he used to yank it away from his body and he clenched his fingers tight around the cursed device, anger roiling through him.

"I swear on my life," he hissed, "The Outsider be damned, if you try prying into my head again I will leave you in that stone to rot."

The Eye twitched, ashamed. Daud shoved it angrily into his pocket and started packing up his things with sharp, quick movements. He ignored the trinket's quiet pulse of guilt as he stuffed a box of bullets into a pouch at his belt: ammunition for the pistol Billie had given him shortly after he'd been rescued.

He had known there was no one to fear on the Dreadful Wale. He had known that he was probably safer than he'd been in decades. But having the worn gun tucked beneath his pillow at night had been the only thing that let him sleep.

The Eye hummed hesitantly, seeming to be trying to muster its nerve for something. Daud ground his teeth together, the anticipation only heightening his anxiety, and he tensed when it finally began to speak.

'When the--Royal Protector,' the Eye said haltingly, 'Was in the interrogator's chair. When they plied him for untruths. The only place he could escape was to his own mind.'

A flash of something darted through Daud's mind: a distorted image of a cruel mouth and sickly excited eyes and red-hot iron descending toward his face. The emotions that came with it seemed to be forcibly muted, the panic and pain dampened into just a brief brush against his already-overtaxed hindbrain.

It was--an understanding. An explanation. And an apology, of sorts.

Daud's motions slowed, the hunched set of his shoulders easing, just a little. He acknowledged the insight with a tired nod, but didn't respond further.

The Eye sent out another pulse of remorse before quieting.

He didn't have many things to gather. He didn't really have anything, actually, all of his personal belongings having been taken in Karnaca or left behind in Cullero. He'd burned the clothes he'd worn for three straight weeks during his imprisonment. Emily had been kind enough to buy him more when they were in Bastillian, murmuring something sympathetic about being stuck in the same outfit for too long, but aside from those and the pistol--and the Eye--he had nothing else.

Daud glanced reflexively around the room for any forgotten items that he knew he wouldn't find, slinging the small pack over one shoulder. After a few moments of quiet consideration he reached into his pocket to pull out the Eye, sitting down at the desk to carefully fix the chain's broken clasp.

He dropped it back over his head when he was finished, picked up his cane, and headed upstairs to Dunwall.

Chapter Text

Dunwall was, unsurprisingly, still as miserable as it always had been.

Daud shivered as the frigid northern air tried to burrow into his bones, pulling his coat tighter around him. He hadn't realized until he'd returned to Serkonos just how much he hated the cold, and apparently the years back in his homeland had only further eroded his tolerance of the biting chill.

'The sun is too absent here,' the Eye agreed. Its tone was almost peevish, which gave Daud pause.

He sometimes forgot that Corvo was Serkonan. At this point, the man was so synonymous with Dunwall that it was hard to separate the two. But he could still remember the gossip when Corvo had first arrived at court: the derision and the scorn, and the disbelief that some low-born Serkonan had been chosen as Royal Protector.

He wondered, distantly, if Corvo had spent all those years missing home as much as he had.

"The official story," Emily said across from him, drawing his attention away from the miserable weather, "Is that I've been down in Serkonos taking Duke Abele to task. Armando will back me up; he should have already released a few statements to the public back in Karnaca."

Daud grunted and hunched further into his coat as he watched her pilot the skiff with an expert hand, the bustle of the docks growing louder as they drew closer. Billie had dropped anchor just beyond the shallows, and they'd had to take the boat the rest of the way in; she'd stayed behind to coordinate cargo offloading.

Escaped having to deal with Emily's manic energy, more likely.

"And who am I supposed to be?" Daud asked.

Emily motioned toward him grandly.

"You are one of Serkonos' premier natural philosophers, on loan from the Royal Conservatory to help break the spell of black magic cast on my father."

Daud snorted. Not a single person would believe that, and they both knew it.

"Half the nobles in Dunwall probably still know my face," he pointed out.

"They'll be even less inclined to question me, then," Emily replied. She sounded far too pleased by the notion, and Daud lifted an eyebrow.

"The dethroned Empress returning with her most infamous enemy beneath her heel?" he said lightly.

Emily flashed him a smirk.

"Something like that."

"That's a dangerous wire to walk, Majesty," Daud observed.

Emily's smile faded.

"This is not my mother's Empire," she said lowly. "It isn't even the one I ruled before Delilah's coup. Ignoring how much sway the aristocracy has over public affairs--letting them buy their safety from consequences, turning a blind eye to their scheming--is partially how the coup happened in the first place. I'm done being hampered by their self-interests. I will have change."

Daud could hear the determination in her voice: the conviction of someone determined to make things better, to make things right. And when he inclined his head in acknowledgement, the action carried more than a little amount of respect.

Emily pulled the skiff up alongside the stone quay, tossing up her bag and leaping out of the boat with the ease and spring of youth. He followed at a more reasonable pace as she tied off the line, climbing up awkwardly with his bad ankle and the help of the cane.

"Empress!"

Daud glanced up to see a young man striding down the jetty toward them. He wore clothes that were characteristic of the nobility, with no insignia or markings, and a simple sword hung from his hip. His eyes were bright and his expression genial, his body language completely at ease and unthreatening.

Daud distrusted him immediately.

Emily barely looked away from her slipshod attempt at tying a proper pile hitch, and Daud's hackles raised the closer the man got. When he was just a few yards away, Daud stepped sharply in front of the distracted Empress, resting his hand on the butt of his pistol.

The young man halted immediately, and Daud didn't know who was more surprised at his own actions: him and the Eye, or Emily and the newcomer.

Emily finally managed to tie off the line and levered herself to her feet, ducking around Daud with a brief, exasperated pat to his arm.

"It's alright, Daud; he's a friend. Of sorts."

'Jameson Curnow,' the Eye supplied helpfully. 'Adopted when Geoff's estranged lover died during the plague. Impeccably loyal; deceptively harmless. One of the Royal Protector's greatest assets.'

A spy, then.

No wonder he'd triggered Daud's paranoia.

Jameson was lean and dark-haired, and by his features seemed to hail from Tyvia: Wei Ghon, most likely. He carried himself with the easy grace of a trained swordsman, and the way he moved reminded Daud of Corvo, or one of his own Whalers. Sharp brown eyes looked Daud over in a quick, perceptive sweep.

"So you found him, then?" he said mildly.

Emily rolled her eyes, picking up her luggage and tossing it at him.

"Obviously. Daud, this is my Spymaster, Jameson Curnow."

"Acting Spymaster," the young man corrected as he caught the bag, his face displaying the kind of pained grimace that spoke of someone forced into a job they desperately didn't want. "I have no desire to keep the position."

Emily scoffed, starting down the jetty toward the docks.

"What, is skulking around less glamorous now that you're actually known by the people you spy on?"

A pained expression crossed Jameson's features.

"Are you still mad about--"

"Yes."

Daud cleared his throat. The two of them glanced back at him, as if just remembering he was there.

"In any event," Jameson continued belatedly, "I'm only acting in the capacity of Royal Spymaster until Lord Attano is...back to rights."

There was a railcar waiting on the street above the docks, bare of any sign of the royal crest. Daud climbed in after Emily, twitching only a little when Jameson waited pointedly until he'd sat down to get in as well.

Emily tugged her gloves off with her teeth as the railcar shuddered into motion, shoving them into her pocket. She undid her hair, combing her fingers through it before pulling it back into a neat, elegant, Empress-worthy twist.

"If you think I'm going to let him try to juggle any titles other than 'Father' after this, you are sorely mistaken. Report."

Daud looked out the small windows as Jameson obediently began rattling off the details of what had conspired in Emily's absence, letting the conversation fade to the edges of his attention. Dunwall rolled by as they made their way through the city, up toward the Tower looming in the distance, and he found himself thinking that not much had really changed.

The air was cleaner, perhaps, and the rot from the plague had long been cleaned out. But the ravages of its effects were still there: present in the empty storefronts, in the still-decrepit buildings; in the people's drawn, fatigued faces.

'The city is tired,' the Eye said softly. 'Its people are jaded. They are weary--and they are wary.'

In the back of his mind, Daud wondered how much of the mistrust was due to Delilah's occupancy, and how much of it was Emily's own inattentive negligence.

The trip to the Tower was short, and once there Emily sent Jameson off with a slip of paper and a few muttered orders. He offered her a grandiose bow and Daud a cheeky, casual salute before disappearing down a hallway that Daud was fairly certain led to one of the building's numerous hidden passageways.

Emily caught him looking and pursed her lips.

"How many secrets do you actually know about this place?"

"Probably more than you'd be comfortable with," Daud admitted.

She made a displeased face but didn't ask further, motioning him toward the stairs. He followed her up to the floor that housed the Offices of Rank, led to the door that used to house the Royal Spymaster's chambers--and still did, if he'd guessed her thoughts correctly.

"My father's rooms," Emily said, confirming his suspicions as she unlocked and opened the door. "I know some of the painting materials should come from things that have actually been in contact with him, so see what you can find in here. I'll come by later once you've settled in and I've dealt with..."

She waved a hand vaguely, which Daud took to mean 'everything'.

He glanced into the room uneasily. The Eye's little pulse of pleased recognition did nothing to ease the apprehension that he was doing something terribly invasive.

"You really want me to stay in here?"

Emily shrugged.

"You're the one who needs to 'connect' with him to make the magic stronger. So, you know..." she motioned inside. "Go connect. If you're really that uncomfortable, I can have a cot delivered."

"Please," Daud said, and hoped he didn't sound too plaintive.

Emily's lips quirked in amusement but she just nodded, shooing him forward with a flick of her fingers. Then she turned around and disappeared back down the stairs, leaving him alone with the gaping maw of the open door.

Daud entered Corvo's chambers with a grimace and no small amount of trepidation, and was honestly a little surprised when he didn't immediately walk into some kind of arc pylon or springrazor trap.

The room was neat, elegantly furnished, but the air was stale from being untouched. It had probably been cleaned up after Delilah's deposition and then forgotten about, with no Royal Protector-slash-Spymaster to inhabit it.

Daud wondered, idly, if this was how it would be if Corvo was in residence. If the man was just as neat, or if his desk would be cluttered with paperwork, his things strewn about. Given what he knew of Corvo's meticulous nature, he would have guessed the former--but it wouldn't be the first time he'd been surprised by Corvo Attano.

Daud did a slow circuit of the room, taking in the large bed shielded by a pair of folding room dividers, the numerous shelves of books behind a sturdy desk. The decor was mostly plain, just a handful of paintings hung on the walls, and he noticed that the majority of them depicted scenes from Karnaca.

'So many years spent in this city, but only one place was ever truly home,' the Eye said quietly.

Daud closed his eyes as a sharp pang of longing cut through him. When had Corvo last been to Serkonos? Years? Decades? Maybe even not since that fateful trip fifteen years ago, when the Empress had sent him away at the urging of her traitorous Royal Spymaster.

Just before Daud had proceeded to ruin his life.

Mouth twisting into a scowl, Daud turned on heel to limp out of the room--maybe he could convince Emily to allow him different quarters if he grovelled pathetically enough--but came to an abrupt halt as he passed by a display case of swords.

His heart stuttered in his chest and he turned, slowly, to look at the blades inside.

There was an Overseer's sabre, sharp and sleek and gold-handled, embossed with runes that were supposed to fend off the Outsider's magic. There was a shoddy, rusted cleaver, usually favored by gang members and the slaughterhouse Butchers.

And in the back of the case, there was--

"What is this?" Daud rasped. The Eye remained studiously silent.

In the back of the case was a Whaler's sword.

And it wasn't just any Whaler's sword. Daud knew those dents in the hilt. He knew the near-imperceptible scratches across the knurling. He knew the small nick near the tip from its very last kill, when the blade had scraped against the ribs of a woman who should never have died.

That was his sword.

"Corvo, what is this?" Daud tried again. His voice cracked, his breathing harsh and loud in his ears as he stared at the weapon he'd surrendered to Jessamine Kaldwin's memorial.

The Eye stirred, finally, quiet and somber.

'The Royal Protector spent a long time wondering what the blade meant,' it said. 'If it was a threat or a promise, and hoping, deep down, that it meant his mercy hadn't been misplaced. In the end he decided to keep it, as a reminder.'

"A reminder of what?"

'His failure.'

Daud sucked in a sharp breath.

"That's not--"

'He has now,' the Eye whispered, 'Failed two empresses.'

"No," Daud snapped. "No. There was nothing he--you--could have done. Not as you were back then; not before you had the Mark. And-- Outsider's balls, Attano, no one could have predicted Delilah. People aren't supposed to come back after getting trapped in the Void."

The Eye flickered in surprise. It didn't offer any kind of reply, quiet and unconvinced, and Daud reached up to curl his fingers gently around the little orb.

"You've given everything you have and more to this Empire," he said softly. "You can't continue blaming yourself for things that were so far beyond your control."

The Eye pulsed slowly, pensive. But after a few moments a little twitch of wry amusement tickled the back of Daud's mind.

'Brooding is best left to birds?' it said dryly.

Daud's lips quirked in a smile.

"It really is."

Chapter Text

The Empress no longer held court in the throne room atop Dunwall Tower.

Instead, the Great Hall--usually reserved for formal events and functions--had been converted into her working audience chamber. The throne itself had been dragged down and placed on a dais at one end, and all conferences since Delilah's ousting were held in the cavernous hall. Most of the city recognized it as her relocating while the actual throne room was repaired; some viewed it as her coming down closer to her people.

A very small, select few knew that it was because the throne room was where the Lord Protector now resided, frozen in stone beneath soft candles that Emily couldn't bear to put out.

"She didn't want to leave him in the dark," Jameson had explained quietly, when Daud asked. "Even if he isn't aware of what's going on around him... She didn't want to leave him alone in the cold."

Daud had only allowed himself a brief glance at the statue before busying himself with preparing the paints and supplies. It was only the day after they arrived and Emily had already made the arrangements for setting up the makeshift workshop, mentioning it between hasty bites of her breakfast before she'd disappeared to the duties of being an Empress. Jameson and Billie had been conscripted into helping bring up the heavier tools.

"Outsider's fucking eyes, Curnow, if you drop that on my foot again--"

"It isn't like I did it on purpose--"

'Helping' being a relative term, of course.

Daud pinched the bridge of his nose as a loud thud indicated the requested grindstone being dropped onto the floor nearby. He'd already commandeered a pair of sturdy tables to lay out the implements necessary for making more pigments: laboratory equipment, mortar and pestle, resins and vials of solvent. A wooden room divider made for a makeshift standing board, where he'd pinned lists of ingredients and half-completed sketches.

"Huh. You're...not terrible."

Daud shot Billie a glare as she peered over his shoulder.

"I did have an interest in fine art, you know," he groused, throwing back an elbow to prod her away. She stepped back with a chuckle, but that just gave Jameson room to sidle in to examine the drawings as well.

"It's a good grasp of shading and anatomy," he said appreciatively. "Did you learn that while you were at the Academy?"

Daud frowned.

"How did you--"

Jameson just blinked at him innocently.

Void, spies were such a nuisance.

"Yes, I sat in on a few art lectures at the Academy," Daud replied testily, using his cane to bat the two of them away, probably hitting shins a little harder than was absolutely necessary. "That's when Sokolov managed to paint that damn portrait."

"I always wondered where that ended up," Billie mused. "We all had such a time finding different places to stash it so you couldn't burn it."

"It was one of the few things you damn fools managed to keep from me," Daud agreed grudgingly. He wasn't entirely able to keep the pride out of his voice, however, if the glint in Billie's eye was anything to go by.

At the end of the table, Daud saw Jameson palming one of his notebooks, and let out a beleaguered sigh.

"Curnow, if you're going to stick around spying on me, at least do a better job of it."

Jameson cast him a surprised look. But the grin he offered as he put the journal back wasn't the least bit repentant.

"Apologies, Master Daud. Habits."

Habits taught by the worst kleptomaniac in the Isles, most likely.

"Don't call me that," Daud replied peevishly. "And stop stealing my things."

He reached out and plucked one of the lists from the board, handing it to Billie.

"I still need these ingredients," he said pointedly.

She accepted the tacit command with a roll of her eyes.

"Alright, old man, we'll leave you be. Come on, Curnow."

Jameson lifted his head from where he was peering at a rack of test tubes, raising an eyebrow.

"Neither of you can actually give me orders, you know."

Billie flashed him an unfriendly smirk.

"I could force you, if you'd like."

Jameson's replying grin bared far too many teeth.

"Try it."

"Both of you, out," Daud snapped. He could feel a headache forming behind his eyes, and was only slightly mollified by the guilty looks they both shot him. Billie obligingly left the room, Jameson following after her despite his earlier words.

Daud scrubbed an irritated hand over his face.

"Like dealing with wolfhound pups, I swear," he muttered.

'There are similarities,' the Eye agreed in amusement.

The familiar voice reminded Daud of what he'd been putting off doing. He grimaced, taking a brief moment to exhale a low, steadying breath.

And, finally, he turned toward the statue.

Daud had seen many unsettling things in his life. It came with growing up a poor street kid in the slums of Cullero; it came with being an assassin marked by the Outsider's black magic. It came with the choices he'd made and the things he'd seen while living in Dunwall's dark underbelly.

But nothing was so disconcerting as seeing Corvo Attano trapped silent and terrifyingly still in Void-touched marble.

'Father, Spymaster, Royal Protector,' the Eye murmured. 'He knew the weight was too much, in the end, but couldn't trust enough to share it. Could he have prevented what came?'

"No," Daud replied simply.

He walked toward the statue, a kind of halting deference slowing his steps. He could hear the stone itself humming, its edges flickering with Void magic. Corvo was rooted in time with his hand outstretched, violence written in the lines of his body and his features twisted into a furious snarl.

Corvo had always been a force of nature, always on the move, and seeing him frozen and static was just--wrong.

The Eye hummed uneasily. Daud reached out after a brief moment of hesitation, brushing his fingers comfortingly against the cold stone of Corvo's cheek.

Something sharp stung his fingertips. It darted down along his arm and into his chest, and Daud sucked in a gasping breath as the world lurched. He squeezed his eyes against a blinding flash of light--and when he opened them again, he stood in the Void.

Only it...wasn't.

Daud blinked rapidly as the sparks cleared from his vision. He was on a chunk of rock floating in an endless vista of nothingness, but his surroundings lacked the familiar blue and purple hues that usually marked the Outsider's realm. Instead, everything was tinged a whiskey-hued sepia, flat and monochromatic. There was no whalesong, no eerie sounds of a not-wind that chilled your bones--just the muted pulse of steady thumping, somewhere in the distance.

The statue he'd been touching had been transported with him, as well, and he snatched back his hand, staring at it in blank confusion.

"Daud?"

Daud whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. The pounding in his ears sped up as he stared at the man floating in front of him, the figure very much not the one he had been expecting.

"Attano?"

Corvo Attano blinked back at him with all of the bewilderment that Daud felt.

He seemed to be wearing the same outfit he'd been in on the day of the coup; the clothes matched those of the statue in the throne room. Without the veneer of stone Daud could see the subtle details of his face, the scars and lines from both laugher and frowns creasing sun-kissed skin. It was a far cry from the Royal Protector that Daud had seen all those years ago: that half-dead, barely speaking escapee who had stormed Daud's base just to spare his life.

Void, the man had aged well.

He was also limned in a pale golden glow and most definitely floating, hovering a few feet above the ground like their mutual deity tended to.

"What are you doing here?" Corvo asked, voice heavy with suspicion.

"That's--"

Daud paused, glancing around. The environment was particularly austere, no other islands to be seen in the distance, and there seemed to be an unnatural heaviness weighing down his limbs.

"That's a good question, actually. Where is 'here'?"

Corvo raised his eyebrows.

"The Void."

Ah. So that was where Emily had learned the art of a flat, entirely unimpressed inflection.

"This isn't the regular Void," Daud pointed out.

Corvo frowned.

"It's...not?" He turned his head, looking around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. The frown deepened. "I guess it isn't. In that case, I don't know."

Daud took a few steps forward, studying the floating Royal Protector. Closer, he could see that Corvo's body was hazy, indistinct, patches of him flickering in and out of existence.

"What do you know?" he asked carefully. "What do you remember?"

Corvo scrunched up his nose to think.

It was...perplexingly endearing.

"The memorial," he replied. "Being attacked by a woman who claimed to be Jessamine's sister. We fought, she took my Mark, and then it was...cold. Emily--"

His eyes widened, and Daud raised a hand to forestall any panic.

"She's fine," he reassured him. "Much better than you're doing, at any rate. You don't remember anything else?"

Corvo pursed his lips.

"I think... There was a ship," he said slowly. "Emily was there, and a woman you knew. Billie. A market-- Bastillian. And I was..."

He looked back at Daud then, eyes dropping to his chest. Daud followed his gaze, belatedly remembering the Eye's presence, to find the little orb glowing softly against his sternum. Corvo disappeared in a pulse of gold light, only to reappear in front of Daud just a few feet away. He stretched out a hand, brushing his fingers curiously across the Eye's smooth surface.

The Eye tingled, weird and electric, and Daud jolted in surprise. He instinctively swatted Corvo's hand away but the man didn't seem upset by it, leaning back with a thoughtful expression.

"I do remember, I think," he said. "Snatches of things, images. And--you. I've been with you."

His gaze rested on Daud, assessing and contemplative, and Daud fought the urge to squirm. There was a small section of wall nearby and he moved to sit down, instead, avoiding Corvo's gaze as he gave in to the weariness settling in his bones.

"In my defense, it wasn't my idea," he muttered.

"No, I know. I...hm." Corvo tilted his head to one side, eyes faraway. "You're looking for a way to help me. You and Emily."

"According to the Outsider," Daud said, "I'm supposed to help break whatever spell Delilah put you under. Right now you're making a rather terrifying statue in the middle of the Tower throne room."

Corvo scowled.

"Yes, I remember seeing that. Myself. You--touched me? The statue. That's how you got here."

Daud shrugged uncomfortably.

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time."

Corvo stared at him.

"Your first impulse when you see unexplained magic is to touch it?"

"If you have any better ideas, I'm certainly open to them," Daud replied irritably. "But at the moment all I'm running on are bastardized fifteen year-old painting spells and the word of a god who likes it when things are interesting."

Corvo fell silent, looking almost abashed. Daud scrubbed a hand over his face.

"Look, do you have any idea how we can find you?" he asked tiredly. "Because this--this isn't you. Not entirely. I think this place has something to do with the Eye's proximity to your physical body, such as it is."

"If this isn't my actual location in the Void, I'm not sure where I am," Corvo admitted. "But I can try to..."

Gold swirled around him as he closed his eyes, a frown creasing his forehead as he pressed his fingertips to his chest. The patchwork flickering of his body gradually slowed down, closing up into fractured cracks of light that splintered across his visage.

"It's somewhere...cold," he murmured. "Suffocating. And it hurts, like--dozens of daggers puncturing my skin."

His fingers spasmed, curling into a claw as pain twisted his features. When he sucked in a desperate gasp of air Daud reached without thinking, grabbing his wrist and pulling it away. A crackle of electricity danced up his arm but he paid it no mind, clasping Corvo's hand with his own.

"Attano?"

Corvo opened his eyes with a start, blinking rapidly. The panic on his face faded as he looked down at Daud's hold on his hand--but he didn't pull away.

After a long, awkward moment, Daud coughed uncomfortably and moved to drop his hand, but Corvo's grip just tightened.

"I think you're acting as a conduit," he said as Daud stared blankly at their clasped hands. He tugged gently and Daud stumbled forward off the wall and onto his feet, off-balance and unsteady. "You've gotten more tired the longer you've been here."

"Have I?" Daud asked weakly. He pulled on his hand and Corvo did let go, then, a sly smile playing around his mouth that Daud did not want to analyze too deeply.

The floating Royal Protector nodded.

"You should probably leave before the Void drains you completely. I don't know what would happen if you collapsed in here, but I doubt it'd be anything good."

Despite the exhaustion, Daud managed a smirk.

"Worried about me?"

Corvo scoffed. But there was something teasing about it: something amiable and fond.

"Not in the slightest. But..." he paused, glancing away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you. For trying to help me."

Daud blinked.

"Of course."

Corvo nodded, and Daud turned to walk back toward the statue. He'd almost reached it when Corvo spoke again.

"Daud."

He glanced over his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"I don't..." Corvo wasn't looking at him, staring down at his hands, his features drawn unhappily. "I don't know if I'll remember this. After you leave."

Daud studied him for a long moment, taking in the hunched set of his shoulders, the tense set of his mouth, and for the first time wondered just how alone Corvo had been this whole time.

"I'll come back," he said quietly. When Corvo's head jerked up in surprise, hope flashing across his face, he knew that his suspicions were close to the mark. "I promise, Corvo."

Corvo's throat worked as he swallowed, dark eyes searching, and after a moment his body relaxed.

"Thank you," he said again.

Unable to come up with a proper response, Daud just nodded in reply.

Then he turned back to the statue, laid a hand on its shoulder, and slipped out of the Void.

Chapter Text

"You know, you're not as completely abhorrent as I expected you to be."

Daud lifted an eyebrow over the rim of his cup of tea, laying his pencil down on Corvo's desk.

Jameson sat in one of the sofas on the opposite side of the room, sprawled out with an indolence that might have been convincing if not for the sharpness in his gaze. The young Spymaster had taken it upon himself to become Daud's unofficial minder after the incident that morning--though whether it was for his benefit or the benefit of others, Daud hadn't yet been able to tell.

Jameson and Billie had found him after his brief foray into the Void, lying unconscious at the base of Corvo's statue. They'd hauled him down to bed and he'd slept six straight hours without even showing signs of waking, groggily resurfacing to eat some food and relieve himself before passing out for another four.

He'd imparted the basics of what had happened to them, but while Daud was sure Jameson's report had made it to the Empress' ears, he was equally sure that she would want to speak with him herself.

"I'm sorry?" he offered mildly.

Jameson tilted his head to one side.

"The thing is," he mused, "I actually think that you are."

Daud's eyes narrowed.

He'd had the feeling of being watched ever since they landed in Dunwall. It didn't surprise him; he would have honestly been concerned for Emily's security if he hadn't been put under immediate surveillance. But it did mean that someone--if not Jameson himself--had kept an eye on him this entire time; and evidently that scrutiny hadn't just been idle observation.

They would have seen him flinch, sometimes, when Emily's voice snapped strong and commanding like her mother's. They would have seen him avert his eyes whenever he passed by a portrait of the former Empress, his shoulders hunched and his hands curled into fists.

And they would have seen him the previous night, when he slipped out to the courtyard gazebo to pay his respects to Jessamine Kaldwin's memorial: kneeling quietly in the dark to lay a small, folded paper swan atop the marble stone.

Jameson knew very well the depth of his regrets.

"Since when did Geoff Curnow even have a son?" Daud asked irritably, snatching back up his pencil.

"I was adopted," Jameson replied easily, allowing the diversion. "My birth parents died during the rat plague."

'He has known three fathers,' the Eye murmured. 'Two mothers. His idea of family is unconventional; he loves with a ferocity unaffected by blood.'

So the rumors of Curnow's marriage being one of convenience were likely true, then. They'd been barely whispers back when Daud had lived in the city; the man had been very careful in keeping his preferences private, and Daud had really only known because it had been his job to deal in secrets.

But if Jameson's biological parents had died of plague, Daud wondered if that was the reason the young man seemed to dislike him so much.

He'd been just as complicit in the city's fall as Burrows, after all.

'Is the blade truly more at fault than the hand that wields it?'

Daud scowled at the Eye's pointed inquiry, ignoring the question in favor of glaring down at the sketches he'd been working on.

Originally, he had been doing portraits, mimicking how Delilah painted Emily all those years ago. He'd already completed a small painting to test the pigments--Corvo in profile, done in lazurite and cinnabar and ochre--but after their conversation, he decided to go a different route. Rough full-body drawings of the Royal Protector littered the desk instead, depicting the man as Daud had seen him in the unsettling not-Void.

If Corvo himself didn't know his own location, it would be pointless to try to see through his eyes. They would still have to find out where it was, yes, but Daud had a feeling that getting him back out would be more involved--that the magic they needed would be more akin to opening a portal, like Delilah had done at Brigmore. The details would have to be narrowed down, but if he could paint Corvo in his location in the Void, it should be enough of a link to transport directly to him.

In theory.

Daud truly disliked how so much of their plan depended on theories.

A soft knock on the door interrupted his brooding; Daud frowned down at the sketches a moment longer before lifting his head.

"Enter."

The door opened hesitantly, revealing a young woman wearing a page uniform. She glanced at him, eyes darting and nervous, before spotting Jameson sprawled on the sofa. Relief crossed her features.

"Spymaster Curnow, the Empress has requested your presence."

Jameson groaned.

"Acting Spymaster," he complained. "Acting."

"As you say, milord," the page replied dubiously. "Her Majesty is waiting in the library."

Jameson let out a resigned grunt and the page disappeared back out the door. He made a great show of laboriously getting to his feet, but his movements were far too smooth to be borne of true malaise.

He fixed Daud with a plaintive look.

"Please try not to die from some kind of black magic in the next five minutes. I don't need Emily more mad at me than she already is."

Daud just smirked. Jameson made a face at him before slipping out of the room.

And Void, while Daud didn't trust him worth a damn, he did like the kid.

He took the opportunity of lacking a babysitter to push back away from Corvo's desk, stretching joints that had stayed fixed for too long, rotating his injured ankle experimentally. If nothing else, his unintended bedrest had done wonders for the injured limb: that, combined with the Royal Physician's fussing after his collapse and Emily's healing bonecharm, had him now walking with just a brace and the slightest limp.

It wasn't long before there was a sharp, brisk rap on the door, and Daud stood up as Emily entered the room, managing to bow to her with a modicum of grace.

"Your Majesty."

"Daud," she greeted. She moved immediately to occupy the sofa Jameson had vacated, sinking into the cushions with a tired huff. "It's good to see you awake."

Daud lifted an eyebrow--he doubted she was glad to see him in any capacity--but tilted his head in acknowledgement all the same.

"It's good to be awake," he replied frankly, even if his body argued otherwise. The dead sleep he'd fallen into after his little trip to the Void hadn't been restful; he still felt sluggish and slow.

"I'm surprised Billie isn't here," Emily observed. "She barely left your side while you were unconscious."

Daud shrugged. He went to join her in the little sitting area, settling in the plush chair across from the couch.

"I convinced her to go find herself some dinner. Jameson's been babysitting me well enough in the meantime."

A flicker of exasperation crossed Emily's face.

"Yes, he complained that you've been terribly boring since you woke up."

"Spying is boring," Daud pointed out, and Emily didn't even try to refute the fact that was what Jameson had been up to. "And he doesn't particularly like me."

"No, he doesn't," she agreed. "It's kind of impressive, actually; usually Jameson at least pretends to tolerate people. I'm not sure what you did to piss him off so much."

"I'm sure there are any number of things," Daud replied blandly. He tilted his head to one side, considering the exhausted Empress. He wasn't usually one for small talk, but if she was willing to indulge, so could he. "You don't seem to get along terribly well yourself."

Emily waved a hand.

"We've been friends for a long time. His adopted cousin was my governess; we grew up together under her tutelage. I eventually made him one of my advisors, but I found out only recently that he's been acting as my father's spy for years."

'The opportunity was too great to pass by,' the Eye affirmed, without even a hint of shame. Daud glanced down at the little orb for a brief moment, pursing his lips critically.

When he looked up again he found Emily's far-too shrewd gaze watching him. He hadn't told the other two what--who--the Eye was; just that it had been the bridge that let him talk to Corvo.

"So?" Emily prompted.

Daud hesitated, which seemed to answer whatever question she'd had. She leaned back against the sofa and scrubbed a hand over her face.

"That's my father, isn't it," she said tiredly. "Or some part of him, at least."

Daud raised his eyebrows.

"Yes."

She sighed.

"I'd wondered."

"You don't seem terribly surprised," Daud noted curiously. Emily's mouth turned down into something bitter, something sad.

"I am well aware," she said lowly, "Of the Outsider's fondness for putting souls in places they don't belong."

The Eye stirred.

'The Outsider... He gave her a gift once before,' it said softly. 'She wept, when she received it. She wept again when she lost it.'

Daud remembered a dead leathery heart, twisted by black magic and cold machinery, and had to suppress a shudder.

"But he's spoken to you?" Emily asked, looking at him with half-concealed hope in her eyes. "Through it?"

"To an extent," Daud allowed. "The thoughts are...disjointed. You really didn't hear anything when you held it?"

She shook her head.

"No. But the Outsider always has been particular about who's allowed to access his gifts. Jameson also said you were taken to the Void when you touched the statue?"

Daud tilted his hand from side to side.

"Yes, but it wasn't the regular Void. There was no sign of the Outsider's presence, he wasn't..." Daud had struggled to explain to the other two what it was like, but Emily, at least, had been to the Void before; she knew the feeling of being watched by the black-eyed deity. "I just didn't feel him there. I think the Eye acts as some kind of isolated pocket of the Void."

Emily nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in thought.

"He seemed a little disoriented at first," Daud continued, "But he remembered at least fragments of what's happened while he's been in the Eye. The Outsider said that it was just a piece of his soul in there; that might be why there's a disconnect."

"It would make sense," Emily agreed. She cast him a brief look, lips pursed, before glancing away again almost guiltily. "When do you think you'll be able to..?"

"I'll try again whenever you want me to," Daud replied gently, even if just the thought of it made him exhausted. "We can go up now, if you like."

Emily almost looked like she was going to take him up on it, her eyes calculating, but after a moment she just sighed.

"No, no. You still look like shit, and I don't think I've slept more than a few hours since we got back. Just...keep me apprised."

Daud tilted his head in acquiescence.

"Of course, Empress."

The smile she offered him was small, and tired, but it was genuine.

"Thank you."

Daud didn't bother concealing his bemusement as she stood up. First Corvo, and now Emily: both had offered him thanks, despite being the ones that Daud owed the most.

As Emily smoothed out the wrinkles in her shirt she studied his expression contemplatively, her eyes far too sharp, just like her father's.

"You know," she said, "I don't think I can ever forgive you for killing my mother."

And those sharp brown eyes caught it when he flinched--but Daud didn't allow himself the reprieve of looking away, even as the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

"But..." Emily shook her head with a small, quiet sigh. "I don't blame you for what happened."

Daud stared at her blankly. Something raw and wounded curled up in his chest, a heavy weight that threatened to suffocate him beneath the sudden onslaught of incredulity and wild, forcibly stifled hope.

"Why not?"

He hadn't meant for the words to come out so harsh. He certainly hadn't meant to sound so vulnerable, the question a broken rasp of disbelief.

Emily met his gaze steadily.

"Because you were just a tool," she replied, with the easy conviction of someone who had long ago decided what was fact. "Because if you hadn't done it, Burrows would just have hired someone else. You may have been the best assassin in Dunwall, but you weren't the only one. And because..."

She finally looked away, and being released from her attention was like a knife drawn from Daud's body, leaving him dizzy and limp.

"I know what it's like," she said quietly, "To be used as a pawn by powerful men."

Daud's breath stuttered to a halt in his throat. His heart pounded against his ribcage, threatening to claw its way out of his chest.

"I'm sorry," he choked, the words past his lips before he could think. Emily's head snapped up, her eyes wide. "I'm-- It will never be enough. There's nothing I can ever do to make up for what I did. But I am sorry."

Emily stared at him in stunned silence for a moment before nodding, slowly, the tight set of her shoulders easing.

"I know," she said softly.

It wasn't forgiveness. Daud would never allow himself to be granted forgiveness.

But it was more than he'd ever thought he would be given.

Emily nodded to him once more before slipping out of the room. As he heard the sounds of her footsteps fade away, Daud leaned over, pressed his shaking hands to his face, and breathed.

Chapter Text

"You sure you're ready for this again?"

"I'm fine, Billie," Daud replied patiently, lining up jars of paint in a neat row on the lip of the easel. Cullero cinnabar, Tyvian orpiment, Morley ochre... He'd just finished the last of the pigments that afternoon: a rich green made out of emeralds he'd pried from one of Corvo's cufflinks, pointed out by an Eye that expressed a vague distaste for the gaudy jewelry.

"It's only been a couple days," Billie pointed out, the worry in her voice scarcely concealed. "And going in there disabled you for nearly half of one."

"I've had plenty of time to rest, and I'll be more careful this time," Daud replied, setting down the last jar and turning to offer her a small, fond smile. "I promise, Billie."

Her expression was dubious, but she nodded all the same.

'She doesn't want--to lose you,' the Eye whispered distantly. 'Again. She doesn't want to lose you again. Not when she... She just... She just found you.'

And there was the other reason they needed to progress quickly.

Daud angled his body away from Billie as he reached up to curl his fingers around the Eye with a concerned grimace. It had been...off, ever since he'd been pulled into the Void. Sluggish; disjointed. He had yet to tell the others about its state, but the slow deterioration was definitely a cause for concern.

"Is this...a shirt?"

Daud turned around to find Emily poking at the canvas on the table with a bemused look on her face.

"Yes," he admitted, a little embarrassed. "When Delilah performed her ritual, she used the loom that made your dresses to make her canvas. I've...had to improvise."

Rifling through Corvo's things had been uncomfortable enough--and that wasn't even including the fact that he'd had to use the man's hair to make a paintbrush. It had taken a while to collect all of the black and grey strands--short, now, not long and unkempt like Daud remembered--but he'd managed to salvage enough bristles from the man's hairbrush to make a decently-sized paintbrush, binding them to a thin piece of whale bone.

Even if it was to save the man's life, Daud had a feeling he would still be apologizing for the invasion of privacy when he finally broke the spell.

And it would be 'when'.

At this point he didn't even dare think otherwise.

"I suppose that works," Emily said doubtfully, eyeing the cloth that he'd primed with unrefined whale oil and stretched across a wooden frame. She straightened up when he caught her attention, nodding toward the easel and the paints. "And you're done with everything else?"

"All that's left is to figure out the subject matter," Daud affirmed. "I'm hoping your father might be able to help find a specific location. If not, we'll go back to the original plan of trying to see through his eyes."

Emily nodded. Her features remained mostly impassive but Daud could see the hope light in her eyes, and he glanced courteously away.

Things still weren't...completely comfortable between them. There was still too much history there: too much guilt and regret. But he had stopped tensing up anytime she came into a room, at least, and Daud was feeling magnanimous enough to consider that a win.

He turned back to the statue, inhaling a deep breath, letting it out slow and even. The Eye volunteered no insight of its own volition so he reached up, rubbing his thumb over the little orb: nudging at its presence in the back of his mind.

'The Lord Protector is...tired,' the Eye whispered, making something clench in Daud's chest. 'He is tired of--pain. Isolation. Silence. He is... He is tired.'

Daud curled his fingers around the Eye gently.

"Just a little longer," he murmured. "Hold on just a little while longer."

He cast Billie and Emily a final look, nodding his readiness, and then reached out to rest his fingertips on Corvo's outstretched arm.

The world heaved around him. But Daud was ready this time: bracing for the rush of vertigo, keeping his eyes shut until the feeling passed. His mark pulsed softly and he shook his head to clear out the lingering disorientation, blinking into the dimly-lit darkness of the odd, whiskey-hued Void.

It was a different island this time, though the statue was still there. Daud dropped his hand as he looked around, taking in the new surroundings. A figure sat huddled on the edge of the island, arms tucked around their knees, and Daud's brow furrowed in concern as he took a few steps in that direction.

"Corvo?"

Corvo jerked, turning around with wide eyes and scrambling to his feet. His body was even more indistinct than it was before: large sections flickered in and out as he stared at Daud in raw, open relief.

"Daud! You--" he cleared his throat. "You came back."

"I said that I would," Daud replied, blinking.

Corvo tilted his head to one side, something soft in his gaze.

"I suppose you did," he agreed. "Is everything alright?"

Daud lifted his eyebrows, giving the hazy Lord Protector a significant once-over.

"You tell me."

Corvo glanced down at himself. He huffed out a wry laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"I think this place is finally getting to me," he admitted lightly. Daud frowned at the flippancy in his tone but didn't press the issue.

"You're probably right," he said evenly. "So we need to find your location so I can get you out of here. You need to get back before your daughter starts thinking about selling off all your possessions."

Corvo's smile fell; he didn't even take the opportunity to scoff at Daud's ineffectual attempt at humor.

"I've tried," he replied, combing his fingers through his hair distractedly. "I haven't managed to get through again. Not since you were here before."

Daud chewed on his bottom lip, glancing away for a moment before looking back up, meeting Corvo's eyes.

"I'm here now," he offered quietly.

Corvo blinked at him.

And while the ensuing smile was small, it was also painfully, gratefully sincere.

"So you are," he said.

He sat back down, patting the ground next to him. Daud moved forward obligingly, settling down opposite, their knees brushing against each other.

Corvo grabbed one of his hands and Daud congratulated himself on not even twitching.

"Just...anchor me," Corvo said, closing his eyes and exhaling a deep breath. Daud wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to do that, and Corvo didn't volunteer any further information, so he just slotted their fingers together and waited: watching as Corvo pressed the palm of his free hand against his own chest.

"It's like trying to find a droplet of water in the middle of the damn ocean," he muttered, brow furrowing. "And just about as irritating. I haven't been able to--"

He trailed off with a quiet hiss of pain. The Eye pulsed in response and Daud cast Corvo a worried look, studying the strained lines of his face. He reached for the Eye absently, brushing his fingertips across the little orb in silent reassurance.

The island beneath them shuddered.

And then fractured.

Corvo's hand was torn violently from his grip; Daud caught just a glimpse of wide brown eyes before they disappeared into the dark. He tried to shout as they were ripped apart but he didn't have the breath to do so, dragged through the Void as if he'd been caught in some vicious undertow.

Black-purple-grey flashed by at a dizzying speeds; Daud squeezed his eyes shut against the vertigo. Lightheadedness threatened to overwhelm him as he was yanked through the Void, his body feeling like it was being pulled in a thousand directions at once. He eventually seemed to tear through some kind of rough, thick netting, and landed onto solid ground with a heavy thump.

Daud just laid there for a few moments, blinking away the stars behind his eyelids and sucking in desperate, shaky gasps of air. And when he finally lifted his head, he saw no sign of Corvo--but what he did find was much worse.

Daud scrambled to his feet, dread rising in the back of his throat as he stared up at a towering, familiar tree.

It was the same place where Delilah had performed her ritual.

The same tree, the same courtyard stones; the same array of floating islands. But its presence had changed: the Void here was darker, more malevolent. Twisted, thorned vines wrapped around everything from the tree's roots to the very island itself, massive tendrils draping over the sides. They curved up and around to form a suppressive, protective cocoon around the islands, woven tight to enclose the broken little pocket of Void.

This was where he had trapped Delilah.

And this was where Delilah had trapped Corvo.

Daud stumbled up the pathway, moving as quickly as he could toward the ruined structures he knew to be beyond the tree. Vines twitched away from his feet as he walked, coiling and alive and distrustful of the intruder. He paid them no mind, hastening to the landing that looked out over the decaying amphitheater and the altar where Delilah had tried to steal Emily's soul.

His breath caught, strangled, in his throat.

Corvo was lashed down to the altar like an offering, thick vines twisted around his wrists and throat and ankles. Blood stained the stone beneath him, his body a mess of puncture wounds from thorns that were still sunk deep into his flesh. His eyes were closed, but as Daud took a step down the stairs, the Eye stirred against his chest.

Corvo inhaled a low breath, causing the vines to tighten their grip. Brown eyes opened, glazed and unseeing, and Daud risked another careful step.

"Corvo?" he called softly.

Corvo tilted his head toward him. The Eye pulsed and Daud saw recognition flicker in his gaze, clarity shining through, if just for a moment. He moved forward another few paces.

Corvo blinked, rapidly. Pain creased his features as he tried to shift on the altar, one hand twitching in Daud's direction.

"Daud," he rasped, breathy and hoarse. He swallowed roughly beneath the tendrils wrapped around his throat. "You're..."

"I'm here," Daud reassured him quietly, crossing the last bit of distance between them. Up close he could see that Corvo was in even worse shape than he thought: the rich blue uniform of the Lord Protector was in tatters, and through the torn cloth he could see bruises purpling Corvo's chest and arms, long gouges clawed bloody down his torso. Some of the blood spattered on his body and the altar beneath him was old and brown, while some was still a fresh bright red.

Delilah had been gone for almost two months now, but time never had worked properly in the Void.

"I'll get you out of here," Daud promised fervently. He wasn't sure how--he wasn't entirely sure how he even got there in the first place--but he couldn't just leave Corvo like this.

He reached out unthinkingly, brushing some of the matted strands of hair away from Corvo's face; catching his breath when the man relaxed into the touch with a quiet, relieved sigh.

The Void screamed.

Corvo cried out as the vines holding him constricted further; his body arched into a pained bow. More vines surged up from the ground around them and Daud swore, viciously, leaping away from the altar as one nearly caught him across the face.

He grabbed at his hip for a sword that wasn't there, clenching his hand and reaching, drawing the Void's powers to him, commanding time to halt-

Nothing happened.

A thin vine whipped across the backs of his knees; the sharp, lancing pain had Daud pitching forward onto the ground. His palms scraped across the rough stone as he scrambled out of the way of another swipe, kicking at another vine that tried to wrap around his calf. He could barely see Corvo through the thrashing plants but he could hear him, distressed and agonized, his voice a gasping shout.

"Go! Get out of here, Daud, go--"

"No," Daud snarled, diving through an opening in the vines. "I'm not leaving you--"

He rolled to his feet, darting around the flailing tendrils and sprinting full-tilt toward the altar. He skidded to a stop beside it, grabbing at the vines wrapped around Corvo's limbs, thorns piercing his skin. Anguished brown eyes watched as he tore at the cursed plants, blood slicking his hands and arms.

Too late, he felt something curl tight around his ankle.

The vine yanked. Daud slammed against the ground as he was pulled backward, fingers clawing at the amphitheater's broken stone floor. He reached out for Corvo, scrabbling desperately for purchase: for any kind of handhold, anything to keep him there--

"Daud!"

And then there was nothing left to grasp.

The vine released its grip as Daud slid off the side of the island, his stomach bottoming out in cold fear. He reached desperately for the ability to stop time, to transverse, but there was nothing, not even a spark of power. The breath was slammed out of his body as he crashed through the web of vines that encased the pocket of twisted Void and he--

He fell.

He fell for eternity; he fell for mere seconds. He fell through the endless dark and when he finally opened his eyes it was to Billie's worried face and a scream in his throat, his entire body shaking with violent tremors.

"Daud? Are you--"

Daud pushed away from her blindly, staggering drunkenly to his feet. He could hear her words of concern only at the far reaches of his attention, distantly registering Emily's startled face as he careened over to the worktable and grabbed a pencil, pulling the canvas to him with trembling hands.

"Should we...?"

The sketch strokes were rough, sloppy. Charcoal blackened the side of his palm as he drew, the lines childlike and jagged with how badly his hands shook. As soon as he had the basics outlined he took the canvas over to the easel and set it into place--and then he grabbed his brush, opened the jars, and began to paint.

"Not yet. Leave him be."

Daud worked feverishly, slapping down squid-ink black, whelk purple, whale oil blue. The image of that cracked, broken place in the Void burned in his mind, searing into the undersides of his eyelids. He could still feel the phantom thorns jabbing into his skin, feel the horrible lurch of falling; feel the warm touch of his hand against Corvo's forehead.

The memory of Corvo's anguished cry urged him on, and as he painted, the mark on his hand glowed brilliant gold.

Distantly, Daud was aware of time passing. He was aware of the candles burning down low, of the sun tracking across the wall through the windows. He was aware of quiet murmurs and the chill in the air and the way his breath strangled in his throat when he thought about the fact that he had found Corvo and then left.

A gentle hand brushed against his shoulder.

"Daud," a voice said softly. "Daud, you need to stop."

Daud shook his head stubbornly, shrugging off the unwelcome touch. But it was already enough to break his concentration and he paused, shivering, pulling away from the drunken edge that come from channeling too much Void power. He took a stumbling step backward to take in the entirety of the canvas, swaying blearily as he stared at what he'd done so far.

The painting was still unfinished, waiting to be polished with a precision that his shaky hands weren't currently capable of, but it was complete enough to convey the details of what would be.

The broken, cracked stones of the amphitheater floor. The half-ruined arches of the covered pathways, choked out with abandoned undergrowth. The living vines that teemed like a shoal of hagfish hungry for chum, riddled with thorns the length of his arm.

The Void, purple-black and endless, stretching far into the distance.

The altar, stained with blood.

And Corvo.

Daud swallowed, reaching for the painting, his brush dropping from nerveless fingers.

Corvo's mouth was open in a silent scream, thick vines coiled around his body. They wrapped around his throat and his waist and his wrists, suspending him painfully above the altar--but one arm had managed to pull free. One hand was outstretched, fingers spread and desperately reaching for--

For--

Daud's legs gave out.

He was only barely aware of being caught before unconsciousness dragged him down into the dark.

Chapter Text

"All these years, and you still manage to surprise me, old friend."

Daud opened his eyes to the Void.

He rolled onto his side, blinking through the exhausted blanket that seemed to weigh down every cell in his body. He was laying on a replica of the cot he'd set up in Corvo's bedroom, the Outsider sitting on a rocky outcropping a few yards away, his black eyes contemplative as he stared out into the emptiness.

"Whassat?" Daud mumbled, contemplating sitting up.

It sounded like far too much of an effort.

"I suppose it shouldn't be that shocking, at this point," the Outsider mused. "When you decide to take a course of action, you put your entire soul into doing it."

Seemed like sitting was going to be necessary.

Daud levered himself up with a displeased groan, dropping his legs over the side of the bed. He leaned forward onto his thighs for a few bleary moments, squinting as he followed the Outsider's gaze to a large mass floating in the distance. When he made out the twisted tangles of strands that seemed to make up the surface of the object, Daud straightened, instantly alert.

"Is that..."

"Delilah's Void," the Outsider affirmed. His lips pressed together in distaste. "I am still unable to touch it, and its presence is beginning to become...irritating."

Daud frowned.

"What do you mean?"

The Outsider finally turned in his direction, black eyes unfathomable.

"When a piece of shrapnel enters your flesh," he said, "Your body tries to expel it. But sometimes the wounds are too deep to cleanse--and when that happens, the foreign object is encapsulated to keep it from poisoning you further."

Unease coiled in Daud’s chest.

"And if that takes place in the Void?" he demanded. "What happens to what's inside?"

The Outsider regarded him inscrutably.

"It is isolated, and it dies."

Daud snarled, anger burning through the exhaustion as he staggered to his feet.

"He's still in there--"

"I am aware."

Daud took a few shaky steps forward, hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"Damn you, you useless creature," he spat. "I've done what you told me to--"

"This is not by my choice, Daud," the Outsider interrupted sharply. Those black eyes flashed; the emotion in them made Daud pause. "I am an avatar of the Void, not the Void itself. There is only so much about it that I can control."

Daud blinked in surprise. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased, just a little, but they still stayed in a stiff, stubborn set.

"I'm not going to lose him to Delilah's twisted machinations," he said darkly. "I won't let that happen."

The Outsider lifted one elegant eyebrow.

"No, I imagine you won't," he agreed, leaning forward. "Tell me, old friend, when did your desire to save Corvo become something more than a debt to be repaid?"

Daud's breath stuttered in his throat.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, a beat too late.

The Outsider tilted his head to the side.

"Remarkable," he murmured. "So many years I've been in your life, and yet this is the first time you have ever lied to me."

Daud scowled, looking away.

Those black eyes always had seen far too much.

"Does it really matter?" he muttered, shifting his gaze back to the distant object, glaring at the source of all his recent problems. "I'm getting him out of there either way. Even if he ends up forgetting."

And because the truth was, he didn't know.

He didn't know when his decision to repay Emily Kaldwin for saving his life--to repay Corvo, for sparing it in the first place--had become something other than an abstract duty. He was more than aware of the debts he owed, and while he was willing to pay for them without complaint, he had never expected to care.

He didn't know if he wanted anything with Corvo, but he knew what he wanted for Corvo.

He wanted the man to be happy. He wanted him to have a life free of pain, of worry; he wanted to never again see that broken expression from fifteen years ago on Corvo's face. He wanted to give him a chance to leave dreary Dunwall for the first time in over a decade, to feel the sands of Serkonos beneath his feet and the sun warm on his face--to make up for all the years he had suffered, whether it was from Daud's hand or otherwise.

He wanted to never see the Eye's sorrow reflected in Corvo's whiskey-brown eyes. He wanted to be able to tell Corvo that everything would be alright and mean it.

But there was no way to guarantee that, no way to make it a reality--there was only the one thing that Daud could do, which was to rescue the man from the Void.

He wasn't capable of anything else, but he could do this.

And it would have to be enough.

"You're almost at the end of this tale," the Outsider mused, watching Daud keenly. "I wonder, what do you plan for your next one? Where will the ex-Knife go, once all of this is over?"

Daud shrugged, looking out across the lonely Void.

"If Corvo decides not to have me executed? Home, I suppose."

"Do you really think he would do that, after all of this?"

"It's the least I deserve," Daud replied simply.

"Even the absolution of an Empress hasn't been enough to assuage your guilt," the Outsider observed, fascinated.

Daud thought of Corvo's dead, hopeless eyes as he was dragged away from Jessamine Kaldwin's body. He thought of how gaunt the Royal Protector had been after six months of torture in Coldridge, washing up in the Flooded District half-delirious from poison, betrayed yet again by the people he trusted.

Daud thought of the anguished, desperate cry as he was torn from the Void, leaving Corvo alone once more.

"No. It isn't."

The Outsider hummed, the sound more like whalesong than anything a human throat could produce. He leaned back, motioning toward Daud casually.

"I'll let you return to it, then. You should be rested enough now to return."

"That's why you pulled me in here?"

"I know you don't like to believe it, Daud, but I have only ever done what I could to help you."

"You're right," Daud agreed. "I don't believe you."

The Outsider just smiled enigmatically. Between one blink and the next, Daud found himself back in the waking world, staring up at Corvo's ceiling.

When he climbed out of bed he actually did feel refreshed, damn the fickle creature.

But, meddling deity or not, he wasn't going to waste the unexpected energy. Daud made his way to the bathroom, allowing himself the time to take a slightly longer-than-necessary shower. The weeks at Albarca, and then on the Dreadful Wale, had made him keenly appreciative of personal hygiene--especially when it came in the form of hot water.

By the time he was done his skin was pink from the heat, and he felt encouragingly more alive. He dressed quickly before making his way out of Corvo's chambers.

It was just barely morning, and the Tower was still quiet. Daud took a brief, lonely detour to the kitchens to snag a couple of apple tartlets before heading up to the throne room, eating them appreciatively before settling down on the stool in front of the canvas.

Being able to see what he had painted without looking through a Void-bleary haze--seeing Corvo, agonized and desperate and trapped--made him falter, just for a moment.

But he nevertheless picked up the brush, purposeful and determined, and began to paint again.

A few hours passed in studious quiet before his concentration was interrupted. Daud glanced up at the sound of movement, spotting a bleary-eyed Empress emerging from her chambers at the back of the throne room. She wore a thick, fluffy robe over some kind of flimsy nightdress, both garments a rich Kaldwin turquoise, and as she yawned into her fist Daud was suddenly struck by just how young she was.

She was no longer a child--she hadn't been since she was ten years old--but she was still only in her twenties, young and already burdened with responsibility. Her reign so far had been anything but tranquil, and the lessons she'd learned along the way hadn't been in meetings or staid lectures: they'd been in sweat, in blood, in disillusionment and the sharp sting of betrayal. She'd cut her teeth on the bones of treason, and sharpened them on the whetstone of a world that had no place for child Empresses.

As she padded over, Daud inclined his head in greeting, dropping his eyes briefly--respectfully--to the floor.

"Your Majesty."

"Daud," she acknowledged sleepily. "I'm surprised you're already awake."

"Our mutual benefactor helped speed along my recovery, apparently."

She blinked owlishly.

"That's...oddly useful of him."

Daud huffed a small laugh, tilting his head in agreement as Emily turned toward the painting. Unhappiness flickered in her half-lidded eyes.

"So this is how you found him?"

"This is where he was. It's...the same place where Delilah performed her ritual, fifteen years ago."

"Poetic," Emily observed sourly. She scowled, averting her eyes from the canvas before abruptly turning away. "I'm--going to go get dressed."

She left before he could reply, and Daud watched her go with a grimace. He suspected that she'd already studied the painting extensively.

He would have done it differently, in hindsight, but he hadn't exactly been thinking clearly when he'd been caught in that Void-touched fever.

Daud returned to painting, dipping the brush in the jar of dwindling purple pigment and layering the color over the blacks and greys of the Void. Billie came in at one point, irritated at finding him out of bed, and forced him to take a break to eat something. He did so dutifully but kept glancing back at the painting, idly fingering the orb around his neck as he ate.

The Eye had been silent since he woke up, and Daud didn't dare talk to it for fear that it wouldn't answer back.

He needed to get Corvo out of there before it was too late.

By the time Billie grudgingly deemed him sufficiently fortified, both Jameson and Emily had wandered in, but Daud shunted them to the edges of his awareness when he returned to painting, scowling as he found that he'd come to the last of the whelk paint.

He was almost finished. He could feel it.

"Jameson, is there a reason you're avoiding your parents?"

All he really had left was the detailing on the Void, and the 'personal touch' that came with meddling with black magic, which generally meant blood--or some other kind of bodily fluid, according to hearsay.

Daud had always just stuck to blood.

"They just got back from Wynnedown yesterday, I'm hardly avoiding them."

He grabbed the empty bottle and dumped the cinnabar and lazurite pigments into it, blending Cullero red and Karnacan blue to make a deep, vivid purple.

"Is it because Lara always tries to set you up with that banker's kid? Or did your fathers pick a fight with the trading commission again?"

He could already sense the magic coiling lazily around the canvas, commanding attention the same way a rune or bonecharm compelled people to seek them out. It hummed like whalesong just below the regular range of hearing, sad and eerie and teeth-grindingly discordant, and as he brushed more plum-colored pigment onto the canvas, it only grew in volume.

"Mother gave up on that years ago, and they are fine, thank you, Empress."

After a time, Daud finally sat back, dropping the brush into a glass of turpentine as he surveyed the painting. It was no Cienfuegos, and there were places that could certainly use work on an artistic level--but the magic that bound it together was solid, complete. He didn't have to make any more changes for the ritual to work.

It was done.

Now it just needed the final piece.

Daud pulled the dagger from the sheath in his boot, turning it over in his hand absently before placing the blade against his thumb. He slid it across his fingertip, barely feeling the sting through the tough calluses built up from years of working with his hands. After a moment of consideration, he reached up to smear bright red across the canvas below the altar, layering it over the spatters of blood he'd already depicted in paint.

The painting shivered. The hum of whalesong grew to a crescendo, and Daud had to move quickly away as a sharp burst of light coalesced in front of the easel. It started spinning slowly, growing in size until it was just large enough for him to walk through. He couldn't see anything through the swirling light, but he could feel the presence of the Void beyond; feel the tug of magic in his veins.

The Eye stirred against his chest.

'Daud?' it whispered.

Daud's heart clenched, skipping a painful beat before picking up an urgent tempo. He cast a look over his shoulder at the three stunned faces staring at the portal.

"I'll be back. Do not follow me."

"Daud, wait--"

He wasn't surprised when Emily objected. He was surprised when she stretched out her hand to offer him Corvo's folding sword.

"Take this."

Daud accepted the weapon, blinking in astonishment. He glanced up at her and received a stern look in return.

"I expect it back."

Daud smiled briefly and sketched a shallow bow.

"Of course, Empress."

Then he turned around and stepped into the Void.

Chapter Text

The first thing to greet Daud upon exiting the portal was pain.

Corvo's sword fell from nerveless fingers as he crumpled to his knees, sucking in desperate gasps of air as agony tore through his body. Sharp welts raked across his back and sandpaper tore across his skin; dozens of daggers seemed to puncture his flesh at once. When he looked down he saw red blossom on his hands and arms, and stared dumbly at the open gouges and bleeding abrasions.

His palms were scraped raw, dirt and pebbles ground into the wounds, and Daud belatedly remembered clawing at the ground as he was dragged off his feet and thrown into the open Void.

"Well, isn't this new and unpleasant," he muttered, wincing as he reached into his back pocket to pull out the rag he'd been using to clean his brush between colors. It was absolutely filthy but would serve well enough as padding for now; he just hoped that infections couldn't cross from the Void into the waking world.

He would have thought it impossible before--but he'd also never experienced actual, lingering injuries in the Void before.

Delilah's vision of the Void certainly was unique.

Daud folded the cloth carefully and wrapped it around the sword's hilt, grimacing as he picked the weapon up again. The portal had opened onto the landing above the amphitheater, and he used the crumbling wall to help lever himself to his feet, grinding his teeth together as his aching limbs protested the movement. He took a few deep, steadying breaths.

And barely ducked just in time to avoid a vine that cracked through the air where his head had been.

"Awake already, huh?" he grunted, sidestepping out from in front of the portal to keep from getting knocked back through. He didn't know how long the magic would hold, didn't know if he'd be able to return if he left now--and he damn well wasn't going to risk it.

The vine whipped around again, and Daud dove beneath it, hissing in pain but rolling to his feet with Corvo's sword in hand. He hit the switch on the side of the hilt; the blade slid out neatly, and when he brought it down on the thrashing tendril, it cut through like the sharpest unbroken steel.

He'd held the weapon only briefly once before--so many years ago, exhausted and looking into Corvo's fever-glazed eyes--but he had seen it in action enough to know how deadly it could be.

As the vine fell to the ground, Daud smiled grimly and rose to his feet. He may not have access to the Outsider's powers in Delilah's twisted little pocket of the Void, but he had been delivering killing blows long before he'd been Marked.

He got to work, slicing through the forest of twisting vines that rose to meet him as he descended the stairs. He could just barely make out the altar through the thrashing plants, but he could see glimpses of his goal: a flash of Royal Protector blue cloth, a glance of tousled black hair.

Corvo was just out of reach but he was still right there, and Daud redoubled his efforts as he cut through the vines, ignoring the sharp lashes that tore across his skin.

He had his objective.

And he would fulfill his promise.

When the last of the thrashing obstacles finally fell, Daud staggered to the altar, sword flashing to cut through the vines holding Corvo down. He retracted the folding blade, hooking the hilt to his belt before beginning the process of removing the damned things, trying to ignore the way Corvo whimpered in pain. Pulling the thorns from his flesh left deep, bloody gouges behind.

Once the last of the restraints were gone, Daud gathered Corvo's shivering form in his arms, his hand shaking with pain and adrenaline as he reached up to cup the man's cheek in his bloodied palm.

"Corvo," he murmured.

The Royal Protector barely stirred; Daud felt ice-cold dread crawl down his spine.

"Corvo, get up," he rasped. "Come on, open your eyes."

Corvo still didn't wake--but the Eye did, rousing sluggishly like an animal exiting hibernation, vacillating melancholic and disoriented in the back of Daud's mind.

'Tired,' it whispered.

Daud swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat, his chest aching with the soul-deep weariness he felt from the little orb.

"I know," he said softly. "I know you are. And I swear you'll be able to rest after this--I'm sure Emily won't let you do anything else. But we need to get you out of here first."

'Tired,' the Eye moaned again. 'Alone. So alone. So tired. Only pieces left.'

Daud tightened his grip around Corvo's shoulders, pressing his face into matted black hair.

"Please, Corvo," he implored. "You aren't-- You have your daughter to go back to, you have that little asshole Curnow, you have--"

Me, he wanted to say, but he strangled the words into silence before his useless tongue tried to voice them. If you'll take me... You have me.

"You're not alone anymore," he said instead. "You don't have to be alone anymore."

'Pieces,' the Eye wailed. 'Pieces, pieces, piecespiecespieces--'

Daud cast a desperate look over his shoulder at the portal. The swirling vortex was barely large enough for him to step through himself, and just the idea of trying to make it larger--if he even could--was exhausting. If he carried Corvo on his back, maybe...

But he didn't know what would happen if he took Corvo back without his mind fully present. Would he release him from stone only to have a blank, empty shell? The thought was worse than just having Corvo trapped as a statue.

Daud wasn't going to leave him, not like this, not again, but he couldn't take him with his mind still broken into pieces and--

"Pieces," he breathed.

Daud shifted his grip, cradling Corvo against his chest with one arm and leaning back just enough to dig the Eye out from under his shirt. The smooth surface seemed duller, somehow, but there was still a tiny spark of life in its murky depths.

Daud curled his fingers around the small device.

"Please," he prayed, and he didn't know if it was to the Outsider or any other kind of mythical higher power that might have been listening, "Please, let me get this one thing right."

If he could do this--if he could save Corvo, save the man whose life he ruined--it wouldn't absolve him of all the things he'd done. It wouldn't make up for the debt he owed Emily, or erase the damage he had done to her people.

But it was something. It was some small sliver of penitence, a tiny step towards making amends--if only he could do it right.

It was almost physically painful for Daud to pull the Eye over his head. The little orb that had been his constant companion fell terrifyingly silent as it left his chest, pulsing a last weak, sad keen. The warm familiar presence faded as he dropped the chain around Corvo's neck instead, tucking the Eye inside the torn fabric of his shirt to rest it against scarred, bloodied skin.

"Just this one thing," Daud whispered.

For one long, painfully breathless moment, nothing seemed to happen.

Then the Eye started to glow, warm and incandescently bright. The hum that Daud usually heard in the back of his mind sang like runesong in his ears, soft and haunting. As he watched, the orb coalesced into pure light, seeming to let out a quiet sigh as it sank through the piece of bone it rested on and into Corvo's chest, leaving just the chain and inert fragment of whalebone behind.

Heart already in his throat, Daud nearly yelped when Corvo suddenly sucked in a deep, gasping breath.

Whiskey-brown eyes fluttered open, dazed and unseeing for just a few moments before they caught on Daud's face.

"Daud?" Corvo mumbled.

"Hey there," Daud rasped, relief weakening his limbs. He sagged forward, his muscles peevishly refusing to obey him after being held tense for so long, his head spinning giddily.

Corvo blinked a few times, looked up at him hazily.

"You...came back."

Daud huffed a laugh, short and only slightly hysterical.

"You really need to start taking me at my word, Attano."

A wry smile curved one side of Corvo's mouth.

"Guess so," he agreed. He groaned as Daud helped him sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the altar. "Void, I'm tired."

Daud remembered the Eye's broken, mournful cries and glanced away, just for a moment.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "Can you stand?"

Corvo studied the vine-covered floor dubiously.

"...yes?"

Daud snorted, pulling Corvo's arm over his shoulders. He tucked a hand around the other man's waist, holding onto him carefully as Corvo eased off the altar and onto the ground. The Royal Protector had barely gotten his feet under him before he was swaying, sagging into Daud's side, limbs uncoordinated and weak.

"Fuck."

Daud nudged his hip gently, helping him take a few shaky steps.

"If it makes you feel better, you probably won't take those wounds with you out of the Void," he offered as encouragement.

The physical ones, at least. But the man had been trapped and tortured in the Void for just over three months now; how that would affect his psyche in the long run, Daud didn't know.

Corvo tilted his head to one side.

"That...does, actually," he admitted, taking the next step with a little more enthusiasm.

"Though you'll likely still have to deal with your daughter's fussing."

Corvo chuckled, warm and unperturbed, and the last of Daud's lingering worry finally faded.

"I think I can live with that."

Daud made a skeptical noise in the back of his throat as he helped Corvo limp across the amphitheater, taking more of his weight as they reached the stairs. Corvo clung onto him tightly as they made their way slowly upward; by the time they reached the landing he was panting, sweat beading his forehead as his teeth clenched tightly together.

"Can you make it through on your own?" Daud asked worriedly, glancing between him and the portal. He was less concerned about Corvo's dissociation, now, but the likeliness of being able to physically carry the other man through without collapsing himself was...low.

Corvo inhaled a shaky breath, nodding as he let it out slow and careful.

"Think so."

Daud kept a hand on Corvo's shoulder as the other man straightened, swaying on his feet but not falling. He made sure Corvo wasn't going to tip over before letting go, stepping to the side and tilting his head toward the portal.

"Well, go on, then. Emily's waiting for you."

"Daud--"

Daud blinked as Corvo reached out, lifting a concerned hand to assist him--but then he froze in place as callused fingers slid into his hair. His breath stuttered in his throat as they curled around the back of his neck, heart pounding in his ears as Corvo pulled him close to press their foreheads together.

"Thank you."

"You--" Daud cleared his throat, voice rough as he and Corvo breathed in the same air. "You're--welcome."

Corvo hummed. When he pulled back those brown eyes were still exhausted, still worn and weary, but there was a soft fondness in them as well. His hand dropped from Daud's skin as he turned toward the portal; and as he limped through it, Daud tried not to miss the warm weight of his touch.

It wasn't until Corvo disappeared through the swirling vortex that Daud finally, after so many weeks--maybe even months; maybe even years--felt the suffocating weight on his chest ease.

He glanced back at the dark, twisted pocket of Void where he'd imprisoned one person and freed another, both actions taken with the best intentions even if their outcomes had differed. Something finally settled deep inside him, the constant turmoil of his thoughts soothing into a calm, tranquil sea.

He was ready for whatever came, and he would face the repercussions of his choices without regret.

Daud nodded firmly to himself, turned around, and walked through the portal.

And almost immediately pitched forward onto the floor.

"Daud!" Billie's voice exclaimed as he caught himself on his hands and knees, just barely preventing his face from slamming into the cold tile. Whatever strength the Outsider had gifted him, whatever energy had kept him going while in the Void--every bit of it evaporated all at once, the portal hissing shut behind him as his grip on the magic failed.

As his vision greyed around the edges, Daud wondered if the others were tired yet of hauling his insensate body back and forth between the throne room and Corvo's chambers.

Corvo--

A hand intruded on his vision, and Daud grabbed onto it gratefully, letting himself be hauled to his feet, the world spinning nauseatingly as he looked up to locate Corvo--

Who was standing right in front of him, a quiet smile on his lips and his callused hand holding Daud's own.

"I'm glad you made it out," the Royal Protector said softly.

His head pounding and his legs trembling, his body weighed down by exhaustion but his mind refreshingly clear, Daud finally gave in to the desire to do what he wanted--without overthinking things, without second-guessing himself.

He grinned back.

Chapter Text

Daud slept.

He spent most of three days in bed, regaining his energy and luxuriating in the knowledge that he had nothing to do and nowhere to be. He had no fights to dread or magic to research; there was no mixing or painting or rescuing to be done. He could rest, finally, his weary body and battered mind given a reprieve at last.

There were periods of lucidity: a few hours here and there when he was conscious enough to stagger to the bathroom, or down a plate of food, or speak a bit with the others and reassure them of his continued living. But exhaustion still bore on him heavily, and sometimes he would wake up just to drift on the edges of sleep, distantly aware of the world moving around him.

And through it all, nearly every time he opened his eyes, Corvo was there at his side.

Daud had been far too groggy to really register the first time it happened, waking up to find the Royal Protector slumbering just inches away from him: staring in stupefied confusion at Corvo's softened features for a few hazy minutes before rolling over and going back to sleep.

The man must have been just as tired as he was, the dark circles of exhaustion beneath his eyes having followed him out of the Void, and Daud wasn't about to fault him for passing out on the nearest horizontal surface.

Corvo clearly regained his energy faster, as well. As Daud spent increasing amounts of time conscious, he would find Corvo already awake: sitting in bed and gnawing on the end of a pen as he did paperwork, or reading a book or one of Jameson's reports. Corvo always noticed when Daud stirred, even if it was just for a few minutes, and he always offered him a soft, gentle smile before returning to what he was doing.

Daud stopped trying to parse what that meant about the same time he realized something warm and stupidly pleased fluttered in his stomach whenever it happened.

Still, no amount of smiles were enough to get him to drink the thing that Corvo was trying to shove into his face.

"It'll help," Corvo said, insistent and obnoxiously earnest. "I sent Jameson down to the Wyrmwood to get advice on how to best recover after expending too much magical energy. The witches there gave him this."

"That--" Daud squinted at the jar in Corvo's hand. "Is that an eel?"

Corvo looked down at the cursed concoction, which Daud was fairly certain was just poison.

"Actually, I think it's a rat tail."

"That isn't better!"

Corvo pouted. Daud stared at him, aghast.

"Stop making that face, you look ridiculous and it won't work. No. I refuse to drink that."

Corvo sighed and set the jar down on his desk, which was a safe enough distance away that Daud stopped feeling threatened by it. He scooted back a little all the same, leaning up against the plush headboard of Corvo's bed and eyeing the man suspiciously.

Daud wasn't sure when--or even how--he'd relocated to sleeping in Corvo's bed, but after the initial shock he'd decided not to press the issue. The mattress was damnably comfy, and his cot wasn't large enough to fit two people anyway.

He hadn't dared to bring up the subject with Corvo, whether to ask why it had happened or suggest that it change. Not when the man clearly took comfort in his presence.

Not when Daud took comfort in his.

There was some kind of connection still lingering between them, fragile as spun sugar and just as soluble, and Daud desperately didn't want to upset its stability. He had been prepared--unhappy, but prepared--to adjust to life without the Eye's warm presence. Only a few weeks had passed since he'd obtained the little orb, that tiny piece of Corvo's soul, and he already felt bereft without it.

He'd never dreamed that it might be replaced by Corvo himself.

And sometimes when they talked, when he caught the gentle curve of Corvo's mouth or the fond lines that crinkled around his eyes, Daud thought that he might not be the only one who cherished that affinity.

"Will you at least join me for lunch?" Corvo asked. "We can even just eat in the sitting room."

"You're just trying to get me out of bed," Daud accused. When Corvo just shrugged innocently, he sighed. "Fine, yes, I'll eat lunch with you."

Corvo grinned. He snatched up the jar with a nonchalance at odds with his earlier emphasis of its importance, and Daud had the sudden feeling that he'd just been outmaneuvered.

"I'll pick up something from the kitchens and meet you over there, then."

Daud pursed his lips, eyeing Corvo suspiciously as the Royal Protector slipped out of the room. But he was hungry, and he was feeling a little less like a corpse for the first time in days, so he dragged himself out of bed all the same. While he was unconscious the small pile of clothing he'd procured in Bastilian had increased in size; the new additions were finely made, but also included a few hidden pockets where he usually stowed weapons, and no few of the shirts and vests were red.

Daud pulled on a blue one just to be contrary, but he couldn't help his small smile at the thought of Corvo looking specifically for a color that he knew Daud was fond of.

Daud made his way through the small closet at the back of Corvo's room--pausing briefly to appraise the carefully preserved works of art done by the hand of a 10-year-old girl--and into the sitting room. He'd just settled into one of the couches near the fireplace when Jameson slunk into the room, a frown darkening the young man's hunted features when he looked around to find only Daud present.

"Corvo stepped out," Daud said, unprompted. He tilted his head. "What did you do this time?"

Jameson's expression soured further.

"The Empress caught me going through her personal correspondences." He grimaced, tapping his fingers idly on the thick folder he held in one hand. "It's a little unfair now that she can look through walls, honestly."

Daud lifted an eyebrow.

"You're not a very good spy, are you."

"I'm one of the best," Jameson replied, offended. "It isn't my fault I don't have your gifts."

Jameson was still considered the acting Spymaster, a circumstance that both he and Corvo protested. Emily had ignored the former's complaints and outright scoffed at the latter, informing her father in very clear terms that he wasn't to do anything other than recover for the foreseeable future.

It hadn't stopped Corvo from demanding access to the intelligence reports, of course, but he at least tried to hide that he was doing it.

"You know," Daud said, "If you just kept her updated, she wouldn't be angry with you so much."

Jameson frowned.

"Lord Attano said not to--"

"Corvo is her father," Daud interrupted, "And a meddling one at that. You are her friend. Or you were supposed to be. At the very least, you are ultimately under her employ, and the Royal Spymaster shouldn't be keeping secrets from the Empress anyway."

"I suppose you would know," Jameson retorted.

Daud just looked at him, calm and even.

"Yes. I would."

Jameson scowled.

"I'm just going to come back later," he muttered. He skulked out of the room in much the same manner as he'd entered, and Daud watched him go, perplexed by the young man's sudden shift from sharp-edged amiability to outright belligerence.

Less than ten minutes later the Royal Protector himself returned, wheeling a small cart into the room from the direction of the elevator. Despite the perfectly serviceable table and chairs around it, Corvo immediately gravitated to the sofa, parking the cart in front of Daud and sitting down next to him with a grin.

"You're pleased with yourself," Daud observed.

Corvo shrugged easily and nodded toward the cart--which Daud belatedly realized was absolutely laden with dishes from Serkonos.

"A little bit," Corvo agreed cheerfully.

Daud stared blankly as Corvo pulled a pair of plates from a drawer in the cart and began piling them with food. Roasted blood sausage, fried plantains, warm flatbread and sliced figs and--

"Is that honey cake?"

"I know it's not the new year, but I figured we deserved a treat," Corvo said, pressing a plate and fork into Daud's hands. "I'm sure our ancestors will forgive us for breaking tradition."

"Never paid much attention to tradition anyway," Daud replied distractedly, spearing a piece of morcilla with his fork. The burst of spices on his tongue reminded him instantly of home, of sun-warmed sand and crisp salt air, and he looked at Corvo in bewilderment. "How..."

Corvo chuckled around a mouthful of peach tartlet. Court etiquette had been drilled in him enough to at least make him swallow before replying, his gaze distant and fond.

"A few years after I became Jessamine's Royal Protector, she noticed that I didn't really have a taste for Gristolian food--it's too bland, and they put everything into cans--so she made a point of looking for a cook from Serkonos. She ended up poaching Duke Theodanis' personal chef; I'm not sure he ever forgave her for that."

Corvo leaned back against the sofa, not seeming to notice how Daud suddenly found it very hard to breathe.

"Chef Pascual still has to cook mostly Gristolian dishes on a daily basis, so they're always happy when I request 'actual' food."

Daud stared down at the plate on his lap, appetite abruptly gone. He could imagine all-too well the former Empress going out of her way to make sure her Royal Protector was happy. Jessamine Kaldwin hadn't been a perfect ruler, no, but she had always been known for her kindness. She'd been known for many things, before--

"Corvo," Daud said quietly.

"Hm?"

"Back then," he said, not looking at the man sitting beside him, "Why did you spare my life?"

Corvo stilled.

For a few moments, the low, hypnotic crackling of the fireplace was the only sound.

"Does it matter, now?" Corvo asked eventually, his voice rough. "You've repaid that debt."

Daud's head snapped up. He gaped at Corvo incredulously, the other man's mouth set in an unhappy line as he avoided Daud's gaze.

"I haven't-- How can you say that?" Daud demanded. He put his plate onto the table, tasting only ashes as Corvo grimaced. After a moment Corvo put down his food as well before finally turning to meet Daud's eyes.

"Daud," he said softly, "You believe that killing Jessamine was the greatest mistake you ever made."

Daud flinched.

"You don't know that," he denied automatically.

"I do, actually," Corvo countered evenly. "That trinket the Outsider gave you wasn't just a one-way connection. I could feel your emotions, too."

Daud sneered, his lip curling in self-disgust.

"How I feel doesn't mean much to the people I've killed."

"No," Corvo agreed. "But it matters to the living."

"Nothing I've ever done has benefited the living," Daud scoffed.

"You saved my daughter," Corvo pointed out. "You saved me."

Daud glanced away.

"Debts justly repaid," he muttered.

Corvo was silent for a few minutes as Daud glowered at the fireplace.

"You know, I wondered about it myself, for a long time," he said at last. "If I did the right thing in sparing you. Now that I know what you've done since that day, the regrets you have and the choices you made, now that I know you..."

Daud jerked his head up as a warm hand settled on his knee, shock jolting down his spine as he stared wide-eyed at Corvo's open expression.

"I don't regret it," Corvo said softly. "I made the right decision back then."

Denial crawled up the back of Daud's throat. It was instinctive and familiar and it hurt, choking off the air in his lungs as he struggled to swallow it back down. It hurt to remember just what he had put Corvo through: murdering his charge and lover, kidnapping his daughter, condemning him to six months of torture. It hurt to think about how Corvo managed to stay so kind after all that had happened, that he still had enough compassion to offer amnesty.

It hurt how badly Daud wanted to accept it.

"You can't--" He shook his head sharply. "You shouldn't--"

"Daud."

An arm wrapped around Daud's shoulders. He froze, unresisting as he was pulled gently against Corvo's side. The voice he'd heard in the back of his mind for weeks now murmured soft against the shell of his ear.

"I forgive you."

Daud's gasp rasped rough between them. He let the words sink beneath his skin, and they buried themselves in his very bones. He felt stretched thin and far too fragile as he lifted his gaze to meet Corvo's soft brown eyes, the rush of relief and hope and affection leaving him giddy, light-headed. Dark tendrils of doubt still curled in the corners of his mind, telling him that he didn't deserve this, that he had no right, but Daud--

Daud didn't care.

"Thank you," he whispered, closing his eyes. He pressed his forehead against Corvo's shoulder as his entire body sagged, the years of noose-tight remorse finally loosening from around his neck. "Thank you."

Corvo's hold tightened, comforting and grounding all at once, and Daud leaned into it and the absolution it offered and basked.

He barely even twitched when there was a brusque knock on the door.

Corvo eased away as the door opened, but it wasn't a motion born out of surprise or embarrassment; his hand stayed loosely curled around the back of Daud's neck. Daud lifted his head as quiet footsteps approached, and found Jameson regarding the two of them with a carefully neutral expression, the folder from earlier in his hand.

"Lord Attano," he said, "I have the reports you requested."

Corvo did pull away then, perking up as he reached over to take the offered files. Daud studiously didn't look at the two as he found a pitcher of soaked-fruit wine on the bottom of the cart, busying himself by pouring it into a pair of cups.

"Thank you, Jameson," Corvo said warmly. "By the way, your fathers had some business in the Tower today; they said they were looking for you."

"They're here already?"

Daud looked up, surprised at the strain in Jameson's voice. An agitated expression was on the young man's face--the first time since Daud met him that his veneer of inscrutability had even shown a sign of cracking.

"Where are they?" Jameson asked, eyes darting over his shoulder. "Are they downstairs?"

"Not anymore, I imagine," Corvo replied bemusedly, sitting back with the folder in hand. "I told them to check up here if they didn't find you on their own."

"Fuck."

Corvo tilted his head, forehead creasing in a disapproving frown as he took one of the cups Daud offered.

"Have you really not seen them since before the coup?"

Jameson hissed out a breath between his teeth.

"That's not--"

"Jameson Seung Curnow!"

They all startled at the stern voice that come from the direction of the elevator. Daud turned to face the door but was stopped by Jameson, who rounded on him with flashing eyes and a viciousness on his face that Daud would never have expected to see.

"I swear on the Outsider himself," Jameson snarled, "If you hurt him again, I will kill you."

Corvo made a startled noise; Daud just blinked in bewilderment. Before either of them could reply, Jameson sprinted for the door, skidding across the carpet with a colorful string of curses. He'd barely touched the handle before the door was being pulled open and a blond, well-dressed nobleman with a thunderous expression marched into the room.

The cup in Daud's hand cracked as he met a shocked pair of painfully familiar hazel eyes.

"Thomas," he breathed.

Chapter Text

Of the twins, Thomas had always been the more expressive.

Connor was certainly more emotive: bright-eyed and joking with the rest of the Whalers one moment, darkly moody and quick to anger the next. But he had mastered early on the skill of lying through his teeth, of hiding his true feelings with easy smiles, whereas his brother had never gotten the knack. Thomas tended naturally toward quiet stoicism--but when the calm exterior was actually disrupted, his face read like an open book.

It made him terrible at Nancy and one of the best choices for handling the shyer novices, and it meant that the gutted expression on his face was entirely, painfully real.

"Daud?" Thomas rasped. The once-Whaler looked older--of course he did, it had been fifteen years--but time hadn't been harsh to him. There were more laugh lines on his face than worries; he wore his hair long and tied instead of the short crop their masks had demanded. His back was unbent by weariness and he seemed healthy, hale: unharmed save for the desolation present in his eyes.

"Thomas," Jameson said softly, his voice gentle in a way Daud had never heard it. The young man laid a hesitant hand on his father's--his father's--arm, earning only a lost, bewildered look in return.

"You're alive," Thomas said, turning back to Daud, who couldn't suppress a flinch. "You're alive and you're--you're here, you're--"

"You thought I was dead," Daud realized, a knot forming in the pit of his stomach.

Thomas let out a short, broken laugh.

"Of course we did," he said roughly. "You ordered us not to interfere, even when you fell. We saw Lord Attano spare you, but you just-- You vanished, and we thought-- Void, Daud, we thought you'd gone off to die."

Daud swallowed around the lump in his throat as Thomas shook his head.

"Then the Bond broke," he said softly, "And you were gone."

"Thomas, I--"

Thomas surged forward then, quickly crossing the distance between the door and the sofa. Daud stood up to meet him, bracing himself for the blow that he knew was coming, that he knew he damn well deserved--

Strong arms pulled him into a fierce embrace.

Daud froze.

"You're alive," Thomas whispered.

Daud closed his eyes. He pressed his face into long blond hair, bowed his head, and held tight to the man who had always been more than just a subordinate.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I never meant to hurt you."

Not when Thomas had been a child, clinging to his brother's hand as they faced what they had thought to be their deaths. Not as he'd trained the two twins as thieves and assassins, pushing them hard so that he never had to fear for them returning from a mission.

And certainly not now, as he seemingly returned from the dead to haunt them.

"I know," Thomas said, letting go and stepping back, the small curve to his mouth indicating he'd understood the depth of the statement. He finally took stock of the room outside of Daud--and immediately paled as he registered Corvo's presence.

But any instinctive panic seemed to be quickly forestalled as he glanced between the Royal Protector and the clearly-not-imprisoned-or-killed Daud.

"Lord...Attano?" he asked cautiously.

"Lord Brimsley," Corvo greeted mildly. "I must admit, I hadn't expected you to already be acquainted with my rescuer."

"Your--" Thomas eyes widened; he glanced back briefly at Daud. "So you were imprisoned. We'd heard rumors in Morley, and once I learned that it was Delilah who staged the coup..."

"Apparently I didn't kill her well enough," Daud said blandly. Both men shot him amused looks, though he noticed that Jameson was still hovering--and glaring.

Thomas followed his gaze, and something fond and paternal softened his features as he regarded his adopted son.

"Jameson," he said gently. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Jameson folded his arms across his chest.

"I wasn't going to let him hurt you when he disappeared again," he said, mouth twisting.

Thomas flushed, glancing away as something twisted around Daud's heart.

"That isn't--"

"He let you think he was dead," Jameson snarled. "He left you without saying anything, left you to clean up his mess and you mourned him for years--"

"Jameson, stop."

All four of them startled at the new voice. Daud looked toward the interior door as another man walked into the room: lean and dark-haired, he wore simple but well-tailored clothes, and a rather elaborately hilted sword hung from one hip. Calm blue eyes took the room in at a glance, widening slightly when they rested on Daud--and then narrowing again in sharp, keen understanding.

Geoff Curnow's gaze shifted to Thomas with the look of a man finally confirming a long-held belief, and Daud was a little surprised when his expression didn't otherwise change.

"Father?"

Jameson's tone was strangled, even more than when he'd realized Thomas was approaching, and when Daud glanced back, he found a similarly stupefied expression on Thomas' face.

"Geoff, you--" Thomas licked his lips, gaze darting to Daud before returning to his lover. "You're not..."

Geoff raised an eyebrow, the tiniest hint of a smile playing around his lips.

"Yes?"

In the ensuing floundering silence, Corvo began to laugh.

"You already knew about this, didn't you?" he asked wryly, reaching up to tug on Daud's arm; easily pulling him back down to the sofa in Daud's surprise at the action. "And I never even guessed. Void, I'm a lousy Spymaster."

"Sorry, Corvo," Geoff replied, looking honestly sheepish. "I didn't mean to betray your trust."

Corvo just waved a hand amusedly as Thomas stared wide-eyed at his lover.

"You knew?" he blurted. "All this time? That I..."

"I'm not an idiot, Thomas," Geoff chided gently. He clasped Thomas' hand and pulled him away from the sofa, sitting them down in the chairs on the opposite side of the table. A brief, stern look had Jameson slinking over to settle in as well. "I've known for quite a while."

"But you never..." Thomas trailed off, lost.

"There was never any hard evidence linking you to the Whalers," Geoff said. "And I figured you would tell me when you were ready. If not..."

He shrugged.

"Well. Sometimes people can earn their second chances."

Daud's breath caught in his throat.

Years ago, at the height of the plague and the nadir of his life, he'd put out a moratorium on contracts that involved certain figures. Overseers who actually helped people instead of terrorizing them, nobles that tried to aid Dunwall instead of profiting off its demise; those in positions of power who might have had some chance to fix the city after he'd made a mess of everything.

Geoff Curnow, a captain in the Watch and one of the few officers who had retained a sense of morality after Burrows started encouraging treachery, had been one of them.

Thomas stared at his lover with an adoring expression.

"I don't deserve you."

The tips of Geoff's ears turned pink.

"Don't just say things like that," he hissed, a blush creeping across his cheeks despite the obvious familiarity of the exchange. His gaze darted toward Daud and an amused Corvo as he cleared his throat awkwardly. "And, ah, it's good to see you, Corvo. We've been worried."

"About you and the Empress, and other things," Thomas said pointedly, eyeing his son. Jameson managed to look basically everywhere but at his fathers. "We set sail as soon as we heard Emily had reclaimed the throne."

"We talked about trying to come sooner," Geoff said, glancing at Thomas, "But--"

"I wasn't going to risk you and Lara," Thomas interrupted shortly, jaw set. "Not after we knew that Connor and Jameson were okay. Not when I know what Delilah could do."

"We could have--"

"No," Jameson said quietly, speaking for the first time since his outburst. He looked haunted, drawn. "No, it's good that you didn't come. Things weren't... Things were bad."

Thomas and Geoff immediately softened. Geoff reached over to lay a hand on Jameson's shoulder and the young man leaned into it without seeming to think--and Daud wondered just what all had happened in Dunwall during Delilah's short, bloody reign.

"How is Connor?" he asked, drawing attention away from the distressed hunch of Jameson's shoulders.

Thomas rolled his eyes.

"Insufferable," he replied. "He bought a silvergraph machine earlier this year, and now he spends all of his time taking portraits of his family and fancying himself an artist. He has a wife and two daughters; they live up in the Mutcherhaven District."

He smiled, softly.

"He'll be glad to know you're alive."

Daud snorted.

"More likely he'll be pissed as anything and come down here to punch me himself."

Thomas laughed, open and honest and bright. It was such a change from the serious young man Daud had known that he found himself chuckling as well.

"Yeah, probably that, too," Thomas agreed.

Daud leaned against the arm of the sofa, propping his cheek up on his fist and regarding Thomas with a fond smile.

"And what about you?"

"I look after the shelters, mostly," Thomas replied. When Daud lifted his eyesbrows in surprise, Thomas ducked his head, looking almost abashed. "Connor and I--we started a shelter, after we got our titles settled. For kids."

Daud's heart lurched. Affection coiled warm in his chest, filling it near to brimming with a pride that he didn't know he had a right to.

"We've set up another one since then," Thomas added. "But after what you did for us, we thought... Well, we wanted to help people. If we could."

"It sounds like you've done a fine job," Daud said softly. His breath caught when Thomas looked at him searchingly, those familiar hazel eyes lighting up as they found whatever approval they were hoping for.

He glanced away as the clock tolled the hour, unable to face the loyalty that he wasn't entirely sure he deserved; humbled by the fact that, after all these years, Thomas still thought that his respect was worthy of wanting.

Geoff cocked his head to one side and turned toward Thomas.

"Our meeting with Trade Minister Riordan is soon," he said, standing up. "Do you want to stay here while I go?"

Thomas made a face.

"No, no, I promised you wouldn't have to deal with that stodgy old bastard on your own. I just..."

He glanced at Corvo and Daud hesitantly.

"I'm not leaving," Daud said, fully aware of Jameson' quiet snort of disbelief. "Not again. Not without telling you."

"You're welcome to come back later, Lord Brimsley," Corvo assured Thomas as his shoulders sagged in barely-concealed relief. But then his eyes sharpened, just a little. "We also, I think, need to have words."

Thomas winced but nodded as he got to his feet.

"Thank you, Lord Attano," he replied, offering a small bow before glancing sharply at his adopted son. "Jameson."

Jameson grimaced and obediently followed his fathers as they left the room.

For a moment, there was quiet.

"So... Lord Brimsley."

"Thomas," Daud agreed, not hiding his affection. "He was my second, after Billie... Well. After Billie. But he and Connor were just children when I first met them."

"Is he really nobility?" Corvo asked curiously. "Or do I need to be worried about impending aristocratic scandals?"

"He and Connor are the actual Brimsley heirs," Daud said. "If they went through my old files, they should even have documentation--though I imagine that's what they used to reestablish themselves in the first place."

"How in the Void did they wind up with you?"

"I was young and stupid and took a contract without examining it closely enough," he replied frankly. "And they were..."

Daud grimaced, remembering a tiny locked room and a pair of boys who wanted nothing more than to be together again.

"You don't need to seek justice for their parents, if that's what you're concerned about," he said. "They got what they deserved."

Corvo's mouth twisted as he leaned back against the sofa with a grim expression.

"I see."

Daud shrugged, knocking Corvo's knee with his own to pull him out of his brooding. It had been over thirty years since he'd dispatched Aldith and Randel Brimsley and stolen the children they'd abused; the two nobles were long dead, and their sons were thriving. There was no need to waste further thought on them.

Corvo cast him a wry glance, inclining his head slightly as he took the plate that Daud offered as they returned to their meal. The food was cold now, the sauces slightly congealed, but they had both eaten worse in their time.

"You know," Corvo said after a little while, his voice pointedly casual, "The Brimsley brothers were essential in getting Dunwall back on its feet. Aside from the shelters and charity work, their shipping company was one of the first to really break the blockade after the plague. The city would have starved if they hadn't stepped in."

He tilted his head to one side, a frown creasing his forehead.

"In retrospect, that was probably at least partially due to their underworld connections. But however they did manage it, they helped a lot of people."

Daud looked down at the slices of plantain on his plate, a small smile curving his lips. He could easily imagine the twins barging into Dunwall's aristocratic circles and immediately causing a ruckus: Connor, sharp-edged and silver-tongued, and Thomas, quiet but inescapably compelling. They had never made their distaste of the nobility a secret as they'd grown up; he wasn't surprised they'd decided to enact direct change themselves.

"A shelter, huh?" he said softly.

"It was one of the first things they did after reclaiming their titles," Corvo confirmed, watching Daud openly now. "They were actually the ones who got Jameson off the streets after his parents died."

Daud lifted an eyebrow.

"Say what you want to say, Attano."

Corvo grinned back, unashamed of his own conniving.

"I was just thinking that those men--your men--certainly managed to do some good in the world," he pointed out innocently. "And that's a pretty fine legacy. You know, for an assassin."

Daud rolled his eyes.

Still--Corvo wasn't wrong. Not necessarily.

When Daud had begun forming the Whalers, he hadn't really been thinking about what kind of legacy he would leave behind. All he'd wanted was to carve his place into Dunwall's rotten woodwork, to take advantage of the sickness already permeating the city. People were paying good money for the lives of others: and Daud was willing to provide the service. The ones who first joined him--Rulfio, Devon, Pavel, a few others--had known him even before he'd been Marked, falling under his leadership almost instinctively, and he'd mostly just seen them as subordinates.

It wasn't until later that he'd realized he was concerned about the people under his command. Invested, even. He'd started wondering if they would be alright if he was absent, and then had started training them properly to make sure they would be.

In the end, he would have been content if they'd just ended up happy, living their lives as they saw fit. That he'd managed to leave Thomas and Connor better off, that they'd been inspired to take care of others just as he had tried to with the Whalers...

Daud glanced back at Corvo to find him looking wholly too satisfied with himself. He huffed a laugh.

"Smugness isn't a good look on you," he informed the other man.

Corvo's mouth quirked in a knowing smirk that made Daud's heart beat just a little bit faster.

"Liar."

Daud cleared his throat, hiding his smile--and his flush--behind a glass of wine.

"Just eat your fucking food, Attano."

Chapter Text

Connor did, in fact, punch him in the face.

But he followed that by spending a solid hour showing off silvergraphs of his family, so Daud figured that he had ultimately been forgiven.

"You sure you don't want Doctor Toksvig to look at that?" Corvo asked, peering at the purpling bruise on Daud's jaw. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind; she gets bored of treating colds and burned fingers all the time."

"I'll be fine," Daud assured him. He smiled wryly as they ascended the stairs of the Great Hall side by side. "I deserved it, anyway."

"You think you deserve a lot of things," Corvo observed.

"This one I definitely did," Daud replied with a chuckle. "Honestly, I think the only reason I got away without anything broken was because he got distracted by Billie."

At Thomas' insistence he'd stayed at the Brimsley manor in the Estate District the previous night, Connor coming into the city to meet them. And despite knowing Daud would be bringing Billie, the twins had picked a fight with her immediately upon her arrival at the house with Daud.

He'd stepped aside and let it happen. He and Billie had already worked through their feelings of betrayal; it was Thomas and Connor's turn.

The twins had won--but only barely--and then Connor had socked Daud in the jaw before pulling him into a bone-creaking hug.

It had reminded Daud of being in Rudshore, back before the city had descended into chaos. Before Burrows, before the assassination, before the mess Daud had made of--

"I heard that Emily's been stirring things up in court," he commented, firmly quashing the spiraling thoughts before they had a chance to drown him again.

Corvo groaned.

"She's decided to implement a tribunal to deal with the aristocratic conspirators who sided with Delilah," he said sourly. "Apparently she'd been talking with Billie and Jameson about it, and she went ahead and announced its formation this morning."

Daud lifted an eyebrow.

"That doesn't sound like a bad thing."

Corvo made a face, clearly disagreeing; Daud's lips twitched in amusement.

"You can't just kill anyone who opposes her, you know."

Corvo grunted noncommittally and Daud laughed, bumping Corvo's hip with his own.

"You raised her well."

The disgruntled scowl did break then, a glimmer of a proud smile showing through the displeasure, and Daud decided to count that as a win.

He was too busy congratulating himself to notice where they were headed, content to walk alongside Corvo until they were suddenly standing outside of the Royal Protector's chambers. Daud froze just outside the door as Corvo pushed it open, staying out in the hall instead of following, and it took Corvo a few moments to notice his absence before he stopped to cast Daud a puzzled look.

"Are you coming in?"

Staying with Thomas had also rather neatly allowed Daud to avoid thinking about his own place in the Tower--and with Corvo.

He was no longer trying to forge some black magic bond between them. He wasn't there to go through Corvo's things; he hadn't been placed there by default after collapsing. The room he'd just been occupying had returned to being Corvo's room, a private space that Daud would have never intruded on had he been given a choice.

"I don't know if I should," he admitted, finally.

Corvo's features softened. He walked back to the door, stopping just a few paces away. He studied Daud's face carefully, and Daud had to struggle to keep from folding in and closing up, forcing his emotions to stay visible.

The effort left him feeling raw, defenseless, but the encouraging curve of Corvo's mouth went a long way to ease his anxiety.

"I would like it if you did," Corvo said softly.

The answering smile that tugged at Daud's lips was almost entirely involuntary--but it was also completely sincere.

Corvo moved to one side to let Daud pass. He walked into the room as if seeing it with new eyes, despite already knowing every inch of the layout--because this time, he'd been invited.

He wandered over to what had become his usual spot: the comfiest chair in the little sitting area. The book he'd been reading was still there, a throwaway slip of paper marking his page, and Daud couldn't help but be struck by the sheer domesticity of it all. There were traces of him around the room, clothes and books and personal effects, all looking like they belonged.

"What's the matter?" Corvo asked, moving over to stand at Daud's side. He laid a hand on Daud's shoulder, light and unassuming: a comforting presence rather than an immobilizing weight.

Daud hesitated.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," he said after a moment, quiet.

He expected something flippant, some joke of 'well currently you're standing in my room', but Corvo just regarded him seriously.

"What do you want to do?"

Daud blinked.

"I..."

"Do you want to stay?" Corvo pressed. There was an underlying tension to his tone, a worry that he was trying to conceal, and Daud cocked his head to the side with a puzzled frown as he turned to face the other man fully.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Then stay."

Daud pursed his lips.

"I don't think it's that easy."

"Isn't it?" Corvo challenged. "You want to stay. I want you to stay."

Every train of thought in Daud's mind abruptly derailed.

"You do?" he blurted. His heart had suddenly relocated to his throat; his breath constricted in his lungs. He couldn't help but stare as Corvo's features flickered in panic and chagrin, closing off for just a moment before a stubborn look flared in his eyes.

"Of course I do," he said firmly. "Daud, you-- You're important to me. I know you only came here originally out of guilt, but somewhere along the way, I..."

Corvo gnawed on his bottom lip, glancing away.

"I don't like the idea of you not being here," he muttered. "I want..."

Daud gaped, his brain struggling to process the words as Corvo shifted uncertainly in front of him. Warmth coiled in his gut, suffusing his chest and down to his toes, the tips of his fingers, something light and bright buoying his soul.

"What is it?" he rasped, daring to allow himself the luxury of hope. "What do you want, Corvo?"

Corvo kept his gaze averted for just a few moments longer before finally looking back up, his eyes painfully, beautifully vulnerable.

"You," he replied softly.

Daud exhaled, low and even, trying to gather the trembling pieces of himself into something mostly cohesive. He stepped into Corvo's space, watching those whiskey-brown eyes widen, reaching up to curl his fingers around the back of the other man's neck.

He pulled him in, pressing his forehead to Corvo's gently.

"You have me."

Corvo sucked in a sharp breath. His hands found Daud's waist and it was such an easy thing to go from there, Daud stroking his fingertips down the side of Corvo's face, running them along the line of his jaw to tuck up beneath his chin.

And then he tilted his head to the side and slotted their lips together.

Daud didn't press, didn't push for anything other than the chaste kiss, but Corvo barely skipped a beat before he was sighing into Daud's mouth. He tightened his grip on Daud's waist, pulling him even closer with a pleased hum.

Daud's heart pounded against his ribcage as he parted his lips beneath the gentle press of Corvo's tongue, arching as a hand spanned the small of his back. He let out a quiet moan--and then Corvo was pulling away, his lips shiny-slick and his cheeks flushed a fetching shade of pink.

"Is this okay?" Corvo asked worriedly, searching Daud's face.

Daud swayed, struggling to reclaim his scattered wits before frowning.

"I'm not some blushing virgin," he said, perplexed. It hadn't been that bad, had it?

Corvo huffed a laugh, leaning away to rub the back of his neck with an abashed expression.

"I just...thought you weren't interested in this kind of thing," he admitted.

Daud blinked at him.

"Where did you--" he stopped. Groaned. "I swear, when I find the Whaler who wrote that book--"

Corvo cupped Daud's cheek in his palm with a fond smile, bringing a halt to his complaining. Daud leaned into the contact unashamedly, eyes half-lidded as heat darkened Corvo's gaze. It took a few moments to draw his mind back to what he was saying, and he let out a beleaguered sigh.

"Yes, sex itself doesn't generally interest me," he explained patiently. "But that doesn't mean I've never had it, or that I don't enjoy it when I do. Besides..."

Daud leaned in, pressing a kiss against the strong line of Corvo's jaw.

"You interest me," he murmured, nuzzling his way down Corvo's neck, grinning at the breathless sounds he elicited. "Touching you interests me. Feeling you, seeing you, hearing the sounds you make..."

He leaned back, taking in Corvo's parted lips and flushed cheeks with satisfaction.

"I am very interested."

"Void," Corvo rasped. His slid his hand around the back of Daud's neck to pull him urgently closer, nipping at his bottom lip until Daud gasped, licking into his mouth when he did.

Corvo was heat and pressure and heady intoxication, and Daud drank him in like the finest Serkonan wine.

"You'll be the death of me yet," Corvo muttered, breaking away just enough to pant for breath, dropping his head against Daud's shoulder. Daud smiled indulgently as he combed his fingers through short black hair, a little surprised when the expected guilt at such a jest flickered only briefly in the back of his mind before fading.

"If that's what you want," he agreed in a low murmur, heat curling in his gut with all the ideas of just how he'd manage such a feat. But Corvo lifted his head with a frown at the words, and honestly Daud was considering just keeping his mouth shut from now on.

"And if it's what you want," Corvo insisted.

Daud blinked.

"I did say it was, didn't I?"

"It's harder for me to read you now," Corvo admitted after a long pause. "I can't just..."

He shook his head.

"I don't want you to stay because you think you have to," he explained. "So if you want to leave, we'll see to it that you're compensated and taken to wherever you want to go. I'll see to it."

Corvo reached up to cup Daud's jaw in one hand, stroking his thumb across his cheek with a sad smile.

"I know how many years you've spent consumed by guilt," he said softly, "And I know how much it's eaten away at you. But the debts you think you owe have been more than repaid; you don't have to live your life in atonement anymore. You don't have to stay if that's not what you want."

Daud smiled.

He reached down to lace their fingers together, lifting their clasped hands to press a kiss to the back of Corvo's unmarked palm. The stuttering breath the action garnered was more than enough to ease his own final, lingering doubts.

The previous night, Thomas had tactfully inquired as to what Daud's plans were, now that Corvo was freed--and Connor had less tactfully offered to smuggle him out of Dunwall if he needed it. They'd been dubious of the crown's continued forgiveness of his crimes, and Daud couldn't blame them; he still marvelled at it himself. But Emily had been entirely cordial--if not even somewhat affectionate--since her father was released, and Corvo...

Corvo was standing in front of him, offering him release from an atonement that Daud, after years of guilt, finally believed he no longer needed.

"I want to stay," Daud said, his smile broadening as the truth of the statement settled beneath his skin. "That's what I want. To be with you."

Corvo's eyes widened.

"You're sure?" he asked hesitantly. "I know you hate Dunwall. It's no Cullero, and certainly no Serkonos--"

Daud laughed, squeezing Corvo's hand.

"I don't want to stay because of Dunwall, Corvo," he said fondly. He tilted his head to the side, pursing his lips. "Though I'm honestly not sure what I could actually do around here."

"Jameson's still trying to squirm his way out of the Spymaster position," Corvo offered, a slow smile curving his mouth. Daud looked at him suspiciously.

"Isn't that your job?"

Corvo made a face.

"Emily seems pretty set on not letting me anywhere near work for the next decade, especially now that Alexi's recovered enough to start training as Royal Protector." He grimaced. "She found out I was in my office earlier and threatened me with exile."

"A wise and just ruler," Daud observed. He shook his head. "But, no, I'd like to think that my days of sneaking around are over with. I've had enough scheming and backstabbing for a lifetime."

Corvo frowned.

"Well, I'm sure there are any number of other problems in the Empire that need solving--"

Daud poked him in the side, meeting the ensuing yelp and betrayed look with a shameless grin.

"Like I said, I'm not staying for the Empire," he reminded Corvo. "I'm staying for you."

The expression that brightened Corvo's face was the stuff of poetry: of coastal sunrises and Serkonan sunlight, and utterly blinding in its intensity. Daud happily allowed himself to be pulled back into the eager press of Corvo's lips, smiling against his mouth as he tangled his fingers in soft black hair.

It was a sight he was looking forward to seeing for a very long time.

Chapter Text

Three Months Later

Daud awoke to whalesong.

He blinked fuzzily at the high ceiling above the bed, coherency slow to arrive as he fought the urge to burrow back into the warmth behind him. Corvo turned into a furnace while asleep--something that had been nice back in Dunwall, but was less pleasant in Karnaca's tropical climate. Still, Daud would much prefer Corvo's dead weight draped suffocatingly over him to...pretty much anything else.

But whales were rare this far south, and they certainly wouldn't dare venture so close to shore.

Daud sighed and dragged himself out of bed.

He left a grumbling Corvo to his sleep, pausing just long enough to press a soft kiss into mussed black hair. The polished wooden floor was warm beneath his feet as he padded out of the bedroom and through the sitting area, opening the doors to the small balcony garden where the haunting sounds seemed to be emanating from.

Daud squinted in displeasure at the slim figure that stood looking out over the rest of the Grand Palace.

"What d'you want?"

The Outsider glanced over his shoulder, raising an amused eyebrow, but he didn't otherwise speak.

Daud groaned and walked outside.

"Surprised you're actually here," he said, voice a low rasp. "You usually drag me into the Void when you want to talk."

The Outsider cocked his head to one side as Daud sidled up next to him.

"I thought you would appreciate being able to stay warm."

"That's...kind of you," Daud said suspiciously.

The Outsider hummed in agreement.

A few minutes of quiet passed as Daud struggled to fully gather his wits about him. He dragged his fingers through his hair, tilting his head back as a warm breeze brushed across his skin. The salt-tang of the ocean was a calming scent--especially within the Palace District, where the waters were clear of debris and whaling detritus. Armando had been pushing to clean up the docks and set up better quality control, but Serkonans always were stubborn when it came to change.

As Karnaca's favored son and now officially Ambassador of Serkonos, Corvo was having a little more luck with things--but it would probably be another few weeks before anything actually came of it.

Daud shoved his hands into the pockets of his sleeping pants, smiling fondly as he recalled Corvo standing in front of the throne bedecked in Serkonan finery to accept the position from his extremely self-satisfied daughter. Emily had made good on her threat of forcing him into retirement: the position of Royal Protector had gone to Alexi Mayhew, and the duties of Spymaster had been split between Billie, who was the face of the office, and Jameson, whose cover as an easygoing, inoffensive aristocrat had been far too useful to discard.

"You seem happy, old friend."

Daud blinked, turning to meet the Outsider's Void-black eyes.

"I am," he admitted. He looked out across the bay, at Karnaca glittering bright under the night sky. "I never thought that I would end up here, like this."

"It was certainly an unexpected turn of events," the Outsider agreed.

Daud studied the deity curiously. Usually the Outsider had a point in mind when he decided to grant audiences, even if it sometimes took a while for him to get to it. But the conversation so far seemed aimless--and felt oddly final.

"I feel like I should thank you," Daud said eventually.

The Outsider lifted his eyebrows.

"Please don't," he replied mildly. "It would just make both of us uncomfortable."

Daud snorted. He jerked his head in the direction of the door: in the direction of Corvo, who was probably snoring, and most likely drooling into the pillows.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "For giving me a chance to find him."

The faintest hint of a smile touched the Outsider's lips. He inclined his head briefly in acknowledgement.

"So what do you plan to do with your second chance, Knife of Dunwall?" he asked. "What will the wolf of men do, now that he has been de-fanged and set to heel?"

Daud scoffed, thinking of the assassin he'd quietly dispatched earlier that week while Corvo spoke to a crowd of citizens.

"De-fanged? No. Heeled..." He glanced fondly toward the door. "Perhaps. But it's a leash of my own making, and I'll stay gladly by his side."

The Outsider chuckled, and it was such a foreign sound that Daud froze in place, gaping as the deity turned toward him.

"You know," he said, "While you have become much less interesting over the years, I think that I much prefer you this way."

He reached out, and before Daud realized what was happening, cool fingers stroked across his cheek.

"Live well, Daud."

The Outsider then disappeared, leaving Daud blinking in confusion. The hum of whalesong faded into the usual quiet sound of waves breaking against the shore, and Daud rubbed reflexively at the cold spot on his face, shaking his head bemusedly. The Mark on the back of his hand pulsed, warm and familiar like a benediction, and he flexed his fingers absently before allowing a small smile to curve his lips.

Then he turned around and headed back to bed, beckoned by the warmth and promise of Corvo at his side.