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There was some comfort in being on the water—not the open sea, but a hidden dock fallen into disuse outside of smuggler operations and worse. Daud could recall from his mother's stories that he'd been born at a cove and washed of birthing fluid with sea water, which had been cooled from a bucket boiled over a griddle. These days, hot water flowed from taps installed on board. Buy two cans of whale oil and get one free, he'd seen on the posters. In this economy? Only in Serkonos, where aristocratic investors threw funds into hewing out the landscape.
He kept his door open, let in the hum of the engine idling on low power. A lantern down the corridor flickered unsteadily; Billie said she had repaired it some weeks back, but it was getting run-down like everything else on the old ship. Daud knew manufacturers had long been offering shitty lamps that came with a small supply of oil—complimentary, according to the marketing material, but most of the markup was for the fuel. The uncertain light below decks didn't bother him as he rested on his side and let his eyes go unfocused. It was a reprieve to have no present worries when Billie was bound to finish the bank job, one way or another.
After a while, he felt a chilly frisson settle over his skin. The lighting deepened from blue-white to violet. He heaved himself into a sitting position, scanned the air. The echoes of another presence rang in the roots of his teeth and he clenched his jaw against the call. With the greatest reluctance, he got off the cot and stalked out of his room. He found the Outsider's Void-cursed ass planted on the table in the middle of the main room, reading documents off the blackboard.
"You've come," Daud snarled, "to watch me die? Of all times, why choose now?"
"Why shouldn't I?" the Outsider blithely replied, turning his head only enough to have Daud within periphery vision while taking note of their plans to kill him once and for all. His disregard kindled an old rage, a cold rage, to well up within his former worshiper, but the pressure of the entity's presence rooted him into apoplectic speechlessness. Only when he finished skimming each clipping did the Outsider step down to face Daud. "More than once have my gifts,"—his cold, bony hand took in Daud's left—"even combined with the skills of those bearing my Mark, saved one life at the expense of another's."
The pressure let up, and Daud found his voice after a ragged gasp. "Were you watching when Corvo washed up at Rudshore? Saw him leave me alive enough to still be bleeding and breathing even after all I'd done?" He jerked away from the Outsider's touch and turned back towards the threshold. "Don't answer. Of course you kept your eyes on the Kaldwins after I satisfied my role in your show." Seven brisk strides would bring him across the next room, but the cargo piling at the walls pinched his paces into a circuit of four by two shuffles.
Aye, he was dying, but also restless under his bones. The engine room's heat couldn't reach him in the quarters above while the Void kept its claws hooked in and ready to rend at his being. At times, he was certain that his left arm would be the first to go.
He tugged off the gloves and stowed the pair in his coat pocket. The Outsider with dark eyes aglitter had withdrawn out of the way towards the kitchen, for once holding his tongue. Daud shut his eyes and rubbed at his temples, trying to reel himself back. He was so tired. "I can't save myself." The admission was galling. His left hand curled into a fist as he dropped it by his side, yet the fingers on the other continued tracing over the furrow of that old scar. So many years past, the blade that bit him started over his eye and carved down well past his collar. By all rights, he should have lost half his sight and more besides.
He'd been served well by the Outsider's Mark in his time—misspent in its entirety as some contracted tool and promiscuously aimed. Even his life was on loan, and, despite whatever the god might insist, the black-eyed bastard was now come to collect his due. Daud brought his right hand level with its counterpart, nearly mirrored but for the brand. He turned his flat grey gaze back up at the Outsider. "There's nothing a man can do that stops the finale's curtain drop. But you'll be no playwright over the rest of us when Billie gets through with you."
He leaned against a stack of crates, bracing a foot atop the lid of one on the floor, and Looked. He saw his god, gold-glowing and shrouded in the iridescent Void that washed out the world's natural colors—crushed them into indistinction. The Outsider crossed his arms as a hint of a grin revealed itself in the sidelong pull of his lips. Daud always anticipated more fangs than what was normal in a young man's mouth whenever the Outsider bared them. In a lifetime ago, the opportunities to tally each tooth were several and seldom taken. His tongue now sought the gaps in his own dentition, lingered at three hollows gouged out by a charm he once bought on the promise of a fighter's crutch. What good was it with magic to evade blows already at his fingertips? He deferred the risk onto one of his men who had no grasp on the transversal trick.
"You think you've sealed a finished script for Billie, but there's no guarantee she'll write the ending in blood. She has a choice over the matter. It's a privilege you took for granted, you know." The Outsider shook his head. "So many asked you to kill for them, and you pocketed their coin. What's another mark to you?" He shrugged and dropped his half-smile. With it went the Void draining from Daud's eyes.
"Things will be different this time. I know what's at stake."
"I never took you for a betting man, Daud. Can you reckon how the cards will fall once I'm gone? In truth, that's where—when—my vision ends."
Even though the Outsider took his shadows back into the Void, Daud was left in darkness. He cursed, softly; the broken lantern had guttered out.