Chapter Text
I.
The first time the Outsider came to Emily, it had been through the gloom of a bedroom at night. He’d asked her things like whether she liked paddling in the sea, how she felt about icicles, did she believe tyrannicide was a reasonable route in order to secure a rightful throne.
She’d told Callista the next day, and the governess gave her a new lamp. It sent up little embers amidst thin smoke, like fireflies, and made the shadows seem even longer.
II.
The void had stunk of dirty ice, of the slush which gathered on walkways in the month of songs and was swept away by frostbitten guardsmen come morn. It was an old, unwanted kind of cold, and seemed to eat her flesh all over; unpleasant nips tugging hairs upright. Emily wished she’d brought a coat. The white fur one of her mother’s that had been so thick that as a child she could roll up and be consumed by Tyvian wolves. In it, she’d been a wild ice witch of the north, and fearless.
An ice witch would not be daunted by the black-eyed god sitting at a table in the middle of nothing, asking if she’d like some cake.
“No,” Emily replied slowly; memories of a Morley guardsman’s tales clinging. “If you eat fairy food, then you can never leave.” The Outsider laughed and told her that he hadn’t heard that one in a long time.
“I wouldn’t care to keep you here, Emily,” the Outsider said, “Do you know why?”
“Because I’m Empress,” she said. “Or I will be. Corvo’s told me he’s almost done.”
“Mm,” the Outsider agreed. “He tells me much the same. I do wonder if he’s to be proven right…” He stood, pushing the plate of uneaten cake back. “Walk with me now.”
The hand he held out was thin and bony, with flesh like river clay. Emily took it.
III.
His appearance was always like rain down the back of the neck, and Emily knew he had been watching since breakfast. He hadn’t said much, just paced a little over the uneven floorboards of her tower, remarking that her art was coming along well. Very well indeed.
“Who are you drawing this for?” he asked, and she said nobody.
“Lie to me, little empress, and you’ll find your tongue will blacken and drop out,” the Outsider remarked, “Did your Morley guardsman not teach you that old tale too?”
“It’s for Dr Sokolov.”
The Outsider peered over her shoulder, his mouth twisting downwards as though disapproving. The picture was of a pack of ice hounds baying out in the snow wastes of Tamarak, their black noses pressed to the floor as they scented a trail of a travellers heading towards freezing cities. Sokolov had given the empress a book on the wildlife of his native isle for her birthday that week, and just yesterday she had finished the last chapter. She had used pastels to colour, and the Outsider outstretched one of those clammy hands of his.
“Don’t touch it!” Emily snapped, “You’ll leave grease-marks and it’ll smudge!”
“Oh will it?” the Outsider mocked, “And what a tragedy that would be; poor Sokolov deprived of another work he cannot fathom and this one composed by a child. I wouldn’t bother.” His apathetic mood had soured, and Emily became irritated.
“Well, who do you think I should I give it to? Corvo?”
“Corvo is many things, my darling, but an appreciator of Tyvian ice hounds is not one of them. Give it to me.”
“It drew it for Anton,” Emily said crossly, “Not you, so no.”
A frightful look came over the Outsider’s face then, eerily akin to the blizzard she had just begun to colour. It was hostile and horrible and tickled the marrow in her bones with frost; his eyes reflecting neither the sunshine of the day nor her own art-smeared face.
He was there when she gave Anton the portrait, muttering dark things into her ear. He said he’d bring the ice hounds to life and have them eat the physician in his sleep. They would run through his head, screaming and baying, and Sokolov would have nightmares for the rest of the year; leaving him too frightened to ever return home again.
Emily said that he was a bully and a liar, and the Outsider didn’t visit for the rest of the month.