Chapter Text
The Heart of the Abyss
THE STRANGER (smirking insidiously)
My dear Corvid. I’ve been watching you for a long time. When you fight, when you sleep. When you… bathe. And now you’ve lost it all.
CORVID (shocked and confused)
Who are you? What is this cold and shadowy place? Have I penetrated the Stranger’s Void?
THE STRANGER (with a flourish)
There are forces in this world, forces some men call magic. Now you can bend them to your will. I am the Stranger, and this is my mark.
CORVID (studying the back of his hand)
Ah—It burns! What is this supernatural gift?
THE STRANGER (moving closer)
Oh, but I have many more gifts to give. What will you do with them, I wonder?
CORVID (admiring the young man)
Oh! What pale skin, what piercing gaze! You look more youthful than the legends say.
THE STRANGER (caressing his cheek)
Let me show you which legends are true.
Corvo's face was burning, letting the book fall shut and shoving it back under the book shelf where he had found it.
Who ever...? How ever had this piece of exaggerated fiction been conceived.
The horrid thought of some one somehow coming up with such a tale made his blood flood his face again with heat.
This must have been a very disturbed mind to first believe the rumors that the Lord Protector was in cohorts with the Outsider, second someone must have a rather deprived fantasy of how the Outsider is giving his chosen his gifts and third, why was this piece of utter garbage too close to the truth anyway?
Looking over his shoulder in the sudden panic of someone witnessing his red face and huffing breath he found the study still deserted.
A quick glance into the Void showed him no person coming near the closed doors. With relieve he sagged onto the chair to his right, scrubbing two hands over his tingling face. The leather strap he started to wear over his Mark caught onto his stubble and he felt new heat welling up in his chest.
If he were a man of the Abby he would start to recite the Wandering Mind to dissuade his own fantasy to go on a stroll down depravity.
How would the Outsiders touch feel anyway? Could he even touch mortals?
Not even when he bestowed Corvo with his Mark a second time had they touched in any way.
All those years the Outsider had disturbed his dreams or haunted him in the waking world, had he never touched him. They had been close enough for Corvo to easily reach him many times, but never dared, or never lost a thought about the possibility.
Just starting to think this he felt his stomach doing a sudden jump, as if he was falling from a great height. Those thoughts were not good to have for his mental state. He was already suffering from too many nightmares. How would he even fare with such a new one? He does not like to be touched by anyone. But would that also extend to the Outsider?
He was after all the one who had granted him powers to not only free himself from many ilks but also his daughter and the empire.
Corvo also trusted the Outsider. He trusted him a lot to be honest.
Again the words of the forbidden play where swirling in his mind like incense of the Outsider's shrines.
The implication of sexuality was the most aggrieving in this piece of utter trash. There had never been any sexual tension in his meetings with the dark god.
“Hello Corvo...”
Oh no.
“...your choice interests me...”
Oh by the Void, no!
“What an impressive sight you make...”
“Dear Corvo...”
The heat in his face was burning brighter than any flame. Hotter than the branding that had been pressed to his back several year ago.
Deeper than the Mark itself.
The opening of the study door made him instinctively blink up to the rafters of the room, heart beating loudly in his ears.
Looking down he found Emily stepping into the now deserted room.
“Father?” she called. He did not dare to answer, as he did not want his daughter to see him like this. He himself did not want to see how he must look now. Red faced, eyes wide, hair in disarray.
“Father? Are you in here?” she called again, not having stepped into the room completely. Not hearing a reply she finally turned and Corvo hoped that she would go to look for him somewhere else but to make his suffering only ever grander she slipped into the room, Wyman at her heels.
Emily was telling her friend something in a hushed voice, too low for Corvo to hear. He just hoped they only needed a place to have a short private talk. In and out in a flash and definitely not looking at books.
To his horror, his daughter made a direct beeline towards the bookshelf where the cursed work of fiction had been haphazardly been shoved under.
“I know it was here only yesterday.” he could make out Emily's voice.
She sounded excited.
Wyman looked equally thrilled, helping search for something by the bookshelf.
Worry started to grow in his heart.
And as if his stomach couldn't fall any lower, Emily, with a triumphant whoop, pulled forth the cursed book. By the Void, Outsider help him.
“Here, it's like the Prince of Tyvia, only even more... you know!” The voice of his daughter cackled and with even more horror in his heart he knew she had already read this humiliating piece of garbage and was about to show it to Wyman.
In a split second he decided to act.
Pulling on the Void he made time stop and in a flash he blinked down, snatching the book out of his daughters hand, pushing a different one into her palm and hurrying out of the door. As the screened door to the study closed silently behind him he could hear his daughter exclaim in confusion. “Wait, that's not it! How could I confuse it with one of Sokolov's Pandyssia stories.”
The rest of the day he spent hiding from Emily and anyone else up on the roof. Burning the cursed book in a trashcan and trying to find out who had written this piece of filth.