Work Text:
Jessamine looked out the window as the rain gently hit the glass, it had been storming all day and she had sent her royal protector away, it wasn't that she was tired of him, it was simply that she wished to be alone. An empress deserved time by herself, did she not?
Emily had just turned nine years old two weeks prior, Jessamine could hardly believe she had raised such a polite, perfect little angel. Though she knew that Emily had a sneaky side to her as well, she had told her not to play out in the rain, but from where she was standing she could see a little girl dressed in white, splashing in muddy puddles.
She smiled to herself, that was her daughter, she was going to be Empress one day.
The lights in the room flickered, she looked behind her and nothing was there... Strange. She turned her attention back to her daughter, playing outside in the gentle rain.
What hardships would come for Emily? She wondered, she knew that the title of Empress was not one to take on lightly, there were many duties she had, many sleepless nights just trying to make sure her people were safe.
She felt a breeze hit her from behind. Odd, there was no window that way, and the door to her study remained closed. Time slowed down and the little girl she was watching from the window was moving at a snail's pace.
"Empress Jessamine" a voice from behind her, she turned around and faced a man who she had read many books about, had heard many people's recalled dreams about, even had her own dreams of him. The Outsider.
"I hesitate to even ask" Jessamine said "But am I dreaming?"
"As one would" he said, he sounded stranger than she would have imagined, younger, too.
"Why are you here? From tall tales I've heard you only approach very few"
"You are correct, I am a humble observer, your Highness. I do not interfere."
He disappeared from in front of her, reappearing behind the globe she kept near her desk, he moved it several times "And I want nothing, except perhaps to... observe"
"And what is it... exactly that you are observing?"
"You watch your child play with an air of ease that will soon be broken"
"What?" Jessamine said, a worry gnawing at her stomach "What are you talking about?"
"There is something coming, I cannot tell you what it is but you need to be ready. Empress. Whatever you do, do not relent"
"I'm going to need a little bit more to go on than that, I have no idea what you're talking about. Is it a war?"
He glanced up at her and then looked back down at the globe "Of sorts, there are those who will use this to their advantage and though the result is not particularly great, if you relent to those forces... Your Empire and everything you hold dear is in danger"
Jessamine looked toward the window at her young daughter, paused in a moment of time and then looked back to the Outsider
"When the time comes, and come it must...You will stand your ground"
"Against whom?"
"I can't tell you that, all I can tell you is water ripples, throw a pebble and it skips across the surface, try to throw a brick and it splashes everything in sight. There are ripples, every single choice has one, Your Majesty"
He disappeared, leaving her standing alone in the room, eyes on the place the globe stopped spinning, Pandyssia.
When the rumors started she had almost forgotten the visit the Outsider had paid her nearly a year ago. This was what he had been warning her about, wasn't it?
The first cases of the plague had appeared in Downmarket District, and quickly spread throughout the city. She watched the body count grow higher and higher each day and remembered what the Outsider had said to her.
When the time comes, stand your ground
When the Royal Spymaster, Hiram Burrows came to her with horrific suggestions to arrest or otherwise dump the sick and ailing into the abandoned flooded district, she knew what she had to do. "Hiram, with all do respect, we have had this conversation before. I will not treat my citizens as criminals. This is not their fault"
"But there is no cure, Empress!" Burrows would say, over and over again "If we cull the ones who are sick now... we will not have to watch this get worse"
"I will save my people, Hiram, all of them that I can, but I will not stand by and watch them get arrested."
"Empress, you seem to not understand the dire situation we are in"
"I understand it perfectly fine, Hiram, I stand by my choice, and if I find out that you have tried going behind my back to harass or abuse these sick citizens, I will be furious. We will find a cure"
When she existed in a state of knowing, but unknowing, she finally understood the Outsider's warning, he had told her to stand her ground because, despite the horrific deaths from the plague, had it not occurred the way it had, Anton Sokolov and Piero Joplin would never have worked together, leading to thousands of ripples that would have also never occurred.
Jessamine didn't like it, but she understood it as she watched her Corvo skulk through the city doing the deeds of the so called Loyalists, as she watched her young daughter imprisoned and alone, as she watched her forgotten sister sitting alone in the Brigmore Manor at the edge of Dunwall.
The day before Emily traveled to Duke Luca Abeles' manor to capture Delilah's spirit in the contraption she had been trapped in for fifteen years, she spoke with the Outsider one last time.
"Why did you not tell me the full truth of the rat plague?"
"It is always dangerous to know too much too soon" he replied "Your time is almost up" he said with a shrug.
"Emily heads to the Duke's soon, your spirit disappears into nothing"
"I need to know something, if I had never stood my ground with Burrows, would Emily have been safe?"
"There were many possibilities, Emily was always in danger"
Jessamine nodded with an understanding "I'm ready to finally leave this place behind, it will be soon" she looked up at him "I wanted to thank you for what you did, thank you for telling Daud to stop Delilah, I will never attribute what happened at the manor to Daud, you were the one who saved my Emily"
She gave him a soft but sad smile "I will say goodbye to her soon"
And she did, as Delilah's spirit entered the heart, Jessamine's departed into nothingness, her last thoughts about Corvo and Emily, her beautiful and kind Emily, and her wonderful Corvo.