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June was the lobster shell I dug by hand
A haven that hid me well, beneath the sand
His first night of freedom and a storm rages outside. Billie seems to trust the dilapidated building they’re holed up in, stirring something in a pot over a small burner. The fire glows faintly, like the swaying candles around them. The air is freezing and the ratty blanket she draped over his shoulders is doing little to help. He gazes out towards Shindaerey Peak.
Everything smells. The dirt, the rotting wood, the rain, the candle smoke, the air itself. He closes his eyes to try to block out the barrage of new sensory input; he expects to see the spider web of winding lights, windows of history, choices criss-crossing, futures forming and burning. He only sees the back of his eyelids.
Billie pours the soup into a bowl, holding it out. There’s bits of vegetables and broken bread chunks they took from the cultist camp. When he takes it, he marvels at how his trembling fingers become steady with warmth. He marvels at how warmth feels. He knows from observation that if he puts his fingers into the soup, it’s going to burn.
“Please don’t tell me you forgot how to eat too.” Billie mutters, holding out a spoon. It’s dirty, but so is everything else in this place. It takes two tries before he properly gets his fingers around the handle, mimicking Billie’s movements to dip it into the bowl and raise it to his mouth. He nearly spills it as it burns his tongue, Billie stifling a snort. “Blow on it first.” So he does. The vegetables are mushy, the bread is stale, and the broth makes his insides warm. It feels nice. “Did you ever eat in the Void?”
“Fine wines and sweet fruit, rotten meat and rat corpses, and everything in between have been laid upon my shrines.” Once, he saw a worshipper lay a piece of whale meat across the purple fabric. He ignored their prayers, pleas, and rantings especially. “The Void swallows them all up. I never got the chance to.” He stirs a chunk of bread around. “I had no need to eat anyways.”
“Did you ever want to?”
“I’ve seen sweets and cakes decorated with sugar spun gold and colors most vibrant. Buffets and feasts large enough to feed a whole city, reserved for only a dozen people or so. Wine bottles stored from floor to arched ceilings. Ingredients that take decades to be served.” He takes another spoonful of soup. “After a few hundred years, they all start looking the same.”
He thinks about the Boyle Party Corvo attended, so many years ago, when he first bestowed his Mark upon the protector. Corvo only helped himself to a drink (for Ms. White) and some Serkonan grapes he slipped under his mask when nobody was looking. He thinks about the massive fish flayed open on the buffet table. He thinks about Corvo stealing a container from the kitchen, pocketing the sweetest-looking fruits and a fresh loaf of bread. At the end of the night, he handed it to Samuel to enjoy.
“Well, sorry your first meal after four thousand years is this.” His chest tightens, his throat bubbles, and he lets out a laugh. He stops immediately with wide eyes, reaching up and touching his lips as if he could grab the foreign sound. Billie’s eyes are wide too, the corners of her lips curving up. His chest hurts a little still. Will it hurt everytime he laughs?
“I’ve long forgotten what food tastes like anyways. As far as I know right now, this is the most delicious soup in the Isles.” She snorts and holds out a canteen of water. He doesn’t tell her it’s a much needed addition to wash the broth down. "... Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
The wide windy waves washed in, but I stayed dry
The great breakers broke again as I nodded off inside
Existing in the Void, he found out, is both blissful and agonizing.
Hunger and thirst are no longer necessities, so his stomach no longer hurts and aches. There is no scorching sun nor freezing chills. No dust that makes him cough up a lung and stings his eyes. No sharp pebbles cutting into his feet. No strange pains racking his body, no itches driving him mad. He feels perfectly, wonderfully fine.
It was terribly, agonizingly lonely and confusing. Drifting aimlessly through nothing, unsure what was up or down, awake or asleep, alive or dead. Sometimes, he passes by floating rock shards or broken cliffsides. The Void occasionally whispered, but he could never understand nor follow the source. Nothing but silence as his company. Not even his own heartbeat was there.
Nothing has changed. He is just as alone as he was before, with the addition of no name. Sometimes, he would reach up and let his fingers drag across the scar on his throat and wonder, why? Why is he here? The world is not kind, he already knows firsthand. What is this then? A curse? A blessing?
He doesn’t quite remember how long he just floated in the empty, constant silence of the Void. Nothing changes. His voice doesn’t echo back when he screams and nothing responds. Nobody ever did. Not when he was in the streets, not when he was taken away, not when they dragged him to the altar, and not when they severed his name away. He can’t and doesn’t bother gauging how long he floated like a body thrown overboard.
And then, when the Empress ran aground
And my eyes turned blue and green
“Stop staring. It creeps people out.” He turns away from the vendor as Billie drags him through the streets. It’s loud and crowded and smelly. Between the blood draining out of giant fishes at the docks, various hanging meats from the butcher shops, cigar smoke from workers on break, and the stuffy hot air, it’s all overwhelming his head and making him wish Billie never took him out of the Void in the first place.
It’s been nothing but overwhelming trying to adjust just how much everything is. The sun is too bright and too hot so he tries only going outside when it’s cloudy or at night, but then the air could either be refreshingly cool or disgustingly humid and sticky. A scrape on his knee hurts everytime his pants brush against it. His eyes keep on darting to things that are shiny, bright, intricate, simple, big, fast, right in the corner of his vision, right front and center. There’s noise, constantly . He doesn’t think his head has stopped aching.
Stopping at a much less crowded part of the docks, he finally took in a lungful of ocean air without suffocating under a dozen other sensations, sitting down with a wheeze. Walking is tiring and his lungs ache, along with the rest of his body. Billie stands next to him with her arms crossed, looking at the sea. The gulls above caw, circling around the fishing boats pulling up.
“... It happened in a spot like this.” He murmured, seeing her foot turn slightly towards him. “I sat by the ocean and hundreds of little silvery fish surfaced, staring at me with their beady, dead eyes.” The tips of his boots just manage to touch the water; he swings his legs back and forth, water droplets flying. “The whales had a feast that night.”
“Is that why they took you?”
“That, and a few more.” A fishing boat a few docks down unloads their nets. Hundreds of little silvery, still-flopping fish spill out, one of the sailors angrily shooing away the more daring birds looking for a free snack. Behind and to his left, he hears instruments, a duo singing.
“ A crumbling black city, an outcast found; father a monster, mother under the ground .” They sing. He brings a leg up and rests his head on his knee. “ A beggar, a mongrel, a boy with no shoes; he fell to their hands to cage and abuse .” Billie’s foot turns a little bit more. “ And lo! In the Month of Darkness; and lo! His name destroyed; and lo! He still whispers in silence; and lo! He went into the Void. ” He smiles, looking up at Billie.
“Did you know there is a day where the hours of night are longer than any other point in the year?” There’s a ship approaching in the distance, coming towards them. He gets up, brushing off the bits of sand stuck on his pants. “I think they place it during the Month of Darkness for dramatic effect; it could’ve happened in the Month of Harvest for all I know.”
“You want to go on over there and fix their song?”
“I cannot remember much, so it is pointless. History is bound to be poorly recorded, improperly passed on.” The ship is getting closer, Billie tugging her sleeve further over her arm; if nobody looked too closely, it only looked like a complicated wire prosthetic.
“We do need to figure out a date for your birthday.” She cursed. “Paperwork is going to be a mess for you.”
“I’m assuming four thousand years old is not an acceptable age to put down?” She snorts and shakes her head. He scratches an itch by his ear, then by his shoulder; he’s forgotten just how much the body itches. Perhaps it’s the jacket fabric. “Well, what would you gauge me as?”
“... If it weren’t for your eyes, I’d say early to mid-twenties.”
“And with my eyes?”
“Stolen.” He raised a brow, Billie shrugging. “Doesn’t fit everything else about you.” Perhaps it is stolen from some other poor soul. He doesn’t remember what colors his original eyes were, only ever seeing them in muddy puddles and clouded cracked mirrors. “It looks like you’ve seen too many things.”
“That, I have.” The cargo ship docks and begins unloading, Billie talking with the captain. Behind crates being carried, she passes them a pouch of coins and gestures for him to follow. They get on board, the swaying motion reminding him a little of the Void. “When’s your birthday?”
“Whatever date you released me, I’ll count it as that.”
I heard a gorgeous sound
And that’s when it became a dream
The first sound he heard was the leviathans. He remembered floating through the Void as usual, alone and empty, as usual.
Then there was a cry, a deep, spine-chilling howl reverberating above him. It made his teeth rattle and his ears ring. He wanted to hear it again. Raising his head, a leviathan swam above, opening its mouth and crying once more. One became two, then four, then six. A pod, all singing, all crying. It made his body feel like it was becoming undone, the vibrations separating his bones, blood, and nerves. Like they were all floating separately, himself only a spectator.
Oh, how he wants to join in! He wants to listen and sing like them, traverse through the Void with them. Focusing whatever energy he had left, he prayed, hoped to go above to where they swam.
With an inaudible whisper and wisp of black smoke, he found himself right by the whales, close enough to run his hands across its skin. His eyes gazed into one of theirs and he saw his reflection; they have the same pitch-black eyes, filled with eternity. It slowly blinked, turned its body, and swam towards the left. He focused and with another whisper, teleported to the left.
Slowly, gradually, he learned how to traverse the Void. Teleporting on floating platforms and swimming along hidden currents, occasionally holding onto the whales’ backs. They guided him across oceans, to windows of reality, to strange magics and dead languages. He watched and observed history pass by, cities rising and falling. When he closed his eyes, he could see potential futures, buried pasts, paths never taken. Between travels, he sang, letting his vocal cords vibrate and ripple through the Void like them. His whalesong is a little wobbly and strange, not quite loud enough, not quite the same. They find it funny.
During a trip, he glanced into a leviathan’s eye again and noted that his appearance hasn’t changed at all.
When the sky fell in
When the hurricanes came for me
The wind howls with rolling grey clouds approaching fast. It chills his face and makes his hair whip around his face. Billie curses under her breath.
“Here’s hoping we get to the port before that hits.” The first few raindrops begin to fall when they get off the boat. They get to the inn when it begins to seep into their clothes, and by the time they retreat into a cheap room above a raucous bar, she looks at him with a barely restrained grin. “You look like a drowned dog.”
“Thanks.” He mutters, wiping his hair away from his eyes. He feels slimy, it’s way colder than expected, his clothes fabric is sticking to him, and in general, he feels horrible. The rain felt wonderful falling on his face and hands, a sensation he never experienced in the Void; it always looked so pleasing, but the accompanying consequences were troublesome.
He wrings his clothes out as much as possible, deciding to just deal with the dampness. It feels much worse. Everything feels gross and cold and terrible. He sits against the bed, not wishing to transfer the slimy dampness onto the sheets too. Billie sits by the window, watching the storm clouds roll by.
“We’ll stay for a week or so. Not many Dunwall ships pass through here.” He raises his head. Worry, an emotion that’s much stronger than he expected it to be. In the Void, it was easy to just open a window and observe Corvo and Emily, perhaps just interested in what they were up to, perhaps just to check they were still alive. But his hands only grasp at empty air, eyes only seeing to the wall. He wonders if his Mark is still there. He rests his head on his knees and curses at worry making his chest hurt so bad.
Was this what Corvo felt, sprinting through the city twice to save Emily? What Emily felt when she had to sail away from Dunwall with all trusted allies gone? … What Billie felt when she had to leave Daud on the Dreadful Wale, when they both knew his time was almost up?
He feels a little bad for pushing and taunting them now.
Billie heads out sometime in the evening after the storm settles down into a drizzle to look for the black market and contracts. He opts to remain inside, the stinging cold that followed the storm harsh on his nose. To pass the time, he tries to listen to the voices coming up from the bar, lying on the floor with his ear pressed down. Sailor stories, mundane conversation, bragging rights, mostly useless, sometimes scandalous gossip. A few conversations pass by the door, one catching his attention.
“Sneakin’ it away already took a lot, I can’t just hand it over in broad daylight, are you stupid?” He shuffles a little closer to the door, careful of the creaking floorboards. “Ain’t safe especially with the Grand Guard.”
“How the hell am I going to get it then?” Hushed yelling, probably through clenched teeth. He peeks through the keyhole and sees two people standing across on the other side. “They’re already suspecting a thief stole it or worse, a nosy beggar is going to find and pawn it off!”
“Calm down, I stashed it under the docks by Pier 3. It’s probably half underwater from the storm, nobody’s going to find it. Just wait when the tides go back out and pretend you're looking for clams or some shit.” Their voices fade out. Billie climbs through the window about an hour later.
“There might be something under the docks by Pier 3.” She raises a brow and leaves. Thirty minutes later, she returns with a gold necklace adorned with glittering gems, grinning. They sell it the next day. It was cloudy enough for him to tolerate going outside, Billie taking him to the outside markets. She buys him a set of rings, plain.
“You pick at your nails and skin any more and they’re going to start bleeding.” They’re cool to the touch and twist around his fingers easily; he finds that idly twisting them is relaxing and much better than picking at peeling skin. He asks her to buy him a whittling knife and a pick from a different vendor; she doesn’t get the knife, but does let him choose a pick out (he gets the one with the whale engravings on the handle). When they pass through the docks, his fingers, moving with a speed from a time eons ago, swipes a piece of whale bone. Nobody sees.
If the nighttime air isn’t too cold or stuffy, Billie takes him out to practice running and climbing. His limbs still feel strange (too attached) and he forgets occasionally he can’t float across gaps or pass through walls. The scratches, scrapes, and bruises, as much as they hurt, serve as another reminder he’s mortal again, it’s not a strange, vivid dream. The first time he manages to climb up a wall by himself, Billie holds her fist out with a smile.
“Aren’t you supposed to…?” He makes a punching motion and she laughs.
“It’s a fist-bump.” Copying her closed fist, she gently bumps it against his. Another strange human ritual. If he was still in the Void, perhaps he would’ve found it ridiculous or amusing or useless. He finds it so delightfully fun. This too, reminds him he’s mortal once more.
I could finally crash again
And that’s how I became the sea
He learned how to appear in the real world, by broken-down shrines and fleeting dreams. Pandyssia was where he lingered the most, leviathans singing above window portals as he watched people carve into bones, whispering sigils in their ears and guiding their fingers. They get passed down from generation to generation, between friends and star-crossed lovers. A few get thrown into the ocean.
The Void forms and tears down structures as history passes, though a few formations seem to linger for much, much longer. Drowned cities, capsized fleets, bones of even greater leviathans from a time before him. When the windows yield nothing interesting, he goes exploring, always close enough to still hear the leviathans singing to find his way back.
One time, he wandered further away than usual, the whalesong a bare whisper in the back of his head. He carefully stepped down onto the dark-grey stone slabs, bypassed hooded stone statues that made his skin crawl, and stood in front of the altar. His fingers brushed over the scar across his throat; how long has it been? What year was it back then? Did it matter?
When did the blood finally stop spilling out of his throat and the ocean finally filled up his lungs? When did he wake up with eyes bleeding oil and a loneliness that never went away?
He sat on the altar, staring at the hooded stone statues. For all he finds the choices humanity makes to be boring, predictable, uninteresting, what of his own choices? Would something different have happened if he struggled, screamed, fought his way up till his last moments? Would the ritual have been botched and he just passes on as a failed sacrifice? What if he tried to befriend one of the cultists? He never talked to any of them. Lying down, he stared into the Void, closing his eyes.
He wondered how many paths he had. What if he never went to the docks that night? Would another poor soul stumble across it and be greeted by the dead fish instead? Or was he always destined to become this form, and the fish will merely wait until he went to the docks again? Where would he be if he never went?
Bleeding out on some street, probably.
There’s another formation that caught his attention. It doesn’t get swallowed up by the Void for a while; a white gazebo in a courtyard, a patch of red staining the floor. He stood in it a few times, resting his hands on the railing or sitting on the roof. This future is still too distant for him to know its purpose. But eventually, like all things, he will see it.
I wrenched the engines off and drank them down
The depths turned the iron soft as they swiftly drowned
He knows they’re near Dunwall when he hears the mournful cries from whales.
He was above the deck, breathing in the ocean air. His lungs have gotten stronger and he wheezes less. His senses were still trying to get used to, well, the world. Turning his head, he sees a whaling ship in the distance with a whale hooked on. It ground and moans. What if he threw himself over the railings, swam across the vast distance, got into the ship engine room, and destroyed it so the ship sinks and the whale can swim free?
He’ll probably freeze and drown in the ocean before ten minutes is even up. He doesn’t even know how to swim and he doesn’t want to ask Billie, on the account that Daud taught her by tossing her into the ocean. All the Whalers who didn’t know how to swim learned quickly (to be fair, Daud’s mother taught him the same way, a fleeting memory reminds him).
Opting to spend the rest of the trip below deck, he read whatever books or documents were lying around. Between the safety manual, the cargo box labels, something about how to deworm hagfish, and the terms and conditions of operating a cargo ship, there wasn’t much.
The rumbling of the engine room and sailors yelling orders drown most of the whale cries, but when he lies down by the cargo boxes at night he can hear them, muffled and sad and pressing a different ache in his chest. Closer to his heart, which he can hear beating against his ribcage, and forming a lump in his throat he can’t swallow.
“You’re sad.” Billie explained as they share a bowl of porridge and dark bread. Dipping the bread into the porridge softened it a little and did nothing for the taste. “Sadness feels like that. Guilt too.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Tough shit, you’re going to feel it a lot.” A cry echoes across the sea and he stares into the bowl, nausea churning in his stomach. Billie slides over a trash can right as he throws up dinner; he desperately hopes guilt doesn’t feel this horrible every time.
To try to pass the time and distract himself, he takes the swiped whale bone piece back out, tucks himself into a corner of the cargo hold, and begins carving at it. Billie lends him a pocket knife to whittle the bone down, the pick fitting comfortably around his fingers as he scrapes away. The designs and patterns come easy, flowing from his mind through his fingers and into the bone. The steady scraping and soft singing keeps his mind occupied. He tucks it into the darkest corner of the ship for an entire day, wrapped up in seaweed and ashes from the kitchen.
“Here.” Over another dinner, he holds out the bone-charm, Billie eyeing it warily. “It should make you blend into the shadows more. If… If you want it.” She continues to stare at it with a grimace. He doesn’t blame her. His gifts were, as he believes what people say, in poor taste. He begins to retract his hand when she takes it.
“I’ll test it out when we’re in Dunwall.” She says, tucking it into an inner jacket pocket. The ship pulls up to the port a few days later and before the Watch comes to inspect, they slip out and scurry away. It was the last ship to arrive tonight, the moon making its way into the sky and street lamps lighting the streets. He rents a room, silently thanks Billie for doing the math beforehand and having the payment all in a neat pouch, takes the keys, and goes to the top floor. He lets her in through the window. “Want to go explore the city with me? Think your body can handle it?” He grins and nods.
They travel through the city on pipes and slanted rooftops, both of them navigating alleyways and side-roads with ease. Neither of them felt inclined to leave during the day, wanted posters of Billie still posted about and the Abbey milling about making him reluctant to test his chances. Once or twice, he joins Billie on a contract; only to serve as a lookout, sitting above balconies or watching the end of an alley. The black cloth he uses to hide the lower part of his face slightly itches, but not unbearable.
“I can’t get there.” He huffs as she displaces to the other side of the street, her only shrugging. Her version of figure it out, I’m not helping . Going to the end of the street, there was a patch of street that wasn’t illuminated by light; he climbed down, sprinted across, climbed onto one of the dumpsters, and heaved himself up on the lower roof. Getting on the ventilation unit, he leapt and grabbed the top roof’s edge, lifting himself up with a wince. Finally getting back onto the rooftops, he made his way back to her, yanking down his cloth mask to suck in a few deep breaths as she gave a little clap.
“Terrible time. I would’ve put you on river krust duty to improve your speed.” Billie teases.
“I would like to keep my knowledge of river krusts to observation, and observation only .” He grumbles back, wiping the dirt and grime on his pants.
“Apartment’s over there. There should be an empty apartment nearby you can watch from.” Dropping down onto a dusty balcony, the apartment seemed long abandoned, not yet renovated. He sat by the doorway to the balcony as she slipped into the building across; it looked high-end, luxury. His chest aches a little with worry and he rubs his sternum to try to soothe it. Billie’s beyond capable, he knows this perfectly well, yet he worries.
The aching doesn’t go away until she remerges, contract item in hand and safe and sound. The shadows melt and extend just a little further for her, sometimes the arcane eye the only noticeable trait (and even so, he suspects it’s only because he knows it’s there). He needs to squint his eyes a little to keep track of her moving in the shadows, perhaps he could add a trait that makes eyes gloss over her briefly. She drops down by him.
“Found this in a drawer, thought you might like it.” She holds out a little glass whale figurine, smooth and cold. He holds it up to the moonlight and it shines in light blue. He smiles and tucks it into his pocket. Billie displaces back to the roofs and he gets up to follow. Standing out onto the balcony, he looks for something to climb.
The back of his neck prickles. He looks up.
And I brought the oceanside to its rusty knees
As I felt the even tide deep in my shallow dreams
Leviathans are born in the Void and die in the Void.
When a new calf is born, they sing in delighted choruses, bellowing whalesong in celebration. A new life, a new addition to the pod. He doesn’t witness it often, but can certainly hear the joyous singing through the Void. He’s always smaller than the calves, even the runts. He sings with them, his odd whalesong clashing with their just-learning cries into a wonderful, laughing mess.
When a leviathan dies, the Void mourns, weeping and groaning.
As time slips and passes on, he knows even the most mighty of leviathans fall eventually, settling among the bones of those before. Everything has a beginning and an end. He briefly wonders if he, too, would have an end. The Void is the beginning and end of all things. Where does he fall in?
There’s a new city being built around the white gazebo. Stone by stone, brick by brick, built upon long-buried bones and grave secrets. They rely on the ocean and their ports to survive, though others create other businesses along the grey streets. Dunwall. He sits on the white gazebo roof and watches as the city grows and grows, the creation of an empire.
Then, as human nature is, invention and innovation propels them forward. The Void becomes a lot more silent as the city becomes brighter.
He cannot interfere, he is an observer. The Void mourns as another whale dies. He walks among the bones and carcasses, watching as pieces break off and float away. Whale bone washes up against shores and cliff sides, tossed into dumpsters and sewer gutters. They once again, find their way into pockets and pouches. The Abbey loathes them and loathes him. Humanity, fond of scapegoats. He leans back and watches as they drag his name through the river mud and almost finds it funny.
A whaler finds a bone charm wedged underneath the wooden boards at the docks. They’re delighted to find out their muscles are stronger and pay little attention to how bar lights flicker when they enter or how lamps burn through the oil a little quicker. On a trip, the ship engine overheats and the whaling ship has to return with nothing to show for maintenance. It happens two more times before they chuck the bone charm back into the ocean with a curse. It will inevitably wash up on another shore.
Another ship engine bursts. Somebody simply neglected to do maintenance in favor of getting to the bar quicker, and the ship goes down with a shuddering explosion. The sailors rock back and forth on lifeboats, stranded in the middle of the ocean. He sees plenty of futures leading to all of them drowning. As the ship dipped below the waves, the whale broke free of the restraints and swam away. He hears one of the sailors curse his name.
It became common to curse his name. When a sudden storm strikes, when a lifeboat sinks, when there are no whales to be found. When somebody loses a round of cards, they swear it’s his fault. A drunk worker that wandered over the railings, his doing.
He finds it most interesting when the wind tears at the sails, the waves threaten to split the ship in half, and the roaring thunder akin to beasts surrounds them, they beg for him to save them. Beg for the Void to spare them.
He grants his mark. To a young lady whose eyes and mind itch for more, far more. A boy, much like him long, long, ago, cradling a white rat by his chest. A bastard daughter and painter with a blaze of ambition that almost lights a piece of the Void up; he finds it so very interesting how some of her futures, he cannot see past a certain point.
A boy with a supposed witch mother, one hand holding a blade and another a pouch of coin. When he marked him, the Void shifted, and the spiderwebs of lives became much, much more tangled.
And then, when the Empress ran aground
And my eyes turned blue and green
This is not how he thought the reunion would go.
It was the flicker of a shadow passing above out of the corner of his eye and a faint flap of fabric first. He manages to dodge the assailant dropping down, vaulting over the railing and rolling upon impact onto the ground. Holding in a yelp of pain, he freezes as the point of a sword appears right in front of his face. With a howl of air and warp of reality, Billie’s boots stand by the sides of his head, Twin-Bladed knife materializing in a flash. Another shadow moves and she thrusts her wrist bow out, one finger twitch away from firing.
He doesn’t dare to breathe, staring at the sword point. It gleams in the moonlight.
“... Emily?” Billie whispers, and the surprise that shot through his blood is something he’s probably never going to forget.
“Megan?” It’s her voice, incredibly familiar, a little choked but mostly shocked. The sword moves away from his face, thankfully, while Billie lowers her weapons with an exhale. He moves his mask down to cough (the street is much more dirty than he expected), pushing himself up onto his elbows and raising his head.
Corvo and Emily stare at him, eyes wide and jaws dropped. Oh, their expressions are more delightful than anything he’s witnessed in the past four thousand years. He’s never going to forget their faces.
“ Outsider?! ” He stands up with much less grace than he would’ve liked, brushes off the dirt on his pants, and tucks his arms behind his back like he used to. Before he could say what he planned, Emily marches up, punches him in the arm (it hurts, a lot ), and hugs him tightly.
His Void-self would’ve teleported away with a sneer as soon as Emily tried to punch him. His current self knows he probably deserved it.
“This is where you’ve been?!” She all but yells, a quick shush from Corvo reminding her they were right in the open. They quickly move back to the rooftops, finally settling by the clock tower. She repeats her question, albeit at a lower volume.
“I did not exactly have the means of sending a message that would be guaranteed to reach you.” He certainly wasn’t expecting Emily to be upset of all things, feeling his chest tighten; guilt, was that what Billie called it? At least this time, he doesn’t feel like throwing up. “How did you…?”
“We suspected… when you no longer showed up at shrines or dreams-” She unwraps her left hand, the ribbon falling away row by row. His Mark, more cracked and smudged. He gently takes her hand and runs his fingers over the black lines; there’s a rush of familiarity coursing through his blood. The Void softly whispers in his ears, but he cannot understand the words anymore. At least, not all of it. “It still works, just a little unstable.”
“I am no longer a conduit for the Void, take caution when calling upon it. Your mind should remain safe, but best not to test how far it is willing to hold.” He let her hand go, the soft call of the Void fading from his ears. The lump is returning to his throat, but this time he’s able to swallow it down and turn to Corvo instead. His left hand is also wrapped up, but only bare skin peeks through. “Any need to punch me in the arm too, dear Corvo?” He teases, Corvo rolling his eyes.
He didn’t expect Emily’s upsetness and he certainly didn’t expect Corvo’s crushing hug, pulling away with a pat on his shoulder. Corvo snorts at his expression, making a gesture that he realizes to be to close his jaw. Billie watches them all, remaining an arm’s length away. Emily turns to her, holding her hands out. One for him, one for Billie.
“Thoughts on dinner at the Tower?” Billie blinks and Emily smiles, extending her hand out more. He knows the last time Billie went to the Tower was that fateful day, when all their paths crisscrossed and intersected with the death of an Empress. “It’s been a while, we should catch up! I want to hear what you two,” he takes her hand, and how strange it is, to feel physical fingers lace over his, “been up too, especially…” she gestures to Billie’s eye and arm, and to him in general.
“... Does he know?” Billie jerks her head in the direction of Corvo. Emily nods. “And you’re okay with it?” He nods. She sighs, running a glove down her face. “... Bit late for a proper dinner, Empress.” She says, though she smiles. Emily snorts, waving her hand.
“I hate formalities, you already know that.”
I heard a gorgeous sound
And that’s when it became a dream
When Princess Jessamine Kaldwin stood in the white gazebo holding her father’s hand, overlooking the city she was to rule one day, he saw her futures. She will almost certainly not live long enough to see her daughter’s eleventh birthday. There are only one or two where she retires peacefully. And to his curiosity, paths that continue after her death.
Daud drove his blade through the Empress when Emily was ten. The Void shifts and folds, setting in motion a series of events once hidden. He’s pleasantly surprised when Jessamine’s spirit, fragmented and split in the Void, demanded his presence. Thousands have begged for his attention, but to demand after death is nothing short of admirable. He gives it to her, and her request- no - order, to be of use to Corvo and Emily in the times to come as another surprise; how she doesn’t want her life back, but rather to guide them even beyond.
The Heart is made. He marked Corvo and the Void folded and shifted once more; the amount of choices Corvo has almost makes him dizzy, all leading to different futures, different timelines. The brightest and most likely paths, carving a river of blood through Dunwall, is snuffed out as the Royal Protector, now heretic, continued to surprise him with a clean blade.
Corvo slinked through Dunwall as a mere whisper and fleeting glance of a mask. On the other side of Dunwall, Daud waded through Brigmore manor’s waters, lantern in hand and blade cleaner than before. He locked Delilah in her own painting, saving Emily, who slept in the Hounds Pits Pub in faux safety. And against all he knows of human nature and the most likely choices made, Corvo, despite never knowing what Daud has done, lets him go.
The rise of a new Empress, Emily Drexiel Lela Kalwin I. A decade of curing the rat plague, rebuilding Dunwall, running along rooftops, and wondering if she’s making Jessamine proud; she doesn’t think so. He’s back to watching time pass, sitting on the white gazebo and observing the city slowly sit back up. The leviathans continued singing, the Void settled back down, and he wondered if he should observe another city closer.
Then Delilah, clawing her way out of the Void, forces it to shift. He doesn’t like it. She rips his mark away from Corvo. Emily escapes. Corvo does not.
A repeat of events fifteen years ago. History doesn’t repeat, but it loves to pattern.
She takes his mark like her father. Her sword does not remain clean, but she does not cut a river of red through Karnaca either. Steadily balancing on the fine line between order and chaos, he watches as she, with the time-piece he gifted, sleep-darts Stilton and shifts the entire timeline to another.
As she raced back to Delilah and took her down (with her own paintings, like Daud had. He finds it awfully amusing), he sees a mostly peaceful rule ahead of her. Perhaps some other event that escaped his eyes will rock the Empire’s foundation once more, but for now, they’re okay. Corvo and Emily’s reunion is sweet and he would love to linger longer, but his attention is drawn elsewhere.
Meagan Foster, Billie Lurk, the one he truly cannot predict, for all her choices are scrambled across several windows, gaps, and pockets of nothing. He does remember some paths he foresaw when he briefly saw her running through the streets, curious as to why she had so many paths tainted with blood.
One had her staring at the night sky, fingers curled around her sweetheart as they both let out a last breath in a puddle of mixed blood as a carriage rode away. Another had her staring at a clouded sky, bleeding out surrounded by a family she betrayed and regretted. Another had her escaping early onto the sea, hands never having touched an assassin’s blade; instead, they pulled ropes, carried cargo boxes, and braided her sweetheart’s hair.
It was probably the happiest path he saw for her. It never had a chance to happen.
He knew Billie was coming after him, Twin-Bladed sword in hand. Her path ended at Shindaerey Peak, her choices, options, and outcomes all obscured. All he knew is that by the time the sun rises, he will no longer reside in the Void. There is the chance she will not make it through the cultist camp. He’s not foolish enough to think so.
As she entered the Ritual Hold, he closed his eyes, let his body drift, and waited. Time has no meaning in the Void. He lost the ability to count time in his head a long, long time ago. Perhaps it was only seconds, or hours.
Daud’s rough voice whispered his name into his ear.
It’s like a punch in his gut, a weight slamming to his chest. He gasped, his first breath in four thousand years.
He wakes up to Billie holding his body, the taste of blood in his mouth, a stinging chill on his skin, and an aching exhaustion in every bone. He’s free.
When the sky fell in
When the hurricanes came for me
“ So you’re not dead. ” Corvo signs. He’s very glad his knowledge of sign languages didn’t disappear, though it takes a little more work to decipher the words instead of just gleaming from what the Void whispers in his ear. Corvo gestures again a little slower.
“One choice away from being so.”
“I would’ve killed and left you to rot in the Void if I knew how much of a pain you are.” Billie mutters.
“But you didn’t.” She knocks him on the side of the head and he winces, rubbing the spot with a pout. She smiles.
“Watching you fall on your face trying to walk was enough reason to not.” He tries to cover her mouth with a sputter but she easily swats his hands away with a laugh, Emily snickering and Corvo barely restraining a chuckle. His cheeks feel hot and he’s what he believes is angry, but not. Embarrassed, perhaps. He never felt embarrassed in the Void (what is a god to be self-conscious of?) but now, another reminder he’s human.
They eat in the drawing room, dinner being an assortment of leftover fruits and sweets from the kitchen. He finds out sweets are probably the closest thing to an otherworldly being and fruits can actually be sweet and not mushy from being bruised on ship floors. Billie recounts their story: her time in Karnaca, the Eyeless, the Twin-Bladed knife, and Shindaerey Peak. She leaves out the Royal Conservatory.
“Why did you go after him in the first place?” Emily asks.
“... Daud.” Billie murmurs, staring into her tumbler of whiskey. “He’s passed on now, aboard the Dreadful Wale.” She shakes her head, finishes the rest of the glass, and begins talking about how she’s looking for a new ship. None of them bother to bring the conversation back.
Winding down with a game of cards, he excuses himself from the table with a bottle of apple cider. Going to the balcony, he leans over and looks out, taking a deep breath of the crisp night air. Billie’s busy teaching Emily how to fight dirty, showing how to twist an arm back. Corvo comes up behind him, gesturing to the table; his tumbler is still there, whiskey untouched.
“No thank you, I found out alcohol is a little too much for my taste. You can have it, if you’d like.” He offers up the bottle of cider, Corvo leaning against the railing and taking a sip. He thinks that if they were in Karnaca, it would most likely be a pear soda they’d be sharing. It would be most refreshing and welcome in the constant heat, but in cloudy, dreary Dunwall, the cider only chills his insides and makes Corvo’s eyes glaze over with a longing. The moonlight washes over his solemn expression, highlighting tired indents and far too many stress wrinkles for one lifetime. He sets the bottle down between them.
“ What are you planning to do now? ”
“... I think I’m staying with Billie. Travel the world with her.” He looks towards the docks, Corvo following his gaze. In the misty fog that always surrounds Dunwall ports, a whaling trawl floats. Taking a deep breath, cold, fresh air enters in and out of his lungs. “It is so much more different getting to experience things directly.” He sighs and takes a sip of cider. “You humans experience so much, constantly. It’s unbearable.”
“ Sorry about that. You never will get quite used to it. ” Corvo rests his fingers right above his breast pocket, reaching for something that is long gone. He guesses Corvo is feeling the kind of sadness that weighs on shoulders and makes his chest feel hollow. Before he could get caught up, he points back to the table, Emily waving a pack of cards around.
“I think she wants you to join.” Corvo smiles and nods, gesturing for him to follow as well. He learns a new card game, eats half of the sweets, watches as Emily gets trounced by both Billie and Corvo cheating and getting away with it, and enjoys the warm, fuzzy feeling in his body. They aren’t even eating anything hot, and he feels warm. When the moon is high in the sky, they decide to accept Emily’s invitation to stay in the Tower; just until Billie finds a new ship.
The guest room’s bed is incredibly soft and comfortable; the shower feels like heaven; the provided night clothes are more comfortable than anything he’s worn before; it all makes him uneasy. He dreams of bruised fruits on rusted silver platters, ceremonial robes, and hundreds of dead fish. Halfway through the night, he opts to sleep on the couch instead and no more dreams come.
Life in the Tower is luxurious, comfortable, and makes the back of his neck hair prickle. There’s always somebody watching, whether it be the guards, servants, or noblemen. The gossip is at least somewhat entertaining. He passes an Overseer in the hallways, tries to ignore how they slow down, twists the rings around his fingers, and rounds the corner away from them. He could hear them walking back. Corvo appears in the distance, quickly falling in step with him. One of his hands rests between his shoulderblades, gently guiding him through the hallways until he can no longer feel the Overseer’s eyes.
“I’m sorry about that."
“Don’t be, it is not your fault.” He pats Corvo’s arm. They share lunch together later in his guest room, Corvo listening as he told him all of Billie’s training regimes to get him acclimated to the world. It makes his mouth smile and his shoulders relax. It’s delightful.
Billie finds a new cargo ship, a little smaller than the Dreadful Wale but more than enough for just the two of them. There’s an attachment for a skiff, one that Emily pays for as “I never did return it when I took it to the Tower, did I?”
“I got it back. The motor died.” Close enough to the truth. Once they got out of Shindaerey Peak, Billie scrapped it for parts and sold them. After some paperwork and a signature, the ship is theirs. Corvo and Emily come to the docks to send them off, and he feels the sensation of worry beginning to gnaw on his heart again.
“Stay safe, you two.”
“Not going to say stay out of trouble?” Billie asks.
“ Trouble is bound to find you, whether you’re looking for it or not .” Corvo signs, “ Just don’t do anything stupid. ”
“We’ll consider it.” They sail away, watching Corvo and Emily wave them goodbye. The further they become, the more his heart gnaws on his chest, almost enough for him to consider jumping overboard and swimming back to the docks to make sure they haven’t disappeared forever. Billie rests a hand on his shoulder and steers him away from the edge.
I could finally crash again
And that’s how I became the sea
Maintaining a ship between only the two of them gives enough things to do, whether it be charting new courses, checking the engine room, fixing dripping pipes, or taking inventory. He learns quickly (he has to, with how Billie operates), leaving various notes and reminders around the ship for himself. There’s a storage room with a window that he repurposes as his room, the floor having scattered books, penny novels, and empty crates. On calm days, he climbs the rafters, learns how to swim, and spars with Billie on the deck; he gets his ass soundly beaten every time.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re letting out your frustration on me.” He teased as he grabs Billie’s hand, getting up with a wince. His side aches, his palms stings, there’s most likely a bruise forming around his ankle, and he feels great.
“I’m not confirming nor denying that statement. Besides, you wanted to learn.”
“I should have known what to expect, with the way you trained new Whalers.” Billie snorted, tossing a rag for him to wipe off the excess sweat. Sweat was something he never had to deal with in the Void. It’s disgusting. “I appreciate you not throwing me into the ocean when I brought up swimming.” There’s a brief pause of silence followed with Billie glancing at the railings, glancing back at him, and grinning.
He improves his speed by trying to outrun Billie, lest he gets thrown overboard. More laughter spills out of him, a sound that’s steadily getting less foreign each time.
On land, he helps with contracts and odd jobs, memory jogging once in a while of hidden passages and buried secrets. He tries to stop his staring habit, learns that money is a pain, whispers secrets to Billie to aid her haggling, and wonders if the world has always been so vibrant. There’s several people he knows, or he knows their parents or grandparents. They all don’t know him. He chooses to keep his mouth shut, at least until he sorts his memories out.
Whale-themed trinkets and anything that glitters under the sun quickly becomes his favorite things to collect. Several strands of sea glass are strung up by the window, casting sparkles across his room when the sun hits. Billie mutters that his collection is getting out of hand and his room is a nightmare to navigate, but still helps drill holes into the shards he finds along beaches so he can get another string going.
In return, he carves new bone-charms or refines her existing ones, listening to the faint song emanating from them with a smile she once described as “sad” or “nostalgic”. He isn’t quite sure what the second word means yet.
“No.” He stared at the stuffed whale plush, looking back up to Billie. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“You barely have any more room on your bed.”
“I wanted to put them on my chair by our table.”
“I’m not having your damn collection bleeding outside your room.”
“What do you have against whales?”
“I don’t, I’m just against you.” He looked down at the price tag, pouring a few coins into his hand. If his memory serves right, he has two tens, four singles… Billie looks away before he could ask for the notebook to do the math in. A trial then. Mental math.
He buys the whale plushie, places what he prays is the right amount of coin in the vendor’s hand, and grins when they confirm it to be correct. Billie stares at him as he walks back and he knows he’s going to be stuck on cleaning duty for the next week. Seeing his new companion sitting at his dining seat on the boat is enough reward.
In another city, he spots a vendor selling painted wooden figures. There’s a variety of animals from various dogs, some cats, what looked to be river krusts, fish, and more. There’s a white rat with a pink nose and beady red eyes. He buys it immediately.
“What is this?” Billie asks as he puts it into her hand, staring at it with either annoyance or confusion. He wonders if there’s a word for a mix of the two.
“I thought you might like it.”
“And what makes you think I like rats?” He rolled his eyes as she scowled and tucked the figurine into her inner jacket pocket, muttering that they don’t have the budget to spend on such useless things. He knows neither of them are going to get rid of the rat that seems to have taken residence in the engine room. When the nights get the best of her, she sits in the engine room listening to their chatter. Where Deirdre’s charm is, he doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to ask.
Another market, another rat trinket, another gift he drops into Billie’s hands. By the end of the month, there’s a small stuffed rat sitting across from his stuffed whale.
When the sky fell in, when the sky fell in
When the sky fell in
The first time he actually landed a punch on Billie, he first felt overwhelming glee that he finally landed a blow, sudden worry at how much did it hurt Billie, then a surge of dread that she might throw him overboard for punching her. She rubbed her jaw, slowly raising her head with a grin.
“Nice. You’ve improved.” He sighed in relief, sigh turning into a yell as she lunged for him, wrestling him onto the deck floor laughing as they tried to pin each other down. As he was toweling the sweat off, she smiled at him again, patting his shoulder (the right one, the left one still was sore from when he landed on it trying to do a dive-and-roll). “Good job. That actually hurt a little bit.”
“As opposed to…?”
“Your limbs were like noodles when I first pulled you out of the Void.” She rolled her eyes. “You struggled even holding groceries.”
“In my defense, I never had to deal with exercise for four thousand years.” It still felt good, that with each passing day, his body was growing stronger, more mortal, more alive. There’s calluses forming on his fingers now, the continuous motions of rope pulling and carrying bags. There’s little white scars from where he accidentally nicked himself with the carving knife. He has scraped his knees and hands more times than he can count now.
He starts landing more hits, managing to get through Billie’s defenses and weaving between her attacks. The next training session, she comes with an assortment of weapons, edges dulled. He pales.
“Oh no. I have watched you train the Whalers. I am not doing this.” Billie grins, gesturing for him to pick.
“I have been going easy on you. Now we start the second part of training.” After much whining and attempted bargaining, he settles on two short knives. He begins to learn how to use them, to attack and defend. Blocking with his arms, evading offensive maneuvers and countering. As usual, Billie doesn’t bother going easy on him, the sessions usually ending up with him floating on the ocean for a bit while Billie lectures him on everything he did wrong from the skiff.
Floating on the ocean waves is nice. It’s soothing on his aching muscles. And watching the clouds slowly make their way across a blue sky is a treat of itself. She often finds him either lying on the deck staring at the sky, no matter if it's a clear starry night or cloudy day. He finds it all fascinating, after gazing into the abyss for four thousand years.
He likes sunrises the most. To watch the moon dip below the waves and the sun rise as the sky fades to new colors, he'll never get tired of it. Even if Billie chastises him for not sleeping again.
The training pays off one night when he accompanies Billie on a contract. Serving as lookout, he’s distracted by tracking the movements of two gang members outside of the building Billie’s in to notice one creeping up behind him. It’s only when one of the charms sewn into his jacket whispers harshly into his ear does he jolt and narrowly dodge an empty beer bottle, the glass shattering on the doorframe he was leaning out of.
The assailant yells and rushes towards him with a knife. He side-steps and trips up their ankle like Billie taught him, rolling to avoid them trying to grab his limbs. Instinct and panic clash as he fights the gang member. Knives and metal swing. Billie would be back any second now. Jabbing them in the chest, he punches them in the jaw. Before they could retaliate, he slams their head into the wall and wheezes as they drop to the floor.
Oh, he’s so glad Billie throws him around like a sack of potatoes now. Groaning, he kicks the knife away to the opposite end of the room just in case, heaving and feeling the adrenaline begin to come down. As it goes down, pain in his arm suddenly goes up.
His first thought is that blood is warm.
It’s warm and slightly sticky and dripping down his arm.
Oh. Huh. The fabric of his jacket is darker than before. That’s new.
“Oh shit- okay, I got you, I got you.” Billie’s voice sounds very distant, yet he knows the hands that are pulling him to the side are hers. Everything is a little far away. Her hands are pushing him down into a sitting position. Oh nice, she has a roll of bandages. That’s nice. He’s never had something like that before when he got hurt on the streets.
A glass vial taps on his lower lip. For a brief moment he panics and thinks of hooded robes and dead silver fish, but then the smell hits and the red coloring reminds him it’s the health remedies they both keep on hand. He drinks it with a grimace, swallowing until the vial was empty. With a wince, he feels Billie finish tying off the bandage.
“For somebody that’s supposed to see everything, you really got caught by a random gang member?” Billie tsks, flicking his forehead. He swats her hand away with his good arm, huffing.
“You’re the one with the arcane eye.” Getting up, he sways a little and leans against the wall, groaning. Now his whole body aches and he doesn’t even have the ocean nearby to relax in.
“Do you want to rest a bit more?”
“... No, no. Let’s go back.” He’s had enough action for one day. Billie helps him on ledges where his bad arm can’t work, and they reach the dock later with little fanfare.
Ugh. Corvo and Emily made it look a lot easier and cooler.
When the hurricanes came for me
I could finally crash again
This has to be the worst part of being mortal.
“Kill me. Put me back into the Void.” His entire body felt like he got beat up by Billie, then mauled by a hound. His throat must be torn to shreds and he’s going to suffocate if his nose continues to stay congested. Billie just leaned on the doorway, an amused smile on her face.
“That has been a thought, are those Void-touched immune to sickness? It is a wonder that we Whalers, Daud, and the Royal Protector didn’t get the plague back then.” Hacking up a glob of phlegm, he spat it into the bucket by the bed, groaning and thumping his head back onto the pillow.
“Resistance. Gives some amount of resistance.” He croaked, and even the act of swallowing hurts. How is anybody supposed to live like this? Despicable. Billie sighs, straightening up.
“I’ll see if we got any medicine, and be back with some soup.”
“Just stab me with the knife. Maybe if you put me back in and out of the Void, this burden will be gone.” He unhappily groans. He should have marked himself. Between the bitter concoctions she forces him to ingest and the way he couldn’t taste anything with his nose blocked off, as well as the nausea and delirious thoughts, he swore he was half-back into the Void at times. Whatever sickness it was slowly ebbed away, Billie forcing him onto the deck at various points of the day to get fresh air.
As soon as his mind was back in working order and he didn’t feel like he was going to cough up his lungs, he immediately carves out a bone charm to ward illness away, grumbling to himself as the pick engraved the necessary lines. The Void seemed to laugh through the etchings. He grumbles further, collecting ash and pressing them into the lines. Curse the Void for not letting him be immune to sickness. How cruel.
It takes nearly a week for it to properly become a charm. Placing it in a little inside pocket of his jacket, it softly hummed away, a comforting melody to his ears only. He might enjoy being mortal, but he can do with less sickness. He makes an additional one for Billie, as though she is resistant, she still could get sick. And he’d be damned if she has to go through that experience too, nobody should feel that gross.
And that’s how I became the sea
How I became the sea
“Ever think about settling down somewhere?” The moon rests high in the sky, glittering across the rolling waves. The ship rocks back and forth slowly, his stomach long used to the sensation.
“The Void was my home for four thousand years.” He picks at a chunk of whale bone. They found a carcass on a beach, beached long ago. The majority of the meat has already been picked away by the birds and crabs, bones bleached in the sun. He murmured a farewell prayer, collected whatever bones had broken off along the sand, and wished he could’ve pushed the rest of the skeleton back into the ocean. “... Home, something that mortals find incredibly precious and important. They spill blood and risk their lives to keep it.” He brushes away the bone shavings, the humming becoming louder within the bone. He looks at Billie, sitting across from him picking up a rat. It squeaks and nuzzles against her fingers. “Why is that?”
“Why is what?”
“Why is a home important?”
“Was the Void important to you?” He shrugs.
“I didn’t like it when Delilah changed it. But it was more of a... she became a part of me. Like an itch you cannot reach.” He taps the pick handle against his bottom lip. “The leviathans were important to me. But the Void I believe I saw more as a resting prison.” Billie set the rat back down and let it scurry away.
“Well, see if any cities catch your fancy. We sail by plenty of them anyways.” She says.
Gristol, specifically Dunwall, as much as he is familiar with the city, it is not exactly a pleasant place to live. The weather is either cloudy or rainy, the air is either smog from factories, with a hint of chemicals from the processed whale oil, or whatever smell the Wrenhaven River seemed to emit (it wasn’t exactly the most pleasant). The Tower is nice, but between the Abbey and dealing with nobility, he’d rather avoid it altogether.
Tyvia is too cold. Reminds him too much of the Void.
As they stop by Cullero, he considers Karnaca; it is the picture ideal place to live with its warm pleasant weather, sandy beaches, fine dining, cool nights, and festivals. It would be a peaceful home. Though he’s found out that moments of calm are delightful in their own ways, it might be too peaceful. Billie shakes her head when he asks if she ever considered living in Cullero.
“I stayed with some of the Whalers who moved here before. They’re working at a vineyard now. It’s a nice life for them. I don’t think I can ever stay in one place for a long time again.” She gazed towards the docks, where the skiff is parked. “I don’t think I’ll ever leave the sea for good.”
“What would you consider home?” He asks over cooking dinner, dicing the sausages into chunks. The blade is a little blunt. The sound of metal scraping against metal is horrendous. He hopes Billie will sharpen the knives when he’s nowhere near the vicinity.
“Now or before?”
“Generally speaking.”
“... Safety. Trust. Others to talk to.” Billie sets the spoon down, staring into the sizzling pan. “A place to return to, despite everything else. A place you don’t have to worry in.” The dilapidated buildings in the Flooded District were more holes than floor, water seeping through cracks and foundations. The mattresses were dirty and thin, if they found any at all. He can remember watching the Whalers walking across the metal grating, boots slimy from the water.
Yet it could still count as a home. He turns back to the cutting board, cutting another sausage off the link.
The list of potential cities he’d settle down in gets shorter and shorter as they sail and stop by ports. Billie doesn’t bring up the subject again and he begins to ignore the estate sellings plastered on city boards and newspapers. There’s always something that rubs him the wrong way, like trying to tie off a rope that’s just a little too short. Though his feet touches and walks across the ground, sometimes he feels that he’s still floating in the distance, belonging nowhere.
As he stares at the ceiling of his room, the ship rocking back and forth, he doesn’t think he’s going to leave the sea anytime soon either.
That’s how I became the sea
How I became the sea
He hears them on their way back to the ship.
Billie pilots the skiff while he reviews their black market contracts, making little reminders in his notebook; the words look incomprehensible and more akin to scribbles; a dead language, legible only to him and Billie. As far as the contracts go, it’s all pretty standard: some blackmail, return stolen heirlooms, steal heirlooms, steal and deliver a body; he pauses on the last one, but it pays a decent amount of coin. It just looks like somebody wants a proper burial for a loved one.
It murmurs in the back of his head, initially so faint he didn’t register it, passing it off to the hum of the skiff engine as he closes his notebook and puts it into his bag. The rumbling becomes louder and he attributes it to Billie adjusting the motors, groaning as a strange ringing shrill begins to fill his ears; neither of them have gotten much sleep lately, with a string of late-night jobs. He did find out that mortals will sometimes just have ringing ears, especially when it’s too quiet in his room and he’s trying to sleep. An annoyance at best.
Then the ringing tilts, ever so slightly, and he nearly tips the skiff with how fast he stands up. Billie curses, grabbing the side and realigning the base.
“Did you see something?”
“Stop the skiff.” She blinks but does so, the engine slowly coming to a steady stop. It rocks against the rolling waves, water lapping up against the sides. The wind whistles like always. Their ship is just a few more minutes away. It’s quiet. He sets his bag down and closes his eyes. It rings, an aching in his chest that knocks all the breath out of him, a grip on his heart.
Whalesong .
He doesn’t remember jumping over the railing, barely hears Billie yell as he dives into the ocean, her fingers just missing his ankle. As soon as the ocean touches his skin, it feels like all his body heat got sucked out of his pores, draining it away at an alarming speed. His eyes sting as he stares into the ever-expansive depths of the sea, forcing his legs and hands to push him further and further down. The water rolls above him, with each push guiding him further into the depths.
He wonders if this is what Corvo and Emily felt the first time they fell through the Void. What Daud felt. He wonders if this is what he felt four thousand years ago.
No, not exactly. Not yet.
That’s how I became the sea
How I became the sea
The further he goes, the more his muscles stiffen and his lungs burn. Coughing to release some of the pain, saltwater rushes into his mouth and throat, burning his sinuses, bubbles escaping out the corners. He chokes and sputters as water fills his lungs, dragging him even further down.
When his legs fail him and his arms could no longer push, he closes his eyes and lets the ocean pull him under. Four thousand years ago, he remembers. This is what it felt like. The steadily increasing pressure, the sensation of life ebbing away, bubbles floating to the surface as he descends below. If he looks, he half-expects to see moonlight reflecting off the top of the ocean surface as his eyes turn black and his blood turns to oil.
Opening his eyes, he stares into the pitch-black eye of a leviathan, grand and godly. It circles around him, slow, the water still all around. Reaching out, his hands brushed against its skin, his tears mixing with the saltwater in how familiar, how wonderful it was to feel them again. It slowly blinks and he can see his reflection.
His skin is no longer ghostly pale but peach, leaning towards a tan from all the time he spent in the sun on the deck. His cheek and jaw contains some small nicks and cuts from when he shaved a few days ago, an uneven patch of stubble still stubbornly there towards the lower left of his jaw. His lip has a cut that’s healing from a street fight, a bruise almost faded away by his chin. There’s wrinkles around his forehead and along the corners of his eyes. His eyes, bright green, seeing only what humans can see.
He’ll never have the same black eyes, filled with eternity again. And he’s okay with that.
He smiles and pats the leviathan’s nose, pressing his forehead against theirs. They sing to him, it rings in his ears, vibrates his bones, makes his head feel like it’s going to split open. He cherishes and commits the song to memory, praying that even when his thoughts begin to fail, he will always remember this. He opens his mouth, and though no whalesong leaves, only bubbles, they understand, he knows they do. They always have. Thank you, thank you for everything. Thank you, and farewell.
They cry a tune back, and though he cannot understand them anymore, he knows it’s a farewell as well. Good luck, and goodbye. He takes a final breath, closes his eyes, and lets the whalesong take him away.
When the sky fell in
When the hurricanes came for me
Breaking the water surface, he gasps, gulping and forcing oxygen back into his lungs with a wheeze. Flailing and choking on seawater, he just manages to hear the skiff speeding towards him, two hands grabbing him under his armpits and hauling him into the boat, his legs unceremoniously thrown over the railing in. Billie grabbed the back of his jacket and forced him half over the edge, thumping his back as he coughed and threw up the excess seawater back into the ocean, only stopping once he was dry heaving. Taking shaky breaths, he turns back.
Billie punches him in the face and he doesn’t even bother coming up with a snarky retort.
“What in Void’s name were you thinking?!” She yells, grabbing a fistful of his wet shirt. The arcane eye glowed even more red in her fury, her hands shaking in what he guesses is a barely restrained urge to throw him overboard and finish the drowning process. Or punch him again. Her bottom lip trembles. He would make a remark that he’s touched that she was actually scared for him, but he’s pretty sure she will actually throw him overboard if he did.
“I needed to see them one more time.” He explained between wheezes, looking over the railing. She immediately yanks him back away. He laughs, weak and raspy. His throat still stings of salt. “No, no, not again. If I jump now, I surely will drown like every other person.” He wonders if he could let his last moments be in the ocean. Perhaps the leviathans will come to personally escort his soul to the Void and beyond. He exhales and rests against the side of the boat, noting with dismay that he is wet from head to toe and will need to wring out all the sea water from his clothes later. “I had to tell them goodbye and thank you.”
“... Them?” She looks into the ocean, and as human eyes are, cannot see past whatever light the sun allows into the ocean. What the arcane eye sees is only for her to know. She sighs, sits back down in her seat, and punches him in the arm hard. He knows he deserved that one, wincing and rubbing the spot. “Next time you want a watery family reunion, give me a heads up first.”
“Will do. Would you like to join?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
I could finally crash again
And that’s how I became the sea
“I think I finally decided on a name.” He says, Billie looking up from inventory listing. “Levi, short for leviathan.” He scratches the back of his head. His hair is curling over his ears and tickling the back of his neck again, meaning it’s time to take the first pair of scissors he finds on the boat and hack it back. “I think I want to be called Levi.”
“Any last name?”
“How about Lurk?” He side-steps the Twin-Bladed knife but doesn’t dodge the cuff to his temple. Billie grins.
“We’re the furthest away from siblings.” He waves his hand, rolling his eyes.
“Adopted siblings.”
“Where’s the paperwork?”
“Since when did you care for paperwork?” She takes out a new map and pins it on the corkboard. “... I was actually thinking about Foster.” He admits. She doesn’t try to punch him again, shrugging instead and rifling through letters from various contacts. He spots one from Thomas. Perhaps they should circle back to Karnaca to see him.
“Take it, I don’t mind.” They make dinner, fish soup and a loaf of bread. He makes sure the fillets are completely deboned while Billie mutters that he takes way too long and the bones aren’t even that annoying to deal with. The vegetables are a little too ripe but better use them now than forget later. They eat, Billie writing a new letter while he practices his handwriting. It’s still what she calls “chicken-scratch” and most likely scribbles to anybody but her and him, but the letters are coming out a little nicer each time.
“... Billie?” She grunts. “Thank you. For everything.” She steals a slice of bread off his plate. He doesn’t bother trying to get it back, it’s getting too stale for his liking anyways.
“Like I said, don’t mention it.” He works his way through the soup, warm and just salty enough. They finish dinner and start the engine back up.
Levi Foster rests his arms against the railing as the ship gently rocks back and forth, next destination still undetermined. Perhaps somewhere up towards Tyvia, the summer months are coming and it’s slightly more bearable then. Or a visit to Dunwall, just to check in with Emily and Corvo; he knows they’re doing fine, judging by the recent letters they’ve managed to receive, but there’s always the small ache in his chest that doesn’t go away until he sees them with his own eyes. How damning worry hurts as such.
Gazing into the ocean, the whales sing below the depths. He smiles, hums along for a minute, then walks back to Billie to decide which city they should go to. She holds out a letter.
“Reports of strange cult activity and points of shifting reality in Morley.” He grimaces, gripping the paper tighter as he reads further. “Not sure if it’s the Eyeless or some other cult, but whatever it is, it’s not good.” She mutters.
“Let’s go to Morley next then. Shindaerey Peak is enough, we cannot have the Void turning Morley too.”
“You must be so thrilled, getting to experience an adventure like the rest of us.” There certainly is a strange mix of emotions churning throughout his body, too confusing to figure out what is what. He knows he would’ve started watching them, perhaps bestowing a Mark to see what happens. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he would’ve waited till one of them was on the brink of losing the other, or already have. His stomach squirms.
“Worry. I’m worried, I think.” Levi sighed and looked back down at the map. What if they don’t go to Morley? Sail away to Pandyssia and leave the Void to consume the Isles?
Corvo and Emily probably wouldn’t be happy.
“Let’s go.”
How I became the sea