Work Text:
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Logical. She was still getting used to her Outsider powers. Any help was greatly appreciated. So when Emily saw the advertisement announcing a prizefight with a powerful bone charm as a reward, she detoured from her original route and went on down to the Albarca Baths instead.
First impression: not great. The place absolutely reeked of blood and rat and mildew. Almost immediate second impression: worse. She had a stinging headache which only got worse the further she got into the Baths. Whether it was the smell or the weird noises or what, she wasn't sure, and when she looked down into the central bath with its steel cage and found an old man strapped to a chair, her opinion of the place hit its lowest point.
So it was that kind of fight.
She couldn't help it. In her head she saw Corvo being slowly transformed into stone. She saw her mother being murdered with one swift gesture. She saw herself being snatched, over and over, by men who would use her as a bargaining chip. That kind of fight wasn't fair and never had been. Well, it was Emily who had the upper hand now. She tried to Far-Reach into position behind the first armed Eyeless she saw, only for the magic to fizzle and die. Was the Outsider taking back his mark? Didn't matter. He could face her wrath, too.
She drew her blade and fought.
When it was over and the blood washed the Baths, Emily returned to the man in the cage. He was still breathing, raggedly but doggedly, and when she climbed down to open his bonds—one hand still on her sword, because who knew what a "Black Magic Brute" really was—his eyes followed her. But when she released him, he didn't even move. Instead, he looked up at her, closed his eyes, and whispered, "The lever."
"The lever." Her eyes searched along what she could see until she noticed the lever near the entrance to the cage. It was easy enough to climb up and flip it.
No sooner did the lever click into place than the noise cut out and the oppressive headache lifted. The man in the cage was suddenly a lot closer, crouched down on his knees and retching. As she started back down toward him he shook his head and held up a hand. "Thank you," he mouthed. There was a sudden rush, and then he was up on the edge of the cage. He'd Far-Reached, she realized. He was Marked, too. He looked at her, eyes focusing and unfocusing, and a confused expression crossed his face.
"You," he said, sounding utterly astounded. "It's you..."
And before Emily could even begin to parse that, he pitched forward into her arms.
She hadn't even gotten her bone charm, she thought irritably as she hauled the unconscious man down the pier in the growing twilight. A few locals were still out and about, but either this sort of thing happened often or the locals had a healthy sense of self-preservation, because none of them so much as looked at her.
By the time she reached Foster she was at her wits' end, and she dumped the man into the boat without a word.
"What...?" Foster looked up from the book she had been perusing. "What are you...?"
"One of the Eyeless' playthings," Emily said by way of explanation. "I couldn't leave him there."
Foster's gaze smoothed into a smile. "You're very soft, your majesty."
"Someone should be in this world," she snapped, but her mind was on those Eyeless she'd killed. Soft was not the best descriptor she could think of.
"I suppose that's possible." The man groaned quietly, and Foster pushed at him with her elbow. "I'm just impressed you hauled him all the way—"
Abruptly the man shoved back from her, nearly knocking himself into the water. Emily and Foster both reached out to grab him. He backhanded their hands away and looked at Foster with eyes both wide and watery.
"Lurk," he growled.
What did that mean? Emily wondered, but Foster put her hand to her mouth and said what Emily would never have expected.
"Daud," she said.
And just like that it all clicked into place. The shape of him became familiar, and the voice. The name. She would never have forgotten that name in a million years. Emily drew her sword.
"No!" Foster and the man—Daud—both reached out for each other.
"He killed my mother!"
"Worst mistake of my life," Daud muttered.
"No," Emily said. "It's not. Not yet."
"Empress." Foster held out her hand. "There's... there's something you should know about me." She gave a half-hearted smile. "Meagan Foster isn't the first name I've taken. Fifteen years ago, I went by another one. Billie Lurk. And I was a Whaler. One of Daud's Whalers. I was there the day he killed your mother."
"Surprise," Emily said. "That makes me want to kill the both of you."
"He saved your life," Foster—Lurk—blurted. Daud turned to stare at her. "While Burrows was the regent, Delilah tried to possess you—her soul in your body. And Daud stopped her. He trapped her in the Void. That's where she's been all these years."
"You kept in touch with Thomas," Daud said.
Lurk shrugged. "Does it matter anymore?"
"Even if I believed you," Emily said, "that doesn't take back what he did to my mother."
"No," Daud agreed. "Nothing will. And I'm sorry, your highness. What I did was wrong for you, for Dunwall, and for me. If you're want to kill me, I'm not going to stop you. But don't hurt Billie. None of this was her fault."
"Daud..."
But he shushed Lurk with a gesture. His eyes met Emily's and held them. If he were trying to mislead her, he gave no sign of it. Slowly, she lowered her blade.
"Thank you," Lurk said. "You... You're a good woman, your highness."
Emily scoffed. Someone clearly believed that the Crown Killer was an outsider.
"I think," she continued carefully, "that Daud would be a good resource for you. He knows things about Delilah. He can help us."
Emily shook her head. "You're expecting a lot from an old man I found in an Eyeless jail cell."
"I am." Lurk's dark eyes seemed to sparkle in the twilight. "I learned the hard way not to underestimate him."
Life on the Dreadful Wale became more awkward than usual. Emily kept strictly to her room, emerging only to track down food and go on reconnaissance. Lurk kept her distance as well; she was inevitably up on deck when Emily came out. In the storage room across from Emily's cabin, Daud lay in a cot and didn't move, not even when Emily Far-Reached onto his window to glare in.
"I know you're awake," she said one day, as he lay there facing the wall, utterly motionless. "Know that I don't trust you."
"For the best." He didn't so much as twitch.
"You haven't given me a reason to forgive you."
"Are you really looking for reasons?" When she didn't answer he continued, "I don't expect forgiveness. Any you had to offer would be for your benefit, not mine. And before you say it," he added, "that is the point of forgiveness. It's a gift to yourself, not the person who harmed you. It's about letting go of the rage, not the memory of being betrayed."
Emily forced a laugh from her mouth. "An assassin is going to lecture me on forgiveness. I guess I don't deserve the lecture from someone a little more fitting."
"Ask Lurk. She'll tell you what I know about forgiveness."
Not a chance in the Void. "I'll pass."
At long last, he glanced over his shoulder at her. "Apologies feel about as useful as a paper knife, but for what it's worth, I am sorry for killing your mother."
Emily's jaw tightened.
"I'm sorry that you were orphaned, I'm sorry that Corvo was blamed, and I'm sorry that you were treated like a convenient pawn. There's nothing else I can say."
"Tell me why," she gritted out between clenched teeth.
"For the money." He shrugged. "The same reason I killed all my marks."
"Not that. Tell me why you stopped Delilah from possessing me, if that's really what you did."
He turned on his other side and looked at her appraisingly for a few moments. "Because you were a child," he said at last. "Because what Delilah wanted to do to you was a fate worse than death, and because the Outsider led me to you." A smirk hovered on his face. "You can't very well refuse the black-eyed bastard, now, can you, your highness?"
No, she thought dryly. You couldn't. "I still don't trust you."
"As I said. That's probably for the best. With the state I'm in, I doubt I'll be much use to you."
"Is that what you want?" she asked. "To be of use to me?"
He looked at her with an expression something like surprise. "We all want to be useful to someone, Empress." She said nothing, and he turned back over on the bed. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to rest a little longer. Wasn't much sleep to be had in that Eyeless cage. And Empress?" he asked, even as she turned away. "Thank you for my life."
The uncertainty in Emily's soul was bittersweet as she Far-Reached back out onto the outer deck. She wondered what her mother would have said about all this. She wondered what Corvo would have said. She would find out soon, she told herself. With or without Daud's help, she would find a way to get him back.