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Above the tangle of worn bricks and blackened chimneys and great white feathers of smoke that constitute the Dunwall skyline, past the ivy-broken walls with their blanched, torn advertisements and wrought-iron widow's walks, where the rats sang and the crickets yawned, where the particulates of industry danced across the murky, hooded sun, sat Corvo Attano. He was not given to smoking—a fortuitous turn of the wheel—nor was he particularly keen on a bottle of rum. No, this was only a quiet moment, a stolen moment, on the edge of Dunwall.
From here, the people drift along, arms full of fresh bread or bolts of cloth; children scurry after a patched ball, laughing and yelling as they knock it across the hazy plaza; the baker surveys them, her floured hands leaving clouds on her patched apron; and in the apartment nestled to the side of him, a man scribbles something, pausing here and there to strike out a line. This is what Corvo has brought back to the city after those terrible months of unrest and fear.
And now, can he finally call this city his own, now after he'd been broken and bled for it—moved through the shadows and enacted his own justice for it? He's still not so sure. His accent, so faint after years of living in Dunwall, still marks him as a foreigner, a perpetual stranger who could supposedly never understand the ways of the Gristol people.
Corvo leans back against the filthy, brick chimney.
Even now, this moment of rest feels treacherous, uneasy, like a coin spinning on its side.
Below him, a hundred schemes to usurp Emily, a thousand whispers about the child-empress. Too young still for the demands of court life. She still wishes her doll a good night when she thinks no one will hear. And why shouldn't she? Why shouldn't she still get to be a child while she is one?
He closes his eyes, bidding all this worry to be at rest now.
He must make the most of these moments.
He gazes on at the people, busy in their ordinary worries, as a quiet loneliness and love fills him. He will do what is best for them; he is certain of that.
He draws on the Mark, setting out through the rooftops, as if jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone. Here, he is unsurpassed and unobserved and free. He is a bird in flight; he is a dandelion seed, drifting past everything in a haze. As the sky slips past him in a blur of white, the fog nips at the tips of the buildings, clipping them off like an impatient barber; now, so close to the coast now, he cannot help but turn his attention to the docks below.
He sits this time on a stacks of wooden boxes, all bearing faded labels of this certification and that inspection. Port from Morley, fine ceramics from Baleton. Linen from Fraeport, pots and iron ore from Tyvia. The entirety of the Isles all piled up in a forgotten corner.
And above them, set aside so long that the Tyvian-printed labels have gone white at the edges, are a few tins. Jellied eel. Apricots in syrup. Seasoned sardines in oil.
Well, Corvo's never said no to this quirk of fate. And if they've been forgotten for so long, they surely won't be missed.
He swings a leg over the crates, ready to help himself to a surprisingly nostalgic feast (and somewhere deep in the Void, the Outsider laughs that it should have been white rats instead).
He only gets as far as peeling back the sharp, aluminum lid of the sardines when, in the doorway partially blocked off by the latest shipments with their sea-stung paperwork pinned to them like medals, something stirs.
Corvo braces himself, ready to counter any assassin or petty thief or drunken fool, but what shuffles along the crate-lined corridors of the dockyard is only the long body of a wolfhound. A red collar swings around its neck, as its thick brown-grey fur ripples, a product of the long Gristol winter. Perhaps, the beast is meant as a deterrent or to detect unlawful imports. It's slender like a racing dog, not from malnourishment but lineage, and the tip of its wet, black nose wriggles in the wind.
It smells the sardines.
It was his fault really, not being familiar with the creatures, outside of how best to avoid them and their teeth, but an inquisitive nose reaches him in record time, followed by a pair of bright, black eyes. Hesitantly, Corvo frees one of the limp sardines and tosses it away as a peace offering. Paws and claws scrabble against the wooden boards of the dock as the wolfhound tears after it.
But before he can return to his meal, the creature is back, large paws perched on the crate and framing its slender head. Corvo pauses a moment before throwing another little sacrifice, but this time, he hopes, a little farther. The wolfhound springs into action, leaping and bounding after its quarry. It trails after the invisible traces of the arc that the unlucky sardine cast as it hurled through the muggy air of the dock, and triumphant, the wolfhound gobbles it up.
Again, the creature circles back to him, its tail wagging and its eyes pleading.
Corvo glances down to the remnants of the tin: just two more sardines, bobbing in thick, cheap oil. He breathes in deeply, before flinging yet another bit of his meal away. And yet, he cannot help but delight in the way that the wolfhound springs after the fish, how it noses around between shipment crates and pallets, and finding its quarry, artfully scrapes out the hunk of oily fish with its left paw.
Still, none of that precludes Corvo from shoving the last sardine into his mouth.
"No more," he whispers through a full mouth.
The wolfhound whines.
Corvo eyes the tinned eel guilty. Well, he supposes that it wouldn't hurt to share, especially since he could have a feast at Dunwall whenever he wanted it. The wolfhound inches its head closer on the box, those bright eyes firmly locked with his own. Another low whine.
Corvo makes a show of acquiescing, glad to have this unexpected diversion, the trust of a creature that ought to know better of the world, as he opens the tin of jellied eel with the makeshift opener so handily pinned to its side. This time, he is more generous with the portions, throwing part of it to the creature to snap and lap at the congealed meat and to crunch down on the bones, vanquishing them with ease. Corvo, in turn, helps himself to the rest in the tin, picking out the bones and flicking them away. It's a hearty, humble meal, followed by the sweetened apricots in their thick, almond-scented syrup.
And then, when they are done, when the last of eel has been gobbled up, the wolfhound leaps up to where Corvo rests, circles a spot, once, twice, and then lays down to face the harbor. It fastidiously cleans the sardine oil from its paws, then settles down. The dark fur ripples in time with its breath, and the creature pushes its slender head against Corvo's hand.
The action takes him by surprise, if only because he had grown unused to being a source of affection for anyone save his little girl, but this newfound trust awakens something long dormant in him. His throat burns with an unspoken grief as he lays his hand on that impossibly, thick, rough fur.
He knows now that the world does continue, would continue after Jessamine's death, that the world will be filled with impossible grace and improbable love, because, despite everything, that was only its nature.
Corvo scratches behind the creature's ears, laughing softly when its hind leg flutters against the ground, its thick claws curled, in an echo of scratching itself. He pets it along its back, more than a little heavy-handed from inexperience.
How he'd wanted a pet when he was just a boy in Karnaca, though that was a hard ask for a struggling family. But everything comes back in its own way. He should know better by now. And if this interlude must be brief, that does not mean it counted for nothing at all. It will end, as all moments must, but that, too, was only the way of things.
And sure enough, the wolfhound's ears prick up, listening to something on the wind, and, without hesitation, bounds away.
Corvo cannot help but watch it recede into the labyrinth it knows so well, called home perhaps by its master. He should return home as well, or to what passes for home in the meantime. But still, he traces the path of that quick shadow until it leaves his view, with more than a bittersweet note of nostalgia.
And then, he pulls himself up to his feet, casts one final glance back at the harbor crowned by fog, and begins his long trek home across the tiled rooftops.