Chapter Text
Emily sees it all. She's been watching, ever since her birth, with bright eyes that could notice every shade. And as she watched, gleeful to chatter about what even adults couldn't see, they all reminded her that she shouldn't.
Colorblind is the norm. It's what she should be, and if she isn't then it's not something to be glad of. It's a flaw, an issue, something that people can't discover.
So she can't talk about it. Boring, boring, boring. All of this for diplomacy!
Emily couldn't understand how letting people know she wasn't plagued with a “soulmate” was bad for her reputation. It was as ridiculous as her mother denying she saw colors ever since she met Corvo. But politics were complicated and muddy (so they said), so the young girl kept the tales of the flamboyant red fabric she caught sight of, of how beautiful the sky looked when, once in a blue moon, it wasn't raining in the cold, cold city, all to herself.
She could not see what was so great about being colorblind. Each of her instructors told her how happy they had been when they've finally met their soulmate and found their colors but it just made things more complicated for her. She was expected to have a soulmate somewhere, but never to meet them or, rather, to forget about them unless they were a noble (which wasn't very likely).
It was easy to understand when she watched her mother and Corvo. They had to be so, so careful! Emily was glad not to have to worry about that; but nobody else was. They looked at her like she was broken, whispered that she was a heartless child. All because she had no soulmate? It made no sense. Why did everybody lack sense? They were all so focused on a stupid thing.
Until her mother had died; afterwards, nobody had cared for “diplomacy” - or the soulmate plague, as she calls it – anymore. Everything was much, much more important than what a girl's eyes could see. It matters to nobody that she insists on having blue crayons, and not green for her drawings at the Golden Cat. Emily doubts they even notice anything, too busy with their concerns, and yelling at her for being spoiled and needing to be taught discipline.
The Black Twin and the White Twin seem more and more nervous each and every time she sees them. She doesn't know why, but she can't help the vicious feeling of glee she gets from seeing these high and mighty nobles with black rings under their eyes and untamed hair, worry twisting their features.
It's probably her fault. She is troublesome, she is a brat, is what Madame Prudence always says whenever she finds her wandering around the establishment. Or perhaps it isn't, but it's because of them that she is here and can't leave. A princess locked in a bathhouse. They didn't make a friend out of her (but that doesn't matter cause she can't do anything to them).
“There is some bad blood running through your family,” the Madame spits, spreading lies about how Corvo Attano was the catalyst of everything that's wrong with her.
She does see it as lies. What else would it be? She knows what happened, she saw it! She knows Corvo wasn't the one who … her mother.
(No no no no no murder no. They couldn't be murdered, they couldn't! No, not murder. That's not right, so she won't think of it).
She saw these men with weird gas masks, keeping Corvo away (but then, in the air? Isn't that impossible? She knows what she saw, but… but…) and she saw the one whose blade tainted the gazebo with blood. The only one without a mask. It wasn't Corvo, that was for sure.
(Or was it? They say she is confused, that her memory can't be trusted, that she imagined it. Emily refused, and refused, until she started doubting what she used to believe in.)
So why are all these people pretending it was her mother's bodyguard fault, when it obviously wasn't?
Diplomacy is such a blurry mess.
She used to think the impossible existed, to consider that everything her eyes saw was true and nobody could deny it because she knew what she saw, but then, then there is real life, there is life between four walls in a dusty bathhouse and nasty keepers that will do anything for her to stop causing trouble. So she abandons thoughts of ethereal, indescribable things.
Or just hides them better.
She doesn't have freedom there, so she escapes in her mind. She can no longer indulge in misbehaving, the only thing she's allowed to ask for is crayons and paper. So she draws, and she writes. She burns the latter, feelings laid on paper, much too personal notes. Poems sometimes, prose most of the time, words stumbling on each other, broken sentences. It eases her turmoil.
But the paper isn't meant to be seen, much less read, so she has no other choice but to destroy it. No matter, it's fitting for her to reduce each and every note to ashes. These feelings are fleeting, and to keep a physical representation of them is pointless.
Then she draws, pretending she doesn't ever use the paper in any other way. She wants to draw more, but her thoughts keep redirecting her to the place, as if the papers and the crayons were linked to the ones who provided them. She draws dark faces distorted in anger and malevolence, then she draws the Golden Cat and the sun and a rainbow to make it look okay to any eye who might pry.
Once she draws Corvo, but she burns the paper. Doesn't want anyone to find it. And she hopes, oh, she does, that Corvo is coming for her. But she keeps these thoughts to herself, because she understands it would do no good to voice them.
And then there's the curses of “none of this would have gotten so bad if that damn fool Corvo hadn't killed the empress”, then there's everyone blaming it on the awful choice of giving a stranger, a Serkonan, an important role in court and Emily knows she hates them all for speaking so lowly of Corvo.
“It was to be expected, you shouldn't imagine these people are here for anything good,” Emily has once heard a guard hiss to another, when she was sneaking away, exploring the Golden Cat (though there isn't much to see, and once she saw what “grown-up business” actually meant she stopped wandering in the main rooms, where the clients were).
She still can't understand why everybody hates every little thing and person that comes from Serkonos with such intensity – despises them, Corvo had told her in better times, because they're better swordsmen; but it stings to hear them talk about Corvo like this and it stings more when she realizes she can't stop all these foul words from altering her trust in her mother's bodyguard.
She knows it isn't true, really she does. She doesn't want to think anything else than Corvo is innocent and they're all lying because she saw it and he didn't kill her mother. She still trusts Corvo, because she's lived close to him her whole life and he's never done anything even close to bad or harmful to her while all the people keeping an eye out on her on the Golden Cat do. They don't hesitate to make her regret it when they find her doing something she shouldn't.
The first times, she yelled she was the Empress's daughter, stood her ground as best as she could, pretending she could be intimidating, but she quickly stopped when she realized she had no power at all.
(Her words used to, orders being implacable, demands barely ever questioned, except by her instructors sometimes.)
The respect and slight fear inspired by her rank no longer applies to any situation. Probably because she's nothing but a kidnapped child, and without the Empress and her bodyguard, nobody would do anything if she disappeared.
Symbolical power is worth nothing, she decides. What's the use in being respected only for a name? No, she needs something more. She needs real power, to escape this place.
Her name is barely worth anything anymore. Everybody thinks her gone, disappeared. She can't trust the influence of her mother, because her mother is… not here, and without her she isn't in the right place to order.
She needs to be be able to escape, but she isn't and she doesn't know how to learn anything that might help her.
She's… powerless.
(disturbing)
“Hey, have you heard the announcement? They say they still haven't found the little girl that was abducted. I think it's unlikely they ever will. Who knows, she's probably dead after all this time. Poor girl.”
Emily wants to scream that she's here, she's right here, she's alive but she's alone. She's alone, so she doesn't. If they knew, it would cause trouble. And she has no one to help. Let's be realistic, she's a girl, a young girl and she wouldn't go far alone.
So she keeps her mouth shut.
Still, she can't stand it when they spill these lies about Corvo, it makes her enraged to even think these adults imagine they know better than the one who was here. To think that they all concluded Corvo as a murderer when all he did his whole life was protecting her. He was nice, he was strong and he would never kill her mother.
Or would he?
No, he wouldn't.
(It isn't what everybody says though?)
But she refuses the story they spread. She knows it's not true. She knows.
Still, the doubt lingers, and Emily hates it. She shouldn't doubt Corvo, she should never think he did anything but try to protect them even on this day. Especially on this day. Corvo is her friend, and Corvo will be coming for her. She'll just have to wait. And believe .
And it's hard sometimes, most of the times, with everyone cursing the name of whom she sees as her soon-to-be savior, with everyone hating him with a burning passion and it feels like she's the last one to trust and rely on him. But she does, because Corvo is the only one. It's the only hope Emily can have of somebody coming to help her, because it's almost impossible to help herself in this situation. So she believes .
As time passes, she's let hints slip more and more until it was getting obvious that everybody forgot she wasn't supposed to see anything else than shades of gray. Perhaps they thought she might have lost the one fate would have thrown in her arms, or she might just have met them never to see them again. Or perhaps they just didn't think about it. She was just a little girl after all, they reminded her enough times for her to be aware of this.
So she tried to escape, because nobody would pay attention to her if she was careful enough. But a little girl wasn't discrete nor smart enough for such a thing, so they found her with her hand on the VIP door handle.
“Foolish girl, where do you think you're going? You think the streets are a place for you? You won't survive two seconds out there. Haven't you learned better? Thinking you can go past every danger! Don't you know there are rats and weepers swarming the streets?” the Madame seethed, looking at her with such contempt Emily unconsciously clenched her fists, looking down on the floor as if it would make it easier if she didn't look at the adult scolding her in the eye.
(“An Empress doesn't look down! You have to appear confident, even when you're not. It's one of the most difficult parts, but remember, Emily. Don't be ashamed; hide it. You are determined, you know what you're doing. I know you can do it, my daughter.”)
But then she recalls she has to look intimidating, so she returns the glare and, unsurprisingly, gets a slap for her 'lack of respect'.
“You're awfully uneducated, my poor girl. That must come from that criminal. Good thing he won't live to see another day. That's what happens when you let Serkonan filth into the court!”
Emily had yelled at the harsh words, yelled louder when the Madame tried to slap her quiet, refusing to shut up.
She sobbed when she understood exactly what it meant, curling into a ball and pounding her fists against the floor because it was too much, the thought was impossible to acknowledge, much less to recognize as a fact.
No, no, no, no, no!
He couldn't be, no, not Corvo!
“No, he isn't! He can't be! Corvo is my friend, he'll come for me!”
The twins were there, weren't they? She thought one of them laughed openly at her. Probably the Black Twin, he was the cruelest.
“You imbecile, Attano is dead! Head chopped off in Coldridge, they did it when they figured out he was no good to be kept alive. He got what he deserved! Nobody is coming for you!”
It struck a chord so deep inside of her, slicing an open wound so fierce she stopped crying, unable to do anything anymore. She limped back on the floor, without feeling any pain. In fact, she couldn't feel anything, except the distinct feeling that something, something was missing, something was just ripped from her, something vital and she couldn't, she couldn't do without it, she... She couldn't do anything else than gaping desperately, like a fish out of water, and it took a half-concerned, mostly annoyed hiss from the Madame “she's not breathing!” for her to realize that her body had completely shut down.
Then the Madame was pressing her hands against her chest, and it hurt again, it hurt so much, Emily hated it, she hated her for making her feel, and…
She welcomed oblivion.
She woke up in a strange place that night. An empty, blue place with a calming lull and oddness seeping through everything. A messy place, with things so diverse Emily could only wonder how such a place even existed.
A floor floating in nothingness, a flying whale, rocks passing by, almost hitting her. Water flowed upwards.
It was a beautiful place.
It was a lonely place too, and at some point the water started to dampen her face but her eyes were always focused. She walked, into nothingness. She listened, to the soft wails of the whales, to the sound of the wind that wasn't there.
It would be nice to stay there for a while, she thought.
And she did just that, wandering slowly by the flying rocks, careful not to fall (though there was an undeniable curiosity to do so, just to know what would happen).
Until eventually she was brought back to the real world, thanking whoever would listen to bring her this peace.
She didn't think twice of the dream until it became a natural occurrence. Each and every night, her mind brought her back to the strange, unusual place. She wondered if it meant something. It was relaxing, a bit too much even. The temptation to just lie down and stay there was growing stronger each and every night, but she couldn't indulge.
She was alive, she was to be Empress and she will be. If nobody is coming for her, then she will do it herself. She is strong enough to.
She did not decide to be born a Kaldwin, she did not decide to inherit a half-destroyed Empire but she will take it anyway. It is her legacy, not her choice. She will get out of here by herself, and then she will put herself back on the throne and she will destroy each and every single person who brought her to ruin. She will not let her mother's… be unpunished. She will not let the men who killed Corvo get away without any repercussions.
She will drag them down, even if it's the only thing she can do.
And she will be Empress.