Chapter Text
He stands at the Tower gates, wrapped in dark fabric, his boots too small, pinching his toes. But they are the only pair he has. The pain is acute, so much worse than he imagined. Every step sends a shrill pulse to his fresh nerves. But it's not just the boots, but the heavy weight of his shawl, not enough shape or stitching to be called a proper cloak. It's the rain falling against his cheeks, too. It's each and every sensation, distinct at first, beginning to blur together as he loses the contours.
Two guards in prim attire stand watch by the gate, unbothered by the storm. There are others members of the Watch as well, hiding along the walls, down the lane. The City Watch are not uniformly trained, some are a better shot, others more composure. But those stationed here at the Empress’ Tower are among the finest.
He pushes the fabric down off his hair, letting it bunch around his neck and shoulders. Before arriving, he tried speaking to himself, rehearsing what to say. His vocal cords feel raw already, from a few petty noises. Void, this world hurts. It aches.
“I'm here to see the Empress,” he says to the guard who looks more senior of the two. A woman in her early forties, with a prominent vein in her neck, and sideburns starting to gray.
Her dark eyes narrow, “Invitation?”
He has none. He tells her he has none.
“Then you do not see the Empress.”
“But I must,” he is not panicked yet. But the beat of the rain picks up, stinging at his skin. He cannot endure much longer. He has already been exposed for too long. “She will recognize my face.”
The guard shakes her head, her hand reaching for the pommel of her blade. A subtle warning. The younger guard mirrors her, though his restraint is less.
He hears the scrape of metal against the sheath as the younger guard begins to draw.
He takes one step back, then two. He can barely hear now, though the rain is little more than a summer drizzle. It will pass quickly, and the water is warm. But the drops begin to feel as if they are burning.
With his heart pounding in his chest, his legs begin to buckle. He wants to run, but his feet will not carry him forward, or back.
“The Empress,” he pleads, grabbing at his hair, “she knows me, she knows.” Emily will know his face, even though his eyes have paled. Even though now he must stand on two feet. Even though now he is mortal.
Mortal. The word cuts through him. An impossible thing.
The younger guard steps forward, too quickly, his teeth bared.
He stumbles, telling his body to move backwards, but instead he tips forward. There is blood pounding against his skull, his breath short. He topples against the guard, who cuts against his flank, enough to injure but not to kill. Howling, he clutches at his side. The rain was hot before, but his blood is boiling.
The older guard shouts that her companion in an idiot. She calls for another guard. They can’t kill an intruder simply for being mad. He’ll go to the dungeons for a day or two, see if he is a risk. If he is, they’ll have him transferred on. If he sobers up, they’ll let him go.
But he knows he is not drunk. Or maybe he is. The air no longer smells of salt, though they are so close to the sea. Instead it smells of skin and refuse and rot and perfumes and soap and grilling fish and dirty children and a thousand other things crashing against his frayed senses.
When he loses consciousness from the blood loss, it’s a blessing.
--
He wakes in a tiny cell. His shawl is gone, reduced to the trousers that are too big on his waist and too short on his ankles, and the shirt with an inkstain at the pocket. He found both balled up behind the jeweler's shop. There’s blood on it now as well, around the tear where the Watchman’s blade sliced through. He lifts up the hem to look at his stomach. An angry black-red clot seals up the wound. It wasn’t deep.
“The Empress,” he says into his hollow room, unsure if anyone can hear him.
One of the guards walks over, wrapping his hands around the bars. “I was supposed to ask your name, for the records.”
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. His name?
Daud’s voice is in his ear. A terrible, wretched thing that “saved” him from annihilation. Yet, isn’t this what he wanted all along? Just a taste, before the subject of his curiosity turned to dust. Did he not manipulate the odds in the hope of precisely this outcome?
But his name is too large, to bitter, it chokes him, coiling through his throat.
In the end he says nothing. The guard asks a second time before shaking his head and returning to his rounds.
--
He asks again for the Empress. They ask for his name.
It should be easy to give a false one. But no syllables ever come.
Out of frustration, he screams, pounding against the bars until he’s left black and blue across his wrists, his forearms, his chest. Collapsing in a heap, he cannot make another sound. If only they would bring her. He could explain.
--
Corvo is not fond of the Tower dungeons, with good reason. No matter how many years elapse, his own imprisonment remains terrifyingly vivid in his mind. Not in words and pictures, but in a frantic, terrifying pressure he feels in his chest. A blurring of his vision. A lingering fear that Emily is in danger, and he is helpless.
He visits the cells as seldom as is possible, only venturing below when absolutely necessary. Today is one such occasion. There is an informant being held. One who Corvo needs back on the docks as soon as possible. The other beggars along the waterfront told him that the woman was picked up by the Watch not two days prior. Carted off for Void knows why. Corvo has already checked the other guardposts across the city. The dungeon is the only place left to scour. If they have killed her, this complicates things for his investigation.
The record of names the guards keep is of little interest. Corvo doubts his informant would give a proper name. Once, she said her name was Cecil, without the “y,” she never liked the “y.” Corvo does take the time to read the log in detail, only looking through which cells are occupied. One of the guards hovers around him while he flips through the pages, asking if there is anything the Lord Protector needs.
He sees the guard off with a grunt. The less time he has to waste on this, the better. He needs Cecil back at her post, tearing secrets from the air.
There are female prisoners in cells 2, 3, and 7. Corvo closes the register, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his coat. The guard offers to accompany him, but there is no need.
Though he hates it here, the smell of piss and bile and stale air, Corvo knows the layout well. He memorized the floor plan, step by step, before he ever managed to escape. Cecil is not in cell 2, the woman there is far too young; cell 3 is empty, but Corvo does not tell the jailer. Taking the turn to reach cell 7, Corvo tries not to listen to the sounds of prisoners breathing, retching, clawing.
His attention sharply turns when one of the prisoners throws themselves against the bars, their thin, wiry body crashing against the iron. Something cracks. The prisoner falls messily to the ground, bony fingers curled loosely around the bars, sliding down. He hasn’t the strength to keep his arms aloft.
The prisoner looks down at the ground, a mop of dirty black hair, a hacking cough. His white knuckles shake against the bars until he lets go, hands falling into his lap.
As Corvo begins to turn away, he hears the man’s voice, raspy, hard. Stronger on the second syllable than the first, “Corvo.”
Snapping his head back, he looks at the man inside the cell again. Corvo’s face isn’t obscured, and there are reproduction lithographs of his portrait in the papers with some frequency. Easy enough to know the Royal Protector’s face. But it is not the name that gives him pause, but the voice.
The man tilts his head, hair brushing aside with gravity. His eyes are pale, greenish around the edge. But so impossibly light. Is he blind? No, when he blinks, his pupils shift, looking into Corvo’s eyes.
His jaw, his cheeks, the slope of his nose. Unmistakable, in the absence of those eyes. Corvo knows his face. But not his eyes. No, no, no.
Reflexively, he touches his right hand over the back of his left. He’s been unmarked for almost a year. Since Delilah stole his conduit to the Void. But still, his hand itches in recognition.
“Outsider....”
The man inside the cell laughs, thin and broken, “My dear Corvo.”
--
When he wakes, it’s under a gentle pressure, wrapping him in warmth. He opens his eyes to darkness. Breathing deep, he wonders if he is blind again.
He curls his hand around the fabric he's wrapped inside, and the cloth bound tight around his body throws him into sudden panic.
They bound him like this for transport. To take him from the sea to the shrine. They wrapped him tight to keep him untouched, secure, so he wouldn't hurt himself with incessant trashing.
At first, he'd fought so viciously. But in time he turned docile, walking of his own volition to his execution. The memory makes bile catch in his throat. He retches dry.
There are hands upon him, tugging at the sheets that keep him secure, trying to unwrap him. No. He won't go easily this time.
Fighting his assailant, he gags and coughs again, sour stomach acid at the base of his throat. He stomach knots and twists with nothing substantial to expel. But the bile comes up, running from his mouth.
“Outsider,” the voice sounds far away. That's not his title, his name. But it's all he ever was. Not this shell. This body is a fiction.
The voice speaks to him again, reaching through the barrier of the sheets. Corvo hoists him so he sits up, pressed firmly against Corvo’s chest.
Why is he here?
“You're breathing at least,” Corvo mutters, “are you supposed to breathe?”
He starts to laugh. What is going on? He was made mortal, yes, by Billie Lurk’s hand and Daud’s voice. Spit out from the dark, consuming muck of the Void. Billie offered her hand, but things are not so simple.
His laughter turns back to nausea, his stomach revolting, turning inside out as he gags again. This time, nothing comes up. Corvo doesn't even flinch. There is muck against Corvo’s shirt from where he pressed his face against Corvo’s shoulder.
“What is going on?” Corvo asks.
He's not sure he has an answer.
“I'm not wrong, am I? You are the Outsider,” Corvo sounds less sure of himself now.
“Not any,” he chokes, “longer.” His body convulses in Corvo’s grasp, his esophagus contracting sharply. Corvo holds him steady until the spasms stop.
Corvo pushes him away, not harshly, just enough to see his face. “Your eyes,” he sounds disbelieving.
“An impossible thing,” he replies.
Corvo's hands drop from his shoulders, now that his breathing has evened out. His chest and abdomen still hurt. But for the moment, the nausea has passed.
Resting his hands on the tops of his thighs, Corvo watches him, silent, steady. He must be waiting for explanation more.
“I have been...returned to mortality.”
Now that the blankets have been torn away, he realizes how cold he truly is. Corvo must have wrapped him to keep the chill out. The shirt he wears is clean and white and too large for his shoulders and chest. He's thin, thinner than he was in the Void. Though he is certain that when he was first expelled, his dimensions matched. The weeks? Months? He spent in the Tower Dungeon stripped what little fat he had.
He pulls at the corner of one of the blankets, dragging it up and over his shoulders to try and pen in his own warmth. Corvo watches, but does not help, seated neatly at the edge of the bed.
“I did not know where else to bring you,” Corvo starts. “Or if I should call the Royal Physician. I knew nothing.”
He does not fault Corvo for what has happened. He cannot even fault him for the time he spent locked away. Corvo did not know. And probably better, more cautious, to not tell anyone about his presence, before finding out what had happened.
“I should pass as a mortal man,” he hesitates, “I am a mortal man.”
“So I should call for the doctor, then,” Corvo rises to his feet.
He means to object, to tell Corvo that he is fine. The Physician should not be necessary. But as he opens his mouth to speak, his head spins, forcing him to fall back down against the pillows. This is Corvo’s bed. The pillows still smell of him.
The servants’ bell rings, but Corvo does not return to the bedside. He can hear Corvo pacing about the room, fidgeting with something metal. It scrapes against something else. The servant comes and Corvo speaks to him in a low voice. Placing words proves difficult.
Time keeps marching, he doesn't know how long. Only, he drifts into sleep for some time, before gentle hands pull his arm out from the cocoon of blankets. It must be the Physician, a woman that he does not recognize. Not Sokolov’s replacement. No, he died under Delilah’s short, bloody rule. Someone else, appointed to the position more recently.
He tries to open his eyes to see her face, but it feels as if there is a film over them, making his vision blurry. Blinking, he clears his vision. She has a small face, unremarkable, with dark hair and eyes an unpainted nails. She says that he will be alright. Rest, and food. Only small amounts at first. And antibiotics, to beat the infection back. He doesn't think he’ll remember a word she says.
“What is his name?” she asks Corvo, instead of him. He can already feel himself slipping into sleep again. Awake for four-thousand years. Maybe that is why he is now so tired.
“I can't tell you that,” Corvo says with confidence. He is Spymaster, after all.
He drifts into dreamless rest.
--
When he wakes this time, it is peaceful, without the twist of panic. He hears pen against parchment. Corvo writes at his desk.
Despite his age, Corvo’s hearing is still acute. He lifts his head when he hears the sheets shift, his mouth tilted in a frown.
“You should try not to overexert yourself. But the doctor said a little walking should be fine. I have instructions for your meals, as well.” Corvo points him in the direction of the water closet before returning to his desk. Corvo’s suite of rooms has a private chamber, so the distance is not far.
He is cautious in walking, his limbs still feeling too loose and weak. But he makes it to the toilet without falling, clicking the door closed behind him.
But it is too much to ask to support his own weight much longer. He leans against the sink. Once he catches his breath, he looks up into the mirror. The glass is slightly smudged at the corner, where the magnetic latch opens with gentle pressure. Corvo’s fingerprints, clinging to the glass. He stares into the swirls, uniquely Corvo’s instead of meeting his own eyes.
They're strange. He cannot even remember if they are the same color as when he was a child. That was so long ago, and so few people ever looked at him with concern. Placing the pad of his finger to the glass, he leaves his print next to Corvo’s
But he cannot avert his eyes forever. He tilts his gaze up, into the center of the mirror. His eyes are pale, like foam. And part of him wishes he would just break apart.