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Chapter Text

   Emily Kaldwin bounced on her toes as she watched Corvo’s boat approaching the water lock at the foot of Dunwall Tower. Corvo had been gone for far too long and she had been anxious the entire time. Having Corvo around always comforted Emily, not just having a body guard, but also the companionship he provided since she had never known who her father was.

   She could barely contain her excitement as she heard the men in the boathouse calling to each other, one yelling to lock the lower door, another to raise the water level, and she ran over to the small bridge to wait for him.

   When Emily finally saw Corvo come up to eye level she burst with glee, unable to wait for him to reach her she ran across the bridge to meet him in the middle.

   “Corvo you’re back!” She nearly shouted as she leaned close to hug the man tightly. “Will you tell me about your trip, please?” Emily tried to put on her best puppy dog face, she didn’t want Corvo to go too soon since he would get pulled into boring discussions the moment he met up with the other officials and then she wouldn’t get to talk to him until hours later. “Were there any whales?” she prompted.

   She had to think quickly if she wanted Corvo to stay, a simple plan came to her mind. “Wait! Lets play hide and seek first,” she knew that he had trouble saying no to her, “I’ll cover my eyes and you hide, you have time! Mother’s busy talking to that nasty old spymaster.”

   Corvo looked fondly down at her, but Emily’s heart sank as soon as he spoke. The words weren’t important, she knew that tone of voice, he didn’t want to upset her but he “had no choice.”

   “I’m sorry, Emily, I have to go see your mother.”

   She should have expected that. The Empress had important business to attend to, and it was Corvo’s job to make sure she could attend to that business.

   “Alright then,” she said without bothering to hide her disappointment, “lets go see mother.”

   Emily trotted along in front of Corvo, running up to the gazebo where she knew her mother was doing whatever official business with the Spymaster. As they were coming up the steps she ran past Sokolov who was painting a portrait of High Overseer Cambell.

   Corvo stopped by the royal physician when he said something to him, but Emily kept running up to her mother, not wanting to be bored with whatever stupid comments Cambell would undoubtedly add to that conversation. She waited at the base of the steps up to the gazebo while her mother spoke with Lord Burrows.

   Emily didn’t want to disturb them, and for her own sanity she tried not to listen to whatever undoubtedly boring thing they were discussing, but as Corvo walked up behind her she had to jog forward to excitedly inform her mother of his arrival. As she did so she inadvertently overheard a bit of their conversation, though all she could tell was that it was to do with the plague. She knew about the plague of course, who didn’t, but given that she lived almost entirely in the Tower she hadn’t actually experienced much change because of it.

   “Mother! Corvo is back.” she said as she ran up to them, stepping in front of the Spymaster

   “Thank you Emily. Leave us please.” Her mother said to the Spymaster before turning to smile at Corvo. As he walked away Emily made a point of not listening to what he said to Corvo, since she never wanted to hear him say anything ever.

   Emily stood back for a minute as the two began speaking and let her mind wander. Obviously she wanted to be spending time with both of them now that Corvo was back, but they probably had responsible stuff that they wanted to talk about and as much as she knew it was important, it was also sure to be boring.

   The sea tended to be nice this time of year, most of the other court children that Emily knew said they preferred sunny days when the water was calm, but she had always liked waves, and the strong winds that blew them up against the rocks below the Tower. The season would be changing soon, and she was looking forward to the upcoming weather.

   Out across the courtyard something moved.

   There was a man on the roof of the boathouse. Dressed in all black, he wore a gas mask that obscured his face. And it appeared he held a sword.

   “Mother look, What are hey doing on the rooftop?”

   “What? Emily, come here!” her mother hadn’t needed to say it, Emily was already moving back towards her mother and Corvo.

   Suddenly the man stood in front of her, not seeming to have moved through the space at all.

   How had he done that?

   There were other men moving across the courtyard in a similar fashion, teleporting instantly rather than running. It wasn’t until she felt her mother pulling her backwards that she realized she had forgotten to be afraid of the men attacking them.

   Her heart started to pound in her chest as the reality of the situation fell on her, but she managed to calm herself slightly as she remembered what she had practiced with Corvo.

   She took count of the assailants: four.

   As Corvo stepped forward to engage the first arrival she began looking for escape routes. She knew she fit through the bars in the railing behind her, although she wasn’t sure if forcing the men to jump it would actually slow them down. Past that was the outer wall and the cliffs, she had snuck out some nights after Corvo’s climbing lessons and knew some reasonably traversable paths along the rock.

   As another man appeared suddenly before Corvo it occurred to Emily that maybe an exposed rock face wasn’t the safest place to hide from these men.

   Alright then, there were a few spots within the wall where she might have a few minutes safe before the guards showed up.

   Where were they anyways?

   The third attacker appeared in front of them, but one of the first now lay on the ground at Corvo’s feet. Dead, Emily realized.

   Suddenly the newcomer reached out his hand and appeared to grab Corvo from several feet away, and Emily felt her blood run cold when the man lifted him up off the ground without even touching him.

   It was clear that these attackers were far from ordinary, and that she and her mother would need an absolute miracle to escape with their lives. This conviction only got stronger as the fourth man she’d seen finally appeared before them. He was dressed differently than the others, in red rather than black, and he did not spare a second before approaching her mother.

   Emily was roughly shoved aside as the man grabbed the Empress.

   As she stumbled away she screamed for her mother, but she knew there couldn’t be any help.

   There was too much going on, Emily’s mind was somehow racing through information and also nearly blank. Corvo was still being held, her mother was being pushed up against the railing, both seemed to be shouting things but Emily couldn’t seem to hear what they were saying, and there was the other man-

   She wasn’t really thinking, acting on fledgling survival instincts she didn’t try to stop her stumble but instead jumped further away, straight through the arms of the man who had likely expected her to stop and cry.

   Corvo had taught her to move fast before an assailant could realize she was moving at all, but these thoughts were all overlapping.

   Emily heard something heavy hit the ground off to one side and realized her mother must have been killed while she was trying to escape.

   For some reason she felt terrible that she couldn’t spare a moment to mourn her mother’s death as it was happening happened, but that was just another drop in the seething emotions filling her brain.

   By now she was terrified, but she hadn’t stopped moving after escaping the one man, there were tears clouding her eyes at that point, but she kept running forward.

   Blindly, she jumped over one of the walls to the lower part of the courtyard. She fell roughly on the stones, one ankle buckling under the sudden stress and she collapsed further to the ground, skinning her palms and tearing her pants over the knees, but she forced herself to glance back up and check that there wasn’t someone immediately following her.

   Rather than continue running, Emily saw a large bin with a lid just to her side, and she did her best to get in quickly without making any noise. Her heart was pounding in her ears so she couldn’t really tell how quiet she was but she lay on the ropes coiled inside before lowering the lid.

   Her whole body shook in the darkness, and she struggled to hold back sobs that might give away her location. Her knees and hands were bleeding where she had scraped them and the sharp pain cut through the dull ache in her mind without even the mercy of distracting her from what had happened.

   Men had come and murdered her mother. Just like that they had gone from happy and healthy to-

   And the men were still out there right? They had been frighteningly competent even if Corvo had gotten one of them. Had Corvo even made it out alive?

   She knew it was only a matter of time before she was found in her in her frankly childish hiding spot.

   Still shivering, she tensed up against more sobs, this time of frustration that she couldn’t have done something to help, or even actually got herself to safety.

   She was just a useless child, crying in a box, and she hated that more than anything else in that moment.

   She focused on the anger, and tried to convince herself that her growing nausea was at her pathetic situation rather than about what had happened to her mother.

   The sound of boots marching over the paving stones snapped her back to some kind of reality, and she realized she didn’t know how long she had been curled up.

   It seemed like a group of people was walking away from the pavilion where it had all happened, and she supposed that meant that things had been cleared up somehow and she again had conflicted feelings about hiding away for so long. Despite those feelings, it was still obvious that she must continue being careful so she was hesitant to actually come out of hiding.

   She considered getting out as she heard the marching die off into the distance, but suddenly she heard a voice from above her.

   “Well, that worked out better than we could have expected, don’t you think?” It was hard to hear, but Emily was certain she recognized the voice of the Spymaster.

   “Yes, pinning things on that damn Serkonan wraps things up rather nicely, I wasn’t looking forward to telling him what happened. This is much tidier all things considered.” The High Overseer, Cambell.

   Emily’s blood rushed to her head, there were no words for her sudden anger, too many thoughts overlapped in her mind as she seethed, all other sensations forgotten.

   They had set it up.

   She wanted to scream and shout and swear at them and punish them for what they had done but she just lay on the ropes, in her box, sweating and injured and somehow she just got more angry.

   She heard another voice then, one she didn’t recognize. It was gravelly, but not deep, and the man was clearly exasperated.

   “Well we haven’t got the girl yet, but your guards came in too early and we had to leave with what we-” He was cut off suddenly by the Spymaster.

   “You didn’t get the girl?! She’s just a child! And she is critical to this plan! How can your ‘highly trained men’ fail to capture a literal child?!”

   The man sighed deeply, seemingly unfazed by the Spymaster’s outrage.

   “We could have grabbed her if your guards had arrived when they were supposed to. Besides, that Royal Protector was not supposed to be here, and I lost one of my good men, so you should be thankful that I am just going to leave you with the job done, rather than taking recompense.”

   “Well then,” the Spymaster spat, “if you’re going to get the job done you should have your men search the nearby neighborhoods tonight. We can’t search the Tower’s grounds without raising suspicion and Corvo probably taught her enough tricks to get out soon anyway, that back alley bastard. There is no way a girl of her breeding would stomach the dirtier parts of the city so it shouldn’t be hard to find her.”

   “A girl of her upbringing, you should say.” Campbell grumbled.

   Emily wasn’t sure what he meant by that but the discussion seemed to be over, as she heard footsteps retreating to the Tower. She lay curled up in the darkness still, as the sounds faded into silence. A plan had formed surprisingly clear and quick as she heard the three men talk.

   Despite the muddy feeling of emotions clouding her mind, it was obvious to her that she had to try her best to survive, and that meant getting to the slums as soon as possible. But Corvo had returned in the middle of the afternoon and the faint glow around the lid of the box told her that not as much time had passed as she had expected.

   So she lay there in the dark, and waited.

   The Spymaster had said he wouldn’t check the grounds, but she didn’t trust that no one would check around for her, and every time she heard a guard off in the distance, talking or just walking on patrol, it sent her heart reeling with panic.

   She was coming down from the earlier terror, and thought that nothing in the world could ever be as terrifying and heartbreaking as that moment. Oddly, that held a certain reassurance, it truly could not get worse.

   She did not just spend this time idly, she worked her mind to distract herself, filling out the details of a plan to escape Dunwall Tower.

   It was quite simple all things considered, the Tower walls had been designed to keep people out not in, and there was a spot near the servant’s entrance around the back where you could get over rather easily. She had only sneaked out that way once since she knew it would make Corvo get even more protective if he found out, but she could probably sneak through there out to where shipments of food and things came in.

   After a while it got easier to wait there, the pain in her body had slowly faded to a dull ache although her right ankle throbbed noticeably, and her emotions had finally settled, not to where they had been before all of this but at least enough that she could think clearly.

   Despite the hours passing she was not bored, waiting here was what had to be done so she was going to do it. There was an unfamiliar simplicity to how she felt now, where before she would have been considering all of the other things she could be doing in this time, she now felt that those things were obviously irrelevant and she did not even feel an inclination to think about anything other than what she needed to do.

   Even with all the stress and terror it was surprising how easy she found it to just sit still in the darkness and wait.

   There was no more light coming in from under the lid, and hadn’t been for some time. Emily was not about to get herself caught by being impatient, so she had waited even longer than may have been necessary to make absolutely sure she came out once it was fully dark.

   Reaching out with one hand she moved to slowly lift the lid, but a sudden sharp pain in her wrist caused her to shrink back as she tried not to hiss in pain.

   Taking that fall the way she had was clearly a bad idea, even if it had saved her life. She would have to try and remember what Corvo had taught her about how to land softly so she wouldn’t make things even worse in the future.

   She still needed to get out so she pushed past the pain and, more carefully this time, went to lift the bin’s lid. There was nothing she could do to see if someone was looking before moving it, but once there was enough of a gap she looked out at the lower courtyard to see if anyone was there.

   A few voices carried faintly to where she was hiding, and it seemed like they were the guards on the boathouse, but there didn’t seem to be any others at the moment.

   Slowly, she lifted the lid further and, not seeing anything to worry about in the immediate she tried to crawl out onto her feet. Unfolding her stiff body was excruciating, her joints and the rough skin of her knees protesting every slight movement, but she fought to remain silent.

   Her ankles shot with pain as she got her weight on them, drawing out a whimper that she mentally scolded herself for. Somewhat miraculously she couldn’t see any other guards around where she was, so all there was to do now was creep around to the back entrance.

   It was slow going around the grounds, but Emily’s small size was rather convenient for hiding behind low walls and topiary. As she approached the tradesman’s entrance she made even more of an effort to be silent, and she crept up to the wall to just peek over it.

   There were two guards standing at the entrance itself, one of whom was reading a book, running a finger along the words as went, and the other was staring at the ground idly.

   “You think that Royal Protector’s gonna hang?” the bored one asked.

   The other guard didn’t even look up from his book as he said, “Blow off choffer.”

   Emily scanned the area for some way to sneak past them and saw that there was a pile of boxes under a sturdy looking shelter off to one side. If she could quietly get through the metal bars on top of the wall and onto that roof she would be above the guards heads, and since they didn’t know to guard against people who could teleport they probably weren’t checking rooftops.

   It took all of her meager strength to haul her body onto the wall, her wrists screaming in pain the whole time, and then she had to catch her breath before slipping through the bars, but she was able to make it onto the roof without getting the guards attention.

   She saw that the building next to her had a small ledge running around it, a few feet lower than she was, although there was also a gap of several feet across. Looking further, she could see that there was a fire escape ladder in the alley next to the building, so she just had to make it there to get down.

   The biggest challenge of her plan would be landing quietly, she had done some jumps of this size when her mother had allowed her and Corvo to do some more strenuous training.

   She took a few steps of run-up then pushed off toward the building.

   There was a silent moment of frozen uncertainty as she spanned the gap for just a second, then the moment she landed on her right foot she gasped in pain. It took everything she had to catch herself against the wall and not to scream out as she took deep breaths and tried to force down the pain in her leg.

   Slowly, she inched along the ledge, trying to keep her weight off her right foot as she made her way around the corner and over to the ladder. The way things had been going it almost seemed too simple to just climb down to the street bellow, but before she knew it Emily was standing safe on the ground, outside the Tower, and as far as she knew no one had caught her escaping.

   Now she just had to get out of the Estate District before a bunch of phantom assassins could finish the job they started on her mother.

   She let out a grunt, not really a laugh but the sheer insanity of her current situation called for some kind of acknowledgment, and then she began to limp off down the alley, preparing herself for a long trek through the back streets of Dunwall.

Chapter Text

   Emily slowly limped her way along, her right ankle giving a tired throb of pain each time she leaned her weight on it, a constant reminder of her reckless mistakes the night before. Light was slowly rising over the city, she hadn’t wanted to stop all night and had found her body surprisingly willing to keep up with that demand.

   After she made it out of the richer districts, she had stopped paying so much attention and an almost mechanical drive to simply get as far away from Dunwall Tower as she could manage had got her what felt like halfway across the city. By now she had no idea where she was and didn’t particularly care, and as she heard the bustle of normal life begin to fill the streets it seemed like now was probably the time to stop moving around visibly and finally get some rest.

   Unable to think hard about what to do she simply stumbled over to a pile of trash in the alley and collapsed onto it, doing her best to hide from the view of the street adjoining it.

   She hadn’t eaten anything since noon the day before and there was no way she was going to do anything about that now. Her body felt like it had been rung out, there was a constant pounding sensation in her head and she was drenched in sweat, but this was as far as she could string herself out.

   Hungry and exhausted, Emily resigned herself to solving the rest of her problems after she got some kind of rest, and pulled a large piece of ragged cloth over herself as another measly form of cover. With little thought or ceremony she fell asleep.

   “Hey, wake up rich bitch!”

   A sudden explosion of pain in her side tore Emily into full consciousness, but she couldn’t make sense of things. She was in an alley, in a pile of garbage with-.

   A wrapped up corpse lay in the pile just beside her, the cloth over its face a faded brown, soaked through with drying blood. Corpses littered the alley and even the road outside, nearly as abundant as the other trash strewn about.

   She wasn’t in the Tower, she had run and, her mother-. It was impossible to dwell on what had happened, just as she looked up at the figure silhouetted by the sun it kicked her in the shoulder.

   “C’mon, you got the plague or somthin’? Listen up!” It was hard to see through eyes still bleary with sleep and now clouded by tears of pain, but it seemed like another kid around her age. Glancing around Emily noticed a handful of other kids, all her age or younger standing menacingly behind the boy who had kicked her.

   “Some posh lookin’ clothes you got there. Give ‘em here.” His tone was both demanding and gleeful. Emily stared blankly for just a second, trying to catch up to events before things got any worse.

   “Wh- what would you want these for, they- you couldn’t wear them.” She had wanted to sound defiant, to try to convince them to leave, but the words came out shaky and sounding like she was about to cry.

   That stung somehow, she had been raised in part by the most dangerous man in the isles, even if she wasn’t supposed to be aware that he was. The fact that she was cowering in front of some juvenile street thug twisted at her gut, and while she felt surprisingly unafraid there was still nothing she could do.

   “’Course not, but that lace ’ll sell somethin’ nice ‘eh? Even if it is covered in shit. So get up, off with the clothes.”

   His casual dismissal made her blood boil, who did he think he was, treating a defenseless girl like this? She couldn’t go around with no clothes, she would have to run for it yet again.

   Slowly she rose to her feet, reminded again of her injured ankle, but just as she jerked to the side, intending to run down the alley, she froze. Two of the larger kids, a boy and a girl each a few inches taller than her, had moved from the group to block the escape already.

   “Tsk, tsk, tsk…” The boy who had kicked her slowly shook his head and strolled towards her. “Of course some posh bint like you would think she’s smarter than some gutter rats, ‘eh? Grab ‘er.” The kids had her arms held firmly before she could think to do anything, a firm hand near her waist suggested that kicking would not, in fact, be a very good idea for her.

   “So, we’ll be having those cloths off then shall we?” The boy produced a small knife from his pocket and hovered the tip near her stomach for a terrifying second. Raising the knife up to her throat, he carefully cut each button from the front of her shirt and Emily noticed that he was making sure not to cut the fabric itself at all. Perhaps he seriously did just want to rob her and she would get out of this without further harm.

   The leader stepped back and had the large kids roughly pull her pants down and take off her shoes, but luckily her underwear was rather simple and it didn’t seem like they were going to strip her naked.

   The hopes she had of being let go peacefully quickly evaporated when the boy in front of her suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her head with one hand, forcing her to look him directly in the eyes.

   “Now, safe to assume you’re new ‘round here so listen up. The Bottle Street Gang runs these streets, and we ain’t old enough to join ‘em yet but you’d best believe we’re gonna act like it. So you keep your head down an’ you keep out of our way ya hear? And, just so you don’t forget it-.” A punch landed on her gut, but the kids on either side kept her from folding in half as Emily gasped loudly at the pain. Another hit her rib cage and it took everything she had to hold herself together.

   She had no illusion that she could act totally unaffected, but at least she could not scream, not beg for mercy. Each blow sent a roiling sensation through her gut, and she tried to take that feeling and hold it, turn it into anger, something she could use to fight back once this was all over.

   The hand on her face was pulled back before a fist replaced it, cracking her head to the side and drawing out a yelp of pain. It stung, and tears filled her eyes and she just couldn’t stop it, she couldn’t pretend she was tougher than these kids and that drained all the fight she had tried to muster. Even still she tried to muffle the sobs as the kid stepped back to observe his handiwork.

   One of the smaller kids bundled up Emily’s clothes as she was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, her spreading bruises protesting as she curled up.

   The posse did leave, out onto the street, leaving her as just another body in the dank alleyway.

   Nausea boiled her insides along with the slowly fading pain as she once again felt a deep frustration with herself that seemed to block out all of her other thoughts.

   She had to do something, she couldn’t keep losing like this and she had to get back at the bastards that had done this to her. The shadowy assassins were far from something that she could handle -she was curled up crying in her underwear for the Outsider’s sake- but maybe she could start small. She would have to start small and build back up if she didn’t want to die here.

   Slowly she managed to stretch out and get back on her feet. No part of her wanted to, but again it seemed like want had nothing to do with her actions. She simply had to get up, so she did.

   She had to get food too, so she dug around in a bin and found a half eaten apple. Trying to ignore the obvious discoloration and suspicious holes, Emily managed a couple of bites.

   As soon as the food hit her stomach however, the nausea she had been feeling solidified into an urgent need to vomit. The meager contents of her stomach spewed against the wall as she doubled over, and it was clear that she needed to find something more edible, which obviously wasn’t going to be around here.

   Her ankle still couldn’t take her full weight as she moved down the alley, but after an excruciating few minutes she figured out how to minimize the pain while staying silent. It was a given that she would have to avoid drawing attention to herself unless she wanted to get beat up again.

   Around a few corners she found a few men hanging around a door. Two were milling around, and a third sat on a stool, idly opening and closing a straight razor. Emily figured these must be the Bottle Street gang that the kid had mentioned. There was some tinned food on a make shift table near by and it was frankly easy for her to sneak up behind it and grab one.

   Once back in a different alley Emily opened the tin and gratefully shoveled the salty fish into her mouth. She still had to find water she could drink, and if she wanted to go anywhere other than this depopulated slum she would need some clothes.

   The sensation of real food in her stomach did wonders for her overall condition, and she considered that if those Bottle Street thugs represented the kind of threats she would face around here then she may actually have a decent chance of surviving for more than a couple days. Still, she had to get something to wear and something to drink soon.

   She stared at the tin in her hands, wondering where she could find what she needed, when she thought again of the kids that had mugged her. At first she felt her frustration welling up again, they had taken her clothes after all, and much of her immediate situation was their fault.

   As she ran her gaze down the jagged edge of the opened tin she was struck suddenly with a single idea. Her frustration melted away into something else she couldn’t quite identify, as she continued contemplating it she had an odd sensation of motion in her gut.

   Oddly the last time she had felt something like it was when she had talked to a boy she liked at a party, it was a sort of disbelief that she was even trying it, combined with a relieved joy that she was actually going to do it and that it might, just possibly, work.

   The sun was low in the sky as Emily finally heard a familiar voice down the end of yet another alley. It had taken a fair amount of wandering around to find the group of kids again, long enough that she was once again hungry, but hopefully it would be worth while if she succeeded.

   She had removed the lid from her tin of fish and folded it so that there was one reasonably sharp point where it creased, and then she had wrapped a torn scrap of cloth around it so she wouldn’t cut herself on the rest of its jagged edges. Overall it did actually resemble the world’s least functional knife, but hopefully it wouldn’t be seen by anyone anyways.

   The group was sitting around a smokey fire they had made in a trash bin lid, and were talking as they ate what looked like burned fish. Emily didn’t bother listening to what they where saying, merely sat down out of sight and waited for what she was hoping for. It didn’t take long for the familiar voice of their leader to state loudly that he was “going to take a piss.”

   Emily was already hidden behind a dumpster when the sound of his footsteps passed into the alley, and she was soon following him around the corner, her uneven steps silent on the stones.

   He had just come to a stop, when Emily caught up behind him and quickly reached out. She snaked one hand under one of his arms and up to cover his mouth while the other hand slipped her “knife” under his shirt and pressed the tip into the skin of his back. Just as the boy started to move she dug the point in further and leaned up next to his ear.

   “Now, now, you don’t want to do that.” She said, trying to stay calm. “This can go over peacefully if you just do what I say.”

   The boy tried to say something but it was muffled by her hand. For just a moment, when he had struggled, the anger inside her had rushed back in, and for his sake she really did hope he just stayed calm.

   “I don’t suppose you still have my clothes do you?”

   He shook his head.

   “Alright then, I guess you’ll just have to pay me back for them. Take your pants off.” The boy hesitated, but when Emily pressed the blade into his back again he relented, sliding his pants to the ground.

   Emily had debated this next part, she had seen him put his knife into the pocket of these pants so it was likely in there now, but it would be tricky getting them. Given she was bluffing with a tin lid, it seemed like going for the knife would still be worth it, so she attempted to reach down quickly enough that he wouldn’t move.

   As soon as the point of her tin lid stopped pressing into his back, the boy pushed her away, which she scolded herself for not expecting. He spun around and took several steps back, and to Emily’s surprise he pulled a small knife, more of a shiv, from his shirt pocket. Emily had his pants however, and to he relief the knife was exactly where she expected it to be. The knife had a button on the side, which let the thin blade flip out, and in a moment the two of them stood with knives out.

   “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here.” The boy growled, his face red with either anger or embarrassment.

   “Careful, your big friends aren’t here and I’ve got the only real knife between the two of us.” She couldn’t tell if she was bluffing. “Are you sure we need to do this?” She really didn’t want to hurt him if she didn’t have to, but if it came down to it…

   “You’re the one who mugged me you bitch! Don’t think you can get all high and mighty on me!” He was shaking, and took half a step forward, which Emily took as a sign that she had to act.

   She quickly approached him, hoping to get a clean swing at him before he got her back, and she had no illusions she wouldn’t get hurt. To her surprise he hesitated to swing at her, and if she was any more stupid that would have made her hesitate. As it was she had made too many mistakes already and wasn’t planning to make more, so she swung the knife low towards the flesh of his stomache.

   At the last second the boy seemed to realize he had to do something and he took a swing at her, marking a deep gash in her upper arm. But at that point Emily had the blade of his knife buried in his gut.

   Quickly she pulled back, not wanting to stay in his reach for too long, but he didn’t seem like he was going to do much by that point. There was no sound coming from his lips, but tears streamed down his face as he looked at her with an excruciatingly anguished expression.

   Emily just stood in shock as he slowly started blubbering, pleading with her incomprehensibly through his sobs.

   It occurred to her that he, probably, had genuinely not expected to ever get hurt, and rather than pity she was filled with white hot rage. This stupid bully had beaten her and likely countless others, and he had never feared like she had, never been broken like she had, and he expected her to pity him now? The shiv had fallen from his loose hand, and she felt no fear in marching straight up to him.

   Grabbing his neck she buried the blade into his gut again, then just to ease the tension building in her she pulled it out and stabbed him again. The poor bastard just whimpered and squeaked in pain and Emily felt her built up frustration escaping. She relished the sounds he made as she pushed the knife in harder. Then her mind caught up to what had just happened.

   A cold feeling flooded down her spine as she realized what would happen to him. Three deep gut wounds would be fatal to anyone, especially a kid who lived in a plague ridden slum. She had just killed this boy, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

   She remembered the man Corvo had killed, and she remembered her mother falling dead on the ground. The boy fell to his knees still gasping and sobbing, and she looked down at him with a hint of pity, like one feels toward an injured animal that needs to be put down.

   There was still the anger she felt towards her mother’s killer, and towards the Spymaster and High Overseer, which was what had kept her going since that moment.

   There had always been an expectation in her mind that she would hurt people, she wanted to hurt some people, and she supposed she had wanted to kill those men like they had her mother.

   Well, if she was going to get there, then being conflicted about it would just slow her down, both in the final moment and in her pursuit of it.

   Emily knelt down beside the dying boy and pulled the knife across his throat. Even that wasn’t the quickest death but she couldn’t muster the energy to care.

   She put on his pants and then removed his shoes and shirt from his unresistant body and put those on as well. The two of them were similar in height but the boy had been a fair bit heavier then she was, so the cloths hung loose around her. The stab wounds in the shirt were surrounded by blood stains, as was the collar but that didn’t really bother her much, she had just walked around nearly naked for half a day so anything would do.

   All that was left was to get something to eat and drink, and while she had initially planned to find some elsewhere in the city she knew there was something much closer to hand.

   Walking back towards the boy’s companions she felt oddly relaxed, she had just killed someone with no hesitation, and while a normal girl should probably have been rather upset about that, after what she had been through over the past couple days she truly could not bring herself to feel very bad about it. Besides, she hadn’t attacked him for no reason, he had hurt her and she had hurt him back.

   There was also his hesitation, if other kids were like that, unwilling to do what they needed to in order to survive in the moment, then she had an edge that others didn’t. Emily had seen and felt the worst there was and she wasn’t going to worry about moral concerns when her life was on the line, and she was more aware than most, it seemed, of how real that danger was.

   Rounding the last corner, Emily stepped into the small square where several alleys met at the backside of a few buildings. The kids all looked up as she approached, confusion and surprise mostly covering their faces. She watched as they raced to figure out what was going on, taking in her face and their leader’s clothes, noticeable holes and blood stains included. The large boy tried to get up in a hurry but hesitated as Emily pulled out the switchblade and flipped it open.

   “Do we have to do this, or can I just sit down.” She let the exhaustion she had been fighting all day fill her tone, hoping that would calm things down faster than threats.

   There was another long pause before the big boy slowly sank back onto his seat. A general relaxation passed through the group, the big girl that had held her earlier had frozen while filling a cup from an open bucket and now resumed moving.

   Emily walked up to the fire and sat down on a wooden bench next to what appeared to be the youngest kid there, a girl who tensed visibly at her presence. The kids all nervously glanced around at one another, unsure of what to do now that the girl they beat up earlier had clearly killed one of their own and didn’t seem to care much.

   “Do you have something I can drink?” Emily asked to the big kid sitting on her other side. Before he could answer another boy spoke up.

   “Sure, have some of this.” The scrawny boy produced a bottle from his vest and handed it over to her.

   As she took it he exchanged glances with the big kids that Emily couldn’t decipher, but she didn’t really care. The first swig filled her mouth with a searing pain, and she felt a warmth spread through her throat as she swallowed it. Compared to everything else she had felt, whatever this was had a clearness that was almost refreshing. If this was what kids drank on the street then she could probably get used to it.

   She took another long pull of whatever it was, realizing that under the sting it was actually quite sweet, and then she realize that all other kids were staring at her again.

   “What?” She asked flatly.

   “Uh… nothing just… can I have that back?” The scrawny boy asked, clearly flustered. He took it from Emily’s hand, and the big girl handed her the cup she had just filled.

   “Here, have this, I’ll get another.” She said quickly before getting up again. Emily took an experimental sip of this new drink, and found it somewhat bitter but much easier on the throat than the other stuff.

   “Its just watered down beer but that’s all we’ve got.” Said the big guy.

   She didn’t really care what it was and drank it down eagerly before asking for more. They all sat in an awkward silence for a long while as the small fire crackled.

   “So, what’s your name?” The scrawny boy asked, breaking the silence.

   “Em.” She replied simply.

   “Is that short for anything?” The big guy asked.

   “Not to you it isn’t.” She knew that she was not making it easy for them to deal with her but she didn’t see why that mattered, they had mugged her after all.

   After asking, she got some of the overcooked fish to eat and sat there working through it as the other kids slowly started talking to one another. She didn’t feel a need to insert herself into any of the conversation now that she had filled her stomach, but it was nice to be around people who were not actively trying to hurt her. That was a laughably low bar but she supposed she had to start somewhere.

Chapter Text

   Emily learned more than she had expected from listening to the conversation while she ate, most notably that all of the other kids had homes to go back to. They were all either the children of local bottle street gang members or whalers who left for months at a time, leaving them with little to do but wander the streets looking for trouble.

   It was an interesting look into what kids did when they didn’t have lessons and fancy events all day, and it seemed like these kids were quite a bit more relaxed than the kids she had known, even if her presence currently soured things somewhat.

   A number of them discussed jobs they had been given by low level Bottle Street boys, which they of course were barely payed for, but it seemed like a good possibility for surviving over the coming weeks.

   Just as she was thinking about that, Emily noticed that the two big kids were whispering to one another while very obviously glancing nervously at her.

   “What do you want?” The words came out much harsher than she had intended.

   “W- well…” The girl answered.

   “We were going to find this guy and shake him down,” The boy cut in, ”for some money he owes Slackjaw. Bas got the job for us but you… uh..”

   “Stabbed him?” Emily supplied.

   “Uh, yeah.”

   His expression was actually pretty funny but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to push her luck. She thought for a second, mostly about the fact that she would need money to buy food somewhere.

   “I’ll tell you what, if you tell me where I can meet you tomorrow, I’ll help with whatever he was supposed to do. If I get whatever cut of the payment he was getting.” It was a long shot, but this was her most convenient way of getting any money. The two kids exchanged a long look before the girl shrugged.

   Emily found herself wandering the streets, unsure of where she was going.

   The two big kids, who said their names were Jack and Patty, apparently had a handful of small jobs for some Bottle Street boys which she was free to join them in since they were getting paid individually. She had been told to meet them back in the alley were they ate before all the kids had trickled out, each heading back home.

   She had felt awkward about just sitting there so she herself had left as if she had somewhere to go, but now she just limped in circles trying to figure out were she was going to sleep that night.

   Of course there was always the “pile of trash in an alley” option, but after waking up next to a plague corpse that option seemed less than appealing. Just as she was wondering if she could find a discarded mattress somewhere a thought struck her.

   This area had been hit hard by the plague, many families getting wiped out in their entirety. That meant that there were likely to be a lot of apartments left unoccupied, if in a state of disrepair.

   Looking up she saw a number of light-less windows, many broken and boarded up. She tried a door on the street but it was locked, as were others she attempted to open.

   After searching for a short while Emily found a building with a pipe running around the outside. It was a bit of a struggle, with the growing darkness and her ankle giving her hell, but she managed to climb it and pull herself up on a faded shop sign, coming level with a dark window.

   It was hard to see much inside, but there was no question that this place was empty. Some furniture had fallen through a rotten part of floor, and there was an indistinct pile of something in the corner.

   She swung hard with her elbow, cracking the glass and sending a small shot of pain up her arm. Another couple of swings broke the glass in all the way and the heel of her shoe cleaned up the shards along the bottom edge.

   It was funny, she thought as she eased herself through, that this was her kind of doorway now.

   Inside she found a table, conveniently topped with an oil lamp and box of matches. She hadn’t actually lit one before, and she burned herself on a few of the matches before she got the wick burning.

   The light did not reveal much, the room was largely barren, although she now saw that the pile in the corner was one of wrapped up bodies. If she was going to stay here then she couldn’t have plague victims spoiling the air.

   Moving the bodies was not a very comfortable experience, for one thing there were two adults who each weighed twice what she did, and also while the wrappings prevented her from seeing the people’s faces she couldn’t ignore the feeling of their bodies underneath.

   She dragged the limp bodies one by one over to the window, feeling their hard bones under soft flesh, far colder than a person should have been.

   She heaved them up and out of the window, and struggled to not drop them on the sign just below it.

   She heard a crunch that twisted her stomach each time as they landed on the stone street.

   Emily shook slightly as she fell into the chair at the lone table, clammy with sweat from the work but not feeling warm. After a few deep breaths to steady her nerves she looked around to see what resources might be there.

   A kitchen the size of a closet contained a stove with no fuel, and a sink that surprisingly did produce a trickle of water. The cabinets were all empty but that was to be expected, someone would have vacated this place and taken the important things with them.

   There was also an equally small bathroom, the sink worked but the bath didn’t seem to have running water.

   By the faint light of the lamp in the other room, Emily caught her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was a complete mess and her face was covered in dirt, her eyes were somewhat red, and already had an edge to them that she didn’t recognize, like she was looking for danger even when she was here alone.

   It occurred to her that she was looking for danger, she had been poised to run back to the window and get out at any sign something might be wrong. With a conscious effort she relaxed her shoulders and tried to soften her eyes, it didn’t achieve much but she felt it was worth trying.

   Before heading back to the main room she looked at the clothing she had taken, when she froze in shock. The blood stains on her stomach, the stab holes in the fabric were right where--

   Right were her mother had been stabbed.

   Her throat felt dry and sore as she looked in the mirror and saw herself as her mother, stabbed through the gut by a man she didn’t know.

   But Emily had put those holes there. It struck her that she had killed that boy, Bas, the same why that man had killed her mother. But no, it was different, Bas had hurt her and robbed her and she had got him back for what he did. That Stranger had entered her life out of nowhere and ripped away everything she had.

   She stumbled back to the table falling heavily on the chair, and holding her head in her hands, she let the table support her weight, feeling unable to do so herself.

   Thoughts that she had been avoiding flooded her mind, about her mother, Corvo, the things they were all going to do, that they could have done, that had all been thrown away.

   Tears finally fell, she didn’t want them too but there was no holding back anymore. She wanted to scream until her voice went out, she wanted take her chair and throw it at the wall, she wanted to rip the floorboards up with her bare hands.

   She cried on the table.

   Minutes passed sitting still, thoughts winding out until she ran out of energy to feel anything so strongly.

   Eventually she was able to sit up, wiping the snot off of her nose she stared up at the ceiling, trying to find something she could do. She had made it this far, and she knew she could keep going.

   If she wanted to get back at that stranger like she had got back at Bas she would have to keep her head for the long haul.

   There was nothing that would un-kill her mother. If she wanted to be able to do something about her situation she would likely have to do things that were unsavory. She knew both of these things and she could accept them, she had to accept them, if she wanted to see this all through.

   There was no relying on Corvo, she had no idea what would happen to him in his imprisonment.

   There was no relying her noble friends’ families, this had been a conspiracy and she didn’t know how deep it went or who was involved.

   Finally there was no relying on strangers, if she let them know who she was or what she was hoping to accomplish they would likely turn her in to the Spymaster expecting a reward.

   So she had to do this herself, whatever “this” turned out to be. She still had no idea how she was going to find the man who had ruined her life, but maybe she didn’t have to start there.

   Of the two people she knew were involved it would probably be easier to reach the High Overseer, and maybe she could find out who the murderer was from him.

   If that was how she would proceed then she needed time to prepare, her limited skill at stealth would be insufficient to get into the Abbey of the Everyman, and she would need to train her body before she could make any moves.

   With nothing else to do, Emily put out the lamp and shuffled over to the mattress the bodies had been piled on. Obviously it wasn’t the cleanest or safest thing in the world, as several noticeable stains attested, but it would be more comfortable than the floor.

   As she lay there in a stranger’s clothes, trying to fall asleep, she tried to find some hope in how much her circumstances had improved over just one day, she had a real mattress instead of a pile of garbage and she was no longer sleeping next to a corpse.

   She let out a dry chuckle which turned into a dryer cough, there was a certain dark humor in just how sad that victory was.

   Dull light woke her up in the morning, and she felt an equally dull ache in her head. It was clearly very early so she lay there remembering the night before.

   She felt somewhat lighter, having let out her feelings toward her mother. Not everything was solved, she still felt a smoldering resentment towards the assassin, Campbell, and that wretched Spymaster, but she felt like she could keep moving forward without collapsing under the weight of it all.

   She sat up with a groan and went about getting ready for whatever she was going to go through that day. Getting up on her ankle still hurt, although letting it sit for a night seemed to have somewhat improved matters.

   There was no food or anything present so all she did was try to scrub the blood out of her shirt in the sink, which only resulted in fading the darker parts.

   Looking at her self in the mirror she noticed her eyes were still rather red which she assumed was from her crying much of the night before.

   The real sight was the mottling of bruises across her torso, most having turned a sickly dark green overnight. The cut on her upper arm was also crusted with blood, and she chided herself for not doing something about it sooner, but she rinsed it off just to have done something, she didn’t have bandages so she would just have to hope the scab did a good job.

   With what passed for her morning preparations complete, Emily climbed out the window, feeling the chill morning air on her damp shirt, and headed off for whatever work she had signed herself up for.

   Patty was waiting for her by the circle of makeshift seats they had used the night before, and explained Jack was already wherever it was that they were going. She led Emily down a series of alleys, to a familiar place.

   The door with the three guards she had stolen from looked just as it had the previous day, although the specific men were different. Emily felt a tad nervous as she approached, worried about the minor theft and what might happen if a gang member somehow recognized her, however unlikely.

   The men examined her with distrustful gazes as she tried her best to look nonchalant, but Patty assured them she was there for work.

   “Where’s that kid? Said he was gonna be here today.”

   The question sent a short jolt of panic down her spine and she turned to Patty, who just looked blankly back at her. Clearly she wasn’t going to get help explaining things.

   “He, uh, made a mistake in choosing who he mugged. I corrected him.” She managed to keep her voice level, although she wasn’t sure if it was bravado or stupidity to try to keep things cryptic.

   The man just huffed. “Sounds like his problem. Alright just don’t make a habit of startin’ fights, we don’t take to kindly to hot heads.”

   Emily noticed one man suspiciously eyeing the darkly stained holes in her shirt as she and Patty were led through the door.

   A surprisingly spacious square lay on the other side, with pipes spanning the distance between buildings overhead. A group of people stood around the back of a large wagon, they were all young though most weren’t as young as she was.

   Making their way over, she recognized Jack and the scrawny kid whose name she still didn’t know. She and he stood awkwardly as Jack and Patty chatted easily with one another, but she didn’t feel inclined to talk.

   Soon a man came out of one of the buildings and opened up the back of the wagon revealing a large stack of wooden barrels. He told them to start carrying them down into the distillery basement, and right away a few people climbed up the pile and began handing down barrels to the crowd below.

   No one asked any questions, so Emily kept her mouth shut and tried to just follow along, taking a barrel when one was handed to her. Thankfully they were empty but it was still large and awkward and heavy for her, given she had never exercised a day in her life despite Corvo’s encouragement.

   It took an embarrassing minute for her to figure out how to hold the thing comfortably and even then her wrists strained under the weight, but she began to follow the flow of people into a large building nearby.

   Her hands shook as she set down her barrel next to a number of others, but she found herself looking forward to the day’s work. She knew that she needed to get stronger, and they had been promised food at noon so she wasn’t too worried about the current pain in her stomach.

   It was in some ways a good thing, Emily considered, that her nice white clothes had been stolen. The dirt and grease from the new barrels had covered her shirt and pants in countless scuffs and dark splotches, but against the drab wool pants you could hardly see it. And the faintly brown tone of the cheap shirt made the stains fit in somehow, a shirt like that wanted some dirt on it, unlike her finery which would have been positively ruined by the treatment.

   Those clothes now hung close to her body, stuck on with sweat just like the hair against her neck and forehead. She meandered back out into the hot sun shining down into the square and lamented how the buildings stopped any kind of breeze which might have let that sweat cool her off.

   Now that they had finished moving the barrels she wasn’t actually sure what she should be doing, but in looking for some shade to rest in she noticed where the other kids were lining up to get what looked like bread and some hard cheese.

   The scrawny kid she knew was just walking up to the end of the line so she decided she might as well join him.

   “Hey.” She said, then failed to come up with anything to follow up with.

   He looked up at her and seemed to accept her standing next to him but he didn’t help her make any conversation. They stood in silence for a long moment before he decided to speak.

   “My uh, name’s Peter, by the way. Since I uh, didn’t think you, uh, got it, earlier…” He trailed of sheepishly before making another effort.

   “Remind me of your name again?”

   “Em.”

   He looked at her for a second, perhaps hoping she would say more, but when she didn’t he went back to staring at his feet. It seemed like he couldn’t stand still, his feet shuffling and his hands wandering around his pockets as they slowly made their way forward in line.

   After another minute she saw him pull a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from one pocket. She watched as he took one and carefully lit it, but before he put them away he turned to her and held out the pack.

   “Want one?” he asked somewhat eagerly.

   She had never smoked anything in her life, but she had seen plenty of guards and nobles alike having various smokes around the palace. Her own mother, she knew, would occasionally have a cigarette in her office after tough days of dealing with city bureaucrats.

   “Uh, what are they for?” she responded hesitantly.

   “To relax, they make you feel better.” Pete said, seeming happier now they were talking. “C’mon you should try one.” He waggled the pack in front of her again.

   Emily could certainly do with feeling better, and something to relax after that work would be nice. She carefully plucked one paper tube from the pack and inspected it.

   One end had some kind of paper folded up in it and was brown around the outside, the other end was filled to the edge with brown tobacco leaves.

   “What exactly do I do?” She asked, suddenly growing a bit nervous.

   “Just inhale when I hold up the light.” He grinned as he held it up by her face.

   She took a deep breath before placing the filter between her teeth and she felt the heat from the lighter as Peter lit it. She felt silly for a moment about how much she was bracing herself for what was likely a pretty insignificant thing, then she lined up the end with the flame and took a deep breath of hot air.

   The smoke felt oddly solid in her throat, and she was surprised by how sweet it tasted as she felt the warmth scratching her mouth. She lowered the cigarette a moment to breath it out and was unable to suppress a cough as the smoke tore its way past her lips.

   In the moment after that first draw, she found herself suddenly quite light headed. It wasn’t that much to deal with, her throat was still scratchy from the smoke and she was dizzy, but that dizziness was rather pleasant all things considered.

   She closed her eyes and took another long pull from the cigarette, holding it in for a moment. She felt a pang from her lungs as the smoke settled in a little deeper, then felt again the rough sensation of the smoke coming back up her throat and the brief wave of unbalance pass over her after.

   She rather enjoyed the next couple minutes waiting in that line, standing next to Peter. They just smoked in silence, but he was grinning ear to ear the whole time, which Emily couldn’t figure out. She supposed she was in somewhat better of a mood than she probably should have been given what she’d been going through, but it was nice to have just a moment to relax and not be worried about survival or revenge.

   At the end of the line they got their stale bread and old dry cheese, as well as a 5 dollar coin each, which in turn caused the realization that she didn’t actually know how much it was worth because she had never actually spent any money.

   Setting aside her constantly being reminded that she had an abnormally sheltered life up until very recently, she followed Pete over to a patch of shade where a few other kids were already eating their lunches.

   She chewed her way through the tough, dry bread while others chatted around her. The lingering taste of the tobacco in her mouth was more flavorful than both the bread and cheese combined, but her stomach was as full as it had been in days.

   As she looked up from finishing her food, Emily felt something brush against her butt. It took a moment for her to realize what had happened but she felt her anger flare up the moment that she did.

   A now familiar rush of heat came up from her gut and she let that spastic energy flood through her arms as she spun on her heel.

   Her fist landed in the gut of the large boy behind her. The feeling of her hand sinking into soft flesh providing a satisfying release for the sensations that had built up in only a moment.

   It was obvious that the punch had only worked as a surprise, given how she really was a scrawny kid when all was said and done. But he nonetheless was stumbling backwards trying to catch his breath.

   Perhaps it didn’t matter if it “should” have worked as long as it did actually work, like her fight with Bas in the alley.

   Emily looked up from her victim when she realized she didn’t hear as much conversation as she should have.

   The nearest people in the crowd around them had turned to stare at her, not moving even to help the boy she had hit.

   Her nerves pulled tight, stiffening her spine as she glanced around on the creeping edge of panic. She had just been defending herself from harassment, setting an example to others not to try making moves at her, not that she had actually thought that far ahead before swinging.

   Movement on the edge of the crowd caught her attention. The man she had talked to outside, who had come in to supervise the day’s work, was stalking his way over with a grim expression. When he reached her she had only time to open her mouth before he smacked her across the face with the back of his hand.

   “I told you not to be startin’ fights girl.” He growled with enough force that Emily actually cringed back.

   “But I-”

   “You pull one more stunt like that and I’ll be havin’ some boys come around to show you how much we appreciate it, yeah?” He continued without pause, like he didn’t care even if she did have something to interject.

   Emily stood in stunned silence as he walked away. It was unfair that she hadn’t gotten to explain herself, but it seemed like that was just the way things worked here. At least Pete had probably seen what had really happened, given he was standing right next to her.

   When she tried looking to him for some kind of reassurance that he didn’t think she was a violent lunatic he was conspicuously looking around at everything else.

   Well whatever, she was done doing busy work for the day, and she needed to find Jack and Patty anyways. She made her exit as quick as she could, which was made easier by the way people seemed to be shifting slightly out of her way as she walked through the crowd and out of the square.

Chapter Text

   Emily followed Jack and Patty through the cramped alleys of the distillery district, feeling like she was just one of the twisted shadows they cast on the walls in the low evening light.

   They were looking for a kid who apparently owed Slackjaw something, or maybe he had stolen something or other from Bottle Street.

   Emily didn’t particularly care, she was more worried about keeping up pace with the bigger kids and not letting her uneven high speed shamble cause any further damage to her joints.

   It was lucky that her newfound companions were familiar with the area because she felt lost the moment they had taken two turns away from the distillery in a direction she hadn’t gone before.

   Patty and Jack cornered the kid in a dead end alley as the sun finally sank below the rooftops, and Emily watched from a short distance in the last dregs of deep orange light.

   After they got in a couple good wallops they grabbed him by the arms and stepped back, almost displaying him to Emily.

   She took this as her queue to get involved and she shuffled forward to properly appraise him. It felt like she was being presented a gift for her approval, and she gave the boy an appropriately analyzing look-over as she approached.

   He wasn’t as lean as the other kids she had been hanging around, rather than scrawny or chiseled he was almost on the edge of pudgy. There was a panic in his eyes that seemed out of place, like he hadn’t considered he might be in danger until three kids had suddenly come around the corner and chased him down.

   It wasn’t clear what exactly she was supposed to do here, her companions seemed to be letting her take the initiative completely so she would just have to feel out the situation and hopefully not mess it up.

   Slowly, she removed the knife from her pocket and flipped it open, holding it up as she watched the kid’s eyes bulge and focus on the shining blade.

   “Do you know what we came here for?” It took effort to try to keep her voice flat in spite of her nerves.

   “S-S-Slackjaw sent you!”

   “That’s right.” She lowered the knife’s blade down to his collar bone. “Do you know why he sent us?”

   The boy shivered as she increased pressure on the blade. Her hand itched to push further and feel his skin split under the tip, but she held back. After all, they hadn’t been sent to kill him, yet.

   After he failed to come up with a reason for a moment too long Patty shook him by the shoulder. The edge of Emily’s knife carved a small slit over the bone before she could pull it away.

   “Don’t fuck around with us, you’re late paying for that elixir you got.” Patty growled roughly in his ear.

   “But my sister! She got sick and Dad’s off-”

   Emily cut him off by holding the knife against his throat. Perhaps she couldn’t deliver a punch like other kids but she had figured out well enough that steel could speak louder when used properly.

   “We don’t give a damn about your sister.” It wasn’t hard to sound mean, Emily’s patience was a thinning rope as it was and this kid’s blubbering wasn’t going to do him any favors.

   “Please, I’ll do anything!”

   It was such a stupid thing to say that Emily actually rolled her eyes at him. Who did this kid think he was? How little did he understand about any of this?

   “I don’t want anything from you.” She said, turning the knife to drag its point down his neck. “Slackjaw wants his money, but I just want you to hold still while I remind you why you should give it to him.”

   She told Jack to open the kid’s shirt, and watched the boy shiver in fear as each button exposed more of his pale unmarred skin and the wisps of hair beginning to grow on it. When he finished she stepped back in and placed her knife gently on one side of the kid’s stomach.

   “Are you listening to me?” Her voice was husky, a low whisper as if she was going to tell him a secret.

   He nodded stiffly.

   “Good. Keep still for me, don’t make a sound.”

   Finally she released the tension that had built in her arm, letting the blade sink into his soft skin a fraction of an inch. It wasn’t much, but that feeling of resistance giving way under her knife was a wave of relief flowing back up her arm.

   She had been growing annoyed with this innocent moron, only adding to the anger she always kept within her. Toying with him, watching him squirm as she asked him to explain why exactly he deserved to get this treatment, had actually been rather fun.

   But this was what she had been waiting for, to use that anger as energy, to let it out rather than hold it in wait. Even still she held back.

   Carefully, she began to drag the knife across his stomach, trying not to cut any deeper than the skin’s surface.

   “You are going to find the money.” Even as she spoke the knife continued it’s excruciating march. “You have a week. If you don’t show up on Slackjaw’s doorstep, begging for forgiveness with money in hand, then I am going to come back to you. And when I do I’m gonna to make this cut deeper and I’ll spill your fucking guts.”

   That seemed to be too much for the kid, who in a sudden fit of panic kicked his legs up, trying to push her back.

   Patty and Jack restrained him tighter in only a moment, but Emily had been struck on the right knee, sending a sharp pain through her leg. The pain lingered, mixing with the still present pain of her injured ankle.

   She fought to regain her balance as her temper flared and she swung back at him. The knife was buried an inch into his shoulder before the others could realize what happened.

   This finally pushed him over the edge to just start bawling right there and then.

   “You should be grateful I managed not to kill you.” She said through teeth gritted in annoyance.

   She pulled the knife out of his shoulder with a quick tug and lowered the point back to his stomach. There she made light jabs, leaving a trail of pinpricks continuing along the line she had carved. With each touch the boy tried to cringe back, causing a hiccup in his crying, and Emily watched with satisfaction each time.

   She held the tip in place at the end of her line, before speaking again.

   “Do you understand? Just nod.”

   When he did, she reluctantly lifted the knife from his skin, but not before twisting the tip to leave a larger jagged hole at the end of the line.

   She stepped back fully after that, and nodded to Patty and Jack, who dropped the kid unceremoniously to his knees.

   “That was wicked.” Jack told her as they walked the alley, although it was unclear if his tone came from awe or nerves. Emily just grunted in acknowledgment, entirely unsure of how she should take that.

   At the end of the street Patty tapped on Jacks shoulder.

   “Our place is off this way, so we should probably head back for the night. There’s no need to go back to Bottle Street since we wont get paid for that until he brings the money anyway.” Without saying any good bye, she turned and walked off down the cross street, Jack following close behind.

   Emily panicked for just a moment, realizing she didn’t remember the way back from were they were. Before she called out to them another idea struck her.

   Off to one side of the road there was a rather convenient dumpster that was just next to an air conditioning unit.

   Pulling herself up was slow going, she had to be careful about how she put weight on her ankle while picking a route out of the myriad ledges and handholds on her way to the rooftop.

   A full three stories up in the air, her head finally came out over the rooftop and the city skyline rolled out before her. A strong wind carried the scents of the city over her as she lay flat out stretching what was now her whole bad leg while catching the breath she had lost.

   The air was different this far above the streets, something she hadn’t properly appreciated before descending from Dunwall Tower. She was free, up on that rooftop, in a way that she couldn’t be at ground level.

   Her mind tracked back to the men who had appeared out of nowhere, the way that they had seemed disconnected from the rules everyone else had to follow.

   They had been able to move and act in ways that were unthinkable to normal people, as if they disregarded both the laws of the Empire and of nature. If she wanted to face them on equal footing she would have to free herself in the way that they had.

   Dunwall’s rooftops and balconies, places free from the oppressive weight of the systems and the petty rules and fear that drove them, were going to help her achieve at least some of that freedom.

   Overhead, a few stars peaked through the clouds above the city when Emily rose to her feet, leg creaking in protest. The wind coming off the sea was picking up and it carried a heavy moisture with it. If she didn’t want the rain to make what she was doing even more dangerous she would need to find her apartment soon.

   She looked out over the city and after a moment of searching she found what she was looking for.

   The distillery square left a clearing in the forest of buildings that she could recognize even from this distance, and careful study of the streets around it gave her a good idea of where her apartment was.

   Most of the buildings in the city were close enough that she could step from one roof to the other with relative ease, only the difference in height causing any obstacle.

   The first alley she had to jump across was relatively narrow and had about a three foot drop from one side to the other.

   On larger alleys she had to climb down to find some fire escape or balcony that spanned the gap.

   With each step and jump the nervous feeling in her gut lessened, and in a short while she was surprisingly confident in her abilities to navigate the upper reaches of this sprawling city.

   Stepping from ledge to ledge, lowering herself down balconies and pushing up over walls, she could remember all of the training she had done with Corvo. He had emphasized smoothness and control more than speed, and even with her injured leg she found herself falling into a steady pace traversing over the varied structures.

   For a while she remembered the way he would guide her and how she had swelled with pride when he told her how well she was doing. Corvo was going to be so proud of her when he saw what she could do now.

   The realization that he likely wouldn’t see her hit Emily like a train, her foot slipped on a damp drainpipe as she hesitated, and she had to twist around and grab it before she fell to the ground three stories below.

   He wouldn’t be there for her, couldn’t be there even to offer praise.

   Those words repeated themselves in her head like a mantra as she hauled herself back to stable footing.

   She would have to get better.

   She needed to make sure she never made mistakes like that, never faltered or hesitated no matter how alone she was or how much she hurt.

   Her ankle had, yet again, been twisted slightly in the fall, and she reminded herself that it had been her own fault for making a rushed and ill conceived escape. Panic wasn’t an acceptable excuse when Corvo had been able to stand up to those assassins without flinching.

   She had to get tougher, had to get meaner, and she couldn’t make such a bad mistake again, even by accident.

   With a nervous tightness that she chastised herself for, Emily continued her way back to her sanctuary.

   She slid in through the window with what she hoped was more refined smoothness than she had possessed previously, but the cynical part of her mind reminded her that she couldn’t improve so much in one night.

   Wearily, she shambled to the table and collapsed again into the creaking chair, sighing deeply to herself. The lantern was left unlit and she sat in just the dim light from streetlamps outside, which she found more comfortable than she would have expected.

   She wasn’t sure what brought the thought on, but it occurred to Emily that she felt far more adult than she had when she was living in the Tower, which she kept having to remind herself had only been a few days ago. She had always been somewhat obsessed with being grown up, thinking herself mature for having an interest in things that she thought adults were supposed to like.

   But sitting in the dark, exhausted from a day of work, and absently wishing for another one of those cigarettes, it settled on her how immature and childish she was. She knew that she was probably doing the same thing now, assuming she was mature just because she was going through the motions of maturity without having the experience to back it up.

   She continued to sit for a while, idly thinking about what she could use the money she got for. While she considered the dryness in her mouth and the emptiness of her stomach, she rubbed at the fraying edges of the holes in her stolen shirt.

   It would take a lot of work, but this was a foothold she could use to pull herself up. Like each ledge and hold on the walls she climbed, she would rise, a dark creature in the night, to prowl the rooftops of the city and seek justice for what she had endured.

   She shook herself from the clouds of sleep she was slipping into in order to shamble over to the bathroom and make a token attempt at hygiene before finally collapsing on her mattress.

Chapter Text

   Emily dangled her legs over the street side gutter in the warm evening sunlight as she watched people pass by in the road. She sat with Pete and some younger kids, a sort of fuzzy feeling filling her head while they idly drained away time when they didn’t have anything to do for the Bottle Street gang.

   Roughly one week had passed since the night her mother had been murdered in front of her and their bodyguard had been framed, and the man responsible was now officially instated as the Lord Regent, a title that made Emily want to spit after even thinking the words.

   Consequently it had been nearly a week since she had joined the roving street kids that assisted the Bottle Street gang. In the blur of days since then she had managed to buy a pair of black wool pants and a black cotton buttoning shirt, which she reasoned she wouldn’t have to worry so much about keeping clean, in order to replace the stolen and tattered clothes she had been wearing.

   It bothered her somewhat that she couldn’t quite remember how many days, precisely, it had been since she had joined them, or the exact order in which everything had happened over that time.

   She had got the shirt before the pants, but had it been with her first pay? She had tried stockpiling some food but prices were high and pay was low so she had quickly run out. In one day? Two days?

   The fog in her head had been growing steadily since she had fled Dunwall Tower, but that could have any number of causes, hunger and consequential lack of sleep being the most likely.

   Every day she would wake up after a rougher and more fitful night than the last, but she soldiered through her days determined to pull her way out of the pit she seemed to have fallen into.

   Every day the climb seemed harder than the last.

   Her stomach growled audibly, but since work had been slim she didn’t have anything to eat, so she pulled out a cigarette instead.

   Those she had stolen from a guard post a few nights before, as a means of practicing her stealth. The lighter she used was one that she had, miraculously, managed to pick directly from an officer’s pocket the night after. Or maybe two nights after, she couldn’t quite remember.

   She handed the lighter to Pete so he could smoke his own cigarette, then settled back into stolid silence. She felt vaguely like she should be thinking harder, but she had a hard time imagining what she would be thinking about.

   It was hard enough to get through each day, let alone trying to make plans for the future, although she did know that future was the reason she had to keep going. She could still remember that she needed to get back at Hiram and the man who killed her mother, but it was hard to muster the energy to actually work towards that goal in any meaningful way.

   A nudge from Pete made her realize that her mind was drifting again, an increasingly common occurrence. He was pointing toward someone in the street and it occurred to her that he had said something before catching her full attention but she had no idea what he was trying to tell her.

   In an attempt to seem like she was keeping up she made a noncommittal noise that she hoped was good for both a “yes” and an “I see.” When the boy gave no indication that he was going to get up or do anything she figured that all was settled, so she went back to idly watching the people moving by.

   She had been spending more time with Pete than the others lately, although she hadn’t put any effort into making this the case.

   While Jack and Patty were good to have when they needed to threaten someone, which she had done a few time during the last week, they didn’t seem to want to spend much time with her when they weren’t working. Given what she had done to their friend Emily found that to be pretty fair, so she never pressed them to do anything. Not that she had anything in particular that she could have wanted them to do with her in any case.

   Pete on the other hand seemed to stick around even when they had nothing to do. Like the current moment, she would often find herself trying to relax with Pete in the near vicinity, and since she didn’t think much of him one way or the other this didn’t particularly bother her.

   Sometimes Pete would involve her in small schemes, where he would distract someone on the street while Emily picked their or their companions’ pockets. It was something to pass the time that actually had a tangible reward, so she never saw a reason not to participate in the scams.

   Without particularly trying to, Emily seemed to spend nearly half of every day with the kid, and while she didn’t understand why he would want to hang around her so much it didn’t ever seem to her that he could do much harm.

   This proximity was why they both knew that that particular afternoon was not the usual meaningless wait for one day to pass and other to begin.

   That morning a full fledged member of the Bottle Street gang had apparently been asking around for “That new girl, Em” and had found his way to Peter. He, in turn, had delivered the message to Emily that Slackjaw himself wanted her to come to the distillery that evening to have a “chat.”

   It was quite possible that Emily was far less worried about this than she ought to be, given what the other kids had speculated the reasons for such a request could be.

   The leading theory was that the rumors about her propensity for violence had reached all the way up the gang’s hierarchy, although whether Slackjaw intended to discipline or reward her was a matter of hotly contested debate.

   Thinking of the appointment reminded Emily that she did actually have to go to the distillery in order for it to happen, and a quick glance at the angle of the orange sunlight let her know that she ought to be heading over there soon.

   Her standing up drew concerned glances from Pete and the kids they were with, but the headache brought on by her sudden rise made it difficult to care much about their worry for her.

   Without ceremony or good bye she began making her way towards the distillery, the pain she felt in her leg as it readjusted to having weight on it the only clear sensation in her entire body.

   After hours the distillery building was dark, the cavernous space filled with deep shadows hiding behind intimidatingly large boilers and stills. Emily had been let in by an uninterested guard and told to find the boss in his office, but now she drifted through the space unsure of where she was going.

   Her footsteps clanged loudly on the mesh platform over the distillery floor as she made her way in the direction of a dimly lit doorway on the far side of the huge room, the opening of which revealed a tight hallway whose walls were packed with barrels stacked nearly two stories high over her head.

   The dim light she had seen was coming from a room down some stairs which she hesitantly descended to find a barred iron door along with another member of the Bottle Street gang. He must have been waiting for her since he both opened the door to let her in as well as followed her through, closing the door afterwards with a distinct click.

   Behind a surprisingly fine wooden desk sat a man who presumably was Slackjaw, given how his well trimmed facial hair and nice clothes failed to distract from the way he held himself exactly like the other thugs in the room. A figure with a sack over its head was held between two other thugs, but that was all who were present beside Slackjaw and the man who now stood in front of the door behind her.

   No one spoke, although Slackjaw’s gaze fell on her, so Emily walked up to his desk and stood waiting for whatever was to come.

   She dully held Slackjaw’s stare for a few seconds, and he probably thought she didn’t notice his eyes flick to the men behind her as well as to something by the other corner before he began speaking.

   “I’ve been hearin’ some interesting things,” he said with his eyes pointed at the desk to further hide his quick glance. His gaze fell back on her before he finished: “Emily.”

   Shit, she shouldn’t have expected to get away with this for as long as she had. Luckily for her, her current perpetual look of exhaustion kept her eyes still and her brow loose, and it didn’t seem like he noticed any indication of panic on her face. Once again they stared at one another, although Emily soon realized that her not correcting him about her name was probably more than enough confirmation.

   “Specifically,” Slackjaw went on, “I’ve been hearin’ all about the good work you’ve been doing for me and my boys.” He paused for a second, probably hoping she would respond. When it became clear she didn’t intend to he seemed to decide it wasn’t worth bothering.

   “I’ll cut it straight for ya kid, when I started hearin’ about a new girl who poped up outta nowhere, and had absolutely no problems with gettin’ her hands more than a little dirty, I got what you might call suspicious. Went lookin’ around for what you called yerself, heard the name ‘Em’ along with how you wouldn’t get close with no one, and I hope y’ can see how obvious the connection was.”

   She figured some acknowledgment was probably needed at that point, but only lifted her eyebrows a bit, hoping that would be enough to keep him going.

   “Incidentally, you wouldn’t know what ever happened to that young man Sebastian, would you?” He gave her a conspiratorial look that made it hard not to stare down at her feet, although she felt more embarrassed than ashamed.

   Seeming satisfied he went on: “Thing is, I’ve also been hearin’ about what you’ve been gettin’ up to. Did you know that kid you threatened last week came back the next day? ‘E was crying on our doorstep, money in hand, beggin’ us not to send you after ‘im. Can’t say the others were so dramatic but you’ve been gettin’ us results lass.”

   He sat back then, pulling out a cigar and taking his time to light it. Perhaps he wanted Emily to have a moment to stew on the mixture of praise and veiled threat he had given her.

   Smoke curled upwards in the silence, filling the room as Slackjaw took a few pulls on the cigar, savoring the smoke. When his attention returned to her he seemed almost disappointed that her bearing hadn’t changed much, but if he wanted her to squirm he would have to do a lot more than just speak words at her.

   “We can always use people of a particular disposition,” he said, trying to sound diplomatic, ”but I need to know just what such a person is willin’ to do. In short, I need to trust that you wont pull your punches when I tell you to swing, understand?”

   Emily nodded, this all made sense to her so far, and complying with the gang’s boss was probably her best bet at not getting ransomed back to Dunwall Tower.

   “Good, then lets have something of an audition shall we? Allow me to direct your attention.” He finished, gesturing with his cigar towards the men standing by the wall.

   They stepped forwards, pulling the man between them, who Emily now noticed was tied at the hands, keeping them behind his back. The man struggled for a second, his grunts suggesting that he was probably gagged under the burlap hood, but stopped when one thug gave him a sharp punch below the ribs.

   “This man was caught sneakin’ into the distillery, tryin’a poison the elixir still. He didn’t tell us his name or who he’s with but that doesn’t matter because we went and found out anyways.” He ended the sentence with a chuckle before continuing: “In order to discourage that sorta’ behavior in the future, we’ve gotta make sure to send a strong message back to his friends. The idea is: kill ‘im, slowly, and make it look as nasty as possible, then we send ‘im back to ‘is gang and they hear our message loud and clear. You understand lass?”

   Emily nodded again, more firmly than before. She was feeling a little unsteady on her feet, but she knew she could do what he wanted.

   It was starting to get hard to fully understand what was going on, Slackjaw had stepped around the desk and was firmly telling the man what was about to happen, something to do with there being no way out without getting killed and staying put as far as she could tell. If they were worried about the man running away then Emily could think of a few different solutions that would be more effective than trying to intimidate a man who already knew he was going to die.

   Emily noticed when they were ready for her, the thugs holding the hooded figure had retreated to their wall and Slackjaw grinned generously as he stepped back, gesturing to the man as if giving her a present. That man now stood as the only figure under the single lamp lighting the room.

   The shining spotlight shown across sweating muscles, reflective in their exposure from his removed shirt. It puzzled Emily why they had removed the shirt but left his pants on, and when she cut the single button at the waist to let them fall to the floor a bark of laughter rang across the room before it was absorbed into the smoke curling still in the dim light.

   Memories of anatomy lessons with the royal physician filtered over her vision of the man now standing exposed to his undergarments with pants pooled around his ankles. The muscles and tendons were a like a labeled diagram, and she could see just how everything connected and how the pieces could be disassembled with just a bit of effort.

   First she had to make certain that there was no worry of the man running away.

   The blade of her knife, flipped open with clean precision, was placed just behind the man’s left knee, where thick cords of sinew held the leg upright. A sharp and strong tug with that knife drew out a yelp of pain from the man as his knee cracked against the hard wood floor. The other knee took only a moment, after which the man was kneeling in a growing pool of blood.

   A rustle of cloth accompanied her tossing aside his pants to get at the back of his ankles in order to cut the tendons there as well, just to be safe. The snap of the tissue as she cut through was a wonderful feeling, and she reveled in the fact that for once she didn’t have to hold herself back.

   A kick to the chest sent the man sprawling on his back, with Emily crouching back down to follow him to the floor. Not for any particular reason she plunged the knife into the meat of his thigh, hearing the gurgle of pain among the continuous groans the man now produced.

   As she began removing the knife her attention was drawn to the expanse of muscle that was his quadriceps. It struck her that she should try to get as much fun out of this as she could without actually killing the man right away, which meant avoiding the chest cavity until the end.

   Several minutes elapsed as she cut into his legs, carving nonsense patterns just to feel the knife pulling through skin and muscle. The drops of blood spilling out as the blade passed through the flesh glistened in the lamplight like dark oil, red paint on the canvas of his pale skin.

   When she made to stand up the man bucked his shoulders, trying at last to make some effort to resist the excruciating treatment.

   What was this thing doing, trying to stop her? In a moment she pushed the torso back to the ground and slammed her knife into the soft flesh between the collar bone and rib cage, nowhere near anything important in the neck or chest but the blow was still satisfying.

   As she buried the knife in the same spot on the other side of the chest she heard murmured voices in the shadows but paid them no mind. The task at hand was drawing too much of her attention to be able to figure out what they were saying.

   She straddled the torso to hold it in place as she spent a minute carving shallow lines and shapes into the shoulders and upper arms before her, taking the opportunity again to feel the how the blade cut so cleanly through the soft material.

   The thought occurred to her, that maybe she was too reliant on the knife as a tool and that perhaps there could be ways to get that feeling more directly. She paused for a moment in consideration before reaching up to remove the burlap sack from the body’s head.

   Wide eyes looked up at her in dazed horror, but she didn’t pause as one hand reached down to the face. Her hand settled on the side of the head, positioned so that her thumb rested just over one eye.

   With a quick breath Emily pushed her thumb down into the eye socket, feeling the wet warmth on tip of her finger. Blood mixed with the tears streaming past her hand as she reached for the other socket, planting both thumbs firmly in the skull.

   A long cry from the throat below her distracted from her reveling in the warmth, and in a moment of frustration she let go of the head with one hand to grab her knife from the floor.

   She planted it where she thought the vocal chords were supposed to be, and was rewarded with a quiet gurgle as air failed to smoothly pass through the ruined wind pipe.

   Rising to her feet, Emily wiped the blood on her hands off on her pants, though a noise as she went to crouch down by the body’s gut made her pause. I took a moment before she realized that it was the men moving towards her and the shivering body.

   They stood still for a few seconds staring at one another, everyone seeming confused for a moment about what was happening. Emily cocked her head to one side as a stand in for a real question, and finally Slackjaw spoke.

   “We, um, thought you were finished since you, you know, cut his throat and all that…” he said to the girl crouched over the groaning body, her bloody knife held still in waiting to get back to her grizzly work.

   “Oh, no,” she finally spoke, voice rough in her throat, “I just wanted the noise to stop.” The way the eyes of the thugs behind Slackjaw bulged made her think she must have said something wrong, but the boss himself just straightened his posture, regaining his bearing.

   “Well then,” he said, still lacking much of the confidence he had in their earlier discussion, “let us know when you’re finished.”

   When she went to plunge the knife towards the body’s guts Slackjaw’s voice made her pause once again.

   “If you don’t mind I’d rather ya didn’t spill ‘is shit on the floor in here, the smell’s harder to clean out than the blood.”

   “Oh…” she said trying to make her disappointment clear.

   Emily spent another handful of minutes making cuts on the body’s chest and arms, and had been considering flipping it over to mark up the back, but as the gurgles and shakes gave way to silence and stillness she found that it wasn’t so fun.

   It had been nice to let out her frustration on someone so thoroughly, and taking a break from trying to think through the dense fog in her head was relieving, but now that same fog was settling in harder than ever and she was running out of energy to push through it.

   Wearily she stood up from the now certainly dead body, nodding to the men waiting by the wall, and she fuzzily admired her handiwork as they picked him up and began to stuff it into a large burlap sack, which was covered in growing red stains even as they hauled it out of the room.

   After a minute Slackjaw and she were left with only the guard by the door, and Slackjaw took the opportunity to sit himself back behind his desk.

   He looked at her over his hands, taking in the blood on her hands, visible as a drying crust on her black clothing, and up at her tired, impassive face. After a long moment of consideration he sighed heavily.

   “I don’t know what in the Outsider’s name is wrong with you, that a princes ‘d act like you do. But frankly I’m not in the asking questions business, I’m in the gettin’ results business. And it looks to me like you’re more than capable of gettin’ the kinda’ results I’m lookin’ for.”

   By that point he knew not to wait for a response from her as he went on: “I’m not gonna force ya to do this kinda work since you are still a kid, if you want ta keep your head low and stay outta too much trouble I’ll understand; but know that if you’re willing put in the work there’ll be a lot more pay in it than roughin’ up kids in alleys.”

   Slackjaw nodded to the thug by the door, which clicked before he pulled it open. It only then occurred to Emily that she had been locked in the room that whole time.

   “I don’t need an answer from ya now, or with any particular hurry, just come lookin’ for me if the fancy strikes ya.” With that he looked down at the papers on his desk, which Emily took as a fairly clear signal to leave.

   She swayed a bit on her feet as she wandered back through the distillery and out into the city, which by now was shrouded by the night’s darkness. As a matter of fact, she was somewhat worried about trying to climb back to her apartments via the rooftops, since she had been finding herself short of breath more often than she ought to.

   In the end she just limped her way back through the rotting streets of the city, unable to muster the effort to climb up to cleaner air above the dying buildings.

   Her head pounded as she pulled herself up the pipe and over the sign to get to her open window, and she collapsed on the mattress with no ceremony or attempt to clean herself.

   Already she was resigned to a night of fitful sleep, and for just a moment she found her dazed mind thinking that this agony might kill her.

Chapter Text

   Emily cracked open dry eyes to take in the piercing sunlight shining through her open window. Her head throbbed with agony such that she could barely think, and her throat felt like it was made of sandpaper.

   But like always she had to continue, even if the reason why was hard to come up with through the walls of pain surrounding her mind and separating her thoughts into only the most basic of instructions.

   With what felt like more effort than any single thing she had done in her life, Emily rose to her feet and half dragged herself to the small bathroom.

   Leaning her weight on the edge of the sink caused flakes of brown to coat the basin, dried blood from the previous night she hazily recalled. As she scrubbed away the remains of what she’d done, hunched over the sink near to falling over, it came over her how wrong things were.

   Her thoughts were slowed to such a crawl that there was no denying the existence of a problem, but what problem was it? Still trying to wash the dark stains from her fingers, Emily felt a roughness deep in her lungs.

   Unable to hold back she tried to keep her hands under the running water as she her body was racked with coughs, seeming to achieve nothing but continuing anyways. The dry coughs followed one another for what felt like ages before finally something moved deep in her throat, wetness suddenly welling up from her mouth.

   She coughed up into the basin, and felt a shock run through her as she stared at the deep red lump, already being washed away by the water.

   Blood, a mixture of blood and mucus probably. Her heart raced as she desperately tried to come to some other conclusion, anything other than the obvious.

   Finally she looked up into the mirror, taking a second to focus through tear coated lashes to see eyes shot through with red.

   She stared for a long second at those bloodshot eyes, at the stain of red blood and phlegm dripping from her lip and onto her chin.

   The plague had come to take her.

   Emily limped along behind Pete, trying her best to keep up with him. It was almost impossible for her to tell where they were, but she kept pace down winding alleys as the worked their way deeper into the distillery district.

   She had panicked for a while about what to do and who she could go to for help before finally settling on Peter, mostly because she knew that she could find him somewhat reliably.

   After checking a few of their spots she had found him with a few of his other friends and had pulled him aside to hastily explain her situation, which had resulted in him taking her to a hideout of his.

   They had come to a single room apartment on the ground level of an otherwise abandoned building and Pete had unlocked the door with a pick, easily enough that he must have done it dozens of times before.

   Pete explained to her that he had a full dose of Sokolov’s Elixir: “the real name brand stuff and not the crap they made in the distillery”, but that he would have to go get it from where it was hidden. Emily had just nodded along and said yes when he asked her questions, hardly able to understand what he was asking in any case.

   Left alone to wait for him, Emily tried to get control of her ragged breathing and take in some of her surroundings. She was sitting on a raised single person mattress, and the place was rather like a smaller version of her own apartment, with what looked like a small kitchen and a bathroom behind doorways that no longer had doors on the far side of the room.

   Emily was still sitting on the bed, aching head held in her stained hands, when she finally heard the door open. Through it Pete entered the room, his steps seeming rather lively as he strode over to her with a brown paper bag in his hand.

   Emily’s eyes gravitated to the bag, following it intently as he approached and when he drew near she reached out impatiently for it.

   The bag rose up out of her vision, and she looked up in confusion to find Pete holding it above her. She was about to reach for it again before she realized that was foolish, her thoughts were almost incoherent but she turned to look at Pete’s face, her disapproving look met with a smug one in return.

   “Nuh-uh, you think I’m gonna just give this away for free?” he waggled the bag over her head as he asked the question. “In order to get this you’re going to have to a few favors for me, understand?”

   He sat down next to her on the bed, the bag held on the far side from where she sat. Emily, for her part, gave him a dark look, hoping her reputation might serve as some intimidation, but given the situation she didn’t really expect it to work.

   Pete just grinned mischievously at her: “C’mon it wont be that bad, I’ll even give you the elixir before you have to do anything, as long as you agree first.” Emily wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but froze when she felt his hand on her knee.

   She could hardly move, voice caught in her throat as she slowly looked down to his hand and then back up to his still grinning face. Her mind tried to race to connect the dots of anything leading to this moment, but it felt like trying to navigate mazes in her head to connect one thought to another. She couldn’t think about it now or else she would be to absorbed to process what was happening at the moment.

   She shook her head, and tried to say something as she shied away from his touch, but her throat was so rough that the first attempt was just a hoarse whisper that contained no words.

   “I don’t-- I don’t want to do that.” She managed to say as she tried not to choke up. All she had wanted was help but things were going wrong and she couldn’t think of a way out.

   “I’m saving you life Em,” Pete said, his voice steady as he tried to calm her down, “its only fair that you do a little something for me in return.” His other hand was undoing the buttons of his vest as he spoke: “There’s a couple of guys I told to come along in a minute, but for now we’ve got some time to ourselves.”

   That finally snapped whatever it was in her head that was holding Emily back. She had to get out of there before this bastard could do anything she’d make him regret, but she couldn’t leave without that elixir.

   This had been her only chance to get any in time, there was no way she could afford to buy it from the gang, so her only option was to get this dose from Pete.

   Looking past him she saw that he had put the bag down on the end of the bed, the brown paper crumpled from his hold on it.

   Without considering a real course of action she suddenly leaned towards him, and for a moment his eyes widened in pleasant surprise before he noticed her hand reaching past him. In a sudden motion he stood up, pushing her back from him and the elixir, leaving her sprawled on the bed.

   Before she could move for the bag he was leaning back down, grabbing at her wrists to prevent her from reaching out.

   “You ungrateful--” his words were cut short by Emily spitting in his face, leaving a splatter of red on his cheek. The pounding in her head had increased with her anger, blocking out the rest of her world untill all she could focus on was the struggle between them, less grappling and more just the two of them pushing against one another to see who would buckle first.

   Some part of Emily’s trained instincts still existed in her mind however, and it screamed at her to make a change, keep her enemy off balance and to not play by his rules. More automatically than by thought she brought one knee sharply upwards, then the other leg pushed sideways into her opponent's.

   Her knee missed its mark, but was still enough of a distraction that the sweep of her leg knocked him off balance, which let her pull him down with the arms he himself was still holding onto.

   Emily’s eyes didn’t even follow him as he fell towards the bed, and she was still staring at the ceiling above her when she heard a sharp crack off to her side. She lay tensely for a moment, waiting for him to return to the fight, or for anything to happen at all.

   As her pulse slowed she managed to loosen up enough to turn uneasily toward where the boy had fallen, and there she saw him laying motionless on the bed, face down on the threadbare sheets. For a moment she sat with her gaze fixed on his un-moving back until she realized that he probably wasn’t going to get back up.

   Hesitantly, she reached out to him, unsure about what to do. She hadn’t meant to hurt him really, he was the closest to what she could call a friend that she had found in the time since she had run from her home, the only one who had offered to help her rather than keep her at a safe distance.

   But maybe he hadn’t just been acting out of kindness. How long had he wanted to take advantage of her? Had his earlier companionship just been to try to get closer to her? Had it always just been a means to this particular end?

   Her stomach knotted with conflicting feelings as she carefully turned the boy over, revealing what had she had done. A puddle of blood stained the sheets where he had lain, along with a splatter on the corner of the bed frame by the wall and a wound on his temple.

   Emily felt empty in that moment, angry at him and at the world but finding herself unable to direct that anger outwards. She blankly turned to regard the paper bag still sitting at the other end of the bed.

   This wasn’t the price she had intended to pay for it. This wasn’t the price she had been expected to pay for it. Nonetheless payment had been made, and here was what she had gotten from the deal.

   The vial of elixir was cold in her hand, and the liquid inside disconcertingly similar to the blood she had cough up in the sink a few hours before, but her dry throat was begging her to take it. She unsteadily opened the wire cap, smelling the strange alchemical concoction, and tipped it back before she could hesitate any longer.

   It was odd, a musty flavor in contrast to the sharp chemical scent, and it was strangely cold going down her throat in a way that seemed to numb the pain more than remove it. She took a minute to get the whole vial down, as it was rather hard to drink too much at once, but even as she did she felt her head clearing.

   A few more minutes had her eyes feeling less dry, her throat less raw, the initial numbness giving way to an actual reduction in the pain she felt. No wonder the stuff was expensive, it seemed like it could cure death itself.

   That thought reminded her of the boy she sat next to, and Emily turned back to look at Peter’s corpse, finding that her renewed lucidity didn’t improve the sight very much.

   She had killed Peter, the only person to show her anything resembling friendship. He had tried to take advantage of her and it was questionable how much he had actually cared for her and she had killed him.

   There were no if’s or but’s, simply the chain of events, facts in a line, which had lead to this moment. Nothing she could do would change what had happened and she found she really couldn’t get worked up about it. At least she hadn’t killed him for no reason, intentional or not it had been done in self defense which had to count for something.

   Feeling oddly detached from reality she went to prop Pete’s body up against the wall, and began searching his pockets, more for something to do than in hopes of finding anything. She produced a pack of cigarettes from his vest, as well as a couple of dollars in his pants’ pocket.

   As her head was finally clearing from all of the fog that had filled it, she felt like her body had been completely rung out. She barely had the energy to go anywhere, and her present location was as private as anything, so she decided to see what else she could find around the place.

   She removed the last cigarette from the pack, which she realized was quite possibly the same pack that he had shared with her at the beginning of the week. Holding it between her teeth she lit it, and after taking a drag she hauled herself to her feet to begin exploring the room.

   All she managed to find was a can of preserved peaches and a bottle of what appeared to be exceptionally cheap whiskey, so she took the bottle back into the main room and sat back on the bed next to Pete.

   She could tell that she still hadn’t fully recovered, the elixir obviously needed some time to really do its work, but she was starting to feel like she was getting back to where she had been before.

   With the newfound clarity, she realized that she had actually been feeling the effects of the disease for a long while, and it occurred to her that the most likely explanation was that she got it from sleeping next to a plague corpse on her literal first night outside of Dunwall Tower.

   With a solid “thunk” she pulled the cork out of the bottle and took a large swig in an attempt to drown the frustrated embarrassment she felt at her own ineptitude. She hadn’t had any liquor since Pete had tried to offer her some as a prank, and the alcohol seared the already damaged lining of her throat. She hissed at the clear hot pain before taking another pass at the bottle.

   The time passed by her as she sat drinking next to her former friend’s corpse. There was no way she was going to feel better until she had more than one good night’s sleep and a few meals, so she was content replacing the haze of sickness with the haze of drunkenness.

   A rattle at the door startled her to attention, but the moment it opened she didn’t even bother to see who was stepping through. The bottle smashed against the door frame sending whiskey and glass splattering across the face of the boy who stood there.

   She heard a few people, likely the other boys Pete had invited, running away the moment they heard the crash, but one stood still in the doorway.

   Jack stared silently in horror at the site before him: Emily, sat next to the corpse of the second boy he knew she killed. Emily herself knew she could explain what had happened, and that it wouldn’t do anything to help.

   “And?” she asked, not bothering to hide her frustration. Her voice felt harsh and not like her own, far more raspy than a girl her age had any right to sound.

   Their gazes were locked for several tense moments before finally Jack turned, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, and followed his friends down the alley. Emily kept her eyes fixed on the open door, and the clear sunlight beyond.

   Her heart was still racing from the panic of challenging a much larger kid like that, which had been incredibly stupid in retrospect, but luckily she had managed to be just intimidating enough to win out.

   That got her thinking again about the night before and what she had done in front of Slackjaw, in all of the grizzly detail. As she had regained her faculties she had been avoiding the memories of that poor man and what she had done, but to a certain point she didn’t really regret it. Sure she may have gone a little overboard, but that was what had been asked of her.

   Slackjaw had told her he needed someone who wouldn’t pull a punch, both metaphorically and literally, and as she considered recent events it felt like she could be that person.

   She had already done the worst she could do, and experienced the worst that she could feel, so what was left? She could do it again, probably, and doing it would result in a more stable position for her to build herself back up to where she needed to be.

   With that thought Emily finally felt like she was ready to look back at her primary goal. It was almost shameful that she had lost sight of the shadowy murderer who had ruined her life, but now that her head was clear, aside from her current intoxication, she had no excuse not to get back on track and get working towards her goal.

   As she considered it, Slackjaw’s offer was really the only practical course she could take to advance on her chosen path, so she made her mind up then and there: she would do whatever Slackjaw needed of her no matter how dark that course turned.

   For the Outsider’s sake, there wasn’t much darker than what she had already done, so what could she stand to lose?

   Emily swayed to her feet, turned to give a final look at Peter’s slumped corpse, and with a determination she hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever, limped out the door.

   Night had fallen by the time she made it to the distillery, since she had decided to make a few stops along the way to steal some food. Even with a bit of alcohol in her system Emily found that she was far more competent than she had been in the last few days under the plague’s influence, and she figured if Slackjaw backed down on his offer she actually stood a good chance of making it on her own in the city just stealing for subsistence.

   In a move that was perhaps far more foolhardy than it was daring, she had decided to try to sneak all the way into Slackjaw’s office. Getting past the main door guards had been almost concerningly easy, and after that a large pipe had made an easy bridge across much of the main square.

   Once inside the building she needed to be more careful, but by watching the guards and sneaking down in the shadows on the distillery floor she had managed to get into the back hallway seemingly unnoticed.

   She came down the hallway from the other direction than her first visit, and peered around the corner to get a look at Slackjaw’s office. There was no guard this time, and as far as she could tell from the shifting shadows there was no one in there other than Slackjaw himself.

   Slowly, Emily took one deep breath to steady her nerves, and then turned around the corner, fully upright, and walked up to the door. For only a moment she hesitated before knocking on its edge.

   From where she stood she couldn’t see Slackjaw, but she heard the halt of footsteps as he stopped pacing.

   Emily’s heart raced as she second guessed every decision she had made in the last few hours that had led her to that point, but before she could try to back out Slackjaw stood at the door, giving her a conspiratorial grin.

   “Welcome in lass, lets talk business shall we?” he said, seeming immensely pleased as he unlocked the door to let her in.

   Emily stood in front of his desk as he went to sit behind it, and waited awkwardly as he shuffled some papers together in an attempt to either clean up or prevent her from seeing things she shouldn’t, likely both.

   “Now,” he said, seeming oddly exited, “I was hopin’ to see ya here again at some point but this is quite sooner than I was expectin’, and under without me even hearin’ ya come in! You’re quite the impressive young lady. But, while I’m sure I know why ya came here, I need t’ hear it from your own mouth before we get too into details, more for the formality than anythin’ else ya see.”

   His words had come out very nearly in a rush, again striking Emily as more enthusiastic than the stern man she had met before. The expectant look he gave her was hard to ignore, so she figured she might as well humor the man.

   “You offered me a job, to be a knife that swings at your command. I’ve come to take you up on that offer.” Her voice was still unfamiliar in her throat but she was starting to get accustomed to the gravelly tone.

   She felt it fit the admittedly dramatic imagery of her statement, but she liked the way that line sounded when she had come up with it, and by the way Slackjaw’s eyebrows raised it seemed like the effect worked in her favor.

   “And, if I may ask, what kind a’ prior experience do you have?” he asked, as if it were a formal interview, a joke that Emily had no problem playing along with.

   “Well, I haven’t had any formal employment in this field,” she said, hoping that it sounded decent, “but I have killed two people, both kids my age.”

   It was weird to say that out loud, but the way Slackjaw nodded approvingly as if it were normal was somehow reassuring. Feeling somewhat more confident, and knowing that Slackjaw was already fully aware of who she was, she decided to go for broke.

   “I also managed to avoid abduction by assassins, and managed to escape Dunwall Tower without detection.” her heart skipped a beat when the boss suddenly looked up at her, but his look was more quizzical than anything else.

   “These assassins,” he asked carefully, “the ones who killed the Empress I assume? What were they wearin’?”

   For some reason the way he asked it, as if he knew the answer already, made her blood turn cold.

   “They were wearing heavy canvas suits with long rubber gloves, and gas masks.” She said to his widening eyes.

   “By the Outsider’s black fucking boots girl,” his tone impossible for Emily to read, “you are in some serious shit.”

   She was entirely unsure of how to move on from that, so they sat in silence for a moment before Slackjaw pushed things forward.

   He cleared his throat, almost theatrically, before he spoke: “And what, if anything, are you hoping to gain from workin’ with me?” This time his question had a much more serious cast than the interview had begun with.

   Emily thought for a moment, more to stew on the reminder of what had set her on this path than to come up with an answer, before she looked Slackjaw in the eyes.

   “I want to get back at the men who ruined my life: the assassins who murdered my mother, the Spymaster who hired them, the High Overseer who helped them, anyone else who was involved. I want to kill them all, and right now you seem like the best place to gain the skills I need to do that. I’m not in it for the money, I’m just here to practice.” She felt herself getting tense as she explained herself, and she took long deep breaths to steady herself once she had finished speaking.

   Slackjaw gave a long whistle of appreciation, looking more impressed than she had expected. Given that the last time they had spoken she was close to incoherent with the plague it made sense the she was a bit more than he had expected.

   “I’ll tell ya what lass: you’ve got more balls than most a’ the men here, and that’s pretty impressive for a girl who doesn’t look more than 14.”

   That number was higher than Emily would have expected, her face must have gotten rather haggard over the past week.

   “Well, it’ll certainly be interestin’ to work with ya.” He finished, reaching his hand across the desk to offer it to her.

   Emily hesitantly took it, her own hand being engulfed completely by his. It would certainly be interesting indeed.

Chapter Text

   Emily stalked the streets of the Dunwall like a Pandysian panther through it’s forest: each movement sure, silent, and powerful. The upper stories of the tenements were as comfortable an avenue to her as the alleys and streets below.

   Nearly three months had passed since the night of the Empress’ murder, and in that time she had become something wholly different from the girl who had run scared from her home. She had taught herself to move silently despite the injuries to her leg which she had concluded would never fully heal.

   She had learned to fight from the other members of the Bottle Street gang, knife fighting techniques from the older members, and exotic grappling moves from Tyvia and Serkonos which she had gotten so good at that the older boys wouldn’t even agree to wrestle with her when they were competing amongst themselves.

   And she had put those skills to use, now that she was a full fledged member of the Bottle Street gang. She had essentially become Slackjaw’s under-the-table errand girl, doing whatever he needed done quiet. At times she had gathered information in secret; roughed people up for unpaid debts, like when she had first joined; stolen valuables from well-to-do merchants in the area; even trailed ill-favored men through the city’s narrow alley ways, removing them from the dirty streets without a trace.

   Occasionally she had even joined Slackjaw in his office, along with his more accomplished and trusted thugs, for particularly important interrogations and seeings-to.

   From spending time with the gang she had grown more familiar with Corvo’s reputation as a legendary Serkonan assassin, and while her style probably differed quite a bit from his, she felt it appropriate that she was continuing that legacy in a manner tailored to the mean streets of her own home city.

   Her city.

   Emily hadn’t forgotten what had placed her in this position, and she remembered every day that she was the heir to the throne. By rights Dunwall was her city, and she never felt that more than when she roamed it’s streets at night: unbidden by the limitations, both those in law and those which the people would never think to acknowledge, that kept others locked in their places.

   She wouldn’t pretend she knew every inch of the city, but she knew it in a way that no one else did, and that was what mattered to her most. She could do things that no one else could and that was why she was going to get back at the people who had killed her mother.

   And so it was that she found herself sitting, fully in her element so high up in the shadows that pervaded Dunwall, even in spite of the attempts of those less at home in the night to light the darkness. The light in question was a small fire in a discarded oil drum, around which a number of men huddled, their faces rosy with alcohol and high spirits.

   Emily had followed one of the men to this gathering: a teenager barely into his manhood who had been getting far more attention from the city watch than was good for business.

   All she had to do for the moment was wait for the men to disperse, either of their own accord or the by the inevitable approach of a watchman to send them packing. It was easy to keep one eye lazily on her target as her mind began to wander, comfortable in the soft breeze of the higher balconies.

   As often happened, her thoughts turned toward her mother, although unlike normal she didn’t think of the event of the death, rather the way that she had responded in the aftermath.

   A few days prior Emily had seen one of the other kids she knew crying, surrounded by others. She had learned that his father had apparently died in an accident on a whaling ship; the body lost at sea, preventing the boy from even seeing his father off to the grave.

   Emily had asked if the family would be able to support themselves in his absence, and upon learning that they actually could manage she was somewhat confused by just how sad the boy seemed. The harsh looks she had gotten from the other kids let her know that her questions were entirely unappreciated, but she was only just realizing why that may be.

   Memories had been cropping up of times in her youth when she had witnessed the funerals of people she didn’t really know: family friends and distant relatives that she hadn’t been familiar with. Each event was a monumental occasion, with relatives and acquaintances grieving for what seemed like days on end.

   She took those memories and compared them directly with what she had been feeling over the past few months, but as she did so they didn’t seem to line up. It was nearly impossible to remember clearly what she had been thinking in the first week after her mother’s death, but the emotions were hard to forget: anger, frustration, fear, shame, and more frustration chief among them.

   But had she ever felt sad? She had seen others in the past going through the other emotions that she had become intimately familiar with, but she couldn’t say she had felt sadness like the boy crying on the street, or the people she saw hunched over coffins for silent hours.

   Something was clearly wrong with her, that much was evident. Maybe it was a lack of something fundamental, or her brain was simply made differently than those discussed in her few lessons on psychology that she could now barely remember. Likely, it was the same difference that made it so easy for her to swing a knife, that failed to give her a reason to hesitate where others would.

   A particular rise in the conversation below dragged Emily’s attention back to the present, her musings saved for a later time. The men around the fire, a mix of gang members and everyday workers, seemed to be exited about something coming up in the near future. Uninterested in whatever their business was, Emily began to relax again when a single name rose up out of the jostling voices and struck her like a brick to the head.

   Corvo Attano.

   Of course, he had been locked up in Coldridge for the past three months and news had been scarce, mostly hearsay and fabricated rumors, but the day had finally come for his execution.

   Emily grabbed hold of the railing she sat under, regretting her choice to dangle her legs over the balcony’s edge as she felt a mild rush of panic throw off her balance.

   She had known he was scheduled for execution for well over two months by now, but the revelation that it would be that very morning, not even twelve hours away, was a shock.

   With effort she focused her attention back to the group, men wandering off into the night after having decided on the next day’s entertainment. Her mark was just getting up to leave, so Emily forced herself to stand and move towards the alley that he and some others left down.

   She followed the group, only half focused on her task as she waited for the various wandering men to trail off into the night one by one.

   Her thoughts didn’t exactly return to Corvo, since he hadn’t left her mind since she had been reminded of him. Now that she had been reminded of him it would be impossible to return to the denial she had been able to maintain this whole time.

   He was a master assassin right? The best in the Isles, she’d heard. Emily had all but taken for granted that he would sneak out of Coldridge on his own before the sentence was carried through, so why hadn’t he?

   Was he not good enough? Likely the guards there were of a higher caliber than those she had to deal with in the slums; could they have been too much for him?

   Her world narrowed once again as her mark turned from the group onto a side street, focusing down to just what was before her. The slender man walked unsteadily on inebriated feet, and Emily’s uneven gate followed in silence, as if she weren’t there at all.

   She relished the clarity of purpose that she found in the simple hunt, relived to have her conflicted thoughts neatly stored away while more important matters were at hand.

   Isolated from his friends, it was easier to trail the mark once she had slipped quietly to the ground, confidant that she would not be spotted in the dark of a windowless alley surrounded by largely vacated buildings.

   The actual killing was almost laughably easy, with the man’s entirely unprotected throat being well within reaching distance despite her adolescent height. She had gotten good at cutting both the vocal chords and enough of the wind pipe to actually be lethal in one slice after practicing on an almost certainly unhealthy number of corpses, and the result was that her other hand placed over the man’s mouth was mostly decorative as she pulled him down.

   She had only grabbed his face to get better leverage for the cut; but now she held it close to her chest, looking down into the man’s eyes sparkling with light reflected from stars shining through the narrow gap in the rooftops above them.

   For a long moment she waited, the man’s hands grasping at his bloody neck more weakly with each passing second, waiting for some feeling to arrive.

   It wasn’t normal, both her attempt at sentimentality and the fact that she would need to try to have a reaction in the first place. The nerves in her arms sang like plucked strings from the cut, the feel of the knife parting skin that she had come to crave more than any cigarette or cheap booze. If anything, she had more feelings about her lack of reaction than she had actual reaction, but what was there to do about that?

   As she began to drag the now limp body to lean it against a wall at least somewhat out of sight, she remembered again the funerals. She had seen how stoic her mother was, offering calm and rigid support to those in need, and had come to the conclusion that an Empress was supposed to be strong in the face of tragedy.

   If she would have to bear the weight of a nation’s hardships then surely she would have to be capable of brushing aside personal struggles given the strength of will such a burden would require.

   It hadn’t been part of her lessons, but Emily had tried to teach herself to be unfazed in the face of loss, even at times looked down on those nobles, who were often responsible for the lives of hundreds or thousands of people, when they were so caught up in the death of one.

   Fucked in the head, to borrow an expression she had heard recently, that was the only way to explain it. Whatever she had taught herself was apparently a lesson which would be hard to unlearn.

   That itself was a good thing, she thought with some amusement as she dug through the corpse’s pockets to see if he was carrying any money. After all she was going to have to hurt and kill a lot more people if she wanted to get vengeance for her mother, and it would be silly if she let that bother her now.

   With no job to do Emily found herself roaming the rooftops of Dunwall aimlessly, trying to clear her head but unable to keep her mind off the coming morning.

   She couldn’t shake the feeling that it would mark some sort of turning point on her path to revenge, even though it had nothing to do with what she had been doing over the past three months and wasn’t going to make an active change to her ongoing situation.

   What had she accomplished in those three months? She hadn’t learned anything about who killed her mother, and had made no moves towards Campbell or the old Spymaster, whose names brought with them a flare of anger even in the privacy of her own mind.

   Whenever she considered the actual “plan”, insofar as she could call it that, it felt like she was staring straight up a flat wall and trying to find some way to climb it. Unless she could suddenly manifest magic powers that let her walk up walls there was no actual way she could see to pull it off.

   Despite her complete inability to have a productive thought Emily couldn’t find herself settling down either. Her feet carried her forward, aimlessly moving around the rooftops of the city with no intent or direction, only continuing because the idea of falling asleep was oddly repellent.

   It wasn’t until Emily saw the grey light of early morning in the clouds that she realized she had spent the whole night up walking. By then she had reached an almost comfortable point of exhaustion, not thinking particularly hard about where she was going as she wandered. There was one rather odd sensation she noticed however: starting before dawn, when the crulest of morning shifts began pulling the people of Dunwall out of their beds, there had been something pulling them all inward to a point.

   She had taken a while to notice the way her feet were carrying her in the same direction as the shuffling masses on the streets below, but once she had the cause was obvious.

   From her vantage high up in the rooftops Emiy got the impression that Holger Square was exerting a gravitational force on the whole city around it, and there was only one reason why that could be.

   Dunwall’s greatest scandal in living memory, that of the Royal Protector killing his own charge in cold blood, was going to come to an end, and no one wanted to miss seeing the bastard hang.