onewhoturns

A/N Mar 2018: a ficlet in two parts: 1st angst, 2nd fluff (/smut). If you like it you can always leave a review or buy me a ko-fi.

Title: Roving Feet
Chapter: 1/2
Pairing: Emily/Outsider (emsider)
Word count: 2162
Rating: PG, maybe T for angst
Summary: "Restrict roving feet that love to trespass. ...Where have you strayed that destruction now comes behind you?"
next part (2/2)

For the first few weeks his eyes were dead.

Not truly “dead” perhaps, but lifeless nonetheless. No joy. No interest. Mostly fear and despondency and anger. Confusion.

It had hurt her to see him that way.

Maybe that was why Corvo had forbid her from going there. Not just because her appearance would draw too much attention - though that was surely true as well - but because her father knew it would hurt her to see him brought so low. This being - this man - who had given her power beyond her wildest dreams, now bent and wan and so incredibly weak. An excessively pale reflection of what he’d been.

The first time she’d made the trip out to the safehouse she’d been all curiosity. He’d been in their care for all of three days, and she’d been champing at the bit to go see him -- to peer through the window, to know what exactly the Outsider was up to now he was free of the Void. To eavesdrop on his life, for once. She’d flashed through the city of Dunwall with ease, scrambling over rooftops, jumping, rolling, pulling herself along with a magic eager to be used, that itched to burn through her and ignite her veins with power. It had been a thrilling journey for the first half that wound down to a final few miles of walking and pulling herself through quieter unoccupied streets, behind the quaint farmhouses that lined the empty roads. Peaceful, really.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what she’d found.

Sneaking through the back bushes she’d vaulted up and over the brick garden wall easily. She’d approached carefully, quietly, watching the light cast in each room. She’d left earlier than her usual late-night wanderings, relying on magic to keep her swift and hidden. He surely must still be awake.

There was a light on on the main floor, the back corner: Meagan- no, Billie’s office, she remembered, the house’s layout carefully memorized. Well, she knew to avoid that.

But the light upstairs - yes, that was definitely one of the bedrooms.

Emily scanned the exterior, finding a reasonable path to follow, and began a quick and delicate climb up the side of the house. How to see in… She could use her dark vision, of course, maybe crouch above on the roof. But she didn’t want to see vague shapes, she wanted to see him. What he looked like now, as a human.

She climbed along the slightest ledges and smallest hand-holds, her gloves a blessing, until she managed just the right position. She kept her eyes trained inside the room as she checked to verify his location. He was not quite fully facing away from the window, but enough that she wouldn’t show in his peripheral vision. Sitting in a rocking chair of all things, wrapped in a heavy utilitarian blanket, staring into the fireplace. She was struck by how frail he looked -- how pale. His skin was dull and waxy, his eyes merely reflecting the firelight. He had none of the poise and power of his Void self, and that loss made her heart ache for him. So sad, to be brought into this vast unknowable world, alone, without a past, without a present even.

She’d been briefed by her father (after much insisting on her part) about the health problems the Outsider was struggling with -- a difficulty adjusting to the food, the sound, the gravity even. He was supposed to begin some sort of physical conditioning once his body was able to handle it. It didn’t seem that he was there yet. She was overcome with the tragedy of his existence. So helpless. She’d never been helpless. Trapped, perhaps, but she had movement and she had her own mind, and memories, and imagination -- and dreams, she’d always had dreams.

A shiver ran down her spine, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

When she saw his hand closing into a weak but angry fist around the fabric of the blanket she looked away. She couldn’t stay any longer. She could feel his frustration and his pain, and she couldn’t bear witness to that again.

The second time she visited she had her mind made up. She wasn’t the Outsider. She couldn’t sit by and watch and do nothing as people she cared about suffered. And she did care about him, she realized. His pain was her pain in a way that it wasn’t for others in her life. Maybe because, in some way, he was a part of her. Or she was a part of him? Something had passed between them when she’d taken his Mark. It only grew stronger with each visit to the Void, and it grew a life of its own when she traveled to the edge. The edge of the Void. Where my life ended and where it began again, he’d said. Before she’d felt a mix of fear, respect, irritation, and sympathy for the Void god. After, she felt something else.

And that was why she couldn’t be that silent watcher. She couldn’t sit outside, spectating his suffering. Just the thought of it filled her with shame and guilt and made her throat close up painfully.

The next time she visited, two weeks later, she started by creeping as smoke into Billie Lurk’s office and putting her down for a good rest. Placing the woman gently in her bed, Emily left the way she’d come, returning to the garden. She climbed the house as she had before, but paused further from the window. Her hand poised to pull herself in -- or should she knock? She hesitated and her hand twitched, dark vision allowing her to see through the wall that hid him from her, without subjecting her to the details of his face.

She turned away.

Maybe she should leave. She was intruding. Corvo told her not to come, that was for a reason. It hurt her to be here. She should leave, it wasn’t right, this wasn’t her place - she belonged in Dunwall Tower, she should be reading these details not-

The window opening startled her, and she reflexively pulled herself into the room, behind the figure who had done the opening, her blade already in her hand and her posture crouched to spring.

But of course, there was no attacker here. Just a man, now closing the window again, not a trace of surprise or worry on his wan face.

“Your Imperial Majesty.” He said the words before he’d even turned, and that fact unsettled her. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t have all the customary pomp and circumstance that goes along with a visit of such an esteemed guest.”

When her eyes finally met his, they surprised her. She’d seen them from afar the last time - she knew they were no longer that bottomless Void black - but she’d never expected them to be that icy shade of hazel green. She’d been tempted to ask Corvo what he looked like, when she’d first heard the news. Somehow, she imagined such a superficial question would have raised alarms in her father’s head. But perhaps it was the lack of information that had led her here now, come to see for herself.

His eyes broke contact with hers as he watched the ground, returning to the rocking chair he’d been sitting at once more, and she noticed that - while he walked steadily - his steps were careful and measured. His lips formed a grim line as he was seated once more, and she saw pink rising in his pallid neck. From exertion? Was he truly so weak that this small motion tired him? No, he’d opened the window swiftly and without incident - she hadn’t even noticed his movement - so it couldn’t be that. What, then? Embarrassment. Shame. That he was confined to a chair while she was out and about, running and jumping and flying.

“I assure you, I held no expectation of any such thing.” Her voice was soft -- the voice she used for those who came seeking aid after tragedy. How she spoke to those in mourning.

His eyes flashed to hers, chilling and empty and somehow so angry. “Spare me your pity, Empress.” His voice chilled her, but not the way it had in the Void. No, this time it was all frosty disdain and bitter sneering.

She straightened her back, schooling her face into a neutral expression as she spoke with an even, business-like tone. “I apologize. That was thoughtless of me.”

His eyes narrowed, holding her gaze for a moment before he turned away, eyes on the flames again. The room was warm with the heat of the fire. Too warm for Emily’s tastes. Once his eyes had left her face, she felt the neutral mask waver. Was he still so sick? Was he feverish? Why was he still confined to this room? The panic clawed its way up her throat, her chest tight and anxiety tickling behind her ears. Her fingers twitched. She wanted so badly to ball them into fists.

Never before had Emily considered herself much of a caregiver. She’d never had much of a mothering instinct. But now, in this room, her heart ached to comfort him in some way -- any way. His pain was palpable to her.

She turned her face away, once again a mask of professional indifference, and began to pace about the room.

It was about what she’d expect of a safehouse procured by the Royal Spymaster: comfortable but not extravagant, serviceable. And full of information. Maps were pinned on the walls, diagrams spread on the desk. Bookshelves overflowed with volumes about the history and traditions of the Isles. A whole other stack was perched on the bedside table. Her fingers ran over the embossed cover of the top volume: Litany on the White Cliff. She frowned, and shifted the stack, seeing the other books that had been set aside. Everyman’s Face, The Great Trials, The Abbey of the Everyman, Selected Sayings of the Overseer…

“Why…” She turned back to him, but he’d pulled yet another book from a collection on the stool beside the rocking chair, studying it with an empty gaze. Her eyes flicked back to the pile of religious texts as she straightened them, even as her fingers wanted to cringe away. “...They hate you.” Her voice was quiet, and she couldn’t help the small bite of pain that seeped into it. “Why are you reading these?”

He tucked a finger in the book he was reading and turned it aside as he looked back to her. “Religious texts are the core of my study. History is all well and good, but I of all people cannot cross the Abbey.” His words were firm and stoic, and Emily couldn’t quite tell how he felt about the whole issue. Resigned, perhaps. Bitter, maybe. She couldn’t blame him.

She was overcome with shame. This was her empire, after all. And it ran hand in hand with this… this cult. This cult that built its power on hate and fear. “I’m-” Her voice was haggard, and she cleared her throat, leveling her tone. “I’m sorry.”

She expected a question from him, maybe. Or an interested cocking of the head. But he just turned to gaze into the fire. No response was offered, and she wondered if she deserved one at all.

“I should go.”

“Yes, you should.” His words stung her as he opened his book once more, eyes not yet moving over the words.

“I…” She had no idea how to respond to that. So she walked slowly to the window, unlatching it carefully.

As she lifted her foot to the sill, he spoke behind her.

“Restrict roving feet that love to trespass.”

She paused, her foot nearly slipping.

“They pay no heed to the boundary stones of other men's fields. They wander into foreign lands, only to return with their soles blackened by iniquity. Where have you strayed that destruction now comes behind you?”

Goosebumps rose on Emily’s skin. He spoke so calmly, his voice liquid iron, his words echoing some ancient ire beneath their steady pacing.

“Would you walk across burning coals or broken glass? Then why do you prowl into the homes of the honest, or into the dens of hidden things, for the result is the same. You will fall into the Void.”

She didn’t dare turn around. She wanted to run, but she felt glued to the spot. She had fallen. He’d caught her.

“Instead, rest your feet on a firm foundation so that when the winds of the Outsider shriek against you, you will stand firm and not be overthrown.”

Emily’s eyes closed in sharp pain as he hissed his own name with a sudden malice, his once calm words now acrid.

For a moment she stood, still halfway gone, unable to speak and unable to turn around. Then she reached out her hand, and she fled.