onewhoturns

A/N Nov 2018: A lot of the brainstorming for this whole fic was done with the help of Iron Moon who was very nearly a co-author until I got impatient and cranked out several pages in a short amount of time and then just kept writing. She is still the go-to for discussing plot points, and - let's be honest - probably the only one following along as I post over on Tumblr. This is also HEAVILY influenced by Holly Black's work, and I definitely borrowed some of the faerie mythos from her worlds, as well as kinda yolo-ing it for other world-specific myths and things.

Story Title: Iron & Gold
Chapter Title: Prelude/Ten Years Ago
Chapter Part: 1/1
Story Part: 1/?
Pairing: eventual Emily/Outsider (emsider)
Word count: 951
Rating: PG (higher rating later chapters)
Summary: Ever since she was a child Emily had been cautioned: beware the fae. She’d heard the typical warnings – faerie rings, wishing wells, mysterious lights in the darkness. But they were just cautionary tales... [A Dishonored fae AU]
next part (1-1)

“I… I need help.”

He’d wandered into the wrong glade if he was hoping for charity.

If he’d wanted something sweet and kind he’d do better bringing milk to the toadstool rings on twilit hills. Not coming empty-handed to the foxfire ring in the deep forest.

“And why should I help you?”

The man flinched at the faerie’s voice, the sound of snapping twigs and scraping rock and howls on moonless nights. But he straightened his back, for all he trembled - and the watcher realized it wasn’t fear that made him shake, but pain. Fresh welts peeked from beneath clothes that may have been fine quality before months of wear and tear. Blood crusted cracked fingernails - on those fingers where the nails remained - and bruises ringed neck and wrists. Burns were visible on his chest and shoulders. The man’s jaw was tight, eyes sunken and heavy, but he forced himself to speak through a ragged throat.

“I’m willing to- to make a deal.”

With the glamour wrapped around him, shrouding him in darkness, a figure seeming built of shadows, the watcher stepped from between blackened oaks.

This was his place. In the darkest part of the forest, where vines choked the ground and lichen devoured charred and petrified tree trunks. A place where battle had raged ages ago, that even now bore those scars. A place - a creature - abandoned by other fae, forced from their society, left to settle in the most desolate of liminal spaces: here he reigned. An outsider. A watcher. The sole witness to all of Faerie.

“What is it you seek?”

“I need-”

The watcher saw how the man clutched something in his hand, and found his lips curling in amusement. A small iron nail. As though something so small could do more than scratch at something as vast as himself. The man’s eyes were determined, even as the watcher felt the fear on him.

“They took my daughter.”

A tortured father, then. If nothing else, it was intriguing.

“You want them dead?”

The human hesitated, then shook his head.

The watcher felt surprise lifting his brows. “No? You’d see them live after all they’ve done to you?”

A stubbled chin jutted stubbornly. “I’ll see them justly punished. Whatever that entails.” There was a fire in the man’s dark eyes, but he quickly shook his head, trying to remember his purpose. “I know what I need to do. I just need the power to do it. I thought… I thought we might make a pact.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the faerie had gifted some of his power. It ebbed and flowed through him, channeled out to those who’d given up enough of themselves for him to deem it a fair trade. Some were even still alive, despite the odds.

Shadows seemed to draw back, and its sharp eyes surveyed the father with a surprisingly gracious smile. The words that snaked through the clearing were low, a buzz of flies and rattle of hanging bones. “And what will you offer in return?”

The watcher spotted the noticeable bobbing of the man’s throat as he swallowed hard. His voice was hoarse, desperate: “Tell me what you want.”

The shadows coalesced, shifting to a figure more familiar, more comforting for the human to look upon. A young man, raven-haired and golden-eyed, pale enough that he might even glow in the darkness. He was of a height with the father, though his naked chest bore none of the scars or welts of the man before him. His smile was gentle, perhaps even sympathetic, all angles smoothed by glamour, and his words dripped with honey. “A child for a child.”

The man balked. “I ca-” He stopped himself, and the watcher saw the set of his stance as he seemed to remind himself of his own necessity. After a brief internal struggle, he cleared his throat. “...Fine. I’ll bring you a child.”

The faerie shook his head, teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Not just any child.”

He watched as the human’s face passed through confusion, reluctance, skepticism, but the man said not a word.

“Your next-born child. You deliver them here to me on the night of their birth. On that condition, I will assist you until your mission is completed.”

There was pain in the man’s expression, and it seemed to hurt him to shake his head.

“I can grant you access to abilities few mortals can even imagine. You will walk in the skin of beasts. You will travel in the space between seconds. You will summon creatures to destroy your enemies. Power. Magic.”

He could sense the cogs turning behind the man’s forehead. My wife won’t want another child, he’d be thinking, We’ll do all we can to avoid having one. How quickly he’d forget those thoughts on a cold winter night.

Fingers like stone opened in a beckoning hand. “In return: your next born child. If you do not bring them to me, I will come retrieve them. Which - I assure you - you will not like.” The watcher found that this skin, this image, as seemingly vulnerable as it was, made a singularly trustworthy figure. As if they thought they might trick something that appeared so fallible - so human. So it was no surprise to see the small shift in the father’s form as he let go a touch of tension, and placed his scarred hand out before him.

Spotless hands covered the scars, wrapping the hand tight, and the father winced. When the deed was done, the deal made, the figure melted away, fading into a smoke that seemed to soak straight into the ground. And all that remained was a mark on scarred skin.