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onewhoturnsA/N Nov 2018: A bit more of the fae AU. I feel like I should be tagging this for something to do with trauma, but I’m not sure how... If anyone has a suggestion on how to tag, lemme know. Elsewhere: my stuff on AO3, FFnet, and a preview of 4-3 over on ko-fi, though it is quite short. 4-3 is a bit emotional.
Story Title: Iron & Gold
Chapter Title: Flight
Chapter Part: 2/3
Story Part: 13/?
Pairing: Emily/Outsider (emsider)
Word count: 2681
Rating: T maybe M
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]
start here (prelude), previously (4-1), next part (4-3)
Next time - if there ever was a next time - she had a plan. Human blood had salt. She may not always have a weapon, but if they were trying to feed her she had her teeth. She’d bite herself, rip her lips or tongue open if she had to, counteract any attempt to wrest her agency away. She would never be made so mindless. Never again.
Emily balanced a knife - a new one, one taken from the barracks along with sword, crossbow, and longbow - on her finger, testing her own reflexes. She couldn’t keep it upright for long, her limbs still shaky, but the blade thudded into the dirt instead of her foot.
Their quick escape had only been paused long enough for her to slip on trousers and boots - everything else had been loaded into packs on a couple geldings that had been silenced long enough for Emily and her unexpected and unusual new companion to ride well free of the palace, in a wide arc back toward the forest. Now they sat before a small fire Emily had built without being asked, the motions well practiced and performed silently and efficiently, unthinking.
She still felt sick. A kind of bone-deep weariness that made her feel far older than she was. They hadn’t spoken a single word since exiting the castle. Her mind shifted and lurched and her mouth felt full of words she couldn’t speak. Her tongue weighed heavy and sluggish, cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and she distantly wondered if she’d ever talk again. It didn’t feel possible. There was too much.
It was only once he’d nudged her, handing over a waterskin, and she’d mechanically taken a drink that she came slightly to her senses. She watched her hands as she spoke. “I… I owe you a debt.” The words weren’t used lightly: she’d been warned the sorts of things the fae took for debts.
He was silent for a while as well, and after a moment Emily glanced up, wondering if perhaps he’d faded away into the forest without her noticing. But there he sat, a small frown on his too-beautiful lips. His too-human lips, in this form. There was still that golden glow around him, and she suspected if she adjusted her sight again she’d be once more met with the chaotic shifting mass within.
“Ten years ago Delilah Copperspoon - now fashioning herself Delilah Kaldwin - was banished to Faerie mid-ritual by a fae-touched assassin named Daud.”
Emily’s brow furrowed, the name immediately bringing back memories of the rat plague. “But if she was-”
“The ritual she was attempting was left incomplete, but with her last moments in the human realm she evoked a curse. A curse on the child she’d been targeting with her ritual. A curse that would gradually drain the life - the youth - of the child, to feed into Delilah’s own lust for power and immortality.” Fingers twisted in the air, coaxed a shape from the earth, the small figure dancing in the light of the flames. Featureless but small, the figure clamored over the unburned edges of the fire, and as a vague Delilah-shaped figure appeared in the flames, Emily realized the figure must be the child that the faerie spoke of. As a talon of flame reached for the child, smoke began to char the edges of his limbs, the figure stumbling and swaying.
“As his child fell suddenly and mysteriously ill, the father sought out a faerie he might bargain with. A halt of the curse, for a price.” Another figure had appeared, taller, stepping in front of his son, the flames of the witch licking up a shield instead of its targets. “The father, who had already made a deal with the fae, one he’d never intended to fully pay, jumped at the opportunity. But the faerie knew better.” Delilah and the adult figure faded, leaving just the child, barely singed. “The price was paid, the curse halted, but with a single stipulation: if the child ever sealed a bargain of its own, the contract would be voided. The curse would return, though the price paid would not. The father took one promise from the fae as well: that the faerie would never initiate a conversation with the child. That any and all discussions would only begin at the child’s wish.”
“Ever cautious, the father built high walls, never allowing his child to wander for fear of an encounter with the fae.” With a soft twirl of the man’s finger, the figure spun, drawing in on itself, tightening and thinning and spindling up only to blossom outward, taking a more adult form. A female form. “And he did well. For ten years.”
It didn’t take long for Emily to understand him. Even once she did, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry. She would have been, would have been furious that she’d been tempted, tricked, coaxed out and manipulated into making a contract, rendering her father’s years of careful warnings completely useless. She would have been angry, but all she felt was despair. Cursed. It was tangible, she felt it eating at her, draining her in every instant. Her face had gone white, and she stared into the flames again, at the brief suggestion of a shape.
“How long do I have?”
He shook his head. “You claim to owe me a debt. I offer a chance for you to repay it. One more contract.”
The brown eyes that glanced to him were weary, skeptical.
“I request your service. In return I will lift the curse again. I will lift it - and maintain the gift of power - until such a time that you destroy the witch, effectively ending the curse yourself.”
She frowned. “My service? And what exactly does that entail?” No mindless obedience. No more.
A nod. “I need the witch silenced. Ideally killed, though cutting out her tongue may serve just as well.”
That was… odd. “But that would be my goal as well.”
Another nod. “A seemingly perfect contract.”
Emily shook her head. “It’s too clean. What about the rest of the time? ‘Service’ can mean a lot of things.” But her mind was whirring back to life, a new vigor gradually returning to her bones, years of practice automatically forcing an analytical view of the bargain.
Pale lips curved into a wry smile as those eyes shifted back to their natural - unnatural - black and gold, no longer attempting to seem anything near human. “I assure you, the intention of this bargain is not to get you into my bed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She might have blushed, if the words hadn’t been truly reassuring. Looking back to her hands she found they were still shaking, and at this point she was fairly sure it was no longer shock. Her head still pounded. “...How long do I have?” she repeated.
He shifted, looking out toward the edge of the forest with a distant interest even as he spoke to her. “I have no way of knowing. It was cast when you were ten, now you are twenty; I imagine that may affect the time it will take to thoroughly drain you of vitality. What may have taken weeks before may now take months. What may have taken days may now be weeks. My best estimate is less than a year. If an alternate assumption may be made, that she steals from the end of your life backward, assuming an 80 year life span, that’s 60 years, so perhaps six months, perhaps ten. If she was able to adjust the cast while in Faerie, it may be exponentially shorter or longer, depending on how synchronized our time is at the moment. At the lowest end, I might hazard to guess… ten days? Twenty?”
Days? Days at worst. At best, months. And that whole time...
“Regardless, I can only guess at the pain and sickness that will cause.”
The rolling feeling in her gut reinforced his point. “...And… and my service… would only be until she’s dead?”
“Once the witch has been permanently neutralized - however you see fit - your service will end. If you do not kill her, or find a way to reverse the spell, the curse will return.”
Emily chewed the inside of her cheek. She wanted the woman dead, and had no qualms about making that happen. But she felt uneasy, promising obedience. “Can you-” she hesitated for a moment. “You gave me True Sight… is there any way to give me an immunity to- to things like… like the fruit?” Her words were halting, and she was avoiding looking at him. Memories whirled in her head, and they made her sick.
There was no answer, and when she did finally glance at him she found he had a hand in the dirt, staring intently toward the forest’s edge.
“What are you-” But she saw it, in that way that wasn’t quite seeing. A faint green light that twined and spiraled and spread beneath the earth from the palm of his hand. The path faded after a few feet but she knew it must go onward, weaving in with the trees and the flowers and the grass, every root a conduit for this strange magic.
His brow had furrowed slightly, but then he looked back to her. “There are other ways you might resist enchantment like faerie fruit. Salt, for one. And simple practice. Will is a muscle that can be exercised, resistance a skill that may be improved.”
For a second she was confused, distracted by the light in the earth, but then the words registered. “Oh.” A tiny pinprick of hope jabbed at her chest.
The fae--
“What’s your name?” Her words were asked with curiosity, but as he pulled back - showing the first real negative reaction she’d seen from him since leaving the castle - she realized what she’d asked. Fae names were power. “I mean - what should I call you?”
He seemed withdrawn, a bit stiff as he shrugged. “Call me what you will.” His tone was pointedly clipped. “I’ve been referred to many ways. A watcher, an outsider - a spirit of the forest itself.”
Emily nodded warily, feeling like she’d somehow crossed a line. She watched him from the corner of her eye, trying not to stare as he looked away again, always looking back toward the castle. With his attention elsewhere, she let her eyes wander. He was dressed as a human, no thorns or claws in sight, but the space around him seemed somehow more alive. The log he sat on looked to have sprouted moss since he’d taken a seat, and clover had sprung up around his feet. He had withdrawn his hand from the soil and now brushed it clean. She blanched at the sight of raw, reddened skin on his other hand, and reached for it before she could stop herself.
“What-” She dropped his hand almost as soon as she’d taken it, wrapping her arms around herself instead. “What happened to your-” But she soon realized exactly what had happened.
His lips had lifted to a sardonic smirk when she’d pulled away, and he glanced to the injured hand. “As I said: your father did very well protecting you.” His tone was wry as he held the hand toward her, palm up so she might see the blistering welts. “Quite the fondness for iron door handles.”
Cautiously Emily freed one of her own hands, cupping his from behind, careful to avoid the damaged skin. His expression was impassive, but he didn’t pull away, so she turned toward him fully, bringing her other hand to his as well. It shifted as she did, glamour melting away to reveal charcoal skin marred by white ash and cinders, the welts now like embers in his flesh. It was fascinating, and Emily found herself examining the alien hand. Starting with the obsidian claws, she ran her curious touch over them, pressing the pads of her fingers against their points, not quite hard enough to pierce skin. She shuddered, adjusting her posture as she warily traced her touch down the talons toward his palm, missing the shiver that seemed to pass over him as well.
The word came to her lips before she realized she was saying it. “Does.” The thought was only half-formed in her mind even as she spoke it. She brought his hand to her face and blew a gentle breath across his palm, sending a few bits of ash flying and drifting in airy spirals - the most unorthodox way she’d ever attempted to clean a wound. Gradually the words sank in as she murmured them. “He does very well.” There was a moment of hesitation before something clicked and her focus sharpened as she dropped his hand. “I left him-- I can’t believe I just left him there-” Her words were tight, almost choking on the realization, and she lurched to her feet only to stumble as her head spun from the sudden change of altitude.
Turning the way he’d been staring, back toward the castle, her hands balled into fists. “After everything he’s done - all he’s sacrificed for me - and I just abandoned him to run off with-” She stopped herself before she might insult the faerie, but felt guilt settling like stones in her stomach. Locking her knees against the wave of weakness that washed over her, Emily’s jaw tightened. “I need to go back for him.”
The fae - the outsider - watched her with an almost detached interest, having withdrawn once she’d dropped his hand. “I would both suggest and request you do no such thing tonight.”
Warm eyes, lit with a spark of desperation, hovered on him for a moment, cautious. “Why?”
His stare was so even, it was very nearly chilling. “Like most of your guests, your father has been… I suppose the most appropriate word may be ‘taken.’ Turned to stone, stored in the throne room of the royal palace. While not precisely safe, he is in no immediate danger. Delilah seems unlikely to do more than display him at the moment, perhaps thaw him from the spell under enchantment. No worse than you’ve already endured.”
No worse… Emily wasn’t sure if it was the curse or something else that made her sway on her feet, feeling a sudden yawning void in her chest. She blinked in surprise at the overwhelming rush of- of something that made her want to collapse right there and then and simply cease thinking for a few hours. She shifted her blank stare to the fire, shakily lowering herself to her seat on the log again.
The outsider watched her with that same steady gaze. “...My offer still stands. And will stand, until such a time as you choose to take it, or the witch is dead.” He paused for a moment, and she wondered if he regretted his next words. “Or you are dead.”
Emily’s elbows rested on her knees, hands clasped together, covering her mouth. She shook her head, letting herself focus on the snapping of sparks in the blaze. “I don’t know.” Her mind was too full - or too empty - or just too much of something, like a constant mess of tangled strings and buzzing flies in her head. “I need some time to-”
His head snapped back to the way he’d been looking before, but he didn’t jump. It was as though he’d been expecting something - something she couldn’t see or hear or sense, even with her new True Sight. In a fraction of an instant he seemed to disappear, melting into smoke that swept beyond the circle of their fire until it merged with the shadows.
She stared after him for a moment. He’d be back. Or she assumed he would, if he intended to offer the deal again. In the meantime, she gave herself a moment to sit before gradually pulling herself up on weary legs. It was time to put her briefly-trained survival skills to the test and build herself a camp for the night.
