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yanara126-writing · 7 months ago

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The Many Meetings of Death and Death (2/5) - Ghost

Daud is a wreck. Corvo is a player avatar. Neither of them is happy about it.

Well maybe the Outsider is.

Read here or on Ao3 (2359 words)

Have fun! Comments always welcome! :)

Daud is a wreck. He knows it, even without seeing the looks his Whalers give him. He knows he scares them but there is nothing he can do about it anymore. He's been cracked down the middle for a long time, and the sword he's rammed into the empress had equally rammed a wedge into that crack, ruining his careful paint job. Sitting here now at his same old desk waiting for Attano to come and get his revenge was the closest he's felt to peace in six months. Either way, whatever comes of it, today it will be over.

Thomas stands in front of him, masked and stiff, as he reports that Attano's cell has been found empty. There is no sign of the man anywhere, as if he has simply vanished into thin air. Daud is unsurprised, the man has been essentially a ghost since the empress's murder (though how much of it was really his choice in those six months?). Neither is Thomas it seems. Even without seeing his face Daud knows well what his second thinks of the plan. Knows that Thomas knows he doesn't expect to survive this. Knows that Thomas agrees and resents him for it. Attano may be a ghost, but history is full of stories of vengeful spirits, literal or otherwise. Is Daud himself not one of them?

Daud doesn't want to die. He thought about it once, but the appeal didn't hold for long. (Truly it felt strange to even think about it, as if he's already come to the conclusion but his head hadn't caught up yet.) He wants- he wants what he gave Billie. He wants to be set free from his guilt and his regrets, as much as anyone can be. But in contrast to Billie, there is no one left who could forgive him. He succeeded where Billie failed and with that cut himself off from any way out, any recourse, any possible path to redemption.

All but one.

He doesn't delude himself into thinking true redemption could lie at the end of the path, but maybe it can at least be some relief. He has paid back some of his harm to the girl by dealing with Delilah, but that was a non-repeatable coincidence. The only way he knows to pay back Attano even a tiny smidge is by letting the man get a piece of him. So no, Daud does not want to die, despite what Thomas thinks, but he is ready to face it. He will give Attano the fight he owes him. (That thought too itches strangely somewhere in his mind. As if Attano has already left his mark on him. But then, hasn't he? It was the Empress's blood that ran down his fingers, staining them forever, but it was those despairing grey eyes that made sure he can never see the colour again without drowning in his own despair. And Dunwall is very grey.)

"Understood. Deal with the sentries as you will." Under different circumstances he would be furious and every single lookout would be running the gauntlet a hundred times, but truthfully he doesn't see a point to it. Attano has proven over and over just how undetectable he is for anyone looking, punishment will not change that. And deep down he knows that he is selfish. He doesn't want his Wahlers' last memories of him to be of anger. He deserves it, and perhaps it would be better for them in the long run, being able to leave the thought of him behind with disdain rather than his own suffocating regret, but Daud is and always has been selfish. Let this be the single spark of something good in his legacy of blood.

For the same reason he is glad for Thomas' mask, hiding the young man's face. He doesn't need to see to know the way that resignation creases his brows and thins his lips, he's seen it often enough before, over the years and even more often in these days since Billie's departure, but he prefers not facing it again. It wouldn't change anything, Daud knows he is as stubborn as he is selfish, but it would hurt.

Thomas says nothing for as long as he can get away with, and Daud lets him. Eventually though the silence must end, as all things do.

"Yes sir." Nothing shines through Thomas' inflection or movement. To any observer he would seem entirely composed and neutral as he bows and turns. Daud doesn't need to touch the arcane bond to recognize it for the lie it is. For the first time in years Thomas is scared, and Daud can do nothing about it.

Thomas transverses out of the room with no more comment. For one morbid moment Daud wonders if he just wants to enjoy the last minutes of his powers, but the thought whips away as quickly as it came. Some Whalers would certainly do so, but not Thomas. Thomas simply wanted to leave.

With nothing left to do but await his inevitable reckoning, Daud sits down behind his desk, the rickety old chair creaking under his weight, and waits for a ghost.

The first thing Daud becomes aware of is that his head hurts. The second thing he becomes aware of is that the rest of his body isn't much better. Void blast it, he feels as if a whale was dropped on him with the way every muscle in his body aches. The third thing he becomes aware of is that he should be dead. Probably. His head is resting on something cracked and woody, presumably his desk since that is the last place he remembers being. His limbs aren't tied to anything, both legs and arms hanging limp and aching, and he cannot hear anyone else in the room. Slowly and carefully he drags himself up from where he is slumped over his desk, not able to suppress the pained groan forcing itself from his throat. The room seems to tilt before his eyes and he is forced to press his eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to subside. Eventually he blinks and looks over the empty room.

No one is here. No ghost, no human, not even a rat. He checks with his void gaze, the world becoming tinted in the same old dull blue, looks through the surrounding walls and sees nothing before he is forced to return to his normal vision or empty his stomach from the nausea muddling his head. He feels- well he feels like shit, but that is still remarkably better than he expected to feel when he sat down here... However long ago. He squints through the hole in the wall he calls a window and tries to judge how much time has passed. He dimly remembers it being around noon, but now the sun is almost setting beyond the ruins of the Flooded District.

Another careful rolling of all his limbs reveals that everything is where it's supposed to be and as far as he can tell he isn't injured. Beyond the hammering in his head and the pervasive aching he is perfectly fine. Another, more careful glance around does however reveal that he has been robbed very thoroughly. His keys are gone, as is the pouch he uses for coin, as are his audiographs and bone charms. Had he left out the paperwork for prior contracts Attano probably would have nabbed that too. The only thing the man left behind is a sheet of paper that wasn’t on his desk before.

Hesitantly Daud reaches for the paper precariously balanced on the edge of his desk in front of him. (It's angled in a way that makes him suspect it might have been balanced on his head before and he hadn't noticed it falling.) The texture identifies it as one of the wanted posters he has hung on his wall, as reminders both of past contracts and future possibilities. This one in particular is of Lizzie Stride (a keepsake more as a joke than for any useful reason), but the important part is the back of the poster, scribbled full with tight curved writing in his own ink. The pen is still lying next to the open inkwell, dripping excess fluid into the wood of the desk. The hollow feeling of frustration is easier to focus on than the terrible confusion and trepidition. Bastard could have at least closed the inkwell, that shit isn't cheap these days.

But the writing doesn't vanish and neither does his headache, no ghost appears and everything stays quiet but for the gentle rushing of water that permeates the entirety of the Flooded District, so eventually Daud has to face the facts. Attano came through. The man had him at his mercy, despite his best attempt to stay vigilant, and let him live. Whatever revenge he enacted is barely worse than an unpleasent hangover. And he left a letter.

'To Daudshit Dipshit,' Already the first line makes Daud want to rip his eyes out, but through decades of vigorous training of staring down misbehaving brats he keeps his reaction to a twitch of an eye. The paper in his hands crinkles in his grip but doesn't rip.

'How come you get so many non-lethal weapons? I have to make do with just a maximum of ten sleep-darts and my own damn arms. I have shot too many people point blank in the chest with a dart because they surprised me, why the fuck do I not get stun mines? Chokedust? A bonecharm to make choking faster?' ...What? He- What?? (Something about his baffling confusion feels familiar, in that strange way that thinking of Attano always does these days. As if he's done it before. He's sure somehow the black-eyed bastard is responsible and so he decides to ignore it.)

'You should know that despite this, I still wasted a whole three sleep darts on you. I hope you wake up with the world's worst hangover. Don't bother looking for your keys or purse, I robbed you blind and we both know you deserve it.

Sincerely,

Corvo'

For a few moments Daud simply sits and stares. Is he still asleep? Did Attano knock him out hard enough to cause hallucinations? Is the black-eyed bastard torturing him? No, he knows well the Void feels different. As he sits in his chair he can feel the dampness in the wood under his hands, can hear the creaking of the floorboards and the occasional hiss of the river krusts at the edge of the building that they never got rid of to keep the fresh recruits on their toes. The Void always feels empty, no matter how many things it shows him. There is always the underlying hollowness gaping there whenever the black-eyed bastard decides to hold him a disappointed speech. This here, this place that he has spent years in now, raising a whole generation of Whalers, is real, with its reeking, screeching, terrible and familiar presence. So is the letter in his hands. Somehow. Before he can put down the paper, perhaps to scream, perhaps to calmly light a smoke, perhaps to throw himself out of a window and see if that sets the universe right again, he sees a narrowly scrawled post script at the bottom of the sheet.

Despite his better knowledge he doesn't hesitate to read it.

'Ps. Teach your Whalers some fucking workplace safety, I had to save one from drowning because they fell off a ledge when I knocked them out.'

He still sits at his desk, blankly staring at the page when Thomas comes bursting in through the door, sword in hand, mask askew and gasping for breath. He freezes in the doorway at seeing Daud just sitting at his desk. Barely a second passes until he's pushed stumbling into the room, nearly falling over his own feet as three, four, five Whalers try to force themselves through the doorway at the same time, all in similarly disheveled state with weapons drawn. Running footsteps are sounding in the middle distance and he's starting to feel the sharp tug at the bond of frantic transversals from Whalers further off.

Faced with the absolute absurdity of the moment, his baffling confusion at the letter, the strange feelings of déjà vû haunting him, the utter lack of closure Attano granted him, Daud starts to laugh. He laughs loud and long, his head thrown back, until there are tears in his eyes and his laughs turn silent from lack of air. He's not quite sure what he's laughing about really, it's not like anything is really funny. Attano is clearly insane, either has always been or has lost his mind to the torture of Coldrige, Daud has been denied the one thing he has lived for the last few months, and his Whalers are behaving like the untrained street-rats he's trained out of them. Really he should be livid, and perhaps he is, but in that moment all he can do is sit at his desk and laugh until the tears stream down his face and his shoulders shake as if he's sobbing. Damn both Attano and the black-eyed bastard. Whatever comes now comes after.

(The group of Whalers watching in a strange mixture of horror and relief grows for about two minutes, until Thomas regains his own senses and starts shooing them out again. Rinaldo and Rulfio take up post outside of the door, unbidden but appreciated, and keep out the younger members who don't quite understand what is happening. Fisher and Montgomery only throw one glance through the window before setting up in the kitchen and trying to throw a meal together from what has survived their recent prisoner's escape. Daud's adrenaline crash after the months-long tension will not be pretty and it does not come in the way they've been expecting, but at the end of the day every Whaler gives the Outsider their thanks for it.)

(Daud eventually finds their shrine. He categorically refuses to give the black-eyed bastard the satisfaction of taking the rune.)

#dishonored #writing #fanfiction #daud #thomas the whaler #the whalers #corvo attano #crack taken seriously

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