#dishonored fanfic

[williamverse]

There was a storm during my first journey to Dunwall. Thick dark clouds covering the skies, waves crushing into ship's sides. Standing on the ship's deck, I've witnessed something I'll never forget: a Leviathan, rising from the water's surface. It felt like for that spare moment the time had stopped. A giant whale-like creature cut through the water with his fins, glistening against the cloudy sky with his dark skin. Seagulls looked like nothing but countless specks floating around him. His powerful body was covered in countless scars with the sight of which I wondered: how many of them were left by other animals and how many - by humans? Beneath his skin - fat, powering his huge body. Hundreds of other whales were killed for that precious fat, later to be turned into whale oil, that would soon power one of the ships like the one I was boarding. But he was still alive, with his power still flowing through his body, only for him to use. How many nets has he torn? How many hooks had grappled his flesh and than torn out of it with a mighty tail's swing? How will he die: in whalers' hands, getting his flesh turned into food and his fat turned into fuel, or will he die of age, turning his body into a home for a new ecosystem? I saw his eyes, full of pain and hatred, but also of intelligence.

He had enough power to turn over the ship and drown everyone boarding it. But he didn't do that, diving back into the water and swimming away instead. Maybe, if he was trying to avenge himself and other whales, driven by hatred, he wouldn't be any better than humans? I didn't think about that back then, not how I think about it now, after all those years of trial my fate has set for me. In this realm I inherited Leviathan's philosophy.

[Excerpt from Lord-Protector's memoirs - by Corvo Attano]

[presiding]

billie lurk by @gravehound

commissioned for the contract, aka dishonored 1 but lets give billie more character arc (& daud more common sense)

[uncontrol-freak]

ok so I decided to start publishing my fic. little by little. don't throw any slippers at me.

oh, and keep in mind it's set in AU.

[secondarythings]

Guess who updated "Something Stupid", a Dishonored AU where Daud can't go through with the murder, teams up with Corvo and Jessamine to stop the initial conspiracy and things spiral from there?

I initially posted this in 'checks AO3' 2018, almost six years ago.

This fic features Daud being a little shit, the Outsider being amused, whalers like the unstoppable poet Dodge and, in case, I ever get around to actually writing it, Daud coming to terms that he is ace but not aro and both the Lord protector as well as the Empress are just so damn competent at their jobs.

[karnaca78]

"He sees, in his mind’s eye: his beak-shaped nose, thick dark beard, Academician sash proudly displayed on his chest. Empress Jessamine is here. Regal. Cold and composed, as all beautiful statues should be. But she is no sculpted effigy. No. She’s so alive amongst them all that it looks obscene in the gardens of death.

Someone else catches his eye, though. The tall foreigner — for he bears the colours of the sun beneath his all-black attire — stands behind the graceful ruler as though her shadow, roughened by years of secrecy. He looks proper, yes, but; through the cracks in his face, the natural philosopher recognises home-sickness seeping through. It strikes him as such because he can still taste it, sometimes. When the strength of a Gristolian-distilled whiskey is not enough to make him forget the crispy shores and slicing mountains of home.

That is too much to bear, and so, cowardly as he is, he prefers to consider the dead man lying in a box."

[Excerpt from Their Grieving Eyes, a Dishonored one-shot on Anton Sokolov and the consequences of his actions.]

Here is the digital art piece I made to go along with the story!

[silurisanguine]

WIP Whenever & Sunday Snippet

thanks to @vorchagirl for the tagging of the first and various Coemancer Crew for the second tag. Here is something a little different from a future chapter of Emerging Shadow, my Thief/Dishonored OC centred fic.

Glancing at the mirror across the way she looked at herself and knew what she had to do. Her soaking wet hair which fell to her chest and often got in her way had to go, so she grabbed the scissors next to the basin and began snipping at the length, pulling it straight with the comb as she went. She’d once asked her mother if she could cut her hair shorter years ago but the request had been refused.  A young lady will not attract a suitable husband with boyish hair her mother had remarked. But Kiara had kept at it till the point her mother had told her if she wanted short hair, she could cut it herself. So she did. It had been a terrible mess and dismayed her mother so much, she had taken her to a barbers to at least fix it. That poor man had been watched like a hawk to make sure she had not been given too much of a boyish cut, but Kiara had watched his technique closely and after that with the help of two mirrors she was able to cut her own hair. Problem was there was only one mirror on the table. "Hope you’re going clean that up." Garrett stood behind Kiara, making her spin around to his voice. She hadn’t heard him come in which wasn’t surprising in the slightest. He was holding a large bulging sack and slung it down to his side as he stared at her. She gestured to her half done hair cut and the one big mirror behind her. "I will but, you don’t happen to have another mirror do you? I need to get the back of my head and I need another mirror for that.” "Not too fond of mirrors…wait." Garrett fished inside the sack and pulled out an large ornate hand mirror, something he’d swiped just before coming back. "This do?" "Yeah that’s perfect, but um I’ll need you to hold it as I need both hands to cut my hair. If you like I can trim yours after… if you want. A way of paying you for your generosity in giving me a chance." Garrett huffed in mild annoyance but went and stood in front of Kiara, holding the mirror up, so that the larger one was behind her and she could see both the front and back of her hair. She smiled in thanks and took up the scissors and comb again. Soon enough with the help of the razor as well, she had her hair cropped into a short shaggy cut that wouldn’t get in the way under a hood. Garrett watched in silence and had kept the mirror perfectly still. He seemed fascinated by what she was doing as if he’d never witnessed it before. He had to admit he hadn’t had chance to get at his hair and it was getting unkempt and annoying. When Kiara finished, he put down the mirror and examined her new style. "That will work. So you can cut hair too huh. I wont say no to something for free.” Kiara ran her hand through her new hair, feeling some loose strands fall to her shoulders. She brushed them off to join the pile on the floor and scratched at her skin that reacted to a strand that touched her neck. "I’d recommend taking off the top half of your gear…or if you have something else to wear you don’t mind getting hair on, don’t want loose hair irritating you on a job later…” Garrett nodded in agreement. He hated anything itchy but tilted his head at Kiara wondering if she expected him to partially undress in front of her.  Kiara blushed and quickly turned around to clean up the fallen hair off the floor and allow Garrett some privacy. When she turned back around again Garrett stood bare chested, the top half of his gear lying on the nearby bed. He stood stock still, his fingers twitching and she had to wonder if he was considering this a bad idea yet for some reason trusted her enough with this. She also couldn’t help but see a few more scars on his skin that looked old as if caused a long time ago. One looked like an arrow wound in his left shoulder, the other a shallow slash from a sword or knife across his chest. Garrett couldn’t help but notice the woman stare, her eyes fixed on the old scars of old mistakes. "Hard lessons learnt fast.”

[rapturezoo]

The Pleasures of Friendship

Chapter 3:

Harnessing such talent was no easy feat by any means. Many often speak, with great ignorance, about the innate talent of both artists and musicians alike, whereas, in reality, such skills are usually honed from the youngest of ages with a fair share of difficulty. Invariably, most young students are required to dedicate day and night to never ending practice sessions, to be willing to leave their tears, sweat and blood splattered all over music rooms and art studios before even thinking about success, let alone widespread acclaim.

[kaijuborn]

Chapter 9 of Two Halves of a Whole is up! In this chapter, Daud almost forgets an important date, and Corvo has a Realization (or two, or three)

[stealingpotatoes]

To Call It Love

Summary: When Delilah took Emily from the Golden Cat, she had every intention of putting her back when she was done painting. She had absolutely no intention of growing attached to the little princess, nor of keeping her. But things never seem to go exactly to plan for Delilah.

Words: 6,745

>> read on ao3! <<

[dreadfutures]

I have this whole fic idea for what Emily and Corvo are doing during Death of the Outsider and wrote this on my phone just now. sorry it's rough shsjdkdkdj

Corvo is having nightmares, which then turn out to be actually memories of himself in another timeline where he was the one facing Delilah. That Corvo did a high chaos run, but this Corvo is horrified by the dreams and the implications of who he was and what he did.

Emily notices her father is growing agitated and isn't sleeping well, and she figures the Outsider might have something to do with it.

-:-:-

"It's not her."

Emily whips around, time slowing as she prepares to dodge an assassin, or clockwork soldier, or none of those things at all because the voice registers in her mind half a moment later, and she knows he is no threat. She knows it in her bones, knows it like the certainty of her next breath: he is not harmless, but he will not harm her himself.

So when she sees the Outsider leaning against the pillar behind her, she does not draw her gun.

The Outsider does not move his eyes from her face, though she knows this only in her gut and not from looking at him. They stare at each other in silence, in the wan Dunwall afternoon, and the forlorn cries of gulls fade away in the distance as he draws her mind into the Void, even while awake.

The sky is suddenly dark, and sunlight is cast in pale ripples across the whole world, a that is when he tilts his head slightly toward the grave.

"It's not her, I promise that. You saw to it--the true end of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. I thought that might give a sense of finality to it, and yet, here she haunts."

Emily's jaw tightens. "It was final," she says, wary and angry all together. "For *me.* But he's...struggling. The world changed so much while he was in stone, and... He didn't get to say goodbye, like I did."

"That's because he wouldn't have," the Outsider said with a shrug.

The Empress clenches her marked fist at her side. "How do you know? Do you dangle it in front of him in his dreams? That hardly--"

"I don't have to," interrupts the Outsider calmly. "Dear Corvo's nightmares are all of his own making."

A shiver runs down her spine at his cold words, and a memory resurfaces of the clammy nightmares she had long ago in the Hound Pitts Pub when she'd put a whalebone rune under her pillow. Chilly dreams of the Outsider surveying the political players of the day, examining them as they examined her from every angle and finding them wanting just as they found her. They had jeered at her: too young, too fickle, too impetuous. Of course, the Outsider, old as he is, could say the same for all of them.

The judgement in his black eyes was never cruel, but it was never kind, either.

"So you're not toying with him?" Emily asks, shaking the vision of the looming Outsider in her memory and glaring instead at the one in front of her. It was good to remember he was shorter than her, now; a boy frozen in time who was far less menacing now than when she was ten.

"Your father always asks me that. From a certain angle, I can't blame him," the Outsider says, circling her slowly. The air moves strangely around him, thick like water. "But the strings that pull him and his blade aren't mine, and deep down, he knows it. And you?" A mirthless sound leaves him that might be a laugh, if he were amused by much. "I dont control you like chess pieces on a board. Never had the chance to learn. And if you're thinking of cats and mice..."

The Outsider is suddenly very close, floating at eye level with her so she can see the grimy streaks left on his face as if his black eyes had shed tarry tears.

"Sorry to disappoint. I'm not interested in eating you."

"If you're not playing with him, then what's happening?" she asks, batting him away like the smoke of a noxious cigar. "Something has upset him. It's making him waste away, I can feel it, but he refuses to talk to me."

"Oh, and he just loves talking to me, does he?"

This does genuinely seem to amuse him, and Emily is secretly relieved. Entertaining the god seems to be the surest way to coax good will from him, and for her father's sake, she needs some.

"Fortunately for both you and dear Corvo, I did not stop watching you, not even now that your throne is secure and your name washed clean of dishonor." The Outsider is *definitely* amused. "Do you remember the crack in the slab of reality you slipped through, splinters of past and present needling into your forward path at Stilton's manor?"

Emily rolls her eyes as the Outsider waxes poetic. "I'll never forget your little inventions," she replies. "Giant dragonfly wings on a... whatever organ that 'timepiece' was."

The Outsider crouches behind her mother's headstone now, hands dangling over his knees, and looks up at Emily with a cracked squint as if she is too bright to look at.

"Time is wounded still, wrapped around you both like waves breaking against the two statues you were in both Dunwalls," he says, studying her. "Just keep your heads above water for now, and let the experienced sailors navigate this storm."

Emily considers this non-explanation and isn't sure what to do with it. At its heart, she knows he's telling her--for some gods damned reason--not to worry about it.

It's not good enough.

Emily hopes her mother would be proud of her as she lunges over the gravestone and reaches for the Outsider. She knows Corvo would be, as her hands close around the boy's scrawny wrist and yanks him upright.

"I want to know what's happening to him," she says, enunciating each word with deadly patience. Up close, he really does just look like a half-drowner beggar boy, and she isn't scared of him. She isn't.

"There's darkness inside everyone, whether I tether them to a piece of the void or not," the Outsider says, dangling from her grip without any indication of discomfort. Perhaps he recognizes it as a fair trade for the time he pulled her into the Void and straight off a cliff.

"The urge to jump off the bridge when you should pull back from the edge--or to push someone else... It's in each and every one of you. Even your father."

The Outsider's eyes gleam in the dying light preserved here in the Void, each wet pinprick of light part of some larger, unknowable constellation.

"Tell me," he says, tilting his head, "did you show such compassion on your road back to your throne because Corvo raised you to be such a good little girl? Did you aspire to have as gentle touch as he did long ago, even when he was a weapon in the hands of the dirtiest schemers in the Empire?"

Emily grits her teeth and prepares to reiterate her demand to the Outsider, but he continues quickly so that she does not have time to waste her breath.

"It's okay, I know you're not a philosopher," he says, sneering harmlessly. "I'll tell you the answer: every choice was your own. Because what I've seen is that put in your shoes, dear Corvo would disappoint--me, you, and himself most of all."

Emily knows despite the insult in his tone, the Outsider has thought her to be a clever one. And she strives to live up to that moniker, as much as she would be embarrassed to admit it. So presented with the same puzzle now from several opaque and poetic angles, she does her best to piece things together.

The Outsider smiles, almost dotingly.

"You have the same frown on your face as when you're planning your route across a ravine full of Howlers," he says.

"You are about as annoying as a pack of Howlers, if I'm being honest," she replies, toothless with distraction. "Are you saying there was...another past, where Corvo faced Delilah? Did he come back in time and change things and I don't know about it?"

"Not quite," the Outsider says, "but very, *very* close, Your Majesty. An alternate timeline spins away, just out of reach from this one like the hands in a clock--but for better or worse, they are about to cross."

Emily feels like the blood has drained from her head too fast, and, dizzied, she releases the Outsider. He remains floating at the same level as before, to humor her.

"And in the alternate timeline, he--"

"Ask yourself, Emily Kaldwin, if you really know what you're asking," the Outsider says, and the amusement is gone. The warmth in his chilling voice has vanished. He may think she is Clever, but he has the knowledge of the field and she is woefully blind, and he is growing bored of steering the two of them through this conversation. "I have never had an interest in preserving your father or even you. That instinct is shared between the two of you alone. Let it serve you, while Billie Lurk learns whether she cut the instinct out of herself or not."

And like that, the shrieks of seagulls pierce the air. The Outsider is gone, and Emily Kaldwin is left with more questions than she began with.

[bardspeak]

This is my piece for the zine celebrating 10 years of dishonored: Dunwall Days and Karnaca Nights! There are leftover sales going on here: (link) that have much much more than my little character study going on. (I recommend the notebook). @10yearsofdishonoredzine

Things Beyond Forgiveness | (ao3 link)

Billie was made by knife, and now there’s nothing she sees in her body anymore but the jagged shape carved. 

He was made by knife too, she thinks, watching the Outsider in their tiny, one-room apartment. A god once, held on high - now washing the dishes of all things. They had to buy metalware so when his shaking, unpracticed hands dropped them from the sink they wouldn’t shatter across the hardwood floor. Only irritate the neighbors. 

“I’m sure I’ve done this before,” The Outsider tells her, lips thin with displeasure at himself. He said the same thing about sweeping up porcelain shards with a broom or writing in the blocky hand of an illiterate dockworker. She can’t prove or deny these claims, so she takes them at face value, nods, and lets him continue in his failure. Sometimes she finds herself getting irritated, having to reteach an adult man how to do up his tie, but then she remembers Sokolov and his shaky, fading memory - a parallel that would have the Outsider steaming and ranting at her. 

The Outsider is neither physically old nor dependent, but something in the comparison softens her demeanor. There are people she’s taken care of before, and people she’s let take care of her. She reminds herself of this every time the Outsider goes to pick up the dishes after dinner with his quivering hands. She sits and watches this vestige of a life long past curse when his hand slips. Hum absently and splash water onto their floor. 

He struggles and doesn’t have the forbearance to hide it from her, but still, sometimes she uncharitably thinks he’s doing this much better than she is. That it’s unfair. There’s a capacity to hurt in her, one she faces every day when she sees the posters bearing her name, or looks carefully at the knife in her hand and in her heart. She doesn’t think she’ll ever stop facing it. 

They’re in a dark, cold alley a few blocks away from the apartment when the Outsider speaks up, voice quiet but weighted: “You’re not what you think you are.” 

“How so?” Billie takes a sharp drag of the cigarette in her hand before offering it over, the Outsider considering it like he’s never seen one before. They’ve smoked together a few times before, hazy trails of smoke drifting through the afternoon light peeking in through the window in their apartment. Never like this though, in the early hours of the morning when Billie gets back from one of her odd jobs, knife and crossbow slung low on her belt. She’s been a killer for decades, even before Daud - there’s nothing that will ever change that. But she can’t help listening, can’t even pretend to ignore him like she would have in the beginning. 

“You can’t change what you’ve done in the past,” The Outsider says, never having lost the uncanny ability to seem like he’s reading her mind. He pauses to take a puff of the cigarette and gives a little cough with weak lungs. Before, he would have been sent into a full-on fit. “But you can’t say you would have been here, would have survived, if not for your skills. You did what you had to.” He pauses, perhaps correctly guessing that she doesn’t want to hear it. He forges on anyhow. “Maybe you can thank yourself and move on. Find a new use for your skills.” 

A bitter little laugh bursts its way out of her, unwilling. “There’s no other use for skills like mine.” 

He touches her hand, not a slip of the fingers when passing a cigarette back and forth - still holding it in his other hand - or to pull her away from watching eyes. She never realizes how little the Outsider reaches out to touch until he has. It startles her from her bitter reflection. “Skills like yours,” he starts, unsettling pale green eyes catching her own and holding them. “Are what freed me.” 

He doesn’t go on like she expects him to - like she’s used to. The lack of words to hide in leaves her flayed open. The cigarette is pressed into her hand like an afterthought as he pulls away, heels clicking against the stones of the street towards their apartment, not even sparing a glance behind to see if she’s following him. 

Eventually, she does. 

The Outsider has a pile of things laid out over their creaky wardrobe in the corner of the room. Bottles, stones, shells, pieces of bone, and books that are more scraps of paper than bound tomes are strewn over the place. So many things she can hardly categorize them all. Billie had thrown some of them out when he first started, not knowing it was a collection rather than garbage laying about. He never said anything, but the same bottle - labeled with colorful, crackling packaging - was back on top of the wardrobe when she came in the next morning. 

One day, a flask slips through his traitorous fingers and crashes to the floor, glass pieces skittering to the far corners of the room. She watches as he crouches down and picks up one of the thicker pieces, twisting it in the light in a slender hand. There’s a spot of blood beading up on his bare foot. He stands, drops the piece of glass onto the wardrobe with the rest of his collection, and steps carefully over the rest to get to their broom. 

He’s used to things slipping through his fingers, she realizes, going through her days watching him. This isn’t a collection of prized possessions, he barely gives any of them but the books a glance on any given day and never upsets if they break or tear. They’re proof of life. That if he holds something in his hands it won’t turn to dust and fall away. When she looks, there’s a shard of a porcelain plate he must have squirreled away weeks before she first saw the bottle on the wardrobe.

Never claiming to be good with words - especially not when faced with a man who spent the better part of four thousand years with nothing but - she doesn’t broach the subject. 

She does, however, hand him a small painted cameo she found one day on a job. Despite it being her reason for doing so, she still startles when she sees it placed at the forefront of his collection. He places a book - newer, the covers wearing through on the corners but little other damage - on the windowsill she likes to sit in to smoke tobacco, something the Outsider still wrinkles his nose at. She finds a piece of glass placed just so, refracting color on the wall over her bed. 

After weeks, months, a turn of the season, whatever’s holding them together in this place hardly big enough to fit them still hasn’t worn through. It’s the longest she’s spent in the same space as someone since Sokolov - since Daud - and it surprises her how few times she has to get out because she feels stifled. 

She watches him pore over a waterlogged book of his. The binding is frayed around missing chunks, and he’s read it enough times to make his own narrative out of the empty spaces. Time has loosened his muscles, barefoot feet tucked up under his legs, sitting at their meager table and muttering under his breath. She picks at a loose thread of the binding with thin, voidrite fingertips and he lets her. 

“What should I do then?” She says, continuing the conversation like it hasn’t been months of them settling into whatever this is. If he doesn’t understand, then maybe she won’t have to say it. These jagged pieces she doesn’t let anybody touch can stay sharp along with the fear. The Outsider can keep filling in the gaps to stories he’ll never have the whole picture of, despite holding pieces in his trembling hands. Despite spilling the water that smears the ink.

He raises his head to look at her, eyebrows still pinched from reading with a slight myopia, and he understands. “I believe felling a god may be the peak of your achievements,” he tells her, closing his book with more of a crunch than a snap. Only the glint in his eyes reveals his teasing. “Have you ever considered settling down?”

She huffs out a laugh, not even trying to find it in herself to be offended at the notion. That she could put the knife down and never pick it back up. Not flinching away from the edges that have already been worn down. “I’ve never considered living long enough.”

“Well,” he sniffs, taking up the mantle of the offended. He opens his book again. “Start considering it.” 

“I’m sure I’ve done this before,” he says for the millionth time later that afternoon. Billie thinks what he actually means is live. She’s sure she has too, once. She thinks she might be doing it again. 

[ewelinakl]

Sea of Regret, Knife of Redemption

Daud yearns to take the easy way out. This is none of his business. What does he care who sits on the imperial throne? He trapped Delilah in the Void fifteen years ago. It’s not his fault if she found a way to escape or the Outsider let her out. He’s too old to deal with coups and serial killers, to go against deranged natural philosophers. But Delilah’s escape is a personal affront to him. And more importantly, he knows that if he doesn’t take this job, Billie will. She cares about Sokolov, even if Daud cannot understand why.

or: Dishonored 2, but Daud's the protag

[presiding]

high chaos/low chaos/join the chaos in my dishonored 2 rewrite

[uncontrol-freak]

New chapter is here! Yeah this is not a drill so go check it out and show @kg-clark-inthedark how much you like her work!

[foxhopfics]

Corvo Attano x GN!Waiter!reader headcanons

for anon!! It's my first time doing a headcanons sheet so I hope u dont mind being my test run lolol

------------------------------

The Hound's Pit pub is still as hole-in-the-wall as it used to be before the outbreak. before everything

Corvo likes to come here mostly to get away from every duty he has now, supporting Emily as a royal consult

He knows people here, people know him here enough not to question his day-to-day life.

Piero still comes by to check on Corvo, as do Cecilia and few others

(there will be time, there will be time before the end of the plague. before the hound's pit lies in ruins 14 years after the end of it all)

You've only worked at the pub for a few weeks. Everyone important to you, the plague has already taken. You just need some money to try and keep fighting. for your family's sake

Corvo only really starts to open up to you after you sit quietly near him behind the bar, making sure no one else was getting up to trouble, but mostly listening to Corvo talk about Emily.

You give him an empathetic smile as he wraps up his drinks for the night

For the first time, you manage to get what looks like a small smile in return as he leaves the pub.

"You know," Lydia says, coming over from bussing a table. "I've known Corvo quite a long time, and I think you're the first person to get a smile out of him since Queen Jessamine.

The swell in your chest could be pride, or perhaps a sympathetic sense of mourning. Either way, your resolve has been strengthened to make Corvo smile again.

If you're the only one that can, so be it

[karnaca78]

"It looks like a boy, now more than ever.

Somewhere, both inwards and outwards, a heartbeat drums heavily. It resonates against the walls and makes his skull hurt until he can hear the faint undertones of a song. Both quiet and harrowing, it seeps through his bones until they vibrate in synchrony with it — the Abbey would call this heresy. But to him, it sounds like; an equation.

He wants to move, but finds himself unable to. A pain flares up in his bad leg; suspenders dig trenches into his shoulders; the pull of the waistcoat against his ribs is constricting.

And the deity — looks him in the eye."

[Excerpt from the final chapter of Engineered Daylight, a short Dishonored fanfiction exploring science and the birth of Dunwall's industrial age. Available here on AO3.]