Chapter Text
Corvo Attano smells of soot and ash, brine, oil, the tang of metal. Or maybe that’s just the scent of Dunwall. His hair wild, loose around his shoulders, eyes sharp, appraising, refusing just yet to accept the scene in front of him as real.
“My dear Cor-“ he cannot finish the name that he indeed holds dear. Sharp on his tongue, a taste of confession. No, he cannot speak now, not as the subject of his attention turns away, marching with sure steps in the opposite direction, disappearing into the crowd of bodies shuffling along the streets of Dunwall.
This isn’t how he expected their first meeting since his expulsion from the Void to go. This is not how he expected his very human self to make first overtures.
Fuck.
Giving chase, he hurries after Corvo. The Royal Protector is just tall enough that he can follow the back of his head as he tries to close the gap between them. No, no, this isn’t how things were supposed to go at all.
How had the Outsider envisioned their reunion? He can’t recall, now that he is the Outsider no longer.
“Corvo, wait!” he calls out above the din of the crowd. The noise of it is unceasing. Part of him hates the vulnerable desperation in his voice. He hates that there is such emotion spewing forth from what was for so long flat and unaffected. But, truly he was never as cold, as detached, as humans believe. Perhaps it was merely kinder that they all cast him as cruel. “Stop, please!”
There isn’t enough space to break out into a run. Too many bustling bodies are in the way. He has to wrestle Corvo’s attention back.
He sees as Corvo turns down the next alleyway, breaking from the morning pack. Breathing deeply, he hopes that Corvo only wished for privacy. Yes, that’s all it was! Corvo’s dismissive behavior is very easily explained. It would be dangerous to have such an important reunion out in the open. Afterall, he looks very much like the Outsider.
But once he takes the corner, Corvo is nowhere to be seen. A lone rat scurries from behind an overfull dumpster, scuttling deeper down the alley. Here the smell of decay is strong, stinging the insides of his delicate nostrils. Looking from side to side, he tries to figure which way Corvo is likely to have headed. In his heart, he knows it’s futile, though. Even into his fifties now, Corvo could just as soon vertically scale the building, vanish into thin air.
He takes another step into the alley, following the path the rat traced before him. Were he the self he used to be, it would be so easy to ask the critter for directions. Now, while some echo of those powers remain, there is a limit. Knowing as much has left him feeling quite small, despite his apparently excessive height compared to most inhabitants of the Isles.
“Corvo?” His voice is barely above a whisper now. Futile, really, to think that Corvo might respond. Apparently, Corvo does not wish to be found by him. Then again, the man may not have even realized before this that he was lost.
A heavy thudding weight descends upon him, a flash of a dark coat, heavy fabric draping across his body. The metal blade against his throat is too familiar. Too terrifying. By instinct he thought long-forgotten, he opens his mouth to scream, his body tense and staticky. Run, run, run. There is blood pounding in his ears, louder than the silence of the Void.
“Who are you?” Corvo hisses through gritted teeth, one hand clamped firmly over his mouth, the other holding the blade against the apple of his neck.
He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to answer through the gag of Corvo’s hand. His eyes must look wild and bright. Only now has his flight response started to ebb, though he feels soaked through with damp sweat. He’s certain were he to try and stand that his head would feel quite light. It’s better that he remain on his back.
Corvo pulls his hand away from his mouth, seemingly satisfied that his quarry cannot run and will not scream.
He takes a deep breath, trying to steady his voice and wrestle back some of the composure that might make him more recognizable as himself. “Exactly who you think I am.”
“No,” Corvo shakes his head, “it cannot be. It’s not possible.” For all his disbelief, Corvo retracts his blade. Though he does not otherwise shift his weight, using his bulkier body to keep him pinned in place.
“Who else would I be?” He is not sure what else might convince Corvo, if not his face. They have spent so little time together, even as Corvo lived through some fifteen years as one of his Marked. The dark lines that constituted his claim on Corvo are gone now, snatched away by Delilah with magics he knew existed, that he could have anticipated would be turned against him. Yet he did nothing to stop her.
Corvo frowns, “An imposter, an opportunist, has your face always looked like his? Or is it the work of a clever butcher?” He tisks, “nothing can be done about the eyes of course.” Corvo holds his hand out flat, palm down, hovering over his eyes as if to blot them out. Perhaps Corvo is trying to see just how closely his face matches to Corvo’s memories.
“Delilah took it from you,” he ventures, a little more confident now in what he might say to sway Corvo towards the truth. “It was a relief at first, I’m sure. To show your hand in public again. Except you would take it back, if Emily’s hand could be bare in exchange.”
Corvo’s eyes darken, his expression growing stern, on the cusp of anger. “Do not address the Empress as such.”
Despite the danger he may be in, he cannot help but fixate a bit too much on the sensation of Corvo’s body pressed tightly against his own, the weight and heat of it, the way Corvo shifts atop him. Since tumbling from the Void his senses always seem too sharp. Everything is too bright, too vibrant, too much. He only hopes the intensity dulls in time. Though right now there is the acute problem of how Corvo’s touch makes him feel alight all over.
“Why? I’ve never called her any different, except in jest,” he winces internally, hoping that his mistake is not obvious to Corvo. He doesn’t know if Emily would have shared much at all about the tone of their conversations. Even under great stress she is better humored than her father.
“Tell me something only he would know,” Corvo demands in a low voice. The tenor of it runs along his skin, stoking something dangerous.
He has to consider for a moment what would be the answer that Corvo is looking for. What will untie the knot of uncertainty sure to be tight and hard in Corvo’s chest. There must be something that Corvo is searching for specifically. Because, if nothing else, he believes that Corvo wishes to confirm this encounter as true.
“I never told you how scared I was, but I think you always knew,” there are so many other choices when it comes to secrets. Moments more specific and precise. Details that he could have only known from his past position as warden of the Void. Statements that would chill Corvo to the bone, others that might make him weep. But nothing else feels right. To play on Corvo’s emotions now would be too cruel. So, instead, he chooses to allow himself to be hurt in Corvo’s place.
He wishes that there were joyful promises between them, instead of tragedy stacked upon tragedy. Perhaps that can change now.
“How?” Corvo asks, finally sitting back on his heels and giving him the space he needs to sit up as well.
At least now his heart is not pounding quite so frantically, though he can still feel the ghosting of Corvo’s body against his. It’s easier to focus with the space between them, though he already aches to be close again.
“Billie Lurk, she found a way. Other than that, I do not know the precise nature of the magics that make me...so…” Truthfully, while becoming human once more was not outside the possibilities that he had witnessed, it was not a likely outcome when he set Billie upon her path. Death, a real death, was far more probable. His only wish was that he somehow be removed from his prison. There was no hope for anyone if that could not be achieved.
Standing tall, Corvo offers him a hand up. Corvo is not a small man by any means, but he stands a half-inch taller than the Royal Protector. The difference is much more obvious now as they stand facing one another. He tries to remember if the people he was first born among were taller than those of the Isles. Undoubtedly this is not the same body he once occupied. That one decayed over the intervening millenia. That corpse never reached the age he now resembles. Though his appearance is one that he has always assumed must look quite similar to what he would have achieved had he lived to adulthood.
“How long will it last?” Corvo asks. It becomes obvious that he doesn’t even understand what has happened.
“Permanent,” he tries to explain the best he can. “I am as human now as you are. There is no going back. It was this or death. And Billie chose this.”
“Human,” Corvo repeats the word as if there is innate magic in it. Perhaps there is. “Where is she now?”
He shakes his head, “Traveling, looking for an...old acquaintance of mine. Someone only she’ll be able to find. I told her to leave me here. That I would find you soon enough. The fissure in the Tower was inaccessible.”
“I suspect there is more,” Covos concedes. He does not ask what he means by ‘fissure,’ perhaps finally now resigned to taking him back to the tower where they may speak in private. “I have an appointment.”
Nodding, he offers, “I may accompany you, then? There is nothing that you might learn from your informant I would not have at one time known.” That isn’t strictly true.
Corvo lets out a heavy sigh, “I suppose,” Corvo holds out his arm, gesturing back towards the street, allowing him to walk a step ahead before catching up. “When did it happen?”
He laughs, “technically? Tomorrow.”
—
“There is the matter of what to call you,” Corvo broaches the subject of a name only after they are safely behind the heavy oaken door of his private chambers. Emily still has another engagement left this evening before they will have the chance to meet with her.
He frowns, “I’m afraid that my old name will be too cumbersome for the modern tongue.”
Corvo steps behind his desk, taking a decanter of whiskey from the bar cart, along with two glasses. He pours twice as much in one glass for himself, a smaller portion for his guest. “You also look far too much like the paintings. I’ve always wondered about that.”
He laughs, “Oh, I suppose you wanted to think yourself special? That you and only you knew for certain my appearance? You’ve always known I’m not particularly illusive. But I don’t think that matters much? I look sufficiently like I could be from the Isles. Mere coincidence that I happen to resemble the Outsider.”
Corvo passes him the glass before crossing both arms over his chest, his own whisky carefully grasped in one large hand. “But you’re not, are you. You’re not from the Isles at all.”
“No, but you know that. Everyone knows that, even if it’s only by way of myth. I was born on the Continent of course.”
“You’re very tall,” Corvo states the obvious. “And very beautiful.”
He rolls his eyes, as much as he might long to take both statements as compliments from the subject of his desires, Corvo is far too straightforward for that. It’s why he made a poor Spymaster, though he has always been excellent in his role as Royal Protector. The qualities that make a person good at one leads to abysmal performance in the other. Indeed, Corvo’s comment on his looks is more a statement of fact than a confession of lust.
“You’re very tall and handsome as well. I fail to see your point.”
“People will stare at you. And as they can recognize my face from the lithographs in the papers, they will know yours from the paintings by your devout,” Corvo explains.
He waves off Corvo’s concerns, “You’ve seen me as the Outsider with your own eyes and couldn’t believe it was actually me. When the truth is stranger than fiction, people will write their own stories. I’m not concerned.”
“I suppose,” Corvo concedes. He takes another sip from his glass.
Only then does he remember the tumbler Corvo offered him, growing warm in the heat of his grip.
The whiskey is not entirely unpleasant against his tongue, though he doubts he would seek it out himself. He knows this to be sort of an evening ritual for Corvo, and being included in it fills his chest with a pleasant lightness he cannot attribute entirely to the alcohol.
“Call me ‘Foster,’ I think. It is one of Billie’s aliases. She will find it funny.” Actually, she may be quite annoyed, but Foster will find that amusing.
“Foster,” Corvo tries out the name, “at least your name won’t draw attention. Do you have someplace to stay?”
Foster laughs, “Of course, I’ll stay here. As if you would want me out of your sight,” he teases.
Corvo concedes, “you’re right.” He crosses the room to ring the serving bell.
Corvo’s status means that no one will question that he has a guest. He instructs the servant who arrives to prepare a room. There are none on the same floor as the Royal Protector’s quarters, but as close as the staff can manage. Foster astutely hides his disappointment that two floors down is close enough, rather than Corvo doing something reckless like literally keeping him where he can see him at all times. Oh well.
Once Foster gets the chance to explain everything he doubts he’ll be spending much time at all in the Tower. But it will be nice to have a place to which he can return. Besides, he does not know how long Billie will be gone, and at which moment she might reappear. That is a conversation better left to when Emily can join them.
Corvo has left a note with her secretary to come to his chambers once he business is concluded. She never ignores a summons from her father, no matter how tired she might be.
Foster is sure that Corvo must have questions, but he holds them back. Instead they occupy their time together making a list of mundane items Foster will need now that he is mortal.
“Teeth really are the silliest of bones,” Foster laments. “They require too much care compared to the others.”
“Better that than to have an empty mouth by the time you’re thirty-five,” Corvo grumbles.
Tisking, Foster reminds him, “I’m four-thousand-something, young man.”
“But your teeth are not,” at least Corvo is in good humor. The whiskey probably helps.
Emily does not knock when she arrives. She has been Empress for a long time and to ask permission of anyone, her father included, would be unbecoming of her station. Her short-cropped hair is askew, the pomade she uses to keep it in place having worn out hours ago. The circles around her eyes are barely concealed with thin remnants of the powder she applied this morning. She looks exhausted and radiant and perfect. Foster finds her to be absolutely beautiful.
He rises to his feet, “Emily, darling.”
Her brown eyes go wide, her lips part. She only hesitates a moment before running the few quick steps that separate them with an uninhibited glee she throws her arms around his shoulders, coming up on her toes to reach him. Her hug is so tight and sure that Foster cannot help to return her enthusiasm. Several seconds pass before she starts to pull away, though only far enough that she can see his face. Her hands come up to hold his cheeks as her eyes bore into his pale ones, as if assessing whether or not this is true.
“I assumed something terrible had happened,” there is water in her eyes. “You look so different, but just the same.”
He wants so very much to kiss her, to prove that he is real. But her father would misinterpret the gesture. “Did you call on me?”
She nods, “four months ago. You did not answer. Though somehow I...made it to the Void. Or someplace somewhat like it.” She turns her attention away, drawing back her hand to unwrap the bandage around it. The dark fabric falls away and she turns her hand to show him the back. His Mark is mangled, broken. The skin around it blistered and red.
“Emily,” Corvo whispers. He did not know.
“There was nothing to be done about it,” she tries to soothe her father. “I thought if I could find you, I could figure out what had happened. You’d never failed to answer me, even before…” she hesitates. There are other things that Corvo doesn’t know. Like his speaking to Emily long before she took his Mark, in those long years Corvo never asked for him.
Emily takes another step back before tucking the discarded ribbon into her vest pocket. She will have to wrap it again before she leaves her father’s chambers. “What happened?”
Foster explains in brief the steps that Billie took to remove him from his prison. The story is not a flattering one for his character. He leaves aside the detail that he thought it a sort of...assisted suicide, rather than a second chance at life. Though he is admittedly pleased at the outcome.
“She is searching now for a man. One that we must find,” Foster finishes.
“Wait,” Corvo’s eyes are narrowed, assessing. While Foster and Emily have moved to the couch, sitting up in such a manner they can face each other, feet up on the cushions, Corvo has stayed standing, looming over the both of them. “You said something earlier. That this would not all happen until tomorrow. And Emily said that her Mark changed four months ago.”
“Yes,” Foster claps his hands together. “I supposed it had been about four months since all of this happened, tomorrow.” Perhaps now he is being deliberately obtuse just to bother Corvo.
“Time travel,” Emily supplies, “like the Timepiece you gave to me at Stilton’s manor. You’re jumping through the timeline.”
“More precisely Billie and our quarry are. I’m simply an interloper, a stowaway. I suspect I have some minor powers not afforded to other humans, but in the cosmic scheme of magics, Billie is near the apex now, I would think.”
“My magics still work,” Emily supplies, “but in a more limited capacity. As if I do not have access to as much power as I did before.”
“Your connection to the Void was through my gift,” admittedly, Foster can offer her no definitive conclusions, only his own speculations. “Perhaps the conduit is more narrow now, but not shut off to you entirely. I think it is the same for me.”
“Emily, you told me of what happened at the manor. But you could only travel to one moment in time...and does this mean that there will be a second one of you appearing as a mortal tomorrow?”
“No,” Foster replies, reasonably certain. “Time is not as linear as you may think. There is only one of each of us. Perhaps you might call it a spirit? Anything else is just a memory. A phantom. When Emily returned to the party at Stilton’s manor, the Empress of two years ago was...uninhabited, a shell. The time Emily spent crossing over was very brief, a few hours at most. So it made little difference. The same I suspect will be true of the ‘me’ saved tomorrow. The motions will occur, but my and Billie’s sprits have already moved on.”
“Where is she now?” At least Emily is not dwelling on the metaphysics. “You said she’s searching for someone.”
Foster explains, “Yes, a man I only ever saw glimpses of. He is able to pass through time at will. Like nothing I’ve seen before, like nothing I have ever been able to gift a human.”
“Who is he?” Emily asks.
He wishes he had an answer for her. “I do not know. Billie and I refer to him as the Traveler. It is a name I have heard others call him as well. I have perhaps seen him a dozen times over the last four thousand years. Only ever in brief flashes. He was a younger man once, but he has since grown old. Frail in appearance, if not in constitution. After the extinguishing of Delilah...he has grown bold.” Shaking his head, Foster admits, “I do not know his purpose for certain. There are no gods left in this world. That much I know. Maybe once, long ago, before my birth, they existed. And we are all rats fighting over scraps of power. Maybe he is just another vermin.”
“Then why does he matter?” Corvo questions.
“Why, because pests bring plague, of course.”
—
There is little any of them can accomplish regarding the topic of the Traveler before Billie’s return. She may arrive any moment at all, or make them wait a lifetime. Only one twin-bladed knife exists, and she is the one to wield it. Without the edge to tear apart the seams, what little magic Foster can still conjure cannot allow them to cross the barrier of time.
So, instead, they occupy themselves with the typical niceties of Tower life. Emily and Corvo are quite busy indeed, and Foster is mostly left to his own devices. He is not often bored, as there is much about living he wishes to learn. A simple word from the Empress gives him free reign of the Tower grounds. And he is seen enough in the Royal Protector’s company that the guards do not question his comings and goings.
As much as Corvo is able he invites Foster to his office. Corvo sorts through missives at his desk, while Foster tears through Emily’s collection of light novels. Their companionship is a steady thing, something that Foster much enjoys. Corvo appears increasingly comfortable with his presence, perhaps placated that no one has said a thing about how Foster resembles the Outsider. At least not to his face.
The comfort that has bloomed between them in a matter of days, stretching into one week, then the next, makes feel Foster bold. Corvo has not denied him much at all. Then again, he has asked for very little.
So, one evening, Foster thinks a bit of teasing may be in order. He is still nursing the one glass of whiskey he shares with Corvo, who may take two or three in the same amount of time. The steady scratch of Corvo’s pen against paper has lulled Foster’s senses somewhat. He still thinks that stimuli affect him more acutely than they should, but he has a better hold on his reactions with each passing day.
From the time on the clock face maybe twenty minutes remain before Corvo will decide it is time to retire. He is always exceedingly polite when he wishes Foster to bed. Tonight Foster plans to wish for something different.
Rising from his place on the couch, Foster stretches his arms high above his head. Emily’s personal tailor has produced a wardrobe of clothing for him, all in proper fashion for the age, the youth of his face, and the slimness of his figure. The shirt he wears is somewhat cropped, the trousers beneath high waisted in compensation. Still, as he lifts his hands high, he knows a stretch of skin along his trim waist is visible. He hopes now that Corvo knows as well.
“Tired?” Corvo asks, looking up from the documents spread out before him. “Do not stay on my account. You should go to bed.”
Seizing his opportunity, Foster takes a step towards Corvo’s desk, then two. He plants his hands firmly on the tabletop, leaning over so that Corvo might see where the top button of his shirt has come undone. “Perhaps,” he teases.
Corvo at least looks up at him, though the expression on his face is not easily deciphered. Foster wishes to believe it looks a bit like curiosity. Corvo reaches again for his whiskey glass with cool composure, leaning back in his chair to shift the angle from which he observes Foster’s advances. At least it’s not a rejection.
“You could-“ Foster starts, before a loud whirring noise comes roaring from somewhere behind him, quickly giving way to a screeching hiss.
Corvo is on his feet, already drawing his blade to ready. A swirling mass of fog bursts forth not ten paces from where Foster stands. Rushing ahead, Corvo puts himself in between Foster and the anomaly. But all too soon the room is quiet once again.
“I think it’s Billie!” Foster exclaims. “She’s trying to come through, but something is stopping her.” It makes sense. The size of the mass was similar to the fissures he’s seen her tear. There are other explanations, perhaps. But Billie seems the most logical one. “She needs somewhere the membrane is thinner…she had trouble arriving within the Tower walls before.”
There’s no need for further speculation, as Billie herself emerges from Corvo’s bedroom. She looks little worse for wear, dressed smartly in grays and blacks, her arcane eye a dull, cloudy red set against the lovely brown of her skin. “I miscalculated,” she offers. “Once I moved closer to Corvo’s collection of charms, it worked a great deal better.” She sheathes the twin-blade.
Despite the interruption to Foster’s current machinations, he is overjoyed to see her well. He stops short of hugging her, though the temptation is there. “What news?” he asks.
“I cannot help but feel the Traveler can anticipate my every move. I find evidence of his presence, but never the man himself. Small cadres of followers that poison themselves before I can get too close, changes in the membrane of time, allowing me to trespass where I could not before… What we need some means to corner him,” Billie explains.
“Do you have any idea when he will next appear?” Foster asks, though it may be too much to hope.
Billie shakes her head, “no, but I have a different idea. I believe I know his...point of origin. A time before he became theTraveler. But without his connection to the Void, I cannot track him easily. And I’m afraid if I go alone, he’ll only slip through my fingers again. We must cast a wider net.”
“Well, I will come with you, of course,” Foster would have it no other way. This man will cause great devastation if left unchecked, he is sure of it.
“As will I,” Corvo offers, “if it is possible?”
Billie looks at him, lips slightly parted, as if unsure. Certainly she knows that she is capable. Instead, she must assess if she wants Corvo’s assistance. “Yes,” she replies. “You should tell the Empress. I cannot promise to return you to this exact moment. But that is a bridge to later cross.”
Inclining his head towards Billie in a polite nod, Corvo excuses himself to go find his daughter. Undoubtedly she will want to go on this journey as well. But the stakes are too high. Foster is absolutely certain that the Kaldwin line must prevail. The other factions, frothing at the mouth to seize power, were there to be a crisis of succession, are all horrid, wretched opportunists.
After Corvo has left, Billie comments that he looks good, “better, than when I last saw you.”
Foster cannot help but roll his eyes, “I took your name, you know? We’re siblings now.”
It’s her turn to look upon him with disdain, “Yes, surely that is to be believed.”
“Your father did quite like strays,” he counters.
“Daud abhorred you in the end. He wanted me to kill you.”
“And you didn’t. Really a shame how easily fathers turn on their sons. Not so with their daughters.”
That at least elicits a laugh from Billie.
Corvo returns, indeed muttering that he had to talk Emily down from joining them.
“There is someone else who will help us,” Billie explains, “I have already taken her to our destination. She is preparing what we will need in order to move about without arousing suspicion.”
Corvo pointedly looks at Billie’s eye, then her hand, then Foster’s face, then his own hands. Yes indeed, there are a great many things suspicious about each one of them.
Sighing heavily, Billie offers “you’ll see,” by way of explanation.