Ludo hasn’t moved. (That matters. That means something.) Still as ever, but not impassive, anything but impassive. Because isn’t the man keen beneath his calm? Hasn’t Daud felt from the start that Ludo sees and Ludo listens further, deeper than most? And now. Now he remains the way Katrina had remained, and both of these facts, occurrences are more than Daud deserves. Ludo’s here.
He’s listening.
All right.
For a long stretch of moments, Daud only watches Ludo, fixed on the man’s face, his eyes, every quiet tell of his expression. (His own face feels unstill, uncharacteristically given to twitches, to short sniffs and minute shifts of one muscle or another. Impossible to keep collected with such a telling, before such a man. Impossible to feign quiet when he feels so wholly dis-eased.) How easy it would be to linger here, say no more, let silence take its course. How easy it might be to remain here, only held within this man’s regard.
He has to look away or he won’t finish. (Finish. As if the telling could ever be complete.) His eyes find a corner of the room, abstracting the image into a corner everywhere. Don’t think of this specifically s Ludo’s place. Don’t think of this as anywhere at all. Only continue. Only speak again.
“The last job I took,” not the last job, no, but the last job that mattered, the last job that lingers with him, the job the changed everything, “should have been simple enough.”
Should have been. Only it was different. ’The governess was different.’ The words the black-eyed bastard of a god had echoed back to him, arch and disapproving, offering one final chance at, what? Not recompense, not salvation, but some chance to salve the smallest fracture of all the wounds he’d driven. Some chance to shift his actions. (Not that the Outsider had offered Delilah’s name out of altruism. Not that the bastard had expected Daud to do anything save drench himself deeper in blood. How surprised the god had been. How he’s been silent ever since.)
Now his left fist clenches. Now his teeth grit.
“I was hired to kill,” how that word burns him now, though he speaks it easily enough, though the old language comes back to him as if he’d never stopped speaking blood, “the governess of Dunwall. Kidnap her daughter. How my contractors acted beyond that - what they planned to do with the city - was none of my concern.” What they planned to do with the city. With the plague running wretched through its streets. With the daughter (Emily, her name was Emily, and if vague rumors speak the truth, she’s reigning now and strong, her father at her side). Nothing, nothing, nothing had been compassed within his concern.
“I completed the mission. My Whalers and I.” There it is. The word, them, the ones he’d gathered (and the ones he’d left behind, and where, what are they now (where is she, the one who betrayed him, the one who should have betrayed him), what could they have made out of their lives?). Another word he hasn’t spoken in years, and if he dwells too long on its feeling, he’ll become lost in all of this. Another world, it was all another life, but no, no, such separation would be too simple. “But after…” He shakes his head, a rough motion. It wasn’t only after; it was in the moment, in the motion of delivering her death blow, but that’s no detail to share right now. That’s unburdening; not explaining. “It wasn’t the same. I knew what I was.
“I fled Dunwall six months later. Was exiled. Shown mercy by—” Half a shrug; that’s another detail, another piece that would beg elaboration, would open up further avenues of recounting that don’t suit here and now. The story of Corvo, like the story of Delilah and Emily, is a telling for another time, if ever. “I’ve been running ever since. Trying to…” Find silence. Find a way of rewriting himself. Find new ways of becoming. Trying to not be what he was.
“To leave my old life behind.
“I almost thought I’d succeeded. By the time I arrived in Sleepy Hollow, it’d been years since I… I don’t ever forget what I’ve done. But it’d been years since I spoke through violence. Years since anybody recognized me, years since I felt—” The heft of a honed blade. The ease of murder. The artful approach toward a target’s unknowing back, the simple solution of a strike, the call to kill.
He feels sick. Might be going paler still. And still, he can’t look at the man before him. Won’t look, because looking means pausing means safety means halting this, this point he’s moving toward.
“Recently, I’ve come into proximity with the man who provided coin for the Empress’s death.” What Melville Pendleton is doing alive and unmarred in Manhattan is a question that’s crossed Daud’s mind time and again since Katrina’s marriage was announced. Then again, what Daud’s doing alive and unmarred on this earth is a question he’s often not able to answer.
“It’s crossed my mind that— That New York would be better without him.” Without him. Without his family. Without the damage they might do to Katrina.
“I won’t— I don’t intend to. Do anything.” He doesn’t. Though he might have, mere months ago. Though he still could, if the case required it. If Katrina’s safety required it.
“But it’s been on my mind. For months now. It isn’t… I can’t say it’s beyond possibility. And knowing that the thought exists…
“I’ve been distant. Haven’t known whether to—” Another silence, still staring off, and then, then, daring to look at the man.
no subject
He’s listening.
All right.
For a long stretch of moments, Daud only watches Ludo, fixed on the man’s face, his eyes, every quiet tell of his expression. (His own face feels unstill, uncharacteristically given to twitches, to short sniffs and minute shifts of one muscle or another. Impossible to keep collected with such a telling, before such a man. Impossible to feign quiet when he feels so wholly dis-eased.) How easy it would be to linger here, say no more, let silence take its course. How easy it might be to remain here, only held within this man’s regard.
He has to look away or he won’t finish. (Finish. As if the telling could ever be complete.) His eyes find a corner of the room, abstracting the image into a corner everywhere. Don’t think of this specifically s Ludo’s place. Don’t think of this as anywhere at all. Only continue. Only speak again.
“The last job I took,” not the last job, no, but the last job that mattered, the last job that lingers with him, the job the changed everything, “should have been simple enough.”
Should have been. Only it was different. ’The governess was different.’ The words the black-eyed bastard of a god had echoed back to him, arch and disapproving, offering one final chance at, what? Not recompense, not salvation, but some chance to salve the smallest fracture of all the wounds he’d driven. Some chance to shift his actions. (Not that the Outsider had offered Delilah’s name out of altruism. Not that the bastard had expected Daud to do anything save drench himself deeper in blood. How surprised the god had been. How he’s been silent ever since.)
Now his left fist clenches. Now his teeth grit.
“I was hired to kill,” how that word burns him now, though he speaks it easily enough, though the old language comes back to him as if he’d never stopped speaking blood, “the governess of Dunwall. Kidnap her daughter. How my contractors acted beyond that - what they planned to do with the city - was none of my concern.” What they planned to do with the city. With the plague running wretched through its streets. With the daughter (Emily, her name was Emily, and if vague rumors speak the truth, she’s reigning now and strong, her father at her side). Nothing, nothing, nothing had been compassed within his concern.
“I completed the mission. My Whalers and I.” There it is. The word, them, the ones he’d gathered (and the ones he’d left behind, and where, what are they now (where is she, the one who betrayed him, the one who should have betrayed him), what could they have made out of their lives?). Another word he hasn’t spoken in years, and if he dwells too long on its feeling, he’ll become lost in all of this. Another world, it was all another life, but no, no, such separation would be too simple. “But after…” He shakes his head, a rough motion. It wasn’t only after; it was in the moment, in the motion of delivering her death blow, but that’s no detail to share right now. That’s unburdening; not explaining. “It wasn’t the same. I knew what I was.
“I fled Dunwall six months later. Was exiled. Shown mercy by—” Half a shrug; that’s another detail, another piece that would beg elaboration, would open up further avenues of recounting that don’t suit here and now. The story of Corvo, like the story of Delilah and Emily, is a telling for another time, if ever. “I’ve been running ever since. Trying to…” Find silence. Find a way of rewriting himself. Find new ways of becoming. Trying to not be what he was.
“To leave my old life behind.
“I almost thought I’d succeeded. By the time I arrived in Sleepy Hollow, it’d been years since I… I don’t ever forget what I’ve done. But it’d been years since I spoke through violence. Years since anybody recognized me, years since I felt—” The heft of a honed blade. The ease of murder. The artful approach toward a target’s unknowing back, the simple solution of a strike, the call to kill.
He feels sick. Might be going paler still. And still, he can’t look at the man before him. Won’t look, because looking means pausing means safety means halting this, this point he’s moving toward.
“Recently, I’ve come into proximity with the man who provided coin for the Empress’s death.” What Melville Pendleton is doing alive and unmarred in Manhattan is a question that’s crossed Daud’s mind time and again since Katrina’s marriage was announced. Then again, what Daud’s doing alive and unmarred on this earth is a question he’s often not able to answer.
“It’s crossed my mind that— That New York would be better without him.” Without him. Without his family. Without the damage they might do to Katrina.
“I won’t— I don’t intend to. Do anything.” He doesn’t. Though he might have, mere months ago. Though he still could, if the case required it. If Katrina’s safety required it.
“But it’s been on my mind. For months now. It isn’t… I can’t say it’s beyond possibility. And knowing that the thought exists…
“I’ve been distant. Haven’t known whether to—” Another silence, still staring off, and then, then, daring to look at the man.
“I thought you should know.”