dishonored meme

[wolfofdunwall]

***

a dishonored meme

'ever since the empress died, it's been getting darker in dunwall. but it's that moment just before the light goes that matters most of all.'

the isles are caught amid fractious days, and you find yourself living among them. perhaps - probably - you’ve lived here all your life. perhaps you’ve been brought here by some magical means. whatever the case, you’ve made or will make a life among the isles.

if you were born in or around the isles, what’s your lot in life? are you nobility? a person of great means? a member of the city watch? a shipmate? an inventor? perhaps a civilian just trying to make your way through the rat plague. perhaps a thief, a gang member, an assassin. perhaps a witch or a devotee of the outsider, or perhaps an overseer, scourge of the occult.

when you comment, add a little bit about who your character is in the dishonored world. what your occupation is (if you have one), what you think about recent events, what you tend to do with your days. (if you want to give multiple options re: who they are, feel free!)

you might also want to offer some prompts: scenario ideas, picture prompts, quotes, words, whatever you like.

Comments

2: 2 and 4

[riveres]

Oscar has known nothing but the Whalers for most of his remembered life. He remembers being terrified of the masked beings that used to follow him on the street. He thought they were a gang out to prey on him until one of them gave him a fresh apple nicked from a nobles pantry. It's was easy, but Oscar was painfully hungry. Eventually, they led him straight to Daud, who offered him a place among them. He accepted because there were little other choices, you either died on the streets here or join with the people that ruled them. He knew little else at the time. But soon, he knew what they did.

Assassinations. It should have bothered him. He should have turned away... but he didn't, it was all he knew. The fact there was food and some amount of shelter helped and the Whalers were in some part... like a family to him. (One that dealt in death, but still a family, nonetheless.)

Years soon pass and Oscar has gone from a gofer to a scout, to an accomplice, to an assassin in his own right. He's not the starving kid in the streets anymore, but some things still remain. When the boy feels lost he finds a rooftop few can find and sits there, looking up at the moon.

Things have... changed since their leader took the (admittedly huge, even for them) job of killing a sitting Empress. Everyone else seemed to celebrate it as a sign that they ruled the shadows of this rotten city, but Oscar isn't so sure. (Plus Billie is off somewhere, and he feels the loss of her.)

He doesn't claim to know what their leader thinks, but there's just something in the air.

Just something.

[wolfofdunwall]

It's hard to shake the feeling that everything's falling apart. Lately - ever since Jessamine, ever since that ill-fated contract - the ground itself seems to've gone unsteady. With Billie's departure, he feels that uncertainty more than ever.

He knows what the Whalers have been saying about her. That there's been a mix of tales true and otherwise concerning her sudden disappearance. Some say she'd been sent on a mission. Some that she'd gone to form her own gang. Others tell the truth of it: that she'd betrayed her brethren and been sent into exile, spared by a leader whose actions are becoming more and more inexplicable. He's heard their mutterings: that he's gone soft, that he should have taken Billie's life. (A thought he hadn't entertained for a moment. An action he wouldn't take, not against her, certainly not after everything that's happened.) He watches them closely, hardly pays it any mind.

He's all too aware of her absence. He tries not to dwell on it. Tries not to think about the way he feels surrounded by absences these days, spaces where something's been wrenched away. Spaces where he doesn't feel like himself and can't make contact with himself. What's he meant to do in all of this?

Find Delilah. End her calamitous plan.

The pieces are coming together, the outline of a raid beginning to form. If he can deal with her. If he can follow this trail to it's end, maybe then... What? There's no use in guessing; he'll find out when the time comes.

Tonight what he wants is silence, space to consider his next move without the distraction of Whalers whispering from the next room, without the feeling that he's being watched. No one watches as carefully as Billie had, but he knows the assassins are uneasy, seeking signs of what's gone wrong and what's to come, maybe seeking their chance to have a try at him. (Let them come if they like; however off-kilter he feels, he's lost none of his edge, none of his ability to end a fight with a few bare strikes.)

He transverses from roof to roof, moving far afield from the base, until he spots someone on the roof ahead. One of his own, and it takes mere moments to determine who. Masked or not, he knows each of his Whalers by figure and footfall, posture and minute gesture.

It's no surprise to find Oscar so far removed from the others. From the beginning he'd preferred to keep his own company. (He's like Billie that way. Like her too in his capacity for speaking plainly of a situation.) He's a worthy assassin, proves himself further with each mission. And it occurs to Daud that his might not be the worst company to keep tonight, if only for a moment.

When he appears on the next roof, he clears his throat, gives the boy time to register his presence before stepping forward, toward the roof's edge. Though he keeps Oscar in his periphery, his focus settles on the flooded ruins before them.

"You're far from home."

[riveres]

Oscar has heard the rumors, the whispers going on. The last of these disheartens him, not only because Billie, Billie had betrayed them but in the possible aftermath he's heard talking about overthrowing Daud out the possibility that he spared her. This is what it takes for disloyalty to happen, just doubt. The only family he's known might be broken apart for this. Also, their Leader is the only link to the powers that they have. A direct link, mind. Without him, they would be nothing but glorified murderers in gas masks. (And it's not like Oscar himself didn't think about attempting to call The Outsider himself to get that mark, just in case anything should happen to Daud. Powers or none, he's human and an assassin. Especially now, seeing as their leader killed an Empress. Someone is bound to want revenge or sweep them away to cover their tracks, Jessamine was loved by the people but surrounded by snakes. And the fact is they as a people in this profession aren't expected to live long, despite what his own fellow Whalers think.) Oscar hears the telltale rasp of his throat clearing. He figures if anyone could find this place he comes over to think, it's Daud. He stops looking at the moon to look at Daud. He tries to not automatically salute in sight of him. No one else is here, there's no need for an outward show of respect. "I know, I come here sometimes to think and be alone. Promise not to tell anyone about it?" He loves the Whalers like his own family, but sometimes he needs time alone. Especially now that Thomas is the new second in command and he's been scouting for him on his missions lately. Leading to Oscar inheriting the friction amongst his fellow assassins Thomas has been getting lately. Sometimes, he misses Billie. When she was around, no one was jockeying for power. Or maybe he has just naive enough to believe in that.

[wolfofdunwall]

It's true that things were more stable before Billie's departure. More stable still before Jessamine's death and Daud's subsequent strangeness. For years, no Whaler would have dared to question Daud's authority, or even to stir much trouble among the lower ranks. His assassins had trusted him implicitly (many - or is it several? - still do, or want to), and while Daud had always known that some day his rule would end, that day had seemed far distant. Certainly, none among the assassins would have thought to try their strength against his, not when they knew what he could do, what powers he held.

Daud doubts that this boy is among the ones who've been chorusing in mutinous whispers. Oscar's deadly when pitted against outsiders, but among his fellow Whalers, he seems to lack malice. Seems more than others to take them as brethren. (Which makes a kind of sense, perhaps. The boy was the youngest recruit Daud's ever accepted, brought in partly due to Thomas's unceasing requests. Has known the Whalers for over half his life.) And if Oscar's like Billie in his preference for distance, the boy's like Thomas in his unerring loyalty, the formalities that spring from apparent earnestness.

He turns his head toward Oscar, quickly looks him over. The boy makes a lonely figure in the moonlight, though that's a useless thought, means little (lately, he's been plagued by useless thoughts, idle observations and sentiments that serve as distractions, nothing more). If Daud were in a less abstracted mood, he might have raised an eyebrow at the boy's question. As it is, he only turns his gaze back to the ruins around.

"They don't need to know of it.

"It's quiet."

[riveres]

Oscar would never betray the man that gave him a home, a place to be, a family to have. If the mutiny started tomorrow, Oscar would be one of the first to quell the rebellion as soon as it starts. (It would involve killing fellow Whalers he's known since he was a child, but his loyalty to the whalers as a group is far greater than any individual ties. He's sure Thomas would say the same.) He's glad Daud will keep this private place of his own private, it means he can still have a few moments to himself even with all the whispers and doubt going about the gang. "Precisely. It's why I come up here. Sometimes... I need time to myself to think. Do you need me? Has anything gone wrong Master?" After all, it does seem a little suspicious that he would come here.

[wolfofdunwall]

Daud mostly trusts to Oscar's loyalty, though he would hardly blame the boy for turning if the time came. Eventually all leadership is overthrown, and the stronger rise up to take control. It's a fact Daud's accepted for years, though now that the one he'd expected to succeed - expected she'd succeed years from now, when his own strength would be waning - is in exile, he's not sure how to feel about any of this.

And those words. 'Has anything gone wrong.' A question Daud can hardly begin to answer for himself, certainly can't answer in front of any of his assassins. The answer would be too ranging, deeper than he cares to think. So he pulls out a cigarette, lighting it in a practiced motion. Takes a draw.

"No. I would have summoned you if I did."

Really, he doesn't need to flee so far to find silence anymore. Over the past six months, he'd become accustomed to having Billie on his tail, trailing him so keen it could take half an hour or more to lose her. Now that she's gone, there's little risk in keeping closer to base. The other Whalers watch, yes, but theirs is a more distant observation, better satisfied hanging back (then, too, Billie was perhaps the only one he'd have accepted such tailing from).

"We can all use a little quiet."