Warnings: References to gore and suicide in the second (high chaos) half of the fic.
Author's Notes: Written for nervouscatcolor for the Fugue Feast in July. The prompt was "Emily draws the Loyalists (gen)". Many thanks to thaliatimsh for looking it over for me :).
As used as Corvo was to pain, some days it would take more than food, elixir, and a long, fitful sleep for him to recover from a wound. Some days Piero's nimble fingers, the cleansing sting of cheap whiskey, and a hot bath were not enough. Some days, not even the gifts of a black-eyed, near amoral god could help.
Some days it took a reminder of what he was fighting for.
.
Corvo stirred at the stroke of short, gentle fingers through his hair long before he heard the whisper, "Corvo? Mister Corvo?"
Much as he would have preferred to carry on sleeping, Corvo could not help but smile at Emily's concerned tone, and he forced his eyes open with some effort. "Yes, my lady?"
"I brought you something," Emily said, pointing at a small stack of papers she had left on the dressing table. "Piero said you had a fever but that it wasn't catching, but I had to make sure you were getting better. You are getting better, aren't you, Corvo?"
"I am," Corvo said, and when Emily gave him a suspicious frown, added, "I promise. I just need to rest first."
Emily frowned harder before nodding and bending to kiss his forehead. "Get well soon," she said, and gave his hair a few more strokes before she straightened up, ready to leave for her own bed. "I love you."
.
Once a half-decent sleep had given Corvo the energy to sit up again, looking through Emily's pictures made waiting for his fever to break bearable. She had a talent for capturing people's personalities in her art, sometimes venturing into caricature, and Corvo couldn't help but laugh at some of the images she had conjured up.
There were drawings of Pendleton fawning after a disinterested Waverly Boyle, Havelock bellowing at a group of terrified sailors, Martin flirting with himself in a mirror, and it was not just the central loyalists who received such treatment.
Emily had drawn Piero in a nest of wires and cogs, hunched over blueprints while Lydia dusted the mess with a helpless expression. Wallace had been drawn catching glasses as a disembodied arm, presumably Pendleton's, tossed them aside, and Samuel sitting in his boat as a pack of winged rats flew overhead, looking entirely unsurprised.
At first Corvo thought Cecelia had been left out and felt a small pang of second-hand guilt, but he soon realised the quiet girl had her own place too - in nearly every picture, in fact. Emily had chosen to draw Cecelia as a pair of eyes peeking out from under a hat, like a peculiar hermit crab, and hidden her in most of her drawings; one in particular showed her scurrying away from Havelock in the middle of a speech that had sent everyone else to sleep.
Emily had not left him out, either. Corvo's stomach had dropped out when he first saw a pile of city watchmen in the corner of her drawing before he noticed the little "Zzzz" sound effects scattered around the image, and he settled further realising that he was punching his way through her sketches, not stabbing.
The image of him drop-kicking Hiram Burrows in the face made him at once laugh and feel sick; the man had orchestrated Jessamine's death and deserved far, far worse, but Emily was still kind enough to hate a person without needing them to die.
He had fantasised about showing his face to Hiram before snapping his neck, letting him know who had brought down his stolen throne, watching the hope leave his eyes - but if keeping his hands clean let Emily stay innocent, it wasn't a fantasy worth holding onto.
Emily drew him like a hero, and he did not want to prove her wrong.
In a different time, something resembling a lithe young man picked up Emily's drawings and flicked through the pages with a smile. The young empress had found herself kidnapped once more, locked away with nothing for company but pencils and paper, and had taken out her frustrations on those kidnappers the only way that she could.
The details were gruesome and beautiful, much like the brown and red and black, black, black drawings she had left at the Hound Pits for her father, and the Outsider could not resist tracing the details with damp fingertips.
Lord Pendleton squirming on the floor in agony, one snake latched onto his neck and another burrowing into his belly.
High Overseer Martin, his head a bloody mess with smoke rising from its remains, his finger still on a trigger he had pulled himself.
Lord Regent Havelock, falling from high rigging towards a hard and unforgiving deck as she and Corvo watched from the crow's nest.
The Outsider considered each image in turn, a world of possibilities opening up before him, and decided they were outcomes he would like to see. He could not dictate the future, but he could influence those responsible for it, and Corvo had been a delight to watch.
Emily was showing an imagination as vivid as her father's, and had earned a taste of what he could offer; Pendleton could be made to die by the company he kept, Martin by his own hand in a final moment of honesty, Havelock by his arrogant recklessness.
The papers crisped, blackened, then turned to ash in his hand as he stole their imagery for the Void, and the Outsider bent to kiss Emily's forehead.
"Your father would be proud of you," he whispered, and dusted his hands clean.