Author's Notes: Using the Spector Club (Death of the Outsider) as an example, I'm leaning on the idea that "sanguine infusions" are evidence of blood transfusion technology in Dishonored. In this steampunk universe, there's no plastic (if you think of an IV bag, for example), but I suppose "rubber tubing" might be a believable alternative to plastic (as natural rubber is harvested from rubber trees! Who knew?). But let's say no one knows about blood types, so I'm making up a "universal donor" type magic-blood called "Piero's Plasma" (playing off "Piero's Spiritual Remedy" for mana replenishment) since I'm kind of bored with just using "Sokolov's Remedy" for everything! (lol).

Part IV continued

"Schism"

Chapter 37

The Pandyssian woke with a start, his whole body jerking as he twisted in the sand. It scared me half to death! His head turned towards my crotch, his nose dipping between my thighs.

I gasped and felt my cheeks flush. The heat of his breath sent my mind places I wasn't ready to go as he grunted something unintelligible, panic-choked and wild with fear.

"It's me! It's Emily. You're safe," I said, patting his shoulder awkwardly.

His hands clawed into the sand on either side of my hips, like he was trying to dig himself an escape route, but upon hearing my voice he suddenly stilled and lifted his head.

"Emily?"

He rolled off my lap, his silken black hair falling over his eyes, his muscles taunt and straining as my father's black coat slipped away from his body like a blanket that had suddenly become too hot, too suffocating.

"Yes, it's Emily. You're safe."

He looked up at me with wide, disoriented eyes, like he had just woken from a dream and couldn't tell what was real.

"Emily," he said again, but it didn't sound like a question. He was calming himself down.

"Yes," I answered, too breathy.

I was just as startled as he was, my heart pounding, my eyes glued to his face. My crotch burning.

I'd been lost in the moment, just watching the waves in a strange bliss, a feeling of great calm suffusing over my limbs like a numbing salve. I hadn't tried to move or think. I'd just sat there on the beach, quiet, breathing, watching the rise and fall of my father's chest and absently stroking the Pandyssian's hair, waiting for the rowboat. For rescue. Meagan and Dougal were coming, riding the glistening waves to shore.

I'd felt almost pleasantly lethargic––having not gotten much sleep over the last few nights, thanks to Delilah––but the Pandyssian's rude awakening had jolted me out of my reverie of sand, wind, and water, and straight into his eyes.

He had that look on his face again, like his first instinct was to run, and it only intensified when his green eyes darted over my father. The Pandyssian scrambled away from me, staying low, half-sitting on his heels. He was naked, but having never seen him fully dressed, it seemed oddly normal.

I was careful not to make any sudden movements. "Please don't go," I said. "I won't hurt you."

"Is he dead?"

For a moment, I just stared at him, uncomprehending. He tilted his head, scrutinizing my father in a manner so reminiscent of the Outsider that I had to shake myself.

"What?" I blurted.

"Look. The sand is drinking his blood."

Like a lightning bolt, I scurried across the sand on hands and knees and shook Corvo's arm, yelling, "Wake up, Father! Wake up! Oh, gods…" His jaw was slack and his breathing had turned shallow. When?! Foolish, Emily! I berated myself for letting myself drift off into la, la land. I threaded my fingers through the sand at his side, the black granules sticky with dark blood. He was losing too much blood!

"No, no, no, no," I cried in a delirious panic. I slapped his cheek several times and when he groaned in response I exhaled in relief, fear caught in my throat. "Void, thank you! He's still alive…"

But his eyes wouldn't open, and his skin felt clammy and cold. I lifted the round of his shoulder to check the exit wound on his back, but it was still fully clotted, thanks to Doctor Toksvig's application of Sokolov's Elixir.

How was he still losing so much blood?!

In the distance, I heard the gritty sound of wood grinding against rough sand as the rowboat came ashore. "Meagan!" I screamed. "Hurry!"

She raced towards me, the faster of the two as Dougal was weighed down by a heavy crate clutched between his arms. At their rapid approach, the Pandyssian tensed up, but at that point I didn't care if he ran or stayed.

"He's losing blood!" I shouted as Meagan reached us. "He's been shot!"

Her dark eyes were calm as she pushed me aside. "Move, Emily. I got this."

I slid over, half-falling, sitting further down with my hand pressed to Father's leg, afraid that if I didn't hold on he would slip away. I watched his face with my fist balled against my mouth, my teeth biting down hard. Oh, gods, please don't take my father away from me! I distantly felt a warm hand on my back, the Pandyssian silently crouched beside me at Corvo's feet.

He was staying by my side, after all.

"Right here," the Captain ordered as Dougal reached us. He dropped the heavy crate and listened to her steady instructions.

Meagan worked efficiently, grabbing medical supplies from the crate and calmly giving Dougal orders. Do this, do that. Dougal set up a tall wire stand; it held a little metal cage at the top into which he placed a glass cylinder and poured liquid from a purple-glazed triangular bottle.

Meanwhile, Meagan cut away the cloth from Corvo's arm with a dagger, slashing quickly and accurately. As she looked for a vein in his arm, I rubbed Corvo's leg, my eyes willing his chest to rise and fall. He was barely breathing, his face deathly pale beneath the spatter of blood.

Dougal slapped his Royal Spymaster across the face several times until his rat eyes blinked rapidly. "Stay with us, Corvo," he said, urgent and loud, as Meagan brought a sharp, hollow needle to his arm and slid into a visible blue vein along his inner elbow.

With the line set, Meagan threaded her fingers along the rubber tubing and checked the seal that connected it to the glass cylinder hanging above Corvo's head on the wire stand. A dark blue liquid sloshed inside: Piero's Plasma.

I watched it run through the rubber tubing, straight into Corvo's veins.

"Try it now," Meagan said, nodding at Dougal. She fell back with a heavy sigh, wiping her dark brow.

With a grim nod, Dougal leaned over my father, a giant blocking the sun. He cradled the back of my father's head with his giant hand and poured a red vial of Sokolov's Elixir into his slack mouth.

Corvo was beyond Sokolov's Elixir––too close to the edge to pull back without a blood transfusion, but now that Piero's Plasma was pumping through his veins, he had a real chance… Doctor Toksvig had said no arteries were hit, but Corvo was crashing too fast, too hard for something not to be terribly wrong.

The last bit of elixir spilled over his lips.

Corvo sputtered, choking, as he pushed Dougal's hand away with a weak swat.

"Get off me," he gruffly growled, wincing in pain as his head fell back, his breath coming fast. He was tensing up, alarmed by the four of us crowding around him.

"I'm here," I said, squeezing his leg, trying to calm him, but his rat eyes were drowned in confusion. When he fought to sit up, Dougal pressed down on his good shoulder.

"Don't try to move, Lord Corvo," Dougal said in that gentle, calm voice of his.

Rat eyes, pitch black and bloodshot, rolled back as Corvo crashed again, losing consciousness. The blotchy bruises around his nose were vividly contrasted against his deathly pale skin.

"Meagan!" I cried. "It's not working!"

She whipped forward with her dagger. She'd already used it to cut away the arm of his waistcoat, but now she was pulling at the entire thing. "Quick! Help me get this off. Are you sure it was just the gunshot wound, Emily?"

I felt sick, staring wide-eyed at her. "I… I don't know."

The fabric ripped in loud tears as we clawed at the fabric, exposing his chest and the defined muscles of his abdomen. There. My hand shot to my mouth as I let go a desperate cry, seeing the gaping slit of a deep sword wound on his left side beneath the ribs.

It was pumping thick, red blood into the sand.

A great shuddering cry wracked my chest, and for a moment I lost myself in the Pandyssian's arms. I had turned into him without thinking, and I'd felt his arms come around me. I looked up at his face, his green eyes caught between empathy and detached fascination as he stared at my father and all that was happening. I imagined it was all very strange to him.

"Emily," he whispered, like it was meant to comfort me.

I turned back to look at my father, to stay strong.

Dougal popped the cork of another elixir and poured the red liquid into the newfound wound, to seal it shut.

"Emily," Meagan said, pulling on my arm. "Sit closer to him. Let him see and hear you. It'll help him pull through."

"I'm here, Father. Don't leave me."

She handed me a damp washcloth. I wiped at the blood on his abdomen, gently cleaning the area as tears began to cloud my vision. I blinked them away, watching the elixir slowly interrupt the pulsing flow until the wound no longer seeped. It must have happened on the beach, I thought, when he had engaged the first boarding party.

"I had no idea…"

"Don't blame yourself. He's good at hiding his wounds," Meagan quietly said, and when I glanced at her, she was watching the tears streak down my face like it meant something to her. She said, frowning slightly, "Plus, when you're in that battle rage… it's hard to feel anything."

"Please…"

Hope, whisper thin… I held my breath, praying I would see some flicker of strength return to my father's face. He looked so pale, so cold…

Slowly… surely… his breath steadied.

I held his limp, bloody hand in my lap, watching his eyelids flutter open. Dougal moved back and the sun fell across Corvo's face, his skin flushing with warmth. He looked better.

I beamed at him as his rat eyes fell over my face. "Welcome back, Father," I said, squeezing his hand.

"Em," he breathed.

"How do you feel?" I asked, gently dotting his brow with the damp washcloth.

"How do I look?" Corvo croaked.

I opened my mouth to reply, but Dougal blurted, grinning ear to ear, "You won't be winning any beauty pageants with that face, sir."

"Fuck you, Dougal," Corvo grunted as he tried to sit up again, but I pushed him back down. "What's this?" he asked, looking at his arm connected to the drip.

"Piero's Plasma," I said, fussing with the damp washcloth. "And the reason you're still alive––thanks to the Captain's quick thinking."

I gave her an appreciative look.

"Meagan," I said, shaking my head, "I can't tell you how thankful I am––"

"Don't," she said, avoiding my gaze, her dark eyes haunted by secrets. There was something in her face that said it was never enough, that some things could never be forgiven.

But she looked genuinely relieved, too, and it surprised me. A part of me couldn't believe Meagan had room in her heart for compassion after how cruelly Corvo had treated her, almost gouging her eye out in a rage of suspicion.

"Besides…" Meagan said, climbing to her feet and brushing sand off her legs. "You should be thanking him, not me."

Him was obvious enough.

All of us turned to look at the ancient Pandyssian at Corvo's feet, looking as exotic and strange as any man could be crouching mother-naked beneath the sun. His face was grim and serious, but when he realized we were all staring at him, he jerked back a little, his eyes blinking rapidly.

He slowly stood up and looked directly to me for answers. "Emily Kaldwin?"

"It's fine, we're just…"

I let out a shaky sigh and glanced out over the waves, fear and awe still lingering in my chest. I looked back at him.

"You saved us," I said. "We owe you our lives."

"Aye," Dougal softly agreed, his blue eyes solemn.

"He saved us alright," Meagan said in a darker tone, "but we're marooned on this island. The Dreadful Wale is dead in the water. We're not going anywhere."

"How bad is it?" I asked, a tumble of emotions in my belly. "Is everyone else okay? Rosemary––"

"Everyone's fine," the Captain assured me. "Just a little rattled."

I sighed in relief. I'd feared the worst.

"I want to sit up," Corvo blurted, a painfully vulnerable look on his face, one I'd never seen before. He feels weak, I realized. Weak from blood loss. Flat on his back. All of it was hitting Corvo right where it hurt the most: his ability to protect me.

"It's best if you lie still, Lord Protector," Meagan said. "You need rest."

"None of us can rest," Corvo snapped. "As you just made abundantly clear, we're stuck here––and Delilah knows exactly where we are now. She'll send more ships."

I interjected, "Which is exactly why you need to rest! You're no good to me like this."

He scowled. "I can rest with a better view. Help me sit up."

"You stubborn, little…" I grabbed his discarded coat and rolled it up, stuffing it underneath his head like a pillow, but he said, "No, Emily. Give my coat back to the damn kid. He's indecent."

I gave an aggravated huff and threw the rolled-up coat at the Pandyssian––this time he caught it when it flew at him––and turned back to find Dougal dragging out a blanket from the heavy crate. We positioned it beneath Corvo's head to his liking. I didn't know why I was so angry. Maybe it was that vulnerable look on my father's face. Maybe it was that I had almost lost him. Mostly, it was hating the fact that everything seemed to boil down to whether he felt like he was protecting me enough.

Didn't he see that it was my turn to protect him? And I had failed! He had almost bled to death because I hadn't noticed his sword wound! I was angry with myself.

"There!" I snapped, scowling at the smirk on Corvo's face. "Happy now?"

"No."

"View not good enough?"

I glared at his face as he glared back. Dougal broke the tension between us with a gentle touch on my arm. "Highness, look," he said.

We all looked.

The waves…

I didn't think we'd ever see it again, but there it was, the wreckage of the Jessamine. The flagship had disappeared, dragged beneath the waves by the sea monster, but now I saw pieces of it surfacing like flotsam, pushed to shore by the high tide. Pieces of wood, mostly. Broken furniture. Tangled netting.

And bodies.

"You don't have to look at that," I said in a rush.

"I want to," Corvo said. "Every last traitor on that ship deserved what they got."

"Not all of them were traitors," I said bleakly, thinking of the doctor.

"I have to bury them," the Pandyssian suddenly said, his green eyes falling over me. He held Corvo's coat in his hands like he didn't know what to do with it. "I must, or the Angra Mazul will return. It's too dangerous to rouse her again. She must sleep."

"Angra Mazul?" I repeated, startled by the foreign word. The sea beast was a what?

I glanced at the coat, distracted, his body naked behind what little it covered as he held it close to his groin. Had he forgotten how to wear the coat? I took it from his yielding hands.

He watched me flap the coat, shaking out the black sand, with wide eyes.

"Angra Mazul?" I asked again.

He made a face and waved his arms in the air like a crazy person. Was he trying to imitate the coat? I stared at him, struck dumb, but then…

Oh, sea monster! His arms were tentacles!

Laughter bubbled up from my chest and I couldn't help but smile at him. It seemed to catch him. His eyes flickered, and he almost smiled back, his solemn face cracking. He was taking this sea monster business seriously.

I shook my head, feeling silly."No, I meant what do the words mean? Try other words, remember?"

He frowned.

I held open the coat and he obediently poked his arms through the sleeve holes. He looked down at my hands as I tugged the coat over his shoulders and did up one button, the act somehow mesmerizing him. At the second button, my hand slipped.

"Deep Rift Watcher," he said, our eyes locked.

"Deep… what?"

"Deep Rift Watcher."

I felt a shudder run through me, the ghost of that slimy tentacle around my body, squeezing so tight I couldn't breathe, and then the sensation of falling, the world spinning around me…

"She watches from the edge of all things," the Pandyssian said in a brooding voice that reminded me of the Outsider. "She sleeps in underwater volcanoes and burns without fire. She is the… the twin." He struggled to translate, shaking his head. "Dark twin of the whales." His eyes lifted to mine, intensely solemn. "It is dangerous to rouse her."

"But you did," I said, breathlessly. "How––"

"I have to bury them."

He sharply turned away and ran along the shoreline, away from us.

I watched him go. Watched him tackle his self-appointed duty with singular purpose. He was barefoot in the waves, pulling bodies by the arms to drier ground. Beneath the over-sized coat, his long muscular legs were soon covered in black wet sand from the knees down as he shuffled back and forth between waves and drier sand. Dark twin indeed, I thought.

"Emily," Corvo said.

I turned reluctantly to look down at my father, his rat eyes following my long stare with fatherly disapproval. "Can we get back to the Captain or do you want to gawk at the naked young man for another ten minutes?"

Ten minutes seemed a cruel exaggeration. I wanted to hit him, my cheeks burning. Instead I glanced at Meagan and Dougal and apologized. "I'm sorry."

Dougal rubbed the back of his head. "Don't be," he put in quick. "It's hard not to stare, aye? He's a strange lad."

Meagan frowned. "It's fine. I'm sure the threat is real if he feels the need to… Who is he again?"

I glanced at my father, unsure how to respond. Revealing that he was the human Outsider, a reincarnation of himself from four thousand years ago before he was sacrificed and became a god seemed a little too much––and I didn't want to jeopardize the Pandyssian if the Captain or anyone else had some secret hatred of the Outsider. A lot of people were taught to hate him, thanks to the Abbey. Corvo's hatred was trouble enough.

And as a human, the Pandyssian was vulnerable. I needed to tread carefully.

"He's a barbarian," Corvo muttered under his breath. "A savage freak of nature."

"He's Whaleborn," I said, louder. "A special kind of wizard. He's going to help us defeat Delilah."

"I knew it," Dougal blurted, a grin rising on his face. "That sea beast came straight out of legend!" He pointed across the sand. "I swear, that boy has magic. Real magic!"

Having never seen anyone use the Mark before, Dougal was, of course, expecting us all to marvel at the idea of real magic.

But I marveled all the same.

"It was amazing," I said, staring at the Pandyssian once more. I had never seen magic like his. Somehow, he had called forth the beast from the Deep to attack our enemies.

He saved us.

A part of me still couldn't believe it, like it was too hard to accept the fact that the Jessamine was truly gone.

"So his name is Whaleborn?" Meagan asked, skeptical as ever.

"He doesn't know his real name," I said. "Delilah stole it. It's why we can trust him, Meagan. He'll help us."

"Trust is asking too much," Corvo growled. "Captain, how soon can we get off this Void-forsaken rock?"

Distracted, I crouched in the sand beside him, checking the plasma drip. His color was good, but he was still a gruesome sight, covered in blood––most not his own––with his waistcoat and undershirt in tatters, his chest laid bare.

He looked half-wild himself.

As the Captain answered Corvo, I dug through the heavy crate, finding a small metal bucket. Dougal caught my eye and ran off with it to grab water. Meanwhile, the Captain was saying, "… her back is broken. There's a hole in the bilge, and by the rate of water flooding the engine room, I estimate she'll be completely underwater by nightfall. We're not going anywhere."

Completely underwater?!

I glanced up at her, alarmed and fearful all at once. Her eyes were bleak. We really were marooned!

After sinking the Jessamine, I'd thought nothing could stop us, but now…

"What about your water pump?" Corvo asked, all business. He had served on warships as a youth, rising against pirate bands off Serkonan waters for the late Duke Theodanis. He'd seen his fair share of shipwrecks and knew a thing or two about surviving one. It made me proud.

Meagan scowled. "Sokolov tinkered with it before getting himself kidnapped."

"You can't fix it?"

"Maybe, but…"

"But what?" Corvo demanded in a low growl. He didn't want her to sugarcoat the truth.

"But that second attack hit us hard, blasted right thru the rotator's protective plating. Even if we pump the water out faster than it's going in, I'm not sure if the engines can take the load. Look, I just need to go back and see what I can do."

Dougal returned with the filled water bucket. I'd almost forgotten. I took it with a small, thankful smile and dipped the bloody washcloth inside, twisting and rinsing. How hard was it to fix water pumps?

The Captain looked at Dougal. "I could use your help again. Everyone needs to get off the ship. We have to assume it's going down. Take whatever you can and bring the women ashore."

"What can I do?" I asked, my heart racing.

"Help set up camp," Meagan said with a shrug, glancing at the black sand, the obsidian cliffs… "Looks like we're spending the night here on this cursed island."

"Captain," Corvo called, just as she was turning away. "Grab some pants. For the kid."

"Right. Pants."

The two headed back, going for the manual rowboat that would take them back to the Dreadful Wale.

Corvo caught my look. "What?" he snapped. "Emily, if you're going to spend a significant amount of time with the human Outsider, I'd prefer it if he was wearing pants."

I looked away, throwing my hair into the wind to cover my face, but too late, Corvo let out a choking laugh. "I've never seen you blush so hard, Em."

"It's bad enough you embarrass me in front of them," I hissed. "I wasn't gawking at him."

Corvo's eyes were steady. "You were."

"I wasn't!"

I slapped the wet washcloth against his chest, vigorously rubbing away streaks of blood.

"Ow! Take it easy."

"I'm sorry," I said, going softer. I gave him a hurt, angry look. "Why didn't you tell me you got stabbed?"

He looked away. "This isn't my first time getting shot––or stabbed. I had other things to worry about." He looked back at me. "Like you."

He loves me, I thought, but he struck fear and disgust into my heart. An unpleasant memory surfaced of the Lieutenant's face exploding, the pistol fired at point-blank range. So much blood. And the men on the beach… I'd never seen my father take so much life––and so ruthlessly. Corvo the Black was merciless, a butcher of men. If he loved me, didn't he see that I hated the work of his hands?

We said nothing after that.

It was a lot of blood. The water in the bucket ran red by the time I got most of it off his hands and chest. I went for his face last, scrubbing and wiping, but the blood just wouldn't come off––it was stained into his soul! Tears threatened––

"Enough," Corvo said, swatting me away. "You're going to rip my skin off."

I broke off, gasping in relief. "I can't get it all––I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

I slopped the washcloth against the side of the pail and stared off into the distance, at the water and sky. After a time, I looked back at him. "Father," I broached hesitantly. "Why didn't she care?"

"She?"

He blinked at me, the sun in his eyes, and shifted slightly, grimacing in pain. Piero's Plasma was working its magic, running through his veins, but his wounds were still raw.

"Delilah," I said, staring into the bloody water. "She was willing to destroy the ship––kill her own daughter! How could she do that? Maybe Meagan is wrong about her. Maybe she's not Delilah's daughter."

"Or maybe Delilah is an evil, psycho bitch who cares more about hurting you than letting you use her own daughter against her. If Rosemary is Delilah's daughter––which I suspect is true––then that's a weakness. One Delilah was willing to sacrifice."

I swallowed hard, looking out over the waves.

"A weakness… I can't believe anyone could think that way about their own child," I whispered hoarsely, feeling sick. "Am I yours?"

"My what?"

"Your weakness," I said, suddenly angry again.

He made a face. "I'm not Delilah. I would never––"

When he saw my tears, he grabbed my hand. "You're my strength, Emily. I would never hurt you to get to her. How could you ever think that?"

Because you're Corvo the Black, I thought, and the craving for blood was burned into the shadow of his eyes. He loved me, but how far was he willing to go to protect me? He had no moral line. Where was mine? How could I let him murder and maim in my name?

"Look," he said, his gaze softening. "Why don't you go help the Pandyssian and let me rest. I'm sure you two can have loads of romantic, fun times together pulling corpses from the water."

"You're an ass."

He grabbed the washcloth, draping it over his forehead and closing his eyes. "You were totally gawking."

End of chapter notes:

The made-up Angra Mazul is meant to play off the real-life Zoroastrianism religion, specifically the Angra Mainyu, a destructive spirit, the evil twin of Ahura Mawzda (benevolence and wisdom). So I guess in the Dishonored dichotomy, the (good) Whales are Ahura Masda and the (bad) Deep Rift Watchers are Angra Mazul. I'm not entirely convinced though that the Whales are purely "good" with their connection to the Outsider and the Void, these being neutral. Just throwing some ideas out there…