Chapter 19: Prayers and Dreams
The criminal underbelly of Dunwall was endlessly fascinating to the Outsider. The Hatters had survived a remarkably long time, as had the Dead Eels. The Roaring Boys roared in then roared right out. The Bottle Street Gang merged with the Parliament Street Cutters into the Rateaters. So many men, women, and people in-between were skirting the law. So many of them were praying to him for favor and guidance.
So the Outsider made it a hobby when he could not sleep to wander from shrine to shrine, scratching out notes in his cradle-tongue, knowing nobody- not even the most Void-touched- could understand it. He would sit in front of the better-made ones and listen to the Void. It felt closer in those places, but reaching out to it still hurt just as badly as it did a month and a half ago. No matter, the Void eagerly reached back.
The Void was what it always was, yet there was another facet to it. It reached out to him with the eagerness of a mother assessing a child for bruises after a tumble. After being satisfied that he was whole and unharmed, it crooned and sang its normal song. It whispered of magic, how a witch in the eastern Pandyssian Isles set the dead upon her enemies, a youth he marked years ago off in the unknown corner of the world died in his bed an old man- satisfied with an uneventful life. The Void did not miss him; it was with him always, and content the way things were.
It refused to answer questions about the Stars, hissing its wishes again to him: Observe the world mortal, and perhaps meddle when he sees fit. Ignore what lay beyond them. Protect the integrity of the Void. So, he stopped asking.
The shrine he was at tonight atop a rickety old building overlooking Kaldwin's Bridge, with offerings of a wormy apple and a couple slices of hard bread next to an old bonecharm that prevented hair loss. He supposed he should find it paltry, but instead it had a sort of charm to it. The Outsider leaned against the chimney, dark with soot and belching smoke. He closed his eyes, vague memories of leaning against potter's kilns to keep warm in the winter flickering across his mind, alongside the images of thousands of others doing the same thing, both right now and in the distant past. He was rudely jolted from his thoughts when something stiff and fuzzy hit him in the face.
"Hey you!" spat what sounded like a boy in the mist of puberty. "Bread thief!"
The Outsider slowly opened his eyes, and confirmed that he was, indeed, hit in the face with a dead rat. He turned to see an indignant pimply mess of a youth wearing a dirty dress.
"Bread thief?" The Outsider replied, a smile growing on his face.
"Yeah!" snarled the kid, marching up to him and getting in his face. "Stop stealing the Outsider's bread!"
The Outsider started laughing. "One cannot steal something that is given to them."
The kid glared at him. "What the Void do you mean?
He stood up and walked over to the shrine. "Did you make this?"
"… What's it to you?" the kid said warily.
The Outsider picked up a piece of bread, and tried biting into it like he had seen Emily do. It was not as satisfying, but his mouth was clear as the little urchin turned red with rage and ran at him. He snapped his fingers and the kid froze in place. The Outsider strolled over and looked the child in the eyes.
"You are not a bright one, are you?" With a twitch of his fingers, the kid was free. He dropped to his knees and kissed the Outsider's shoes.
"I knew it! I knew you would answer my prayers!" his voice cracked multiple times as tears flowed down his face.
The Outsider took a step back, disconcerted. "Look… Michelle." The boy gasped as fresh wave of tears streamed down. "I am not answering your prayers. I am here because this shrine happened to charm me the other night."
"But you can answer them!" Michelle gasped, their dark eyes alight with happiness. "You can answer my prayers!"
The Outsider sighed. He knew what the child wanted, and he knew the magic necessary to fulfill that desire. The harm in pointing them in the right direction was minimal.
"Can you read?" he asked. The child nodded. The Outsider took out his pencil and notebook and jotted down the complicated bonecharm recipe. He tore it out and handed it to the child.
"It will make sense at some point," he said to the kid, who looked at the Outsider like he had given them the world. Uncomfortable, he immediately left the shrine, mentally noting never to visit it again. Michelle will be alright, people will stop teasing her about her dress, and she will get by, with or without her bonecharm.
The Outsider returned to the safe room, only to find that Emily had taken up residence in his cot. Her long black hair was a mess, and she was curled up under the plain blankets, her face buried into the pillow. He walked over and crouched beside the cot, reaching out to gently touch her shoulder.
Emily turned her head, her eyes half-open behind a curtain of hair. She slowly sat up and pushed her hair out of her face.
"Sorry for commandeering your bed," she apologized sleepily.
"It is alright," he replied gently. "I am rarely in it anyway so you are welcome to it."
Emily smiled and opened her arms. "Come here."
The Outsider took off his shoes and climbed onto the cot. Emily embraced him and snuggled into his side, her head resting on his shoulder. He placed his arms around her; she seemed to want to talk.
"Where did you go?" she murmured.
"I was at a shrine," he replied, his hand reaching up and stroking her hair. "There was a child there who accused me of stealing bread from it. Threw a dead rat at me and everything."
Emily chuckled. "What did you do with the poor child?"
"Their prayer was simple enough, so I pointed them in the right direction," the Outsider noticed that he was twirling a bit of Emily's hair around his fingers, and was not sure if he should stop. He could feel Emily smile into his shoulder, and they sat in the dark silence for a while.
"I dreamt I was back in the rat plague," Emily whispered. "And Corvo never came for me."
That explained why she was in the safe room, curled up on the snug cot.
"Dreams sometimes show us what could have been," he said soothingly. "Sometimes they take old traumas and reshape them; sometimes they expose fears we did not know we had."
She sighed and shifted, pressing more into his side. "Do you dream, Outsider?"
He hummed, and leaned back against the wall, bringing Emily with him. She shifted again, leaning more upon his chest.
"In the Void I did not sleep, so I did not dream. Here, I dream of the Void."
"Is it a comfort?" she looked up at him, her expression both curious and sad. The Outsider gave Emily a small smile and a brief squeeze.
"I like seeing the whales," he admitted. She laughed, which was then followed by a long yawn. The Outsider realized he was keeping Emily awake and sat up, intending to let her go back to sleep. She seemed to predict what he was thinking though, and held onto him, her face buried in his chest.
"Stay," her request was muffled by his jacket, but he could see the tips of her ears turn pink. The Outsider was overwhelmed with affection for her, and kissed the top of her head.
"I will," he replied. "But only if you are comfortable with me removing some of my clothes."
He felt Emily nod her head against his chest, and she loosened her embrace, allowing him to remove his jacket and shirt and toss them on the ground. She sat up, her pajama shirt hanging loosely on her frame, the blankets still tangled around her pajama-clad legs.
"You can remove you pants too, if it is more comfortable for you," she added, her gaze direct and unabashed.
He thought about it for a moment, and removed his pants too, leaving just his undergarments on. Emily smiled at him and lay down by the wall, bringing the blankets up with her left hand and opening her arms. He smiled back and joined her. Emily embraced him, wrapping them both in blankets, and kissed him on the lips.
"Goodnight," she murmured with affection, laying her head on the pillow.
"Goodnight," the Outsider returned with a whisper and a kiss. He lay his head down, closed his eyes, and dreamed of whales.