He would like to say that Dunwall is as he remembers it, only he doesn't remember it at all. For a place he spent two years of his early life in, it's a blank haze, perfectly empty in his mind save for a few glimmers: the dark wood paneling of the library; the daffodils breaking through the cold ground, pale yellow-green and determined; the fluttering, white elderflowers in early summer. He had wanted it to shape him indelibly, to mold his genius, but instead, it had been the place of almost: almost-world-changing, almost-belonging.

Dunwall, like all cities, had simply carried on in his absence.

It's not that it had been molded into something unrecognizable: the city was old, and the land was older still. Rather, there had been incremental changes, a shop here, a new tenant there, that had slowly accumulated into a slightly different city—Dunwall, from another angle.

But still, he would have liked the chance to shape it in his own image.

He'd never thought about the marks Delilah's reign would leave on the city; never cared to think about them. She was never a good leader: somehow taxes and menial upkeep had never factored into her grandiose plans. He's not exactly sure what Breanna saw in her, and he's almost certain Delilah had never been the half sister of the last empress, as badly as she'd wanted to be. She was the kind of person to lose herself in the retelling of the world as she'd wanted it to be, and in time, come to believe her own wishful reworkings of the past.

As he's escorted to Dunwall Tower by the City Watch, the city picks itself up to rebuild again, and the maid holds his hand both to reassure him and to let him know she's still there, even in this place so far from her home. The burned corpses have been buried; the black paint has been scrubbed from the walls. The overturned bookcases have been returned to their original places; the papers gathered and sorted into stiff heaps. His room is so high up, that when he glances in the window, all he can think about how quickly it could all be over, no assistance, just a latch that he could probably manage, probably. The idea is captivating, like looking into the flame of a candle.

And then he doesn't know how he has come to that thought, but the afterimage remains.

(But if there's anything he's been reminded of in the past few months, it's that death isn't easy.)

The maid guides him away from the window and to the edge of the bed, where she fusses over him, preparing him for his visit with the Empress, brushing his hair for the third time that day, tidying his mustache. Her hands tremble a little; she's only ever been a kitchen maid.

He doesn't notice this.

Again, there is the question of the spectacle. He doesn't want to go in front of the Empress's circle as he is now, a fumbling wreck—the proof of her power in the words he cannot find now.

(He's done this before. It's a half-formed memory, one of the earliest ones after the shock. It would be painful, if it weren't so vague. He'd been inside a room before with an official asking him so many questions before filling out the corresponding paperwork. Questions like if he had any family members that could assume control of his affairs. He remembers that question the most, because he'd meant to tell the man in his perfectly pressed suit about his brother and what had come out were memories of the seashore. A strained look of pity was the only thing he received in return. It was a look he'd come to recognize so well.

That had been the end of the questions directed towards him, and he'd come to recognize that finality as well. If he'd been able to parse through the tightly filled form, he'd have seen that a few lines of black ink near the end had put him under a guardianship.

"Sign here," the official had directed Sokolov, turning the page around to face him in a well-worn movement.

Then, with the arrangement formalized and control of the estate transferred, they'd discussed options of what to do with him, as if he were simply not there at all, but it was alright, because the noonday shadows were all spilling into the corner of the ceiling and it was so peaceful to consider, though that thought was a lot more like a skipping stone than a cogent whole.)

"Are you ready?" she asks softly, and he doesn't want to go with her, but there is no other option beside the window.

And he has somehow also chosen this meeting, if it can be called choosing, though he cannot say how.

He'd never seen the Empress before, only her portrait circulated throughout Karnaca. She's so much younger than he'd imagined her to be. The Child Empress, raised amidst death and plague. Another motherless thing, dark and tall. Her dress is similarly dark and formal; her smile is poised but gentle.

"Welcome again to Dunwall," she says warmly, knowingly, her hands folded in her lap.

Now, it's his turn to babble, and the members of her court will know how ruined his mind is. It'll be half show, half warning—this is what happens when you try to dethrone the Empress. Decades of brilliance and innovation, snuffed out in less than a minute. They are going to laugh at him, at how much he's lost.

He doesn't want to confirm everyone's suspicions. His hands twist in nervousness, and this doesn't go unnoticed.

"Give us some space," she tells her entourage. "I will relay the crucial parts to you later, but for now, please wait for me in another room." And as the group disassembles, she adds to Kirin's maid, "You may stay, if you'd like."

"Thank you, ma'am," she replies with a quick curtsy.

But his attention has turned to the one who remains behind her throne, quiet and steadfast. Corvo.

Without his mask on, he's strikingly vulnerable, strikingly human. Having shed the long hair of his younger years, he's self-assured in the way that comes with age. There are lines along the corners of his eyes and along the edges of his mouth. Kirin is not sure what he'd thought Corvo looked like—really looked like, not those painted images of him distributed throughout the Isles as propaganda—but this is not particularly displeasing to look at. The intricacies of the mask had caught Kirin's eye, much more for their distinctive craftsmanship than an aesthetic appreciation, but now, if pressed, he would have to confess he likes this view much more. And under the wrappings of Corvo's left hand is the secret they both share.

He can't take his eyes off Corvo.

When they're alone at last, she continues. "I'm your empress," she replies more gently. "I'm interested in the welfare of all my subjects. It's true, I haven't been to Karnaca, but you have. Why don't you tell me about it?"

Kirin hesitates, but the maid smiles at him and reaches for his hand.

He's not sure where to begin, so he starts with the Eyeless cult. The blood, the wires, the walls. The Empress's face is carefully composed, but she blanches a little at the description of how the blood flows through the wires beyond the wall. He doesn't notice this. His description of those walls blurs into a reminiscence on how confusing the world was now, how the buildings were impossible to parse out.

And then, he can almost see the Overseers again.

He's almost forgotten, and he wishes he had.

"You can tell me more later," she says. "There will be time."

Perhaps, this is not just about power and her political forgiveness (and in that display, yet another showing of her strength, that her right to the throne is so undisputed that she can afford to forgive). This was yet another reckoning. They're all going to have to live together after the coup, under the order that she sets. And in doing so, what will that order look like? She's already learned what happens if she lets the misery of her people go unchecked. What was her coup to the people of Karnaca already struggling to live in the conditions she helped contribute to?

Her father's told her of the exploitation there, the silver mines, the corruption. She's not surprised about the cults. What else was there in the absence of goodness but to seek the end times?

She thinks of her mother and resolves to do well.

He declines her invitation to join her for dinner. He doesn't think he'd make for very good company now, and besides, what is he going to answer to any small talk? Well, he hasn't actually been working on anything, he's been trying to figure out when and where he is every few minutes, if he's lucky. If he's not, the present is only a fraying hole that worsens every time it's picked at, with no way to mend it.

(And behind everything now is the time he doesn't remember clearly—that fragmented time after the shock. That time eludes him like a shadow.)

A tray is sent up from the kitchens, and he doesn't want that either, but the maid does her best to coax him into having some dinner. She's done this before, and while she's prepared to spoonfeed him if necessary, she'd rather he go at his own pace. His telltale picking at the edge of his sleeve gives away his nervousness; in response, she sits next to him and reads another of the short stories aloud, rubbing his arm as she does so. In between turning pages, she encourages him to try a little of the meal, and by the halfway point of the story, he's settled down enough to do so.

To his surprise, he finds that it's cabbage and pork, and he's not sure how the Empress could have possibly known he likes this. But even still, part of him is miserable now for a reason he can't consciously access. For dessert, there's apple pudding, and for another moment, he can clearly recall the crackling of the electroshock machine as it powered down. He doesn't know how these two things are connected; they just are. Maybe it's for other people to remember now, like so much of the rest of his memories.

His question is lost when the maid tidies up the dishes, returning them to the tray. Then she prepares him for bed with a squeeze of his hand and an expression of delight that he finished the tray. (It's a point of personal pride that she's managed to get him to stick to two meals a day consistently; she keeps trying intermittently for three, but old habits die hard.)

He's used to this routine by now and lets himself be swept along in it. When it's all over and he's tucked into bed with a quick hug and some herbal tea set out on the bedside table, he can tell she's not ready to return to the servants' quarters. He doesn't understand why, but if he could, he'd know that she doesn't want to be a spectacle anymore than he does: the foreign servant with her foreign charge. Maybe the other servants will treat her like she'd also had a brain injury, like it's catching; she's afraid of this.

She lingers, as if she wants to tell him something. "Will you be alright here?" she asks, worry on her face as she touches the covers, and he can tell it's not what she means to ask, but rather what she can ask.

He nods, and she gives him a small smile and brushes a strand of hair from his face before leaving.

He doesn't dream. Instead, he falls into the state where he's not quite sure if he's fallen asleep or not. It's just the temporary darkness inside his head, the loss of time, and then, he awakes. It takes him several tries to read the small clock in the room, and even still, he's not sure if he's done it correctly. His head hurts a little. It's still dark. The fire went out a long while ago, as is usual. He's almost forgotten that Dunwall got cold enough for fireplaces.

He's not quite sure where he is, and that's become such a regular part of his life now that it's stopped being jarring and instead become more of a dull pain. This again. He glances at the clock again—it's difficult to make out, but the hour hand has leapt backwards by a few degrees. No, that can't be right. But then, it moves again, shambling forward in increments.

He slowly climbs out of bed, not taking his eyes off the clock.

Then he remembers his gloves. As he slips them on from their place on the bedside table, he doesn't avert his gaze. Without the Outsider in place, how would the Void react? Is it coming loose? Or, without a diversion, will it simply find another way to seep into the world?

There is no one left to tell him how to use the magic of the Void. It's up to him now. He supposes that, once connected with the Void, it will never leave him. How comforting. This, at least, will stay.

He peeks outside the window: the world is pale and embryonic. A street lamp glows on a corner of the city. Beside it, there's one that's gone out. He frowns a little. Could he bring it back? Closing his eyes, he gropes in the darkness for the copper circuitry of the functional street lamp, following it down into the earth, into the buried cables, and from there, into the broken street lamp. The Void is restless now; it pulses along his skin, insistent. Drawing on the Void is like finally getting to exhale. There's a connection inside the lamp that's been rusted through; it crackles under his fingertips. Carefully, he brushes away the roughness of the rust and reconnects the lines.

The light of the street lamp contracts sharply, like the snap of a whip, and then, with a solemn hum, unfolds its circle of orange light.

Kirin watches this with pride. What else can he do? The Mark isn't a gift, and it's not a curse. It's simply another means to an end. He understands this now. If he doesn't like this world, why not reshape it?

He watches the flickering clock. What else could it become? If he tilts his head to one side, it resembles the shell of a crab. Holding this image in his mind for as long as it will last, which is never long enough, he pulls with the Void at the wires inside the little broken thing, bending here and reshaping there. It's so peaceful and right, and inside this joy is the pain that this moment of reprieve will soon be gone again. But the moment is still wonderful while it lasts. Every time he draws on the Void, it gets easier and easier to access it. It's a part of him now, just as much as his prosthetic is.

The half-refashioned clock stills on the bedside, and he once again doesn't know how it's come to this. But if he leans into the whispers of the Void, he can hear the city and underneath it, the whales. Everything is connected. The Void is only the interstitial space between the world. He's learned all about the beauty of those places from designing his mansion, how they can support and conceal.

(And the wind that brings snow to Tyvia and rain to Karnaca finds the boy who used to be a god slipping among the citizens of Karnaca; he cannot keep from marveling at the buildings, the dusty blue sky, even the dull ache from moving limbs that have fallen into disuse. He is alive, he is alive, he is alive again. The world is strange and terrible, but he's alive again with his mortal heart and his breakable bones.)

Kirin wipes the blood from his nose. Perhaps he pulls the Void too closely through himself. It can't be helped, he thinks. This is the price of these powers. This is the closest he's felt to himself in a long time.

Out there, there is something else that calls to him. A resonance.

But not even the Void can keep his mind together, and he's left staring at the bloody streaks on his gloves, unsure of how he's come to this point again.

The hallways of Dunwall Tower are long and confusing. He wants to be back in bed now, back to the known safety of the four walls of his room, but there's only portraits of long dead men and women, and the subtle scent of burnt herbs that the hanging incense cannot fully mask. The castle is asleep, and in that stillness, he roams the hallways listlessly, each corridor similar to the last.

He'd never cared what happened to this place. It was like caring about what happened to a fairy-tale castle; Dunwall simply didn't feel real in the way that Karnaca was. Oh, yes, he was aware of its existence, and at the Academy, he'd even quietly prepared himself for a role for the Empress's advisor in the natural sciences. The world had been his then, and it was only the way of things that he ought to have the ear of the most powerful.

And in a way, that dream had come back to him now, in a different form—always a different form.

But what did he want to make of it?

As he turns the corner, Corvo is there, ahead of him. Neither of them can sleep, but for different reasons. The shadows pool across Corvo's face, not unpleasingly so. A strange excitement alights itself in his heart at this, but it's not a pleasant sensation. It's the sickening jitters of imminent danger. (And perhaps there is something else too, but for now, all he can feel is the immediacy of danger.)

And there, Kirin understands why he has come to Dunwall. It's the lure of danger, the compulsion to repeat that draws Kirin to him, to find out what else Corvo can take from him permanently. This time will be different: he'll charm Corvo with his superior skill and wit, and he'll have to see what a loss it would be, a mind to reshape the ages—because if it couldn't do that, what else was it good for?

This also explained the strange excitement of the Outsider at his impending death, why he did nothing to stop it, encouraged it even: this time, it will be right, this time I will escape the blade. The circle will be broken, and I will be free. Perhaps that moment of surety—that this time, he would escape the blade that made him a god—had haunted him all these millennia. It's why the Outsider had given him his Mark after all. It hadn't been about a vicarious power fantasy, but the witches also hadn't been entirely wrong. The whole affair had been voyeuristic, but only in the way that the Outsider had been answering questions about himself and the world through Kirin.

Only, the chance to spare Kirin's mind was already gone.

And they are both only men, standing in the darkened hallway of a palace that will outlast both of them. Because this is the quiet after the restoration of the Empress, after the coup has been dealt with. Now, there is only the living that comes after it all.

Corvo's hands move in the dim light, and it takes Kirin a few minutes to realize that these aren't supplemental gestures: they're words. He can't believe he's overlooked this detail, perhaps it's buried in an obscure part of his mind, but then again, he's never really been interested in people before beyond their prestige and reputation.

Corvo repeats himself with more care this time, his forehead wrinkled in thought as he realizes the communication gap between them. These signs are still unfamiliar to Kirin. Wait, no—except for one. Corvo's hands stay together, before separating in opposite directions, the fingers spread out.

Lost.

The world starts to open up again.

Kirin tries to keep his mind from wandering, to really focus on the words, but it's difficult for him to follow this distant hope of a hope that they can bridge this communication gap. He doesn't recognize any more, and it's so tempting to let his gaze wander across the wall instead. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know."

And it's half-reply and half-lament.

Corvo tries a different tactic. He offers his hand, and Kirin has never been able to resist a mystery. He touches the callouses on Corvo's hand. They correspond to intensive training—on the blade, on the walls, on the streets of Dunwall. This annotation will be forgotten soon enough, but for a moment, he ponders Corvo's hands.

The skin has thinned some—not as much as Sokolov's, but it is only an inevitable marker of age. Rough hands, though. Corvo could never let them go soft. And under the wrappings—Kirin's heart flutters a moment. It must be like his—the Mark. They share this gift. How strangely intimate. Kirin's gloved hands trace Corvo's, trailing along the delicate patch of skin between the thumb and forefinger. He's aware of his own prosthetic now, as he studies Corvo. Perhaps this is a moment of indulgence on Corvo's behalf, letting Kirin touch what took away his mind. Perhaps not.

But despite these inscrutable motivations, only one thing is clear: Kirin is holding his own death.

These fingers flipped the switch, these fingers held steady even as he begged him not to. You could have done differently, he almost says. I've seen it... I've felt it. But that was the problem, wasn't it? They all could have done differently, and they didn't. Regret was an uncrossable river between what was and what could have been.

There's a tapestry on the wall, a relic of a coronation gone by, another woman on the throne, dark-eyed and blank-faced.

Kirin can't remember what he was thinking now, only that he'd been on the verge of some great revelation about his situation. His hands are unknowable in their gloves next to Corvo's. The gloves are important for some reason. His life now seems to be a series of beliefs with no context or connection.

He's tired now. Tired and still lost. Part of him is setting aside his notes for the night in that little cloistered room of his at the Academy, and he wants that life back so badly for a moment that the longing burns in his throat. But it's only an idle memory floating by, autonomous yet tethered to him. And perhaps that memory of him goes on in its own parallel form, its own little bubble of existence, safe and unbothered by what's to come, a perfectly enclosed existence.

He would like that.

It's Corvo's turn to touch Kirin's hands, and he does so as a way of getting Kirin's attention. It's a carefully gentle, light weight on the back of his hand, roughened flesh against soft leather, fingers finding the soft place between the tendons.

(His own death. His own death, the hands call out to him. Is it a warning or acknowledgement?)

It's a far more subtle exploration, but there is still the way Corvo's fingers linger too long on his own. Does he like this? Does Corvo? What could he be getting from any of this? Closure? No, not that. It's certainly not a test of restraint: Corvo's already failed that one months ago. How did it feel to carry Kirin's limp, unconscious body over to the chair, knowing what it would do? Did it feel like a death sentence? (Corvo has carried those out before.) And what a terrible turn Kirin's life had taken afterwards. What a terrible world this was.

There are a thousand unsteady and half-formed questions spilling through his mind. He wants to know this part of himself that's tucked away in Corvo's mind, this one-sided fragment of the last part of himself. That voyeuristic view of himself before the fall.

And for a moment, there's only the hesitation on his lips, the malformed words that hide away. Instead, he talks about the the way the shadows collect in the corners of the ceilings instead. They're like a puddle.

Corvo nods, knowingly. Is that pity too on his face?

Nervousness twists in Kirin's gut. Oh, he's not doing this correctly, whatever this is.

Corvo's fingers curl around his hand, urging Kirin towards him. Kirin's uneasy, but what else is there to do but trust him? His other option is to stay in the hallway and to be alone and frightened by the shadows until morning. Around the walls of the castle, there's the flutter of the night-birds and the clicking of the bats at work.

Corvo guides him back down a hallway, dutifully, and in turn, he follows Corvo, hand in hand, like a favorite pet. Only the tensing of Corvo's shoulders through the soft grey linen of his shirt tells Kirin that he doesn't like anyone behind him. Corvo slows his pace deliberately so that Kirin can catch up to him, and after that, walk beside him. There's still a half-step between them: a compromise, perhaps.

There is a bond of violence between them, but like a ghost, he doesn't let go of Corvo's hand.

He can't.

This is somehow worse than anger or threats or violence or anything else he could have imagined. He's so insignificant now, so incapacitated that he's being led around by the man he once taunted with dissection, whose movements he once followed in half-interest, as he navigated the labyrinthine mansion. But Kirin cannot find the words to say any of that: those words elude him, and so he talks about the rusted wires and the still beetle legs and how the bolts simply don't turn for him anymore.

Corvo doesn't sign anything at this point, only keeps his pace, but he catches Kirin's gaze from time to time. And it's there that Kirin understands that he has been, in fact, listening and considering.

The soft orange light crawls across Corvo's form as they move through the castle. If Kirin had been the victor in their previous encounter, he'd have gladly dissected Corvo in his laboratory, peeling away all that had made him, and yet, unable to find the sum of him. Even now, the names for the muscles that the gas lights tense and pool over spark briefly in Kirin's mind, before fading away again. He knows how how the dead tissue peels away under his scalpel and the firmness of living tissue of his test subjects, but how would Corvo's feel?

Then, they're back in Kirin's room again, but Kirin cannot contain the rising, congealing tension of being unable to express himself over this magninaimity. The anger again.

How could Corvo have destroyed the cathedral of his mind, and even worse, destroyed the illusion of his loftiness?

And without it—

For a moment, he can see his mother and brother ahead of him, how she inexplicably loved his brother far, far more, despite his lesser mind, delegating the problem of him to his brother like an afterthought. His brother had been older and had always occupied a place in her world that he never could (not knowing that some things only look enviable from the outside). Kirin had been the legitimate child, the brilliant child with a promising future, but not the wanted one.

Unloved things know exactly what they are. He'd been an unloved child who grew into an unlovable adult.

"You made me unwanted again," Kirin says in a moment of hideous clarity.

Corvo's eyes widen slightly, but this is the only indicator of his reaction. Maybe he'd resigned himself to hearing more non-sequiturs.

The sense of danger rises in Kirin again, but he doesn't care. It's a struggle to voice the straggling thoughts in his head—it's been made a struggle, and the weight of that realization is unbearable. That realization will visit him again and again for the rest of his life.

"You took it from me," Kirin continues, emboldened by the silence. The anger surges through him: it hadn't miraculously skipped him, it's only been dormant. Why rises to the surface again and dies on his lips. It's not a question, but an accusation, and that's all it can ever be. That was the pain of it all.

What could Corvo get from any of this? Some sort of masochistic confirmation?

This clarity will leave him again; it will, it will, it will.

(But he doesn't look at Corvo's hands anymore; even now, he denies him an answer.)

The world is empty again, drained and dull. He's uncertain again, and to his surprise, he finds that he wants the maid near him for a little bit, just until he's settled again. But it's far too late in the evening for that indulgence, and he just tries to not need too much, because there are limits to everything and sometimes, it's best not to find them.

Corvo signs something that Kirin doesn't recognize, and when he finger-spells it, Kirin can't remember all of the previous letters. He expects Corvo to give up and leave him alone, having done his duty as a welcoming host, but he doesn't.

Corvo considers this. He taps the pillow and scrunchies his face. It's surprisingly playful.

A bad dream.

"I don't dream," Kirin tells him, perplexed by Corvo's interest in this. "Not anymore." The words are difficult to form now, but he does so.

Oh, there was something else that had happened while he was sleeping, but what was it?

"His eyes, they're green," Kirin says.

A note of confusion on Corvo's face, a faint furrowing of his brows—this, too, is familiar, but Kirin doesn't offer any context. It's already left him. Instead, his gaze travels to the wall in his newest brief thought. Something about skipping stones across the ocean's surface. It's as though there's been a droplet of ink on the stones of the wall, left by a careless hand. Kirin cannot keep from staring at it. It's like peering into eternity: he wants to understand it so badly.

Then it begins to crawl across the wall. Aimless but desperate.

Corvo pulls Kirin behind him in a fluid movement, and raises one arm to keep him back.

Kirin's not affecting this piece of the Void, nor is it responding to him. It's merely a fluctuation—running water with no container, no end. From over Corvo's shoulder, he watches how it grows and contracts, peeling away the stones in the wall. Fascinating. It pulses again, shy, and solidifies into the dark eye of a rat, writhing in the wall. Kirin smiles at it. He wants to get close enough to catch it and take it apart. What secrets could a Void-rat have? Would it melt in his hands? Would it have some contraption inside? Would it simply be filled with rat guts, a perfect facsimile of life?

Then, without warning, the creature deflates, pooling into the cracks of the castle soundlessly.

The wall is empty again.

Corvo's shoulders release their tension, and his arm lowers. His face is still pale.

"His eyes are green," Kirin murmurs to himself, as a nonchalant aside on the matter, and this time, Corvo understands.