i am not born from myself alone

she did her best in a world that wasn't kind to little girls or empresses Emily Kaldwin for Aldebaran.

[temerivia]

The Void

[apricottartlet-deactivated20251]

[flamexec]

in her heart, there was an empire of corpses — growing and growing.

happy birthday oli ♡

[marieduplessis]

i’m not born from myself alone

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@vuotoeretico

Emily finds herself still getting used to things. How long has it been? A little over a week, and she still finds herself learning how to adapt. The holophone supplied remains mostly unused, and she has found she tries to keep to herself for the largest part, even amongst her roommates. She spends mornings running if the weather permits, the forests in Tranquility offer endurance and if she misses the weaving streets of Dunwall, she goes to the Crises - she scales over alleys and dashes onto rooftops.

It’s not like home, but it is no different than being flung to Serkonos as she was months before. She is quick to find her feet in situations like this, she has to be with as often in her life as she has found herself knocked off her feet, but it is rarely a graceful adaptation.

In the quiet moments, she thinks of Dunwall. She fears for Dunwall. What Delilah might be doing to her city while she is trapped here, and - Corvo. Trapped.

The Heart has little to say. Not in this place, with no connection to the people or places, and without the Void to feed the knowledge. She can’t see with blind eyes, and even her Mother’s voice does little to soothe her soul in these moment. But she carries her with her at all times, perhaps in case she should recognize something in the blur of unknown faces.

Her steps carry her through the Crises that day, bound for a shop she found a few days passed. The Heart is what stops her. A low beat, and then a faster one. A strange reaction. Emily looks to her pocket and then around, not sure what to expect. Not sure who could cause a reaction like that.

A face coming out of a building nearby clears any uncertainty. He looks younger, closer to how he was when she was a child. It’s something that she’s been made aware of, that most of those she recognizes don’t recognize her like this, they are used to a child instead. His hair isn’t so heavily streaked with grey, but he had always said that was her fault, after all, in jest. But even in a crowd of thousands, she can find her father.

“Corvo!” She’s running. Her boots light on the pavement as she dashes to him, pushing past anyone who dares to stand in the way from throwing her arms around Corvo’s neck in an embrace. There’s a tightness welling in her chest, but she hasn’t cried since she came here, or since she fled to Karnaca; she can hold it together. She can try.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

glimmeringbone‌:

“Nacre is in a coastal bay. Difficult to farm, but beautiful. And the island of Ordenna is quite close… We spent some time there when we were young.” She taps her hand on the stone. “You are not fond of nobility?”

Emily blinks at that. Had her tone been so obvious? She tapped the toe of one boot against the ground underneath her. It takes a moment to try and remember herself.

“The lords and the ladies of Dunwall are snakes, for the greatest part. They will do anything they have to do win favor. I suppose that is true of nobility in most places. It always…disturbed me, but I have to listen. It is my duty after all.”

Her hand moves, fingers of one hand twirling her signet ring where it rests on the opposite hand. “I hope you don’t take offense.”

[glimmeringbone-blog]

“We do not.” Adelaide’s eyes move to Emily’s ring. She has a sense of this young, sharp-edged woman now. “As you say, it is the nature of the nobility to be treacherous to their ruler. And it is the nature of empresses to do our duty.”

Adelaide has always done her duty. That was why she took the throne, and sent out her pirates, and almost killed her brother before someone did it for her.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

The we makes her pause, looking over to this woman and giving a slow nod of understanding. Someone not so unlike herself, it seemed. Emily straightened a bit more, feeling a little more self-conscious about her casual air next to someone who seemed to just...exude regality.

“Are you a queen in your home? I’ve never been in the presence of another royal - well, outside of my own family.”

She pressed the toe of one boot down against the ground. “I’m, ah, my name is Emily Kaldwin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@tidecast

The forests were something odd. She had traveled to many areas of the Isles and, of course, they had forests. But nothing quite so like this. The area around the housing unit she had found herself in - Lampadia Suites - was interesting to her. Enough that she spent quite a bit of time simply wandering.

Warm brown eyes roved over the trees and hummed to herself in thought. If Far Reach would lift her higher, Emily could have climbed as high as these trees went. Perhaps she still could, with careful positioning and work. But for now, the floor of the Sea would be sufficient for her path.

Her shoulder leaned against the base of a tree, surveying over the area in front of her before she took notice of someone else nearby. The Empress moved to sit herself on an exposed, lifted root, legs stretched out in front of her.

“Hail.” Manners would dictate for her to properly greet someone, even if she had always had an awkward way of doing so. “Are you - well, I don’t think any of us are truly enjoying ourselves here, are we?” She gave her best attempt at a crooked smile.

[tidecast-blog]

The woods remind her of her youth. The vegetation is different, not like the thick conifers of Lordaeron, closer to Boralus’ more temperate forests, but the sound of wind between branches and the soft rustling of animals scampering out of sight is the same everywhere, as is the dappling of sun through the leaves. She’s left her cloak back in her room, her sleeves rolled up in deference to the dry heat, and she’s not surprised to see someone else outside.

“This place is almost nice, if we can ignore the circumstances,” she says, a wry smile answering the young woman’s. “I suppose we should take what we can.” A few steps bring her closer, though with enough distance that Jaina’s not looming over her. “May I join you?”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

Emily has forgone her usual coat with the dry heat that settled in from the morning, the loose white blouse that she wore underneath it rolled up to her elbows, a few extra buttons open to try and gather some amount of air against her skin. Her boots and dark trousers keep her from being able to be completely comfortable in the heat, but she has dealt with Karnaca and its heat in heavier gear.

The Empress nods and beckons the woman closer, eyes lingering for a moment on her unique features - grazing across her hair and her appealing face - before she offers her a small, diplomatic smile.

“Feel free. Are you adapting well to all of this? Or as well as one can?” She tucks one knee up to rest an arm on it. Then, she seems to remember herself and offers out her right hand, wrapped in dark cloth across the palm, to shake. “I keep forgetting my manners. I’m E - uh, Emily Kaldwin.”

[knifedindunwall]

chaoskaldwin‌:

It was cold. Freezing cold with the snow pelting down and tucking into Emily’s dark hair, standing out stark against it. But she doesn’t feel the chill. Not like she did a moment ago.

Now, there is nothing except boiling heat and blistering rage. How long has she thought about this moment? She had practiced the scenario a thousand times in her head. Given, during those, she had weapons. She had a way to rip his heart out of his chest beside with her bare hands. All she has now is the Heart, her signet ring, and the bone charm pinned to the lapel of her coat. She’d have to make due with her hands..

She stops beneath the awning when Daud raises his hands, showing himself unarmed. He’s alone. He knows who she is and he’s backing down -

You and your daughter.

The look that takes over Emily’s eyes - brown, Corvo’s brown - is pained. So like her mother in some ways, but rarely in the ways that matter.

“I’m not Jessamine Kaldwin. She’s dead. She is dead and there is only one thing left of her because of you.” Her Marked hand - covered in the black cloth - reaches out towards him. To try and grab into the fabric of his coat and jerk. “Did you rip her heart out to give it to the Outsider yourself? Or was that his work?”

Daud doesn’t avoid her, lets himself be dragged forward. The color drains from his face as he realizes.

“You’re– Emily Kaldwin?”

The last time he saw her was that damned painting, staring out at him accusingly from the canvas. He didn’t know what to do with it after trapping Delilah in the other one. Destroying it seemed dangerous, and so did leaving it at the altar. He ended up bringing it back to the Flooded District and locking it away. Wonder if Attano found it after he killed me. 

“I didn’t take her heart.” He slumps against the side of the building. “It was probably that interfering bastard. He has a knack for unwanted gifts.”

Daud looks into her eyes. Angry, yes. And perhaps not so much like her mother’s as he thought. But still human. “You aren’t her at all, are you.”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

After all these years of considering exactly how she would have slit Daud’s throat, Emily found herself hesitating. She wanted to believe that it was because he had mistaken her for her mother, that it had taken her aback. That had to be the reason.

He didn’t deserve hesitation. He hadn’t given Mother any.

The Empress’ fingers balled up in the fabric of Daud’s jacket. Red. The same red from Dunwall Tower that day. She couldn’t have forgotten it. Not as dark as the red that spilled across the white marble of the floor when his blade connected with her mother’s stomach, brighter and more vibrant than that.

“I am Emily Kaldwin the First, Empress of the Isle. Daughter and successor of the late Jessamine Kaldwin.” Her voice was low. Trembling with every word. “You should have died years ago.”

Her fingers released his coat, only for her right hand, Mark neatly hidden away, to come swinging forward at him, aiming for face, chest - anything she could try to smash into. She didn’t have any weapons, but she was going to try to do whatever damage she could. She had never been a skilled hand-to-hand brawler, but she could have to improvise.

[voidmarks]

chaoskaldwin‌:

To Emily, it was like seeing an old friend. How long had she had dreams about some deep place in the Void, long before she had seen it? There had always been something there, lingering just out of sight. And since then, they had truly met, in the dark places of their world where view had traveled.

Her hand flexed and clenched for a moment, where the bandage was wrapped about it to cover the Mark.

“You’re always watching over things. Whether they’re interesting or odd or mundane. You’ve seen it all. Did you see this coming?” She looked around the beach. Speaking more about the entire situation in general.

The Empress crouched down next to the Outsider. “You could have warned me when we spoke the last time if you knew. I thought I had a clean path to the Duke and Delilah, but now I’m here.”

So she knows him, then. He finds himself smiling, curious. He hasn’t met her before, that much he’s sure of, which is engaging in its own right: he recognizes most faces within and without the Empire, whether or not they matter to him. A foreign face, however familiar, is an enigma; like a puzzlebox, its inner workings hidden.

Then she says that word– Delilah– and that really gets him.

He doesn’t respond for a few moments, studying her face. Her nose, her bearing. Those narrow, purposeful brown eyes. The puzzlebox clicks into place.

He takes a slow breath. His smile spreads.

“Emily Kaldwin.”

What a surprise this is. You’d think he’d be getting used to them, but the feeling is a novelty every time.

“You’ve grown up well. I didn’t think we’d meet.” His head ticks to the side. “Although it sounds like we already have.”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

Emily thinks to herself, for a moment, that she might be too familiar with the Outsider. He seems different from their usual conversations, but perhaps that is normal when the conversations lack the same purpose of guidance and commentary towards a goal. The voice was the same, an interest of sorts, since he had last commented on the bloody bootprints she made through Karnaca and the story of everything he had told her.

He says her name and Emily cants her head in the Outsider’s direction. He sounds surprise. He looks surprised, and she is not lost on how odd of an emotion that is to see on someone who she is used to knowing everything. She is sure that her own perplexion matches his when he speaks of how she’s grown up and that he hadn’t thought they had met.

Her brows knit down in a look of consideration, deep thought, trying to work out exactly what this means like some puzzle. It isn’t hard for her to clue out. They’re from different points, somehow or another. He’s from when she is a child, when her thoughts of the Void and the inky darkness were no more than one-off nightmares; when she hadn’t been a Marked killer.

She reaches to her hand, unwinding the dark bandage that wraps around it to show him the back of her palm, where the Mark is blazed across her skin.

“We have met - many times by my counting.” The Empress shifts out of her crouch and then settles to sit down into the sand completely, long legs stretched out in front of her as she watches the waves. So much brighter than Dunwall, more like Karnaca - without the blood trailing to the water.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

glimmeringbone‌:

“Nacre is in a coastal bay. Difficult to farm, but beautiful. And the island of Ordenna is quite close… We spent some time there when we were young.” She taps her hand on the stone. “You are not fond of nobility?”

Emily blinks at that. Had her tone been so obvious? She tapped the toe of one boot against the ground underneath her. It takes a moment to try and remember herself.

“The lords and the ladies of Dunwall are snakes, for the greatest part. They will do anything they have to do win favor. I suppose that is true of nobility in most places. It always...disturbed me, but I have to listen. It is my duty after all.”

Her hand moves, fingers of one hand twirling her signet ring where it rests on the opposite hand. “I hope you don’t take offense.”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

knifedindunwall‌:

Daud takes shelter from the snow beneath an awning. He hates the cold, but the idea of going back to the beach leaves him more nauseated than uncooked hagfish. At least the tower is starting to feel like home, tripwires and all. 

He finds it funny– before he died, he wanted nothing more than to leave Dunwall and go somewhere nobody knew him. Well, he got his wish, with some exceptions. A clean start. 

He hears footfalls on cobblestone and turns, and for a moment everything freezes like he’s stopped time. 

She looks younger, Billie’s age, and maybe that’s just another trick of this bizarre city, but he knows those eyes. They’d haunted him for weeks before Attano found him and slit his throat. One of the Outsider’s cruel dioramas? No, she’s coming at him with purpose.

He should let her kill him. He’s alone, no Whalers, no one depending on him. He should let her finish what Attano started.

Instead, he holds up his hands. “Your Highness,” he says, “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness for what I did to you and your daughter.” His voice catches. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry anyway.”

It was cold. Freezing cold with the snow pelting down and tucking into Emily’s dark hair, standing out stark against it. But she doesn’t feel the chill. Not like she did a moment ago.

Now, there is nothing except boiling heat and blistering rage. How long has she thought about this moment? She had practiced the scenario a thousand times in her head. Given, during those, she had weapons. She had a way to rip his heart out of his chest beside with her bare hands. All she has now is the Heart, her signet ring, and the bone charm pinned to the lapel of her coat. She’d have to make due with her hands..

She stops beneath the awning when Daud raises his hands, showing himself unarmed. He’s alone. He knows who she is and he’s backing down -

You and your daughter.

The look that takes over Emily’s eyes - brown, Corvo’s brown - is pained. So like her mother in some ways, but rarely in the ways that matter.

“I’m not Jessamine Kaldwin. She’s dead. She is dead and there is only one thing left of her because of you.” Her Marked hand - covered in the black cloth - reaches out towards him. To try and grab into the fabric of his coat and jerk. “Did you rip her heart out to give it to the Outsider yourself? Or was that his work?”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

voidmarks‌:

He’s had a hard time staying away from the sea. It’s a constant, like the way people feel about good luck charms and home, and he’s still struggling to get his bearings: he can use all the constancy he can scrounge up.

Besides, it’s pleasant. The sound of the water and the whip of the wind is endlessly interesting to him. His feet are buried in the and, sitting leaned back against his palms, staring out at the water.

A voice interrupted his reverie. He didn’t recognize it, but that wasn’t surprising: what was intriguing was the air of familiarity the words carried. The Outsider looked up, eyes narrowing slightly as he studied the young woman who’d– jumped off the cliff, he supposed? He hadn’t heard her footsteps. She was decisive, with an air of confidence and something sharp about her like a knife. She was lovely. She had familiar eyes. Not just from what she’d said (I should have expected to find you), he felt as if he ought to know her.

His attention was completely seized.

“And why is that?” The Outsider asked, very nearly amiably.

To Emily, it was like seeing an old friend. How long had she had dreams about some deep place in the Void, long before she had seen it? There had always been something there, lingering just out of sight. And since then, they had truly met, in the dark places of their world where view had traveled.

Her hand flexed and clenched for a moment, where the bandage was wrapped about it to cover the Mark.

“You’re always watching over things. Whether they’re interesting or odd or mundane. You’ve seen it all. Did you see this coming?” She looked around the beach. Speaking more about the entire situation in general.

The Empress crouched down next to the Outsider. “You could have warned me when we spoke the last time if you knew. I thought I had a clean path to the Duke and Delilah, but now I’m here.”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

glimmeringbone‌:

Adelaide slows in response to Emily’s motion, recognizing in it something of the vigilance some of her pirates privateers showed when they returned to the city. A stiffness borne from fighting.

She doesn’t lean on the wall, but she puts her hands on it and looks down at the same view as Emily. There are pearled rings on her hands, and her nails are colored in blue.

She thinks to ask a question, so that she can ask other questions later. She must get a sense of the terrain before she can act. So, without preamble – “Where you lived, was there an ocean?”

The woman steps beside Emily and the Empress raises her gaze to her. She notes the blue polish on her nails, the pearls, she notes the beauty of this woman that seems almost otherworldly. It likely is otherworldly. She notices that this woman has a regality to her. One that Emily herself, perhaps, lacks.

“An ocean all around, my land is an empire of islands.” She straightened, hands pressing against the wall to hold herself to her full height. “This reminds me more of Serkonos, where the nobility frolic for their vacations. Dunwall is always dreary.”

Dreary, but it is home, nonetheless.

“And you?”

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@knifedindunwall

This place has been strange, and has stopped her from her plans, but it has thus far not been unkind. Emily Kaldwin has found it odd to adapt to so many different types of people and creatures, but she has always tried to adapt easily. Change has always been too vast in her life for her to try to stand still. She learned that at ten years old.

The winding, maze-like structures of the Sea of Crises are not so imposing as they were initially. She has learned their paths a little better now. It will likely never be as clear as a winding path through Dunwall, but she has found that her steps seem easier now. There is less to be hesitant of.

She does not expect to walk down a street and look up and see a face that has been plastered in her mind since she was ten years of age. She has seen the Outsider thus far, but she somehow did not think that he would be here. That Daud would be standing a few yards forward, looking the same as he did that day.

Emily has always said that her one regret, the only thing she could hate her Father for, was Corvo letting him go. That he didn’t deserve it. And that if she ever laid eyes on him, she was going to kill him. She doesn’t have weapons. She doesn’t have anything except the dead heart of her mother and a collection of whale bones and one ability gifted to them by the god that they share.

Her long form moves towards him with purpose, boots heavy against the ground, eyes sharpened into daggers. She isn’t sure what’s going to happen now, but she’s not letting him get away. She starts to call out, but decides better of it. She isn’t sure if her voice will hold sound without trembling.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@glimmeringbone

Emily had found herself at the Mare Nectaris almost as often as her own area. The ocean reminded her of Dunwall, in the way that the ocean would. It may have lacked the grime and the same smell in the air, but she could enjoy the relaxation that the ebb and flow of the waves brought.

Well, as relaxed as she found that she could be. Even the slightest hint of movement near her set her looking about. Paranoid, perhaps, but she was still used to being on the run and having to watch her back at every turn.

The Empress settled to lean her elbows against a low wall, overlooking down across the beach below. Her head turned, catching the sound of someone nearby, but she quickly turned her gaze outwards again. There was little chance that it was someone who wanted to do anything, except their own business. Or perhaps hold a conversation.

She idly rubbed her thumb across a charm in her hand, the one that she normally kept pinned to her coat - worrying across the symbols engraved on the bone like a stone.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@tidecast

The forests were something odd. She had traveled to many areas of the Isles and, of course, they had forests. But nothing quite so like this. The area around the housing unit she had found herself in - Lampadia Suites - was interesting to her. Enough that she spent quite a bit of time simply wandering.

Warm brown eyes roved over the trees and hummed to herself in thought. If Far Reach would lift her higher, Emily could have climbed as high as these trees went. Perhaps she still could, with careful positioning and work. But for now, the floor of the Sea would be sufficient for her path.

Her shoulder leaned against the base of a tree, surveying over the area in front of her before she took notice of someone else nearby. The Empress moved to sit herself on an exposed, lifted root, legs stretched out in front of her.

“Hail.” Manners would dictate for her to properly greet someone, even if she had always had an awkward way of doing so. “Are you - well, I don’t think any of us are truly enjoying ourselves here, are we?” She gave her best attempt at a crooked smile.

[chaoskaldwin-blog]

@tabardalon

The winding streets of the Sea of Crises were almost claustrophobic, which said a great deal from someone who had grown in Dunwall’s tight alleys - wedging between buildings and scaling up them like some sort of creature from the time she’d been a teenager.

But this was different. Emily didn’t know these streets and their maze-like qualities did little except to infuriate her - a raw temper boiling up underneath her otherwise calm appearance. A simple exploratory walk was turning into a headache and she detested it more with every second that went by.

Hands reached up to pull herself over an alley wall, scrambling over it and down onto the other side with a fellinesque grace. She turned a corner, finding herself running nearly headlong into someone. She swerved back, bowing her head in an apology.

“I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Well, whoever it was looked as out of place as she did. But who didn’t look out of place here?