I still love drawing 'covers' for my fic sometimes, especially (particularly) for my Dishonored werewolf au, so this is the one I drew for my newest one shot piece, Whale Fall. Feel free to give it a read here.
Thanks for all the love guys. I missed being in fandom with you. <3
I still love drawing 'covers' for my fic sometimes, especially (particularly) for my Dishonored werewolf au, so this is the one I drew for my newest one shot piece, Whale Fall. Feel free to give it a read here.
Thanks for all the love guys. I missed being in fandom with you. <3
Fandom: Dishonored, Werewolf AU
Ship: Corvo/Daud
Rated: Mature, graphic depictions of body horror, violence
Synopsis: It's been 20 months, but adjusting to life as a giant whale sized wolf is much harder than Corvo anticipated. As always, Daud has a solution, of sorts.
One shot, 9k words of me wanting to spend time with the my wolf boys.
CHAPTER TAGS: blood warning, magic shenanigans, a bit of a PTSD-induced attack, animal euthanasia
AO3 Link
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18th Day, Month of Seeds, 1838
Night over Dunwall was as still and as cold as the ice clinging to the inlets, stubbornly refusing to thaw despite being well into spring. The wind whipped over rooftops and as the darkness deepened, warm window light blinked out like stars, one by one. Soon, it was just the blue floodlights below illuminating the street, keeping alleys free of rats as the city continued to recover from the wound the plague left behind.
Above the city, set against a starless sky, a black furred beast silently materialized. Massive in size, it was impossible to tell where it ended and where the night began. Only glowing eyes reflecting the lights of the street gave away its position, watching carefully for any movement below. When the roadways were confirmed cleared of everyone but the stray City Watch officer, the shadow shifted its bulk, turning away and peering out towards the water of the Wrenhaven.
Corvo Attano, in a form only a handful would recognize, gazed silently over the current stretch of Dunwall below him. A train line cut through, track closed for the night, delineating where the apartments ended and where Slaughterhouse Row properly began. Far west and south of Dunwall Tower, the slaughterhouses were an area he had rarely visited, not even with Jessamine or her father before her. He watched the row of warehouses rising from the water like tombstones, marking their deadly intent, appearing like a scene in a nightmare novel.
Winter was a slow time for whale processing, as the huge beasts migrated north and west around the islands of Morley and Tyvia. It left his pricked ears quiet tonight, no sad notes or crying songs filtering into the sky. But the silence was far from comforting; despite the name, the place he was going was no longer a slaughterhouse.
Instead, it was a grave.
The fur on Corvo's neck rustled in the wind and he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Long limbs clung to the brick and mortar, flexing carefully. His sinuous body unfolded like a spring; he half-leapt, half-smoked to a new vantage point, a phantom above a sleeping city.
Over twenty months out from when he first turned into a whale-wolf and still, Corvo had trouble being comfortable with the size of himself, had a hard time admitting to himself or others, how natural it felt to be out of his skin like this. To be something made of smoke and water, of fur and muscle and magic and solid sharp voidstone.
To be something decidedly not human.
Of course, he was human at birth and no amount of Void-given powers changed that, but still he clung fully to that humanity, pushing aside whatever he was now. It was becoming a bad habit; he'd go weeks without transforming, convinced he didn't “need to”; a self delusion. The feral, frantic energy that haunted him since Coldridge would build again, leaving him feeling trapped and manic. Eventually he'd rip his skin apart before someone or something else could, sure that if he didn't, the Void would pour out from the tiniest of cuts and consume him whole.
And if that happened, he joked to himself dourly, I would expose Emily, my cover would be broken, and I wouldn't be invited back to court breakfast ever again. As if that was the real loss from transforming and attacking someone, and not his sanity, which was constantly wavering on a knife’s edge.
Or, perhaps more accurately, on the Knife of Dunwall’s edge.
As Corvo settled again, tail whipping away the Void, another materialized, even larger than himself. A huge whale of a wolf— black as onyx, blue eyes, and scars burning in the dark— joined Corvo on the roof. Corvo looked to Daud, ear twitching, and as soon as their eyes met, he felt the comfortable warmth of their minds touching.
Though it took all of his willpower, Corvo resisted the urge to physically reach out to him as well.
“It's quite the impressive mental blockade you have erected,” Corvo observed, complementary as he always was with the assassin-turned-spy. The burning magic under Daud's scars faded, blending them back into the black of his fur. “I can't feel a single Whaler, even when I search for them. It's like they vanished entirely.”
It was planned, of course. Corvo knew that for about two days, his mind would be empty of anyone but Daud. Still, after a year and a half of mental chatter, the lack of it was suffocating. He had told himself it was temporary, that it was for this single personal mission between the two of them, but that didn't stop the feeling of the cold creep at the back of his mind, threatening to engulf him whole if he didn't look for a connection from—
Daud’s crooked nose curled, a long fang making itself known. “You do this long enough, and you learn how to keep your privacy.” The smirk turned into a sneer as Daud looked away from Corvo and over to the whale slaughterhouses. “You are well past ‘long enough’.”
Corvo bristled but let it go before Daud could feel the brush of irritation against his thoughts. It was a conversation they had had multiple times recently and he was not interested in revisiting the topic. Instead he chose the high road, his huge chest heaving with a sigh.
“Well, it's like you told me,” Corvo sniffed derisively. “This should help with that.”
“In theory.” Daud leaned forward, claws hanging off the roofing edge as his huge body stretched. “This slaughterhouse is abandoned, but it should have everything we need within. I had no time to clean up things before we evacuated.”
Daud leapt to a new rooftop, his footfalls light despite his size. Corvo watched his back as he gained ground.
“How long has it been since you've been back?” Corvo asked, watching a street rat intently before looking back to the abandoned building. Something about it put his hair on end, ears lying back apprehensively.
Daud, however, remained impassive.
“Do you remember the warehouse that exploded during the Fugue before 1833 began?”
The surprise was palpable across their connection. Daud looked back at Corvo’s wide eyes.
“You blew it up?”
“We were ambushed,” Daud snarled. “It happened as a consequence. Needless to say, it gave us the cover to evacuate with few casualties. Can't say the same for the Overseers involved.” A pause as he clenched a clawed hand, transversing ever closer to the haunted warehouse and further from Corvo.
“It was harder on the assassins than it was for me. We had been there for over ten years. We were settled. It had become a territory and a home. The Whalers enjoyed the cover and I got complacent to their comfort. Maybe that was my mistake that left us vulnerable in the first place, so when we were ambushed I had to make sure nobody would go back.”
Corvo considered sending sympathies but before he could even fully conjure the idea, Daud was pushing his half-formed thoughts away.
“That's not why we're here, Corvo. You're lagging behind. Come.”
In a flash of light and ash, Daud was gone from Corvo's vision, finally too far away to track even with the Void over his eyes. He swallowed, white teeth snapping together in trepidation, before he followed Daud as commanded.
As they approached the abandoned slaughterhouse, it became more and more apparent to Corvo why it looked so haunting. In the gloom of the night, the damage of the old explosion made itself known. Where the south end of the long building appeared intact, if not burnt in areas, the northern half facing the river was blown asunder, a gaping hole in its side, exposed beams like an angry maw sharp against the night sky. A cold wind blew off choppy and angry water, carrying the ghost of a painful whale cry. Corvo shivered despite himself and followed Daud as he made his way inside from the damaged roof. By the time he landed outside the foreman’s offices, Daud had already contracted his body, taking on his wolf-headed human form he favored so much.
A long ear twitched his direction as Corvo the Human emerged from the smoke, shaking out the shining Mark on his left hand. Long away from his months in Coldridge, his physique was back to full and strong, but his eyes still held their dark sharpness, even when filled with the warmth of seeing Emily, or the mirth of a well-timed joke. He fixed the collar of his thick Royal Protector Coat, re-tailored after the murk of the plague made it all but unsalvageable. Daud, in contrast, dressed far more plainly, keeping on a red shirt under a heavy overcoat, his bandolier just visible across his chest. His furred nose twitched, watching Corvo carefully.
“I can tell I already hate this place,” Corvo whispered, his words sounding too loud as they echoed into the emptiness. A toothy grin broke Daud’s face.
“Not a fan of haunted houses, Attano?” He grinned, all teeth against that black fur. His voice always sounded sharp and warped in this form, like something or someone truly dangerous. But Corvo knew better; Daud just liked to show off for him sometimes.
He scowled in return, looking anywhere but towards his wolfish spymaster.
“The only thing haunting this place is us,” he grumbled out, hoping that was true. “Let's get on with this, so we can get out without attracting attention.”
“Oh, there are plenty of ghosts in this wretched place. Perhaps you'll get to meet one.”
There was a bang and groan of something falling below and Corvo twitched. His head jerked to Daud who just grinned even more, the power smoking off his clawed hand.
“Stop fucking around, Daud.”
“Who said it was me?” The tease was obvious.
Corvo audibly groaned, his voice drowned out by Daud's hyena cackle. Neck prickling with irritation, Corvo blinked away, his own Mark flaring to life. The disappointed call that followed him was swallowed by the Void in his ears, whispering and rushing by. By the time he landed on an old dilapidated whale hangar, Daud was there across from him, looking only slightly more sobered.
“I didn't predict you'd be that jumpy, Corvo. Ghosts aside, it's just us in here, I already scouted the perimeter.”
“This place just makes my skin crawl,” he mumbled, looking around from their shared, centralized vantage point. He cursed the moon for being so absent; even without the clouds, it would have only been a sliver above the city. His eyes darted from dark corner to dark corner, eyes adjusting enough to see broken chains, forgotten saws, exploded oil canisters, and even darker hallways leading to more offices, processing areas, and the lockers for the workers in the slaughterhouses.
Fur shuddered down his back and Daud watched him carefully.
“You may just be reacting to the memory of this place,” Daud told him calmly. “The whales leave their mark when they float from here into the Void, and their deaths mean the veil is always thin near Slaughterhouse Row. But it's that energy that we need to draw from now, where it's easy to pull from the other side.” He shook out his Marked hand like it itched. “Just follow my lead. I know where I'm going and what I left behind.”
Corvo's jaw worked, arms crossed, but Daud didn't waver. Corvo took another steadying breath and closed his eyes, letting the wraiths linger and then leave. “I may also just be… apprehensive of what you're going to ask of me while we're here. You wouldn't even show me a memory to prepare for it.”
Daud's wolf face remained stony, unreadable, but his left ear did flick. “That's because this isn't going to be a pleasant experience, and it was one I hoped I wouldn't have to return to. But it's come to this—”
Corvo sneered, lip curling as if his teeth were still sharp enough to scare.
“—and I can't see other options. You either start actually accepting what you are now, or continue to endanger not only your position, but mine and my men and Emily's as well.”
Corvo didn't even look at Daud as he spoke, his agitation far more apparent now that he wasn't so bestial. His leg bounced and he debated on jumping away again; he wrestled the urge back down, even if his anger rose in its place.
“I refuse to set aside my humanity, Daud.”
“That's not what is being demanded of you, Corvo. What's being demanded of you is to get under control—”
“Wasn't that what I was doing?” Corvo snarled, the argument bubbling up again. But now, they weren't in the Tower, the Whalers and Emily weren't here listening, and even as his voice echoed against the cold metal walls, he let it rise like he hasn't in months. “Learning how to live like this. The Whispers in my head, you here, grounding me to the floor, this Void-damned Mark…”
Not for the first time the thought of slicing his whole left hand off came up and Daud sneered, reacting to it.
“You know that won't work,” he said, pushing that thought out of his head with a casual hand wave, refusing to meet Corvo's energy. “You know that's not how this works. Corvo…” he sighed, standing up straighter.
Despite their precarious position and the lack of space, Daud blinked through the Void to stand next to Corvo, sharing his space. Corvo huffed, refusing to meet his eye, indignant on holding onto his anger for a little bit longer. It became increasingly hard to do as Daud put his nose against Corvo's neck in a move of solidarity.
It was all Corvo could do to not lean into it. He settled for letting his eyes slide closed instead.
“I know how this feels. Falling apart at the seams, cutting your skin to see fur underneath. Holding onto the idea that your situation will be different, that it won't follow you even in your waking days. To want to hide it away, forget about it for a while, to be human again, without all of this reminder of the opposite.”
Daud's voice was a murmur, warm breath in his ear, a comfort. Corvo couldn't meet his eye yet, but he at least was open enough to listen. When Daud pulled back Corvo turned to watch him.
“You can't ignore it, Corvo. The more you ignore it, the more the wolf presses against your skin, wanting to come out. Please… Don't ignore what you are for the comfort of what you were.”
“I'm still human, Daud,” his voice sounded choked. “You are, too. I have to believe that or I'll just go crazy faster than I already am.”
The look of pity that Daud gave him was almost too much for his heart to take. The wolf of man pulled away in a huff, looking off somewhere in the distance. Then, his gloved hand clenched.
Cold air replaced Daud's warm body and Corvo had to look around to find his dark outline, silhouetted against the rusted flooring of the warehouse. Fully human now, Daud watched Corvo before turning down a black hallway. Left alone, Corvo stood up straight, chest squeezing painfully. It took a few seconds but he resigned himself to following Daud into that inky darkness.
No matter how unpleasant this experience would be, it was still better than the alternative. And certainly, neither he nor Daud wanted it to come to that.
------
In the months immediately following Daud's instatement as Royal Spymaster and his men being placed on payroll as his spies, Corvo had never felt better. It was as if all of his problems were solved; all of his issues with willing himself to be human, of keeping the wolf bottled up, melted away when Daud and the Whalers-turned-Whispers were there. It was the salve his fevered mind needed in those early days; he sought it out like a drug, contact high keeping him going, fueling his ease and enjoyment. He would flow between states easily— poised and protective and stoic for Emily and her needs at court, and then patrolling the city with Daud or his men at night.
But there was a spanner in the works.
It started with the continued night terrors leading to transformations. A frustrating—albeit foreseen—issue Corvo continued to deal with but one that Daud was willing to guide him through. The incidents ebbed and flowed; sometimes it wouldn't happen for weeks, and then it would happen multiple times a month, or back to back, many fevered nights in a row. Daud was always there, pulling him back when nobody else could, not even himself. It was kind of the other whale-wolf, but it left Corvo increasingly agitated.
“You’re sure it's not some Void-borne illness?” Corvo snarled, his teeth too long in his mouth, his body still hot and sweaty from forcing himself back to human. He stared at the floor under his hands, feeling the shudder along his spine as Daud placed a palm against his fevered skin.
“I’m sure,” Daud would always infuriatingly respond. “I would've informed you if otherwise. But there are a few things that could be causing this… Stress, for example.”
Corvo shook his head, frustrated as he shrugged out of Daud's touch to stand up fully. “Stress. Sure. Comes with the job. But I don't feel stressed when I'm working, nothing that isn't usual. If anything, I'm bored.”
“Are you burning off residual energy during the day?” Daud asked, watching him carefully. “Are you eating enough to help with that?”
“I thought I was,” more exasperation leaking out between his teeth. “Maybe not enough.”
So he upped his diet. He tried training more, seeing if that helped. And for a time, it did. It had been at least two months since his last transformation in his sleep, allowing him some much needed rest.
So of course, the problem switched directions.
Instead of in his sleep, the issue began to manifest during his waking hours. During the day, Corvo needed to maintain appearances, sometimes even at night, depending on what was asked of him from Emily or the court. He would stand there, itching in his restriction, forced to keep his claws hidden, the insistent Mark constantly begging to be used.
To make things worse, despite how naturally everything came to Corvo in those early days (Instinct, the Outsider had told him), he felt nothing but inept around Daud or his spies, whom he saw semi-regularly and worked closely with.
It was not an issue of ability; as a Turned, Corvo's body pulsed with his own energies, powers erupting from his own scars and Mark. All of Daud's Bonded instead shared some abilities with Daud; it was not an even distribution and the affinity would change between individuals. No matter the situation, Corvo could easily outpower any individual spy, and had done so plenty of times in sparring practice.
However, what the Whalers had over Corvo was knowledge. Knowledge, and an ocean of experience.
Years of living with bodies that can change, having data collection skills and collective bargaining, having an anonymous persona towards the world— it all meant their experience was pooled into a bank worth decades of information. An impressive collection and the largest reason they made such excellent spies, but it also meant they misjudged Corvo's own knowledge more often than not.
“Attano, sir,” Thomas had asked him one morning in the Month of Harvest, “could you possibly send me any conversations you had previously with Teague Martin? Daud is looking for a conversation you had with the High Overseer earlier this year.”
The look of confusion must have been startling, since Thomas visibly jerked, still not used to knowing his expressions could be seen by everyone now.
“Send you?” Corvo asked. “Do you mean as an audiograph?”
Thomas stood there silently on the other side of Corvo's desk for a second too long. He shifted his weight.
“Apologies, Corvo. I did not realize you were unaware of how to transfer memory yet.”
“Should I know how to transfer memory?” Corvo bristled, thinking of the ordeal of reliving Daud's memories of the Brigmore Manor.
“If you haven’t intuited it naturally yet, yes. It would be wise to gain such a skill. Especially because improper use can cause a degradation of your sense of self.” When Corvo continued to stare at him, inquisitive questions floating across the Bond, Thomas shifted again, uncomfortable.
“I can't teach you myself, sir. It's a side effect of the Bond with Daud; like our other powers, it is a far weaker influence than his is. What we give to him is disconnected from our sense of self and our emotions; like watching through a spyglass, he sees our memories from afar. Over time, some of us can learn to edit out the unimportant bits, like if a patrol yields only one interesting result, but it's nothing like what Daud is capable of. I do not expect you to be as skilled as him, but… I apologize, I assumed that…”
His voice faded at the look on the Royal Protector’s face.
“You're dismissed, Thomas. Thank you for the message, I'll get back to Daud on what I remember on my own.”
And Thomas had left, bowing, leaving Corvo an itchy, irritated mess. It was unfortunately not the first time the Whispers had assumed more of him, and it wouldn't be the last.
It worsened when— over the Month of Nets and completely unknown to Corvo— Daud explained to Corvo exactly why he needed that memory in the first place.
“He was extorting the crown and blackmailing you, Corvo,” Daud told him. His casual tone could not hide the stiffness of his limbs, coiled and ready to move. Corvo, across from him, paced his chambers like a trapped wolfhound. “And it wasn't hard to find evidence on that.”
“And you couldn't tell me?” Corvo snarled, “you've been doing an investigation on a threat to the crown for a month and I couldn't be bothered to be informed of it?”
Daud’s expression was hard. “Corvo, you were a target and it was clearly a conflict of interest. Of course you weren't involved. You not knowing made the investigation process all the easier without raising suspicion.”
Corvo wanted to fight him, wanted to push his frustrations directly onto Daud— not an uncommon feeling, and if anyone could handle Corvo's fire, it was Daud's cold, calculated ice. But this wasn't the place to lash out; he was just too pent up, too much of everything. He just wanted to climb the Void-damned walls.
“Fine. I concede that point. I didn't need to know, and this is why I hired you. You and your men continue to be exemplary.”
“But…?” Daud asked, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Corvo's teeth ground down into his cheek so hard he was sure Daud could hear it.
“How?” Corvo whined, pained. “Nobody leaked it through the Bond. Not a word. Not even an inkling of the plan you were executing behind closed doors.”
“My men are well trained, Corvo,” Daud replied, though his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “They haven't been Dunwall's finest assassins under my thumb without knowing how to shut up—”
“No,” Corvo's head shook, his still-long hair shaking in his face. “That's not what I mean. How is that even possible? How are they able to just…”
And Daud understood.
There was a clear knowledge and skill gap between what Corvo and Daud could do— one that wasn't getting any smaller. As that gap grew into a chasm and then a canyon, Corvo felt the solid hold on his life he had so enjoyed slipping away. The madness was entering the edges of his mind again and Daud could sense it, the Whispers could feel it, and Emily could see it on his face when he threatened to lash out in public at any perceived threat. When an incident in Draper's Ward last week had Daud personally overriding his whole body and mind to keep him in check, they both knew.
Corvo couldn't deny it anymore.
So, they made a pact; he either forced himself to figure it out or he went mad, leaving Daud to kill him personally as a result.
------
It was like walking into the unknown.
The inky depths were almost too dark even for his light-sensitive eyes to see through; Corvo ended up pulling the Void over his eyes to avoid tripping on debris and to follow Daud's distant footfalls. They echoed through the empty hall like memories, the steps tantalizingly close but also so far away. The further he followed into that darkness, winding through hallways and past conveyor belts and meathooks, the more unsettled Corvo became. Huge bones littered vacant dumpsters, their soft tissues picked clean by the vermin of Dunwall.
It wasn't long until he saw Daud stop, the Void lighting him up like a beacon. Corvo winced; as he neared, the song of the Void greeted him like waves perpetually beating against rocky sand. Teeth feeling unpleasantly heavy, Corvo let the Void drop from his vision and joined Daud, dreading what he would find.
Daud had led them to the northern part of the building, in a partially destroyed room off the main hallway. It was intact but the roof had collapsed on one end, the outside visible through gaps in the debris. Protected from the eastward wind blown in off the water, Daud lit discarded lamps and candles. The warm glow threw long, reaching shadows against a chilly backdrop.
As Corvo's vision adjusted, however, the warmth didn't reach him and instead ice chilled his veins.
“Daud, what in the Void—”
Before him lay an elaborate mess; the remnants of what had once been the makings of an ornate and extremely involved Outsider shrine. The blood purple fabric was torn and scorched, one sconce ripped from the wall while the other clung on enough to be lit. A pedestal that clearly once held runes (or perhaps, Corvo envisioned, where Daud would craft bone charms) was tossed aside, broken in half. A chair lay busted in the corner, its cushion stained dark with an unknown substance.
But perhaps the most disturbing part was the bones.
Corvo was no stranger at this point to an Outsider's shrine. He had been drawn to and gathered up runes carved from whalebone before, had seen the charms the whalers pulled from their bandoliers or out of their inner pockets. Typically, however, most only had one or two bones and even those rattled with Void magicks, singing in his ear.
Here, it was a horde. Long, heavy bones lay against the walls, their surfaces carved deep with intricate patterns, scrimshawed from the bottom up. The ribs, no longer attached to the body, looked more like the teeth of a dragon than anything out of a whale. Vertebral spines ranging in size from larger than his torso down to the size of his finger lay splayed across the floor like tossed dice, spelling out his fortunes. And as he approached, they all sang out to him, aroused by his connection to the Void, a cacophony of chorused, saddened voices.
Despite the shocked question Corvo had posed, Daud did not look at Corvo at all. His face severe, he continued his own work, muttering to himself as he sorted through the bones like inventory. His words were soft murmurings, almost as if in prayer, but Corvo knew Daud wasn't the praying type.
Claws scraped along bone, Daud's Mark shining like a beacon under his gloves. Symbols lit up in the wake of his fingertips, his touch coaxing the ghosts in the bones awake for the first time in half a decade. Corvo's jaw tightened, his body thrumming with the sudden upsurge in energy, but still he stayed rooted to the spot, pushing the wolf down until Daud said anything otherwise.
Daud worked reverently, dutifully hunting out each symbol, the light spreading up long, columnar ribs, filling the previously dim space with yellows and whites and blues to match the orange of the candlelight. Once all were lit, Daud walked over to the largest of the bones, a piece that Corvo belatedly realized was the top of the skull, elongated and so misshapen from what he imagined it would be in his own thoughts. Daud sunk his claws into the bone, his hand and scars burning as magick coursed through his body, everything about him changing in a controlled ripple all the way down his spine. Even in his larger, wolfish body, smoking and huge, the skull still looked giant in comparison, its dead eye socket level with his.
That dead socket glowed with ghostly life, watching Daud carefully. The huge Wolfbanner met that fiery gaze, opened his mouth, and boomed his call out.
Corvo had to fight to keep himself together; the sound was low, loud, reverberating, and nothing like the screams and howls he was used to. Their cursed forms sounded more like whales than true wolves, he knew, the sound high and dripping with Void, but this was the exact opposite, it was infrasonic, rattling his ribcage, filling his body as well as his mind. The low frequency swung high towards the end of the long note, leaving him lightheaded when the sound finally died down.
Corvo staggered; only now did he notice the sweat all over his body, his limbs vibrating, his body pushing against its boundaries. He swallowed it down again, doing his best to recover from the Void filling him head to toe before going over to join Daud's huge form, careful not to touch anything along the way. Every bone sang out in response to Daud's cry and Corvo ached to join them.
“Daud,” he groaned, urging his teeth to not grow. “What— we are not that far from the Abbey, if they heard that, they'll—”
“They don't know how to listen,” Daud’s voice responded, his head bowed and listening intently. “Neither do you.” Corvo opened his mouth in protest, but a single glance from Daud was enough to silence it in his throat. His huge lip curled. “But you'll learn. This is your first lesson tonight; relax, breathe and open your damned ears.”
Corvo's mouth snapped shut with an audible click but he did as instructed. Closing his eyes, he took a breath, letting the tension leave on the exhale. His body ached to grow but he kept it all in place. Fueled by this simulated pocket of Void, he let his senses expand further than ever before.
A faint, pained cry. Curious, Corvo strained harder, following the call like a dog on a scent trail. When he got to the end he gasped, snapping back to reality so quickly he felt the whiplash. Panting, he looked to Daud, desperate for an explanation.
“A whale,” Corvo realized, but his statement quickly turned questioning. “In the Wrenhaven? At this time of year?”
Daud let go of the skull; the ghastly eye died away and whatever spirit he had called forth retreated back into the Void. He shook his huge body until his human form was emerging from the ash, brushing Void off his shoulder and letting his burning hand cool down.
“It's dying,” Daud explained; his voice was strained and Corvo couldn't tell if it was from effort or emotion. “It's been stuck here all winter from the ice, unseen, unheard and slowly starving to death.”
Daud met his eye and motioned him to follow; Corvo immediately obliged, his stomach twisting up in knots. “How do you know?” he asked, dread filling his limbs as they both began to Blink out of the warehouse through the roof wreckage.
“She told me.”
Corvo landed and stumbled, looking at Daud in a new light.
“She?”
“Yes, Corvo.”
“You're on speaking terms with a whale?”
“Yes, but it is a very difficult ordeal.
The call is taxing. I only knew she was here because I listened, and I only reached out because I had a favor to ask of her.”
Corvo Blinked again after Daud, claws growing as they traveled together, out to the icy shallows of the river. They were more exposed out here but with no moon and no workers, they remained invisible trespassers.
“What kind of favor does one ask of a whale?” Corvo asked, his heart hammering in his chest. A feeling of sadness greeted him in response and he looked to Daud for an explanation but received no answers.
It wasn't long before they saw it— a huge, pale beast pushed ashore by the high tide, left beached as the water receded. As they neared Corvo could hear the labored breathing, the deep reverberations of the exhale, her whole body shuddering under the weight of existing outside of water.
It was rare to see a whale up close, even rarer to see one in Dunwall alive and in the water, though this creature was only just on both accounts. The whale laid on her right side, leaving the left exposed; she blinked at the two of them, unable to move her massive girth, stuck in an ice prison of which she would never escape.
Daud landed next to her side but Corvo hesitated, nervous to approach. Daud met his eye and Corvo swallowed painfully.
Unpleasantries indeed.
“Can you feel her?” Daud asked him. In the gloom, Corvo could see his body shudder. “We're close enough now that it shouldn't be too much for you to reach out, if you try.”
He hesitated, unsure, but he had seen Daud call out, and he himself had felt the pull of the leviathan. He reached a hand out as gently as possible, his mind doing the same, prodding in the darkness like he had when he first started reaching out, desperate and eager and tentative.
In those early days of trying to mentally connect with others, Corvo had memorized mental tapestries. He could tell each Whaler from each individual in the Hound Pits Pub simply from mind and emotion alone, from their color and rhythm. Understandable, digestible, relatable, comfortable.
The whale, in contrast, was unfathomable.
He was met with a mind as vast as the ocean itself, of experience spanning centuries, of emotions he had no names for, imagery that made no sense and held no context. It wasn't chaotic, it wasn't busy, it was just beyond, as if it stretched endlessly, calm water carrying him towards a distant waterfall. Warm breath above, buoyed by an intense sadness below in those depthless waters. He keened in response, surprised when the whale replied in kind, letting out a sighing, mournful note.
“I heard the whale dying,” Daud whispered above the neverending song of the whale next to them. “I offered to end her suffering in exchange for her Void-filled flesh. She agreed to the sacrifice.”
Corvo heaved and was drowned in the overwhelming urge to cry. He couldn't even see, couldn't think, and it wasn't until Daud pushed reassuringly against his thoughts that he came back to himself. He blinked, his blazing Marked hand letting go of where it clung to the whale’s thick hide. Daud's heavy hand was on his shoulder, warm even through the glove. Corvo ran a hand over his face, into his hair.
“Spirits,” he coughed, his voice rough from too-thick teeth. “Sorry, I'm still processing— can we bond with a whale?”
Daud's lip twitched and he carefully pulled Corvo to a dry patch; at some point, he had started to wade into the cold water.
“In theory? Yes. In practice…?” He went quiet. “For most, the minds of whales are too vast— the human loses themselves entirely. Like an unmarked Wolfbanner, the mind flees, and the self deteriorates.”
“For most…” Corvo let that thought trail off, watching the whale and listening to her soft mourning. He looked over the huge creature; she was 15 meters, at least, and too many tonnes to count. Corvo sighed, ragged.
“So, do you have a proposal on how we do this as quickly as possible? I mean, we're both huge, but not this big. I don't think my teeth or claws can reach any vital areas.”
Daud grunted uncomfortably before pulling his Whaler sword off his side. The blade was, of course, long, thin, and deadly flexible despite its strength. He flipped it in his hand, holding the hilt towards Corvo.
“You'll use this.”
Corvo bristled, startled.
“Me?”
Daud sighed, his gaze going gentle. He walked over to Corvo, holding the blade out.
“Yes. The first half of the spell was gathering power with the bone; this is the second half, where the whale is the sacrifice. Yes, it is unfortunate that she must die like this, but it's better than the slow suffocation of being beached. She is here now, and we can give her a kindness while hopefully helping you. I think you should be fine, but if your claws aren't long enough, and neither is your folding blade, a Whaler's sword is designed to reach...”
The words spell and sacrifice graced Corvo's ears and his mind turned off, static replacing words. He knew Daud was explaining something important, he could hear the words, see the remorse, but it was increasingly hard to process. He looked at Daud's sword, seeing reflected on the blade a place where water flowed upside down, and a black eyed teen was smiling as he handed Corvo a beating heart, the heart of—
“...The Void should guide you to the heart, you just have to make sure your slice is true —”
But Corvo couldn't hear him anymore. Sadness bubbled up into his throat where it morphed into pain, that pain mutating into anger. Stabbing a heart? He didn't want to be told to do that, of all things; he didn't even know why he was associating a whale with Jessamine but he was, staring at the blade that was shoved in her heart, instructed to shove it into another. Both hearts of the Void, used as sacrificial lambs for his… what? Transformative experiences? He couldn't do it. He refused to.
His body shuddered and shook and expanded in ways that felt all too wrong and painful and he snarled into his hand, loud enough to ripple the water. He heard his name called, distantly, but it barely registered in his Void-filled ears.
Then, all at once, it happened.
The ocean, so calm previously, crashed down on him with full force, tossing him into the undertow. Pushing him down, down, down… the pressure made the air leave his lungs and he thrashed against it, fighting as his head throbbed and his chest seized and his limbs thrashed. There was no air that could help, no surface to escape to. Just the endless trap of the water above him, its presence overwhelming, threatening to crush him into nothingness.
He sank, going numb. Because what else could he do? He couldn't process his powers right, yet he refused this avenue forward. There was only one future for him, and it was to be pulled down into the depths, drowned like a rabid dog where the cold Void awaited him.
His eyes slid shut, resigned.
A Heart beat.
A girl laughed.
Overhead, the whale sang.
His eyes flew open. His chest heaved, splitting, ribs exposed as he exploded from his skin like a cicada from its chrysalis. Powered limbs pulled away from useless bone and sinew, away from those cloying cold hands. He didn't want this, he couldn't leave Emily— how could he even consider allowing himself to be pulled under, dragged away, when she still needed him? The whale called to him again, mournful and beckoning, and his fanged mouth opened and screamed out Voidsong in response.
I'm coming, he sang out, not knowing who he was talking to. I'm not going anywhere.
Ripping away from the cold of the Void's fingertips, Corvo lurched, jaws teeth claws hitting flesh fat bone, a rush of sensation as he bit down into hot blood and sweet flesh, the smell of it filling his nostrils. A moan deep in his throat rolled out of him as the whale sang its final song and Corvo bit down further until his fangs hit the flow of life. It gushed over his face and across his fur, so heavy and steady he was nearly suffocated in it. Instead he drank deep, body steaming and roiling, the edges blurring even as his huge form heaved, burying himself in this sensation. Void filled his body to bursting, the taste of it carried in the lifeblood river, splashing into the water, onto the dirt, attracting biting fish and rats but he ignored them, too engrossed, too utterly given to his job, his duty, it's what the leviathan asked for, what it wanted, what he needed—
Teeth at the back of his neck. The sensation of being pulled; next thing Corvo knew his jaws were snapping at air, claws trying and failing to grip the slippery carcass under him, still warm, still pouring blood from a ragged gaping wound—
“It's done,” Daud said in his mind, breaking his fervor. “Corvo, come back to me.” Corvo heaved, choked, stumbled, but Daud held him steady, body large enough to counterbalance. The scars on Corvo's arms screamed at him, his whole body shaking from exertion, from power…
“Daud,” he managed, and he felt the other wolf send encouraging affirmation across the bond. “I'm here. I'm back.”
“Better that you are,” Daud said, the statement twinged with amusement. “Your dive took you too close to the edge for comfort, but not without reward. Take a look at yourself.” Corvo blinked, dazed still, but Daud in his head was quickly bringing him back around. He searched for Daud and only belatedly realized he was looking down. Almost as if Corvo was…
He gaped. Still drenched in hot whaleblood he found his footing, readjusting to make sure he wasn't mistaken.
“When did you get so short?” Corvo half joked, still shocked by this turn of events. Daud just rolled his lips back, cackling and flashing dangerous fangs.
“I’m surprised you never asked yourself that question, Corvo.” Daud teased, licking the blood off his own nose and lips. “You just thought it was the way of things, for me to be bigger than you as a wolf but shorter as a human?”
“I…” Corvo stuttered, his thought stopping before it could finish. He was going to say he didn't know, but it was as if something in his mind had cleared, the whale’s psyche blasting down a wall he had erected around himself. His breath evened out as he sought the truth singing in his veins.
“I had resigned myself, mentally, to the size I was at,” He said, his tongue sneaking out to lick his blood-filled nose. “I didn't see a reason to get any larger, so I never even tried.”
“You needed to stretch,” Daud agreed. “You needed to see you are capable of what I am, maybe even more. You can't fight it; you just have to let yourself become what you need to be.”
Corvo huffed, the amusement palpable, before turning back to the whale. He didn't dwarf it— even the largest of whale-wolves could not reach the true size of a leviathan— but he did stand over its body, and the cut his teeth had sliced ran deep and true. A moment ago, he never would have believed his fangs could reach that far into the blubber. Now, he's surprised he didn't do more.
“What happened?” Corvo asked.
“The Void called,” Daud said, as if that alone was all that needed to be said. “I apologize; you reacted to my knife far more violently than I thought you would. I felt you wrestling with the pain of everything and so did the whale; Her mind crashed into you, reiterated what she wanted, and your body responded.”
Daud breathed deep, looking at Corvo with a hunger in his eye.
“It was rough, but you handled it exquisitely. Good job; it was breathtaking to behold.”
Corvo's ears went back, his chest filled with too much of an emotion he certainly wouldn't name. But the affection was raw on Daud's end, making Corvo all the more self-conscious.
“I’m glad it's my most self-destructive tendencies that get you most excited.”
Daud huffed a wolfish laugh as he bit into Corvo's scruff, pulling him closer. His tongue started cleaning Corvo's bloodsoaked face and muzzle; Corvo closed his eyes and hummed in approval, allowing the attention, his own tongue flicking out.
But another urge was stronger than sitting there, letting Daud indulge in his grooming session. Corvo grunted, pushing Daud away gently.
“Don't be so hasty,” he explained, his eyes locked on the open, gaping wound in the side of the whale. “I'm not done yet.”
The smell of the blood was heady and intoxicating; his teeth ached to go back in. A tentative reach with his mind told him the whale had well and truly moved on into the Void, and that was enough. With no more consternation about his actions he went back to the body, dipping a long nose back into the wound.
“Careful, Attano,” Daud chuckled, following his lead. “You might get addicted to the taste of Voidblood.”
He didn't respond, but the annoyed amusement bubbled across their bond all the same. For the first time since turning, Corvo let himself indulge, feed, take a few more steps to becoming whatever he was supposed to be. The gorging wasn't just to feed the body but the whole of his being, the chunk of him that was Void now; he couldn't help but wonder if he'd always had a shard of it lodged in him somewhere, the Outsider just giving it a shape he could do something with, something more.
He and Daud fed on the whale for hours. They couldn't finish it, to be sure, but they ate enough flesh for them to be able to push the carcass into the water, where it would float off and sink to become a feast for the hagfish. The water was still terribly cold but his fur was insulating enough, and it was well worth the swim to wash the blood from his whole body.
Like a pair of huge, furry walrus, they hauled back up on land near the exploded warehouse, shaking shaggy bodies free of water as the earliest residents of Dunwall began to stir along with the sunrise. Corvo breathed and let his body relax into his native, human state, wringing water from his hair and glad his coat wasn't equally waterlogged. Daud fared similarly, shaking water droplets from clothes and skin and hair.
When Corvo leaned in easily to capture Daud's mouth with his own, he was glad to know they now both smelt of sea and salt and not of whale blood. The rumble of approval sent a thrill down his spine, even more so when he was rewarded with a gloved hand gripping into his hair. Corvo grinned against Daud, pulling away with a gentle nibble at his lip.
“Tease,” Daud complained, but the affection didn't lower across the bond, and Corvo smiled after him as Daud wandered away.
“Later,” he agreed, and Corvo grinned like a teenager on Fugue. Teeth snapping together happily, he gathered himself to be off, the appearance of the sun meaning their welcome certainly was well and truly overstayed.
“Ready when you are, then.” Counting out the time, he would need to be with Emily soon, regardless of any of their previous activities.
“Just a moment,” Daud muttered, moving with a sense of haste. He jumped down into the destroyed shrine room, so much less haunting now that the oncoming day burned away any lingering spirits. Corvo waited patiently for Daud to return; as soon as he was by Corvo's side, they disappeared together in a flurry of ash and smoke, rushing back towards Dunwall Tower on the other side of the city.
------
Later, predictably, didn't go as Corvo envisioned. It was not the fault of anyone, of course; it was just the way of things as spring had started and the young Empress needed her Royal Protector more than ever. Corvo was hardly able to truly speak with Emily until after dinner was served and she was allowed to retire, the two of them finally having time to themselves. He had curled up in bed with her, indulging her every fantasy until she was too tired to keep going, slipping more and more into slumber as he lounged, content and warm, mind brushing reassuringly against hers as she fell asleep.
That's where Daud found him two hours later, the spymaster entering the bedroom quietly so as to not wake the Empress. Corvo, of course, stirred, but only when Daud was close enough to sense, the smell of him coaxing him back to wakefulness. Corvo looked for him; Daud hovered near the edge of the bed, always respectful of Corvo and his space when it came to Emily.
A silent nod passed between the two of them; Corvo slipped out of Emily's grasp like water, practiced at leaving her without a single disturbance. A breath of wind and Corvo knew Daud had left ahead of him without even looking; Corvo chose the slow route of walking back downstairs to his chambers, his mental web pinging the location of individual spies checking in and acknowledging their positions.
He then paused outside the door to his room, concentrated, and erected careful walls around his mind.
It was slow going and would need some practice, but it worked for his needs. The chatter stilled and quieted like a closing door, gently locking everyone else out. Smiling despite himself and savoring even small victories, he entered his room, locking the physical door much like his mental one and checking the secret entrance while Daud lazily watched from where he sat at Corvo's desk. His coat was already thrown over the back of the chair, his whole body languid as the Royal Protector walked over and finally leaned down to capture his Spymaster.
A possessive hand rested on Daud's thigh, another on the back of the chair while Corvo kissed him lazily, doing it more for the contact than any intent. Still, the pleased rumble in Daud's throat filled him with a warm heat, and the hand on Daud's leg squeezed.
“I didn't really say thank you earlier,” Corvo murmured out after pulling away for a breath, his forehead resting on Daud's. “It helped. Or I should say, it's helping. Progress is progress.*
“Growing pains,” Daud agreed, right hand holding the left on his thigh in place. “It'll lessen with time, and through maintenance.” Corvo muttered out a complaint about another thing to track in his schedule, and Daud simply laughed. Sobering, he shifted under Corvo, reaching over to dig into a coat pocket.
Out of it, Daud pulled a silent but ominous piece of whale rib, fully inscribed with runes and magic. Corvo blinked, disengaging to take the rune from Daud to inspect for himself. The Void thrummed through the bone, beckoning him so strongly his claws grew unbidden.
“Salvaged from the warehouse,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “If you notice yourself slipping or feeling too tight in your own skin, come back to this. It'll absorb some of that energy away but do be careful; the damn thing can be overloaded and rendered useless, and I don't want to harvest another piece any time soon.”
“So a battery,” Corvo muttered, feeling the inscriptions. “Or a worry stone.”
“I suggest dropping some of your energy into it in the morning, then grab it back by the evening. It will likely force you to transform, so be careful and wait until you're alone. But if you truly need to feel that modicum of humanity…” Daud gestured to the rib end yet again and the scrimshaw carved into the sides. “It worked for me, it'll work for you.”
Corvo huffed, still busy studying the piece before setting it carefully on the desk. He walked to the other side of the room, looking lazily out the dark window.
“It’s a cruel joke, isn't it? We stay human, but the harder we cling to humanity, the worse we get.” He shrugged, arms crossed.
“That's why it's a curse, Corvo. We'll struggle with it until we die naturally, or the Void take The Outsider likes to pretend it's helping with its Mark but it's just delaying the inevitable.”
Corvo sighed, hands uncrossing to instead be pocketed, turning back towards Daud.
“Just a pair of cursed humans, then,” he smirked, humorless.
“Cursed monsters of men, more like it.”
Corvo sat down on the bed, unbuckling boots with a smooth practice.
“Cursed or not, I don't know where I'd be without you while dealing with all of this.”
He heard Daud shift.
“We both know where you'd be; six feet under,” he replied. “This is just me cleaning up after my own messes.”
That prompted Corvo to look up from his shoes, annoyed despite his easy pose.
“Don't go back to that line of thinking, Daud. We're past it, anything else is my own doing, my own problems.”
“You misunderstand, Corvo.” Daud stood and walked over to sit next to him on the bed; Corvo turned to him, watching him carefully. “I'm always cleaning up my own messes. I'm very efficient at it, making mistakes. But when it comes to you…”
Corvo swallowed and looked away. “I know, I know, you don't want me going through what happened to you.”
“You can't afford my mistakes, Corvo.”
“I don't know, there is a lot of coin behind the crown, I think I could manage it.” When Daud didn't indulge his humor, he let it go, in favor of a different topic. He tossed his boots, licking his lips.
“You'll show me what happened, soon?”
Daud gave him a careful look. He sighed and held up a finger.
“One week,” he growled out. “Allow yourself to process and digest what just happened. If you manage to even out and calm down by then, yes. I'll show you my memories of what happened to me.”
Corvo looked surprised, back straightening.
“Really?” He tried not to sound too excited at the prospect. “What changed your mind?”
Daud's jaw worked. “You and your damned stubborness. You cling to humanity like a barnacle to the shore, watching the relentless tide crash over you. But we aren't…” Corvo shot him a look but Daud's eyes flashed dangerously before he could protest.
“You need to know what's on the other side of the line that you so happily want to flirt with. That, and…” Daud met Corvo's eager eye, but whatever he saw there gave him pause. Corvo couldn't place it; was it fear? Insecurity? From Daud? He gently prodded at him for an answer, but the spy just locked up tighter.
“Do me a favor; fill your battery this week. We'll both need it, because if I'm going to show you, you're going to get everything, and it's far from pretty and will sap both of us of our strength. And maybe I shouldn't have waited so long for you to know but…”
He breathed, mind set. “…But you deserve to know. So get ready, Corvo.” His smile is subtle, sharp, dangerous.
“You'll soon see my story of how I became the Wolf of Man in Dunwall.”
Fandom: Dishonored, Werewolf AU
Ship: Corvo/Daud
Rated: Mature, graphic depictions of body horror, violence
Synopsis: It's been 20 months, but adjusting to life as a giant whale sized wolf is much harder than Corvo anticipated. As always, Daud has a solution, of sorts.
One shot, 9k words of me wanting to spend time with the my wolf boys.
CHAPTER TAGS: blood warning, magic shenanigans, a bit of a PTSD-induced attack, animal euthanasia
AO3 Link
-----------------------------------------
18th Day, Month of Seeds, 1838
Night over Dunwall was as still and as cold as the ice clinging to the inlets, stubbornly refusing to thaw despite being well into spring. The wind whipped over rooftops and as the darkness deepened, warm window light blinked out like stars, one by one. Soon, it was just the blue floodlights below illuminating the street, keeping alleys free of rats as the city continued to recover from the wound the plague left behind.
Above the city, set against a starless sky, a black furred beast silently materialized. Massive in size, it was impossible to tell where it ended and where the night began. Only glowing eyes reflecting the lights of the street gave away its position, watching carefully for any movement below. When the roadways were confirmed cleared of everyone but the stray City Watch officer, the shadow shifted its bulk, turning away and peering out towards the water of the Wrenhaven.
Corvo Attano, in a form only a handful would recognize, gazed silently over the current stretch of Dunwall below him. A train line cut through, track closed for the night, delineating where the apartments ended and where Slaughterhouse Row properly began. Far west and south of Dunwall Tower, the slaughterhouses were an area he had rarely visited, not even with Jessamine or her father before her. He watched the row of warehouses rising from the water like tombstones, marking their deadly intent, appearing like a scene in a nightmare novel.
Winter was a slow time for whale processing, as the huge beasts migrated north and west around the islands of Morley and Tyvia. It left his pricked ears quiet tonight, no sad notes or crying songs filtering into the sky. But the silence was far from comforting; despite the name, the place he was going was no longer a slaughterhouse.
Instead, it was a grave.
The fur on Corvo's neck rustled in the wind and he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Long limbs clung to the brick and mortar, flexing carefully. His sinuous body unfolded like a spring; he half-leapt, half-smoked to a new vantage point, a phantom above a sleeping city.
Over twenty months out from when he first turned into a whale-wolf and still, Corvo had trouble being comfortable with the size of himself, had a hard time admitting to himself or others, how natural it felt to be out of his skin like this. To be something made of smoke and water, of fur and muscle and magic and solid sharp voidstone.
To be something decidedly not human.
Of course, he was human at birth and no amount of Void-given powers changed that, but still he clung fully to that humanity, pushing aside whatever he was now. It was becoming a bad habit; he'd go weeks without transforming, convinced he didn't “need to”; a self delusion. The feral, frantic energy that haunted him since Coldridge would build again, leaving him feeling trapped and manic. Eventually he'd rip his skin apart before someone or something else could, sure that if he didn't, the Void would pour out from the tiniest of cuts and consume him whole.
And if that happened, he joked to himself dourly, I would expose Emily, my cover would be broken, and I wouldn't be invited back to court breakfast ever again. As if that was the real loss from transforming and attacking someone, and not his sanity, which was constantly wavering on a knife’s edge.
Or, perhaps more accurately, on the Knife of Dunwall’s edge.
As Corvo settled again, tail whipping away the Void, another materialized, even larger than himself. A huge whale of a wolf— black as onyx, blue eyes, and scars burning in the dark— joined Corvo on the roof. Corvo looked to Daud, ear twitching, and as soon as their eyes met, he felt the comfortable warmth of their minds touching.
Though it took all of his willpower, Corvo resisted the urge to physically reach out to him as well.
“It's quite the impressive mental blockade you have erected,” Corvo observed, complementary as he always was with the assassin-turned-spy. The burning magic under Daud's scars faded, blending them back into the black of his fur. “I can't feel a single Whaler, even when I search for them. It's like they vanished entirely.”
It was planned, of course. Corvo knew that for about two days, his mind would be empty of anyone but Daud. Still, after a year and a half of mental chatter, the lack of it was suffocating. He had told himself it was temporary, that it was for this single personal mission between the two of them, but that didn't stop the feeling of the cold creep at the back of his mind, threatening to engulf him whole if he didn't look for a connection from—
Daud’s crooked nose curled, a long fang making itself known. “You do this long enough, and you learn how to keep your privacy.” The smirk turned into a sneer as Daud looked away from Corvo and over to the whale slaughterhouses. “You are well past ‘long enough’.”
Corvo bristled but let it go before Daud could feel the brush of irritation against his thoughts. It was a conversation they had had multiple times recently and he was not interested in revisiting the topic. Instead he chose the high road, his huge chest heaving with a sigh.
“Well, it's like you told me,” Corvo sniffed derisively. “This should help with that.”
“In theory.” Daud leaned forward, claws hanging off the roofing edge as his huge body stretched. “This slaughterhouse is abandoned, but it should have everything we need within. I had no time to clean up things before we evacuated.”
Daud leapt to a new rooftop, his footfalls light despite his size. Corvo watched his back as he gained ground.
“How long has it been since you've been back?” Corvo asked, watching a street rat intently before looking back to the abandoned building. Something about it put his hair on end, ears lying back apprehensively.
Daud, however, remained impassive.
“Do you remember the warehouse that exploded during the Fugue before 1833 began?”
The surprise was palpable across their connection. Daud looked back at Corvo’s wide eyes.
“You blew it up?”
“We were ambushed,” Daud snarled. “It happened as a consequence. Needless to say, it gave us the cover to evacuate with few casualties. Can't say the same for the Overseers involved.” A pause as he clenched a clawed hand, transversing ever closer to the haunted warehouse and further from Corvo.
“It was harder on the assassins than it was for me. We had been there for over ten years. We were settled. It had become a territory and a home. The Whalers enjoyed the cover and I got complacent to their comfort. Maybe that was my mistake that left us vulnerable in the first place, so when we were ambushed I had to make sure nobody would go back.”
Corvo considered sending sympathies but before he could even fully conjure the idea, Daud was pushing his half-formed thoughts away.
“That's not why we're here, Corvo. You're lagging behind. Come.”
In a flash of light and ash, Daud was gone from Corvo's vision, finally too far away to track even with the Void over his eyes. He swallowed, white teeth snapping together in trepidation, before he followed Daud as commanded.
As they approached the abandoned slaughterhouse, it became more and more apparent to Corvo why it looked so haunting. In the gloom of the night, the damage of the old explosion made itself known. Where the south end of the long building appeared intact, if not burnt in areas, the northern half facing the river was blown asunder, a gaping hole in its side, exposed beams like an angry maw sharp against the night sky. A cold wind blew off choppy and angry water, carrying the ghost of a painful whale cry. Corvo shivered despite himself and followed Daud as he made his way inside from the damaged roof. By the time he landed outside the foreman’s offices, Daud had already contracted his body, taking on his wolf-headed human form he favored so much.
A long ear twitched his direction as Corvo the Human emerged from the smoke, shaking out the shining Mark on his left hand. Long away from his months in Coldridge, his physique was back to full and strong, but his eyes still held their dark sharpness, even when filled with the warmth of seeing Emily, or the mirth of a well-timed joke. He fixed the collar of his thick Royal Protector Coat, re-tailored after the murk of the plague made it all but unsalvageable. Daud, in contrast, dressed far more plainly, keeping on a red shirt under a heavy overcoat, his bandolier just visible across his chest. His furred nose twitched, watching Corvo carefully.
“I can tell I already hate this place,” Corvo whispered, his words sounding too loud as they echoed into the emptiness. A toothy grin broke Daud’s face.
“Not a fan of haunted houses, Attano?” He grinned, all teeth against that black fur. His voice always sounded sharp and warped in this form, like something or someone truly dangerous. But Corvo knew better; Daud just liked to show off for him sometimes.
He scowled in return, looking anywhere but towards his wolfish spymaster.
“The only thing haunting this place is us,” he grumbled out, hoping that was true. “Let's get on with this, so we can get out without attracting attention.”
“Oh, there are plenty of ghosts in this wretched place. Perhaps you'll get to meet one.”
There was a bang and groan of something falling below and Corvo twitched. His head jerked to Daud who just grinned even more, the power smoking off his clawed hand.
“Stop fucking around, Daud.”
“Who said it was me?” The tease was obvious.
Corvo audibly groaned, his voice drowned out by Daud's hyena cackle. Neck prickling with irritation, Corvo blinked away, his own Mark flaring to life. The disappointed call that followed him was swallowed by the Void in his ears, whispering and rushing by. By the time he landed on an old dilapidated whale hangar, Daud was there across from him, looking only slightly more sobered.
“I didn't predict you'd be that jumpy, Corvo. Ghosts aside, it's just us in here, I already scouted the perimeter.”
“This place just makes my skin crawl,” he mumbled, looking around from their shared, centralized vantage point. He cursed the moon for being so absent; even without the clouds, it would have only been a sliver above the city. His eyes darted from dark corner to dark corner, eyes adjusting enough to see broken chains, forgotten saws, exploded oil canisters, and even darker hallways leading to more offices, processing areas, and the lockers for the workers in the slaughterhouses.
Fur shuddered down his back and Daud watched him carefully.
“You may just be reacting to the memory of this place,” Daud told him calmly. “The whales leave their mark when they float from here into the Void, and their deaths mean the veil is always thin near Slaughterhouse Row. But it's that energy that we need to draw from now, where it's easy to pull from the other side.” He shook out his Marked hand like it itched. “Just follow my lead. I know where I'm going and what I left behind.”
Corvo's jaw worked, arms crossed, but Daud didn't waver. Corvo took another steadying breath and closed his eyes, letting the wraiths linger and then leave. “I may also just be… apprehensive of what you're going to ask of me while we're here. You wouldn't even show me a memory to prepare for it.”
Daud's wolf face remained stony, unreadable, but his left ear did flick. “That's because this isn't going to be a pleasant experience, and it was one I hoped I wouldn't have to return to. But it's come to this—”
Corvo sneered, lip curling as if his teeth were still sharp enough to scare.
“—and I can't see other options. You either start actually accepting what you are now, or continue to endanger not only your position, but mine and my men and Emily's as well.”
Corvo didn't even look at Daud as he spoke, his agitation far more apparent now that he wasn't so bestial. His leg bounced and he debated on jumping away again; he wrestled the urge back down, even if his anger rose in its place.
“I refuse to set aside my humanity, Daud.”
“That's not what is being demanded of you, Corvo. What's being demanded of you is to get under control—”
“Wasn't that what I was doing?” Corvo snarled, the argument bubbling up again. But now, they weren't in the Tower, the Whalers and Emily weren't here listening, and even as his voice echoed against the cold metal walls, he let it rise like he hasn't in months. “Learning how to live like this. The Whispers in my head, you here, grounding me to the floor, this Void-damned Mark…”
Not for the first time the thought of slicing his whole left hand off came up and Daud sneered, reacting to it.
“You know that won't work,” he said, pushing that thought out of his head with a casual hand wave, refusing to meet Corvo's energy. “You know that's not how this works. Corvo…” he sighed, standing up straighter.
Despite their precarious position and the lack of space, Daud blinked through the Void to stand next to Corvo, sharing his space. Corvo huffed, refusing to meet his eye, indignant on holding onto his anger for a little bit longer. It became increasingly hard to do as Daud put his nose against Corvo's neck in a move of solidarity.
It was all Corvo could do to not lean into it. He settled for letting his eyes slide closed instead.
“I know how this feels. Falling apart at the seams, cutting your skin to see fur underneath. Holding onto the idea that your situation will be different, that it won't follow you even in your waking days. To want to hide it away, forget about it for a while, to be human again, without all of this reminder of the opposite.”
Daud's voice was a murmur, warm breath in his ear, a comfort. Corvo couldn't meet his eye yet, but he at least was open enough to listen. When Daud pulled back Corvo turned to watch him.
“You can't ignore it, Corvo. The more you ignore it, the more the wolf presses against your skin, wanting to come out. Please… Don't ignore what you are for the comfort of what you were.”
“I'm still human, Daud,” his voice sounded choked. “You are, too. I have to believe that or I'll just go crazy faster than I already am.”
The look of pity that Daud gave him was almost too much for his heart to take. The wolf of man pulled away in a huff, looking off somewhere in the distance. Then, his gloved hand clenched.
Cold air replaced Daud's warm body and Corvo had to look around to find his dark outline, silhouetted against the rusted flooring of the warehouse. Fully human now, Daud watched Corvo before turning down a black hallway. Left alone, Corvo stood up straight, chest squeezing painfully. It took a few seconds but he resigned himself to following Daud into that inky darkness.
No matter how unpleasant this experience would be, it was still better than the alternative. And certainly, neither he nor Daud wanted it to come to that.
------
In the months immediately following Daud's instatement as Royal Spymaster and his men being placed on payroll as his spies, Corvo had never felt better. It was as if all of his problems were solved; all of his issues with willing himself to be human, of keeping the wolf bottled up, melted away when Daud and the Whalers-turned-Whispers were there. It was the salve his fevered mind needed in those early days; he sought it out like a drug, contact high keeping him going, fueling his ease and enjoyment. He would flow between states easily— poised and protective and stoic for Emily and her needs at court, and then patrolling the city with Daud or his men at night.
But there was a spanner in the works.
It started with the continued night terrors leading to transformations. A frustrating—albeit foreseen—issue Corvo continued to deal with but one that Daud was willing to guide him through. The incidents ebbed and flowed; sometimes it wouldn't happen for weeks, and then it would happen multiple times a month, or back to back, many fevered nights in a row. Daud was always there, pulling him back when nobody else could, not even himself. It was kind of the other whale-wolf, but it left Corvo increasingly agitated.
“You’re sure it's not some Void-borne illness?” Corvo snarled, his teeth too long in his mouth, his body still hot and sweaty from forcing himself back to human. He stared at the floor under his hands, feeling the shudder along his spine as Daud placed a palm against his fevered skin.
“I’m sure,” Daud would always infuriatingly respond. “I would've informed you if otherwise. But there are a few things that could be causing this… Stress, for example.”
Corvo shook his head, frustrated as he shrugged out of Daud's touch to stand up fully. “Stress. Sure. Comes with the job. But I don't feel stressed when I'm working, nothing that isn't usual. If anything, I'm bored.”
“Are you burning off residual energy during the day?” Daud asked, watching him carefully. “Are you eating enough to help with that?”
“I thought I was,” more exasperation leaking out between his teeth. “Maybe not enough.”
So he upped his diet. He tried training more, seeing if that helped. And for a time, it did. It had been at least two months since his last transformation in his sleep, allowing him some much needed rest.
So of course, the problem switched directions.
Instead of in his sleep, the issue began to manifest during his waking hours. During the day, Corvo needed to maintain appearances, sometimes even at night, depending on what was asked of him from Emily or the court. He would stand there, itching in his restriction, forced to keep his claws hidden, the insistent Mark constantly begging to be used.
To make things worse, despite how naturally everything came to Corvo in those early days (Instinct, the Outsider had told him), he felt nothing but inept around Daud or his spies, whom he saw semi-regularly and worked closely with.
It was not an issue of ability; as a Turned, Corvo's body pulsed with his own energies, powers erupting from his own scars and Mark. All of Daud's Bonded instead shared some abilities with Daud; it was not an even distribution and the affinity would change between individuals. No matter the situation, Corvo could easily outpower any individual spy, and had done so plenty of times in sparring practice.
However, what the Whalers had over Corvo was knowledge. Knowledge, and an ocean of experience.
Years of living with bodies that can change, having data collection skills and collective bargaining, having an anonymous persona towards the world— it all meant their experience was pooled into a bank worth decades of information. An impressive collection and the largest reason they made such excellent spies, but it also meant they misjudged Corvo's own knowledge more often than not.
“Attano, sir,” Thomas had asked him one morning in the Month of Harvest, “could you possibly send me any conversations you had previously with Teague Martin? Daud is looking for a conversation you had with the High Overseer earlier this year.”
The look of confusion must have been startling, since Thomas visibly jerked, still not used to knowing his expressions could be seen by everyone now.
“Send you?” Corvo asked. “Do you mean as an audiograph?”
Thomas stood there silently on the other side of Corvo's desk for a second too long. He shifted his weight.
“Apologies, Corvo. I did not realize you were unaware of how to transfer memory yet.”
“Should I know how to transfer memory?” Corvo bristled, thinking of the ordeal of reliving Daud's memories of the Brigmore Manor.
“If you haven’t intuited it naturally yet, yes. It would be wise to gain such a skill. Especially because improper use can cause a degradation of your sense of self.” When Corvo continued to stare at him, inquisitive questions floating across the Bond, Thomas shifted again, uncomfortable.
“I can't teach you myself, sir. It's a side effect of the Bond with Daud; like our other powers, it is a far weaker influence than his is. What we give to him is disconnected from our sense of self and our emotions; like watching through a spyglass, he sees our memories from afar. Over time, some of us can learn to edit out the unimportant bits, like if a patrol yields only one interesting result, but it's nothing like what Daud is capable of. I do not expect you to be as skilled as him, but… I apologize, I assumed that…”
His voice faded at the look on the Royal Protector’s face.
“You're dismissed, Thomas. Thank you for the message, I'll get back to Daud on what I remember on my own.”
And Thomas had left, bowing, leaving Corvo an itchy, irritated mess. It was unfortunately not the first time the Whispers had assumed more of him, and it wouldn't be the last.
It worsened when— over the Month of Nets and completely unknown to Corvo— Daud explained to Corvo exactly why he needed that memory in the first place.
“He was extorting the crown and blackmailing you, Corvo,” Daud told him. His casual tone could not hide the stiffness of his limbs, coiled and ready to move. Corvo, across from him, paced his chambers like a trapped wolfhound. “And it wasn't hard to find evidence on that.”
“And you couldn't tell me?” Corvo snarled, “you've been doing an investigation on a threat to the crown for a month and I couldn't be bothered to be informed of it?”
Daud’s expression was hard. “Corvo, you were a target and it was clearly a conflict of interest. Of course you weren't involved. You not knowing made the investigation process all the easier without raising suspicion.”
Corvo wanted to fight him, wanted to push his frustrations directly onto Daud— not an uncommon feeling, and if anyone could handle Corvo's fire, it was Daud's cold, calculated ice. But this wasn't the place to lash out; he was just too pent up, too much of everything. He just wanted to climb the Void-damned walls.
“Fine. I concede that point. I didn't need to know, and this is why I hired you. You and your men continue to be exemplary.”
“But…?” Daud asked, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Corvo's teeth ground down into his cheek so hard he was sure Daud could hear it.
“How?” Corvo whined, pained. “Nobody leaked it through the Bond. Not a word. Not even an inkling of the plan you were executing behind closed doors.”
“My men are well trained, Corvo,” Daud replied, though his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “They haven't been Dunwall's finest assassins under my thumb without knowing how to shut up—”
“No,” Corvo's head shook, his still-long hair shaking in his face. “That's not what I mean. How is that even possible? How are they able to just…”
And Daud understood.
There was a clear knowledge and skill gap between what Corvo and Daud could do— one that wasn't getting any smaller. As that gap grew into a chasm and then a canyon, Corvo felt the solid hold on his life he had so enjoyed slipping away. The madness was entering the edges of his mind again and Daud could sense it, the Whispers could feel it, and Emily could see it on his face when he threatened to lash out in public at any perceived threat. When an incident in Draper's Ward last week had Daud personally overriding his whole body and mind to keep him in check, they both knew.
Corvo couldn't deny it anymore.
So, they made a pact; he either forced himself to figure it out or he went mad, leaving Daud to kill him personally as a result.
------
It was like walking into the unknown.
The inky depths were almost too dark even for his light-sensitive eyes to see through; Corvo ended up pulling the Void over his eyes to avoid tripping on debris and to follow Daud's distant footfalls. They echoed through the empty hall like memories, the steps tantalizingly close but also so far away. The further he followed into that darkness, winding through hallways and past conveyor belts and meathooks, the more unsettled Corvo became. Huge bones littered vacant dumpsters, their soft tissues picked clean by the vermin of Dunwall.
It wasn't long until he saw Daud stop, the Void lighting him up like a beacon. Corvo winced; as he neared, the song of the Void greeted him like waves perpetually beating against rocky sand. Teeth feeling unpleasantly heavy, Corvo let the Void drop from his vision and joined Daud, dreading what he would find.
Daud had led them to the northern part of the building, in a partially destroyed room off the main hallway. It was intact but the roof had collapsed on one end, the outside visible through gaps in the debris. Protected from the eastward wind blown in off the water, Daud lit discarded lamps and candles. The warm glow threw long, reaching shadows against a chilly backdrop.
As Corvo's vision adjusted, however, the warmth didn't reach him and instead ice chilled his veins.
“Daud, what in the Void—”
Before him lay an elaborate mess; the remnants of what had once been the makings of an ornate and extremely involved Outsider shrine. The blood purple fabric was torn and scorched, one sconce ripped from the wall while the other clung on enough to be lit. A pedestal that clearly once held runes (or perhaps, Corvo envisioned, where Daud would craft bone charms) was tossed aside, broken in half. A chair lay busted in the corner, its cushion stained dark with an unknown substance.
But perhaps the most disturbing part was the bones.
Corvo was no stranger at this point to an Outsider's shrine. He had been drawn to and gathered up runes carved from whalebone before, had seen the charms the whalers pulled from their bandoliers or out of their inner pockets. Typically, however, most only had one or two bones and even those rattled with Void magicks, singing in his ear.
Here, it was a horde. Long, heavy bones lay against the walls, their surfaces carved deep with intricate patterns, scrimshawed from the bottom up. The ribs, no longer attached to the body, looked more like the teeth of a dragon than anything out of a whale. Vertebral spines ranging in size from larger than his torso down to the size of his finger lay splayed across the floor like tossed dice, spelling out his fortunes. And as he approached, they all sang out to him, aroused by his connection to the Void, a cacophony of chorused, saddened voices.
Despite the shocked question Corvo had posed, Daud did not look at Corvo at all. His face severe, he continued his own work, muttering to himself as he sorted through the bones like inventory. His words were soft murmurings, almost as if in prayer, but Corvo knew Daud wasn't the praying type.
Claws scraped along bone, Daud's Mark shining like a beacon under his gloves. Symbols lit up in the wake of his fingertips, his touch coaxing the ghosts in the bones awake for the first time in half a decade. Corvo's jaw tightened, his body thrumming with the sudden upsurge in energy, but still he stayed rooted to the spot, pushing the wolf down until Daud said anything otherwise.
Daud worked reverently, dutifully hunting out each symbol, the light spreading up long, columnar ribs, filling the previously dim space with yellows and whites and blues to match the orange of the candlelight. Once all were lit, Daud walked over to the largest of the bones, a piece that Corvo belatedly realized was the top of the skull, elongated and so misshapen from what he imagined it would be in his own thoughts. Daud sunk his claws into the bone, his hand and scars burning as magick coursed through his body, everything about him changing in a controlled ripple all the way down his spine. Even in his larger, wolfish body, smoking and huge, the skull still looked giant in comparison, its dead eye socket level with his.
That dead socket glowed with ghostly life, watching Daud carefully. The huge Wolfbanner met that fiery gaze, opened his mouth, and boomed his call out.
Corvo had to fight to keep himself together; the sound was low, loud, reverberating, and nothing like the screams and howls he was used to. Their cursed forms sounded more like whales than true wolves, he knew, the sound high and dripping with Void, but this was the exact opposite, it was infrasonic, rattling his ribcage, filling his body as well as his mind. The low frequency swung high towards the end of the long note, leaving him lightheaded when the sound finally died down.
Corvo staggered; only now did he notice the sweat all over his body, his limbs vibrating, his body pushing against its boundaries. He swallowed it down again, doing his best to recover from the Void filling him head to toe before going over to join Daud's huge form, careful not to touch anything along the way. Every bone sang out in response to Daud's cry and Corvo ached to join them.
“Daud,” he groaned, urging his teeth to not grow. “What— we are not that far from the Abbey, if they heard that, they'll—”
“They don't know how to listen,” Daud’s voice responded, his head bowed and listening intently. “Neither do you.” Corvo opened his mouth in protest, but a single glance from Daud was enough to silence it in his throat. His huge lip curled. “But you'll learn. This is your first lesson tonight; relax, breathe and open your damned ears.”
Corvo's mouth snapped shut with an audible click but he did as instructed. Closing his eyes, he took a breath, letting the tension leave on the exhale. His body ached to grow but he kept it all in place. Fueled by this simulated pocket of Void, he let his senses expand further than ever before.
A faint, pained cry. Curious, Corvo strained harder, following the call like a dog on a scent trail. When he got to the end he gasped, snapping back to reality so quickly he felt the whiplash. Panting, he looked to Daud, desperate for an explanation.
“A whale,” Corvo realized, but his statement quickly turned questioning. “In the Wrenhaven? At this time of year?”
Daud let go of the skull; the ghastly eye died away and whatever spirit he had called forth retreated back into the Void. He shook his huge body until his human form was emerging from the ash, brushing Void off his shoulder and letting his burning hand cool down.
“It's dying,” Daud explained; his voice was strained and Corvo couldn't tell if it was from effort or emotion. “It's been stuck here all winter from the ice, unseen, unheard and slowly starving to death.”
Daud met his eye and motioned him to follow; Corvo immediately obliged, his stomach twisting up in knots. “How do you know?” he asked, dread filling his limbs as they both began to Blink out of the warehouse through the roof wreckage.
“She told me.”
Corvo landed and stumbled, looking at Daud in a new light.
“She?”
“Yes, Corvo.”
“You're on speaking terms with a whale?”
“Yes, but it is a very difficult ordeal.
The call is taxing. I only knew she was here because I listened, and I only reached out because I had a favor to ask of her.”
Corvo Blinked again after Daud, claws growing as they traveled together, out to the icy shallows of the river. They were more exposed out here but with no moon and no workers, they remained invisible trespassers.
“What kind of favor does one ask of a whale?” Corvo asked, his heart hammering in his chest. A feeling of sadness greeted him in response and he looked to Daud for an explanation but received no answers.
It wasn't long before they saw it— a huge, pale beast pushed ashore by the high tide, left beached as the water receded. As they neared Corvo could hear the labored breathing, the deep reverberations of the exhale, her whole body shuddering under the weight of existing outside of water.
It was rare to see a whale up close, even rarer to see one in Dunwall alive and in the water, though this creature was only just on both accounts. The whale laid on her right side, leaving the left exposed; she blinked at the two of them, unable to move her massive girth, stuck in an ice prison of which she would never escape.
Daud landed next to her side but Corvo hesitated, nervous to approach. Daud met his eye and Corvo swallowed painfully.
Unpleasantries indeed.
“Can you feel her?” Daud asked him. In the gloom, Corvo could see his body shudder. “We're close enough now that it shouldn't be too much for you to reach out, if you try.”
He hesitated, unsure, but he had seen Daud call out, and he himself had felt the pull of the leviathan. He reached a hand out as gently as possible, his mind doing the same, prodding in the darkness like he had when he first started reaching out, desperate and eager and tentative.
In those early days of trying to mentally connect with others, Corvo had memorized mental tapestries. He could tell each Whaler from each individual in the Hound Pits Pub simply from mind and emotion alone, from their color and rhythm. Understandable, digestible, relatable, comfortable.
The whale, in contrast, was unfathomable.
He was met with a mind as vast as the ocean itself, of experience spanning centuries, of emotions he had no names for, imagery that made no sense and held no context. It wasn't chaotic, it wasn't busy, it was just beyond, as if it stretched endlessly, calm water carrying him towards a distant waterfall. Warm breath above, buoyed by an intense sadness below in those depthless waters. He keened in response, surprised when the whale replied in kind, letting out a sighing, mournful note.
“I heard the whale dying,” Daud whispered above the neverending song of the whale next to them. “I offered to end her suffering in exchange for her Void-filled flesh. She agreed to the sacrifice.”
Corvo heaved and was drowned in the overwhelming urge to cry. He couldn't even see, couldn't think, and it wasn't until Daud pushed reassuringly against his thoughts that he came back to himself. He blinked, his blazing Marked hand letting go of where it clung to the whale’s thick hide. Daud's heavy hand was on his shoulder, warm even through the glove. Corvo ran a hand over his face, into his hair.
“Spirits,” he coughed, his voice rough from too-thick teeth. “Sorry, I'm still processing— can we bond with a whale?”
Daud's lip twitched and he carefully pulled Corvo to a dry patch; at some point, he had started to wade into the cold water.
“In theory? Yes. In practice…?” He went quiet. “For most, the minds of whales are too vast— the human loses themselves entirely. Like an unmarked Wolfbanner, the mind flees, and the self deteriorates.”
“For most…” Corvo let that thought trail off, watching the whale and listening to her soft mourning. He looked over the huge creature; she was 15 meters, at least, and too many tonnes to count. Corvo sighed, ragged.
“So, do you have a proposal on how we do this as quickly as possible? I mean, we're both huge, but not this big. I don't think my teeth or claws can reach any vital areas.”
Daud grunted uncomfortably before pulling his Whaler sword off his side. The blade was, of course, long, thin, and deadly flexible despite its strength. He flipped it in his hand, holding the hilt towards Corvo.
“You'll use this.”
Corvo bristled, startled.
“Me?”
Daud sighed, his gaze going gentle. He walked over to Corvo, holding the blade out.
“Yes. The first half of the spell was gathering power with the bone; this is the second half, where the whale is the sacrifice. Yes, it is unfortunate that she must die like this, but it's better than the slow suffocation of being beached. She is here now, and we can give her a kindness while hopefully helping you. I think you should be fine, but if your claws aren't long enough, and neither is your folding blade, a Whaler's sword is designed to reach...”
The words spell and sacrifice graced Corvo's ears and his mind turned off, static replacing words. He knew Daud was explaining something important, he could hear the words, see the remorse, but it was increasingly hard to process. He looked at Daud's sword, seeing reflected on the blade a place where water flowed upside down, and a black eyed teen was smiling as he handed Corvo a beating heart, the heart of—
“...The Void should guide you to the heart, you just have to make sure your slice is true —”
But Corvo couldn't hear him anymore. Sadness bubbled up into his throat where it morphed into pain, that pain mutating into anger. Stabbing a heart? He didn't want to be told to do that, of all things; he didn't even know why he was associating a whale with Jessamine but he was, staring at the blade that was shoved in her heart, instructed to shove it into another. Both hearts of the Void, used as sacrificial lambs for his… what? Transformative experiences? He couldn't do it. He refused to.
His body shuddered and shook and expanded in ways that felt all too wrong and painful and he snarled into his hand, loud enough to ripple the water. He heard his name called, distantly, but it barely registered in his Void-filled ears.
Then, all at once, it happened.
The ocean, so calm previously, crashed down on him with full force, tossing him into the undertow. Pushing him down, down, down… the pressure made the air leave his lungs and he thrashed against it, fighting as his head throbbed and his chest seized and his limbs thrashed. There was no air that could help, no surface to escape to. Just the endless trap of the water above him, its presence overwhelming, threatening to crush him into nothingness.
He sank, going numb. Because what else could he do? He couldn't process his powers right, yet he refused this avenue forward. There was only one future for him, and it was to be pulled down into the depths, drowned like a rabid dog where the cold Void awaited him.
His eyes slid shut, resigned.
A Heart beat.
A girl laughed.
Overhead, the whale sang.
His eyes flew open. His chest heaved, splitting, ribs exposed as he exploded from his skin like a cicada from its chrysalis. Powered limbs pulled away from useless bone and sinew, away from those cloying cold hands. He didn't want this, he couldn't leave Emily— how could he even consider allowing himself to be pulled under, dragged away, when she still needed him? The whale called to him again, mournful and beckoning, and his fanged mouth opened and screamed out Voidsong in response.
I'm coming, he sang out, not knowing who he was talking to. I'm not going anywhere.
Ripping away from the cold of the Void's fingertips, Corvo lurched, jaws teeth claws hitting flesh fat bone, a rush of sensation as he bit down into hot blood and sweet flesh, the smell of it filling his nostrils. A moan deep in his throat rolled out of him as the whale sang its final song and Corvo bit down further until his fangs hit the flow of life. It gushed over his face and across his fur, so heavy and steady he was nearly suffocated in it. Instead he drank deep, body steaming and roiling, the edges blurring even as his huge form heaved, burying himself in this sensation. Void filled his body to bursting, the taste of it carried in the lifeblood river, splashing into the water, onto the dirt, attracting biting fish and rats but he ignored them, too engrossed, too utterly given to his job, his duty, it's what the leviathan asked for, what it wanted, what he needed—
Teeth at the back of his neck. The sensation of being pulled; next thing Corvo knew his jaws were snapping at air, claws trying and failing to grip the slippery carcass under him, still warm, still pouring blood from a ragged gaping wound—
“It's done,” Daud said in his mind, breaking his fervor. “Corvo, come back to me.” Corvo heaved, choked, stumbled, but Daud held him steady, body large enough to counterbalance. The scars on Corvo's arms screamed at him, his whole body shaking from exertion, from power…
“Daud,” he managed, and he felt the other wolf send encouraging affirmation across the bond. “I'm here. I'm back.”
“Better that you are,” Daud said, the statement twinged with amusement. “Your dive took you too close to the edge for comfort, but not without reward. Take a look at yourself.” Corvo blinked, dazed still, but Daud in his head was quickly bringing him back around. He searched for Daud and only belatedly realized he was looking down. Almost as if Corvo was…
He gaped. Still drenched in hot whaleblood he found his footing, readjusting to make sure he wasn't mistaken.
“When did you get so short?” Corvo half joked, still shocked by this turn of events. Daud just rolled his lips back, cackling and flashing dangerous fangs.
“I’m surprised you never asked yourself that question, Corvo.” Daud teased, licking the blood off his own nose and lips. “You just thought it was the way of things, for me to be bigger than you as a wolf but shorter as a human?”
“I…” Corvo stuttered, his thought stopping before it could finish. He was going to say he didn't know, but it was as if something in his mind had cleared, the whale’s psyche blasting down a wall he had erected around himself. His breath evened out as he sought the truth singing in his veins.
“I had resigned myself, mentally, to the size I was at,” He said, his tongue sneaking out to lick his blood-filled nose. “I didn't see a reason to get any larger, so I never even tried.”
“You needed to stretch,” Daud agreed. “You needed to see you are capable of what I am, maybe even more. You can't fight it; you just have to let yourself become what you need to be.”
Corvo huffed, the amusement palpable, before turning back to the whale. He didn't dwarf it— even the largest of whale-wolves could not reach the true size of a leviathan— but he did stand over its body, and the cut his teeth had sliced ran deep and true. A moment ago, he never would have believed his fangs could reach that far into the blubber. Now, he's surprised he didn't do more.
“What happened?” Corvo asked.
“The Void called,” Daud said, as if that alone was all that needed to be said. “I apologize; you reacted to my knife far more violently than I thought you would. I felt you wrestling with the pain of everything and so did the whale; Her mind crashed into you, reiterated what she wanted, and your body responded.”
Daud breathed deep, looking at Corvo with a hunger in his eye.
“It was rough, but you handled it exquisitely. Good job; it was breathtaking to behold.”
Corvo's ears went back, his chest filled with too much of an emotion he certainly wouldn't name. But the affection was raw on Daud's end, making Corvo all the more self-conscious.
“I’m glad it's my most self-destructive tendencies that get you most excited.”
Daud huffed a wolfish laugh as he bit into Corvo's scruff, pulling him closer. His tongue started cleaning Corvo's bloodsoaked face and muzzle; Corvo closed his eyes and hummed in approval, allowing the attention, his own tongue flicking out.
But another urge was stronger than sitting there, letting Daud indulge in his grooming session. Corvo grunted, pushing Daud away gently.
“Don't be so hasty,” he explained, his eyes locked on the open, gaping wound in the side of the whale. “I'm not done yet.”
The smell of the blood was heady and intoxicating; his teeth ached to go back in. A tentative reach with his mind told him the whale had well and truly moved on into the Void, and that was enough. With no more consternation about his actions he went back to the body, dipping a long nose back into the wound.
“Careful, Attano,” Daud chuckled, following his lead. “You might get addicted to the taste of Voidblood.”
He didn't respond, but the annoyed amusement bubbled across their bond all the same. For the first time since turning, Corvo let himself indulge, feed, take a few more steps to becoming whatever he was supposed to be. The gorging wasn't just to feed the body but the whole of his being, the chunk of him that was Void now; he couldn't help but wonder if he'd always had a shard of it lodged in him somewhere, the Outsider just giving it a shape he could do something with, something more.
He and Daud fed on the whale for hours. They couldn't finish it, to be sure, but they ate enough flesh for them to be able to push the carcass into the water, where it would float off and sink to become a feast for the hagfish. The water was still terribly cold but his fur was insulating enough, and it was well worth the swim to wash the blood from his whole body.
Like a pair of huge, furry walrus, they hauled back up on land near the exploded warehouse, shaking shaggy bodies free of water as the earliest residents of Dunwall began to stir along with the sunrise. Corvo breathed and let his body relax into his native, human state, wringing water from his hair and glad his coat wasn't equally waterlogged. Daud fared similarly, shaking water droplets from clothes and skin and hair.
When Corvo leaned in easily to capture Daud's mouth with his own, he was glad to know they now both smelt of sea and salt and not of whale blood. The rumble of approval sent a thrill down his spine, even more so when he was rewarded with a gloved hand gripping into his hair. Corvo grinned against Daud, pulling away with a gentle nibble at his lip.
“Tease,” Daud complained, but the affection didn't lower across the bond, and Corvo smiled after him as Daud wandered away.
“Later,” he agreed, and Corvo grinned like a teenager on Fugue. Teeth snapping together happily, he gathered himself to be off, the appearance of the sun meaning their welcome certainly was well and truly overstayed.
“Ready when you are, then.” Counting out the time, he would need to be with Emily soon, regardless of any of their previous activities.
“Just a moment,” Daud muttered, moving with a sense of haste. He jumped down into the destroyed shrine room, so much less haunting now that the oncoming day burned away any lingering spirits. Corvo waited patiently for Daud to return; as soon as he was by Corvo's side, they disappeared together in a flurry of ash and smoke, rushing back towards Dunwall Tower on the other side of the city.
------
Later, predictably, didn't go as Corvo envisioned. It was not the fault of anyone, of course; it was just the way of things as spring had started and the young Empress needed her Royal Protector more than ever. Corvo was hardly able to truly speak with Emily until after dinner was served and she was allowed to retire, the two of them finally having time to themselves. He had curled up in bed with her, indulging her every fantasy until she was too tired to keep going, slipping more and more into slumber as he lounged, content and warm, mind brushing reassuringly against hers as she fell asleep.
That's where Daud found him two hours later, the spymaster entering the bedroom quietly so as to not wake the Empress. Corvo, of course, stirred, but only when Daud was close enough to sense, the smell of him coaxing him back to wakefulness. Corvo looked for him; Daud hovered near the edge of the bed, always respectful of Corvo and his space when it came to Emily.
A silent nod passed between the two of them; Corvo slipped out of Emily's grasp like water, practiced at leaving her without a single disturbance. A breath of wind and Corvo knew Daud had left ahead of him without even looking; Corvo chose the slow route of walking back downstairs to his chambers, his mental web pinging the location of individual spies checking in and acknowledging their positions.
He then paused outside the door to his room, concentrated, and erected careful walls around his mind.
It was slow going and would need some practice, but it worked for his needs. The chatter stilled and quieted like a closing door, gently locking everyone else out. Smiling despite himself and savoring even small victories, he entered his room, locking the physical door much like his mental one and checking the secret entrance while Daud lazily watched from where he sat at Corvo's desk. His coat was already thrown over the back of the chair, his whole body languid as the Royal Protector walked over and finally leaned down to capture his Spymaster.
A possessive hand rested on Daud's thigh, another on the back of the chair while Corvo kissed him lazily, doing it more for the contact than any intent. Still, the pleased rumble in Daud's throat filled him with a warm heat, and the hand on Daud's leg squeezed.
“I didn't really say thank you earlier,” Corvo murmured out after pulling away for a breath, his forehead resting on Daud's. “It helped. Or I should say, it's helping. Progress is progress.*
“Growing pains,” Daud agreed, right hand holding the left on his thigh in place. “It'll lessen with time, and through maintenance.” Corvo muttered out a complaint about another thing to track in his schedule, and Daud simply laughed. Sobering, he shifted under Corvo, reaching over to dig into a coat pocket.
Out of it, Daud pulled a silent but ominous piece of whale rib, fully inscribed with runes and magic. Corvo blinked, disengaging to take the rune from Daud to inspect for himself. The Void thrummed through the bone, beckoning him so strongly his claws grew unbidden.
“Salvaged from the warehouse,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “If you notice yourself slipping or feeling too tight in your own skin, come back to this. It'll absorb some of that energy away but do be careful; the damn thing can be overloaded and rendered useless, and I don't want to harvest another piece any time soon.”
“So a battery,” Corvo muttered, feeling the inscriptions. “Or a worry stone.”
“I suggest dropping some of your energy into it in the morning, then grab it back by the evening. It will likely force you to transform, so be careful and wait until you're alone. But if you truly need to feel that modicum of humanity…” Daud gestured to the rib end yet again and the scrimshaw carved into the sides. “It worked for me, it'll work for you.”
Corvo huffed, still busy studying the piece before setting it carefully on the desk. He walked to the other side of the room, looking lazily out the dark window.
“It’s a cruel joke, isn't it? We stay human, but the harder we cling to humanity, the worse we get.” He shrugged, arms crossed.
“That's why it's a curse, Corvo. We'll struggle with it until we die naturally, or the Void take The Outsider likes to pretend it's helping with its Mark but it's just delaying the inevitable.”
Corvo sighed, hands uncrossing to instead be pocketed, turning back towards Daud.
“Just a pair of cursed humans, then,” he smirked, humorless.
“Cursed monsters of men, more like it.”
Corvo sat down on the bed, unbuckling boots with a smooth practice.
“Cursed or not, I don't know where I'd be without you while dealing with all of this.”
He heard Daud shift.
“We both know where you'd be; six feet under,” he replied. “This is just me cleaning up after my own messes.”
That prompted Corvo to look up from his shoes, annoyed despite his easy pose.
“Don't go back to that line of thinking, Daud. We're past it, anything else is my own doing, my own problems.”
“You misunderstand, Corvo.” Daud stood and walked over to sit next to him on the bed; Corvo turned to him, watching him carefully. “I'm always cleaning up my own messes. I'm very efficient at it, making mistakes. But when it comes to you…”
Corvo swallowed and looked away. “I know, I know, you don't want me going through what happened to you.”
“You can't afford my mistakes, Corvo.”
“I don't know, there is a lot of coin behind the crown, I think I could manage it.” When Daud didn't indulge his humor, he let it go, in favor of a different topic. He tossed his boots, licking his lips.
“You'll show me what happened, soon?”
Daud gave him a careful look. He sighed and held up a finger.
“One week,” he growled out. “Allow yourself to process and digest what just happened. If you manage to even out and calm down by then, yes. I'll show you my memories of what happened to me.”
Corvo looked surprised, back straightening.
“Really?” He tried not to sound too excited at the prospect. “What changed your mind?”
Daud's jaw worked. “You and your damned stubborness. You cling to humanity like a barnacle to the shore, watching the relentless tide crash over you. But we aren't…” Corvo shot him a look but Daud's eyes flashed dangerously before he could protest.
“You need to know what's on the other side of the line that you so happily want to flirt with. That, and…” Daud met Corvo's eager eye, but whatever he saw there gave him pause. Corvo couldn't place it; was it fear? Insecurity? From Daud? He gently prodded at him for an answer, but the spy just locked up tighter.
“Do me a favor; fill your battery this week. We'll both need it, because if I'm going to show you, you're going to get everything, and it's far from pretty and will sap both of us of our strength. And maybe I shouldn't have waited so long for you to know but…”
He breathed, mind set. “…But you deserve to know. So get ready, Corvo.” His smile is subtle, sharp, dangerous.
“You'll soon see my story of how I became the Wolf of Man in Dunwall.”
I dont think he can as a solo person single handedly consider this because Arkane probably costs millions( if not hundreds of millions) of dollars, but I will choose to imagine a world where Raphael Colantonio is able to buy back his own studio, simply because Xbox chose to sell it, instead of completely destroy or liquidate it. I need that sort of hopecore in my life.
At least there is a future for Arkane. I don't know where it will go, but god, I hope it goes somewhere. I was so ready to be devastated by them closing the whole studio, but it breathes on.
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