for the writing prompts: 90? just murder me (also 28 because i'm a silly bugger and it sounds hilarious)
90. “I don’t want to think about what I’d be like without you.”
Months after Daud’s return from the Void, he finally raised a subject that should’ve been discussed much sooner.
“We have to destroy Delilah’s paintings,“ he said one morning in Corvo’s office — Corvo’s chambers, their chambers, now.
A week later, they entered the room Corvo had sequestered them in.
“This is where you…” Daud trailed off, still not quite grasping what Corvo had done, what Corvo had put himself through, to get to Daud in the Void.
Neither of them spoke, then, neither of them moved. Daud stared at the canvases, those Void-damned swirls of paint that had brought them nothing but pain.
“Where’s the painting she made of Emily?” Daud asked quietly.
“Hidden,” was all Corvo said.
“Good.” Daud did not want to know where. It was better if he didn’t.
He was about to reach out, to take the first step in doing what had to be done, when Corvo spoke.
“I don’t want to think about what I’d be like without you.”
Daud stopped in his tracks.
“If you hadn’t come back. If you hadn’t—if you haven’t been there after Jessamine’s death. I don’t want to, but every time I look at these paintings… I think, what if. What would I have become?”
“You stopped me at Holger Square; that was the moment. I had my blade a Campbell’s throat, I—”
“Corvo,” Daud cut him off. “I told you then, I wasn’t stopping you.”
Corvo turned to him. “What does that mean?“
“It means,” Daud began, not knowing how to shape what he’d felt that night into words but knowing he owed it to Corvo to try. To tell him what he’d known that night and every night since. “I wanted you to choose. And whatever path you would’ve chosen, I would have followed.” He raised his eyes to look at Corvo. “I would have followed you into the dark. That is the man I am, Corvo, that is the man who returned from the Void. Too selfish to give you up, even when I knew nothing of you.”
“You told me to be sure,” Corvo said softly. “I wasn’t sure of much of anything that night, but you—”
“It was Emily that kept you right, not me,“ Daud countered, desperate not to be made into a saviour; not anyone’s, not even Corvo’s.
Corvo laid a hand on his cheek, drawing him closer. “You told me to be sure,” he whispered. “And I am.”
28. “That’s almost exactly the opposite of what I meant.”
“Steady. Steady,” Daud called across the practice yard, towards where Emily and Alexi were facing off against one another — blades raised, but not yet moving a muscle, waiting until Daud gave the command. “One of you needs to make the first move, and the other will have to react within a fraction of a second. Watch your opponent’s body language, watch their eyes. Learn their tells.”
“Or,” Rinaldo chimed in from where he was perching in the rafters. “You could just kick them where it hurts before they can get you.”
Daud sent up an annoyed look.
“That’s almost exactly the opposite of what I meant,” he said drily.
“Dunno about you, boss,” Rinaldo blinked down next to him. “Worked for me before I met you.”
Daud rolled his eyes. “Give over.“
Rinaldo grinned at him. Daud let a moment pass, then looked back towards Emily and Alexi.
“GO!” he bellowed. The two girls sprung into action — Emily was just a smidge quicker, and Alexi had to scramble to parry.
“Damn,” Rinaldo said, observing them. “That thirty-minute lecture on never letting themselves get distracted you gave them last week really paid off.”
“You ought to know it by heart,” Daud rumbled. “Had to tell you about a dozen times.”
Rinaldo looked over at him. “You know half the time mucking up in training I was just winding you up, right?”
“I know.” Daud raised his brow at him. “And somehow, I kept you on. You, and the rest of the miserable lot.”
“Nah,” Rinaldo laughed. “You love all your stupid kids.”
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