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
Amongst the horrors of Arcana Draconis, many creatures are inhuman, formed through Magic itself or by it’s influence. Of course, humans themselves are just as susceptible to this as any other living thing.
Among these are Ghosts, some Faeries(Ghosts are a sub type of Fae), zombies, vampires, and still others. The subject I will address today is different than many of these, as they retain much of their humanity. These two are an oddity, as they are actually the same thing, expressed differently depening on the person. This is the Witch and Wolfbann.
Witches and Wolfbann are descendants of humans who have made deals with demons, which is another topic altogether. This pact’s wording varies from individual to individual, but the results are the same. Their humanity is forever tainted, and the effects are passed down their lineage forever. The effects come in two distinctions, Witches and Wolfbann.
Whole the two are fairly different, they are merely two manifestations of the same thing. Witches have inherent knowledge of magical creatures and their abilities, along with skill at brewing potions. They are the closest living thing to spellcasters, but their magic must be prepared in advance, and they are still physically human. They are no stronger or tougher than any normal man or woman. Witches often make pacts with other creatures to protect themselves or as helpers in one way or another. These familiars come in many different forms.
A full moon or extreme negative emotion causes someone to become a wolf beast, a Wolfbann, which is similar to other types of werewolves. The form is unique in that it isn’t so much a wolf or a man, but a mix of the two. It isn’t just a large wolf or just a hairy human, but a large powerful beast with traits from both, and unlike other forms of lycanthropy, there is no control over it once you shift. Other types of lycanthropy can be influenced or even controlled, but once a person becomes their Wolfbann form they are ruthless monsters, among the strongest of Arcana Draconis, but also among the most blood thirsty.
Witches and Wolfbann are typically woman and men, respectively. This isn’t a hard rule, and there are woman Wolfbann and men Witches, and identity can play a role as well, but that is typically how the distinction works.
Have had my Dishonored werewolf au on my mind, and I saw this photo by Herb Ritts and it was dripping with (young) Daud energy, so here he is. Enjoy.
You can read my Dishonored au here. Have fun~
Fandom: Dishonored
Relationships: Daud and the Whalers, Daud/Outsider
Rated: Mature to Explicit, Strong Violence and Gore Ahead!!
Synopsis: Werewolf!AU :: Daud-Centric Prequel to Wolfbann. Origin Story, pre-canon. Centers on how Daud turned, and his subsequent marking by the Outsider and his formulation of the Whalers.
Content Warnings for this chapter: None, honestly. Have fun.
AO3 Link
Previous :: First :: Next
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Dunwall, The Wrenhaven River
Month of Seeds, 1821
He was used to waking up to whalesong by now. A soft keening, a warble in the distance, omnipresent in his ears. What he was not used to was the soft call of the gulls and terns, the gentle sound of waves, the smell of salt water and spring air. He blinked; instead of a dark, nondescript ceiling he saw the pink clouds of the morning sky.
Daud groaned, rolling over, his back aching and his head throbbing. Hard metal lay beneath him; the world swayed and for a hot second he believed his vision was failing him. But then the horizon righted again, steel groaning against unrelenting waves.
A boat. He was on a boat. A whale trawler, by the looks and sounds of it, though devoid of whale or crew despite being anchored offshore.
That woke him up fully; scrambling up, he sneered, looking around. He eased as he saw they were still in Dunwall; the city could be seen on the horizon, Dunwall Tower itself a sentinel at the edge of the water. Close enough to see, too far away to swim ashore. He tensed his jaw loud enough to pop.
“What the fuck now,” he grumbled.
“Great question.” Daud jumped; above him, just under the whale hanger, sat Rulfio. In his hands he carved a piece of driftwood, whittling it in the glow of the morning light. A shaving flicked off and away from his knife, falling down towards Daud like snow. Rulfio’s eyebrow raised up as he gave his assassin associate a look over and a snicker. “Good morning, wolfman.”
Daud frowned, his jaw set. The memories of last night came back; not his finest moment, he had been at the Outsider's shrine when Rulfio had found him and—damn him—had shot him with a sleep dart. All of it, a reminder of his compromised position: a quick look down told him all he needed to know about that detail. Daud’s lip curled.
“You brought me out here whole-ass naked for all of Dunwall's shoreline to see?” He said, annoyed.
“Your clothes’re stashed in that supply box,” Rulfio said, pointing with his knife. The man had the audacity to chuckle and Daud bristled. “Should be some food in there too, if you're hungry.”
Daud gave Rulfio another suspicious look before going over to the box and opening it. Inside he found his shirt, pants, and boots. It wasn't everything, but it was a kindness that Rulfio salvaged anything at all.
Throwing on his pants first, Daud dryly called up, “A boat, Rulfio? Really?”
“Couldn't have you running off so soon, now could I? Not so easy to escape when you're surrounded by water.”
Daud's frown deepened to the point of discomfort. Damn Rulfio for being so smart. Sure, he could transform, he could try to swim, but he had a sneaking suspicion that whale-wolves, despite what the name implied, were not immune to drowning. He eyed the shore regardless; he was trapped on a boat until he either got desperate enough to try swimming, or Rulfio said his piece. He wasn't entirely sure which would come first.
Adjusting his shirt, he kept his eye on the Tower landmark and away from the infuriating humming of the other assassin above him.
“Come on up when you're ready, Daud.” Rulfio's cadence was too cheery; it grated against Daud's irritation. “I'd like to have a chat.”
“What could you possibly want to still say to me?” It was a weak argument, Daud knew, but he made it anyway. Rulfio, already anticipating this pushback, huffed out an indignant laugh.
“Lots. Now get up here, you absolute ass.”
Daud put his boots on. Then, with a clench of his fist he materialized next to Rulfio. Still not used to Daud appearing in a spot so suddenly, Rulfio jerked so roughly he almost dropped his carving.
“Outsider's ass, you are spooky now,” he said, still uneasy. As if to accentuate Rulfio's point, Daud fixed his most unsettling smile on his face, making the other man even more apprehensive. “Can you not with me, Daud? Spirits, it was hard enough while tracking you down.”
“Oh, I’m not that bad, Rulf.”
“Actually, you are.” Daud looked over, smugness fleeing at the look of irritation on Rulfio's face. “Since when have you been so goddamn sloppy?”
Daud winced, his fingers flexing. When he didn't reply, when his eyes stayed on the Tower and not on Rulfio, the other man just kept talking.
“There was an assassination in Draper's Ward before the winter. A blood trail; two. I followed the one and it led to a slit throat and a missing arm.” Rulfio shucked a large piece of wood off his piece roughly. “The other trail I followed was a man who went to a doctor off the main drag. An interesting man, that doctor.”
Daud felt his insides go cold. He looked over to Rulfio, seeing the other man watching him coolly. The feeling of wanting to flee crept further into his bones.
“A doctor?”
“Yes. A nice man, who did as much as he could for this new patient. Was only able to apply stitches and a few ointments. When I asked him about it later, he said he thought it looked like a dog attack.”
“Maybe it was,” Daud said, voice low. “Maybe that's all it was.”
“We both know it wasn't.”
“You have no proof otherwise.”
“There was an explosion,” Rulfio pressed on, “at Greaves a month later. Almost exactly twenty-eight days. They reported a malfunctioning container left in a closet. No casualties. But there was a suspicious looking stain on the floor they claimed was just oil.”
Everything about Daud itched.
“What's it matter, Rulfio?”
“It matters because it seems like you turned someone and then killed them.”
“It was a mistake. One I won't make twice.”
“Then why did it happen again?”
Daud's insides froze over. He tried not to react but he couldn't help his fists clenching. Rulfio didn't move, looking at Daud carefully, unmoving. His steady, all-too-knowing gaze was infuriating.
“I don't know what you're—”
“There was a kid at the Academy,” Rulfio interrupted, and Daud's mouth snapped shut. “You hid it under a broken arm. Nobody even realized; he certainly didn't. Not that first week, anyway. Then the second week rolled around, and the infection just wouldn't subside.”
“He attacked a girl.” The words tumbled out, heavy on his tongue.
Rulfio's expression darkened.
“So you don't deny it, then. That one wasn't a mistake.” Daud snarled, a lip curling, but Rulfio kept pressing. “You just left him to fester, watching him the whole time. You could have killed him at any moment, you stalked him for weeks and you just let him go? Then he transformed and you just—”
Rage filled Daud from head to toe. The claws grew on instinct and he nearly crashed his mind into Rulfio if just to get him to shut up. He didn't; instead, he grabbed Rulfio by his shirt, dragging him to his face, snarling and baring too-sharp teeth.
“Are you serious right now, Rulf?” He shook Rulfio, roughly, but not enough to hurt. “Are you coming here to chastise me about how awful you thought my actions were, but chose not to stop me? You watched the whole time and chose not to intervene? You choose now to try and be a conscience on my shoulder?”
“Fucking Void, Daud, what would you have me, a regular human, do?” His voice was strained but his hands and gaze remained resolute, gripping onto Daud's arm. “If you had watched someone do what you did to that kid, would you have confronted them, or feared what they'd do to you too?”
Daud's jaw worked, his hands flexing where he held onto Rulfio's shirt. He snarled and dropped Rulfio, getting up and stalking away from him.
“Fuck off.”
He had not been kind to Dustin. Yes, he had scratched him. Yes, he had stalked him, watched him. He wanted to see every step of the process, of what happened during the incubation period, if a scratch was even enough to scar and cause anything — and it was. Dustin had worsened, the cut had festered. Not even Sokolov could understand why the infection persisted; he was just given antibiotics and sent on his way.
And then a month had passed. Daud had grabbed Dustin, taken him away, sat him in a room, and waited. He waited, watched, and then studied. Studied how his body changed, how the bone reset, how the shift looked from the outside. How fast he recovered from a blade wound, if he smelled of Void, if his mind stayed. He learned everything… and then he let him go into the Void and planned on never doing that to someone again.
He hadn't been proud of it, but he needed to know. And it wasn't as if that man had any good thoughts, no redeeming qualities, he had assaulted Lune that night and—
There are more dangerous men than kind ones here at the Academy.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten.
“You weren't supposed to see that, Rulfio.” His voice was quiet, but not ashamed. “Why were you even there, tailing me—”
“Because I was looking for you, you idiot.” Rulfio countered.
“You never looked before.” Daud's voice was painfully strained. “Before all of this mess, you never gave a damn if I lived, died, or what I did with my spare time. You just cared about the coin. Why do you care now?”
“Because—”
The pained noise that escaped Rulfio’s throat was both embarrassing and concerning. Daud turned, face still so severe, but Rulfio's face was an open book of emotions. Rulfio caught Daud's eye and deflated.
“Because you were in my head,” Rulfio confessed. “And you told me the truth. And, Daud, you could've—but you didn't… You didn't fucking kill me. You left me alive and—” Rulfio looked away, throat closing. His hands balled into fists.
“You can do so many things to kill someone, and you didn't do anything to me. You just gave me that sad look on your face and ran. As if out of everything, out of all those monsters, what you were actually scared of was me.”
Daud said nothing. He swallowed thickly, his throat not cooperating. He looked back out at the water, listening to the lapping of it against the trawler, and closed his eyes.
He wanted so desperately to reach out to Rulfio again. It left him feeling feverish, shaking, like trying to stop a starving man from eating. It was easier in the Academy because he was one mind among many and he could touch any of them at any time. But here, on the water, it was just the two of them and Daud couldn't help but feel so, irrevocably, alone.
“Did you actually steal this boat without a crew just to get me out here?” Daud asked, voice rough with unspoken emotion. Rulfio paused, chuckled.
“Just realized? Yes. I nicked it, so eventually I will have to take it back. Someone's going to notice eventually.”
“You're fucking crazy, Rulfio.” Doing this, just to trap him. It was almost worse than a cage. He was impressed all the same. His lip twitched involuntarily.
“I like to think I'm the very sane one between us, Daud,” he laughed, even if it still had a nervous edge. “What are you going to do when we get back to the dock?”
Daud was silent for too long. “Maybe I'll climb Dunwall Tower, just because I can.”
“Daud.”
He winced. He licked his lips, heaved a sigh, then turned back to Rulfio.
“I have to get my things from the shrine. Then, I have a contract to prep and stake out for.”
“Let me come along.”
“I don't need the help, Rulfio.”
“Ah, but I think you do.”
Rulfio took a few steps toward Daud, his eyes averting as if looking for eavesdroppers. Then, a breath. “I don't want you scared of me, Daud. Not when you can slice me in half without a second thought. But you can't keep doing this ‘lone wolf’ act. You’re acting unhinged and I recall you saying you didn't survive in those sewers just to let madness take you in the end. So let me come with you already.”
Daud's stomach twisted unpleasantly and once again, he contemplated the Wrenhaven’s waters. But what would running accomplish? Rulfio could track him now, and fuck him for that. Fuck him for being such a damned good assassin.
Daud shifted uneasily. “Is the rule still in place?”
Rulfio took long enough to consider that Daud's stomach twisted in knots. But Rulfio just breathed out, deflating.
“Let's see how this hit goes. And maybe, if you behave, I'll let you back in my head. No promises though.”
The relief washing over Daud's entire body must've been too visible; Rulfio blinked in surprise.
“Okay. You can come,” Daud said. “But do try and keep up.”
------
Keeping up with this new version of Daud was easier said than done.
Rulfio was a strong guy, surprisingly agile for his size and age. He'd never had issues getting around Dunwall and truly knew the rooftop routes better than the sewers, and he knew those even better than the streets. But whatever black magic now coursed through Daud energized him in a way that Rulfio just wasn't used to. He was at least grateful Daud didn't just teleport away, leaving him completely in the dust on the way to this new assassination target.
And Rulfio was doubly grateful that Daud stayed close enough to converse with.
“So, did you find that man from the sewers?”
Daud grimaced and Rulfio watched those sharper teeth flash for just a moment. The shiver came and went like a cloud over the sun.
“I looked, but he was gone when I went after him. No idea who he is yet, and I haven't seen or smelled him since.”
“Just up and vanished?” Rulfio asked. He entertained no fantasies that that beast of a man died that day when he shot him in the sewers.
“I have a sneaking suspicion he was either captured like the other Marked wolf was, or is under someone's protection.” Daud hopped up to a new vantage point, reaching a gloved hand down to help hoist Rulfio up. “He said something about being able to ‘control’ those poor souls that I killed, which makes me think he's had powers for a long while. If he has, and he's never been caught or found, then he's either very sneaky, or he works for someone and they are powerful enough to leash him.”
“Think it's the Boyles?” Rulfio asked, allowing himself to be pulled up on the metal grating. “Maybe Rothwild?”
“Could be the crown for all I know,” Daud growled. “Either way, I can't find him.”
“Found everyone else though.”
Daud nodded gravely, his expression not escaping Rulfio's sharp eyes. Daud before the accident had a cocksure attitude, common for skilled assassins who were still young and without accident; now, he was reserved, severe, and— well. Rulfio looked away as Daud caught him staring. He could feel the frown boring into his head.
“What, Rulf?”
“It's nothing you haven't already heard, Daud.” And it was true. “So let me just spend my time getting used to this, alright?”
“What's to get used to?” Daud asked with a sneer, and Rulfio sighed. “I'm serious; I'm the same Daud, I just have a new fancy bag of tricks and some old cuts to prove it. Nothing else, Rulf.”
“Maybe that's all I'm trying to get used to, Daud. I keep thinking about what you'll do, what you can do that I don't know about.”
Daud grabbed his arm, forcing him to look him in the eye. Rulfio held the gaze, his own expression resolute.
“Whatever you think, Rulfio, just remember this: I'm not going to hurt you. You found me and followed me on that premise alone. So, if you can keep that in mind and just have some trust in me…” he loosened his grip and Rulfio watched him. Strangely, Daud's eyes averted.
“... If you trust in me, I might be able to teach you something too.”
Rulfio stared at him.
“What, like your—” Rulfio pointed to Daud's hand where the Mark sat, innocently hidden from the world. That hand clenched reflexively, but Daud didn't waver.
“Yes. I… tested it. On the boy. But it didn't work.” The word choice he used caused Rulfio’s brows to furrow. “I was missing something then, but I think with you, it'd work.”
“I'm your friend, Daud,” Rulfio said evenly. “Your partner. Not your test subject for whatever creepy powers you have.”
Emotions flicked across Daud's eyes before the stony exterior returned.
“Understood, Rulf.”
One more long look at Daud, before Rulfio was peering out at the Estate District, enjoying the view from their perch just under the Clock Tower.
“Alright. Now, go ahead and fill me in on this hit already.”
It was unfortunately not an easy in and out job. Despite Daud's earlier claim of not needing help, this was clearly high profile enough to be troublesome. Estermont was not a common name to see asking for wet work, but this was apparently a special case. A cousin of the family was found embezzling funds from the Lord, discovered by his son, Talmedge. They were looking for either the elimination of the cousin, or proof enough to send her to the City Watch and put her up against Parliament. Easy enough on paper, but the issue was this Lady was well-guarded at home, with security on staff overnight and during the day. They would have to move carefully.
“So how much is this contract paying?” Rulfio asked as he peered down at the lavish building through Daud's spyglass. He handed the device over to Daud, where he stood and did his own careful search.
“Enough to take it easy for a few months,” he mumbled. “Enough I wouldn't know what to do with the coin for once.”
“Why even take it then?”
There was a shrug in his response. “I needed a challenge.”
Rulfio could feel the sweat on his neck as Daud said that. He knew Daud was taking good coin now; he'd seen the purses he left in Rulfio's supply drops when he stopped taking them from their old meeting spot. His hand flexed and the leather in his old gloves complained. Hoisting himself up into a standing position, his knees chose to complain as well.
“Let's be careful, then.”
Daud nodded, and they laid low until night fell properly, waiting for the Estate District to wrap itself in the calm blanket of the evening. The more they talked and coordinated, the more Rulfio eased; this was more their pace, the reason the two men worked so well together. Daud clearly worked best with at least one mind to bounce off of, and this hit called for a plan and an understanding of routes and entrances and exits— all of which Rulfio excelled at. The darker the night became, the more restless they grew, eager to get their plan into motion.
As the Clock Tower struck midnight, they extinguished their lanterns and cloaked themselves in darkness. Daud pulled his hood up and Rulfio watched as his eyes gleamed dangerously, reflecting the lights of the house below. He swallowed; the normal conversations had almost let him forget what Daud was now. The reflection passed and so did Rulfio's trepidation.
“I'll go down first and clear out the route. I'll send the signal when I'm done and know the way into the vault.”
In a rush of ash and light, Daud was gone.
Rulfio watched, waited, listened, and counted the seconds.
At two minutes and forty-five seconds, Rulfio heard it; the creak of leather and the scrape of a boot against wood reached his ears. His hand twitched and he listened closer; he didn't think it was Daud, and they hadn't agreed to have him return already. At this moment, Daud should be routing the lower levels and gathering intel on the family vault where the evidence was kept, but that was dependent on him already finding the way in. So if it wasn't Daud, then—
There. Rulfio saw the movement on another rooftop, moving towards the estate. He pulled his hood up, fixing his wristbow as he settled a foot on the lip of the window, ready to shoot.
Cold steel under his chin stilled his movement.
“Curious to find you here, Rulfio,” a deep voice said in his ear. He stiffened, staying completely still but for the angry furrow to his brow.
“Rinaldo?”
A tap on his shoulder and a hum in his ear affirmed he was correct. “I wouldn't move if I were you. That house is a den of misfortune, and I'm sorry you're caught up in it.” The first assassin— because now Rulfio was certain it was a rival assassin, if Rinaldo was here—jumped to the estate roof, trying to enter through the same route Daud took.
If he could just subtly move his aim, he could still take him out—
Rinaldo’s sword blade patted against Rulfio's arm, tutting. “Now now, none of that.”
“What do you want, Rinaldo?” He spoke carefully, the knife still on his throat. “You can't really think it's a smart idea to interrupt Daud while he's working, can you?”
“Ah, well, you see, that's why I'm here,” Rinaldo said quietly. “Well, my compatriot there wants to loot whatever Daud cracks wide open in the house, so he agreed to come along under that stipulation. But I'm here… for Daud.”
Rulfio's jaw worked and the knife bit into his chin. “Brimsley’s contract is still at large, I see?” He tried not to laugh. “Good luck on that.”
“Oh, I don't plan on collecting that tonight, but you're a good friend and close to him. Maybe you can enlighten me on some… developments.”
Rulfio’s brain worked fast. As far as he could tell, Rinaldo didn't want to kill him, but they were both assassins and while not antagonistic, they were hardly friendly. A wrong move and that knife would be in his throat, no hesitation. He watched the windows of the estate as a light turned on and a shadow passed over it.
“I don't know why you think I'm going to just hand information over to you and betray the trust of my partner.”
“Oh, it's not betrayal.” Rinaldo adjusted his grip as he leaned over Rulfio, moving his sword from Rulf’s arm to his side. “It's just self preservation, for both of us. I want to know you and Daud's secret. His rate of contracts has gone increasingly up and we aren't the only ones to wonder why.”
That shadow moved again. A scuffle? Ruflio stayed stockstill and stuck to the age-old adage of keeping Rinaldo talking.
“This is the first hit I've done with Daud since last year.” At least that much was truthful. Rinaldo clicked his tongue.
“That’s strange. All of Daud's contracts were picked up as two man jobs. This one included. And here you are.”
Rulfio blinked, uncomfortable now from his position and the tall man standing behind him. Is that why Daud kept dropping coin into his lap? He wasn't just doing a charity, he was…
“Here I am,” Rulfio repeated. “Well, I've been trying to keep it on the downlow… especially since Daud was in the academy for four months. Surely you noticed a dry spell over the winter?”
An alarm went off in the house. That surprised Rinaldo. He shifted, making a noise, and that was enough.
The dagger in Rulfio's glove was in his hand as he elbowed Rinaldo in the ribs. The other man grunted and the sword left his side just barely enough for Rulfio to spin around, the dagger biting the air, looking for a target. It met the knife that had been at Rulfio's cheek; the metal clanged loudly and on the rebound Rulfio ducked and spun away.
Rinaldo, however, was faster, his position better. The sword was already out and the slash came swift. Rulfio dodged up— but it wasn't clean. The slice went up the length of his right underarm, tearing into muscle and tendon. Fresh blood caught in the light of the estate across the street.
Ruflio grunted, stumbled. He was still on the windowsill. Still one foot out, one foot in. The misstep sent him backwards, tripping over the rim.
“Shit—”
Burning pain lanced his whole arm as he lurched backwards. Rinaldo’s dark and impassive face watched as he fell backwards. The siren blared loudly from the home; Rinaldo retreated as fast as he had appeared.
At least, Rulfio assumed so, as he lost sight of the other assassin as he pitched out the fourth story window.
It wasn't his first time falling. That was in Wynnedowne when he was a kid, where his sister pushed him down the stairs. He survived that fall but hadn't forgotten the lurch of his stomach, the rush of wind. He knew the crunch wasn't far behind.
He had 4 seconds.
He tried not to look at the trail of blood his arm was leaving behind as he reached out for a ledge, a light pole, a fire escape. His good hand caught something metal and he felt bones break on impact. Just enough to grab, to slow down, but not enough to stop. His grip failed and ground rushed up to greet him.
He didn't panic. He wasn't allowed to. But that didn't stop him from yelling, as loudly as he could with his mind, for the only one who he knew could hear it.
“Daud!”
If there was a response, Rulfio couldn't tell. The world and sky spun. There was a lurch of his body, and something crunched before whiplash and pain took him out cold.
------
Rage nearly blinded him, his limbs shaking not from exhaustion but from absolute hatred filling him head to toe. He had been fucking ambushed and another assassin was in the building. Trying to take his contract, his spoils, alerting the guards and throwing on the alarm—
Then the call—and Rulfio was—
He was glad he had a mental bead on Rulfio. There was no way he couldn't; he knew his mind, could brush against it without intruding. So when he heard his name across the threadbare connection, the desperation, his stomach dropped and he just—
He lost it. Void above and below, Daud lost it.
Time stopped and everyone in his path was left falling where they stood. A body cut in half, a neck stabbed, a stomach disemboweled, and the assassin who dared to enter his house—their head rolled.
If they hadn't been here, if they hadn't fucking touched what was his—
He leapt through the window and strained against all of his power. And there was Rulfio, inches from the ground and Daud roared where nobody could hear him, an unearthly sound ripping from his chest like some giant bell toll. His hand extended and he pulled as hard and fast as he could.
Time resumed.
Rulfio's body slammed into his grasp just as Daud hit the ground, rattling his knees bad enough to buckle. He grunted, teeth gnashing together, keeping Rulfio's much larger body close as he tucked and rolled, ending up in an alley under the building. His shoulder popped unpleasantly but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle; he could feel it popping back into place as soon as he stood up, smoke rolling off his body, repairing damage.
“Fuck— Rulfio, fuck—”
It was only now that he realized Rulfio was bleeding; his whole right side was crimson, stemming from the slash on the underneath of his arm. He could see the gash was deep even through Rulf's leather; it wasn't something he could staunch here, but he certainly was going to try. He pulled his top layer off, cursing under his breath the whole time.
Only a blade could do that kind of damage. That meant the assassin who had been in the house wasn't the only one, and they had jumped Rulfio while Daud was inside. White hot rage threatened to fill his very being to the brim, thoughts buzzing like a bloodfly nest and just as vengeful. He brushed against Rulfio's mind and was only calmed with the knowledge he was still alive, even if he wasn't conscious enough to respond.
He wrapped Rulfio's arm to the best of his ability. He tried not to think about the blood already soaking through the fabric as he gathered Rulfio up and transformed, rushing him to the rooftops and towards the only doctor he could trust at this hour.
------
Misha Romanov was not sleeping well.
It wasn't due to work. Work was fine, for once; the advance payment from Daud had helped him hire an assistant during the day and expand his amount and quality of equipment. He supposed, later, that he could chalk it up to stress, to the amount of emergency patients he had coming in, the uptick of seasonal respiratory ailments. Neither, however, really explained the crying whales, the bleeding limbs, the flashing teeth, or the heart that beat in his head, reverberating in his ribs.
He woke that night still on the couch of his waiting room, unsure of when he had fallen asleep but knowing immediately what it was that jolted him awake. It was the shattering of glass, heavy, rushed foot falls from the upstairs, and then, most alarmingly, his name called.
“Misha?”
He scrambled up, adjusting his glasses, looking around and hurrying up the stairs.
“Assassin Daud? Is that you?” He entertained a fleeting idea that this was potentially a trap, that perhaps the burglar was not who he thought it was, and he would be killed as soon as he hit the landing outside his office—
What greeted him was much worse than he could have anticipated.
Daud, the same assassin he had hired eight months ago, stood there, covered in blood and carrying a large lump that was vaguely human shaped. There was a soft plip as blood dripped off his side where he carried the second body, and Misha realized belatedly that the blood wasn't Daud’s.
“Spirits—” Misha grabbed surgical gloves as tiredness fled him. “Put them—him—over here, quickly.” Daud did as instructed, grunting from the weight as he dropped the body onto the table.
“I'm sorry about the window,” he told him roughly. Misha laughed, but it was a nervous thing.
“Get my things,” he told Daud, in a mirror of what happened last time. “Tell me what happened.”
Daud prattled off the meaningful events while Misha worked, zeroing in on the cut on his friend's arm. He caught the name Rulfio and did his best to remember it, commit name to face and injury. The cut was severe, but not the worst he'd seen. Too many victims of the Hatter's were coming to his clinic, which left him far too used to stab wounds. As long as he could get this sutured, he should be okay.
No, the real issue was…
“He needs a transfusion,” Misha spoke softly, as if anything louder would spook the assassin. “He's only just stable, but the amount of blood he's lost…” He was busy stitching muscle back together, trying to salvage the man's right tricep, but his sigh was heavy. “I don't have anything universal.”
Daud, where he stood in half shadow and with bloodied hands, made a strangled noise.
“I don’t—” It was clear he was battling with something.
“It doesn't need to be right away,” Misha assured him. “I need to finish up here first. But the sooner the better.” A heavy sigh from underneath his surgical mask. “I will need to splint his left hand as well.”
Daud just nodded dully, as if the fact that his friend was so close to the edge was something he was having a hard time accepting. His hands clenched on the table, his body a tense coil of muscle.
“What does it take to check if I'm a match?”
Misha looked at him over his glasses before going back to his sutures, carefully closing the cut. “It will take just a small sample of your blood, and I can test it here. We'll both need to clean up first, so we don't contaminate the sample.” A pause as another suture was tied off. “Is there something in your blood you're concerned about?”
“I'm not infected with anything if that's what you're asking, Doctor,” Daud added gruffly. “But… I don't know what my blood type is.”
“Reasonable. Well, we can find out. If you aren't a match, I'll have to send you on a fetch quest.”
“Anything,” Daud sounded pained. “You tell me what to do, and I'll do it.”
Another suture tie off. Only the forearm left to go.
“Is there honor among assassins?” Misha asked, conversational, curious about the relationship between the two men. From Misha's understanding, Daud worked alone— at least, he never mentioned another soul. But he could also tell that Daud cared, in some strange and enigmatic fashion. The girl, Emma, had been proof enough of that. And now here he was, bringing in an associate. Certainly assassins were typically rivals between each other? He could not fathom the reality being otherwise.
“Only some. But Rulfio is a friend, and the only assassin I've been willing to work with. I'd rather not lose him over my own stupidity.”
Ah. Guilt then, along with attachment, just like the girl. Misha nodded, looking for no more context. “He is strong to have handled this the way he did. And it is a miracle he did not break anything else in his fall out a window.”
“Just a tough old river krust, I guess,” Daud said. He watched Rulfio's breathing with an intensity that could be considered unsettling.
“Do you want to get cleaned up while I finish here?” It was a gentle request posed as a question, one that Daud picked up on. He went over to the washbasin, removing gloves and other garments to wash the blood away. Misha watched him in the gloom outside the operating table, but then went back to the sutures.
Just a few more. He could feel Rulfio groan and stir underneath him. Something about his face was vaguely familiar.
“Hello, Sir Rulfio. Please don't move, you are currently being tended to and your arm is especially fragile. Daud?”
In a flash and a rush of wind, Daud was there, hands clean and bare. Something on the back of his left hand gleamed in the dark, flaring before quieting back to darkness again. A chill creeped up Misha's spine as he remembered how Daud seemed to move supernaturally the last time he was here.
“He may be waking up, and I have three more sutures,” he explained. “I can't have him moving until I bandage this or they'll just rip right open.”
Luckily for both of them, Rulfio didn't stir much more. Misha watched his face, seeing it pale and pained. They needed to work fast once he was closed up.
It was five minutes until Misha was finally done with the sutures. He then shucked his gloves off, sighing as he grabbed a new pair.
“Come here, Daud. And bring something sharp.”
Daud obliged. The knife was pulled from his bandolier and Misha vaguely wondered how many sharp objects existed on his person at any given time.
“I only need a few drops, so however you want—”
Misha had barely grabbed the collection vial before Daud’s finger was freely bleeding, the man making not a noise of protest about it. Misha just let out a little “well, that certainly will do it” and grabbed the blood sample. A drop went under the microscope, the other in a tester solution. It would only take a few minutes to know the blood type, and the slide would reveal any major infections, if he had them.
What he didn't expect was whatever in the Void was going on with Daud's blood. He checked the sample, took his glasses off, wiped them, and then replaced them before looking again. When it still didn't make sense, he waved for his attention.
“Daud. Bring me a drop of Rulfio's blood. Can be from anywhere.”
Daud chose from the table. He brought it over, apprehensive.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, not that…” he mumbled more under his breath, too focused on the task at hand. A drop of Rulfio's blood joined Daud's blood on the slide.
It was fascinating. Daud's white blood cells were particularly aggressive, and had a structure that Misha had never seen before, or even had described to him. There weren't any microbes at all present in Daud's blood, and whatever came along with the blood from Rulfio, they beelined to it like bloodhounds. Ravenous and absolute, Nothing was left untouched but the blood cells themselves. The sound he made was somewhere between surprise and horror.
“Great news,” Misha said, trying to sound like this actually is something great. “You can be a donor. I'll go get my things.”
Daud blinked in surprise. “Do you know what my type is already?” he asked as Misha rolled his chair around and hurried off.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said absently. “But trust me, this will work. Or, it should…” he looked up, a sense of wonder crossing his features as he looked over to the assassin. “No, your blood will save him. I'm sure of it.”
------
It was early morning by the time Rulfio stirred. Daud lounged in the chair next to him, dozing, but as soon as the other assassin groaned and shifted in his bed Daud was awake, watching and listening. Instinctively, his mind brushed Rulfio's; sensing his returning consciousness he backed out, sitting up in the chair and nervously popping the knuckles in his fingers.
“Outsider's asshole,” Rulfio groaned, his splinted hand coming up to his face. He was surprised to see the IV there, as well as the blood bag slowly dripping life back into him. “The fuck—?”
“Welcome back to the world of living,” Daud greeted, his lips twitching up. Rulfio sat up far enough to see him proper before falling back on the pillows.
“So you got me after all,” he said, relieved. “Thought I'd wake up in the Void for sure, but here I am.”
“Here you are,” Daud repeated. He pulled his chair closer, turning it around to lean against the backing. “Wasn't going to let you splat on the pavement like that.”
“Guess not, you stubborn bastard.” The laugh was pained and stilted. “Thank you.”
Daud hummed, the only acknowledgement of Rulfio's appreciation. The silence fell comfortably between them; Daud counted a few minutes out, listening to a clock tick from the other room.
“So,” he started, soft. Rulfio opened an eye to look at him. “Do you know who did it?”
Rulfio swallowed, lifting his stiff and heavily bandaged right arm, and sighed.
“Rinaldo. I don't know who was with him though. Did you see?”
“No. But they're dead.”
Rulfio's arm dropped heavily back onto the bed. “I'm not surprised at all.”
Something in his tone raised Daud's hackles. “They were in my way and I needed to get to you.”
“Did you go after Rinaldo too?” Bitterness, but Daud couldn't tell if it was directed at him or Rinaldo. His jaw worked.
“No.” The truth. “I didn't see him, and I was more concerned with you bleeding out before I got you here.”
“And where is ‘here’?”
“A doctor’s clinic, Misha Romanov, in Draper's Ward. I brought the girl here, so I knew I could trust him.”
Rulfio sighed. “The one with the cheap contract, right. Well. The good doctor did a good job keeping me alive.”
Daud nodded and more silence followed, but there was more tension than earlier. Daud waited, expecting something else, and when nothing came, he asked, “Do you need anything? Water, food?”
“A piss and a shot of whiskey.”
Daud laughed. “Well, I'll see about the piss. Your legs are fine, but your right arm was nearly sliced in half and your left hand has a few broken bones. It's… going to take some time for you to heal.”
“Doesn't it always?” He sighed. “At least I've had worse than some broken fingers.” He twisted his wrist to look at the bandaged hand. Daud watched the motion.
Rulfio let out another breath, fidgeting.
“The hit is still out on you, Daud, and let's face it, Rinaldo’s got years of experience. You'll need to be careful. He was looking for information. I didn't give it to him, but that doesn't mean he can't get it from elsewhere.”
“I'll find him, then I'll find Brimsley,” Daud snarled. “It's about time I collected my own damn bounty.”
Rulfio gave him a pained look.
“I don't know if looking for Rinaldo will work. I don't know if killing Brimsley will solve the issue.”
“So what do you propose I do? Sit around while another noble decides he also wants to kill me? And another assassin tries his luck?”
“I don't know, Daud, but—” his face contorted in pain and he settled back down. “Damn, this arm stings. Listen, Daud, I don't have the answers, but I just don't think you should continue to be so reckless. Lay low, for a little while. Wait until all of this passes over you. Let people forget, or think you dead. Disappear to reappear. Otherwise you're going to have the heaviest purse and the most skilled killers after you. And you're not a hunted animal.”
“You're right; I'm not.” Daud's tone was dangerous as he stood up. “Let them come. I'm the most skilled killer in this city. I invite them to keep trying to kill me, I'll just take out the competition, one by one.”
“And if they have their own monsters, Daud?” Daud stilled, anger boiling just below the surface. “You said it yourself, you don't know where the man in the sewers is. What if—”
“I'll kill them too.” The words carried the promise of violence in them and Rulfio looked away. The tension was only cut by a soft rap on Rulfio's patient room door.
Misha, tired and disheveled, immediately jumped as the two assassins put their steely gazes on him.
“Ah, I am sorry to interrupt,” he said softly, either from tiredness or out of respect for others in their rooms. “But I'm opening soon. And I think it would benefit you to be scarce, looking like that, Mister Daud.”
He was still majority covered in Rulfio's blood. His jaw worked, still visibly bristling, but he gave in with a curt nod.
“Just Daud,” he reminded Misha. The doctor nodded.
“Just Daud, you can visit later if you'd like.”
A shadow passed over Daud's face, and tinnitus rang in his ears.
“It'll be a few days, at least. I have something to attend to.”
“Daud…”
But whatever protest Rulfio was about to throw at him, he didn't hear it. He transversed out, head pounding from fatigue and effort, and headed out into the morning, with nothing but violence on his mind.
Fandom: Dishonored Relationships: Daud and the Whalers, some Daud/Outsider on the side
Rated: Mature to Explicit, Strong Violence and Gore Ahead!!
Synopsis: Werewolf!AU :: Daud-Centric Prequel to Wolfbann. Origin Story, pre-canon. Centers on how Daud turned, and his subsequent marking by the Outsider and his formulation of the Whalers.
Content Warnings for this chapter: body consumption, decapitation.
Notes: He isn't a like them, he's still sane. He's sure of it.
AO3 Link
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Dunwall, The Sewers
Month of Songs, 1820
The sewers stretched onwards, a winding maze if the one traversing them didn't know all the proper twists and turns. Jordan gripped her crossbow too tight, letting the pain in her palm distract from the sweat on her brow, the prickle at the back of her neck. At any moment she still expected Daud or Rulfio to lead her down a tunnel that was sightless and quiet, cornering her and ending her right then and there. It was a legitimate fear, she told herself, considering what she had just seen, had just tried to do…
She looked warily to Daud, eyes trained on his broad shoulders, watched the tension bunching the muscles under his assassin suit, and swallowed. She had seen what he could do with her own eyes, had seen his fully furred head, ears, teeth… and yet, her brain was still trying to process what the actual fuck it was that she had seen.
She scrutinized everything, her eyes tracing his lines, looking for anything beastial, anything irregular, anything… inhuman.
In flickering moments, her eyes would meet with Rulfio's. Those stern Tyvian pupils would look back, saying more with a glance than words ever could, before they went back to following Daud. Rulfio had always been closer with Daud than with her but that didn’t stop Rulfio from being something of a father figure to her. When she was still green in the assassin business, taking bounties that didn't always involve killing, he was there to steady her hand and make true her aim. Void, he wasn't even that much older than Jordan but the experience he carried in his hands was worth decades.
To see him backing Daud up on this, however, did little to assuage her (she won't call it fear, she can't be afraid, she will miss the shot if she ever needs to—) trepidation over the current situation. If she had known that Daud could move faster than she could see, that he could disappear, could grow claws and fur and turn into a monster…
She bit down on her cheek until she tasted blood. Brimsley owed her for this. She was not experienced enough for this. Nobody in Dunwall had the experience to deal with whatever Daud was now.
They walked together in relative silence, just hearing the errant drip of water, the splash of a hagfish on its way in from the river. She watched the water ripple with unseen movement and her fanciful ideas wandered until her head was filled with sea serpents and massive swimming rats, with crocodiles and sharp-toothed merfolk. So many thoughts swam in her head that she didn't realize when Daud had stopped, nearly running into him.
“Hey, what—”
A hand came up to silence her and she obeyed, jaw working hard enough she could hear her teeth grinding into dust. Another glance to Rulfio, looking for some sort of answer. He met her eye and just nudged his head forward; they had stopped outside of a large door, probably to a maintenance room.
“It's in there,” Daud said, his voice filled with an unknown emotion. For whatever reason, Jordan watched him… hesitate? Daud didn't hesitate for anything; hesitation for an assassin was death. The sweat on her neck rolled down into her shirt and she blamed only the summer heat for how much the world closed in on her.
It was suffocating to stand still. When Daud didn't move fast enough, her impatience moved instead. Growling, she pushed past both of the men and rushed the door until it shifted.
It was heavy and slippery but that didn't matter; Jordan threw her whole back into it. After a moment’s resistance, the door shuddered and relented, scraping against the concrete before fully swinging open.
Inside, a large amphitheatre with a huge domed cage showed itself to the trio, the seating lined in such a way that anyone in the audience could look down and into the center arena. On the walls and floor lay the evidence of what last happened here; Jordan’s eyes lingered on the gouged stone, the banged cage walls, the massive amount of splattered blood, and, upon further inspection, the half-eaten body of a man on the floor.
It's not like it's her first dead body, but it's clearly been here a while and there's a difference between a fresh kill and advanced decay. Bones and mummified skin sat inside scraps of clothing while angry flies buzzed around, leaving their maggots to finish the job other bigger animals couldn't. The smell wasn't in the putrid stage anymore, but it was still awful and stale, like it had been left to mold rather than rot.
“A lovely place to enjoy some drinks,” she groused, nose wrinkling. She turned back to the men; Rulfio looked pale while Daud was busy investigating the huge claw marks on the stone, the depth and width of their size. She frowned, tossing her hair out of her face. “What's with that face, Rulf? You ain't never seen a dead body before?”
It was a friendly tease but Rulfio just averted his gaze anyway, watching Daud, addressing him first.
“So, is this… is this where…” It was like he couldn't finish the sentence but he motioned to the ruined side of Daud’s face.
Daud shook his head, brow furrowed and sharp. “No, this isn't where Jerome attacked me, this is the hound pit itself. He was chained up, blinded, forced to fight dogs for the money and the entertainment of disgusting people. I watched a pit hound split his neck wide open,” he pointed to the huge blood stain on the floor, more blood than a human could spill. “Bled him until he died, and then the bastard just— came back. That sorry sack of meat was already trying to collect his dog when Jerome came back to life. Too close, got sliced to ribbons.”
Rulfio nodded, his face paling further as he studied the mummified remains, but Jordan's frown only deepened.
“Hey, you guys want to clue me in here? Are you talking about the same Jerome who went missing a few months back? What's he got to do with this?”
Daud's sharp blue eyes found her and she had to fight the urge to step back.
“He's got everything to do with this. Fink and his brother have a sick experiment happening down here, leading chumps to get killed by a monster, or worse, become a monster themselves.”
“What? You're telling me Jerome—” she pointed to his face, but the steely face looking back told her the answer. She whistled, hands going to her hips. An awkward moment while her foot twitched in a tune only she can hear.
“So, what, he still down here?”
“No.”
“You know for sure?”
“I killed him.”
“Even though you just said he came back from a ripped throat?”
“I saw the body.”
“Oh.” A pause. “And any others?”
Daud blinked. Had the audacity to look confused for half a second.
“Others?” He repeated, his harsh voice breaking. Jordan searched for something else to look at than his unnerving (inhuman) gaze.
“Yeah, you know…” her arm waved. “Others. Other monsters. You said people come down here and get killed or become monsters. Which means Jerome couldn't have been the only victim, right? Someone had to-to change him too.”
The horror was plain on his face; he hadn't considered this. Rulfio looked even more hardened, more concerned.
“You brought me down here without thinking there might be more of these monsters running around?” Rulfio's voice was scarily even and deadly sharp. Jordan sensed the storm brewing, the return of the argument the men were having earlier. “I’m not about to let you lead me to an early grave, Daud!”
Daud, to his credit, managed to look hurt, but it was hidden too quickly under a rising tide of anger.
“I didn't know, Rulf, because when I crawled out of this pit half-dead, nothing was here. I don't know if there's anything else but—” Then, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stalked away from both of them.
“You asked me to trust you, Daud, and I do, but I don't want to be what you are, I didn't sign up for black magic and voices in my head and whatever other evils you're still hiding!”
Jordan chewed on her cheek more, getting the creeping feeling she's privy to a conversation she was never meant to hear. Her eyes remained on Daud, watching as his hand waved, glowing and smoking. Then, his eyes were looking somewhere else, watching something else, through the walls and floor. The prickle at the back of her neck returned and her eyes widened as she realized, belatedly, that he was doing something magical again.
Eventually his breath returned to normal and he looked back to Rulfio, his clawed (Outsider's ass when did that happen?) hand shaking out and back to normal (Is human normal for him now? Or is the beast normal?). Her head swirled with questions she couldn't ask, both awed and horrified that her fellow assassin had come across something so wondrous and terrifying. Rulfio still seethed; she worked to pick her jaw up off the ground.
“From what I can sense, if there is anything here, it isn't just openly roaming around. But there… there are others, it looks like. Nobody fully changed but there were bodies in what looked like cages, maybe…” He squinted at the wall, as if being able to see through it with his naked eye.
Rulfio sighed, ragged and annoyed.
“And we're going to go and find them, aren't we?” Daud gave him a look: something apologetic, something imploring. Rulfio groaned loudly, rolling his eyes.
“You're an Outsider's bastard for this, literally,” he complained, checking the sword at his side and his pistol at the other. “You promise me right now, Daud, that I'm walking out of here in one piece.”
“I won't let them hurt you,” he affirmed, a deep conviction in his words. He looked to Jordan as well. “Both of you. I killed one already, I'll do it again, if I must.”
Jordan's heart leapt to her throat, prompting her to clear it. “Well, what are we waiting for, then?” Her voice squeaked painfully. “Onwards, wolfman.”
------
The Void thundered in his ears like a sour pulse, urging him towards a destination where he didn't know what awaited him. The Outsider had given him this power to hear and listen correctly, but whatever this noise was, it was repulsive as much as it was magnetic. Surely it wasn't supposed to make his head throb and his ears ring and set his teeth on edge. His hand itched and burned so much he was tempted to chew it off right then and there. The call to leap through the Void, to leave his companions behind was intense beyond measure; he swallowed it down, staying apace as best he could.
The problem, however, was that he could hardly focus on anything they were saying behind him.
“So, can I know exactly what we should be expecting when we get there?” Jordan asked, no doubt trying to wrap her head around everything. Rulfio had been filling her in on any other details Daud had neglected to recount, but still, neither of them had any idea what to expect going forward.
And to be honest, Daud didn't know either. What he saw in his Sight didn't make any sense and had only disturbed him; strange bodies had lit up for him like candles, bright yellow against a desaturated world. Sporting long limbs and too-thin bodies, they didn't look like monsters… At least, not yet.
“Wolfbanner are gigantic, with claws and teeth and huge bodies that heal wounds,” Daud explained, his voice sounding as if his vocal cords didn't heal right after being slashed apart. “But they can also just as easily look like me. They could be weak from being down here so long. Won't know until we get there.”
Jordan said nothing else; what else was there to say? They were along for his ride, trusting him with an unknown factor, putting their lives in his hands.
From the amphitheatre, Daud led them down a long, hidden hallway. From there, they entered a room filled from head to ceiling with large, wired hound cages. Daud had not gone this direction when he was first here, but it's clear Jermone did; the cages were busted as if something massive had run into them and a few blood splatters coated the floor and walls. Nothing was fresh, not even the water left over in forgotten bowls. Daud could hear Jordan exclaim behind him.
“How big did you say these things get, Daud?” She asked, trying to hide the waver in her voice as her eyes trailed the damage above her head height.
“Whale sized,” he growled and his sensitive ears picked up the gulp in her throat. His jaw worked and he turned forward, another gaze into the Void telling him they were close. “Come on; nothing ahead of us is close to that big.” And certainly not as big as he could get, not that the idea of what he was capable of brought him any comfort.
Truth be told, he hadn't fully transformed since that first night. Something about exuding such power, being so massive, so noticeable, didn't sit well with him yet. Maybe it would one day, but not now, not when he still had a shred of humanity left.
The destruction only continued. Jerome, in the blinded state that he had been in, had spared no time destroying whatever his body could touch once he was freed. Splintered wood, tossed tables, a body under rocky rubble. And yet…
Daud stopped to inspect a room filled with bookshelves and tables. Papers were scattered across the floor while delicate instruments sat behind broken glass. In places rubble was swept aside, pulled into piles of dust and dirt. Daud frowned, brows knitting together while the other two looted on their own time. The soft clink of coin reached his ear before he heard Rulfio grunt.
“You might wanna take a look at this, Daud,” he rumbled out, pointing to a flipped board. Daud did as he was told, coming to inspect the scribbled writing in chalk.
Drawings of a whale-wolf, of its size and properties. Dates of when test subjects were attacked, who lived and who died. The length of time between attack and transformation… something about an “incubation period.” And amongst it all, a paper with the crude scribble of the Outsider's Mark, the same as his, on the back of a clawed hand.
His insides twisted unpleasantly as he turned from the board, cursing. He sat somewhere between ill and angered, of the thought of those innocent people who asked for nothing getting dragged into this for entertainment. How many died? How many were like Jerome, scarred and blinded and starved in chains?
“This is so fucked up,” Jordan breathed and his gut clenched even more. Something prickled down his neck and he turned to see both of them looking at him, their faces holding too much concern, too much worry. He breathed out through his nose, hard and angry, all of his features turning severe.
“I didn't bring you here to throw pity at me, you know.” His teeth felt heavy in his mouth and he willed them to stay normal as his fist opened and closed in agitation. “I'm not like those sorry sacks; I'm alive and I'm not locked up. Those individuals are all dead and gone, and I don't plan on joining them.”
“And the madness?” Rulfio asks, softly. “What is going to stop that, Daud?”
He snarled, teeth flashing as he brought his hand up. Jordan flinched, but all he did was let the Mark hidden under his glove burn hot enough even they could see it. His claws grew long and he was tempted to stop time, to jump through the Void, to get away from those scared eyes and those judgemental frowns. Instead, he yanked his hand back down, letting the smoke and ash fade away.
“Do you think me so weak? You think I crawled out of this pit, with my face looking the way I did, to let madness take me? The god of the Void himself decided he wanted me to live, and that magic keeps me here and as myself. I don't intend for that to change any time soon.”
He stalked out, ignoring their glances and willing away the fur trailing down his neck and over his shoulders. He didn't need to lose control here, in front of them, not when it wasn't their fault. But also he needed the space, needed some place where he could burn off energy and not be looked at like a freak for it.
As soon as they were out of earshot, he clenched his clawed fist, rushing through the Void. The sensation was cooling against his angry-hot skin, the icy plunge a balm on his emotions, moving the humid air around his body. He jumped again, breathing in the smoke and ash and letting it settle in his chest like the draw from a cigarette. One more, and then another—
Suddenly, he found himself hanging in midair.
He had transversed out of the sewer pipe and above a lower room, sunlight bursting down allowing the whole circular area to be illuminated. It only took a moment of his suspension to realize where he was and why, perhaps, he was unconsciously drawn here. Beneath him were the cages, and through the Void, he could see their sleeping bodies.
His fist clenched and in an instant he was rushing to them, appearing in front of them in a blink. As the world returned and air rushed back in, he could hear the echoing calls of Rulfio and Jordan. Looking for him, no doubt, as if he would answer their calls like a dog off a leash. If anything he wished now more than ever they would quiet down and act like Void-damned assassins.
The irony in that, of course, being he was the only assassin in the Isles who actually was Void-damned.
They called for Daud. Daud didn't call back to them. Instead, his attention was pulled fully to the cages and their inhabitants.
Inside, humans groaned and stirred, but they were only human in passing. Their eyes glowed in the gloom, their limbs long and their chests deep. Strange, heavy breathing escaped mouths thick with mismatched teeth, and broken and brittle nails grew from skinny fingers. Their clothes, if they had any at all, were ripped through, their feet deformed into strange shapes. As one of them locked eyes with Daud, he felt the trickle of a poisoned mind reach his and he recoiled, locking his emotions down and stepping away.
The rippling growl he heard was his own, escaping out of his chest.
“Ugly Turned.”
Heavy footfalls approach from behind him, followed by a metallic scraping. Daud whipped around, his teeth lengthening of their own accord as his lip curled back into a snarl. He crouched into a fight stance, hand hovering over his blade.
A man approached him, tall and hugely muscled. His head was hairless but only because it was shaved down, his prominent ears sticking out all the more for it. His severe face didn't hold much intelligence, but that was less worrying than the thick heated crowbar he held in his gloved hand.
“Come to save them, filthy dog? They won't listen.” The man dwarfed Daud by at least two heads: as soon as he was close enough he swung hard for Daud's shoulder, but Daud was leaping away far before the blow landed. The swings were slow, uncoordinated; this man didn't know how to fight outside of brute force. Easy enough to deal with.
Daud sneered, eyes flashing, and he called on the Void to stop time fully around him. All noise and all movement ceased, giving him full permission to rush his attacker, his sword unsheathing, shining and angry.
“Won't work,” the man rumbled out, side-stepping Daud's sword swing and countering him easily. The hot metal rod hit Daud squarely in the ribs and his grasp on time dropped. His breath rushed out even as air and sound rushed in; his body toppled, rolling from the force of impact. Black, oily claws grab at his side, assessing if the rib was broken or not. His attacker stalked slowly over, unbothered.
“You think you're special? I'm special too. Master makes me stronger than you ever will be.” The man brought the crowbar back over his head, looking to smash it into Daud's head. That was, if Daud hadn't already transversed through the Void; the metal clanged loudly onto the wet concrete, sending water droplets flying on impact. He reappeared, ending up behind the Brute, inching closer instead to the holding cages.
Too close, apparently, for the inhabitants behind bars. Wet, wild snarling started up and long, now-sharp claws swiped at his ankles from wherever they could reach. His teeth snapped at them in a bid to intimidate them away but nothing swayed them; their wide eyes held no self-preservation anymore.
“See? Won't listen,” the Brute reminded him, voice deep and slow. “They’ll only listen to me. Wanna see?”
He raised a gleaming hand, his smile broken and nasty. Behind Daud, the snarling grew deeper; bones snapped and whines dripping in whalesong ripped out of their throats. In horror, he turned to see their bodies lurching, heaving, changing…
Metal groaned and claws pushed against bars, bending them like rubber. Their cages were far too small for the monsters those poor souls were destined to become. It was mere seconds before all of them would be bursting forth, rushing him, or worse…
A quick thwip and a heavy thud reached his ears and the man yowled, grabbing at his magical hand. A crossbow bolt had pierced his palm and he bent over, clutching his wrist, but not before another bolt was loosed and buried deep into his thickened thigh. The smell of blood filled his nose and drove the caged wolves into a frenzy as they pressed against their bars. His heart thudded too fast, whales singing in his ears so loud he almost missed the three pistol shots, the gun unloaded. The Brute definitely ate at least one of those bullets but Daud knew better; if that man was exactly like him, then he'd survive. He'd live.
Through yowls of pain the attacker disappeared, and Daud knew he had fled. However, his absence didn't stymie the chain reaction already in place behind him. He leapt away, gaining distance; soon those captives would no longer be captives. Blood and fur and screeching came from the cages and he could feel his body lurch and heave in response.
Fur rippled across his neck and back. He brought his searing hand up to his face, as it stretched and grew and lost its humanity, and he laughed.
“Fine, you mangy dogs, come to me! Fight! We will see who among us is truly mad!”
His thoughts thundered outward, not caring what minds he touched, and he had the satisfaction of watching at least one of those dogs stop and whine. But then the hinges broke, those mangled bodies poured forth, and his cackling, sharp-toothed smile was all that was there waiting for them.
------
That wasn't Daud.
There was no way. Everything in Rulfio's senses was rejecting what he was experiencing, what he was seeing, like a horror story becoming reality. Despite everything he had learned in the last few hours of his life, seeing it, bearing witness— that was another thing entirely.
And what he was bearing witness to, was the form of Daud heaving, smoking, growing, all while four amalgamations of fur and flesh bore down on him.
Thinking fast, Rulfio grabbed Jordan and pushed her away from the ledge of the sewer pipe, keeping her as far away from this new pit as possible. She naturally protested but he gripped her arm tight, his eyes serious as they searched her face.
“Get out of here. Now.”
Her eyes were wide and terrified, darting from him to the commotion down below them. Rulfio shook her again, pulling her in, dominating her visual space so all she looked at was him.
“But, but I heard him? Daud, in my head…”
“Jordan listen to me! If you stay here, you will die, and I'm not about to have that on my conscience.”
“But what about you?” She gasped. A sound like screaming whales reverberated through the room, shaking Rulfio's whole chest and limbs. He pushed her away again as she winced, whimpering from the noise.
A huge thud. A cry of pain followed by a wet, squelching noise and the snapping of bone. Rulfio refused to turn and look. Jordan paled as the sounds worsened.
He urged her harder, shoving against her until she was in the other rooms, further away.
“Go back the way we came,” his voice shook but his hands were still steady. “Once you get to the ampitheatre, go to the right of the doors. There is a sewer outlet three clicks down, it should drop you into Rudshore—”
Something shuddered the concrete they were standing on and Rulfio's head was filled with a dark, wild laughter. The giddiness of the other mind was enough to overwhelm his own feelings of fear, but he shook it off. Jordan still gaped, too terrified to move.
Rulfio growled, his teeth gritting together as he pushed her as hard as he could.
“GO!” He yelled, and that seemed to wake her up. She picked herself up, turned, and ran back into the sewer, leaving Rulfio alone.
But he wasn't really alone. His breath was ragged, filled with the tumultuous thoughts of another, of someone in the throes of a killing spree. His limbs shook and he closed his fists, steeling himself to turn around and witness the carnage.
It was more than even he expected.
A huge wolf monster, black fur glistening with wet-red blood, towered in the center of the room, biting down on the neck of one of the last remaining test subjects. Its dying screeches were unearthly and nothing like what the wolves of Tyvia sounded like during the winters of his youth. It thrashed against the vice of his teeth but then he shook and it's neck snapped, blood gushing out and pooling on the floor in dripping rivers. His head raised up, pulling the neck with his jaws until it was snapping, rending, pulling away from the main body. Twitching, tongue lolling from a lifeless mouth, the prize was pried fully away, tendons giving way in a gorey mess. Daud’s huge hand grabbed it from his mouth and tossed it aside, where it wetly hit the ground, bouncing until it splashed into a puddle, contaminating it. Then, as if an afterthought, his head bent and bit into the creature's shoulder, popping the arm out with a tug, as if he was simply spatchcocking a chicken.
The other bodies were sprawled out in similar fashion; in the minutes it took for Rulfio to convince Jordan to run, the monster that had once been Daud had completed his wet and gruesome work.
And now, he was feasting on his kill, teeth crushing bone and tearing flesh.
It was too much. Rulfio made a strangled noise before his feet gave out and he fell to his knees at the sight and smell of it all. He couldn't have run after Jordan, even if he had wanted to.
A long ear twitched, an eye opened, and suddenly a huge head was turning towards him. This was it; Rulfio’s once-friend brought him to the place he was killed, to be killed in turn. Or maybe worse, maybe he'd wake up tomorrow just as scarred and cursed as the man he once knew, the man who no longer existed, because Daud would never, he wouldn't—
When the curious tendril of emotion extended towards Rulfio, he could feel nothing but nauseated as a response. Concern, worry a small amount of fear. Rulfio shut his eyes, pushing that mind out, feeling it recoil apologetically. When it was gone, he expected to feel claws against his body, white hot and burning, teeth at his neck as he became the next meal—
The seconds passed and Rulfio counted each one. No blow came. No noise of breaking bone or squelching blood reached his ears. Just the drip of water, steady and infuriating.
“Rulfio.”
Daud's voice was so close it nearly gave him a heart attack. Eyes flying open, he gasped, seeing Daud standing in front of him. He fell backwards, crawling away before standing back up.
“Get away from me,” he blabbered, trying to get his breath back, to steady his hammering heart. “Get the fuck—”
He caught a glimpse of Daud's face, of the expression that would haunt him for weeks and months to come. The hurt hanging on those shoulders, the damaged look in his eyes, silent agony even under that layer of blood and grime and gristle. Rulfio tried to rescind, tried to reach out but it was too late.
The whisper of Void tickled at his ear. He blinked and in that moment, Daud was gone, vanished, and not a trace of his emotions lingered behind in his wake.
hey! I just wanted to ask if you were the one who wrote the dishonored werewolf series on ao3? It's amazing and I wanted to thank you for writing it if so. it's my favorite series and I hope you're doing well!
I am in fact, that person. :O Thank you so much for enjoying it!
If you haven't seen, I also did a slew of artwork for that series, all of which I still cherish to this day. I take a lot of what I made then and push it forward into the content I make now, though a lot of that stuff is behind the scenes at the moment, and not available to the public. Yet. :)
here are some of my favorite arts I made for it, because I go back to them from time to time and love them to pieces (I hope to return to this style this year as well). This whole au has such a special place in my heart.
helllo! I wanted to let you know I really like your wolf drawings! also I wanted to ask (and I'm sorry if this is annoying), but you the one who wrote the dishonored fic, wolfbann? cuz I really enjoyed reading it and have been rereading it a lot. so, I wanted to ask will you be continuing the blood wolf fic about daud? cuz I would like to read more of it if possible. thanks for your time! 🩵
Sorry I didn't answer this ages ago when I first got this, but yes, I am the one who wrote Wolfbann and Blood Wolf, and because it's been on my mind constantly this last week, there is a nonzero chance that I may be returning to those fics in the coming months. :)
I don't want to get hopes up, of course, but know that the blorbos have been turning in my brain and I miss the universe and I reread my own fic and remembered how much it slaps (i wrote it literally as a fic I would want to read and I succeeded for sure) so give me some time to cook and I'll see what I can do.
i’m back hard on my werewolf!au bullshit for Dishonored. I left it unfinished, and not in a way that I was pleased with. Please enjoy this return to form with a cover for the next fic I’m working on. Blood Wolf. It is a rougher story than Wolfbann due to the violent nature of it, but i’m very excited about the direction its headed. It’s ultimately about how Daud turned, and how he founded the whalers, becoming the assassin network that was so notorious it killed an Empress.
The whole series is collected here on AO3. It is my literal pride and joy.
