✦ ◟: @maskedsin· ` )
it is enough of a kiss to him. from anyone else the following would be enough of an insult. but corvo is smiling, lips gracing over left cheekbone and down to jaw. emael has his own scars ; corvo is not blind to the slit along the neck. but it’s startling to realize the difference in how many marks cover either of their skin. absentmindedly, he thinks that he can’t speak for the rest of emael just yet.
❛ calling me vermin isn’t encouraging me much to stick around.❜ yet there’s a kiss to emael’s temple as he says it. ❛ i’m sure before all this you could’ve gone back, told my parents to make it. some big cosmic joke —— i would’ve believed you.❜ smiling as his head rests against the back of the sofa. has the outsider ever seen him so calm, personal ? not that corvo himself can recall.
❛ i wouldn’t mind listening.❜ it is a challenge as much as a flirtation ; it’s proving difficult to disconnect the two. there is no displeasure in being unkempt from him after so long spent in the walls of court, but he’s learning to pick his battles as well.
❛ i’ve known sokolov for a couple decades you know i’ve gotten an earful.❜ a sigh. such a collection of books like sokolov’s is wasted on such an un-curious man, steady even in the face of all it’s mystery and wonder. ❛ i’d wager you know more. ❜
oh he knows well what sokolov has told him , some of it correct , some of it not , some of it incredibly shallow for all that pandyssia has to offer and he also knows corvo has not bothered to press for more than what was given , disinterested in the offered tales he hadn’t asked for . he wonders if corvo is curious now , faced with a man who was born there and died so far away from familiarity , from home . as a god he’d know , as a mortal ... his head tilts , slightly , rests upon his knuckles as he glances the man over and makes an educated guess : corvo doesn’t care , but if emael is the one who speaks of it that no longer becomes the truth .
❛ i do . it hasn’t changed much in the passing years . still full of mystery , tethered to old ways . still the target of fear and hatred by everyone who’s heard the regurgitated fairy tales told by people who’ve never set foot on its soil . ❜ it is a terrifying place , yes , but not for the reasons people like to give it . witches , heretics , an uncultured people needing to be changed ------ different is the enemy , regardless of the year . it’s a shame to say the least .
❛ you’d like it there . ❜ he says . it’s not a question but a fact , an assumption made on what he knows of one corvo attano and he’d be shocked if the man felt otherwise were he to arrive there . ❛ the sunlight feels stronger there than anywhere else , warm and lasting , dipping through trees just a few dozen feet from a vast beach spanning the entire coast . it’s easy to get lost ; you could spend a week wandering through deserts and forests and be no closer to getting to where you want to go than you were to start with . ❜ a tut , click of his tongue . ❛ it’s not a bad thing . it can be nice to be lost for a while , can’t it ? nothing but you and a whole world who couldn’t care less who or what you are . ❜
❛ ... you’d like the fishing . it’s different from what you’re used to . ❜ he adds , for good measure . he’d love to take him , someday . he’d love to simply go back someday . feel his own history beneath his feet , walk familiar , old pathways with new faces and old memories . it’s odd to miss a life he barely had and one that was far from desirable when he had it but ... here he is , nonetheless .
