[Open] Facing Down The Things We Cannot Outrun

[dunwhale]

“Here you are,” the Outsider mocks. It's too monotone to be mockery, really, his voice is the cool and measured cadence of one who knows what they want to say and will say it in due time. Daud wants to bare his teeth, but he doesn't. He stands still in the enforced silence of the Void and has no choice but to let the Outsider talk. “I thought you would be more grateful, Daud. After so long spent balancing on a tightrope, you now have the second chance that you've wanted.
“Nobody here knows what you've done. They don't know about the blood you've spilled to keep yourself afloat.”


The Outsider changes. His skin darkens and his hair lengthens. His eyes change from murky hazel to dark, dark brown. His nose and chin round out and freckles saddle his nose until he's no longer the Outsider, but Billie Lurk. “They don't know what you've done, and you don't want them to know. I betrayed you because you were weak. You haven't changed, Daud. You're still a coward.”
She changes, too, features flowing like water into something else. Sharper, paler, hair swept severely back, an array of flowers wreathing her head and shoulders. Her arms grow thorns. She smiles, canines sharp and eyeteeth glinting. “You've the blood of two empresses on your hands. Mine, and my sister's. Even when you tried to seek redemption, you couldn't change who you were. Give it up, Daud. You'll never be anything more than you were when you first started killing.”
Daud wants to scream, tell the Outsider to stop whatever it was he’s doing. He doesn’t want to hear this. It can’t be true. He’s changed, here.
Is it? Has he?
Delilah's features soften back, differently now, into the doe eyes and rounded lips of the former Empress. Jessamine stares him down with solemn, sorrowful eyes. He wishes she would be angry. It would be better than this. “You killed me,” she says, and that only, like he's seen on the gazebo mere days after that-- the last job. His last kill. His hands feel warm and wet. He clenches them into fists and the feeling intensifies, so he glances down; blood streams from his fists, seemingly from nowhere. It drips on the cobblestone.
“You killed me,” Jessamine says again. Her voice stays low; “you killed me.” Daud tenses even more. Hot blood streaks his fingers and drips from his knuckles. “You killed me!”
He looks to her again, unable to take his eyes from anything in the Void for long, and nearly gasps. The wound on her side gapes, blood bubbling out like a fountain. She wails, less in pain and more despair. “You killed me! You killed me! You killed me!”

Daud wakes in a cold sweat, entire body tense enough to hurt. The Void is cruel, yes, but not cruel like that; The Outsider can't do that.
It was a dream.
Daud sighs, breath coming shuddering from his lungs. His hands curl into fists.
Just a dream.
Lying around feeling sorry about it won't do anything. He rolls onto his side and gets out of bed. He'd managed to fall asleep in an actual bed this time, an improvement over most nights-- he's settling down here, as much as anyone can. A look out the window proves it to be just before noon. He'd gone to bed late. Daud dresses, attaches his holster and blade, slots his wristbow into place and loads the carriage with bolts (sleep darts, which the castle obligingly provided him with, which he neither questioned nor sought out), and sets out into the gardens for a walk and some training.
His dream weighs heavily in his mind. Not-Outsider was right; he wasn't taking advantage of this fresh start in the way he should. He decides to try. It starts with nodding to the first person he passes on his walk, offering a “good morning.”
It's not much, but he himself is quite interesting and unfamiliar to many of the castle residents as they are to him.
It's no Pandyssia, but it's still uncharted territory.

Comments

[panaceaa]

If Guardian is anything, being constantly drawn in to uncharted territory is it. Curiosity is as much a strength as it can be hubris, and they've seen enough glimpses of this stranger for such a thing to have been piqued several times over; turning down the hall, running through forms in the gardens, but always from a distance -- the man is a cryptid, almost.

Which makes it almost startling when they actually cross paths.

And then he speaks!

...That's a rude thing to think, isn't it. Bad! Guardian blinks up almost owlishly from the hardlight screen in their hands, which unceremoniously dissipates when they let go after realizing being spoken to generally means one is expected to speak in return.

They take the offered greeting and put a little bow on it. "Likewise," they say. Nothing like a re-wrapped gift. And then, almost thoughtlessly, "Training today?"

[dunwhale]

Daud doesn’t and hasn’t sought out interaction with others—when he was in Dunwall, it was always them coming to him with hands full of coin and thoughts of murder. He’s left that behind him. The thought of killing doesn’t gall him and neither does the act, but his actions and thoughts have taken different turns since The Job. That’s what it’s become in his mind, killing Jessamine, The Job. As abstracted as he has made it he is still the one responsible.
He’s never met this person. He’s seen them, of course, because he’s seen everyone at least once and promptly made sure he wasn’t seen or caught. They speak back and he assumes his attempt is well-received.
He hums. “Every day.” He remembers training with Frisk and what a travesty that was. It should teach him a thing or two, but it doesn’t. “Care to join me?”

[seditixn]

"Morning's kind of a relative term, isn't it?"

Sed is kneeling in the grass, picking a corner of his cloak out from where it'd gotten caught in some unsuspecting bush. Poor bush. He turns enough to squint at the person who'd greeted him, red eyes bright against yellow sclera.

"...Uh, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you kind of look like shit." hm. "Rough day?"

[dunwhale]

“The sun still rises.” He’s not wrong. In a half hour or so it will hang in the sky for a while and then start to plunge down into the clouds; but for now it is still climbing. In Dunwall, his corners of Dunwall, it’s hard to tell whether the sun rises or sets due to the vast amount of smoke and smog that clogs the air.
Ah. He was halfway hoping that the man would ignore him. Trapped as he is in social interaction of his own making, he nods. “Restless sleep leads to restless waking. You don’t look too good yourself.”

[seditixn]

It's not really funny, but that gets a laugh out of him regardless, and he brushes grass off of the knees of his pants as he stands. "For someone, somewhere, the same sun sets. Maybe it's overly pedantic of me, but I've always thought time is a little bit fake."

RIP Daud. Caught in a web of his own design. Sed would be sympathetic if he wasn't clueless! As it is, he just smiles. "Oh, this is just my face. If I ever look okay then something is terribly wrong." Nevermind that he should've been asleep more than a few hours ago. "I think we could start a club."

[dunwhale]

Daud spent a winter at the Academy of Natural Philosophy, but he’s no philosopher—natural or otherwise. The troll quips insight at him and he grunts.

Truly, this place tests his patience as much as it does offer him a haven.

“A club,” he repeats. “Don’t push your luck.” Still, it would be rude to not introduce himself. “I’m Daud. You are?”

[seditixn]

Not that he wasn't expecting that sort of reaction, but damn if it's hard to find someone who appreciates a good solid helping of bullshit. Fuck knows Sed does. Time is very, very real, after all.

It just happens to also be incredibly subjective!

A polite smile is sent Daud's way. "Seditionist," he replies, offering the man a hand to shake. "Sed for short."

And then he gestures to the other's various armaments, wristbow being chief among them. "Expecting trouble, Daud?" Sed doesn't sound particularly troubled about it. He's not. Mostly just...curious.

[dunwhale]

Daud doesn't normally have people offering him a handshake. It's just yet another reminder that this place doesn't follow the playbook he's accustomed to. He shakes, with his right hand, worn leather shifting against itself.

After he releases his hand from the friendly-- if firm and tight-- shake, Seditionist makes a gesture to him. After a second, Daud belatedly realizes he's gesturing to the weapons. He shakes his head in response. The question makes him think-- is he?

“No. I'm just keeping myself sharp.” He's been charged with enjoying the sound of his own voice-- that's more the Outsider's crime, but he too can talk more than he necessarily should. “This place seems peaceful, but I wouldn't put it past it to try something once we get too comfortable.”

[seditixn]

One normally wouldn't account such a statement to deserve such a beaming smile, but beaming Sed is. Sharp. Daud said he's keeping himself sharp.

"Was that a pun?"

Nevermind everything else the man just said. This is obviously far more important. The Most.

the concept of any vantas smiling makes my heart do flips

[dunwhale]

It takes a moment for Daud's mind to catch up with Sed's words and the troll's wide, toothy grin. That was something of a stealth pun, wasn't it? He sighs, resigned to that fact that it was.

"You may as well consider it one."

In an attempt to move past his accidental punning, he gestures to the grounds around them. "How long have you been here?"

WALKS IN HOW ... MANY WEEKS LATE?

[seditixn]

YES. It's the accidental puns that are the best. You may try to move past it, Daud, but Sed never forgets.

He lets the subject change slide though, glancing around at Daud's gesture. "You know, I'm not sure," he says, touching a finger to his chin in thought. "I haven't really been keeping track. Hm. Long enough?" He waves a hand somewhat dismissively. It's pretty obvious he doesn't assign too much importance to the idea, but even so, when he returns the question it's with some measure of genuine curiosity.

"And yourself? You at least look like you know where you're going."