[ He is calm, calm, calm in his slow exhale, inhale, and steady as waves in his motions, the long length of his story, grows more and more detached as it goes, talks of the gang wars, the filthy rich stink of whale oil, their long, long mournful cries that echoed up sometimes, when the river was still. It is Dunwall, and it is not home, but it is all he knows now, the starving hunger in his belly is the same starving hunger of the city, that does not cease no matter how much he eats and craves, because it seems only fair for the day they will be devoured. Does not tremble, does not shake, moves like old things, like pre-written things because he knows blood at least, where he has grown so foreign to kindness, for all his time here. It still unsettled him, not sure to make of it, what Jasper is saying in it's entirety. Frowning down at his work, blade caught against bone and he jerks it back and forth in long actions to tug at the socket, rip at it.
Makes a soft ah and for awhile, it is all the acknowledgement there is that he has been spoken to, that Jasper had made reply. Leaves blade sunk into the beast and twists magic against around his fingers, hovering on the edge of something far, far worse if he were to let that slip just a little, but doesn't. Not yet, soon -- long breath out and that's the part he had not told, wonders if Jasper could understand that too. The same quiet acceptance and he isn't sure, but the violence is a little too inherent in him. Gets fingers around and where it has been loosened by the blade, there is an ugly ripping noise, and a leg comes off at the knee. ]
It sounds... beautiful. [ In a way he doesn't know, can't fathom -- might have once, wasn't sure. Forests, fair kind rulers, and a smattering things beyond that. Old stories, the way people spoke of Euhorn's and -- ah, now, of Jessamine's reign. Kind, but eccentric, and that pulls a small smile, for Jasper or memories it doesn't matter much really, stays a minute longer and --
-- he holds it there, fine as a old wine on the tip of his tongue. He could take Emily, like he wished in every fever dream moment. Wrap her up like when she was no more than a small child in his arms and left gum marks on his fingers and gurgled papa at him without knowing why she should never say such things. He could bury the things that should stay dead, and Emily could have sun in her eyes and he might feel it on his skin, would it be like Serkonos? Would it have that feel of things untainted that for once the light could trickle down to even the depths and pits and damp cruel places. It would not have that taint of things given up on it, it would be the day Jessamine stood there full with child in the morning sun looking out on the view she favored so much, and he was so sick with love of her, with duty bound up in her that was worse than all of it, and all those long days were sharp with promise.
For that second, it's possible, it's probable, it's a hope and he dearly, dearly needed something to hope for anymore that wasn't -- ] I would, you are right, I would like that. Lady Emily would like it to.
[ But, no, he can't, and he cannot put it to words in a way that is simple, the same as when Wade had asked -- is this really what he wanted. He cannot let go and he cannot forgive and he cannot see past his own failings, he cannot want beyond that, otherwise, otherwise he might break for the future he was never going to have now. The moose leg is set aside as slowly and the idea of an idea fades in the gesture, held and dismissed... and was this how Jessamine felt? This power was too much, there was an Empire in his hands and it was choking him. How did she bare it?
By sacrificing, by always, always giving up. Steady hands, steady eyes, steady heart ( steady as a heart beat ) and there's a jerk of his head and the smile goes. ]
But I cannot. What I want has no bearing. Lady Emily is to be Empress Emily Kaldwin the First, [ and the words in that order sit so odd and flat and wrong on his tongue, she is Empress from the minute her mother died, but she is his little girl, and she will never be a child again, he has failed the most fervent of Jessamine's wishes, it twists over his gut and if he wants to cry for anything, it is for that. Grief that is a fresh as the first wound, the first burn and maybe if they had not burned him, he might just grieve like others did, and that might be relief, but spirits, he can't stop, he can't breathe, he can't, he can't, he can't ] -- she is heir, and what they stole, what they took from her when they butchered her mother and locked her away, I can't ever give her that back, but I can give her the Empire that is rightfully hers. The power that they did this all for. [ He is tired, he is broken, and he wills his body to move because it must, because someone has to, and there's the sink in of fingers into flesh like he wants to press into the Regent's greedy little eyes, into the wet soft press of his mouth, and all Corvo wants to know in that second all over again is if his skin will make the soft ripping sound that the beasts skin make when he guts him open the same, peels him back and the air will smell the same, heady with blood and death and he will bleed life back into the corners that the Spymaster had taken it from. It is not enough, and it will have to do. ] There is nothing else for me. So do not give something so precious to where it will be wasted.
[ He doesn't speak of his home for so many reasons, he cannot bear to and it is mistake, even for guilt over what he did to Jasper, to ever answer any of this. He knows because he feels like the men he possesses, like the dogs and the fish and the birds maybe if he dreamed of flying, wrong in his own skin. Shallow thick-fast breaths and the rage so blistering it's the only thing hotter than the searing of his own flesh, it's foreign as void, but it is in his skin and he cannot get it out, and he sinks into it with no other options. ( Idly, thinks of Shepard, how her mind cracked open under his fingers, he took her breaths and moved her legs and it was mercifully because it was not this, she was dying and it was a thousand, thousand times a relief because he was dying too and it would all just go away, why does this not just all go away? )
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Makes a soft ah and for awhile, it is all the acknowledgement there is that he has been spoken to, that Jasper had made reply. Leaves blade sunk into the beast and twists magic against around his fingers, hovering on the edge of something far, far worse if he were to let that slip just a little, but doesn't. Not yet, soon -- long breath out and that's the part he had not told, wonders if Jasper could understand that too. The same quiet acceptance and he isn't sure, but the violence is a little too inherent in him. Gets fingers around and where it has been loosened by the blade, there is an ugly ripping noise, and a leg comes off at the knee. ]
It sounds... beautiful. [ In a way he doesn't know, can't fathom -- might have once, wasn't sure. Forests, fair kind rulers, and a smattering things beyond that. Old stories, the way people spoke of Euhorn's and -- ah, now, of Jessamine's reign. Kind, but eccentric, and that pulls a small smile, for Jasper or memories it doesn't matter much really, stays a minute longer and --
-- he holds it there, fine as a old wine on the tip of his tongue. He could take Emily, like he wished in every fever dream moment. Wrap her up like when she was no more than a small child in his arms and left gum marks on his fingers and gurgled papa at him without knowing why she should never say such things. He could bury the things that should stay dead, and Emily could have sun in her eyes and he might feel it on his skin, would it be like Serkonos? Would it have that feel of things untainted that for once the light could trickle down to even the depths and pits and damp cruel places. It would not have that taint of things given up on it, it would be the day Jessamine stood there full with child in the morning sun looking out on the view she favored so much, and he was so sick with love of her, with duty bound up in her that was worse than all of it, and all those long days were sharp with promise.
For that second, it's possible, it's probable, it's a hope and he dearly, dearly needed something to hope for anymore that wasn't -- ] I would, you are right, I would like that. Lady Emily would like it to.
[ But, no, he can't, and he cannot put it to words in a way that is simple, the same as when Wade had asked -- is this really what he wanted. He cannot let go and he cannot forgive and he cannot see past his own failings, he cannot want beyond that, otherwise, otherwise he might break for the future he was never going to have now. The moose leg is set aside as slowly and the idea of an idea fades in the gesture, held and dismissed... and was this how Jessamine felt? This power was too much, there was an Empire in his hands and it was choking him. How did she bare it?
By sacrificing, by always, always giving up. Steady hands, steady eyes, steady heart ( steady as a heart beat ) and there's a jerk of his head and the smile goes. ]
But I cannot. What I want has no bearing. Lady Emily is to be Empress Emily Kaldwin the First, [ and the words in that order sit so odd and flat and wrong on his tongue, she is Empress from the minute her mother died, but she is his little girl, and she will never be a child again, he has failed the most fervent of Jessamine's wishes, it twists over his gut and if he wants to cry for anything, it is for that. Grief that is a fresh as the first wound, the first burn and maybe if they had not burned him, he might just grieve like others did, and that might be relief, but spirits, he can't stop, he can't breathe, he can't, he can't, he can't ] -- she is heir, and what they stole, what they took from her when they butchered her mother and locked her away, I can't ever give her that back, but I can give her the Empire that is rightfully hers. The power that they did this all for. [ He is tired, he is broken, and he wills his body to move because it must, because someone has to, and there's the sink in of fingers into flesh like he wants to press into the Regent's greedy little eyes, into the wet soft press of his mouth, and all Corvo wants to know in that second all over again is if his skin will make the soft ripping sound that the beasts skin make when he guts him open the same, peels him back and the air will smell the same, heady with blood and death and he will bleed life back into the corners that the Spymaster had taken it from. It is not enough, and it will have to do. ] There is nothing else for me. So do not give something so precious to where it will be wasted.
[ He doesn't speak of his home for so many reasons, he cannot bear to and it is mistake, even for guilt over what he did to Jasper, to ever answer any of this. He knows because he feels like the men he possesses, like the dogs and the fish and the birds maybe if he dreamed of flying, wrong in his own skin. Shallow thick-fast breaths and the rage so blistering it's the only thing hotter than the searing of his own flesh, it's foreign as void, but it is in his skin and he cannot get it out, and he sinks into it with no other options. ( Idly, thinks of Shepard, how her mind cracked open under his fingers, he took her breaths and moved her legs and it was mercifully because it was not this, she was dying and it was a thousand, thousand times a relief because he was dying too and it would all just go away, why does this not just all go away? )