A/N: So yeah. Was rummaging in my stories folder and found this. It made me smile so I decided to post it. xD It was originally intended to be a first chapter but I'm posting it as a one-shot and tagging it as complete for the moment – I might revisit it later but my fourth-year dissertation is due soon and I have exams after that, so I won't be writing more anytime soon. Probably will at some point. (My track record isn't fantastic though, so don't hold your breath. xD)

Disclaimer: Don't own the game.

A Light in the Storm

"Corvo!" Dark eyes looked up at him, bright with happiness . "Do you want to –

Scarlet pooled on the gazebo floor, a pale hand lying outstretched and limp –

–play hide-and-seek?"

Eerie blue light and a tattered letter –

"One, two, three, four –"

YOU CANNOT SAVE YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER –

" –nine, ten! Here I come –"

READY OR NOT.

Corvo jerked awake with a gasp. Sunlight streamed in through the dirty windows. His room at the Hound Pits Pub looked no less filthy and decrepit by day – moreso perhaps, given the revealing quality of light.

He swung his legs off the mattress and planted them firmly on the floor to steady himself. His breathing was loud and ragged in the silence of his room and minute tremors ran through his hands. He clenched them in the fabric of his trousers, silently willing them to stop.

Calm. Breathe. It was only a dream.

(A memory.)

Moments passed. The distant sound of the gulls drifted in through the open window, the rough putter of a motorboat. The slam of the front door, followed by a melodic humming. Cecelia taking out last night's rubbish most likely; Lydia often delegated the more distasteful chores. It was only his second day here and he was already committing the routine of all the residents of the Pub to memory. That whispering clockwork heart gifted by the Outsider didn't hurt him in learning the secrets of the others either –

But he wasn't thinking about that.

(The terrible, terrible suspicion was a painful enough weight to carry, without him dwelling upon it overlong.)

There was a knock on the door and Corvo's head snapped up.

"Lord Protector?" A muffled female voice came through the wood. Lydia, he identified. "Admiral Havelock would like to speak to you, when it's convenient."

Ah. Which is diplomatic speak for 'right now'.

"I will be down shortly," Corvo called, raising his voice slightly to be heard. He instantly wished he hadn't. The feeling of air scraping up and down his ruined throat was agony and he kept forgetting that speech was no longer a luxury he could freely indulge in.

"I'll let him know," Lydia called back. He heard the sound of the maid moving away and only then he did realise he was holding his sword at the ready, fingers white on the hilt. He shook his head with a curse and folded the blade away. It was time to meet the Admiral. With any luck, the man would give him his first mission –

Assassination, Corvo; call a spade a spade. You're not a bodyguard anymore.

– and he could be on his way. Anything to be moving. And not thinking. He had had far too much time to think, rotting away in Coldridge –

He was not thinking about that either.

Pulling on his shirt, boots, overcoat and weapon holsters, Corvo strode out of the room and into the light of a new day.

Elsewhere and nowhere at all, a black-eyed god in the form of a man watches and smiles.

xxx

Emily lay half on and half off her mattress, kicking her feet absentmindedly as she stared at the ceiling. There an interesting knot of wood that sort of looked like a lopsided hagfish, if you squinted. It was, she decided, better than her old room.

Yesterday had marked her fifth attempt at escaping from the Golden Cat and it had ended in disaster. She had tried a new strategy this time. The last few weeks had been spent practising being sneaky, creeping about and stealing things off the ladies who lived here. It had made her giggle and wriggle with secret excitement; her tutors would have been thoroughly scandalised by such behaviour. She had been all but glowing with confidence after several successful heists –

– maybe instead of a Empress, I should be a master jewel thief! I can run around anywhere I like and escape from the most secure fortress, like a ghost! Like a shadow! Like a – a – ghostly shadow! Although I do still like the idea of being a whaler, roaming the seas –

–and she had been sure she was ready to take on her real target, Madam Prudence. The Madam was the only one who had the key for all the doors in the Cat, Emily was sure of that by now. Unfortunately, she had also proved to be a lot more perceptive than the half-naked ladies.

Emily scowled, rubbing her wrist where five dark-purple bruises had bloomed overnight. Madam Prudence was nasty.

So now she was back to staring at the ceiling, in a different room this time; one which was now locked, bolted, not in the main area of the building, not on the ground floor, not overlooking the river and not close to a fire escape.

Emily huffed and kicked her feet through the air. Back to the drawing board.

xxx

Corvo stripped out of his leathers and weapons and all but collapsed onto the bed in his attic room. His limbs were heavy with fatigue, his mind was dull with exhaustion and really, he should have expected not to be in top form after six months in Coldridge. Adrenaline could only carry you so far after all.

But Campbell was dead, in a trap of his own making – and wasn't that a vicious irony? – and the black book was safely in the hands of the Loyalists. All he had to do now was wait for them to crack the code it was written in and finally, finally, they would have the location of –

Emily.

Her name was enough to open up the black well of grief inside him, the yawning darkness that had eaten away at him like acid during those long months in Coldridge.

Jessamine. Emily.

His fingers clenched in the scratchy blanket, knuckles whitening.

One dead. One alive. Both lost.

Rain drummed on the roof above him and the wind howled and moaned around the eaves. The light drizzle that had been falling all night had steadily worsened on the way back to the Hound Pits Pub. By the time Samuel had pulled the boat into dock it was virtually a gale and they both hurried towards the front entrance of the Pub, guided by Cecelia who had stood in the doorway with a storm lantern swinging from one hand, its solitary yellow light visible through the billowing sheets of rain.

Several similar lanterns lay scattered around Corvo's bed now, casting that same comforting golden glow. His gaze tracked the softly shining motes as they rose through the air, and he tried very hard not to think of the nights he had spent with Jessamine and Emily by the glow of lights like these. Emily's giggles and gasps as he read to her from the chair beside her bed, the young girl sitting upright with the covers pulled up to her chin, dark eyes bright with excitement –

"Ooh, tell me the one about the dragon, Corvo! The one that flies across the ocean to faraway places!"

– and the tired expression on Jessamine's pale, drawn face as she sat behind her desk, sorting through stacks of documents well into the night, an expression which brightened into amusement as she spotted her Lord Protector sidling into the room surreptitiously –

"If this is another attempt to distract me, Corvo…yes, I know it's late but this paperwork won't sign itself!"

Laughter.

"Corvo!"

He rolled over and closed his eyes against the heavy, raw pain in chest. He had to focus on Emily. Jessamine was gone –

YOU CANNOT SAVE HER, YOU CANNOT SAVE HER, YOU CANNOT SAVE HER –

But Emily was not. It was still within his power to help her but to do that he would have to lock away his grief for now, because if he stopped, if he let it overwhelm him, he would sink under the weight of it.

Emily could be his only thought for now. He would find her and protect her with every tool at his disposal. Whatever it took. Corvo's gaze fell on the back of his hand, even now hidden by the leather of his gloves, and he did his best to ignore the prickly unease crawling up his spine.

Anything for her.

Then a whisper of cold crept over him, like a breeze from an open window –

But there are none open it's a howling up a storm out there can you hear a storm no what how –

Corvo's eyes snapped open and he jerked up right. His room looked normal, bathed in soft golden light. The sound of the wind and rain had ceased though, perhaps the gale had died away naturally –

But then the shadows cast by the lanterns suddenly wavered, elongating and stretching up the walls. The smoke and motes of light shivered and morphed into an eerie purple hue. There was the sudden scent of salt water and decay in the air.

"Anything, Corvo?" A faintly amused voice echoed around the attic room, distant yet clearly audible at the same time. The light flickered, deepening to a rich indigo in places. "Are you sure about that?"

Corvo clenched his fists. The skin on the back of his left hand was burning and he could see the bright golden glow out of the corner of his eye, shining through the glove somehow. "Surely," he rasped, barely keeping the anger from his tone, "You should know the answer to that question."

"Oh, I know all your answers to that question. But you'll need to decide for yourself which one it'll be."The Outsider still sounded amused and more than a little mocking.

Corvo gritted his teeth. "Of course," he snarled, nearly choking and coughing on the words, "Of course I'll give anything to protect her."

There was a hush and a sudden gathering sense of anticipation. "Well," the Outsider mused. "That is an interesting word choice. Let's see what we can do with it, shall we?"

Corvo barely had time to tense in sudden wariness before darkness suddenly rushed in around him and he was lost in a sea of black. A faint golden light shone somewhere and he reached for it blindly, not sure what sense he was using to find it, only that it didn't feel like sight.

"Corvo?!"

"…Emily?"

He jerked awake, a hand still outstretched in front of him. It was still night. The rain still hammered on the roof, the wind still howled outside the windows and the lantern still glowed gold in the dark. Corvo sank back against the pillows, trembling slightly with adrenaline, eyes wild.

…What in the Void just happened?

xxx

Emily curled tighter around her pillow, trying desperately to ignore the rain and wind shrieking around the building.

Stupid attic room, she grumbled, burying her face in the fabric. Stupid Golden Cat.

Her good spirits had waned with the arrival of nightfall as they usually did. She tried not to think about it but more and more often she found herself sinking into misery and a sort of quiet desperation at night. She never felt more alone than she did in the dark.

Someone. Anyone. Help.

And when she had finally got to sleep tonight, this stupid storm had woken her up. Emily grumbled and tried to contort herself into a shape that would let her cover her ears with her knees. It didn't work but it did distract her for a few seconds.

The lantern beside her mattress flickered, looking oddly purple for a moment. Emily watched it, waiting for another flicker and surprisingly felt her eyelids begin to close. The warm darkness of sleep swept over her.

She was in the ocean. She could see the surface far overhead, the surge and crash of the waves as the storm raged on. But down here it was still. Dark water extended in every direction, eventually disappearing into the shadowy distance. She was suspended in this blank void, cold and full of nothingness.

Emily shivered, trying desperately not to be afraid. She could feel the iciness sinking into her skin and it reminded her of the day she almost drowned in the lake at Mother's country retreat. Corvo had pulled her from the water, hysterical and gasping, forced the water from her lungs and then gently dried her off. He had swaddled her in warm blankets and let her curl against his chest and cry hysterically until the tears had run out. She had clung to him, sniffling, as a large hand smoothed her hair over and over again and a low voice hummed a nonsensical comforting tune.

Emily felt tears prick her eyes again at the memory of that comfort and she wished desperately that Corvo was here to hug her, to tell her it would be okay.

You don't even know if he's alive, they said he was executed –

No! They're lying! They have to be! Corvo can't be dead, he can't –

A flash of light suddenly blazed in the dark. Emily jerked in surprise, her hair trailing slowly after her like spilled ink in the water. She gasped. A flood of golden light shone in front of her, hazy and formless, wavering oddly through the water –

And it felt like Corvo.

The young Empress couldn't say why. There was just a sense of indefinable warmth and comfort, the feeling she got when he smiled – a rare and almost unnoticeable thing, reserved only for Emily and her mother.

Without even thinking, she reached out, joy filling her with dizzy happiness. "Corvo?!"

And for one heart-stopping moment, she could have sworn that she heard a stunned response of "…Emily?"

Then the light engulfed her and blazed through her, melting the ice and banishing the dark. She curled up in the centre of the light, basking in the warmth and comfort, and fell into a true sleep.

It was the first peaceful rest she had had in six months.

xxx

Rain rattled the windows of the Golden Cat but the heir to the Empire slept on, curled up on the too-big mattress in the darkened attic room.

She was so deeply asleep, she did not even waken at the sudden itch on the back of her left hand. If there had been anyone else present, they might have been convinced for a moment that they had seen a strange inky starburst scrawling its way lazily across her skin. It paused for a moment, starkly black against her pale hand, and then seemed to sink below the surface of her skin, swallowed up without a trace.

Emily shifted a little as if disturbed, then mumbled sleepily and rolled over. Even if she awakened now, there wouldn't be anything to see and she wouldn't be able to feel the humming current of energy around her, that stretched and pulled thin like taffy and spun away up into the sky and across the city; a slender, glowing golden thread that thrummed like the string of a harp.

Emily slept on, as did most of Dunwall, unaware, as the world slowly turned and a new dawn approached.

A/N: … So yeah. Was I the only one who wondered what would have happened if Corvo had/ had been able to share his powers with Emily, the way Daud did with the Whalers? Like I said, this was supposed to be the first chapter in a story exploring this idea; it might get continued at some point. :)

Anyhoo, please drop a review if you enjoyed. Or if you didn't. :)