Chapter One: Dear Everard

"Take her away. I want eyes on her at all times. And, Outsider's eyes, Keep her quiet." Daud ordered with a curse, voice hard and blade still dripping blood on the floor.

"Let me go! Mommy!" Emily continued to scream, both her arms held tight in the Whaler's grip. She kicked fiercely at his shins, but he neither moved nor flinched. The Whaler in a red-jacket nodded sharply and proceeded to drag the heiress to an adjacent room.

"Corvo's going to find me and hurt you unless you… Let. Me. Go!" She wailed, emphasizing each word with another kick. A sob bubbled in her throat, threatening to break her voice; she still didn't understand what was happening to her, what just happened. Emily wracked her brains, trying to remember any of the self-defense Corvo taught her, however her mind was overwhelmed with panic and she couldn't remember anything.

The assassin pushed her into the room, it was dusty and sparsely furnished, and the only window was blocked off with only a few inches of space between the boards. Emily fell to her knees and her eyes watered as her hands scrapped on the rough wooden floors. She rubbed at her sore arm, a bruise was forming on her pale skin, and spun around, her small hands clenching into fists.

"What did you do to Mommy! Corvo is gonna—"

The red coated assassin grabbed her shoulder and pulled her close to the emotionless leather mask. "Quiet! I've had enough of your crying." The voice was sharp and distorted but distinctly female.

"Since you seem to not understand your situation, let me explain it to you. Our master, Daud, killed the Empress for coin. You are in our custody now until we hand you off to the men who paid us."

"And as for your Royal Protector," She loomed over Emily, her breath hissing through the menacing mask. Emily tried valiantly to pull away, fear widening her eyes, but her grip was too tight. "He didn't put up much of a fight. He's going to be executed for the assassination of the Empress, Jessamine Kaldwin, and the disappearance of the heiress, Emily Kaldwin. No one is coming for you."

Emily bit her lip hard and tasted blood, but try as she might to be strong, tears rolled down her cheeks. The woman let her go, pushing her further into the room where she fell to her knees.

"You heard the orders. Guard rotation every six hours. Everard and Thomas have first watch." The woman addressed the handful of assassins before her; they nodded, and two stepped forward into the room. The door slammed shut and locked with a click behind them.

"No!" Seeing it close, Emily lunged forward, scrambling toward the only exit. She was halted with tight hand on her tense shoulder, stopping her dead in her tracks as she reached toward the door.

"No! Let me go!" She shouted and to her surprise, the man did.

Emily wrenched herself away from him, her breath coming fast, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "Why… why are you doing this? How could you do—" Her words broke with a sob as she fell to her knees and tried rub away the tears.

The two took up guard on either side of the door, posture straight and stiff, and said nothing.

Emily continued to cry herself into exhaustion, still not understanding the ramifications of the horrific tragedy that just ruined her childhood.

A few hours later, Emily awoke to find herself in a bed with someone gently tucking a musty blanket around her shoulders. For a moment, Emily could almost believe she was in her own bed as her mother and Corvo tucked her in after their nightly bed time stories.

But the day's events assaulted her mind and she couldn't keep the soft whimper from escaping her lips and the tears that rolled down her cheeks. The pillow was flat and smelled like sweat and dust, but she burrowed her face in it in a vain attempt to hide from the horrors she'd seen.

"She's crying in her sleep." A young male voice whispered from the foot of her bed, undistorted by a leather face mask. There was no response, and Emily refused to react. Footsteps, light and almost silent against the wood, crept across the room and stopped; there was the soft sound of shifting leather as one of the men changed position.

"This isn't right." The same young voice spoke with uncertainty and pain.

"Everard." The other reprimanded with warning in his tone.

Emily flinched and whimpered at the sharp tone; her gently sobs stole her breath, but she just curled tighter on her side.

"It isn't. You can't tell me kidnapping a little girl and killing the Empress was right."

"Everard." This time the name was spoken with an sigh. "I know this was your first big job, but you knew what you signed up for. We are assassins, we are blades for hire, and we kill people for coin. This is what we are."

"But before…" Everard trailed off, and shifted his weight.

"Before… what?" His tone was carefully blank and even, with the mask on and the stiff body posture, Everard couldn't hope to interpret his emotions.

"Before, when I was a novice on scouting missions, I saw men brutalize their wives. I saw people sell children to the Golden Cat for coin and elixir. I saw the corruption of aristocrats when they forced themselves on servants. And then, Daud or you or Billie would sweep in and kill them. But now…"

Thomas remained silent as Everard paused in his whispered tirade.

"But now, after months of spying on the Empress while the protector was gone, I didn't see any of that."

"…Are you saying she was pure? She was innocent?" Thomas's head cocked to the side slightly, the tone wasn't derisive or sarcastic, just tired and curious.

"No! No, but… She agonized over her decisions. When the plague began ravaging Dunwall, I saw her try to make Sokolov's Elixir free for everyone, with the cost of materials coming from the Royal Treasury, but her advisors said it was too expensive and none of the aristocrats would support her; the treasuries would run dry in a few months.

Then she tried to reduce the cost to only a five or ten coin instead of the fifty it costs now, but she was blocked by Parliament. So instead she added it as a ration for the city watch, and an allowance for their families. She also reduced the requirements to being accepted into the watch, so if people were desperate enough they could be safe from the plague."

Everard was whispering now, emotion thick in his throat as he tried to push out the last few words. He turned the leather mask over in his calloused hands, staring at the face of what he'd become.

"I saw her cry once. When her proposal was rejected by the aristocrats, she was so angry that she threw a glass against the wall and cried in frustration.

I'm not saying she's pure or completely innocent of corruption," Everard hastened to assure Thomas, and ran a hand over his smooth face in frustration. Thomas's mask was still on and his body language was difficult to read.

"But she was different. She was different from the rest. And It wasn't right."

Thomas was silent for a long moment, and Emily had finally drifted off into fitful sleep, the tears dried and flaky on her cheeks.

"She was different," Thomas agreed under his breath, but he glared sharply at Everard and spoke in a clear, crisp tone. "It is not our place to judge the worth of men or women, Everard. We are assassins, we take coin for blood, and we do not concern ourselves with morality. We are knives to be wielded by Daud, and we do not differentiate between targets. You would do well to remember that."

Thomas sighed, and spoke in a softer tone, "Do not speak of this to others. We have our orders."

"…Yes, sir."

Emily was bored.

Mind-numbingly, horribly, soul-crushingly bored to tears. She'd already flipped through all the old musty books stacked around the room, but most had words that were too difficult for her to fumble through.

She'd kicked at the boards over the windows a few times, but after a cough and pointed glare from one of the guards, she had sighed and stopped. Her foot was starting to hurt anyway.

Now she was picking at the corner of a sheet of peeling wallpaper while laying on her stomach, imagining that if she got the bottom loose, it would suddenly roll up neatly along the wall like a startled millipede she'd seen in one of the books on the shelves. The guards rotated in a blooming of shadows, but the novelty of her guard change soon faded when they refused to react to her questions.

Emily groaned heavily in annoyance and rolled over so her head rested against the filthy floor, her right hand continued to scratch absentmindedly at the wallpaper. Staring at the ceiling, Emily tried to imagine herself back at the Tower; she would be in tutoring at this time. The old wrinkly men would show her diagrams and maps as they explained the exceedingly boring history of the Empire, and Emily would listen with half an ear until there was an interesting tidbit, one she could tell Corvo and her Mother to see them smile…

—All she could see was the shattered expression on Corvo's face as Mother was stabbed, blood rained, she was thrown to the floor, WHAT WAS HAPPENING, hands around her, holding her back, screaming, WHY—

A loud clatter and a quiet curse interrupted her mind-numbing boredom and damaging internal reflections; she sat up and turned to see who had made the noise.

A boy in a whaling mask pulled some paper from under his coat, and a handful of used crayons and pencils had spilled onto the ground. The other guard seemed to eye the boy appraisingly before shrugging and leaning against the wall in a more relaxed posture than before.

The boy crouched to collect the crayons and pencils, and walked over to where Emily sat on the floor. She watched his movements with sharp, appraising eyes.

"Good afternoon." He stated, his voice distorted and warped around the leather of the whaling mask. He seemed to start at the noise, before rubbing a hand over the back of his hooded neck as he shrugged his shoulders, the image of sheepishness.

The assassin removed his mask and pushed back his hood, revealing plain but kind features. He had curly dark hair that looked like a bird's nest, light brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles across his nose, and, lo and behold, there was a sheepish grin stretching across his face. He still had that coltish, stretch-out look of a growing boy, too old to be a child but much too young to be an assassin.

He dipped into a sharp courtly bow, arms tucked in and his gaze falling to her feet, as was proper for her rank and status, despite the fact she was coated in a thin layer of dust and sitting on the floor.

"Your Majesty. If I may present you with some… tools to ward off boredom?" He presented her with a rumpled pad of paper and a handful of used crayons, obviously fished from the bottom of a drawer after years of disuse, judging by their state of grime and fade.

Despite herself, Emily grinned at his offer, and accepted the gift graciously. Trying to remember her court manners she said in her best pompous court voice, "Thank you, sir, and may I have the name of my kind benefactor?"

"Of course, I am known as Everard."

"Everard." Emily repeated the name, and rose to her feet to carry the boredom warding tools to the worn table and rickety chairs. "No title?" She asked pointedly in an attempt to whittle out a last name to remember.

"No, Your Majesty." Everard seemed uncomfortable and reluctant so Emily abandoned the line of questioning; she didn't want to run off the one interesting thing that had happened all day.

"Just call me Emily," she said and laid out the paper and pencils on the table. Everard raised the mask to cover his face, and for a moment Emily had the irrational fear that once he strapped that mask on, then the boy with kind eyes would be gone and replaced with the faceless, emotionless guard from before. The scary mask dehumanized the assassins and seeing Everard without his it made him real and human in a way she didn't want to think about or associate with the people who killed her mother.

"Want to draw with me?" Her words were courteous, but there was a pleading gleam in her eyes when she looked at Everard.

"Yes, Lady Emily"

Time passed quickly as they drew in companionable silence; Emily had efficiently claimed all the crayons, snatching them up with greedy hands and scribbling on a rumpled sheet of paper with a single-minded intensity.

"May I ask what you are drawing, Lady Emily?" Everard asked after sometime in the peace and quiet.

"I'm almost done…" Emily said absentmindedly, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, her hands now stained with graphite and crayon. "There! here you can see."

She turned around the sheet of paper, holding it out proudly. There was a man in a blue coat with a sword strapped to his belt, and a woman wearing a formal suit with her long hair twisted up. Between them, holding hands, was a little girl wearing all white with a big smile on her face. There was a big yellow heart over their heads and a rainbow.

Everard swallowed hard, feeling heat prick at his eyes—he did this—and he had to fight the bile rising in his throat. The red crayon lay abandoned on his side of the table, untouched by both artists.

"It's absolutely lovely." Everard commented, and if his voice was a little tight, Emily hadn't seemed to notice. "Why isn't the man smiling?"

"Corvo? He's smiling! See." Emily thrust the paper closer to him, and Everard leaned in to see the edge of the flat line that represented his mouth tilting up just a bit, a hint of a smile. "Corvo doesn't smile much; he's always so quiet and serious and frown-y to scare off people that annoy Mother."

Emily leaned in close, and whispered loudly, as if sharing an earth-shattering secret that could sink Dunwall into the sea, "But when he's alone with Mommy or me, he smiles and laughs and acts silly." There was a far-away gleam in her eyes as she spoke and her smile seemed to dim, a fist seemed to seize Everard's heart and squeeze viciously.

This is what you've done.

"What did you draw?"

The non-sequitur confused Everard for a moment before he caught on with the change of subject. In reply, he slid over the sheet of paper with his sketch that he'd been working on for the last hour.

"Wow, it's amazing! She's so pretty!" Emily exclaimed in wonder, staring down at the profile sketch.

"Thanks," he mumbled, a bit embarrassed at the praise, a hard raised to rub the back of his neck and there was a pleased grin stretched across his face.

It was a close up sketch of a woman's face, there was a softness to her features accentuated by the smooth gradient between light and shadows, her lips were thin but the corner quirked upward a minute degree to hint at amusement. Her eyes were colorless but shone with a sharp fierceness; long, straight hair framed her face and two thin smooth scars ran horizontally across her left cheek.

"You draw so well! Who is she?"

"Uh, one of my friends," Everard said quickly.

"What's her name?"

"Uh…" Everard stuttered to a stop, not noticing that the other assassin guard had disengaged from the wall and had padded up softly behind him.

The guard leaned down over Everard's shoulder, placing a mouth next to his ear to whisper, "drawing pictures of me, are you?" The guard spoke blandly with a hint of amusement and was distinctly female even through the odd echo from the mask.

Everard jumped with a squeak in surprise, his face started to turn red from embarrassment; Emily giggled behind her hand.

"uh… no—, yes, sorry, I'll stop." Everard stuttered and dipped his head.

"I'm fine with it. However, you draw me so… delicate." The few words were stated in a flat monotone, matter-of-fact, but the final word held a hint of disgust. The woman raised her hands and removed the stifling mask that was strapped to her face, and pushed back the dark blue hood to pool comfortably around her neck.

Her skin tone was a shade darker than the perfect porcelain Everard had alluded at in the sketch, but the most surprising thing to Emily was the long dark red hair that framed her face and flowed down her back and the icy grey eyes that shone with a sharp light. The two scars were harsher, furrowed, and longer than in the sketch, one of them seemed significantly older than the other.

"Wow, you're so pretty!" Emily exclaimed, "What's your name?"

"Scarlett." Her tone was bland and slightly curt, but it didn't discourage Emily's enthusiasm.

"You have such long hair! Can I braid it? One of the handmaids showed me how a while ago, but I haven't had a chance to practice." Emily clapped her hands together in a plea, looking at Scarlett expectantly with a smile.

She just nodded slowly, her face barely varying from expressionless, but Everard could see a shine of bemusement in her eyes as she was pulled onto the chair Emily had vacated and was commanded to sit still.

Emily chatted happily to Scarlett about non-sensical things: the old wrinkly tutors that sounded like they inhaled dust all day, the kind children who helped in the kitchens and always snuck her a tartlet, how her food was always cold when she got it after the poison testers screened it, but one time Corvo made her hot chocolate in the middle of the night when they snuck into the kitchens together and it was delicious and warm.

She ran her hand through Scarlett's hair, marveling at the deep color and texture, and tried to tease out some of the knots with only her fingers as a rough comb. Eventually, Emily was satisfied with the smoothness and began to attempt a simple Tyvian braid. Several times, she abandoned the strands of hair and started anew, sometimes she's make it to the end and realize she'd missed a stand and it pulled sideways, and other times her small fingers would slip and ruin the braid.

Each time, Emily would brush out the mistake with her fingers and start again, all the while her musings never missed a beat, regardless of the lack of response from the others in the room. Idly, Emily thought that Scarlett was kind of like Corvo, quiet and serious most of the time except with the few people she trusts.

Everard had relaxed back into his chair, a scratched leather sketchbook balanced on his knees as he crossed his legs, and dug out some charcoal from one of his inner pockets to sketch the scene before him with a small smile playing on his lips.

In the end, the braid was a bit on the messy side, and long pieces had fallen to frame the contours of Scarlett's face, but Emily was very proud of her accomplishment.

Thomas and Peregrine transversed into the room for shift change to see Scarlett and Everard with their masks off. Scarlett leaned against the wall with her eyes closed and her arms crossed, listening as Everard and Emily chatted about random subjects at the worn table as they drew.

Peregrine snorted loudly, raising a hand instinctively to hide the noise until it bumped into the mask strapped to his face.

Everard spun around, jumping to his feet and upturning the chair in his haste to salute the master assassins. He caught it before it hit the floor, and he let out a sigh before righting the unreliable piece of furniture. When he turned back, Thomas was glaring down at him, which was less effective with the Whaling Mask on but still potent and expectant, with his arms crossed, waiting for some explanation.

"Uh, sir, um, you see," Everard stuttered out beneath the oppressive weight of Thomas's glare. It wasn't helping that Emily was giggling gleefully at his embarrassment. "she was bored, and, well, I found some crayons and paper."

Thomas turned his compelling gaze on Scarlett, who gazed blankly back with grey eyes unhindered by a mask. The silence between them drew longer, each waited for the other to speak first, only interrupted by Emily's quiet giggles.

Scarlett closed her eyes, settling back against the wall, and spoke softly "our orders were to keep her quiet and keep her in this room."

'and nothing more,' echoed between the assassins unsaid in the dingy room. Emily continued to draw happily with the grimy crayons, idly listening to the conversation around her.

Thomas sighed, Peregrine snorted again and earned the ire of Thomas's heated glare. "Couldn't she have just read the books?" He asked, exasperation laced with amusement and annoyance clear in his tone.

At this, Emily piped up, "They were all so boring. I found one that seemed fun, but there were pages and pages of just talking about clothes and stuff, nothing happened, and they seemed to go to the bedroom a lot. I thought there might be some pirates and whales and ships, but there wasn't. It was boring so I gave up."

Thomas looked at her sharply, "What was this book called?" he asked carefully.

Emily placed the stubby pencil she was using against her cheek, a pose she'd adopted from one of the scholars as they pondered over great moldy tomes. "I think… The Prince of Tyvia, or something."

Peregrine threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Everard looked scandalized, his pencil cracked in his hand and his eyes widened. Scarlett acted as inscrutable as always but there was a tiny quirk around her lips that belied her endless amusement.

Thomas just sputtered in indignation and horror; he marched around the room, pushing piles of books aside as he tried to find the offending piece of literature. He muttered curses to himself about, "stupid subordinates… inappropriate reading material…"

Lifting off his mask to take great pulls of precious air, Peregrine placed his hands on his knees to calm his breathing. He straightened up, revealing sandy hair and dark eyes of a man who had seen more years than Emily and Everard combined. Once his chuckles died away, Peregrine turned toward Scarlett and said, "by the way, I like the braid. Finally decided against cutting it?"

Emily gasped from the table and looked up from her drawing, "No! You can't cut it. It's so pretty long like that."

"I know, that's what I keep saying!" Peregrine exclaimed throwing his hands in the air before sagging and sighing melodramatically, holding his hands tight to his chest, "but she never listens to me, she just stares with her cold eyes, and tells me her hair gets in the way."

"It gets in the way." Scarlett said blandly, bestowing a side-eyed glance on him.

"Just like that!" Peregrine cried, "oh, how you wound me, dearest Scarlett." Emily giggled in response to his ridiculous over acting and words and Peregrine grinned in victory.

"But with the braid, it'll be out of the way, right?" Emily asked innocently, peering up at her through her eyelashes. There was no audible response, so Emily upped the ante, making her eyes water and utilizing the 'puppy-dog eyes' that Corvo always caved beneath.

"I worked so hard on it. You'll keep it, for me, won't you?"

A long pause stretched across the room, a pause completely ignored by Thomas as he continued his crusade to sort through the dusty books for inappropriate material, but there was an almost inaudible sigh and a quiet, "fine."

Peregrine let out a whoop of joy, "Thank the Outsider! Now I don't need to keep hiding the scissors!"

Emily laughed freely, wiping the tears that squeezed unwilling out of her eyes, and for a long moment she forgot that the people in front of her were assassins tasked with killing her Mother, she forgot the horror of what she'd seen, and for the moment she could trick herself into believing she would see Corvo and her Mother again.

Come what may, she would be okay.

The next day, Everard and Thomas transversed into the dusty room, a bit more paper hidden under Everard's coat in anticipation for her eagerness, only to find it empty and void of life.

Emily was gone.

Without a word between them, Thomas immediately blinked out again to find out where Lady Emily had gone from the other Whalers. Everard lurched forward, searching the room for any hint of where she had disappeared.

The room looked as musty and uninviting as the day before, and the bed was rumpled from use. There was a hint of color in the dull grey and brown sea of the room's design, a corner of yellowed paper under the flat pillow; Everard pulled out the sheets to find the picture Emily had drawn of the Lord Protector, the Empress, and herself all happily holding hands. There was also one of his sketch of Emily braiding Scarlett's hair, drawn with charcoal this time, it was smudged from being under the pillow.

He turned the rumpled paper over in his hands and on the back was a quick message scrawled in pencil.

Dear Everard,

You can have these. I do not think they will let me keep them.

Thank you for drawing with me. Tell Scarlett I said thank you for letting me braid her hair, and she better keep it long! I'll know if she cuts it!

Peregrine is weird, but he's there to be the funny part of Thomas, right? I bet if Thomas and Scarlett were left alone it would get really boring. Tell them I said goodbye.

Promise to teach me how to draw like you next time?

Love, Emily

Tears pricked Everard's eyes, he didn't deserve this, they were the ones that conspired and planned for months to kill her Mother, and she was thanking them? It wasn't right.

With a soft noise of shifting fabric in the wind, Thomas transversed into the room. The oppressive silence stretch between them, both knew what had happened but were unwilling to voice the truth in fear of making it painfully real.

"Billie took her last night."

Everard harshly yanked his mask off and rubbed viciously at his eyes, half-heartedly irritated for getting attached, but more furious with himself for conspiring to place an innocent little girl in a traumatic situation. He handed the drawings to Thomas, refusing to meet his impenetrable eyes through his mask.

A breath hissed through the mask as Thomas read the note and saw the pictures, whether from irritation or true emotion, Everard could hardly judge. He had a question to ask, but the boy knew he shouldn't; he should stay professionally detach regardless of the evidence to the contrary clutched gently in the hand of his superior.

Everard didn't need to ask, Thomas knew. "No one knows where she is now, no one else cares." And for some reason, that sentence was uttered with such desperate sadness, and there was no need to ask if Thomas was one of the few that cared.

There was nothing more to be said.

There were a long few minutes where Everard finally gained control of his breathing, and when he refused to move, Thomas stepped forward and tucked the drawings in the boy's inside jacket pocket. He placed a steady hand on his shoulder in solidarity, and even through the mask, Everard could feel his honesty and conflicting emotions soon to be shuttered behind a professional facade.

As Thomas turned to go, already stepping into the familiar skin of master assassin of Daud's Whalers, instead of a friend, Everard reached out and grabbed the edge of his sleeve, gripping it with white knuckles.

"It wasn't right." This time he whispered it with defeated certainty.

"No," Thomas agreed softly, "It wasn't."

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-ooOoo-

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A/N: Found this on my hard drive when cleaning house, and thought it was good enough to see the light of day, even if it was written almost a year ago. This chapter and the next, which I will post in a few days, were originally part of the Singing into the VoidDishonored fanfiction I wrote and published, but were cut due to irrelevance. Also, I just like to play with The Whalers and Emily. It was supposed to be my set up for a Royal Spymaster!Daud story, but lost momentum.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Comments and critiques are welcome.

Thanks for reading,

Rezz