#remember how people got all up in arms about him calling a weak and gutless character weak and gutless

[of-tatooine]

honor him. | chapter 4 - troubled souls

there was none like her. he knew. a small flame of hope sparked.

Her face was everywhere.

On the sky filled with dark clouds looming over the cursed city, etched onto the leftover rays of sunshine. On the stone walls of buildings, in graffiti, her famous up-do and piercing eyes staring into your soul, or what was left of it, with either prayers or ugly slogans surrounding her silhouette. In your dreams, her screams as she reached for her daughter loud as ever in your ears. The way your master slapped the woman with such audacity, strangling her before the demise ensued. Her weakened, frail hands desperate to reach something as the blade gutted her, all in vivid detail, visiting you every single night at some point. The little girl screaming in the arms of your fellow assassin as she was brought to the hands of traitor dogs. Her short-lived reign had been on all mouths, noble and poor.

And perhaps the most prominent reminder of Jessamine Kaldwin was the giant, commandeering marble statue carved into the Commerce building, from which you sat across on a nearby rooftop.

It had been four months since she was taken from the Empire by your kin. Four months had passed, and yet you found yourself sitting in the same exact spot looking at her beautiful face meticulously molded into marble - overlooking the Flooded District with such authority, such power, such grace. Spending hours and hours, day and night between the small missions you took, between training sessions with him. Contemplating on if it had been possible at all to leave this vapor mask behind and try to restore order and peace in the Empire the best you could.

It was not rare that you found yourself devising plans to save the Empire. To save her and honor her name. To find out where those bastards hid the little Lady Kaldwin. Maybe it had been your own way of apologizing, for taking the slightest part in this coup that opened a dark age of the history of the four Isles. It could have been your way of punishing yourself, to make yourself suffer even more because you had deserved it, constantly reminding yourself of what you had destroyed. Maybe the miserable thoughts in your head would transform themselves into feasible action as you stared onto her crown that was taken from her.

It was proving to be nearly impossible to escape when you were doomed to face the consequences of your actions all around you, every single living hour.

More rats swarmed the crooked, decrepit corners of the city now that the order was gone. The compassion she had directed towards her beloved citizens had been replaced by tallboys mercilessly shooting fire onto the desperate and sick - the Regency did not care about the sick and infected, preferring to seal them into buildings and quarantine zones so they could wait for their approaching deaths. The elite of Dunwall only became richer and richer since all they had to do was support the oppressive reign of Burrows, and the poor simply died miserable deaths either from hunger or from the disease. Hope could have been the last thing on every single citizen’s mind as they tried to make their way into winter without leaving themselves and their family to starve. With other Isles barricading the borders to Gristol, in the rightful scares for the possible plague spread, the city that allowed a clean slate was edging on borderline destruction.

Jessamine would have never allowed all this to happen to her beloved people.

It changed you. Her death changed you, just like it reeled the Empire and the city of Dunwall to perish. Seeing what your band of ex-mercenaries, killers and assassins and their leader were capable of broke you inside. What the man you swore your life to protect and kill for had been capable of - it scared you to death. No one had been the same ever since then. Whalers still operated, took on minor contracts and simple kill-and-disappears to stay way under the radar. Still trained as vigorously as ever, yet there was this aura of an unspoken surrounding the compound. They knew their master and his lieutenant had been troubled ever since, after all, they had been trained to notice weaknesses and emotions by arguably the most seasoned teacher out in the Empire.

Sleep did not come so easy when you bathed in blood and guilt every night, the faces of the late Empress, her daughter and her Protector haunting you with every toss and turn. Knowing another innocent child was engulfed in a world full of terror and brutality, made you sick to your core, made you want to call all of this off and rescue her so she would not end up like you.

You knew for a fact that Daud did not sleep either - it had been the new normal for you to wake up to his echoing groans, no doubt clutching onto the carved whalebone he kept close to his bed.

How could he rest, after he witnessed how the city crumbled under his blade? When the honorable man who had nothing to do with any of these conspiratorial acts was to be executed in two months, when it should have been himself all along, rotting in Coldridge?

It seemed like the Master Assassin shared the same faith with his protege, the bodies you stabbed and the sinful acts you have committed over the years haunting both of you. After her, after the Empress, a peaceful night’s sleep had been a luxury you had not gotten to enjoy. You probably never would.

After a group of Whalers led by him delivered the poor heiress to two of the crooked Pendleton brothers, four long months ago, he had come back to the hideout a changed man. His gray orbs the darkest ever perceived by you. Even more silent than you ever remembered him be. Reclusive, yet calm to everyone he encountered. Sealed himself to his office for days - you would spot him writing down on his journal with that messy yet bold handwriting of his, sometimes recording some audiographs the contents of which you could not overhear yet to that present day. Only took the jobs he had to - to make sure every Whaler mouth was fed, pouch filled and blade sharpened to see another day. Only talked to his closest and even that had not been the same.

The ruthless killer who led a crimson track everywhere he went to had disappeared. Something had broken in him, just like your resolve had been broken the moment her death contract was signed. Like the barriers holding your past sealed off had crumbled. The man with a soft spot and a certain way of understanding people seemed to be resurfacing again through the cracks of the hitman, the man who took you under his wing and gave you a purpose, all those long years ago.

He had been showing you the slivers of that soft spot for years. So you only hoped that man would be compassionate enough to understand when you told him what you needed to do next - whenever you had gotten around it.

“Thought I would find you here.”

The hairs on your neck rose even before you heard the gruff words belonging to a voice approaching you with dead-silent movements  from behind - one of the results of your decades-long training. The bolt you had been toying with in your nimble fingers prior to his arrival found its’ way back to your small pouch, then woken from your silent reflecting.

Then, your leather-covered hands would take the mask off, emanating a sigh of relief into the thick air, tossing your hair back comfortably at last, as he crouched next to you with an unspoken ease in between.

Daud could read you like a book, just like you could read him. You felt that he had been staring into the void marble eyes of the late Empress just like you had been earlier, with remorse and regret - one simple glance at his sharp face proved you right. It was not necessary for you to use words when communicating with him. You knew defeat in his eyes when you saw it, just like he saw through yours.

When he spoke, words flowed out of his lips with a slight rasp, and a certain grim tone, contradicting that cocky and ruthless voice you had gotten used to. “We got a new target. I want you to take him.”

Simple yet concise instructions as he had gotten your full attention. The mention of a new contract meant leaving the Flooded District, and by the Void - you needed to take a break from the wolves howling in your mind.

“Treavor Pendleton, in the Tower District. That gutless Lord Shaw wants him out of his way, some personal vendetta. Good pay,” he would continue, turning his head to face your gaze as he described the mission to you. “You might want to head over tomorrow - after the Parliament session. Take as much ammo as you need.”

The way he approached you with the mission at hand spoke volumes. To others, the Master Assassin would lay out the mission with all details covered and all possible scenarios calculated - he would engineer the assassination himself before sending his men to potential demise. To you, it was as if he was calculating the outcomes with you - giving you enough to start pondering, leave you to devise a plan of your own, putting the trust of his reputation and name under you. Counting on your unprecedented loyalty towards him.

The rules had been simple - when he gave you a mission and trusted you with it, you accepted it without hesitation.

That was before she died in his hands.

“I’ll get it done,”  you nodded softly, with only a split second’s worth of hesitation, something only an expert killer would be able to catch.

The older man would put a reassuring hand on your shoulder before getting up slowly, choosing to walk back to his quarters via the makeshift metal bridges instead of his usual transversal, the soft crinkling sounds of the metal under his weight fading away gradually.

With yet another breathy sigh, you would look up to gaze into the empty, emotionless eyes of the marble Empress one more time.

If the road to help save the little heiress was paved with more agony and blood, to you, it would be worth it.

You just had to find a way to stay loyal to the man you pledged allegiance to while helping the Empire he had triggered the demise of.