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emsider · 6 years

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A Sentinel of Shadows update:

So. It is with a somewhat heavy heart (but mostly a relieved one) that I can say my health is on a definite improvement of late. I hope it holds steady, even though I'm waiting for some more test results before I can kinda sorta be a little more confident. Fingers crossed those results end up being nothing.

Which brings me to A SENTINEL OF SHADOWS. I don't think I'll be able to finish it. I was afraid of this for a few months now, but I’ve realized that I really can't bring myself to write long fics anymore. I can do short snippets, a collection of drabbles, oneshots, but long, plotted out works are just too demanding. Quite frankly, I would rather take that time and energy and put it into my original fiction, which I can at least hope to be paid for, rather than fanfic.

I hope that doesn't make me sound too mercenary. There's other reasons why I'll have to shelve ASOS, a lack of precious energy being one of them (I need to heal and mend myself, and long fic writing just isn't conducive to that). But instead of outright abandoning the fic and washing my hands of it, I'm going to tell you all how it was going to go, how it will end, and hope that that makes up for a lack of prose.

I'm sorry to have the update be like this, especially when so many of you have been so tremendously kind, so wonderful, so insightful, so encouraging. You have all helped me so much, and I hate that I cannot give you what you deserve, but I have to think of myself here. Please do not think this is my last foray into Emsider writing. Perish the thought. I adore them and will write for them as long as I have the impulse to do so (and I can't see that changing anytime soon).

Without further ado, the details:

After Emily's arrival at Pandyssia, and the Vicereine's eerie hospitality, she will have the creeping suspicion that something is not Quite Right with the lady Eris. It becomes obvious that Eris has fashioned herself as a copy of Emily's life, down to her appearance, the way she's styled her own royal house, etc. This unhinged attachment to imitation has a deeper purpose, but Emily can't know that yet--all she knows is that it's deeply uncomfortable and she doesn't like it.

Unfortunately for her, Eris senses this, and she leads Emily to the guest chambers--and locks her in there. Now a prisoner, Emily tries in vain to use some of her gifts to escape, only to find that there are several magical defenses already in place around the chamber to prevent her from doing just that--she can, however, use the necklace the Outsider gave her to hear his voice and ask for his help.

The Outsider's voice is distorted and faint (think static on the radio), but what Emily hears isn't exactly comforting: Eris has been raised all her life to respect Dunwall and the Imperial families of the Isles for their might and the reach of their influence. This respect festered into a fascination, and then a flat out obsession: if Eris could become Empress Emily, then she could bring prestige, power, and prosperity to Pandyssia, despite its uncharted wilds and malicious beasties.

This is all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that (1) Emily is a prisoner, and (2) Eris is now hellbent on becoming Emily at all costs--down to the Outsider's gifts.

When it becomes obvious that the Outsider will not visit Eris, she charges into Emily's room and plans to cut off her hand and stitch it onto her own missing stump. She and Emily fight, Eris snatches the whalebone necklace from Emily's neck, and Emily pushes back until they're both free of the room--and then she unleashes her full power on the Vicereine.

Breaking free, and now in that creepy crawly Shadow form that freaks everyone out in Dishonored 2, Emily runs as far as she can until she slips into a pocket of the Void for safe-keeping. But the Void in Pandyssia is different from the Isles: it's darker, deeper, more fierce.

Now, I had this planned before Death of the Outsider was released, so imagine my surprise to have the final stage of that game be really close to what I imagined. That's not an accusation of theft, btw--I'm not arrogant enough to think anyone from Arkane even knows I write Dishonored fanfic, much less READS it--it's more a comment about minds thinking alike.

While Emily travels this deeper, new darkness in the Void, she finds that she's at the very heart of the Outsider's isle in the Void. She hears whispers, sees snatches of his life, and learns how he was made. Just as she vows in her heart to find a way to free him, the Void drops out from beneath her--and she falls into endless darkness, right back into the Ebonwel, that Things Betwixt place where she reunited with Callista, and met the strange crone, Nadezdha Morev. Callista isn't there, but another familiar face is: Mephista.

Here Emily learns that Eris has the whalebone necklace the Outsider gave her, and with that, used it to complete a glamour that allows Eris to look like Emily. In the time Emily was in the Void and fell through it, Eris has returned to Dunwall in her place, wearing her face--much like Delilah once tried to do. The only way Emily can break the spell and use Eris' own tricks against her is by gaining the power of the Void equal to that of the Outsider--but to do that, she has to learn his name. Learning the name of a god is the sure way to gain that god's power, and command it for yourself.

Emily and Nadezdha hide under the strange cloak the latter gave her, and with it walk through the hidden seams of the Ebonwel, sifting through time and ancient memories. It is here that Emily learns Nadezdha is none other than the Outsider's mother, who abandoned him shortly after he was born because she couldn't take care of him. It is here, in the darkest, deepest, oldest memory that time forgot, that Emily finally learns the Outsider's name: Koschei.

With the power of his name booming in her mind, Emily returns topside to find her court in the middle of a masquerade fete to honor the ties between Pandyssia and Dunwall. Most of the Pandyssian delegate are there, except for Mephista (who never wanted to be a part of this scheme in the first place). Emily, wreathed in Void fog and wisps, marches across the room right up to her impostor, who is wearing both her face and the whalebone necklace. Emily only says one word: Koschei.

And the spell breaks. In a dramatic fashion full of earthquakes and ghastly howls, Eris' glamour falls and fails, and the Outsider is dragged from his place in the Void into the physical realm. When he was made the avatar of the Void, he wasn't given a choice--it was forced onto him unwilling. But he gives Emily a choice now, as he always gives his Marked a choice: she can refuse, and let him fade from memory as the last face of the Void.

She has another option: they share the Void together. The deal is sealed with a dramatic kiss of shadow and whispers, as they lock fingers and seal the deal.

This decision isn’t without consequences. One of Emily's eyes turns pale gray (but she isn't blind--she can see the seams of the world and the Void leaking through), and one of the Outsider's black eyes clears to a vivid, pale brown. They are alive and whole and equal, the Void made flesh.

In the epilogue, Emily sports a jaunty eyepatch (she has dozens of them made, all with different styles and brocades and patterns, and many fashionable people in the Isles emulate her style) to hide her gray eye. She is not so patiently listening to a courtier gush about her crazy masquerade and how dramatic it was. People seem to think it was all a ruse, something done to show that Emily's reign as Empress may be fractured and restless, but it is and will continue to be absolute.

Just then, Corvo arrives from Karnaca, and he's wearing a peculiar look on his face--a mix of a scowl and a smirk. He says he has a friend with him “from Tivia,” someone who wants to pay his respects to the Empress in person. It's the Outsider made human, and he kneels at Emily's feet, kisses her hand, and introduces himself by name for the first time in eons.

"I would know you anywhere," she says to Koschei, urging him to his feet. She's taller than him, but she couldn't care less: he's there, he's alive, and he's beautiful. "Like calls to like, and soul to soul."

They both repeat these words as part of their wedding vows, and so the reign of Emily the Just, Emily the Clever, and Koschei the Beguiled begins, bringing the Isles decades of prosperity and peace. The End.

#emsider #asos tag

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