a/n; It usually happens where I write something, try to finish it before my inspiration dies, and usually have it end up on the back burner forever. I wrote these drabbles several months ago when I finished the game, kind of gave it an ending, and now I'm posting them.

Extremely inspired by shortcircuitify's story Bow. Definitely check it out if you're an Emily/Outsider person, as I'm assuming you probably are.

Happy reading!

i.

Emily rubs at her left hand in her private chambers, the ebb of power soothing her nerves when she wakes up in cold sweats from her dreams and nightmares. It is an unconscious habit, bred by the unrelenting calm the symbol remits when called upon. It is burned into her skin, but hidden underneath the guise of her flesh, only revealing itself when she truly uses its physical powers—the ones she still brings forth when, on some nights, she must escape through her window down to the streets of Dunwall, into the shadows of the back alleys and sewers and aisles of paved roads. She had believed, perhaps prematurely, that she would not feel the necessity to do this anymore after Delilah had been entombed in her own distorted reality.

However, dissimilar to how she used to sneak out to escape her life at court, she now leaves to continue it. She pulls up her cloth mask, and she watches the people. She watches the ones who do not sleep, the ones destitute and jaded, the beggars, the poor. They will come up from this, one day. Now that she knows how to rule better, and wiser, and to not ignore the wrong-doings she used to believe she had no control to change.

Sometimes on these nights, especially the dim, inky black nights that hold several more shadows, she'll stop her brisk watching, stopping in the corner of one of these shadows. She breathes in through the mask she wears, inhaling memories and dust of a time gone. She closes her eyes, and she knows she isn't the only one watching. She is never the only one watching anymore—not with the mark she bears, and not with the events transpired.

She has an audience now, now and forever, observing her actions, evaluating as she climbs along the streets of her empire. Never did she wonder about this during the reign of Delilah—so ensconced was she in gaining back her rightful place that she did not dwell on the depthless eyes of a god, watching.

In the darkest levels of shadow, she has never been so acutely aware of the supernatural world, swinging like a pendulum against the ordinary. The barrier between is flimsy and weak, as thin as the curtains hanging in her bedroom windows.

The Void has been so quiet when the people had begun to call her Empress again. Quiet in the way trees are without their breezes to sing.

She breathes out long and soft. She opens her eyes, and she is swiftly back on the ledge leading into her chambers.

Though the Void has been quiet without its whispers, it has been deafening in the way it peels her skin back with its eyes.

She slides through the window between the curtains, and her hand pulsates with beckoning force. Her heart thuds before she realizes she's surprised—lips parted in a breathless gasp as she looks up to see his face an inch away from her own. The distance is disputable, should one want to be contrary.

"Hello, Empress," he speaks, lips curled into a disdainful smirk. His voice is dry, twisting her title into a sarcasm of sorts. It fills the air as only a god's can, though it can't have been any more than a whisper.

"You didn't think I had forgotten about you, did you?"

He dissolves into a plume of smoke, rematerializing on her right.

"What kind of god would I be if I forgot about my most interesting mark bearer?"

She swallows her shock as quickly as she can, though she doesn't believe that it's shock at all. She knows what shock feels like with an intimacy that must rival all others—no, this is a different kind of feeling, with her heart lodged in her throat.

It does not matter what it is. She closes her mouth, teeth clicking with the force. Besides, she mentally berates herself, it is unbecoming for an Empress to gape like a fish whatever the circumstance.

She turns to look at him, finding his solid eyes. She's found, in the times before, that he cannot stand eye contact for long. She thinks it almost unnerves him, perturbs him in such a way that he can't control. How many can say they've seen the thoughts through the Outsider's eyes? Isolated as he is, and as selective as he claims, the number must be few.

"You have it wrong," she says. "You've been watching ever since I released my father from stone."

He settles away from her at the deduction, clasping his hands behind his back. He continues to stare, which surprises her.

"Not much for intrigue happening in Dunwall these days," he deflects. "Not since you banished Delilah to her own delusional design of the world. You've given her her own little section of the Void. I must thank you for that unwanted company, your Imperial Majesty."

Disdain lurks in his voice, though the lines around his eyes are softer and his smirk grows into something pliable.

"Forgive me," she says, and she can't help how her shoulders slacken or the lightness that begins to creep into her tone. "At the time, I thought you could use the company."

He walks around her, crossing his arms over his chest. "Don't worry. She's locked away in a long forgotten corner, very far away from me."

"Oh, good. I was beginning to think she was taking advantage of you again."

He has not taken his eyes off her once. "You jest," he says after a moment, the slight inflection sounding like surprise. "Empress Emily Kaldwin knows about humor."

It isn't a question, nor is it an accusation. It is simply an observation.

She narrows her eyes at him in thought. "Even rulers love to tease, Outsider, possibly more than most."

"I must beg to differ," he counters, removing the distance between them once more. He stops right in front of her. "I have not seen joy, much less a smile from you, until tonight."

She's not sure when she began to smile. It isn't large—just a tilt of the corners of her mouth—but it's enough. He's right. There had been nothing to smile about when her world slipped from her palms. Blood from her servants and loyal guards smearing the walls of Dunwall Tower the first day, her father silent in stone captivity, the dark loneliness of despair.

"You came into my life at the wrong time."

The Outsider waves his hand in the small space between them, and she is suddenly staring at a twelve-year-old Emily.

"No," she hears, his voice an all-encompassing echo around her. "There was never a right time."

The little girl has sad eyes, though she smiles bright and large for the painting. Then she's fifteen, all petulant, griping most of the time, though very self-aware. Can't disappoint Corvo, after all, so she continues to smile.

Twenty, now, sneaking out, watching the people and craving something, but unsure and still on unstable footing. Filled with thoughts of running away from the court and planning and garnering respect, and those timeless rendezvous with Wyman. Perhaps it's those times where a true smile surfaces, but she has a great poker face by this time in her life, and does the smile reach her eyes when she meets him up on the rooftops? As he's said, he knows her real face. That has to be true, doesn't it?

She's jolted back into the present. She takes a step to steady her balance, and the Outsider's arm comes around her back and onto her hip to steady her.

"I've seen glimpses of you through Corvo, Empress," he says, and it still amazes her at how he's warm and alive—not tepid or cold or that elusive nothing. "Always so serious and studious. Thoughtful and sharp. He worried about you, you know. Though he had nothing to worry about. Love tends to do that, causing anxiety from imagined conflicts of the spirit. Surrounded by so many loving caretakers, there was never any concern for a poor upbringing or forgotten lessons to be taught. You were clever when you were young, only to grow cleverer as you grew up." He pauses in his narration, boldly outlining her bottom lip with his thumb. She jerks her head to him out of reflex, and the touch of his thumb disappears.

"The only worrisome thing, Majesty, is that you never seemed quite happy. Happy enough to deceive, but not happy enough inside the heart."

She did not expect an introspective lesson on herself tonight—much less from the Outsider himself, in the decorated intimacy of her own chambers—and she does not want to continue. She's locked inside of her thoughts much too often as it is, already.

She turns her body to face him, the hand that was on her hip now on the small of her back. She places a hand on his chest and another on his shoulder. He gives her an intensely curious stare.

"How can you accuse me of unhappiness," she whispers, and she's close enough where her breath must hit his throat, "when you take joy in watching peoples' lives unfold into tragedies?"

She's close enough to see the change in his smirk—his lips curling just enough to show the tips of his teeth. She'll call it a smile, if only out of spite for him mocking her own.

"You have me wrong, Emily," he says, and it's the first time she's heard him speak her name without a royal attachment on the front of it. She notes the alteration in his features—the subtle yet definite difference in the shadows under the same light. "I continue to take joy in watching you, and your life is far from a tragedy. Can you tell me why that is?"

He's gotten closer, somehow. It is a competition to see how close they can get in this bubble of flesh and heat—she feels it racing up her spine like a crackling fuse.

An answer—perhaps the answer—is on the tip of her tongue, but she can't quite reach it. "You're immortal. How can a mortal like me still interest you in any way?"

"Ah, dear Emily," he drawls, and his nose nearly bumps her own. If he recognizes her hesitation, he mentions nothing. Instead he says, "If that's your answer, you have much to learn."

Just like that, he vanishes. He's gone, and she stumbles forward from the lack of support. She immediately straightens, brushing her still immaculate hair back on her head and exhales. Her cheeks are flushed, and the warmth from him fades from her hands.

There's a shine in her eyes. Her heart is thumping against her chest, and she feels a strange circulation of adrenaline and euphoria course its way through her at a galloping pace.

She feels…alive. Not spurned on by vengeance or remorse or guilt or hate or triumph—no. She is unencumbered by any emotion. She is simply and plainly and only alive.

She touches her left hand, and she smiles.