Past Honor

The Outsider was Watching Closely

She Could Smell Death.

Dad was laying there. There was blood.

Cold blood.

Yet it was blood.

Staining her hands.

Her dad's blood.

The body was spasming trying to reach out to her.

Then it was her dad's killer.

Writhing.

"He deserved to die." The spell was broken. The dream was too blunt. Adelaide knew what was going on. "I did no wrong in avenging father." She looked around, at the fraying edges of the dreamscape.

He would be here.

In his coat that smelled like death, and with his eyes so deeply blue they verged on black. The eyes that never blinked.

That had watched her get her revenge.

Just as her mind began to comprehend what he would look like there he was.

The Outsider.

As dream like as the rest of the nightmare hand crafted for her.

"That is what she who is coming will think too." The Outsider knelt down and gently caressed the sickly red color of the blood. "It makes you wonder."

"She who is coming?"

"You have no love for the poetic, Adelaide. One wonders if you ever did."

Adelaide scoffed at that. Who had time for poetics in Dunwall? Especially in the dark years that had plagued the city recently.

"He never asked his murderer's daughter if she would sacrifice herself. He made that decision for her." The outsider mused, rolling the corpse's head back and forth. From Adelaide's father to someone else's father. "Just chose it."

"To end the rat plague? Who would have said no? to willingly allow this..." suffering felt like too light a word.

"Your father was worried she would. The Weeper who Walked."

"She was the only one who could..."

"The irony? She would never have said no. Yet... he refused to ask. And her father refused to let her be sacrificed. One wonders if either would have asked her even if she had not been drugged. So often are we limited by what we fear may be, we simply make sure what is...must be."

"You're speaking in riddles."

"That does not sound like a compliment."

Adelaide felt her fists clench. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to equate my father and... that monster. Fine! I admit it. My father was not perfect. It does not change what that monster did. I do not need to feel bad for... that thing." She spits at the corpse.

The Outsider let the head loll back into that of her father's as the gob of spit lands.

Adelaide knew it was not real, her brain was sure of it. Yet her heart recoils at the sight.

The Outsider nodded slowly, "you may be right. I have just come to tell you I am still watching you."

"Why? Huh? You had your fun. My story is over. I had my revenge, you said you would only watch while I was interesting! So leave me alone." Adelaide stood up to her full height, she towered over the wiry figure before her. Somehow that did not make her feel powerful here.

The Outsider nodded, "yet your story is not over. I told you, what you feel is what she who is coming feels. In a sense. Perhaps more conflicted. She did love, as you say, a monster. I would imagine that changes one's feelings. However, she is coming anyways."

"Let her. I'm not afraid. I did what I did. I will not be shamed for it."

"I know that. She comes not with shaming in mind."

Adelaide shook her head. It is best to not listen to the cryptic voices that visit in the night.

"Oh, Adelaide, I should thank you. This story of yours has proven so interesting to watch. And promises much more to see as well."

Adelaide was ignoring the eldritch man nearby. Finding some unstained ground she began to do push-ups. One after another. Her hands pressed into a tight diamond below her.

"I should not offer you this – but as thankfulness for all you've allowed me to see – I could give you my mark."

Adelaide kept going. Yet her face was dark.

"It is no longer working, is it?"

Adelaide crumpled, not weary – but as if the Outsider's comment had been a kick to her ribs. She sat there, trying to puzzle out why her soul was in revolt against her. Why her exercises weren't helping drown out his voice anymore.

"So often you could clear your mind – you knew how to rule yourself... yet now? It is no longer successful. Is it?" He laughs a laugh that sounded as if he did not know how to laugh. As if he had only been told what a laugh should be and was trying to recreate that. "You see, in Dunwall, even the good things turn to ash. Strength becomes brutal, health becomes spiteful, all that you seek will be ash. Yet... you can make others ash. Better the flame than the ash. One is coming to burn you out. Turn your fire into ash. Unless it is already ash? Is that what you taste? The ashy taste of victory? Revenge is so sweet - is it not?"

Was he gloating? Adelaide stood up and snarled. "Everyone who has ever wronged me I stood face to face with. Let them come. I've yet to be burned out. I live because the fire inside me burns brighter than anything this city can stifle!" She slammed her fist into the dreamy reality around her. She heard the splintering of glass. It made her feel strong again.

"Have I wronged you?"

Adelaide just stood there – anger blocking her ability to reply. 

The Outsider smiled, "so not every other fire is out burned?" 

Adelaide stood - as strongly as she could. 

"You seem heated."

Her fists clench. Tight.

"Your father's cult tried to put out fires, to free Dunwall of its plague. Look how that turned out. Did you think you could put out the fire in your soul? The one his death lit?" The Outsider knelt down and rolled the body one last time.

Now the corpse was Adelaide's.

"I wonder – will you meet your death unarmed like him? Trusting that your sins were worthy? How does one even judge the weight of sins anyways?"

Adelaide snarled like a cornered dog. "I've shown you once."

"You have... I suppose it was an ill suited question for you, wasn't it?"

Adelaide stood stoically. At least she tried to.

"Well, no matter. Do try to be courteous when you wake up. Anselmo is trying to sleep."

With that The Outsider stood and was gone – he disappeared just as dread never does.

With that Adelaide was left alone in the room, with her father's corpse. A bullet hole marring his head. From the front it looks just as if he had fallen asleep. Except the entirety of the skull had been torn away past that façade.

She could hear footfalls fleeing.

Just as she had when she had seen his corpse in reality.

She woke up crying.

It did wake up Anselmo.

She lied when he asked what was wrong.