She was aware -- and suffering that it was. Of everything that passed here, every little mouse, every whispered word. The contents of Emily's letter and the thoughts the boy had of it.
Though Corvo rarely call on her now that the battles were fought. But it did not mean that she was free of him. She drifted, detached and aware. A ghost about his shoulder that he never quite let go of. But nor could she let go of him (she gave him her heart, on a silver platter, and swore it would never, ever part from him again).
How could she go? Torment as this was, it was worse the thought that she could not help him. Alone as he tried to be a father to a girl that had grown up to fast.
It was endearing, almost, that he still turned to her. It took her the same moment, to fight it all down to what he wanted to know at this moment. Thoughts of a mother, and they were hard to pin to her, and her mind alone. Not every mind of the palace, of the city. Not every mother, from the poor ones that smothered their children from inability to feed themselves, to the courtly women who guarded their heirs like wolves over their last meals.
( Somewhere far away the whales sung. )
"The other boys are jealous that he makes her laugh." A pause, and she cannot speak unless bidden by him to do so. But sometimes, she could say more than was needed if she phrased it right. The Outsider's limitations always had loopholes. "Geoff has not yet realized what it means to make an Empress smile."
A quietly given warning, and it was not the empty remarks that came so often with the city, of despair. For once her concern bled through, for them both the way the -- Empress had fussed, once. Over a naive boy and a wistful girl. She could not say very much, other than the boy needed him if he was going to survive being the childhood crush of the ruler of an Empire.
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Though Corvo rarely call on her now that the battles were fought. But it did not mean that she was free of him. She drifted, detached and aware. A ghost about his shoulder that he never quite let go of. But nor could she let go of him (she gave him her heart, on a silver platter, and swore it would never, ever part from him again).
How could she go? Torment as this was, it was worse the thought that she could not help him. Alone as he tried to be a father to a girl that had grown up to fast.
It was endearing, almost, that he still turned to her. It took her the same moment, to fight it all down to what he wanted to know at this moment. Thoughts of a mother, and they were hard to pin to her, and her mind alone. Not every mind of the palace, of the city. Not every mother, from the poor ones that smothered their children from inability to feed themselves, to the courtly women who guarded their heirs like wolves over their last meals.
( Somewhere far away the whales sung. )
"The other boys are jealous that he makes her laugh." A pause, and she cannot speak unless bidden by him to do so. But sometimes, she could say more than was needed if she phrased it right. The Outsider's limitations always had loopholes. "Geoff has not yet realized what it means to make an Empress smile."
A quietly given warning, and it was not the empty remarks that came so often with the city, of despair. For once her concern bled through, for them both the way the -- Empress had fussed, once. Over a naive boy and a wistful girl. She could not say very much, other than the boy needed him if he was going to survive being the childhood crush of the ruler of an Empire.