Open Post for Corvo Attano

[watchesandlistens]

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[leadseasy]

"You're...you're not wearing that mask," Yael ventured.

That voice was incongruous with the body it came out of, a tall, horned woman with dark gray skin. Her voice was high and soft and tinged with a gentle Orlesian accent. She had to talk to people, though, right? She ought to talk to people if she wanted help with the light in her hand. She didn't have any friends here, not yet at least, she hadn't even told her friends she was leaving.

[watchesandlistens]

He remembers her. Not that he would easily forget such a strange creature--person?--in the first place, but having her run screaming when he first saw her certainly left an impression. He's surprised that she approached him after that, even with the mask put away for now, but doesn't discourage it.

Instead, he calmly watches her approach his table, and slowly nods at her observation.

"The mask was part of a dream--a nightmare." He doesn't need to go into the details of it. And it's no lie. "It serves little purpose here." He takes a sip from his mug of ale, then shrugs, to indicate that's all he has to say on it.

[leadseasy]

"Oh," she said softly, understanding the signal that he was finished. She sat anyway, holding a mug the size of a human head, both hands curled around it. She was hunching her shoulders forward, as if she wanted to hide behind her drink.

"Are you...are you one of the Fade people, then?"

[watchesandlistens]

He doesn't seem bothered by her sitting with him--at the least, he makes no motions to attempt to get her to move. An odd woman, he thought, though he supposed it possible she was entirely mundane for this world.

At her question, he nodded. "I suppose I am. That where they say I fell out of." Certainly, he'd never heard of the Fade before, but he knew what he was told. "And I have this." He raises his hand, revealing the glowing green mark on his hand. As opposed the black mark on his other hand. He certainly had a collection, didn't he?

[leadseasy]

"Oh," she said softly again. "I have one too." Shyly, she showed him hers to match, in the opposite hand. "I didn't fall out of the Fade, though," she added, bringing the hand back around her mug. "I was just nearby when one of the cracks opened. Rifts," she corrected.

"Does yours hurt?"

[watchesandlistens]

The mark on her hand is the first thing Corvo seems actively interested in--he leans forward to examine hers, studying and comparing to his own. They do indeed seem similar, and he wonders at the implications. No need to bother her with them, though.

"It aches," he admits, turning to his hand. "Like a broken bone before a storm. But it could be worse." He doesn't elaborate beyond that, and simply shrugs again.

[leadseasy]

Yael nodded, and despite the general strangeness of her, relief looked about the same as it looked on anyone. "Mine too. At least I know it's...normal, then. If...I mean, for what it is." The ache wasn't the worst thing she'd ever felt, but it was easy to dwell on it and panic herself and that made it much, much worse.

"Tell me something of your world?" Her tone made it a question.

[watchesandlistens]

Well, he's glad he can offer her some relief, even if it's just the reassurance that she isn't the only one whose shard has been causing her pain. He'll have to ask others at some point, see if anyone's actually figured out how to get it to stop. Nevertheless, he nods to her.

Then she throws out a question, unexpectedly. He hadn't considered anyone caring about the world he'd been in, if they indeed believed he wasn't some demon come to eat their children. But it's a harmless question, and maybe it'll help ease some of the discomfort surrounding him? So Corvo sits in silence, thinking of something to say that is neither as dry as a textbook, nor some manner of horrifying. The poor woman was already easily startled enough, without discussing man-eating rats.

"We have a religion in our Isles, similar on organization and structure to your Chantry. The Abbey of the Everyman. There is no Andraste, though. Nor is there a Maker." Save, perhaps, the Outsider, but that was an entirely different matter. "It mostly focuses on teaching how to live a goodly, moral life. And ensuring that people don't stray from the strictures they made explaining how to do so."

[leadseasy]

Yael listened with wide eyes, shedding her shyness for fascination. Hearing about a whole new religion was a rare opportunity, and she'd never heard of one like it. Even the Qun had some kind of god, didn't it?

"But who do you pray to if not the Maker?" she asked, all wide-eyed, innocent curiosity.

[watchesandlistens]

"We don't...really pray to anyone in particular, I suppose." Corvo replied after a few moments of thought. Who would hear them, after all, besides the Outsider? "We're encouraged to put our faith in the Abbey itself, and the High Overseer. That's the closest we have, I guess." Maybe this hadn't been the best topic to pick. After all, while Corvo had never had ill will towards the Abbey before, he was ten kinds of a heretic, in their eyes.

[leadseasy]

"I..." Yael had trouble comprehending that. No Maker? No Andraste? No one to pray to? Perhaps this High Overseer was supposed to be a kind of god-king. Yael had heard of such things, in the distant past.

"Then who created the world?" she asked. Surely the Abbey couldn't be said to have done that.

[watchesandlistens]

He hesitates before answering--it's odd, to have to explain these things. Children were taught it, of course, but certainly not by Corvo, and the Abbey was not nearly as much of a presence in Serkonos as it is in Dunwall. "The Abbey says that the world emerged from the Void--it's like your Fade, very close to it. And the Void seeks to reclaim it. Chaos and immoral actions supposedly speed the process up, so living a moral, righteous life is supposed to...slow it down." He's pretty sure that's the long and short of it, though he's sure somewhere in the distance, Overseers are feeling the sudden urge to smack his knuckles with a ruler.