Chapter Text
He finds the boy stumbling through the backstreets of the city in the dying sunlight, still wearing his fancy clothes from Dunwall Tower. Daud watches from the rooftops, waiting for word from one of his men. He muses on the fate of the unfortunate former candidate.
He was meant to be a joke.
The one thing no one expected was for him to take it so seriously.
The swordman (swordsboy?) from Serkonos, thrown in with the others vying for the position of Royal Protector. The nobility’s way of saying, “Look, we care about all you lesser peoples across the sea!”
At first, they thought he was perfect. Daud heard the rumours – he makes sure he watches all the potential Royal Protectors the moment they step into Dunwall. The last thing an assassin wants is to be recognised by the supposedly best combatant in the Isles, and they generally pull out when the Protectors are involved. Or they up the price. But this boy had the rumour mill working overtime. Quiet, they said. Passive. Some called him aloof, others just said cold. Even more said plain stupid, possibly mute. An idiot they couldn’t even tolerate on backwater Serkonos. Oh, how they had tittered and laughed.
Then they saw the way used a blade. And a crossbow. And his hands and legs. And finally a chair when that one fight broke out in the dining hall. They wrested the grenade from his hands and the guard got tooth marks that lasted a week. He put out three other candidates. And one with half a chair.
Daud hated nobles, but he’d be damned if he didn’t like this one. The assassin couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard at a report from the Tower. He’d been meaning to sneak into the final tournament and watch the kid fight. Hopefully with a chair.
Unfortunately, the court hadn’t appreciated this dynamic display of improvisation, and when the young Lady Jessamine started getting too friendly with the foreigner they decided to off him in case their future Empress made the wrong choice. Daud wouldn’t have picked anyone else, simply for the entertainment value of assassination attempts foiled through furniture.
Daud likes to think that he escaped using a chair, clubbing guards left and right and maybe flipping off the Tower with both hands before fleeing downtown. Now the boy stumbles through the alley, no doubt trailed by some gang or another for his rich clothes. He shouldn’t be in this part of town dressed like some princeling.
An assassin drops lightly down onto the roof where Daud is crouching and beckons to him. A pity to leave a fellow stranded Serkonan in such odds, but a job is a job and gold always has been enough incentive for Daud to leave people dead.
He makes his way away from the soon-to-be murder scene.