OK but Jessamine lives!AU where both Corvo and Jessamine both think the other’s dead, and they’re both trying to save Emily and it’s like a race where they have only the vaguest inkling that there’s another runner and that other runner may or may not be an enemy. They have no idea until they both burst into the room Emily’s in at exactly the same time.

against-stars:

AND THEN CUTE FAMILY REUNITED AND READY FOR BADASSERY SCENE

HONESTLY I LOVE THIS, when i was thinking about how a marked!jessamine au might work i thought about like –

at the same time as the loyalists are busting corvo out of prison, the outsider resurrects jessamine and gives her his mark. “you’ve been dead six months, my fair lady empress,” he tells her, “do you think you can rebuild what’s been taken from you?”

“yes,” jessamine hisses, because an empress with a stolen throne may not be an empress anymore, but a mother with a stolen child is still a mother, and jessamine’s teeth are bared for her daughter.

and where’s he going to drop her off? not with the loyalists, that would pull the rug right out from under their plans, and while that could be fun, corvo’s already on his way over there and the outsider intends to mark him too.

but oh, what about daud? daud is sick with guilt, fucking wracked with it over jessamine’s murder, right, he would give anything in the world to bring back the empress, “all the coin in the world,” –

so what would he do if she did come back? resurrected straight in the middle of his office, her hand glowing with a familiar deep-water hum.

“you’re going to help me get my daughter back,” she tells him, icy, every towering inch of her as imposing and intimidating as the marble statues erected in her honor.

“anything, your majesty,” he assures her.

they can’t rescue corvo from prison because by the time daud sends a whaler to coldridge, the announcement of his escape has been blared across the city. (jessamine briefly rubs her temple in irritation at the heavy-handed fearmongering of it all, every time the loudspeakers crackle to life. never in her empire.) but jessamine knows corvo can take care of himself, so she turns all attention to emily. find emily. save emily.

jessamine wishes him patience, wishes him safety, but emily comes first before all things. 

corvo, her dear, quiet, loyal corvo – will have to wait.

especially when it seems like someone else keeps snatching the information jessamine needs right out from under the whalers daud sends out. someone else is hunting her daughter.