#* headcanon rambles

I think the Lord Protector gig comes with its own fair amount of paperwork. Though not as much as some positions obviously, but I can see it covering a lot of work with the tower guard and the entirety of the tower security. Everything from outfitting the guards, to the appointment of new men. He agrees to Jessamine's want to have the Tower open to the people to visit her freely, but only if he's allowed to fix the guard up to prepare for that many people.

A man like Burrows wouldn't have been able to understand Jessamine's strength you are so utterly correct. He makes it very clear he has little compassion himself, people are problems to be dealt with, not worked around and god forbid worked with, and he'd understand it even less in someone who is supposed to rule. 

And everything else, I think Jessamine could have handled, rulers in times of change have to be more malleable, more compassionate and she seemed progressive enough (something else, I think, Burrows would have found weak), and Dunwall was changing drastically. In those situations you move and change with it, or you get left behind and she seemed to be inclined that way, given the little you do have of her policies.

Plague however, sudden plague of that magnitude no less, strikes everyone dumb, and it takes a real cruelty to deal with it.

i. As a child, Emily was like any other little girl. Just as prone to doing all the same things, crying and throwing her food. For every moment that Jessamine couldn't, Corvo would be with Emily instead. Feeding her, guiding her through learning what her hands were and her surprise at her face in the mirror, little toes curling up gleefully and gurgling as she sucked on her fist. He told her Serkonon rhymes, that were never quite sung but sort of rhythmically said. Jessamine was excited for her to talk, and overjoyed when finally, she started to speak. Mama, whule and Mpruss, being amongst her first words.  It wasn't a problem, until one day when Jessamine was showing off her daughters new words and teaching her names like for a few minutes she was any other mother and not Empress. First to Sokolov ( now Soo-kov ), Burrows (who she scrunched up her face and cried at ), Campbell ( Coombull ) when asked for Corvo's name, out came Dada instead. It was one of the worst fights they ever had, because Corvo enjoyed playing nursemaid, but at Burrows insistence, Emily was given over to a proper nurse and governess there after, her own entire separate household. It wouldn't be until she had properly learned to speak again, that she and Corvo were allowed to play together once more. Though Jessamine never gave orders for such ( and Burrows perhaps had ) the governess in question tried to put space between Corvo and Emily as much as possible. It never worked, because Emily was determined every time she saw Corvo to use him like her personal climbing post and piggy back ride which he allowed her without hesitation, and after the fight, Jessamine never quite tried to stop her, since she'd taken everything else off Corvo. 

ii. I feel like Emily should have a title of her own, since most heirs to the throne do, usually formally Prince + Dukedom of some kind. Princess Emily of the Isles & Duchess of Redmoor, or Whitecliff, given the heavy influence of the abbey? Which would grant her the formal use of Your Grace for her to be addressed as by her mother in court situations. Or would have, when Emily had become old enough to be formally allowed in court, since if you follow court customs, no child below at least 15 is formally really allowed to be in court. And spirits the day she received it, was the day Emily started wearing white. Before it was all little girls things, pink and blues and ribbons and frippery. But Emily had insisted, she wanted to dress like her mother. But she wouldn't pick until Corvo had seen her in each and everyone, and had his opinion on them all. He liked simple, and it was the one with the most minimal amount of lace.

Or rather, historically one could only be considered truly educated if you knew Latin, and that held true until the mid 1800s at least. If it was a book worth reading, it was written in Latin, for a very long time.

I wonder how Corvo feels about the title Assassin? Daud doesn't call him it, and only refers to him as bodyguard. because I think there is a difference between what he does and what Corvo does, and they both know it. 

Daud gets paid to kill people, Corvo just happens to get money sometimes for something he was going to do anyway. But I wonder if he gets angry with it? Because it puts him in the same category as Daud, or something he just accepts, because its not like the people he's killing particularly care about the difference. 

Then again, I think Corvo has a strong case of deep calleth unto deep. He spends all this time trying not to be the people he hates, and ends up the same as them anyway. Maybe in high chaos he just knows, he accepts, he's going to kill them all anyway so what does it matter what they call him any more? And he should have, he really should have, because it matters to Emily, but he's too selfish to see that.