nostalgic

- Daud is a master and student of discipline, either enforced by himself or with the threat of death around every corner, but despite his hard demeanor, the whalers see him smile and chuckle often - Billie and Thomas are the few to have seen his teeth when smiling - He is patient and has a good sense of humor, albeit it’s dark and mostly deprecating - Thomas wasn’t a big talker around Daud initially, and Daud himself doesn’t have a great interest in talking, so most of their interactions when Thomas was young was Daud quickly doing a slight of hand trick for Thomas, or something akin to a ‘magic’ trick to one of the whalers at their expense - Daud genuinely loves hearing the sound of laughter - Daud is self conscious of people hearing him sing, so he mostly hums - When Billie was younger and still haunted in her dreams and waking moment by her abusers and the death of Diedre, she found Daud’s humming calming, and he knew it - Being the lover of books he is, he was a little offended when he found out Thomas couldn’t read, and immediately set out to teach him - Whether or not Daud is ever with one of his whalers while scouting or on a mission, if there is an audiograph playing music he will at the very least tap his foot, or take a moment to exasperate his whaler with his horrible and uncoordinated dancing - After the events of DOTO, Billie would never pass up the opportunity to dance for herself - In the 15 years between Brigmore Witches and Dishonored 2, everytime Daud dared to be in public and eat at a cafe or restaraunt their silverware always seemed to be made of copper.....the spoons especially irritated him - He has never liked the taste of chocolate or sugar, he likes bitter things, but to the young living on Dunwall’s streets, his informal eyes and ears, and potential whalers, he frequently gives them chocolate or jalebis. - He goes out of his way with the aristocracy to raid their kitchens for chocolate....every time - Daud did go back - he found Diedre’s knife - and he held Billie when she started crying - The lower ranking Assassins, those who don’t possess or posses a weaker bond to Daud and subsequently to the void were susceptible to the plague. The few times where Daud did lose his whalers to the plague, he sat with them. Being marked, he knew over the years that he seemed impervious to most transmitted illnesses, and so he’d sit with the dying whalers, he was the one who mostly looked after them, and in the end, before they turned to weepers, would give them enough morphine to simply fall asleep. - His eyes stung and watered every time - Save for his mother, there were few people that Daud had ever loved and cared for so intensely than Billie and Thomas

я просто хотел чтоб меня любили

Daud, taking a long drag from his cigar before approaching a lightpole: Hold my cigar, I need to show you kids something.

Billie: AGAIN?! FUCKING AGAIN?!

Daud has bad knees, unstable even at times, and if there’s one thing that makes him jump it’s the overseer’s music. The whalers know this very well and exploit it when they can - especially in autumn/winter months of Dunwall when the financial district floods excessively with water. One morning  - one, because this was the only time this exact scenario would work - after the mid winter holiday, and Daud wakes up hungover, and goes to have a ‘comedown’ shot of whiskey and a cigarette on the balcony joined to his quarters. When Thomas, Billie, and a small handful of skilled whalers sneak up on Daud with his dulled senses and blast - for only a moment - the overseer’s ancient music. Daud stumbles out of his chair, backwards, his knees unsteady and stiff from a long night, his heavy eyelids cracking themselves from one another suddenly as he walks unwillingly backwards from the music, his heels and eventually his toes passing the edges of the balcony. He falls backwards onto the lower balcony that connects Daud’s base to apartment buildings that were opposite of the Kaldwin Statue. He falls, and hits a hollow, rubber weaved, spring tensioned, elastic circle (modern trampolines weren’t invented until 1936 so this is best description I have of earlier ones????) and launches into the air. Much to his chagrin and far greater to the hilarity of the Whalers as they watch him fall and sail through the sky again, only to plummet with a loud and resounding splash into the water some 15 meters below. Thomas falls over shrieking with laughter, he’s genuinely holding his sides from laughing so much, and Billie is holding onto Thomas’ shoulder, having dropped the music device she’s coughing, her lungs unable to fill themselves with air after roaring with humor. “THERE HE GOES!” the accompanying whalers howl. “Ahhh, we should make sure he doesn’t drown...” Billie finally calms down enough to speak, her face the same color as a ripe tomato. “We should leave so he doesn’t drown us.” Thomas finally wheezes in between snorts of laughter.

Daud, Thomas, or Billie find new recruits for the Whalers and upon initiation, before they receive their arcane bond with Daud, Thomas will guide them into a room, telling them that Daud is busy so they will be conducting a short ‘processing period’ for the new recruit. Thomas tells them to loosen up, and hands them an apple, guiding them into the room where he then locks the door behind him and Billie sits with her fingers crossed at a small desk. “Take a seat”. She says gruffly to the new recruit....there are no seats. Billie yells at them to take a seat and they immediately sit on the floor. Billie squints and in a disgusted voice says, “You brought food into this interview?” Thomas who now is standing behind Billie shakes his head and says “Typical. Throw that away, show some respect!” The recruit tosses the apple to the floor and Billie begins tsking and writing down on a notepad, muttering under her breath. “Wasteful, ungrateful, most likely has bad eating habits....” Thomas, “You know most of us, including our leader grew up with hardly enough money to scrape together a piece of coal for the fire at night, much less an entire apple for themselves...and you just throw it away? Outsider damn you.” Billie, “Where’s your resume?” The recruit stares, mortified and panicking. Thomas, “And you have the GALL to come into this esteemed office without a resume?!” he yells as a rotted wooden piece of the ceiling falls next to the recruit. Billie scribbles some more. Thomas just shakes his head in disgust and silently, venemously says, “out!” to the recruit. Once they leave through an opposite door they’re greeted with a boisterous celebration from the other Whalers. Thomas picks the apple up and repeats with any other recruits waiting patiently for him behind the first door. This shenanigan was all Daud’s idea.

Billie was in charge of training Thomas, and part of his training was her taking full advantage of having a peon. It starts out with genuine skill training or integrity habits, like having her boots cleaned by sunrise, or walking through a pile of famished rats and leaving them undisturbed without knowing better to confiscating other whaler’s prized possessions and hiding them, to taking such items out of other whaler’s pockets or hands while they’re actively using them. The other Whalers turn this into a game and start upping the risks, like taking the helmets off of city guard veteran’s heads or standing directly behind two guards in a conversation and following them at their heels for as long as possible before they notice. They all get very proficient at these dares. Thomas then dares Billie to do these things to Daud. She accepts and one day all of the Whalers are perched beyond Daud’s quarters, watching through the windows as Daud lights a cigar at his desk, turns to organize notes, and Billie quickly traverses to take his lighter and disappears.  It goes over as such a nonchalant success that all the other Whalers start doing smaller less intimate tasks to Daud and each other that one day at breakfast, Daud comes in, missing his socks and one boot, wearing a shirt that clearly belongs to one of the smaller whalers, with a child’s squirt gun in place of his pistol, and his pants with the pockets jaggedly cut off. Everyone stops eating and looks at him.  “This has to stop.” Every Whaler looks around at each other and then, like Mary Poppins’ bag, all the whalers start pulling unnecessary amounts of  each other’s belongings out of their coats and everyone starts pilfering through the items to find their own.