Harrowhark the Ninth (
we_bring_hell) wrote2020-09-13 05:21 pm
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Harrowhark is in the bar, wearing the style of facepaint known as the Vanitas, with no lower teeth and sharp angular edges. It's good to be back in her makeup, even if the consecration was a greater undertaking than anticipated.
Although she is formally painted from the neck up, she is wearing some of the more informal clothes her room had supplied; soft trousers and a hoodie all in black. She is not wearing gloves today, because her palms are wrapped in bandages, but it is the kind of wound she is used to dealing with and it is healing quickly. The pinpricks of pain around her lips are worse, if only because it's been a very long time since she underwent the ritual of the Sewn Tongue.
She is diagramming spirals on paper, working in ink rather than blood right now. She can't spare any blood currently. She has refreshments to share, if you like faintly cucumber-flavored water and very bland, crumbly biscuits.
Although she is formally painted from the neck up, she is wearing some of the more informal clothes her room had supplied; soft trousers and a hoodie all in black. She is not wearing gloves today, because her palms are wrapped in bandages, but it is the kind of wound she is used to dealing with and it is healing quickly. The pinpricks of pain around her lips are worse, if only because it's been a very long time since she underwent the ritual of the Sewn Tongue.
She is diagramming spirals on paper, working in ink rather than blood right now. She can't spare any blood currently. She has refreshments to share, if you like faintly cucumber-flavored water and very bland, crumbly biscuits.
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"My esteem is given for good reason."
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Thank goodness she doesn't have earsoh wait."Well," she says weakly. "I have carried us far afield."
"I assume that you discovered your Dragon Reborn? Since the world did not end."
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To the very Pit of Doom itself, although she does not say so.
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"But how does that end with you leaving your world behind?"
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"Before the Last Battle, I acted as Rand's advisor for some time. However, there came a point where I became aware that something was about to happen - one of Rand's most dangerous enemies was going to confront him, and if she won, all would be lost."
"I told no one of what I knew. And when the day came, and she struck, I ... leaped at her, carrying her through a portal and away from Rand, into imprisonment in another realm."
"Rand believed I was dead. Almost everyone did. It was necessary that they continue to do so, to preserve the best chance of success. To that end, I remained in captivity for ... quite some time."
Her tone, although still calm, is very, very level.
"But one day, I discovered a passage to this place, and things changed."
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"Did you meet established residents who recognized the shape of your plight if not the details, and gave you sage advice?" she says. "Or perhaps unexpected and unlooked-for counterparts from other worlds with similar stories to tell?" Harrow doesn't laugh and rarely smiles, but there's just possibly a twinkle in her eye.
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"Among others."
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"I was. Rand found his way to Milliways, and we encountered each other here. As there was great need, he summoned me back."
"First I was returned to my imprisonment, but Rand acted together with others here to rescue me from the Tower of Ghenjei. Afterwards, I was able to travel freely between here and my world, which enabled me to influence matters in secret. Eventually..."
She hesitates, considering.
"... there were things I learned here. I was able to use them to buy time for Rand to act."
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"Was he your Warder?"
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"No."
Although she had considered it, once, until the visions of Rhuidean had shown her the possibilities.
"That would have been an exceptionally bad idea, for several reasons. I was his advisor, only. My Warder was Lan Mandragoran, Lan Gaidin."
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"The bond between us broke when I acted that day and fell through the portal. He was one of those who believed me dead."
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She's only had Gideon a month and a half but if anything happened to her she'd kill everyone in Canaan House and then herself.no subject
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There's just a note of plaintive concern in her voice; just a speck, but Moiraine has dedicated herself to composure even more thoroughly than Harrow, for much much longer. Harrowhark knows perfectly well Lyctors don't go home afterwards.
"Where did you go?"
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She smiles, and it is somehow fond.
"I made a home for myself there. Now that the Last Battle is over, I am content to visit the world where I was born; to advise and assist as I may, as I am needed. It would not, however, be wise for me to be too present for too long. I have avoided a throne once, and I do not wish to have another thrust upon me."
Or anything else, given her reputation and the knowledge of her work that continues to come to light.
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If Moiraine has gone to great length to avoid the role, she won't get into it, but it's another interesting piece of the mosaic of the Aes Sedai.
"Is it similar to where you come from? Although I suppose I have a poor sense of what anyone's world is like, except for those in the past of the First House. And even that I have little real knowledge of."
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"Twin Peaks is very different from the world in which I was born, but it has its own appeal."
And it has Dale Cooper, although she does not mention him, not at present.
"A visit might be arranged, perhaps. At some point."
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She looks startled, and pleased. (Subtly.) "I had not thought of that. I would be interested... I have never been on a thalergenic world, however."
If it's anything like being in interplanetary space, she's uneasy about feeling so powerless.
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"How does it feel to you, being here in Milliways?"
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"But at the same time, the buildings themselves are as sterile as deep space. The life outside is barely life, and there is no history there, no real depth of lifecycle."
She looks at her notes and drawings. "The saltwater inlet, however--does it connect to the outside world in some way?"
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She taps a finger against the side of the water glass in thought, then takes a sip.
"I believe that it does, although the mechanism remains somewhat unknown. There have been those that passed from here to there through it, a black ship in particular, and another ship that at times appears from the world to which it connects. However, most of those who try to reach that other world fail in the attempt and find themselves returning to shore."
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"Ah. My consecration ritual ending up being more potent than anticipated. I've been trying to reconstruct the vectors, and that's quite possibly one factor accounted for, then."
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"Given the nature of your workings, then, it may matter to know that the ships in question have a connection to the dead."
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