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Sep. 13th, 2020 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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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Date: 2020-09-16 11:47 pm (UTC)"Good morning, Ninth," he offers, along with his traditional bow. "...Afternoon? I think it may be afternoon."
How has he slept for an additional four or five hours and still woken up tired? This seems deeply unfair.
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Date: 2020-09-16 11:48 pm (UTC)"How are you?"
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Date: 2020-09-16 11:50 pm (UTC)He sinks into a free chair and sets down the mug with a thunk.
"And you? I am glad to see you were able to..." He gestures to his own face in an absent circle. "That it worked, in the end."
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Date: 2020-09-16 11:54 pm (UTC)"I should have enough makeup for several months--far longer than I mean to remain."
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Date: 2020-09-17 12:00 am (UTC)Suiting action to words, he downs a mouthful.
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Date: 2020-09-17 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 12:18 am (UTC)As much as Lan Zhan insisted Wei Wuxian was not to blame, it still pricks at him, as if he cannot stop prodding a bruise on his arm. He should have done better. He should have succeeded in the help he offered.
"I am sorry."
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Date: 2020-09-17 12:25 am (UTC)She frowns. "Two of the spirit manifestations didn't originate with me. Did you recognize them?"
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Date: 2020-09-17 12:48 am (UTC)It is right that she should be curious. She did not expect them to manifest any more than Wei Wuxian himself, and she has no reason whatsoever to recognize them. Of course she would ask for clarity. He should provide it, he thinks distantly, in case she needs his help again. In case they reappear.
"Yes." Quiet enough that one would have to strain to hear. "My shijie -- my sister. Her husband."
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Date: 2020-09-17 12:53 am (UTC)Briskly: "I believe the key mistake was in using constructs to play the roles of the Houses--they were vulnerable to possession, especially once I was in the throes of the rite. Combined with some other unforeseen factors, the Ennumeration went beyond its normal boundaries."
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:05 am (UTC)"What were the other factors?" he asks. "I know Lan Zhan worried that Inquiry may have been one of them."
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 01:15 am (UTC)She shakes her head. "I had intended to merely invoke the Locked Tomb through sacred geometry, not whatever... channeling of it we accomplished."
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:20 am (UTC)He treads a bit more cautiously, now, both hands wrapping around the mug.
"The resentful energy of your Tomb was... enormous. I spent three months lost in a space with resentful energy so thick it could kill within days, and that was but a fraction of what I felt yesterday. I worried if I drew any to myself, I might disrupt the ritual, but apparently I could not fight through it by willpower alone, either."
His mouth twists wryly at the last.
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:24 am (UTC)"I did not intend for you to be exposed to it."
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Date: 2020-09-17 02:12 am (UTC)Hesitant, then: "Lan Zhan... told me a little more of your Tomb. And the spirit inside."
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Date: 2020-09-17 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 02:24 am (UTC)He still isn't sure how to approach the haunting, after all. If he does not have a plan, then he is only dredging up cruel memories the Ninth carries.
"But if you do wish to discuss it -- in private, yes." Remembering, then, "Or salt water, Lan Zhan said."
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Date: 2020-09-17 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-17 12:14 pm (UTC)Mug in hand, he rises to follow the Ninth.
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:28 pm (UTC)Room 99 is spartan; sufficient to her needs. There is a single painting on the wall, painstakingly straight. It seems to be a mounted jigsaw puzzle of a tower at sunset. The room, like any room long inhabited by Harrowhark Nonagesimus, smells of ink, incense, harsh lye soap, and the coppery smell of blood.
There is a skeleton on a stand in the corner and a large scrolltop desk that is nothing like a raven. There are also two white, crisp beds; the one perpendicular to the other has never been slept in, and the other one has apparently never been made. There is also a set of dusty free weights in one corner for some reason.
There is one other chair in addition to the one at the desk, and Harrow gestures towards it as they enter. She sits at the desk and toys with a pair of ivory compasses. Well. Probably not ivory, when you think about it.
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Date: 2020-09-17 01:49 pm (UTC)(Much later, probably, considering the importance of the matters at hand.)
He sinks into the proffered chair and takes another long gulp of his tea. The incense, ink, and blood is -- not exactly soothing, but familiar. It smells like Demon-Subdue Cave. It is a place of study, the beating heart of all knowledge and protection.
"I suppose I should say what Lan Zhan told me, to make sure I have it right," he says, still with care. "That you opened the Tomb when you were young; that your parents, rather than assist in suppressing the spirit inside, killed themselves. And that you are haunted by the spirit even now. Yes?"
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Date: 2020-09-17 02:47 pm (UTC)"She sleeps. The Tomb still holds her, as far as I know; I only entered it. I have seen and heard things that others could not sense. I have often wondered," she lets out a little breath, "if I am mad. But if not, yes, she has accompanied me. It has faded in time. Lately it has been stronger than it has in a long time."
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Date: 2020-09-17 03:32 pm (UTC)"I am glad the suppression held, and she still sleeps," he says. "But her accompanying you, and you seeing and hearing things others don't, makes me think a piece of her escaped. I know our necromancy is not the same. But if you were from my world, we would determine it a haunting and try to help."
A small, humorless twitch of a smile.
"Lan Zhan also told me you do not wish for help, though."
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