we_bring_hell | (no subject)

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The Bar has not relented in her attempts to get Harrow to eat something with slightly more calories than air. After many false starts, she seems to have struck gold with potatoes, a vegetable Harrow has never had before.

Mashed was a success; soup went well, too. But chips--ahhh, chips. Hot, salty, taste like almost nothing at all. Harrow may never eat anything else again. After several false starts in the dipping sauce area she has made peace with a light sprinkling of vinegar. The only problem is they make her gloves and her papers greasy.

Therefore, find Harrowhark Nonagesimus at a table with her journal and a skeletal hand, drawing spirals and... God help us... eating chips with a fork. It could be worse. The hand could be feeding them to her.

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There is a thing called skin hunger, and despite the horrifying name, it is not something that only happens to necromancers. It happens to, for instance, little girls whose parents see them as a living reminder of their own absolute moral nadir.

Harrow is, for the second time in a few short weeks, in the arms of an absolutely enormous swordswoman and has no idea how she is supposed to react. There is a roaring in her ears. As she did with Gideon, she pretends to be unconscious.

Until the inconvenient question. Damnation. "...99," she croaks, and then flops her head back dramatically.

"Got it."

Ingress stifles a grin because that was adorably dramatic and this is a serious situation. Or maybe it's not so serious, and honestly, Ingress is fine with that.

She strides up the stairs, Harrow nothing in her arms, and locates the room after not too long. She's not as familiar with upstairs as she is downstairs and the grounds.

Ingress shifts her a little. "Do you want me to set you down and help you in? Or shall I just barge into your room on my own?"

Harrow stirs, forced to confront the bewildering reality of Ingress's biceps. "No, the bone wards will murder you," she says hurriedly. "I'm all right, really. There is plenty of thanergy here."

"I don't actually believe that, but since you're here, I'll pretend you're alright."

She sets Harrow carefully down, winding her arm around her waist to support her. Ingress wants to make sure she can stand on her own two feet and actually get through her own door without falling over.

"Got it?"

Harrow wasn't kidding when she told Ingress everyone has a skeleton inside them. Harrow has been controlling skeletons outside of her body as long as she's been controlling the one inside her body, and she's learned a lot of tricks that go both ways.

She straightens up, moving slowly and deliberately, every limb on the end of a thanergetic puppet string. She only needs to do it long enough to quiet the wards and fumble the iron key in the door.

Harrow walks inside smoothly, and pauses; turning her head is a little symphony of muscle and bone interactions. "Thank you," she says, almost shyly. Nothing of the imperious Ninth House heir now.

Through the door two beds are visible, perpindicular in an upside-down T. One of them is white and fresh and untouched, while the other has apparently never been made. On the wall is a framed picture of a tower, the edges perfectly straight.

"You're very welcome, Harrow." she says, leaning one arm against the door. "Any time. I'm sorry you had difficulties since it was fun taking you to show off London Below. Do you need me to send anything up for you?"

She pauses. Does she need Ingress for anything?

"It's quite all right," she says. "I really am already feeling better. It's not uncommon for an adept to push their luck like that, and I was on a living planet for the first time. It's almost to be expected."

The paint is bitten away from one corner of her lip, pink skin showing through. "I don't need anything," she says outloud. Her black eyes tell a different story, but it's mixed with something like fear and not far from panic. "I very much enjoyed visiting, and I hope I can again. Please give my apologies to the Marylebone."

"Definitely, to both. Be well, Harrow, and see you soon."

Ingress waves and smiles before she turns around and walks down the hall. She looks back over her shoulder once, a worried expression on her face once more, but she leaves Harrow be.

Harrow closes the door with unseemly haste, and presses her paint-greasy forehead against it.

She needs a shower. A water shower, not a sonic, and cold. With harsh lye soap. She'll feel better when the blood is washed off. And the top layer of skin, maybe.

She gets halfway to the bathroom before dizziness over takes her again, and she sits down abruptly on the perpendicular cavalier's bed. Her hand presses against the crisp white sheet, leaving an accusatory pawprint of gravedirt and blood and smeared off paint, and she flees from it.

Later, after her shower, she will strip and make the bed again and listen to Tallahassee at a window-rattling volume.

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