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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Ingress breezes in through the door from Valdemar in a much better mood than the last time she arrived here. She sees Harrow and approaches her table.

"Hello, Harrow," she says. "Oh, yum, chips. I love chips."

Edited 2020-10-08 05:13 (UTC)

"Is that what they're called?" she says. "The Bar's communications are wordless, if often pointed."

“She wants to make sure her patrons are taken care of. I’m going to get some, too.”

Ingress is gone for just long enough to bring back her own order of chips along with a milkshake. She also brings chopsticks because they worked so well last time. She clicks them at Harrow playfully before scooping one into her mouth.

“How are you?”

She raises her eyebrows at the clicking chopsticks. The skeletal hand on the table stirs and snaps its fingers twice, Addams Family-style, in response.

"I am well enough. Reviewing my studies of Lyctoral matters and considering matters of communication."

Ingress giggles at the hand. That’s adorable!

“What kind of communication matters?”

Sorry, Harrow, she’s a little extra cheerful today. She got a letter.

"I am endeavouring to communicate between my world and Milliways by having this construct--" She gestures at the hand-- "Mirror my writing when I choose it. It is very much a work in progress, and rather difficult to test."

“That’s a great idea. You write here, and it shows up there?”

Better than waiting for an owl or a pigeon.

"In theory," she says. "Or rather, I write there, and this construct also writes the same thing here. I thought to rely on the Bar to deliver the finished missives and replace the paper."

"I do not wish to vanish entirely when I return to my own world, even if it is a final scribbled missive."

She furrows her brow. “Are you bound? If I’ve asked you before, pardon me, but I’m not sure it’s come up.”

"No," she says soberly. "I have chosen to remain here as a--sojourn, from the fraught events now taking place in Canaan House, and to steal more time for my studies before facing what is to come."

"But I anticipate when I return that I will be--quite occupied, perhaps for the foreseeable future."

Especially if the foreseeable future is, 'until somebody kills her.'

“That doesn’t sound good at all,” she says, and the brow furrow doesn’t go anywhere.

“But you have your cavalier to help you, yes? You have allies and supporters?”

"That remains to be seen," she says, as dispassionately as she can manage.

"My first task on returning, I think, must be to restore the trust of my cavalier and my allies among the Sixth."

“Shoring up one’s allies - that’s key, I’ve found. I’m glad you have that possibility.”

She smiles faintly. "We have a great deal to speak of."

And Gideon may kill her over it.

"And even in the best possible case, I think I will be quite occupied once I return. My time in Canaan House was always temporary, and I do not know of any other doors."

“From what I understand, you find other doors when you need them. That’s what I’ve heard from others, anyway.”

She raises an eyebrow. "I would rather prepare than trust to fate," she says.

Fate has never been particularly kind. "Although indeed, I hope I can find another. If God and his Lyctors created the first door, perhaps they will have another."

“I hope that’s so. How long has your sojourn here been? Do you expect to be here much longer?”

"A little over a week," she says. "I plan to remain until... until I make some headway in my Lyctoral studies, and until I feel emotionally composed enough for what lies ahead. I merely embarrassed myself with you; there are dangers in Canaan House who would be less forgiving," she says, with a wan smile.

“I hate to hear that. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you. That’s what meeting people at Milliways is for - giving you a leg up when your enemies have no clue you’ve allies in unusual places.”

Her smile remains a subtle curve of the black lines of her mouth, but solidifies a bit from the waxy grimness. "You are very kind. I am loath to feed anyone else into the maw of Canaan House and its monster, however."

"Truly, you help me greatly by your kindness. It allows me to recover my equilibrium."

“If you should get bored at any point, I’m also good with diversions. I took Wei Wuxian on a trip to London Above, where I hadn’t been in ever so long, and I was reminded how fun it is to explore places with friends.”

"I would like to test my ability to activate my construct from outside of Milliways without returning to Canaan House," she says wistfully. "But I fear most locations on a living planet will not have sufficient thanergy for me to even try."

“I wonder - what about the Underside? It’s not a living world like the Topside is, and I know Wei Wuxian’s necromancy worked both places. We could try it, anyway, and if nothing else, I could show you part of the world I’m from.”

"We can," she says, brightening. "It won't hurt me, either way. I don't really know what it would feel like--I have never been to a living planet--but Cohort necromancers do it."

"That's brilliant. I'm curious to see what you think about the Underside, because we're such a limbo place. Are you busy now? I only ask because for the first time ever, time isn't passing when I come here."