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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"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."

"I am at liberty," she says. "What is appropriate dress?"

She is wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck, and ankle boots with silver spikes.

"Will my makeup cause comment? I have a veil." She is fluttering slightly, although she tries to hide it by being sterner.

The fluttering is pretty adorable.

"I think you'll blend in fine. Your outfit would work in London Above, if not the makeup, but in the Underside, no one will bat an eye. Have you visited any other worlds yet?"

She shakes her head, and closes her journal.

"I have not. ...I must return to my room briefly, if you don't mind waiting--or come up if you choose."

"I can finish my chips and shake, and wait for you here, if that's all right."

"By all means." She gathers her journal and arm and departs. She returns a few moments later, having made an emergency outfit upgrade.

She is zipping a black hoodie over her corselet of rib bones, and switched to leather gloves. Her silver athame is sheathed at her waist. The edges of her skull paint have also been sharpened and shaded.

"It is underground, correct?"

"Well, yes and no. Some of it physically is located underground, like the trains and caves and the like. But think of it more as figuratively underground. It's where things, where time and memories and people get forgotten and end up. It's kind of like a reservoir for what went before."

Everyone has a black hoodie except her for these excursions. She needs to look into acquiring one.

"I have an old friend who'd say you're rocking that look, which means you look very nice, Harrow, definitely ready for an adventure. I'm feeling under dressed, but I like the black and white theme we'll have."

"Excellent - I do not favor brightly lit areas," she says, which, fucking duh.

"I am glad my appearance is -- appropriate," she adds awkwardly.

"Sometimes we might happen on a sunny patch, but London Below leans towards the murky."

She'll make sure they take the shadowed paths as much as possible. That won't be hard.

"Okay, so first thing, for me to bring you with me, you'll need to hang onto me when I find doors to open. You can take my arm, if you'd like, or hang onto my shoulder, hold my hand, whatever. Once we're through you can let go and be on your own, but it is a bit of physical contact. Is that all right?"

"I--of course,"she says awkwardly. "Do I need to remove my gloves?"

"Nope, just hang on. Tom never remembers to warn people, so I make sure I do. Oh, um. Other things. When we go through the House of Arch painting, it might feel weird, and you'll catch glimpses of our memories. But they're usually good ones."

She grins, excited. "Shall we?"

She takes Ingress' arm and tries to ignore the confused flutter of physical contact with another human being.

"Lead on."

She leads them to the painting of rabbits playing poker, which has grown on her, because the rabbits are really cute. She presses her palm to the canvas and opens, bringing Harrow into the front gallery of the House of Arch.

"Our house is an associative house that my grandfather built. Each room is separate but they're collected all together, and you get to them by going through the paintings that make up their portals. If you're an Opener, it's easy, but when we have guests living here, Tom uses magic to make rooms accessible. We used to have lots of guests from Milliways living here when I was small."

Harrow doesn't catch all of that. That's because she's reeling.

She was prepared for, perhaps, the deep hungry emptiness of space. The lack of the thanergy on which she depends. But this is something else.

This is not lifeless space; this is not even a colony world, ten thousand years old and barely terraformed. This is Earth, the mother of all, and on this globe is laid four billion years of life and death in an eternal ebb and flow.

There isn't a single planet in her world with this kind of history; the First House itself had all its life scythed away in one blow; it has no more life or even thanergetic unlife than any of the worlds rekindled in that same era.

She has never felt anything so complex and busy, swarming around her, a mosaic of thalergy and thanergy. She has never even imagined it. Her knees buckle and she leans heavily on Ingress.

“Oh, oh, Harrow, are you all right?” Ingress wraps an arm around the younger woman’s waist, supporting her.

“I’m so sorry. Did you see something terrible? Those things happened so long ago, it’s only ever recent memories. Usually.”

It would make sense, she supposes, if someone like Harrow glimpsed the murders of her family instead of the more mundane and pleasant memories that most guests encounter.

Harrow is almost weightless; smaller than Ingress in build, and half-starved.

She shivers. At the touch, perhaps; also because she's cold. She is used to generating her own heat. "No--I did not see anything. Everything is fine."

She finds her feet as quickly as she can. "It is simply that I have never been on a living planet before. It's so old," she says, still sifting through the Cambrian explosion.

"I do not think I can do much magic at all. At least not here."

Ingress doesn’t let go of Harrow quite yet, but she relaxes her grip.

“Do you need anything? A glass of water? We can sit down a moment, if you’d like; I’ll take you to our library.”

"You must not worry over me," she says, moving delicately out of the curve of Ingress's arm. "I will be fine."

"But I would be pleased to see your library, I'm sure."

"Then I would be pleased to show it to you. This way," she says, offering Harrow her arm.

The library is just as 1970s themed as we last saw it, wood paneling wrapping around the bookshelves and avocado green sofas. There are a few more stacks of books on the floor, and beside one, a small, dark-headed boy sits, his back leaning against a sofa, engrossed in a book with dragons flying in lazy loops on the cover. He looks up when Ingress and Harrow enter the room.

"Auntie Ingress!" He puts the book aside and scrambles over to her, hugging her tightly around the middle. He looks about seven years old and has opalescent eyes like his mother (and Auntie) and a serious set to those eyes in a pale face that comes straight from his father.

"Hey, Portico. How is my best nephew?"

"I'm your only nephew," he says, looking up at her, laughing at their running joke. His eyes glance over to Harrow. Taking notice of the stranger, he stands up straight, prepared to greet her as a future Lord of the House of Arch, as he's been taught.

"Harrow, this is my nephew, Portico. He's Tom and Door's son." Ingress says, smiling at her grave little nephew. Portico can sometimes be too serious for his own good. "Portico, this is my friend, Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus."

If he's daunted by the name, he doesn't show it. He gives Harrow a bow. "Welcome to the House of Arch."

She bows gravely. "Lord Portico."

"The Ninth House greets the House of Arch with all honors, in the name of the King Undying of the Nine Houses. May there be friendship between us."

His eyes light up, pleased, because clearly this is someone who knows the proper etiquette that Portico already realizes is Very Important (perhaps even more than his parents believe it to be).

But he’s also seven, and he gives them a shy smile that reveals a missing front tooth.

“Did you come to read books?” he asks, and the “to me?” that is left off comes through clearly without being said.

Ingress ruffles his hair. “I’m taking Harrow on an adventure but she wanted to stop by the library first to rest a moment. We’re doing whatever she needs to do.”

Ingress glances at Harrow, concern flickering across her face.

She gives Ingress a stern Look. "I am quite well. I am... Interested in libraries. Are you as well?" she asks the child.

She tries to stiffen her spine, which is another thing that was easier with a ready supply of thanergy.

Ingress shakes her head, one side of her mouth quirking upwards. She’s a protector, Harrow, let her do her job!

Portico, meanwhile, responds, “Yes, very much. One day I’ll have a study like my papa with all of my own favorite books.”

He cocks his head to one side, curious. “Is your face painted because your king requires it or because you like skeletons?”

"Both," she says solemnly. "I think skeletons are fascinating. We all have one, and it obeys our commands."

"When I was around your age, I began to control more than one."

“That’s cool,” he replies. “Mum and Papa took me to see giant skeletons at a museum. Papa could have made them move, but he said he shouldn’t use magic there.”

Portico would have really liked to see that T-Rex skeleton walk around.

“May I call you Harrow like Ingress does? Your name is very long.”

Ingress wrinkles her nose in amusement. Portico is such a sweet kid, but he hasn’t developed filters yet.