(no subject)

[we_bring_hell]

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.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"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.

[herald_ingress]

“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.”

[we_bring_hell]

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."

[herald_ingress]

“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.”

[we_bring_hell]

"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."

[herald_ingress]

“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_bring_hell]

"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."

[herald_ingress]

"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."

[we_bring_hell]

"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.

[herald_ingress]

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?"

[we_bring_hell]

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."

[herald_ingress]

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

[we_bring_hell]

"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?"

[herald_ingress]

"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."

[we_bring_hell]

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

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

[herald_ingress]

"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?"

[we_bring_hell]

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

[herald_ingress]

"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?"

[we_bring_hell]

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

"Lead on."

[herald_ingress]

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."

[we_bring_hell]

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.

[herald_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.

[we_bring_hell]

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."

[herald_ingress]

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.”

[we_bring_hell]

"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."