(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

[herald_ingress]

"I thought it might be. Marylebone is a little city of cemeteries and crypts. Sorry, Portico, I can't take you with us today, but I promise I'll come soon and we'll have an adventure of our own, all right?"

"That's fine," he says, hiding his disappointment fairly well. "Tell Clement I said hi."

[we_bring_hell]

"A necropolis," she says, slanting a look at Portico. "That is the word for such a thing."

"I am positively dying to see it."

[herald_ingress]

"Whenever you're ready, we can go," Ingress says.

[we_bring_hell]

She inclines her head. "Let us proceed." She nods to Portico. "Be well, Arch."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress sweeps Portico into a hug, kissing him on the cheek while he giggles. "I pinkie swear promise, adventures will be ours. Tell Tom and Door I said hi, and give Egress a snuggle for me."

It's doesn't take long to escort Harrow back to the front gallery, keeping a side eye on her the whole way, and then out into a dark alley in London Below. The bricks of the alley are scorched from the Great Fire, and you can still smell the smoke.

Ingress pauses a moment. "We have about four doors to open to get there. Everything fine?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes," she says firmly. "Lady Ingress, you must not be so solicitous. I was disoriented. Briefly. I am sensitive to the energies of life and death and this world's energy is--different."

"All is well now."

[herald_ingress]

"It's less me being solicitous and more ensuring that someone's momentary disorientation doesn't lead to them getting devoured by any number of things here that seek out weaknesses like momentary disorientation."

She seems chipper enough as she says this, even though it's absolutely true.

"But fine, I won't coddle in the least from here on out. I'm sure you can hold you own."

[we_bring_hell]

"I have done so thus far," she says curtly, although in truth she is nervous; she has never been so low on power, except in interplanetary space, and there was no danger there.

(And Griddle was there.)

"Lead on, please."

[herald_ingress]

"Absolutely," she says, hands behind her back as she strides down the alley, a bright flash of white in the dimness. Rats scuttle along the ground on their own important tasks, and from above, one can hear the flapping of wings. The sound indicates creatures much larger than pigeons, but that could just be the echo.

They step out of the alley into a street littered with rubble. Ingress picks a path through it, and she presses her hand against the opposite wall.

"Come on, then, Reverend Daughter," she teases. "Keep up."

[we_bring_hell]

She scurries after her, stepping gingerly over the rubble. She's not a natural hiker, and she keeps her hand on her athame, which doesn't help her balance.

She catches up with Ingress, and with raised eyebrows, lays her hand on the taller, older woman's shoulder.

[herald_ingress]

When they step through the wall, it's into a yellowish grey glow of daytime filtered through thick fog. It stinks of exhaust and wood smoke, and the air through which it wafts is clammy and cold.

"Damn it." She grabs Harrow by the hand and spins around to the wall from which they stepped, pulling Harrow through the first door she feels. They step into a Victorian mews that is strewn with drying laundry on clotheslines.

"Sorry about that," she says, letting go of her hand. "That was a killer fog. It floats about sometimes."

[we_bring_hell]

She raises her eyebrows again. "A troublesome thing, it sounds. How do those who cannot Open deal with it?"

[herald_ingress]

"They either die or they don't. That's the way of the Underside."

[we_bring_hell]

"Fair enough," she says mildly. "Poisonous gas? Or something more corrosive?"

[herald_ingress]

"Pollution. Tom remembers it happening, before he came to Milliways. Thousands of people in London Above died over a few days. Then it drifted to the Underside, and here it is still and will always be."

She sighs, getting her bearings once more. It's been a while since she's wandered this long through the Underside, and even when she was younger, she was never completely alone. Not that she's frightened or in any way worried for either her safety or Harrow's. But it would be wise to be more careful, just in case. This isn't Valdemar or London Above, and while she has her sword, that won't help against killer fogs.

"Right. Onward."

She'll need to add one more opening to navigate around the original route than she'd planned. They walk through a grassy meadow at twilight and then into another shadowed cobblestone street with rows of houses that no longer exist in the world above. From this street, Ingress opens into a cold cave strewn with animal bones, neolithic stone workings, and ancient dust.

"Marylebone is next," she says, placing her hand on the chilled wall.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is interested in these bones, but drags herself away to take Ingress's hand.

"I shiver with anticip--"

[herald_ingress]

She squeezes her hand once and grins as she brings Harrow to the complex of the Marylebone.

A large stone church perches on a small rise above meandering rows upon rows of monuments and raised crypts, jumbled gravestones and obelisks reaching towards a starless sky. Mausoleums and statuary dot the landscape.

[we_bring_hell]

"--ation. Ah."

God, she loves a tomb. She can feel the thanergy of a thousand years flowing into her. Deer runs; bear-baiting; churchyards. She raises her hands, wrapped in leather, and feels the preserved skin plastic and obedient to her will. It boils back from her phalanges, creating fingerless gloves, and she kneels to plunge her light brown fingers into the gravid earth.

"Marvelous."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress beams.

"Oh, good. I hoped it would be to your liking. The Marylebone, Dessa, is a close ally of the House of Arch; my foster brother, Clement of Green Park, married her when she ascended and became her consort."

Ingress leaves off that the former Marylebone came to an early and unexpected end. She suspects Hunter assassinated her as part of her responsibility to the House, but she never pressed Door for details. She knows how beastly the Marylebone had been to her, and, well. Sometimes terrible things happen for good reasons.

"If you'd like to practice your powers, we ought to at least let her ladyship know we're here, but Dessa won't mind."

[we_bring_hell]

"This is the first place I've stood in this world that felt--right," she says, rising from the ground and brushing the earth from her fingers. In the starless dark so reminiscent of home, the black iris of her black eyes widens.

She pulls herself into her most formal and correct posture, the one that makes easy to understand her diminutive height and wraith-like proportions. She unzips her hoodie and lets the white bones of her corselet shine in the dimness.

She touches Ingress's shoulder. "Is my makeup in place?"

[herald_ingress]

"Yes. You look very proper, not a smudge."

Ingress regards her a moment, realizing how more fully herself Harrow suddenly seems. How at ease, even with the formal stance.

"Quite lovely," she assures her, because it is the truth.

[we_bring_hell]

She thinks: A slightly cruel jest, for Ingress. But then, perhaps she is owed for being so prickly.

She smiles thinly, brushes an invisible imperfection from her black jeans. "The Marylebone, is her title? Let us present ourselves."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress almost lets a worried look cross her face, but she wards it off with a non-coddling smile.

"She holds court in the sanctuary. This way."

Ingress strides off again, letting Harrow follow her up the rise. She greets the knights standing guard at the portcullis between the graveyard and the churchyard, and they let them through.

The inside of the church contains a long rectangular table with many chairs - a table for state occasions and diplomatic sessions, with nothing to do with any kind of worship. There is nothing on the altar but a tattered and very comfortable looking plaid armchair, in which a dark skinned young woman in a yellow dress and bright red lipstick sits, crooning to the young man kneeling at her feet, his hands wrapped around hers. The way their faces tilt towards each other, how they smile without speaking - it is clear that they are very much in love.

"Marylebone, oh magnanimous and thrice-blessed lady, I request an audience," Ingress calls out, and she waves at the couple, who turn to face her with smiles.

Clement rises to his feet, letting go of his wife's hands rather reluctantly, even though he hasn't seen Ingress for a long time. They greet with a hug and Dessa watches them fondly.

"I suppose I shall grant you one, Lady of the House of Arch," she smiles. "It's lovely to see you, Ingress. Who've you brought?"

"Marylebone, I am pleased to introduce my friend, the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She's from a world beyond London Above, one that is not dissimilar to your fiefdom."

[we_bring_hell]

A lot of smiling is happening; Harrow smiles infrequently, and never laughs. What she does do is bow deeply, exactly as correct--no more and no less--than her bow to Portico. In her most sepulchral tones:

"I am Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Black Vestals of Drearburh, heir of the Ninth House. The Ninth House greets the Marylebone with all honors, in the name of the King Undying of the Nine Houses. May there be friendship between us."

"I am a keeper of Tombs and a master of crypts, born to cold and dark and stone and ash, far from the light of Dominicus. I had not hoped to see a true necropolis here, in the verdant cradle of our race. It has been to me a little homecoming. I thank you for the privilege."

[herald_ingress]

Dessa raises her eyebrows, impressed. Such manners!

"Now that is a way to be greeted. Well met, Heir of the Ninth House," she says, nodding in deference to Harrow. "You would indeed seem to be in the right place, and I welcome you."

Ingress steps forward. "Marylebone, I was wondering whether we might have your permission to enter the crypt and, perhaps, the catacombs. We'll leave everything as we found it."

"Do not stray past the first level, of course," the Marylebone warns. "Please enjoy what my fiefdom has to offer. However Clement and I can't go with you as we have, ahem, pressing business to attend to."

Clement's ears go pink, and Ingress hides her snicker. She knows all about this kind of pressing business. Once she grew up, she realized that Tom and Door often had these kind of "appointments" on a semi-regular basis.

"We'll be fine on our own. Thank you, so much, for your kindness and welcome." Ingress drops into a curtsy, gives Clement a teasing side eye, and says with a perfectly straight and innocent face, "May your business be conducted smoothly and with great success. I shall make time to visit another time, when we our schedules match better."

Dessa gives them a final nod, and Ingress regards Harrow once again. "Shall we?"