(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]

She nods, and strides towards the stairs. She's cradling her elbow in her hand.

As they move down the stairs, she can feel the ambient thanergy climbing; it reminds her of her ears popping as the shuttle left the atmosphere on Drearburh. The fog is pouring down the stairs with them. "It feels less... angry than I'd expect from a mass uprising."

The scuttling sounds grow louder as they descend, and then, as they reach the catacombs, they stop abruptly. Eerie silence falls over the catacombs. Even Harrow's night vision isn't equal to the dark depths.

[herald_ingress]

Bones are embedded in patterns throughout the arch of the lintel, and the catacombs are dark. Darker, perhaps, than she remembers.

She looks round and strides over to a torch mounted on the wall. She takes out her tinderbox and sets it alight.

"We can carry that with us. Will you need both your hands free should there be a bother?"

[we_bring_hell]

A bother.

A sharp-edged smile crosses Harrow's painted face. The other woman's bravery and toughness sparks something, half memory and half desire.

"You should keep your hands free," she says. "I will not need my left hand as much." She holds out her hand as she looks around. "What a beautiful space."

But disturbed. The energy here is restive, turbulent.

[herald_ingress]

"I think I'll keep my sword in hand," she says, handing over the torch. "I don't have magic to call on should I need it."

But she absolutely has her sword.

[we_bring_hell]

As they proceed into the darkness, the torch illuminates arches and walls with bones missing from the mosaics, gaps in the stone like missing teeth. She inspects the ossuary heaps of sorted bones, which are comfortable and homelike to her. But as she runs her eyes over them she feels a pang of concern.

"There are bones missing from here," she says. "Or quite a few people were buried missing large chunks of themselves. I can sense... three hundred complete skeletons, but about a dozen with missing bones, quite random. If whole skeletons are absent, of course, I would not know."

"But my guess is that a skeleton or skeletons have been assembled haphazardly from bones that don't belong together." Phalanges scrape over stone, quite close by, and Harrow swallows. She is beginning to sweat blood from asserting her power so wantonly on a thalergetic world and her elbow is burning.

[herald_ingress]

"That would make sense. I doubt very much if these remains were interred at the same place in London Above. More like this is where they've collected once they've been forgotten."

Or dug up wantonly for construction in times before anyone cared overly much about the bones being laid to rest.

"Is there something that can be done? Or should be done?"

...And is the sweating blood normal, because Ingress is getting a little worried.

[we_bring_hell]

"They should be at rest," she says, swinging the torch sharply but failing to catch anything in the light. In the mists, the halo of light is short, and the scrape of bone on stone moves too quickly.

"And they have appropriated bones that are not their own--they probably lacked the power to free themselves from the niches above, but these were just lying around. That is not usually approved of."

"Revenants are usually limited to their own power--what Wei Wuxian calls resentful energy. But if they kill, they can feed on that thanergy."

Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.

"And--I believe we are surrounded."

[herald_ingress]

"Hmm. So we're in a bother?"

Ingress doesn't seem too worried, but she slips into a guarded stance, ready to act.

[we_bring_hell]

"Perhaps even a dither," she says, fighting to keep her right hand extended. "Perhaps we should retrace our steps towards the stairs."

[herald_ingress]

"That we can do, I should think."

She begins backing up, her eyes fixed on the darkness ahead as the scuttling intensifies.

"I know I said I wouldn't coddle, but are you doing okay? Please let me know if I may assist you in any way."

[we_bring_hell]

"Thanergy is the energy of death. Handling it always has repercussions for a mortal being's health," she says tersely.

"You will know when I have overextended myself. My nose is not even bleeding yet."

They are making good time back towards the stairs, despite moving backwards. The scuttling remains in front of them, and Harrow has the uncomfortable feeling of being herded.

Her bootheel strikes the last stair. At the same time, a curiously light footfall lands on a step above, and then another. Something is coming down to meet them.

[herald_ingress]

Ingress will scoop Harrow up bodily and fling her over her shoulder, if she has to. The girl is light enough that Ingress bets she can both carry her and fight or open a way out.

"Right. So there's something in front of us and something behind. We can always go sideways, if I can touch a surface."

But where's the fun in that?

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "Let's wait and see what's coming," she says.

The scuttling has grown no closer, only tapdancing around the edge of the light in a way calculated to unnerve.

The footsteps thump closer... closer... closer... revealing a skeleton that has apparently gathered the energy to claw itself out of its niche above. It leans forward, mandible dangling, points of light burning in its eye sockets. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it says.

"It... it wants to speak," Harrow says. "Take the torch." Her right arm is too numb to go for her athame.

[herald_ingress]

She takes it, holding it high.

“Oh, the poor thing,” she says. Ingress has empathy for all manner of things.

She keeps her sword unsheathed, however.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow swiftly drags the athame from her belt, raises her aching, distant right arm, and slashes across her fingertips; the leather still covers the palm of her hand. It stings in a bright silver way that grounds her, and she is able to manipulate her bloody hand to reach out and grab its jaw, fingers curling over decayed and broken teeth.

"It says--"

[herald_ingress]

Ingress advances, alarmed, not so much by the blood magic - that’s normal to her - but more because Harrow has stuck her hand in a skeletal mouth. She doesn’t think the teeth would be sharp enough to bite off fingers, but this is a scenario she has never dealt with before.

The revenant moans, a shattered husky scrape of sound that spills chills down Ingress’ spine.

[we_bring_hell]

She sticks her athame back on her belt and puts her hand on Ingress's shoulder.

"Tag. Found you."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress cocks her head, baffled for a moment. She looks from Harrow to the revenant and back to Harrow once more.

Then she bursts out laughing. There may be a snort on the next inhaled breath.

“Temple and Arch. Oh. I’m not laughing at its state of being, which is tragic, but that... was not what I expected. Tag I’m it, indeed.”

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow does not laugh. But she does smile, an authentic, unmistakable smile, and not about killing something.

She touches the skull like a benediction, and it stumps back up the stairs. Behind them, receding skittering sounds as the bones return to their shelves and mosaics. "She played here too, as a child. And heard generations of children playing--and longed. Your words, and no doubt my presence, drove her to take finally action."

Harrow wavers, and sits suddenly on a step, rubbing her thumbs on her temples. The right leaves smears of blood. "Lady Ingress, only you could wake a revenant motivated not by rage but by a longing for fun."

[herald_ingress]

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she says, sitting down beside Harrow.

She can tell Harrow’s going to need a moment, and that’s fine. Ingress has moments to give. She rummages in a pocket and fishes out a handkerchief, offering it to her if she wants it.

“Well, if I’m ever bones like that, I hope someone comes along who’ll let me laugh one more time.”

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow pats her face carefully, absorbing the blood without disturbing her makeup too much, although the skull is somewhat blurry. The slices across her fingertips scab over under her imperative gaze, although it sends another pang up her arm.

She sags against the cold stone, which feels amazing on her hot face. "There is a skeleton inside us all," she says, a little light-headed. "And one day yours will be mine, Griddle."

[herald_ingress]

This is all probably normal. Right? And not a sign of a medical emergency in the making. Harrow needs water, probably, and rest under warm blankets.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ingress agrees, and she pats soothing circles on Harrow’s bony back. She feels for this strong prickly girl who tries so hard to have edges that viciously slice whoever comes into contact with her. It’s a shame that blood loss and the draining effects of one’s magic are what it takes for those edges to soften.

Ingress will never tell her about her moment of weakness and slip of tongue.

After a few silent moments, Ingress lowers her head to speak softly in Harrow’s ear. “Harrow, I can take you back to Milliways from here, if you’d like. Or we can wait here a little longer until you’re ready to move on.”

She’s not sure why, exactly, that she presses a little kiss to Harrow’s temple. It just seems like the right thing to do.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is cold to the touch; icy, even. Ingress would have no way of knowing isn't normal; in a thanergy-rich environment an active necromancer is a furnace, and despite her thin skin and sharp angles Harrow could usually boil a kettle on her back, if that was her idea of a good time. But right now she's an iceberg.

She does not react to the rubbing of her back; perhaps it does not penetrate her hazy perceptions that it is coming from a living source. But upon the kiss her face bursts into flames, ears fire-engine red, and her black eyes go wide.

"Y-yes. Milliways, please," she stammers. There's an ache in her stomach and from parts of her body that Harrow tries to forget exist at the best of times, like her heart.

[herald_ingress]

"Okay, up you get," she says, hoisting the smaller girl into her arms. She supports her shoulders and head with one arm, with the other scooped under her bent knees.

Harrow weighs nothing. Ingress frowns. She's so slight.

"I've got you, and you'll be back in a tic, alright?" Her voice is cheery even though her furrowed brow isn't going anywhere. She carries Harrow the few steps to the wall, shifting her in her arms so she can reach out and press her palm against it.

She steps through and into Milliways.

"I'll help you to your room," she says, and her tone brooks no opposition! Except for the pesky fact that she doesn't know which one it is. She should have gone up with her before, but she'd had no idea this would happen. "What's your room number?"

[we_bring_hell]

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.