(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. "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.

[herald_ingress]

"Got it."

Ingress stifles a grin because that was adorably dramatic and this is a serious situation. Or maybe it's not so serious, and honestly, Ingress is fine with that.

She strides up the stairs, Harrow nothing in her arms, and locates the room after not too long. She's not as familiar with upstairs as she is downstairs and the grounds.

Ingress shifts her a little. "Do you want me to set you down and help you in? Or shall I just barge into your room on my own?"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow stirs, forced to confront the bewildering reality of Ingress's biceps. "No, the bone wards will murder you," she says hurriedly. "I'm all right, really. There is plenty of thanergy here."

[herald_ingress]

"I don't actually believe that, but since you're here, I'll pretend you're alright."

She sets Harrow carefully down, winding her arm around her waist to support her. Ingress wants to make sure she can stand on her own two feet and actually get through her own door without falling over.

"Got it?"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow wasn't kidding when she told Ingress everyone has a skeleton inside them. Harrow has been controlling skeletons outside of her body as long as she's been controlling the one inside her body, and she's learned a lot of tricks that go both ways.

She straightens up, moving slowly and deliberately, every limb on the end of a thanergetic puppet string. She only needs to do it long enough to quiet the wards and fumble the iron key in the door.

Harrow walks inside smoothly, and pauses; turning her head is a little symphony of muscle and bone interactions. "Thank you," she says, almost shyly. Nothing of the imperious Ninth House heir now.

Through the door two beds are visible, perpindicular in an upside-down T. One of them is white and fresh and untouched, while the other has apparently never been made. On the wall is a framed picture of a tower, the edges perfectly straight.

[herald_ingress]

"You're very welcome, Harrow." she says, leaning one arm against the door. "Any time. I'm sorry you had difficulties since it was fun taking you to show off London Below. Do you need me to send anything up for you?"

She pauses. Does she need Ingress for anything?

[we_bring_hell]

"It's quite all right," she says. "I really am already feeling better. It's not uncommon for an adept to push their luck like that, and I was on a living planet for the first time. It's almost to be expected."

The paint is bitten away from one corner of her lip, pink skin showing through. "I don't need anything," she says outloud. Her black eyes tell a different story, but it's mixed with something like fear and not far from panic. "I very much enjoyed visiting, and I hope I can again. Please give my apologies to the Marylebone."

[herald_ingress]

"Definitely, to both. Be well, Harrow, and see you soon."

Ingress waves and smiles before she turns around and walks down the hall. She looks back over her shoulder once, a worried expression on her face once more, but she leaves Harrow be.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow closes the door with unseemly haste, and presses her paint-greasy forehead against it.




She needs a shower. A water shower, not a sonic, and cold. With harsh lye soap. She'll feel better when the blood is washed off. And the top layer of skin, maybe.

She gets halfway to the bathroom before dizziness over takes her again, and she sits down abruptly on the perpendicular cavalier's bed. Her hand presses against the crisp white sheet, leaving an accusatory pawprint of gravedirt and blood and smeared off paint, and she flees from it.

Later, after her shower, she will strip and make the bed again and listen to Tallahassee at a window-rattling volume.