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[we_bring_hell]

Harrow knows every inch of the Ninth; knows it better than anyone else, for is she not the one who climbed the Anastasian Monument?

Perhaps that is how she found this door.

Squinting in the brutal light and slightly heavier gravity, Harrow Nova runs through her rapier forms. She is small, hardly the typical necro suitcase of the Ninth, but she is lithe and fast and ruthless. She is slim but muscular in cast-off dusty blacks; her abbreviated, pinned back robe flares behind her like raven wings.

She's been wielding the black blade for seven years, but the chain in her offhand is new and she has to integrate it into her repertoire. The chain is pure black Drearburh steel, every link a death's head, the weighted end a carved butterfly of pelvis in lead-filled bone. It is heavy--she is not--and once it gains momentum it moves like a living thing, an unforgiving dance partner.

She will master it. She will supplant the cavalier primary. She will accompany the Reverend Daughter to the First House.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

She allows the momentum of the chain to carry her away, somersaulting after it with a flourish of her rapier.

"You aren't the one heading to the First House, are you?" she spits out when her feet touch the ground again.

[lightamidchaos]

"Who is asking?"

He may find the Ninth reprehensible for various reasons, but he knows enough of its traditions to be able to tell from her paint - such as it is - a great deal about her status.

(The Eighth has made it their business to keep track of certain things about the Ninth House, after all.)

"Certainly no one of consequence," he sniffs.

[we_bring_hell]

"The cavalier primary of the Ninth," she lies impassively. She allows the chain to dissipate its energy and hooks it on her belt.

"I'm trying to figure out if it would matter at all if I killed you."

[lightamidchaos]

"Ridiculous," he snaps.

"As if you could."

[we_bring_hell]

She has not sheathed her rapier, and turns to present a narrow profile.

"You're here without your cavalier, Eighth slime," she says. "What are you going to do without your inbred battery?"

[lightamidchaos]

He is going to kill Su She.

"And as if I need a cavalier to deal with the likes of you," he snarls. "Do you even know anything?"

(Are you sure you know how it happens?)

[we_bring_hell]

"I know I am the greatest cavalier of my generation," she snarls. "I am the unfulfilled vow and the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull." Her eyes burn like the searchlights in the parking lot of hell, in the black pits of her paint.

"I will accompany the Reverend Daughter to Canaan House. You are either a part of that destiny, or you're nothing at all."

[lightamidchaos]

"You know nothing," he sneers. "You are not qualified to speak to me."

A silver-and-white sword appears at his side, and disappears again. He does not seem to notice it.

"You are nothing. Not like this."

[we_bring_hell]

She growls, deep in her chest, and flings herself forward, point first.

The weapon handles perfectly, like the dream weapon every duelist imagines; an extension of her arm. But like a dream as well, the distance between them stretches to infinity.

[lightamidchaos]

Perhaps some of the reason that the distance between them refuses to narrow is that he spreads his arms, white robes flowing, and somehow leaps backward and up, at least twenty feet into the air, then hovers there.

A stringed instrument appears before him, floating in midair, and he strums a single harsh chord. Blue waves of light race outward, striking the ground between them and exploding the dirt upward.

[we_bring_hell]

That's impossible, she thinks, and then the ground explodes between them.

"What are you?!"

[lightamidchaos]

"The Second Jade of Lan," he tells her, as a strange look crosses his face.

(Could it be -- concern? But why would an adept of the Eighth be concerned about anyone from the Ninth?)

The music flowing from the instrument in front of him changes, becoming clear and pure.

"What are you, Ninth?"

[we_bring_hell]

The music calms and clears her mind... opens a path for a terrible weight to crash into her.


"I am the Ninth Saint to serve the King Undying," she screams. "And it means nothing."

[lightamidchaos]

"This isn't how it happens."

He floats back to the earth, landing lightly, and takes one hand from the instrument, reaching out to her.

[we_bring_hell]

She sobs and clings to his hand like a drowning woman.

(Hand in unlovable hand)

And that's when the woman in the hazmat suit steps out of thin air and fires a shotgun into the Second Jade of Lan.

[lightamidchaos]

He spits out a mouthful of blood, soaking the front of his robes in crimson, and goes down hard on one knee, head hanging and hair falling forward around his face.

(The instrument has vanished as though it were never there at all.)

His grip on her hand, on her wrist, is strong and desperately tight, even as blood begins to run down his arm. He does not let go.

"Harrow--!"

[we_bring_hell]

The woman in the hazmat suit takes a step closer, and snarls: "Wake."

And she does.

[lightamidchaos]

He spits another mouthful of vibrant, violent red and hisses up at her through bloodied teeth.

"Not ... not yours."

"Harrow -- come back--"

[we_bring_hell]

"It will be."

The spectre in the hazmat suit steps closer, reloading.

"You're not one of her ghosts. You have no idea what you're meddling in." She snaps the shotgun closed.

"Believe me, they deserve it. I'm exactly what they deserve."

[lightamidchaos]

"I make my own choices."

He struggles to rise, planting his other hand flat against the ground as he tries to push himself upward.

"I will not let it happen."

(Again, echoes in the air around them. Failure. Again.)

"You do not get to decide."

[we_bring_hell]

Blue light sizzles around the woman as she steps closer, devouring the hazmat suit. The helmet melts away, revealing brown skin and red hair and a vermilion mark between her brows. The baggy garish clothes give way to robes embroidered with white peonies.

But the sword isn't right; heavy, black, straight, double-edged. She stands over Lan Wangji and raises it.

"I don't relish killing another child of Eden. But what would you do?"

"If you had one shot--one opportunity--to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment, would you capture it? Or just let it slip?"

[lightamidchaos]

Wisps of black smoke writhe around the blade, streaming from the hilt to twist and wrap around her hand as she holds it above him.

He stares flatly up at her, gaze clear and unafraid and challenging.

"I would act."

A beat.

"Do what you must."

[acrookedpath]

The blade hums low and sweet with the sheer power radiating from it, drowning out every other noise. The air trembles with with the sound. The dark smoke thickens like a sheath around the sword, and then --

And then the sound changes.

It is not a monotonous bone-rattling hum, but a melody that wicks the energy from the blade as soon as it forms, pulling it toward Lan Wangji. The black cloud wraps around him like a shield, an embrace; within seconds it blots him entirely from view.

Lan Zhan. Hold on.

The music arcs higher to a piercing clarion call, grabbing hold of this living being who should not be wandering the world of ghosts.

When it cuts out, and the smoke abruptly collapses into nothing, Lan Wangji is gone.

[we_bring_hell]

His soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping--she snarls, and walks away from the dreamscape, suddenly two-dimensional and empty.

Her face knots in fury as she heads for the heart of the mind she's invaded. Enough fucking around.

(No more games, I'ma change what you call rage
Tear this motherfuckin' roof off like two dogs caged
I was playin' in the beginnin', the mood all changed)

Kia hua ko te pai.