we_bring_hell | (no subject)

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You would need an advanced degree in Nonagesamics to realize that Harrowhark is ecstatically happy this morning, but even the layman can tell that her usual spikes are retracted somewhat. Not the spikes on her boots--Gideon liked these boots, and she has no intention of wearing anything else for a while. But the metaphorical spikes.

Aside from her boots she is back in her standard habit--black trousers, black long-sleeve shirt with the high collar. No gloves. Her hair is freshly cropped back to her scalp. Her face is painted with exceptional care, in what Harrow considers the sexiest pattern, because Harrowhark has opinions about things like that. This one is called The Chain and has considerable, immodest flourishes. She has edged the perimeter of the painted skull with midnight purples and deep blood reds, an even greater departure from propriety.

She is writing in her journal, and since she writes in code there is no way anyone can tell she has doodled One Flesh One End approximately one hundred times. She has been eating oatmeal, and by God she even ate the raisins.

Things are good. For now, for once, things are good.

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"Yes," the Aes Sedai confirms. "Earth as the anchor and bridge, both. Air to define the opening, and Spirit as you have described."

"I think I have it," she says. "Is there a special closing procedure for it? I know you said it has perils if it runs out of control."

"Release the weave," Moiraine tells her. "As it dissipates, the gateway will no longer remain open."

"The particular dangers are more from trying to stop a gateway that is in the process of closing, from crossing through an unstable gateway, or in being unable to properly locate and set it so that it is clearly defined. The first may cut you in half, while the latter two may surge the power through the channeler, sometimes others nearby as well. There have been violent results."

"I see," she says. "So the greater danger is in making a mistake in establishing the portal."

"I have additional questions, but I do not think I need to see the weave for them."

"Then release your link, and we will cross through, so that you may experience that."

She nods and does so, her senses realigning with her own body.

She rises from the rock where she had sunk to sit, and regards the portal. "I am ready when you are."

"How much similarity needs to exist between the two places to establish the link? Is there a minimum?"

"Not so much as you might think," Moiraine tells her. As she talks, she ties off the weave, creating the ability for the gateway to stand on its own temporarily, and releases saidar. Anticipating the question, she says, "I could have held the Source while I crossed, but I did not want to interfere with your observation."

"The process of using Spirit to establish the connection can itself help to create the similarity needed. Once you have created a gateway to a location, you will also have the knowledge of that place needed to create a gateway from that location."

She brushes her hands down her skirts, adds, "Follow me. Do not touch the edges," and walks through the portal.

Before she steps through, she watches Moiraine on the other side, allowing herself to be aware of the Aes Sedai's thalogram once again. It is as clear as if Moiraine was standing a few feet away.

She raises a hand, gesturing towards the lake, and the skeleton who clotheslined Gideon rise from the lake and walks up the beach, even as she steps through the portal.

It stands on the other side, dripping seawater, as she turns to Moiraine. "It is working--I could not directly puppet a construct from so far away without the portal." It raises a skeletal hand.

Moiraine nods to the skeleton, inwardly amused, and looks at Harrow.

"I do not think we need to give overmuch consideration to specialized Talents, in this case," she says. "Unless that is something you experience, in your world. By Talents, I mean a particular skill for a use of power that one discovers, over and above the usual, and different from a particular special technique that members of a House might focus their training on."

"Such things are not unknown," she says. "Prodigies. But they generally do align with the specialties of the House--it may be that specialties develop to reflect the talents of their great families."

"It is uncommon, however."

"Then we will leave it aside for now," the Aes Sedai decides, "unless you show signs of a Talent for Traveling."

"If you think you are ready, let us go back through to familiar ground, and you can attempt a thanergetic weave. If you do not feel ready yet, I can create another one as an example, if you would like to observe it again."

She nods, the sudden tang of nervousness pressing her as always to greater heights of dignity and stiffness. "I believe I am prepared," she says.

Her misgivings, such as they are, lie in the realm of theory rather than the specifics of the weave. She steps through, dismissing the skeleton back to its watery grave, such as it is.

Moiraine follows Harrow back through the gateway, channels briefly, and severs the tied-off weave, allowing the portal to dissipate.

As quickly as she had embraced saidar, she releases it again, and turns to Harrow.

"I will observe," the Aes Sedai tells her. "If you find yourself struggling to hold the weave such that it may recoil on you, release it at once. If I notice you struggling and you do not release it, I will treat you as I would an Accepted in the same situation. I will not have you endanger yourself unreasonably."

She nods. "You will need to provide the living thalergenic magic, however," she says. "I cannot--extrude--thanergy in that way. Once it is converted, I should be able to shape it."

"Spirit comes first, then Earth and Air," she repeats; not to Moiraine in specific, but setting her mind in place.

"Very well," she says.

Moiraine embraces saidar and extends the connection to Harrow, as if forming a link.

The initial exploration using Spirit is simple enough; Harrow is experienced at seeing and sensing through senses other than her eyes. Probing the other location is more difficult at first, until Harrow realizes she should be looking within, to her internal conception of the location, rather than trying to project the tendrils of Spirit all the way there.

When she finds the thin edge of the resonance between her conception of the space and reality, it's clearer how the similarities of two places can be bridged. Once she's made contact with the other location, it's easy enough to step out of the loop and leave the weave of Spirit touching both simultaneously.

She continues to draw from Moiraine, trying to find the differentiation in the torrent of dying energy. She begins by laying down the boundaries of Air, aware that it's her weakest element and that the stability of the portal is key.

Death by air; death through air. The murderous haze of London Below and the vicious vacuum beyond the dome of Drearburh. The sweet smoke of the crematorium. She is sweating blood by the time she finishes weaving the boundaries, but she does it.

Earth is easier; decay, dust, the heavy heart of bone. But as she tries to craft into into bridge and anchor she finds the weave fighting her direction, unmanageable. Moiraine seems graft two spaces together and encourage a bridge to grow between them, but nothing Harrow touches can grow. The more she tries, the more the overall weave suffers, mutating, cancerous, and finally she says, "I have to let it go," bitterly.

"Let it drop," Moiraine instructs. "It will unravel. We will discuss, and can try again."

She releases the weave, frustrated with herself and with the foreign magic that squirms counterintuitively under her mental touch.

"I could not make the bridge," she grumbles. "I could not bring the two locations together."

Moiraine nods.

"Build the bridge first," she suggests. "Spirit to discern, to understand the link between the two places, then Earth to anchor the foundation, and only then Air to define and open the gateway, stemming upward from the anchor."

She exhales and sets her mind. Like many people who were prodigies as children, Harrow is always frustrated to not succeed on the first try; yet she did not get where she is today without being able to work hard.

"All right," she says.

Spirit, to find and connect the two location. Then Earth to anchor and bridge. But again the weave will not take shape; she finds the thread-by-thread detail she has memorized fighting against her intuitions about ideas like anchor and bridge, which seems to butt up against and gnarl the structure she has already woven in place.

She weighs the two in her mind and decides to stick with the weave as written by Moiraine Sedai, clearing her mind and remaining open to whatever form it takes. Almost immediately, the weave begins to come together for her, although it feels very different.

The spaces do not solidify and grow together; they feel as if they are becoming more indistinct, as if she is leaching the here and there out of them until they become one substance, as all living things are destined to become one buried under the Earth. It is as if space decays in the face of her weave--not cut or torn but simply worn away by time.

Quickly she erects the portal of Air, containing the patch of decay she has created, and the portal unfolds like a stoma in the substance of reality itself. She can feel blood seeping into her collar from yet another nosebleed, but who cares about that? Through the portal she can see the meadow near the barn, where her skeletons made war and Gideon surprised her.

Edited 2020-10-21 21:18 (UTC)

“Light,” Moiraine murmurs. “Well done. Can you hold it long enough to cross? Or tie it to stabilize, as I did before?”

"Let me see if I can tie it," she says, squinting sweat out of her eyes.

She hasn't been memorizing this trick the way she's been poring over the diagram of the weave, but she's seen Moiraine do it, and it's not excessively complicated.

She exhales heavily once she lets go and begins to mop her face. "What powers the weave once it's tied off?"

Edited 2020-10-22 01:58 (UTC)

The glow around her fades as she releases saidar. Moiraine gives the gateway a considering glance, but it remains intact. She nods at that, and turns her attention back to Harrow.

"It powers itself, I suppose you could say. The lingering power in the threads will be consumed over time, and as they are, the weave will eventually dissipate and dissolve."

She examines Harrow, searching for signs of blood or faintness, and is satisfied with what she sees.

"You have done well with this. It looks stable, and is of a sufficient size. I have known many who cannot open a gateway as large as this. When you are ready, we will cross. I will lead the way."

By doing so, if there is some instability that cannot be seen but which she can detect as they start to cross, she will have a chance to stop them before it is too late. She does not think it is likely, but there is always a risk, the first few times a channeler learns a new weave, especially one like this.

Harrow is somewhat bloodied and somewhat winded, but still a long way from passing out. She perks up noticeably with praise, as always. The engine of her soul runs on pride and duty.

"Let us go, then," she says, patting the moisture from face and neck with a stained blue handkerchief.

Gideon painted her face, and she did it properly, and she even spent some time trying to do something a little nicer than the usual. She hasn't memorized all the skulls the way Harrow has, but she's added a little more detail than usual along the jaw line.

Why? Not because Harrow says she has a good jaw. It's because...because shut up, that's why!

Anyway the whole thing makes her feel a little too precious, so once she left the room (with sword in tow, natch), she spends the next hour running around the lake before finding a decent spot near the stables for calisthenics. There's a root she can slide her toes under for sit-ups and a corral fence she can use for suspension pull-ups, and she does those until it feels like she's been pummeled in the stomach and back by Calum the Eighth, then switches to press-ups.

None of which leaves her time or brain space to worry about that otherwise she still can't look at directly, which means her day is already going a lot better than she'd expected.

Edited 2020-10-22 13:56 (UTC)