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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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)

Other things Gideon is not looking at directly: a portal to the inlet that unzips silently behind her and eventually disgorges two diminutive monochromatic witches in black and blue.

Harrow is rendered speechless for a moment (shoulders!), then rallies. "What in God's name are you doing here?" she says, as if she wasn't the one who just appeared here out of thin air.

"What the fuck!" yelps Gideon, inelegantly, after collapsing into a surprised pile of numb muscles and sweaty limbs.

"Where the hell did you come from!?"

Gideon being thrown off-balance immediately makes Harrow feel more stable, even if the thundering of her cavalier's guns is still deafening.

"I am practicing a thalergic weave for opening a portal from one place to another," she says, as if this is a very ordinary thing to be doing. "I did not intend to come upon you."

Phrasing, Harrow.

"Your face is more than adequate," she adds, after a moment. "Thank you."

"Title of your sex tape," she says, automatically. Which part?

Honestly, does it matter?

"What? Portal?" She rolls to a sitting position, and stares at the two tiny magicians who have totally made her lose count, she's gonna have to start all over again. "Moiraine Sedai?"

When Gideon utters the words sex tape in front of Moiraine Sedai, Harrow's organs begin to cook gently from the inside out with shame. "Yes, Griddle, a portal."

"Moiraine Sedai was teaching me the weave and providing the thalergenic magic. Moiraine Sedai, I apologize for..." She searches for words to encompass everything that has gone wrong in the last ten seconds. "Everything."

"Do not be concerned, Harrow," the Aes Sedai says, perfectly tranquil. Her composure is unruffled, although she is studying the two of them very thoughtfully. "There is no need for you to offer an apology."

A single beat. "Either of you. Gideon, I am pleased to see you again."

"Hey," says Gideon, affronted at clearly being the everything Harrow is apologizing for, and also because she had no intention of apologizing for anything. She pushes to her feet, annoyed that despite being taller than both woman and probably weighing about the same as both of them put together, she's unable to physically intimidate either.

Life just isn't fair. She wishes Wei Wuxian or Ingress would show up so she'd have someone to talk about swords with.

"Yeah...you too." Harrow is fuming, Gideon is on her back foot, and Moraine Sedai is absolutely as serene as the calm stretch of sky arching overhead. Gideon is 100% out of her depth and wasn't that exactly what she was out here trying to avoid?

Edited 2020-10-22 14:23 (UTC)

Harrow relaxes slightly at Moiraine's words; if the indignities have not importuned her highly dignified companion, maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

(It was, 100%.)

"We did not mean to interrupt your exertions, Gr--Gideon," she says. "You simply happened to be inhabiting the meadow I chose as a target."

Honestly, it makes sense; the reasons Harrow was practicing skeleton warfare here are the same reasons it's a suitable setting for a workout.

"We will endeavor not to disturb you." To Moiraine Sedai: "Well. Surprises not withstanding, it seems to work. I confess there was a moment--it did not feel the same as your portal, but I followed the weave as I memorized it and trusted it would work."

She nods.

"It may be that the difference is in the nature of your thanergy, as opposed to that of saidar, and manifests as the expression of the pattern exemplified in the weaving."

Moiraine glances at Gideon, and says, "As Harrow has said, I have no wish to disturb you, but if you wish to learn more of the nature of this weaving, I will explain."

Well, she's disturbed, despite these wishes, and she hates when she's surrounded by adepts who talk around her, even if she has a very big sword and obviously knows how to use it.

She shrugs. "If it might help us defeat a giant bone beast and help make Harrow a Lyctor.... I'm no good with theory, though."

Theory being so very difficult to punch.

"You guys have fun."

Edited 2020-10-22 15:01 (UTC)

Harrow absolutely knows Gideon's preferences, and ignores them thoroughly by explaining: "Moiraine Sedai draws power from an external thanergenic source, and can construct spells with those... building blocks, so to speak."

"As you know, I cannot take in or express out thanergy in the same way--hence the need for your... experiences as a battery." She will not say juice. She will not.

"However, if Moiraine Sedai produces the initial thalergetic magic, I can convert them into thanergy and build analogous workings."

Dark eyes narrow slightly as she listens, but Moiraine seems perfectly willing to let Harrow explain, for the most part.

"Such as this weave," she says. "A gateway; a portal to travel across spaces, from a known origin point."

The lopsided douchebag grin Gideon sends Harrow's way definitely implies she heard exactly what Harrow didn't want to say.

"Oh," she says. "So you wouldn't be able to do it on your own. At least, not without...?"

Yeah, she's leading the witness. Fight her!

"It has crossed my mind," she admits slowly, "that it might be possible for me to similarly draw from an external thalergenic source. Not Moiraine Sedai's--contact with that has been overwhelming when we have experimented in the past."

"However... the pseudo-siphoning we have done in the past... it is dangerous, Griddle. I do not wish..." She looks discomfited.

The Aes Sedai does not say a word, but watches silently, eyebrows arched and clear interest visible.