(no subject)

[we_bring_hell]

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.

Comments

[herald_ingress]

“Yes, absolutely,” she says, brightening. “I’d be happy to.”

[we_bring_hell]

"Let us pay a visit to the forge, then," she says.

As they walk, she explains: "Gideon was raised to the two-handed sword. She learned the rapier and offhand as befits a cavalier at my order. Along with a vow of silence, our ritual paint, and her impressive physique, it has gone a long way in cementing her validity as a cavalier in the eyes of our peers, considering she was elevated only weeks before we departed. She looks as she should, and so they see only what should be there."

"But the situation has changed."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress nods as Harrow speaks. “Changed? In what way?”

[we_bring_hell]

"I no longer care what they think," she says bluntly. "They are largely irrelevant, and those who are not will not care. And we are being hunted by a bone construct of great size and weight. A rapier is not the appropriate weapon for such a thing."

She opens the door to the forge. "I want to live through this. And that means a cavalier who is functioning at her peak capability, not behind what she calls a 'metal toothpick.'"

[herald_ingress]

“So you need weapons!”

Harrow has, indeed, chosen an appropriate consultant!

[we_bring_hell]

"A sword," says Harrow. "She uses two hands, and it is taller than I am. Beyond that, consider me as ignorant as it is possible for a woman to be."

[herald_ingress]

Yessss!!! She feels useful again for the first time since her foot decided to live in her mouth.

“The balance will be key,” she says, eyeing the swords that are out on display. “But I believe our arms have about the same reach, even if she’s a bit taller, so I should be able to find one that will work for her.”

She picks up a sword, swings it, wrinkles her nose and puts it back.

“Tell me more about what you’re fighting. If she’s going against it alone, I may have ideas.”

In the meantime Ingress will keep trying swords.

[we_bring_hell]

"I have not seen it," she says. "But Gideon spoke of it. It's quite large, with multiple thick support limbs and spear-like forelimbs. It is made of regenerating bone, so it can stab with these and leave them behind, or hurl them. It also generates chains and tentacles of bone."

"I don't think a piercing weapon would have much impact at all." She has a lot of experience with skeletons.

[herald_ingress]

Ingress nods. “So not just a long sword but something with heft that can bludgeon. Does she have armor? Leather armor should be enough to shield her from anything while not weighing her down. Unless you use bones which would do, too.”

There are a few giant swords towards the back. Heavy steel, bulbous pommels at the ends of their two-handed hilts that can be used to bash an opponent.

She hefts up one to try, but the center of balance is still not quite right. The second one, shining silver blade with a plain hilt, is perfect. It will take great strength to wield but Gideon has that.

“Arm bracers - does she have them? Stiff leather bands that lace down to her wrist?”

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "She was trained with a Cohort breastplate, but did not--was not permitted to--bring it. If our enemy is a necromancer, leather might not be a good idea, however."

She looks at the sword Ingress has taken down, eyes widening. "Yes--that looks like the right sort of thing. Drearburh iron doesn't have that kind of shine, but the quality is... I actually have no idea how to gauge the quality. I don't know anything about these things."

[herald_ingress]

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing when it comes to weapons.”

She tries the blade in her left hand, testing the balance to make sure, then with both hands on the hilt, she raises it up and brings it down hard, as if to crush something beneath her. She’s breathing harder by the time she’s done from the effort.

“This one. I’ll go back to Haven and raid our armory myself if we don’t find bracers and leather armor here, though.”

They will. And the leather will be black, because Milliways knows what its patrons want.

[we_bring_hell]

"I thank you," she says. "Your assistance is invaluable."

"I'd like to take it to her this morning. I don't think I have ever given her a gift." She knows she's never given her a gift; she's not sure anyone has ever given Gideon a gift.

[herald_ingress]

Oooh, then they will need bows and ribbons. Tasteful ones! Maybe in navy blue.

She lifts the sword and then chuckles. "Uh. Harrow? Can you even lift this to get it upstairs?"

Ingress hands it over for Harrow to try.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow reaches to her ear and drops a phalange, which bounces twice on the wooden floor and then bursts into an unfolding scaffold of bone. The skeleton takes the blade, creaking with the weight.

"It appears that I can," Harrow says serenely.

[herald_ingress]

Ingress is duly impressed.

"Very nice, Harrow. Very nice. Come on, let's go get some bows from Bar, so you can get this gift to her."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow manages to make the word "Bows?" sound like "Genital herpes?" at the suggestion, but follows dutifully, with her skeleton in tow.

-----------------

The door to room 99 unlocks and Harrow enters with her skeleton.


"Griddle, wake up,"

[we_do_bones]

Harrow was correct: Gideon is exhausted in body and soul and she slept like the dead all through the night, curled next to and around her necromancer. She startles awake at Harrow's voice, and sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"...What? What? Something wrong?"

She blinks blearily in the general direction of the door. Harrow is up and dressed, which isn't unusual, and her face is painted, which, same, but there's something different about her this morning. Gideon squints.

"...is that a new skull?"

[we_bring_hell]

"It's The Chain, you've seen it before," Harrow says dismissively, but not without a darkening of her ears and a little flutter that would disgust her if she could see herself.

Your eyes aren't fooling you, Gideon. Those are colors, penciled into the edges.

"I have something for you, wake up." The skeleton groans under the weight of a oblong something wrapped in black. There are, despite Harrow's best attempts to resist, bows.

[we_do_bones]

Harrow's face is completely painted and she's swathed head to toe in black, but to a foundling raised by the black nuns of Drearburh, the faint tint in her ears is like watching fireworks go off.

Gideon grins, asymmetrical and ridiculous. "I like it," she says, simply, just to see if that blush brightens.

But the novelty of Harrow bringing her something – bringing something for her, which, what? soon distracts her. "I'm awake, what do you mean you have something –? Harrow, what is that?"

Because that is the right size and shape for only one thing, and Gideon spares a quick moment of panic that Harrow has at last found the false bottom of her trunk. She gets up and pads, barefoot and rumple-haired, to the skeleton.

[we_bring_hell]

Gideon and her crooked smile; Gideon and her ridiculous splash of red hair, like a torch in darkness. She feels like the paint is going to burn off her face.

"It is--a gift," she says, stilted.

[we_do_bones]

"A what?" says Gideon, taken aback. Harrow has never given her a gift. She's reasonably sure no one ever has. "...What for?"

But the shape in the skeleton's arms is calling to her, and she can't help but reach for it.

[we_bring_hell]

"A cavalier carries a rapier, by tradition," she says. "It isn't written anywhere that a cavalier carries only a rapier. The right tool for the right job."

Softer: "Besides. We don't need to fool anyone anymore." Because it doesn't matter anymore. Because it's not a con anymore.

[we_do_bones]

The black cloth falls softly to the floor. Beneath it is only the lethal sheen of steel.

Ten thousand years of tradition, Griddle.

I don’t have ten thousand years of tradition, bitch. I have ten years of two-hander training and a minor allergy to face paint. I’m worth so much less to you with pizza face and a toothpick.

Gideon reaches for the longsword like a woman in a dream. The skeleton's joints sigh in relief as she lifts it, hefts its weight.

It isn't her beloved two-hander, but fuck! It'll get the job done. It's wickedly sharp and well cared-for, and she's pretty sure she recognizes it from her trip to the forge.

She looks to Harrow, and back to the sword, and back again, and finally says, stupidly: "I didn't get you anything."

[we_bring_hell]

"It's for both of us, Griddle," she says. "One flesh, one end, right?"

[we_do_bones]

"Right, my crepuscular queen," says Gideon, who is beside herself and just letting her mouth talk, like a reflex.

She turns a glowing face to Harrow and shoulders the sword, feeling its weight, looking like an idiot.

"All we need now is a fight."