This is Halloween!

[we_bring_hell]

The Bar loves her holidays, but she is also capable of respecting religious strictures. That's why she put a lot of thought into finding a Halloween costume for Harrow that works with her face paint and general insistence on the monochromatic.

Harrow, for her part, is baffled by the white-pinstriped black suit and the oversized bow, but the gloves are very cool, and the buckled shoes suit as well. She has no idea what's going on but she can live with this.

The Bar seems even more unusually populated than usual, and there are a lot of gourds around. Hm.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is also in a snazzy suit, although she has a tie; a bow tie with wings that approach her padded, upturned shoulders.

"Greetings, Wei Wuxian," she says. "I am given to understand it is the anniversary of your birth."

Harrow looks, it must be said, ebullient. Wei Wuxian saw her in a previous good mood, but this surpasses that. She seems suspiciously pleased with herself and the universe.

[acrookedpath]

She really does. Wei Wuxian eyes her over the top of the sunglasses, which displays his changed eyes to great effect, but his grin is as bright and easy as ever.

"It seems so!" he laughs. "Either I have lost track of time or Madam Bar's calendar is very different from my own. But who am I to argue with this?"

He spreads a hand to indicate the cupcakes.

"Would you like one?"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow's eyes widen at his golden eyes in combination with the sunglasses, but she has a different agenda.

"I absolutely would not," she says calmly. "But I have obtained a gift to mark the event."

She draws it from inside her jacket; Ingress has managed to make an impression on her regarding the necessity of bows, and so it is wrapped in black paper with an ebon row. However, she has not gotten the hang of shapes, so it is very clearly a human femur, wrapped in black paper.

[acrookedpath]

Ah well. It was worth a try! Maybe he can convince her to try half a bite of one if he scrapes all the icing off first.

"Oh?" Curiously, he accepts the... femur? No way to tell if it's more than a femur unless he unwraps it, he supposes, and he sets to work doing just that.

[we_bring_hell]

It's a femur! However, someone has with great craftsmanship turned it into a flute.

(It goes doot doot doot.)

"I had the opportunity to return to the Ninth House recently. This is an heirloom of our House, albeit a little favored one. It belonged to an ancestor of my mother's, Pelles Novena."

'Belonged' is a slippery word in this context.

"He entered into a rather unusual marriage with a woman of the Seventh House, who crafted it herself after his death. She returned to her House of birth, but left this behind as weregild."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian's jaw drops. Carefully, he turns the bone flute in his hands, running a finger over its polished white surface. Instruments made of animal bone are not uncommon, but he has never seen one of human bone before. It would fit very well with the Yiling Patriarch's reputation, he thinks -- and as wry as the thought may be, he still cannot help but marvel at the craftsmanship.

"If it is a family heirloom -- " He looks up, beaming anew. "Harrow, are you certain I can have it?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Certainly," she says, smiling. "I am the Reverend Daughter; there is no one to question my decision. And to be frank, Korenna Saba is an ancestor my House has gone to some pains to forget."

"I felt it would hold more meaning in your hands than spending another millennia in storage."

[acrookedpath]

He nods, still looking a bit stunned by the enormity of the gift.

"This is remarkable. Harrow, I am honored." He holds the flute in both hands as he bows to her, and does not stop smiling for an instant of it. "I would hug you, but I know you dislike them -- truly, thank you."

[we_bring_hell]

She inclines her head. "I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish with it. Pelles Novena was an unorthodox Reverend Father, but an accomplished necromancer; his marginalia in the Anastasian Grimoire were highly valuable commentary."

[acrookedpath]

Experimentally, Wei Wuxian lifts the flute to trill out a quick melody. Its tone is deeper than his bamboo flute, with a resonance to match a true craftsman's work rather than a quickly-carved substitute for Chenqing. Though he's grown quite attached to his current instrument, he has to admit this is much finer; he will have to see how much of a difference it makes in his work.

And even if the difference is negligible: a new instrument to play! A fantastic instrument.

"I wonder," he says as he takes it away. "Considering everything you told me about the qualities of bone, do you think this may make it easier to summon thanergy as I do with resentful energy?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Not impossible," she says. "But you know, thanergy does not--move, as easily as your resentful energy. I more often think of it as a change in state where it is--turning thalergy to thanergy, or thanergy to a sort of substitute for thalergy."

"Living beings and cells seems to be able to draw on these energies and move them about--even disembodied spirits. But necromancy in my experience is more transfiguring things that hurling energy around."

"On the other hand, specifically because it is a reservoir, you may be able to wed your understanding of spiritual energy to thanergy gathered in the bone. New and astonishing things seem to be the norm when two kind of magic meet."

[acrookedpath]

He nods. Though Madam Bar swapped his robes for this costume, she left his now-ever-present portfolio inside a pocket of the suitcoat; he sets the flute aside so he can pull it out and make a few notes.

"That does seem more likely," he says. "I still cannot help thinking of thanergy as something to draw out rather than something to transform; I'm sure that is why I have kept getting stuck. But yes, having a spiritual tool that also works as a thanergy reservoir -- " He beams. "That opens up all kinds of possibilities!"

[we_bring_hell]

"I wish you joy of it," she says. "Although--ahh, my knowledge of this etiquette is shaky, but I imagine it should likely be presented as a gift from Gideon and I both."

She does a great job of saying this unflappably, if she could only control the smile that creeps across her face like frost on a windowpane.

[acrookedpath]

Wait.

"Wait."

Is that why -- is she --

"Harrow." He leans in, eagerly. "Is there more news?"

[we_bring_hell]

"News implies it is for public dissemination," she says, flushing behind her paint. "But my happiness is yet compounded, yes."

Her fingers twist absently.

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian does not make any kind of excited high-pitched noises, because he is a grown man and can comport himself as --

Who are we kidding, there is absolutely a wordless exclamation of delight that trails into another, "Harrow!"

His smile is almost incandescent by now. "Congratulations are in order, yes? My friend, I am so happy for you both."

[we_bring_hell]

Hers is pretty good, for Harrow. There is a deep-set kernel of sadness in Harrowhark, and for once she seems to have been able to... set it aside, if not lose it entirely.

"I am blessed indeed."

[acrookedpath]

It is, truly, a startling change. Harrow is -- Harrow, sharp and brittle and brilliant, awkward but true in her kindness, and Wei Wuxian became so used to the sorrow at her heart that he hardly noticed it any longer. Now it is gone, and she is lit so bright by his absence.

"I hope you will not conjure a skeleton to smack me," he says as he sets his chin in his hand, "but... ah, what was it you said?"

He affects Harrow's deadpan -- or tries to, when he still cannot stop smiling.

"What a lovely and extraordinary surprise that none could have foreseen."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow looks deeply affronted. "It is not at all the same. Griddle has given me no sign of her affections. We have been doing violence to each other for more than a decade."

They have always been obsessed with each other, though,

[acrookedpath]

"Lan Zhan hated me when we first met," he says with a shrug that stirs the wings at his shoulders. "But -- you are right, I should not tease."

His smile softens.

"I am glad for you. Truly. That you are sworn to each other now in more ways than one."

[we_bring_hell]

"Really? Why would Lan Wangji hate you?"

[acrookedpath]

He laughs. "Because I pestered him incessantly and never met a rule of Gusu Lan's I did not try to break. He drew his sword on me within five minutes of meeting. I cannot count how many times he called me 'obnoxious' and 'boring' when I was at lectures. I think by the time he had known me a year or two, I had climbed in his esteem to 'tolerable, but only just.'"

And then, as the years continued on... well.

[we_bring_hell]

She smiles, and shakes her head.

"Yes, you sound like you a holy terror to rival Griddle."

"Although--I was to blame, too. I would set elaborate traps for her."

[acrookedpath]

Cheerfully, "It must be why I get along with her so well."

Though he has only met Gideon the barest handful of times, they clicked as if they had known each other for ages.

His smile grows more crooked as he adds, "I do remember you saying you cheated, when the two of you fought."

[we_bring_hell]

"The last time she tried to escape, I pretended I didn't see the unscheduled shuttle pickup she had ordered. I confronted her at the last moment and challenged her to a duel, stripping off all the bones I carried so I appeared defenseless."

"But in fact I had stayed up all night burying bones under the earth of the landing field."

She's not proud of it, but she's not... not proud of it.