Post-Halloween

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is working. Very seriously. She is not mooning over her new relationship with Gideon even a little bit; she has too much work to do.

She is, however, wearing a skull with accents of deep, almost black purple, with a starburst or floral pattern just below her temple, that she has never been seen to wear before.

Other than that sentimental embellishment, however, she is entirely focused on Obaeg's Toward a Common Haemographology. She is making copious notes in the margins--courting future simian fury--and thinking that she should have found this for Moiraine before they started working on her weave notation.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes, I don't expect we'll be killing anything," she says. "It's a spiritual problem, after all, and the visit to Moiraine's home world should be altogether peaceable."

"I asked her if it was permitted for Aes Sedai to be involved with their Warders and she said it's not unusual--more common than necromancer-cav relationships, at least--so we don't need to worry about any problems there."

[we_do_bones]

"Were you worried about that?" she asks, curious. What they have is beyond any easy definition that Gideon knows, but it's not a secret and neither of them are ashamed of it, and she doesn't see why anyone else would or should care.

[we_bring_hell]

"I don't wish to create friction, for ourselves or for Moiraine, by an ill-timed kiss or caress," she says, with complete seriousness. She leaves her palm spread flat on Gideon's thigh.

"I know they harbor the typical prejudices against necromancy of a living world. I simply wished to be aware of any other tricky topics." Was it also a discreet way to flag to Moiraine their relationship?

Maybe. You don't know. Shut up.

[blue_ajah]

"Let me see," she muses. "It helps that I have already told you much of the history, and of Rand, and of the Last Battle and the events that unfolded around it, beginning with Gitara's prophecy."

She gently squeezes Harrow's shoulder and sits back, signaling to a waitrat as she does. She does not, however, move back to the seat across the table, but remains at Harrow's side.

"From that day, you might say that I was very much focused on my cause, and on what was necessary to achieve it. No matter the cost, in some cases."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "The stakes you described are vast."

Even the Resurrection was a single star system--humanity would have survived without the Emperor.

[blue_ajah]

"I have been called a hard woman. I do not disagree. I am as hard as I have to be; as I believed I had to be."

A waitrat hops up on a chair and waves a paw at Moiraine, who nods at it, then points to herself and to Harrow. It squeaks assent and scurries off again.

"I was married to my battle, as Lan was married to his, and we worked together in common for over twenty years. There was neither room nor time for anything else."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods again, slower. Harrowhark puppeted her parents' corpses for 7 years for the Ninth and to save herself from an arranged marriage; to be as hard as you have to be makes all the sense in the world to her.

What's the alternative? Failure? Unthinkable.

"But then you won."

[blue_ajah]

"First, I arrived here," Moiraine reminds her.

[we_bring_hell]

"I remember," she says. "They believed you dead, until Rand came here. You worked with him in secret... and then you 'found a way to buy time'." She pronounces the inverted commas distinctly, acknowledging Moiraine's previous euphemism for what is no doubt a complex story.

And afterwards--as a result?--she could not return home.

[riddleofthebelow]

"Right now, I'm still in an analytical stage, gathering data from my world to match to the magics of yours. It's been some time since I've researched the necromantic aspects of the Wizarding world."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "It is a wide subject--at least, as we reckon it. I gather that what we call necromancy may include arts beyond what your world gives that name?"

[riddleofthebelow]

"There's much overlap with transfiguration and charm work. Changing matter into something else, charming it to do as you wish. The necromancy - the death aspect - itself seems very narrow in scope. I assume that's because on a living world, it would have to be a smaller part of a larger whole."

[we_bring_hell]

"I suppose so," she says. "What unites all necromancy is the source of power--transforming life energy into death energy, or death energy back into a sort of pseudo-life force, or sensing the ebb and flow of these energies."

"I suppose we have learned to use these reactions to drive all sorts of craft that could also be done using thalergenic magic. I know there are things we cannot do, like true healing; and things that are very difficult to do that thalergenic magicians seem to do much more easily."

[blue_ajah]

"Yes," she says, simply, as the rat returns with a pitcher of spring water, cucumber slices, mint leaves, and a pot of tea, along with glasses and cups. Moiraine accepts the tray and begins to set everything out on the table.

"When I first came here, it was a relief to escape my imprisonment, even for a time. The Aelfinn and Eelfinn are not pleasant. They ... feed ... on those they capture, like me."

Her voice remains steady as she says this.

"But I have never been good with enforced idleness."

[we_do_bones]

Gideon, who has done nothing but create friction her entire life, doesn't see the problem with doing the same on another world but chooses to accept that Harrow knows better than she does.

"Okay, but you might need to help me out with when it's a bad time," she muses, swinging her feet and grinning the thrill of Harrow's hand on her thigh. "We might need a signal. Or you could just say: 'Gideon, I don't want you to kiss me for the next five minutes' and then I'll know I can kiss you in five minutes and ten seconds."

[we_bring_hell]

For the last week, Harrow has been at the absolute mercy of her blush reflex. It betrays her once again. "You're ridiculous," she mutters.

She doesn't have a watch, but after a few weeks the four-hour death throes of the universe are burnt into her thanergetic sense. "Gideon, I don't want you to kiss me for the next f--"

"The next minute," she says, and picks up her book again.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow has spent enough time among the faceless nuns of Drearburh to know two significant pauses when they cross her path. "I can imagine that's true," she murmurs.

As Moiraine continues, she takes a moment to pour tea for the Aes Sedai, before preparing a glass of vaguely-minty water for herself.

[we_do_bones]

"You're a liar," says Gideon, and places a firm hand under Harrow's chin so she can tip her face up and kiss her square on the mouth.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow drops her book and puts a hand up to the side of Gideon's face, touching the paint along her jawline delicately. She opens her mouth to the kiss, then nips Gideon's lower lip. "Disobedient wretch."

[blue_ajah]

She smiles her thanks, and takes a sip of the tea.

"Well. Suffice it to say that I involved myself with matters here to a great extent. And in the process, I made friends, and more than friends, and learned things."

[we_bring_hell]

"Lady Ingress mentioned such things--cadres of people, she said, taking an interest in each others' problems across worlds."

[we_do_bones]

"You know how this works," she grins. "Worthwhile orders only. I have a mind of my own, Reverend Daughter."

[we_bring_hell]

"Debatable," she murmurs, and kisses her in return, pushing up a little from the chair.

Gideon is already Unfairly Tall; the last thing she needs to do is climb up on a table.

[blue_ajah]

"Indeed. Such involvement, in a way, is how I first became aware of certain matters in Twin Peaks. It is not, however, how I came to relocate there."

She lays her hand against the side of the teacup, drawing in its warmth.

"That was after I tore myself from the world of my birth. For a while."

[we_bring_hell]

She frowns. "Tore in what way?" She says it in a way that seems more than figurative language.