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]

"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.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon can be helpful; she leans further down to meet her very tiny adept.

(She has swallowed more grease paint in the last few days...but she can't say it isn't worth it.)

"I thought you were reading," she says, a breath away and more than a little smug.

[we_bring_hell]

She would swallow less paint if she were more patient.

"I thought I was, too."

She reaches the edge of Gideon's paint and trails her hand over the other girl's neck to the collar of her shirt, hooking her fingers there to hold her in place.

"You look delicious."

[we_do_bones]

Probably, if they stay here a while and then somehow manage to live through everything that's happening at Canaan House, there will come a point when Gideon will stop being surprised that Harrow is, apparently, just super into her. Probably there will come a point where she doesn't get the whammies just from Harrow's finger hooking into the collar of her shirt or from a sweet and slightly spicy compliment.

(God, she is sprung on this chick.)

But it won't be today. Today, she grins like a fool and joys the flips her stomach decides to do. "So you're saying...I'm a snack?"

[we_bring_hell]

She looks flatly at Gideon.

"Does that sound like something I would say?"

[we_do_bones]

"It could be!" Gideon says, hopefully.

[we_bring_hell]

She goes in for a last kiss, then sinks back into her seat, letting go of Gideon's collar. "You must not set store in compliments, Griddle. It is vanity to accept them and patronizing to give them," she says, in her best prim Reverend Mother voice.

[we_do_bones]

"Ooh yeah," she says, grinning as she straightens her protesting back, "patronize me, baby. Besides, my vanity is clearly justified."

What more proof does she need than the Reverend Daughter having real trouble keeping her hands off her?

But she leans back and tries to forget about the guilty feeling nagging at her, the one that says you shouldn't be allowed to have fun when Canaan House is still under attack. She knows time has stopped there, but...it feels a little wrong, somehow, to be enjoying herself when just past that door Sextus, Camilla, Dulcinea...everyone who's left is in danger.

"By the way, I have a confession to make."

[we_bring_hell]

"Your health, strength and symmetrical features are objective, Nav," Harrow says dismissively. "As is--never mind."

She colors violently, so whatever she was going to say was dirty.

"What is your confession?"

[we_do_bones]

Gideon is absolutely desperate to know what Harrow was going to say, but contents herself with grinning smugly at the Reverend Daughter's aggressive blush.

"I brought my two-hander to Canaan House," she says, simply. "I made a false bottom for my trunk and smuggled it right out of the Ninth. It's my baby, I couldn't leave it."

Which means Harrow's gift is much more sentimental than practical, but Gideon doesn't care: as Ingress said, now she has two swords, which is awesome.

[we_bring_hell]

She makes a face. "I hate that thing. It doesn't like me."

[we_do_bones]

Gideon scoffs.

"It's a sword, it doesn't have feelings."

But she does. And man, does she love her sword.

[we_bring_hell]

"Of course not, but nevertheless." It definitely does.

"You aren't going to bring it here, are you?"

[we_do_bones]

She shakes her head.

"I get the feeling that the next time we go through that door...we probably won't be back here until it's all over."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods, now completely sobered. "I agree with you."

Shr drums her fingers on the table. "Sextus wants us to pick the lock on one of the doors. The Sixth study. We'll have seven then."

They do not, technically, have the key to the Ninth, but if she couldn't reverse-engineer the theorem from the trial, she's no daughter of Anastasia.

[we_do_bones]

"That's the one with the regenerating ash, right?"

That door gives her the creeps, but it's probably because she'll forever associate it with the horrible sucking feeling of siphoning.

Her mouth twists. "And the Eighth aren't likely to share their keys."

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "No--the door with the blocked keyhole is the other remaining door. It belongs to the key no one can find."

"I don't believe the Eighth's keys matter anymore. They have the white--we have seen it--the black--I don't need it--and the grey. That is the one Palamedes believes we can fake."

[we_do_bones]

"Oh, right."

Honestly, there are way too many keys, doors, and permutations of who has or knows what for Gideon to keep track of. It's a good thing Harrow is such an unbelievable detail-oriented nerd.

She kicks a foot back and forth, just to have some physical outlet for her anxieties. "I know time is stopped there," she admits, "but I keep worrying about them."

Them is understood, she knows, as being Palamedes, Camilla, and Dulcinea. She doesn't give a rat's ass about the Third or the Eighth, and the Second can more than take care of themselves.

[we_bring_hell]

"Griddle," she says gently. Every so often, Harrow is reminded that Gideon is a better person than her.

"The preparations we make here will benefit the Sixth as well as us."

[we_do_bones]

"I know."

Her brain does, anyway. Her body and instincts, though, they're wired to fight, not retreat and plan. And there are times here when she feels...less than useful. "I just feel weird about it."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is a creature of patience and traps. She loves Gideon, however.

She lays a hand on her cavalier's bouncing knee, and gives her a troubled look.

"Would you help me with something? I'm afraid is rather trivial, but I'd like your assistance."

[we_do_bones]

"Yes," she says, instantly. "Anything. Point me at it."

It doesn't escape her notice that Harrow is giving her a direction where she can focus her energy, and she loves her adept a little more for it. "What's up?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Will you help shave my head?"

She runs a hair over the bristles, which have indeed escaped to an unruly micrometer more than Harrowhark's preferred tonsure.

"There is no one I would trust more with a blade."

[we_do_bones]

Gideon reaches over and runs her palm over Harrow's head, lets the bristles tickle the tender inner part of her wrist. "Yeah, I can do that."

She feels instantly better, having a task, and she's grateful to Harrow all over again.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow smiles at the zing of Gideon's touch. She rises from the table and picked up her book. "Come on then."

It's been a long time since anyone but herself did this.