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]

The shirt is one Harrow will never, ever admit to liking, but she absolutely loves it. The makeup she has less complicated emotions about, and she regards it admiringly.

She lets her arm rest on Gideon's knee, a level of casual physical contact that might have killed her outright a week ago. She's building up a tolerance.

"She has begun favoring 'Harrow' over 'Lady Ninth,'" Harrow says coolly. "I am simply following her lead. There is no question of condescension." Meaning, Harrow does not see herself as outranking Moiraine. There is a wealth of information and nuance in these word choices, Griddle!

[we_do_bones]

There is, but Gideon is paying attention to only one thing – okay, two things, counting Harrow's arm on her knee – and that is how cute it is that Harrow's found a new mom.

"Course not," she agrees peaceably.

(If Palamedes Sextus could see Harrow now, he'd be nudging his glasses up his long nose and smiling that inscrutable smile he gets when someone does something that proves they're human.)

[we_bring_hell]

"She wants us to take another trip," she says. "More warning this time, Griddle--you see, I can improve."

[we_do_bones]

"I always knew you had it in you," she says, and leans over to look at the book and Harrow's notes. "So our little field trip helped?"

[we_bring_hell]

"I hope so," she says. "But first, Moiraine thought it might be well to see how I can function in an thalergenic environment--a living planet, Griddle."

"She would like us to visit the world of her birth, rather than the one where she lives now, where the difficulty is."

[we_do_bones]

"Ingress' world is a living planet, right?"

She flips a page and turns it back again, then focuses on Harrow. "And you managed there okay."

Aside from the collapsing amongst bones, but they've been over that already.

[we_bring_hell]

"I did. We went to a necropolis, however." She thumbs the seam of Gideon's pants.

"I'm not worried I'll drop, Griddle, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to contribute meaningfully." It stings to admit that, but it would be worse to be dead weight.

[we_do_bones]

She nudges back against Harrow's thumb, in a comforting sort of way.

"You don't have to be able to construct skeletons and control bone to be useful, Reverend Daughter."

[we_bring_hell]

"I can also faint rather fetchingly," she says. "And if you kill someone I can be almost normal for fifteen minutes."

"I am interested to see Moiraine's world. She thought we might like to meet an Aes Sedai and Warder pair."

[we_do_bones]

"I probably shouldn't kill anyone unless Moiraine thinks it's a good idea," she says, thoughtfully, "or unless we get attacked. But an Aes Sedai and Warder, sure. I'd be down for that."

[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.

[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_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."

[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.

[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.