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.

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[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.

[we_do_bones]

"You don't need to finish what you were working on?"

She asks, but she's already swung herself off the table and into step just behind Harrow's shoulder.

[we_bring_hell]

"I was just reading," she says. "There's nothing particular to interrupt."

She reaches back to catch Gideon's hand, although she knows Gideon is following proper cavalier protocol and she is undermining it. But Gideon's hand is rough and sure and heavy, and she feels more certain when it's holding hers.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon's hand is always, always there. She twines their fingers and squeezes Harrow's just a little, just enough to say hey, you're holding my hand, that's neat.

"Do you have a razor in the room already?" she asks. "I know I'm great with swords, but even I wouldn't suggest them for this."

[we_bring_hell]

"Griddle, how do you think I shave my own head?" she asks.

"I have everything I need, I'd just like you to do it." She hands Gideon her book so she can unlock the door without letting go.

"I've never even let Crux do it, you know," she says in a low voice.

[we_do_bones]

"Wait," she says, when the door swings open. A tug of her hand brings Harrow back to her; she bends her head and kisses her adept, long and sweet.

(They've done...a lot in the last few days. They neither of them have any secrets left from the other, but this is intimate in a way Gideon doesn't know how to parse and desperately does not want to fuck up.)

"Okay," she says, after a long moment, and releases Harrow, her heart thundering in her chest. "That's all."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow kisses her back whole-heartedly.

She's anxious about it herself, but Harrow will always grasp the thistle, given the chance. She's been thinking about this, and now--when Gideon needs to feel useful, and trusted, and important--is the perfect time to deploy it.

She is a creature of patience and traps.

She holds the back of Gideon's head, fingers tangled in her untidy mop, and doesn't let go for a moment even when the kiss breaks. "Okay," she says, with an answering smile and a bite of her lip.

She unbuttons her high-collared black shirt on the way to the bathroom, stripping down to her camisole and stopping to remove her boots.