we_bring_hell | (no subject)

(no subject)

Nothing is wrong. Well, nothing new is wrong. It's just that sometimes you wake up and hate everything, starting with yourself and extending outward from there.

She has snarled at Gideon, banished Gideon to the distant past, and is now sulking about being abandoned by Gideon. She was trying to work on the Lyctoral theorems, but her bile got in the way, and now she's chewing on her interdimensional communication mechanism.

She is considering burning characters into her living bones while her cavalier is away and without a healer standing by, because she may be 90% of Gideon's self-control but Gideon is 70% of her self-preservation.

The Mountain Goats is blaring; Transcendental Youth.

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Ingress grins at the skeleton upon seeing it, because why not? Skeleton servants deserve friendly greetings, too.

Then she hears her friend’s voice. Hmmm. Harrow is never cheerful, exactly, but she’s usually not this glum.

“Are you too busy for a visit?”

It’s a silly question to ask, since Ingress isn’t going away, no matter the reply.

The scritching of her pen pauses, as Harrow contemplates if it can possibly be this easy.

"No," she says finally.

The rolltop desk is crowded with books and flimsy she has scribbled on, and a fully-articulated skeletal arm on a brass stand; a bonework vase that holds a violet and a lily.

"What is it? Did someone prophesy your doom too?"

“Not today. But there’s still time.”

She enters the room, only a little tentative. This is less because of Harrow’s mood and more worry for her friend.

“I haven’t seen you for a bit, and I was hoping to find you when I visited the bar today.”

The skeleton steps silently out of her way.

"The Bar has done nothing in particular to deserve to have that inflicted on it," she bites off. "I am working. There is so much to do."

She ventures a little closer.

“If I can do anything to help, I’ll offer it.”

"Have no doubt that if you had any utility to me I would wring it out of you like a damp rag," Harrow says savagely, tugging at the fingertips of her gloves.

“Oh, would you now?”

She doesn’t add “Miss Grumpy” to her question, but she thinks it.

Hmm. The prophecy, Gideon’s absence, the difficulty of her world, this work that must be done - any of these would put someone into a bad mood, but all together at once?

“When my sister gets pissed off and overwhelmed, she finds plenty of work that must be done, too. She’s a right horror, but I go to her study and bother her anyway. It takes her mind off of what’s bothering her to bicker with her little sister.”

"That is what I used to do to Griddle," she says, frowning, tugging off the gloves. "She was my whipping girl. The repository of my..." She flexes her hands, like pale spiders, and scowls at them; begins putting the gloves back on. "Vile intentions."

“And that’s all in the past, yes? The nice thing about the past is you can leave it behind if you want to.”

"That's the most incomprehensible thing you've ever said to me," Harrow grumbles.

“Incomprehensible,” she repeats, pleased. “I like it. Gives me an air of mystery.”

She settles into a chair not too close to the desk, but not too far from it, either.

“What’s wrong, Reverend Daughter? Besides the usual everything.”

She has the gloves back on now, carefully tucked in to not even show the pale skin of her wrists. "Don't you ever just wake up and loathe yourself?" she asks.

"Of course you don't, look who I'm asking." She picks up her pen and moodily stabs the blotter.

“I’ve had my moments,” she admits. “Not very often and not for a while, but I’ve had them.”

Harrow rises from her chair and stalks into the bathroom.

Ingress lets her, keeping a watchful eye on her from where she sits.

“I’d tell you I’d leave you be,” she says, her tone conversational, “but that would be a terrible lie, and I’m not a liar.”

She examines her fingernails. They’re short, somewhat jagged from accidental breaks, the cuticles rough.

It takes a few minutes for Harrow to return; when she does, she doesn't comment on her absence, just settles herself back into the chair with the dignity of an empress or a cat.

"I am vile company today," she says abruptly. "I don't wish to hurt you or anyone."

Ingress nods. “I appreciate that. You don’t have to be my company. You can do your tasks, and I can be your company, silent and thick-skinned.”

"Why?" Harrow demands. "What do you put yourself through it for?"

“Put through what, exactly? Being there for a friend when she’s in a bad mood?”

She shakes her head. “Harrow, when you’re friends with someone, you’re friends with all of them, even the not so pleasant parts. I’m your friend, and I’m not putting myself through anything.”

Harrow stares at her desk wearily.

"Has time gone on stopping for you when you visit, once it began to?"

“Yes. Every time, so far.”

"it is a blessing, of course." She frowns, in contradiction to her words.

“I wouldn’t be able to come as often,” she agrees. “Or stay as long.”

"It is undeniably convenient," she murmurs. "Yet sometimes I feel that it dilutes urgency."

"I can see that. If I had pressing matters beyond day to day, I would feel that way, even with time stopping."