Gideon the Ninth, Between 19 & 20
Aug. 26th, 2020 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
we_bring_hellThe first few times Harrow has come to Milliways, she gave every sign of a carefully cultivated appearance. Tonight is different.
She's wearing black trousers and a black, high-collared shirt; there's no sign of her robes or the bone corselet she usually wears. Even her gloves and bone rosary bracelets are missing. Her facepaint is worn away, sweated off and smeared into an indistinct grey in many places. For the first time her bare skin is visible on her hands and places on her face; it's a muddy, pallid brown. Her short-cropped black hair is mussed.
She is clutching her journal like a lifeline; she moves slowly but she's steady, in the way of someone who learned long ago to make her body steady when it wants to shake. She finds her way to an overstuffed chair and drops into it, staring at her papers in a way that suggests she is looking past them.
She's wearing black trousers and a black, high-collared shirt; there's no sign of her robes or the bone corselet she usually wears. Even her gloves and bone rosary bracelets are missing. Her facepaint is worn away, sweated off and smeared into an indistinct grey in many places. For the first time her bare skin is visible on her hands and places on her face; it's a muddy, pallid brown. Her short-cropped black hair is mussed.
She is clutching her journal like a lifeline; she moves slowly but she's steady, in the way of someone who learned long ago to make her body steady when it wants to shake. She finds her way to an overstuffed chair and drops into it, staring at her papers in a way that suggests she is looking past them.
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Date: 2020-08-27 03:19 pm (UTC)The influx of thalergy is bewildering and refreshing. She's never used the Second's vampiric techniques, but she's heard that the victims die screaming. Moiraine seems at peace, though, a lens through which the energy flows from that mysterious Source.
"It's probably for the best that I not learn how to do that to myself," she says, eyes widening.
She lets herself sink back into the chair as the energy settles itself queasily into her thanergenic system. Ironically, with the exhaustion no longer clouding her perceptions, she's more aware of how badly into the red she's driven herself.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-27 03:32 pm (UTC)"It is a peculiarity of this weave that you cannot, in fact, use it upon yourself. A protection of sorts, perhaps."
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Date: 2020-08-27 03:43 pm (UTC)"Thank you again. I know I was... compromised, but I was sincere. The Ninth House owes you a debt."
"I should bathe," she says, with an expression of distaste for herself.
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Date: 2020-08-27 03:54 pm (UTC)"Go and restore yourself, Lady Ninth. I will be here for some while yet, if you wish to return after, and if not, then I expect I shall see you again at another time."
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Date: 2020-08-27 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-27 04:22 pm (UTC)She does not envy Harrow the situation that the younger woman has found herself in.