Gideon the Ninth, Between 19 & 20

[we_bring_hell]

The 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.

Comments

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine nods.

"That is so," she agrees. "The truth can be a weapon as well as a source of comfort and support."

"Actions can be the same."

[we_bring_hell]

"I know I shouldn't... beat her up with skeletons any more," she says.

"I am... I am trying. I went to the poor doomed Fifth's ghastly dinner party because she wanted to. But I'm afraid I have very little practice being..."

"You know, on Drearburh, I was beloved," she says fretfully. "I filled the honeycombs of their decrepit bones and I blessed them for keeping our lonely vigil. That's all they needed from me. To be... the Reverend Daughter." To be cold, and alone, and righteous, and tell them that was all anyone needed.

But Gideon hates all that.

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine arches an eyebrow.

"I would not think such violence would be likely to inspire trust, no," she observes.

"It takes time, to become what one has never been used to being. Time to observe; time to learn the ways of interaction and shades of meaning in each."

"Where I was born, such is known as the Great Game, or the Game of Houses."

[we_bring_hell]

She raises her eyebrows at that. (One of them still has some dark blood in it.)

"For us, too. The politics of the Houses can be complex."

But the Ninth has always been shut out of that game. Too poor, too religious, too far away.

The dinner party -- she realizes it sounded petulant to bring it up, but she had been terrified of trying to mix socially with the other heirs. Yet Griddle--handicapped with a vow of silence--had still made more friends than her.

Are your biceps huge, or just enormous? Ninth, please tick the correct box.

She pinches the bridge of her nose, smearing the makeup there. Damn Dulcinea Septimus anyway.

"Was your partnership... easier than this? Classically chivalric?" She steers clear of the word 'romance,' which could be misconstrued, although she means it--of course she means it--in the courtly sense.

[blue_ajah]

"Indeed," she says, "politics are almost always more complex than most people realize. Learning the nuances of the Great Game was part of our training in the White Tower."

Whether intentional or not, as it happens.

"I suppose you might call it chivalric," she adds. "Indeed, the courtesy of the Borderlanders is renowned, in its way, and Lan was among the best. I would not say matters between us were easy at first, though. It took time to find the proper balance."

"It is said that there are few secrets between Warder and Aes Sedai. While few is not none, and we did not always agree, that understanding between us allowed us to build a partnership of incredible strength. He would have laid down his life to preserve mine, and I defended him with my own in turn, as we worked together in service of our common cause."

[we_bring_hell]

Sounds pretty damn romantic to her.

"Some of the Houses have techniques that depend on their Cavaliers. The Eighth, the Second. The Ninth has relied on skeletons," she says dryly. "As Gideon reminded me before she inserted herself into the experimental chamber."

"She was right. It seems the Lyctor in question was of the Second." She lifts her notes in, apparently, demonstration. "It was a test of collaboration. And now I have the theorem."

She laughs silently and looks up, willing herself not to cry. It's been a long time since she rested, by which she means passed out in a puddle of blood.

[blue_ajah]

"What will you do with it?"

Moiraine is studying Harrow very carefully now, taking in every nuance of her appearance and demeanor.

It is entirely likely, she realizes, that the other woman has come directly here from the aftermath of the ill-fated dinner party without taking any time to recover.

[we_bring_hell]

Only Harrow the Ninth, she thinks, would need a theorem to understand friendship.

Self-pity. Nauseating. Useless.

She closes her eyes, then opens them again, having looked down to her journal. "It must be one piece of becoming a Lyctor. There was a stone tablet... glowing letters. I copied everything down and locked it back up."

"They were living chambers," she says. "For a necromancer and their cav. Funny to think about the Lyctors having cavaliers." For a moment, a vital insight swims through the turbid waters of her exhausted brain, but it escapes.

[blue_ajah]

"Lady Ninth."

The Aes Sedai's tone is kind.

"You will be better able to focus with rest." She lets that observation stand for a moment, then adds,

"If you cannot bring yourself to do so at present, I might provide temporary aid, but you will still need to rest in the relatively near future."

[we_bring_hell]

"A head start is the only advantage one can claim by choice," she says blankly.

"My father used to say that."

Her eyes close, and then open again, and she's not sure how long they were closed for.




"Moiraine Sedai," she says, with a great deal of her former formality forcibly restored. "I am poor at thanks, as I have said, but that is no excuse. I owe you... I owe you a debt greater than I have sworn to anyone to anyone but the Emperor or the Holy Corpse. If I can serve you or your House without compromising my other obligations you must--

This is ruined by an enormous yawn she can't manage to stifle. "--must only speak."

[blue_ajah]

"We will speak of such things later, if at all," she says, and holds out both hands to Harrow.

Once again, a warm golden glow surrounds her.

"Place your hands in mine."

[we_bring_hell]

She does so. Her hands are bony and cold, perhaps a shade or so darker than Moiraine's own. Her face looks thin and desperate and quite young; the bland church mask is all in tatters.

[blue_ajah]

The Aes Sedai closes her fingers around Harrow's, and threads of white, blue, and silver explode from where their hands are linked to rush over the other woman like a wave.

The weave brings with it the feeling of wind over water, sweeping over and through its target and washing fatigue away in its wake, leaving nothing but the sense of being well-rested, as though after a good night's sleep.

It does not take long. The light fades as Moiraine finishes the weave. There is a final sense of gentle pressure on Harrow's fingers, and then the Aes Sedai releases her.

"You must rest within the next day or at most two. This is a masking, nothing more. It will allow you to function as though you have slept, but it only shields you from your exhaustion; it does not remove it."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow almost flinches away from the gentle touch; it's been a long time since she's had skin to skin contact with anyone at all.

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.

[blue_ajah]

A faint smile curves her lips.

"It is a peculiarity of this weave that you cannot, in fact, use it upon yourself. A protection of sorts, perhaps."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow lifts her hands to scrub her face, then realizes how filthy her hands are and what a disaster her makeup must be already. She lowers them to her knees instead.

"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.

[blue_ajah]

"If you will have it so," the Aes Sedai murmurs.

"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."

[we_bring_hell]

She ducks her head in a silent agreement, and drains her glass of water before walking out the door. On the other side is darkness and some cacophonous snoring that is cut off as it closes behind her.

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine settles back in her chair and signals a waitrat to bring her some tea, as she considers everything that has just happened.

She does not envy Harrow the situation that the younger woman has found herself in.