abraxaslogs | Open Log Prompts

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Open Log Prompts

WHO: Harrowhark Nonagesimus & other people!
WHAT: Reposting my TDM because I came in so late; let's make new official game canon out of these perfectly decent TL prompts I already wrote.
WHEN: June 12 & 13
WHERE: Around the castle.

i. wandering

Some people are definitely finding that kidnapping is not an effective way to garner assistance, but none of those people are Harrowhark the First. She knows that is her name now because it has been used for her a couple of times (then rise, Harrowhark the First) but she is also frequently still introducing herself as Nonagesimus because she has not gotten used to being First. She has not been First for very long. But she is certain this is a task assigned to her as a Lyctor, that her coming into her necrosainthood has been given this duty.

It's too bad about the fact that her Lyctorhood now feels like it is miles away instead of settling into her skin. She may still be a necromancer, but this world has wrenched something from her. It pains her. It burns at her constantly, the way she knows she still could control bone with little but a twitch of a single neuron, but it also feels like it would make her very tired. But that man--Ambrose--told her it would come back, and she has little choice but to believe him, as she must hang her hopes on something.

So until then, she is wandering the halls looking a bit adrift, but not anywhere near as angry as some might be: a small slip of a girl-woman, just eighteen, with short hair, black robes over a black turtleneck and black pants, and a face painted like a skull.

ii. dining hall

This part doesn't work as well.

With all the fancy food in the world, Harrow is struggling to find things she can eat. She's managed a single corn muffin on her plate, and a cup of water, and is sitting at the table taking tiny little crumbs from the muffin (which is still too rich) and putting them in her mouth. She absolutely looks pathetic and like she doesn't know how food works.

iii. the library / study hall

The library is better.

The library is everything, in fact. It is all she's ever wanted besides to renew her House and become a Lyctor, and so in some ways, she now has everything she could ever ask for in the world except a way to return to the Ninth -- which she would not have had anyway (the way back is closed to you) and will have to live without at least until those rules can be finessed to suit her.

She is reading and reading, and will read until her eyes begin to bleed if she isn't stopped earlier. She researches that sign on her if she can (using the information she got from the hallway as a start), she researches the kingdom, she reads about the war. None of it is sticking until a second read--it is a flurry of excitement--it is a new world that needs her and because she is needed, she is going to learn.

The apprentice mages may find her a bit unpleasantly demanding ("Teach me that") but she does remember to add a please, and of course, she of two hundred (and only two hundred, now that she's seen ~~her~~ Gideon) souls shows aptitude, even if it is entirely the wrong kind of magic. The tiny flame in her hand that she can put out by closing her fist? She's smiling.

No one knows her, but if they did know her, they would know that smiling is not something Harrowhark does.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's only a matter of time before Hector and his new roommates cross paths in the dorm room the apprentices assigned them to. Hector's claimed his bed by turning down the sheets, since he has no earthly possessions to leave on it.

Hey, it's not the first time this year he's been dragged somewhere new and divested of everything he owns. At least this time, he's not in the dungeon. He's not happy to be here, but he can work with this.

When the girl slips in, dark-clad and painted, Hector looks up and raises an eyebrow at her.]

That's certainly a look. Were you worried someone might mistake you for cheerful?

No?

[ Harrow is bewildered, reaching a hand up to touch her shoulder and then her chest as if there's something off about the way she looks. But no: she just looks how she looks. She hasn't gained something new or unexpected, at least to her. She's just an ordinary Ninth necromancer, at least in appearance. ]

It would take intoxication to mistake me for cheerful, I would hope, but what about me says it the most?

[Hector waves a hand at her, gesturing at 'all of it'. His lips twitch in a smile, though. At least if he has to share a room with someone, it's someone who can match his sarcasm.]

Dunno. The skull, the abhorrence of all color. You're more dark and brooding that most vampires I know.

[He nods his head in a slight mock-bow.]

I'm Hector.

[ Harrow does at least know what a vampire is. She didn't know they were beings she was likely to run into, though. The Ninth definitely hasn't ever had any, and she doesn't suppose Canaan House or the Erebos do either. ]

Dark and brooding is what the Ninth House does. [ She returns a head-incline, entirely serious and very somber. ] My name is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, but since that has been difficult for some, you are welcome to use 'Harrow.'

[Hector doesn't know which nine houses his new roommate is talking about, but he's also not one to involve himself in politics when he can get away with it.]

I'll take your word for it, Harrow. [She is in possession of quite a name, and Hector is more than willing to use the nickname for the sake of ease.]

So, is there a reason you're all painted up? Did I miss the invitation to a masquerade?

This is my face.

[ Translation: she always looks like that. ]

The makeup I wear every day. It's how we do our faces where I come from. No, not every necromancer, [ surprise! they're both necromancers! ] but every Ninth one, for certain.

It's not very subtle. How do you avoid getting burnt at the stake?

[Hector is used to the work being dangerous, forbidden. Hector has gotten away with it because he's powerful and kept a low profile before he joined up with Dracula. He studies the girl more closely.]

Every ninth necromancer... How many of them are there running around where you're from?

[It's at this precise moment, however, that the door to their shared accommodations pushes open with an atmospheric creak, and Gideon sweeps into the room. All six-feet-two-inches of her, still decked out in the dark silk tunic and pants she'd received upon arrival, though nonetheless as unsubtly threatening as she might seem in her second-hand Ninth House garb. She hasn't yet washed her face, which means the ominous paint she wears has been made all the more ghastly by the fact that it is now slipping and horribly smudged. She knows how she looks right now okay, don't rub it in.

Almost immediately, she sketches out an obnoxiously exaggerated bow.]

I have returned, my crepuscular queen, my caliginous mistress. Did you miss me terribly, my--

[It's only on rising that she clocks the fact that she and Harrow are not alone, and abruptly her facetious accolades grind to a halt.]

Oh, uh-- Who's this guy?

[ Harrow had started to answer Hector — ]

Every one in three people tends to be a necromancer, population-wise, but in this case 'Ninth' is a place, not a—

[ ... and then there was Gideon. ]

— count. [ After the pause to look at her cavalier, followed by her attempt to hide the slight brightening to her expression when Gideon comes in with the epithets, she finishes schooling her face to neutral so no one can tell that she secretly loves the ridiculous titles. They can't, right? ] Gideon the Ninth, Hector. Hector, Gideon, my cavalier. We seem to all be in this room.

Edited 2021-06-19 20:39 (UTC)

[One in three? That is way too high a proportion of necromancers to normal population, if for no other reason than the demand for corpses. Hector is about to ask how and more importantly why, when Gideon happens.

And, um, wow, that is a lot of lady. Snarky, smudged up, and towering over Hector. He tries not to compare her to Striga, the giant vampiress, as he looks up at her. Gideon seems much less murderous, which is nice. At he cavalier and her necromancer aren't his captors, so he can join in on the snark.]

Hello. I hope I'm not intruding on your reunion. You two go on, I'm going to think of some florid titles for myself so I don't feel left out.

[She chooses to ignore whatever boring necromaner thing they'd evidently been discussing before she blundered in, and instead gives Hector a slow and appraising once-over, quite deliberate. She's never really shared sleeping quatres with anyone save Harrow, not since she was very young and there were still other children in the Ninth House to sleep amongst - something she knows to be true yet which she retains no memory of.

Maybe she should dwell a little more on the fact that there's a whole, sprawling castle to house them within and yet they're being made to share rooms with strangers, but instead what she says is--]

I could think some up for you if you're feeling left out. I wouldn't want you to go around saying the Ninth House cav cruelly excluded you.

No, it's a second reunion, it's all right.

[ It's weird to say you live here too, so she doesn't, though it's true. Harrow will allow for the idea that perhaps she's glad to see Gideon, from a third party. It's actually impossible for her to entirely hide the fact that she is glad to see Gideon, even if neither of them are entirely sure how to handle it. ]

She can certainly come up with titles, just needs a few worthy adjectives for you. I have the ... convenient [Harrow does not want to say fortunate ] status of having been known by Gideon my entire life.

[Hector nods at both Gideon and Harrow. He thinks he can stand to share a space with the two of them.]

So the two of you came from the same place. Interesting. There's someone here from my world as well, but he had the shit luck to get tossed into a cell.

[So, way to go keeping on Thorne's good side, ladies. It's much more convenient.]

So do Cavaliers do magic, too?

[Gideon gamely roles her eyes at the use of the word convenient, knows that at some other point in time it may have been replaced with unfortunate or dubious or some other altogether less pleasant word. But now? Now...things are more complicated than that.

But she's being asked a question, and abruptly she shakes her head.]

Nah, I do swords. I don't have a necromantic bone [ha ha] in my body.

[That there are other kinds of magic here, and that one would call something she's always considered more of an innate talent bolstered by lots and lots of boring scientific learning, could really be considered 'magic', is something she's yet to wrap her head around.]

I would be less useful without her presence, though I prefer not to draw on her, if possible.

[ Harrow can at least make cavs seem useful! ... even if it's true that she's terrified by the siphoning now, and is not going to do such a thing ever again if she can prevent it. Even if Gideon tried to get her to, and might again. It looks like she's going to say something else, too, but she swallows it; she doesn't want to actually compliment Nav. They both might die. ]

[Hector nods. Ok, a bodyguard. Hector prefers to make muscle when he needs it, but to each their own. He neatly categories their relationship in his head, and moves on.]

Have either of you heard anything about what they want from us here? It can't have been easy to summon us.

[One or two people, Hector could justify as curious wizards testing their power. But this many speaks to a purpose, and Hector is curious to find it.]

[Gideon is distracted from her mixed feelings around Harrow's words - like hell she'll allow Harrow not to draw from her if it's needed, and like fuck is she excited to feel that particular pain again - to focus on Hector's instead. She responds by making a particularly rude noise, and shakes her head.]

Understatement if ever I heard one.

[Getting her here? In the flesh? It's a trick that even the King Undying shouldn't be able to pull off...or at least, so she thinks.]

But I dunno. They said something about being chosen, I'd have thought we're here to do battle or something.

[Though that may or may not be because she hopes it's to do battle, battle being the first and foremost thing that she dreams about. She looks to Harrow though, before saying anything else. Chances are the Reverend Daughter has been paying more attention to the subtleties of their arrival than she has.]

It seems like it, yes.

[ Harrow read the details, where she could. She listened and she pried; she isn't as good a set of silent ears as Gideon might be, because she is not as good at not being the center of attention. ]

There is some sort of war on; the whole 'great peril' situation. I'm not sure if we were the people the mages were looking for, any of us — [ even though she wants to believe she was; how could they not want a Lyctor? on the other hand, if they wanted a Lyctor, why her? not that she would admit that out loud to anyone ] but I think they've at least decided we'll do. That, or they have no idea how to send us back.

Why wouldn't they have been aiming for us? If there's to be a fight, there is no one better to raise an army than a couple of necromancers.

[It's an efficient system- lose soldiers, raise more. As the enemy gets weaker, the necromancer's side get stronger.]

At least, that is how it tends to work back home. I think it is no accident that we are 'honored guests'.

It turns out Nadine isn't the only one acting a little odd around the food. But where she's casually and slowly circling the table as if deeply concentrating on each particular offering, this young woman...seems to be deeply depressed by the little that's on her plate.

Well, Nadine can't exactly blame anybody for losing their appetite. Or being cautious of the food. She lingers by the young woman's chair, debating, before offering a tired smile that she hopes is encouraging.

"I've already eaten a lot of the food they've put out for us...it's safe."

While safety wasn't actually Harrowhark's primary concern—it's just too much food—she both appreciates that it can look like it might be, and that someone else would be as paranoid about something as she could be.

She doesn't smile, because she essentially doesn't know how to anyone but a select few people, but her neutral expression shifts to being appreciative in the eyes. "Thank you," says Harrow. "Food and I are not ... really friends and I have no idea what most of this is. Not poison is a good start."

"Oh! Well...I know what some of it is, at least."

Taking a break from her pilfering, Nadine takes a seat with a small smile. She assumes the young woman means she has a sensitive stomach, and maybe she can help point her in the direction of safer options on the table.

"What sort of flavors do you like?"

The truthful answer: I don't. But of the foods she eats, some things do, actually, have flavors. There are some flavors she's survived. Harrow just has to remember what they're called exactly.

One thing she can always remember, because Nav is always saying it:

"Bland." It is true: her stomach is picky because it isn't used to much. "Very light on the taste factor. The ... corn muffin is okay but a little strong at times. Things like leeks and lettuce that are mostly water are easier. Or baked fish?" Is any of this fish? It's not her kind of fish.

"Okay, I think we can work with that. I don't know what a lot of this stuff is, too, but I bet we can figure some of it out."

Like the meats. Certain meats look and smell a certain way, even if prepared in a dish Nadine's never seen before. She scans the offered platters and bowls and serving trays, lips pursed together in thought. Some of it...some of it she's sure she can't identify, nothing familiar in the sight or smell of it. But some...

"I'm pretty sure this is fish..." she points to a plate of seared squares of unknown white meat. It looks like a fish steak, though, and smells like the one. "And this..." Leaning over, Nadine takes a small spoonful of some sort of porridge looking dish to taste it for herself. "Is some kind of oatmeal, that's really bland."

Harrow's eyes light up.

It's not just the kindness from Nadine, it's not just the fact that someone is helpingher ands eems to understand one of her odder (to her) needs.

It's the light up of recognizing something.

"Oatmeal! I have had that before." She's also going to try some of the fish steak, though; after a moment of careful balancing she has a small fish steak on a plate and a bowl of oatmeal to which she is adding nothing. "Thank you."

"I'm pretty sure every culture everywhere has some version of oatmeal. Human evolution is pretty dependent on oats and grain." And porridge is as simple a meal as can be made, really. "I'm glad I could help. It's hard enough being in this situation without having to worry about dietary needs."

That's the sort of stuff they never cover in movies, the practical realities of being pulled into some magic fantasy world. But it would be a really short movie if the protagonist was felled by a weird allergy in the first ten minutes.

"Are you doing okay otherwise?"

"Nice and boring," Harrow says brightly.

This is to the food, which she is at least consuming now; it would be wrong to say enjoying, simply because that requires more than Harrow is experiencing at all. Food is fuel, it is a practical and needed thing, not something one enjoys. (Gideon enjoys it, a voice in her head reminds her. Well. Gideon enjoys weird things, not sensible ones.)

The second question is one that gives Harrow pause simply because it is possible no one has ever asked her this before. She actually blinks once, unable to mask her surprise, though the skull-painted face may make it a bit harder to perceive.

"I ... think so? I have not taken stock," she admits.

"It's been a lot. Being brought here, having to rely on a bunch of strangers in a new place we don't know or understand...it's okay to take a little while and just figure out whatever you're feeling."

Shock is pretty normal, Nadine thinks, in these kinds of situations. Shock is a self preservation method when the system is overwhelmed and this is definitely overwhelming territory. And it's not like there's adjustment counselors running around Castle Thorne.

She dishes up a plate for herself, deciding she may as well eat while she's here.

"That was where I was last, as well."

The Erebos, strange and unfamiliar.

"So it is a lot of hte same thing twice, though this seems to be lasting longer than where I expected to be remaining for the rest of my life. I have been to--three new places that are not my home in short succession."

Why is she telling a stranger this? Harrow has no idea. She's not used to anyone being concerned. The closest she ever had to a maternal figure was Abigail Pent, whose attentions lasted not long at all.

"That actually sounds really familiar. I was moving around a lot before I ended up here, I kept...having to settle into a new place and then leave again. It's not great."

Nadine can sympathize.

"It's normal to feel off balanced. At least things seem pretty quiet for us here. I know it's hard to relax when everything's so weird, but you should try. Have you been to the baths? They're honestly pretty amazing."

Of course she hasn't had reliable running water in over a year, so she's a bit biased in that department.

"Is it?"

This question from Harrow, who doesn't know what's normal about feelings. She doesn't know what's normal about anything. The only feelings she recognizes as normal are fear and confidence, and she has both in spades.

"I am not used to feeling — much," is admitted more humbly, her head ducked slightly. "I am not meant to be vulnerable. I lead my people, and I am — out of sorts and ... oh. Baths sound nice. Are they salt water, by any chance?"

There's hope in her eyes and hope in her voice, and it's probably a little sad to have to tell her that no, there's no way that baths are going to have salt water in them, Harrow.

"Pressure will do that." So Nadine's never counseled any young leaders, but she figures it's not much different than the wealthy kids she'd taught who's parents had invested everything in them.

"When there's a lot expected of you at a young age, it influences how you develop. It's not surprising you're out of sorts and confused now that you're in a completely different situation all of a sudden. And...I don't think there's any salt water baths, but I bet there's salt around here somewhere."

Salt water's just water with salt in it, that shouldn't be too hard to manage. Like bath salts only literally.

((OOC: Continued from here!))

It's a response that has Gideon cracking that big, bright grin all over again, and she waggles her paint-encrusted eyebrows with the exact same salaciousness her necromancer is complaining about. "Not even one? Come on, I've got some good ones."

She finds the levity grounding. It takes her mind - maybe both their minds - away from the bigger questions. The hows and whys, the inner workings of all of this, of something that should have been impossible for all but the Necrolord Prime, and even then...well, if he knew how to undo the thing they'd done, why ask it of them in the first place?

But maybe all of that can wait.

"You wanna get out of here?" she says instead, pushing off from the table to stand beside Harrow, expectant, "the sight of all these dusty old books is making me sleepy."

If they'd stayed on the subject, if the levity had remained, Harrow might have allowed for maybe just one. She is finding that she really can't refuse Nav, now that they're in one place again after realizing just how much they meant to each other, which is apparently 'so much that neither can stand to talk about or address it,' or even what they are to each other now.

Except that they definitely are necromancer and cavalier, and that is something that can no longer be doubted by anyone, even if Gideon's still not the most polished cav to ever inhabit Castle Drearburh. (She may also not be the least. Harrow will not confirm or deny this.)

"What, so you can nap off the dusty books? Honestly, Nav—but okay, if it's so important to you to go somewhere else. Can't have a cavalier who falls asleep on the job." Now Gideon gets to learn the good parts about being a real cavalier, like that the relationship actually is symbiotic, and unlike when Gideon was a serf, Harrow will do things that primarily benefit one or the other of them. Not just herself. "Did you have something in mind, or are we to wander until it presents itself?"

Despite the fact that she'd made the suggestion and already started moving, there's one bright moment of shock like a snapped stem when the other woman agrees to her request. She knows it, right down to the bones of her, that things between them have exponentially shifted. That all the sharp, jagged edges which for years they'd used to stab and poke and cut at each other have been...if not blunted, then at least changed. Regardless of this knowledge it still hits strange to see the evidence of it, of Harrowhark Nonagesimus, heir to the Ninth House and Reverend Daughter of Drearburh, regarding her with anything other than chilly black disdain. What resides there now in its stead is something she finds herself pulling away from, abruptly. A question she isn't sure how to ask - or how to answer - yet.

They're necro and cav, one flesh one end, and they know it - lived, felt, died it - more truly than most of the others who'd been brought to Canaan House alongside them ever will. Maybe - like the lack of answers to certain other questions - that's enough to be thinking about, for the moment.

That one moment of blinking surprise aside, Gideon cracks her knuckles obnoxiously, tilts her head as though in consideration. "Honestly? I hadn't thought that far ahead. But there's a whole damned castle to explore here, who'd wanna stay holed up in a library all day?"

Other than Harrow, that is.

"I would," she says, but she's still following, closing her book and standing up. It's not for her to be walking a half-step behind Nav. She's the one who should go through the door. But she's hesitating still, not entirely sure she wants to and yet she did also agree to do so—she wants to do what her cavalier wants! She wants to not screw this up again and again! She has her back somehow, she has to do it right—

It's very odd, to do anything right.

Especially when Gideon doesn't even know most of what the right thing is. Did she tell her? Can she remember?

"I don't want to go try eating more," is what Harrow says, instead. "So unless you have a preference, I'm going to turn in the direction opposite the food." And if they get lost, they've done it together.

"Of course you would," she says, with a roll of her eyes that makes her feel inexplicably better, "you dreary Ninth House revenant. But I'd rather not sit around and watch you do it, and besides. We should scope the place out. You know, for traps and shit."

Easier to fall back into this familiar, barbed back-and-forth than to think about the fact that Harrow is agreeing to her whims, is rising to follow behind her - for the moment - rather than brushing past with a swish of moth-eaten lace to force her to walk behind. It's still unnerving to have Harrow at her back, half instinct now after years and years of having her as a nemesis, but moreso perhaps that it comes on the heels of her yielding, of something that feels suspiciously like softness. It makes her feel things that she doesn't quite understand.

"Oh nah, I'm done eating. First place I checked out and if I eat anymore I swear I'm gonna puke," because yes she had more than her fair share, but in her defence there had been a dizzying amount of unknown food on display and she'd been keen to sample it. She says this as she sweeps quickly through the musty-scented stacks of books, and once she reaches the door she moves to open it, stands aside to let Harrow pass. Instinct again, and the desire to do what feels right to her; to behave like a real cavalier, to fall in a half-step behind her necromancer, "so lead away in the opposite direction, bone empress."

"Did you mean for dreary Ninth House revenant to be a compliment? Because it was."

Admittedly, even if Gideon had thought of it as more an observation, she probably also knew that Harrow would think of it as a compliment. To a Harrow away from her beloved Ninth—that she also, sometimes, a little bit hates right now, but still values above all other things—being called such a thing is a present. And this is a Harrow newly grappling with the fact that 'you can't go home again' is a real thing she has to live with. Even if she's not in Thorne forever, she's going to not be at the Ninth again, and she's never going to have her cavalier and best friend back—

—if she ever leaves here and goes back to her proper Lyctorhood. Which is a strange little moment of realizing she's not sure she wants to leave someplace she absolutely knows nothing of, just because it's got Gideon, and that, that is why love is a revenant of its own and collects itself in places it shouldn't be, why love is a terrible thing she can't be allowed to experience.

Instead, she just chortles, shaking her head at the unsurprising revelation of Gideon's having eaten enough to feel ill. "And that figures. At least now you do know what you like and what you don't," she points out to her very real cavalier, correctly placed, "so that should make meals easier. Not that I won't still dread it, but one of us is prepared."

Harrow has no idea where she's going, but if one must wander with no certain aim, do it with a keen eye and a cavalier who is both huge and good in a fight.

"What, not enough snow leeks for you? You're feeling nostalgic for some abominable grey gruel?" though the fact that Harrow has little appetite to speak of comes as no surprise, considering that the woman looks like a pitiful collection of black-painted sticks. But the ribbing feels comfortable somehow, something familiar in a strange place, even if the balance of what lies between them has shifted into something new and freshly blooming, the parameters of which Gideon hasn't quite yet figured out. There'd been no time to back in Canaan House. Not with their world fast-crumbling around them, with the whole place becoming a bone-strewn battlefield just as they'd begun to find their feet with each other.

And then, of course, she'd died.

But they're here now, inexplicably. Something she supposes they really ought to take advantage of.

For now, she follows just behind her necromancer as they pass through halls so lavishly polished and tastefully decorated that they feel almost disconcerting. Nothing here moulders or rots, there's no dust or debris or cracked apart floorboards, no shitty soot-coloured rock. It puts Canaan House - which had admittedly seemed beautiful even in its decay - to startling shame.

"I bet these guys have more money than all of the Nine Houses combined. Would you look at this shit? Even the hallways are opulent," she would never say she misses the black dreary depths of the Ninth, but at least it had been familiar, something known. She has never truly resided anywhere that wasn’t some kind of ill-disguised tomb.

"Too much flavor, for the most part, as regards the food. It's edible, manageable, but--"

Harrow doesn't trail off so much as just give up and stop talking. It's still hard to know what to say and what not to around Nav, for all that she now trusts her (and how strange that is--that's never going to stop seeming strange) there are still all kinds of attention that Harrow does not want. It doesn't mean that affectionate teasing is attention she doesn't want, though: worse, she finds that she very much does want, and if Gideon's looking closely enough she might notice a faint blush along the tips of Harrow's ears, very briefly.

She still has no idea where she's going, but she looks around almost as if hte building itself is a museum, one preserved better than Canaan House.

"They are bright and vast," is another way of saying 'not like home at all,' and Harrow, at least, loves her home, "But despite that quite beautiful in their way. It must be terribly expensive to keep it all clean since they aren't properly using skeletons or anything, though. I can't sense a single one." Disapproval reigns.

Only Harrowhark could say something as utterly dreary as too much flavour regarding food-- for the vast majority of Gideon's young life, eating had been a matter of refueling, something one did so as not to collapse embarrassingly at Aiglamene's feet in the middle of a particularly grueling training session. The food at Canaan House had been a revelation, and here? Here she's finally been transported to the kinds of dazzling culinary delights she never even knew to dream of. Too much flavour indeed. Gideon rolls her eyes so far back into her skull that she really ought to be able to see it.

When they return from their exasperated circulation however, she does see it; that infinitesimal change in colouration around the tips of Harrow's ears, the slight altering of her posture that no one but Gideon - with years and years of studying Harrow's subtle shifts in mood beneath her belt - would be able to discern. As such, she says nothing. Feels embarrassingly hot under the collar herself, suddenly, although she doesn't really want to think about why.

Instead she busies herself with staring at the highly polished floors, the tapestries and paintings that all look so fresh and filled with colour that they're almost an affront to the eyes. They pass a sunlit window that leaves the hardwood beneath their feet flooded by pools of light, and outside the sky is a startling shade of cobalt blue. This place, it's something else. Despite Harrow's dour tone of disapproval and her own secret uneasiness at finding herself amidst so much luxury (not to mention the alarming lack of skeletons), she can't help but feel a quiet shiver of awe.

"This is probably the weirdest shit I've ever gone and said but...the lack of skeletons is kinda creeping me out," a statement that almost makes her cringe, it sounds so depressingly Ninth.

Harrow chews at her lip, as she has to stop herself from ceasing to walk, has to stop herself from turning around to face, and beam at, Gideon Nav. She has given her cavalier—for that is what she is, now—a few smiles. She should not give her a heartfelt beam, because they might both die (again).

"Don't worry too much," she says, instead. "They promised I'd get my necromancy sorted within a couple of days and then I'll fix it. I don't at all like it either. I feel useless and utterly defenseless."

It's only after it's out of her mouth that Harrow realizes saying such a thing must be an insult to a good cavalier; she isn't used to having a good cavalier. While Gideon doesn't entirely know how to be one any more than Ortus did, at least Ortus knew the forms and functions, and Gideon has the raw skill and desire. "Sorry," she adds, voice quieter. "I forget that you'll actually defend me."

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Open Log Prompts

Wandering back to their room?

perfect!

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ii dining hall

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TDM thread continued

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matching icons!!

yes!!