abraxaslogs | 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

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.

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