{ pfsb } a letter and a meeting

[jaskoleczka]

Time is passing strangely for Ciri; it's difficult to tell if she has slept entire days or only a few hours. There is no way to mark the days aside from weather, and that changes quickly enough that it is wholly unreliable.

(The Bar, in her infinite kindness and usual sympathetic meddling, has in fact created a mild time loop in Ciri's room, giving her time to recover and somewhat ignoring the distressed flurry which has emanated out in ripples from her arrival.)

She comes downstairs, therefore, determined to more fully explore this strange place. There are stables she wishes to visit, and the woods remind her very slightly of those around Kaer Morhen...but her plans are abruptly canceled when, along with the strong hot tea she'd ordered, Lady Bar provides her also with a note.

Anyone watching would see Ciri rub at her forehead as if to quell a sudden headache, then lay a hand on the bartop and request something in a soft voice. Quill and pen appear, and she bends her head to write briskly and neatly:

Reverend Daughter,

I am terribly sorry for the distress I have caused. Please know it was not intentional.
I welcome your request for a meeting. I am at your disposal and shall visit Room 99 within the hour.

- Ciri

Folding the note, she looks for a waitrat to charge with its delivery and watches as the messenger scampers up the stairs before she turns with a sigh back to her tea.

Which she is now wishing was something a good deal stronger.

---

It's about half an hour later that she stands at the door of Room 99 with no idea of what to expect, knocking lightly with gloved knuckles.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"You don't fight it, Griddle. It's not about fighting. At least... not that part."

There is still, like, a bone monster.

"But you were right. I think this process requires perfect trust between the necromancer and the cavalier."

She swallows. She's theorizing way out ahead of her facts, articulating untested hypotheses that have been gradually accumulating unspoken. And she's not even sure--not entirely--that the second death of the prophecy is what she's describing. But Gideon needs certainty, and she can give her that, if she fakes it well enough. She's been doing it all her life.

"The test with the construct--seeing through your eyes. I think I need you as a secure point from which to complete the work. I need you to hold me steady."

[we_do_bones]

"You looking through my eyes," says Gideon, slowly. "I guess that's what it could mean, that whole thing about 'golden eyes.'"

She's still not excited about the weeping bit, but she's willing to consider it a wash if she and Harrow are going through whatever it all is together.

This crouch is starting to hurt; she shifts to her knees and looks at her hands around Harrow's, all the strength she can offer that may not be what Harrow needs at all.

Not the physical kind, anyway. Hold her steady? "Well. That I can do."

[we_bring_hell]

That's... actually something she hasn't thought of. Hm.

"I know you can." Her voice is husky and quiet.

"There's still much I don't understand," she says. "I'm not ready. And if I try it before I am... that could indeed be the second death."

[we_do_bones]

Gideon is quiet for a long moment, golden eyes on their hands. She thinks about these two beds, of which is used and which isn't, and she thinks about how Harrow cajoled and bullied and tricked her into relaxing earlier.

"But maybe," she says, and her voice is just barely loud enough to hear. "Second death. She said second death. What if...she didn't mean you at all? What if it was about her?"

The way she says her makes it clear Gideon is not referring to Ciri. There's only one her who looms large enough to go by no name at all. "If she thought you were forgetting her, abandoning her...she's dead already. What could kill someone again?"

Aside from no longer existing in the head of a girl they'd stowed away in?

[we_bring_hell]

"That could be," Harrow says quietly. It had crossed her mind.

But why would Gideon weep for the Lady of the Tomb?

But if Gideon is taking comfort from this tact... "The seer said she is a medium for outside forces, not a true prophet," she admits.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon nods, but doesn't trust herself to speak, only leans forward to press her head against Harrow's bony knee and huff out a heavy, somewhat depressed breath.

She hates this. All of it. Everything except Harrow's hands in hers and Harrow's still-breathing body sitting there on the bed. She hates not having enough information; she doesn't even know what kind of information she needs. "None of it makes sense," she mutters, rebellious. Her heart is hurting keenly and her head isn't far behind.

"Prophecies are stupid. Why don't they ever foresee something good? Where's the prophecy that says you become an awesome Lyctor and I go down in history as the hottest cavalier of all time? Has anyone ever even heard of a useful prophecy? They should at least rhyme."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow lets go of one hand and strokes Gideon's hair. "We will have to be our own prophets, Griddle. I have been predicting that all along."

[we_do_bones]

"You know I won't let anything happen to you, right?"

She sighs a little at the touch of Harrow's fingers in her hair. "If something wants to kill you, it has to kill me first. And I am apparently shit at dying."

[we_bring_hell]

"I know," she says. "I know."

"I am sorry I will put myself at risk. But I cannot turn aside."

She doesn't even wish she could. But sometimes she wishes she was the kind of person who would.

[we_do_bones]

"I don't care about the risk. I care about you."

She looks up now and finds her old crooked grin. "What the hell. It's what we signed up for, right? We're doing this together. That's all I need to know."

She's sure she'll tell herself that over and over again when she can't sleep tonight, but for now...Harrow needs to hear it, and honestly? She needs to say it. "You are the scariest necromancer the Ninth has ever made and I'm your sworn sword. What's the worst they can throw at us?"

[we_bring_hell]

She tightens her fingers affectionately in Gideon's hair. "Nothing worse than what we have thrown at each other, my dear."

[we_do_bones]

She lifts the hand she still holds and brings it to her lips, full of emotions she has no way of distinguishing. Fear wrestles with pride, dread with determination.

But above them all, this aching swell in her chest, the one that hurts her heart and threatens to crack her ribs and only seems to grow by the day. Damn, she loves this girl.

"Damn, I love you, Nonagesimus," she says, because why keep it to herself. "You absolutely fucking wreck me."

[we_bring_hell]

"Griddle," she says helplessly.

You deserve so much more. But her throat closes around the protest. She pulls Gideon forward as she bends her head and kisses her.

[we_do_bones]

She pushes herself forward and up, following Harrow's guiding hand, and kisses her adept back with every roiling feeling she's got. "Always me and thee, gloom mistress. You're my main squeeze, my shadowy sweetheart."

[we_bring_hell]

"You are the greatest treasure of my heart, Gideon," she whispers from close range. "Bravest, truest, strongest. Kindest. Despite all we did to break you."

She presses their foreheads together and breathes in Gideon; sweat and greasepaint and power.

[we_do_bones]

In all their past battles, in every scuffle and every test of power, was this where she just wanted to be? Kneeling before Harrowhark Nonagesimus, fully her creature, unable to imagine a world where she lived while Harrow perished?

She has no idea. But it doesn't matter, because this is how she feels now. She huffs a breath through her nose and closes her eyes, relishing Harrow's touch, how close she is, anticipating with a thrill how much closer she'll be later. "I'm unbreakable," she bluffs. "You should know that by now."

[we_bring_hell]

"I do," she whispers. "Believe me."

God, how she'd tried. Gideon's hatred had felt right, in a House where she was shamed by adoration rooted in ignorance of her sins. Gideon's forgiveness means everything, in part because Harrow had done everything she could to make herself unforgivable.

She closes her eyes and just rests here, sharing breath; Gideon's scent cutting through the fug of incense and ink and blood sweat that attends her.

[we_do_bones]

She stays here a long moment, breathing Harrow in until the tension in her neck and shoulders begins to reluctantly unwind.





"Is there a reason there's a sheet over my weights?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Oh," she says. "I covered them with the skeleton to present a more formal image. Having a single room for all our needs is not always convenient when trying to make an impression."

For instance: their beds are not made and there are clothes on the floor.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon could not care less what some prophetic ashen-haired twit could think about their room, but Harrow does. She cares about all that stuff; how they look and how they act and how it reflects on the Ninth and all its shabby finery and thousands of years of tradition.

So she just nods, and turns her head to kiss Harrow's palm.

"What are you working on, anyway?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Oh,"she says again, subtly coloring. "It's foolish."

"Did you read the Bias sermon on necromancers and cavaliers?"

She was supposed to, in the lead up to deployment to Canaan House. But that doesn't mean she did.

[we_do_bones]

"You must know I didn't," she says. "Obviously I left all that book stuff to you, the smart one."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow smiles indulgently. "It is the canonical theological reconciliation of the necromancer-cavalier bond with the other moral obligations."

"It's honestly rather moving, except Bias takes a pretty firm stand against libidinal bonds between adept and cavalier."

[we_do_bones]

Gideon makes an understanding noise.

"No sexing it up with your cav, huh?"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow's flush deepens, but she says: "I was composing an apology--in the theological sense of the word--a defense or rebuttal."