up against these things I can't see
Aug. 4th, 2021 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
undonewithoutIt isn't every night that Harrow crosses their narrow hallway in the middle of the night, slipping quietly into Gideon's room--but it's most of them. The solidity of her cavalier's presence, even deep asleep, is a greater reassurance since last month's disappearances, the inexplicable vanishing and subsequent return that still triggered an alarm response at the back of her brain.
Most things in and out of Darrow did, as Gideon was annoyingly apt to point out, but that didn't change the truth of it.
Tonight, Harrow wakes with a jolt to the sound of passing sirens, the tone close enough to the panicked klaxon of the Mithraeum bells that she scrabbles her way into a sitting position before she's even fully aware, fumbling for the sword that should be at her side in its protective coffin of bone. It's not here; it never was, but as the blue and red flash of lights filters into her room she tears the sheets towards the end of the bed in a half-awake and desperate search. Reality catches her after only a minute, less than that, but her pulse still pounds in her ears, her breath coming in jagged, helpless gasps. Execrable flesh magician though she is, she knows enough to slow the beat of her heart and purge the remaining adrenaline from her system. It helps, just enough.
She's fully awake now, though, alone in the ruin of her bed, and falling back to sleep here seems all at once impossible. Quickly, she slips out of bed and goes across the hall, listening at Gideon's closed bedroom door for a moment before she turns the knob and pushes it ajar. She can only just see the shape of Gideon curled under the blankets, warm and solid and deep asleep; she stays in the doorway for another moment, watching her, before she takes the last few steps to the edge of the bed and curls in at her side.
Most things in and out of Darrow did, as Gideon was annoyingly apt to point out, but that didn't change the truth of it.
Tonight, Harrow wakes with a jolt to the sound of passing sirens, the tone close enough to the panicked klaxon of the Mithraeum bells that she scrabbles her way into a sitting position before she's even fully aware, fumbling for the sword that should be at her side in its protective coffin of bone. It's not here; it never was, but as the blue and red flash of lights filters into her room she tears the sheets towards the end of the bed in a half-awake and desperate search. Reality catches her after only a minute, less than that, but her pulse still pounds in her ears, her breath coming in jagged, helpless gasps. Execrable flesh magician though she is, she knows enough to slow the beat of her heart and purge the remaining adrenaline from her system. It helps, just enough.
She's fully awake now, though, alone in the ruin of her bed, and falling back to sleep here seems all at once impossible. Quickly, she slips out of bed and goes across the hall, listening at Gideon's closed bedroom door for a moment before she turns the knob and pushes it ajar. She can only just see the shape of Gideon curled under the blankets, warm and solid and deep asleep; she stays in the doorway for another moment, watching her, before she takes the last few steps to the edge of the bed and curls in at her side.
