![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
undonewithout“But I was stabbed through the stomach!” Harrow shouted over the howling wind and the sick clatter of the tentacle disgorging another shower of plex slides. “What’s happening out there?”
There was little time for Magnus or the Lady Pent to answer the question, or for Harrow to remain where she was, curled in a rictus of agony on an ancient mattress, though right then she might have cherished the indulgence of either. She allowed herself to be helped upright, Magnus coaxing her hand gallantly--and foolishly, always foolish in his gallantry, and how could she have forgotten that about him?--into the crook of his arm to keep her close. They followed Abigail out of the room and into the hall, past the drifts of bloody snow collecting in the corners and dusting the humped shapes of furniture already half-buried. That much, she remembered from before, the cold and the snow and the sheer broken loneliness of Canaan House; what was new were the twisting pink organs making incursions nearly everywhere, and the bits of debris they were leaving behind. As much as she could, Harrow slowed her steps, dawdling to a degree she would have never permitted of herself before in the hopes of examining them, acquiring information even as they continued to flee.
There, a window shaded over with a thin film of tissue, the veins within blue and fat with blood. In one corner, a pile of rusted syringes half-burying an inert skeleton. In another, a pulsing tube split as though cut with a scalpel, releasing specimen containers full of cloudy fluid, something small and lumpen suspended within. It was all disgustingly physical, unnervingly medical; when her foot brushed against a heap of oblong pills, scattering them with a rattle, Harrow startled.
“Keep moving,” said Magnus as one of the tentacles behind him shuddered, emitting a gush of watery blood that sluiced over the floors, freezing slick in spots. Even frozen, the stench of it was meaty and obscene. “No time to take in the scenery.” Harrow looked up as though chastised from the skeleton she’d been examining--not a First House construct at all, those were Drearburh tools in its bony hand--and closed the distance between them, falling back into step with both shades of the Fifth. She’d had no right to pull them in, to cast them or any of the others as actors on her now-besieged stage. Their ghosts deserved the current of the River, swift passage to whatever shores lay beyond--but somewhat pathetically, she was glad of their presence anyway. “Where is this room?”
It was not the question she should have asked of the myriad already on her mind, but the more she remembered of the real Canaan’s halls, the more Harrow recalled there were safe places and unsafe, doors she’d catalogued that first day and sorted into one category or another. The mental map she had of them was faded now, fractured, and as she turned corners and scuttled down corridors, Abigail and Magnus only a step or two ahead in their heavy coats, she wished for a pencil and a piece of flimsy. Anything to begin setting another part of her mind to rights, after all that was lost.
“Close by,” said Abigail, turning her head so the words would not be lost in the increasing screech of the wind. “The others will be there already, if all’s gone according to plan--take my hand, we’re heading outside.”
Like the trusting child she’d never been, Harrowhark reached for Abigail’s mittened hand, and the world broke once more. The terrace she’d been about to step onto deliquesced into nothing, melting away beneath her feet, the howl of the wind turning into the rush of water, sweeping her away. It was the River, and not the River, a current of darkness taking hold of her and dragging her down; Harrow again tried to take the reins of her power and pull, finding that same butt-fuck nothing from before happening again. There was no escape from what this was, just a swirl of--
She is ten and standing on a chair, coarse-woven rope in her hands. Beside her, three bodies step in unison into the empty air, that final, frantic walk she imagined for herself so many times already--and now, of all times now, she cannot make her feet obey the command to move.
She rolls on the floor of the Mithraeum, hands bracketing the blade protruding from her stomach, broiling in the hot air and yet shivering at the same time, her blood smearing against the walls and the tile, dyeing the ridiculous fabric of her robe a red only the Cohort could admire. From somewhere far beyond, the incessant sound of the klaxon rings, and rings, and rings…
She feels a ripping inside her head, a pain that blanks out all else except for the sudden flash of golden eyes and for a second, Harrow, you look at me, and I look at you, and the experience is deeply fucking weird for us both.
When the world crashed back in, it revealed nowhere Harrow recognized. The scuffed brick of a wall swam into her field of vision, metal cans lined up against it; she could feel something equally hard propping her upright from behind, the ground firm and flat underneath her. All of that was hazy beneath the pain radiating outward from the blade still lodged inside her, the hilt pressed close to the small of her back. If she screamed, it was a sound she was used to by now, thin and animal in its agony. She slumped to the side and lay there, cheek against the gritty surface of the pavement, grasping for the threads of her power to close the wound and stabilize the damage, panting with the effort. Faintly, she could feel the blade move, a shuddering lurch of metal pushed this way and that by tissue regrowing at a rate she could not in this state comprehend.
“What is happening,” she tried to say yet again, though it came out garbled and choked, her teeth slick with the blood welling up from her throat. Harrow retched, spitting out a clot, a globule of scarlet all the brighter against the dull grey of the concrete. It cleared her airway enough to let her drag in another ragged breath; then another, and still more after that. Her vision grew dark around the edges, but Harrow focused, helplessly, on the fact she was still breathing. From somewhere behind her came the sound of running footsteps.
There was little time for Magnus or the Lady Pent to answer the question, or for Harrow to remain where she was, curled in a rictus of agony on an ancient mattress, though right then she might have cherished the indulgence of either. She allowed herself to be helped upright, Magnus coaxing her hand gallantly--and foolishly, always foolish in his gallantry, and how could she have forgotten that about him?--into the crook of his arm to keep her close. They followed Abigail out of the room and into the hall, past the drifts of bloody snow collecting in the corners and dusting the humped shapes of furniture already half-buried. That much, she remembered from before, the cold and the snow and the sheer broken loneliness of Canaan House; what was new were the twisting pink organs making incursions nearly everywhere, and the bits of debris they were leaving behind. As much as she could, Harrow slowed her steps, dawdling to a degree she would have never permitted of herself before in the hopes of examining them, acquiring information even as they continued to flee.
There, a window shaded over with a thin film of tissue, the veins within blue and fat with blood. In one corner, a pile of rusted syringes half-burying an inert skeleton. In another, a pulsing tube split as though cut with a scalpel, releasing specimen containers full of cloudy fluid, something small and lumpen suspended within. It was all disgustingly physical, unnervingly medical; when her foot brushed against a heap of oblong pills, scattering them with a rattle, Harrow startled.
“Keep moving,” said Magnus as one of the tentacles behind him shuddered, emitting a gush of watery blood that sluiced over the floors, freezing slick in spots. Even frozen, the stench of it was meaty and obscene. “No time to take in the scenery.” Harrow looked up as though chastised from the skeleton she’d been examining--not a First House construct at all, those were Drearburh tools in its bony hand--and closed the distance between them, falling back into step with both shades of the Fifth. She’d had no right to pull them in, to cast them or any of the others as actors on her now-besieged stage. Their ghosts deserved the current of the River, swift passage to whatever shores lay beyond--but somewhat pathetically, she was glad of their presence anyway. “Where is this room?”
It was not the question she should have asked of the myriad already on her mind, but the more she remembered of the real Canaan’s halls, the more Harrow recalled there were safe places and unsafe, doors she’d catalogued that first day and sorted into one category or another. The mental map she had of them was faded now, fractured, and as she turned corners and scuttled down corridors, Abigail and Magnus only a step or two ahead in their heavy coats, she wished for a pencil and a piece of flimsy. Anything to begin setting another part of her mind to rights, after all that was lost.
“Close by,” said Abigail, turning her head so the words would not be lost in the increasing screech of the wind. “The others will be there already, if all’s gone according to plan--take my hand, we’re heading outside.”
Like the trusting child she’d never been, Harrowhark reached for Abigail’s mittened hand, and the world broke once more. The terrace she’d been about to step onto deliquesced into nothing, melting away beneath her feet, the howl of the wind turning into the rush of water, sweeping her away. It was the River, and not the River, a current of darkness taking hold of her and dragging her down; Harrow again tried to take the reins of her power and pull, finding that same butt-fuck nothing from before happening again. There was no escape from what this was, just a swirl of--
She is ten and standing on a chair, coarse-woven rope in her hands. Beside her, three bodies step in unison into the empty air, that final, frantic walk she imagined for herself so many times already--and now, of all times now, she cannot make her feet obey the command to move.
She rolls on the floor of the Mithraeum, hands bracketing the blade protruding from her stomach, broiling in the hot air and yet shivering at the same time, her blood smearing against the walls and the tile, dyeing the ridiculous fabric of her robe a red only the Cohort could admire. From somewhere far beyond, the incessant sound of the klaxon rings, and rings, and rings…
She feels a ripping inside her head, a pain that blanks out all else except for the sudden flash of golden eyes and for a second, Harrow, you look at me, and I look at you, and the experience is deeply fucking weird for us both.
When the world crashed back in, it revealed nowhere Harrow recognized. The scuffed brick of a wall swam into her field of vision, metal cans lined up against it; she could feel something equally hard propping her upright from behind, the ground firm and flat underneath her. All of that was hazy beneath the pain radiating outward from the blade still lodged inside her, the hilt pressed close to the small of her back. If she screamed, it was a sound she was used to by now, thin and animal in its agony. She slumped to the side and lay there, cheek against the gritty surface of the pavement, grasping for the threads of her power to close the wound and stabilize the damage, panting with the effort. Faintly, she could feel the blade move, a shuddering lurch of metal pushed this way and that by tissue regrowing at a rate she could not in this state comprehend.
“What is happening,” she tried to say yet again, though it came out garbled and choked, her teeth slick with the blood welling up from her throat. Harrow retched, spitting out a clot, a globule of scarlet all the brighter against the dull grey of the concrete. It cleared her airway enough to let her drag in another ragged breath; then another, and still more after that. Her vision grew dark around the edges, but Harrow focused, helplessly, on the fact she was still breathing. From somewhere behind her came the sound of running footsteps.
Re: Reply to a comment. [ undonewithout - 533
Date: 2021-05-23 09:16 am (UTC)Of all the times she imagined seeing the broken bones of Harrow's skull, this wasn't quite how she saw it happening. Her stomach lurches as blood wells up and it takes her a moment to reach for the gauze that Palamedes asks for. She holds it out to him, her fingers numb. She trusts him almost as much as she doesn't trust Harrow. It's enough.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 03:35 pm (UTC)Palamedes hits the curve of her skull, wiping clean the bone and exposing the lines of new growth, the places marking where Ianthe's unworthy hand had put the saw at Harrow's demand. It's an exposure that sits ill within her now, another sign that they've progressed to a point where continuing is easier than retreat. Everything she had to do is about to be undone, and like a child, she fumes for a moment at the unfairness of the world before turning her attention to the calm instruction of Sextus' voice.
"Natural and unnatural are complicated terms when it comes to Lyctorhood, I've learned," she murmurs, her teeth worrying her lower lip. "Your plan makes sense. I'll help to guide you where needed, and...set right the things I've done." Inhaling slowly, Harrow unfurls the healed ridges of bone, drawing them back to re-expose the cut edges and loosen the panel enough to allow removal. Again, it takes effort, but less than she expected; her access to the Lyctoral well had unquestionably deepened, and it's a revelation that both thrills and disturbs her in equal measure.
Re: Reply to a comment. [ undonewithout - 533
Date: 2021-05-23 03:38 pm (UTC)Watching Harrow unravel her own skull shifts something foul and greasy in Gideon"s abdomen. She tastes copper. "Nope," she says, and manages to turn just in time to vomit noisly into her kitchen sink. At least she'd done the dishes this morning. "Fuck."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 05:20 pm (UTC)The bone growth dissolves before his eyes, and Palamedes carefully removes the loose piece of skull, its edges slightly ragged. Did Ianthe not have the slightest bit of pride in a job neatly done? Beneath sits Harrow’s exposed brain—Palamedes has never seen a still-living human brain before, and for the briefest moment he’s merely fascinated. “Let’s start here,” he says, grimacing at a spot where Harrow’s skull has grown something like a bone spur that presses cruelly into grey matter. He readies himself with more gauze, prepared to staunch the bleeding with necromantic and material means.
They work their way through the injuries, Palamedes directing Harrow’s bone magic, repairing what he can and hoping that time will do the rest. Soon, his nerves evaporate—his fingertips sing with adrenaline, and his glasses grow streaked with blood sweat, and he can feel a headache squeezing at his temples, but it’s glorious. He marvels at his own handiwork and Harrow’s—her motives may have been tragic, her theory flawed, the long-term effects incalculable, but God, she’d been precise about what she’d tried to do.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 07:19 pm (UTC)She wonders, at one point, if she ought to call for a mirror. If she ought to see, half out of fear and half curiosity, if the color of her eyes has shifted. With Gideon in the room with her, resurrected by a power she still doesn't comprehend--but cannot see the hand of the Emperor in at all--it might be a useless concern.
They undo the last bit of damage, and Harrow lets out a breath as Palamedes sets the cut bone back into place. Almost immediately, her skull begins to knit itself together again, new bone blending with the old more perfectly than it had before.
"It's finished," she says, and there's a weariness to the words. Her scalp is laid back into place, the skin healing layer by layer, scabs forming and then flaking away to reveal new, pink skin. "But to know if it worked, if I am...whole again, for good or ill..."
Harrow turns only enough to find where Gideon's sitting, more than slightly green in the face. She looks at her, and there's no zing of pain in her head, no leak of blood or sense of something ripping. If it aches, it's somewhere else entirely.
Re: Reply to a comment. [ undonewithout - 533
Date: 2021-05-23 07:32 pm (UTC)Gideon had end up sitting on the floor with a glass of water between her bare feet and her head bent over her knees. Dimly, she's aware of Harrow speaking after a long period of silence and, when she looks up, Harrow is looking straight at her. "You're not bleeding," she says.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 08:39 pm (UTC)Palamedes goes to the sink to wash the blood from his hands. He takes off his glasses, finds a dishcloth, dampens it, and presses it to his face. It comes away stained pink.
He smiles just a little when Gideon speaks. It worked. The realization thrills him and floods him with relief. “I’d like to come by tomorrow,” he says, all business. “To ensure no complications have arisen.”
no subject
Date: 2021-05-23 09:25 pm (UTC)"That seems wise," Harrow says, echoing his smile with a flickering one of her own. "I'll note anything anomalous between now and then, and if an emergency arises...it's clear Gideon knows how to reach you." She hesitates. "Thank you, Sextus."
Re: Reply to a comment. [ undonewithout - 533
Date: 2021-05-23 09:33 pm (UTC)Gideon doesn't respond to that, her golden eyes on Harrow's face for a moment. Shaved bald, there's nothing to disguise or soften the sharp lines of her face. It takes a long moment before Gideon looks away. "I'll call you if we need you," she says. "Harrow can take my room tonight. I'll make up the spare tomorrow."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 01:33 am (UTC)His expression softens when he looks at Gideon, who seems ready to come to pieces from her mix of emotions. The tension crackles between her and Harrow, and he is keenly aware that he only knows a fraction of all the complicated things they mean to each other. As he leaves the kitchen, he pauses next to Gideon and squeezes her shoulder. "You, too. And you can call for any reason."
Then he goes to collect his messenger back from the living room and make his exit.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 02:00 am (UTC)The door shuts, and Harrow looks up from where she's sitting surrounded by bloodied towels and bits of gauze, all the wreckage of the surgery still scattered around the chair. "Nav..."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 06:55 am (UTC)"Nope," says Gideon, shaking her head, her red hair falling forward to curtain her eyes before she pushes it back with a hand that's trembling finely. "Not now." It takes great force of will to raise her head and look the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House in the eyes. It feels like a lot of things have come undone, and Gideon Nav doubts her dexterity to braid them all back together again before she's had a shower and a drink and punched a few walls. "Now you need to change. And sleep. We can do this in the morning."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 03:30 pm (UTC)"Fine. Where am I to sleep for tonight?"
Re: Reply to your comment. [ undonewithout -
Date: 2021-05-24 03:42 pm (UTC)"You just had brain surgery, Nonagesimus. Questions can wait." With a weary sigh, Gideon hauls herself up off her kitchen floor and walks out of the room in the direction of her bedroom like she expects Harrow to follow her. "You can take my bed," she says, entering the room and heading for the dresser. "I don't have blankets or anything in the spare room but I can get you set up for tomorrow. Though you'll probably have a place of your own if you want it." She grabs a t-shirt and a pair of sweats that are a bit snug for her and, after a moment, a hoodie and socks too. "You can wear these to sleep in."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 04:19 pm (UTC)Her rant is delivered to Gideon's retreating back, and after fuming for another moment or two, Harrow sighs furiously and gets up from her chair. The room wheels around her, briefly; she fumbles for the nearest edge of the counter, leaning against it until she feels steady enough to follow in Gideon's irritated wake. Entering the bedroom, she looks around at the bed and the dresser, all the soft and comfortable things piled in corners or hanging in the closet. It's all Gideon, but as strange and new as everything else she's already seen. Her brows draw together at the thought of a place of your own, her dark eyes cutting towards Gideon before looking away. When the clothing is offered, she takes it, thin fingers curling a little tight into the soft fabric.
"I do not need your--" she starts, then cuts herself off, remembering Gideon's exhortation to just let me be your fucking cav. She grits her teeth. "Fine. Your bed for tonight. And tomorrow is...tomorrow. Where is your bathroom?"
Re: Reply to your comment. [ undonewithout -
Date: 2021-05-24 05:00 pm (UTC)"Next door down the hall," says Gideon, shifting her weight on the balls of her feet, awkward in her own space and irritated by the fact of it. "I'll..be here if you need me. And in the morning I'll explain." She turns towards the door, something molten and hurting at her centre. "Call if you need me."
no subject
Date: 2021-05-24 06:00 pm (UTC)She doesn't bathe, not all the way, but she finds a cloth and dampens it in the sink, cleaning her face and wiping the dried sweat from her body until she feels restored enough to face wearing the clothes she'd been given. They're comically oversized, floppy and absurd-looking on her skinny frame; she burrows into them anyway, leaving her Lyctoral robes and the clothes she'd arrived in in a pile on the bathroom floor.
Leaving the bathroom again, she can hear Gideon moving around in the living room, grumbling to herself under her breath as she does whatever it is she's doing. Harrow could go in, could force the confrontation still brewing between them, but she pads silently back to the bedroom instead. It feels like surrender, but she's too exhausted, suddenly, to care.
Climbing into Gideon's bed, Harrow wraps the covers around her body, cocooning herself in layers of blankets and sheets. She's asleep almost instantly, her mouth falling slack and her pinched features softening.