[ It does show off her biceps! She has him thoroughly beat in the game of biceps. This is not exactly a feat, but he tries to look respectfully impressed. She is clearly going for something, here, and he would not want to let her down. He has done plenty of that, and they're trying to get off on a better foot.
He lowers the offered hand and steps back to let her rise, without a speck of offense. As though they'd agreed it. ]
Gideon. [ He says it in acknowledgement and consideration, as though he hasn't said it a million times across a myriad; he rolls the word around as though it's new. ] It's a good name. Might get a bit confusing under normal circumstances, but here we are with nothing but time to ourselves.
[ He sweeps an arm, expansive and casual, to the open and choppy ocean. To this baffling little joke of a world. It hangs egregiously unspoken between them, that normal circumstances are now extinct: Gideon the First is unlikely to ever climb out of that water. Mercy and Augustine, his most ancient friends, his closest family, are dead and deader.
It's just them. ]
I am sorry about the reunion, [ he says, and his tone is gravely, unexpectedly genuine, ] but if we start on things I should be apologizing for, we will genuinely be here all day. Should we rustle up some dry clothes first?
[ Here's the thing: she is worse than a chess piece. She is a weapon without a safety, an uncontrolled variable, an unclassified threat. She is the least convenient thing to happen to him in a hundred lifetimes.
You know, I actually think it'll be pretty easy to tell me apart from that big guy you sent to kill Harrow. [ Gideon does not sound happy about this. ] For starters, I am very cool and fun to hang out with.
[ Not that she's going to give him that chance. This guy has bad dude plastered all over his boring face.
But then he has to go and be genuine, and it's almost like Gideon can hear Harrow chiding her for how easily she falls for that shit. It's like Dulcinea -- no, Cytherea -- all over again.
Gideon think about that for a moment, and then remembers that Harrow completely threw away her sacrifice, like Gideon's choice didn't matter. And then she thinks: fuck this. I'm cold. ]
...Sure. As long as you have something that doesn't make me look like some Third poser. [ Gideon may be experiencing a whole entire crisis of faith and the self, but damn it, she's still gotta look good. That is not something she is willing to compromise on. Google Nine Houses, always taking pics. ]
[ He winces. He makes a show of wincing. He goes oof. ]
I believe it! [ He says it in earnest tones, hands spread like surrender. There is still a genuinely unhappy slant to his mouth, a weary note of consideration in the way he meets her glare. ] But like I said, we will get to my sins later, as the list honestly runs so long it would be very sad and boring to stand here recounting them all. One of the problems with living a myriad: you've made a myriad's worth of mistakes. Let's at least do that part in style, and then you can decide whether I should walk the plank.
[ He turns, waving her with him, and strolls back across the deck towards the captain's quarters. His posture is casual, without a speck of indication that he's turned his back upon a threat. It's only beside the doorway that he slows to a stop, and he turns back to Gideon with one eyebrow quirked. ]
Now, [ he says, still thoughtful, ] this next bit might get a little weird.
[ Oh, just a little! Not that Harrow would, herself, say that she is the weird part of the equation. But she is attempting the great challenge of standing up, to be followed by the hardship of walking.
As a bonus, what she is wearing is dry, even if it's oversized for her. She no longer appears to have feet. Her hair, about chin-length at this point, is sticking to her head in a blend of remnant sea water, sweat and blood. Innocently, she had just been planning to try to make her way to the door to see if she could walk well enough to get outside again. Her smeary vestiges of however she got the black outlines of skull on her face look even more terrible than they already did from the water alone.
Almost instantly, Harrow figures out she can't: the feel of moving ship under her feet still does not settle well, and she catches herself on the doorframe so as not to fall over— which is the point where she sees the Emperor with Gideon, lets go of the doorframe thoughtlessly in response as her eyes widen, and ends up in a ball on the floor again. ]
[ Gideon follows a few paces behind, practically talking over her father and God. ]
Okay, you might call them mistakes, but I think it's actually very easy not to --
[ -- sweet-talk the girl you're trying to kill, Gideon nearly says, before stopping dead in her tracks. There's Harrow, miraculously alive, in her own body, a body that does not seem to be doing well, but that's probably to be expected.
Gideon pushes forward, so she's standing between the Emperor and her necromancer. She's still focused on the Emperor, squaring up to her full height and very obviously curling both her hands into fists. She's about as tall as her father, and currently does not have her sword, but she'll make do. She's thrown Crux off of plenty of flights of stairs. She can throw God off a boat. ]
A little weird? You have sixty fucking seconds to explain why the hell the girl you tried to -- [ here, she makes air quotes ] "fix or put down" is on your ship. Now. Go.
[ Oh, boy, she doesn't want to make this easy for any of them. That's fine; he can do patience. John's attention is not on his daughter, just now: he is intent upon the sad crumple of Lyctor upon the wet floorboards.
Or perhaps not a Lyctor, anymore. This is all a really fascinating and unprecedented edge case, and he'd like to all consider the implications in peace for a moment, without getting pushed off a boat. ]
Can I have an extra thirty? I want to make sure none of us are massively hemorrhaging, as that might put a damper on things. [ He leans to look past her, as though she is a particularly inconvenient post, to catch his Ninth Saint's eyes. She looks remarkably lucid, which is a very good start. ] Harrow, could you introduce me?
[ Harrow is impressively fine for how she looks: lucid, yes. Cognizant, yes. Aware of who everyone is around her, yes. Suffering a brain bleed, no, thankfully.
That doesn't make any of this any more logical. In fact, if it is possible for Harrow to be more confused than she was inside a River bubble of her own making, that point has been reached. At least she only looks a little sick. Only like she's going to vomit slightly. But as she raises her head, her look is slightly puzzled, the same way that her tone is: ]
Yes? [ And then: ] Perhaps not in a properly formal fashion from the ground like this, but if I rise I suspect it will only get worse —
[ This can't get any weirder, so she just blurts out the rest. ]
My cavalier, Gideon the Ninth.
Somehow.
[ Harrow's forehead makes contact with the floor again. ]
[ For a split second, Gideon is torn between wanting to mouth off to her father and making a beeline for Harrow. The fact that he cares about her brain now, after all his bullshit, is laughable. He doesn't get to care. That's Gideon's job.
And speaking of Gideon's job: she'd be a pretty shitty sworn sword if she just left Harrow there. So Harrow wins out, yet again, and Gideon dashes forwards to kneel at the mass of robes and bone that makes up Harrowhark Nonagesimus. ]
Yeah, well, the fact that I'm here is on you. And the rat-mouthed woman you call Mercymorn.
[ Gideon tries very hard not to think about the fact that she just recently watched Mercymorn die. She looks back up at the person who killed her, which does not help things. ]
Fine. [ Gideon will concede that God probably knows more about brains than she does, which is a damn shame. ] But if you so much as think about hurting her, you will take the worst bath of your crusty old man life.
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countryclub2021-08-09 05:25 pm
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He lowers the offered hand and steps back to let her rise, without a speck of offense. As though they'd agreed it. ]
Gideon. [ He says it in acknowledgement and consideration, as though he hasn't said it a million times across a myriad; he rolls the word around as though it's new. ] It's a good name. Might get a bit confusing under normal circumstances, but here we are with nothing but time to ourselves.
[ He sweeps an arm, expansive and casual, to the open and choppy ocean. To this baffling little joke of a world. It hangs egregiously unspoken between them, that normal circumstances are now extinct: Gideon the First is unlikely to ever climb out of that water. Mercy and Augustine, his most ancient friends, his closest family, are dead and deader.
It's just them. ]
I am sorry about the reunion, [ he says, and his tone is gravely, unexpectedly genuine, ] but if we start on things I should be apologizing for, we will genuinely be here all day. Should we rustle up some dry clothes first?
[ Here's the thing: she is worse than a chess piece. She is a weapon without a safety, an uncontrolled variable, an unclassified threat. She is the least convenient thing to happen to him in a hundred lifetimes.
She's something new. ]
no subject
[ Not that she's going to give him that chance. This guy has bad dude plastered all over his boring face.
But then he has to go and be genuine, and it's almost like Gideon can hear Harrow chiding her for how easily she falls for that shit. It's like Dulcinea -- no, Cytherea -- all over again.
Gideon think about that for a moment, and then remembers that Harrow completely threw away her sacrifice, like Gideon's choice didn't matter. And then she thinks: fuck this. I'm cold. ]
...Sure. As long as you have something that doesn't make me look like some Third poser. [ Gideon may be experiencing a whole entire crisis of faith and the self, but damn it, she's still gotta look good. That is not something she is willing to compromise on. Google Nine Houses, always taking pics. ]
no subject
I believe it! [ He says it in earnest tones, hands spread like surrender. There is still a genuinely unhappy slant to his mouth, a weary note of consideration in the way he meets her glare. ] But like I said, we will get to my sins later, as the list honestly runs so long it would be very sad and boring to stand here recounting them all. One of the problems with living a myriad: you've made a myriad's worth of mistakes. Let's at least do that part in style, and then you can decide whether I should walk the plank.
[ He turns, waving her with him, and strolls back across the deck towards the captain's quarters. His posture is casual, without a speck of indication that he's turned his back upon a threat. It's only beside the doorway that he slows to a stop, and he turns back to Gideon with one eyebrow quirked. ]
Now, [ he says, still thoughtful, ] this next bit might get a little weird.
no subject
As a bonus, what she is wearing is dry, even if it's oversized for her. She no longer appears to have feet. Her hair, about chin-length at this point, is sticking to her head in a blend of remnant sea water, sweat and blood. Innocently, she had just been planning to try to make her way to the door to see if she could walk well enough to get outside again. Her smeary vestiges of however she got the black outlines of skull on her face look even more terrible than they already did from the water alone.
Almost instantly, Harrow figures out she can't: the feel of moving ship under her feet still does not settle well, and she catches herself on the doorframe so as not to fall over— which is the point where she sees the Emperor with Gideon, lets go of the doorframe thoughtlessly in response as her eyes widen, and ends up in a ball on the floor again. ]
no subject
Okay, you might call them mistakes, but I think it's actually very easy not to --
[ -- sweet-talk the girl you're trying to kill, Gideon nearly says, before stopping dead in her tracks. There's Harrow, miraculously alive, in her own body, a body that does not seem to be doing well, but that's probably to be expected.
Gideon pushes forward, so she's standing between the Emperor and her necromancer. She's still focused on the Emperor, squaring up to her full height and very obviously curling both her hands into fists. She's about as tall as her father, and currently does not have her sword, but she'll make do. She's thrown Crux off of plenty of flights of stairs. She can throw God off a boat. ]
A little weird? You have sixty fucking seconds to explain why the hell the girl you tried to -- [ here, she makes air quotes ] "fix or put down" is on your ship. Now. Go.
no subject
Or perhaps not a Lyctor, anymore. This is all a really fascinating and unprecedented edge case, and he'd like to all consider the implications in peace for a moment, without getting pushed off a boat. ]
Can I have an extra thirty? I want to make sure none of us are massively hemorrhaging, as that might put a damper on things. [ He leans to look past her, as though she is a particularly inconvenient post, to catch his Ninth Saint's eyes. She looks remarkably lucid, which is a very good start. ] Harrow, could you introduce me?
no subject
That doesn't make any of this any more logical. In fact, if it is possible for Harrow to be more confused than she was inside a River bubble of her own making, that point has been reached. At least she only looks a little sick. Only like she's going to vomit slightly. But as she raises her head, her look is slightly puzzled, the same way that her tone is: ]
Yes? [ And then: ] Perhaps not in a properly formal fashion from the ground like this, but if I rise I suspect it will only get worse —
[ This can't get any weirder, so she just blurts out the rest. ]
My cavalier, Gideon the Ninth.
Somehow.
[ Harrow's forehead makes contact with the floor again. ]
no subject
And speaking of Gideon's job: she'd be a pretty shitty sworn sword if she just left Harrow there. So Harrow wins out, yet again, and Gideon dashes forwards to kneel at the mass of robes and bone that makes up Harrowhark Nonagesimus. ]
Yeah, well, the fact that I'm here is on you. And the rat-mouthed woman you call Mercymorn.
[ Gideon tries very hard not to think about the fact that she just recently watched Mercymorn die. She looks back up at the person who killed her, which does not help things. ]
Fine. [ Gideon will concede that God probably knows more about brains than she does, which is a damn shame. ] But if you so much as think about hurting her, you will take the worst bath of your crusty old man life.
no subject