Open Post: The Arms of the Emperor are Never Idle

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon spends her mornings in the practice yard, bright and early, despite the cold. She jogs and stretches to get her blood pumping and her muscles warm before she draws her sword, and then after drills she brings Tally her coffee, and then after that it's back to more sword—unless Tally hauls her off to some other activity, which she pretends to hate but is secretly devastatingly grateful for. The absolute worst part of this place is all the time. Endless stretches of time, with barely any work to be done.

In some ways it's just like the Ninth—except on the Ninth she knew her exits. They were few, sure, and near-impossible, but she knew them: buy her way out, fight her way out, trick her way out, or truly earn it.

None of those apply, here.

She breaks for lunch, and wanders the halls trying to locate various Clues and Mysteries that might end up giving her a way out, and mostly just finds people. More and more people.

She's not antisocial. She likes the people here, more than she's openly liked anyone in her life, individually or as a group. But a gnawing restlessness keeps her on the move rather than letting her time fill up with idle conversation as so many here do. She's always hunting for something to keep her busy, to wear out her body so that when she sleeps her mind is forced to rest rather than serving her a lovely buffet of the worst things she's ever seen and even worse things she hasn't, the things she was yoinked away just in time to miss.

Sometimes it even works.

[This post is open in perpetuity until something happens to make me close it, at which point I will edit it and say so! Feel free to find Gideon in the morning doing sword drills, or tooling around inside, opening and closing drawers and trying peel the wallpaper off in case there's flesh underneath.]

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[tallyyoungblood]

One morning, Tally's already awake and waiting outside her door when Gideon brings her her coffee. She can feel herself changing, slowly, and she finds herself wanting to sleep less and less, especially after giving up drinking.

She's dressed herself in a sports bra and joggers, the kind of thing she might have worn to yoga in a pleasure garden or something. She's put off learning self-defense until now, since concepts like moving and working hard feel totally bogus to a pretty mind, but it's been a little while since the bodyswaps and she knows now that the monthly events can repeat. There's nothing stopping the zombies from coming back.

When she sees Gideon coming down the hall, her heart does a little flip. She's looking a little down, though, and Tally's determined to change that.

"En garde, Gideon-la!" Tally points her sword at her. "You're totally gonna teach me self-defense today."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs. It's not that Tally's gotten less unnervingly beautiful over time, but she's starting to get used to it—to see her actual personality come through the airbrushing. Unfortunately it makes her want to flirt with her more rather than less, especially when she's dressed like she is today. "Am I? What an honor." She swaps both her cups of coffee into one hand, balancing them gingerly in her palm, and uses the other to catch the tip of Tally's sword between two fingers. "You know, you're holding this totally wrong."

[tallyyoungblood]

"What?" Tally says, blinking down at her hand. She likes the way her hand looks under the swoopy silver guard, but maybe it's upside down. "I was also thinking, if you want me to try a big Gideon-type sword, I can do that too-"

[lightbearinglord]

At his earliest convenience¹, Lan Wangji comes to find Gideon at the training yard, not so very long after he awakens at mao hour, finishes a morning meditation, and kisses Wei Ying extensively to make up for the atrocity of removing his body heat from their bed. In anticipation of some exercise, he hasn't bundled up in winter robes, despite the biting chill. Bichen at his side, he stands and watches Gideon, awaiting a break in her drills that might lead to her noticing his presence.

¹Realistically, this would have been the very next morning after they discussed it, but time is an illusion here at the creepypasta mansion.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon's pretty in the zone, but Lan Wangji is hard to miss. He's a quiet man, but his presence is large, and something in the way he stands requests attention in a way that's both polite and impossible to refuse. Gideon lowers her sword, glad she's only just begun—she has a feeling she'll need her stamina for this. "Lan Wangji," she greets him, smiling a little. "Morning. Are you here to teach me how to counter flips and shit?"

[lightbearinglord]

As usual, Lan Wangji doesn't smile, but he is glad to see Gideon, and looking forward to this. He gives her a respectful bow, teacher to student. "Mn. Is that your goal? Countering flips?" He is a little amused, although she may not know him well enough to notice it.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

One morning when Gideon finishes sword drills, she'll find Susan leaning against the same fence she usually lounges by whenever she comes to watch Lancelot train. Susan is bundled up against the cold, longbow in hand, and she's clearly been assessing Gideon's ability, coming to any number of conclusions about her skill, her force, and her dexterity.

When Gideon notices her, Susan will give her a friendly nod and greet her with, "So you're the hairdresser."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon grins at her—at her eyes, Griddle, though she's at least aided in this effort by Susan being so bundled up. "Hi. Nice to meet you in your own bod."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Likewise." Susan takes in the sword. "That's a formidable blade."

[thepurpledanger]

Ever since her brief stint in Lan Wangji's body, Gu Xiang's focus on her training has sharpened. She'd never really understood, before, why Wen Kexing was so insistent on meditation--if someone came at you with a sword while you were meditating, you'd just be dead, so what was the point?

She understands the point now. She's seen the perfect control over body and blade that Lan Wangji's cultivation afforded him; she's seen how he's patiently threaded together a thousand streams of qi into single, self-sustaining wellspring within himself, which needs only patient, focused tending to yield power beyond imagining. If someone comes at Lan Wangji with a sword while he's meditating, that person is an idiot and deserves what they get.

Thus, she's searching the grounds for places that feel good to meditate. She'd go to the cave that she and Magnus found, where she can practically feel the world's qi pooling and concentrating, but apparently he's unilaterally decided to give that spot to a giant, rude man who smells like meat and liquor, so that's out. There's a clearing with a dry fountain that feels like the opposite of what she wants; it's like it's trying to suck the qi out of her. She spits in the bowl and resolves never to go back.

As Gu Xiang alights on the peak of the roof to consider her next options, she catches sight of someone working through unfamiliar sword forms in the practice yard. Curious, she leaps, using qing-gong to slow her fall. Thus it is that she lands before Gideon like a purple leaf, whip-sword out and shining.

"I'm going to fight you," she decides. Her eyes shine, too.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon straightens up slowly out of her stance. This is new. This girl is dressed kind of like Lan Wangji and Luo Binghe, and is clearly able to do their bullshit wizard floating and flipping, but looks to be closer to Gideon's age. She's also wielding something that Gideon immediately wants a closer look at, and clearly she's going to get that wish.

Most people here seem to want to have at least one conversation before challenging her to combat, but she's never been one to look a gift cute girl with a sweet-ass sword in the mouth, or whatever, and anyway this is kind of her favorite way to get to know someone. "Sick," she says, raising her sword again. "Let's fucking go."

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang only has a moment or two of observation to guide her--Gideon's both strong and fast; she moves like she has nothing to lose. She'll come down on Gu Xiang like a ton of rocks if Gu Xiang gives her long enough to build momentum on a swing.

So she doesn't. Gideon's fast, but she's faster, and she has qi to burn. She grins as she moves around Gideon, light, no pattern to her steps for Gideon to anticipate, testing her defenses with curving, snakelike strikes from the delightfully flexible blade of her whip sword.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad watches her peel paper for a while, standing there silently, as he likes to do. He doesn't like the way rings feel on his fingers -- there's something constricting about them, something about the way it's hard to slide one off over his knuckles that makes his mind come close to panic -- so he's made himself earrings that match the opal-hearted roses on the engagement ring for Claudius. He's wearing them now. There's no reason for Gideon to notice this detail, since he always wears earrings now, but the wearing of them makes him feel closer to Claudius.

"No horrors yet?" he asks finally.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon startles. "Fuck." Now who's jumpy? How long has he been standing there?? "No, I, uh. Starting to think the house might be a horror. I was talking to your boyfriend about this, actually."

[onthewillowsthere]

He tilts his head, rubbing the band of his watch.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot comes across her, opening and closing drawers, one afternoon as he's on his way to one of the libraries.

"Gideon!" He says, glad to see her, "Hello."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Captain," says Gideon, giving him a salute. "Been a while. How've you been?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He smiles, giving a little shrug -- which really means that he doesn't feel the need to bore Gideon with the minutiae of his days than anything else. "Well. And thee?"

[sporesprouter]

Tress is heading inside from attending to Fenyes when she comes across Gideon who is on her way back outside. She smiles. "Oh! Good morning, Gideon! What are you up to?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon is, like, embarrassingly happy to see Tress. She'd been so out of it her first day, floating above her body, and Tress had been the first person to figure out a way to anchor her. "Tress, hi!" she says, and then tones it down a little. "I'm, you know, milling around. Still trying to figure a way out of here, even though I keep getting waylaid by translation nonsense and being put into other people's bodies."

[sporesprouter]

Tress nods. "Oh, I understand on both counts. Who did you switch with?"

[temnota]

After letting go of his urge to find the perfect room with the perfect amount of lighting, Aleksander had come across a room that would do - it was big enough to accommodate a large table and still leave room for movement and other things, such as shelves. The next step was to acquire wood for the table and to that end, he went in search of Gideon.

When he found her, he gave her a friendly smile. "Hello, Gideon! Do you have a moment?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"I've got what feels like endless moments," says Gideon, cheerfully. "What's up, boss?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's not usually out this early, but she's still kind of buzzing in an embarrassing way about Susan. It's stupid, but whatever. Nobody has to know that she's up and at 'em for this specific reason. Maybe she's turning over a new leaf and now she's a morning person.

Gideon's easy to spot on account of the giant sword and, oh yeah, the fact that Janet looked like her for a day. "Looking good," she calls, deadpan, "but I think you were looking even hotter a little while ago."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon looks up and grins, flicking her bangs from her eyes. "Same to you, your highness." She wanders over, giving Janet a slightly exaggerated up-and-down. "So this is how you normally dress."