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Gideon Nav ([personal profile] ninth_cavalier) wrote2024-02-24 10:58 am
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Open Post: The Arms of the Emperor are Never Idle

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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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally's really never met someone who talked like this before. It reminds her of men in Rusty movies, whose cadence had always confused her. Now she realizes it's part of Gideon's whole gender thing, this deliberate way of talking. Tally thinks she likes it.

"Maybe," she says, then sighs, too lucid to forget the actual threat of real-life zombies she's supposed to be preparing for. "I mean, no. I probably should still actually learn things."
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-28 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally shakes herself to rid herself of goosebumps. "Okay, deal."

She'd meant it when she said she felt like she could take on a Special earlier. The combination of adrenaline, pain, and kissing has time slowing around her, allowing her body to work like the beautifully designed instrument it is without the burden of a pretty mind. She copies Gideon's stance.

Experimentally, she starts by aiming a strike at the arm that doesn't have a sword in it, hoping that her speed and pretty reflexes can get her through Gideon's defenses.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally whacks desperately at the incoming blow, just barely able to stop it. Contrary to what Gideon just said, she starts thinking a lot: she has to look at something else, not where she's aiming, but then that makes her look at Gideon's face, and that makes her heart beat a little faster, and she loses track of where she was supposed to be aiming, and looks at it again.

She backs up a few steps, fending off a couple strikes as she retreats, then decides she will look at Gideon's face, and aim for her leg. She darts back in again, starting high and then dropping her sword down low when she gets in close.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 03:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally beams, momentarily forgetting they're in a fight. Maybe she can hold out long enough versus the zombies that Gideon doesn't have to rescue her at all, and they can totally kill all the zombies together. She backs up again, then darts around to try and get at her from behind. She's beginning to put together that only speed and surprise can counter Gideon's skill and strength.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ha!" Tally crows, throwing her sword onto the ground with a clatter. She'd all but forgotten that exercise was totally endorphin-making. Every nerve in her body is singing.

"I won!" This isn't entirely accurate, but she'll have to settle for one hit being good enough on her first day. Gideon's really, really good, which only becomes clearer as Tally gets marginally better herself. Actually, wait--she's good enough that Tally's not sure what happened to let her get a hit in. "Um. Are you okay?"
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Are you going to hold up your end of the bargain, then?" Once again, Tally telegraphs her intentions: she looks at Gideon's mouth. There's something a little sad about it, though. Tally considers pressing, but it feels bogus to interrupt the flirting when Gideon isn't really visibly upset, so Tally lets the question lie. She can ask more questions later, when she isn't totally fizzing like champagne.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
At first Tally's overcome with joy at the touch. Then when Gideon pulls away, she feels the distance between them grow--not cold, exactly, but not warm either.

"You're not, like, mad that I won, right?" she says, almost instantly regretting how anxious she sounds. "Or... was the kiss okay?" This was why it was so much easier to just be pretty, and not worry about things. Any pretty she'd kissed would have just kept kissing her and not made her wonder what was going on. Of course, a pretty would never have Gideon's personality, either. Being ugly-minded is turning out to be anything but simple.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-30 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally smiles, relaxing. Count on Gideon to remind her not to be so missing, and like, chill out. She steadies the rug so it rolls up neatly.

"I totally will," she says, rising to the challenge. "Yeah, let's do this again tomorrow. Ugh, I so wish I could teach you how to hoverboard. That's also a mostly falling-based activity."
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-04-03 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
Tally glows a little at "hot." "I totally tried with Galahad, but it would only give me a surfboard."
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-04-05 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Okay," Tally says softly. Gideon clearly needs some space, even though Tally wants to climb her like a party spire, and see what happens when she jumps off. Later, definitely. "See you around, Gideon-la."