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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.]
quote_gentle_unquote: (70. it takes time for eyes to see)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-02 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"In some ways it was like this one: Enormous. Full of nooks and crannies to explore. Loads of books. The grounds were smaller, but there was a stream in the garden. Oh, and a magic wardrobe with an occasional portal to another world rather unlike this one."
quote_gentle_unquote: (89. not so with the warmer lot)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-06 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's not always a door," Susan says, contemplative. "Sometimes the world just yanks you through to it. Sometimes it's a mirror. And I'm given to understand the old professor who owned the mansion traveled to that world primarily through magic rings and little ponds. ...I do know how mad this all sounds."
quote_gentle_unquote: (03. but what if i do?)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-08 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Space, truly?" Susan is immediately fascinated. "They intended to attempt for a manned sub-orbital flight shortly before I arrived here but there weren't enough resources and the plans were changed. You've traveled through space, then? Or are you just from a fixed point within it?"
quote_gentle_unquote: (98. make the slots and the flaps)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-10 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
"Originally and most recently, yes," says Susan. She's already making plans to read up on whether they ever did make it to space, after her time.
quote_gentle_unquote: (03. but what if i do?)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-11 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, heavens no," Susan laughs. "A number of others come from years I could barely fathom. Thomas, for example, and Shen Yuan."
quote_gentle_unquote: (53. is a dancehall)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-11 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's possible! We've not discussed it though, I'm afraid."
quote_gentle_unquote: (35. and if you wouldn't mind)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-13 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Susan shakes her head. "The third one down the hall," she says, and strides forward to the door in question. As promised, once she throws it open, it reveals at least fifty different blades, tucked away on shelves or hanging on the back of the door.
Edited 2024-04-13 04:58 (UTC)
quote_gentle_unquote: (99. upon my wing)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-16 02:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"You've got a fascinating command of language," Susan observes, standing back and watching as Gideon peruses the options.
quote_gentle_unquote: (31. oh you make me)

[personal profile] quote_gentle_unquote 2024-04-16 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"One must never neglect the beheadings," dryly.