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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 2024-03-18 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally dodges, but just barely. She feels the blade against her side for a nanosecond before she darts away. She laughs, exhilarated again.

"This is so bubbly-making," she says. "But you always make me bubbly." She tries the same move back on Gideon, but she can already tell her swing is clumsier, unused to the weight of a sword in her hands.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-18 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally's glad that she's exerting herself, so she has an excuse for her face going a little pink.

"Um, of course it is. That's what we've been trying to do this whole time." This time Tally gets hit, but she doesn't flinch or fall over. The pain sings through her. "Bubbly equals not pretty-minded and useless. You're really good at making my heart beat fast. You know, with all the coffee and stuff like this." Tally's also distracted now, even as the world shimmers with bubbliness. "Are you going to knock me over or what?"
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-19 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
Gideon's closeness and the nickname are so distracting that Tally falls like a hoverboard going off the magnetic grid, totally forgetting to dodge for long seconds. Whirlybird makes her feel warmer than Tally-wa ever had. It's--it's unique. Belatedly she rolls, heart pounding. She's lost her sword somewhere along the way.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-20 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, wow. Gideon totally looks like some kind of avenging angel from this perspective, like that woman from the Rusty movie about a drought apocalypse.

Tally gazes up at her. "Would you do other stuff to keep me bubbly?" she asks suddenly. She hadn't thought it was possible, but her heart beats even harder.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-22 08:56 pm (UTC)(link)
"You're not even going to ask me what?" Tally asks in amazement, slowly getting out from under the sword. "You're not just saying that because I'm pretty, are you?"
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-25 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"So you're saying... you like me for me?" Tally looks at her with wide eyes, turning to track her movements but also trying to send a message of sincerity.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Tally jumps back, then turns to aim a strike at Gideon's shoulder. She's not concentrating on the sword fight very much, though, because her memories are icy-clear right now. Both David and Zane had kissed her first, made the first move. She'd done it a few times when she'd kissed uglies way before her fifteenth birthday, let alone her sixteenth, but not when it really mattered. The way Gideon makes her feel sometimes makes her think of Shay, the desperate want to belong to someone. They're teetering on the edge of friendship and flirting in a totally butterflies-inducing way.

"Then would you kiss me?" she blurts out, surprising herself. "I know you have your, um, Harrow at home, so it doesn't have to be anything serious. I just... want to." Magnus had definitely made a good point that she shouldn't use Gideon for pure bubbliness purposes, but this isn't that. This is just Tally asking for what she wants, even if she's not entirely sure she knows all the reasons why she wants it.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
For a moment, Tally thinks about pushing Gideon over, but she already looks totally pushed over. It's both concerning and utterly gratifying.

"Yes," she says, committing. "I know I said you were ugly, and I'm really sorry. Like you said, my, um, soft-core panopticon totally fucked me up. But obviously that's not the prevailing opinion any more. Um, that I have. I like you for you, too." She starts nervously twirling the sword in one hand, then stops herself.
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally laughs a little in relief at Gideon's smile. Her mind feels utterly ugly. She thinks she could remember every detail of the Smoke right now if she wanted to, but she actually wants to think about the present moment, for once.

"It is kind of the swordplay," she teases. "Totally bubbly-making." She looks into Gideon's beautiful golden eyes and finds the vulnerability there, less evident than it might be in a pretty's but much more authentic. It feels like a prize she's won.

"I do. You make me feel like myself."
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Tally kisses back, warmth flooding her head and chest. The kiss lacks the magical feeling of kissing another pretty, or the illicit passion of kissing David, but it's heart-pounding nonetheless because it's Gideon, her weird and bold protector from outer space. A nagging part of Tally tells her some part of Gideon belongs to her mysterious Harrow as much as David had belonged to Shay, but Harrow isn't here right now. And Tally doesn't owe her anything.

Tally's bubbliness is almost wrapping back around to lightheadedness, so she puts her hand on the back of Gideon's head to steady herself. She leaves it there when she pulls back to get some air, gently carding her fingers through Gideon's short hair.

"Wow," she says softly. "I could totally win a fight with a Special right now, probably."
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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood 2024-03-27 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Part of Tally feels like something is finally right with the world, that Gideon is acting the way she's supposed to act around someone as pretty as Tally is, but she's awake enough to notice it and correct herself. It's not the halo effect. It's the Tally effect.

She's feeling a little bit Gideon-effected right now herself. She wants to listen to everything Gideon says, and look at her more, and to get a little closer.

"So mean, Gideon-la," she chastises. "It's totally not my fault if my sword teacher is, like, utterly distracted." She kisses her again.
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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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