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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[ninth_cavalier]

"Sorry," says Gideon, "I don't know what the hell that means. There's a spirit in my sword?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Yes." That seems sufficient enough as an answer. Besides, if the sleeper means nothing to Gideon, then Lan Wangji would like to press a bit harder on the issue. The sword came with her; she had it when they met. This spirit must be from her world as well. He frowns and plays again, adjusting the question to narrow its specificity: What is your name?

Once he withdraws his own hands, the spirit begins to respond, a longer series of notes this time. Lan Wangji's frown deepens fleetingly. "Awake remembrance of these valiant dead," he says.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon looks around nervously. That seems like the kind of incantation that should have skeletal hands popping up through the hard-packed earth at any moment. When nothing happens, she looks dubiously at Lan Wangji. "Is that like—a you thing, or what the thing in my sword said?"

[lightbearinglord]

"The spirit in your sword." Lan Wangji gives Gideon another glance. "I asked its name. That was its answer."

[ninth_cavalier]

"That's its name?" asks Gideon. "No House affiliation? How'd it get in my sword?" How long had it been there, too? Had it followed her from Canaan House?

[lightbearinglord]

The only way to answer that question is by asking the sword again. Lan Wangji puts his hands back to the strings of his qin. How did you enter this sword?

A little frown pulls at his brows as the strings appear to pluck themselves in answer. That is an unsatisfying response. Before relaying it to Gideon, he takes it upon himself to ask another, the second question learned during studies of qin language: Who killed you?

As that answer, a brief one, plays, he schools his face to perfect neutrality. Again, he looks at Gideon. "It got into your sword by 'hanging on,'" he says, "and it says that it was killed by Gideon."

[ninth_cavalier]

"What?" Gideon asks "Woah, woah--I've never killed anyone. Like, not for lack of trying, but--"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji battles back a pang of something sorrowful, reflecting on how very young Gideon is. "That was its answer. When I speak with spirits in this way, they are unable to lie to me."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon looks down at her sword, frowning. "But--" The only people who could blame her for their deaths would be Harrow's parents, who were tied way too tight to their own hideous corpses to take a joyride off-planet in her sword, and--"No way it's Ortus," she says, disbelieving. That sentence it'd claimed to be named did kind of sound like an excerpt from one of his bad poems,¹ but he would never introduce himself without a proud of the Ninth on the end, like a kicked dog still looking for treats.

¹ With apologies to Mr. Shakespeare.

[lightbearinglord]

Obviously, Lan Wangji is incapable of having any opinion on the likelihood of this spirit being or not being Ortus. He keeps a level gaze trained on Gideon. "What else would you have me ask?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Ah, hell, I don't know," says Gideon. "Is there a way to tell if it's, like--is it just hanging out? Does it want revenge on me for killing it?" She kind of wants it out, but if it's contained right now and letting it out would un-contain it, that's bad, and on the other hand if letting it out would dissipate it...well, it's sort of her only thing, right? From home? Not just the Ninth, fuck the Ninth, but--from her whole dimension.

[lightbearinglord]

It seems unlikely that the sword would cooperate with Gideon if it wanted vengeance on her, but then, as ever, Lan Wangji must remind himself that he knows only the rules for one specific world. He draws up a little additional qi to touch Wangji's strings as he asks the next question, enough to ensure without a doubt that the answer is compelled and that it is truthful. What do you want?

This question often takes some additional time. Spirits cannot refuse him, but sometimes even they do not know what it is that ties them to the world of the living beyond death. Lan Wangji waits until, at last, his qin begins to respond.

"It wants to kill God," he informs Gideon calmly.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon goes wide-eyed. "It--son of a bitch. It gave me the gun."

For the first time in her life, she kind of wants to drop her sword. Instead she lifts it, holding it out in front of her. "Listen. Whoever you are. You gotta calm down with that. We're not even in the same universe as the Emperor Undying. Also, you didn't give me any fucking bullets. So I don't know what you expect me to do with all that, anyway. But if you just--chill out and keep being a part of me, we're gonna get back there, and then maybe we can work something out. After the part where I save Harrow's life and she grovels in front of me for a month. Capisce?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji knows exactly enough about guns to be aware that they are unreasonably dangerous. He also knows that Gideon's claim about getting back to where she came from is almost certainly untrue. With his hands poised still above the qin, he looks quietly at Gideon. "Do you know the spirit's identity now?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Not exactly," says Gideon, "but I know enough." Whatever revenant is attached to her blade is clearly a member of Blood of Eden. Presumably they'd been held in the prison on the Ninth, and died in captivity, and it had managed to hop off and hitch a ride with her when its skeleton had been taken for boiling and processing before being sent to work. "The only thing I don't get is why it thinks I killed it. I've never even been to the prison section of the Ninth."

[lightbearinglord]

A dead prisoner? How gruesome. Lan Wangji eyes Gideon's blade with subdued interest. "Is Gideon a common given name in your world? It said only that, with no family name."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon shakes her head. "No. I mean—I don't know. Not on the Ninth, it isn't. Nav, my last name, the Ninth House gave me that. But my mom named me Gideon." Sort of.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji hesitates. Anyone can lie, but he is inclined to believe Gideon's stammering denial that she has ever killed anyone. For all her bravado and irreverence, he has thought mostly of her desperation and vulnerability since their first meeting. "For most spirits, the first step is liberation. That entails resolving whatever business keeps them from moving into the reincarnation cycle." He intends this evocative silence to, essentially, mean I doubt we can kill God, in this case.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon sighs. "So I'm stuck with it." That's probably fine—like she said, it's kind of her only link back to her actual dimension. "At least I know it's there? I guess? In case it decides to stop cooperating sometime?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." At that, Lan Wangji is quiet for a careful stretch. He has his hands hovering over Wangji's strings still, mostly out of habit. "Unless you want me to try to suppress or eliminate it."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh," says Gideon. "I—no. Not yet, anyway? It seems to be working with me for now. And I might think of other stuff I want to ask it?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Do you have further questions now?" Lan Wangji asks. He would, if under another truth spell just now, be forced to admit to some private but deep satisfaction at having a chance to use Wangji in this way, for the first time in many months.

[ninth_cavalier]

If Gideon were home, she'd have a lot, because the answers would be strategically necessary; she'd ask about Blood of Eden plans, about strongholds, about numbers, because if Gideon were home, she'd be with Harrow, and Harrow would be a Saint, and the Saints were dedicated to the protection of the Emperor. But Gideon is not home, and that's another reason to keep the ghost around—it's basically her prisoner, right now, and when she gets home she'll be able to get someone to channel it and learn all that anyway.

But that means her questions now get to be more selfish. "Can you ask it if it's been helping me? Like, with my swordplay?" If the answer's yes she's going to feel so fucking cheated.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji immediately grasps the urgency of the question. If he discovered that his own ability with a sword was somehow augmented by a force beyond his cultivation, he would be indescribably dissatisfied. He gives Gideon a curt nod and touches fingers to strings to convey the question with care.

This time, the response comes quickly, and in the form of a single note. Almost amused, but also relieved on Gideon's behalf, he says, "No."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon sags, immensely relieved. "Great. Okay. Hoo." She looks down at her sword again. "Um—I think that's it for now? I'd kind of like to try sparring again, if you're still interested? It's cool if you're not, though—I know our little aborted bout wasn't exactly impressive on my part."