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]

Gideon whirls to meet her, and for a while they trade blows, neither of them really making any headway. Tally's unpolished, and she telegraphs like a motherfucker, and there's no real strength to her blows right now—they'll get to that, it's fine, speed and accuracy can come first—but she's fast enough and her freaky reflexes make her actually pretty fun to fight. It starts to feel more like an actual sparring match and less like a coaching session—a few more bouts like this and she'll even be ready to pick up her cute little pirate sword.

Now that she's not trying to think of wise and helpful shit to say, Gideon actually starts processing the fact that they're, like, having kissing. They've done kissing, she and Tally. Mouths have met. Spit has been swapped. She's had—and she knows this is shocking—her first ever kiss. She feels like she should be, like, telling people?? Not that this was the first babe she's kissed, her reputation would never recover, but that she's kissed this babe. Objectively an incredibly hot babe. And a blond, at that. Harrow would die of jealousy.

The thought makes her falter. Harrow would—

She forgets that she's not wielding her sword and that the practice blade has fuck-all weight to it, and one of Tally's swings that actually has some force behind it pushes past her block. The wood ricochets off her shoulder.

[tallyyoungblood]

"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?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Huh? Oh—yeah." Gideon gives her a little grin. "Nice hit."

[tallyyoungblood]

"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.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Right," says Gideon, her grin slipping into more of a smirk, and she drops her sword to reel Tally in by the hips and press their mouths together again.

But it's—suddenly the joy of it, the marvel of skin on skin, feels guilty, unearned. This shouldn't even be her mouth, these shouldn't be her hands—she shouldn't be here, with Tally. Every touch, every moment enjoyed, is a tiny theft.

She pulls back, brushes her thumb over Tally's chin again in silent apology. It's not her fault. "Great work today," she says, stepping back entirely, and bends to gather up their practice swords. "Same time tomorrow?"

[tallyyoungblood]

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.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon snorts. "Fishing for compliments, now?" But the pinch of anxiety in Tally's face makes her sober. "It was good, Tally-wa. And we're good--I'm no sore loser." She gives her a sidelong glance. "Which you'll find out, if you ever actually win."

She keeps cleaning up, bending to roll up the hideous rug.

[tallyyoungblood]

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."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon raises her eyebrows. "You can hoverboard? Hot." She slings the rug over her shoulder. "Maybe we can get the Mansion to cough one up for us."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally glows a little at "hot." "I totally tried with Galahad, but it would only give me a surfboard."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Bummer, dude," says Gideon. She pats the rug over her shoulder. "I'm gonna put this back. I'll, uh, see you around?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"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."