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.]

Comments

[ninth_cavalier]

She does exactly that, thinking of what she'd tried to do with Lan Wangji and failed. It's half intended as blow and half intended as block, in case Gu Xiang gets that whip around fast enough. The tip of her blade does catch Gu Xuang's sleeve—she can't tell, yet, whether it actually catches flesh.

[thepurpledanger]

Unlike the cultivators here, Gu Xiang wears her sleeves tight to her arms; the tip of the blade draws a long, straight line that stings like ice across the back of Gu Xiang's forearm. As soon as air hits it, though, the cut burns. As soon as she lands, Gu Xiang holds up her arm to show off the slash; a single, cherry-red drop of blood slides down to stain the churned mud and slush.

"You cut me right open!" she says with a kind of menacing glee. "Mysterious orphan who grew up in jail, huh? I guess you're a ghost after all!"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon grins wide. "Guess I am," she says. "Didn't know ghosts could bleed."

[thepurpledanger]

"Everyone bleeds," says Gu Xiang.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon nods. "True enough. Some people might not bleed for long—but that's why you gotta make it count."

[thepurpledanger]

A grin that shows all of her teeth. "Exactly. I like you, Gideon Nav. We're going to be friends."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon matches her grin and sticks out a hand to seal the deal.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang knows this one! She wallops Gideon's hand with a low five.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs, and then, experimental, goes for a high-five, too. If Gu Xiang goes for it, she'll swap to the other hand, making up the steps of a secret handshake as she goes.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang narrows her eyes in concentration and matches Gideon blow for blow--slapping, whirling, reversing, crossing hand over hand in a complex weave of high and low and medium fives.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon ends it by grabbing both of Gu Xiang's hands, left in right and right in left, and shaking them, vigorously, before releasing them again. This has the added benefit of spraying a little more blood dramatically across the frosty ground. "Hell yeah."