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]

"Yeah, the contract that binds me in service to the Ninth House," says Gideon. "It's why I became a cavalier. Harrow told me—um. I was told that if I accompanied my necromancer to Caanan House and solved some musty old riddles I'd be free to go wherever I wanted. Turned out to be a fucking bait and switch, but like, by the Emperor Undying, not by the House, so whatever. Moot point now." She's not mad at Harrow for that. She's not mad at Harrow at all, and hasn't been for months, even before she came here, and that's up there with the weirdest fucking aspects of her life.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Motherfucking fantasy bullshit. "Necromancy is very fucking banned at the school where I learned magic, by the way," Janet says. "Not that that's the weirdest part of what you're saying. The necromancy sounds like a footnote to the real fuckery."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Necromancy's the only real magic at all, where I come from," says Gideon. "I'm still kind of suspicious about all the other shit. Like, where are you even getting it, if it's not coming from the death energy that's constantly emanating from the planetary core?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Working your ass off, mostly," Janet says helpfully. "It's insanely complicated. If you crook your finger the wrong way, you get a big fat goose egg instead of the spell you wanted. Other than that, it's just... ambient. Magic's everywhere, most people just can't see it."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Huh," says Gideon. "I wonder if that's true of my dimension, too—like is death magic the only magic we know about because it's the only one we're looking for? But necromancers have to be born, you can't just learn it if you don't have the innate talent. Fucks up your physical health, too—all necromancers are skinny little sticks or sickly waifs or whatever."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, ew." Janet grimaces, then looks down at herself. "You know, I've been kind of pissed off about my magic -- it's way, way harder than the magic most of the people here do. But it least it doesn't give me tuberculosis, or whatever."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah," says Gideon. "That's what we're for. Cavaliers, I mean. Necromancers outsource all their muscle."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Huh." Janet looks Gideon over, briskly enough, but not without a little appreciation for just how insanely jacked she is, especially for a teenager. "Did you get the better deal? It looks like a better deal from here, but..."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Depends how you count," says Gideon. "Sure, I'm hot as hell. Yeah, I can pack muscle on like nobody's business. Yes, of course I have legendary stamina and an ass that won't quit. On the other hand, eventually, my necromancer was supposed to eat me to gain all that shit for herself, and I'd vanish into her head and in the process catapult her to Sainthood."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Huh," Janet says mildly. "Literally eat you? Cannibalism?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon shrugs, which is neither a yes nor a no, and transparently changes the subject. "Hey, how'd Susan like your haircut?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

Note to self: pursue cannibalism question later. Janet gives Gideon a long, hard look, then relents. "Her exact word was becoming, if you must know."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon gives her a sleazy grin. Too easy. "If she looked at actual me the way she looked at me in your body, someone'd be coming, yeah."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet bites back a laugh in favor of her haughtiest, queenliest expression. "Aren't you eighteen? Good luck with that."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon rolls her eyes. "Just because you didn't start getting laid until you were old, don't take it out on me."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet raises both eyebrows, adding a little oomph to that haughty monarch look she has going. "What makes you think I didn't start getting laid until recently?" She's not touching the old thing.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon, who doesn't actually think that, shrugs. "I was assuming, since you brought up me being eighteen like it meant anything."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep, I brought it up like it means you're not getting into one of Susan's dresses anytime soon," Janet says with great confidence.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, sure," says Gideon, grinning. "So you're saying settle in for the long game. I can very patient."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Fuck off," Janet says, but she's laughing. "You took my body and my hair. Give me a goddamned break."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon's grin sharpens. "Oh, so you're just being territorial." She has no real designs on Susan anyway—regardless of whether or not she actually has a chance (she doesn't), she doesn't really want to wade into the middle of whatever Janet and Susan and Lancelot have going on. But it's not like she was gonna admit defeat immediately—not with tits like those on the line. "Fine, I'll back off—but in exchange you gotta teach me some vocab in axe."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Decapitation: noun. What happens when you swing your axe really, really hard at the space between someone's head and torso." Janet grin right back at Gideon. "How's that?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon smirks and lifts her sword. "I'm more of a tactile learner."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, you want me to decapitate you," Janet says, with fake dawning realization. "Weird fetish."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon grins at her. "Don't knock it til you tried it, hot stuff."