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

[sporesprouter]

"It's a little complicated, but only a little. I switched with Galahad. So when I woke up, I saw Claudius there and that was very awkward. But it turns out Claudius had switched with Aziraphale, so it wasn't actually Claudius and everything took a bit to sort through."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs. "So—wait. That means Claudius woke up in bed with Crowley? That must have been fun for him."

[sporesprouter]

She manages a little laugh of her own. "It must have been interesting, anyway."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, I meant because they have that weird like, flirtation non-flirtation thing going on," says Gideon, blithely.<sup>1

1</sup>It's possible Gideon has misread some situations presented to her in a very long, very convoluted bodyswap thread. But on the other hand, has she?

[sporesprouter]

Tress blinks. "They have a what?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Claudius said he was flirting with Crowley early on, but Crowley turned him down," says Gideon. "But then he was definitely still flirting with him a little on the day we all swapped bodies. Though that might've just been because Crowley looked like Tally at the time." This would be understandable. Gideon knows firsthand how hard it is not to flirt with someone who looks like Tally.

[sporesprouter]

Tress blinks, trying to envision Claudius flirting with Crowley-in-Tally's body. Her brain refuses on principle to engage with the concept so she just shakes her head. "That must have been... something to see."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah, you got that right," says Gideon. "Not as weird as seeing Claudius-in-Aziraphale interact with Galahad-in-you, though, I bet."

[sporesprouter]

She immediately holds up her hands. "Oh, no. I didn't tag along for that reunion."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Understandable," says Gideon, with a little salute. "Did you get up to anything fun while Gala-clad, though? Or was it all Tress business as usual, just with less hair in the way?"

[sporesprouter]

Tress laughs a little. "Well, there was some Tress business as usual with less hair... and more strength than I was used to so when I went to beat some eggs I splattered some in my face, but that's beside the point. Gu Xiang switched with Lan Wangji, and when I came across her... we sort of ended up playing tag."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gu Xiang in Lan Wangji is kind of incredible, and somehow fitting? Gideon would never have predicted that a feral edge would suit the dignified cultivator, but it makes a kind of perverse sense. "What's tag?"

[sporesprouter]

"Oh! Tag is a game involving running around and chasing down other players to touch them. It was just the two of us but you can play with more. If you're the person doing the chasing, it's called being 'it'. And the other players run, you run after them, touch them, and then they're it and have to do the chasing."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Huh," says Gideon. "I guess I used to play something like that. Only I have as usually being chased by little skeletons." And they wouldn't stop at tagging, if they caught her.

[sporesprouter]

"I think there's something slightly different about it if it's a life or death thing."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, they wouldn't have killed me," says Gideon. Killing her would have released her from her bond to the Ninth, and Harrow wouldn't have given her the satisfaction. "It was still a game. Or--kind of a game, anyway. It was practice."

[sporesprouter]

"I guess there's that, at least." She looks thoughtful. "You know, I've never seen a skeleton. Or, at least, not one that's not covered up by the rest of someone."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Really?" asks Gideon. "Wow. What a life. Got any questions about 'em? I've seen way more than my fair share."

[sporesprouter]

"I don't know if I even know enough about them to ask good questions. They're just... bones, right?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon claps a hand to her chest in exaggerated horror. "Just bones! Wait til I tell the nuns back home--just bones. I'll have you know without bones we'd all be useless piles of meat and ooze." She relaxes out of the mock offense. "But yeah, they're pretty much just bones. If we're talking whole skeletons, maybe some ligaments, to keep them together."

[sporesprouter]

Tress laughs outright. "I'm not saying I'm not glad to have a skeleton! Bones are nice to have."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Bones are nice to have," Gideon agrees, solemnly. "Those should be our House words, really. Ninth House, Keepers of the Locked Tomb: Bones Are Nice To Have."

[sporesprouter]

And that's another laugh. "It does have a ring to it. What are your House words?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon's face face settles into a slightly unnerving stillness. "Nine for the Tomb," she intones, "and all that was lost." She runs a hand through her hair, relaxing back into normalcy. "It makes more sense in context—it's the end of a poem describing all the planets in the System."

[sporesprouter]

She looks thoughtful. "So there are nine of them and you're from the last, then?"