chevaleros | 7rings: harrow

[Let's say they're in the bedroom. Harrow is looking at an envelope she's receiving, squinting like she has a headache.]

[ harrow don't give yourself another surprise aneurism

vira is a little cautious today, but she doesn't bother with it in their room. she looks over curiously. ]

Anything interesting?

Not really. It's just an envelope containing a pair of sunglasses. I couldn't tell you why.

[Anyway, memshare time. Sorry it's long, Vira just deserved something very gay and sad that also includes vore.

The memory begins in darkness, and when you come to, you feel the taste of blood in your mouth, the smell of blood in your nose - even your vision is red. You're in the remains of a marble atrium, now rubble and shattered bone and marble. You've missed part of a battle, as your memories come to you, your body weak and throbbing. You'd fought with every ounce of strength and power your body had and more; you invented, in the heat of battle, new theorems and new powers your parents and ancestors could only have dreamed of. You took your foe apart, piece by piece, until it was nothing but rubble and ash, and then you passed out.

But your foe is Cytherea, one of the emperor's fists and gestures, a Lyctor, a being of unfathomable power. What you can do is more than any necromancer living or dead can do or has ever done. But she is still here, terrible and beautiful, a living corpse knitting her own wounds back together, undaunted.

And your cavalier is fighting her, Gideon is fighting her, on the verge of exhaustion, paint running down her face, alongside the determined little cavalier of the Sixth House, also bloodied and exhausted. Gideon Nav is something else with that two-hander of her, a true marvel, and she does more than you could ever have asked, but Cytherea, with that terrible smile of her, tells Gideon softly how brave and beautiful she is as she goes to kill her, and knocks her hefty sword aside from her simple silver rapier as though it was nothing.

You stagger to your feet, eight foot tall skeleton constructs holding you weak, bloodied body aloft as you approach.

“Step off, bitch,” you say.

“I wish the Ninth House would do something that is more interesting than skeletons,” Cytherea says, pensively. She builds more of her replicating bone constructs, and you do the same. The difference, of course, is that Cytherea can burn herself perpetually, use her body and every ounce of her strength and knit herself back together. You’re meeting her, power for power, bone for bone, but every second that ticks is taking its toll on your body. You’re too weak to stand on your own, blood gushing from your sweat and pores and mouth, the blood vessels under your skin bursting and bleeding too, your own body cannibalizing itself for the thanergy it needs.

“You’re learning fast,” says Cytherea, delighted. “But I’m afraid you have a long way to go.” And she’s correct, because she’s still going, building a second construct identical to the one you made yourself half dead trying to take apart. “None of you learned how to die gracefully,” she coos. “I learned over ten thousand years ago.”

You won’t give in. You can’t meet her construct anymore, so instead you build a wall of bone, solid, six inches thick to protect yourself, and Gideon, and Camilla the Sixth, and that done, you keel over into Gideon’s arms as the construct beats against the wall you’re holding up with the very little you have left.

“Harrow, come on,” Gideon begs. “Siphon, damn it. You can’t hold this shit forever, Harrow! You couldn’t hold this shit ten minutes ago!” You could - you could reach out and draw, instead of from your own body, from hers, but you won’t. Not after you’ve seen what can become of a necromancer siphoning too much. You watched the Eighth House cavalier die before your eyes, and you won’t do it.

Calmly, you spit out a clot of blood the size of a coin. “I don’t have to hold it forever. Take the Sixth, get into a brace position, and I’ll break you through the wall. Bones float. It’s a long drop to the sea, but you all you have to do is survive the fall. We know that the ships have been called. Get off the planet as soon as you can. I’ll distract her as long as possible - all you have to do is live.”

“Harrow.” Gideon’s brow knits, desperate. “This plan is stupid and you’re stupid. No.”

You reach and grasp a fistful of Gideon’s shirt, vision going dark with pain and nausea. “Griddle, you made me a promise. You agreed to go back to the Ninth. You agreed to do your duty by the Locked Tomb - “

“Don’t do this to me,” she says.

“I owe you my life,” you interrupt, with feeling. “I owe you everything.”

You let go of her shirt and fall to the floor, choking and sniffling on the thick rivulets of blood coming from your nose. You hear the continued beating and the sound of cracks as the construct on the other side threatens to smash through your wall of bone. Gideon and Camilla are talking, but you can’t focus on their words, you can’t see, you can hardly hear. All you can do is focus on your wall, the barrier between you and your cavalier and certain death, concentrating on staying awake so that you do not fall asleep, so that you do not die.

And through all of that, you raise a hand, and you brush Gideon’s cheek. “Nav - have you really forgiven me?”

You can’t really see her, but you can hear her panic. “Of course I have, you bozo.”

“I don’t deserve it,” you whisper miserably.

“Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop me forgiving you. Harrow - “ she’s speaking in a brokenhearted rush. “You know I don’t give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you.” There’s another shuddering, crunching sound, as another tendril breaks through your shield. “I’m not good at this duty thing. I’m not your real cavalier primary. I never could have been.”

The sunlight begins to shine through the cracks in your wall and you laugh, hoarsely, feeling your death coming over you.

“Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House. You are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.”

There’s quiet for a moment, in between the awful crunch of bone, and then the arms around you are gone, leaving you cold, as you hear Gideon stand up and move away.

“Yeah, fuck it,” she says. “I’m getting us out of here.”

"Griddle - " you look up to watch her, your vision blurry, wondering what she's planning to do. You can't really tell, but if she thinks has a plan, she - "Nav," you say gently. "I can't hold this for much longer."

"I don't know how you're holding it now." Gideon looks at you, then away, back in the direction of - what's back there? You only remember the enormous spiked railing. You watch her, miserable, knowing she's planning to attempt something impossible, but there's nothing left to do, nothing either of you can do, to hold off a Lyctor.

She turns to you, again. "Harrow. I can't keep my promise, because the only point of me is you. You get that, right? That's what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end."

"Nav," you say, suddenly frightened. "What are you doing?"

"The cruellest thing anyone has ever done to you in your whole life, believe me. You'll know what to do, and if you don't do it, what I'm about to do will be of no use to anyone."

You can't see what's happening, but you don't need to. You hear the shouted "For the Ninth," and then you feel it, the rush of thanergy, energy of fresh death. You understand, without even needing to think about it, what's being asked of you. The memory, earlier, of Ianthe, smug, gleeful, the body of her cavalier pinned to the ground by her sword, through his heart - the key to Lyctorhood, a soul that can be consumed and used like a battery. So - you do it. You eat her soul.

You feel dizzy, and the pain is still there, and the sound of someone screaming is echoing in your head painfully, but the burst of thanergy has changed the situation entirely; you are stronger now, wholer now, able to repair your own burst blood vessels and knit your wounds back together. It's only that you don't want to.

"Okay," says Gideon. "Okay, get up."

You get up.

"Good!" says your cavalier. "You can stop screaming any moment now, just as an FYI. Now, first, make sure nothing is going to ice Camilla."

"Gideon," you murmur incoherently. "Gideon."

"No time," says Gideon. "Incoming." The bone shield sighed, shuddered, and suddenly broke. The bone construct shuffles forward, but Gideon's voice tells you to take it down, so - you do. For all of its killing spree before, it dissolves now, like rain.

"There's my sword," Gideon says. "Pick it up - pick it up and stop looking at me, dick. Don't. Don't you dare look at me."

You do look, and see what is lying, bloody, pierced through on the iron railing, but you follow the instructions in your head, refusing to perceive it for what it is. You pick up the longsword and cry out. It's far too heavy, too awkward. Gideon steadies your swordhand, shifts your position. The sheer weight of it still stretches the muscles of your forearms, but despite the pain, you lifted the sword together.

"Your arms are like fucking noodles," she says disapprovingly.

You look back at Gideon, and Gideon's eyes, as they always did, startle you - the deep chromatic amber and gold. She winked. You lose your nerve.

"I cannot do this."

"You already did it," says Gideon. "It's done. You ate me and rebuilt me. We can't go home again."

"I can't bear it." Your face is wet, your cheeks are wet.

"You're already two hundred dead sons and daughters. What's one more?" Before you stands Cytherea, watching them, her eyes wide and blue. Her lips were parted in a tiny o. She did not even seem particularly troubled, just amazed: as though they were a mirage, a trick of the sunlight.

"Now we kick her ass until the candy comes out. Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don't cry. We can't fight her if you're crying."

You have some difficulty getting your mouth to form words. "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it."

"Yes you can," Gideon comforts her. "It's just less great and less hot."

"Fuck you, Nav!"

"Harrowhark," she says, serious for once. "Someday you'll die and get buried in the ground, and we'll work this out then. For now -- I can't say you'll be fine. I can't say you did the right thing. I can't tell you shit. I'm basically a hallucination produced by your brain chemistry while coping with the massive trauma of splicing in my brain chemistry. Even if I wasn't, I don't know jack, Harrow, except for one thing." She lifts your arm with the hilt clutched in it. Her fingers, rough and strong and sure, move your other hand into place above the pommel.

"I know the sword," she says. "And now, so do you." She tilted the blade. She brought you into position. She moved your head up and corrected your hips. Cytherea stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"How do you feel, little sister?" she asks.

"Ready for round three," your mouth said, without any input from you. "Or was it round four? I lost track." And they fought. Fighting was like a dream for you, like falling asleep. You do your portion, too, and take her apart, piece by piece, accelerating cancer inside her until she vomited a stream of black blood. But the weight of Gideon's arms on your forearms us growing harder to perceive. Her voice is in your ear, still, but it is sounding farther and farther away.

You take your sword and you pierce her through the malignancy in her chest, and Cytherea goes to her death with more than a little relief.

The memory ends.]

[ please you have given me a gift

Much of what Harrow's said is contextualized in a singular memory: the consuming of souls, the hurt in everything that Gluttony said, and why it shook her so. In a distant, unclear way it even touches on her reaction to the figure from their adventure, malformed and grotesque as they were. Perhaps it was best she wasn't conscious long to see Gideon that way.

But mostly, she understands the sort of love that braces Harrow. Perhaps Vira would handle herself differently in this situation—not for the better—but at the crux of it, she feels her chest squeeze in sympathy, as though her heart could clench like a fist.

It's sharing the wealth of Harrow's emotions that have her crying a bit at the end of it all, tears spilling freely as she sits, suddenly unsteady as her voice is. ]

...What a cruel thing. [ The cruellest. ]

[Okay. She can do that. She can sit and cry when the memory ends. But Harrow looks - absolutely bewildered by this. She comes out of the memory a little dazed and unfocused, but by the time Vira sheds a tear, she's bewildered.]

Are you. . . are you all right?

[ What's confusing to her is that these could barely qualify as Vira's tears—it's Harrow's grief, which she felt so acutely for herself. So why would this reaction confuse her? ]

I... yes. I'm fine—are you?

[ or rather, why aren't you? ]

That memory...

[The pain in that memory was all-consuming - there's no question that, experiencing those emotions, it would be hard to hold back tears.

But Harrowhark is - solemn, thoughtful, a little sad, but it's nothing like what Vira just saw.]

I'm. . . sorry. These memories are unpleasant, and I wish I hadn't had cause to disturb you so.

Ortus Nigenad was a good man, a good cavalier. He did his duty to the Ninth House admirably. He did not deserve his fate, and I am sorry for it every day.

[Who is she even talking about.]

[ ...She furrows her brow, just slightly. ]

Who is this Ortus you speak of, Harrowhark?

[She's getting more and more confused looking by the second. And she's touching her hand to her temple, like she has a headache coming on.]

The cavalier primary of the Ninth House. The man you watched me. . . drive a rapier, through his chest, in order to defeat Cytherea.

[ Who's the confused one here? Vira just looks at her for a moment. Maybe she shouldn't press—because what is this? Some sort of coping mechanism? She tries to approach it from a sideways angle. ]

Do you... remember who you saw at that wretched table? When you fainted during our adventure last week?

[ Though she gets the feeling this will just be a non sequitur from Harrow's perspective. ]

[She doesn't get a coping mechanism. Just. . . a little nod, almost like recognition.]

Ah. No, I don't recall. So, there was a person familiar to me there. I wasn't sure.

[ She doesn't know what to do with this. Would it just cause Harrow to collapse again, if she keeps pressing into her wound? ]

I hadn't really realized until now, but yes, there was. [ She'd assumed that one of the giants was Harrow's, simply to complete the miserable set, but her reaction wasn't exactly one of recognition. More like an aneurism?

Vira realizes she's afraid to speak this name. Gideon. ]

...Would you tell me more? Of what happened after you felled Cytherea?

I would be glad to.

[Well, not glad. But it's Vira, so it's fine; she doesn't mind telling her what happened.

Though it's perhaps necessary to start sooner than after.]

The purpose of my travel to Canaan House was to study the path of ascension to Lyctorhood - an invitation of great honour by the Emperor. However, that invitation necessitated that I bring a cavalier. [She's aware this terminology isn't familiar to everyone so - ] A necromancer is accompanied by a trained swordsman, and the cavalier to the heir to one of the Nine Houses is the cavalier primary. Ortus was no skilled swordsman, however. He was granted the position because - because his father was cavalier primary to my father, and because frankly there was no one else in my House with any skill at the sword anyway.

. . . There was a reason we were asked to bring our cavaliers, however. The key to becoming a Lyctor was a human sacrifice. The death of the cavalier; the consumption of their soul, transformed into a battery for everlasting power.

In order to defeat Cytherea, I was forced to kill and consume Ortus. And so she died, and so I ascended, and was brought to the side of the Emperor to carry out his work.

[. . . But she did ask what happened after. And besides; as clipped as her delivery is, she doesn't want Vira to think her so cruel. She had no love for Ortus, nor he for her, but she still wishes she hadn't been forced to do something so terrible.]

My transition was. . . troubled, I'm afraid. My convalescence after the battle long and painful. After that first time, when I fought Cytherea, the techniques of Lyctorhood never worked so well for me again. I could never again access the remains of poor Ortus' soul, and I was plagued by hallucinations and fainting spells of the kind you witnessed.

[ It all makes sense in the context of what she saw, except that it brings to question whether Harrow's memories are correct, or whether her perception of things is.

Vira is leaning towards the former. ]

...Could it be that you're calling upon the wrong soul?

[I hate this because I still need a Vira memshare but she's just going to. Stare at her a few seconds like she's struggling to make sense of the words, reach up to touch her forehead, and then immediately pass out. Bye.]

[ HARROW. she's just going to catch her as she slumps over and help put her to bed.

seems asking too many questions about this isn't going to work out. ]

[It's fine. She'll wake back up in a little bit, dizzy, but otherwise fine.]

. . . Oh. This is beginning to become humiliating.

[ She's sitting on the edge of the mattress, laughing a little. ]

Actually, I think that was my fault—I'm sorry.

[ ... ]

You may have more fainting spells this week, so don't be too hard on yourself.

Don't apologize. I suspect you're right, but. . .

[Gross.]

[ Vira smiles at that, though they've made too much eye contact, and now i need to stop stalling from giving you a memshare. (16:08-22:18)

The scene swirls away from them again. Though this isn't your memory, even if you know all the lines.

This is a time long before you were born, a war you never fought in. Strewn at your feet are bodies piled high, beasts spiraling high above as monsters shriek in the distance. The woman next to you—your commander—is not your beloved, but she takes Katalina's shape, because this may not be your memory but it is your sleeping, dreaming mind.

"Can I count on you, my astral knight?"

She asks, and you can feel the feelings swell up, not quite yours, but ones so symmetrical to your own that they may as well be. Anything for her—you'll sink islands if she asks. All you want is to be close enough to admire her, but if she asks you to fell an army, you go. You'll go, and every moment apart is aching, but this too serves a purpose: to be her blade, to end this war that consumes so much of you both.

"Please leave it to me... My sword exists solely to serve you."

You speak the words as though they are your own. Luminiera's power wreathes you in armor, her power thrumming through you as you fight, sword sinking into monster flesh and splitting open carapaces, shattering bone, the very light around you condensing into rays so bright they burn whatever they touch. No one else can wield this power but you, and the thrill of that excites you. It beats rotten like the adrenaline in your blood, right beside how terrified you are to die or to let your strength falter, because then you will never see her again, you'll die without ever finding the words that capture her beauty, and it all grows and intensifies and blurs together until your love is all you are. If your sky has a sun, she is it, and she is every other star at night. You would die for her in an instant, even if all you want is to live at her side.

When the battle ends, you resolve to tell her.

But you made an error. A tactical misstep, guarding your front as you expose your back, and you are only one person. You cannot see that the main camp is burnt and broken down until you turn back, your skin turned to gooseflesh as you sprint there, your heart battering, already so wearied from the day's events but refusing to stop.

Though it may as well, when you see her, dying.

Your love is all you are, and now there is none of it to keep you standing, so you collapse and let your lip quiver and your eyes drown with tears, your throat aching and coarse as you beg and beg—

But this is not your memory—it is a warning. A prophecy. Luminiera makes you live a story from eons past, because she is afraid for you. She is a sweet, child-like thing and wants you to grow roots elsewhere, because heartbreak will kill you, and she does not want to see you go.

It does not work as she intends. ]

[First of all, Katalina hot. . . she gets it, Vira. She gets it.

She understands at the start that what she's seeing is a vision, not reality - but suffering this way in a dream is still suffering. She has often wakened from her dreams with the ghost of a grief so raw and real, like a piece of herself has been torn away, and it leaves her shattered and reeling for days even though it never happened, even though she has only had one love her entire life, and that love was never hers to be stolen from her.

So she comes away from the vision shaken now, too, grief for Katalina (or is it for someone else?) choking her. But there's an anger in her feelings, too, that are all her own. This Katalina should not have made Vira fight alone. She should not have ordered that Vira leave her side. She should not have left her behind.]

Vira. . .

[ Katalina is a beautiful disaster of a lady. And Vira's affection is crystal clear in the memory—excessively, destructively so.

Though now that they're back in reality, she looks... alarmed. A little afraid. ]

Ah... But I don't—who was that?

[ That was certainly her dream, a warning given to her by Luminiera in hopes of scaring her into better life choices, but pieces of it no longer make sense. The absolute breadth of her own emotion for this perceived stranger is overwhelming.

And despite how well she's kept herself together in this hell hole of an experience so far, her eyes are watering up again, going stiff like that might keep her from crying. ]

What is happening here, Harrowhark?

[Ah. What. What. Oh no.

She. . . hasn't noticed at all, her own missing memory, because her thoughts are so jumbled and disorganized anyway. So she also has no idea what the fuck is going on, except that Vira clearly can't recall that woman she called her beloved, and it terrifies Harrow in some way she can't quite grasp at.

What would it be like, to experience that level of love and loss for a someone you can't recognize? Haha, can't relate!

Anyway, seeing Vira go stiff and teary eyed, she reacts - a little uncharacteristically. Harrow is so fanatical about others' boundaries, wanting to preserve her own. But something about the way Vira looks in this moment has struck her to her core, reminded her of all of the times she's woken up alone and filled with a raw and inexplicable pain, longed for tenderness and comfort that should have been unfamiliar to her; there was never anyone, was there, who had cared enough about her to provide it?

A little nervously, fearful of being shoved away the way she might do to someone who tried the same, she'll try to wrap her arms around Vira.]

It was a dream. It was only a dream.

[ Oh, she doesn't anticipate that. Harrow seems like someone who likes her space, even if her heart is more brazenly visible than she seems to think. So when she embraces her, Vira seizes briefly in surprise, equally uncertain of how to react.

Because has anyone ever held her like this? There's only a great emptiness of answer when she thinks on it—does she not remember, or has it simply never happened? Is losing the memory of a single person enough to leave her with so little? (Without Katalina—what even remains of her to cherish or comfort?)

Even if it was a dream, a vision of the past, her misery is real and Harrow's presence is real, unexpected and kind in a way that disarms her too thoroughly. She doesn't even think to be composed, or of how weak she seems when she breathes out a sob as she buries her face into Harrow's shoulder, holding onto her fiercely as she weeps and weeps. ]

[She understands that feeling so intimately - what it's like to long to be held, but to fear the weakness of needing it. She has never been on the other side of that dilemma, and finds to her surprise it is not one at all. She doesn't perceive any weakness on Vira's part, or feel any sense of superiority or advantage. She only recognizes the pain, and wants to know how to diminish it. She holds her back just as fiercely, as long as Vira will allow.]

(no subject)

chevaleros - 2021-03-01 02:26 (UTC) - Expand

7rings: harrow

week 2; monday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)