vira lillie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chevaleros) wrote2021-02-08 10:30 pm
chevaleros) wrote2021-02-08 10:30 pmEntry tags:
7rings: harrow
how do i not have any lesbian shitposts, i'm a sham
chevaleros) wrote2021-02-08 10:30 pm
week 2; post-execution
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You were right about Fukuda making himself an open threat. [ her tone is openly judgmental, whatever ]
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[Not like. Excessively cautious or paranoid people, is the implication here. Maybe two of the likeliest serial killer targets, is the implication here.]
It is a continued source of frustration that we have caught all of the obvious ones, but there are still dangerous ones.
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Right. And with killers hiding in our midst, I suspect people will grow more desperate in the coming weeks.
[ it's a cycle that feeds in on itself. ]
Is Douman still the most unnerving person here, to you?
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[It's Vira, so she'll answer readily, and a little more honestly.]
I cannot shake the sense that they are dangerous, and my own shame at observing what appears to me to be a predator circling and doing nothing about it. But I also fear that - I cannot always trust my own mind, when it comes to these things. I have a tendency to become fixated on one piece of the puzzle and cannot let go of it.
So I would appreciate it - your own thoughts on the matter.
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[ during kaz's trial, she'd suspected them if only because they seemed so keen on leading them down a pointless path. also, they're just kind of a weird smile-y clown and she's not about it; she is very aware of how little a pleasant demeanor means to one's true nature. ]
But even if you do not trust you own instincts, I believe you. If ever you feel that they are a threat to you, I will deal with them.
[ she says so without missing a beat. ]
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She has not once viewed this as a problem she needs to be protected from, rather than one she intends to protect others from. She may be frail here, and prone to fainting spells, and without most of her abilities, but her conception of herself is still of the genius - the rare necromancer dangerous even without a sword by her side, a girl who does it all herself.
It's not that she hates the idea of being defended, it's that she hates the idea that there would ever be any aspect of a danger outside her control, dangerous to someone else before the danger met her.]
. . . That is generous. But I would not see you come to harm on my behalf.
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And Harrow, while resourceful and capable, should not be tackling anyone head-on, much less a two-meter tall buff clown. At least, not alone. ]
And who is to say I would be harmed?
[ The thought that Harrow is afraid for her is... sweet and difficult to process, and Vira is no longer so arrogant that she thinks she can win every fight. But if she does not carry herself with that confidence, then her blade will waver. ]
...If you could rely on someone like Ortus, then I promise you can rely on me as well.
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[It's sweet of her to use the name that won't give her a brain bleed, but unfortunately, Ortus is a very real person and he wasn't exactly the reliable type.]
I brought him because I had to bring a cavalier with me, though he begged me leave him behind, as he was no warrior. I have never needed a cavalier.
[But she suddenly realizes that seems harsh, unfair.]
I would rely on you. That you are the superior warrior I have no doubts. It is only that if something were to go awry and the burden was mine, I don't know that I could bear it.
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Vira is just as stubborn, though. ]
Likewise, it would hurt me to know that you might challenge any peril here alone.
[ Vira is used to relying on herself—she is not quick to warm up to the idea of working with others. But had any of them been alone during that horrible adventure, would they have stood a chance? The idea frightens her, now.
...Where along the way did the notion of losing someone here become a real and palpable threat? ]
I'm not urging you to seek danger. But if you ever choose to face it, let me protect you. ...Please.
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. . . Or maybe it's simply because she asked. Perhaps that's all she's ever demanded.]
I have spent some time this evening, considering whether I ought to kill them. I have nothing but my own suspicions, but it troubles me greatly, to think that should I refuse to act on them, it may cost someone else a life.
However, the conclusion I came to is - it would be premature. It would not help matters, as they are now, to simply add another body to investigate.
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I am ill at ease that we haven't acted, but it's counter-productive to complicate trials any more than they are.
[ Ultimately, if Douman is a threat, he'll be dealt with when the time is right. But she's in no hurry to hunting clowns in the middle of the night. She just doesn't want Harrow to do it either. ]
Ah, speaking of, I want you to know—I received the same boon as you and Yuri. If we are all in agreement not to share its true nature, I think it would be for the best.
[ Since they can be blamed for literally any boon. ]
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Good. I had thought they were likely grouped into threes, and the two groups with four contain one liar each. Yuri and I spoke of it, and agreed that we would each tell one person what it does, so if we were ever under suspicion and needed someone to vouch for it, we would have it. [She doesn't want to say it, but if she or Yuri were killed, the other would have been unable to prove that their boon didn't do literally anything the group made up.]
Yuri decided to tell Gu Yun, and I said that I would tell you.
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She looks little surprised, though. ]
Me? [ oh... ] I'm grateful for your trust, though it seems we both had the same idea.
So perhaps we should tell one other person? I would trust Sheila or Primrose. I can let Yuri know as well.
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Sheila or Primrose are both acceptable.
[But anyway, I promised you another memshare, so here goes.
This memory begins on the Ninth House - a dark planet of rock and tunnel, mostly underground. In this area - a shuttle landing bay - a sliver of sky is visible, navy and white, with only the tiny bead of a faraway sun visible in it. Ringing through the desolation is the sound of a faraway clanging bell - the Muster Bell, calling every Ninth House member to attention.
You, however, are out here at the shuttle bay, where Gideon Nav has been intercepted by your marshal and your captain of guards attempting to steal away from the Ninth House on a shuttle. You learned of her plan by chance about a week ago, when the shuttle happened to contact you for landing details - if not for that chance encounter, she would have gotten away this time. But now, minutes before the shuttle lands, you appear to stop her.
She is sitting on a pile of rocks, waiting in a foul mood, holding her two-handed sword, and she scowls to see you.
"I see that your genius strategy, Griddle, was to order a shuttle and walk out the door. It’s embarrassing that it had to come to this. I don’t care that you run away. I care that you do it badly. Take your hand from your sword, you’re humiliating yourself."
"In under ten minutes a shuttle’s going to come, and I'm going to the Cohort," Gideon said, and does not take her hand from her sword. "I’m going to get on it. I’m going to close the door. I’m going to wave goodbye. I faked your signature on the release forms, so they'll take me. There is literally nothing you can do anymore to stop me."
“A single word from me and you’re brought back in cuffs.”
"You’ll say nothing."
"Why the sudden mercy on my part?"
"The moment you deny me leave to go,” says Gideon, hand unmoving on her scabbard, "the moment you call me back — the moment you give the Cohort cause, or, I don’t know, some list of trumped-up criminal charges. . . That’s the moment I squeal. I squeal so long and so loud they hear me from the Eighth. I tell them everything. You know what I know. And I’ll tell them the numbers. They’d bring me home in cuffs, but I’d come back laughing my ass off."
This actually does throw you. You know what she knows - one secret that is guarded from even the population of the Ninth, save you, your marshal, and unfortunately Gideon Nav - and one secret that even she doesn't understand the meaning of. She cannot get on the shuttle without your permission, but she is the best swordsman in your House and none of your retinue could prevent her. And clearly she's planned ahead - she's dug through all the layers of dirt and ensured there is no bone matter anywhere for you to call upon. Besides, it would be dishonourable to employ violence against a member of your own House without sufficient cause, and you do not have it.
You send your retinue away with a wave of your hand.
"How coarse and ordinary," you say. "How effective, how crass. My parents should have smothered you. You’d do it even if there was no ultimate gain. Even though you know what you’d suffer. Even though you know what it means. And all because. . .?"
"All because," says Gideon, checking her clock again, "I completely fucking hate you, because you are a hideous witch from hell. No offence."
Her words strike you silent for a moment - you know them to be true, and to have always been true - but their bluntness still strikes you in a way that they shouldn't be able to. You refuse to grant her the satisfaction of thinking she's gotten the upper hand on you.
"Oh, Griddle!" you say pityingly, instead. "But I don’t even remember about you most of the time." You pause, and consider your next move. "I admit you have me at an impasse. The muster call is real, you know. There’s important Ninth business afoot. Won’t you give a handful of minutes to take part in your House’s last muster?"
"Oh, hell no," she says.
"What about a bribe?" you ask.
"This is going to be good," says Gideon to nobody in particular. "'Gideon, here’s some money. You can spend it right here, on bones.' 'Gideon, I’ll always be nice and not a dick to you if you come back. You can have Crux’s room.' 'Gideon, here’s a bed of writhing babes. It’s the cloisterites, though, so they’re ninety percent osteoporosis.'"
Instead, you produce parchment, on official Ninth House letterhead, signed in blood with your mother's name. It purchases her a position in the Cohort as a second lieutenant with full officer training without debt - a far more advantageous way to start her military service than what she'd get appearing on her own.
"You can't say you don't care. If you don't want it, return it."
She looks at it, obviously conflicted, aware of the value of what you are offering, but not yet certain what the trap is. "You are a psychopath. Okay, fine, name your price."
"I want you downstairs at the muster meeting."
She considers this. "Nah. I'll go my own way. I’m not going down into Drearburh for you. Hell, I’m not going down into Drearburh if you get my mother’s skeleton to come do a jig for me."
At this, you appear to lose your temper - you ball up your fists, glare at her - but the display is entirely for her benefit. "For God’s sake, Griddle! This is the perfect offer! I am giving you everything you’ve ever asked for — everything you’ve whined for so incessantly, without you even needing to have the grace or understanding to know why you couldn’t have it! You threaten my House, you disrespect my retainers, you lie and cheat and sneak and steal — you know full well what you’ve done, and you know that you are a disgusting little cuckoo!"
Perhaps not all of your anger is entirely for her benefit. You shrug off your robes and then begin removing every piece of bone you wear - your ribcage corset, your jewelry, the studs in your ears - and you hand them to your marshal, leaving you only in your black gloves and boots and shirt and trousers.
"Look, Nonagesimus," says Gideon, now startled. "Don’t do — whatever you’re about to do. Let me go."
"A fair fight," you say. She begins to protest, but you raise your hand. "A fair fight and you can go with the commission. Win, you leave on the shuttle with the commission papers. Lose, you attend the muster, and then you may leave on the shuttle with the commission papers. Agree to duel me, Nav, in front of my marshal and guards."
She doesn't trust you, expects a trap, but does see you have no bone on your person. She looks over the commission to ensure that it's real again, notes with confusion it's signed with your mother's name.
"I’m not going to sign as me, you utter moron, that would give the whole game away." She realizes what you mean, accepts the validity of your offer, and instead begins to pat you down, looking for any hidden bone.
"You heard her," she says to your marshal and guard. "A fair fight. You swear by your mother it's fair - you have nothing on you?"
The reference to your mother angers you once again, but you do swear. So she picks up her sword. Your captain of the guard protests - "Gideon Nav, take back your honour and give your lady a weapon."
But she refuses. "I gave her my whole life," she says bitterly.
And then the fight begins. Even without the sword, Nav would beat you easily, she strong and athletic, trained to fight from birth, and you frail and reliant on your necromancy. But you peel off your gloves, revealing that beneath your hands are raw and cracked and caked with dirt. She looks at them with confusion for a split second before she realizes, before you raise the skeletons buried underneath your feet. Hands and arms rip their way out of the ground, claw their way to the surface, grasp at Gideon's legs and arms. She beats them away, kicks them to pieces, slices them, but there are too many for her to hold off. She runs at you and tries to kick you, but your skeleton constructs carry you away effortlessly, form a shield in front of you.
The fight was over the moment she agreed to it. She falls to the ground, bruised and bloodied, and coughs up a tooth, just as the shuttle begins to land.
"It's pathetic, Griddle," you gloat. The bones you've summoned drop to the floor, and you wipe away the blood dripping from your nose, the result of overexertion. "I turn up the volume. I put on a show. You feel bad. You make it so easy. I got more hot and bothered digging all night."
"You dug," wheezes Gideon, rather muffled with grit and dust, "all night. You insane creep."
“Call it, Crux,” you order your marshal.
It was with poorly hidden glee that he calls out, "A fair fight. The foe is floored. A win for the Lady Nonagesimus."
"Buck up, Griddle," you tell her, and spit a clot of blood onto the ground. "Captain, go tell the pilot to wait; he'll get paid for his time."
Your marshal drags Gideon behind her down to the sanctuary where the muster has already gathered - a chapel filled with skeletons, priests, nuns a handful of elderly members of your house, all in their prayers. Your mother and father sit at the long bench reserved for your family, alongside your great-aunts, and you join to their side. Your mother and father leave their heads bowed in prayer, only occasionally looking up to look upon the gathered penitents, to cast a glance your direction, to nods in agreement to something you say.
This is because your mother and father have been dead for seven years. The two secrets of the Ninth House are on display here - the very few inhabitants left alive to join muster, absolutely none save you and Nav under the age of thirty-six - and that fact that the Ninth has been ruled by a child since your parents passed away when you were ten. If the other Houses had known, they would have interfered, made the Ninth a puppet to one of the richer Houses as the Fifth once did to the Fourth. So you learned how to preserve your mother and father so without close inspection their passing was difficult to notice, made up a convenient tale about a vow of silence, and managed the affairs of the House on your own.
Gideon only ever knew of this fact because she was there the day they died, but it has been a blessing that she knows, that someone other than old Crux, whose life you have had to extend many times already, is privy to your secret. It means that you are able to hate her, and your hatred of her and your fights and her little rebellions are the only thing you have other than your duty to protect your House and its secrets.
At muster, you read, with your mother's nodded permission, from a letter by the Emperor, summoning the heirs of the eight houses and their cavaliers primary to the House of the First, in order to pass a test to become the Emperor's Lyctors. An enormous, unparalleled honour and opportunity. With this, you can restore your dying House without supplication to the other Houses, and prove your own worth as well.
The only problem is that the invitation mentions your cavalier primary - Ortus Nigenad, lumpy, sad, sensitive man in his thirties, coddled excessively and fully unsuited for the role, carrying it only because his father had been cavalier primary to your father and because, after you and Gideon, he was the youngest person in your House.
Hearing the news, Ortus' mother holds him and weeps, begs you not to take him, reminds you that she has already given you her husband. You feel a twinge of pity, remembering the purpling face of Ortus' father, how he had died alongside your parents, but you push it aside and affect a look of disdain. You already know how this will go.
"Sister Glaurica,” you say to her, "be calm."
Ortus looks at you with those sorry, sad eyes of his. "I do fear death, my Lady Harrowhark," he admits miserably.
The muster erupts into chaos as your guard and retinue, your marshal and supplicants, begin to shout and argue, offended that your own cavalier would refuse his duty this way. Eventually, you break up the argument, call the muster to prayer, and dismiss them.
After the muster, you find Gideon, where your captain of guard is keeping watch over her. "By the way, I worked out your nasty little trick, jackass," she says by way of greeting.
"Did you?" you ask, a little surprised.
"Your mother’s signature on the commission. The sting in the tail. If I come clean," she says, "that renders the signature null and void, doesn’t it? It buys my silence. Well played. I’ll have to keep my mouth shut when I hand that one over, and you know it."
You cock your head, enjoying the opportunity for a slow reveal. "I hadn’t even thought of that," you say. "I thought you meant the shuttle."
Gideon sits bolt upright. "What — about — the shuttle?"
With feigned nonchalance, you say, "Oh, Ortus and his mother stole it. They must be gone already. She still has family back on the Eighth, and she thinks they’ll take them in." You laugh. "You make it so easy, Griddle. You always do."
You feel a little sorry when she sinks back into her bed, obviously heartbroken and furious. It was a good escape attempt this time. But you don't have any intention of letting her leave. The two of you grew up together, fought tooth and nail every day of your life, and she is a part of what makes your life bearable - these games and punishments and fights between the two of you. You aren't going to let her run off to become cannon fodder for the Cohort.
Besides - if you are going to the House of the First, you will need a cavalier who knows the sword. Gideon may not be cavalier material, but there is no finer sword you can call upon.
"I learned your plan about a week ago, but I wanted to wait until now to do anything," you admit. "I wanted to wait for the very moment when you thought you’d gotten away, to take it from you."
"Why?" she asks, exhausted.
"Because I completely fucking hate you," you say. "No offence."]
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It is not necessarily less relatable. But it hits a different nerve, sending a chill through her.
First, ]
...Harrowhark, can you tell me of what I just witnessed?
[ Because last time, they had clearly experienced two very different things. ]
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[But that little pit of shame she feels still lingers, so she'll add - ]
My behaviour was appalling. Of course as my cavalier Ortus owed his lady a duty, but that duty had never been and was never expected to be anything other than lifting heavy corpses around and ceremonial appearances. He knew he could not withstand a true test of his mettle, and he couldn't. And my family was already in blood debt to his.
I shouldn't have made him come, I think. But there was no one else.
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[ How thoroughly has Harrow forgotten this woman? Vira's recovered her lost memories, but this goes beyond what their adventure had taken from them.
But even without these memories, Harrow seemed to understand her struggle. So perhaps this Gideon's imprint on her life isn't gone, its impact unfelt, but Vira can't be sure. And something about that affects her, her expression uncertain. ]
I've made decisions that would demand too much of others as well. [ ... ] No, beyond that—I have lied, and manipulated and threatened those who would stand between me and what I desired most.
[ In the most turbulent straits of her life, hadn't she considered forcing Katalina to stay beside her? That perhaps if she had broken her somehow, she could have at least kept the pieces?
Something compels her to share that understanding with Harrow, even if perhaps she will not remember enough to know why. ]
If there is anyone who could not judge you, it is me.
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But yeah, no, she just thinks they're talking about Ortus. And she has plenty of reasons to feel guilty about Ortus. But Vira's words don't exactly apply to that situation. So - why is it that she feels so strongly that they do?
She's a little struck off balance, grateful for the admission even if it's hard to understand. She feared for so long anyone seeing a softer side of her, and now she's strangely afraid of been seen for her calcified ugliness, only partially shed.]
Thank you. I am grateful. I suppose that I. . . that I always knew how to lie, and manipulate, and command since I was a child, but somehow I never learned to think to ask.
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But there is something frightening, putting those vulnerable moments out and seeing if people change the way they view you after. She wonders when she grew afraid. She didn't used to be.
She lets out a soft sigh, settling herself. ]
It's more difficult to ask, isn't it? To leave yourself open to rejection.
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[That has been - such the core of so many of her mistakes, here too.]
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But whatever she says once again gets cut off by a belated memshare. (13:40-17:20) i'm sorry gbf is so SO anime but i wanted a bad memory
In any case. The moment comes—the culmination of your lies, your schemes. You have spent the last six years as an immaculate commander, an impartial arbitrator, a respected lord, and you would give up all the status in the world for this one, singular opportunity.
This is how it should go: you convince Katalina to stay, spinning together some sad story about how the island needs the sacrifice of a true knight. You tell her you can barter for immunity for her beloved comrades, who have been on the run for so long. You dangle what the Empire's army wants in front of their noses, just so you have another piece on the board, and everything goes as it should. Katalina—beautiful Katalina who can be kind and brilliant and so incredibly stupid—will agree to your terms. She feels guilt over what she did to you, after all. She shouldn't, but she does, and you will use that if you must.
The only space you've left for her in the skies is next to you. But there is a girl wreathed in blue who is somehow, slowly, certainly convincing Katalina to leave you.
Again.
"Vira, I won't give up!"
And you won't stand for it—these people are dregs, liars, muck that sucks at Katalina's feet and drags her down. You drop the sweetness from your voice—the honeyed words you save only for Katalina—and for a moment, the empty, steely part of you speaks instead. It has always been your more genuine self, the person you were before Katalina. The resigned, solitary girl you have always been.
"Oh, really?" (It's tiresome. Don't skyfarers ever get tired of spouting such fatuous nonsense?) "Then I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of you completely."
There is no hesitation in you. You'll rip these parasitic bonds that have tangled Katalina up, and you'll never, ever ever be apart again. Even if it's all lies. Even if you've spent six years in miserable loneliness, even if she surely has not thought of you with all the aching, devouring longing that you have, even if she feels so guilty looking at you that she could not even visit you once on this citadel that you have no choice but to call home. (You do not know if she loves you back—you don't ask yourself if that matters.)
Even so, all you want is to be beside her. It's all you've ever wanted, because she is all you've ever had, and you do not think you can survive the loss of your entire world a second time. So you'll fight, and you'll raze everything down until it's just the two of you, and as Luminiera's great power whips through you, warping your armor, filling your mind and body with a manic, unearthly energy—
You smile, and you fight, and inevitably, Katalina choose them and either way, you lose. ]
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It should frighten her to see this side of Vira. To have evidence to suggest that Vira is this used to putting on personas, of manipulating and betraying, that she looks at other people this way only as a means to an end. An end which is possessive and terrifying.
But she doesn't really feel any of that. This is the girl who remained calm through all of the fighting she had to do on their behalf. The girl who offered to cut off her own arm for them. The girl who after, cool and confident as ever, helped toss aside cookies so Takeru wouldn't have to eat them.
She doesn't think the Vira she's seeing here represents all there is to her. She admitted to her own faults - lies and betrayals and manipulations - and Harrowhark cannot judge her. She has done ugly things. Her existence is itself an ugly thing. And she has tried and tried to find a meaning to wrap herself around, to motivate her continue living. She has a sense that Vira is the same; that these are the actions of a person who has nothing else.
How lonely it must be, to love someone who can leave you behind.
She blinks back the memory as it fades, returning to their living quarters.]
. . . Do you remember her now? I wasn't certain.
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I do.
[ She lets out a humorless puff of laughter. ]
The fact that I could even forget her... [ Awful. It's awful of her. ] In any case—as you can see, I've taken some extreme measures in the past. I would bet that almost everyone here has.
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Certainly. You know that I have.
. . . Is your wish for her sake?
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