Introducing Gideon Nav, Cavalier Primary to the Ninth House, Keepers of the Locked Tomb...

[ninth_cavalier]

...House of the Sewn Tongue, The Black Vestals. We pray that the tomb is shut forever. We pray the rock is never rolled away. We pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest, with closed eye and stilled brain. We pray it lives, we pray it sleeps, we pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King...

One minute Gideon is doing the stupidest and most perfect thing she has ever done, heroically sacrificing herself so her necromancer can eat her and achieve true Lyctorhood and break Cytherea the First's body into so many little shards of bone and ribbons of fat and flesh that even her own mother (thousands of years dead, and most likely a huge bitch) couldn't recognize her, and the next she's—standing. Whole, the aches in her leg and shoulder gone, her sunglasses perched on her nose, the comforting weight of her longsword¹ on her back. She takes a breath, just for the novelty of it, and looks around.

The first thing she notices is how clean it is. No blood, no mold, no grime, no layers of bone dust. When she breathes, she just breathes air, and it feels like extra clean air, which—she looks further around—is probably due to the actual grass on the actual ground. In the distance there are trees. With birds in them.

Is this—this can't possibly be what the inside of Harrow's brain looks like. The inside of Harrow's brain is undoubtedly as spooky as the outside of Harrow's brain, because where would she even have found the imagination to dream up something this—idyllic?? There's nothing even close to it in any of her experience on Drearbruh, and Gideon would know, having been there and actively making that experience worse for all of Harrow's sorry little life.

No, what she's looking at is—a house. A big, boring, white-painted house, not a bone to be seen. "Okay," says Gideon. "What the fuck."

Anyone looking at her will see a tallish (though not for Mansion standards), broad-shouldered and very ripped butch woman, dressed all in black (black tank top, black pants, black stompy boots). She has short-cropped red hair, medium-brown skin, and her face has been painted with stark black and white skull makeup, atop which she has incongruously perched very old-looking aviator sunglasses. Slung over her back is the aforementioned sword.

¹ Typist note: the books consistently refer to this as both a "longsword" and a "two-hander," and from the way its weight and length is constantly emphasized I interpret it to be more toward zweihander than longsword. Also, bigger sword sexier.

Comments

[aflashbastard]

Crowley's now moved his thinking outdoors and at that sudden statement, he turns to the new arrival and notes the all black clothes, the red hair, and the sunglasses.

"Hey," he says, in a mildly suspicious tone of you stole my look.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Hey," echoes Gideon. "Dude. You stole my look!" This guy doesn't have bare arms, though. "And you don't even have the guns to pull it off!"

[aflashbastard]

“No no, I was here first,” Crowley says, frowning at being called dude. “Both here here and also, well, existence.” And he could have the guns if he wanted. Maybe Aziraphale would notice him more if he had the guns…

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, big whoop, you're older than me," says Gideon. She lowers her shades to give him an unimpressed once-over. "It takes youth to look this good in all black. Trust me, I'm an expert in old men who can't pull it off." Like Crux. It's been a while since she thought about Crux. She almost feels fond. What a refreshingly simple person to fucking hate.

[aflashbastard]

"Right on the old, wrong on the man. Nice eyes, by the way. Very unique," Crowley says, a little dryly. It's almost refreshing and comforting to have someone be rude to him. There's still a demonic part of him that gets uncomfortable when people are too nice. "How young are you anyway? Twelve? Thirteen?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Eighteen," says Gideon. "As if a twelve year old could—ugh, I already talked about my guns. I'm off my game." She squints. "Also, sorry. To assume." Though if this guy is also a butch lesbian, that's going to really be the final straw.

[aflashbastard]

“It happens,” Crowley shrugs. “Where did you come from anyway?” He gives Gideon another quick once over, idly wondering if he somehow had a red-haired, golden-eyed, black wearing, cranky and rude time-traveling child from another dimension¹.

¹Not that he can have children, but stranger things have happened in the Ineffable Plan.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Space," says Gideon, succinctly. "Specifically, a planet full of necromantic puzzles that were trying to kill me, and before that a rock at the ass-end of the universe populated solely by death-obsessed nuns." She gestures meaningfully at her facepaint, though at this point the meaningful part is really just for her, so it's kind of just gesturing. "Where did you come from?"

[aflashbastard]

"Hell," he says, "but I've met death-obsessed nuns before. Well, Satanic nuns. Nice people."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs, not least at the nuns being defined as nice "Hell? Hell's not a place, hell's just, like, an expression. You tell people to go to hell, or that you'll see them in hell, or whatever, but you can't actually. That's the point."

[aflashbastard]

"Where do you think those expressions came from?" Crowley scoffs. See you in hell, go to hell, hell is empty and all the devils are here¹, all of the false depictions of hell out there came about because a demon said a little too much; he's still wondering who gave Dante Alighieri some correct details, because it definitely wasn't him. "Hell is absolutely a real place."

¹Who said that??

[ninth_cavalier]

"Okay," says Gideon, "sure." Everyone knows expressions don't come from anyplace, they just exist. "If you're from hell, then what, are you some kind of demon or something? Or a bat? Those are also from hell. Like a bat out of hell. Right?"

[aflashbastard]

"Yeah, I'm a bat," Crowley says, reluctantly. "It's a sensitive subject though. So much stereotyping."

[ninth_cavalier]

"You're not a bat," says Gideon. "That was a joke. Bats I've seen. We've got bats out the wazoo on the Ninth. Surfeit of bats, skeletons, and nuns, intense lack of anything remotely cheerful."

[aflashbastard]

"I know, I was going along with it." He frowns slightly. "Demon. So believe me, Hell exists."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon crosses her arms (impressively. if there were any girls here, they'd swoon) and looks him over again, this time with more interest and less outrage. "Demon, huh. Got any proof?"

[aflashbastard]

"What kind of proof?" Crowley asks, suspicious. He remembers when Shen Qingqiu-- now Shen Yuan made him magic up a hundred different items. He's not falling for that again.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon shrugs. The closest thing thing she's ever seen to demons were the total hotties in Devil Women From Mars Vol. Six, one of her most prized possessions, and that was obviously fantasy - Mars isn't even a real planet. "Dunno. Horns? Pointy tail? Weird eyes?"

[aflashbastard]

With a slightly more exaggerated sigh than he really needs, Crowley slides his sunglasses down to reveal the golden snake eyes. "No horns. No pointy tail. Sorry to disappoint. That's all false stereotyping. ...I can also do this." He snaps and it seems like his hand is on fire.

[ninth_cavalier]

Woah, hold on. Hang on. Gideon ignores the fire--that can be replicated with special gloves, or even just paper treated with phosphorous and powdered glass, tucked between thumb and forefinger. But the eyes, combined with the look--is that why Cytherea had lost her shit when she saw Gideon's eyes?? Some kind of demon shit?

"Hold the fucking phone. Are you my dad?"

[aflashbastard]

"Am I your what," Crowley says more than asks flatly, even though the thought had idly crossed his mind. "Do I look like a father figure to you?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"How the fuck would I know?" Gideon asks. "The closest thing to anyone's dad I've ever met is Priamhark Nonaverius and he's been a crusty old corpse puppetted around by his own daughter since I was eleven years old. So I guess no, since I don't have my hand up your ancient ass, you don't look like a father figure."

She sighs. "But what the fuck else am I supposed to think?? I off myself in a heroic and absolutely bonehead—pun intended—move, giving myself wholly over to my Dark Lady of the Umbral Night, et cetera et cetera, and instead of showing up in her horrible little brain I'm here, and you show up, dressed like me, and tell me hell's real. I figure—maybe this is it, I fucked it all up, and now I meet my dad and he escorts me to hell, and this is like—"she gestures around, "hell's waiting room."

[aflashbastard]

Crowley truly doesn't know what to do with all of this information. Other demons, they like to visit their target right before their death, taunt them with their sins and get their whole life story in return with regrets and fears and everything -- and that's kind of what this feels like. That's not really Crowley's style.

"I'm not your dad," he tells her. "This isn't Hell. You'd wait in line for a week just to fill out 200 pages of paperwork before they assigned you your eternal torture, if it was."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Fine," says Gideon shortly. "So what am I waiting for here, then?"

[aflashbastard]

"You're trapped," Crowley tells her. "I was one of the first people to show up here and even I can't find a way back." Not that he wants to find a way back, back where Hell can find him.