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

[az_fell]

"Hm," says Aziraphale. He's not particularly cowed by the rather fierce look she's giving him. "I suppose these are mine, then." He pats his worn waistcoat fondly. "But your point is taken. Not Halloween, then."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon frowns, kind of disgruntled at this lack of reaction. Okay, less flappable than he looks.¹ She's not about to give ground just yet, though. She raises her eyebrows. "These are your vestments? Who do you worship, the Great Librarian?"

¹ Claudius would disagree... almost like you need to push on something specifically...

[az_fell]

If such a deity existed, no doubt Aziraphale would be having even greater struggles with--

Anyway! He cocks his head a bit to one side. "The Almighty." With a sigh, because he had scolded Crowley so thoroughly for giving everything away to everyone here, he adds, "I'm an angel."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon narrows her eyes. "You worship the Emperor Undying?" she asks, figuring angel has to be some First House rank she's not familiar with--she'd guess Cohort, if the idea of this guy with a sword or gun wasn't totally laughable. First seems a better fit anyway, he's sort of got Teacher vibes. "I didn't think there was anyone else from my dimension here."

[az_fell]

"I certainly do not worship the Emperor Undying, whoever that is," says Aziraphale mildly. "If your dimension is either Heaven or Soho, London, then we share a dimension, but I think the odds of that being the case are rather poor." He supposes he could indulge in a whole display, with the wings, et cetera, but that seems terribly self-important.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon frowns at him. "But angels are a God thing," she says. "And you said the Almighty. That's God."

[az_fell]

"Precisely." Aziraphale frowns right back at her. "Not some... Emperor."

[ninth_cavalier]

"The Emperor is God," says Gideon. "The Emperor Undying. The Emperor All-Giving." Increasingly disbelievingly, "His Celestial Kindliness, First Reborn, Necrolord Prime, the Ransomer of Death? Lord of the Sharpest Edge? King of the Nine Renewals?"

[az_fell]

Aziraphale is torn between interest and what he probably should be doing, which is taking offense at this litany of blatantly blasphemous titles. "No," he says, a bit waspishly. "We could not be farther from hailing from the same dimension."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Hm," says Gideon, and then grins, slow, in a way she knows is especially unsettling when she's in full paint. "Bet my God's cooler than your God."

[az_fell]

Aziraphale gives her a bit of a skeptical look. She's clearly trying to be intimidating, and he'd hate to let her efforts go to waste, but he's seen so much worse. "I suppose it's possible. I haven't known Her to be overly concerned with coolness."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon blinks. "Wait," she says, "Her? Your God's a woman?" Damn, that's a good play. That gets Her a leg up in the coolness department right off the bat, as far as Gideon's concerned.

[az_fell]

"Not exactly. Human signifiers are irrelevant." Aziraphale shrugs, with a little smile that is admittedly a bit smug. Not that he cares about winning this argument with a teenager. "But She has her preferences when it comes to human language."

[ninth_cavalier]

"And She makes her preferences clear to You?" Gideon asks, skeptically. She pulls a chair from one of the nearby tables and flips it around so she's sitting in it backwards, arms draped across it's back. "Alright, I'll bite," she says. "What's an angel? Other than like, slang for someone super beautiful and ethereal and shit." She is uncharacteristically polite enough not to mention how little those descriptors apply to this guy.

[az_fell]

What a strange teenager¹, though. Aziraphale squints at her a bit. "A servant of Heaven," he says, making it pretty clear that he thinks this should be obvious. "A messenger of the Lord."

¹He thinks. Guessing human ages remains officially Not Aziraphale's Strong Suit.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Okay, right, a courier," says Gideon. "So you're like a pilot, carrying His--sorry, Her--notes wherever She needs them to go?" She raises her eyebrows. "You got a ship?"

[az_fell]

"A ship?" Aziraphale's look of skepticism only deepens. "I have a shop. Perhaps you misspoke?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon gives him a weird look. "No," she says. "I meant a ship. Like a transport ship. When the First House courier delivered the summons from God, telling us to go to Canaan House, he came on a transport ship. I mean, probably because there's no other way to get to the ass-end of space, but still."

[az_fell]

"Young lady," says Aziraphale, "I have never been more certain that we are from different dimensions entirely." In fact, he is immediately suspecting that she must be from a book, like many others here, but he's still keeping that to himself.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon rolls her eyes. This guy's a little thick, huh? "Yeah, bud, no kidding. That doesn't answer my question. If you're a Messenger, how do you messenge?"

[az_fell]

Frankly, Aziraphale has done very little messenging recently, but he doesn't want to tell her that. "I do have wings, you know."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, I know that, do I?" asks Gideon. "How, exactly?" She gives him another Look, up and down.

[az_fell]

Fine! Fine, strange teenaged(?) human(?) with unflattering makeup. Aziraphale sighs delicately, as though he is the most put-upon being in Creation, and spreads his wings. The left wing knocks against one of the bookshelves and causes a minor avalanche, so Aziraphale sighs again and, as he shuffles to the side to get a little more space, makes a small gesture that returns all those books to where they came from.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon watches this display with interest, though maybe less awe than Aziraphale was hoping for. Not no awe—she's never seen a human being with wings before, and it's pretty cool looking; he certainly looks more ethereal now—but like a week ago she watched someone encase an entire room in a bubble of magical blood, so her standards for awe are pretty high. "Nice," she says. "Seems kind of impractical inside, though. You just kind of walk around, to messenge around this place?"

[az_fell]

"I'm not a messenger here," says Aziraphale peevishly. He shakes out that left wing, which is likely overall a bit dusty from disuse, and then does the same with the other. "This isn't Earth."