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]

"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."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Am I the only motherfucker here not from Earth?" Gideon demands. She narrows her eyes. "Wait, don't tell me you messenge for that little baby." She's pretty sure Kade had implied that kid was male, but maybe he's just not close enough with Jesus to know Her true gender.

[az_fell]

"That little baby? What on Earth -- or not, I suppose, as the case may be -- are you talking about?" Ah, sometimes these blasted wings are more trouble than they're worth. Aziraphale tucks them more tightly against his back before they damage any more of the books, which of course are what really matter here.

[ninth_cavalier]

"You know. Jesus," says Gideon. "Tiny baby everyone lost their minds about, grew up and died or whatever. Which isn't even impressive to do. Everyone grows up and then dies. Except the Emperor, obviously." She tacks on a few more titles, just for fun. "Ransomer, Scourge, and Vindicator of Death."

[az_fell]

This is such an improbable quantity of blatant blasphemy that Aziraphale really can't even be offended. Crowley should be here¹. "You're speaking of the son of God," he says rather wearily, "who did quite a bit more than simply growing up and then dying."

¹This is more of a light tap on the lever.

[ninth_cavalier]

"He's God's son?" asks Gideon. "Wait, actually, maybe that means you can help me out with something. How long, exactly, does jizz last in the balls?"

[az_fell]

Aziraphale squints at her again. They haven't even exchanged names, and now they're talking about human fertility cycles? Different dimensions indeed. "If the owner of the testicles in question doesn't get around to putting the sperm somewhere else? Roughly seventy-four days. What sort of a question is that?"