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]

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?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"...Huh," says Gideon. "Oh, right, because it's constantly renewing. But like, if it stopped—okay, so here's why I'm asking. I met this dude outside who totally stole my look, other than the paint. Glasses, clothes, hair, even our eyes are the same color, though he's got weirder pupils?"

[az_fell]

"Crowley," says Aziraphale promptly, with his first smile of the conversation thus far. "That's Crowley. My -- friend."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, great," says Gideon, though she has a hard time imagining that. "Well, he's the testicle-haver in question."

[az_fell]

"I beg your pardon?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Well, due to the obvious resemblance, I thought he might be my dad," explains Gideon. "But then Luo Binghe told me he's his ancestor, but like several thousand years ago. So then we were like, does his dick even still work, in the baby-making way, since he's so fucking old, and I'm so young and hot and full of vigor." She raises an eyebrow. "So, like, does it?"

[az_fell]

Aziraphale stares at her for a moment. It's probably an uncomfortably lengthy moment. "He's a demon," he says, as if that explains everything, and with resolute determination not to take notice of the unsettling feeling of prickling heat somewhere in the vicinity of his face. He clears his throat. "No. He doesn't have any children."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon had taken the pause before this guy described Crowley as his friend at face value—there are a lot of people she'd pause before describing as her friends, though probably not while smiling like that—but now that he's gone all pink about it she's reconsidering. "Uh huh," she says innocently. "Okay. Interesting. And how old is he, exactly?"

[az_fell]

"Several thousand years," says Aziraphale, relieved to have been posed one very straightforward question. "As old as Creation. As am I."

[ninth_cavalier]

Okay, so Earth's like way younger than the Nine Houses, unless several is more than ten—but that's something to think about later, when she's not pressing this guy's buttons so hard. "So what you're saying is," she continues, in the same tone, "at some point between now and several thousand years ago, Crowley's dick stopped working."

[az_fell]

"No! I'm saying that it never -- that he never -- who are you?" Aziraphale abruptly gives up, glaring at her. Theoretically, he has some impressive glares in her arsenal, but this likely isn't one of them.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon Nav grins at him—no longer trying to be intimidating, just genuinely delighted. "Gideon Nav," she says, and sticks out a hand for him to shake.

[az_fell]

Aziraphale huffs out one of his fussiest little sighs, but he does take her hand and shake it firmly and politely. "Aziraphale. You're terribly annoying, you know. Maybe you are related to Crowley."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Aw," says Gideon, grin unfaltering, "thanks. I'm touched. Since you two are such good friends, and all."

[az_fell]

"We are." Aziraphale frowns as he releases her hand. "We've known each other for six thousand years."

[ninth_cavalier]

Six thousand. Gideon smirks. "My God's been alive for ten thousand years." Technically more than that, but no one knows how old the First Reborn had been, well, before the First Rebirth.

[az_fell]

"Good for them," says Aziraphale, as passive-aggressively polite as possible. He concentrates for a split second and disappears his wings.