Chapter Text
“You don’t need to come with us if you don’t want to,” Isaac says.
Which was typical, really. Neither of them said that about any of the other events they took her too, and here was the only one she actually wanted to go to. She only went to Isaac’s recitations and Jeannemary’s sword shows because it gave her an excuse to come with them here.
“Oh yeah,” says Jeannemary, “you can totally go to a closer cafeteria if you want!”
Isaac rolls his eyes at her. “Or, we could go with her to a closer cafeteria!”
Harrow raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to use me to get out of walking all the way to this cafeteria?”
(“The black anchorite of the locked tomb will not be used in this fashion!” Jeannemary hisses gleefully under her breath as Isaac groans.)
Being contrary gives Harrow an excuse to walk faster, taking the lead and hoping no one realizes they’re walking together.
(“Were you going to leave me to come here by myself?” Jeannemary whines.
“You wouldn’t be on your own, you could have stayed with us!” Isaac insists.
“Not when she only works in that cafeteria!”)
Harrow sweeps into the cafeteria and drops her tablet at her preferred table in front of a chair at an acceptable angle without halting her own momentum, leaving the Fourth to sort itself out behind her as she gets in line.
No one preempts them for the spot behind her, so they don’t have to do the awkward dance of them wondering if she tolerates them enough for her presence to count as saving a spot for them in the queue.
(“Look, sorry but I thought you might want to avoid her after you asked -”
“Noooo don’t bring that up we’re trying to forget that - “
“I’m sure you’d have bigger biceps if you used a longsword too, you don’t need that much arm for the rapier, really,”)
Harrow smoothes out her uniform, resettles her short cloak, makes sure her black-edged lieutenant's pin sits just so. She regrets that her paint doesn’t hide the tone of the skin of her neck.
(“She uses a rapier too, I saw her fighting that guy, you know the one, not very good but all puffed up because he’s the best in the beginner classes, she beat him in three moves and she can’t have started practicing more than a month before!”)
“I thought you said she only used the longsword,” Harrow says, and the Fourth is shocked and appalled at the revelation that she can, in fact hear them muttering to each other, even when she chooses to ignore it.
“Yeah,” says Chatur, rallying quickly. “But that’s like saying that a ‘sploder won’t be any good at bones. Fighting with different swords is really different, but if you can handle something pointy it’s easier to handle something else pointy. But the rapier and the longsword, how you have to fight with them is really really different, but also she’s kind of a genius and so I think she could do both. She’s pretty competitive at double swords, like, amazing for any normal person, but they she’s not quite ambidextrous enough to be truly great, they say. She’s really amazing though, like. Wow.”
“And her biceps are huge,” Isaac adds snidely.
Harrow nods and turns away, dismissing them to bicker among themselves, disliking how that had thrown her off her rhythm. She straightens her cuffs. She breathes. She concentrates herself to a fine point in her sternum, and then lets it all all go as she steps ahead in line.
She’s next. She keeps her eyes on the tip jar but she can still see flashes of forearms, her apron, her red hair out of the corner of her eye. She keeps her eye on the counter until the person in front of her moves away, and she then automatically steps up to the front.
Keeping her eyes on the counter probably isn’t the best idea, because seeing her hits like the first time all over again. Dignity thrown to the wind, but in a way she wants to come back to every day.
She smiles her crooked smile at Harrow. “Hey again, Ninth, I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I - You’ve been thinking about me?” she says. The Fourth behind her break out in an unprecedented rash of silence. Harrow wonders if it hurts.
“Definitely,” she says, and lets her smirk grow impish as she looks Harrow up and down, which only makes Harrow redder. She leans forward. “No, but really, I’ve been wondering - do you actually like black coffee? I’ve seen you sitting with it but I’ve never actually seen you take a sip.”
Harrow prays to the Emperor Undying, sealer of the locked tomb and ruler of the Nine Houses for a myriad before and a prayed-for myriad to come for the soft embrace of death to swallow her on the spot. When he declines to respond, Harrow is forced to say “No.”
“We like your coffee!” Isaac pips, and Jeannemary nods vigorously beside him. Harrow wishes for the locked tomb to open and swallow them both forever. It’s more honor than they deserve, actually, give them a nameless grave and she’ll call it a success.
“Ah, yeah, you guys,” the BARI star says, and rubs her hand on the back of her neck. Harrow notes that someone should be informed that her uniform was too - tight, or revealing, or something, the way her arm looks when she does that is practically indecent. She refocuses on Harrow and her smile returns full force. “I get just ordering something because your friends are doing it, but I’m a big girl, I can make something else if you don’t like coffee. Is that cool with you?”
Harrow blinks. “Okay,” she says. The girl - Harrow knows her name, Jeannemary repeats it often enough, but Harrow hasn’t been introduced, it seems presumptuous somehow to think of her as - Nav commits the unforgivable crime of leaning further forward on the counter and smiling somehow brighter.
“Alright so! Quick consultation. Is it the coffee taste or the spices taste? Because there’s different things that I could do for both. Do you like lemon? We have enough lemon to prune the whole upper officer corps, not that they need it.”
“Lemon’s fine,” Harrow says, feeling the growing discontent of the line behind her and the Fourth’s barely restrained glee. She leans closer to Nav despite herself, like a rotted board falling stiffly towards a place to rest. “I don’t like - flavors, there are so many here and it’s - not what I’m used to.”
“So that takes out the chilli powder entirely, huh. Okay, okay I think I know what I’m going to make for you, Lady, but I’m erring on the side of caution and it’s basically going to be a sneeze in a glass. So you have to come back and tell me about it tomorrow, okay Ninth? Give me your honest review.”
She keeps looking into Harrow’s eyes and smiling. It’s very distressing.
“Harrow,” she says. “I’m Harrow.”
“Call me Gideon,” says Gideon, and gives her a quick little two fingered salute before pushing off the counter and heading over to the machines in the back.
“Cina, take over orders for a second?”
“Gideon!”
“It’s fine, I just need a second - “
The limpid blonde who had been busy with the checkout screen sighs and smiles at Harrow. “I’m Dulcinea, and you’re already being helped? Can I help who’s next in line?” The Fourth erupt from silence into their natural state of noise and vigorously place their orders
The girl - Nav - Gideon has a nickname for this Dulcinea girl. Harrow doesn’t like her at all.