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Gideon’s on her way to bug Aiglamene to teach her a new sword trick she’s been running through in her head—it’s got a flip in it and Gideon swears it’s the coolest thing in the world—when she hears faint shuffling and the drip, drip of something liquidy. It sounds like the thump of smoky rain against the flimsy material of the Ninth’s walls or their limited supply of water dropping off Gideon's face and landing thick like blood on the dusty floor.
Point is, it’s an unusual noise to hear in the hallways of Drearburh and Gideon has limited stimulation in this stuffy as fuck hellhole so she pauses in her original endeavor and turns sharp on her heel—a perfect about-face if you asked her—and creeps towards the gross, squishing sound.
Her pursuit is quiet, not even a hit of bone dust swishing through the air around her feet. It’s noiseless, an utterly perfect sneak attack on an unsuspecting nun that is sure to scare them either three quarters to death or to death. Either way, it’s sure to annoy Harrowhark Nonagesimus to some degree or another, so the punishment she’ll receive from it is worth it.
The shuffling picks up fast and the scrap of shoes echoes off the old walls, only cancelled out by the loud squelch of a watery substance repeatedly hitting the floor, like, a lot. Fucking often.
Gideon’s just turning the corner when she gets the faint idea that maybe what’s behind this breaking stone wall is something she doesn’t want to know, let alone see, but she’s already head first past the turning away point and it’s not like she hasn't seen some messed up shit in her time and maybe it won’t be as bad as—
Oh. It’s Harrow.
A Harrow with something wet leaking down her legs in long, unstopping rivers that lands heavy and solid against the puddle already forming thick on the grey floor. It’s an uncomfortable sight alone, but mixing in the look of absolute fear and anger on Harrow’s face—so raw Gideon thinks it would be more comfortable to have found her butt naked then with that vulnerable look on her face—makes Gideon wanna turn tail and pretend she never saw Harrow looking anything other than perfectly put together and regal.
And she almost does, body half turned in a left-face, when Harrow’s necromantic powers must have shifted into gear because her head snaps up like a kicked puppet and she stares Gideon dead in the eye with her unfeeling black, black gaze. There's never an emotion behind that face, never a thought other than religious assortments and prayers to her beloved God—and if some time ago one of her thoughts was how she could torment Gideon next, she hasn’t had one in a long, long time—, but today there is. Today there’s a look striped of all her armor, bared to the world—bared to Gideon—and it's full of so many emotions that Gideon can’t possibly sort through them all, so instead she nods her head in a sort of truce and takes a half step forward.
“My Midnight Hagette, why are you haunting these halls with your dreary as fuck presence.” It’s not a question, not really. Gideon just needs Harrow to stay long enough to figure out what the fuck is leaking down both her legs still. (Gideon will say it’s only fucked up curiosity but she’s barely fooling herself.)
“Griddle.” Harrow seethes, her face contorting into absolute disgust.
And Gideon falters a little because Harrowhark hasn’t called her that childhood ‘nickname’ in years and fuck if it doesn’t bring a tear to her eyes.
“Harrow.” Gideon replies calmly, still slowly walking towards Harrow, hands up like she’s a feral thing ready to pounce. (She is. She really, really is.)
Harrow watches Gideon approach with a sharp eye, her jaw set tighter than Crux’s morals. She’s got a hand on the wall and is leaning too much on it to mean anything good.
The closer Gideon gets, the more she can see how absolutely wrecked Harrow looks. Her legs are shaking so bad little drops of the liquid flick off her thighs and hit the wall in an undignified glob, running down the stone until it hits a crack and nests into it with a contented little glob sigh. But also what Gideon can see the closer she gets is that the liquid covering half of Harrow’s body is blood. Deep, dark blood so red it looks black. Black and chunky as shit. Fuck, blood should not be that chunky.
Gideon pauses right in front of Harrow and swears up a storm. “Fuck Nonagesimus! What did you do?!”
Harrowhark glares hard and lifts a comforting hand to her stomach which—oh. Oh. Oh.
“Why do you automatically assume it’s my fault, Nav? You should know by now what blood sweat looks like.”
Gideon shakes her head hard. “Harrow for fuck sakes—that’s not blood sweat.”
Harrow’s glare falters and the hand on her stomach squeezes. “Of course it is, you idiotic red-haired mess.”
Gideon is unimpressed. And scared. She’s kinda scared. “Harrow, that was a horrible insult,” she mutters, trying to figure out how to phrase what she actually wants to say.
Harrow scoffs, offended, but Gideon holds up a hand to stop her. And just the fact it does is worrisome enough.
“Harrow,” Gideon begins slowly, “have you ever bled from your—um—dark-musty-bits-that-no-one-should-ever-see before?”
Harrow blinks at her slowly, like she’s completely and utterly deranged, before snapping out, “No, Nav, I’ve never bled from my ‘Dark Musty Bits’.”
Gideon internally hates herself for what she knows she’s about to do. She thought Harrow already got her Time like three years ago! And that one of the nuns probably just threw some sort of padding at her and told her to never speak of it! Not like Gideon, who had to figure it out all on her lonesome at ten…oh, fuck. Gideon can’t let that happen to Harrow (and no, she won’t let herself think why).
“Okay, Harrow, so what you just got is what I call ‘Time’,” Harrow blinks every slowly at her, “and it basically makes you spew blood from your ‘Dusty Musty Bits’ for a couple days ever time the prison over head turns just sharply enough that we can see a hit of Dominicus.”
Harrow sucks in a sharp breath so deep Gideon swears she’ll break apart with her weak, necromantic body, but she doesn’t, simply sways.
“What. The fuck. Did you just say?” Harrow growls, the hand around her stomach twitching.
Gideon decides now is a great time to turn on her charm so that she can make this conversation somehow less awkward and horrible.
“Yop. You heard me my Penumbral Lady, but don’t you worry you’re paint soaked face about a thing, because the best sword master on the Ninth has been dealing with this utter shit for six years now and is basically a pro.” Gideon finishes this beautiful piece with a wink.
Harrow mumbles, “Aiglamene?” And promptly squishes Gideon’s pride in record time.
“Er, no. Me. Fuck, whatever! Just wait here while I go get some stuff to clean this up with.”
Harrow growls something about Getting Your Ass Back Over Here but Gideon is already turning down the next old, creaky hallway and pretends she didn’t hear.
Gideon returns with a small bucket filled halfway with water—from her own personal preserve she may or may not have stolen—, a scratchy rag older than Cruz and smells somehow worse, and a thick, rolled up piece of cloth that Gideon stole from Sister Lachrimorta a year or two back.
Harrow is unimpressed with her find. “What the fuck is that supposed to do, Nav?”
Gideon rolls her eyes and shoves the cloth in Harrow’s bony grip. “It’s a Stopper. Shove it on top of your undergarments and it soaks up the blood better than anything I’ve tried.”
Harrow gasps incredulously at the word ‘undergarments’ falling from Gideon’s mouth but doesn’t question the command which is as much of an accomplishment as anything.
And here comes the hard part.
“Harrow, Bone Empress, my Crepuscular Queen, Tenebrous Overlord,” Gideon shoves the rag into her hands, “Clean up the blood.”
When Harrow only looks at her like she’s grown a third arm—which would be cool as fuck because three swords!—Gideon corrects herself, “Just your legs and feet. Unless you want me to clean you?”
Harrow’s face gets a soft tinge of red—which is crazy because you think she’d be out of blood by now—and shakes her head. “Give me the bucket.”
And Gideon does, and Harrow slowly dips the rag in the water and washes the blood of her legs with shaky, uneven strokes. The bloody water flows down her legs much more rhythmically than the thick blood did, pooling at her feet and spreading out along the floor in an unfollowable pattern, but a pattern nonetheless.
Gideon resolves herself to clean that up too once Harrow’s done.
The blood flow slowly stops and Harrow stares at the rag with curiosity and disgust. “So much blood wasted,” she mumbles, “So much that could have gone to my necromancy.” And Gideon wasn’t expecting that but it fits so well she laughs.
Harrow glares at her until Gideon can breathe enough to wheeze out, “Get that cloth on now—” a hard gulp of air “—or else you’ll just bleed more.”
Harrow sputters and looks around at the open, unprivate hallway they are in that is at least two staircases from Harrow’s room. Probably more. Harrow visibly starts to panic so Gideon sighs heavily and walks in front of Harrow to block her from the majority of viewing range and squeezes her eyes shut tight. “Change, Harrow.”
When Harrow doesn’t make a single noise for ten seconds straight Gideon breathes out, “Now.”
That does it, the sound of desperate shuffling and awkward footfalls echoing down the cavernous hallway and making Gideon cringe at just the thought of a semi-naked Harrow within touching distance of her.
Soon the shifting of clothes stops and only the awkward air remains. Gideon hears a soft Finished and carefully opens her eyes. Harrowhark Nonagesimus is toeing the ground and playing with her fingers uncomfortably, something she’s never done before. Gideon knows why instantly.
“Feels weird as shit, right? Yeah, you’ll get used to it. It’s that or bleeding for all to see, so. Pick your battles.”
Harrow nods softly. She takes in a big breath, squares her shoulders, and becomes Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, in a flash. It makes Gideon shiver with the drastic shift of air.
“Gideon Nav, I owe you a debt.”
Gideon nods dumbly at her and Harrow exhales shakily. “Now, as you are still an indentured servant, clean this up.” Harrow sweeps her hand over the blood still clotting the floor and walls like Gideon had somehow missed it.
Gideon snaps out of the daze Harrow saying she owed her a debt gave her and rolls her eyes. “Sure thing, Jackass.”
Harrow tilts her chin in understanding and turns to leave. Just as she reaches the end of the hallway, Gideon calls out softly, “Compression helps with the pain.” And doesn’t look to see if Harrow heard or not. She knows she did, Harrow hears everything that anyone does or says on this crappy planet.
What she doesn’t expect is for the most quietest thing Gideon’s ever heard to reach her ears, so soft and so beautiful that Gideon believes Harrow’s ghost uttered the words and not her as Thank You reverberates around in her skull long after Harrow’s dark form disappears from view.