blue_ajah | [panfandomsandbox] change is in the wind

A slight smile curves her lips, and Moiraine beckons Harrow to a seat at her table.

"Lady Ninth. Light illumine."

"I am as well as may be expected, and should be interested to hear more of these mysteries of yours."

Harrow moves into the seat, and extracts once again her perennial journal from her robes.

"The second trial was undertaken with the assistance of Dulcinea Septimus of the Seventh House, who I emphatically do not trust," she says. "And it required the use of a necromantic technique I abhor."

"But I have the theorems," she says, with a gleam of angry triumph.

She signals for a waitrat, and dark eyes narrow as she listens.

"What technique would this be?"

"It's called siphoning," she says. "It's the signature of the Eighth House, which is why it was imperative to get this key ahead of them. A necromancer draws on the life energy of a willing living being to reinforce their own power, converting the thalergy to thanergy. It is dangerous for the source."

"Gideon insisted," she continues, her expression tight. "Both our lives were put at risk. I had to enter a highly-destructive avulsion field and dismantle a necromantic structure to extract the key, relying on her spirit for the power to shield myself."

"Septimus undersold the danger. If I had known what we were getting into I might not have gone in. But Nav was incredible. If she had wavered I would've been disintegrated instantly." Her real teeth worry the painted ones on her lower lip in a spot already worn pink.

"She is sleeping it off now. I've asked the Sixth to check her health, they're the closest we have to medics, and I nearly trust Palamedes Sextus." Almost.

Edited 2020-08-30 06:09 (UTC)

The Aes Sedai is very still as she considers the implications of this.

"I can see why you abhor it."

To share power with others through a link is far from unknown, but saidar is drawn from outside one's self. Given how Harrow has described the flow of power in her world, it seems very likely that Gideon Nav has risked her very existence for this key.

"You have no Healers?"

She shakes her head. "Not the way I imagine you mean it."

"I can... destroy the plaque building up within a heart. Or fill in the honeycomb of aging bones. But I can't make wounds knit faster or fight an infection for someone. If anyone could, it would be the Second, but they would need a source of thanergy to harvest, and I believe even that is only a temporary boost."

"But the Sixth are scholars and take an interest in medicine. Palamedes knows what he's doing and he assures me his cav is better." She sounds somewhat like she's trying to convince herself.

She looks past Moiraine, off to one side. "I confess I question if what I received was worth it. Palamedes refused the experiment. But there is only one of each key, and I believe there may only be one or two left unclaimed. Things are about to get... tense in Canaan House."

"And the more keys you have, the more knowledge you gain," the Aes Sedai summarizes. "And the better prepared you will be for the trials to come."

The waitrat returns, carrying a tea service and a pitcher of mountain spring water, and busily sets everything up on a small table beside them.

Moiraine pays it no outward attention. Her dark-eyed gaze is steady on Harrow's as she says,

"I have something of a Talent for Healing."

It is, very obviously, an offer, oblique though it may be.

Harrow inhales deeply through her nose, her pigeon chest swelling beneath her robe.

Her hesitation, in the scheme of things, is barely anything at all. "Yes," she says. "Please." Her black eyes find Moiraine's.

"It is a risk, but if she will not value her life properly, I must do it for her. If you will come to Canaan House, I would have you do it."

She inclines her head to the younger woman in assent.

"The Wheel weaves," Moiraine says. "It will not be the first time I have crossed worlds to aid another, nor, I suspect, will it be the last. I will go with you to Canaan House."

She frowns. "Do you have any way to disguise yourself? Your power seems to have more... broad applications than mine."

"I can get you a spare habit, but Gideon is quite a bit... larger than either of us and no one else from the Ninth should be present."

"I cannot weave a specific seeming, I think, unless I know what I am attempting to show," she replies.

"I can make myself appear taller and more imposing, however, and I could perhaps blur my own appearance to a degree."

"With a habit like mine and the hood and veil up, being taller and more imposing should be sufficient, at least for a brief glimpse. One moment."

She moves to the bar and makes a few requests. She returns with a black overcloak and veil, and a rapier and glove spiked with black glass. She gnaws her lip again.

"A cavalier should be armed." There's one more piece to the outfit--a pair of dark sunglasses.

Moiraine stares at the assemblage of items that Harrow has returned with, especially the sunglasses, then gives a very small sigh and holds out her hands to accept all of it.

It does not take overly long for her to array herself in what is evidently the clothing of Harrow's cavalier. Moiraine suspects she can well imagine the look on Lan's face were he to see her now.

She channels, briefly, to set an illusion of height, then inverts the weave and ties it off so that it will not be visible to others.

The Aes Sedai glances at Harrow, waiting.

Until the illusion of height is applied, she looks rather like Harrow cosplaying as Gideon, which is uncomfortable for Harrow to see too.

"Yes," she says, nodding quickly. "If we move quickly and don't let anyone stop us, we should be fine."

Or not! If Harrow is anything, she is willing to go through doors when it's very dangerous and ill-advised. She opens the door of the bar and gestures Moiraine through into one of the many creepy and deserted hallways of Canaan House.

After twenty years and more of moving through her world with a Warder at her side (and later, with a guardian who would never be a Warder in truth but who seeks to protect all the same), Moiraine is well aware of the manner in which one should act.

She nearly loses it all the same in the instant that she sets foot across the threshold, and only decades of training and experience in maintaining the composure of an Aes Sedai under any circumstances prevents her from doing so.

There is energy here, of the sort to which she is accustomed to channeling - thalergy, in this world - but it is thin and distant and scarce. Somehow the balance is completely overturned, in a way that is completely unexpected. The world itself breathes of death in a way she has never felt before and honestly would be just as content to never feel again.

She says nothing, but continues to stalk along at Harrow's side, mimicking Lan's ease of motion as best she can recall.

If anything, she looks more like a cavalier than Gideon usually does, mumping along in Harrow's wake and gawking at any available displays of the female form. Harrow moves as she always does, swiftly and intently, like a great black bat swooping through the halls.

Canaan House is a weird place; beautiful and gone to seed. There is a profligate use of organic materials that made Harrow breathless when she first arrived, impossibly old and yet still somehow intact.

At one point she freezes and puts up a hand for Moiraine to halt; she waits in a doorway with hooded eyes until a wan blonde wraith lurking in the vestibule moves on. She does not worry about being seen by the skeletons in white robes. They can hear splashing as they pass the gymnasium.

Then they are in front of the living quarters shared by Harrow and Gideon; Harrow works quickly to disable the wards she has put on the room, then waves Moiraine inside. The Ninth quarters have low ceilings and wide-sweeping rooms, with enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that lpeek out from beneath the docks on a pale green undead sea.

The room was dressed, long ago, in dead jewel tones; to eyes not used to the harsh monotony of the Ninth it seems muted and peaceful, like a tasteful mortuary. Every piece of furniture seems twelth-hand and a day away from falling away to kindling.

Two late teenagers with no supervision have lived here for weeks, and there is a definite floor-based laundry system in play that Harrow has the decency to be embarrassed about. Her dresser stands with one door slightly ajar.

There are two great beds, placed at right angles to one another; one has been used and the other has not, and Gideon Nav is in neither. She is snoring like a foghorn from an adjoining room.

The building has the feel of an ancient edifice, Ages upon Ages old and crumbling, which Moiraine suspects may in fact be nothing more than simple truth.

She glances around the room that Harrow escorts her into, taking it in, then pulls off the sunglasses and sheds the glove before gliding through the door to the next room.

Another salient feature of this room is a series of hand-written notes on flimsy left in various places, quite possibly in the hand of a panicked control freak. This theme continues into the study, which Gideon Nav has appropriated.

In the middle of the room is a bundle of bedding which contains an enormous, snoring ginger. This is the most interesting feature of the room, although an argument could be made for the haphazard stack of pornographic magazines. One of them is open to a centerfold. It is not Frontline Titties of the Fifth, because that's not a real publication, but it might as well be. One of Harrow's notes censors it.

Harrow pinches the bridge of her nose.

Observe Gideon Nav. She is wearing a similar set of black high-collared shirt and trousers as Harrow wears, several sizes larger and minus the bone accents and also the sleeves, which she appears to have torn off. Possibly to make room for the gun show.

Her skin has the same pallid lack-of-sunburn that Harrow's does, but the base shade of ochre is a few degrees darker. Her facepaint has been removed with some care (so have her boots), and her resting face is softer than Harrow usually sees it, but still pugnacious. Her hair is shorn short and bright, flaming red.

Sunglasses, rapier and glass-edged gauntlet, identical to the ones Moiraine is carrying except for being notably more decrepit, are close to hand. She does not seem to be dead, unless the Ninth have mastered a technique for snoring beyond the grave.

Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelash does the Aes Sedai show any reaction to the state of the room or any of its contents.

Or to the sleeping cavalier, for that matter. Moiraine studies her carefully, noting her breathing and position, looking for signs of pain or distress.

"Gideon." The cool, serene tones slide between each loud snore, clear and carrying. "Gideon Nav. Are you well enough to wake and hear me?"

If she is not, Moiraine will proceed nonetheless; however, if she happens to be on the edge of awareness, it would be best for there to be no unpleasant surprises... for anyone.

The girl--despite her more imposing physique, she's clearly about the same age as Harrowhark--moans and stirs, but doesn't wake.

Harrow, who had not realized Moiraine intended to speak to Gideon, starts breathing again.

She nods, and glances at Harrow.

"Once I begin, you should not touch either of us," she says, as she reaches into an inner concealed pocket. Moiraine draws out a small figurine of a woman in flowing robes, carved of ivory and darkened by age. "It could disrupt my weaving."

Holding the angreal in her left hand, Moiraine opens herself to saidar. Unlike in Milliways, no bright golden glow appears for all to see. Instead, only those who are accustomed to working with magical energies might see a faint hint of silver light, as though merely a ghost of its normal self.

Gracefully, she kneels at Gideon's side, and places her right hand upon the younger woman's arm. Silver flickers of gossamer spin outward, settling over Gideon like a faint spiderweb.

Harrow nods; this, at least, is familiar to her magic, too.

Gideon is, surprisingly, in fairly good health. The flows of energy through her body may be subtly different than what Moiraine is used to; she is not quite, like this world, undead, but her system is one adapted to life on a thanergenic planet.

What there is, when it comes to the thanergetic and thelargetic forces in her body, is an awful lot of it. Gideon Nav's system shows signs of shock and systemic stress, especially centered in her nervous system but throughout her body. However, she is healing, and not a simple natural healing process; her body is marshaling vast reserves of energy, drawn from God knows where, and restoring her body, including rebuilding nervous tissue.

Left to her own devices, it seems that in a few hours Gideon might wake on her own, feeling like haggard and exhausted and starving but miraculously free of permanent damage.

As she Delves, discerning Gideon's condition with delicately-crafted threads of Spirit, a slight frown creases Moiraine's brow.

This is unexpected, to be certain, and she is wary of disrupting the healing that is already underway.

Instead of the more traditional Healing weaves, Moiraine instead focuses her efforts on relieving the shock to Gideon's system and on washing away the stress and strain, placing her in a state where she can be even more receptive yet to the restoration taking place.

The dim light winks out, and Moiraine opens her eyes.

"She is recovering well," she says.

Harrow lets out a breath she's been holding for several hours. "Thank God," she whispers.

"And thank you, Moiraine Sedai," she says with a touch of irony.

She shakes her head.

"I did very little, as it happens; merely gave her some small support for her recovery."

As she speaks, she secures the angreal in its hidden pocket once more, then moves to stand.

"She should wake in a few hours, I believe, and at that time should eat well, and rest afterward."

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