( it had only been a few short weeks ago that the duplicate bodies of many of those trapped within this facility had started showing up — floating like flotsam in the foul waters of the ground floor, cooking to radioactive crisps outside the front door. those that hadn't been found a corpse had been found committing all manner of mischief; harrow had been grateful, then, that hers had had the decency to drown itself. she knew not what sort of foul wizardry had created a copy so meticulous, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter. a corpse had its uses to a necromancer, and with the doppelgangers already having yielded their thanergy, she had put a day's worth of effort into skeletonizing the body so that it could also provide the use of its parts.
there were rumors of something new, and given her previous experience with happenstance outside the norm in this accursed place, her response was mingled intrigued and deeply mistrustful. but before she went to investigate whatever that was, she instead does a sweep of the building to be certain it was the only change. harrow was the type to foil a sleight-of-hand magician — while nearly anyone else would watch the flourish, her dark eyes remain unsettlingly on that which the performer attempted to distract from.
when she nears the landing from the ground floor, she pauses. the mall is typically silent in a way that felt remarkable, even to her. even the Ninth House was not "silent as the grave" (which might be more apt) when the wheezing breath of the life support systems rattled through the vents at all hours, but this husk of prehistoric capitalism typically held the silence of a breath drawn and then suspended in the immediate instant before a scream. this means that the very different sound of wheezing — that of a flesh-and-bone human being and not of mammoth thousands-year-old machines — stands out very clearly. harrow scans the floor. no watery footprints. or, at least, not yet. she approaches, expression dark.
when she gets close enough for the figure to coalesce into something recognizable — someone entirely too recognizable — leaning heavily over a similarly familiar two-handed sword, she stops dead in her tracks. for a moment, harrowhark nonagesimus' carefully-constructed countenance slips, revealing an uncharacteristic blankness of surprise. but then it fall back down as heavily as the hatch over an air lock, warping with contempt as she pulls from one sleeve the smooth, rounded form of a sesamoid bone. her fingers pass with loving familiarity over it before she tosses the pistiform into the space between them, giving rise to a skeletal construct with a right arm she had sacrificed painstaking anatomical accuracy for pure, straight-forward function. the radius lengthened and tapered to a razor-sharp point where the hand might otherwise terminate, and the spar of ulna shored up this make-shift spear until roughly its mid-way point.
these constructs lacked an elegance she typically preferred, but, hell, who is she trying to impress here? it gets the job done.
harrow doesn't bother to say anything at all as the skeletal construct takes a few brisk, well-coordinated steps forward. with the few short interactions she had had with the copies, she found there was no point in interrogating them. there was only making sure they couldn't cause further trouble.
the skeleton raises its killing arm, lethal intent apparent in the over-exaggerated anticipatory line of motion. but it would be overly apparent that its raiser had fuck all understanding of what it was playing at, leaving it an embarrassingly open book. )
arrival | ADDITIONAL WARNING FOR HUGE GIDEON & HARROW THE NINTH SPOILERS
there were rumors of something new, and given her previous experience with happenstance outside the norm in this accursed place, her response was mingled intrigued and deeply mistrustful. but before she went to investigate whatever that was, she instead does a sweep of the building to be certain it was the only change. harrow was the type to foil a sleight-of-hand magician — while nearly anyone else would watch the flourish, her dark eyes remain unsettlingly on that which the performer attempted to distract from.
when she nears the landing from the ground floor, she pauses. the mall is typically silent in a way that felt remarkable, even to her. even the Ninth House was not "silent as the grave" (which might be more apt) when the wheezing breath of the life support systems rattled through the vents at all hours, but this husk of prehistoric capitalism typically held the silence of a breath drawn and then suspended in the immediate instant before a scream. this means that the very different sound of wheezing — that of a flesh-and-bone human being and not of mammoth thousands-year-old machines — stands out very clearly. harrow scans the floor. no watery footprints. or, at least, not yet. she approaches, expression dark.
when she gets close enough for the figure to coalesce into something recognizable — someone entirely too recognizable — leaning heavily over a similarly familiar two-handed sword, she stops dead in her tracks. for a moment, harrowhark nonagesimus' carefully-constructed countenance slips, revealing an uncharacteristic blankness of surprise. but then it fall back down as heavily as the hatch over an air lock, warping with contempt as she pulls from one sleeve the smooth, rounded form of a sesamoid bone. her fingers pass with loving familiarity over it before she tosses the pistiform into the space between them, giving rise to a skeletal construct with a right arm she had sacrificed painstaking anatomical accuracy for pure, straight-forward function. the radius lengthened and tapered to a razor-sharp point where the hand might otherwise terminate, and the spar of ulna shored up this make-shift spear until roughly its mid-way point.
these constructs lacked an elegance she typically preferred, but, hell, who is she trying to impress here? it gets the job done.
harrow doesn't bother to say anything at all as the skeletal construct takes a few brisk, well-coordinated steps forward. with the few short interactions she had had with the copies, she found there was no point in interrogating them. there was only making sure they couldn't cause further trouble.
the skeleton raises its killing arm, lethal intent apparent in the over-exaggerated anticipatory line of motion. but it would be overly apparent that its raiser had fuck all understanding of what it was playing at, leaving it an embarrassingly open book. )