( yes, that was a part of it. to harrow, self-sufficiency was like a compulsion. she had learned to be reflexive with it since before she turned ten years old.
but that wasn't the only part of it, gideon, you impertinent canker, you vindictive swine-with-the-sunglasses-still-on. it's hard to imagine, sure, but perhaps harrow had cautiously come to terms with standing on equal ground with someone for once, even if the innate vulnerability of such a thing gave instinctual rise to the gall in the back of her throat. she's stood alone for so long. aiglamene and crux were aides to her, certainly, but she had treated them as accessories more than appendages — using strings of duty and service she had puppeted their living bodies just as she had necromantically puppeted her parents' deceased ones. canaan house had been a long and difficult lesson of learning to let go of her need to accomplish everything herself, assisted only in the ways that she allowed, and to reach out to someone else.
and so you would take it upon yourself to dash all of that, to throw yourself willingly upon the pyre of the two-hundred-plus souls that comprised harrowhark nonagesimus, even when those were already quite heavy enough? you short-sighted, obstinate ass.
she is roughly four and a half seconds away from absolutely Losing Her Shit, but she waits for her cavalier to speak, for some reason.
it's far too specific to be a hypothetical. she doesn't have the exact idea of what she's getting at, but it's enough of it silhouette for her to have a vague approximation. it also gives her an idea of the answer for her next question, posed in a mad rush like air escaping from a valve when the pressure had become just too much: ) Which Tridentarius?
( but of course it would be ianthe, wouldn't it? to repurpose a previous metaphor, those two were the hands of a sleight-of-hand magician — everyone watched the beautiful, room-arresting coronabeth (including you, gideon, because of course harrow had noticed that), but harrow had watched her wan, slump-shouldered shadow. and she had watched her scurry through the darkened veins and arteries of canaan house like a rat in its warren, scraping together scraps of information where others carelessly left them.
there is a devastating moment of silence where she wrangled internally with it all, in still mentally processing the whole of it but also being forced into a position to reply with clarity at the same time. so she says something, and it takes the shape of something she would only share with gideon nav: an admission of personal fault, even if it was wrapped in her customary biting, haughty tones: ) You know I am no good with meat, tissue, or offal. And I am not so fast to lobotomize myself. ( she is shamed to know she would stoop so low as to ianthe tridentarius for help in something like that, but — she is aware of her limitations she takes a short, shaky breath, holds it for a moment, and then releases it in the words, ) Go ahead. Speak.
no subject
but that wasn't the only part of it, gideon, you impertinent canker, you vindictive swine-with-the-sunglasses-still-on. it's hard to imagine, sure, but perhaps harrow had cautiously come to terms with standing on equal ground with someone for once, even if the innate vulnerability of such a thing gave instinctual rise to the gall in the back of her throat. she's stood alone for so long. aiglamene and crux were aides to her, certainly, but she had treated them as accessories more than appendages — using strings of duty and service she had puppeted their living bodies just as she had necromantically puppeted her parents' deceased ones. canaan house had been a long and difficult lesson of learning to let go of her need to accomplish everything herself, assisted only in the ways that she allowed, and to reach out to someone else.
and so you would take it upon yourself to dash all of that, to throw yourself willingly upon the pyre of the two-hundred-plus souls that comprised harrowhark nonagesimus, even when those were already quite heavy enough? you short-sighted, obstinate ass.
she is roughly four and a half seconds away from absolutely Losing Her Shit, but she waits for her cavalier to speak, for some reason.
it's far too specific to be a hypothetical. she doesn't have the exact idea of what she's getting at, but it's enough of it silhouette for her to have a vague approximation. it also gives her an idea of the answer for her next question, posed in a mad rush like air escaping from a valve when the pressure had become just too much: ) Which Tridentarius?
( but of course it would be ianthe, wouldn't it? to repurpose a previous metaphor, those two were the hands of a sleight-of-hand magician — everyone watched the beautiful, room-arresting coronabeth (including you, gideon, because of course harrow had noticed that), but harrow had watched her wan, slump-shouldered shadow. and she had watched her scurry through the darkened veins and arteries of canaan house like a rat in its warren, scraping together scraps of information where others carelessly left them.
there is a devastating moment of silence where she wrangled internally with it all, in still mentally processing the whole of it but also being forced into a position to reply with clarity at the same time. so she says something, and it takes the shape of something she would only share with gideon nav: an admission of personal fault, even if it was wrapped in her customary biting, haughty tones: ) You know I am no good with meat, tissue, or offal. And I am not so fast to lobotomize myself. ( she is shamed to know she would stoop so low as to ianthe tridentarius for help in something like that, but — she is aware of her limitations she takes a short, shaky breath, holds it for a moment, and then releases it in the words, ) Go ahead. Speak.