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[personal profile] tallyyoungblood
Tally's first clue that it hadn't been a dream was that she'd woken up alone in her room.

Nowadays, she and Gideon have been sharing a room, so that Tally can protect her from ever finding a body alone again--and maybe conspicuously leave out some clothes that fit Gideon but aren't, like, ratty black pants. That day, though, she'd woken in an empty room, gasping from something that felt like a nightmare, but somehow more vivid than real life.

Without even getting dressed, she'd run for the woods to confirm what had happened. Horror had flooded her when she found the knife-mark, exactly where she remembered throwing it yesterday. It was true. She'd been Special. She'd been awful. She'd seen and felt the world with more harsh clarity than she'd ever thought possible. She'd hit Gideon.

Tally had collapsed onto the stump, gripping her own arms to make sure her familiar, average body was still there.

Over the next few days, Tally doesn't sleep well, and people getting swapped out for a second time doesn't help. People might find her wandering the mansion like a zombie, or in one of the kitchens, contemplating getting drunk. She's not as put together as usual, either, but of course on her even bedhead and sweats look beautiful.

Date: 2024-07-31 01:30 am (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by drawerbread on tumblr (wink)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"Old fashioned? I'm the modern-est of the modern, baby." She hands Tally the cola, then uses the edge of the counter to crack the cap off her beer one-handed so she doesn't have to untangle their fingers. "Maybe literally, since nobody else seems to be from times with like, space travel, or a dead sun. Anyway--anger wasn't even really the goal. I wanted her to, like. Remember she was you."

Date: 2024-07-31 01:50 am (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"I'm glad I tried, too," says Gideon, sinking into one of the chairs. "Nearly left you there to stew. By the way, I have that knife and the sexy catsuit in my room for you." She smirks. "You know, for whenever."

Date: 2024-07-31 02:13 am (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (grin)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
Gideon chuckles. "If anything traumatized me about the encounter we had, it was not the catsuit.1 And yeah, who needs a shitty little knife when you've got a sword?"

1 Not how trauma works, but okay.

Date: 2024-07-31 02:47 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"Yeah, well. I got a kind of anti-respect for authority." Gideon messes with her hair. "The Marshal on the Ninth hated me so bad I thought his rotten old heart would explode every time he wasn't allowed to kill me where I stood." She laughs. "God, speaking of crumbly. Crux was so crumbly he had bits falling off."
Edited Date: 2024-07-31 02:48 pm (UTC)

Date: 2024-08-01 02:54 am (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"He just sucked majorly," says Gideon. "But if I get into all the old people who sucked majorly on the Ninth, we'll be here all day, and you're supposed to talk to me about Shay."

Date: 2024-08-02 01:30 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
God, every detail of Tally's society Gideon gets just convinces her it's even more wack. "Alone for how long?"

Date: 2024-08-02 08:45 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
Okay, the last thing Gideon had been expecting to feel is the urge to like Shay, despite the dreamy look in Tally's eyes. She keeps that shit to herself. It won't last. "Did you go?"

Date: 2024-08-03 01:49 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"What? That's not the same at all," says Gideon, surprised by the comparison.

Date: 2024-08-03 02:15 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
Gideon snorts. "Babe, me dying for Harrow was putting myself first."

Date: 2024-08-03 02:51 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (perplexed)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"No, really," Gideon insists, flashing a smile at Tally's smile before she sobers again. "The other option was letting her do it, which wouldn't have done either of us any good, and would've been way less sexy--she was already bleeding out, we would've just had to wait, and then I'd be by myself." A profound by-herself-ness, worse than the regular kind. The kind of by herself that Camilla had been. "So instead I jumped the gun and did that to her. Totally selfish." She thinks about her conversation with Lancelot about God and puppets. "Plus, like--that whole thing, her becoming a Lyctor, that was what the Emperor wanted us to do. It was the point of the whole fucking thing. So it's actually more like you deciding to become a pretty than not."

Date: 2024-08-05 04:08 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
Gideon rolls her shoulders. "Yeah, been thinking a lot about that. If I ever get an audience with the motherfucker1, I will have some questions. But—yeah, the eating me thing. It was supposed to make us a Saint. So like—it's what He wanted, as well as what I wanted. The same way your society wanted you to be a pretty, and you wanted it, too. Point is, either neither of us are cowards or both of us are, which makes it all pretty null, right?"

1 Blasphemous AND ironic!

Date: 2024-08-06 01:59 pm (UTC)
ninth_cavalier: art by cutetanuki-chan on tumblr (dubious)
From: [personal profile] ninth_cavalier
"He's the one you met in the Smoke?"

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