TDM #1

[rhodosmods]

TDM #1: AUGUST

Jump to: Arrival · Sound and Light · Into the Fog · Waking Up to a Nightmare · The Bonfire
Summary · Questions

I. ARRIVAL

Upon arrival, characters awaken in one of the main plazas of the town, lying on the paving stones around a central fountain. It is a bright sunny day and very hot, so you'll quickly want to find some shade. A light breeze brings the scent of the sea, but there are no cries of sea birds to be heard.

The buildings of the plaza are all medieval stone construction, but they all have modern awnings and glass fronts. Tables out front display tourist wares: little plastic statuettes, postcards, t-shirts. Among these, it's easy to identify Greek lettering, Greek gods, photos of Athens and Crete. Predominant among the souvenirs are items marked with the name Rhodos.

But there are no vendors selling their wares. Even if characters wander into the shops, they are all empty as if their owners just stepped away for a moment. Lights are on, and some of the larger and nicer shops even have the whirr of air conditioning. Food stands waft the aroma of freshly grilled kebabs, and a gelato cart is cold to the touch and the ice cream inside is frosty and delicious.

The plaza where you arrive is set on a slope, and the direction of the sea breeze and the faint sound of waves against a shore indicates pretty strongly that down-slope is the direction of the sea. But looking down the slope from the main plaza, you can see an open archway in a tall stone wall, and beyond it is nothing but mist. Despite the clear sunny day in the plaza, the mist is a dense fog with barely three feet of visibility. If you enter it, you can see your own arms in front of you, but nothing beyond that. The breeze has gone still and the waves no longer sound so much like waves--the sound is warped through the mist so that it almost sounds like sobbing. After about five minutes of determined walking across what feels like flat ground with no other landmarks, you find yourself back at the archway.

Housing can easily be scavenged. Doors are unlocked and the interiors are clean and welcoming, beds freshly made, as if it is a hotel that's been prepared for you rather than anyone's personal residence. And yet, once you've settled upon a place to live, you start to find little signs that you have lived here all along. The photographs on the wall (which weren't there when you first arrived) depict you and your family and friends, even if you came from a world without photography. Upon arrival, you have only the clothing you are wearing, but within a day the closet begins to fill with familiar outfits from home, and within the first week you may find up to five of your own possessions around your new residence.

Note: Wardrobe is limited to what you can reasonably fit inside a non-walk-in apartment closet, what your character would reasonably wear and possess in canon, or what can be scavenged around town. There are two very small clothing boutiques where you can find most basics and a few cute outfits. For starting possessions two may be weapons or magical items, but you may have an additional three mundane items. All other personal items can only be obtained through regains or events.

II. SOUND AND LIGHT

The first few days in your new home are relatively uneventful. The days are hot and sunny and the nights are warm beneath a dazzling starry sky.

After not quite a week, the noises of a spectacle will lead characters to a small gate in one of the outer walls with steps leading down into the outer moat. The fog surrounding the city walls has drawn back for just this one little area, revealing an open air theater butting up against the castle wall. A path leads away from the theater on either side, but if you walk into the mist on either side you will promptly find yourself walking out of the mist on the opposite side, as if you'd circumnavigated the entire moat in just a few steps. Behind the theater is another high stone wall. Centuries of weathering has added rough footholds and handholds, but it would be a dangerous climb without equipment. Trees grow from the top of the wall, sticking limbs out of the wall of mist and clawing roots into the stones at the top, loosening them so that they're ready to slip at a touch.

The play that is projected onto the wall features shadow puppets, colored lights, and canned soundtrack special effects like the clop of horses hooves or the burst of trumpets. There is no dialogue or narration, so the story can only be roughly pieced together: there is a king and a queen, then a betrayal that leads to the king's murder. Later, the king and the queen appear again, participating in a ritual which seems to involve human sacrifice, a war and a triumphal procession, and then another betrayal and the king is murdered again.

The story repeats three times every night before shutting itself off. The first performance starts at twilight, and each repetition lasts about twenty minutes. Characters who watch it repeatedly will get the sense that it's slightly different each time, but the whole thing is complicated and confusing without any narration or dialogue to provide context, so characters will struggle to pin down how it's different. A slide projector is set up at the top of the amphitheater, with a pair of old speakers on either side of it. If slides are removed from the projector, they show only blank, uncolored plastic. If something is placed in front of the projector light, the scene is projected onto that object. The projector can be turned off, unplugged, or smashed. No matter what is done to it, as soon as no one is actively watching it, it is restored to an undamaged status and resumes playing.

After watching an entire repetition of the performance, some characters may be overcome by a fit of weeping. Tears roll down your cheeks and you can't seem to catch your breath. Despair clutches at your heart, colored by your own personal sorrows, and the weeping can only be stopped by receiving an embrace.

Others may find that the performance inspires them to reminisce. No matter how secretive you might normally be, you find yourself turning to whoever is sitting near you and telling them a story from your past, something that makes you nostalgic or regretful.

III. INTO THE FOG

CONTENT WARNING: Cruelty and violence against (monster) dogs

After the characters have been in Rhodos for about three weeks, a heavy fog rolls into town. Unlike the mist that surrounds the city, the fog smells of smoke. Visibility is reduced to a mere ten or fifteen feet.

The electricity goes out, and shops are no longer replenished. Food may still be scavenged, but the food in shops and restaurants will slowly rot and may run out. Battery operated items will continue to work as long as the batteries still have a charge. Running water inside the houses continues to work, but it is sluggish and smells stale, leaving an unpleasant film on the skin.

While out on the streets of the town, characters will begin to encounter the monster dogs of Rhodos. The sound of a dragging chain precedes them, and then the hazy outline of a dog comes into view. It's walking oddly, however, with a sort of staggering limp, and the sound of the chain is underlaid by a low, feral growl. Furless gray skin peels away in patches to reveal bloody muscle. The heavy iron collar around the neck is studded with long black screws, the ends of which pierce the skin of the neck. Hazy eyes are clouded with decomposition, and yet that doesn't seem to prevent the dog from making its way straight toward you.

The dogs are not very fast, nor very smart. They can be outpaced at a brisk walk, and they will lose track of any character who gets more than twenty feet away or behind a closed door. But they are vicious. If you get within a few feet, they will lunge at you and attempt to bite. If two or three of them manage to corner you in a blind alley, you could be in real trouble.

In addition to the dogs, characters will begin to catch glimpses of Manifestations, both their own or those of others. At first you might just catch a glimpse of them through a break in the fog, but after a day or two they can be spotted standing outside of apartment windows and staring in. In either case, they will not approach or attack characters unless you're foolish enough to get within six feet of them. Then, they will attack, and they will pursue at a fast walk until they lose track of you in the fog.

IV. WAKING UP TO A NIGHTMARE

CONTENT WARNING: Blood imagery

On the 28th, characters are awakened by the sound of their front doors being smashed in. It's your own smashing door that awakens you, but you can hear more distant sounds of destruction from the other apartments nearby.

As you scramble out of your bed, you find that the homey, quilted bedding has been soaked through with blood, and it's sagging in the middle with the outline of a human body. But before you have a chance to properly react to that horror, your Manifestation is coming through your bedroom door — more than one of them, if you were sharing that bed with anyone.

You will have to fight or dodge in order to get out of the room. Your Manifestation is out for your blood. You can do damage to it, creating deep wounds and heavy bruises, causing it to stagger and slow for a moment, but no matter how much damage you do it keeps coming for you. Sooner or later, you will need to run.

When you make it out into the streets, you'll find that the entire world has changed. Heavy darkness fills the city, and no stars are visible in the sky. A few lights glow despite the lack of electricity, but they only provide a sickly, red-tinted light. Streets are slick with something that looks like blood, and the stone walls in many places have been transformed into metal or grate. Through the grate, you can catch glimpses of black metal hooks and gory, dripping meat that looks human in origin.

There is no palatable food or water. Anything you have saved has rotted or changed unnaturally into what looks like rotting flesh or lumps of bile. Liquid has turned into blood or black water. The only mercy is that symptoms of hunger, thirst and fatigue stabilize after 24 hours and don't get any worse. Don't worry, it won't be the dehydration that kills you here.

Your Manifestation pursues you tirelessly, and the monster dogs are faster, smarter, and moving in packs. Your home is no longer safe, and staying on the streets is deadly.

V. THE BONFIRE

CONTENT WARNING: Body horror, immolation

Sooner or later, you find your way to the bonfire in the middle of the fountain square. There is no longer water in the fountain. Instead, the whole thing towers with flame, fueled by a viscous black substance in the basin.

A tall man stands by the fountain, gazing into the flames as if he is supervising. His suit is true black, fathomless black, while his skin is a dark red-black like the newly formed crust upon a lava flow. His eyes are black pools reflecting the flames. He takes no interest in any approaching characters, and will not respond to any questions. The only thing that will draw his attention to you is an attempted attack. If you try it, your blow lands, but he doesn't seem to take any damage. His head turns toward you and he considers you for a moment, as if he finds it intriguing that you would attempt such a thing. Then he returns his attention to the fire.

The dogs and the Manifestations will not pursue you into the circle of light cast by the bonfire. You can find a sort of respite here.

Time passes. It feels like days, though there is no way to mark the passage of time. The Dark Figure continues to supervise the bonfire.

At last, your attention is drawn to a sort of commotion approaching down one of the main streets that feeds into the plaza. You hear a rattling of metal, and a sort of gibbering moan. The bonfire illuminates first upon a pale, faceless figure which seems to writhe as it approaches, hovering above the paving stones. As it grows closer, you see that the figure is lashed to a square metal frame and bound with strips of barbed wire. Veiled figures on either side bear it forward, and the Dark Figure turns to watch it approach.

The figure upon the frame has no face and no mouth with which to make its agonized moans, but it continues nonetheless. It has limbs but no hands or feet, each limb ending in smooth stumps.

If no one interferes, the Handmaidens carry the frame forward and place it upon the fire.

The Handmaidens can be attacked, and hurt. They cry out indignantly at any attack, and recoil. They will not fight back, but they also will not be discouraged from their task by anything less than persistent violence.

If the pale figure on the frame is rescued by the player characters, it flails and gibbers helplessly, continuing to moan. If the pale figure is consigned to the flames, it begins to scream, and continues screaming for several minutes until the flame finally overcomes it.

In either situation, you begin to cough. Blood spills from your mouth, dribbling down your chin and spattering upon your clothing. But then the droplets begin to slither into letters, forming words that spell out your deepest guilt, in the words you yourself would use to describe it. No attempt to wipe the words away or cover them will prevent their legibility. The blood shines through whatever covers it, catching the firelight so that those around you can clearly read the words.

The Dark Figure and his Handmaidens made their exit while you were coughing. You are left alone with the other Tourists around you, your guilt, and whatever remains of the pale figure upon the frame.

SUMMARY

Arrival: August 1
Sound and Light: August 5-20
Into the Fog: August 21-27
Waking Up to a Nightmare: August 28-30
The Bonfire: August 31

Welcome to Rhodos! Going forward, events will take place in two parts. The Normal World part of the event posted on the 5th of each month, and it will be a lighter event both in terms of length and thematic content. TDMs will be bi-monthly and will feature an event element or elements for the Normal World which in-game characters may also play with on their own log posts. The sections on Fog and Nightmare worlds for the TDM will generally be the same every month, allowing players to test drive those elements if they'd like, but not including spoilers for the second part of that month's event. The second part of the event will be posted on the 20th of each month, covering events occurring through both the Fog and Nightmare cycles.

Test drive memes are considered game canon.

This won't always be the case, but for the nerds among you who are enjoying this sometimes-accurate tour of Rhodes, all location images in this TDM and housing are accurate to Rhodes.

Lastly, we are in need of mods! We're most in need of help for processing apps and activity. If we aren't able to get some additional mods, we will have to place a cap on applications, and we're hoping we won't have to do that. If you're interested, please send us a message over on the mod contact page. We've gotten the mod volunteers we needed so we should be all clear to proceed without an applications cap. Thank you to everyone who showed interest!

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Comments

[wrists]

[ that rapier would have suited him just fine. absurdly big swords and his stature don't mix for extended battle, but one should never assume he won't still find a way to eviscerate someone once he puts his mind to it, weapon size notwithstanding. ]

Royals cannot be allowed to spawn a bastard. That is forbidden and distasteful. For pleasure, men lie with men, and women with women, as is the natural order. [ natural to him, since these customs were changed long before he was born. and he doesn't plan to breed anyway; this cursed bloodline ends with him. ] The Council is the audience. People in other kingdoms find it shameful to fuck before others, but it is simply the way things are done. In our court, nobles have pets. They often fuck them in the gardens or at the table. [ he pauses, then adds: ] They are slaves, bought on contract. To be a palace pet is a coveted position to some.

[ laurent, however, has always defined himself against the opulence of court — he has never taken a pet, does not wear jewels, and is infamous for being a frigid bitch with gossip swirling around about how he only orgasms once every ten years.

while gideon may be stuck on the horrors of veretian court life, laurent turns and briefly stares at her explanation of life and death energies. with auguste so keenly on his mind, it takes him a moment to parse through this information. to raise the dead — no, not raise. simply manipulate the body. to bring back someone slain is an impossible thing. ]

Your partner would be more useful here than the two of us put together. [ a thoughtful observation, as a dog appears before him through the swirling mists. he sinks his blade cleanly through its heart and watches as it still stumbles about. ] These are dead bodies. She could manipulate them. It's a shame you were not born with this gift.

[ talk to ghosts. that sits in his mind, a curiosity to be picked apart.

the question about the king earns an aggravated huff as he cuts the dogs legs out from beneath it and kicks its body back into the mists. ] I was thirteen when my older brother died. I could not ascend to the throne at such an age. The Regent has held the throne since then, but to call him a king would be treason. I have been preparing for ascension since my brother's death. [ a beat. ] I was not meant to be King. For my brother, it — it came naturally. All of it. It is not so for me. But it is my duty and I will fulfill it.

[navcav]

[ oh shit she's read comics like this. pleasure slaves! debauched orgies in palace gardens! highly fictionalized, in gideon's universe, although maybe they do that kind of stuff at certain third house parties. that seems like their style, actually. ]

So... what you're saying is that you're the Prince of Porno-land. Hentai-ville. The Kingdom of Fucksberg.

[ it's so far from the realities of the ninth house that it just sounds like a total fantasy, cooked up by an erotic serial writer. gideon would've subscribed instantly to that publication. the slavery bit's probably bad, though.

as for the absence of a necromancer, ]

Yeah, I've heard that one every day since I was born. Necros are the prize of their Houses, yadda yadda. All their marriages and stuff are specially arranged to make the most of the bloodlines, anybody without ability might as well go die in a ditch! Unless they're good with a sword.

You know, it's actually extremely typical of her to not be where I need her. I'd almost think she's doing it on purpose, since she's a horrible bitch most of the time. Like 99.9% of the time. Finding ways to ruin my day is a basic tenet of her personality.

[ wait wasn't she going to not talk about harrowhark, why is she talking about harrowhark

the very idea of a regent is absurd to gideon, but then the emperor undying is so called because he's literally immortal. there's also some flaw in laurent's logic, about how someone could be 'meant' to be a king as if it were a hereditary trait like being born a necro, but what does gideon know. laurent sounds very certain. ]

So some guy just sits on the throne and keeps it warm for you? And he's just gonna get up and retire on the day of your birthday?

[wrists]

[ this conversation is not going well. ]

I would not lead the kingdom in such a manner.

[ in a manner that leaves children at the mercy of the warmongering regent and men like him. but gideon herself is not much different from his own men — laurent keeps his household separate from the regent's, wears his own colors, and they answer to him only. the division among the court has reached historic levels. this never would have happened under auguste's leadership. ]

You're good with a sword. So at least you have that. [ in the absence of this compelling necromancy ability. his eyes cut to her once more when she belabors the point of the absence of her partner. this one is not gifted at hiding her emotions, clearly, even away from the bewitching projector. ] If you breed with a necromancer, will you spawn a gifted child?

[ laurent goes very still at the question, the prickle of a childlike fantasy needling at his side. once, he believed in his uncle. a part of him still does believe that, despite everything, his uncle will not deliver the killing blow. he still hasn't been able to fully crush that naive part of him that trusts the only family he has left. ]

To declare himself King in my stead would be an act of war. [ and now that laurent is gone, he has no doubt of the path the regent will take. a false king staking his claim, leading vere into the same age-old war that took his brother's life. no one will fight for him in his absence. he has failed to gather even a single ally. ] But he is my uncle. He knows his duty.

[ it's both a truth and a lie, twisted up in his throat. he must still be bewitched as well.

because he was forced unwillingly to feel vulnerable: ]

You feel strongly about your partner. Her name?

[navcav]

[ oh come on it's a cultural exchange. vere sounds like a hentai comic brought to life, and gideon's universe probably sounds like a death-obsessed hellscape! which it is, so. ]

Right, right. You seem like a very dutiful soon to be monarch and I'm sure you'll manage the orgies in a responsible and ethical manner.

[ nearly cheerfully, ]

Me, do a breed? Not a chance in hell. Making a kid's the absolute opposite of being good with death energy, so allegedly it's better to mash together two necros with proven lineages and hope, rather than take a chance on a random person with no lineage diluting the gene pool. It's like, 50 miscarriages to 1 baby odds. The Reverend Mother only had one successful brat in her entire life.

[ that sounds like awkward family dynamics. imagine if the reverend mother or father had had an adult sibling around when the Incident occurred... well, harrow would've probably just killed them too and puppeted around the corpse, so maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. ]

Huh.

[ 'what if he likes war,' she almost asks, and doesn't.

don't mind her making a face like she stepped in cat sick with her bare foot. 'feel strongly,' uck. ]

I'm her cav, and she's an asshole. She's Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter, and I'm sure she'd be delighted to list off all her boring titles if she were here.

[wrists]

[ where's the universe where he can sit around with his books and make bitchy remarks to passerby while other people attend him? honestly he'd like to go back to That.

at least they have this breeding thing in common. ]

I've been told by the strong Vaskian women of our neighboring kingdom that my cow eyes and particular stature would breed weak stock. [ if pretty ones. unfortunately, they do not value pretty ones. fortunately, he doesn't wish to breed at all. ] I am not made in miniature. They are just large women.

So necromancers are highly coveted people. They are like nobles, except they have actual value.

[ what if he likes war? the answer: yes. anyway. ]

It would be a boon if she were here. [ just to restate this very obvious fact, as he cuts down another dead dog. perhaps she has heard this many times, the lauding of necromancers over her own kind. it's something he's intimately familiar with in his own way, never able to live up to auguste's splendor — laurent has always been less liked, more petty, less honorable. auguste had simply been good in a way that laurent is not. and auguste had loved him, despite his sharp edges, in a way that no one else ever has.

harrowhark nonagesimus. laurent doubts she is as bad as gideon says.

he can just about make out the archway in the shroud of the mist, and he fleetingly wishes for a horse. he steps beside gideon. ]

The dogs are worse in the plaza. Run with me, and lead the way to your lodgings. If your speed is as good as your swordsmanship, we can outrun them.

[navcav]

[ cow eyes! cow eyes laurent you've got to stop hanging out with rude amazon women ]

Most of 'em are nobles, actually. In the other Houses. [ the ninth pretends not to concern itself with aristocrats when they could be weird religious zealots instead. ]

And if Harrow saw me being chased by nasty undead dogs, she'd get herself a nice safe vantagepoint to point and laugh and say I wasn't worthy of being the Ninth House cavalier if I couldn't handle it.

[ gideon's speed is. adequate? adequate compared to her swordmanship, let's say. she still hates running. ]

Mine's got a 9 and a skull painted on the door. [ shush it's in case somebody important not harrow needs to find her. she worries at her lip. ]

Maybe I should go first, break through them. That might be safer for you. You've got a kingdom to get back to, and they'd probably rather you weren't mauled by dogs.

[wrists]

[ well. that sounds a little like something he would do, so maybe this harrowhark is as bad as gideon says, and maybe they have a few things in common. to be fair, if the prince's guard couldn't outrun these dead dogs, they likely shouldn't be in his guard anyway and it would be a mercy to let the dogs have them. ]

That is a very conspicuous door. [ she must be expecting her partner to come looking for her. strong feelings for harrowhark, indeed.

safer for him? he would almost be touched if he wasn't mortally offended. consideration is hard to recognize and react to. easier to be pissy. he can't help but think his uncle would likely salute gideon if she managed to get the prince of vere mauled to death by unnaturally animated dogs. it's not the end he imagined for himself. ]

My retinue of guards would approve of your sacrifice, but I do not. Move.

[ he shoves her forward and dashes toward the plaza, his sword growing bloodied as he cuts down the dogs that follow them. through the mists, the doors all look relatively the same, but when his sword bites into heavy wood, pinning a writhing dog directly to someone's door, he comes face to face with a skull that looks like gideon's face pre-sobbing fit.

in that same moment, the dog sinks its teeth right into his forearm. the pain is exquisite, the creature's jaws like a iron vice ready to crush bone. he snatches a knife from his belt and slits its throat wide open, blood painting the door as the dog slides motionless to the stoop.

his arm is swiftly going numb. he looks around for gideon, disgruntled and unwisely considering breaking the door down. ]

[navcav]

[ laurent you princely dumbass which one of you is wearing futuristic armor!!! it's buried under the ninth robes, but it's a damn sight more protective than veretian silk and leather and endless corset ties.

he's already moving before she can object to the shoving (rude, by the way), gawping after him as he easily outdistances her. ]

Excuse you, your Highnessness. I guess I'll take the rear, [ she says to nobody, indignant, and charges after him.

since he's so helpfully providing the distraction, gideon does not get bitten by anything four-legged and oozing, and she looms out of the fog in time to see him nearly get his arm chewed off. now that's gonna be all over her stoop, great. ]

Alright alright in you get, Prince Sacrifice.

[ she didn't lock the door for this specific reason, in case she needed to get back inside in a hurry, and shoves it open just wide enough to admit the two of them. the door doesn't even open all the way, thanks to the bookcase she'd preemptively set up as a barricade. locks are not to be trusted. heavy furniture is always better.

the inside of the apartment looks like the lair of a doomsday prepper already, with boards across the windows and heavy curtains muffling the light. bright sunlight is still her nemesis, and she can see just fine in the indoor twilight. ]

Get your sleeve off, get all the fabric out of the wound, [ she barks at him, going immediately for the kitchen. ] I've got to boil some water. You're likely to go into shock. You feel cold?

[ has gideon had medical training? no, aside from a couple lectures she'd endured about cavalier responsibilities in all situations. but she has read a metric fuckton of comics and romance novels about a necro and her cav getting stranded on some alien planet, alone together without medical infrastructure. who knew that shit would come in handy some day. ]

[wrists]

[ her lodgings are dour. laurent is used to clean spaciousness, not a place that feels more like a prisoner's lair than a sanctuary, but nothing about this strange place makes him think of it as home anyway. the palace in arles is hardly home, either. home was auguste and his golden smile, long gone. laurent stands perfectly still in the middle of the room and hears gideon's voice as if from faraway.

shock? ridiculous. he looks at his sleeve, dripping blood onto the floor. someone else will clean it up. when he'd first arrived and claimed a room for himself, pictures began appearing, most of which he hadn't wanted to see. the ones of auguste had been a gift. he looks at her walls now, at the strange people and their strangely painted faces, and wonders which one is the esteemed harrowhark. ]

I feel fine. [ cold, maybe. hot, too. there's one picture that's truly just bones. he staggers to the sink, pushing gideon rudely aside as he abruptly dry heaves into the basin, his fingers leaving bloody prints behind. he has not gotten any of the fabric out of the wound as instructed, his jacket and shirt still tightly laced. disassembling complicated veretian clothing is a slave's work.

he turns his wrist upward and sets his arm on the edge of the counter, offering her his soiled sleeve and the extensive row of laces, still mostly intact, for her to unravel. ]

Which one is your partner? [ his eyes, now like blue glass, slide to the photographs again. ]

[navcav]

[ yeah you should see castle drearburh, which is just as aesthetic as the name implies. this is actually several steps up from her old cell and also from the crumbling wreck of canaan house, despite the air of decay the fog seems to have brought in.

that pile of bones is her mum, can't you see the family resemblance? actually there are also pictures of everybody from canaan house, which is a little weird given that they're all recent acquaintances, but maybe the unseen interior decorator got sick of the skull-and-black-robe sameness of the ninth house pictures.

gideon has, of course, arranged them in order of hotness. at eye level she's written on the wall with a sharpie 'HOT, SUPER BABES, 10/10.' the beautiful blonde princess coronabeth of third house has place of pride at the top of the list, and then dulcinea for sentimentality, with little hearts doodled in sharpie on the edges of her photograph, despite looking like someone dying of blood cancer.

everybody else follows downward, all the house necros and their cavaliers. the photographs of the eighth house dickheads are comically lower than all the rest, resting down by the floorboards, where gideon has helpfully labelled the wall 'THE OPPOSITE OF HOT. -100/10.'

harrow isn't at the very very bottom, but it's a near thing. she's below protesilaus the seventh, an extremely sick burn.

'i feel fine' yeah uh huh there's the shock talking. gideon would strip naked and do silly dances around a fiery altar if she could summon the sixth house right now and dump this mess into their capable hands, but she can't! she is not surprised at all when laurent comes rushing in to heave into the sink. ]

Oh yeah, I can see that. [ she whips off her over cloak and dumps it over his shoulders like a blanket, looks at the proffered laces, squints real hard, and looks back at his glassy eyes before reaching for a knife. ]

I'm gonna cut this off, okay? It's pretty wrecked anyway. Hold still.

[ just to keep him talking and distracted, she'll oblige with anything he wants to hear. ]

The one with the most elaborate facepaint, the floor-length veil, and the bone accessories. She's a skeleton-maker, so it's useful for her to carry bones around. She's got bone earrings, bone bracelets, a bone corslet, you name it. She can turn even the tiniest little chip of bone into a full sized skeleton. It's pretty handy, actually. Otherwise I'd have to hump all the bones around for her.

[wrists]

You cannot cut my clothes apart. Even my — [ slave? damen? brother's killer? his uncle's cruelest scheme, to gift him auguste's murderer and their enemy kingdom's prince as a slave. he can't even begin to explain it to gideon. anyway, he hates damen, the damned brute. ] Even the most mentally deficient at the palace can undress a man.

[ her cloak, however, is warm, and he pulls it delicately around his shoulders as an inconvenient shiver passes through him. to be the smallest modicum of helpful, he loosens the laces at his wrist.

he finally sees that the photographs are labeled by levels of attraction, his eyes passing over the blonde princess with disinterest, moving down to those banished to the lower tiers. one catches his eye, dark hair, something severe in the expression. the one gideon points out is the same. the skeleton-maker.

laurent has seen corpses on the battlefield, on a flogging post, a detached head here and there, but he has never studied a proper skeleton up close. he's heard they populate the palace dungeons, but that was never any place for a prince. ]

There is a skeleton on your wall. [ the numbness in his arm is wearing off, replaced with a sort of burning sensation that is not pleasant to experience. ] I will require a drink.

[ laurent does not drink. he just imagines it will make this moment more bearable. ]

[navcav]

Your Highnessness, I've never undressed a man in my life and I'm not gonna start now.

[ she makes hard eye contact like a cat about to knock something over, and promptly slices through the loosened laces with the knife so she can fold back some of the sleeve fabric.

he's goddamned lucky the dog didn't shatter the bones of his arm, which gideon is absolutely not equipped to handle. without electricity working in the apartment she's had to literally start a fire under a kettle of nasty stale water in hopes of sterilizing it, and they'll have to wait a couple minutes for it to boil and and then for the dish cloths dunked in it to cool down enough to use to clean the bite. for the moment, she's got a dry cloth to press over the punctures to try and stop the bleeding. ]

Yeah, that's my mum. She fell dead on the Ninth's doorstep one day, hauling my infant self along. Hella mysterious. Never found out who she was or why she'd done it.

A drink! You and me both. [ gideon doesn't drink, mostly because she was never given the opportunity, but she snagged some liquor for the sheer novelty before the fog rolled in. the bottles have elaborate skull artwork on the labels. it's probably why she picked them up. ] Keep this pressure on, I'll get you a bloody drink.

[ she'll even pour it into a glass for you, bucko. it probably doesn't taste very good.

and speaking of pouring drinks and undressing mens, ]

I bet you probably have a gaggle of people to do this stuff for you back home. Is there an official drink pourer? An official laces-undoer for your shirts? You can't even take this off by yourself, what the heck.

[wrists]

[ jokes on you, gideon, because laurent has also never undressed a man in his life. certainly not in the manner of a slave's work. certainly also not in the manner of pleasure. his sleeve is sliced open shortly, and there is little he can do to stop it, because keeping his balance against the counter is taking all of his present concentration. he can't help but think — ]

The last person who touched me in such a manner... [ touched being used in a very broad sense here, because laurent does not invite it in any way, shape, or form, unless it's paschal, his physician, who complains that it's extremely difficult to administer treatment without contact. ] I had him put on a cross and flogged. Twice.

[ an action he has only a small well of remorse for. or at least a well that he refuses to peer into to assess the deepness of. damen was deserving of such a thing. but in his heart he knows that auguste would never have approved of such behavior from him. but auguste was so good, so untarnished, that he likely never knew what it was to feel hatred so strongly that he feared he would choke on it.

the skeleton. gideon's mother. he looks at her, and for a moment does feel sympathy, a wholly surprising sensation. must be the poisonous bite from the undead dog. his father favored auguste for being everything a man should be, but his mother hadn't minded laurent's preference for books and solitude. ]

You were meant to be a cavalier. Your mother saw to that. [ the drink appears while he holds down the cloth, feeling the warm pulse of blood through the fabric. the liquor has a strong smell, and it eyes it warily. this is not veretian wine, which he only sips in rare instances — he can't afford the luxury of losing his wits, and he doesn't hold his drink well at all. he's also been poisoned too many times for his liking.

he takes a drink, and shudders as it goes down. it's horrid. he swallows another small mouthful in the hopes it will ease the mounting pain in his arm. ]

Yes. [ to all of the above. he doesn't pour anything, or unlace anything. not unless he's in a foul mood and the men guarding his door have the sense to send all his servants away for pity's sake. ]

You are young and virile. You undress women? [ he approves of this; it is the acceptable veretian way. the drink goes down too fast, grimacing as it burns his throat and warms his stomach. when he lurches away from the sink, he takes gideon's cloak with him, stumbling in search of a bed. when he finds it, he promptly lays down, a pile of black fabric and streaming blond hair. his arm immediately starts bleeding onto the covers. ] Leave me. I will sleep.

[navcav]

[ my god it's almost exactly like dealing with an injured harrow, except the hair is blonde and laurent hasn't threatened to murder her with skeletons for 'fussing.' ]

What is it with you and flogging? No, don't answer that, I don't need to know. You probably shouldn't flog people trying to help you, though.

[ as to her being meant for cavalier-ship... press F to doubt. gideon had wanted to be a soldier, but the universe doesn't care what gideon wants! if she knew who her mother was, this statement would be doubly ironic and hilarious. harrow had wanted a cavalier for appearances, and harrow had gotten one, as harrow typically got everything she wanted. ]

I guess it's nice somebody thinks so.

[ she does choke a bit when he mentions undressing women, a flush flaring up under her paint. good thing it's pretty dim in here. ]

You are out of your head. [ virile, eugh. ] But yeah, if they'd have me. And if they were hot. I'd undress women all day-- oh, shit, do not fall asleep, okay? [ she feels like she ought to grab for him as he totters off to flop down in her bed, but she also suspects he might react poorly to being grabbed. ]

You can pass out after I've cleaned that damned bite! And this is my place, I'm not going anywhere.

[wrists]

[ that earns a look, nonplussed. no, he shouldn't flog people who attempt to help him. but he doesn't trust anyone who attempts to help him, certainly not anyone in the palace, because "help" has never been anything good. not since auguste had died.

even now, with gideon having been as tolerable as she's been, he's wary of this much help. a dog bite will not kill him. at least a normal one wouldn't. this one feels decidedly not normal, and the liquor had been a decidedly unwise decision, because now in addition to the dizzying amounts of pain he's in, he's finding it difficult to focus his eyes in a single direction.

although the general direction of gideon's face points to a telling flush that tinges the parts of her skin visible beneath the smeared paint. in his normal state, the sight would make him uncomfortable, angry, weary, and a selection of other frustrating things in ways he can't explain. feeling rather detached from the constant turmoil in his head, however, he just feels curious. ]

My brother told me I would grow into a love for women. [ he has grown, and not yet into that. he has not grown to love anything, although sometimes he feels, fleetingly and with disgust, desire. ] I do not like them. You are adequate, but I would not lie with you.

[ from this vantage point, he can see harrowhark's picture a little better. or worse, depending on the lack of focus. he thinks of damen, spending every night in his tent, mere paces separating their sleeping arrangements. damen would not dare approach him on pain of death. he wants to curl his arm closer to himself, but finds he can't move it. blood seeps into the bed, a shade darker than it should be. ] What is it like to lie with a woman?

[navcav]

[ gideon is also wondering why she's going so much out of her way for somebody who reminds her both of harrow and of the uppity third house. is she just so damned used to being insulted? is this her natural state, that she gravitates to people who will look down their noses as they give orders? to look for approval in the worst places?

"Have you two been paired a very long time?"

she shakes her head violently.

what would harrow do, if somebody called her 'adequate,' even if it wasn't totally intended as an insult? harrow would certainly take it like one. harrow would probably kill them. harrow wouldn't stand for being demeaned. gideon... doesn't do a damned thing. gideon relies on sarcasm. ]

Oh, high praise. I don't recommend using that as a line when you're trying to get somebody into bed for real.

[ the veretian way of managing things seems awfully centered on biology. that's not totally dissimilar from the houses' obsession with genetics, but at least the rich and powerful gave themselves options with technology. the ninth house is going to need an heir eventually, but gideon can honestly see harrow cloning herself before consenting to get married. ]

If you're not into girls, which it sounds like your society basically trains you not to be, can't you like... change the law when you're the king? Adopt a baby? Marry somebody that you want? I don't think you 'grow into' heterosexuality.

[ alright she can't be too mean to him, he's clearly having some bad effects from the bite. they'd both better hope those things aren't venomous. maybe he'll even forget this entire conversation. ]

I wouldn't know. All the other children of the Ninth House died of creche flu when I was a baby. [ she'd never thought of it as a whole generation, but it was. they hadn't acquired any new children at all since then. ]

It was only ever me and Harrow, and she--

[ "Step one," princess ianthe said, singsong, over the dead body of her cavalier. her empty cavalier. "Preserve the soul, with intellect and memory intact. Step two, analyse it-- understand its structure, its shape.

Step three--" ]

--and she's the worst, [ gideon finishes, sounding grim for the first time. ]

[wrists]

[ "adequate" is the highest praise he has ever given anyone. it might as well be a marriage proposal. he can't think of anything... more that he would say, to anyone, because he certainly wouldn't be caught dead saying complimentary things regarding beauty or the like. he has not ever thought about what he might say if he was trying to get somebody into bed for real, as gideon says, because his efforts have mostly involved staying out of anyone's bed, not for lack of attempts (one-sided, the side being decidedly not him).

change the law? even injured and soused, he manages a haughty scoff. ]

Adopt a baby? The child would be a false heir, a bastard and a scourge upon the royal bloodline. [ he pauses. despite everything, a bastard would still be better than one with the tainted blood he carries in his veins. only auguste was pure. ] I will not bring forth an heir. My bloodline ends with me.

[ then gideon says something that makes him take notice, even through the persistent fog in his head. that she has known that sort of deep solitude plucks at some invisible thread in him, maybe a feeling of kinship that he immediately attempts to snuff out. his thoughts turn to harrow instead, hearing for the first time something serious in gideon's tone. ]

So you did not lie with her. [ nailed it. ]

[navcav]

[ she kindly and graciously does not point out the logical disconnect there oh no wait she does. both eyebrows go up and then knit in confusion. ]

Hang on, you've lost me somewhere. It's very important in your culture to have a blood heir, but you... want the bloodline to end?

[ twenty minutes ago, that statement would've caused an enormous flip out on gideon's part, but she's busy burning her fingers on recently sterilized dish cloths and trying to clean the damned dog bite on his arm as best she can. it's probably going to hurt. ]

Not if she were the last person in the universe. [ gideon says instead, flatly, without any theatrics like miming gagging or pretending to hang herself. ] Not if she begged me on her knees, not if the continued existence of humanity depended on it.

I like to think of us as magnetic opposites. We were born to be enemies, basically.

[wrists]

[ this sort of openness would never be happening if not for this specific series of unfortunate events, most of which he will choose not to remember for the sake of his own sanity. gideon isn't exactly gentle when she sets to cleaning his wound, but it's better that she isn't. anything that could be construed as overly kind would raise his hackles. this entire encounter notwithstanding. ]

It must. [ so many things said aloud he's never voiced before. the mere touch of the hot cloth on the bite is akin to the sensation of what he imagines it might feel like to have his arm sawn off. darkness tinges the edges of his vision, a crease between his brows, but he remains still, his eyes locked on some fixed point near harrow's portrait. ] My uncle's sins cannot be allowed to spread. I will be the last.

[ she's oddly serious in the moment she speaks of her feelings about harrow, as if some unforgivable wound sits between them. he thinks unwillingly of damen, a surge of hatred and grief and regret clogging his chest before he forces it away somewhere he doesn't have to feel it all so acutely. ]

What did she do to you to make you despise her so? [ without warning, he struggles to sit up, uncomfortable lying down so long in the presence of another person who isn't a slave. very mediocre success. ] Did she kill someone close to you?