Chapter Text
Thirteen years prior…
Gideon was crouched in the moldy straw and dirt of an old empty stall that probably hadn’t had a horse in it for a decade. Instead it was filled with rotting old cardboard boxes, forgotten bales of hay no longer good for anything but a compost pile, and rusting tools. The fall evening air was cool but the stable walls and body heat from the animals kept any real chill out.
Drearbrugh Heights, the ridiculously named property this stable was a part of, was a dark, dank hellhole. The mansion sat up on a hill, looming over the rest of the property like a decaying vulture. The stable itself was a giant enclosed barn with a wide aisle running down the center and horse stalls on both sides. At the end of the aisle was a large, indoor, dirt-floored arena that had probably once been regularly used but now spent much of its time empty.
She was dirty with dust and hay after a long day of unloading itchy bales of fresh hay for the horses, her normally bright ginger hair muted and even messier than normal. She stared into a dark gap between one of the graying straw bales and ancient boxes, waiting patiently. Well, mostly patiently. She pulled a beat-up, cheap cell phone from one of her coat pockets and took a quick glance. No messages from the bus driver yet, so she crammed it back into the pocket to focus on the task at hand. She shifted her legs slightly and made a quiet kissing sound. Nothing. A horse in a nearby stall snorted and shifted as Gideon reached into her pocket for her secret weapon. Her fingers touched a string of small, linked bones first. Heh, that will be a future secret weapon. She fished around a bit more in the pocket of the oversized, many times handed down winter coat until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the plastic-wrapped, neon-orange-colored slice of processed cheese. Something unseen rustled out of sight in the straw.
“I know you’re back there.” She pinched off a section of waxy cheese and wiggled her hand at the entrance of the hole while making more kissing sounds.
“Come on out, Possum.”
A little more rustling. A bit of movement in the dark?
“I brought you cheeeeeese.”
Eyes glinted within the dark space, and a shitty looking gray cat peeked out suspiciously. Gideon waited silently, unmoving, unblinking. The cat stretched out, cautiously grabbing the cheese piece and then quickly retreating.
“Good girl, Possum, so brave.”
Gideon kept her voice calm despite her excitement. This was the first time Possum had taken food right from her fingers. Maybe she could even pet her eventually! She broke off a couple more small pieces of cheese and left them sitting by Possum’s hiding spot as a reward for her bravery, then stood and stretched. A huge black horse in the stall across from her stared at her and snorted. “What? You already got your treats today, Nonius. Possum needs some love too.” The giant animal huffed, flaring his velvety nostrils, then ducked his head back into his stall, seemingly placated.
She kicked a rusty tool out of her way as she squeezed out of the partially open stall door and wondered if any of these tools had ever actually been used for horse care. She knew a bit more about horses than she had when she’d started coming here 5 years ago but most of it was self taught. This whole program was supposed to be educational; take some poor foster kids and ship them out to different places to learn “job skills” and get some “fresh air”. She’s sure Priamhark and Pelleamena told the government that the little 8-year-old they were being sent would get all kinds of useful experience and have great fun playing with their own similarly aged daughter. In reality they were looking for, and found, free labor to help support their facade of wealth.
Despite having a stable with actual horses, and people like Aiglamene (kinda cool) and Crux (a total asshole) who worked for them, and a literal mansion, it was clear even to Gideon that they didn’t have the money they’d obviously had at some point. She wasn’t stupid. Their house was huge but everything in it was old and musty and faded. They may have had a stable but half the stalls were empty. Everything on the outside was kept up for appearances but a slight scratch to the veneer revealed the rot beneath. But the government paid them to have Gideon to visit and “learn”, and Gideon saved them the money they would have to spend to hire someone less decrepit than their current staff.
As far as spending any quality time with Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the goblin princess they somehow wrenched from their loins, that was a hard pass. They saw plenty of each other unfortunately, usually while Gideon was trying to get enough work done to keep Crux off her ass. Harrowhark had very little physical work to do; instead her parents had her enrolled in various expensive educational programs. She still managed to find plenty of time to be at the stable on the days Gideon was working, ostensibly to ride her horse around so that the neighbors could observe that yes, they were the kind of rich people who could have a stable and horses for leisure. Harrow would arrive in her solid black equestrian outfit with her stupid knee-hight boots and dumbass little helmet and WAY too much makeup, and prance around on horseback, smirking as Gideon raked horse shit. Harrow enjoyed encouraging her psychotic mare to attempt to remove chunks of Gideon’s face. A failure so fair but the horse had probably eaten an unhealthy amount of her hair, and Gideon wasn’t sure what colic was but she hoped that damned horse could get it from hair. Gideon was sometimes able to get her revenge when Harrow was on the ground but she had to be cautious. Gideon was only a year older but was already much larger than Harrow, who was basically a shitty bag of bird bones, so physically she was no threat. However, Aiglamene would verbally ream Gideon out if she was caught going after Harrow, and follow that up with the worst chores she could find. Crux, by contrast, would scream a litany of curses and villain-level monologues at her while knocking her around as much as he could get away with. Harrow enjoyed watching while he did this. Despite the risk (mostly to Gideon) they still had regular fights, and both managed to draw blood from each other multiple times. Just this morning Harrow had “accidentally” shoved Gideon into a pile of horse shit. By the time Aiglamene had yanked them apart, Harrow had a bloody nose and Gideon was missing several furrows of flesh from her arms (flesh now located underneath Harrow's black painted nails). Gideon had been punished by Aiglamene with some exceptionally disgusting cleaning tasks, but Gideon had managed to rip off one of Harrow’s real bone (gross) bracelets which she now had as a prize and future blackmail in her pocket. Harrow loved her bone jewelry and would undoubtedly be furious when she realized it was missing. Luckily Aiglamene hadn’t ever mentioned their fights to either Harrow’s parents or Gideon’s foster group.
Another barn cat, an elderly brown tabby that Gideon had named Queen Tits based on her pendulous belly, mrrped at Gideon from her resting spot on an old wooden barrel in the stable aisle. Gideon paused to rub her soft cheeks as Tits purred loudly. She pressed her ear to Tits’ side and closed her eyes, soothed by the rumble against her face that radiated through her skull. “You’re a good kitty, do you want some cheese?” Gideon felt her mrrp and smiled, quickly rummaging out a big piece of cheese from her pocket.
Gideon did have to give Harrow some credit, she never narced to her parents, who would likely have had Crux beat the shit out of Gideon and then never allowed her back. Any injuries on either of them were passed off as horse related. What could they expect when leaving middle-schoolers with a half ton animal built to stomp shit around?
But whatever. Gideon could have opted to stop coming and switch to another program. But despite everything she LIKED the stables. She got to see an actual family and while they were kinda weird they were also interesting. Sometimes she’d see them talking to each other and planning family outings. She would hide nearby, imagining being a part of the conversation, having her own mom and dad to make plans with. She was able to get away from whichever shitty foster group she was in that year before they got sick of her and passed her to the next one. The horses were kinda scary and huge but also kinda cool. It was fine that she didn’t get to ride them anyway. Once she’d watched Harrowhark take a fall during a jump. She’d managed to beat Aiglamene, sprinting across the pasture to her. Harrow had been dazed for a moment then angrily shoved her away and told her to fuck off (a sentiment Gideon had returned, loudly, before stomping away). So keeping her feet on the ground was just fine by her. And the barn cats were always there for her. Most of them would even let her pet them! It gave her someone to talk to, even if they didn’t talk back. She didn’t need them to. They listened and they loved her.
The sound of booted footsteps and a voice drifted in and Gideon froze and crouched out of instinct.
“My parents just don’t understand you. I know you’d never hurt me. I just need you to let me tell the difference.”
Fucking Harrow. Of course.
What the hell was she even doing here? By now she should be up at the mansion with her parents doing whatever the hell formerly rich people did. Probably drinking poor people’s blood or some shit.
Gideon crept closer to the stall Harrowhark had walked into and listened.
“You are so beautiful, I don’t deserve you.”
Holy shit, did she have someone with her? Someone hot?
She leaned around the doorpost and saw Harrow standing and talking to… the wall? She wasn’t dressed in her equestrian costume, instead she was wearing what she seemed to count as normal clothing; black leggings with gray leg bones printed on them, and a huge, hooded black cloak that draped down to her knees and obscured her upper body. The cloak was clasped shut at the front with a pendant symbol of Jod; a jet black circular stone encircled with a rim of white. She definitely had an aesthetic. An aesthetic that said ‘ooo, look at me I’m a dark and mysterious bone witch but I’ll pray once a week to avoid hell’. What a tool. Gideon leaned a little too hard and the post creaked slightly. Harrow whipped around like a gunshot, eyes wide and searching until they settled on Gideon and narrowed.
“Griddle,” she said, like spitting out a rotten piece of food. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”
Gideon put her hands in her pockets as she strode into the stall. “Oh, I just decided I liked it so much here I’d just sleep in the stable. All of the venomous spiders make me think of you.” She leaned against the wall, then changed her mind when the wood started to bow slightly. Could they not afford to get some new wood at least? “What are YOU doing here, talking to yourself like a crazy person?” She swirled a finger at her ear to emphasize her point.
Gideon had called Harrow a lot of things. Hell, she was proud of how creative she’d gotten for some of those insults. She’d used a freaking thesaurus for Jod’s sake. Who just knows the word crepuscular? So she wasn't sure why calling Harrow ‘crazy’ made her freeze like that, eyes wide.
Terrified.
In a tiny, half broken voice she whispered, “I’m not crazy.”
Her intense, obsidian eyes bored into Gideon’s golden ones and Gideon wasn’t sure what emotion was welling up in her but it was fucking gross and it needed to stop. Like right now. What the hell.
Gideon looked away and ran and hand through her hair, knocking out a piece of hay in the process. “My bus is running late.”
Gideon wasn’t sure why she felt the need to say anything at all except ‘fuck you Harrow, go die in a fire’.
“It runs late a lot lately. So I just spend time with the barn cats.” She glanced at Harrow, trying to convey whatever gross feeling was welling out of her in a way that Harrow would understand. “I like to talk to them sometimes. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Harrow remained guarded and stiff. They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Okay, maybe Harrow needed her to be more blunt.
“Look, you’re a fucking bitch and I hate you but I don’t like, actually think you’re crazy just cause you have an imaginary friend. None of my friends are human.” Harrow’s eyes flicked behind her right before Gideon felt herself being shoved roughly to the side hard enough to throw her to her hands and knees. Shit, her foster home was going to be pissed if she ruined another pair of jeans.
“You ABSOLUTE waste of space, you filthy child, you lazy, ungrateful whelp! How dare you speak this way to Miss Nonegesimus!”
Gideon scrambled to her feet as Crux rushed to stand in front of Harrowhark. Crux appeared to be a million years old like everything else in this house, and held together entirely by spite and malice, but somehow he still had some rotten muscle clinging to his bones and Gideon didn’t want to pick a fight with him. She sometimes imagined visiting his funeral just to teabag his grave as a cheerful dream to lift her spirits. “Jod, Crux, we were just-.”
“You PROFANE the name of our LORD, you lead this young lady into TEMPTATION and RUIN.”
Okay, this was a bit melodramatic even for Crux. He turned to Harrow and looked nearly ready to weep. “Miss, what have you done?”
“She knows nothing, Crux. She doesn’t understand.”
“She knows too much, Miss. No one should know.”
Gideon waved a hand at them. “Uh, hey, I’m still here.”
Apparently that was not the right move as Crux whipped around and grabbed the front of her shirt. Gideon was large and burly for a 13-year-old but Crux still had some mass on her, so she opted not to fight back this time. Save your energy for teabagging his grave. He spoke way too close to her face, his rotten breath making her gag. “How much did you see? What did you hear, you fool? You IDIOT?”
“Harrow was just talking to herself! Get a fucking breathmint before your next rant, geez.”
He shoved her away and she loudly and melodramatically gulped fresh, un-man-breathed air. They were getting real fucking worked up and weird about this. And that was saying a lot for a household that was always kinda worked up and weird.
Crux was focused on Harrow now, who stared back at him with quiet determination. “She is everywhere, Crux. She won’t let me ignore her, she won’t let me see what's real. She won’t listen anymore.” Harrow seemed to remember that Gideon was still standing there and gave her an accusatory look.
Gideon decided this was as good a time as any to get the fuck out of here since she had no idea what anyone was talking about, nor did she care. She quietly backed out of the stall as Crux and Harrow had a now whispered conversation. As soon as she was down the dimly lit aisle and at the opening of the stable she broke into a sprint for the driveway to wait for the bus by the road. She glanced back at the stable as she walked away, the dim evening light leaving Crux and Harrow as stiff-legged silhouettes moving towards the sickly light of the main house. A strange feeling clenched in Gideon’s chest again and she shoved her hand into her pocket, mindlessly rubbing the bones on the bracelet like prayer beads.
What in the actual fuck was that?
~~IX~~
That was the last time Gideon went to the stable. The next day her foster caretakers took her aside with a case worker. Apparently Priamhark and Pelleamena had called saying that Gideon had attacked Harrowhark (while neglecting to mention that this had happened many times over the past 5 years and Gideon had just as many scars from it as Harrow did). She was being transferred to another foster family who was better suited for handling a “problem child”. There would be no more visits to the stable. No more befriending the barn cats. No more escape from the foster home.
No more Harrow.