[To say that Ortus has been adjusting to his new circumstances would be strictly accurate. Having experienced one disorienting, world altering shock has seemed to somewhat inoculate him against the subsequent ones, or perhaps it is the purview of the dead to handle the variegates of life with more equanimity than the living.
He has found it a relatively simple matter to fall back into the practice of obscurity. Whatever coda this place is to be in the unlikely annals of his existence, it is not one where he is called on the way he was in the false House of the Lord. He is superfluous, and as this has been the case for the majority of his existence, it has been something of a relief to be forgotten in the wake of several arrivals and apparent scandals he still does not understand. (Nor, in fact, does he wish to.)
There are two people who have retained notice of him, despite this. The first has been, of course, the Lady Harrowhark, whose solicitousness towards him has been a painfully sincere and vulnerable thing to behold - which he has good reason to suspect has not sweetened the regard of the second towards him at all. The message he receives one moonlit day soon after his arrival does nothing to dispel his suspicions.
Nevertheless: the Ninth calls, and he must answer as best he can. This is why when he arrives at the isolated location specified in the message, he is painted in precise formality, affecting a more defined pale jawbone than his usual style, with his inelegant inheritance of a rapier belted at his black robed waist. He forsook the pannier, assuming - correctly, as it turns out - that there will be no one there to make use of anything he might carry in it.
Ortus looks at Gideon for a long, contemplative moment. Longer than perhaps he's ever truly looked at her, and only her, his eyes deep shadowed sorrows in their black painted setting. He clears his throat like a muffled knock, as if she has not already marked his approach.]
Where is the snail that reminds you of Matthias Nonius? I am curious to see it.
[ There was a part of Gideon that didn't expect Ortus to show up. A snail with Matthias Nonius energy is a pretty good draw, of course, but it's no guarantee.
Gideon used to cleave up the aged population of the Ninth House into three groups: Harrowhark, Aiglamene, and everyone else. Ortus might be one of the nicer members of everyone else, but it still doesn't change the fact that he probably hates her, and she doesn't especially like him.
But he's here, fallen for the bait, and he's looking at her, which is weird, she never asked for that. (except that she did, over and over again, screaming in her own way for someone to notice) Trust Ortus to make things weird. Whatever. She's got a job to do. Gideon sighs. ]
There's no snail, dude. I just needed a sneaky reason to get you out of God's receding hairline. [ Gideon starts to duck into a nearby abandoned shack, waving for Ortus to follow. ] In here.
[ Once she's confident he's not about to up and leave, Gideon will kick a couple crates together, as if that makes a halfway decent seating area. It doesn't, which is, you know, very Ninth. She sits. ]
There's some things you should know. About God. Since you're living in his area, and all.
[Having only the vaguest guess at what a snail might be, Ortus manages to endure the disappointment of the deceit with equanimity. God's receding hairline would have banished any thought of what he has missed out on anyway, his eyebrows darting upward as his lips thin in automatic disapproval that gives way.
But he says nothing. He follows her into the shed solemnly, then sets himself tentatively on one of the crates, not wholly convinced of the structural integrity of wood. She continues, and his brows slide down and together, the stark white of his paint emphasizing the well-worn creases of worry in his forehead.]
I imagine that there are.
[This is not the discussion he had expected, but then, he had hardly known what to expect. What does he know of her, beyond what he has beheld at a distance, and the imprint that she left on Harrowhark?
He knows she would not speak to him like this if it were not crucial.]
I await your instruction.
cw: reference to child death, implied child murder
Okay. [ Gideon claps her hands together, which makes her feel like Teacher. She instantly regrets every decision she's ever made, ever. We're doing this, man. We're making it happen. ]
Welcome to Gideon Nav Talking Time, the Ninth's best source of entertainment after pushing Crux down the stairs.
[ Once again, that isn't a very good lead-in, but this is one hell of a conversation to have with someone. Gideon wouldn't be surprised if it's their longest one in person. Gideon takes a deep breath. ]
I'm sure you've wondered why I survived the flu, as opposed to -- [ everyone else. It feels weird to talk about the flu now, but even though Gideon is going to betray God, she won't betray Harrow. ] -- you know.
[ moving on! ]
It wasn't on purpose. I don't think I could get super sick, even if I wanted to. I'm -- the Emperor's my dad. There was this big, fucked-up plan to use me to break into the Tomb and kill him. That's how I ended up on the Ninth.
[ Gideon looks at a point on the wall past Ortus' face, because she cannot and does not want to imagine what new variety of depressingly sad he's wearing right now. ]
Pretty gross, I know. [ Gideon finishes, instead, trying to keep her tone casual. She figures she can just anticipate any disgust or shock or horror and turn it into a joke, a strategy that's worked well enough for the past eighteen years and change. ]
cw: references to child death, murder, abuse, ongoing for thread
[Among the qualities Ortus has cultivated in his own thirty five and some years is forbearance. He knows how to be silent, and he knows how to be still, even as unthinkable things unfold before him. Gideon Nav rises like a sun from cursed orphan to the long lost daughter of God fashioned as a weapon against him, and he does not flinch. That is not the worst of it.
It wasn't on purpose. The whole of their House could collapse with less terrible weight. It wasn't on purpose, and he is no older than she is, and she is a vigorously crying babe in a cot, and he could say yes, in a voice that rustles like shrouds, I have wondered, and it would be a cruelty she would endure like all the others he has not permitted himself to wonder at.
(He could not meet anyone's eyes for months, after. They burned like frost. It was not on purpose.)
He is twice her age, and he is glutted and sickened with cruelties. He is exhausted with them, down to his marrow.]
I have never known anyone to choose their parents, or the manner and meaning of their birth.
[He speaks gently, no matter the sorrow dug into the lines of his face and paint, no matter how patchwork and cobbled his gentleness is, laced together with trepidation.]
You have always been remarkable. [He bows his head but for a moment, takes a slight breath.] It is a pity we cannot tell the Marshal. I believe it would strike him dead on the spot.
[ Gideon takes Ortus' bow of his head as her cue to look away too, now studying a spot on her knee. His gentleness is unexpected, and Gideon finds it makes her feel shy, of all things. It's like Magnus pleasantly introducing himself all over again. Gideon has no idea what to do with it.
It's the always that gets her, most of all. A small, bitter part of Gideon, the part that grew up hating the Ninth and might not ever stop, bristles at it. Always? If Gideon was always remarkable, then why didn't Ortus say anything five, ten, or nineteen years ago?
She's able to silence that voice well enough, though. Ortus actually helps with that, and that's another thing that Gideon can add to the tally of shit she can't believe. Is he making a joke? At Crux's expense? That's, like, Gideon Nav Coping Strategy Number Two right there.
Gideon cracks a smile, despite herself, and manages a wry huff of a laugh. ]
Oh, a huge bummer, definitely. My first thought when I found out was 'suck it, Marshal.' Maybe he'll pull up as the world's crustiest squid and we can dunk him into the ocean over and over again while we give him the weird news.
[ Said a touch wistfully. And while "it's a bummer that Crux killed you" would be much too sappy of a thing for Gideon to say to Ortus, she does intentionally include that we, which hopefully communicates more or less the same thing. Or doesn't. Whatever. This situation is already so weird. ]
[There may yet come a day when Gideon vents that bitter part of herself at him. Ortus is still half-expecting it, despite the fragile accord they seem to have implicitly struck for the sake of this conversation. It is no less than he deserves, and much less than she is owed an accounting for.
But for now, there is this: the somewhat familiar sound of her laughter, the unfamiliar tinge of her wistfulness. The inclusion in the fantasy of crusty squid dunking, which Ortus may readily imagine with no small satisfaction.]
An image to meditate upon in unquiet hours.
[Ortus folds his hands together primly in his lap, but his tone retains its softness as he looks at her once more. Mutual distaste for a common adversary is a start.]
I imagine the subsequent thoughts were not so straightforward.
[A glancing acknowledgement, carefully restrained; as Lady Pent once told him, these things should not be pushed before their time.
The shock of it has begun to set in, so enormous and grand that it has a paradoxically numbing effect. He might as well have been told the moon in the sky is a knucklebone. It is a revelation bigger than him, and so has a hazy, unreal quality. What is real, close at hand, is the young woman before him, warding off her agitation with a shield of levity. He dwells on what to say next, none of the choices precisely correct, and settles at last on the least imperfect seeming.]
Is there anything you ask of me, knowing this?
[Other questions, such as who else knows of it, may come after.]
[ Gideon does not immediately say nah, actually, that was the beginning and end of my thinking about this. Which is a failing on her part, because her silence as good as admits to Ortus that this bothers her, and Ortus doesn't need to know what is or isn't bothering her. (Gideon tells herself she has too much pride for that, and she leaves it there.)
So. She just pretends Ortus hasn't said anything, aside from his last question, and it's almost like saving face. ]
Nah. That's just context. The important part of that is that I told you, and not him, because I don't want him using that as leverage.
[ That's a hell of a thing to say about your father, God, but Gideon is in way too deep to quit now. ]
Honestly, you really only need to do two things around him. [ Gideon counts off on her fingers. ] One is to not trust him. Two is to stay the fuck away from him, if you can help it.
He spent nine months trying to kill Harrowhark. [ There's the rub. Gideon's voice is all seriousness now, which feels so wrong, but this is the part that makes her too angry to sound any other way. ] And she knows that, and she still loves him, because he's a manipulative fucking asshole. I'm here to try and make sure he doesn't pull that shit again.
[For all the life and motion in him, Ortus might be a graven relief cut into the lid of his own sarcophagus. He hardly breathes, barely blinks, his shoulders drawn into a line so starkly level it could be a cutting edge.
The turmoil he feels is kept within, behind the wards he has constructed of paint and blood and silence. It is a hell of a thing to say about a father. A hellish thing to say about a God. To say it of both is beyond belief, which is what people say of things they would prefer not to believe, in the comfort of cowardice.
There is a part of Ortus, the slow, solemn bulk of who he is, that wishes to turn away in denial. It would be easy. Is Gideon certain? Did she misunderstand? Does she know what she saw, what she heard, what she felt? And then it would only be a matter of averting his eyes, which is all but second nature.
Or perhaps he could agree, in tones that suggest he is baffled and disbelieving, but willing to indulge her childish misunderstandings and rebellion. Or he could meekly tell her there is nothing he could do or would do, or condemn her for her lies in a blustering rage, or, or, or, a thousand ways a person might crush another's fragile outstretched hand in a crashing door.]
We.
[He says it quietly but firmly, his hands pale at the knuckles in his lap. He finds himself very frightened, and very sure, a heady mixture that leaves him reeling even as he remains still.]
If I may presume to aid you in this. We are here to protect Harrowhark. [He bows his head in a deep, singular nod.] Howsoever I may serve, what little aid I may give, I will not shirk my duty twice.
Would you tell me what happened? How you came to know this?
[ Gideon thinks, in the chasm between her speech and his response, that it might be better if he didn't say anything at all. It's easy to slip back into bad habits. It would be quicker. Message delivered and received, and that's all there is to it.
We.
Some old, dead poet that Ortus would probably like might say that brevity is the source of wit. Now, in this moment, Gideon thinks she knows what the poet means. We, like Gideon is a true and real member of the Ninth; we, like he has listened and understood. We, as in: I'm not sending you away.
Gideon, despite herself, smiles a little. It's a small, shy thing, a distant cousin to her typical easy, broad grin. ]
Well, at least you aren't kissing God's ass.
[ Or: okay, sure.
Ortus not knowing how Gideon knows all this is surprising, though. He knows about the lobotomy, so obviously he knows what it's for, right? Gideon's smile was never intended to last long, and it falters here, her expression threatening to go sullen. ]
I mean, you know. I tried to help Harrow become a Lyctor. It didn't work. When she stopped the process, I got trapped in the back of her mind like some weird, fucked-up brain ghost. I spent nine months like that, until this donkey-faced Lyctor named Mercymorn tried to kill her, and I ended up in the driver's seat instead.
Apparently, when I'm the one doing the walking and talking, my eyes show up in Harrow's face. So God and His Holy Middle Fingers had a big show-and-tell session about the Saints' fucked-up plan to use God's secret child to blow up the Tomb, and God's even worse plan to kill Harrow.
[ Gideon makes a face. ]
It was really bad. No one had a good time. Ianthe was there.
[There is, in the midst of everything else, the slightest twitch of Ortus' own mouth at Ianthe was there, an absurd bubble of joyless amusement that exists in defiance of all sense. Ortus has never cared for the surreal, in art or in life, but he is not wholly immune to it.
Otherwise, his face is still, his eyes deep and sunken, laced with a numbing horror that creeps like frost.]
We thought you lost. [He says, hushed.] That Lady Harrowhark's efforts had been only to slow an inevitability...or to salve a wound.
[Or had they looked away from a possibility that, even were it so, they could do nothing to affect help towards?]
She doubts herself overmuch. Perhaps so too did we. [He shakes his head.] To sustain the bubble in the River to prevent your consumption, all while fending off assassination at the hand of the Emperor - I cannot fathom it.
[He still does not understand what Gideon's eyes have to do with her heritage, so different from the abyssal voids of her father's, but that is detail. The broad strokes are sufficient for the tableau unfolding in his mind.]
[ Alas, Gideon Nav, who martyred herself to save her most important person in the world, has not fully processed that there might have been a non-martyr option this whole time. It's not something she likes to think about. This whole shitty story is one that she doesn't like to think about, although living in God's house makes that project awfully difficult. ]
Maybe you did. She's a creepy little bone witch, but she's a tough-as-nails creepy little bone witch. [ Gideon tries to keep her voice flat, even -- it should be possible, given that these are all objective facts -- but a little current of admiration still seeps through. ] It was -- [ time for the understatement of the century ] -- a bad time.
[ That's easy enough to acknowledge. But, oh, you should not have to endure such a thing? That doesn't add up. It doesn't make any sense. Ortus' mother had even said it herself -- she knew what befalls cavaliers. And that's true three times over for Gideon, who was a bomb to be detonated, and when that didn't work, a battery to be consumed, and when that failed, a furnace of immortality.
Gideon stiffens, any openness about sharing a goal or mission with Ortus now fully closed-off. What the hell does she say to that? Outright disagreement just sounds pathetic, but if she agreed with him even a little bit, if she started to think about what she did and didn't deserve --
-- it'd be a waste of their time, that's for sure. ]
Whatever. That -- it doesn't matter. I'm her cavalier. [ it all comes back to Harrowhark, in the end. There's something grounding about service. ] I'd do anything for her.
[Ortus knows what the eye of opportunity drawing shut looks like. He was overbold, a thing so rare that it did not occur to him that he could have been until it was done. He recalls her urgency in asserting her rights as their Lady's cavalier primary, aligns it with the armor she makes of that honor now.
It is right for a cavalier to do anything for their necromancer, even unto death, and past it. If he had been truer to his purpose, she would not have had to accept that burden, and yet to say so would be to take a thing from her she does not wish to part with.]
I do not doubt it. [He intones, quietly, drawing himself up and slightly back, his features tucked in as neatly as the edges of a sheet.] None could. You have proven yourself stalwart and true.
[There is more he might say, of the shadow of their House and the shame of its conduct, of his complicity and failings, but he has set enough of a burden at her feet for one day. He shall hold his tongue like a body, limp and lifeless.]
I ask your indulgence of my sentiment. I forget myself.
[ This is all wrong. Ortus has got it backwards. He doesn't need to feel sorry for her, doesn't need to ask for her indulgence. There's a part of Gideon, small and buried deep, that wonders if she's messed up, somehow. But second-guessing yourself doesn't get you anywhere, and Gideon reminds herself of that now. ]
It's -- you're fine.
[ Gideon tips her head back, running her fingers through her hair. Then, because emotional regulation is not one of her strengths, she lets out a rattling Ugghghghhhghhgh. ]
I know the Ninth House is, like, the master of making things weird, but you don't need my indulgence, or any of that crap. Just don't make anything weird. I'm the same hot beefcake you've always known, just, you know. I've got a new dad and a new job.
[ It happens! Very normal developments here in this run-down shack. ]
[If there is anything so incongruous as a twinkle in Ortus' eye at Gideon's tossed back, exuberant outburst of feeling, it is swiftly squelched. He is given to wallowing in his own emotions. That does not mean he is incapable of appreciation of flight.]
I am given to understand that 'making anything weird' is one of my foremost talents, aside from poetry.
[A dry, rustling effort at a joke, self-deprecation not as harsh as he might otherwise let it be. If she does not wish for him to fall on a blade (or to run him through by one), he will not gainsay her.]
I will endeavor to restrain myself from the exercising of that skill. [And then, in almost instant contradiction:] As I will strive to prove worthy of your trust.
[He smooths his robes over his knees, fastidiously, attention focused on flattening all wrinkles he can perceive. It takes as long as it may for Gideon to school her own reaction to that, whatever it might be.]
Shall we return to the house, or do you wish to remain here?
[ It takes Gideon a moment too long to realize Ortus has just made a joke, mainly because she wasn't aware? That he could do that? Not for the first time, she asks herself what the fuck has gotten into him, what with this newfound sense of humor and giving a shit about her and semi-spine.
Maybe dying rattles your brain. Maybe Gideon's brain is also rattled. Whatever, she mainly thinks with her muscles anyway.
She'll respond to the joke with a half-laugh that's closer to a snort, so he knows she's got it. And she'll ignore the comment about her trust, because that is once again a weird thing to say, and an even weirder thing to want.
(Besides. Gideon gave someone her trust. She gave someone her whole life, and they didn't even want it.) ]
Yeah, sure. That's all the news I've got.
[ Gideon rises to leave, and she almost doesn't look back to see if Ortus is following her. Almost. ]
early april | gaze: the streets | gideon nav
He has found it a relatively simple matter to fall back into the practice of obscurity. Whatever coda this place is to be in the unlikely annals of his existence, it is not one where he is called on the way he was in the false House of the Lord. He is superfluous, and as this has been the case for the majority of his existence, it has been something of a relief to be forgotten in the wake of several arrivals and apparent scandals he still does not understand. (Nor, in fact, does he wish to.)
There are two people who have retained notice of him, despite this. The first has been, of course, the Lady Harrowhark, whose solicitousness towards him has been a painfully sincere and vulnerable thing to behold - which he has good reason to suspect has not sweetened the regard of the second towards him at all. The message he receives one moonlit day soon after his arrival does nothing to dispel his suspicions.
Nevertheless: the Ninth calls, and he must answer as best he can. This is why when he arrives at the isolated location specified in the message, he is painted in precise formality, affecting a more defined pale jawbone than his usual style, with his inelegant inheritance of a rapier belted at his black robed waist. He forsook the pannier, assuming - correctly, as it turns out - that there will be no one there to make use of anything he might carry in it.
Ortus looks at Gideon for a long, contemplative moment. Longer than perhaps he's ever truly looked at her, and only her, his eyes deep shadowed sorrows in their black painted setting. He clears his throat like a muffled knock, as if she has not already marked his approach.]
Where is the snail that reminds you of Matthias Nonius? I am curious to see it.
no subject
Gideon used to cleave up the aged population of the Ninth House into three groups: Harrowhark, Aiglamene, and everyone else. Ortus might be one of the nicer members of everyone else, but it still doesn't change the fact that he probably hates her, and she doesn't especially like him.
But he's here, fallen for the bait, and he's looking at her, which is weird, she never asked for that. (except that she did, over and over again, screaming in her own way for someone to notice) Trust Ortus to make things weird. Whatever. She's got a job to do. Gideon sighs. ]
There's no snail, dude. I just needed a sneaky reason to get you out of God's receding hairline. [ Gideon starts to duck into a nearby abandoned shack, waving for Ortus to follow. ] In here.
[ Once she's confident he's not about to up and leave, Gideon will kick a couple crates together, as if that makes a halfway decent seating area. It doesn't, which is, you know, very Ninth. She sits. ]
There's some things you should know. About God. Since you're living in his area, and all.
no subject
But he says nothing. He follows her into the shed solemnly, then sets himself tentatively on one of the crates, not wholly convinced of the structural integrity of wood. She continues, and his brows slide down and together, the stark white of his paint emphasizing the well-worn creases of worry in his forehead.]
I imagine that there are.
[This is not the discussion he had expected, but then, he had hardly known what to expect. What does he know of her, beyond what he has beheld at a distance, and the imprint that she left on Harrowhark?
He knows she would not speak to him like this if it were not crucial.]
I await your instruction.
cw: reference to child death, implied child murder
Welcome to Gideon Nav Talking Time, the Ninth's best source of entertainment after pushing Crux down the stairs.
[ Once again, that isn't a very good lead-in, but this is one hell of a conversation to have with someone. Gideon wouldn't be surprised if it's their longest one in person. Gideon takes a deep breath. ]
I'm sure you've wondered why I survived the flu, as opposed to -- [ everyone else. It feels weird to talk about the flu now, but even though Gideon is going to betray God, she won't betray Harrow. ] -- you know.
[ moving on! ]
It wasn't on purpose. I don't think I could get super sick, even if I wanted to. I'm -- the Emperor's my dad. There was this big, fucked-up plan to use me to break into the Tomb and kill him. That's how I ended up on the Ninth.
[ Gideon looks at a point on the wall past Ortus' face, because she cannot and does not want to imagine what new variety of depressingly sad he's wearing right now. ]
Pretty gross, I know. [ Gideon finishes, instead, trying to keep her tone casual. She figures she can just anticipate any disgust or shock or horror and turn it into a joke, a strategy that's worked well enough for the past eighteen years and change. ]
cw: references to child death, murder, abuse, ongoing for thread
It wasn't on purpose. The whole of their House could collapse with less terrible weight. It wasn't on purpose, and he is no older than she is, and she is a vigorously crying babe in a cot, and he could say yes, in a voice that rustles like shrouds, I have wondered, and it would be a cruelty she would endure like all the others he has not permitted himself to wonder at.
(He could not meet anyone's eyes for months, after. They burned like frost. It was not on purpose.)
He is twice her age, and he is glutted and sickened with cruelties. He is exhausted with them, down to his marrow.]
I have never known anyone to choose their parents, or the manner and meaning of their birth.
[He speaks gently, no matter the sorrow dug into the lines of his face and paint, no matter how patchwork and cobbled his gentleness is, laced together with trepidation.]
You have always been remarkable. [He bows his head but for a moment, takes a slight breath.] It is a pity we cannot tell the Marshal. I believe it would strike him dead on the spot.
no subject
It's the always that gets her, most of all. A small, bitter part of Gideon, the part that grew up hating the Ninth and might not ever stop, bristles at it. Always? If Gideon was always remarkable, then why didn't Ortus say anything five, ten, or nineteen years ago?
She's able to silence that voice well enough, though. Ortus actually helps with that, and that's another thing that Gideon can add to the tally of shit she can't believe. Is he making a joke? At Crux's expense? That's, like, Gideon Nav Coping Strategy Number Two right there.
Gideon cracks a smile, despite herself, and manages a wry huff of a laugh. ]
Oh, a huge bummer, definitely. My first thought when I found out was 'suck it, Marshal.' Maybe he'll pull up as the world's crustiest squid and we can dunk him into the ocean over and over again while we give him the weird news.
[ Said a touch wistfully. And while "it's a bummer that Crux killed you" would be much too sappy of a thing for Gideon to say to Ortus, she does intentionally include that we, which hopefully communicates more or less the same thing. Or doesn't. Whatever. This situation is already so weird. ]
no subject
But for now, there is this: the somewhat familiar sound of her laughter, the unfamiliar tinge of her wistfulness. The inclusion in the fantasy of crusty squid dunking, which Ortus may readily imagine with no small satisfaction.]
An image to meditate upon in unquiet hours.
[Ortus folds his hands together primly in his lap, but his tone retains its softness as he looks at her once more. Mutual distaste for a common adversary is a start.]
I imagine the subsequent thoughts were not so straightforward.
[A glancing acknowledgement, carefully restrained; as Lady Pent once told him, these things should not be pushed before their time.
The shock of it has begun to set in, so enormous and grand that it has a paradoxically numbing effect. He might as well have been told the moon in the sky is a knucklebone. It is a revelation bigger than him, and so has a hazy, unreal quality. What is real, close at hand, is the young woman before him, warding off her agitation with a shield of levity. He dwells on what to say next, none of the choices precisely correct, and settles at last on the least imperfect seeming.]
Is there anything you ask of me, knowing this?
[Other questions, such as who else knows of it, may come after.]
no subject
So. She just pretends Ortus hasn't said anything, aside from his last question, and it's almost like saving face. ]
Nah. That's just context. The important part of that is that I told you, and not him, because I don't want him using that as leverage.
[ That's a hell of a thing to say about your father, God, but Gideon is in way too deep to quit now. ]
Honestly, you really only need to do two things around him. [ Gideon counts off on her fingers. ] One is to not trust him. Two is to stay the fuck away from him, if you can help it.
He spent nine months trying to kill Harrowhark. [ There's the rub. Gideon's voice is all seriousness now, which feels so wrong, but this is the part that makes her too angry to sound any other way. ] And she knows that, and she still loves him, because he's a manipulative fucking asshole. I'm here to try and make sure he doesn't pull that shit again.
no subject
The turmoil he feels is kept within, behind the wards he has constructed of paint and blood and silence. It is a hell of a thing to say about a father. A hellish thing to say about a God. To say it of both is beyond belief, which is what people say of things they would prefer not to believe, in the comfort of cowardice.
There is a part of Ortus, the slow, solemn bulk of who he is, that wishes to turn away in denial. It would be easy. Is Gideon certain? Did she misunderstand? Does she know what she saw, what she heard, what she felt? And then it would only be a matter of averting his eyes, which is all but second nature.
Or perhaps he could agree, in tones that suggest he is baffled and disbelieving, but willing to indulge her childish misunderstandings and rebellion. Or he could meekly tell her there is nothing he could do or would do, or condemn her for her lies in a blustering rage, or, or, or, a thousand ways a person might crush another's fragile outstretched hand in a crashing door.]
We.
[He says it quietly but firmly, his hands pale at the knuckles in his lap. He finds himself very frightened, and very sure, a heady mixture that leaves him reeling even as he remains still.]
If I may presume to aid you in this. We are here to protect Harrowhark. [He bows his head in a deep, singular nod.] Howsoever I may serve, what little aid I may give, I will not shirk my duty twice.
Would you tell me what happened? How you came to know this?
no subject
We.
Some old, dead poet that Ortus would probably like might say that brevity is the source of wit. Now, in this moment, Gideon thinks she knows what the poet means. We, like Gideon is a true and real member of the Ninth; we, like he has listened and understood. We, as in: I'm not sending you away.
Gideon, despite herself, smiles a little. It's a small, shy thing, a distant cousin to her typical easy, broad grin. ]
Well, at least you aren't kissing God's ass.
[ Or: okay, sure.
Ortus not knowing how Gideon knows all this is surprising, though. He knows about the lobotomy, so obviously he knows what it's for, right? Gideon's smile was never intended to last long, and it falters here, her expression threatening to go sullen. ]
I mean, you know. I tried to help Harrow become a Lyctor. It didn't work. When she stopped the process, I got trapped in the back of her mind like some weird, fucked-up brain ghost. I spent nine months like that, until this donkey-faced Lyctor named Mercymorn tried to kill her, and I ended up in the driver's seat instead.
Apparently, when I'm the one doing the walking and talking, my eyes show up in Harrow's face. So God and His Holy Middle Fingers had a big show-and-tell session about the Saints' fucked-up plan to use God's secret child to blow up the Tomb, and God's even worse plan to kill Harrow.
[ Gideon makes a face. ]
It was really bad. No one had a good time. Ianthe was there.
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Otherwise, his face is still, his eyes deep and sunken, laced with a numbing horror that creeps like frost.]
We thought you lost. [He says, hushed.] That Lady Harrowhark's efforts had been only to slow an inevitability...or to salve a wound.
[Or had they looked away from a possibility that, even were it so, they could do nothing to affect help towards?]
She doubts herself overmuch. Perhaps so too did we. [He shakes his head.] To sustain the bubble in the River to prevent your consumption, all while fending off assassination at the hand of the Emperor - I cannot fathom it.
[He still does not understand what Gideon's eyes have to do with her heritage, so different from the abyssal voids of her father's, but that is detail. The broad strokes are sufficient for the tableau unfolding in his mind.]
You should not have had to endure such a thing.
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Maybe you did. She's a creepy little bone witch, but she's a tough-as-nails creepy little bone witch. [ Gideon tries to keep her voice flat, even -- it should be possible, given that these are all objective facts -- but a little current of admiration still seeps through. ] It was -- [ time for the understatement of the century ] -- a bad time.
[ That's easy enough to acknowledge. But, oh, you should not have to endure such a thing? That doesn't add up. It doesn't make any sense. Ortus' mother had even said it herself -- she knew what befalls cavaliers. And that's true three times over for Gideon, who was a bomb to be detonated, and when that didn't work, a battery to be consumed, and when that failed, a furnace of immortality.
Gideon stiffens, any openness about sharing a goal or mission with Ortus now fully closed-off. What the hell does she say to that? Outright disagreement just sounds pathetic, but if she agreed with him even a little bit, if she started to think about what she did and didn't deserve --
-- it'd be a waste of their time, that's for sure. ]
Whatever. That -- it doesn't matter. I'm her cavalier. [ it all comes back to Harrowhark, in the end. There's something grounding about service. ] I'd do anything for her.
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It is right for a cavalier to do anything for their necromancer, even unto death, and past it. If he had been truer to his purpose, she would not have had to accept that burden, and yet to say so would be to take a thing from her she does not wish to part with.]
I do not doubt it. [He intones, quietly, drawing himself up and slightly back, his features tucked in as neatly as the edges of a sheet.] None could. You have proven yourself stalwart and true.
[There is more he might say, of the shadow of their House and the shame of its conduct, of his complicity and failings, but he has set enough of a burden at her feet for one day. He shall hold his tongue like a body, limp and lifeless.]
I ask your indulgence of my sentiment. I forget myself.
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It's -- you're fine.
[ Gideon tips her head back, running her fingers through her hair. Then, because emotional regulation is not one of her strengths, she lets out a rattling Ugghghghhhghhgh. ]
I know the Ninth House is, like, the master of making things weird, but you don't need my indulgence, or any of that crap. Just don't make anything weird. I'm the same hot beefcake you've always known, just, you know. I've got a new dad and a new job.
[ It happens! Very normal developments here in this run-down shack. ]
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I am given to understand that 'making anything weird' is one of my foremost talents, aside from poetry.
[A dry, rustling effort at a joke, self-deprecation not as harsh as he might otherwise let it be. If she does not wish for him to fall on a blade (or to run him through by one), he will not gainsay her.]
I will endeavor to restrain myself from the exercising of that skill. [And then, in almost instant contradiction:] As I will strive to prove worthy of your trust.
[He smooths his robes over his knees, fastidiously, attention focused on flattening all wrinkles he can perceive. It takes as long as it may for Gideon to school her own reaction to that, whatever it might be.]
Shall we return to the house, or do you wish to remain here?
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Maybe dying rattles your brain. Maybe Gideon's brain is also rattled. Whatever, she mainly thinks with her muscles anyway.
She'll respond to the joke with a half-laugh that's closer to a snort, so he knows she's got it. And she'll ignore the comment about her trust, because that is once again a weird thing to say, and an even weirder thing to want.
(Besides. Gideon gave someone her trust. She gave someone her whole life, and they didn't even want it.) ]
Yeah, sure. That's all the news I've got.
[ Gideon rises to leave, and she almost doesn't look back to see if Ortus is following her. Almost. ]