Introducing Gideon Nav, Cavalier Primary to the Ninth House, Keepers of the Locked Tomb...

[ninth_cavalier]

...House of the Sewn Tongue, The Black Vestals. We pray that the tomb is shut forever. We pray the rock is never rolled away. We pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest, with closed eye and stilled brain. We pray it lives, we pray it sleeps, we pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King...

One minute Gideon is doing the stupidest and most perfect thing she has ever done, heroically sacrificing herself so her necromancer can eat her and achieve true Lyctorhood and break Cytherea the First's body into so many little shards of bone and ribbons of fat and flesh that even her own mother (thousands of years dead, and most likely a huge bitch) couldn't recognize her, and the next she's—standing. Whole, the aches in her leg and shoulder gone, her sunglasses perched on her nose, the comforting weight of her longsword¹ on her back. She takes a breath, just for the novelty of it, and looks around.

The first thing she notices is how clean it is. No blood, no mold, no grime, no layers of bone dust. When she breathes, she just breathes air, and it feels like extra clean air, which—she looks further around—is probably due to the actual grass on the actual ground. In the distance there are trees. With birds in them.

Is this—this can't possibly be what the inside of Harrow's brain looks like. The inside of Harrow's brain is undoubtedly as spooky as the outside of Harrow's brain, because where would she even have found the imagination to dream up something this—idyllic?? There's nothing even close to it in any of her experience on Drearbruh, and Gideon would know, having been there and actively making that experience worse for all of Harrow's sorry little life.

No, what she's looking at is—a house. A big, boring, white-painted house, not a bone to be seen. "Okay," says Gideon. "What the fuck."

Anyone looking at her will see a tallish (though not for Mansion standards), broad-shouldered and very ripped butch woman, dressed all in black (black tank top, black pants, black stompy boots). She has short-cropped red hair, medium-brown skin, and her face has been painted with stark black and white skull makeup, atop which she has incongruously perched very old-looking aviator sunglasses. Slung over her back is the aforementioned sword.

¹ Typist note: the books consistently refer to this as both a "longsword" and a "two-hander," and from the way its weight and length is constantly emphasized I interpret it to be more toward zweihander than longsword. Also, bigger sword sexier.

Comments

[futaille]

"There's a... I'll show you." He does grab another glass and promptly uses the spigot to pour some out into it before handing it to her. "There you are!"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon tries this next wine, with not quite as much trepidation.

It is immediately much worse. Cloyingly sweet, but in a way that still puckers her mouth afterward; the acidity turning from nice and citrusy to drying and unpleasant. She coughs. "Shit," she says, "this stuff sucks." She happily drains the rest of the glass.

[futaille]

"Oh yes. Absolute swill." He pours himself a glass too. "Want more?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yes," says Gideon, king of good decisions. Maybe she can just drink herself to death and wake up in Harrow's brain anyway, and then by transitive drunkenness Harrow will be fucking hammered for her triumphant audience with the Emperor Undying and make a total ass of herself. Now that's a cheerful thought.

[futaille]

"Excellent." He refills her cup as well, sets the box within easy reach of both of them, and then returns to his seat. "Cheers." He takes a long drink of his own.

[ninth_cavalier]

"So," says Gideon. "What's your dimension like?"

[futaille]

"My dimension? First time I've heard it phrased that way. It's just... Earth. I arrived from Paris, in the country of France, just after the end of a failed uprising."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Bummer," says Gideon. "I mean, assuming you were on the side rising up."

[futaille]

He shrugs, taking another drink. "More or less, I suppose. My friends were. I was there, but slept through most of it. Woke up just in time to decide to join our fearless leader in front of a firing squad. To my great surprise, I wound up here instead of simply dead."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon is in the middle of another sip, and she sits up at this, swallowing quickly. "I'm also here instead of dead! Not from Earth, though."

[futaille]

"Welcome to a select club, then. There are a handful of us here, but not most by far." Grantaire shoots her a wry smile. "As afterlives go, it could certainly be worse."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon stares morosely into her wine. "It was supposed to be much worse," she mutters, bitterly. "I was supposed to completely cease to exist, absorbed body and soul into the brain of my worst enemy, who also happens to be my best friend, not—drinking wine with some dude from Paris, wherever that is." It's clear not facing this fate is the worst thing to ever happen to her.

[futaille]

"It seems that whatever is supposed to happen is rare around here," he says with a shrug, taking another drink. He looks at his own wine. "Sometimes it can end up being an improvement, though. Even if it takes a while."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Thing is," says Gideon, "I don't actually give a shit about what's supposed to happen. Not in, like, a cosmic sense." She drinks. "But in the sense where I chose it, I reached a point where I knew what to do, I knew what it would do to me and I knew what it would do to her and I knew it was the only way—and then to have that not happen?" She shakes her head. "I feel like fuckin', Charlie Brown, with the football."

[futaille]

"I understand," Grantaire says with a nod. "More or less. I mean, our circumstances aren't exactly the same. But I know about choosing a satisfying ending, with and for someone singular and getting... well, this instead." He drains his glass and goes for a refill.

"I can't promise anything, and I wouldn't even if I could, but I didn't know when I arrived so I may as well pass it on. There's a small chance she might end up arriving here anyway. Not a guarantee, by any means, but in the end you might be lucky enough to get to rewrite your ending with her."

[ninth_cavalier]

"I asked around about her," admits Gideon, "when I first got here. In case she'd arrived first. But—now that I know a little more about this place, I can't say I hope she shows up. First of all, if this is the afterlife, that means she's dead, and that would blow. And second of all—" she shakes her head. "If we really are on a different planet, a different plane, outside of the Nine Houses entirely, she wouldn't have any power, here. No chance to make anything of herself. To do anything with—fuck, all that fucking grief."

Gideon doesn't know a lot about the theory and science of necromancy, but the way a fish doesn't know a lot about water. Outside the reach of Dominicus' light, necromancy doesn't function. Thanergy doesn't exist. A generation of lives lost for the power that weighs on Harrow's skinny little shoulders, not her choice, but her responsibility. If she couldn't even use them—she drains her glass. "She'd hate it here."

[futaille]

He nods slowly. "And you'd spare her that. It makes sense. Well, if she'd hate it here, I hope she never arrives, then. And your hope for her is a sacrifice, releasing her to spare her this place cleaving her in two. The judgment of Solomon, in a strange way, although if you do get your wish, it won't quite end the same way, I suppose."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Solomon's the bitch who cut a baby in half, right?" asks Gideon. She considers. She's feeling a little strange, above herself somehow, the room around them mysteriously larger and/or smaller than before. "I think," she says slowly, "my hope is I'm the baby."

[futaille]

"Well, he didn't cut the baby in half. He said he would, the baby's actual mother said to give the baby up instead of letting it get cut in half, and that's how he knew the baby was hers. It's supposed to be a sign of wisdom, insofar as humans can be wise, which is somewhat doubtful. That said, if you are the baby, you're probably reasonably safe."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Wait," says Gideon dubiously. "He didn't cut the baby in half? You sure?"

[futaille]

"He definitely didn't cut the baby in half. It's the entire point of the story."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon frowns at her empty glass, then pushes it away and pulls the one full of better wine toward her. "Well then I'm not the baby. The whole point of being the baby is to be cut in half."

[futaille]

He takes another drink. "Then you can be Simon Zelotes, and be sawn in half all you like. Martyrdom is a bloody business, after all."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon snorts, dropping her head with the force of it. "Fuck, don't I know it." When she straightens up, she feels a little lightheaded, so she drinks more wine to fix it.

[futaille]

He nods. "It's a strange thing, people throwing themselves at death so eagerly."