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Cataclysmic Variable Star

Summary:

A continuation of the Harrow Nova AU from chapter 40 of Harrow the Ninth

Notes:

I realise a fic this long is a big time investment, so I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone that doesn't want that, but if you're the kind of person who likes to know what they're getting into, pop this into a rot-13 decoder:

Vg unf n unccl Tevqqyrunex raqvat

Also, check out this review on tumblr, with some bonus very cute art! https://lawnjarts.tumblr.com/post/650396961243119616/heyy-cataclysmic-variable-star-is-finished-holy

Chapter Text

In the myriadic year of our Lord, the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, our Resurrector, the full-pitying Prime! - the Reverend Daughter Gideon Nonagesimus sat on the sofa in her quarters and watched her cavalier read. She idly extended an arm over her head, stretching the triceps which were still a little sore from her last workout. She’d probably pushed them a touch too hard, but it was so difficult to find the time away from her duties as Reverend Daughter, that she had to make the most out of what time she could steal.

Her cavalier sat very upright in the chair by her dresser, which Gideon knew was less from the habit of good posture, (she could hear Aiglamene’s voice in her head, bemoaning his perpetual slump) and more from the decrepit state of the furniture. Like everything else in the Ninth, it was one breath away from expiring completely. Even Gideon was cautious when sitting in that chair (and caution was not something which came naturally to her), and while Ortus couldn’t match her biceps, he still had the advantage in sheer bulk.

No retainers. No attendants, no domestics,” read Ortus Nigenad, folding the paper with obsequious care. “Then I will wait on you alone, my Lady Gideon?” 

“None of that ‘my Lady’, stuff, Ortus. You know it makes me break out in hives. You only need to say that stuff when people are around. And yes, looks like it’ll be just you and me. Won’t that be thrilling for both of us?” About the only consolation Gideon had in this whole mess, was that she knew Ortus would be at least ten times as miserable about it as she was. 

“No Marshal Crux? No Captain Aiglamene?”

“No retainers. No attendants. They’re pretty clear on that front. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“My lady?” Ortus said, in a tone which indicated that it did not, in fact, make him wonder in the slightest. Gideon sighed.

“Cavaliers and necromancers only. It’s interesting, isn’t it? The First House is even more secretive than the Ninth. If they’ve got a bunch of dark, spooky mysteries that only the future lyctors can be allowed to see, then surely they’d invite just the heirs? If that’s not an issue, then why the restriction on bringing anyone else? Personally, I find it suspect.”

Ortus still seemed entirely uninterested in anything other than sitting in her sad, sagging chair, with his sad, sagging face, and sighing. Gideon did her best to be kind to him, but Lord Undying did he make it difficult sometimes.

After a moment, he said abruptly: “Lady, I cannot help you become a Lyctor.”

Maybe he’d been paying more attention to what she’d been saying than she thought. He’d always had a preternatural sense for danger, inasmuch as he contrived to be as far from it as possible at all times.

“I’m not terribly thrilled by the prospect either.”

“Then you agree with me! Good. I thank you for your mercy, Your Grace.”

“Gideon,” Gideon interjected, with little hope that he’d finally listen and drop the stupid titles.

“I cannot represent you in a formal duel, not with the sword, nor the short sword, nor the chain. I cannot stand in a row of cavaliers primary and call myself their peer. The falsehood would crush me. I cannot begin to conceive of it. I will not be able to fight for you, my Lady Gideon.”

Gideon sighed. “Ortus. Come on, I’m not a monster. You’ve known me my whole life. What have I ever done to make you think I’d willingly put you in that position? If anyone wants a duel with the Ninth, I’ll punch them in the face. That should shut them up pretty fast.”

Ortus - sad, placid Ortus - did not even raise an eyebrow at the impropriety she suggested, but merely barrelled forwards, as though he’d rehearsed this speech many times in his head.

She was fairly certain he had rehearsed this conversation in his head - that was just the sort of thing he did, and it was one more reason why they were so ill-suited to each other as to represent a cosmic joke. Gideon suspected many things of being a cosmic joke at her expense. Not least her being named as Reverend Daughter - the only people more dismayed at her position than she was were the Reverend Father and Mother who, bereft of better choices, had spent her whole life trying to mould her into some approximation of dull Ninth House piety, and their daughter who had grown up expecting to hold the title herself, until her utter lack of necromantic aptitude had been revealed.

At the thought of Harrow, Gideon shook her head impatiently. She wasted too much time thinking of the daughter she’d ousted, and it made her cranky. Unfortunately, it was a crankiness she was unwilling to take out on poor Ortus, however tempting it was, or even on Harrow herself - the object of about ninety percent of Gideon’s bad moods - and which would have to wait until she had the privacy to lock herself in a room with a sword, and could conjure herself some bone constructs to beat up.

She glanced at the clock. Evening services would be in a few hours. After that she could sneak away and sacrifice a few hours’ sleep in the hopes of finding some peace. Sleeplessness was not unfamiliar to her - though if she started getting through their slim coffee rations any faster she’d end up having another blazing row with Marshall Crux about spending too much of the Ninth’s meagre treasury on ‘venal indulgences not befitting someone of her status’. Good job he’d never seen the invoices for her magazines.

With a stupendous effort, Gideon dragged her attention back to Ortus’ miserable monotone.

“... It is for my mother’s pride and my House’s scarcity that I call myself a cavalier. I have none of a cavalier’s virtues.”

“I know that, Ortus. I’m really not an idiot, you know.” Ortus cringed at this, and Gideon hurried to reassure him that she’d taken no offence, before he could begin the tiresome process of folding himself into guilty genuflection. She wasn’t sure his knees could take the strain, and she knew her patience couldn’t. “I know that isn’t what you meant, for goodness’ sake please don’t get into a flap.”

Ortus stopped short, having, in fact, clearly started building himself into a tremendous flap.

“You know I wouldn’t take you if I had another option.” It would have been an insult had she said such a thing to anyone else. For Ortus, it was probably the kindest thing anyone had said to him all week, which made Gideon feel sad herself, and tired, and more determined to hold onto the thin thread of her temper.

“Have you not considered…” Ortus began, and Gideon cut him off more harshly than she intended.

“No.”

“But, My Grace… her skill with a sword far exceeds…”

“Nope.”

“She would honour the Ninth…”

“By smothering me in my sleep? I don’t think so. We’ve discussed this before, Ortus. You and Harrow are the only two people in the Ninth who are even remotely close to me in age. At the Reverend Father’s instruction, I must have both a cavalier and a spouse. You’ll understand when I say I would rather drown myself in my own bile than fuck you, which makes you my cavalier by default.”

Damnit. She had lost her temper. Ortus looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be upset that the conversation wasn’t going how he’d planned, relieved at her continuing insistence that the worst she’d ask of him was to take up his sword - not her hand in marriage - or shocked that she had, once again, sullied the sacred position of Reverend Daughter with her foul mouth. 

She sighed. Again. Something about being in a room with Ortus Nigenad seemed to have that effect on her. The truth was, however poor a cavalier he was, she was just as ill-suited to the role of Reverend Daughter. Had she not been literally the only necromancer in the Ninth who was not ninety-five percent osteoporosis, her general demeanor would have ruled her out in a second.

Harrow would have made a great Reverend Daughter. She had just the right kind of stick up her ass…

Her brain, long accustomed to having to hastily stifle thoughts of Harrow’s ass, turned her attention back to the conversation at hand.

“You know, I really thought that she was going to say yes, the last time I proposed,” Gideon mused. “If we married, and produced an heir of our own, then she’d be Reverend Consort, at least. I hoped that - however much she hates me - she’d jump at the chance to do her duty and continue the Tombkeeper line. She’s all about that duty nonsense. Hell, I’d even let her conduct services, once the Reverend Father and Mother shuffle off. Lord knows I’m terrible at it.”

She was still trying to live down the three nuns who had expired of shock when she’d discovered some interesting records of pre-resurrection worship, and tried to incorporate electronically amplified necromantic music into a service. The songs had all been properly pious - she’d checked the lyrics carefully - but she’d still ended up with a month-long vow of silence for it. The only ‘rock’ allowed in the Ninth was the one which was to remain unrolled, covering the entrance of the Locked Tomb.

Ortus didn’t reply to her musings about Harrow. He’d learned quickly enough that the true daughter of the Reverend Mother and Father was the one subject guaranteed to make Gideon viciously snippy. 

Harrow drove Gideon absolutely nuts. She wasn’t sure which of them hated the fact that Gideon had been named Reverend Daughter more, but they'd spent much of their childhoods taking it out on each other. If not for a stupid hope that her and Harrow might find some common ground in training together - hah, what stupid, 7-year old wishful thinking that had been - she never would have picked up a sword, or bullied and blackmailed Aiglamene into showing her how to use it, with the threat that if Aiglamene refused, she’d carry on wielding her sword, just… badly. She’d figured out early that nothing broke Aiglamene’s heart quite the way that a poor stance did.

But, of course, Harrow had only seen it as an attempt to take one more thing away from her. Gideon hadn’t tried to learn the rapier, out of deference to Ortus’ fragile self-esteem, and, honestly, because who would fight with a toothpick when a two-hander was an option? Harrow had still seen it as a deathly insult that Gideon trained with a blade at all. An insult to Harrow herself, who was determined to be the only swordswoman of note in the House, excepting Aiglamene of course, and an insult to the whole Ninth that their heir should think to develop a skill that wasn't directly related to bones.

It had all been downhill from there. Gideon had been only marginally proper at her best. Between sneaking off for training with Aiglamene, and studying flesh magic, of all horrors, she’d been surprised that the Reverend Father and Mother hadn’t given up and just drowned her. In fact, whenever they summoned her to that creepy-ass ceremonial pool tucked away in their chambers, she almost wished that they would drown her. That pool was where they meted out their most vicious punishments, and told their most abominable secrets. The things she’d learned in that ice-cold water…

Oh, Gideon was well practiced at not thinking about things she didn’t want to.

“It’s no good, Ortus. You’re just going to have to come with me to the lyctor trials. I give you my word that I’ll make it as painless as I possibly can. You can sit in our quarters all day and write poetry, if you like.”

“My Lady…” Ortus quavered.

Gideon,” Gideon corrected, for the millionth time.

“I am feared for my life!”

“I’ll protect you, Ortus. I already told you - I won’t make you fight in any duels.”

“Not the trials, My Grace. I don’t believe I shall survive long enough to see the shuttle land to collect us!”

“Do you have a sniffle again?” Gideon was rapidly running out of patience for this conversation. She could feel irritation coiling inside her, and knew that if she didn’t let it out soon by smashing some skeletons or doing chin-ups until her arms were too weak to lift so much as a knuckle bone - she was going to say something she’d regret.

“It’s Harrow,” Ortus confessed, wretchedly. “She has gotten into her head the notion that the only way the Reverend Father and Mother will allow her to go with you as cavalier primary is if I am deceased.”

“I mean, probably accurate, but she hates me. I would have thought she’d be counting down the moments until I leave and praying to Anastasia that the shuttle explodes in transit.”

“She is determined to accompany you.”

“Come with me! Why? I mean… I guess there’s something romantic about the the idea of Harrow and I going away together. And it's not like she can avoid me if it's just the two of us! What do you think? If I let her come, do you reckon she’ll marry me then?”

“It is… unseemly to marry one’s cavalier primary.”

“Well, surprise! Unseemly is my middle name.” It was Ortus’ turn to sigh, though he couldn’t contradict her - if there was one thing Gideon Nonagesimus excelled at, it was impropriety. 

“Cheer up, Ortus. I'd never considered Harrow being my cavalier and my wife. That would be perfect! This way you’re off the hook completely.” A thought occurred to Gideon then. “You promise she isn’t planning to murder me the second the shuttle is out of atmosphere and I’ve got no thanergy to draw on?”

Ortus said nothing.

“You’re right,” Gideon concluded. “I’ll take my sword, just in case. False bottom in my trunk should do it. Hey, if Harrow is  going to be my cavalier primary, I’ve just thought of the absolute best pun to use in our wedding vows.”

“Puns aren’t exactly… traditional… My Grace.” Ortus pointed out, like the absolute killjoy he was. Gideon ignored him, and left to go find some scrap to start fashioning a false bottom for her trunk, whistling merrily, and mentally drafting wedding vows as she went.