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paradoxcase · 5 months

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Chapter 8 of Nona the Ninth and John 15:23

I wonder if this identifies you as a specific sort of person, or if radios are common? Hand-sized radios apparently exist, so it could just be a word they use to refer to something like a cell phone (which is a radio, after all), or if it's like our world where we only refer to a very specific subset of two-way radios as "radios" and using one of those probably makes people think you're a cop? Kind of impossible to tell with Nona as the viewpoint character

I love that we've got this story that's full of necromancy and animated corpses and giant space monsters and body sharing and body swapping and soul cannibalism and we still get this 1000% relatable experience with a dog, even if it is a dog with six legs. I guess it's the middle legs he sometimes keeps folded up?

So they have meetings with BOE, and Corona is there, but otherwise doesn't really see Nona, I guess probably because Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes don't consider her a friend anymore, but Corona was there when Nona first arrived

So, 15:23 is OW, so the message is now unexpectedly THE TOW instead of THE TOM like I would have guessed

So there were two separate events here - first John I guess discovered or unlocked or something general necromancy and his eyes turned gold, and that apparently affected his actual DNA in some way. Then he later achieved a form of Lyctorhood with Alecto and got her eyes instead. Only, I seem to remember that Ianthe didn't master preventing things from rotting until after she became a Lyctor. Maybe she just wasn't good at that beforehand, sort of like how Harrow just wasn't a master flesh magician? Or does that actually require Lyctor powers? And yeah, they obviously don't remember this if they didn't realize that Alecto's eyes were originally John's

The same Augustine who had Ianthe's bone arm gilded? Yeah, that sounds about right

Adam naming the animals vibes?

So she was a contract lawyer, yeah, that makes sense that she would put in a "break clause" for her House to leave the Empire if necessary

This is also something that I think is only a Lyctor power, and I don't think even Lyctors can feel dead bodies, can they? Or else Harrow would have known for sure whether or not Cytherea was under her bed. But John said he would have been able to feel Cytherea's body after he said it wasn't on the Mithraeum anymore. Come to think of it, I don't think we ever resolved why John thought he could do that but wasn't able to, because clearly Wake didn't go anywhere. Anyway, the thing with moving the bodies from the other side of the room is basic shit for regular necromancers, I think, but I think this, and possibly the keeping the bodies from rotting thing is advanced. So I'm not sure which specific powers/power level are associated with the gold eyes at this point

So Ulysses and Titania were already dead even before whatever happened to kill everyone, John never even knew them the first time they were alive. And he thought it would be cool to just randomly give them new names? And he named Ulysses after a dog? Look, I don't care how much you liked the dog, you don't name people after dogs, even if the dog was named after a person. They were his special bodies that he got attached to while doing his project, but he wasn't attached enough to their actual names to keep them?

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth

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iviarellereads · 1 year

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Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 24

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one!)

(Sixth House icon) In which Gideon makes a terrible joke.

Everyone's heads followed the sound--except for Ianthe Tridentarius, who was lounging in her chair with one eyebrow raised, and Naberius Tern, who had issued the challenge.(1)

Tern jumps onto the table as Coronabeth says, faintly, that no, he doesn't. Ianthe says this is Corona's chance for a facility key, isn't it? Judith's face has "an expression of grim alarm" as she's putting pressure on her cavalier's injuries, and says they have no cause. Either Ianthe or Naberius(2) says neither did Judith, really. Judith protests that she was trying to save lives, and they're just giving in to chaos, and there are rules to follow. Ianthe says that no, Judith has proven quite effectively that there are not rules, only the challenge and the answer.

Ianthe looks at Corona, who "was somewhere beyond fury and shame now, and had lost every atom of her poise", and says this may be the only chance they have, and not to feel bad, because "what can you do?" Corona's struggle drops, and she seems filled with exhaustion and relief. Gideon realizes they've lost her when she says "I can do nothing."(3)

Camilla stands, the handkerchief tied on her arm wound already showing blood. Gideon, experiencing the powerful emotion of "being sick of everyone's shit", draws her rapier and pulls on her knuckle knives, and looks at Harrow, willing her to, for the first time in either of their lives, do what Gideon needs her to do.

Harrow, to her credit, understands, and says boredly that "The Ninth House will represent the Sixth House," as if it's preplanned. Gideon could sing and dance, but instead breaks into an unnervingly large smile at Naberius Tern. Ianthe asks when Ninth became "bosom"(4) with Sixth. Harrow says they aren't, but when probably-Ianthe-again begins to ask "Then-" she's cut off.

Harrowhark said, in the exact sepulchral tones of Marshal Crux: "Death first to vultures and scavengers."

At this, Jeannemary bursts into action, jumping up onto the table to declare that after they face Ninth, Sixth will face Fourth, declaring, "Fidelity, and the Emperor!"

Naberius sheathes his rapier and knife, "rolling his eyes so hard that they ought to have fallen backward into his sinuses." He says he should have stayed home to be married off, not come here. Ianthe snaps that no one was offering anyway, and Silas says that if they're all done, he and Colum are going to search for Protesilaus. Palamedes says their search will no doubt include the keys they've taken, in doors they've been unable to open. Silas says he has no interest in speaking to Palamedes anymore, as "an unfinished inbred who passed an examination." He adds that Camilla is a "mad dog" and he doubts that she's even a real cavalier primary.(5)

Eighth thusly retreats like two people reluctant to turn their back to a room full of enemies.

Palamedes walks over to Harrow and says there's only one more key. Harrow frowns and asks, one more to be claimed? No, Palamedes clarifies, they're all claimed. He's been through every challenge except the one he wouldn't do for Septimus. Gideon and Isaac put the pieces of this conversation together at the same time, but it's Isaac who asks what happens if you go through a challenge that someone else already completed. Palamedes says, you get nothing but the challenge of the puzzle. Jeannemary calls it a waste of time, but Palamedes says it's still instructional as to what the intent of the program is. He appeals to Harrow, who says that the challenges she's done so far have forced her to consider new ideas. Palamedes compares it to someone showing you a new sword move, but not giving you the book about how it works. Camilla, Gideon, and Jeannemary all give him A Look, and Jeannemary asks, horrified, if Sixth learns swordfighting from books. Camilla says no, he just hasn't been to the sword training spire since he got lost when he was five and…

Before Palamedes can protest that, Harrow grabs the reins of the conversation, and says that the challenge without the theorem can only suggest possibilities, not reveal purposes. Isaac intuits that the theorems are behind the locked doors, then, so one needs the keys for the doors to progress. Everyone else stares at the teens, and Jeannemary says they know about the doors, they've seen people going through them, but they haven't been able to do anything else. Palamedes says nothing stopped them from getting their own facility key, but Isaac says that Abigail asked them to wait for her.(6)

Palamedes confirms that there are eight doors, one for each House, and they each have notes on their respective theorems. Put together they presumably create a larger whole: the secret of Lyctorhood.

Jeannemary finally catches up to the conversation properly and asks what Palamedes meant by there being one more key. Palamedes says he's been keeping track of the amount and distribution of keys, but he wasn't sure how many Dulcinea had. Silas showed them her keyring with two unique keys on it, which means there's one left that he didn't account for, and they have to figure out where it is.

Camilla says they need to find the seventh cav, and Pal adds they have to work out who's in the incinerator. As much as he hates to admit it, Ianthe was right: there was more than one body in there. Isaac says Fourth's priority is solving Magnus and Abigail's murder. Palamedes says warmly that he thinks answering the other questions will help explain that one, and tells Harrow that Protesilaus was in the facility last night. Isaac and Jeannemary say they saw him go in, and Harrow says it makes sense, given that Dulcinea said "He didn't come back," before she fainted, and her keyring had only challenge keys, no hatch access.

Jeanne is all for going down into the facility to find Protesilaus right off, but Palamedes says they should split up, as he would prefer not to leave Septimus unguarded. Harrow is confused, why does she need a guard if her keys are gone? Camilla says she's vulnerable, and Palamedes points out that Abigail and Magnus had no keys when they were murdered, therefore the reasons for all the events leading up to today are in flux, and now his cav is injured. He's planning to wet himself "lavishly" until she's healed up, with everything else in play. Isaac giggles, but Camilla says it's only her right hand. Palamedes says, more like his right hand.

Harrow asks what Palamedes suggests for splitting the party. He responds that Fourth and Gideon stay with Dulcinea, and Sixth and Harrow go into the facility to search. He gets more than one bewildered stare, and Harrow herself asks why he would put himself and his injured cavalier into a position to be overwhelmed by Harrow alone. Palamedes says he's placing trust in her, because if she wanted his keys by force, she'd have challenged him long ago. Gideon, who knows Harrow, sees her go from ashen to nauseous green. Nobody else would notice, but it's like fireworks going off.

Finally, Harrow agrees to the split, but says she and Sixth should stay with Dulcinea, as Camilla's injury makes her even more vulnerable down in the facility. Palamedes agrees, and asks if Fourth are alright with the plan. Isaac looks at Jeannemary, who says Gideon's "all right", and the rumours about the Ninth House are probably bullshit anyway. Gideon's heart flutters, despite Harrow's getting in the way of her sitting with Dulcinea.

Finally, Palamedes asks if Gideon has any thoughts on the situation.

She cracked the joints in the back of her neck as she considered the question, stretching out the ligaments, popping her knuckles. He urged again, "Thoughts?" "Gideon said, "Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get 'Sex Pal'?" The dreadful teens both stared with eyes so wide you could have marched skeletons straight through them. "You--do you talk?" said Isaac. "You'll wish she didn't," said Camilla.

Harrow passes over the Ninth keyring, telling Gideon to "Come back with these or having choked on them," and to be careful of the Fourth because children's prefrontal cortexes haven't finished developing.(7) Gideon hugs Harrow tightly, pulling her up off the ground, before she or Harrow know what she's doing. Her brain finally catches up to her arms and she puts Harrow back down and thanks her "midnight hagette"(8) for backing her up. Harrow has gone limp and glassy-eyed like an animal faking death, but snaps at Gideon to not make this weird, before going over to Palamedes.

Jeannemary shyly comes up to Gideon and asks if she and Harrow have been paired for long, as Isaac braids her hair. Gideon thinks about the braid, and about Palamedes tending Camilla's wound. Gideon still isn't sure what the relationship between cavalier and necromancer is supposed to be, but she says "It feels like forever," and puts on her sunglasses(9) before suggesting they get moving.

=====

(1) Not who you expected? Or is it? (2) Like Ianthe, since she spoke last of the two, and she speaks next of them. (3) Is this an innocent usage of the phrase… or did Ianthe mean something else, and does Corona mean more in her response than mere acquiescence to a dominant sibling's will? (4) I assume this is related to "bosom buddies" or "bosom friends", implying an intimately close friendship. (5) Isn't that funny, given, y'know, Gideon. (6) So they knew about the keys before the night they died, so… why did they wait until then to go and get their own? Especially since we know Abigail's academic work was related to Lyctors, from that snippet at the dinner party, and the letters at the beginning of this story said explicitly that the Emperor was looking for new Lyctors. (7) Harrow is 17 and Gideon is 18 so theirs haven't finished either, for what that's worth. (8) Like, a miniature hag, because Harrow is so tiny. (9) Doesn't quite fit the "clever quip, put on sunglasses" meme from CSI Miami but I'm counting it as close enough.

#the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #gtn #gideon the ninth spoilers #gtn spoilers #gideon nav #ianthe tridentarius #naberius tern #coronabeth tridentarius #judith deuteros #harrowhark nonagesimus #jeannemary chatur #silas octakiseron #camilla hect #isaac tettares #palamedes sextus

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mercyisms · 2 years

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Yeah like I don't know that the avulsion trial was meant to be impossible to complete (Pal thought so, but. siphoning and general death fields are close to but not exactly his area of expertise, and the risk/reward math is shit and also offends his soul. I don't know how long he spent trying to explic that one.) but I am interested in Harrow's stated belief that it shouldn't have been possible to *create*. (also in how at least some of the original pairs seem to have been really collaborative!)

I want to add to the cocktail of Palamades Arithmetic -- Palrithmetic, if you will -- is that 'Dulcinea' is the one who brings him into the room, no? Which I'm sure was also extremely fucking with his head. But yes. I think I've made a scattered argument throughout a few posts and tags that I'm also highly skeptical that the trial is meant to be impossible, and I think you're bang on about a) it's neither Pal, Harrow, or Ianthe's (though she does reverse engineer the necessary lesson) area of expertise and b) they've all decided it's a highstakes competition against each other where they can only sparingly share research and aren't meant to collaborate. (I might be misremembering but I remember there being a moment where Cytherea asks "why does everyone keep saying that" re: the trials behind competitive, which indicates they were not necessarily intended to be framed that way.) The passage I can find is:

“Stupidity, then, not generosity. You just told me you can’t complete it. Nothing would stop my House from completing it without you.”

“It took me a long time to work out the theoretical parameters,” said Dulcinea, “so I wish you the best of luck. Because even though I’m dying—there’s nothing wrong with my brain.”

Which I think further bolsters the fact that this is an archaic magic creation that Pal and Harrow might need a lot more time to crack on their own. They might not even arrive at its parameters, given that Harrow would've ruled this out as impossible, etc. The clincher is, for me, that both Cytherea and Ianthe (the only two people at Canaan who have, at the time of their respective commentaries, successfully siphoned as per the trial's guidance) both say that the 8th could do the trial (Cytherea) and that step in the mega theorem (Ianthe) very easily. In the replies or tags of my previous posts, really good "counter-facts" have been raised. Including that the 8th seems fundamentally against lyctorhood as a matter of law, and where is that coming from? But I don't think it lines up (and tbh I think it cheapens) with Mercy's arc to say she always meant for that trial to be impossible. What I'm seeing is that a) she has some weird magic that has since fallen out of use and b) the Eighth itself are custodians of both what is now considered fringe magical practices and some very specific relationship regarding siphoning and lyctorhood (chicken and egg situation when it comes to which goes first). Which is a long way of saying I am 100% drinking the kool-aid that it can't be done and I am more desperate than ever for Tamsyn Muir to take us to the Eighth (this is never happening, probably) or at the very least give me a coda on how magic evolved there, how hands on Mercy was (potentially not very!!), and also how she and Cristabel built her trial, please.

#i clearly just need to reread gtn again with a particular focus on this but #hmm buzzing #impossible to create is such a good distinction i hadn't really parsed and now... i am thinking i am thinking #can someone unearth silas' diary please i'm desperate to know #asks

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griddleharkakalockedtombbrainrot · 2 years

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The Griddlehark Reincarnation Fic that My Ass Is Too Lazy To Write Properly

Everyone who’s read my ramblings in other fandoms knows that I am a slut for reincarnation fics. I think it’s the blend of angst I can have while also picking up the pieces at the end and giving people a happy ending. So, I posit this idea for consideration: in a very fucked up series of events that starts due to the general misunderstandings that plague Gideon and Harrow, Harrow thinks that Gideon is in love with Coronabeth.

Because Harrow canonically hates herself and generally assumes no one could possibly genuinely love her, she concludes that this was inevitable. After all, she’s a monster, made up of two hundred screaming souls of the Ninth, and in another universe, Gideon could have been one more. Gideon has died and suffered because of her. It was only a matter of time before she realized she could do better. It doesn’t mean that seeing Corona on Gideon’s arm doesn’t hurt, but Harrow has concluded that sometimes, if you love someone, it’s best to let them go. For once in her life, Harrow has decided to let go. If it means Gideon is happy, she’ll find a way to cope. Because at least this way, she’ll know Gideon is alive, and thriving in a way the Ninth never allowed her to do. The only thing standing in the way of Gideon being happy is Harrow. She knows that as long as she remains in the picture, Gideon will stay, because she’s infuriating and loyal like that. So the only thing to do is step out of the picture.

Meanwhile, Gideon is literally just trying to get advice on how to sweep Harrow off her feet. Corona is loving this, and Ianthe is in the background being bitchy and giving shitty advice that Gideon will take under absolutely no circumstances. Palamedes is like, “For fuck’s sake, just talk to her!” But, well...it’s Gideon and Harrow. These two have no idea how to communicate like functional people because they grew up on the Ninth, the place where love and normal healthy emotions go to die. But now God is dead, and they’re all trying to establish a new order, and the only thing Gideon is even remotely certain of is that she wants to be with Harrow.

Abigail can tell that Harrow is heading towards a bad headspace. She didn’t spend all that time interrupting AUs for nothing. While Gideon is getting shitty advice, Abigail is watching Harrow withdraw from everyone, and she knows something bad is going to happen. “Gideon, dear, when was the last time you spoke to Harrowhark?”

“Umm...”

“You should consider speaking to her, and soon.”

“Why, is she okay?” Gideon is suddenly on high alert, and reaches for the bond, only to find that Harrow has walled her off. “What...?! She’s blocked me out!”

“She’s been pulling away recently.”

“Shit!” Gideon races towards the rooms that have somehow become “their space.” Harrow’s side of the space is empty for the first time since they started sharing these quarters. Books are carefully put away, notes and papers tucked neatly into notebooks, stacked to be out of the way. Harrow’s bed has been stripped, and for all intents and purposes, her belongings have been packed up. Gideon was already starting to panic before this, but now there’s no holding it back. “Harrow!”

She tears through hallways, shouting for her necromancer. Any minute now, she keeps hoping she’ll see Harrow’s painted face glowering at her around the next corner, hands on her hips, and saying, “For fuck’s sake, Griddle! Quit making such a racket!” But she never does.

Eventually, she’s turned the place upside down looking for her necromancer, and she can’t breathe. The last time Harrow disappeared like this, she found her unconscious in a bone cocoon. The last time Harrow disappeared like this, they were both in the wrong bodies, and Harrow’s soul was nowhere to be found. Gideon can’t stomach losing her again.

“Ninth.” Gideon turns to find Camilla Hect striding towards her, holding out an envelope with her name written across it in Harrow’s scrawl. Gideon can’t help but recall the last time she received an envelope with that scrawl. But she still reaches out and takes it, her heart climbing up into her throat. With shaking hands, she opens it.

Gideon:

If you’re reading this, then I am gone. Do not look for me. You will not find me where I’m going. We both know that this is how it was always going to end. The Emperor, the Necrolord Prime, is gone, and the universe is a different place now. You are free of the Ninth House. Perhaps more importantly, you are free of me. I’m not good with feelings, Nav. You know that. The only thing the Ninth ever taught us is that emotion is weakness and will be our ruin. For me, perhaps that was correct. Then again, I am an abomination. You, Griddle, are not. The strength of your heart is the reason I am still here after all this time. Make no mistake: the Nine Houses were saved because of you. We got out bodies back because of you. Sextus is alive again because of you. I may have held the power, but none of it would have been possible if you had not insisted that it must be done. I meant it when I said that you were the best of us.

Because you are the best of us, it is only fair to say that I am the worst of us, and because of that, I must let you go. I meant it when I said that I am undone without you, that I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it. I love you, Gideon. I love you as much as something like me can be said to love anyone. But you are life, and I am death. We nearly destroyed each other as children, and my actions at Canaan House nearly doomed you. I then compounded that sin when I sought to save you by erasing you from my memory. Instead, I nearly damned both of us. You saved us. You stormed the River and woke me from my complacent slumber, and you fought God and won. I fear that if I do not let you go, I will destroy you. So, Gideon: I ask that you let me go, and I will also let you go. I ask forgiveness for everything that lies between us, for all of the pain that both my House and I caused you.

You deserve happiness, Gideon, and I hope you find it with Coronabeth. I wish you joy beyond imagination, and I wish you peace.

“What the fuck?” Gideon looks up from the letter. “Did you read this?”

“No. What does it say?” Camilla’s eyes are narrowed, flitting between the paper Gideon is crushing in her hand and Gideon’s face, which is filled with terror.

“Fucking hell, Nonagesimus!” Gideon’s eyes are desperate. “Have you seen her today?”

“No. Ninth, what the hell is happening?”

“I fucked up, Cam, that’s what happened.” Gideon’s breaths are shallow and coming in panicked gasps. “She’s leaving, and I don’t know where she’s going...”

Pain spears up behind her eyes, white hot, and she feels something tear in her soul. She forgets to breathe, and her vision goes grey.

She comes to with Palamedes hovering over her, face drawn. “Sex Pal,” she croaks. She looks around for her necromancer. Harrow has to be somewhere nearby...she’s always close when Gideon wakes up feeling like this. She frowns in confusion as she glances around the room and can’t catch a glimpse of black robes or a painted face. She reaches for the bond and...nothing. Just a ragged, torn emptiness where once there was Harrow.

Palamedes watches her gravely, seeming to know what, or rather who, she’s looking for. “I’m sorry, Ninth,” he says, and his voice is so compassionate that Gideon wants to scream. And his next words shatter whatever’s left of her: “She’s gone.”

***

The explanation comes to her in bits and pieces through the fog of pain that settles over her. Harrow left her. She’d seen her with Corona in a...compromising position (Corona had been draped on top of her, explaining how best to get a shy person into bed), and had concluded that Gideon was in love with the Princess of the Third House. And she’d decided to step down gracefully rather than raging as she had in the past. Because somehow, she’d believed that Gideon didn’t love her. Hell, Gideon had died for her, had fought the River itself to get her back, had killed God because he hurt her, and her fucking stupid ass had still thought Gideon would choose Corona. And so she’d gone to the deepest, cruelest part of the River and let it take her and rip her apart. The pain before she’d passed out had been Harrow dying.

While she’d been running about like a fucking idiot, Harrow had been seeking her death, because she’d somehow managed to miss the fact that she was Gideon’s reason for living. Now she was gone.

The first few weeks are a blur. Gideon spends all of them in bed, alternating between gut wrenching nightmares of Harrow in the River, surrounded by revenants with Alecto’s face, being ripped apart and making no move to fight back and dreams of Harrow walking away from her, with her being helpless to stop it. She wakes from all of them screaming Harrow’s name. She’s vaguely aware of Camilla or Palamedes trying to get her to eat, of Abigail trying to do something to ease the pain of the broken soul bond, but none of it matters. Harrow is gone.

Finally, Camilla has had enough. Somehow, she manages to force Gideon out of bed and into the sonic, forces her to eat, and generally bullies her into living again. “You don’t stop living because she’s dead,” she snaps. “She wanted you to live, so that’s what you’re going to do.”

Eventually, Gideon goes to the banks of the River, despite everyone else saying she shouldn’t. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for. It’s not like Harrow will be waiting for her. She sure as hell wasn’t expecting to see Alecto.

“What do you want?” she asks bitterly. The last thing she wants is to speak with the now living form of Harrow’s only true love. It’s bad enough that Harrow went off and died and left her: she really doesn’t want to to deal with Alecto on top of it.

“She loved you, you know,” Alecto’s voice is quiet. “When she stepped into the reincarnation cycle, she did it because she wanted you to live without what she saw as her interference.”

Reincarnation? “I thought her soul was destroyed.”

“Oh, it was. But then it was rebuilt. Eventually, she’ll be reborn as someone entirely new.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“When she stepped into the reincarnation cycle, she ceased to be Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Those two hundred souls and that spark of self that made Harrowhark herself were all separated and allowed to do as fate wills it. But that spark lives on, and will eventually come back into the world.” Seeing Gideon’s face, Alecto states, firmly: “She will never again be the Harrowhark you knew. There will be differences. But that core spark will remain.”

“How long will it take?”

“Oh, it could happen in six months or a thousand years. There’s no real way to know. John always tended to micromanage, but we know how that ended.”

Gideon turns back to face the River, searching the waters for a glimpse of Harrow. Could she find a way to love another version of Harrow? Could she love a Harrow that wasn’t a wicked little bone witch?

Yes, yes, I can. At her core, Harrow was a stubborn, proud, temperamental genius. There’s no way that will change. But could she wait? Could she wait for Harrow to be born anew while knowing that her Harrow, the one she had loved and hated in equal measure, often all at once, was gone? Yes, she decides. She can live with changes, as long as Harrow is out there somewhere.

***

A thousand years pass. We’ll say for the sake of plot that Palamedes, Camilla, Gideon, and the rest of the main cast somehow became immortal. They have a tentative peace with Blood of Eden, and necromancy has slowly phased out in favor of other types of magic. Gideon is in charge or at least in some position of power. Maybe there’s a school where people go to learn necromancy’s more stable offshoots and everyone spends a lot of time there. One day, a petite, slender girl with a face that is a dead ringer for Harrow’s shows up. Except this face has never seen facepaint, and her hair is long, flowing down to her waist. She’s a healer, stern and reserved, but soft in a way she never was before. Gideon knows her soul instantly, but after a thousand years of waiting, she’s afraid one wrong move will cause her to lose Harrow all over again.

For her part, the reincarnated Harrow feels drawn to the General who is said to have been around for over a thousand years. Those golden eyes feel strangely familiar, but there’s a sadness in them that part of her says shouldn’t be there. She’s also heard the whispers that the General loved someone, but that person left her over a misunderstanding, leaving her heartbroken. As she gets closer to Gideon, Harrow falls more deeply in love, but hesitates to admit it, because after all, Gideon loves someone who’s been gone for a thousand years. Pal needs a drink.

#tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #harrow nonagesimus #gideon nav #fanfiction #reincarnation fic #writing #i need help

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ghostmartyr · 3 years

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/clears throat/ so, Immi, I hear you like the locked tomb, which is fantastic! from one person also escaping the snk series into TLT to another, what did you think of the characters and plot in HtN? are there any things you're most excited to see when Alecto comes out in 2022?

-pats lifeboat- This baby can fit so much trauma.

SPOILERS, naturally.

With another paragraph informing the curious that unspoiled is the way to go into HtN, since if you aren’t lost and confused, are you really reading Harrow the Ninth?

I read it all in one day, and that was a choice. It does mean my memory and understanding of what all went on is slightly dependent on someone else on the internet exploding over a particular set of paragraphs and explaining their significance to me, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

HtN disappointed me on one front in that I was hoping seeing more of Harrow 1.0 would help out any future fic endeavors. On everything else, like the first one, being told the story is such a good time that I’m willing to wait on a full comprehension of where it’s going.

I also really like second person.

What I loved most about HtN is how even without Gideon mentioned until very, very late in the book, you can feel her absence everywhere. In the wrong bubble flashbacks you’re commanded to examine the strangeness, but even in Harrow going about her day, the isolation and the wrongness of it decorate her every action. She’s alone, and she shouldn’t be, and the loss she’s unaware of bleeds into a constant echo of grief.

I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated absence as a narrative tool so much. Obviously griddlehark hours go hard once they start in HtN, but even before then, there is so much power to their connection that looking into a world where it never exists still manages to punch you in the heart with how much each one inhabits everything the other is.

The whole series is amping me up with a few thoughts on loneliness, honestly. Gideon and Harrow grow up alone on the Ninth, save for each other. It takes leaving for that to be any kind of good thing. The first book is tag team Among Us with everyone in their little clusters, slowly learning what other people are about as they all drop dead.

The second book has a different vibe and different plot things going on, but it’s similar in that the protagonist gets thrown into a world they don’t fit and have to put on a show. Only now there are even fewer people to familiarize with, with that number correlating directly to how they all killed the person closest to keeping them from being alone.

Lyctorhood is taking the person dearest to your heart and trapping them there forever while they’re stripped of everything that made them who they are.

...Also Ianthe is there.

Gideon, Mercy, and Augustine are the last Lyctors standing after 10,000 years. There were only seven, starting out. Sixteen acolytes who came to the First. The only pair who didn’t succeed in condensing themselves is separated from the pack and sent to live away from their peers on a tiny planet that no one has anything good to say about.

Alecto is John’s -- who even knows, past A Lot, and he puts her to sleep and locks her in a prison no one but he can get past.

God has seven friends. More if you want to count the people in the Cohort, but realistically, he has seven friends. Then they keep dying.

Harrow spends HtN in a spaceship with five people.

One is trying to kill her.

One ordered that one to try to kill her.

Two could not care less about the useless baby Lyctor.

One is Ianthe.

There is no real endgame. There is surviving life, and life has become a game of running as far away as possible so you don’t share your ruin upon your inevitable death.

It’s bleak and sad.

Harrow’s healthiest relationships are with dead people, and some of them she didn’t know at all in life.

Reiterating it, the most plot significant bit of the world is finding someone else in the world, swearing yourself to them, and smashing your souls together until you’ve lost the connection entirely.

My brain’s not in the best place so I can’t do more than gesture loudly at it, but a few people have mentioned that the series’ thesis is a counter to Ianthe’s statement that love is acquisitive.

Harrow tightens her hold around Gideon until Gideon would rather she just strangle her and get it over with, all things considered. It fucks them both up, and when they start working to get past it, circumstance wraps a chain around both their throats.

The necromancers who become imperfect Lyctors have all acquired their cavaliers, and besides the cav, it kills that bond.

Harrow’s rejection of that is why Gideon’s soul is still in the world of the living (and John blood).

She has spent her entire life eating pieces of Gideon to keep herself a horrid imitation of whole, and when she is finally offered that, she refuses.

Grief and how Harrow just can’t are active elements of the book, and Magnus gives her more therapy in five minutes talking about it than she has ever had in her life, but the reason why that isn’t the end of Gideon is because, unlike all the other Lyctors, Harrow turns the offer down.

With the exception of Babs and Ianthe, the relationship between cavaliers and necros about to do the Lyctor thing is cavaliers promising to burn for an eternity while their necromancer lives off the fumes.

Fuck that is Harrow’s response.

Cytherea says, in the aftermath, that they had the choice to stop.

Harrow stops.

A lifetime of doing exactly what Gideon is telling her to do with her death, and Harrow chooses to stop.

Harrow remembers Ortus’ poetry. She regularly sees her congregation off to their deaths. She keeps Gideon’s glasses. She views Palamedes, head exploded and all, as an infinitely better person than she is because of the quality of his exemplary character. She pulls Gideon the First from the incinerator on the night she plans to kill him.

Kiddo has so many fucking issues, but somewhere, she has learned to respect people for being people. That’s why she and Gideon are the heroes of the story, ultimately, and Ortus saying that they’re heroes worthy of the Ninth doesn’t fall flat. They’re actually trying.

Where that puts us for Alecto, I don’t pretend to know.

Since the first book is the temptation of an end to isolation, only to have it snatched away, the second book is the continuation of isolation with a few promising sparks of human connection that pave the way for hope...

That leaves the third book to shed the isolation and allow the connections to thrive.

With Gideon and Harrow MIA.

I know that the books kick things up into high gear in the final acts each time, but if they’re both gone for the majority of the book, no matter how much fun it is, I’m going to miss them. They’re the core leads, and I don’t want to be without them in the final part.

The 2022 release date has aged my soul. I deliberately planned my GtN read to land a month before HtN came out, then suffered when that was delayed. When really that was nothing at all. I hate waiting.

(Insert note that I’m very glad they aren’t forcing Muir to rush anything out. It’s been a rough time, but also, just in general authors should have the opportunity to create the best versions of their art they can, so the extra time hurts, but it’s obviously for the best.)

What I’m most excited for is probably the cover art. The first two have been awesome, and the artist said he’d likely do print sales for all three when the third’s revealed. My wallet cries but my heart does not.

What I dare not be excited for is the potential for Gideon and Harrow meeting again and perhaps hugging. In their own bodies.

I’d take other bodies, but ideally, y’know.

Also I would love for Harrow to finally meet her popsicle girlfriend.

I doubt it would be a wholly positive experience, but by golly I want it. Maybe they could hug too. It would probably kill Harrow again, but who doesn’t expect several people to die again in the third book?

However it plays out, I’m expecting to enjoy AtN. The writing’s the sort that I’ll happily follow wherever it goes. For everything else, there’s fanfic. The only real worry I have is the whole book will be narrated by Ianthe, and while I mentally groan at that, I actually find Ianthe’s commentary delightful, so even in the worst case scenario I’m having a good time.

Thank you so much for the ask.

#Harrow the Ninth #Gideon the Ninth #The Locked Tomb #asks #oh I don't have an ask tag for the tomb yet #should work on that #tl;dr #viva la pluto

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vateacancameos · 3 years

Text

I Won't Let You Let Me Down So Easily

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Fandom: The Locked Tomb Trilogy Pairing: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus Tags: Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Post-Gideon the Ninth, Post-Harrow the Ninth, Pre-Slash, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, they're working on the lovers part, POV Gideon Nav, Gideon watches Harrow Word Count: 1804 Part 2 of the Watching series (read Part 1 here)

For all of her short years of life, Gideon Nav has never wanted anything more than to ignore the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. To pretend she doesn’t exist. Unfortunately for Gideon—and the entirety of the Ninth—Harrowhark Nonagesimus has made that impossible from day one. She’s always there, one step away from Gideon, not looking at her, but making her own presence known, making sure she’s seen. That shrill, commanding tone is there from the moment she says her first word. Bones follow her every command, and she’s a tiny tyrant in black and wearing a painted mask. Where she is, skeletons follow, and Gideon is left behind, bloodied and beaten on the floor.

She never asked for this. She’s never wanted to be the bane of everyone’s existence. In fact, she tries her hardest to get away, time and time and time and time again. But Harrow demands an audience, and with most of the House being blinded from old age, Gideon is the one forced to watch. So she watches. Mostly, she watches her back, but over time, she watches just to see. What she’s looking for, she’s not sure.

She’s never wanted this, so why does a part of her now ask for it?

***

(read the rest under the cut)

***

Somehow Gideon isn’t surprised that even in the afterlife, she’s forced to watch Harrow. The Dark Mistress of Drearburh is a necromancer after all. If Gideon couldn’t get away from her during any of her eighty-seven escape attempts in life, it’s doubtful a little something like lacking a body would stop Harrow from forcing her to stay.

The really annoying part is that this time, Gideon actually does want to watch, but she’s got less a front-row seat and more like she’s using binoculars turned backwards so the thing she’s looking at is tiny and the lenses are smudged and she’s got cotton stuffed in her ears. She’s grateful for that when Ianthe tries her hand (haha, hand) at flirting with Harrow—she’s never felt such intense second-hand embarrassment in her life—but seeing what’s happening on The Mithraeum would be rather helpful right now.

Especially considering she isn’t allowed to do her job (protecting) thanks to one pointy-faced emo chick performing an at-home lobotomy with only a sociopathic princess to watch over her. Oh yeah, pre-surgery, Gideon could watch everything just fine. Why is it always that she’s forced to watch when she doesn’t want to, and she can’t watch when she does want to? She’s more than a little ticked by that.

No one ever asks her what she wants.

***

You know what’s really fucking annoying? Dying for your best frenemy so she can become the thing she’s wanted to become since she was four, then getting not only walled up in a tiny corner of Prissy McBitchFace’s brain, not only forced to see how awkward God is during tea time, not only stuck watching Harrow fumble her training and social interaction, but ALSO, unable to make her fucking necromancer work out or learn one single thing about a sword.

IT’S A FUCKING POMMEL, HARROWHARK. You can learn all the bones of the body by age two and a half, but you can’t learn the very few parts of a fucking sword? Sigh.

She’s being willfully ignorant on purpose. Gideon knows it.

***

You know what’s really fucking sad? Watching Harrowhark unable to function. Not just in her usual disconnected with reality and living in her special world where she’s the queen and everyone bows to her way. No, Harrow is … not Harrow. She’s barely human now (not that she was ever particularly human, more like a pointy, annoying bat), she’s paranoid (granted, someone is trying to kill her on the daily), she’s not sleeping, there are more wards in her tiny room than in all of the Ninth House, and she’s trying to … make soup?

It’s embarrassing to watch, and once again, Gideon is grateful her view is fuzzy and distant. Except that since she only gets a far-off snapshot of events a few times a day, she has lots of time to think and contemplate. And the more she thinks about it, the worse she feels. It’s sad, Harrow’s life is. And not in a oh she’s such a dork, how sad way, but more in a way that hurts Gideon’s heart, if Gideon had a heart still, which she guesses she doesn’t, not properly.

But still, she aches for Harrow. She wants to do her job, to be the big bad protector, but someone decided to be a selfish jerk and not let Gideon do the one thing she literally died to do.

Some people suck.

***

Swear to John (who’d’ve thought God’s name would be John), Gideon is really fucking tired of watching. At least when she was forced to watch Harrow in the past(life), she had a sword in her hands and a cocky smile on her face. Oh, what she’d give to go back to being able to watch and do, rather than watch and … watch, but not really watch, because time moves funny for her and it sounds like everyone is talking under water and faces are distorted (oh, no, wait, Ianthe’s face is always like that, nm).

She needs to be able to do again. She needs to force her dumb necromancer to get some sleep and then some exercise and then some brain surgery, in that order (what? squats are important). And then maybe learn the parts of the sword. SERIOUSLY, HARROW, HOW HARD IS POMMEL?

She wishes she had Harrow’s dumb army of constructs to fight. Even without a body, she has excess energy to get rid of and– HOLY SHIT. A CONSTRUCT JUST BURST OUT OF THE SKINNY/BUFF LYCTOR’S abdomen.

Okay, Harrow. You win this round.

***

Sleep does not help Harrowhark’s mood. She’s less of a zombie, sure, but she’s still a bit bananas. Watching her cut off Ianthe’s arm is pretty great, though (less great is watching her climb on top of Princess Bitch to do it). And the sex thing with God and two of the saints is … well, the jury is still out on that one. She actually got quite an eyeful of that scene. Perhaps all the wine allowed Gideon more freedom to move about in her necro’s brain.

None of that shocks her like watching Harrow save the lyctor whose been out to kill her for months. Gideon would definitely save him if she were in Harrow’s shoes (except she’d never be in those shoes because, one, they’re too small for her, and two, SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE A FUCKING SWORD). But even after everything that happened at Canaan House, and all that she’s seen of the disaster that is Harrow’s current life, watching Harrow save the man she’s absolutely bloody terrified of is … staggering.

Gideon’s not sure what to do with this information. Harrow with a normal human conscious is not something she thought she’d ever see. It’s not the Harrow she knew for seventeen years. It’s not the girl she fought tooth and nail with almost all of her life. It’s not the tiny mad genius who broke into the Tomb just to say she could. It’s not the tyrant who puppeteered her dead parents’ bodies for seven years for a power trip. It’s not the necromancer who longed for nothing more than to become a lyctor, even at every other person around hers expense.

It’s not the bone magician who performed possibly deadly surgery on her own brain rather than share soul space with the woman who died for her.

And if Harrow’s actions now say she’s not those things, then what else doesn’t Gideon know about her?

***

For once, Gideon is the watchee instead of the watcher.

Leave it to Sextus to be the one to see her.

***

Gideon takes it all back. She’d rather spend a myriad watching helplessly and foggily as her necromancer bumbles through life because she refuses to accept help in becoming a real lyctor. She’d love to go back to watching her make soup and avoid kisses with Tridentarius The Lesser and grimace at tea and cut her hair every three days and fuck up Gideon’s beloved two-hander by covering it in bone glue.

Because the alternative, of Harrow just up and leaving her body, which has just come to pass, is untenable. It’s wrong. Not just Gideon’s eyes and her WTF expression on Harrow’s face, but also the pure lack of Harrow in the room. For such a tiny little witch, she takes up a lot of space. She always has. It’s why Gideon had watched her their whole lives. Harrow would enter a room, and her presence would draw Gideon like a paperclip to a magnet. It was hateful, but it was comfortable, a known entity.

But Harrow being gone is so wrong.

Luckily, there are plenty of bug-human-acid-monster things that hold her attention for a time. That, and trying to figure out how to work Harrow’s limp noodle arms so that she can use a sword that weighs about the same as she currently does. As Gideon hacks and kicks and watches Harrow’s extremities regrow (trippy), she avoids thinking about why Harrow has left her. She fights Princess Peach and avoids thinking. She bickers (and maybe falls just a tiny bit in love) with Ianthe Tridentarius and avoids thinking. She listens to confessions twenty years in coming and avoids thinking. She finds her (very fucked up) family and avoids thinking. She (maybe?) befriends the lyctor who tried for nine months to kill her necromancer (except its actually not the lyctor anymore and she’s definitely going to have to learn more about that at some point when she’s no longer fighting for her [lyctor’s] life) and avoids thinking.

She’s going to have to think again at some point, but she’ll avoid it as long as she’s able.

***

When Gideon finally escapes and gets somewhere safe, she has time to watch again, and she hates it. She watches Harrow’s face in the mirror. She wills her necromancer to come back. She begs Harrow to come back. She paints the best skull she’s ever painted on Harrow’s face. She puts on the rust-black robes. She stares at the mirror and tries to find Harrow in the frown lines and pointy chin. But she’s not there, and it looks wrong. Gideon screams and punches the mirror. The broken flesh repairs instantly. She hates that. She needs the pain the last.

She has always associated pain with Harrow. The physical pain of their fights. The emotional pain of being unloved. If the pain is no longer there, does that mean Harrow is gone for good?

Gideon Nav’s eyes sting, and she watches the paint melt off Harrow’s face.

#locked tomb trilogy #fanfic #meagan writes #griddlehark #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth

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