Not really. It's just an envelope containing a pair of sunglasses. I couldn't tell you why.
[Anyway, memshare time. Sorry it's long, Vira just deserved something very gay and sad that also includes vore.
The memory begins in darkness, and when you come to, you feel the taste of blood in your mouth, the smell of blood in your nose - even your vision is red. You're in the remains of a marble atrium, now rubble and shattered bone and marble. You've missed part of a battle, as your memories come to you, your body weak and throbbing. You'd fought with every ounce of strength and power your body had and more; you invented, in the heat of battle, new theorems and new powers your parents and ancestors could only have dreamed of. You took your foe apart, piece by piece, until it was nothing but rubble and ash, and then you passed out.
But your foe is Cytherea, one of the emperor's fists and gestures, a Lyctor, a being of unfathomable power. What you can do is more than any necromancer living or dead can do or has ever done. But she is still here, terrible and beautiful, a living corpse knitting her own wounds back together, undaunted.
And your cavalier is fighting her, Gideon is fighting her, on the verge of exhaustion, paint running down her face, alongside the determined little cavalier of the Sixth House, also bloodied and exhausted. Gideon Nav is something else with that two-hander of her, a true marvel, and she does more than you could ever have asked, but Cytherea, with that terrible smile of her, tells Gideon softly how brave and beautiful she is as she goes to kill her, and knocks her hefty sword aside from her simple silver rapier as though it was nothing.
You stagger to your feet, eight foot tall skeleton constructs holding you weak, bloodied body aloft as you approach.
“Step off, bitch,” you say.
“I wish the Ninth House would do something that is more interesting than skeletons,” Cytherea says, pensively. She builds more of her replicating bone constructs, and you do the same. The difference, of course, is that Cytherea can burn herself perpetually, use her body and every ounce of her strength and knit herself back together. You’re meeting her, power for power, bone for bone, but every second that ticks is taking its toll on your body. You’re too weak to stand on your own, blood gushing from your sweat and pores and mouth, the blood vessels under your skin bursting and bleeding too, your own body cannibalizing itself for the thanergy it needs.
“You’re learning fast,” says Cytherea, delighted. “But I’m afraid you have a long way to go.” And she’s correct, because she’s still going, building a second construct identical to the one you made yourself half dead trying to take apart. “None of you learned how to die gracefully,” she coos. “I learned over ten thousand years ago.”
You won’t give in. You can’t meet her construct anymore, so instead you build a wall of bone, solid, six inches thick to protect yourself, and Gideon, and Camilla the Sixth, and that done, you keel over into Gideon’s arms as the construct beats against the wall you’re holding up with the very little you have left.
“Harrow, come on,” Gideon begs. “Siphon, damn it. You can’t hold this shit forever, Harrow! You couldn’t hold this shit ten minutes ago!” You could - you could reach out and draw, instead of from your own body, from hers, but you won’t. Not after you’ve seen what can become of a necromancer siphoning too much. You watched the Eighth House cavalier die before your eyes, and you won’t do it.
Calmly, you spit out a clot of blood the size of a coin. “I don’t have to hold it forever. Take the Sixth, get into a brace position, and I’ll break you through the wall. Bones float. It’s a long drop to the sea, but you all you have to do is survive the fall. We know that the ships have been called. Get off the planet as soon as you can. I’ll distract her as long as possible - all you have to do is live.”
“Harrow.” Gideon’s brow knits, desperate. “This plan is stupid and you’re stupid. No.”
You reach and grasp a fistful of Gideon’s shirt, vision going dark with pain and nausea. “Griddle, you made me a promise. You agreed to go back to the Ninth. You agreed to do your duty by the Locked Tomb - “
“Don’t do this to me,” she says.
“I owe you my life,” you interrupt, with feeling. “I owe you everything.”
You let go of her shirt and fall to the floor, choking and sniffling on the thick rivulets of blood coming from your nose. You hear the continued beating and the sound of cracks as the construct on the other side threatens to smash through your wall of bone. Gideon and Camilla are talking, but you can’t focus on their words, you can’t see, you can hardly hear. All you can do is focus on your wall, the barrier between you and your cavalier and certain death, concentrating on staying awake so that you do not fall asleep, so that you do not die.
And through all of that, you raise a hand, and you brush Gideon’s cheek. “Nav - have you really forgiven me?”
You can’t really see her, but you can hear her panic. “Of course I have, you bozo.”
“I don’t deserve it,” you whisper miserably.
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop me forgiving you. Harrow - “ she’s speaking in a brokenhearted rush. “You know I don’t give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you.” There’s another shuddering, crunching sound, as another tendril breaks through your shield. “I’m not good at this duty thing. I’m not your real cavalier primary. I never could have been.”
The sunlight begins to shine through the cracks in your wall and you laugh, hoarsely, feeling your death coming over you.
“Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House. You are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.”
There’s quiet for a moment, in between the awful crunch of bone, and then the arms around you are gone, leaving you cold, as you hear Gideon stand up and move away.
“Yeah, fuck it,” she says. “I’m getting us out of here.”
"Griddle - " you look up to watch her, your vision blurry, wondering what she's planning to do. You can't really tell, but if she thinks has a plan, she - "Nav," you say gently. "I can't hold this for much longer."
"I don't know how you're holding it now." Gideon looks at you, then away, back in the direction of - what's back there? You only remember the enormous spiked railing. You watch her, miserable, knowing she's planning to attempt something impossible, but there's nothing left to do, nothing either of you can do, to hold off a Lyctor.
She turns to you, again. "Harrow. I can't keep my promise, because the only point of me is you. You get that, right? That's what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end."
"Nav," you say, suddenly frightened. "What are you doing?"
"The cruellest thing anyone has ever done to you in your whole life, believe me. You'll know what to do, and if you don't do it, what I'm about to do will be of no use to anyone."
You can't see what's happening, but you don't need to. You hear the shouted "For the Ninth," and then you feel it, the rush of thanergy, energy of fresh death. You understand, without even needing to think about it, what's being asked of you. The memory, earlier, of Ianthe, smug, gleeful, the body of her cavalier pinned to the ground by her sword, through his heart - the key to Lyctorhood, a soul that can be consumed and used like a battery. So - you do it. You eat her soul.
You feel dizzy, and the pain is still there, and the sound of someone screaming is echoing in your head painfully, but the burst of thanergy has changed the situation entirely; you are stronger now, wholer now, able to repair your own burst blood vessels and knit your wounds back together. It's only that you don't want to.
"Okay," says Gideon. "Okay, get up."
You get up.
"Good!" says your cavalier. "You can stop screaming any moment now, just as an FYI. Now, first, make sure nothing is going to ice Camilla."
"Gideon," you murmur incoherently. "Gideon."
"No time," says Gideon. "Incoming." The bone shield sighed, shuddered, and suddenly broke. The bone construct shuffles forward, but Gideon's voice tells you to take it down, so - you do. For all of its killing spree before, it dissolves now, like rain.
"There's my sword," Gideon says. "Pick it up - pick it up and stop looking at me, dick. Don't. Don't you dare look at me."
You do look, and see what is lying, bloody, pierced through on the iron railing, but you follow the instructions in your head, refusing to perceive it for what it is. You pick up the longsword and cry out. It's far too heavy, too awkward. Gideon steadies your swordhand, shifts your position. The sheer weight of it still stretches the muscles of your forearms, but despite the pain, you lifted the sword together.
"Your arms are like fucking noodles," she says disapprovingly.
You look back at Gideon, and Gideon's eyes, as they always did, startle you - the deep chromatic amber and gold. She winked. You lose your nerve.
"I cannot do this."
"You already did it," says Gideon. "It's done. You ate me and rebuilt me. We can't go home again."
"I can't bear it." Your face is wet, your cheeks are wet.
"You're already two hundred dead sons and daughters. What's one more?" Before you stands Cytherea, watching them, her eyes wide and blue. Her lips were parted in a tiny o. She did not even seem particularly troubled, just amazed: as though they were a mirage, a trick of the sunlight.
"Now we kick her ass until the candy comes out. Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don't cry. We can't fight her if you're crying."
You have some difficulty getting your mouth to form words. "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it."
"Yes you can," Gideon comforts her. "It's just less great and less hot."
"Fuck you, Nav!"
"Harrowhark," she says, serious for once. "Someday you'll die and get buried in the ground, and we'll work this out then. For now -- I can't say you'll be fine. I can't say you did the right thing. I can't tell you shit. I'm basically a hallucination produced by your brain chemistry while coping with the massive trauma of splicing in my brain chemistry. Even if I wasn't, I don't know jack, Harrow, except for one thing." She lifts your arm with the hilt clutched in it. Her fingers, rough and strong and sure, move your other hand into place above the pommel.
"I know the sword," she says. "And now, so do you." She tilted the blade. She brought you into position. She moved your head up and corrected your hips. Cytherea stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"How do you feel, little sister?" she asks.
"Ready for round three," your mouth said, without any input from you. "Or was it round four? I lost track." And they fought. Fighting was like a dream for you, like falling asleep. You do your portion, too, and take her apart, piece by piece, accelerating cancer inside her until she vomited a stream of black blood. But the weight of Gideon's arms on your forearms us growing harder to perceive. Her voice is in your ear, still, but it is sounding farther and farther away.
You take your sword and you pierce her through the malignancy in her chest, and Cytherea goes to her death with more than a little relief.
no subject
[Anyway, memshare time. Sorry it's long, Vira just deserved something very gay and sad that also includes vore.
The memory begins in darkness, and when you come to, you feel the taste of blood in your mouth, the smell of blood in your nose - even your vision is red. You're in the remains of a marble atrium, now rubble and shattered bone and marble. You've missed part of a battle, as your memories come to you, your body weak and throbbing. You'd fought with every ounce of strength and power your body had and more; you invented, in the heat of battle, new theorems and new powers your parents and ancestors could only have dreamed of. You took your foe apart, piece by piece, until it was nothing but rubble and ash, and then you passed out.
But your foe is Cytherea, one of the emperor's fists and gestures, a Lyctor, a being of unfathomable power. What you can do is more than any necromancer living or dead can do or has ever done. But she is still here, terrible and beautiful, a living corpse knitting her own wounds back together, undaunted.
And your cavalier is fighting her, Gideon is fighting her, on the verge of exhaustion, paint running down her face, alongside the determined little cavalier of the Sixth House, also bloodied and exhausted. Gideon Nav is something else with that two-hander of her, a true marvel, and she does more than you could ever have asked, but Cytherea, with that terrible smile of her, tells Gideon softly how brave and beautiful she is as she goes to kill her, and knocks her hefty sword aside from her simple silver rapier as though it was nothing.
You stagger to your feet, eight foot tall skeleton constructs holding you weak, bloodied body aloft as you approach.
“Step off, bitch,” you say.
“I wish the Ninth House would do something that is more interesting than skeletons,” Cytherea says, pensively. She builds more of her replicating bone constructs, and you do the same. The difference, of course, is that Cytherea can burn herself perpetually, use her body and every ounce of her strength and knit herself back together. You’re meeting her, power for power, bone for bone, but every second that ticks is taking its toll on your body. You’re too weak to stand on your own, blood gushing from your sweat and pores and mouth, the blood vessels under your skin bursting and bleeding too, your own body cannibalizing itself for the thanergy it needs.
“You’re learning fast,” says Cytherea, delighted. “But I’m afraid you have a long way to go.” And she’s correct, because she’s still going, building a second construct identical to the one you made yourself half dead trying to take apart. “None of you learned how to die gracefully,” she coos. “I learned over ten thousand years ago.”
You won’t give in. You can’t meet her construct anymore, so instead you build a wall of bone, solid, six inches thick to protect yourself, and Gideon, and Camilla the Sixth, and that done, you keel over into Gideon’s arms as the construct beats against the wall you’re holding up with the very little you have left.
“Harrow, come on,” Gideon begs. “Siphon, damn it. You can’t hold this shit forever, Harrow! You couldn’t hold this shit ten minutes ago!” You could - you could reach out and draw, instead of from your own body, from hers, but you won’t. Not after you’ve seen what can become of a necromancer siphoning too much. You watched the Eighth House cavalier die before your eyes, and you won’t do it.
Calmly, you spit out a clot of blood the size of a coin. “I don’t have to hold it forever. Take the Sixth, get into a brace position, and I’ll break you through the wall. Bones float. It’s a long drop to the sea, but you all you have to do is survive the fall. We know that the ships have been called. Get off the planet as soon as you can. I’ll distract her as long as possible - all you have to do is live.”
“Harrow.” Gideon’s brow knits, desperate. “This plan is stupid and you’re stupid. No.”
You reach and grasp a fistful of Gideon’s shirt, vision going dark with pain and nausea. “Griddle, you made me a promise. You agreed to go back to the Ninth. You agreed to do your duty by the Locked Tomb - “
“Don’t do this to me,” she says.
“I owe you my life,” you interrupt, with feeling. “I owe you everything.”
You let go of her shirt and fall to the floor, choking and sniffling on the thick rivulets of blood coming from your nose. You hear the continued beating and the sound of cracks as the construct on the other side threatens to smash through your wall of bone. Gideon and Camilla are talking, but you can’t focus on their words, you can’t see, you can hardly hear. All you can do is focus on your wall, the barrier between you and your cavalier and certain death, concentrating on staying awake so that you do not fall asleep, so that you do not die.
And through all of that, you raise a hand, and you brush Gideon’s cheek. “Nav - have you really forgiven me?”
You can’t really see her, but you can hear her panic. “Of course I have, you bozo.”
“I don’t deserve it,” you whisper miserably.
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop me forgiving you. Harrow - “ she’s speaking in a brokenhearted rush. “You know I don’t give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you.” There’s another shuddering, crunching sound, as another tendril breaks through your shield. “I’m not good at this duty thing. I’m not your real cavalier primary. I never could have been.”
The sunlight begins to shine through the cracks in your wall and you laugh, hoarsely, feeling your death coming over you.
“Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House. You are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.”
There’s quiet for a moment, in between the awful crunch of bone, and then the arms around you are gone, leaving you cold, as you hear Gideon stand up and move away.
“Yeah, fuck it,” she says. “I’m getting us out of here.”
"Griddle - " you look up to watch her, your vision blurry, wondering what she's planning to do. You can't really tell, but if she thinks has a plan, she - "Nav," you say gently. "I can't hold this for much longer."
"I don't know how you're holding it now." Gideon looks at you, then away, back in the direction of - what's back there? You only remember the enormous spiked railing. You watch her, miserable, knowing she's planning to attempt something impossible, but there's nothing left to do, nothing either of you can do, to hold off a Lyctor.
She turns to you, again. "Harrow. I can't keep my promise, because the only point of me is you. You get that, right? That's what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end."
"Nav," you say, suddenly frightened. "What are you doing?"
"The cruellest thing anyone has ever done to you in your whole life, believe me. You'll know what to do, and if you don't do it, what I'm about to do will be of no use to anyone."
You can't see what's happening, but you don't need to. You hear the shouted "For the Ninth," and then you feel it, the rush of thanergy, energy of fresh death. You understand, without even needing to think about it, what's being asked of you. The memory, earlier, of Ianthe, smug, gleeful, the body of her cavalier pinned to the ground by her sword, through his heart - the key to Lyctorhood, a soul that can be consumed and used like a battery. So - you do it. You eat her soul.
You feel dizzy, and the pain is still there, and the sound of someone screaming is echoing in your head painfully, but the burst of thanergy has changed the situation entirely; you are stronger now, wholer now, able to repair your own burst blood vessels and knit your wounds back together. It's only that you don't want to.
"Okay," says Gideon. "Okay, get up."
You get up.
"Good!" says your cavalier. "You can stop screaming any moment now, just as an FYI. Now, first, make sure nothing is going to ice Camilla."
"Gideon," you murmur incoherently. "Gideon."
"No time," says Gideon. "Incoming." The bone shield sighed, shuddered, and suddenly broke. The bone construct shuffles forward, but Gideon's voice tells you to take it down, so - you do. For all of its killing spree before, it dissolves now, like rain.
"There's my sword," Gideon says. "Pick it up - pick it up and stop looking at me, dick. Don't. Don't you dare look at me."
You do look, and see what is lying, bloody, pierced through on the iron railing, but you follow the instructions in your head, refusing to perceive it for what it is. You pick up the longsword and cry out. It's far too heavy, too awkward. Gideon steadies your swordhand, shifts your position. The sheer weight of it still stretches the muscles of your forearms, but despite the pain, you lifted the sword together.
"Your arms are like fucking noodles," she says disapprovingly.
You look back at Gideon, and Gideon's eyes, as they always did, startle you - the deep chromatic amber and gold. She winked. You lose your nerve.
"I cannot do this."
"You already did it," says Gideon. "It's done. You ate me and rebuilt me. We can't go home again."
"I can't bear it." Your face is wet, your cheeks are wet.
"You're already two hundred dead sons and daughters. What's one more?" Before you stands Cytherea, watching them, her eyes wide and blue. Her lips were parted in a tiny o. She did not even seem particularly troubled, just amazed: as though they were a mirage, a trick of the sunlight.
"Now we kick her ass until the candy comes out. Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don't cry. We can't fight her if you're crying."
You have some difficulty getting your mouth to form words. "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it."
"Yes you can," Gideon comforts her. "It's just less great and less hot."
"Fuck you, Nav!"
"Harrowhark," she says, serious for once. "Someday you'll die and get buried in the ground, and we'll work this out then. For now -- I can't say you'll be fine. I can't say you did the right thing. I can't tell you shit. I'm basically a hallucination produced by your brain chemistry while coping with the massive trauma of splicing in my brain chemistry. Even if I wasn't, I don't know jack, Harrow, except for one thing." She lifts your arm with the hilt clutched in it. Her fingers, rough and strong and sure, move your other hand into place above the pommel.
"I know the sword," she says. "And now, so do you." She tilted the blade. She brought you into position. She moved your head up and corrected your hips. Cytherea stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"How do you feel, little sister?" she asks.
"Ready for round three," your mouth said, without any input from you. "Or was it round four? I lost track." And they fought. Fighting was like a dream for you, like falling asleep. You do your portion, too, and take her apart, piece by piece, accelerating cancer inside her until she vomited a stream of black blood. But the weight of Gideon's arms on your forearms us growing harder to perceive. Her voice is in your ear, still, but it is sounding farther and farther away.
You take your sword and you pierce her through the malignancy in her chest, and Cytherea goes to her death with more than a little relief.
The memory ends.]