#imagine them as a lyctor duo

[mizumonohomo]

my brain is trying to manufacture a locked tomb and hannibal crossover in case youre wondering where im at

[vaguely-concerned]

-another layer of 'ow ah ouch' to everything pyrrha says about lyctorhood in nona the ninth is that she and g1deon may very well have been the first necro-cav duo to have done it fully mutually consensually, eyes open. it's heavily implied mercy and augustine had their hands forced by cristabel and alfred and wouldn't have done it otherwise ("I have built a myriad on the idea that I could have talked him out of it, given five minutes"), and they're the first and second saints... g1deon's the third. he and pyrrha presumably saw what it did to mercy and augustine, and they still decided to go through with it.

I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOU

imagine the extra weight over the years in knowing you chose this. at least augustine can cling to that desperate fantasy world where he did stop alfred in time, but pyrrha and g1deon thought they knew exactly what they were doing. they thought it was love. john let them think that was love.

-...do you think mercymorn and augustine begged john for the same thing harrow did, after? Please, undo what I've done, Lord. I will never ask anything of you ever again. (Also one of my all time favorite Harrow moments where she gets to ask the question they aren't allowed to for ten thousand years: How dare you ask me to live with it?) did he comfort them? tell them he's so incredibly sorry, but he needs them?

at least pyrrha’s understanding of how the process works does corroborate his claim that he can’t extract a cavalier’s soul from their necromancer's after the lyctorhood is complete without destroying both souls, which I guess makes for the one thing he isn’t totally lying about lol. though while referencing their own situation paul tells ianthe there's still hope for her and naberius, a duo where the soul absorption did seem to complete, which suggests another layer here john might not know about (out of lack of interest?) or doesn't want anyone else to find out about.

actually let's reexamine some things from the Gideon the Ninth epilogue now in light of Nona I'm on a roll here:

-[God] said, "I know you became a Lyctor under duress."

"Some may call it duress," said Harrow.

"You aren't the first," said the Emperor.

screaming. howling. clawing at him like a wild animal. the two people who have loved you the most, and you stood by and watched as this happened to them, as you engineered it to happen to them, you've seen up close what it did to them, and now you're repeating the process with new children a myriad later without a blush. you suck so bad john I have no words fhksajfhsa.

-"I have three teachers for you. And a whole universe for you to hold on to, for just a little while longer."

a) oh yeah just wait for those three teachers they're a real barrel of laughs they probably won't even try to repeatedly murder you or anything lmao and b) what's that supposed to mean john. 'for just a little while longer'. why does it only have to be a little while longer. as far as I can tell you're no closer to the fullness of your revenge than ever. does it have anything to do with 'good morning, annabel' and 'it gets dirty, you clean it again'?

So, the universe was ending. Good. At least if she failed here, she would no longer have to be beholden to anybody.

could this also be some kind of foreshadowing? from the dialogue on page here harrow's conclusion that the universe is, for sure, ending is not necessarily a natural conclusion (john only speaks of the empire slowly dying) so like... does pre-lobotomy harrow know something we don't? or is it just that she's the saddest person anyone's ever seen pre-nona seeing gideon? (most heartbreaking shade of drift compatability discovered :') )

-He said presently, "Most of my Lyctors have been destroyed by a war I thought best to fight slowly, through attrition. I have lost my Hands -- not just to death. The loneliness of deep space takes its toll on anyone, and the necrosaints have all put up with it for longer than anybody should ever be asked to bear anything. That's why I wanted only those who had discovered the cost, and were willing to pay it in the full knowledge of what it would entail."

so... in the same way g1deon and pyrrha decided to pay that price willingly, then. I am 100% calling bullshit on him here, though, because if any of that had been his real intentions he would have taken at least a modicum of time and energy to write ANYTHING to that effect in the invitations haha. but I think he does recognize in some way that mercy and augustine are burning out under the ten thousand years he's asked of them, like cytherea just did, and maybe mistakenly thinks g1deon is handling it better, because his and pyrrha's decision seemed more informed/less coerced? loveday always knew it was her life or cytherea's, after all, that wasn't ever a real choice either. huh.

-god, harrow literally states all her (frankly very modest and doable) goals and needs to him -- to return to the ninth at least once, to find her cavalier's body, and to figure out what happened to the other survivors of canaan house -- and once she is incapable of remembering them........ he does fucking NOTHING to remind her or help her follow up on any of them fhsdkajfhasdkj I am losing it! at least there is the delicious irony that he could have saved himself a massive headache if he had helped her with any of these, so his own fecklessness and narcissism is its own punishment in this case I suppose lmao

-another observation: harrow is not as deferential or worshipful towards God in this epilogue as she will be in HtN or beyond. she's angry with him! she's kind of sharp and a bit rude, even! she seems more to feel begrudgingly beholden to him because fair enough he is god I guess than to emotionally buy into it as sacred service. I wonder how she'll think of him after nona the ninth, now that she knows him so much better and has more of herself too -- ironically my sense from their last scene in nona the ninth is that her worship of him seems to have all but disappeared, but she loves him more, despite uh the everything of him, in all his awfulness. not in that she doesn't recognize him for what he is or that she wants his approval anymore, she's grown so far past him already, but I do think there's still love there. 'I still love you' is the real power he has, I guess