Work Text:
In the moment after Gideon Nav’s death, Harrowhark Nonagesimus forgot that she needed oxygen to live.
Dropping to her knees, covered in blood and bone dust and perhaps dying, the daughter of the Ninth House let go a piercing scream, not even recognising the tears falling down her cheeks.
She couldn’t feel those hands supporting hers anymore; she couldn’t see that sparkling gold light of her eyes. She couldn’t hear that awful, mocking voice making jokes.
With as much care, respect and reverence as Gideon Nav deserved, Harrowhark Nonagesimus moved the body off of the fence, letting it lie on the surface of the balcony, staring at the sky blankly. Around them was a sea of bone dust and blood and the dead and broken of Canaan House.
Kneeling next to the body, Harrow bowed down, pressing her forehead to Gideon’s, just holding there. The tears she wasn’t controlling, a mixture of blood and water, dripped down onto her cavalier’s face, and Harrow carefully wiped it away with as much care as she had ever done anything.
She couldn’t conceive of a world without Gideon, but here it was, thrust upon her by someone who had consumed their universe with vengeance and anger.
The daughter of the Ninth House refused to accept this.
Gideon Nav was her flesh and her end, and if anyone was going to work out how to get her back, it was Harrowhark Nonagesimus.