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In the end, what remained was the River – intrinsically it was never ceasing and ever changing.
It had existed always, since time immemorial and it would continue to exist going forward long beyond the finite realm of comprehension. It ran on and on and it washed away everything in its path. The traces of the battle, the ruins of the Tower, pale and broken, all the world that they had known. Including the Empire.
Only the River remained. Only the River and Death. It was the end of the world. And it was a beginning.
Somewhere, far far away, down on the First House, on a piece of land with no name anyone remembered, that was surrounded by saltwater, there lived a girl with her family: A girl with yellow hair that was so, so thoroughly loved. And she was normal, and only Death would be able to harm her.
Death – not Thanergy, nor Necromancy. Because the days of Necromancy were over, no gravestone marking its demise. If such a thing as Thanergy still existed in this world, and honestly, where would it go? - then it remained inaccessible. Thus, rendering Death… mundane - And more permanent than ever.
But still the River remained, eternally smoothing away the remains of Everything. And on its banks Gideon remained, and Harrow remained with her. - At least for now.
They were alone at the edge of life, all the others gone on ahead.
Paul had been the first to leave - taking their odd, little family with them.
Corona had been the last. Tarnished by the death of her sister, yet shimmering gold nonetheless she had allowed her new wife to lead her away from the battlefield. Leaving the River and leaving Ianthe, the last Lyctor, to memory, and the care of the dead.
She had a life yet to lead: A road to walk on her own two feet -if accompanied by the captain-, mistakes to make and responsibilities to take. A planet to inherit and rule.
It would take years, to determine which Houses would make it. Which civilisations produced enough Thalergy for the birth of new worlds. To feed them. Those that failed would likely seek refuge on the First House. Returning home, proverbially, after ten thousand years.
Gideon wondered if the Ninth House would make it. The snow leeks, and old bones, the Tomb and the pilgrims and grizzled survivors. She hoped it for Harrow´s sake and Aiglemene´s, even if she had to admit its unlikeliness, at least to herself.
And Harrow, oh Harrow, her midnight monarch, the queen of her dead and wasting heart - She had not expected to ever see her again, to fight beside her again. Not after the Tomb, not after the Mithraeum, not after Canaan House. Not after everything.
But here she stood in front of Gideon in all her small, tattered glory. Bony and worn down, with ratty hair and dark circles under darker eyes she was a sight to behold, partially submerged already, River-water always lapping at her feet.
“I am dead.” Harrowhark spoke, finally breaking the silence, voicing the truth they had both been shirking.
Gideon nodded; she remembered the feeling of all-encompassing helplessness as she watched what was left of Harrow´s body fail. Alecto´s bright soul rending the beloved flesh. Alas, the searing cruelty of power.
“Not the epitome of liveliness myself, anymore, I´m afraid.” Gideon tried quipping.
“Livelier, than me.” Harrow judged, dismissing her attempts at light-heartedness. She was taking in Gideon´s form, Gideon hoped appreciatively, “An animated body, a working brain-”
“And a stilled and rotting heart, eternally bared to the world.” Gideon regarded her necromancer. “I bet you could fix me.” It was a confession, “Properly, I mean. With the power of the River.” A childish hope, this Gideon knew, but she had been long unable to help herself, where Harrow was concerned. And were they not barely more than children in the grand scope of things?
“Succeed where God failed?” A tiny smile, crooked and oh so tired; like all of Harrow. “Succeed? I may. -
“Would you want that?” she asked, tentative. “Would you desire, to be thus fixed. To walk away from this place and return to life?”
“Would you not want that? To live?” she asked Harrow instead. “To see what´s out there, to experience it? Anything? Everything?”
Harrow shrugged. “I lived for the Ninth. To my House I dedicated my life and my death. In what I set out to do I succeeded. The rest is out of my hands.” She regarded her hands then, small and slim and brown; they seemed normal, corporeal. Like flesh and blood, not just a phantom of the spirit realm.
“My life I lived for you.” Gideon confessed. “At least where it counted.”
Her eyes locked with Harrow´s. She was hurting, Gideon knew. Never one to allow vulnerability, to admit that unworthy though she considered herself, Harrowhark, too, longed to be cared for. And Gideon did care, despite everything – or because of it.
“I´m not going to just leave you here.” She promised. Harrow frowned, betraying her expectation of being left behind. As if. No -fucking- dice!
“You don´t have a choice.” She said.
Bullshit. “There is always a choice.” Gideon insisted. There had to be, they just had to find it. - Or if necessary, built it from scratch.
Harrow denied her “I have no body. None that I could call my own. So, tell me Griddle, what choice would that leave me? To haunt you?”
“I´ve haunted ´you´ before-”
“To both of our detriment. I would not wish to do it to you.” Harrow assured, reaching for Gideon with her hesitant hands. Taking hers, tender and sad.
“Or we could share my body!” Gideon offered, though she knew the suggestion was madness. Harrow would never allow it.
But Paul´s existence had been… unsettling, to be sure, - but had Camilla and Sexpal not insisted they were happy? That it had been a triumph? Harrow and her were quite low on triumphs. They were owed one, in theory. Not that the universe gave a fuck.
Thus, against all common sense, Gideon steeled herself to kept pushing: “Sure, it´s a little banged up, my body - But you said yourself, you could fix it. And it was always yours, wasn´t it? Property of the Ninth House and its Mistress and all. Just- use it as you will-. I´d let you.”
“No.” Harrow shook her head, appalled and visibly aggrieved. “Even if I could. If such a thing was possible still. - I would not dare to ask it of you.”
“Not even if I wanted you to?” And that was the crux of the matter wasn´t it, always had been. Gideon´s want: Her desire, her need for Harrow. For Harrow to need her, to use her, to eat her. If that was what´s necessary for Harrow to love her.
“Not even then.” Harrow refused. She took a deep breath, sad black eyes shining in the immeasurable depth of the void “Griddle. I took your life once already, and we know I lived to regret it bitterly. I´d give anything to undo it.”
She touched Gideon´s face then, tenderly, resting her hand on her jaw. “So, my answer remains no.” her voice cracked “My refusal to take your body for my use, or your soul, remains steadfast.
“We swore ´until death does us part´.” She continued, gravely “This is what this is. - My death. Our parting.”
“I refuse.” Gideon insisted, stubborn.
This earned her another slim smile, and oh how she longed to one of these days, see Harrow smile genuinely. With joy, not in self-deprecation.
But one-of-these-days would never happen, not with how the River´s currents kept pulling at Harrow´s legs, urging her on. Marking the inescapable end of her time in this world. Gideon wanted to stop it so badly, she wanted to scream.
The water was in her shoes too, she would have to leave soon.
“That is not your decision to make.” Harrow told Gideon.
“Wrong.” Gideon corrected, defying the hopelessness of the situation by clinging to ignorance. The water was rising still. “It is only my decision to make.
“I´m not allowing you to die needlessly like this. You refused my sacrifice; this is me rejecting yours. One flesh, one end. If you can´t come with me, then tough luck, I´m coming with you.”
Harrow looked stricken “You would give up this life for me?” she asked, disbelieving.
Really, Gideon supressed an eyeroll. Yes, this was her second chance, and yes, it was everything that Gideon had always claimed to want. But, Harrow ought to know her better than this, after all these years. She told her: “Just as you gave up yours.”
And “I´m not a Prince any longer.” Not of an Empire at least, not of a Tower.
There was no Empire without an Emperor, undying or otherwise. And there was no Emperor anymore, only a man named John that was Gideon´s father, living alone on an abandoned world that had saved itself. Despite him.
“And it´s not like it´s my first time dying for your sorry ass, either.” She added. It was true, after all, and Gideon was just enough of a dick to not let Harrow forget it. Served her right, the stuck-up little gremlin. Why did Gideon like her again?
“You´ve done your duty as my cavalier, Griddle.” Harrow entreated, fruitlessly aiming for martyrdom, “You have surpassed it – now, let me release you of it.”
“Fuck duty.” Gideon swore, ignoring the futile pleas of her necromancer. She had never cared about duty, of which she reminded Harrow: “It was my choice. - I choose to die for you then, as was my right. I did it to save your life. And if I choose to die ´with´ you now, for no other reason than my selfish desires. Then there is no way that you can feasibly stop me-”
“I can ask you to.” Harrow interrupted her. “I can entreat you: Please Griddle, if you hold only a little affection for me. Only the smallest smidgeon of love. Then, please, live for me.”
Oh, now Harrow was playing unfair! Speaking of love? Harrow never spoke about love!
At least not of her love for Gideon! Yes, Gideon knew Harrow loved her, at least to the extent that she chose die for her once; but to voice it out loud, to speak her feelings into existence here on the edge of Everything? It made for a bittersweet ache, deep inside where Gideon´s heart should be.
It made her decision the easiest thing in the world. “Life without you?” Gideon told her “No can do. Sorry, babe.”
Harrow hung her head, eyes downcast to where two of their hands where still joined together. Or maybe she was watching the River instead. Dull, red water ever tearing at the remains of her robes, thigh-high now for both of them, bloody and capped with foam. Their time was running out.
“You deserve to live.” She whispered, her voice ever so small. “Is there nothing I can do to make you not want to die?”
Gideon sighed, squeezing her hand. “I don´t want to die.” she declared “I never did; not even back then.” She wanted to reassure Harrow, to placate her. Wanted to touch her too, to hold her, or just to rest her forehead, still sweaty and covered in dirt, against Harrow´s. Maybe it would comfort them both.
“I don´t know what´s going to happen now. The universe is changing, and I have no idea how. But… regardless of what´s going to happen - I´d have liked spending my life with you.”
“Gideon-“ Harrow looked up, miraculously, her anguished eyes contained tears.
Gideon made herself smile. “So, Harrow,” she said. “My eternal bone empress, keeper of the dead thing that is my heart, would you please do me honour and allow me to at least spend my Death with you?
“Out there is a new world. And in another life, maybe we could have lived in it, but it never would have been ours. Please, dearest, take me with you -
“Before it warps into something unrecognizable; let us leave this life in a way we know how. Let us brave the River, cross the known and face the beyond. Together, Harrow, you and me.
“I love you.” She added into the stillness, almost an afterthought.
Heavy, the silence lingered, and Gideon knew she had won. The expression on Harrows face morphed from heartbreak to resignation; it said it all, there was no need for words.
So, Gideon let go of Harrow´s hands, cupped her cheeks gently and kissed her, forever sealing their fate. “Good.” Harrow blinked away tears.
“Fine.” She whispered and Gideon smiled, as she allowed her to step in closer, to rest her weary head against Gideon´s collarbone. Delaying their departure, just for a moment. “I love you too.” Harrow confessed. A shameful secret -Gideon´s affections returned.
She squeezed Harrow close. - “It is time.” Harrow stated eventually, slowly disentangling herself. She was right, the River risen almost up to her hips.
“I´m ready.” Gideon declared. She cracked a smile, taking Harrow´s hand: “Here´s to not getting eaten by magma-fish.”
Harrow rolled her eyes at the joke. “Don´t be ridiculous, Griddle. I may no longer be a Necromancer, but I can still handle a few meagre revenants.”
“Good.” Gideon agreed, and added, curious “So are we going to go visit Ianthe? Take the elevator all the way down to Hell? Or can you show me some of those river bubbles I´ve heard so much about?”
Because this may be the end of a world, but it was their beginning, too. And the River was waiting.
Finally taking heart, Harrow returned her smile. “Well, we´ve got all the time in the world- We can take the long way down.” She stepped deeper into the water, downslope, leading Gideon by the hand, steadily onwards, into the lands of the dead.