She can't help but smile at him. 

Still - "Were two of the Houses delayed?" she asks, idly, only seeing six shuttles. 

“Oh, well noticed!" Teacher laughs jovially. "Yes, there’s a discrepancy. And we don’t much like discrepancies. This is holy land. We might be called over-careful, but we hold this House as sacred to the Emperor our Lord. We do not get many visitors, as you might think!" He continues with the air of one sharing a bit of juicy gossip. "There is nothing that much the matter. It’s the House of the Third and the House of the Seventh. No matter, no matter. I’m sure they will be given clearance any moment now. We needed clarification. An inconsistency in both.”

"What kind of inconsistency?"

"Ah, well, the House of the Third will of course push the boundaries, and the Seventh... It's well known, yes... Here they are landing now, though, look."

Indeed, the final two shuttles are coming in to fill the last clean spaces of the landing zone.

She knows nothing about the other Houses actually but sure whatever. Gideon turns to look. 

First off the Third's shuttle is a woman who is probably the cavalier, judging from the sword at her hip.

Following her is a princess straight of Gideon's comics, draped in fine silks and complete with jeweled tiara.

- Followed by a third person, dressed in silver to her sister's gold - who looks like a pale and bloodless reflection of her twin, nevermind that they're the same height and age. 

Three of them...?

The Third House contingent is greeted by another white-robed priest, who has a brief conversation with them before hurrying over to Teacher and the Ninth and starting to whisper in his ear. Teacher waves off his concerns. "What can we do, what can we do. Only trouble at the end of the line, and a trouble confined to them." The other priest accepts this and heads over to meet the Seventh shuttle. A slim figure totters down the ramp, and with excellent timing, collapses into the priest's arms. He staggers with the unexpected burden and cries out.

Gideon sprints over, catching the collapsed girl before the priest can drop her, lowering her gently to the ground and doing a quick visual check for obvious injuries. 

She's coughing blood, and her skin is terribly translucent, bespeaking a chronically severe illness.

Gideon feels the sharp prick of a sword at the back of her neck.

She turns the woman into the recovery position as she lowers her.

She only somewhat reacts to the sword at her neck - she stills her head, of course, but she doesn't stop holding the woman or trying to see what she can do about the blood. "Back off or help out," she says, flatly, to whichever idiot is holding a sword instead of trying to give medical care. 

The sword does not back off or help out, but remains stubbornly pointed at Gideon.

"Oh, Protesilaus," the girl in Gideon's arms coughs. "Stand down."

"Remove your sword from my cavalier," Ellyn says flatly, having hurried to catch up to Gideon.

"See, you goof, you're getting us in trouble. Stand down." Reluctantly, the sword is removed.

Great. 

Does the Seventh House necromancer seem to have successfully cleared her airway of all the blood? 

More or less! "I'm so sorry!" the girl exclaims. "“He’s just overprotective- oh my God, you’re black vestals! Oh, God, I was rescued by a shadow cultist! I’m so sorry! Thank you! This is one for the history books.”

With the danger of the sword gone, the priest also bends down to help clean up. "Ah, Duchess Septimus," he sighs as he dabs at the blood. "You should not have come."

"But isn't it beautiful I did?" she asks, flashing a crimson-stained smile. "Protesilaus, help me up so that we can apologise. I can’t believe I get to look real tomb maidens in the face." The Seventh cavalier reaches past Gideon to pick up Septimus. He's a huge, well-built man, but with a strange waxen look to his skin. He stares blankly at Gideon as he holds his necromancer almost over his shoulder, with her arm around his neck. “What must I do to gain forgiveness?” she says. “If my House blasphemes against the House of the Ninth in the first five minutes, I’m going to feel like a boor.”

"Keep your sword off my cavalier," Ellyn says, doom underwriting her tone.

Gideon is a little weirded out by how unbothered the Seventh House cav seems about his necro hacking up blood like this. Like, even if it's chronic, that level of 'whatever' is just not on. (Also, she'd count 'threaten the person helping, do not actually help about the coughing up blood' as the opposite of overprotective. She is so concerned about this Duchess's standards.)

"Does this - happen a lot?" she asks, a bit dumbly.

"I am dying," she says brightly. "Hereditary, you know. They said I wouldn't get past twenty-five, but here I am, and who's laughing now? Me!" She giggles wetly. "Though I suppose you mightn't know who that is. Dulcinea Septimus, duchess of Castle Rhodes. And this is Protesilaus the Seventh, my cavalier primary."

- Oh yeah, the formal way cavs are introduced. 

"Nice to meet you." She barely doesn't make it a question. "I'm Gideon the Ninth. This is my necromancer, the Reverend Daughter, Lady Ellynhark Nonagesimus."

"Oh, how perfectly lovely! A great pleasure to meet you, Ninth, and thank you ever so much for your assistance."

Ellyn puts a hand briefly on Gideon's shoulder, a silent 'get up and follow me'. "Indeed." Then she'll turn to walk away.

She sends Dulcinea a rueful smile before doing as silently instructed.