The lady gives her a saucy wink in return!

Not nearly at cute as her necro, but definitely deserves a better cav, is Gideon's assessment. 

Hmph.

"Can we be just a little more careful going forward," she says testily once they're far enough away.

" - I'm not going to like, leave someone else to choke on their own blood in front of me, even if their cav is useless."

"If they made it all the way to the First just to die stepping off the shuttle, they shouldn't have come in the first place. The amount of ambient thanergy here, Gideon- The oss at Drearburh is barely a thimble in comparison."

Quietly: "Well, now she owes us one - owes us two, even, since her cav did draw on me."

"We're here to network, aren't we?"

"Not with someone who has a cavalier like that."

"I won't turn my back on him again, how about."

"Fine."

After the excitement is done with, the representatives of the Houses are ushered inside to a wide atrium and encouraged to sit and drink the hot tea more skeletal servitors are circulating and passing out in fancy little cups. The interior of the building is no less grandiose than the outside, all stained wood and carved marble and fanciful decoration. It is also no less dilapidated than the outside, and the atrium has several large holes in the ceiling. The tea is greenish, and smells distinctly of leaves.

Ellyn sips indifferently at her cup, more interested in examining the constructs' behavior as they move about.

Those are fancy - she itches for her notebook, but that'd probably be indecorous or something. Is this just the natural result of ten thousand years to refine a construct's programming - do constructs of a certain age grow more complex with time - are they cheating somehow - 

(She might need to be poked into paying attention to whatever formal speech or whatever is about to be given.)

One of the three priests from the landing pad (who seem to be the only living inhabitants of the First) clears his throat and announces "“Now let us pray for the lord of that which was destroyed, remembering the abundance of her pity, her power, and her love.” Everyone but the Ninth House seems to know how the chant goes, “Let the King Undying, ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death, look upon the Nine Houses and hear their thanks. Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to her. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine, the first among necromancers. Thanks be to the Ninefold Resurrection. Thanks be to the Lyctor divinely ordained. She is Emperor and she became God: she is God, and she became Emperor.”

A pause after, then Teacher says, "And perhaps the devout of the Locked Tomb will favor us with their intercession?"

Ellyn subtly pinches Gideon into sitting up straight if she isn't already, then stands like she's leading one of the services back home. "I pray the tomb is shut forever. I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps. I pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King, his Virtues and his men. I pray for the Second House, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth; the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth. I pray for the Ninth House, and I pray for it to be fruitful. I pray for the soldiers and adepts far from home, and all those parts of the Empire that live in unrest and disquiet."

Teacher and the other priests looked entirely blissed out by this display of ancient tradition.

"And so hail to the Lord of the Sharpest Edge, and the gossamer thinness of her blade, and the cleanness of her cut," Gideon adds, perhaps a bit too brightly. (She had zero free time to learn history or politics, also was chronically absent to prayers, so may or may not have let Ortus recite things at her while she trains. And this is like the absolute coolest Godly epithet out of them all and for all she knows the correct modern prayer.)

Okay, these hermit shadow nuns are kind of hardcore actually, damn.

Yep, Ellyn totally was expecting that. Necro and cav in perfect harmony here.

...That's an old prayer, she's pretty sure. (Usually it's only the Sixth producing nerds for their cavaliers.)

If Teacher was happy before, he goes into absolute paroxysms of joy at Gideon's addition. "A truly ancient epithet! A classic, unuttered for years even in this House! How may I bless you for that, Gideon the Ninth?"

Ellyn might live to regret ever letting Ortus infect Gideon with his ideas about Correct Cavalier Behavior.

"Pray only that wheresoever my Lady goes, I will go; that as she serves, I will serve; that should she die, I will die, and that my bones will be buried alongside hers, such that not even death will part us."

"Incredible," Teacher says. "I bless you. I bless you that way twice."

Gideon Nav, you are going to be muRDERED IN YOUR SLEEP-

"Now," continues Teacher, "I'll welcome you to Canaan House. Will someone bring me the box?" A robed skeleton carries out a small wooden chest and deposits it in Teacher's lap. Teacher opens it, and one by one, calls up each cavalier by name to receive a small iron ring from the box. When Gideon gets hers, she will notice it's not entirely a closed loop, but a twist of metal whose ends overlap and lay flat.

Huh. Weird. 

She'll show it to Ellyn. 

She shrugs minutely.