"You've made your move, now you must weather the counter. Up you get."

She makes a very unhappy face - but up she gets. 

(She has a really, really bad feeling - she realizes she doesn't actually know the punishment for breaking into the Tomb. It's probably not just a whipping. (So it's extra important Ellyn doesn't get into trouble.))

Aiglmene escorts her to her cell and shuts her in, with firm instructions to stay put until someone comes to get her. Gideon can hear her stumping off down the corridor, muttering under her breath.

She stays put. 

She tries to not think about (to make peace with) what she's doing for Ellyn.

"Way better fucking cav than that idiot Ortus," she mutters into her knees, after a stretch of not thinking.

...But no one comes to get her, not for forever and ever, and it's hardly like Gideon can get in more trouble anyways. 

She gets up, opens her cell - doesn't really matter if it's locked or not, it's increasingly impossible to trap her anywhere - hesitates -

She walks to Ellyn's parents' study with her back straight and her chin held high. 

The door is locked, and if she knocks, there's no response.

Yeah, a locked door isn't stopping her for long. She doesn't even bother knocking - what are they gonna do, execute her twice? 

Likely not, because when she opens the door, she sees Priamhark, Pelleamena, and Ortus's father, their cavalier primary, dangling from nooses, kicked out chairs lying below them. Their eyes seem

almost accusing in death, absurd as that is. They're hardly even looking in the direction of the door.

Ellynhark's eyes, on the other hand, are wide and terrified and very clearly looking at

Gideon. Her hands are clutching her own noose in front of her, white-knuckled, refusing to fit it over her head as she stands on top of a chair of her own. She gives a full-body shiver

and her mouth works soundlessly at Gideon's entrance.

"Ellyn!!!"

She is getting that noose the FUCK away from her necromancer. Nothing - nobody - else in the room matters, living or dead. 

"G-Gideon," she sobs.

She hugs her necromancer, tightly. "Ellyn - how - why - "

"I- I- I d- I can't-"

She's getting her necromancer out of this room. 

She can kinda guess what Ellyn's trying to say, though. It's what Gideon would be saying. What she kinda wants to say right now. 

Instead, she grumbles under her breath: "I had it handled, stupid-head," without any real heat, or even a conscious intention to say something. 

"Wasn't- Not you, Gideon."

"I'm gonna be your cavalier primary. So you gotta let me protect you, next time."

She shakes her head, wordless.

Well. 

Now's for hugging. (She'll save the who protects whom fight for later.)

(...At least Ellyn's parents obviously killed themselves, so Gideon doesn't have to worry about letting go of her necromancer to go stage the bodies or anything. Outright murder would've been kinda inconvenient.)

Yeah she's just gonna have a breakdown for a while.