Ok, since I’m now a locked tomb blog kinda now, and I Have Thoughts, I’m gonna share them with you. What would happen if Cytherea hadn’t shown up? I don’t mean like “everyone has happy fun times and works on necromancy together!” First of all, Silas Octikiseron is there, and he always gonna be No Fun. A non-Cytherea Canaan House would still be full of petty sniping at each other. What I’m saying is, the necromancers of Canaan house are some of the most brilliant to have ever existed.
We’ve got Ianthe , Abigail , Palamedes, and Harrow, who could all make claim to being the best in their respective fields. You honestly think these four couldn’t figure out perfect lyctorhood together? Hell, in canon Palamedes figured out Something that allowed Cam to both survive and get his eyes, and they had this planned out before his suicide attack on Cytherea. Ianthe figured out imperfect lyctorhood without any help, Cytherea killed Abigail first explicitly because her spirit medium abilities and knowledge of history could figure out who Cytherea was! And then Harrow, who managed to preform the lyctoral process while being attacked by a much older lyctor! If we get into Harrow the Ninth, she’s one of two people in canon who can manage theorems in The River! You honestly wanna tell me if they put their heads together, they couldn’t figure it out?
So my idea is that the Necromantic Dream Team over here figures out perfect lyctorhood, thinks “Oh yeah, this is probably how we do it.“ Then everybody who wants to be a lyctor becomes one, cavaliers intact, and they send a call to God like, ”Ok everybody’s done”. Could you imagine? Everybody just walking on the ship with their cavaliers like it was nothing? I can’t decide if it would be funny or absolutely heartbreaking. Funny from an outsider’s perspective, but Augustine and Mercy and maybe Gideon the First would just break. Pyrrha, Cristabel, and Alfred‘s sacrifice meant nothing, and these children figured out what they couldn’t! The angst potential here!
pov: you spend days with a tall, strong stoic woman with skeleton makeup who dresses in all black and never talks, and this is the first thing you heard from her i love her so much
How badly do you think everyone at Canaan House would lose their shit if Gideon dropped that she’d only been training with a rapier for grand total of eleven weeks and didn’t even use a weapon for her offhand until her fight with Magnus. Personally, I think Naberius and Magnus would both cry.
You’re so right, and I can imagine Jeannemary just losing her goddamn MIND.
