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Hi my name is Gideon Nav and I have short red hair that reaches the top of my neck and piercing yellow eyes like amber gemstones and a lot of people tell me I look like the Necrolord Prime (AN: if u don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not a necromancer but my teeth are straight and white. I have medium brown skin. I’m also an indentured servant of the Ninth, and I live at a place called Drearburh on the Ninth (I’m eighteen). Today I was going to escape and go join the space army on another planet.
I brushed my teeth and combed my messy red hair. I put on a black shirt, black pants, and black church robe. I unlocked my security cuff with a stolen key and walked out of my cell. A lot of nuns stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.
After visiting my mother’s vacant catacomb, I skipped up several flights of stairs to the landing pad at the top of Drearburh, where I sat down and waited for my shuttle to arrive. I had ordered it illegally, because my best nemesis Harrowhark Nonagesimus didn’t want me to leave the planet. As if I had summoned her there, she showed up at the edge of the landing field. Crux and Aiglamane stood behind her threateningly.
She had dark hair, a skull-painted face, and was dressed in all black. She was a goth. It didn’t matter, though, because today I was going to escape and she couldn’t do anything about it. I had all the papers and everything. I had been planning this for months.
“Hello, Griddle,” she said, accosting the air with her voice.
Then she went on a long tirade about how the Cohort wouldn’t enlist me because I was an unreleased serf, and I responded with several quirky phrases. We argued, and I spat back several more comebacks.
Eventually she sighed and drew a piece of real paper from her pocket, with the official House of the Ninth letterhead on top. She strode forwards, left it between us, and backed off in surrender.
I picked it up and gasped. If signed in blood, I would be released from the Ninth after only five years of military service! But it had to be signed. I looked up expectantly at the Reverend Daughter.
I said, “Name your price.”
“I want you downstairs at the muster meeting.” I had heard the bells for muster ringing a few minutes before, but since I was going to escape anyway I didn't care about them.
I considered her offer carefully. Overhead, my shuttle finally descended down the drillshaft.
“Hmmm,” I said. “Nah.”
I expected her to lose her composure and start yelling at me. Maybe she’d even sic Crux on me. He was awful. But what I didn’t expect her to do was keep standing there like that. “Okay,” she said, a saccharine smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Your loss, Griddle.”
I opened my mouth to ask what the hell was up with her, but the roar of the shuttle drowned out my voice. It landed with a loud thump on the hard-packed dirt. Grinning, I stepped back. I didn’t care anymore. I’d won. I flipped off the Lady of the Ninth one last time, and skipped back to step into my escape shuttle.
But then the door mechanism slid open of its own accord and five figures stepped into the frame. I gasped, stumbling backwards; over my shoulder I glanced back at Harrow, who was just standing there- menacingly.
Five men stepped out from my shuttle: One Direction! I knew about One Direction because the magazines I read sometimes had articles on them. There were quizzes about which One Direction member would love you the most, but I wasn’t interested because I didn’t like men. And they'd never been on tour to the Ninth in my lifetime, either. So why were they here now? And why had they taken the shuttle I had requested?
“Meet your new owners,” Harrowhark said to me, stepping forwards to close the distance between us. “The Ninth has been going through some tough times lately, and One Direction has offered to fill its coffers in exchange for your service.”
“You’re selling me to One Direction? What the fuck, Nonagesimus? I wanted to join the Cohort!” Fuck, I should've seen this coming.
“You had your chance,” Harrow said. “Did you really think I would let you go that easily? You could’ve come to muster with me and accepted the terms of the contract. You could’ve worked off your indenture to the Ninth for five years. Now you’re bound to One Direction… forever.”
“Allo,” said one of the band members behind me. “Wot’s all this, then?”
“Here are the papers,” Harrow said, turning to them. She pulled another piece of real paper from her pocket and handed it to one of the men- Niall Heron?- who examined it carefully.
Finding it satisfactory, he nodded to his bandmates. “Take her away, boys.”
I felt someone’s hand grasp my cape, but I slipped out of it and tried to leap at Harrow. She’d pay for this! Before I could even take a step, one man snatched me by the arm with a vice grip. I thrashed violently and another caught me by my other shoulder. I didn’t want to give Harrowhark the satisfaction of seeing me this desperate, but panic overtook me. “Fuck you, Harrow!” I yelled as One Direction dragged me backwards into the shuttle. “You snake!”
“Oi, settle down there, lass!” said Harry Styles.
“Get… your hands… off me!” I tried to grab for my sword, but Liam Pain grabbed it by the scabbard and tossed it into the shuttle.
Harrow just stood and watched as the five boys dragged me, kicking and screaming, through the shuttle doors. For a moment, I thought I caught a twinge of regret in her dark eyes, but then it was gone. It had probably never existed in the first place.
“It’s for the good of the Ninth,” she called to me, and the doors slid shut. At least I’d never have to see her stupid face again.
Wait.
I was going off-planet. I’d never have to see her stupid face again. I froze for a moment. “Where the hell are you taking me?” I snapped, as Louis Tomlinson shoved me into a seat.
“Why, my good chap, you’re to be One Direction’s cavalier primary!” he said Britishly. (I didn’t know what a British was, but I’d heard the word used in one of my titty magazines.)
I blinked. “Really?”
“Yes, my lady. You’re to receive first-rate training and accompany us to all of our tours.”
First-rate training, huh? I sighed, leaning back into the seats. And I’d get to be a cavalier, something that never would’ve happened if I’d stayed on the Ninth. Maybe I’d send Harrow a letter or two telling her of all of the great things I’d seen while on tour with One Direction.
Music started thumping from the speakers as the shuttle rose into the air, probably some One Direction hit loved by all from the First to the Eighth. I’d never heard any songs other than the dismal old church ones sung at Ninth prayers.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.