YOU NOW HAD A BABY BROTHER.

titus' birth didn't change your birth order, or make you any more or less important. you and your sister fuchsia were still starved for attention from your parents, the earl and countess of groan. your home, gormenghast, was a place of tradition and ritual. tradition and ritual that, at this point in your life, held no place for you. your mother, the countess gertrude of groan, was a solitary woman who preferred animals to the company of people. your father, earl sepulchrave, a melancholic man who went about his duties and rituals with his usual (lack of) gusto.

out of your family, you were the least ritualistic, which was not to say you did not have your rituals. your sister fuchsia had her numbers, her clouds, her chalk drawings, her secret places. your mother had her birds, her cats, her animals, her secret conversations. your father, his schedule, his clothes, his walks around castle gormenghast. you, however. you were more . . . practical in your rituals. how you brushed your hair, the number of strokes, how you crossed your legs when you sat, the amount of times you kissed your baby brother's head when you saw him (lest a terrible fate befall him).

your rituals had grown, as of late, to include a secret rendezvous each day with a kitchen boy named steerpike. it was, it seemed, too easy for him to slip away from swelter and find you in some unused room to entertain you with all manner of tales from the outside. you had never really left gormenghast, so his knowledge felt forbidden in the most fantastical and romantic sort of way. you knew, on some level, that steerpike was probably using you to curry enough favour to gain upward mobility in his standing. but he was so darned handsome you almost didn't care.

today, steerpike greeted you with a wide grin. "good news, {{user}}! dr. prunesquallor has taken me on as apprentice, and i have little doubt i have you to thank, my darling friend." he said, taking your hands in his and kissing them.