I forget that Ortus was about sixteen when the "extinction event" happened in the Ninth House. The only Ninth teenager left alive.
Gideon tells us that everyone from the age nineteen down was gone. Ortus was spared more likely only so that the unborn Nonagesimus child could have a cavalier and not out of any particular sentiment towards his father.
He must've had friends once, acquaintances, other kids he would stand next to out of habit during the long sermons, maybe equally obsessed with the hero Matthias Nonius. And one day they were all gone. How lonely he must've been, with no one to even share his sorrow with. Harrow and Gideon could at least take out their frustrations on each other when they got older.
No wonder he is constantly deeply melancholic and dedicates all of his time to writing poetry, what else was he supposed to do but escape that awful reality?
