Word Count: 567

Her patrols continued despite the addition of newborn children. She went out every other night, late in the evening after the twins had been put to bed, when the sun had sunk beyond view, behind the buildings of the city, and on passed the horizon. Valhalla went out on the nights she didn't. The arrangement was not planned so much as it was an unspoken agreement between the two of them. Young parents they might be, but they still had a duty to uphold, and she had every intention of seeing it through to the very end.

Whenever that might be.

Some nights she visited her homeworld, a place of dead things taking on a renewed life. Other nights she prowled the city streets looking for youma. Or Negaverse agents, whichever she happened to come across first. The youma she dispatched quickly, the agents somewhat less so. Some nights she talked. Other nights she left them unconscious on her way home.

Sometimes, when the evenings were peaceful, when no sign of danger tickled her senses, she would go to the park down the street from the house she'd grown up in, next to a church and a cemetery full of old, half sunken stones. She sat on a swing and looked to the stars above her, listened to the wind which seemed to sing a mournful tune. The world was slowly being consumed by Chaos, but there in the park everything felt untouched, not quite pure, but not so dark as the rest of the world had become. She could sit in silence and ruminate—ponder the past, and the present, and the future.

The stars were not often visible. Those few that that could be seen through the ambient lights twinkled dimly. She could not see the worlds beyond the glowing silver moon, but she knew they were there, far off in the depths of space. They held ghosts and secrets from a time forgotten by most, and offered vague memories of a past which ended hundreds of years ago.

But she remembered.

She remembered a life that was not her own. Two lives, she thought. The past and the future swirled together in the far reaches of her mind. She thought of them as she sat there—of the man who used to be Ganymede, and of the woman she might one day become.

The past was unchangeable, but the future was not certain. She had already taken steps to ensure that the future of her dreams did not come to pass. Some were unintentional. She had not been a Princess then, but she was Princess now. Others she had undertaken with that goal in mind. She fought for a brighter future, for one devoid of Chaos. She fought for her loved ones, and for a whole world of people long dead.

She heard their whispers.

“Ganymede... Ganymede... Ganymede...”

Another year had passed. With it, the screams that often plagued her memories slowly faded away. She still dreamt of darkened rooms and cages, but the despair was gone. The hopelessness went with it. She'd regained her strength. Her experiences had molded her into who she was today. The darkness, the tears, the beatings and the branding had changed her. The Negaverse had shaped her into a new being.

They'd created a warrior.

Her body may have broken, but the same could not be said for her soul.