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 Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 2:54 pm
Once he was sure that Ganymede saw it too, Valhalla felt as though he was safe to remove his gaze from the orb. He turned to look down at her, watching her expression and trying not to regret the decision to show it to her. He could have taken it and hidden it so she would never find it, but… that seemed wrong.
Then again, her growing obsession with Liesel and Ganymede was worrying. They were still young and dumb and although he wanted to trust her… well…
As she lifted it off the mantle and held it in her hands, Valhalla waited to see if it would do something. Would it start to glow? Or… show images of something? Or maybe she was the only one who could see it?
“Well?” he wondered out loud, prodding her to share her findings. Unless she just planned on keeping that from him as well. “What is it doing?” Because it didn’t seem to be doing anything to him...
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:06 pm
Patience, Ganymede told herself. Just be patient.
But the longer she waited, the more disappointed she became.
“It's not doing anything,” she said.
What was she doing wrong? Was she missing something? Was there something else she should be doing to make it work? Liesel had merely touched it, held it, and allowed his memories to seep into it. Ganymede thought back, tried to remember if there'd been anything else, something Liesel had done, something he'd said, but nothing came to mind. It had seemed so simple, so easy. Finding it should have been the hard part, the obstacle to overcome; finding it had been the root of the problem.
But nothing happened. She had no visions, no flashes of memory, saw nothing within the stone but its own tiny imperfections. Liesel's life and anything it might have contained was as lost to her now as it'd been before she'd known of the stone's existence.
“I thought if I found it I'd finally have something,” she said tonelessly. “I thought I could find something to help. I thought... I thought I'd finally get it... finally understand what I am... and why. It's been three years and this whole time I've never understood why. Why me? Why like this? What use could I possibly be to anything?”
The stone was solid in her grasp. Ganymede curled her fingers around it, gripped it tightly, but nothing changed. It was as lifeless as everything else in the room.
“It's just as useless as I am.”
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:15 pm
There wasn’t anything he could think to say that would give her comfort. Yeah, he could try to make her feel better, but she wouldn’t… not in the long run. If her heart was really set on this, then other than it actually working, there wasn’t much he could do.
Instead, he reached out to wrap his arms around her, pulling her close to him, rubbing at her back through the thick cape of his he was wearing. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. It made him sad, and he knew she was sad, and he didn’t like seeing her like this.
“Maybe you just have to… I don’t know, warm it up? It might just be asleep or something,” he suggested, although he knew he was shooting in the dark. He had no idea how this magic stuff worked, but he knew she wasn’t useless. “I don’t know why you say you’re useless… I don’t think you’re useless,” he tried, figuring it was worth a shot, even though he didn’t think it would help.
“Just give it time, okay…? Maybe there’s more to it than just holding onto it.” He didn’t know why he was encouraging her obsession, but… he didn’t like seeing her so down.
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:29 pm
“You're obligated to say that,” Ganymede argued, but it was half-hearted at best.
That wasn't to say she believed what Valhalla said, because she was fairly certain three years of accomplishing absolutely nothing made her pretty useless in most people's eyes. And it wasn't even that she cared about what anyone else thought—not really. There was a part of her that did, but it was really quite small in comparison to the part that thought they could all go ******** themselves. She didn't exist for their approval. In most cases she didn't even want it. She had her own reasons for fighting and they were more than good enough for her.
She didn't care for glory. She didn't even really care for honor. She had her own principles, and she thought they were noble ones, but they weren't what drove her. Rather, they were what guided her. Her family drove her, and her friends, her need to dance, to take to the stage and make something of herself. She wanted a future, and she didn't want the war to be a part of it.
Maybe it was foolish of her to look to a past that was long gone in order to bring about a future that didn't yet exist.
But she'd thought with this she might be on her way to finding something important—if not about the war, then about herself.
“All Liesel did was hold it,” she said, “and he could store his memories inside. I thought... because we have the same starseed... maybe I'd be able to see them. Ganymede lets me see memories of him, and this room... this room lets me inside, but this stupid stone... it doesn't do anything.”
Then she thought, What if it died with him?
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:43 pm
Valhalla tried very hard not to sigh or roll his eyes in reaction to Ganymede’s whining over an object that she didn’t even know existed until recently, and a magical object at that. There wasn’t exactly a manual for how any of this worked or why something did for one person but not the other.
There was nothing more he could do, and as much as he would like to help her, despite his better judgement, there just wasn’t anything more he could think of.
“Let’s just go home, okay? Maybe you’re tired and just need to rest… Come on, isn’t one of your shows on tonight…?” he tempted, hoping that there was something he could convince her was worth going home. “Or you could practice your dancing before bed…? I don’t know… But let’s go home…”
What else was there to do there but stare at the stone hoping for it to work. Valhalla pulled back from her and held out his hand, waiting for her to take it so they could leave. “You’ll figure it out…” Maybe…
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:05 pm
Ganymede was hardly convinced.
This was just her luck, though. The universe had determined a long time ago that she could rarely have anything easy. Most of the time she didn't tend to mind. After all, nothing easy was ever really worth it. She'd learned that over and over again.
But just this once she'd wanted to accomplish something, even if it only really meant anything to her. She didn't expect Valhalla to understand, no matter how many times or how many different ways she tried to explain it to him. He thought too highly of her, of other people; he was too trusting and optimistic. He was more hopeful than realistic. Ganymede was hopeful, too, but not so much that she couldn't tell when she'd hit a dead end.
“Right. Okay...” she said.
She didn't bother disguising her disappointment, but it wasn't too much trouble to agree. It wasn't as if she'd get anything by staying here any longer.
Was this really all there was? Just a stone with nothing to offer except a solid reminder that she had nothing but a desolate world full of ghosts and disconnected memories. Further proof of her own failures. Blank and empty, powerless. A small, insignificant little scrap of a past that no longer mattered, tucked away in a corner of the universe no one else cared about.
Like a dumb, skinny girl with nothing to offer anyone, stuck in a city beyond anyone's ability to save.
Ganymede took Valhalla's hand and allowed him to guide her toward the door. She gripped the stone in her other hand, her fingers tight against it, palm wrapped around its surface.
She took it with her, and as they passed the windows on the way out of the room, Ganymede looked out to stare into the sky, suddenly overcome with longing, but as always the dark, swirling clouds obscured her world from view.
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