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 Posted: Sun May 29, 2011 3:57 pm
A pair of frilly-fuku'd figures flickered into existence, sending a light breeze through the silent halls of the Europan capitol building. The darker complexioned of the pair got quickly to her feet and made a circle of the room where they'd arrived, determining their location and also checking for what she might call lingering ghosts.
The room was silent. Sailor Europa breathed a slow sigh through her teeth and turned back to her traveling companion, Sailor Ganymede. "I'm sorry to drag you into this at such short notice," she said. Theoretically the two Gallilean senshi had just met earlier that evening, with only a brief introduction in Elysion several months previously, but Europa already felt an affinity for him. After all, his past self was peppered all over the moon's memories, and from what she'd observed, they'd been close.
"But I wanted to see, if you see anything here," she explained, peering down the closest hallway. "So keep an eye out, please?" she asked. "This is the Europan capitol," she added. "It's a center of culture and politics. So there are a lot of memories."
Ghosts that came out of the walls, she always thought.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 6:29 pm
Ganymede scrambled to his feet, staring around the building with wide eyes and an expression full of awe. He didn't move right away, but stood dead center and turned on the spot, taking in the foreign place around him. Or perhaps it wasn't so foreign. He didn't really know. He found it hard to think of anything else aside from the suddenness of their arrival here and the fact that they were no longer on the only planet he had ever thought to consider home.
"And what exactly am I supposed to be seeing?" he asked, unable to mask the wariness in his voice. He hadn't expected to run into Europa again -- he almost hadn't even recognized her at first; she seemed to have gone through a bit of an outfit change since the last time he'd seen her -- especially not so soon after his run-in with Kallichore. He wasn't so sure what to think of two such encounters within such a short period of time.
But Europa was much less abrasive than the other senshi had been -- or at least she was so far -- and so Ganymede could feel somewhat more comfortable around her.
"This is unreal," he said and attempted to take a calming breath as he forced his feet to follow after the more experienced senshi. "I didn't even know we-" he paused, sitll not sure how much he wanted to include himself in any of this, "-you..." he stumbled on a correction, "could do this."
It was so astonishing he couldn't even be in a bad mood about it.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 11:30 am
"We," corrected Europa gently, testing out the floor of the adjourning hall. She'd made the mistake of not testing floors before and nearly falling through, but this felt solid. She motioned for Ganymede to follow her. "We can do this," she repeated. "It's the center button on the phone. Dial the universe."
She smiled slightly at him. "ET phone home. Come on, let's look around."
There was no telling what the floor was made of. It might have been ceramic, or wood, or even metal - it had a reddish luster, aged, but clearly once beautiful. Europan architecture relied on smooth lines and colors natural to the landscape: icy blues and rusty oranges.
"I get little flashes of memory here sometimes," explained Europa. "Things that I saw here in another life." She hadn't had the same experience on Pyxis, but there was always reasoning that Sailor Europa had never been to Pyxis in the past. But she knew that Ganymede had been here before. She'd seen him, talked to him, all red silk and feathers.
"So I want to see if it works for anywhere your past self might have gone, or just your own world," she clarified. This was a science experiment for Sailor Europa, with the added bonus of meeting a fellow Galilean scout.
"I don't actually know where this hallway goes," she admitted sheepishly. It didn't really matter - the capitol building was like Hogwarts. There were always new things waiting to be discovered. "Oooh!" she exclaimed, suddenly tugging Ganymede forward. "Look!"
The corridor split into two at a huge floor to ceiling window. A snowy expanse stretched beyond it, al the way to the horizon.
The luminous curve of Jupiter dominated the sky.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 5:01 pm
He took the correction in stride but didn't comment on it. Ganymede wasn't sure he liked lumping himself in with the rest of them, even if he knew he was one of them. There wasn't much use in denying that at this point. He didn't have to like it, but he had to accept it. He supposed things could have been worse, and at least he'd found an ally in Europa, whether or not he got along with anyone else.
He walked with her, noting the manner in which she tested the floors, and becoming more cautious of their surroundings because of it. He didn't know what to expect, or if and when anything might jump out of the shadows or from around the corner at them. Was it even safe to be here?
"Another life..." he murmured. It wasn't a foreign concept to him, but the idea of remembering was somewhat disturbing. Did that mean he would start remembering things from long ago? Were they really his memories to have, if he wasn't even that person anymore?
Ganymede allowed himself to be tugged forward, staring out the window at the image in the sky. He was used to the view from Earth, of seeing the moon inch across an inky black night sky. The sight of Jupiter was much different -- large, majestic, breathtaking. He thought there was beauty in it, alien and frightening, almost overwhelming, but remarkably stunning and, in certain ways, welcoming.
"It's... sort of creepy," he said, unsure how else to describe it. He shivered, and didn't know if it was from fright or excitement. "What was it like?" he wondered. "Before. The things you see. Was... was I here before then? Is that why you thought I might see something?"
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 5:16 pm
"Yeah, you were," nodded the dark-haired senshi. "From what I can tell, Jupiter was a huge kingdom a thousand years ago. Really glamorous. Parties and politics."
She studied the orange face of Jupiter and trained a steady finger on a dark globe that hung in front of it. "That's Io," she said, with no hesitation. She'd looked up where the moons were in the system - Io was the only one it could be. "We can't see Ganymede from here, it's further out. You'd see it from the night side of the moon, if they're lined up right now."
She stepped away from him and paced a few yards in either direction down the hall. "I want to show you... Let's go this way, okay?" she asked, motioning to the left.
Maybe the ballroom would spur something. Her memories had been especially vivid there, so maybe it would be the same for Ganymede.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 6:31 pm
"Doesn't sound much different from Earth," Ganymede commented, easily able to envision the sort of parties that must have occurred here, whether or not he could remember anything from back then. He figured schmoozing and politics were the same everywhere.
His eyes caught on Io for a few moments, before he did glance around to seek out any sign of the other moons, even as he was informed that his own couldn't be seen.
His own... It was a strange thought. He'd looked up enough to know what he was named for and what Ganymede was, and Kallichore had mentioned the ability to visit their worlds, but he'd never before now thought of doing so. He wondered, vaguely, what it was like. Was it just as creepily desolate as Europa? Would Jupiter hang just as magnificently in the sky there?
Would he start having memories, too?
Not sure if he wanted them but intrigued nonetheless, Ganymede turned to follow Europa again, letting her chose the direction and the destination. He was sure if he tried to make his way around on his own, he'd only succeed in getting himself lost.
"So you've seen me?" he asked. Try as he might, he couldn't help but be curious. "Have you seen any of the others?"
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 11:41 pm
"Some others," said Europa. Some of the senshi she'd seen there, she was no longer on the best terms with. "From out of the system," she added, preferring to leave it at that. "But I think the Jovians were close."
When you were close enough to another moon to make out details on the surface, it was reasonable enough to think that you'd be close. "I've seen others from our system sort of in the background," she added, after a bit of thought. "But you're the only one who's really been... in focus."
She hadn't really visited as many times as she wanted or seen as many memories and she'd have liked, but there weren't any rules against diversifying your research. Ganymede would hopefully give her another perspective on things.
"You were older than me in our past," she explained as they walked. And taller, she didn't say.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:37 am
“Close, huh?” he wondered with a frown. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the idea but that he found it hard to believe, if only because he didn’t feel very close to anyone in the present. He and Kallichore certainly hadn’t seen eye-to-eye, and he an Europa had hardly encountered one another enough for him to define their relationship in such a way.
“I hope I wasn’t some hunch-backed old man,” he mumbled, unimpressed with her minor description. He wasn’t sure what “older” was supposed to mean. “Was I more competent, at least?”
He would be the first to admit that he lacked the skill and aggressiveness of many of the others on their side of the war. Skill he might like more of—it would be easier to defend himself, at the very least—but the aggressiveness he would happily do without. Even so, discovering what he had been like was a titillating prospect. He could imagine a great many things about this supposed past life of his, what he would have liked for himself in another time and place, but the details were beyond him. He had no memories whatsoever, and being here had yet to trigger any.
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:08 am
Europa smiled at Ganymede. "You're not incompetent now," she told him. Just new at this. "But the you I've seen, yeah, I guess I'd call him competent. Tall. Charming. Handsome, yeah? So you can at least rest easy in knowing the past you was a looker."
She leaned against a pair of ornate wood and glass doors until the swung inwards into a huge room with a high, vaulted glass ceiling. Europa tugged Ganymede in behind her. "This is the grand ballroom," she said, looking around. "If we're going to see anything this trip, it's going to be here."
In her mind's eye, she remembered the ball she'd witnessed the last time she'd come to the moon, how her past self had played wallflower until the glamorous older Galilean pushed her out onto the floor.
"Do you see anything?" she asked with trepidation.
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:19 pm
Ganymede was only slightly mollified by Europa's confidence in him, if only because he still didn't have much confidence in himself, at least not when he was like this. But having someone so experienced and more powerful giving him encouragement made it seem as if he might have somewhat of a chance to become something -- if not great, then at least moderately successful.
In any case, he didn't comment on it further, and instead snorted at her description of his past self. "I happen to think I'm quite the looker now," he said, more as a joke than anything else.
He followed her into the ballroom, staring around as he crossed through the doors. He glanced at Europa for a moment at her question, still not really understanding what she expected him to see, but he made his way to the very center of the room and slowly looked around just in case anything popped out at him.
Nothing did.
"No," he said, not sure if he was disappointed by that or not. "I just see an empty room."
He did try, straining his eyes as he looked into each corner then back toward the doors, thinking maybe squinting would help. In the end, nothing changed, and he was left feeling a bit like a failure. He could tell Europa had been hopeful that something would reveal itself to him.
"Sorry," he apologized.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:47 am
"I never said you weren't," replied Europa out the side of her mouth. It was a different kind of looker, though. Current Ganymede was younger than her, fine-boned, pretty, even. His past incarnation had been some years her elder: the same flamboyant senshi of Lust, to be sure, but a different kind of looker. Maybe, given a few years, she thought, the senshi in front of her might grow to resemble the one she'd seen before. Or not. At present, though, while she had to admit that genetics has been kind, he looked too much like a girl for her to feel any kind of attraction to him.
"It's okay," she sighed. So that was how it worked, then. Memories on your own world, and nothing on others. When she hadn't seen anything on Pyxis, she figured it was because she'd never been to Pyxis. But now it seemed more likely that maybe she has and the universe has forgotten.
"It was just an experiment, to see if you could, don't feel bad," explained Europa. She stepped delicately away from him, out onto the slightly scuffed ballroom floor, and looked up at the curve of Jupiter glowing through the glass ceiling. For a brief moment she felt suddenly surrounded by bodies, music, a thousand accents including her own broad jovian speech -
And then it faded. Europa turned back to Ganymede and smiled. "It's not a wasted trip, though," she said. She curtsied. "May I have this dance?"
Ballrooms ought to be used for their intended purpose, all things considered.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 11:03 am
Ganymede couldn’t help but snort, smirking lightly as he responded with a low bow, making a grand sweeping gesture with one of his arms. “It’d be better with music, but we can make this work,” he said as he rose up again. “I could sweep the floor with you, either way. At least at this. I’m a fantastic dancer,” he shared, doing a quick pirouette in demonstration.
It was the first he’d ever really said about his life outside of their powered forms, but dancing was so engrained in him, so much a part of his daily life, that saying something like that seemed natural and he didn’t even notice he’d opened that door.
He took one of Europa’s hands and put his other along her waist. She wasn’t drastically taller than him, and the heels of his boots were a bit higher than the ones on hers, so it almost evened out. He could have danced either role easily, but this time he chose to lead, reciting “one, two, three, one, two, three” until he was sure she had the hang of the easy rhythm. Then he began humming the first tune he could think of – the waltz from one of his favorite ballets, The Sleeping Beauty.
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:45 am
Europa had only the faintest concepts of how a waltz was supposed to be done - she had only ever made it through three Ballroom Dance lessons before the gift certificate ran out, and then wasn't sure she cared enough to continue. But Ganymede made it seem easy, leading her across the floor with confident steps. And he was far better at dancing in high heels than she was - hers were only an inch and a half, tops, and they still gave her the occasional pause. How Ganymede managed in his was beyond her.
"Were you born wearing heels?" Europa asked him quietly as they spun. They were the only people on the entire moon but she still felt a need to be quiet. Too many ghosts.
She fell quiet, listening to the tune he was humming, trying to place it. After a while she muttered, "I've heard this before. It's... what is it?"
Classical music was not exactly one of her areas of expertise, Europa hated to admit. Admitting that anything was beyond her knowledge was something she was usually pretty reticent to do.
"I guess, we've been here a while," she said lowly, considering it. "We should go back soon - time passes the same here or there."
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:59 pm
His smirk turned into a more genuine smile at the first question. "That's what I like to tell everyone," he said, and it was true enough. He'd said it before, though in a much different situation -- and with a much different attitude -- than this.
He paused in his humming, though his steps never once faltered. "A waltz from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, further popularized in the Disney movie. You've probably heard it from there." He didn't bother to add any words to the tune. He figured she already knew them, if the tune itself sounded familiar to her.
They came to a stop once Europa became aware of the passing time. Ganymede released her and looked around the empty ball room again, then up at the image of Jupiter beyond the ceiling. "Right. Let's go, then," he said, though he didn't move right away.
He hadn't seen anything, but it hadn't been a wasted trip. He hadn't before considered traveling to the moon which shared his name -- he'd barely been aware that such a thing was possible -- but now that he'd had this experience, short and uneventful as it had been, he began to wonder what it must be like. Perhaps one day he'd go see, but for now he was satisfied with knowing that there was some sort of sense to all this. He hadn't been randomly chosen and thrust into this bizarre situation. He'd been here before, whether or not he remembered it; he'd been something -- someone -- whether or not he understood it all now.
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:35 pm
"You'll have to give me pointers on walking in them sometime," nodded Europa, who now recognized the song. It was happily irrelevant to their present situation. No sleeping princesses here, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"This is actually a good place to leave from," said Europa, flicking her phone out of the air. "I'll end up back near here next time I come."
She scrolled through the phone's menu for a bit, decided she was disappointed by the number of bars she had out here in the cosmos, and then reached over and took hold of Ganymede's wrist. There was a moment of silence while she concentrated, closed her eyes, and picked out the sound of the earth before hitting the central button -
And then they were back in the alley, about an hour after they'd left. Europa turned to Ganymede. "Go to your moon," she said, grinning at him. "When you get a chance. Just do it. You won't regret it."
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