All of Guine’s characters (in whatever incarnation) are always referenced and puppeted with her permission and input.
Word Count: 2169
There were very few things in life he’d ever felt were truly his.
Most of what he owned had been bought for him, or else paid for with money that had been given, not earned. Most of the people in his life had other concerns that had nothing to do with him—a career in the case of his mother, a boyfriend in the case of his best friend, a series of issues he didn’t understand in the case of the boy he loved. Often it was necessary to take a step back, to remove himself from their company even when he didn’t want to, to allow them the chance to live their lives on their own.
He’d had his father—if not his unconditional love then at least his constant presence—until the time came when God or nature or the universe decided that that, too, must end. Then he had nothing, just the scraps of an old life and the desperation to have it all back again.
But this place… this empty world of dust and ghosts… this was his like nothing else was.
Ganymede visited less frequently than he thought he should. There were times when he wondered if the ghosts played out their stories alone, if he missed pieces of a long-forgotten tale in his absence, or if it all sat waiting, biding its time before he set foot there again.
There was a comfort in it, escaping from Earth to immerse himself into someone else’s life. The soul was the same, but the person was different and he thought that was enough. It provided a sort of distance from the troubles of life, so far removed from his pain and his heartache it was like they didn’t even exist when he was there.
This time he felt a bit adventurous. He felt daring. When instinct pulled him from the room he knew to have belonged to the man whose soul had become his own, Ganymede followed the path his feet seemed to know but which his mind had little memory of, passing rooms and chambers he’d yet to enter, descending stairs, traversing halls, until he came upon a door fighting to remain on its hinges, hanging open to a world of ruin.
Something came upon him as he stepped outside, something he called a memory but which could have just as easily been a hallucination conjured but a subconscious need for more—for an explanation, for an answer, to a part of his life that even today proved difficult to accept.
The rear of the palace, which had only moments before lain barren, was populated with flowers and greenery, an expansive garden that stretched into the horizon, with bushes and shrubs and cobbled walking paths, decorative fountains, and ponds brimming with colorful fish.
A number of women mingled about, in dresses that reminded him of the turn of the century, chatting to one another about things he didn’t understand because they’d happened so long ago. Only a few men were present. One had a rather pretty lady attached to his arm, but the others seemed content to talk between themselves, their expressions serious, as if their discussions were more than just petty gossip. They gave off a self-important air, the kind of arrogance only power and authority could bring.
Ganymede walked passed them. Instinct pulled him on and so he went with hardly a thought. He attracted no attention. His presence did not interfere with the ghostly lives playing out around him. It was at once as if he was a part of it and yet as if he remained removed from it. His arrival conjured the spirits, but his attention mattered little to them.
And so he walked—beyond the fountains and the trees and the manicured lawns, passed the clear surface of a reflecting pool, through a gate and outside the perimeter of the palace grounds.
He came across a wide field. The grass was higher here, the flowers wild, the sky unobstructed by trees for nearly half a mile. Here Ganymede noticed the temperance of the climate for the first time. A warm, gentle breeze blew through his hair, sent his long train rustling in the grass, and carried with it the scent of springtime. A bell chimed in the distance. It brought to mind a tall, grand cathedral, and when a whistle sounded, low and fading steadily, he thought of steam and trains.
The grass swished beneath his feet as he moved. A few birds flitted about, singing and chirping as if they had not a single care in the world.
His target rested some ways ahead. A young man, still very much a boy, lied in the grass by the distant tree-line. Ganymede knew him immediately, as he always featured heavily in these forays into the past.
It was Liesel—the one whose fate it’d once been to bear the name of “Ganymede.”
He seemed younger than Ganymede remembered from his previous visit, perhaps closer to his age, his face a canvas of androgynous features—a soft jaw, smooth cheeks, and wide, pale blue-violet eyes—but there was still something distinctly male about his appearance. Liesel looked more open in his youth, not exactly careless but still less serious, and his current whereabouts made him appear more at ease, like the absence of people gave him the opportunity to relax.
A temporary freedom.
Liesel’s feet were bare. A pair of boots sat a yard away in the grass, joined by a pair of stockings, a vest, and a jacket that must have been stifling in this weather. He wore only a loose white shirt with a lace-trimmed collar and sleeves, tucked into a pair of dark pants he’d rolled up to his knees.
A stirring of the grass behind him alerted Ganymede to the arrival of another.
He turned and settled his gaze upon a second familiar face—olive green eyes and dark auburn hair and a tunic and fur boots that would stand out in a crowd of locals. A knight of Jupiter, guardian of Valhalla, whose name Ganymede had only learned when he’d been taken to explore the large, deserted fortress, with its strange magic and eagle-crested door to a room designed for the comfort of a particular guest.
“Serge!”
Liesel’s greeting was an animated call and a happy laugh. He stood to meet his friend, passing directly through the Senshi neither he nor the knight seemed to see. Ganymede felt a brief throb in his chest, a phantom feeling of excitement, a pervasive joy that took his breath away, before it was gone and he was left to watch the happy reunion from his place in the present.
“When did you get here?” Liesel asked.
“Some time ago. Your Lord Chancellor kept me occupied, likely due to some unfounded suspicion of his.”
“Did anyone see you slip out?”
“No. The last they saw of me I was retiring to my room.”
“Good,” Liesel said, with a smile containing just a hint of mischief. “Are they looking for me?”
The knight of Valhalla wore an answering smile that was more of a smirk. “They pretend as if your absence is of no concern,” he said, “but there was some activity among the castle guards.”
Liesel’s lips lowered into a moue of dissatisfaction. “They’ll want me back soon then,” he observed. “One day they’ll learn I’ve only come out here.”
“What will you do when they have?”
“Find a new place to hide, I expect.”
They walked together back to the spot Liesel had only just vacated. Liesel reclined on the grass, his foreign friend settling beside him. For all the fuss Liesel had made about their encounters the last time Ganymede had seen them together, here he looked comfortable, warm-hearted and welcoming to a young man he would later push away.
“How long will you be here?” Liesel asked, his head turning to watch his companion rather than the sky that had held his attention before.
“Four days at most. Then I have business on Adrastea.”
“Making your rounds to all the moons, are you?”
“More or less.”
“I’ve business on Mars in a fortnight,” Liesel announced. He did not appear especially pleased by this. His expression was… not dissatisfied, but certainly wary.
“Ah,” his friend observed. “I believe your people find them to be quite barbaric?”
“My people find you to be barbaric.”
“Only your Lord Chancellor, though even he has to admit we’re much more amiable on Jupiter.”
“Perhaps the others are,” Liesel agreed, “but I hesitate to call you amiable.”
“I don’t know whether to feel touched or hurt,” the knight joked.
“I suppose it depends on whether you would prefer to be amiable or not.”
One of the knight’s hands reached across the short space between them to tug loose the bindings that kept Liesel’s long hair tied back in a tail. Once it hung free the knight sank his fingers into it, reverently carding them through the silver-blond strands.
“That would depend on the company,” he said.
Liesel watched him with a suddenly reserved gaze. “This is inappropriate,” he declared.
“Everything is inappropriate to you,” the knight replied.
“Only children and brides wear their hair loose in public. I am neither.”
“Debatable,” his friend teased.
It was a tranquil scene, with none of the heat from their last encounter and all of the familiarity. Ganymede felt lonely watching them. He had no idea what they meant to one another. Most of what he’d seed implicated them as little more than friends, but even that was enough to twist his insides and generate feelings of loss and despair.
Back on Earth that young man of Jupiter lived without him.
He knew none of this should matter, that it had little to no effect on the present—at least the parts that had nothing to do with the war. He was not Liesel and Chris was not this overbearing knight named Serge, and whatever they’d been to one another in the past had no bearing on what they were to one another now. They had met by chance, dated on their own terms, months before they even knew the other to be involved in the same fight. What they knew of the past came from flashes of awareness, brief excursions into memories they would never have had if they’d had no interest in the worlds beyond Earth.
Yet there was a part of Ganymede—a tiny shred of romantic feeling buried beneath all the realism and practicality he lived by—that wanted to believe in soul-mates, that wanted to believe that some people belonged together, not simply because of their own feelings but because a greater force deemed that it must be so.
“I’m beginning to wonder why I was so happy to see you before,” Liesel said, frowning indignantly.
The knight of Jupiter smirked again, twisting a lock of pale hair around one of his fingers. “Because you missed me,” he confidently replied. “Because for all your propriety and denial, you prefer my company to any other.”
“I fail to see why I should,” Liesel countered.
“Perhaps because I don’t treat you like the others do,” the knight suggested.
“You mean you don’t respect me,” Liesel surmised.
The knight’s expression turned soft. It looked foreign on such a normally harsh face, uncomfortably sweet and surprisingly gentle.
“I respect you as Liesel,” he said, quietly, nearly a whisper. “I care for you, not for Ganymede.”
Liesel’s face had taken on a look of wonder, mesmerized by a sentiment it seemed he was unlikely to receive elsewhere. His eyes grew large, his cheeks took on a hint of color, before his lips twitched into a grudging smile he did his utmost to control.
The vision faded as the two inched closer to one another, vanishing back into a time that could no longer be, leaving Ganymede in a dark, barren field of brown, patchy grass.
No birds soared through the sky, or filled the air with their melodic song. No flowers swayed in the dry, dead breeze that rustled the hair over Ganymede’s shoulder. No whistle blew in the distance, no resounding bell chimed in the ravaged city beyond the broken palace. The patch of land that once supported two reclining young men sat empty and fruitless. Not a sign remained that either of them had ever been there.
The memories came and went like a dream—like the ebb and flow of a tide of reminiscence. One moment they were there, real and clear as if he’d lived them himself. The next they were gone, so fleeting they seemed like make-believe.
But always he heard, from a distant time, the whispers of his name.
“Ganymede… Ganymede… Ganymede…”
When he turned to leave this time he heard the ghost of a different name, in the only voice he knew to have said it.
“Liesel… Liesel…”
He thought he felt fingers gently threading through his hair.
