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 Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:16 pm
“Well, well, look who it is...”
She said it as if she hadn't expected the other to turn up there at that exact moment, when this meeting had been planned and agreed upon prior to that evening. The rooftop of the building where they'd chosen to meet was unremarkable; there was nothing about it or its location that stood out. That had been the intention, of course. When two Eternals meant to speak it was best to do so in nondescript locations, lest they receive a bit of unwanted company. Although, she supposed that was always a danger no matter where they chose to meet.
Ganymede was unsure if her present company was unwanted. She was never sure, truth be told. It was difficult to maintain a firm opinion on the matter when their interactions were never quite the same from encounter to encounter. They argued, they got along, they argued, they got along again. Ganymede never knew what to expect, and she was left wary because of it.
“You're not crying this time, at least,” she made a purposeful dig, but the smirk on her face was far more amused than it was malicious. “That's good, I suppose. Tears look weird on you.”
Ganymede stood near the edge of the roof, a hand clasped to the surrounding fence that acted as a barrier from their admittedly uncomfortable height (at least, uncomfortable to her) and a fall to the ground. She'd arrived earlier and had taken certain measures to keep herself busy in the meantime. Her boots were discarded off to the side; she stood in first position, her right knee extended, foot pointed in a tendu to the front.
“It's been a while,” she said, and then because she was a bit nervous about the matter herself, “You sure a rooftop's really the best place for this? You know... all things considered...”
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:41 pm
Kallichore had arrived maybe ten minutes after Ganymede, sitting atop one of the offline air conditioning units, one leg crossed over the other. She sighed at the crying comment - she certainly hasn't been the most stable member of the Jovian Court to this point, has she? With an open palm on her cheek, Kallichore had to give up the battlefield to Ganymede on that one. She wasn't sure how to respond to her fellow Eternal. Swinging one leg slowly, she considered a few things. "I... have to apologize. For being stupid." came the final reply. "I guess I'm not as suited to war as I thought I was." Straightening her spine, the eternal crossed her arms but couldn't bring herself to look at Ganymede. Not yet. "...I've done a great many stupid things, and it's thanks to you that I still have my head on straight. You and the rest of the Jovians. If not for you, well..." She didn't want to think about it. Instead, she tapped the glass of the bottle that now hung on her waist by a belt. "If anyone is stupid enough to attack two Eternal Senshi then... they deserve it. But until then, things should be peaceful. And speaking of peace..." She unhooked the bottle and placed it on the air conditioning unit next to her. "...I think I managed to finally find some."
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:08 pm
“I don't think anyone's really suited for war,” Ganymede mumbled.
But she made no attempt to argue further or dismiss Kallichore's apology, as much as she would have liked to give her a hard time about it. She considered it, and had a few snide comments at the tip of her tongue that she stubbornly swallowed down. If Kallichore was going to be big enough to apologize for her breakdown (but was that really something to apologize for under the circumstances?) and her subsequent behavior, Ganymede could be big enough to accept it with the seriousness with which it deserved. She gave the other Eternal a curt nod and left it at that.
Drawing her leg around in a rond de jambe, Ganymede looked toward Kallichore with a skeptical expression, her eyes settling curiously on the glass bottle.
“Kind of hard to find some peace in the middle of a war. The two are pretty mutually exclusive, I thought,” she observed. “Besides, I didn't think you were the type to find your peace at the bottom of a bottle.”
A bit of a crass joke, she thought, but as she'd watched her father do just that for the last eight years of his life Ganymede thought she had every right to make comments like that. Her expression, however, remained curious, even if her voice carried the tone of one who was a bit unimpressed by the situation.
“'S that new?” Ganymede asked, nodding toward the bottle as she returned to first position and drew her leg forward again. “I can't remember seeing that on you before.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:30 pm
I don't think anyone's really suited for war. Kallichore chuckled quietly in disagreement, but chose not to voice it. The Eternal looked up at her blonde counterpart and tilted her head slightly. "That's true. Most of the time, the two are very much mutually exclusive. But I learned a few things back on my moon that gave me reason to think otherwise." A gloved finger tapped on the glass bottle again. "I didn't want to believe that we could learn much of anything from the past, seeing as their civilizations no longer exist. They didn't really fight Chaos, I thought, because if they did, I think we'd see more evidence of it. But..." Kallichore's eyes turned and watched something far in the distance. "...I think I understand what she was trying to tell me. What I was trying desperately to avoid." The gray-haired one thought Ganymede's poise too impressive, too graceful, too precious to interrupt, so she got up of her own accord and picked up the bottle to take to the blonde. "It is new. I'm still not sure what it would be called or how I was able to bring it with me but... it brings me peace." She stood before the blonde, holding onto the bottle until she thought the other was finished with her exercises. With a sigh, she leveled Ganymede a friendly, though characteristic, glare. "And no, it's not booze. I don't think you want to see me drunk. Or maybe you do."
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:59 am
“Oh, you know, I'd like to see everyone drunk at least once,” Ganymede said, her mouth quirked into a bit of a sarcastic grin.
Try as she might to remain impassive on the subject, Ganymede did find the bottle vaguely intriguing. So it had come from Kallichore's homeworld. Or that was the assumption she made based on Kallichore's explanations. That in itself was a compelling notion to someone whose homeworld had come to be a great source of interest of late. Ganymede had never attempted to take anything from her homeworld, and wouldn't know what to bring with her if she had the choice.
There was too much to wade through there. She hardly knew where to begin, or where to look next, or how to truly grasp the meaning behind what memories she was allowed.
As her smile lowered into a small frown upon Kallichore's approach, Ganymede let go of the surrounding fence and ceased her barre exercises. She gave the bottle a few more curious glances but made no move to reach out for it, unsure what Kallichore intended to do with it or how anyone was supposed to use it to find peace.
“I can't imagine what use we would have had back then if we weren't fighting Chaos,” Ganymede said instead, though she had to admit she'd seen no evidence of that herself. “So what were you trying to avoid then? And what does that bottle have to do with it? Coming to terms with your utter insanity? You should have known that when you first figured out what your magic was. Clearly we're all just pawns in a vast universal chess match, saddled with powers meant to teach us about ourselves and our various roles in the game. You're crazy and I want too much. Seems simple enough to me.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 5:07 pm
Under any other circumstances, these words would never have exited her mouth, let alone evolved in her mind. With a sigh, Kallichore shrugged. "We'll just... have to arrange some drunken stupor at some point. Call it bonding." Air quotes and all. The use of their past selves was debatable and probably varied vastly from world to world. There had to have been some kind of reason for them to have existed, otherwise it would make no sense. If they were reincarnated more than once, perhaps the lives before the previous were warriors who fought Chaos... There was too much to consider without enough information and the gray haired one let it drop. Instead she decided to answer the blonde's first question. "I was trying to convince myself to kill them. The Negaverse, the Dark Mirror, whoever it was I came across. I was convinced that the death of one would benefit the many, despite everything the Court had dictated. I wanted to stick by the creed, by the rules, but I still thought that the more I snuffed out, the safer the universe would be." Turning the bottle over in her hands, brown eyes watched as the liquid inside swirled back and forth. "...but no amount of blood on my hands would change anything. Chaos would and could easily just replace them as fast as I could take them down. But if I could save just one of them, that person could be a shining example to the rest. A brilliant star is more a multitude more than ten gravestones." That was probably more metaphorical than it needed to be, but Kallichore felt it got the point across. "I'm not crazy. Not anymore, anyway." After that came a chuckle and a strange, yet genuine, smile. "I do agree that we were chosen for a reason, and that maybe our strengths and weaknesses had something to do with it. But I would have broken down at some point, over some thing, regardless of whether or not I had this power. In that respect, I think it's a blessing. At least I could be of some help to the people of Destiny City." Tossing the bottle up and down a few times, Kallichore finally handed it to Ganymede. "I prefer not to think of it as a chess match controlled by someone else. We might be on the board, but we are the ones who decide our position and our next moves. We all started as pawns, and look where we've brought ourselves." Pointing to the bottle, Kallichore made a gesture for drinking. "I don't know exactly how it works, but when you drink this, it washes over your mind. It brought me memories of my cousin and brother on Christmas morning maybe ten years ago. I never felt so... calm. You don't have to drink it if you don't want to, but I learned that wisdom comes to a calm mind."
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Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 10:28 am
Ganymede was unsure how to respond to many of Kallichore's comments and so simply let them pass without agreement or rebuttal. Her own opinions were constantly fluctuating with each battle, each encounter, each step forward and each step back in the war. She didn't truly know why they were here or what their purpose was or even how much control they really had over their own lives, and she was growing tired of trying to find the answers when they always seemed so illusive. Maybe they weren't meant for her to find, or maybe there was nothing that could adequately explain the whys and the hows of the war.
In any case, the thought of Kallichore convincing herself to kill someone brought a deep frown to Ganymede's face, though she chose to keep her mouth shut at the moment and let the other Eternal continue with her explanation. The revelation was not a surprising one, but it didn't please Ganymede at all.
As the bottle was handed to her Ganymede took it gently at hand and examined it more closely. Even up close there was nothing really remarkable about it. She probably wouldn't have thought much of it had Kallichore not brought attention to it. Ganymede considered it for a few moments longer and debated the merits of drinking it. Inevitably she shrugged her shoulders and decided it couldn't do her much harm; if it did, Kallichore would certainly not escape without retribution.
Ganymede took a brief sip of the water within and waited for the results. They weren't long in coming. Slowly she felt the tension slip away, her mind cleared of any lingering worries, and she felt... well, she always felt hopeful. She didn't think she could keep fighting without hope. But it grew in strength, and suddenly things didn't seem quite so impossible. No less daunting, of course, nor any less difficult, but she could withstand it. She could keep going.
“Nice trick,” she said, her voice calmer than she'd intended it to be as she handed the bottle back to Kallichore. “So your sanity depends on some water? And is all this because of that German captain? Whatever his name was. Crazy dude on the rooftop.”
Under the water's influence, mentioning him didn't bring Ganymede quite as much distress as the memories usually caused.
“Not that you weren't plenty crazy before that, but that wasn't easy on anyone, Kallichore,” she continued. “And it's not up to you to take the blame for it or find some way to seek vengeance on your own.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 5:54 pm
Kallichore looked down at her feet for a moment at the mention of the then-lieutenant she actively chose not to kill. Had she ended him, so many lives would have been saved. But at what price? It was a difficult and complex situation the eternal senshi still had a hard time wrapping her mind around. She sighed, shifting her weight. "I have a lot of regrets, one of which is him. But I found the worst enemy was me, it was my hopelessness. I thought there would be no way to end the war, no way to make any appreciable difference." She turned away from Ganymede for a moment, twining her fingers behind her back. "I had a plan - I was going to take out as many of them as possible, make the ones I couldn't kill suffer and then self-destruct somehow. I didn't want them taking me alive no matter what the circumstances. I was about to go through with it when I went back to my moon to rest and prepare and Sibyl taught me a few things... Then I found that bottle and brought it back. It had to happen for a reason." Maybe her sanity did depend on the water, but no one could argue that of all the crutches in the world, it certainly wasn't the worst of them. Her voice was kept low. "...I know you don't think the best of me, Ganymede. I don't expect you to and I certainly don't deserve any praise or recognition, least of all from you. I guess..." Her hands dropped, an admission of defeat. "I just wanted to apologize for being a crazy psychopath." That was it, wasn't it?
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 8:26 am
“Don't pretend as if you have any idea what I think or how I feel,” Ganymede said.
She kept the bottle at hand, turning it over and over as her eyes continued to examine it, but further observation showed little else.
She was not entirely sure how she felt herself. Her feelings on the matter of Kallichore always seemed to be in conflict, and her opinions fluctuated often. Ganymede did not dislike her, but she also didn't feel as close to her as she felt with some of the others, though she suspected that was a result of previous encounters. There weren't too many people she'd argued with as much as she had Kallichore, after all. But there was a part of her that was somewhat fond of the other Eternal, whether or not she had the guts to admit that to anyone (or even to herself), and she didn't want to see her teammate get hurt or put herself into even more dangerous situations.
“But I accept your apology,” she said. “And for what it's worth, I don't think you're a psychopath. You can be crazy without being psycho. Just because we've disagreed on a couple of things doesn't mean I think you're awful. You're nothing like they are. The Negaverse, or the Dark Mirror Court. And I'd rather it stay that way. The more we act like them, the more likely we are to become them. You're better than that, Kallichore. We're all better than that.”
Ganymede circled around her teammate so that they could face one another again, and she held the bottle back out to her. “Whatever you do, or don't do, you're not in it alone,” she said.
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 8:00 pm
Kallichore bristled a bit at her blonde counterpart's statement. Ganymede was right - she couldn't assume anything. Not fairly, anyway. She was already preparing the mental gymnastics necessary to kick her own a** for being insensitive when Ganymede appeared on her peripherals. Looking up, the eternal was surprised the apology was accepted. She was beyond floored when Ganymede didn't sling insults and instead... somewhat complimented her. Kallichore didn't know what to do in that situation and opened her mouth to say something. Closing it again, she sighed and turned her head, a blush rising to her cheeks. "...thank you, Ganymede." Taking the bottle back, the eternal placed it back on the strap that kept it safe at her side. "...so... I owe you and Valhalla. Dinner and a movie? Would that make up for it?" She fidgeted, unsure of how to behave at a time like this. Anything aside from dire seriousness was foreign territory to her.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:21 pm
Ganymede shrugged at the show of thanks and turned her head to the side awkwardly, as if to hide an expression of embarrassment she made stubborn attempts to control. “Don't mention it,” she mumbled.
She didn't think Kallichore was a terrible person. Maybe a bit impulsive, or in a way misguided. But it wasn't too terribly difficult to just agree to disagree on things and let bygones be bygones. She didn't expect they'd ever be the very best of friends, but Ganymede thought their relationship was better now than it had been. They could work together, they could watch out for one another, they could talk to one another.
And that was really the most important thing, wasn't it?
“Well, if you insist on making it up to us I suppose dinner and a movie wouldn't be too much trouble,” she joked. Then she turned back to her teammate and stared at her seriously. “But really as long as you promise not to do anything stupid that might end up getting you in some serious trouble, we can call it even.”
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Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:10 pm
"Hmm. I can't make any promises but I'll do my best to keep myself out of trouble. Will that do?" Now she had some planning to do. Turning away from Ganymede, she sighed slowly and looked up at the stars. "I'm... not very good at this, as you can see. I never was and I'm trying not to be something... I'm not." She shook her head. Where was she trying to go with this? "I'll stick to what I'm good at - fighting and being an uncomfortable presence and maybe someday..." Kallichore nodded to herself as if trying to summon some kind of self-confidence. "...maybe someday I'll be more like my past self - maybe I can offer some wisdom someday." Yes, that was an admirable goal, or so she thought. "Anyway, thank you for speaking to me, Ganymede. I appreciate it, even if I'm not very adept at saying so." Sunshine Alouette SORRY THIS IS DIFFICULT AND I APOLOGIZE FOR THE WAIT
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Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 7:21 am
'I'm... not very good at this, as you can see.'
Ganymede didn't feel very adept at handling it either, so that at least was one thing they had in common, whether or not they shared anything else. She'd been fumbling through this Senshi thing for three years, and making a mess of her and Kallichore's relationship for about as long. She didn't expect that was going to change any time soon, certainly not drastically, but she was making efforts to get better at it. She wanted to be better, whether or not she really knew how to accomplish that.
Being a good teammate might be the first step, she thought, and that was something she knew she had it in her to be. She might not always get along with every single one of them, but she still cared.
Loathe as she might be to admit that she cared about Kallichore to Kallichore's face. She did have a reputation to uphold, after all.
“You're welcome,” she said. “And... I'm glad you're alright. Just... don't feel like you can't ever talk to me about things, especially if you're... you know... having trouble. I'm not a fighter and I don't expect I ever will be, so... I figure my job's to keep everyone focused on... I don't know. The things that are really important, maybe. Life. Survival. Who we are, or... who we're meant to be.”
That sounded a little weird even to her. Quickly Ganymede shrugged it off and cleared the awkwardness from her throat. “It's late. We probably shouldn't linger around here too much longer. Our buttwings'll probably draw some unwanted attention before long.”Lucifer Force NO PROBLEM BB I AM SORRY FOR THE WAIT TOO! QQ <333
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Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:57 pm
Kallichore turned away to make sure Ganymede didn't see her smile. She had a reputation to keep up, after all. But the Senshi of Lust was correct -- too many buttwings in one area would no doubt bring trouble to them both without a cat. Making sure the bottle was securely strapped to her person, Kallichore leaped quickly to a higher vantage point. For what it was worth, Kallichore had to agree that not everyone's strengths were on the battlefield. Sometimes there was something to be said about keeping everyone in perspective. Someone had to keep them all grounded in reality, even if the very war itself defied it. "Thank you, Ganymede." was all she said before disappearing into the night's shadows. Sunshine Alouette I think that's a wrappu~ Thank you very much for the RP!
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