Ganymede found a quaint manor house far beyond the capital, with a crumbling roof but upright and mostly intact walls of stone.
There was a flash of recognition as it came into sight beyond the dead trunks of bare trees. She did not remember ever seeing it before herself, yet it seemed familiar to her somehow. It called to her like many places on this world called to her. Somehow she knew it to be full of ghosts and home to distant memories. The voices whispered louder here. Ganymede... Ganymede...
'This is where it begins,' they said.
She did not remember this house in the barren glade.
But Liesel did.
Ganymede's heels scraped the stones of the cobbled path that led to the door. The manor must have been beautiful once, as alive as the rest of the world must surely have been, but peaceful and less oppressive than the palace. This place, tucked away in a quiet corner of the countryside, by a forest and a babbling brooke, spoke of warmth and charm—of family. At the palace, Liesel had merely existed.
Here he had lived.
The door creaked as Ganymede pushed it open. Bits if dust and dirt rained down, untouched for centuries. The wooden floorboards groaned beneath her feet, loose and rotting. She was careful where she placed her feet, mindful of the decay around her. It may not have seen the devastation that scarred the capital, but it was just as old, and it had been abandoned for just as long. A thick layer of dust coated everything, while great cobwebs stretched between the light fixtures, from one corner to the next.
Yet there was life here. Ganymede could feel the energy reverberating between the walls. She felt emotion. She felt... joy and happiness. She felt warmth and comfort. She heard laughter, and the voices of happy children.
And something in her heart longed for it. It ached to return again.
As she crossed into another room, Ganymede's awareness drifted back. The darkness around her grew lighter, the air less stale, and suddenly everything was as it had once been.
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Liesel’s earliest memory is of a woman he will only know for seven more years, and who he will spend the rest of his life struggling not to forget.
She looks nothing like him. His hair is a fair, fair blonde and hers a muddy brown; his eyes are a pale violet-blue and hers are green like summer grass, but he is three and does not notice the differences, only sees that she is beautiful.
He sits in her lap in a chair by the fire as she reads to him from a book of old stories, of princes and princesses and knights on horseback. Two of his sisters lie sprawled on the floor in front of the hearth, idly twisting a wooden top as they listen, too. Liesel cannot think of much except for happiness and comfort. Outside the rain patters against the roof, but he is safe and warm with his mother. He nestles closer between her arms, puts his head to her chest and listens to her heartbeat.
Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…
Her hand brushes through his hair. Her voice is in his ear, whispering, but he closes his eyes and falls asleep. He won’t remember what she says, but he’s sure she spoke of love.
“You are loved, Liesel,” he thinks he hears. “You are so very loved.”
She looks nothing like him. His hair is a fair, fair blonde and hers a muddy brown; his eyes are a pale violet-blue and hers are green like summer grass, but he is three and does not notice the differences, only sees that she is beautiful.
He sits in her lap in a chair by the fire as she reads to him from a book of old stories, of princes and princesses and knights on horseback. Two of his sisters lie sprawled on the floor in front of the hearth, idly twisting a wooden top as they listen, too. Liesel cannot think of much except for happiness and comfort. Outside the rain patters against the roof, but he is safe and warm with his mother. He nestles closer between her arms, puts his head to her chest and listens to her heartbeat.
Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…
Her hand brushes through his hair. Her voice is in his ear, whispering, but he closes his eyes and falls asleep. He won’t remember what she says, but he’s sure she spoke of love.
“You are loved, Liesel,” he thinks he hears. “You are so very loved.”
A sudden warmth between her palms brought Ganymede back to herself.
Cradled in her hands Ganymede carried with her a round stone, solid to the touch and nearly clear upon first sight. Found at Valhalla, it had done nothing at the fortress on Jupiter but bring her disappointment, for it no longer contained all of Liesel's memories the way she'd hoped it might. But she'd taken it with her, and she'd kept it on her throughout the week that followed. It meant something to her, served as an anchor to the past, let her hope that someday, somehow, she would come to know everything.
When she looked upon it now she found it glowing softly. An opaque and lightly colored pink mist began to swirl around inside of it, rising and falling and circling into shapes that seemed unrecognizable at first, but they soon shifted and coalesced into two figures curled up in a rocking chair.
A pretty brown haired woman, and a small blonde haired boy.
The image remained just long enough for Ganymede to watch the brief memory a second time, before it shifted back into mist and settled into the depths of the stone.
Perhaps it wasn't so useless after all. Perhaps she could still find all of the secret's of Liesel's life.
One by one.
