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How long had it been?

Time had been a lost art long before she'd been moved to this place - and now that, too, felt like another lifetime ago. Here, she could hear no more screams. She could see nothing - it was a dank, barren room, no windows, one door, and most often she was kept in pitch darkness.

Someone had come in to treat her initial injuries, crudely. Her broken arm and pinky had been given the most attention, as though it made any real difference. Amphitrite was an optimist, not delusional. She was going to die here. Her one chance at liberation had been lost that night, and no one was coming for her. The only person who would had been too stubborn to listen, and now, he wouldn't even know where to look.

The bruises - some old, some fresh - along her arms, legs, and face painted her flesh a plethora of colors, like a canvas. Amphitrite was increasingly aware of her own stench in the darkness - how long had it been since New Year's Eve? How long since she'd last had a shower? How long since she'd kissed her father goodbye for what had been the last time?

Sometimes she sobbed, even if there were hardly any tears left to cry. Mostly, Amphitrite just sat there, staring half-lidded into the unyielding darkness; waiting was about all she could do. Every so often, someone from the Negaverse came in to ask her questions she didn't know the answer to. Maybe hurt her some more. It didn't matter to her anymore if they did; their visits had become the highlight of her captivity. Maybe it meant food. Someone other than herself to talk to. Maybe one of them would finally end it and put her out of her damned misery already.

They were coming less and less - her usefulness had long since waned. It had been two days now since her last 'meal'. She began to wonder if she was even worth their time to kill, or if they'd just let her fade away and starve. After all... she hadn't even been worth saving, had she?

The sudden burst of light made her eyes burn and her head throb; Amphitrite's efforts to squeeze her lids shut just gave way to a blinding wave of red, and a soft whimper of dismay caught in the back of her throat and stuck there like a kernel of popcorn. It really wasn't much light at all, of course - but any after this long was too much. She turned her head away, and that helped, at least a little.

But the light seemed paltry compared to the aura she felt - suffocating really was the best word for it. It was unlike any she'd felt thus far, and with the amount of officers that had come and gone, that was saying a lot. She felt like she was drowning in it - but somehow, it inspired more relief than it did fear. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes all over again; this was it, right? This had to be it. This person, this soft-looking, awe-inspiring woman, she was here to end it.

Her words stung, even if they weren't new. This woman wasn't the first or last to have said them, and they were the thoughts that had tormented Amphitrite from the very beginning. She'd be lying if she said some part of her, even now, had sort of hoped that maybe, maybe someone would realize. Stumble upon her. Save her.

"No, " she responded hoarsely, even as Ash's face came to mind. Ganymede's. Nazca's. People she had met in passing, maybe shared a moment or two with. But like any friendship in Natalie's life, it felt like it meant more to her than it had ever meant to them. No one who loved her, who really mattered, could have known who or where she was. "I've told your people before, I'm useless, " her voice was hoarse with abuse, shouting, and neglect. It cracked as she spoke. "Just end it already."

She tried to sound like she didn't care, that maybe this once, she found a little pride, a little defiance. But it was obvious she was pleading, and she shook as she said it. If she couldn't go home to her family, then at least end her suffering. She wasn't made of the stuff to be able to go on this long without cracking.

'Oh'. It seemed so little, so inconsequential. But it was the most fitting response, really. It summarized her career as a senshi pretty damn well. That's about all she amounted to, a tiny burst of hot air that amounted to nothing much at all in the grand scheme of the world.

The touch was gentle, but it still made her flinch. She'd been conditioned; soft touches never came free. Not here, not anymore. 'That's all they ever taught you to be.' She wanted to tell this woman she was wrong. That this situation, her failures, they had been her own and no one else's. Ash had tried to help. There was the Black Watch, there was --

No one came to check on me while my dad was punishing me. The thought had lapped at the edges of her mind more than once. Natalie didn't like to blame other people for her mistakes. She hadn't tried to reach out to Ash when she'd come back. Or anyone. But she didn't know how. How many numbers were listed in her phone? How many would have remembered and called her back?

Would this be happening if someone had just taken the time to reach out and see why she'd dropped off the radar? - the same way no one had ever come looking since she'd ended up here?

These thoughts weren't new. She didn't want to resent the Order, but she did. Hope had long since given way to desperation, and from there, bitterness had begun to set in like a deadly frost. Even if they came now - but they wouldn't. She was going to die here, and they wouldn't bat an eye or shed a tear. Why bother defending them anymore?

Amphitrite said none of this. She didn't have the strength, or the will, to sit here pouring out all her woes to the woman who would be her murderer. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she looked down, unwilling to meet her gaze.

Then the woman's hand slid down, and Amphitrite stiffened on reflex. In spite of her exhaustion, every inch of her stiffened, and her pulse raced, pounding in her head like a drum. "Please, " and that's when she looked up, her pupils dilated from the rush of sheer terror. "Please don't, please, " terror so profound, her voice was little more than a breathy whisper. "I am a waste, I'm a damn waste, I'm a waste of everything, I'm pathetic, I'm -- I'm -- please, " she hissed out, all but shaking.

She was ready to die. But as herself. To die and become someone else, some mindless puppet tool like those from the future that had never been, no - anything else, anything but this. "I know I don't have -- I know, I'm ignorant, I'm useless, I -- please, just kill me, " she pleaded, fully aware of how pathetic she sounded. It didn't matter here. Couldn't this woman see? She was wrong! Natalie knew she wasn't durable, she knew she was less than nothing, both to the Order and everyone else. She'd ceased asking for another chance at a normal life. Was it so much to ask to die as herself?

Amphitrite wanted to change back - like she had so many times before - just slip back into Natalie and beg as a girl rather than a senshi. She wanted to take it all back. The New Year's party. Cinnabar. Avalon. Being lonely and taking a gamble on a beautiful cat in a park. "Please don't do this, " she whispered, shrinking back into the chair as though she could melt away and vanish into it.

Her words burned, and between those and her own fear, her eyes did too with tears that flowed freely down her face, trailing down familiar trails through the grime and dried blood.

The woman's hand moved away to smooth out the fabric, and Amphitrite whimpered plaintively, shaking from head to toe. She allowed herself to breathe for a split-second, and try desperately one last time to think of something; if she was hesitating, maybe, maybe -- !

That brief spark of desperate hope made the sudden invasion that much more painful. It wasn't the first time; one general had threatened it, and Leucite had toyed with it. But this woman wasn't Leucite; if she felt like she was suffocating before, she was drowning now. There was just enough of a chance to stare at the powerful woman with abject terror etched across her face, those tears flowing from her eyes, before her head fell forward with the shock of chaos being pumped into her very core.

Amphitrite - Natalie - was screaming, although she didn't know it. She thrashed violently in the chair as much as she was able, tossing her head from side to side, up and down, spittle flying from her cracked and bloodied lips. Her wrists and ankles strained hard enough at her bindings that old bruises quickly became new. Her back arched and crashed again and again into the back of her seat, one last futile struggle in a long series of failures.

She didn't see the woman anymore. Just flashes of things, traces - her father, smiling, sitting beside her at the beach. Her father, yelling, trying to snap her henshin pen in half with a hammer. Her dance with the boy at the New Year's party. Hugging Sage. Leucite as he snapped her wrist. Talking to Ganymede at the park. Sitting beside Nazca, his jacket over her shoulders. The youma's jaws closing on her arm. Standing alone outside the movie theater, abandoned. Then there was a cat, Ash, it was Ash, and then there was --

It was just pain.

And then it was nothing. The pain was still there but... subdued. Somehow it didn't feel like her own anymore. The storm had passed, and flattened everything about Natalie in its wake.

The senshi slumped against the chair, a slow, long breath escaping between parted lips. She looked up at her queen, her creator through new eyes as though seeing her for the first time. She inhaled again, taking her time to formulate the exact words she wanted to say to this woman.

"Thank you."

Laurelite had retracted her hand; removing it must have felt like nothing after that ordeal. Fatique washed over her, but it was dark and she doubted the senshi seated before her would pick up on that.

It was senseless to keep a satisfied and eager subordinate tied, so the General Queen crouched and tore at the bonds which had held the girl for so long. Though exhausted, it was an easy task, and took her only a moment. "You're a good girl," she said when she pulled the last one from Amphitrite.

The girl would need a lot of care, but she was saved. She would need someone to teach her, someone to help her relearn the world, and the Negaverse. Laurelite had neither the time nor energy to offer for such a task, but she would see to it that Amphitrite would not be forgotten. She would need a good meal, a good bath. Laurelite could provide her with that before handing her to someone else.

Laurelite stood slowly; she was tired and knew her limits. She had pushed them already, but this was very worth it.

With a kinder, softer smile, she extended a hand to Amphitrite to help her up.

"Welcome home, dear."