Word Count: 714

“I don't need you.”

“I've come this far without you.”

“Go. Away.”

These were but a few of the casual utterances Ganymede vocalized in the weeks since Lucasta had been brought from the shelter to the house which Ganymede shared with Valhalla. Stubborn as she was, Lucasta decided to take these utterances as a good sign. After all, when she had first arrived, Ganymede had not spoken to her at all.

Lucasta never strayed into the house. The one time she tried, Ganymede picked her up by the scruff and unceremoniously carted her back to the abandoned stables that had become her home. Yet Lucasta remained persistent. The harder she pushed, the more Ganymede fought back.

Perhaps it was not a step in the right direction, but it was progress. Obstinance was better than being ignored.

“You have no choice,” Lucasta said. “This is how things were meant to be.”

Ganymede scoffed at her, spun on her heel and left.

There were times when Valhalla was not around to feed her or bring her reassurances, days that bled into weeks in which Lucasta was not the only one to feel his absence. She noticed a change come over Ganymede in those days. Ganymede grew lethargic in the daytime. At night, Ganymede disappeared for hours at a time.

“Where does she go?” Lucasta asked Valhalla one evening when he had returned.

“Probably to Ganymede,” he said.

Yes, to Ganymede. That made sense. Lucasta could sense it on her whenever Ganymede returned. There was an air of calm about her, of knowledge, but there was a sense of sadness and loneliness, too. It seemed likely to Lucasta that Ganymede's visits to her home-world were rarely joyous ones.

But then that was to be expected, Lucasta thought. The vague sense she had of before told her as much. There would be nothing there to greet Ganymede but old ghosts and emptiness.

One night, on one of those evenings in which Valhalla was gone, Lucasta caught Ganymede leaving through the back of the house. Lucasta followed her, trailing some yards behind as Ganymede followed the walking trails in her civilian clothes, with her transformation pen held securely in one hand. Ganymede did not stop until she came to the stone wall that marked the perimeter of the property.

She climbed it with well-practiced ease.

Determined not to be left behind, Lucasta used a nearby tree to scale the wall, landing gracefully beside her charge on the other side.

“What do you want?” Ganymede asked, though she made no move to escape, walking at a pace Lucasta could easily follow.

“For you to accept your fate,” Lucasta said.

“I did that a long time ago.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” Ganymede said. She did not look at Lucasta, but her grip around her pen tightened.

She said nothing else and Lucasta did not push her. When they were far enough away from the property for her power signature not to be associated with it, Ganymede thrust her pen into the air and called upon her power. Lucasta sat back and watched the transformation — from a young, obstinate girl into a powerful young woman.

For a moment, Lucasta thought Ganymede meant to leave her there. If she were to be honest with herself, Lucasta would admit that she wouldn't blame her. It was true what Ganymede often said, that she had come this far without her influence. Though it was no fault of Lucasta's own, it stung to know that she had failed in her duties, that Ganymede had been born into Senshidom and grown without Lucasta's assistance.

It should not have been this way.

“Are you coming?” Ganymede said.

Lucasta gave a start. Her ears twitched like she couldn't be sure she had head correctly.

“Where?” she asked.

“To Ganymede.”

Ganymede did not look at her. Lucasta did not force her to. Instead, she moved to Ganymede's side, flicking her tail against Ganymede's booted leg to establish a point of contact.

Lucasta did not say it, but she did not need to journey to Ganymede's home-world in order to experience it. All she needed to know was here, bathed in silver moonlight, with a will as bright as the stars that were reflected in Ganymede's eyes.