Word Count: 519

“Valkyrie, are you there?” Valhalla asked softly as he held the pocket watch up to his mouth, trying to coax the eagle who had protected him and those he cared for time and time again. Ever since the night he and Ganymede faced off against Laurelite, a night that he could not clearly remember, she had been absent. Ganymede told him how Laurelite used her scythe to cut the eagle down, how she had disappeared, breaking apart and fading into nothing, but Valhalla refused to believe that she was really gone.

How could she be? She was ethereal, wasn’t she? She was beyond what physical weapons were able to rend. Or at least that was what he had convinced himself. And yet the reality of it was, as he stood in the center of the large solarium with its trees and pathways where only dirt and dead flora remained, he could not sense her at all.

Valhalla drew in a steadying breath as he looked around. He’d discovered this place months before, but his time there was not long. Now, in his attempt to find a way to stall his seemingly inevitable death, he hoped to see and experience as much of his wonder as he could. Maybe if he managed to be reborn, whoever he became in the future would be able to remember some of what he saw. But for now, he was searching for anything that could possibly mend a broken starseed.

He walked along the pathways that surrounded the walls, peering into the dried up bits of leaves and dirt. While he’d seen memories of how the place once looked in full bloom, it was difficult to believe that it was once so lush by looking at the pathetic, shriveled plants. Maybe if the water was able to start flowing again, he would be able to get the place back to how it used to be. But that would also require a lot of time and effort, just as they’d placed a lot of time and effort fixing up Ganymede’s palace on her world.

Was he ready to make that commitment? When he knew he was probably going to be dying without the proper help he needed? Should he really be focusing on a Wonder that, until recently, he tried to avoid because he was afraid of what it meant for him? His prior incarnation wasn’t the easiest to get along with. Serge was nothing like the jovial men and women who occupied Valhalla. Instead he was quiet and almost antisocial. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t smile, he didn’t seem to take much joy in anything.

No, that wasn’t right. There was one person Valhalla knew Serge very much enjoyed being with. And as fate would have it, Valhalla would do anything for his Ganymede as well. Taking the time to fix up his wonder might not be as pointless as he expected it to be, and if it helped give Ganymede some of the hope she needed to keep going, Valhalla would do anything, even face the fears he had about himself.