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If answers are ever to be had? Then one must take their questions, and summarily ask them. Else-wise knowledge dies in its cradle; if all things remain unasked. Living on, only in the lead-lined cage of a mind.

Prehnite had an ask, or two, or ten. A low burning simmer of an interest. A princess alone, such a dangerous thing, but here?

Watching her dragged from the hall by Youma, of all things.

That had been the lasting image which had cemented, in Prehnites mind, her defenseless-ness. He was no warrior, no brazenly brave thing. He picked his battles wisely. When Jet had asked? He’d thought the man’d lost his mind. He forgot the power that Generalhood brought. Figured, what was one more suicide mission? How did it differ from all the rest he’d gone on before.

Strength in numbers and with a plan at hand — to his utter and complete surprise, it’d worked. Had no right to have worked at all, and yet? There they were, with a Princess in a cage, at their purview. With unfettered access to bemuse themselves with. To ogle in demise, like some conquered thing. The fall of an empire — an era — the death of Rome.

Poor Ganymede.

“Hello Ganymede.” sardonic in tone, as he hovered just beyond the bars, looked on like an emerald eyed predator. Pleased as purple punch.

She didn’t know him from a hole in the wall, no better than he knew her.

It didn’t matter though.

“How are you?”

How snarky for a being with snipped wings. Prehnite sighed, all faux-drama wound round a smile.

"Oh, come on now. You can humor me." It wasn't as though she had anything better to do. No places to go, no people to see. "Just because I don't care whether you live or die, doesn't mean I don't care how you are right now?"

He could be polite to his enemy, could offer up common niceties and 'how do you do's'. Manners were what elevated people slightly above beasts...just barely.

"Besides...I don't really want anything. In fact? I thought to offer you a drink, and take in the scenery..." spoken as if describing a verdant he was admiring, on a lazy afternoon. His tone dragged, became something that spoke of nigh childish boredom. Like Gany was the excitingly new, shiny, thing that he would fill his time with. Like he'd paid admission to a zoo - and maybe if the caged being did a trick? He'd throw it a treat...maybe. "The dungeons are lovely, and there's not ******** else to do."

All his words in part were true. There was nothing more to be done by him, any plans that were set for her in the aftermath? Were none of his damn business.

And he'd had a theory to test....

A matter of will.

Once upon a time? Senshi had terrified him. To his very core. Every little thing preached about how terrible they were. Their devastating magic that broke minds - bodies - at their endless beck and call. The Knights? An annoyance, a nuisance of a thing, but the ******** Senshi? Pets, chattel, slaves. Even if he hadn't agreed back then, with the treatment of those dragged onto their side. His lack of understanding had caused such unreasonable fear. Of them, of himself, of his peers. Paranoia that dug roots and rotted his core.

'Senshi'

Deadly - deadly - deadly - incomprehensible beings, and at fourteen? He'd very much not wanted to die. No more than he'd wanted to suffer the repercussions of doing poorly for those who ranked above him, and now?

"So how does her Highness feel about Vodka? If you can manage anything phenomenal with a paper dixie-cup. I'll find myself truly impressed."

He felt like poking the bear. Staring down the dragon when it felt like a defeated thing. He'd once had questions, so ******** many, but they all felt old now. Older than his years. About demons that bore whips made of lighting in her peoples form. About leaving, and chasing the myth of purification, of knighthood, that now lay long beyond him. About finding those who'd left - died - but the years had gone on and those questions had since been buried.

In it's place lay new ones, or something like them. Far less focused and without the sharp bite of bitter anger that'd once fueled his every choice.

She wasn’t his personal monster. Though he did wish that she were. He’d have had fun with that. He’d have gloated, truly.

Instead?

She was Jets gift to Laurelite. Nothing less, nothing more. The wrapping was ruined, but the prize inside remained intact — whatever their Queen wished done with her?

Whatever shreds of human that remained in Laurelite wished?

Gany, she was haughty, even ground down into the dirt. Wingless, bloodied, and torn. Truly regal, her adorning marks proved as much, and Prehnite admired that. Was ever so glad to offer up his company — if only to see what a Princess was, up close and personal. A royal thing. There was no denying her power - even if it lay buried neath a metric ton of chaos.

“Mores the pity. You seemed like the type that might enjoy a title atop your namesake.” a shrug that led into a sneer when his offer of — not a toast — but — an olive branch with a snake on the vine. It couldn’t have possibly hurt her ‘more’ to say yes; but if she didn’t want what was on offer?

Fine by him. He was a lazy tailor and she could suit her damned self.

If he procured the bottle to drink from, small cubic crystal, unlabeled - half full of clear liquid that sloshed behind frosted glass. He went to take a sip - and nearly choked. That she called him a ‘distinguished’ anything!? By all the ages and eons - that was a good joke.

She was funny. She was out of touch.

“No, you see — my time is quite free for the moment. All my tasks can be delegated down to others, that includes the a** kissing, perks of Generalhood. We no longer slaughter families wholesale for starseeds, part of the newest reign of PR - we’re trying to be better.” there was some sincerity in that, as the sarcasm ‘sing songed’ into words faded. They were trying to be better. They had slowed and stopped to near crawls the intake of starseeds — from civilians.

Their enemies were fair game.

“I simply wished to see you. Up close and personal…..Not across a battlefield, nor through the rain of Castor’s hail, or amidst an entourage while fighting next weeks monster. Just you, exactly as you are.” and she wasn’t his monster, but she was someone’s? Wasn’t she. Had to have been to end up here. Though Prehnite could’ve laughed at the idea. He had no right to judge, he was an equally monstrous thing — hollowed out to his very core — he wondered if he sounded to her like she did to him?

Like something spouting off nonsense to a nuisance, while death lurked round a corner. Though Gany undoubtedly looked better doing it. Had all sorts of flair, even from the floor.

“I don’t wish to touch you, not even to cause harm. Knowing you’re here? That I can come by to pay ‘visits’ whenever I please? While doing absolutely nothing to save you. It’s more than enough.” and maybe he was still mad about being captured, about his long missing captain, about — a bevy of things. Every possible officer they’d lost to her ‘purification’? Gany’s face was easy to paint over with his enemies.

To make it personal.

He wondered if he’d come again, offer her something else to drink? And she’d say yes. Maybe then — his mind which had been full while pacing down the steps — only to have emptied once he found himself with privilege enough to speak to her head on — maybe then he’d have questions worth asking. Instead of a fifth of vodka, that burned like venom, to share.

Maybe she deserved an applause? After three days, a week, a year? Once she’d withered and her performance of ‘living’ had grown stale as old bread. Maybe he’d bring her flowers for it? Something from the Rift.

Maybe he’d beckon iolanthe with him - if Laurels didn’t kill the princess quickly enough. He’d say ever so sweetly ‘Look who lives in a cage now?’ while his darling thorn tore up every cobble and bar that made the place out of sheer desperation.

“I’m the ‘Lazy Jet that Lurks’ - like one ‘Spartacus’. We all are him at once and yet, paradoxically? None of us are him at all.”

Because his name meant nothing to her, to him, they’d never met before. Would never meet again. He didn’t have the gift of reincarnation.

He surely would’ve begged, even. Cried ‘Please’ in the name of all that was to ‘let him die’ when his turn on the Earth was spent. He’d not have liked the thought of living again — over and over for all of eternity — they were of earth, minerals, dirt. To that thing they returned.

He did raise a brow, when it began to sound lien she was fishing? What did she care whether or not she had a sea of onlookers. If she drowned in them. Or maybe she preferred being alone in her own head, with not a soul to bother her. Pity.

“Those are all good theories and I think you’re right. I’ll pass on the compliments when I see him next. It might warm his heart to hear the Princess thinking so highly of him.”

Droll little blip of words that got swallowed up in more cool crystal fire. They rolled down his tongue, burned away into nothing - all wet and dry at once. Delicious, if he did say so himself.

Gany was missing out.

But he was paying attention and —

“Oh, that would be a thing, but I’m just a terrible person Ganymede. The list of things I’ve done, under duress? Because I felt like it and could? Do you think I wish that washed away and forgiven — that I like in the slightest you having the power to do so?”

The thin line that was his mouth relaxed into a frown, like it was his muscles natural state.

“That’s my enjoyment. You existed, nigh untouchably powerful thing. You seemed godlike. Now you’re — well?” and Prehnite shoes at her like a fly, all ‘tadah’, she’d said it herself. There she sat and he’d seen all that there was of her.

“It’s especially funny, to me, in the most ironic sort of ways now - because I wasn’t ordered to do this. No, I was asked by a man I’ve met all of….tsk, maybe twice? To embark on one of the many Free to Ride suicide-mission themed ‘events’. “

“Everything I have gained or earned or been given? It was all just me asking and being asked.” the implication that he could’ve said no, and the nonsense of an army might’ve swayed him years ago, but now?

“All this time.”

He’d been enough places — there were no armies — there were lone bodies that chose to band together. That made decisions alone. That died.

“So I’m continuing the trend! And if I imagine the blood moon court in your stead — or some Saturn themed b*****d — or….I suppose I should apologize in advance? For letting them steal your spotlight in my head.” and the wall was nice enough to lean on, and the shadows were cool. Her markings suffused her with a dim enough glow. He didn’t need help to imagine injuries he’d already seen.

He was a man who had paid a great price to procure a painting, a fine suit, a fresh pair of blades. He should’ve been entitled to take some joy in seeing them displayed — or it was all a waste.

“I really wanted to feel something, seeing you here? Rage, terror, some great rending of emotional skies. It’s boring, to not — it’s also the most freeing of things.“

The cracked open laugh he loosed could only make him smirk, he was ever so glad to be amusing. Like a final jester playing on to an audience of one - a woman who languished on death row -- though who knew what Laurelite had planned. What her grand schemes were, in the scant moments when she seemed human before it all vanished away neath the veil of otherworldly power that she housed in her elegant frame.

Prehnite feigned a dramatic sigh, offered a tilt of the bottle her way.

"Thank goodness! It's about time someone offered me up some sympathy - a little pity goes a long way. I'll hand over my starseed and expel all Chaos from myself this instant, in gratitude to your endless kindness." Her jab was well had, she wasn't wrong. He didn't think he was delusional -clearly- but why
correct the damned? Let her tease from her cell. Let her state the most obvious of facts - Prehnite was irredeemable. Not back then, maybe, but now?

Most certainly -

It was the revelation of her possible youth, back then. Which raised his brows in curiosity, in honest to gods pause caught on surprise. The notion that ten years had gone on without his notice. It shocked him -- or it would have -- if he'd not met so many volatile Chibi.

Too young to die, or fight, or --

Except? For how there were some who had, to his own endless chagrin, kicked his a** with ease. It made him wonder -- were they both so young? Was he old at twenty-five? Had fourteen been an endpoint? When he'd joined, fearfully fresh-faced and eagerly stupid.

The mere mention of - pickacourt - caught him off guard enough to blink before he took another drink. To catch his spiderweb thoughts together and stare, tiredly.

"The Dark Mirror Court? To be honest, they're little more than ghosts and onlookers at this point. At least - insofar as I know." he had no right to judge them, one way or another. He had survived by being the same sort who chose the sidelines when it was safest to do so - until he'd grown tired of safe.

And then?

"It is exactly that, isn't it? A terrible person shouldn't chare what Chaos does, or doesn't do." He wondered, if he'd found certain people, four, five...six years ago? Maybe then....and Prehnite realized he was tired. Wondered if she was too? Of nothing, of everything, all at once. As much as he had found little things to care for. There she was and he could be bitter and angrily just as easily as he could be nothing at all. "I'll say this at least. What you've done for those that needed it? It's admirable. Just like Jet doing this - for his Queen." and Prehnite eyed her with bland curiosity, he couldn't muster disdain. Happy to hunt her, and eager to see it done, not because of Ganymede he realized -- simply because he had the power to do something, finally. Coupled with all the messy things of the past that had no bearing on her?

"It's simply a shame it lacks finality. This. You'll inevitably be reborn, I assume? Maybe though...your absence will finally wake the rest of them up. Start a skirmish, start an actual war. So it can all be finished. There must be some solidarity amongst those that love you -- some passion."

'Ganymede the Martyr'

It had a terrifying ring...

Prehnite wondered, bleakly, if anyone had considered it. The endless repeating fallout of glory in the name of a 'Queen', that history as people saw it so often repeated itself when there were those that experienced great loss.

"If you've a que forming up behind you? There was this devastating *b***h* of a gosling named Anser. Little menace throws punches like a knife."

There was no point — there never had been. It was like having a living sounding board for his own endless diatribe of ramblings on not a damned thing. He could lecture nor preach to anyone, he’d promised Jet he’d stop. Ganymede could suffer for it though. Maybe she’d expire from sheer annoyance. Just, have a sudden coronary and die! Yes, he’d love that - if she’d cease to exist if only so she could escape the droning of his speech.

That would’ve been nice.

“Firstly? This is celebratory drinking. I’m rarely — this — it’s just been a very ‘special’ few days.” a wave and scoff combined, a narrowed haze of emeralds cast in her direction, looking ever duller.

“Second? Your statement is an absolute lie. They flood to you like moths to a flame. We trade losses and gains equally — over the span of years…millennia…eons….” He whispered fervently, stepped closer and turned on a dime as of to pace while also keeping his distance from her directly.

“Like—like on the hilltop? Or did I miss you pulling them from us left right and center. I only hope you didn’t waste your gains?”

They hadn’t wasted theirs? Had they? They’d gotten better, they’re taken back — oh it felt like so many a thing.

“Who even did you take? I saw…” and Prehnite looked a bit like he’d swallowed a fly, the most distasteful of faces. Because he remembered the blue of titanite — certainly her loud screaming, the woman had a set of lungs..

And then..

And then there’s been…..

“Who exactly did you take again?” because he hadn’t remembered seeing much, a wall of chaos black and roiling — people falling to it — the sheer depth of energy it bolstered them with.

And in the distance a flash of red…

He wanted to tell her that they should all leave then, they had the luxury, to say that if her very presence caused things then it would also hold true that her absence caused issues. He wanted to b***h at her about how earth was never safe. Metallia or no. Senshi or no. It was a planet one step away from pushing its own end button.

But all he could focus on was who she’d been there for, purifying, in the middle of anarchy that seemed endless. He thought he knew, fourth feet away, he should’ve? She’d been right there, the center between them all from where he’d stood at his Generator.

He didn’t know why he cared so suddenly, except for a lingering sense of doom that drove him to ask.

That stung, surely, and how many of them had he known before? Worked with at one point. He remembered Vela from the Rift -- the other two. The new names didn't register so much as a brief shock of blue, of auburn....

He shook the thought aside and frowned deeply for it. For the mention of a death. No one had said anything about who they'd lost and who they hadn't - it'd been such a well coordinated attack though. What with their ability to summon and teleport as they pleased cut off completely. Every single soul who'd been there before -- during -- there was an accounting. It wasn't the sort of strike that one simply walked in out of the blue from.

There was a livid little spark of a snarl, lines that drew shadows on Prehnites face, made age where age wasn't. Ganymede had given him something rough to chew over -- something to investigate.

Because, Jet? Jet hadn't mentioned a thing - a loss - a --

"It was very much Jets right to take off the head of a traitor." his tone wavered slightly, scraped raw over a husk of raspiness, as if he was unsure. He suddenly wanted water. Gin. Enough homemade vodka to go utterly blind on. He didn't care overly much for the ones who'd survived, somehow. It happened, people put in time and became weary - fled - disappeared into the ether without a word and popped up as 'enemies' after enough time had passed.

"We took enough, took back what we'd lost over time. A bushel, a dozen. They're well taken care of though...I promise." and his glass was half empty while his mind was full of questions, sharp poking things that stood out through the haze.

"What happened to the body, after, if I may ask?" and now he was asking which was a ******** surprise to him. As much as it was that they'd all put in a large portion of their lives in service of, gods only knew what sometimes. Ganymede was pitiable, deserved dying. Especially after too long, not long enough?

That Jet had been rewarded for it at all, came as a surprise. Showed on his face because no, he hadn’t known at all. Had Jet met some astronomical number that warranted this thing? Was it ‘The Who’, of the traitor that mattered? Maybe the fact that Laurelite had witnessed the killing done in her name first hand?

What was that one’s end worth — out of countless many others - why was Sheikh’s demise deemed reward worthy at all?

After all - how many bodies had they collectively killed over the years. A bevy of near bloodless deaths on their hands from way back when; enemies, civilians, friends tuned foe while they turned on each other like half-starved hounds scrapping over bones.

Gany was right. They’d gotten used to them, desensitized. He was almost nostalgic for the version of himself that hadn’t been. Everything that should’ve been blatantly obvious, through the haze and shimmer that gathered at the corners of his eyes, very much wasn’t. He felt the twist and snarled for it, leveled a watery glare in her direction.

b***h. She’d lured someone in, ‘saved’ them, and hadn’t even gone back for the body. Rude.

“Metallia makes a Queen — I believe what was Laurelite before, was crushed out of her the day Apatite came down…Though, I’ve never seen her look so human as when we presented her with you. So, maybe it’s a bit of both? Bits of Laurelite lingering deep down in there, special little you, being the one to bring that out of her.” and because Laurelite had to have her — no — because their people had come up with a plot to create steps toward their end, because Aqua had been attacked — and others. Jet had done it for the Queen as much as he’d done it to keep them safe. Prehnite believed that. Would take one look at Jets scared face and know it to be true. That he cared.

Whatever smile he could’ve held, for the idea of Laurelites happiness. It was a dead and unenduring thing. Crumbled under Ganys words. Her truth.

“We should never have been *that*.” Disposable. If ever a word left a bad taste in his mouth, even more acrid then the thought of someone important to them dying and being left behind in pieces. Even if he knew in his soul that they were that thing to an unnerving extent; disposable, or at least they had been. Change was happening, and they were still very different then they’d been before.

At least, that was how he felt about it.

“Do you ever think to leave well enough alone? The planet, it’s people, Jet. I know you just do what is in your nature — like a scorpion killing it’s ride across the river, but if you hadn’t? That Senshi would still be alive.” Would’ve been theirs, would be again, because Gany made a fair point — they should’ve checked the clearing after for corpses, and done something about them.