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 Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:42 pm
The first few times Lysithea had gone to heal the prisoner, it had been a little awkward, what with the guard and the fact she couldn’t do more than heal her and leave, but it seemed that now it had become somewhat of a routine…she was trusted a bit more, and the guard had stepped away allowing her to work without another pair of eyes looking on.
Quietly, the corrupt senshi entered the area that Ganymede was held and made her way to the princess, sighing softly. “...You really are a mess, you know.” Her words were barely above a whisper and she drew the damp cloth she had put into her subspace pocket every time she had come to see the prisoner, in the hopes that she could get away with doing something more than using a little magic on her.
Moving slowly, Lysithea turned so her back was to the door and began wiping the cloth along Ganymede’s cheek, getting rid of some of the accumulated grime.
“How’s the pain right now? Do you need all that I can provide today?”
Was she breaking rules? …Yes. But did it really matter? She had already sent her girlfriend off to purify and was nearly one foot out the door herself but.
Still. She wished she could do more for the princess before she just upped and vanished.
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:07 am
Sometimes Ganymede sat in one corner. Sometimes she sat in the other. Sometimes she would lean against the bars of her cell and peer as far out into the hallway as she could, just for a change of scenery. Sometimes she would rest against one wall, then the opposite. Once, she sat in the middle of the floor with no support on either side.
When Lysithea came to her this time, Ganymede had chosen the wall on the left. A small section of the stone had been worn smooth — as close to comfort as she was likely to get here.
“What I need,” she said, “I’m not likely to get.”
The aura of corrupt Senshi used to make her skin crawl; chaos never felt so wrong as it did in those like her. Now, with the benefit of time and increased exposure, she could suppress the impulse to flinch away.
Ganymede sat still and allowed Lysithea to wipe at her face. She stared at this girl with the familiar name, poisoned with chaos on a hilltop battlefield.
Something nagged at Ganymede in the back of her mind, like memories reaching forward. Here, in the bowels of hell, it wasn’t so easy to concentrate on them, not with the constant pain and Metallia’s heavy presence clouding her thoughts.
“You should be careful,” Ganymede warned Lysithea, adjusting her position to ease her aching back. “The longer I’m here, the more likely it is that all this pent up energy will burst out of me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:27 am
Lysithea hummed softly and nodded, acknowledging Ganymede’s words. “I figured as much, but. What little I can do, I will.”
She drew out a small package of grapes from the subspace pocket and handed them to the Princess as well. “I have too many things to do to ruin them all by breaking you out of here but. Other than that, what do you need?”
The comment about everything bursting out of her was…confusion but again she nodded. “Noted. But I doubt you’d hurt me. You…don’t ‘seem the type, I guess. People are looking for you, you know. One senshi is really worried about you. She. Doesn’t like me much but. I suppose that’s to be expected.”
Quietly she whispered the name of her super magic and held the horn against Ganymede, falling silent to allow the other to talk if she wished.
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:25 am
There were plenty of wounds still left to be healed — the many gashes along her toso from Aquamarine’s rapier, the deep puncture in her shoulder from Aquamarine’s dagger, the severed wings at her back, courtesy of Jet’s double bladed staff. Lysithea’s magic did wonders for many of them, but Ganymede’s shoulder was slow to heal; though skin and muscle knit back together, deeper damage remained.
Ganymede took the offered grapes and ate a few. She’d rejected the first meal offered to her on the assumption it might be laced with poison, but that fear no longer stopped her.
If they wanted her dead, they would kill her outright, not meddle with her food.
“Of course they’re looking for me,” she said. There was nothing she needed more than freedom; she knew better than to ask for tha, so she didn’t. “Did Jet and the rest of your new friends think no one would miss me, that they could abduct me, keep me here, and no one would try to find me? I assume the Senshi you met was Cybele.”
Cybele, who had been there for the ambush. Cybele, who’d been ambushed once herself, whisked away and forcibly corrupted. Ganymede’s heart ached for her, for the horror she must have felt then, and the loss she must surely feel now.
“Maybe one day you’ll find some common ground,” Ganymede continued, quiet with fatigue. “She was like you, once. Torn away from everything she knew. Saved because there were those who refused to give up on her.”
Ganymede paused and studied Lysithea’s face in the darkness. The flickering lights of the hall cast shadows everywhere.
“People are looking for you, too.”
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:33 am
“That would be her, yeah.” Lysithea sighed softly and watched Ganymede eat. “She’s a bitter thing. I took the starseed of her friend and then she begged me to take hers too. She said she couldn’t live in a world with so much pain…so I did but…”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I gave them both back. It didn’t feel right. I thought it would feel better than it did, taking the starseeds of traitors, but it just. Didn’t feel like much at all. And I know she was like me. She told me. And I know they’re looking for me. I know. I’m going to confront my brother after this talk, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again so. I wanted to give you as much as I could.”
Lysithea let her voice grow to barely a whisper. “...I hope that they can rescue you. I hope that you can get out and be taken care of like you deserve. I’m sorry that you and I didn’t meet in happier circumstances…”
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 2:18 pm
Ganymede frowned around a few more grapes. Her heart nearly sank right out of her chest at the knowledge that Cybele’s starseed had been taken, but settled quickly as soon as Lysithea confessed to returning it.
For all the ways her thoughts on the fate of starseeds changed over the years, Ganymede remained protective of those that belonged to her friends and family. (She thought of Empyrean lying motionless on the ground, but banished the image before it consumed her.)
Lysithea’s whispering, while quiet enough that it would not drift out into the hall, reached Ganymede’s ears easily.
Lowering her voice, Ganymede whispered back, “Be careful what you say. Metallia sees, hears, and knows all, or so they say.”
In the castle, with Metallia’s presence so difficult to ignore, that certainly seemed as if it might be true. But there were so many over the years who ultimately rejected Chaos, who recognized its vile influence and sought the means to remove it. Perhaps Metallia wasn’t as omniscient as she wanted her pawns to believe, if she missed so much happening right in front of her metaphorical nose.
Ganymede’s gaze never left Lysithea. Hope flared to life in her chest, but she was too cautious to let it grow. To her, it seemed as if Lysithea was on the verge of seeking a way out. Maybe that was purposeful, a way to lull Ganymede into a false sense of security, but such tactics seemed meaningless here. They already had her at their mercy. What would be the point of sending in a Senshi to pretend disillusionment?
“I don’t know who your brother is, but if you’re having doubts, it would be dangerous for you to discuss them with anyone here,” Ganymede warned her, voice so low it was almost inaudible. “You know what they do to traitors. If they knew you were speaking to me this way, saying these things, having the thoughts I suspect you’re having… they’d make an example of you.”
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 2:47 pm
Lysithea hesitated, and then shrugged, giving a small, bitter smile. “What more can they take from me? My past is a lie that they concocted, my subordinate and my girlfriend have already left so. What more is there to lose?” She pulled a bar of chocolate from the subspace pocket and handed that into Ganymede too, clearly wanting to spoil her or help her in however she could.
“He’s the one who lied to me. Faustite, my brother. He’s lied to me about being my brother it’s…complicated, I guess. Stupid, really but…”
She glanced behind her, worried in case the guard came back. Already she had spoken quite a bit to the Princess. More than she had hoped. “...I’ll tell them that you’re still alive. I’ll…do what I can, if I can. Before I go…is there anything else I can do for you? Anything I can bring you before…”
Before she left.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 5:22 pm
Under different circumstances, Ganymede would impress upon Lysithea the need to remain cautious; she would remind Lysithea that any given situation could always be made worse, that there were things left to lose she may not have considered yet.
If they were not in a dark cell deep within the castle, whispering to avoid the ear of any lingering guards, she would have asked about Faustite — a name she recognized, whether or not she’d met the one who bore it. Not so long ago, he meant to have her led into a burning building. Was this why? Did various officers spend the last year plotting ways to capture her, and it just so happened Jet was the one to succeed?
There was no time for that conversation, no time for questions. If Lysithea was to the point of saying these things to her, despite the risk it presented, if she was so disenchanted by her place here that she would confront someone who could easily harm her… she had to go, now, before someone noticed, before someone heard, before Metallia saw the truth in her heart.
Ganymede accepted the chocolate bar, then took Lysithea’s hand into her own.
Something stirred in the back of her mind where she kept Liesel’s memories. They were difficult to focus on here, even when she knew the course of his life. They would not rise as ghosts, but when she let herself consider them, she remembered the sound of Liesel’s young voice droning on in obedient recitation.
‘Europa, Ganymede, Callisto… Themisto, Leda… Ersa, Pandia, Himalia, Ly—’
“Lysithea,” Ganymede said. With a tremulous smile, she squeezed Lysithea’s hand. Her heart throbbed through one beat, two. In the dark, perhaps the wet sheen over her eyes would go unnoticed. “Just… if you see Valhalla… tell him that I love him.”
She needed nothing here — nothing she would ask Lysithea to risk her life for.
“If you make it out and you need help… you or any of your friends… find Valhalla and Sessrumnir, and they’ll do all they can.”
The Jovians were not as strong as they used to be, but they would do anything to protect their own.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:41 pm
When Ganymede took her hand, Lysithea stared in confusion, but managed to return the smile with a small one of her own, nodding. “...Yeah. I’m Lysithea…and I’ll find him. I’ll tell him that you love him…I’ll do what I can for you. I promise.”
She would. If she could do anything to help, she would. It was a promise that she was willing to keep so long as she were able.
And she would make it out. That…well. She didn’t have much of a fear for that. Maybe a small one but…that was nothing she would let the princess know. “All right. I have to go now…stay strong, if you can. I’m sure they’ll find you soon enough. You’ll be safe soon enough.”
She didn’t know if that was just wishful thinking or a downright lie but. Lysithea hoped for the best. Quietly she moved to her feet as she heard the other guard approaching and her smile faded to a more neutral expression and she left, not looking behind her.
It was time to confront Faustite and learn what she could of the truth…and then it was time to disappear.
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