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 Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 5:28 pm
Time passed, but Ganymede lost track of the minutes, the hours, the days. Her visitors came and went, came and went — never in any predictable pattern, but sporadically, as if they often came to her out of personal interest rather than some overarching design.
Some spoke to her. They had questions, or insults. They had threats. Some brought her food. Some took her energy; if they were overzealous enough, they took too much and let her sleep, but the nightmares always woke her before she could rest for long. Some made attempts to reach her starseed. They never learned, it seemed. Her starseed was safe from them. She couldn’t access her world from here, but the connection remained strong, unbreakable. Her moon would not abandon her.
Ganymede sat in the dark with only the soft glow of transcendence lighting her cell. She watched the shadows in the hall, where some other flickering light lit the way. If she went unfocused, it was almost like watching the clouds drift by on her moon.
She missed her home — on Earth, and on Ganymede. She missed her family and her friends — those that lived in this time, and those that perished long ago. She thought of them in her solitude, her memories blending into one another.
There was a sense of unreality in the darkness. She blinked, followed a shadow that rippled along the wall outside her cell, then closed her eyes and hoped for sleep.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:33 pm
It might have seemed silly, from the outside, but Chrysocolla had fretted over Ganymede. Not out of any personal care or worry for Ganymede herself -- all of that had long been burnt out of her, through youmaglia and teaching and a long marinade in Chaos in general -- but on procedure. Was there something that people going to see the Princess implied? Was there something their absence would mean? Was it better to be cold, to be gentle; what face was it best to show, how was it best to lie? How long would she be kept where she was -- and how long until some traitor's heart shuddered and tried to let her out? Chrysocolla had worked herself into a tizzy, thinking about it, and then gone out on a long patrol and beaten someone bloody to get herself out of her own head; she'd decided, then, that she'd go see Ganymede the next night. Some things were simple. This wasn't simple, but it didn't have to be as complicated as she was worried about; overcomplication was often only a stress response, and if she was reasonable, it would be workable. It was easy, to arrive quietly and to make so little noise. She was good at that. Was Ganymede asleep? It was hard to tell; it was poorly lit, and her sight was not particularly sharp in the dark. "Are you awake," Chrysocolla asked, hushed. In the dark, her eyes were glittering, crystalline things.
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Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 5:30 pm
“Yes,” Ganymede said, because she thought a lie might result in more pain, and she was already so tired.
Was the nausea from pain, or from distance — kept so far from the world that would replenish her? Or had someone finally given her bad food? On purpose? On accident? There was no way to know here, with these people. Were the nightmares a product of her own mind, or the result of Metallia’s presence? The heavy shroud of Chaos never let up; the weight of it pressed at her, eroded her defenses, except for the one it could not touch.
Ganymede inhaled, filled her lungs with the oppressive air, then let it out slowly.
“Hard to sleep in a place like this,” she said. Her eyes cracked open, but she made no effort to peer in the direction of the newest voice. “No bed. No blankets, even. I don’t know how you all stand this place. It’s so dreary. So much crystal and stone. Kind of tacky, if you ask me. But Metallia probably keeps you comfortable, saves all the good stuff for her pawns. Nothing but misery for her enemies.”
Ganymede shifted against the floor. She pulled the long train of her dress over her legs to keep them warm.
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2022 6:36 pm
"Most of it's nicer than this," Chrysocolla said, and she shrugged, "but that's for people we like. I don't --" she stopped for an abbreviated thought, something flickering up that she was trying not to think about -- "I don't think Metallia cares too much about if you're miserable or not, as long as you're ours?" Metallia cared about presence, that much she was sure; Chrysocolla could still recall the weight of Metallia's gaze after Kurma had fled, that temporary moment of revulsion overwhelming any reason to keep him pinned and held there. But on the personal scale - maybe Laurelite knew? Maybe the General-Sovereigns knew? She didn't. Did it matter to an antkeeper if a single ant was in dismay? Ganymede might deserve a blanket for bravery alone, or to keep her from taking further ill, but if she had none so far then Chrysocolla wouldn't break the streak by assuming she knew better. She swallowed. "Your -- marks. Transcendence. What's... that like? I know someone, with those, and I don't understand why." Kerberos lived better further from Metallia's sun, and it was easy to make a million justifications in her own head for why she had never told on him, why she had never betrayed his trust. It was easy to look away and close her eyes and plug her ears, when she knew she should've written him up so many times over, she should've taken him captive, held him caged until he wilted and withered and died. And here was Ganymede, wilting, caged, and Transcendent, and it was harder to pretend like that when faced with this.
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 10:03 am
“What’s it like?” Ganymede wondered, pulled from all the petty annoyances of her cell by a question few had ever asked. “That’s a new angle. Usually there’s a hand trying to grab my starseed, asking how.”
The last time they took her, she was one of so few — newly transcended, with no answers to explain how or why. One by one, her captors tried and failed to access her starseed. Most of them knew better this time. Still, some couldn’t squash the impulse to try. Perhaps they thought if they found a way to break through the protection, they’d be rewarded like Jet.
Ganymede rolled her head, tipped it down and stared at the glowing scar across her palm. There were other marks elsewhere — thin tendrils of golden light scrawled across her back — but the mark on her palm was the one she knew best.
“What’s it like,” she said again, tracing over the scar with the opposite thumb. If she closed her eyes and let the memories take over, she could almost remember the pain when it was fresh.
“I was lost when I was younger. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t want to be a Senshi. I didn’t care about the war. I hated everything, but I think I hated myself most of all. The only place I ever found any peace was Ganymede. Back then, there wasn’t any daylight, and everything was dead. The only thing it offered was ghosts and memories.”
She remembered the darkness, the stillness, the silence, and the ominous red glow of Jupiter hanging in the sky.
“The more time I spent there, the more I remembered about the past. The deeper the connection grew, the more my world began to heal. I found my place and accepted my destiny, and—” A lazy wave of her glowing hand. “—now none of you can touch the part of me that matters.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 9:46 am
She would've shrugged again, but it felt weirdly unnecessary, too perfunctory. Much as Chrysocolla might've wanted Ganymede dead conceptually, right now she bore the other woman no particular ill will; she was a prisoner, harmless, and from there deserved -- some respect. Chrysocolla had been a prisoner, once. She remembered what it had done to her - what it had done to Sylvite, who'd come out of it so much worse. Maybe years ago that would've moved her to offer the princess some aid against the implied restrictions of her superiors, but these days, with how she'd become, it was just a sort of numb acknowledgement. A prisoner was a prisoner. There was no personal quarrel here, and no need to be cruel. "Everyone's already asked you how," she said, noncommittally, "but it's not really my job to know or care about that? You're not going to tell us how to break it." If nobody had learned already, it was doubtful they'd be learning in the next week or two; besides, that was Intelligence business, Infiltration business. None of hers. "It sounds... nice." It almost did. There was something appealing, there, in the idea of having a birthright, in the idea of work with protection as a visible reward. Not appealing enough to ever think about leaving Metallia, but still something some part of her wanted.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 8:06 am
A soft round of laughter preceded any further comment. Bright eyes peered through the darkness, to the bars of her cell, and the figure that stood just beyond.
“I don’t know how to break it,” Ganymede said rather simply, like it was an obvious thing, not some secret she was trying to hide. “I might be grateful for what the protection offers, but I didn’t ask for it, or seek it. I don’t think it works that way. True, if I did know how, I still wouldn’t tell anyone, but…”
Ganymede shrugged. She had no qualms against offering what information she did have, so long as she deemed it unlikely to be of much benefit to the Negaverse.
Given that she ranked her importance rather low in the grand scheme of things, Ganymede didn’t think she had much of anything that would ever prove useful. The ones who came to her asking questions and seeking information were wasting their time.
“What did you come here for?” she asked. “Just to talk? I’m surprised by how chatty many of you are. You Senshi, especially. Some of you come to gawk like you’ve never seen a Princess in a cage before.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 8:01 pm
"I don't know what anyone else wants. Most of them don't make a lot of sense" That was offered up simply, dismissively. Smarter girls, smarter women, would've drawn teams to them - around them - would've been in positions of command, would've understood the dynamics of the whole thing without even having to try. Chrysocolla wasn't smart, and that was... fine, really, honestly. "I can guess, though." Who knew what any of those other Eternals wanted? Any of those Generals? None of them might be trustworthy. Any of them might be liars. (She was a liar, too. But that was different.) She couldn't even think about that chance for outside mockery without wanting to run, so she didn't. "What do you want me to say? That we get to see Princesses in cages all the time, that everyone else is making a big deal out of it? You're special, so we want to look at you. You're like we are, so we want to look at you. Or at least I do." This shrug was slower, half-thought through. "...And you're pretty. Even like this."
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2022 12:40 pm
Ganymede didn’t know if she should keep laughing. There wasn’t anything about her situation that could be considered amusing, but she often found herself unable to suppress the reaction. Her laughter was bitter, cold, and disparaging.
She thought it might be the Chaos — unavoidable here. Her homeworld, though distant, provided her with some measure protection, but it could not fend off the taint of darkness completely. Chaos pressed ever closer, seeping in wherever it could.
Well… it was better to laugh than to cry, she supposed.
“Look your fill, then,” she said, because what point was there in insisting this Eternal Senshi do otherwise? Most of Ganymede’s options here came with certain annoyances, but she’d rather be stared at than abused.
Maybe they’d make a game of it, see who could stare the longest without blinking.
Ganymede thought she could get very good at that. She had nothing else to fill her time.
“Soon the novelty’ll wear off and you’ll all get bored.”
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 4:31 pm
"The loneliness will be worse," Chrysocolla said, conversationally -- but although the shadows covered her face somewhat, she looked annoyed, her tone at a mismatch with her expression. She didn't - she didn't like Ganymede laughing, although she couldn't place why; something that triggered an impulse without any true associated reason. Laughter was a stress response. That made sense to her. But somewhere in Chrysocolla's mind, the logical jump between that and Ganymede being stressed, Ganymede probably starting to lose her mind, or she would be - it wasn't connecting. Some things didn't. And unlike most of those things, she couldn't break Ganymede; so many people would get mad. "But if you're lucky, Laurelite will do something with you before it gets too bad, maybe."
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 9:34 am
“Maybe…” Ganymede agreed.
Maybe encapsulated her presence here. Maybe she would die tomorrow. Maybe Jet or Laurelite would get fed up with their failures and kill her, take their chances with whomever she was reborn as. Maybe they would let her waste away here for years, see how long it took for the Chaos in the air to leech her of sanity. Metallia couldn’t corrupt her, but she could drive her to madness.
The loneliness troubled her less than the uncertainty. Ganymede grew used to being lonely when she was younger, even when she wasn’t alone.
“The thought doesn’t trouble me much,” she said, laughter dying away. She tipped her head back and lifted her gaze to the shadowed ceiling, let her eyes go unfocused again. “I have enough memories to keep me company for a lifetime.”
When she couldn’t bear thinking of her family and friends, she cast her thoughts to the past, to people she was already well acquainted with mourning.
“Then there’s you,” she continued, “and all the other curious onlookers. If loneliness is the intention, you’ve all been doing a very poor job of it.”
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:44 am
"If you're left alone for too long, you might try to do something stupid," Chrysocolla said, although she didn't believe it, necessarily. It was a counterpoint only to be a counterpoint. She just didn't like the idea of Ganymede getting the last word. "But that doesn't really matter? We'll get bored eventually. Anything new stops being new after long enough." Seeing Ganymede had been curiosity. She'd wanted to see - to know - well, Chrysocolla wasn't really sure what she'd wanted to know. Maybe if the sight of Ganymede might've brought back any of the memories she was never getting to have again -- that girl was dead and gone, anyway, but for other forced recruitments their ex-selves seemed to be a ghost over everything they did, so maybe -- It hadn't done anything she didn't expect. This was a Princess, and she was injured and laid low, and Chrysocolla didn't really feel anything at all to see it except some stirring passive desire to hurt her more. If she could ever hurt a Royal this badly, it'd gain her respect. Respect she wanted. But if she hurt Ganymede, she'd be in trouble, and it wouldn't prove any points.
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Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:56 pm
“What stupid thing could I possibly accomplish, I wonder,” Ganymede said, but her tone was lacking in curiosity. She spoke simply for the sake of the conversation, not because she was interested in the answer.
She had no power here, when they kept leeching her of it. They never gave her the opportunity to recover. She didn’t even know if she could, with Chaos such a constant presence. Perhaps they didn’t need to drain her to keep her weak. If she tried to use her crystal, it would fail. She could barely summon her weakest magic — had tried once or twice, after her captors had left her alone too long, but it led her nowhere.
“I can’t escape,” Ganymede continued. “I haven’t been able to contact anyone. Even if I could, I know better than to think any of my allies could save me. Maybe they could find a way into your realm, like we did years ago. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is leaving. I guess I could end my own life somehow, take the slim chance of corruption or permanent death away before Jet and Laurelite are willing to give up on it…”
That seemed tedious, and messy. Better to wait for their patience to run out. She could give them that one brief moment of satisfaction, at least — let them end her life themselves. Maybe their disappointment would be satisfying enough for her in return, some sort of mutual exchange.
Ganymede laughed again — a short, quiet burst. Though her attention remained cast toward the ceiling, her eyes slipped closed again.
“I hope you all do grow bored of it soon. Maybe then I’ll get some sleep.”Daekie I'm so sorry for the long wait on this!! I must have lost track of this tab between event RPs!! emo
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Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:31 pm
"It'd be messy," Chrysocolla said, simply, "and it wouldn't even make a point." Whatever happened, the Negaverse won, anyway. It wasn't as if Ganymede was going to leave. What were the odds of that? Order pulled off improbable things all the time, but it had been a long time since they'd actually broken into Negaspace. But it wasn't as if anyone asked Chrysocolla about that kind of thing, either; nobody involved her in decisions of any real importance. Not that she'd ever tried to be involved in the first place. She didn't think she'd see Ganymede again, after this, and had no real desire to unless anything changed. What were the chances of anything changing? Anyone who knew about Ganymede being here was loyal. Maybe in six months, they'd pin the Princess up like one of those preserved bugs, something to gawk at in perpetuity. "If you're lucky, you'll sleep like the dead," she said, and turned on her heel and was gone. Sunshine Alouette i also lost this thread TnT so let's call it closed there!
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