|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2023 7:47 pm
As October chased away the last of summer’s heat, Ganymede resumed her patrols with more regularity. Two new children meant most of the last several months had been dedicated to her family, but as routines were established and schedules began to settle into place, she found herself with more time to return to her other responsibilities.
She didn’t necessarily want to, of course, but as her family grew, so too did her obligations within the war. After all, what kind of parent would she be if she didn’t do all in her power to ensure that her children were safe from the Chaos which plagued the world?
Her concerns grew year by year. As her own world flourished, she couldn’t help but consider the fate of Earth more seriously. Though her hope for a resolution to the war had waned, she was not yet ready to abandon Earth as a lost cause. There was still so much worth saving. If only their worries had remained within the scope of Earth. Perhaps then the prospect of defending it might’ve seemed like less of an impossible task.
Tonight, Ganymede had a destination in mind. In the past, when the Jovians had been active, her doubts and fears had always seemed to ease when she had allies to talk to. With the Jovians scattered or missing, Ganymede knew she had to open herself to the idea of expanding her circle and relying on others. She couldn’t do everything alone. She struggled in solitude. She needed to stand with others, to lean on them, and turn to them for help as much as others turned to her.
Ganymede came upon North End Park at a slow walk, letting her Transcended, Eternal aura announce her approach. She made her way to a specific bench, and smiled to see Kerberos there.
“I hope you don’t mind some company,” she said. “It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2023 2:34 am
The company of another person was always welcome, and the bright aura of a fellow Transcended Eternal was always especially positive. Kerberos had to admit, he was expecting Ida--but that just meant that Genymede was a pleasant surprise.
He beckoned her over, scooting to give her some more space to sit down on his bench.
"Ganymede!" His greeting was bright, excited. "I'm always happy for a little company. Please, sit down, it's so good to see you." She looked well--better than he might have expected, considering all she'd been through. But perhaps that was the sort of resilience you developed, after enough time in this war.
"I've been well. How about you? Been up to anything in particular?"Sunshine Alouette i am so sorry this took me so long and thank you for your patience crying
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2024 6:58 pm
“I’ve been better, I’ve been worse. I can’t complain too much at the moment,” Ganymede said, taking a seat beside him.
By her posture, she would seem at ease. She settled into the bench as she would the couch at home, though the level of comfort it provided certainly wasn’t the same. Her smile remained in place, but it was perhaps not as wide as it might once have been. The fatigue she always seemed to carry these days was most evident in her eyes; there was tension around them, and tired smudges underneath.
“It’s been strangely quiet lately,” she continued. “As far as I can tell, anyway. It’s seemed pretty quiet since… Well, for most of us I assume since the Velencians arrived. Comparatively, anyway.”
A part of her wanted to believe the lack of constant dramatic events was a good sign. The war had evolved over the years. It was nothing like it had been when she first became a Senshi. Yet there always seemed to be a nagging anxiety—troubling thoughts that kept her up at night as much as the occasional nightmares did.
“Or maybe I’ve just been too lost in my own little world to notice.”Noir Songbird Ditto! Time got away from me and before I knew it over a month had passed. crying I'm so sorry!!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2024 7:27 pm
It was hard, to see someone carrying burdens that Kerberos couldn't help lift. Ganymede seemed stretched thin--but then, perhaps, anyone would be in her position, with what she'd gone through. Never mind whatever was going on for her as a civilian.
"A little less quiet for me," Kerberos admitted, "but certainly there haven't been as many terribly large incidents. Chaos feels...different, these days." Perhaps it was the newer crop of officers. Perhaps they had blown so many resources on those generators that they needed to lay low to recover.
"What has being lost in your own world meant?" He paused, briefly. "It's okay if you'd rather not talk about that; I know not everyone is comfortable sharing too much about what's under the mask, so to speak."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2024 4:31 pm
“Oh, nothing dramatic,” Ganymede said, like she hoped to be reassuring. Her smile hadn’t yet faltered. “Family obligations, mostly. There’s more of those than there used to be, but I guess that’s what happens when you get older. I’ve spent time on Ganymede in between. It’s… different there. A good different.”
She was never sure how much she wanted to share with her allies now—after Empyrean’s death, and Eupheme’s awakening. Years ago, it had seemed easier to open herself up to people, even when it hadn’t been at all. But she’d had less to lose then. Even during lulls in activity, the danger seemed greater now.
“There’s a lot that’s different,” Ganymede agreed. “With Chaos. With everything out there.” She motioned toward the sky, and the few stars that managed to twinkle through the city lights. “I feel stuck in my head a lot. If it’s not memories, it’s nightmares, and if it’s not either of those it’s all the questions we don’t have answers to. Things feel heavier now. When it was just us here on Earth, the war seemed like it might be manageable one day, like we had a chance to end it. But it’s not just us anymore.”
Her head tipped back slightly, gazing distantly into the night sky.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 10:36 pm
"Have you started seeing life come back, too?" Kerberos asked. "I've got all sorts of creatures these days--foxes and rabbits that glow, but also these ridiculous owl-cats. They're probably actually super efficient predators but they mostly just like to lay in any available lap and get pets, these days, apparently." There was a sparkle of delight in his voice, a joy that only ever really came out when he was talking about his world. His pride and joy, in many ways, even moreso than the little cafe he ran.
He could tell she wasn't sharing everything, but that was fair. There were people she wanted to protect, he was sure.
His eyes drifted upward, and he exhaled.
"I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse that we've got people who've lived for a thousand years showing up, now," he confessed. "Have you met any of them? The ancient Senshi?"
His shoulders sagged.
"It really puts the whole thing in perspective, doesn't it. It's not just us. Never has been. And that's good, in some ways--unexpected allies--but terrifying in others."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:27 am
Ganymede’s smile twitched a little wider to hear Kerberos talk about life on his world. Despite her worries, that was one thing to be pleased about: that life had returned, that it continued in whatever way it could, wherever it could. It did give her hope for Earth to continue on, to heal even if it ultimately fell to Chaos, she simply didn’t believe she’d be alive when that day came.
“After Lyndin betrayed us, that’s when it started,” she said with certainty. “Life, at least. There were butterflies on Ganymede again. That was the first thing I noticed. There’s more now. It’s… almost like it was. The way I remember it from the past.
“I think those Senshi began to show up then, too,” Ganymede continued. “Do you remember when we were at the Celestial Theatre after the battle? That wave of light that spread over the starmap. Everything I’ve heard seems to point back to it. The first I knew of came soon after the battle. At first I thought maybe there might’ve been more I hadn’t heard of, maybe some who’d been here for a while before, but… it’s not so easy to hide that. I’m sure we would’ve known.”
For a moment, her expression fell. Ganymede continued to stare into the night sky, pensive.
“The three I know personally have similar explanations for why or how they ended up here on Earth. I haven’t been able to come up with any other explanation that makes sense, so…” Ganymede shrugged. Then she pulled in deep lungfuls of the night air and let it out on a heavy sigh. “What I’m still trying to figure out is if it was all part of some grand plan or an unintended side-effect.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2024 10:07 pm
Kerberos might have quibbled, with what Ganymede said about Lyndin--but his quibbles all came back to things he'd promised not to share. And truth be told, it was difficult to argue with the idea that Lyndin had betrayed them, when he'd been working with the Negaverse all along.
Still, though.
"Moths, for me. And crickets. I got to my world, a couple days after that battle, and there was cricket song. I am not ashamed to admit: I cried." Sometimes, finding some new creature nearly moved him to tears again. It felt unreal, almost, to have living ecosystems on worlds that had been dead for a thousand years. To have lived throguh seeing them be reborn. "I think you're right--I think it must have had something to do with Archideus. We saw that energy travel out throguh the stars, and all of a sudden, we've got living things, and people from other worlds are hearing a magical call to come to ours."
It only made sense, really.
"I have my own theories," Kerberos admitted, "but it's difficult. I know a lot of emotions run pretty high when people talk about that night, and for good reason. It was...awful." To say the absolute least. "And we lost a lot of good people. To death, or worse." Because if you asked Kerberos, corruption--or youmafication--was a fate far, far worse than simply dying.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2024 8:07 am
Ganymede’s smile twitched again—not falling, but smoothing into something a bit more empathetic. Crying over the return of life certainly wasn’t a foreign experience for her. She’d done it too. They’d been tears of joy for her world, and tears of sadness for everything it had lost. Perhaps a bit of fear, too; the responsibility of nurturing it all sat so heavily on her shoulders.
“You can share them if you’d like,” Ganymede said. “Your theories.” Her smile shifted again, quirking into a self-deprecating smirk. “I like to think I’m not as quick to judge as I used to be.”
With so many gone, either from death or corruption or the trials of life, Ganymede liked to think her old reputation had gone with them, that the obstinate, quick-tempered, and oftentimes unreasonable young Senshi she’d once been had faded from memory.
Age and experience contributed to that, she was sure. Perhaps power did, too. And memories—knowing now where she’d been right, and where she’d been wrong, and where there was room to adapt. She couldn’t afford to be as willful as she used to be, not if she wanted even the slimmest hope of seeing an end to the war.
“It was a shitty situation all around,” Ganymede allowed, “but there’s a chance it came with a silver lining, and I’m not stubborn enough that I won’t look for it, just less hopeful that we’ll find it.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2024 12:25 am
Kerberos was quiet, for a long moment. Not because he was reluctant to share, per se--but because he was reluctant to say too much, to indicate too much of what he might know. Loose lips sank ships, and all. And while he hadn't spoken to Lyndin in some time, it was hard to imagine that his position had gotten any less precarious.
"I think...that the detonation of Archideus was no accident. What the Velencyans want, as best as I can gather, is to revive their world, and considering that the massive influx of energy we got did just that for our worlds...it seems like a stretch to think that's an accident, or a coincidence, you know?" He exhaled. "I just don't know how well it might have worked for them, considering how all the worlds that seem to have revived have their Senshi and the, uh. Unique way in which Caedus's starseed seemed to be pretty ******** didn't seem like the type of person Kerberos needed to sugarcoat things with, at the least.
"I wish there was more we could do to help them directly. The Velencyans, I mean."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2024 9:54 am
Ganymede, too, was quiet for a moment. She’d considered that everything that had happened on the hilltop and everything that came after had been intentional, except for the part where Caedus’ starseed had been returned to him. Ganymede had only spoken to Lyndin once, and during the battle she’d been too preoccupied to contribute much to the Velencian drama one way or the other, but she got the impression Lyndin wasn’t in the business of accidents and happenstance.
It made the prospect of helping the Velencians somewhat complicated.
“I should tell you… I would’ve let them take Caedus’ starseed,” she said. Her voice was firm but not cruel, uncompromising in a way that meant she’d already steeled herself for the possibility, but not that she couldn’t be swayed to a different decision under the right circumstances. “If I hadn’t been—… Well, you know what happened with Sheikh and Jet. If I could’ve, I would’ve stopped Oberon and Encke from saving Caedus.
“Between Earth and our own worlds and wonders, we’re already stretched thin. I don’t know that we have the resources to help Caedus, much less all the Velencians, and… as things stand now, Lyndin would make a better ally.”
A shred of bitterness came into her voice like she hated to admit that, still angry that they’d been betrayed. But the facts were that Caedus could offer them nothing and had come to them twice now to fight his battles for him. Lyndin had technology and manpower. Now, he might have valuable information, too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 31, 2024 1:43 am
Kerberos had to admit, part of him was a little surprised to hear Ganymede admit to such a thought out loud. But then, it wasn't so surprising that she felt that way, all things considered.
"Honestly?" Kerberos confessed. "Given time, and looking back on it all? I'm not sure letting people recover it was the right choice. Caedus is a good man. I like him. And the idea of letting him die breaks my heart. But....the Velencians need their Senshi, and his starseed is so damaged...." Kerberos shook his head.
"Goddamn b***h of an unsatisfactory situation all around," he said, which felt like the understatement of the century, possibly. "But I see what you mean. Caedaus knows things, sure, but Lyndin's been out in the universe for a thousand years, learning things. Studying. Who knows what he could help us with."
He'd been right about how to handle the Chaos on Kerberos, but Kerberos kept any commentary in that direction to himself. Even if he suspected that Ganymede might not be as opposed to knowing that he'd met with the Commodore as some other people, it still didn't quite feel like his secret to share.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:53 am
Ganymede would have stuck to her guns even if Kerberos had challenged her on it. Not having to meant she could relax slightly.
She hadn’t told very many people about her thoughts on the matter. Valhalla knew, of course; at this point, he knew everything she’d ever done or thought or believed. She’d told Sessrumnir because he was practical and realistic enough that she thought he might agree with her. She hadn’t told Oberon, though she thought he might suspect. Every once in a while, when she remembered her first few years as a Senshi, and the ideals she’d once stood for, she felt guilty for thinking it at all.
Even now, she didn’t particularly like what she had to say.
“Sometimes I think of handing him over,” she admitted. “I know I could find him through Oberon. It wouldn’t be difficult to bring him to Lyndin. Not logistically anyway. Would I still feel like s**t for it? Yeah, but…”
Ganymede sighed heavily.
“God, I hate this,” she said. “I hate thinking like this. I hate that we have to. I hate that we’re in the sort of position where we’d even consider sacrificing someone else like that, but between the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror and whatever else exists out there in space… We still don’t even know what the deal was with Cosmos when the Vanguard first got here, do we? I haven’t heard from anyone about it. I could’ve asked her, but… the last time I saw her was…”
After the Dark Kingdom, she didn’t say. Ganymede didn’t like to think of her time in captivity any more than she had to.Noir Songbird I'm so so sorry for the wait on this! crying Between all the events this year I ended up losing track of my tags emo
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2024 9:03 pm
Kerberos nodded, and let his eyes drift out to the park spread out before them, and felt the weight of a decade of war perhaps more heavily than he had in a very long time.
"Ideally, I'd like to exhaust any other options we can find before condemning a man to death," he said, "but it's one person against an entire planet." And who even knew how long the world could survive without its Senshi.
"Sometimes, I wonder if this is what it was like to be a Senshi a thousand years ago, to carry all of this--and then I realize that I'm really glad I was born now, and not then, because there's a lot more people I can lean on now. People who get it." And, in truth, Kerberos wasn't all that special himself--a success story of escaping the Negaverse, sure, but there were plenty of those. So his burdens certainly weren't that bad, in the grand scheme of things.
"But no, I don't know anyone who knows why Cosmos wasn't around, and frankly? If you'd asked, she might well not have told you. And I want to trust her? She's the one that purified me, back a decade ago? But....I don't think we can rely on her," he said. "Cosmos is great. She's certainly shown up and saved people more than once. But she also clearly has s**t to do that has nothing to do with us." It made Kerberos glad that he knew Ganymede and Ida, so he would never have to resort to praying that Cosmos wasn't busy if he needed to help someone else like Hver had helped him.
"I want to believe there's an answer out there that can save everybody. I feel like we deserve that. But I know that's naive."Sunshine Alouette totally understandable, it's been a busy year! heart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2024 5:42 pm
She had so many thoughts and so little time to untangle them all. Before one problem could be solved another inevitably rose to claim the attention. Ganymede would do it all herself if she could, spare as many people from the danger and stress as possible, but even as a Princess she was only capable of so much.
“It was easier a thousand years ago, in my experience,” she said. “In some ways, at least. Not that I actually experienced it, but…”
Ganymede brought her glowing hand up to rub at her forehead, then sighed and let the hand drop into her lap so she could gaze down at the phantom scar. Sometimes the memories felt so real.
“I don’t think the war will end in our lifetime,” she admitted, running the thumb of her opposite hand over the golden mark on her palm. “I used to think it would, but it’s been… God, twelve years for me now? Almost thirteen? There’s already another generation coming up after us. Back when I started it was only us and the Negaverse. We couldn’t get to our homeworlds. Now we’re fighting Chaos out in space. The more problems we find out there, the less attention we have for Earth.”
She hated that. As much as she loved Ganymede, Earth was where she’d been born. It was still her home. She hadn’t yet reached the point where abandoning it felt like an option.
“That’s sort of what worries me about Cosmos, I think. Us being stretched too thin. If she doesn’t show up here to help beyond a purification, fine, I’ve grown to expect that, but she’s responsible for the Cauldron. If something happens to her, what happens to it, and then what happens to us?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
