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 Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2025 5:51 pm
They went to the capital first to observe the storm from the castle. The moon of Ganymede wasn’t a stranger to violent storms, especially during the Ganymedean spring, but it wouldn’t actually be spring there for half a year. That and the intense purple of the clouds was new. With the last of summer bleeding away, the trees had begun to take on their autumn colors, green tinged by more reds and golds than oranges and browns. The wind whipped loose leaves through the air, stripping trees before their time.
“It’s close,” Ganymede said, staring out a pair of balcony doors, which rattled in their frame. Red lips dipped into a frown. “It’s rare not seeing Jupiter from here.”
The absence of it unnerved her. Of course she knew it was there, still, hidden behind the clouds, but to not see it looming in the sky felt wrong. It had been the one constant on her ever-changing world, there from the moment she first set foot on her moon.
“You might as well take us to Yvoire,” she decided. “We’ll see if the storm reaches there, too.”
Yvoire nodded and took her hand. He inhaled deeply and let it out on a slow gust. There was a heaviness in the air he didn’t like. Being there felt harrowing, almost unbearable, like the magic that made him who he was had been stifled. Yvoire wasn’t even sure it would work. He closed his eyes to make his pledge, reaching out to the castle that was his own.
I pledge my life and loyalty to Ganymede, and to Yvoire. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.
They arrived in Ellis’ room. Yvoire looked around as if he expected something to have changed, maybe a return of the destruction that once seemed so widespread, but it was as he’d left it the last time he came to visit. Some of the furniture still looked a bit battered. The rest stood as if unaffected by time. The thick coating of dust that used to cover everything was gone.
“They’re further away here, I think,” Ganymede said, going to the nearest window.
Yvoire joined her, looking out across the river, toward the city on the bank, and the cathedral that rose proudly into the darkened sky.
Another aura flickered across his awareness.
“Reims is here,” he said.
Yvoire left the room with Ganymede at his heels. He didn’t necessarily look forward to seeing Reims, still bitter and hurt and anxious about it all, but between the storms and what Ganymede had told him might be on its way to Earth, Yvoire couldn’t help but worry. Anger and sadness lingered; hatred was much harder to hold onto.
He took Ganymede across the bridge, eyes darting up to the distant purple clouds. The storm seemed less dangerous here, but it still took up a large portion of the sky, and the heaviness in the air remained.
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Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2025 7:03 pm
He’d had to wait until the storms cleared up enough on Earth to allow him to make it to his Wonder. He spent all day there, not bothering to go to school, because what was the point, now? He was certain someone would try to tell him everything would be okay, but would it?
Maybe he deserved to wallow miserably after everything he’d done.
Just like he deserved the stupid storms to be there on Ganymede too. He thought it was weird to see them on Earth, but for the storm to be on Ganymede as well? He didn’t know what it meant.
Reims felt the auras flare up across the river.
He frowned and stood from the chair he’d been curled up in. His hat had been placed on a side table, but with company, he picked it up to place it back on his head.
Not that he was trying to impress anyone. It was more of a formality. Less of a chance for Yvoire to scoff at his appearance or something if he looked less disheveled than he felt.
He had a bruise on his jaw, but if he adjusted his cape enough, it could hide most of it.
Silently, morosely, he made his way to the entrance of the cathedral and pushed the doors open. He didn’t have anything to say in terms of greeting, but nodded to both Yvoire and Ganymede. His eyes lingered on Yvoire for a few moments, making sure the other knight looked okay and uninjured, but otherwise kept his eyes to himself.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2025 5:48 pm
Yvoire stopped at the doors to stare up at Reims, frowning like he couldn’t quite decide how to feel. Everything still felt so tangled up. The more he tried to resolve his feelings, the more he twisted himself into knots.
“You weren’t at school today,” he said, voice a little low, a little moody, maybe, like he didn’t want to show any concern but couldn’t help himself, and he hated that as much as he hated everything else.
Reims looked better. Miserable, sure, and not exactly pleased to see them, but he had more color in his face than the last time Yvoire had seen him on Ganymede. He could walk on his own. Breathing no longer seemed painful for him. Of course Yvoire had seen him in the halls at school since then, but it was different here somehow. Reims and Riker still felt different, even though he knew they weren’t.
“Did you get into a fight?” he asked, eyeing the bruising along Reims’ jaw.
He thought, for a moment, of the Negaverse Captain who’d shoved the jagged end of Yvoire’s broken parasol into Reims’ gut, how blood had spread along the pavement as Reims’ eyes went unfocused. Yvoire swallowed heavily, desperate to banish those memories in particular.Gently, Ganymede ushered Yvoire the rest of the way through the doors, in case the lightning could still reach them here. She offered a small smile in greeting but let Yvoire and Reims have a moment, aware that something had happened between them (beyond the incident with the Captain) even if Yvoire hadn’t given her the details.
She glanced around the entrance, gazing up at the stained glass windows and the high, vaulted ceilings. From a distance, she’d had only vague inklings of the cathedral’s purpose, like struggling to think of a specific word that remained stubbornly out of reach. Standing there now, the memories came to her in a slow stream—Liesel turning as she did, making a leisurely survey of each window. There were voices in her memory, low chanting and wistful songs, interspersed here and there with whispers, and a face she’d seen in dreams but hadn’t been able to put a name to before.
She felt the pulse of her world—thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump—but it was different here, almost haunting.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2025 6:46 pm
Reims’ eyes met Yvoire’s for just a moment, but then looked away, making sure the doors were closed behind them to keep out the weather. He then adjusted the collar of his cape as it would be enough to hide the bruise on his jaw. It was enough to hide the scratches on his neck at least. Or so he assumed.
“Nah, I’m dropping out,” he shrugged, because there was no point in trying to get sympathy from someone who no longer liked him. He didn’t want to put fuel in the fire for Yvoire to say something cruel or make fun of him. He would rather keep the good memories of them talking and spending time together, even if it was just cleaning up their wonders.
Or a kiss on the cheek.
“Oh, yeah, should have seen the other guy,” he added, but didn’t seem to want to elaborate.
He wanted to ask Yvoire how he was doing, but felt as though anything he would say would be met with some bitter retort.
So instead, he watched as Ganymede slowly looked around the cathedral.
“The windows are all fixed now. They were all busted out when I first got here,” he shared, because it had been a lot of glass to sweep up.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2025 7:47 pm
Yvoire frowned and ducked his head, letting some of his hair swing into his face to hide his expression—puckered a bit with a confusing blend of irritation and sadness. He wanted to press for more answers, but Reims turned to talk to Ganymede before Yvoire could get the words out. Yvoire shrank instead. Maybe he didn’t have the right to ask for more. Maybe Reims had given up trying to make amends.
Yvoire hadn’t exactly made it easy for him.“You’ve done a good job,” Ganymede said.
Though she hadn’t seen the cathedral until now, she knew what the rest of her world had looked like before it began to heal. She’d seen Yvoire, too, when it’d only had a new Page taking care of it. The cathedral would’ve been in the same state. Decrepit. Broken. A shell of its former self. Their voices echoed strangely without others there to fill it, carrying up and around the expansive space.
“You look good, too,” she added, eyeing Reims’ attire. “I didn’t get the chance to say that last time. You were a Page just last year, and now…” Her gaze slid from the top hat to the sparkling fur around Reims’ shoulders. “Knight’s a big achievement.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Yvoire seemed to shrink even further in on himself. If that were possible; he was small enough as it was—a sad boy who never really felt confident in himself. She knew it troubled him that he’d gained so few memories, that he lagged behind his friends in power.
Ganymede looked between them, from Reims to Yvoire and back again. It seemed so long ago she’d been their age. Stupid. Emotional. Struggling to find her place.
“Why are you dropping out?” she asked, mostly because she knew Yvoire wanted to but couldn’t seem to find the words. “No judgment. I dropped out at seventeen.”
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2025 5:34 pm
He saw how Yvoire shrank in on himself. Of course he saw. Even when he wasn’t looking directly at him, Reims was incredibly aware of anything that Yvoire might have been doing.
He noticed when he picked at his nails, or when he brushed his hair out of his face, or how he always seemed to want to melt into nothing -- except when they’d hung out together. Before Yvoire knew he was Riker.
Reims pressed his lips together, forcing himself not to hover or try to bother Yvoire. He didn’t want him wandering out into the storm to escape him. Although he supposed he wasn’t doing that good of a job.
He almost didn’t hear Ganymede complimenting him. Reims blinked and glanced down at himself. He hadn’t spent a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror, so maybe he couldn’t fully appreciate what others saw. He supposed it was better now that he wasn’t covered in blood.
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly, feeling self conscious about it if only because he knew Yvoire probably felt self conscious about himself. It wasn’t as though he’d asked to be a Knight.
Well. No, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d been desperate to protect Yvoire. And in return, Yvoire gave Reims his blood to help save his life.
“Can’t afford it. Got kicked out,” he mumbled in response. He liked school. He enjoyed being there, especially now that he had friends. He wanted to go. But it would be super embarrassing if they ended up having to drag him out of his classroom because tuition hadn’t been paid.
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2025 7:06 pm
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ganymede said.
She wasn’t normally the type of person to leave things there. She was nosy and persistent. She liked to fix things. Marrying into wealth had allowed her sense of altruism to flourish. She had the means. Why wouldn’t she help who she could? Especially someone so young, stuck in a situation he hadn’t asked for.
But she was wise enough in the way of obstinate teenagers, having been one herself, to know that now might not be the right time for it. Reims certainly wasn’t a child, but he was still a kid. Ganymede could tell he was keeping some of the story to himself. She suspected he was the type to clam up if someone pressed too far into a subject that clearly wasn’t particularly comfortable. During their last encounter (or, rather, when she first met him on Cybele), she hadn’t gotten the impression that he wanted to be hovered over. He was probably embarrassed to admit as much as he had. He wouldn’t want to be judged by his friend. Smothering him with support when he had no reason to trust her probably wasn’t the way to handle the situation.
She might not know a lot about Reims, but she knew who his friends were. She knew who his teachers were. Later, she could talk to Sessrumnir and figure out a way to resolve things without making a big deal of it.
“If there’s anything I can do…” she said anyway, to leave the option open for him. Flaunting what she could provide might not be the way, but she didn’t want him to think she wouldn’t do what she could.
Not that he even knew who she was beyond Ganymede.
“I know Sessrumnir, obviously,” she reminded him. She figured he was smart enough to understand what sort of resources she had access to from that alone. “If you need help, I hope you'll let us know. We can figure something out.”Yvoire lingered behind—quiet, unobtrusive. He kept his head lowered, eyes focused on the floor. Shame spread through his chest and rose up his throat at Reims’ answer. Yvoire struggled to swallow it down.
He wanted to ask Reims what he meant. Had he been kicked out of school? Kicked out of home? Yvoire remembered what Reims had told him about his family. About his mother. How he never felt wanted. And now he couldn’t afford school even though Yvoire knew his mother was well off.
Ganymede wouldn’t know to ask. Or maybe she did. Maybe she wasn’t pushing for a reason. Yvoire wished she would. He wanted to know. Even if he was still angry at Riker, it wasn’t fair for Reims to feel unwanted.
Except… wasn’t Yvoire guilty of that too now?
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2025 8:25 pm
Reims shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. As if he hadn’t been absolutely distraught to the point of running away from Earth so he could hide from the people who actually cared about him.
Another stupid decision, he knew. But if he disappointed them all now, then they wouldn’t be disappointed later when he did something stupid again. It made sense in his head, but he was also a teenager with very little life experience and a lot of trauma to unpack.
Yvoire was quiet. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he was relieved that he wouldn’t be at school any more. He wouldn’t have to worry about being bullied by him, at least.
He shrugged again when Ganymede asked if there was anything she could do.
“I don’t know. Maybe some gallons of water and some food that doesn’t need refrigeration? Peanut butter?”
He would be okay. And if not, then no one would have to be around to see him suffer.
“What’s with the storms?” he decided to ask after clearing his throat of any emotion that threatened to be too obvious. “It kept me from getting here a couple nights ago. I didn’t expect it to be here, too.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 5:43 pm
“There’s a world devouring monster on its way to Earth,” Yvoire mumbled.
He didn’t look up, still frowning at the floor rather than looking at either Reims or Ganymede. His hands drifted closer together, thumbs starting to pick at each other. He didn’t know what to say, having very little information himself, but he hated standing there, still and silent, like a shadow. He felt stupid and useless. Reims was going through something stressful and Yvoire couldn't do anything about it—didn’t even know if he should.“Apparently,” Ganymede agreed, picking up where Yvoire abruptly left off. “A few Senshi and some Negaverse officers were pulled into space a little over a week ago.” Here she grimaced, annoyed that they might be reliant on the Negaverse for anything. “They came back with a warning—some giant serpent that used to go around eating planets had been imprisoned but got itself free. The console at the Celestial Theatre called it the Storm of the Endless Sky, among other things. None of them good.”
Ganymede didn’t like to worry them, but she didn’t want to leave them in the dark either. They were as old as she’d been when she first became a Senshi. She didn’t want them stumbling around without a clue like she had.
“Other Senshi have been reporting storms on their worlds, so I wanted to check things out here. It’s worse in the capital,” she said, glancing out the nearest window. The strange clouds hadn’t gotten any closer. Neither had they gotten further away. “Have you been here long enough to notice any changes? We’re so far away from the capital here, I don’t even know if that’s the same storm.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 6:04 pm
Reims stared at Yvoire. It didn’t seem real. How was there a world devouring monster? And headed to Earth? What did that mean? Was everyone going to die?
And Yvoire looked like he was shrinking farther away. Maybe not physically, but it took everything for Reims to not reach out and try to gently take his hand, if only to stop him from picking at his nails.
He held himself back, forcing himself to look at Ganymede instead, although there was now clear concern in his expression. He wondered if that was what all the notes were for that he ignored. He just thought Amarythos was bugging him about missing school. He hadn’t exactly been able to power up until just recently. And Elliot did say he needed to talk to him after his birthday get together, but they just never got around to it before they all parted ways.
“No, I came here last night. I noticed the storm and thought it was weird, but it hasn’t really gotten closer.”
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 11:38 am
“Let me know if that changes,” Ganymede said. “Or if you notice anything odd. I’ll keep you updated when I can. I’m sure you’ll hear from Ephesus and Amarynthos, too.”
She smiled knowingly, like she suspected they might have tried to contact him about it already. Ganymede couldn’t scold him for ignoring them, even if she wished he’d be more open to help than he was. She hadn’t exactly been the easiest person to be friends with when she’d been his age. Disappointment and resentment had made her willful. Fear had made her argumentative. Abandonment and loss had made her more independent than she should’ve had to be.
For now she drifted, glancing around the cathedral like she meant to learn of it again, gazing at features that held the vague sort of familiarity that meant Liesel had been there in some capacity but the memories weren’t quite clear yet.
“If I remember my history correctly, this is where most Ganymedean Kings were crowned,” she said, thinking Reims might be more comfortable talking about his Wonder instead of world-eating monsters or personal matters. Not that the latter two weren’t important, but Yvoire and Reims were visibly uncomfortable. Ganymede wanted to offer them a reprieve. “Have you remembered anything? Or—” She glanced around like she was looking for something else. “—maybe you have an ancestor? I’ve only known two knights who’ve had them.”Ganymede led them to the nave, or what amounted to one. Yvoire had no idea if the terminology was the same on Ganymede as it was on Earth. The pews were in better shape than they had been. Some of the wood gleamed as if they’d been polished. Yvoire looked down the aisle toward the altar.
He shivered, thinking of secret doors and old bones, narrow stairs and a stained stone slab.
If he closed his eyes he could almost hear the sound of an organ, and voices rising in song. He felt something heavy around his shoulders, soft and warm like fur. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, making colored patterns on the floor. Beneath him, a stiff wooden chair—old and worn, with nicks and gouges along the decorative arms. Beside him stood a tall woman with long, silvery hair, dressed in the Ganymedean colors, her frown grim, her eyes as hard and pale as ice.
In front of him, a man with brown hair and blue eyes struggled to keep the unease from his face. He wore a dark suit and a long cape with sparkling fur. In his hands he held an elaborate crown. The stones gleamed the same colors as the windows.
Yvoire wrenched himself away from the image with a quiet gasp, heart beating wildly. He looked around for any trace of the ghosts but found none, except for Reims, who stood there in the same cape.
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 5:42 pm
Reims didn’t like how Ganymede spoke and looked around as if she expected someone else to suddenly show up. He grimaced and shrugged, because he certainly hadn’t seen anything that could equate to an ancestor.
“Memories? Not really. But I did find my Code piece in a really creepy place,” he frowned, because he was still not okay with the underground forest of blood red trees and other foliage. Especially not the stone slab--
Whatever he had been planning on sharing, his thoughts were pulled to Yvoire’s gasp. Reims frowned with concern, instinctively taking a step closer, hand held out as though to offer it for support.
“Evie?” he tried to call him, just in case he needed to be snapped out of any strange thoughts.
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Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2025 8:18 pm
Yvoire stared at Reims with wide eyes, gaze intently focused on the fur around his shoulders. He shook his head, shedding the last of the memory—the music seemed to linger just out of reach, flitting through his awareness.
“Um…”“Did you see something?” Ganymede asked, low and gentle.
She remembered when the memories first came to her. They had been unnerving, but wondrous, too, ghosts dancing among the dust and decay that littered her world. The more she’d learned, the more she’d come to cherish them—even the painful parts. They’d brought her closer to her world. Her moon had given her a place to belong.
When Yvoire didn’t answer, Ganymede prompted him, “I don’t think Liesel ever got to see a coronation. The old King died before Liesel awakened, which meant Ellis’ father had already been crowned. Ellis was so young at the time. I don’t know if you’d remember it.”Yvoire shook his head again. His gaze lifted, catching Reims’ eye. For a moment they looked more blue than red, as worried now as they’d been then. Instinctively, Yvoire almost reached for Reims’ hand, but he pulled back before their fingers could touch.
He swallowed convulsively.
“Ellis was the second son?” he said, as confused as he was fearful.“His older brother Amis was the heir,” Ganymede offered.“And… you don’t know what happened to Amis? You said—before—you said Ganymede was at war with itself. You said Liesel fled to Jupiter and you didn’t know what happened to the rest of the family.”“If Liesel ever knew, I haven’t remembered it yet. I have suspicions. Gut feelings.”Yvoire watched the last of the blue fade from Reims’ eyes. He tore his gaze away and looked around them. The same colors from his memory dappled the floor, but faintly. The storm clouds, though less violent here, dimmed much of the natural lighting.
“Can you—” Yvoire gripped his own hands again, chipping a flake of polish away from one of his thumbnails. He chanced another look at Reims, afraid he might look different again—older. “Do you think you should—down below—maybe we should show her…”
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Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2025 7:05 pm
It made sense to him to reach out when Yvoire reached for him. But Yvoire stopped and dropped his hand, so Reims did as well. He thought he should take a step back, to give Yvoire some more space.
He didn’t.
He stayed as close as Yvoire would allow. If distance was what Yvoire wanted, then he could move away. But Reims wasn’t about to abandon him if he needed help.
Which felt selfish and unfair to think Yvoire would even want his help, but he still hoped that one day he might be forgiven.
He listened to them talk about coronations and families he didn’t know, but his eyes never left Yvoire. Just to make sure he was okay.
Reims frowned a little when it was suggested to show Ganymede down below, but he nodded.
“While you’re here, maybe you can shed some light on something for me,” he clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth and finally looked away from Yvoire to lead the way to the office where he’d found the skeleton wearing Reims’ signet ring, and also a secret door to something more.
“We were looking for the Code piece here. Didn’t expect to find what we did,” he explained, pulling out a flashlight from his subspace so he could turn it on and lead the way.
He found the shelf with the etching that matched his ring, and pressed it into the wood. The door came loose and revealed the thin set of stairs, nearly two stories in length, made of stone. Just as before, at the bottom was a faint glow.
“Careful,” he warned, taking the lead with his arm against the wall to catch either Yvoire or Ganymede in case they fell.
There was an eeriness to the place that lingered. It feels like death… he’d told Yvoire when they first ventured into the unknown together.
At the bottom it was a matter of turning to see the grove that somehow grew -- flourished -- beneath the cathedral.
Trees that were black and gnarled with dark, glossy wine red leaves, which littered the ground like a river of blood. The path was lit by small pink mushrooms that glowed along the base of the gnarled trees and up their trunks. The trees had black berries that gave off a strange purple glow as well.
Everything looked absolutely ethereal.
But the air was so thick and heavy that it was difficult to breathe. Like the weight of centuries had been layered upon this place. The smell of decay -- sharp, earthy, almost metallic -- grew stronger as they approached a large stone slab of particular color, not unlike veins and changes in the mineral makeup of marble.
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Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:03 am
Ganymede took the stairs at a slow, careful pace. Her heels weren’t exactly the most stable footwear on worn stone set in such a narrow configuration. She trailed the tips of her fingers along the wall as they descended, trying to get a feel for the place, trying to find some fragment of it in her memory.
The grove was beautiful. For a moment, she stood a few feet away from the stairs and turned in place to take it all in.
Then her eyes fell on the stone slab.
A furrow emerged along her brow. Ganymede frowned and approached the stone, taking in its shape, the etchings along the edge. The surface was perfectly smooth, broken only by iron shackles affixed to the stone at four points—two at one end, and one near each of the longer edges. The stone itself might have been beautiful, except for the dark stain pooling over the surface and streaking down the sides.
“... what is this?” she asked.Yvoire lingered at the base of the stairs. Between the trees and the mushrooms, the grove would have been enchanting if it wasn’t for the heaviness in the air, the sharp smell that seemed to rise as Ganymede drifted closer to the stone slab. Yvoire didn’t want to look at it, but his gaze snapped in that direction at Ganymede’s question.
“You don’t know?”Ganymede shook her head. She could make a guess based solely on the size of it, the stains, the position of the shackles, but no matter how far she attempted to reach into Liesel’s memories, nothing of the sort came to light.
She concealed her own unease for Reims’ and Yvoire’s sake.
“You haven’t remembered anything?” she asked Reims. “If the Code piece was here, I assume whoever you were in the past would’ve been familiar with the place. Unless you do have an ancestor and they haven’t revealed themselves yet. But I don’t know why they wouldn’t…”
Ganymede paused for a moment, pensive.
“Memory can be… strange,” she admitted. “They’re not always linear…”
But Liesel had been to this cathedral. The moments themselves were blurred by time, but she knew he had seen it. He had walked through sunlight throwing color onto the floor. Yet when she tried to call up any sense of familiarity with this grove, there was nothing. No blurred images. No sense of deja vu.
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