Ceres

[ Audio ]

[ Ceres has been thinking a lot lately, especially since everything started falling to pieces. Aya of course helps as much as she can, but some of the thoughts are so uncertain and so very pressing that she doesn't dare screw it up.

She thought she wanted revenge. She thought she wanted peace. She thought she wanted freedom, more than anything else. What she didn't want is what it's all come to. This breaks her heart in a terribly familiar way - much like her heart broke as she watched her descendants grow and spread and trample on other's lives and take part in meaningless wars and finally turn on their own daughters, over and over again over the course of centuries.

She doesn't know what she wants anymore. ]

What is it that you truly wish for?

[ Video ]


[ Here's a blast from the past: Ceres making a video post just to complain to the network. Been a while, hasn't it? ]

I can't hear Aya's voice anymore. I have kept her from the people she loves for too long. I cannot blame her for being upset with me. I cannot blame any of you.

[ She actually chokes up before cutting off the feed. ]

[ Spam ]

[ Ceres is holed up in the greenhouse, sitting among a huge array of nice smelling flowers and crying. Actually crying. She doesn't want to stay in her room - it's Aya's room, and she doesn't belong there. She doesn't belong anywhere. She is just so sad. SO SAD. ]

[ Open Spam ]

[ A century of ice in Narnia has not been kind to the water elementals of the land. Undines are, generally speaking, family, and Ceres has lost too many sisters to thick layers of ice covering ponds. River dwelling undines are luckier, as running water is rarely stopped by even the bitterest of winters. This one has been difficult on everyone, she knows, but she can't help but be a little extra bitter towards the White Witch.

None the less, Ceres remains unaffiliated. She is rather shy of others, and keeps mostly to herself. There's good reason for this, as any undine who falls in love with a land-walker becomes themselves a mortal land-walker. She keeps to the main rivers for the most part, but does occassionally venture into smaller streams. She never goes so far as the ocean, though. She doesn't like the taste of salt water, and she is at heart a rural creature.

She is far more willing to talk with Aslan's army than the queen's cruel agents, but can easiest be coaxed from the safety of the river bottom with food. The waters are sparse of life after one hundred years of winter. ]

Hello!

[ Is that Ceres? No, it can't be Ceres. She's got blue eyes, and is actually smiling and cheery and talking and stuff. Weird. ]

My name is Aya Mikage. I'm not sure how long it's been since the last time I introduced myself... Anyway, it's kind of complicated, but I'm the descendant of a Tennyo and so Ceres is, well, a part of me, sort of? Our best guess is that Ceres was supposed to come here as an inmate when she died, and since we're sort of the same I came along for the ride. Either way, it seems like we switched places!

[ She knows how weird and vague this explanation sounds, and while she continues on energetically she's also a bit sheepish. ]

See, when I turned 16 Ceres woke up, but we always changed back to me after a while. But now it's the other way around, and so it's usually Ceres who's in control.

What I'm trying to say here is, I've been... asleep, for a while now, but now that I'm awake again, I'll be around.

[ She pauses for a moment. She's only used this thing once before, and she's never really done a video blog before, so. She's not sure how to end it. ]

That's all!

[ Video ]

[ Hello Barge. Ceres is angry. Must be Tuesday. ]

If you are in possession of a doll resembling me, I demand that you hand it over at once.

[ Yup that's it. ]

[ Audio ]

[ Ceres has calmed down a bit since wrecking the 6th floor common room. She's spent quite a long time alone in her room. An inordinate amount of time, even. About as inordinate as the long silence that comes from the feed before she actually begins to speak. ]

Imagine, if you would, that you have only ever stayed still long enough to have a child. You meet a man, have his child, nurse it, and when your work is done you move on and do it again somewhere new.

Three years is an interminable length of time. Three years, trapped, kept in the same place with no hope of release. Learning to care for people, losing them, gaining and losing everything again and again and unable to stop it.

What have I done to deserve this fate?

( Valentines for Arthas, Chromie, Iris and Touko )

[ Anyone who's seen Ceres before can tell easily that there's something different about her. Again. But it isn't her eye color. In fact, this does seem to be Ceres, but a gentler, more talkative Ceres. ]

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. This flood does not seem to be a terribly unpleasant one, though that is always still a possibility. We find ourselves so often here in close quarter and desperate situations from which there does not seem to be an escape. What moments of happiness we can find here should be treasured.

Valentine's Day is tomorrow, a holiday on which it is custom for women to show their affection towards others, be it romantic or friendly. I see no reason to wait, and the words may fail me later.

[ Why yes, it's a speech. ]

I wish to extend my thanks and apologies alike to all of those on this ship who have extended towards me their friendship. There are not many of you, and I have not treated you overly kindly. In truth, strange though it may seem to you, I have never had a friend before. Human men have always been to me little more than potential seed or abuser or both, and human women were an irrelevant distraction. It is rare that I have ever met one of my own kind, and there have been no others with whom I might spend time. This does not excuse my behavior, but I hope perhaps it can explain it.

I have always been a woman with a mission, and now without the means to accomplish my goals I find myself lost. I cannot ask you to be patient with me, but I can hope.

That is all.

[ Video ]

[ Oh hey, look who it is. Some of you may recognize the effervescent young woman from port. Some of you may know her from the last time she went on the network to bitch. Yeah, it's that time again. ]

I was not asked if I wished for your redemption, nor was Aya asked if she wished to accompany me in my death. Yet here we both are, trapped and made to dance like puppets on your strings. I am no more able to let her out than I am able to retrieve that which was so wrongly taken from me centuries ago.

This is the man you are working for, wardens, and in defending him you are no better than him yourselves. Your second life is neither a blessing nor a gift, but a curse invoked without caution or care. I have no sympathy for your pain. We are all of us damned.

[ That's all. Until next time, barge~ ♥ ]