(Minerva)
-/-
Minerva has gotten very used to the sight of darkness.
Before Juno just walked into her bedroom in the middle of the night and stole her away (stole her, like a prize to be claimed instead of a real person), she'd never thought of darkness as something to be seen. Only now, after so long in the darkness she's started to lose track of time, the darkness has started to change. She can feel it pressing into her eyes like something physical, something thick and mean. There's absolutely nothing to see, so her terrified mind projects shapes and character to the shadows.
Occasionally, she sleeps. Never for long, but sometimes when she wakes there will be food in the tray in front of her. Minerva has no idea how Juno knows when she sleeps, but no one ever comes in when she's awake. It's been a very long time since Minerva heard another voice. Or anything at all, really, other than the sound of her own breathing.
She focuses on that as much as she can, the sound of steady breathing in her ears, because when she's not concentrating on that, she tends to focus on the feeling of the walls around her. There's just enough space in- in wherever she is- for her. And that's basically everything. She can actually feel the walls brushing her shoulders if she moves too far to either side, and even without being particularly claustrophobic, Minerva is terrified of the tightness here. It's like being buried alive.
Complete with the smell- most of the time, the whole place stinks of stale urine and feces, because when she has to go, there's nowhere to go but right where she's standing. The floor is concrete and constantly sticky, and the feel of it between her toes and under her feet makes her feel like something dirty and animal.
Sometimes, when she can't control her fear and panic, she cries. During the worst times, when the tears just won't stop coming, the salty taste runs down her face until it coats her tongue. It's all she can taste, and it tastes of pure misery and fear.
She has no way of knowing how long it is that she's trapped, alone in the darkness with every sense stolen from her. It feels like a very long time, and the worst is the feeling that she's done this before. Waited for an eternity for someone to come rescue her, and being powerless to do anything but wait. Being trapped like this is starting to wake… not the memories themselves, but the feeling of those memories, and that old terror is a better prison than the walls around her could ever be, more binding than the ropes tying her wrists together in front of her, more barring than the locked door she has no way to open.
And then, one day, that door does open.
It happens after a long enough time has passed for Minerva to have given up on that ever happening. For a moment she just stares into the sudden light like a slack jawed moron, not quite believing that this is her chance to leave. She makes a strangled half noise and squints into the light, hope rising up like a tide within her. There is a figure standing there, in the light, and for one heart stopping moment, Minerva thinks this might be a rescuer. Then the figure laughs, and Minerva feels the blood freeze in her veins as she recognizes Juno's voice. Of course.
"Get out of there, you filthy little brat," Juno jeers, and Minerva follows the command unthinkingly. Any resistance she might have normally had is utterly gone, wiped out by her time spent alone and in the dark. She stands, trembling, in front of the woman she now hates more than anyone else in the world, and waits to find out what her fate will be. When her eyes begin to adjust to the light, she looks around a little. Not that there's much to see- she's in a very small apartment, and now that she's on this side of the door she can see that her prison is nothing but a glorified closet with the biggest lock she's ever seen in her life. That makes her feel even worse, knowing that something so small and stupid had been enough to keep her trapped for so long.
"You smell like shit," Juno says, after a long period of contemplation.
"Sorry," Minerva whispers, because it seems like the safest answer. Her voice is hoarse and barely audible, even in the absolute silence of the room.
"I don't want you to be sorry!" Juno snarls, and she draws back an arm like she's going to slap her. "I want you to understand!" She growls out a wordless noise of frustration and drops her hand to run it through her hair, so hard it looks like she's going to pull it out. "That was one month. One month of absolute nothing. You and I, we waited millennia in conditions worse than that. Because of humans, because they destroyed everything we'd ever built. I gave you a little taste of that so that you can understand, because you should be on my side. All I want is our revenge. To undo everything they've done to us."
"You can't," Minerva says, not knowing why she's arguing. "It's impossible to change the past-"
"For anyone other than me," Juno says. "I have this." And she grabs something off a nearby table and holds it out for Minerva to see. It's a key, golden and half substantial. "My own invention," she says, a hint of insane pride breaking through her anger.
"Time travel?"
"It's been charging since before our society fell," Juno says. "But it will be complete before the end of the month, and then I will use it to travel back to a time before our people fell, to before the humans revolted, and I will put them in their place."
Minerva doesn't waste a single moment on doubt. Juno, as insane as she is, cannot be called a stupid woman. And Minerva has felt time stop herself- it could be a sign of Juno's key finishing its charge. That makes about as much sense as anything else.
"So," Juno says. "Are you with me, or not? I would like you to be. You've suffered as much at the hands of humans as I have, and you deserve your revenge."
Minerva thinks about her time locked in a tiny closet, cut off from everything in the world except herself. And she imagines what it must be like to spend endless ages, the whole of human history, in a darkness even worse than that. She can grudgingly admit to understanding why Juno would believe she deserves revenge after that- and she can certainly understand why she might go insane, if she hadn't been to begin with.
But she will never agree.
"I don't remember that," she says. "I don't remember centuries of… of that. All I know is that you have been my jailer for the past month. You. And I am human, so that revenge you're so bent on is revenge against me, and my family, and everyone I care about." She's terrified, and she should sound terrified, but she doesn't. Maybe it's just her voice, too hoarse and out of use to show the proper amount of fear. "You're a monster."
There should be anger, but Juno's face as she bends down to Minerva's level is saccharine sweet, and her voice is just as sugary. "My dear," she says. "You have not begun to guess how monstrous I can be."
She lashes out so suddenly that Minerva is taken completely by surprise. That first blow is the worst, but the ones that follow are still painful. They're solid blows, calculated to hit exactly where they will hurt the most. It's overkill (almost literally), because Minerva is skin and bone, scrawny enough after her confinement that a strong wind could have knocked her to the ground. After only a few seconds, she blacks out completely.
-/-
Time.
Goes by-
…by in fits and bursts.
sometimesitspeedsbysoquicklyshecan'tkeepup and sometimes it move s.
And some-
(sometimes, there is pain, and)
Every day she loses herself a little bit more.
-/-
Connor
-/-
It takes far too long to find the place where Juno has Minerva hidden. He doesn't realize that until he's actually standing over the girl, in an apartment they should have checked weeks ago. Only it's an old one, a place John used to live in before the entire building was condemned for failing to pass fire code. It's empty, abandoned, a home to rats and spiders. There isn't- there shouldn't be- anyone else there.
But there is. There's a little girl on the eighth floor with the shit beat out of her so badly it looks like she'll never move again. Never wake again, maybe. In fact, Connor has to double and triple check to make sure she's still breathing.
"Hey," he says, not expecting an answer but needing to say the words because at this moment she looks more like a sack of broken organs and bones than an actual human. "I'm going to get you out of here," he says. "And Ezio's only about a block away. Shaun's a little farther but I know he'll come running as soon as he finds out we have you. We're all here. In the city, scouring every place we can think of, looking for you."
His phone rings, and Connor considers not answering until he glances at the caller ID and sees Ezio's name come up. He probably deserves to know what's going on here. Instead of hello, he says, "I found her."
"That's-" the phone clatters a little, and Connor can only guess what he's doing, until finally Ezio gets enough control over himself to speak normally. "That's fantastic." He says something long and relieved in Italian, then Connor hears Altair shout something urgently, and Ezio refocuses. "Right," Ezio says. "Um- Juno's headed your way."
"Of course she is," Connor says, and hangs up again as Ezio starts on a stream of advice and nervous ramblings. He's been told, over and over again, that he's the sane one, the one that doesn't get emotional or lose control when things get insane. Right now, with Juno bearing down on them and Minerva barely holding together, that is- Connor is- exactly what they need.
The girl's injured badly enough that moving her is going to be a dangerous task. It's a miracle she's still alive, in Connor's opinion, and he's seen a lot of injuries in the past. Very, very, carefully, Connor gathers the girl into his arms, taking special pains not to touch what looked like the more sensitive and badly injured areas.
He'd climbed up the outside of the building to get in, but climbing down is out of the question with Minerva. But so is using the stairs, because if Juno is on the way up, there's too high a chance of running into her. The same goes for flying- while most people tend not to look up, Juno knows her enemies have wings.
Connor mulls this over for a few minutes, weighing each option, before finally making up his mind, grips the girl more firmly, and goes to the stairs. And climbs up. Two floors up, he kicks in a door and waits, until he can hear the sounds of Juno downstairs. She shouts, loudly enough to for Connor to hear, even with two ceilings between her and him, and there's the sound of something smashing.
Finally, though, Juno's tantrum abates. Connor waits long enough to make sure she's really gone, and takes the stairs. This time he goes down, and sure enough sees no hint of Juno- in fact, he doesn't see anyone at all until he's gone a block and a half to where Ezio's waiting.
"You got her," Ezio says, then does a double take and sucks in a sharp hiss of air, a surprised noise as he takes in the full extent of her injuries. "Shit."
"Yea," Connor says. "But- listen, Ezio, we need a real doctor to look at her. And I mean soon. Call an ambulance, get her to a hospital, and deal with everything else later."
"Juno will be able to track her if we check her into any hospital in the city," Ezio says, but he sounds only half convinced, like he's ready to drive her himself.
"So we guard her," Connor says. "We know she's coming now, we'll be ready. But trust me, Minerva's not going to make it if we don't get her help as soon as possible."
"Yea," Ezio says. "I know." He calls the ambulance, gives a surprisingly calm description of where they are and Minerva's condition. Connor notices that he specifically avoids mentioning any details of how she'd come to be injured, and makes a mental note that they'll have to come up with a believable story (because telling the truth is a laughable idea). When he's done, the two of them- three, counting the still unconscious Minerva- stand in silence, waiting for the sound of ambulance sirens.
"This is it, isn't it?" Ezio asks, after a very long time. "We're all in the same place, and Juno knows where we are. One way or another, we're not all walking out of this city alive."
"Probably not," Connor agrees. There's that kind of a feeling in the air, like the electric feeling right before a bad storm rolls in. This is the beginning of the end.