Aross the Universe [closed/personal]

---

And so it would go for days, weeks. Time meant little and less in this place. Defeated, she quickly became apathetic. She yearned for Apollo to dare step foot in her realm again, but he seemed set on presenting the facade of forgetting about his prisoner completely. She would have welcomed the opportunity to let out her frustration on him, he who's childish anger was so easily roused these days. But she was denied that happy opportunity. He did not forget her so completely as he would have liked her to think, however, for any time she awoke from passing out, exhausted, from expending so much energy, she would find her table piled with platters of food, flasks of water. He denied her anything remotely good, but the simple fare was nonetheless filling. It was amusing to Sophia that one who claimed to want nothing but her worthless hide in vengeance was so keen to keep her well fed. Surely he guessed why his prisoner was expending so much enery, he could not be so ignorant as all that.

Once again, she woke in a touseled mess, a tangled lock of blond balled up inside her parched mouth and a crusty trail down the corner of her lips where she'd drooled in her sleep. She spat the strands out, swiping at the grime, and sat up groggily, shoving her fingers through the thin strands as she had done a dozen dozen times over. She crawled out of bed, downed several mouthfuls of water and grabbed a flavorless fruit shaped like an apple, chomping it down in several bites. Without preamble she reassumed her meditative position, drawing Theo's necklace off her neck and cradling the chain and rings in her palm as she drew out her power. She had slipped more into watching him go about his life rather than actively trying to reach out to him of late, the one small comfort she could find.

Today, though, she recalled the memory of their first meeting, the delicate cake and coffee he had brought her, and the memory brought a smile to her lips. This time, she felt the answering heat in her heart, a winding thread that seemed to stretch from her chest to the luminous star hovering insubstantial before her. She blinked, feeling it out with a frown, struggling to keep track of it in her elation. She laughed, remembering the coffee she'd spilt and conjuring the memory of it's scent and flavor, and succumbing to the strange feeling of half-sleep that was sweeping over her. This time, though, she was more in control of the feeling, more like lucid dreaming than anything else. She could feel the memory drifting along that line, stretching like an invisible kite string between Theo's star and her own heart. She let the memory play out, dulling things like the sunlight, the lilting tones of the song she'd played, the smell of their coffee. Most prominent was that simple square of sponge cake.

She let the memory replay, before letting it fade. She could feel the rings in her palm grow hot. She drew forward the second memory, transforming the scent of cake to the drier scent of simple bread, warm, so real and acute that the waft of heat of the oven door opening accompanied it. She could not manage much more, however, and just as suddenly as it had begun, the memory faded, and Sophia withdrew, succumbing to the soporific power and laying back, drifting into true sleep as exhaustion overtook her.

---