Welcome to Gaia! ::

Dorian didn't leave the inn much.

He didn't need to, not really. Everything he needed was there, and the garden reminded him of home in a way his home currently could not. His home couldn't remind him of much of anything but grief. Here, the garden was … unrealistically bright, momentarily, but it was alive. It hadn't rejoined the rot.

The things that meant, though, were that he was quite attuned to all of Michelangelo's movements. He learned the other man without even trying, and honestly, he didn't have to try anyway. Michelangelo was something of an open book. Dorian couldn't quite figure out yet if it was an effort to be more welcoming or if he just didn't understand how to keep a secret, but it had provided a layer of amusement.

It also meant that he knew what the doorbell meant, usually. There were only a few options. Quite a few of them meant that Michelangelo would disappear to a side room with a guest. Sometimes multiple. Sometimes the room changed if there were certain people, like Sadie or Luke.

This one was different, but not different like Sadie or Luke. Just… different.

Dorian was already waiting before Michelangelo had a chance to stop him, in any case.

“He's been expecting you.” If she was one of those unaware of their powered lives, she probably would be surprised. Ah well. Dorian had his excuses ready. He was too old and too tired to care. “Bedpartner, right?”

There was, for the briefest moment, an amused tick to his expression when she covered her face.

It didn't last long enough to break the solemnity.

“Business partner,” though Dorian couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his voice. Dorian supposed Michelangelo had his hands in a lot of pies, he just thought they were pies he had other people managing. He didn't manage his own finances, for one.

There was a momentary quirk of amusement from that, too, but it died before it resulted in much more than a snort. “Dorian Gervasi,” came his introduction, in any case. “I com hider a few months ago.” He did not yet understand the passage of Earth’s time other than too fast. Dorian supposed he came from a people much more ancient.

Also, more dead.

“What business do you have with Mr. duPont?”

Dorian easily filed the name Brielle Gallo in his mind. It sounded like she may have been someone he should make sure he knew.

The name that followed made everything she said afterwards sound hollow.

He remembered a Sailor Cybele. This wasn't who stood in front of him now, but who she must have been before what… wiped most everything away from the universe. Dorian remembered the parties, he remembered the gatherings, he remembered what an interesting new connection it was as Dorian attempted to widen the Ibirapitán reach. He remembered the way his husband brandished his shillelagh with a rakish grin as Dorian sent him into the competitions against mighty beasts. And he remembered the way his best friend had loved certain elements of the celebrations, elements that left Dorian amused but quite happy to not be part of.

Ach.

He shook his head, trying to pull himself out of it. “Ah, aye. He's mighty good at parties.” That much was true. “He holds them regularly, of many varieties. Certainly could help those connections. Thou have the right person. Perhaps an internal instinct of thy own history.”

His brows knit.

“Me repenteth. Sailor Ibirapitá. I … loosely knew who thou once was.”

Dorian was physically present, but his mind was on another planet, in another era, swimming through memories he couldn't hope to live again. If he thought about it, he could feel the grass under his feet, the almost feral joy from his husband after a competition, the way his best friend certainly got his own sort of high out of the whole … fest. It was something Dorian desperately wished for.

A party of this new life wouldn't quite touch that, would it?

There was no Cybelean society to give that. Or … any society. Just this.

A place he could not leave.

“Abzu would have been,” he offered, an amusement present that didn't quite make it into his face. “He tells me his name was Milo. The protector of his wonder,” which felt odd in comparison to … Michelangelo, “but also quite loose with himself. Some things never change.”

Dorian thought about it momentarily, before finally concluding, “I am used to his patterns. I asked because he frequently invites people over for bed gatherings, including someone he helped purify.” His eyebrows knit. “Though I suppose thy past backs up the theory, even if it was wrong.”

A place where Dorian could have chased his husband without judgment that wasn't his own world-

Perhaps it made sense he found himself continuously near the protectors. It was what he was, after all. Sailor Ibirapitá had, at one point, been the Guardian of his Planet. What was he now?

It didn't matter.

A lot of things felt like they should matter, but they didn't. People were gone. Loves were gone, unable to be found again. Those parties up on Cybele were of the past, unrecoverable. That wild grin was lost in something he would simply never touch again.

Did he already become less real by being recalled in the secondhand?

Dorian swallowed it as he was asked if he was alright. There was a small, bitter laugh as he responded, “No.” His gaze was somewhere out in the distance. Dorian's eyes were faced in the direction he was fairly sure Michelangelo was in. “Not certain I ever will be.”

Dorian was silent for a moment, continuing with, “Michelangelo is likely in the gardens. He loves the way it's been decorated for the season.”

Connections as a concept sounded… humourous.

Perhaps things would be different now. He was, after all, no longer one of only one. By the same token, did it matter? Why would he wish to connect to these … people of Earth? From what he had gathered, their lives were considerably more fleeting.

Abzu had said his parent was middle-aged at fifty. If how brief their cycles were hadn't clued him in, that much had. Getting attached to people who would simply die again was a bizarre thing to confront. Before, it was easier. He was used to the variance.

Now, it was all there was. He wouldn't have his people to fall back on.

Dorian managed to tune back in, at last.

If there was one thing he had always been, though, it was nosy. It was why he enjoyed being around Michelangelo as much as he did, in a way of things. Michelangelo had plenty of connection to the current gossip of those who were of magic. Following Brielle would give him more of what was available.

“Aye. I do not have another place to be anyway.”

Dorian seemed a touch less melancholy in the gardens. At the very least, he stood a bit straighter as he walked behind Brielle. The lights felt a bit excessive in their colours, but their existence did not. The garden itself didn't feel excessive either. In some of the clearings, he could feel at home.

“Brielle!” called Michelangelo, waving from a swinging bench. “Over here– you have Dor with you?”

Dorian paused in his strides for a moment. After another moment, with mildly narrowed eyes, he asked, “Is that a problem, Milo?”

The pointed nickname didn't seem to bother Michelangelo any. “Not at all, just,” he gestured flippantly toward the sky, “unexpected. You're welcome here.”

“I reside here. I would presume.”

While Dorian moved to sit himself at a different spot from Michelangelo, Michelangelo shot Brielle a glance. He wasn't sure how to ask if Dorian had been strange without outright saying so. Instead, a chipper, “I see you met the resident alien,” would suffice.