Welcome to Gaia! ::

He reluctantly let go of Emerwyn and looked towards the door. "Do you want to go out, or I could go run pick us up something. Whatever you want m'dear." Despite the pun, Ian was growing quite fond of the endearment for Emer.

Ti his great embarassment, right after he made that statement his stomach let out an embarassingly large rumble and he grinned sheepishly as he knew that with her enhanced hearing, Emerwyn could most likely hear it.

That sounded nice to him, Ian lijked looking at the stars.

"So, do you havn anything you'd like to order? I'm sure the cafeteria has a large selection for me to raid." He smiled at her laughter. He knew that for awhile she had found precious little to laugh about. Perhaps things were now changing for the better of all of them.

"A basic salad it is." As she hopped up he stared at her back a question in his gaze, but he never asked, for when she returned from the bathroom with leaves he grinned. "Of course, one can never forget the leaves." Then he stood and bowed not-so-very gracefully "I shall return shortly with the order m'dear." And he went to the cafeteria for some salad.

A few minutes later Ian returned to the duplex and held out a tray, on which was a large bowl of a basic salad (lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, celery, and carrots).

"The night awaits." he said with flourish, waiting for Emerwyn to go first onto the balcony.

Ian followed Emerwyn onto the balcony and set the salad between them, on the table. "Glad you think so." Ian didn't mention that he had never seen so large of a salad collection as he had seen at the cafeteria. He had grabbed the first salad that looked good from the line so he didn't have to choose.

Outside the stars were just beginning to become visible and Ian smiled over at Emerwyn. "I always enjoyed stargazing, it is almost a way of connecting with the past."

"You always seem to notice things more when there isn't any other pressing matter." Ian knew, when he was a child he had noticed the stars more, but when he had to worry about school, or work, the stars weren't nearly so noticeable. "When I had to worry about going to work everyday to support myself, I didn't notice the stars as much. But now that we have nothing to lose, we can notice everything we have overlooked." Ian reached out and snagged a piece of lettuce his eyes towards the stars.

"They are so pretty, like you."

He was confused, what did she mean like that. Was she disagreeing with his acceptance of their fate, or was she referring to his comment that she was pretty.

Ian looked at her, "but those things need to be said. We cannot avoid the truth forever." There was a passion in his voice. He really felt strongly about this. "When we deny things we separate ourselves from the beautiful as well as the ugly. What he have to do is see the bad stuff in a positive light."

"Why. . .I am here?" Ian shook his head. "I am here because I believed that dreams could come true. I came here because I was hiding from the truth. The truth is that dreams don't come true, but that new dreams can be formed, and those dreams are more important than the others once were. And even though dreams cannot come true, they are there and they mean more because of it."

Ian realized, even as he said those words, that he too had found new dreams, but he had also found something else. He had found someone he could share those dreams with. He looked into Emerwyn's eyes. "Old dreams have no place here."