Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lorey listened and thought to herself that she should have been just as worn on the inside as him. But, she never had the time in her life to stop and marvel at what a state she'd been in. She had been raised on work and knowing that more needed to be done the next day, which was all she had and needed.
But, she, too, saw the comparison made between him and Damian.

"It didn't make Damian happy. When I was working for him, he would drown himself in finery and women, but never seemed content. He always came back for me, and after every refusal, he turned around and went to do something terrible."


"I... don't know." The world in that moment became the most frightening thing he'd ever faced. Raquel could be taken from him at any moment. But he couldn't live in constant fear of that. Instead, he had to do what all those inspirational quotes mounted on the walls of doctor's offices and written down on free calendars had said: live like he would die the next day. Cherish the world around him. Dance in the rain. Finally, he understood what all that really meant.

"While I," Lorey said, because she wanted to play this game of walking down a memory lane lined with thorny rose bushes. "I went day by day, never questioning anything and accepting that I had to do what I had to do, whether that was cleaning up a toilet or washing someone's floor. Guess we found each other for big reasons."


Damian looked back at her, and for a minute just stared. When she seemed to finally get creeped out by his unblinking eyes, he kissed her.
"You and me," he whispered. "I like this idea, a lot more than I did before, if it's possible."

"You...are not... old!" Lorey started tickling his sides as he was trapped in the chair with her. "New rule! Every time you say you're old, this starts. You hear me?"

Damian was about to kiss her nose when the doorbell rang. He cocked an eyebrow, because deliveries at that hour were odd. But, he did his best to put himself to rights before shuffling o to the door to see who was dropping off what.

Once at the breezeway, Damian saw that there was a large box, but no delivery man. It could have been something that needed no signing, he thought. In the state he was in, it hadn't even crossed him mind that it could have been dangerous.

"We usually have tea and cakes," Damian said as he dragged it inside. It was heavy, and had a simple note taped to the very top. Once he had the chance to read it in the light, he saw that it was directed to him.
"Take your trash with you. ~Terra"

Damian carefully opened up the box to reveal a multitude of haphazardly thrown things inside. What looked to be an old, discolored bridal veil, a box of jewelry. A photo album, keys, a small trinket box. there was a tie that belonged to his father and a few papers crumpled here and there, but on top of it all lay a small hologram disc. Thinking it was from Terra with some kind of explanation, he simply pressed the sides together to activate the small contraption.

But instead of being show the face of Terra, he was shown the face of someone he had not seen for years.
His mother.

She was a soft and quiet woman towards the end of her life. She was beautiful, but there was clear sadness in her eyes as she looked out from the air in front of him. Damian was still as stone, and felt just as cold.

"Damian," she said. "My little boy, this is for you. I know that I'll no longer be with you when you're old enough to understand death, but when you are, I want you to understand this as well: I love you. You are my pride and joy, my Damian. I want you to be good, and know that I am always watching over you. When you dance in the Ball Room, I will always be just out of the range of your vision, dancing with you. When you sing, I will help turn the pages of the music for you, like always. And when you feel you are alone, I want you to remember me and know that you are not."
The woman in the hologram shed just a few tears, though she wiped them away with a laugh.
"This is not good bye. I love you, my little boy."

As the hologram faded out, Damian barely noticed that he was crying silently with a set face. this was not what he had expected.


The sadness in the other part o the house was completely opposite from the antics in the library. Lorey wrestled with Richard, though her laughter kept her from being effective.
"Darn you, being bigger than I am!"

Damian didn't really register that Raquel was there. He played the message over again. It wasn't so much that he hadn't seen her or talked to her, or heard her voice for years, but more that what she was saying could have been shown to him years ago. Maybe then, he wouldn't have slipped into drug use. Maybe then he wouldn't have begun using women and money like disposable goods to escape the past vice. But he couldn't blame that on his father or anyone else.
He could blame himself for failing his mother in almost every wish she had given him to grant. Why did this have to hit him when he was already low?

"... I failed her."



Lorey adored his hugs. She curled up inside them and felt safe and warm there.
"I do love it. I love you. And I love how we can both fit in this chair."

Damian was done crying. He wasn't so sure if he was done with the hologram, but everything that he regretted about his mother was fresh once more. She had such high hopes for him, and he had dashed them by simply not caring.
Now that he did care, it almost seemed too late.
He pulled away from Raquel to look in the box again. Once his father had mentioned something about how his future wife should wear some necklace she had worn at their own wedding. He was guessing it was in one of the smaller boxes.
"We should sort through all this..." Damian mumbled.


"Ah, yes. Getting it out the door and onto the ship won't be much of a problem." Lorey eyed up the sides and height of it, and nodded. "It's still smaller than you, and we've never had to squeeze you through the door yet, have we?"

And so, Damian took everything numbly back to his study instead of his room. the documents inside would have to be sorted, and everything else either thrown out or put in a better storage unit.
Even when he was pulling things out onto his desk, Damian said nothing. His mother's wedding veil slipped through his fingers and onto the dark wood as if it meant nothing to him. Her husband, his father, was dead. There was no one to remember those memories who weren't far away then.
He handed Raquel jewelry boxes and anything she might like for herself. There was his mother's death certificate inside, framed as if it were an award. His father's tie was wrinkled, and the photo album was set aside for revision later. Damian didn't want to see any more faces from the past.


"I do love you, but that would be very sad to see." Lorey snuggled back down into the chair and looked at him with dreamy eyes. "How is the house?"