Welcome to Gaia! ::

Angelique made her way back to the Temple where she found Kyo, Bapp--who she hasn't seen in a while--the Overseer, and a bleeding Harata. Her eyes widened as she began to imagine the worst. "W-What happened?" she whispered, and was sure that no one heard her. She quickened her pace until she was right beside them, stopping again when she heard the words 'Eve' and 'danger' in the same sentence. Color drained from her face. "Eve? Evie? What happened to her?" she demanded, in a furious yet worried tone she never used.

She inclided her head. "Can you walk to the boat, and bring me and Seer with you? Else we will have to swim out." She turned to Angel. "She's fine. Later."

Angelique blinked a few times, and then blushed at her outburst. "Sorry... I just thought... sorry," she muttered, her cheeks a vibrant red. "I would like to accompany you, please," she said, wanting to feel useful for once.

Jessie watched Coline go, eye following her up and away from the cabin until there no longer seemed to be any point. Lorika's cries and sobs sounded unreal as his Coline slowly disappeared from sight. He then sighed, and stepped back in to shut the door, before turning to face the center of the room. Lorika sat with her back to him, swallowed up completely by the armchair. He could just see a touch of green hair bobbing up and down at the top as she sobbed her heart out.

He went to go and sit down in a chair beside her, but stopped, moving instead to the desk where he could now see he'd left his eye patch. With his back to the priestess, who could see nothing anyway, he fastened it around his head in the usual way under his long, white hair. He then proceeded to sit down quietly beside her.

The pair of them looked rather a surreal sight, with the contrast between male and female, elf and human, obsidian black and peachy white, utter composure and complete shamble. Ten minutes passed by the clock on the wall. Lorika remained as hysterical as ever. At this point the Captain chose to get up and finish drying his hair and dressing properly, while simultaneously preparing a cup of tea for his distressed guest. He ducked inside the bathroom to do this while the tea stewed in the pot, and came back out looking much more his usual refined self.

By the time he had poured the tea and sat down, Lorika seemed to be running out of water to wring out of her body. She sat sniffling, the occassional tear rolling down her cheek, which she would quickly wipe away, her eyes trained on the small coffee table in front of them.

Jessie offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully, using it to dab her eyes and blow her nose. Her face had looked like a waterfall, but after a lot of patting it just resembled a road the day after heavy rain.

She placed the hanky on the coffee table, and picked up the cup of tea. The first small sip seemed to refresh her, and she sighed, settling back in the chair. "I'm sorry for... well, I'm sorry."

"Think nothing of it," he responded, just as she'd predicted. Without warning, she lurched forwards, crying out and beginning to weep again. The china in her hands clinked dangerously, and Jessie leapt forwards to take them from her lap before she scalded herself. "Careful!"

Upon placing his hands upon the china, she released the cup and saucer and flung her arms instead around him. He stiffened - no, stiffened is not the word. He became a statue.

After allowing her to sob in that strange position for several more minutes, he wriggled, and she got the message and reluctantly let go. Finally able to remove his hands from her lap, taking the china with him, he put them down and then addressed her sternly. "My heart belongs to Coline, Lorika."

She sniffed. "I-I know," she replied shakily "I d-didn't... I don't really feel anything for you..."

After a minute, her face contorted in pure misery, she gave a small hiccough-like sound. "Someone always used to tell me... that I was like a stray b***h. That I'd latch on to anything that would listen to me and give me praise. I... I guess he was right."

"Who on earth told you that?" he asked, but of course obtained no reply except the unhappy silence.

Wiping her eyes, she continued in a slightly stronger tone "No - I don't feel anything for you, except as a friend. In fact, I didn't even feel friendship particularly for you before yesterday," she smiled at him sheepishly "Sorry."

"As if I'd be offended by that," he replied.

"It's just... what it was, was... wh-when I saw you two together... what I felt in the moment, when I'd hoped that it would just be you... it just... you're so lovely, and..."

"You don't need to explain yourself to me," he answered quietly "Please. Tell me how you've managed to get yourself to this point. That's what you came here for, right?"

She hung her head sorrowfully "You're right... I just... I needed a friend. I felt... well..."

She lowered her voice, and even glanced around a little, as if the walls had ears.

"Last night," she began, shame-faced "I almost took an overdose of sleeping potion... and..."

"What?" he stared at her, stricken "On purpose? Why in the world...?" he lowered his voice a little, forcing it to return to its cool tone "I had no idea you were so... discontented."

She didn't respond at first. Then, she ploughed on as if he hadn't spoken at all. "I almost took it. I thought long and hard about it, and I almost did, but of course... I was too scared. And I knew that if I didn't tell someone, there may have been nothing to stop me from doing it tonight. And... you're the only one I feel comfortable telling," she attempted to blink back fresh tears "You're the only one who won't judge me; not a superior, or someone who'd stop respecting me. Just... an equal."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, before attempting to launch into her tale proper. When she tried to, however, she stumbled, and couldn't help but notice how trivial it all sounded. "It's.. I... I'm just... so worthless. I feel useless, like I can't do anything right. At the same time, nowadays everyone is depending on me... but it's like... I'm just a screw up. And what does it matter if they respect me anyway? They don't really know who I am. They wouldn't love me if they could see what I look like beneath these robes and this dye and this stupid fancy title. I'm... I'm just... nothing."

She said this almost with a note of realisation, though in fact the words had been yelled at her many times before. "I'm just nothing. All my life, people have been telling me it... and I never wanted to believe them completely... there was a part of me that was always hanging on. But I can't hold on any longer. It's easier just to let go. I have no friends. No one would miss me. N-no one... no one loves me."

She descended into sobs again, leaning forward to cry into her own lap. She was muttering something that sounded like 'Worthless, worthless!', but it could have been just the sound of her cries.

"What's brought this on, Rika?" Jessie asked quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, eyes unseeing.

"I-it's been about a year since I left Durem," she began, her explanation seemingly unrelated to his question. "I left my best friend... and my b...boyfriend... and I went to work in Barton as a waitress while I tried to find a publisher, or anything, that would take me on. After a few months... I joined the Order. And I was okay for a while, you know? At least I didn't have to go home to... all of the... the... fights. And the... the... you know. The things my boyfriend did. And at least I didn't get bullied, which was nice. Barton is a nice place."

She looked down again. "I had a few boyfriends. He'd probably kill me if he found out... but he won't, I hope," she suddenly laughed "But what does it matter, anyway? None of them made me feel like he did. I'll probably end up crawling back to him in a few months, just like I always do."

"But then yesterday... the Overseer... he made me feel needed. Like I was something special. Just for a few minutes, but that was enough."

Her face fell. "But then... he got angry... and since then, he's always been getting angry at me. I... I can't do anything to please him. And it's horrible because... I'm right back where I started..." tears were flowing freely down her face again "I love a man who will... will destroy me. He can't love me, I know he can't. And... and that's what's tearing me apart... why do I always end up in these situations? Why can't any man just love me for me? ...Why can't anyone love me?" with a wail, she threw herself backwards into the chair, one hand flying up to cover her face and the other clutching the arm rest of the chair. "I'm so alone... and I always have been... and I always will be."

---













---


"So the boat's out at sea? Swim it is." He took off his hat, cloak and jacket and tossed them at the Temple doorway.

"Lead the way."


---













---

---













---


Bapp turned red as Harata stripped down to nothing and dived in.

"Didn't think... you were really going to do it." He took off his tunic and dived in as well, treading water with no effort at all despite the weight of his already heavy pants soaking up water.

"Overseer! C'mon! We don't have all day." He shouted.


---













---

Harata laughed demonically. "Prude. Well, I did warn you I was going to do it. Not my fault if you didn't listen." She turned towards the boat, which you could barely see on the horizon, and yelling as loudly as she could, she said, "EVE!!! OVERSEER, BAPP, ANGEL, AND I ARE COMING TO SEE YOU!!!! SENTINEL, IF YOU ARE ON THE DECK, WHICH KNOWING EVE, YOU ARE, PLEASE DO NOT BE AGRESSIVE!!! WE ARE TALKING, NOTHING MORE!!!"