Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Damien looked out over the garden, from the balcony that was attached to the rooms he and his scouts were using. He couldn't help but feel impressed at how well the garden was kept. All of the flowers were vibrant in color and gave off a fragrance that complemented the scene. The bushes had each been trimmed to look like a different type of animal and the fountain in the middle-had crystal-clear water flowing from an oversized flower that a small girl was holding up in the air. Despite the gorgeous scene in front of him he couldn't help but let out a breath, the beauty lost on him as he replayed the earlier conversation for the hundredth time.

"Do any of you even want to go to the human world?" He'd asked looking around at his scouts as they looked back at him, their faces blank.

"I do." Angelica spoke in her whisper soft voice, her eyes lighting up as she smiled up at him. He went to open his mouth when Jake spoke quickly.

"I'll go too," Damien looked at him.

"What?" His mouth went dry with the idea that Jake would leave him, would volunteer and do something away from him rather than stay and support him.

"I just…" Jake averted his eyes, "I would like to have something to do, being idle like this is making me jumpy."

"But…" Damien closed his mouth and took a long breath. "The both of you are okay with giving up this time to relax and see a new kingdom?"

"I'm sad that I'll miss out, but I want to see my aunts," Angelica said smiling, "I don't get to see them very often, so I'll choose that." Damien regarded her for several heart beats. Before they'd originally crossed the fairy gate, he hadn't even known that the guardians were her aunts. In truth, she was correct, she didn't get many extended time off to go out and see them, much less cross and see the one on the other side. "Plus," Angelica smiled. "The trip will be cheaper if I'm there." He paused, his mind going back to the original crossing of the fairy gate.

"What did you pay originally for us to cross?" He asked suddenly. Angelica just smiled and placed a finger on her lips, shaking her head. He raised a brow but her smile only widened. Sighing he turned to Jake.

"Like I said, I really just need something to focus on right now." He rubbed his arm looking away from Damien as he spoke. "I think that this will be a goos thing to focus on for the moment. Plus, we won't be gone for very long anyways."

"When are we going home?" Rebecca interjected looking up at him expectantly. Damien turned his attention towards her.

"In a couple of days."

"Aren't you itching to go talk to your parents?" Nathan asked with a single brow raised, before it fell as Damien's face did the same.

"I do, I really want to meet them. It's just…" He sighed turning away from them. "There are so many factors to this that it is making my head spin. I've been thinking on it and my parents would have known that Nyline and I weren't actual mates, they had to have to make the deal with her parents. The only reason that I can think is that they didn't approve of who my mate was. So, what if, what if they won't tell me who my real mate is? Then even better, what if my mate doesn't want me?"

"Have you been able to contact them mentally since Nyline is now connected to Gabriel?" Rebecca's voice was much softer than normal as she spoke and Damien knew that if he looked at her right now, her eyes would reflect the emotions that he felt.

"I have…" His face fell, "However, so far they haven't spoken with me yet."

"Well," Ryan started, "Your parents did give you another year to find her, then they were going to put you with someone else."

"What if that person isn't my mate either?" Damien shot looking stressed. "What if they set me up with yet another random person and it's not my mate."

"I don't think even your parents are that evil," Jake spoke harshly, and when Damien looked at him, he saw that there was a muscle ticking in his jaw. "They maybe assholes, but there not that bad. I think there is something else going on here we don't understand. Why would your parents let you chase after someone who isn't your mate for so many years when they could have just hooked you up with someone else?" He looked up long enough to give Damien a look before he looked back out the sliding glass door. "They wouldn't. We all know your parents and if they could have just hooked you up with someone else, they would have, they want you to be with your mate."

"As much as I hate to say it, but I agree." Nathan spoke looking from Jake to Damien. "Your parents do care a little and they know that being with your mate has been your dream since you were little. I don't think your parents would knowingly set you up with someone who wasn't your mate."

"Well then what else could have happened?" Rebecca seemed pensive, her aggression showing at the problem that they were facing.

"They could have had their memories altered," Jake whispered, and everyone looked at him.

"Altering memories is a daemon trait." Ryan scoffed and Jake turned his head away, his lips going into a thin line.

"But we know someone who has daemon traits." Angelica pointed out and everyone looked at her.

"Nyline?" Damien's eyes were wide and she nodded, "But she would have just been a baby when all of this happened.

"Think about it for a second," Nathan spoke, his eyes going between his mate and Damien. "You don't just develop daemon traits. She has to have daemon blood, that's the only way that someone ends up with daemon abilities." Damien looked at Nathan for a few seconds before he just sighed. They weren't wrong. In the Aether world, the only way to get certain skills was with the blood of a daemon clan and that was risky, the mixing of aether and daemon blood. There were many taboos against doing just that, he'd read about it in one of the books from the royal library. He paused thinking on it, trying to remember more of the details but coming up blank.

"What are you looking at?" Ryan's voice broke into his thoughts as Damien tried to remember what exactly that book had said. He glanced at Ryan before looking out over the garden, composing his thoughts before speaking.

"Just admiring how well the garden here is kept," Damien paused as he turned and leaned against the railing, so he was facing Ryan as he looked out over the garden.

"It is very well kept. It always amazes me about how just being around a royal family the earth seems to flourish." Damien laughed.

"The royal garden shows how much aether the Royal Family has." One glance over his shoulder. "Gabriel's family looks to have quite a bit. I wonder if Queen Alice walks around often and checks on it herself." Ryan looked at him with his brow raised slightly.

"Does your mother do that?" Damien smirked.

���She does, actually, out of everything she doesn't do, having tea in the garden is one of the daily activities that she never misses."

"That sounds like Queen Elizabeth," Ryan laughed.

"Mom has always been like that," Damien grinned as he turned and leaned against the railing, "Making sure that she fulfills her duties to the best of her ability. Mom's not an over achiever but she does do what she is supposed to do." He sighed his mind on his parents and what they would think of him when he did finally return to Dunhule. Taking a moment he rubbed his hands up and down his face.

"Everyone's worried about you." Ryan's words were spoken in a calm collected tone, but Damien knew him better than that, and heard the annoyance that laced the words. He knew that the annoyance wasn't directed at him but more to the situation.

"Yeah, I know." He let out a long breath.

"Are you going to be okay?" Ryan's words were heartfelt as he bumped Damien's shoulder softly. Damien looked at him, his face falling.

"I don't honestly know." He whispered. "It just feels like the rug got pulled out from under my feet and I can't find my balance. There's just too much."

"Why don't you try to stop thinking about it for a little." Damien looked at him to find Ryan giving him a knowing look. "I know that you're worried about everything. We all know what your face looks when you've been over thinking things, and you've done nothing but over think everything from the second that Nyline rejected you."

Movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn to see a red head jumping onto the top of a very tall retaining wall before she used her movement and shot to the ground. Landing the fall without any effort before she just kept running as if she hadn't just climbed over a retaining wall, jumped off of it, and ran off into the night. Ryan sighed.

"That was Nyline, wasn't it?" Damien glanced over to see that his face looked strained but on the contrary he couldn't help but laugh. A few parts of her personality had stopped surprising him and at this point anything more outlandish was just funny to him.

"Oh yeah," Damien spoke on a laugh. Ryan looked at him.

"I am not sure why your are laughing," His eyes twinkled telling him that Ryan knew exactly why he was laughing. "But we should probably go get her and return her to her room." Damien gave a half smirk as he raised one brow.

"No, even if you caught up with her, she wouldn't want to come back with you." He shook his head. "No, that's Gabriel's and his scouts' jobs now."

"But none of them are here right now."

"Yup," He shrugged, "I'm sure they'll get used to her jumping out of windows eventually and figure out a way to protect her."

"You're going to miss her when we leave, aren't you?" Damien turned a surprise face onto Ryan, who smiled. "You are." Damien shook his head.

"I don't know about that." He answered honestly, "Truthfully, I think that it's best that she isn't my mate. Nyline is an amazing person, however, she isn't what it takes to be the princess of Dunhule. All my parents would do is smother her and try to change every aspect about her and in the end, the person that I thought I was mated to, wouldn't exist anymore. It's better for her to stay here, with Gabriel, she just wasn't made to be my other half."

"But that doesn't tell me if you're going to miss her or not." Damien grinned.

"I think I'll miss the chaos that she brings. She makes life exciting and I don't think there will really ever be a dull moment around her. There is always something going on." Ryan grinned back.

"You're not wrong, but I'm not sure any of that is a good thing." Damien's face had lost some of the joy but after a second it returned.

"It's good in small doses." Ryan broke into a laugh as they lulled into a silence, just looking out over the garden.

"Are you really going to let them escort Gabriel's scouts to the human world?" Ryan's voice was slightly hard as if he disagreed with the topic.

"Do you not want me to?" Ryan took a second to respond and when he did his voice was very soft.

"We all know that you don't want Jake to leave right now." Damien let out a long breath.

"I don't."

"He shouldn't have volunteered." Damien raised his hand ever so slightly and Ryan stopped speaking.

"Jake is not attached to me at the hip." His voice wasn't hard, but it was a tone that told Ryan to listen. "I understand where he's coming from, just the idea of sitting around Vaccoon right after a daemon attack would have shaken anyone. Then something has been distracting him ever since we arrived, and he just hasn't been himself. I'm hoping by letting him go on this trip that when he comes back, he'll be more himself."

"Are you planning on having them fly all the way up here? Or would we just meet them in Dunhule?" Damien considered the question for a few seconds.

"I guess it depends on how long it takes them to get down there. I want to take a few days to relax before I have to go back. The bazars here should be fantastic, since they're isolated from the rest of the world their wares should be unique and different from anything that we've seen in the other kingdoms. The food here should also be an experience. I loved the scout dinner. It was great seeing all of our dishes mixed with theirs. Everything tasted amazing, especially Dashiner's meat dish. Whatever that was."

"You want Angelica and Jake there for that, don't you?" He nodded. "Then why not have them leave the day after tomorrow then? That way you can have one day with everyone, then they can go down and we can stay." Damien nodded. He thought that it was a great idea, though he would really miss Jake, and it made him sad to think that the both of them would miss out on such amazing food.

"That might work, that way they get to experience a little bit of Vaccoon…" He trailed off looking out over the garden.

"You know that we'll do whatever you tell us to, we're yours to control." Damien shook his head, not looking over at him.

"I wish all of you would drop that subject." Damien shook his head as if trying to make a bug go away. "Yes, your lives are mine however, what you don't understand is that your lives are mine." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ryan's confused face. "I call all of the shots. It's my job to make sure that all of you guys stay alive, to stay happy, to do what you need to do, and to make sure that my decisions don't affect any of you negatively. For me it isn't as simple as controlling your lives. There are so many other factors when it comes to you guys that I can't even explain.

"I've never thought of it that way." Ryan muttered softly. "We're just here for you. Our emotions and wellbeing aren't supposed to be a problem."

"None of you are a problem for me." Damien said in a tight voice. "I care about all of you a lot, you are all my best friends. We've been together since we were kids. I want to make sure that I'm giving you what you need in order to live a happy life." Ryan placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You're doing a good job so far. I know Rebecca and I are happy. Angelica and Nathan are always in good moods, and Jake, well Jake is Jake. We're all here for you if you want to talk about something."

"I know, the problem right now is that there isn't anything to talk about. Everything's already happened and now we just have to figure out what to do from here."

"Well, none of us are going anywhere." Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. "Well except to go to bed, which is where I'm going to head."

"Alright, good night."

"Not coming?" Damien shook his head.

"I just want to stay out here a little longer and just enjoy the quite." He nodded and clapped him on the shoulder again before Damien watched him walk back inside. Damien watched him go as he walked over to Rebecca, who had fallen asleep on one of the couches, bending he picked her up and headed towards the room that they'd claimed. The sight inside the common room was an everyday sight as his scouts were scattered across the couches and large poofs as they slept. For as long as he could remember, his scouts had always found reason to crash in his room.

Back in Dunhule, his scouts' room are located directly below his, so in truth they were never really that far away. However, no matter his age he always felt like his room was always cold. His scouts knew that and that's why they were always sleeping in his room; they never wanted him to feel completely alone. It was one of the reasons why he loved the setup of the rooms here. Not only were his scouts literally right next to him, but they could be in their own beds and not have to sleep on the couches.

The roar that echoed around the garden had him jumping out of his skin. What type of animal made that sound and why was it so close to the castle? He held his breath as he waited for the next noise. He could only tilt his head slightly to the side as he heard what sounded like feet hitting gravel then a separate set of four paws hitting the ground harshly. With his heart in his throat he looked towards where he was sure the noise was coming from, and felt his breath catch at the right of Nyline sprinting full out back towards the castle. Her face was a mixture of concentration and fear as she ran faster than anyone he'd ever seen in his life.

It was then that time slowed down as a darkling came running around the corner, sprinting right after her. He held his breath as she used her movement and stumbled, before she straightened, and kept her pace. She ran towards a large retaining wall on the other side of the garden and jumped, used her movement, then promptly got batted out of the air by the darkling. The only thing going through his mind was that Jonathan wasn't here anymore, who would catch her?

A blur appeared behind her, and he knew instantly by the almost blond hair shining in the moonlight that it was Gabriel. He grabbed her, wrapping his body around hers as they landed hard, then slid several feet before they slammed into a nearby tree. Instantly, all of Gabriel's scouts were surrounding them, daggers drawn, looking pissed as their eyes started glowing. Damien's eyes were focused on Nyline as Gabriel started looking over her body for any injuries. Then, Dashiner shouted something that he couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears. There was several seconds when nothing happened before Gabriel shot to his feet, putting Nyline behind him as he shouted at the darkling.

Then, to his horror, the darkling shifted, slowly becoming a human whose skin was so dark that he almost wasn't visible in the night. The darkling man was speaking and Nyline had shouted something back, then Gabriel pulled her into that embrace he did so often. It seemed to calm her when he did, and he watched as her muscles released and she spoke softly to Gabriel.

However, the air changed as it became charged with aether and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Damien took the first breath that he'd taken since Nyline had been knocked out of the air. He tasted the copper tang of the aether, realizing only when Nyline stepped away from Gabriel, her face covered in shadows, that the aether was coming from her. As if in slow motion, Gabriel reached for her, and she just vanished. He felt like his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets as Gabriel turned to the darkling man and growled something before, he turned, used movement and was gone as well, followed by his scouts.

He swallowed hard. What exactly had he just seen? There had been a darkling in the garden and not a single person was freaking out except for him. Which meant that it wasn't new news to Nyline. Then there was the fact that Gabriel could use movement? Did he know other scout skills? For what reason did Gabriel even know scout skills? Then Damien's heart fell just a little bit more, how did Gabriel find time to not only study as much as he did but also train with his scouts.

He had to talk to Gabriel, to figure out what exactly was going on and why it was happening. He felt his face fall, but not right now. Right now, Gabriel was wherever Nyline was and that was for the better. He sighed, rubbing his hands up and down his face. His frantic questions about how exactly a darkling had turned into a man, and why exactly no one was freaking out about it could wait until Gabriel returned, hopefully with Nyline. Gods… could this situation get any worse at this point?

He turned and headed back into his room, then out into the hallway. If he could find Janti, then he would be able to inform him that he wished to speak with Gabriel at his earliest convenience. Completely lost in thought, he felt his body run into another and a hand reached out and steadied him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't…" Damien looked up to find that it was Janti. He took a second to realize that it had been Janti's fast reflexes that had kept both of them standing. He had to remember that not only was Janti the best butler he'd ever met, but he was also a scout. "Janti, I was looking for you." His voice was off when he spoke and when he actually looked at Janti for the first time he realized that he was still dressed in his sleep wear.

"Prince Damien, what can I do for you?" Damien heard the strain in his voice as he tapped his foot softly on the ground.

"I need to speak with Gabriel." Janti's brow rose slightly.

"He is dealing with a situation with Princess Nyline at the moment, is there anything that I could do to assist you?"

"No, this is a topic that I would like to speak directly to Gabriel about. If you would just let him know that I need to talk with him once he returns to the castle." Janti tilted his head slightly to the side.

"I will do so. Do you want to wait in a sitting room or back in your rooms?"

"I'll go back to my room for now." Damien mumbled.

"Do you know the way, or would you like an escort." Damien shook his head.

"That is unneeded, you look like you're on your way to somewhere anyways so I can walk back on my own."

"If you say so, have a good night prince Damien." Janti gave a short bow before walking around him and hurrying off down the hallway. He wondered where he was going at this time of night and why he was in such a rush.

Slowly he returned to his room, his eyes going to the scouts on the couches before he headed back out the sliding glass door and pulled himself up on the railing.

The questions that were racing around in his mind were making him dizzy. Why had Nyline panicked and ran? What was going on? Darkling's? Then them turning into a person?

Hours later he saw Gabriel walking up the main path towards the castle, his scouts following him. He jumped up, his feet taking him out the door and down the hallway to where he though Gabriel would be going. He stopped when he saw that Gabriel was walking towards him, alone and at the sound of his footsteps, he looked up into Damien's face. Damien noticed that he looked exhausted.

"Janti said you wanted to talk to me?" Even his voice sounded tired and Damien sucked in a breath. All the questions running around in his mind he finally blurted.

"Did you catch her?" Gabriel's eyes went wide for a second before he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Come, this is a conversation that will be best held behind closed doors." Gabriel turned without another word and started off down the hallway before he turned and went into a room, closing it when Damien followed him.

"How much did you see?" His voice was hard, and Damien swallowed hard as Gabriel's eyes started glowing softly.

"Well I was on my balcony when she originally left her room." He shrugged, he watched as Gabriel seemed to get angry, then take a breath, hold it, before letting it out in a rush.

"And you saw her leave after everything?"

"Yes." Damien took another step back, not truly afraid of Gabriel but starting to think that he saw something that he wasn't supposed to. Gabriel made a grumpy noise.

"Sit." He growled before he opened the door and spoke to someone that was in the hallway, he would guess Delta, asking for a tea caddy and something to eat. Gabriel walked over to the couch and sat with a heavy exhalation before he leaned his head back and rubbed his hands over his face. Damien sat down in one of large armchairs that was close by and took the moment to look around the room. The carpet was a deep red, the walls the same deep red only with gold stripes in different widths. On the wall opposite the door there was a fireplace, with a painting of a landscape over the top of it. Showing aspen trees in fall with a river running down the middle. In between the chair he sat on and the couch that Gabriel was on, was a glass coffee table.

His eyes went back to Gabriel who was still sitting with his head back his hands over his face.

"Did you manage to catch up with her?" Damien spoke in a soft voice that seemed to break whatever train of thought Gabriel had been having and he removed his hands, looking over at him.

"She stopped on the retaining wall." He muttered.

"Did she end up leaving?" He shook his head.

"No, she is currently with mother." Damien looked slightly confused at this. Gabriel sat up and gave him a brief overview of what had happened, from her unbalanced aether, to her just stopping on the wall. During his story the tea caddy had arrived, and Gabriel drank two cups of tea in two large gulps, pouring himself another, and picking up a cookie. Shoving half of it into his mouth and sighing as he chewed. He returned and sat across from him, setting his tea down and pointing at him with the cookie.

"Did any of your scouts see?" It took him a second from the quick subject change about Nyline and back to the real reason why he was sitting in this room with Gabriel at this ungodly hour in the morning.

"No." He said firmly. "Ryan saw Nyline leave but went to sleep before she came back with the darkling chasing her." He paused, "Why was there a darkling chasing her? And how did it change into a man?" He stressed his questions and Gabriel sighed once more.

"Alright, for starters," Gabriel started, taking a bite out of the cookie and dunking it into his tea. "You are asking for Vaccoon's deepest darkest secret, alright?" Damien's eyes grew wide. "So, I will stress this once. I'm going to tell you the truth. You are not to tell another soul."

"My mate will know," Damien interjected sounding stern and Gabriel rolled his eyes, finishing his cookie and taking a long drink from his tea.

"I said soul, mates are each half of a whole. Now, do I have your word?" Damien nodded, "If you do tell anyone. I'll have to hunt you down and fix the problem." He sighed.

"That sounds a little threatening…"

"I'll just remove the memory and you won't be any the wiser, as well as anyone you tell. Which I'll be able to tell after I find the memory of you spilling your guts." Damien's mouth went very dry as he continued to just look at Gabriel before he licked his bottom lip.

"Those are daemon traits," He muttered, his mind going back to what Jake had said about memories being altered. He looked at Gabriel differently, but quickly squashed the thought that his kingdom would send him all over the world looking for Nyline. If they had it their way, she would have been up here with Gabriel, not hiding in the human world.

"They are indeed," Gabriel cleared his throat. "Because I'm half daemon." Damien cocked his head to the side looking at him like he was crazy and felt his heart rate start to skyrocket. "Everyone in Vaccoon are. We are the race that the humans call Darkling's." A ringing started in Damien's ears and for a second his vision tunneled before he shook his head and just looked at Gabriel.

"But… how… What?" His face screwed up as he tried to connect the dots before he felt his stomach clench. "How does nobody know this?" He whispered, finally.

"They did, once a very long time ago, however, human's memories fade and with it the past slowly doesn't exist."

"There is no way in hell that not a single scholar wrote this down." Damien cut in sounding appalled.

"We have retrieved every book that has our history in it. They are all here in a section of the royal library." Gabriel spoke calmly. "Then anyone who had already read the book, got their memories of them reading the book removed. Being half human and half daemon, means that we have no allies and all enemies. We had to remove the memory of what we really were so that the kingdoms would stop attacking us. We made treaties with the daemon clans and the barrier around Vaccoon keeps any wayward ones out. We had to vanish from view and just became the kingdom that no one knows anything about, that doesn't welcome strangers or wanders."

Damien's eyes grew wide for a few minutes before he let out a long breath. Everything that Gabriel was saying was logical. However, no matter how he looked at it, it just sounded so outlandish that he just couldn't fathom that this was in fact the truth, but the darkling in the garden had changed into a human. He let out a loud whoosh of air.

"Then, why was the one in the garden chasing Nyline?" Gabriel's eyes grew stormy as he took another gulp of tea, before grabbing the kettle and setting it next to him.

"That was a member of the royal guard, he thought Nyline was an intruder." His voice was tight, "For whatever reason the day shift did not pass on that I was home and that I had brought guests. When they saw her in the garden, she explained that, however when they tried to take her in for questioning--"

���She ran," Damien rubbed his hands up and down his face as he interrupted Gabriel with the next part of his story. "Then used her movement and they thought she was a scout." Damien pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Yup." Gabriel growled. "Outside scouts are dangerous and a member of the royal guard thinking that she might be a scout..." He sighed and Damien could fell the stress rolling off of him in waves. Damien let his mind wander as Gabriel stressed about his new troublesome mate.

"Is this why your boarders are closed?" He said after several minutes and Gabriel looked over at him.

"Yes and no, you see Thaul traded with us and did most of our major dealings off the mountain, however when they vanished, we lost our connection to the outside world." Damien raised his brow.

"The people of Thaul knew your secret?"

"I'm not sure, that would be a question for my parents, but I do know that the royal family knew at least." Damien took a breath, leaning back in the chair and looking up at the ceiling.

"I wonder if that's why you were mated with Nyline then?" Gabriel let out a breath.

"That is more questions I don't have the answer to." When Damien raised a brow, he continued. "In Vaccoon, you can only be mated to not only another vessel of the same daemon race, but also rank. There aren't cases where we end up getting someone outside of the town." He trailed off.

"But that would mean that Nyline isn't completely human." Damien said with a puff of air as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"If you think Nyline is fully human at this point then I feel okay saying that you are dense." Gabriel scoffed as he stood and placed the tea pot and cup back on the caddy and looked down at him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I would like to get some sleep before the sun is high in the sky." Damien's mind was still running in circles.

"Wait," Damien stood as Gabriel walked towards the door. "Why do you know scout skills too?" He asked quickly and Gabriel sighed very softly.

"Because training with my scouts were required, we needed a tight bond and training is one of the things that makes our friendship more concrete." Damien raised a brow at that. "Do you have mate sickness in Dunhule?" Damien thought for a moment.

"Yes, but it's extremely rare." He said shrugging.

"In Vaccoon, it's a death sentence." Damien stiffened, "And it's very common. Only one in a hundred mates will survive mate sickness in Vaccoon."

"But why?"

"Because our daemon blood makes us unstable without the other half of our soul. Many cannot pull their mind from the darkness when their other half dies." He said simply and Damien's face went completely blank.

"But that's…" Damien started but wasn't sure what to say as his mind stayed clear.

"A fact of life here." Gabriel stated not making eye contact, one hand going to the door.

"Angelica and Jake," Damien started on a rush, hoping that maybe this would help the entire situation. The chance that maybe some of Nyline's things might cheer her up and make this more like home. "have volunteered to escort your scouts to Nyline's house in the human world." Gabriel paused before he looked over his shoulder, his hand falling from the doorknob as he turned to look at him fully.

"Are you sure you're okay with that?"

"Well, I mean I would rather if they didn't go at all, however Angelica wants to see her aunts and Jake needs something to do. They volunteered and as much as I'd like to have them with me right now, I also have to acknowledge their feelings on the matter." Damien shrugged.

"You're not wrong." Gabriel agreed as he paused to think. "I didn't honestly think you'd let anyone go; so, I haven't put much thought into the matter." He paused and their eyes connected, "Not because I don't think you'd want to help Nyline, but more because this isn't the easiest time for you either. I thought that you'd want to keep them close." Damien nodded understanding his reasoning.

"There's just one catch," Gabriel raised a brow at him, "I want to make sure that they get a little bit of a respite, so I want to go down to your bazar for some time and eat at one of your favorite places before they leave. I want them to be able to experience a little bit of Vaccoon, seeing as who knows if we'll ever be back." Gabriel laughed.

"Done." He said the second he'd finished laughing. "We'll get everything set up so that they can leave either tomorrow morning, or later tonight. I'll have Janti arrange everything with the airship captain and inform my parents." Gabriel paused, "Thank you. I mean it," He clapped Damien on the shoulder, "I appreciate this more than you'll ever know."