Rhadamanthus made no move to stop Damari as he moved closer to his father, doubt running through his mind as to whether this apparition before him was really his father or some type of cruel jest.

His strides grew longer until he crossed over into the grassy pasture that separated Leon's property from those of the other spirits that lived around his decadent estate.

The rays of sun that beat down on Damari's shoulders were nothing compared to the heat that boiled in his stomach at the sight of his father again, and he couldn't understand why he was finding it so difficult to approach the man quicker.

Alena stared incredulously at Rhadamanthus as she watched Damari's form advance on Leon's unsuspecting one.

"Why are you letting him do this?" she asked brokenly. "Don't you realize this is harming him more than helping him?"

The dark, peaceful looking eyes of Rhadamanthus fell on Alena with a pain-filled smile. "Sometimes we need to be broken before we can heal again."

Looking back to Damari, a thought struck her as he moved closer to the house, blindsiding her when she decided to turn to Rhadamanthus again, a question on the tip of her tongue.

While she leaned closer to his towering form and whispered her inquiry into his ear, Damari reached the thatched roof and boarded side of the cottage, his breathing coming in rapid bursts as he rounded the corner that separated him from the man who had once been his hero.

The sound of bovines' hooves clambering on the ground surrounded him when he caught sight of his father again, the same blonde hair that graced his head and blue eyes that gave him vision reflected in an almost mirror-like image in front of him.

Leon hadn't noticed Damari yet seeing as how he stood close to the side of the house; instead, he was looking up at the sky that promised another day of back breaking yet successful work.

He moved back to the steps of his house to retrieve a simple appearing straw hat when a shadow stood out from the corner of his eye.

Turning to look up, he came face to face with Damari standing only inches away from the first step, blue clashing with blue, lightning with thunder, the tension between the two nearly suffocating.

Leon's eyes widened in shock, taking in the tall and oppressing figure of his son that had long been trapped in his mind since the day he died.

Now that he saw him in the flesh, he was incapable of uttering a single word that he had thought of in passing in the years that he had been accepted into Elysium.

Staring, he caught his reflection in the iris of his son's eyes, seeing that he hadn't appeared to age whereas his son had left behind the measly years of childhood and a man had taken his place, one that he didn't even recognize.

Damari's hands remained fisted at his sides, shaking slightly as he stood in silence, imagining the cogs and gears in the back of his father's head working as he tried to think of something to say.

Deciding to say something rather than stand there and gawk like seagulls ogling fish at port, Damari opened his mouth cautiously.

"Father... I--" he started.

"Daddy! Daddy! Look what I found!"

A childlike voice called out from the house, catching Damari unawares at the delicateness of a voice such as that.

Leon started at the voice, coming out of his daze as a bundle of fabric and brown hair sprang at him from the top step of the house at lightning speed.

"Daddy, I found Miss Marzipan! She was hiding where you told me she would be the entire time!" The little girl giggled, clutching a raggedy looking doll close to her chest. "I don't think Miss Marzipan likes playing with me though, she isn't very good at it."

Patting the girl on the shoulder lovingly and setting her down gently, Leon looked up at Damari warily before smiling back down on the child with infallible love.

"That's great, sweetie. Did you ask Miss Marzipan if she likes to play with you?"

The little girl's cheeks turned rosy as she twisted her sandal into the grass. "I asked her, but I don't think she likes to talk to me either."

Leon's deep laugh burst from his lungs, causing a sigh to leave Damari as he watched the two people interact almost as if he wasn't even there.

"Well, I'll make sure to ask Miss Marzipan myself." he uttered with a wink, crushing the girl in a bear hug as her tiny squeal reached Damari's ears.

"Daddy! You're squishing me!"

Pulling back slowly, he released her with a chuckle. "My apologies, my little sea nymph, I'll make sure to be more careful next time."

This made another round of giggles race through the child until she noticed the strange man standing behind her father, watching on as a deep sorrow rampaged through his eyes.

Grabbing ahold of her father's hand, she hid behind his back only to peep out behind him and stare.

"Who's that, Daddy?" Her whisper came out quietly, trying to be as discreet as she could without Damari hearing.

Looking at Damari again, Leon carefully retracted his hand from the girl's bone crushing grip with as much discretion as he could muster.

Instead of answering her question, he moved so that he stood right in front of Damari whose eyes had begun to mist over with unshed tears.

Trying again, Damari opened his quivering mouth. "Father.. I--"

Not allowing him to finish, Leon grabbed ahold of Damari's shoulders and dragged him into a tight hug as tears poured mercilessly down his face.

"Father," Damari gasped out, tears streaming down his face as well as he clutched at his father's shoulders, "I'm so sorr--"

"I know Damari." Leon hushed, placing his hand on his son's curly head, "I know."

Nothing was said, for it was all said in the way the two held each other; the unrelenting tears speaking of the grief that had clung to Damari for so many years in his father's absence and the anguish Leon carried every day for being separated from his family.

"Daddy.." A low whine echoed from behind the two men, both of them forgetting the little girl still stood with her hands crossed and a scowl on her face as she waited for a reply. "Who is he?"

Leon let out a guffaw, pulling away from Damari to stare down at the child's undisguised frustration. "This is a really good friend of Daddy's, would you like to meet him?"

Easing up her frown slightly, she looked at Damari before leaning into her father. "Does he bite?"

This made Damari laugh aloud as he bent down onto his knees to reach the little girl's height. "I promise I don't bite."

Narrowing her eyes, she stepped closer and poked him in the cheek, pealing laughter echoing lightly while she continued to poke his cheek.

Leon rubbed her head and looked up at Damari with a proud smile on his face.

"This is Maarika, and as I'm sure you've speculated, she is my daughter and your sister."

Damari's breath caught in his throat as he watched Maarika's face light up as she prodded his cheek once more before hiding behind her doll bashfully.

"You have a scratchy cheek." she giggled, moving even closer to his side and plopping down in his lap, causing him to fall backwards off his knees and into the grassy yard.

"She's all that I've had left of your mother all these years." Leon whispered feebly, watching his daughter's apt attention directed on the greenery at her feet. "I was alone for many months after, not quite sure how or why I was taken from you all, but now as I think, I know I was given more time then I would have had."

Damari nodded and ran his head through Maarika's sleek brown hair, the sensation of fingers running through her hair causing Maarika to lean her delicate frame farther back into her brother's embrace.

"I happened upon her one night in this place," Leon whispered thoughtfully, "cradled in a hand woven basket on my top step along with a weathered doll that had seen better days. I remembered it being Rayen's doll when she was a small child, your mother insisted on making her a doll that would endure and be played with often."

Maarika sprinkled some of the grass over the doll's pale painted face, consumed completely with the task of giving her doll more color.

Leon looked over Damari's shoulder and paused briefly, something catching his eye as he continued speaking, a sad smile coming across his face.

"Your mother hadn't even told me she was pregnant, let alone having difficulties when I wasn't home. It makes me wonder if Maarika wouldn't be here now if I had just stayed home to be there for you all instead of spending so many of my days at sea."

"Father, there's no way to know." Damari assured him, adjusting his sister before turning to look more closely at Leon. "You did what you had to do. Rayen, Mother and I understood that."

"But that was no excuse for me to not love you the way I should have." Leon ground out, his fingers digging deeply into his cotton shirt. "You deserved far better than you received, Damari. It was due to my neglect and misguidedness that you are now the time worn young man that you are. I had wished to give you a life of luxury, my son, and only succeeded in providing you with strife."

"Father, it really isn't necess--"

Leon held up a hand to silence Damari, placing a hand on his shoulder as he looked out across the plain. "You deserved better, Damari, you know that. However, there is one thing that I have long contemplated that I never got to say to you before I left. One thing, that I have long regretted since the end of my days."

Damari swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to instill a light mood into the air with a laugh. "Goodbye?"

Shaking his head, Leon bent down next to his two children, a glimmer caught in the corner of his eye.

"I love you, Damari."

Damari's head jerked to the side at his father's words, disbelief evident across his face.

"You don't mean that."

"Yes I do, son." Leon replied, his voice growing hoarse by the minute. "I love you more than you could ever know, and I was such a coward back on Earth; so ashamed of not being the man your mother deserved, or even the kind of father to be able to support you all with more than a meal a week. I thought I was a failure, and in punishing myself I punished you all as well."

Lifting Maarika off his lap and back into the grass where she was content to sit and play, Damari held his father's shoulder and shook him gently.

"You were never a failure. Not for one second, so don't you dare think or say that you were, do you hear me?" Damari spat, each word coming out with stunning clarity. "To Ray and I, we were blessed just to have a roof above our heads and a mother and father that loved us enough to try and provide for us by being apart from one another when it was clear how much they hated it. You sacrificed a longer life with Mother just so that we could have a future, and that is more than any child could ask for."

Leon nodded silently as he couldn't utter a word, so overtaken by his son's outburst that he couldn't find words to speak through his emotions.

"Will you forgive me, Damari?" he asked solemnly, his figure visibly shaken as he strived to calm himself down. "I've done so much wrong to our family, and I only wanted what was best for you. Please, forgive me?"

"Of course, I forgive you." Damari cried out, springing to his dad for another hug, recalling the way his father had held him like this when he had left for his final voyage.

Except this time it was different.

Instead of feeling like his father was abandoning him, he finally realized that he had thought of his father in malice, condemning him for living on the seas and leaving their mother when she had needed him the most.

The pain from the night they had lost his sister had been more than he could handle, leading him to turn not only towards the sea in comfort, but alcohol to drown his sorrows in.

Now looking at his father, Damari knew he had been wrong for so many years as his father had torn himself apart from the inside out.

As the words came from his mouth, it was like a deep burden had been lifted from his shoulders, leaving the gloom that had once clouded his life to disappear as the words of his father's love sunk in.

He couldn't prevent the smile from spreading across his face as he bent down again to pick his sister up and hold her in a tight hug.

"What did I say about squeezing!" Maarika squeaked loudly, managing to kick Damari in the stomach before he could set her down in time.

He laughed exuberantly at her zealous attitude as she stomped off to go back to making a hut out of dirt and grass for her doll.

"I can see where she gets her ambitious nature from." Damari laughed again, not able to take his eyes off the little she-devil.

"Yes," Leon laughed as well, "she quite reminds me of another that I once knew briefly."

So distracted was Damari with Maarika that he hardly understood what his father was saying until he had already finished speaking.

"Oh, I'm sorry Father, but what were you saying?"

Leon gestured behind Damari's shoulder, a ghost of a smile fleeting upon his face. "I was just saying that I knew something was different about her."

Raising his eyebrows, Damari turned to look where his father was gesturing to.

Not too far away from where Damari and his family now sat, there was another cottage, one that was similar yet different from the other houses that surrounded it for miles to come.

As Damari peered closer, he could barely see the outline of Rhadamanthus and Alena as the tall, silent man knocked on an old, wooden door.

It looked quite ancient when inspected more closely, so much so that Damari was surprised the dark haired fellow hadn't knocked the door down with the strength he could most likely form in one fist.

Yet while he studied the door, Damari noticed that the tiniest of cracks had appeared between the door and its frame, suggesting that someone had opened the door to the unsuspecting visitors.

At first, he didn't quite know what to expect to come forth from the primeval looking dwelling, but certainly not a young woman who burst through the door as if her life depended on it.

Alena embraced the woman emotionally with no room left to spare between them, their heads buried into one another's shoulders as their muffled voices echoed acres away from where they stood.

While Alena's hair was the darkest of blacks, this woman's hair was almost as white as snow, making them appear as differently as night and day, yin and yang, coming together as if they never wanted to be apart again.

Rhadamanthus stood by with a neutral expression, neither speaking or acting, which confused Damari and had him standing up to attempt to head over and speak to the man.

But as he began to walk over, his father laughed again and it caught Damari off guard, giving him the hint that he had yet again not heard what his father said because he was all consumed with a different task.

"What did you say, Father? I apologize, but as you would think, my mind isn't really with me today."

Leon picked Maarika off the ground and placed her up onto his shoulders, looking out towards the two woman who still hadn't let each other go.

"I said, son, that I would rather be interested in meeting the woman that had somehow managed to steal my son's heart."

"Father," Damari chastised, his signature blush rising to his cheeks, "I was rather fine without her, there was no need for anyone to steal my heart."

Leon winked and proceeded to walk towards the three figures in the distance while his daughter played with the soft curls on his head. "I also had one other question, Damari." he added with another chuckle.

Rolling his eyes jokingly, Damari gazed over at his father in questioning. "What, may I ask, is this thing you find so important to ponder, Father?"

A mischievous grin came across Leon's face as he whistled a tune under his breath, paying attention more to the nature around him than where he was walking to.

"Well, son," he said, looking towards Alena and then back to Damari with earnest intentions, "I was simply wondering..."

Damari quirked an intrigued eyebrow. "Yes?"

"When are you going to tell her you love her?"

~*~*~*~*~