Zarias stared at Bane, his eyes scanning his face wordlessly.

"Are you certain it's her?" He eventually asked. "It couldn't possibly be someone who only looks like her? I hear that's quite common among humans."

Bane nodded, not taking his eyes off the picture.

"That's true, yes. But that's my mother all right. I'm positive," he replied. "And besides, I don't think Zorak seduced that many humans. Here, look..."

Bane got to his feet, crossed the room and picked up a picture from the mantelpiece. He gazed at it for a moment. Zarias noticed Bane's free hand balled into a fist. He rook a deep breath, then brought the picture over to Zarias. Sure enough, he recognized the young woman from the second picture. She was holding a small boy who could only be Bane, a huge smile on her face as her arms were wrapped around her son.

"She clearly loved you," Zarias noted.

"So did yours," Bane said.

They looked at each other without a word for a moment. It was the strangest feeling to think something so personal could bring them together.

"But this doesn't explain why he would still have that picture after he killed her...?"

Zarias stared.

"What did you say?"

Bane raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't know...?" he asked, sounding both startled and slightly disbelieving.

"Didn't know what?" Zarias inquired.

"I guess he didn't tell you all that much, did he?"

Zarias's lips thinned slightly.

"Tell me. What?" he demanded.

Bane picked up on his irritation:

"He killed my mother when I was ten years old, is what he didn't tell you," he told him. "She tried to stop him from taking me, and... it cost her her life."

Zarias thought he'd heard it all. He'd known his "father" to be ruthless, but... murdering someone... of course, one could argue that a demon, unlike a human, had a different sense of morality, if any.

His shock startled Bane to the point where he started to think he might have gone about this a little inadequately.

"Sorry... I assumed you knew..." he said.

"It doesn't matter whether I knew or not, anymore." Zarias said, a little stiffly. "He did what he did, and didn't tell me. End of story."

He shook his head, and Bane wondered if this was upsetting him more than he was willing to admit.

"The question remains: why keep that picture?"

"... Maybe he had a thing for her when Adena turned him down..." Bane mused. "I remember him trying to convince her to join him..."

They fell silent. Zarias cast Bane a sidelong glance. His face was smooth, but even Zarias could tell there was pain in his eyes.

"You know," Bane asked suddenly, "what hurts the most? It's that for half these photos, I can barely remember what we were doing when we took them. It's... like I'm forgetting her... like I'm losing her all over again."

Zarias couldn't quite tell if he knew what he meant, since he'd never known his mother. He peered down at the other photo, the one that had started all this. He didn't see why he should keep it. He held it out to Bane.

"... I know it's not much," he said. "But you should have this, not me."

Bane blinked at him, but took it.

"Thanks..." he said.

"Don't mention it, it belongs to you."

He got to his feet, planning on returning to his room.

"And I'm sorry she died."

Bane was so caught off guard by that statement, which sounded so unlike what little he knew of Zarias, he didn't answer. Zarias walked away and had almost reached the hallway, when Bane sighed and said:

"Zarias, wait."

Slowly, he turned around.

"What? I don't see what more we have to say to one another on the matter."

Bane opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again.

"I... I'm sorry you were taken from your parents. You didn't deserve that."

There was a definite spark of surprise in Zarias's eyes as he looked at him. There was a moment of silence.

"No," he finally agreed. "No one does."

And with that, he turned into the hall before disappearing into his room.