regained: day 120 (quest)
taken: day 120
witnesses: N/A

A montage memory from ages 7 to 18 that revolves around daily life in the Little Brothers' Orphange.

You're a recluse when you first arrive, keeping to yourself and rarely speaking. Every thought and emotion is weighed down by a terribly heavy grief. For awhile, you're left alone. The staff knows about your circumstances. Your fellow orphans do not, but are used to this sort of behavior from new arrivals. Most of them have gone through such a phase themselves. The adults and children alike know to wait until you've had time to adjust to the drastic upheaval that brought you here.

Eventually, you start to.

What follows next is a slow integration into the fold. You're given a schedule of housework to do and lessons to attend alongside other kids. Everyone at the Little Brothers' Orphanage has to pull their own weight and keep up with their studies, each according to their capabilities. Coming from a wealthy background makes the transition harder for you, but more because you had been sheltered and privileged rather than due to a spoiled temperament on your part. (Your parents had raised you better than that.) Once you turn a hand to it, you find that you don't mind the menial labor that you're taught how to do. Cooking, cleaning, home maintenance, babysitting — it's busy work, productive work. As you grow older, the role becomes more fully your own, until you're part of the staff in all but name and paycheck. It's much the same story with your education, to the point where it's normalized for you to be asked for help with homework or to lead a class.

It's not all work and no play, though. There's money and time to spare for recreation. There's fun and games, even the occasional field trip. Sometimes there's a party when a holiday comes around, or a communal birthday celebration. These latter affairs are always modest and hardly commonplace, yet are still enjoyable.

......

Even so, the Little Brothers' Orphanage never becomes a home for you, not in any small part because you didn't strive for it to be. You're content to carve out a personal niche as a cog in a what you see as a well-run machine.

✿ content + consequences
● There's a significant emotional evolution spanning the memory, beginning with an overwhelming grief that slowly improved as it was mitigated by hard work.
● Although he cared about the people he lived with at the orphanage, he never truly connected with anyone.

— The trauma from his arrival in Euphoria was coped with after a fashion, but left unaddressed.

● He's been doing housework and taking care of kids since he was a kid himself.
● His education continued despite his circumstances, although it became a lot more basic and informal.