[15:19] Cordelia was silent, as Percival opted to run away. She didn't give chase and she didn't say anything; though his screams did force Cordelia to remember her promise. She struggled, and it was clear on her face that she was struggling. She wanted to be left alone, and she teetered back a bit, glancing briefly towards the Lighthouse.

But it was Aurora's attack upon the illusionary Vampire that caused Cordelia to freeze. She felt trapped, and she hated this. She just wanted to be left alone but in the end, it didn't matter, did it? She's silent. The lance made of glass soared through the illusionary Neo's form and all he did? Was laugh.

"Hey, that kind of tickled!" He boasted. The real Vampire however was silent in the face of Aurora's accusations. Her eyes were wide, and she continued to stand there. There was no movement from the shadow because oddly enough? She felt as if she didn't need it. Neo would protect her - right? He had to.

She shook her head. She muttered her answer, repeating it multiple times over and over, each time growing louder.

"No one.... No one... No one..." She began, trembling, "No one.... No one.... No one..."

"NO ONE! NO ONE! NO ONE!" She shouted loudly. An imaginary thundercrack sounded over the beach, storm clouds gathering over them to hide the moon. As if remembering herself, the Vampire instantly disappeared, droplets of blood reforming in front of the Lighthouse.

She fumbled with keys.
(Cordelia I. Avitus)
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[15:28] That sneer.

That goddamn, idiotic sneer. It only reminded Aurora of the spirit of the vampire more and more. His arrogance, his confidence, his power. Neo Invidia was much more of a monster than Cordelia ever was-- but it felt easier to direct the demi-angel's anger towards the existing vampire, and not the one Aurora knew who was dead.

".. Liar. I don't believe you. Vampires drink blood. They kill... I don't believe you... Liar." To each accusation joins another one, Aurora refusing to relent or let go.

Even as the vampire disappears, the sound of the keys being fumbled with directs Aurora's attention to her.

"Did he let people run away from him? Did you? Did he treat the innocents with mercy?"
(Aurora Elisheva)
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[15:29] After hobbling down the hill and joining his cousin, ready to fight back the CLEARLY hostile and SO EVIL vampire, the youngest KAng draws his save in ready.

...But it does not come. Instead, Cordelia begins to back off. Thankfully.. He also doesn't comment on anything. At all. He just stands there ready to fight back for a few more, fleeting moments before relaxing.

"Oh good, she's leaving.."
(Percival Kang)
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[15:34] Calael exited the Lighthouse from where he had been working and heard yet another commotion on the beach. Percival stood beside his cousin shouting at Cordelia who was met with the unlocking gates of the building that the demiangel opened. He blinked and studied the scene, heard what little was said, and then sighed.

He stepped out of the way to allow for the vampire to run inside and then peered down from the cliff at the kids in the sand.

"Did you come down here to insult her, Aurora?" The girl's uncle stood still, his cloak drifting slightly to the side with the coastal wind. "Did you come here to hurt someone?"
(Calael Kang)
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[15:38] Cordelia shook her head, as she no longer had to mess with the keys. She turned suddenly; all of the illusions disappeared, as Cordelia bared down towards Aurora's persistent questions.

"NO!" She shouted, eyes wide, "You don't know him. You don't actually know him. You never WILL! You don't know me, and you.... Never.... Will..." She growled out. She'd enter the Lighthouse, to allow the events to play out.

She doubted Calael would have to fight. Again. She was betting on it.
(Cordelia I. Avitus)
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[15:42] Oh, great. The savior of evil. Her uncle, the one who had made it his mission to offer redemption to monsters. If only she could find logic in her uncle's actions and teaching... If only she could have understood what Calael was doing it for.

"Yeah. Maybe I did. So what? Does she deserve better treatment? Should I be offering her a shoulder to cry on, uncle?" Sarcastic, obviously. He wasn't her father, and he was certainly not her mother. Aurora's strict lines of behavior were saved just for her parents.

"Why wouldn't I want to hurt her? Why don't you? She is the daughter of the man who killed your brother, isn't she?" Help her find some logic in this. Please. She was practically begging for it at this point. "Why do you want to help a thing like her? She made the choice of becoming a monster... Of drinking blood. ..Why is she offered redemption?"
(Aurora Elisheva)
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[15:43] As he watched the vampire turn to do her final scream at them, the boy is shook to his core. He didn't even know what was going on, or what this was about..

"I was just trying to make people leave and then.." He breathes in, heavily, and certainly not easily.

"Aurora showed up. But it was my fault because I made her mad in the first place. I thought she tried to run away so I threw sand at her." He confesses. He was awful. His dad was going to beat the living demi-essence out of him.
(Percival Kang)
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[16:04] Calael looked down at Aurora, knowing her answer was likely to be filled with anger and vitriol. He had become accustomed to these sorts of arguments, but never had he had to face another member of his family, of his blood family, in discussing Sera's death at the hands of Neo Invidia. After dealing with this sort of thing with violence two times now, the demiangel was tired, and didn't feel the pressing need to defend Cordelia from actual harm this time.

So instead he let Aurora have her say, and then responded in kind, with truths that cut deep into his own heart, truths that might very well echo into her own.

"Why don't I want to hurt her?" He shifted some, and then put his hands in his pockets. The Starkeeper looked up to the sky, pondering the question before continuing on it.

"You sound just like him, you know. You and Ilui, most in Levengard.'Kill the demons', 'Don't trust snakes!', 'Vampires and undead are evil, Cal, and someday I'll kill and free them all!'" He said softly. Calael frowned and shook his head. "Your Uncle Sera wanted to hurt them. He wanted to fight, because that's how he saw this world. He saw a battlefield filled with monsters, with enemies, with soldiers and loved ones who needed defending. He was brave, braver than most... but he never understood me either."

Cal moved so that he was now sitting on the cliff, his legs dangling down, though he was still elevated above the children on the precipice. His amber eyes had their usual glow to them, one that reflected his inner, calm warmth, a rarity among pyromancers who would otherwise be raging and temperamental personalities.

"Where Sera saw enemies, I saw people in need. Whereothers saw war, I saw a... moment where understanding is absent. Vampires, Aurora, come in two types, I have found."

He held up a finger. "The first are vampires who were attacked by their sire. Victims of another person preying on them, looking for a servant, a lover, a friend, a family member... something that they can create by forcing their curse onto another person."

A second finger went up. "The others are those who went willingly, who wanted to be that, who sought out the change. There are no other types of vampires, only those two."

The demiangel tilted his head. "And in both cases, do you know what I see?" He looked between Perival and Aurora, but didn't wait for an answer. "I see loneliness. I see people who were dealt bad hands in life. I see people who were kids once, kids who were alone. Without parents, without friends, without families who loved them. I see people who thought that the only way they would be cared for was to find it in the arms of someone like Neo Invidia, because at the end of the day? Neo Invidia gave that to people. He was an evil man... had I met him before Ren Shi got to him, I would have fought him myself. I probably would have died. But I would have fought him because he killed my brother, not because of what he was."

"What he was, what Cordelia is, are people, people with souls, with lives, with stories. Some of those stories get dark, some get terrible. Some get evil, like the more terrible Invidias, or Lucien Voss... but they are still. People."

Cal put his hands on his knees and took in a breath of the night air.

"...I miss my brother, Aurora. I wish he hadn't chosen the life of a soldier... and while I would have avenged him, I don't call Neo Invidia a murderer for doing what he did. I call him an enemy because we were put on opposite sides. He was a man fighting for his family, and Sera was a hero fighting for his."

"But what would hurting Cordelia do? Would it bring Sera back? Would it give me any happiness?" he shook his head again, "Vengeance is... an empty promise. It is something so many think they want but when they finally have it they realize it's just... not as satisfying as they thought it would be. Answering violence with violence will only ever cause more brothers to die, it will make fathers unable to see their daughters grow up, it will tear friends from one another... and in the end... all you'll be left with are lonely people."

"Lonely people without someone who cares for them, who don't know what to turn to. Who don't know how to be happy. This world needs us to be better than that, Aurora. Agartha needs people who... want to change the future, not kill half of it. I am sorry if you don't understand. I wish I could have made Sera understand, because then he would still be here. But he chose his path, and I chose mine. And mine is... to forgive. To help. To give the hurt and the scared and the alone someone who hears them."

"Undead... have fallen so far, farther than most of us ever will. They are confined in darkness, put at the end of swords, eventually... killed. And insulted without understanding why. It's up to use to show them a light. To give hope to hopeless people."

Cal was quiet and looked down in the sands. He bit the inside of his cheek, having rambled on long enough.

"If no one else will do it, then I will. I only hope there'll be more in Levengard who follow that example, or else we'll all live in a world without stars, a dark place, filled with lonely people."
(Calael Kang)
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[16:28] "I can't."

After a long pause, her lips finally part once more, allowing words to slowly escape from within. "I don't... I don't get it... I don't understand." And it's not because Aurora didn't want to understand. The opposite, if anything. She remained silent and listened, she hoped to find logic and truth in her uncle's words - but all she heard made no sense in her mind. It didn't excuse any actions. It didn't explain them.

She kept thinking back to Thalia and to her mother. .. Even to Isaac. The three people who lost more than she could ever imagine-- Sera dying was not simple to any of them. It likely wasn't easy for her uncle or father either, but Aurora saw what it left them with.

She saw Thalia's sadness. The lack of fulfillment in a life where her father never met her. She saw her mother's wrath and anger... In a way she didn't imagine to be possible. She saw her uncle, Isaac, cling to Sera's ghost. She saw just how much he wanted his brother back.

Aurora did not know Sera. She'd be lying if she said she lost him. She only saw the loss of others, the loss that frightened her and drove her sleepless at night.

".. I don't think I can do it, uncle Cal. I don't think I will ever be able to look in my mother's face, or yours, or Thalia's... If I thought that those things that brought so much pain deserve mercy or redemption." Tears leaked from the corners of her sky-blue eyes, the bright shimmer around her body dimming lightly.

"Agartha deserves better... And that light-- that light will be a land with no vampires. A land with no undeads. A land with no necromancers. A land where Thalia... Doesn't need to see Neo..."

And if no one else will do it? Then Aurora will.
(Aurora Elisheva)
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[16:30] The words of his father are more wise than ever, and as Perival listens to how Calael speaks, he can only feel a slight, creeping sense of remorse as more are spoken into the vast abyss that was his mind.

He lowers his staff, allowing it to sink and be reclaimed by the staff for the time being.

Perival frowns.

"I'm sorry," Perival apologizes. "I thought she ran away." Perival repeats.

He glances over to his cousin. Perival draws in a long breath. "Maybe vengeance isn't.. A good idea, she didn't do anything that Neo did. Neo did all of that." Perival murmurs softly.

"We have to try and fix them, instead of killing them. They're people too." He mumbled. "..Unless they did bad things on purpose. But sometimes, they're just cursed and they can't fix it. We need to fix it for them.."

"..Just like grandpa Eiphraem."
(Percival Kang)
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[16:44] Cal wasn't disappointed. He knew it was likely Aurora would answer in such a way. He had had this conversation with enough people at this point that the results never surprised him. Koume Bavmor would agree with Aurora. Zeriel Heifang would agree with Aurora. Sera Elisheva, Isaac Shimasu, Shai Oshura, Ren Shi, Rikona Heifang and so many others had the very same mindset she did, and each and everyone had had told Calael he was wrong.

That peace wasn't worth it. Solving problems without a weapon was foolish and futile.

He couldn't ever blame them for not seeing what he saw. He could only ever mourn them when the day came that they died fighting the monsters they chose to see.

Cal gave her a sad smile and sighed. "You are young. And your life will be what you make it. I can't convince you to see my world, I can only hope that someday someone else will." To see his son agree with him madeCalael proud, though he worried that it might make Percival a target for ridicule as Cal had been at that age for these ideas.

"A land without vampires and undead and necromancers is what I want too. The Lighthouse is meant to do that. It is meant to... give life back to those who are hurt. Give light back to their eyes. I don't look at undead and see bags with souls trapped in them that need to be cut open, I see people who have been enslaved by evil magic."

"I won't keep you, Aurora, if you'd like to go. But I want to pose a question to you... and my own answer." Cal leaned back and put his palms out across the grass. "In the century and a half that people have lived on this land, where do you think a lack of mercy got anyone? In a century and a half of warfare, where are we now?"

"A place where families are still fighting. A place where people are still dying, trying to avenge their fallen loved ones. A cycle that has never broken, a cycle that just keeps making everyone... hate. At some point something has to change, or else we'll never stop fighting."
(Calael Kang)
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[16:52] Taiga Rowan says, "Cordelia."
[16:52] Declan whispers: Did you just give your child a lesson?
[16:53] Declan says, "huh"
[16:54] As Aurora seemed to be in a moment of deep thought, perhaps trying to formulate a response to his father's words.. The boy turns away.

"I have to go to.. Class." He mumbles. He turns towards the cliffs and begins to climb up to his brother. "I'll see you in history..!"

Was history class even happening anymore? Did anyone even go to that?
(Percival Kang)
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