Steel and I continue to walk as we get to the house.
Pushing past the front door to get to the house on the inside.
"What happened to your eye?"
"I got angry."
He and I both go to the kitchen and sit on the table beside each other.
His red aura settles softly around him.
"What?"
"I figured when I'm angry, my eye bleeds and turns red apparently, it also begins to burn."
"Like it turns to fire?"
"No, it's just burns."
"Are you well?"
"Yeah."
My tone sounds disheartened.
"What did you want from that interaction before?"
"What do you mean?"
"What did you expect to happen to her?"
"Jahar?"
Steel nods his head.
"Yeah Jahar."
"I expected justice for what she's done, for the kids she took from families. Why didn't she get that?"
My voice stern about what I'm saying.
"Well, Lazuli, I'm not fully sure about that. But I do want to know, why do you think it'd be fine to have her killed for what she did?"
I look at him with a mix of confusion and anger.
"Because what she did was horrible. It should never have been done in the first place she needs to…"
"Die for her crimes?"
A small spike in his aura as he interrupts me.
"Yeah.. Yeah she should've."
I don't sugar coat it or anything.
"She should've died."
These words are full fledged words that came out of my mouth, I meant every word.
Steel's aura flows downward.
"Would that have brought you peace? Would that have made you happy?"
"What?"
"Would having her die… be the thing that you truly want?"
"Yes… justice should have been served to her."
"What your saying isn't justice. It's vengeance… a vendetta…"
He stuttered a bit with the last words.
"But she would've deserved it?"
"And I believe that… but do you know how you'd feel after that?"
"I would have been happy."
"You would not have felt that…"
He pauses.
"… I know that because I was the same as you."
"No you weren't?"
He shook his head in disagreement and his aura spiked once.
"Lazuli…. Yes I was."
"How? How could you have possibly been like me?"
"War… It can break people Lazi…"
"Meaning?"
"Wow..."
Steel lets out an exasperated laugh.
"...we are just a bundle of never ending questions."
I let out a laugh at that as well, but mine comes out in sarcastic humor.
"Lazuli. War is a never ending process of people attacking to kill, or to capture for information."
He pauses for me to take that in as his aura flows back downward no longer staying passive.
"I had many friends during the process of trying to survive the war, but sometimes I had these bouts of extreme anger when I heard someone I knew was taken, tortured, then left to fend for himself in a desolated place, just to die in the end by hunger or blood loss."
He looks down and wipes his face, as if trying to stop the tears before they arrive.
"Many deaths, because of an unneeded war. Because of a lie, but... But right now thats not the point."
He says taking a deep breathe.
"When those guys dead, in retaliation. I would find the nearest elf and smash their head in. Because I didn't know better and because I could, when the war was happeneing, no one had the power to stop me at all, and it was what made the war easy to win... and what gave me my wives... well there was a small moment when I was injured..."
He lifts his shirt the show a nasty scar from the front of his abdomen, to somewhere at his back.
"Once again not the point. In my fit off anger, I never thought of anything but the anger I had, and once I did kill them... nothing. I felt nothing, but that EXACT. SAME. ANGER."
His forefinger tapping against the table every time for the last three words.
"Nothing different besides the fact, I killed someone. They never made me feel any better. I would be angry, then be angry and angry. That was a never ending process with me."
A sigh.
"When I had been younger, I was also many times more dangerous, now. I feel like a man, that hasn't had a drop of alcohol in years, except the one alcohol in cooking and stuff. Anyway, point for this is, Sometimes acts done in anger doesn't help relieve the pain you are feeling."
He pauses and reaches his hand out to me.
"Vengeance won't bring peace. It only brings more ongoing anger and slowly kills your mindset."
"But, what about the justice, why is she still free?!"
"Now that one son... I don't know about, but I will say one thing. If you follow Sply, you will most likely learn about the things you need to learn about, with struggle, but how to do things the right way. And that, that'll bring you the best feeling of doing the things you needed to do."
"What? Does that mean?"
"Do things the right way and you'll fing happiness in what you've done for yourself and the people."
My feeling fight themselves and I end up holding back tears that well up, not knowing the pain that I was feeling.
"Okay..."
"Now that you are going, you'll be more prepared to go and understand the world. I'm thankful you came across this decision yourself, but..."
Footsteps are heard as they come down the stairs.
"Well, speak of the siren."
"Dad? Oh, hey Lazi..."
Marcilene looks down at me as she stands above us, and she goes to the other side of the table. Her aura settling just softly around her body.
"What happened?"
"Lazuli just needed a good talking to."
"Is that why he's going to cry?"
I wipe my face and say, semi-exaggerated:
"I'm not going to cry."
She laughs, and that's slowly followed by Steel, then me, as my nose gets a tad bit stuffy, both of their auras spike with every laughter.
Slowly, my laughter, dies down and I return to talking to Marcilene, about something important.
She sees the laughter die down and Steel's own as well, they all lower their laughters, as I lower in mine.
Both of their auras die down to be passive around their bodies again.
"I want to talk to you."
Both Marcilene and I tell each other at the same time.
"Well, that's expected. But, I guess..."
Both Marcilene and I look at Steel as he takes the floor from us.
"Marcilene, you start. Lazuli just jump in whenever you want to talk to her."
Both of us nod our heads.
"I'm okay with you leaving."
"What?"
"Yeah, I understand what you want to do, and your intention on the want to learn what you need to do. And don't you remember?"
She says the last part and it stops my mind process from working to try and remember what she's talking about.
"I'm gonna guess you don't?"
She looks at me kinda exhausted. A small spike of annoyance.
"NoooOooo..?"
She gasps slightly, for dramatic effect. Another spike.
"I would support anything you did if it was to help you protect me... but not only me but yourself as well."
"So, you wouldn't have minded if I went at all?"
"No! Not at all. But it would've been nice if you had came to this decision AFTER talking to me."
She says matter-of-factly.
"Sorry."
I say sounding apologetic.
Steel laughs at us. Spikes with every air pumping out of his lungs.
"I'm so thankful I raised two amazing kids, that are so good too each other."
Steel reaches his hand out to ruffle my hair, then to Marcilene's red hair as she pulls back slightly.
As her hair is in a bun in the back, with a weird looking hair tie, that larger than a regular hair tie and still functions completely like one.
"Please don't touch my hair, the hair brush that Tali gave me was so good, at untangling my hair at the same time it made it easy for me to have my hair in a good bun."
Steel aura goes down slightly.
"My little girl, becoming a little woman."
His face turns to a small, and weird frown on his face, since I've never really seen Steel frown, it's always a serious look or a giant smile.
"No..."
Marcilene gets up, her ears twitching slightly, the same as her aura.
She walks to Steel and hugs him and he to her.
"I's still your little girl, just not the same little girl."
She smiles and her aura, flows softly around her body, Steel the same as he smiles.
'Is this the way that a family should be? Loving, knowing each other's problems. And working through them together?'
Those thought whirl in my mind as I hold back tears.
Marcilene catches me in the corner of her eye, and smiles.
"No need to cry Lazi. Just join in. If we squeeze tight enough dad won't have the strength to hold us back."
And as she says that Steel opens his arms to me, and Marcilene the same.
They invite me in and I follow through with their hugs. Squeezing tight once I get there.
Their aura feel warm as I hug them, my eyes closed as I take in their love.
Soon, after a nice moment we all separate.
All of us looking at each other.
"And tomorrow, Lazuli. You have to apologize to Wes, He genuinely thought it was him that was why you were bleeding out of your eye."
"Now that I think about it! Why were you...?"
She stops as she sees the residues of the newer eye blood.
"Crap. How bad was it?"
"It was due to anger this time instead. Not because of excessive amounts of Soul Energy."
"Is that good yes Or no?"
"I think good?"
I also say confused.
"Yeah, I'll send a note to Flock and Tali for a new eye patch, and this time something more stylish, right?"
Steel says as he looks at both of us.
His and Marcilene's aura calm now.
"Yeah. I'd like that."