Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame
Steamchanics , The Kingdom of Hesperia , Northern Ardeneon.
April 14
"You know my dad?" River's eyes bore into his, flowing with hope.
"Know him?" the man laughs softly "Your father and I are best of buddies"
This was probably one of the best news they'd heard so far, it felt like they were finally close to what they were looking for.
Making Dexter wonder if he really wanted to go back, it was a guilty thought, a thought that made his heart ache every time it would cross his mind, every time he would remember that he has two loving parents here, even if his dad is a creature that the people of this world fear, it's something right? To Dexter it was but, on the other hand, his mom on earth is sick and won't live past 5 years and he's being wanted by the literal leaders of this world.
"I'm Rune Caelestis" he picks a book up from the shelf "Oh and your father would have liked for me to hand you two this"
"Is my dad a killer?" Skai blurts out not looking at the book Rune is handing to River.
"Why would you think that?" Rune asks monotonously.
"Raven said he's not the type we should mess with, that means he's a bad person" Skai answers him. River on the other hand is sat on a couch with Seraphinius asleep next to him, going through the book while listening to the conversation.
"Ah" Rune laughs in response "I mean just because you killed a couple people don't make you a killer right?"
"You literally just described what a killer is" she frowns, scratching her head having an internal battle with herself, Dexter looks at her in worry, wishing he could fight it for her, wishing he could be scared for her instead so she would have to be afraid.
"Why did he kill?" River asks not taking his eyes off the book.
"Why don't we take this conversation upstairs." Rune's demeanor changes to a more serious one.
They follow the man up the stairs and into a living room.
"Make yourselves at home, I'll tell you what I can" he assures them, but him saying that was not assuring in the least bit, because to them saying he would tell them what he can just meant he wasn't telling them all they needed to know.
They sit down on one of the couches in the room, Dexter is sandwiched between Phinius who is half asleep next to River and Emily. Skai was on the other side of River and Elijah on the other side of Emily, Dexter looks at the six years old boy who seems to be too uncomfortable to sleep, he moves him to his lap in an attempt to make him more comfortable as they converse.
"Kaito Ladiston" Rune sighs as he sits on the opposing couch "I've known him for about a century and six decades?" he thinks out loud "maybe seven?"
"Look we need information about why we're here, how to find him and the specific question asked was; why did he kill, not the beginning of your bromance" Skai groans, more out of it than usual.
"I'm getting there young one" He calmly responds to her "his sole aim in life was to go against some of the rules the great council passed which he deemed as barbaric, when we met, we were two angry souls. We had a couple things in common so he told me his plan, I can't tell you exactly what he did, but I can tell you what I did" He pauses looking down in shame.
He continued "If you didn't know, one of the great council's golden rule is that no child must be conceived on the night of the laberlif moon, the moon is so powerful that if a child is conceived on the night of it, it will pass some of its powers down to it, so basically I-" River cuts him off.
"Okay, you had sex on the night of the weird moon, but what does that have to do with anything" River sighs calmly, although it was obvious he was livid inside as Rune was taking so long to speak.
"Let him finish" Elijah places his hand on Rivers back, his eyes filled with hurt.
"Esme and I tried day after day for a week, we wanted to get it right, after all the moon only shows up once every twenty years" At that piece of information, A loud crash rings through the room making Seraphinius jump awake, all of them look over at where it came from, their eyes land on Elijah.
"It's okay kid, go back to sleep" Dexter whispers patting the little boy. Elijah had thrown the lamp on the table beside the couch to the other side of the room. But he remains calm, as if he didn't just destroy property.
"Eli-" Rune starts but is cut off by Elijah
"No, finish what you're talking about" he responds in a composed manner.
And the other four begin to catch on. Delarune Starling, Delarune Caelestis Starling, Elijah's Dad had always been a busy man, but they'd seen him before, when they did he had grey hair and hazel eyes, and he had these couple of gold teeth that were always visible when he would smile, but the man in front of them has black hair just like Elijah's, black eyes and perfect white teeth.
Dexter briefly remembers when they were 11 and Elijah had his dad's contact saved with his full name, he thought it was cool, they used to be really close back then—Elijah and his father, Elijah would always talk about his dad when he had the chance and furthermore go on to tell them how he wished he had a cool name just like his father, the boy was obsessed to say the least.
Rune sighs and continues "Then we found out she was pregnant, not only did we find out but so did the great council, all pregnancies are to be recorded but ours wasn't, it was at that time that we had perfected the portal into the other world, Kaito suggested we hide there for a year or two, We both thought it was a good idea, we didn't want to lose you" he looks at Elijah but Elijah looks away, Emily places a hand on his comforting him. "But two years turned into four and four into eight...and eight into seventeen, the great council never stopped looking, they want you dead, they see you as a threat, I had to hide you son"
"Son" Elijah scoffs "Well 'father' people don't use their unborn children for experiments" he mocks the word 'father' and calmly throws a cup that was on the table at the wall besides him, making Seraphinius groan waking up.
"Would you guys keep it down? I'm trying to sleep!" he moans and Dexter coaxes him to sleep again.
They could all tell how hard Elijah is trying to conceal his anger, because for the years that they'd known Elijah, he's never been even a tad bit violent or aggressive, not once. They hardly even saw him upset.
"I'm sorry" Rune looks down.
"We're not here for your apologies, go on" Elijah answers coldly.
"Kaito and I would come here and go back to earth, we kept an eye on dozens of other kids who were sent to earth because of the rules, while Kaito would travel Ardeneon telling the parents of these kids what was going on in their younglin's lives, I would come here and create potions to help the ones who have come of age forget about their past life" he tells them then reaches his hand out and a book from the shelf on the other side of the room flies into his hand.
"We wrote all our recipes in this book, all the potions we discovered, all the serums we made, I always wondered why exactly Ladiston was so bent to going against the great council, I mean he was bound to be a part of them some day" Rune shrugs going through the book "By the time we met I was a philanthropist and full time steamchanic, my only goal in life was to make the world a better place you know? Kaito on the other hand he was and still is just a good guy, he always puts others before himself"
He opens the book and looks through it fondly "You know I'd always tell him; you're too busy saving everybody else to save yourself" he closes the book and set it down beside him "but oh well"
"No offense, but this doesn't explain my father being a killer" Skai plays with her fingers impatiently.
"When Kaito and I would come into Ardeneon, we never moved together, in the sense that we journeyed alone and never with each other, It was to reduce suspicions. If one of us was caught then at least the other could go on with our work right?" he chuckles "We were already breaking enough rules opening portals in and out of Ardeneon and with rule breaking comes consequences, we had people after us, it was kill or be killed, that's why we only show our faces in Hesperia, a lot is legal in Hesperia, even death as long as you have a good reason for it, you're free to go, Ladiston and I have faced the Hesperian parliament a couple times, but we don't reveal our names and they don't care to know it, that's life in a lawless kingdom."
"But you revealed your name to us" Skai lifts a brow at him, and he laughs.
"I knew who you kids were"
"Eli-" Elijah cut his father off again.
"You don't have to explain anything, I've gotten over it" he shrugs it off. Elijah has always been like this, he doesn't let things he cannot change control him, but this is the first time anyone has seen Elijah angry like that.
Rune sighs before bringing his attention back to all of them. "I must tell you kids that unfortunate times are before us"
"Before us?" Dexter scoffs "dude we're literally living in the so-called unfortunate times"
"No, no, someone has messed with time" he tells them "Kaito is currently looking for a lightning bolt in Zephyr so we can try our luck in creating a portal"
"What happens if someone messes with time"
"Are we gonna die?"
"What's the portal for?"
"You're going to have to give us more details"
"This is like a movie" they bombard him with questions, the last one was Skai.
"We don't know exactly how it happened, but according to my calculations, if we don't fix this soon, both our world and the human world could meet their end." He sighs standing up "We can't even open a portal to the other world, we're running out of time"
"So, you're saying the world is ending?" Skai asks as Rune walks over to a drawer searching through it.
"Not if we stop it," he answers "Kaito and I believe that a drop of rain fresh from the cloud bed before it even falls, and a bolt of lightning could be the key ingredient in our ongoing potion to open a portal into the rink of time."