If you wanna read ahead of my stories, you can check out the advanced chapters on my subcribestar, at the same username - 0Jordinio0
__________
The first time Caelan was exposed to cruelty, the true cruelty and unfairness of the world. He was four years old.
It started simply with an odd old man. Who didn't have a house and stayed outside covered up in rags all of the time.
Caelan did not know what to make of him, did not understand why he stayed out in the cold when he could be inside a house and warm and safe.
Later, when he was older Caelan would learn the old man was homeless and could not get a job. He was former military and cut loose after saving someone in a warzone far away from anywhere Caelan had ever thought about in his young life.
The other kids thought it was funny to see the old man struggling. They taunted him and threw rocks to try and get him to chase them when he got angry. Caelan didn't understand why they did it, but he joined in because that was what all the other kids were doing.
A small pit formed within him even so.
Weeks later, while it was pouring of rain he would be in the house with his mother and her new boyfriend, a much younger man barely into his twenties. Tall, handsome and coming from money.
While watching a movie in his bedroom on his bright red race car bed, he hears a commotion outside. It's the old homeless man, he's being accosted by a pair of young punks, high out of their minds on drugs he'd later learn.
He watches in horror as the two jump the old man and savagely attack him, dragging him to the ground and beating him over and over.
On instinct, he runs to his mother and her boyfriend. The boyfriend is too scared to intervene, his mother shouts from the window threatens to call the police before calling other members of his family.
His cousins who live across the road coming running out and chase them off. And with them, his mother bundles the old man up in a quilt and brings him inside, tries to help him while she calls an ambulance.
Caelan is a mess of emotions, even years later he would not be able to tell just what he felt.
He will always remember guilt though.
He apologises to the old man bleeding out on his couch. For what happened? For bothering him with the other kids and harassing him? For being silly enough to join in just because the majority were doing it?
The old man smiles at him, even through a bloodied and beaten mishapen face. The old man tells Caelan it was okay, that he forgave him.
He dies minutes later on the couch before the ambulance arrives.
The pit deepens and something inside of him, grows older.
____________
"Praise be to Hestia!"
"Praise be to Hestia!"
"Praise be to Hestia!"
Tens of dozens of Soma familia members were lined up and kneeling upon the ground, hands clasped in prayer and heads bowed reverently.
It was surreal to look at, Lili was not going to lie. 'There has to be over a hundred of them.' Lili thought in abstract shock from where she was forced to recline atop Caelan's shoulders.
Each and every single one that had rallied to the sounds of commotion they made upon breaking into the Soma Familia home, was beaten down and forced to their knees.
And under threat of Caelan's wrath, were forced to sing praises to another deity. The greatest insult of all for a deity, to have their followers, their children pray in reverence to another over them.
It was arrogant and disrespectful on a level Lili had not fathomed a mortal to ever think of, even Zanis knew there were lines.
And above all else, it was cruel.
Yet, even so-
Lili could not wipe the satisfied smirk from her face as she looked down upon each and every one of them from Caelan's strong, broad shoulders. Watching the addled, disgusting fools who had made her life hell, brought a relished satisfaction to her, deep within her core.
Caelan walked through the throngs of kneeling, terrified and praying Soma Familia members, straight into the main home.
"So what way to Soma then?" he asked, a smirk of his own on his face and not even paying attention to the kneeling Soma Familia members behind him, completely confident they would not try anything.
"He'll be in his office as always, he never leaves," Lili responded as she rested her head atop his, "He won't even care about all the commotion, he'll just continue brewing his wine."
"There's still Chandra and Zanis to deal with though," Lili warned, "Mr. Caelan is definitely more powerful than either of them, but they're both level two as well and have been for a while, so if they come together we might be in trouble."
"Nah, I'd win." Caelan assured her without missing a beat as he made his way through the long, dark winding hallways of the Soma Familia home.
Despite the situation, Lili couldn't help but smile. Even as her emotions roiled in her stomach, a mesh of so many she couldn't tell them apart.
Joy? Trepidation? Relief? Anticipation?
All that and more.
At the very least though, she felt not an ounce of fear. Because she was with Caelan.
"So where should we go for our date after this?" Caelan asked as he followed her directions through the long winding hallways of the Soma Familia base.
"Is that really something we should talk about now?" Lili sighed, Caelan's flow was all wrong, she would never be able to understand his tempo. How could someone be so blase about invading another familia's base, at the drop of the hat, with no planning, pretty much alone considering how little help she'd be. Yet even so, Caelan was doing all this for her, and she felt her cheeks burn lightly, "….I don't really know anywhere good to go for a date." she admitted.