Family. There was a time when I was fascinated by this elusive, mysterious concept just as much as I was by traditional nutrition. Excitement is an understatement. I was obsessed with it, maniacally searching for a way to fill the void that its absence had created in my life.

It started when I was six, when Alden and I moved to Oakdale, a human settlement. The Alliance believed that it was time for me to experience the companionship of children my age, to fit into the community. To face it; what I am, to most mortals, is a monster to be destroyed. I had to learn how to hide that part of me in a civilized environment. It proved difficult, especially in the beginning; to not only breathe when I talk and to have my heart beating when I am asleep. But there were other things that I found hard to come to terms with. The other kids at school all had something I didn't.

Parents.

I knew the definition – as well as many other things from Alden's memory – but it was then that I came to realize that it was not merely a biological imperative to reproduce and raise offspring, but rather a kind of emotional attachment. They speak to them kindly, hug them, and do it all with such a happy, accepting aura that the mere memory of it still brings blood to my eyes to this day. Even if they are sometimes scolded or beaten up, they do it with a strange empathy and care. I would have given anything for Alden to treat me the same way. I felt the fact that half of his soul lived inside me entitled me to such desires. But as soon as he got wind of the kind of thoughts I had in mind, he made sure that I would never again, even by chance, think of calling him my father. Our relations were different; full of distance, rejection, terror, hatred, in which there was no room for such affections. It has not changed since; after all, I made him mortal. If I were to die, I would take him with me. How could he possibly like anything that threatens him?

So I gave up trying to "start a family" with him, but I didn't give up on the fact that I would be accepted, even loved, somewhere, someday.

First with Richard, then with Renald and Ashe, I have experienced what people define as "family". Then came Lili...

I lost them all.

And now, after all these years, here in the Underworld, my biological mother, brother and sister appear. I don't feel any better. Their blood tingles under my skin like an alien entity. I would like to slit my veins just to get rid of the overwhelming agony that I should feel something. Anger, enthusiasm, curiosity, anything...

But I feel nothing.

When I recall them, they're just unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar names.

And Talia is a target. Someone I'm going to kill.

“You sure you don't want me to sneak in as a poisonous spider and take her out?” Jev appears in the open doorway of the next room.

“I'll give her another week. Then it's your turn.”