After the call with her mother, Val had a simple question for Tavras firstly. "Do you know my mom?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable for a moment, but decided to say, "Yes. I met her briefly through your father. It is not like I know her all that well or anything, but I became familiar enough with her to gather a few things about her personality. She always came across as a tad overbearing in my opinion."

"Hm, okay." At least Tavras had not acted that odd and rude to a complete stranger. More questions swirled around in her mind, but Val knew that there would be no point in asking any of them. Her Mind Shield was too weak yet, so she could not know anything else about her family, namely her father.

A new idea sprang to mind as to an additional barrier to ever having a relationship with Tavras. Aside from being a young demigoddess, Val was the daughter of some god that Tavras knew. That factor alone could make their relationship range from creepy to downright impossible, depending on how well that Tavras had known her father. As always, Val gritted her teeth, and hated how her unknown father could exert so much influence over her life.

The bigger issue yet was one that had appeared on Val's side of things. She liked Tavras for the cheerful, fun-loving person that she had come to know, yet a darker side to him had been revealed just this morning, when Arius had pointed out that over 200,000 people had been killed by his tsunami in Gon.

The awkward pause between Val and Tavras had grown until he saw it fit to pull her from her thoughts. "How about we start making lunch?" Tavras suggested.

Val helped when necessary with his ultimate goal of frying fish in a pan. A variety of seasonings spiced up their typical fish so that once it was done, the fish actually tasted refreshing when compared to the bland fish that they usually cooked over a campfire. To make it seem even better, she had been largely shielded from fish for the week that she had been living with Iharu and Fang.

The oppressive silence held between them. They stood around the counter island in the kitchen and ate off of actual plates and silverware that Tavras had also purchased. He had even been kind enough to buy Foofy a sack of dog kibble and his very own dog bowl--two of them, in fact. One doggy dish she had filled with fresh water, the other she had scooped a cup of kibble, which he set to gobbling down at once. Now, it was the sound of Foofy munching and crunching on his food that held throughout the empty apartment.

"So," Tavras said, drawing out his voice to fill the void between them for longer. "Foofy really does eat his food as fast as you showed me that one time."

"Mhm." The soft scritching of her fork sounded against the plate.

"Aw, come on, Val!" Tavras whined. "Are you really going to get this mopey over the fact that I've met your parents before? When your Mind Shield is strong enough, I will tell you everything I know about them—including your father. I promise."

With a shake of her head, she said, "That's not it."

"Then what is it? You've been acting weird ever since that night." Tavras waved the hand around which happened to also hold his fork. He stabbed the fish rather aggressively for the usual. tender way that he would handle his sea food. Chewing as he continued, Tavras said, "I think that I was generous enough with the deal that I've made you. As for right now, nothing has to change between us, because nothing has changed." The emphasis in his voice cut at her. He decided to end with a short clip. "Just stop acting weird."

Val shot her attention up to him. "You are telling me to stop acting weird? You have been the one who has been off ever since that night. You went and killed over 200,000 people on the other side of the ocean! What did they even do to you?"

At the tension in their voices, Foofy moved to Val's side with his hackles raised. Thanks to his quick eating, he had already finished his bowl of kibble in time to add his own contributions to the argument. Foofy let his voice be known with a growl.

In asking that question, of course Val knew what the people of Gon had done wrong, but Tavras thought to explode in an angry explanation. "The mortals should feel lucky that I did not take twice as many lives! They dumped somewhere around 400,000 barrels of crude oil into coastal waters—"

"By accident!" Val yelled. "Gon is not as advanced of a country in the world. You cannot expect them to do everything perfectly. I do believe that I learned in school that we dump however many barrels of toxic waste into the ocean every year—deliberately. How come there has not been any tsunamis on this side of the ocean?"

"Yeah," Tavras said, nodding furiously. "I am the one who purifies the ocean waters and cleans up after them properly. I would love to take some of those entitled lives, but guess what? I am bound to being Suvier's bitch. These are protected shores! The coast of Gon is not. I am not allowed to do anything to make pollution stop worldwide because it would mean starting a war amongst the gods, one that my side is not prepared to win."

Val blinked a few times. Already, Tavras had alluded to needing more power to take out those above him. His rebellious intentions were laid out plainly now. Even so, Val had yet to wonder who exactly did Tavras mean to include in the group that he referred to as 'his side'. A tight swallow slid down her throat, because not even Val would be willing to say that she was on Tavras's side in regards to this. Iharu and Fang seemed like they had become their own people as adults, so she could not be certain that they would follow Tavras blindly, either.

"I feel like I have been going insane," Tavras continued. "The ocean has a mind of its own. Trying to control the ocean after we lose more and more of ourselves gets harder with each additional trespass. At some point, I must let the ocean release our anger, even in small ways like the tsunami on Gon. The ocean has a mind of its own. I am nothing but a shepherd to its waves. Do not blame me for these things that you cannot even begin to comprehend!"

If Tavras believed that he had any right to be angry, her own temper was swelling within Val tenfold. Her eyes narrowed at him as she spoke in a low voice. "I do not need to understand your view. The situation is simple. You killed 200,000 innocent mortals. They were not even the ones who had caused the oil spill. Ignore the gods' politics for a moment. Is there ever a time that killing that many people for such a petty reason could be justified?"

A sneer and a laugh were Tavras's responses, as if the memory of the destruction that he had leveled on the coast of Gon was something funny to him. "Each and every person that I killed had been complicit with their society which runs on oil. If they had wanted to live without an adverse effect on the environment, they would have moved away from civilization entirely."

A hard sigh whooshed past her lips. It had been bad enough listening to Iharu and Fang fight over the morality of animal products. She supposed that it only made sense that the two of them had been raised by an environmental extremist and mass murderer.

Apparently their disagreement was not one of moral versus immoral choices, but a different set of moral standards entirely. In disbelief, Val asked, "Do you really value a giant puddle over human lives?"

The expression in Tavras's eyes changed from frustrated to hateful in a second. It was the same look upon his face when he had nearly drowned Val and choked her out beneath the crushing waves of the ocean.

With that little insult, it looked like Val had sealed her fate, because Tavras raised a hand towards her to Bend Water.