nova grimaced. "a little self reflection?"
         "and you," he pointed to elysia, the girl jokingly holding her finger to herself, eyes wide in absurdity . some of the daywalker recruits giggled at her reaction. don't get her wrong, a lot of them looked up to nova's older sister, in a way of moral support ━━ not what elysia wanted. "what are you doing? you're our main recruit, elles. you're not leading this." 
        elysia sighed, breath shaking under her fathers glare. "well, while nova was doing self-reflection, i was helping!" 
        she kind of threw her sister under the bus there ━━ oops. nova's glaring at her now, but that look diminished eventually.
        "dad! i will lead with nova. we need as much power as we can get!" elysia tried to explain excitedly, but her father whipped his head around, crossed. 
        "that's exactly why nova has this, elysia. why do you think i chose her? you're not fit to control our people for this, it's about life or death if we don't get this blood fruit." 
        "i know, but━━"
        "we're done talking about this." her dad snapped in fury.
        elysia blinked in surprise. oh. 
        "okay then." elysia accepted her fate, not wanting to create a scene. a few day walkers were already staring at the commander and his daughter, stopping from fighting to observe. nova watched them with worry and swallowed before she clapped her hands to get everyone to get to work. their dad nodded at the recruits before he went back to their house, which was about a ten minute walk back from the beach.
        elysia didn't even realize tears filled her eyes until nova stepped in front of her sister, her figure blurry.
        "elles, are you okay?" nova asked. 
        "it's fine." elysia sniffed, embarrassed. whenever elysia cried, it shocked nova ━━ it shocked everyone. she was always so bright and cheerful, like the sun itself, a smile on her face as she joked, laughed, and skipped everywhere. yeah, elysia was a big fan of skipping.
        nova shook her head. "no ━━ no, it's not fine. you deserve to be a leader too!" 
        "you don't have to say that to make me feel better, you know how many times i've screwed up when the vampires breached shadyside." elysia sighed, squeezing her eyes shut at the memory. "trust me, i'm okay. you deserve this more than anything, our lives are at stake and i wouldn't trust them with anyone else."
        nova smiled sympathetically at her, bringing her arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, a laugh escaping elysia's lips again. 
        "nova," their father said. "let's talk." 
        "okay," she smiled and turned around, giving elysia's arm a squeeze before she walked off. everyone is starting to wrap up now. 
        she met ray in the city, the two laughing as they walked around the village. ray wanted to be a part of the recruits' scouting to find more blood fruit and elysia told him she'd talk to her dad for him. maybe when he cooled off.
        "daywalkers, our journey begins!" nova shouted, grabbing the two's attention as everyone raised their fists, chanting. elysia laughed, running to nova and jumping around as she cheered. 
"that's right!" elysia shouts too, gathering her balls of fire. nova laughed as she swirled them around before ray screamed, jumping out of the way as the balls of fire went flying towards the white and rainbow-squared buildings. oops. elysia grimaced as ray choked on a laugh ━━ rude!