1,400 years ago, when Cardellino was still known as head of the gens Gegania, a name that evenutally fell into obscurity and shadows, a virgin was sacrificed. Her death brought back unto Earth the nature of the first Cambiare — the Coasse queen known then as Sibyl. From her came the Empusa, then the Cambiare, then the Succubi and Incubi themselves. For centuries, they spread, their blood of her thinning further and further. Her revenge upon the kings of Rome who tortured and sacrificed the girl turned her into a demon — a monster, to them, mother of all monsters. The day they finally killed her, the gift of her blood went dormant in any children born there after, left in wait until awoken by a witch a millenia later.

Mariangela was not sure what she was waking but to have children, finally, was worth it. The magic fused into Fabio's blood and in there, she found her truth. The Coasse inheretance awoke and all their truths came spilling back. What they chose then is not discussed, not even thought of. There was no return to Coasse that they have admitted to, but they accepted the nature of their gifts. And their first born, Marcantonio, was the one to absorb the most of it. A demon, tried and true, registered by everyone as an Asmodeus himself though the exacts are different. He, the new King of Coasse, living in a kind of exile forever more. This is how it was to be, and how it lingers on, in his own children.

Three children, all born blue. That is the nature of the Cambion births that arrived through the Cardellino brood. Marius' birth was terrifying, his first breath drawn as he broke all the devices in the hospital room. Samson was breathing without a heartbeat. And Aurelius, he came into the world blue as death itself, until suddenly he was out of his chamber and monitors and inside of his mother's arms in a flash. Not wicked, not evil, but different anyway; that was the way they were handled and raised. For the most part, it worked.

The demonic force of them was anything but wicked and evil. Instead, all the children were born from a father whose connection to Caosse was reopened enough to regain their inheretance to rulers of a Hellscape; a place of darker energies, of impossible fire and dangerous elements but no intent to overwhelm with harm. Instead, they manifest darkness for their own whims and have often found themselves capable of moving toward even the realms of angels of Earth. No Cardellino, even Aurelius himself, has ever wished to go back to visit the dimension where their energy was born because now, they are Earth-born. And that makes them as close to human as they ever needed to be.

Outside of the nature of learning, the adaptation of growing into his gifts like his siblings before him had done, life was relatively normal for a young Aurelius. Sports and adventure, hobbies and tricks — he even learned to build model trains and cars for fun, learned to collect stamps and coins for a few years. He learned and he grew and things were not always easy but they were never all that hard, either.

With growth came knowledge. Not just of gifts and nature and self but of life, of love. Learning how Marco would shout lines from Alla Sera through the streets when first dating Vittoria; how he learned of her illness through the colder months and began to bring her soups and stews every morning. How love meant not only exceptions but exceptional. How not being human did not mean a lack of but a growth there in; passion and beauty and refinement a burning desire no matter the costs. This world was theirs for the taking in dreams and drive, not power. This was the truth of the Cardellino blood — liberation from woes, because their hearts latched onto love so finely. Not foreign monsters, not fairies and strange mysticism, just living, breathing vessels that could find and give love to the highest.

But life is never easy, even for the child of the man who rides dragons and the last of the WaterWoods spirits. People have their crees and they stick to them. Aurelius, for all that people expected, never ran from a fight. They thought their child soft and sweet and sensitive, his penchant for art and flowers and kindness a flaw. But the first time a boy tried to lay hands on him, Aurelius broke his arm. There was not just a brawler in him: there was a legion of battle. So the boys tried, and Aurelius gave them a what-for. Modena is not a large city by any means and yet, there always seemed to be something more. Something new. It never mattered. What did was passion and of that, Aurelius had to outweigh every temper and anger the world had ever known.

The world, however, likes to rain fire down on things that catch so easily.

They had come after Aurelius before, when he was dating Amalia, and had been bested by the playful little cambion. This time was different, though. A surprise attack: a brick to the back of the head before bats and pipes collided where their gifts weren't doing enough. Aurelius, thrashing back, until the force of a hit smacked him into a car with such a swallow of soul that he crushed the whole thing inward and exploded. His gifts evolved and before the boys stood another Aurelius, another version of him with burn and rage and only that. It fought, and Aurelius tried to stand, tried to do anything but watch until the dust was settling and police sirens were going off. And then the real fire came down.

Who had started it, what had happened, these were details that did not matter. All that mattered were the three boys they had been able to catch, Aurelius included. Five months, the others were given, with lenience for good behavior. Aurelius had it the worst of all. A country that condemned his kind, a family that did anything but follow the rules; he was sentenced to life in prison — violence, herasay, lethal weapon and mafia connections. There was no use fighting it, no use fighting anything; the moon had cast its light and Aurelis would have to follow..

There is magic in happenstance. A little bit of time, an odd brush of place and sometimes, things are all but blessed. Prison wasn't amazing, not by a long shot, but three years became the keystone for decisions that would build into a life worth living as far as Aurelius is concerned. Eventually, it seemed, word got out as the boy worked himself and his duplicates to the bone: foreign heroes came to meet him and his guards, came to make deals. Italy bent to the whims; and he would be in America, then, in the Big Apple itself taking a bite out of a life that should not belong unto him. It was difficult to take, strange, but they promised safety. Not just for him, either, but his own parents. A weak momma, a tired poppa, Aura had no choice but to accept.

And from there, the seeds of hope became gardens, whole festivals full. Eventually, he even joined a new team: Riot, they called themselves, a strange assortment of people who all had bloodlines like Aura. Mixed and foreign, strange and wicked, all being used for good. There came blessings in every wave — in a young princess who saved his worlds, in his parents moving to a dimension to restore its right and live without prejudice, in the moon blessing Aura with kindness for simply accepting her pain before; Leo Jung, the man who Aurelius would marry before even finishing all his learning, the man who took the romance of Aura's heart and churned it into dreams that maybe... maybe, somehow, some day, could come true.