The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 459 - A Long Road North Through Foreign Snow, For Blood & Family
Sevra pulled her new furs tighter around her shoulders as her horse tromped on the path. The harsh northern winds cut through even the most layered of traveling cloaks. Rocky foothills and the jagged peaks that marked the bulk of the frozen expanse was the most interesting thing she could see in the distance. It had taken her months to make it this way while avoiding being caught and questioned. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂
About where she was or what she’d seen in the half a year she had been gone. Leaving a vague letter about the circumstances with someone to deliver to her Guild was all she’d done. Then she was following the tracker over the land and across the sea, to a place she never would have thought to look... but her brother did. They’d reunited only days ago, after he’d independently tracked a lead that brought him north.
"You know, I really thought you’d have more to say about the weather by now."
Tarem’s breath was visible in the cold air and his voice had a familiar teasing lilt to it as he rode beside her, on the hardy breed of horse surprisingly prevalent in this region. They exchanged a lot of information through coded sentences due to the retinue around them.
’He still thinks my escaping alone is better...’
The scout only glanced at him this time. Lady Aarengraf’s personal forces keeping eyes on them were smaller than Sevra had expected, but their coordination as they moved told of rigorous training with a goal of military might. The feudal Houses of the nobles, which functioned like and for all intents *were* Guilds... didn’t mess around when it came to escorts and expeditions. Even if one of the two - or both, depending on your definition of *detainment* - had been a prisoner not so long ago.
"Sister?"
She realized she’d been staring at nothing, one hand unconsciously touching where the heiress-made cultivator-finder rested. Thinking about what he must have gone through while she was making a very concerning ’friend’... and about what their Elder was doing up here. How long he’d been here while they were playing detectives for all these years.
"The weather... is manageable. I’ve grown used to harsh environments."
The woman took a breath, watching the exhale disperse into the frigid Air. While she was trying to tell him she wasn’t going to rush off on her own, her words were also fairly literal. Elua had once claimed to want to practice her ’Frost Mimicry’... and that led to the cave they were in at the time turning into an icebox thanks to sealing off the entrance beforehand. Infuriatingly, that was one of the big ways that pushed her to heavily cultivate essence and led to her breakthrough.
Now, she was plenty capable of keeping some of the wind directly around her vibrating together as Elua had shown her. Trading concentration, and a small fraction of essence she was pulling in from the surroundings, into just a bit of helpful heat. She wished she could do the same for her sibling as well... but with the way her spiritual sense worked, tied to her Walk Avatar, it would have required her to basically superimpose her astral self over him. While moving - and while maintaining her own temperature while not falling off of the saddle.
’He can cycle his own Physical Energy, he’s not helpless...’
"Imagine you, being fond of nature’s harsh sides... not afraid of dark storm clouds anymore, either?"
The terror was still there, at times... that base instinct that recognized Elua er Goltbred as something ancient and dangerous if circumstances aligned wrongly. But layered over it was ’respect’ and ’exasperation’. Camaraderie that came from surviving months together in isolation with that particular reincarnated ’storm cloud’, who could go from lightning to rainbows in less than a second. Pretty much like any teenager could.
"I’ve resolved my fear. Maybe I’ll stay outside and watch next time they arrive."
Explaining to Tarem that she was willing to be sociable, and even looking forward to meeting with the wayward heiress, they finally cut their chatter and focused on the trail. For a while, anyway. The coming dark reminded her of late nights in the Exclave, sitting across from the sigilists as she worked on increasingly complex arrays that meant nothing to the scout.
Still, the way the brunette would pause to get her attention and explain something unprompted. As if having company made her *need* to fill the silence, even with cultivation knowledge-sharing or a sudden monologue about one of the Acid Tongued Villainess tales. The gradual realization had hit that... beneath all the ancient wisdom was someone who was trying - sometimes successfully, sometimes not - to show herself to someone.
’She had a one-track mind when it came to Qatrand, especially. Bringing her up from the slightest connection. It was kind of sweet. Also kind of terrifying. Definitely obsessive.’
"We’ll make camp in thirty minutes."
She glanced ahead at Lady Aarengraf’s straight-backed posture as the woman spoke up. The noblewoman who intercepted her attempts to sneak through her territory. And who just so happened to have arrested her brother for the same thing.
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Sevra found herself in a well-appointed cell within a week of crossing into the northern territories. A sight which had relieved and consternated Tarem greatly, though at first they tried not to show off their relationship. Overall, it was the kind of detention that came from an experience dealing with cultivators who might be dangerous... or assassins.
The interrogation room she was taken to the next day was exactly what she’d expected from this region’s nobility. Sparse, functional, and with heating sigils that barely took the edge off the cold amid all of them meant to protect against unexpected reversals of fortune for the one being detained. There, she encountered golden eyes framed by dark jade hair, coiled up in a way that may or may not help keep more body heat escaping the back of her head trapped.
Lady Aarengraf sat across from her in the room, fully confident that no matter what the Shadow Whisker Sorority member did... she would be the one who was fine in the end. Fingers drummed infrequently and without rhythm against a small table by her seat that held documents that had come in quite quickly.
"Why did you come?"
"I’m just traveling to find family. I have no quarrel with House Aarengraf."
"Yet you appear in my territory, like your sibling, after vanishing for six months. A disappearance, I should clarify, alongside the Goltbred heiress - and an exiled noble from a continent that likes to think they are due the same respect as I."
Each word was dictated precisely in her accent. The agenda of getting information about what happened was clear, but the former assassin was unsure if it was more than that. It didn’t change the fact that the tracker had pointed yet more north, before her belongings were taken. But remaining trapped in a foreign land by this woman was not her ideal way of handling her search.
Her mind raced until finally she wondered - what would Elua do? The answer came easily enough. Assess what the other party wanted, what she could offer within her knowledge, and negotiate from a position of apparent full disclosure. Remain unworried that they believed you knew more than that and perhaps leverage their fear of that unknown into making them pay more attention to you.
"I’m not your enemy. I don’t know about Madrigil, as I tried not to talk to him at all if I could help it. He creeped me out. But Elua certainly didn’t send me here for you."
"That remains to be determined."
The effect was less pronounced than she hoped. Aarengraf’s expression hadn’t changed notably - still sharp and focused. It was already a stretch to claim by insinuation that the scout was intentionally *moved* in this direction, but following the tool had led her where she was, for now. And the woman had already determined through paranoia that anything passing through her territory must have some business with her despite it’s vast empty regions.
’Wait...’
The book of information for Qatrand she delivered - and had been made to memorize - had contained pages upon pages. Most of it was meant to tell the young new hero all these things. But Elua had been so thorough beyond reason that there had also been sections on various hidden contacts within the Silversky and else, many contingencies for different scenarios on how the overall political climate may go in a post-Descent society...
And also mentions of her works that may be impacted by being away from the world. That last section included this northern cultivator’s name and the details of what they’d agreed to. Beyond that there were numerous technical diagrams that were so detailed that it was a wonder they could appear in her mind with such clarity.
"Essence heaters. New, efficient designs for personal or large room use when scaled appropriately. Specifically engineered for excessively cold climates."
Lady Aarengraf had gone very still as the captured woman spoke.
"She’s still honoring that agreement? Is that why you were sent?"
"...No. I didn’t lie in anything else I said so far. If I could have gotten through the territory without meeting you, I would have. Of course, the moment I understood you had my brother in your dungeon, I would have come back to trade."
"Trade? You’re saying you have her designs? They were not in your belongings... can you reproduce them, then?"
Sevra actually had spent days helping the sigilist refine iterations of heating mechanisms that seemed a lot more advanced than the ones in the listing she’d memorized. Those ones she could not even begin to parse, but the ones for the noble lady were designed to be replicated by her people.
"Given time and materials, I could sketch them. However, I’d want my brother and I freed."
In such a cold climate, efficient heating had a real and tangible value on resources and essence. Energy and attention pooling that could be sent elsewhere if no longer necessary. It was not the kind of thing she might have thought of before, if not for listening to the Goltbred daughter go on about why spending the time and energy in the short term to save tons of *opportunity* later on was worth it. Sevra just hoped the other woman thought so too.
"I see. Then we have something to discuss after all."
They had been given supplies, an escort of twelve, and the explicit understanding that House Aarengraf would be watching the progress north personally. The idea that another of their assassin family - for she knew exactly who they were - could be hiding away in their region doing who knows what... did not sit well with the militant cultivator. Especially knowing that they were apparently tied up with that terrifying child.
"I know that I’m the one who came up with this answer, but why are you helping me?"
Sevra had asked her this before their departure... and the other woman’s smile had been thin as she strode to her own horse in full combat regalia - white toned lamellar with purpled edges and metal fittings on her body, as well as a specialized axe and crossbow strapped to the beast that would carry her.
"Because that child terrifies me. I’ve come to believe that being on her bad side is inadvisable. If there is actually a chance you *didn’t* kill her and that annoying man... which frankly, I do not think you were strong enough for... then you represent a connection I’d rather maintain than sever."
"She’s... not as bad as you think."
"Ah, defending her - so it is friends or allies, then. That makes her worse, doesn’t it?"
"What do you mean?"
"The monsters who appear human and likeable are always the most dangerous."
Unable to argue effectively with that logic, the dusty cloak she always wore was covered with furs. Horse mounted, they started on their long journey with a tracker that barely budged left or right. To the point Sevra wondered if she had been duped by the ’cute’ girl who had rushed her through the portal.
