The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 466 - A Love Story Seen Through Master’s Eyes

The room Elua had prepared for them was modest enough by the Exclave estate’s developing standards - most of the private rooms were meant to be finished by the occupants - but it was still luxurious beyond anything either of them had lived in as orphans. Equally as large as the group dormitory they used to sleep in, it made the whole room really more of a studio apartment within the spire. Nohre and Fusand sat cross-legged on a thick carpet that remained one of the few furnishings in the whole building.

Woven from some sort of plant fiber that felt incredibly soft and sturdy, their master had made them work the expanding fields in a location about thirty miles away. Showing them how to identify and harvest the flowering bulbs for replanting, how to take the ripe leaves, and the basic process of separating the pulp. Washing, drying, brushing and eventually grading had been taught, as well as compared to the gradual but well-paced speed of her spiritual automatons.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like it’s the only day I’ve ever lived and just another all at once."

"I’d say that is dramatic, but it fits."

Both still wore their wedding clothes, but had relaxed a lot after the shock of the Divinity. After the Challenge rituals that went different than either expected. And of course, after the Starbloom when they watched as the whole lake was subsumed in darkness... with the hexagonal framed Altar itself turning into a giant, phosphorescent flower like a point of starlight surrounded by swirls of cosmic dust and flows of guiding water.

Presented to them at that time was the object that lay between them now. A wide rectangular mirror, with a base meant to hold it up on any flat table surface... or flat carpet. Its silver frame had been inscribed with delicate Old Tongue lettering which she had not told either of them meant, allowing the scholar to puzzle it out over time if he wanted. She was sure Nohre would force him to do it before long.

Though, it was truly nothing worth rushing over... it merely translated to a sentence each of her thoughts on her two disciples, from back when she first met them. Whether they ever read what it said or not was outside of her concern... but she *had* told them how to use the sigil-filled tool for more than just a table mirror. Which is why Fusand asked another question with a small bit of nervousness in his timbre.

"Are you ready for this? She said it shows us ’through her eyes’. I’m curious what that means."

Inactive since Elua handed it to them, it waited for the two to add their essence to fuel the start of the ritual. Both leaned forward, reaching out to touch one of the sigils along the back... which made the mirror’s surface shimmer immediately. It replaced the reflection with something that felt like a portal into another’s eyes. Into the past, as the first image was quite familiar.

A cramped common room belonging to the place they grew up, but viewed from a height that suggested someone observing from up high - like an adult. The visual recording caught brown hair on the back of a head and small hands clinging to it before it panned across and down into a group of children. Young Elua rode on Ondua’s shoulders as Yatrel had come to talk to the organizer of this particular place.

She watched children play, argue, and sulk. Never staying on anyone for all too long, including the dark haired little girl with her arms crossed over her knees, sitting next to the lankier boy with a book in his hands. At the time, nothing about them had struck her as special. Unlike her, they were of age to attend the Youth Guild... and unlike her, they were barely cultivating ’properly’ - for what the continent she had reincarnated into called it. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

But when she dug back through herself for this gift, she’d found it and included it. As well as another that showed with a clear transition in between. This time, low to the ground while reaching up and holding onto her father’s hand. It slowed everyone visibly moving slower and proving it again as something she had not taken to be important at the time. But in those ’frames’, a sandy haired boy could be seen breaking off some of his limited food and sneaking it onto the girl’s plate.

"Oh. She... had seen us. That long ago?"

Green eyes squinted as it transitioned again. To the day their master first stared at them intentionally. Talking to the headmaster and making her decision to give them the option to become her... assistants. Of course, this mirror only provided the images. Because it was better spiritual training for them to recall their own words - and better privacy to not unveil every bit of what they said about each other, to her personally!

The Goltbred girl’s eyes on the little details of the pair showed how close they really were as it fairly rapidly shifted through so many moments since they met her. In training, in the market, and a lot of times they had absolutely no recollection of being together with the brunette at all. Including a showing of Nohre’s fierce glare toward a rude adult cultivator - and the way she positioned herself to shield him completely.

But from this hidden and alternate perspective, she could see what she couldn’t notice at the time. Fusand’s hands had clenched into fists behind her back, ready to fight despite knowing he’d surely lose. Not for himself, but the moment the man’s attention went to his friend... his spirit solidified with ’resolve’. Of course, Elua did not include all of the full spiritual sense details in her memory. It was enough to let them remember on their own how they felt.

"You were ready to help even then? Without knowing how to fight..."

"I was always ready to help if you were in trouble. You just never got into it unless it was because of me. Why was that?"

The teasing in his voice made her elbow him softly as the viewscreen ran through more of their time with leatherworking. Fusand’s face showed off a soft expression as he watched Nohre - being explained some Element technique for softening the leather by their young master. Attention that had nothing to do with the lesson, considering he was actively holding a Projection of her braided hair in his hand and refining the details.

"This was before her wedding. You were staring at me like that in public?"

The accusation came with a blush that couldn’t match the muddy color rising in Fusand’s cheeks. His eyes in the memory tracked every gesture as his Astralism almost unconsciously created tiny, unrefined duplicates of her hands as she worked. Part of him felt betrayed and confused, until he realized that he was being watched by the real Elua - and the one he was watching teach Nohre had just been an illusion!

’Okay, now I am just betrayed...’

"I was... practicing. Everything. About you."

As if keyed to the admission, it showed Fusand alone in the workshop late one evening after sneaking out. Talking to the heiress that seemed to split away and leave the room, despite the ’view’ remaining mostly where they had been. Partial Projections of her smile, her laugh, the way she tucked loose hair behind her ear when concentrating. None of it perfect, but capturing far more dynamic flow than anything else he could do at the time.

"I had no idea you could make them so detailed back then."

Nohre’s voice was barely a whisper. Each image attempted was crafted with the careful attention of someone memorizing something precious. The scenes continued to flow - moments when they worked together, moments when they were separated by different tasks, moments when one watched the other without being observed. Through ancient eyes, their protective friendship that was most likely based in deeper care was documented by someone who understood exactly what she was witnessing.

After the moments of the wedding, at the tide pools and the crabs that made one of the watchers audibly sigh and the other chuckle... a showing of a small conversation was shared off to the side between the sandy-haired teen and their young master. Without words, the frustrated serious expression on the boy was still clear.

"What were you asking her about?"

"How... how to tell if it is right to show affection before a Descent. How she could get married at that timing."

"Fusand..."

There was Nohre’s face when seeing the Plant Physique for the first time. Shocked, but intrigued. Her grin when she saw the muddy blushing. The fact that her hand grabbed for around the green on his wrist now when traveling through crowds... which was forcefully compared to another memory from before that - to prove she used to grab a couple inches higher on his arm for ’safety’.

Moments throughout the competition, including catching them kissing for real before the Descent departures, after bluffing about it the other time. And then... blackness. Not dreadfully long, but clearly intended to represent the gap they needed to fill in themselves before things picked back up with their entry to the Astral Exclave. The final sequence showed the betrothed as they asked about having their wedding right there.

And they were only a little greedily disappointed, when a normal reflection returned to the mirror surface, that it didn’t keep going to show their months here. Looking at their own faces, years older and married compared to the kids the recordings started out with... they still recognized the same person in each other. Who had ended up together at the orphanage and for whatever reason had never let go.

"So it seems like she saw before we did that it was mutual."

"No. I knew, I was just a hesitant child. Sorry."

"For what?"

"Making you at all believe that you were clinging to me while I was only going along with it."

Leaning against her silly scholar husband, one of the antler nubs on her headdress poked his apologizing cheek. Her protective instincts had relaxed in the safety of their private room - for she knew now that he was tougher than just some Initial stage cultivator from back then when she was always worried. And she knew now that she was not a little girl scared to be unloved, not worried there in the slightest.

"It’s fine. Now I know how hard I can cling... and that you wouldn’t have gotten away if you tried."

"Scary. We should find you a new master. And thank her again tomorrow."

"I think seeing us happy is probably thanks enough. No need to rub it in her face."

The mirror tool of another cultivator’s curated memories lay dormant, ready to replay this view of their story whenever they wanted. A curiosity that was amazing even in a far away bubble of space that had shown them so many ’impossible’ things made only *improbable*. Far outside, under the dark lake, the silver platform waited patiently like that gift. For the next time Elua er Goltbred witnessed a love that she found deserving of standing next to hers.

Something that the reincarnator - working on a much more detailed memory fragment gift of the entire event, meant for her beloved - thought would be few in number. Unlike a pair of gossiping Divinities who really needed to find better things to do with their ascension.