The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 472 - Mint Colored Apple Of My Eye

A/N: Not *overly* gruesome, but still some surgery elements!

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Surgical tools, black and disturbing to any cultivator, sat under essence-lamp light... Negavigor instruments that Yatrel had brought along with her for the visit to her daughter, as requested. Elua had arranged them on a nearby small spiritual automaton, one that floated and could serve as an easily maneuverable table for what she was up to. Her fingers anxiously thumbed the scalpel, knowing things would be fine but dreading the reality of having to do this... even with the five and a half months since learning of the injury and month or so of being left alone with Madrigil.

"The illusion I will put you under can keep you from feeling or seeing the incisions I make. You’ll just feel warmth and mild pressure that coincides with what I’m doing, so you know not to start moving on me. If you decide you feel uncomfortable with this arrangement, tell me immediately."

"No need. I trust you, dear."

Yatrel sat perfectly still with hands on armrests of the specially made chair... which itself was another of her constructs. One capable of pivoting and arranging a patient in all the necessary positions for their comfort and physician needs. It could even flatten into a supine position! The other healer in the room, who had come more distance than she truly understood to witness the event, thought it was an incredible design that every infirmary should adopt.

Zonnel stood at a respectful enough meter and a half away, her professional interest making her clenched fists vibrate in excitement. Quickly, a cloud of spirit enveloped the Dame Goltbred, manipulating the perceptions of the mother as gently as could be accomplished. The ’young’ brunette picked up the first instrument and made the incisions delicately - but also as decisively as she would on any anesthetized individual she was operating on. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Scar tissue forms because the body tries to protect itself by sealing quickly, not perfectly. The collagen fibers are arranged hastily, often parallel to each other instead of weaving together in nice elastic formations."

Elua talked for all of their benefit, finding some calm in lecturing others. The content being what it was, it served as a lesson for the Empath woman who had shown up alongside her mother. But her eyes could barely tear away from the malformed tissue being separated from healthy cell structures, all with the steady hand in the middle of the blood. Clearly she was someone who had performed similar procedures... though mostly many millennia ago, which is why the heiress was actually slightly nervous.

"As far as I can tell, the Bone reformation *mostly* healed correctly. Considering her Physique, that is somewhat to be expected. But there’s a missing chunk right here that I would like to deal with now instead of later."

A finger indicated the orbital rim, where part of the remaining lance of energy after sizzling through the rest of the cultivator’s defense attempt had penetrated through. When she first scanned the Dame Goltbred with her spirit - the minute she got close enough - El had squatted, hugged herself, and had to *just breathe* a while. Hidden in the gardens of the stone forest which she was adding some final touches to, she waited as her *miraculously surviving* mother tromped along toward the Astral Exclave mansion.

Guided by a similar illusion as had been performed for her disciples, two other women sent by her Qat had also made the special trip to such an inexplicable place. One of the extra bodies whom she’d met in person during the Descent was Zonnel... and the other was one whom she’d never met at all. A squeamish, depressed individual that the medical fairy had no desire to coddle. Not after having ’fixed’ a Zyris level mental state once already - it was NOT going to turn into a *thing* for visitors, she decided!

"How are you intending on controlling the regeneration pattern to be more like normal tissue? Isn’t it just going to do the same thing as before?"

"A veritable galaxy of sigils etched into the regenerator tool itself. Essentially, the body knows how everything should look optimally. It built itself this way in the first place. It just needs the guidance to take its time and tend to things optimally instead of compensating itself with the immediate, realistic needs of a traumatic injury."

Deciding to show her instead of just tell, the tissue regenerator was picked up and began to hum a note. A vibratory resonance modulating the physical energy of the patient’s body. Elua used it on a section she had ’cleaned’ and the adult aged healer could see the existing tissue responding with structured dance of physical energy in her spiritual sense - and also just her eyes. New growth began to weave in cross-hatch patterns at a random rate... translucent and low in pigmentation at first.

Until a hand shifted and the note changed, rapidly fixing that quality and more in the prepared section. Over in only a minute, Zonnel watched as a pinky-tip sized area of ’new wound’ turned appropriately fleshy toned. Looking just a bit different from the rest of Yatrel’s facial skin still, but much closer to ’fixed’ than what had just been excised from her face. However, El did not want to get ahead of herself and heal the rest before she made sure the bone was done.

"You are a Primalist so you have quite a bit of energy accumulated. But our wounds don’t fix themselves for free. I’m sorry that-"

"I already drank it once. I can do it again if needed."

The duelist interrupted her daughter, who had spent time instructing her even before allowing the taste of ’dense’ nutrients that was the processed tree bark and saps. A crash course on the steps toward a better catalyzing process for consumed food being converted to physical energy. She was a little worried about the imbalance that might create in her father’s ability to survive her mother’s ’moments’ - but that was later Goltbred problems, not current ones!

"Besides, I know I threw up the first time but I think it is growing on me. My sweet girl’s home cooking."

"Please don’t insult me so clearly, mom. I was not seeking to make this stuff taste good at the time... but I’m still going to spread this out over three days. Rushing is the worst thing I can do."

"Like constructing a building. Making sure each layer is stable before building on top of it. I do get it, dear, you don’t have to keep reminding me of the process you explained."

"She does."

Zonnel spoke up then looked away embarrassed. The two sets of similar mint eyes darting toward her were both overwhelming!

"...I-I mean that’s just what healers do. It might annoy some patients that think we are belittling their intellect, but it reassures more people than it irritates... I think. From personal experience."

Explaining herself about over-explaining in front of the mother-daughter pair felt horrifying. Especially when she slipped in her Empathic control and felt the rebounding spike both ’extra bodies’ had been well warned over on arrival. The heiress would not take attempts to ’read’ herself, especially now that she was going facadeless and acting out on her true emotions in the first place! She felt that if her face couldn’t show it now, or her spirit didn’t make it clear with strong intent, then no one needed to know it at all - except the one person she would let in the depths.

"Anyway, we’ll do another session tomorrow morning."

Pivoting from the woman’s talk and using the nice gauze that had been brought by the former member of her beloved’s strikeforce, the brunette covered the opened wound on the reddish blonde. It was pretty much this alone that made El let her watch - not having to use the bandages made of dress rags she had prepared.

"It should remain unpainful, but let me know if that changes. Try not to bump it, don’t poke at it and-"

Being fussed over what seemed like excessively to the single mint eye’d cultivator, Yatrel finally simply pulled the girl whose smiles did not seem so bright into a hug.

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

The first prosthetic calibration session happened only two days later, the Bone healing exceptionally quick - and quite possibly stronger than ever. El was afraid to tell her crazy duelist of a parent that last part.

Or more specifically, that she could likely break all her bones intentionally before directing the healing like she had... to end up with a skeleton that was denser and sturdier than average. The fairly devoted daughter did not want to use her whole remaining time away from Qat on such a periodically grotesque task!

"This will feel strange at first. Your spirit needs to form connections to the interfacing sigils and it is more reliable if I... well, it won’t be painful, but it will be disorienting when I tug."

In Yatrel’s palm was the finely crafted eye that she had been staring at. She thought it may a little macabre to be holding an object, so artfully *realistic* despite its intricate parts, with it aimed looking at herself. However, part of her actually felt better by getting to really touch and examine what was going to be seated inside her skull for the indefinite future. The other part was mildly concerned that she would be walking around with something a number of people may want to ’borrow’ to research.

While energetic beams traveling in very specific directions thanks to artifacts were not actually common, that did not mean that everyone in their world retained full function in both their eyes throughout their lives. Mortal diseases, worldly accidents, and of course miasmic Void injuries during Descents - when their Rending attacks caught such sensitive places. She could recognize that her daughter’s ancient, lost technology was... attractive, to a certain sort of people.

The same type of people who had tried to monopolize her ’simple’ enhancement to well digging rituals. Which is one reason why she told Elua to schedule this procedure while the Empath was busy taking care of the other room-bound cultivator. It was not as if the Dame Goltbred held no sympathy for her situation, but if she only wanted a place to lick her heart’s wounds... agreeing to come to a faraway dimensional bubble, no matter how similar to her daughter’s ’waiting it out’ purpose, was a bit melodramatic!

"I’m ready."