The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 495 - If Given Absolute Clarity, What Choices Would You Make?

The Coiled Serpent Guild’s branch office obviously looked exactly as Dima had left it months ago. But her feelings approaching it were somehow entirely different. It wasn’t just the random offer from Yatrel, or the realization that the person she ’worked’ for was a kind of entity a bit beyond her understanding (that had been the case all along anyway!). Passing and nodding at the workers present as she headed up the stairs, the essence lanterns she’d placed the sigils on herself still cast the exact level of light she had wanted them to at the time.

So many little details meant to control her feeling of belonging in this place. Meant to prove that she could take it by the reins even if she had been cornered into taking the role. And she had done quite a good job, she thought, all this time. Which is why she could immediately note on entrance to her office that the organizational system of the desk was wrong - or rather, there was hardly one to be found.

Dima stood in the doorway of what had been her domain and felt like a stranger. When she strode to the piles of document folders on her desk, she found them arranged only by date instead of first by project type. Supply requisitions had been filed with general correspondence rather than separated and sent down to the people she had handling that. Even the building’s essence regulation charts that she’d kept pinned to the left wall had been moved to the right and *scribbled upon*, disrupting the visual flow she’d carefully brought to the environment.

’He... had his hands on almost everything in here.’

Master Wohjat looked up from the piece of lounge furniture - another new addition in the workspace by the window - with a smile of genuine relief on his face. She was pretty sure he had never smiled at her once. Certainly not when she was training and when she tried to visit just to talk about sigils and see if that would spark any interest in letting her apprentice with him. More often he had just soured and told her he was too busy to handle ’simple’ questions.

"Dima! You’re back earlier than expected. I’ve been doing my best at this bureaucracy, but I’ll be the first to admit... this is not my strength. I hate it here."

He stood up after calling her name and the woman was struck by how much... she was unmoved by him using it. The elderly sigilist she’d once thought represented everything she wanted to become. Brilliant and respected, dedicated to the advancement of their craft. She’d spent years absorbing his few lectures, studying his not often written down techniques, and aspiring to his level of mastery without needing to perform the sort of liaison work she had been pigeonholed into.

’So why is my first instinct upon seeing him in my office feel more like territorial irritation than admiration?’

"Yes. I can see that."

Forcing her voice and smile to remain pleasant even while her Clarity Astralism aligned in her thoughts, with uncomfortable truths about her own reactions. She hadn’t been happy to run into him first. In fact, she was becoming more unhappy knowing he had been here causing trouble. The cultivator wished she went to her lodging first instead... there she could have sat her pack down and bought time to sort through emotions again.

Or maybe just ran into who she really wanted to see in the dorm kitchen.

"I appreciate you maintaining operations in my absence. Truly. It couldn’t have been easy managing a branch that runs on someone else’s... organizational logic."

"It wasn’t. I’m a researcher at heart, not an administrator."

When he chuckled, it irritated her. She too researched and kept detailed records of it. Everything she did was working hard and methodically... and the skills most definitely translated she had eventually found. It had taken an adjustment period, but she had felt compelled to adjust because her own Guild had sent her there. No different than with him.

"Give me a complex sigil array to analyze and I’m in my element. Give me supply chain logistics and personnel scheduling tasks... I have new appreciation for your competence, you know."

The compliment should have pleased her and sated the agitation in her heart. This was the man whose approval she’d sought for years. And he was acknowledging her skills in an admittedly understated way. Wanting to feel ’validated’ or ’proud’ or anything of that nature, she instead just felt...

"Wohjat, I have the quarterly supply reports you requested. Again. And I need to inform you that the tea inventory is critically low once more because SOMEONE drinks an extra pot past the rationed amount each-"

Klaytei swept in carrying a ledger and wearing an unusually fierce expression on her face. But she stopped mid-sentence and dropped the book with wide mortal eyes as she discovered a person she had not expected to be there.

"You’re back."

Tone flat with shock, fists clenched tight... Dima couldn’t entirely tell what the woman was feeling. She just knew that almost everything else drowned out. Her agitation lessened and the stiffness in her back loosened, plenty enough to take a few steps in that direction. Bending down, she picked up the ledger and held it to her own chest instead of handing it back to the personal servant of Elua’s that had been working with her for quite a while.

Klaytei looked... also almost exactly the same. Months don’t create too much change in mortals that had aged past their prime years. Her dark hair was pinned back with that item she had bought when they went out together for supplies after the Descent was over. Dima remembered telling her it looked nice and she had bought it quickly. At the time she hadn’t thought any more than that they had similar taste.

She hadn’t thought much of anything too deeply about Klaytei beyond her own misunderstanding. The woman who’d delivered messages happily, organized meals and the branch office, maintained two different household schedules, and stood at the periphery of Dima’s life for years now. Except... she wasn’t at the periphery now and maybe never had been.

The woman was the was the entire focus of the room, at least for Dima. An epiphany hit with the Clarity of a properly constructed experimental sigil array snapping into place. Which caused her voice to come out steadier than she felt inside - for a hundred questions answered at once only spawned a thousand more.

"I’m back. Your Lady sent me home alone. Early."

"Of course... she did. How are... how was..."

Klaytei wasn’t entirely sure she could keep a hold of herself. Her romance novel instincts suggested that a great separation like theirs should end in at least a hug, if not a kiss. But she knew how blockheaded her Princess was just as she knew the problems with any sort of relationship forming in real life versus the fiction she’d built. Wohjat cleared his throat softly while slipping towards the door.

"I’ll just... leave the two of you alone. I sense I was about to be yelled at again and I get quite enough of that from my husband, thank you."

"I learned a lot, but I feel better now that I’m back. I think. Thank you for asking."

Barely paying his exit any attention, Dima inferred what the other woman was about to say and continued their awkward moment. Klaytei nodded and tried to find her voice - but it felt like it was missing. Not just because she used it too much in anger at the ’replacement’ for the branch manager, who had been surprisingly unbothered by the mortal’s nitpicking, but because the person she liked had been staring at her intently the entire time. It was making her self-conscious!

"Have you eaten anything this afternoon? You don’t look well."

Choking out a cough and stepping backward, the personal servant felt like screaming. How could the first part sound like an invitation and the next part immediately sound like a quarantine request?! That feeling increased when the cultivator also stepped backward... toward the desk where she quickly tidied up some space and carefully set the book in her hands down.

"We’ll go out to that stall you like and catch up. Unless your duties here today-"

"I’ll go! That is... there will be the same amount of work tomorrow to fix everything that is barely working here. So a half hour won’t ruin anything more."

"An hour."

Nervously dusting off her apron while hearing the confident correction, she tilted her head at the other woman. Dima mirrored the movement with a hand tightening around the shoulder strap of her pack. It needed to be dropped off in her dorm first, because she didn’t want to have to worry about the smaller form factor ’page duplicator’ that the heiress had sent back with her the entire time they were out.

"If we’re going to be swapping stories while eating, would a full hour minimum not be better?"

"Oh! Of course. You would want to hear about what went on here while you were gone. About... Wohjat."

While moving to the door to hurry down the stairs, the cultivator almost turned back and corrected her. That she didn’t really care too much about him unless that was what Klaytei herself wanted to complain about. But a horrible thing happened in that instant... as something took hold of the cultivator. A question of what the other party might do in this sort of unclear situation.

"I’ll be right back after I put my belongings up. Will you wait? Or will you come down with me?"

"Of course I will. Either one."

Dima decided that since it had taken her quite a while to realize her feelings, in no small part because of the servant not being straightforward in *words*, that she could have a taste of her own medicine. For a little while.

She wondered how long it would take for the misunderstanding that she had not noticed Klaytei to be made clear. And most of all, how hard she’d have to stare and how long... for her Intent to get across to a mere mortal with limited time.

’Is a week good? Maybe a month? I’m sure she’ll figure it out in less than a year...’