The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 503 - Phantom Of Bloody Memory & The ’Good’ Twin Of Mist
The wound inflicted should have been fatal, the swordswoman was sure. Unless... her fear had made her misjudge things. Velauyn had been stronger than her at the time, she was also certain of - but other than that, there was little that she had known about her Aspects. That day had been when she learned of her Astralism. Her Physique was a mystery and her Element...
Corde’s eyes swept the workshop again, looking for what she’d been too traumatized to see or search for at sixteen. Any evidence that explained more about what Velauyn had really been doing here. The mirror’s surface embedded in the wall still held no reflection of *people* when she stood in front of it. It was almost like, no matter the angle you looked at it, the light refracted to specifically avoid the appearance of others.
Her hand hovered near the frame, frost gathering on her fingertips as she studied the artifact that had stood witness to so many of her private lessons. So many lies. And quite possibly, all of the truth.
"It measures cultivation. Or did, according to her notes."
The cool-headed female voice came from up within the passage as Mist billowed downward - for its owner built up plenty of fog vapor thanks to the cool, Frost covered surfaces and remaining humidity. Enough that spreading it out to help deny the other cultivator an elemental advantage within the workshop was possible. Such a specific Element as control over fine droplets of water suspended in the air was still more widely usable than Frost... which usually required a starting seed of icy temperature water in order to make more.
Water, the general Element of these two particular examples, could do the same as all of them with the right control and understanding. In that regard, Elemental Aspects were similar to Physiques in how physical energy techniques that mimicked them were accomplishable with the right knowledge. The trade off was the danger of twisting the essence of Water until it matched something close enough for the other cultivator to exert deeper connection over and for the initial wielder to lose control of.
At least in ancient times, where combat with each other was as common as a greeting. The Frozen Duskblade was not of those times, yet had her hand on her namesake after the first syllable of sound. A warrior’s reflex honed through four Descents mixed with the slowly unraveling ball of nerves from being in this place. She watched with her dark eyes as a woman stepped into the workshop.
Grey colored hair-dye threaded through dark strands worn long and loose. Unlike the fancier styled locks that was favored by most of the Featherbound Frost Sorority, the noblewoman kept her hair simple. But the face she had worked alongside on quite a few missions for their instructor, even after seventy four years, was unmistakable - or rather, memorable enough to peg as *one* of the twins. It wasn’t enough to loosen her grip on the hilt, but it did loosen her lips.
"Which one are you?"
A slightly bitter smile spread as the woman’s grey eyes looked away first. Not just because she’d heard that question so much in their youth, but because she hadn’t heard it in over forty-three years. In a normal situation, she might have curtsied and acted properly... but chasing down the sudden rumor that made it to her office was hardly a normal situation. She merely spread her fingers halfheartedly over her own heart.
"Nojuste. You’ve gotten older, Corde."
"It has been a long time. Where is she now?"
"Velauyn - or my sister?"
"...I’m interested in learning about everything that happened here, so... either."
The smile faded, though the ’bitterness’ did not. It was a muted feeling, in the way that acceptance does over a long period. Yet, it had a breadth to it in the way that something which affects the rest of your life always did. Her voice, in such a nostalgic state, delivered the words as someone who’d long since processed their grief and knew not to touch the sharp edges.
"Nomersi is dead. Nearly forty years ago. Or maybe longer, depending on how you want to look at it. Velauyn took her on an expedition to an old volcano four years after you left. Only one of them came back. My sister became a fugitive accused of robbing the investors in the project while our dear Guildmate took a new position as a liaison."
"I’m sorry."
When she said this, she meant it. For just like the width of scabbed over emotion from the cultivator in front of her, Corde also had essentially accepted what she thought had happened. Her life had invariably pushed her toward a more loner, chilly personality due to the events as she had known them - but she was alive and doing well enough for herself and others. However, if the instructor really had died here and it meant that the twin would have lived... she felt that such an outcome would be preferred.
"Why should you be sorry? You didn’t kill her. Though I do wish you’d stopped to tell me why you ran back then. Since I have a feeling it was related to this place."
Nojuste stepped deeper into the workshop, eyeing the few remaining things in the room before she pulled a leather case from her shoulder. Setting it on the worktable next to the artifact, it looked well worn as if it had been repacked many times over many years. Then she did something... that the swordswoman had never seen her do in the time she had known her.
"Give me a second to fix my hair. I was in a bit of a rush to get here before you disappeared again."
Wrapping the strands into a very messy bun and locking with such a simple looking wooden hairpin that the ’commoner’ wanted to question if her noble family had gone through hard times, the other cultivator felt the classist judgement and explained herself quickly after turning around.
"My son whittled it. Any more unnecessary questions?"
"A lot of them, but we’ll keep on topic until later. How did Velauyn survive a stabbing without you knowing what happened to me?"
"What stabbing?"
Corde scoffed and shook her head. The fact that people not knowing about an injury didn’t actually tell her what could have went down was frustrating.
"This object right here. I picked it up and shoved it into Velauyn’s chest after she revealed to me that she had been manipulating my life. I thought I’d killed her. And I was sure no one would believe me about what she had told me. So I fled."
"...You’re saying you grabbed this thing?"
The woman’s hand went toward the artifact and the Frozen Duskblade left its sheath a fraction, only to pause and clicked back down after seeing a hand simply phase through the material. Clicking her tongue at the warrior-minded cultivator, knowing that she had spent more of her life now on that other barbaric continent, Nojuste spun in circles while showing that she had no obvious weapons on her person.
"Calm yourself just a bit. We’ll figure it all out. I remember that you’re the one who recovered this, but none of the people I’ve let in here to try to gather it - or the mirror -have been able to lift either. My husband thinks they are linked somehow. So lets test that memory of yours."
With a gesture at the pointy item and a hand she spread on the table, the cultivator offered something crazy that made Corde frown. So when the Anti-Essence Aspected cultivator picked up the unknown tool, the one who was testing her ended up... unsurprised that the dark haired woman tried to poke herself in the finger instead.
"It’s sharp."
"I bet. Doesn’t really prove what we need to, though. Extend it out away from you and touch my hand with it. You don’t exactly have to stab on the first go."
Sighing, the woman who knew dozens and dozens of martial styles was caught off guard by Nojuste simply slapping her hand onto the point like it was some sort of game. The flesh went right through like only air existed in the space of the artifact. At least, until she got close enough to where the one holding it with that particular Physique. Then, things became solid again and her palm bumped up against the ’hilt’ with a bit of recoil.
"There’s no blood."
"Was there some before? Looks like you were tricked. She was quite good at that, even if you ignored her Astralism. Do you know what her Physique was?"
"I did not."
"Of course not. Neither did I until I tried to cut her head off."
Waving her hand away from the out of phase material of the pointy object, she began pacing the room while staring at the strange mirror with a grimace that suggested she found it just as unsettling as the Frozen Duskblade did.
"I spent those first decades thinking that my sister had been acting odd before leaving, so hearing she became an outlaw was... reasonable. I hate to admit it, but she was kind of a terrible person and I have never considered myself to be a good one - so that is saying quite a lot. Then I started noticing the patterns when I was elevated to a Guild recruitment position."
"Are you really going to monologue again without telling me the answer to what you asked?"
Turning and flicking her hair with one hand as mist rose and swirled around her - a motion which reminded Corde too much of Velauyn - the noblewoman then turned her nose up at her peer and frowned. Every female within the Featherbound Frost was at least partially picked for their looks, and this was the exact sort of social weaponization that the swordswoman hated dealing with. The very behavior of people like Elua er Goltbred, who used their whole presence like a tool to influence others.
"Yes. I very much was. It was Blood. My research tells me that it works a little differently than Elemental manipulation of the substance, but I witnessed firsthand how she could force it out of her own pores. We haven’t seen each other in so long, but you sure still have the same mouth that insists on directing the content of my dictation, don’t you?"
"Only when *you* insist on telling stories out of order."
"If you cannot make connections unless things are laid out for you one by one, then I suppose it is fitting that you went on to that barbarian land of martial cultivators."
Sighing even louder, Corde sat the artifact back down on the table. Part of her wanted to point out that she had just been talking about cutting someone’s head off. That she had rammed her hand onto what appeared to be a weapon. Instead, she just closed her eyes and counted to six.
"Please, continue."
