The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 507 - Flipping A Chessboard Doesn’t Erase The Pawns, Nor Will Dying Them Black Change The True Master
Navuill walked in and settled into one of the new chairs at a meeting table meant for territory business with the ease of someone who’d done so before. Even though he hadn’t had free time to come visit with his new duties and mostly sent letters, he had been to this office more than once over the years since it began to take its shape. Including to hand deliver the blade he had used during the Descent which his cousin had requested to keep hold of.
Taking the seat right beside him, more carefully, while propping her weapon case gently against the armrest... Rezzue’s posture was excellent but not quite *comfortable*. She was growing back into herself and a sense of ’confidence’ in who that was, but was finding all of it to be a slow thing in some respects. Made even more nervous by the fact that this meeting was with an extremely confident person in many areas of life - it felt like she was being introduced to Lirades er Yecine all over again.
Which left two boys to stand near the door with similar uncertain attitudes. The pair did not know whether they should sit, like the two adult relatives they had been sent here with... or remain at attention, like this was an official meeting with Yecine elders. Qatrand easily understood the sort of conundrum they faced and didn’t make it any harder for her half-brothers than necessary.
"Sit. You’re here as family, not as soldiers reporting for duty."
Kaland and Ajoreal exchanged quick glances before complying with Qat’s ’order’, with the younger’s relief so much more openly obvious on his face than that of his older brother. With a little smile and an averted gaze, they both felt she was much warmer and less stern than she looked.
As they settled, the swordswoman stepped over and leaned into the windowsill instead of a chair. Where she could see her four guests as well as the nearly three year old settlement beyond the glass. For a few seconds, she simply stewed in past meeting present. In future being carved out by so many hands, minds, and wills.
Her experience without her wife ’fully’ backing her with a constant presence had been strenuous. It left her with romantic needs unmet that she could never have imagined and vulnerable moods uneased, like knots of muscle spasmed and awaiting a certain frequency of warmth. But it had taught her even more about what she was good at, what she was not, and why she had needed the distance to realize these things just as much as her El required it for her own reasons.
’Someone to hug when I’d like to would be nice though. A person that isn’t Onya, Yatrel, or... Talva, who has been... changing a bit since motherhood began.’
The first was cute but not the right kind, the second mint and loving... but not the right kind! And her maternal cousin was just much too muscular to ever find enjoyable. To the point that it made the twenty year old Warden Patrician wonder what her El even saw in that kind of body type.
While also firming her decision to have a firm talk with the Ryleon family woman about keeping that sort of growing touchiness... away from the Goltbred heiress when she returned. Navuill cleared his throat because of the possessive emotions she was putting out and pigeon blues locked sharply onto steely grays. Blonde strands around her bangs darkened, like a sun that had peeked behind rainclouds for a passing moment.
"Your letter mentioned only that you needed to discuss something important. Judging by the people you brought, I can only assume it involves them."
"It does. I hope you can listen calmly, but we can go slow and take breaks if you can’t."
The young Yecine elder paused after speaking warmly, seeming to gather his thoughts while placing his hand over those of his wife. She had folded her own in her lap, but was squeezing with them together a bit too tightly - and his Astralism was alerting him to her tension. From the conversations they had about this decision, he knew that was partly for her own reasons... and also because she was kind enough to worry about how Qatrand would take some things.
"Anper was released from house arrest about three weeks ago. He’s been... very active since then." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
Of course, Navuill was more certain of Qat’s mental strength than most. He had never been all that worried how she would react to this part. Her spirit was as placid as could be at that part of the news, tendrils not contracting or expanding in any highly ’visible’ way. The only ripples of emotion at all seemed caused by the curious watching faces of her siblings who had expected to see some kind of anger.
"I see. I guess it has been about that long."
"Slightly early from the original sentencing, actually. By a month and a half or so. He finally made his first appeal throughout the entire punishment length and the council voted at a majority... that it had been ’sufficient’ time."
Walking over and sitting down at the table with everyone, the swordswoman held a rigid posture with hands crossed over her strong chest. It didn’t go unnoticed by her that Kaland sat a little straighter - or that Ajoreal’s bright eyes looked at the motion with his shoulders twitching like he wanted to copy it. For she was used to being the center of attention, and used to double checking that her physical energy was not pooling on her skin and activating Cynosure.
"I’m not sure what assumptions I should be making - how to combine this news with this visit. Or why the details couldn’t be sent by letter, though I am happy to have the company."
After a single small chuckle at her ’friendly’ last moment recovery, the Empath tapped his free hand’s index finger sharply on the table and shook his head. He barely understood what exactly was driving that man himself. Most everyone respectable in the family put distance from him after the revelation of the plot against the Goltbred’s led to Qat leaving the family. But there were some who could not quite separate their path from his so easily, nor did they necessarily want to.
"It was by request of their mother. He had been making aggressive social inquiries through his few remaining intermediaries, even before this release. The kind that tend to draw attention and resentment... especially when other families he is riling up seem to have nothing to hide."
"So that’s what has been happening."
Leysah had actually reported to her a week ago that there had been a kind of change in the search for cultists. Like the secret investigation which Sevra - and an arm of the Void Defense Society - had been conducting into the whereabouts and potential accomplices of the merchant Teovar had been made bulletin board level news. That, suddenly, the term Ouras was being sent in letters to the Council of Guilds with clarifying questions.
Total ignorance of a cult presence had turned into total suspicion of it. Far more thoroughly and quickly than the investigators wanted an enemy syndicate to be known about so soon after wartime and so soon after the Saltfire troubles. Qatrand also felt that fear was not a good tool to come to rational answers with, and could only sigh as she made the easy connections.
"I talked to him a single time before he left. He’s convinced there is a way to handle this problem quicker than is being done. So he is attempting to handle that on his own."
"That sounds like something he would think. So that means he convinced you to bring them here for-"
"No. Their mother came to me two weeks ago. After he left the estate."
Rezzue spoke up for the first time since their arrival. With a quiet, but clear voiced interruption. Her pear-colored eyes didn’t waver when she met her cousin-in-law’s attention, though there was still a bit of deference in tone to someone with a position of rule in another territory. However, her hand did wrap and tighten around her husband’s... just for moral support.
"She was worried. Anper had been... different after his release, she claimed. Focused on going out to do something she didn’t fully understand. But it made her concerned for her children’s safety."
Motherhood was something that the younger woman had been thinking of these years, with their spousal relationship being so nice. There were of course rules in the family about timing. About permission to conceive so that available cultivation resources were not strained. She was deciding she disagreed with a lot of the rules of the Yecine.
So when another cloistered wife plucked at her heartstrings, she sung an accompaniment without any hesitation.
"She asked me to speak up for her, to Navuill. To find somewhere safe for them away from whatever attention his actions might attract to the Yecine estate or his personal holdings."
"And I’m the one who thought of coming here. I think you know why."
Frowning a bit at that, as she’d disclosed some minimal details about the realmshard to him in the past when testing whether he would be interested in being stuck on an expedition... the thought of sending her siblings to the Astral Exclave and foisting them on Elua thanks to Anper’s situation felt off. The whole situation felt a little fishy, even if she believed the people speaking had pure intent.
Qat knew quite well from her own schemer of a reincarnator wife that innocent pieces could easily be moved as pawns. She suspected that this was at least, in part, some attempt by a different party to confirm that she had ownership of the artifact that went ’missing’. Especially if Anper was out after Teovar now and knew that the object was at one point related to him.
"There are a lot of practical problems with that sort of solution."
"You’re building a territory from the ground up and have limited time for watching two young boys. But I can’t think of anywhere more secure."
"It’s not an entirely safe place. My father-in-law stressed that to me quite heavily when he came back. It’s why I’ve been considering carefully who to-"
"Send me with them. If you’re willing to entertain our request."
Looking over at the red-haired woman and feeling her conviction, an exasperated sigh blew from Qat’s mouth. Leaning back and pushing at her bangs with spread fingers, she didn’t particularly care that she was showing more emotion than someone of her former family should. She often had to make a lot of quick decisions based on incomplete information and the certainty of others involved.
"I’ve never left these lands before. Not really. My family lives on the outskirts of Yecine holdings. So the idea of seeing somewhere entirely different, even briefly... and they will need someone. Someone able to take care of them so that Elua is not bothered."
’No, she is going to be bothered no matter what. She knows that I wanted to help them. There is no way she will see their cultivation and leave it alone. This is not going to end well... just like her plan with those manacles would never have worked.’
While a ’fortress’ defended itself against her own jealousy over others gettings to spend time with her wife while she had to veto an idea that was clearly doomed to fail, the two whose fate was being discussed at that point around the table seemed... to have not been told the full plan by the two adults currently in charge.
They didn’t know about the coming teleportation, the essence density that would cause a bit of a medical emergency, the combat drone hell that awaited, or anything of an Illusory Maze that was currently being fixed back up. Only that a name was just spoken that made them even more nervous than they had been to meet with their eldest sister.
"...Where is it we are going?"
"I thought we would just stay with you. You’re sending us to..."
For the most part, their last and longest interaction with Elua er Goltbred had been at the competition grounds. If they felt that Qat had no real *reason* to care for them after what their father had done, they would equally agree that her spouse could *despise* them for the things they’d said in the past. Remembering that terrifying spiritual pressure only made the two boys grow paler and paler!
