The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 516 - A Long Way From Letting Non-Qats Only Hug My Illusion
A certain brunette had listened - at too much length in her opinion - to Rezzue’s explanations. How both she and her husband had let down their guards with the prospect of being torn apart. About how they had stopped to talk afterwards, admitting they had both been intimate while removing the physical energy technique... the constraints that kept male cultivators producing only impotent seed and women from their ovulation cycles.
Neither of them was sure the timing of when they did that would end up actually getting the woman pregnant, but the ancient cultivator could tell. Both through the signs in the red-haired woman’s spirit - and through the cloying early Pheromones that signaled the changes starting. However, the first thing that the heiress was truly asked in return was personal to the other cultivator in a very different way.
"Is this going to affect what you will be able to teach me? I was very excited to learn."
"Well, I’ll shore up your knowledge on the potentials and limitations of cultivating in this state, but you sound like you know the key things to avoid. A lot of it is no different than a mortal’s gestation. However, it changes what I could teach you, yes."
"Oh..."
Mint eyes narrowed when the pear colored ones lowered in response.
"Listen. It changes, but that doesn’t mean it diminishes the value. Come with me."
Signaling for her to follow, the two traveled to the once hidden but now *why bother* dome shaped building where Elua er Goltbred had been performing experiments with food... and with chemistry. Calling it a mad scientist’s laboratory would not be too far off, but even Madrigil himself had looked around for a while after discovering it and admitted that the place was a bit too ’busy’ for even his liking.
Explaining to the ’older’ woman what this place was for didn’t take very long - and the interest and questions she asked seemed promising for obtaining a research assistant. But explaining some of the reasons why she would have value here took a bit more convincing.
"Acid... Element?"
"With a one in eight-hundred and forty nine chance that I am wrong. Though keep in mind that means over a ninety nine percent chance I am correct."
"Where did you come up with these numbers? And how can you even know an Aspect before it develops?"
Realizing that her game of being a ’simple prodigy’ was likely about to be broken, the ’younger’ cultivator cleared her throat in a manner which made it clear she had something to hide. Intentionally, just to make it all a bit harder to keep up and instill a sense of disbelief in her. Because life was no fun without a little risk!
"I have my ways. So just trust-"
"Okay. I do. Does that mean you can tell what the boys will have as well?"
El frowned, pouting at the pivot from curious questioning to trust-safe-family coding by Rezzue. Dealing with such a positive, willfully naive person was refreshing in ways but... sometimes felt like a giant light that couldn’t be reached by her mischievous shadows. More than that, while the reincarnator could definitely push to tease her like she had when bringing her up into the sky the one time-
’I find I do not have the taste for it as much as I did when first meeting her. Being *mean* to nice people that won’t show much - or any - bitterness is not even sport!’
"Yes. With varying levels of accuracy, I can tell what any cultivator whose spirit I can look at and focus attention on has for their Trinity of Aspects. Which is why, if we’re sticking with Element for this example, I could also tell Kaland that he most likely has Sound and Ajoreal has Lightning. Though there is room for his Anti-Shock Physique to be confusing my estimate."
"Wow! I’m glad you’ll be able to tell them. That capability sounds impressive!"
The so rapidly destroyed desire to treat this woman as a release valve for a rascal’s sense of humor... certainly had nothing to do with the heartfelt praise that she so often gave out. Or that, deep inside her lonely shell of spirit lived a worm of a thought - that Onya could also likely grow up so good and kind based on details in letters she was sent. That was why *for sure*, there was no part of her that had re-categorized Rezzue er Yecine from ’non-blood cousin’ to ’non-blood sister’ in only a matter of a couple weeks.
She sequestered away any desire to acknowledge that, like a little terrarium in the heiress’s soul. It would mean admitting that this woman - who had come to meet the brunette and learn how to be more ’fierce’ and ’imposing’ - was actually the very same sort of *naturally sweet* that Elua wished she could be. The Ogre cultivator did not want to grow jealous... and wanted to make sure she had spent long enough alone without her facade by now to really know that it was too late to be something she was not. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞
Qat had her pegged quite well with the nickname she had picked, she hoped. The ancient cultivator as a mint-drop candy... that could *be* sweet in ways, but was mostly refreshing shocks and sharply cool!
The little wife was fine with this ’compromise’ to her early ideals regarding what sort of person she would have wanted to become if she could pick the trajectory - as long as she was still deemed cute, or any pleasant sounding superlative by the person she loved, she was more than happy to give up on *forcing* the sort of change that would mean ignoring too many of the formative struggles of her past life.
"...Elua?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I give you a hug?"
"If you can tell me clearly the reason why you want to. And the reasons why you shouldn’t."
Frowning for a few moments, the novice cultivator who could only instinctually read the intentionally well expressed signals from the advanced one...
"I want to because you feel like you need one. I shouldn’t because... you might be tricking me into feeling that way?"
"Very good."
Stepping up into the air so she would have the height to pat down ’condescendingly’ on the woman’s red hair, El was still a little startled that she was grabbed from that position. Not that she didn’t have time to react, but that Rezzue had ignored the shift she’d enacted in her body to force biosignals of alarm-danger... and the Intent that even an Initial level spirit could feel, trying to warn her *not* to actually do it.
"You know, I’ve harmed people for less forwardness."
"Did you tell them they could do something and then get mad when they did it anyway?"
"...No. They usually just tried to hold onto me without any moment of agreement."
With a laugh at that, squeezing tight to the young woman who had decided to drop all of her surprising weight right down onto the person with arms encircling her waist... the cloistered wife of the Yecine showed off more of her growing willfulness. More of what made it easy for Navuill to become enamored once he actually let himself try and know her.
"Then, this isn’t the same thing! Nor have I heard anything but good rumors of you, so I doubt you have a history quite as rough like your mother’s. Besides, if you were so inherently terrible then I do not think that Qatrand would be waiting for you."
"People can still love terrible people. Whether they are doing bad things to others, or to the person that loves them."
"...You’re right."
After lowering her down the small amount left toward the ground, Rezzue er Yecine let go of the mint eyed girl tapping her shoulder. Her voice had clearly taken on that quality it held when trying to teach - calm and resonant - and it would be very improper, she felt, to treat someone you respected when they spoke in that lecturing way like *too much* of a friend.
"You also need to consider that what is terrible to some is acceptable to others. Lines of right and wrong are like rising and receding waves of gray against the colorful beat of history, against the named ocean flows of thriving and perishing societies."
Behind her back, appearing on Illusory windows, displays of so many questionable scenes of battle began. Some were single combat and some large group affairs, but all of it cultivator against cultivator. Bloody, grim, and mostly unredacted for the sake of this moment.
"That’s... what is all that?"
The detail in it was startling, even though Elua had not quite been all that subtle with the use of her Astralism so far.
"The truth. My past. Small sections of a life before this one."
"I don’t understand."
"You are choosing to be this infuriatingly caring for people, so you deserved to know that I recall all five thousand years of who I was before I was born Elua er Goltbred."
There was something different about admitting it this time. With Qat and her parents, it felt vulnerable. For Sevra, Madrigil, and some of the other visitors... she simply couldn’t be emotionally bothered to care that they knew. But while addressing their fears was a good enough motivator for them, she didn’t think it was a good one for this woman.
"I believe that I am ultimately a good person, so I am glad you believe it too. But you have to be aware that *this* is the sort of thing that has shaped me to be as bold as you find me."
A clap meant only for its theatrical flourish ’erased’ the distressing illusions and replaced them with brighter ones. Most of them recent, from her early life as an heiress to a newly affluent family. Playing with her sister especially featured in many of them, but so too did simply talking to her first chosen disciples.
"And you also must value that your immaculate boldness is just as endearing to others."
The once ancient cultivator had become someone able to be a lot more friendly and open with those at the lower range of priority for herself. Qatrand and survival still took priority, but the years had made her recognize that she had some room for more than that. For friends and acquaintances that were not just useful tools no matter how interesting their Aspects.
"Don’t lose it chasing everything I can teach, because some things are best left where they perished. You will probably find out that I stand too close to the edge of good and bad things to always tell the difference between what should and shouldn’t be known or done."
"You can tell."
Yellow-green eyes blinked once before staring firmly at El after speaking. This had certainly been a lot to take in... most things since deciding to go on this trip had been for the woman. But she’d decided to follow every little feeling of conviction and had yet to be disappointed by any of her choices so far. Her finger lifted to point to one illusion in particular when she decided to elaborate.
"And when you can’t, you have people you listen to with great trust. This person most of all."
A familiar looking individual’s calloused hand was slamming down its palm over the viewer’s head. Right at the end of the bridal test’s success, when the then ’heir’ of the Yecine was taking control and accountability for the pointed words about the family’s male cultivators which Elua had been so ’naively’ unleashing against. So confidently raising the morale of the cloistered wives.
"...That was a good day."
’I made lots of people in that house realize she was mine and I was hers~’
