The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 518 - Things Are Not Always As They Seem On Contact…
A brunette sat with her feet propped up on the library table, ankles crossed in a way that would have earned a sharp rebuke from any Yecine elder. One hand held an open book from the continent, advanced essence theory materials sent along with the two young children. The other tapped an idle rhythm against the armrest while a soft hum drifted from her throat. A meandering tune without a clear sense of melody at all.
Kaland’s eyes narrowed harshly in the doorway at what he was seeing. The posture was slightly irreverent which stuck the right cord, the silver dress looked like what he remembered it to be, and even the way she held the book... but something still felt off. Like looking at a rippled reflection. So his spirit pressed back against everything.
His Astralism - and that of his young brother - were both still like weak cloth spun up in a few months, stretched over a frame of another month or so... rather than solid walls of energy. The older’s Shield was still full of holes that could be manipulated, especially if he did not keep his attention sharp on the need to check for someone else’s spirit trying to poke through them.
It could also easily be saturated without his noticing, but Elua was trying to teach him to retain a vigilance for that possibility as well. Even if an Enchanter was never going to be able to *stop* a Breacher’s power differential, that didn’t mean it was pointless to try. Sometimes ’fortune’ favored all kinds of situations. Sometimes bold action when the strong opponent was being lazy could turn tables - or cross rooms in quick strides to kick legs off of them, anyway.
"Ow! What the-"
Brown became black in a hard transition. Mint became steel. Silver became that set of light blue training clothes Ajoreal preferred lately. Only the book remained the same as his concentration shattered before his feet even hit the floor. The young boy ingloriously pretending to be their instructor lost his handle on the technique being used to Mimic the female appearance.
As a student of false appearances, he would someday be able to do more - like the real Elua whose illusions always seemed to have some new and varied effect. Though he had only subconsciously caught on that she was *intentionally* showing off her ability to *continually* affect their perceptions. Doing that meant she still had full control - and that was something he had yet to fully internalize as ’possible’ despite all of the power she showed.
Kaland meanwhile, conscious of all his training being aimed to deflect just that sort of continued latch onto his mind... had been told not to spoil his younger brother’s delayed realization. The ancient cultivator found value in far too fanciful dreams for the sake of making people work harder, even should they never accomplish them.
’She can be so mean.’
"How did you know it was me? Also why kick, just say something!"
His voice was still pitched falsely, femininely, and it made the Sound Element wielder wince. He knew his brother was trying. That the training she was making Ajoreal do with physical energy Limited Reforge his actual vocal cords that way he could handle convincing speech while copying someone’s appearance was tough, but... his own training since becoming a Triple Enchanter was no less robust.
In fact, he had just come out of the water a half hour before making his way to the library. From his cultivation area in the lake, where he swam around frantically reacting to subsonic pulses. With the danger that - if he moved wrong after noticing - then behind the vibratory note of Sound was waiting a lashing spiritual effect. One that would wrap and trap his mind in a maze of sorts where he’d have to solve increasingly difficult puzzles just to get back out.
Or learn to block the effect out with his Shield... though he only had one out of fifty-seven successes with that. She also hadn’t yet told him he was in no danger of drowning by taking too long. That with both of their ’cultivation rooms’ as open to nature of designs as they were, there was a whole fleet of spiritual construct battle drones regularly protecting each area.
"The humming was wrong. You still can’t match her."
"Is it at least close?"
"No. Not to me, anyway. Your musicality is terrible. And you were holding the book wrong, she pinches the spine more."
The older of them walked around and settled into the chair across from the younger, with his spiritual energy still trying to turn into a shell around his essence field. It was something quite unintuitive to a martial cultivator who had been raised to press forward. Guarding everywhere at once and *only* ’guarding’... he was learning to maintain it, but it was slow.
"How do you even know how she holds her books?"
"I pay attention to details. You should try it sometime."
A spike of annoyance turned into something sharper. Ajoreal knew exactly how dense the person making fun of him was! And how terrible he was with his letters only a couple years ago. His form blurred briefly at the edges as he gained a couple inches, slightly different hair, and barely different features. In moments, Kaland found himself looking at... himself.
’It doesn’t look that much different from how he looked before, except I still wear black. Do we really look that alike?’
The Sound cultivator tried to break the ability with his Spirit alone, but it only made what he stared at wave slightly. It would be enough to confirm who was trying to trick him... but not enough to see behind the constrained form of illusion.
"You’re being childish."
"I’m paying attention to details! You should try it."
The voice parroting back his words was still fake-Elua-adjacent. Physical changes were not as quick to take hold and certainly not something a normal kid, one not yet a teenager, could perform while also manipulating his Astralism.
"Besides, you walked up and kicked me. Who is being childish..."
"You are. You’re literally pretending to be me to make me upset."
"Only because-"
Their argument dissolved into the kind of escalating back-and-forth that only siblings could easily achieve. Each trying to prove the other was wrong, wronger, wrongest. Voices rising, overlapping, until a voice with an edge made them both freeze.
"Boys. If you can’t work quietly..."
Pear-colored eyes sweeping across the scene with clear disapproval, Rezzue er Yecine had appeared in the doorway in all her pregnant, hormonal glory. Her Physique was sealed, so their fear did not come from that. It simply came from the power of a new mother being stern and sharp as hands were folded primly over a stomach bump protruding high and tight at roughly the size of a cantaloupe.
"I’ll mention to Elua that you have excess energy to burn. She only backed off on your martial training in order to help me finish some research I needed her help with. But I can very much shift my focus if you need more attention."
A bit more than four months pregnant, but looking very far along... her gentle demeanor had been stressed by many things since arriving in the Exclave. None more so than being told she was bearing triplets... bearing three *mortals*. That had shocked her into depression for a week. She had accepted eventually that the Goltbred heiress probably knew her stuff - that this was one of the ’rare cases’ that wouldn’t stop her from trying for more children at a later date.
But it had given her an edge. Thinking that she could possibly provide Navuill nothing of a cultivator legacy. Thinking that she would ever resent her children someday. One that the boys had noticed. Both of them stood to their feet and apologized.
"Sorry, Rezzue."
"We’ll keep it down. Sorry..."
She nodded once, seeing that the younger dropped his Mimic, before moving past them toward the chemistry section. Fingers traced along spines until she found the title she needed. A dense tome on highly specific acidic reactions and the mathematical tables for making use of them. She pulled it free, tucked it in a nicely made satchel at her back, and turned back toward the exit.
"See that you do. Some of us are still actually trying to learn, even when we are troubled by things."
The rebuke stung both of them. Knowing they couldn’t truly understand her adult worries, that week she wouldn’t willingly see anyone had affected them deeply. Their eldest sister’s wife was - as much as they would rather not admit sometimes - a very good teacher. But she was quite poor-natured to offer maternal succor to two young boys. And Rezzue’s kind, aunt-like energy had filled some of that need.
So much that they were already trying to figure out just how to salvage not their dignity, but any respect the woman might have had for them. Bickering there like ’normal’ kids. They were sure that a bride of the Yecine, even growing outside of that title alone, she would judge them for that.
"Though really I would have to imagine..."
The woman pausing outside the threshold did in fact judge them. Quite a bit. Red hair began to lighten, through copper tones into more expressed browns. White jacket kept so lovingly clean brightened into sparkling silver. Mint rose to a glow, entire frame changed in gradual, subtle ways as the pregnant woman instead became the unmistakably chaste heiress.
"...that I know exactly what you are up to."
One smiling so wolfishly that they were sure they were in for it. In a different way than angering their cousin-in-law. Today however, she would have to disappoint them as she actually was busy, but took the time to point to each.
"Your Mimic is improving. Though your spirit is still going to be obvious to anyone with a trained sense who knows the person well. And your Shield’s form is getting better, though there are still plenty of gaps for someone like me to snake around less direct assaults. Both of you keep it up."
For long enough that she thought to just walk away, they both stood there processing exactly how long they had been being tested and observed. Even if their hearts knew ’the whole time’ was the only valid answer.
"Where is..."
"I saved her the walk here. She’s always... cranky when she gets back from one lately. It’s tiring, consoling her. It’s no fun being stuck as vulnerable as she is. Actually, that might be good training for you. Good conditioning... thank you for volunteering."
The book floating in Adhesion behind her as she left was still the same chemistry text meant for the cultivator who had taken to the science with gusto. And the desolation she left behind her in the library at the thought of whatever new hellish training was coming... was still the same kind that the master of two new disciples took to with even more relish than she thought she would. Her spirit never hid that from them at all!
"...I really hate it here sometimes."
"No you don’t. How many Triple Enchanters do you know our age? We’re going to be so famous when we return."
"If we return. Madrigil keeps talking about us staying until... everyone but him leaves... besides, I don’t want to be famous! That’s just what dad wants for us."
Kaland sighed after finally declaring his feelings - and so did Ajoreal after hearing. Not wanting to be as successful as Qatrand, at least, sounded silly to him. They may have looked quite alike, clearly brothers, but their personalities and goals *outside* of making their father proud... were as different as their Aspects.
