Chapter 597: Chapter 597 - Expectations That Rouse One’s Soul... Can In The Same Soft Breath Become Unkept Hopes That Crush Down Another

The station that would begin the first leg of the long trip towards the eastern plains had been expanded after the Descent, for obvious reasons. A longer hall of pale stones extended the embarkation area and a new glass roof extended over an exterior marketplace. It turned the outside into a meeting grounds that let the morning sun down on passengers waiting for departure without forcing them inside the packed station proper.

Like most things built during the post-Descent recovery periods, it tried a little too hard to look as though nothing had ever gone wrong five years prior. An irony that always seemed to exist around places that led toward the territories granted to new Heroes. A way of showing that progress would keep on and on... that the Voidling invasion cycle was a blip on the path of civilization and not what would ultimately defeat them.

Elua appreciated the hubris of the survivors - she really did. Especially in the face of countless ruins dotting the continent alone, before even considering across the world, which served as proof that *something* had taken down the great rises of kingdoms, empires, and what have you. All of it throughout however long it had truly been since she had last been on this planet as Uvraneht.

Of course she appreciated it mostly because it meant the tedium of train schedules were kept by the bureaucracy of societies. While there were ways to travel faster alone, as a Breacher, they were more complicated in a group. Personal power may be one thing that she could only limit so much, but she was still quite insistent on not bringing technological advancement - or rediscovery, rather - to a world that didn’t even think spiritualism was a worthy thing!

"-and then they would not be peeled off each other for a full thirty seconds. I do not think either heard a single word the headmaster was saying about visiting hours and dinner schedules."

The Goltbred heiress delivered the account of the night at the orphanage with fondness - finishing the part about her sister and the blond girl making up. After explaining about the bit of noble gas light show she put on for the crowd, during which the pair had sat together and talked. She and the other woman listening to the story stood a little apart from all the motion around them, near a pillar of the station roof with plentiful almost empty benches.

"I remember having to pull you off of your father or Qat. It must be a family trait."

"I don’t recall what you mean. For one of those people."

"Lady Elua... I see you really still haven’t grown up that much, despite how you look."

They talked closely... the way a master usually allowed of a servant they were fondest of. At least Klaytei was that person most times, though it was definitely their cook the other night who qualified for that malleable superlative.

’I am sure that feeling had nothing much to do with her running away to have a semi-romantic family meet with *that* woman! It was just really, really good food.’

"Well. I have decided to find your sense of my maturity less insulting than I once might have. Mostly because I am no longer pretending to be a normal child."

"It... amazes me."

"What?"

"That you think you were doing a good job of ever pretending that. You were never normal. Do you know how easy I had it compared to other nursemaids?"

Klaytei had been the one to towel toddler Elua down for baths or anything else a mother would normally do while Yatrel eventually returned to work. She sat outside study doors as the growing child read on her own, in rooms that were never quite closed (she thought). The use of illusions for real cultivation privacy notwithstanding, and whether repeated *daydreaming* was to blame for why the mortal woman grew fond of a former Coiled Serpent Guild liaison...

She knew more her charge’s life in these years than anyone other than Qat. Even Yatrel and Ondua only knew ’more’ because they had been told things about the girl prior to her rebirth. But if someone was judging the objective experience of El from baby to adult... then the middle aged woman that had been with her for almost every step of the way until the Exclave was the unmistakable expert. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

...Again, if you could truly trust her, after the number of times her brain had been fiddled with. While guilty and regretful of the minimal times she had wiped the very short term memory of Yatrel, the spiritualist had done it far more to this woman... so that she actually didn’t *remember* what the reincarnator was really getting up to a lot of the times! A fact which El was not measurably proud of, but wasn’t sure she would do differently all things said.

"Yes. I think I have a fair grasp of the level of difficulty you faced."

Her response to the bit of criticism was a comfortable one. Showing off the affection one might show a nice enough chair that one had owned for a long time, though not necessarily the antique furniture piece one would run back into a burning house for. A good chair that had been maintained and a good guardian that had done her job nonetheless - so she was honestly loved and well-wished.

Within the bounds of what was actually present as feelings between them.

Though anyone, at any place on El’s ’list’, was still someone to be taken good care of. Constrained again to how doing so affected her ability to live alongside and love Qatrand, of course. And Klaytei was one of the few who had gone out of her way, more than not, to be permissive and helpful toward that end.

"And yet that face tells me you think you know better than I do."

"Does it?"

"One of us has grown. We will just move on, my lady. You had a good time, is what you are getting at?"

"Yes. And I want to keep going back, is the thing. When our children grow up."

"Your children... isn’t Qatrand-"

"You’ll see."

Mint eyes took on a wistful cast to them. Seeing how Onya had grown to interact with everyone had been lovely. She knew that a single factor didn’t make a person better or worse, but such a place with such tragic situations had a nice habit of letting the naturally good tumbling together and refining the unnaturally bad spots. At least, that was how she tended to look at orphanages.

"It would be simple to keep doing what the families with money usually do. Sign a ledger, host a charity dinner every now and then, let a steward carry the basket of money and goodwill. No one in affluent circles would think less of me for doing what is already more than most can."

In her last life, El did do things that were targeted to stand out... or to go under notice. Which is why she was pretty sensitive to the political repercussions of most things. And also why she could make the consequences quite spectacular if that was her aim - like having all the whispers of her return focused on the situation with the Yecine rather than on where she had been all this time. At least, before that bigger buzz settled down and she successfully fled to a different city!

"But our kids? The simple way is not good enough. They should have experience with whatever form of hardship will spring up within Qat’s territory."

"You keep saying ’kids’ and ’children’ like this is not a big deal. You are two women. Right? You are aware that I am also in love with a woman that would clearly produce lovely-"

"If there is not a place waiting there yet, I will have it ready to help any orphans before it is needed. As much as it would be nice to pretend those places could be abolished or limited for the *right* reasons, it is far too naive and idealistic to refuse to prepare for the reality of life and wars."

"You can call me immature if you want, even as you pretend I am not speaking like my sister with her fingers in her ears. But I will not move on from this. Is there a way that someday..."

A cultivator’s hand took the mortal’s and squeezed it. Softly, sadly - and with a sigh aimed squarely at herself... that she had been a bit *too* chatty. Seeing all the kids and taking the trip with Onya had made her start looking forward to the far off day even more. And like it or not, this ’second mother’ figure that co-existed in the servant’s identity was someone she wanted to be happy for the situation to come. But now she had to break the little hope she dangled out and then tried to barrel past.

"No. Not with the method I have access to. It requires... spiritual energy of a certain magnitude to potentially take hold between partners. It is not something that can be done with a mortal."

"I see."

The same expression El was making mirrored on Klaytei. The smile that reminded one of a fire that couldn’t ever be stoked up to the perfect heat to melt worries. Frozen at that imperfect temperature that you immediately knew was not at all happy. She squeezed tighter on the young woman she helped raise for a few seconds before easing up. Before putting words to the straining fear.

"Then I will die before her. And still leave only the memories."

"I told you both it would not be easy. But she is choosing to put the effort in with you. To make you happy and leave no regrets. Is she not?"

Truthfully, she did not know or care that much about Dima’s resolve toward this matter. Whether she was resentful of the idea of not having kids or going to go mad trying to come up with a method to do so. But they were good sounding words that El could use to manipulate the moment back on track!

"Yes. She is. You really should have seen how awkward she was when meeting my parents, it was just the loveliest-"

"Please let go of my wrist right now."

The woman had caught it as the cultivator tried... to flee from the moment that had only gone more off the rails. Showing off the grip strength of a servant who could wash laundry, the traditional back breaking way, just as well as any other staff member of the Goltbred household. Her mood had also done a strong pivot, from the moment of devastation to a moment of triumph.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"So I can get away from this conversation!"

"You really are such a child. And after all the ’Qat this, Qat that’ I endured for years. I do not get a single minute of reciprocating toward you that Dima is my heart’s desire?"

"See, I know you. A minute will become ten will become an hour. And the train leaves in fifteen minutes."

Their bickering was not loud, but it did draw *some* attention. From a woman nearby who did not yet - or may never - have this sort of relationship with her own charge... considering Onya and Aurehl were quite different people than Elua and Klaytei.