The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 364 - Alone For A Spiral, Except That Speck

Elua closed the door to ’their’ quarters with unusual gentleness, as if afraid that a harder push might disturb the perfect preservation of Qatrand’s presence within. The room remained exactly as it was that morning when she snuck out. Except the bedroll was now neatly arranged and the muscular teen was no longer laying on it.

Spare training clothes had been folded in precise stacks, with a mint colored polishing cloth set beside the weapon stand. Hanging from a hook on it was her silver dress, left hanging where her beloved would see it as she gathered her things before leaving.

’So she’d wonder what I was wearing instead. What I was planning to do, exactly. And just maybe...’

Sealed away from public view, her shoulders lowered as she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It wasn’t like anyone could see her coming back anyway, with her illusions working at full scale to separate her from reality. But even that hadn’t allowed her to relax.

Activating one of the many rituals carved on threads, a minimal ghost of a silhouette had recorded everything as her Qat brushed fingers along the metallic skirt. Had touched the shoulder sleeve and petted a thumb over one of its gems.

"She will be fine."

A distorted low tone filled her ears, giving the illusionist a private look at her beloved’s behavior when she wasn’t around. Eavesdropping was a bad habit - Elua knew that. But she didn’t regret setting this up.

The ancient cultivator *did* somewhat regret its low quality. However, that had been an intentional choice precisely because she understood what she might do... had it been closer to ’perfect’ than this. Smashing her way out of the wall to run after her precious gem and stay in her shadow would not be out of the question.

"The squad she formed is well-balanced. Her combat capability exceeds the statistical average of any two members combined." freewebnøvel_com

Elua stated to the empty room, her voice flat. The fox had settled near the desk, watching as she moved through the space with increasingly less controlled movements. Her fingers trailed across the few of Qatrand’s remaining possessions left there while speaking to herself.

"This separation is necessary. It creates the growth she needs as a cultivator. The recognition she needs as a person. The independence from me she needs as... as a woman...."

Yet even as she spoke these logical assessments, Elua found herself curling onto her husband-wife’s scent remaining on the unfurled bedroll. Her hand pressed flat against the fabric and rubbed where her spouse’s body had rested just hours before.

Where she had just fallen asleep over top of the blonde after talking about all her worries. Mint eyes remained dull and lifeless, but flashing glows of an advanced spirit sparking against a tightly coiled essence field betrayed the turmoil beneath.

"I did anticipate this. The relief of no longer fighting physical urges moment by moment... but encountering this hollow feeling."

Even as she tried to focus on that lodestar of pigeon blue, the gulf of emptiness stretching around it looked insurmountable. Her hand pressed harder against the bedroll. Knowing that at any second she might ’grip’ too hard and destroy it - and probably the room’s floor underneath.

"It’s irrational, yet I knew. Counterproductive, yet it’s happening. I’ve endured centuries alone in the past. A decade of isolation away from a partner, when I had no choice. Why should months feel so... impossible?"

The fox tilted its head at the strong cultivator it had decided to ingratiate itself with. Amber eyes held that intelligence which sometimes seemed to exceed its animal nature, but it was still a beast in the end. It could not parse these complicated words.

"She will be constantly surrounded by admiring cultivators. This is a good thing. Leysah has enough emotional complexity to be troublesome, but not overmuch. And the Empath..."

Elua er Goltbred, the Acid Tongued Villainess and master spiritualist... hated Empaths. Not because what they did was something she couldn’t, in her own way, but because the ’skill’ was core to them.

"She will sense Qat’s every mood fluctuation, creating an artificial intimacy that shouldn’t exist. Instinctively reacting the way that fits those emotions and my spouse’s needs."

Her fingers curled, gathering a handful of the bedroll’s fabric and ripping it unintentionally. Losing the usual shielding of her Ogre Physique, she forced her body to ’relax’ by toggling off her brain’s connection with her limbs. A useful technique for ’playing dead’ that she hadn’t really had much reason to use in this life.

’Though I have a feeling I’ll need to use it frequently to just stop myself from going too far when she gets back...’

Eventually she calmed down enough to remove the artificial paralysis, open her mouth and speak to thin air again.

"I’m being ridiculous. Qat has proven herself far too loyal to be swayed by such things. Her disgust at merely Kefa’s lingering gaze was genuine. But Empaths are insidious precisely because they can better sense when to push and when to retreat than the usual thieving cat."

Elua rose suddenly, barely not ’stomping’ in the confined space. She hadn’t been blind to the ’respect’ in the young healer woman for the heiress herself. Of the wedded couple, it was even more likely that the Empath would ’try’ and seduce the brunette instead.

"But things always change on long campaigns. Silly young cultivators that don’t know their preferred type until it lands in their lap."

She knew every mistake she was making even while voicing her thoughts aloud. Knew that she was trying to manufacture excuses and good sounding reasons to break her own plans and promises. Just like her body had been doing for some time now.

"Was puberty so bad? I really do not remember anything like this..."

Grumbling, she sat at the small desk and worked. On physical notes, illusory blueprints, and from time to time she just... cut, stitched, and filled little leather bean bags with seed hulls. A craft with no purpose other than to distract her hands.

’I suppose the children in the fort will like them, at least. I better make sure there are no rough edges. On these... and on myself.’

Night eventually fell as Elua attempted to meditate rather than sleep, seated cross-legged on the undestroyed side of the bedroll. Her focus turned inward - to the spiritual fragment despite knowing it was already beyond spiritual range... it was still the closest piece of Qat that existed to her, for now.

"Someday you’ll be yourself. I truly hope this side of me isn’t something you get. I know you’ve probably been swimming in it too frequently. So if you do grow this hopeless, I’m sorry. I just love... your source mother too much."

Her hand rested over her own heart. She knew that Qat admitted to talking to the fragment, pretending that Elua could hear. Starting mornings while they were apart, still reaching out and greeting her.

But that wasn’t something the ancient cultivator could do. She couldn’t see the unique proto-spirit as anything other than another identity entirely. So if she was going to talk to it, she was going to talk to *it*.

"Little stained spirit speck of my most precious gem, you’re so far away from coming into the world and understanding me - but I can still deal with it. I don’t think it’s too long or too short in the same way. Does that make me callous? Or am I just... really like your grandmother."

The question hung in the darkness, unanswered. But she didn’t need it to be, for she knew she was ’worse’ than Yatrel er Goltbred... in the many ways that made a person grow cold to others. In fact, she would be happy if she could perform a quarter as well at being a mother as that woman.

"I should pen a letter to that effect. It will pass more time and get some of that off my chest."

By morning, she would need to be the ’emotionally composed’ heiress once more. The talented sigilist ’prodigy’ with valuable skills to contribute to the war effort. The supportive spouse of the heroic new strike force commander... that just couldn’t stay idle.

With only a fox’s sleeping breath and the quill scratching deeply respectful and loving words underneath a single lit essence lantern, she allowed herself to be simply Elua - a mother’s first ’auspicious’ daughter.

Desperate for guidance and comfort even as an ancient spirit trapped in a young body.

Separated from the one being that had given her reborn existence actual meaning these eight years, after floundering the first six... with thoughts of mere survival for the sake of it.

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