The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 372 - A Firm Purpose, Without Subversion Of Self Or Its Expectations

Chapter 372: Chapter 372 - A Firm Purpose, Without Subversion Of Self Or Its Expectations

Elua considered the scout’s question, over whether they could get back. Weighing truths and half-truths of timelines and the genuine knowledge of the space she held. In the isolated emptiness of this realm, with only these two as witnesses - that she didn’t necessarily have to help leave when everything was over...

’Perhaps some further honesty is permissible. I’ve been acting out this much already.’

"Not immediately. And not without significant preparation. But there is a way."

When she answered, her heart filled with an unexpected relief. Qatrand would be devastated by her sudden absence, if it had happened this way without the things she’d done. But the fox would deliver her message and her husband-wife would come to understand that she was safe... if displaced.

And she began to think, with this larger layer of separation, that perhaps... this was a form of solution she had been seeking all along. Forced away from the temptation that constantly tested her restraint. Even if she started working now, it might take months.

’If... I start working now.’

Thoughts weaseled their way into her head. Years of distance would allow herself to grow, physically, into her more mature self. A self that wouldn’t have to hold back and struggle with her own desire.

Yet, such a long time would have Qatrand face situations that the ancient cultivator didn’t want her to deal with alone. Let alone the fear that her ’understanding’ spouse would see any intention to stay in this place as... a *betrayal*. That was hard to dismiss.

’But... without me around, no one will think she is being controlled. She could learn from Corde, be named the hero of our region, and deal with her family in her own way. Without my meddling... without my... presence... or kisses...’

Such ’grief’ and ’determination’ pulsed out from the ancient cultivator, but there was nothing but silence on the plains. In contrast to the girl looking down with her thoughts... Madrigil, the long known to be mad noble... stared up into the very foreign sky with an expression of rapturous joy that hadn’t left him since they had gotten there.

The clamor of voices that had plagued his mind for decades, since becoming a spiritual Primalist... had suddenly, inexplicably, fallen completely silent. His mind was his own and only his own again in this place.

"How long are we stuck here?"

Sevra demanded to know, panic edging into her voice as the tales of ancient cultivators disappearing for centuries at a time rolled around in her head. The face of her brother Tarem spiraled in her thoughts, their mission to find their missing relative always vibrant in her heart...

But starting to feel incredibly secondary to the possibility of not getting to talk to her sibling for... longer than she’d been alive - for three times or ten times as long! The noble from another continent, responsible in some ways but guiltless in others, laughed aloud from where he stood.

"Does it matter? Look at this place! We could study it for twenty lifetimes! Why would you want to leave it?"

"Because I don’t want to be trapped here with either of you?! I... I mean... Miss... Lady Goltbred. Little snake? Little shadow...? That was just-"

"Stop. It will take... long enough. And only long enough."

Elua ended the scout’s obvious attempt to verbally prostrate herself before it could go too far. Dull mint eyes gazed across the windswept plain, thinking of where to go first. Her ancient spirit sensed the flows and boundaries of this pocket realm. It’s weak points that would be easy to pierce...

And its strongest, most stable sections that would give her a bit more peace of mind that she wouldn’t snap and make a ’bad’ choice. Even though it already felt like her reaction to this unexpected event - choosing to stay instead of hurrying home - was drifting towards being rather ’selfish’.

’Well, I can plan to do things this way for now, but we’ll see how I feel about this decision tomorrow. Or a week. Or...’

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

The fox twitched and opened its eyes. Ambers that burned with a subtle glow of new purpose, if not any new ’intelligence’ entirely. Foreign knowledge did thread through its animal mind, like rain rivulets across stone... or like a big insoluble stone dropped in shallow water.

Incompatible and insoluble. But altogether they created a certain ’landscape’ that would serve a purpose. A certain animus of will with clear enough directives to follow without question.

Movements as the creature stood to its feet were deliberate now, no longer the casual trotting of a pampered pet. Each step was more like before it was picked up, when gazes sent its way meant it could be something bigger’s prey. The turns of its head were more like the small pouncing predator it was - rather than the lounging fur ornament it had so willingly become.

A careful trot brought it close to the realmshard, its own instinct and the fragment’s trickled information suggesting that it was important not to leave this where it was. Teeth clamped around one of the rings and tugged it into a certain hiding spot. The one that its scary protector had hidden her own snacks in.

Pulling those food items out and stuffing the artifact in as best it could, it then got rid of the evidence. The tasty, but too spicy, dried meaty evidence. And the fragment nestled within its consciousness guided its next steps.

Through the fort’s winding corridors it traveled. Avoiding soldiers and cultivators with an uncanny awareness of their patrol patterns. It had been here for some time - and had seen when it was watched while following the heiress.

It also had a sort of glowing route to follow, similar to what Elua did for the Skydancers. Halfway across the compound, it paused, ears swiveling toward a familiar sound. The distinct fluttering of wings exactly where one of them was usually left waiting.

The fox crouched hidden behind a stack of supply crates. When the Whispering Skydancer landed to investigate some bug on the ground the fox struck. One moment the bird was pecking curiously at a tiny hole in the stone and the next it found itself pinned!

Beneath surprisingly gentle but quite immovable paws. The bird thrashed and squawked with its white eyes showing of both confusion... and *indignation*. How dare the Queen’s living scarf attack a royal messenger?!

The fox’s eyes soon glowed with mint-green light, an ethereal illumination that had nothing to do with its natural biology. The struggling bird froze when the fox lowered its head until their eyes were level. A spark of the avatar’s spiritual energy arced between them and the Skydancer went rigid.

Wing feathers flattened outward on the stone against its back as information cascaded through its small avian mind. Complex instructions, geographic coordinates, and lists of priorities... all compressed down into a spiritual package that unfurled like a cloud within its id. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

When the fox finally released it, the bird flopped onto its legs and hopped backward. Ruffling its wings, all its feathers, and shaking its head and tail as if to settle the new information properly into place across its body. Then it fixed the fox with a look that somehow conveyed both the remaining annoyance for the ambush... and an understanding of the need before taking wing.

Within the hour, because one had still been coming back from a message flight, all five Skydancers had gathered on the roof of an abandoned storage shed near the eastern wall. Four perched in a semicircle around the ’original’, who strutted importantly before them.

It occasionally emitted soft chirps, scratched its talons on the roof, and punctuated by wing gestures. Had anyone remotely fluent in this particular bird-speech been present, they might have translated something like:

/ Queen is gone. Not dead, displaced. Place-between-places. We have royal tasks left to us. Rejoice! /

After the full message was eventually delivered, one by one the four ’new’ birds took to the air. Two were split toward serving Ondua and Yatrel and another two where to remain where the disciples studied with the Talcres. The original remained behind for now, fixing the waiting fox with an expectant stare.

It knew the predator wasn’t being lazy. The beast had to wait for the right moment to sneak out, since it couldn’t just fly over the wall like they could. It pitied the landlocked servant as much as it envied its position as well fed clothing.

For the fox whose thoughts were not entirely its own anymore, temporarily, the avatar fragment provided its mission clearly. But it was a bit ’complicated’. First to retrieve the Echo Coin from its storage place among the wedding gifts - before Elua’s home belongings were looked through for clues on how she went missing.

Which meant a lot of travel through dangerous countryside to go to a place it had never been to!

It would then have to meet up with Qatrand, who would be securing the obsidian mirror still hidden in the room where the transportation occurred in the meantime. Concealed against the wall beneath a subtle illusion that might not hold for long... it had been too much of an ’existence’ by most of the rules to travel with her.

An irony of sorts, considering it was not enough of one for the Voidlings to think it was anything more than a relic. Therefore, the ancient schemer had designed other purposes for it until she returned. Which is where the original bird delivering the spark of information to the swordswoman came in.

The fragment had calculated that the Skydancer could reach Qatrand faster than the fox could navigate the complex human spaces between them. A far more expedient way of getting the sometimes raven, sometimes blonde haired cultivator who would often glare at the fox if it ’acted cute’ with the heiress.

The Yecine’s minor jealousies were so adorable to Elua, but she expected that they would just have to work together, despite their ’emotional differences’. For the part of the fox, it did think Qatrand was trustworthy and would protect it.

But the dog fox really preferred to be pampered by soft females and not stiff muscled men... Its weak spirit and the techniques to control hormones the teenager employed had robbed it of any realization that the gender masked cultivator was not what it seemed.

Following the will of the being in charge of them, the Skydancer shot skyward as a dusky twilight streak against the sky. Meanwhile, the ignorant male fox melted into the shadows between buildings when it saw a cart finally passing by.

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