The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 125 - …While The Petals Of Possessiveness Fall One By One In Solitude

Chapter 125: Chapter 125 - ...While The Petals Of Possessiveness Fall One By One In Solitude

The not-yet ten year old heiress saw her beloved’s quiet determination to fulfill her duty and the potential to remain true to herself. Her attraction to those who protect others like it was absolute nature - and not *second* nature was nothing new. It was at the core of all of her romantic pursuits throughout her last life.

’I love her. It’s so hard to not lose control of my intent in front of all these people and drown them in my spirit. Oh, look at me and just understand I love you! Ugh. Someday... I’m not going to be able to hold back.’

The worst part was she knew it might not come until she was even *stronger* - once she figured out a way to reach Breacher. The ancient cultivator had known since the moment she paid enough attention to the falsely gendered ’boy’ on the day they met... that she was never going to stop spinning head over heels until forced to.

But that day and so many others since, the brunette had felt like the rate of spin was going to make her overwhelmingly dizzy with nothing but Qat able to fit in her mind, sight, and heart.

--->

Elua sighed, laying in her bed and drenching herself in the memory one further time. When it was done, she reached out with her spirit trying to connect with the fragment she’d given her ’fortress’. The connection was *there*, but frustratingly quiet due to the distance.

She could at least feel the part of herself - melding into something more - that resided in Qatrand. Yet the rest of her beloved remained tantalizingly out of reach... all due to a mission assigned to her so *quickly*. For a while, she fumed at the Guild that dared to separate them!

But even she knew that such a grudge was silly and would never be approved by her beloved. This led to her thinking of many other such things that Qatrand er Yecine might not sanction. She rolled over in her bed as a thought crystallized, shattered, and reformed until it was as solid as diamond. The young teenager murmured out in a monotone within the empty room.

"There’s no way I can let Qat wander around the warzone on her own, when the Descent comes. I’ll need to find a way to reasonably be by her side almost all the time, no matter what. Especially if I intend to manipulate events where I can for her benefit."

The resolution brought a twitch to her lips that might have been an attempt to smile. She would scheme to ensure that future separations would be far fewer and shorter. After all, what good was all her power and knowledge if she couldn’t protect the one she loved most while hiding... standing close at hand?

The girl’s spirit chilled as her ideas of protection drifted to less socially pleasant territories. The image of that challenger at their wedding... his eyes fixed on her Qat with barely concealed drunken desire.

As potentially misplaced as it was - if the man’s preferential orientation was for the falsehood the Yecine presented and not the person underneath - it still spoke of the general desirability of her husband-wife. An official claim like marriage usually took care of most of these problems, but her mother’s history was proof that this peaceful society did not take the threat of touching others’ things as seriously as they should.

There was that flirtatious liaison from Qatrand’s mission to the anomaly site, after all... and both of those making ’trouble’ *knew* that the Goltbred and the Yecine were betrothed at the time.

"Those with good eyes, but covetous hearts. All the more reason to stay close. I won’t give anyone the chance to even think they could steal what’s mine."

Elua sat up in her bed while muttering in a bitter monotone. She began to hug her knees to her chest while trying to contain her spirit. The ’ugly’ possessiveness that surged through her was familiar... a lurid remnant of her past life that she had never quite managed to *fully* put behind her.

When trust is given to the one you loved, it is either kept or broken. Despite it being the latter more often than the former, the schemer only had the capability to hand her faithfulness out completely or not at all.

Some treated trust as a structure that could survive damage and repairs... but for long lived cultivators inhabiting the world, betrayal equaled death - one way or another. It was more like a personalized, limited edition coin, to the ancient cultivator. Expecting it to either be cherished until the one holding it perished or ascended did not seem like it should be so difficult, to her.

’I trust Qat. I don’t trust anyone else. Too many others have taken from me.’

Her dark thoughts brought to mind another separation, one from her first millennia that still burned in her memory with as much startling clarity as her more recent days with her latest beloved.

<---

The desert sun beat down mercilessly, the heat of it shimmering off the purple sandstone of the city walls standing in the distance. The known Acid Element cultivator stood at the edge of a pure oasis of all things. Her light and flowing desert attire seemed to blend in a little with the lush plant life surrounding the water.

The fabric, though practical for the harsh climate, was adorned with intricate embroidery befitting her status as both a cultivator and caravan guard... and more than a few practice level sigils were carved on bone discs. She had started to develop an interest in them lately, thinking that she might some day make a functional gift for the woman approaching behind her.

"You’re leaving, then?"

The woman Elua once was asked loudly, not wanting to turn and face the resolute eyes she knew her wife had. She couldn’t let herself fall even harder in a moment like this. A reply came, soft with coaxing and tinted with a frustratingly weak ’regret’.

"I must. The southern tribes are rallying. As the vizier’s daughter, it falls to me to meet them while he is occupied."

The reflection of her blank, lifeless face in the water rippled as she clenched her fists and her spirit ruffled the surroundings.

"And what of your duties here? To me?"

"My love-"

"Don’t."

The illusionist cut her off and turned around in a disgruntled manner that the other woman recognized as happening more and more lately.

"If you truly loved me, you’d find a way to stay - or you would ask me to go."

As she had expected, the resolve in her beloved’s eyes was evident... but so was her pain. That part brought the Acid cultivator up short, but did not extinguish the passion of her spirit. The roiling tempest of ’love’ within her only deepened when the other woman answered her demand.

"Sometimes, love means doing what’s right, even when it hurts."

In the past life, so many millennia ago, she had watched listlessly - with ’anger’ and ’grief’ struggling against her dwindling ’hope’ and ’understanding’. That was even before she knew that it would be years before she saw her again. By then... against her ancient self’s wishes, everything between them had changed.

Her wife had found someone else that ’meant more’ to her. Learning of that set off a chain of events that-