The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 127 - Restless Reincarnators With Ancient Anticipations

Chapter 127: Chapter 127 - Restless Reincarnators With Ancient Anticipations

A certain heiress bit down with a frighteningly crunchy sound onto a dense hunk of nutrient rich bread. It had already been two days - TWO - since she had to soak herself in water *cold* enough to drop her Ogre fueled spike in... ’localized temperatures’. After that morning, she had made very little progress in very many areas.

"If only there was a way to maintain the connection of our fragments over such distances. A technique to bridge the gap between spirits and to feel each other’s presence no matter how far apart we are."

The absence of her husband-wife was striking her harder than she wished. But even as she entertained the wistful thought while flailing her legs hanging off her work table, she already knew the dangers. It was not as though she was new to the concept of yearning and separation - or trying to find ways to solve or deal with it.

"No. I’ve tried such things before. Some spiritual effects are replicable and extensible, but this is not one of them. The risks... they’re not worth it. Not when a miscalculation could sever-"

Her face grew blank even as her spirit boiled over, rebounding ineffectually against the newly added barriers that surrounded their small home. Making her own tantrum like outbursts power their own containment had been a novel idea! While it wasn’t safe to be *inside* for others, she at least didn’t have to keep such a tight lid on herself when things got to be too much, in this place.

’I have to stop thinking of this like those other fragments. It is not just.... it is not a tool any longer. She...’

The brunette lay back over piles of leather and just stared at the ceiling. The ancient cultivator understood that the early years of a young life, before their prime, did much to shape the later result. It is why she had been so pushy about spiritualist tendencies to her beloved, knowing that mental growth *tended* to be more rapid earlier in life - with clear exceptions of sudden epiphanies.

’Just sharing the fragments - I’d clearly done that step before with partners in the past. It did not lead to this. Qat... seems to have accepted me even more than anyone ever had. How much of that is just her young ignorance and exuberance and how much-’

Listless mint eyes closed sadly. It hadn’t even taken seconds of consideration that it was her beloved’s ’fault’ for her to realize it couldn’t be true. Her ’fortress’ was so good! The reason the process had never culminated in children in her last life was clearly a hang-up of her own and not an issue on the depth of love.

It was never safe enough. Others had not trusted her with children. She was never ready. The excuses could be mumbled on and on, but if there were to be blame... she conceded that it was hers.

’Or perhaps Onya’s existence...’

But mostly her own mentality! She was even starting to calculate the likelihood of the quick and easy ’success’ being related to another new Divinity’s mandate. She felt strange over wanting to simultaneously believe it could be true and also deny it vehemently while bragging about how her Qat was just that infatuated with her.

She opened her eyes with an almost exhausted sigh. Each night had been restless and each day had been a torture of *attempted* progress. Her leather craft had costly mistakes. Her attempts to care about her disciples were unsuccessful. Even the drafts she wrote for a proposed branch office duty list letter to the Coiled Serpent Guild had ended up terrible!

Worse, her spiritual scans of the Starbloom sabotaging tree yielded less results than she hoped. Whoever did it likely wore a high quality masking tool when interacting with the gift. This of course made her think that a Yecine was involved, as they were the only ones she had ever encountered with access to one.

Yet, *one* example was not enough to draw a conclusion. Nonetheless, it was reason enough to not really be happy that she had been called to attend a meeting with their elders in a few hours.

"If any of them try to make trouble, she’s too far away for me to feel nearly as ’bound’ to not retaliate. I fear I’m going to do something irrevocable. How unfortunate. And after I was so *good* with her father at the wedding!"

Her facade snapped into place amid the illusionist’s monologue. She sat up and hopped off of the table, her silver dress morphing into different shapes, cuts, and styles as she ’prepared herself’ for the meeting. She eventually felt that judging one at a time was too few with the power of her Astralism.

Three more illusive copies of herself split off to cover more imaginary ’shopping’. Being able to look like you were wearing anything you wanted sounded great on paper, but it just meant that ninety-five percent of the possibilities were merely ’acceptable’ choices.

Around four percent were unacceptable for various reasons... and less than one percent would achieve what she wanted out of the effort for the occasion. She was highly out of practice in choosing from anything but real clothing, so it took her a longer few minutes than she expected.

"I knew this was coming. That it would be likely she would have to go off for things and I would have to deal with it... I just thought I was *better* now. All that time that she spent away from me after we met - her training, my training, and now I’m married and instantly *spoiled* again."

Even as she admonished herself, a part of her wished again for that increase in spiritual connection over a larger span. The limitations of the other party’s cultivation for deciding the distance were frustrating. For the near future, she could only wait for her beloved to grow in power.

’My darling Qat is already growing so quickly for someone so young. Even with my aid, she’s just so wonderful~’

For a moment she felt lighter and better. It had happened frequently over the last two days... a brief high of positive emotions that crashed severely in the next few seconds.

"I’ll just have to be content with more conventional methods of keeping her at hand. I have comparative lifetimes of experience to draw from. Keeping my wife near and safe and *close* but not *suffocated* should be... well within my capabilities."

Elua er Goltbred whispered darkly, with a shaking fidget that showed she didn’t quite believe her own lie this time, either.

---

A flowerpot rattled off a ledge as a bird, a bit too large to have tried to reach a bug it had seen inside it, took back off in flight. The illusionist’s spirit flared instinctively at the startling sound of its nearby crash, searching for threats that weren’t there. She winced while reining in her power and blinking away her confusion.

Dull mint eyes took in the unfamiliar surroundings of the street she had wandered to. Weathered stone walls rose around her with surfaces etched with faded sigils that seemed to be from an old defensive wall before some expansion. She didn’t recognize any other landmarks.

’Where am I?’

A musty scent hung in the air, tinged with something vaguely chemical. There was probably a workshop of some sort in the area, but if so it was in a direction she had never ventured to before. Her facade gradually returned to soften her features as she tried to piece together how she’d arrived here.

The last *clear* memory was of meeting with the Yecine elders. Not all, but quite a few of them, had been marked by her during the reception at her wedding... for being a bit suspicious in their spiritual expressions or outright angry stares. As if to fool her wariness from back then, their faces held only carefully crafted politeness this day.

As they showed her to ’her room’.

She almost snorted at the memory. Their intentions were as transparent as glass, yet executed with such... vapidity. They used much more generous words to describe their gesture of goodwill, but it was a place in the *isolated* east wing.

Her glance inside it revealed no hidden mechanisms. No ritual traps primed with essence-infused materials. No hidden entrances for an assassin to sneak in and deal with her if they pleased.

Just a simple, recently cleaned room furnished with the minimum of appropriate items to seem like a place she could both use immediately or refuse for it barely not fitting her ’standards’. A single high window faced *away* from the main estate. A place easy to monitor and blessedly, she felt in their eyes, far enough from the rest of the Yecine family.

It had apparently bewildered her so much that she sent her servant back home and just walked, and walked, until a silly bird broke a pot.

"Why does it keep surprising me that this era is so... easy and peaceful?"

The words escaped her lips before she realized she’d spoken them in a loud, cloying voice. Like she actually expected *someone* to provide the answer for her. A passing woman gave Elua an odd look before hurrying away, though her footsteps slowed back to normal after a targeted burst of the brunette’s Astralism.

’I’m getting sloppy. Tense, but not appropriately so. Expecting shadows in everything but jumping at nothing. What has there ever been to... fear.’

A realization hit her like a splash of water *far* colder than the one she’d jumped into days ago.