The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 134 - I’m Trying To Distract Myself Here, Yet You Are Trying To Kill Me With Kisses

Chapter 134: Chapter 134 - I’m Trying To Distract Myself Here, Yet You Are Trying To Kill Me With Kisses

A soft sigh that was part content and part out of her element escaped Qatrand er Yecine’s throat. The heiress claimed that outbursts like this weren’t likely to happen again - and while the swordswoman was inclined to believe her, at least compared to her obvious lie a few moments before... she still needed to address the other part of the cause.

"I missed you too, by the way. You might find it silly, but I woke up and greeted you every morning in my mind with a hand to my heart."

Rather than silly, it just made the ’best’ even better! The tendrils of her beloved’s spirit coiled around her were pushed away by a sudden bloom of ’fondness’. As if in reward for her response, another small kiss was planted on her forehead - and El finally began to question why her Qat was being *so* intimate.

She began to calculate if a few days of restlessness and unproductivity was worth trading for a few hours of this sort of bliss... and had to convince herself not to repeat her recent bad behavior just to see if it had caused it!

"I’m sure it was the happiness I experienced throughout our ceremony that made the mission stretch on. Yet... the months you were away at the Coiled Serpent Guild had already started to be... difficult. Which reminds me to apologize."

Elua scoffed and shook her head with skepticism.

"What could you have done that needs forgiveness from me?"

"I suppose you could call it being slow to understand? What I’m trying to say is, even if it couldn’t be helped before due to how my training was structured, I don’t think I would agree as *easily* to spending a whole year away from you - or visiting so infrequently when I was young. Not now."

Mint eyes squinted, before the young newlywed snorted and started to giggle.

"Yes, I’m sure after a year you might finally reach the point of being as upset as I got in only a day."

A thumb and forefinger pinched reproachfully at her ear and the mischievous girl pretended to wince.

"El, if I had an ounce of the fear you have let out into this room in my heart over your safety... you do know that I would have made my way back to find you, yes?"

The tips of her ears flushed at the conviction in the tall girl’s words... and not because of the playful tugging - at least not *entirely* because of being touched somewhere unusual. She would refute any claims that both were equally to blame!

"Ugh, this isn’t a competition, Qat."

"No, it isn’t. It’s a partnership. I greatly respect the amount of self control you showed, despite what you may think of yourself for doing... this."

The blonde gestured around them generally, to make it clear she meant the spiritual hazards. She pulled the girl closer and into another tight hug. Her El was not the only one that the skinship had helped calm. Qatrand still felt just a little responsible for things turning out this way.

"We’ll figure out how to manage the times we’re apart. You don’t want me to abandon my duties for you and I don’t want you to... wallow."

She tilted her head for a moment after deciding on the word before continuing.

"Actually, if you wanted to be lazier I might be fine with that? You clearly enjoy talking about your ’side projects’ and I’ve always been amazed to see what centuries of hard work in different fields can accomplish."

A closed hand tilted her wife’s face up once more and she kissed the bridge of her nose. Qat had been trying to variate the spots so that she would not seem too boring for the ancient cultivator... but she was starting to be surprised in herself that no location had yet felt that strange to her.

"But, like you’ve said to me so many times before - as long as you are happy with yourself and what you decide to do, I’ll support you. Okay?"

"If you keep saying nice things like that, we might start having... problems. I already want to sneak along with you everywhere you go."

The quiet words could hardly hide the thick honey staining her voice. She was proud of herself that her facade hadn’t shattered under that honest emotion! Her small hand reached out and started to caress the older teen’s neck before pulling back like the contact stung her fingertips.

She was *less* proud of how moving on intimate instinct caused her body to react. The charged sensations thrumming through her abdomen were now all her fault! The sweet tone turned to a mousy grit as she spoke some words through her teeth.

"I want... to do a lot of things... that I really shouldn’t. What I am happy with and what you would likely grow unhappy with are different. What would make me happy now and what I’d be upset with myself about later... is different."

Elua took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She repeated this action twice more while replaying all of the sensation of the cold bath across her body. She shivered, but her head cleared!

While she wasn’t surprised that it worked, she was annoyed that it came down to doing it. Tricks like that tended to grow ineffective with repeat usage... and there were so many years left to go!

’What was I thinking.. being excited about it being closer to four years than five? I still have to make it a *whole* four years!’

The pigeon blue gaze watching her when she looked back up was so tolerant - even knowing the *meaning* of the ’attracted’ emotions she didn’t bother to hide - that it almost made her relapse into the ’evil thoughts’. She had to quickly avert her gaze.

The ancient cultivator grasped desperately at her recent plans and projects... diversions that had filled endless empty hours between relationships throughout her last life. She had always found ways to keep her mind busy when there was no one worth caring about.

Using those ways to distract herself from not seeing Qat constantly had worked better than she hoped, but-

"I-I’ll keep myself occupied with work. I even have something to discuss with you in that regard. I’ll also try to believe in your capabilities to remain safe without overbearingly watching over you like you are a helpless child..."

’At least until the war starts. I might refrain from fighting, but I can do a *lot* without being noted by the voidlings and without throwing off the invasion’s difficulty scaling for the next cycle.’

Her plans would still have to grow and evolve with the changing situations, but she had every confidence that her Qat would come out of the Descent - barring some extraordinary unknown talent - as the local hero.

"Compared to you, aren’t I a child? You do know your cute face doesn’t distract me from the knowledge and power hiding behind it."

The blonde couldn’t help the amused smirk from stretching her lips when the girl’s mood spiked upon calling her that word out loud. The Goltbred heiress shifted back to staring upward, without blinking, into the pigeon blue.

’Well, that face is quite distracting in general. I better not tell her that... and I should change the subject quickly.’

"What kind of work did you need to discuss?"

The girl blinked rapidly at the question. She had quite forgotten what they were even discussing...

"A-ah? Right, yes. Do you remember that branch office offer I mentioned?"

"The one the Coiled Serpent Guild sent your family? I thought you were dismissive of it."

"Well... I was, but that was because it sounded like a hassle while looking forward to the wedding. But I’ve had time to find some reasons why it would be a wise move."

Her mint eyes and spirit sparked with familiar ’mischief’ as she pulled herself up to her feet by using the firm shoulders of her ’fortress’. She leaned down over the blonde’s face with her small hands struggling to loosen their grip on the teenager.

"Think about it like this... it would be a respectable position for me close to home. Your wife wouldn’t be hidden away here working on secret activities. At least, in the eyes of the public."

Elua ’giggled’ again, a mostly nervous thing caused by how the two of them were currently situated. She could only imagine the opinion of others right now if they saw the Yecine sitting on the *floor* with her small wife over her like this!

"Most importantly, I plan to arrange a few notions with my Guild that will ’solve’ a few of the problems I’ve created for myself. Like the idea that I could be the mysterious individual producing certain sigil bearing goods."

"How could building and joining their branch in our city do that?"

The swordswoman didn’t think for a moment that she was wrong, she just wasn’t able to scheme like the girl staring down at her. The idea of hiding in plain sight for something like that was a bit too vague of a concept to her, even though she spent her life doing the same with her gender.

"Because they already seem to think I am a young talent worth keeping, I can request that my assigned project for them be made researching the oh so mysterious items. Then I can control the rate of revealing their secrets... and as long as I reveal something every now and then-"

"Then they’ll think you are actually working and not just pretending to."

The reincarnator smirked down at her while pulling her hands away and standing to her full height. She locked her limbs behind her back and tilted her head, fully ready to change her plans.

"Do you disapprove?"

"...No. It sounds like you’ve thought about it more than I have - and I just told you that I would support you doing less."

Qatrand stretched out her hand in a gesture that implied she was seeking help to get up and Elua provided it without question. As the Yecine rose, she pulled her hand away and swept the back of the girl’s legs up into her arms while supporting her back. The silver fabric of the very memorable dress made soft rustling sounds as each of the two shifted their holds on one another.

"I’m not sure intentionally tricking people counts as doing less, but it seems like you chose this method because it keeps others from pestering you. Do I seem like I want others to make trouble for you, my wife?"

"N-no."

’You seem like the best whimsical decision I’ve ever made.’

The illusionist had wanted to say it out loud, but that was hard to do when her Qat sunk her lips to hers once more. As the supposedly chaste kiss dragged on and the warm press of lips started to cloud her mind... she cared less and less about what to say and more and more about what not to do.

Delight in how her formerly reserved ’fortress’ had grown confident enough to initiate such moments on her own wrestled in her spirit with the exquisite agony of having to maintain her self-control. Yet, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

When Qat showed this expanding side of herself, she would treat it was a special kind of suffering - knowing that her beloved’s increasing comfort with intimacy would make the next years so much sweeter and so much more *challenging*.