The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 140 - We Had A Plan! T-This Wasn’t The Plan!

Chapter 140: Chapter 140 - We Had A Plan! T-This Wasn’t The Plan!

Qatrand er Yecine arrived at the small house turned workshop to find that the oppressive atmosphere from yesterday was now noticeably lighter. The door was open and the tendrils of her spirit probed carefully at the space on their way to wrap around the girl waiting inside. There was hardly a single remnant of the devastation of emotions that had filled it yesterday.

’She’s been busy. I hope she didn’t rush back here after I left to do all this...’

The sound of constant chewing drew her attention. Her wife sat at her workbench... one hand absently organizing leather tools while the other dipped into what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a *secret* hidden cabinet lined full of dense nutrient cakes. The raven haired teenager shook her head and decided not to ask, for now.

"You cleaned all of it up already?"

The brunette nodded and swallowed her current bite.

"Mmm... mostly. Couldn’t sleep that well, so I came early for it. I felt like I had to do something productive with my time until you came to get me."

The casual tone of Elua’s voice didn’t quite match the deeply methodical way she was eating. Qat knew that since she was sitting here alone, she was probably cultivating the food into physical energy on the spot. A little smile appeared on her lips before it faded knowing what they had planned.

"I’m ready to go when you are, but I’m also ready to leave it alone if that’s what you wish. Just tell me how to handle this."

The reincarnator turned her mint gaze upon the swordswoman almost the same moment her mood dipped. Elua clearly hadn’t forgotten their plans for the morning... or the reaction her precious gem had shown when making them. The Yecine brushed her fingers against the fabric of her own outer jacket while straightening it.

That same strange deference was in El’s spirit last night - it had appeared right when the Negavigor tools were mentioned. Right when her own discomfort had surfaced. She had spent a while in meditation and determined that it was her fault... and seeing it happen again only made it clearer.

"El. Come with me."

She didn’t wait for a response because she knew the girl was already ready to do absolutely anything. Qat grabbed her little wife’s wrist and pulled her toward their cultivation room. The brunette barely had time to wolf down the last of her ’breakfast’ in her other hand.

The swordswoman turned and closed the door behind them and the heiress tilted her head. If her husband-wife wanted to cultivate together, she was fine with it. In fact, she would spend every possible minute doing so if it were up to her.

But, she was stuck in letting her Qat control the flow of events... which meant that associating with Guild and Family were more important than being secluded together... growing stronger together... spending every waking and sleeping moment together.

’Snap out of it, you.’

The brunette blinked her eyes rapidly to clear her head.

"Qat? What are we-"

The words died in Elua’s throat when the blazer jacket was removed. A strange noise escaped that throat when the tall, dark haired teenager began removing her shirt. Mint eyes widened and dulled, the familiar ’hunger’ sparking wildly before she caught herself stepping forward.

’Abs, pecs... oh the deltoids, the biceps and triceps! That beautiful set of serratus anterior, framing the sides of her ribs like a set of muscle-feather wings...’

She remembered back to seeing them all at once the single time before - and felt like she was seeing lovely progress of a whole new kind!

Every refined amount of definition and powerful solidity that had been gained was an ounce... a pound... a full breadth more of protection for both her ’fortress’ and the lucky people she would no doubt save. She was almost jealous of their luck - if she wasn’t secure in her own.

"There’s something you should see. Something that I need to explain. I should have done it already."

Qat’s voice was steady despite the vulnerability of her position. Her arm raised back and shifted her partially black hair across her chest. It wasn’t the first time she had taken her shirt off in front of the girl... though she was realizing due to her wife’s state that *talking* about doing it first might have been wiser.

’I guess being straightforward can also be a problem.’

She turned her bare back and slipped her fingers into her belt while tugging down on it just enough to completely expose the base of her spine. Elua’s eyes gleefully traced a new path, with her appreciation taking on a more reverent tone as her internal anatomy appreciation was cut a little, sadly, short.

’Traps, lats, erectors... all so wonderful and leading down to where the scar she wanted to show me and the tattoo-like sigil linked to the masking tool lie. The sad marks of her strength, her resilience, her-’

"This... this is why the mention of those tools affect me so strongly."

The young cultivator tapped on the marking there and the ancient one wished she could be *more* moved. She was sympathetic... and if she had already met the girl and been available to stop it from happening, she probably would have acted to stop it unless firmly told not to by Qat herself.

Her eyes returned to their usual brightness and the voice that came out did not retreat to monotone.

"Yes, the masking tool. I know what it is, Qat. I also know what they would have done to place it. I suspected that was what was wrong."

She kept her response level, assured, and much more like the one she lectured with to make it clear she wasn’t taking the matter lightly. She was a little unhappy that it didn’t take effort to stay in that state... that she couldn’t get more upset. However, she wasn’t completely unaffected by the sight.

Her fingers hovered near the scar without touching. During the first time she had basically ordered the teenager to swing the gifted sword without her shirt on, so that all of these muscles she loved could be seen firsthand... she had glimpsed the top of the sigil she had known would be there.

The work inside the artifact was intricate, complex, and well beyond anyone in the region currently - designed to last through advancement in all forms of cultivation. The sigil itself was simple... reflecting the concept meant to divert the attention of onlookers.

’My beloved is stamped with something that convinces others she is *clearly* a man. How foolish. The assassins used to use these to make most people not even realize they were there at all.’

"I’m well aware that the procedure isn’t gentle. They have to weave the ritual into your spirit while embedding the physical anchor into your spine. The bone must be carved out in a certain way to seat it."

Her own imagination was quite good, as one would expect for someone whose Astralism was centered around full sensory Illusions. The idea of a small Qatrand er Yecine just a little younger than when she met her on a table, being cut upon-

A sad anger finally started to color her explanatory tone.

"You would have been awake for all of it."

The Yecine’s shoulder muscles tensed at the memory. Her imagination wasn’t that good - but it didn’t need to be when it had been experienced. She sucked in a breath and then let it out again before speaking.

"Yes. I... I never questioned it then. It was just another duty, another thing expected of the Yecine heir."

Elua finally let herself brush against the mark. Her soft fingertips first traced the scar tissue so gently that it had not even transferred any sensation to the ’older’ girl. Her spirit cocooned firmly around her husband-wife, rippling with ’protection’ and ’comfort’.

She was now starting to wish she *hadn’t* wished to care more! There was an unwelcome guilt rising in her. She had known about the tool when they met. She had known then how it would have been placed.

But the young ’heir’ back then did not seem that traumatized by it, so she said and did nothing since the matter had already been *done*.

’Or maybe I ignored it because of everything else that she was... and what she promised to be for me.’

"And now?"

The saccharine plea in her utterance was both a weak hope for forgiveness and a desperation for the ordeal to have been of some kind of value for her ’fortress’.

"Now, I understand that accepting everything silently wasn’t strength. You taught me that, El."

The teenager turned around slowly and felt the trembling fingers sliding across her waist, like they were afraid to pull away from the contact. The Yecine cupped the brunette’s chin and made the reborn existence look directly at her. Mint met pigeon blue, haloed by the completely golden blonde locks that hadn’t been there when they entered the room.

"That it’s okay to want things for myself. That it’s okay to feel things."

Qatrand’s tone grew stronger with the sight of the cute girl in her eyes. Seeing the heiress always made her more certain in herself. Her wife, even when she wasn’t yet that label to everyone else, had instantly known the secret that the young version of herself had endured.

Yet, she accepted her anyway. Being cut open and sawed upon with Negavigor holding back her physical energy from numbing the pain... from starting to heal or fight back against the damage.

’She had also accepted that I *let* them do that to me.’

The teenager grimaced and closed her eyes.

"I’m still angry about it sometimes. Perhaps it is left over from the recollection of the physical pain... I don’t fully understand why."

She opened them again while caressing the Goltbred girl’s cheek.

"But I’m not ashamed of showing you this part of me anymore. I don’t think I’ll be ashamed of showing you anything."

Her calloused palm stroked across the plush and springy facial feature - and had a sudden foreboding fill her spirit. There was a single wolf. It seemed to be in front of her. Yet, it was also all around her!

"My brave, darling, precious gem. Thank you for trusting me with that explanation. With all of you."

Elua pressed forward and placed her forehead on Qat’s bare sternum. The skin contact was so incredibly warm and pleasant... and the close up view of the abdominals was so incredibly tempting and frustrating.

"But if you could please not take your clothes off for a few years again in front of me..."

A loud growl erupted from the girl’s stomach, despite all the food she had consumed!

"...and if you could please break away from me and put your clothes back on right now, so we might not have to reschedule our plan for another few days from now. That is, after I come out of another closed door session of meditation to *better* control myself."

The illusionist started to wonder if it might not be ’better’ to fully delude herself into forgetting that she had a libido at all...