The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 167 - As Far As Symbolism Goes, I Guess The Yecine Shadows Were A Bit... Oh, Pfft, But He *Got* The Tiny Trees!

Chapter 167: Chapter 167 - As Far As Symbolism Goes, I Guess The Yecine Shadows Were A Bit... Oh, Pfft, But He *Got* The Tiny Trees!

The man felt like he was falling up into the sky... into starlight and the darkness between them. After a tense moment, the feeling of solidity returned beneath Ondua’s feet as a grand hall materialized around him. Giant pillars of crystal rose toward a massive ceiling... that seemed to shift between bare stone and cloudless blue sky with each blink.

At the far end of the hall he stood in was a crystalline throne. It sat elevated on a dais with steps glowing at the edges with a sense of deep ’power’. The facets of the familiar substance... his very Element given form, reflected fragments of his own memories.

’How...?’

His own battles during the last Descent sparkled in some, while others showed his Challenge duel at the wedding. The son-in-law that impressed him fought ’side by side’ with him as the images bled together until he could barely tell which fighter was which.

His hand held his head for a few moments, trying to clear his mind. He was sure that he knew what was happening. He hadn’t been calm enough when starting the technique and some of his own psyche was bleeding into the dreamscape.

When he opened his eyes again, there were no more scenes of his own life. Only now, a figure sat upon the throne. Qatrand er Yecine’s familiar form seemed both more and less substantial than the surrounding dream.

The black suit drew the eye in like always, though the hair shifted between black and blonde with each blink just like the ceiling. They gripped the blade on their lap with a look of deep but weary ’confidence’... as if being the true anchor and owner of the space.

Simultaneously, it felt like the figure threatened to dissolve into pure light at the slightest provocation. Ondua knew that dreams often had something like this in them. The most important things were featured very prominently but also protected grandly.

’I really don’t want to know what will happen if my son-in-law disappears from here.’

Dealing with mental defenses was a tricky part of any spiritual technique - but especially with his Astralism that worked on the mind of another, there was the risk of massive subconscious actions being taken if the other person decided you were a ’threatening’ intruder.

Ondua took a step forward anyway. If his daughter were around, then it would be somewhere near this figure. His footsteps echoed strangely as he moved forward... sometimes sounding like they were coming from the wrong directions.

At a certain point, towering bookshelves suddenly stretched beyond sight to his left. When he glanced, their contents refused to stay still - neither on the shelves or on the pages. Sigils peeled themselves from ancient looking texts as both danced through the air.

The symbols took on different colored glows as they flapped and twirled like luminous butterflies. Some seemed a little familiar to him, others completely foreign to his understanding. But it was not startling to see the mind make up *any* kind of nonsense within a dream!

Through impossibly tall glass paned windows on the right of the hall, he glimpsed a grove of trees that he almost recognized. A pair of tall ’growing trees’ reached out for each other... with one branch pressing into the trunk of another at a high spot. He frowned at the sight, not understanding what was so familiar about it.

’Wait, is that one my tree? Are my memories still bleeding through?’

Though he shouldn’t have been able to ’see’ it, Ondua could view that behind them grew two more large trees. Their trunks grew so closely intertwined that he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

’If the first set was me... and Yatrel? Then are those my daughters? No... the trees would not be nearly the same size.’

He realized that - just like how there wasn’t *really* one planted for the girl’s mother, her dreamscape had conjured one up for Qatrand. He stared conflicted at their base... because two *tiny* saplings pushed up through a ring of soil that sparkled like crushed stars.

His eyebrow twitched, understanding immediately that they represented some kind of ’desire’ for children in this dream. What’s more, they didn’t flicker with any kind of uncertainty. The concept was *incredibly* solid!

The brunette felt he would have to inform his wife of this.

’Or is it better to keep it to myself? She was always on the side of propriety before their wedding, but now... would grandkids shift her opinion?’

At a close distance to them all, a small tree swayed playfully despite the complete stillness of the air. He could only see this one as belonging to his youngest daughter and was touched that Elua actually thought of Onya enough to include her like this.

Though it did start to bother him that her small tree was *closer* to the young couple than the two representing her parents! Luckily, his slight pettiness was the favorite sport of the culprit watching him. He would only realize days later that of *course* she arranged things like that!

As he took a few more steps closer to the throne, something drew his attention back to the hall’s very shadows. All around the edges of the grand room... they deepened and writhed at the corners of his vision. For a while he stood and watched before taking cautious steps.

’Is this the cause of the nightmare?’

The entire time he walked, they never quite took solid shape. Except for one that surged up behind the form of Qatrand. This particular patch of darkness stood apart, its outline hauntingly familiar but just twisted enough that he could not decide why.

Before he could focus on the ’symbolic form’ of Anper er Yecine properly, the cultivator father turned to the side on a whim. Ondua had just known she was there watching him. Mostly because she was bored of his caution and ’poked’ at his spirit to tell him so.

A brunette woman with shoulder length hair stood with a strange floating mirror angled just above her head. She wore a modified silver dress that was impossible to forget, making her adult form all at once foreign and achingly familiar.

She turned directly toward the man with no wasted movement. No clear expression graced her features as dull mint eyes directly and unblinkingly met his warm brown. However, up in the mirror, an ’identical’ reflection of Elua’s face wore the ’sweet’ smile he knew so well.

"Hello, father. What brings you to visit my dreams?"

Her monotone voice carried almost directly into his mind in the dreamscape. At the same time, her ’facade’ reflection’s expression mouthed the same words with a face that made it seem like she was delighted to welcome him. The man responded with a tone of surprise.

"You... realize this is a dream?"

"Of course. Familiarity with my Projection Astralism makes the sense of wrong visual perceptions more noticeable. Dreams rarely fool my sight for all too long."

The same voice with a lack of change in its pitch spoke. And the same reflection showed its mild amusement as it soundlessly explained the same thing with the same cadence but far more visible emotion and movements. It was unnerving to see the dichotomy on display at the same time, even if he had seen both sides of her before.

The sigils floating from the library shelves swirled as if to be more active at the mention of her abilities. He glanced over at that excited part of the apparently near lucid dream before he gestured toward the Crystal throne and the person on it. Having seen his own memories in it, the sense that this was more *literally* connected to his Element was obvious.

’I’d prefer not to ask why her husband is sitting so composed on top of my power...’

"If you’re so aware within your dreams, then why have you been sleeping so poorly? Why did you have a nightmare when staying with him?"

Her physical form and reflection stilled for a moment. He could really only tell the difference because of the version of her in the mirror, though that ’facade’ representation nodded firmly before she spoke again.

"Ah. So that’s what brought you here tonight."

The face capable of expressions went through a slew of emotions. Elua let show her embarrassment at being caught hiding something that might concern them. Her gratitude for the worry. She also showed something deeper that looked almost like a reluctant fear.

Her actual expression remained impassive for the most part, though one of her hands clenched into a tight fist. Her other hand waved outward and ethereal versions of what he had seen in the room before entering her dream appeared. Objects that resembled the many wedding gifts.

"You know I’ve never needed your help to sleep easily. Someone or something has been trying to influence my dreams."

Her reflection in the floating mirror ’pouted’ adorably.

"Now that I realize it, I was expecting something to try again tonight. But you showed up instead, dad. You also must know that I took a nice rest in the arms of my spouse. Ah, how embarrassing."

Ondua shifted his gaze between the two dream-state displays of his daughter. He was still uncertain which to address... as she had tried to explain that she preferred to *be* like the emotive one even if deep inside she was inexpressive by nature.

Frankly speaking, he didn’t get it. He just knew it didn’t matter and that he loved his daughter any way that she wanted to be. However...

He couldn’t help but note that the one in the mirror did not look quite as mortified as the words should suggest. If anything, her lip was twitching like she was holding in a smile as she refused to look his way!