The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 182 - Back-to-Back Explanations That Lead To Heart-to-Heart Talks

Chapter 182: Chapter 182 - Back-to-Back Explanations That Lead To Heart-to-Heart Talks

The couple sat back-to-back on the floor of the private cabin. Their spirits (and one body) gradually settled into a meditative calm. Elua dutifully recounted every detail of her nighttime mission - from the point of receiving the anonymous letter to her flight into Qat’s arms at the station.

The relic hovered nearby serving as proof. Qatrand had not examined the item all that much, but she could identify that the frame had been altered. She could also feel the same sort of similarity that had made her write a letter of her own.

"So we don’t know who sent the first note?"

The swordswoman’s tendrils of spirit stayed loosely wrapped around her wife’s limbs, more for comfort than restraint. Part of it was also practice. Making them continually wrap towards a specific area rather than all over was a small mental challenge.

"Mm. Though honestly, I’m not terribly concerned about it. If the intention was to learn something or frame me due to me acting... well, they should have told me where the thing was."

Elua felt confident that something else was going on.

"Sometimes mysteries have simple answers. Like that other unmarked note I received at your estate."

Qatrand shifted her back and pressed more firmly against Elua’s.

"What note?"

"Oh, I meant to show it to you actually, but the timing never felt right. Something slipped under my door during that first official visit."

The brunette’s tone remained deliberately light as she continued.

"From the content and handwriting, I suspect one of your younger siblings might have written it. Though I suppose I shouldn’t assume - there are surely other children in the household..."

"My brothers? But they’re kept in seclusion for training."

Qat’s voice held confusion and it took a lot of self-control for Elua not to explain right away.

"I’ll show you the note later, my fortress. It’s not important right now."

She’d already soured the mood once, she wasn’t going to do it again!

"If that’s what you think, then I trust that it’s so."

The ancient cultivator fought against the desire to come out with it all. Clearly, the note was only going to upset her husband-wife. While it was nice that it was for her sake, one little message from a child she never met wasn’t a big deal!

It was a long mental battle - a full four seconds.

Her hand shifted at an awkward angle around Qat’s side. The mirror flowed down the limb’s length and sat flat at the edge of her fingertips. Qatrand curiously grabbed for it with one hand as her wife used her Illusion powers to recreate the ’offensive’ item on its surface from her memory.

A white paper message was theatrically served on a black mirror:

/ GO AWAY UGLY WITCH. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE. /

The blonde stared at the words. For a moment she couldn’t even comprehend them - until finally it clicked that someone had been saying both that Elua er Goltbred was ’ugly’ and did not ’belong’ in the Yecine estate. Her grip tightened on the sword in her lap and the mirror in her hand.

An ’irritation’ built into a full ’anger’ for a couple seconds, until she remembered what the CUTE girl said. The handwriting did look childish, though that alone didn’t seem reason enough to say it was her own small siblings. Still, she trusted in the ancient cultivator’s intuition.

’Why would any young family who I don’t have any interaction with... want to bully my wife? Where did they even get the idea that El is-’

"The main reason I think it’s them is because I can only think of one Yecine who would ever directly call me a witch."

A miniature of Anper er Yecine rose from the mirror. The remaining anger in the swordswoman chilled and the cold feeling dug itself into a ’wound’. The sequela of her father’s hurtful words toward herself was still present - and Elua was still unhappy that the tarnish would not clear so easily from that facet of her precious gem.

"My plan had been to playfully correct the penmanship - especially the backward letter - and then have you return it to them for me. I thought that would be the most amusing thing from my point of view."

The heiress got up on her knees and turned around, draping herself over the back of her beloved with her arms hugging around her neck. There was not a lot she could do except be there to talk. Forcing Anper to apologize was not a solution that had any weight.

’Whatever relationship she might continue building with Ondua, there will only ever be one real father.’

"Of course, that just would have been my mild suggestion. I’ll gladly talk through how we deal with it, Qat. Whenever you’re ready."

"Okay."

The blonde set that mirror down and placed both of her hands around the arms clinging to her. The girl weighed almost nothing on her back and her skin felt warm. As she held on, Qatrand closed her eyes and pictured that warmth as a light shining on her heart.

The fragment in Elua’s chest stirred with a hard to place feeling from the ’older’ teen, though it was affectionate in nature. The reincarnator opened her mouth to speak again.

"I’m sorry that things got so out of hand since that morning. Something related to you like this should have felt more important, shouldn’t it?"

"No... I really don’t mind."

"Don’t let me brush it aside, please."

The brunette whispered behind her spouse.

"You’re so good with Onya. I know that family is important to you, in its own way. Yet, after the hour I returned to that room and had my thoughts... I practically have not even thought about the matter again."

She only idly recalled that she had taken the nasty note out in her room and stuffed it somewhere. A dim memory of coming across it while scouring her room for the cause of her bad sleep came to mind.

When she snuck in the last few nights to the estate, she hadn’t even bothered going to *her* room at all. She just bypassed the whole hassle of officially entering and went straight to go sleep with her husband-wife. For all she knew, there could be a room full of written threats by now.

The Yecine sighed out loud.

"You don’t have to think of everything, El. I also don’t blame you for not telling me sooner. How many times have I said that I understand? You will always tell me everything eventually."

A low chuckle rumbled underneath the brunette’s hold.

"You can’t help it, after all... and what has a couple weeks of distraction really cost?"

"The time to plan?"

"We can discuss it now. What did it cost?"

The repeated question stumped the reincarnator. There were probably a lot of viable answers, from an objective standpoint. However, she could tell from the sense of ’obstinance’ in the tendrils wrapping tightly around her that there was only one actual *solution*.

"Nothing?"

"You don’t sound sure."

Mint eyes blinked rapidly.

"I’m pretty sure you’re teasing me for some reason."

"You’re right. Hey, El?"

The soft and low voice gave it away even without the surging warm emotions within the tall teen. The smaller one hanging on embraced her tighter while forcing herself not to say it first.

"...What, my fortress?"

"I love you."

Elua’s eyes fluttered and shut. The memory of this was copied into her storage of exquisite moments with her Qat. The collection was really growing too big!

"I love you, too. I’m not complaining, but what brought this on?"

"I just felt like it."

The train began to slow down for a stop at another station, but neither of them cared much about the outside world for a little while longer.

---

Sevra leaned against a market stall in a city she was a little uncomfortable to still be in. The cloak covered woman carefully read her brother’s latest report about that object’s transport. According to Tarem, it had been moved to that Coiled Serpent Guild research camp out in the forest.

Her spirit tightened with frustration at missing the chance to intercept it. It wasn’t that she wanted to be known as a thief, but she knew that forest was filled with Order members. The Goltbred heiress would have to do drastic things to get it back now.

She thought back to what she had been doing while waiting.

Two days of surveillance had been wasted on watching that second house Elua maintained. The structure itself seemed innocent enough at a distance. The way it stayed just at the edge of her spiritual sense when she did a Walk made her skin crawl.

Even attempting to get closer in that form made her feel like she was being watched.

After she pushed off the wall to go clear the frustration from her head, something caught her eye. The two orphans from Elua’s wedding were carrying leather supplies toward the direction of that very building.

She remembered their names from her prior investigations: Nohre and Fusand. The boy struggled slightly with his load. Strange green markings were visible on his arms where his sleeves had rolled up. The scout didn’t have a perfect memory, but she was confident that *that* was new.

Sevra followed at a distance, noting how the girl kept stealing little glances down at those markings on her side. Fusand stumbled slightly at almost the same time she looked again and Nohre steadied him... with a touch that lingered longer than necessary.

The sandy haired teenager blushed and the color took on an odd brownish tint that the member of the Shadow Whisker Sorority could tell was strange from afar. Her first thought was that the reincarnator had done something - possibly poison?!