The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 271 - The Depths She Claims And The Weeds I Garden

Chapter 271: Chapter 271 - The Depths She Claims And The Weeds I Garden

Satisfied from Elua’s moment of spiritual discombobulation, Qatrand went on to keep talking about her day taking part in the event. The brunette listened attentively for the most part, interjecting with only light sounds that encouraged her to keep explaining everything.

"The signals between units felt different from our training. More... varied. By the final rotation, we were adapting faster to changes than I expected. It showed me that people can get used to things quickly when they feel they need to."

"Sounds like you got more than just combat experience from it."

A set of fingers brushed back the brown bangs that had fallen again over the girl’s forehead because she kept shifting to look up at the Yecine from different angles.

"Yes. Though I still wish you’d been there. It was harder to focus when I noticed that you moved out too far to feel."

Elua only hummed in response. She was enjoying both the raw sound from her husband-wife’s low voice and the way her spiritual tendrils kept seeking deeper connection. They’d been pressing inward slowly during the blonde’s recounting.

"But now you’re making it very hard to focus... even though you are right here."

The brunette had tugged eagerly each time the swordswoman let her attention on the sense slip. The little ’game’ of split attention drew small pauses throughout the few minutes of one sided talking. But neither had openly addressed it yet.

"Am I? Please, continue telling me about your clever tactics. Don’t mind me at all..."

Elua captured Qat’s hand above and pressed her cheek into the calloused palm. Mint eyes drifting closed with content at the contact as she continued to weave around and drag the girl’s energy inside. Anyone else would have been ’surgically’ severed by now thanks to her mental defenses.

Something which the adventurer welcomed to her ’dungeon’ could more or less intuit. She wasn’t actually concerned that her El would willingly hurt her, but there was a worry in her heart that she would accidentally cause a reaction. Qatrand didn’t want the reincarnator to be upset by something like that!

"Tell me more about your day. About anything. Just keep touching me gently like this..."

The swordswoman studied her small wife’s expression tonight. She’d already noted that something was different in her needs. The usual heat that sparked between them was *there* but muted - fully secondary to what drove this desperate seeking of spiritual intimacy.

"You really were quite bothered by allowing her in today."

The assessment was very matter of fact. Even though the heiress had said as much earlier, part of her had dismissed it as something she actually *would* be able to handle herself. The girl always seemed so adept at managing to come to terms with being upset - and she was still wearing her facade, after all.

’But... no, all those times I really was... involved, wasn’t I?’

Qat thought back to the incidents she knew of and frowned. When they discovered she ’disappeared’ when meditating on her spirit. Those plays performed by the troupe. So many other smaller bad moods that only resolved after talking it out. After being assured, accepted, and ’cherished’.

Her mint-drop was certainly complex - but simple!

"Can you tell me again what’s wrong?"

"Mhm. Letting anyone else touch who I was is like betraying what we have."

Her voice carried none of the earlier dramatics. No whining, just quiet honesty. A thumb stroked the bridge of her nose before shifting to trace circles into the spot between her brow.

"El, I know it was necessary. I trust you in these matters. But..."

When the tendrils finally reached near where they left off in the Yecine camp, the spiritualist unveiled herself eagerly into the contact. The moment of mixed consciousness drew a soft gasp from them both. Elua’s hands gripped Qat’s sleeve to ground her as a part of her sought to eliminate any remaining distance between their spiritual forms.

After a shuddering breath, a monotone voice instructed.

"I still need you to touch the places she did. To make it all yours so I don’t feel like this. Please?"

Her quiet plea held immense vulnerability thrumming through the fragment that was only multiplied in the more direct connections. Her usual playful passion was absent almost entirely. This wasn’t about the physical desire she was usually troubled with - her wife truly needed this emotional reconciliation so badly that it was keeping that ’normal’ side of her quiet.

Qat shifted to lay on her back against the tower’s stonework and the petite cultivator curled into her muscular form immediately.

"Alright. Show me what parts they touched. Guide me there."

Relief. Delight. Gratitude. The entire spiritual presence shivered at the quiet command. The dense, fluidlike cloud of energy created clear channels toward specific areas that felt... different. Not ’tainted’ exactly - but marked somehow by the earlier teaching connection.

’Mostly it looks... like it was done by El herself? I can’t even tell what I am supposed to be doing if not for the impressions she is sharing.’

The Enchanter blindly followed these deliberate paths. As requested, she pressed deep into each spot with firm, possessive intent. Every new ’claiming touch’ drew small tremors from her wife’s physical form as she held the Yecine’s clothes tightly... and ripples of ’glee’ and ’comfort’ through the ancient cultivator’s intense spirit.

"I don’t understand what I’m feeling."

"I had to... show Nohre how avian bones should align."

"And this?"

"The way that feathers connect to their tissue."

"This all seems like things you shouldn’t feel the need to share with me..."

It was not that Qatrand didn’t understand her spouse, but it felt like it needed to be said! She had no abilities or skills that could make use of such *exact* memories and sensations. It might be part of her, but was it worth getting upset over?

"You don’t *really* underestimate how much I consider myself yours, Qat. I can feel that right now, you know. That you’ve accepted I would share it all. Even then... this is not about *what* she was shown."

’It’s because I chose to let her in at all.’

Even without her finishing the words out loud, the swordswoman could understand.

The last parts that dealt with losing patients and giving up... was easier to stomach because she had already talked to Elua about that past. Though it did make her wonder what the orphan thought about seeing whatever fraction of it she had been granted.

"Better?"

"Almost. There’s one more place... deeper."

The ancient cultivator guided her wife’s tendrils toward the center of the spirit - the heavily defended core that she normally kept wrapped in so many layers of protection. The true part that roiled and hid the sort of ’love’ she usually prevented from overwhelming Qat.

The blonde hesitated only briefly at the surface before pressing into it on her own. The energy parted through her wide open defense like fingers pressing into thick oil. The Goltbred’s whole physical form melted limply against her with an ecstatic whimper.

Their spirits were twined together at that deepest level and flashes of her whole morning transferred to Qatrand.

She let the swordswoman feel muted forms of her darker impulses that she’d carried throughout the day. The undue hatred against Leysah, the overreaction against the thieves, and the steps and prejudices against even her own disciples. She showed her hints of everything.

Because she needed her beloved to know what to stop her from doing. And even though she hypocritically didn’t want her to be so ’forgiving’ if she truly slipped some day - at the same time she wanted to know that she would. To feel that acceptance.

And she did... for the most part.

"There. Now you’re the only one around who has glimpsed so far inside. In this life and... and on purpose in both. So? How was it?"

The lazy and soft contentment in her quickly returned ’sweet’ voice made Qat’s heart clench. For a few dozen seconds, the tall girl only held the physical body of the reincarnator tightly... while wondering how much had been shown intentionally and how much the girl perhaps did not even realize she’d revealed.

In that extra vulnerable state-

’No, she probably knows exactly... what she showed me. At least somewhere inside.’

She pulled at her and pressed a gentle kiss to her wife’s forehead while maintaining a net of restraint around that core. That they’d always sought to instinctively anchor towards the cute girl was no surprise. It was like they knew that was the place that needed her most.

"Thank you for trusting me with this."

"Always. Only you."

Qat shifted her hand under her wife’s chin and raised it more. She kissed the space between her eyes above the bridge of her small nose, the same area she rubbed with her thumb before.

"I love you, El. Remember that. Accept that."

"...I know. I do."

"Okay."

The Yecine acknowledged quickly - as that slight hesitancy was all she needed to be sure.

’Yes. She does know what she just let me... understand.’

It wasn’t pleasant to know that her darkest impulse today was a particular moment of thought, when Fusand broke her out of her behavior with his call. The intense idea that Qatrand herself would loath what she was doing and intending... and the inner belief spawned from that assessment made the blonde want to cry.

"I believe you love me too. There is actually nothing I believe more. So that’s why I have to say this. Don’t you dare."

Hot air exhaled through her nose.

"Never think of doing that - or to ask me if I want you to do that ever again."

The low voice growled down on the frustrating, cute, still smiling face. Tiny lips darted to touch against a corner of her quivering frown... like they sought to banish it with their softness alone before she could actually shed tears. After three slightly different pecks, her monotone voice found itself taking over.

"Never thinking it might be hard, my love. The problem with thoughts like this is that they grow like a weed."

Another deeper kiss followed before she pressed her hands onto the swordswoman’s shoulders and rose up to look down at her spouse. Her wonderful Qat.

"But, I assure you that your order was received. As was how you felt about it when we were connected just before."

It was as the illusionist expected from the start - and why she smiled at her precious gem despite having just upset her. The belief that had struck almost like an epiphany out on the plains... well, that had been revolting to her as well. After a little thought on the matter.

That she would *eagerly* accept sealing her nature to act in that decisive manner away - to even tear at her own spirit and erase what necessity had made her... if it would be of any service to Qat?

Mint eyes closed as she shook her head to herself again.

"After it popped in my head, I quickly decided that it belonged in the category of things that most rational people would never even think about. A little more thought, and I understood that it risked my fortress discovering she had failed to protect me."

In the black night sky above Elua er Goltbred, the stars became ever more vibrant. Not from use of Illusion, but from her Gaseous manipulations working to form an enhancing lens on the incoming light. She’d been thinking alot about natural brightness since showing the strobing distraction to Fusand.

But she wasn’t going to blind her beloved!

"Darling, I can tell you now that I’d rather you came to hate me than yourself."

"You could just not think about either of us hating each other, El."

The ’young’ girl chuckled and sighed, before breathing in and breaking out with a ’bright’ smile. Qat had a way of making it sound simple - that she wanted to believe on her deepest metaphysical level was possible.

"More weeds, my love. I happen to be surprisingly fertile ground."

The blonde squinted at what was likely meant to be hyperbole. Of course there were the fragments of each other that were growing slowly into children, supposedly. That had proven that, in a manner of speaking - her El really was... quite fertile? A fresh wave of strange nerves buzzed in the teenager.

’Wait - does that mean so am I?’