The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 99 - Curiosity About The Chiming Hope Placed In The Box

Chapter 99: Chapter 99 - Curiosity About The Chiming Hope Placed In The Box

The wedding venue remained bathed in the soft shine of hundreds of tiny lights. Elua stood at the edge of a terrace as she studied the shadowed landscape below. The distant sound of the town’s nightlife carried on the breeze... though the nearby surroundings were much quieter than it had been throughout the rest of the day.

Qatrand stepped gradually on the stone, approaching the girl’s back before she paused. The blonde took in the sight of her wife silhouetted against the horizon. her silver dress dotted with reflections. Her heart thumped at the solemn beauty of it... at least until she felt the brush of ’amusement’ in the fragment kept in her chest.

"I told them we could manage our own affairs for the night."

The Yecine murmured while coming to stand beside Elua. Attendants sent by her family had been hovering around and making them feel awkward, so she sent them away. The Goltbred trained her mint eyes on the pigeon blue... but the sound of hurried footsteps interrupted the start of their moment.

"Young miss, I’ve found what you requested. The venue staff were most accommodating."

The personal servant appeared, slightly out of breath, as Ondua trailed at a calmer speed clutching a sturdy wooden chest. The brunette teen nodded at her with a normal, ’sweet’ smile before gesturing toward the table.

"Excellent. Place it there, please, dad."

"Sure thing. I have a cart rented to take it back to the station in the morning. I had them leave it next to your nuptial suite. Speaking of that-"

"Well done. I’m glad I can count on you, father."

She interrupted him, not wanting him to question or caution about their sleeping arrangement. The reincarnator still had every intention of holding herself back until her prime and lately... she had been growing a sense of ’shame’ that her parents might be expecting differently!

’I don’t want to think about them together and I don’t want them to think about me with Qat!’

"Ah? I mean, of course! Just let me know anytime you need something, daughter. Being married doesn’t stop me from taking care of you."

"It doesn’t stop me from preferring you take care of Qat instead, either~"

The brunette man chuckled at her ’singsong’ inflections. He handed her the key to the lock and they chatted a few moments more before he left them alone for the night. Her personal servant started fidgeting again, feeling that she should probably dismiss herself as well but not wanting to make presumptions.

Small hands first moved the box of dangerous surgical tools, then the ’tree’, and finally the wind chimes before starting to be a little more haphazard with her stacking choices. While the chest was large enough to house the important items, it was never going to fit all of the things. As if she ’just realized’ she turned to the woman watching.

"Oh, can you get a large canvas sheet to wrap everything else in? Perhaps two or... however many you think I will need. I’m certainly making you run all around - perhaps a vacation is in order when we return?"

As the servant rapidly complied due to the words ’vacation’, the illusionist began to stretch with her fingers locked and arms over her head. The essence around them mobilized to create a cocoon of privacy as her spirit sealed it further.

"Now, we have much to discuss, my dear ’fortress’. I’ll let you pick the thing you are most curious over."

Not only was there a tight spiritual barrier powered with her Breacher stage cultivation in that field, but she was also perfectly capable at her level of control - and with her specific style of Astralism - of making it look like they weren’t talking with each other. The swordswoman’s eyebrow arched up, especially curious why doing this now was different than earlier.

"Okay... first, why did your mother bring up the Talcres before she left?"

Her El’s spirit sparked with ’mischief’ and ’appreciation’. Her beloved had caught the strange words! The schemer had been happy that her mother sold the ruse so unwittingly.

"Let me ask you... what do you think she believed I handed to her?"

Qatrand pressed her chin between thumb and the knuckle of her index finger. She mulled the leading question over, her admiration for her wife’s quick thinking and cunning growing with each repetition. While she had seen the tea set that they claimed to be the bestower of go into the chest just now...

"You used an illusion? She thinks the tree she is taking back is-"

"I’d like to interrupt before you go on. Everyone but you and I thinks that’s what she has with her, if they lay their eyes on it. Just like anyone that might have been watching saw me put the plant, that dared try to hurt you, right there."

Her small hand gestured to where she had stuffed the container three quarters full. There was clearly no such piece of flora ever placed in it.

"I will fool others with my ability. I will even delude myself. But, while I couldn’t say it again under the eyes of so many people... I will never use my Astralism directly on you, Qat. Not without making sure you know I will be doing it."

Everything from her pigeon blue eyes to the tips of her tendrils of spirit held a warm acceptance as she gazed at her serious wife. A pair of lips curved into a smile as she blew out air through her nose.

"I remember."

The Yecine voiced while reaching out and gripping down on the complex girl’s forehead. Through the touch, she could feel the returned force as the girl pressed back into the palm and closed her eyes.

"And I’ve never doubted that promise, El. So stop acting like I will. You might have a tendency to scheme, as you call it... but when it comes to your love - that is more straightforward than the rest of you to me."

The hand brushed across the soft hair and paused with fingertips around one of the small girl’s ears.

"I understand that it must mean a lot to you to tell me that today. So... we’ll say I appreciate you reaffirming it a final time."

She could feel something in her wife’s spirit rising steadily and quickly removed her hand. The ’not hunger’ wobbled where it was before slowly receding - much slower than it rose!

"Now... we’ve established that you’re not fooling my senses. Why don’t you explain the point to me?"

"Hold on, I’m struggling to remember or care. Ugh. A-ah, right, so I would assume that whoever sent it might want to steal it back in case it could lead to them."

The heiress held her hand near her hot face and manipulated the air with her Element to cool herself down. So many things today had been pushing her various limits!

"I was hardly going to let my mother deal with that, but it seemed prudent to not risk having the item destroyed if, say... the person responsible hired mercenaries to engage us in combat with the goal to grab or ruin it."

Even as she spoke, she realized how ridiculous she was being. It was one of the first threats she faced after all this time and the reincarnator immediately began to treat the situation as going a cliche route from ancient times.

"I see. So you sent it away with her in secret so that we could fight together alone, if needed. That’s very kind, El."

’Hnng~!’

"W-w-what are you talking about? That-"

A hearty chuckle interrupted her flustered moment.

"Calm down. It’s just how I saw it. Besides, that wasn’t really the thing I was most curious about... it was just the most recent that confused me."

Mint eyes squinted and blinked at the smiling blonde. She thought it might be about Anper... or perhaps the item that helped them during the Starbloom. Maybe why Sevra was harassing her? There was also that moment as they ate and-

"Do you like wind chimes?"

Overwhelmed by the direction her love had struck at her, Elua took a faltering step back before squatting down. The taller girl rushed forward and held onto her shoulder to stabilize her wife.

"Are you alright? What’s wrong? Is it because I asked that?"

A pair of arms snaked out and with a light hop, the silver clad brunette was fully koala’d onto the leaning over swordswoman. The Goltbred could feel all the muscles she was in contact with tauten... then pull the two of them to stand upright as an arm braced her back.

"Yes. It’s because you’re so... *you* that I just can’t stand it."

The Yecine ’heir’ didn’t question her further, after feeling that her spirit was a lot more complicated than only ’not hunger’. She let her mind drift as she gave the girl time to collect herself while clinging on. In a way, she felt she could understand the smaller girl’s statement.

’I am not so sure I could have stood not knowing you.’

"When I was a year or two older than I am now... well, my life then wasn’t good. I told you that I was an orphan - and without going into a lot of detail to preserve the niceness of this moment, that doesn’t mean nearly the same thing now as it did then."

’Orphanages? People that cared about you more than how they could profit or pleasure off of you? What a fantasy.’

"I didn’t know how to cultivate the three energies or even that I could. But one day, I stumbled across a nice secluded place. Or it might be more proper to say I was drawn by the sound."

She hesitated, but then started up an Illusion. Her face twisted against her husband-wife’s neck so that an eye could look in the same direction as her. It was mostly built on the spot from her imagination and parts were always shifting and being corrected as they struck her as ’different from memory’.

"It was a... rare moment of peace. I didn’t think about how hungry I was or who might find me there. Just sitting there, listening to the sound... and watching them strike together and move in the wind was..."

She closed her eyes and dispersed the use of her Astralism. There wasn’t much she actually wanted to show from that time to her Qat. Not on this day.

"I thought about them on occasion as my spirit grew. But I could never actually bring myself to purchase a set for myself... even during the times of my life when I was actually ’settled’."

"Why was that?"

Because the reborn cultivator had stopped talking for an extended period, the blonde couldn’t help but ask. Qatrand knew that had to have been a good reason for her reaction when opening the gift... and learning she was right was only part of the reason she was so drawn to knowing more.