The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 541 - Sudden Searching & Long Waiting, Obsessively

A flutter of dusky feathers interrupted further conversation with the Nalbet family member as Qatrand raised her arm on instinct. The Skydancer that had rushed through her net of spiritual tendrils settled onto the steel-cable of a wrist with much familiarity, small talons gripping down on the fancy black leather armguard revealed underneath the suit’s sleeve.

The practical tool from her wife, once meant to help herself be located when she ’disappeared’ while meditating, had gotten a lot more use as a perch for this avian messenger than it ever had for its anti-toxin effect... as far as she was aware. Of course, most cultivators wouldn’t count the neutralization of any slight dermatoxins that would heal naturally and barely bother their physical energy as a big benefit.

But Elua knew that the *long game* of accumulation was not about what felt like big moments of energy use or gain, but about reducing even the most *minor* drains to fractional states. Because it meant your rate of keeping energy over time could increase. And sigils that could trade essence at a very efficient ratio to keep her unskilled beloved - at the time - from getting a rash here and there while on missions was very much the sort of compromise of fractions she especially enjoyed preparing for.

Beyond not entirely realizing the full meaning of that sort of effect, because the little artisan had just handwaved it all with the umbrella phrase of anti-toxin, there was also the matter of the spiritual fragment left inside... that had long been cannibalized by excessive prodding at it by lonely tendrils. Something that Qatrand wasn’t proud of at all, as it felt like she had rubbed away an important memory.

Even though her El had told her that *tiny* piece of sacrificial spiritual energy would need periodically replaced. As it would in anything she made whose workings were powered by condensed knowledge given ’form’. There was simply a reason that the energy was attached to an individual and not floating everywhere like essence.

"Excuse me."

The message case attached to its leg was light, clearly not a very detailed report. She unrolled the paper to scan the contents while noting the handwriting and seal belonged to one of Jerant’s scouts. She’d tasked the Whispering Winds, Talva’s husband in particular, with a certain mission after the trio of women returned from the Exclave... and brought a certain bit of good news.

But they hadn’t been having much luck yet finding the new father-to-be.

/ Fourth rotation. Eastern routes covered with no contact with Yecine hunting party. Will expand search North, toward the mining territories, if you wish us to continue. /

Essentially the same result as the last three attempts, Navuill’s group remained slightly beyond reach, chasing Anper er Yecine to bring him in through whatever puff of Smoke he kept disappearing into. And with every failed attempt to contact or get luckily ahead of them, the window of time narrowed.

Rezzue was approaching eight months now, late term as Qat understood it. The triplets would arrive as biology demanded, whether their father knew about them or not. She wasn’t worried about their safety with El at hand, but she was worried that her cousin would regret not being there for children that would already have a hard time of things.

"Trouble?"

"Family matter. Someone I need to reach and can’t find. Some things just can’t be solved quicker by only throwing people as resources at them."

She tried not to sound annoyed, but she was. It wasn’t that she felt Navuill was anything close to incompetent, but she felt like he had no business on what was clear to her as a face-saving symbolic hunt for her father. As the youngest new elder to the council, one who both was revealed as being involved in taking two young Yecine away from the estate along with his now missing wife...

’They are punishing him with this. Probably hope he actually finds and gets into a conflict with Anper, so that they might wash their hands of both of them. Or at least one of them.’

The excuse that his Empathic ability would allow him to do something similar to what the Danger Astralism wielder was doing was thin. Maybe sudden bouts of anger or bloodlust when bringing up the term Ouras might have been effective months ago, but with the tale out in the open... she would not be surprised if anyone wanted to harm you for calling them a cultist.

"Well, I wish I could help. If you need anything you think I can do. Not to sound cynical, but some things simply take time you don’t have."

Leading an organization had taught him how often the universe refused to cooperate with urgent necessity. Salghis may have even once thought that if he had just had more time, he could have turned the factional situation around. But after being attacked, he was sure that it was a matter of not effectively using the time he did have.

They resumed walking after the Skydancer took flight again, leaving the busiest section of the construction behind as they approached the base of the member wing. Eventually the first floor would house administrative offices... and there was even a blueprint tacked right on a little pedestal nearby that the visitor studied with interest. Yatrel didn’t care who knew her plans. She wanted the workers and the people who might visit to know, because she had no intention of hiding anything in this Guild of hers.

Which is why, just like the patient wing, the rooms facing the piazza would have large glass windows looking outside. Also letting anyone see what was going on inside... mostly. Among the documents Sevra brought to the Exclave had been these very plans - and Elua had promised to provide sigilscript when she returned that could create a Shadow curtain of utter darkness when privacy was truly needed.

After all, she was pretty certain that a variety of reptile scale quite adept at acting as a catalyst for *just* such an effect would... probably be hitting the market some time after she returned. Around two and a half months remained until that date - which was a number small enough to begin counting down to, for others like her parents and sibling.

The swordswoman herself had been counting since Sevra’s first return with a great big guidebook from the ancient cultivator. A number that fell from over fourteen-hundred, daily. Tallied by hand, too, with the use of a chisel on one wall of the quarry. Of course, that was a later choice born from visiting that place twice and was not something she went out of her way to do every day.

’I did spent the time all at once to carve up to how long it had been, that first time. Is it more obsessive to do something once a day for over five hundred days, or to spend a whole day doing a thing five hundred times?’

In any case, it didn’t erase the fact that every couple weeks she added another dozen or so. The self-rhetorical was really a moot point!

"I’ll speak with their mothers when I return. And with Jes and the others who haven’t found a place to move on yet who I still trust. But I can’t promise anything from any of them."

"I wouldn’t expect you to. Nor was I giving you any. As you can see, the path here is literally open and will be what those coming here make of it."

He nodded just once before taking his leave to return to the guest quarters she had arranged. One of the rooms meant for visiting dignitaries and high-value merchants. But pigeon blues took a good look at the place being built after being left alone. Unlike the Ironclad Order’s branch building, which was as much of a fortress as anything else built in the city’s limits, this was a place she could be seen by a large crowd all at once.

Without the martial nature of the popular colosseum-like arena, which had steadily been raking in usage right and betting-cut funds as suggested by Elua. That stage down there was a place her Cynosure Physique might have the best chance, with its Primalist version effect, to speak to many people in a teaching manner.

Her eyes remained aimed that way for a long while. Thinking that there was someone else she wanted to be up there with her when she tried. Someone that could explain things a lot better than she could. Or at least, who was very good at providing visual aids and lesson plans.

’I also kind of want to see her act. Her mother and father seem to think she is going to remain loyal to the Coiled Serpent Guild like I intend to be with the Order. But I’m really not as sure as they are.’

Her hand rose briefly to touch the brooch at her lapel. The blue stone and gold encasement was still extra useful for its voice projecting properties. But it was, itself, proof that everything about her was so beyond the Guild she tried to fit into back when most of her secrets were still being kept. It was even joined before Qat was told she was a reincarnator!

"Soon, I can ask her what she wants to do from now on in person."

But if she said anything that first day, week, perhaps even month... about being distant from each other again? The former Yecine was unsure what she would do. Though a palm to the forehead would very likely be the fully instinctive start of things.