Chapter 561: Chapter 561 - Trust Can Overflow And Erode The River’s Banks, So It Must Be Careful Not To Flood With Promises

"I’m going to be an Enchanter soon. Then I can visit that place too, right?"

"I’ll show you everything when you’re ready to see it, so just keep eating good and growing strong. You’ve been working very hard."

Onya twisted her foot into the ground at the sound of the praise and the feeling of the hand on top of her head. When anyone else said something like that, with such a soft tone, she’d normally just respond with a quick: Of course I am. But standing next to her older sister felt like she was under a lot more scrutiny!

The kind that just ’knew’ how often the girl would toss a recommended book aside and go for a run out in the estate instead. Even though she *loved* it when she was ’caught’ falling asleep reading in a spot that Elua used to sit around in! The estate’s servants would always make comments about how cute that was, but the growing ’river bend’ knew the truth.

Half the time she’d just sat down there with the book, never even reading it at all...

"You promise I’ll get to go?"

"I don’t make promises to people I care for that I might not keep. There is a small chance that I destroy everything I did there."

"D-destroy? Why?"

Grimacing, the ancient cultivator really thought that over for once. It had seemed like an elegant solution at the time. Perfectly *rational* to get rid of it, so that no one else could make use of it if Qatrand decided it wasn’t something she wanted. It was built all with *their* future in mind, after all. But underneath the surprised eyes of her little sister...

"Just a precaution. I probably won’t do it."

’Crap. I could have given it all to her instead! Alright, now I’ll have to make sure to go back no matter what and disarm that. Maybe throw Madrigil out, I don’t want that man near my sister.’

Not because the heiress thought that he would do something bad to her. Just because she had this strange feeling that Onya would *like* him, or at least bugging him, which would force her to change her own opinion of the man to one that was much more favorable. But there were *so* many people beyond the single Metal Element cultivator who could serve as mentors and companions to her precious sibling.

"But if I asked you to promise me to do something, I’d want you to tell me if you can’t, okay? I’ll be more upset later if I learned you lied. Because it meant you didn’t trust me to have your side in the first place."

"I trust you! I think."

"That’s good. You can always tell me anything, Onya. Remember that."

"...But what if I don’t know when I make a promise that I can’t keep it? Would you still be mad?"

"Hm, let me think about that. Hold still."

Looking at the slightly dirty clothes of the little brown eyed girl, El kneeled down and flourished both of her hands out with fingers wide. Her Gaseous control quickly displaced the soiled bits from cloth fibers... and she took extra care around a very intricately carved Wood ornament that hung from her little sash.

Eyeing it carefully, recognizing the level of craftmanship, and making plans to ask her later where she got it. Though she already had it in mind that it was this Gehxel kid that Onya wrote back about once. Which was someone she very much intended to have a good long talk with.

Because no matter how good he might have been treating her sibling, Elua er Goltbred still found that she happened to be as *little* of a fan of people ’getting to her’ through this girl as she would be anyone that might curry favor with Qat *just* to talk to the prolific artisan-sigilist. Even if she knew it was bound to happen.

"Well, the answer seems much more complicated than keeping you clean is, that’s for sure. I might be a little mad."

"...Ah."

"That is, if you are agreeing to everything I ask without actually thinking things through. You don’t have to do that to show you love me or to make me love you. It’s not because you’re a perfect little person that I care for you, though certainly half the time I do think you are much more perfect than me~"

Pinching and pulling on her cheeks to the outward displeasure of a set of brown eyes, the little girl eventually pushed away weakly and rubbed at the sides of her face while trying to hide her smile. Of course, she could only do this by turning completely around and holding in her laughter.

"...Mom and dad are going to be upset you saw me before them."

"No, they won’t. They know how I am."

"Huh. Qat said the same thing to me a lot. That everyone important knows how you are."

"She’s usually right about things like that. I think Qatrand knows me better than anyone. Shall we go prove her correct?"

She offered her hand while standing and Onya took it quickly enough, only to be ’hit’ with a certain feeling of ’fun’ and ’excitement’ that most people... would read as nothing but ’mischief’. However, the ’river bend’ who was a cute and active ’otter’ to one cultivator and a cute *but* active ’raccoon’ to many others in the household didn’t know the unruly meaning of that feeling. It just felt *right*!

"By the way, you’re not afraid of heights like our mother is, correct?"

"Mm. I don’t know. She doesn’t let me climb things very far. I got scolded last time I tried to go up the bookshelf on my own... why?"

"Oh, I’ll take you for some fun tests then later. Maybe after dinner."

Elua already experimented and learned that it was a bit harder to fly by Element use alone - at least quite as freely - with the essence density on the continent. The air around her could still be wrangled quite quickly, but at a noticeably different rate. Yet, she also was a Breacher in that energy! Which meant offsetting a lot of the work with the Levitation technique was still entirely possible for someone as competent as her.

"Elua..."

A quiet little call sounded out as they walked back on the path toward the main house.

"What is it? Also you can call me El if you’d like. You already call my darling Qat by a short form, so it feels a little lonely."

"No. I don’t like any way to make my name short, so I don’t want to be different from you!"

’On. Ya. Onon... Yaya. Onny? Certainly... those are no good!’

"Haha, well, I guess that is a good reason. Okay, you can call me as you’d like, little otter."

The little hand squeezed tighter around the soft but clearly strong hands of the inwardly titled Pretty Ogre Sister. She’d heard that people called her sibling a medical fairy as well. Which she understood the title to mean any kind of soft little future beauty.

But in her young heart she just couldn’t think of *herself* as such a thing - even if others would disagree - so refused to do the same for her now adult sister. A woman Onya knew was as fierce as the doll still sitting nightly on her bed... and of course just as much or more as their shared mother.

"Uh. Okay. I’ll think about it more. Nicknames. But can I ask something else?"

"Anything."

"Should I be... seeing that? Or talking about it?"

Pointing her free hand’s little index finger to all the stuff still floating around Elua’s form in Adhesion, at least the things she didn’t leave in their little home or safely with Qatrand before she went into the gardens, the girl frowned when the heiress snickered. Then watched as a black colored mirror that felt *weird* to look at floated in front of them, at which time the brunette tapped their held hands against the Obsidian to show off that it was very much real.

"I don’t think I’ll hide that much from you in the future. So you may have to get used to seeing things that most others do not. Which means paying very close attention to how others react whenever I’m around. I’ll teach you the signs I use with Qat."

"Ugh. That sounds... hard."

"Just think of it as more training, hm?"

Soon enough Onya would learn that her sister did actually tend to think of almost everything that way - as a form of training. At least once she bugged to *tears* two young Yecine boys, who were ’forced’ under the threat of distant mint colored eyes... to tell the younger girl all of the truthful details of their experience in the Astral Exclave.

Which left the youngest Goltbred *giggling* more often than not...

To their terror.