Chapter 574: Chapter 574 - Going Out Of The Way To Hold Up Children... To The High Standards You Believe They Will Excel At

Yatrel er Goltbred paused just inside the threshold, one hand on the frame, while taking inventory of the room’s exact mood far faster than any attentive mortal mother could hope. Entering her own dining hall after hours of directing the kitchen personally for the important meals always felt like stepping out of the war room and onto a battlefield she had been framing in her own imagination. The reality was always quite different... if the social meeting included her eldest daughter, she’d found.

Ondua was in his usual seat with a slight more slump than normal, though he had a relaxed smile on his face that he was sure came from their firstborn. Elua was behind him and whispering into Onya’s ear, the grip and thumb motions the smaller girl made told the duelist that they were discussing a shoulder massage. Something that had been detailed in the illusory training tool recently for the growing cultivator child...

However, it was also a skill she had never gotten anything but ’positive’ feedback until now! Elua informed her what she had been doing wrong on Rezzue while demonstrating on their grateful father. The brown eyed girl was a bit hurt that people just smiled and nodded all this time. Fortunately, being taught something directly by her sister, who seemed like the most truthful person on the planet (when it came to Onya & Qat), easily overpowered that feeling.

Quite like the white dress that drifted more into view had overpowered a certain set of mint eyes. One original and one prosthetic. As she shut them tight and took another step into the room.

’So that’s what he has been getting made for her. Makes sense that it cost enough that he felt the need to tell me. I also see why he told me it was a surprise.’

What she did first was not what she had planned. Yatrel pictured going to her seat and letting the meal begin, as the staff was trailing behind her as told. Instead her feet carried her toward the red-haired visitor, because the new mother’s shoulders were held high and tense as she looked down at the triplets. A state recognized from seeing too many long vigils at other battlefields, in other years - quiet ’enduring’ out of someone who would not ask for help. Even should they desperately need it.

"It has been a long day, has it not?"

"...Yes."

"Should you need anything at all, you only need to say the word."

"I will."

As servants began to place items on the table and everyone else took their seats, the two women were the only ones to remain talking in the room. Making it easy for the others to overhear the little conversation, even during the shuffling of tapping feet, screeching chair legs, and clinking plates.

"Do not be more of an imposition by attempting to avoid being one. Okay?"

"Okay. Your daughter sounds a lot like you, you know. When she treats me like that."

Yatrel simply bent down and lifted the nearest of the three infants, the one she could tell was about to make a fuss. The baby settled against the fabric over her collarbone without protest... as the babies she held at visited orphanages often did. Even before she had her own children, there was something in the steadiness of her family-loving spirit that translated to those who needed to feel it.

"Then I raised her well. I’m sure she would be helping you with this."

"Dame Goltbred, you don’t have to-"

"Eat, Rezzue er Yecine. This meal is for you as well. And it is for me to see those returning to us enjoy it."

Instead of continuing the protest meaninglessly in the face of an older woman who had already turned away and moved down the table, her pear-colored eyes dropped to the plate of food slid in front of her. The fork she picked up beside it was almost unfamiliar in her grip after so many meals eaten quickly and one-handed this last month. Which isn’t to say that Elua and the two boys had not tried to help - just went to show that keeping three different babies fed and coddled was simply a logistical problem that took time to work itself out.

While passing near the smiling brunette, waiting at the back of her mother’s chair to push it in after she sat... Yatrel’s free hand came up and settled briefly on her eldest’s shoulder. A press of fingers, careful and close by the green bird perched there, who eyed the reddish-blonde who had been kind enough not to overwork it. She had been lent it as a messenger these years and she had grown attached, if only as a reminder of its true owner.

The possessive wife was reminded of this even more as her vision skipped across that blank space on the copper mantle’s pauldron. Deciding that there were *conversations* to be had with Ondua. The kind that his neck might not like so much!

"Thank you, mom. For helping them so suddenly."

"It’s good practice, dear. For taking care of the grandchildren that I expected I would have around now in life. Especially after how you were acting..."

"Well, there’s still a bit of wait and preparation on that. But, I’ll inform you more later."

"Yes, we will talk later. About many things."

She sat down with that ominous whisper, still holding onto Number Three but letting Elua do as she pleased. The reddish-blonde woman tracked her attention to the one who shared her hair color next, as Onya had already installed herself back at her own chair - the one on the other side of an empty one, close to Qat. And she glared with a very resolved look at her plate... as if it was an obstacle to overcome with as much her wits as her tastebuds.

The strategic placement of foods had already done its work. Seeing the exact same food scene mirrored across her older sibling’s dinnerware beside her had been the inescapable challenge that the mother had expected it would be. And the bold bite into the local grown form of winter squash proved what Yatrel already knew - that the phrase "Elua would-" was going to be a practically unfair motivator to her second daughter.

’I will use it responsibly. Just like I did when calling on Qatrand’s name to nudge the one who cared most about ’him’...’

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

After sitting briefly in between her spouse and sister, ordering her birds to give her space before wolfing down a bite or two of everything available, the heiress abruptly left her seat. Which, as might be expected from a private dinner... drew everyone’s eyes. If not for the standing, then for the throat clearing.

And then the pivot to crawling under the table just to get to the other side *without* circling the furniture. A detail which truly had almost everyone in the room wondering *why* she went with that exact troublesome extreme.

It was neither quick, nor efficient - and certainly didn’t seem to be favorable while wearing a dress with the design she had on. Those who had seen her in motion in the Astral Exclave in recent years thought she would have been much more likely to simply hop up and float to the other side!

"I’ve got her. Before you object, remember that you agreed in the document I made you sign. That I could step in when you are in need of it."

"You... did make me sign that."

Rezzue’s weak protest dissolved at the firmness in her friend-teacher-sister’s tone. Goltbred mother and daughter really did sound and act alike, she felt that more than ever... as Elua adjusted her hold on Number One so that the infant settled against the softest parts of her shoulder. A sight which made pigeon blue eyes lock onto the scene with fiercely mixed feelings, but the same core thought she’d had ever since first zooming in and clamping her hand on the brunette skull.

’My wife is exquisite.’

"Let me take her instead."

"No~"

The denying word in the reincarnator’s matured voice came out far more affectionate than the one she had used on the red-head, who had returned to her meal with a complex gratefulness herself. However, as playful as it came off... the spiritual intent behind it was no less firm than she’d been with the actual mother. Which caused ’confusion’ to pulse along the tendrils coiling around Elua, with a smug smirk on her face.

"I have eaten food before, with lots of people. In lots of ways and places. Yet, this is your first family dinner with *them*. Ever. Eat."

Qat’s eyes shifted to the siblings over on one side of her, knowing that her mint-drop was usually right about things. Kaland had been extra carefully cutting his meat, trying very hard to remember his limited etiquette lessons while panicking at the number of other utensils. Ajoreal meanwhile had never really sat at a proper dinner table at all, though he was not quite as paralyzed about avoiding doing anything that might look wrong.

To them, Yecine meals were often delivered to their rooms and consumed alone... and training for situations beyond that usually only occurred the year before Guild training. Qatrand had been just a bit out of the norm in that regard too, as the faction ’raising’ her had included that experience within things to practice far earlier in her youth than others of their family.

With an early arranged marriage, the potential that their young pawn might be requested to visit and maintain social niceties... made even those old men pull out all the extra careful teaching stops. Though the blonde herself remembered all of those lessons deserting her on the noon that she actually did join Elua and her parents in a luncheon for the first time.

The former Yecine’s hand returned to her fork. She took her next bite slowly, as that other ’first’ filled her with nostalgia. The warmth she felt resonated in the fragment, spiking to something almost painfully cloying during its honey-soaked plunge into memory. Which made the brunette plod back over to stand behind her retrospective husband-wife.

Proper mealtimes shared with good manners aside, the small and cute creature that was her fiancée had hugged her goodbye back then... before whispering her thanks and her hopes that Qat would come visit much more. That part of her was something that had never changed - facade or not. El had often focused on doing things she considered essential to rounding out the young ’fiancé’ back then.

Not to shape toward any *certain* way of being, but her hope to simply provide access to a breadth of experiences for her ’fortress’ to draw from. The fact that the young heavy blade wielder eventually started to recognize her own desires and wants *may* have been inevitable as she matured... but she was convinced that it was the accumulation of everything, including what the heiress had given her all these years, that made up her current wisdom.

"No one here minds the little mistakes. Just enjoy your food - and don’t treat it like training?"

The kind that let her try and reassure two pre-adolescents at the table. Poking at some kind of poultry with a salad fork, the youngest brother grumbled an accusation back and regretted it. For it felt like tattling on their instructor was something... that would get his future special Lightning sword taken away before it ever graced his hands!

"...We were told to treat everything like... training."

"El..."

"It was good advice. They’ll learn when to take it literally, and when not to, at their own pace. Just like you did."

Smiling, the older sister to those two brothers picked up the ’right’ fork for meat and showed it off to both of them. Before opening her mouth and saying something which made Kaland and Ajoreal flinch. Phrasing and timing that she regretted, herself.

"Huh. I don’t think they understand."

Especially because her wife also willfully picked the worst meaning of that to follow up with.

"Give them a little credit. They can follow things like picking out tools you show them by sight. And their memory recall as spiritual Enchanters is alright enough to-"

"No. I mean that... what you just said about them. It was impressive."

When the older of the two boys met the pigeon blues, he was taken in by her Cynosure. Attention fully focused, the next words that Qatrand spoke carved themselves right into mental importance, like they were spoken by the most trustworthy source around. In this case, she actually *was* far more dependable than the heiress, who would lie to any but two certain people if it served her needs.

"She’s holding you to what she sees as my standard. Her ideal cultivator."

Though she did feel a bit like she was scheming as her skin tingled with just a bit of heat from the scrutiny of the two half-brothers and little sister-in-law.

"That makes sense. She talked about you a lot."

"...And apparently believes you can achieve it. Being something she is proud of like me."

Pawing at the black blazer’s arm, both because she actually was mildly embarrassed and just because she wanted as much attention from Qat as the boys were giving the swordswoman...

"Y-you’re putting extra words in my mouth."

"No~ I’m not."

They would later agree to disagree over the subject of exactly how much faith in a person’s final potential a teacher should... admit to. When it comes to the prevention of ballooning egos, one ancient cultivator was sure that praise only when it was deserved was always better than instilling too grand of expectations!

’Besides, I only think they’ll be *half* as good as her... at best.’