A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

They stayed in each other's embrace silently for a little while, until Elora could no longer stand the wait.

"Well…" she muttered, now looking up at Erik's closed eyes with a light grin. "I do believe I now have the perfect place from which to check if you truly are fine!"

Erik, needing a moment for his tired mind to comprehend her words, opened one eye to look at her curiously. Before he could answer, Elora's body already began to dissolve into hundreds of light wisps. With the last breath of her physical body, she released a shuddering sigh of relief after having been unable to do this for half a year.

Then, the wisps rushed into Erik's body and filled with a light glow. Erik gasped, his eyes wide as he shot upright. He'd not expected her to merge with him so suddenly, but it was a feeling he'd missed just as much as her.

He, too, breathed a sigh of relief. Clarity returned as the process of merging with his fairy strengthened his body, mind, and soul. The exhaustion was wiped away—or at least pushed back—and any remaining stiffness from being suppressed disappeared.

"Ooh, that feels good…" he groaned and sagged back against the surprisingly warm stone wall with a grin. "It's nice to have you back where you belong…"

Elora's voice entered his mind. "Hmmm, I agree," she muttered, filled with comfort. "I almost forgot how comfortable it is in here… Although the core did make a bit of a mess of the place, but I'll get that straightened out quickly."

Immediately, Erik started feeling more comfortable as well, as Elora began smoothing out some wrinkles in his soul that he'd not even realised were there. As she did, she continued talking. "You should also test if you can still pull power from the core. I can monitor things from in here now."

A wry smirk spread across Erik's face as he pushed himself up to his feet. "I'm not sure," he muttered hesitantly, pressing his hand against the barrier that was currently isolating the Elorium core from the rest of his dimension. "After feeling that power, I'm suddenly a lot more nervous about putting any of that in my body. I know I've done it before, but what if we did something wrong during the transfer?"

Elora paused what she was doing and raised a mental eyebrow. "Is this a throwback to the hesitant boy you used to be?" she asked, perhaps more harshly than she meant it. "If so, do away with it. The path to power is filled with risk, and this is no different. You think fighting the hunters without Elorium will be any safer than this?"

He blinked… and then shook his head with a chuckle. "Heh, right… I guess the talk of family and children made me go soft for a moment…" He paused for a moment, and steel determination filled his gaze once more. "But only by being hard on myself and my enemies can I create a safe future for them."

The fairy in his soul grinned and nodded with satisfaction, while Erik focused his gaze on the core. Though no longer hesitant, he still moved slowly as he touched the newly-formed, spatial pathways between his inner dimension and the energy flow of his body.

He kept his eyes on the core and immediately noticed it tremble a little. But that didn't stop him. From inside his soul, Elora was monitoring everything, and he trusted her to pull the plug if anything went truly wrong.

With the connection established, he did what he'd done dozens of times by now and attempted to create just the tiniest drops of Elorium by presenting the core with even smaller amounts of aetherium and runic energy. In front of him, the core began to thrum and pulse, but only for less than a second before Erik immediately felt the heavy presence of Elorium in his gut.

They had succeeded.

He grinned. The drop of Elorium in his gut would soon create a hole in his lower body, but this was the part he'd dealt with many times already. He immediately divided the drop into dozens of parts and divided them over his entire body. He was filled with a familiar rush.

"Hahaha!" he laughed, relief and adrenaline mixing to make him light-headed. He spread his arms and roared with power, "Raaaah," ready to face the world.

Elora giggled happily from within. At the same time, the air next to him shimmered as two people entered his dimension.

"Eh?" he immediately muttered, not having expected anyone to show up right now as he looked sideways.

Next to him appeared an amused Runa and a playfully grinning Leila. His mother smirked at him."What kind of roar was that, little Silvy? You preparing to fuck or fight?"

Erik felt far too good to bother with the crude comments that usually at least made him flinch a little when they came from his mother. Rather, his hungry gaze swivelled over to Leila. "Either will do…" he growled. "Neither of you will do for the first one, but you'll do for the second, Leila."

Leila blushed, but her grin widened, clearly becoming excited as she rubbed her thighs together. "My body's yours, Daddy…" she winked, and prepared to step closer to him.

Unfortunately, Runa put a hand on her shoulder. "Uh uh! I'll pretend not to be hurt by your comments, Silvy," she smirked, hopefully referring to his first estimation, rather than the second one. "But before you storm off to ravage my friend here, I'd like to know why I climb all the way up this tower to enter, and why I had to hear about it from Ankhur!"

She then pointed at the fascinating display in the middle of the room and cocked an eyebrow. "Also, what's that?"

Erik hesitated, his nose twitching a little. He wanted to grab Leila and rush into his room, but in the end, he wasn't impatient enough to disrespect his mother. Controlling himself, he quickly explained what'd just happened here.

When he was done, Runa narrowed her eyes at him. She stayed like that for a moment, and Erik could see worry fighting with something else in her mind. After a moment of silence, she sighed reluctantly. "Well… calling you out for recklessness would be hypocritical of me…"

She sighed again, and her face relaxed. She looked at him with warmth in her eyes. "Just promise me you'll be careful, alright…?"

Though he wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep that promise, Erik still nodded gravely. He knew his mother also didn't fully believe that promise, but this was the kind of mutual delusion that a family sometimes needed.

Finally, Runa's usual, easy grin returned to her lips as she finally released the pouting Leila. "Alright, you two. Go have fun."

Leila immediately jumped into Erik's arms and rubbed her lean but sexy body against him. "Shall we, Daddy~?" she purred, having nearly forgotten about Runa's presence.

Runa rolled her eyes at her friend, yet couldn't help but smile a little. With a playful sigh, she turned around. "Well, I guess 'sisters before misters' is a concept lost on little Leilei." She waved at them with the back of her hand as she walked over to the training area. "Leila and I are going to start our breakthrough, Silvy, so don't tire her out too much, and sent her here when you're done, alright?"

Her words only partially penetrated their minds as Erik and Leila made their way to his bedroom.