Chapter 93: Elias has a mental break.
At around midday, Sienna settled Ali and Eli down for a noon nap. She headed upstairs and flopped onto her bed, ready for own sacred relaxation afternoon activity. The pillows were already fluffed, the blanket soft and furry, just like the fleece she was going to cover herself with. She was humming a lazy tune when the system suddenly awakened.
The chime shocked her because the system only showed up to alert her to a task or new pet.
[Warning: Your pet Elias Veythar is experiencing a mental break. Immediate soothing required. Failure will result in backlash which will affect your mental strength.]
Sienna sat upright, hair sticking out like a startled hedgehog. "What?!" she hissed. "What mental break? What backlash? Why am I affected? Isn’t that his problem?"
The system didn’t respond. It had delivered bad news and left.
She groaned, slapped her cheeks awake, and marched downstairs. He was not in the house. Elias was in one of the cottages on his property, surrounded by noise from all the construction going on. They were building two more cottages. Sienna couldn’t fathom why.
She marched inside and found him in what he had turned into his office. He was sitting behind the desk, aura leaking like a cracked glacier. His eyes were blood red, all six tails out and twitching in agitation. The air itself seemed brittle, as though one wrong word would make it shatter like glass.
Sienna touched the desk hesitantly. "Uh....hi? I came to see how you are doing. Seems like you are having a bad afternoon."
His eyes snapped to her, sharp as blades. "leave." His voice was low, dangerous. "Get out, right now. Roll." He bellowed, tugging at the buttons of his shirt.
Sienna crossed her arms. "I thought I told you that the roll era was over. If I leave, I will suffer more than you."
Elias groaned. "Sienna, I am having a mental break. I need to be alone. Go."
Sienna stomped forward anyway, muttering, "If you break, I break. We are both going." She grabbed his wrist, tugging him out of the chair. "If you fight me, I will start a live stream right now and let everyone see you. Just follow me obediently to the bedroom in our cottage."
Elias resisted, but his aura flickered. His mental strength was weakening, threads snapping one by one. She pulled him out and pushed him onto Honey Thunder’s back. The bee flew them to Sienna’s cottage.
"Thank you Honey." She shouted as it flew away.
Sienna, then wrapped her arms around Elias’s waist and forced him to move ahead. His legs were weak and trembling, his forehead lined with sweat between the frown lines. He looked like a man who had gone out drinking and returned sick.
She got him upstairs successfully and shoved him on the bed like a stubborn cat. "There. Lie down. And don’t glare at me, you are not scaring me with your frosty eyes. I’ve seen scarier--like a batch of chicken feet that kill."
Elias’s lips twitched despite himself. "You are a fool."
She ignored him, climbing beside him with the authority of someone forced into babysitting duty and her ward was a brat that refused to be obedient. She reached out, hesitated, then boldly petted his tails. "Haha---" she let out an evil throaty laugh, "Look at you now, soft and weak. I can touch your tails as much as I want and you won’t stop me. You should rent these out to me as stress balls."
Elias stiffened, ears twitching. "Don’t..."
Sienna cut him off by humming the silly fox song she had taught Ali. But the lyrics had been changed to a royal princess stealing bees and lazy snakes. Elias blinked, confused. "Do you make songs up about everything?" He asked in a pained voice.
"If it is ridiculous, yes." Sienna said proudly. "That is how I learned when I was in school. If you make things into a song, they are easy to remember. See, even in the midst of your mental break, you find it funny."
Elias’s chest rose and fell unevenly, his aura still jagged. Sienna placed her hand lightly against his chest, patting as though calming a restless beast. "Breathe. In. Out. pretend you are not plotting the murder of a white snake." She twisted her lips. "Or mine."
He gave her a look that could freeze oceans.
She grinned. "See, you are smiling already. Humor is medicinal. Quick warning, if you bite me, I will bite back. I’m not scared. And I have a pan on my dressing table." She moved her hand over his chest, up and down. The other one played with a tail, digging her fingers into it before greedily reaching for another.
For a while, Elias tried to resist. His tails twitched, his claws flexed, his aura surged. But Sienna’s humming was relentless, her fingers flexible and her chatter absurd.
"I heard that there are penguin beast men somewhere in the South. I hope I get to see them someday." she said conversationally, "Do you know that penguins nest by stealing pebbles from each other? If we were penguins, you would be the one that hoards and I would be the one that steals."
Elias’s lips parted, then closed. What was she talking about? Penguin beast men lived in houses! His aura wavered, the sharp edged dulling. "I would give you a beating."
She smirked. "You would have to catch me first."
She hummed louder, stroking his tails with exaggerated care. "I am not doing this for free. You will have to pay me for this fluffy therapy. I think my greatest pleasures in life are spending your money and playing with your tails."
Elias’s eyes fluttered shut, his breathing evening out. Slowly, the frost receded, the tension melting like snow under spring sun. His tails curled around her wrist, not in a hostile way, but an indulgent one.
Sienna blinked, "Wait. Did you just...stroke my arm?"
No response. Elias was asleep, his mental break soothed, his aura calm. Sienna stared at him, incredulous. "Unbelievable. So he can fall asleep just like that. System, you owe me compensation."
The system chimes softly. [Mission complete. Reward: Healthy tomato seeds whose fruit can refresh the mind.]
Sienna muttered, "I was thinking cash. But since I technically have mental strength, I will take the refreshing tomato."
His tails wrapped around her waist. She glanced at his peaceful face, his chest rising and falling steadily. For once, he looked less like the cold Lord of the fox tribe and more like a tired man. "Violent mental breaks, huh? More like violent naps."
She tucked the fleece around the both and closed her eyes. Later, she would have to find out what had caused the mental break, so that it could be avoided in future. She never thought their would be cons to sharing his mental strength!