Chapter 549 - (Interlude) Descended Queen, Birds Gather!
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The Whispering Skydancer on its perch had not moved much in almost three hours. Yatrel er Goltbred would have suspected it was asleep if not for the occasional rotation of its head - white eyes tracking things that the duelist’s own prosthetic eye and improved spiritual sense following her daughter’s lessons could see, though her natural one was less capable. Small harmless insects, mostly, but occasionally just strange little whirls of dense essence that caused a sort of lensing effect on the air.
’That daughter of mine. Why did she have to give me such a distracting new piece of sensory information to deal with?’
Unlike Yatrel, the bird was a patient creature. The pair left to her and her husband had proven that in the years since five blurs of iridescent feathers scattered to their posts. Occasionally they carried messages in exchange for treats and shelter, but mostly just sitting and watching. Like little sentries, waiting for orders from a queen in self-chosen exile.
A series of those whirls began to flow into the Dame Goltbred’s study, and the bird snapped its head toward the source. At the same time in a different room, the other avian of the house - on the windowsill above Ondua’s reading desk - did the same. Their feathers ruffled out in unison at the danger before flattening out from the sudden familiarity.
"What’s gotten into-"
A pulse hit her spiritual sense and made her stop as both launched into flight, first seeking out their exits to meet each other on the rooftop. A collision that looked like a little scuffle for food if anyone were watching, but was really just a sort of communication... that involved lots of posturing, squawks and tweets, and occasional bumps into each other to get the point across.
With a hand patting down one side of her reddish-blonde hair, the mother stood. Her eldest daughter’s spiritual energy was recognizable, even if it had been quite a bit of time again since experiencing it. However, one moment it was there - spreading wide and searching like a Breacher’s net cast over a hundred plus miles round of Astral Exclave. And then in almost no time, it was moving.
"Of course. No stop to say hello. Right to her most important person. I raised her well."
Chuckling, she started to put her hair up with the thought to go help the other arrivals out in the garden. If she’d known that Elua was about to go permanently remove an old pastime of hers, she may have grabbed her gauntlets and raced the young woman there!
On the roof, the birds froze for a minute until one pitched an idea. Then they both separated as one. The first that served Ondua, the smaller dusky purple, shot toward where two of the other members of their retinue awaited. Nohre and Fusand’s lent dawn gold and midnight blue birds would take a while to get to by wing, but not assembling for their queen would be lèse-majesté!
The other turned to fly alongside the rail line, as it usually did, to come and go from Qatrand’s location and its new frequent habitat at the construction site... where it snuck lots and lots of treats from the workers. However, it was not a greedy bird. It brought back and filled the coffers of the emergency fund for the kingdom with those dried berries, letting its visiting compatriots access them whenever insufficiently rewarded for a task that brought one back to the estate.
Though the forest green feathered friendly soul felt sometimes that the others took advantage of the situation and kind nobility of it to always get extra... and for some reason it felt so strongly about this today, now that their sovereign was back, that it was the first information it launched into when running into Elua’s first Whispering Skydancer, told by Qatrand to go fly and wait at the Goltbred estate.
A place where a fairly orderly but it not entirely composed scene took place. Climbing up the stairwell to the ’lookout tower’ she had built for travelers back from the Exclave to land upon, Yatrel witnessed three implausible seeming pods she didn’t recognize any warning or notes sent back about. Each one was split in half, with residue of some kind of fluid staining the stone.
Outside each were three individuals, each holding a child swaddled in pure white cloth. Clearly still slick from the experience and unhappy about it, they cried busily after having to go through learning what real air was for the second time. A state the two young Yecine boys found intolerable after just experiencing the portal travel... but did not dare to risk stopping their clumsy care.
Their teacher could be watching from anywhere, just waiting to reprimand them!
Rezzue er Yecine knelt between the two of them, holding one of the triplets on her own. Pear-colored eyes darted and checked on the breathing and movement of all three. She was just a bit pale and clearly exhausted from the first lonely month of parenthood, but the red-haired cultivator still held the confidence of someone coached extensively on what to do.
"Dame Goltbred."
The woman’s voice was strained but clear. In her spirit, there was a moment of visible uncertainty... as this was her cousin-in-law’s mother-in-law. A person she had never really met directly despite hearing so much from Elua, whom she respected and trusted. But the fact didn’t stop her Pheromone Physique from increasing the production of signals that made her look in need of ’protection’.
It wasn’t intentional, but she did recognize it. And she didn’t rush to stop it. Nor did the duelist with a Fidelity Astralism... care a whit more about even a new mother, two pre-adolescents, and three triplets in clear need than she did her own family, no matter the circumstance.
"Where is my daughter off to?"
"...I think you know where Elua felt mattered most."
The younger woman’s tone carried no special judgment on this matter, though there was a thinness to it. One that suggested she *did* have opinions about being deposited with her infants, the strange pods cracked open, and triplets quickly expelled of their lung’s burdens... before being abandoned in the span of a single sentence about how long she has been waiting for ’so many things’ with mint eyes staring into the distance.
"I know where she *would* be going. But I also know that she sent me a letter back with Nohre that outlined some things to me. I’m told these three babies, and yourself, are to be treated as I would any adopted daughter."
Kneeling down at a distance, similar mint eyes to a younger woman bore right into the new mother’s. Fierceness sparked in both, earning different kinds of respect from each other.
"Frankly, I do not know you well enough to leap to that sort of feeling. I tend to choose the people I accept as my family very carefully. Moreover, I was warned that you have a certain ability that might affect my husband in ways that would greatly displease me."
"And I was warned that your head is as full of your husband as mine is of my Nav. If I could have flown away like she did, straight to him with our children to let him meet them, I would not be waiting here. I would not choose to rely on you for a moment."
Finding something amusing in that, Yatrel’s expression changed greatly. From Bloody Duelist to the most loving, protective mother of any ancient reincarnator.
"My eldest is so often right that it is almost frustrating. She said I would find you immensely endearing. Welcome to the family, as unofficially - or officially - as you desire."