The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'

A/N: Some small allusions to the approach of R18. I’m really trying to get these tonally right because they’re my important characters’ important moments, so the next few *may* be late and published all together~

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Walking through corridors while the eyes of servants and family had been upon her was something Qatrand had grown used to as she came of age. With the dawn of her Cynosure effects, being seen by enemies and allies while her skin burned from the attention was now extra common. Of course, none of that had ever been done with an emotionally overwhelmed young woman trying to be a hat with her whole body...

With numerous items revolving about her form in a constellation of ’satellites’ that hovered around the Breacher’s essence field. Elua’s beryllium copper blade had found its place pressed *right* onto Qatrand’s once gifted sword, like it was trying to mirror their current dynamic. But a bandolier of *something* that felt overengineered and dangerous kept drifting and bumping the swordswoman’s bicep, like it wasn’t quite sure where to take refuge while its owner cooed and *rubbed*.

’She is ridiculous. I still have trouble just holding the weight of my sword in one place.’

Qatrand was attempting her best to be calm and composed, focused on getting out of there and not stopping. She’d seen the gate, the guards, and the grievances on her way in. She was prepared to act with an appropriate amount of politicking. The swordswoman was also sure she had been prepared to fight her old family. For the sake of the one that actually taught her what family had truly meant... if it came down to it.

But the moment she rushed in and saw her mint-drop’s lower back, visible through newly added gossamer silk, was the same moment a formal request to be *restrained* was filed through their spiritual connection. The cultivator had reacted on old instinct to the wild mix of ’sincerity’ in that Intent - and did the only thing she could think to do.

Grab her wife’s head, say something that sounded *good enough* to defuse things, and get them out of there most expediently.

Which meant using her Gravity Element to direct herself forward, gradually faster and faster as she became used to the balance above. Using her technique again to assist her jump - all the way on top of the compound guard station, then over the wall. Part of her imagined this was what stealing away with her bride would have felt like, if they were in the middle of one of the novels she’d been reading.

And the other part just wanted to find somewhere safe, to place the brunette down and try to get her back to some kind of normal in her actions. Of course, she wasn’t helping matters by squeezing her El tight with so much of her spiritual energy - and she knew that. She knew it because it felt like it would be worse to let her loose and allow the heiress herself to be ’normal’!

When Elua er Goltbred finally was sat down - gently on the roof of the tallest building that Qatrand could scale, to get them out of sight... the always ancient-hearted but physically youthful being looked right at her husband-wife with her mint eyes. A color which had lived in dreams... and occasional meetings with Yatrel.

Obvious ’hunger’ came out the next second. With an intensity that made the blonde woman pause in place, her hand still steadying on El’s upper arm. A feeling from a memory she hadn’t reflected on in years came right to the surface.

A wolf, stalking its prey near her survival training camp.

"I missed you."

Despite the expected words that flowed from a pair of soft looking lips, she could feel the spirit of this now *adult* spouse of hers quite clearly. For it was still twisting and holding tight around the Anchors lodged all throughout her grown form. An immensity of ’joy’, ’shame’, ’pride’, and ’remorse’ traveled up them.

Hesitation to engage with acceptance was shoveled away, homesickness was filled with welcome. Both of them were practically speedrunning their reconnection and reunion - in only a way that spiritualists could. Slamming through the awkward period of rebuilding and reconfirming trust and love by exposing the cores of their being to the other party, like a thousand long nights of conversation with every breath.

Two of the continent’s strongest cultivators went from that lonely cold drought of years apart to feeling the same humid warmth as existed on nights where El snuck in to sleep next to her. And those metaphysical touches of meaning only Qat was capable of deciphering were very much also ’telling’ her something inevitable, irrefutable, and exceptionally effusive as every second passed.

That it was ’time’, soon. Whenever Qatrand gil Yecine was ready. That the blonde should *confidently* order her to be restrained if she was not quite there yet... and that she would be patient. Even if she was pretty certain that the pigeon-blues stuck to her face had its own kind of visible ’impatience’ to them.

"I... missed you too. More than I have words for. More than I know how to show."

The suit wearing swordswoman spoke honestly... but was pretty flustered at the thought of what her mint-drop wanted of her. And that shorter wife of hers could tell! After all, the letters sent out with Sevra even detailed Qatrand’s thoughts about everything in the same way the pair always shared since marriage.

’She’s happy that I am uncertain, still...’

For Qat, there was always so much else to worry about. Something to do and distract herself with the needs of her people in the territory and beyond. To the point that the two of them having sex for the first time - at some point after she returned - had somehow... never crossed her mind while Elua was first away. Not until this last year apart, after Rezzue and Navuill’s choice had led to the purifying destruction of a certain bed.

After that, the lack of experience and unclear fantasies of such a thing became even more prominent in her mind than it ever had been. And that was even knowing about the general relationship mess of the currently ’on a break’ intense pairing of Nysoi and Zonnel... though she had been protected from a lot of *details*. Leysah being the person taking the full gossip blow-by-blow by the oversharing healer.

Or even the more subdued domestic patterns of the increasingly romantic Dima and Klaytei. Both sets were the obvious direct comparison of women *loving* women in her life... that had not clicked into her thinking about the mechanics of things until far too late. No matter what the source of her realization, the fact was the idea of would not leave her alone in the quiet moments of the night.

Sometimes even at random, awkward daydream times of the workday, when idle moments spawned memories of making out with the brunette. Which left the young cultivator thinking it would be better off to question the illusory training tool on how to *manage* these things, emotionally. A conversation with a programmed ’entity’ that had been the most embarrassing one of her life.

’She’s happy to have teased me with that.’

When she put quillpen to paper... with all of her feelings and thoughts about this matter sent to the woman now standing there looking at her in a certain way, she’d been just as embarrassed. A certain smirk, almost indistinguishable from the one she had imagined, spread on her lover’s face - like Qat was a particularly favored spicy treat.

Immediately, the cultivator wanted to keep her guard up against her. On principle. From years of being the one helping her cute wife manage those bursts of urges.

"Qat~ Looks like you aren’t really all that opposed, right?"

*Wanted* being the operative word. Whatever inner guards she thought she had or needed to have were struggling. Worse, it felt like she herself was the one actively strangling them down to get out of the way. A natural wind billowed and gusted against the modified wedding dress and - like the sudden calm of it was a signal - the former Yecine nodded stiffly back at those bright mint eyes, still slightly wet from her range of emotions... but filled with so much loving amusement overall.

All while feeling like one of her territory’s new militia trainees being tossed right into group practice on day one.

"So that means you know what I want?"

"Uh..."

The miniature-training-instructor version of El had been very helpful on some matter - and also very unhelpful on mastery. Explaining a lot, but as it was mere audio-visual examples that the reincarnator was willing to allow her Qat to see - it was clinical and limited. Always just short of making her feel truly competent in what was to be... conducted between two real people when the time actually came.

’She complained about that in her letter, but of course I wasn’t going to let a false me show her techniques and things like that! Feh!’

Elua knew the vagueness was never going to be enough to actually limit the blonde’s own growing hints of ’hunger’. It only stoked them further with certain anatomical knowledge fueling more curious - and potentially closer to correct fantasies. Which... actually made the muscular woman limit the visits back to the Goltbred Estate these past months.

"I know. What... you want. Yes."

Her El’s urges had been too great for the body’s age for *years* before sequestering herself away... but that ’problem’ wasn’t actually one any longer. Now that she had reached her long desired Prime physical maturation phase, the limitations that existed in the reincarnator’s heart - over how to make things best, proper, and most of all beneficial to her Qat - had vanished entirely.

’Every time my eyes wander, I feel like something is squeezing down in my spirit. Like a slow version of that... thing she does. With her spirit twisting into itself. But now I’m the one doing it to me.’

In less minced words, the results of time and growth on her wife was very desirable to the tall, muscular cultivator. A woman who hardly understood the vocalization that the back of her throat wanted to make. She was sure that Elua herself was the only actual ’wolf’ in this scenario - so she could only wonder *why* it felt like the withheld growl was coming from herself!

"Could you say it for me, darling?"

Pigeon blues stared, with some small grievance in them at the provoking wife. Unhappy to know she could have seen this spouse she’d craved to spend time with looking like this... if she’d only given in when Sevra asked if she wanted to be one of the three to go. An appearance that still hit somewhere between decidedly ’cute’ and now *alluringly* beautiful to the swordswoman.

If only the former Yecine could have trusted in either of them not to give in to carnal feelings if left alone at all. A lack of trust in herself she knew she was right not to have, considering how things were going now.

’I want to kiss her.’

The thought repeated in Qat’s head in such a way that she was sure that it *had* to be due to El’s spirit, vibrating with the desire to be kissed, that *caused* the thought to spiral. But the origin didn’t matter as much as the ’willingness’... and that only made her current circumstance of standing in the middle of the city, though hiding above the heads of so many pedestrians out and about... that much more precarious.

The rush away from the Yecine estate was over with, but all sorts of new rushing was clearly about to begin!

"Well, I... don’t know if we could start that here. But we really shouldn’t."

Qatrand felt she had to say the words aloud - because there technically *were* laws and social expectations that even a Warden Patrician could not just break! Not to mention she wasn’t sure if things would... *literally* break during the affair. For the way that the little illusion had framed things, common beds were practically fully expected casualties for uncareful cultivators.

’We’d be a nuisance and possibly hurt others...’

That meant rooftops - with a wife that could *crack stone* if she lost focus - could not be any safer, in her mind!