Chapter 566: Chapter 566 - I’m Not Guaranteed To Be Eventually Mad, I’m Just Conditionally Delaying My Disappointment

"As I was saying, I’m sorry that I was unable to reach Navuill in time. I tried quite hard, though I could have gone myself to look... and do regret not trying that. No matter how busy I was. Or how very little anyone in the Yecine chose to tell me."

Pigeon-blues, with a bit more emotion in them than that Empath she just spoke of would ever show to other family members, met the new mother with a ’sincerity’ in her spirit that was quite clear. At least on that final front, Rezzue was used to it... as he had begun showering her with his feelings instead of holding them in nearly as much years ago. Coincidentally around when Elua had disappeared, or at least when he came home after the Descent and learned more about that...

When the idea of losing his spouse like Qatrand had - even if later he understood that it was only a temporary situation - ended up hitting him harder than he had expected it ever would. Pear-colored eyes traced over towards Elua before choosing her words as carefully as always, so that she would be best understood.

"It’s fine. I know that you aren’t even part of that family anymore. The fact that you even let me and your brothers travel to that place was more than someone else in your position might have done. And your wife took very good care of us."

’Up until she ran off. Though it is not like she left us to the wolves...’

"Perhaps all that is true. And I know you might not expect that I should have tried harder. But I do *feel* like I failed you, him, and her."

"Failed?"

"I don’t care to imagine being unavailable to see my own children in the same circumstance. So once more, I apologize."

The woman looking at the heiress winced, for a secretive little ’urging’ to *accept* what was being said by the honest swordswoman struck her. A feeling that was like many cold drops of water, buffeted by a winter rain... not quite twisting an arm or stomping on a foot, but something that held the same sort of controlling behavior behind it.

"There really is no need, but the meaning behind it is what I will accept."

Rezzue knew the spiritual attack was close to polite as the often too ancient-minded cultivator could be. But it still rather made her want to reveal the trick out loud to the unaware spouse. Especially since she had been told well ahead of time just how Elua would act when she came back home and started leaving nearly everything to Qatrand.

She’d even shown off this same sort of ’light-handed, sisterly pressure’ of a technique. So that the woman would not be too visibly startled if it ever occurred in the middle of just such conversations! The red-haired woman truly didn’t understand the pretense behind it... not if the brunette’s full explanation was actually to be believed.

’If she would always end up confessing to her husband-wife everything she does later anyways, is it actually valuable to give her time believing such a minor falsehood?’

Wanting the tall woman to be annoyed alone with the heiress later, as long as it meant smoothing things within the moment, had sounded *silly* on some level to the apprentice chemist. It especially didn’t seem worthy of picking *this* sort of topic to needle her over. As it was not like Rezzue held any sort of grudge towards Qatrand in any form.

Then again, looking at that odd physical hold, she had been present during the bridal test and had seen the aftermath where Elua had been ’contained’ like this. No matter the depth of their conversations these past months, the ’desire’ to be restrained rather than just a willingness to endure it... was just not something the Yecine wife could achieve any sort of understanding about.

"Though if the two of you would be so polite as to refrain from such personal displays when these three grow old enough to keep their eyes on your behaviors, that would be most appreciated."

"...Of course."

A calloused hand slid off of a soft-skinned face without question or compromise. The eldest daughter of the Goltbred family had written back in the letters that this woman, when pregnant, had already begun displaying a sort of personality like this. It didn’t exude anything like martial pressure, the ’threat’ was not a physical one or life-ending at all. It was far worse!

’Every inch of my spirit just now... felt like she would be capable of guilting me with her disappointment if I didn’t listen. And that wasn’t even her Pheromones, just Intent? That is-’

"Scary. Rezzue commands our sister, who wins over our current teacher."

"Be quiet. Just go sit down."

Kaland pushed at Ajoreal’s back until they occupied a set of seats at the far end of the long table. The older brother sat down with a stiff but proper posture, attempting very hard to look like he belonged in a place that he absolutely did not feel comfortable in. Even more than the situation they’d just walked in on, people kept trying to meet his eyes and ask him questions!

His hands folded on the table surface as he tried to settle himself. Thinking that this estate was like being at the Youth Guild, but *worse*. For most of these people were adult mortal servants and not just cultivator peers from his cohort. While he had been ’broken’ from completely looking down on those without his talents and qualities, that did not mean he had magically gained a bunch of experience at being sociable with them.

Ajoreal had done much better on that front with his more extroverted personality, quickly becoming the favorite of these two boys among the house staff... even within the hours they had been present. Very few male cultivator children visited this place in the last dozen years aside from Qatrand who turned out to be female all along. There were probably less than could be counted on the segments of two fingers - including these new arrivals and Gehxel.

The latter was a curious boy who was perfectly polite... but also perfectly absorbed in what he was doing at any time of day. Rather like the early age young heiress herself, who even in her adulthood was entirely preoccupied keeping at least half of Qat’s attention at all times. Something the swordswoman noticed, settling for holding her wife’s hand to get her back under control if she could not hold her skull that worked best.

’I’m not sure what she planned on doing just now if I wasn’t in contact with her again, but it was surely nothing good. Has she not done and experienced enough today as it is?’

"Thank you."

Smiling while gripping tight, Elua gazed up at eyes as they fell toward her... looking like two of the most beautiful pigeon blues rooted on milky white sclera she’d ever seen. Every moment seemed to exist with that same ’absolute’ thought. Each catalog of the thinly pigmented fibrovascular tissue making up the stroma, every noticed twinge at the collarette where the sphincter and dilator pupillae overlapped, and of course every micro shift of the dark edged limbal ring as those eyes were distracted by the freckles and flecks within her own mint.

’I will never get tired of them.’

"...It feels like you’re trying to make up for missing time. By being extra demanding and impish. I felt what you did a bit ago."

"I know. I wasn’t trying to hide it."

"But you made her try to."

Their whisper talk wasn’t so silent that Rezzue, only a few feet away, could not hear. Especially because the Gaseous Element cultivator’s sound-privacy Vacuum Layer was surrounding all three of those adults - and triplet infants.

"It seemed amusing, was it too much?"

"Just be good. If you need more time to adjust to being back, we can arrange that. Your parents will understand."

"She is right. Your mother is very understanding, despite her reputation. Yatrel informed me what the issue with my husband was. I’m sure the two of you have had time to talk about it?"

Elua er Goltbred was finally able to look away when her great and reliable ’fortress’ closed her eyes... and frowned. They *had* talked about some things here and there in their time alone. Unfortunately, while the reincarnator was excellent at guessing things when it came to political and social motivations with limited clues, the honest truth was that the fate of the husband of her chosen-sister was actually... unknown!

"No, she was too busy exploring me to-"

"El. Private matters."

"I can’t talk about it with her? With anyone?"

The heiress questioned with a sweet, puppy-like whine that she knew would be effective. For while the former Yecine was certainly embarrassed, she also had yet to take her wife aside and *explicitly forbid* any kind of potentially inappropriate bedroom gossip.

"At least... have tea with her some other day. While I’m not around."

Qat was leaning heavily on the ’younger’ woman’s ancient social abilities to make safe distinctions. Or it might be more appropriate to say she was being pushed over by her clear desire to have someone to discuss such things with. Not that she expected that the red-head, who looked mildly concerned, would appreciate the permission that the swordswoman had just given out.

"Ahem. Well, we had other things to *discuss* at length and have not gotten around to catching up on *every detail*. But I can guess that he is not in the city, or I would have found him myself. Furthermore..."

A translucent map of the continent appeared in the air, the most recently updated one with all her notes and markers about the current Ouras situation. She had sent it back with Sevra and had no strong reason to discuss it with Rezzue so the new mother had never seen it, though the swordswoman glancing up at it had. She’d received a copy and made her own by hand while studying it to further retain the knowledge, after all.

However, illusory displays were nothing new to the chemistry and Exclave research assistant, who only began to study what was shown like always. So much of the scientific knowledge passed along was done with these kind of visual representations. Usually during lectures of the sort of expected chemical reactions that Elua knew by heart... or at least by ’deeply buried and perfectly reconstructed mental library’ that survived her reincarnation.

"She apologized for not leaving her post to find him herself - and the limited information from her former family - which means he was doing something that they had sent him on."

A finger came up and tapped at her lips as she pretended to think. Sometimes it was a hassle to be so theatrical... when thoughts flowed and connected quicker than orating for a crowd was possible. Of course, the reactions of others were often worth it. Providing lots more information to create plenty more hypotheses. Or just to see them look impressed.

"My guess would be he is hunting for Anper. That does seem like something those elders would come up with. Especially after you and that man’s two sons went missing. A new elder, he would have been on the thinnest of ice and they would have given him a mission to fix that. Because many of them are annoyingly ’fair’ at the weirdest of times."

"...Well, of course you would figure it out."

"You don’t just think I told her directly?"

Pear-colored eyes turned to the blonde and shook her head. She’d seen more than enough of that particular party-trick from the brunette... and had even been given a lecture on how spiritualists actually worked *too hard* sometimes. At least when compared to what the ancient cultivator had dubbed a certain culture’s performative mentalism.

Where even practiced mortals could learn to start from high value guesses and use little tricks here and there to convince you that their powers of perception were quite close to a cultivator with a genuine low realm Astralism. Habits that a sharply sweet mint-drop had been more than happy to incorporate into her survival strategies.

’It is just another form of Illusion... to make people believe I was capable of knowing what I wanted them to believe I was~’