Chapter 573: Chapter 573 - Leaving Space To Say Things Clearly, With A Dress To Show It All Off, And Hearing The Future Through Tiny Fingers

Ondua had taken up the seat he always did within the Goltbred dining hall, shortly after Onya had experienced enough of being held and wanted let down. He closed his eyes for a bit with his eldest daughter gone from the room... fully accepting that sleep would not be happening for a while still yet, but taking the short break from wanting to stare at Elua like she’d disappear again. He could accept that feeling for what it was only because he knew himself well enough to identify the source of it.

’She is here with us tonight, but she won’t stay. Not for long. Qatrand’s life is only a train ride away... but it’s still not at this house. Haa... my girl is closer than ever but grown up too far.’

While a father daydreamed through the bitterness of letting go, a new mother was in the opposite state with her three infants. Daughters that could wake at any moment. Rezzue tried to conserve her energy and patience without fidgeting too much. Especially since a little helper had found her way behind the woman’s chair, standing on something she dragged over and using her small hands to press into the muscles between shoulder and neck.

"...You’re very strong for your age."

"I know!"

Her attempt to be kind and unjudgemental about the technique involved did not land... and she just knew Onya was going squeeze too hard in a moment and pinch muscle into bone! The red-haired woman had tilted her head to one side while wearing a soft, wincing expression that suggested the child’s offer of a massage mattered more than its *overeffectiveness*. However, she saw it as much too endearing to tell her to quit - despite making a note to plan and practice how to politely correct her own children on matters like this in the future.

Beside them both, Qatrand gil Yecine had lowered herself to the floor to be right beside the bench where the mortal triplets slept. One was awake, her light grey eyes opening and closing while unfocused. A calloused finger had already been offered and accepted by extra tiny digits wrapping around it with the unexpected strength of an infant. Something she had already experienced with her sister-in-law when she had been around a month old.

...Who was still using that indiscriminate strength even now!

Ajoreal had moved around to sit in the chair nearest his own sister. Both him and Kaland - hovering just behind with his arms folded - had trailed after the Cynosure wielder after their little private talk. Not entirely on their own, of course... as Qat did understand that they were far from being on entirely easy and friendly terms. She had at least met their eyes and given them the gesture to follow when she moved around the room to see the babies again.

"It feels weird holding someone that small."

"Weird how?"

"Different kind of careful from... holding a sword, I guess."

Pigeon blues considered the idle statement much more than the boy probably expected her to. The Yecine, or rather the Ironclad Order, actually did do just a bit of training when it came to handling children of all sizes. Men in their family (and most in the region) might not be *expected* to be present and of use for handling their offspring in the earlier years of their life, but active cultivators in a martial or scouting Guild were meant to be ready to help in emergencies of all kinds.

Sometimes that included saving a child *without* harming it with their superhuman movements. While an infant of nearly any species was designed to be a bit more resilient than most people thought, they were also fragile in very specific ways that a shaped and forged hunk of steel could survive. Pointing that out might seem like stating the obvious... but for a learning child to be making the comparisons that they could, with an active mind behind it, was a good thing to Qat.

"This is something that people all over the world do. But since you’ve tried it yourself, you should know by now... that it is a different variety and application of strength than we as young warriors are initially taught."

"...We were made to carry dolls around and treat them as real in the two weeks before their birth."

"I hadn’t heard that yet. Was it helpful?"

"Yeah. I think so. Well, for me. Kal dropped his over the cliff and-"

Hands unfolded quickly and landed on either side of Ajoreal’s neck. Gripping down with a power that was not, at all, trying to be a helpful massage to his younger brother.

"Dropped? I won’t deny it. However, you need to start that sentence with what *you* did that caused it."

"Yes. It was a very impressive bolt of Lightning that you lost control of."

The sound of Elua’s voice reached them before the sight of her did, followed by that of her dress in the moments of silence... though even that was amplified intentionally by sharing an illusion of what she was hearing herself. A soft rushing of fabric and the rhythmic percussion of small weighted beads brushing against the floor between her steps. Musical in a way that was too stable to be entirely accidental - her posture and footwork conducting that clicking beat.

"You should lead the story with that. If only so that you get someone amazed and amused at you first. They will be too focused on your brother’s failure to find your role as engaging outside of how it modifies their look at him."

A reddish-blonde head was already turned toward the corridor entrance when white cloth passed across the threshold and made brown eyes sparkle. A layered set of organza, with its sheer weave, was almost luminous under the essence lanterns spaced around the room - this detail the illusionist did not embellish at all. Boned with baleen and fitted expertly, the bodice of her dress hugged her grown figure without resorting to the cinch of a corset.

The wide, squared neckline caused by where part of her dress stopped was filled by an embroidered chemisette. Metallic copper threading made the small, white lace collar stand out further next to the other details. Such as the solid, hammered copper pauldron from which a short-frilled half-mantle trained at her back and along one arm... on the opposite shoulder to one very iridescent green bird. Which, thanks to her mint eyes, did not ruin the overall color palette nearly so much as the one hunkered down on top of her hair.

"You’re SO pretty!"

"I know, but thank you anyway."

Onya’s declaration was as unfiltered as Elua’s rebuttal, and the child hopped down with an urgency to close the distance and touch the fabric first before saying anything more. The brunette didn’t move to dodge, but closed the distance... because behind those energetic hands was a strong back still bent over paying more attention to tiny children!

Her skirt shifted and flared slightly under her brisk momentum, pulled along the brown gems sewn along its edge as hem weights. Firm foot placements caused each of them to sway and sent little ripples of counter-motion back up the fabric until she stopped, looking like the sudden gust of motion of the sheer fabrics was ended in utter control all at once. Without even bothering to flatten things back in place intentionally with her Element control.

’Mmm... the person who made this dress understands quite a bit about how fabric moves. It really must be that woman, otherwise I need to *secure* whoever it was and have them write a treatise on it!’

To her amusement, her little sister seemed most interested in the copper that traced the seams of the flossing on her bodice. As well as the sweeping lines that followed the load-bearing structure before curving down in intentionally asymmetrical arcs across the surprisingly heavy skirt. Only after tracing one of them toward the bottom of the dress did she reach up and poke at one of the two different fabric, but still white, paned sleeves.

Conspicuously, her hand aimed for the one near the bird and not the larger piece of metal. An animal who eyed the mischievous child with *usual* wariness - for it still remembered the time the girl found its stash of berries and *moved* it. While it had kept the others from taking any, it also lost access until Onya finally realized it couldn’t find the treats for itself... and it wasn’t like a bird, no matter how smart, could realize she had done it to pester her!

"Are you much too busy to even look over at me, darling?"

Spiritual tendrils had been linked with her wife the entire time. Qatrand had felt every emotion on Elua’s journey from kitchen, to roof, to bedroom. Even without that bit of possessive behavior that the brunette adored, the fragment in her chest would have been enough to transmit it all. Especially the sweet cocktail of syrupy ’anticipation’ mixed with a strong shot of ’satisfaction’ that the swordswoman recognized as her mint-drop having something to show off.

"A bit. You could come around here to make it easier for me to see."

"Fine, I guess it can’t be helped."

Qat knew El wanted to be looked at, but she also knew that the child wouldn’t let go of her finger - and like a cat that chose to rest on your lap, one simply did not shoo away this sort of experience. Not with any good conscience. The heiress was also currently experiencing her own sort of sharing... the many soft feelings being stored away in the vault of her ’fortress’, thanks to the attention of the yet to be named children.

"I see Number Two has you."

"Please do not identify my children by numbers, Elua. And that dress really does look beautiful. I’ve never seen you in so much white before."

"If I didn’t stop doing it the seventh time you warned me, why would I suddenly stop on the eighth?"

Rezzue sighed at the reaction of the woman, the same sigh that had happened the exact number of times Elua mentioned... since agreeing to let her mark the triplets to tell apart. It had seemed like such a gift - until it wasn’t.

"When you get together with your husband and figure things out, then I’ll quit being technically right. Besides, many cultures in the past love using birth position within the naming structure-"

"El."

"I’m s- no, that’s not going to work twice! First tell me what I should stop doing or start doing and then I’ll fully agree to it!"

Remembering how she had capitulated instantly to that tone from the swordswoman earlier - apologizing too far when it wasn’t yet necessary - the brunette raised her head back up and stuck her hands on her hips. Pigeon blues took all of that in at a glance, as the blonde saw what she wore for the first time. Thoughts of parading her around the territory the Warden Patrician was responsible for started to spin. Wanting the people she protected and lead to see just who Qatrand had been waiting for all this time.

"It looks good. The new dress. You should go thank your father."

"...Dad?"

"He told me he had prepared you a gift, but not what it was. I think this was it. Of course, that’s only because he wasn’t very subtle about asking for a copy of the measurements."

For his part, Ondua had gone back to staring the very moment his first daughter had entered the room. He had spent a lot of time back and forth with multiple designers until he found one he could work with. The brown crystals in the construction he had of course made himself - the same as the ones used on the wedding favor bookmarks to represent the Goltbred family. The sheer fabric he picked because of the spider-silk he’d seen his eldest make use of in the Exclave. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

And most of all, the pauldron had been hammered and detailed in a very certain way. Leaving a nice, unworked space on one spot... in an area common for a family crest to be added. Brown eyes met mint, ’sadness’ and ’happiness’ mired together. He’d come to this part of the continent and founded his own family with Yatrel. That was why he felt he knew, even before either of them said anything specific - and even as she glided over and held his hand without saying anything for a bit.

’...Her fingers used to be no bigger than that of those infants.’

"Thank you. I love it."

"I’m glad, dear."

"...You’ll have to tell me the whole story later, okay?"

"Alright. It’s a promise."

Ondua was said to be naive when it came to politicking. Yet, even he knew that before long, neither of these two cultivators would go down in history as either ’er Goltbred’... or ’gil Yecine’.