Dull eyes looked over the tall, muscular ’blonde’. Though it looked a little more *brunette* due to what had happened. Every other strand alternated between yellow and black.
’Stop wanting to count them and verify she loves you at least one more, stop wanting-’
The heiress dropped from the building and landed on the ground with little impact. She then turned and held her arms out as if she would catch the other when they did the sa. Qatrand glanced at that offer montarily, seeing the mirror in one hand, before sheathing her weapon and landing close.
Not in her arms, but gripping at her free hand’s wrist to help steady herself. She saw the ’blood’ of the Voidlings get transferred... and dirty her clean, cute, complicated wife. Tired eyes still narrowed and tried to pull away.
But the reincarnator only turned to the side while locking fingers and dragging her beloved through the deserted streets. The illusions she maintained would beco useless sooner than not. The Voidlings would stop chasing them and then start spreading out again, realizing their real target was lost.
And the leader was going to be very offended that an unknown relic spoiled his plan.
"How did you find ?"
Qatrand asked after leaning against a wall to catch her breath. Her body was still running hot, but Elua had neither said or done anything about it.
"I’m offended you’d even ask such a simple question. There are so many other things you could be trying to clarify or request."
Her attempt at monotone levity was undercut by a thin line of blood trickling from her nose. The spike of ’concern’ in her husband-wife caused her to wipe it away with an irritated rub of her cleaner forearm. As the spirit was sowhat connected to maintaining the body, backlash of the energy had a tendency to have physical effects.
Like when a certain Clairvoyant tried to get in the head of the Hivemind and collapsed in a bloody ss. Though this was mostly to do with how she was working through the remaining corrupted spirit in her modified artifact.
"I’ve been keeping an eye on events that I started. Then you showed up."
The item still clutched in her grip, with its warped golden edges, seed to drink in the ambient darkness. Not quite the sa as the vantablack nothing that simply was there. Its surface occasionally rippled with disquieting patterns, brief windows into sothing vast and ancient.
Whether that was her El or what she was connecting to, Qat did not have enough capacity left to care. She gestured at it and the blood.
"Is that what’s causing this?"
"A small price to pay. To help you. Without flagging as the source or alerting that soone of my capabilities is entering the fray."
The strain in her spirit suggested the cost wasn’t as negligible as she claid. Her normally perfect posture showed subtle signs of a hunch - and the hand holding the mirror trembled slightly. But it was more than that.
"It functions as a buffer. Theoretically undetectable as a cultivator taking action. At best it can only assu that there is an anomaly to be studied, without raising the threat level now or later."
Which is why her voice simply continued to lecture, trying to hold back what she wanted to say. However, the tendrils wrapping around her spirit and being weakly rebuffed said... enough. The swordswoman reached out, gently brushing calloused and stained fingers along the pristine arm.
"El... I-"
"What were you thinking?"
The question burst forth with surprising intensity. A facade that had been stripped away engaged again, to better reveal raw emotion beneath. In a way more understandable than the dense, insane mass of spiritual energy that she refused to push on her husband-wife while she was weakened.
"You intentionally drew the entire swarm to yourself? Without requesting backup or having any kind of escape plan?"
"I had to protect the evacuation of the civilians."
The Yecine answered simply with sothing the Goltbred already knew.
"My Cynosure... it was already pulling them in. It made tactical sense to try it further."
"Tactical sense?"
The brunette’s voice rose an octave before she caught herself, glancing down nervously. Both of them felt an impact from it. She’d never been *shrill* before. So of her playful whining was a little high pitched, but-
"Do you really have any idea what it would do to if I lost you? If I had to watch you ’sacrifice’ instead of taking risks with others still willing to fight? I-"
Trying to keep a lower voice only made it modulate and break. She cut herself off. When she spoke again, her voice was more controlled - but still brittle with the possibility which was too painful to vocalize.
"I’ve lived that loss before, Qat. Many tis. So many. I can’t... not with you. Not you."
The tendrils sunk in finally, letting the tall teen touch on emotion too complex to na so simply as ’grief’ and ’madness’. The reincarnator had told her once before that she was the sort of person capable of cutting off the sense of ’connection’ with a past love once things were ’over’ with them.
Yet clearly, that only ant those emotions waited inside. To be attached to the next, and the next. Building up until now, with Qatrand herself... the individual that Elua er Goltbred decided would be her one and only in this life.
A claim she’d made before, but with more aning than ever. More feeling than ever. The muscular teenager stepped closer and knelt to look up into the downcast face of her struggling mint-drop. She delivered her line with a softness to her low voice.
While wanting to kiss away the water at the corners of those eyes.
"I’m sorry. Not for doing what I felt I could to protect them, but for worrying you while doing so."
Elua sighed and leaned her forehead briefly against Qatrand’s, with its excessively high temperature. She knew she was the one having a bit of a ltdown and that her precious gem would focus on that. But at the sa ti...
’I really wish she would have just requested for to help her first. We can’t both be stubborn.’
The surrounding air started to shift with movent and pressure changes. The essence field around the little spiritualist’s hands especially chilled, employing her fledgling Frost mimicry and placing one at the back of Qat’s neck and forehead. Helping the other cultivator to cool down.
"Your Cynosure is essentially a trigger action like mine. I should have worked with you more on thods of suppressing it. But I was unwilling to... activate it."
"What?"
A slurred and soothed question ca from the swordswoman’s lips. With eyelashes over her pigeon-blues that fluttered with relief and lowered tension. Qat knew that she should be trying to do this the other way around, being the one to comfort and make El feel safe.
But there was no one in the world who made her feel like everything was going to be *ultimately* fine, like the brunette in front of her.
"Even if I wanted to help you experint, I can’t exactly see you as an enemy to kill. Or sit there and be *fine* with soone else seeing you as one."
"I understand. I also... get upset when anyone thinks ill of you."
"That’s very sweet. But I’m fine no matter what others think of , so long as they still think well of you."
Before the pair could continue arguing in their slightly twisted ’I love you more’ word ga, a distant screech cut through their mont. Followed by another. Since she stopped her focus on the mirror, the Voidlings were regrouping.
Having lost track of their primary target, they’d return to harass the Army before long. Truthfully, Elua had stopped caring about that - what little she did in the first place. Her beloved was not in the best shape and taking her elsewhere would return more of the reincarnator’s composure than remaining here.
But that wasn’t her choice to make... and she accepted that. Within reason.
"Your team is searching for you. The fast one from the Order with two blades and the Void Defense gentleman. They broke away from the main group when it was reaching the defensible spot... and realized you still weren’t following."
"The other two?"
"Stayed with the Army, I’d guess."
Elua adjusted her silver dress, marred slightly by the Voidling ichor as she’d stood close by. Remnants of battle that Qatrand had transferred to the clothing... which she didn’t mind in the slightest. In fact, part of her was honored to wear the stain of Void essence from her beloved’s first encounter with them.
’I should hold off on telling her that... probably.’
"You should lead them this ti, Qat. Not just charge ahead alone."
The swordswoman nodded slowly at the unspoken full concern. That she would get into the sa kind of trouble at this rate, trying to shoulder too much by herself. As soone that had sought, since she learned the truth about the reincarnator, to ease and lower the girl’s burden...
She did feel a little sha over adding to it.
"I will. Co with openly. Your illusions could help us all. Even if you pretend they are only visual things"
Qatrand rose to her feet, steadier now after her El’s cooling touch. But the smaller girl shook her head.
"I can’t. If I’m seen working directly with you in combat, questions will arise. Connections will be made."
"They already know we’re married. As well as that you warned the Army of the people here."
"You know that’s not what I an."
Elua’s voice softened, her beloved’s insistence clawing at her. She wanted to grant everything the other girl wanted. But things had already progressed from what felt so long ago, when it was only about her own safety and secrets.
Now, that they were married and so entwined that...
’Everything I do can be a risk to my fortress. A risk I can’t take.’
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