Chapter 604: Chapter 604 - An Awkward Hero, Who Must Be Ordered To Show How Unwieldy They Are
"I find I cannot bring myself to show you the rest of the tale I wanted to. Not without asking for permission."
The reincarnator’s voice was stripped of any of the earlier performance, gravely serious in tone. Waiting for the judgment call of the pigeon blues - which could be said to be its own layer of this ’stage play’. Elua was showing off a lot of her abilities here, but making it as clear as she could that there *was* an authority over her. That Qat led her actions.
"I trust you."
Her face turned back to the crowd immediately, both happy for what was just said and a bit annoyed... that it potentially undermined her ’show them the leash’ strategy. What good was it to calm the minds of others, if she wore a restraint in name only that just allowed her to do almost anything she wanted to do?!
"Very well. I asked her this because what you saw just now was arguably the easy and clean part. A glimpse of your Hero with an unambiguously happy ending after the fight with one monster. What comes next in that night has none of those qualities."
Elua and Qatrand faded away from the view shared with everyone as the rendition she crafted of [Surviving A Thousand Burning Eyes] began once again. Moving rapidly to the next important scene in her memory, before slowing down right before the pivotal moment.
"What you will see is what this single cultivator did when faced with a choice. Know that I do not share this lightly. I simply think you, of all people, have earned the right to know exactly how far the woman you have cheered for, the cultivator who has worked for you and beside you... will go. For you. Any of you. Keep that in mind."
The night unfroze as her voice somehow grew colder and prouder at once... and the swarm on the ’stage’ turned. Every Lesser Voidling on the attack swinging toward the single figure’s unleashed Cynosure. The city of the Warden Patrician watched, as no one but a few present that night ever had... as their leader made the choice without being asked. To become bait, whether she would live through it or not.
To make time for the evacuation of people she *didn’t* even know personally.
As she pushed herself over so many minutes, more than any cultivator on the continent had ever thought to, they saw her evading, attacking, jumping and defending herself from a situation that quickly reframed that myth of her strength. Not that Qatrand did not possess it - her actions here actually reinforced how capable she was at a younger age.
However, that sort of belief others could possess about war heroes... about anyone they idolized was changed as they watched. The sense that one’s strength was such a sure and infallible thing could be hard to accept being actually conditional at best - or a lie at worst. That any wall or shield had its limits.
El herself had known the price her darling protector would choose to pay the very day she met the other girl - or ’boy’, at the time. She had also known that it would be taken for granted, eventually. Worst of all without malice behind that failing in others she had martyred herself for. To the spiritualist... there was innocence in ignorance as much as there was sin in it.
Which is why she *could* have forgiven, to an extent, the people now witnessing something that they did not know the whole tale behind. Could have - but no longer. Their ’souvenir’ today took the unique form of a burden of knowledge. Transformed into witnesses, these citizens would now be weighed against their future actions, or inactions.
All their efforts to be balanced inside the reincarnator... against whatever fate the person who would willingly be their guardian endured. That being said, they were Qatrand’s people - so Elua was sure she could care for them simply instead of gazing at them harshly.
’Unless they don’t act like they should. May Qat not be as free with my leash, in that case! Well, that is either a problem for later or one that will never appear. But my arguments are now set. I have given them more chance than they had before to do things knowingly right, compared to unknowingly wrong.’
Of course, all of this illusion so far had left *her* out of things. Her scheme that moved the army unit in the first place. The fact that what memory she had rendered for this display was from the sightline of a real person. That it had been modified to seem like that was not the case. But at the ’end’, at the last taunt that the heavy blade wielder had given her enemies:
"Are there enough of you here to finish me?"
Two hands slammed pre-emptively tight around either side of Elua’s skull. Causing the illusion to flicker wildly with a set of insistent pigeon blues overtaking the scene. The people in the amphitheater, at least, were able to see this sudden physical confrontation play out ahead of them. See as the blonde loomed over the other woman’s face, seeming very displeased.
Which almost made them question the truth of the strangely realistic moving images. Until their leader spoke. And her wife tried to quibble.
"Show them the rest, El."
"...I don’t want to."
"I get what you are doing. I do. Even if it would have been nice for you to have talked about it ahead of time, I know you. This was probably planned on the route. Now, I’m the one planning. Show them the rest."
"But..."
"They saw the struggle. You met your goal, I can feel it. I know they won’t understand quickly, I know this will spark questions. But show them the real savior of that night. Finish my goal for me again, like you did then."
With her husband-wife’s spiritual tendrils lashed around her like they were, planting such a strong order to obey in front of all of these people... the heiress felt super exposed! It didn’t matter that probably only two of them - Leysah and some other random person that got a quick mark slammed into his spirit - tilted their head. As if they caught a bit onto the ’force’ being used against the spouse and her reaction to it.
"O-okay, but can you let me go? This is really quite embarrassing..."
"After you finish the story, I will."
Biting her tongue and hiding her inner ’hnng’ as best she could, the cultivator thought it might not be so bad to be *tortured* a little more out in the open. By the soft but firm nature of her lover’s holds. Yet, she buried that momentary, exhilarated feeling in herself just like she covered up the cold-threat she inserted in everyone else, before. And the brunette took a shuddering breath.
"Okay."
Instead of cutting out the ’middle’ as she had originally intended, and showing Qat trudge back covered in ichor with Ryder and Kefa... as if she just got away some hard won heroic time later... the people instead saw the coordinated nature of the attackers inside the town completely fall apart. They caught sight of an ominous black mirror, one that happened to be facilitating this very ritual to amplify and spread her power.
And they heard a facade delivering a ’sweet’ speech with obviously accusatory content behind it. The sort of simmering in anger needling from a wife that so many present could oddly commiserate with. Before the two of them fled this good-enough attempt to be bait *together*...
A result that had never once been reported to the Ironclad Order or Void Defense Society! Or so noted the fan-residents of the woman, who had happily combed through official documents. All of them cataloged in copies at the Warden Patrician’s office, records about her service.
The inflicted night-time faded back into natural light. The two cultivators on stage standing thoughtfully together. Before the actress *cleared her throat* and spoke to them. Nervous as hell!
"My Qat would risk her life for you, I have now shown you this. Understand that I won’t do the same. I am not being humble, I will have to be ordered. But - I will always risk death or existing in the most troublesome situations for her sake. Keep that part a secret between us, hm? I don’t think she knows~"
With a single finger covering her lips and a smile wielded fiercely to the crowd, as she ’stage whispered’ the comment through the city-scale illusion... Elua er Goltbred was promptly hefted over a strong shoulder.
By a muscular blonde who had quite enough of the crowd.
Quite enough of sharing her cute wife with it, that is.
