"So this is it," I muttered once, after quite a lot of searching and then deliberation, we finally settled upon the room we wanted to pick for ourselves.
"Is it no good?" Mia asked while showing me a tired expression.
And I was pretty damn sure the look on her face mirrored what she could see on my own.
"Nah," I shook my head, "we settled on it so let's just stick with our choice."
The room itself… wasn't all that bad.
It was located at the end of one of the more devastated corridors, making it pretty tricky to get into in the first place. What's more, as it was located on the far end of the compound, there were no further floors above to protect it from the elements.
And with relatively nice weather outside, three separate holes through which I could see water dropping didn't appear encouraging.
Yet, in terms of bad elements of the room, that was basically it. The upsides, however, more than made up for it.
In essence, this room appeared to be a mirror image of the place my master offered the two of us all the way back in my early days at the Skyladder sect.
It consisted of two halves, each of them in the form of a perfect square.
The outer half of the room was an open area with four workstations by the wall, a sunken square worth of sofa in the middle, and then some shelves on the opposite wall. The inner part of the room, however, was sunk for a good quarter of a meter down into the floor and then split between beddings to the left, a dining table in the middle, and then what looked like a massive basin to the right.
'I get that this place is hard to approach and quite far away from the rooms others picked…' I hesitated for a second, still battling with my own thoughts. 'But isn't it too damn big?'
There was a limit to how much space I could have to myself before it would start bearing down on my mind. Even with Mia's presence making it possible for me to accept a bigger place…
There was no hiding the fact that the shape, size, and openness of this place all rubbed me in the wrong way.
Was it by being similar to the place belonging to the man that betrayed me? Or maybe it was because its location didn't make it all that safe in case of an attack from the outside?
I released a deep sigh. I then raised my eyes at Mia's face… and swallowed all the complaints I had about this place.
'We are already tired of this meaningless task, so let's just drop this topic and move on,' I decided.
"This place will need quite a lot of renovations," I mentioned, doing my best to change the topic, even if only by a slight margin. "Fixing the roof, securing the hallway, replacing the broken furniture…" I muttered as I walked around the room, only to end up gently tapping at the dining table…
Only for the table to collapse, as if only dirt held it together in place.
"It's going to be a lot of work," I added.
"Then we will enjoy every last second of repairing it together," Mia stated, plunging down on the sunken sofa in the middle of the front part of the room. She then stretched herself on one of the sofa's sides.
The girl then took a deep breath, one so deep her chest raised to the point her back started to arch.
"Haaaa…." Mia released a long sigh, closing her eyes as she relaxed and immersed herself at the moment. "Now, are you ready to talk about the topic that's been on your mind since a while ago?" Mia then asked without even raising her eyelids up.
"Was it that easy to tell?" I asked in return, taking a few steps before joining Mia on the sofa.
I sat down before sneaking my hand under the girl's head. I then exerted a tiny bit of force, raising Mia's upper body for but a moment I needed to sneak underneath her before resting her head back on my lap.
"No, it wasn't," Mia smiled when my hand rested upon her cheek. "But I know you well enough to be able to tell," she then added as a prideful grin filled her face.
"Will you listen to my request, then?" I straightforwardly asked, too tired from the whole process of selecting the room to waste time beating around the bush.
"Just speak away." Mia twisted up, rolling over to her side and making her face my stomach rather than the leaking ceiling of the room. She then cuddled herself up, as if she wanted to rest as much of her body as she could on my lap. "I would love to be of some use to you, did you forget?"
'Just what did I do to deserve someone like her in my life?' I asked the heavens, gritting my teeth to weather the storm of my heart melting into some sort of weird, sticky liquid.
"Then…" I hesitated for a bit. I closed my eyes, unable to voice my request while looking Mia in the face. "Could you teach those cultivators that we will deem worthy?"
I wasn't worried because my request was hard or dangerous. I was worried because it involved Mia, a bunch of mostly male cultivators… and a lack of my presence.
It wasn't that I didn't trust her or feared she would lose interest in me were we to work apart from each other…
I simply couldn't bear the thought of not having her by my side, not after splitting up a few times only to always come to regret doing so soon thereafter.
'Wait, why isn't she responding?' I suddenly realized once I grew aware of just how much time I spent in my own head. I forced my eyes open and looked down to see Mia's thoughtful expression.
She didn't refuse to answer because she had something against the idea. She simply has yet to figure out what her answer should be.
'This girl…' I thought, feeling the arteries in my heart contracting once again.
Mia wasn't just agreeing to whatever I asked without a second of thought. She was properly taking her time to consider the situation, and clarify her thoughts… and then she would likely accept it anyway!
On the outside, there was no difference. But for me, the distinction between the two was massive.
Because if Mia simply agreed to everything and anything, she would be simply following my lead as a rule. But if she was doing so properly, it meant she was actively submitting to me with her entire self!
A seemingly small difference… but one that, for some reason, tickled my soul in just the right way.
"Can I ask… why?" Mia spoke after a few more moments. "Why do you want me to teach them? Or wait," she shook her head, "why do you want to teach them in the first place?"
A gentle smile spread out on my mouth. My hands brushed off against Mia's cheek.
"Dear… No, darling," I whispered as I leaned over Mia's head only slightly pressing my forehead against hers. "It's all for the sake of a peaceful life for the two of us."
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om