Chapter 734: Maybe If I Was Younger [Bonus - ]

Chapter 734: Maybe If I Was Younger [Bonus Chapter]

Aeliana breathed in the cold thin air to steady herself.

"Grand-Aunt," She said, and her voice carried clearly through the roar of the wind. "I need to ask you something."

Mia glanced up from the view, her big green eyes blinking with innocent curiosity. "Hmm? What is it, my Aeli? Are you tired already? Shall your venerable elder conjure you an air bubble?"

"I don’t need help." Aeliana kept her gaze on the tiny face in her arms. "It is something important to me."

"Oho! A secret question!" Mia wiggled happily against her chest. "Ask away, niece! There’s nothing in the realms your Grand-Aunt can’t explain! The migration of void-whales? The secret recipe for honeyed cloud-cakes? The mating habits of thunder lizards?!"

"It’s not about thunder lizards..."

Aeliana paused for a beat. Her purplish mana hummed softly around their shoulders while she chose her words.

"It is about Lord Sy."

Mia’s pointed ears gave a sharp curious flick. "My student? What about him? Did he get a gift for me?!"

"No." Aeliana’s voice stayed steady and direct. "In the arena you jumped in to stop the fight and said you would never see him again if he went too far... You have stayed close to him all day so I will ask you plainly. Are you interested in Silas? Do you love him?"

The question hung in the cold mountain air between them but Mia didn’t blush.

She didn’t squirm or giggle or look away.

She looked straight into Aeliana’s silver-green eyes, her face perfectly flat and calm and without a trace of romance.

"No," she said.

Aeliana blinked.

The purplish mana roaring around her boots sputtered and died like a snuffed candle.

FZZZT!

Her thrust vanished.

Her knees locked, her shoulders went rigid, and she stopped dead in the thin highland air three hundred feet above the city as the wind plucked at her emerald skirt and tugged at her hair.

Mia dangled from her arms and swung her small boots with cheerful unconcern with the whole sprawl of Central City tilting slowly underneath them.

For a long moment Aeliana hung over the basalt spires with nothing holding her up except the last stubborn threads of her mana.

She stared down at the small blond face in her arms.

Her shortened ears stood rigid and horizontal as she searched it for any trace of a joke.

"Explain yourself," she said at last. "That is not how you have been acting since we came to this city... or even before that."

Mia tilted her head, wide-eyed and innocent.

"Explain what, my Aeli? I like him as a student, of course! He has fine control of water, his mana pathways are sturdy, and he does have a Gold core too but a romantic partner... why on earth would I want that?"

Aeliana stared at her.

’That’s not how you have been acting though,’ she thought, and her silver-green eyes narrowed to two icy slits. ’That’s not how a regular teacher behaves...’

Before she could say a word of it, Mia’s little hands twitched.

POP!

The sky folded around them with a soft watery murmur, like a drop of dew falling into a deep well.

The three hundred feet of open air, the limestone arches of the Sterling tower and the cold draft all vanished in an instant.

A heartbeat later the two of them floated thirty feet above the busy flagstones of the Grand Plaza, caught in a gentle pocket of drifting mana just under the canopy of the perimeter trees.

Below them travelers in linen dusters and merchant caravans in painted bronze carriages rolled across the square, and not one of them looked up.

The central fountain threw glittering spray into the afternoon light.

Aeliana didn’t flinch at the jump, She shifted her grip under Mia’s knees and kept her eyes on those ancient green ones.

"You are avoiding the question, Grand-Aunt," she said. "If you only see him as a student, why do you hang on him like that...? You have jumped on Lord Sy at every chance since this morning. You draped yourself across his back like a wild lynx... You pinched his arms and tugged his clothes and demanded his attention at every market stall. That is not what a teacher does."

Mia threw back her head and laughed. It was a bright ringing sound, like crystal bells in a breeze.

She kicked her little boots against Aeliana’s forearms and wrapped her small hands around her niece’s wrists.

"Oh, my dear Aeli, you are so stiff! You’ve always been far too serious!" Her pointed ears flicked back and forth with pure mischief. "I was teasing him, of course... A woman has to have some fun in her life, does she not?! When I find a handsome sturdy young man who can take a joke, why shouldn’t I jump on him a little?!"

Then her smile softened into something warm and calm that didn’t match her child’s face at all. She reached up and patted Aeliana’s pale cheek.

"Listen to me, little princess." Her voice deepened and carried a gentle weight that went straight through Aeliana’s chest. "I am far too old for all this romance... I already have a great many children. I mothered a whole generation of elves so all I want now is for you to be happy, my Aeli."

Mia smiled up at her with her green eyes full of affection.

"Silas is a good person. He is patient and capable, and he protects everyone who walks under his banner... I can see how much you love him. It shows in the way your eyes follow him around every room so I will keep chasing him and pestering him until you give me a grandchild to spoil!"

Aeliana let out a long slow breath.

The heavy tension she had carried since the arena slipped out of her chest as she looked down at the ancient woman in her arms.

"Of course..." she murmured.

A warm prickle of embarrassment crept up the back of her neck and heated the tips of her shortened ears.

She felt deeply relieved and a little foolish for even thinking it.

’Ah... I let my own jealousy cloud my judgment,’ she thought, and her silver-green eyes softened. ’I forgot who she is... She was the wife of the Elven Overlord, back before he died so of course she is not fighting me over Lord Sy.’

"You are impossible, Grand-Aunt," she said aloud, with her voice back to its usual calm. "You should not tease Lord Sy just to push your plans along..."

"Nonsense!" Mia chirped and wiggled her toes. "Grand-aunts have rights! Now set me down, here comes the noisy black carriage!"

HONK-HONK!

Below them the long black automobile rolled smoothly into the southern arcade of the Grand Plaza.

Its polished silver trim gleamed in the late afternoon sun as Sebas steered it alongside the marble fountain and brought the tires to a silent stop beside the wide stone basin.

Aeliana let her purplish mana flare gently under her boots and sank through the branches of the ornamental trees in a graceful silent glide.

A few startled pigeons burst off the branches in a rustle of gray wings and her boots touched the smooth basalt flagstones just as the car doors clicked open.

Silas stepped out first, his white shirt glowing in the golden slant of the sun and his dark jacket resting easily over his shoulders.

Morwenna, Solenne and Rika followed him onto the sun-warmed flagstones of the public square, while the phoenix on Rika’s collar blinked sleepily at the pigeons.

Aeliana walked to the side of the vehicle and held out her arms to hand Mia over to Valerius, who was climbing out of the rear compartment with a dramatic weary stretch.

"Your Hero, Lord Valerius," she said, passing the blond elf over like an expensive fragile parcel.

"Ah, the terror returns to my keeping." Valerius caught Mia under the arms and set her on the pavement, though he gave her head an affectionate exasperated ruffle.

Mia stuck out her tongue at him and stomped on his polished boot.

THUMP!

"Master is clumsy! Aeli carried me like a queen, and you hold me like a sack of turnips!"

The party gathered near the edge of the fountain basin.

Cool mountain water misted their faces, and the square buzzed with the afternoon traffic of traveling Lords and merchant wagons as the time for parting had come.

Valerius adjusted the silver clasps of his azure coat and looked at Silas with a polite inquiring tilt of his head.

"Sebas can take the car and drive you back to the hotel, Silas. It’s no trouble at all. He can wait at the carriage stand until you check out."

Silas gave a light wave of his right hand and shook his head with an amused grin.

"No need, Val. We can walk from here. It’s a straight shot through the promenade, and the girls could use the fresh air before we leave..."

Valerius nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Fair enough then this is where we part ways for now."

Mia skipped around Valerius’s waist and planted herself in front of Silas.

She puffed out her little chest, lifted her chin and blew him an exaggerated fluttering kiss with both hands with her green eyes sparkling.

"Farewell, student!" she sang in a loud dramatic voice that turned the heads of several passing merchants. "I’ll miss you!"

Beside Silas, Aeliana’s jaw tightened by the slimmest fraction.

’She has no shame,’ Aeliana thought, her fingers twitching by the strap of her camera. ’She just told me she means nothing by it, and thirty seconds later she is doing it again in front of the whole square... She is doing this on purpose to torment me.’

She stepped forward with smooth precision, laid her palm between Valerius’s shoulder blades and gave him three firm pats, exactly like a stable master encouraging a stalled draught horse to clear a barn door.

"You need to go, Lord Valerius," she said plainly, in a tone that left no room for argument. "You will be late."

Valerius stumbled forward half a step and let out a dry nervous laugh.

"Okay, okay~! I’m moving! I know when I’m being politely shoved out of the territory!"

Mia looked back as Valerius steered her toward the open door of the automobile.

She took in Silas one last time in the dusk-colored light with his dark bangs tossing in the breeze, framed against the marble fountain.

’Well,’ she thought, and a faint warm ache brushed the edges of her ancient mind, ’if I was Aeli’s age... maybe it could have been.’

She shook her head with a tiny private chuckle and hopped up onto the leather seat.

’But right now all I want is to bully my Lord as well as my Student, push their limits and make them strong before I die... That is my main plan.’

"Drive on, Sebas!" Valerius shouted from inside the cabin. He leaned out of the window for one last dramatic wave. "Until next time, Silas! When we meet again, my Crosswind Weave will take your coat clean off!"

"Keep practicing the release, Val!" Silas called back with a laugh.

VROOOOOOM!

The black automobile pulled away from the curb with its tires hissing across the basalt flagstones.

It accelerated into the avenue and blended into the stream of carriages and coaches before it vanished around the grand civic archway.

Silas stood by the fountain for a moment and watched the road clear.

The afternoon sun was sinking toward the western ridges and throwing long amber shadows across the white limestone facades of the square.

The dry heat had begun to soften into a cool pleasant dusk.

He turned back to the four women behind him.

Morwenna leaned on a stone bench and watched the crowd with a watchful territorial eye.

Solenne stood beside her with her ears twitching at the street cries and her tail wagging lazily against her skirts.

Aeliana was tucking the brass camera into its velvet-lined case, and Rika gently stroked the downy head of the sleeping phoenix at her collar.

"Alright," Silas said, pushing a hand through his dark hair with a faint satisfied smile. "Everything from our rooms at the hotel is already packed in my Inventory... We have the cannons, the golem parts and the wall mounts, and the shopping is done so let’s head back to Blessed Land."

Morwenna pushed off the bench and rolled her shoulders with a sharp toothy grin.

"Why not? I’ve had my fill of cobblestones and nosy clerks. The air in the basin suits my temper a damn sight better than this dust."

"Yes," Aeliana said, and snapped the brass clasp of the camera case shut. "The tour was nice, but we should go home now... It’s already late afternoon."

"I cannot wait to show you the cobalt-steel assemblies!" Solenne cheered, with her eyes glowing with pure engineering excitement. "We can start the integration tests before midnight..."

Rika simply nodded, her calm gray eyes fixed on Silas. "Lead the way, Master."

Silas chuckled and gestured toward the western avenue that led to the administrative quarter. "Let’s move."

They walked out of the Grand Plaza together in the soft gold light.

Morwenna strolled with her hands behind her head and her eyes on the rooftops.

Solenne skipped ahead, then dropped back, then skipped ahead again, unable to keep still.

Rika walked quietly beside Silas with the phoenix dozing against her neck, and Aeliana brought up the rear and held the camera case against her chest like something precious.

’Before we meet Grand-Aunt again... I’ll bear one of Lord Sy’s children.’

[Author’s Note]

The next update will be a mass release probably... currently busy with some real world stuff but I’ll mass release when I get back, Support with Golden Tickets, heh, a Castle or two wouldn’t be bad.