"Yes, yes, Rianta-chira! As long as you two still love each other, and you continue to have more children. Ensuring they grow up, you can send them back to your people. Allowing them to grow from you love much as your sons will have by that point. I admit... I don't know much about your kind, but, as you said, you were an 'ivy-mother,' I think I understand that a little. At a certain age, a child must be on their own to truly grow. You're not abandoning anyone. You are letting them stand on their own and allowing them to find their place. So long as you keep showing them that you care, they will keep growing. You have not failed anyone until you give up!"
Looking away from the golden human, I ponder her words. She is right, a child must be allowed to become independent if the mind is to move forward. Even I at some point, so youthful and lacking in confidence where it mattered, even I needed that push... At one point, I was a jittery thing, barely sure of myself as I pursued my duties.
But, by going on at it, I was all the stronger for it, just like I will be now.
The flowers of the Ahnelges Garden-Mont do not have to fear, none of them do. My efforts will not be feeble and I will ferry many a son to bolster them. I will support them to the end. My love and I, we will keep going until our bodies return to the clay from which all mortality came from.
"So long as I have plenty of children, so long as my womb remains active... I am not failing them." I assure myself, locking my heart in the thickest chains to bind it to this idea.
"... Yes...?" Einervaene says, her tone a little off as an awkward smile takes her over. Either way, I wish to move my mind away from such vile thoughts for the time being. I have said my piece and have heard the wisdom of someone who matters. My stomach quite agrees with my thoughts.
"A good mother must be well-fed, then..." I utter, smiling back at her as I open up the box and take in its sweet aroma. Nimbly, I snatch away what appears to be the thickest slice and I devour it. A squeak escapes the human. Her body a little stiff as I undoubtedly shock her with my appetite. Using my thumb, I wipe the icing off my lips and trail my tongue up it.
Though her surprise is not unjustified, even my own standards are being set aside for the time being.
"You are certainly going for quite a lot of it..." she breathes in disbelief as another slice enters my hands. Though I know I am slower in eating this bit, I am not doing so by much less.
"Unfortunately, my precious love... Introduced me to a quality of cooking so exceptional that I will never be able to enjoy any other meal... All food tastes bad to me now." I let out, short of breath as what is nebulous to her, comes back to me as if it was just now. All the hope I thought I could muster about my own skills slips away from me. More and more of it pools invisibly around us. She, however, has the innocence of only knowing mortal cooking.
I pity and envy her at the same contradictory time, yet I know I never want to be her.
"What was this food, then?" she asks, her teeth sinking in to take a modest bite out of the slice she chose. A rough, jawline-edge comes out of what was a creamy topped delight.
Wiping my mouth, I fight back the inexplicit waves of drool, "A tart..."
"A tart?" she questions, perking up at the word with no real idea as to how wondrous it really was. Golden crust that flaked so well into the thick, curdling fruit... Soaking every-
"Walls of firmly holding pastry. The juices seeping in like the rain does to the soil but not making mud of it. Even the atmosphere itself trembled at its extravagance!" I let out, reminding myself I was only in my head a moment before. My jaw goes limp as the memories overwhelm me. Aahtha bless me, I might as well be a corpse right now, driven to my state by the unending pleasure of phantom tastes and scents. If only I could be so certain that my death would lead to what my love experienced in his time amongst the divine.
It's not fair, it's not!
"Why not get another one then if it is that good...?" she asks and my emotions flare with raw anger. If only it were that simple, if only if the task of having more goddess-baked deliciousness was that simple. Even if it was, it would be all mine, even my love would have none. The sweet tooth I have born of that dessert, it will burn the world down!
"I can't... My love had the only one, and it was made entirely for him...!" I want to cry for while I love him all the more for sharing a divine artefact with me. I also hate him so much for it. I can never enjoy food again now. The memories, they will never go, not while I live. Not while I live at all.
"Why not ask him to get some more, then?" she asks further, still not getting at all.
"I can't!" I cry with all the heart-exhausting melodrama I can.
"Why...? Did the person who made it die?"
"More like you have to die and get lucky to get it..." I mutter viciously, sneering at what food I do have. Getting back to eating, I catch onto her sigh and following smirk. If only her thoughts were right, I have no secrets to hide. The truth is cryptic and too strange to accept bluntly... But it is what it is: the truth.
Finishing up with what I have, I find my appetite ruined by all these thoughts of superior cooking. She follows suit and we rise up, ready to go on our way. Sorting my clothes out, I eye how mine look on Einervaene again. They do fit her quite well, even with the likely tightness she is experiencing.
Her mouth pops open, "I think I have everything I am going to want. Is there anything you are specifically going to want?"
I look down towards the bag of trade materials.
"I will get what I need on my own..." I mutter, carrying my bitterness on into words and action as I snatch the bag. She shrugs her shoulders and pulls out a small item. My long ear twitch as the subtle tick of gears within. This is new. Did she acquire it from that fabric shop?
"Can we keep it to the same street as the printers, then? It will make it easier to get our stuff for when we head back to the estate. Then, I can get started on making your outfit!" she explains, gently clapping at the prospect.
"Oh, yes, of course. Of course... No, then, you will stay with me. That way, what you end up making me will pay heed to what I now get." I explain to her in turn, taking her hand so we can hurry on out of here.
"Can't... Can't I just use your clothes as a reference point? The ones you already ha-?"
"No!" I interrupt, striking my head high.
"But-"
"No! If I am to receive clothes from a golden-petal such as you. It must be done in a human-style. That is why I must get human clothes to accompany it. My precious love will know how this display shows my loyalty to him. He will understand that I am fine with moving on with my life, heading to places he is more familiar with." I explain as the stone road sings with the tap of our legwear. Minding my mostly exposed lower half, my thoughts are in the right place.
I stab my points down, bringing us to a halt.
"Women's underwear..." I whisper with a speeding heart. The kind of lingerie that will no doubt draw out my love's earnest want for my body. I will present myself to him and watch his-
Einervaene nudges me towards the shop, her giggling clinging to my burning cheeks, "The style of we humans is quite flexible, you know?"
"Flexibility!?" I go, offended at the idea I want diverse styles, "What I need is something distinctly human in its design!"
Moving up to the glass, determination hardens my face yet makes my body more energetic than ever. Bouncing my body, my breasts defy the bra that constrains their buxom beauty. My rear sticks out in mock preparation for how I wish my love to position me at lustful night's time.
"Well, forgive me for any unintended offense, but the only thing I can think of that fits that description... Is something like these?" she tells me, her voice and face drawing my attention to her high-heeled boots. A strangely alluring mixture of the human foot and the tipped shape of an aelenvar's points.
"Mmm." I let out in deep thought as I move closer, leaning down slightly to inspect the curve.
"But, you can't wear something like this," she giggles, her mind not paying me too much attention.
"No... I can... I very much can..." I realise, thinking of myself in a different manner. Rather than having feet slip into a form to hold them, I slot my points into a brace that imitates a foot's shape! Grabbing the top of her boots, I force a yelp out of the giddy woman. My strength keeps her in place, and she struggles to straighten herself out.
"Please, do not do that!" she tells me, her voice still broken as I let go.
"I must... I must wear human-style clothes to be more in line with what my love wants from me!" I tell her, my mind filling with images of an item that may not actually exist.
"Yes-"
"I need tubes for my points. No, I need point-tips that connect to a structure like those have. Ones that imitate what I still have, going to my thighs and all. I cannot do without that which eludes to the erotic." I explain, my thoughts coming out without much clarity, even to myself.
"Like a fancy sock...?" she questions, the concept lost on me.
"Yes, like a sock!" I let out loudly, "What's a sock?"
"The extra layer between shoe and foot. They help stop abrasion between one's skin and their footwear. They also help keep feet warm," she explains, and my mind defaults to the many pairs of point-tips I have. Those are what I tend to wear when I can be sure I am not likely to face the realities of the outdoors. With how low the metal ends are on point-tips, the fabric is ruined so easily with filth.
"But wait... If I can make a frame, the initial portion may be tube-like while the rest has the features of a point-tip's cloth!" I realise, pondering the many places I might need to go to in order to make such a complex piece of clothing. Again, I have no idea if this is something humans have ever thought of before. I mean, how could they have? What kind of petal wants to imitate a human foot!?
Well, here's one!
"We best go and find a skilled metal artisan, then. An armourer, perhaps? I know nothing of metal working itself, but I am familiar with working cloth together with it." Einervaene explains to me as I wander around for the first hint of such a place. Of course, she is right, an artisan, given time and measurements... They'll be more than capable of making me the first realisation of this dream. A dream of locking my legs around my love's strong back as he thrusts into me... I'm getting so very hot thinking about it. Oh, how he will love me all the more for making him feel like I have such a subtle beauty as feet.
Giggling my misty thoughts back into their rooms for outward calmness, I breathe deeply.
"Then, please, will you help me find such a worker? For my dream to become a tangible reality, I need someone whose fingers know how to work the finest silvers." I ask of her, heading on regardless of her presence at my side.
"I can most certainly do that, sur-" Einervaene starts to answer and we freeze up at the feeling in the air. My l-love!? He has come back!
Letting a smile take over my face, I hold myself to a composed state as he walks down the street towards us. His magic flares up at everyone who looks at him and they shirk away. They're all bowing to his majesty. Even I, his beloved, even I am quaking with anticipation.
"My love...!" I breathe as he comes to a stop.
I note how tense his body seems to be, even so, I ignore it.
"I need to talk to you about something." I tell him, thinking of so many different things that have been on my mind today and as of recent ones. What to focus on, though? What I discussed with Einervaene over lunch? The shop with the birthing pots? How I felt when he vanished a few days ago...?
He steps closer and I straighten out in shock, his arm around my waist already.
"It will have to wait... I need you to come with me to somewhere more private," he tells me, the details awaiting their freedom from the nosy and intrusive.
"Of course-" I start to answer and the air rushes through my hair. The shock of the ground breaking barely shakes my nerves. He protects me from the breaking of the rock as we land on the mountain. We're not too high, but high enough that our whispers are impossible to be caught. I meet his masked eyes, my chest heaving from the rush of it all.