Yulia
While Moira was torturing training her pupils, Yulia was being tortured in turn. Not by Ashley, but rather by the sheer inanity of the show she was watching. It had a cool premise and the individual episodes were about issues that if treated seriously and with the respect they were due had the potential to be truly heavy hitting. However, the premise and the episode's issue of the week were not treated seriously. In fact, the truth was quite the opposite.
Often, they were used to shoehorn in a childish version of morality, often accompanied by a really dumb segue about counting or the alphabet for some reason, and the events of each episode sometimes didn't even have consequences from the start of the episode to the end, unless they chose to make a callback.
Yulia strongly felt that even a 7 year old should be able to handle higher level content than this, and she certainly felt her own intelligence demeaned by every new detail she would learn about worldbuilding or characterization in this show.
She had slowly been letting this get to her, and crimson had begun to take over the warm chocolate brown of her eyes. Hearing the audible cracking of Moira's bones, which she fully expected to never be addressed or admitted to, was the final straw.
In a flash, she had the tv off of its mount and had thrown it with some force into the room she had specifically for when she wanted to break things. Realizing that she wouldn't be able to cover this up as easily as she had previous mysteriously disappearing objects, she then told Ashley she would be a minute. Ashley asked her what happened to the TV and she answered with some vitriol, "The gods smote it with heavenly fire due to the crimes against all sentient creatures it had been revealing to us." Unlike her wife, she was fully capable of lying and more than willing to employ this capability as necessary to keep the peace.
Ashley giggled at this response, for some reason, and Yulia quickly ran to the store. It took her 32 seconds to get there, another 40 seconds to run all the way back because she had forgotten her wallet, and about 2 minutes from entering the store to when she was checking out with a new tv with conveniently higher specs, because she could not find the original.
As soon as she was out of direct line of sight of the store, she assumed her true form which made it much easier to carry the 80 inch tv inside its box as she carefully returned home. The entire thing took her 5 minutes. A little work with a drill and some magically repaired concrete and brickwork later, and she was able to get the new tv mounted into place with little issue. She then went to her room, threw some shit around for the hell of it (Gotta love soundproofing), resumed her human form and changed her clothes.
She then returned to the little girl, absolutely unwilling to watch any more of that senseless drivel.
"Aunty, is it okay if we watch a cartoon again?" Ashley innocently and cutely asked.
This caused the gears to start turning in Yulia's head, and then she settled upon a solution.
"Okay, but this time I will pick."
Soon enough, the opening theme to Kill-la-Kill was coming out of the surround sound. "Look kid, watching stuff can be educational but also actually enjoyable. If you want to learn to read, that is what subtitles are for."
Contrary to Moira's suppositions, Yulia had picked up more languages throughout her 500 years of existence than just 3. Such as Latin, Greek, and Japanese.
So she held the little girl in her lap, and whenever a character would speak in Japanese, she would translate for Ashley's benefit. Ashley would giggle at how spot on her voice was to the voice actor's, and the fact that Yulia was able to maintain the same cadence in English really helped. This meant that sometimes her translation disagreed with the subtitles.
Ashley, for her part, was very enthralled with the action being portrayed on screen. Yulia had forgotten how much implied gore and nudity there actually was in this show, so she said at the end of the episode, "How about we keep it between us that we watched this together. Your mother especially has no need to know."
Unfortunately, she had been so enthralled with sharing her love for this show with the little girl that she hadn't heard Moira and Katie approaching, and Katie asked with some censure, "Need to know what, exactly?"
"Nothing, as I said." Yulia said innocently, and Ashley was pretty smart as 7 year olds went, so she figured telling her mom otherwise meant she could no longer hang out with this fun aunty!
"I see no problem with showing kids 'Kill-la-Kill', as it is an amazing piece of media and surprisingly educational, if you let it be. However, I would like to know why it seems you suddenly felt we needed a new, even larger TV and why exactly it is your first instinct to conceal your actions when I and the child's mother approached." Moira innocently ratted her wife out immediately, as her reaction to being lied to was rather visceral and she would recognize those end credits anywhere, even paused.
She had to admit the show in question looked pretty great even at a distance on the 80 inch 8k display. However, their previous 60 inch 4k tv wasn't exactly in poor repair, at least last time she had laid eyes on it. She wasn't stupid, and she knew that sometimes Yulia would break things and then replace them. Sometimes that effort would be more successful than others. So far, nothing that had suffered this fate had any deep meaning to Moira, but she knew that when Yulia was truly angry her thought processes basically broke down, and so this was a matter of luck rather than planning.
"Dear wife, might I converse with you in private?" She said it sweetly but Yulia was fully aware that her intentions were anything but.
However, she was surprised, as Moira chose to be as kind as she could about this.
"Look, I love you more than anything. You practically mean the whole world to me. However, between you and me, don't you think this has started to become a bit of a problem?"
Yulia couldn't bring herself to answer. Shamefully, a part of her was angry that she would be called to task about this issue. She wanted to say it didn't matter if she cleaned up the mess and replaced it afterwards, but she knew that wasn't quite true. Especially because some of the things Moira had around the house were functionally irreplaceable, and Moira hated the wastage of resources, even if the financial impact was negligible.
After Yulia didn't answer for a sufficient period of time, Moira continued, knowing Yulia was at least thinking about her words.
"I love you so much, but…we are not lifemates. You and I both thought we could cheat the system by using the very real natural bond between us to try and stave off the encroaching erratic behavior, fits of anger, and eventual descent into madness. We both did a really good job of it for a shockingly long time…or maybe we just had convinced ourselves of that. In human form, like now, the changes can be slowed to a comparative crawl. You and I both know, however, that there is only one cure. Unfortunately, as much as I would love to be, as much as I desperately hoped I would be, I am not that cure for you. So… you have my full permission to seek out your mate, if you think it will help, if you think you cannot keep it together any longer. Look at me. Look at me Yulia. This isn't a rejection. I don't want to leave you over this. You just need something I clearly cannot give you, and I am giving you permission to seek it out with another. I still very much wish to be a part of your life." Moira said the words that had been eating her up inside for quite some time. They hurt when they were spoken out loud, but at least they were no longer festering inside of her.
The part of Moira that had stopped resembling anything remotely sane snarled and snapped inside of her in rage at the thought of sharing her wife with anybody else, but the rest of her trembled in trepidation at the thought of having to put her down like a rabid dog instead. If she even could.
"What about you? Will you also seek out your mate?" Yulia asked hollowly, with crimson tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"I will not." Moira shook her head. She knew that she was too far gone for that. Stood in too many battles. Seen too many days go by. Lost so many people that she had held dear. The madness from the lack of finding her mate paled in comparison to the madness already twisting inside of her.
"If I should encounter my mate, I will not be able to tell you with any honesty what I would do then. I will not, however, seek mine out." Moira offered a dose of truth along with an olive branch. The last thing she wanted to do was push her wife away. What she did want, however, was for Yulia to find a true measure of happiness.
"Okay then. When would you have me search for mine?" Yulia asked. Right now, taking care of Moira was nearly a full time job. She could tell that Moira was getting stronger each and every day, but she knew that it would not be any time soon that Moira could survive on her own.
"As part of the bet I made with Darknesse, I unfortunately must leave your side on the eve of the night I turn 16. After that, you may visit me for only 24 hours each year." Moira said this apologetically, but she could tell that the air had turned very dangerous rather suddenly.
"When exactly were you planning to tell me this?" Yulia asked.
"I had forgotten, actually, until this very conversation. You know I don't remember much of that night."
Yulia reluctantly had to agree, and it seemed Moira had informed her immediately. Still, she tried to hold onto a thread of hope. "Well, you aren't even 1 yet, so I suppose I can still watch over you for nearly 16 years yet."
The hope died as she saw the sadness in Moira's eyes. "Yulia, I am already biologically 14. We have less than 2 years now. 2 years, and a day for every year of life I can cling to after that."
Yulia lost her grip on those crimson tears and wished now they had not stepped into her room devoted to breaking shit, because it was the only personal room in the house without an attached bathroom. She would have to do her best to hide her face from their guests until she could clean herself up.
"Okay. Does that mean you are attempting to bring yourself up to at least a baseline level of physical fitness before you have to leave?"
"Yulia, you know me too well to think I would settle for that. I am going to attempt to reforge the weapon until I am once again a power, even if a significantly diminished one. Now, let us rejoin our guests, we are unintentionally being quite rude, I should think."
Moira pulled out a partially embroidered handkerchief from some place on her person, and she gently dabbed at Yulia's eyes. Yulia pulled her into a hug as a response to the affectionate gesture, and Moira turned to run interference with their guests while her wife cried a little more and then cleaned herself up.