I've been trailing after Seigunfrei for a while, and when he finally goes inside the building he needs to visit... My shoulders slump. Both in defeat, and in relaxation. He's gone, for however long he needs to be... And yet, I'm not willing to move and go elsewhere. To simply lie and say I've just remembered something myself or that something came up that I was expected to attend.
Either or, now is the best chance to go off somewhere. I'm currently in the 'neutral' space between the Four Houses. Whatever building I'm currently before, the sheer gaudiness of it compared to every other building one might find can only make me assume it's for the Academy's head individuals. Their gilded-barks, ivy-mothers and similar positions of power and so on.
He's probably only here for something mundane, however, ultimately necessary it is, his reason for actually being here. I can't imagine it's particularly engaging, and I've certainly the history of handing off the worst parts of being an ivy-mother to someone else. Even a job as enjoyable and fulfilling as an ivy-mother has its worst parts, unfortunately. It's a constant: let there be no good thing without a bad, and no bad thing that cannot get worse.
Still... It makes me huff and smile, thinking about it all. I used to give such tasks to those who barely qualified as petals, too close to being a stem. Or, to those who were the lucky inverse, so close to being petals, but still stems. It was a good thing I did that, it freed me up for many things, including...
Including spending as much time as I did with Nin, back when we were still at my flower and...
"Can I just go one moment without you coming into my thoughts!?" I harshly mutter, though my words are still quiet despite this. A snarl takes over my features and I com too close to directing it at an innocent piece of decorative stonework before I manage to calm myself. My fingers tap away impatiently against my person, and another heavy sigh parts my lips. The flying machines of the wind-people go on by, captivating me for about as long as it takes me to blink. Though, thankfully, the trail it leaves in the wind leads me to spotting something much larger and grander, hiding just beyond the great central tower of Thrurstradtur. The Gnomon, I believe I heard the wind-people here call it?
Still, it's an impressive sight indeed. Longer than my flower could stretch itself, and jutting out magic of a potency not even the Valkinvar could produce. A mass of metal that could likely destroy this entire plateau were it to crash, let alone fly over it. Such magic is... Staggeringly powerful. It's baffling that such strength exists in a machine and not a person.
Six legs of it, six devices that keep endlessly erupting with pure, untainted emerald light. All that just to keep the machine afloat in the sky. The grandest possible display of arcane-engineering one could possibly have. And, to an extent, one I can count on never having to get involved with. The wind-people of the Seven-Peaks Union of Jherikra are beyond me as an Ahnelges, too far, and not close enough.
Unlike back when... When Nin lifted up that immense weight, in the second greatest display of magic I've ever seen up until that point. At a time he was second only to a Valkinvar. Of all the things to be second to... A Valkinvar.
And it was me who intervened to keep him safe. Not her, not Vapooliar, not the Valkinvar... Me. I was the one who channelled my magic so quickly and abruptly, almost becoming unconscious to save his life. Me. I saved his life back when he proved himself to be far greater than the one who had caught my eye before.
All it does is frustrate me even more, looking at this distant machine... Because even when it was something like this, it always goes back to him.
Back to that damnable parasite!
Frustration moves my points before I can protest even mentally. I drag myself somewhere quiet and out of the way. Heaving and straining under the weight of my emotions, my temper chief among them. Chiefly because... Chiefly because...
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" I scream against a wall, collapsing to my knees, my forehead scraping along the stone, brick, and metal. My head moves away and I break down sobbing, my hands hiding my face as my heart pounds away at every defence I have. It's a losing battle, what my mind and the rest of my body are fighting. My heart will accept no surrender or quarter, it wants absolute victory about this...
I gave up on Oak'endoor when I saw someone stronger, and it didn't bother me like this... All aelenvari do this if they're virgins, before they've had their first child... At least, most of the time. But that only applies to those who abandon our flowers...! I stayed... I... I...
I stayed loyal to mine, only until he came along... Nin.
"I don't love him... Do you hear me!?" I seethe out in anger towards my own chest, to the source of my furiously beating life. Towards the heart that pains me so. And... It answers.
A strange tremble that hurts so much. It hurts so much and makes me feel so cold. I shake my head in disbelief, unable to get it, unable to understand. What is wrong with me? Why is something I should be loathing and despising... Why is it... Why is he staying so firmly in a place where a desire of many years did not...?
Oak'endoor, my first love, one I loved for so long didn't stick in my heart like this. But Nin does. Nin... Nin who was second only to a Valkinvar when I met him. Nin who was so much stronger than Oak'endoor. Nin who took me up this mountain... We saw Jhroungijherammujhernosumonaterikra for the first time together... Our first times going up into one of the Seven Great Peaks, let alone a wind-people mountain... It was all with him. Outside of my life as an ivy-mother which had grown... Stagnant...
"NO!" I snap, as there's no reason for it to be like this, there just isn't any reason at all!
Seigunfrei is stronger, so much stronger than Nin! It was clear when he walked beside Nin on the day he defeated him. And it was only made abundantly clear when Seigunfrei towered over Nin's broken body... So easily did Nin lose to Seigunfrei. The latter took not one hit no matter how hard Nin went at it and Seigunfrei toyed with him. He toyed with Nin, that's how much stronger he is! And that was then!
Seigunfrei is growing stronger with every day that passes! He couldn't make a better case about his superiority if he tried...!