That Time a Bookworm Got Ascended in Tensura

Ch.62 Alone Time

Tuuli's pov: 

I lifted the basket with rolls of cloth and spools of thread,  and stood to walk back into the living room. The basket had been given to us by Shuna to let us practice,  and make clothes and blankets for the new baby.  I set down the basket and smiled brightly in front of my mother, she was struggling still having seemingly gotten worse. I could see magicules raging inside her, and I hoped the nobles from Ehrenfest would be willing to help. They are the only humans I knew of who had to deal with this type of thing regularly, as I could see they all had quite the magicule content inside them. At least by my standards it was a fair amount, even if not comparable to many monsters in Tempest, many still had well beyond what I myself had. I put a quick end to these thoughts as I saw my mother struggling to sit up still. I immediately kneeled down and helped her sit up, while making sure to be careful while lifting her. 

"Thank you, dear." My mother replied quickly then she was quick to look over the top of the basket and inspect what was inside, I could see her eyes light up a bit at what she saw. "Is this the basket Shuna-sama said she'd send?" 

I nodded a bit, and stepped away seeing she had her footing now. "Yes. We got it this morning, but you seemed too tired, so I waited." I kept up my smile, and walked to the other side of the table before sitting down on the chair there. I gestured for her to pull out each of the fabrics and spools on her own, "We can use them for what we wish, but she did suggest we pick carefully since they all have their best uses." I informed while thinking about what fabrics may make their best places in blankets and clothes, it did not seem that hard to decide but we had been given many many fabrics. 

My mother carefully took out the three sets of folded fabric and arranged them on the table, after this she took out the spools of thread and looked to me. "Tuuli, I believe we have a sewing kit in the drawer on the shelve on the other side of the room, could you go get it, please?" While saying this she was carefully inspecting the silks and the cotton, she was most interested in what appeared to be a silk from some kind of spider as neither of us had seen it before. Though I did for a moment wonder how one would get silk from a spider as I read the label along with her from the other side of the room using [Magic Sense]. 

I kneeled down to open the drawer and easily found the sewing kit she was talking about, I found myself gripping it tightly as I felt a small tension build along my arm. Something was gnawing at the back of my head, that I tried to ignore as I turned around and forced myself to ease my arm's grip. I walked back to my mother and set down the sewing kit between several of the folded sets of fabrics and started inspecting the spider silk set with my eyes as opposed to just my [Magic Sense], since the night before I had noticed my eyes had gotten noticeably more acute. 

"It is so fine, the threads in this. I can't even see them, can you, dear?" To her question I nodded lightly, and she pushed the fabric set to me as a result. She then went onto the next one before explaining why, "You want to avoid damaging the weave as much as possible while sewing fabric, so it would be better if you used this one." She explained while inspecting the cotton set, after looking somewhat closely she seemed to start counting on her fingers and gave a small curt nod afterward. 

I nodded lightly and glanced away for a moment before lifting it softly, and trying to feel out the texture. My feeling of touch had also been helped somewhat. Though it was still much less than I'd like, so I'd need my mother's help once more. "Is this soft enough for a blanket? I can't exactly feel it as finely as I'd like, sorry mother." I posed and leaned back a bit with a small abashed expression lining my lips and in my eyes. 

She smiled a bit warmly and replied, "It's fine, dear, you do so much for your sister. I believe it'd be great for a blanket, it feels very smooth and would not be abrasive against the skin." I listened quietly and felt my back tense up a bit, but kept trying to ignore it and listened to her words on the blanket. I was fairly sure of it now, on what I'd be making. 

I set it aside for a moment and looked to each of the spools of thread, I was quick enough to pick the hellmoth silk thread, as it would absorb magicules. I had a slight feeling the baby would be born with them, from what my mother was experiencing. Along with this, for the inner padding I chose the cotton, mainly because it was somewhat abrasive but was fluffy, meaning it'd make good padding but would not be good for the outer layers. At least in my mind, this made the most sense, so I went along with the intuition. When my mother did not stop me, I was somewhat assured of this. I slid out the second pair of shears from the sewing kit, and then the measuring thread. I was quick to measure along the length of the fabric to find a size I was happy with before making the cuts. I was careful to make sure I followed the lines carefully, and eventually had four pieces of fabric cut to the exact shape I wanted, I'd forgo a hem as I did not think it would make sense for a blanket that needed to be wrapped around a baby. 

I could see my mother making cuts as well, though she she was making was a shirt instead. She seemed to want to make it look as nice as possible, as she had set several fabrics aside for this, and had even seemed to make the base of something like a hairpin, but she appeared to want to attempt to attach it to the collar of the shirt. I was fairly surprised for a moment watching her, and felt a bit more bashful in my choice to do something much simpler. Though I kept to what I decided to make, it would be good to allow my mother to come off better when Shuna see all of these as well. 

I kept watching her for several moments before  continuing myself, though I saw her start to struggle for a moment as it seemed her fingers were unsteadied by a small pain in them. I leaned over and helped her hold down a piece of fabric so she could use her hands more freely. 

She nodded in affirmation to my assistance, and continued on working, she had already begun several more small stiches to attach pieces at joints, which she would seam later. Seeing her steady herself, I pulled away to continue myself. 

I began with attaching the two pieces of cotton fabric together, sewing a simple rectangle around the edges, and a pair of intersecting lines to each of the corners across the center of the fabric, after testing to see if I could still get the fabric pieces to pull apart, I was satisfied with the result. I moved on to the silk, but found my hand tensing, and I was struggling to hold the needle steady while trying to sew. My mother seemed to notice this, and also glanced to see my back was tense as well. I kept trying to sew like this for several minutes before, I was stopped. 

My mother made me set the fabric down, and took my hand softly. "Are you alright? You seem so tense, what is bothering you?" She stared into my eyes directly, and didn't let me escape as she resisted as much as she could when I tried to pull away. Not wanting to harm her by accident, I relented. 

I sat there for several moments staring back into her eyes and thinking of what to say to her, I could not particularly think of how to explain my problems. They seemed like something so out of reach to her, but she seemed so insistent. I finally began, "Mother.. What would you do if you feel indebted to someone.. but those debts would take you away from the person you needed what the debt is about for?" I tried to word it vaguely, and not imply any names to keep things entirely anonymous. I wanted an honest answer, and she may skew it if she knew who I was talking about. 

She stared into my eyes for a moment before huffing a small bit, but she was fast enough to return to her normal expression. "It is about you sister, yes? I don't know the details, but I can say it sounds important from the way you are reacting to it. How about you try to talk to the person? If they indebted you, they clearly want something out of you, you could try to talk to them about that? I would say you should find any way you can to pay your debts, however." While explaining this to me she seemed to wish to pull me into a hug, though I was a bit reluctant for a moment. 

I accepted the hug after a small bit and hugged her back, "I don't know how I could, what is important to this person seems... vague. I'll try my best, I don't want to be away from Rozemyne." I admitted to it being my sister I was concerned of in that sentence, and also felt my aura spread out a bit from Nahenlicht at my hip. Even at home I'd always keep it with me, I quickly retracted the aura. 

My mother responded quickly, "You've dealt with so much up to now, this shouldn't be any harder, should it?" While saying this she cradled my head a but so she could once again look into my eyes, her own eyes seemed filled with pride while looking at me. It made a small fuzzy feeling well up in my stomach while I thought about it. 

I pulled away lightly and smiled a bit under a covered lip before waiting a moment to think things through, "t-thank you, mother." I replied quickly before standing up and stretching a bit. 

"It is nothing." She quickly replied while taking back up the fabrics she was working with and began to sew carefully small seams into them, and began to bind their layers together. 

I could walked over to the window for a moment, and past the garden in the distance I could see Rozemyne with a one of the knight from Ehrenfest, she seemed to be having some issue as she was looking down while covering her eyes a bit. I found this as the perfect time to go and see what is was she was doing, "Mother, Rozemyne is out there. I will go see her, sorry to cut my time short. I promise to come back and finish these with you." 

My mother again set down the fabrics and nodded, "it's fine, just be sure to be back to make dinner. I know Rozemyne has likely already eaten, but I do want to see her eat dinner with us again this week." I doubted Rozemyne would mind eating more, she was as gluttonous as ever when it came to food the last few days. 

I went up the stairs to my room and quickly got dressed in my uniform before stepping, onto the patio and into the garden. I tightly gripped nahenlicht while thinking about what to say, and made my way out of the barrier before talking a more natural stiff posture. I believed Rozemyne could see me, but she appeared too deep in thought to pick out my presence. The knight on the over  hand did notice me, and looked immediately tense. I was releasing my aura seeing this, as I was unsure of him immediately.

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--2097 words--

(AN: Sorry to take so long on uploading this chapter, I have been procrastinating too much over the last few days.)