Spring had finally come around, and so Sophia and her friends were getting ready to finally resume the exploration of the new world she had ended up in. Before that, they met up with King Menzor and a few other people from the castle to review some things again. After all, Sophia had offered to use her portal magic to connect various places of the beastfolk kingdom to make traveling much easier. In preparation for that, the king, or his planning committee, had decided to tear down a farm cottage that wasn’t needed anymore to build a portal hub there instead. She didn’t like that idea because she immediately fell in love with the cute design of the cottage and suggested a better plan. Though, the word plan maybe was a bit of a stretch. Sophia simply snatched the building and put it into her storage dimension, together with a big portion of soil around it.
Once Menzor and his wife, Queen Kira, got over the fact that the blonde tiger had just made a piece of land disappear, the two moved closer to their daughter.
“It’s time, huh?” Her father spoke up. “The capital will finally be freed from the chaos princess.”
“Hey!” Said princess got loud in return.
“It will definitely be much quieter and more peaceful around here." Kira had to do it, too.
“That’s really not- Ah.” Anna could not finish her sentence because the two suddenly hugged her. "..." She simply opted for returning the hug, and the three stayed like that for a little while.
“Sophia," Once they parted again, the king immediately faced the blonde tiger. "I don't need to make myself clear that I'm going to send the entire kingdom army after you if anything happens to our daughter, right?"
“More than that, I’ll be coming after you, myself!” Kira sounded even more serious.
“Okay, I’m actually scared about the second one.” Sophia took a step away from the queen. “No, there is no need to worry. With me around, none of my friends will ever get hurt!”
“Good.” The royal couple sounded relieved.
“Well, minor injuries used as a learning exercise excluded.” She lightly corrected herself.
“That much is fine.” The queen accepted that exception. “She could use one or 23 of those learning moments.”
“Oh, and I won’t take responsibility for emotional damage from Maya’s teasing. That’s beyond my capabilities.”
“That’s beyond everyone’s capabilities~.” The white cat reacted with an extra smug grin.
“We know.” Many people had the same response.
“Heh~.”
"What a girl." Kira sounded quite impressed by her momentarily before eventually changing her attention to her daughter’s girlfriend. “Ari, you do know that you have to act as the royal family's representative, right? I put my trust in you, okay?"
“Why me?!” She lightly raised her voice. “We have two actual tigers in our group!”
“You don’t want us to be the representative of anything.” Anna and Sophia, said tigers of the group, were in complete sync.
“Why are tigers so self-aware…?” The jaguar let out a sigh.
"Don't worry. I'll help you when it becomes too complicated." Maya put a hand on her shoulder while showing the girl a sympathetic expression.
“I’ll make sure those two learn how to behave.” Fey glanced at the two striped girls before facing the queen. “Admittedly, after having gotten to know them better over the past couple of months, I realized that this will be a hard task, but I’m quite confident about my expertise in that field.”
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“Thank you very much.” Kira smiled at the full fox. “I’m counting on you.”
“Good luck~.” The blonde and the tall tiger still were in a good mood while they smiled at Fey.
“I don’t need luck.” She stared back at them. “I have my skills to back up my claim.”
“...” The duo quickly stopped looking cheeky.
“I see that our daughter will be in capable paws.” Menzor reacted with a slight nod in her direction.
“Grrr!” The tall tiger growled at her father. “I’ll make sure to be even more of a menace than usual whenever we come for a visit!”
"Totally fine by me." Menzor saw no issue with that.
“Yep.” Kira also nodded. “As long as you do come and visit us.”
“There’s just no winning with you, is there?!” Anna started pouting.
"That feeling is the worst, isn't it?" Her parents stared right back at her.
"A-Ah...”
“You know, I absolutely love this kind of family bantering and bonding, but it's getting late! LATE! L-A-T-E!" Steph, once again, was getting impatient.
“I want to go, too!” Anna also showed her parents an excited expression.
“Don’t worry, we won’t take any more of your time.” The king smiled at her. “Oh, but before you all leave,” He then looked at Sophia and handed her an envelope. “I don’t expect you to go to these places, but that’s a list with cities and areas of most interest to be linked with your portals. There’s also a letter with my sigil and sign inside to show the mayors there. If you end up in any of these places, we would be pleased to have them connected with the capital.”
“Sure thing~.” The blonde took the envelope and immediately handed it over to Maya. "Please remind me whenever we're near any of these places."
“Of course.” She knew it was an impossible task for her tiger.
“Alright!” Having dealt with that, Sophia faced the others in the group. "Let's head out!"
“FINALLY!” Her sister liked the sound of that.
“By the way, where do you plan to go first? Which direction?” The queen got a little curious about their itinerary.
“South because it would get warmer faster!”
“North because it would be colder for longer!”
“This way.”
“That way.”
“Along there.”
“I want to go there first!”
“That direction seems nice.”
“The best route would be over there.”
“This way would be the easiest route.”
“I think this way would be fun.”
In no particular order, everyone in the group, Sophia, Maya, Steph, Chloe, Ari, Anna, Mira, Fey, Aura, and Fen, were pointing or gesturing in a different direction.
"…" Noticing how there was not a single match in their suggestions, the group turned silent.
“Let’s leave, dear.” Kira decided that it would be best to vacate the premises.
“Y-Yeah!” Menzor, too, wanted to avoid getting roped into this.
“Well, I guess there’s only one thing we can do now.” Sounding extremely serious, Sophia turned sideways to look at her sister, who was pointing in a direction with a roughly 90-degree angle of hers.
“Yeah…” Looking equally serious, Steph looked back at her. “It’s beyond unfortunate that it had to come to this, but there’s just no other way.”
“It’s deeply regrettable, yes.” The blonde nodded. “This will change things forever.”
“Nothing will ever be the same.”
“Uhh…” Ari, Maya, and Chloe started to look concerned about the ominous feeling around the sisters.
“Let’s get over with it.”
“Let’s go!” The two exchanged another glance before both lifted their arms.
“Rock! - Paper! - Scissors!” The serious mood was instantly gone.
“EHH?!” Everyone around couldn’t believe this turn of events and simply watched the sisters throwing symbols at each other in rapid succession.
Once everyone had gotten over their goofiness, the other members actually went ahead and joined in, as they all had their own preferred route.
Ultimately, it turned into a full-blown rock, paper, scissors tournament that went on for many rounds over the next hour. Even Fey and the wolves took part by placing their paws on symbols drawn on the ground.
----------------
“Eh, how did I win this…?” Once the tournament was over, and Ari emerged victorious, she was the most surprised about it. “I was the least passionate about it! I just wanted to play along!”
“Don’t be smug about it now!” Steph didn’t like her victory speech.
“That’s not what I… Well, whatever,” The jaguar didn’t feel like arguing. “Anna, which direction did you want to go? I might as well use it to score some girlfriend points. Which way should we pick?”
“Really? Ehehe~.”
“Booo!” Everyone except the princess hated that decision because it made them look bad.
“Let’s see…” The tall tiger tilted her head. "Alright, I want to go in the direction you chose instead!"
“Are you sure?”
“Yep!” Anna smiled at her jaguar.
“Booooo!” The rest of the selfish group liked that even less.
“Does anyone have anything against the decision to finally have a starting point and be ready to go?" Ari looked at everyone. “Especially you, Steph.”
“No!” The dog-girl rapidly shook her head.
“See?” She smiled at her. “So, who cares that Anna and I are, objectively and factually speaking, the best couple here?”
“HEY!” Everyone seemed to care.
“Let’s go!” The mood of the princess was excellent.
“…” The other’s needed a moment before they weakly nodded. “Fine.”
After they agreed on a course, in one way or another, the group finally got going and left the beastfolk capital to return to and/or start their exploration of the continent and, later, the rest of the world.