Having left the first city, the group visited since leaving the capital and traveling for a little longer, they decide to spend the rest of their day as usual in Sophia's domain. Inside, things were a little confusing, though. The swampy biome samples they had collected before were gone, and the blonde had to search for them. As it turned out, magic had borrowed them to create a massive bioluminescent forest in the middle of nowhere. Sophia naturally was rather surprised by that, but she was also happy that the playful pink and purple particles were having fun in her place.
“Wait a moment!” The group returned to the regular world the day after they played around with the biome sample when Sophia suddenly stopped walking while having a shocked expression.
“Stop that!” Maya reacted purely on instinct.
“What she said!” Ari felt the same.
“Shush, it’s no premonition this time!” The blonde glared at the duo. “In that city with the mayor, Menzor mentioned that it has already been a month since we left the capital! We went traveling in April, so it’s May already!”
“You should become a detective.” Fen rolled his eyes. “Your deductive skills are second to none.”
“Oi!” She didn’t appreciate this kind of sass, either. “Anna! Ellie’s birthday is in May, right?! If I missed it, I’m going to level a country!”
“Calm down!” The princess of the country they were in right now didn’t like the sound of that.
“It won’t be this country, don’t worry.”
“That’s only marginally better!” Anna still was a little relieved, though. “Ellie’s birthday is at the end of the month, so we still have around two weeks left.”
“Phew!” The blonde looked visibly relieved. “That would’ve been the worst! Also, I need to get a present, too!”
"I'm pretty sure she'll be happy enough just seeing you." Ari didn't think she had to put overly much effort into it.
“Still!” Sophia wanted to give her something. “Maya, let’s make a quick trip to the capital next week to look for a present!”
“Sure!” Maya happily agreed with her plan because she loved Ellie just as much.
"By the way," While talking about the little princess, Steph started looking around before facing Chloe. “Have Mira and Fey mentioned when they’ll be back?”
“They haven’t.” She shook her head in return. “Not that it’s overly rare for the two to disappear for a week or two.”
“That’s true!” The dog-girl nodded. “I wonder what they’re up to!”
“I don’t!” Chloe still didn’t feel like wanting to know what her mothers did in their alone time.
“Hehe~.” She liked her reaction. “Alrighty, let’s keep traveling until it’s time for the little one’s birthday! Anna, are there any other cities from the king’s list nearby we should go to first?”
“Not really.” She shook her head. “I took a look at it before, and the next cities are all at least one or two months away. The directions don’t matter, either, because there will be one wherever we head towards.”
“The burden of choice! I love it!” As usual, it was quite hard to dampen Steph’s mood.
"Also," The princess wasn't done yet. "Father mentioned that completing the portal hub building will take a good while longer. Visiting too many cities might actually be a problem.”
“I could still give the cities a deactivated portal and activate the capital side once the building is ready.” It wasn’t really an issue for the blonde.
“Well, we could do that, but… I was going to suggest to just head in whatever direction for now while not caring about the cities…”
“That way!” Hearing that, Steph immediately pointed to her left. “Let’s go!”
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“I fully support this!” As this was what Anna really wanted, she instantly agreed with the dog-girl. “Let’s see some stuff!”
“I like that one better!” Sophia immediately disregarded her suggestion for their clearly superior one.
“Yep, that sounds a lot more fun.” Maya, too, sided with them.
“I guess that’s the best course of action right now.” Ari also felt similarly. “Though, I am a little concerned that Fey isn’t with us right now to deal with whatever ridiculous thing you all will come up with. Then again, it’s better now when there’s no city around us rather than when there are people.”
“That’s the spirit!” Energetically raising her hand, Steph then began walking in the direction she had pointed before.
“Maya, which cardinal direction is that?” Sophia had a bad feeling about the route her sister had chosen.
“West.” She paused for a moment to orientate herself better. “Well, west-ish.”
"West is okay! I feared that she was leading us north towards the cold!"
“Ah.” The dog-girl stopped moving. “I forgot about that!”
“Let’s go!” Not giving her any time to change her mind, the blonde caught up to her sister, grabbed her hand, and continued walking in the direction Steph had suggested.
“Well, I guess it’s fine~.” She wasn't overly upset about it. “Exploring is exploring!”
----------------
“Oh, that’s a new one!” The group kept walking for around two hours when a massive mountain range was slowly coming into view, which caused Sophia's eyes to sparkle. “Most of the kingdom, all the way back to and including the monster country, was relatively flat, after all. In fact, Anna had the biggest hills wherever we went.”
“You’re the best!” Maya and Steph loved her for the comparison.
“Why did you have to bring me into this?!” The princess didn’t like that and quickly covered her chest with her arms.
“She does have a point, though.” Even Ari sided with the blonde. “Your hills were, in fact, the biggest around up until now.”
"Hey!" Anna glared at her girlfriend. “Also, that’s simply not true! Compared to basically all the girls from the cow tribe, I’m average at the very best!”
“Fair point.” The jaguar nodded. “I take back my words.”
“Those girls are great~.” Maya suddenly had a wide grin on her face.
“Personally, they are a bit too much for my taste.” The voices of Sophia and Chloe overlapped perfectly. “I can see why they’re popular, though.” The duo had the same feelings on them. "More than a bit, actually." They fit the fox's taste even less.
“HOLD ON A MOMENT!” Steph seemed to have some issues with the current topic. “You’re telling me that there are big-breasted cow-girls and no one had the courtesy to TELL ME?!”
“Oops, I guess I forgot.” The short tiger just shrugged. “I only met a few myself and didn't know any of them well enough to introduce them. Together with the part where they aren’t my type.”
“Yep.” Chloe nodded a few times. “Also, I had a hunch that you’d react to them like that, so I had one more reason to stay silent on top of that.”
“I hate you all!” The dog-girl was not happy about that.
“The girls are horny again, huh?” The wolves were lagging a little behind the others when Aura just had to make a comment.
“What do you mean? Again?” Fen tilted his head. “Where was I the only time they weren’t horny about something and or someone?”
“Good point.” The female wolf had to give it to him.
“…”
“Anyway!” Sophia, the least horny member of the girls, decided that it was time to change the topic back to the initial topic, ignoring the fact that she started it all, which may or may not made her title slightly debatable in this instance. “Mountain range! Let’s go!”
“Let’s go!” Her sister probably was okay talking about the cow-girls for a lot longer, but exploring is even more important to her than that, so she wasn’t the slightest bit against the idea.
“On that much more enjoyable note,” Anna was the happiest over the change of topic. “I think there will be many mountains from now on. The kingdom's geography will change towards that and stay like it for quite a while if we keep heading in this direction.”
“There are some really high mountains in that range, if I remember right, as well." Ari added some details to the geography lesson.
“Sounds great!” Sophia was looking forward to it. “I’ve never climbed an actual mountain before!”
“Really?” The jaguar looked surprised. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Huh?” The blonde tilted her head. “Why is it surprising that I want to climb a mountain?”
"The part where it's May, and the higher we go, the colder it will get.” She looked right at the short tiger. “I’m fairly sure many of the mountains will still have a layer of snow. In fact, if I remember the geography lessons right, some mountains in the area are so high that they’re covered in snow all year round.”
“Ah.” Sophia froze up. “S-So, about that idea of going north, how about we give that a try, after all? I’m sure the northern part of the country is lovely!”
“Let’s go!” Chloe and Steph appeared left and right of her, grabbed the blonde's hands, and started dragging her toward the direction of the mountain range.
“NOOO!” The cold-hating striped cat really didn’t want to go there anymore. Unfortunately- the cold-loving couple didn’t care about that.
Also, that very duo, ignoring the wolves, who very obviously didn't want to get involved, were the strongest in the group after Sophia, so she actually would need to put in some effort into beating them, too. Unless she would remember to stop time, of course. And, if there’s one thing she hates more than the cold, it’s dealing with bothersome things that need effort to solve. Also, the short tiger still wanted to climb a mountain regardless of all that. In the end, she decided to go along with it. Although, she obviously never stopped complaining once on the way. There are few more things she likes more than complaining, after all.