The group reached the savanna-like grasslands bordering the desert they wanted to visit, which made the two tigers very excited. Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last long. Initially, Anna and Sophia planned to get a bunch of animals from there to place them in their own biome, but Aura mentioned that normal animals need a functioning day and night circle. As this wasn't yet a thing inside the blonde's domain, they had to put their plan on hold for the time being and decided to head to the desert immediately.
“Ohh!” The group crossed the grasslands and saw the actual desert unfold in front of them, which made Maya the most excited out of them. “This looks so cool!” She excitedly looked at the seemingly never-ending amount of sand that turned more and more orange the further she looked. Countless dunes of varying sizes began to form not too far away from them, as well.
“Just as I remember it~.” Fen also seemed in a great mood.
“It seems to have gotten quite a bit bigger, though.” Aura tried to see into the distance to gauge how vast the desert in front of them was. "I can't even make a guess on its size. It seems to go on forever.”
“Well, it’s been a couple hundreds of years, so it’s natural that it changed.” The male wolf had an easy explanation for her feelings.
“That is a good point.”
“How do you traverse a desert?” While Ari was also taking in the side, she curiously tilted her head to the side as she tried to find any landmarks for orientation. “Everything looks exactly the same, so how do you not get terribly lost? Aside from using advanced magic, that is.” She lightly eyed the wolves and Sophia at the end.
“I’m pretty sure I’d get lost even with magic.” The blonde scratched her cheek.
“You’d get lost on a straight street, so that’s not a surprise.” Fen just stared at her.
“That is just because I don’t do well with straight things!” She started pouting in return.
“There are actually a few things that make navigating the desert possible that don’t rely on magic.” Aura ignored Sophia and looked at the jaguar. “If you know the place already, you’d definitely see patterns or recognize a set of rocks. Following established tracks is another option.”
"That might be true, but what about people that have never been there before?" The jaguar wasn’t entirely happy with that.
“The easiest way to get around would be by following the cardinal directions.” The female wolf looked up. “The sun has quite the presence, so using it to figure out is not that hard. On this side of the planet, it roughly rises in the east, has its highest point towards the south, and then disappears, more or less, in the west. It won’t be exact, but it will prevent you from running in circles. During the night, you then can use the stars to navigate.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense!” Ari smiled at her. "It's quite similar to regular navigating; it's just a bit more confusing, and you have to check more regularly because you can't use any landmarks as an additional orientation, huh?”
“Pretty much.” Aura nodded in agreement.
“Navigating by the sun or stars is the real magic to me.” Sophia decided to double down on it.
“It’s really not that hard.” Maya faced her tiger.
“Exactly!” Ari just nodded.
“Okay.” The blonde shrugged. “Aura, you also already detected the city inside the desert already, haven’t you?”
“Yup.” She nodded. “It’s south of us. Well, a touch of south-east, to be exact.”
“You heard her~.” Sophia smiled at Ari and Maya. “It will be the job of the two of you to guide us there.”
“Ah.” The duo froze for a second. “S-Sure, that will be easy!”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Thus, on yet another whim of Sophia, Ari and Maya had become in charge of finding the hidden city deep inside the desert.
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“Sure is hot here, huh?” The group had been exploring the desert for around half an hour and were just walking up a small dune when Anna looked at her fellow tiger.
“It is a desert, isn’t it?” Sophia shrugged in return. “I like the constant breeze, though.”
“Yes, it feels very nice.” The princess agreed with her. “The sun is a bit much, but the wind is making it feel very cozy.”
“For now.” Aura didn’t sound quite as happy and excited.
“Hmm?” The tigers tilted their heads.
“Have any of you been in a sandstorm before?”
“No…?” They somehow didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?”
"The wind has been getting stronger in the last couple of minutes, and it's starting to look pretty dusty over there, too." The female wolf gestured to her left, where not just the sand but the air itself had an orange tint to it in the far distance, probably caused by a vast amount of sand twirling around.
“That’s not good, isn’t it?” The princess wasn’t a fan of the view.
“It’s certainly not ideal.” Aura nodded.
“Well, it seems like it’s a good thing that our tour guides have been leading us away from it, huh?” Sophia pointed at Maya and Ari on a dune a little ahead of the trio. “The part where they’ve been walking in the wrong direction for the past ten minutes aside.”
“Yep~.” The wolf did her best to stifle a chuckle.
“Wait, they are?!” This was news to Anna, so she raised her voice. "Even more so, you, out of all people, noticed?!" That part shocked her even more.
“Only because I took a peek with my detection magic.” Sophia shrugged again. “I never would’ve noticed otherwise.”
“That’s quite reassuring.” The princess liked that there was a logical explanation for it. “Though, shouldn’t we tell them about it?”
"Absolutely not." The blonde shrugged her head. "They were way too sassy about it earlier. Also, it's not like we're in any danger, even if we get lost in a desert. In fact, we might find something fun.”
“What if that catches up with us, though?” Anna gestured at the impeding sandstorm Aura had made them aware of.
“To be honest, I’m kinda curious what it’s like, and if it’s too much, we can just leave through one of my portals or use some magic to shield us from it.”
“That’s actually a good point.” The princess hadn’t thought that far. “That makes me curious about it now, too!” She changed her mind about it being dangerous in an instant.
“That’s the spirit!” Sophia smiled at her fellow tiger.
“Speaking of curious, where’s Fen?” Anna eventually addressed the fact that he wasn’t with them anymore.
“He’s having a grand old time over there.” Aura looked to her right. There, a few hundred meters away from them, the male wolf in his full size was standing on top of a roughly twenty-meter-tall dune while looking rather majestic for about three seconds. Then, he suddenly jumped off the steep end of the dune and down into the sand far below it. His landing caused a massive shockwave and catapulted sand everywhere. It was very clearly aided by magic because a regular jump like that wouldn’t have been as violent. Once everything settled down again, the wolf was nowhere to be seen, though. Only a suspiciously deep crater that was quickly being refilled with sand rinsing into it again.
“Fennyfenny is so cute when he’s playing around~.” Sophia had a great time watching him.
“He’s adorable!” Aura thought so, too.
“Where did he go, though?” The princess was confused over his sudden disappearance.
“Underground.” The blonde pointed down at the sand. “He’s digging tunnels all over the place.”
"Wait, how do you dig tunnels in the sand?" Anna tilted her head. “Wouldn’t everything collapse instantly? There’s like zero structural integrity with sand, isn’t there?”
“Well, the sand goes only to a certain point.” The female wolf answered her. “Below, there’s regular ground like rocks and stuff.”
“Ah, of course!” The princess felt stupid for a moment. “I hadn't thought that far.”
“I can also see Fenny using magic to melt the sand with fire, creating some glass-like walls that become solid," Sophia added some alternative ideas.
“Sounds fun!” Anna nodded a few times. “Though, it’s hot enough already, so that might be a bit much for even me.”
“True!” The blonde felt the same. “By the way, should we add a desert biome to my domain?” She then faced Aura.
“Why are you asking me?” She seemed a little confused.
"Well, your partner seems to be having the most fun. In fact, he's having so much fun that you can’t even get a hold of him. That’s why you’re the next best one to ask.”
“Ah, I see.” She could follow her reasoning. “I like the desert, but it’s not exactly my favorite. For Fen, I’d definitely like to have it, though. Also, I’m sure you’d want to have any possible biome in the first place, don’t you?”
“You’re not wrong with that.” The blonde shrugged. “Alright, I’ll borrow a little later~.”
“Great!”
“Should we regroup with our tour guides?” While they were chatting, Anna pointed at Ari and Maya a little further away in front of them. “It seems like whatever they were doing with their stick in the sand led to a result or something like that because they started walking again.”
“They were watching the shadow the sun cast behind it to read which direction west is." Aura gave a little explanation. "Though, let's ignore for now that they started walking south again.”
“Ahaha!” Sophia loved the fact that the two were utterly lost without even knowing it.
Afterward, the trio regrouped with them and continued to follow their lead without saying a single word on the matter. Sophia had a difficult time with that, though, because Ari and Maya continued to be smugly confident about their skill, and the blonde really wanted to get back at them.