While the wolves were having a great time in a bar together with the pink-haired fox-girl called Chloe, Sophia and Maya had finished their first day in the magic academy and were back home in their mansion.
“Tired…” Sophia was lying face down on one of the sofas in the living room while sighing into a pillow. “Haa…”
“How?!” Maya raised her voice. “You slept until lunch break!”
“Come on… After what happened during the speech and training with Eluna, I have all the right to be tired!”
“Fair point…” The cat-girl nodded while she sat down on the same sofa as her tiger after moving her legs away. Afterward, she playfully started messing around with the blonde’s tail, only to get hit in the face with it soon after. “Oi!”
“Hehe.” Sophia bonked her once more with her tail before letting her play with it after she turned around and got comfortable with her legs on the cat’s lap.
“Thanks~.” Maya reached for the tail again and started ruffling the fur on it. “Still, poor Ari… She is always trying to stay low in the school because she doesn’t like the attention, and then that happened.”
“Ahaha…” The tiger awkwardly scratched her cheek. “W-Well, there are only a few months left before she and Anna graduate in spring. I’m sure she’ll manage…”
“That’s your defense?”
“Shut up!” Sophia bonked the cat with her tail again.
“Stop that! There’s way too much power in your tail!”
“I know~.” Once more, the blonde went for Maya’s face but didn’t make it this time.
“Ha! Got it!” Maya managed to grab her tail and placed it in her lap again to caress it some more.
“Aww…” Even though she pouted for a second, Sophia didn’t seem sad about it. “Anyway, yes, that is my defense.”
“Not an overly solid one.”
“That’s true…” She paused for a moment. “Still, it’s not my fault, you know?”
“Is it?” Maya raised an eyebrow while she stared at her with a disapproving expression.
“Yes!” The tiger got loud. “I even warned Ari to be cautious and to hold back!”
“You?”
“Yes!”
“Told Ari?”
“Yes!”
“To be cautious?”
“Yes!”
“To hold back, as well?”
“YES!”
“Come on, you’ve told better lies before.”
“I never lie!”
“Is that so?”
“Yes!” Sophia kept getting louder. “I’m creative when it comes to telling the truth and leave out details to hide things, but I never lie!”
“Once again, not a solid defense, my dear.”
“Urgh…” The blonde wanted to bonk her cat again, but Maya made sure to increase her grip beforehand. Sophia was sure she could easily free her tail, but that was beside the point, and she let her have this round.
“Hehe.” She liked this decision.
“It is true, though! I warned Ari to not create too much water at once, but she was having so much fun with her new chantless magic that she forgot at some point…”
“Big enough to flood half of the training grounds…? There’s no way she did that on her own half an hour after she used chantless magic for the first time…”
“I couldn’t believe it, either, but Ari’s really talented when it comes to that. She chantlessly created water after concentrating for a moment once I told her what she has to do.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yep.”
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“It took me so much longer!” Maya sounded slightly pouty.
“Even I didn’t learn it that fast! Well, I never used magic before, so… But still!”
“Wow…”
“Exactly.”
“Even so, you should’ve stopped her before the accident, though.”
“Sure, because I excel at crisis prevention, right?”
“First solid defense you had today.”
“Thank you very much!”
“For your standards, that is.”
“Urgh…” Her tail twitched again, but Maya was still firmly gripping it with one hand while caressing the fur with her other. Being teased and feeling good from having her tail played with by her cat caused her to have a rather complicated expression. “Idiot…”
“Yep~.” She focused on playing around some more before eventually getting back to the topic. “Ari really did all that on her own?”
“Yep… We started small with a fist-sized ball of water, and she wanted to increase it every now and then. One thing led to another, and the next thing I noticed was the gigantic ball of water in front of us… I could barely use some wind magic as a barrier to keep us dry once Ari lost control of it. Good thing it didn’t hit anyone else, too. It was quite flashy, though…”
“Oh, so you do have some crisis prevention skills, huh?” Maya smiled at her before breaking into a smirk. “It’s a good thing that Ari didn’t make you wet.”
“Ahaha… It sure is~. There’s only one cat who’s allowed to do that to me.” Sophia looked back at her as she played along with her joke.
“Good answer.” Maya liked how Sophia had locked eyes with her. “I doubt Ari would want to make anyone except the princess wet, either.”
“True.”
“…”
“…”
“I knew it!” The cat-girl raised her voice. “I knew that it was mutual! Stupid sheepish Anna!”
“Urgh… Ari asked me to keep it a sec- Wait, what?!” It took Sophia a moment to understand what she had just heard. “Anna also likes Ari? I mean, it’s obvious that she does, but she actually confirmed it to you?”
“I helped out with that~.” Maya sounded slightly smug.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I had a chat with the princess about her jealousy when it came to you and her jaguar. Long story short, her being turned down by you made her aware of her real feelings for Ari, which fueled her desire to monopolize her even more.”
“Aww~. I’m the reason that Anna noticed that she’s in love with Ari?” Sophia really liked the sound of that.
“More or less. After I managed to beat it into that thick head of hers.” Maya let out a sigh. “Why are you tigers so dense?!”
“Well, it’s just what we are… Dense idiots.”
“Self-aware dense idiots.” The cat-girl corrected her. “I still can’t believe how perfect the choice of you becoming a tiger was.”
“Ehehe~.” The blonde liked it just as much. “Though, I hope that Ellie won’t suffer from the same fate once she hits puberty.”
“As long as she takes after her mother, she should be fine.”
“True… Kira is a rare exception there.” Sophia sounded relieved for a moment. “Not that it helped Anna, though…”
“Sooo….” Maya tried to get back to the topic. “Ari told you that she likes the princess, as well?”
“Yes, for many years already, actually.”
“Wow…”
“Yeah… Remember when the two of us were sick after I gave her some of my magic?”
“Sure.” The cat-girl nodded.
“Her filter stopped working there for a bit, and she accidentally told me that she’s in love with Anna there… Ever since, I’m trying to help her get closer with the princess.”
“I’m doing the same!”
“I knew it!” Sophia also got loud. “Whenever Ari told me about Anna’s behavior lately, I was always remembered of what you did with me!”
“Well, it was effective, so I suggested the princess to copy me.”
“It sure was~.” The tiger smiled at her.
“Wait a moment… Ari confirmed loves Anna, and the princess definitely has the same feelings for our jaguar… What do we do now?!” The tiger wasn’t sure how to use this information.
“That’s a good question…” Maya didn’t have an immediate answer, either.
“I want to help them! They’re perfect for each other, and I want them to be happy!” Even though she didn’t know how, the tiger knew what she wanted to do.
“How about we mess a bit with them?”
“Hey!” Sophia got loud, freed her tail from Maya’s grip, and bonked her as hard as possible without actually hurting her. “Were you listening to me?!”
“Ouch!” She yelped in pain while was rubbing her forehead after being hit by Sophia’s tail there. “Maybe it wasn’t a good thing that you became a tiger, after all… Their tails are way too powerful!”
“There’s more where that came from!” The blonde started wiggling her tail around in front of Maya’s face again.
“S-Stop!” The cat-girl grabbed it before pushing it down towards her lap again. “I didn’t mean my usual way of messing with people!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Is it really within our rights to tell them that they love each other? Isn’t that something they have to find out themselves?”
“Go on.” Sophia started to understand her point.
“We’re already helping them, right?”
“Yes.”
“How about we step up our game with that?” Maya developed a slight grin. “I’ve been holding back with Anna’s advice because she was concerned about ruining her relationship with Ari. Now that I know that the jaguar feels the same, we can make them go all out. Within being reasonable, of course. They naturally don’t have to jump at each other immediately.”
“True, that’s not for us to decide, either.”
“They could use it, though.”
“That’s… That’s a different story…” Sophia decided to neither agree nor disagree with her claim.
“Seriously, I got frustrated just having to listen to Anna and how Ari’s affecting her… Pent up, too… It must be much worse for them. Ari loving that dense idiot for years now…? Wow.”
“Judging by how I talked Ari into kissing Anna without any effort whatsoever… Probably.”
“You did? I never heard that it happened from the princess, though.”
“Actually, she suggested it on her own before I could even get to it... We decided to make it look like an accident after it almost happened when they slept in the same bed together. I doubt she had the chance for it yet.”
“Wow… I had the same plan for the princess…” Maya paused for a moment. “Alright, we have to get them to kiss each other!”
“I like the sound of that!” Sophia energetically raised her arm to show her agreement before bonking Maya with her tail again.
“W-Why?!”
“No idea.” She grinned at her. “I kinda just took a liking to bonking you.”
“So unreasonable… Though, I can think of some things I’d like to do with you that also end with -ing as well, you know?”
“Well, I took a liking to that, as well, so…”
“Hehe.”
As their conversation had derailed entirely by now, and their evening activities had changed as well, the couple decided to put the Anna and Ari issue on hold for now. There were more important things to take care of now.