Sophia was still giving Chloe a tour through the castle, which turned out to be quite eventful. First, they ran into Menzor, who gave the blonde an update on the current situation. Luckily, she decided against, literally, kicking him out of the place as it seemed like he was dealing with the Ari and Anna situation reasonably well.
Afterward, the duo went to the royal bed-chamber because Sophia's gift for Kira's birthday was to equip the room with her underfloor heating. They also promptly ran into the queen afterward and told her about the news while congratulating her.
For the grand finale, the two went to visit Ellie. At first, the little princess was a little wary of the fox-girl, but she instantly fell in love with her tail. Because of that, Chloe, as a whole, was accepted by her in the end. She even went as far as diving headfirst into the tail, which made Sophia quite jealous. For multiple reasons.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Once Ellie was done talking about her birthday present for her mother, and how much she liked it, Sophia spoke up again. “When we were shopping the other day, Ari and I found some more cute clothes for you, Ellie!"
“Really?!” Her face lit up. “Ellie loves the clothes So… phia and Maya got for me! If Ari also helped, they’re going to be the bestest now!”
“Ehehe~.” The blonde liked how excited she was about it. “I have the outfit with me. Do you want to try it on?”
“YES!” She was very eager about it.
“Alright!” Afterward, Sophia secretly took the clothes out of her storage and helped the little tiger into them.
“It’s adorable!” Immediately after, she started jumping around while looking at herself in the mirror in the room. “Ellie loves it!” The outfit came with a red cape-like hood over a frilly white top with long sleeves. It was combined with a longer, waist-high brownish skirt with a frilly hem, black leggings, and red shoes. It even came with a little red bow for her tail.
“Hnngh…” The blonde took some damage from this adorable display. “You look great, Ellie. You’re the adorablest!” She had to word it like that.
“YAY!”
“It really is adorable!” Chloe also seemed to like it. “It reminds me a lot of the outfit from the little red riding hood, which makes it even better!"
“What’s this…?” The little princess tilted her head. “Red little… riding hood…?”
“It’s from a fairy tale! One of my favorites, actually!”
“Elle loves fairy tales! Ellie wants to hear it!”
“Sure!” She gave her a big nod. “Right now might be a little difficult, though. Can we do it at a different time? We’ll definitely do it soon!”
“Okay!” The small tiger was okay with that. “Ellie will look forward to it!”
“E-Eh…?” Hearing all that, Sophia froze up. She naturally knew about this fairy tale because she also liked them a lot. Still, this one was a popular one from her old world and not this one.
“Happy to hear!” The fox-girl smiled at Ellie. “I really like it a lot, and my mom told it to me multiple times a week when I was little! I hope you’ll like it just as much!”
“…” The blonde needed a moment. “Chloe… Do you know where Feyfey comes from…?”
“Like, where she was born…?” She seemed a little confused.
“For example, yeah.”
“Hmm… I’m not actually sure… Feyfey said that she lived for a long while in the monster country, but I’m not entirely sure if she’s been born there, as well.”
“I see…” The blonde’s expression became more complicated. She naturally was really curious to find out why or how Fey knows about a fairy tale from her old world, which doesn’t seem to exist here as even Ellie, who has an entire bookshelf of fairy tales, has never heard about it before. She had no idea how to ask more questions without blowing her cover, though. After all, she wasn’t supposed to know about the little red riding hood herself.
“Why are you asking, though…?” Chloe still didn’t understand where that question even came from.
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“Ah, no, it’s fine… I was just curious…” Sophia decided to give up on it for the time being. It seemed like something only Fey could answer her, anyway. “It can’t be, right…?” She mumbled those words only to herself. “There’s just no way…”
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The trio chatted for a while longer, and after Ellie lived out the need to dive into Chloe’s tail once more, they decided to head back to Anna’s room. As the little princess didn’t want to let go of her tail, the two decided to bring her with them. The little girl also brought her plushy as she was going for maximum fluff right now.
“Maya!” Once the girls reunited with everyone in Anna’s room, the little princess finally let go of Chloe’s tail and jumped at Maya to hug her.
“Ellie~.” She happily returned it.
“The two of you sure are popular with her, huh?” The fox-girl seemed impressed.
“Funny you’re saying this.” Sophia just looked back at her.
“Ah…” She scratched her cheek in return. “By the way, what’s up with them again…?” Dropping the topic, Chloe then looked at Anna and Ari sitting on the bed in the room while both hung their heads.
“Well…” Once Maya finished her greeting with Ellie, she joined them. "First, Menzor came over, and while he was trying his best, he was still a little bit awkward about the whole thing. He tried so hard not to bring anything around the topic up that it only became more apparent that he knew everything, which turned the idiot couple into an embarrassed mess.”
“Ahh…”
“Afterward, Kira and Daria showed up…”
“Daria…?” The fox-girl tilted her head.
“One of Ari’s mothers:” The blonde answered her.
“Oh, I see.”
“Congratulating the queen, and everything went well. The two mothers also made clear that everything was fine and that they were happy for the couple. They also hugged them and all, being overjoyed that they were back, but…”
“They’re both the teasing kind.” Sophia had a rough idea of what happened.
“Yup.” The cat-girl nodded. “Well, to be fair, you saw that they were trying their best to hold back as much as possible. Still, after Menzor already embarrassed them, any teasing multiplied the damage…”
“Such a pain…” The tiger let out a small sigh. “Where are they now?”
“Kira had more birthday responsibilities to attend to for now. She said she'll be back, though. Afterward, I asked Daria if it would be possible to prepare a few things for a picnic. I remembered your idea, and I thought it would be a nice plan for the afternoon.”
“Perfect!” Sophia liked the plan and loudly clapped her hands. “You heard her, drama-queens! Stop moping and get up!” She got closer to the couple while saying so.
“We don’t wanna!” They apparently were quite happy with being mopey.
“We can go to a place in the garden where no one sees us, though. Here, people now know where you are~.” The blonde tried her luck.
“A-A compelling argument…” Anna took the bait and lightly raised her head. “Only if we go to the far end of the garden!”
“As long as there’s a nice place to look at the colorful fall foliage, I don’t care about the details!” Sophia wasn’t picky about the location.
“It’s actually prettier at the far ends of the garden for that because there are more and bigger trees there…"
“Perfect!” It sounded good for her. “Ellie, do you also want to come with us?”
“Yay!” It seemed like she liked the idea.
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Afterward, after a little more convincing work to make Ari and the princess leave the room, the girls went to a nice place in the garden to have a little picnic. On the way, they had also picked up the wolves who had been relaxing outside for some reason.
Before, Sophia and Maya met with the maids in one of the kitchens as they had prepared some food and a blanket for everyone to sit on after the cat-girl had mentioned that they planned to have a picnic.
“Look!” While everyone was putting down the blanket and spreading out the food, Ellie walked up to the wolves, who had gotten comfortable next to them, and presented the violet plushy she was still carrying. “She looks similar to you!”
“…” Fen decided to stay out of this.
“Hmm…” Aura wanted to humor her a little. “Isn’t your cute plushy a dog? We are wolves, you know?”
“A-Ah!” The little princess became flustered.
“Haha, don’t worry~.” She enjoyed her reaction. “Well, it’s an adorable plushy, so it’s a compliment if you think I look similar! Also, her tail really is close to mine.”
“Ehehe~.” Ellie got happy again. Afterward, she gave the plushy another squeeze before placing it on the ground between Aura and Chloe, who had sat down at the edge of the blanket near the wolf. “Wolf, dog, fox!” She started smiling. “They are similar, right?”
“Yes.” The fox-girl nodded. “We are all related to each other in a way.”
“Yay!” She seemed glad to have gotten it right. "Okay, she can stay here, so she doesn't get lonely!" Saying so, she looked at her plushy between Aura and Chloe before walking over to Sophia and Maya on the blanket. "Ellie needs some space there!" She pointed at the place right in between the couple.
“What a spoilt princess~.” The words the two said sounded like complaining, but they happily created a bit of space between them to make her fit there.
“Yay!” Ellie directly squeezed into the gap and clung to their arms while happily flailing her legs for a while.
“W-Why is she so adorable…?” Sophia took some damage from this action.
“All three of you are adorable like this!” Chloe liked the whole picture and not just the little princess.
"Ellie sure likes you two…" Anna looked ever so slightly envious while glancing at her little sister cuddling with the couple.
“YES!” Said sister just gave her a big nod. “They are the bestest!”
“Wow…” As that was enough damage dealt by the tiny princess, the tall one decided to focus on her jaguar instead. “I need some food to get over that…”
“Ahaha…” Ari let out a small chuckle before she grabbed some of the snacks next to her on the blanket. To provide some extra healing, instead of just handing it over to Anna, she decided to feed her.
That calmed her down a lot, and the group could finally fully enjoy the picnic while snacking on the food and taking in the scenery with the beautiful fall foliage around them.
image [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1PT1TPGP4h3BLBaCgJmepkfRYHza3t1Ln=w15000]