“Ah, it feels good to be on the road again.” Hilda stretches after a two-hour hike away from the city. “I gosh darn love these woods.”

I take a moment to take in the surroundings. After leaving the immediate surrounding farmland around Ribaquen, we find ourselves in a mixed forest, primarily oak and birch trees. The city air has made place for the smell of fresh woodland. “I can definitely understand why.”

“Just wait until you see the mountains Amicia; you’ll love them.” Élise nonchalantly swings her new longsword around.

“Oh?”

“Well...maybe not so much the mountains themselves, more like the salmon-filled mountain streams.”

“Really?!” my mouth already starts watering.

“Since we won’t pass any cities until we get to Skaok we’ll have to forage our food ourselves, to lengthen our provisions.” Hilda adds to the explanation.

“That means our kitten will get to learn how to fish.” Nikki pets my head.

“Don’t forget the smoking.”

“You’ll never want anything else after having eaten Sinmaa pine smoked salmon. Goddess, that taste even makes me drool like an idiot.” Élise sheets her sword.

“Well, I’ve got something else that’ll make you drool like an idiot.” Nikki caresses Élise’s arm.

“Oh, do you now? Rawr.”

“Keep the flirting for your private tent, ladies.” Hilda sighs.

“Okay, mom.” Élise replies while giving Nikki a loving embrace.

“Hey Hilda?”

“What’s up kiddo?”

“Is the road up ahead dangerous? When we first went to Ribaquen you tried to avoid taking the roads.”

“Well, those were just small forest roads, while this is a major trade artery, so it should be fine. Although those goblins also came out of nowhere so you can never be sure,” she shrugs.

“I sure do hope we don’t run into a horde like that again.”

“Yeeaaahhh… that’d be pretty bad. Taking them on in a chokepoint is one thing, taking them on in the ‘open’ like this, probably won’t end too well.” She puts her arms behind her head. “No point in being scared of it happening though. The chance is so low, and if it happens we can just teleport back, although that’s going to be pretty annoying depending on how far we get to Skaok.”

“That’s true.”

Hilda quickly stretches her neck and says: “If everyone is done stretching we can move on. I’m really looking forward to wake up to the incredible smell of pine forest!”

We quickly gather up and start moving again.

“This feels pretty much like a family camping trip, doesn’t it?” Nikki says, still dangling from Élise’s arm.

“It does. We got some tasty snacks.”

“Check.”

“Some, good ol’ tents.”

“Check.”

“And the people we care about most.”

“Check!”

This makes me blush quite a bit. “If only Pocky could be with us…”

Meanwhile, in the real world: “Squishy squishy cushions, squish them all the way. Dozing off on them, is the way I play!”

“I’m not sure Pocky is much of an outdoors cat, to be honest.” Nikki finally has left her lover alone.

“Yeah, we found her shivering all alone on the side of the road. Since then she’s been indoors all the time.”

“Oh…” I feel an immense sadness welling up inside of me.

“Hey, don’t you cry now, Amicia. She’s very happy now.”

“B-but if you hadn’t found her…”

Élise hugs me from behind. “But we did.”

“What about her mom?”

“We looked around for a bit but couldn’t find any other cats…”

“...”

“Maybe you should ask her next time, then we can go looking for her with an actual description!”

I think for a second, getting a little bit more optimistic. “T-that might work!” I smile.

“There you go! A smile better suits a catgirl.” Élise pets my head.

“I can come and help with your search too. Well, if you let me of course.” Hilda says while marching on.

“Naturally!” Nikki walks up to Hilda and pokes her in the side. “We can’t do a search action without our glorious leader.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Hilda smiles and looks over to me. “We’re gonna find her Amicia, don’t worry.”

I smile back.

-I sure hope so.-

We quickly move on, apart from a couple of almost industrial scale forestry areas, signs of civilization soon start to lessen and lessen.

According to Hilda it will takes us approximately three days before we reach the mountainous area on the border between the Vinavian Empire and Reykland, and after that it’ll take another four days to reach our destination.

“Well, sorry, I got to interrupt your narration there Amicia, but what I said isn’t 100% true.” Hilda interjects.

“Wow, rude, what did you lie about then?”

“Lie is a big word.” She pouts. “Anyway, we aren’t really passing through the border of Reykland and the empire in one go.”

“How so? Don’t they border each other then?”

“Hmm. Yes and no.”

“Heh?” a question mark appears above my head.

“Okay, small history lesson.”

“Amicia, what hath thou done.” Élise interjects with a sigh.

I shrug.

“Shush. So, according to the Vinavian historians I have had the pleasure to talk to, around thirty years ago the Vinavian empire and the kingdom of Reykland were at war with each other over a certain piece of contested mountainous territory.”

“Oh, S-s-shima?”

Hilda smiles. “Close, Sinmaa.”

“Why fight over some mountains?” Nikki asks.

“Oh, oh, the salmon!”

Our resident historian laughs. “Haha, that’d be something to fight over, ‘the great salmon wars’ of 1599.” She takes her compass out of her jackets and lets it swing by its leather strap. “How did the Spaniards and Portuguese procure their wealth in South America in the Early Modern Era?”

“Gold?”

“Yep! Precious metals. The area of Sinmaa is notoriously rich in silver, gold and gems. The salmon probably didn’t hurt either.” Hilda puts her compass away again. “Obviously both nations were extremely interested in this unimaginable wealth the area produced which led to multiple wars between the two. The height of the conflict almost resulted in the entire continent being at war. Reykland, Osvik and the principality of Djuvogia on one side and the empire and it’s vassal states of Vinilia and Tea on the other.”

“Tea? Why is it named Tea?” I ask. Sounds like an incredibly weird name for a state to me.

Hilda shrugs. “I honestly have no clue. I went there to explore once and their tea wasn’t even that good.”

“I guess it’s like ordering a hamburger in Hamburg, nothing really special.”

“Pretty much. Anyway, the war was pretty brutal and ended up decimating a large proportion of the population in all countries involved.” An air of sadness is clear in Hilda’s voice. “But luckily it was decided at the peace conference to find a more long-term solution to the conflicts on the continent. First of all the contested area was made autonomous with a strict 50/50 profit policy. Meaning that both nations will profit equally from the Sinmaa mountain range. And a supra-national federation was formed to keep the peace on the southern half of the continent. Since then it’s been relatively peaceful in the area, except for the occasional bandits trying to loot transport convoys.”

“I guess it’s good to hear they found a way to keep the peace.”

“That’s true, but I’m a bit fearful about the future.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah… The other two big political entities on the continent didn’t look very kindly upon the creation of this federation. Luckily it has been pretty calm, but lately tensions have been rising again. Food shortages in the northern half of the continent are making people incredibly agitated, and they automatically look at the prosperity in the south.”

“I heard the empress is a good cookie though, so I’m sure they’ll figure something out.” Élise tries to reassure Hilda.

“You’re right. Sometimes I get too much into my own doom-thinking.” She tries to force a smile.

“Here, this will cheer you up.” Élise throws a cupcake with glorious pink frosting at Hilda who handily catches it. “Me and Amicia passed a baker and we couldn’t keep ourselves.”

Hilda smiles. “Thanks. And thank you for listening to my explanation too.”

“Don’t worry Hilda, as Amicia said, you are basically family. And on top of that it was pretty interesting too!”

Hilda blushes.

“Who needs an encyclopedia when you’ve got a Hilda handy to explain everything!”

“Geez, you guys.” Hilda laughs.

A few hours go by with us just chit-chatting around when Élise stops the group. “Shouldn’t we set up camp? It’s going to get dark soon and I ain’t setting up no tent in the dark.”

Me and Nikki give each other a high-five “Darkvision sisters!”

“That’s probably not a bad idea Lise.” Hilda takes out her compass. “Let’s leave the road and walk ten minutes to the north-east, so we aren’t in immediate sight of the road.”

“Aye aye, captain!” We all sing in choir.

We manage to find a suitable spot for a couple of tents and start setting up camp for the night.

Me and Nikki are put on firepit duties while Élise and Hilda set up the tents.

Luckily it’s pretty easy to find enough firewood just laying around in the forest. I actually quite enjoy looking for firewood as it’s pretty calming, especially after a pretty exhausting walk. When I get back to camp I find the tents already set up and the firepit expertly dug out with Nikki and Hilda relaxing on a big log they dragged to the fire pit.

“Your sis went out to get some more firewood as well. She’ll be back shortly.” Nikki smiles.

“Oh, okay. By the way, does this game have any mounts?” I ask while putting down the firewood I managed to gather.

“It does, but the stables of Ribaquen were all sold out. They needed all the horses to transport stone to rebuild the gate.” Nikki replies.

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Although taking horses across the sea might not be a terribly good idea. We don’t know what we’ll find on the other side anyway.”

“That’s fair.”

That’s when Élise comes back with a metric shitload of firewood.

“What? How?” I ask in disbelief.

“I got a little carried away testing my sword on a dead tree.” She awkwardly laughs at us.

“How are we going to burn that up in a night?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got the carrying capacity for it.” Élise smirks.

“Well at least we won’t have to worry about that for quite a while.” Hilda gets up and lays out a couple of logs in the fire pit. “Let’s wait until its a bit darker so the smoke isn’t that obvious anymore.”

We do as Hilda says and when the sun finally sets on this pretty exhausting day Nikki lights the firepit with one of her fire spells.

We chat and laugh a bit more around the fire.

-I really love my family.-

“Can I sleep in your tent today, Amicia?” Hilda sits herself down next to me.

“Of course!” I say, soon followed by a pretty big yawn. Damn I’m tired.

She smiles. “Good, you can go to bed already if you want, I’ll take the first watch.”

“I think I’ll do that. Good night Hilda. Good night Nikki and Lise.”

“Good night to you too kitten.” They smile as I get into the tent and roll myself up in my cosy bedroll.

The soft popping and crackling of the fire soon puts me to sleep.

-Hmmm.... Gib salmon….-