[Luna POV]

Another two weeks had passes of us smoothly sailing through the skies.  Not much of note had happened except a few instances of aggressive sky creatures attacking the ship.  Skadi showed just how good she was at fighting while sailing as she did most of the work there.  I also managed to find a sky creature that wasn’t poisonous, but it tasted even worse than the shrimp things even after I went all out with my cooking skill.  Today, we finally entered Dwarf Country airspace.

 

Looking at what I could see of the ground from our position in the sky, there was a lot of barren, rocky land with not much else around.  There were also several small hills here and there.  In the distance I could see several mountains of varying heights.

 

“Do they not have any settlements on the surface?” (Luna)

 

“There are a few, but they are really spread out and mostly built around the foot of the mountains.  Below the surface, however, is where everything is.  From what I remember, the entire country is connected by an innumerable number of tunnels.  Every city is connected by at least two but are spread out to different areas.  If we’re going to find a city, it’s best we start sailing the river again.” (Skadi)

 

“Then I’ll start bringing us down.” (Luna)

 

I made the ship descend and after a while, we landed in the river.

 

“Hmm.  I need to work on making river landings, that was a bit rough.” (Luna)

 

Once the ship stopped rocking, Mio ran up top.

 

“What’s going on nya!?  Are we falling out of the sky nya!?” (Mio)

 

“No, we just landed in the river.” (Luna)

 

“Nyaaaaaa.  You could have warned us nya.” (Mio)

 

“Sorry about that.” (Luna)

 

“Nya.  So, why’d we land in the river nya?” (Mio)

 

“Skadi said I should so we can get into a city.” (Luna)

 

Mio then looked at Skadi.

 

“Yeah.  We should be coming up to the city that acts as the port city in the next few days.  We’ll probably start seeing more river traffic at some point soon, so I thought we should land here and sail like this the rest of the way.” (Skadi)

 

“By the way, do I need to worry about the size of the ship?” (Luna)

 

“Not really.  This river stays as wide as this or wider in places we’ve already flown over, so you’ll have plenty of room.” (Skadi)

 

“Oh.  I actually wasn’t expecting that.  I kind of expected the start of this river to be somewhere in this country and that it would be a lot smaller than where we’ve been on or flown over.” (Luna)

 

{As far as I can recall, this river starts somewhere deep in the mountains and cut its way through until it was this big.}

 

“Oh.  Well, that’s interesting.  I kind of want to see the beginning of the river.” (Luna)

 

“We might, but that can be for later.” (Skadi)

 

“Yeah.  Hey Mio, what are the other three doing right now?” (Luna)

 

“Velvet and Soleil are making food right nyow nya, and Ophidia is doing something nya.  She was in her lamia form all day nya.” (Mio)

 

“Is she shedding or something?” (Luna)

 

“Does she do that?” (Skadi)

 

“I though you would know.” (Luna)

 

“She’s never told me she does and I would think you would know since you’ve know her for longer than I have.” (Skadi)

 

“She’s never mentioned it and I’ve never seen her do it, so I just assumed she didn’t need to for some reason or another.” (Luna)

 

We both looked at Mio for her opinion, but she just shook her head.  As we were all curious, we decided to go and see what was up.  I left the helm to an illusion and we all headed below deck.  As we passed by the ship’s kitchen, I heard Soleil and Velvet flirting with each other.  As we made it to the crew quarters, we stood at the entrance to Ophidia’s room.  Ophidia was currently sitting coiled up in the middle of the room with a somewhat frustrated expression on her face.

 

“Hey Ophidia, what’s wrong?” (Skadi)

 

“Hmm?  Oh, hey you three.  Nothing is really wrong, I’m just a little agitated.” (Ophidia)

 

“By what?  Are you shedding or something?” (Luna)

 

“No, I haven’t had to do that for a very long time, and if I was, I’d be a lot grumpier than I am currently.  It seems that at some point when I was asleep last night, I transformed into this form and I’ve been feeling like something was stuck between some of my scales.  I know where it is, but I can’t get it.” (Ophidia)

 

“Why didn’t you ask one of us for help?” (Skadi)

 

“I would have, but it’s kind of instinctual to avoid letting anyone but me do anything to places like that.” (Ophidia)

 

“Ah.  That makes sense.” (Luna)

 

“Indeed nya.  Though I am surprised nya, I didn’t think serpents could get things between their scales nya.  I thought they were just a completely smooth surface nya.” (Mio)

 

“I sometimes wish that were the case.  It would be so much less irritating for that to be the case.” (Ophidia)

 

“Well, do you want us to help you since we’re here?” (Skadi)

 

“Might as well.  All I ask is that you are all extremely careful.” (Ophidia)

 

She then uncoiled herself as much as she could in the confines of the smallish room.  The three of us got closer to her and she showed us the area where she felt something.

 

“Oh, you have several splinters stuck in a few spots here, Ophidia.” (Skadi)

 

“I wonder how that happened.  I figured your Def stat would prevent that from happening.” (Luna)

 

{That should normally be the case, but this ship is special, Luna.  It’s a divine artifact and is almost constantly being saturated with your mana, which reinforces it.  Add that to how much Ophidia weighs in this form makes it believable that this could happen.}

 

“Oh.” (Luna)

 

“I’m assuming Goddess Tamamo gave you an explanation, master?” (Ophidia)

 

“Yeah.” (Luna)

 

I repeated Tamamo’s words and Skadi nodded her head in agreement.

 

“That does make sense.  But enough of that, let’s get these removed.  Luna, Mio, I’m going to need you to pull back some of these scales so I can get to them.  Ophidia, I need you to stat as still as you possibly can.” (Skadi)

 

“Thanks.  I should have asked for help earlier.” (Ophidia)

 

“It’s no problem at all.” (Skadi)

 

Mio and I then placed our hands on the places where we needed to and pulled back Ophidia’s scales.  Internally, I was surprised at just how smooth the scales were.  I have felt them before when Ophidia made herself into a tiny snake when we had to fold space with a lot of people, but her being this size gave them a different smoothness consistency.  As I pondered over these things, Skadi got to work removing the splinters from Ophidia.

 

“Ahhhn.” (Ophidia)

 

“…” (Luna)

 

“…” (Mio)

 

“Ophidia?” (Skadi)

 

Ophidia blushed and turned hid her face behind her hands.

 

“Sorry.  It’s just the area between my scales is sensitive.” (Ophidia)

 

A seductive smile spread across Skadi’s face at that moment.

 

“Good to know.” (Skadi)

 

Skadi continued to remove the slinters all the while Ophidia let out small pained sounds and gasps.  Once she was finished, Ophidia was out of breath and Mio and I were somewhat uncomfortable.

 

“I feel like I shouldn’t have been present for this.” (Luna)

 

“I feel the same nya.” (Mio)

 

“I feel like I might have dragged this out a little bit more than I should have.  Sorry Ophidia.” (Skadi)

 

“It’s…fine, Skadi…I’ll get…my payback…soon.” (Ophidia)

 

Skadi gave Ophidia a look that I knew well since Tamamo and I have had the same look many times before.  I gave Mio a look and she nodded and left the room.  When I did the same, I covered the door in with a thick wall of ice and made a domain around the room.

 

“Well nya, that happened nya.” (Mio)

 

“Yes.  Yes, it did.  I’m going to go back to sailing the ship now.” (Luna)

 

“I’ll come with you nya.  I could use some fresh air nya.” (Mio)

 

The two of us returned to the deck and continued to sail the rest of the day, eventually being joined by Velvet and Soleil who had brought us something to snack on, completely ignorant of what happened earlier.

 

Chaos Realm:

Fenrir: ...

Atmos: What's wrong, Fenrir?  Why do you look so dejected?

Fenrir: I missed an opportunity.  Mio and I should have asked Luna to set up a domain for me and her at some point while she had nothing better to do.  Now that they are so close to their destination, I missed my chance.

Tamamo: Don't worry, Fenrir.  You'll get your chance soon.  I give it at least one more week before Mio asks Luna to help the two of you with that.

Fenrir: How are you so sure?

Tamamo: Did you not see Mio's face before they left Ophidia's room?  She's about to give in to her urge to truly make you hers.  I think the only thing that's stopping her now is the awkwardness of asking Luna for help.  Of course, this timeline can be moved up with one word from you to Luna.

Fenrir: Get up Tamamo.  Me and you are going to talk with Luna.  Now.

Tamamo: Ufufufu.  Alright.  I'll be back, Atmos.

Atmos: Yeah yeah.