After a lot of back and forth, much bickering, and a full-blown rock-, paper-, scissors- tournament, the group finally left the capital and started their grand exploration of the continent and further beyond that.

“Alright, boss, where are we headed to first?” The group had been walking around for an hour when Sophia eventually faced the jaguar.

"Why am I the boss here?" Ari was immediately confused about her new title.

“You chose the route. You are the boss." She had an easy explanation.

“Anna chose the route!”

"Yes, your route." The princess sided with her fellow tiger.

“Also, you won the tournament.” Maya joined in on it. “You’re definitely the boss, boss.”

“I hate all of you…” She hung her head in response. “I had absolutely no thoughts behind my suggested direction!”

“How irresponsible of you!” The blonde was shocked.

“As if you had any idea where you were pointing at!” Ari got loud while she glared at Sophia. “Your sense of direction is so bad that you can’t even tell up from right!”

“How rude! My suggested direction was very carefully thought of!”

“Is that so?” She raised an eyebrow in interest.

“Yes!” Sophia gave her a big nod. “I wanted to go perfectly south because that meant it would get warmer faster!"

“You stupid cat.” Steph rolled her eyes. “Well, I wanted to go north for the exact opposite reason, so… Well, we are sisters~.” She quickly changed her opinion. "Wait a moment… Sophia, your direction was at a roughly 90-degree angle of mine, and I’m fairly confident about having pointed north.”

“You definitely pointed east, my dear directionally challenged friend.” Ari stared right at her again.

"A-Ah.” Her face turned red.

“Also,” The jaguar continued. “We left the capital through the south gate, you know…? Why do you think it’s named like that? Surely not because you have to turn left to go south, right?”

“…”

“By the way, we’re headed south right now.” She was slowly shaking her head the entire time.

“Seriously?!”

"Yes." Ari nodded slightly. "I had nothing specific in mind to explore in this direction, but I also liked the idea of it getting a little bit warmer just ever so slightly faster.”

“I love you!” Overcome with emotion, the blonde jumped at the jaguar and hugged her.

“It’s really not that much of a big deal.” Not entirely sure how to react, she simply patted the back of the tiger a couple of times.

"Hey!" The other tiger, the tall one, was not a fan of this exchange. The princess tends to get jealous quite fast, after all.

“Alright, I’m even more motivated now!” Sophia had let go of Ari again and energetically raised her fist high in the air. “Let’s keep going, boss!”

“Sure…” The jaguar gave up and decided to play along for the time being. She knew from experience that letting tigers have their way with those sorts of things was the easiest route for everyone involved. It wasn't worth the effort.

"So, all that aside," Maya scratched her cheek. "Did I understand everything correctly if I say that we have no idea where we're going?"

“Pretty much.” Sophia and Steph smiled at her.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Was there anything interesting in the direction you suggested?” Chloe got interested in the cat-girl’s plan.

“…” She averted her face.

“You also simply pointed in a random direction just for the sake of it, didn’t you?” The pink fox saw right through her.

“I don’t want to answer this.”

“I guess that’s also an answer~.” It worked for her. “Mira, you’d know what’s in the direction Ari chose, right? Are we headed somewhere fun?” She faced the many-tailed fox.

“I sure do~.” She smiled at her. “Do you want to know, though? Or would a surprise be more fun?”

“Surprise, please!” The sisters immediately replied before anyone else had the chance to.

“Also,” Mira looked at the pink fox again. “Every direction and any path will eventually lead to something interesting."

“Fair enough.” Chloe nodded a few times. “Also, yes, a surprise sounds like much more fun~.”

“By the way,” While the group continued to chat and walk, Anna started looking around alongside the cobbled road the group had been following for a while. “What are we going to do once it’s time to stop for the night? Camping? Looking for a village with an inn?”

“What do you want to do?” Sophia faced her. “Whatever is fine in my eyes. Though, if we’re going to camp outside, I want a few trees around, a massive campfire, and I'm going to raise the temperature around us by a good bit, or else I'm going to freeze!"

“Oh, that sounds great!” The princess liked the idea.

"Chloe, we'll sleep a few meters away from our cats!" Steph addressed her pink fox. “That temperature thing sounds horrible!”

“A good idea.” Both preferred colder temperatures because their animal bits were partly based on a husky and an arctic fox.

“Oh!” The blonde raised her voice a little. “There’s also the cottage I stole and put into my extra space earlier. We also could use that, I guess.”

“I like how you can casually admit having stolen a whole building.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in Fey’s voice while the full fox stared at her.

“Did I, or did I not ask for permission beforehand?” She looked right back into her eyes.

“You are not wrong, but still…”

“Heh!” Her expression turned extra smug. “Well, if it makes you feel better, just treat it as a birthday gift from the king for me~.”

“You sure are greedy.” Fey did not approve of her reason.

“Sophia, my dear.” Judging by the tone of her voice, neither did Ari. "Do I need to remind you that we are in the middle of April already? Your birthday was over a whole month ago already.”

“Don’t care!” The blonde did not acknowledge her complaint. “What do you think about my reasoning, Chloe?”

“Perfectly valid!” The pink fox was on her side.

“That’s just because your birthdays were in the same week!” The jaguar stared at her. "You two even celebrated them together!"

“This and that are unrelated~.” The duo smiled at her.

“Is it now?”

“Yep!”

"Whatever," She gave up on arguing. "I call dibs on a room for Anna and me!”

“That’s the spirit!” Sophia gave her a thumbs up.

“I want one for Chloe and me, too!” Steph immediately jumped in on the topic.

“Sure thing~.”

“Well, it looked like the cottage had a bunch of rooms.” Maya tilted her head. “As Sophia’s the one who stole it, she has the right to claim the biggest and best bedroom, so everyone else comes after!”

“With Sophia, you mean you, right?” It wasn’t hard for Steph to guess her true objective.

“Privileges of the official girlfriend~.” The cat-girl smiled at her. “What is Sophia’s, is also mine!”

“The little sister has the same privileges, though!” The violet-haired girl didn’t let it count.

“That is, hmm…” Maya paused for a moment. “Fair enough.” She scratched her cheek. “Sharing a bed with you and Sophia, though… Not my favorite combination of choice. For reasons, Reasons of sisterly origin.”

“Good counter!” Steph had not much to add there. “At least as long as we’re talking about that kind of sleeping together, you would have to make sure to stay in the middle between us the entire time! Even so, cuddling is a different matter!”

“Wait, what…?” Sophia looked quite confused for a moment.

“Ignore that, we're just messing around.” Their voices overlapped perfectly.

“You two were half-sisters in the old world, right?” Mira looked at the two.

“Yep.” They nodded.

“If you combine that with the changes to your bodies in this world, your different magic, and having become part tiger and dog respectively, I doubt it would even still classify as a problem. Biologically speaking. Also, there are no accidents that could happen, anyway.”

“THERE ARE MANY PROBLEMS!” The sisters disagreed with her. “MANY! NUMEROUS!”

“Leave them alone, Mira.” Fey faced the many-tailed fox while trying to lightly glare at her. Trying, because it was rather hard for someone that looks like a full animal to do. Her voice easily carried her intention, though.

“Ahaha~.” She scratched her cheek. “Come on, you know that I need to mess with people every now and then. I’ll die if I don’t do that.”

“I’d love to hear the name of this terrible affliction.” Fey's voice turned incredibly sarcastic. "We have to raise awareness of it."

“It’s, uhh… very technical and impossible to pronounce, so…”

“Ah, if that’s how it is.”

“Yes!” Mira smiled at her. “Anyway, yes, I was just playing around a little.” She faced the sisters again. “It is not exactly wrong, though. Biologically speaking, you are much less related to each other than before."

"While interesting information, I don’t care! It changes nothing!”

“Exactly!” Sophia agreed with Steph. “We’re sisters.”

“Full stop!” The violet dog put some extra emphasis on it.

Directly after, the conversation was put to an immediate stop, and the group continued to walk for a couple of hours, using the remaining daylight to get a bit further away from their starting point, the capital.

 

 

 

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