Birds Of A Feather 2 (1/2)

“I still can’t believe the little guy actually made it all the way here,” Rowana muttered with awe. “I know it has a habit of popping up out of nowhere, but this one was just… Wow!”

“At this point I’m honestly wondering if it even needs us to take care of it,” Keira replied thoughtfully. “I mean it’s survived for four centuries before us, so probably not.”

The topic of their conversation was quite obviously Minic. The aptly named mini-mimic had licked each member of its ‘crew’ goodbye just before being picked up, after which the odd collection of sea creatures slinked off into the sunset. The animate jewelry box that was lucky beyond any mortal or divine comprehension was currently sitting on top of Keira’s head, right between her feline ears. The spot had become one of its favorite seats ever since its current owner grew her crimson hair out. It was voluminous and surprisingly fluffy, making it a great place for Minic to park its tiny bottom.

It would have preferred to snuggle against Rowana’s soft breasts, but it couldn’t do that while the elf was walking around. She and Keira were currently on their way back to the inn, with the latter occasionally reaching a hand up to stroke Minic’s lid-mounted gemstone. Something the little guy seemed to appreciate if those delighted ‘yip-yip’ sounds were any indication.

“Any idea how it actually managed to do it?” the elf asked curiously.

“Not really. Not unless it somehow smuggled its way into your potion shipment without us noticing and then mysteriously fell off the ship along with your crate.”

As unlikely and full of holes as that theory sounded, it was nothing out of the ordinary for the thing that could turn up anywhere at any time.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter how it got here,” Rowana finally gave up. “I’m just glad it’s safe and sound, though I do wish we could discipline it somehow.”

“Well, too late for that now. Would’ve liked if its new friends stuck around, myself. They were all so precious.”

Quite literally, too. Many small sea creatures like those were considered endangered species. There were plenty of Druids and Monster Tamers that would pay good coin in order to preserve them. Or, alternatively, there would be quite a few aristocrats who simply wanted a taste of these delicacies before they vanished for good. Boxxy personally never cared for seafood too much, but even it was curious if those green sea turtles tasted as good as the rumors said they did.

“Ohh, I know,” Rowana said in a sympathetic voice. “Minic made so many cute and happy friends. They probably had a whale of a time getting here, unlike us.”

Keira raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smirk.

“A whale of a time, huh?”

“Oh, no.”

“I sea what you did there, Row-ana.”

“Keira, could you not?”

“What? Am I making waves or something?”

“You know I can’t stand it when you get like this.”

“Water you talking about? I’m just going with the flow.”

“Yip?”

The elf raised her hands as if giving up and picked up the pace.

“I’m going back to the inn alone.”

“Come on, no need to be so salty.”

“Stop following me!”

“Nonsense, I can’t just leave my wharf to be all by herself!”

“You keep this up, and I won’t be your anything-to-be!”

“Even if you say that, you’ll always be my gull-friend.”

“Yip yip!”

“Great, now look what you did! Minic’s doing it, too!”

“Be reasonable, it’s not like its doing it on porpoise.”

“Honestly, when did you even find the time to think up all this stuff?!”

“Just now. While we were cod-dling.”

“Wow, seriously?”

“Sorry, my mind comes up with all kinds of weird ship if I let it wander.”

“Yeep yeeep!”

Rowana took a few more deep breaths as she reminded herself over and over that this was still the woman she loved. Her fondness for terrible puns was just another of those quirks that made every day spent living with her feel like an adventure in and of itself. Even if it was bloody insufferable at times, it was still lively and exciting in its own way. Plus, the make-up sex afterwards was always amazing, so there was that too.

“You’re lucky you’re so damn cute,” the elf finally said. “Otherwise I don’t think I’d be able to stand you as well as I do.”

“In that case you ought to navigate yourself to a sea-t, because I’m not quite fin-ished with my current batch of manatee-rial.”

“AAAAAARGH!”

Having finally lost it, Rowana stomped off in a random direction while visibly shaking in anger.

“You’re sleeping on the floor tonight!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“That’s okay, I’ll gladly accept my pun-ishment!”

Having reached pun overload, the platinum blonde elf could do nothing but half-groan half-scream in frustration. Keira would’ve kept following and bugging her, but the shit-eating grin on her face showed that her mission had already been accomplished with no regrets. She then reached up and held her loosely clenched fist in front of Minic, prompting the tiny creature to boop it with one of its stubby legs.

“Good work.”

“Yip.”

Granted, the thing didn’t really contribute to this in any way whatsoever, nor did it have the slightest inkling why Keira just boop-fisted it, but it was having fun nonetheless. Which was fitting considering that messing with the elf for a bit of entertainment was the sole purpose of that exchange. This behavior could be partly attributed to some lingering side-effects of Boxxy’s relatively recent Malefic Union with Snack, but it was mostly due to the monster’s slightly warped sense of humor. Years of toying with people’s emotions had resulted in it finding genuine joy in the psychological torment of sentient beings, especially if there was some ironic twist at play.

That said, Boxxy made sure not to go overboard with this new hobby whenever it was roleplaying as Keira for obvious reasons. It was also quite aware of how potentially dangerous this attitude was, as underestimating one’s opponent had been the downfall of many-a-powerful being. At least that’s what enlightened stories said, but Boxxy was already at a stage where it could afford such frivolities without any tangible risk of repercussion. Putting it simply, the shapeshifter had become one of the bullies in this playground called Terrania. The only things it had to worry about was seriously pissing off either the parents (Gods) or one of the other big kids (entities of immense power).

Other than those, everyone else was ‘fair game.’

“Uh, excuse me? Miss Morgana?”

Keira turned around to face the one who had called out to her. It was a lightly tanned elven woman with dark green hair and similarly colored eyes. She wore a slightly revealing top that exposed her belly, shoulders and collarbone, and would have also showed off her cleavage if not for her unfortunate upper body proportions. Her generous backside and supple thighs, on the other hand, filled out her shorts to the point where they looked as if they might rip if she bent over too hard. A pale green, wide-brimmed hat woven from jungle plant fibers rested on her head, offering protection from both sun and rain. Her jewelry was far more impressive, as she had six rings, a pair of mismatched earrings and three whole amulets, all of which were either silver or mithril and studded with green gems. The only exception was the gaudy golden bracelet on her left wrist. It was also the most notable piece, which was why Keira’s eyes lingered on it for a second or two without their owner realizing.

“Ow. Ow. Ow-ow-orade than a pet. It’s been acting a bit on edge ever since this whole orc situation started, but it normally lightly squeezes down on my wrist to warn me of danger. It’s really good at it too.”

“Is it, now?”

“Sne-!?”

Keira crouched down and hugged her knees, then smiled at the creature, which made it freeze in place in the middle of its… ‘sentence.’

“What a reliable partner you have.”

Though her words and tone sounded warm, the borderline sadistic grin she was giving the thing made it wish it could sweat. It was such a chilling expression that the serpent reflexively coiled itself around its own head, its beady eyes peeking out from between its plates while Minic yipped in confusion.

“Such a shame,” that sickeningly sweet voice said. “I don’t think it likes me very much. And here I was hoping we could be friends. Do you think we can get along, little Snek?”

Snek’s head then bobbed up and down rapidly inside its ball, nodding vigorously to show that the underlying message of ‘you don’t want to be my enemy’ had been received loud and clear. Keira then stood back up as if nothing had happened. Her malicious intent had been directed with such pinpoint precision that Opia was left none the wiser, despite having seen the whole thing.

“At least yours looks to be a cheerful little guy,” the elf said while scratching her arm nervously.

“Yeah, Minic’s a fun pet to keep around. Not nearly as useful as yours, but I don’t mind. Is Snek a house mimic, too?”

“Mmhm. Brought it with me when I moved here from the north. I just wish I knew what’s been going on with it lately.”

“Just doing its job, isn’t it? This whole orc thing has gotten really out of hand now that the undead are involved. You never know what’s going to happen next.”

“That’s true, but its reaction still worries me. Even if I don’t always understand its warnings, Snek has never been wrong. Do you think Oar’s Rest is in danger?”

“That was probably my bad. I tend to be rather hostile when a stranger suddenly approaches me in the street. Especially if that stranger has been following me around for a while.”

“Oh. You, uh, noticed me?”

“I peek over my shoulder more often than I’d like. Nothing personal, just an occupational habit as Hero of Chaos.”

“Right, of course. Sorry about that.”

Snek was both surprised and terrified that such a flimsy excuse worked. Thinking about it objectively, Opia should have been far more concerned not only with the timing of the warning, but also the magnitude of it. Especially when considering she trusted the gold-plated serpent with her life and treated its signals with significantly more severity than what she was showing at present.

However, this abnormal behavior was not exactly her fault. Part of why the elf with the plus-sized rear let her guard down so easily around Keira was because the catgirl was designed to give off an extremely favorable first impression. Which, when combined with the significant amount of Charisma (CHR) under her belt made it so that every word that rolled out of the Facade’s lips carried a lot more weight than it would have otherwise.

Granted, awareness of the Attribute would normally lower its effectiveness, but Keira was known as neither a Bard nor a politician, so Opia had no reason to suspect her of having it.

“I didn’t mean to stalk you or anything,” the elf continued apologizing, “but I didn’t want to interrupt you and your… friend?”

“Girlfriend.”

“Ah, didn’t want to assume. Waaait… Does that mean the… you know…”

Opia pointed towards her ear while staring intently at the earring on Keira’s, her mind only now connecting the dots. And yes, ‘girlfriend’ was not entirely accurate, but ‘wife to be’ would require a certain degree of explaining that Keira wasn’t exactly in the mood for.

“Look, nevermind that. There’s a bit of a crowd gathering and something tells me you didn’t just stop me to say hi, so why don’t we take this conversation somewhere a bit more private?”

The elf looked around, realizing a little too late that several people were indeed gawking at them, though they tried not to be too obvious about it.

“Uh, yeah, alright.”

The two women picked up their respective house mimics, walked away from the random onlookers and ducked inside an empty side street. Opia looked around to check if anyone was within earshot, though her movements made it clear as day she wasn’t used to this ‘subtlety’ thing. That was putting it lightly, though. The way her head swiveled around like a spinning top was so childish that Boxxy felt weirdly insulted. The only thing that ridiculous circus act would do was attract attention from random passers by. Thankfully for the elf, she stopped acting like a clown before the shapeshifter’s growing urge to slap her teeth out overpowered its reason and jumped straight to the point.

“I’m here on behalf of someone who says she has a lucrative job opportunity for you,” she said in a serious tone.

Keira raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Care to be more specific?”

“I wish I could, but that really is as much as I can say. I know it sounds suspicious, but she’s secretive like that. I honestly wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t owe her so much.”

“Then how can I possibly know if this ‘someone’ is trustworthy or not?”

“Well, she’s my partner. Business partner, not, uh, life partner,” Opia awkwardly added. “We’ve worked together for a few years and she’s never double crossed anyone we’ve worked with. I’d trust her with my life.”

The elf certainly sounded sincere, which was a start.

“No offense, but your word alone isn’t exactly reassuring.”

“Uhm… would it help if I mentioned I was the Venom Dealer? Don’t mean to brag, but I’m something of a local celebrity. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

Boxxy was indeed familiar with that moniker. It was the pseudonym of the one who had supposedly encountered and defeated a certain lich that migrated here from the north about two years ago. The shapeshifter initially thought that was a load of crap, as it was dubious whether a Druid specialized in scourge magic could defeat a being that was immune to such things. At least not by herself, but it was possible if this mysterious ‘partner’ of hers was strong enough.

That said, Keira had never personally investigated that incident, so it was better to play dumb.

“Sorry, can’t say that I have,” the catgirl said while rubbing her chin in thought. “More importantly though, if your friend is so great, then why don’t they come to see me personally?”

“Normally she would, but she has a… complicated relationship with some of the people in town.”

“Those ‘people’ wouldn’t happen to be the ‘law enforcement’ type, would they?”

“Look, I really don’t care what you think of me or my partner, but the offer still stands if you’re willing to hear her out.”

Keira tried to push for more information, but it would appear that was as much as her powers of persuasion were able to get out of her.

“If you’re interested, then meet us at the old temple of Axel a few kilometers east of town. You know the place?”