COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 33

Chapter 33: So I just found out that big, strong women are my greatest weakness and I don’t know how to deal with that.

-Sephie-

The others gradually woke up from the smell of food and soon we were all seated around the small pot with wooden bowls. Shyleen did another retelling of last night’s events for the others and Ashe enthusiastically filled in some colourful details from her side of the battle – mostly sneaking around until she heroically ‘single handedly’ defeated the evil old man.

She was still protectively clutching the magical skull that held his power against her chest.

“What are we going to do with that anyways?” Cassie asked between sips from her mushroom soup.

“Probably hand it back to Craw, right?” Shyleen suggested. “Unless she chose one of you has her champion she’ll want it back.”

“I still can’t believe we’re sitting around with three divine artefacts right now! That much power could topple empires…” Nydia exclaimed in disbelief.

Shyleen only shrugged. “What were you doing out here anyways? The Wolfland is not a place people just wander around in, especially not people who don’t know how to defend themselves properly.”

I shrunk back slightly. Admitting that I was looking for… love… always felt so embarrassing to me. Like I was so pathetic that I couldn’t even find love the normal way. Face reddening, I placed the compass on the ground in front of me.

“It- umm. It points towards my ‘One True Love’, except there are six of them.” I pointed towards the blue needle. “I already found Nydia and green is my ex.” The yellow was still spinning in place. “Ignore that one, she’s obnoxious. We were actually following the orange needle here.” I pointed off to behind Shyleen. “Somewhere in that direction.”

The fox girl raised one eyebrow and studied the compass closely. “Soo… You’re travelling through the most dangerous forest in existence… for pussy?” A teasing smirk crossed her face and my face flushed so red I thought I was going to explode.

“I- It’s not like- It’s not like that! I just- I- Aa.”

Shyleen’s smirk cracked and she began laughing her ass off. “Oh gods you’re adorable sugar! I’ve never met anyone as teaseable as you!” She wiped away a small a tear at the corner of her eye and rolled over to the side, still giggling. The orange needle moved. I froze. Oh dear.

Nydia quirked an eyebrow and promptly started laughing manically. “Oh gods you’re so fucked Sephie! Hahahaaa!”

Even Cassie was giggling a little after realising what was happening. Ashe just rolled her eyes at us.

Slowly, the girls all calmed down and sat back up. “Well, what do you say I tag along and keep an eye out for you girls while you’re looking for your love? Wolfland isn’t a place people like you should be walking around in unprotected. Maybe I can even help looking, I know my way around and stuff.”

Nydia giggled again. “I don’t think we need help looking, Shyleen.”

Cassie giggled as well. “Yeah, I think we already found who we were looking for.”

Shyleen looked around confusedly and Nydia picked up the compass and slowly moved it from side to side in front of Shyleen. The orange needle stayed fixed on her.

“Ah. Yeah, that checks out,” she commented dryly.

I sank further and further in my pit of shame and despair. How had my life gotten this out of hand in under a month. First I get my heart broken, then I start dreamwalking, then I dreamfuck my ex, then I meet Nydia and find out I’m gay, then I find out the artefact I carry marks me for death, then I find out my ex had been a girl all along, then I find out my newest friend also loves me, then I find out my girlfriend is a fucking demon, then I get almost killed by an evil man and two death demons and THEN I find out I am extremely weak to tall muscular older women and THEN it turns out that specific woman is probably also into me.

Truly the worst-best timeline to exist ever. Am I cursed or blessed? Blursed? That sounds somewhat right. At least it can’t get much crazier than this. I mean there is barely anything that could top ‘a demon disguised as a princess’ and ‘a goddesses chosen champion’ besides maybe an actual princess or, like, a full-on capital G Goddess.

But it’s not like that’s gonna happen, so this was definitely a 10/10 on the craziness scale.

My life has peaked and reached rock bottom at the same time and my mushed-up brain was swinging between the two like fucked up pendulum.

A soft embrace shook me out of my thought spiral. I clasped the hands wrapped around my tummy and cuddled up to Cassie.

“You okay there, Sephie?” she murmured. “It looked like you were spiralling.”

A soft whimper escaped my lips. “Mm I’m okay now. Thanks Cass,” I mumbled into her softness.

I enjoyed the embrace for a while, until getting back to the greater conversation going on around the pot.

“I mean… the Wolfland is still very dangerous, you’d definitely need me to escort you back to the city. And if you want to cross to Xien afterwards I can help too. I’ve been there once or twice before!”

“Shyleen, it’s adorable you think you need an excuse to travel along with us. I’m pretty sure Sephie would’ve asked you anyways,” Nydia replied softly.

“Speaking of travel: It’s nearly midday. If we leave now, we can sleep in a comfy bed back in the city!” Ashe reminded everyone. “And as the hero who saved the day yesterday, I think I deserve a comfy bed, thank you very much!” she added with a humph.

“Sure, sure. Gods you and beds really are a world-shattering combination, you know?” Nydia teased, before starting to pack things up.

“So… uh…” Shyleen addressed me, “you’re… okay with me? Tagging along?”

I fiddled around with my hands, unable to look the intimidating woman in her eyes. “Um. Yeah. Definitely. Please.”

I could feel her smile beaming towards me even without looking directly at her and tried my hardest to control my blushes again. This was so awkward. With Nydia it was just the two of us at a table. We could talk things out properly and even had our little date at the bathhouse afterwards. But now? We were with three other people and no privacy whatsoever.

I honestly didn’t even know how to begin talking things through. With Nydia, I at least met her before in dreamscape, but Shyleen? She was all new and I was honestly terrified of messing up, turning her away from me, making her hate me.

After I successfully fought back the scary thoughts, mostly with Cassie’s cuddle help, we began taking down the camp and making our way to Deepwood City. We obviously had no clue in which direction it was anymore, because, like the disasters we were, none of us paid attention to where exactly we were going yesterday, but luckily Shyleen knew the way by heart and became our travel guide.

*****

We made it back to the city an hour after sundown and promptly ran into our first problem. The guards. See, they’d been warning us about a beast roaming the woods – a ruscoqui – and it just so turned out that that was Shyleen. She’d sort of told me about it before, how her feeding on emotions leads to hostilities between her and the city-folk of this place, but after a long explanation about how she saved our lives and defeated the demons that were threatening the peace around here, they finally let us in.

We immediately made for the inn we’d stayed at before, though we needed to upgrade from our previous four-person bedroom to the five-person suite. That was a massive spike in price, that even Nydia clenched her teeth as she handed over the money.

We then got our keys and made our way upstairs, into our room. It was impressive. A large open space living and dining room, a small kitchenette and two bathrooms – a small one with basic necessities: toilet, sink, shower; and a large one with all that plus a big bathtub in it – and lastly, the bedrooms. There were three bedrooms total. A small one that was obviously meant for children – which Ashe immediately claimed, something about “peace and quiet from those lustful creatures” – and two slightly more extravagant ones, with a double-bed each.

Two double-beds. Four people. I gulped. Either we didn’t read the room description properly, or the inn simply assumed we were… like that. Which isn’t to say that we’re not. But that still left the question of who slept where.

Shyleen quickly suggested she could simply sleep on the couch, which we shot down immediately. Then Cassie suggested Nydia me and her could simply share one bed together, which sounded very enticing, but strangely, Nydia shot that one down.

“How about you two share one bed and I’ll get to know our newest companion a little better?” the glamoured demon proposed.

Cassie was immediately on board with that and after checking in with Shyleen, making sure she was okay with that, I finally accepted this as well.

Me and Cassie trotted over to our shared room for the night and I turned one last time to wish Nydia a good night. She gave me a soft peck on the lips and I had to try my hardest not to make it a messy one.

“Hey sweetheart,” she whispered, “would you mind if I…” she glanced over to Shyleen, who was leaning against the doorframe, waiting. Nydia wiggled her eyebrows at me.

Oh gods why was she asking me?! “N- Not at all! It’s-“I glanced over to Cassie, “It’s not like we’re exclusive.”

Nydia flashed me a sharp grin. “Thanks babe.” She smooched me again and then twirled around, strutting over to her room. Shyleen slipped inside and Nydia quickly turned to me again, winked, and then slipped after her, a hungry and now very familiar look on her face.

I turned back to Cassie and she looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What was that all about?”

“Nydia asked permission to… um…”

“Ah. I get the picture.” Blushing, the two of us slipped inside and closed the door.

I hoped our demon would at least be quiet about it.