COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 30

Chapter 30: Kissing is a perfectly friendly activity. No romance at all, no no. Just… gals being pals!

-Sephie-

It was nearly midday when a slightly annoyed maid knocked on the door and very politely informed us that our time was up and we needed to vacate the room.

Groggily, I untangled myself from Nydia and we began our little treasure hunt for our clothes. My body was still tingling and at least half my muscles were aching terribly. It was a wonder I could even still walk in the first place, given what Nydia had done to me the night prior. She certainly fulfilled her promise of fucking me senseless, though I never would have guessed we’d be going at it until the first hints of sun started flittering across the sky.

She on the other hand looked like she’d just had a full week of vacation. Which was very confusing given I ended up fulfilling my promise as well, fucking her until she eventually passed out. But now? She radiated with energy. She danced, more than she walked, every little movement had a pep to it that was so adorable and precious to behold that I felt like I needed to protect this girl’s happiness forever.

Eventually though, we made it out more or less alive and I clambered, Nydia skipped, up the main street to our actual quarters. I supposed Cassie and Ashe would have an idea what happened tonight, considering we didn’t come back to sleep, but hopefully they would just let it go.

I wasn’t particularly worried about Ashe, she seemed rather disinterested in both romance and sex whenever it had come up at the campfire, but Cassie was a very naughty minx and I was terrified of the sort of teasing she could throw my way, knowing that me and Nydia fucked all night.

Gods I couldn’t believe I was dating a demon now. I had a demon girlfriend. That’s… beyond crazy. How will I ever explain this to Marion? ‘Oh hey ex-girlfriend. This is my new girlfriend: demon lady. We fuck!’ That would… Well I had no idea how that would go honestly, but I also wouldn’t introduce them to each other like that. Probably. It did sound a bit funny.

Luckily, Cassie only greeted us with a deep red blush on her face and Ashe was still asleep. Part of me wondered if she would even wake up at all if no one woke her up. I’d certainly think it possible, when the little sleepyhead had a comfortable bed, she could sleep through magical bombardment.

The rest of the day passed without any trouble. All of us were slightly burnt out from sightseeing and I was still reeling from the last night. Cassie went off to find a training yard to practise with her swords, Nydia went drinking in the common room of the inn and Ashe slept through the entire day, only waking up by late evening.

I on the other hand sought out the nearest bookstore, hoping to get some insight into the culture and much more importantly: their magic. I ended up finding a history book for children an atlas and an advanced spellcasting guide. Settling back in the windowed alcove of our room, sitting on the windowsill, I flitted through the pages. Reading took a lot longer than usual, since everything was written in this place’s version ancient elvish, which I learned was called Sylvan.

The Wolfland Forest was actually split into three different woodland kingdoms: The Sky Guardian Kingdom to the north, where we had our last stand against the old man and the death demons, the Deepwood Kingdom in the centre, which is where we were at the moment, specifically it’s capital, Deepwood City. Then to the far south was the Lakegrowth Kingdom.

To my surprise, the atlas also revealed that there were humans on the other side of the forest, beyond the lake, downriver, sat the Empire of Xien. Curiously, I pulled out the compass just as the sun was starting to go down.

I aligned it properly and then placed the map next to it. The blue needle pointed south towards the taproom, as expected, the yellow needle was still aggressively spinning in place, my worst enemy obviously still on a different plane of existence. The green and violet needles both pointed southwest, deep into the wildlands - Marion was seemingly making good progress. The red needle pointed eastwards, only slightly off to the north.

I glanced over to the atlas and compared the direction. Obviously, a map could only be so accurate, but unless there was another landmass even further east, red was certainly in this mysterious new empire. More specifically, either in the town near the Wolfland, Lin Shu, or the capital city on the coast, Shen Yin.

It was a pretty big revelation to wrap your head around. First, that the Wolfland Forest was very much inhabited and civilised, and second, that there were humans so far on the other side of the world, hidden from the rest of the Realms for over a thousand years. And eventually, we would travel there, to find another lover to add to my- no wait! To meet another true love of mine. This, definitely. Much better.

Before I could concentrate on orange, Cassie burst into the room.

“Whew! Sword fighting is exhausting!” she exclaimed and plopped down in front of me. She fished an apple out of her pocket and bit into it happily. “Waw’chu up to?”

A small giggle escaped me and I had to hold myself back from patting the cute brunette’s head. It was a truly adorable sight.

“I went to the bookstore and grabbed this atlas. Look there is an entire human empire on the other side of this lake!” I pointed at the map in front of me and then the lake we could see behind the large tree from our window. “And apparently red is somewhere over there,” I added.

Cassie’s eyebrows went up and she studied the map carefully, then glanced to the compass in my hand. A light frown fell on her face for but a moment, before she shook it away and beamed at me again. “That’s great! I can’t read anything, but it doesn’t look all that far away! What about Marion, though? Didn’t we want to meet with her in the Wildlands?”

I bit my lip. That thought did cross my mind, which is why I thought we’d meet red eventually. I did want to meet up with Marion, but despite trying to contact her through my dreams, so far, I’d been unsuccessful. Of course, unlike her, I had no idea how to use the paper bird spell, but with any luck there was a communication spell somewhere in the spellbook I bought.

“I’m… not sure yet. I mean, with every day we rest here, Marion gets further south, further away from us. I don’t even know if we can catch up to her.”

Both our eyes studied the compass again. Suddenly, Cassie crawled over to me leaned in My heart skipped a beat and I instinctively closed my eyes and pursed my lips.

“Look here! What about orange?” Cassie asked. I opened my eyes again to see Cassie peering down onto the compass in my hand, the top of her head close enough I could kiss it without leaning forward at all.

With a shake, I released my jumbled thoughts and looked at the orange needle. It pointed northwest. Wait.

“Didn’t it point east the last time?” Cassie asked.

“It did! Which means orange in in this forest somewhere.” I continued staring at the needle, watching for even the tiniest of movements. It would tell us just how close she was, although it was difficult to concentrate on it with yellow spinning around all the damn time! I swear if I ever met that woman, I was going to punish her for this.

“Exactly!” Cassie exclaimed and rose up. Our eyes met and I was reminded again just how close we were. My excitement from the compass switched to a whole different kind of excitement. She was so close. I just had to tip my head forward the tiniest bit and our lips would meet. My eyes fixed on her lips, still glistening from the apple.

With effort, I tore my eyes back up to hers. Her hazel eyes were wide, staring down at my own lips, her breath was hot, ragged. There was the tiniest quiver in her lower lip, a soft moisture in the corners of her eyes. Almost instinctively, I leaned in, pressing my lips against hers and stopping whatever wave of sadness was about to take Cassie in its tracks.

Her lips were soft, still slightly wet. My tongue flitted out for a moment and the taste of apple washed over me. Cassie was stunned at first, but then quickly melted into the kiss. After I’d gotten a taste, she became more eager, pressing into me and pushing me back into the wall. Her tongue pressed against my lips, but instead of simply tasting me she pressed further in, seeking entrance.

I let the weight of the moment sink in. Was this really what I wanted? Yes! Okay that came off as overeager, horny Sephie needs to take the backseat here. I did like Cassie a lot. And she was extremely attractive. She was also incredibly naughty and getting to kiss her meant I could shut her up every time she started teasing me. Non-emotionally speaking, why wouldn’t I?

I closed my eyes again and opened my mouth. Cassie didn’t waste a second, her tongue slipping inside and exploring me. Our tongues writhed and wrestled with one another, tasting each other, seeking out weak spots.

Cassie wasn’t nearly as precise and dexterous as Nydia with her tongue, which was a given, considering Nydia’s unfair length-advantage, but she more than made up for it with the lustful ferventness with which she claimed me. The kiss became more and more sloppy by the second, saliva travelling in between us, some of it dripping onto the atlas below.

I didn’t even feel it approaching, but a sudden moan escaped my lips, which only spurred Cassie on even more. Our hands began to roam, hers wrapping around my waist and mine stroking her back and gliding into her hair. One of Cassie’s hands travelled up slowly, climbing towards my breasts. I whimpered with need just as she was about to cup me when a sudden cough made us shove away from one another in shock.

“You know you’re not alone, right?” Ashe asked from her bunk, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

“Uhhhhh,” was all I could add to the conversation, brimming with oratorical talent as always.

“Yes! Definitely aware! We were just… This was… Uhm.” Cassie wasn’t much better than I, apparently.

A deep red blush settled on both our faces, eyes darting around the room, looking for an escape, until they rested on Nydia, leaning against the doorframe, sipping another colourful drink.

“Oh don’t let me stop you! Continue!” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I was enjoying the show, you know!” she chided Ashe.

The ratgirl immediately pouted. “You’re taking their side?!”

“What, you didn’t like what you saw?” Nydia teased, slowly swerving into the room and flipping the door closed behind her.

“N- No!” Ashe sputtered. “I’m not some- some lustful broodmother!”

Nydia and Cassie both started giggling at the exasperation of the tiny ratling, who pouted even more and then hid herself under the covers. A small lull of silence fell over us, Cassie and I still blushing heavily and trying not to think about things.

“So… how did that happen?” Nydia finally asked, breaking the silence.

“We were studying the atlas!” I exclaimed and pointed on the (not quite clean) map between Cassie and me. “There is an entire human empire on the other side of that lake!”

Nydia shrugged. “Yea I know. What else?”

What? She knew?! Well she’s a demon; they probably know a bunch of stuff that humans don’t.

“We also compared the map to the needles,” Cassie continued. We proceeded to catch Nydia up to what we had learned and the dilemma before us: Continue following after Marion, or try and find orange, who seemed to be close by.

“Well. Timing wise, we could go and pick up orange and then take a ferry to Lin Shu. Then we go to Rizishma. We know where Marion is heading, orange and red, not so much. Better to find them now that we’re close than lose them trying to catch up to your ex, no?”

After some deliberating, we all agreed that that was our best move. With any luck I’d find a communication spell in the spellbook and I could inform Marion what was going on. Right now, though, we all decided to go to sleep, except for Ashe who just woke up. We wanted to go after orange as fast as possible, but travelling through the forest at night was incredibly dangerous and a single night would hardly make the difference.

Shortly after I’d slipped into my bunk, I felt the mattress dent as Nydia up and over me, snuggling up with me. “Night, Sephie,” she mumbled quietly.

I smiled gently and pecked her on the head, but before I could try to sleep, the mattress dented again as Cassie pressed up against me. “Night, Sephie,” she parroted, giggling.

I couldn’t help but giggle myself at the absurdity of it all, then I kissed her on the head as well and went to sleep. Properly this time. No surprise Ashe.