"The fish tastes like shit; you got anything better orangey?"
(Ikarus) "Can't be eating cake everyday kid, fish is good for ya"
"Still, anything is better than this crap. Where's the blood, bitterness or sweetness? I hate fish"
(Ariza) "You hate everything Zeki"
"Maybe not everything but yeah, you're probably right brother"
(Petra) "..."
After I last left off, we informed the village what happened and left it to them to figure out how to deal with it, they didn't seem all that worried about knowing that their main water souce is completely tainted, I'm guessing they have a way of filtering or cleaning it out so I guess that kind of worry wasn't needed. It also rained earlier but unaware if it did over by their country though.
That was eight days ago, we've been mostly travelling ever since with us even rotating the flying duties this time around, we basically just did it so we could travel for longer without needing to rest. I've actually been on the back of Ariza and Zeki, it's kinda weird not flying yourself for once but I have been on the back of a wyvern before so it's not that strange.
Mr obnoxious really hated when it was his turn to be ridden, he really is a stubborn as my father when it comes to things like that but he still powered on, even if he spent the entire day moaning about it.
As for what we're doing now, we're all eating dinner around a campfire late at night, it's surprisingly cold out right about now. For the last twelve hours, it's been absolutely pissing it down, it turns out it can rain in the desert and now that the rain is gone, the heat seems to be cooled down and the night is pretty cold. Obviously not cold enough to affect me, I do have a resistance after all, it's cold enough for Zeki and Ariza to change form and to be sitting around a fire though, I've got my human feathers and Petra clearly doesn't feel the cold.
The campfire we set up is in the ruins we found; this is the second time we've come across these. The first was when we saw it off in the distance on the way to the pyramid and right now. The plan is to stay here the night, then get out of the country Mitte as soon as possible otherwise we'll end up encountering racists knowing our luck.
Of course, it's extremely tempting to kill every bigot we come across but if I start using that mindset for everyday use, then I'll end killing way too much, Zeki being the prime example of what I don't want to turn into. If it wasn't for Petra, I honestly think he'd become a demon lord of destruction or cruelty, maybe I'm exaggerating but with him, there's a good chance.
Anyway, back onto eating, we've basically all finished by now and I've just thrown the stick I was using to hold the fish into the fire, I've been meaning to clear out some of the food I've got stored away so that's the reason we had fish out in the middle of a desert.
'It really is chilly'
I can definitely see why those two have changed forms, it is pretty cold. Thinking about it, I feel like I can use this an excuse to get closer to Petra, it is 'really cold' after all. I feel like this is the first time I've wanted to cuddle properly as well, not just to cheer Petra up. Of course I've got to go about this in an odd way otherwise I'd be lying to myself, it is something new after all.
"Hey Petra... seeing that it's pretty cold and all, I feel like I might freeze if I don't warm up soon"
I'm such a tsundare at times, this is better than just coming out and saying I want to cuddle though. Unfortunately, there's an elephant sized, obnoxious red blob that can't shut his trap.
"You really ain't fooling no one orangey"
"Heh"
Now I feel betrayed seeing Petra do her laugh at his comment, it's even made me cross my arms and pout. Thankfully, it's clear what I was hinting at so she moves closer on this ruined looking bench we're sitting on and puts her arm around me and I snuggle into her, would this be called a sideways hug? Ah, I don't care what it's called, Petra's warmth is pretty great to be honest.
"Err, have a bit of common courtesy you two!"
"You might be the biggest hypocrite around Zeki"
I feel like Ariza just needs to ignore him at times, he's clearly just trying to be a wind up, best to not give him any attention and he'll shut it... eventually. We're only hugging after all, it's not like those two have never seen anything like this. Zeki literally would 'fight' with the dryad in front of everyone without giving two shits.
Me and Petra stay like this for a little while longer, it clearly seems to be having an annoying effect to those two though, mostly Zeki. It turns out ignoring him actually works.
"Forget it, I'm sleeping now"
"It is kinda late, I'll sleep as well... Night you two"
Zeki leaves us quickly and Ariza gives a little smile from her beak before she heads off, now it's just us two alone in this ruined building. Unfortunately, a big problem is about to present itself, an end of the world type problem.
"Heh, it might be best if we get some shut eye soon as well"
She wants to end it already!?! No can do, Petra is really comfortable after all, we're not separating and sleeping just yet, this type of hug is actually really nice.
"Give me a few more minutes, maybe an hour more and sure"
"Heh... fair enough"
The thing is, I've always been the person on the other end of this back when I was a dude on Earth, both sides of this type of hug are great and I'd honestly stay here all night if we could. It's funny how uncomfortable this type of thing used to make me feel, now I freaking love it. Development! I'm still way too slow though.
For some reason, my mind always has to wonder even when relaxing like this.
'What would be the next step after this?'
Seriously though, what comes next? Even if we haven't actually admitted to it, we basically are an item or a couple now, that never needed confirmation. What about next? Is it kissing, admitting to love, s-sleeping together? Sighhh, I hate thinking about this type of thing.
The relationships I've had back on Earth always went really weird, mostly because 'love' never lasted long in the slightest. I'm pretty certain my gender has some effect on my thinking on the whole thing but another difference is simply because of Petra, I really, really like her, more than anyone in the past so everything feels even more troublesome.
"What are you thinking heavily on?"
"Can you read my mind or something? How do you know when I'm thinking heavily?"
I can't help but lift her arm away and end the hug when she asks that, she definitely can't read my mind, I'm sure on it so why can she seem to normally tell if I'm thinking heavily?
"Your aura Ikarus, it turns a slightly bit more intense..."
Oh great, it's her 'eyesight' that can tell, at least I can't hide anything from her. I'll tell to see her opinion on the whole thing, I'm a little stuck on this.
"... What we're you thinking about anyways?"
"Erm... In all honesty, what comes next? I mean between us, what's the next step? I'm a little stuck on that"
She can't help but start to smile from my questing, I'm being deadly serious though, we've basically been travelling with each other for over half a year now and I've been the one keeping things slow, what happens next?
Hang on, I think it's actually been close to eight months, has it seriously been that long? That should be when she joined the party with me, priestess and the knight back then, we've basically been together ever since I guess except for once or twice.
"Heh, are you really thinking so heavily on this?"
It's obvious she doesn't worry too much on these types of things, I am the more worrisome out of us two, she does worry but normally only when it comes to combat preparation.
"Of course, normally I used to take the lead and do initiate stuff now but it's a little confusing"
"Heh, you want me to take the lead more then?..."
It's obvious that was a tease, things are going perfectly already so there's no need for her to try harder, I've basically started initiating it more now anyways. She really only ever starts it when it comes down to teasing, unsure on the reason for that but I guess every now and then she does start things.
Petra pauses for a second after that and then gets serious though, it's clear she can tell this is something that's bothering me slightly.
"... Seriously though, if you want an answer Ikarus, probably more intimate contact, maybe a kiss on the cheek or something like that? We can always go on more dates when all this stuff is sorted. It really isn't that much to worry about, I'll never force you but you already know that"
"Yeah..."
She makes it sound like I'm completely against the idea of progressing faster, all I really need to do now is just push myself and I can get through most hurdles. Knowing me, if I tried to initiate a kiss or something similar and I could get through it, then I bet I'd reckon I'd be able to withstand it in the future.
Should I give that a try? Not on the cheek though, that would be pointless, maybe...
"... Then how about-..."
Just as I'm about to suggest something, a distraction comes up that pisses me off. It always has to be something when I'm feeling like this.
"... What... the fuck is that?"
"*Sigh*... arachnids, always show up when not wanted"
Is that a giant scorpion? Well, it's not a giant but it's easily the size of a small human, maybe a dwarf. How the hell did that even get in here? There even looks like there's a few of them, fucking mutated, scorpion bastards!
"How the hell can they even grow to that size?"
"They've existed forever out here; we've just been unlucky coming across one right now. Careful Ikarus, their stingers hurt a bit but they go down easily enough from any type of damage"
Looks like we're going to have to massacre some scorpions, thanks for ruining my thinking, stupid bugs. They're not technically bugs but I don't care.
"Let's get to work then..."
__________
"Heh, you still in a mood Ikarus?"
"Of course I am, fucking scorpions"
(Zeki) "They do taste pretty good if you cut out the parts that aren't lethal but they are irritating bastards otherwise"
"Uh huh"
We're now back up in the skies flying once again, I'm on carry duty this time and am clearly looking like I'm irritated even from where those three are sitting, these desert scorpions that we've only just somehow come across be doing that to me. They die very easily though, probably as easy as wolfs thinking about it, no point talking about that since it's just a pointless fight.
This is why I can't ever suggest anything, something is bound to get in the way like a shitty romance story that keeps putting up hurdles when a relationship might be about to take the next step. I was gonna force myself to get through it despite how red and flustered it would've made me but I bet it would've helped so much.
Actually, it probably wouldn't have, it's just an idea that keeps getting rejected, obviously there are higher forces in play being right dicks, probably some bullshit like the Goddess of love decided we're incompatible or something, maybe they just want to delay it for the sake of being a tease.
It's been close to a week now since that happened and something else has come up blocking me from making a suggestion twice since those ruins, one time being down to it suddenly raining and thundering just as I was about to say something, I swear rain is supposed to be rare in the desert. The other was early on today, some more fucking scorpions decided to say hello. I hate coincidences or feeling like someone is screwing me over.
I give up, I swear I feel like someone is trying to torment me or something so I'll just let them win... for now.
Anyways, on flight to the red desert, mesa dungeon which should be the last, we did actually see something pretty noteworthy down below. A few days ago, we spotted a gigantic looking desert castle off in the distance with an oasis to the side of it, pretty cool to look at from up here but none of the other phoenixes seemed to pay any attention to it, I am the youngest and they have seen most of what this world has to offer after all.
There was a settlement near to the coast we had to fly over as well but we didn't stop to have a good look at it, it wasn't time to stop so we didn't bother and besides, this trip has already taken long enough. Thankfully, it looks like we're now getting close.
"So... that must be it then"
"Uh huh"
"..."
"Towards the red desert orangey!"
Off in the far distance, we've finally laid eyes upon the large red desert of the mesa and in that desert are gigantic rock structures that seem to be everywhere. We've finally arrived flying across an entire desert spanning three countries, we would be in the third to the east now, it's called Ostin or something I believe. It matters little anyway; all three countries are basically the same except the middle one dislikes humans and a large part of this one is mesa.
'It's time to get searching...'
__________
"Where the hell is it?"
(Ariza) "It does seem to be really well hidden"
"Agreed orangey, this is fucking annoying"
"..."
Days, literally days of searching for the next dungeon, we've been flying around this place taking it turns looking for any signs that could point us in the right direction and nothing, it's Ariza's turn to be carrier right now and we still can't spot any clue on where we're supposed to go, I'm even looking at a map and still no idea.
Obviously Petra isn't going to be great at this, we should be low enough she can 'see' partially but distances are still a problem for her, I wonder if I can ever find a cure to her blindness, that would be such a brilliant gift I could give her but nothing is ever that easy in this world. From the sounds of it, she was born with blindness so that would be very difficult to fix but magic is magic after all.
I'm unsure if she was blind as a human though but it doesn't sound that way, her evolution in the egg seemed to make her blind but Petra has never gone that much into it before, she'd give me an answer but it would make her sad. I refuse to allow her to get sad, that's like one of my main goals in life now. Petra sadness must be contained and destroyed at all costs!
While I'm thinking about Petra once again, something has caught my eye though, it's quite the distance away.
"Wait a second, is that an island over there?"
Off in the distance of this mesa we've been looking around for days now, is an island off the coast that for some reason we haven't come close to yet, maybe because the map doesn't show it even exists. I know we weren't supposed to rely on this map but this is still stupid how an entire mesa looking island hasn't been marked.
It also appears there is a rope bridge leading from this mainland to the island, we clearly aren't going to be using that since wings are better than a shitty, rickety bridge. Not noticing that sooner has really annoyed me further, it's not like we've been flying near the north coast of this place but it's not exactly like that island is small, whoever made this map sucks. Oh yeah, the mesa island is north of us, you'd think that wouldn't be possible since the Sierran continent is also north, the mesa part of the desert sticks out a bit so the ocean is in every direction except west. Actually, even that's not completely true, forget it now. It's north of us, alright?
"Why the hell was that island not marke-, forget it, they did say these lands aren't mapped out properly anyway"
Think it was the prince saying these lands are unmapped, that's technically incorrect since you can find maps of it, just they clearly are terrible and pointless to use. Maybe he meant they're unmappable because of how terrible the marked maps are, no idea though.
Ariza flies towards the island in question, it shares very similar landmarks like the gigantic rock structures but seems a bit redder compared to the mainland. Very quickly however, we spot something that looks out of place.
(Zeki) "It's about goddamn time we found something different"
(Ariza) "That's definitely a cave, right?"
It seems those two have spotted a small cave entrance off in the distance, I'm a little surprised they saw that but I can just about see the little opening in the side of one of the huge rocks.
(Ikarus) "I really hope this is what we're looking for"
(Petra) "Hopefully"
This is the first cave or opening anywhere in this entire place we've seen, it's not exactly noticeable but it's the only thing different we've come across, it's got to be that, right?
'If that isn't the last dungeon, then this place is just stupid...'