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Side Stories - Snowlily's Adventure - 2
🕑 Added 2020-01-12 11:50:24 +0000 UTCSilence pervaded the ship's cabin for a few minutes after Lexiana spoke. Snowlily knew this moment was coming and she hadn't been looking forward to it. If she had anyone else at all that she could go to for help, she would leave right that moment and look for that other person. Sadly, she was desperate and Lexiana was the only person available to help her out. She took a deep breath and then looked directly at the red-head. Woofs, growls, whines, whimpers, and barks were her only form of communication. Lexiana was able to get the gist of what Snowlily was trying to communicate thanks to the minor amount of Garou blood flowing through her veins.
Lexiana listened patiently as she digested as much as she could from what Snowlily was telling her. When Snowlily fell silent, she leaned back in her chair and contemplated what her next move should be. She was an adventurer and had been for some time. She was stronger than most of the new immortals but they grew stronger at an alarming rate. She was sure she could still deal with most of them in a one-on-one situation but in a one-on-many she was sure she would lose. Unlike the immortals, she only had a single life to live and couldn't engage in risky behavior without the risk of actually dying. She needed to think carefully about what she was going to do.
As she was thinking the image of Selena passed through her mind. The two of them had met by coincidence and discovered they were both looking for the same man. Though for fundamentally different reasons. Since they had teamed up with the same goal in mind they had traveled together to find Thomas. When Snowlily had suddenly appeared and practically jumped into her arms, Lexiana had hoped that the honeymoon period with Thomas was over and Snowlily had chosen to return to Sunden with her. Obviously that was not the case. Now Snowlily wanted her to rescue the immortal human if he was still in captivity or find him if he'd gotten free. She couldn't do that alone.
Lexiana took a deep breath and looked back at Snowlily, "I'm willing to help you find 'that man' if we can come to an agreement."
Snowlily growled a little at that statement. She didn't like that Lexiana was taking advantage of the situation. Then again, Lexiana had no reason to help Thomas. All she cared about was Snowlily and protecting her. Snowlily stared at the wolf-woman for a bit before huffing at her. Lexiana at least had the decency to not smile as she said, "I want you to promise me two things. First, I want your promise that I can travel with you and 'that man' until you visit Sunden. Second, I want you to stay in Sunden for at least six months."
Snowlily immediately hopped to her feet and growled threateningly at Lexiana while her fur bristled. Surprisingly, Lexiana actually began to tremble out of fear. The Garou were legendary beings akin to gods to her people and she had just pissed off the only known living one. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She was just a regular citizen and adventurer, not some political figure that knew proper negotiation or decorum. She was way out of her depths when it came to Snowlily and it showed instantly. Snowlily continued to growl for a few moments before issuing a sharp bark at Lexiana. Lexiana flinched at the bark but started nodding her head rapidly in agreement, "Alright! Just a week!"
Snowlily huffed once and plotted her furry little butt back down on the bed. Lexiana let out a sigh and wiped the sweat from her brow. For a brief moment there she had been utterly terrified. It felt like an ancient monster was about to eat her whole and spit out her bones. She'd never been so scared in her life! It took her a few minutes to calm her pounding heart. Once she was ready she looked at the small wolf once again and spoke, "There's someone else on this ship looking for Thomas. We happened to meet in Utstad. I don't know how she does it but she has a way to track him, magic I'm guessing. Since we're all looking for the same person we should bring her into the conversation. The more help we have the better."
Snowlily froze for a moment before letting out a long, fed up, sigh. What was it about her partner that attracted stalker women? Well, technically, the woman before her was actually stalking her but that wasn't the point. After pondering for a brief moment, Snowlily gave a nod of consent. Lexiana alone would be far from enough backup to rescue Thomas if he needed to be saved. If he didn't need to be saved then having a woman that could magically track him would make finding him much easier.
With Snowlily giving permission, Lexiana stood up and left the cabin for a few minutes. When she returned another woman was following behind her looking confused. Snowlily looked over the second woman and as she entered the room the scent of the woman reminded her of Thomas. Snowlily quickly sniffed the air to get more detail on the scent. As she did her tail started wagging happily. Selena's scent, though different, carried some of the same undertones as Thomas's. She didn't know what it was but there was a strong connection between this woman and Thomas. For some reason that made Snowlily instantly trust the woman and excited her.
Selena looked at the clearly excited Snowlily for a moment before turning to look at a clearly depressed Lexiana. Seeing Snowlily happily greet Selena, a stranger, had severely damaged Lexiana's self-esteem. A few awkward minutes passed before Lexiana pulled herself together and introduced the two strangers to each other, "Selena, this is Snowlily. She's Thomas's soul companion and is how I know what happened to him. Snowlily, this is Selena. She says she is a friend of Thomas and is looking for him."
Snowlily stood up and hopped off of the bed. She quickly made her way over to Selena and started sniffing her up close. She definitely noticed a scent similar to the one Thomas gave off. Though it was also different. There was definitely some sort of relationship between this woman and her partner. She didn't know what it was but she could tell it was a deep one. Snowlily wagged her tail happily and then barked. Lexiana translated with a depressed tone, "She's happy to meet you, Selena."
Selena looked down at the little wolf curiously before saying, "It's nice to meet you too, Snowlily."
Snowlily barked happily and wagged her tail in response. It seemed like the two of them would get along just fine. This, naturally, depressed Lexiana even more than the time she got turned down by her first crush. She shook her head and looked between her two companions, "Selena are you still tracking Thomas?"
Selena glanced at Lexiana before focusing on something else for a moment. Once she was done she reported her findings, "He's still on the move and heading in the same general direction as before. The distance hasn't really changed much."
"So he's not dead and was either captured or still on the ship after the pirates attacked it?"
Selena nodded to Lexiana's question. The tracking spell on the ring she gave Thomas only gave out general information on the distance and direction he was from her position. She didn't have time to commission a more complex ring from her father after Thomas had changed at the academy. Hiding his ability to wield Unholy magic had been a much bigger priority than being able to track him down, at the time. Now she was just grateful that he had to foresight to include the tracking enchantment at all.
The three got comfortable in the cabin and talked for a few more minutes to get a better understanding of the situation. As things stood there was very little they could do so the discussion was short. When it was over the two women left the Garou alone in the cabin. Lexiana had rented it just for her. Nothing changed or happened for quite some time as the ship traveled on the sea. It wasn't until weeks later that Thomas's location became fixed giving the three of them a location to find him at.
When the ship they were on finally docked they found themselves in the port city of Bostrand, Thomas's original destination. The three of them wasted no time in disembarking from the ship and heading to shore. According to Selena Thomas was still a fair distance away and to the south. Looking at a map she estimated he was somewhere near the countries southern peninsula. Though she couldn't give an exact location. With that being her best guess, they decided they should continue to sail in his direction. They could slowly refine his location by getting closer to him. With that being the case, Selena acted like the princess she was and tossed out a large sum of gold coins to purchase a small ship.
Throwing out a ton of gold made purchasing a ship rather easy. The problem came after that. Selena knew how to sail, it was one of the things her father had insisted she learn. No, the problem came when the discussion about food arrived. Obviously the little white Garou couldn't cook. She could barely see the top of the stove standing on her hind legs. When the two women realized that neither of them could cook, it became a problem. They debated on hiring someone to cook for them on the ship. Money wasn't an issue with everything Selena was carrying on her. The problem came down to trust. Selena and Lexiana were both beautiful women while Snowlily was an infinitely rare Garou. All three of them had the potential to be captured and sold.
The debate raged until it was decided that it was too risky to let someone else onto the ship. That left them with only a single option... travel rations. Selena purchased them in bulk and had them delivered to her newly purchased ship. The rations were dry bread-like things packed with nutrients. They tasted like compressed sawdust. They did, of course, buy fresh easily edible food such as fruits but they could only carry so much inside of their inventories. Selena could carry even less than Lexiana due to all the things she had crammed in there before leaving the capitol on her mission. With the little spare space they had, and three of them eating, they would be lucky if the food lasted a week and a half.
Once the ship was stocked with everything they would need for a journey lasting a couple of weeks, they set sail. Aside from the times that Lexiana would freak out about Snowlily's suspended animation when Thomas logged out, there were no real incidents they needed to deal with. It was literally smooth sailing.
As they grew closer to the destination that Selena's tracking spell was leading them too, Snowlily's connection to Thomas grew stronger. She could feel his desire to see her and his buried anger toward the pirates. It took everything she had not to leap off of the small ship and run directly to him. It became even harder to resist the urge as they grew closer to the island that they now knew Thomas was located on. Snowlily could feel the excitement of Thomas as they approached and could understand he planned to escape.
Naturally, she didn't know the full details of his escape plan, it was only a feeling she got through their bond. Once they were both stronger the bond would work in both directions. For now, it was limited by her form. Snowlily made her way to Lexiana and looked over at her. Lexiana was staring at a travel ration in her hand with a blank expression. Due to their own gluttony and inability to ration the fresh food properly, the three of them had eaten what could have been over a week's worth of food in just a handful of days. Since then they'd been surviving on the dry, hard, flavorless, and chalky rations. Contemplating eating another was seriously depressing Lexiana at the moment. At least it did until her stomach complained about being empty.
If Snowlily could have, she would have laughed at the defeated look on Lexiana's face as she bit into the ration with great reluctance. As Lexiana chewed on the unholy abomination in her mouth, she happened to look up and see the look of glee on Snowlily's face. She couldn't stop herself from retaliating, "Yeah, let's see if you're still smiling when you're hungry again!"
That quickly wiped the smirk off of Snowlily's face as she recalled the horror that was 'rations'. She never missed Thomas's mediocre cooking as much as she did at that moment. She quickly shook her head to dispell her thoughts on the terrible food before proceeding to communicate with Lexiana. When she was done, Lexiana nodded and went to find Selena. For her part, Selena was dealing with the food situation a little better. She'd been trained to deal with things like this during times of war and had to live off of rations for a month to get used to them. She tried not to linger on thoughts of her not-so-normal childhood as Lexiana and Snowlily came up to her at the helm.
"Snowlily believes that Thomas is preparing for his escape. It shouldn't be more than a few days. If we hold off until then we can launch a surprise attack and give him some aid in his escape.", Lexiana reported to Selena.
Selena nodded and looked down at Snowlily, "We're closing in on his location and should be there in the next day or two. We'll drop anchor near the shore and wait until you give the go-ahead before sailing to his location."
Snowlily gave a nod of confirmation and paid even closer attention to the connection between herself and Thomas. Just a couple of days later she felt herself suddenly growing stronger at an alarming rate. She could feel Thomas's determination to get stronger, find her, and escape the pirates. The time would be soon and she would be there with the other two women when he was ready.
Comments
Lorraine V
Loving snowlily!!
Deathburn
Thanks
