Chapter 223 – Chloe’s companion

Teanam

Fen and Aura were still in the former elven village inhabited by a group of the fox beastfolk, and the two were currently having some drinks in a bar there. A pink-haired and incredibly fluffy-looking fox-girl called Chloe had joined them at some point. Afterward, the three had a very lively chat where Fen had admitted that the wolves had started dating a little while ago. The two girls enjoyed seeing him being bashful about this situation and Chloe had a great time listening to their story.

“C-Can we stop with the topic already…” While Aura and Chloe were having a lively chat about the relationship of the wolves, Fen tried his best to get as drunk as possible to live through it. He didn’t get nearly as drunk as he wanted to, though.

“Aww…” The girls weren’t a fan of the idea.

“Please…” He got desperate. “I already know that Maya and even more so Sophia won’t ever let go of the topic until they’re satisfied, so please spare me here, at least…”

“Ahh…” Aura paused for a moment. “Sophia’s going to be a lot of fun~.”

“It won’t be!”

“Maya? Sophia?” The fox-girl tilted her head.

“Companions of us.” The female wolf answered her. “The two are in the capital right now.”

“Oh! Are they wolves, too?”

“Nope, cats. Hybrids like you, to be more exact. They’re the same age as you, too.”

“Really?” Chloe sounded interested.

“Well, one of them, Sophia, actually is a tiger, but I don’t really get the difference yet. Well, she has stripes, and her tail’s a bit thicker but other than that… Cats be cats, I guess?”

“Maya’s the bigger everyday predator between them, too.” Fen also had to add his own assessment.

“The two of you know a tiger?!” The fox raised her voice a little. “As in the royal tigers that rule the beastfolk from the capital?”

“Kinda.” Aura wasn’t sure what to say.

“Our Sophia’s a bit complicated in that regard.” As he wasn’t the main topic anymore, Fen was getting chatty again. “She didn’t grow up in the capital with her fellow tigers. Stuff happened, and she was traveling the world with me for a while until we arrived here.”

“Is that so…?” Chloe wasn’t sure how to interpret this story. “Wait… Does that mean your Sophia is the mysterious blonde tiger that showed up in the capital a while ago? Everyone’s talking about that.”

“That’s our Sophia. The rumors of her are even a topic here?”

“No, but I visit the capital a lot, and you can’t not hear about her there lately.”

“Yeah, our idiot always gathers a lot of attention.” Fen let out a small sigh.

“Hmm…” She tilted her head again. “Still, she traveled with you, Fenfen?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “We’ve been together for quite a while and traveled a ton. I showed her around and taught her a lot, including how to use magic.”

“And that turned out very well…” Aura had to take a jab here. “My dear disaster duo.”

“S-Shut up…”

“How curious.” Chloe’s reaction was a little different from expected.

“What is?” The wolves faced her.

“I’m not as fancy as a tiger, but that story sounds a little similar to mine.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I also travel with someone who’s teaching me the ropes of magic, common sense, showed me around on this continent, and all that. I grew up with her and owe her a lot. Everything, actually.”

“Ahh, the situation isn’t similar at all, then.” Aura shook her head while looking at the fox. “If anything, Fen’s the main cause that our tiger has no common sense left.”

“Hey!” He got loud. “Don’t blame me for Sophia’s lack of common sense! I admit that I didn’t help to have her build one, but she went way above what could possibly be in the range of my responsibility!”

“Okay, fair enough.” She knew that the blonde was even more unhinged than her wolf, after all.

“I don’t know if it’s true, but I think Feyfey taught me decent common sense… Whether I liked it or not…” She mumbled those words mostly to herself. “It was important to her for me to have a somewhat normal life.”

“Yeah, normal is not a word you can describe Sophia with… Wait, Feyfey…?” Aura looked at the male wolf while repeating the name.

“Ah, no, the name’s just close.” Chloe understood her confusion. “That’s why I unconsciously started using Fenfen in the first place. My companion’s called Feyanis, and because I had trouble pronouncing her name when I was little, I started calling her Feyfey, and that stuck.”

“Ohhh… Wait, Feyanis?!” Aura reacted with a nod before freezing up.

“Seriously?!” So did Fen. “Like you, a fox? Just a, uhh… full one? Snow white with a splash of red? Maybe comes in… various sizes?”

“Eh? You know Feyfey?” The fox-girl hadn’t expected that.

“Wow, I haven’t heard that name in ages…”

“Yeah…” The wolves weren’t sure what to say.

“Well, she’s been with me ever since I was born 19 years ago, so…”

“Ah, uh, yes… That makes sense…” Fen very obviously meant a different number when he said the word ages.

“Is she doing well?” Aura continued. “Alex mentioned that your companion’s currently on a mission… He was talking about her, right?”

“Alex…” Chloe let out a sigh. “I told you to keep that a secret…”

“Ahaha… Alex doesn’t strike me as someone who’s able to do that.”

“That is true… Something happened a little while ago that made Feyfey angry and…”

“An angry Feyanis?!”

“Oh no…” The wolves had a strong reaction to this revelation.

“Yes… Feyfey’s scary when she gets angry…” Chloe actually shuddered when she said so.

“Yes.” The two nodded in agreement.

“What happened?” Aura got curious.

“Err…” Chloe thought about it for a while. “Well, I can’t see why it’s a bad idea to tell… Feyfey and I went to, err… Tamaro a little while ago because they have this food called pizza there. We tried that quite a while ago and decided that we have to eat that together every now and then because it’s so delicious.”

“Tamaro?” The female wolf looked at Fen.

“Never heard of it, either.”

“Ahh…” The fox-girl scratched her cheek. “I’m terrible with names… It probably has a different name if you don’t know it…”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?”

“Talaga! It’s called Talaga!” She raised her voice. “That would’ve bothered me all week if I couldn’t have remembered it…”

“Talaga…?” Fen paused for a moment. “Wasn’t that the place the humans tried to attack the other day?” He looked at Aura while saying so.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “What happened.”

“We ran into a small group of humans that were scouting ahead of their army, and…”

“And?”

“They, uhh… approached me, said some mean stuff and… tried some other things…”

“Err…” The male wolf couldn’t believe it. “I don’t know Feyanis preferences in that regard, but are you her daughter? While the colors are different and you're obviously a hybrid, you do look alike in one way or another.”

“I don’t know…” Chloe hung her head. “I asked her a couple of times about my parents, but she always gets evasive when the topic comes up. At the same time, she’s been with me since the very start, though. I don’t call her mom or anything like that, but she feels like that to me, yes.”

“Oh no…” Aura had a similar expression as Fen. “If Feyfey really is your mother and feels the same, yes? She raised you, after all. She loves and cares for you like a daughter, right?”

“Yes!” The fox-girl showed them a bright smile.

“And the humans tried to do something to that daughter of Feyanis…” Fen had a complicated expression. “What did she do afterward?”

“I’m not exactly sure…” Chloe scratched her cheek again. “Those humans kind of… vanished afterward… I have no idea what happened…”

“Where is she now, then?”

“We came back here, and she then told me that she’s going to visit the human capital… She didn’t let me come with her because, according to Feyfey, she didn’t want me to see her really angry.”

“Wow…”

“Sophia’s going to love this.” Fen had a different reaction. “A seriously angry Feyanis in the human capital? Yep, Sophia’s problem with the humans is dealt with. Even if there are some of them, no human won’t ever approach the beastfolk again.”

“Yep.” Aura nodded a couple of times. “Pretty anticlimactic end to that.”

“I prefer it that way, though. I don’t like how Sophia gets when humans are involved…”

“Sophia… the tiger-girl? She isn’t good with humans?” Chloe naturally was missing a lot of context and got confused over their conversation.

“They have a bit of a history. Sophia really isn’t a fan of them. She also tends to get angry when they’re involved. She tried to like the humans when they first met, but that reeaaallly didn’t work out.”

“Is that so?” The fox-girl seemed interested in that. “I also tried to be friendly when I saw them for the first time… I decided not to go near them after that anymore…”

“Understandable. Sophia almost destroyed a city of theirs, though.”

“W-Wow…” She hadn’t expected that.

“The war around Talaga, Sophia’s also the one who ended it. She got a bit angry and defeated their army all on her own.”

“S-Seriously?!” Chloe was shocked.

“Don’t get me wrong, though… Sophia’s usually incredibly sweet, caring, and friendly. It’s just that when she gets angry, she gets angry.” Fen didn’t want her to be intimidated by the tiger.

“Oh, just like Feyfey! I can deal with that. Sophia seems interesting!”

“She sure is.” Both wolves answered her at the same time.

“Still human or not, it was still a whole army, right? Is that girl really so strong?”

“You can feel how strong Fenfen and I are, right?”

“Yes…” She nodded. “Fenfen alone already feels a little stronger than Feyfey, but you are… I thought something was wrong with my sense of power…”

“Nope, he has no chance against me~.” Aura looked at her fellow wolf with a smug expression. “Even so, both of us together probably wouldn’t be able to defeat Sophia.”

“That can’t be. No one should be able to have this much… power…”

“Sophia’s selling point is her abnormal regeneration. She recovers faster than she can reasonably spend her magic.”

“That’s quite something…” Chloe was impressed by the tiger. “She really seems interesting. I'm also quite proud of my regeneration, but now how I wonder how fast she resets.”

“Want to meet her?” Aura looked at her. “Sophia’s been wanting to visit this elven village ever since we told her about it. I bet she would be happy to meet a girl her age on top of that.”

“Great!” She seemed to like the idea.

“Not sure how Maya feels about her meeting a beautiful fox-girl with a tail fluffier than everything I’ve ever seen before on a hybrid…”

“Hmm…?” Chloe tilted her head while she was looking at Aura as she hadn’t quite understood her mumbling.

“It’s not important. Forget it.”

“Okay?”

“Anyway, let’s drink some more!” Fen finally had enough of all the chatting and wanted to concentrate on the more important things.

“Sure~.” Aura had nothing against it.

“Ehh, okay, why not?” Chloe shrugged her shoulders, and the trio ordered a couple of more drinks while enjoying the evening together.

Teanam

A big thank you to

- Weebhunter452 -

for supporting the story on Patreon to make more art for the story possible. Have fun with the extra illustration of Sophia I just posted (not too much, though~).