The group had resumed their journey in the direction of the castle, with Amber humming happily as she gleefully held onto Krystal’s shoulder, for the latter kept true to her word and was piggybacking the tomboy, though whether reluctantly or not, she couldn’t tell. Taeyeon and Tiffany walked side by side, close enough to the other so that their fingers brushed together occasionally. Taeyeon liked the little touches, although she felt a little awkward whenever it happened; she felt a little nervous around Tiffany now, though she couldn’t place a finger on why. However, Tiffany didn’t seem to mind it, for she smiled every time she felt the older girl’s soft fingertips graze against her own.

It was not actually a bad “mission”, in Taeyeon’s opinion. Sure, the King was a little bit of a child, and she and the Princess hadn’t exactly started off as the best of friends, but after they had gotten past that small bump, it was enjoyable, really. Taeyeon enjoyed the Princess’ company, now that she had come to think of it. And she was sure Amber liked being with Krystal too. Even the little fiasco with the bandits had been somewhat beneficial to them, for they had gained two more friends by the names of Yuri and Jessica. The scenery was second to none – the sky was a bright blue, without a hint of a cloud for as far as the eye could see; the sun beat warmly on their backs and a small breeze was served to keep them cool. The grass was as green as Taeyeon had ever seen it, and stretched out for miles ahead, acting as a carpet for their weary feet and the many trees, with big, thick trunks and mildly swaying branches, their leaves rustling lightly whenever the cool air blew past it.

And to complete Taeyeon’s own scenery, she had a beautiful, eye-smiling princess right next to her. Princess Tiffany always seemed happy about something and kept those perfect lips curved upwards. Her gait was nothing less than graceful, as expected of a Princess. She was taller than Taeyeon by a little bit, but the blonde supposed that she was still considered slightly short. Taeyeon finally realised that she had been staring blankly at the Princess for the last couple of minutes, looking like a fish out of water; Tiffany was so gorgeous that dropped open of its own accord whenever Taeyeon looked at her. She hurried to slap her chin up to close , unaware of the fact that Tiffany was suppressing giggles at her cute actions.

They finally stopped walking as they came to what seemed like a wide stream; it had to be at least five metres from side to side, not that Taeyeon’s guessing was anywhere near that accurate. She peered over the edge into the water to realise that it was actually quite deep, and to get across, one would need to swim. The water bubbled happily at them; it seemed to realise that it had hindered the progress of their mission as Amber was still incapacitated.

“Oh. I guess we’re stopping here,” Krystal stated.

“Eh? Why?” Amber asked her.

“Because your is still numb, maybe? Do you wanna try swimming? I can just throw you in-“

“Oh, no thank you! Besides, I like being carried by you,” Amber snickered. It was true though – Krystal was very… soft.

Without a second thought, Krystal loosened her grip on the tomboy’s thighs and felt a vindictive surge of pleasure rush through her as she heard the unmistakeable thud of Amber hitting the ground heavily.

“Argh, that hurts like a… I can’t even find words to describe the pain,” Amber groaned as she reached a hand around to massage her sore buttcheeks.

“Serves you right, stupid,” Krystal smirked. “And stop being such a drama queen.”

Unbeknownst to the others, Tiffany was smiling uncontrollably as she had just realised that this was actually the first time she had seen Krystal so… active. And happy. She knew that even if the youngest girl wouldn’t admit it, Krystal was somewhat attracted to that tomboy.

“So with Amber out of commission, we can’t cross this water?” Taeyeon asked, just to confirm their actions.

“Yes, unnie,” Krystal responded. “She can’t swim, I can’t swim while carrying her, and as much as I’d love to, I don’t think I’d be able to throw her over to the other side.”

Taeyeon couldn’t help but snort at the mere thought of a certain llama sailing through the air.

“I suppose we’ll have to wait it out until she gets better,” Taeyeon concluded.

“Couldn’t you just… freeze up the whole river?” Amber suggested.

“I could, but think of all the other people that might be using it right now, stupid,” Krystal sighed. “Wouldn’t it be awkward if you were… I don’t know, riding a boat down it and suddenly you got frozen in place?”

“Oh true that. Nice thinking, Krys.”

“Ugh, you llama.”

Before Krystal could further express her distaste for the llama’s terrible thinking skills, a loud, friendly shout was heard from… the middle of the river?

“Hey guys!”

They all looked up to see two women approaching them a small, wooden boat, with one of them waving enthusiastically. Taeyeon jogged up to them as they reached the riverbank.

“Hello!”

“Hey! What are you guys doing out here?” the one who was waving asked cheerily. Even while she was sitting down, Taeyeon could see that she was a very tall female; her long legs stretched out for miles in front of her.

“Well, actually, we need a way to get across the river because one of us can’t swim,” Taeyeon said.

“I can so swim! I just… can’t move right now,” Amber yelled.

“Yeah, she can’t swim,” Krystal said, rolling her eyes. Amber gave up with a defeated sigh.

“We can help!” the other person offered. She had short blonde hair, but Taeyeon could see that she was a girl because of her very feminine features, not to mention the extremely girly voice. “Just jump in, and we can get you over to the other side.”

“Are you sure? We don’t really want to be of any inconvenience,” Tiffany said, worried.

“Yes,” the tall girl smiled. “I just have to apologise because it might be a little… tight.”

“Oh that’s okay, as long as we can get over,” Taeyeon sighed in relief. She quickly clambered a little awkwardly into the boat because of the small space and found that there were only four seats. Feeling obliged to let the boat owners have their own seats, she motioned to Tiffany.

“Tiffany, come sit with me.”

Tiffany was a little surprised at the sudden invite, but realised the logical reasoning behind it and complied with the request. Taeyeon suddenly realised that there was no place for Tiffany to sit but on top of her, and blushing, she held out her arms for Tiffany. Tiffany’s eyes immediately turned into crescents at the sight of Taeyeon blushing so cutely and without further ado, she placed herself right onto Taeyeon’s lap. The blonde’s arms slowly encircled the Princess’ waist, trembling slightly as she felt the awesome softness that was Tiffany. To distract herself from Tiffany’s slender figure, she saw that Amber was sitting on Krystal’s legs; the tomboy seemed very blissful. Krystal, on the other hand, looked slightly uncomfortable. Taeyeon was sure it would have been the other way around if Amber’s legs were not numb.

“I’m Sunny,” the shortest girl suddenly introduced herself, “and this tall shikshin is Sooyoung. So where are you guys headed?”

“I’m Taeyeon,” Taeyeon replied; she tried to prevent her voice from shaking as she forced herself to answer Sunny’s question instead of focusing on the girl in her arms. “We were just on our way back to the kingdom.”

“Oh okay, that’s cool,” Sunny said girlishly. Taeyeon had to restrain herself from curling her fingers as that intensely feminine voice hit her ears again. “Do you live there?”

“Mm, no, but Amber does.”

“Do you guys live there?” Amber asked interestedly.

“Yes we do, actually,” Sooyoung munched. Taeyeon only barely stopped her eyes from bulging out as she saw the tall girl pull out a sandwich from nowhere… a massive sandwich, overflowing with lettuce, meat and tomatoes.

“Oh that’s weird, how come I’ve never seen you guys before?”

“Oh I don’t know, but if you see us again, come say hi, okay?” Sunny laughed as they finally hit the other side of the river. The four girls climbed out of the tiny boat unsteadily and all bowed in unison to the short and tall girl.

“Thank you so much for letting us ride in your boat!” Taeyeon said gratefully.

“No problem,” Sooyoung chewed. “Just remember to say hi if you see us, Amber-ssi.”

“Sure!” Amber grinned dorkily. “Bye!”

They continued their way up the grassy hill, with Krystal piggybacking Amber as requested.

“Man, how come so many hot chicks just pop up outta nowhere to start helping us?” Amber pondered thoughtfully. Krystal could not glare at the tomboy, who was on her back, and so she settled for glaring icily in front of her. The other three involuntarily shivered at the sudden drop in temperature; Tiffany unconsciously reached for the nearest source of warmth to her body and ended up clutching onto Taeyeon’s arm rather tightly. Taeyeon stiffened, but tried to act cool by taking the Princess’ hand into her own before turning her head to hide the small blush.

“Aw, aren’t they cute, Krys?” Amber breathed quietly. Krystal couldn’t contain her smile and merely replied to the tomboy with a small nod of agreement. All of a sudden, the temperature rose back up to the previous warm one.

“Can we hold hands like that?”

“No,” Krystal answered in a flat tone.

“I swear the weather is bipolar today,” Amber complained as she started to shiver again.

The front pair, Taeyeon and Tiffany, were both quiet as they walked together, hand-in-hand. Taeyeon didn’t know whether or not to let go of Tiffany’s hand and she didn’t want to either. She told herself that Tiffany wasn’t letting go and so it was okay to keep holding onto that warm bit of softness. She glanced over at Tiffany to see the latter smiling ahead at the scenery and wondered if she should make conversation; she then racked her brain for an intelligent question. However, all thoughts of intelligent sounding questions flew out of her head as Tiffany suddenly intertwined their fingers together.

“So um, Fany-ah, wh-what’s your favourite colour?” Taeyeon suddenly blurted.

“Hm? What’s with the sudden question?” Tiffany giggled.

“Well… I, um… I just wanted to get to know you better…” Taeyeon mumbled shyly.

Tiffany laughed happily, “Pink. Pink is my favourite colour.”

“Oh I should’ve known,” Taeyeon muttered as she looked towards Tiffany’s vibrant pink dress. It was seriously the pinkest thing she had ever seen.

“So what’s yours?”

“I like… blue and purple. They’re both nice colours,” Taeyeon answered after a moment of deliberation.

“I guess I can agree with that,” Tiffany said. “But pink will always be the most beautiful colour.”

Yeah, on you, Taeyeon smiled to herself as she let her gaze slide over the taller girl’s silky dress again.

Tiffany started humming a low tune which prompted Taeyeon to ask, “Do you sing?”

“Oh um… yes I do, actually. Krystal’s told me that I have a beautiful voice, but I’m sure she’s just being nice,” Tiffany said.

“Sing a song for me, Fany-ah,” Taeyeon pleaded.

Tiffany caught sight of the begging Taeyeon and couldn’t resist bursting out in an adorable bout of giggling, “Okay, but only because you’re cute, TaeTae.”

“Wha…” Taeyeon looked away, unable to contain the grin that was threatening to split her face in half. “I think you’re cute too, Fany-ah.”

They both looked at each other and smiled, though Taeyeon would have had to say that Tiffany’s smile overpowered her own. The way those eyes curved upwards to form half-moons was so mesmerising to Taeyeon, not to mention the perfect, pearly whites the Princess displayed unashamedly.

“Ahem.”

They both broke away from the stare hurriedly and continued walking when Amber cleared ; however, their hands remained together. Krystal shook her head, annoyed at the tomboy.

“What? My throat was itchy!”

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A/N: I don't think that was a good chapter and it felt a little awkward to cut it off there, but I'm trying to keep it at around 2k words per chapter. Don't wanna bore you guys too much. I'm very thankful that you even take the time to read it :')

THANK YOU LOL.