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“W-what was that! Someone’s definitely following us!” Her eyes frantically searched the darkness, trying to find the source of the sound.
Fauna giggled “It was just a branch that you stepped on, Kronii!”
“Oh, haha! Y-you’re right! Silly me…” Kronii replied, trying to play it cool. Showing Fauna what a massive scaredy cat she was wasn’t part of the plan when bringing her out here.
“Um Kronii? You’re kind of hurting my hand right now.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” She quickly loosened her grip on Fauna’s hand “I didn’t even notice…”
Fauna could feel blood rush back into her hand, as well as the cold perspiration coming from Kronii’s hand.
“She really is a scaredy cat isn’t she?” she thought to herself.
The pair continued their way down the forest path, the last rays of the sun now long gone. Only the moon and their phone flashlights lit the way. Though it felt like they weren’t getting any closer to their campsite, Kronii insisted that there was no way someone like her could get lost so easily.
With their destination still nowhere in sight, Fauna finally decided to ask what had been on her mind since the two of them went off on their own.
“Say Kronii, what was it that you wanted to show me out here? If I know what I’m supposed to be looking for, maybe we can still visit it before we get back to camp.”
Kronii tensed up and slowed down her pace.
“Oh- oh yeah! The thing I wanted to show you, right… it was just… a tree that I thought looked like you is all! It wasn’t even that funny to be honest, we don’t need to look for it after all!”
Fauna blinked, confused by the cagey response.
“Come to think of it, she has been acting kind of weird today, even before she started getting scared of the dark” she thought to herself. “Could the reason she brought me out here alone be…” Then it dawned on her, and a smile spread over her face “So that’s what you were trying to do, huh Kronii?”
She took a step to the side so that she was brushing up against Kronii.
“Hmmm, reeaally? You took me out here all alone just to show me a tree?” she teased.
“What? O-of course, why else would I have taken you out here!”
“All alone out here with you, with no one around to see…” Fauna clasped her hands together “Goodness, just what did you plan on doing to me, Miss Kronii!”
Kronii waved her hands wildly at Fauna “I’m telling, I wasn’t going to do anything bad to you! I just wanted to, you know-”
crack
Both fell silent and stared at each other, the sudden noise snapping them back to reality. They turned towards the source of the sound. It was too dark to see anything, but they could hear the distant crunching of leaves getting closer and closer. Kronii instinctively put her arm out to cover Fauna.
“Hello?” Kronii called out into the darkness, her voice trembling in fear. “Who-who's out there? What do you want from us?”
A figure appeared from behind a tree and moved straight towards them. She could tell that whatever it was, it wasn’t human. It had a tail, massive ears, and wore a smile of razor sharp teeth on its face. Eyes blazing like blue fire, it locked onto them and broke into a sprint.
“GAWK!” Kronii cried out in terror, throwing her arms around Fauna.
“Fauna, since we’re about to die, I just want to say that I…I…lo-”
The thing stepped into the moonlight to reveal it was none other than Chaos incarnate herself Bae, happy to have finally found her missing friends.
She beamed at them. “There you guys are! We’ve been looking all over for- oh. Oh my. …am I interrupting something?”
Kronii regained her senses and quickly pulled herself off Fauna “No, I was just… checking her horns to make sure her leaves aren’t falling off! Nope, looks like they’re all good, haha!”
She glanced awkwardly at Fauna, who had her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “Well, that’s good news. Thanks for the help, Dr. Kronii!”
“Yeah, no problem man…” she replied, feeling humiliated once again.
She turned back to Bae, whose expression was a mixture of confusion and discomfort.
Bae just stared at the pair for a moment, before turning to leave.
“...well then. I’m gonna head back to camp now, if you two wanna follow me...”
“Sounds good, we’ll be right behind you!” Kronii called back. She let out a defeated sigh before starting towards Bae “C’mon Fauna, let’s go.”
Fauna stepped out in front of Kronii before she could get any further.
“You know, there’s something I want to do for you too, Kronii” she said, gently taking hold of Kronii’s hands.
“You want to do something for me? What do you mean?”
Fauna just smiled “Could you lean down a little for me, please?”
She did as she was told, and Fauna rewarded her with a kiss.
Kronii’s sudden feeling of surprise gave way to bliss as she closed her eyes and pulled Fauna closer.
They stood there locked together, savoring the moment. Despite everything going wrong, she was still able to get closer to Fauna like she had wished. Her plan had worked after all. They finally pulled apart and stared into each other's eyes, feeling closer than ever before.
“I bet that was better than a boring old tree, huh?” Fauna giggled.
“Oh, actually, there was no tree… sorry I was lying” Kronii answered, still basking in the afterglow.
“What? No! Really?” Fauna gasped, putting on an exaggerated look of shock. “You had me fooled!”
They both shared a laugh before they could hear Bae hollering back at them.
“HEY! Stop standing around you two! You’re falling behind! I don’t wanna have to go running around looking for you again!”
“Coming!” Fauna called back cheerfully. “C’mon Kronii, let's get back to camp.”
She smiled mischievously at Kronii and lowered her voice “We can even share my tent tonight if you want to continue… sound good?”
Kronii felt her heart skip a beat as Fauna grabbed her by the hand and began leading her away.
She simply nodded and answered “...yeah, that sounds good to me.”