The newlywed pair of homeless women started on the road heading away from town with fingers interlocked. Aoi noticed this and asked, "Hey honey. If you were needing to sell things shouldn't we go into that town?"
"Oh, well, because orphans can't enter that town. Those big ships are used to transport across the safe passage of the sea here and it's easier for people to stowaway onto the ships, so the nobles just banned all orphans from even entering the town itself."
"Haah- Why doesn't that surprise me in the least? Then how are you going to vend your goods? Is there another trading hub close by to here?"
"Yeah! There's a small trading village about a league or two from here. We should be there in about an hour or two."
Aoi nodded in understanding. As they walked, they conversed about the lives they grew up with, basic interests or favorite foods and the like. When they passed or were passed by other travelers, Aoi kept getting stared at like she was an oddity. Aoi, who was getting disconcerted by the uncomfortable gazes asked Arunika in a whisper, "Hey. Why do they keep staring at me?"
"Well, for one, your clothes." Aoi looked down and noticed the difference now. She was wearing the sweatpants and hoodie she had on when she fell into the river. "Two, you look slightly different compared to our native people. You have fair skin, black hair, and downward slanting eyes, which isn't rare here, but isn't common either. And three-"
Arunika held up the hand she was holding and looked at Aoi with a big goofy grin and continued, "your holding hands with a well-known orphan."
Aoi looked at Arunika with a charming smile and proceeded to kiss the back of her wife's hand and said, "Well... why wouldn't I hold my cute little wife's hand?"
Arunika blushed hard at that and that one action caused everyone looking in their direction to gasp and lower their heads and whisper urgently among themselves.
"You hear that? The orphan got married? When?"
"Maybe we heard wrong?"
"Who would be willing to marry an orphan?"
Aoi just ignored it and didn't let it bother her. "By the way... They don't mind same-sex marriage?"
"Hrm? No, why?"
"Just wondering... where I'm from only certain countries have legalized it. My home country was especially hard against it, not law-wise mind you. My parent's especially."
"Nothing wrong with it. We can freely love who we want as long as it's in our own social class."
Aoi perked up and smiled at that thanking God that she could be considered homeless so she could be with Arunika. After walking for about thirty minutes they stopped off at the side of the road to eat some hard tack and drink some water Arunika pulled out of the knapsack.
She asked to explain how magic worked and if she could use it now, because honestly, she couldn't wait to try it out. Arunika told her that first Aoi needed to have her magic activated, which made her depressed then she told her that she would do it at night when they were retiring for the night as it could take a couple of hours to finish.
She then explained that to use magic you would need to imagine it happening and activate the cause and effect something would need to activate said action. Like with how Arunika imagines the plant growing from her seed to grow her cottage from the seed. Aoi started thinking, 'If I wanted to use gravity magic, from this explanation maybe it isn't from imagining it becoming heavier, but increasing or decreasing in mass? If I created enough mass on an object, maybe it could even create a black hole? I'll have to toy around with it. Maybe I can even use gravity magic to fly! It'd probably closer to falling with style though.'
Arunika stood up and dusted herself off after they finished their break and reach out and said, "Let's go wifey, hehehe, " while smiling and giggling. Aoi reached out and grabbed her hand to be pulled up and laughed with her, "Fufufu, en, let's go honey."
As they continued on the walk, Arunika continued explaining about the types of magic. Single element magic was the most common, but there were cases of compound magic types like with Arunika's nature aptitude and Aoi's space aptitude that could use more than one element. Single elements were mostly composed around things like fire, plants, earth, shadow, light, water, etcetera. Compound types always had at least two that could be controlled and the more elements that could be controlled had an increase in rarity for said aptitude.
Like with Aoi's aptitude that was believed to control at least four elements, but could actually control five. That's why it was so much rarer despite it being a four element aptitude compared to the rest. An example of a two element aptitude was the ice aptitude which could control the wind and water elements and an example of a three element one would be the metallurgy or simply the forging aptitude. It could control earth, fire, and metal.
As Arunika was finishing the explanation of different aptitudes, they finally spotted buildings popping up on the horizon. "Oh! Aoi-chan! There's the village!" She said while pointing at the village coming into view. Arunika was obviously up in spirits and started picking up the pace towards the direction of the village, half-dragging Aoi behind her.
"OI! Aru-chan! Don't just drag me behind you like this! I don't have your kind of stamina. I may still be young, but I'm not in shape like you!"
Arunika stopped and turned around to face her and laughed apologetically. "Hehe, sorry, I kinda got excited. I wanted to show you a ton of stuff as soon as possible."
The whole time they were walking, they never let go of eachother's hands. Aoi walked up and patted her head and kissed her forehead. "En, I understand you're excited to show me around, but understand we still have plenty of time. It's only a little past midday. Let's take our time and enjoy ourselves more, ne? Besides, I'll work on my stamina and lose weight so I can keep up with you in the future. I've been living a mostly sedentary lifestyle for the past few years anyway.
Plus..." Aoi got closer to whisper in Arunika's ear. "If I increase my stamina, we'll be able to spend more time on activities at night." She then proceeded to lightly lick her earlobe, which caused Arunika to moan involuntarily. Arunika blushed at that and covered her mouth with her eyes staring unblinkingly at Aoi.
Aoi giggled and said while looking up and down at her wife, "If that was enough to get you to moan, I wonder what licking other parts of your body can produce." She then proceeded to continue to walk towards the village pulling Arunika with her.
"*gasp* YOU WERE TEASING ME! You bully!"
"Fufu, I was. What's the point of having a cute wife and not teasing her when the chance presents itself? Oh, by the way, let's buy me some new clothes if we have the chance. I don't like these people staring at me all the time."
Arunika caught up to Aoi and smiled. "Sure! Let's do that! And you don't need to lose weight by the way. You were very light when I carried you to my cottage when I found you."
*Haah~ Yeah... I do. You'd understand if you saw me naked, and I'll lose weight naturally when I build up my stamina so you don't need to worry. I won't starve myself or anything like that. If anything, I'll need to eat more because of the extra energy I'd be using up. Hrm? What's up? Why'd you stop walking?"
Aoi turned around and saw Arunika looking down and blushing from ear to ear. 'Why's she blushing now?'
"Um... I just... I-I'll get to see you... naked?"
"Of course. We're married aren't we?" Aoi used her free hand to pulled her wife's face up to look her in the eyes and said with a tone like she's been aggrieved, "Unless... you don't want to?"
"OF COURSE I WANT TO SEE YOU NAKED!" Arunika realized she just said that out loud and noticed all the travelers nearby were now staring at them more intensely. She blushed to an even darker shade of red and looked down again averting her gaze from the passersby.
Aoi just started laughing and pulled Arunika back along towards the village. "Come on, let's go!"
"You bully!" But this time, aside from her blushing ears, she also had a small smile on her face.