Kelsey
My stress did not shrink once we were on the other side. We were in a small room, nothing was in it except for us, but it looked medieval-like. Drake looked over at me to see my reaction to going through a portal for the first time and his eyes widened in shock. I felt extremely uncomfortable. Having my natural hair again felt wrong and having people see it makes it worse.
"What..?" I asked, shifting my gaze around.
"Your hair looks so cool, it's like copper brown that almost glows red. I've never seen that kind of hair before. And it's so curly, since when did you have curly hair?" My cheeks grew red in embarrassment.
"It's not that cool.. Got more friends with colored, straightened hair." I said, still avoiding eye contact.
"That's crazy Kelsey. I mean I love you with that purple hair but you're so beautiful with your natural color." My mate replied, brushing my hair behind my ear and petting my face (I know its called caressing of the cheek but it's still technically petting of the face so shush). I side glanced at him to see him smiling warmly at me.
I sighed after a bit of awkward silence and said, "Fiiiinneee... I'll temporarily believe you. Anyways lets go get changed." Drake shook his head at me but lead the way to where we'd get a change of clothes, which was down a fair amount of hallways. 'Fuck.. this place is bigger than my fuckin house..' I mentally said to myself, hearing my mate laugh in response. Finally we reached a room after walking for what felt like twenty minutes. Drake opened the door and held it open for me and waited for me to walk in. It looked like a bedroom, with the big fancy wood bed that has detailed carvings in the posts that hold the big thing of fabric above the bed up. There were also matching wooden nightstands with carvings in them as well and a giant—and I mean GIANT—wooden wardrobe standing opposite of the bed.
"Holy shit! How big a tree died so that could somehow be made and magically brought up here? Jesus.." I exclaimed, staring at the wardrobe as Drake walked in after me, laughing at my comment.
"I'll save you the long story of how it came to be. Now lets get some clothes to fit in." Drake told me, walking over to the huge chunk of wood. He opened the big doors and pulled out an outfit for himself then took out a fancy, I guess royal person, dress which made me a little confused. I narrowed my eyes at my mate till he grew confused and asked, "What?"
"You mean to tell me that you keep dresses in what I'm assuming is your room?" I stated, crossing my arms.
Drake chuckled at me and answered, "Now I do, yes."
"wha—... Fuckin how????? You haven't been here since meeting me so how the fuck did you START keeping dresses in here?"
He laughed at my confusion and explained, "I had asked my dad and Kat to start putting clothes for you in here for when you eventually came here. Why do you think Kat randomly asked to measure you those weeks ago?"
"Pf I don't fuckin know, for like sewing class or something." I retorted, not actually mad or anything.
He laughed really loud and between laughs asked, "You— *laugh* You think *Laughs* Kat would be *laughs more* In a sewing class!?! *laughs harder*"
I fake frowned at my mate and answered, "I don't know! She could have a secret passion for it or something." But after thinking about it longer I realized how weird and funny it would be, so I started laughing along with Drake until it got to be too much. We wiped imaginary tears from our eyes and got changed into the castle clothes. Good thing this gown is cute, otherwise I'd be quite mad about wearing a dress. Drake made some teasing sexual comments about changing in front of each other, just to be annoying, but I knew he was actually just kidding and wasn't serious about it. We made our way downstairs somewhere to do I have no idea what, there was a lot of stairs. Made me think of Kung Fu Panda 2 when Po is like "Ah... My old enemy............. Stairs....O_o.." fucking. Hilarious. Anyhow we reached a room with some maps in it, geez they got a room for literally everything don't they?
"Lucky for us.. Trealle should beeee... About an hour walk away from here. How convenient that the place we're looking for is right next door." Drake said as he observed a map on a table.
"Cool. Too bad I don't wanna walk that long. Think my legs would snap off before finishing that kind of journey..." I replied.
My mate chuckled and responded, "Well good thing we aren't walking."
I furrowed my brows in confusion, "How—"
"We can still shift you know, just can't be seen cause sometimes this place screws with that kind of thing and to other people you might just look like a girl acting like a dog or something weird like that." Drake interrupted my started question.
"Okay then... That sounds weird." I commented, frowning at the floor.
I heard him chuckle then he said, "Come on, lets go see if my dad is here yet. He'll be happy to see you here." We walked around more of the castle, me not knowing where in the heck we were going. After wandering for awhile we came to—what I'd guess as—the throne room. Drake's father sitting on the biggest throne, flipping through some papers.
"Hey dad." Drake greeted, making his dad look up from the paper he was intensely observing.
"Hello son. Kelsey, glad to see you have finally come to our kingdom. What do you think so far? Pretty nice huh?"
I chuckled and answered, "Yes, it's really nice here. I love it already."
The king smiled proudly then asked, "So son, giving the grand tour or are you guys going off somewhere?"
"We're going to go to Trealle." Drake answered.
His father frowned slightly as he questioned, "Why in god's name would you want to visit those heinous people? You know they banned us from any balls they hold over there?"
I tried so hard to stifle my laugh, I really did, but it slipped out along with my immature comment, "Isn't it a good thing to not go to ball holding? Sounds pretty gross to hold balls." I saw the amusement in my mates eyes and heard him laugh in mind link with me, but the king looked seriously displeased and flat out unimpressed.
"Balls as in big, fancy dances young girl. You might find it wise to not crack those kinds of jokes in this realm, most, if not all, will find it extremely offensive. Either that or they won't understand and hate you for making them so confused because of sounding too weird for their liking."
My laughs turned to a serious expression as I listened then murmured, "Yes sir... Sorry..." With that awkwardness set in we turned and left the castle, heading for Trealle. Once outside we had started on the path going towards my apparent kingdom, but soon veered off into the forest so we could shift and run there instead of walk for a fricken hour. I decided to shift into a snow leopard this time instead of being a wolf, despite how cool my wolf is. About half way there we heard people talking from in front of us, so we slowed down and shifted back, then for some reason climbed a tree. We went fairly high up the tree, don't ask how I even got the slightest bit up here in a royal gown cause I haven't a single clue. We peered down watching and waiting for the people to pass by, I opened my mouth to ask something but Drake silently shushed me. The people finally passed, not knowing we were up here. Drake waited a minute before gesturing that I could talk now.
"Why did we hide from them in a tree?" I quietly asked just in case.
My mate sighed and answered, "Because we're in royal apparel. You never know what people are going to be nice about it or be complete idiotic dumbasses and try to either kidnap you or kill you. So it's better safe than sorry to just hide when you don't have any royal guards by your side."
"OOOoooooohh, okay." I responded. We climbed back down and continued on our way to Trealle, Drake somehow not losing what direction it's in. We had also shifted once more to continue running, without other people crossing our path.