An expansive forest surrounded the Order's fortress. Dirt paths sprawled all over the trees, connecting the disparate towns of the hilly region. Touly and Min were walking one such road. The forest was thankfully a bit warmer than the castle, as the foliage and canopy spared the naked two girls from the most chilling gusts.
"Come on. We are going to be traveling together! Just a bit of info. What's your favorite food? Do you have a crush on a fellow knight? Would you rather fight a thousand rat-sized elephants or one elephant-sized rat?"
"…"
"Can you at least tell me your name?"
"No."
"What If I told you about me?"
"No."
"Well, for starters, my name is Min and I'm a soon-to-be-famous adventurer! I come from-Ack! Why did we stop?"
"I said, I'm not interested! And stop clinging to me!" Min was hanging from Touly's back like a cape. Her arms were wrapped around the knight's toned stomach, her chest pressed into her back. Having another naked woman rubbing against her made the walk all the more awkward for Touly. Not to mention that she kept kicking her shins!
"But what if we come across some peasants or something? I don't want them to stare at my tits!"
"But you are fine with them staring at mine?"
"…W-well, it is your pilgrimage after all."
Touly turned around and grabbed Min's shoulders with an iron grip.
"H-hey, what are you doing?!"
"Your turn to go ahead." Touly wrestled with Min to put her in front, holding her hands behind her back. Min stared down at her nipples straightening in the cold and couldn't suppress a whimper.
"W-w-wait! No, I'm sorry! I won't hug you anymore. Let me go!" Min struggled, trying to break free of the knight's grasp. Touly retaliated by dragging her closer, her grip tightening. She leaned her face towards Min's ear.
"You will-"
"Wow, talk about kinky. In in the middle of the road?"
"Huh?"
"Eh?!"
A young sheep shepherd was staring at the two naked women sharing an intimate embrace. He leaned on his cane and smirked, the rest of his fluffy flock surrounding him.
Realizing what her little tussle looked like, Touly kicked Min away into the dirt. Her cheeks began glowing like the sun. It ill befitted a holy knight to engage in such behavior in the middle of the road.
"W-we weren't doing anything lewd! I was, I mean, I am on a pilgrimage, see?" Touly pulled up the necklace and waved it in front of the shepherd´s face. "SEE?"
"Y-yeah that's right!"Min replied from the ground. "This woman is not my lover, I think she hates me!"
The shepherd took a step back. Touly was practically shoving herself onto him to impress her necklace into his eyeballs. "S-sure, I believe you," he said with a wink. "Have fun girls!"
The man sidestepped Touly and, with a whistle, ordered his flock to follow along the dirt path.
Alone with Touly again, Min got the energy to stand back up. "W-well, that was embarrassing. Let's keep going before more people come down the road…"
Min tried to resume the march, but Touly's bare feet remained glued to the sandy path. Her eyes fixed on the horizon, staring at a small collection of wooden huts in the distance.
"Oh. A town… Oooooh right. " Min looked down at her still pointy nipples, then at the toned abs of her companion. "I guess we should try to find a way around that village, huh? Don't want to flash even more people."
"What do you mean, criminal? I have done nothing to be ashamed of, unlike you. Are you too embarrassed to walk by the villagers?" Touly challenged her companion with fake bravado.
"Errrr, no. I-I was, hmm, merely concerned about protecting your honor, Lady Naked Knight."
"N-nothing dishonorable about a holy pilgrimage. But you, heathen, might not see it that way. Better to circle the town to spare you the indignity."
The two naked women stared at each other in silence, letting their façade slip a bit. "…yeah, ok."
Min and Touly promptly abandoned the road in favor of going further into the woods to try and avoid people as much as possible. They would probably have to venture into a town eventually, but in the meantime, neither girl was keen to let the whole countryside ogle as the shepherd did.
Their march slowed to a crawl. Without the path, the terrain got more treacherous. The duo jumped and sidestepped around roots coiling on the ground. Each step was deliberate to avoid the muddy ground and deceptively camouflaged puddles of water hidden underneath fallen leaves.
"Ah! Cold!" Min yelled as she jumped away from one such puddle. Touly scoffed, hearing her companion squeal for what felt like the tenth time. Was that girl really an adventurer? She wasn't being much help. It was more like Touly was babysitting her. Maybe it was part of her punishment?
"W-wait up! Are you sure this is the right way? I think we are getting lost." Min yelled, struggling to catch up with the knight.
Touly rolled her eyes. "Yes, this is the right way. I never get lost."
"Didn't you get in this whole mess in the first place because you got lost on the way to a battle?"
"…"
"H-hey, no need to glare! I was just repeating what I heard."
"Fine, let's stop and take our bearings," The knight jumped into an oversized root to look at her surroundings. She leaned her back against the tree, not noticing the prickly bramble wrapped around the trunk until her firm behind made contact with it.
"Ack!"
The sharp sting was enough to make Touly leap away from the tree. Unfortunately, she was now on a collision course with another spiky bush. Like a bodyguard protecting her ward, Min tackled Touly to stop her from getting a face full of thorns.
The two women fell into a cold, muddy puddle instead.
"Eck! Not again!" Min yelled, half her body coming into contact with the frigid water. Strands of her wet hair clung to her face, mud enveloping her torso and somewhat hiding her pale nipples.
"You stupid criminal!" Touly cursed Min as she tried to stand up, her athletic physique half covered in dirt. "What were you thinking?! This isn't the time for your stupid hugs."
"Hug? I saved you from falling into bramble! How about you say thanks for once?"
"Bramble?" Touly looked back at the thorny bush next to her. It seemed like Min was telling the truth. Maybe she wasn't so useless after all. "Huh… you are right, criminal."
"I think you meant to say: I'm sorry for doubting you, Min. I have a name, you know? It's- crap!"
Min stopped talking, her eyes opened wide. She grabbed Touly and dragged her down into the puddle once more.
"What in the Goddess' name do you think-"
"Shush, stop! There is a dangerous animal over there."
Realizing the danger, Touly went quiet. The chilling water half-submerged her body and gave her goosebumps, but it was good enough camouflage to avoid whatever danger lurked near. The sticky mud kept clinging to her skin and darkening her honey hair.
"Damnit, these woods were supposed to be safe. What is it? A bear? A lion?"
Min shook her head ever so slightly. "No. There's a gaggle of menacing-looking turkeys gracing over there. But how? Isn't this world based on medieval Europe? They should be in the Americas."
"Are you kidding me?" Touly sat up. There was indeed a flock of birds gaggling and pecking around the forest floor. "You call that dangerous?!"
"Shush, get down!" Min pleaded with the knight, her voice quivering.
"Why are you so scared of them?"
"Turkeys and I have a bit of bad blood. They don't like me! Trust me, it's better if-Hey what are you doing?!" Touly grabbed Min's arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Enough with this nonsense. Look, our dinner has graciously presented itself, we can't waste this opportunity." Touly reached a nearby tree and pulled down a branch. She swung it to make sure it was sturdy enough.
"W-wait, you want to hunt the turkeys?"
"No better way to conquer your fears," Touly handed Min another club. " You approach from the right, and I'll go from the left."
"W-wait!" Touly didn't wait, she was already creeping behind the flock. She swung her club and missed. The turkey jumped away at just the right moment to dodge the strike.
"Uh-oh, too late." The gaggle of turkeys locked eyes with the two naked women. They spread their wings ominously, letting loose their war cry. "Ah! Run!"
Grabbing Touly's wrist, Min took off running deeper into the forest.
"Wait, we should stand our ground and fight! There are only stupid birds!" Touly protested, but Min wasn't letting go. The wannabe adventurer might be willing to fight mages, mimics, and malcontents, but she drew the line at turkeys. And scorpions too, for that matter, but she hadn't seen any yet.
"Even if we can kill them all, they will still peck and scratch all over us before they die! You don't have your armor anymore, miss Naked Knight! Want to continue your pilgrimage covered in scratches and cuts?"
"Tsk, fine. It's your lucky day, birds!" Touly acquiesced to Min's plan and began running away in earnest. The criminal was right. She didn't want to continue the pilgrimage covered in scars, meager as they might be.
To the knight's surprise, the birds followed and were gaining ground!
Min and Touly dashed across bushes and ducked under branches. Cutting across the jungle naked was about as fun as Touly expected. Twigs kept poking and brushing at her sides, and she stepped on more puddles than she could count. Not a pleasant escape.
"Stop! We can't go that way!"
"No time!"
"You don't understand, there is a ravineeeeeee!"
"AAAAHHH!"
Min failed to notice that she was running out of ground until her feet could not find the floor underneath them. Fortunately, their descent was painfully stopped by the canopy of the forest breaking their fall with their branches.
Min spat out a handful of leaves and dared to open her eyes, her head still spinning. "Are you ok-Aaaahh!" To her surprise, Min had not reached ground level yet. She was suspended in midair by a couple of vines that caught onto her body and stopped her fall.
Min tried to twist and move her body, but couldn't. The vines wrapped around her limbs, across her belly, and even her shoulders. She was trapped like a fly on a spider's web. Her only consolation was that she wasn't the only woman in such a predicament.
Touly was right in front of her, also suspended in midair. Min's face was hovering over her belly button. The knight was fine, apparently. Min couldn't stifle a chuckle as she looked up at her face, staring past her cresting breasts.
The knight was caked in mud, with leaves and twigs sticking out of her hair. "O wow, lady knight, you aren't looking so good-Oww!"
Touly softly raised her knee against Min's stomach in retaliation for the comment. "You aren't looking so well, either. And don't stare at my breasts!" Min tried to avert her gaze down, but instead got an eyeful of the knight's sex. "Don't look there either!"
"I can't! Everywhere I look I can see your… err, physique."
"Then just close your eyes! It's already bad enough that a criminal like you is staring at my unmentionables!"
"W-well, at least it's only me, right?"
"Ehem." Someone coughed under the two girls. Stretching her neck, Min could see that the same shepherd was staring at them both from below… and he had friends.
A small group of other five or so shepherds had gathered in the meadow below the tree, their sheep grazing all around the space. The ground almost completely covered in white wool.
"It's those two lovebirds again."
"The Elder's not going to believe this."
"Wait, I recognize her! Isn't she one of the knights from the Order?"
"How in the Goddess' name can you recognize someone just by seeing their ass?"
Touly grumbled. Trapped by the vines, she could only look up at the sky. "Please don't tell me we have company."
"Ok then. My lips are sealed!"
"Ugh."
"…Should we help them out?"
"I think we should give them some privacy. We are obviously interrupting something…"
"You aren't! We were fleeing from a gaggle of nefarious turkeys…"
"Please don't tell them that."
"…and we accidentally fell off a cliff! It's not like this is a very complex way to have sex! Please help us!" Min yelled.
"But if you decide not to help us, don't tell a soul what you saw or heard!" Touly pleaded.
"Hmmm, how could we even help? My cane doesn't reach that high."
"Maybe we should go back to the village and ask the hunters. They can try to cut the vines with their arrows."
"Let's also bring to lumberjack just in case."
"Yeah, we can make a competition out of this! See who frees the girls first."
"Oh, and isn't there a bard staying with the Elder? I bet he would write a lovely song about the contest."
"No, no, no. There's no need to involve more people! If you can't help, move along. We'll figure something out," Touly yelled, not eager to bring a whole village to stare at her firm ass.
"Don't listen to her! Please go and fetch help quickly! I think I feel some ants beginning to crawl from the vine to my feet! They tickle!" Min kept pleading.
The shepherds kept arguing for a while longer, and then they left. Whenever they decided to bring help or not, neither Min nor Touly could hear.
Touly growled as she struggled against the vines. Min was right, ants were crawling across the vine to inspect her body, and they were tickling! Ugh. What a glorious start to her pilgrimage.