Follow the elves

It was too tempting not to see where the elves had come from. What would a city fit for a queen look like in this world? Did Legs have any sisters? Aunts, perhaps? I liked the idea of going straight to the cream of the proverbial crop of women to choose from. Besides, if I stayed close, I would be better prepared to deal with—and perhaps even prevent—the eventual discovery of Legs' pregnancy. The girl's response to my surprise visit had been nothing short of invigorating and I wanted more.

Taking flight back towards the trio, I wondered if it would be more fun to reveal my presence in the city to the princess immediately, or to simply lurk nearby and keep an eye on things. Guarding her pregnancy was more important to me as a matter of pragmatic self-preservation than being about the offspring growing within her.

It would be a hassle to have to put so much work into each and every pregnancy that occurred, but that could be mitigated if I kept them close together, and compelled the women to keep one another's secrets.

So I would follow the princess. She would lead me into the heart of her home, her most private places, and I would make them mine. Just like her.

I was wary as I followed, never growing quite close enough to actually see my quarry. Stern would be on edge, but hopefully not wary of pursuit. Legs had pushed him away every time he tried to find out why she was upset, which was a very good sign.

If that femboy angel had told the truth about this Mark of Submission ability he'd given me, that it was glorified magic handcuffs to keep criminals in line, then I could trust she would continue to obey my instructions to the best of her ability.

That should split the champion's focus enough that he wouldn't notice a single small creature following at a distance.

A few hours into the trip, I felt a fog creep into my mind, like I'd crossed the threshold of a magic boundary. There had been nothing to indicate exactly when it had happened, the trees all looked the same as they had, but I it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on moving forward.

All of my navigational instincts screamed that the correct path was the other way. If I hadn't been following the faint trail of the elves, I'd have gotten myself completely turned around. Perhaps even lost, despite my Lore of the Woods.

I had to ignore every instinct I had to focus on nothing but the trail before me trusting in my Lore of Elves to correctly identify it in the first place.

Each short leap forward seemed to be taking me backwards, wrong. Everything was wrong with this insane path they were taking, it didn't make any sense. But the path was clear, and so I continued. Where could they possibly be going?

Then, after perhaps an hour of the disorienting mind fog, it just... went away. I felt like I'd pushed through a veil of tissue paper. The terrain suddenly made sense again. I was going the right way after all. And then the trees gradually gave way to cobbled stone paths and small farms, and finally there wasn't a forest at all, but a tidy little city surrounding a beautiful palace.

Small, for a nation capital, I realized. Not a sprawling metropolis at all, but a modest city. Thousands of people, certainly.

Those crafty elves had placed some sort of Maze spell around their city? If I hadn't chosen to follow when I did, it might have been impossible for me to have ever found this place. I was giddy. This would be the perfect place to build a hive. Secret, isolated, and inhabited by the exceptionally skilled and powerful.

If I could pull it off, I could found an empire from this place. What a stroke of luck!