The wolf and the minotaur (Asterio)

As Asterio walked upstairs leading Kaya to the spare room she noticed the merc was blushing and stuttering for some strange reason; if anybody should be blushing it should be Asterio given how Kaya had behaved much earlier in the day but no it was the merc who was blushing shyly but no Kaya was blushing instead. Based upon the fact Kaya thanked Asterio for the room and raised no objections the Minotaur assumed this rather sparsely furnished room would be alright for Kaya to sleep in tonight; plus even if Kaya didn't like this room she would have to deal with it as the only room that was furnished better was Asterio's and she wouldn't be sharing it with Kaya anytime soon. "Good night then Kaya" And with that Asterio walked out of the room and went to her own.

Once she reached her room Asterio shut the door behind her and decided to take a shower, working in the forge was a rather sweaty process and so the Minotaur decided to take a shower. The way being a shape shifter worked was that when Asterio changed forms they were both preserved, so basically Asterio's Minotaur for was still sweaty which basically meant double the amount of showering she needed to do. Asterio changed into her Minotaur form and removed her clothes before stepping into the shower. Asterio was grateful that she had a pathway to the bathroom from her bedroom, it made moving between the two rooms a lot easier while providing a greater sense of privacy not that Asterio needed it.

Asterio's shower took almost half an hour due to her having to change between her forms but eventually she was done and stepped out to dry her self off, which took twenty minutes as she had to dry both her bodies off; as useful as having her physically stronger Minotaur form was for working on the farm it really did make grooming herself a rather time consuming process, luckily very rarely did Asterio need to properly clean both her forms. Once she was dry Asterio returned to her human form and slipped into her pajamas, before climbing into bed and falling asleep pretty swiftly. The Minotaur had a very deep sleep after the stressful events of the day.

When she awoke tomorrow morning the sun was shining through her curtains and the clock she had on her counter told her it was about twenty minutes past ten in the morning. Getting out of bed and heading downstairs Asterio assumed that Kaya was still asleep and so the Minotaur decided to make breakfast for herself and her guest. Reaching the kitchen Asterio washed her hands and opened the fridge, taking out a packet of eggs and the bacon while removing the toast fro the bread bin. Soon the smell of cooking eggs and bacon wafted through the house, accompanied by the scent of toast as Asterio got to making breakfast. The Minotaur made sure by the time she was finished and serving the food up, about ten minutes later, that there was enough for two people.

Kaya's nose began to twitch. Something smelt really good. With out really thinking Kaya got up, half awake. At this point Kaya was following her nose, her eyes where still more or less closed. Kaya had a double cowlick, causing her hair to stand up. She slowly moved downstairs and headed to the kitchen. She walked into the kitchen with out thinking much of it.

"It smells so good down here.~" said Kaya in a sing-song voice. She wasn't just referring to the food though. And then Asterio's look knocked her back to reality. Her face turned bright red and she bolted from the kitchen back into the room she was using. Why did she run? Why was she blushing. Since when did she care what people thought about her or what she was wearing? Or this case lack of wearing. After calming herself down she got dressed again. At this point the bra was way to big so she just wore the shirt. The shirt slipped off her left should enough so that her arm pit could be seen. It wasn't to bad so Kaya walked back down the stairs. Her breasts still felt sensitive, she had brushed against them slightly while running. She figured that they would probably be like that until she was complete back to normal, maybe a bit after. She returned back down stairs, her face still red.

"S-Sorry... I don't like sleeping with clothes on." was the only explanation she gave while she munched on her food. She could smell Asterio's scent over the food. Even when she wasn't in her Minotaur form her scent seemed in intoxicating. Which was strange cause other then making her feel relax it didn't really do anything for her before. Gods what the hell was going on! Kaya shifted uncomfortably, but Kaya hoped Asterio wouldn't notice.

Were it any other day and Asterio heard the sounds of someone moving around upstairs she would have been very worried but not today, after all the Minotaur knew that she did have a guest today. When Kaya entered into the kitchen Asterio looked up and froze, blushing as she stared at the mercenary. At first Asterio was worried that Kaya chose to remain naked and was planning on doing so all day long, which the Minotaur wouldn't be allowing, but judging by how Kaya blushed and ran upstairs to put some clothes it seem the merc simply forgot to get dressed. Kaya soon returned wearing the baggy shirt from last night along with some trousers and pants.

Asterio put the food down on the table, two plates, one for herself and for the wolf girl mercenary. Asterio sit down herself and looked at Kaya, smiling warmly as she spoke up. "It is alright Kaya, some days I've slept naked" It was true, some days Asterio had been too busy to get any laundry done during the day so she had to sleep naked over the night due to the lack of clean pajamas. The Minotaur reached for the bottle of HP sauce (brown sauce if you don't know the brand name) opened it and then put a hearty dollop over her bacon and eggs. As Asterio ate she realised that it was a little messed up for a women who was a hybrid between human and a race of half bovine people to eat meat, but it didn't really matter that much, she was after all an omnivore.

Kaya wondered if what she said had gone right over the Minotaur head. She meant all the time, not just on occasion. Kaya picked at her food, eating slowly. The redness in her face was still there and it was obvious something was on her mind. She avoided eye contact with Asterio.

"H-Hey Asterio... d-do you need anymore help today?" stuttered Kaya, dodging Asterio's eyes.

"I-It's n-not cause I want to! I-I just still feel bad about yesterday!" Blurted out Kaya, nearly yelling the words.

"B-But if you do I am going to need to grab my stuff from the Inn." said Kaya, her face even redder. Gods damn it! Why was she like this! She was never like this before! She never had been.

Honestly the true meaning behind what Kaya said had gone over the Minotaur's head, she could be a little dense every know and then and this was one of the moments she missed the truth of what Kaya said. A more knowledgeable person about the emotions and feelings of people probably would have come to a conclusion based on how Kaya was acting but Asterio was well... kind of a ditz some times. "Hmmm....nope. Are you feeling okay? You've not caught a cold or anything are you? Your cheeks are flaring up..maybe you have a temperature?" That was the only conclusion Asterio could reach, after all she had never dealt with love or romance any time in the past so her knowledge on the subject was very limited.

The stuttering in Kaya's voice was something that surprised Asterio, as did the shouting, what on Earth was wrong with Kaya today? Asterio was a sweetie and a very kind women at heart so as she believed that Kaya was feeling sick the Minotaur wasn't going to let her leave that easily. "I'm going to get a thermometer to go take your temperature, yo look like you're running a fever" Asterio got up and took her empty plate over to the sink, placing it down next to the sink before walking to the bathroom. Asterio returned about two minutes later with a plastic thermometer and then approached Kaya. "Open wide please!" If Kaya did do as asked she would find the thermometer being put inside her open mouth.

"N-No I'm fine i-it's just..." By this time Asterio had already walked off to grab the thermometer. Kaya sighed, why was she choking up so much. After a few minutes Asterio returned and when Kaya opened her mouth to protest she found a thermometer being placed in her mouth. She sat there slight annoying until the thing beep and she took it out.

"S-See! I'm fine!" said Kaya, pointing out her 97.5 temperature. Kaya wanted to scream into a pillow, why did all of a sudden a couple simple words had become impossible to say.

"I-I..." said Kaya trying to say some simple words.

"I-I just want to be by you ok! I don't know why! But whenever I am near you I feel relaxed! A-And I don't know why!" said Kaya, flat out stuttering now.

Asterio wasn't having any of Kaya's arguing against her being sick and so she shoved the thermometer inside her mouth. When the thermometer displayed Kaya's temperature it seemed that she wasn't suffering from a fever or any increase in temperature but that didn't mean Kaya wasn't sick. "Hmm...Maybe I should take you to a doctor..." The Minotaur folded her arms and tilted her head sideways, looking very puzzled as she had no idea what on Earth was wrong with Kaya. A women more experienced in the knowledge of love would have probably been able to put two and two together at this but Asterio was... well she wasn't experienced.

When Kaya blurted out that she felt relaxed around Asterio the Minotaur was just as confused as she had been before, after all it couldn't possibly be Asterio that made Kaya feel more relaxed. "Hmm..well, you seem to have a really good sense of smell..so maybe you just smell the country side on me and are relaxed by that?" Speaking of relaxed Asterio felt that her merc friend should probably take a deep breath and relax herself, she seemed very worked up about something. "Hmm..well you're welcome to stay here if you like? There's been a few times we've had bandits raiding the farm and stealing stuff..so someone who actually knows how to fight would be useful" Not that Asterio couldn't fight, but two fighters were better than none.

"N-No!" said Kaya, flustered. She wanted to yell at Asterio, call her a stupid cow. But yet she couldn't bring herself to. How clueless was this bovine anyway?

"It's not the country side that makes me relaxed, it's you! You're scent! At first it was only your other form but I don't know! Now It's both of them! This form makes me just feel relaxed, like I just want to cuddle up next to you." said Kaya, her face turning extremely red. She was nearly shouting at this point. Asterio's other form still drove her crazy in the other way, but this girl already knew that. Some of the farm hands had started to listen in on the two's conversation, although they keep hidden Kaya could smell them.

"And... and it would be nice to have a place to return to when I am back from traveling... Someone to return to... so I don't have an excuse to stay away for so long next time." said Kaya. She had at this point spent a good amount of her life away from her home. She had left when she was really young, cutting off all ties to her family who disowned her for wanting more then to be a merchant, they even said she wouldn't last a month. Kaya began to wonder in they still had there shop in the same place.

As was pretty much par for the course Asterio was still very confused about why Kaya was acting this way yet when the mercenary said it was Asterio herself that made her calm,something finally clicked together in the Minotaur's head. Asterio's face blushed bright red at hearing this and she looked away shyly, her gaze resting on the farm hands as they spied glances through the window. The Minotaur shot the farm hands a look that said "get back to work" and they did exactly that, you don't want to anger the person who pays your wages after all. "We-well uh...." That was all Asterio could say, after all she didn't return Kaya's feelings and that was what caused a worry to form in Asterio's mind. The Minotaur was know worried that Kaya, with her rather direct manner, would try to force her self on Asterio which would probably go very very badly for the wolf mercenary.

"Well if you want to stay here when you return from traveling, feel free to but you'll need to work for your keep" Call Asterio tight if you will but she wasn't going to provide food for Kaya unless of course she worked for it, the world didn't exactly reimburse those for their acts of kindness and with the farm Asterio had little in the way of spare money to provide for a moocher. What kind of work did Asterio have in mind for Kaya? Well very rarely did the farm need protecting from criminals and while it did happen, the Minotaur believed that Kaya would probably be better suited to acts of physical labor, harvesting plants, cleaning and over stuff like that. The work Kaya did would save Asterio on paying wages for staff which in turn would provide enough funds to feed and house Kaya. Hopefully the wolf merc would agree to that offer, as it was probsbly the best and only one Asterio would be giving her.

Kaya's ears went back. Asterio was being nice and letting her stay here but it was obvious that Asterio didn't return Kaya's feelings. Kaya felt really hurt, something she wasn't used to feeling alongside rejection. Usually it makes her more determined, but for now, it made her feel hurt.

Kaya got up, suddenly she didn't have much of an appetite. Reaching into her pocket she grabbed a few more coins and placed them on the table. She did have bounties to hunt so she might as well start with them.

"I-I guess I'll be back later..." said Kaya walking out the door. IF not interrupted she would go back to the Inn, get changed and then try to get motivated to do some bounties. But she had the feeling that it wouldn't be so.