Chapter 16: Ore Village

Rose was in a strangely good mood despite getting little sleep. As the wagon carried them through the night, Ivan fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. She put her arm around him and held his girly body, feeling a level of affection, even if it was weird to feel that way about her own body. Rose never had self-esteem issues, but she also never saw herself as being as cute and beautiful as Ivan did in her body.

The wagon came to a stop not long after sunrise, and everyone deboarded. Much like Hue Town, a guard checked everyone’s dossier and didn’t even blink an eye when checking Rose and Ivan’s. Seeing Ivan struggle with the luggage, she carried it instead as they made their way toward the inn. The establishment was significantly smaller than the one in Hue Town, as was the whole village. Instead of streets full of shops and services, there were small houses and huts riddled all about in no planned manner. One road leading away from the town center went toward the nearby mountain, and there were also small houses all the way down.

From what Rose could see, the main services here were smithies and other forms of metallurgy. The inn itself was cozy and quiet, which, according to the innkeeper, was because the village rarely had any visitors. When they did, those people were merely passing through.

“Yup, this is a mining village, so everyone who lives here is miners, smithies, and their families,” the innkeeper said. “Even I’m a miner, but we rotate looking after the inn. Anyway, if you want to stay here, you’ll have to put in the work. As for you,” he said, looking at Rose. “You can help out in the mines or even assist with transporting ore from the mine back to town. And you,” he said, now looking at Ivan. “There isn’t a whole lot of work to do in the inn, but some of the men here have no family, so you could clean up their houses a bit.”

To avoid having to put in too much work time, Rose and Ivan agreed to share a room. They were already in each other’s bodies, so it didn’t get much more intimate than that. That evening, Rose helped Ivan get the tangles out of his long, red hair, then even helped shave his legs, which was still challenging to do with a primitive razor. Later, they reviewed the map while in bed, attempting to plot the course for the next part of their journey to the capital. No wagons were leaving in that direction, so they would have to travel on foot. With such a grueling path ahead, they decided to stay at least a week in the village.

For the first time in her life, Rose was exposed to strenuous manual labor. Pushing and pulling carts filled with ore for two miles between the mine and the village was physically challenging, even in Ivan’s body. He may have been a guy, but he didn’t exactly have an athletic build. During her downtime, Rose visited some of the smithing stations to watch swords, daggers, and armor being forged. In the evening, a lot of workers took to conversing with Rose and Ivan to hear about the ongoings of the world. Few travelers came through their village from far away, most being merchants looking to carry their ores to other places, Hue Town especially.

For the next several days, Rose and Ivan found themselves in a dull pattern. Rose helped the miners, while Ivan found homes to tidy up. One particular miner suggested to Rose that rather than going way around the bay, north, and west to get to the capital, they should head south and ride a ferry across. She kept the idea in her mind to review the map later to see if the route was viable.

One evening, the village gathered together for a monthly festival, celebrating nothing more than their hard work while letting off some steam. There was music playing by makeshift instruments and several large fires roasting freshly hunted animals. At one point, all of the men had to do a dancing train, then all of the women did the same. The dancing was followed by one-on-one wrestling matches in which both Rose and Ivan participated so as not to insult their hosts. There were no real winners or losers, and most of the time, the fighters were just goofing around.

Rose found Ivan’s match to be particularly interesting. He danced around in her body like it had been his since birth. His movements were fluid, light, and precise. On the other hand, Rose felt as if she were fumbling around in Ivan’s body most of the time, like trying to operate machinery for the first time. The last activity was a competition of pickaxes, where the objective was to be the first person to break a large rock into pebbles. By the time Rose finished breaking her rock down, her muscles were burning, and she felt sweaty all over.

The festival settled down after that, with a lot of people and couples pairing up to kiss and grope one another. Rose stretched and wandered off a bit to relieve her bladder. One thing she certainly liked about being a boy was the ability to pee quickly with little clean-up needed. Just as she was finishing up, a girl spoke close by.

“You’re Ivan, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Rose answered, trying to finish up.

“Let me help you,” she said, then Rose felt a sudden hand reach around her from behind to take hold of her penis. “I’m Jess,” she said, now shaking Rose’s dick.

“I think I can handle it,” Rose said, turning her head to see a young blonde girl who couldn’t be any older than fifteen.

“It’ll feel better if I do it,” the girl said, making Rose’s cock erect in her hand. “See?” She smiled, letting Rose turn around now. Even being Rose’s age or slightly younger, the girl still had breasts larger than her own body. It really did seem that Rose’s body had the smallest tits for her age.

“We shouldn’t,” Rose argued, even though there was a strong craving to have Jess continue.

“You have to orgasm anyway, so you might as well let me do it,” Jess said, smiling widely.

“Let’s head back,” Rose insisted.

“Is it that red-haired girl?” Jess posed. “Is her name Rose? You can get her too, and then we can have a threesome.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of guys here that want to have fun with you,” Rose said, her penis still fully erect.

“I want to taste your cum, though,” Jess frowned playfully.

Rose felt the tense arousal in her swollen penis, and it took everything she had to not give in to Jess. Some strong urging voice was telling Rose to take the girl right now, to undress her, to see how sexy her tits were, and to feel her mouth on this throbbing dick. Rose pulled all of her focus together.

“I can’t, sorry,” she said quickly before walking away and trying to fit her hard cock back into her pants.

“It’s an open invitation,” Jess called from behind. “I’ll be wet and waiting for you!”

Rose walked around for a few minutes to let her nerves and hormones calm down. Thankfully, her penis began to shrink after a couple of minutes. She walked around the remnants of the festival looking for Ivan, figuring she could tell him about the ferry route that was suggested. When Rose couldn’t find Ivan, she returned to their inn room and became a little nervous when he wasn’t there either. Her first thought was that some guy dragged him off for sex. Her mind displayed the image of Ivan getting fucked with her body, which gave Rose the dual feeling of ickiness and jealousy.

Just a few minutes later, Ivan stepped into the room with a towel around his petite, feminine body, with his hair dripping wet. Rose felt relieved that he had returned earlier to take a bath. For now, she decided to avoid telling the story about Jess. Instead, she focused on the map again. As the man had described to her, there was a path heading south all the way to a port town on the ocean. The map also indicated a ferry path which would put them very near the capital.

“Ow...” Ivan sounded, which made Rose look up to see a comb stuck in Ivan’s thick, red hair.

“You have to do it like this,” Rose sighed, getting up to comb Ivan’s hair.

Rose carefully pulled the comb to alleviate tangles and knots, being thorough to avoid issues later. Ivan’s fresh, clean scent, his soft skin, and his slender neck made Rose’s penis begin to grow again. She tried to distract herself with other thoughts, but it was too late. Even as she sat the comb down and checked Ivan’s hair with her fingers, her dick was fully erect. The voice urged her like before, telling her how good it would feel to use Ivan’s body for release. This wasn’t some strange girl, though. No, this was Ivan, and the body he was in rightfully belonged to her anyway.

Rose kissed Ivan’s neck, giving his skin a lick to see how it tasted, how she tasted. Ivan drew in a surprised breath, remaining still as Rose now brought her hands up to touch his body. She groped a small breast through the towel, still kissing Ivan’s neck from behind while pressing her body against his. Ivan was stuck against the table, Rose’s crotch and erection pressing against his soft butt.