Chloe
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Abigail asked for the third time.
"I'm sure," I replied, keeping my voice nice and patient. I mean, I could hardly blame her for the whole disbelief thing! We
were
on one of the nature floors, after all. Great for relaxing outside the city floors, not so great for eating fancy dinners. Especially this one, seeing as how it was forest-based.
"Don't doubt Chloe's information network," Nivera grumbled, glaring at Abigail. "She's never wrong."
"Almost
never," I corrected her. Because sweetness is sweet, but getting carried away was just going to set false expectations! "There was that one time with the juggler! And yep, I know, you still think that she was up to something - your trust in me is really sweet. We did clear her, though... My intel's pretty solid this time, though, either way. A friend of a friend overheard another friend talking to her friend about how Araina got invited out to a sunset picnic by this girl in a super expensive dress. Also, I just straight up asked Araina what her dinner plans were while you two were busy. She got super flustered. It was the cutest thing!"
Seriously - she'd turned so red! And her adorable little feet started tapping away at the ground as she backed up, then shuffled forward, then went back again... No need to bring all that up, though! I mean, sure, communication is important, but I wasn't trying to make Nivera jealous! Especially about the feet. She always pouted when I said anything about someone having cute feet. I think she worried I might have a foot fetish, or something.
Anyway, Nivera looked like she had enough things she wanted to say already. Like ‘why were you flirting with the enemy,' and ‘why would you risk alerting our enemy by flirting with them,' and ‘are you sure you didn't just want to flirt with a cute spider girl?' But all she actually said was, "Okay."
Which... No. Communication is too important to let her get away with that taciturn nonsense! Especially since I knew why she was doing it.
"Awww, look at my cutie Niv, acting like she trusts me completely!" I cooed. "Not that you don't, but you also really don't need to try and put up a ‘united front' in front of Abigail and Bailey, y'know? We're allies. And I
know
you've got wasps in your stomach, wondering whether Araina's likely to change her plans, or contact the Aleesendra family. The answer is no, by the way! She has
terrible
social anxiety - really sucky stuff - so there's pretty much no way she's going to contact them an hour before the meeting just to tell them that she told some random girl where the meeting's going to be. Especially since I was all sneaky about it - y'know, went in asking her out on a date, then segued into teasing her about maybe already having one, and taking an interest in where? Even if she thinks it's suspicious, she'll second guess herself right up until the actual meeting time."
"Wait," Abigail said. "You asked her out on a date? Isn't she going to be a bit mad when she finds out you were trying to trick her? I mean, the plan is to get her on our side, right?"
"Who said I was tricking her?" I asked, tilting my head a little to the side. Mostly because I knew Nivera found it adorable when I did that, even if she'd never ever admit it in front of anyone. "I'm poly, she's cute, and I'm pretty sure she'd actually be into the whole ‘bound up interrogation' thing Nivera's already plotting in the back of her brain. Though, maybe save the binding for after we've gotten to know her a bit better? And the interrogation for after I've gotten more of a chance to talk to her. Speaking of which, I'd really appreciate it if you could sit this one out, Niv. The poor thing's skittish enough already."
Oops, looks like it's ‘Nivera Doesn't Want to Say the Thing she Wants to Say Take Two!' This time with a dash of suspicion! This time, I was going to take her "Alright" at face value, though. I had my reasons! And she knew I had reasons. And she knew I knew she knew about those reasons! And usually I'd say screw all that and demand that we actually explain our reasons, but this time... well, I had reasons!
"Come on, you two!" I called out to Bailey and Abigail. "We're gonna need to scamper like a set of squirrel girls on bitterbean if we want to make it there on time." Then I grabbed hold of both their wrists, and took off running like a... Well, like a squirrel girl on bitterbean, I guess! Partially because we really were running out of time, but also because Abigail looked like she wanted to ask a few questions in Nivera's place. Which, again, would normally be welcome, but - again - I had my reasons not to! So I was just going to have to keep them busy dodging tree roots while we ran for a bit.
"Fox up to something," Bailey grumbled from behind me. Which was maybe a bit of a problem, since it meant that she was good enough at keeping up to grumble, which in turn meant she might have the spare breath to ask questions I couldn't have her asking... but, thankfully, she wasn't the sort to talk much.
"I'm always up to something!" I agreed, because there's no deflection like a truth-based deflection! "I'm a trickster, y'know? I trick, tease, trap, and sometimes even bamboozle! But I also look out for my friends, so trust me, alright?"
"You know, most people would at least pretend to be trustworthy before telling people to trust them," Abigail pointed out. Which was totally true! And definitely the easier route to take. But...
"You say that like it's a good thing! If I acted like I'm always on the straight and narrow, I'd lose all credibility the moment you found out about my true nature. I'd rather be upfront on what you can and can't trust me with - speaking of which, it might be a good time to mention that I never lie, so if you want to mislead Araina through half-truths, you're on your own. But if you leave it to me, I'll be sure we get through this with all the sureness of a mouse sniffing her way through a maze! Which is to say that there's probably going to be a lot of backtracking, but we'll make it in the end."
"Wait. So you're a trickster who doesn't lie?" Abigail asked. I guess she was getting used to root-dodging, too. "How does that even work?"
"Pretty well, actually," I called back - or more like
threw
back! A little trick I knew, to make it seem like my voice was coming from behind her. It worked extra great when I paired it with an illusion. Of course, then I had to actually take the lead in guiding Abigail past obstacles, to ensure that she wouldn't stumble when her head snapped back towards my illusion. But that was fine! She'd probably only be looking for a second, anyway, so long as I made the fake image do a dramatic fade away. "Between the fun things I can do with my voice, the
amazing
things I can get up to with illusions, and absolutely crazy things I can do with my body - some of which you might see first hand, one day, if you're lucky - it's not actually that hard to get away without lying. And by never lying, I make sure people will take me seriously when it matters most! Communication's pretty important to me, after all."
"...Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit of a mess?" Abigail asked me, shaking her head. Bailey nodded, meanwhile, which... Okay, I wasn't going to say that didn't hurt - the girl was such an innocent sweetheart, I couldn't help wanting her to like me, but... Well, I had a mission to get back to!
"A very
hot
mess! Now come on, Araina's waiting right through those trees!"
