Devilla
"Bailey..." I fought the urge to groan or place my hands upon my face, choosing instead to look around me for a moment to ensure there was no sign of Feyra or Lucy in the vicinity. Satisfied with our isolation, I put forth the one-way sound seal I had learned from Lucy, and kneeled down to gently shake Bailey awake.
The horned wolf's ear flicked up a moment before her head did, her snout narrowly missing my face. Her tongue, on the other hand, hit the mark of my cheek quite expertly.
"Bailey!" I repeated, the word coming out much whiny than I would have liked. I reminded myself, firmly, that this wasn't the wolf girl's fault. I was the one who hadn't bothered to so much as nudge her away from the teleportation circle before activating it. The one who'd failed to notice her tail so close to my feet. "Do you know where we are?"
Bailey looked around, no doubt taking in the trees before turning her head back towards me and shaking her head slightly.
"Silly question." I sighed and shook my head. "Let me try again - do you know where we
aren't?"
This time I received a nod of confirmation from the wolf, followed by her standing.
"Stay in wolf form, for the moment," I told her, preferring to be on the safe side. "I... need to take care of something, real quick."
Namely, checking in on Lucy. It was possible that Feyra had noticed my teleportations out of the area and subsequent absences. Hopefully she hadn't taken advantage of my time away to do anything I would regret - if she had, there was little I could do but face the music, but if she hadn't... Well, I couldn't shake the fear that she might take the gamble on my third disappearance, even if she hadn't done so on my first or second. If I were in her shoes, I might very well convince myself that it was a 'now or never' type of affair. I wanted to at least show my face in front of her and Lucy before that could happen.
Bailey, thankfully, nodded her assent without argument. I granted her a smile in turn, before dispelling my sound seal and turning towards our campsite. It wasn't hard to find - I simply listened for the sound of idle chatter. Though what I heard was more along the lines of 'excited babble,' as Lucy told Feyra about her not-date with me in excruciating detail. With a particular focus upon the faces I had apparently made at several points, and how 'cute' I had looked when the thought of indirect kissing had popped into my head.
Needless to say, I decided to rush my return to the campsite, abandoning all concern for the preservation of my magic and levitating myself over the twigs and stones to reach the two of them as fast as possible.
"Eena!" Lucy called out, once I'd broken through the treeline. "I was just telling Feyra about the hot sauce you have! It's really spicy, isn't it?"
"It seems to me that you were telling her far more than that," I remarked, painfully aware of the blush upon my features. "Did you really need to go into such detail about the shade of my cheeks after our skewer exchange?"
"It was the second best part, though!" Lucy exclaimed with a grin bright enough to blind.
"I know I'm going to regret asking this," Feyra said, "but considering you spent the last five minutes talking about the 'second best' bit, what the fuck was the
first?
"
"Watching Eena eat," Lucy answered instantly. "She gets this really blissful look on her face whenever she eats something good! Which is also how I know she didn't really like the skewer she took from me - not as much as she liked the other one - but she ate it anyway, because she knew I couldn't handle it as well as her! It was really nice being cared about, like that."
"B-Be that as it may," I said, fully aware of - but helpless to fight against - the fire further invading my cheeks, "I actually had something else that I wished to talk to you about. Namely, a question as to how long you think this trip will take?"
How long, in other words, would I be keeping Abigail waiting?
"Well..." Lucy began, hesitating a moment. From the look in her eyes, she obviously wished to know the reason behind my inquiry. She held that curiosity in check, though, as she mentally went over the trip in her mind. "We made pretty good time today, so... probably another two days to reach Daroom Woods? Then however long it'll take to clear the issue, plus the return trip, so.... Somewhere around a week, maybe?"
"A week..." There was no way I could ask Abigail to wait a week, was there? Especially if there was a chance it might take longer. There was also no way that I could spend extended periods away from Feyra and Lucy to deal with tower issues... At least not alone. But they didn't have to be alone, did they? Not if I asked Bailey to keep an eye on them. To stand in for me, as a presence to keep Feyra at bay... Lucy was already acquainted with the horned wolf, so it likely wouldn't be hard to convince her of Bailey's friendliness.
That left another issue, though - explaining my absences. Could I really disappear for hours on end, in the middle of our trip, without raising Lucy's concern? Without her questioning where I went?...Maybe. She probably wouldn't ask if I didn't wish to tell. She'd accept it, along with my other secrets, just as she'd accepted my question just a moment prior.
But was
I
satisfied with that? With leaving her completely out of the loop? Hiding everything from her, without so much as a crumb of information to satisfy her no doubt burning curiosity? How was I meant to be building trust with her if I didn't
tell her
anything?
"Eena?" Lucy asked me, worry writ clearly across her furrowed brow. "Is everything okay?"
"It is," I confirmed, nodding my head. "It's just..." I took a deep breath, allowing myself to wonder for a moment if I was making the right decision, before ruthlessly grinding that concern to dust beneath my mental heel. Lucy deserved my trust. Even if I couldn't tell her
all
my secrets, I wanted to tell her what I could. "There's someone I need you to meet. Can you follow me?"
"Alright!" Lucy agreed, moving towards me without a moment's hesitation.
Feyra, for her part, opened her mouth to say something - perhaps to protest - only to hesitate a moment as her gaze flicked between the two of us. Then she sighed. "I'll get the campfire going. Some of us actually have to worry about monsters attacking, you know?"
"We won't be far," I promised her, gently taking Lucy's hand and leading her back towards Bailey.
The redhead, for her part, seemed to hesitate a moment at Feyra's words, but ultimately surrendered herself to me with a faint squeeze of my hand. Still, I could tell that she was worried, from the way she glanced back towards Feyra now and again. As such, I chose to stop part way towards my goal, setting up a sound seal once we were suitably far from Feyra's sight and whistling to attract Bailey's attention.
Or trying to whistle, anyway.
