The Entropic Nature of Deception

"Wait, wait! Sister, where are we going with such haste?" Broomi asked the back of Yorresie's head. The confessor fought to keep from stumbling as the other woman hauled her through the town. When no response came, she asked again. "Yorresie, where are we going?"

Finally the teacher stopped. She did so so suddenly that Broomi nearly collided with her chest when she whipped toward her, hand still clasping her wrist.

"I... don't know," she admitted with great frustration. "But we're going to find that... knight."

"Do we know where she is?"

"No, but someone has to have seen where she went. Those other knights certainly saw plenty..."

Broomi looked at her with concern for the darkness she heard in her voice. "Sister, you're hurting me."

Yorresie took notice of the **** grip she had on the younger woman's wrist and released it. "My apologies," she said stiffly.

Broomi rubbed her own wrist. "Why do we need to seek this particular knight anyway? Would it not do just as well to speak to any of their order? I still don't understand why we wouldn't want to deliver this news to Dyna. What difference does it make?"

"Because...!" Yorresie half-snapped before stopping herself. "Because... because the knights aren't all the same..."

"Oh, they're not?" Broomi gulped, worried she would be caught for holding more than one secret that evening.

"No, plenty of the knights are sloven, troublemaking, disrespectful, uncompassionate brutes! And others are... supposed to be better..."

Broomi stared at her with a new and more profound worry. "And you wanted to find one of these 'better' knights?"

"Yes, and we're still going to!" Just like that, Yorresie was on the move again, this time without an iron hold on Broomi, leaving the confessor to keep up herself.

"P-Private?" Eposi uncharacteristically stammered as she strolled the alleyway at Zaida's side. "You want to go somewhere private?" She had been maintaining the knight's pace perfectly fine a moment ago, only to begin falling behind at her most recent words.

"Yes," Zaida replied, her attention more firmly on her surroundings than the woman on her arm. "Did there happen to be a particular place or activity you wanted to enjoy this evening? Between just the two of us?" Contrary to whatever Eposi may have taken the question to mean, she was simply endeavouring toward an end to this game of hide-and-seek she was involuntarily playing with her dates. She mentally kicked herself for not having been clever enough to utilise such a plan from the very start.

"Ah, yes. Well, ahem, if-if you were interested, I'd love to have you at my-" Eposi's voice conceded to the one that rose from the far end of the alley.

"... that would explain the come-and-go experience I've been having this... My, isn't that convenient?"

Facing Zaida and Eposi were Marisol and Dvorah.

DAMNATION. For every bit Zaida had regarded this moment as inevitable, she was wholly without a contingency.

"Dvorah, Marsiol, good evening," Eposi greeted without hesitation. "How has the Festival been for you thus far?"

"It's been good fun," Marisol answered with something disquieting in her voice. "But the joys have been... fleeting, I'd say." She and Dvorah stalked forward like a pair of lions closing in on a wildebeest.

Zaida wondered how had they managed to find her. Wait a minute, this was a courier and a forewoman of the city's waterways she was talking about; of course they would know the most efficient routes through Merridian to conduct a search.

"You know, that's funny, Marisol. I was going to say the same thing," the freckled woman added. "I struggle to put my finger on it, but every time I feel like the evening is starting to pick up, something crucial slips away and I'm left feeling like I've lost momentum." She and Marisol arrived in front of the knight and the administrator. "Do you have an idea of what we're talking about, Zaida? Hm? What about you, Eposi? Know the feeling?"

"I..." The woman at Zaida's side started, looking hesitantly between her friends and her date. "Is something the matter? What's going on?"

"I don't know," Marisol responded, "Is something the matter, Zaida?" Oddly enough, the expression she wore was that of cruel amusement more than fuming betrayal.

Dvorah's own countenance was flat. "No, I don't think anything's the matter," she spoke on the knight's behalf. "After all, she was just returning to continue our date, weren't you, Zaida?"

The big woman absentmindedly balled her fist in **** frustration. How had she let it come to this? This exact scenario had been weighing on her mind for days, and she had simply allowed it to reach her. Stupid, stupid! How had she not managed to make time to come up with a better strategy for this night?

For fuck's sake, give me some credit, another part of her argued. I'm a fish out of water doing my best to uphold at least a dozen different responsibilities all while preserving an identity I'm still constructing as I go. All things considered, I think I did all right for an imposter with no experience in deception.

Then what now? I've been caught red-handed; there's no lying my way out of this one. Telling the truth paid off with Yorresie - I can only hope I see similar results here...

"Zaida, what's she talking about?" Eposi looked to the taller woman with worry.

"I... have not been open with all of you," the knight started slowly. Six eyes were fixed on her, with looks ranging from judgement to fear. "I committed to spending tonight with each of you individually, and instead of informing the others, I elected to execute some harebrained scheme in which I would attempt to satisfy everyone and disappoint no one. It was selfish and shortsighted of me, and it was unfair to all of you. I ought to have spoken up sooner. I'm sorry."

When the words finished leaving her mouth, it was as if an immense weight sat upon her eyes, forcing her gaze down and away from those directed at her. The silence that hung in the alley almost seemed strong enough to produce a dampening effect on the ambience of the Festival bleeding into the passage.

"Whom were you going with first?" Marisol asked.

"What?" Zaida looked up at her.

"Of the three of us, which one were you first committing to dating tonight?"

"What does that matter?" Zaida asked, half baffled.

"Ugh," Dvorah sighed in exasperation. "Little Miss Fleet-of-Foot needs to hear that she was the fastest. Honestly, Mari, not everything has to be a competition."

"Oh, listen to you!" Marisol scoffed with a challenging smirk. "When was the last time you took an interest in someone you couldn't get to sit and roll over? Come on, Zaida, tell us."

"Uh, you asked me first-"

Marisol made a small gesture of celebration, at which Dvorah rolled her eyes.

"-Then Miss Basch told me I would be taking her out tonight. I'll admit, I did not raise my prior obligation to Marisol as I was not sure Miss Basch would accept my refusal."

"Your instincts serve you well," the woman in question complimented. This time it was Marisol who rolled her eyes.

"And then..." Zaida turned to face Eposi and nearly regretted it. The expression she found was a concoction of disappointment, defeat, regret, and - perhaps worst of all - still some measure of longing.

"You never really accepted my proposition, did you?" Eposi asked in a voice that only magnified the emotions Zaida read from her.

"No," Zaida admitted, her shoulders sinking. "When you mentioned it in the training fields, that was the first I heard of it."

"Then why? Why go along with it? Why did you let me get my hopes up like that?"

"Because letting you down somehow felt worse. I thought it would be better to live up to the lie than to crush it with the truth. And..." Zaida broke eye contact. "And because I would have said yes if I had known you were asking."

That statement sparked something in Eposi; something that shone through the mist of the other emotions.

"A-hem," Dvorah cleared her throat loudly.

"Ah, and if I had not already been deceiving other people," Zaida corrected herself. Dvorah gave an approving nod.

The silence got its reprise.

Zaida looked at the three women with restrained expectancy. She was not sure what to anticipate. She was plenty familiar with demon norms on commitment. Had she been among her own kind, she would not have been surprised to be dealt harsh words, ostracisation for the foreseeable future, and perhaps even the odd punch or slap if the offended felt up to it. Amongst humans though, who knew? Did they have honour killings over this sort of thing?

"Well..." Marisol said slowly, awkwardly putting an end to the quiet. "If you girls don't mind, I did have first dibs on her, so I think it's only fair that-"

"Really?" Zaida interrupted. "After all this, you're still interested in finishing the night?"

"Well... yeah," she shrugged apathetically. "I mean, don't get me wrong. You have a lot of apologising and making up to do, but I'm not going to let a catch like you slip away. Not again anyway," she said with a self-amused grin.

"Excellently put, Mari," Dvorah concurred, "but I'm afraid there's no way I'm going to simply let you have her. I came to have a full date with her, and that's exactly what I'm going to get."

With the disagreement out in the open, both turned to Zaida, seemingly with the expectation that she would play tiebreaker.

"Woah, woah, I don't think so," the knight said with a refusing wave of her hands. "I think I've spent enough time between you fine ladies. If you don't mind, I'll allow you to sort this out for yourselves."

"Hm, interesting choice of words," Marisol tapped her chin thoughtfully, a wicked grin spreading over her face. "On the contrary, I don't think you've spent enough time between us, if you catch my meaning... What do you say, Dvorah? Willing to settle for a piece of the prize?"

"I'm only concerned with getting her for the evening," the freckled woman stated, folding her arms. "If anyone wants to take her away from me, then we're going to have a problem. Elsewise, I'm open to small changes of plan."

"I'm standing right here, you know," Zaida pointed out.

"Oh, and you think you've already atoned enough to be demanding respect?" Dvorah asked, raising an eyebrow dubiously. Zaida begrudgingly kept her mouth shut. "That's what I thought." She faced the woman who had been quiet for a moment now. "Eposi, what do you say? Care to get in on the fun?"

The administrator looked up at Zaida with a new look in her eyes. It was no longer one that contorted the knight's heart to witness. That longing was closer to the surface now, and - if she was not mistaken - perhaps even hope.

"Did you mean what you said?" she asked.

"What I said about what?" Zaida prompted clarification.

"About saying yes."

Zaida could see the fork that laid before her. Depending on the answer she gave, Eposi's regard for her could turn out much more favourable than the alternative. Even so, she resolved to give her the honest answer.

"I did mean it," Zaida reiterated. "You're a lovely person, and I was happy to get to spend the time with you that I did."

A moment passed as Eposi digested those words. "Then let's spend a little more together."