58 – Coming Clean

Ari should’ve warned Claire, but Ari hadn’t known if she’d work up the nerve to see this through. Sure, it’d been why Ari had set off to Elise’s apartment in the first place, but … well, come on. It was a daunting reveal. It had been Ari’s intent to bring Elise in on her secret for a while now, but she’d chickened out each time. Today could’ve been a repeat.

Hence, not telling Claire her intentions. It would spare Ari from having to explain. It would be a bit embarrassing—not horribly, but enough to justify the secrecy—if she had told Claire she’d be meeting Ari’s friend, then Ari showed up alone, having not worked up the nerve.

But Ari had worked up the nerve. Elise was accompanying her into the Forest, her heavy traveling boots donned and dressed in a long black cloak. Something Ari didn’t see Elise often in, with how frequently she was stuffed up in her apartment.

The question was, how much did Ari ease into the reveal? Because while Ari had plenty of proof for the strange things she’d be telling Elise, that didn’t make any of it less odd. What would Elise’s reaction be?

What would anyone’s reaction be, discovering Ari’s class? And her Menagerie’s existence?

She hadn’t had to deal with disbelief or doubt yet, because the only people who knew Ari’s class were Ari and the monster girls she interacted with. Who, for inexplicable reasons, received the details to Ari’s class immediately upon their transformation. Probably to avoid awkward explanations every time a fight began.

But now Ari would be seeing what a normal person thought about her class.

And she didn’t have to deal just with the oddity, but the embarrassment, too. Ari hadn’t been the most experienced of girls back at Tark, and Elise knew that. It was hilarious how quickly that aspect of Ari had changed. Sure, Ari had lost her virginity less than a week ago, but in those seven days?

Well. By sheer amount of girls she’d been stuffed silly by, or had her fingers and tongue wiggling around inside, Ari was probably one of the most experienced girls in Molehill, which, honestly, was kind of hilarious. Because of how antithetical it was to her perception of herself. Ari didn’t see herself as ‘experienced’. Maybe not inexperienced anymore, but … sheesh, she’d been active in the past week. More active than most people in their lives.

She should avoid thinking about that too hard. Her cheeks were starting to color, and though she and Elise were trudging along, if Elise looked over and saw her blushing, she’d have an awkward series of questions to deflect.

And speaking of deflecting questions … Ari had been doing that a lot, in the ten minutes it’d taken to leave Elise’s apartment behind and make it to the edge of the Forest. Ari wanted to introduce Elise to Claire, first, to provide proof of some sort, before broaching the insanity of her class. It would make things go down easier.

But Elise wanted information now—her curiosity was burning.

Elise’s curiosity was always burning. Why else would she have received a [Mage] class? Or more specifically, would she have been apprenticed by someone as respected as Mistress Selia? Curiosity was a prerequisite for mages. Or … most. Certainly, some broke the mold, the same for any generalization.

But Ari held steadfast. She fended off Elise’s questions, and before she knew it, the two of them had ventured off the dirt path, into the Forest proper, and to the great, twisting oak tree she had parted from Claire by.

Claire saw them coming. Though a person might not assume it given her bubbly, sometimes inattentive personality, she was as much an adventurer as any. She kept a strong awareness of her surroundings, and though they were on the outskirts of the Forest, away from serious threats—especially since they weren’t level ones, anymore, but quickly working up the ladder—Claire hadn’t allowed herself to relax and doze off. She’d stayed alert, watching and listening for threats.

That wasn’t entirely for the sake of monsters. Ari hadn’t sorted out the conundrum of, was it fine to reveal her monster girls to the world? Or did she need to invent disguises and such for them? Backstories? Or whatever else. The world was a big place, chock-full with magic and all kinds of strange things, so if Ari was creative, she could come up with something that wouldn’t have too much attention drawn their way. Probably. It might be easier to keep things under wraps.

Hence, Claire’s attentiveness. She’d been ready to hide, should she hear someone—who wasn’t Ari—approaching. Ari had been the one to suggest the precautions. She’d tried getting advice from them, too, about their circumstances, but honestly … they were too clueless to the greater world to be much help.

Which was one of the reasons she wanted to bring Elise into the fold. Ari could use advice, or if not that, someone to bounce ideas off of. Someone who knew the world as it was, rather than having appeared, magically, with a set of default memories and lack of true understanding, like her Menagerie.

Though, the bigger reason was, of course, that she wanted to come clean. Ari didn’t like hiding things from Elise. They had been close since they were kids. Though Ari was loving meeting and befriending monster girls, that Elise had been sidelined in her life was … a bit sad.

All of that reasoning organized in her head, though, didn’t mean she was free from nerves. They picked across the forest floor, Claire coming into view, and Ari braced for the sure-to-be interesting meeting, and explanations, to follow.

‘Interesting’, she suspected, wouldn’t do it justice …