Seth stuttered and stammered as she smacked him across the face with another verbal blow, forcing him to churn out the first excuse he could think of and worry about making it make sense later. Just play dumb, that always works. Play dumb, buy yourself some time to think.

"I uh... What? What are you talking about? I mean, I know my hearing is good, but you're gonna have to speak up if you want to talk to me from all the way over there."

Seth smiled softly, trying to ignore the river of sweat trickling down his back. As Astra narrowed her eyes at the response, he nodded in his mind. Congratulating himself for crafting such a masterful lie, she was definitely buying it so far.

"Playing dumb? Really? That never works."

Shit.

"I know what you are. I know who you are, and we are stuck here together for who knows how long. So, it would be best not to anger me by lying to me."

Double Shit.

As she spoke, she slowly strode across the space separating them, the ground hissing beneath her boots as lightning curled around her body, charring the grass with every step. Her pupils glowed brighter and brighter as she drew closer, as if there was a dial in her mind slowly turning them up in accordance with her perceived anger, until the electric blue of her pupils overwhelmed the warm chocolate in her iris'.

Her hair danced softly in a non-existent wind, cracklings of static electricity arcing between the strands of hair like tesla coils.

When she finally stopped, she was just an inch away from touching Seth's body, his black blood already stirring within him, getting ready to envelop his body at a moments notice. Even though she was a few inches shorter than Seth, it didn't change the tyrannical size of her aura as she fiercely stared into his eyes, daring him to lie once more to her face.

Seth held her gaze firmly, his eyes darting back and forth between hers as he looked into the windows of her soul, which were overflowing with the energy she held within. He could see the anger, the defiance. But he could also see the hint of something else, something that melted away his resolved to carry out the charade with her.

As he looked into her eyes, he let out a soft sigh as a smile danced upon his lips before he look down and began laughing to himself.

He couldn't help being reminded of his encounter with the Draconic Lady just a few days prior. The similarities not just between the situations and the way they were treating him, but the people in question. Honestly, he should have seen it before in his right hand woman. Of course he had chosen the scary, electric woman to be his second in command, typical.

He really did have a type.

His laughter seemed to throw off Astra's intimidation act, as the electric air around her lessened slightly as a confused expression snuck its way onto her face. The glow of her eyes dimming and her hair flopping back down against her back, as she looked at the laughing young man with a complicated expression.

She was about to flair up her 'aura' once more, thinking that he was mocking her attempt of being scary, when that was what everyone said she was anyways, before being interrupted by his movement.

Seth lifted his head, looking back into Astra's eye with a warm gaze and a gentle smile, as he asked a simple question.

"What gave me away?"

Seth knew that by asking this question, by replying in this way, that he was basically confirming his suspicions and outing his 'secret identity'. He knew that he could lie his way out, twist the truth and make her doubt what she had experienced, and under normal circumstances he probably would. If it was someone else.

But she wasn't someone else. Astra deserved to know, she didn't deserve to be lied to, not anymore. She deserved to know the truth, she needed to know it.

She seemed perplexed by the response, her intimidating aura completely vanishing as it was her turn to be stunned, as she took a few steps back and began to think. Most likely she had expected him to put up more of a fight, or maybe was considering that this was another trick. Another lie.

"I mean, was it really just a guess based on my habit? If so, that was some lucky guess."

"No, It wasn't. It was three things, actually."

"Three?! God damn... I thought I was really careful about it too."

Seth laughed and shook his head, lightening the mood as he brushed his hair out of his face, giving Astra a moment to process and understand that she was truly getting the answers she had been hoping for.

"So... You must be pretty pissed at me, huh?"

"...No...Yes...Maybe. I don't know."

"Okay then. Do I at least get to know what those reasons were before you electrocute me to death?"

He nudged her shoulder gently, giving her a warm smile. She shot him a cold glare in response, before a smile of her own tickled the edge of her lips. She quickly swept it away, putting on her usual stern expression as she flicked her silvery-black mixed hair from her face.

She took a few more steps back, whipped her hand towards him and pointed one of her blackened tipped fingers at him, like she was about to blast him away, before pointing that finger to the sky.

"One. You're little habit of tapping your fingers. I bet you don't even realise you do it, do you?"

"Not all of the time, no. But I told you, It helps me to relax. And it's from Zelda, since you asked."

"Noted. But you realise that it's not just you that does it, right? Your other self does it and so do his, or should I say your, minions. The Lord and his minions doing it, that means nothing. But you too? That's clue number one.

Number two, Is how you fight. We haven't fought together all that much, but I have with the Lord. I thought that it felt familiar."

Seth considered the points and softly nodded. He really hadn't realised that his puppets did his habit as well, but it made sense. Initially, before the spirit animal, they could only operate without direct control when something was implanted into his subconscious.

Walking, Combat techniques, so forth. Honestly after acquiring his Spirit Animal, which made everything infinitely easier, he had drifted away from implanting such things into his subconscious. He still did it for himself, but when it came to training for his puppets... He really had gotten lazy.

It was a part of his abilities that he had genuinely forgotten about, but of course what else would transfer over to them than subconscious habits like his finger taps. He would have to fix that when he got reconnected, tell the Spirit Animals to prevent such things in the rest of his puppets when they were under their control.

And when they were under his? Well, he would just have to pay better attention.

As for the second point, he definitely had given himself away there. He hadn't even been thinking about it, just falling into his routine with Astra and, since she also fell into that same routine, nothing had stood out as out of the ordinary for him.

Of all the information he had worried about spilling through conversations, the conversation of fists was not the one he had expected to spill secrets.

"So what was the third one? You said there were three, after all."

Astra nodded softly, slowly walking back over to him as she spoke,

"Have you ever heard the experiment of the mouse and the cheese plate? You run an electric charge through the metal plate the cheese sits on. When the mouse tries to eat the cheese, he gets a shock. Nothing deadly, just... painful.

Then, when the charge is turned off, the mouse still fears the plate even though it is safe."

When she finished speaking, she was once more standing directly in front of Seth, staring into his eyes. Although this time when she was looking into them, there wasn't anger in her eyes, but a mixture of emotions so complex that Seth couldn't even decide where to start.

But before he could even try, she lifted her finger and gently tapped him on the nose.

Seth blinked softly, frowning deeply at that utterly befuddling action and wondering why she did that, before it finally dawned on him. His confusion slipping from his face to be quickly replaced by understanding.

"Oh..."

Astra gave him a cocky smirk, letting out a soft laugh before flicking him in the forehead and moving away once more.

"That's right little mouse. I might have told you I was safe to touch, but you didn't even flinch. You never have, ever since that first day we met. You've never feared touching me, so when I told you I'm safe to touch it changed nothing for you.

Unlike everyone else, you don't fear me. Even if it wasn't really you under the mask, right?"

"Yeah... Sorry about that. I did it for protection at first and it just kinda... spiralled."

She let out a soft giggle, a truly wonderful and melodious sound that tickled Seth's ears.

"So, If it isn't you under the mask, and you are here with me. Then how is the 'real' Lord Corvus doing while we are stuck here?"