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Completely unaware as to why Collette was backing away from her and her wild gesticulating, Silje followed without a second thought. She took a step forward for every step the princess took back, like they were part of some strange dance choreography. Maybe they were! Silje liked the thought.
She did not like Gerard and Justice's answers when it came to keeping the princess. "But missions change!" she insisted, hands in the air. "Ours did! Like a bazillion times today alone! We were supposed to be on a road trip, then we had to make friends in a corner store, and then avoid raining robots, and blow up sharks, and—"
They weren't even listening—!
Not that Silje was, either. She was expertly tuning out the rest of the conversation as she pondered on what to do. They weren't handing the princess off right this second, so there was still plenty of time to come up with a plan to keep her. But... for that, she would probably need an accomplice. She might be able to convince Gerard, because Gerard could be convinced to do anything that seemed fun(ny), but then Justice would just look at him all meanly and convince him right back, so that was a no-go. Kali was super important to her, but not ideal for a mission that required stealth and subterfuge and specifically not killing anything.
Speaking of people important to her, though, there was—
With a slowly forming grin, Silje turned to her childhood friend, who's attention was on Gerard. Silje inched closer, tugging at her sleeve and leaning closer the way she had back at the monastery, whenever she'd had a good intrusive thought idea to share.
"Heyyyy, Valfriend," she whispered, employing a term reserved only for the direst of times. Surely she'd know Silje meant business just from hearing it. "I think you're right, we should adapt and improvise. And... if I was going to do something very adapted and improvised at some point when we run into... um, problems, you should definitely help me."
