Okay. Turns out, following someone inside a warehouse stuffed with people was, well, harder in practice than in theory.

First of all, the lady just weaved in and out of people like she was made of water, trickling past these giant people. Second, we were trying not to look like we were following her, which meant we couldn't mimic her weaving technique even if we could. Third, we were two people, which meant if we wanted to be able to plan while we followed, we couldn't.

Yup. This was impossible.

"We should've..." Rosa side-stepped and disappeared to the right for a few seconds, then re-emerged past a group of people. "...followed the lackeys instead. It would've been...."

"Easier?" I raised my eyebrow at her (not that she could see) once she returned from another detour. This time I had to go around a couple people, all the while trying to keep an eye on the lady as she whizzed through the crowd with ease. "Well then, why didn't you?"

"I thought she'd lead us... Excuse me!" Rosa huffed, squeezing past a particularly thick crowd. I barely managed to follow after her. "Straight to the boss."

I frowned, scanning through the crowd. "Wait, we lost her!"

Rosa shook her head, forging past new groups of people in front of me. "No, I see her. C'mon."  

"Anyways, what? Oh, you thought she'd lead us straight to the boss."

"Yeah, the Baron of the funny name."

"Don't be rude, Rosa. Brenton is a nice name."

She threw her head back to give me a grin. "Funny business, funnier name."

I rolled my eyes and chose not to comment. Instead, I frowned and said, "What are we going to do once we find him again?"

Rosa hesitated. "Act like insiders."

Snorting, I barely managed to avoid bumping into a particularly unmoving man. "As if that's easy."

"Then supporters, maybe," Rosa shot back. "And you offered to come, so no complaining!"

"It was either that or leaving you for the wolves to eat," I retorted, but Rosa was too far to my left to have heard me over the crowd.

When she came back into hearing distance, I scurried closer to her and asked, "Have a more detailed plan?"

She hummed. "I'm thinking on it."

We continued winding through the crowd, my mind sifting through possibilities. Acting like an insider? Easier said than done. If the lady was as competent and high-up as she seemed, simply acting like we were in on the whole thing wouldn't work. That would just mean she wasn't doing her job right. Besides, if we were going to act like insiders, Rosa would have to physically stay out of the scheme, or else she'd probably ruin it. We weren't dealing with shady secret societies this time; we were dealing with illegal and possibly treasonous things. We didn't even have enough information to pull it off believably.

I sighed. This wasn't going to work.

After murmuring an "excuse me" to a few people blocking my path, I reached for Rosa. "Rose, I don't think..."

Before I could continue, she slowed to a stop, and my attention shifted to the direction Rosa was staring at.

I spotted the lady just as she was emerging from a bow to a man facing away from us. I inhaled sharply. "Is that...?"

"Baron Funny Name? Probably," Rosa said under her breath. "Now the question is, how will we get close to them without alerting their guards?"

I blinked. "They have guards?"

She nodded to some of the surrounding groups of people, and I scanned them quickly before averting my eyes. "Don't stare so obviously!" I hissed at Rosa, and she immediately looked away, too.

"Look at the arena," I urged, and we turned our bodies towards the inside of the warehouse, alongside most of the watchers around us. The fight was still as rowdy as ever, but none of their interactions registered in my mind. Rosa was right-- I'd seen three men close to the pair who seemed to be glaring at their surroundings for no apparent reason, their backs to the baron and the lady. "What now?"

"I'm thinking. Wait."

"Just to let you know, I don't think acting like an insider right off the bat is going to work."

Rosa nodded. "I was thinking the same."

When she didn't say anything else, I turned to her with a raised eyebrow, only to find that she was chewing on the bottom of her lips, looking conflicted.

"Rosa?"

"I'm thinking!" she repeated, crossing her arms and hunching up a little. I casually glanced backwards, pretending to scratch my neck and look around. The lady was still talking to the baron, turned away from us. My eyes wandered around some more, like I was just observing the entire place, before I let myself face the arena again.

"Rose, we might not have much time," I warned, then yelped. "Ow! Don't kick me!"

"Then don't rush me! I'm thinking!" Rosa snapped.

I opened my mouth to respond before I reconsidered, rubbing the back of my calf. Yeah, I kind of deserved that. Gently closing my mouth, I exhaled slowly and refocused on the arena. If rushing her wasn't going to work, might as well enjoy the fight.

A few minutes later, after the lady cook and Spilled Spaghetti engaged in a one-on-one fight for each other's onions and Dry Tomato took that opportunity to make off with the lady cook's pot, only to return to find his own counter was now clear of his precious tomatoes, Rosa straightened.

My attention snapped back to her immediately.

As I'd expected, Rosa had that certain glint in her eye once more. "Okay, here's the plan. We're not going to act like insiders, but we're going to act like we're interested buyers. First, do you remember what one of those lackeys looked like?"

I thought back to the two scolded men. "Uhh, kind of? One of them had a weird mohawk."

Rosa nodded once. "Good. What we're going to do is, we can act like we're here on the part of another noble, who wants in on the trade. You can act like we were directed to her by one of the lackeys. Say we know about this trade and want to take part in it, be a sponsor or something, for the sake of extra profit."

Frowning, I shifted my weight to my other leg, considering the plan. "Okay, and then what?"

"Then we ask for details and a tour, if possible. We will then take all this information to 'report'--" Rosa made what she called 'imaginary quotes' in the air, which I still didn't understand what it exactly was, but had seen it enough to know what it meant by now-- "'report' to our higher-up, and we can tell her we will contact her further if our noble decides to go through with it."

"That makes sense," I said slowly, my hands on my hips and thinking out loud. "This way, we won't have to make any decisions and can just observe. We don't even have to know a bunch about how this is going to work, since we're just lackeys, so we can act like we don't know anything. We really don't know anything anyways, so that fits. It'll give us more authenticity." After all, liars knew that the best lies were closest to the truth. "And since we are potential sponsors, or potential partners in the trade for more profit, the lady won't be able to turn us away so easily, even if she has her doubts!"

Rosa blinked. "Uh, sure. Didn't think that far, but yes. Exactly."

I broke out into a huge smile and slapped her goodheartedly on the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Good one, Rosa! Definitely worth the wait." My hands back on my hips, I scanned the area once, my mind whirring with plans. "Okay," I said, lowering my voice, "let's wait to catch the lady by herself. It'll be too difficult around the baron-- he might know all the nobles."

Rosa nodded, and I looked back, eyes intentionally wandering again. I let my sight only briefly stay on the baron and the lady before sliding my gaze away almost immediately. Good, they were still together. I turned back to Rosa. "We need to get away from here."

"Why?"

"It'll be too weird if we suddenly approach her when we've been nearby and just watching the arena this entire time. We need to be gone from her sight so we can appear out of seemingly nowhere, but still have a view of her so that we don't lose her in this crowd. And did you see? We've made full circle-- we're back at the balcony we were up on before. Let's go back up there and keep an eye on her."

"Wrong," Rosa said immediately after I finished, and I blinked at her.

"What? I thought that was a very sensible plan."

"It is," she nodded. "But this warehouse is rectangular."

I waited for her to continue, but she only gave me an expectant look, like she'd just stated something very important and self-explanatory. After a few moments, I tilted my head. "And? Your point is?"

She sighed,  shaking her head in disappointment (like I was the one who was in the wrong here!?!) and folded her arms. "Filly," she chided, shaking her head some more, "we didn't make full circle. Even if we were approximating our curves to be perfectly rounded, we'd be making a full oval."

I groaned and turned around. That was her biggest complaint? "Please!" was the only thing I said before I marched off to the ladder.

"Not that you can't make a perfect circle in a rectangular space, of course," Rosa continued blithely as she followed behind me, "but in this particular space, the inner arena is also a rectangle, and there isn't enough area in the sides to create a perfect circle that surrounds the inner rectangle as we have done. Also, if we consider our path in terms of points we visited rather than actual angles of each time we moved, we have a polygon rather than any circular--"

"It's just a saying, but okay," I called backwards.

As I climbed up the ladder to the balcony once more, I heaved a sigh of my own. Relax, Filly, relax-- this was Rosa's way of calming herself down. Talking math and geometry and whatever. She was just blowing off nervous energy, or something. Let her be.

"Right, since we began up on the balcony, we need to consider that we actually started from a point that is not on the same dimensional plane as the rest of our points, which means that we can't have made a two-dimensional shape from the beginning."

...yes, I reminded myself, gritting my teeth. Just let her be.

---

A/N: I'm still alive!!!!! And reading things!!! My English is sort of improving!!!! I think!!!!! 

...sorry for not updating last week. I think it was last week? I've no idea, but I'm working on it. Thanks for sticking round! :'D