"Mmmph!" Chen says once, confirming to Cyanis that there are plenty of other princesses in the area and making her only contribution to the negotiations. She was listening of course, Cyanis was underselling her and could obviously tell that the two thieves were nervous and ready to buckle under pressure. Shrewd. But the grass was also comfy, and so was her scarf and it was easy to just lie back to the sound of those two excitedly wagging black and white tails and imagine them brushing over her face and maybe daintily over the back of her neck with the lightest little touch, oh wouldn't that just feel amazing?

She is brought back to a more pressing reality quite literally with Cyanis using her as a foot rest and she lets out an indigant eep that is instantly cut short by the brightest blush suffusing her whole body, which has also gone stiff. How did she know?! She had only done that one time with princess Ishan when she'd first been out training and had stumbled upon Ishan's pirate fleet. Why Ishan had a maid costume in her ship they had never discussed, but both of them had considered it a fair deal to have Chen clean out Ishan's entire personal cabin dressed in it in exchange for secrecy about the location and existence of the fleet!

Okay, well, there was also that one other time when she had briefly captured Ishan herself a year later just before Qiu's big move and Chen still had the maid costume and it just seemed like a nice thing to do for her captive to make her comfortable, plus Chen's room in Ysel had been so dusty since she didn't visit that often. But it had only been two times!

Well, unless you counted the time that Chen had disguised herself as a (quickly captured) handmaiden to infiltrate Yin's kingdom for information before escaping, but that one hardly counted because maid costumes were [i]not[/i] see through and they had to have a little apron to really count, thank you very much. And anyway, that was only three times, so how could Cyanis have possibly known about this?!

Chen squirmed uncomfortably and her blush did not go away as she looked at Cyanis. She was tied and gagged, she could just moan and protest but she'd never been very good at lying that way. Her talent for deceit was in the exasperated groan and the "get off my back" eye roll that made all activities equally suspicious and unsuspicious at the same time. But directly lying when confronted, that was hard and Chen had a million tells for her discomfort. So, presently, she gives Cyanis just the smallest nod amidst her blush that yes that sounds fair and then immediately looks away and tries to pretend that if she can't see that beautiful little fox, she must not exist at all!