Wild Hearts || Miraculous Ladybug

10|| Chloe's a Cosplayer

"Do you have at least two day's worth of clothes?" Silver asked her young holder. The said girl rummaged around her bag until she found what she needed.

"Yep!" Elizabeth chirped, pulling out a small drawstring bag from the depths of her travel backpack. She opened the top and displayed the contents to her kwami, proving that it was indeed filled with clothes. Once Silver was satisfied, Elizabeth tucked the bag back in, placing it at the bottom.

"What about your flashlight?" the magpie continued, reading off of a small sticky note with a list of things they would need on it. "Food? Water?"

"I have my flashlight in there, along with the other important things I usually have on me when I'm out exploring," Elizabeth assured, setting the bag down on her bed and sitting cross-legged next to it. "As for the food and water, I'll go buy what we need right before we leave."

Silver was appeased by her response and continued to read off the list. Elizabeth checked her bag for each item, reporting what she did and didn't have. Surprisingly, she didn't forget too many things, quite the accomplishment considering she started packing at three in the morning.

Once Silver finished with the list, she floated down to settle on Elizabeth's leg. Jumbe rested on her head. "I guess we're as ready to go as we can be," the magpie concluded, folding up the sticky note.

"Not exactly," Jumbe jumped in, lazily lifting his head up from Elizabeth's hair. "We still have to find an excuse to tell Elizabeth's grandparents so that we can make the trip without them panicking or getting suspicious."

Elizabeth hummed in acknowledgement, cradling her head with one hand. Out of everything that she had to do for this mission, Elizabeth felt like the hardest task would be lying to her grandparents. It wasn't hard because she felt bad about doing it (in fact, she didn't feel any regret whatsoever. She was doing what she had to do.) but because she not only needed them to believe it, but also she needed a way to back it up in case they tried to reach out to her during that time. However, she had no idea how to go about that.

Then Silver spoke up, bringing Elizabeth out of her thoughts. "I was thinking that you should pretend to be at a sleepover or something," she suggested, "that could free up almost two full days for us to get the job done."

"But is two days enough?" Jumbe voiced with a contemplative frown.

"If we don't come up with anything better, it'll have to be," the dirty blonde stated solemnly, pausing for a moment to let the words soak in. "Also, I think we'll need a stronger excuse than a sleepover. I would prefer it if we set out Friday night, but we'd have to be able to explain our absence Saturday morning all the way until Sunday afternoon, or whenever we get back. A sleepover is definitely not strong enough of an excuse."

"That's true," Jumbe agreed, "well, we have the rest of the school week before we head out, so we have some time. We'll come up with something."

"We always do," Elizabeth whispered with a small smile, zipping up her bags and standing up. She glanced over at her clock. "In the meantime, I better go take a shower and get ready for school."

"Yep!" Silver agreed, shooing her away to the bathroom. "Go get ready! You don't want to be late. Jumbe and I will pack your stuff up for you!" Elizabeth smiled and walked away.

Just before she closed her bathroom door, she heard Jumbe mutter, "I don't recall agreeing to such a thing."

Elizabeth heard the small voice of Silver yell out a reply, but she didn't listen in. The blonde only smirked and shook her head, turning on the shower. Once the water was warm, she stepped in.

As she washed herself, she contemplated their situation. As soon as they figured out what to do to help the kwami trapped in the necklace, Elizabeth and her kwamis decided they would out as soon as possible and pursue it. Today was Tuesday; they intended to leave no later than Saturday morning, Friday night if all went well. That meant that Elizabeth had four days to come up with a lie believable enough to cover up her real activities.