Trapped [Falsehood!]

Taber felt something strange in his chest. It wasn't the pressure; it wasn't the warmth; it wasn't the coolness of the water. It pulled him up, had him shake the water off of himself, made him walk over to Nathan. Taber was...angry? Yeah, he was angry. He felt hot, and all he could think of doing was gritting his teeth and shaking.

But it'd be rude, and there wasn't any point in doing that, so Taber set his paws on Nathan's shoulders instead. He'd have to apologize for that later, but Taber had reached his limit. "Nathan, what's going on?" he said slowly. "You should be telling the truth in this place, like us. But you're causing the air to get lighter, and maybe colder? And I'm definitely not tired and scared and confused and sick of lying all the time, and I definitely don't want some answers. Are you not scared of something?"

"I'm scared of everything," Nathan replied. The air didn't grow heavy - Tobias knew he had to be telling the truth. "And I don't want to lie. I always don't! I just didn't want to pretend for a little bit longer."

"That would mean..." Tobias trailed off.

Nathan let out a sigh. "That I always have to lie."

Freezing up, Taber frowned. "Why do you like telling the truth?" he said, still not letting go of Nathan. "I hate telling the truth - it feels so wrong, and not telling the truth might not hurt other people."

Nathan let out a sigh.

"It's not a breath of fresh air," he said. "I'm compelled to lie. Here, I'm compelled to tell the truth - I can't fight it in both cases, but this is the one chance I get to..."

He trailed off.

"...I just don't want to have fun."

Taber tilted his head. "Compelled to lie?" he said. "I like the compelled part, but lying sounds very fun."

Tobias looked Nathan over once more, this time trying to discern something that he hadn't bothered to look for before. In retrospect, it should have been the very first thing he looked at when he realized something was off about him, but he had hoped that Nathan would tell the truth on his own.

He looked at Nathan's soul.

He took a step back in surprise, nearly stumbling over his own two feet and falling to the ground. The soul wasn't like any other soul he had ever seen before - it wasn't even like his.

The air grew heavy again.

"You saw, didn't you?" Nathan asked, watching him like he was some entertaining show on the TV. "Thanatos?"

"Y-You knew?" he managed to get out.

"I know the truth of everything, if I think long enough about it. You're one of the Greek gods of death - you serve Hades. Because of your role, you can read souls. That's how you can tell I'm different. Tobias is an alias you use around humans."

Nathan turned to Rebat.

"You're Taber. Rebat's just your name backwards, but you've used it before as a fake name. You've been through stuff like this, although you always think that you're dreaming. You probably think this is a dream, too."

The air grew a little heavier and warmer.

Nathan let out a sigh.

"Since I can't keep telling the truth without this place getting mad at me, I guess I'll just give it to you plain and simple - I'm the personification of truth. My current form is called Jane, not Nathan. You can call me that or Truth - I don't really mind either way. I accidentally swapped bodies and places with the personification of lying. It's usually not this strict, but I guess it sees me being here as some kind of enemy presence."

The heaviness in the air faded.

"That's not all of it," Truth said.

Now Taber let go of Jane. "This isn't a dream, right?" he said, voice a little higher and more shaky. "And, you don't know my name? Tobias is a god of life? And you're the personification of lying? And-"

Taber froze, hearing a scream behind him. He whirled around just in time to see a figure slide into the cave and dart towards the lake, jumping into it. A loud splash! and a large ripple later, the cave fell into silence.

And then a fox poked his eyes and snout out of the water, staring at the others.

Spoiler

Haha might as well do this.

Xain, a three-tailed kitsune. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a bipedal red fox, just with a lighter fur color and three tails. Wearing a loincloth that goes down to about his ankles. Pretty friendly, mildly confused.

Spoiler

I knew you were going to throw him into a roleplay eventually.

Thanatos stared at the face peeking out of the water.

"...This is great," he softly said.

Hng. Xain hadn't seen anything that looked quite like whatever it was that was talking to him, but at least he could understand it.

"What's not great about any of this?" he said, throwing up his arms before pausing. That, hadn't quite come out like he'd wanted it to.

"Um, we're not lying against our will," said the strange-colored wolf next to the whatever-it-was.

Xain lowered his snout below the water and narrowed his eyes. So much for understanding anything that was going on.

"You definitely didn't just miss my explanation," Truth - or Jane - said with a sigh. Thanatos still wasn't sure what he wanted to call her, seeing that she was fine with either one of them. "Hi. I'm Nathan, the personification of lying. This is Rebat and Tobias, and everything I just said was totally true."

Xain had no idea how to parse that - if everyone really was forced to lie (which sort of made sense to him), Nathan had just been explaining things, but that couldn't be Nathan? Or Rebat? Or Tobias?

Well, the kitsune wasn't going to deal with any of this lying nonsense. Sticking his tongue out, he took a step back, sinking a little deeper into the lake.

"Please don't come out," Thanatos said, turning away from the house to return to the lakeside. He lingered beside the body of water; he didn't want to get his outfit wet, though he was sure it would dry off quickly if he did.

"I trust you people," Xain said, "And my fur still doesn't feel like it's burning, so I don't think I'm staying here." Ugh, that didn't make any sense, but hopefully they got it. He really wasn't in the mood to fight anyone.

He sent a questioning look at Jane.

"It shouldn't cool down soon," she said. She joined him at the lakeside, peering over at the newcomer with interest. "It's not hot because I lied - now that I'm telling the truth again, it shouldn't get cooler."

Oh. Oh. "Nathan" had to be the personification of truth, not lying. And had something to do with Xain being unable to tell the truth.

The kitsune glared at "Nathan." "It better not cool down," he said. "And you better not tell the truth, because I almost didn't catch on fire back there."