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Verity's lie-sense is not exact.
When someone speaks a lie, yes, she can pinpoint what part of what they said is a lie. She can see through illusions and not realise she's doing it, hence why when she first met Loki she was totally confused by his bizarre attire that only she could see. She can tell if obvious body language like a nod, head shake, or shrug is insincere. Written statements, too, are pretty easy, which is why she always had such a strong aversion to any fiction story. The joy of Harry Potter did not reach Verity Willis.
(An interesting side effect is that she can proofread her own maths work, as she can immediately tell by muttering the whole thing under her breath whether or not she's solved this or that correctly.)
Beyond that, things get imprecise at best.
She gets the tingles looking at people when they're lying with body language, but she never knows quite what her sense is telling her or what it means. She just knows that something is wrong.
This extends in directions she had never imagined as she'd first begun to understand her power.
What happens later with Loki is foreshadowed in an event from high school.
She'd met someone new, who'd introduced themselves as Jacob.
Not only had that been a lie, but something about them had seemed blurred and wrong about just looking at them.
What Verity had blurted after a minute or two had changed things. "You're a girl," she had said.
Jacob - later Amity - had been speechless. She hadn't come out to anyone yet.
So, as it turned out, Verity had a gender sense, or at least a sense of someone's true self if their exterior didn't hold true to it.
There were only a few other occasions she got hit by that sense, and generally she kept it to herself, it being a sensitive and private issue.
And, moving on to the present day, she's never had that sense about Loki. Loki's exterior matches his interior perfectly - quirky, cute enough, but with a sinister air that hints of something deeper.
Until one day, when Loki needs her help solving some kind of riddle and she comes over to his home. She's gotten better at keeping her mouth shut since Amity, but she's just startled enough that she says "You're a girl today."
"Hm?" Loki asks. She's sitting on the floor, eyes fixed on a scroll she's decoding, already casual enough around her to not bother with the formal greetings.
She's in a male form, but Verity can tell.
"You didn't tell me you change gender," Verity says. She means to sound curious, but she's worried she sounds a little accusing.
"How can you tell?" Loki says in mild confusion.
"Your body's lying to me," Verity says.
Loki seems genuinely taken aback. "I honestly didn't know you could sense that. Verity's powers, can even drag people out of the closet, cupboard, or armoire."
"You don't have to be-" Verity makes a gesture at Loki's male body.
"I am, shall I say, accustomed to it. Gratuitious sex-changing is not precisely the norm in Asgardia, no matter how liberal they can be," Loki says.
"Well, I don't mind," Verity says. "C'mon. I want to see."
Loki keeps looking at her as her body morphs into that of a female. She remains the same height with the same clothes, circlet, and general appearance. The only major differences are a slight shift in body and face shape, the addition of breasts, and an extension of hair. There're probably other things that happen to her body, but Verity can't see that, and she can't honestly say she's unhappy about that.
It wouldn't make sense for Loki to suddenly be wearing a pencil skirt or some kind of corset, really, and Verity can appreciate the versatility of Loki's outfit.
Loki's a confident creature. Even when she's not feeling so great, she at least appears confident, because when you're the God of Lies, faking it 'til you make it is kind of the only way to do things.
As such, Verity detects absolutely no unsureness in Loki whatsoever, but she's still inclined to think the goddess might be feeling that way, so she decides to tread softly around the issue.
"You look great," Verity tells her, in an effort to be encouraging.
Loki raises an eyebrow that implies something entirely different to what Verity was aiming for.
"Try it with Lorelei," Verity says amusedly. "I'm trying to give you a self-confidence boost."
She finally scoops herself up off the ground and stands up for the first time. Loki just soars above Verity, still very tall, and looking cool and calm.
"I imagine this is the part where we dress in pajamas, watch romantic comedies, and paint each other's nails," Loki says lightly. She held up her already-painted nails, then raised an eyebrow and said "I'm way ahead of you, sister."
"I don't expect you to act like a girl. Or a stereotypical one, I guess."
"If you were I'd have to break your heart and leave you so sorely disappointed," Loki shrugs. "Are you going to help me with this or not?"
Verity doesn't bother to answer, just sits down and has a look over Loki's notes so far. She's kindly made the effort to write them in English thus far.
"So, what am I looking at?" Verity asks.
"It's simple. Read my notes and tell me which statements are true and which are not," Loki says, distractedly still working. "I was limited to just two options; weeks of research, or asking your help and repaying you with chilli later. Do you like chilli?"
"Very much so," Verity smiles, starting to read.
Reading something like this is unpleasant for the same reason she doesn't read fiction, but it's definitely interesting. Mostly because Loki gets up to some weird stuff.
Twining the stripped gut of a lesser Nidavellir dragon preserved with a mixture of honey and ground coriander around the handle of your sword, when applied with the naudr rune, will create a no-slip charm.
What the hell does that mean?
But in any case, it isn't a true statement, which Verity tells Loki.
Some of the things on the list seem to spell instructions, like the dragon gut. Other ones are directions to the location of hidden artifacts, or cursebreaking charms, or equivalent. Only about a third of them are true, and though Verity's sense isn't actually orientated for this sort of thing - statements which she doesn't understand and has way of discerning the truth - she feels confident about her findings.
She starts to get a headache after about a dozen of these, and she picks the conversation back up with Loki.
"So why don't you switch sex with your gender?" Verity can't help but ask.
"Why bother?" Loki says, still focusing on translations. "It does take some energy, though less than true shapeshifting, and besides."
"Hm?" Verity says. It's becoming background conversation, now, but she's still interested in Loki's answers.
"I don't exactly fit the Asgardian standard of the shining symbol of all that is masculine and spitroast-eating, unlike, say, my dearest sibling," Loki says. "To be crude, in my usual body I am considered by the standards of many to be some kind of androgynous thing. No change of form required."
"Asgardia sounds stupid, then," Verity says bluntly.
"You have no idea, little ingenue," Loki says. "I'm hoping you haven't looked that word up yet."
Verity doesn't say anything to that, making Loki laugh.
She chuckles when she's in male form, but it's more of a giggle in her higher female voice, and Verity finds she likes that.
Loki voices an idea suddenly. "I don't think the old me was like this," she says.
Verity doesn't know the whole situation, but Loki gave her the SparkNotes version (and, she suspected, the cleaned-up version, because so many details had been circumnavigated in Loki's retelling) and she understands enough to carry the conversation.
"No?" she simply says, inviting further conversation.
"From what I know of my previous self, he was unconventional, yes, but most certainly and always male, even with a female body. I am not. It begs several questions that I don't believe I'll ever answer."
"You'll figure yourself out," Verity says. There isn't really much else you can say to that.
"This isn't counselling for a wayward teen, Verity; this is theurgical mechanics," Loki says, her tone unintentionally aloof. "Perhaps I'm wasting words. How is your decoding going?"
"Fine. This stuff is very weird, you know. I didn't think people actually used virgin blood for things," Verity says.
"Oh. That just means it hasn't already been used in a ritual," Loki says.
"That's a relief," Verity admits.
After she's finished a few more pages of Loki's translation, Verity's had enough. Her head aches from reading so much bullshit. Even the ones that aren't lies are confusing and strange.
"I'm done," Verity says, pushing the notes away from herself. "Paint my nails for me."
"I honestly wouldn't dare, oh Verity of the demanding requests," Loki says. "You'll end up with it all smeared and clumpy due to my severe lacking in ability."
"How d'you do yours, then?" Verity asks.
"I do it with magic," Loki shrugs, admiring her nails. "Lovely straight edges, and no imprecisions caused by a shaky weaker hand."
"Then today you learn to do it without the mystical hoo-hah," Verity says decisively. "Do you own any that's not black?"
"Black is best. I'll stop painting my nails black when some clever kid invents a darker colour," Loki replies stubbornly.
Bantering with Loki is fun, and not at all what Verity expected when she met her. She has a creeping feeling that the goddess has an amazing capacity for cruelty or assorted wickednesses, but she's not exercising that on Verity or anyone else that she can tell, so oddly enough, Loki's quickly becoming a close friend.
Not that Loki has a whole lot of competition; Verity's list of friends is extremely short.
Verity's sure that part of her confidence comes from the fact that she's literally immune to Loki's greatest weapons; if something were to go wrong, Loki would try manipulating people before trying stabbing them. Verity's immune to the half-truths involved in manipulation and she hopes she'll see any stab-centric blade coming. Which, again, makes her Loki's perfect foil.
Verity decides that she doesn't want black nails and steers Loki towards the door so they can get a different colour.
It's all oddly stereotypical and/or cliched, something both Verity and Loki haven't had much of, and that just makes it all the more enjoyable.