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"As you may be aware," began Floofty, "I still do not trust you."
"Uh-huh," mumbled Clumby, as she rowed the tiny rowboat.
So she was aware. Floofty was beginning to re-evaluate their view of journalists as a glory-hungry, gossipmongering monolith, but she did she really have to wear both a press hat, and a lanyard with a press pass? It was just redundant, and it was practically all she wore. And knowing that she'd lied to and fired the one journalist they did respect... It made her even less endearing.
"However," they continued, "you have my thanks for the rescue. The odds were otherwise... disfavourable."
"You're welcome," replied Clumby, her eyes still on the ocean. "Don't be so stupid next time."
"If information gathering is stupid, then I would prefer..." Floofty trailed off, unable to finish that sentence. "I was being prudent."
That got Clumby to face in their direction. "You think you can just wander around wherever you want, and nothing bad's ever gonna happen?!" She put her head in her paw. "I thought you'd learned your lesson after the whole super-strength prosthetics debacle."
"Wh--" said Floofty. "Where did you learn about that? That project was top secret!" And not even Snorpington knew that they'd poked around a bit to confirm what he'd told them. Not that it had really mattered in the end.
"Please," Clumby responded. "It was restricted at best. Don't tell me you didn't even know it was a Snakolyte gig?"
"I... knew that," said Floofty, as they tried to process what she'd just said. Was she claiming that Snorpington had been right all along, that the government really had been infiltrated by a nefarious organisation? That kind of thing didn't happen in real life. Though clearly nefarious organisations did.
"See, this is what I'm talking about," said Clumby. "You don't even know what you're up against. You were lucky to get off the island alive, but if you don't start being more careful, you're gonna wind up as dead as the others!" She slammed the side of the boat with both hands, still holding the oars.
"The others?" said Floofty. "They are all alive and well... Nn, last I checked." The thought that they wouldn't be was scarier than they'd expected.
"Not those others!" said Clumby. "The..." She sighed. "Never mind, forget I said anything," she mumbled
"I will not," said Floofty.