(Untitled)

[az_from_the_oz]

There came a time when people needed to face their fears. Azkadellia was aware of that and after almost two months on the island she had finally decided to return to the place where she had arrived. The caves.

She had quite liked exploring them back in the O.Z. with DG (never going too far in and always remembering the way home, of course), but the

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[lifeisa_test]

Going in much the same direction along the pathway was what appeared to be a small pile of orangish clothes. Or, rather, it would have looked like that if it had not had antennae, and a cup of hot tea clamped firmly in its pincers.

Now that Zoing knew his way around, Gil had taken to sending him out for tea while he occupied himself with other things, and Zoing wanted nothing more than to prove his trust well-founded.

[az_from_the_oz]

That certainly had to be one of the stranger things Azkadellia had seen since her arrival on the island. But she had grown up accustomed to the O.Z.'s own particular brand of out of the ordinary and seeing the small creature with the tea made her both homesick and intensely curious.

Naturally she began following it up the path without a second thought. "Hello there. Where are you going?"

[lifeisa_test]

Insofar as it was possible to discern expression on the single eye that could be seen between the hat and coat, Zoing seemed pleased at being addressed directly. No one here seemed to have much experience of constructs, and they all addressed their questions about him to his master.

"Meka tee!" he trilled.

[az_from_the_oz]

Az could see that it had made tea (and assumed that was what it had said it was doing), but decided not to mention it. She didn't want to be rude, even to a... a thing of some sort. So she just kept following it instead, wanting to find out more. "Really? Do you mind if I follow?"

[giftless]

With Lucy in school all day and Susan taking care of Rickon, Edmund was a bit short handed when it came to friends he could run around with during the days. There was always Caspian, and Edmund did spend a lot of time with his royal brother, but although Ed enjoyed the sea and the Dawn Treader a great deal, it wasn't his ship and he wasn't a sailor. Not to mention that taking care of it while moored at a dock was far more boring than taking care of a ship on the great seas.

So he'd taken to exploring by himself, at least for that day. His sword was tucked safely at his hip, just in case, and his eyes were open and observant as he walked through the jungle. He came out just about where the caves were, and by chance saw the girl walking away from them and towards him.

"Oh, hello," he said, giving her a polite smile.

[az_from_the_oz]

Az had been so flustered after her moment at the entrance of the caves that she hadn't even noticed the boy coming towards her until he spoke. Years of etiquette and training stopped her from jumping or looking too startled. Instead she just looked mildly embarrassed about the whole thing. She especially hoped he hadn't seen her standing in front of the caves for a good five minutes, looking like a complete idiot.

"Hello." She noticed the sword and looked at it curiously for half a moment. That definitely wasn't something she saw everyday here. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you coming at first."

[giftless]

Ed shrugged, but there was a sort of grace to it that he'd picked up from his time as a king and that the recent voyage had only awoken in him once again. "I didn't see you either," he said, both apology and forgiveness.

"Were you exploring?" Ed asked, nodding towards the caves. She had come from that direction, after all.

[az_from_the_oz]

"In the caves?" Az briefly looked back over her shoulder at them, then back at the boy. "No. Not in there. I almost did, but... It's very dark in there and I don't have a light." It wasn't quite an excuse, but it wasn't the whole truth either. After a while she tried changing the subject.

"My name is Azkadellia," she said and gave a slight, regal curtsy.

[lonewolflives]

"Oh, hello," Rosalind said, having just stepped out onto the path and almost knocking into the girl. She'd been picking flowers, or attempting to. The ones she'd found were so far fairly straggly and useless. "I'm sorry, I should watch where I'm going."

[az_from_the_oz]

"No, that's all right," Azkadellia said, stepping back a bit. "I'm afraid I wasn't paying very much attention to where I was going either." She looked down at the other girl's flowers and frowned at the general shabbiness of them. "What were you doing?"

[lonewolflives]

"Picking flowers for my hut," she said, and then frowned down at them, obviously dissatisfied. "I was trying, anyway. I either don't find any good ones or I get tangled up in the jungle and they get ruined."

[az_from_the_oz]

"Maybe you should have a basket to put them in so they wouldn't get ruined so easily?" Az wasn't quite so sure though. She had never gone flower picking with a clear goal in mind before. She might have picked some with her sister back in the O.Z., but never more than a few, at most enough to make a crown. All of the flowers she had seen used for decorating had been put there by other people.

[halfahead]

Glitch caught sight of her on his way back to the house, another two books on whatever the bookshelf had been suggesting for a distraction that day cradled in his arms. They were close to the caves, he thought, but then again directions had never been his strong point. Or he thought they hadn't been, at least. He was getting much better, but he wasn't that much better.

"Your Highness," Glitch called, waving slightly with a smile. "Find anything interesting?"

[az_from_the_oz]

Az smiled back brightly and waved. "No. Not today, Ambrose." She gathered up her skirt and ran over to him. It may not have been very princessly behavior, but it was Ambrose, and she wanted to put some more distance between herself and the caves. "Have you found anything interesting?"

[halfahead]

He actually thought about that for a moment, trying to think if he had. "I have to make sandbags for the hot air balloon and need to figure out how many and how heavy to make them," Glitch offered. It was the only even remotely interesting change he could think of since that morning.

He shrugged, smiling. "That's not really finding anything though. Want to go find something? I hear we're on top of a dormant volcano."

[az_from_the_oz]

"All right." Az smiled and took his hand gently. "Will we be finding something to do with the volcano?" She wondered briefly about how dangerous that was, then she began if you could do anything useful with it. A dormant volcano probably had quite a lot of power.