Chasing Legends
By: Shmeilia Rockie

Chapter Three

Azkadellia looked up from her book of fairytales to see her five year old sister craning her neck to view something on the ground below the balcony. "Deegee, don't lean too far over the railing. You might fall off!"

"I will not! I'm being careful." One of her black shoes slipped from her foot unnoticed.

Azkadellia rolled her eyes and returned to the tale of how the Grey Lady stopped the dreaded Gnome King from stealing all the emeralds from the Emerald City. The side illustration pictured her in a humble grey dress that contrasted vividly with her sparkling silver slippers. She stood serenely, unfazed by the frightening rock man towering over her with his mouth open in a roar. The Grey Lady's adventures were Azkadellia's absolute favorite. She never got tired of the stories, no matter how many times she reread them.

"He's back! He's back, Az!" Deegee slipped back down onto the marble floor with a quiet thunk and grabbed her discarded shoe.

Azkadellia frowned, not knowing what her sister was going on about. "Who's back?"

"Ambrose! He's back from Central City!" Deegee hopped on one foot as she tried to put her shoe back on while standing up. "Get your head out of that book and come with me so I don't look silly."

"You always look silly, Deege. Besides, you just want presents."

She looked seriously affronted. "I do not! He's been gone forever and I want to see him. That's all."

Azkadellia smirked and pretended to go back to reading. "Then why do you need me to go with you?"

"I told you, I don't want to look silly! Please, Az? Pretty please?" She put her hands on the pages and gave Azkadellia the dreaded puppy dog pout. Nobody could resist that face, though many tried.

The older princess stuck a bookmark between the pages and closed the book with painful, deliberate slowness. "All right. Let's go greet Ambrose."

Deegee squeaked in delight and grabbed her sister's hand, trying to drag her away before she even stood up from her chair. Down the grand staircase they ran, skirts pulled up from their ankles to keep from tripping. At the bottom, Az made Deegee slow down lest the small girl fall flat on her face in front of the inventor. As entertaining as that would have been, she didn't want her sister to get hurt. But she couldn't stop her from running right up to the man, interrupting his report to Mother with a flying hug. "Ambrose!"

He staggered back, surprised by the sudden attack. He recovered with a laugh and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her bodily off the ground. "Well, hello to you too, Princess."

The two adults exchanged amused glances and Mother crossed her arms with mock sternness. "I can see quite clearly that I have been upstaged. I will expect that report before dinner. Deegee, let the man breathe!"

The small girl staggered back when he lowered her back to the floor, patting down her hair and trying not to look like it might as well have been her birthday. "Sorry, Mom!"

"Azkadee, you're awful quiet." Ambrose gave her a much less enthusiastic but still genuine hug. Mother took this opportunity to slip quietly away. "Had your nose buried in a book?"

Azkadellia rolled her eyes. "Yes, but somebody just had to come down and see you right away. I was perfectly content to give you time to unpack first, but no!"

"Be quiet, Az!" Deegee stamped her foot and pouted. Then just as quickly as the mini-tantrum came it was gone again. "What'd you get us, Ambrose?"

"Who said I got you anything?" He smiled as he reached into his coat pocket. There were two plain wrapped packages, one small and square and the other flatter and quite a bit bigger. He mixed them up behind his back before distributing them to the two princesses and pointing his fingers past each other. "You know the drill."

Deegee and Azkadellia curtsied to each other before swapping gifts, as was the tradition whenever he gave them something. Deegee gave Az the bigger package with a mildly disgusted face. "I think I know what that is. It's another book." She took the small box from her sister and lifted it to her ear to shake it, but it made no sound. Then in a flash of brown paper, the girls ripped off the wrappings to reveal their treasures.

Azkadellia ran a hand over the cover of a glossy catalogue in reverence. "Are these the new fashions?"

"Yes ma'am, just as you requested. I should have you know that I felt pretty silly in that store, so I hope you appreciate it."

"Oh I do, I do!" She threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you so much!"

"You are very welcome." He bowed to her, she curtsied back and scampered off to her room to read, leaving him alone with the younger Princess. Deegee just stared at him with those big icy blue eyes and swayed from side to side, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. The box in her hand lay at her side, forgotten as she peered up at him. He got down on one knee so he could be level with her and tapped the box with his finger. "Are you going to open that now or wait until a rainy day?"

She jerked out of her trance and excitedly held it up to her eyes. With a hand shaking from excitement, she cracked it open. It was... A round, brown stone with a flat bottom, looking terribly out of place on a cushion of silk. She frowned. "You got me a rock?"

Ambrose threw back his head and laughed without restraint at the precious look on her face. "Dear Deegee, it's not just a rock! Turn it over."

With a suspicious glance at the man, she picked up the heavy stone and tipped the bottom up to her eye. Inside it was mostly hollow, but covered with hundreds of tiny, jagged, smoky grey crystals. When she twisted sphere between her fingers, the light from the high windows made them glitter. "Wow! What is it?"

"It's called a geode."

She studied it for a moment before looking at him with quite intense eyes for such a little girl. "You know, it kind of reminds me of you. I know you pretend to be all huffy most of the time, but inside you're a really great man. Thank you, Ambrose."

He made a sound that seemed to surprise him before gathering her into his arms. "No, thank you, Princess. Believe it or not, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," he whispered and planted a kiss on the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around him and never ever wanted to let go.

Deegee awoke with a start, wondering why her back hurt so badly. She looked around the stark white space and remembered she was sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a Central City hospital room. Next to her in the bed was Glitch - wait, no, Ambrose - attached to more wires and tubes than she wanted to count. The surgery had been a success just like she knew it would be, but he had yet to wake up. The doctors told her that it would still be a few days before he regained consciousness. Pathways needed time to reestablish, a process that they assured her was being aided by her strong magical presence. Between naps and meals she spent her time talking to him about this or that and nothing in particular.

She carefully took his hand but said nothing, reflecting on the memory which had surfaced in her dream. So, she had had a crush on Ambrose as a child? Somehow that didn't surprise her much. He had been very handsome. Not that he wasn't now, of course, but years in the wilderness hadn't been particularly kind to him. Looking at him now, skin pale and gaunt, he looked so much older than she knew he was. In the memory he had seemed much more alive and real than she recalled ever seeing him before (though those memories were hazy) or since. Suddenly everything came into perspective. It wasn't the loss of half his brain that made Ambrose such a tragic figure, it was everything he'd sacrificed in the name of the Outer Zone. He'd lost his whole life, all he had ever held dear. She wondered if he could ever truly put all the pieces back together and silently vowed to help him the best she could.

"Hey little sister," came Azkadellia's soft voice behind her. She pulled up a chair next to Deegee and brushed the hair out of her eyes. In her hand was a leather bound book. With a bit of deja vu Deegee realized it was the same book from her memory. "Tutor told me that you were interested in stories about the Grey Lady and I thought I'd dig this out for you. You know, to help pass the time. Perhaps you could read them to him."

They both looked over expectantly at his unconscious body, then back at each other. Deegee took the volume from her sister and opened it to the bookmark. Azkadellia had never gone back to finish that story, she thought, with a stab of regret.

Her sister placed a hand over hers, misreading the look on Deegee's face. "Maybe if we combine our energies we could heal him faster?"

"No, the doctor told me that too much magic could destroy the delicate connections that are trying to form. Believe me, if I thought it would help I would have tried by now. Do you remember what Ambrose was like before?"

Azkadellia smirked at this abrupt change in conversation topics. "I remember you had the biggest crush on him. It was really sweet. I guess not much has changed since then, has it?"

"Oh, stop it." Deegee reached over to give her sister a half-hearted smack on the arm. "Be serious. I can barely remember him, even though I know he had to have been around all the time."

"He wasn't around that much. He spent most of his time in his lair, I mean his laboratory." Az winked. "Sometimes when he was working on a project he didn't come out for days, just drank a lot of coffee and slept at his desk with a stack of papers as a pillow. Every time he went to Central City he got us some little trinket or another. You were his favorite, even if he did try to treat us equally. And you were his escort to every ball, it seemed. Either he couldn't get a real date or he didn't want one. He and Dad took turns letting you stand on their feet while they danced around in circles. Then when you fell asleep he almost always volunteered to take you up to bed. After that, he would disappear into his lab to work the rest of the night away."

Deegee fixed Azkadellia with an incredulous look. "You're making that up."

"Why would I make something like that up? Ask Mom or Dad, they'll tell you the same thing." She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "You told me you'd marry him one day. You sweared it." She nodded with grave authority, as if that settled the matter.

Deegee rolled her eyes. "Stop putting me on, sis."

"I'm not putting you on. You were deadly serious about it. Of course, you were four at the time, but still!" Azkadellia hid a giggle behind her hand as Deegee shushed her.

"Keep your voice down, do you want the whole world to know about it?"

"Oh just read your stories, Deege. I've got to go before someone tries to shoot me." She ruffled her sister's hair and stood to go.

Deegee squeezed her hand and said a quick hello to Cain as he escorted Azkadellia out of the room. Before he went he tipped his hat to the younger princess. "Give my love to Gli- Ambrose when he wakes up."

"Will do." She saluted him with two fingers, then turned to the book still open in her lap. Clearing her throat, she began reading aloud slowly and clearly. "In the grey kingdom of Kansas, Dorothy Gale received a sparkling key sent to her on a shooting star by her friend the Scarecrow and she knew her friends needed her to return to the Outer Zone. But the girl had lost her silver slippers on the return journey and didn't know how to get back from the Other Side..."