Cain knocked on her door and was met with wooden silence. "Hey, kid, it's me. Open up." Still no answer. "Don't tell me your still mad, that was two days ago. C'mon, Princess, you can't avoid us forever." When she didn't bother to open the door, he heaved a sigh and walked away.

She sat at her desk, her head against the wood. She hadn't guessed how empty she'd be, breaking off the connection with her friends. She couldn't even talk to Raw anymore. It would be unfair to him, feeling all the negative emotions in her heart. It would tear at him like it ripped at her. So she avoided him too. For the best, she told herself, this was best for all of them.

And she'd never felt more alone.

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Cain stepped into the library, his eyes scanning the room. Glitch sat at a table, pretending to read. More to the point, he had been reading as a distraction and had gotten sucked into his own thoughts again. The glassy stare gave that away the moment Cain saw him. With a smirk, he stepped in front of him, knocked the table gently. "Haven't you read everything in here already?"

Glitch glanced at him narrowly, "If Ambrose has, then I don't remember." His face shifted, a fake neutral. "Any luck?"

Cain shook his head, slid into the chair across from Glitch and took his hat off. "She's still not coming out of her room."

"She's going to stay in there until we're all gone? So, is this it then? The end of our time together?" Glitch shut the book slowly, not bothering to mark the pages.

Cain just looked at him for a moment. It'd always been obvious to him that the bond between Glitch and DG had been the strongest. And he put it off to the fact that niether of them really fit in anywhere. But maybe it wasn't stronger, merely a different, more special kind of bond. Though he hoped not, for all of thier sakes. It could only hurt them more if it was."No, zipperhead, we won't let her get away from us."

Doubtful, Glitch just nodded, Cain glanced at the clock and stood. He couldn't waste anymore time, after all, he couldn't be late for his first day as the head of the Royal Guard. Although, he'd love to just skip it. He'd turned down the opportunity for months, much to the two princess' chagrin. But after much persistance, DG'd finally talked him into it.

And he'd do it, for her. Even if she decided she'd never look in his direction again.

"Hey, tin man." Glitch picked up the olive green fedora and smirked. "Looks like I'm not the only one who's forgetting things around here."

Slightly embarassed at forgetting something that was so much a part of him, he took it. Setting it on his head the way he was accustomed to, he looked back at Glitch. "Uh, thanks."

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Across the palace grounds, a meeting took place in the shadows.

"Stop us on the road to Finaqua, nobody can see anything. I need the people to believe that I am the only survivor in a tragic papay attack." The woman in the dark cloak ordered briskly. It hadn't suprised her to find some longcoats among the lower ranking guards. After all, what better way to get to DG. She'd picked them well.

"But, Sorceress, the papay have been nothing but gentle since the return of Princess DG." One couragously spoke out against her plan. "No one's going to believe they killed her."

"Let me worry about that!" She snapped, her hood falling off as she jerked her head to look at him. "Just make sure you grab them all. The rest, well, we'll get to that when the time arrives. Now go, before your missed at your posts."

The longcoats scampered back to thier assigned posts, leaving Az alone in the dark.

She'd felt unbalanced and uncertain in the world of light after the eclipse. And now she knew why. She still belonged in the dark. In her comfortable aloneness, she thought back to her last two days.

Restless dreams of her time as sorceress, the overwhelming urge to use the gift she'd been born with to do what she wanted. And she even knew what had finally made her snap too.

She'd purposely avoided using more than the smallest amount of magic at a time. And then, when she tried to pull away from the machine, it was like her power took control, she'd done nothing to stop it. Something within her had been released, something she'd worked extremely hard to lock up.

And instead of resisting, this time she would let it reign in her. No one would stop her this time.