A/N: So, this chap is a little slow, but hopefully there's some good character development that comes from it. Sorry if it drags. Thanks for reading.

DG's cold didn't get better. In fact, after a few days, she no longer had the energy to get out of bed and her breathing grew labored. The queen fretted that the girl had become so worn down that she'd gotten pneumonia, but the healer reassured Her Majesty that the youngest princess just had a bad cold that settled in her lungs. Azkadelia set up camp by her sister's bedside, but after a few days of constant vigil, she began to show signs of wear as well.

Late one night, Cain and Tannen came into DG's room after they hadn't seen either woman since lunch. They found DG slumbering peacefully, her breaths coming with nothing more than a quiet wheeze. They found Azkadelia asleep, propped up against her sister's bedpost.

"Azkadelia," Cain gently reprimanded the eldest princess. She jerked awake and tilted wildly. Cain grabbed her arm and steadied her.

"What? What's wrong?"

Both men chuckled. "Nothin's wrong, Your Highness," Tannen assured the princess. "I think you should probably go to bed though."

"I need to sit with DG," Az argued sleepily.

"Not anymore, you don't. I caught you sleeping on your feet!" Cain lectured with a laugh. "Go to bed princess, and I'll sit with your sister."

Though they were trying to be quiet, the conversation woke up DG.

"Cain?" she mumbled.

"Yeah, DG, I'm right here."

"I ache all over."

"I know, but you'll feel better soon."

Azkadelia came more fully awake. "See, she's in pain!" she said stubbornly. "I should sit with her. Shouldn't I sit with you, DG?"

Tannen saw DG waver, so he took charge – very diplomatically. "DG, your sister is really tired. She hasn't been sleeping very well, so I'm going to make sure she gets some rest. You don't want her to get sick too, do you?"

Azkadelia turned an angry look on him. "That was low," she muttered, all while the younger princess urged her sister to get some sleep and take a break.

"Cain will stay with me, right?" DG asked.

"Of course."

"I don't think – " Az tried to argue.

"Nope," Tannen interrupted. "You are going right to sleep, Your Highness." He quickly steered Azkadelia out into the sitting room. He wished DG a speedy recovery before shutting the door and turning back to the older sister who had her hands on her hips.

"I was doing just fine, thank you." The princess had obviously decided to get herself in a snit – finally. Tannen would cheerfully deal with anything other that her indeterminable acquiescence. "I don't need you or Cain bossing me around like that. I've spent the past two and a half months sleeping. Weren't you the one who wanted me to get out and do other things? Well, I was and look – you make me go back to bed!"

Tannen had the grace to feel a little guilty for what he'd done. "You haven't really slept since your sister got sick, Your Highness, and I really think you shouldn't wear yourself down. You'll get sick too and then your mother will really start to fret."

The anger fell away from Azkadelia. She didn't have it in her to be really angry anymore – it was too tiring.

"Fine," she sighed and turned toward her bedroom. "Good night Lieutenant."

"Good night, Your Highness."

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Something was poking holes through Tannen's sleep, telling him he needed to wake up. Grumbling, he rolled over and covered his face with his arm. He'd only been asleep for a short time and by the gods he was tired, so he ignored it.

But the noise wouldn't go away and Tannen yawned, pulling himself out of the haze of sleepiness. Sitting up, he focused on the sound that pulled him from dreamland.

Azkadelia was screaming.

Flying out of bed, the lieutenant ran through the door and flew to Azkadelia's bedside. He grabbed her thrashing shoulders and called her name until she came awake, arcs of light again blasting from her and illuminating the room. Tannen didn't let go this time when they hit him, just cringing through the sensation of her light colliding with his body.

"Tannen?" Azkadelia whimpered as she focused on his face.

"Yes, yes, it's all right, it was just a dream," Tannen reassured her. When she'd stopped gasping for breath and the room had sunk into darkness again, he let her go.

"You're all right," Tannen whispered, to reassure himself as well as her.

Azkadelia didn't say anything. She laid in her twisted sheets and stared, wide-eyed at the ceiling, tears coursing down her temples and wetting her dark hair.

"I hate this," she quietly sobbed.

"You and me both," Tannen said with a grimace, stepping back from her bedside. "Let's go get a breath of fresh air," he suggested when Azkadelia hadn't stopped crying quietly after a little while. "It'll do you some good after so long stuck in this suite."

Az pulled herself up in her bed. "I'm not sure I can..."

"This isn't your prison, Azkadelia," Tannen reminded her. "You're free to do as you wish."

The princess stared at the lieutenant for a long moment. "I would like to go for a walk," she finally said. "Thank you."

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When Azkadelia hesitated at the door to the gardens, wrapped in a long and flowing robe, Tannen didn't say anything, he just walked out into the night air and turned and waited for her. Her first steps outside were faltering and hesitant, but he let her take them herself. Then, as they walked the length of one of the castle's gardens without saying anything to each other, he was more than happy to follow the princess wherever she wandered. But when she stopped, without a word, and took a seat on a secluded bench, he felt a huge smile crack across her face as she, with almost a reverent sigh, she slipped her feet out of her shoes and moved her toes through the grass.

"Since the sorceress...well, since my body became my own again, I haven't done anything like this. You won't tell my mother, will you?" Azkadelia asked, a hint of good humor in her tone when she looked up and saw the lieutenant watching her. "She'd absolutely die if she saw me walking barefoot in front of a man. She'd think DG had finally corrupted me."

Tannen chuckled. "Your secret's safe with me," he assured her.

Azkadelia picked up her shoes and stood up. The garden they were in was dark and shaded. "I hope we don't get lost out here," she quipped before she started walking again.

"We'll be fine," Tannen replied. "If all else fails, just walk toward the dark, hulking shapes – that's usually a wall that leads back to the castle."

The princess laughed and held up her hand. After a moment of concentration, a ball of light appeared in her palm. "I suppose I could help us out." A shard of the ball shot off and hit Tannen, who shivered.

"Oh, sorry," Azkadelia closed her fingers and the ball of light snuffed out. "That's twice in one night."

"It doesn't hurt," Tannen assured her. "It's...weird, but not painful It's tingly."

Az smiled. "That's the word DG uses to describe it. I suppose I just don't even notice anymore."

They lapsed into silence again, just wandering through the moonlit garden. Something was bothering the lieutenant, something he wanted to ask the princess, but it took him a couple of turns around the shrubbery to get up his courage.

"What was your nightmare about this time?"

His question surprised Azkadelia, he could tell even in the poor light.

"Nothing important," she replied off-handedly.

"If it scared you, it is important," Tannen told her.

Az smirked. "All right, but it's not pleasant, then."

"I'll still listen."

"Then you'll have nightmares and where will we be? Between your nightmares and DG's and Cain's and mine, we'll be quite the helpless, and sleepless, group."

Tannen chuckled at her light-hearted refusals to talk to him, but he wouldn't be swayed. "Tell me," he repeated firmly.

Azkadelia sighed. "Fine," she said. "This dream wasn't one of the vivid ones anyway, I can't really give you any details."

"Just start talking."

"What is there to tell – most of my dreams are actually memories. Even though I couldn't control my body, I was still 'present' where ever the witch went – there for whatever she did. Sometimes, I saw everything in vivid detail, and sometimes everything was fuzzy and I didn't catch it all."

"Why was that?"

The princess took a deep breath. "When the witch first possessed me, I fought with all my might against her. I was very stubborn, but I was also frightened and my fear and anger was a potent drug for the witch. She fed off of my strong emotions. It took me a while to figure out that the more fiercely I fought, the stronger the sorceress became. I lost almost all my strength and by the time the witch killed DG, I was so weak I could hardly get angry about it," her voice wavered at the mention of her sister's death, but she continued without interruption. "So I stopped fighting her and gained my strength back. Then, after a while of just...just existing, I began to lose the ability to differentiate myself from the witch, I couldn't tell where I stopped and she started, which I discovered also gave her more power. I thought I was lost to her forever, until one day, I began to sing."

"Sing? Like, a song? As in, music?"

Azkadelia laughed at the disbelief in Tannen's voice. "Yes, believe it or not, one day I had a tune stuck in my head...or rather, well, you know what I mean by my head? And as I sang the song over and over and over, I drowned out the witch's voice. I honestly couldn't tell you what she did that day, where she went or who she hurt – I didn't even notice it.

"I did notice later, however, that she was very tired, and I realized that she was tired because she didn't have my life force keeping her going, so she was having to work harder. I kept my mind my own and my soul my own and it was to her detriment."

"That's amazing," Tannen breathed.

"I know," the princess replied. "I lost track of how many songs I sang, how many stories I told myself. So, when I was successful at keeping the sorceress out, the resulting memories are blurry and unfocused. But truthfully, sometimes I couldn't drown her out. If something was happening that I feared more than something else, even slightly, the witch sunk her claws into that and it took everything I had just to try to keep her from draining me completely. When that happened, the resulting memories are in vivid detail."

"And tonight's nightmare was a fuzzy one?"

"That's right," Az said with a sigh.. "But that doesn't mean that now – now that my mind is quiet and clear – that I can't hear the screams and see the pain and anguish. I might not see their faces, but the memories are still there."

Azkadelia shivered and Tannen tried not to give in to his own fear. But it wasn't fear of her, he realized with a start. It was fear for her. And sorrow, too. Sorrow that she would deal with this long after the witch was gone. While the rest of the O.Z. could work to put everything behind them, their princess was haunted. It wasn't exactly fair.

He had another question. "What did you fear, even more than anything else?"

Az blanched and he heard her breathing speed up. He could practically feel her increased heartbeat through the still air.

"Zero," she whispered.

"The sorceress' general?"

Azkadelia nodded, then turned her back to him. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said coldly, so quiet that Tannen almost missed it. "I think I'm ready to go back in now."

Puzzled, the lieutenant followed the princess back into the castle, watching the tight lines of her back and neck the whole way. But he didn't push her any further, not wanting to upset her, and by the time they'd reached her bedroom door, she'd returned to normal.

Tannen checked Azkadelia's room before allowing her to enter. She went immediately to her bed and sat down on it, removing her shoes.

"Thank you Lieutenant, for listening," she said, dropping her slippers to the floor. "Are you going to be all right?"

Tannen couldn't help but roll his eyes. "For Ozma's sake, Your Highness," he grumbled. "I'm pretty sure I should be asking you that, right?" When the princess didn't answer, he reassured her. "Yes, I will be just fine."

"Will you not tell anyone what I told you?" Azkadelia asked, uncertainty in her voice. "I would rather not worry my parents unnecessarily and DG already knows most of it."

"Of course, I will gladly keep your confidences, Your Highness."

"Thank you," the princess said. Tannen turned and started toward the door that led to his room.

"And, how about we drop the 'Your Highness'?" Azkadelia called to him right before he ducked through the doorway..

The lieutenant turned, slightly surprised. Before he could protest, the princess refuted all his arguments.

"You called me by my name last night and neither of us are worse for the wear. And you use DG's first name all the time, so why not me? Please?"

"Only if you'll call me Tannen, not lieutenant or Evergreen or something."

"Deal. Good night and, again, thank you Tannen."

"Good night Azkadelia."

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