"Az found it?" Cain and Glitch shared a look. They were both thinking the worst, a small part of her was glad that they saw it too, but she still couldn't buy it. Her sister? No, she couldn't, wouldn't.
Glitch watched the war in her eyes, loyalty won out. And he knew she had to be prepared for the worst. She couldn't be so in doubt that when she saw Az, whom he was absolutely sure was responsible, she didn't act clearly. She wouldn't be careful if she believed that her sister was innocent, she'd get herself killed.
"DG." He waited for a second, tried to reconsider because they'd thought it best that she didn't know. But she needed to know, and he needed to make her believe. "For the last couple of months, Azkadellia hasn't quite been herself. She's become mean, sarcasm and bitterness in everything she says. She, like you, has been locked in her rooms for the majority of the time and when she's with people she rarely makes eye contact. We discussed it a while back and we can only come to one conclusion. We believe that the damage to her heart and her magic from the sorceress may be irreversible. I know you don't want to believe it, but there may be no real way to save your sister."
"So you want me to believe that the only way to keep her from hurting people is to kill her?" She couldn't, even if they were right, she could never hurt her sister. "There has to be a way, any way."
"I just don't know, DG." Glitch shrugged before looking down the road, "For now, let's just focus on getting there."
"Good idea." Cain started ahead, took the lead again. However this went down, he thought to himself, it wasn't going to go down easily. That was something he was positive of.
It was a faster journey than she remembered. Then again, there were a lot of differences in that trip, and a lot of time where they didn't know where they were going. When they stood not even fifteen feet from Finaqua's maze, she finally spoke again, having been lost in thought for most of the day and a half it took to get here.
Raw tapped her shoulder, pointed to the sky above Finaqua. "Storm clouds." True enough, there were dark shifting clouds looming over the maze and the land beyond. They gave her a creepy feeling, but on the other hand, they gave her a sense of ease too. It was odd, to feel both.
"It'll start raining soon, I imagine." She looked at Raw, saw the dark fear in his eyes. "A storm isn't just a sign of evil, Raw, they happen all the time."
"Either way." Cain didn't know why they were standing around instead of just going in. "We're going in."
"No." DG shook her head, continued before anyone could argue. "We have to assume that there will be guards in the maze. And because Az, if we pretend for a moment that your right, would believe that I wouldn't remember something like that, she won't bother protecting the outside. That's how we'd get in."
"The outside of what?" Cain looked at the maze speculatively, there were lots of outsides in a maze, and that wasn't helping the uneasy feeling in his gut at all.
"The maze." She said as if it was so obvious, which in her mind it was. "The stairs are on this side." She gestured to the tall trees that lined the far edges. "And I'm gonna guess that the entrance there will also be guarded."
"They won't make it easy." Glitch agreed, an edge to his voice. He would have given anything to get her away from here, knew she would go in fists up and ready for a fight. He didn't want to see her hurt, hoped that anything else would happen. But there was nothing he could do to stop what happened. "Not after the eclipse."
"How do you want to go about this?" Cain looked at the princess, wondered if she knew exactly how regal she managed to look, even in the old outfit she preferred. She'd make a good queen, if she got the chance.
She smiled at him, just enough of a smile to assure him she'd already thought of that. "You still got that gun?"
"Do fish swim in water?" Cain drew out his pistol, as if he'd ever go into anything that involved the troublesome princess without it. He wouldn't be very good at his job if he didn't. "Fully loaded, haven't needed to take a shot yet."
"Alright." She knew, but she had to ask, just in case she was wrong. "How good of a shot are your?" She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing as insult transformed his face. He didn't like when you questioned his skill, she'd have to remember that.
"Good enough." His answer was short, blunt, and it was even harder to keep the laughter down .
"Then your going to follow directly behind me. If there are guards, don't let them see it. They want me alive." She added when it was obvious he'd object. "Putting a bullet in my head would defeat whatever their purpose is. They won't risk hurting me."
"And we're supposed to just let them take you? Your joking... Your joking.... Your joking... Your.." Glitch was the one to object now, DG reached over to slap his shoulder gently to stop his glitching, Cain thought he knew where she was going with this.
"We have to get in there, without the armed escort." She shook her head. "Let me see your gun, Cain."
"Excuse me?" His grip tightened on the the handle, he could imagine DG accidentally shooting herself in the foot. And that was just something he didn't want to really see.
"Listen, Mr. Oh-so-special-because-I-can-shoot-a-gun," She couldn't be more insulted, she could see what he was thinking, and it was outrageous in her opinion. " I spent a large chunk of my life on the prairie. You learn to shoot before you even start middle school in my town."
"And yet you chose a stick." He smirked as he handed her his most prized possession, other than his hat. "In which you thought it wise to charge a large crowd of angry, armed men. Men who only tried to kill you not even a day before."
She rolled her eyes as she took it from him. Nope, never going to live that down. "Trust me, if the munchkins hadn't grabbed me when they did, I'd have made an effort to find the shotgun I had under my bed. Besides, A stick was easier to get a hold of." Carefully she turned the gun over in her hand, tried to imagine what she wanted. She didn't think she'd ever get used to all this magic stuff, but she could get by with what she understood. And for now, she would put a sound barrier around the barrel of his gun. A magic silencer.
She tried to see the sound, tried to form a bubble around it. And she had to do this here, before they got too close to the maze. Just in case someone heard the gun go off. It was as good as it was going to get, she decided when she was done, though her mother would have done a much better job.
With a swift turn, she pulled the gun up, pointed it at the nearest tree, and pulled the trigger. She could feel the gun kick in her hand, knew it had fired and saw the hole in the tree, but heard barely anything. Cain just stared at the gun, confused as to why it'd looked like it fired. But it couldn't have, he was positive it would have made more noise. She handed it back to him, went to look at the tree. Cain looked up for a moment, saw the bullet hole in the tree as a smile spread on his face. He got it now, it wouldn't make any noise and wouldn't alert anyone who might be listening.
"Hey, DG." He called out to her after another moment. "Why'd you shoot an innocent tree, anyway?"
She gave him a long look before she grinned. "It was either the tree or your 'funny hat'." His lips thinned at that, she came back to him, took the hat off of his head and placed it firmly on her own. "I put a lot of thought into it, and I've decided that DeMilo has no sense of taste, I mean, that van is ridiculous."
"Still my hat." He made a grab for it, she ducked and ran. She chose to hide behind Glitch, but he didn't help much as he turned and secured her by the waist.
"Aw. Come on, Cain, can't I just wear it for a little bit?" She gave him her best pleading look as he came and took it from her head. So she chose a different course of action, she looked at Glitch, glad there wasn't much of a height difference. She'd always hated dating men that towered over her. "So I have a question for you, Glitch."
"I'll do my best to give you an answer." He smiled as she turned in his arms to face him. She didn't return his smile, not completely.
Her eyes lit up but she did her best to keep her face straight."When exactly do you intend to marry me?"
"Excuse me?" He almost choked on his own tongue. And he worried that she'd say no to him, that she'd ask him never to ask again. And here she was, asking him straight out.
"Because, if you don't intend on marrying me..." She had assumed the wrong thing with his reaction, but she didn't know how else to take it. There was nothing but shock in his voice, in his eyes. "...then you've definitely got the wrong girl."
"I've got the right girl, always have." He shook his head for a moment, leaned in to brush his lips against hers. "The moment we're back home." He promised her. "The moment we're home."
"Alright." She nodded, pulled away as Cain and Raw walked back over from where they'd been having their own discussion, by the look on Cain's face, it wasn't pleasant.
"Raw thinks waiting until night will be a bad idea, and I tend to agree. If we're going through the forest, we might trip or end up getting lost." He told her.
"We go now then, during the daylight." She looked at them all for a minute, no one needed encouragement this time, they all knew. So why was it that she felt uneasy. "Once we're inside...." And now, she thought as she told them what she thought, it begun.