Corvus was leading the young king through the forest. The young king seemed perfectly at home here. He had initially thought of princes as pampered brats, but after having tracked them for so long, he could see that the pair were anything but. He felt a certain amount of satisfaction with the young king and his step-brother. He was impressed with King Ezran's sense of duty to his kingdom, particularly at his age. People thought of King Harrow as an exemplary king, but King Ezran may outdo him, he thought. Prince Callum was doing a great thing returning the Dragon Prince. He did not wish for a war with the elves and dragons, there was nothing better than peace in his opinion. He hoped the return of the Dragon Prince would appease Xadia enough to stop any war. Surely Xadia did not want war just as badly as humans?
Ezran was walking with a bird perched on his shoulder, who he was talking to. Bait didn't look too happy about the situation, but it was rare for Bait to look happy anyway. After the bird left, Ezran seemed to be lost in thought.
Corvus imagined the duties of a king weighed heavy on the boy's mind. There wasn't really much he could do about it. He tried talking to the young king, but nothing really got solved. The king had so many questions, and he could only answer a few of them. Most of the questions didn't really have a correct answer, Corvus felt, and the king agreed, there were many possible answers for each of those questions, but none were truly correct. And the answers he could think of for some of those questions seemed ignorant to him, so he said nothing. Yet other questions were in topics he felt he didn't have the right to advise any king. This left the young king searching for answers on his own, which didn't bear much fruit. Corvus suddenly realised being king was a lonely business.
The boy was definitely not ready to be king, but Corvus couldn't think of anyone more suited for the role. A wise king, in his mind, was a king who knew his own limitations, and the boy seemed to be acutely aware of his own inexperience.
Ezran found going back much easier than going towards Xadia. Xadia was an unknown, exotic land, and while there was a certain excitement in venturing into the unknown, there was a comfort of going back somewhere familiar. He had missed home he realised. A part of him didn't want to go back, though. Going back meant facing reality. His father's death, while painful, didn't quite feel real yet, it didn't yet hurt as much as it should. He felt he was in a dream, someone else's dream, and he was watching that dream as a spectator. When he returned home, the dream would shatter and he would awake to find it had been his dream all along.
He could feel Zym. It was odd. No other animal had ever created this kind of lasting connection. He supposed it must have something to do with magic and dragons. The connection grew more dim the further they got from each other, but it felt permanent.
Before they realised, they were back at the harbour he had landed in aboard the Ruthless. The harbour town was bustling as before. Corvus got them a room, and went looking for a ship to cross the sea. Ezran spent time talking to the birds and the rats that he could find. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the town, at least from the furry and feathered denizens' perspective.
Animals don't really notice much about humans. Most likely because most humans ignore or pester animals on sight. Animals only notice the humans who treat them well, those who feed them or allow them to live peacefully and respect their space.
Corvus returned with news that a ship was heading out in the afternoon. Ezran was a little dissappointed that the ship wasn't The Ruthless, but he'd have been very surprised if the tracker had chosen a blind sea captain to cross the sea.
As they climbed aboard, Ezran saw Claudia and Soren already aboard the ship. They were looking out into the distant horizon, most likely lost in their thoughts. Corvus immediately grabbed Ezran and tried to carefully step back off the ship.
"Corvus, its okay" Ezran said.
The sibling pair turned to see them. Corvus was immediately ready for a battle, and stepped in front of his king to protect him.
Soren's eyes widened. He walked over to them. Claudia wasn't sure what he was going to do, but she'd back him up however she could. She wasn't capable of much at the moment, not to mention her ingredients had dwindled to near nothing, she herself hadn't recovered from performing that spell to fix Soren's paralysis.
"Corvus, its so good to see you my friend" Soren hugged a very confused Corvus, "Hey, Ezran's here too, where's the rest of the gang? Where's Callum and the grumpy elf?"
"They went on to Xadia to return Zym to his mother. I had to come back, because, well... I had to" Ezran had enough sense not to mention certain matters in public.
The nuance surprisingly was not lost on Soren, Cladia assumed it was because she had had to drill it into his head so often when they were tracking the princes. Or maybe he just didn't notice and was none the wiser.
"Where are you going?" Ezren asked.
"Well, we failed to bring you back, so we were going to return to the castle to report our failure. You can come along if you like." Claudia joked.
"Sure, I'd like that." Ezran said with a smile.
Soren and Corvus spent some time talking with each other. Claudia and Ezran gave them their space and decided to talk somewhere else.
"I see you managed to heal Soren" Soren didn't look uninjured to Ezren, but he was at least able to walk around.
"Ah... yes. Those milk-fruit were really effective. Thank you for your help" Claudia said.
"It was my pleasure" Something about her seemed off for a moment, but Ezren didn't pay it much mind.
"So Callum decided to head to Xadia. With that pretty elf for company." Claudia didn't seem to approve much.
"Guess what Claudia? Callum can do magic now." Ezran looked very excited.
"What? He's been dabbling in dark magic? That's very dangerous. You need to be taught by a good teacher or there are terrible consequences" Claudia grabbed Ezren in her concern.
"No, not dark magic. Callum wouldn't do that. Well he wouldn't do that again. I don't think. It was wind magic" Ezren tried to appease Claudia's concern.
"Oh. You must mean Sky magic. That's good. I suppose. Yes." Claudia paused, "Wait didn't he break the Sky Primal Stone? Did he find another one?".
"Yes, he did break it to help Zym hatch. No, he can do magic without primal stones" Ezren explained.
Claudia was sure she didn't hear right.
"I think you must be mistaken Ezran, it's not possible for humans to do magic without primal stones" Claudia sounded just like a teacher lecturing a student.
Ezran felt slightly annoyed at being talked down to. It was just like when Callum wouldn't believe he could talk to animals.
"Well, Callum figured out a way" he replied.
"If you say so" was all Claudia said, shrugging. She clearly didn't think it was possible, but didn't want to hurt Ezran's feelings.
They spent a moment in silence. Claudia tried to change the subject.
"What was the name of that baby dragon again?" she asked.
"Zym, short for Azymandias" Ezran seemed happy to talk about the dragon.
"Zym, its a good name. It was a very adorable dragon. I felt sad not being able to spend more time with it" She said.
"Zym was great" Ezran agreed. He didn't mention his connection to the baby dragon.
Claudia smiled back in response. The sailors around them had gotten the ship ready to sail. The walkway had been pulled and the ship was setting off. Soon they had left that humble harbour behind. A chill breeze was blowing through the ship and prompted all the passengers on deck to find their cabins.
Claudia looked to Ezran and smiled a short goodbye. She went to find Soren who was standing with Corvus, their conversation now over. The siblings left to find their cabins. Corvus came to Ezran and found their cabins.
Once in their own cabin Claudia lied down on her bed and faced away from Soren. Soren didn't notice and stared out the window before falling asleep. Claudia couldn't sleep. The bite back this time was particularly aggressive. Her whole body was screaming in pain. She was able to control herself and not show it when she was around people, but she felt her mental strength slowly depleting. She needed to recover, but she had run out of magical ingredients. She had stolen the life of the baby deer and given it all to Soren, keeping none for herself. All black magic dealt with life, use your own life to take and transform the life of another. Normally, black magic users stole a little bit of the life of their target to replenish themselves. It worked well most of the time, but this was one of those rare exceptions. She just had to bear with it. Once the ship landed, she could find some creatures to recover her strength from.