"Soren, maybe it's time we gave up trying to get them to come home with us," Claudia suggested, "I mean, they seem to have made up their minds."
Soren fell off his chair - mostly due to what he was doing with it but a little to do with the surprise - and turned towards Claudia.
"What? But the mission."
"I know, but maybe we should just go with them. You know, say it took a little longer than we expected it to."
Soren picking the chair up, and raised an eyebrow, "Go with them to what? Return the dragon? Didn't you say that the dragon could be dangerous someday?"
"It could." Claudia said, "Or maybe it'll be a nice dragon. Who knows?"
She knew that most likely, it wouldn't be. At least to humans.
"Why don't we just go back to my plan? Muscles!" Soren inquired.
"Because, Soren, they're our friends and if we have a chance for peace, shouldn't we take it?" Claudia took a sip of her drink, "Ezran's probably just gonna return the dragon anyway."
The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed they'd just end up returning the dragon anyway, especially since it was going to be up to Ezran, who was already going to return it. In a way, it really just seemed like it'd make the process longer to make them go back.
"I still don't see any reason not to use muscle."
Soren looked to her, as though asking her to give him a good reason why using muscle was a bad idea, and honestly, she had so many reasons it was hard to choose from one of them.
"How about the elf? She was doing pretty good when she was fighting both of us."
"So? There's still more of us."
"And she's still Callum and Ezran's friend."
Soren looked at her and sighed.
"Oh great, so she bit you too?"
"No. I'm just saying, it's not like it's not going to happen eventually and it's not really up to us. We could just go with them. Imagine how cool it would be to see all that magic."
She had heard the stories, about how there was basically magic everywhere. Claudia often thought about that, about all of the magic creatures there were there. It was fascinating.
There were so many things there she hadn't even seen, things she might have never even heard of.
"I imagine that there would be a lot of elves. Who hate us." Soren replied, staring at Claudia pointlessly. It frustrated her a little, there was so much more than just elves.
"I'm talking about things you never get the chance to see, Soren," Claudia argued, "You can see an elf who hates you anytime you want. You could go outside right now and look for her."
"Exactly. I don't really want to see anymore that hate us. How are we going to fight them all? There's no way we'd all be able to sneak in. It's too dangerous. We just need a plan to get Callum and Ezran home."
"Well, all of your plans involve muscle, so."
Claudia sighed, a little bit frustrated. She watched Ezran run around pointlessly attempting to teach the baby dragon how to fly. The wolf girl encouraged this, and similarly, the wolf seemed to.
She didn't really particularly like the plan, but Soren kept talking about the mission and insisting they do it. It didn't seem like the best idea, and maybe it'd get them home, but it'd be betraying their trust...
Her thoughts were interrupted when the elf sat down near her, watching Ezran continue attempting to teach the young dragon.
She looked at Rayla, and smiled. Rayla smiled back, and she liked the plan less and less.
But she went through with it anyway.
When they all started getting ready to leave, which took a little bit, Rayla was leaning against a tree. She didn't seem upset that she and Soren were coming with them, like maybe she didn't mind it that much or maybe she was just polite. She didn't seem like she had an opinion on it, really, or maybe she just didn't feel like arguing about it.
That would make sense, Claudia thought, seeing as she and Soren had talked about it with Callum and Ezran awhile ago, and she had even mentioned it to Rayla previously.
Mostly, she looked bored, like it was a weird thing for the humans to be taking so long.
Eventually, they were all ready, and they began walking. Which was their only form of transportation, currently, which was unfortunate.
Claudia walked next to Soren, behind Callum, Ezran and Rayla. It seemed fitting...
Just as she and Soren had discussed, as she had finally agreed to use muscle even though it didn't really seem like a good idea, they began the plan by pretending to go with them, though she was kinda thinking that maybe, they should just go with them.
It seemed like a better option than betraying them, even if it was dangerous. But here they were, lying to them.
As soon as they got the chance, they started the plan.
She couldn't say they got very far into it, which was almost a relief in a way, as when they attempted to do it Soren's way and use muscle, they were quickly interrupted by Corvus, and before they even had time to do anything else, the moon phoenix came along and she just wasn't fast enough with her magic, it seemed all she really managed to do was get a glance at their expressions.
Claudia hadn't seen Callum and Ezran look that betrayed before - because they trusted her and Soren because they were friends and they kept trying to convince Rayla that they were on their side - and Rayla's expression was far from a smile.
She watched them fly away.
A/N: there isn't a lot of raydia lately for some reason, which is unfortunate.
I could be writing my other fanfic. But I am probably not going to do that and just keep starting new ones. also wouldn't it be kind of funny if I ended it here? I might do that.