Rayla didn't seem to want to talk to anyone. It was so strange, even though Rayla was usually distant with Claudia, she seemed further away than usual. She was even distant with Callum, and neither of them knew why.

Tinker didn't have a lot of time to explain, between working on the disguises and checking in on Rayla, which they similarly did, and they only really found out during the brief time Tinker didn't seem to be busy.

"Runaan?" Callum asked, and then tried to remember, "Wait, was that the elf that tried to kill us?"

"I'm sure he was one of them." Tinker said, "He was an assassin, after all."

"Well, uh, he had this bow, I think." Callum attempted to describe him, "And he wasn't really up to joining us, even after we showed him the egg."

"Stubborn..." Tinker quietly commented, before finishing explaining about Runaan, who was apparently Tinker's fiancé, and in the process the story of how he had known Rayla.

"Wow, you and Rayla have been friends for a long time." Callum realized, since Tinker had basically known Rayla for most of her life, which was a lot longer than they had known Rayla.

Aside from that, it seemed Rayla had also known Runaan for a long time... Callum didn't know a lot about him, but it seemed he might have been closer to Rayla than he had realized at the time.

Though, he really didn't realize a lot at the time other than there were elves who were trying to kill his brother, the egg wasn't destroyed and was actually stolen by his close friend's dad. It was actually a lot to process.

"So that's why we haven't seen Rayla?" Claudia asked.

Tinker nodded in response, and looked out the window to where Rayla was sitting in a tree, "She's uh, the only one that returned from the mission. I thought she might... have gotten capture or something."

Claudia felt a little bad, though she didn't want to, seeing how Tinker and Rayla were. She couldn't help but feel she might know exactly which elf they were referring to, the one she suggested they captured.

But that elf was the reason... Honestly, Claudia didn't know how to feel about it, but she did know how Rayla felt about it. Probably similar to how Callum and Ezran felt when they found out...

Callum, like Tinker, looked out the window at Rayla, pointlessly. He sighed, frustrated. Rayla didn't move from the tree, still. Claudia noticed how Rayla looked out the window and grabbed her elf disguise, "Callum, stay here."

"What? Why? Claudia, what are you doing?" Callum asked.

"Going to go talk to her." She told him, casually, "Maybe try and get her to come inside."

Callum picked up his own elf disguise, which Claudia wasn't really sure about, "Callum, it's dangerous."

"I know." Callum replied, putting it on.

Callum and Claudia climbed the tree Rayla was sitting in. They weren't sure if she knew they were there, because she didn't immediately say anything until eventually, "You shouldn't be out here."

"Technically." Callum said, "But, uh... Here we are."

Rayla didn't say a lot. It was a strange situation, after all, with Runaan and Callum's dad and all that. It seemed to be a little bit awkward, in that regard. Claudia didn't bring up that she had probably met Runaan. It was probably better she didn't.

"You should go back inside."

"You know, maybe you should come inside." Claudia suggested to Rayla, "You've been out here all day."

"No."

As the time passed, it seemed they were unable to convince her to come inside. Since she didn't really want to talk, they relunctantly went inside. Tinker was working on the disguises, which they assumed required a lot of focus.

Callum sighed, taking his elf disguise off and sitting down and Claudia did similarly, "She's not gonna come in, is she?"

"I don't think so." She replied, "Not anytime soon, anyway..."

Later during the night, Claudia tried again. She didn't think it was a good idea, but she wanted to. Rayla was really upset, and she might not be Rayla's friend and Rayla might not even trust her, but she still wanted to.

So she climbed the tree, "Hey."

"Hey." Rayla said, which was a little surprising. It wasn't like she was super enthusastic to see Claudia, but when she thought about it, this was really the first time Rayla had said 'hey' back to her, at least since Claudia betrayed them.

Every other time she had talked to Rayla, she seemed to mostly ask what she was up to and stuff similar to that, but right now...

"Maybe if I hadn't..." Rayla wasn't talking very loudly, and it looked like she was crying, at least a little. She didn't finish her sentence, and Claudia didn't know what to say. She didn't know Rayla very well.

"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"I don't know." She answered, honestly, "Tinker told us both a little bit, but..."

"But he doesn't know." Rayla turned her head towards Claudia, "He doesn't know that I failed or that I... I just couldn't."

She still wasn't sure what Rayla was referring to, but she nodded like she did. She sat in the tree with Rayla for a few hours, and eventually she started understanding at least a bit more, or at least she thought she did.

"So, um..." Claudia asked, "How do you know that...?"

"Moon magic..." Rayla replied, "There's this sort of... Well. We put these flowers in it that are connected to us, you know, when we send teams of assassins on missions..."

"Oh." Claudia then added quietly, "That's kind of cool."

It probably wasn't the time to comment on that, but she did, anyway.

"Yeah, it is..." Rayla said, "Usually. But the others... They all..."

After a few minutes, she did start actually explaining what she had been talking about beforehand. Her mission, that guard that Claudia suspected liked Soren and all that. Rayla sighed, after she finished explaining it and put her arms on her knees.

Claudia took Rayla's hand, which seemed to somewhat surprise the elf though she didn't immediately pull her hand out of Claudia's, "Come on."

A/N: I read a lot of theories on the flowers and stuff... and I'm assuming it's something like this, at least, though I still have no idea.