Rayla sat outside, probably deep in thought. Callum and Ezran were still talking, mostly about the things that had recently happened. Claudia still wasn't sure what to think about it, but it was a good opportunity to talk to Rayla, or at least try.

That's what Callum and Ezran had originally wanted her to do, and even if Rayla was still far from trusting her and she didn't know Rayla that well, at a certain point she almost actually wanted to, at least to see if anything changed.

So she walked up to Rayla, sitting next to her. She probably should have put her disguise back on, but it wasn't like there was anyone around.

"Hey." She said, smiling at Rayla.

Rayla glanced at her, and replied, "Hey... Shouldn't you be wearing your disguise?"

Claudia shrugged, "There isn't really anyone around right now."

"There could be." Rayla suggested, "But I guess it should be okay."

She wasn't quite sure, but it seemed like this was maybe a start, like maybe there were small steps they could take to get somewhere. Even if somewhere wasn't necessarily friendship.

Claudia glanced at Rayla, and then changed the topic, "So..."

Rayla turned her head towards her, which was a great opportunity for Claudia to gently take some strands of her hair in her hand, "How come you don't have a braid anymore?"

"A braid?" Rayla questioned, and Claudia almost immediately added on to her previous sentence, elaborating.

"I mean, I know you lost your other one." She mentioned, "But how come you don't have a new one yet?"

"There wasn't really a good time."

"Hmm." Claudia then asked, "So, could I braid your hair then?"

"What?" Rayla seemed kinda confused by that question, "Why would you want to do that?"

"I mean, the other braid was so cute." Claudia said, and shrugged, "And I thought it might be fun."

Hesitantly, Rayla replied, "Okay."

Claudia smiled, and started braiding some of Rayla's hair into a small braid which, like her first one, could go behind her ear.

"There." Claudia finished the braid. It was also a cute braid, much like the previous one. Rayla held the braid, probably still a little bit confused that Claudia, who was previously her enemy, had braided her hair, "Another cute braid."

"Thanks..." Rayla let go of the braid, and Claudia returned to where she was previously sitting beside her.

They set off a while later, though this time Claudia was walking next to Ezran and Callum. Ezran had Zym in his bag, which Zym didn't really appreciate but they thought it might draw less attention to them.

"So, did you have a chance to hear Soren's poetry?" Claudia asked Ezran, smiling.

"Yeah." Ezran nodded, "He even showed us his newer ones."

"Soren writes poetry?" Callum questioned.

Claudia and Ezran nodded, "He started recently."

"Huh." Callum said, and then looked at Rayla, "Hey, Rayla, shouldn't we be going this way?"

She stopped walking, "Why would we do that? The safest way is this way."

"Well, according to the map, if we go past these... rocky things and what I think might be a river, then we should be here..." Callum put his finger on the place he was talking about, and moved it towards where Zym's mom was, "A lot faster."

"We can't go there." Rayla replied, looking at the map, "It seems quicker, but it's too dangerous."

"What's so dangerous about some rocks?" Callum asked.

"It's not that simple." She turned around to walk away, "The rocks just aren't sturdy enough and we're more likely to run into someone."

Callum sighed, "I'm sure we'd be able to figure something out, the only difference is that we could be there a day earlier, and the sooner we return Zym the better, right? Come on, Rayla."

Rayla sighed as well, "It's more important that we keep Zym safe. But if you really think that we could get across safely, then fine."

"Great." Callum put away the map and looked in the primal magic book, "Because I think I saw something that could help us."

"Okay. So this is a little more difficult than I thought it'd be." Callum commented, shortly after arriving at the 'rocky things'. The rocks looked a lot different in person, "But I think we can manage it."

Callum hesitantly started walking towards a pathway, the others following him. This time, they were actually being quiet, since they didn't really feel up to rocks falling on all of them. But surprisingly, they got past the first few rocks without any interruption.

"You know, I wasn't sure about this when we got here." Callum said, "But it looks like we're almost across the rock part."

"Callum?" Claudia whispered. He turned his head to look at her, but noticed that Claudia wasn't even looking at him. Unfortunately, she was more focused on the dragon.

"Oh."

The dragon was flying around them, and they started to realize they forgot to put their disguises back on... Callum looked through the book for something that might be helpful, flipping through the pages really quickly.

What he originally thought would be helpful mostly applied to the rock parts, but he honestly never expected to see a dragon here. Which, he probably should've since there were a lot of dragons here, but it just didn't seem like there would be any.

"I can't find anything..." Callum realized, "There's nothing in here that looks like it'd really help. Maybe if..."

Callum glanced at his surroundings, looking for a way to use the spells. But before he could come up with a strategy, the dragon started to attack.

They just barely moved out of the way in time, but the dragon ended up hitting rocks instead, blocking off the previous pathway, which meant they couldn't really go back.

Callum went to check on Ezran, almost immediately, "Ez? You okay?"

"Bait!" Ezran picked up the glow toad, making sure he was alright. Zym looked out from inside of Ezran's bag, which he then picked up.

"I told you!" Rayla commented, looking at Callum.

"We need to slow it down or something, just long enough for us to get out of here." Callum said, ignoring her comment, "Maybe if I use the ice spell, we could stall it."

"Or maybe you could make it fall asleep or something." Rayla suggested sarcastically. Claudia gasped, and tapped her nose.

A/N: the whole claudia braiding rayla's hair thing was pretty popular, right? maybe it's too early for that, but I already wrote it, so anyways.

thought we needed something other than descriptions of them walking and getting distracted, and also starting on something I've been thinking about for awhile soon.