It was strange, really, since originally she had been so angry at Claudia. When they first met, and she was sure she was up to something... It was disappointing when she was right.

But now, they were walking together. And Claudia wasn't behind her like she usually was, and sometimes she'd just smile at her for some reason.

Rayla was probably nervous about the dragon they had recently escaped, she figured, since she did feel a little bit nervous. Though she decided to ignore it, she continued walking cautiously.

They stopped, stepping onto the grass and sighing in relief as there wouldn't be as many rocks falling on them.

"Rayla, Claudia!" They heard their friends say, and they turned towards the direction of their friends and ran towards them. Ezran was holding Bait and Zym was attempting to play with Callum.

They looked relieved to see them, which made sense because the last time they saw them they were fighting a dragon.

"You made it!" Callum said, and he was holding a map, "So, uh, Rayla... You were right about this path."

"I know." She replied, "I told you this was a bad idea."

"Yeah... But, at least we should be able to get Zym home sooner. Though we might run into a few elves on the way, since it looks like some of them live about..." Callum pointed his finger at an elf town on the map, "Here, which is a little bit before returning Zym."

"Great." Rayla commented, sarcastically, "We should get going. We're still really close to that dragon."

She started walking ahead of them, though Claudia caught up after quickly putting on her disguise. Ezran put Zym in his bag, though the baby dragon didn't appreciate it.

They seemed to be doing a lot of walking lately, though Rayla had just done a lot of almost falling. And maybe, just a little bit of bonding.

Later on when they took a break from walking, Claudia was even hanging out with Rayla again. A while ago, it might have annoyed her when Claudia talked, or tried to talk to her, and she might have even reminded Claudia that she didn't trust her.

It wasn't like she trusted her now, but it was nice to actually talk to her, sometimes.

"It's nice to be away from cliffs." Claudia was talking relatively quietly, softly. She lied down in the grass, "I can't believe we managed to get away from that dragon. Maybe we're actually kind of a good team..."

Rayla adjusted her position, looking at Claudia who was smiling at her and for a few short moments it seemed she was staring into her eyes, and Claudia was staring into hers.

"Yeah," Rayla replied, and she smiled, "Maybe."

It was difficult not to trust Claudia, sometimes, and she wasn't sure if she shouldn't. Claudia could've betrayed them again, after all, but she didn't.

Or when Claudia told them to go, when she distracted the dragon so the dragon wouldn't be focused on them... But Claudia used...

Rayla looked away from Claudia, sitting in the way she previously was though moving away, just a little bit. Claudia seemed to notice.

She sat up, though Rayla didn't seem as talkative as she previously was. Even if Rayla wasn't pointing out the problem, she could probably guess from one of their recent conversations.

Rayla stood up, "I'm going to go, uh, look at the map."

Claudia watched her walk away, and sighed. She had a feeling that Rayla still had a problem with her magic. But she didn't understand why.

Rayla was looking at the map, though they probably wouldn't be travelling anymore today, as it was already starting to get late.

"Instead of going somewhere dangerous because it's faster, we should stick to this pathway." Claudia heard Rayla say, pointing at something on the map.

"Less dangerous pathways, sounds good." Callum agreed.

Later during the night, Claudia was deep in thought. Everything was starting to seem so... strange.

Claudia was sitting in the grass outside. She didn't think anyone else was awake, but she realized she was wrong when Rayla came and sat beside her.

"Hey." Rayla said, softly.

Claudia smiled, though she was still kind of confused.

"What are you doing out here?" Rayla asked.

Claudia shrugged, and yawned, "Thinking."

She didn't really say anything else, like what she was thinking about. But there were a lot of things she was thinking about... She didn't know what was up with her dad, for one, but it didn't sound good.

Rayla didn't really seem to have a reply for that, maybe because Claudia didn't seem like she wanted to elaborate. She mostly just nodded.

A few minutes passed without either of them saying anything, until eventually Rayla admitted, "I want to trust you."

Claudia turned towards Rayla at this and waited for her to continue.

"I wanted to trust you, and then you betrayed us. But I want to." She explained, and she might have been thinking about it a lot, because she did seem to have a lot to say about it, "But you still use..."

"My magic." Claudia finished for her, "I still use 'my kind of magic'."

"Yeah..."

Claudia turned away, looking at the stars, "But what's wrong with my magic? I mean, the way I think about it... Humans, we were born with norhing. But we still found a way to do all these things... Amazing things."

"You're..." Rayla sighed, thinking about how she was going to explain it, "You're using magical creatures to do magic. Creatures like Bait, or the dragon prince."

"And...?"

"And it's wrong. Maybe you weren't born with the ability to do magic, but that doesn't mean you have to use them for that. You can make your own connection!" Rayla argued, and her voice was starting to get louder.

"Why, because Callum could?" Her voice was starting to get louder, too, she noticed. Though it probably wasn't good, with how late it was, "We don't even know that anyone else could. But I use my magic for... everything. It's just who I am."

"It doesn't have to be. You don't have to."

"But I do. Callum's special, Rayla. It's not that simple. It's not like I can just make my own connection to a primal source. I mean, if only Callum has ever done that-"

"Maybe he's the only one that's ever tried." Rayla interrupted her, "You could do it, but if you're not even going to try to learn primal magic and stop using innocent, living creatures just to do magic, then fine."

She stood up, clearly not pleased. Rayla walked away, leaving her alone once again.