This is to be countinued in the story Second Encounter.

First Encounter

Chapter 5

How could adults be so deaf?! She had tried and tried to tell them, but they just waved it off as a childish nightmare. And why couldn't mom and dad see that Azkadilla was different?

DG paced the balcony by her room, back and forth, wringing her hands in fear. (something picked up from her mother.)

"What should I do? What should I do?" she whispered to herself over and over in an endless chant.

"DG?" she snapped her head toward the sound. It was Ambrose and he was looking at her just like everyone else had been.

"If you don't believe me, leave me alone!" she spat venomously, closing her eyes to the world.

The sound of his footsteps came closer and stopped in front of her, but she stubbornly kept her brilliant eyes shut.

"I believe you."

DG looked up at him in hope. "You do? Really?"

"Every word." he smiled.

The young girl gave him a tackling hug "Oh Ambrose! Three was a cave and a witch, Az told me not to let go, but the witch was scary and I ran." She dug her wet face deeper in to his coat, "I let go and she fell. It's all my fault."

He patted her soothingly on the back, "It's ok, DG, it's ok. We'll find a way to fix it."

The news came as the clock chimed 9:00.

Dead. The youngest princess of the O.Z., DG, was dead.

N-no, he thought franticly to himself, that is not true. DG is alive, he had just spoken with her, hugged her. Th-the information was wrong, he had heard it wrong. The charming little blackhead was fast asleep and dreaming right now upstairs, safe and sound in bed.

"She's alive." Ambrose said aloud though no one else was there. He briskly strided back to the table and project he had been working on and started assembling it with shaking hands.

"Everything is fine. DG is-is-" the man stopped. DG. This project was for DG. Her birthday present that he had been working on for awhile, carefully hiding from sight and reach while she was awake and terrorizing the halls. She was going to love it, she was………….never going to play with it.

The painful waves of reality swept over him and Ambrose fell into his chair, feeling the gaping hole in his chest. Breathing was hard, so why bother?

The Royal Advisor to the Queen of the O.Z. drew his stinging eyes to the shelf above his bed, to the little straw dolls grasping each others hands.

He couldn't take it anymore.

He slammed his head into his arms and sobbed.

He was still there the next day.