Rather than try to drag the felled tree back to The Shoebill somehow, the group has decided to head back to the boat to get the items that Tabitha will need and take them back to the forest. It will be far easier for them to work on-site than bringing the tree back.

They are met with an unexpected sight once they make it back to The Shoebill.

Azalabulia is sitting on the riverbank with her tentacle companion wiggling around next to her as she rubs her eyes and cries.

She looks fine from what the group can tell, so they have no idea why she’s so upset that she’s crying. She just looks completely soaked.

“Cass, I think you might be the best choice here,” Fenrir says, giving his girlfriend a pat on the back to push her forward.

Cassiel shrugs and walks up to the crying Azalabulia. “What’s wrong?” Cassiel asks.

“I – I thought I was going to drown! I was so scared! I have no idea how to swim and I fell in the water and it was scary and I was flailing around and there was nobody to save me and I just got really scared and it was horrible and now I’m all wet!” Azalabulia cries loudly enough for everybody around to hear. Then she sniffles and says, “B-but I saved her at least.”

“Who?”

Azalabulia points down at the tentacle.

“Aren’t things like that usually perverted guys?” Cassiel asks.

“That’s – that’s racist!” Azalabulia shouts before going back to crying.

“Is she really a teacher?” Oleander asks Fenrir.

“I mean, she said she is,” Fenrir answers.

“Oi, you’re tellin’ me this crybaby nerd is a teacher? What’s she teach?” Tabitha asks.

“Kindergarten, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“You’re tellin’ me this crybaby nerd is influencing our future leaders at such a young age? When they’re all impressionable?”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

“This world is screwed.”

“Come on, she might be a great teacher when she’s—”

“Water is scary! I hate it! I wish it would all evaporate! Who needs water anyways? Nobody actually needs water! It just wants to kill you and make you thirsty and get you all wet!” Azalabulia whines.

“Alright, maybe we’re screwed,” Fenrir admits.

“Oi! Ya know your body is mostly water, right?” Tabitha shouts over to Azalabulia.

“Then I’ll drain it all out! I don’t want water anymore! It doesn’t even taste good! Why would I ever want to drink water when I can drink wine?!” Azalabulia shouts back and gives the group even more reasons to doubt her ability to teach.

“I mean, I can’t completely disagree with her on that. Water is boring,” Fenrir says.

“Fenny, don’t be an alcoholic,” Oleander says.

“Nell doesn’t even let me drink more than once a week now, and she doesn’t let me drink that much when she does let me.”

“Wow, Fenny, you’re actually whipped now,” Oleander says, using a tone that makes it obvious he’s teasing.

“I think Nell would want me to be the one doing the whipping.”

“Whipping,” Corwin says, bringing a finger up to his head as he thinks about it.

“What’s this? You want to bring even more toys into our play?” Oleander asks his boyfriend, giving him a squeeze on his side which almost gets a Cassiel-tier squeak out of him.

“I’m goin’ to smack ya both with my hammer if ya don’t calm down there,” Tabitha tells the two lovers. “I know how quickly you escalate from words to doin’, so take that somewhere else before we’re caught in the crossfire.”

Fenrir gets some odd thoughts in his head when he imagines Oleander, Corwin, and the word “crossfire” altogether. Going by Oleander’s snickering, Oleander must have thought the exact same perverted thought that’s in Fenrir’s mind.

“It’s – it’s alright,” Cassiel says, trying to comfort Azalabulia. “It’s just water.”

“But that’s not all! Look!” Azalabulia cries, pointing at her boots. “I’m all muddy! Water ruins everything it touches! It touched perfectly good dirt and made it mud, and now that mud is on me!”

“Well… you are sitting in mud right now, so…”

“You don’t understand!”

Cassiel sighs and gives up, walking back over to the rest of the group. “I have no idea what to try and say to her. Fen, you’re better at this sort of thing, so you go and try.”

“What am I supposed to say to somebody who hates water? That doesn’t even make sense,” Fenrir says.

Then, when he looks over at her, he notices something.

Azalabulia might sound like a whiny child complaining about something stupid and illogical, but when he pays attention to how she looks, she looks genuinely terrified. She’s shaking, crying, breathing rapidly, and she isn’t paying attention to anything else. She isn’t just upset about getting dirty and wet, she’s genuinely scared.

Fenrir walks up to her and crouches down. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says. “You’re fine, so just take slow, deep breaths. Alright?”

Azalabulia looks up at him and slowly nods her head before trying to do as he said. It’s difficult, but she manages and begins to calm down.

“Sorry we didn’t make sure you were safe and following us. I’ll make sure you’re with us next time. Promise.”

She’s still crying, but she’s nodding her head at everything he has to say.

Fenrir doesn’t know what else to say, so he just hugs her instead. He knows that he would want a hug if he was as scared as she looks, so that’s what he gives her.

While he may not be able to see her face slowly turning red and the love grow in her eyes, the rest of the group sees and is surprised that they weren’t expecting this to happen.

“Feeling better?” Fenrir asks her.

“Y-yeah… thanks,” Azalabulia answers.

“But, you know, it probably wasn’t a good idea to join us when we’re on a boat and around water most of the time.”

“It’s – it’s different when I’m not actually in the water, and… I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to – y-you know, make new friends…”

Fenrir doesn’t even realize it, but he hugs her a bit tighter just out of how cute that reasoning was.

“Come on, let’s get you out of the mud,” he says, standing up and bringing her with him.

“I – I do not need help, mortal!” Azalabulia says, her voice still stuttering and frightened, but her roleplaying lets them know that she’s feeling better.

“Ah, you’re right. I am sorry, Wielder of the Cursed Flame of Bahamut,” Fenrir plays along this time, bowing his head slightly.

“You – you actually remembered! I – I mean, of course you remembered! None could ever forget me nor my titles!”

Fenrir doesn’t even know how he should feel himself that he actually remembered one of her titles. It’s a good thing she’s not asking him if he remembers the rest of them, though, because then he’d be caught.

The two walk back over to the rest of the group, and he hurries to pull Tabitha to the side so that he can whisper to her, “I know we were joking about her being afraid of water, but she’s seriously afraid of it, so—”

“Ya think I couldn’t tell? I already feel bad for doin’ it in the first place, so don’t you worry about it,” Tabitha tells him.

“Feeling better?” Cassiel asks Azalabulia.

“I never felt not better! I am always at the peak of performance both mentally and physically!” Azalabulia declares.

“So, you could outrun Fenny?” Oleander asks her. “Or lift more than Rao and Cass?”

“I – I need not do such things when I have magic!”

Oleander stares at her.

“Wh-what? My magic saves me the trouble of—”

Oleander continues staring.

“My magic can do anyth—”

Oleander gets right up in her face as he stares now, having to stand up on the tips of his toes.

“Wh—”

“Boop,” Oleander says, poking her cheek. “You had some dirt on your face.”

Azalabulia is left standing there confused and unsure whether she should be blushing or not. She knows that Oleander is a boy, so that was the closest somebody from the opposite gender has ever been face-to-face with her!

Her eyes look longingly at Fenrir.

Cassiel notices that and grabs Fenrir by his shoulder to walk him away a bit and whisper to him, “I think you made her fall in love with you.”

“Who? Tabs? No way,” Fenrir whispers back.

“No. Aza.”

“Seriously? How? All I did was hug her.”

“You hugged and comforted her when she was upset, kind of saved her in the dungeon, and… I’m pretty sure she’s an extreme virgin.”

“There are different levels of virginity?”

“She looks like she’d panic just from holding hands.”

“Holding hands is pretty lewd.”

“Seriously though, you should see how she looks at you when you’re not paying attention. This isn’t the first time, either.”

“Alright, well, what do you want me to do about that?”

“I – I don’t know! I just thought I should tell you!”

“Don’t worry. As much as everybody likes to tease me about being some sort of harem protagonist, I’m not going to add her to my ‘harem’ just because she’s a girl and breathes.”

Fenrir doesn’t get a quick response from Cassiel which causes him to look at her suspiciously.

“Ac-actually,” Cassiel whispers, “we… Nell and Serra… we might have already talked about Aza.”

“What do you mean?” Fenrir keeps whispering back.

“Well, Serra brought it up, and me and Nell weren’t against it, and we knew she liked you, so we figured… if you end up liking her then it’d be okay.”

“Why do I feel like my own girlfriends are shipping me with others behind my back?”

Cassiel looks away.

“Well, as long as you don’t talk about like, me and Rao or anything.”

Cassiel leans away from him.

“Olly and Cor?”

Cassiel scratches the back of her head.

“Shogun?”

“Wh-what? No, that’d be weird,” Cassiel says.

“You didn’t deny the others.”

Cassiel walks back to the group by herself.