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At that, Luk sighed.

"I'm afraid that's something I've never been able to explain," he murmured apologetically. "It came quite easily to me, so I never had to have it explained to me, which means that I can't explain it either. I think Amalirahc would have the same thing, since it comes to him more easily."

He paused thoughtfully. "Perhaps it would be best if you asked your parents, or maybe even Alassëa, to help you with it."

It was slow going for the three of them; even with Luk's eyes, the palace was after all a maze all in itself, and it seemed that Alassëa was intent on making it quite difficult for them to find her. Once they finally found the room she was sharing with Iorlas, Iorlas informed them that Alassëa had been there only a few short minutes before leaving the room again.

Amalirahc was frustrated. "But we already got all the way up here!" he vented. "And it was hard! Really hard!"

"I believe she said she was going to wait in the courtyard for her bird to return," Iorlas mused. "She sent him off hunting from there, so that was where she would wait for him."

There was a moment of silence as Amalirahc processed what she'd said.

At last, he said, in a tone of complete and utter disbelief, "That's just not fair ..."

Luk couldn't help but chuckle, though he tried to keep it quiet.

"A real teacher, that one," he grinned. "And you know what? I'm going to leave you to it. See if you can find your way back. Like Miyuki said, you can go back the way you came up."

He was fairly certain that was half the point of the exercise.

"Good luck," he quipped before leaving the room.

Iorlas giggled. "Later," she replied.

It took them quite a while and a few wrong turns, but eventually they found their way back to the courtyard. By the time they arrived, Amalirahc was growing slightly more comfortable with making his way around blindfolded: at least, he wasn't complaining as much.

It was high noon by the time they made it outside, and the heat was very strong, almost overpowering.

"Pleh." Amalirahc stuck out his tongue. "I hope we find Alassëa soon. I want to take a bath and a nap."

The last obstacle they would have to pass was the maze of hedges ... and he wasn't looking forward to that. They were prickly when he walked into them.

"Well, there's ... two parts, right?" Amalirahc tried to remember. "I mean after the first part. There's the archway and then one way is the big open part and the other way is other part ..."

He paused to listen for a moment. For a few seconds he could hear nothing; then he heard a soft rustling noise in the eastern area, the area in the maze.

"I think there is ..."

Amalirahc concentrated and listened more carefully. It sounded like birds ... but different.

"I wonder if that's Alassëa talking to her bird," he mused. "It's hard to tell when it's her or when it's a real bird ..."

He started forward, feeling forward with his staff to make sure they wouldn't walk into the hedge.

"I just hope it's her," Amalirahc muttered darkly, feeling his way between two hedges. "I'm hungry."

Which really wasn't news, but that would never stop him from saying it anyways.