It was early in the morning when Renna woke up. She had been the first, seemingly, because she immediately noticed the lack of noise in the cottage. Her sleep had been broken, and she'd woken up every hour or two with that same pit of cold dread in her belly. She wasn't ready for this morning. Even still, she managed to pull herself together and get herself out of bed. She had to go wake Elliot and Iris so they both had time to get in a proper goodbye.

She walked down the hall toward her niece's room first, noticing at once that the door had been left shut. Renna just furrowed a brow, thinking to herself how unusual that was -Iris had always left her door open at night to make sure that her father was alright. When she got to the door, she cracked it open and looked inside. Iris was not there. Had Iris gone outside already? Ah, she'd go look in a bit. Now, Renna whirled around to go wake her brother.

She walked into his room, noting that Elliot Gwenneth still remained a snoring lump under his blankets. Oh, how she hated to wake him. "It's time," she called out to him. "We all have to get up." At those words, Elliot's eyes opened slightly and found her standing there.

"I wish it wasn't."

"I wish that too," Renna said, and then added with a small chuckle, "Iris is already up. Since the day I met her, I've never known your daughter to be an early riser." The small joke ended there. For right then, Renna noticed something laying on the nightstand by Elliot's bed. Narrowing her eyes at it, she tried to make out what it was. "What is that?" She pointed to the strange mass that been left there.

Elliot reached over without looked, meaning to grab his sword. "It's my sw-."

He felt an unexpected softness against his palm. Immediately, his eyes shot over to the foreign object on his table. For a moment, Elliot didn't register what it was. Without a word, he wrapped his hand around his daughter's tresses and brought it closer to his face.

"What is the meaning of this?" He looked back to his nightstand now to find his sword missing. "Where is my sword?"

Renna was the first to understand what it was that Elliot held in his hands -the first to understand the implication behind it as well. All she could do was clasp a hand over her mouth. "Oh gods..." came her whisper of terror.

Elliot looked down on his inn table and finally noticed the shimmering piece of jewelry laying idly on its surface. It was that moment right there that he finally recognized what he held in his palm -Iris's hair. Immediately, he placed it back on the table and grabbed his cane. With all the haste he could muster, her limped over to his closet, finding that the armor that was once within in was gone.

"What's going on? Where is my armor? "

Renna stroked her niece's hair and took the necklace in her palm. Quietly, she held the silver chain next to her heart.

"Elliot," Renna finally spoke, hardly able to overcome the surprise she felt. "Tell me that Iris wouldn't do something incredibly stupid. Tell me she didn't..." Renna was breathless, and therefore, she wasn't able to finish her sentence.

"Yes," Elliot answered quickly, now noticing that his draft note was also missing, "oh gods, we have to find her."

And with that, both Elliot and his sister rushed out, hoping to find any trace of Iris. They went immediately to the stables to find that Gretchen was gone. Judging by the way the tracks looked, she'd been gone for hours. Elliot inspected the old horse prints with a profound sense of panic. At that moment, Iris's father understood one thing very well -his daughter was lost to him.

When Renna saw the hopeless way he stared at the tracks, she grabbed onto his shoulder and stared out over the horizon. "We have to follow her."

"We can't," Elliot whispered. "We'd be hard-pressed to catch her even on horse-back now. By the time we'd find her, she'd already be at the camp." He used the support of his cane to stand and stare out at the distance with Renna. "Those tracks are hours old. All we can do now for his is pray... and pray hard." The last words came out as a horrified whisper.

"Aye," Renna agreed. A moment passed. An idea popped into the woman's mind. "Wait a minute, maybe that's not all we can do. What if we could send someone more capable that ourselves to the army camp with her to protect her."

Elliot just looked over at Renna. "Like who?"

"Oh yes," Renna whispered, mainly to herself. And then, to Elliot, "I knew there was a reason I ran into him yesterday in town. The gods must have sent him in my path for this reason. Elliot, I ran into the Vorantis boy yesterday when I was shopping -he's visiting Eda this week. We might could get him to go."

Renna and Elliot exchanged glances without smiling. Kayde Vorantis was the son of a family friend that had joined the ranks of some idealistic mercenary group when he was a child. He was a generous person by all accounts, by Renna had no idea if he'd agree to do something so vast, and more importantly, so illegal. And if he did agree, well, there was still no guarantee that even he would be able to keep her alive.

"Should we go see him?" Renna asked, "Ask him if he'd do us the favor? He seems to like Iris well enough from the few times he's spoken to her."

"Perhaps," Elliot replied, rubbing his chin.

In Eldia, there were many who had chosen to join the ranks of the Remorda Guardians -an elite set of combatants heavily trained for missions such as these. By all accounts, the order was founded to protect innocent lives. Kayde was one of those men, taught for years how to fight --taught for years how to protect others and hone his mind in all situations.

"It's worth a try," Renna convinced him. "Hopefully he will go... for Iris. He knows Iris."

"Yes. Go talk to him." Her father was grave.

"I will go see him this very moment." Renna gathered her skirt in her hands, "Let me get on some shoes." In that moment, Iris's aunt was doing her best to convince herself that Kayde would be able to help. She was about to take off running to where the Vorantis family lived, but was caught by a firm grip on her shoulder.

"Let us pray first," Elliot said, meeting her arms.

And they did.

----

Four days later, Gretchen galloped forward at a decent pace, but Iris could tell the poor mare was tired from multiple days of fast travel. By now Iris's legs were long worn out from many rough hours of riding -and she could feel the blisters stabbing at the inside of her thighs. Even so, Iris did her best not to grimace at the pain. It was mainly out of principle, for Iris knew that where she was headed, she'd have to learn to be resilient if she wanted to live. She also knew that if she was late, she would certainly be punished as anyone else. Therefore, she kept her pace.

Iris was pulled from her thoughts when Gretchen galloped over a large rock, which shifted the girl quickly and painfully in the saddle. Iris's composure broke for a moment, and she cursed under her breath. She had to clench her teeth to conceal a scream when the horse jerked again, surely ripping open the sores on her legs. For a moment, Iris could swear she felt her thighs start to bleed.

After a moment, the pain contained itself back into something a little more bearable. After Iris settled again, Iris pulled out the draft note and gazed at the map drawn on the back. By this account, she was still about two days away from her destination. She was thankful, however, because it might have been another four days had she not kept to her fast pace. And if she pushed a little bit harder, she could get a really good rest in whenever she felt it necessary -probably soon with how bad Iris was hurting.

Not only had this whole trip been hard on her body, it'd been hard on her mind too. Over the course of the journey, she'd had to change who she was entirely. She's lost her name, as she now was Ingred Gwenneth -the only son of Elliot and Irila. And also, she'd had to force herself to become stronger than she felt she was -had to accept that she couldn't cower in the face of fear. Iris had lost her hair, she'd lost her femininity, and depending on what the future had in store, she risked even losing her life.

That was quite alright, when she remembered she was doing it for her father. She would do anything to protect him -even sacrifice herself for him.

In the back of her mind, Iris wondered how he was dealing with what she had done. She wondered if he'd taken it in stride... or if he'd perhaps done something rash. For now, she hoped it was the former. She prayed that he wouldn't find some way to follow her and bring her home. She would only be safe once she got to camp unless her father completely lost his mind and exposed her for what she was right there. She highly doubted that, though.

If he did though... and the situation somehow came down to that, Iris had no clue what she could do to stop it. She didn't have the capacity right now to figure it out either. Right now, she had to fully figure out who it is that she'd become.

Sure, she knew well enough the name of the man she pretended to be. But his personality? Iris hadn't quite figured out how to act like a man just yet. She knew that she wanted Ingred to be strong-willed, with calloused emotions. Of course, that sounded just about like every other man at the camp. For a second, she wished again that she had the strong arms to go with it. Ah, she'd work on that.

Iris knew she'd likely be looked down upon for being weaker than the others. In time, she hoped to be strong enough to blend in with the others. The armor she wore now gave the illusion of a decent form, which might get her through the first of it. But the rest was a variable. Iris knew that she'd have to undergo strength tests at the camp, alongside endurance tests. Iris found comfort that she was at least somewhat good at running with all the running back and forth from town she'd done back in her home village.

Iris looked at the sky and judging the sun, finding that it was around noon now. Gods, she was tired. She had ridden all night long. Iris felt as her eyes burned and threatened to close each passing second. She decided that she'd have to rest soon or she ran the risk of falling asleep in the saddle. She hoped she could find a good enough place to rest -a place where she wasn't likely to be found by a passerby.

Iris looked into the distance, eyeing the sight of thick trees ahead. Something like a surge of relief passed through the girl when she saw them. They were sure to shade her from the sun and from prying eyes. This was the first bit of luck she'd had since she'd left, and it would probably be the last too -what with where she was going.

"Thank the gods." The words were nothing more than a murmur on her lips.

Gretchen whinnied a little in response to hearing Iris speak. It was the first noise that had been heard in a while aside from the crunching of plants and pebbles under the horse's hooves. They'd been traveling across the same blank plain for a long time now and Iris was happy to see an end to it. Though the quietude of the plains proved peaceful compared to the incessant sound of the bugs and the open land made it easy to navigate, the openness made her easier to find. Iris couldn't shake the feeling that she was being tracked down. That thought didn't comfort her in the least. She tried to calm her nerves by convincing herself that it was only paranoia.

Iris now looked to the woods with an ounce of desperation whirling about her eyes. She was ready to be there. Iris pushed the mare to go just a little bit faster -hoping to get out of the clearing sooner.

Gretchen snorted in disgust, but her hooves beat in a faster pattern against the ground.

"That's my girl." Iris rubbed the mare between her ears, causing them to twitch. "Soon enough, you'll be able to sleep to your heart's content, and so will I." With her free hand, she continued to placate the animal by stroking its mane.

The woods looked a little closer than before.

"We'll be there soon, I promise," she whispered as she stirred Gretchen into a gallop again.

Iris had reached the woods in half the time she'd predicted -but it still hadn't been soon enough. When she finally dismounted Gretchen, her legs wobbled and shivered at the ground's impact. Iris winced and forced herself upright. Now she looked around the area, and walked Gretchen a little out of the way. She untied her sleeping pack and began setting up a small camp for herself.

It wasn't long before Iris was curled up in her bedroll on the ground -her body ransacked and ravaged. Even on the hard ground, she found that she fell asleep nearly instantaneously.

----

Crunch. A sound of snapping twigs sounded near Iris's camp a long while later.

Iris was on edge, so she awoke immediately at the noise. Her sleep had been dreamless. Shooting up, the first thing she could make out was a dark sky just beyond the tree's canopy. The new panorama was littered with stars, shining down over the world. Crickets chirped everywhere in the forest.

Iris's vision was blurred for a moment. She glanced around her surroundings trying to find the source of the noise -and find it, she did. A dark form stood not far from where she was camped, watching her.

Her eyes widened, and her hand immediately flew to her sword. Iris stood as quickly as she'd ever stood and pointed her blade in the direction of the silhouette. "Who's there?"

She jumped when a man came fully into view, dressed completely in black. His movement toward her was quick, making her stomach roll over in panic. Her gaze found his face, trying to make out the features. Light green eyes stared back at her in the night, and a curtain of straight black hair fell over a young face and continued in long shocks down his form. After a minute, Iris recognized the features.

She was surprised. Her eyes went wide before narrowing in suspicion.

"What are you doing here, Kayde?"