The sun shone in his eyes as he awoke from sleep to realize that Zephyr had never woken him to take watch.
   He sat up quickly, and saw that Anahita wasn't up either.
   His eyes roamed around their makeshift camp to find that Zephyr was nowhere to be seen.
   Ignatius got up quickly, noticing that nothing seemed to be gone, but that still didn't answer the fact that Zephyr had just disappeared into the night without a single trace.
   He quickly walked over to Anahita, and shook her shoulder to wake her up.
   "Five more minutes Cordelia." Anahita muttered, trying to wave away some imaginary person she thought was next to her.
   "Anahita, I'm not Cordelia, and I need you to get up. Zephyr's missing, and I need help finding her." He told her, shaking her shoulder again with a little more force.
   Anahita rolled onto her back, and squinted her eyes open before they became wide with surprise.
   She shot up so fast that their heads bumped together, leaving them both rubbing their heads, and apologizing back and forth.
   "I'm so so so sorry. I didn't mean to. I sort of just..."
   "It's okay. What's important right now is finding Zephyr." He told her, and stood up.
   Anahita followed him as he walked off into the woods.
   "She could be anywhere." Anahita said. "What if et Images got her? They might have killed her or worse."
   "Anahita, you need to calm down. Zephyr's stronger than she looks and she did fight them off before." He said to her in a assuring manner. He didn't need her freaking out while trying to find Zephyr. It would only make matters worse than they already were.
   "Only with a distraction." Anahita pointed out.
   Anahita was right about that. With Rhys busy scolding Irving and Bedalia and Kiran skinning the chimera, she had enough of a distraction to attack them and free him and Anahita.
   But if they did find her alone and at their mercy they probably killed her for what she did.
   By the Sun. Now he was starting to sound like Anahita. He really needed to get a grip and think rationally.
   That didn't work, and he found himself hoping she wasn't dead. He didn't know if it was because she was the only other one like him or what. He guessed that she was the only one who would be able to help him if his dragon side started acting up again. She seemed to understand a great deal about it.
As they continued through the forest he decided to strike up a conversation with Anahita to pass the time, and to help him calm down a little bit. With Anahita blabbing about all the possible ways that Zephyr could have got killed or injured was not helping to keep him calm either.
"So...you're from portus maris?" He was mentally kicking himself for saying that. He really need help on his social skills; getting beat up by Enya, Flint, and Haco didn't count.
   "Yep. You're from Et ignis in Terris?"
   "Yep."
   That was extremely awkward.
   He wasn't sure what to say next. He didn't exactly spend two years of his life training to become a guard that was social with others.
   "You have any family?" Anahita asked him, looking at him with those bright ocean colored eyes.
   He was reluctant to answer, but he did anyways. He didn't want to lie to her anymore.
   "A father. We're not very close. Quite the opposite in fact." He muttered the last part. He still hated Ignacio. That man was the last person he wanted to see in the entire world. He rather see his rotting corpse than his living, breathing body with its hateful personality still intact.
   "Oh. No mother or siblings?"
   He shook his head. "I had a mother but she died when I was two."
   "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
   "It doesn't matter anyways. It's all in the past and sometimes the past is better left buried." He said.
   "You really like to be all mysterious and vague. It kind of reminds me of my soon to be adoptive father, Tarka. He loves his secrets. He's completely unlike Tullius."
She really loved to compare him to people in her life. It was the very thing that he couldn't figure out about her. Why did she do that and only to him?
   "Who are Tarka and Tullius?" He asked, his curiosity getting the better of him over his previous question.
   "Well they're both warlords of my adoptive mother, Queen Darya Ceto." So he was dealing with royalty and he didn't even know it. Now it made him wonder how many more secrets she had. "Tarka has been kind of close with her ever since he found me and gave me to her."
   "Found you?" He echoed. Yet another mystery of Anahita Ceto.
   "Ya. He found me all alone in the ruins of a village that Arnav, a vicious Draconigena, destroyed. He apparently didn't know I was there or he would have killed me too. But Tarka found me after he killed Arnav. If it weren't for him I would probably have been killed by Arnav, starvation, or whatever nature would had thrown at me. I own him my life, but he's just so boring. Tullius is much more fun. Me and my siblings were hoping mother would marry him but Tarka was more prestigious in rank."
   "So your mother did it so that nobles wouldn't look down on her for marrying a lower classed warlord when a higher classed one was already courting her."
   "That's basically the gist of it. You seem to know a lot about the inner workings of royalty."
   "Just payed attention a lot." He muttered. He had plenty of knowledge about it when he heard the gossiping servants in the corridors; servants loved to gossip more than talk.
"You don't really seem like the type to pay attention much." She said bluntly, which surprised him greatly. She really did not seem like the type of person to speak so bluntly.
She must of seen the surprise on his face because she went into her normal apologizing routine.
"It's okay. And for a matter of fact, I do pay attention. I've noticed your necklace." He told her, nodding his head to the silver wire wrapped clear blue-green aquamarine pendent around her neck.
   "Oh," she said, fingering it. "I didn't think anyone noticed it."
   "Well I did."
   Anahita smiled at him. It was a smile he could nor would ever get tired of.
"It was my mother's. It's—It's all I have left of her. I never even knew her or my father. They were killed by Arnav when I was less than a year old." Anahita said bleakly.
"I'm so sorry." He told her.
"It's okay. It's just the way life is. We can't hold onto all of our loved ones forever. I was luckier than others though. I have a loving family even if they aren't blood. They are still the only family I have. And the good thing about them was that they didn't care if I was half nymph when they found out. They loved me for who I was, not what I was. That's what family is all about."
   He kind of wished that his family had been as decent at hers, but if it hadn't then he wouldn't be the person he would be today. Did that also mean he wouldn't have those horrible memories that he only got control over yesterday? He decided to stop dwelling on the past. What was done was done. Nothing could change the past.
   They walked in silence for awhile, still searching for Zephyr.
   Then he thought he heard something.
   He stopped so he could listen better.
   "What is it?" Anahita asked him quietly. 
   "I'm not sure" he closed his eyes, "...it sounds like..." his eyes flew open in surprise. "I think Zephyr is nearby."
   "How do you know?"
   "I thought I heard breathing. It may be Zephyr." He told her, heading in the direction of the breathing.
   Anahita followed him closely. Close enough for her hand to brush against his, making him feel disconcerted.
What was wrong with him? He had always been around Elidi and never got like this. He knew he felt something for her, but he never imagined he would be falling for her. He thought he had already settled all of this a long time ago. She deserved someone better then him. Way, way better than him.
He shook his head.
Enough of this! Focus on finding Zephyr now. Deal with messy feelings later.
   They walked slowly through the woods till they came to a small grove of ash trees near a stream.
   Ignatius thought he saw someone inside the grove but was unsure of who it was.
   As they approached, he saw that it was Zephyr.
   "Zephyr!" Anahita cried, but the girl didn't respond. She remained limp inside the grove.
   They rushed over to her to find her in a pool of her own blood.
   "Zephyr, are you okay? Please don't be dead." Anahita said with despair in her voice as she shook Zephyr's shoulder gently.
   He found himself longing to get revenge on whoever had done this to her. It must have been something pretty strong that took her down. Or she was jumped. But her wound looked like something had scratched. Something large. Something like a—
   Then he felt his arm hairs stand up on end as a shiver ran down his spine. He could hear soft wingbeats getting closer.
   "Anahita, we have to go. Someone's coming."
   "But—but we can just leave her here. She needs medical attention." Anahita sobbed, tears rolling down her face.
   "Okay." Ignatius said. He didn't need to deal with Anahita begging him to go back for her, which he knew he would give in and go back.
Gently picked up Zephyr's light form—he never realized that she was so light, she could literally float away in a storm—they started back.
   That's when something pierced him in the back.
   He stumbled forwards with a groan of pain.
   "What—There's a knife in your back!"
   "I know." He gritted between his teeth. The knife was stuck in his right shoulder blade, making it extremely hard for him to keep his arm up.
   Anahita didn't wait for permission, she yanked the blade out, and tossed it away.
At least she wasn't afraid of doing what was necessary.
   They hurried faster now back to camp.
   The wingbeats getting closer and closer.
   He felt himself becoming drowsier and drowsier by the second till he felt like he could no longer walk. He would have fell if Anahita hand't caught him.
   "Ignatius, what's going on? Are you okay?"
   "So...tired." His words slurred, as his arms dropped lower than before. Dang it! He got drugged again! Curse whoever came up with drugging other people.
   "No, you have to stay awake till we get back to the camp. Okay. Okay?" Anahita asked him, her voice barely keeping him conscious.
   He slowly followed her as she led him back to the camp.
   He suddenly fell when his foot hit a root and he dropped Zephyr and he crashed on the ground.
   "Ignatius! Ignatius, please don't close your eyes. Please." She begged him, shaking his shoulder.
   He wanted to hang on for her but the tiredness in his limbs would win in the end. He couldn't fight it off. No matter how hard he tried.
   Then the touch down of hooves told him that whoever had been following them had managed to catch up.
   "Ignatius! Please!" She begged even harder.
   "You should save your pretty little voice. You're just wasting your breath." A familiar voice said.
   He tried to see who it was, but only could see boots.
   Anahita then started screaming as she disappeared from his side.
   "Leave him alone!" He heard her yell as someone grabbed one of his arms and yanked him to his feet.
   "If I were you I would worry about myself." The same man told Anahita.
   "Rhys, what do we do with the girls?" Another voice asked. It sounded like the person holding him up.
   "Leave them here. The one won't last another night."
   "You're lying!" Anahita yelled.
   "Can I please kill the nymph?" The first one asked.
   Rhys didn't say anything.
   Ignatius didn't want this other person to kill Anahita, not while he was semi-conscious to try and stop it.
   "No..." he managed to get out weakly.
   None of The Hunters said anything.
   Then someone grabbed his jaw and tilted his head up till he was looking into orange-gold eyes.
   "You no longer have a say in the matter." And a fist greeted him, knocking him out cold.

P.S. I feel like Ignatius's personality and feelings all over the place. Hope you all are enjoying.