Fearless (A Mulan Retelling)

Chapter Four

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.