So sorry updates have been slow. I've been focused on my Ouran fic, Our Realm, and I'm rly addicted to Rune Factory 4 too. Shout out to Ariaelyne and thank u so much Random42cc! Much appreciated!


It was luckily still night by the time we arrived in the hole in the wall town.

"There should be plenty of silver in the governor's house," Eila whispered to us, "We take that, and then commence our plan for faking Ren's death"

We nodded and snuck off into the shadows of the town. However this thief job was going to be very difficult. I hadn't even studied the layout of the town let alone the guard patterns! This heist was going to be a shot in the dark and a very messy one at that! I boarded my horse because we couldn't spare money on Shalen's or Eila's so we just hid them in the woods. From there we easily snuck into the governor's house, and began taking every piece of silver from every drawer and cabinet. I was just taking out the last plate when we heard the door being broken down! It shattered the silence, making us all freeze and exchange panicked looks. I motioned for the two to hide in a corner with me, slightly hidden by two shelves while we listened to the intruders (although we were also intruders).

"Right," said one, "Orders from…uh…"

"It says Lupus you idiot!" another voice came and smacked the first voice over the head, "You can't read for shit!"

"Ow!" The first voice flinched, "Well Lupus said to be on the lookout for three women, two with black hair and green eyes, and a third with red hair and green eyes,"

"Yeah and I could've swore I saw three girls sneaking in here," said the second voice.

Damnit! I thought. I should've known! I taught Lupus myself how to plan heists and the one important thing I taught him was to always anticipate your enemy's moves! He knew our escape would be here and he tipped off some bounty hunters in advance before beginning the mutiny! That CAT!

"Bounty Hunters," I breathed, tipping Shalen and Eila off.

"Let's hurry up and get them before some guards notice we broke in," one said, "After that we just send word for Lupus, he comes and sees our handy work of the dead girl with black hair and green eyes, and he'll let us join his guild!"

HIS GUILD!? I wanted to scream.

I gave Eila and Shalen the signal to move out. Quickly, we tiptoed out of the dark kitchen and into the back room. The back door was in close sights when…

THUNK

An arrow landed just above the latch on the back door, and it was in there good! There was no way of opening it now! The tree of us turned to see the two bounty hunters, and they had blood lust written all over them as they aimed their bows at us. It was Shalen's turn to improvise, she took some stairs on her right, and we followed, skipping steps by threes. Sprinting down the hall, I locked us up in a storage room at the end of the hall. All sorts of random items lay around and a window was on the other side of the room.

"Right," I snarled, unsheathing Tooth and Claw, "Open the door, I'm ready to take them!"

"What?!" Shalen gasped, "Ren, we won't let you kill them!"

"Why not?!"

"Because killing is what led you to the monster you became, you don't want to continue down that road!" Shalen objected.

"But this is an exception, if we don't kill these brutes, they'll kill us!" I shouted back at her.

The locked door started bulging up and down from the two bounty hunters ramming into it. Eila was nervously standing on the other side of the room, nervously wringing her hands.

"How different are they from the guards we avoided our whole life?!" Shalen screamed, "They had orders to kill on sight and for years we snuck around them!"

"Shalen, I am the guild leader…" I began to say, not thinking at all.

"See!" She yelled back, "You're still the monster you were in the guild, you can't even let go of your position! I knew you didn't have it in you to change! We should've just let you be killed by Lupus!"

"You two!" Eila interrupted our argument, jumping between us then pointing, "The bloody window!"

Without speaking, Shalen and I bolted for the window, Shalen dropping down first. It was a long fall but it was nothing us experienced acrobats couldn't handle. Just as I was about to climb out, I looked up at Eila, who was still staring at the door.

"Eila, are you coming?" I asked a rhetorical question.

"No,"

I sputtered on my words from disbelief for a few moments.

"W-what?!" I finally said.

"No," she repeated, "They've almost got the door down, just go,"

"Why?" I asked, making her look at me.

I saw the same blind love in her eyes that Shalen did, almost as if she had been there the night Shalen found me. Her emerald eyes turned to glass.

"Even if we do get away, what then?" she asked but answered her own question before I could, "These two have already seen us and if we try to pass off your dead body to Lupus, they'll only tell him that we got away and he'll be suspicious,"

"What are you saying? We'll think of something, we always do!" I tried to reason with her.

"What I'm saying is that they need a body," she mumbled, "…And we look a lot alike,"

"No!" I immediately rejected the very thought of it.

"It's my turn to make the plan, Ren!" she pleaded, "The only way for you to live happily is if Lupus knows for sure that you're dead and if their story doesn't check out, he won't think you're really dead. He'll just find you out and hunt you down! Let them have me then use the potion and switch our bodies!"

"Eila, no!" I tried to stop her, grabbing her arm.

"Just go!" she urged, pulling away from my grasp.

"No!"

"Just go!"

"I am NOT leaving without you!" I finally shrieked.

"JUST GO, DAMNIT!" Eila screamed right back.

She raised her right foot, the one I admired the first day I met her, the way she moved it was as if she was in combat. It shoved itself into my chest, throwing me back, out the window, and as I fell from her view, I saw the bounty hunters burst in and her sorrowful eyes watching me go. I was the last person she'd see no doubt before they slit her throat. My head hit the ground and I was out.


I noticed a small tear had just barely escaped my left eye and hoping Legolas didn't notice, I whipped it away.

"So that's it," I shrugged, "The rest is a blur. I remember waking up and drinking the potion. But we didn't know a side effect was Amnesia,"

But then again, maybe Shalen knew. I thought. She had to have known! Why else did she take the opportunity to lie to me and turn me into Calen? If she really didn't know that potion caused amnesia, she would've tried calling me Ren when I woke up. But she didn't.

Making a mental note to ask her about that if I ever saw her again, I looked back up to the elf. I could see that he was trying to hide his sadness. But yet, he also had a look of relief as if he could be at peace if he knew my full story before going off to die. Why would he want to know a dirty thief's story? His eyes making me fidget once more, I picked up some bread that he brought me and began munching.

"Why do you remember now?" I heard him ask.

His question took me by surprise, I didn't know he was this curious!

"I didn't think it was important to mention before, I thought you knew," I shrugged, "Sometimes trauma can reconnect memories, I guess it just took a trample of a warg and the stab of a sword to make it happen,"

I went back to grazing.

"One more question," his soft voice, making me tense up.

There was a long silence before I acknowledged his request. It was hard enough to open up myself to him (which I only did because I knew he would die anyway) but now he wanted to pry more?!

"What is it?" I replied grimly.

"Did you love him?" he asked with a worried twinge invading his cool voice.

The thought of Lupus made me clench my fists and scowl but I still didn't look up to meet him.

"No," I spat, "We only slept together because we could satisfy each other's fetishes. It's not like I was married to him or anything,"

At this I glared at him and he seemed to look a tad scandalized. I almost smirked at the prince's innocence. Instead I took another bite.

"Thank you, Ren,"

That made me look up with wide eyes. He was the first person to call me Ren, the first person to accept I wasn't Calen anymore! But was he ok with the fact that I wasn't Calen anymore?

"And I'm sorry," he apologized as he stood up.

Then I noticed a scalding migraine starting to grind away at my head. I felt myself fall over and struggle to stand again but I felt the energy draining from my body.

"But we needed to make sure you wouldn't try to escape," he said sincerely as he opened the door to leave the prison.

"You blue-eyed bastard!" I shouted after him as I tried to fight the drugs.

But then again, how could I fight them off when I couldn't even withstand the side effects of the last sleeping drug.