He pointed his spear blade at Ingrid's neck while Elsa took away the rope that was tied around Ingrid's ankle. She was wearing a simple leather jacket and pants this time instead of her white dress. She simply looked like an ordinary girl in her teens just short of Anna's age.

Ingrid breathed heavily and stared around the camp with defiance in her eyes as though daring them to hurt her.

"I am not your enemy," Ingrid said slowly, surprising them.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER?" Honeymaren screamed at her, still trying to awaken Ryder.

The entire camp fell silent, finally taking in the state of one of their comrades.

"I can heal him," Ingrid quietly said.

This shocked everyone. If she was the one who hurt Ryder, why would she ever help him heal? Who was she?

"You're the one who cursed him. Why should we believe you that you're going to help him?" Yelena asked angrily.

"Because if you don't let me heal him, he will die," Ingrid stated.

Alex sized her up. Her body language strongly indicated that she was neither lying nor afraid. Alex had the gift of seeing the true and deepest of emotions through people's eyes. He saw a certain defiance in Ingrid's eyes, but he also saw the deep agony she was in. The thirst for revenge in her heart was overwhelmingly powerful and it was covered in many thousands of layers of painful memories. The maliciousness he had seen in her eyes earlier that day was now replaced with genuinely apologetic eyes, as if she had never intended to hurt Ryder in the first place.

Elsa's eyes shifted between Alex, Anna and Ryder, calculating her options. She didn't understand how someone had magic apart from the spirits. 'Maybe she really does use alchemy. It does look a lot similar to magic.' she thought, recalling her previous encounters with Varian from Corona. In any case, the best bet they had was to trust her since no one in the Northuldra, nor Arendelle knew the subject and could cure Ryder. Also, at the stage Ryder was at, she doubted that Varian would even be able to help anyway.

Alex lowered his weapon without a word and stepped aside, clearing a path for her. It was very rare for him to trust anyone at all. If he trusted someone, there was almost no chance that the person would ever betray them.

The people were whispering intensely while Honeymaren supported Ryder's head on her lap.

'Not a very healthy thing to do to a knocked out person' Alex observed.

Ingrid approached Ryder cautiously, wisely avoiding Honeymaren's dagger-like eyes.

She pulled out a small flask from her satchel and uncorked it. It held a green liquid with a strong smell of mint, bitterest herbs and wet towels. A few people crinkled their noses at the strong smell and some others looked worried for Ryder, hoping he didn't have to drink that.

"He'll need to drink this," Ingrid said, confirming their fears.1

"What is that?" Honeymaren questioned, absolutely revolted.

"It's a concoction that will wear off the over aggressiveness side-effect of my original potion," Ingrid explained.

Honeymaren looked unsure, but she stayed quiet as Ingrid took out another tiny bottle and unscrewed it. It had an even stronger smell of ammonia salts and alcohol.

She waved that small bottle under Ryder's nose. The extremely strong smell reactivated his nervous system with a rather strong jolt. His eyes flew open and he started coughing. As soon as he took a slight break from his coughs, Ingrid stuck the other flask's opening down into his throat. The green liquid flowed out and directly entered his digestive system without falling on his tongue.

He started coughing and gagging more furiously. His eyes fell upon Ingrid.

"YOU!" Ryder howled, terrified and angry.

He tried to get up and lunge at her but a strong and sharp concussion blinded him for a few seconds. That was all Ingrid needed to take out a small towel and wrap it on Ryder's nose and mouth as if to strangle him.

Honeymaren widened her eyes and swatted her arm away, screeching loudly.

The chloroform was so strong that even Alex, standing around three full metres away could smell faint traces of it, but again, he had enhanced senses from all the past experiences he had as an assassin.

Anna and the others stood completely clueless and wondered if they should be doing anything.

The chemical only took a few seconds to kick in and knock Ryder out again.

Yelena's hands were twitching to brandish her staff at Ingrid, but she restrained herself from doing so.

"He's going to need a bed and some cold towels to keep his fever under control," Ingrid informed, getting up on her feet and stepping away from the siblings.

A few people lifted Ryder off the forest floor and carried him off to a medical tent. Honeymaren went with them after giving Ingrid a glare.

Yelena dismissed the remaining Northuldra. Many of them had already guessed what had happened and were whispering intensely. Some even waved their fists at Ingrid, but she stood strong without displaying the slightest hints of emotion.

"Elsa, you're bleeding!" Agnarr exclaimed, worried.

Everyone's eyes turned toward her.

She frowned and touched the part where that rusted piece of metal had struck her. It was a rather deep scratch, but not enough to scar. A few small drops of crimson stained her platinum hair. Alex was bewildered as to how she had even gotten that wound. He was sure he had pulled her out of harm's way.

"I'm alright. It's just a scratch," Elsa said, dismissing the concern. She then turned towards Alex. "You've gotten a deeper cut."

It was then when Alex noticed a sharp pain in his shoulder. The rusted blade-like piece had mostly struck the rock but the edge had managed to graze his shoulder. That's when it clicked with him. The blade had bounced off his shoulder and cut Elsa before striking the stone behind them. He cursed himself for not thinking of that earlier when Ryder actually lunged at them. He could've deflected the blade to his right side and away from Elsa, but that wouldn't have given him an opening to kick Ryder away from them as he could have easily blocked Alex's attack with his left arm.

"Okay come on, let's get you two checked up," Yelena said.

"Uhh no I'm fine," Alex tried to politely decline but he was dragged away by some medical professionals in the Northuldra.

Ingrid tried to slink away but was caught and brought along with them. She certainly had a lot of explaining to do.

It had just been a few minutes past the attack. It was four in the morning and they were all ushered in the medical tents along with Ingrid.

Ryder lay unconscious on the bed in the far corner of the tent. Honeymaren sat beside him monitoring his fever. The temperatures were running quite high and the doctor estimated around a hundred and two degrees.

Elsa, who was on the bed beside him, was getting tended to by another medical professional who was cleaning the blood and applying ointment.

They had all sat down in a crude circle and were asking Ingrid various questions.

Alex sat facing Elsa, Agnarr and Kristoff while Iduna, Olaf and Anna sat beside him. Ingrid sat on a chair at the foot of those two beds.

"Where are you hurt?" A woman in her mid-thirties barked at Alex, coming up from behind them, startling Iduna and Anna.

"On my shoulder," he gestured, unfazed and started rolling up his full-sleeved shirt.

"Take it off," she commanded, picking up some green smelly paste.

"Umm...I could just roll up the sleeve you know?" Alex asked.

"No," she said loudly, stealing the other people's attention, "take your shirt off!"

"But-" Alex started.

"Why are you being so shy?" She interrupted.

"I'm not shy!" Alex protested, almost laughing. He found the situation quite comical.

"Then stop acting like a fussy little girl and take off your shirt!" She gave him a stern, disapproving look.

Alex's eyes met with Elsa's for a split second and she started giggling madly, which was unlike her normal composed self. Kristoff gave a few chuckles as well. They had both seen him half-naked and they both knew exactly what was going to happen.

The others looked at each other in confusion and were wondering why Alex wasn't taking his shirt off.

"I didn't think that Alex would have a belly!" Olaf quickly assumed.

Alex grinned and shook his head in a manner of saying 'you asked for it' before he lifted his black shirt over and off his head.

The people around the tent gasped and some even shuffled away from him including Yelena and Honeymaren. He had a perfectly lean body complete with abs and biceps. He looked like Agnarr from the perspective of pure musculature, but the thing that everyone gasped at, were his numerous battle scars. They covered up every single centimetre of his chest and back reaching more than hundreds in their quantity. Many of them were shallow but some of them were deep stab wounds from arrows and swords.

The doctor gasped and stumbled backwards in shock and pure horror. Everyone other than Elsa and Kristoff were knocked speechless. Now they understood why Alex preferred to keep himself covered up in full sleeved shirts even in summer and while swimming. He did that just so that he didn't scare anyone who laid eyes on him. Most of them were surprised that he didn't even have a scratch on his face to show, but was covered in crudely stitched wounds and scars on his chest.

"You've been through hell, haven't you?" Agnarr asked rhetorically, his eyes the size of saucers.

"Where did you think I got the pain tolerance to fight even after getting hit by an arrow?" Alex grinned.

Iduna widened her eyes even more in horror. She had taken an arrow to her thigh once about three years ago. Even after the arrow had lost almost all of its momentum over an extreme distance, it had hurt to the point of incapacitating her for a few days. She couldn't possibly imagine how many such arrows Alex had taken and how much pain he'd been through to effectively become immune to the pain of a metal tipped shaft ripping through his internal organs and flesh.

"That's just flat out terrifying!" Olaf cried to everyone's agreement.

"And you both knew about these!" Anna gave Elsa and Kristoff accusatory looks.

"Did you really expect them to tell you what they saw underneath my clothes?" Alex asked Anna smugly, raising his eyebrow.

Anna had definitely expected them to tell her that, but now the way Alex put it just made her sound like a perving creep. She widened her eyes in shock of that realisation, making everyone around laugh.

The doctor approached him gingerly and apologetically.

She patched him up rather gently and quickly. Though Alex wanted to offer to do the patching up by himself, he saw her medical instincts kick in so he didn't stop her. It might only humiliate her if he did.

The scars were a nuisance, to say the least. They impeded his movements while fighting due to their non-flexible nature. They also did not help maintain his body temperature due to a lack of sweat glands in scars. This had driven him to fight with new techniques that involved moving and flexing as little as possible so as not to exert himself to the point he could have a heat stroke due to overheating or tear open his scars in trying to dodge attacks by bending his body too much. The reason why he preferred a staff or a spear over a sword was due to it's long reach and comparatively better defensive capabilities that best suited his skills. If he couldn't dodge attacks, at least he could block or deflect them.

"So why are you here?" Elsa asked, quickly taking away the attention from him. She knew exactly how much he hated being the centre of the crowd.

"I'm here to find someone," Ingrid answered.

"Who?" Kristoff asked.

"They don't concern you nor your tribe," she retorted flatly.

"If someone attacks my brother, then it is something of our concern," Honeymaren said menacingly.

Ingrid hesitated. There was no escaping this without giving answers. True answers… she looked at Alex as she thought about her situation. If the stories she had heard about him were true, there was no hope to lie and be able to get away with it.

She sighed.

"I'm looking for my parents," Ingrid lied. Well, it wouldn't hurt to see if Alex was as good a lie detector as he was famous for, would it? "They were taken by the Nightscalers many years ago."

Alex shot her a glance expressing that he knew she was lying or at least wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Perhaps it's best if you tell us the truth," Alex suggested.

Ingrid sighed internally and got prepared to tell the truth.

"Before that, I want to know exactly what you did to my brother," Honeymaren said through gritted teeth.

"I drugged him with a potion that would bring out his deepest of personalities and alter them so that it made him a completely opposite person of who he was before," she explained.

"So that's why he was acting so strange for the whole day!" Anna exclaimed.

Honeymaren was flushed and furious but she somehow still managed to keep her anger under control and not blow up on her.

"But it didn't work," Alex stated.

"I underestimated you three. The potion is supposed to work like a parasite affecting a part of the nervous system in such a way that the host is controlled by the opposite emotions of what he truly feels. In his case, he was feeling like he was doing something wrong and most likely wanted to apologize to someone, but the potion I'd given him amplified the opposite feelings he had of anger and sadness. I only used the mildest of ingredients in the mist so that you wouldn't smell them and deduce I was there. That was why he was able to resist and beat back half of his manipulated mind at the time he attacked you," Ingrid explained looking at Alex.

Alex could recall seeing a battle going on in Ryder's eyes as he conflicted with himself before lunging at him. It was as if half of Ryder did not want to hurt him and half of him wanted to stab Alex.

"I guess I should have used a bit stronger ingredients," Ingrid said absent-mindedly.

'So she essentially makes a special kind of zombies…' Alex thought to himself.

There was a two second gap of complete silence in which every word she'd said sunk in.

"YOU THINK THAT PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE JUST A JOKE!" Honeymaren finally blew up on her and rushed to punch her in the guts and face.

If it wasn't for Anna and Elsa jumping between, Ingrid would have been pummeled to death.

"No no! I didn't mean that!" Ingrid quickly clarified leaning backwards and putting her arms up to defend herself.

"THEN WHAT? YOU GO AROUND ENCHANTING PEOPLE TO KILL EACH OTHER! WHAT THE HELL ELSE DID YOU MEAN?" Honeymaren screamed. The combination of brute warrior strength and boiling rage were enough to give Anna and Elsa trouble to keep her from from rushing forward and doing something reckless.

"Well, uh that's certainly one way to sum it up," Ingrid stuttered, furrowing her eyebrows in trying to think of a way to calm her down, "but that's not what I was trying to do! I just… don't want anymore people to get hurt by the Nightscalers," she said, her voice turning to that expressing sadness.

A stunned silence followed her words.

"What do you mean by… anymore?" Agnarr asked, confused. Honeymaren calmed down enough to not rush at her, but still stayed on her feet. Anna and Elsa released her and sat down, ready to take action at a moment's notice.

Ingrid hesitated. "My family… no, my entire village was slaughtered by these… these monsters! I was the one of the only ones to survive because my mother sacrificed herself to save me. The others lost their wills to survive and I watched them, one by one as they perished to the grief of losing their families. There's only a few of us left of our tribe now, and I'm the only one who wants to fight against the injustice we faced. I'm the only one who's not a coward!"

"So you're planning to avenge your tribe," Alex guessed.

"Yes," Ingrid confirmed.

"But if your grudge is against the Nightscalers, why attack us?" Yelena asked.

"I never meant to hurt any of the Northuldra," Ingrid said. "You three were quite far away from the camp and headed in the direction of the Nightscaler camps. I just thought you were one of them."

Kristoff was certain that they hadn't gone too far away from the camp to be mistaken for Nightscalers, but there was a doubt in Alex's head since he had lost track of distance. However much of an expert he may have been of navigation in the years before he joined Arendelle, he was quite out of practice of constantly staying on guard. Effects of city life, he supposed.

Now that Kristoff thought about it, he found him doubting himself too. It was all like a hazy dream. Even the return trip to the camp failed to tell them exactly how far they had gone. There was no way that two of the strongest navigators in the entire kingdom were to simultaneously lose track of distance, was there?

"The mist I used fogs the brain. That's why the whole encounter is hard to recall, especially the distance," Ingrid explained, reading their faces. "Frankly, I'm surprised that Alex even was able to sense my presence back then!"

"You caught us off-guard," Kristoff grumbled, unhappy at being tricked like that.

"You know me?" Alex asked. He didn't recall him ever telling her his name.

"Of course! Who wouldn't know one of the three legendary Silverbirds?" Ingrid exclaimed.

"Well, legendary is taking it a bit too far though," Alex said, amused.

"YOU'RE one of the SILVERBIRDS?" Agnarr almost shouted, completely shocked.

"Top one too," Elsa added grinning.

"Stop you guys," Alex laughed, shaking his head and mildly embarrassed.

"Wait, who're the Silverbirds?" Anna asked, confused as others stared curiously at Alex. Of course they wouldn't know the workings of the criminal world.

He sighed and explained.

"In the underworlds, there are ranks given to people who have done the most number of successful missions and the most dangerous ones worldwide. There are currently three top ranks that consist of me, the leader of the Eight Kids known popularly as Scarlett and a quite accomplished killing machine called Muzan. For context of how deadly the title of being a Silverbird is, that if the Stabbington brothers were to kill everyone they ever had a grudge with including the royal family of Corona, they still wouldn't even be able to reach the bottommost ranks of the many leagues below us forget about them ever reaching us three."

Anna's jaw dropped open. She thought she knew him for three years, but she now felt like she had only met him yesterday. The scars, his expertise in dealing with enemies, his legendary title of the Silverbird were all a complete shock for her. The Stabbington brothers were famously known as the thugs having the most number of grudges she had ever heard anyone to have! She now understood why Elsa liked to keep him close when she was queen even after many requests from people to remove him from the duty of royal advisor.

"You're joking, aren't you?" Kristoff and Honeymaren said together, looking just as shocked as Agnarr. They certainly couldn't imagine the horrors Alex had gone through and perhaps even committed to be able to reach that stage at such a young age too!

"No, but don't worry. I only ever killed the bad guys, so I'm basically just saving the world," Alex gave a weak laugh. This was nothing to be proud of, but better out with this whole thing than keep it a secret from them. Besides, Elsa had a very different reaction to this information when he told her all this. She was a lot more understanding of what he had previously been doing compared to the others who looked like they were going to pounce and pummel him to death the moment their shock wore off.

He just realised that Elsa probably knew too many of his secrets, but that was not even what he was worried about as he saw the little snowman's face…

"You...used to...kill people?" Olaf whispered, horrified.

Alex gulped. Now he was seriously screwed.

"Err…"

"But that whole thing is besides the point here!" Iduna quickly saved him. "We still need to know what's going on here, right?" She added glancing at Ingrid.

That seemed to do the trick.

"R-right," Anna shook her head clear. She'll deal with Alex later. Olaf looked downcast, but paid attention. Alex silently apologized to him but upon seeing Olaf's face, doubted that it did anything to console him.

"What else did you want to know?" Ingrid asked, looking outside the tent longingly. It was almost dawn and the sky was lighting up.

"Where did you…" Anna began, but was interrupted by a strong manly voice in the doorway.

"Okay, this next interrogation part of yours could be done outside now," Jacob said, narrowing his eyes and looking irritated.

"What? Why?" Honeymaren asked bewildered.

He simply gestured at the other people in the tents who were looking grumpy at the ruckus they were causing.

"Oh no! We're so sorry! Please get well soon," Kristoff said, immediately getting up and backing away and out of the tent with the others at his tail.

"We will if you kids don't keep bothering us, YOU FOOLS!" An elderly man yelled after them, shaking his weak fist.

Ingrid gave a weak chuckle and pulled out a tiny bottle of some white liquid in it and kept it at his table. "Drink that twice a day for two days. You'll feel much better."

The old man gawped at her as she left the tent with Alex and Elsa.

"Wasn't she an enemy of ours until a minute ago?" The old man asked Honeymaren who was looking just as bewildered as him.

She was an enemy, yet Ryder's fever was decreasing and his breathing was becoming more and more relaxed. His face looked more happier now that he was not in agony anymore. The white liquid in that bottle also seemed reassuringly non-poisonous from it's colour, but one can't be too careful.

The old man opened the cork to take a small sip from it.

"Hey wait! What if it's poisonous?" Honeymaren exclaimed.

"Well, I don't see how killing an old man like me is gonna do her any good. Besides, at this point I'm even willing to take poison and end my miserable life instead of just living in pain and becoming a burden on you young generations anyway!" The old man said, quite cheerfully and took a sip from the bottle.

Honeymaren was naturally horrified of what she'd just heard. 'Burden? What?'

Alex had broken away from them in order to apologize to Anna and Olaf for all the crude things they'd learnt about him that day.

"Why did you do it?" Elsa asked Ingrid as they both walked in a random direction.

"Do what?"

"Help the old guy?"

Ingrid took a small pause as she walked over to one of the small lakes in the camp.

"My mother was a doctor and my father was a worker in a mine. One day, he got sick. Very sick. My mother tried her best to cure him, but his recovery was too slow compared to the disease spreading inside him. I was twelve when he passed away. When mother used to create medicines, I used to watch her and learn from it, trying my best to save dad too. In the process at some point, I decided to become a doctor, just like my mother. I wanted to help people, so I learnt everything I could. When I was fourteen, we were attacked by the Nightscalers," her voice turned sad. "Thats… when I decided to become a warrior to kill everyone who had hurt me and my village. My family. Until then, I just… can't help my instincts. Every time I see someone sick, someone lying down in bed, completely helpless, thinking that they're a burden to their family and willing to end their pain by simply giving in to death, I just can't rest without helping them, whoever they are!" Ingrid laughed wryly. "I guess I inherit my mother's spirit in that way."

"Your mother seems to have been a very kind woman," Elsa said sympathetically, joining her at the shore of the lake.

"She was," Ingrid said with tears dripping from her eyes.

Elsa looked over at her and saw her hesitate.

"Hey," Elsa said keeping her hand on Ingrid's shoulder. "It's alright! We all forgive you for what you did back there."

Elsa knew that even though Ryder may hold a grudge against her, he'd forgive her anyway. He was a soul too kind to not do so.

That little gesture of keeping her hand on her shoulder, the kindness in Elsa's eyes, the gentle squeeze to the shoulder all overwhelmed Ingrid and she lost all control over herself. The years of suppressed anger, hatred and sadness all gushed out of their prisons and before she knew it, she was crying her eyes out on Elsa's shoulder and hugging her tightly.

Elsa simply stood there too surprised to move. She hadn't expected that at all. She herself was still learning how people work. Afterall, just three years of studying the world outside of her room wasn't enough to give her an idea of how people's emotions work at their fullest. She simply did what she had observed Anna would do when she found someone saddened and wanted to make them happy. The next step Anna would always do was to hug that person back, so that's exactly what Elsa did. That was when she understood that Ingrid was just a scared little child who never wanted to be left alone again. She was simply so desperate to find love in the world that she would rather embrace an enemy who understood her than even try to protect herself from them. It was a horrifying thought to even imagine what Ingrid had gone through and would have gone through if it weren't for them finding her first before her true enemies got to her. Ingrid was no longer an enemy to them, but rather just a misled child who craved company.

She didn't know how long they stood there, but the sun was shining brightly on the lake. The light breeze that flew across her face felt soothing. Her heart felt lighter as if the wind had lifted that weight from her and taken it away. She realised that she was squeezing Elsa too tightly, so she immediately broke away.

"I… I'm sorry, I…" Ingrid tried to say.

"You just needed a friend," Elsa said, knowingly.

Ingrid looked at her surprised. 'Did she just call me a friend?'

Elsa read her expression and laughed, "come on let's get back to camp. I'm sure the others are eager to meet you."

"W-wait! But I'm an enemy! Right?" Ingrid exclaimed.

"Not anymore. I know that you had never intended to hurt any of us, so there's no reason to call you our enemy," Elsa clarified.

Ingrid couldn't believe it. "But I did hurt that Ryder guy!" She protested, "and I also did pull a disgusting trick on them too."

"They'll forgive you," Elsa said soothingly.

Ingrid was overcome by emotion, so all she could manage was a small "Thankyou," before following Elsa.

"And what were you two doing that Elsa saw you half naked?" Anna asked Alex, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"Uhh...well I was messing around with her a year ago and she got annoyed so she tied my ankle with her magic and lifted me upside down. I wasn't wearing my sheath then, so the belt wasn't there to hold my shirt down. Gravity did it's job and well… she got a good glimpse of all those scars underneath my shirt. Needless to say, she was so shocked that she gave me another bump on my head because she dropped me on seeing that," Alex lied, rubbing the part of the head where his imaginary bump would have been.

Agnarr and Kristoff laughed, while Iduna smiled knowingly. Alex may be able to fool the other four but Iduna could clearly see through that blatant lie. She didn't know what actually happened, but it just wasn't what Alex said that happened.

He just couldn't bring himself to tell them the truth that Elsa had accidentally walked in on him while he was just drying himself after a shower and that's when she saw him… completely naked. That was when she used to get red every time she saw him after that. The people started noticing and quickly assumed that her and Alex had gotten in a secret relationship. Of course, they had laughed it off then and the rumors eventually stopped spreading, but Elsa's memory was eternal… unfortunately for Alex.