Etana awoke to the sun's morning beams pouring onto her face, and she shivered in the cold autumn morning against the thin sheets. She sat up, looking to either side of her for Ivan. He wasn't there, but the younger nurse was.

"Good morning," she greeted Etana with a smile and grabbed a green tray with food on it nearby. "You sure are up early for only sleeping a half hour," she told her, placing the unappetizing meal on her lap. Half an hour? She had definitely been asleep longer than that.

"Where did Ivan go?" she asked, looking around the room and ignoring her breakfast.

"He left not too long ago. Told us that you had just fallen asleep, and then walked out." He had lied to keep her out of trouble? A tad childish, but she was grateful nonetheless.

"Alright, thank you," she nodded at the nurse, put her tray up, and jogged out to find him.

The halls outside of the infirmary were unfamiliar, as she couldn't remember trekking down them. Looking down each one, she eventually reasoned going straight, and started down the corridor. Why had he gone? Etana bit her lip worriedly as she approached the end of the hall, where it split into two directions. She saw a door leading outside down the left wing, and ran toward it, hoping that Ivan hadn't gotten too far in half an hour. Pushing the door open, the girl ran right into Drury, and stumbled back several feet.

"Goddesses, Drury, I just got over a concussion." She shook her head and looked up at him. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"We need to talk. Now." His facial expression and tone told her that she was about to get reprimanded, causing her to cringe.

"Uh-oh…" she groaned, staring down at the floor. "What did he tell you?" Drury tugged on her arm and dragged her out the doors, out to the large and chilly courtyard. He looked around before he spoke.

"He didn't have to tell me anything. I saw you two this morning." Etana squinted her eyes shut. Idiot! she told herself.

"Are we in trouble?" she asked, opening one eye back up.

Drury exhaled sharply. "No, but you're lucky I found you before someone else did. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"We didn't do anything!" she protested.

"You did enough," he replied coldly.

"Where is he?" Etana asked him, frantically looking around.

"Leave him alone."

The girl recoiled. "I…I don't understand. Why are you being so cryptic?"

"General Hyrule is looking for you. Go talk to him."

"What?" he eyes widened. "I thought you didn't tell anyone!"

"I didn't. He just needs to see you. And don't go looking for Ivan on your way." Drury stared at her hospital gown, loosely fitting her down to her knees, and the bandage still wrapped around her head. "Do they know that you're out here?"

"Yeah," she answered annoyed as she undid the bandage, cringing slightly as it tugged on her hair. "But, just out of curiosity… How much trouble would we be in?"

"You would go back to prison, and Ivan would be given the boot. You need to be more careful. I can't be looking out for you two all the time!" he scolded her.

"I don't need you looking out for me!"

"Well, Ivan does."

"What?" Etana asked him, angry and confused.

"Goddesses, you cause him hell that you don't even understand…"

"Enough with the cryptic! Where is he?!"

Drury shook his head. "Go talk to Hyrule."

"I…" She paused, and her rage turned to fear and innocence. "I don't know what I did…"

"It'll help you if you go talk to Hyrule. Come on," he put his hand on one of her shoulder blades. "I'll walk you there."

Etana's troubled mind occupied her the entire way. What had she done? Ivan had seemed perfectly alright the night before. Besides, he was the one who kissed her. There was no way that any of this was her fault. But, still, something had to be wrong with him. She found it especially strange that he would run off without telling her…

As they climbed the stairs up to Hyrule's office, Etana stumbling on a few steps in her distracted state, she glanced out of each window that lined the staircase walls in a desperate search for Ivan. Drury, although concerned for her, kept his hand on her shoulder blade to lead her up to their general's office, to where they had been summoned. Approaching the door, Drury rapped on the wooden door twice, but it was all background noise to the girl, who had her eyes fixed on a mysterious figure walking about outside the castle walls. Was it Ivan? The figure was too far away to tell.

That couldn't be Ivan, could it? What would he be doing all the way out there? Was he running away? Was he hiding from her? What did she do? Why was he acting like this? Why won't Drury tell her anything? Why was-

"Etana!" Drury called, shaking her shoulder. Etana jumped violently from being startled, then squinted her eyes shut and shook her head slightly.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked, trying to focus on whatever this important meeting was to which she was being literally dragged.

"I said, 'come in,'" Hyrule repeated, a hint of annoyance in his tone. Etana nodded and hastily entered his office, which, like all the other rooms, was made out of wood. There was a wooden chair and table, upon which were multiple papers and a huge map of both Ilom and Kondo. A clock hung upon the opposite wall, ticking away the seconds that Ivan could be running away…

The general looked Etana up and down in the same fashion that Drury had not too long ago, and with a suspicious look, inquired "what happened to you?" The girl gazed down at her hospital gown and reached a hand up to touch the cut on her cheek. She cringed and shivered simultaneously, just realizing that she was wearing a thin sheet against the cold weather of autumn. She rubbed her bare legs together in an attempt to conserve body heat, and crossed her arms over her chest for the same reason.

"Minor injuries at training," she lied, not wanting to seem weak at this seemingly important meeting. "They just wanted to make sure that I would be ok." As she swept her hair behind her pointed Hylian ear, her middle two fingers met something warm and sticky on her head. The girl looked at her hand with a confused expression, concluded the red substance to be blood, and quickly folded her hands behind her back to hide it.

"Maybe this should be saved for another time," Hyrule responded, observing this suspicious action.

"No!" Drury cut in nervously, looking back and forth between the two. "This should be discussed now."

"Miss Plamen," the general continued, agreeing with his subordinate, "the time is nigh for your first mission."

Against all that was distressing her, Etana beamed. Her eyes lit up with anticipation, and she failed to hold back a smile. "Really?" she asked, the dimples on her cheeks becoming more and more prominent. Finally, a chance to prove myself.

Hyrule nodded and couldn't help but smile back at the girl. How could he? Her smile was contagious. Regaining his serious composure, he strode over to the table and picked up a stone that he could barely wrap his fingers around. It had a luster like black amethyst, and seemed to reflect the light of the morning sun that the black should have naturally absorbed. Brown twine was wrapped intricately around it to create a loop so that it could be worn around one's neck. As he held it up, Etana's eyes were completely fixated upon it. This was the Dusk Stone, the very stone she had sent from Ilom to purloin for their evil schemes. Or, at least, that's what she was told.

She could not avert her gaze from it. There was a sort of serene beauty about the stone, yet it coalesced with an eerie sense of yearning and loneliness. The power of it seemed to call to Etana – no, scream to her – to take it. This would prove to everyone back in her homeland of what she was capable. It would be her vengeance against them, to return it to Ilom, dangle it in front of their astounded faces, and then destroy it right then and there.

But…then what would she have in the end? Obviously not Ilom, which she didn't even want anymore, and not the people in Kondo. Most importantly, she wouldn't have Ivan. The loneliness of the stone pervaded Etana's heart as she finally switched her gaze from the stone to the window next to the wooden table. The window was higher than the previous one she was looking out of, and she could not determine if that speck down below was real or a trick her brain was playing on her.

"Miss Plamen," Hyrule called her attention back to him. The girl snapped her head back around to face the general, hurting her head in the process. She winced slightly before holding eye contact with his hazel eyes, trying hard not to become entranced within the stone yet again. Holding it by the twine, Hyrule handed it over to Etana. "We need you to deliver this over to Ilom."

Etana widened her eyes and shook her head out of disbelief. "Wait, what?" She took a step away from the object being offered to her. "You can't be serious. This is the stone that they need to-"

"So they think," Drury cut in, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. "Let him finish, Etana."

"My apologies," she nodded, still trying to hold her gaze from the evil Dusk Stone. Drury withdrew from the conversation and turned his head to stare outside, concerned for the speck that was indeed down there.

"Take it," Hyrule told the girl. Unsure, she took a step forward and hesitantly wrapped two fingers around the twine, not wanting to touch the stone itself. Etana held it in front of her contemplative face, twirling it by the string to examine all sides of it. "Breathtaking, isn't it?" he told her as he watched her eyes analyze it intently.

"To say the least," she muttered, becoming captivated within its dark and mysterious power.

"Good, because it's a fake," he stated, raising his thick eyebrows at her.

"No way!" Etana cried in disbelief, now gripping the stone itself with her bloody fingers, examining it all over again. "It looks so real…"

"It had better. It took over a year to make." All of the empty feelings that filled Etana prior had all disintegrated. It was just a rock. "It's made out of quartz, and is modeled exactly from the real Dusk Stone."

"…So Ilom will think it real, try using it, and reveal their plan…" the girl concluded.

"…which you will then report back here," Hyrule finished. "We don't know why they need this, but we do know it is crucial to them."

"Alright, alright," Etana agreed, nodding and clutching the quartz tight in her grasp. "But…" she added, unsure, "what do I do? Knock on their door and say, 'Hey, I'm back, and look what I found!'?"

"Why, no! You fought very hard to obtain this precious Dusk Stone. You barely made it back home alive to tell the tale of how you were almost captured and tortured for information, and faced their general in battle himself!" he told her with a wink. The girl nodded and smiled, understanding the role she would be playing. Not wiping the blood from the rock, she placed the loop of twine over her head and allowed the fake to dangle around her neck.

"So, when do I go?" she asked eagerly, a devious smile creeping across her mouth. How satisfying it will be to fool Ilom…

Drury, reentering the conversation after a long thought process, answered, "When that head injury has healed. Why you took that bandage off is beyond me," he muttered with rolling eyes.

"Tomorrow night, then… after we knight you."

Again, Etana beamed. "Tomorrow, then. Thank you, sir," she added. Then, with a bow, she turned on the balls of her feet and respectfully strode out of his office, her smile glued to her face. As she began to descend the staircase, the girl absently glanced out of the window again, and was reminded of the person standing down there. Seeing him, her smile faded, and every uneasy and wounded feeling inside of her resurfaced. "Ivan…" she whispered, beginning to fly down the stone steps in bare feet. Etana considered stopping at her quarters for some decent clothes and shoes, but knew that she needed to see Ivan immediately. She ran across the hallways to the front gate, outside of which Ivan stood. Each step brought a small pound to her head, which she ignored as best as she could so as to not lose pace.

The front gate that led outside was guarded by two soldiers on either side, each holding a shield and spear. As they saw Etana approaching, they crossed their spears to block the exit. "Halt!" they commanded, and Etana skidded to a stop.

"Let me through!" she insisted, stomping her foot in an annoyed manner.

The guards shook their heads. "We have specific orders not to let you out," the one on the left explained. Glad to know that I'm trusted, Etana thought to herself.

"Captain Kinley is out there and I need to retrieve him," she told them, putting her hands on her hips. "Now step aside!"

"I'm afraid we can't let you, Miss Plamen," the second replied as they both stood their ground. Etana pouted, then quickly looked around her to devise a plan. She was going to confront Ivan no matter what to find out what was troubling him so…

There! A large window above the door! Granted, it adds elegance, but could be a defensive design flaw. Eyeing the guard on the right and his four foot long shield, Etana took several steps back and prepared to charge.

"Wh-what are you doing?" her target asked, a hint of fear in his voice. They both put their shields up in front of them and shuffled in the way of the exit. Without answering the question posed, Etana sprinted toward the two cowering soldiers, who now had their shields at an angle to protect them from both in front and above. Perfect. When she was within two feet of them, the girl jumped on the large metal shield, and, using it as a boost, jumped from that up to the large windowsill, just barely grabbing it with her hands. Luckily, the blood on her fingers had dried and become sticky, allowing her to hang above the guards without slipping back down. Mustering all of her arm strength, Etana pulled herself up and onto the sill, just in front of the multicolored stained glass, and looked down at the two bewildered guards.

"Man, I just love being an assassin!" the girl bantered sarcastically before bashing the glass with her elbow. She tried not to show pain at the glass that entered her elbow (she usually broke windows with her foot, but, alas, she had no protective wear on them), and turned away to look down below.

Dropping from this height of about fifteen feet would prove dangerous for Etana, who could barely handle the injuries that she already had. She looked on either side of the window for some way to glide down at least a couple of feet safely. On both sides, flag poles protruded from the wall about five feet below and extended outward and upward to where the window was. The girl had absolutely no equipment or tools on her whatsoever, and was forced to compromise. She took off her thin hospital gown, leaving her to shiver in just her black sports bra and spandex, and ripped it to make one, long piece of fabric. Taking one end in one hand, she jumped toward the pole, flung the other side over it, caught it with her free hand, and allowed herself to slide downward toward the stone wall. Before she hit her back against it, Etana let the fabric go and dropped down to the ground, landing on her hands and feet in a crouched position as the fake Dusk Stone hit her chest. She let a painful groan slip before recovering and running toward the soldier by the lone maple tree.