All throughout day 21 Iris had been unable to focus. She kept checking the ELT. The question always being whether it had stopped working. That night, her rest had been fitful at best. She had sat perched next to the device the while night, watching the light that showed that it was working.

Finally, on the morning of day 22, the inevitable. Her ELT stopped blinking. The device had run out of battery. Surprisingly, she didn't burst into tears immediately, instead she trained rigorously.

No matter what she did that day, she felt hollow. She felt forgotten and failed. She had had so much faith in the search and rescue team that would hopefully find her. It wasn't fair.

It didn't matter that she once again speared a fish in the river. Nor did it matter that it tasted amazing. She didn't even care that she finally hit her target for the first time when practicing archery.

She would never see her parents again. She would never laugh with her friends again. Her life would forever be vastly different.

She cried herself to sleep that night.

The next few days proceeded in much the same fashion. For some reason, she continued to notch the tree. A part of her was not yet ready to give up hope.

Every morning she ran to the river, sometimes she would go back and forth a few times until she felt winded. Then she would do her push-ups, sit-ups, squats that she recently added, plank and more until her muscles burned for use.

Then she would finally reward herself with a dip in the cool river where she would attempt to spear a fish for lunch.

Afterwards, she would fill whatever water bottles were empty, pack them into her travel bag that she now used for carrying water and head back to camp. From there she would pour the water into empty cans to boil before pouring it back into the bottles for drinking or cleaning.

Slowly, she begins to feel herself accepting her new surroundings, making the most of it.

She starts to forget to notch the tree, though she does her best to remember. It gives her some form of grounding in her routine. A sort of proof per say.

Around day 38, she couldn't be sure as she'd been forgetting more and more often to mark the tree, she celebrates her first kill using archery. A rabbit. A very large, fat one at that. It was a little heavy to carry over to the river to wash but carrying fish and her training had built up muscles. Though she was still far from being bulky.

Skinning and gutting the rabbit had proved to be a challenge. Iris's work was far from clean, but it would suffice. She let the innards flow down the river as she had no use for them, and she might as well feed the fish she prayed on.

The fresh rabbit meat turned out to be a tender delicacy when roasted over her fire. She had been starting to get sick of the canned food and roasted fish.

While eating her catch, she realised that she would have to be careful of salt usage in the future. Luckily, she had a bag, but there was no way that it'd last her the rest of her life unless she planned on kicking the bucket prematurely.

She wasn't sure how she'd go about getting the resource. For now, she'd be able to limit her salt intake until she thought of a solution.

---

Soon, the days were blurring together. The only thing marking the passage of time were the trees that began to change colors. She'd almost stopped marking the tree altogether.

Her archery skills had improved by leaps and bounds. She'd even managed to hunt deer a few times. Then there were her post processing abilities that had been seeing some improvement. She'd even been able to begin tanning some of the hides from her catches in hopes of storing them for winter. Though they were far from pretty.

Once her skinning skills were sufficient, she hoped to be able to make herself some new clothes as hers were now in tatters.

However currently, the only reason this particular day stood out to her was that she had been feeling odd recently. It was like she was standing on a fence. She had traveled far to get to that fence but now, she was teetering on it. She felt herself leaning to jump over the separator and continue on her journey, however it was almost like there was something holding her back. As if she wasn't quite there yet but would be soon.

Unsure what could possibly be causing the unusual feeling, she decided to write it off as pre-period hormones. She ate her fill and went to bed. That night she entered a deep sleep.

------ A few days later-------

Ink and Tawn had been traveling along a river headed south over the last couple days. Since leaving the Warm Saltwater Mer Tribe, they had traveled north to the Mountain Feather Tribe before deciding it was time to start making their way to a warmer climate for the incoming winter.

They planned to continue their search for a suitable mate come spring.

Suddenly Tawn who have been running ahead of Ink in his wolf form stopped dead in his tracks. He stuck his nose up into the air and sniffed. Soon he was circling a bush that had a poorly pealed deer skin draped over it. Usually, he would pay no mind to such a thing as usually only males would skin an animal in hopes to either trade the final product or use it to attract a mate. So his current level of attention to the pitiful excuse of an offering was odd to say the least.

Curious as to what the other male was so hung up about, Ink slithered over to inspect. Once he got a whiff of the faint, purely female scent he immediately shifted his upper body to human in order to communicate.

"There's no male scent, though it seems a few days old" He said almost startled.

Tawn's tawny hair wolf looked over at Ink with sparkling knowing eyes. It was indeed an unusual find.

Tawn smelt around some more, but the scent was fading and he wasn't able to pick up on any more clues. With his ears flattened back he let out a soft whine. He wanted to know why a female would be out tanning a fur alone. What males let their female out of their sight?

With his interest peeked, Ink began to inspect the area. He was just as interested in the irregular situation as Tawn was.

Noticing a horizontal notch on a tree, Ink slithered over. The notch was old and no longer had a smell, but his gut told him it was something.

Turning around, "Tawn, help me look for more notches in the trees. It might mean something."

Knowing that Ink had the better brains between the two of them, Tawn immediately shifted to his human form and began inspecting the trees in the vicinity of the one Ink had pointed out.

Soon the males found another horizontal notch, and another, and another. They were forming a path leading somewhere.

"The ground following the notches is worn." Ink pointed out. "It's been used but not for very long, probably just one season, not much more."

The males followed the worn path, going from notch to notch until they happened upon a very strange looking camp.

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Oct. 12, 2021