Attie listened to Chrys as she explained what they ought to do next. The guards should be able to handle searching the village, as there were more of them and the guards had been trained to fight against these monsters. So, Attie followed Chrys towards the guards and let Chrys explain where the village was. Attie would help in the explanation but she hadn't paid attention to directions or how they got there. She just flew in the area that Chrys had told her to fly to. Attie looked up to the Mamlak woman and her eyes grew wide with admiration, as the lady looked like a tough sneaky warrior in that leather and chitin armor. When Chrysanthe pulled out her Wayfinder's Widget, Attie's surprise grew. She had never seen anything like it and was quickly fascinated by the invention. After they were done, Chrys mentioned to Attie about her suspicions and worries about the man. Attie nodded her head, realizing that her new friend was right. They couldn't just let the baby go with anybody!

"I'll go first. I'll meet you near the supply tent when I've got all my questions answered." Attie replied. 

Attie then walked towards a sleeping tent and around it before heading towards the orphan tent, just to throw off anybody who was watching them. She hopped onto a barrel and looked at the man with curious eyes. He was busy trying to calm down a little boy who was whining about missing his mom. The man was holding the boy and rocking him gently, trying to get him to either sleep or to help him feel better. 

"So, whats this place?" Attie asked abruptly. 

"Oh." The man looked up in slight surprise, "This is the orphans tent. Any children who have lost their parents are supposed to go here. We take care of them until a group of Rosenites come and pick them up. The Rosenites then send them to orphanages that are away from the war." 

"How come I've never heard of this group before?" Attie asked. 

"It's new." He explained, "A group of Rosenites were worried about the children who's parents would die during this war. After all, this is one of the worst wars that Revaliir has ever seen. So the group was formed to move the orphaned children to safer places. Normally the Rosenites handle everything but they are needing some volunteers so I decided to help. All of us are spread thin already so we haven't had the time to promote ourselves much." 

"What about your credentials? Got anything to prove to us that you aren't gonna do something bad to the kids?" Attie questioned. 

"Unfortunately, we don't have any." The man said with a sigh, "With the war going on, all the Rosenite queens have been busy. I've been told that most Rosenites were too busy fighting and there was a lack of time for an official court to verify our group. Though, that is really on us since we only decided to form this group after the war started. But we do have the Rosenite word and we allow anybody to come with us to verify that the children are safe. We also give the public full access to the orphan tents and anything that they want to investigate. We can even give you the names of the orphanages we have dropped children off to so far. Oh and my name is Brandon. In case you need it to verify anything."

Attie had no idea if this was good credentials or bad. She would have to ask Chrys about it later, as Chrys was a Rosenite and probably knew more about this type of thing than she did. Having received enough answers, Attie decided to head over to the tent to send Chrys in. If anybody would pick up on any lies, she knew that Chrys would probably be the best at it. Attie walked over to the supply tent and went over to Chrys. She explained everything that Brandon had told her, including the bit about how he was offering for people to follow him to the orphanages. Once Attie was done, she looked to Chrys to try to read her expression. 

Chrys was thinking while Attie went to gather information. The idea of checking his credibility wasn't wrong, but it would be difficult to actually confirm anything without anyone to investigate deeper. She waited patiently according to Attie's instructions, listening to anything she could pick up from the nearby plants. Unfortunately there was a lot of noise and not much helpful details. The girl couldn't blame them though, they were rooted to one place and could only hear what passed by them. Attie returned after a while and told her everything she had asked and what the man named Brandon had said. Now was the challenging part–deciding how much they should trust this person they had just met. "Thanks a bunch Attie, you were really thorough. Let me see the names he gave you on those orphanages. Even if we can't confirm them now, I can pass on this information to my mom and her cousins to double check." She didn't say anything about Attie's observations of Brandon's behavior during the questioning, and although everything seemed to sound alright she still had one more thing she wanted to do…

This time she wasn't going to tell Attie everything she was planning. Even if this man was telling the truth, she wanted some way to track him down if they wanted to see how the baby was doing later. Asking wasn't going to do much good, so Chrys instead wanted to obtain 'something' from him in case the worst happened. It would require a little ingenuity, but she knew it would work. Looking to her friend after thinking for a while, she smiled. "Alright, now it's my turn to ask him. I'll be back in a jiffy!" Handing the baby over to her friend, she waved before going her own way to throw off possible pursuers. She took a more roundabout way of familiarizing herself with the camp before going to where the orphans were. Acting natural was something she'd practiced as a kid. In her pocket she had a handful of seeds notoriously known for causing mild hay fever. Tossing them onto the wind, she watched as they drifted and settled around the tent where Brandon was. Working her magic, the seeds sprouted and developed into mature plants, which started to release their pollen. With the amount of wind in the area, soon there would be sneezing and a slight runny nose. 

"Hello there!" She peeked into the tent where Brandon was caring for the children, waving with a smile. "I heard you were offering to take in children who were recently orphaned?" From the sounds of sniffling, the plants were working like a charm. "Yes, that is correct miss. War is the hardest on those who cannot fend for themselves. How can I be of service?" Brandon said before turning away to sneeze. "ACHOO! Oh, excuse me." Quickly Chrys rummaged through her pockets to pull out a handkerchief. "Here, you can use this!" The man gratefully took it as the situation of his nasal passages became incredibly urgent. Clearing his nose, he was relieved. "Thank you, oh though allow me to repay you for that. It would be rude of me to return your handkerchief in this state." She held up her hands as if to stop him. "No, no that's alright! It's fine! Sometimes an emergency pops up when you least expect it. You don't need to pay me anything, really. I'd feel bad if I accepted money from someone who's already working hard to help other people." 

Her genuine attitude and well-timed wording won the man over, and she got her handkerchief back. If it hadn't been clear from the start–this was the 'something' she wanted from him. Kind of a gross way to go about it, but she could have a diviner use this to find him no matter where he went. They talked more, with Chrys having successfully lowered his guard with the handkerchief. She asked similar questions as Attie had, and he gave the same information. Looking contemplative for a moment, she then allowed herself to have an expression of epiphany. "That's a relief. I almost thought I wouldn't be able to find someone who could take care of a child I found with a search party. I'll leave them in your care mister, I'll be right back!" 

She returned to Attie and the child, nearly out of breath. Faking that enthusiasm sure was tough, but nothing she couldn't handle. "I'm back. I asked him again and he told me the same information. Also I got this–" She held up a used handkerchief. "It's kind of gross, but I made him have a small bout of hay fever so I could get him to use my kerchief to blow his nose. Even if he wasn't lying to us, we can now track him with the right people." Ultimately based on her gut instinct, she felt there was a good chance Brandon was alright. "I think letting him take care of this baby for us will be alright. It's hard for me to let go, but allowing others to help where they can is the best way." 

While Chrys was going off to do her thing, Attie was holding the baby. She looked at it, wondering what exactly she was supposed to do or say. Suddenly, the baby opened its eyes and Attie started to panic on the inside. Was there a magic word for babies? Should she start up a friendly conversation? Or did she need to rock the baby like she'd seen mothers do in her old village? The baby reached up towards Attie's face and grabbed onto her hair, pulling it as hard as the baby could. Attie winced in pain and tried to free her hair from the baby's iron grasp. Eventually, she was able to free her hair from the baby hand of doom. This time she held the baby lower so it couldn't attack her hair again. The baby was holding up its arms, reaching towards something. Attie realized that the baby was reaching towards her teeth and claw necklace so she took it off and dangled it right above the baby, just far away enough so the child couldn't actually grab it. The baby treated this like a game and kept trying to catch it. 

"Who's a good baby?" Attie cooed, "You are! Yes you're a great baby!"

She was cooing to the baby like it was a dog. Suddenly Chris returned and Attie stopped quickly. She put the necklace back on and walked over to her friend with the baby. Chrys' plan ultimately sounded like a good idea, so Attie was fine going along with it. Even if the handkerchief was gross. Attie looked to the baby and smiled. Even if they were going different ways, Attie wouldn't forget the child. She wasn't intending to adopt the kid since her own life was far too dangerous to be able to have a kid in it. Attie was being thrown off a cliff every other week and adding a baby to that situation would just make things worse. Still, she was glad to have met the baby and seen another side of life that she had never thought about before. 

"Alright. Lets head over." Attie said. 

She walked with the baby over to Brandon and held out the baby to him. The man carefully scooped up the child and looked to the two with a warm smile. He carefully inspect the child to see if it had any injuries. After the inspection, he nodded to Chrys and Attie. 

"By the way, do you know the child's name?" Brandon asked, "I'd hate to have to call her a baby the entire way. If you don't know her name, do you want to give her one? In case you want to check up on her later."

Attie looked to Chrys and gave her a shrug, as if to say I don't know what to name the baby. 

Chrysanthe thought for a while. Normally she didn't mull over things for too long, but names were special. A good name was said to influence a person's life, and there was some truth to that. Peeking at the little bundle, she smiled at the little one's warm orange hair and brown eyes. Her life may have began with tragedy, but it shouldn't always be that way. Finally the blonde girl decided. "…Helene. I think that'll be a perfect name. May her life be always sunny and bright, just like her smile." Surnames were only for people who felt they needed them, a given name was often enough. There were many cultures who didn't use surnames, especially small communities where everyone knew each other. Surnames were often tied to the occupation of one's ancestors. Chrysanthe wanted this girl to live free from the loss of her family. The terrible grisly scene she and Attie had walked into back at the village was still fresh in her mind. It was a good thing the baby hadn't seen anything. Since she was so young, there would be plenty of time for the memories of hearing whatever happened before they arrived to fade. 

"Please take good care of her, Mister Brandon. Helene still has a long life ahead of her. Despite narrowly escaping death, I hope this will be the start of her new future. If she ever wants to retrace her roots, I want to leave her something as a memento." Taking a thin woven cord, she slipped on a small clasped locket. Opening the locket's compartments, Chrys tucked in a dried yellow flower and a piece of mangrove bark behind the glass. None of these things had any real material value, but they would act as clues to lead Helene back to Onnen if fate brought her to live in the other continents. Identifying the bark would point her towards Kikuyu's latticework of rivers. This was all that she could leave for the orphan. Gently tucking the necklace into Helene's swaddling cloth, she gave her final goodbyes. "Goodbye Helene, I hope we can see each other soon in the near future!"  

Attie couldn't think of any good names. The most that she was able to come up with was a mix between baby and kid, Kaby. It didn't sound right to Attie and she preferred the name that Chrys had come up with. She silently watched as Chrys came up with a locket that held items that would lead the child back here one day. An idea popped into Attie's head as she pulled out her journal. Attie knew that a child would want some words of encouragement in the future, as orphan often felt alone and didn't have any guidance. She wrote down the note and folded it up before tucking it into the baby's swaddling cloth. 

The note read, 
-Life is going to get hard, no matter where you end up. But there is always a good side. Don't let the darkness of the world tear you down. Let your own hope and dreams push you up.-

She began to walk with Chrys, waving goodbyes to the baby…to Helen and Brandon. Attie turned back to Chrys, wondering what they ought to do next. Perhaps the village that the guards went to would need help? Or perhaps they should go find a new village? Whatever they did, Attie didn't want to go alone. Having a friend at her side made everything ten times easier. 

"So where to next?" Attie asked.