Avery's dreams that night were painful and unpleasant. She dreamed that the fae were back, pressing a hot poker into her back. She squirmed. Then one came around to her front and grinned, revealing its needle sharp teeth. It reached out a green veined hand with silver pointed nails and pinched her ear. The faery begun to laugh, squeezing until its nails met through her hear. Avery awoke with a yell that was more a scream.

The griffin was upon her, a foul scent confirming that it had thrown up once more. Avery felt slick wetness trickling down one side of her face and her ear stung. She yelped when she put a hand to it. The griffin chick chirped, her beak slick with blood.

"What in the world is happening?" Zelda asked.

Avery withdrew her hand and grabbed the griffin cub by the scruff of its neck.

"This happened!" She said, holding the now limb cub up. The griffin was glaring at her reproachfully. "Well don't bite then." Avery scolded her.

The dim light of the hut showed only Zelda's silhouette as she walked over, tucking her thick brown hair behind her ears as she went.

"You're going to need to put something on that," she said, nodding at Avery's ear.

"I know," Avery said impatiently. "Maybe even stitches."

Ignoring the stinging in her ear she placed the griffin cub down and examined her. Impulsively, Avery smoothed over the copper feathers that were broken and scruffy. A spark passed between her hand and the griffin, one that she wouldn't have noticed if it had been day light. In the dim light of the stone cabin it seemed blinding. Its effect, in contrast, would have been more impressive under the sun. Avery felt the feathers of the griffin lock together and become smooth under her fingers. She felt the griffins form fill out, the sharp angles of near starvation disappearing under healthy flesh. The smell of bile vanished.

"How did you do that?" Zelda asked, her voice quiet.

"I didn't do anything," Avery protested.

"It pulled it out of you, didn't it? The magic?"

"What magic?" Avery asked, carefully placing the cub down and tucking her hands behind her back in a futile gesture. The spark had been bright silver.

"The griffin is your familiar. I knew it. You don't find those eyes everywhere. Come on, you need to get out of here, back to your camp. They will have no reason to keep you now."

"Why are you helping me? What's so bad about this situation?"

"Maybe I just want an excuse to see your camp." Zelda said, grabbing different items from around her hut. Avery realised that while blood still coated one side of her face, her ear no longer stung. Zelda was talking at a million miles an hour as she packed and dressed. "Familiar are important for anyone with magic, and even some without. I don't know how you have magic, it doesn't make sense. Your folk are magically dry. We can do all sorts of things you never could. Lot's of tribes people learn to use magic as weaponry, others can build with it. Hel has the sight, few can hide things from her. Our chief can influence whole crowds."

"Why can't you heal then?" Avery asked, "with magic?"

"Because when someone has the gift they are manipulating things that are already there. Powerful mages can pull energy out of the demon realms, that's why you lot can't gain any more ground. The human body is far to delicate to ever command. Now shush, I'm going to take you to the invaders camp. Your camp will be there, or what's left of them, if you were attacked by fae as Hel said you were." Zelda cracked open the door and looked around. Then she handed Avery a small bundle. Avery picked up the cub and wrapped it so that it could neither move nor squawk.

She thought of her knowledge of the human body. Every vein, every artery, the way that muscle and bone knit together. She wasn't sure why she had magic or what it could do, but she would make damn sure that it could heal.

The pre-dawn sky was dull and grey, but the faintest pink glow on the bottoms of the clouds indicated that dawn was coming. That the sunrise would be beautiful. Zelda didn't look to the sky as she led them out of the village. The tree's enveloped them freakishly quickly and when Avery looked back she could see nothing of the village or the clearing that it was in. The army could wander for days in the jungle and find nothing but poisonous plants and strange animals.

"I'd tell you to go straight from here," Zelda murmured, "but you'd probably get lost anyway - can you walk any louder?"

Avery didn't bother to apologize. Every step seemed to crack a branch or send some small creature scuttling away. The morning had only brightened slightly, however, when Zelda stopped her and Avery glimpsed metal through the trees.

"How do you know where it is?" She asked.

Zelda didn't answer, instead stepping out into the light. Avery opened her mouth to warn her of the sentry but too late - a man had seen them, and rather than calling the alarm jogged over.
"Zelda," he said, his rugged face breaking into a smile. He'd been at the outpost for several months by the looks of him, though he couldn't be older than twenty.

"You two know each other?" Avery hissed. And then, when Zelda smiled at him she asked, "you two like each other?"

"Why do you think I know the language?" Zelda asked, her voice light, "Your were expecting a doctor yes?" Zelda asked the man before Avery could hiss at her to be quiet. Her hair was still cropped short but she wore Zelda's clothes. To her surprise, the man shrugged.

"Zelda almost stabbed me when I said women didn't go to university," he said. "Come back with me, we'll get you some men's clothes, say we found you in the forest. The other men from your company stumbled in late last night babbling about magic - what is that?" He'd caught sight of the griffin cub bundled in Avery's arms. Even though most of the cub was obscured, its coppery feathers and intelligent eyes were far from natural.

"I'll explain everything to you once she's settled." Zelda said, leaning into his shoulder.

"Tonight?" The man asked.

"The usual place." Zelda said, winking at Avery.

"I'm Mendel," the man said as Zelda disappeared into the forest. "Follow me, and keep the - the-"

"-griffin," Avery supplied.

"Keep the griffin hidden." Mendel finished. Avery wondered if he was normally so trusting of strangers, or if it was Zelda he trusted so much. How such a relationship had begun she couldn't imagine.

"How am I to do that?" Avery asked, remembering the barracks she'd seen back on the main land.

"You're a doctor," Mendel sniggered, "that means that you're on call any time of the day - or night. You have your own quarters."

When he said that Avery envisioned Zelda's small hut with bundles of herbs hanging from the roof, but even as Mendel led her quietly around to her quarters she knew it was nothing like that. The outpost was build from the surrounding forest, the walls rough wood and the rooves thatched. Some of the main walkways were bridged with whole tree trunks, but the rest of the ground had been churned to mud. Avery wished she didn't have to hold the griffin cub; it was difficult to balance without her arms and the mud sucked her feet it. She made a face as she felt water leak into her shoes.

"Not a military... Woman, eh?" Mendel asked as he forged ahead.

They came to a medium sized building and Mendel pushed the door open. There were four beds inside, none of them made up save for the fourth one. Avery could see someone - a body? - swathed in rough blankets. At the far end of the building was a store cupboard and a door.

"Through there is your quarters. There are few medical supplies but you'll have to make do for a few more weeks." Mendel whispered.

"Who's in the bed?" Avery asked, eyeing the shape apprehensively.

"Man from the company that was meant to bring you in, Theobald. He needs treatment, but sort yourself out first. He'll hang on longer yet."

Avery nodded and swept past the bed. She disliked the way that Mendel spoke about the mans life, but she would sort herself out fast.

"Tell them I refused to see anyone 'till I'd treated him." She said, and opened the door to the next room.

She could smell damp in the air. Her quarters were small but looking up she realised there was a rough attic. There was a pile of blankets on her bed - no more than a thatched-stuffed mattress, and another rough storage unit. There were some clothes inside - Avery's things which must have been taken from the carriage. Avery pulled them on and ran her fingers through her hair, finding it greasy and limp. With a sigh she set the griffin on her bed.

"Stay." She told her firmly, "don't let anyone else see you." The cub nodded, looking for all the world as if she understood. Avery shut her door behind her as she came back out. The dampness in the air made her want to sneeze and she wondered how anyone was ever meant to get well in this environment. The cold seeped through the walls and the floor was dirt, sprinkled with thatch.

Avery picked her way over to Theo squinting. It was too dark to see much and there was no light source nearby. Avery decided she would ask for a fire place or a coal range. She placed a hand on his forehead and felt it over-warm. He stirred under her touch. Avery sighed and placed her hands on her hips. She didn't know where to start.

Restlessly she paced over to the cupboard and found it stocked with a small amount of medicine. There were pickled plants in labelled vials and a wicked set of surgeons tools. Avery resisted the urge to test the blade; only recently had cleanliness become a part of medical practices. She'd have to boil the tools before use.

She did what she could for Theo and he slept through it all. She found the wound, dressed in dirty linens, on his lower arm and changed it. Infection had set in and she thought over her available medical supplies. She would have to get someone to send back for more. It was that thought which sent her venturing outside.

She found her way to the only building with a light on. Mendel fetched her, eyeing her attire carefully and then nodding.

"You make for a convincing male," he said.

"I've been practicing for years," Avery replied curtly as Mendel opened the door and announced her. The captain was a slender man with long calloused hands. Avery wondered how long those callouses had been there; he spoke like a gentleman, the kind of man he father would have wanted her to marry and the kind of man that Avery didn't want to. She liked him nonetheless, liked that he didn't indulge her in formalities, only briefed on her duties and told her to make a list of necessary supplies. Avery was left, after breakfast, to hurry back to her quarters with meat for the griffin cub hidden in her pocket.

She spent that day nursing Theo as best she could and nursing the griffin. The cub accepted the meat and did not throw up afterwards. Its breath was no longer sour and its eyes were bright. Avery wished there were a looking glass somewhere around, so she could see how similar the two of them really looked.

With little else to do, Avery set herself to cleaning up the building. It seemed pure logic to her that healing couldn't happen in a place where the air was dank and dirty. She was informed by Mendel that the forest had been dry for a few weeks longer than it normally would have been, and so Avery gathered rushes from the river and one of the other men taught her to weave matting.

"It's not just woman's work, you know," he'd said, as if 'woman's work' was of little importance.
Theo stirred in late evening and Avery was ready with warm broth. Someone had rooted up a rusted potbelly stove and would install it soon. If this was going to be Avery's house for the next few years, and a hospital, then she might as well make it comfortable. There were little over a hundred men at the outpost, and plenty of potential for injury.