“You don’t seem to have any injuries.”

Giselle pulled her battered shirt back over her head, being very careful not to put any stress on the back. Most of it was burned, hanging by threads in some places, melted edges around the holes where the plastic fibers had fused together. It was a total mess, but unless she found a way to repair it, this shirt was what she had.

“It’s impossible,” she said, but she knew Willow was right. She felt perfectly fine, no, even better than that. She felt great. Every bruise, every contusion, every burn or cut… they were all gone. More than that, the nagging ache in her joint she had grown used to over the years was gone as well.

Willow glanced at her, then looked away, stood up and walked towards the steep cliff-face that rose from the ground, a massive barrier that stretched out in all directions.

Their little camp nestled in a small hollow in that wall. There was a slight overhang, but it was too shallow to be called a cave. They had a large fire going, and there was a bustle of people of all ages, dragging branches to a growing woodpile.

They were a sorry lot, most of them covered in dirt and mud, none of them unscathed, all of them with a hollow-eyed look of confusion and desperation.

“How many are there now?” Giselle asked, trying to lighten the mood by changing the subject.

“20, maybe, if we count the ones that are going to make it.”

Giselle winced. Wrong question. The bleakness in Willow’s voice told her that dreadful story. From what Willow had told her, she knew that the woman had been a doctor on her homeworld. A valued one, at that, until she had the terrible misfortune to be called to a village that needed a specialist. Somehow, the Tyrant’s eye had fallen on that village, captured the people, burned the place to the ground. The rest, they knew. Captured, questioned, tortured, and then, in the end, that bizarre escape to this place.

But while Giselle came out of that transport pod whole and better than she had been, the other pods were another story. Almost all of them broke on impact. More than half of them exploded, some with their precious cargo still inside.

Giselle had seen the angry blisters on Willow’s hands and fingers, the torn nails, and knew she hadn’t been the only one she had tried to get out of the pod in time. And with some, Willow had failed. Some. Too many.

In the end, they had about 20 people, men, women, children. Not all the pods that escaped had landed in this area, but nobody dared venture out too far.

They had to find a few cargo pods with the most necessary of supplies. They had food, water-purification-gear, some medical supplies and medicine. Barely any clothes, no suitable tools, no tents for shelter, and the day was coming to an end.

“What are you?”

Giselle looked up from her thoughts. Willow leaned against the wall, arms crossed, face closed.

“You should have been cut to ribbons, and those ribbons crisped to crunchy rashers of bacon, by that explosion. Why weren’t you?”

Despite herself, despite the ridiculousness of the situation, Giselle laughed.

“That’s oddly specific, and you’re making me hungry!”

“I am hungry. It makes me tetchy.”

“Tetchy, eh? Are those dry bricks that are supposed to pass for food not to your liking?”

Willow’s mouth twitched, then stretched back into a tight line.

“You protected me.”

“I did not know I was going to do that! It was all so confusing!”

“Even more so. You say you didn’t know that blast wouldn’t hurt you, nevertheless, you protected me.”

“You saved me! If I had still been in that death-trap, in that coffin, I would have died!”Pursing her lips, Willow said, “Maybe not.”

“No, maybe not, I guess.”

Giselle balled one hand into a fist, then released it again, marveling at how her fingers stretched with supple grace, her joints obeying her commands without complaining. Better than new. Better than she had ever been. But how?

“You’re one of them.”

“What?”

“Them. The Tyrants special friends. We all know about them, each in their own manner they have made an impression on all of us refugees that we won’t forget. Recognizing them isn’t really hard, when the evidence is staring you in the face.”

“Wait, no! No I’m not—That’s idiocy! They held me captive, they… They questioned me! Just like you, just like the others! I’m not—I’m not one of them.”

Willow sighed, relaxed her arms, and walked back.

“And yet you wear their sign.”

“What sign?”

Willow jabbed her finger at Giselle’s forehead. Something tightened there, a sudden ball of tension forming in the center of her forehead, just above the junction of her nose and eyebrows. Tension sparked, and to her surprise, it wasn’t only a form of speech. A real spark flew, bouncing off Willow’s finger, making her jerk her hand back in surprise.

“What is that?”

Willow shook her hand, then wiped her finger on her jeans with a look of distaste.

“I’ve seen those things before,” she said, trying to avoid Giselle’s eyes.

“I’ve seen them, Giselle, and… I don’t know how you got one of those. They are the Tyrant’s, you know that, right?”

“What…”

Giselle’s hand flew to her forehead, ignoring the crusted blood, her fingers prodding her skin. There it was. It felt cold, cooler than her skin, though not uncomfortable. When she touched it, there was a light buzz in her fingers, but nothing worse than that, and certainly no sparks.

There was an object there, a faceted oval, hard as bone, lodged firmly in her flesh, maybe even rooted in her skull. It sat there, unmovable. It was there, and it hadn’t been there yesterday.

A gem. One of the most coveted favors the Tyrant could bestow on his lackeys. Priced above everything else. To gain a gem, it meant to have the personal eye and ear of the Tyrant, to belong to his inner circle of his most trusted people. And most of all, those carrying the gem were rumored to have god-like powers, rivaled by only the Tyrant himself.

She had one, here, embedded in her skull. She!

“Can—can you get it out?”

“I don’t know. Do you want me to try? There are some scalpels in the medkits, but I don’t have anywhere clean enough to feel comfortable cutting into people.”

“I don’t want it!”

Her words rang out with much more force than she’d intended, and the people around the fire looked at her, and then, very hastily, looked away again, pretending to be about their business.

So they knew. Well, the thing was smack bam, in the middle of her forehead. It would be very hard to miss. She knew what they must be thinking. The Tyrant’s Own. One of the people who had captured them, tortured them, would have sent them to their deaths without a moment’s remorse, was here, in their midst. It was amazing they hadn’t gotten around lynching her yet.

“I’m not his,” she said. “I’m not!”

“I know,” Willow said quietly.

“I met you in the hallway, remember. You didn’t have that gem then. Something must have happened after that.”

She remembered it now. It sprang clear in her mind as if someone had pulled it out of the jumbled mess, brushed it off and held it right in front of her mind’s eye.

That guard. So maybe he hadn’t been just a guard. Maybe he’d been something more. He had grabbed her, and she had fought back. Her head hitting his, in an act of desperation, the skull-splitting pain… maybe that hadn’t been only a figure of speech.

But… how?

“I’m not sure if I can cut it out. I can’t even touch it, remember? And going by the strength of that electric current, I don’t think I even want to touch it with anything metal.”

“They all think I’m one of those monsters.”

“I’ll tell them you’re not.”

“They won’t believe you!”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

For the first time, Willow’s mouth cracked into a wicked smile. It lit up her face, sharpening the laugh-lines around the corners of her eyes and mouth, adding a sudden warmth to her demeanor.

“I can be very persuasive.”

Giselle’s hands fell back along her body, her fingers itching to go back to that gem, to explore it more, to feel it… but she didn’t dare. She didn’t want it, even though, somehow, in all this strangeness, it felt as if it belonged there. It felt good. That thought was horrifying.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked in a very small voice. Willow reached out for her hands, then stopped, her hand hovering a hair’s width above hers, and then pulled it back, crossing her arms firmly across her body.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I’ve met some of the Tyrant’s Own, and I didn’t like them. There wasn’t exactly time to ask them questions, and if I had they would, at best, have thrown me into a cell. At worst…”

She shuddered, then shrugged.

“Well, they did throw me into a cell, and I did ask a lot of impertinent questions. Funnily enough though, those weren’t about their special stones.”

“I did fly, didn’t I?”

The smile returned, a quick flash of mirth glowing in those gray eyes.

“I’m not sure if you can fly. You jumped up and didn’t immediately come down. We may have to throw you off one of those cliffs to find out if you can fly.”

“Please don’t suggest that to them.”

“I won’t. Patient’s privilege and all that.”

Willow packed her medical kit back up with a practiced ease that bespoke years of experience, but the meticulousness of her movements and the tension in her shoulders told Giselle the full story.

One of them.

“My lady doctor, pardon my interruption.”The man that walked up to Willow almost squeaked when she spun, her gaze fixing him in place like a helpless butterfly against velvet. His eyes flicked nervously to Giselle and away again, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he tried to get his nerves back under control.

In a habitual gesture, he swiped over his nose to push back glasses that might have slid down to the tip of his nose if they had still been there. He frowned as he touched only air, the corner of his mouth twitching in something that might have been the beginning of a nervous laugh, or an annoyed grimace.

“I, that is, we would like to ask you if you could spare a moment, and sit with us.”

He shuffled his feet, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly not wanting to be here, close to her. She would have expected him to be wringing his hands in front of him, but he didn’t. He had shoved them back down, deep in his pants pockets.

“Go,” Giselle said, and the man flinched.

“Go with him, Willow. I’ll stay here.”

“No, no—that’s… that’s alright,” he said, just as Petal strode up to him, with the tall staff carried comfortably in the crook of her arm.

“Of course you’ll sit with us, mom.”

Her tone was light and crisp, but Giselle heard the sharp edge in it as clear as day.

Fear. Her daughter was afraid of her.

The thought send a spike of pain into her breast. The one person here who should know her, trust her, had also seen her fly. She didn’t know if the Tyrant’s people had dealt their tender administrations to the kids yet, and frankly, she didn’t want to know. But Petal knew what this gem meant, just as every person here did. And she didn’t understand it. As with everyone, she feared what she didn’t understand. But unlike most people, that bright little kid wanted to learn.

“I’m still the same,” Giselle said to her, so softly that she feared they might not hear her. A curt nod, a watery smile. Brave little thing.

“Let me help you.”

Willow held out a hand to her to help her get down from the boulders they were sitting on. Both of them knew she didn’t need the help, not anymore. This was something else, and she saw it in the jittery man’s eyes, as she smiled, took the proffered hand and let her guide her down.

There were a handful of people sitting around the fire, sitting on the ground and sorting through heaps of supplies. They had apparently found some sort of kettle and it hung in front of the flames, propped up on a make-shift frame, steaming gently.

“Tea?” the man that had come to get Willow said, still refusing to meet her eyes as he took two steel mugs.

“We have tea? Oh, my!”

Willow almost snatched the mugs from his hands, offering one to her.

“Giselle,” she said, “this is Theodore. He’s trying to make an inventory of our supplies, which I must say, is a smart thing to do.”

“It’s nothing, really,” the man stammered.

“Teddy, old man!”

The burly youngster seemed to appear out of nowhere, slapping Theodore on the back with enough force to send the man stumbling a few steps forward, moving dangerously close to the fire.

“How this thing going? Do we have anything better than those dreadful meal bars yet?”

“I-I have found… soup, sir,” Theodore stammered.

“Soup? Oh hell no, that’s for grannies, no offense, ladies. Nah, I need something better. Here we are, pristine world, teeming with life, am I right?”

He looked like he wanted to slap Theodore across the back again, and the man hastily stepped aside.

“This—this is all we could find, Oscar. I’m not sure if there’s—“

“Nonsense, Teddy-bear! It’s quite alright. Look, I’ve been working on this, what’dya think?”He held up a slender stick with one end split and a sharpened triangle of steel worked into the slit.

“What we need is some good string or twine or something. Doc here refused to give me that suturing stuff—Oh hell Doc, no need to glower like that. It’s not as if that stuff is yours to begin with.”

“It is if you want to have me as a doctor. Nobody touches the medkits but me.”

Willow glared at the man, which wasn’t an easy feat, as she had to look up at him to do so. And yet she stood there, hands firmly planted on her hips, chin defiantly raised, eyes sparking with furious indignation.

“Sure, doll, sure. You can have your toys, and I,” he hefted his make-shift spear, “have mine. There’s bound to be some game in these woods. I don’t know about you, but I could do with some nice roast rabbit.”

“Actually,” Giselle heard her say before she could stop herself, “It’s probably best to stew rabbits, not roast. I think I saw some wild mushrooms under those trees, and if we can find something to thicken the broth, that will stretch the amount of food a long way.”

All eyes fixed on her, most hostile, some fearful, almost none of them friendly. Oscar stabbed his spear into the ground, narrowly missing Theodore’s toes, and turned towards her, his eyes narrowing as he took in the gem on her forehead.

“Why is she still here, walking around free?”

“That’s my mom you’re talking ab— “

“Be silent, brat. I wasn’t talking to you.”

“She stays, Oscar,” Willow said. She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t scream, didn’t threaten. It was a simple statement, but Giselle saw the look on the faces around her change. Willow had spoken, and they would comply… for now.

Oscar had seen the change as well. His eyes narrowed, looking from her to Willow and back.

“Doc here has her uses. We’ll need people like her in this wilderness. You, the Tyrant’s lackey, we don’t need.

There are plenty of tall trees here once we’ve found some rope—“

“I didn’t have it before.”

She hadn’t wanted to speak up. The man had clearly already made up his mind about her, and nothing she could say would sway him. Debating the issue wouldn’t help her one bit. But the words had escaped her before she could stop them.

“What?”

“I didn’t have it when we fled from that cell. I didn’t want it. But that guard… I don’t know what he did. I don’t know what happened, but somehow it transferred to me. I don’t want it, you hear me? I don’t. So stop threatening me. I’m not a spy, I’m not a lackey. As soon as I can find a way to cut this thing out, I will.”

The slow smile that spread over his face was more terrifying than his previous words had been, and she would have stepped back, moved as far away from him as she could, if her way back hadn’t been blocked.

“Well now, that’s… interesting. I want to hear the full tale of your so called accidental acquisition. Later.”

He snatched up his spear and swished it through the air.

“I’m going to get myself some proper food, while you ladies can have your soup and cardboard mush.”

They watched him go as he disappeared between the trees.

“He’s a good man, really,” Theodore said, but there was a slight quaver in his voice. He hadn’t forgotten the spear, almost skewering his foot.

“He’s a veritable donkey!”

“He likes you, doc.”

“That’s because with that attitude, he’ll probably need me, sooner rather than later. Don’t be put off by him, Giselle, the rest of us aren’t nearly as bad as that.”

The tea was bitter, steeped too long, lacking sugar. Giselle grimaced as she forced it down. She knew little about surviving in a forest on a dearth of supplies, but what she knew was that you took what you could get, and didn’t complain about it.

She sat down next to one of the heaps.

“Does anyone know where we are?”

“I-Not exactly… I may have theory,” Theodore said.

“You do?”

“The rebels—It must have been the rebels that set us free—They set the portals to a very remote world and sent us through. I believe they planned to blow the things up, as to obfuscate our location.”

“That’s right, Theodore. I heard them talk about that.”

“Please call me Ted. Just not… Teddy-bear. I hate it when he does that.”

“And this world is…?”

“A prepared one, I believe, though not very well. Look here.”

He gestured at the piles of goods and the open cases.

“They sent supplies through, and we found them scattered all around, but it’s only the most basic stuff. We have some food, medical supplies, but nothing larger that would provide anything close to comfort or shelter.”

He glanced at the slowly darkening sky and frowned.

“And it’s getting dark soon. I’ll have to finish this, maybe we can improvise something.”

“I’ll help,” Giselle said, and he looked up sharply at her. She shrugged.

“If we’re stranded on this world, we’ll have to help each other. It’s the only way we can survive.”

There was one pile of clothes. It was familiar, so familiar that she went to it and got to work, folding them without having to give it any conscious thought.

“Have you made an inventory of our skills yet?”

Ted reddened slightly.

“No, not yet.”

“Oscar excels at being an ass,” Petal said as she knelt down at another pile.

“Petal, language!”

“A donkey, mom, I meant a donkey.”

“I’m a doctor, as you all know by know.”

“I’m a builder.” Ted once again tried to slide his nonexistent glasses back on his face, sighed, and shook his head.

Giselle brightened.

“Really? So you can help us build shelters? That very useful—“

“Well, no, actually, I’m an architect. I design buildings and other people build them.”

Ah. A theoretical man. Well, she suspected he would have useful skills where it came to designing buildings that would survive for longer than a few days. A doctor and an architect, it was a start.

“I’m a baker. An apprentice, just started when you—“ the young man with outrageously firetruck red hair hesitated, then amended, “when they took me. But I bake a mean loaf, mate. You give me the grains, I’ll get us something good.”

She had seen no grain yet, or flour, but she decided not to let that spoil the slowly improving mood.

“And your name is…”

“Gail, ma’am.”

He looked at his feet, even though he dared to talk to her, unsure whether to look at her. At that stupid stone lodged in her forehead. She couldn’t blame him, not really, but was this all she was going to get from now on? Mistrust, fear, anxiety?

As she opened her mouth to thank him, a bloodcurdling scream froze the sound in her throat.

A black shape the size of a small pony dropped from out of the sky in the middle of the group that sat on the other side of the fire. The fading daylight and the frenzy of movements made it hard for her to see, and even harder for her to comprehend what she was seeing.

Black spikes whipped around from a huge hairy body. When it whirled around, for a moment she gazed into its eyes, all angry glowing red four of them. Below them, dripping fangs lined a maw from out of a nightmare. In a flash it skittered away again, eight hairy legs moving with an uncanny speed. The ones at its front had some things speared on them. Even though she had only a fraction of a second to take this all in, it stood there, frozen on her retina’s, fodder for her nightmares for all time. Not things. Wriggling human forms.

Bile rose in a violent wave and she only barely managed to push herself away from the supplies, heaving and retching, the bitter tea even worse going out than coming.

People were screaming and crying around her and she knew she wasn’t the only one on her knees, losing what little sustenance she had got.

She wanted to crawl away, hide in a hole until the world made sense again.

That had been a spider. A spider. As tall as a pony, faster than anything she had ever seen. A spider. Oh, how she hated spiders. How she—Petal!

Her head shot up, the spike of ice cold adrenaline flooding her veins, filling every bit of her with frozen fire.

“Petal!” she bellowed.

From the corners of her eyes she saw another dark shape dart in, its fore paws clawing the air in front of it, trying to spear every delicious morsel it could get. The people ran back towards the shallow hollow in the cliff-wall, all except for one. A colt-legged teen with long black hair streaming behind her like a banner bounded towards the monster, armed with nothing but her staff.