HM3 Lucretia Weathers was a tiny little spark among the Navy's Hospital Corpsmen training in San Diego. Trained for FMF (going out to serve the Marines at their corpsman, their field medic), Lucretia was in San Diego on hold for orders after finishing her C School training. That's where they found her.
It was a simple trap, well-constructed to lure her in. On the eve of the Spring Equinox, she opened a door to find (rather than the female head) a wounded man with slender pointed ears, moaning in pain. She rushed to help him...and the door closed behind her, leaving her stranded in the land of Faerie, Arcadia.
The Baron of the Blood Poppy Fields, a True Fae, knew her purpose the moment he laid eyes on her and sent her out into the fields to serve as medic to his troops. Her training took over, and she lost herself to the blood-haze. A relatively untried fighter herself, she learned a lot in her time of service.
Then they brought before her a certain soldier. She didn't
understand the scales on his skin, until she heard him speak. He opened
his eyes, looked at her, and smiled slowly, saying words she knew that
she knew.
"Hear my affirmation, so that I am never truly lost: I am a United States Sailor. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and I will obey the orders of those appointed over me. I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world. I proudly serve my country's Navy combat team with Honor, Courage and Commitment. I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all."
She heard the words...and joined in saying them. Remembered who she would have been, what she had once dedicated herself to. That gave her the strength. That gave her the reason. She snuck out by holding onto the bottom of the carriage of the White Rice God as He left the battlefield, and made her way into the Hedge, running and loping, slinking and finally coming out of one of the training pools at Coronado Naval Base. She couldn't reclaim her life, though--the thing they left in place of her, when they took her, had a dishonorable discharge for possession and abuse.
So, dripping wet and running from base security, she hopped on a bus, finding her way to a restaurant that needed a dishwasher. Over the past three years, she's learned how to cook with ingredients from Faerie and the Hedge, and now she owns a gourmet Italian restaurant.
On the side, she has made herself available to local criminal elements as a medic if they cannot go to a hospital.
