Aeryn sits cross legged at the edge of the pixie encampment, just staring off into space for quite some time after she finished her interviews with the participants in the ritual.  She doesn't like the path her thoughts are turning down, not at all.  She shakes herself literally and pulls out her writing kit, a small lapdesk with a hinged top filled with paper, inks, pens and pencils.  She prepares withalmost ritualistic care, setting a small bottle of ink in a receptacle on the lapdesk, carefully sharpening a quill pen, neatly aligning a stack of paper by her side on a square of cheesecloth.  Then she begins to write in common, in a slow, precise hand.  She is composing a formal report for the garrison commander of the Hill Fort.  It is not a steady flow of words onto paper, she pauses frequently to review her journal notes, once she shreds what she has writen and starts over.  Any who approach her while she is writing are ignored, unless they happen to touch her, if any food or drink is placed by her, she consumes it absently, with a murmur of thanks.<br/><br/>Always fair skinned, she is paler than usual.  The healthy glow to her cheeks is gone, her lips are firmly compressed together.  She keeps her face impassive, the blankness of a professional scribe... but there is a flicker of fear deep in her eyes.