Day 1
"Sit down."

Wardens. Honestly. Though from the look Morgan was giving her he thought the same thing about uppity young healers. She knew better. She was neither uppity nor as young as he likely believed her to be, and he was still injured. And had been lifting a heavy sword with at least a sprained wrist.

"Well, it doesn't look like you've aggravated your injuries," Claire sighed, tossing the bandage into a pile of dirty cloth and pulling a clean one and a splint from her bag. "You can thank whatever deity you pray to for that one."

"By lifting a sword?" Morgan's eyebrows arched. "I wasn't in the ..."

"Yes, by lifting a sword." The you moron was implied. "You broke your wrist. That means that it cannot hold the weight it once held until it heals. It has not yet healed. It would be like trying to use a sword that had been broken and then duct-taped together." Martial metaphors were all the Wardens understood, sometimes, the older ones at least. Warden Morgan, despite his fearful reputation, was evidently one of those kinds.

He looked at her for a long moment, perhaps judging whether or not she knew what she was talking about. She refused to flush or look away or glare at him for that. It would only make her seem younger than she evidently already did.

"Thank you, Wizard Bernier," he said in what she surmised to be his usual brusque manner.

She waited a moment longer to be sure that he wasn't injured further, then swabbed the nick on his ear a couple of times with an antiseptic cloth. He didn't flinch at the sting. "You can go."

Rashid came up behind her after she had treated what felt like her fiftieth (probably only her fifth) bite victim. Warden trainees, she decided, were worse than Wardens. They disregarded instructions and whined as well. No, that was being uncharitable and unfair to the wizards who were pushing themselves to defend the rest. She was at the end of her resources as well. Better to mind her words, and get some sleep as soon as she could. Food and water if nothing else.

"How are they?"

"They'll live to fight another day," she sighed. "They're tired. Scared. The physical injuries aren't as worrying as the emotional and mental trauma. Everyone's been pushing themselves too hard."

There was a whispery sigh from beneath the hood. "We have no choice. The war is progressing inside and out. It is, at the moment, better than the alternative."

"Which doesn't mean we have to like it..." And that was less than Rashid's usual wisdom, restating the obvious. "You sound pretty exhausted, yourself."

The corner of his mouth twitched up a bit. "Are you going to put me on enforced bed rest? A holiday cure in the country?"

"Don't tempt me. What happens now?"

The Gatekeeper considered this in his usual silent and inscrutable fashion. Claire spent the time packing up her kit and making sure all the hazardous materials, blood and hairs and so on, were suitably disposed of. It wouldn't do for someone to get their hands on a potential link to any of the Wardens or trainees, after all. Not to mention the potential for blood-borne illnesses. When she was done she smoothed her hands on her trousers, fingers stretching out, working out the strain in her hands.

Claire finally looked up at her old mentor with patient expectation, patience that quickly turned to chagrin, then to annoyed resignation as she listened to what he had in mind.

"I have no idea what he has going on in that tiny mind of his," Claire complained. Sveta only smiled with her usual quiet acceptance.

"He is thinking of what is best for you, for the community, as usual. Perhaps he feels you need to learn patience and tolerance?" An old point of contention between them, Claire was more apt to become frustrated or lose her temper with sick or frightened and injured people. She was a skilled healer, and knew the inner workings of the human and several non-human bodies better than most wizards, but her bedside manner left a bit to be desired.

Claire snorted, for lack of a viable argument. "Still, though. Sending us to teach the first-aid seminar? We're not exactly the poster children for battlefield medicine."

"Which is, I suppose, why Warden Morgan is coming along. In addition to being able to provide additional security."

Claire's expression this time was less annoyance or disdain and more irritated concern. "He shouldn't even be on light duty for the next week, not if it requires him to lift a sword."

Sveta only shrugged. Once upon a time, they would have been able to count on a week with the Warden trainees as being light duty not requiring the use of a sword. Once upon a time, the Warden trainees would have been training with the healers alone, and not the Warden Captain and her second to guard them, plus whatever other Wardens were taking the babysitting shifts.

Those days were long over. The only reason she and Sveta were traveling on their own now was because the Gatekeeper had taught them to use the Ways, and if there was a wizard more proficient than the Gatekeeper at traveling through the Ways no one on the Council knew of him or her.

"We're almost there," Sveta noted, watching the terrain change around them.

"I know." Claire sighed. "We're supposed to meet Warden Morgan outside the grounds and then head in. I don't know who else will be there besides the trainees."

"More than just Warden Morgan, one hopes," Sveta said with some mild alarm.

"I expect so." Claire hadn't thought of that, and she frowned slightly as she picked her way through the ways. "There should be more than just him, at least, with everything that just happened. One injured Warden isn't guard enough for a pack of healers and children." And not when the enemy was attacking hospitals, training camps, places where there were wounded and untrained young men and women. Not the actions of soldiers with rules of conduct but of terrorists and evil men.

"Claire..." Sveta warned.

The other healer swore softly and took a breath, focusing her thoughts elsewhere. The most basic rule, the first rule of traveling through the Ways, in the worlds Above and Below, as Rashid sometimes put it: control. Self-control.

Despite her ready use of wit and sarcasm, Claire did have a good healthy dose of self-control. Despite the appearance of a short temper and a reckless will to hurl herself into things, she did consider her actions before she took them and her words, at least most of the time, before she spoke. She wouldn't have survived in the Ways if she didn't have iron control over her own mind and heart.

And, she thought, glancing fondly at her friend, she wouldn't have been able to make this partnership with Svetlana work half so well if she hadn't.

Something had happened to Svetlana when she was younger. The details were still somewhat hazy in Claire's mind, from the descriptions she'd had from her friend, but it had been violent and it had been painful. And it had blasted open her Sight so much that she hadn't been able to stop Seeing entirely since.

Someday, she thought, she and Rashid were going to figure out a way to help her. To help her find some sort of stronger equilibrium, keep her from being sick half the time when faced with the sorts of things that were crawling out of the woodwork around them. It would have been all right... not good, but all right... even ten years ago. Now, Claire worried it could be crippling at a time when there was no one around to help her.

In time, maybe they would find a way to fix it, or at least mitigate the effects. For now, they had duties.

And one of those duties involved playing nice with the Wardens, even the ones who were hard to get along with. Claire raised her chin a little, self-conscious, and kept moving forward. She could play nice. She could smile and be civil and efficient until it killed her. Which she didn't think it would. It might kill her patience and her empathy, at least where Warden Morgan was concerned, but it wouldn't kill her or her spirit. And that was all right.

"Captain Luccio. Warden Morgan."

"Healer Bernier. Healer Ivanova."

Claire arched her eyebrows but said nothing to the fact that he was addressing them as healers now, when he hadn't before as she was seeing to the mending of his arm. He'd been brusque and irritating, arguing her judgment every step of the way. Perhaps he'd been rebuked as to politeness. Or perhaps their status as healers was simply on his mind right now.

Whatever the reason, she was liking this new, polite Morgan, even if he still had a face like a craggy stone statue. They all shook hands, except Sveta, who functioned better when she didn't have to confront what she saw too closely. Even if what she saw was benign. "How are the trainees settling in after the attack?"

Luccio sighed, and there was a bit of a flicker on Morgan's face, as though he hadn't expected her to ask. "They are as well as can be expected," she replied for them both. "Not many were injured, but there is the usual unrest and uneasiness. They don't like being moved around, but they would like being attacked even less, and they know this. For the moment, at least, maintaining a mobile training facility is one of the best security measures we can take."

"And, no doubt, limiting the number of people who know where they're going next." Claire nodded slightly, glancing at her friend. It meant that nothing was out of the realm of possibility as far as emergency situations the trainees might encounter, so prepare them for as broad a range as they could cram into a week. There was another brief flicker of surprise from the mountainous Morgan. Claire smiled slightly. "I've been in the middle of a war before, Warden Morgan, even if it was a comparatively small one. I know how some of these things work."

But not all. Which was why there were Wardens here; she had no calling to be a Warden. She hadn't been a soldier or a child of soldiers, anyway. She had barely been able to help with the responsibilities of the doctors and custodians of the camp, though she had been worked to exhaustion with the tasks she had been old enough to perform. Those had been more than enough for her to deal with. Pale skin burning under the sun, taking refuge in the trees. And then, training, when her father had discovered that she had a talent, a calling to medicine. And then, with the priestess...

And now she was just daydreaming while Sveta discussed the arrangements with Luccio and Morgan, sleeping and eating and whatnot. Claire shook herself awake again, pulling strands of dark hair out of her eyes.

"... to a room, if that's all right."

"Of course," Sveta said, glancing at Claire as if for confirmation. Underneath that was tolerant amusement, and she knew her friend had caught her daydreaming.

"Sure," Claire nodded slightly, shrugging. With luck they hadn't been discussing anything more serious than eating and sleeping arrangements. "That sounds fine."

Luccio's eyes flicked to her direction, but the older woman said nothing. "Shall we, then?"

This time Claire kept pace a little behind Sveta as they walked, not quite sure as she might want to be where they were going. A series of cabins, it looked like, the sort of place a summer camp might rent out. Well enough, especially for their purposes. Years and years of young to medium aged children staying here and being afraid of the woods and comforted by the cabins would give the place a minimal threshold. There were few electronics to be interfered with by young powers, and the one or two staff members who remained were used to gatherings of people doing odd things and wanting their privacy to be strange and collective all at once.

Inside, it was an ideal sort of a place for their purposes. Each cabin was divided into two chambers joined by a bathroom. Each chamber had eight beds, two bunks on either side long-ways. Claire heaved her bags onto a top bunk only a little after Sveta set hers on the bottom, realizing what had been discussed. She hoped.

"Same as usual?" she glanced at Sveta for confirmation, a bit late but still. Sveta flashed her a small smile and nodded. Usual, in this case, meant that the blonde woman got the easier bed, the lower one or the one not tucked away in a corner somewhere, in case she had to make her way to it quickly or while incapacitated.

Behind them, Morgan and Luccio were unpacking with tandem efficiency that made Claire want to turn around and stare. She didn't, largely because she had seen Rashid do the same thing a hundred times over. It still impressed her how effortless the older Wardens and Council members, Senior Council members (as few of those as she'd been around) could make all this business of traveling and living on the road seem.

Then again, that could have been her own particular foible. Her area of special concern. She'd been on the road in one form or another for most of her life.

"I had it in mind to address the trainees at dinner, give them an overview of what they'll be learning and the manner and process by which they'll be learning it. Did you want to say something..."

Claire hoped her face didn't pale quite so obviously as it felt, but she wasn't sure. She could teach one on one, even in small groups, but the idea of handling a large number of Warden trainees had just now caught up with her.

Perhaps they would split the trainees into class or age groups? Had they discussed this before? She couldn't remember. "I suppose I can, if you want..."

"It might be better, you would know better than I what they will be covering and how they will be covering it," Luccio smiled. "Being more versed in the latest way of thinking."

Which was true. She had been about to protest that Luccio knew field medicine perfectly well, all the Wardens did. But the bit about the latest way of thinking was true. Medical knowledge and technique was always changing. So she said nothing.

"We should go and see to the security arrangements," Morgan said after just a moment's worth of silence, sparing Claire any more discomfort. Luccio nodded, and they left with a murmured farewell from the Captain.

"That went well, I thought," Sveta said, quiet but cheerful.

Claire gave her a look somewhere between amusement, pouty irritation, and mild panic. "I don't ... you know I don't do... I can't do this! I can't..."

Sveta's hand closed firm on her arm. "Yes you can. I know you can, and you would know it too if you allowed yourself. You will not be telling anyone anything you don't already know, and you can be as brief as you like. Within reason," she added with a smile.

"Within reason." Claire shook her head. "I'm doomed."

Doomed. She mouthed it again at Sveta as she ascended the stairs to the tiny stage.

It was a little easier, visually. The auditorium was only half full, eager young faces and various stages of bright eyes looking up at her. But the empty seats gave the impression that it wasn't as full as she imagined it to be, and that helped somewhat.

Morgan standing over by the door with his sword clasped prominently at rest in his hands like some sort of guardian statue did not help.

She spent the time during Luccio's introduction, which was at least partly an admonition to behave and respect the teachers who were not that much older than they were as a wizard reckoned lifespan, imagining all kinds of embarrassing things happening to Morgan. Shaving cream trick in the hand while he was asleep, perhaps. Short sheeting his bed. Something fun like that. And then she was on and she would have missed her cue if Sveta hadn't been paying attention and now surreptitiously waving her up from her seat.

"Warden Trainees," she greeted them, nodding and smiling and hoping it didn't look too much like a grimace. "Warden Morgan, Captain Luccio. Thank you for having us here."

Her notes were sufficient enough to fill five minutes of speaking, a fact that she hadn't known until she was up there. Which was surprising considering she had spent the better part of lunchtime scribbling them down like a madwoman. Claire didn't remember a word of what she'd said. Something to the effect of she was glad to be here, would do the best she could, don't worry, everything was going to be all right. A placebo speech. Everyone made polite nothing applause.

"I told you you'd be all right," Sveta whispered as she sat down, as Morgan descended the center aisle of the small auditorium and gave the bunk assignments. They waited until everyone had begun to file out and then slipped through the side exit.

It was night, by now. The main hall facility with the cafeteria and everything was chrome and glass, modern cushions and modern lighting. But the cabins were wood and barely lit, and the path was pale green with foxfire rather than glowing gold with solar lights.

Claire was having second and third thoughts about the whole thing. It was one thing to have volunteered for the assignment, although the way Rashid had put it she half wondered if he hadn't been encouraging her. In his own way, which amounted to shoving her out of the next. But it was another thing to realize that she would be teaching these children skills that would put their lives in each other's hands. Something she had never done before.

What you have learned, you must teach to others.

Rashid had said it. Injun Joe had said it. Claire just hadn't thought the time would come so soon. She glanced over at Sveta, who seemed to have no problem with the whole thing.

"Do you think," she said abruptly, and then wasn't sure how to say it when Sveta turned to look at her. After a moment she continued. "Do you think we can teach them everything they might need to know in one week?"

Sveta shrugged. "We have no way of knowing what they will need to know. We can teach them everything we can think of to expect, and it will be more than they had to begin with."

Which was a far more practical aspect than she had been considering. Claire would have rolled her eyes at herself but Sveta was there to do it for her. "I'm worrying about this too much, aren't I?"

"You are, a little bit." Her friend smiled over at her. "You know what you're about, and you know how to explain it in simple terms so that others will understand. You're very good at that. And thus you will be good at this. You're worrying about things that are not in your control, and that ..."

"... is neither helpful nor productive." Claire nodded.

"Exactly."

Their hands met, fingers curling and clasping as they came up to the cabin. "Whatever would I do without you?"

Sveta laughed. "I shudder to think."

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.