Inside the infirmary, everything was pain. Mirk cowered in the doorway, drawing on even more of his empathic potential, the part of his mind that yearned to seek and feel, and twisted it directing it inward, turning it into a barrier against feeling too much. Once the pain faded and his vision cleared, Mirk drew himself up back into a less hunched and defensive posture and followed Emir into the gloom beyond the infirmary's double doors.

The source of the pain was clear to Mirk after only a cursory glance around. In place of an entry hall was a room full of long benches that reminded Mirk of church pews, scattered with men in uniform blacks, all of them wounded. Most of them weren't too ill, as far as Mirk's untrained eye could tell, afflicted by sprains and strains and superficial wounds that could be kept from bleeding everywhere with rags or wadded-up shirts.

The emotional half of their pain was worse than the physical. A wound could be clamped down on, an injured leg could be splinted and wrapped to lend it strength, but there was no alleviating the continual ache of regret and loneliness. Though, the longer Mirk allowed the pain to curl around his shields, the more he realized that, in many cases, it was also colored with a strange feeling of relief. If a trip to the infirmary counted as a welcome respite, Mirk wondered how awful the men's work off-realm had to be. "Hmph. A lot of shirkers today," Emir said as he swept into the room, nodding once to a pair of women in gray-green robes that matched their own behind a desk on the far side of the benches.

"Euh...pardon me?"

"Never mind," Emir said. The commander of the Twentieth appeared more at ease in the infirmary, a master inside his own domain. The men on the benches and the lady healers behind the desks looked to him with reassured smiles rather than pretending they didn't see him at all. "You'll figure it out eventually. In any case, this is the infirmary. The patients with minor injuries or other sicknesses wait their turn to be seen here. Everyone else gets taken straight to the back."

Skirting around the perimeter of the room, Emir led Mirk to a hallway over to the left of the desk. The head healer grabbed a ledger off the corner of the desk as he passed, but tucked it under his arm rather than pausing to flip through it. "The field transporter's at the end of this hall," Emir said, waving down the length of it. The transporter was still too far away for Mirk to see much of it, despite the hall being perfectly straight. More featureless gray stone that collected moisture for some reason, making Mirk's skin feel clammy. Though the infirmary was full of lived-in touches unlike the blank facades of the oldest buildings of the City. There were bits of parchment tacked to the walls with magic at intervals, and carts on rollers were left idle in places, full of bottles and instruments and rolls of bandages. "This half of the first floor is where we do most emergency healing. We don't have the best tools, but we make do."

Mirk let himself fall a little behind Emir so that he could peer into the rooms that lined the hall as they passed them. They were plain and practical, much like the outside of the building was, though bore signs of everyday use like the hall beyond. Each had a large wooden table in its center, a smaller one beside it, and a cabinet against the wall facing the door. The only things left atop the closed cabinets were washbasins and ewers of water, along with small, struggling plants in clay pots. Mirk wondered what the plant in each room was for, but decided now wasn't the time to ask. He'd delayed Emir long enough, and though the man was being patient with him, Mirk could sense that he was delaying his business.

Emir continued on until they reached a cross hall. To the right was another long corridor with rooms on either side. To the left was a wider doorway, leading to a stairwell. A few well-worn steps led precipitously downward before the stairs turned off sharply to the right. The air was unnaturally cold at the junction, even worse than the rest of the building. It was almost cold enough to leave their breath hanging in the air, despite the damp heat of the rest of the infirmary. "We've got workrooms and a common room off this hall, then there are treatment rooms down the other hall past them. That's where we take the patients from the waiting room. The barrier to the second floor is over at the end of that one."

"Barrier?" Mirk asked.

"They ignore me when it comes to the front steps, but the problem was already solved in here," Emir replied. "There aren’t any stairs going from floor to floor. Just the barriers. Some kind of chaotic magic with a teleportation bent. No one knows how they work. Old K'maneda magic. But we do know how to lock them down. The barriers onto third are mostly kept locked. Third's the long-term ward. A lot of the patients there are mad. They have their own healers and aides. Handling them usually requires a bit of muscle."

All Mirk could come up with in response was a slow nod. It made sense. There had been a few madwomen at the abbey, but they were left free to wander the grounds, as long as they weren't in any danger of hurting themselves. Most of them spent their time writing or drawing, or doing what they could to help in the kitchens and laundry. The sisters took turns leafing through their reams of notes, searching for Divine inspiration. Mirk had a feeling that wasn't the kind of madness one found among soldiers. "But what about these stairs, co...Emir?" Mirk asked, inclining his head toward the doorway off to their left.

"No one's in a hurry to get down there," Emir said, frowning. "That's the basement. Where the dead are kept until the Festival of Shades. The divisions are mostly good about taking their own down, but we have to do it for the First and the Fifth when things get bad. Another job for the aides."

Inexorably, Mirk was drawn to face the stairs. A chill ran through him. The thought of the whole infirmary resting atop the dead, the business of life going on above while bodies moldered below, stole the right English words from him. It took Mirk a few tries to voice the question that sprung to the front of his mind. "Euh...so...you put everyone in graves all at once?"

Emir shook his head. "No. The K'maneda don't bury their dead. Some of the high-born officers and the mages have their bodies taken to family crypts, but everyone else stays down there until February. Then they're burned."

Unbidden, the memories came to him -- the Lis de la Rivière in flames, the stench of burning flesh, the screaming of the horses. They'd burned the stables too, burned the servants' quarters, burned everything. They knew what it meant to rob them of final peace in consecrated ground. Mirk shook his head to clear it, but the motion only made bile rise up thick in his throat. If Emir could feel his distress, the older healer didn't comment on it. But Mirk thought his fright was evident in what he blurted out, in how the word came out sounding like a curse. "Burned?"

"They stack the bodies in a big pile in some forest out east and light them all at once. It takes days to get through them all." Emir's nose wrinkled at this, as he glanced down the stairs to the basement. "I agree with you. It's barbaric. But it's what they've always done. Most of them don't have any family left to tend their graves anyway. It might be a blessing. Better to be burned than dug up by some necromancer."

"Oh..."

Emir turned Mirk away from the stairway to the basement with a hand on his shoulder, the touch accompanied by a faint projection of his sympathy. It was enough to halt Mirk's whirling thoughts. It was easy to forget sometimes that there were others there like him, who spoke half in words and half in feelings, who understood things. Mirk had started to think that everyone in the K'maneda might be like the members of the Seventh he'd spent the past year with, jovial, but still a bit removed, eager to bury their most painful feelings under drink and revelry every chance they got. And the touch reassured Mirk that his terrible manners that morning hadn't soured Emir on him completely. "Let's head down to the common room. We won't be starting you off in emergency. You'll just do the basics until you have a better handle on things."

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"Ah...thank you, Emir. Methinks I wouldn't do so well, thrown into the middle of everything..."

The head healer set off again, hurrying down the hall that connected to two sides of the first floor. That time, Mirk was thankful for the distraction provided by Emir's quick pace. "The rest of the K'maneda might be full of lunatics, but we're fairly rational here. No sense wasting a set of hands on something they're not suited to."

Emir turned off into a room that was larger than the rest, but still a third of the size of the room the injured fighters had been waiting their turn in. It was dominated by a wide circular table, mismatched chairs gathered all around it. The couches that ringed the room weren't in better shape, their rough fabric worn through in places. Opposite the door was a giant glass-front cabinet full of bottles and glasses. And in front of that sat the room's two occupants, a man and a woman, chatting listlessly with one another over their half-full glasses and looking very much the worse for wear, just like everything else in the room. Emir led Mirk over to them -- he was painfully aware of the pair’s scrutiny once they noticed him, both of them giving him a visual once-over that was accompanied by a slight pressing against his shields. Mirk was unsure whether that last bit was intentional or not.

"We work in teams of three," Emir said, waving a dismissive hand at the other healers. "Since Danu and Yule lost their third a few months ago, you'll be training with them."

Mirk looked awkwardly between the two healers -- neither of them stood to bow, nor did they extend a hand to shake. Mirk settled for greeting them with a differential half-bow, hoping it'd suffice. Nothing was like what he was accustomed to there; none of the K'maneda's habits made sense to him. There were no polite rituals to follow to give him time to think of the best way to approach things. At least, not among the majority of them. Cyrus, he'd known how to handle, despite the commander of the Tenth's curt and dismissive attitude. "Euh...it is an honor to meet both of you. Thank you for allowing me to work with you."

The man -- average in height and build, with long masses of auburn curls that obscured half his face -- shot the woman a skeptical look. "Honored? Really? I don't think anyone's ever been honored to meet us."

"Don't be an ass," the woman shot back, cuffing the man in the shoulder. They seemed like they could be related, though the woman was much taller than the man, even while seated, her uncovered and curly hair bright red, the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks scattered with freckles. Both of them had a self-assured and confident air about them. Was that what most healers were like in the K'maneda? Mirk didn't think he could act like that all the time, even if he'd had the energy to try.

Emir sighed, giving Mirk another bracing pat on the shoulder, a gesture accompanied again by a touch of his sympathy. "They're competent healers. And Danu has decent manners. Listen to her first." With that, Emir swept out of the room, shooting a pointed look at the other two healers over his shoulder as he went. It was mirrored by some sort of emotion, though it wasn’t strong enough to reach through Mirk's mental shielding.

Mirk worried at his lower lip, wringing his hands behind his back as he shifted from foot to foot, waiting for one of the other healers to speak. Neither of them did. Although he felt rude addressing a superior without being spoken to first -- and they were his superiors, despite their casual demeanor and how they were all dressed the same -- he could see no other way out of things. If he'd learned anything about the K'maneda thus far, it was that they did everything opposite from the way he'd been taught.

"What may I help you with?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from wavering, searching for the most polite and deferential terms he'd been able to find in the dictionary. The words still didn't feel right to him -- they were too dismissive, too forward. It was the "you" business that was half the problem, Mirk was certain. How could a peasant and a king both be the same "you"?

With a tired sigh and a smile, the woman stood, leaning across the table and offering a hand out to him. "I'm sorry. We're not used to high-born trainees in the Twentieth. I'm Danu."

"The women, the foreigners, and the weird. That's us," the man commented, though he didn't move to follow suit and extend his hand, sipping at his drink instead.

Relieved, Mirk reached out and took her hand, clasping it gently about the fingers and giving another deferential half-bow. He supposed a full one, coupled with the appropriate touch of his lips to her fingertips, wouldn't be appreciated by a K'maneda. Too "royalist", as Genesis was constantly complaining of his habits. That aside, the table was in the way. How was anyone supposed to greet someone properly across a table? "Mirk Dishoael d'Avignon. Your servant, ma dame."

Danu gave him a puzzled look. Beside her, the man nearly spit out his drink. "Madam! You?"

Cringing, Mirk released Danu's hand and took a step backward, wishing that his face wasn't going as red as it felt like it was. Again, Danu snapped her arm out to the side and smacked the other healer in the shoulder, this time with enough force to make him yelp. "Just because you're an ass doesn't mean everyone else is," she scolded him.

Rolling his eyes, the man got up and circled around to where Mirk was hovering beside the table. Mirk had to catch himself before he took another step backward. At least the other healer was a sensible height, the same as him, perhaps taller by the width of a few fingers. Mirk had grown accustomed to having to look up to speak with people his whole life, and it always relieved him a little when he didn’t have to. Aside from when it involved dealing with domineering men like Cyrus, who were more annoyed than relieved to be able to look at someone at the same level. "Look, it's easy," the man said. He flashed Mirk a grin and tossed him a wave. "Oy, name's Yule. Wotcha?"

Before Mirk could come up with a reply, Danu cut in again. "He's still being an ass. We're not very formal here. A hello and any name is better than what we usually get, half the time."

"Euh...right...I'll do my best to remember, ma...ah, Danu..." Mirk stared down at the floor, frustrated with himself. Why hadn't anyone taught him anything useful? Knowing how to levitate pots was pointless if he didn't even know how to say hello properly. He probably should have anticipated this gap, considering who he had as a teacher. Genesis wasn't exactly the most personable man, even on his better days. And as for the rest of the Seventh, they were so friendly and forward that they were joking with you and offering you a drink before you could pause to consider the best way to approach them.

Yule sighed. "All right, all right...look, I was just joking with you," he said, putting an arm around Mirk’s shoulders. The weight of it brought Mirk back to the present. The gesture was coupled with a faint feeling of apology and a hint of sympathy. "Like she said, we're used to getting drunks and bastards around here as trainees, not decent people."

"You're one to talk," Danu grumbled.

"Alors, bien..." Mirk mumbled, shifting a little under Yule's arm. He was quite strong for his size. The robes they all wore, Mirk realized, could hide many things.

"I didn't really upset you, did I?" Yule asked him, tilting his head to look him in the eyes. "I wouldn't ask, but I can't tell. You've got your shields pulled up so high I can't feel anything."

"Oh, no, not at all, co...euh...it's just that you're all very warm here. Very open. I...I wasn't expecting it." Mirk slumped a little in dismay. He tried reeling in some of his potential so that his feelings might come across more clearly to Yule, to make up for his fumbling with the words. Explaining feelings in English was the worst part of the language, he'd come to find.

Yule stepped in front of Mirk, seizing him by both shoulders. After months of no one reaching out and touching him -- Mirk suspected the healers monitoring his care behind the scenes had told the men from the Seventh not to reach out to him, in case their emotions were too much for him to bear -- Mirk had grown unaccustomed to it. But he felt nothing bad from Yule, nothing too strong to bear. Just curiosity mingled with concern and a hint of suspicion. "Who the hell have they been keeping you with? No one's that much of a cold fish."

"Euh...I've been alone the past few months, mostly. I've been ill. There's...well, Pavel and Ilya...and Mordecai...and K'aekniv..."

"The Russians?"

"Oh! You know Morty? Then it can't be that bad, he's a sweetheart," Danu said.

Yule ignored her. The feeling of suspicion coming from him had grown. But it was obvious to Mirk that it wasn't him and his motives the other healer found questionable. "Is that it?"

"Well, Genesis is probably the one who's been by the most."

"Him? No wonder you're all messed up. Anyone would be after having no one to talk to but that bastard. Tell you what, the first round's on me. You've earned it."

Mirk found himself laughing, more out of relief than anything else. "He is a little...euh...particular?"

Giving Mirk a final clap on the shoulders, Yule released him. "No need to explain, we all understand. All right. At least it'll probably be hard to scare you, then. Let's go pull someone out of the waiting room and teach you how to stitch."