Dear Diary,

Did not expect Lancaster the Least to be at all helpful, ever, but wonders never cease.

So yesterday we got assigned to guard duty on the walls. While that wound up a little boring, it wasn't exactly dangerous. Unfortunately, it wasn't physically taxing either, which meant I wound up crashing kind of hard at the end of the night, and not in a 'go to sleep right away' way, either. Saffron paid a quick visit; which helped quite a bit with me getting to sleep. I think she also traded out her sweat-soaked uniform for a clean one.

Same dream, although now one of the itchy bits had started wandering. Really annoying, since I thought they were going away. Woke up to Isnomi attempting to nurse, so I Mimicked Saffron and let her go about it. I think I fell back to sleep at that point. I woke all the way up when Marie climbed out of bed, letting a huge waft of cold air flood the warm nest we'd made under the blankets. Being a mature adult and realizing she couldn't have done otherwise, I didn't yell.

I may have squeaked. I definitely squawked. But I didn't yell.

Marie looked over at me and said, "Sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it. My own damn fault the room is so cold. I think I need to go pick Doc Roberts' brain about how to fix the damn heating enchantment."

I looked down to see if Isnomi had finished, only to find she'd gone fuzzy. After letting her nurse a few moments more, I remembered her teeth. "Okay, Menace. That's enough for you for now."

Wonder of wonders, she detached and scrambled for the armoire. I rolled myself out of bed and followed her. We both got dressed as quickly as we could; Marie made sure Isnomi's ties and buttons were actually tied and buttoned rather than just being tangled into knots. When all three of us had finished dressing, I asked, "Can you take her for the day, Marie?"

"Yes."

"Okay then." I turned to Isnomi, who held up her hands.

I reached down and lifted her up. She glomped my neck and said, "ba cafa Mama."

It's almost like she's the mature one sometimes. "I'll be careful. Now you need to put the fuzzy away."

"Na! Ca!"

"I'm well aware how cold it is. Once you get out of the room here you'll be fine, but that's not going to happen until you're unfuzzied."

She grumped a little at that, then launched herself in the direction of Marie's cart. She almost made it. Thankfully for her skull and my blood pressure, Marie caught her right before she faceplanted into the side of the cart. Marie set her atop the cart and then, after I gave her a quick hug, left for her day of Marie things.

I wandered down to breakfast, reveling in 'not being stupidly cold'. In the midst of me shoveling plenty of fuel down the pie hole, Headmaster Miles stood and announced, "Cadets, as has been pointed out to me, you should be paired up for guard duty. Check the rosters posted inside the Entrance for your new assignments."

A vague sense of foreboding gripped me at that announcement, but I kept nomming. I'd read somewhere that polar explorers ate a lot to have the calories to keep themselves warm. That sounded like a great reason to indulge in some serious overeating, so I did.

When I got out to check the roster, at first I had some difficulty finding my name. The rest of the Cadets wound up pairing off and leaving while I looked for my name. When I finally found it, I realized why I'd had such trouble. Lancaster stood staring at the roster. He'd been there since I came out, and I hadn't checked the spot he stood in front of. "Hey, Lancaster? Do you see my name on there anywhere?"

He looked at me, loathing clear in his eyes, then stepped aside, pointing at one line on the roster. "There."

I looked, couldn't believe my eyes, looked again, and heaved a sigh. Lancaster and I were paired up along the section of wall I'd patrolled yesterday. "Well. Could be worse."

He cocked his head. "How?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure on that. I'll get back to you." Still, we had our orders. I headed for the Entrance, only to have Lancaster grab my shoulder. I froze, half expecting him to do something stupid right then and there.

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"I need to pick something up from my room."

I turned enough to see his face, nodded, and said, "just don't be all day about it, okay?"

He set out for the Men's dorms at a leisurely pace. For my part, I headed out. Of course, I got outside I realized that it had snowed last night. Not a lot, but enough to make the steps a little treacherous. I managed to get down them without any mishaps, although once or twice my foot tried to slip out from under me. I got down to more or less flat level ground and things got better. I trudged along following the path others had already trod down into slush. Once I hit the far side of the bridge, the path thinned out a lot as folks made a bee line for their assigned bits of the wall. I'd looked behind me a couple times when the road was straight, but didn't see Lancaster.

Typical.

Once on the wall, I discovered that whoever had the wall before me hadn't bothered to sweep the snow off. With the current temp, if I just walked back and forth along the wall, I was gonna pack the snow into ice. I leaned against the wall at the top of the gate-tower, trying to figure out if there was a way to use one of my Spells to clear things, or if I'd be better off getting a shovel. Just before I went back down to see if I could borrow a shovel from the guys guarding the gate, inspiration hit. I Shaped an Air Shield as wide as the top of the wall, and within seconds it blew away all the snow, leaving pristine stone. I repeated that one section of wall at a time as I walked; the worst result was when someone down below inside the wall yelled out, "I just got done sweeping that!"

"Sorry!" I answered. I mean, I wasn't really sorry, because where else would I put the stuff? But I did try to angle it toward the outside of the wall from then on.

Right as I finished up our assigned portion of the wall, Lancaster called out. "Hey, Diaz! Catch!" Not having any idea what he wanted me to catch, I spun, only to catch a face full of fuzzy fabric. When I got out from under it, I looked at Lancaster; he had a full length fur coat over his uniform, with a matching hat atop his head. A few moments of examining the fuzzy bundle he'd thrown me showed it to be the same kind of coat. Maybe a little threadbare in more than one spot, but still warmer than just my uniform.

"Thanks," I said as I slipped it on. When I shoved my hands in my pockets, I discovered an even more moth-eaten fur hat in one of them. As I pulled it on, I said, "no, really, thank you."

He shrugged. "De nada. You'd be less than useless guarding if you're freezing to death. It's a Lancaster's duty to see to it those assisting them are well equipped."

There it was. Good old Larry; count on him to turn a reasonably friendly gesture into some kind of obligation. Still, I'd had my share of hand-me-downs in the past, and I wasn't about to say no to this one, especially given the temperature.

We divvied up the wall into two reasonably even sections, then settled into the endless monotony of walking back and forth, looking out at the pine forest that started a few hundred feet outside the walls. According to Doc DeLeon's lessons, the folks living in there made their way as hunters; the big farms were southeast of Camden Yards, where the woods hadn't been nearly as thick before the area was settled. Of course, he also said that the woods directly east of the Yards were populated by, I shit you not, 'Jersey Devils'. Based on the description, they sounded like some kind of skinny bipedal bear, but I for one wasn't going to go wandering to find out any sooner than I had to. From what Doc DeLeon said, they sounded mean as fuck, and really tough to kill.

Shortly before lunch, Lancaster waved me over and told me to cover his section while he went to take a leak. I shrugged and said, "sure." I mean, what am I gonna do, have him piss himself and make a slippery spot on the wall? He could sure as hell use some lessons in civility, although I wasn't about to give him one right now, what with it being cold enough to freeze a witch's tits off. When he got back, I said, "cover for me?" He got a booger look, but nodded. What else could he do when I'd just covered for him?

I dashed down the steps, then sprinted down the street until I arrived at Driver's. The line was short, and when I got to the front, I just asked for, "two of whatever's hot and ready to go." I tried to pay with some change out of my coin purse, but when they caught sight of my uniform jacket they wouldn't take my money. As soon as they handed me two paper-wrapped packages, I thanked them and bolted back for the wall. Running without having both hands to balance wasn't a good choice, as I landed on my ass twice on the way back, but I managed to keep my grip on both packages, and they were still warm once I got back. When I hit the top of the wall and got close enough, I called out, "Hey, Lancaster! Catch!" and threw him his.

Not sure what he got, but mine was some kind of almost-hoagie on ciabatta bread, although the meat had obviously been in an oven not long before, and the whole thing felt kinda toasted.

While I ate, I pinged Saffron. How are you doing, Kitten?

We're marching forward again. No faster than before, though.

Miss you.

I miss you too, Goof.

So for the rest of the day we just walked back and forth along our portion of the wall. Nobody came sneaking out of the woods, and the traffic at the gate itself was super-sparse, just a few guys bringing in furs and shit on little travois things. The guards at the gate searched the cargo thoroughly, and they seemed to know the hunters by name, so I figured they weren't spies trying to get into the City. Or they'd been spies the whole time, in which case we were all a little bit fucked, but I'd deal with that when I had to deal with that.

At the end of the day, as some city Guards came on shift to relieve us, Lancaster stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. I kinda figured he wanted his coat back, but instead he just said, "thanks for lunch."

"De nada. You'd be less than useless guarding if you're starving to death."

See? Your girl can be polite. Polite-ish. Eh, who am I kidding. I just couldn't resist getting that dig in.