Penitent

Trina was standing in the training yard, stretching with a wooden shortsword. Michael could catch glimpses of Finnegan wailing on Tai for all he was worth to the cheers of the dozen or so mercs that had gathered around.

Michael gestured toward a wooden bench and sat down.

Trina looked disappointed, but put down the sword and sat down next to him.

"First I'm going to divine you to get an idea of where we're starting from." He focused on her, and was able to quickly pull up her titles and deeds. It had gotten a lot easier since he'd first started training with Meera back in Stent.

Titles:

Trina Grantus

Deeds:

Brother Saviour

Elder Healer

Rift Closer

Blessings:

Healing Touch

Michael frowned. It wasn't as little as he'd seen on the regular non-noble academy trainees, but they were much younger than she was. It made sense though, as Stent clearly had a different set of priorities than Swandia, a fact he owed his current freedom to.

"Are you able to see your own titles and deeds more deeply?" He asked.

"No, but I know that one makes me better at healing those older than me and the other makes me tougher when I'm looking after my siblings. Not sure what the newest one does."

Michael nodded. One that was useless in her current circumstances and another that would get less useful as she aged. They had a lot of work to do.

"Well, I think the first thing we should work on would be cardio."

"Cardio?"

"We have to get your stamina up. You probably noticed that healing tires you out? Well, if you have more stamina then it won't wear you out as easily. Best way to build stamina is to train."

She stood up and nodded. "Okay, let's do it."

Michael chuckled and stood. She reminded him of Gabe a bit. Always eager to get started on something new.

"Okay, you can set the pace, we'll run a few laps around the farm."

She nodded and took off at an untenable pace. Michael caught up to her quickly, his longer legs carrying him further faster, and once he was a couple of yards behind her he settled into her speed. She started to slow down a bit quickly, and eventually settled into a pace that was more reasonable than the sprint she'd started out with. To Michael it was a light jog, but he had a number of advantages that she didn't.

They made it one lap before Trina was stumbling a bit and breathing heavily, but she continued to push herself forward. Michael considered stopping her, but said nothing. They made it another half lap around the barn before she tripped on a loose rock and fell forward. Instead of pushing herself up she stayed on the ground and breathed heavily.

Michael reached out a hand and dragged her to her feet.

"Alright. Now heal yourself."

She frowned and placed a hand on her chest.

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Michael watched with open curiosity as wisps of golden light drifted from her hand across her body and hitting the small scrapes and bruises across the arm she'd caught herself with. She stumbled again, and this time Michael caught her.

"Good job. Let's get you some water."

He walked her gently back to the training yard which had cleared out since the twins finished their sparring match. He ladled some clean water out of a nearby barrel and brought it over to her. She drank it deeply, coughing a little as it went down.

"So, we'll start by doing that kind of conditioning every day. If you don't get hurt, we'll focus on other people in the training yard. After that we'll get to some sparring and weapons practice."

She was starting to catch her breath, and nodded, moving over to pick up her sword.

"You're going to want to grab a shield too."

She nodded and grabbed one of the smaller ones, taking a stance even though she was still clearly tired. He was impressed with her gumption, and didn't want to discourage it. He grabbed a wooden blade as well and a shield of his own. Wood blades usually became worthless for training at a certain point for those with more titles and deeds, but for her it should be fine while she was learning.

Michael nodded at her. "I know they've already been showing you the ropes, so let's see what you can do. You can start when you're ready."

She stepped forward and slashed at him with a simple strike, her shield dipping a bit as she did it. He blocked her slash with his shield and whipped out his own sword lightly smacking her upper arm. "Keep your shield up. If we go down, there's not a healer to get us up, nor can they close the rift without us."

She winced and raised her shield, attacking again.

Michael blocked the blow and smacked at her shield with his sword. They went back and forth a bit. She wasn't bad, she was quick and had naturally good footwork, but she was inexperienced and physically not very strong. Unlike the other women in Gemini she didn't yet have titles and deeds to help balance out her physicality with the men. Her other abilities made her highly valuable in spite of that, but it was an area she'd need to improve on.

"With your frame you don't want to meet blows head on. Try to move out of the way, or even deflect them lightly."

He sent out some strikes to let her practice that, and was happy that she took the small opening he'd left to slash at his leg. She swung hard, and hit the side of his knee with a loud cracking sound.

Michael laughed. "Great job!"

She frowned at him. "Is the blow that weak?"

He shook his head. "No, I just have a lot of durability. It seems to take some pretty big strikes to actually hurt me lately. If that was a real sword you'd still have carved deep into my leg though, don't worry."

They went through a few more back and forths, Michael leaving the poor girl battered and bruised by the end, which drew him a few nasty stares from passersby who had been with her when she'd sealed her rift and healed as many of them as she could. He didn't particularly mind though. He had more than one occasion where he'd gotten a dirty look for giving the young interns actual work to do at his old jobs, especially when the work he gave them left them less available for unwanted flirtation by the older staff. Useful skills were useful skills though, he didn't see how babying them would help anything. In this case in particular, it could help keep the girl alive.

When they were done and back on the bench, Michael got them both some water again and let her drink. It was getting to be late afternoon.

"I think we're pretty much done for the day, but I wanted to give you one last piece of advice. What's the best way to avoid danger?"

"To run away from it?"
"Good guess, but the real answer is 'No be there'." He smiled. It was movie advice, but that didn't mean it was bad. "We're healers and meant to seal the rifts. The fighting is important, but if you can avoid it then it may wind up better for everyone else."

"Hard to do if you're right next to a rift."

"Absolutely true, but there are ways to draw less attention to yourself." He was bad at those, but then he was tougher than she was and had a suit of full plate.

She nodded and stood up, healing her own bruises and splinters and managing to stay surprisingly steady as she did it. "Same thing tomorrow?" she asked.

Michael smiled and nodded. "Absolutely."

She walked off with a surprising amount of pep in her step. She seemed very motivated to improve. He wasn't entirely sure of what he'd do with her that he hadn't already. He'd only been in this world himself for a short amount of time, but at least he had a good idea of what would help her. He said a short prayer to Seras to watch over her, Nykas to ask that she still had fun no matter how serious she was taking things, and Bruntus to give her the energy and will to keep it up. When he was done he walked back to his tent and was happy to see Davi sitting with the others and chatting.

"Davi! You're back!"

He smiled. "Michael! Yes, I got back a few hours ago. Ollie tells me you're giving a pretty young thing a workout."

Michael saw Ollie's wide grin and sighed. "I suppose that's one way to put it. The worst possible way, but it's not wrong exactly. They asked me to train the youngest diviner since the rifts are proving more difficult than they were expecting."

"No need to make excuses. It's not like I can arrest you," said Davi with a small smile.

Michael shoved him lightly as he sat next to him and they all got caught up.