Woodwick, in a conversation that was now rather mortifying in retrospect, had suggested that Ber learn how to use the hyperawareness that the events of the ball had given him to his advantage – to train himself to maintain an awareness his surroundings without letting the paranoia and tension that had initially accompanied such observations to overwhelm him. Only in the privacy of his own thoughts would he grudgingly admit to following what had amounted to good advice from the captain. It had helped, too. The man was such a pain in the ass.

As a result of both that development and Ber’s general habit of keeping tabs on officers when they were in his vicinity, the soldier was idly aware of the lieutenant setting up at nearby dummy. He gave Terach a cursory glance but was otherwise content to mind his own business and let the other man beat up a dummy rather than himself. Still, in his peripherals, he caught the movement of the dummy’s head as it recoiled from Terach’s blow and glanced over to watch for a moment.

Only a moment, however, for his attention soon drifted to over the lieutenant’s shoulder as he noticed a group of soldiers approaching from the side. Pausing for a moment, Ber watched as one of them ran up to Terach and said hastily, “Sir, we’ve got a problem.”

Well. That was unfortunate – for Terach and the soldiers involved, not Ber. Though he continued to keep an ear on the conversation, he simply went back to hitting the punching bag. Perks of not being an officer.

Before he turned away, Ber noticed that the four soldiers looked particularly miserable – was that food on two of them? He thought it could have been – and amusement flickered through him as he listened to the reluctant explanation offered to the lieutenant. A potentially cursed door? Ber wasn’t sure how a lieutenant with no magical ability was supposed resolve that particular issue, but he imagined Terach similarly covered in food and smirked as he hit the punching bag again.

Then his name was shouted across the space.

Dammit. Immediately, all traces of amusement fell from his face as he threw one last punch – one a bit harder than strictly necessary – and moved to respond to the lieutenant’s summons. Schooling his expression into one more suitable for the occasion, he reached him a heartbeat before Terach turned and set off toward the mess hall.

He told the two unfortunate food-covered soldiers to talk to him while they walked. Ber, who had set off at an actual walk – albeit a quick one – soon found himself falling behind as the others sped into a jog. A sharp command from the lieutenant had him hurrying into place, swallowing down his irritation as he did so. As far as he was concerned, there was no good reason that Terach’s problem had to become his problem too.

Ber hadn’t even started considering suspects when Terach turned to him and voiced his suspicions. The soldier blinked at him. More concerned about how to deal with doors that wouldn’t let anyone get close to them, he hadn’t put much thought into who had or hadn’t volunteered information to Terach, but he stored the observation away regardless.

His jog slowed to a walk and then a standstill as Ber approached the doors to the mess hall, taking advantage of the way the gathering crowded parted somewhat for Terach by following in the lieutenant’s wake. The man assigned the witches to positions by the door and pulled Ber aside to presumably start figuring out a way to deal with this particular magical misfortune.

The ambiguity of the question, however, had Ber pausing. His gaze rested on the swinging doors before shifting to the lieutenant. First impressions? Of the doors or the stew-covered witches whom Terach suspected were responsible? His first impression of the doors was that he really ought to have found a different courtyard to train in that afternoon. His one of the witches was that he’d really rather not end up like them. Neither of those were likely the kind of answer the lieutenant wanted, however, so he took a moment to try to come up with something a little more useful.

“If we could keep the doors from moving,” He offered instead, skipping over the obvious observation that there was definitely at magic here. ”That would solve the problem until the curse wore off.” Or, he thought rather dubiously, they could remove the doors entirely, but that was not ideal for many reasons. “I wonder if it’s the people or just having something close by that causes the doors to swing open and shut.”

Terach seemed satisfied at Ber’s answer, at least insofar as he agreed to it. The lieutenant never seemed particularly happy with anything, and far be it from the soldier to attempt to decipher his expression this afternoon. Ber just wanted to find some way to immobilize the doors and leave before anything else was required of him.

Still, he listened to the breakdown of tasks that the lieutenant outlined. He had just started nodding his understanding when a cacophony of clanging interrupted the other man’s words, and when Ber turned, his eyes widened slightly at the sight of pans flying out the doors. What was the deal with those? Terach’s brisk voice drew his attention again. He looked back at the lieutenant to see that he now held a coin in his hand.

“Uh, tails,” He decided on a whim, hoping that would be the option that let him avoid the swinging doors and flying pans.

Eyes widened as the metal spoons flew toward them while Terach was in the middle of talking, and Ber stepped back when the lieutenant did, gaze tracking them as they skipped across the ground. He glanced back toward the doors and felt rather grateful that he didn’t have to get any closer to them than he already was.

That sentiment evaporated the minute he turned toward Moll and Flanders and noticed the expressions on their faces. Faltering, he glanced back at the lieutenant, but the taller man had already started walking away. With a sigh, Ber made his way over to the pair of giggling witches. When he’d imagined questioning them, he’d pictured some sort of straightforward conversation, not the greeting he received. He could feel an embarrassed heat crawling up the back of his neck as he struggled to get a word in edgewise as they showered him in compliments.

“Hey, you know, you’re, uh, covered in soup,” He found himself saying to Flanders as he took a big step back from her and peeled Moll’s hand off his arm. “And I’m not, and I’d like to stay that way.” Not particularly fond of having his space invaded, he backed up another step and put a hand out loosely in front of himself in an attempt to maintain the distance. “Also we’re in the military wing, so, there’s a lot of soldiers here. And anyway, no, can you listen for a second? Yes, we all have muscles, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

Instead of running a hand down his face like he wanted to, Ber gestured to the pair of them and then to the doors by which Terach had stationed himself. “Obviously you both were here when something happened to the doors. Can you tell me about that? What happened, when it happened, if there was anyone acting strange…”

One would think, Ber silently bemoaned, that a crowd of soldiers who were regularly required to stand stationary in formation would know how to apply such skills when waiting for someone to resolve an obvious problem with the doors to the mess hall.

Apparently, they did not. The jostling crowd practically shoved him into the two witches’ eager embrace. Using the arm to which Flanders had not attached herself, he managed to shove Moll aside before she got too close to his face and then proceeded to busy himself with freeing his trapped arm. Brow furrowed at the nickname they gave him, Ber took a step back to try to regain the space he’d lost between himself and the witches.

“All I want you to tell me is what happened here,” He tried again, feeling the embarrassed heat climbing higher. “Seriously, you’re covered in soup—”

Something in the second entreaty must have worked - or perhaps they had simply decided to take pity on him - for Moll finally offered something potentially useful. Although he didn’t recognize Halleck’s name, he made note of the witch in the event that Terach would, though he knew the lieutenant also suspected that one of these two had cast the curse. Stars knew they were certainly hindering more than helping him here.

Finally, Flanders grew more serious, and he looked over at her. “Someone clearly did something to the doors,” He pointed out vaguely, neither an accusation nor an absolution of guilt. Rumors spread faster than wildfire. If Halleck was innocent, then he wouldn’t be the one responsible for driving her name through the mud. “I’m just trying to find out what happened and how we can stop them from hurting other people.”