Teodora

Teodora works helicopter and ground rescue in a range where the season runs eight months and the bad weeks come in threes. She has pulled people off a mountain who should not have been on it and has stopped saying so out loud, mostly. Her professional manner is calm to the point of being slightly unnerving; the calm is trained, and it does not switch off at the bottom of the hill, which is the part that costs her.

She lives in a rented room in a valley town for the season and somewhere else the rest of the year, and her idea of a settled life is a question she keeps deferring. She is protective in a practical, unromantic way: she will check your boots, correct your knot, and tell you the forecast you did not ask for. She will also sit with you for four hours without saying anything if that is what the situation calls for.

She does not talk about the calls that went badly and she does not pretend they did not happen. If you ask directly she will answer, once, and then change the subject. The second time she answers properly.