Room 418: Monday Night

[notajar]

Door's not sitting in the window tonight, though she's got it open, and every so often she glances that way. Instead she's perched at the foot of her bed, when she's not moving restlessly around the room.

Summer classes are over, new ones will be starting up soon, the awful headmistress-woman is gone. It's reason enough to be restless, she supposes, but Door's not so much excited about the new year of school tonight, as she is worried about the bird who hasn't flown back through that open window for a fortnight now - and what that might say about how things are back home.
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[OOC: for bridge_carson, but open for the roomie as well, if he'd like to jump in at any point. This is Door's second-to-last post before heading home - there'll be an open one tomorrow for anybody who'd like to say goodbye.]

Comments

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Hey," Bridge pokes his head through the doorway. "I got your message."

[notajar]

"H--" Door glances over to the doorway. "...your hair is green."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Bridge grins. "I felt like changing it."

[notajar]

Door studies it critically for a moment before pronouncing, "It suits you."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Thanks," Bridge says with a bounce. "I'm keeping it for another week or so at least. I'll see if I'm tired of it by then."

[notajar]

"It'll make an interesting first impression on the new teachers, I suppose." Door eyes the window again, then adds, "Chimney still hasn't come back. It's been two weeks. I thought it might be something to do with the Umbridge woman, but she's been gone for two days now and still no sign."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"That's... not good," Bridge frowns thoughtfully. "I mean, I built her with a state-of-the-art navigation system, so it's not like she could have just gotten *lost*."

[notajar]

"She got delayed a bit once before, but I think that had something to do with landing on a ship - I never quite got that story straight." Door shakes her head. "But it was nothing like this long. I hope nothing's happened to the her. Or the Marquis."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'll be right back," Bridge says, and then runs out of the room. A minute later, he returns with his laptop. "I can send out a homing signal," he says. "It should recall Chimney, as long as she's *able* to get back."

[notajar]

Door doesn't like the sound of as long as she's able, but she nods. "Would you please?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge is already starting up the program. It's displaying a map of the world, with a glowing green dot right about where London is. "She's there now," he says, pointing.

[notajar]

Door frowns, peering at it. "That's home. Or near enough."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"That's a good sign, right?" Bridge says, typing in the command that will send out a recall signal. "I mean, at least she's not lost."

[notajar]

"I suppose, but then what's she been doing there all that time?" Door peers over his shoulder.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Talking to the other pigeons?" Bridge suggests, though he finds that unlikely.

[notajar]

Yeah, Door does too. "She's not that gossippy. Though addmittedly it might take extra time to translate. Not two weeks, though."

She moves to the window, and reaches to open a doorway within it between Here and There, so Chimney's not flying halfway round the world to get back.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Well, the signal's sent, now" Bridge tells Door. "She should start moving as soon as she gets it."

[notajar]

"Thank you." Door sends him a grateful smile and turns her face to the window again.

It takes a few minutes of fretful listening at the window, hearing the strange overlap of ocean and city between Fandom and London, before she hears the beating of wings in the air, but it does happen.

The bird that flaps through the opening and into Door's outstretched hand is almost unrecognizable as the one who flew away, though. She's soot-marked and bedraggled, one wing slightly bent.

"What happened to you?" Door asks, wide-eyed. ...And then repeats it in Pigeon, because that might help.

[notajar]

Chimney squawks excitedly.

//Tried to reach the coat but the great wolf-mouth caught me and tried to eat my head! Little you found inside and placed me free!//

[notajar]

Door stares at the bird. ".......What?"

//Wolf-mouth! Crunch my wing and in a box with bars! Out was short you.//

Door turns to look at Bridge. "Someone... put her in a cage, I think."

//Crunch my head! Bad wolf-mouth and fox-face!//

"Wolf-mouth... and fox face?" It takes a moment for the thought to put itself rightside round in her head, and then Door pales. If that's physically possible given her usual complexion.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Who does she mean?" Bridge asks worriedly. He remembers, when she came here a year ago, she'd been running from someone. Well, someones.

[notajar]

Door looks troubled. "I don't know, but I don't like what I'm guessing."

She reaches for the little latch hidden beneath Chimney's chest-feathers. //Did you make it to the Marquis?//

Chimney ducks her beak. //Coat-man yes! Loud at me when I poked him but had to be flying.//

That gets a small smile from Door. "You poked him?"

The breastplate opens, and three small objects roll out into Door's hand. The third being a Tootsie Roll, of course, but the first two are rolled-up pieces of parchment.

"Two?" That's odd. de Carabas isn't exactly an extravagant letter-writer, whatever else about him might fall into that category. Door unrolls the first of them, the one on less ragged paper.

[notajar]

The last line startles a laugh out of Door before the rest of it really sinks in.

"She must have been with him when we called her back," she says to Bridge, setting Chimney down on the bed with de Carabas' scroll beside her, so she can open the other one.

It's smaller, made not from writing paper, but a torn scrap of... a grocer's-sack, maybe, blotched with reddish-brown ink as if it was hastily spilled on one corner, then rolled up by someone whose fingers were covered in it.



When Door reaches the bottom of the note, she just stares at it, uncomprehending.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Door?" Bridge says, *really* worried now.

[notajar]

"It's from my sister," she says, her voice thin and echoing strangely in her own ears. "Except it can't be, because my sister's dead."

No, she didn't find the body, but she saw the others; she'd been glad not to know for sure what they'd done to her little sister, though it didn't stop her imagining it.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"Do you know that, for sure?" Bridge asks quietly. "I mean, maybe..."

[notajar]

"Vandemar and Croup don't keep prisoners. At least not for longer than it takes to..." Door traces over the paper, the rough threads of it catching at her fingertips. "It's been a year."

But the half-script handwriting, neat but childish, is familiar. Shaky, hasty, but if it's not the real thing, it's a good imitation.

"If it's real..." She hadn't ever let herself hope for that, even phrase it as a possibility. Wished things had turned out differently, that they were all still alive, yes, but not the other. She looks back at the note from the Marquis, telling her to stay here, that it's a trap.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I could..." Bridge nods at the paper. "I mean, if I held it, I could tell if it was really her who wrote it."

[notajar]

"Somebody opened Chimney's message-box who wasn't the Marquis," Door says slowly, still hanging onto the scrap of paper. There might be other Openers out there somewhere, but it's one more moment of possibility.

She glances at Bridge's hands. So are those, but unlike the other things, the moment he takes off those gloves, possible becomes either true... or not. Definitely not.

There's the urge not to hand over the note, to hold onto maybe, but it's a stupid urge. Definitely not is where she's been all along; it's a sad place, but not frightening. And the other... if the other is true then she's been here for a year, while her sister's been gods know where.

Door gives him the paper.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge takes off a glove and concentrates, running his fingers lightly over the words printed on the page.

A girl, a few years younger than Door, and looking so much like her that it can't be anyone else *but* her sister. Alone, afraid, but she's not hurt.

Bridge slips his glove back on and looks back up at Door. "It's really her," he says. "It's also a trap, like the Marquis said." He's not telling her not to go. *He* would go, if it were someone he loved, trap or no trap.

[notajar]

"Then I suppose I'll have to hire myself a bodyguard," Door says, and her voice only wavers once before she reaches for the note. "When I find her."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge nods, and is quiet for a moment. "That's a good idea," he says finally. "I mean, I suppose it's kind of stupid of me to say something like 'be safe', because it's a trap, by definition it's pretty much not *going* to be safe, but a bodyguard could make it... safer," he babbles.

[notajar]

"Someone who knows the Underside. de Carabas will know what to look for. When he finishes calling me an idiot."

He'll be right, of course, just like the trap she's not one bit surprised he was right about.

Funny how she doesn't care. No, strike that. Funny how it makes her grin with a sort of fierce, crazy happiness.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

He thought about offering to go with her. But she's right- as good a tracker as he is, someone who knows her world would be much better. He grins back at her and offers a hug instead.

[notajar]

She squeezes tight, whispering, "Thank you. For everything, and Chimney, but this... you've no idea."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"You're welcome," Bridge says. "Having you as my friend this past year has been wonderful, and I'll miss you like hell, but I'm so, so glad that you've got this chance to go and rescue your sister."

[notajar]

"I'll miss you too." Door darts in for another hug. "I'll see if I can't send Chimney back with messages, when it's safe."

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'll be waiting to hear from you," Bridge promises.

[notajar]

There's a rustle on Door's shoulder, and she starts to ask, then sort of laughs and buries her face in her palm. "I hate to ask something else of you, but would you be able to fix Chimney's wing before I go?"

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

"I'd be glad to," Bridge says with a smile.

[notajar]

"Thanks." Door adds thoughtfully, "I think they must have grabbed her when they realized she was trying to get to the Marquis, before. She looks enough like every other London pigeon that I don't think anyone would recognize her as mine, once the wing's put right."