Late Sunday, early Monday morning, the stairwell

[notajar]

It's cool enough by the time the pigeon returns, hours into the morning, that Door wishes she'd not left her coat in her room. She's fallen asleep once, just a brief nod that had been jerked into wakefulness by the flutter of passing wings. She's wide awake now, though. In place of the scraggly bit of hair-ribbon around the pigeon's leg, there's a

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[grenfelzer]

Carmela can't sleep, and though she'd briefly pondered heading to the common room to talk to the television, or something, what she ended up doing was wandering the dorms. Not one to ignore someone who seems like they might be in trouble, she stops when she sees the other girl sitting in the stairwell.

"Hey," she says quietly, sitting down next to her. "What's wrong?"

[grenfelzer]

"Well, she seems to know what she's talking about," Carmela admits. "She let me keep my... hey! If they came here, I could disintegrate them," she tells Door seriously.

[notajar]

Door blinks. "You can do that?"

[grenfelzer]

"I'm not supposed to use it on students or teachers, obviously," Carmela says, all seriousness. "But since these Croup and Vandemar people are very obviously neither, and in fact seem to be of the very nastiest type of people in general... I would."

[notajar]

"They're not really people," Door says seriously. "They're just sort of people-shaped."

[grenfelzer]

"All the more reason, then."

[notajar]

"I don't know if it would work or not," Door says thoughtfully, the idea of possibly getting rid of those two forever oddly moving her away from sadness and into a more purposeful frame of mind. Not vengeful, really, just... practical. "Nobody's ever managed to kill them before; I'm not sure they're even alive. They don't bleed."

[grenfelzer]

"If they're not human, maybe they don't *have* blood to bleed. Or something," Carmela muses.

[notajar]

"They may've been, once. They've been around since before my grandfather's time." Door shrugs, then perhaps looks slightly vicious for a second. "A knee to the crotch still works, though."

[grenfelzer]

Carmela barks out a laugh at that. "Good to know."

[notajar]

"An old family friend sent me the picture." Door puts the tiny cap back on the silver message-tube. "Sorry about... well, no, I'm not, though I'm sorry to dump it all over you. It's just the first chance I've had to slow down and...let go, I suppose. It's not been safe, before."

[grenfelzer]

"I get that," Carmela says, thinking of this past spring. "Believe me, I do. Don't worry about it."

[notajar]

Door smiles slightly, then, realizing she doesn't even know the other girl's name, or vice versa, says, "I'm Door, by the way."

[grenfelzer]

"Carmela," Carmela grins. "Hey, I was gonna go talk to the television for a bit. Wanna come with?"

[notajar]

"You can talk to televisions?" Door asks with interest, standing up and brushing off her trousers. She tucks the message tube into her pocket. "With words, or just..." She waves a hand, a bit at a loss for description. "I can talk to locks, I guess you could say, but I do it with my hands."

[grenfelzer]

"With words," Carmela nods. "Everything understands the Speech, even things that aren't alive the way we're used to thinking of things as alive."