fandomhighdorms | The Stables: Wednesday afternoon

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The Stables: Wednesday afternoon

Having no classes, Karal had spent the day working with Trenor. They'd finished, now, were just spending some time cooling down, when Trenor suddenly lifted his head, staring, every muscle tight and trembling.

"Easy, easy, Trenor, it's all right." Karal tried to soothe his horse, looking around to try and spot what had upset him. The only thing out of the ordinary was a slightly tacky statue at the edge of the preserve. "I did not know you were an art critic," he said lightly, trying to lead Trenor away.

The horse had turned into rock, hooves planted, refusing to budge. Karal just shook his head.

When, after several minutes, he still couldn't convince him to move, he reached up to cover both of the horse's eyes. It was only for a moment, because Trenor shook his hands off, but when Karal glanced back over his shoulder, the statue was gone.

Its absence meant Trenor was once more his old tractable self; Karal, however, was staring at the spot it had been.

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Having not wanted to disturb Liir, Evey made her way down to the stables, a few bags and cases in her arms and slung over her shoulders. She'd leave the door cracked, but this was her best idea of where to get the bombs made, at least.

Of course, she should have accounted for company, though she was so immersed in going through the steps in her head that she didn't notice Karal initially.

Trenor snorted and Karal looked away from the spot he'd been watching, smiling when he saw it was Evey. He slipped out of the stableyard, leaving Trenor with his head hanging over the gate, watching both of them.

"Can I take some of that?" he asked. "If you wanted to move, I could have found space in my room. The stables are only nice to sleep in if you're a horse."

"Karal!" Evey almost smiled, but it didn't get to her eyes. "I -- careful, this is all very delicate. I'm not moving, I'm just borrowing the stables for a workspace. I'm glad you're okay."

His smile faded and he very carefully took some of what she was carrying, holding it as delicately as he could. "There is a space in the tack room you can have," he offered. "Evey? What's wrong?"

Karal, as a general rule, didn't listen to the radio, and he'd been with Trenor all day.

"You haven't heard?" Evey's eyes went wide, but she shook it off. "You haven't heard. All right. Is there ventilation in the tack room?" She was already heading for it, willing to relocate if it wouldn't work. "And is Trenor sensitive to smells? I don't want to upset him."

Trenor was looking at them both sadly, head hanging over the gate. "I will leave him out here, and there's both a window and a door in the tack room. Will that be enough?" He was leading the way as he spoke, feeling the first stirrings of worry. "What is it that I don't know?"

"That'll be fine," she said quietly, gingerly setting her things down in the tack room once they reached it and moving over to crack the window. "Have you seen any of those angel statues around town?"

"There was one at the edge of the preserve. Trenor was badly scared by it, but then I turned around and it was just gone." He set his things down and started clearing everything off the old battered table, creating a work space. He also made sure the door to the stables was tightly closed. "It was very odd."

"Principal Washburn made an announcement earlier," Evey said simply, looking at him before opening her case and unloading newspapers and fertilizer, as well as a few tightly-sealed bottles. "Those statues are sending people to the past, apparently."

Karal just looked at her, trying to make sense of that, the earlier brush of worry turning into a solid lump in his stomach. "I don't understand."

"From what she said, the statues are somehow sending people back to times in the twentieth century -- they got some letters, I guess? -- and everyone's all right, but the angel statues are doing it," Evey said seriously, watching him as she laid out her supplies.

"Oh." He was beginning to hate that word. But he was making sense of it, now, and he quailed at how close that statue had been. "Sunlord."

He closed his eyes briefly, wanting to ask who'd been taken, wanting to run out and see for himself, but it wouldn't help. "How do we get them back?" he asked, a little shakily, but he made himself be calm as he opened his eyes. "What can I do to help?"

"I don't know," Evey admitted, worry etched in her features. "She just said not to go near them until we know more."

She pulled out some chemical fertilizer and a bottle of petrol.

"I'm not very good at sitting still, so I'm going after them."

Karal wasn't surprised for even a moment. "Then I'll help you," he decided. "I know nothing about explosions, but I can watch for you, and I am very good at following instructions."

She opened her mouth to stop him, but realized she wanted him to help, and just pulled out a pair of goggles for him. "If you're going to stay in here with me, I want you to protect your eyes," she said, offering a little smile. "I'm making very simple fertilizer bombs today, so it won't take me long."

He nodded, grateful she was letting him help, grateful for something to do, and took the goggles, turning them over in his hands before he figured out how to put them on. Before he did, though, he brushed his hand over her shoulder. "Thank you."

"Of course," she said, reaching up to touch his hand and trying to look reassuring. "It's not going to smell nice in here, but it really shouldn't take long."

She considered the ingredients before her. "These are what V used when we blew up Parliament. They should do the trick."

"An auspicious history," he said softly. "Let me just--" He grabbed a spare saddle blanket, soaked it in the sink, then rolled it and put it at the bottom of the door into the stable. "To keep anything from getting into the stable."

Karal slipped his goggles on, making a face at how they felt, then moved to stand near her shoulder, not crowding her, just there to help.

Evey nodded, smiling gently at him before carefully beginning to make little packets out of newspaper and load them with the fertilizer. "The petrol and cotton are going to react with the chemicals in the fertilizer," she explained quietly, working quickly. "Once we light them, anyway, but not before then."

"I had no idea fertiliser was so dangerous. I thought it was just for growing things." He kept his voice very low and quiet, not wanting disturb her concentration. "Do you need me to do anything?"

Evey bit her lip. "You can cut some fuses, if you'd like?" she offered, pulling out a length of shoestring and some scissors. "They should be about this long." She held her hands a small distance apart. "It'll afford us enough time to run after we set them up."

The only explosion Karal had ever seen were the fireworks Evey had shown him, but he knew what had happened in the boiler explosion in Valdemar. Time to run sounded important. "Altra could Jump us away, instead," he offered as he began to cut the fuses. "It would be safer."

"That would be handy," she agreed thoughtfully as she carefully began assembling the cotton and newspaper. "We put the bombs on the Tube when we did Parliament, so we were far off when they went."

Karal watched her as he cut the fuses, remembering what she was doing. "I don't know what a Tube is," he said softly. "And if we can make a show of strength, maybe they will stop taking people. Like scaring wolves off with fire. And if we can make them stop taking people, we will have time to discover how to retrieve them."

"Exactly. We have to stop them from taking more. I have to try. I can't not." Evey smiled, reassured. "Um, the Tube is the London underground train. The subway, if you know what those are."

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