A/N: In various corners of the internet, Zero no Tsukaima crossovers are really popular just now. This is going to serve as a repository for my takes on the subject, one per chapter. First up, the start of a (currently stalled) Team Fortress 2 crossover I'm calling RED ZERO.
It was a beautiful day for those gathered in the spacious courtyard of the Tristain Academy of Magic. These children of the aristocracy were here to learn magic, the emblem of the nobility in this land. In the massive four-towered Academy as in their own family's compounds, these young nobles knew no privation or hardship, their every need or desire met by servants, by wealth and by magic itself.
This was shortly to change, because Louise Francoise de Blanc de la Valliere was about to attempt the Summon Servant spell again.
"What's she going to summon?"
"Bet she can't. Bet it's another explosion."
"You're on! Even if she fails the Summon Servant spell, nothing'll happen, not an explosion."
"Haven't shared classes with her yet, eh?"
The students as a whole took a long step back.
She began. "Oh my Servant, who exists somewhere in the universe! Oh great familiar spirit, I beg - I command," she corrected herself. "Answer my summons and appear!"
The smart students found something or someone to hide behind.
Almost instantly, an explosion tore up the Academy courtyard, emanating from Louise de la Valliere's wand. Students went flying, though the unfocused blast didn't result in any serious injuries.
"I knew it," Montmorency groaned.
"Is everyone all right?" their professor Colbert called as the dust began to clear.
The one summoned brushed dust off his suit. That green oval was, bar none, the worst teleport he had ever experienced. Dell Conagher, their engineer, was a genius by comparison. He'd just assumed the Texan was experimenting again; it'd seemed like a useful upgrade, a window they could step through instead of a platform they were forced to stand on to make use of the teleportation.
Now, where had he appeared? Noting that he was surrounded, he activated his Cloak and Dagger, vanishing entirely. Of course, he was surrounded by schoolchildren if the uniforms were to be believed, so his initial alarm appeared unfounded.
"Ahh, that's our Louise the Zero," Karce cooed.
"I felt that one work!" Louise protested.
"Yes," Karce said gravely, looking around at the destroyed lawn. "A success, certainly."
The other students burst into laughter.
The gentleman spy considered. So the pink one seemed the most likely culprit. A budding engineer, or something stranger? Not a particularly successful one if the mocking laughter was anything to go by. He'd have to keep an eye on her. But first…
Louise started as someone patted her on the shoulder consolingly before she felt a body brush past her. She spun around, but there was no one there.
"Professor Colbert," she said, weirded out, "are there any familiars that can turn invisible?"
"Ah, none that I can immediately think of," Colbert pondered.
"Poor Louise, reduced to making up imaginary familiars," Kirsche shook her head faux-sadly.
"But I felt-" Louise sighed. "Nevermind."
At the back of the crowd, a man all in red from the tips of his red leather shoes to the red slash of a tie to the red balaclava covering his face briefly appeared. A pudgy boy dropped to the ground like an axed tree from a professional chop to the back of a head. A second, identical Malicorne the Windward took the RED spy's place, picked up the boy and carried him off, humming a jaunty French tune. The students, watching the free entertainment that was Louise de la Valliere, didn't notice.
Malicorne slowly came back to consciousness, the world seeming oddly blurry. Then he rolled over and puked.
"Ah, a concussion. I am sorry about zat. Hit you a leettle too hard, zere, I am afraid. Too used to fighting in Redmond and Blutarch's land-war I suppose." The voice was deep, that of an adult man. The accent was soft and smooth, not one he could place. It wasn't Albion or Romalia, Malicorne was pretty sure.
Malicorne wriggled upright and away from the puddle of sick on the ground, the action made more complicated by the fact that something was binding his arms behind his back. When he finally managed it, he was shocked to find an exact copy of himself looking at him.
The Malicorne clone was sitting in one of the wooden chairs - they seemed to be an unused classroom - smoking a long, thin cigarette.
He whispered, "Wah-what are you?"
"Hmm. A good question," his clone murmured in that deep voice that seemed very out of place coming from Malicorne. "However, I did not make off wiz you to talk about me. Let us talk about you."
Malicorne gathered himself through the terror that was creeping up his spine. "I am Malicorne de Grandple, called Malicorne the Windward, dot mage and noble of the house of Grandple! What is it you seek?"
"Information, boy, did I not already say zis? Try and keep up."
"I mean what are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing, if you do not give me trouble. I will keep you here while I have need of your body to move about freely. I am not a cruel man, but I do expect to be obeyed. So, you are Monsieur de Grandple. Next question, where are we? What is zis place?"
Malicorne really hoped the clone just needed his image, not… anything else. "How can you not know where you are?"
The clone suddenly had a knife in its hand, spinning it lazily but pointedly over his knuckles and through his fingers with great skill. Malicorne's attention was now well and truly grabbed.
"Yes!" he squeaked. "Tristain Academy of Magic. Sir."
"… And ze country?"
"… Tristain. Bordered by Gallia to the south and Germania in the east, and Albion the White Country." He kept going, seeing the utter lack of recognition on his own face staring back at him. "On the continent of Helkeginia."
The displaced spy realized with an unpleasant sinking sensation that he recognized none of those names.
Malicorne was not, in fact, stupid. He had been taken only moments after Louise had performed her botched Summon Servant spell, and was currently faced with a clone of himself that did not know its own location. He swiftly came to a conclusion that, while wrong, wasn't entirely off-base. "You! You're the familiar Louise summoned! She summoned a Doppelganger! I thought you were just myths!"
The doppelganger zeroed in only on one particular part of that, letting Malicorne draw his own conclusions. "'Summoned', you say. Does zis involve a green oval, around six feet tall, standing freely in ze air wizout support?"
"Uh, not on our end. Maybe. We just do the spell, wave the wand, and something appears that's supposed to match our inner magic. I got a- hey, where's my owl?"
"Flew off somewhere, I assume. Explain zis 'magic'," his clone commanded.
Malicorne boggled. "I'm not sure how - I mean, we're still students. We're still learning the hard stuff."
Malicorne's double's chuberic face was frowning. "Try," his clone commanded.
"Okay, well, there are five elements, but nobody uses Void anymore. So that leaves Fire, Water, Earth and Wind. We're all better at one thing or another; I'm a Wind mage. As we improve, we hit plateaus in our powers called dot, line, triangle and square. Square's the highest most mages can do. A dot mage like myself can only use one element, but a line can use two, a triangle three, etcetera."
"And do you need zese sticks to do your magic?" The clone was now balancing Malicorne's wand on his index finger like it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Yes! Please don't break it, those are expensive."
The wand was once again safely stowed away on the clone's person.
The false Malicorne leaned back and took a long, slow puff of his cigarette. Held it in, then released it slowly. People liked it when they saw themselves in others; they would be more inclined to trust people like themselves. A good spy needed to have a certain ability to change the way they thought, to blend in with other people. And he was a very good spy, indeed. But… magic.
Well, never mind. Whether it was merely insufficiently explained technology, as the saying went, or whether things were different here did not really matter to him. In this place at this time, he would accept that magic existed, was a real force in these people's lives. Everyone here believed it, so he would too.
"Very well. Zis will be somewhat harder than anticipated, zat is all. Now, we will discuss your friends and schedule. And a certain girl…"
The man picked Malicorne's brain until he'd gotten everything he thought might be of use, before allowing the boy to rest.
"I'll pick you up something from the kitchens after class," the clone said, and left Malicorne alone.
Louise turned casually, her eyes sweeping over the other students filing in. Same old, same old. No one looked like they were dying to take a shot at her for the Summon Servant ritual, though it was probably just a matter of time.
And jerked back so far she almost fell out of her chair. "Holy Brimir! What is that!" she whispered furiously to the boy next to her. He followed her bug-eyed gaze, a little curious. "What are we looking at? Is it behind Malicorne and Guiche?"
Seated beside Guiche and Montmorency was a man in red. He had a paper mask over his face with a cutesy little drawing of the chubby, smiling Malicorne the Windward on it. His gloved hands were folded attentively before him, and he was looking down at the professor. Or at least, the mask was pointed that way. Seeming to sense her gaze, he turned to look directly at her.
Guiche leaned back and muttered something to him, and the man spoke back - in Malicorne's usual drawling, slightly-hoarse voice. Guiche laughed and turned back to pay court to Montmorency as he usually did.
She looked around. No one else seemed to think anything of the bizarre sight. Why didn't anyone else seem to notice him?
And why did something inside her tell her to kiss him?
The boy on her right edged away at ground the heels of her palms against her face to try and force that thought out.
Throughout the lesson, she kept stealing peeks at the elephant in the room. But every time she did his masked face would turn just a little toward her, aware of her regard, which would spook her enough to jerk her gaze away. The little hairs on her arms were crawling beneath that faceless stare.
She didn't hear more than one word in a dozen from professor Colbert the whole lesson.
Afterwards, she couldn't escape the classroom quickly enough, only to run into the weird thing in the hallways, and in the cafeteria, and again in the dorms. The creepy humanoid usually had the picture of Malicorne on his mask, though sometimes it was Montmorency or Guiche, and one time a third year student she had seen but didn't know.
He never seemed to notice her visibly after that time in the classroom, but he was always there, casually talking to other students or just hanging around watchfully. Or was it only one? Louise couldn't say for sure; all she could be sure of was that they wore the same foreign, impeccably pressed crimson suit.
She finally lost him - them? - outside the kitchens.
Louise spent the rest of the day huddled under her blanket in her dorm, her nerves too shot to even leave the safety of her room.
He shook his head. Somehow, the girl could ferret him out, see through his disguises. Every single time.
She was relatively subtle about it after that first time, but it was obvious enough when the girl would turn 90 degrees rather than passing him in the corridors, or even pull an about-face right after entering a room that contained him.
It was yet another variable that was going to make his plan to observe the girl more complicated, and his plan was already relying on far too many 'ifs' for his peace of mind. If she would be willing to help him, if she could replicate her feat at all… this was an interesting place, but he was quite fond of his original world.
Well, he did have other tricks in his bag besides his wizardry with disguises.
He decided to let the hooked fish run with his line, so to speak. He did have a growing boy stuffed into a closet to take care of as well, after all.
The kitchens were pathetically easy to infiltrate. Tristainian servants were so used to acceding to their nobles' irrational demands that he could probably do anything he felt like in this guise and the commoners wouldn't - couldn't - say a word.
It was a rather repugnant situation, even for a man who made assassination and espionage his stock in trade.
It was some time after the nobles' dinner, but the kitchens were still bustling. Servants moved about on errands with practiced ease, and the wood-burning stoves were lit and cooking an array of simple but hearty fare, nothing like the elaborate dishes made for the mages. It seemed the servants ate late, after their 'betters' had retired.
They had noticed his entrance, of course, and deferred to his noble self. He decided to take the tack of irritating but harmless nobleman. He was already beginning to think of it as his 'Guiche' persona, even despite his short acquaintance with the lad.
He smiled charmingly with his borrowed mouth. "Forgive me for interrupting your work, but I had hoped I could take away a dish of whatever you have cooking? I find myself quite peckish."
"Oh, a'course we have to drop everything whenever one a' the nobles fancies an evening snack…"
The chef who was grumbling was a stout, hairy man with a definite belly but thick, powerful arms. He was the closest thing to a rebel to the established order he had yet seen in this land.
"I do apologize for throwing off your schedules."
The chef looked unimpressed. "Siesta, load up a tray for him so we can get him out of our hair."
'Siesta' turned out to be one of the servants, a cute little thing in a simple but well-made black dress and white apron. She wore her black hair in a sort of pageboy cut with long bangs and her features were vaguely asian.
Where the chef was surly, the maid was frightened when confronted by a noble. Terrified might not be too strong a word. It left him feeling repulsed. The mark of good leaders were that they were better loved than feared by their people; all too many in power believed Macchiavelli's treatise on that point, and preferred to rule through fear. It was obvious that the nobles of Tristain were of the latter. It might make his job easier in certain circumstances, but he did not like it.
He dipped into a short but courteous bow, one hand behind his back. With the other he held her hand and brought it to his lips, though his lips never touched her knuckles. "Please be at ease. I can handle a tray well enough that you need not bother yourself on my account."
She simultaneously blushed and wilted, obviously torn between embarrassment and nerves. The fright seemed to be winning.
The chef, evidently feeling protective of the maid, drew him upright with one of his burly arms with as much difficulty as he would lift a child and swiftly sent him on his way. Within moments, he found himself outside the kitchens with a bowl of fragrant stew and slightly stale bread in hand.
He shrugged and went on his way. He engaged his Cloak halfway to the unused classrom he's stashed Malicorne in and didn't remove it until he was in front of the correct door, just in case someone might be in the position to see 'Malicorne' wandering around with a tray of food.
The clone was back. "Dinner time, boy."
Malicorne groaned. "Finally! I thought I was going to starve. Also, I've lost feeling in my hands."
The spy took this opportunity to not need to mimic the boy's voice, allowing his own accent to shine through. "I do not enjoy zis eizer, you realize. Much easier to just kill you and hide your body in ze refuse." The clone really didn't look bothered by that thought.
Malicorne gulped. "On second thought, it's really not so bad. Being tied up isn't too hard to get used to," he back-tracked.
"Zat's what I zought." In short order, Malicorne was set free and handed a spoon. He fell to with a will, devouring the meal with zeal. Considering Malicorne, a noble, had never been denied anything and that he obviously enjoyed his food from the look of him, only eating twice in one day was probably unpleasant.
"So, if I can ask, what have you been up to in my body?" he said between bites.
"You really do not grasp zis 'prisoner' concept, do you?"
"Well, it's really boring in here," Malicorne said in defense.
"Very well," the clone shrugged. "I have not accomplished much as of yet. I have attended classes, I have observed ze goings on of ze school. Tonight, I shall investigate your library and sleep in your bed."
"I'm surprised Guiche and Montmorency didn't notice anything." Surprised and a little hurt. "You must be very good. Or can you read minds?" Malicorne looked at him with a paranoid look that wouldn't have looked out of place on a soldier of the spy's acquaintance.
"I am very good," he said simply. "And now, it is time for ze closet again."
Malicorne eyed him for a long moment, weighing his chances if the spy read him right, but presented his hands obediently. The spy could respect him for that, being able to recognize that one of them held all the cards in this scenario and wait for a better chance.
The boy still ended up in the closet, of course.
The library, unfortunately, turned out to be something of a dead end. For one thing, it was not quite as impressive a collection as he'd hoped upon hearing the word 'library'. In a pre-industrial society without a printing press, even a prestigious school might only have half a hundred books in its collection, each one an expensive, hand-scribed work of art.
And then there was the fact that though the people here seemed to speak his native French, their writing was some runic alphabet that shared similarities but was not quite right. It was like trying to read something written five hundred years ago. He could read it, but it was slow-going, often requiring him to sound out the words or reread it several times to ensure he understood, like a child just learning to read.
He had borrowed (stolen) only one that was entitled 'Thee Historie ofe Magicke'. He could work his way through it in his spare time.
He was pleasantly surprised by Malicorne's room, at least. Considering this was a school for nobles, perhaps he shouldn't have been. The room was large and would be well-lit in the morning from the window. The bed was queen-sized and stuffed with goose feather, there was a standing wash-basin filled with clean water and a source-less illumination that he presumed to be magic.
He had discovered that the popular blond boy, Guiche, was his nearest neighbor in this level of the dorms, being located some twenty-five steps down the hallway. He headed over, intending to speak with Guiche and try to subtly inquire about the light magic.
Instead, he got to witness a rather young brown-haired student knock on his door thrice, and the door opened swiftly to reveal Guiche. The girl was attractive and well-formed, if not as eye-catching as Guiche's blonde sweetheart Montmorency, as he'd come to expect from the students here. They were all the sons and daughters of aristocrats and courtiers, after all, having the money and inclination to present a pleasing appearance before prospective allies.
Well, that did put a new spin on things, but it ultimately wasn't his problem. They began to converse, Guiche placing a hand on the small of her back to guide her just inside the doorway, out of sight of casual eyes. He also waved his hand over the light and it appreciably dimmed.
That answered the question he hadn't even been sure how to ask without revealing an un-Malicorne-like ignorance. But having no other pressing issues, the faux-noble drifted closer. The girl, who he learned was named Katie, was offering Guiche baked goods.
"Truly, your cooking is divine, Katie. I must surely be blessed beyond all men," Guiche declared.
Katie giggled coquettishly.
He had to shake his head. Ah, young love. Or lust, at least.
He spoke in Malicorne's voice, "Really, Guiche. Must you posture for every woman you meet?"
"I am a rose," Guiche said primly. "And a rose exists for the pleasure of all."
Guiche really was like he'd been, when he was that age - just a little less competent and a little more verbose.
He withdrew, leaving them to their own devices. Whatever else he was, a voyeur of children he was not.
The next day was set aside for masters and their familiars to bond. This mostly seemed to involve sitting at tables set up outside in the courtyard, sipping tea and eating small biscuits in the company of the various animal familiars. He'd pulled up a chair with a pair of second years, one with a black cat and the other with a bizarre floating eye thing. He gathered from them that creating the green portals and absconding with unaware creatures (including poor unaware spies) was commonplace in these parts, since every single one of these mages had a creature of some kind with them.
He once again had cause to bless the self-absorbed natures of the nobles around him. Not a single one bothered to question that 'Malicorne's' owl was missing.
Lacking a better idea, he attended and observed the other nobles. Unfortunately, Louise was not among them. Just from what he had pieced together from his own observations and talking with other nobles, he would have thought her the type to brazen it out and come anyway, despite not having a familiar, which he gathered was a mark of shame.
It had occurred to him that by the standards of Tristain, he might be supposed to be this girl's familiar, having stepped through her portal. He wasn't particularly enthused with what amounted to magical slavery. Redmond paid him a premium for his services, and the exit clause on his contract was much more friendly than what a 'lifelong familiar' would be expected to hold to.
But no matter. The girl would have to get her lips on him to seal the deal, and that was unlikely to happen.
He had just resolved to investigate her absence when there was some sort of commotion not far from his table.
It seemed to center on Guiche, as these things tended to do. Mildly interested, he joined the other staring onlookers.
"Montmorency, please," the blond noble was saying. "Do not become angry. I merely dropped your fragrance and this servant girl picked it up for me. Terribly remiss of me, I know, but please direct your anger for that faux pas onto me. She has nothing to do with me."
The even more blonde noble, Montmorency, was scowling. The jealous type, he assumed. The target of her ire was the wilting maid he had met in the kitchens, whose name had been…
"Ah yes, Siesta," he murmured.
Montmorency wheeled around. "You know this servant, Malicorne?"
He shrugged and answered. "Somewhat, yes. She is rather cute, as you have observed, but she wouldn't try to poach Guiche away from you. She's far too terrified of nobles to attempt it. Rightfully so, of course, since I gather you could strike her without any negative repercussions."
He sighed and said to himself, "Even serfs would have it better than the servants here do."
"Montmorency, this display is beneath you," Guiche pleaded. "Please do not twist your rose-like features so. A rose spreads joy where it may, but my heart does not wander so fickly. Your fragrance is the only one that I would wear."
The disguised noble sucked in a breath as his gaze alighted on Katie, the first year student from last night, had emerged from the crowd just as he said those words. Her souffle trembled in her hands. At first he thought her trembling, but he swiftly divined that she was shaking in rage. Due to having their backs to her, neither Guiche nor Montmorency saw the explosion about to happen.
"Oh, really, Guiche de Gramont?" she growled, her voice doing a passable impression of the hosts of hell.
Guiche wheeled around, and gulped. "Ah. Katie. What… a… surprise." He came up blank, his playboy instincts failing him. He really looked like he hadn't expected this very scene when dating several women at once.
Montmorency piled on. "And this girl is…?" she said with veiled menace.
Guiche's eyes darted around, looking for someone to blame to extricate him from this mess. But he would not stoop so low as to cast blame on the women, and 'Malicorne' was the only other male within striking distance.
He shot Guiche a pitying glance. "Really, you have no one but yourself to blame, Guiche. One woman at a time should be more than enough for any man." He himself was popular with the fairer sex, but he treasured each romance before moving on to the next. Two-timing was terribly gauche.
Montmorency and Katie were not stupid, and had swiftly come to the more-or-less correct conclusions. They were looking angry enough to start flinging spells at any moment, and Siesta was in their line of fire as much as each other and Guiche were. Siesta was just cowering behind her tray, inching her way back and towards Malicorne.
Guiche dithered. He finally hissed at the other man, "You saw this unfolding. How could you allow such shame to fall upon these ladies?"
"Take responsibility for your actions, Guiche, or I will force you to do so," Malicorne spoke seriously, unimpressed. "Your actions caused this shame to fall upon these three women, not mine."
Guiche took a deep breath and, somewhat to Malicorne's surprise, manned up. "Montmorency. Katie. Let us retire to my room and I will give an accounting of myself to you, away from these prying eyes."
Montmorency scowled impressively. "You'd better make it good."
The two girls stomped off with their unlucky paramour.
He was a little curious to know if this would end with a duel to the death between Montmorency and Katie or the two women teaming up to beat Guiche like a drum, but even a spy didn't need to know everything.
He turned back to the rest of the gawking nobles. "The afternoon show is over now. Perhaps you all would care to get back to what you're supposed to be doing?"
Apparently his crisp command had had the right amount of authority in it, for most of the students obeyed and turned back to their previous conversations. The only exceptions were a well-endowed redhead and the blue-haired girl with the dragon, who were looking at him speculatively.
He did his best to ignore them, recognizing that he may have been acting un-Malicornely. This brought his attention to the maid that had accidentally started all this. She was staring at him in a rather different manner than the other two. Almost… worshipfully.
Almost hungrily.
Ah. Ahah.
"Well, you seem safe, and that's all over, so I shall be going now."
The false Malicorne turned and all but fled from the delectable but certainly underage girl.
Osman, headmaster of the Magic Academy, looked at Louise from across his desk. The girl fidgeted and then straightened, obviously reminding herself that it was beneath a noble to squirm. Then a few moments later she'd repeat the process. He was half tempted to just keep staring and see how long she'd continue if left to her own devices.
De Loungeville coughed quietly, reminding him to stay on task. Honestly, the woman was a slavedriver. Great legs, though.
"Um, headmaster, there's something weird going on. I've been seeing things since the Summon Familiar ceremony," Louise blurted out.
Had the poor girl cracked under the pressure? Old Osman wondered. With the pressure to perform well all the students were placed under, to not shame their families, it was not unheard of. And he'd had reports of the youngest Valliere; clever in magical theory and hard-working, but seemingly unable to cast the simplest spells without exploding a classroom or setting something on fire.
"There's this man, all in red, with a mask over his face. He's been sitting in on our lectures, and following me around, and nobody else can see him!"
It certainly sounded like the poor thing had gone round the bend, but Old Osman had been around long enough, and seen enough strange and inexplicable things that he couldn't say with true certainty that she was seeing things that were not there.
Well, Louise Valliere sounded shaken enough that perhaps his own news wouldn't be as badly received as he'd first thought. "I will have someone look into it," he promised her.
"However, that isn't why I called you up, Miss Valliere. It would seem word reached your family of your -" he tried to think of a more politic word than 'failed', and subbed in, "third attempt at the Springtime Familiar Ceremony. I am afraid your father has demanded you be pulled from the program and sent home. I am given to understand that you will be resuming bridal training for an eventual marriage."
Osman would have liked to reason with the man, stalled for more time, but his hands were tied. It was within the family's purview to decide to remove their child from schooling, and the Vallieres were among the most powerful nobles in Tristain, financially and magically.
He still wished he had made the attempt when he saw Louise curl inward like a wilting violet.
"I understand," she whispered. Despite the blow, she weathered it in a manner befitting a noble. "Thank you for informing me, headmaster."
"Your carriage is on its way and should be here later today."
The spy shook his head, frowning, even as he slipped out the door when Louise exited and let his cloaking field fade. She couldn't see through his Cloak as she could his disguises, it would seem and she was too dazed - or perhaps just unobservant - to notice his invisible presence near her.
Still, this was a problem. The pink one could not be allowed to leave, she was his best chance of understanding what had happened and recreating the experience.
Malicorne was bored. He was more bored than he'd ever been in his life. One could only count the spider webs in his closet for the tenth or so time before the game lost its luster. He was bored enough that trying to access his magic without a wand seemed preferable to just sitting here in the dimness.
So he was alternately straining his muscles and relaxing, focusing on his wind magic the way he had been taught and relaxing again, trying to visualize different effects in his mind, and basically trying to rediscover a lost art of magic. He had nothing better to do with his suddenly abundant free time.
He was resting from his endeavors again when he heard a scrabbling on the other side of the door.
"What? Is someone… is someone there?" he asked, fear and hope warring in his chest. "I'm here in this closet!"
Scrabble. Scrape. Bump. Something was knocked down from where it had been resting against his closet door.
His potential rescuer sounded close, and low to the ground. A child, perhaps.
Then he heard a soft hoot and his heart soared again. "Aloysius! Bless you, you magnificent bird! You came back for me!"
He started wrestling with the doorknob and between his efforts within and his bird's without, eventually turned and dumped him out almost on top of his familiar.
"Oh thank the Founder," he whispered. Aloysius was pecking at his bound hands, tearing at the rope and drawing blood, but he shook her off. "No time, we need to get out of here before it comes back."
His owl familiar obediently returned to his shoulder and he ran like the hounds of hell were after him. Well, perhaps not a hellhound, only a doppelganger that would doubtless decide a fleeing prisoner was more trouble alive than dead.