I woke up the next day and started shuffling through papers as normal. If Sun said Leaf would be fine, he would be fine, and going over to check on Leaf this early would probably disturb his sleep.
I shook my head at the stack of cleric applicant forms. The writer certainly had neat handwriting, but paid little attention to detail, which would be why the forms ended up in my room for amending. I ended up to adding entire sections of additional clarification for people unfamiliar with church terminology, so by the time breakfast rolled around, I was only halfway done.
I'll go ask Leaf what he wants and get food for both of us. He might be awake by now. I absent mindedly tried to open the door, when a sharp pain shot through my hand. I stuck my entire hand into the pitcher of water on my desk. When the sting had mostly faded, I pulled it out and tried to avoid dripping water on to my desk or papers. The scar on my hand was red and feathery, just like the wounds electrocuted people had on their backs. It vanished completely with a Minor Heal.
Frowning, I tried to figure out why my doorknob managed to upgrade from static shocks to lightning bolts. It was obvious who did this; Sun was the only one capable of using lightning magic. But what exactly had I done to be trapped in my room like this? Maybe he thought I was slacking off yesterday...
Since I was stuck here, I just continued correcting the application forms with one hand, using the other to cram a bun I bought yesterday into my mouth. I have to eat something or I'll starve at the meeting today. It should be a long one, since we'll be discussing any problems that might arise from the area that was just torched by those demon wolves. Too bad I can't skip this one... My writing hand froze as I chewed furiously, considering how not being able to open my electrified door might affect my attendance at the meeting.
I broke out into a cold sweat. If Judgment found out I skipped out on this meeting... I already annoyed him enough yesterday. What if he stops filling out his own paperwork? Judgment's trial records usually included details of the interrogation procedure, enough of them that just thinking of trying to read through all of those made my skin crawl. Even now, I still tried to avoid walking through the halls of the Judge Complex while executions or questioning sessions were going on. Killing people quickly is one thing. Torturing them is another thing entirely. But Judgment considered each case and punishment so carefully that I could never blame him for his methods, despite how gruesome most of them were...
Wrenching my mind away from the possible consequences of skipping a mandatory meeting, I tried to find an escape route. There were two doors in my room. One led outside and was currently not usable. The other led to my bathroom, which wasn't very helpful right now. I scrutinized my window. It was a lovely window, fairly small but enough to let blessed rays of sunlight illuminate my room during daylight hours, saving me from spending money on extra candles. I opened the window to its fullest and thanked the God of Light for sending some sunshine instead of rain today.
I was currently staring at my just-small-enough-to-be-useless window in frustration. After spending some time trying to squeeze my shoulders or hips through (depending if I was trying to go head-first or feet-first), I had to conclude it was impossible for me to use the window to leave.
A leaf knight jogged up to Vice-Captain Storm in the dining hall.
"Caspar, while I was birdwatching -"
Caspar, the Storm Knight's vice-captain, swallowed his sandwich and interrupted his friend. "Where can you even go birdwatching in the Holy Temple?"
"There's this huge patch of bushes at the very back, just outside the captain's quarters. The birds love eating the berries there, and there's so many of them in the morning that I sit there quietly to watch them. But that's not what I came to talk to you about. I swear I saw your captain's legs waving out the window!"
"Are you sure it was my captain? All of the Twelve Holy Knights have rooms right next to each other..."
"The legs were wearing brown knee-high boots."
Caspar nodded. All the other knight captains with high boots wore white ones. After thanking the birdwatcher, he stood up and told the other Storm Knights to meet him by their captain's door, briefing them quietly of the suspicious scenario.
The slightly concerned platoon immediately stood up and wiped the crumbs off their faces as they headed over, already speculating.
"Captain was probably doing something weird. You know how all the other captains have... quirks... too."
"Sticking his legs out the window isn't going to help him correct anything. I doubt it's something he normally does."
"Do you think Captain was trying to show off his long legs? His popularity has dropped recently..."
"The only ones who saw were the birds in the bushes and that other guy... Caspar, who gave you this info?"
"... He didn't want to be named, just in case."
"Smart guy," rang a chorus of storm knights. They'd all seen how their captain looked as he stormed the corridors intending to exact revenge on Knight-Captain Sun. None of them ever wanted to see that smile again.
As they approached the Storm Knight's door, they noticed a sign pasted on it and crowded around to read it. It simply said, "Please DO NOT DISTURB."
"Huh. Guess you were right. It was Captain being weird after all. Caspar, you'd better go warn that person to watch his back. With Captain's ability to ferret information, he's probably dead..."
A muffled voice came from the other side of the door. The Storm Knight Platoon simultaneously fell silent, trying to eavesdrop on any conversation that might be going on inside. They heard some muffled vocalizations for a while, and after a pause, it was replaced a steady knocking noise against the wall next to the door.
Something was definitely strange.
"Let's go in." Caspar suggested after around the fifteenth knock. Everyone else nodded bravely. If they would face the captain's wrath, they would do it together.
The storm knight closest to the door reached for the doorknob and suddenly jumped back.
Their Vice-Captain frowned. "What's wrong?"
The storm knights closest to the door swiveled their heads to reply, "There's lightning on the doorknob!"
One of the storm knights curiously poked the door frame a few times and offered, "The door frame gives off static shocks, so it's probably more than just the doorknob that's electrified. It'd be a bad idea to break down that door."
"Try the window, then." A storm knight close to the wall commented and tapped back on the wall. The room's occupant fell silent.
The platoon went around and outside to the back of the Twelve Holy Knight's quarters. Everyone was surprised to see neat, orderly rows of bushes, clearly pruned and weeded frequently. They did their best not to trample the short shrubs.
Counting the number of windows they passed carefully, the storm knights assembled in front of what should be the correct window and furiously knocked against the glass. It shot open almost immediately.
My hopes had wildly soared when I heard people outside my door, especially when someone seemed to knock back in reply. The silence after that was nerve-shattering. Each minute that passed was brought me closer and closer to resorting to either skipping the meeting or kicking down a wall to break out.
So when someone actually banged against the window pane, I was elated at being able to communicate with someone from the outer world.
For some reason, my entire platoon backed away as fast as they could when they saw my beaming face appear at the window. The poor bushes didn't stand a chance against the destructive capabilities of my stampeding platoon. Thankfully, Ice had already stripped the branches of berries, which should spare my platoon from becoming popsicles in the near future.
"Come back! This is an order!" I'm still stuck here!
They fell into formation outside the window, with expressions like they had resigned themselves to some horrible fate.
"I can't leave my room. There's some type of lightning magic on the door, and this window is too small for me to fit through. Tell the other Twelve Holy Knights I will be late to the meeting, and find someone to remove the magic on the door."
Caspar was the only one who dared to move to nod. "But Captain... You weren't the one who put the sign on your door?"
I blinked. "There's a sign? What does it say?"
"It said, 'Please do not disturb.' We would have assumed you were busy if you hadn't tapped on the wall."
"I wasn't the one who hung the sign up..." Suddenly, I began to have an idea what might have happened. "Do you have any way of determining whether a door has lightning on it without shocking yourselves?"
My platoon seemed much more relaxed by this point, despite the strange question.
Caspar reported, "The doorknob has miniature bolts playing across it, and the door frame can give off a static discharge, but not enough to injure anyone."
"In that case, see if Knight-Captain Leaf's door also displays these signs. If they do, find Knight-Captain Sun and remind him to visit Knight-Captain Leaf. That is all."
They left in a hurry, muttering things like, "When I saw that smile, I thought we were dead for sure!" and "Why are the captain's rooms nearly soundproof anyway?"
There wasn't much I could do besides wait for them to find Sun. If my suspicions were right, he was the one who placed the sign on my door. After noticing Leaf and I had been sick, he probably wanted us to sleep in peace and spelled the doors, then forgot to remove them. I checked the time. Actually... Sun probably wasn't even awake yet. I proofread the documents I would have to present at the meeting.
The air popped and something let off a very bright flash of light as my fragmented door slammed against the opposite wall. Something else fell with a thud outside my now empty doorway. I ran over and carefully flipped Blaze, the person lying in front of my doorway, into a more comfortable position. It took him a minute or two to snap out of his stunned state, jump up, and pat his fluffy new afro. He grinned broadly.
"That paper on your door was right! Kicking your door wasn't boring at all this time! See ya, Ceo!" He sprinted down the hall, smashing a few cabinet doors in along the way.
At least he had the tact not to kick down Leaf's door, despite the identical "Please DO NOT DISTURB" sign.
A/N: It's a little strange giving people names. But it would have been stranger not having people refer to Vice-Captain Storm by name. Most holy knights call Adair, Tyler and Vidar by name, including the captains. Thanks to Iris Frostbite, anonymous commenter on lucathia's A Vice Captain's Tale, who pointed out the "r" ending pattern on vice-captain names! (They also seem to have two syllable names, so I nearly named Storm's vice-captain Paper.)
*Also, according to V6C1, Sun meets with Judgment in the bathroom as the sun is about to set. Sorry about the inaccuracy in the previous chapter.