Through The Looking Glass || Bridget and... Roger?
A few of her fellow Scribes were being particular headaches today, and so Bridget had made her way into the library. Not wandering the stacks with any set goal, but rather just to have a breather. Ironic when she could find calm in a library within the HQ of a group of researchers. Not that she was about to complain. Bridget fiddled with Deirdre's necklace and adjusted her sweater, wandering past shelves and breathing in the smell before she made her way past one of the few mirrors in the library. Slipped past it before turning on her heels and walking back. Her reflection wasn't there. Bridget blinked a few times, in rapid succession, before staring again. There wasn't -- her reflection still wasn't there. Which should have been impossible, given her assured humanity. Plus, she'd seen her reflection just this morning. She squinted at the mirror in puzzlement before she saw a figure begin to appear, off to the side. Roger? She jumped, suddenly, whipping her head around... but he wasn't behind her, and as she looked back to the mirror she noticed a long red line covering one side of his face. One that Roger most certainly hadn't had last time she'd stopped by his office. Bridget sucked in a deep breath and took a step towards the mirror. "Hey!" She said, a loud whisper (you did have to respect library rules, after all). "Who the heck are you? Also how'd you get into the mirror?"
It had taken him a while to notice, but there was definitely something going on with the mirrors. Some were blackened, and others showed things they oughtn't. He hadn't had much time to investigate, too busy doing the writings other scribes were too lazy to, the things they always dumped on the rookie scribes. What he was. No one believed someone whose alternate self was a con artist could be a scribe, especially given how he looked. It was denigrating, laborious work, and he hated every second of it. But it was better than being back on the street and a target once again. Roger shuddered, typing up more illegible notes and only glancing at the library's mirror occasionally. The second he had an excuse to investigate, he did, and it was when he saw Bridget Blythe in the mirror but not in the room that he leapt to his feet and walked over. Not that the Blythe here was one to trust, but she was always a sharp one. His reflection wasn't there, but that was no bad thing. He hated his reflection these days. She mouthed words and he frowned. "I can't hear you." He said, then gestured to his ear with the hand he used to have.
She jumped when he gestured to his ear -- his had was missing. This was absolutely not the Roger she knew. Bridget bit her lip. "You can't hear me?" She whisper-yelled again, before giving a small and short rolling of her eyes. Something was off -- more than off, because as she looked into the mirror, it seemed as though wherever she was looking wasn't exactly the background she ought to have had. She took in a deep breath and pursed her lips. She didn't have a pad of paper right away -- though she did have her phone. She could type out a note to Roger, but she wanted to try something first. She quickly signed out 'You -- know -- signing?' a finger pointed at him, followed by a curved hand against her temple, and her pointer fingers circling around one another. She bit on her thumb's fingernail as she waited to see if he'd respond, giving another small shake of her head, followed by another shudder at his lack of an arm. Something was very much not right.
Roger rolled his eyes and nodded - he was much less patient, much more tired and frustrated. But she was thinking, and evidently had something she wanted to say, this Bridget through the looking glass. He watched her sign and nodded, but when he raised his hands to reply he remembered his problem. He'd always signed right hand dominant, which was a problem given that it had been removed in November. He gestured at himself, then did the gesture for try with one hand instead of both, the way it was meant to be. "Before right hand dominant," he explained further, slow and uneasy as he used his left hand. Like he was learning all over again. He overexaggerated when it usually required two hands and mouthed the words too. Just in case. "Why you inside mirror?"
Bridget gave a small sigh. But at least he knew sign language. She still wasn't fluent, but she was more than baseline conversational, now. She watched him sign, nodding along carefully. Why was she inside a mirror?! He was asking her that? Which meant that whatever caused him to end up where he was, inside this mirror, had made her do the same. Or something. She gave him the quick sign for O-K and bit her lip. "Not inside mirror." She signed back. "You inside mirror for me." A pause. "Why you not in office?" She gave a nod with her chin towards the direction of the offices.
"Research," Roger signed dismissively, frowning. Except, Bridget would have known that. He'd spoken to her briefly this morning. His frown deepened, about to accuse her of being a trick or curse, designed to break the Scribe headquarters like others had in the past. After all, Scribes trusted other scribes on a point of principle, in the mirror or not, and someone else might have told her exactly what they were working on. In fact, given what he suspected the Bridget here was like, this might even have been her trying to weasel more information about him. Roger bristled, until he spotted something just behind her. He stepped as if to look past her, then the other way when he remembered that this was still a mirror. On one of the bookshelves behind her, in a glass container, was a familiar white bust of Aristotle, almost pristine except the dried blood stains running down from its eyes like tears. Roger glanced behind him, and lo and behold it wasn't there. He looked back, his eyes widening as his mouth dropped open in surprise. It had come from Salem eight years ago, had brought a storm with it, and when it had cried blood three people had keeled over on the spot. The glass was the only thing stopping it from killing again. "Ashkent?" He finger spelled, closing his mouth as he stared at her, with even wider eyes.
Research would have made sense, except that Bridget was fairly certain Roger -- Mr. Hawthorne, she realized she likely ought to have been thinking of him as -- not that such formalities especially mattered when he was somehow in a mirror. In a mirror and looking so incredibly different from the Roger she'd known. That Roger had both hands and was not in the library with her. She watched as he glanced behind him and did so in turn -- the bust on her side not at all visible in his. At his finger-spelling her eyes grew wide. "Yes." She signed, before running her tongue across her teeth and finger-spelling to him -- "Ashford?" She pointed straight at him. "You?" But that -- the mirror had been fine the last time she'd looked in it.
Roger nodded once, his teeth grit together as his left hand curled into a tight fist. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Couldn't lose his cool, not now. If he stepped away, she might have too, and he desperately needed her not to. But this shook him to the core, was leaving him reeling and struggling to focus. It wasn't so long ago that he'd been grabbed off the street and beaten to a pulp, his ribs cracked and bruised. He still remembered the unadulterated as a man thrice his size had put a knife in his mouth and pulled it out through his cheek, but it didn't compare to what he was feeling now, so close and so far to the place he belonged. After a seconds, he jabbed a sign and pointed at her side of the mirror. "My home." Took another second to gather himself and pull himself together. "Is Sonya chief scribe?"
Bridget kept staring at him. Part of her wondered if she should run and check on Roger -- the Roger here, the one who she'd just seen going into his office not too long before she'd ran off to the library. But she was curious. Perhaps too much so, perhaps without proper justification, but nonetheless she remained, standing. Fiddled with the edge of her sweater and felt her lips part at his next sign. His home. But -- she glanced around her, grateful for the silence. "Sonya?" She finger-spelled, raising her eyebrows to show that it was a question. "No." Her fore and middle fingers pressed together and tapped against her thumb. "You -- chief scribe." She bit her lip. "No scar and you have both hands, though."
That was impossible. Preposterous, even. Roger's opposite was just that, nothing like how he was, incapable of leading the scribes. He hadn't finished high school, never mind any kind of scribe training. No, this had to be something worse. "Danger," he replied. "November, I swapped. Attacked." For the selfish things his other self had done. Roger deceived, but that was to save lives, not for his own gain. It was completely different. "He's an imposter!" His hand jabbed again, emphasising his point. "Curse, illusion. Find out!" He grit his teeth together, looking around. It was remarkably quiet. "I will investigate from this side. Why the mirrors, why now." It was an unusually cruel form of punishment, to not be able to reach the other side. Unless, of course... Roger stepped forward with a frown, and rapped the glass with his knuckle. Nevermind.
"I know." She signed back. "Good at faking, though." Bridget nodded her chin towards the offices, trying to make her point as clear as she could. "Other things in town swapped, also." She gave a careful sigh. "Sorry did not see Roger here not you." She knit her eyebrows together. "Find out what? More about him?" But she gave another shake of her head. "Will research." She signed, watching as Roger -- the real one -- or at least who had to be real -- even though the Roger here looked more like -- she offered him a small frown as he tapped on the glass. "Will find out. Promise." She brushed her fingers against the bridge of her nose.
"I know, they're here. Flipped, Iron Church, lots of people. Almost half the town, now. We're not sure what is causing it yet." Roger rubbed his chin, shaking his head. It was but a minor betrayal, that none of the people he had spent nearly two decades protecting hadn't seen him. Actually, it was a rather big one, but he couldn't let it hurt now. Just because he'd lost almost everything didn't mean he had to surrender his pride. Something had changed, something exploitable, something that might just bring him home. "Thank you." He was about to say something else when someone barged in. Higgling. "Where's my report, Roger?" He snapped, scowling with some smug superiority. "It'll be done in half an hour," Roger replied, politely but firmly. You didn't climb the ladders by biting the ankles of those above you, no matter how much he wanted to. "Then stop oggling yourself in the mirror and get on with it!" Higgling replied. Roger nodded, and waited for him to leave before looking apologetically to Bridget. "Will we meet again soon?" He asked.
"Yes. Have noticed Sorry did not notice you." If he was switched, if any of this was true. She so wanted to believe him, but it was all confusing. "You're welcome." Bridget signed back, watching as someone else barged into the room, though as he began to speak she could not hear them. However, she had to roll her eyes at the way the new individual seemed to be talking -- she glanced around her side, glad that no one had come to try and find her, yet. ""Yes. Meet here, very soon." She looked around her again. "Other scribes do not come here much always. Thankfully." She bit her lip. "Thursday? Work for you?" Bit her lip. "Gives time to research some." Ran a hand through her hair. "Will figure out."
