Avery Grant,
Please present yourself to the front gates this Tuesday at 0600 sharp. Tardiness will be punished.
“What do you think they want?” Jaskier wondered.
“Who do you think sent it?” Albert asked.
“What do you think the punishment will be?” Jedrick inquired.
“What’s with the chicken?” Edwin snatched the letter from Azler’s hands, finger shifting along the paper until it found what it was looking for; a tiny drawing of a chicken in the bottom right corner. Azler hadn’t taken notice of it before then, too busy unpacking the words.
“It looks like a logo of some sort.” Jedrick swiped the letter from Edwin to run his own inspection.
“Maybe the sender was just doodling a chicken for fun.” Albert suggested.
“You really think somebody in the military would be caught dead doodling a chicken on their letters?” Jedrick squawked back.
“Maybe the sender isn’t military.” Jaskier shrugged.
“What civilian talks like that, though?”
“I’m with Jedrick on this one. Nobody sends a letter this dry and professional and then lets a doodle sneak through.” Azler took his letter back, folding it and slipping it back into its envelope.
“And you’re sure it’s nobody you know?” Jaskier blinked at him a few times, reminiscent of a curious doe in a field.
“The head of my family is the only person who knows I’m still alive, but she wouldn’t be anywhere near Europe.”
“Unless she sent somebody.”
“Still unlikely. She’s serious as hell, but even she doesn’t write like that.”
“Do you think that maybe…” Edwin slowly glanced around the room with his dark, dead eyes, scanning for anybody who might have been listening in the crowd of the cafeteria,”they’re onto you?”
Azler shuddered at the thought. “Shit. What if they are?”
“If they are, you better keep your mouth shut about the rest of us. I don’t care if you get killed, but I’ve got plans later.” Jedrick leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms smugly.
“He doesn’t mean that. He cries when he doesn’t know where you’re at.” Jaskier punched Jedrick’s arm gently.
“Shut up. That’s not true.”
Azler sighed. “You’re going to feel pretty bad about joking around if this letter does turn out to be a death sentence.”
“It’s not gonna.” Jaskier waved his hand nonchalantly. “There’s a chicken on it, remember? You’d have to be pretty sadistic to put a chicken on something like that.”
“It always comes back to the chicken, huh?” Albert smirked.
“Of course it comes back to the chicken. The chicken is the wild card. It’s the one variable that cannot be logically explained.” Edwin reminded him.
“I’m sure it will all make sense on Tuesday morning.” Azler shrugged.
“You’re actually going to go?” Jedrick leaned forward again, concern pressed firmly into his brow.
“Oh course. I want to know what this is all about.”
“And you’re sure this isn’t going to put you in danger?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve got memoir to protect me.” Azler held Jedrick’s stare with a kind of defiance he wasn’t used to having. “Nobody knows that I have it except you guys and my family back home. It should get me any information I need to stay safe.”
“You better be right about this.” Jedrick huffed. “I’m not burying a friend this early in the war.”