It was a dove, more than a pigeon anyways. Or something to that effect, Rosshalde knew, opening the little shoebox where the soft grey bird had been placed. The cheaply-made cardboard, emblazoned with the garish tones of some sport sandal line, and declaring, to any who saw fit to notice, the shoes inside to be US size eights, red, hardly seemed fitting for the delicate creature she'd found sitting below a park bench on the south side of the Marienplatz, devoid of such sense to leave when a human approached it. The first day, she had thrown some bread at it in a reciprocal gesture of solidarity, and thought no more. Three days later, after leaving classes, she had returned to the park, seeking the relative peace of the shade under the trees to study, and had seen it again, still damp and bedraggled from yesterday's cloudburst. It bonelessly slumped in her hand and limply accepted residence in the little newspaper-filled shoebox, under a heated lamp and next to a bowl of water. The pigeon as a statistic might be a nuisance, but as an individual, even devoid of a name or even much movement, it exerted a certain intrinsic nobility common to all animals, if one only takes the time to look.

At any rate, Rosshalde only ever assumed that she would have the animal for a couple of days, at most. A quiet area to recover and build up strength, in the close confines of her apartment, or a peaceful, warm place to die, which, all things considered, seemed the more likely of the two options. It was then, to her surprise, that the pigeon seemed after the first day in her meager care more lively, the jagged lines of its unkempt or missing feathers smoothing out, rounded figure filling in. Its eyes brightened, it tottered about in its confines and stuck its slender grey beak out of the haphazardly cut ventilation holes, cooing and rustling its feathers. It seemed to make good noises when its box was placed on Rosshalde's desk, where she spent most of her time in study, and it looked happier, for all that she could discern avian emotions, when she took the top off the box and allowed it to hop around the desk, settling inevitably beside her overheating computer, nesting eventually in several odd socks and a threadbare washrag placed at length for this exact purpose.

It became a pet. A slightly illegal one, as the drafty, one-room apartment explicitly forbade animals in the contract, but a quiet, unnoticeable, low-maintenance one that still came in to roost at her bedside by night, even after Rosshalde had opened the window and tried to set it free. It was then not to her surprise that, returning home from a night class, her pigeon was seated comfortably on the bed awaiting her return. The form it had taken, however, was.

Walking inside, carelessly throwing the lights and attempting to flop down into her chair, Rosshalde was only able to accomplish the first two of the sequence, met instead with the eager eyes of a stranger on her bed.

"Ah, so you've returned. I was wondering when you would." The stranger carefully folded down the corner of a the book it had been perusing, placed it on the floor, and looked brightly up at Rosshalde. "You're normally here half an hour ago."

Rosshalde stared for a moment, dumbstruck. The figure was long-limbed and muscular, draped in an ill-fitted and rumpled white dress shirt and green pants of a similar condition. Its prominent, acutely jointed fingers clasped pensively together in its lap, and a mad scientist's shock of short, curly hair, in what was either a very dark blonde or a very light brown, framed a sharp, beaky nose and bemused grey eyes.

These minor details, however, would not be noticed until later. The slight matter of a pair of enormous wings hanging off the stranger's shoulders sort of had a way of drawing attention to itself.

At length, Rosshalde regained the powers of speech and movement. "Who are you. Why are you in my apartment. What is happening." She said flatly, walking into her dingy kitchenette, throwing her book bag on the counter and refusing the acknowledge the absurdity of the situation. Denial was an unhealthy coping mechanism, but it was a coping mechanism regardless. Perhaps this hallucinatory phantasm/costumed maniac would get the hint and fuck back to wherever it came from if she could just ignore it for a while. Or at least, she could have a moment to recoup and find a more substantial method of dealing with it.

Her old bedsprings creaked and a rustle of linen, followed by solid, friendly footsteps made their way to Rosshalde's side as she pointedly emptied and began to prepare the contents of the book bag for tomorrow's labor. She did this because she was responsible, and took care of herself, and did well in school, and oh god turning around abruptly was a bad idea.

Her hallucinatory home invader (Or creepy stalker; the public transit system here never lacked in the insane, a voice pensively intoned, before Rosshalde's brain could give the go-ahead to strangle that line of thought.) was standing right behind her, arms clasped behind its back; smiling pleasantly, and not at all like it was going to trap her in a corner and rip her throat out with its teeth, a'la several very specific genres of horror and one regrettable porn film. Rosshalde switched from denial to self-distraction with astounding versatility. She would be proud of herself later.

"You picked me up a while ago, remember?" A slightly sheepish expression was coming over the figure's face. "Took me home, gave me some food," A slender hand carded through the figure's curly hair. "and uh," Both of those giant, impossible, slate-grey wings moved in a sort of shrug. "fixed up my feathers, yes?" At Rosshalde's continued expression of shock, anxiety and unrecognition, the figure seemed to shrink into itself, happiness fading into nervousness and apparent contrition. "You, um, you used to call me Birdie? That's not really my name, but…" It trailed off, a hesitant question. "Wait, shit." It frowned. "I did this wrong." Against her will, Rosshalde felt an eyelid begin to twitch, fear suddenly charring into flickery annoyance. The world waits for no man, and she has some shit she needs to get done tonight. This is not helpful.

"Be not afraid," The figure straightened up, drawing up to its full height and spreading its wings. "For I am an angel of the LORD." This would have been very awe-inspiring, and Rosshalde probably could've been convinced to take this display seriously. Except, flapping around giant feathery wings looks really cool when there's ample space to do so, and much less so when her precariously-balanced coffeepot falls to the floor and shatters, spilling cold coffee and glass shards all over the angel's pants and bare feet. They both stared at it for a moment.

Rosshalde looked pointedly up at the figure. "It's too goddamn late for this." She muscled past the dismayed creature, grabbing her backpack and shucking off her shoes. "I," she threw the backpack somewhat more viciously than was actually necessary at the couch and grabbed a pair of pajamas off the floor. "Am going to go to bed. If whatever is happening right now is still happening in the morning, I will deal with it then."

She slammed the bathroom door, changed in record time, and flicked out all the lights, flopping straight into bed and trying to ignore the shape still standing dejectedly in her kitchenette.

Thus went the events of Rosshalde's first night with her new roommate. Hijinks would inevitably ensue.