Judge, Jury and...

[Rance]

The seamstress set upon the table her own withdrawn parchment and charcoal before taking up the Storyteller's. Her eyes were hesitant. There were several quiet moments as the girl read, the muscles and bones in her neck tightening as she stumbled through the lines. One, however, was a glass knife against her breast.

It was impossible for me to let you go.

Profound. Vague. Confusing. Infuriating.

Between orderly hands, she folded the parchment into half, and then again, and then a third time. She stuffed it into the pocket of her skirt. As she nudged that earlier-procured sheet of paper toward the Storyteller, the charcoal rolling backwards across it as if afraid of the parchment's edge. She leaned in to say against the woman's ear, "They might have been blacksmiths or tradesmen or adventurers or thieves. If you care to listen close when walking through Myrkentown at night, you -- you can still hear the mothers crying through the walls.

"Write," she said, more loudly, jabbing a finger onto the blank leaflet. "Your defense. A prayer. An apology. Some part of you," and there was a softer, more desperate tone in her voice -- younger, fallible, not a blossoming rhetor, but a simple girl, "that is the Greatlady I knew, who -- who let me sit at her knee and listen and learn.

"Menna Olwak," Gloria said, turning to the gowned woman. Law over emotion, Lord Aubrey had encouraged; there was a finality to the observance of law, a comfort in it, like the sureness of strong stitches. "You saw how she responded to -- to my request. One moment a refusal, and the next, she was compelled to speak a tale. She said 'I can't,' but something in her changed, awakened.

"If she cannot control it, should she be put through cruelty the same as -- as a willing accessory?"

[Jirai]

A smile for the Storyteller, a smile for her silence. Rhaena Olwak was pleased. This was ever so much easier, and she waited as the Storyteller scribbled her message, watched as Gloria read the writing, listened to the young woman's words.

"Indeed, you may have a point, sera Wynsee." Rhaena nodded easily enough. "That must certainly be taken into consideration."

[Dulcie]

She'd watch Gloria as she folded that note over and then over again, the Storyteller's eyes looking for some sort of emotion or feeling as she took the parchment and charcoal that was offered to her by Gloria. There was a green eyed glance between the two women who would determine her fate and she'd nod briefly, putting her charcoal to paper.

She would think before writing, considering the options she had before her. She could continue to deny what she was, though that seemed rather pointless given the current circumstances. It was difficult work, manipulating the tool to write all she had to say on the parchment, and she would fill the entire page before setting the charcoal aside, offering it out in front of her, to whomever might take the document to read it.

You ask me for a defense, a prayer or a part of myself. These are things I can not give you, for there are none that I can share. An apology however, I can offer. I truly am sorry for the loss that your people suffered for their children. I take no joy or pleasure in their demise, nor would I ever have willingly contributed to the loss of precious young life. If you think to the people that I have interacted with they are often children, and they are worth far more to me alive than they are in death. I doubt you will believe what I write on this page, but as young Miss Gloria said, I was indeed compelled to do what I did, though perhaps not for the reason she thinks. It is long and difficult to explain who I am, and I will not waste this precious parchment with stories that you may not even believe, instead I will tell you only the shortest detail. The creature that killed your children was named Fiona, she was not a friend or an ally of myself, but someone that I was indebted to. Among my kind a debt is not something that one can simply ignore, I was compelled to repay it to her, and she demanded it in the form of her story. I delayed in it's telling as long as I could, and I told it to children that I had hoped would have the strength and fortitude to warn their friends. It was all I was able to do. There was no choice for me in the matter. No ability to resist or refuse. I am sorry for what Fiona did to the little ones, and truly I am grateful that your warriors saw to her ending. I ask only that you show me mercy for my involvement in it, for as I stated it was compulsion and not choice that has brought me here before you now.

[Rance]

"It should," she responded, in kind, to Menna Olwak. "Such as I cannot control the color of my sweat, or a wild cat cannot subdue its taste for raw meat."

It was not meant to be this way; the girl had wanted to turn her cheek, help in condemning the woman, this Dream-giver, this Storyteller, this deceiver. But Rhaena Olwak -- with her secrets and her tiara-and-vine sigil -- had put the responsibility of this in the seamstress' grimy hands. She had tested the Jerno girl's allegiances to people, to beliefs, to what was right. That the seamstress had once known how to strike with a whip or batter a girl was of no consequence -- the Storyteller was an elder, still, a once-friend--

--and that Gloria had forgiven Mister Catch for his probing tongue, his kisses, she could forgive this, too: a betrayal of trust, if only so long to see the woman punished fairly.

But it would never be as it was. There would be no more stories over ale and wine, no more advice sought out from the wisdom of age. Naive as she might have been, the seamstress was far from a fool.

When the charcoal stopped scraping on the paper, she accepted it from the Storyteller. The seamstress pried through the words for several moments before she brought the sheet to Rhaena Olwak and placed it before her.

"No ability to resist or refuse, she writes. I should ask as her advocate that you honor this as -- as her sworn statement." She had read only so much as one book on the right of law, and had wholly memorized another pamphlet, which the young woman quoted with fresh and efficient memory: "The Farmer's Code of Good Conduct states that an offender found in -- in violation of rules is subject to the lawful and exacting prosecution of his fellows, with a punishment not to exceed rational justice."

Perhaps Lord Aubrey, Coriolanus Helstone -- less a man to seamstress, but a swollen ideal -- would be proud of her.

Except for what followed, as the seamstress leaned forward to say to the gowned woman with a hint of quivering disgust on her tongue, "These are her words. Her words in a letter. And I have -- have learned very recently, Menna Olwak, from the Brown family, how much you simply adore letters."

[Jirai]

The Storyteller writes. She writes for some time, and for this, Rhaena Olwak waits paitiently. She waits as Gloria Wynsee reads the written words, waits as the parchment is brought over for her own eyes.

"No ability to resist or refuse," Rhaena Olwak said quietly, "But there are still eleven small pyres which must be answered for." She glanced up at Gloria, her gaze measured, measuring. The young woman's words about the Brown family heard, yes, but they earned no reaction from the gowned woman. Why should they?

"So what, Gloria Wynsee, do you think 'a punishment not to exceed rational justice'?"

[Rance]

Measure well your words, Glour'eya Wynsee -- consider the eleven small pyres.

"Do you remember, Menna Olwak, the visitor that came to us in -- in the schoolhouse," the seamstress asked. "He set upon us with a knife. He is a devil; the Black Man sought to do us harm in that moment, and I even informed you that he gave to several children a similar blade, if only to watch them cut each other down. I might have been one of those. Cherny, too. Cat and -- and Son, the butcher-boy. What of that devil?

"Is your judgment of devils so selective that you care less of preventing funeral pyres, and more for avenging them? To anyone, even a seamstress, that is poor prioritization. So if -- if you would like, we may continue standing here playing a game of proceedings, while devils threaten children who are still alive. Pry into her mind to get the answers you want. You did so to me."

The words were a deluge, a cup overfilled and tilted just right. She resented Rhaena Olwak in those minutes, for asking her to be here at all, for thrusting upon her shoulders such decisions and choices; she wanted to tear the pages from her Mathymatics, crush the leather binding of the tome under her heels. These were not fractions or percentages. She ground her skirts in her fists, smearing them with black sweat.

"Children are dead, but -- but not by the Storyteller's hand. Tongue, perhaps, not by choice. But I ask you to spare her life. We should not smell any more burnt flesh."

[Jirai]

Rhaena Olwak is, quite clearly, amused.

"Gloria, my dear, if you wish to know all that the government is doing, all of the 'devils' we pursue, I am sure we can find a position for you, but I think that might take too much time away from your lessons, and I feel those to be more valuable to you at the moment. You have clearly learned much, in such a short time."

Hands folded neatly in lap, a glance for the Storyteller and then back to her young advocate. "I quite agree, Gloria Wynsee, that death is not appropriate in this case. Neither, of course, can she go free. We have not the facilities in town to hold her for more than a short time, not since that small... incident involving the gaol, but fortunately the Governor has taken steps to remedy this lack. Do you feel this to be just, young sera?"

[Waldemar]

He has sat quietly through this charade of a trial, in which a child is set as advocate for the accomplice of a child-eating monster; he has watched, listened, as arguments are made, for all that they are supported by the Farmer's Code. Were it a laughing matter, were near a dozen children not dead and ashes now, he might have laughed himself sick. As it stood, however, he was only sickened.

While farcical proceedings draw to a close his brows crease in growing discontent, lips pressed together in disapproval; the Governor's lady speaks her piece, and he cannot remain silent any longer. A thump of walking-stick on floorboards as he levers himself to his feet, and when he speaks his voice carries clearly, as if addressing a much larger gathering than this collection of officials and Constables.

"Sera Olwak, Advocate Wynsee. With every respect, I must disagree. Death is absolutely appropriate." A glare for the green-eyed woman, before his attention returns to Rhaena Olwak. "If you will indulge me, I have a story. It is a short tale, but relevant."

He is gambling upon his status as a hero that he will not be briskly escorted from the room. He strives to remain dignified, proper, for all that this interruption is a clear breach of protocol, for all that he would like nothing less than to see the green-eyed woman ended in this room, in this moment.

When he speaks his manner might almost be considered professorial, were it not for the carefully contained anger that darkens his features, that lends emphasis to his words; his voice is controlled, raised only enough to be heard on the far side of the courtroom, though his attention is upon the creature that calls itself Maggie McLochlan.

"A frog is approached by a scorpion, who asks to be carried across the river; the frog is fearful of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion drown. The frog is swayed by this argument, and agrees; halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion explains that it is its nature to sting, and it had no choice."

Story concluded, he turns with a small bow for the Governor's lady, as if thanking her for her forebearance. As if he would have suffered to be interrupted.

"Sera Olwak, this... creature claims to have had no choice. That it is in its nature to work its stories, that it was in its nature to weave a tale that would draw those children to their deaths. Eleven children are dead - devoured - as a direct result of this creature's actions. That it had no choice is irrelevant. It is complicit in these deaths, and there must be a reckoning, if only to warn others of its kind that they set foot in Myrken Wood at their own peril."

When his gaze shifts to the seamstress, with her sweat-dark collar and fraying hems, his voice is stern but not unkind.

"Advocate Wynsee, you are a compassionate girl, that much is clear, but you have been deceived and betrayed; when first you met it the creature wore a form that it knew would garner deference, respect, even affection - none of which it deserved. It toyed with the lives of our people with no care for the pain it sowed. What other stories did it tell, before this last? What other harm has it wrought?"

A pause, that she might consider the answers for herself.

"Now it wears a more comely form, it plays at being human, at feeling regret, remorse - but it knows no such sentiments. It is a scorpion, a hornet, a viper; its only impulse is to sting, to pour its cloying venom into the ears of any foolish enough to heed its words. One does not permit a scorpion to live in one's home, not after it has already stung your children to death. That is neither just nor civilised. It is an affront to the mothers who weep over the ashes of their own children. It is an insult."

A handful of careful breaths, bringing his temper back under control as he addresses the Governor's lady once more. Another man might have strutted, might have paced the floor, might have revelled in the grand drama of the moment, eyes fixed upon him, ears turned to hear his words. The miller is not such a man, and when his words are not touched by outrage they are almost pleading, a desperate appeal to reason.

"Sera Olwak: I hope you will forgive my outburst, but in letting the creature live you would be committing a grave error. The only appropriate measure is to have it cut apart with cold iron, and the remains burned. It is not a citizen of Myrken Wood. It is a monster, a marauder, and every breath you allow it is a needless gamble with the lives of our people. It must be put to death."

He stops; a last look to the three of them - judge, advocate, accused - before he lowers his gaze and sinks back into his seat.

"I am done."

[Rance]

The sour truth was that the girl knew nothing about the complexities of rule. Had she any notion, the old Jernoan stains darkening her conscience -- blood always turned brown, dark, indelible, with enough time -- might have given her pause to think this was all well, that committing a woman to death would set into motion a reconciliation.

But it was something else, something else--

What was it?

The miller stood. He froze the room with the nature of his tale. He addressed all of them: Rhaena Olwak, the witnesses as a whole, with greater grace than she herself might ever attain; he spoke to her, to a seamstress whose palm had been turned away from the simple work of threads and fabric to the tangles of blame and punishment. She envisioned the scorpion and the frog. She was a compassionate girl, an Advocate, and yet her fingertip dangled with a bead of dark, oily sweat that had crawled its way down from her wrist to her palm, the culmination of a long and perilous journey down her arm--

deceived and betrayed, he said.

deference, respect, even affection, he said.

the pain it sowed.

But he demanded cold iron. His words performed a verbal dismantling of the Storyteller. In the girl's mind, the shadowy arms of the sundial that was the Storyteller's wretched life slid across so many primitive embodiments of death: quartering, flaying, the staking of her body in sand, the wrapping of her torso in wet hide that would tighten and harden as it dried, only to crush her ribs like a vice and squeeze the mess of her organs from her nose and mouth...

What was it?

It was appeasement.

Do you feel this to be just, young sera?

"Spare her life. Refrain from torture, and give that task to her guilt. That will be just," the Advocate Wynsee said to Rhaena Olwak, her eyes never leaving the miller. "I will not abide blood spilled because scales must be balanced. In the end, there will be so much that it will overflow the rims, and -- and we will not be able to know whose blood belongs to who. The gentleman has spoken, but his words are inconsequential; he -- he could have made these statements earlier, but he refrained."

She turned her head to the Storyteller, and while her eyes were afraid, they did not apologize.

"How will you wish to see her punished, Menna Olwak?"

[Dulcie]

The Storyteller watched silently, hope rising in her chest as the two women discussed her face. Life. Life was all that mattered. All other things could be resolved, or overcome with time, but life was a necessity of that. She'd remain silent, her eyes shifting from one to the other until finally the Miller spoke.

He told a story, one that she had of course heard before and her eyes would narrow at the man slightly, though she'd speak no words. make no movements from where she stood. Her fate now resting in Rhaena's hands as her green eyed gaze returned to the Governor's Woman.

[Jirai]

She listened. She listened as Waldemar spoke. She listened as Gloria did the same. She listened as they argued for what they thought best. And while she listened, she never looked away from the Storyteller. When at last the two had finished, the gowned woman waited a long moment, allowing silence to reign. Finally, bronze eyes shifted to the constables standing guard.

"Take her to Golben."

The uniformed men closed in on the Storyteller, one retrieving the bridle. She would not leave the room without that on once more.

[Waldemar]

The miller keeps his seat and, for the most part, his silence; a quiet snort at the suggestion that guilt would be punishment enough, but no more than that. Inconsequential earns the seamstress a glance of irritation, but then the lady passes sentence, pronounces the storyteller's fate, and the Constables move to see her secured once again.

The miller rises wearily, offering a polite but perfunctory bow to the lady Olwak and the girl Wynsee, and with unhurried, uneven paces crosses the room to join the escorting Constables.

[Rance]

Take her to Golben.

The sigil-bearing attendants of the gowned woman moved like a wave for the Storyteller, but Gloria Wynsee -- for all of her weight and breadth, more a breadloaf of a girl than anything -- neared her first. She ran, surged across the room as if in instinctive response to the rattling steel of the rusted bridle. Her hip struck the nearest table, but she held her sweat-dampened palms high to the closing Constables to pause them, the tiara-and-veil token of Rhaena Olwak glinting on the collar of her dress.

"I am her advocate," the girl stated with frantic intent, as if it was not already known what role she'd taken on in this game. She tried to put herself between the oncoming escorts -- was that the miller among them; was he the scorpion? -- and the Storyteller, not so much as a barrier, but as a momentary obstacle, a consideration. She repeated, "I am her advocate, as well as one of the victims of her stories, of her tongue. As such, I move to put forth a request."

In Jernoah, the elderly were the precious baubles of time. They'd escaped the inevitability of death. They'd lived well past their age of expectation, and often spent the final years of their life tangled in demented thoughts and fantasies brought on by smoking-root and minimally-poisoned wines. Streets were cleared for them, decisions in council and jerethedral swayed at the insistence of their opinion. They were the human diamonds of wisdom, and the society around them a protective shell of coal.

She would give the Storyteller, the Greatlady, her Jernoan rites -- for if no other part of this puppet of a trial was Jernoan, then this part would be, must be. Deceived and betrayed as the seamstress might have been, this responsibility was hers--

What is Golben, she wanted to ask, but instead...

"You, Rhaena Olwak, have seen what I have seen of a Dream. But it has been put into my head; I have hidden it away long enough and -- and have far too many questions to ask and answers I must have that no needless trial can provide."

"Allow me to accompany her. I -- I wish to submit myself beside her for her sentence."

[Glenn]

Rhaena Olwak has learned well the value of subtly. Why accomplish something with blunt force alone when a small movement of her head can instead suffice. Why sully her own hands with an action when there are others who were made for such tasks? Her head moves slightly and pieces begin to fall into place.

"That is a very noble sentiment, Miss Wynsee." The voice, muffled by the helmet, was still recognizable to her. It likely did not fully halt the surprise when, a moment later, the knight removed that helm, placing it upon a nearby table. Underneath was a face the Jerno knew well wearing an expression that was completely foreign to her. Elliot Brown's posture had changed completely. A moment before he had been stoic and silent, unflinching and unmovable. He had been a monolith with the world passing him by, unable to affect him. Now, though, his body language transmitted warmth and caring. His chin jutted out at a slight angle and his eyes were clear and focused directly upon her. There was a slight upturn of his otherwise serious lips. His hair was not nearly as mussed as it should have been by the helmet; instead it was cut and groomed in a way she'd never seen it, neat and well-kempt.

His voice rang through the room, crisp and properly enunciated. It was as if a ray of light had shined down upon these previously dark proceedings. "In this case, however, it would only," there was a brief look towards Lady Olwak, but it was just a glance, a momentary hesitation, a youthful affectation from the knight, "compound the tragedy further. The poor families who have lost so much will not benefit if you are sent away as well. Myrken Wood will not benefit to lose a brave and bright, well-intended young woman such as yourself. It has lost so much already in this matter. If you wish to share in the Storyteller's punishment, and, Miss Wynsee," it was not a pleading tone so much as one layered in surety, "you have already shown so much charity here today, but if you do wish to share in it, do so in your own way. Help the families that have lost children. Help their friends. Help us prevent such a tragedy from happening again." He was approaching her now, more handsome than she'd ever seen him in his shining armor, his back straight, his shoulders well-positioned, proper in every way and with not recognition in his eyes but concern and admiration instead. "Continue to help us add to the goodness here in Myrken Wood for we've already lost so much."

If she had not run or backed away immediately at his approach, she would find him nearby within a matter of seconds, really, and while his armor shined, it also imposed, just like his words. Subtle ways were best, but if they were all that was ever needed, then swords and knights would never be necessary.

The Constables were still hanging about the Storyteller and she would be in full sight of this, whether she could speak or not. Did she not see? It was Rhaena Olwak who silenced her. It was Rhaena Olwak who preceded over her fate. Now it was Rhaena Olwak who had crafted a story of her own, and here he was before Gloria, before Waldemar, and before the Storyteller herself, proof that she had not simply been defeated, but that she had been supplanted utterly. Rhaena Olwak told the stories now and all the world would hear them.

[Rance]

When he took off his helmet, she would not understand. Not that she could not, or that she did not, but would not, because it seemed so peculiar and out-of-place, a wholly unexpected visual amid what was otherwise a confusing mess of conflicts and strained loyalties. His armor clicked. Legplates rattled. He towered in a way he never had, his head like a shrunken tulip-bulb amid the gleaming steel.

And Elliot Brown spoke.

He talked so much, but she did not even hear. She wanted to say, Elliot, what are you doing in that ridiculous steel or Elliot, I am going to bust a gut looking at you. Instead, he talked about goodness, compounding tragedy, charity, and the words were rusted brads being thrust in her ears. All the things she'd heard of him lately came trickling back, an icy web of memories crawling along her brain.

You can't imagine what it was like when we received Lady Olwak's letter...

His horse! Did you see him? All white and beautiful?

Little Ellie on that horse, riding up, dressed like he was.

Our Elliot was coming home.

He was meant to be with Menna Nova, but she'd not seen him; they'd not communed, he'd been gone. The girl, her friend, had cried, spoken of a task given her by Rhaena Olwak, to slip a ring from his finger--

Elliot's n-not as much of a, an ass n-now, Cherny had said. He still acts like he's better th-than everyone, b-but doesn't try and r-rub you, your f-face in it.

Where was the boy who asked of the difference between right and write? Standing in the middle of that makeshift courtroom. And whether or not there was reason for it, or explanation, or logic, he was as she'd heard; he was not just Elliot Brown, but something else, someone who'd vanished, taken on armor she never imagined he'd wear, stumbling over virtues with his tongue. Someone who had--

--changed.

Seeing him here, here of all places set her stomach to turning. Her fists squeezed her skirt-hips, twisting the fabric, wrinkling it, stretching it, as if afraid she might fall over at any moment and have nothing to hold onto. Thus, without precedent, or reason, but just to get all the disgust out of her--

--she leaned forward, and spit at Elliot Brown's face.

"Don't talk to me about noble sentiments and -- and goodness, you -- you presumptuous ass," the seamstress said, nostrils flaring and eyes flooded with confused tears. How dare stand there like he was better than her, like some transplanted high-streets boy, when there was a girl somewhere else who cried because she felt she'd done something wrong by him, when his rustless armor screamed of money and coin like that which had bought the faceless Fletchers out of their house in Myrken Wood. It was the confusion that staggered her, made her curse in a way Duquesne would have disapproved of.

Finally, to Rhaena, the Gloria said, "I want to hear it from you, Menna Olwak, and not this idiot boy. I wish to go with her, to be sure her sentence is -- is meted out with respect, as we have decided here. I don't trust you," she admitted. "I am her -- her advocate. This is my responsibility.

"You have seen what is in my head from her story. You would deny me the opportunity to -- to have my answers?"