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bellelurette2025-03-22 10:25 am
lesmodsalouette) wrote in bellelurette2025-03-22 10:25 am
TRIAL II
Trial
At least this time you were given ample time to wreck your sleep schedule before the clocks gong at midnight (no apologies for such little sleep in the first place withstanding). The carnival looks just as you remember it, with the banquet and drinks refreshed. The spread is the same as before with two new additions: a platter of cute cupcakes that might remind you of someone, along with baozi of all types.
Like before, mind the pit in the middle and settle in to vote out the guilty party for the death of Siobhan "Shiv" Roy. With the benefit of experience, maybe this will be a little bit easier? With the mood weather lifted, there won't be any floods at trial at least.
(( OOC: Welcome to your first trial! You'll have 7 hours (until 8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT) to vote one (1) person guilty of murder. As this is scapegoat style, a correct vote is not necessary. Please remember to vote unless otherwise discussed with the mods, as that is our AC for this game ))
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[ a casual γγγ γγa vague acknowledgement of what Hwylryn says. They are facts. Hwylryn did put so many of his allies and friends in danger.
But Cain isn't so stubborn to insist they are mortal enemies. Nor is he naive enough to believe that they can immediately put all this behind them and be all sunshine and rainbows. He sits somewhere in the middle, a faithful hound sitting at alert in the doorway, watching for any moment of hostility.
He shifts. He'd put his hand on his sword if he had it, but he doesn't. ]
There are people here I care for and want to protect. So long as you don't harm themβ [ He pauses, suppressing the urge to glance out over the crowd and pick those people out. ] Then we won't have a problem.
Who knowsβ [ A wry sort of look tugs at his lips. ] We could even be friends.
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( He thought this was an interesting paradox when Cain said he'd protect him before, but he's only commenting on it now. )
Cain. You've accused me of some number of things. But, please understand... I did everything I could not to harm you and yours. I told you that, but you left that out of your story.
And... The one who has taken someone from me is you and yours. You left that out too. Right?
( His eyes wet, despite himself. Composure, composure - but the grief is too recent. It's hard to keep the tears from flowing. )
All of you drove Balthazar into that corner. I will never see him again. I will never find someone like him again. Balthazar is dead, and he would not be if not because of all of you. If not because I valued you all as Akira's friends, and faltered to protect him the way I should've.
Aren't I the one who should view you and Bradley as a threat? You, who would kill me if I would only give you an excuse?
You, who has already taken away someone I love?
Come on. Let's be fair.
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Even though it's sticky.]
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He is, in a way that's unusual for Hwylryn, in a way that runs contrary to the cool projection he's maintaining, exceptionally angry.
Angry enough that he would kill Cain and Bradley here and now if he weren't smarter than to try. If the fact didn't remain that Balthazar pulled that final trigger - and not Cain or Bradley, themselves.
And yet, and yet, and yet, )
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he's not gonna kill cain or bradley!!!!!!!!!!
but he wants to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )
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My decision to protect you doesn't come from a place of affection and friendship. Who I like or don't like doesn't have any bearing on who I would rather see safe. And most importantly, we have a connection that no one else here can ever hope to recreate or replaceβwe hail from the same world, and when we die, we're the same cold stone.
I have an advantage where you don't, where I've trained most of my life in combat outside of magic. If you're under threat, then my blade is your greatest protection.
That goes for Bradley, too.
[ A glance at him, but then back in the empty space housing Hwylryn's voice.
Cain thinks it's a mercy, then that Hwylryn, in his reality, shattered in the dawn. In his time, he's already with Balthazar. Here, his purgatory is being drawn out, and they're having this discussion.
He glances at Ish. ]
But, I know. I'll accept that. [ Back to Hwylryn. ] I don't know the older wizards' circumstances well, and I know they have histories beyond what I can imagine now. [ That they are working together now is actually a plain miracle. ] But it's also fair everyone here knows the circumstances under which I know you. It wouldn't be fair for either of us to be wrongly blamed for circumstances that make perfect sense in our own experiences.
But I'll say, my history with you is not my present.
[ He folds his arms over his torso and bows slightly. ]
I sympathize with your loss. Right now, I can't know what it's like to lose someone so important to you that you've known for millennia. But I still extend my condolences.
[ No apologies. The lives of Borda Island were more important than Hwylryn's love for Balthazar.
Cain rights himself. ]
But I hope you understand that this conversation isn't for us. It's forβ
[ He gestures to the crowd.
They can talk for real later. ]
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He isn't desperate to live, but it would be pathetic not to do his best to try. If he's to die - whether by voting or murder - his pride won't allow it unless he'd done everything he could to live, first.
All this aside - despite his emotion, he does hear Cain, and he is patient with his words. (If he were not, he would not have spoken to him cordially 'til now - would not have found amusement with him, drank with him, opened his heart to him, even if only slightly.) He doesn't - cannot - hate Akira's friends, despite what loss he's laid at their feet. He has that trouble. He can't hate Snow and White. He can't hate Ish.
He needs to, he wants to - he just - maybe it's that he had to throw open the floodgates too wide to love his brother, who was full of rage and violence. The hinges are broken now. He can't make it all less. And so it's too much.
He exhales softly. )
... All right. Later, I guess.
( A silence follows that, like he intends to say more.
He doesn't know what they can resolve in a conversation later. In the same way Akira couldn't let go of his duties as Sage to be friends with Hwylryn, and Hwylryn could not abandon Balthazar to be friends with Akira, what else for him with these two wards of Akira but stalemate? What purpose is there, when his death awaits him (finally, finally) just beyond the gates of this place?
But he doesn't have a reason to quarrel with Cain further on this, because he does agree. Cain's reasons make sense to him, and Hwylryn's reasons make sense to him.
But, as much as his heart hurts, he is willing to make peace here. Because revenge has not soothed his heart before.
He finally decides on saying nothing, before he dips his head, and turns to Primrose. )