[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash[/b][/i][/color] [color=white][b]&[/b][/color] [color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=white]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=white]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] [color=4682b4]N/A[/color], [color=dc143c][s]Stealth[/s][/color] [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][img]https://i.ibb.co/4MQGYbk/Thalia-Portrait-III.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The tiny elements of a trial were where the only parts that made it interesting, in Ash's opinion. The rest were solid and established protocols for the establishment of jurisprudence, necessary to ensure the closest possible thing to a fair and impartial outcome. Was it perfect? No. Ash noted some details about which he might have gone a different direction, were he in charge. Though giving it some thought, the now-dead settlement of Newnan was run in the fashion of a benevolent military dictatorship with him at the helm following the death of Lt. Colonel McCormick. He alone passed judgement over those living within Newnan's walls. Considering some of Ash's personal issues during this time, perhaps this trial system was better than the summary judgement of a Commanding Officer in the field, as he had done, even if he did not fully agree with every aspect of it. Established order was likely fairer than the whim of a single man, regardless of the apparent decency of that man. With this in mind, Ash remained seated and relatively stone-faced as Hunter rose to his feet, confident that the people of CMB had this under control. It did not stop him from placing a hand on the arm of his chair and tensing, as if to leap to action if necessary, though this was suppressed like many other things about him, his observations of the court officials assuaging his feelings of urgency. Continued testimony went with far less in the way of drama (except for a cough from the back of the room). This was more ideal. Drama in courtrooms was for primetime television. When they called for a short recess, Ash remained as he was. He had no immediate need to visit the facilities, and was had to admit a sense of curiosity in how things were handled in the room between sessions. Added security? Lax? Sealed room? Or merely people twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the trial to resume? Thalia, on the other hand, had her own, evolving agenda. Aside from the fact that she had to be there due to the post-apocalyptic equivalent of a court summons, she had her own reasons for wanting to be there. A desire to see what passed for a trial here was one. Now, seeing how the security team worked was another. Hunter's sudden movement, and the reactions of everyone around him, were fairly entertaining. Moreso was her brother's reaction. The cold, unyielding stare of a man who she [i]knew[/i] from personal experience was calmly contemplating killing the guy in front of him if this developed much farther. She couldn't help but smile a little. One observing her might even feel a little unnerved at the expression, considering the simple, direct, possibly bloody course of events which might follow. She did not smile because of the potential for looming death, as many might think of her. Her views on the application of violence were cold and utilitarian in its application. Dispassionate about the actual stabbing and shooting, if not the reasons behind it. Joaquin's reaction reminded her very much of their uncle. Less growling, but like the old man himself. It was strangely nostalgic. The flamboyant man was definitely [i]Familia[/i]. Another portion of her agenda was rooted in the idea that she needed to be out and active to better regain her sense of personal spatial perception, what with the loss of her hand. It had affected her more than she wanted to admit out loud. Using and relearning the subtleties of her more dexterity and athletic based skillset was paramount. And what better way to practice than out and around people? For starters, she made her attempt to move unnoticed with the crowd of people departing the room. Unfortunately, her chair had other ideas. The drawn out [i]rrrnsqueeeeeeaky[/i] that came of her removing her weight from the seat completely obliterated her chances of doing that. As did the unintended clack of her steel hand against the chair back as she rose. Keeping her shit together as best she might despite the rising irritation threatening to color her face, Thalia immediately vowed to change her plans for being here in Camp Mexico Beach. To hell with learning new skills. She was surviving fine without them. She needed to bolster and relearn the ones she already had, starting with hitting, stabbing, and [b]stealth[/b]. She was a goddamned shadow, once upon a time. This was embarrassing. In the back of the room, a breathy, quiet chuckle sounded immediately following the very innocent and hardly noticeable fit of coughing coming from the venerable gentleman with the imaginary friend. The chuckle did not come from the man himself, rather, but the man sitting next to him. Hank was a man who took matters of civil court proceedings seriously, and was a little annoyed that Wayne did that, but he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get a little mirth in. And he was a touch upset that he didn't think to do it first. In any case, he wasn't the grudge holding type today, so he simply rose from his seat when they called for a recess, citing, [color=burlywood]"Taking a piss there, Maldonado."[/color] and exited, to return shortly thereafter with a more relieved look on his face.