[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=steelblue][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/9nVT3Qs/Ash-Happy.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Ashton looked up from his seat to view Nigel retaking his seat next to him. He gave the man an accommodating expression and returned to his time-honored habit of staring mostly straight ahead, blankly waiting for the trial to continue with the one exception of turning back around to see if he could meet Thana's gaze for a moment. He was not an overly garrulous man, and this wait was nothing compared to sitting motionless in a transport plane, crossing an ocean, debating upon whether it was worth it to risk traversing the uncertain footing of a forty-year-old aircraft aircraft not built to the comfort or stability of commercial standards for the purpose of relieving his bladder in an hastily arranged bucket and/or tarp setup. Not a glamorous existence. Nevertheless, an existence he knew well. When things finally did get back underway, Ash was keen to note elements of Tatiana's testimony. She was being more than a little evasive, which was something that gave him concerns. Mostly, those concerns were for her. At the same time, Tati's hesitation to speak was due in part (he assumed) to the fact that the incident was a personal matter between she and himself. Nobody's business, and moreover she was correct; it had no bearing on the facts of the Court Martial. Ash gave Tatiana a supportive look as she stepped down and went back to her seat. She was, as she had stated earlier, family to him. Jack's testimony was likewise terse, though he did do something interesting: He repeated Tati's speech word for word, and in front of a native Russian speaker in attendance. Of course, that same Russian was there when the words were originally spoken, so there was nothing new there. And surprisingly, the Major did not reveal what was said, either. When it was his turn to give testimony about the events in Quarantine, Ash went against his instincts to be as open as possible with these people. He remained honest, but he stood by Tatiana's decision to keep their personal affairs personal, as backed up by Major. Upon being asked why Tati hit him and what was said, Ash responded, [color=4682b4]"Respectfully ma'am, this is a family matter. I cannot in good conscience answer when it has been established through testimony that this has no bearing on the trial."[/color] He continued with a straight face, [color=4682b4]"Plus, I don't speak enough Russian to give an accurate accounting of what she said, ma'am."[/color] All true things. If it was important, the other Russian speaker would have reported it in detail. This felt like a fact-finding expedition for the sake of curiosity, not the pursuit of justice. And it was an interesting point that these people seemed to want to know more about how he got his ass kicked by a Prima Ballerina. In his old life, Ash might never have lived it down. He maintained accurate testimony as to the events which followed, detailing the gap of time between the end of the incident and the beginning of Hunter's rant to Tatiana. He related to the best of his ability what Hunter had said to Tati, though the exact wording of it had to be taken with a grain of salt. The delivery was straightforward and without messy things like deviation of emotion. What he recalled to the utmost of detail was, upon being asked, his reaction to it. That reaction was less than endearing. His relating it to the court was toneless and direct. [color=4682b4]"I told him that Tatiana was a gem. I then told him that if he did that again I was going to, and I quote: 'feed you to the fucking corpses myself'. Following that, I asked if he understood what I had told him."[/color] The lack of direct response at the time of the incident was expected. Though if Ash were being completely honest, in that exact moment he almost wished that a move were made. Taking another hit that hour to remove what he perceived might be a threat to his people was a strategic risk that he was willing to take. Concerning what came later, he didn't have a lot to add to what was already related to the court. [color=4682b4]"I cannot say much about the incident between Hunter and Beatrice. When Miss Decker first restrained him, my attention was on Tatiana. Afterward, I witnessed her give a warning about his behavior, followed by a possible consequence if her warning was not heeded, as the others have testified."[/color] When dismissed, Ash rose and again, respectfully, assumed the role of a military man exiting a formal proceeding, as this was the closest thing to it that he had been party to in years. He settled into his seat and waited for the next time he might be called up. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=crimson][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The words Nigel shared concerning the latest clue rattled around in Thalia's head for a while. Ask the cook? She was familiar with the phrase [i]"too many cooks spoil the broth"[/i]. It had even occurred to her when she read the note the first time purely because of the vaguest of similarities between that expression and the one referenced in the note, but had dismissed it almost at once. It failed to make any sense to her. Sitting there in the Auditorium, she began to mull over the idea again. It wasn't exactly the Riddle of the Sphinx in terms of clarity, as if riddles were meant to be very clear in the first place. Objectively, the first time she read through Oedipus she had no fucking clue what the answers were, either. So much for her fancy Boston college education. With a mental shrug, Thalia figured that she'd check in the with cook anyway, when the opportunity presented itself. It wasn't like she had a great idea of her own. Testimony was entertaining at least. Thalia even cracked a smirk when Tatiana was answering questions. The woman was strong. A different kind of strength than to which she was accustomed, certainly different from what she was exposed to growing up, but it comes in many forms and she had it. What was more, she had friends willing to risk their safety and security here to back her up. Thalia was not one to make friends with a lot of people. More than half of the time, she wished she was far away from everyone else, maybe up in a tree someplace or on a rooftop, tending to her own needs purely. The last couple of years had her becoming more open to being chummy with a select, small group. Looking at how Tatiana had people willing to back her like this gave Thalia some pause for thought. There was yet another type of strength here, too. Like [i]La Familia[/i], but if any of these people were blood relation then she was the Queen of France. Glancing down at her artificial arm, she knew that she had to diversify the assets which kept her alive and gave her strength. But building one's self back up seemed much less difficult than making connections like that. She looked around the room, trying to find her "Eden" group, or what was left of them. Alexander, Manny, and Thana. Did they have that same kind of interpersonal loyalty? Thalia hoped so. When called up to the stand, Thalia wasn't particularly sorry that she couldn't offer up much insight. She was not opposed to getting to the bottom of the situation and having this trial over with, granted. There simply wasn't enough motivation for her to feel one way or the other about it. Perhaps this is why her answers were very neutral and direct. Concerning Ash and Tatiana: [color=dc143c]"I don't know. I don't speak Russian."[/color] About her take on the exchange: [color=dc143c]"Ballerina drahpped the Captain. Kinda funny, but I wasn't watching [i]them[/i]. They weren't a threat. I was watching everything else."[/color] And she was, after the initial assessment of the two of them. Thalia was watching their guards, the exits, potential problems, ways to leave fast and quiet if necessary. She was the very spirit of survival for herself and her people. She was keenly aware of the space of time between Tatiana hitting Ash and the noise from Hunter. [color=dc143c]"Yah. A little time passed. I guess he wanted to be heard. I couldn't say why."[/color] Thalia did remember putting a token barrier between everyone else and Alexander around this time, as the older man had gone through enough right then. She was defensive even from Tatiana, even as she started to pick up Alexander's broken coffee cup. But as for Bea? [color=dc143c]"Ah hell, I was helpin' Mugsy find a place to sit. Rough day."[/color] She remembered as much as anyone what happened, but didn't see the very start to it as the was literally just turning in the other direction. Beatrice had her back, and she was between Thalia and the potential threat. She did have a front row seat to the fallout, though. [color=dc143c]"Bea said she gaht this, then went and gaht it. She wrapped it up simple. More generous than I might have been. It was still impressive."[/color] Thalia didn't like talking about Beatrice. So far as she was concerned, the woman abandoned them. her actions prior were still very cut and dry, and deserved reporting as such. Otherwise, Thalia told the truth, whole truth, and nothing but, relaying from her point of view with short, to-the-point responses. When it was done, she rose and returned to her seat with a dull expression on her face. Inwardly she was brooding, letting a little of her family's darkness of thought and action wash over her. This was all just a hair too civilized for her tastes. When she sat back down, Thalia gave a sigh and wondered when this would be over. Patience for matters like this was not her strongest point. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=burlywood][i][b]Hank Wright[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=deb887]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=deb887]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/5rWFgFJ/PB-mfnJ.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] [color=deb887]"Yeah, hey, I saw what happened. Same as everybody else say what happened. It was ...whew... one of the funniest damn things I've seen in my life. Multiple ass-kickings in a six minute period, I mean, yeah. Don't get me wrong, best as I can figure there was a lot of steam that had to be blown off. I guess you people get that all the time here with new blood. Ah, but what do I know? Well okay, I [i]do[/i] know that if there was a movie based on the events of that day in Quarantine, it was going to [i]really need[/i] that song, 'Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting' in the soundtrack somewhere. But not the 70s version. Get another recording done, you know, bring things into the new millennium."[/color] Hank saw, and reported what he saw, but just couldn't help making various points of social commentary from time to time. [color=deb887]"Look, you want me to break this down psychologically? I can do that. Make a puppet show for you if you like. Haul out the various verbal charts of [i]needs[/i] and [i]isms[/i]" that fueled that blood-and-coffee Bacchanalia back there. Stuff like that. It isn't going to change a thing from what everybody else is saying. The coffee was great, though. Spared no expense for the refreshments."[/color] Upon the application of a sterner tone or insistence of relating the basics of what he witnessed, Hank was able to make a no-nonsense summary of the events in question, from his point of view. Summarizing was something he did well. But so was bullshit. This had a scoop of each, hopefully with a pearl of cranky wisdom atop.