[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/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Latin. Of course it was Latin. Ash was brought up with English, obviously, be it originally flavored with an Appalachian dialect. He spoke fluent military jargon, befitting a career as an officer in the United States Army, and thanks to his original foreign language training and time spent in América del Sur, he was passable with Spanish. There was even a little Russian in there thanks to Tatiana. But Latin? Nary a peep. Mild similarities to Spanish, but not enough to get more than the broadest of concepts. That was to say, not even a glimmer of recognition in this instance. Still, Ash looked to Nigel, gave a quiet nod, and refocused his attention on the proceedings. When the call to speak was given to those assembled, Ash surprised himself by standing. His feet seemed to move of their own accord, putting himself in line to ascend the stage. As he moved forward, Ash caught movement from above in his peripheral vision. Thana was moving to join the line, it seemed. So was Tatiana. Manny, Alexander, others. Curiosity concerning the points they might make danced in his thoughts. He put it aside curtly. Ash would hear their thoughts voiced soon enough. His own words were a jumbled mess which he had to sort out. The truth of the matter was that he already had something of a speech in mind, if and when he would be called up to share his thoughts. The most recent exchange served to waylay this, however, and Ash found himself unsure how he was going to respond, merely feeling an urgency to stand upon the stage again and be heard. Though his conscious mind did not know exactly what he was going to say, Ash could feel something solidify within him. The man he used to be asserted itself with prominence, like a personal tool suddenly becoming necessary. Stoicism, bred into him through generations of hillfolk custom and nurtured by military pragmatism, suppressed any emotion he might have been feeling, allowing his mind to crystalize around pure logic and lessons birthed of relevant experience. Any personal feelings were devoid of merit, and he spoke as a man of relative objectivity. [color=4682b4]"Look at the facts of this case in the cold light of day. Mr. Monroe is a disruption. There is no dispute here. The evidence clearly backs this. The question now stands, [i]is he a threat[/i]? Assess this, and take the next logical steps forward. Is this uncertainty about one person worth the time and resources required in terms of food, medical care, and providing special security? Does showing compassion to an individual at the expense of the community demonstrate strength or weakness? I have made my mistakes to this end and learned from them, after paying a hard price for those mistakes."[/color] Two incidents in particular stood out in Ash's mind. He felt like sharing neither just then. Experience was a cruel yet effective teacher sometimes. [color=4682b4]"Were someone else in this room to take Mr. Monroe's place as defendant, I might be able to speak from a point of familiarity."[/color] Ash looked around the room once again, his eyes meeting several people that he knew, and had for a long time. [color=4682b4]"I could tell you of Tatiana's fierce loyalty and love. Or of Miss Ridgeway's work ethic. Amelia's commitment. I could talk about Jack's unwavering sense of responsibility. I might point to any and all of these things to explain that they were just having a bad time of things. Stress, changes, PTSD. I might request counseling for them, with full belief that they just need to work some things out."[/color] Ash's eyes looked weary for a moment with his next words, [color=4682b4]"Even Dr. Bonheur. I considered him a close friend. I trusted him. I could, with full confidence, say that Victor was a good man who lost his way, and if he were in that seat, I could advocate for him with conviction."[/color] Ash continued, giving a mote of apology for his speech, which was less succinct as he had planned. [color=4682b4]"Thank you for bearing with me. This is the crossroads of my point,"[/color] Ash continued, his features smoothing over like carved marble, [color=4682b4]"Regardless of noble intentions, or [i]compassion[/i], this is a simple question of potential risk. I cannot advocate for Mr. Monroe because I do not know him. None of us do. I have been acquainted with him for the week of Quarantine. Past that, for half a day of a single work assignment. The rest of the time he was in holding."[/color] It was the last piece of questioning, and the rant following which ultimately flipped Ash's decision away from a more positive advocation. [color=4682b4]"Mr. Monroe spent the time set aside to speak on his own defense to instead refer to this place as a prison. Then detailed very specific actions against the community that he would [i]not[/i] do. Following that, he criticized policy and made an excuse for being late as an attachment. There was more. We all heard it. What I did not hear in that closing argument was ownership of the charges or apology. He had a week to prepare something. Anything. His final defense was spent saying what he felt was wrong with this place, the people in it, and events of his life prior to now. Nothing to actually defend himself and nothing to take responsibility. I might have personally accepted a simple, [i]'Yes, I messed up. I do not deny the charges. I apologize and want to fix it,'[/i] as a final statement, if it was genuine."[/color] Ash shook his head, [color=4682b4]"But this is not my call to make."[/color] His conclusion was a terse summary of his broader phrasing and concerns. It was also delivered with unwavering purpose. [color=4682b4]"In the face of potential threat - Does one show compassion to the individual, or to the community? Blind compassion [i]is[/i] weakness. Tempered by responsibility, it is strength. Compassion in this instance is served best by showing it to as many people as possible. Considering that, I would choose community. And my question: How [i]decisive[/i] does one make it?"[/color] The last sentence was delivered with the icy detachment of a man accustomed to asking and answering questions that had a cost in human life. [color=4682b4]"I thank the Court for its time."[/color] Following his statement, Ash stepped down. His piece was said. It was neither hopeful nor heartwarming. It was an objective series of observations based on the reality of their situation and his experience with similar dilemmas, geared toward the long term survival of as many people as possible. It was an iron statement, cold and barely flexible. Ash was perfectly willing to retake his seat and let the chips fall where they may following this. He did not expect friendly support. Moreover, he did not require it. [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/0tgBVbK/Thalia-TWD.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] There was no way in hell Thalia was getting up on that stage now. The call for opinions to be expressed washed over her like a spring breeze carrying a touch of something from a wastewater treatment plant; harmless but ultimately unappealing in the short term. She had no opinion of note about what was going on. Anything she had to say would be pointless, or moot, or unsupported opinion with zero bearing on the application of justice. So, hard pass on going up there and drawing more attention to herself. She was more or less satisfied right where she was. Again, this was about the learning experience. She was picking up a lot of interesting tidbits of information about the people already living in Camp Mexico Beach prior to her arrival. More than that, a lot of things about the ones who arrived the same day as herself. Even a thing or two about her own traveling companions. Thalia supposed that it was human nature to speak in the defense of a fellow human being, when the result of a guilty verdict might mean banishment. Or worse. It was one of the reasons that she refrained from adding any additional dialogue. Thalia preferred to work as directly as possible with questions involving possible mortality. And she was not the public speaking type anymore. And truthfully, she had nothing worthwhile to say. But listen? That was something she could do quite well. Team Eden got the first two options to represent the overall feel of the crowd, so to speak. Alexander and Manny comported themselves openly and, as best she could tell, honestly. Overall she was a little nervous for Alexander. He seemed to be having a little problem. It looked like he had been having this same problem more often lately. But he pulled it out at the end, and Thalia noted with a touch of respect that he had the strength of character to address Hunter directly when he was done. That couldn't have been protocol. He did it anyway. [color=dc143c][i]"Good on yah,"[/i][/color] she thought to herself. Mugsy was demonstrating class. Maye one day, she'd pick up some for herself. As for Manny, he went so far as to suggest a course of action, simple though it was, with hope of future improvement. It was optimistic. Thalia missed being optimistic. It had been quite a while since she had partaken of that particular mindset. But for every optimist and every person who hoped, within that community there would always be the need for someone like her. Maybe two or three. It was a concession to her thoughts after reminding herself that she already had a brother here who probably fit that description. Wonder over what the others, Ballerina chick, Nikki, and Navy, might say when their turns came around, came up briefly but was stamped back down when Navy's boyfriend was next to speak. She could almost see the idealistic, rousing speech coming off of the guy before he even said a word, which is why what he actually said surprised the hell out of her. Putting on her best "what the hell just happened" face, Thalia sat up a little straighter in her chair, not wanting to miss out on this one. His last few words struck a chord with her. An realization dawned on her, reflecting in one internally voiced thought: [color=dc143c][i]"Holy shit, Captain America is [b]savage[/b]."[/i][/color] The part questioning how [i]decisive[/i] their compassion should be? This sounded very much like a low-key inquiry whether exile or putting a bullet to the back of his head (for the good of the community) was in question. Maybe she was wrong. Thalia did have a tendency to color situations with her own brand of cliched edginess. She kind of hoped she was wrong. At the same time, Thalia was beginning to see why her cousin Alicia liked this guy. And maybe a little more why Thana liked him, too. And she was a little more glad that she chose not to contribute, staying in her seat, with relative, situational anonymity.