[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It made an impact on Nigel the plebian pleads made by various members of Camp New Mexico, all aimed at Hunter in their varying degrees of condemnation and absolution, even if they didn't truly shake Nigel's values to the core. Those speaking their case for putting Hunter in a more favourable light, certainly the words of Alexander the old veteran and Nikki the presumable previous outcast of the settlement, were the most emotionally moving to him. The neo-Roman scratching his chin at their words, speaking like a true early-Christian prophet of the early Roman Empire. Forgiveness and the possible chances of redemption, those were the fates Hunter perhaps needed. Those pleads were spoken in stark contrast to those who viewed this case in a manner Nigel would have supported whole-heartedly before. Amongst those were Thana, his Athenean mentor and inspiration at the camp. Nigel leaned forward on his seat, antipicating anything but the harsh reality-check that Thana slapped onto everyone's cheeks, Nigel included. He was shaken for a moment at her words, but slowly he began to nod in agreement to her words. Of everyone who'd spoken for or against Hunter, Nigel found himself agreeing with the Athenean conjurer of green life quite compelling. It wasn't a question of mercy for one single individual. It was a question of keeping the community as a whole safe, and following their own codes of conduct. Giving Hunter special treatment would endanger both. Nigel's eyes were stuck on Thana while she walked down the isle to sit down beside Ash, still feeling unsure of he should step up to speak. After all, what could he say that would chance the outcome of the trial? Things moved on as expected, and soon Tatiana the Scarred spoke the most harsh, yet truthful words. Nigel's old self would have agreed with her, tossing most modern sense of humanity aside in favour of surviving a world not made for Humanity. Perhaps not putting a bullet in Hunter's head, but still… Sitting still at the edge of his seat, Nigel watched as the Council went to deliberate on Hunter's fate. Sheer suspense kept Nigel frozen to his seat. The answer, the final answer could not come any sooner. Turning to Ash and Thana at his side, Nigel sighed deeply as he spoke. [color=#B8860B]"I suppose the die is already cast then, isn't it? Now we wait for Hunter's fate to be decided…I fear your words have spoken true, Thana. I suppose the time for wishful thinking is long overdue now?"[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Alexander was frozen for a good moment. Like a deer standing locked on the spot before the bright headlights of a speeding car down the road, the old veteran's eyes were stuck on Hunter for the briefest of moments, even if they felt like a lifetime. Something about his face caught his attention, and the movement of his mouth struck him coldly down into his very core. The most modest pair of words ever strung together, even if they were without breath, would stick with Alexander for the remainder of his old days on this Earth. A brief nod towards Hunter and a good seat later was all the response the old veteran could muster. A "Thank you", and Alexander felt himself strangely intertwined with the yound soldier with enough troubles to rival himself. A "Thank you" for a brief string of words, a feebly attempt at a defence, an audible prayer for another lost soul. Alexander had done all that he could in his position, and now the rest laid in the hands of the Council, the Dragon and God. Alexander sat firmly seated in his chair, silently listening on and off to what the others would speak about Hunter. The cases were made both for and against him, to the surprise of no one. Even Alexander saw their points clear as day. He wasn't stupid after all…but…he couldn't allow himself to fall to the levels of Thana and Tatiana - the Russian lady who'd given him the calming reassurance he needed after The Episode - even if he agreed with their logic. Hunter had fucked up, plain and simple. Sergeant Jackson would have given Hunter an ass-whopping harder than the VC ever could have, and then some. Now? Alexander found comfort in the words and presence of Manny, even if that presence was merely being seated next to him. Every little bit helped, didn't it? Freeman's words echoed through his own troubled mind, napalm-filled bombs shattering his train of thought every time he found himself dragged back to what Hunter reminded him of. Being locked up for six months under the watchful eye of a shrink? It sounded harsh… Then again, perhaps that was Alexander had needed after all. Perhaps that is what would have helped him overcome all his troubles, fears and trauma from years of fucking up? Who knew? Perhaps being locked up for half a year could have forgiven him of his two biggest sins; shooting the two most important people in his life - Sergeant Jackson back in 'Nam, and his wife Judith of the coast of Florida... ...Either way, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall...