[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] Like Nigel had alluded to moments before, the die had been cast. Closing arguments had been given and the Plebian opinions headed, so now it was only a matter of time before the dice finally landed, revealing their divine judgement in the form of numbers. Would Hunter's lucky number show up, or those of dread? Nigel certainly didn't know, only familiar in such cases from Ancient Rome and judicial cases not of this world. He was a historian, not a lawyer after all! He still found the whole drama breath-taking, himself firmly seated at the edge of his seat as listened intently to Thana's opinion. He slowly nodded alongside her words, the bobbing of his head following her slow, yet determined rythm of speech. [color=#B8860B]"I support that sentiment. A simple execution might be efficient, but…it's not for me to say what is morally right for this community or not, just that it is not Death he deserves. Whatever it is, a fair sentence will not be a light one…"[/color] Nigel commented back to Thana, sharing his thoughts with Ash too as he was in the conversation as well. Hunter's crimes were in no terms light, and the punishment should match that… Like how the thundering sound of collapsing limbs and the fall of Thalia the Amazon cracked through the thick air of suspense? Probably. Nigel turned his head and entire frame in search of the sound, quickly finding its source in Thalia's comedic failure to sneak out of the room. In the end she simply gave up trying, forcing Nigel to stiffle a chuckle out of respect for her. This was a situation not befitting a comedy, and certainly not for someone as skilled as her. Not with her glare of Death, it wasn't. As Thana had prophesied, the verdic was a foregone conclusion; Guilty. Nigel's rubbing hands indicated he knew that before anyone had told them. Some things simply weren't a surprise. What was a surprise were the options the General gave Hunter. To put it plainly, here there were no "Virtus in media stat." No middle path laid forth with golden bricks, leading to a happy life. Forced rehabilitation or banishment. Nigel held his breath for what felt like years as he waited for Hunter's response, knowing neither option would be pleasent for the young soldier. In the end though, he let out a sigh of weighted relief at his choice: Six months of getting help. It was no easy path to walk, but in the end perhaps that would finally gift upon him that much needed sense of catharsis? [color=#B8860B]"And so begins Hunter's Odyssey begins…"[/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] The waiting for numbing all of Alexander's senses at this point, the lack of any further deliberations or testimonies creating a vaste void inside the hall used as the court room. Had it not been for the severity of the situation, not to mention the safe presence of Manny still at his side, Alexander wouldn't know how to cope with the void that was slowly consuming him; the uncertainty of what were to happen to Hunter. To his younger self, now taken out for whatever reasons ol' Mugsy hadn't caught in all the storms that rolled over him. What would his fate be? His heart begged, pleaded and prayed for a sentence that could be considered lenient, or in the very least merciful, but his head and gut? No, just his gut, for that he could trust more than anything else in life after so many years - his gut wasn't so optimistic. Alexander was shaken out of his daze by the loud crashing somewhere in the room. In an instant the old veteran rose to his feet, ready to proclaim his innocence for…for…the shooting? Alexander stood dazed once again, confusion washing over his face as he saw clearer what had caused those noises. Not booming noises, but simple crashing; Thalia the not-so-stealthy. What she lacked in stealth, not comparable to her slick movements back in Eden, she made up for with her Bostonian attitude, owning the situation like any cool cat would. Manny put it better than he himself could have. [color=662d91]"Seems so…we all do probably. Whatever's happened today, everyone's been through something rough…Poor Angel."[/color] The old veteran's hushed response was drowned out by the return to order as the trial went into its last phase; Guilty. Alexander felt his heart break into a thousand pieces, the blackness consuming it slowly but menacingly. To him this was a failure, just one of many he had created and not been able to fix. Choked up and fighting the growing urge to pray for Hunter's fate, it took a few moments for him to realise what happened next. Aeron gave him a choice. What? Alexander's watery eyes blinked forcefully, as if trying to blink away the mirrage before him. The option Hunter chose made the feeling all the better, if bittersweet. Redemption, at least a shot at it. For six months Hunter would be kept locked up, evaluated and treated. Alexander slowly found a smile forming on his lips, his gaze wandering from staring relieved at Hunter at his choice, to Aeron with gratitude in his silent thanks, to Manny for a weighed joy, and finally back at Hunter again. Hunter had taken the option Alexander wouldn't have taken himself, the one he needed but didn't deserve. Now the road through Perdition began, of which Alexander would pray for Hunter's safe passage through each day. Salvation was still an option, for both of them.