FIRST EXECUTION

[faentasy]

Execution

Regardless of how you spent the day after trial, time ticks forward. Zola’s fate has been sealed, and all that awaits is the execution of her sentence. Come Sunday morning, the familiar sound of a flute reaches your ears, though this time you're not inclined to obey (although those who resist will have a feeling of dread they just can't shake until the end of the day), unless you're one particular blonde. Today the notes of music bring you inside the palace and into the stairwell leading to the upper floors, bars completely gone as if they were never there to begin with. What awaits at the end of the ascent is a white, completely featureless corridor with a single, plain black door at the end. As soon as it's opened, you find yourself in a completely different space.

All you can see around you is yourself and those came to bear witness you, reflections flooding your peripheral vision. This entire space is one giant mirror, from the floors, to the walls, to the ceilings. In the middle of the room stand Zola, no longer confined with vines or any restraints, and Junko with Hamelin directly in between them.

"Welcome, welcome! Now that our audience is here, let's get started shall we? Today's performance has Junko starring as the heroine and Zola as the villain! Put on a proper show for us, will you ladies?"

With a theatrical bow, Hamelin steps out from between them, a shimmer visible as he does, a large magic barrier shining into place. The stage has been set, and now all that remains is to enjoy the play.

Comments

[heroicact]

[That's him, a vaguely convenient sapling hanging out in the middle of the hall of mirrors.]

Much of this is for the benefit of the audience, I'm sure, but it does not seem as though he has spared the participants of the execution any -- I have thought, before, that this is not just a show but a challenge.

[A pause, as he follows the twists and turns of Junko and Zola and their flashing blades, slow and strangely quiet within the medium of reflections.]

As for the execution itself... Zola herself does not seem to lack in theatricality either. She is one to fight to the end...

[hellochildren]

[thank you trees for growing in convenient places and also being sentient]

You may very well be correct, considering the reqvierments of zis..."game."

[Not doing air quotes, but still not really referring to it like it's actual game. This entire thing is most certainly a challenge-either to see which of them break and kill, or which will get away with murder-if any of them do.

And Zola, while now proving herself an impressive fighter, proved that she couldn't get away with it.]

Once backed into a corner, most creatures tent to throw zeir all into a fight-zough it appears she has kept up her interest in performing.

[Though it doesn't look like that's helping her in the end, if Junko's ankle strike will mean anything.]

[heroicact]

... Who knows, truly, whether she is performing anymore, or simply fighting in the way she knows how -- she has been many things throughout her life, it seems, but...

[And it's there he falls silent, letting the meandering thoughts peter away. For the most part they're distracted musings that simply splinter away like the mirror that just shattered -- it forces him to at least lift his eyes to watch directly, the last of the bloodshed and the struggle and the ugliest of the brawl.

And it is here that the illusion lifts, quick and clean as the cuts through Zola, unrepentant as the splash of blood on mirrors and through them: they are all on this same stage, and only upright through sheer coincidence, in some ways.

Jack doesn't close his eyes, but there's a faint movement under the Professor's talons, a quiver that cannot be suppressed in close quarters. His voice is quiet and flat, barely more than a breath of sound when he speaks again.]

May your soul pass then to light, and through the hundred cycles may you see the world once more.

[hellochildren]

[The parrot let's the conversation drop as well as the fighting intensifies. It's clear who's in control for the majority of it, but intriguing nonetheless to see the previously calm and collected Zola become almost animalistic to get out of the situation alive, even ignoring her own wounds to keep fighting.

It's almost disappointing to her simply slump over, dead from blood loss.

Almost.

When Jack speaks, letting out what the parrot assumes is a prayer for the fallen woman, he sighs.]

You are a better man zan most, Herr Vessalius.

[And with that, he leaves the man's shoulder and flies away.]