Jenn fought the urge to laugh. She could tell that this young woman was a product of her culture, that there wasn't anything she'd be able to say or do to change her mind in just one conversation, if at all, but she also had to recognize that she likely had others among her people who thought the same way. Potentially even among those who knew that she was the Blue Rose as well. It certainly wasn't something she could just rule out as a fringe element among her people.
The main difference with this young woman was the fact that she decided to go about 'fixing' what she saw wrong here in a way that was completely wrong. Though, Jenn wasn't sure how to articulate that so the young woman would actually understand. Not that she really was worried about that. Not with her choosing death for what she'd done so quickly.
"Regardless of whether that's true or not, you still committed murder," Jenn said out loud. "Rather than trying to find a peaceful resolution to what you saw as wrong with this community, you chose to try and destroy the leadership of this people. As a result, you will be sentenced by the leadership present here." Jenn looked at her advisors, as well as Reiwis. Jenn hadn't originally thought of including her in this decision, but she had a feeling having her cast a vote as to what the sentence is would go a long way to quelling any others who might have similar ideas of how to resolve the 'problems' they saw around here. "Starting with Maelia, each will cast a vote on what the sentence will be and the sentence with the most votes will be what will be carried out."
Jenn had originally wanted to have it more like the justice system in her home country, but she really hadn't learned that much about it in her social studies class just yet. She supposed that she probably would have to study to become a lawyer if she really wanted to know the full ins and outs of it, but she was pretty sure that she'd be able to come up with something else on her own that would work well enough for her people. While she didn't think that this method she was using right now would be the better option to work with, she felt that it probably was better than trying to create something half baked when Jenn hadn't had time to really consider how to go about it.
Part of her wondered if she should ask the Duchess Versith to handle this matter, but she didn't like the idea of asking for a favor like that. She had a feeling it would create an imbalance of sorts that she couldn't quite explain. It just felt wrong to take that option and Jenn couldn't really say why.
Jenn listened as each of her advisors kept calling out 'death' as their vote on the sentence. While Jenn had hope to merely exile her, largely because she didn't want to kill the young woman out of hand like this, she had the sinking suspicion that in the minds of her advisors, it wasn't ever really an option to them. At least not with this matter.
Finally, Reiwis called out for death and it was Jenn's turn to cast her vote. "Exile," she said, even knowing that it didn't have the faintest hope of happening. She just felt that she couldn't vote for a person's death just because everyone else had. No matter who they were or what they'd done.
Or at least, almost no matter what they'd done, Jenn amended in her mind as she suddenly thought about her friends and how she was working at keeping Beth from getting killed. If the person who killed Beth would fall under Jenn's makeshift judicial system, she would vote for death at that point. If only because she'd be hurting at the loss of one of her closest friends.
Adding a silent apology to Jianopra, Jenn brought herself back to the present.
"The sentence of death has been decided on and will be carried out immediately," Jenn replied, turning to Tchisa. "You will be in charge of seeing it carried out and you will either be the one who carries out the method you choose, or you will select who carries it out."
Tchisa nodded, her expression grave. Jenn's other advisors looked relieved and voiced their support with the decision. Even Reiwis looked content with Jenn's decision. Though, Jenn suspected that Reiwis thought that the Blue Rose had given Jenn what to say, but she didn't really care right then. She just wanted this matter to be over with.
She doubted that she'd be happy with however it got resolved, if she'd tired another approach, but she didn't see how she could have done that without having first thought about establishing a judicial system already. There was already so much for her to focus on with getting this settlement up and going that she didn't have time for some of the matters to make her people more civilized. Rather than this kind of 'frontier' justice. Which is what she couldn't help but think of how this matter was resolved. She recognized that she likely couldn't have changed the outcome of this 'case' but she still felt like she'd done something wrong here. While she was confident she shouldn't feel that way, it didn't change the fact that that's what she did feel right then. She wasn't sure if there was anything she could do to change how she felt, but she also didn't see how that would help matters right then. Not with how things were going right then.
Jenn watched as the young woman was escorted out of the building by the guards who had stood watch by the doors with Tchisa following behind. Jenn hoped that Tchisa's dark expression was because she didn't like doing this task rather than her being upset with Jenn herself. She wasn't sure if she should have consulted Tchisa before deciding that she'd be the one who not only decided the means for the young woman to die but also either choose who would carry it out or carry it out herself. Jenn was hesitant to even follow herself, but she pretty sure that having the Blue Rose watch the sentence carried out was the right thing to do. She might not understand why herself, but she had a feeling that since she was the ultimate authority here, that she should be there to watch the more unfavorable things being done that was being done under her authority. Especially since she'd failed her people at coming up with a better way of handling these matters.
It might not have changed the outcome here, but Jenn was pretty sure that he had failed, even though she seriously doubted that anything would have really changed. As it was clear that it likely would have happened anyway. Jenn just felt like if she had gotten it set up, maybe the young woman wouldn't have had to die. That she could have come up with a different sentence that everyone would have been accepting of.
Though, she doubted that she'd have known about the possibility of having their gender changed forcibly as a punishment. She wasn't sure if she'd have been able to put a stop to that if she hadn't been present when she'd heard it as an option. All she could be certain of was that she'd made the right decision in regards to that. That it shouldn't be seen as a punishment to be male, but rather just an aspect of a person's birth that they weren't able to control.
Jenn hoped that someday it might even be seen as something a person could choose without having anyone think less of them for wanting something like that. She seriously doubted that it'd happen in her lifetime, but she was pretty sure that it wouldn't be possible to have that change if it remained a potential punishment.
Jenn sighed as she followed Tchisa out the door. She really wanted to go an sleep right then, but she felt that she needed to see this through, no matter what else happened. That if she didn't do this, then she'd likely need to have one of her stand-ins take over and she really didn't think it would be good to just push all the tasks that she really didn't like having to do herself onto them. Not only did it feel wrong, but she was pretty sure that it would be easy to get in the habit of delegating unpleasant tasks to others just because she didn't want to do what she was supposed to do about them.
Maybe if she was supposed to be there as Jenn, it would have been different, but she was pretty sure that this wasn't the case here. Especially since 'Jenn' hadn't had anything to do with this other than convince Reiwis that she was the one to send to the ogres to retrieve the ogress so they could figure out exactly what had happened to Jianopra.
-
Embris watched as Tchisa led the young woman who had told Embris that the ogress had committed the murder. Even though it turned out that it wasn't the Blue Rose herself, Embris was still amazed that the young woman would still have the presence of mind to be so calm when telling them who killed the Blue Rose's stand in. She wasn't sure why the young woman had two guards escorting her at this time, but she wasn't worried. As far as she knew, the ogres were getting ready to attack them and this was merely a precaution.
However, the young woman was led to a central location of the settlement, where the dirt roads that had been packed down by where everyone walked met in front of the building Tchisa and the young woman had just come out of.
Embris held her breath, vaguely aware of others leaving the building as well. Tchisa and the young woman held her full attention. Somehow she knew that something important was about to be announced. Whether it was that they were going to war with the ogres or that they were pulling out of the settlement because of the danger the ogres posed, Embris wasn't sure. She was just confident that something was about to be announced and would affect everyone there.
"After reviewing the evidence provided us, we realized that the ogress couldn't have killed Jianopra, one of our Blue Rose's stand-ins," Tchisa declared, her voice carrying over all the side conversations that Embris could hear going on around her, which were immediately silenced. Which Embris wasn't surprised about, as she certainly hadn't expected to hear that the ogress was innocent. "After further interrogation, the witness confessed to committing the murder of her own accord and by herself. She convinced all of us that she acted alone from planning the murder and the execution of it."
Tchisa paused and Embris felt the words sink into her as if they had a physical aspect to them. She wasn't sure what would come next, but she felt herself stop breathing as she waited to hear what was coming.
"The Blue Rose wanted to exile her but gave the rest of her advisors a say in what the consequences of her actions would be. The choice is death," Tchisa continued after a minute of silence around her. "The Blue Rose vetoed the option of turning her into a man for reasons she didn't explain. So, if any of you want to entertain thought of following in this young woman's footsteps, you will likely have to face this same punishment yourselves."
As Tchisa finished speaking, she held out a hand and one of the guards by her handed her a circular prism, which Tchisa swung without warning and such speed that the young woman's head was cut off her body in one smooth motion and without time for anyone to react. Even as the young woman's heart continued pumping blood out of the artery that was now severed in the neck, causing the blood to spray out and hit those standing closest to the scene before them, including Embris. Who felt the blood hit her and couldn't make sense of it at first, even as the young woman's head rolled to a stop at Embris' feet, the expression not showing any signs of knowing what was about to happen.
Tchisa handed the axe back to the guard who she'd received it from and started to walk away. The expression on her face made Embris glad that she wasn't supposed to meet with her after this. She turned back to look at the young woman's body that had fallen to the ground where it had once stood, the blood now merely pouring out of the open hole in the neck. Something that Embris was starting to feel sick just looking at.
Embris forcibly turned her attention back to the building that Tchisa had led the young woman out of. She was confident that Jenn was in there and suddenly wondered if she was still there. As Embris knew that she hadn't seen her since just after the murder had been committed. Which made her wonder how she was taking this.
So, Embris started to make her way to the building through the crowd that was still shocked at what had just transpired. Which Embris fully understood. Though, each member of the crowd was clearly shaking off the shock and starting to disperse, which Embris thought probably was a good thing, as she herself needed to find something to ground herself after what had happened.
While it was her first public execution, she had heard even her mother talk about the revelry that usually accompanied them in the cities. Embris wasn't sure she would have expected something like that to have drawn high spirits or the like, but she supposed if they'd all known that they were going to witness an execution, others might have done something to maybe block out the horror that had occurred before them.
Embris was about to enter the building when she heard Tchisa talking to someone through the door.
"…don't see the problem. It was decided that she was supposed to be executed and I did that. We don't have time to wait around to see if she might try to escape or even have the womanpower to guard her the entire time," Embris heard Tchisa say.
"I'm not complaining about that. I was just wondering why you had to make it so… public. Why couldn't we have announced it and then had her executed elsewhere? Why did it have to be where everyone could see?" another voice asked, sounding like one of authority. One part of Embris thought she should recognize, but couldn't.
"I chose this time to execute her simply because it will send a warning to those who might think to either do the same thing she thought to do or to handle their problems in a more direct way," Tchisa answered, her words full of innuendo. Innuendo that Embris was pretty sure she understood.
"That may be, but from here on out, no more public executions," the other person said definitively, her voice brooking no argument. "If you continue to hold them publicly, I'll abolish that as a punishment as well."
"You realize that if you do that, you'll be merely creating an environment that will allow the sort of thing my display was made to quell before it even started?" Tchisa snapped. "If you don't allow people like that young woman to be executed, why would they fear to end up like her if they chose to commit a similar, if not the same, kind of act as she did? How would you be able to maintain order if they were allowed to act as they will with impunity if you won't allow them to be executed?"
"I'm more concerned about what effects doing the executions publicly will bring," the other person snapped, sounding like she was running low on patience. "I understand we don't have the resources to guard them or to come up with a better way of doing things to handle situations like this. I only abolished the possibility of her being turned into a man simply because I don't want the idea of being male to be seen as less than being a woman. I don't want to abolish the death penalty here, largely because of how our resources are already stretched so thin and I don't want to ask that kind of favor from Duchess Versith. I just don't want them to be held publicly. Can you at least understand that?"
Suddenly Embris realized that Tchisa was talking with the Blue Rose. She wasn't sure why it took her so long to realize it, but she suddenly felt like she'd get in trouble if she was caught overhearing their conversation. She wasn't sure if she would in fact get in trouble, since she wasn't anywhere near a place that wasn't public and it wasn't like she was trying to hear the conversation, she was just able to while she debated of if she should try to continue to find Jenn or if she should find her siblings first. She knew her siblings were fine, but she wasn't sure about Jenn. Which was mostly what kept her by the entrance to the building, undecisive of if she should enter or not with the conversation just past the doors at the entrance to the building.
"Yes, I understand that. It's just that making it public will let others see what would be waiting for them if they chose the same path," Tchisa replied, making it sound reasonable and Embris found herself agreeing with Tchisa. While it had been shocking, she certainly would think twice before even considering killing someone an option at this point. At least outside of being in battle or commanded to by one of her superior officers. That was even if she was so inclined to consider committing such an act on her own.
"Maybe we'll have to discuss this again later on," the Blue Rose replied. "Maybe I'm just reacting to being tired. It's been a long morning for me."
"Of course, my friend," Tchisa replied, surprising Embris that Tchisa considered the Blue Rose a friend.