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Post by demikara on Mar 27, 2020 18:03:06 GMT -6
Aerilyn reached over and smoothed his hair down where he had missed a piece. "Hey, you'll do great. And it's the first day. Maybe they won't call you up today?" The trial could either go lightning fast or drag on. It depended a lot on the defense. The prosecution was more than ready for everything and she knew it. They had planned for every angle to be covered. Arianne had been mum as to her defense.
Aerilyn was hoping for some show of mercy given her advanced age and obvioulsy poor state. Probably still prison. That was a given, wasn't it? But maybe minimum security and a nicer prison where she could have her blankets and pillows and books. Like a small apartment. If that existed. It had to exist right? Being locked up was meant to be the punishment. The loss of freedom, not the loss of everything.
Somehow, her experience with how Arianne was treated now didn't leave her with much hope for this at all.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 27, 2020 18:19:52 GMT -6
Ahmad shook his head, immediately - and entirely accidentally - undoing the fix Aerilyn had made to his hair. "Not a chance, not according to that woman from the prosecutor's office." He headed out the door with a frown, digging in his pockets for the car keys he knew he'd just put in there somewhere. "She says I'll be probably on Friday or something, because I'm closer to the end of the case than the beginning of it. So I guess I won't see you inside til then. Probably." He stopped short at the door to the car, catching sight of his warped reflection in it. "Do I always look this bad?" He pouted. He felt bile rise in his stomach. It was so hard - impossible, really - to pretend that this was a normal morning. But he desperately wanted to. The absence of reporters surrounding the property, or even of neighbors poking their heads out for a curious glance, almost let him feel that it was normal. Normal enough that they wouldn't have to put on some other kind of show. Not yet anyway.
It would be a long drive to the courthouse, even if traffic was light and the car ran smoothly.
It would be a longer wait for the old woman, for whom the small indignities of soggy, bland food, and shackles tight at her wrists and ankles, had become normal, and almost unremarkable. Waiting behind the actual courtroom, she was at least spared the particular indignity of sitting in full view of the press waiting for their perfect picture. Instead, she listened as the courthouse guards bickered with each other about some wrestling match, and then complained about their husbands and wives and kids, and then resorted to unkind comments about others passing through the back hallway - one lady was fat, another guard was half-drunk, and a judge was apparently a slut. Drulović was entirely invisible to them, and she suspected, would remain so until the judge finally called her in.
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Post by demikara on Mar 27, 2020 18:25:42 GMT -6
"Well, I'll be inside waiting. And you don't look bad at all. You're just nervous." She assured him. "Do you want me to drive?" He seemed a bit nervous for it still. That was fine, she could drive. She knew the way by now, and knew perfectly well that she could clear a path to the building itself if she cheated a little and went what she considered the speed limit.
It was not, in fact, the posted speed limit, but those were more of a drive this speed when wet sort of thing as far as she was concerned. Under normal circumstances, she was all for going the speed of traffic. And if she was the only one in traffic, then whatever speed she set was the speed of traffic.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 27, 2020 18:44:16 GMT -6
Ahmad had shrugged, but had been content with Aerilyn taking the wheel. He leaned back in the passenger seat while they drove, listless, watching large, bushy trees and houses give way to thin, stretching trees and mid-rise, and then high-rise buildings, as they approached the downtown, trying to quiet the rumbling within his stomach. All around, he could sense the uneasy energy of other commuters and pedestrians around them, and though he knew little of it had anything to do with the lion's den they were about to enter, he could not help but feel the weight of it pushing down onto him. Upon arrival, security was easy enough, though the same for everyone, even with his official ID, and one of the guards directed them to the appropriate floor.
Government Center's West Wing offered a palatial expanse fit for kings and gods, Ahmad though. The red marble flooring and columns, with the Turkic and Greek motifs, had long been iconic of Government Center's main edifice, but the architects for the West Wing had taken the same symbols to an extreme here. The point was grandeur. Drulović would have said it was to impress, but he knew that such finery was anathema to the old woman. In his own way, Ahmad felt small, made minuscule by the towering architecture around them, gorgeous and open though it was.
The holding cells behind the courtrooms, though, lacked that same elegance. They were plain, blocky, and empty. Magically and technologically reinforced, though the security measures rendered invisible. The guards came for Drulović, one of them frowning when seeing that she'd hardly been able to eat any of the sandwich. "It's not the fucking Ritz-Carlton," one of them said, shaking his head as he took the brown bag from her, crumpling it as he checked for its contents. Court was about ready to be opened to the public. Some of the reporters had finally been allowed inside, along with the lawyers. It was about time for her to go, too.
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Post by demikara on Apr 5, 2020 17:54:40 GMT -6
Aerilyn had gotten inside as soon as possible, giving him a chaste kiss to his cheek before she parted ways. It was a crowded trial, and she nearly didn't make it. Her seat wasn't the best because of this, but she still had one, and that was what mattered. She looked up front, peering over and through the crowd to see Arianne as they brought her in. She was thinner than ever and didn't look like she had been doing well at all. This was horrific. How could they charge her with anything when she had barely been able to walk to the spot she was expected to wait at. Hopefully she'd be able to sit soon.
This was...Ahmad's heart was going to break when he saw her. She had tried to warn him that she wasn't doing well, but she didn't think she had managed to put it well enough to encapsulate how their old friend was doing.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 5, 2020 18:21:19 GMT -6
When the old woman stepped into the courtroom, meant to hold no more than about one hundred total people if every single seat were filled, she swept the room with her eyes, looking for as many familiar faces as possible. She caught sight of some she knew from Parliament and from the Bureau, some journalists who'd followed national security issues closely in the past, Nenad and Luljeta sitting together near the back, Aerilyn, and others who might even have been there for other hearings rather than the one dominating headlines today. The murmurings exploded into roars when the journalists in the front two rows caught sight of Drulović, suddenly shouting questions at her that came too fast and too mangled for her to figure out the difference between them. She ignored them, concentrating on making it to the seat a deputy pulled out for her. The courtroom was plain, with wooden benches much like pews, and simple tables surrounding the well.
Drulović looked at the deputy impassively, until he picked up on the hint, physically assisting her into the chair. The attorney, Yolihuani, was already there, leaning over, saying something about the purpose of jury selection. It would likely take the entirety of the first day, with a break for lunch, and then opening arguments the next morning. At mention of lunch, the old women immediately felt hunger pangs. She half-turned in her seat, the better to watch those in the room. When the bailiff called for all to rise, and the judge made her entrance, Yolihuani too had to help the aged Drulović to her feet. The shackles cut painfully into her wrists, but she only looked to the side.
how is it? Ahmad tried to text, from outside, but sweaty fingers made it hard to choose the right letters, and he had to delete and retype the message several times over before it finally looked right. He kept staring at the closed doors, as lawyers and litigants passed through the hall, and every time they opened, he strained for a look only to see the backs of strangers' heads. He could only stay so long before he really needed to head back to Veritas. But he knew that would likely be every day.
Inside, the group of thirty potential jurors crammed into the jury box stared openly at Drulović, a few with undisguised hostility, others with curiosity, but most only with trepidation. It was sure to be a long day.
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Post by demikara on Apr 18, 2020 16:33:02 GMT -6
Boring. She looks better than I expected. It looks like its just jury selection today. She responded. It was boring, but tense. Arianne had needed help to get in the chair and to stand again, and they were going to expect this of her repeatedly. Hopefully they would eventually understand that she'd need help, each time. Even better, maybe they'd let her jsut sit, instead of rising every time to judge stood up.
Aerilyn watched, eyes on Arianne. She was so frail. She looked better than Aerilyn had expected, yes, but by no means did she look good at all. She looked like the slightest of winds would blow her over.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 18, 2020 17:14:01 GMT -6
Ahmad bit into his lower lip when he saw Aerilyn's text. Cameras weren't allowed inside, so while news alerts flashed on his phone, none came with pictures. He didn't know too much about how trials worked, but he wanted to understand, if only for today and this week. The noise of shoes scuffing floor and low conversations among those with business in the West Wing slowly blended into a singular hum, part of the milieu. He looked nothing like the lawyers in their conservatively cut suits or the journalists with badges and recorders, or the people waiting to head somewhere else for a jury summons, most of them attempting to dress nicely despite the scowls many of them wore. It smelled of too much perfume and hot toner and dry cleaning chemicals.
When Ahmad left to go about his day, returning to Fort Veritas to stare at the growing influx of emails, wondering what if anything, the broken coffee machine downstairs had to do with the Terra Novan insurgency or even the new negotiations with some emerging defense contractor, and whether anyone would even notice if he stopped acknowledging their messages, it occurred to him that maybe no one would notice if he just took a nap.
In the courtroom itself, jury selection left most of the reporters present thirsting for more, but the process was rarely exciting. The most dramatic moment of the entire day seemed to have come when the judge realized that one of the prospective jurors was hiding a trembling chihuahua inside her sweater. Dismissed. The old woman sat stoic and impassive all the while, only posing the occasional question to potential jurors, in a soft, firm voice, needing assistance from either Yolihuani or the deputy each time she was supposed to stand. Geraldine Batchelder-Lockerby remained standing for most of the time, only occasionally even looking at Drulović while she spoke, her tone calm and reassuring as she addressed each juror in turn. The day concluded when all but two of the jurors had been seated, and had its second moment of excitement when, after the jurors left, Drulović stumbled and fell nearly to the floor on her way out, unable to catch herself on the way down.
Before Aerilyn could leave herself, though, the old woman met her eyes, just as some large, bulky man accidentally bumped into Aerilyn on his way out of the aisle. "Sorry," he said, righting himself by grabbing her shoulder, the perfect movement to disguise slipping a small folded note into her pocket. "Excuse me."
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Post by demikara on Apr 18, 2020 17:18:04 GMT -6
Aerilyn met her eyes and managed a smile. The man bumped into her and she shot him a nasty look, then looked back to Arianne and mouthed carefully. "see you tomorrow." Hopefully the other could. The fact that she had fallen though...this was all too much. She should be safer here than she was. Aerilyn left, heart breaking. Her friend was in no shape for this trial and no one else seemed to care at all. She was wasting away and still hurting and she ad to sit through this chaos.
It wasn't until she was to her car that Aerilyn found the note in her pocket. Curious, she got into the car and opened the note. When did that get there? She definitely didn't remember having anything in her pocket before after all.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 18, 2020 17:31:09 GMT -6
Drulović was hungry, her stomach's rumbling growing more and more insistent as they finally arrived back to the detention center. The bagged lunch, consisting of another sandwich, an apple, and a small bottle of water, had done little when she struggled to get much of the sandwich to her mouth and couldn't really bite into the apple at all. It'd probably be another bagged lunch, given the late hour, long after dinner had officially been served. But at least she'd be better able to eat it once out of the restraints. And by then, she surmised that Aerilyn, ever the soldier, would no doubt have discovered the note she'd left for her.
The message was simple. Why haven't you gone to Ưi'dhàr?
Ahmad's voice called from upstairs. "Hey, I'm already home. Upstairs."
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Post by demikara on Apr 18, 2020 17:36:19 GMT -6
Aerilyn snorted at the message and headed upstairs. "Arianne wants to know why I haven't left yet. I have no clue how to get a message back to her." Aerilyn admitted and found her husband. She held up the note. "Not that I know when she had this delivered. A guy bumped into me earlier, so maybe then?" She shrugged, not sure. "How do I get a message back to her?" She looked around and found some paper and a pen so she could, possibly, respond.
Ahmad would know though. She was surprised her hadn't been exchanging messages the entire time, but he hadn't wanted to risk himself, she knew.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 18, 2020 18:08:50 GMT -6
"That sounds about right," said Ahmad, turning from his position on the couch in his gaming room to look over at Aerilyn. "It's not an uncommon way to pass a message, though not usually the best one, because it can be easy to intercept." He shrugged. "Not really my forte, though. Besides... you can just write her, the usual way. It's not illegal to talk about going to Ưi'dhàr, not against the orders we got." He leaned his head against the top of the couch. "Why ... I don't know why she cares so much about this. She's got... significantly larger problems right now." He watched Aerilyn with the soft evening light through the windows playing with the shadows on her face, and smiled a little. He hadn't been able to focus much at all, and knew that the mountain of emails would only keep growing the longer he ignored each one. He'd even missed the midweek meeting with the assistant deputy directors, though at least Titon had been completely happy to avoid her peers, and hadn't even bothered questioning it. The same would not hold for long with Wiryaman.
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Post by demikara on Apr 20, 2020 9:58:05 GMT -6
"I more wanted to get back to her sooner than a letter would take." Aerilyn admitted. Still, she wrote down a short note and smiled. "And she doesn't want me to be there at the trial." Aerilyn considered what else to put and shrugged. "She's...probably embarrassed. Or something like that. But Ưi'dhàr can wait. The trial won't." There was a distinct different. She made certain to include something along those lines in her note as well. "Though I suspect the trial is going to drag out. They'll be very thorough on convicting her, to show how amazing Terra is and how no one is above the law. As if the law won't change the next time we get invaded.
Aerilyn, like many Terrans, had accepted invasions almost as a part of their life. It was hard to think of a world where they were actually strong enough to not have to worry about it. They had gotten stronger of course, but the cost...the cost had been so incredibly high. Parts of the planet were completely uninhabitable and the weather and ecosystems had changed for good and not for the better.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 20, 2020 10:11:05 GMT -6
"Yeah, a couple weeks, I think, is what the people from Justice said," Ahmad said, shifting his position until he was lying almost flat on the couch. "I think I'm on in a few days maybe." His stomache turned just at the thought of it. "But. I don't know about embarrassed. Maybe. She's always hated attention of any kind. But also, that makes sense, because in intelligence, you're not supposed to be seen or attract attention." Still, the old woman had always had a particularly strong distate - if not outright contempt - for the news media, and even more so perhaps for the elegant galas and evening affairs of the political elite. "You remember the Parliament Christmas Ball a few years ago? The one that Khayyam basically had to drag her to?" He almost smiled at the memory of it. She'd worn the same nearly threadbare black suit that she had in court, and had sat practically scowling in a corner near the coat rack, talking to the busboy and one of the waitstaff on their way to and from the kitchen, and had fled, on foot no less, about two hours into the six hour affair, even before the Prime Minister's remarks. "I bet Ưi'dhàr is a distraction. She doesn't want anyone here."
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Post by demikara on Apr 20, 2020 10:26:38 GMT -6
"Unfortunately for her, I'm going to be there regardless." Aerilyn found an envelope and tucked the message away, carefully penning the correct address on it, by memory at this point. She had written Arianne as many letters as she could, after all, during the time she was injured. Since she couldn't come visit in person. Her chest twinged and she rubbed the spot the bullet had gone through. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it didn't exactly feel great either. It was more a memory of pain than anything else though.
"She's going to have people in her corner for this, even if all I can do is show up to every day."
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