at the end of the river, the sundown beams

[destage]

[Well...that trial was most certainly a thing, now wasn't it.

It's probably a while after the trial that some notes will be going underneath people's doors, written in a nice, clean scrawl--]

For anyone who hasn't gotten anything to eat, there will be food and refreshments provided in the dining room courtesy of Estelle-san and I. Feel free to take as much as you need.

Please stay strong, everyone.

♥ Estelle and Sayaka

[True to the word, there's plenty of food to go around--potato stew courtesy of Estelle, and curry courtesy of Sayaka. There's coffee and tea out as well, for anyone to drink, and...well, it's more or less an optional thing. After today, some might need it.]

Comments

[ninehundredlives]

...maybe later.

I guess I could...try to draw something?

[perpend]

That would be lovely, if you're willing. We'll keep the memorial going, and make sure no one is forgotten.

[ninehundredlives]

...I can do that.

[Probably not tonight, though.]

It's going to be worse, next time. This was just an accident - she wasn't really trying to hide what she'd done. [She didn't even pick up the beads. That's all it would have taken, maybe.]

[perpend]

...I know.

[Next time, it's likely not to be an accident.]

We'll still have to catch them. The stakes are too high, if we're going to get as many people out of here as possible.

[ninehundredlives]

["We"?]

There's nothing else for it. They know what the stakes are now - if someone does it, they're willing to kill all of us in the end. Even if...even if it's another accident, and they're hiding it.

[.....]

We know we've got another four days safe from the time limit, at least.

[perpend]

[He means it as a collective "we," but he doesn't seem like he's going to be clarifying that any time soon.]

They're preeetty brutal stakes.

No matter what happens, someone will die.

[ninehundredlives]

Yeah. Most of us, I bet.

Have you ever dealt with...serial killers, or anything like that? In your work.

[perpend]

I haven't. Maybe it would help us here, but the cases I've been working on for the last few years aren't exactly the violent sort.

Still crimes, but nothing anywhere near as horrific as what's apparently planned for us here.

[ninehundredlives]

I doubt this kind of thing comes up often, anyway...

[Interesting that he's on non-violent cases, though? Somehow, she hadn't gotten that impression. Maybe that's how he gets away with wearing so much white.]

What do you work on?

[perpend]

At the moment, I've been working on the connection between cases that should be impossible-- a man who was able to take the police commissioner hostage, who went asked for his demands, said he wanted curry.

The lead singer of a rock band who leaked national secrets on stage.

And a man who claimed to have murdered his wife in a locked room, for which he wasn't present.

....That man was my friend. There's no way he did it; the contraption was something designed by his daughter. But I have no idea how it went so horribly, or why he would claim it was murder and not an accident. I've spent years making sure I never get a case wrong so I could devote my time to understanding what it all means.

[ninehundredlives]

[Oh. Uh, okay, that's a lot. Susan mulls this over for a second - the first one just sounds like he might have been crazy, the second one is weird, and the third...]

...to spare his daughter, surely. From knowing that the thing she built killed her mother? Even accidentally...

[It's a burden.]

...I can't imagine this is any better.

[perpend]

....It doesn't make it better, no matter how you look at it.

I've been working with a man on the case; we built a replica of the contraption and everything, trying to understand how it could have gone wrong.

[He shakes his head.]

We haven't had any luck so far.

[ninehundredlives]

This...was the friend you were talking about before? [Sort of a rhetorical question there] That seems like a poor application of the death penalty.

[perpend]

It is.

It was something he requested himself.

[He's so mad about this.]

[ninehundredlives]

What? Can you even do that?

[perpend]

No, he can't. Not normally.

The justice minster was refusing to sign the order, why he suddenly decided to go through with it....

[ninehundredlives]

......like why that other man just wanted to be brought curry?

[A leap, but they were already talking about people doing things that don't make sense. Criminals, if they believe the man killed his wife, don't get to decide their punishment.]

[perpend]

It's possible. The justice minister is a proud man; he wouldn't admit if something had happened to him.

[ninehundredlives]

Maybe it was...blackmail, or something like that?

[perpend]

That's a possibility-- if someone was able to threaten him, he might not be willing to come forward.

...whatever happened, I do think he would have come to me. I don't understand why he didn't.

[ninehundredlives]

You two are friends?

[perpend]

No, but I've been working with him closely. He's one of the few people who believed my "manipulator" theory had merit.

An unknown force controlling people against their wills isn't exactly something most people will accept without a lot of evidence behind it, after all.

[ninehundredlives]

If it weren't for everything that's happened here, I'd probably think you were nuts.

[Just. tbh]

[perpend]

That's fine. Were the circumstances different, I'd think I was nuts, too.

[ninehundredlives]

I guess I know what that's like. You're lucky he believed you, someone important like that - he could have ended your career.