fragile creatures on collision with our judgement days

WESSEX after all is said and done you're just a carnivore let you in and drink my blood you're nothing but a monster “How do the Fae deal with such things? Within the tribes, I mean?” Adjusting herself in her seat, Juniper will find that it’s not just a question - a question she actually wants the answer to - but a launching point. “See, Grounders don’t have a history of this trial thing. We barely had a leader for the last three hundred years. Crimes were committed, of course, but we always just… dealt with them. Personally, usually. There might have been some mob action or something, but we don’t have laws and punishments written down. We don’t have anything that says this is the punishment for taking a life, this is the punishment for stealing. We have revenge, and we having dealing with it.” Her gaze drifts towards the window, as if she could perhaps see the northernmost reaches of Caido in the distance. “I don’t know if Halo has any kind of system, and I don’t know if Torchline does either. I suspect, given the smuggling underbelly, that they don’t. So how do we decide what’s a fair punishment and what isn’t? Or who decides? One person, two, three? Five, with majority rule? How do we know if they’re impartial?” As she lays out the obstacles she sees to this, Wessex’s eyes, no longer sharp and hawkish, come back to the diplomat. “Is there imprisonment? As the strongest member of a very small, very hunted community, I can’t give myself up and open them to a threat. Just recently a sixteen year old Ascended girl was killed. Her throat sliced. And all I have to go on is an older man with dark hair. Do you know how many people that could be?” She sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “She Ascended to avoid starving like the rest of her family and it ended up being its own death sentence.” It shouldn’t have been, but she doesn’t need to say that, does she? “Without these structures in place, without knowing what to expect - nevermind the fact that I don’t agree with the premise - I can’t give you what you want at the expense of leaving my people vulnerable.” Spreading her hands in a helpless gesture, the Wraith leaves that thought hanging in the air. “I can see a way forward, where the Fae get their vengeance and the Ascended stay safe, but it’ll require a compromise.” Wessex knows where her priorities lie. It’s just a matter of whether or not hers and Junipers intersect.