Fri May 27, 2005 5:37 am
Cory Helstone sits at his desk in the early morning, blotting bleary sleeplessness out of his eyes with a pressed white handkerchief. When it rains, it pours, he thinks.
How best to go about this?
The office will soon be filled with the sounds of a pen scratching on paper. The first sally would be his; he'd want to play this game on his territory, if at all possible.
To Captain Thomas Daniels, commander, Order of Straka:
I have recently been retained to represent the interests of Ariane Carnath-Emory in the matter of these questionable, unfair, and illegal charges levied against her by the Order of Straka.
Speech and action are too heated in dire days such as these, sir. Weapons are too easily drawn, and so, let us deal with this situation like gentlemen.
Miss Carnath-Emory is not a criminal, and must not be treated as such. The true criminals are the White cultists: animalistic men and women who slaughter innocents, mutilating them beyond civilized belief, not those upright citizens who are forced by adversity to defend their very breath from the utter madness that has been the experience of all of us who live in Myrken Wood as of late.
You would not blow out a single candle and expect that motion to stop a house-fire whose walls are already aflame around you. This situation, sir, is much the same.
I urge you to see reason; harming or jailing Miss Carnath-Emory will only make the residents of Myrken Wood assume that you care more for protocol than you do for protecting those lives whom are entrusted to you -- their lives, sir, and the lives of the Governor and the Council to whom we all owe our allegiance.
Our lives are threatened -- not by Miss Carnath-Emory, but by those who can kill mere girls so handily and without regret.
Taking any action against Miss Carnath-Emory, I assure you, will, in the end, not hold up in court, where any wrong done her will be swiftly answered by me in my capacity as her attorney. I am firm in my belief that the law will side with me if this happens. However, I know you as a reasonable man, Captain, and so, I recommend that we meet before any rash action is taken.
Sincerely, and with best wishes,
Coriolanus Helstone, Esq.
Myrkentown
The letter would be given to the sandy-haired boy that is Helstone's most trusted emissary, and he'd be sent to Straka headquarters with it.
Fri May 27, 2005 8:40 am
Captain Thomas Daniels opened the letter, read the first three lines, and put it down. He stood, then, from his desk and stepped over to the window where the heat was pouring in like a waterfall. Thomas smirked, a dark humor about him. "Oh, it's a shame I have a conscience. I could pack up and let them stew in their own self-rightous brand of hell. But, alas..."
The captain sighed, frowning. Oh, the things needed to brought up in the meeting, outlined in the letter just beside the lawyer's. Oh, the headbutting that would ensue. And while Daniels would have liked to simply ignore the lawyer's letter and move on, he knew it would come up in the meeting. Nonetheless, even while they fought tooth and nail against him, the captain would be doing the best of his ability to protect them.
And that currently involved speaking with the surviving prisoner.