Moseying in towards the pedestal, Gallian, tagged behind by an ever worried Selica, casually went towards the current captive of the party. As the crowd continues to converse regarding Threshold’s fate, Threshold, alongside a silently sitting Misignor on the side, rests quietly as things pass. The two have been serene right up until Gallian and Selica came along. Selica tries to look for Machilic and finds him nestled deep in the crowd talking to some fairly agitated mages.

The first to notice the girls is Misignor, who scoffs as they approach.

“You’ve got visitors mam.” He says as he stands up to greet the girls.

“Who-!” Threshold spins around and is immediately stricken by the sight of the girls. The moment she saw them she immediately looked the other way. “Ugh please, why are you here? Kids shouldn't get too close to a criminal, you know?”

”Oh I wouldn’t say that.” However Gallian seems to be more amused by Threshold’s reaction than irritated. She looks at Misignor if he would do anything as she approaches the startled captive but he simply sighs and nods while looking at them. Gallian then begins to catch Threshold’s stare by quickly jumping in front of her every time she moves her face. Gallian’s quick step allows her to anticipate Threshold’s head movement before she could even go there herself. Eventually after a few attempts Threshold’s irritation wears thin and snaps at Gallian.

“What’s your problem!?!?” Threshold growls at the annoying Gallian, at this point there are some mages from the crowd that have been watching the little red-headed rascal annoy the captive. ”I should be asking the same thing.” Gallian responds with a smirk. “Why have you been avoiding looking at us? Don’t like the sight of kids? Or are you just feeling guilty?” Gallian tries to slit in some venom with her words as she grills the shackled woman for her own amusement. ”No! No it’s not about that...” Threshold’s voice trails off.

“Hmm? I can’t seem to hear you?” Gallian steps forwards to get an inch closer at Threshold. Overstepping her bounds to bait any reaction from her. ”Gallian, please! What are you-!” Selica tries to stop her friend from tempting danger once more.

”Ehem.” But Misignor finally breaks Gallian’s taunting. “As entertaining this might all be, young miss. I must ask you to step back and not agitate Lady Threshold.” He said calmly.

”And you!” Gallian points at Misignor. “Based from what you said earlier, you and the tin man over there are under her command, is that right? Doesn’t this make all of this fishy?”

Before answering, Misignor takes a deep sigh and looks at the young child. “Yes, I am Lady Threshold’s former second-in-command as the Head of Security. She is the one who recruited the first Silencers to protect the city from itself and trained them to protect it from any suspecting invaders. She’s been an inspiration not only in the city’s camaraderie, but also in breaking the inherent disparity between Mages and Silencers.” He speaks in a hopeful manner. “But at the same time, Threshold has taught us to be vigilant with the city’s protection and never compromise it...especially for her own sake. So that’s why we’re here.”

Misignor then looks at Machilic who is able to fend off the angry images with a confident, albeit robotic, smile. “Machilic there, on the other hand, came from a wholly different angle. A renowned convict that is looking for a new lease in life, Threshold was one of the few council members who gave these kids a chance and taught them, by force if necessary, how to acclimate back to society. Eventually they were able to prove themselves and were accepted by society, though reluctantly by most, and even some of them became part of the council themselves.” ”So you’re saying she’s a good person with a dumb way of doing things.” Gallian stares at the obviously blushing Threshold hearing all the things Misignor has been saying.

“Gee, sounds like a person I know.” Selica rolls her eyes at Gallian, “But, that doesn’t explain why she’s been avoiding looking at us. What’s up with that?”

”She’s well...”

”Kids scares me, okay.” Threshold finally speaks up her concern. “They’re so small and fragile, they’re soo easy to break with just a blow of a wind.”

”Uhhh, we’re not exactly toddlers you know?” Gallian stares at Threshold as if she’s been talked to like a baby.

”To her, everyone below the age of 20 is an infant.” Misignor smirks. “Threshold’s ancient, she’s older than the walls covering the city mind you. So for her anyone not above adolescence is considered a toddler to her eyes.”

”You would think an ancient person, let alone a mage of all things, would be more cautious than reckless.” Gallian raises and eyebrow. “Yet here she is.”

”Oh I also have an answer for that one.” Misignor raises his hand like a student in class. “You see Lady Threshold here value excitement above a lot of things and also as the former head of security, keeping up to date with the latest threats is paramount for the city’s safety. As an ancient mage like her, excitement and trends tends to easily slip by as time moves on. To counteract it, she’s devised a spell along with some old scholars of the past to reset her mind to that of a 30 something years old every few centuries to keep it fresh. It hazes her previous memories and puts forth the more recent ones in more light, giving her a constantly fresh new look to her surroundings.” Misignor then sighs, “That’s why if you could see her in the council, people who are supposed to be younger than Threshold would often lecture her because she often acts younger than them due to the magic’s effect.”

“It’s really nice having your entire life being divulged to kids like this.” Threshold answers sarcastically as she helplessly flails in her chains as she listens to her former subordinate tell her life to Gallian and Sellica. “Oh please go ahead, would you also like to tell how I sleep and eat in the morning as well Misignor?”

“Oh please, I’m just giving insight for the kid’s sake.” Misignor answers back, “You’re the one who’s been avoiding them.” Selica has been watching Threshold acts in regards to both Misignor and Machilic. She’s been noting her sporadic tendency to be both the lecturer and the lectured at the same time. It’s a strange dynamic, one would think a person would either lean to one side of the lecturing spectrum most of the time, but with Threshold and her associates it seems to be as free flowing as possible. Selica guesses it’s probably what Threshold wants in the first place with all the mind-hazing effect spell she uses to reduce her functional mental age to keep up with those she mentors with.

Threshold has been silent after Misignor’s rebuttal, Selica thought she was just tired arguing especially with everything that is about to happen. A judgment by strangers must be nerve-wracking regardless of who you are, and if said judgment can include death, then she guess it’s only more so when these said people have been eagerly asking for some payback.

“I...” Threshold breaks her silence with a stammer. “I’m sorry little child.” She speaks trembling in sadness. “It was never my intent to bring such traumatic experiences to children like you. If only I knew that children like me had been a part of the tests now, then maybe I could have approached it differently.” ”Why does having kids make things different?” Selica asks before Gallian could, she can feel the uncertainty from Threshold every time children are involved. She knows that Threshold is not comfortable with children her age, but how would that change things?

“I...don’t know honestly,” Threshold speaks with a trembling voice once again, it’s like there are two sides to this woman; the hard-headed and courageous sort her peers and associates see her, and the trembling and confused sort when she is interacting with children. “The only reason why the test is made as such is because I trusted the mages older than you to handle it properly, if I only knew kids were involved then I might not have pushed through with it at all.” Threshold speaks as she looks away from Selica.

“Is that soo...” Then from the crowd a familiar voice for Selica speaks up towards Threshold. “You certainly have a soft spot for children, Threshold.” Walking in white gilded dress, a princess-like mage approaches the pedestal. At first Selica didn’t recognize her, but when she looked at her face, she realized who she was.

She was the one woman who lost her eye during the test. Selica remembers her for having a fair maiden’s face covered in the harshness of the conflict. But today she stands tall and elegant as the dreamy maiden that she was meant to be.

“Oh you’re one of the problematic ones, huh.” Threshold speaks up, this time staring directly at the fair maiden. Selica is visibly confused about what's happening and Threshold notices it quickly. “Aside from my sentence, M also talked about some potentially unruly mages who were able to pass the test.”

”Unruly? What do you mean?” There have been very doubtful people in the test, sure, but this lovely woman is the exact opposite of the word for sure, Selica thinks.

But Threshold smiles and nudges Selica towards her, “Look at her, but closer. You’re a mage, right? There’s more than one way to see a person for us.”

Initially she only felt the kindly grace the maiden is naturally emanating, but when she tried to sense her mana, the result nearly made Selica fall off her feet.

“Selica!” Gallian quickly grabs her friend before falling. “You okay?”

“Y-yes! I’m okay.” Selica stands right up once more and looks at the maiden again, now ready for what she could expect. A massive inky darkness is swirling all around this kind hearted woman. An abysmal pit of wretched flux circulating through the maiden’s body that seems to be both hostile and volatile at any given notice.

As a mage, Selica knows never to judge magic or mana as inherently good or evil. Its nature is wholly supplanted by its user to use them to help or harm others. But the aura radiating from this woman’s aura is nothing but malice and destruction, if there was a time when Selica can say that a certain magic is truly evil, then here it is.

The maiden sighs and stares at Threshold with concerned eyes, “Please don’t vilify me in front of one my saviors.” She speaks as she switches to Selica with kind, caring eyes. “My apologies, but as you are probably seeing, my magic isn’t exactly the tamest of sort. Also, it seems like I did forget to introduce myself at the time. My name is Lily.” She says her name to Selica.

“Ohh, yes my name is Selica!” Selica returns the introduction by quickly bowing. The juxtaposition between this kind-hearted lady to her immensely hostile magic is making Selica anxious. She returned Selica’s greeting with a gentle smile, and then returned back to Threshold with a cold fierceness. “Contrary to what might you think, the adult perseverance you’re expecting from us actually broke during the test and it was these young hearts that was able to save us during the test.” She looks back at the crowd and sees the mages looking at their conversation. “In fact, I can safely say that most if not all of these people owe their success during the test to these kids.” The other mages listening all nodded in agreement.

But instead of being embarrassed Threshold simply smiled, “I see...I guess I was even more wrong than I realized.” Threshold sounds defeated and broken. Selica has been watching Threshold for some time now, and all throughout the conversations, never once has she refuted her mistake and takes them gracefully as she possibly can. It’s as if she’s already accepted her fall without even trying to put up a fight.

Lily gives out a heavy sigh after hearing Threshold’s comment. “And this is why it’s so hard to judge you.” She says, “You’re not even trying to defend yourself.” She then turns around to the crowd and begins talking. “Tell me the truth fellow mages, does anyone here truly believe that Threshold deserves to be executed?” She asks the crowd with a mighty voice.

Murmurs begin to swirl in the crowd as Threshold’s judgment seems to have started. But after a while no one raised their hand to answer Lily’s call.

Lily smiles “Good, I’m happy to be in the company of mages who value life over pride.” She then turns around, “Now for the interesting part, should we exile Threshold, the one mage in the entire council that heads this city concerned for not only our, but the entire city’s well-being, or should we enact forced labor unto her and make her accomplish the one task she’s been hellbent in achieving?” She asks the crowd once more but this time while staring at Threshold.

This time the crowd’s discussion became heated. Hands start raising in regards to these two decisions. Some mages exclaimed that despite not being executed, having a reckless mage like Threshold be a part of the city's excursion in the dungeon would lead to ruin sooner or later. On the other side, having Threshold herself to vanguard the dungeon herself will be beneficial to the district as she already has an invested interest in the matter before them.

While the first question is met with universal silence, the second question seems to turn the discussion into utter turmoil with no end in sight.

“Hmm, fine.” Lily, seeing as the crowd seems to be not stopping from arguing one another, looks to Sir Misignor who has been silently listening to everything by the side. “Sir Commander.” She asks me a question. ”Yes?” Misignor sagely nods awaiting her question.

“If ever Threshold is made to do labor work in Hameza, will you still follow her command?” She bluntly asks him.

“Hm? Of course not why would we-!”

”Crccracrack Crccracrck!” Suddenly a clicking noise cut off Misignor’s answer mid-sentence. Everyone tried to look at its source but can’t seem to find it.

“Ah apologies.” An old gingerly man softly speaks up. “That’s me, I’m sorry.” He is sitting right in front of the pedestal adorned by some small trinkets and one of these trinkets seems to be vibrating. “I was starting to worry that my magic has been failing, but it seems like we’ve caught the first lie in the conversation.” The old man clasps his crackling trinket and looks at Misignor.

”Ohh, is that so?” Lily, Selica and Gallian all looked at Misignor with the rest of the mages following. Even Threshold was surprised by the growing predicament as she tries to look back at Misignor as well.

“I-I! No that’s not.” Misignor is suddenly at the crosshair of everyone in the room. Selica can feel the old commander’s feet growing cold by the second as everyone watches him say his next words.

Threshold sighs, “Just say the truth, Misignor.” She asks her former subordinate.

Misignor, after almost drowning from recent events, gives out a heavy sigh. “Obviously I cannot fully remove Threshold’s influence from me and will aid her when things go desperately dire. That is not me acting as her former subordinate, but because she is important to me as a friend. Outside of that I will not directly help Threshold from anything related to Security as its new head.” He speaks clearly and plainly. Everyone then returns to the old man and his trinkets and none of them seems to react to Misignor’s words.

Lily gives Threshold a look as the captive reddens in embarrassment after his friend’s speech. “You seem to have some genuine friends looking out for you, madam.” Lily speaks.

“Ugh please just get this over with.” Threshold bows down from the utter shame she’s been going through. “Is this not torture enough? No one wants to hear this ever!” She grovels over the shame she’s being forced to endure by her loyal friends.

“Now, now. Your judgment has yet to be settled, madam.” Lily answers back. “We’re still getting to the good part.” After further discussion, the crowd seems to have slowly waned to favor making Threshold stay and do labor. After Misignor’s mishap the crowd realizes how much influence Threshold has not only as a council member, but as a person herself. Having someone with this much pull through sheer charisma alone is a net benefit for the district despite her previously proven hardheaded method.

“It sounds both mage-like thinking and not at the same time.” Selica is listening to the argument regarding Threshold’s case. It’s mage-like in the sense that the decision is actively taking advantage of a person due to their merits in a cold-hearted fashion, but at the same time the kind of merits people are taking into consideration can only be available if Threshold is treated in a non-mage-like manner.

“Yeah it does feel weird when you really think about it.” Gallian has also been listening in.

Now that the judgment has steered towards Threshold’s forced labor, the crowd has begun discussing in what aspect should her sentence be in.

“Oh if I may suggest something regarding her role, I have a solution already.” Lily raises her hand during the discussion. She then looks at Threshold who seems to have been fairly quiet and reactionless during the whole debacle.

“Yes?” Threshold looks up and sees Lily staring down at her. “What is it this time?” Lily smiles, “I think Lady Threshold should handle our children’s security.” She says while watching Threshold’s face turn from indifference to horror.