Who is Magpie?

“Where to begin…” Avion replied awkwardly, dabbing his forehead with a napkin.

“Personal safes? “ Magpie offered. “Or prison breaks. I was on nearly everyone I knew about.”

“Ever kidnapped?” Ezekiel asked severely.

“What?- no,…” Magpie hadn’t expected that direction right away.

“Taken prisoners?”

“No…”

Ezekiel raised one eye brow. “Tortured?”

Magpie grew more furious, fuming as she responded, “I could never…!”

“Never? I find that hard to believe for someone who’s killed people.” Ezekiel leaned toward her, challenging her now. “The Mensdillia flower already fading? Are you the one that tortured my people for information, that they didn’t even have.” He demanded.

“I have never!” Magpie leaned toward him with her own anger surfacing.

Ezekiel thought about all the pain the Fae had caused his people. Looking at Magpie, he and his wolf were feeling at odds for her, but knew she was right, he didn’t have to accept her.

He growled louder, enough to make Bronx move in case he had to intervene. “Why, after murder, is torture a line?”

“Because I was going to be a doctor!” Magpie yelled.

That moment hung in the air longer for Magpie than for anyone else. She felt like her ears were ringing with the word she had nearly screamed at Ezekiel. But they didn’t make sense. When had she ever considered being a doctor?

No sooner had she said the words did her face go blank. She turned away from Ezekiel and pinched her brows together tightly, trying to remember why those words would have come so naturally from her mouth. Other people were talking but she couldn’t hear them over the ringing thoughts in her ears.

Someone tapped her shoulder, but Ezekiel had guessed it, her wolf had completely ruined the effects of the Mensdillia flower. “No.” She waved the hand off her. “Shut up, I’m thinking. When did I want to be a doctor?…” She trailed off, but the tapping returned.

She turned back to see Bronx standing between her and Ezekiel, and the tapping was his outstretched arms between them holding him back. “Why are you lying!?” Ezekiel was yelling, anger winning over common sense.

Her lip curled up with the insult. “I swore my honesty, why would I lie about this and not about everything else!? I was never on any assignment where anyone was tortured.”

“Then why!?” Ezekiel pushed against Bronx so ferociously that he needed focused on keeping him back.

She slammed her hands and cuffs against the table. “No one should suffer! I didn’t have a choice on any mission I was assigned to, but if I volunteered for that role I could at least make sure that no one suffered.” She looked away from him as he called, but remained confident. “If I’m going to be adept at something so terrible, I might as well make sure that none of the other less proficient hands are involved.

I studied so I could derive the answers I needed without torture. I never told them, and they never asked the ‘how’. As long as I got the job done I could exploit small holes in their control, like when they said by any means necessary. Those who torture people when given such a vague instruction were cruel and narrow minded.”

Magpie realized she had cracked the table with the cuffs, but she had never thought the words straight out before. Now that they were there, laid out in front of her she …. Laughed. It wasn’t a fun sound, and she didn’t find anything funny.

“Every thought I’ve never thought is finally connecting to words.” She whispered, meaning for it to be said for herself, just to hear herself say it and confirm it was true, but she kept forgetting the hearing of wolven company.

Easing into the chair more comfortably she looked smugly up towards Ezekiel, but was surprised to see him looking equally as smug back. Bronx huffed in a more frustrated manner, wondering what to do with the pair of them, and the counsel remained in their seats, stunned by everything.

Magpie looked out the window towards the garden, but as the sunlight grew dimmer she found it easier to see herself over what was outside. Her and her wolf caught on her appearance, moving to smooth her long hair but the chains got in the way. She found her wolf was more vain than she was, encouraging her to preen herself now.

Chevalier coughed and cleared her throat. “Well… that was… enlightening.”

Magpie tossed her unlocked cuffs onto the table, sneaking the pin back into her waistband before anyone could take it. Wallace was the first to react, standing in frustration and slamming his fists down with less than half of either of the others who had done the same.

“She mocks this trial with everything she does! Were her cuffs even on.” Wallace Orman demanded vehemently.

“Please, you saw them less than five minutes ago.” Magpie scoffed, . “My hair is driving me insane.” She proceeded to brush out the long strands with her fingers, sectioning it off was made much easier with the claws she now bared. “If it makes you feel better I’ll even put them back on when I’m done.”

Bronx lifted her face toward him roughly. “Going to be honest, I wasn’t really believing the wolven bit, but there it is.” He looked at her eyes and she looked back while she still tried to fix her hair, not even considering stopping to knock his hands away.

He continued to shift her head back and forth to look at her eyes, and then her teeth when she smirked at him. Bronx didn’t drop her face as she began trying to redo her braid, so she winked and blew him a kiss, and the resulting deep growl from Ezekiel brought him back to the room. He let go and backed away from Magpie, who was feeling a little lighter than before.

Eugene Anson had been taking notes, but stopped to tap the book on the table. Other counsel members had followed suit in the silence, writing notes and talking quietly to each other.

Magpie finished braiding her hair but realized she had no elastic and sat holding the end in her hand. “Here.” Corleone pulled the tie from her hair and handed it over.

Magpie looked instantly confused, but replied, “Thank you,” and silenced every stupid question she wanted to ask about the kindness or charity.

Eugene sighed finally laying his book down. “I think it’s safe to say that the tea has worn off, and we’ve been here for… a while now. With her health apparently on the mend, I don’t think the medical bay is necessary. I vote that she is returned to the cells while we breakdown this day, and we reconvene tomorrow.”

Other hands from the counsel were quick to agree, feeling overwhelmed by the strange meeting and needing time to weigh the choice. Avion stood and went to the door to call a couple of guards into the room, and Magpie stood, sliding her chair away from her noisily.

She did not want to return to the prison, and her wolf wanted to even less. A low growl began in her chest and she could feel the sound growing when the guards came into view.

Her claws dug into the table, her brow furrowing and furring, as hair began to darken up her arms from her hands. She felt her shoulders shift painfully forward, her back and arms lengthen as they moved around. Her body felt too hot with the pain, like a fresh wound that was bleeding over her otherwise cool skin.

A pained scream filled her lungs as she unintentionally began to shift, but a sudden prick in the side of her ass calmed everything. She turned to see Doctor Pon’s apologetic face as he withdrew a syringe and a tired feeling swept over her. Unhappily she was fading into the darkness again, like she had so many times, not sure whether she would awake.