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</div><br/><b>Name:</b>The Judge<br/><b>Location:</b>La Notre Dame, Paris, France<br/><b>Tagging:</b>Anyone in earshot<br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><br/><i><div style="text-align: center">"Gods and spirits have their place, Adgar. Some are benign creatures, watching from the skies, interfering only when necessary to promote their narrow-minded moralities and cookie-cutter justice. Others seethe in the darkness, preying on the weak or the virtuous to feed their masters or themselves. But one never judges the wolf as evil for hunting the hare. It is his purpose, his function. They are natural consequences of a natural design. They may freeze you so thoroughly in panic that sleep becomes a distant memory, yet nothing about their actions shock or surprise. But to see a man do the same, to know that we are capable of the greatest evils as much as the noblest of virtues, to look in the mirror and be reminded that you, and every mortal man or woman you know, are always one bad step, one frustrated scream, one cruel snap away from a tyrant - to understand that everything you think you are is a thinly wrapped veil, so easy to pull, so easy to tear... that, my son, is a fear like none other. Man has always been his own greatest nemesis."​</div><div style="text-align: right">- Ulfwyn of Adendale​</div></i><br/>Paris. Snow was a rarity in the French jewel, but the wind always carried a sharp, penetrating stab that clawed into your skin like fangs, biting at your nerves, numbing your fingers and toes and hungrily slithering upwards along your palms and feet. The chilling gusts had a predatory nature that infected everything they touched, from the streetside filth to the towering spires of the Notre Dame, slithering into those labyrinthine spaces between the fingers and toes of reality.<br/><br/>A dimly lit candle flickered within those hallowed halls, whispered ember trembling as if in fear, shallow and on the verge of being snuffed out yet everburning, not past yet not completely here. A man, crumpled and broken, lay fixed to a large, plain, blockish chair, black hair drawn messily over mocha skin, palms and ankles nailed down with pools of blood, already dried, wrapped around them in a sanguine outline. Another figure stood no more than a few paces from him. An ugly, thick-nosed dwarf draped in a short cloak of faded, old feathers, blotched in blacks and deep greens. And before the both of them; him. The Judge. Tall, gaunt, and draped in fabrics more valuable than their weight in gold, eyes dancing over the umbral skyline of his city. He had a dispassioned, hypnotic voice, possessing a kind of deep, eerie omnipresence, like the words themselves resonated inside the mind until it became impossible to distinguish the echo from the original, the voice from the mental whispers that followed.<br/><br/>"Have you ever been tortured, Jafar?"<br/>The indignant response came between hacked coughs, wheezing and out of breath. "That isn't my fault. I didn't do any-."<br/>"I do not take kindly to those who deviate from their intended."<br/>"I'm telling you, Frollo, I didn't-"<br/>"Answer the question."<br/>Indignance faded into contempt."No."<br/>"And do you think it would be a satisfactory punishment?"<br/>"No."<br/>"And why is that?"<br/>"I have done nothing wrong."<br/>"From what I hear, you've done nothing at all. I had to do quite the steep favor for Maleficent to get you that staff of yours."<br/>"And it was invaluable-"<br/>"Yet you not only failed in securing Agrabah, but allowed its princess out of your sight repeatedly enough to throw herself on some gypsy scum, legs wide open."<br/>"She fell in love-"<br/>"With an idea. With the thought of being outside of her gilded cage of gossip and scandal and etiquette. With the ability to do as she pleased without worrying about being judged by every subject and every ambassador. Your purpose was to catch hold of that trait and have her experience it with you."<br/>"Her father would never-"<br/>"Perhaps you should have courted him."<br/>"This is a process with traditions to be followed, not some barside mindgame you use to sweep up tavern wenches. I wouldn't expect you to understand all the required nuances-"<br/>"Everything is a mindgame, Jafar. If everyone played by traditions and rules, the game would be over and the winner known before it even began."<br/>"I would be that winner."<br/>"And we do not live in that world. We live in the world where you let a street rat sneak his cock into the princess under your nose."<br/>"I am not to blame for the recklessness of my men!"<br/>"Au contrare. You are their superior. You bear the consequences of their incompetence, just as I now bear the consequences of yours, along with ensuring, considering you clearly haven't learned anything, that it does not happen again."<br/>"And yet you let Iago laze around like the little shit he is!"<br/>"And you wallow in your delusional self-importance. Don't think I would send one of my most powerful acolytes to be your ass-licking lackey. He did his job. Keeping an eye on you was more of a convenience - icing on the cake. In fact, considering how wonderfully you treated him, I have decided that he will be responsible for your procedure."<br/>"Fuck you and your procedure. If you're going to kill me, at least have the balls to say it like it is."<br/>"Once again you prove your naïvete knows no bounds. Death is such a wasteful thing." Frollo cooed, turning from the window, moving in a slow, predatory circle, glassy, cold eyes scanning the broken man like a cadaver. "The human body is a resource, teeming with potential, and as easy to exploit as any other. And the mind... a fascinating machine that men have prodded at and played with long before they even understood its intricacies."<br/>"I've resisted the staff before and I can resist it again."<br/>"Oh, I have no intentions to entertain you with a faerie-dust cantrip. Every con-artist, magician, demagogue and sensationalist has tinkered with what we perceive as real. I am simply following in their humble footsteps. No miracles. No sorcery. Just simple, human ingenuity. It's almost exciting, really - long after we are dead and magic fades into a distant memory, long after the world will condone open slavery, you will be part of a legacy that will endure; bound in chains by belief made solid."<br/><br/>Iago's lips contorted into a toothy, gleeful smile, curled fingers running against one another with the impatient excitement of a child on Christmas Eve, eyes shimmering with a psychotic delight. "It's a little late for a birthday present, master, but I am touched nonetheless."<br/>The reply was a silent, bemused smile. "Think of it as your bonus."<br/>"I don't even have a salary."<br/>"Not in money, no." was the sharp, immediate response as Frollo began to move. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have arrangements. I want him wiped clean - that attitude is giving me a migraine. And try to put everything back where you find it, Iago. I don't want to find teeth in his kidneys this time."<br/>"I'll keep an eye for it, master. You know how excitable I get with knives."<br/>"I'm not kidding, Iago. Get it done."<br/>The echo of a slammed door reverberated through the room with a loud, low tremor.<br/>"Neither was I."<br/><br/>The scream that followed rang through the halls with an unearthly horror. Not one of panic or a plea for help, but one of exhaustion, thrown between lurching gasps for breath. A scream of a desecrated pride, of an agony too intense to keep silent, eerie and unnatural in every way. It was pain made music. It was beautiful.