"Yes, it's true!" Latverk agreed. "You must understand, I was as kind as I could be to my wards – I kept them safe and only did what was necessary! They – they're better off than they would have been, you must realize that!"
"I would say that I don't think anyone could believe this, but then I remember who we are currently dealing with," Regill grumbled.
Daeran chuckled.
"Oh, Paralictor, Paralictor, Paralictor," he said, tutting. "Why not put your faith in Caitrin? I know I'm considering it, and I'm not a religious man."
"Yes, I must realize it," Caitrin agreed, brightly. "And I do! So, to make sure we're clear about all this, you couldn't help yourself around an aasimar woman, and occasionally abusing them was a fair price to pay for their subsequent survival, no matter what your appetites might have driven you to do. And, furthermore, you came to the Abyss as a place where you fit in, and so it's what passes for justice in the Abyss which you want to accept."
"I… suppose so," Latverk said, confused for a moment. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it seems quite simple to me," Caitrin replied. "However, I must tell you that I'm too personally involved in the situation to make any kind of serious judgements. I'm sure you understand."
"No?" Latverk said, because he didn't. "Understand what?"
"Well, you don't understand the concept of love," Caitrin mused, in an aside. "What I mean is, all of us here in this room were too closely involved."
"Commander, I am all too aware that you are saying what I think you are saying, but I do not understand why you are saying it," Regill protested. "It sounds very much as if you are going to let this person go."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Caitrin replied. "Not when it would make you so sad, Regill! No, what we need is a proper tribunal by people who weren't directly involved."
Red Mask looked extremely annoyed.
"Why do you need to bother with such a thing?" she demanded. "Calistra's way is vengeance!"
"Yes, yes, but Gorum's way is strength, and Pulura's fall is a location," Caitrin countered. "No, no, what we need is a group of people who we can trust to handle this whole situation with the due gravity that it deserves."
She stepped over smartly to a nearby wardrobe, and opened it.
Whatever the wardrobe might have contained before, now it opened into a large, plushly appointed room with a multi-sided table in it.
"Oh, how convenient!" Caitrin said, waving. "It's almost like the patron of serendipity was involved. Hello, Chadali – I suppose we can come in?"
"Caitrin!" Chadali said. "There's something a little strange about the air that's coming in with you – has something happened on Golarion?"
"Prrf," Cobblehoof contributed.
"What?" Chadali asked, shocked. "The Abyss? What are you doing there? You really must think more positive thoughts."
"Really, Chadali," Alichino said. "Positive thoughts aren't anything to do with it. I'm sure the Commander has a perfectly reasonable explanation for her presence in the Abyss."
"Oh, Queen Galfrey kicked me out, but I agreed with her before she actually did and that took the wind out of her sails," Caitrin explained, taking a grip on Latverk's wrist and dragging him through. "I should introduce you to everyone! Do listen in, all of you back in the Abyss!"
She pointed. "So that is Chadali, an azata who is the patron of serendipity. Isn't that convenient?"
Caitrin glanced at Latverk, waiting for him to respond, and silence fell for several seconds.
"Why-" Latverk began.
"And over there the lion-headed woman is Eritrice," Caitrin went on. "Another empyreal lord, this time an agathion. As the patron of debate, she's ideally suited for debating, because otherwise it would raise certain metaphysical questions."
"You really must give us a bit more warning before you bring someone in," Eritrice said. "What exactly is the purpose of all this?"
Caitrin's tails flicked out behind her.
"I'm introducing you," she said, in a calm voice. "To make sure that everyone knows who you are. It's been a while, I suspect some details have been forgotten. The griffin there is Cobblehoof, representative of the Axis – that's the Axis of Law, not the Axis of Evil, you understand."
Latverk clearly didn't.
"Prff!" Cobblehoof noted. "Rrr-prrf-frf."
"Oh, fine, I'll be sure to bring you something nice," Caitrin told him. "Then we have Alichino, malebranche of magpies, and someone whose job is to conquer Golarion. Eventually."
"This is somewhat disappointing," Regill said. "I would not have anticipated the involvement of a malebranche in this whole exercise."
"Really, Regill, you need to think more pragmatically," Caitrin chided him, waving a finger. "The council is, of course, staffed with people who are each seeking to use it for their own ends, and playing both ends, possibly against the middle. Everyone here has their own agenda and hopes of using the council to backstab, frontstab and sidestab everyone else present, even if only by honestly pursuing the assumption that all our motives are aligned."
She frowned, then pointed. "By process of elimination, I believe that they would be Shyka the Many?"
"But of course," Shyka agreed. "Though I must say, it's very interesting that you've brought your guest here. Especially under these circ*mstances."
"I'll delight in having delighted you to the end of my days," Caitrin promised. "Or, at least, until I forget, which is probably a more realistic goal."
"ME DRAGON!" Shyka's companion cheered.
Caitrin swept her paw around. "And finally, but by no means someone to call the least where he can hear you, there's Socothbenoth, the demon lord who is the patron of unpleasant gratification."
She leaned in close to the baffled Latverk, and spoke in a whisper that nonetheless carried to everyone present. "If you ask me, Latverk, and even if you don't, you want him as your defence counsel."
"My… what?" Latverk said. "A demon lord – an – what is going on?"
"Really, do keep up," Caitrin sighed. "If you don't focus and pay attention then my plan to confuse you is going to work entirely too well. Anyway!"
She stepped forwards. "I call this Council to chaos!"
"Excuse me?" Eritrice protested. "I am the chairwoman of this council!"
"I think you'll find we never did decide on that, my delectable demihumanoid," Socothbenoth said, much of his attention on Latverk. "So what did this morsel do?"
"That's up to you to decide, in a legal sense at least," Caitrin told him, and by extension the rest of the Council.
"You realize that it is only sensible that this Council is called to order by someone who understands what order is?" Alichino said.
"That's why I didn't call it to order," Caitrin pointed out, cutting off a discussion between Chadali and Cobblehoof about whether the fact that Abadar's vault had donated the demiplane made Cobblehoof the presiding hippogriff. "I called it to chaos and it seems like that's already happened."
That resulted in some muttering, and Caitrin went on. "This is Latverk," she said, stepping back and pushing him forwards with her tails. "He's done some extremely unpleasant things, but we can't decide on how to punish him, or if we should punish him, and if so in exactly what sort of way would be fair. Therefore, I decided that this Council could give it a go!"
"What makes you think this Council should do it?" Shyka asked, sounding highly amused.
"Well, my answer differs depending on who I'm talking to," Caitrin replied, as Latverk tried to work out what in the Abyss was going on.
It looked like he was still a few minutes behind on catching up, but Caitrin was faster than him so it was unlikely he'd be able to do it.
"To Chadali, I say – it was extremely convenient!" Caitrin explained. "To Eritrice, well, who else would I call upon for a proper debate? Cobblehoof, what we have here is a legal case, and Socothbenoth – I'm sure you have every reason to sponsor the fate of an allegedly extremely unpleasant degenerate. Alichino – well, what I'm doing here is offloading my problems to a stacked legal system."
She shrugged, catching Shyka's eye. "And I felt like it."
"Well, that all seems to make sense," Eritrice said. "But we have the fate of the Worldwound to deal with. That is an extremely important matter."
"Oh, I wouldn't say anything else!" Caitrin assured her, with a smirk. "However, the Worldwound is a huge topic, and this is the fate of a single mortal. I'm sure you can sort his fate out much more quickly and be back to your more important discussions – and, really, if you can't resolve the fate of one mortal then dealing with the Worldwound is going to be a stretch. Now, I need to recuse myself, so I'll just leave you to it."
She pressed the dagger into Latverk's hands as she turned. "Just in case," she whispered into his ear, then stepped back through the cupboard and shut the door.
"...so… what just happened, exactly?" Red Mask said.
"I think I'll call it witless protection," Caitrin said, with a wink. "They'll discuss and debate the issue, leaving no stone unturned, and come to a well-reasoned conclusion in short order. After all, Latverk's case is much less complicated than the Worldwound, and they've made progress on dealing with the Worldwound in the last hundred years."
She stroked the underside of her muzzle. "Though that was mostly when I was there. Oh well."
"Oh, my word," Daeran said. "And I saw you left him the dagger, as well."
"Yes," Caitrin agreed. "Really, it's up to him. Wait for the Council to decide his fate, or take his own life. I wonder which one he'll choose by month six?"
She shrugged, then relaxed, and Juniper looked around at the aasimar women. "We should get these unfortunates back to the Nexus, I think. As unpleasant as Latverk was, we can't trust the idea that the magical defences of this place would hold out at all – that could have just been another bluff…"
