...she wasn't expecting to be right!
...would Sirin like a hug.
"...I have to admit that when I'm not busy doing my job, I wonder if I could replace her. And then do - do something, better than this. The way things are - it isn't sustainable. I'm sure you can already see how things fracture, and the people suffer for it.
"...I don't like it, when people suffer. I want to see them thriving. Not dying. And not - dying inside, either. Putting up an act while their heart, the part that cares, that sees the promise of better lives, bleeds out. And I'm not there yet. I'm not at the point where an Archon - er, an established Archon, one with their own power base - would be stupid to dismiss my voice, and you need that to have any hope of getting them to be less - wasteful. To - establish a better way of thinking and being and doing. Where it's not - self-contradictory laws enforced at judicial discretion, where it's not burning and banning knowledge but safeguarding it - where people know that their duty is to make people's lives better, including their own. Where magic and iron are things all can aspire to. I want to leave a mark on the world, and - the mark I want to leave is that things are better than I found them."
She sighs. "It's pretty tough to actually make that happen. But I'm trying, because - what else is there to do?
"So. Let's make this better."
Ophelia's stylus scrapes across her notebook, drafting a judicial decree. It is not necessarily the final form this will take, but she's confident in it.
BE IT KNOWN:
That before this Court is a matter in which A MEMBER of the Archon GRAVEN ASHE's forces was ENSORCELLED by the Archon SIRIN, under the COMMAND of the Archon known as THE VOICES OF NERAT, and thusly COMPELLED, despite his will, to present himself to the Scarlet Chorus as a CONSCRIPT.
That no party witness to this happening has disagreed with this characterization of events.
BE IT KNOWN:
That those who serve the Overlord already serve the Overlord, and cannot be called to such service twice.
Thusly the member of the Dishonored shall be returned to their service, as will ANY SEEMING CONSCRIPT who IS or WAS in service to an ORGANIZATION invested with recognition of a SPECIFIC PURPOSE by the Overlord, or by any person to whom that power is delegated (such as Archons).
BE IT KNOWN:
That there will nonetheless be situations in which organized forces must resolve disputed priorities from those who have great, yet clashing, claim to Right of Destruction.
That it is this scribe's opinion that this situation is not effectively handled within the existing body of law.
That this scribe proposes the following methods of discernment:
A) POTENCY: An order of the Overlord quite obviously overrules all others. That is known by all. Those with lesser commands similarly might overrule still-lesser commanders' orders.
B) PROXIMITY: An order of equal Potency, in conflict with another, might be resolved by determining which order is 'closer', in time or distance, to the forces affected.
C) PERIL: The amount of catastrophe an order will predictably cause if disobeyed - exempli gratia, "this prisoner must have two guards watching him at all times, lest he escape and resume his campaign of assassinations" - may weigh AGAINST the measure of other factors.
That this scribe does not intend this segment of this judgement to bind strictly, but instead serve as prefigurative advice.
SO WRITTEN AND SO JUDGED.
Ophelia Vaudelle, Lethian's Crossing, Year 429 TR.