This is just a simple Two-shot that I had in the back for a while. I'll release part two maybe tomorrow.
Enjoy!
No.
This isn't happening.
No. No. No. No. No. No. This wasn't happening.
This is a nightmare.
It's just a very realistic nightmare. She would be woken up by Brady or Angelica soon and this would have turned out to be all a bad dream.
But it wasn't one. She had checked several times. Pinching herself. Biting her lip. Jabbing pointed object in at herself. Even splashing her face with water which was something that she never did in public.
It wasn't a dream or a nightmare. It was cold reality.
"Magistrate. Pst. Magistrate." a voice below her whispered breaking Maribelle from her trance. She looked down at the scribe and asked, "Yes? What is it?"
"You must start the trial, Miss." the scribe whispered worriedly.
"Ah! Yes. Um. Mhm. Everybody stand," she recovered, after everyone obeyed she continued, "We will now start he trial. Will the prosecutor please state their case." her hands were trembling. She was looking everywhere except for in his direction.
"You honor. I would like to plead that this man is guilty on charges of theft of not only money but of several very important documents belonging to the Themontic family." said a main who was dressed in very plain robes. Maribelle knew this family well as they had been close to hers from the days before her father was born. They were very keen in naval based trading and made most of their income from such endeavors.
"Will the defendant please plead his case." she asked still not looking in his direction.
"The defendant pleads not guilty on all charges presented." said a soft spoken women. This made her cringe as curiosity and a bit of anger took her over. Defendants who could not purchase a lawyer for their trial were given a small election of those to choose from by the country of Ylisse. He must have had a choice and choosing her was deliberate. As she finally turned to his directions, she saw a sight the he promised would never happen.
Gaius was heavily cuffed and sitting in the defendants chair with a guard behind him. He was looking quite annoyed and worried as he was pulling out candy from pockets and hidden stashes which was something he did when he was worried.
She hoped to Naga herself that he wasn't worried about the trial, but there was no way to know for sure.
"We shall start the trial, will the defendant- I mean prosecution please stand and give the full List of charges." Maribelle said, biting her lip at the mess up.
The lawyer got up and straighter his outfits and pulled out a scroll and unraveled it then read, "On the night of August, the 12th, many files from the secure vault of the Themontic family were missing as well as 20,000,000 gold pieces from the family treasury were missing. There weren't not many signs of forced entry, leading us to believe that a master thief had broken into the vault. The only piece of incriminating evidence left behind of the incident was a half-eaten lollipop. From this and some eye witness report from the guards and neighbors, tells us that this man was the culprit. He matches most of the descriptions of the guards and through many rumors and investigation of previous felonies we find that he is the culprit." He then placed the scroll down and sat down. His partner got up and pulled out another scroll and called, "We would like to call the defendant; Gaius to the witness stand."
Gaius got up and the chains rattled loudly. Maribelle could tell that as he walked to the stand be was deliberately making the most amount of noise possible with the chains. He sat down with a thud, then shifted a bit more, got up and sat down again, and finally pulled out a licorice stick and began to suck on one of the ends. The prosecutor was about to ask him a question when Gaius held up his hand. Silence inside for a bit before Gaius turned to Maribelle and asked coolly "Your honor, may I be granted to request?"
"What are they?" she responded with only the smallest hint of confusion.
"Firstly, I wish to be rid of these chains. I promise the jury that I will not run from the court as I know I am an innocent man. I give you my honor as a thief and as a member of the Shepards." this caused a lot of murmurs through the court and even within the jury. Maribelle looked down at Gaius, but he didn't return the gaze. She guessed that he was either embarrassed or didn't want the court to know their affiliation with each other. She sighed and replied, "You may remove the chains." the guard moved close to him went to out the key but stumbled, apparently the keys weren't there. Gaius took the key to the chains cuffs out of his sleeve and undid all the chains, he then gave the key back to the guard next him and stretched his arms and legs.
Maribelle was getting a little bit impatient with his display, he did like to show off but this showing off would only hamper his chance to walking away free. She coughed loudly once and said, not looking directly at him "What is your second request?"
"That I have a private conversation with my wife." he said.
"Objection, your honor, the defendant is only trying to stall the trial. The defendant has no need to talk to his wife at this ti-" the lawyer began.
"OVER RULED" Maribelle said quite forcefully, she waited for the lawyer stand down and then turned to Gaius and said angrily, "I am pretty sure you don't want to talk to me right now as I am furious with you at the moment!" How could he even consider asking her this!?
"It's about the case. It's actually really import-" Gaius started.
"I said, silence. You told me that you would never end up in this situation and look at where we are! It was one of your vows for Naga's sake! I have half a mind to sentence you to jail just for breaking that vow alone!"
"Ok, Ok, Ok fine." Giaus said recoiling a bit. He knew not to push her buttons when she was studying over a court case at home and now that he was here, in court, on trial, he guessed that she was stressed out of her mind.
The crowd and the jury managed to put two and two together and they began to muted and whisper furiously. Maribelle had never out right said who her husband was; she would only say that he was a strong and cunning man whom she loved dearly. Finding out that her husband was a well-known thief that had been arrested and sent to jail more than once, was quite a revelation. Maribelle slammed the hammer uncharacteristically hard on the desk and yelled even louder than she did at Gaius "ORDER IN THE COURT!"
Silence was made immediately. Everyone was now on edge as Maribelle had a look of absolute fury on her face. She took a couple deeps breaths then said calmly, "Let us proceed."
"Of course, your honor." the man said and then turned to Gaius, "Have you ever heard of the Themontic family?"
"Yes. I remember Twinkles going to their parties every once and a while."
"Twinkles?" asked the lawyer confused. Maribelle gave a sigh, rage building just a bit more. That was his old nickname for her and he almost never used it anymore. He would only use it when they were in a bit of fight.
"My angry, bitchy, wife" Gaius said, sticking a thumb in her directions.
Oh, he was going to get it when he gets home, she thought.
"So you know of their business and their associations?"
"All I know of them is that they don't have a clean history." he said as he finished his licorice. This got the crowd murmuring again as they all began to speculate what that meant. The only thing Maribelle was thinking of at the moment was how she was going to punish him for saying such things about her family's close friend.
This wouldn't be the first time be had received her punishments, but she wanted to make him remember this one. The one she remembered having the most effect on him once was when she found all of his candy and hid it all in the one place he would never look; her court case drawer. He was in pure agony that time. She remembered how he got terribly agitated at first looking for the candy, but then all his energy just seemed to disappear. He had begged quite profusely for forgiveness after only one day, which she had given to him after another day and a half of sweets-less torture. She would have to think of some form of punishment worse than that.
"May you elaborate on said statement?" asked the prosecutor.
"Objection your honor, these questions have nothing to do with the actual trial." Gaius' lawyer said. Maribelle was about to comply as she did agree but Gaius held up his hand at his lawyer and said "Don't worry. This pertains to the case at hand." Then he looked at the prosecutor and continued, "What I mean by not having a clean history is that they have gone through many back doors to get to where the family is today. I can start naming some if you want?"
"No further question as of yet. Be silent" The prosecutor said hastily.
"Oh. Well since you asked. The Themontic family has been in the center of many different scandals and has been monopolizing the naval trading industry for quite a while. One of these many scandals was the-"
"Silence, Gaius!" Maribelle screamed at him, "You will be silent when told to be or you will be silenced by force." This was an empty threat. At least she hoped it would be. Maribelle would never want to intentionally hurt her husband but she was a magistrate of the law here, not wife to Gaius and if things got out of hand she would have to use force to subdue him.
"Fine! But don't expect anything out of me now!" Gaius said.
After a bit of time the prosecutor, who was talking to his associate about something, returned to the front and looked at Gaius. After riffling through a couple other pieces of paper, the prosecutor pulled out a paper and showed it to Gaius. He then showed to the Maribelle, and she was able to understand that it as a floor plan for a house. A roughly, obviously unprofessional drawn one but it served its purpose to highlight all of the entrances and exits of the floor. The prosecutor then motion for his partner to take the picture and he turned to Gaius and asked "Have you seen this before?"
Gaius did not speak. The prosecutor waited then continued.
"I will take this answer as a 'yes'. Now, knowing your history as a thief, would it be easy for any common thief to enter the premises?"
Again. Gaius did not speak. This time, the prosecutor waited longer than he had before he repeated.
"I ask again, would it be easy for any common thief to enter the premises?"
Maribelle groaned inwardly. Gaius was a thief and had been in prison before; he knew how to keep silent. He had kept silent for a whole month without so much as a slight whisper once so as to not give any hints about what he had planned for their honey moon one time. This was with much coaxing, bribes and promises of many sweets if there was only one hint given. He was not going to break.
She smashed her gavel on the wooden block and called "Court is adjourn for the day. We will reconvene tomorrow at the same time. The defendant will be held in a cell, alone, awaiting for the continuation of the trail." Gaius looked over to her with an exasperated looked, "Don't you give me that look. You got yourself it this and I am furious at you. I am doing you a favor."
"Yeah, fine. A great favor. Just make sure that you don't visit me in slammer."
"Oh, you know I won't" she retorted with rage. He gave sneer and turned away and she did the same. He was led out of the room and Maribelle left the room as well her rage shown clearly on her face and turning others away for fear or her exploding.
However, Maribelle's rage only lasted for so long as on her way home she began to wonder what was Gaius' side of the story? She knew that after his days as a Shepherd were over that he had taken back to his more authentic routes but he had promised that they were never something important, only taking treats and sweets. He even said that he would pay them back every time something was stolen, be it from him or from some local boys so that it was never truly stealing (whatever that meant, she would never know). She began to worry if he was going to be able to walk off scot free on this one. Her rage at him getting caught and robbing a well-known friend of the family was dissipating as the fear of him being incarcerated for life grew. How would she take care of both Brady and Angelica? Oh god, Angelica would be in an outrage.
Angelica was their second child and she took more after her father than she did Maribelle. She may have inherited her mother's looks, with her blond hair and her chestnut eyes, but she was definitely her father's daughter. Not only had she shown propensity for sneaking around but also she had also shown to have his crave for sweets and delicacies. Angelica had once sneaked around the house to get into the cookie jar without making a single noise at some odd hours of the morning. Gaius had followed her and stopped from taking the jar, but was so proud of her efforts and skill that he allowed her two cookies before sending her to bed, something he had told Maribelle regretfully before bed. After that she followed her father everywhere upon finding him, be it under the blue morning sky or the cover of darkness. She idolized him as 'The Thief of Thieves' and would try her best to learn and practice everything he told her.
Maribelle was against the matter entirely and forbade her daughter to go out with Gaius at any time past sundown. To accommodate this rule, Giaus made certain of that when he had his business to attend to, Angelica wouldn't know if he left the house or not. However, this didn't stop Angelica from attempt her own nightly escapades. Her thievery strolls took her out of the house and into the sweet pantries of Auntie Lissa and Unlce Chrom's castle. She never wasted an opportunity to not only raid their stashes of treats but also say 'Hi' to her favorite 'cousins'.
How would Maribelle tell her daughter that her father was in jail now? She idolized him. Watching him fall like that would destroy her. Maribelle shook her head a bit. Angelica was a strong girl, she would be able to take it. She hoped…
She arrived at the back at the house and her butlers helped remove her coat and dropped of her papers down at her study. As soon as her butler was loaded with her papers, she heard a pair of feet running down the stairs and another one which had a slower pace. She turned to see both her kids running to greet their mother, Brady was running towards with obvious worry in his eyes. Angelica on the other hand was just following her older brother, not running as fast but just enough to keep up.
As Brady got close, he started calling, "Ma! Ma! Is dad gonna be ok? He's not gonna go to jail, is he?"
Maribelle was shocked that he had heard the news so quickly. What time did she get back at? She looked outside only to be surprised to see that it was maybe an hour after sundown. The trial had been at mid-day and hadn't lasted anything over an hour! Had she really buried herself in work for that long?!
She steeled herself, focusing on the problem at hand; reassuring her kids that everything would be fine, when even she herself didn't know. She bent down and looked Brady in the eyes as she said "You father is in jail right now, yes." Brady face fell immediately and he was about to say something, but Maribelle continued, "But he is fine. It is just a small misunderstanding. He will be out before you know it." She finished with a reassuring smile, hoping that it looked believable to her kids.
"Really?" the young Brady asked hopefully.
"See?! Told you!" Angelica said triumphantly. This caught Maribelle slightly by surprised but she continued, "Papa, would never be so slow as to be caught! He's Papa! Thief of Thieves!" She cried out triumphantly and Maribelle couldn't help the genuine smile that grew on her face. She had so much faith in her father was not only innocent but that he had actually done the deed too.
"Alright you two, enough of this depressing talk. Let's get ready for dinner. Brady, you need to wipe you face before, ok?" Maribelle said as she got up and led them both to the dining area. She would have to keep their minds off of her husband's latest blunder but that would be simple enough.