The Silver Queen [AU]

[Haliel Lightsong]

Eyes widening, the paladin demures with, "thank you, Goodwoman Smith, but I've no need of food and I wouldn't want to-"

[Smith Family]

Or attempts to at least. "Then stay for some tea and conversation. You work yourself to the bone, dearie," Jaina says firmly. Looking perplexed, the aasimar slowly nods.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"And... I could use an update. It seems... it seems a lot has changed in Glaley, and if I'm to go back in and get my, my brother out..."

[Haliel Lightsong]

"Brother... ah, Vigilant William?" Lightsong kneels neatly on the ground, legs folding under her. "Did something change?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

She shakes her head. "I don't know anything of the situation. Only, if things are as bad as I hear, he shouldn't be in the middle of it."

[Haliel Lightsong]

The paladin looks confused, just a little. "Your brother has joined the Golden Peacekeepers- was doing very well in it last I knew. With his... degree of dedication and passion for it, I doubt much would persuade him to leave." She glances at the pavitra and adds, "the Peacekeepers are a neighborhood watch group in name, a militia in truth, if not an outright guard outfit. One of your own is leading it, Bright's His-paws-are-silent-but-his-growl-is-fierce-in-defense-of-the-righteous. Well, almost- a mortal paladin at least. Though from what I understand, she's just the field commander, they have a strategist plotting the overall course."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Then, please, what is the situation?" she asks, softly. "The rumors I've heard..."

[Smith Family]

"Open revolt if you ask the nobles. Civil unrest against cruel oppression if you ask anyone with eyes and a shred of honesty," Kyle says bitterly. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Good," she says softly. 

[Haliel Lightsong]

Lightsong winces. "That is... not inaccurate," she says reluctantly. "The start of things was when Lord Beldune succeeded in passing a law that prohibited anyone without the proper paperwork from traveling out of a districts. Any noble was permitted free access anywhere. Male nobles I should say. Rich merchants the same. Everyone else was more or less stuck in their district. It also forbade leaving the city itself, though that aspect of the law was carefully hidden until it was passed. The penalties for leaving your permitted areas are... harsh. Gaining permits to travel was both time-consuming and expensive- most people, even well educated ones, would be completely unable to navigate the bureaucratic hurdles required and solicitors are not cheap."

[Coquette Blacquin]

Coquette leans forward, frowning. The wives and daughters... 

[Haliel Lightsong]

"A stricter curfew was next- 'lock-down at sun-down,'" the paladin recites. "A small group of recently immigrated merchants- ship captains that retired to Glaley- organized a protest with some of their works and contacts in the Docks. When they marched to Stone Circle... they were met with two hundred Shields. Eighteen dead, forty-seven injured. Eighty-seven arrested. Thirty of them were hung afterwards, the rest sentenced to a decade of hard labour for 'inciting a rebellion' and attacking the guard."

[Smith Family]

Kyle snorts disdainfully. "Almost funny that- like one of those self-filling prophecies you hear about in bard tales."

"Self-fulfilling," his wife murmurs. "And there's nothing funny about it."

[Coquette Blacquin]

Coquette bites her lower lip. But of course, fishing hauls suffer if you have to be in by sundown. And with many of the fishermen dead, they'd suffer more. That would cause economic hardship, drive up the price of fish in a city that relies on it as a staple...

[Haliel Lightsong]

 "There were more protests of course. People couldn't believe what was happening. People wanted their families back. So a dozen detachments of the Spears were pulled back to the city and stationed in the Docks," Lightsong says in a carefully even tone, as if she wasn't describing something that's never happened before, not even during the worst disasters in Glaley's history. The Spears are never deployed inside the city walls. Ever. They're not guards, they're military. Most of them have zero investigative training, minimal understanding of non-lethal combat and no more understanding of the city laws than the average citizen. "The first purge happened less than two days later."