By decree of my writer’s course, all authors participating must present a short story, of any kind. Here’s my result 
<u>Order in the court!</u>
When it came down to the practical execution of the whole thing, one had to wonder if the person/thing that had planned everything had ever been in a courtroom themselves, or even knew basic rules for life, law, and food. For as much as democracy was a refreshing call to everyone’s rights, its demand of everybody getting a say in everything might not be the most intelligent issue. Especially not when it came to a jury. The mix of representatives offered on this day – and many an other day – was enough to make the whole courtroom – apart from themselves – wish that those scientist guys would hurry up and invent those things called “headache tablets” that they had been promising for months.
The judge himself couldn’t even bring himself to look at the jury box; it made his pretty head throb just to glance at the chaos waiting to be released about once or twice every second hour or so. He had enough things to bother about without those cuckoos. Like the next case. His beautifully shaped hands with their elegant, long fingers fidgeted with his black robe at the thought, unseen as his desk shielded him from sight.
Here might be a good time to mention that the judge was, in fact, an elf. On another, not completely related note, he was a member of a circle of elves determined to prove to the world that not ell elves were dainty, graceful and proud blondes who always wrinkled their noses at the other races. To demonstrate this, the judge had dyed his hair brown.
But thanks to his current position, it was turning white under the dark color. He took in a deep breath as the disgruntled goat of the last session trotted out and the doors closed.
“What’s next?” the not so blonde elf asked his aide, who was stoically standing behind the podium.
The aide, who unofficially doubled as the judge’s guardian – though none of them would admit it due to the elf’s resolve – gave him a sympathetic look and cleared her throat.
She being a “she” was another reason for the denial of her second job, since it opened up for sniggers all around. It would definitely blow the whole “elves aren’t always dainty, graceful and proud blondes who always wrinkle their noses at the other races” thing. On the other hand, the fact that she was an orc kind of shed a new, or at least confusing, light upon the relationship. But we probably don’t want to know the details.
In any case, the aide cleared her – very thick – throat and announced for all to hear:
“Second issue of the day! Older dragon brother, <I>oink</I>, versus the youngest prince!”
“Another one?!” the judge groaned.
Similar mutters came from the assembled crowd. The orc bent forwards and murmured soothingly to the elf:
“Third this week, <I>oink</I>. It should be the last, you know.”
“But it’s only Tuesday!” the judge said, “it can still turn out to be seven or twelve of them by the end of the week!”
The aide tiredly oinked in reluctant agreement and straightened up again. She, unlike her boss, was brave enough to dare a glance at the jury. She didn’t like most of the looks she spotted in that pack. Some of them were definitely enjoying themselves too much for it to be anything but worrisome.
Once again the gate opened, and in strode a golden-haired human lad dressed in golden silk and carrying a golden sword by his side. The judge quickly pulled open a drawer in his desk and from it produced a pair of sunglasses, which he promptly put on to preserve his sensitive eyes from the metallic shine.
After the boy lumbered a quite impressive sight. Seven-headed dragons seldom left their lairs since they were still regarded as a menace to society by most races, so one could understand all the gasps this great creature’s appearance caused. One should note however, that for it to even fit through the gate it had been forced to agree with the wizard in the lobby to be shrunk to about a third its normal size. Still it had to bend all its long necks not to smack the heads into the frame.
As they stopped in the half-moon shaped space before the podium after passing several rows of newly intrigued audience, both – or maybe “all eight” would have been a better pick of words – of the parties in the new case politely nodded to the judge. He silently replied in the same way, then turned to his left and glanced down. The ghost writer – that was literally so – nodded upwards that he was ready to take the notes for the issue.
More to be polite than truly needing it, the judge proceeded to hold up the parchment that his aide handed him, where the details on the case were written.
“I see that the seven-headed dragon, the accuser, has demanded that the defendant, known as unnamed prince Six hundred and Eighty Three, should be thrown in jail for the murder of the accuser’s two younger brothers,” he read over the brim of his glasses.
Placing the report on the desk he pushed the glasses up to the base of his nose and turned his head towards the prince.
“What do you have to say to this accusation, Mr. Six hundred and Eighty Three?”
“Guilty!” the youngster bravely said, “but with a good cause!”
The judge fought down the urge to plant his face in his hand – for one fourth of a second. Next thing he knew, he was on the floor under his aide. One had to admire her reflexes, which had saved both her and her boss from becoming barbequed. Sadly, she had no time to save the desk, nor the wall and door behind it. Those got fried to a crisp, all because of the dragon’s inability to keep from snorting scornfully.
The audience held its breath in shock.
Some members of the jury were taking notes.
“Ehm… oops?”
In the beast’s defense, four of its heads blushed purple while the others tried to hide behind the base of the necks.
“Foul creature from the depths of Hell!” cried the prince.
The dragon ignored him.
“We’re sorry,” the blushing heads rumbled in unison, “are you alright, madam, sir?”
“I think so,” the aide coughed as she stood, pulling the judge along by his uppers arms, “how about you?”
“Fine… fine…” he croaked, quickly claiming his own footing and starting to brush off his black robes.
Or as things now stood, gray robes. It would take some time to get all the ashes off. He sighed and snapped his fingers.
“Gnomes! New desk!” he called, with surprising authority.
Some of the spectators, provided they had good eyes and knew what they were looking for, might have spotted the little gray face and pointy hat distrustfully peeking into the hall over the singeing corner of the wall’s remains.
The judge stepped aside, but the aide stood firm – she was still trying to clean her snout of ashes and felt no desire to focus on anything else for a while. However, she didn’t even flinch as a mass of gray welled through the hole, stampeding around her feet and over the place where the elf had stood a moment ago. As the flow reached the awkward, black and bright red stumps that remained of the table, it whipped itself up in a crazed whirlwind. The thundering of thousands of small feet changed into a harder sound, suspiciously alike small hammers smacking away as if there was no tomorrow.
As quick as it had appeared, the storm melted away and back out through the hole in the wall, followed by the audience’s applause and whistles.
The dragon, however, looked a little hurt. At least, most of its heads did, while a couple seemed to not care at all. The judge took note of this as he carefully sat down on the new, very hard chair in front of the shining, white stone desk.
“They mean no harm, I assure you,” the elf offered, “they just try to save themselves as much work as possible. That was the second time in a few days that this happened.”
Politely, the dragon nodded in understanding, though it still felt rather offended by the gnomes’ lack of trust for its self-control.
The judge cleared his throat, daintily holding his bent pointing finger against his lips as he did so.
“Well then, shall we continue?” he said and corrected his sunglasses again while turning back to the prince, “you were saying, young man?”
He softly sighed as the lad planted his feet steadily on the ground and his fists on his hips. Chin proudly held high, the child of royalty begun his defendant’s speech.
“I ask of you, honorable judge…”
But here, even this brave little hero had to pause and throw a disbelieving glance at the jury’s seats before he could continue.
“… Honorable members of the jury,” he picked up, though that title seemed a little far-fetched even for one trying to be courteous, “I ask of you to consider my honorable position in this accusation. As I am the honorable youngest prince of three, I have no choice but to go into the world and slay monsters in order to fulfill my destiny. It is in my honorable job-description.”
Hmm. Perhaps he hadn’t really tried to be polite to the jury at all, judging from the rest of his rant.
During this speech, the dragon had repeatedly made little snorting noises but managed to keep from blowing out more than tiny flames from all its nostrils. It still seemed rather miffed as it looked around at all the people, elves and aides constantly ducking whenever it made a single little spark. The crowd, which normally erupted into murmurs during speeches like the prince’s, had instead been erupting in murmurs interrupted by panicked shrieks.
As the prince seemed to be done – and the coast clear, the judge peeked over the edge of his brand spanking new desk.
“What is your answer to this, Mr. Dragon?” he inquired.
The head in the very middle spoke up, the others shrinking away from it in apparent respect for authority.
“It is an outrage,” it said, “I am shocked over the fact that this matter has not been brought to an end years ago. Everyday, these self-proclaimed heroes march into the lairs of my kin and kills us for no good reason other than that it’s ‘in their job description’? Where is the justice in that?”
It paused to glare suspiciously at the jury, then looked back at the elf. He had now reached a proper sitting position again, since there had been no flares for a while. The crowd murmured, to set the mood or something similar. The judge nodded, though he had to be neutral deep down understanding the great beast’s point very well.
“Your Honor, members of the jury, I ask of you to consider the repeated crimes against my kin, and take a stand against the despicable crimes of the royal children all over our world.”
It finished by politely bowing all its heads to the judge and aide, as well as – with slight reservation – the jury. At least it was in a position to keep an eye or seven on the last group, in case they did something expected.
After letting the silence last for a moment in case anybody else wished to speak up, the elf placed the heavy little club in his hand on the desk’s top. The hard clacking sound worked rather nicely to mark the end of one session.
“The jury will now confer,” he announced, “we will give them twenty minutes to discu-”
He was cut off by a cold, silky voice. It wasn’t a very loud voice, but one that easily managed to cut through every other sounds with a single whisper.
“Guilty, Your Honor.”
There was quite a ruckus as many people dropped pens, papers, mirrors and anything else they might be holding, as they heard the icy words.
The aide glared at the offender while the judge sighed.
“Yes Sir, we have established that already,” the elf said, “the defendant admitted it himself.”
“That is true, Your Honor.”
“Then, shall you go and discuss what the next step would be…?”
“We suggest that the prince is fed alive to an appropriate party.”
Silence ruled.
The prince looked rather uneasy, the dragon somewhat bewildered.
“Excuse me,” the accuser’s three leftmost heads chorused, “but my request was that he should be thrown into the dungeons. Being eaten alive is a little extreme…”
It found itself under the confused gazes of everyone in the entire hall, and coughed with all its might.
“What is the matter?” the middle head asked.
“Excuse <I>me</I>,” the silky voice said, “but what kind of seven-headed beast from any mortal’s nightmare <I>are</I> you?”
The dragon frowned. This was an intimidating sight, which made most people prepare to duck again. Quickly.
“Vegetarian!” all the heads snapped, “is there anything wrong with that?”
Slowly a grayish hand reached up and delicately grabbed the frame of a pair of sunglasses – similar to the judge’s, but with golden linings to prove their exclusivity – and tilted both glasses as well as head. A pair of intensively crimson eyes became visible over the black wall (with golden lining), thoughtfully studying the disgruntled dragon.
After a rather unfair staring contest, the pale humanoid straightened up again.
“To each their own, I suppose,” he said.
And ducked.
Somehow though, the dragon managed to control itself and only fry the floor before the jury’s box. Grumbling a forced apology, the beast turned away from the unruly group of duckers and turned great variety of hopeful eyes towards the judge. He, meanwhile, was conferring with his aide in hushed voices. After a few moments, the orc stepped back and the elf cleared his throat.
“Due to the protest from the accuser, we will reach a middle ground in this case,” he said, ignoring the boos from the jury, “I hereby relieve Mr. Six hundred and Eighty Three of his heroic quest and sentence him to three hundred and eighty six hours of penal servitude for Mr. Dragon to make up for the emotional damage. You will not be allowed to escape or be saved by another hero, prince or princess alike. That will be all.”
The concluding smack of wood against stone overpowered the prince’s protesting squeal. The Dragon, meanwhile, seemed very cheerful for once.
“Goodie!” the rightmost head beamed, “somebody to help out in the carrot field!”
And with that the whole dragon turned around and trotted out, snatching up the whining prince with its long, slithering tail on the way.
The audience applauded as the judge rose from his seat. He blinked in surprise, then politely bowed though he wasn’t sure what he was congratulated for. But as he heard his aide’s angry voice, realization started creeping into his pretty skull.
“Will you <I>oink</I> give it up?” she snarled, “earlier you even wanted to sentence that girl to death for going to a ball uninvited!”
“It was an offense she kept repeating,” the owner of the silky voice replied.
“She was the accuser! And then the goat in the last case, while it was clearly self-defense that he pushed the troll off the bridge!”
“Even after taunting it to come and get him?”
The smooth talker softly smirked beneath his oversized sunglasses.
“My fair lady,” he said, “sooner or later we <I>will</I> manage to sentence somebody to death, no matter how hard you and your elf fight.”
“We shant let you have your evil ways, mark my <I>oink</I> words!”
The whole jury studied her fuming person for a moment.
“Vegetarian dragons and kindhearted orcs,” another smooth voice tried to murmur without being heard, “the world is certainly degenerating…”
“Why you…”
“Order in the court!” the judge called.
He slammed the club into the desk again to make his point clear, but the effect was obliterated as his voice broke during the next hiss, as he wasn’t used to speaking so loudly so often:
“We will take… a fifteen minutes’ pause!”
Mustering as much pride as possible after that one, he stood and swept through the still smoking hole in the wall, robes fluttering behind him like black wings. His orc friend followed him after one last warning glare at the smirking jury.
In the assembly room of the judges, lawyers and other workers of the courthouse – otherwise known as the “last stronghold of sanity” by its users – the strange couple breathed out over a cup of coffee each.
They avoided meeting each other’s gazes, slowly sipping the hot liquid and trying to not think of work.
Eventually though, it was inevitable.
“Yesterday everyone was deemed not guilty…” the orc said.
The elf tiredly stirred his coffee, dropping another sugar cube into it.
“No matter whether they pleaded guilty or not,” he agreed.
They sighed in union. Fairy godmothers in all due respect, but they made no good jury. Neither did… those things out there, waiting… waiting…
“The meeting with the other judges is on Saturday, you must be strong,” she said.
He tried to be cheered up by that thought and nodded, though the days seemed to stretch out before him like very determined toffee.
“I’ll lend you my dagger,” she offered, seeing the opening in his bad mood.
At this, he gratefully smiled.
“Thanks. I promise we’ll lynch the idiot who got the bright idea of mixing juries in a new way.”
The orc looked out through the window, at the clear blue sky. It was almost depressing, since she knew she would be stuck inside until the evening. Again.
“I wouldn’t call this mixing, <I>oink</I>,” she stated.
It wasn’t the first time she said so. Ever since the “cycling system” had been attempted, the sessions in the courtrooms had been a juggle.
Especially on days like these, when all juries consisted only of vampires.
The judge ruefully looked at the great hourglass on the wall, telling the time left to the next headache. So precious little time…
In defeat, he finished the cup of coffee in one impressive gulp – having learnt the trick for this from his aide – and took in a deep breath. Then he squared his finely sculpted shoulders and walked back towards his courtroom with the determination of a brave man who would fight the system on its own field.