R U N

[Nala]

March 14

The morning was grim and overcast. Some pride remained in the way Nala held her head, but her teal eyes were just as dim and cloudy as the bleak sky. The scent of rain hung in the air, its chill settling in her bones. She shivered slightly.  

The enormity of what they were about to do weighed heavily on Nala's mind. Cutting Jasper loose had not been an easy decision, but he gave her no choice. Nala had protected him as long as she thought it safe, but Jasper had grown careless with his tongue. He had, more or less, condemned himself really.

Below her ledge, the Freedom Fighters were clustered in a tight knot. Every now and again they would tilt their heads, like wary crows, and expectantly glance up at Pride Rock. At last, the queen stood and roared. A hush fell on the crowd. Jasper was hauled out of his cell by her stone-faced pridesisters, his hands tightly bound behind his back. Nala watched in grim satisfaction. Despite her own guilt, she found no pity in her heart. Jasper had brought this all on himself. He was going to make a bad end, regardless of how the trial ended. She'll see to that.

"I, Queen Nala of the Pride Lands, will sit as judge in our king's stead. Jasper Vangas, you stand accused of collaborating with our enemy the Blackblood Legion and of regicide. How do you plead?" 

[Kopa]

Kopa wished more than anything else that he could leave, but the trial seemed to be mandatory. He was near Nala and hadn't said a word. He peered down to where Jasper was. He almost felt sorry for the man, but couldn't do much for him. His gaze returned to Nala and he felt anger swell up as he remembered that she was involved. He couldn't help but glare at her. He then searched for the eyes of Afua.

--

Aladdin was more uncomfortable than happy. Sure, he was still sore at Jasper for demoting him and giving him kitchen duty, but really, he couldn't blame him. He had screwed up and gotten people killed. But he didn't find satisfaction in this trial. He only felt a twange of pain. He listened to what the lioness said, but would have trouble listening.

--

Jim didn't feel sure if this was right or not. He was hoping the trial would end without haste, but he quickly realized that wouldn't be the case. He wanted to pace and he was unsure of what this trial would mean.

[Zamora]

At the forefront of the crowd, despite her size, Zamora stares upwards towards to group of lions on their ledge. Each fiber of muscle on her is tensed, hairblades raised slightly like the hackles on a dog. When Nala’s roar sounds out to them, she only seems to get more upset: Her hair begins to rattle, and the tell-tale signs of dark dander clouds and crimson eyes begin to creep onto her visage.

Nala has gotten the attention of the Pit Beast, but for all the wrong reasons.

Long ears twitch slightly, only partially listening. She’s listening for a verdict, but her mind is rolling like a wild storm. Every part of her is tugging, straining at her social agreement. The only things keeping her from climbing the ledge and attempting to tear Nala and her pride to bloody ribbons are the little lioness in her arms, and the shifter holding her hand.

Zamora was looking less like the friendly alien she’d come to be known as, and more like the bloodthirsty beast she was known as beyond the atmosphere.

———

Magma eyes squint lightly, but otherwise, the Elemental didn’t move. Look at this setup. Putting themselves up on a ledge. ‘I’m better than you’, it says, ‘I get to decide your fate’. She’d found that she hated most other royal families outside her own. They had no sense of kinship with their people, no sense of connection. ‘I’m your leader, and you do what I say no matter what.’

That ledge was there to protect them when people got upset by their decisions. If they couldn’t get up there, they couldn’t stop them. And Dhall hated every pebble involved with it.

———

There’s a soft squeak from behind the Gourmand’s arm, where Huela has chosen to wedge herself in anxiety. The roar had startled her greatly, but from her position with the Gourmand, things were much safer. After a short beat, she squeezes herself free, climbing along the side to the armrest. From here, she could see the whole set up. Poor Jasper, being strung out like this. The lions seem stone-faced, except...

“Sir, look.”

A little hand motions toward the lions as she speaks, voice low.

“That one there, with the red mane. Look at how he’s glaring at her. He knows something. She knows something.”

Huela didn’t understand the need for a royal leader like this. Her people operated in small groups on her planet, and while each one had its Elders, they weren’t put on such a high pedestal. Sure, they were the go-to for knowledge, but they weren’t seen as the know-all, end-all. They were the oldest, often just asked for advice. They weren’t bosses of any sort...

[Grey Brother]

Grey Brother stands silent as he watched the trail begin he would have no say in this trial for it didn’t matter in the long one. He was a simple spectator of this whole thing. His yellow orbs peer around at the crowd that were around him trying to pick out the face of his little brother. Grey had called for him earlier to join at his side but had he not heard his howl? The wolf turned back to look where the ex leader of the freedom fighters stood and awaited his answer.

~~~~~~~~
The soft hum and whirl of Silver’s gears could be heard as he comes to a stop standing beside Jim as he looks up at Nala, two toned eyes trail to where Jasper was standing. Did Silver feel bad, feel something at all? That question was more complicated to put in words if anything. Silver didn’t miss Kopa’s angry glare at his mother, had something happened? And if so wha- ah, there! Silver’s cybernetic eye zooms in now spotting the fresh slice in the young prince’s ear

[Boso]

A gust of wind sent tendrils wending through Boso's fur. Squinting, he looked up, seeing several lionesses escorting Jasper out of the cave they kept him in. They shoved him forward. "Leave him alone!" Boso wanted to shout, but he knew it would do him no good.

Boso felt Zamora tense next to him. No one in the crowd was happy, and the queen seemed to have no sense of the effect she had on them. Everything about her offended them: her derisive tone, her haughty mien and the fact that she was out of their reach. 

Boso's bottom lip quivered. Part of him wanted to cry. The other part wanted to kick Nala off her stupid ledge. In the end, Boso was still a child, and his eyes filled with hot tears of frustration.

[Kiara]

Lack of sleep hung upon the young lioness seated to Nala's right like a tangible weight, dragging beneath her eyes and lowering her brow. Kiara had gained little rest after the turbulence of the previous day and instead had lain awake within Pride Rock, gaze vacantly fixated upon the wall as she reflected upon the events that had cumulated into this trial.

Dissatisfaction seemed to be the result. For her mother to act the way she was... To act as queen despite her own part played in the king's death... Kiara's brows lowered farther as bloodshot eyes flickered towards her mother. Nala should not be allowed to preside over this. That much she'd decided, but what could she really do? Without the vocal support of their subjects Kiara couldn't hope to simply take her rightful role as the true queen, not without facing a real fight with her mother. Nevertheless, this trial was taking place in the name of her bloodline. Tainting it with lies and betrayal. With an expression of one sickened Kiara turned her gaze away from her mother, instead looking out at those gathered. Hate and disgust stared back, prickling the young female's spine with a sense of dread. Tension hung like a storm on the horizon, and its focus was settled firmly on the family standing upon Pride Rock.

This was a bad idea.

A very, very bad idea.

As she'd done during the night Kiara turned ideas over in her head, jumping from one thought to another. Should she speak out? Try to take over and find the true justice? Should she trust her mother to be fair and truthful?

Could she?

Kiara longed to open her mouth, to look these adults and the eye and demand they speak the whole truth. To shake what had happened from their tongue so that she might be able to decide who it was she needed to hate... And who she could still love, untainted.

But what could one lioness do?

[Tarzan]

Tarzan, though he didn't like what was happening, he knew this was an event that he could not miss. He kept to himself sitting at a angle so he could see both the group of people below and the Lions above. The tree he situated himself in was very old but strong.

With a sort of morbid interest he watched. Just watched. It was like he was in his own world and this was his main focus.

[Flynn Rider]

In the back of the crowd, leaning on a boulder with his arms crossed, Flynn Rider couldn't help but evaluate the entire situation. Any thief worth his gold would know that anyone trying to rob or hurt a potential mark would be watching all of these events very carefully. And with the amount of dissent a political trial like this brings, a thief's mind could wonder about the empty houses this would bring. If a large group were to suddenly leave, what ripe pickings to any burglar "wandering" in.

Only it's not necessarily thieves he's worried about.

Looking over the crowd, he noticed Silver and Jim, two people he felt he could trust Rapunzel and himself with. The Gourmand's presence was hard to miss, and the rogue felt the cool shiver down his spine as he remembered how hungry the Gourmand was for blood. Finally resting his eyes on Jasper, Eugene felt bitter spite, not at Jasper, but the entire situation. It reminded him too much of the day he almost died from a trial (and then did die later, but that's not important right now).

He checked the satchel hanging from his side. It carried almost everything he would need in case of an emergency and he needed to run. Most people, Rapunzel included, would have given him an earful for preparing to leave suddenly, but something in his gut told him to be sure just in case. Flynn would have played it off as his old thieves' tricks coming back to haunt him, but Eugene decided to take it seriously.

Either way, the ex-con waited, hoping for an opportunity to be proven right; Nala was just going to exile Jasper, and all of his friends can meet him outside of the Pride Lands.

[The Gourmand]

Max remained at the door of his tent, holding the opening flap off to one side of him. His other hand held one side of his headpiece closer to his ear. It appeared that he was listening intently. The night prior, he’d adjusted his entire set up to be directly near the door, as he was anticipating he would need to put his “plan” into action quickly.

Max knew things would go south. He just knew it. So he did the only thing he really felt he could do; set up a distress call for someone - anyone - to pick up on when he activated it the second the Freedom Fighters began to collapse.

Max hadn’t taken a side. Both sides of the divide in the Freedom Fighters were in the wrong he felt. But he was still loyal to the cause. And all he hoped for was that something good would become of his S.O.S., because once things got hot, Max was fully intent to get out of dodge. He would return when the dust settled.

~*~

The pod hovered mere inches above the ground, but even still, his head rose above most others. The Gourmand’s body language read as relaxed. He was fully reclined and his hands were folded on top of his stomach, his thumbs tapping each-other every now and then. It was almost like he was just there for his entertainment.

But he wasn’t.

The merman had sufficient bulk that he could easily hide four pod turrets beneath him. The crystal lazers weren’t mounted upon his pod -- that would make his intents stupidly obvious -- instead, he had them wrapped up in his tentacles under him. The dead stare of blood rage in his eyes made it oh so clear he would whip them out the instant the fight began.

He was so focused on the glorified anthill before him he didn’t immediately respond to Huela. A smile finally parted on his previously neutral lips.

“Fancy that.”

The tone was shrilled by sarcasm.

The Gourmand didn’t know everything. He couldn’t have known everything. But it would not surprise him to happen upon a corrupt royal family; not even slightly.

[Jasper]

A torrent of emotions had been in his chest the moment he had raised his head from the ground that morning. Anger, fear, frustration, betrayal, so many things swirled within him that he had tried so desperately to make heads or tails of but couldn't. The thing he felt in that moment though, was not fear but something he didn't really want to think he was capable of, hate. Hate towards Nala. Hate for someone he had trusted so full heartedly to just break his trust as though it had meant nothing was worse than a stab to the back. It made the hot burn of disgust and bitterness in his throat grow to something he hadn't felt before.

Loyalty was a code that was sacred to him and to have it broken, was something comparable to the destruction of life in his eyes. One did not break it unless it was absolutely necessary and in this case. It was not necessary, it was only to protect the queen's filthy lair hide. God how he hated her.

Mismatched hues glared down angrily at the lioness queen. The man who was usually nothing but kind, patient, and cared for his army was something different in that moment. His expression was twisted into that of barely contained spite. Her voice grated on his nerves, and his teeth were shown as she addressed him. This trial was already against him, and he knew it...

He breathed out sharply, his eyes refused to look at his army below.

"Guilty of collaborating with the queen to murder her own husband." The tone came out like bitter poison, she could try to protest, hide the truth, but her cubs had heard the truth, maybe. Just maybe, they would be better than their parents. He was guilty of murder, of collaborating with Blackbloods, he would not deny it. He knew what he had done was wrong, but he would be damned if the whole truth did not come out.