capeandcowllogs | Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun

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Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun

WHO: Matt and Terezi :DDD
WHERE: Matt's office
WHEN: Let's go with Wednesday morning??
WARNINGS: Blind justice!
SUMMARY: Matt meets his new favorite troll best day ever omg
FORMAT: Um... para to start, but whatever you like :3

Matt was intrigued. He'd met other blind people, and he'd certainly met other lawyers in his life, but there was something fascinating about the little troll he'd encountered the other day. Yes, she was incredibly annoying, but he liked her almost instantly. Perhaps it was just the sense of camaraderie he felt toward her. It wasn't everyday that he came across someone with whom he had so much in common. Aside from the gender, age, and species differences, anyway. Yeah, that was probably it in a nutshell.

After his conversation with Terezi the day before, his curiosity was piqued enough that he started going back through the network to look for any prior mention of her. Those trolls were an unusual bunch, it would hurt to be prepared, especially since he'd already extended the invitation for her to stop in whenever she wished.

Two days later and he was in his office, standing by the window as Catherine the office kitten bounced around on his desk. He wasn't accomplishing much this morning, mostly scanning the network for any signs of the mysterious little Terezi.

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Terezi was still adjusting to the whole "up with the sun, sleep at night" thing--it was opposite to the sleep schedule she was used to, not that there had been any indication of day or night in the Veil.

That was part of why she was up so early in the morning. The reason she was at Matt's door so early in the morning was that she was bored, and what better way to get rid of that bored feeling than to troll a human? She was pretty excited about getting to do it in person, too.

She found the bottom edge of the door with her cane, a move signified with a light thump, and with that accomplished she knocked on the door--three raps, fast and loud. This was not the first door that she had banged on in such a manner, and for all she knew it wouldn't be the last, but Matt as who she was looking for and she was nothing if not tenacious.

Edited 2011-07-20 05:51 (UTC)

Matt could hear her in the hall, hear the distinct sounds she made as she approached his door. He didn't realize it was Terezi, of course. Without anything to compare the sounds to, he couldn't be completely certain until he opened the door and inspected her. Which he did, with very little hesitation.

He opened the door, stood in the doorway, and sized her up. His radar gaze him a decent idea of her size and shape, and even the cane she was holding. He smelled her, too. He didn't get all up in her business like a dog might, but he did immediately commit her scent to his memory.

Slowly, Matt cracked a smile and stepped aside to let her in. "Terezi. I had a feeling you might stop by."

Terezi, on the other hand, had no such inhibitions. She paused in his personal space to get a good whiff of him--hopefully he wasn't wearing any red, because that always got her going--mouth open in a wide, toothy grin. Not that there was anybody around to see it besides maybe the cat.

"Finally! You're hard to find, Mr. Grumpy Pants!" Her grin was practically audible.

Matt took a step back, otherwise immobile as she proceeded to investigate him. Unfortunately the lenses of his sunglasses were red and would undoubtedly get her attention. Luckily no one else was there to witness this unusual display, otherwise he might have been vaguely embarrassed. Not much, mind. He always had a good tolerance for the unorthodox. But being sniffed like that was different, even for him.

"It's nice to see you, too." He shut the door behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder, just to establish where he was as he still wasn't sure how her senses worked. "Can I get you something? A coffee? Some Oreos?"

She giggled, almost definitely at the glasses, but she wasn't tall enough to try to lick them. It was probably for the best.

"I don't know what those are," she announced brightly. "I like your glasses though. Where do you keep the criminals?"

She pulled away from his hand not long after he put it there, with the intention of exploring the rest of the room. If nothing else she was pleased to be hanging with real law enforcement.

"The criminals are in jail," he said following her as she set about exploring. The layout of the office was identical to all the rest of the MAC apartments, though the living room now had a desk and chair and some stacked filing cabinets in addition to the typical sofa and coffee table. Also, there's a fern. It's real and large and leafy and Gemma tends to it fastidiously. And there is a cat on the desk still, acting bewildered by the presence of their guest. "I don't keep criminals here. This is where I prepare my cases, before I go to court. Now, would you like a cookie?"

Terezi drifted around the office at a leisurely pace, using her cane to feel out objects and occasionally stopping to examine something with her nose.

In fact, she stopped almost immediately at the fern, which she admired with apparent pleasure, fingering some of the fronds and sniffing at it happily.

When Matt was done talking, though, she turned to his general direction, leaning on her cane with both hands.

"Oh, yeah. Do you interrogate suspects here?" Asking questions was sure to annoy him, get her answers, or (ideally) both.

"No. Not usually, anyway."

He wandered to the kitchen, letting Terezi feel her way around the place. There wasn't much to break, the place was well set up for people who couldn't see everything around them, and he wasn't especially worried that she'd destroy the place if he left her unsupervised for thirty seconds. Which was the amount of time it took for him to sniff out the cookies and bring them back into the living room, handing them out for her.

"The testimony is given in the courtroom, before the judge. Occasionally I'll interview witnesses here before trial."

Terezi settled, naturally, in the chair behind the desk in that thirty seconds that he was gone.

"Ooh, smart! Then you have a written statement in case the suspect kills them off at the last second!"

Terezi accepted the cookies and selected one to sniff, then lick, then eat whole.

"Hehehehehe! Chocolate and vanilla!"

He quirked a brow at her, shaking his head. There was an obviously amused tone to his voice as he helped himself to a cookie, "It's been known to happen. Or the witness might try to change their story once they're before the court. That's never pretty, trust me on that."

"If you have a written statement that puts the witness in contempt of court, right? You know what they say about that kind of thing!"

Or at least she assumed they did, because they were definitely working in the same profession here.

"That's right," he said, smile audible in his voice. He was pleased that she had caught on so quickly. For being so young, she showed such enthusiasm. He hadn't been so devoted to law when he was her age. "If they lie on the witness stand, they're committing perjury."

He paused then, having not the slightest idea of what saying she was referring to. "Refresh my memory, would you?"

She was referring to a piece of legislacerator wisdom, of course, which wasn't very suited to modern day human law. But she didn't know that and probably wouldn't have cared if she did.

"There's always room on the gallows for more to swing! Hehehehe!"

In fact, she often played out courtblock drama scenarios with her plush toys, which usually ended in the suspect and most of the witnesses meeting a dire end at the hands of justice. Before she got caught up in the mess that was SGRUB, her favorite hobby had been reading law texts.

Edited 2011-07-22 16:26 (UTC)

"Ah." He frowned at that. Having been jailed (though not convicted) for obstruction himself, he wasn't especially pleased to hear that the punishment didn't quite fit the crime. Or at least not in his opinion anyway. But then again, there was still much that he had to learn of the trolls and their ways. "Perjury can get you five years in prison here. The death penalty is generally reserved for capital murder. And treason."

Terezi didn't know a whole lot about how adult humans operated. She had observed Dave's guardian, sure, but for all she knew he could have been a special case. Adult trolls were more likely to kill a child than they were to nurture them; that was one of the many reasons that young trolls were confined to a single planet.

All that to say, while it was one thing to troll the hell out of him over the communicator, Terezi felt like she should be more cautious when dealing with any adult in person. The disapproval in Matt's voice, however mild, had her tightening her grip on her cane on reflex. Not that she moved from her (quite comfy) perch in his chair. And it certainly didn't keep her from complaining because the more she heard about them the more she thought human laws were stupid!

"What a total waste! How do you stand it?"

"I stand it because I believe the punishment should fit the crime." His own views on justice weren't so cut and dry. The system was imperfect, and the more intimate he became with the system, the more glaringly obvious its flaws were to him. That was what motivated him outside the courtroom. He had a need to right the wrongs, to correct the problems the legal system was unwilling or unable to on its own. Most trial lawyers didn't don the red leather suit and exact vengeance at night, after all, and he'd been imprisoned himself for that very act. It was probably safe to say that Matt's views on the whole subject were rather skewed as a result of this mildly unhealthy obsession. "Not all criminal acts warrant the same punishment. There are varying levels, felonies and misdemeanors. It's about fairness, it's about what is right. Lying isn't considered as severe as murder, so the sentence is lesser."

There was something else that governed his thoughts on punishment, though. Perhaps it was early to tell her of the higher judge he believed in. Terezi seemed unaware of the religions of Earth, she'd probably never even heard of Catholicism, and that conversation could always be saved for another day.

"Levels are for games! Law is serious business. What is the role of the noble legislacerator if not to orchestrate the demise of the wicked?"

Terezi's knowledge of Earth religion was practically nonexistent, and she wasn't big on any troll religions either. She was very serious about the whole legislacerating thing, though, in part because she had taken some extremely drastic measures recently that were only excusable because they were carried out in the name of justice. It was somewhat necessary to go all the way when it came to Alternian law.

"That's just it. We don't have legislacerators. We have lawyers. That's what I am. Lawyers present the evidence to the judge and jury. We persuade them that a crime has been committed. We interview witnesses and argue our case. We don't execute anyone. Not ourselves, anyway."

He didn't wanted to lead her on with delusions of how perfect the system was or wasn't. The system was flawed. It wasn't practiced the way he would have had it. But he saw the nobility in it. He saw the purity in the notion. He understood why things were the way they were and had been, even though he often disagreed with the system.

But in his view, the concept of justice went beyond the court system. It was so much more than that.

"What's a jury?"

Maybe if she focused on specific parts of this bizarre system it would make more sense.

This question surprised him. So much so, that he almost choked on the cookie he was shoving into his mouth. After coughing and clearing his throat, he finally answered a minute later.

"A jury is an impartial group of twelve people gathered to evaluate the evidence and deliver the verdict and sentence the accused, if they are convicted."

Terezi waited patiently, though she did giggle a little while he coughed. That's just the kind of person she is.

She was extremely dubious at his actual answer, though. "How the hell do you find anybody who's impartial? This system doesn't make any sense at all."

"Anyone can be impartial. Justice itself is impartial. She does not discriminate or hold any prejudices. And the jury does the same. Before the trial, the potential jurors are interviewed and agreed upon by the prosecutions and defense. Anyone who feels they simply cannot be impartial is excluded and replaced with someone else. It's a beautiful system." He frowns slightly. "When it works, anyway."

Stupid humans and their stupid diluting of the law pool. These are the kinds of thoughts Terezi was thinking.

"So everybody still agrees on the same suspect, right? Or is that too complicated for this 'jury' to get a handle on?"

"The jury doesn't select the suspect, no. The suspect is investigated by the police, the evidence is brought before the grand jury, and then the suspect is indicted and charged with the crime. Then the prosecutors present the case to the jury and the defense presents evidence to try to persuade the jury that the defendant is innocent. Once both sides have stated their cases, the jury renders the verdict." He smirked at her, just a little. The legal system was such a complicated and beautiful thing. "You following this so far?"

Terezi scowled in return, as though Matt had said something offensive. In a sense, he had.

"I don't think you should use language like that in the presence of a legislacerator! And here I thought we were past the you being a jerk stage."

In a sense, Terezi considered the back and forth something of a roleplay scenario, just like any courtblock drama she made up to goof around with. And of course in the courtblock, the very mention of a "defense" is offensive. Things like this were what made life interesting!

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