It helps him stay focused on it.

When he's done he couriers back to his office to put together the case. He sends his client an email asking what being a Champion even entails.

Exercising and training in a place where citizens can come and watch them and get advice, adding equestrianism and fake combat to festivals and stuff, fighting volunteers and occasionally soldiers or guards while belting out banter, going to parties with the Governor and being visible at them, doing tests of skill against other cities' Champions... That kind of thing. It used to be a lot more actual fighting but the modern position is more showmanship, which some people hate.

So it was not actually a military or law enforcement position?

That maybe depends on who you ask. He probably could have told the guards to arrest someone and they would have. They all got the position by a combination of being locally famous and winning contests and knowing the Governor's wife's niece's husband and he can truthfully say he didn't understand it to be a military or law enforcement position. The oath was to 'be an exemplar of might for the city of Groa, defending its honor and inspiring its citizens'.

Alrighty, that'll avoid foxing the freedom of religion angle.

They have the right to a swift and speedy trial. Are they willing to testify in each other's trials?

...Will that affect their own trials much?

The lawyers for not-Mattin think it will help them if they will testify against him.

Hmm.

Only Shannalore is willing to do that. She wants to go to a different prison than the others after.

She can do that no problem.

Their trials take place in a random order and with different judges, but sequentially, in order to enable specifically this sort of thing. Shannalore's is first but she can express her willingness to testify against Mattin during her trial, truth magic is convenient that way.

She wears a prison uniform and a serious frown.

She should have stayed in Anthel Camme and become a citizen, she should have seen what was up with Mattin sooner, the whole hunting thing was a farce but the fear of missing out on 'one last adventure' took her there anyway. The dragons can write, for gods' sake, she didn't know that, she honestly thought Snake-Below-Pines was a dumb beast at the time. And now she's helped her former friends kill someone who was just defending their home, and can do nothing but face up to it. She's going to do her best never to wield the spear in anger again, and they're not her friends anymore.

Her judge rules that she will need to deposit half her basic income toward a fund to rez Snake-Below-Pines until such time as a stable market price is established for whatever the state of the art of dragon resurrection is and then she only needs to pay that much. This doesn't leave her a lot per payment on top of prison costs; she gets a social worker to help her find a budget prison which also isn't where her ex-friends are going. She will be doing six months and anger management classes.

Anger isn't quite the lesson she'd take away from this, more 'think ahead next time', but she's not gonna say anything about that. She'll take her punishment with a deep bow and a small sigh.

What are the different prison options like, are they all like the one she was in before?

Nope, they have an extremely wide variety, in all different climates and floorplans. The budget options for her security level with access to anger management classes are mostly apartment-style but there's also a large popular one in a Mongolia where you can go outside and run around whenever and sign up to help take care of goats and horses and stuff.

She definitely wants that one, it sounds much less horrible than being stuck in a box for months. (She says with some amount of shock at just how nice these people are to prisoners.)

"Yup!" says the social worker cheerfully. She can be shipped to Revelation Mongolia as soon as she's done testifying in the other trials.

And the anger management starts then? Sure.

By luck of the draw, Grimmal's is next. He cleans up as best he can (a couple scars are still faintly visible, with a bit of makeup to tone them down some), tells his public defender that he's not willing to testify against his friend but he's read a lot of transcriptions and stuff from dragon interviews and so many of them just seem like excited little kids. He should have stayed in Bronzehill and he wishes Snake-Below-Pines was alive again and he emailed a priest who came to visit so he could confess the sin of murder (without saying that it was a dragon he'd murdered, mind), and the priest told him to think about what the person he murdered will never be able to do, now, because of that, and to pray for forgiveness, and he's been doing that.

He will also be paying into a resurrect-Snake-Below-Pines fund and his judge gives him one year and a getting-up-to-speed-on-the-multiverse class.

Fedlo is next, and doesn't manage quite so much sympathy and sincere regret. Also, he would like to decline Vanda Nosseo citizenship. He voted no and no means no.

His lawyer tries the jurisdiction argument but can't make it stick; people who voted no on Vanda Nossëo membership are not ever after permitted to go out and hunt people and he didn't establish that he lived somewhere else where murder was legal first. He may choose to emigrate to anywhere that accepts murderers, but that mostly means prisons, even if he can pick Elendil or Mîr ones. He doesn't have to draw basic income if he doesn't want it but will be stuck in the very bargain prisons if he isn't going to pay for nicer accommodations and if he does come by any money it's going straight into the resurrection fund. Four years.

Fedlo doesn't blow up in front of the judge but as soon as possible asks his social worker or whoever: Can he move to nowhere when they're done with him. Is there going to be any nowhere left that the space aliens haven't touched or are they just going to keep him forever. Wilderness is fine he can fucking homestead if they don't take all his tools too.

They will let him go in four years and then he can go wherever he can get transit to. There is wilderness. It's really hard to find places murder is legal though. If he likes wilderness there's this prison island where the facilities are mostly just replicators scattered around and everybody having to wear an ankle bracelet that serves as panic button and tracking device.

He's not particularly invested in murder, he's invested in wanting to be away from multiverse stuff-

Oh, whatever. Prison island it is if it doesn't require him to take the money.

Yup, it's cheap enough that it can go in his budget if he declines to draw basic.

Great. He experiments with the limits of what the replicators will provide and does woodcraft and makes a little hut as far away from everyone else as possible.

Mattin is last.

His lawyer really wants that promotion. He calls witnesses and gives well-rehearsed remarks about the value of exit rights and quotes Snake-Below-Pines's mom.

The judge would like to hear what Shannalore has to say.