Marra hardly ever sends a representative to a trial. She is opposed to Asmodeus, but does not fight Him in this area. Judges tolerate when Heaven and Nirvana cooperate, but would balk at a representative outright arguing against their own alignment, whether devil or marrenai.

Marra's followers, at least those who intend to serve in Her infernal realm, are Lawful Evil enough to outweigh a devil's mild deniable incompetence.

So this case was a surprise. A traveling merchant, accosted by brigands, froze to death and was found by a desperate innkeeper, who cooked him into a stew. Thus a Marran cult staying at the inn consumed his flesh. Unknowingly, but Marra's compact with Asmodeus for the souls of the damned didn't say that Her faithful had to know what they were doing.

There was a cleric in the group - Marran cult chapters always have a cleric - and Marra has the domain of Evil (Cannibalism). The merchant was not of particular importance to Asmodeus, had no clear alignment, and was in a region of Andoran where Asmodeus's view was weak. Marra called dibs on representing Hell and gave Her ex-lawyer-angel an urgent command to attend the man's trial.

With no likely resurrection, a lesser psychopomp had judged him Chaotic Neutral and published the case. Nirvana immediately appealed, as always. The Maelstrom didn't comment, but the Abyss did and the case was forced to go to trial. The decedent had been dead for several hours before Marra noticed him, so Kireh had barely minutes to prepare before her summoning to the trial.

She lands in the courtroom poised and calm, surveying the room, thoughtfully, guided by her habits. (She loves being a marrenai.)

There's a vividly green snake with a determined gaze.

A ball of machinery radiating beams of light.

... a plant?

And an elephant with a bunch of bloody tentacles.

Ah, she was wondering if the demon would show up.

The plant is actually a snake-like creature with a smattering of disk-shaped fronds, who whispers something to the snake agathion and snickers hissingly.

The judge strides out of the shadows, a looming humanoid with a set expression and black feathers for hair.

A winged skeleton leads the decedent, a human named Victor Malosloff, to the opposite station, and stands guard perched behind him.

"Do you know where you are?"

    "... Elysium?"

"You have not been tried yet. This is a court of Pharasma in the Boneyard. Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words you are familiar with, at a speed you can follow?"

    "What happens if I say no?"

The judge gives him a stern look.

    "...Yes."

"Do you understand that you had, while alive, the capacity to take actions, and that those actions had effects on the world and on other people?"

    "Yes."

"Do you understand that the purpose of this court is to determine your alignment and which afterlife you are assigned to?"

    "Yes."

"Very well. Here opens Maelstrom vs Malosloff." (As this case is and will be known, wherever Malosloff ends up.)

"I vote for Elysium!"

"This isn't Andoran. The decision is mine, informed by the arguments of your various advocates. You may participate in the debate. If you wish, I will grant you the first opening argument."

Headshake!

"Thank you, Your Grace.

Well I'm Good because I didn't hurt anyone and I always traded fairly. And I'm Chaotic because I didn't settle down, I couldn't stand the idea of staying in one place."

"Dealing fairly is Law, not Good."

"Not always. Abyss vs Brun 3044: completing a deal as an act of altruism may be Good, if betrayal is 'so commonplace as to cast doubt on all such agreements'."

"Which is not relevant to a merchant in Andoran traveling the same route repeatedly and maintaining a reputation."

"Travel is not inherently Chaotic, but rebelling against the expectations of one's family and culture is. Furthermore, the decedent's mouse breeding was culturally transgressive and an 'innovation intended to be disruptive', Maelstrom vs Nakamoto 2985."

"And it hurt people."

When the demon doesn't continue, she jumps in: "specifically, the people who he refused to aid, keeping his resources for his own project, and the creatures he planned to enslave, and arguably did."

"Farm animals are not slaves, Asmodeus vs Erastil undated."

"They weren't intended to be mere animals."

"Even so, 'involuntary unremunerated servitude' is not sufficient to establish slavery, it must also be 'ego-dystonic at some time in reality or a near hypothetical', Hell vs Bales Sertes, 4701."

She has no recollection of that case. It sounds like a threat to Marra's Law (Slavery) domain. She is not alarmed (yay being a marrenai), but she'll have to report it later...

"That case is so far out of jurisdiction I don't think it technically exists."