shatterverse | (no subject)

They scrub her up, dress her all nice in dirty grey, tie her hands behind her back and lead her blind out of her cell with the black hood knotted closed at the front. She can't breathe in the smoky street air, can't hear over the press of boos and cheers and chatter that erupts on her ears.

This is it. She's going to die.

The hangman's hands are surprisingly gentle -- but then they have to be, don't they? The crowd needs to be told who's the hero and the villain of the scene -- it's just like a play, she realises, just the endlessly-retold fable of the Bad Little Thief who was Brought To Justice. She's blithely accepted it hundreds of times as part of the gleeful crowd.

This is it. This is it. She's going to die, and they're going to mince her body so she can't come back, and--

--there's a split second's nothing as the hangman pulls the trapdoor lever, clunk, and--

--SHE SCREAMS as the wood beneath her feet vanishes, crack, and--

--hits grass, crumples, struggles, falls, screams again, is she dead?, screams again.

Iroh will take time later to figure out why he is no longer in a cell. Not that the question isn't a fascinating one, but there is, after all, screaming going on. That's the sort of thing one must attend to first.

His bare feet pound across the grass as he runs toward the screaming (hooded?) figure. He stops to examine this person before leaning forward to set a gentle hand upon a shoulder.