“For when her light shone unto all who lived in darkness, her burning fme of hope turned evil to ash.”- Book of Dawn, 4:16

  The sun shone down on the gathering crowd, everyone waiting in anticipation to see the kings justice in action. A crow nded on the beam above the execution ptform, cawing at the man below with his head down towards the ground.  One of the members of the crowd turned to the man beside him and spoke quietly.  "They say that he was a bloodsucker, a murderer. But what's that matter when everyone else say the nobles bathe in blood? They practically set everyone on a path to death when they announced a war to push the army reserves into the Great Forest to capture any dark ones who were foolish enough to patrol near the edge of the forest, god knows how many soldiers went in and never came out."  A man cd in dark steel pted armor slowly climbed the steps of the ptform, followed by a speaker dressed in white and red robes. The speaker took his pce on the left of the soon-to-be executed man, and the executioner stood to the right, a lit torch and axe in his hands.  “Listen Sef, those words you speak are heretical in themselves, you must be careful what you say. And besides, he’s a creature of the night. He kills babies, women, livestock, it doesn’t matter to him. We’re purging this world of true evil, scummy as the royal court is they do what’s best for our kingdom to prosper. Some sacrifices are needed."  The speaker stepped in front of the man kneeling on the ptform, pulling a holy book out of his robe, and pressing it tightly against his chest. He lifted a hand up into the air to signal a silence in the crowd, and then spoke.  “Today, we bear witness to the royal cleansing of a Dark One. This creature is a stain upon this world, and will now face the righteousness of our King. He is charged with the murder of Lady Danya, attempted theft of the wealth of House Mourley, and wickedness. A unanimous decision by the royal court decres him guilty, and sentenced to death with no trial, although would such a wretched thing be deserving of a trial regardless?”  There were cheers for the speaker and boos for the guilty man roaring throughout the crowd, and once the crowd began to calm down, the speaker stepped off to the side and signaled towards the executioner with his hand, a grin on his face.  “Yes, I agree that sacrifices are needed. But maybe that’s what he thought too, what if it was self defense? I don’t believe him to be innocent, but we have to at least agree that there may just be simirities between what he did and what we do daily. We burned that encampment to the ground, and I’m sure soldiers were sent in afterwards to collect any treasure that had not been melted or burned with it. He could at least be given a hearing.”  “Don’t be stupid, he's a Dark One, a vampire. There’s never been hearings for them, and there never will be. That’s just the way it is. Now be quiet before someone hears you saying such things.”  The executioner handed his torch to the speaker and took out a blue powder from a bag attached to his hip, and sprinkled it all over the Dark One. As he raised his axe high into the air, the man began to yell.  "We only want to live! We are like you, trying to survive in such a cruel world! I did not murder, I did not steal, this was all just a game your lords are pying with my people! We are being ruthlessly executed and for what! We only want-"  The axe head swiftly swiped through the nape of the man's neck, separating tissue from muscle, hitting the spine with a crack and tearing sound, and finally through his throat, spraying blood all over the ground. A gasp shook out from the crowd watching, as if they had expected the man to suddenly have his execution overturned, and the speaker once again lifted a hand.  "Do not worry yourselves everyone! Devils always will try to employ any trickery they can when faced with their demise. He was merely trying to py with your emotions to trick us all into letting him go free, only for him to once again go out and kill our neighbors and kin. He was met with a swift death, which is more than he deserved."  The executioner took the torch from the speaker and lowered it onto the body of the man, sending it up into quick rising fmes, and within seconds, the blue powder on the body burned up and the Dark One’s body turned to ash. The executioner picked up his head and pced it into another bag attached to his hip. The crowd began to cp and cheer that the Dark One was punished for his crimes, and people began to disperse.  "See Leto, this is what I was talking about. What if he had been telling the truth, it's exactly as I predicted he would say. Maybe he is just trying to live, and maybe the people who had him arrested and killed only said he committed those crimes so that they could make a show of killing him. I'm not saying he shouldn't be executed or killed, but there is no glory in it, no reason to turn his death into our entertainment."