The courtyard was a graveyard of architecture. Stone arches drooped like guilty men caught mid-crime, and dust swirled in lazy, traumatized circles. The air crackled with the aftertaste of too many unhinged principles — gravity was somehow still working, time was getting ready to be manipulated, and somewhere in the chaos, Satan was being puppeteered like a soap opera character who'd lost creative control of his own show.
Judge's hand hovered above the parchment. The quill quivered, waiting. The first line he wrote wasn't elegant or restrained — he kept his usual self and tried to sound as incompetent as possible.
"Satan adjusts his stance, cloak torn, ego slightly less so. He grins. The cowardice evaporates, replaced by something almost respectable — competence."
And like that, the recorder moved.
