Cardinal sin (2) : A laugh in Vain

2 - Hanging

On January 26th 1917, Willa Dronsken was to be hanged.

That didn't happen.

Her execution was set for three o'clock in the afternoon. Its organizer was very particular about that hour. He would often explain to those in his work environment that a killing before lunch would steal the spectator's appetite, and if it came too soon after that meal, there was a risk that they'd puke it out. No one really got that, though, because they figured the people who came to watch executions did so because they wanted to and, usually, were not left unsettled or ill.

On another matter, the selected place for Willa's capital punishment was regarded rather as one sick joke on the part of the organizers by the sentenced woman. They'd chosen for her weight to drop in the very middle of a public square before a fountain, surrounded by residential buildings. The lamposts and nearest houses were decorated with beautiful, but fake flowers of many assortments of colours that hadn't yet been taken down from New Year's celebrations. To top it all off, the date was set for an afternoon with impeccably comfortable weather.

Were they trying to mock her in the minutes leading up to her death? She, a murderer, deserved to have her life ended in some drab, dirty old dark place—a dungeon, perhaps—but most certainly not this. Making the conditions pleasant made Willa suspect they were planning on throwing a party and celebrating once she was nothing more than a lifeless corpse hanging by a rope.

When the church bells informed the people of Northwall that it was now three o'clock, an authoritative figure called for the execution to commence. The noose had been tightened around the condemned's neck. Just as the lever was about to be pulled, from the crowd arose an unidentified person with a hood pulled over their head, hiding most of their features aside from the mouth, which was set in a confident smile. They clapped their hands together and placed them on the ground just as the trap door underneath Willa's feet collapsed.

A pillar of both stone and wood had been created on which Dronsken landed but a centimetre or two from the height she had been only a split second before. The result was that Willa's body did not drop and hang on the rope by the neck.

Her life had been saved. She thanked the skies above that she had been spared.

The hooded stranger took advantage of the started cries from the crowd and its organizers, who hadn't yet grasped that the execution was being interrupted and the prisoner saved. They sprinted to the front and leaped onto the platform. This person produced a long knife that had previously been hidden. With it they slashed at the rope above Willa's head, slicing through it with surprising ease.

As she was freed, Willa, being a woman of short stature, caught a glimpse of the face under the hood by looking up. Her rescuer was none other than a man within the authorities, the Fullmetal alchemist, Edward Elric. Why he should risk becoming a criminal to save a murderer, she had absolutely no clue.

"Run!" hissed Ed.

Willa was already about to do that before he'd told her to. The two of them raced away, pushing past the jumpy spectators of the execution who were swarming the place, on their feet in a disorganized panic. The general confusion proved an exceptional opportunity for Ed and Willa to evade the authorities, who were now rushing after them, but were finding it a difficult task. They melted in the crowd, only to emerge from it in the back, seen by frightened civilians, who shrieked loudly.

"How are we going to escape?" Willa demanded.

"With a little bit of alchemy, that's what!"

Ed stopped, and so did Willa. She watched him clap his hands together and slam them on the pavement underneath him. Small flashes of blue light appeared and vanished in an instant, followed by the rising of the earth.

A good-sized strip of pavement, rock and all, shot out from the ground, cracking like a whip. One point was still attached to the earth where Ed's hands were placed. This newly created ramp produced by the incredible use of Alchemy was still moving and creating itself when Edward instructed, "Go up!"

"Are you insane?! I'll fall off!"

"Just do it!"

Willa hesitated. She glanced back and saw two officers running in her direction. "Oh shit!" she yelped and leaped over Fullmetal's crouched form onto the unstable ramp.

Dashing up it as fast as she was comfortable so as to not fall off the edge, Willa saw that the pavement had connected to a nearby roof, making an arching path from the ground to the tops of nearby settlements. Fascinated she paused near the peak, taking note of just how high in the air they were.

"Keeping running!"

Ed was coming up behind her. Both of them finished crossing the pavement archway and hopped onto the rooftop of the building it connected to. At once, Fullmetal made use of his alchemy to collapse the bridge he's made.

"You've saved me!" Willa said as they crouched, trying not to be spotted by the perplexed police force

"I did," Ed answered simply.

"Why? I killed someone."

"Because knowing that you killed Earl for his own sake couldn't allow me to sit by and watch while you lost your life for it." Ed got to his feet. "Let's go. They're going to come after us sooner or later and I want to get to the meeting point before dark. Once we're there, I have something I need you to do for me."