This is your last warning, stripling. You have offended your elders and your Goddess. You will be punished, of course, but you still have hope. You can still redeem yourself. One more offence and you will be banished. Do you know what that means?

Firstly, Joanites from the Watch would rouse you in the middle of the night. A Judge like myself would be there to observe, along with a priestess from your own Tribe. We would watch as the Joanites shackled you and brought you to a cell in one of their holding towers near the council grounds. There you would wait.

At the next new moon, when the sky is dark, you would be dragged to the council grounds, where the tribunal of the Tribes would be waiting. You might be alone, or other heretics might be with you. A High Judge of Tera Sheba will preside, and other Judges will be in attendance. One elder and one priestess from each of the Seven Tribes will also be there. Others will watch on from the sidelines, ready to participate if needed.

One of the Judges - perhaps even me - will read out the litany of your crimes. The High Judge will ask if you have anything to say in your defence and you will be given a few moments to speak. When you have failed to account for your actions - and fail you will - the High Judge will ask the assembled elders if they have anything to add. Then she will read the sentence: banishment. Then it will be carried out.

Your mother, aunt or grandmother will step forward. She will step forward and announce that your family rejects you. She may scream it or mumble it or sob it or whisper it, but its effect is the same. Then an elder from your clan will do the same, stripping you of heritage and history. Then the tribunal speaks. The elder from your tribe will announce that the tribe as a whole casts you out. The elders of the other tribes will tell you that their tribes will offer you no shelter - the nation has utterly rejected you.

Then comes the final stage, the one that will scar you for the rest of your miserable life. The priestess of your tribe will speak, telling you that your Fatima has rejected you, that Her love is no longer yours. As you assimilate this, the crowd will part and the Fatima Herself will approach you. Yes, that's right, She appears physically, often flanked by Her Sisters. She will lay her hand on your chest and you will feel her fingers grasp your very soul. There She will tear Her love from your heart. This will be agonisingly painful.

With this done, She will turn Her back on you forever. Gone will be any hope you have of wielding Synthesis, of dreaming safely, of being reincarnated in Her grace. You are a lost soul, weak and bound for oblivion. You hear stories of the “Fallen” retaining their abilities, don't you? They are lies. When you Fall, you will never get up again.

Pietr Thaim'on, Terasheban Judge