Rose's Implement: Scales for the pound of flesh
I’m working on the assumption that Rose takes the implement some time after canon, that the status quo suggested by canon remains as it is (Rose is both Scourge and Lord of JB, she marries Alister, nobody dies or blows up). So her characterisation is as it is at the end of the serial, with some extra time to reflect on herself.
Why the scales?
Rose as a person:
Interested in being ‘fair’ - she knows she’s a giant bitch, and she’s actively trying not to be. While being nice is out of the question, trying to gauge fairness, if she’s treating someone unfairly (like she did Blake - which she’s guilty about) is a big thing. An implement that not only puts that at the core of her actions, balancing out the help and harm she and someone else have done, to gauge things rationally when she can’t trust herself emotionionally.
Willing to be unfair. This is key - a lot of merchants and such will ‘put a finger on the scales’, or use incorrect weights, to make their side heavier. Rose, while purporting fairness, is fully willing to take advantage of the fact that she owns the scales to tip them one way or the other (not something so overt it counts as lying, but certainly the spirits must be accepting of a little scampiness, right?) Crooked judges have their place.
Rational. Rose is, wants to be, a rational actor who puts strategy over feelings. The scales are a scientific tool. Similarly, you get readings off a scales, and she’s the one who learns and studies things.
Neither super aggressive nor passive. Not a sword or a wand, pointing at a problem to blow it up, nor a crown or chalice that suits super long-term, careful acts. Something that appraises the whole battlefield, that puts her in the know and allows her to preside over rulings.
Rose’s Practice:
As a Scourge:
scales = judges, and judges are appointed, they represent the law of a ruler above them. In this case, Rose as a Scourge directly takes authority from the Abyss, it’s in her oath when she swore to get Blake out of there, she took the place of a throne, a gatekeeper. Even if it’s not something exactly correlating to what he gave up, she still determines who gets to leave the Abyss with Its own stamp of approval.
Exchange, selling someone a way out of the abyss, making deals. The bogeyman offers her something, she weighs it on the scale against ‘letting them out’, demands more until it is roughly equivalent. A sale. Pounds of flesh.
Judging a bogeyman as a person. Who are they, what do they want, what are they like? Anubis placed a person’s heart against a feather on a scale; Rose uses hers to understand them.
As Lord of Jacob’s Bell:
Judging over complaints and demands. What is a Lord’s job? Why should she have it? Judging disputes and keeping the peace is one, and it is something she has tied her life to. JB is growing, the Duchamps are changing, new practs might be moving in, the rich brat brigade Junior council is growing up.
Compromises that end with both parties equally unhappy, but are fair. Common thing with practitioners, I think. Especially Jacob’s Bell’s types.
As a sign of accepting her Karma. She’ll allow the scales to tilt away from her favour. She will hate it, but for a sliver of benefit at a later date, she will accept that this is her cross to bear for life.
COOL SHIT SHE CAN DO WITH THE SCALES:
Measure the battlefield. Working in tandem with Alister, they see the present and future, see how things are going for both sides of the battle. Rose holds out her scales, and with each order or reading they tilt one way or the other. At a critical moment, she puts power onto one side of the scale, tilting the tides of war in her favour. She may pair this with a shout of Conquest, an order or summoning of a bogeyman, a sneak attack, or even a secret she’d been waiting to expose. Unbalanced, things quickly turn into a rout.
In an inverse of the above, the application of force on the ‘lighter’/higher side of the scale can force a ceasefire.
As Scourge, she sits before a bogeyman who is trying to escape the Abyss. She can offer a way out in exchange for servitude, or she can bar them from the freedom they so desperately want, kick them back into hell. The terms of the agreement are hashed out, with every offer and pound of flesh from the bogeyman being weighed. She has already placed her wants, the weights on one end of the scale, now the supplicant must match those in weight. More freedom, more promises; less protection, less demands.
