Thanks go to Oyster Girl, for giving me the idea of using a neighborly dispute in my story waaaay back. I only could fit it in now. Thanks!

"This court is now in session," the bailiff announced. "The case of Colwyvv versus Leafwalker and companions. The honorable judge Bylanna presiding."

Keldorn sighed as he glanced over his camp. First of all, there was Laska, sitting in front of the bench wearing her usual casual-wear, which consisted of a pair of tight leather pants and her usual vest, which was open in the front and was only kept together by a trio of short leather straps. Even so, the leather straps were, as always, straining to keep the vest from popping open. The paladin sighed. Laska, like most of her people, were not overly concerned with 'trivialities' such as modesty, not even in official proceedings. However, she had agreed to tie her long dark hair into a ponytail to appear less threatening. Of course, the presence of her moonblade laid down on the desk in front of her negated that completely.

Next to Laska sat Rose, wearing her best dress for the occasion. Her eyes darted across the room, betraying her nervousness. Still, the half-elf made an impression of being stalwart, brave and ladylike.

Then there was Viconia, wearing a simple leather clerical suit. Her expression was impassive, but she had the bearing of a true lady of nobility as she surveyed the room. Her back was straight and the air around her almost humming with power.

Dynaheir was also there, throwing her multi-colored mane around as she glanced back and forth through the room. She radiated an odd combination of calm and readiness for battle at the same time.

In the back sat Korgan, a dwarf who didn't give a wit for official proceedings. The dwarf had removed his boots and was calmly removing filth from under his toe-nails with a dagger while humming a lewd tune.

Minsc, in the meantime, was simply too busy cooing over Boo to notice his surroundings.

Jan, the irreverent gnome, wearing his normal Jan Jansen AdventureWear, had already fallen asleep and was snoring softly.

In the back pews sat Lasalla, her daughter Becky and the half-elven child Risa. At the moment, the two children were busy staring daggers at the two plaintiffs, and Keldorn knew for certain they were thinking rather violent thoughts.

Which brought him to the plaintiffs, Lord and Lady Corwyvv, two rich absentee-landowners whom had made their fortune growing fat and rich of renting out lands. Unfortunately, the two had been experiencing hard times, since most of their holdings were located within the Riatavin-region, and since the insurrection had been taking place there, the lands they owned had been confiscated by the town's head councillor Aura Coprith. Still, their setback was not noticeable from the way the pair dressed. A ring of gold on every finger... long, silken clothes, jewelry from feet to bald spot.

"The plaintiffs may make their case," Bylanna said. "The accused may make defense during the plaintiffs' appeal." Immediately, Lady Corwyvv rose to her feet, cleared her throat and prepared to speak. She was a tall middle-aged human women with baleful eyes like red coals. Malice dripped from her voice as she addressed the bench.

"Your honor," the lady said with distaste of having to be civil to someone not of noble blood.

"Objection!" Laska suddenly shouted. "This lady is being a jerk!"

In the background, Keldorn sighed.

"What?!" Lady Alliana Corwyvv replied sharply. "How DARE you! I have not even spoken yet!"

"Sustained," judge Bylanna said calmly. "I do not approve of your manner, my lady. Do not think I you can hide your disdain from me. Carry on."

Lady Alliana fumed, but let it pass. Instead, she continued her plea, in a more civil manner this time. "Your honor," she started again. "My husband and I own the house opposite to the hovel, of that, that... rabble!" she spat, pointing at the non-to-impressed plaintiffs. "Do you know what they did? They pained the front of that marvellous mansion blue. BLUE! It's spoiled my precious view completely! And the color is bad for my migraines," the haughty lady concluded and faux-rubbed her faux-aching head.

"Hey, it's my house," Laska snarled. "If I wanna paint it green, red, black or purple, that's my business!"

"Oh?" the lady said. "And what about the rabble that lives with you?! And the noise? And all the explosions?"

Upon hearing that last word, Jan started awake. "Explosions? Oh, that's my department. Excuse me to elaborate the fact that I was working on a completely illegal in-house outhouse for all my friends to use! It was meant as a parting gift, since I will be moving out of the house soon to move in with my fiancee across the quarter..."

"Oh, so that's what that was," Dynaheir muttered. "I was just wondering if Korgan's flatulence had worsened."

"Oy, cannae be any worse than it be now!" Korgan chuckled and gave a rather loud example for the court's approval.

"Lovely," Viconia gagged. "Next time, try aiming for the Corwyvv's instead of your party's resident Drow cleric..."

"Ach, if ye cannae handle the heat," Korgan chuckled. "Stay out o'the furnace..."

"Anyway, I was working in the basement on the indoor outhouse," Jan continued as he lounged in the pew and recounted his tale. "You know, making last minute changes to the catapult, the sickle-unit and dragon-shaped foot-supports, stuff like that, when I suddenly fell through a crack in the rocks and fell for at least a thousand feet into the darkness! Luckily, something squishy broke my fall... It seemed, I had landed on top of the last of the mole-people! Grief-stricken that I had wiped out the last of their species with one foul stroke of my handsome gnomish buttocks, I was too distraught to notice that I had fallen into... THE LAND BEYOND TIME!"

"Oh, gods," Viconia groaned.

"So, when I took my first steps in THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT!, I..."

"I thought it was called the LAND BEYOND TIME earlier," Viconia interrupted.

"Please, Vicky," Jan sighed. "Are you telling the story or am I? Anyway, I had just entered THE LAND TIME HAD NO GRIP ON! and lo-and-behold, a huge underground jungle was below the very earth we are standing on right now, complete with its own miniature sun!"

"I won't even dignify that with a response," Viconia sighed and slid back into her pew.

"So, as I explored the THE LAND OUTSIDE OF TIME, BUT NOT QUITE YET, and after running from a rather grumpy Tyrannosaurus Rex (who'd know the big lizard would object to having some of his teeth pulled?) in the forest, I came across a tribe of non-clothes wearing, primitive cave-gnomes! And, after teaching them how to loooovvveeeee, *Rrrrrowlllll*, I had them step on each other's shoulders and form this gigantic living ladder back to the surface, so I could resume working on the indoor outhouse," Jan concluded, as the giggling Risa and Becky were listening to his story with ready smiles.

"I don't get it," the judge muttered. "Where did the explosion come from, then?"

"Oh, that!" Jan chuckled. "I just lit a candle and the whole thing blew up! I must have recalibrated something I shouldn't have recalibrated."

"You see?" Lady Corwyvv snarled. "See what kind of lunatic this amoral elf has hauled into her home?"

"Hey!" Laska snarled and gave the Corwyvvs a look which would have frozen a fire. "That's my friend you're talking about..."

"Well," the judge spoke. "So far I don't see any reasons to act yet. What they do in and with their own home is their business..."

"That's where you are wrong, your honor," the Lady spoke. "I have contacted our financial manager and he concluded that with neighbors like these, it will be difficult, nay, IMPOSSIBLE to sell our home! Thus, we demand restitution of one hundred-thousand gold, an immediate removal of these hooligans from the good neighborhoods and have them hauled off to the slums where they belong."

"Like Hell I will!" Laska snarled, ready for bloody violence.

"Why would they haul wooden pipes into their home?" Lady Corwyvv added. "They're up to no good, I say!"

"Those are hamster-toys for Boo!" Minsc suddenly spoke up. "And if you remove Boo's toys, I will remove your legs!"

"Order, order!" Judge Bylanna said, ramming her hammer on the bench. Already, her youthful face showed fatigue, and she swiftly whipped the hair from her forehead. "We shall examine this case more carefully. Sir Keldorn, will you please approach the bench."

The aged Inquisitor nodded and stood in front of the bench. Standing on top of the seal of Tyr on the ground, he spoke the vow of truthfulness and was ready to answer Judge Bylanna's questions.

"You are the one who procured the house for your party, haven't you?" the judge spoke.

"As I recall," Keldorn smiled. "So were you..."

"Correct," the judge, who was magistrate of Amn as well, smiled. "The normal procedure is to seize the holdings of the criminals and auction them off. But we came to a compromise and only seized the slaverlords Sion and Ketta's monetary funds, while we awarded the house and its contents to Laska's party as a reward for services to the city, transferring ownership to Laska Leafwalker for the rest of her natural life."

"See?" Laska taunted at the Corwyvvs. "It's MINE!"

"Well, this rabble is not supposed to be living in the good neighborhoods!" Lady Corwyvv sniffed.

"Thou wouldst prefer to have slaverlords for neighbors?" Dynaheir ventured to say.

"Well, at least they were proper nobles!" the lady replied. "And they were quiet... Which brings me to the horrible and noisy beer swilling jigs they are holding almost every week! Oh, my poor beauty sleep..."

"I be seein' ye 'aven't been gettin' any beauty sleep in fer years then, 'ave ye? HAR HAR!" Korgan chuckled, stroking his beard in his merriment.

"I have asked Laska's neighbors for comments," Judge Bylanna spoke. "And neither the Temple of Talos, The Order, nor the Temple of Lathander have had any complaints. Actually, the Temple of Lathander had nought but praise for Laska and her friends. Dawnmistress Lara was especially positive about the Drow cleric who comes to the orphanage every so often to read stories to the children..."

All eyes of the flabbergasted party turned on Viconia. The Drow in question was almost hyperventilating now that her darkest secret was out. Her eyes darted from face to face as she sought for a defensive reply... but couldn't find one quick enough.

"So THAT was why thou wert so keen on leaving two days ago," Dynaheir smiled.

Viconia finally recovered and anger was etched on her beautiful ebony-hewn face. "It's NOT true! ALL LIES!"

"Boo says little Viconia is lying when she lies," the hulking ranger said calmly. "Though that is very confusing for poor Minsc."

"Dawnmistress Lara is also very positive about the fact that Laska has taken in several homeless people and has helped shape their lives," Keldorn said, adding support to Laska.

"Urchins!" Lady Corwyvv snarled. "Urchins and harlots! That should be enough reason enough to remove them from our decent neighborhood."

"You want me to punish the woman," Judge Bylanna said, almost bursting out in sad laughter, "who has stroked her hand over her heart and opened the doors to her home for a homeless child... and a homeless mother and child?"

"And to come back to the homeless woman, who is now her servant... She enters," the lady snarled. "Oh, this is too horrible to describe. She... she enters... THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR!"

"So?" Laska and judge Bylanna said at the same time.

"It's just not done!" the lady said, while her husband, a short stocky bald man, nodded in the background.

"You are nuts, you know that?" Laska remarked.

"And a mage! They have a wizard living among them!" the lady snarled, pointing her ire at Dynaheir, who was calmly eating a jam-sandwich Lasalla had packed for lunch earlier. Dynaheir had experienced very little of the famous Amnian fear of wizards, but even then, she did not care much.

"Thou shouldst have told me that a few months ago," Dynaheir grinned ferally, the red jam apparent on her teeth, "and I assure you, the results would have been most explosive..." Still, sadness crept in her voice.

"And just look at their leader," Lady Colwyvv snarled. "Look at what she wears?! Are those the clothes of a lady?"

"They're the clothes of a lady who has something to show in the first place," Laska taunted. "But then again, you wouldn't be familiar with that, would you?"

"Look at those tattoos, look at those clothes and look at her feral demeanor and tell me she should be allowed to live in the good districts," Lady Colwyvv sniffed, while her pig-like husband nodded briefly. "She's completely immoral! She walks around her house with no clothes on..."

"Have you ever heard of someone bathing in clothes?" Laska smiled. "Sometimes I wear a swimsuit when I go for my morning-dip in the pool, sometimes I go naked... "

"But you keep your windows open, like the tramp you are!" Lady Colwyvv shrieked.

"Oh, those squires of the Order on the opposite side of the canal think I never notice them, but I do," Laska grinned.

"But if there is one sure sign of this... elf being immoral, it's that she has... relations with other women!"

Suddenly, every bit of humor drained from the tattooed elf's face and demeanor. Offering the Colwyvvs a glare of pure malice, she shifted her body towards the two plaintiffs. "You... leave Rose out of this."

"Wait a minute," Rose muttered. "Aside from the occasional hugs and kisses we keep our relationship private... so how can you know about us if you haven't been peeking into our bedroom through the window or even a scrying stone!"

Suddenly, Lady Colwyvv directed her ire at her husband. "You added this to our defense," she spoke. "How DID you find that out, my dear?"

"Uuuuuhhh," the pig-like Lord Colwyvv muttered. "A pixie told me?" was his lame, oh-so-lame, excuse.

"We shall talk about this when we get home, Herbert," Lady Colwyvv snarled.

"Oy, sounds like the dirty lil' bugger 'as been enjoyin' himself without ye, Colwyvv-she-dog," Korgan chuckled.

"Another weak male," Viconia chuckled. "The surface is filled with them, I see..."

"Herbert?" Rose muttered. She recalled having heard that name before, and paused a moment to think.

"ORDER!" Judge Bylanna said, ramming her hammer on the bench. "I call Rose Greenhill to the bench."

Gasping, Rose looked at her friends for support, which was silently given by nods and smiles. Trembling, the half-elf stood up and slowly walked to the bench, stepping onto the seal of Tyr and swore the oath of truth.

"Calm down, miss," Judge Bylanna. "You are not on trial here. Keldorn has already filled me in on the details of your current life. You used to be a streetwalker until recently, did you not?"

"Y-yes," she replied. "In the Bridge-district..."

As soon as he heard the Bridge-district mentioned, the pig-like husband Lord Colwyvv suddenly started sweating like, well, a pig, really.

"But I now run an inn. I took over the Mithrest and run it with other ex-streetwalkers who want a better life," Rose smiled.

"That is commendable," Judge Bylanna smiled. "You are having relations with miss Leafwalker?"

Rose smiled, first to the judge, then to her lover. "I love her," she spoke, while Laska smiled and blew her half-elven lover a kiss.

"Listen!" Lady Colwyvv said, thinking herself particularly clever. "The harlot openly admits it! Once a whore, always a whore!"

It was too much... Enough to push Laska over the edge. Before Keldorn could even shout out to stop her, the tattooed elf grasped Ipsiya and twirled the blade in her head. With a feral grin, she extended her arm and pointed the blade directly at Lady Colwyvv, accusing the Lady, whom in turn was regarding the elf smugly, daring her to stab. Lady Colwyvv had no way of knowing, however, that the tattooed elf was actually intending to behead her on the spot.

At the very last moment, just as Laska was about to strike, she felt a soft and warm hand clasp around her wrist. Surprised, she glanced at the source. Her dark eyes met the green eyes of Rose, and they stared at each other a moment. Rose simply shook her head 'no' while she was smiling. "It's just words," the half-elf whispered.

So instead of beheading the woman, Laska spit in her face, annoying the noblewoman even more.

"Order, Order!" Judge Bylanna shouted. "It is not illegal to love another, Lady Colwyvv... Watch yourself. And I don't want to see anymore spitting here, miss Leafwalker, or you shall be removed."

"Now I remember!" Rose suddenly shouted as she regarded the sweating Lord Colwyvv. "Herbo Colwo! I didn't recognize you without the rubber mask!"

"I... I don't know what you are talking about," Herbert Colwyvv muttered, but really needed a piece of cloth to remove the sweat from his face.

"You harlot!" Lady Colwyvv shouted, ignoring the angered elf, "You... and my husband?!"

"No, no," Rose giggled. "Not me... I've been talking to the other girls, of course. You don't know what fun we had discussing the details of the debauchery of our customers. Actually, Herbo Colwo only stopped by to ask for directions."

"Dear, I think we need to be getting home," Lord Colwyvv tried as his last, desperate move.

"Directions," Rose smiled, "to the nearest goat-farm. Apparently, Herbo Colwo had quite an affinity to them..."

"Herbert!" Lady Alliana Colwyvv gasped.

"So debauchery was your main offensive strategy, Lady Colwyvv?" Judge Bylanna asked, barely being able to keep a straight face.

"Beeeeehhhhh," Laska mocked, putting oil on the fire. And soon enough, Laska's entire party, save for Keldorn, who was sighing in the corner, were making goat-noises. Even Risa and Becky, though they did not knew what was going on exactly, joined in the merriment.

"ORDER!" Judge Bylanna shouted, just before she started giggling again. "It's time to put an end to this charade. Lady Colwyvv, I have checked out your holdings. I move that now that your lands are seized, you are looking for alternate incomes. Also, I have heard from reliable sources that you have put up your house for sale. Now, a sum of a hundred-thousand in damages combined with the worth of your house would be a pretty penny to start anew elsewhere, wouldn't it?"

"That is... vicious slander!" Lady Colwyvv snarled. "I'll have your job!"

"But," the judge continued unfettered, "you really should pick your marks more carefully. Miss Leafwalker, answer me this. If I rule against you, and order you to leave your house and hand over your cash, would you do it?"

"Not a chance!" the elf grinned.

"Would you beat-up and throw out any guards I would sent to enforce the rulings?"

"Count on it."

"Would you then take revenge on the Colwyvvs by gutting them and then hanging them from the ceiling by their entrails and then setting fire to their house?"

"Positively absolutely!"

"So, you see, Lady Colwyvv," Judge Bylanna chuckled. "The only thing you have done here is to antagonize a group of heavily armed and heavily experienced battle-hardened adventurers... who happen to live a few meters from your own house..."

"Oy!" Korgan shouted, raising his axe. "She be right, ye know? Maybe nay today, maybe nay tomorrow, but one day, me axe be ready and ye will end up with nay legs..."

"Judge!" the Colwyvv shouted. "We need court protection!"

"This is my last case before the weekend," Judge Bylanna chuckled. "You can present a petition to the bailiff and I will review your case when I get back in three days."

Lady Colwyvv gulped as she noticed the baleful stares. Even the children had a malicious look on their faces. "Herbie?" she grinned uneasily. "I think we need to start packing as soon as we get home!"

"Ooooooooooooohhhhh," Laska groaned as she lay in a fetal position on her bed, looking very green and weak. After the trial, the party decided to celebrate by having a big barbecue in the backyard, and everyone in the neighborhood (except the Corwyvvs) was invited. Drunken Talosians, Jolly Lathanderites and even several paladins of the Order were cooking sausages and all kind of meat on the many braziers in the backyard... and that was how Laska had fallen ill.

Rose was sitting by the bed, holding her lover's hand, while Lasalla put a washcloth with warm water on Laska's forehead.

"There," Viconia said. "I've alleviated most of the pain, but her body will have to do the rest on her own. She should feel better tomorrow... But right now," Viconia smiles while slipping out of the room, "I have a party to get back to."

"What on Toril," Rose said, a little angrily, "possessed you to eat a sausage from the trash bin?"

"It was on top of the trash," Laska muttered. "And it still looked good..."

"Laska, there was green fungus all over it!" Lasalla sighed. "That's why I put it in the trash in the first place!"

Laska looked blankly for a moment, before replying: "It still looked good..."

"I think you just had a little too much ale tonight," Rose admonished.

"Only twenty cups..." Laska muttered while her stomach once again burbled in protest. "I was just getting started..."

Then, all of a sudden, the door to her room flew open. While Laska groaned in protest, Minsc entered, carrying a little boy on his shoulders. "And that is Laska Leafwalker. Heroic elf and generally good person!"

"She don't look very heroic," the boy whispered.

"Who's that, Minsc?" Rose asked, smiling at the little boy.

"Ah, this is Delon!" Minsc smiled. "A good boy wanting help for his village Imnesvale in the East! There are evil wolves about, you know, and we must administer the boot of justice!"

"We'll handle this tomorrow, okay?" Rose said. "Laska is very sick at the moment..."

"I'm fine!" Laska protested and tried to sit up, only to end up groaning and clutching her stomach again.

"Oooh, Minsc does not want to hurt his friends, nossir!" the gentle giant decided. "Ah, Boo says we need to feed Delon some meat and try again tomorrow!"

"Yay!" Delon whooped at the prospect of a barbecue, while Laska groaned at the very mention of food.