First of Three

"So, who's this Sunset Shimmer you keep muttering about?" Trixie asked, with genuine interest "I heard her name more times than my own, which I find quite irritating..." she trailed off for a moment "So, who IS this mare of notoriety?"

"Trixie, we had this conversation TWELVE times by now. Do you have selective memory loss, or something?!"

"No, it's just that it's a whole new version every time you tell me about her!"

"Uuugh..."

And this went on for a good three hallways, five corridors, two turns to the right, one to the left, up one staircase, across a ballroom, down another staircase - DAMN, this castle is expansive!

Finally, Twilight could take no more.

She decided to take countermeasures.

"So... How are your studies with Luna going?"

"Oh! Oh, errr..." Trixie paused, awkwardly.

While she was present, full body, soul and mind, during their research sessions with the Princess of the Night, she found talking about it surprisingly hard. She had to think back, to the last five lessons they've had, to make the whole explanation comprehensible (at least for herself), but the best way would've been to empty her mind, and build up all that had happened from the very first second of the very first minute of the very first hour of the very first lesson, all the way to the moment she closed the lab's door behind herself that day.

And that was one arselous job to get trough.

. . .

What?

'Arselous' isn't a word?

. . .

It is now.

Anyways, Trixie fumbled with her crammed thoughts and idle, out-of-nowhere dreams of cheese (let's see if you get that reference), while Twilight smirked, smug as ever.

Until recently, she valued herself for being a sensible and mature pony, practically immune to the idle chivying of the plebs others, but then, she had a moment of true clarity, an epiphany: being cynical and borderline misequic actually worked in social situations, especially if said situations revolved around her stomping the ego of others into the ground with sadistic glee, and if said others were the aforementioned twat-stamped lot.

"Well?" the Princess of the Twilight asked now, still smiling smugly.

"Actually..." Trixie muttered, finally looking away from a certain vacant point in the air "Luna introduced me to one of her recently made friends..."

"Did she?" Twilight asked, her interest piqued.

"Yes." the unicorn replied "His name was... Ebeneezer Goode, I think..."

As the sound of hooves on the tiles got few and far-between, she looked up.

"Sparkle?"

The princess stood, frozen, with her eyes wide and pupils shrunk.

"Twilight?"

"So... The Princess is teaching you how to make drugs..."

"...HWATT?!" was all Trixie could muster after a period of stunned silence.

"Ebeneezer Goode is the code name, or rather, personification of XTC." replied Twilight "Extasi."

"Wha...?! How do you...?!" the showmare stopped, and looked at her peer with perplexity "You sure know your street, for a Princess..."

"I. READ." Twilight growled "It's not hard to acquire such information, when all you have to do is open a cheaper tabloid!"

"Oh."

Another long, awkward period of silence.

"Speaking of tabloids, is it true?"

"What is?"

"That you... Planned a strategical attack on all tabloid publishers?"

Sigh.

"Yes."

"Really?!"

"Yes. In the court room."

"Oh."

Another, awkward pause.

"There's something I still don't get."

Sigh again.

"Which is?"

"Why did Princess Celestia want Discord back?"

"She needed a male concubine."

It was, again, Trixie's turn to freeze.

"You're kidding me..."

"Yes." said Twilight, smiling smugly.

After defeating the urge to make a royalty infertile by punching out her ovaries, Trixie took a deep breath...

"And... The real reason."

Twilight began to think.

"I can't exactly nail down one reason..." she pondered "For once, Discord is an active threat to Equestria and everypony, or rather, everyone within it, and beyond. He's just a menace. And yet, he controls one of the most, if not the ancient and powerful magic of all existence, and a refined clarity and wisdom that is inherently his own, given that he's the God of Chaos. If Celestia can... "Tame" him, then his powers could be used for the benefit of all of us, IF they can be used in such ways..."

It was the showmare's turn to ponder.

So, she did so:

"Hmmm... Maybe you were right about that male concubine concept."

The other mare looked at her incredulously.

"You can't be serious..."

"I am. Think about it: Discord has been imprisoned for many millenniums. He broke out once, but was stoned again. Finally, he was released, by order of Celestia. And in either cases, he didn't do as much as raising his voice, despite the obvious torture he has been put through, trapped within his own consciousness. If he were a normal pony or a more daring unicorn like Sunset Shimmer was, this sort of treatment, without exaggeration, would've gotten the Princesses overthrown, Discord, of course, is obviously dangerous enough to result to such extremes. So was Nightmare Moon, wishing for eternal night which would've killed every living being on the long run, and so was King Sombra, who was ruthless dictator of his own people, and the corruption he brought upon his empire spread all over Equestria. Neither of them was killed, although the Princesses, or Princess Celestia, had the reason to do so. And in the same way, their powers could be harnessed, or be used for good, even Sombra's dark magi, and--."

"I knew that!" Twilight snapped, cutting her off "For Harmonia's sake, Trixie, I've been studying with Celestia for quite a long time. She is not perfect, she's not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, but neither is she arrogant, merciless, envious, vindictive or wrathful. She may not be omnibenevolent, but she has a fairly decent moral code, and she, and her sister, are just about the nicest leaders you can get in an unfair, uncaring, and unavoidable world of hatred, misery and death."

There was a moment of bleak silence.

"Celestia and Luna are deities, god-like beings with enough power to make the world explode or implode, twice. Yet, they don't demand worship, they don't require sacrifices from, nor do they want us to praise them or blindly believe. They want us to trust them, so they devote their time and efforts to aid us, not letting anypony fall behind. Despite their powers, they reject the personality cults built around them, because it is their talent to control the sun and the moon, not their sheer might. They submit themselves to the chains of bureaucracy and subject themselves to the filth of politics, because they're trying to actively help us. I've seen Celestia, and then Luna's struggle with the desperation, greed and anguish of other ponies, and I can tell you: despite them being as old as the celestial bodies they control, whenever they see a pony reduced to the corrupted mess we see in newspapers or hear about from the shoutcolts, they're just as horrified and disturbed as foals when facing chronic, morally or mentally damaged adult ponies. They have their own fallibilities, which they won't deny, and they welcome criticism, no matter how trivial, subjective or senseless it is, like an old friend. They're deities, alright, but they're also ponies like you and me. And between you and I, I'd rather place my faith and fate in beings whom are among us, that are just like us and visibly care for us, than to place it into a concept or abstract value."

"Like friendship?"

"Yes, like frie--..." Twilight stopped, and glared daggers at a cheekily smiling Trixie. After a few seconds of glaring, the blue mare glared back.

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" she snapped "I KNOW the Princesses are benign, they left me alive after the AA incident, after all! What I WANTED to say is that, perhaps, Celestia had her own reason to release Discord. I mean, let's look at the other cases, the most obvious being the case of Princess Opscura, whom we had - until her separation from Princess Luna - known..."

"...As Nightmare Moon." Twilight finished the sentence, nodding "I think I see what you mean. But it wasn't until Discord revealed the content of those old scriptures the we knew about the... Stillborn..."

"It was only logical that the vast, dark but star-lit space had it's mistress first, before a nearby star could have one."

"And with her... Death in the womb, the King and the Queen where in need of an heir that can balance out the Princess of the Sun."

"..."

"I still think it was cruel from two supposed gods to abandon their child and not try to use their powers to revive her." Trixie scoffed.

"They, like all of us, were bound to their talents." Twilight argued "Intelligent magic wasn't created yet."

"You CAN'T. Change. My emotions about it!" Trixie growled "It was still cruel."

Twilight stood, silent for some time. The guards near by waited for her response.

"Well, the three sisters are together now, reconciled their duties and their bonds are strong."

"Three hearts, as strong as horses, beat as one." Trixie added, citing Celestia's speech made for the reveal of the return of the eldest princess "But that's just it! Look at Sombra! Once the malevolent autocrat of a country of slaves, then a black mist of corrosive corruption, now the field marshal of the Chrystal Army's Night Division, and - if one can place trust in rumors - the "significant other" of Princess Luna. "

"No rumors there." Twilight muttered "It's just that... Their relationship is a bit more... Plateaunic than that Celestia's and Discord's."

"The only case that breaks this theory of mercy and forgiveness is that of the changeling queen's."

"You mean, Chrysalis'?"

"That's her name?"

"Yeah. Say, Trixie..."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever seen the Queen?"

"Only on that colored windownwork."

"Do you know where the home of the changeling's is?"

"I do know where it used to be..." Trixie sighed "North-westward, north to the Doldrum moors, on a lonely mountain surrounded by that toxic death pit. I heard that only the mining companies of the U.C. were daft enough to try mining for resources there, and all they ended up with was more heavy metals in the already noxious air... So, on that mountain was their citystate. Emphasis on "was"."

"Now, it's in ruins..." Twilight sighed, but the blue pony interrupted her.

"Many clues recently discovered by historians, and our research with the princess seem to point towards one particular pony." she said, giving an all-knowing look.

"Don't tell me..." the Princess of Harmony uttered, looking at her with disbelief.

"Yes." Trixie hissed "Starswirl. Seems the old geezer has more things to answer two than the number of questions he had answered during his life - one of them being the question of the changeling curse, or, the way I'd like to ask it: "Why would you curse and condemn an entire empire of ponies that have been living in peace on their own, practicing their own brand of magic, without harming anyone, and why would you leave them with a curse that contorts their body and warps their mind, turning them into spiteful insectoids?". We only have three guess: A) he was an utter plothole at times, and this was one instance, B) he attempted to test a new spell, potion or whatever, and it turned out wrong, or right, and he's a heartless bastard, or C) he did it for personal reasons, which doesn't makes him any less of a prick."

Twilight swallowed a vile curse that was crawling up her throat, whilst holding back a near-lethal spell, lock and loaded in her horn - now THAT'S multitasking!

"These. Are. Just. Conspiracy theories!" she hissed, hoping that her voice was menacing enough to shut the magician up, otherwise she had to kill her.

But she was in no such luck.

"Conspiracy. Yeah." Trixie grunted "Like the "Celestia doesn't actually control the sun directly" theory that we've debunked during that meeting, unveiling the truth ponies have purposely turned away from, thus forcing the princesses to play along with their delusion!"

"THAT'S COMPLETELY UNRELATED!"

"Guess who built up that delusion..."

"CERTAINLY NOT...!"

"It was confirmed. By Princess Celestia AND Princess Luna."

Twilight huffed.

Trixie merely rolled her eyes.

"Anyways, what's up with the changeling queen?"

"Guess who's helping Princess Opscura with Homeland Security during the day?"

"Wait... You mean that?"

"Yes, the scrawny one with the firefly wings, jagged horn, chitin-stomach and film-like hair."

"..."

"Well?"

"She seems to lack the..."

"Holes, yes, but that's because she found herself genuine loved by a stallion."

"Wait, you mean that?"

"Yes, the scrawny, alicorn-sized, reddish chocolate-brown pegasus with the large, round glasses shaggy mane and straight tail."

"With that deep-toned, flatulent midget dragon, wearing that patchwork cast iron stovepipe hat following him everywhere?"

"Yes. I think he's called Newton Turbine, and the dragon's name is Vulcan."

"Really? I thought that guy had no emotions, just nerves."

"Yet, he genuinely loves her for who she is."

"Luvly."

"Yush, Luvly."

After a bit of */)^3^(*, the mares continued to trot towards Celestia's bedroom.

There was one argument they needed her opinion on to come to a conclusion...

,,,And they wanted the answer badly.