The Rescue Service

The pony at the door is not happy to see me.

“You’re early,” he says sourly after I introduce myself and show my invitation. It’s about seven minutes to the hour.

I try my best disarming smile. “Better than being late, right?”

“On time would be better yet,” he grumbles. Then, with a sigh like all the trouble in the world rests on his back, he opens a side door for me. “You can wait in here,” he allows.

The room behind it is a smallish, oppressive space, with windows that don’t seem to let in a lot of light and a few low stools along one wall. Apparently not all parts of Canterlot Castle are equally glorious. Perhaps it’s to get ponies in the right mood for a visit to the Royal Dungeons.

I sit down in the dimness and wait.

There was a fancy certificate waiting for me in the mail when I came home from my meeting with Vinyl. It stated that, whereas Mr. Affine Scheme of Canterlot City – that’s me – was owed 1 (one) Royal Favor from the Princess Luna, the palace guard was hereby graciously instructed to arrange for me an audience bypassing the usual waiting list, at such time as I would be ready to specify the nature of my desired favor.

I mulled over that for a day or so, and concluded that there is only one time where I have really wanted royal help with something – not counting the time when I spent a week banging my head against a wall with a ‘warm-up’ homework exercise where it turned out the professor had forgotten to specify that the antimorphism group was solvable. But I doubt the princesses could really have helped with that. This one, though . . .

The guards at the castle entrance directed me to a majordomo’s office in a side building. There a clerk took my certificate into a back room for some time, and then I was being escorted through a maze of stairs and corridors by a guardspony in full ceremonial armor (I think). We stopped at a set of double doors, guarded by an uniformed courtier who disappeared behind them with a file my escort gave her. A short while later she came back and told me to follow her inside.

I thought I was being taken to an audience-scheduling office of some sort, but we came through an antechamber – and there was the princess, my princess, wearing fuzzy slippers and a bathrobe, eating hay out of a bowl!

I dropped to my knees. “Your Highness!”

“Affine Scheme,” she replied. “I remember you. Rise, my little pony.”

I stood up again, sneaking a glimpse of the room while I tried neither to look rudely away from the princess nor to stare at her informal attire. It seemed to be less pompous than I had expected a royal audience chamber to be. Oh, it was grand alright – deep carpet, chandeliers, doubtlessly invaluable paintings on the walls. Perhaps it was the way the furniture was arranged, chairs clustered around a low table, that gave it a cozy, homey feel nonetheless. There was a desk in one corner with several neat little piles of papers and books on it, and a dresser in the other with one of the drawers pulled halfway out.

“I did not expect you here quite so soon,” said the princess.

“Oh.” That much was obvious. “I can come back at a more convenient time if you want, Your Highness.”

“It’s alright.” She waited until the courtier who led me in had left. “There’s only so many categories I can sort my visitors into before it begins to confuse the staff, and you have already seen me at my worst anyway, so right to the top you go. I hope breakfast doesn’t offend you?”

It was past three in the afternoon, but I supposed that would count as breakfast for a Princess of the Night. I suddenly found I liked her. “No, Your Highness.”

“Good. So what can I do for you?”

It all happened so quickly that I hadn’t yet prepared how I would explain the plan. “Well . . . I have this friend –”

“Why don’t we pretend this friend is yourself, just for convenience?”

I grimaced, feeling like I’d failed an oral exam in a single sentence. “Can’t really do that. This friend – she kind of raped me.”

The princess’s eyebrows shot up. “Then how are you still friends?”

“We – I mean, we weren’t.” No time to be clever, just spit it all out. “But she’s really sorry for it, and it’s eating her up that she’s ‘getting away with it’, as she says. And she wants to turn herself in to the Guards, but I can’t let her do that because she would be horribly punished and she doesn’t deserve that, no matter what she thinks. So I thought perhaps you could pull some strings so they’ll take her case, but perhaps I won’t have to testify, so they have to let her off with something mild? And she could still get peace that way?”

I gasped for breath, amazed that I’d managed to say all that without imploding. Even now it all sounded ridiculous to me, spoken out loud like that. And it occurred to me that perhaps I was dooming Vinyl anyway because the princess could have me investigated and find out who my ‘friend’ was even without promising me to pull the strings in the right direction.

The princess sat with a thoughtful frown for some time.

“What I think,” she said eventually, “is that you ought to sit down and tell me all that once more, from the beginning.”

“Affine Scheme!” shouts a different guard, poking his head into the waiting room.

I’m the only pony in the room. “That’s me.” I stand up.

“Follow me.”

He leads me through another maze of corridors – for all I know, we may be retracing my steps on the way to the princess last week exactly, only three levels lower. The royal lustre is definitely thinner down here.

“So you’re here for one of them pretrial mediation things?” asks the guard while holding open a barred door for me.

“Yeah,” I nod.

He lets the door close behind us with a loud clang. “Yeah,” he echoes. “Usually one of us would stay in the room and make sure you and the perp don’t gouge each other’s eyes out, but, y’know, what with the budget cuts and that bug that’s going ’round, we can’t actually spare anypony for that right now. Don’t worry, though – we made sure you’ll be quite safe.”

I’m not sure where this is going, so I just nod and grunt.

He stops at a closed door off the corridor, rifles through his keys. “Now you’ve got one hour, sharp. If you’re done before then, pull the bell by the door.” He opens the door and nods at me. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret later, alright?”

I nod again in confusion and walk in. The door slams shut behind me.

It’s a bare room, with just a few chairs in the corner and a barred window overlooking a courtyard. In the middle of the floor stands Vinyl, wearing a bright orange bridle and a suppressor ring of the same kind I remember the princess wearing.

“Hi,” I say, awkwardly. After going through all this to visit her I’m not actually sure how to start.

“Hi.” She smiles weakly. “So you finally changed your mind and reported me?”

“Yeah, that . . . sorry for not telling you first. It all happened very fast.”

“It’s not really important,” she says quietly. I suppose it isn’t.

It occurs to me that she hasn’t moved since I came in. “Um, is something wrong?”

She shakes her head. “Just feeling a little pinned down is all.”

She looks down towards her hooves, and I see that she’s wearing orange prison horseshoes too, with protruding eyes that are bolted to the floor of the interview room with big wingnut bolts. She literally can’t move a hoof.

“Oh, I’ll take care of that.” After all, I’m a professional at getting ponies free from all kinds of bondage. I reach down towards one of her forehooves to screw it loose.

“No – please don’t,” she pleads. “It’ll only get me into trouble with the guards.”

I stand back up. “Is it very bad in here?”

She shakes her head carefully. “It’s good I don’t have to worry about ending up here anymore. Now it just happens, whatever’s gonna happen. But they are very good at creating hopelessness. Just little things, things you can’t prove or even complain about, to remind you your life is not your own anymore.”

I get a terrible thought. “Did they – I mean, have you been . . .”

“Not yet. But I hear a lot of whispers that I shouldn’t expect any sleep the night before my court date. And there’s this, of course.” She makes a head movement that seems to encompass me and the room in general.

“This?”

“Yeah. They found out I confessed to rape, so I think the general idea of all this is that you might want to return the favor.”

That makes a sickening kind of sense, at least if you assume the guards are monsters. Or out-of-control pranksters who don’t know when to stop riding a vulnerable mare. “Why, I would never!”

Another small smile. “I could have told them, but I don’t think they would listen.”

For several minutes neither of us speak. I rack my brain to find something to say. I remember it seemed so urgent to get to see her, but what for? To be sure she’s alright? Let’s call that a very qualified success.

Eventually she breaks the silence. “Have you talked to Octavia? She’s here somewhere too, I think.”

I shrug. “I put in a request for both of you, just in case. But she refused to meet with me.”

“Figures.”

“You two were close?”

She sighs. “Close is not the word. Finey, I really thought she was the one. We’d settle down and grow old together . . . perhaps foals too. She could have gotten some stallions at stud easily, and they could be uncles or something if they wanted to stick around. But that’s all just silly.”

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming,” I say, the first platitude that comes to mind.

“But suddenly I don’t even know her anymore, and she’s all . . . just fake and callous. And I wonder, did the mare I loved ever exist? Or is she still in there and if I just sat down and really talked she could be herself again? But I’ve tried that.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, and look away in case she starts crying – I don’t think I have it in me to console her for the loss of Tavi. There is another awkward pause.

“So,” she says, suddenly brightening up. “You gonna make the guards have made all those preparations for nothing?” She wiggles her butt and smiles invitingly.

I stare at her. “You want me to – to –?” I can’t believe it. And yet I can. “It’s still about getting even, isn’t it? Even after –”

She sinks back down a bit. “Not really. You got me arrested and all, that has to count. But, well, you know how I’m made up, right? This get-up is pretty hot if you ask me –” she wiggles her behind again.

So that’s what I’ve been smelling. No wonder Finey Jr. is already enthusiastically agreeing with the proposition. One of these days I’ll have to sit down and have a good long talk with my libido about what’s okay and what’s not.

“– especially if it’s a pony I like and trust who’d do the honors,” she concludes.

Wait, what? “You like and trust . . . me?”

She shrugs. “What’s not to like? I’m the one that’s the bad guy here.”

Okay, time to put this to rest. “I’m flattered. And if you still feel that way after you get out, let’s talk and see if we can come up with something.” If I had met Vinyl Scratch in happier circumstances, I’m pretty sure she would be solidly not-my-type. But who wouldn’t be moved by this kind of trust and need? Not while she’s bolted down to a prison floor, though. Nope nope nope.

“Get out?” She laughs bitterly. “Haven’t you heard I’m gonna be exiled? The lawyer they got me thinks I might get it down to a couple of years if you testify for me. Would you do that?”

“Of course.” I walk up to her immobile form and hug her. “Don’t worry – I’ll get you out of here.”

“After you got me into here? How?”

“I cut a deal with – Actually I can’t tell you.” I’ve suddenly remembered it’s a secret how I first met the princess and earned my royal favor. I don’t even know if I can tell anypony I had one. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“Of course I trust you.” She pecks at my neck lightly. “But seriously, not even a quick hoofie? Damn it, I can’t reach back there like this.”

“Tough luck. You know, abstinence strengthens your moral fiber.”

“Jerk.”

* * *

Elsewhere in the castle complex, Octavia is waiting for a visitor of her own in a similar interview room. This one has a table and chairs. Octavia is sitting in one of the chairs, watching the sky boredly through the window while she waits. It makes her quite pleased with herself that boredom is her most immediate problem, given the circumstances.

Octavia has known since she was a filly that she can do anything she decides to do and works hard at. Surviving prison is just one of those things. Before she had been here two days, she’d gotten herself set up as the waifu of the biggest and meanest of the guards. That’s how you get the rules bent for you instead of the other way around. The little whore who was with her guard before is not having a wonderful time right now, but Octavia has no intention of sharing that fate. She’s going to be out and acquitted before he gets tired of her and starts looking for fresher meat.

She wonders idly how Vinyl is doing. Her guard has confirmed that she’s here too, but she doesn’t have the kind of assets or connections that make Octavia’s stay bearable. Vinyl always could take an inordinate amount of punishment, though – but if there’s any place that can break her, this will be it. Octavia almost feels sorry for her.

She knows she made a monumental mistake with Vinyl, and she’s still paying the price for that. There’s nothing she can do about it now, just collect the pieces as well as she can, and then make sure never to give another pony the opportunity to harm her like Vinyl did. What was she thinking anyway, expecting love from a pony like that?

The door opens briefly to let Octavia’s guest in. Curat de Minimis is not the best lawyer she knows, but all of her more high-powered friends turned out to be curiously ignorant of criminal law when she called them after being arrested, and stubbornly unwilling to read up on it. She’ll have to do something about that later, but first things first. Fortunately, her case ought to be a fairly open-and-shut one that even a B-lister like Curat can handle.

Curat slams his briefcase briskly down on the table. “Octavia, did you ever do anything to make Princess Luna angry at you?” he asks while pulling out a stack of notes.

“Princess Luna? Not that I remember. I’ve met her at a few court functions I was playing at, of course, perhaps exchanged a few words. Why is that?”

The lawyer sits down with a frown. “She’s taken over your case.”

“Taken over? What does that mean?”

“It means she’ll be the judge. There’s still a magistrate doing motions, but once the trial starts, it’s all going to be the princess.”

“She can do that?”

“It seems so. Court proceedings have always been ‘in the names of the princesses’, meaning that judges are just standing in for the princesses and their job is to judge like they would if they had time to be there. Apparently Princess Luna decided to take that literally. There are some open-air fairs where the Princess is traditionally present to settle disputes in person, but nopony can remember when it last happened for a real case.”

“But why my case?” Wheels are starting to turn in Octavia’s head, searching for a way to turn this to her advantage.

Curat shrugs elaborately. “We hoped you could tell me that. For all anypony knows, she just wants to try her hoof at judging and picked a case at random. I’ve got one of the senior partners on it, working on a brief to argue you should at least still have a jury.”

“Why would I want a jury?”

“Well, the argument is that juries were originally –” but Octavia doesn’t really listen. She’s been worrying about the jury, unsophisticated common ponies that the prosecutor might manipulate into a false conviction. Of course Octavia would have been able to manipulate them right back, but apparently it’s only the lawyers who’re allowed to talk for most of the trial. If there’s no jury, that whole risk disappears. She wonders if she has made a particularly favorable impression on the princess somehow.

“Stop,” she says, interrupting the lecture. “Tell your guy to cut it out. I don’t want a jury if I can get out of it. No, wait, even better, send in a protest but make it bad. Weak arguments, backwards logic, the works – I’m sure you can manage that. Then when we lose that, she’ll feel obliged to give in to us about something else. Oh, and for pony’s sake don’t make it sound like we don’t trust the princess.”

Curat sighs. “Octavia, that’s not really how it works. I wish you would leave the trial strategy to me.”

“I’m sure you do, but it’s my pelt on the line, so we’ll do this right, okay?”

“Very well.” He rubs his temples. “May I put down that you want a perfunctory jury demand to be filed?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it? What else?”

He shuffles his papers. “I tried to get a copy of the Rescue Service’s employee handbook as you instructed, but they refused to give me one. Then I went to the magistrate to ask for a subpoena, and she dismissed that out of hoof without even hearing the prosecution first. She says it is irrelevant to the case.”

“The hay it is. Can you appeal that?”

“I can, but I have to warn you that taking an interlocutory appeal at this point is going to postpone your trial even further –”

“That can’t be helped. Do it. That handbook is critical to our defense. It’s what explains why what’s-his-name lied to his boss and said he never wanted the sex after all.”

Curat rolls his eyes. “Very well. Now, about your character witnesses . . .”

All in all it’s a productive meeting. After the lawyer leaves, Sergeant Trombone shows up to escort her back to her cell. He’s the guard she has thrown her lot in with, and it’s not really a secret they’re together; ponies know not to mess with her. But he still prefers to keep appearances up, so it’s slow going, taking microsteps all the way because her hind hooves are shackled closely together and he’s leading her by a shank threaded into her prison bridle.

Finally they’re home – ‘home’ being a short corridor of just four cells of which Octavia is currently the only occupant. Officially she’s in solitary, something he arranged so they could have more privacy. It suits her fine, even if it does come with shackles whenever she’s out of the cell; that way she won’t have to mingle with the criminal rabble in the general population. And it’s only for a few weeks anyway.

As soon as they’re inside the ‘front door’ to her home corridor, he eases up on her lead and drops some of his stern facade. “So how was your meeting?” he asks conversationally.

“Oh Rusty, it’s dreadful. They’re postponing my case again. Just as I thought I could see the end. I’m never going to get out of here at this rate.”

“Hmm, it’s not that bad,” he mumbles while unlocking the door to her cell. “I’ve seen many ponies get it worse. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

She microsteps into the cell. “Oh Rusty, I know you’re terribly busy, but I really need some snuggles right now. Do you think you could possibly . . .”

“I guess there’s always time for a surprise search for contraband,” he grunts. “You’re a high-risk prisoner, you know.” There is in fact plenty of contraband in her cell, including not only a make-up set and a proper set of mane brushes, but also a tea kettle and a record player with headphones – but since Rusty was the one to smuggle most of it in, he’s not going to find it. The cello, alas, would be too big to smuggle, but she doesn’t want to risk leaving it behind if they release her on short notice, anyway. She can do without practice until she gets out.

She sits down on the bed. “Come here, stallion – no, wait, take that cuirass off first. I can’t snuggle a tin can.”

He dumps half his armor on her desk and lies down on the bed, wrapping his forelegs around her. She buries her head in his chest.

“Oh Rusty, you know I’m innocent, don’t you?” She shifts around slightly so she can start subtly rubbing her belly against his sheath.

“Of course I do,” he says, nibbling a little too hard on her ear. “You told me you were framed.”

“Mmm. The one good thing about it is I wouldn’t have met you otherwise. Oh Rusty, what would I do without you?” She has carefully allowed him to think they’ll still be a couple after she’s released – though she hasn’t said it in so many words, because blatant lies tend to make ponies suspicious.

He grunts noncommittally and she hums contentedly into his chest until she feels the grinding have the expected effect. When it’s big enough she breaks away from him, pretending to suddenly notice his cock.

“Oooh,” she says, enthralled, “do you really think you have time for that too?” She bows down and kisses the cock from the front, running her tongue briefly around the tip, which gets him all the way to full mast.

“Might as well,” he growls. He rolls down from the bed to the floor, and in a quick movement he has grabbed a set of hoofcuffs from his kit on the table and cuffed her forehooves to the headboard. Somehow he’s figured out she’s into cuffs – which is not a lie, though she prefers being on the other end of them.

Never mind, what she has to do now is play along. “Oh Rusty, you naughty colt,” she drawls. “You done trapped me. What all shall I do?”

“You shall shut up, unless you want to wait while I fetch a muzzle.”

“Yes, sir,” she giggles, “shutting up now, sir.”

He sweeps her hind legs off the bed so she’s lying diagonally across its front end with the hind legs on the floor. It would be a better position if she could lift the near hind up on the bed, but he hasn’t removed the shackles yet, so this will have to do. He grabs her tail and pins it in between her flank and the bed.

“Eanie meanie miney mo – where shall Rusty’s pecker go? Oh! The top one!”

Darn.

Fortunately Rusty is not such a barbarian that he’s never heard of lube, so he gets out her illicit beauty kit and smears a generous amount of crème-selle across her asshole before he mounts her, panting and grunting. She clenches her teeth and does her best to relax her sphincter, remembering to whisper, “yes . . . yes . . . yes” each time he pushes further into her. Then he stops grunting and there’s that warm feeling that tells her he’s ejaculating, and she finishes off the performance with an “oh Rusty!”

He climbs back down and takes his time putting his uniform back on, not really acknowledging Octavia. Then, just as he’s about to leave, he turns around towards her. “You know what? I think you’ve deserved a bonus round, on the lower floor too.”

“Oh, Rusty!”

He’s not normally a bad fucker, and as often as not she can actually enjoy sex with him. This time, however, she’s rather put off by knowing where his cock has just been – but of course the show must go on, and she manages to fake a somewhat decent orgasm at the end.

After he finishes he really does have to leave. He bows down to kiss her forehead. “Alright, sweetie, duty calls. I’ll be back with more later, okay?” And then he’s gone, locking the door behind him.

Octavia is left lying on the bed, still hoofcuffed to the headboard. She can’t even get up to get herself some music to distract her from the crawling feeling in her snatch. Instead she passes the time by imagining what would happen to Rusty if, by some cosmic fluke, she suddenly found herself empress of the world. It’s a bit of a foalish conceit, but sometimes you’ve got to do what you have to in order to stay sane.

And Octavia can do whatever she puts her mind to.

* * *

Suri Polomare hangs by her forelegs from the ceiling of the dungeon under Carousel Boutique, just high enough that she can push off from the floor and get some relief for her forehooves, at the cost of bending her hips backward at an insane angle. She is blindfolded with her own expensive neckerchief, and her tail is wound up in a knot, to prevent her from using it to shield herself.

Rarity is pacing around her, levitating a long flexible switch. Every so often she’ll bring it down on Suri with a WHACK that echoes through the dungeon. She’s trying for an aesthetically pleasing pattern of marks, subtly evoking the cut of the designs Suri stole from her.

Suri is not fighting back, just weeping quietly and whimpering under her breath when Rarity finds a particularly sensitive place to hit. The bitch knows she brought this on herself. And there’s the unspoken promise that if she behaves, Rarity will eventually let up for a time. Good girls get painkillers.

Whenever she lets a bit longer than usual pass between strokes, Rarity can taste Suri’s hope that it will be over for now. That’s a funny thing, tasting emotions. She makes a mental note to figure out later what’s up with that.

She rounds a corner and discovers that, inexplicably, one of Suri’s hind legs is not covered with welts. That doesn’t look right.

“You forgot one,” says a helpful voice behind her.

She spins around and sees that a tall alicorn, blue as the night, has entered the dungeon.

“Princess! I – I, I can explain!”

“Can you now?” says Luna with a smile.

“Of course. It’s – I – she – we, we’re just sharing a kinky but completely voluntary and consensual bit of funful pain. And sex. Weren’t we, darling Suri?” Somehow she materializes a vibrator out of thin air and jams it in between Suri’s hind legs. “Brzzzz!” she hums.

Luna chuckles. “Relax, Rarity. We’re not engaged; you’re allowed to dream about punishing ponies who’re not me.”

“This is a dream?” Rarity looks around. In hindsight, the fact that her dungeon suddenly has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking famous Equestrian landmarks probably ought to have been a giveaway. “Oh thank goodness, then I’m not a monster yet.”

“Of course you’re not. Why would you be a monster?”

Rarity shrugs helplessly and points towards Suri, now sitting in a small gem-studded cage that is suspended from the ceiling by a chain of knotted ribbons.

“There are monsters out there, Rarity,” says Luna with a bit of a hard edge to her voice, “but you’re not one of them. For one thing, real monsters don’t have nightmares about the thing that makes them monsters.”

“Nightmares? But this couldn’t possibly be a – I mean, I was –”

“You enjoyed hurting her, didn’t you?”

Rarity swallows a lump and then nods, hanging her head in shame.

“That’s what makes it a nightmare, Rarity. A nightmare is where you meet your innermost fears.”

She looks up at the princess. “Are you saying that I’m . . . afraid of enjoying to hurt ponies?”

“Which decent pony wouldn’t be? You have been telling yourself for years that you like it only because the pony you hurt finds pleasure in it. I fear it is my fault that you have discovered it is not so.”

“Princess, I – you may be right about that, but it’s still me who is –”

“You’re not a monster, Rarity. But it is unhealthy for you to keep being afraid of what you are. Just because you like a certain thing, you’re not going to start snatching ponies off the street because you think they deserve punishment, are you?”

Rarity shakes her head uncertainly.

“For example, how did she come here?” Luna points at Suri, who lies hogtied and gagged on the floor, staring fearfully up at the two of them.

“I don’t remember,” says Rarity, frowning. “I just . . .”

“It is so far from your mind that you don’t even need to fear it. You’re a good pony, Rarity, a pony with unusual and sometimes impossible tastes, but you can afford to be honest with yourself about them.”

“Yes, Princess,” she says meekly. “I’m afraid it’s easier said than done, though.”

“It always is,” Luna agrees. “When you wake up, see if you can find the time to come visit me in Canterlot. I may be able to help you with that.”

Rarity nods, beginning to feel dizzy.

“By the way,” says Luna, and the dungeon suddenly solidifies again, “I’m surprised it wasn’t my obnoxious nephew here. My sister tells me some stories.”

It is now Prince Blueblood who is hogtied on the floor. “What is this outrage –” he sputters, before Luna’s horn glows and his voice disappears behind a muzzle.

“Oh, him?” Rarity says. “He’s just an oaf. Not worth wasting a good whip on.”

“See?” says Luna. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

With an audible pop she winks out of existence, followed by Blueblood and the dungeon at large, and Rarity wakes up.