They took Octavia up to the courtroom more than an hour before it was supposed to start, ruining her plans to make herself a bit presentable first. She caught herself trying to remember the names of the guards who came for her so she could complain about them to Rusty – but today was the day of her acquittal; she wouldn’t have to deal with Rusty again.

It felt strange to be leaving the cell for the last time. Who’d have thought staying in a prison cell for barely a moon could make it feel so yours? She was leaving her carefully smuggled amenities behind, but they would be easily replaceable after she was released.

The courtroom was not the one it had been the previous days, but a large hall where she had once played at a court event. She had a sudden memory of counting bars in the allegretto movement of Maneyef’s seventh, looking down at the interlocking pattern of polished stone tiles in the floor.

A young earth mare came walking across that floor, cream with a purple mane, wearing courtier lapels. She gave a sealed scroll to the senior of Octavia’s guards. He read it in silence.

“Very well,” the guard said, rolling up the scroll again and sticking it in behind his cuirass. “As the princess commands.”

The mare who had brought the scroll was making little glances towards Octavia. “Can I talk to her?” she asked the guard.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She turned to Octavia, blushing slightly. “Sorry, but are you really the Octavia Melody? The cello player?”

Octavia usually tried not to be too gruff towards talkative ponies from the audience; you never knew if one of them would turn out to be useful. Standing here in chains and prison tack didn’t exactly put her in the mood for small talk, though. But something about this mare caught her interest – her bearing, the way she moved, the way she kept her head when she spoke. Octavia couldn’t help imagining her gagged and strapped to a rack, begging silently for release.

She manifested a warmish smile. “Indeed I am.”

“Lavender Crescent.” The mare shook the hoof Octavia held out, and smiled shyly, very cute. “My coltfriend’s a big fan of yours.”

Well, poop. “Won’t he be overjoyed to hear you’ve met me in these circumstances?”

“He –” she looked uncertain “– I’m not allowed to tell anypony about this anyway.”

“Of course. Can’t have ponies actually knowing how this all plays out.” The trial so far had been held in secret; Octavia wouldn’t put it past the princess to try to hush it up completely.

The mare blinked in confusion. “Um, don’t you know it’s an open session? It has to be when there’s a final judgment being announced. It’s just that I’m on duty; I can’t tell anything then.”

“Wonderful. So everypony can come and gawk.”

“Now that’s not fair,” said the mare, eyes flashing with youthful indignation. “You can’t both be angry when you think it’s a secret and then be angry again because it’s public. It has to be one or the other.”

Octavia knew she was being slightly unreasonable. It was the waiting, of course – she always was in a foul mood after a contest performance, while the judges got ready to announce a score, even when she knew she’d played perfectly. “Have you considered,” she said, “that perhaps I didn’t want to be here at all?”

“Um, if you put it that way . . . Sorry.” The mare shrank down a bit, and shuffled her forelegs before looking up at Octavia again. “Can I ask you what you did?”

Octavia sighed. “I loved somepony,” she said. “And I gave her what she said she wanted. This is the thanks I get.” She had seen Vinyl during the trial; she had been so composed and uninterested in putting up a defense that Octavia was sure she had sold her out somehow.

“Um, that’s not illegal, is it?”

“You wouldn’t think so, would you? But you’ll have to ask Her Highness about that.”

The mare seemed to have trouble finding a response to that. “Well, I have to get back to work,” she said at last. “Sorry about your friend. And good luck!”

“Thank you,” said Octavia – but the mare was already scampering away, out a side door.

* * *

There’s a clock striking four somewhere. “Is it time now?” I ask.

“Not yet, Your Highness!” With a nervous frown, Proper Writ interjects himself between me and the doors. “We’re still waiting for one of the defendants to be brought up.”

I roll my eyes just a little, still undecided whether to be offended or flattered that he seems to have appointed himself my handler. Shouldn’t the State Chancellor for the Interior have more important things to do?

“Think of how it would look if you went in there and you had to start by sitting around for ten minutes before you could begin. A princess doesn’t wait meekly for her subjects to show up; it has to be the other way around.”

“And yet here I am.” In a rather cramped back chamber to the Lesser Diet Hall. Waiting meekly.

Proper Writ grimaces in exasperation. “Yes, but you can’t be seen to be waiting. It’s a matter of appearances, Your Highness. Please.”

He’s right, I know. I only wish I had a bit more say in what those appearances would be – I am the princess after all. But evidently jurisprudence is serious business. I’m beginning to understand why Tia keeps away from it.

I thought I could simply sit down with each of the witnesses and get their version of what happened. By the time Proper Writ was through with that, however, there was me and the witness and a stenographer and a lawyer from the provost’s office and the two accused and their defenders, not to mention a squad of guards to keep us all in line. They were all pretty good about pretending I was in charge, but still.

At least it’s blatantly clear that the accused did what the prosecutor says they did. They didn’t even claim otherwise themselves. But that’s only half of the problem, because I also have to decide which punishment they get. Proper Writ insisted that I at least discuss the sentences in private with the chief justice, Obiter Dictum, and I suppose that was helpful, but it was an awkward meeting all the same. Each of us thought the other’s idea of how an unrepentant rapist ought to be punished was appallingly brutal and barbaric.

If only there had been some doubt about guilt left, I could simply refuse to measure out the terrible fate Dictum wanted me to. But as it is, I have to take him seriously. Perhaps I really am out of touch, and even the accused would prefer his kind of punishment? Can ponies change that much in a thousand years? I’ve changed my mind at least five times already, and I still have time to do so again, right up until I actually announce it. Poor Proper Writ has no idea of the power he wields right now: just letting me go in at this time rather than that could make the difference for what I’m thinking when the time to make it irrevocable comes.

I use the waiting time to go over my lines once more. The ponies in the Protocol Office had a field day figuring out the correct phrasings for a princess to run a court case in person – I remember nothing of that kind from back before, and to be honest I think they pilfered half of it from Ivanhock. But it does sound good, and I’ll get to use the royal Canterlot voice, so I’m not complaining.

Eventually a guard comes in from the corridor behind us and nods to Proper Writ. He steps aside from the door and bows slightly. “Now, Your Highness.”

A wave of motion passes through the hall as a roomful of ponies notice me coming in and drop to their foreknees. I make my way to the throne in the middle of the dais (somepony has covered up the sun sigil on it with a crescent-on-black – touching!) and sit down. A roomful of ponies stand back up.

Most of these ponies don’t care about the case at all, but are only here to marvel at the sight of a princess playing judge. That ought to be familiar, just another smiling-and-waving expedition. But for Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Melody, waiting out there to the side flanked by guards, this is deadly serious. It’s my fault they couldn’t have their sentence in a small, ignored hearing at the prefecture. I have a sudden urge to chase out all of the gossip-hungry spectators, and only overcome it because Proper Writ would kill me for it and then resign in protest, at which point Tia would kill me too.

It’s too late now to make that right, though. The show has to go on, and the show must start before it can go on. I draw a deep breath.

“HEAR YE, HEAR YE! IN OUR NAME AND THOSE OF OUR ROYAL SISTER CELESTIA AND OUR FRIEND AND EQUAL TWILIGHT SPARKLE, COURT IS NOW IN SESSION. THERE WILL BE ORDER IN THIS ROOM.”

I hope Cadance doesn’t mind too terribly being left out. Proper Writ nearly had a fit when I suggested she’d been forgotten – it would be unthinkable, he said, for a domestic prosecution to be concluded, even only in name, by a ‘foreign sovereign’, however close our countries are.

A herald steps out in front of the dais. “Case 1006-538, Guard Provost of Canterlot against Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Melody. Her Highness Princess Luna, sitting in judgment of the accused, has heard evidence against them in private. She has determined it to be in the interest of justice and propriety that this evidence remain sealed to the public. Having considered the evidence, Her Highness will now pronounce judgment on the accused.”

“IT IS SO,” I confirm, following my script. “Bring forth the accused!”

* * *

Old Fizzy had to stay home and mind the shop, so instead I went with Finey for moral support the day the result of his case would be announced. He put up quite a good mask, but I knew him well enough to see how nervous he really was, almost as if he were the one on trial. It made sense, of course; if the defendants went free, it would be the same as the princess declaring he was a liar.

The princess herself, even. Well, not Princess Celestia, but Luna, the lost-and-rediscovered younger sister. A princess, at least. I don’t think it’s common for court cases like this to be judged by an actual princess; even the hammiest courtroom dramas just have a cranky old judge. When I asked Finey if he knew what was up with that, he looked uncomfortable and changed the subject.

It was supposed to begin at four o’clock, but it was ten minutes past before the princess showed up. It must be nice to be royal and be able to treat schedules like that. Once she did show up, she almost flattened the room with her volume; she must be used to shouting down rowdier crowds than this.

On a command from the princess, the guards marched the two defendants out in front of everypony. I remembered them from when I’d been called in to testify earlier in the week, O. Melody standing tall and proud, and a blue-maned co-defendant who looked like she had given up already.

When the excitement in the audience at seeing the defendants had died down, the princess spoke up again, mercifully at a lower volume.

“Vinyl Scratch! You are guilty of recklessly endangering a pony, of simple assault, and of violating a pony’s modesty. Your punishment shall be the imprisonment you have already endured during and prior to this trial, plus 120 hours of community service. SO STANDS OUR ROYAL JUDGMENT.”

Straight to the point, I’ll give her that. There was a murmur going through the room, and I looked at Finey beside me to see if he needed comforting at the disappointing outcome – time served and community service sounded very light to me. But he was grinning ear to ear with obvious relief. At least she’d been convicted of something.

The princess was not done yet. “Octavia Melody! You are guilty of rape, of unlawful threats, of false imprisonment, of violating a pony’s modesty, of inducing a violent crime, of failing to come to the aid of a pony in obvious need, and of signing a false declaration on trust and honor. As punishment” – the princess made a dramatic pause, waiting for the room to grow completely quiet – “you shall be exiled to Windhowl Key for eight years, two of which you shall be imprisoned in the royal keep on that island. SO STANDS OUR ROYAL JUDGMENT.”

“That’s more like it,” I whispered to Finey. I’m not sure he heard it; it was lost in the general chatter that had sprung up in the room. But he looked satisfied with the result; that was the important thing.

“ADJOURNED!” blared the princess. She stood up from the throne and everypony bowed again while she strode out.

The show was over. Most ponies in the audience began to drift towards the exit, but Finey was on his legs as soon as the princess had left, darting and dancing eagerly against the flow of the crowd, towards the front of the room. I did my best to follow him.

When I caught up with him, he was hugging one of the defendants, the one who wasn’t Octavia. “I told you so!” he exclaimed, laughing.

“How did you do that?” She seemed to be happy to see him too. I wondered if I had completely misunderstood what this was all about.

Finey glanced around the room furtively. “Still can’t tell. Bellchaser, this is Vinyl.”

I looked her up and down, still confused. “Hello,” I managed.

“Hi.” Vinyl looked between me and Finey. “And the two of you are . . .?”

“We’re coworkers,” said Finey quickly. “She’s the one who was scheduled to be with me that day.”

She made to say something, but was interrupted by a pony coming from behind. “Vinyl Scratch? I’ve got your release papers here.”

That voice was familiar. I turned to look at the speaker, and it was Cressie, wearing white-and-navy lapels and holding out a sheaf of papers. She hadn’t noticed me yet, but after Vinyl took the papers and she turned around, she literally jumped two hooves back when she saw me.

“B-bellchaser?”

“Um, hello.”

“Look, I know you think it was me who told Pokey to send you away, but I didn’t, honest!”

I made a quick decision – Finey didn’t seem to need my moral support anymore, and the chance to clear things up with Cressie might not come again. I started walking away from him, motioning for Cressie to follow. “I didn’t think you did.”

“He says it was for my sake, but he’s been miserable ever since you left. He tries to hide it, but I can tell. Did you have an argument?”

I sighed. “He just said it would be best if I stopped coming.” Damn, I thought I had gotten over that, but talking about it made it hurt again. “I think he felt he had to choose between us.”

She was quiet until we reached the row of columns that lined the main hall. “I miss you,” she said.

“Me too.” It wasn’t until she said it that I realized I’d been missing her too. “But you know where to find me, at the cafe.”

She looked away and kicked a forehoof weakly against the base of a column. “Pokey doesn’t want me to talk to you.”

“Here we are, though.”

“I couldn’t just pretend you weren’t there, could I? And I just met somepony who taught me that what the one you love says he wants isn’t always what you should do.” She glanced across the room towards the guards leading the other defendant away, the dark one.

“So what do you propose?” I asked. “We stay friends behind his back?” I never imagined I’d be cheating on a stallion with his marefriend. But life is strange sometimes.

“Oh, no.” She looked mortified. “I can talk him into it. If you want to come back, that is. We can share him, can’t we? Or you can share me. I don’t care.”

It’s funny – if a colt had sounded like that with me, I’d have thought he was just fishing for pity and crushed his heart with nary a second thought. And even Pokey, as much as I had enjoyed his company, if he began speaking about relationships and commitment, I think I would have balked. But this? Dammit, I wanted to say yes to her. But I don’t do relationships.

Cressie was watching me anxiously while I thought. I could see hope leaving her little by little. “I’m sorry, it’s probably just –” she began.

Oh, blast it all. She wasn’t really asking for more than we’d already had when Pokey called it off, which I hadn’t really wanted to lose. “No, I . . . I guess we can give it a try.”

“Really?” The smile that spread on her face was worth it all. “That’s . . . thank you!”

I almost hugged her, but then I remembered what she was and tousled her mane instead, scratching behind one ear. She blushed and wagged her tail a few times in acknowledgement.

“So, um . . . I’ll talk to Pokey?” she said, looking uncertain. Probably that wouldn’t be easy for her if she was used to him deciding everything.

“Perhaps it’s better if we both go, and tell him right out how it’s gonna be.” Looking behind me, I saw we were the only ponies left in the hall. Finey and his friend (or whatever she was) had left while I talked to Cressie, so he didn’t need me anymore today. “When do you get off work?”

“As soon as I get back to my desk and sign off. Wait for me in the castle square.” She glanced quickly around the hall to be sure nopony was watching, and then reared up against me and licked my face sloppily. Then she turned around, and went out through the same door the princess had used.

I left the same way Finey and I had come in earlier, startling a few guards who thought everypony had already gone. The day outside the castle felt bright and hopeful, and I found myself skipping over to the fountain in the middle to wait for Cressie.

How about that?

* * *

After the trial I’m waiting (again!) back in my private office, for the guards to bring Octavia to me.

She is not happy about her sentence, I know. I watched her face while I pronounced it – first smug self-assurance after her friend got off lightly, then doubt, shock, despair, disbelief, and barely contained rage. For that, at least, who can blame her?

I could have looked away from her and addressed the room at large instead. But that would have been chickening out – if I’m going to do this to ponies, the least I can do is look them in the eye when I crush them. And we ask the real judges to do this for us, week after week. If I can’t stomach it myself, I might as well abdicate. And then, of course, Tia would (once again) kill me.

I’m glad I have the power of clemency, though.

The doors open, and a pair of burly night guards come in, marching Octavia between them. She stands in the middle of the floor, watching me defiantly.

I imagine a poet would praise her marely firmness. But I have listened to her while she defended herself, seen how she reacted to the other witnesses, and I know arrogance when I see it. It’s not a virtue.

“So are you going to gloat?” she asks. Charming to the last, trying to cast me as the villain. (She doesn’t know how outclassed she is – I do that much better myself).

I sigh. “You really have no idea that what you did was wrong, do you?” That’s not what I planned to say, but curiosity gets the better of me.

She stares me down. “I’m not going to play that game.”

So much for having an honest conversation. Back to the plan, I suppose.

“Very well. You’re here because I’m going to make you an offer. Now, to begin with, as far as I’m concerned you deserve absolutely everything I can throw at you.” (That’s not strictly true, of course. There’s always Tartarus. But I don’t even know if I could send her there). “Unfortunately, though, Equestria does have need of ponies like you from time to time.”

Her ears perk up at that, and I can see her getting the smugness back in gear.

“What I’m offering is for your sentence to be commuted to six weeks of community service.”

She chews on that for a while. “What’s the catch?”

I nod. “There are two. First, each of those weeks is a full week, days and nights. You will eat and sleep at the facility. You can spread out your weeks over a year or so, so you can keep a job, but not in smaller chunks than that.

“Second, you are not to tell anypony what the terms of your community service are, or what happens during your service. On pain of – hmmm, whatever high treason is worth these days.”

She squints at me. “Am I expected to accept these super-secret terms without knowing what it is you need me to do?”

“In broad terms, you will be accompanying a friend of mine in Ponyville on a journey of self-discovery. You can get more details after you swear an oath of secrecy. But you can back out later and get your full sentence of exile reinstated instead.”

She thinks some more. “I want to consult my lawyer first.”

I very much doubt that; I saw how she treated the poor guy during the trial. But that’s her business.

“As you wish. Let the dungeon guards know when you have an answer for me.”

* * *

Somehow it felt only natural that Vinyl would come home with me after I accompanied her down to the castle farrier to get rid of the bolt-me-down horseshoes. It was too late in the day to start back towards Ponyville, so she needed a place to stay. I don’t even think either of us mentioned any alternative.

She didn’t say much on the way home, but she looked happier than I’d seen her since that day – since ever at all, in fact. My eyes kept misting up at the sight, and my ribcage felt a number too small.

I showed her where the bathroom is, and she spent ten minutes in the shower and came back to my room all fluffy and relaxed, prison mood rinsed away. She lay back on my bed, and I sat in the armchair, watching Vinyl be happy. It would be the couch for me for the night – couldn’t ask Vinyl to take that after three weeks of sleeping in dungeon bunks.

“Know what, Finey,” she said eventually. “If you have a shred of pity, you’re gonna tie me to this bed now and fuck me silly.”

It was crude. It was crass. It completely derailed whatever my train of thought had been – something about couches and corridors, I think. And still, it felt like part of me had been hoping for something like that.

“I thought you liked mares,” I said, as levelly as I could.

“I do.” She rolled over on her side to look at me. “But I think I like you too.”

I got up from the chair and sat on the bed next to her, letting a hoof rest on her side. I tried to think of an argument that giving in to her now would be taking advantage, but found none.

“Besides,” she continued, “those dungeon guards, you know? Total cuntteases. I haven’t gotten anything since they arrested me. Not even by myself, no privacy in those four-mare cells.”

“They left you alone?” It was a burden on my conscience I hadn’t fully been aware of, suddenly disappearing.

“Yeah. Once I did wake up with my face stuffed full of cock, but then right when he was about to come I woke up again, and it was all a dream.”

Now she was just trying to get me off balance. I began stroking her fur with the hoof I had resting on her. “Are you sure you need to be tied up first?”

“Yes,” she said, with finality. “Seriously, Finey, please.”

At first I wasn’t even sure I had anything that could be used to tie somepony to a bed, but then I remembered I had a spare first-aid pack for the rescue kit, and there’d be gauze rolls for bandages in it. I’m not really supposed to take things from it, but all’s fair in love and war, and it would be easy to replace them.

I had Vinyl lie belly-up on the bed and wound gauze many times around each of her forepasterns. Then I pulled her legs up beyond her head and lashed them solidly it to the headboard with more turns of gauze. It was awkward work, entailing a lot of shifting and bouncing around on the bed, and Finey Jr. had come out too, bumping into Vinyl’s mane or face each time I need to switch sides. She didn’t complain, just lay back with a content smile on her muzzle, as if being clumsily tied to beds was her favorite thing ever. Perhaps it was.

For her hind legs I had planned something of the same kind, gauze wound around the pasterns and pulled out towards the bedposts, but when I tried that and pulled at the gauze strip, the whole spool came sliding right off her hoof. The second time around I found a better way, first tying a length of gauze to the head-end bedpost and then wrapping the loose end around Vinyl’s pastern in alternating directions in a kind of self-locking knot. I found myself thinking about contour integrals and whether a pony’s leg ought to count as a pole or a branch point.

With all four legs done, she was lying upside down with her hind legs pulled up and to the side, hooves level with her head – and her marehood spread wide and open to the room, moist with some secretion that smelled somewhat like Cinna, her clit poking out between the folds when she breathed out. I couldn’t do anything about her horn, but . . . hmm? There was this pony we rescued once who had a –

I stood up and got out a pillowcase from my linen bin, and laboriously pulled it over Vinyl’s head, covering her face and mane. I tied the two bottom corners together in a loose knot to make the opening snug around her neck.

“This is not too tight, is it?”

“No.” It was the only thing she’d said since I began tying her up.

“Say ah.” I wound one last strip of gauze around her fabric-encased head, forcing part of the material in between her jaws and keeping her mouth open while functioning as a kind of external gag. For a moment I worried whether that was too rough – but then again she had done worse to me and thought I would like that, so presumably she’d be okay with this. In any case, she didn’t struggle or show any distress otherwise, so I supposed it was okay.

Stepping back to take stock of my work, I was struck by how it didn’t look like Vinyl at all, with her big blue mane out of sight and tucked into a green-striped pillowcase. On impulse I fetched another one and stuffed her tail into that, completing the illusion of nameless-white-pony.

Now for the ‘fuck her silly’ part. I wasn’t at all sure how to achieve that, but a bit of foreplay to begin with couldn’t be all wrong. I decided to leave her marehood for later and instead started nuzzling around her teats. Cinna had seemed to like it when I bit down gently on a teat and pulled a little – but even though the cadence of Vinyl’s breathing did become a bit quicker when I tried that, she didn’t make any sounds. Oh well, worth a try.

I nuzzled my way forward along her belly, licking a trail through her soft underfur. Her ribs worked up and down beneath my lips as she breathed, sometimes abruptly stopping for half a second before starting again. At least I was having some effect on her.

Past her chest, the path to her face and ears was blocked by the pillowcase, so I changed plans and moved to one of her hind hooves instead, stretched into the air not far from her head. When I started nuzzling at the underside of the hoof, her leg twitched jerkily, and I steadied it with my forehooves while I drew a big wet lick around the frog of her hoof. She gave a series of short grunts of protest or pleasure; I hoped it was the latter.

Then down along the leg: cannon, hock, stifle, buttock, and then I was back at her marehood, convulsing slowly, a trail of fluid trickling down towards her tail. I gave it a tentative lick – and was suddenly vividly reminded of being tied to Tavi’s bed, Vinyl grinding that marehood against my face, demanding to be suckled. It must be something in the taste. Somehow the memory made me fully stiff, and I knew I’d have to finish off soon.

“Ready now?”

“Mhmm mmhmm hm hm!”

Was that a yes or a no? It sounded angry. I looked up towards her head. “Is there anything too tight?”

She shook her head violently.

“Okay, so you’re ready?”

She nodded.

I raised myself up and got my cock positioned in front of her entry and pushed in. Ahh! I folded out my wings and wrapped them around her hind legs, pulling back for a second thrust. And another, and another – but after all the preparations that was all I needed, and I came majorly, at least a dozen pumps.

She had told me she wanted me to be ‘brutal’, so I kept lying on top of her after I came, catching my breath, feeling the warmth of her body. It felt nice and tranquil; it’s a pity mares don’t like it. I almost fell asleep like that, but woke up with a start and decided she had probably had enough.

As soon as I had her head free, she helped me the rest of the way with her magic. Getting a pony out of bondage is a lot quicker that tying her up in the first place. She sat up, rubbing her stifles. I tried in vain to read her expression.

“So, how was it?” I found myself blurting. Yes, I know that’s a horribly pathetic thing that you should never need to ask. I did anyway.

She started smiling, but the smile turned into a giggle, and the giggle turned into a snicker, and she tilted over backwards on the bed, having a laughing fit.

“Finey, I do like you a lot, and really, thanks for the effort – but that was the vanillaest sex I’ve had in years. I couldn’t even struggle because I was afraid of sliding free of those bandage-ties.”

I had stood up, trying to think of a direction to flee in. My room isn’t really big enough for that. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

She stopped laughing and pulled gently on my tail with her magic. “No, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I don’t have a lot of tact, do I? Never really learned that.”

“I guess not.” I let her drag me back to the bed and sat down again, looking away from her.

I felt her bouncing around on the bedsprings, and then she was up next to me, hugging me from behind. “Nopony said it has to be perfect right away. How ’bout we try it your way instead? What do you want?”

I hadn’t thought much about that. “To make you happy?” I chanced.

She giggled again, more sympathetically this time. “That’s . . . kind of sweet, but you’ll never make a proper top with that attitude.”

“Well, can you teach me?”

“I can try.”

Author's Note

Thanks to Jonny5300394 for helpful prereading comments.