The Death by Joissance et Plasir Sulfrueux

Whoever would have scrutinized the steps to glory would have found them frayed and worn out by the regular stomping of all those who, by dint, name or wit, had succeeded in climbing them, engraving their name in the great peristyle of History, and, thus, had eventually achieved immortality. This was the meed of a most sedulous labor, of most meticulous researches and of a life of sacrifice, the privilege of a few great ponies.

Honeysun was nor great, nor rigorous, nor much in love with hardships, but he had figured out quite early in his life that collective memory was working both ways, and had always since strived to be a part of it, be it in the grisliest manner. Haunted by an oppressive obsession for celebrity and an unquenchable knack for unilateral flings, he indulged himself into more and more molestations, prowling forest paths or gloomy streets, unceasingly moving. His fame quickly overturned all the country, waxing as the infamous pony grew in boldness. Guarded, it seemed, by a lucky star whose salvaging interventions he often praised, he repeatedly escaped, sometimes by the skin of his teeth, the numerous shakedowns lead by the police to capture him.

Ponies everywhere double-locked their doors and shutters, balked at the prospect of walking alone, distrusted lone travelers; some unfortunate stonings were even reported, after which there was a letup in the series of misdeeds. But soon a new outbreak elicited, more than ever, terror in all minds. Nopony seemed able to bust Honeysun, who galloped each night from here to there, settled down in inhabited ruins or shanties to muster his forces in view of his next assault, masqueraded himself under blankets in order to blot his orange coat. He mimicked perfectly disgust and hate when, sneaking in the sheeple and visiting the inns, he cursed himself, roaring “What a monster!” before treating everypony around and become, for the span of a single evening, the best friend of both barflies and gullible barmaids.

Nopony could arrest him, because nopony knew where he would go next or what he was looking for, and, to be honest, he ignored it too. He raped, then read the newspapers, savoring his celebrity silently, then vanished, and nopony could foretell where he would reappear. Sometimes, the shocked victims found bouquets lying close to them, as if, after having taken, he had wished to give back. It wasn’t, of course, neither romantic nor symbolic, but it served as closing periods to each of the paragraphs the obnoxious pony was writing in History, raising from mere delinquent to wanted criminal, major scourge and finally legend. A legend whose conclusion was reached when, rending the clothes of his final victim, Honeysun discovered a full-fledged penis tucked between the dangling hind legs and, taken aback, was unexpectedly conked from behind.

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Canterlot’s tribunal, though being the largest of all Equestria, was not big enough to shelter all the plaintiffs and their families, the witnesses and the lawyers, so it was decided first to instigate a turnover for the benches, and, next, that the key points of the future trial would be forwarded outside through repeater-pegasi posted at the various windows. When the cart carrying the defendant to the booth of the accused parted the throng, sundry abuses flew, and the royal guards had to recourse to truncheons in order to restrain the mob—although they could not stop the spittles. Honeysun answered those skirmishes by a cocky, overbearing smile, enjoying the nimbus of a glory nurtured by the hate and the grudge that his mere presence was eliciting. The countless flashes of the cameras did not stop until he went through the portal, closely watched by a detachment of guards. There, enjoying the gloom and the silence of the corridor, Honeysun stiffened himself to face his destiny. He would doubtlessly be jailed the rest of his life in some cage or maybe put to death, although such a punishment had become uncommon over unpopularity; in every aspect, though, he had already won the day, and would become a martyr. The world would remember him as one of the most terrible criminals of all time, he would be brandished as a bogeyman to prod the foals into eating their meals, and nopony would challenge him this deserved title for a long, long while; at least, that’s what he was surmising. His only regret was that he had forgotten to tally his deeds.

“Three hundred and seventy-seven victims,” announced the gray-coated, square-bespectacled judge-mare, closing her file with a deft, almost theatrical movement. She looked daggers at the accused, who withstood the blow with a feigned surprise.

“The noose!” yelled someone in the audience.

“Quiet!” snapped the judge-mare, smashing her mallet on the desk.

“Honeysun, you were subpoenaed to this court in order to account for your appalling crimes. Do you understand?”

“I do, your highness,” answered the orange pony.

“This trial is about to begin and a long series of people will relate what they have seen or been through–at least, for those who are still alive,” the judge-mare carried on. “Do you understand?”

“I do, your highness.”

“You were allowed the assistance of a lawyer, yet you waived this right. Do you intend to defend yourself by your own means?”

“I don’t intend to defend myself at all,” replied Honeysun, stifling a smirk that would have been ill-construed. The eyes of the judge-mare briefly ventured above the edge of her glasses, betraying a mite of dismay.

“This trial will last several days. During that period, there will be regular recesses, but you won’t be allowed to leave this tribunal and will sleep in a neighboring cell. Do you understand why?” she recited almost mechanically.

“I am afraid. There are so many criminals that would kill me if I egressed,” said the accused with a phony shiver of fright.

“Scumbag! Turd!” cried somebody in the plaintiffs’ section, immediately echoed by other ponies around.

“Silence! Quiet!” roared the judge-mare, rapping the desk with her hammer. She rubbed her eyes while the ruckus settled. He had been spot on, that was the very motive why he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the place; few knew it.

The jury would probably sentence him to death, a death that would be related and commented in all the country, engraving the name of Honeysun in the Equestrian myths. If he pleaded insanity, he would maybe end up in a pen for perpetuity, but no doubt that he would also become a legend and an epitome in the mind of young thieves of saddlebags or petty poultry bootleggers. No matter how this would end, it would be a victory for nopony, barring him, and this very dreary reality was sickening the judge-mare in her bones.

The trial begun and the plaintiffs, with a lump in their throat, narrated their story as quietly as possible, spreading tons of snot on the ground and using, regrettably, oodles of coarse words. With each gruesome detail, the audience, terrified, shuddered and gazed at Honeysun, who never concealed his elation, licking his lips self-consciously, snorting at the uncountable admonishments of the guard who held the hefty fetter entwined around his neck. Many incidents frequently interrupted the course of the trial, wherefore reinforcements had to be summoned to aid the regular platoon.

After some days, the defense had the floor.

“Honeysun,” begun the judge-mare, “why did you rape Glittering Eggplant?”

“She was a real dish!” exclaimed the orange pony. “I couldn’t miss such an opportunity!”

As mechanical as an automaton, the unicorn-clerk jotted down what the accused had replied, and beckoned the gray mare when it was done.

“Honeysun,” carried on the judge-mare in a neutral tone, “why did you rape Haybale?”

“She was so ugly–” explained Honeysun. He could not finish: hysterical wails and bleats in the crowd engulfed his voice. Hammer, silence, continue. “I had to punish her for sullying the scenery!” concluded Honeysun with an assertive nod. More mewling, hammer, silence, clerk, continue.

Suddenly, the big portal opened and, raising her head, the judge-mare, immediately followed by all the audience, beheld the Sun deity herself, Celestia, and her sister Luna, enter and politely beg for a seat. The alicorn of the night was carrying a full copy of the testimonies and procedure chits, neatly packed in a thick log of several hundreds sheets.

“A trial of such importance justifies the deputation of power in the hooves of the various ministers for a few hours,” said Celestia, breaking the hush.

Incredulous, Honeysun was gawping at both alicorns, who glanced quickly back at him before diving in the perusal of their notes. He couldn’t believe he was that lucky. Never, since an unfathomable past, had a trial be blessed with the presence of royalties.

“Honeysun,” resumed the judge-mare, “why did you rape Strandballoon?”

“She had cheated in the May Queen contest!” said Honeysun.

“She was chomping.”

“She was snoring.”

“She has crossed the road without looking around. That’s not an example for the youth.”

“She breathed my air away.”

“She merely existed.”

In Honeysun’s jargon, almost every action possible during a lifetime was a pretext for rape. For each of those purported reasons, the clerk scrawled a line; the judge-mare had given up any hope to understanding, and she was churning out questions, sticking strictly to the protocol.

“Honeysun, what do you have to say in defense?”

“It’s not me, I’ve done nothing!” replied Honeysun.

The judge-mare almost exploded in her armchair.

“It’s not–what? You just acknowledged all your crimes! Can’t you be serious? Do you realize you’ll be put to death?”

“Indeed.”

“And that’s the way you feel about it? How in Equestria could such a plague be born? Don’t you fear any punishment?” rasped the judge-mare almost hysterically, putting aside her hammer, lest she saw it flying inadvertently toward the head of the accused.

But the voice of Celestia cut abruptly in. “If by lewdness he has sinned, then by lewdness he should expiate”, said the alicorn, as she stood up and strode forth. “We heard the transcript of all the wicked acts he committed, and are well aware of all the distress he caused to innocents. If he desires doom, then doom he shall meet, since he has refused any defense. Thus, on the ground of the oldest laws of Equestria, and as granted by my rank, I sentence him to death. But not a mundane death; I call for the ultimate, the most ignominious one.”

Having reached the rostrum, she ascended the few steps and wheeled. “I call for the death by joissance et plasir sulfrueux!” she thundered. The crowd wavered, then began to whisper inquisitively.

“He shall be locked in the Eastern tower of the palace,” commanded the alicorn, as the scrivener was scrawling hurriedly, “in the Hall of the lofty windows, under the attic, where he shall loiter together with us during a full week. He shall eat the most toothsome and dainty gourmet meals, and drink the rarest and finest of all wines, until satiation, or even more. There shall be music, and lectures from old books. He shall wallow from dusk to dawn in precious and lush cushions, and no desire of his shall be unfulfilled, be they not of a prurient nature. May his eyes, whenever and wherever they should look, behold no other than luxury, marvels and wonders innumerable, until the end of this spell, when we will carry out the true sentence, a death administered in the midst of the highest voluptuousness, driven by delicacies uncounted and cravings unceasingly roused but never slaked.

“However, he shall not be allowed to reach his genitals with his legs, even though he shall hanker after it, and, to enforce this rule, we shall guard the key of a most stringent chastity belt.

“Now pronounce this sentence, judge-mare, and register it in the final acts of the trial. This court is now dismissed.”

The hush that had fallen on the hall went on a few seconds. But then, as a common conscience that would suddenly come back to its senses, unable to believe what it just had heard, the ponies in the plaintiffs’ pews started to hoot, to bellow their anger and their incomprehension, to curse the alicorn who, accompanied by her sister, was now ambling silently and sedately toward the exit of the high court. Stricken, the judge-mare reached for her hammer and smashed it frantically against the desk, bawling for calm and silence, commanding that the accused, who was watching the scrum with a conceited snigger, be lead back to his lockup, until further notice. When the hall was at last voided, after many difficulties, the gray mare drew a flask full of brandy out, swallowed a few gulps of it and let a tear drip from her eyes, asking herself what had Justice become.

The very next day, all the newspapers from Canterlot to Stalliongrad, from Fillydelphia to Ponyville headlined on the shameful provocation of the sovereign against the helpless victims of a such a terrible series of crimes of flesh, the unseemly whim of a princess whose behavior was less than unsavory, the scandal of the perverted leader who would share table and bed with the obnoxious one; to this general bashing and trashing, Celestia did not answer. Many a letter was sent to the postal service of the palace, expressing grudge, incomprehension, disappointment and rage; to these letters, Celestia did not answer. Defying the numerous guards posted to cordon off the place, some bold ponies demonstrated right under the windows of the royal castle, before being quickly and firmly shoved away by brawny stallions; to these desperate appeals, Celestia did not answer. Of course, in the span of a few days, everypony was aware of the strange aloofness of the alicorn, and the land fussed about it. But solid answers, nopony got.

Those who rushed to the various libraries hoping to find exactly what the verdict meant faced a real gap in the history of the kingdom. Very scant were the references to this sentence, as if the whole world had wished to rub it out of existence. It was then put forward that this was something wicked, a pretense, maybe a poisoning, but what kind of sentence would allow a criminal to relish during one week amidst the most delightful delicacies? Was death through ultimate pleasure an equitable sentence in view of all the suffering imposed on the victims of the rogue? The rumors were seething while Honeysun, although somewhat frightened by the ignorance he shared with all the other ponies, was jubilating. His fame was waxing, swelling and swelling up to a point he never dared imagine, and he was figuring himself living the last week of his existence in a magnificent paradise, his life ending in a climax of ecstasy.