Just Another Day in Ponyville
One Heck of a Case
by iisaw
Her Highness of Friendship, the Exalted Princess Twilight Sparkle, was having a case of the grumps.
It all started out with her morning coffee being burnt. The beans had been over-roasted, giving the brew a bit of a charcoal-y taste which she found mildly unpleasant. As troubles go, it was fairly minor, and Twilight tried to compensate by adding just a bit more sugar to mask the taste. But it wasn't as if she could forget about it and hope for a better cup the next day. No, the beans were undoubtedly from the new big bag that had been delivered the day before, and that meant that her coffee would have the unpleasant taste for at least the next two weeks if she didn't address the problem.
A simple note to her chatelain would be sufficient to correct the situation, but would the fallout be worth it? An ordinary pony could send back a cup of coffee or a bag of beans with little to no fuss, but Twilight had no trouble predicting the flurry of apologies, remonstrations, and over-compensations that would result if Her Exalted Highness expressed displeasure with her morning cuppa.
Twilight Sparkle sighed. Princess Problems, she thought to herself, being ever so slightly smug about being able to think in properly capitalized italics. She finally decided that she would suddenly conceive a desire for a different kind of coffee that would require a minimum amount of scurrying about and let her whimsical nature become the focus of any displeasure, instead of the inevitable placement of blame on some poor pony who hadn't paid enough attention to the proper roasting of coffee beans, which was really a rather simple task, and should have been checked by a supervisor at the very least, seeing as how....
Twilight's chain of thought rattled on for a few more moments before her secretary, Periwinkle, came in with a paper floating in her magic. "Your Highness? There is a matter of adjudication that needs your attention."
"Court is scheduled to begin in forty-three minutes, can't it wait until then?" Twilight would have been glad for an excuse to escape from her unsatisfactory breakfast, but a schedule was a schedule, and being too early was nearly as bad as being tardy.
"Uhmn... perhaps you'd like to take a look at this now, ma'am?" Periwinkle caught her lower lip between her teeth and passed the paper over to the princess.
Twilight took up the page in her own magic and peered down at it. "Lyra Heartstrings petitions the crown for a judgment in the matter of a contract settlement," she read, then looked up at Periwinkle. "This seems like a perfectly ordinary piece of business to me."
"Well yes but..." the secretary paused and swallowed nervously. "You might want to take a glance at the entity named in the petition."
The princess did so, and spat out a mouthful of her slightly over-roasted coffee. "Lord Hades of the Underworld!?!"
= = =
"Lyra, if this is a joke, I'll..."
"It's not, and I don't care what you threaten me with! If I went all the way to Tartarus to get her back, do you think I'll..."
"Whoa there! Back up. Tartarus? You actually went to Tartarus?"
"Well, yeah. Not through the lower gates, but..."
Twilight had a hard time believing it, but as she'd been there herself it was a simple matter to check Lyra's story. "Cave in the Badlands?"
"Yep."
"Purifying spell to get by the Vapors?"
"Oxygen mask."
"River Styx?"
"Inflatable life raft."
"Guardian of the..."
"Doggy treats. Y'know the crunchy kind with the soft center? He loves 'em."
Twilight filed that information away for possible later use. It would be wise to have a backup in case there were no balls or squeaky toys available. "Okay, you've convinced me. That leads to why you went there."
Lyra blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to fight back tears. "I went to get Bon Bon back! I made a deal with..."
"Wait, wait!" Twilight put pressure against the bridge of her muzzle, hoping to stave off the incipient tension headache. If only she could get an extra, non-burnt cup of coffee.... "What was Bon Bon doing there?"
"She..." Lyra let loose a sob. "She died, Twilight! I couldn't stand the thought of life without her so I went to get her back! Hades was going to boot me out, so I played for him. I just made up a song on the spot about how much she meant to me, and how empty my life would be without her... and he... he got all sad and said I could take her back!"
Twilight was openly gaping at Lyra by that point. "So...?" As Bon Bon wasn't present, Twilight was fairly certain what the problem was.
Lyra wiped away her tears and said, "He made one condition, and I followed it exactly! But he cheated! He said..."
Twilight held up a hoof to stop her. "Hold on. If this is a dispute about the fulfillment of a verbal contract, I'm going to have to get the other party's input at this point."
Lyra groaned. "Are we going to have to go all the way back down there? Because it will take..."
"No, no, just give me a minute or two to get a piece of chalk and some black candles," Twilight grumbled.
A few minutes later, after Twilight had marked out a rune-inscribed pentagram on the floor, lit the candles, and chanted the required words in a long-dead language, there was a dull WHUMP, and an oily black cloud burst into being above the chalk marks. Out of the cloud strode a nightmarish being. Its face was a nearly bare skull, writhing with worms, beetles, and other vermin. Its hooves were grown out into curved yellowish blades that dropped foul-smelling flakes as it walked. Its body was emaciated and covered in dripping sores and wounds.
Twilight rolled her eyes and said crisply, "Lord Hades, would you mind assuming a form more suitable to court proceedings?"
The repulsive thing pulled in on itself and roiled in a decidedly non-Euclidian way, resulting in a gaunt gray stallion that could have passed (at a bit of a distance) for a living being.
"My apologies, princess! I didn't know it was you calling," Hades said. "And by 'court proceedings,' do you mean..." The Lord of the Underworld glanced around and his eyes fell on the only other occupant of the throne room. "You," he said in flat tone.
Lyra glared at him. "Yeah, me. Now you're going to regret..."
"Please!" Twilight interrupted. "Let's keep this official and orderly. Lord Hades, Lyra has already told me her account, and now I'd like you to give me your version of this matter."
"She played on my sympathy!"
"I played on my lyre!"
"Order in the court!" Twilight shouted. She had always wanted to do that, and was secretly pleased, despite keeping her Stern But Fair expression firmly in place. "Lord Hades, please continue with the facts of the matter and leave the interpretation up to me."
Hades grimaced and waved a hoof in Lyra's direction. "This mare barged into Dis a couple of days ago and demanded that I return her friend to the land of the living. I told her that even a yearling ought to understand that's not how things work, and refused, of course. I had sent for a couple of shades to escort her to the surface, when she started playing that damnable instrument of hers. She wailed on and on about how much she missed her friend, and how unfair it was, and all that. I've heard it all millions of times before, of course... but..."
"Go on," Twilight urged him.
"Well..." Hades' sour expression indicated how reluctant he was to admit to being moved by a mere pony. "It was a fairly good song, and I felt some emotion..."
"You were blubbering like a baby!"
"You arrogant mortal!" Hades bellowed. "I was not! The Great Furnaces of the Pit produce a lot of smoke and it..."
"Oh, sure..."
"ORDER!" Twilight snapped out in the Royal Voice. Both parties jumped and fell into silence. "You'll have your turn Lyra. Hades, please continue."
Hades cleared his throat. "In a moment of extreme kindness and generosity, I..."
"Don't even try playing me, Hades," Twilight said softly.
The Lord of the Underworld cleared his throat again. "Then, simply, Your Highness, I agreed to let Lyra take her friend back to the world of the living on the condition that Bon Bon would follow well behind her and not make a sound, and that Lyra would not look back until they had left my realm."
Twilight pressed her hoof to her muzzle again. "Really? Why, might I ask?"
"I felt a bit... disrespected. And I wanted a show of trust on her part to make up for it. Nothing wrong with that." The dread lord sounded distinctly petulant. "And she broke the agreement! Bon Bon was still inside the cave mouth when Lyra looked back!"
Lyra couldn't keep quiet any longer. "You said I wasn't supposed to look back until I was out! I was out! You cheated!"
"I did not! I said, '...until "you" are outside my realm...' Plural 'you!' That means both of you, so you broke the agreement. I didn't cheat!"
"How was I supposed to know that?"
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse, right Princess?"
"Private contracts don't operate under the same strictures as laws do," Twilight growled.
"But..."
"Oh, come on!"
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, slammed her hoof down on the arm of her throne and shouted, "Enough!"
Both musician and dark lord opened their mouths again, but Twilight directed a glare at them both that was so heavy with the promise of under-caffeinated unpleasantness that they immediately subsided. The princess looked aside, directing her gaze out a window in the direction of the new coffee shop that had recently opened near Ponyville Town Hall, and sighed. She scrunched up her nose in thought for a brief moment and then turned to Hades.
"Was Bon Bon present when you made the deal?"
"Uhmn... no, I sent for her afterwards, but I told her about the deal before they both left."
"Did you specifically tell her that they both had to be outside before Lyra looked back?"
Hades squirmed a bit. It was nothing like the squirming he could have managed if he'd been wearing his vermin-infested form, but it got the point across. "Uhmn... not exactly..."
Twilight nodded. "I think what we have here is a case that hinges on reasonable expectations. Because you didn't make yourself clear, and Bon Bon was not a direct participant in the verbal contract, I am finding for the plaintiff." Twilight smiled down at them both. They just stared at her.
Twilight's smile faltered a bit and she said, "That means that you, Lord Hades, must release Bon Bon from the underworld. And I don't need to add a long list of qualifying statements and strictures, do I?"
Hades sighed. "No, Twilight... no zombie stuff, I promise. I'd just like to be done with this."
Lyra did a silent little victory dance, but wisely chose to refrain from shouting, "In your face!" at the Dread Lord of the Realm Beneath.
"Good! Next time, I strongly recommend to you both that you take the time to put any such contract into writing and run it by competent legal counsel before signing. Lawyers are trained experts and can help you both avoid unnecessary..."
Hades reached into a swirl of magic that suddenly appeared at his side and dragged out a rather twitchy cream-colored mare with a blue and pink mane. "Here! Are we done?"
"Uh... well, I suppose so," Twilight said, "I forgot to bring a gavel to bang, but..."
Hades trotted into the swirl of magic, which popped out of existence, leaving only smudged chalk lines and puddles of black wax behind.
Lyra and Bon Bon shared a fervent embrace, and then turned to Twilight to give her their emotional words of thanks. Twilight nodded politely through it all, wisely deciding not to point out that she had just made a simple legal decision based on a technicality, and that if Hades had been a bit more careful with his wording, things would have gone very differently. It was nice when the law lined up with what was good and right.
Before the two grateful mares could leave the castle, a final question occurred to Twilight. "Excuse me, Bon Bon, but could I ask exactly how you died? And... if it's not too personal, why did you end up in the underworld? You're a nice pony, as far as I know. Everypony likes you and you don't do much more than make specialty confections. I would have expected you to have gone to the Summerlands."
Bon Bon froze in place. Then she slowly turned back to face the princess. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you the things that led me to ending up... down there. Suffice it to say that I'm going to lead a very virtuous life from now on."
Twilight was nonplused. "Can't tell me?"
Bon Bon nodded. "Royal Secrets Act, inactive agent clause." She made a subtle motion with one fore hoof, which made Lyra frown in puzzlement, but which made Twilight's eyes go wide in surprised recognition.
Bon Bon turned away again, then paused, sighed, and turned back. "But I guess I really owe you, princess, so I'll just say this: I ought to have known to keep my cover identity separate from my work for the crown. Physically separate, I mean. Because marzipan and cyanide? They smell exactly alike."
= = =
Author's Note
The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice always did bug me just a bit.
Heaps of thanks to Majora, Jordanis, and Sable Tails for the last-minute editing help!
