The Decision of the Court

You stand on the balcony of the Ponyville public library, watching the skies for her. You've always wondered why a princess like her uses a balloon to get around, when she is not only a fine flyer with her powerful Allicorn wings, but also the access to the royal carriage of her beloved aunt. Just one of the many things about her you never understood. She's faced the forces of darkness countless times, been to the tree of harmony and received an artifact from it, and she has a map of all of the known Equestrian world.

Yet her castle is a public place, her "council" members consist of her friends, and what important political action is there in making two feuding families in the back waters of the countryside friends. You shuffle that last thought away as you shake your head that's been adorned with the gilded golden quicksilver and moonstone helm. Its elven craftsmanship a testament to yourself.

You are a high elf, of their dominion on The Isle of Ordon. Your skin is a creamy yellow like butter, your ears as sharp as any mer's. Your eyes are a deep shade of blue, they can be as inviting as a lake on a crisp spring day, or as fierce as the aldmeri sea when there is a storm on it. You are quite young for a high elf. Having just been declared an adult by those..."human" standards but far from anything more than a mere fledgling by your people's.

What's a great and respectable being like you doing serving...no babysitting the youngest of the Equestrian Royal house? Some moons ago, you're people lead a campaign of conquest across all of Equestria. At first this meant simply holding a meeting to discuss annexing Equestria to Ordon in a sort of alliance between them, but your people never settle for less. You were tasked with the honor of assassinating the princesses. A bit of anthrax in Princess Celestia's tea, A little nightmare that Princess Luna wouldn't wake up from if she didn't wake up at all, and a good old fashioned elven arrow in Princess Twilight's head. Something kept you from letting fly that arrow when she and the other Princesses had gathered on the balcony of Canterlot Castle. The tension in both the bowstring and the air was so thick it clouded every thought you'd had at the time, you just couldn't do it.

Maybe it was having been in the city getting close to the royal society, only to hear all those tales from Princess Twilight herself. That even as a royal, she was no different than anyone else in her world, quite different than the way the Aldmer ran things. Back home you had taken this position in a desire to prove to the other young-lings that you where capable of doing something. After all you weren't very skilled in the arcane by high elf standards at least. As far intellect went, you were smart enough to cruise through school, but no university of the arcane or philosophy would accept you, but when that elven bow was in your hands and the arrows knocked and ready, you could hit three bulls eyes in a three minute interval each. The dagger was your weapon of choice in lieu of any sword or ax. A silently slit throat more satisfying than any direct bloodshed, just how the elves preferred to fight.

It wasn't long after showing this prowess to the guards that you were transferred to a division of the elven army that specialized in assassinations. By extension, it was you who had been hand picked to take out the royal family and plunge the Equestrians into dismay without their leadership to guide them. Alas that was not your ultimate fate, for your hesitation to carry out what you felt was your destiny cost you dearly. The guards were on you almost instantly and you where thrown in chains and locked up in the darkest depths of the castle. Your people had forsaken you, they denied any relation to your attempt being tied to the mer/equestrian political climate at the time. You were brought before the Princesses in irons and emaciated from lack of food, but your appearance didn't make Princess Celestia any pleased.

She and her sister Luna and former protege Twilight Sparkle stood high above you on their pedestals, the stained glass windows behind them casting respective velvet, golden, and lilac lights down on them. Celestia herself didn't look angry, just disappointed, like a mother seeing her child being punished by the law where she had failed.

"Your name please?" She asked craning her neck down to your face. Her light purple eyes looking into your elven ones.

"Annon, your majesty." You said shaking like a leaf as her gaze never broke yours.

"Come now, no need for secrets between us, I know it may not seem it but I want you to see me as somepony who wants to help you, in fact the way you've been treated is not something I condone. I'm sorry about the way my guards have been treating you. If it was in my hooves you'd have been well feed and though still locked up it'd be in better quarters than the dungeons."

"No your majesty, my name really is Annon." You tell her, it's a name given to foundling elf children that are never named by any caretakers. She nods her head in understanding and she asks you more questions. They range from tidbits of your past to more about yourself, never once changing her attitude, but listening to every detail attentively and with intrigue.

"So you. Couldn't find it in your heart to kill me?" Twilight asks you stepping down from her pedestal and trotting up to you, her deep violet eyes that matched her coat gazing at you not even remotely angry at you for what you've done.

"I couldn't hurt someone as...good and pure as you Princess Twilight." You tell her as you take in every detail of her. Her violet soft and shiny coat, to her luscious and soft mane. She was so beautiful.

"Princess Celestia? Have your reached a verdict?" Twilight asked her mentor as she circled around you, almost as if she was measuring you up. Just as you had done a bit of too her a moment ago. Celestia looked over her scrolls and notes she'd been taking on the trial, before clearing her throat and...smiling at you?

"Annon of the high elf kingdom of the Isle of Ordon? Do you take responsibility for your actions past, present, and future?" She said as Twilight took her seat beside her.

"Yes your majesty, I am at your mercy and the judgement of the sovereign nation of Equestria, you may sentence me to whatever you think I deserve, my neck to the guillotine or noose, or servitude to the court as a slave." You saw getting on bended knee to her ready for even the guards to strike you down in a hail of arrows but they never come.

"I sentence you to be the personal assistant in servitude to my former pupil Princess Twilight Sparkle, you are to do what ever she says and protect her, wait on her and cater to her every whim, do you understand the sentence I have come to and the verdict?" She says with a glow of her horn making your chains vanish and your prisoner rags to be changed into a flowing violet robe, with a silky red scarf around your shoulders, Twilight's cutie mark on a patch on the shoulder, and soft burgundy and gold trimmed velvet shoes replacing the wooden clogs with their canvas ankle fastenings, shoes meant to twist your ankle if you tried to run fast.

You tug at your new soft garb in a bit of confussion at her decision to not only spare an ex assassin like yourself, but to let you get close to her as an assistant. "Why?" You ask her.

"I see in your self and I see a soul that never wanted to walk this dark and terrible path, so I'm giving you a chance, you are to serve my formerfaithful student as a means of your penance for the actions. Do this and your past will be atoned for. Now go with Twilight to her home at the New. Beginnings Library." She said dismissing the court and leaving you with her smiling at you with a blush.

"I...I hope you can not find this awkward or anything." You say to her as a big puffy violet velvet hat with a scarlet ribbon perches atop ypur head.

"I forgive you...my new friend." She says placing a hoof under your chin and smiling at you softly.

Now it's the late afternoon some weeks later, you watch the sky over Canterlot for Twilight's balloon. Anxious for her to return, in the time you've been spending with het, you've grown to really like her..maybe even...love her. She has no idea you feel about her that way though, and you want only to change that when she returns home. A smile comes to your lips as you see her hot air balloon over the horizon and you ready the line to dock her to the treetops.

Tonight, you'll tell her.