"When one truly thinks about it," declared the unicorn sitting in the witness stall, "everything I did could be seen as a fully reasonable course of action."
The reactions to this calm statement could best be described as 'mixed'. The defense attorney, who had spent hours arguing with her client about the simple wisdom of not testifying, carefully jammed both forehooves into her bench: this helped serve to keep them away from her face. In the viewing gallery, six of the spectators displayed a traveling series of winces: it started on the far left, quickly moved down the line, and had to do some convoluted gymnastics before successfully landing upon scales. The jury, which had treated the trial as an occasion for some rather quick learning, leaned forward as a group and kept a very close watch on the blue eyes.
"As well as being rather logical," the mare added, following that up with a small sniff and near-compulsive adjustment of the fabric's neckline. Admittedly, this was something which had to be done by hoof, as placing a carefully-fitted metal restraining cone over a prisoner's horn was something which the legal system treated as mere common sense. The mare was currently perceiving it as something of a cruelly-inflicted indignity, although one which was nowhere near as bad as the punishment which was already being agonizingly enacted by her outfit.
Really, there was just about nothing which could be done with orange that bright, especially when one was limited to the supplies which could be improvised from what was found in a holding cell -- and it was clear that a justice system dedicated to actual Justice would have allowed the unfairly imprisoned to choose something which coordinated with their fur. Still, a few artistic tooth rips around the edges had at least presented the illusion of more refined scalloping, and the patches she'd thus removed had allowed her to do something about the harshness of the drape --
"Logical," said the prosecutor, at least on the third attempt. He was rather new to his profession, he had never previously been involved with either a celebrity case or one which was so clearly impossible to lose, and so it was taking something of an effort to make his words intelligible. There was a certain need to keep swallowing back the drool.
"Yes," Rarity stated. "There are statutes within the law which argue that certain behaviors, which would normally be treated as violations, can be forgiven if the cause was sufficient." Another sniff. "This, of course, is why it is necessary for me to testify. For if the peers who have so kindly gathered within the jury box do not hear the full story of my plight, then how can they perceive the need for my actions?"
Twelve designated peers (plus four alternates) responded by craning their necks that much more forward.
"She's dead." It was a rather definitive declaration, although it was an unusually soft one for the pegasus: the bailiffs frowned on audible audience commentary, and the enforced timeouts in the hallway had put Rainbow on decibel notice. "She is so dead..."
"Equestria doesn't have the death penalty," the librarian instinctively lectured.
"They use the same outfit for the main prison, right?"
With an open note of worry, "I think so."
"And it's all she'll get to wear until her sentence is up?"
"Yes..."
Rainbow nodded, solemnly crossing her forelegs on the bench. "Suicide."
"Then please... do account for yourself," the prosecutor smiled. His horn's corona ignited, and a pocket square wiped some excess saliva away before it soaked into the fur of his chin. "Now. Where did it begin?"
Rarity took a slow breath and in doing so, gave the jury what they wanted.
"Her eyelids jus' twitched again," Applejack groaned. "Ah swear that one on the third bench is keepin' count. Ah think there might be a bettin' pool. With an over/under. And 'over' is ahead..."
"The kitchen," Rarity replied, and licked some of her fur back into its normal grain: yes, it was crude, but did she have any other choice? "The violation began in my kitchen..."
In truth, she hadn't used her own pantry in several days. Part of that came from occupational hazards: the occupation was 'big sister,' the hazard was Sweetie, and the cleanup had still left her with a certain reluctance to enter the area for a while. Combined with a well-known propensity for missing meals because finishing the current design was clearly more important, being dragged (occasionally kicking, and screaming was generally an option) out of the Boutique to attend meals hosted by friends who had decided that 'starving artist' had never been intended as an end goal, followed by skipping breakfast because dinner had been held at the Acres, earth ponies ate more than unicorns and a mare had to watch her figure if she wanted anypony else to be doing the same...
It had been a few days, and now it was a night. She was tired after a long day... but it was the good kind of tired. Multiple customers had come into the shop and in a seldom-seen turn of events, the majority had left bits in her possession -- and done so for items she would ultimately retain. Not purchases, but the reliable seasonal dress rentals for the secondary school's Fall Formal, something which served as a warm-up act for the surge of traffic which would precede Hearth's Warming. Her till was half-full of coins passed over by the town's youth, the sketchbook had three fresh ideas in it and she'd finally found a potential use for that one small bin of toadstones.
She was happy, and expressed that contentment by gently nuzzling Opal's plush fur before attending to duty and feeding the cat first. But she was also tired, with eyesight bleary from long hours of staring at stitching. Her glasses had been left in the shop area, and so there were certain details which she missed upon going into the pantry for the first time. The truest signs blurred before her as she squinted towards labels and even when she trotted out again, it would have been almost impossible for weary ears to pick up on the faint sounds of tiny things being crunched beneath her hooves.
Soup: that was basic enough. A fine vegetable broth could be created in a relative hurry from basic stock: she quickly had a potful bubbling on the stovetop. But her body also needed carbohydrates, and so she'd taken a box of dry pasta from the pantry. It took longer to prepare than basic thin noodles, but it could also soak in the flavors of the liquid as it did so. Rarity's cookery skills weren't as advanced as she would have liked, she knew certain recipes were beyond her ability and any level of baked goods over 'pancake' was best left to Pinkie -- but she still felt that the best place to cook soup pasta was in the broth itself.
Her corona ignited, carefully opened the box and tipped the contents into the pot: her horn gave her the honor of being able to stand out of splash range. But it did no good to have a single mound of pasta emerging like a volcano from the center, and so light blue took up a ladle as she moved closer, setting the box down on the counter as she prepared to stir. Her tired state meant it landed unevenly, and she made a note to scoop the spill back in momentarily.
The pleasant scents of the broth drifted up to her as she approached. Another projection of energy twisted the stove's dial to a simmer setting: it would hardly do any good to have all the liquid boil away before cooking was complete. She could see little bits of onion dancing on the liquid's little bubbling waves, along with some surfacing pieces of celery and --
-- Rarity squinted.
Was that there before?
If it had been, she'd missed it. She was exceptionally careful in her choice of foodstuffs, and celery with little black spots on it would have been rejected for use. But she was also tired, and it was possible to overlook tiny details when staring through the lens of weariness.
All she could do was hope that it was a natural discoloration: just about anything else had probably already ruined the broth. But that required closer inspection, and so she set down the ladle for a moment, redirecting the corona bubble to lift the stalk away from the boiling liquid, bringing it close enough for detailed examination.
Little black spots. But they didn't seem to be embedded within the fibrous body of the vegetable itself: they were distinctly on the surface, and a pony who had more than a touch of rupophobia was very careful about washing off dirt.
Rarity sighed. Well, that's it. If soil got in, then the broth is ruined. There was still time to get into one of Ponyville's less expensive eateries --
-- the specks on the celery had a rather... regular shape. Nothing geometric: just a pattern which repeated over and over. The same shape, every time. That didn't happen with dirt, and she didn't understand how soil would have little threads stretching out to one side...
Three things happened, and did so within a period of two seconds.
She tried to squint a little more, lost focus for a moment and in doing so, peripheral vision glimpsed her countertop. A glisteningly-clean surface, lightly dusted with bits of spilled pasta and little black specks.
The specks were moving.
That realization forced her eyes into the sharpest focus of her life, and the only thing accomplished by that feat was the recognition that the specks had legs.
And then she felt the tiny things crawling between the strands of her fur.
"The prosecution," the judge lazily declared, "will refrain from attempting to try the defendant on charges which were dropped."
"But what about the sheer level of the disturbance!" the unicorn stallion argued. "This speaks to the defendant's obvious lack of control, and when you consider how many lives could have been disrupted --"
"-- none," Rarity interrupted. "Not among my neighbors, at any rate. If one lives in the vicinity of the Boutique, then one rapidly becomes accustomed to both the sound and nature of screams. Everypony living within the sonic radius quickly recognized a non-critical emergency and resumed whatever they had been doing prehoof."
She thoughtfully paused.
"Well," the mare mused, "everypony still living within that radius. For no truly apparent reason, there has been an unusual amount of residential turnover..."
"Mega-dead," Rainbow decided. "Ultra-dead."
"Following what I consider to be a perfectly natural expression of emotion," the designer continued, "I disposed of the soup through the most expedient means available, and you are also not able to charge me with breaking my own window. Especially as the splash zone's damage was limited to my own garden. And then, of course, I showered, because that is also a natural response, and regardless of what a certain Marigold Mare may argue in her attempts to permanently forfeit any chance at my vote, there is no criminal statute involved in emptying the water tower for the third time. But after that, I felt I should turn to yet another perfectly natural behavior --"
"...oh, don't," Fluttershy expertly whispered. "Rarity, please don't talk about --"
The white unicorn beamed. Both eyes twitched (with the betting pool count noted accordingly), and the first false lash slipped.
"-- asking for help from my friends."
Five ponies and one young dragon did their best to peer through the narrow doorway into the pantry. This involved some jamming, two pegasi competing for the limited airspace, and reptilian crests trying to work their way through a small forest of legs.
There were tipped-out boxes. Pasta had been spilled across several shelves: for contrast, the majority of the floor was occupied by rice. Little rolling pebbles of couscous constituted a slipping hazard. And all of it had been done in terror by a unicorn who was still shivering and twitching within the archway that led to the ramp, which was as close as she would let herself come to the army of black specks which were swarming across all of it. An army on the march, surveying a territory it had already conquered.
The baker was the first to sigh.
"Flour weevils," she regretfully announced. "Oh, Rarity, I'm so sorry..."
"Insects," the shaking unicorn forced out. "In my home. Pinkie, how did they get in..."
The baker carefully turned until she could face her friend, which took some rather awkward positioning of the neck and did horrible things to the curls. A worried gaze expertly evaluated the state of white fur and purple mane, including all the places where the elaborate twirls currently weren't.
"I don't think we should talk about that yet," the group's strongest empath decided. "But the name tells you a lot. They eat grains. Any grains, really. They're the reason most of the ingredients in Sugarcube Corner are stored in glass jars. Really really tightly sealed jars, because... well, you saw. They just.." Gentle blue eyes helplessly winced. "...spread out. They sort of work their way through the cracks in boxes, get their bodies under the lids. Sometimes they chew through. That can take a while, but -- you haven't cooked for days. They had the chance. Oh, and..." The wince intensified. "...we have to check your cans."
"Because," Rarity barely managed to voice, "they also eat through metal?"
"No," Pinkie quickly reassured her. "But they go under the labels. I think they nibble on the glue. Which doesn't shut their mouths, because it was already dry. Rarity, the first thing we have to do is get rid of them. Every last one, because if we miss two and they're a boy and a girl, there's going to be more later. And we have to make sure we get any eggs --"
It was almost a screech. "-- eggs?"
"They're bugs," Pinkie helplessly said. "They hatch. We have to get rid of all of them, so they'll stay away as long as possible. But it's flour weevils, Rarity, and that means they aren't here because of anything you did. It's not your fault. They just -- get in." Mournfully, "And no matter how careful anypony is, they always come --"
The baker's jaw slammed shut.
"-- what was that last part?"
"...nothing," lied a pony who wasn't Honesty.
"Very well," a rather dubious designer eventually said. "So let us turn to the reason I asked for the group to be assembled: their disposal." A somewhat frayed-seeming right forehoof managed a shaking gesture. "Fluttershy, would you please ask them to leave?"
The caretaker turned in midair as awkwardly-flapping wings brought her down, stumbled slightly on couscous as she touched the floor.
"...um," Fluttershy carefully began. "...talents have -- limits, Rarity. Mine is for animals, and I've always been okay with butterflies because they were sort of first, but... animals, Rarity. Not insects, not when they're this small. There isn't enough to hear. If you want to speak with them through somepony, you'll need Snails, and he'd just worry about whether they were eating right and needed any extra moisture --"
"-- very well," Rarity huffed. "So the most simple route is currently closed. Therefore... Twilight, if you would?"
The librarian's small body backed out of the blockade, and the slim head quizzically tilted to the left.
"Do what?"
"Remove them," Rarity stated. "Any spell will do. Teleportation to an unoccupied area. Making them want to be outside. If there happens to be some form of anti-conjuration you could perform --"
Twilight blinked.
"-- you're kidding." The head tilt increased its angle, then kicked in a pair of blinks. "You are kidding, right? Rarity, you're better with moving large numbers of small objects than I am: this is past your limit, so that means it's way past mine. They don't have enough of a mind to want anything which isn't food or reproduction, you really don't want me to risk flipping that switch and before you ask me to make them want something else to eat, remember the parasprites?" Purple eyes narrowed. "So do I. And no matter what, using magic means being able to see the target. Clear identification of whatever you need to affect, Rarity: we both had that class, because it's magic kindergarten. I see specks. Little. Black. Specks. When there's too many of them to target at once. If you want me to work on a magnification spell --"
"-- very well!" Which came with a little hoof stomp and a toss of the disheveled mane. "Rainbow --"
"-- no indoor rainstorms," the pegasus immediately declared. "Not even a little one. It'll just send the eggs everywhere."
"Consider keeping the flow centered as a challenge," Rarity huffed. "Additionally, there is the option to electrocute --"
"-- there isn't," Rainbow firmly said. "Not in here, not with all the metal built into the walls. It's going to be scorch marks, and that's if you're lucky."
Desperate now, "Applejack --"
The farmer snorted. "Ain't sure what you're expectin' me t' do here, Rares. Comes t' this sort of thing, you're as good at stompin' as me. An' that ain't always enough t' get 'em, 'cause some bugs don't stomp easy. Any imperfection in your hoof, that's what they're gonna be under when it comes down. You'll miss some, 'cause everypony always does. Ah've had these things in mah house, an' the only way t' deal with 'em is --"
"-- very well!" That came with its own rearing back, and the white forehooves slamming into the floor served for extra punctuation. "Then we turn to the practical approach! Spike?"
The little dragon immediately focused on her.
"Burn it down," Rarity placidly ordered. "All of it."
Twelve eyes blinked. Two added nictitating membranes to the mix.
"I will, for the sake of safety," the designer reasonably added, "require a few minutes to locate and evacuate Opal. However, any possessions which the swarm has reached can be reasonably sacrificed. In the event of total infestation, it should take no more than three seasons to fully reconstruct my life, and I would hope that until then, somepony among you -- not you, Rainbow -- would be willing to offer up their couch --"
Spike folded his arms and somehow, that movement stopped the flow.
"Rarity?"
"Yes, dear one?"
"You know how I feel."
She nodded.
"I just found out it doesn't go far enough to make me burn down your house."
"But a controlled --"
Claws clenched. "Rarity."
She stopped, with all of them staring at her. Completely stopped, as the final mane twist came apart and her head dipped in shame.
"Y'always want t' know when you've tipped over into full crazy," Applejack softly said. "That's now, Rares. Ah know y'want them gone, Ah even know this is pullin' on your worst reins..."
"...contamination," the rupophobe whispered. "Crawling through my entire home, Applejack, in my bed, getting into my wares and sending my customers home with the only thing they will ever remember me by --"
"-- they won't go that far from the food," Pinkie reassured her. "They can't. They're in the pantry, Rarity, because that's where they can eat. And you brought some into the kitchen. But that's it. The rest of the upper level is safe, and they could never make it as far as the Boutique. I know. They're flour weevils. They're what every bakery hates, what none of them can avoid forever. I know how to deal with them, so... please trust me?" Gently, "The way you all should have trusted me before?"
A moment of silence, and then a single nod.
"Okay." For Pinkie, it came across as an exceptionally weak smile. "You already started, before you went to get us. We have to open everything that's made from flour. If we see them in a box or a bag, we kick that away. If there aren't any in a container, we move it to the freezer, because if we missed any eggs, that'll kill them --"
They had all been expecting the shudder. "Dead eggs can still be consumed. We might need to kick out all of --" and her eyes went wide with horror, sending false lashes hither and yon. "-- Sun and Moon, Pinkie, what if I'd eaten one!"
"...they're just protein," Fluttershy softly said. "A tiny amount, too little to be real meat. They can't hurt you..." and then spotted the designer's expression.
"...never mind," the caretaker finished, and half her face vanished behind manefall. "...Pinkie, you were saying...?"
The baker nodded. "Peel all your can labels, to make sure they're not hiding under there. We scrub down the vegetables. Then we move all the safe food out, wipe down everything with bleach, rinse and put the pantry back together. If you want, we can check the cupboards near the counter, to make sure none of them got in. It's... usually a whole night's work, Rarity. It is in Sugarcube Corner, because they always get in eventually."
Applejack sighed. "Had 'em three times," the farmer announced. "Second was after Mac an' Ah had the Acres, an' we thought we did somethin' wrong. Third told us there wasn't anythin' anypony could do except get rid of 'em an' hope our luck held for a while. Unless y'wanna freeze whatever y'bring in that's flour, freeze it all, and most ponies ain't got the space for that. We sure don't."
"And the bakery doesn't either," Pinkie said. "So we just watch. And..." a little more miserably "...wait. Because if they ever get in, and we don't see, if they reach the display cases -- that's when ponies forget that everypony gets them in their home. And when they forget that our stuff tastes good. And that they can eat it. Ever again. Because when they see one on food, some ponies just have this reaction..." It was an exceptionally small sigh. "I think you know."
Eventually, Rarity nodded again.
Wearily, "A whole night..."
"I'll help," Twilight smiled. "Besides, I'm already here. Everypony?" Assent filled the kitchen. "So I guess we'd better get started. I'll empty the cupboards." The little mare moved towards the counter, horn already igniting. "You know, that's actually a really interesting idea. A magnifying spell. Just in the viewing sense. I'd have to hide my corona, so the color wouldn't distort the view --"
"Y'know that always makes your spells work different," Applejack called out from the pantry, timing her words between the stomps. "Like with the snowplow, remember?"
"That's what makes it a challenge! Anyway, I'd have to make my corona into a clear lens, with just the right convex curve to work. Portable microscope, Applejack! And it can't be that hard to do, because it's mostly just shaping." Thoughtfully, "I should put aside some project time for that..."
They all got to work.
"They say," Rarity testified from the witness stall as the mist rose in her eyes, "that a friend is somepony who will help you move, and a true friend is one who would help you move a body. In my experience, the best of friends are those who would assist you in the creation of a thousand corpses, and so I can truly say that my most boon companions are sitting in the gallery."
She happily waved a foreleg at them. Everypony turned to face in that direction, and six sapients cringed.
"Good t' know," Applejack dryly whispered, "that we all qualify as potential mass murderers. On the legal record an' all."
Curls awkwardly flounced.
"Oh, Applejack..." Pinkie sighed.
"Never thought 'bout how many tent caterpillars Ah've taken out," the farmer mused. "Not the grand total. Ah've got a Tartarus of a body count already, an' Ah can truthfully say Ah enjoyed every minute."
"So we cleaned," Rarity stated, already having turned back to face the jury. "And as our efforts had turned to the disposal of the vermin, that was all I thought about for some time. The efforts involved in completely cleansing my sanctuary of infestation. Occasionally, I would turn a brief thought towards cost, for I was disposing of a considerable amount of food. I would consider how such small things could take so many bits from me, and scrub all the harder. But it was hours of effort, even with all of us at work, on nothing more than removal."
The next twitch helped her eyes narrow all the faster, and the jury waited with fifteen bated breaths, added to a sole ill-timed coughing fit..
"Hours," the mare tensely added, "before I once again turned my thoughts to the reverse."
She had insisted on walking her friends home, even so deep into the night. But it had been a partial project: there was only so far one could go from the Boutique before the group had to split off in different directions: Twilight and Spike towards the tree, Applejack and Fluttershy going to their respective necessary bridges, and of course it never took long before Rainbow headed up. It left her trotting towards Sugarcube Corner at Pinkie's side, and that was when she remembered that the plan was to have her sleep at the home of whomever she was with at the last, just so any lingering worries about having had anything reach her own bedroom would have nothing to focus upon. Not that there was anything wrong with the attic and Pinkie's mattress was certainly large enough, but the baker was known to cuddle in her sleep. And when that happened to a mare who was dreading the sensation of anything making contact with her fur...
Rarity kept the sigh internal, and hoped her subconscious would be willing to distinguish sources before the instinctive kicking began.
"Thank you, Pinkie," she once again offered. "And if what little remains of my night is restless, if I should -- accidentally..."
"Pinkie Sense can work best when I'm asleep," the baker smiled. "I can probably twitch out of the way. And thank you for washing up again, before you left the Boutique. And letting everypony comb through your fur, so you'd be sure you weren't bringing any weevils into the bakery."
"You are quite welcome."
"Even though you really didn't have to."
"It felt necessary," Rarity countered.
Carefully, "Three times?"
"Extremely necessary."
Pinkie, exercising the casual air of a pony who had spent a few years maintaining friendships in the face of everypony else's insanity, visibly discarded the topic. "Anyway, I have to get up pretty early to start getting things ready for the customers who come in before the first train. So I won't be in bed that long." This was followed by a deep yawn, and a little shake of the curly head. "I'll..." Another yawn. "I'll be okay."
With true regret, "I cost everypony sleep, didn't I? Spike is too young to be up for so long, you with a shift beginning mere hours from now --"
"-- it's okay." With a smile, "You'd do it for us. You have, when we needed dresses and you stayed up too late working on them. It's okay, Rarity. Let's just get you some rest."
They trotted down the night's empty streets, moving through cool autumn air under comforting stars.
Thoughtfully, "Pinkie?"
"What is it?"
"You postponed a topic earlier. How did they get in?"
And Pinkie, who liked it when her friends listened to her, truly listened because it had taken some time before that happened -- who had, like all of them, picked up just a touch of Lecturer's Disease from Twilight and was too tired to judge whether she was doing the right thing -- answered the question.
"You brought them in."
Rarity frowned. "My skin is sensitive enough to notice something --" the white body shuddered "-- crawling about my form. Unless they remained entirely on my hooves or within my tail and Luna's frozen hooves, Pinkie, did I carry them in on my --"
"-- no!" The baker smiled. "They were in your groceries."
The unicorn stopped moving.
"My. Groceries."
"Yeah! Because they're flour weevils! So they go where the flour is. Or the grain, really. You can get them in wheat fields, and whole wheat flour... that's what they love the most. But they'll take any grain. Some of their eggs are laid on the wheat, because they want their babies to eat when they hatch. The wheat gets harvested -- where did you go?" An exhausted form partially turned. "Oh, there you are! What are you doing back there, Rarity? We need to get some sleep!"
"The wheat," a hollow-yet-accented voice repeated, "gets harvested."
"Where did you think flour came from, silly? I'm a baker, remember? Any time you need to know anything about where baked goods come from --"
"-- anything?"
A pink left foreleg lifted, and the hoof gently tapped against the baker's temple.
"Ah, yes," Rarity considered, and Pinkie was also too tired to hear the darkness dropping into the tones. "A near-eidetic memory. So, Pinkie... you were in my pantry a few hours ago, and you carried most of the goods out to Spike's little disposal bonfire. Did you happen to notice the brand name of my pasta? As that was where we found the most of them crawling within the boxes, and so stands a good chance to have been their origin point."
"Because you keep all your pasta in the same area," Pinkie nodded. "And they would have swarmed for the closest extra food, even though there was so much right where they were. Bugs are funny that way." She yawned. "Maybe that's why Snails is always smiling. Because they're funny and tell him the best jokes. And you didn't use your pantry for a while, so they had time to hatch and move --"
"-- you saw the brand?"
Pinkie politely nodded.
"Do you happen to remember where that brand is made?"
"At this time," the prosecutor smugly declared, dark grey corona levitating the little rectangle away from his own table, "we would like to introduce Herd's Exhibit 21-K: a visitor's tour badge from the Boerperd factory. With the visitor's name."
There was a little skittering sound from the gallery.
"Spike..."
"It's a faceclaw," the little dragon muttered. "Claws on scales make a sound, Twilight. You know that."
"It's not your fault."
"I sent the letter which got her the badge a week faster than she should have had it. I've been sending off her magazine renewals. She just looks at me and I turn into a branch of the post office because she's smiling..."
"It would have happened anyway," the librarian sighed. "Just a week later. It's Rarity. She lives for ideas. And when one gets into her head..."
"...which concludes our tour," the young guide smiled. (She was a light yellow pegasus named Puffi Waft, she worked at the factory part-time as a means of saving money for college, and she in no way deserved what was about to happen.) "Now does everypony feel recovered from seeing the extrusion machines?"
Two weak-kneed stallions managed one tiny cough each.
"I did warn you!" Puffi laughed. "It can look a little weird to ponies seeing it for the first time. And for some reason, watching the slicer in action hits stallions more than mares. Most mares just laugh. But now that we're all wrapped up, I can take questions!"
She had been on the job for a full season. She'd memorized the employee handbook, which had a comprehensive section of answers to just about anything which could ever arise regarding pasta, including how somepony could make their own at home and, in order to keep sales up, why they really shouldn't. She felt herself to be ready for anything, and what 'anything' normally involved was nopony having any questions at all, followed by taking them all to the built-in restaurant for a serving of truly fresh spaghetti.
But the elegantly-dressed white mare near the front of the herd flashed her corona twice, and so Puffi immediately aimed her smile in that direction. "Yes, miss?"
"I was wondering," the mare began, speaking with an accent Puffi had never heard before and, because the trial ended before it reached her own corroborating testimony, never would again. "There was a brief discussion regarding sanitary conditions throughout the factory, and I felt you did a fine job in covering the material. But I did not hear one particular aspect mentioned. Something I feel any consumer of experience would find to be fully necessary."
Puffi patiently waited for the actual question to emerge. There was a chance that if the mare put on any more airs, the words would be pushed out by the pressure of the tour group's growing desire for pasta.
"How," the unicorn inquired, "does the factory deal with the elimination of flour weevils?"
Several ponies simply looked confused, because there were those who stayed lucky. Two shivered. And Puffi, who had all of the material waiting in her head, smiled.
"I'm glad you asked that!" she beamed. "Because nopony likes to see them, do they? And they really do come with the territory." Her wings rustled in a disarming manner, which was more possible in mood than vocabulary. "Wherever you're working with flour, the weevils are going to try and come along. So to answer your question, we have a detailed inspection process with multiple redundancy steps. The plants are checked before they reach us. Once we have flour, we sift for eggs, and the sifter always catches the big ones! The product is visually examined at various stages, and when we're convinced it's safe, that's when we package. And of course, we wash the place regularly with the help of our sprinkler system, which is one of the best ever made. Because it has to be. And between machinery and devices, I'm proud to say we have a 98.5% weevil elimination rate! That's the highest in Equestria, and it's why we have our motto! Everypony say it with me now --"
Most of the group did. The unicorn was silent, and a few stragglers had just gotten caught up in Math.
"-- you can trust a Boerperd box! Are there any other --"
"-- that leaves," the mare interrupted, with her tones far too calm, "one and a half percent."
"Well, yes," Puffi admitted. "Because flour gets everywhere. That's what happens, when you work with a fine grain. There's flour dust all over the factory. So when it scatters, it takes some things with it. Eggs hatch in dark corners, and some are so small as to get past the sifter. Too small for the sifter can be too small to see. But we do everything we can to keep them out of our product, and as I said, we clean regularly --"
A few members of the tour group were beginning to look vaguely nauseous. That had happened before, because there were times when Math couldn't be avoided, even when a pony's mind really wanted to stop doing it.
"-- and of course, there's our quality guarantee," Puffi beamed. "If you ever do find a weevil, mail us your receipt and we'll fully refund the price of your box. Plus there's a coupon. Because you can trust us!"
"Just your box," the mare said.
This was an unusual question. For starters, it had never been printed.
"Yes," Puffi tried, starting to feel a little shaky as they moved away from the comforting support offered by pages. "I'm really not sure why we would be responsible for any other company's box."
"But we can absolutely trust you," the mare smiled. It was a rather unusual smile, one which simultaneously seemed to have too few and too many teeth behind it. "Ninety-eight and a half percent of the time."
"We think we're doing exceptionally well," Puffi desperately attempted. "Our product is usually consumed before anything hatches, and then it's just a little extra protein, right? Which never hurt anypony, coming from something which is usually too small to see. When you compare our standards to --" and the desperation doubled "-- I usually wouldn't talk about this, especially not before we eat, but I have a griffon friend, and they have something they call a hot dog --"
Four newly green-shading ponies simultaneously broke in what they thought was the general direction of the nearest restroom. Two of them went the wrong way.
"-- not that it's made from dogs!" Puffi hastily added as the strays gave Quality Control a little more to do. "It's just what they call it! Everypony knows griffons only eat animals and monsters which can give them a real fight! They love dogs!" (Two more ran for it.) "As pets! And the meat comes out as a long sausage, which reminded them of dachies. So hot dog! But their factories are..." She swallowed, and distressingly noticed that it was only mostly saliva. "...well -- they have a rule. A hot dog is meat. And up to five percent insect parts. Which add crunchiness. Some of their brands advertise that --"
The white mare was now the only pony left.
"Omnivores," the unicorn merrily shrugged as three separate tourists went through windows. (Two of them were open. The third was hours away from becoming Exhibit 32-H.) "So goes biology! But you do your best to eliminate weevils, I'm sure. It's just that your best isn't one hundred percent, now is it?"
"We do the best we can," Puffi defensively told her lone audience. "The best anypony can do. Has ever done."
"Regardless of outside suggestions?"
"We get letters suggesting improvements," the pegasus who would never get to be a star witness retorted. "From ponies who haven't spent their lives studying the cleanest way to make pasta. Ponies who aren't writing from their mark." And she allowed the mandated maximum of 4% Offended to creep into her voice. "Don't you trust a mark?"
It should have been the sentence which ended everything. But it just made the mare smile a little more.
"Marks are seldom perfect," the tourist blasphemed for a private audience. "And so neither are ponies. But it's a lovely thought, is it not? So. Shall we wait for the others, or is this when we head towards the butter sauce?"
"It costs money to reach such a high efficiency rating," Rarity conceded before the court. "But I am familiar with how some businesses operate. A number of fashion houses see fit to release their seconds into the world at discount pricing, because it is easier than spending the money required for repair. A lower price still recovers cost, and so the financial sacrifice which simply discarding would inflict does not come to pass. Ninety eight and a half percent -- that can be budgeted for. But perhaps it costs less to mail refunds and coupons than it would to reach one hundred. Factory tours only show the public what the factory wishes seen. And so, having been granted the gift of a large window which would not be repaired until the following day, I returned on that same night --"
"Let the record show," the prosecutor happily declared, "that the witness has just confessed to illegal entry."
"The cause was sufficient!"
"Dead," Rainbow summarized.
Fluttershy sighed.
"...so dead."
A pasta factory had very little in the way of security guards, along with even less need. Rarity's main problem with getting in undetected came from the delay inflicted by carefully removing all shards of glass from the frame and setting them aside (in order of size, of course) for later replacement.
She crept across the factory floor, navigating solely by corona shine. After a while, a magnifying glass came out of well-padded, slightly-sloshing heavy saddlebags and when she found the first pile of flour in a corner, this was followed by a tiny glass vial, perforated with the world's smallest air holes.
Eventually, there was a soft sound: a noise which simultaneously embodied discovery and disgust. The glowing vial dipped towards the floor.
"I can bring in Exhibits too!" Rarity announced. "Put this into the record! Living flour weevils, found in the factory! Ms. Cause, if you would bring out the vial now? The first vial." Proudly, "I placed several others into safe custody. In case they were needed."
"An' if'fin you're wonderin' what that means," Applejack groaned, "once the cops decided they didn't need 'em all for evidence, she had some mailed t' me. Told me t' bring 'em t' court an' everythin', jus' in case."
"...where are they?" Pinkie shakily asked.
"Right now? Visitor lockers. With the rest of the stuff in mah saddlebags. Guess Ah caught some of the crazy." Powerful shoulders ruefully shrugged. "Jus' like everypony else who's friends with her. At least the holes are too small for anythin' t' get into mah lunch. Little jerks are still alive."
"...lunch?" Fluttershy asked.
"Packed mah own. D'you trust a courtroom basement cafeteria t' serve quality? 'cause Ah sure don't."
"I continued my personal inspection of the factory," Rarity grandly announced. "Searching for places where the inspection process could still be improved. And in fact, during the five days in which I had to wait for what is supposed to be a speedy trial, I had the chance to write down my findings. There were things which could have been done. But as I wished for the owners to know immediately, as they had clearly been disregarding my previous letters... it was necessary to leave them a message. Because the cause was ponies never again having to deal with the foulness of a flour weevil, and that is sufficient. Cause -- my apologies: Ms. Cause -- where is that vial, dear? If you would show it to the jury?"
A thin glass tube was reluctantly gripped between timid teeth and displayed to the court. It was easy to see just about everypony in the jury box flinching away -- and to also spot how minor the reaction was, for the weevils were both distant and contained.
"I believe that may be a subspecies," the designer added. "There are certain visible minor mutations. Of course, when sufficient generations spend their lives around magic, things can happen. There are certainly enough devices in the factory to shed thaums into the air, correct? And given the thousands of generations in insect lives when compared to the span for ponies, it would not surprise me if those weevils were to one day spontaneously turn into something else entirely. My friend had explained a theory --"
"You left them a message," the prosecutor semi-repeated.
"Yes. And I cleaned up for them. At the same time." Proudly, "I consider myself to be a good guest."
"You painted the floor --"
"-- merely where I found weevils. Which was in so many places as to completely deplete my stock. Ninety eight and half percent may be blind luck --"
"-- with bleach."
Steadily, without a single twitch. "Yes."
"Fluorescent bleach."
"How else was anypony going to see it?"
"Ow..."
"Twilight?"
"Facehoofing that hard hurts, Spike. And I know what's coming next..."
"How," the prosecutor challenged, "did you even make bleach fluorescent?"
"She knows a zebra."
With open pride, "I know a zebra."
There were five simultaneous facehooves, accompanied by one well-timed faceclaw.
"Leaving a message," Rarity declared. "That I knew where they had failed, and that it was due to cost. That they had decided apologies were cheaper than perfection. Suggestions for improvements. And of course, the bleach was also killing the weevils. Really, I was doing them a favor. Imagine my finding so many that, as I said, my stock of bleach ran out, and I was still finding weevils. And I could hardly leave them with an infestation, now could I? I only knew of two methods which reliably killed the things. One was bleach, and the other..."
Most of her friends left their limbs exactly where they were. It would save time.
For the first time, Rarity hesitated.
"I do confess to this much," the unicorn admitted. "At the time, I had no concept of the natural properties of flour dust."
Spike, however, added a second hand.
"They were only little matches," Rarity placed into the permanent court record. "And really, when you consider the sufficiency of the cause..."
The prosecutor's expression was an interesting one. It suggested a pony who was already spending his promotion salary, and most of it was going towards the frame for his own face.
"I thought it would be a controlled fire," the white mare stated. "May I compliment the factory on the excellence of its sprinkler system? I noticed ninety-eight percent coverage. Perhaps even ninety-eight and a half." She frowned. "Pity about not quite having reached one hundred in the vicinity of the executive offices. Well, experience does bring further improvements...."
Lunch break had been declared somewhat early, perhaps to give the prosecutor a chance to stop smirking. Five mares and a dragon were dismally picking over their food in the courtroom cafeteria -- or rather, most of them were morosely trying to figure out what could be identified as food, while the last munched on her saddlebag-stored homemade meal and kept trying to share.
"It's okay, Applejack," Twilight sighed. "There's barely enough for you. At least one of us has something good about this day. The food doesn't even really matter, does it? What does is that we're eating together."
Her head dipped. A narrow snout listlessly poked at what had probably never been a vegetable.
"Except that we're not," the librarian finished, and fought the urge to weep. "We might not be together for years..."
Everypony closed their eyes, kept them that way until some of the pain was fought back.
"...it's that bad, isn't it?" Fluttershy softly asked. "It really is..."
"There's this theory," Twilight sighed, her chin now on the plate. "That if one of us ever really got in trouble, the palace would issue a pardon. To keep the group together. I just really don't want to test it. Ever. And even if that happened, Fluttershy, accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. There's a price to pay, just for that."
"She did enough of that today on her own," Rainbow muttered. "Admitting. I knew it was bad, but she just kept trying to explain..."
"It's the Sufficiency Clause," the librarian groaned. "I looked some things up, because we had five days. It's like kicking somepony who's already kicked you. There was a reason. She's using a real defense in Equestrian law, everypony, and it's probably the only thing which could get her out of this without a criminal record. It's not like a regular verdict: the jury can collectively find sufficiency at any time and just -- let her go. Sufficiency's worked with breaking and entering before this: ponies who had to get into a home to check on their friend, things like that. But arson..."
"It's an overcharge!" Pinkie was on the verge of tears. "She didn't mean for the fire to spread! The important thing is that she wasn't hurt and only a little of the factory was damaged!"
Miserably, "But she meant to set it."
Everypony was quiet for a while.
"I hate this," Spike finally broke the silence. "Hate it. They don't understand her, nopony could unless they were her friend. They don't understand how she reacts."
"That she's crazy," Applejack quietly said. "But mostly in a good way." The hat slipped forward, shaded her eyes. "Rupophobia. Beat it back long enough t' get in a mud pit for a good cause. But it's not jus' dirt with her, is it? It's bein' afraid of contamination. Infestation falls under that, an' Ah understand 'cause nothin' makes me wanna kill like --" the words were spat "-- tent caterpillars. She had an infestation, she had a bad reaction, an' -- she's Rarity. With everythin' that means. All the good, all the bad, an' all the crazy."
She sniffled, and let her fur absorb the tear.
"Ah think Ah'm gonna miss the crazy most of all."
More silence.
"They don't understand her," Spike whispered. "They're going to send her away when they had the same reaction to the vial..."
He looked to the left, where the jury was trying to identify what had been placed on the tables which were behind the velvet rope. Close enough to speak with, and kept behind a sound-blocking spell to make sure that didn't happen.
"Not the same reaction," Rainbow groaned. "Or we'd have sixteen more factories closed for repairs. Rarity's -- Rarity, Spike. Who else was gonna take it that far?"
"But they flinched. I saw it! They were disgusted --" the little dragon's words were getting faster "-- they were thinking about finding those things in their food, but the weevils were in the vial and so they stopped thinking about it. If they just saw things her way, just for a second..."
Which was when Fluttershy looked up from a heap of what wasn't passing for oatmeal.
"...what if they weren't in the vial?"
Everypony was now completely focused on Fluttershy.
"...Applejack has weevils with her," the caretaker expertly whispered. "And the kitchen here is horrible, it has to be. You don't get food this bad without a dirty kitchen. It's... the kind of place which has weevils. How would the jury react to finding weevils on their food?"
They all looked at each other.
"This," Twilight whispered, "is potential jail time. For all of us, at least with the adults. Spike would be sent to live with our parents, but if the rest of us get caught on attempted jury tampering, it's going to get ugly. Does everypony understand that?"
They all nodded.
With the faintest of smiles as her chin finally parted from glass, "And we're doing it anyway, aren't we?"
Again.
"Right. Applejack, slip the vial out, then pass it to Spike. Make sure nopony sees you. Spike, get as close to the jury area as possible: pretend you're dropping off a plate by the wash window. Hold the vial under it and pop off the top, but keep it where I can see it. I need to hide my corona, and the shorter the distance I have to levitate them, the better. Let's see how many dishes I can hit."
They moved. The transfer was made, Spike got as close as he dared, and Twilight's features went tight with effort while her horn struggled to remain dark -- or rather, to appear that way.
"This isn't easy," emerged as a half-grunt. "A corona without light... they barely weigh anything and I'm still waiting for something to go wrong..."
"You can do this," Pinkie gently encouraged her friend. "We know you can."
"It ain't a plow," Applejack reminded Twilight. "Not as much mass t' control. You've gotten better at hidin' your magic, Twi: you know it. Jus' gotta prove it to yourself..."
Almost too small to see, a tiny swarm of black specks moved towards the jury tables, completely unnoticed. Dispersed over plates and feedbags, dropping onto barely-edibles.
"They're in," Twilight exhaled. "Wait for it..."
They waited.
There was a horrible chewing sound. It was followed by an even worse swallowing one.
"He..." Pinkie gulped. "He ate it..."
"They ain't lookin' at their food!" Applejack frantically whispered. "'course they ain't: who'd want to? They don't look, they won't see. Half of that stuff's blackened t' begin with, an' the weevils are so small. Ain't no chance t' spot them!"
"...too small," Fluttershy softly groaned as she hid behind her mane. "I'm sorry..."
Twilight blinked.
"I've got an idea!"
Six mares and a little dragon stood in the extra-wide doorway to what was left of the fully empty cafeteria.
"It's a pity they're closed," Rarity smiled. "I recognize that recent reviews were rather on the poor side, but it would have been the first opportunity for the newly-acquitted to have a meal with her friends." Beaming now, "Declaring Sufficiency of Cause, on the spot! As soon as they got back into the courtroom!"
It was a very wide doorway: it had to be, in order to accommodate courthouse traffic. Additional space was currently being provided by Twilight, who was steadily shrinking into herself.
"As soon as they were all found," the librarian miserably said.
"Well, yes," Rarity admitted. "They did scatter somewhat. One of the bailiffs said the forepony's legs were still running in midair while a pegasus was carrying her back."
A half-collapsed table took the moment to finish folding in along the center crack.
"From sixty blocks away," the designer unnecessarily added.
"They couldn't see the weevils!" Twilight moaned. "And floating them up would have been too suspicious, because weevils can't fly!"
"You see?" Rainbow declared with open satisfaction. "It's like I keep telling you. Every time something can't fly, it's a bad thing!"
"You didn't know, Twilight," Pinkie tried to reassure her. "There was no way you could have known..."
"...at least it worked?" Fluttershy timidly offered.
Slim purple legs developed five degrees of additional bend at all four knees. The little dragon tried to prop her up.
"It wasn't as bad as the parasprites," he reminded her. "It was just..." and words ran out.
"Effective," Applejack supplied. "Ah think we can say it was effective."
"I thought..." Twilight swallowed. "If there was ever a time to try it, if they even glanced down once, they'd be looking through an invisible magnifying lens! Just for a second, long enough to spot it at what would look like doubled length! They wouldn't think about magic being present, they'd just see it and react..."
"They reacted," Applejack offered. "Can't argue that."
Two ceiling lights crashed into what was left of the food, exponentially improving the quality.
"Ah'd figure ponies t' react when they see a bug that's about a quarter the size of their own hoof," the farmer added. "Badly."
Rarity rather casually shrugged.
"The important part," the designer merrily stated, "is that it worked. My treat for dinner, everypony! Now where are we eating? Generosity is buying! Although Generosity would ask her friends to remember that the Boutique has been closed for a few days -- thank you for taking care of Opal, Fluttershy -- and therefore Generosity may be on a slight budget."
The group turned, and slowly began to make their way towards the surface and true freedom. The freedom to get away from the courthouse and never think about what had happened there again.
"Twi?"
"Don't talk to me, Applejack. Just... don't."
"Gotta," the farmer apologized. "Too important not t' get it resolved now."
"Fine. What is it?"
"When the spell actually started to make 'em get bigger. Do you think that's gonna wear off? An' if it don't, d'you think it would work on fruit?"
"Applejack?"
"'cause Ah've been thinkin'. If it wasn't some kind of, what's the word, conjunctive effect with all the magic they'd soaked up from the factory..."
"Shut up."
"Wait! Why didn't anypony say something about giant bugs! SPIKE! We can evacuate the building, and then...!"
