Wise Princess Twilight Sparkle, the All-Knowing, the Judicious, the Ever-Gazing Star, sat upon her lavish throne in her hall of tomes and watched the petitioners approach. Sunlight shone through stained-glass images of her many feats of wit and brilliance. Her feats spanned from the blessings of beauty she gave to the mythic scholar Smarty Pants to teach her humility to the dissertative vanquishment of the great Nonsense Empress Pinkamena Pie, and all were cast in resplendent color and masterful mosaic.
The petitioners approaching her were rather unique, perhaps a pair of identical twins. They each bore the jewels of royalty from a faraway northern land, shimmering against their carefully groomed pink coats. Behind her, one of her Royal Guards carried a foal upon his back.
The herald, reading from a scroll, called, “Seeking the judgement of the Wise Princess Twilight Sparkle comes the ruler of the Crystal Empire, the Loving, Benevolent, and Verifiably True Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, as well as...” the herald squinted at the scroll, “the true ruler of the Crystal Empire, the Infinitely More Loving and Actually Real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.”
The Actually Real Princess stuck her tongue out at the Verifiably True Princess, who scoffed.
“What counsel do they seek from me, then? I would like to remind them, of course, that I refuse to adjudicate succession matters.” The princess glanced up at a window depicting a Princess with perfectly curled purple hair and a Prince with a straight golden mane, both attempting to slay the other with a fierce bout of flailing hoofsticuffs. The fight depicted was brutal and grisly, both their muzzles turned away with eyes screwed tightly shut to view not the carnage of chipped hooves and smeared makeup.
“They seek...” the herald paused for longer, looked up at the foal on the guards’ back, and back down at the scroll. “Maternity testing.”
“That child is mine!” cried the Verifiably True Princess. “I hatched her—”
“Aha! You betray yourself!” the Actually Real Princess said. “Everyone knows ponies do not hatch from eggs!”
“Sadly,” said Princess Twilight Sparkle, “‘Everyone knows’ is not an academically rigorous standard. As I have myself not read any studies regarding the likelihood of pony births being live or from eggs, I cannot rule one way or the other based on this.”
The Actually Real Princess deflated slightly.
“Besides, pegasi are somewhat alike to platypuses in their blending of traits from separate animal kingdoms, and platypuses lay eggs,” Princess Twilight Sparkle continued.
“Thank you, O Wise Princess,” The Verifiably True Princess said. “If I may continue?”
“Please do,” Princess Twilight Sparkle said.
The Verifiably True Princess gathered herself, then said, “I hatched her myself, from an egg which I lay! She is my offspring to do with as I see fit, and this foalnapper should be clapped in irons and sent to your highest, brightest, least moist dungeon!”
“And what proof do you bring of your claim?”
The Verifiably True princess rolled her eyes. “Motherhood is an axiom.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle nodded sagely. “And you?” she asked, gesturing to the Actually Real Princess.
“This is ridiculous!” yelled the Actually Real Princess. “I cannot believe that I am even standing here having this discussion, nor that any of this is truly necessary! If this ridiculous imposter would simply shed her disguise—”
“Point of order,” Princess Twilight Sparkle interrupted. “I am not here to make a ruling on the relative realness or fakeness of any individuals contained herein, merely to determine who the true mother of this foal is.”
The Actually Real Princess stumbled over her words. “Ah... yes. My apologies for my folly, O Wise and Judicious Princess Sparkle.”
“Well I apologize even longer and more sincerely for the folly of her folly, O Wise, Judicious, and Omniscient Princess Sparkle, whose rulings are known far and wide across all lands to be truer than reality itself!” said the Verifiably True Princess.
“Oh yeah? I’ll apologize so hard your great-grandfoals will be forgiven!” the Actually Real Princess yelled into the face of the Verifiably True Princess. “Generations will weep at the inimitable sincerity of my apology!”
“Please, I’m sure we are all aware of the futility of this game of back and forth between the two of you. The quality and sincerity of apologies has yet to be properly quantified to any reasonable standard, and thus I cannot measure to see which of you is telling the better apology. It is also, despite being a terribly interesting question academically speaking and one I will have to do further research into after court adjourns, tangential at best to the issue at hoof.”
The other two Princesses, chastised, fell silent.
“Before I pass judgment, would the two of you allow me to examine the foal in question?”
They both nodded, and the guard carrying said foal presented her to the Wise Princess Sparkle, who examined the foal closely. The foal giggled.
“Who is a good little filly?” the Wise Princess Sparkle asked with solemn grace. “Divest this information to me, young one, and you will know reward beyond measure.”
The foal blew a spit bubble, which popped in the Wise Princess’ face.
“I see.” The Wise Princess lowered the foal back into the waiting hooves of the guard, and closed her eyes to think for a moment. Embers began to dance lightly along the Wise Princess’ mane, and the faint smell of smoke began to fill the audience hall.
Wise Princess Sparkle was thinking.
Finally, Princess Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes once more and spoke. “I shall rule as follows. Lacking sufficient evidence to determine one way or the other which among you is the true mother, I will instead employ a simple tried and true theorem which has not once steered me wrong. In all my years of study, I have tested and retested the notion that sharing is, in fact, mathematically equal to caring, and thus this is the law which I will rule by.”
“We shall cut the foal in half, and give one half to each mother, since they both have equal claim to this foal before my eyes.”
The foal cooed.
The Actually Real Princess asked, “Wait, which way would you cut the foal in half? I would not agree to this if I were only to get the back half.”
The Verifiably True Princess yelled, “You are not going to cut my baby in half!”
“She would be cut in half lengthwise,” said the Wise Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Very well, O Wise Princess Twilight Sparkle,” said the Actually Real Princess. “I accept your judgement.”
“I would literally rather die than accept this judgement! You ponies are monsters!” screamed the Verifiably True Princess. “I would rather strip all of my chitin— my metaphorical chitin, which I do not actually possess, as I am a pony with fur and skin and one of your horrendous endoskeletons— off plate by plate than allow you to do this!”
The Actually Real Princess said, “Please do.”
The Wise Princess Sparkle said, “Eureka!” The other two princesses fell silent once more.
“You, the Verifiably True Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, you are the real mother,” Princess Twilight Sparkle said.
“What?” said the Actually Real Princess.
“I am? I mean, yes! You are correct, thank you, your Graceliness!”
“A proof of reductio ad absurdum. That is, of the absurdity of reduction. The true mother would recognize that the act of reducing her foal into two halves would be absurd. Thus, the Verifiably True Princess Mi Amore Cadenza shall be given the foal, and the Actually Real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be sentenced to my highest, brightest, and least moist dungeon.”
The Actually Real Princess worked her jaw up and down, failing to say anything.
“Of course, as a ruler of the land, my highest, brightest, and least moist dungeon is the surface. Thus, by the wishes of the Verifiably True Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the Actually Real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be set free.”
The Verifiably True Princess blinked. “I suppose that’s fine,” she said. She looked over to the guard, who was carefully placing the foal upon her back.
“Court is adjourned,” Princess Twilight Sparkle said, and vanished with a flash of otherworldly light.
The two Princesses of the Crystal Empire were led out of the grand palace and into the daylight, where they both stared up at the sky in silence for a long moment. The foal, who was having a lovely day, began to slobber happily over the Verifiably True Princess’ fur. With a flash of ethereal green flame, the Verifiably True Princess vanished and was replaced with a regal changeling queen, Queen Chrysalis. The foal continued to slobber upon her pitch-black chitin, undeterred.
“You would really have let them cut your foal in half?” Chrysalis asked.
“No!” Cadenza cried. “But I figured you’d stop this farce before it actually happened.”
“Ah,” said Chrysalis.
Another long moment passed between them.
“I probably would have. A dead foal doesn’t love. Doesn’t do much of anything, really,” Chrysalis said.
“Wakes you up at four in the morning much less often, though” Cadenza said.
Chrysalis winced.
Cadenza yawned.
The foal made some kind of gross mammalian noise.
“I don’t actually know how to take care of a pony foal,” Chrysalis said. “But the Princess’ judgements are all final.”
Cadenza nodded.
“Would you be willing to, uh, help me raise her? I wasn’t really expecting to succeed in this whole...” Chrysalis waved a hoof. “Thing.”
Cadenza sighed, and said, “Come on. We can put you up in a guest room in the Crystal Palace.”
Chrysalis smiled.
Deep within Princess Twilight Sparkle’s palace, the overworked and weary royal stained-glass window maker sighed. A new letter had dropped down upon her head.
My Faithful Glassmaker,
I have a new commission for you, Celestia. You see, I made a very clever judgement today...
