Chrysalis Visits The Hague

Chapters

BBC News article from Monday November 16th, 2015
Radio Debate Transcript from Tuesday, September 1st, 2015
II. Audi Alteram Partem
III. Struggling Together
IV. Royal Blessing
V. The Victims
VI. Corpus Delicti
VII. Handling The Truth
VIII. Diet
IX. The Help
XI. Good Intentions
XII. War for the Ear
XIII. The Perpetrators
XIV. Nightfall
XV. Trickle-Down Tactics
XVI. Her Highness' Pleasure
Defence Internal Memo sent Friday November 20, 2015
XVII. Upper Case
XVIII. Caveat Lector
XIX. Tight Ship
XX. Diseased
XXI. For What It's Worth
XXII. A Bridge Too Far
XXIII. Mothballed
XXIV. The Debris Field
XXV. Poetry In Motion
XXVI. Functional Immunity
Correspondence Between HM Celestia and HRH Twilight Sparkle from November 23rd, 2015
XXVII. The Reasonable And Insightful
XXVIII. In Vino Veritas
XXIX. In The Mills Of God
XXX. Post Mortem
XXXI. A Ruse
XXXIII. The Barbican
I. Handle With Care
X. Ferae Naturae
Estermann Office Observation Transcript Excerpt from Sunday, November 22, 2015
XXXII. The Breadbasket

BBC News article from Monday November 16th, 2015

Image not to scale. Click here for larger size.

Transcript for those unable to see the image file:

Equestria extradites Queen Chrysalis to The Hague

Main Article:

The former leader of the changeling empire, Queen Chrysalis has been flown to The Hague to attend the International Criminal Tribunal for Equestria to answer for the crimes during her reign.

Under heavy security, Queen Chrysalis was loaded on a USAF cargo plane, which departed for the twelve-hour trip to the Netherlands on Sunday night.

It has been more than a month since Equestrian soldiers managed to capture the fugitive regent of the aggressive changeling race.

The Equestrian crown had warranted her arrest after a foiled coup attempt in the Equestrian capital city of Canterlot.

Since this had not been the first instance of an unprovoked assault perpetrated by changelings, it is subject to prosecution under International Criminal Law.

Until recently, the Equestrian government had persisted to subjugate her solely to Equestrian Law, independent from human participation.

The Equestrian Princess Celestia had reasoned that Queen Chrysalis’ doings largely stemmed from a time prior to humanity’s first contact with equinity, and can therefore not fall under human laws.

Last Tuesday however, diplomats of the UNEVEG (United Nations Equestrian Evaluation Group) reached a compromise.

Queen Chrysalis was allowed to face The Hague’s International Criminal Court and answer to International Law, but with Equestrian legal participation.

As of September’s UN resolution that secured Equestria’s unique position as a country within the international community, the UNEVEG fathered the International Criminal Tribunal for Equestria for the purpose of subjecting the Equestrian isle to the UN’s resolved laws and customs.

Background of the arrest

Chrysalis had last tried to infiltrate the royal city of residence during the wedding of the Captain of the Royal Equestrian Guard, around September of 2013.

Posing as the country’s highest military commander’s bride, she had her changeling army launch a surprise attack with the intention of pillaging the city and enslaving the population.

The assault failed, and the invading force was dispersed.

Chrysalis, while separated from her flock, went into hiding by gaining the trust of an unsuspecting Equestrian civilian.

She managed to keep her identity a secret for nearly two years before being found out.

In the meantime, Equestria had established first contact with humanity, which caused her arrest to be widely publicised throughout the world.

According to Princess Celestia, Queen Chrysalis has a long history of agression and imperialism, leading the population under her command to attack and usurp neighbouring communities and nations, including Equestria.

“Chrysalis is a predator. She and her changelings survived solely by feeding off weaker creatures, even if that meant enslaving and terrorising them.”

Chrysalis is currently being charged under the Rome Statute, with added amendments originating from the Fillydelphia Review Conference earlier this year.

The charges include the crime of agression, multiple accounts of (occasionally planned) genocide, crimes against sapiency (formerly humanity), crime of apartheid, war crimes, and the violation of the sanctity of the mind.

The latter, a recently added amendment, interdicts the use of ‘mind control’, which Chrysalis used to subdue resisting opponents.

Captivity and trial

On Monday morning, the plane carrying Queen Chrysalis touched down at Rotterdam The Hague Airport, from where an armoured motorcade brought her to the Haaglanden Penal Institution in Belgisch Park, where she will await the start of the trial.

The regent will be kept in a cell specifically designed to hold such a physically imposing creature. It does, for one, contain measures to prevent the use of magic.

According to the director of the ICC Detention Centre, Otto Mjoberg, Chrysalis has indeed been acting “antagonistic” and “rampant” ever since her arrival, denying the court’s bailiffs any form of cooperation.

The trial itself is expected to be held in the Court’s Permanent Premises in the former Alexanderkazerne, and the pre-trial chamber is due to be in session on the 31st of this month.

The proceeding will be headed by a three-judge panel consisting of the Ugandan Jessica Suruma, the Irish Colm Mullan, and the Equestrian magistrate Lexy Fori.

The Queen’s defence will be supplied by the ICC as well, namely through the Swiss ICC defence counsel Alexander Estermann.

He told the press that “it would be an interesting, if without doubt complicated” case, seeing how there exists “no precedence for either side."

Criticism of the trial

Already in the weeks preceding the decision to trial the Queen in The Hague, there has been a tremendous political and legal backlash from various UN member countries.

The main point of criticism was the nature of the defendant and of the crimes committed.

It has been argued that Chrysalis’ motivation behind her action was not as egregious as popularily believed, and is even less so in the eyes of non-humans than the Rome Statute.

Nazmi Delikaya, an equinologist at the University of Istanbul argues that the supposedly malevolent nature of changelings is solely dependent on their survival instinct rather than on any conscious desicion-making.

“It would make as much sense as persecuting cats for the murder of mice.” he stated in a newspaper editorial released in the Hürryiet.

The ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office however disagreed, referring to the facts submitted for the case.

An official statement asserted that the crimes committed were the result of “drawn-out planning” and were carried out with “willful efficiency”, by creatures “sentient enough to distinguish ‘necessary’ from ‘excessive’.”

Queen Chrysalis herself has been subject to the same and more accusations, as she is popularly seen as the unquestioned leader, and essentially as “the queen of a [bee] hive”.

With that said, the Queen is considered innocent until proven guilty, so as of this point, the incriminating evidence has yet to turn out pivotal.

A subject of controversy has also been the decision to the trial itself.

Queen Chrysalis had been the ruler of the changeling population for a nondescript but long period time before Equestria’s existence was even acknowledged by a human state.

Accordingly the Rome Statute declares that only offences may be prosecuted that actually fell into its jurisdiction by the time of its initiation.

It has been suggested that the trial itself has merely been an attempt of the UN to gain the favour of the Equestrian civilisations to instill confidence and to promote long-term cooperation with the UN.

The Doctor of Jurisprudence Jose Alvarez sees links between this suspicion and the active Equestrian participation in the trial’s legal process,

He stated that “In the face of all political niceties.” it could become a “Kangaroo show trial” for the changeling regent herself.

Analysis:

Roger Keating, BBC News The Hague

The Queen is obviously not amused. Strained from the long plane trip, she is unloaded behind the infamous red gate of the Haaglanden Prison, dragging along heavy chains of captivity, a weighty muzzle obscuring her five senses. Her wings are stashed under an improvised restraining jacket, and her horn is wrapped in plastic and foil, a battery dangling around it on a cable.

The guards usher her up the ramp of the ICC Detention Centre’s main building, and the doors close behind her, trapping her in her new domicile. Whether or not this stay will be short-term is yet to be known, The tribunal has yet to find her guilty of the crimes she is said to have perpetrated against the equine races of Equestria.

Once upon a time, she had been both hailed and feared as a powerful queen, leading a swarm of changelings - tens of thousands of creatures - with aggressive determination and unidsputed hegemony. Now, she is but an animal led into a cage, anticipating the ruling of creatures other than herself. Even as she persisted that she had always been in the right, the other dwellers of the Equestrian island, be it ponies, pegasi, unicorns, griffins, buffaloes or donkeys, cheer openly about the capture of one of the country’s most ruthless and devious warlords.

She is accused of charges that paint an all the more graphic picture of the mystical creature. For countless decades, she had been the scourge of the land, having her changelings lash out at hapless victims and possible opposition, beating many, enslaving many, killing many, discriminating solely by the fact that they were not changelings, and utterly defenceless. She had instigated plundering and burnings, leaving entire communities for dead. Few details are known yet, but light will be shed on them in her subsequent trial.

That said, Chrysalis is far from broken. A wrathful gleam in her squinting eyes, the occasional lunging at her chains and flexes of her limbs; those are subtle reminders of her old, vengeful and determined self, who led her subjects from loot to loot, and from prey to prey. It is apparent that she won’t bow to her fate, and will be defiant, regardless of how her human and unicorn judges rule. In her eyes, they are merely some other inferior creatures, some of whom she herself had been holding a sway over for a long time. For her, no tide has turned.

Comments:

434. dinomelly11
16TH NOVEMBER 2015 - 20:47
What can you say about ‘Queen’ Chrysalis? Everybody is saying she‘s the next Mladic or Taylor... but really, I totally side with Delikaya! She is an animal, they even brought her in with a muzzle!! How much more proof do you need that she can’t control her instinctual impulses?! This is not a legitimate trial, this is a publicity stunt of the UN, to proove that they can convict Anything if they really want to. But hey, if it impresses Celestia... then it’s all just hunky dory!

370. northstar5
16TH NOVEMBER 2015 - 18:51 I now that not many ponys have axess to the internet yet, so I may be realy alone here. All so, please forgive my english. I was born and rased in Canterlot, and I was there a gain for the royal weding, wen the changlings came. I think its realy kind of the humans to care, but I would have given a lot for Krysalis to be ruled over bye my princess, Changelings are very trecherous creatures feeding on love and passion to live. Only a magic as powerfull as Celestias could make a tyrant like Krysalis atone.

358. Neil Glover
16TH NOVEMBER 2015 - 18:10
I have skimmed through some of the previous comments, and all I can say is, I disagree. Violence, injustice and oppression come out in many forms, so why not also among intelligent equines? Ever since I fought with the Desert Rats in Kosovo, I know how high the stakes are when fighting tyranny. The UN is justified to trial an equine just like a human. If the Equestrian island wants to be part of the world community, they’ve got to play after our rules. For me, the only risk is that this Queen Chrysalis could get off too easily.

306. bridgekeeper3
16TH NOVEMBER 2015 - 17:36
This whole thing is really polarizing. Then again, most news that come from Equestria are (really!) mixed bags. I understand that Queen Chrysalis’ actions are morally questionable, she is a warmonger and maybe a racist (or speciesist, dunno). But really, who are we humans to judge this? She is not a human, and I think she would be much better served at an Equestrian court-by her species’ (racial?) equals. It’s a thing just like with magic or flying. Keep this sort of things to their own likes, it keeps the world easier. No offense equines!

279. TomTov
16TH NOVEMBER 2015 - 15:48
what is there to say but “good start”? this queen of changelings is is going to made an example of what we humans deem justice. equestria is, from what i’ve gathered, really unstable. there are many opposing factions, rabid ideologies and powerful magic giving that all much more gravity than it should have. it’s great that some strong organisation like the un steps in and cleans things up. i was always a bit skeptic of the equines and their pseudo-monarchies. rly, the answer is to teach them a modern world view. start by arresting the tyrants!

Author's Note

Credits:
BBC News belongs to the BBC.
Map of Equestria belongs to djinn327.
Flag of Equestria belongs to Paper Peace.
Applejack in a box found on http://ponibooru.413chan.net/post/view/61434
Vynil Scratch with Photo Finish belongs to anjilasaurus.

Radio Debate Transcript from Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

"JAKOBEIT'S COUCH" - RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY - PRE-RECORDED DEBATE 1 TRANSCRIPT from TUESDAY, September 1st, 2015

[START OF RECORDING SESSION 2]

[BREAK ENDING, MUSIC FADING OUT, SILVIA JAKOBEIT RESUMING DEBATE]

JAKOBEIT: Beautiful! That was, by the way, a piece for strings orchestra, written and co-performed by a promising young pony musician - believe it or not. Her name is Octavia, and it's dedicated to her hometown - it's called the Canterlot Fugue. From the otherworldy vibe alone, you might have already guessed this piece of classical music couldn't have been composed by a human. I think this ties in very well with our current topic of discussion.
For everyone who has tuned in just now, we are discussing the upcoming trial of the Queen Chrysalis, the self-styled leader of the Equestrian Changelings minority, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a decidedly human institution. This decision caused a lot of political fallout on both sides of the Pacific. Why? Well, to delve into this affair a little further, I have invited two experts to argue to what extent this is a justified step.
On one end of the couch I have Lauren Mephisto - prize-winning novelist and essayist, author of the book "The Magic of Friendship", a report on the equine lifestyle and psyche - who argues this is a good thing to do.
On the other end, I have Alexander Estermann - a lawyer at the ICC who apparently will soon be stepping up as the defence counsel to Queen Chrysalis - who respectfully disagrees. Before the break, we heard both of you briefly reiterating your standpoints, but now I turn my attention to Lauren for an in-depth look. Lauren, why take this equine matter to a human court?

MEPHISTO: Thank you, Silvia. First of all, implying that the ICC is a human court, is the wrong way to approach the matter.

ESTERMANN: But it's true.

JAKOBEIT: Alexander, I'll turn to you in a minute. Please give Lauren this moment.

MEPHISTO: As I said, that's drawing a narrow-minded conclusion. First and foremost, the ICC is an international court, designed to operate beyond national boundaries. It's a court for the world, by the world. But nobody ever said that it'd be restricted to humans per se. Not in 2002, and not in 2015.
Of course, until barely a year ago, the issue was moot. Now however, the court truly has to step up to its name as an international court, unimpeded by race or creed. Or species.

JAKOBEIT: So you're saying the court was made for everyone? Man and mouse alike?

MEPHISTO: For anyone of certain intelligence, I mean. All creatures who can form states and govern them. Sapient beings. Nowadays, that simply isn't exclusive to humanity anymore. Equestrian ponies, Equestrian mules, Equestrian Gryphons all share this level of intelligence. They have states, they have governments.
It would be a big mistake to ignore them.

JAKOBEIT: I can already see Alexander is aching to put his oar in. Please, what problem is there with Lauren's thesis?

ESTERMANN: Ms Jakobeit, Ms Mephisto. I cannot speak for the intelligence of ponies or gryphons. I haven't met any personally, so I won't even start making any assumptions. But it is a fact that us and them are living, essentially, in different worlds. One of apples and one of pears. You can't simply expect ponies to be enthusiastic for any old human regulation like that.

MEPHISTO: Well, Alex, I have met a lot ponies already, and almost all of them were very enthusiastic about what the court is fighting for, and what it's trying to achieve.

ESTERMANN: That's not the issue. I'm saying that the laws themselves are incompatible. In more than one way. The Rome Statute was authored with humans in mind. And even if it hadn't been, ponies might still have extremely diverging concepts of war and peace and crime of aggression and genocide...

MEPHISTO: Some things are universal. Equestrians had their share of war, as your client's trial is going to show.

ESTERMANN: Don't assume anything. As of now, there isn't even enough evidence to bring her before an international court in the first place.

MEPHISTO: Yeah, not yet! You're delving into your lawyer role pretty quickly.

ESTERMANN: That tends to happen if it's your job.

JAKOBEIT: Now, now. Alexander, you're basically saying that the ponies do not fall into the categories that the court addresses. That does bring up an interesting point. Tell me, Lauren, what would be the ponies' gain? Why do they care about, much less want to, be part of a human-based justice system?

MEPHISTO: It mostly has to do with the usual feelings of uncertainty and skepsis. While we might be a little afraid of Equestria because we don't fully understand their culture and society, you must remember the Equestrians are just as scared of us. We may not comprehend the cutie mark, the magic artefacts and the cloud cities, but they don't comprehend the telephone, the lightbulb and the combustion engine. To them, we are scary aliens that outnumber them almost a thousand to one.
That's why both sides are frantically looking for common ground to cover. To appeal to each other. To invite the other's trust. That involves topics like ethics and morality and principles just as much as technology or politics. 'Thou shalt not kill', for instance, is a viable attitude that we all can agree a hundred percent on. Freedom, equality, diversity are all factors that are important to most of us.

ESTERMANN: Do you know that for a fact?

MEPHISTO: Yes. Because of that, many ponies - their leaders included - see the fact that they and we formally agree on something - like basic international law or human rights - as a token of friendship and respect. That gives them strength and certainty, and shows them that we're ready for teamwork. As long as that spirit persists, they'll be happy to partake in our sense of justice.
Such frantic friend-finding may look a little silly at the moment, but consider the alternative happening; Equestria finding nothing but rejection and incomprehension in our world - they'd fold in and cut all ties to the human countries, preferring to dwell an isolated life in constant fear and mistrust of us. We don't want them to end up as some magical, equine, second North Korea. We know they're looking for somebody to embrace with open hooves, and we shouldn't slam the door in their faces.

JAKOBEIT: I see. So it's just all of us not trying to make the other side feel insecure? It's good we cleared that point up, since it has been causing a lot of confusion.

ESTERMANN: Don't get me wrong, my heart bleeds for them. But how does this explain why they want to entrust their criminals to us?

MEPHISTO: It's supposed to be another sign of trust, Alex - they want assurance that we wouldn't judge Queen Chrysalis any differently than they would. That serves to set another common goal for us.
Plus, Chrysalis might not have been the first or last leader to commit such atrocities against Equestria. Maybe it's meant to send a message to those other ones, as to say: "Don't try what she tried! You will now be held accountable for what you do. The humans got our back covered on this one."

ESTERMANN: Oh how very droll. You say that they're exploiting this trial for political capital?

MEPHISTO: Let's be honest. Who doesn't?

ESTERMANN: Oh well, whatever. My beef here is that it's fundamentally illegal. Whatever Queen Chrysalis did, doesn't fall into the court's purview. Of course, Equestria signed and ratified the Rome Statute, which moved them into the court's jurisdiction. But that also means that the court can only look at any breaches of the Statutes from that day forward! Not the day before, and not the month before.
That's called the Grandfather Clause. You cannot indict any state of infringing something that wasn't a law at the time. No law means no crime. Yet we also know for a fact that all of Queen Chrysalis' alleged misdeeds lie more than two years in the past. That's the equivalent of ratifying Hungary, then go and hold them accountable for what Attila the Hun did. It has the same logic behind it.

MEPHISTO: Under normal circumstances, I'd agree. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know what the Grandfather Clause is.

ESTERMANN: Thank you.

MEPHISTO: But you're apparently forgetting it isn't just the ICC we're talking about. Let me tell you a little story.

ESTERMANN: Oh God, here we go.

JAKOBEIT: Lauren, will this story be relevant to your point?

MEPHISTO: Absolutely. It's the 16th year of what is now known as the Classical Era in Equestria. That's a long time ago in human terms, at least a thousand earth years. It has probably been much longer for Equestria. In that year, nine rulers from all over the Equestrian continent - such as from the Unicorn Kingdom, the Pegasus Empire, the Earth Pony Commonwealth, the Gryphon Provinces, and the Donkey and Mule Duchies, among others - convened in an Earth Pony manor house to conduct a grand summit. There, in the midst of a period of heavy political strive, famine and infighting, they penned a charter that should ensure peace and goodwill for the warring realms for the future. They dubbed it the "Code of Harmony".

ESTERMANN: Okay. So?

MEPHISTO: This Code of Harmony issued rules and regulations for all the leaders to obey. It forbade aggressive attacks on other tribes' lands. It forbade slavery. It forbade pillaging. It forbade laying a hoof or claw on civilians. Any lord or lady who would breach the charter would be judged by an assembly called the "Council of Harmony", staffed by elected scholars from the other nations, then punished.
Doesn't that ring a bell, Mr Alex?

ESTERMANN: Yes, and yet it's entirely irrelevant. You see, I did my homework too, Ms Mephisto. This so-called 'Code of Harmony' - ignoring the ridiculous age factor - apparently didn't amount to a hill of beans in that region's history. There is no other mention that such laws were ever enforced by any of the supposed signing polities. A judge panel to trial such offenders never convened.
The event and the legislation it spawned must have been ignored, shunned, and forgotten as quickly as they were thought up - and all that without leaving the hint of an impression on the world. So who knows? It might just as well never have happened.

MEPHISTO: I do know. And you're wrong. Two months ago, I was invited to the newly inaugurated Equestrian Embassy Center in Washington DC with a group of Literature students from Philadelphia University, to help and translate old Equestrian scripture into English. There, I saw the original copy of the charter, with my own two eyes. Miraculously enough, every signature, crest and seal is still identifiable as that of the lords and ladies of a millenium ago, as were most of the laws. Equestrian hippologists from the University of Canterlot confirmed the authenticity, by the way.

ESTERMANN: Hippologists? Oh please, dear God...

MEPHISTO: Concerning the Code of Harmony, dear Alex - it's a magnificent piece of writing. As a person who translated the entire thing, I can say with absolute certainty that the parallels between that code and our Rome Statute are uncanny. Not just the contents, which are more than just identical, but also the conclusions they draw.

ESTERMANN: I still don't see how a thousand-year old set of laws is supposed to set any standards nowadays.

MEPHISTO: Because I have found no evidence that these laws have ever been repealed by any of the states that drafted them. The Unicorn, Earth Pony and Pegasus states later unified to create what we today know as the modern Equestrian Princedom, uniting their three signatures under one. The Gryphon Provinces of yesteryear also still exist, in form of the Gryphon Union. The Donkey and Mule Duchies on the other hand, haven't changed at all. And this means that, with every surviving signature, these laws have prevailed in the background for many centuries. As a matter of fact, they exist to this very day. Just because they weren't enforced in an eternity, it doesn't necessarily make them invalid.

ESTERMANN: If you are so sure, Ms Mephisto, then can you point me to the signature of the Changeling Kingdom's ancestors on that paper? After all, there must be a reason why their Queen should care about it.

MEPHISTO: No. There were no Changeling signatures.

ESTERMANN: Ah yes, I see.

MEPHISTO: But it doesn't matter either. The region inhabited by the Changelings was, at the time of signature, a territory belonging to the Pegasus Empire, later to be incorporated into Equestria. The changelings technically are Equestrian subjects, just like they were back then.

ESTERMANN: ********. The Changeling Kingdom is an entirely separate country altogether.

JAKOBEIT: Sorry, Alexander, could you say that again without the swearing? We have a no-swearing policy and we might have to censor you otherwise.

ESTERMANN: What? Alright, alright. For ***** sake.

JAKO BEIT: And we'll have to censor that too.

ESTERMANN: Anyway, Ms Mephisto; of course the Changelings have their own state. It's called the Changeling Kingdom for a damn good reason.

MEPHISTO: Last time I checked, the region was formally called Northern Equestria. And it still is Equestrian.

ESTERMANN: Who says so? Equestria?

MEPHISTO: Yes. But the thing is: Equestria has a seat in the UN, and the Changeling Kingdom doesn't. Wouldn't you agree that Equestria's claim has a certain priority?

ESTERMANN: What else are they supposed to be, then? Some kind of autonomous region, surely?

MEPHISTO: Equestria says no. They just said it's [PAUSE] "untamed", though still within their own borders. According to them, Changelings are merely occupying wide stretches of Northern Equestria.

ESTERMANN: Sounds a lot like an autonomous region to me.

MEPHISTO: If they are, then surely one of a thousand-and-one asterisks. The fact of the matter is an ancient to-and-fro between Ponies and Changelings, a conflict which has raged on for a couple of centuries. And it probably was a catalyst for many of the wars these two groups fought. But as it stands now, everyone recognises Equestria, and no one recognises the Changeling Kingdom.

ESTERMANN: But that makes the Changelings at least a civil war party. Also, you can't be telling me that the Changeling Kingdom is the only country on the Equestrian isle that the UN hasn't yet formally recognised.

MEPHISTO: And doesn't that just make her the most ideally accused for the ICC?

ESTERMANN: What? No. Here you go again with the ICC. You do realise that we can't accuse her on the basis of some millenium-old piece of foreign legislation, right?

JAKOBEIT: Alex, one moment. Let me stop you there. Haven't you heard?

ESTERMANN: What?

JAKOBEIT: The ICC is currently conferring in Fillydelphia. And they're considering incorporating the Code and Council of Harmony into its structure.

ESTERMANN: What? You're joking.

JAKOBEIT: No no. According to Reuters, the two organisations claim to have a basis so similar that it would make sense to merge them.

MEPHISTO: And many of the descendants of the old signing parties agree.

ESTERMANN: That's idiotic. I mean, this Code of Harmony wasn't made for humanity. How can it even be considered a valid equivalent?

JAKOBEIT: As Lauren said earlier, some things just are universal. And in my opinion, if it was designed to be valid for Ponies and Gryphons and Donkeys and Pegasi and Unicorns and Changelings and whatnot - then why not humanity, Alexander?

MEPHISTO: I read the Code and the Rome Statute back-to-back, and it's literally a matter of changing the order of the articles, reshuffling the classifications, and adjusting the punitive measures.

ESTERMANN: What, even with the magic and stuff that is probably included in there?

MEPHISTO: Yes, and that's a good thing. That means that the ICC won't have to update the Rome Statute to include these things separately later. It will unify the most important points applying to humanity with the most important points applying to the Equestrian creatures. And the best thing is: It will automatically extend the ICC's jurisdiction on Equestria and her neighbouring nations by at least several centuries backwards.

ESTERMANN: This is ridiculous. It will never pass.

MEPHISTO: I foresee that the merger will happen. Mark my words. If the shoe fits, they should wear it.

ESTERMANN: Well, I foresee that they will have thrown out this shoe by the end of the week. Preposterous, that's what it is.

JAKOBEIT: And I foresee the looming end of our airtime. Alex, Lauren, I thank you both a lot for joining me on the couch today. Our debate has been immensely fierce, and I really enjoyed listening to you two going at it. Now, Lauren, you are aware that if this merger should fail, you'll be forced to eat crow. You must now promise to me that you will write another essay about it if you get it wrong.

MEPHISTO: Yes, M'am. Who knows, maybe I'll be ashamed enough to make a whole mini-series.

JAKOBEIT: I'll look forward to it. And if you turn out to be wrong, Alexander, you will have to defend Queen Chrysalis tooth and nail in court. You do realise that?

ESTERMANN: Looks like it. But I can assure you, Ms Jakobeit, it won't come this far. The ICC is a sensible institution that knows what's appropriate to judge and not to judge. Should they ever adopt a piece of Equestrian law, I'll eat my hat.

MEPHISTO: A real shame. I liked your hat.

JAKOBEIT: Ladies and gentlemen - fillies and gentlecolts; this was the twentieth edition of Jakobeit's Couch. I hope you'll also tune in next week, same day, same hour, when we continue with our Equestrian theme month with the topic: Poison Joke - Harmless Humour or Russian Roulette?
Until then, take care and have a pleasant evening. My name is Sylvia Jakobeit, and this show was recorded earlier today, from Prague, on behalf of RL/RFE.

[END OF RECORDING SESSION 2]

II. Audi Alteram Partem

II.

Audi Alteram Partem

Scheveningen, The Hague
16. November, 2015
4:57 pm MET

The day had started out frozen solid.
The trees were bare, the grass was petrified by the morning frost. Heavy fog had descended over the coastal city, a fog of the sort that comes when the air is colder than the ground, shrouding the monstrous cargo ships resting in eyeshot of the spacious Scheveningen beaches, the regal sandstone palaces and slim brick rowhouses inbetween the Grachten in the old town, the skyscrapers and tenement housings in the outskirts, the bulky, bushy dykes along the coast and the endless, barren fields in the hinterland alike.
Steaming out of all holes in the ground, it ground all the worldy surfaces with bristly, unforgiving sea air, splitting massive rock and squeezing the life and warmth out of anybody or anything that dared to stand in the arctic onslaught’s path.
Everything drowned in this November fog. One could hardly see the hand before his eyes, even less so what lay in front of one’s feet or wheels. Sounds became numb and muffled, subsequently isolating sidewalk from sidewalk, building from building, even park bench from park bench. The world was becoming languid and lifeless, wearing down under the lethargic nothingness that the fog created.

Needless to say that Alexander Estermann felt faintly glad when the afternoon rolled around and thick grey clouds, accompanied by a moderately reviving gust of wind, began populating the bleak white sky above the city, driving off the fog withín minutes, upon which single specks of drizzle began running down the windshield of his cab.
His head rested against the car door, his pale cheek glued against the cold window, squeakishly shaking back and forth with every cobblestone passing by beneath his seat, staring out into the light rain trickling against the other side of the pane.
Things had not been going too well for him as of late, and the lethargy he now found himself in was a completely plausible after-effect of him letting out his anger on some random bellhop in his hotel.

He squeezed his eyes and his tremendous dark circles shut, and ran through his greying brunette hair.
With a groan, he dug himself deeper into his coat as if it was a cuddly blanket, harrowed by the prospect that he would probably soon be dumped out of the warm, heated car, and into the deeply maritime cold of some unspecified street corner.

The scornful voice of the taxi's radio brought him out of his comatose trance. That voice rang a bell...

"Beautiful... Canterlot Fugue... otherworldly... human.... current topic of discussion..."

He sharpened his ears.

"For everyone who has tuned in just now, we are discussing the upcoming trial of the Queen Chrysalis, the self-styled leader of the Equestrian Changelings minority, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a decidedly human institution."

Oh no, his mind screamed. oh no! Not the debate... anything but that damn debate!
He certainly made himself look like one massive idiot on that day, didn't he? And now they were rerunning it? Who the hell would re-run a radio debate?

"...On the other end, I have Alexander Estermann - a lawyer at the ICC who apparently will soon be stepping up as the defence counsel to Queen Chrysalis - who respectfully disagrees..."

With a jolt, the lawyer snapped out of his silent worriment and beckoned the cabby,
"Hey, can you change the channel or something?"

The driver just shook his head beliedly. "What? No. Why? It's interesting... It's about that big trial going on right now..."

"I don't care. Change the goddamn frequency before I do it myself!" Estermann ordered him harshly.

The cabbie huffed, then switched the whole radio off with a scathed expression.

Only minutes later, Estermann found himself kicked out onto some street corner somewhere in South Holland's suburbia, his wallet a few dozen Euros lighter.
Impatiently he was rang at a chrome nametag implanted on a chrome milepost next to a pretentiously low-built chrome garden gate. Maybe it wasn’t chrome, but that didn’t matter. Any of this presumptuously shiny metal they now used in the new buildings was chrome to him, he wouldn’t know better.
On the other side of the fence, behind an incredibly short-cut lawn, there rested a small yet cozy two story residence, an obscure modern Edwardian townhouse revival, in all its smart white and anthracite glory. Well, at least it blended in perfectly with the bleakness of the sky.
This was the place where, according to the nametag, a certain C. Mullan, Dr jur resided.

After what seemed like an eternity, someone took mercy on him and hailed him over the intercom.
Who he was, a petty woman’s voice asked.

“Alexander Estermann.” He just stated, deadpan and much to the point. She should have known who he was. They were expecting him, after all.

After an embarrassing silence, the garden gate buzzed and unlocked. Simultaneously, the front door opened and a meek housemaid peeped through as the man made his way over the prim front lawn.

As he arrived in the wardrobe, Estermann was quickly shown just how far he was out of the housemaid’s mind.
She greeted him with a sigh and absently stripped him of his coat, nearly spilling his scarf on the wet floor while doing it, only to retreat back into the nearby kitchen with a disinterested expression. Estermann, who could mostly get a look of her from behind, and felt that stressful gastric concoction cauterise his bowels once again. Just before his ire levels came anywhere near causing a nervous breakdown, he swallowed his frustration hopefully when a much more homely character stepped into the wardrobe to greet him. It was a rather corpulent man in his sixties, sporting badly-cut white hair and a red wool sweater.

“Defence Counsel?” he huffed.

“Your Honour?” Estermann sighed.

Then the two men exchanged weary grins, then embraced in a cordial hug.

“Glad you still came, Alex.” the judge said in his typical warm Monaghan patois. "I see you're still holding on to your hat? You're not reneging on any promise, now are you?"

“And how.” The lawyer snarked as he searched the pockets of his coat. “Colm, can I smoke?”

The overweight judge stepped forward immediately, as if to restrain Estermann’s searching hand.
“Don't, Alex. Patricia will kill me!”

“Your wife?”

Colm’s flaming eyebrows glared at him.
“We have other guests today. And I think you know what a... bitch she can be on days like these.”

“Mhm. God forbid, Patricia…” Esterman picked up his suitcase with a disappointed shrug of his shoulders. "Well, at least you're still serving roastbeef today, right?"

"Eh, about that..." the judge mumbled, but his words tailed out as he examined his friend's pale countenance. “Anyway, you do look like you need a smoke.” he stated with a concerned expression. “You didn’t try to find my house all day, did you?”

Estermann closed his eyes and rubbed the temple of his eyes.
“I could have just as well. The day wouldn’t have been any less fucking wasted.”

“What happened?”

The overweight judge received quite an incensed glare from his colleague.
“Happened? Fucking ponies happened. That’s what happened.”

"I... see."

The judge led him to the great door that separated the wardrobe from the dining room, while the lean defence counsel, much under the impression that his colleague offered him a shoulder to sob on, began venting his frustrations in a hissy undertone.
“Telephone conferences with the court, interviews with some media outlets, and lots and lots of stupid questions. That’s my day in a nutshell. Everybody with a telephone connection and their mother just had to call me and ask me obvious things or things I didn't know, congratulate me on my luck to be where I am, and of course block my phone lines for much more important calls.”

The judge nudged him playfully.
“Ach, cheer up, Alex. You’re a much-sought-after man now. No more administration in Geneva. You’ve got to step up. You’re rolling with the big blokes now."
Then he added giddily, rubbing his hands together. "Anyway, where are Lena and your kid?"

The lean jurist simply groaned at the question.
"Geneva. Because I couldn't find a fucking flat for them before they missed their flight."

“Oh, bear up. I'm sure you'll find something nice and big before long. Now you have to concentrate on your work. You have a big assignment waiting at the ICC tomorrow. And that’s also why we reserved you a special guest’s seat tonight.”

Estermann looked up dubiously.
“Since when do you do special guests’ seats?”

“It’s the seat closest to the cloakroom.”

Estermann rolled his eyes and halted in front of the closed double door.
“Well, with someone like dear old Patricia in the kitchen…” Then he huffed and looked around skeptically.
He did not want to step inside before his friend. He was never the sort of person who would walk up to others unless it was something crucial. And dinner parties were nothing of the sort.

Letting his bored eyes wander around the wardrobe, he espied something lying on the cupboard right next to him.
“And what’s that?”
He picked it up. It was a porous piece of heavily crumpled paper, still moist from the rain. On one side, someone had messily written something with a thick black marker. “’PAARDENNEUKER’? What does that mean?”

The judge adjusted his glasses and sheepishly relieved him of the paper.
“Ehm.. Horse fucker.”

Estermann looked up to the heavens.
“What the hell, Colm? Can’t I leave you be for a year without you associating with such individuals?"

“Oh shut up." the judge exclaimed in mock offence and smiled. “I only found this thing this morning. Some caffler wrapped it around a D-battery and tried to smash one of my windows with it.” Then he cracked a snigger. “He missed. It chipped the wall, though.”

Estermann pressed his lips together, a certain level of concern brewing up in among his forehead wrinkles.
“Oh, wow... Ah, at least now I know what spooked your maid so much. Who do you think it was?”

"Didn't even have to call CSI. I think we both know who did it.” Mullan answered. “A group with a taste for poignant, yet refined species-based criticism."

"Pardon?"

"A bunch of bigoted hooligans."

“Let me guess - it’s because of fucking ponies, then?” the jurist quipped. “And why target you, anyway? I mean, I'd still understand if the prosecution or the defence would get letters like those. Or that 'Council of Harmony' back in Equestria. But you’re a judge, you shouldn’t be held accountable for anything yet.”

“You think gobshites like them care about such details? They just look for scapegoats to let out their anger on, they’re not in the business for the thinking.”
He flung the letter back onto the cupboard and rested a hand on the doorknob. “Another thing, Alex. For the next two hours, could you kindly try not to mention this thing? And could you please not refer to the equines as ‘fucking ponies’ anymore?”

Estermann raised his eyebrows, mildly surprised.
“Why suddenly so PC, Colm? What else should I call them, after all the experience I had with those equines?

The judge twisted the knob and sighed.
“Have you ever met an equine in person?”

“That no. And quite honestly, I'm not looking forward to.”

Colm pushed the lock and let the door open.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, Alex. Now be professional.”

“What do you...?”

The door slid open, revealing a lush dinner table, packed with salad bowls, great white plates covered up with blue tissues, and pointy crystal champagne glasses.

The guests that sat around the table, three of them all in all, turned toward the expectant lawyer. One of them, the physically smallest as it seemed, poked up from where she was seated with big lilac eyes, the tissue tied around her neck sweeping across the tablecloth under her chin. Her face was largely obscured as she licked the inside of a bowl, and only her ginger hair could be seen.

‘Oh what a sweet little girl.’ Estermann first thought and grinned. ‘Whose is she? And how old?’
Then she lowered the bowl.

Only in the next second the pleasant smile disappeared from the lawyer’s face as his lips folded inside.
‘What a… big snout she has. What green, furry skin.’ he noted.
Seriously, whose kid was this?!

“Oh, gweethings thoo you!” the thing squeaked, her large, long snout filled to the brim with leaves.

The early evening dawn came around very slowly, to say the least. Estermann nervously kneaded his serviette on his lap, slowly tearing it to shreds. His hunger bulged and his anguish continued to swell with every minute it became more apparent that there would be no roastbeef that evening.

Across the table, there rested the clean, visibly polished hooves of the evening’s centre of attention.
The olive-green equine was so human-like, so un-animalistic, that one could easily mistake her for a child in the first minute.

Licking her gums with a dainty little tongue, her eyes wandered back and forth between the defence counsel and the Great Green salad in front of her with wondrous fascination.
Then her head leaned over to the champagne glass, and snatched the brittle mineral cup’s side in her jaw. She proceeded to tilt her head upwards, until its contents flowed though her teeth into her mouth. Nobody seemed to mind that some drops managed to escape her lips and tricked down the sides of her snout, soaking her short coat as well as her collar - or rather, a blazer suit’s frill tailored in the form of a yoke - and dripping on the tablecloth.
Everyone else just looked at their own plates or at each other, acting content and busy. Only Estermann scrutinised the mare with an unsure, remotely disgusted expression.
But, granted, for all the sloppiness of her trying to drink out of a human's glass, it had a certain air of refinement and method to it. It certainly was a skillful act for a creature without hands, or even a normal-shaped mouth.

In the moments in which he could free himself from the pony’s sway, he looked at each of the other guests, just to see if they would at least react to him.

Apart from Colm the judge, there also sat two others.
Colm had taken a minute to explain that the third judge of the trial chamber, Dr Suruma, had been invited too, but she had excused herself due to some unforeseen trouble with her appendix, or something like that. Despite that, there still were those two other guests.

One was a thin, tall and silent middle-aged man who Estermann didn't recognise, with sizeable eyebrows and chin and clad in a rather outdated striped lounge suit, absent-mindedly scrutinising his salad bowl and discretely corpsing about something supposedly funny as he puffed on a very fancy Petersen pipe.
That pipe was, however, no concern of the other person, Colm’s dear wife, Patricia, who had set the mood of the evening for Estermann with a word-scarce, forced smile that practically screamed insults at Estermann’s face. He had never liked her, and the feeling was more than mutual. Anyone with one eye could see that she was trying to hide away her displeasure behind that great, fake, Stepford-worthy grin, as not to ruin the meal for everyone else.

With that unpleasant sight occupying his mind, Estermann’s sight quickly settled back on the equine creature sitting across from him.
Funny, how little he could tell about her. Every other person at the table could have half their life interpreted solely from their facial expressions and mannerisms alone.
But that pony was nothing like that. Her mannerisms were a mystery to him. Every time she shifted her eyes, twitched her ears or pouted after swallowing a bite of food, would simply not add up to any indication of how she felt or what currently occupied her mind.
She was, all things considered, an animal, so what else was to be expected?

“My name is Lexy Fori.” the pony said suddenly, and gave her opposite a warm smile.
Her voice was something awkward to listen to. Estermann had thought it would be deep and drawn-out like any other horse's whinny. It turned out to be even more disturbing and unnatural, in the form of a high-pitched, yet a tiny bit raspy something, like a cross between the sounds of a cat and a young goat. Her English was unnervingly impeccable, but the lawyer could not place the accent. “I’ve come to help Lord Colm and Lady Jessica. But I guess you know that already.”

“Mhm, yes.” Estermann replied automatically. “Wait… Lord Colm?”

“Oh, silly me.” The pony chided herself with a light-hearted hoof to the forehead. “It’s just that, where I come from, we call all the Princess’ judges Lords and Ladies. You see, it’s all part of the royal etiquette.”
She hesitated momentarily. “I was actually a bit surprised your court’s etiquette is so… lax.” She let that wondrous expression linger for another second. "Compared to Canterlot, I mean."

Estermann giggled. He intended to do so in approval, but then he latched on to the fact that the word kept bemusing him. It was one of those little things he would probably never grow used to. As opposed to some of the much, much bigger things...

He knew exactly why that pony was here. She wanted to be that sole judge from Equestria, in a sea of human judges. It was all settled and determined in the arrangement between the Equestrian nations and the ICC. The earth pony had probably been proclaimed a 'Judge in the Court of Harmony' by her Princess at the very last second, for the sole purpose of representing the Equine world in this trial. She didn't look like she had a lot of experience with presiding trials. Estermann was sure that if she had, she wouldn't be sitting here and grinning from ear to ear like that.
It was clear that it must have been some joker who had shoved her into the plane to The Hague. She was probably the last pers-p-pony to expect it all to go so fast.

Then again, anything even mildly related to Equestria had the propensity to develop very, very quickly. Ever since its discovery, Equestria had been such a big deal with world leaders everywhere, that they were usually given a preferential treatment in otherwise complicated political processes. Whereas other nations would need years to get a seat in the UN, Equestria managed to get one after only five months of intense negotiations with the Security Council. Whereas signing, ratifying and enforcing the Rome Statute would have taken human state dozens of months, Equestria had their process behind them after a couple of weeks of tremendous bureaucratic efficiency. Even the participation in the Olympic Games had been in the talks for a couple of weeks or so.
If Equestria didn't prove how surprisingly effective civil servants could be if they only cared enough, then nothing did.

“Canterlot, heh. Why did I think I wouldn't hear that name again?” he commented.

“Why? Canterlot is the Princesses’ home city.” The mare explained dutifully. “So, of course, our court is there too.”

“Your court?” Estermann mumbled. “So how many courts do you have in… uh…?”

“In Equestria? Oh, we have one biiig court for everything, sir. Right in the heart of the land.” She said and spread her hooves, as if trying to grasp everything in the court’s jurisdiction.

"You're talking about... that 'Council of Harmony', don't you?" he asked a little confused.

"Oh no no. I've been appointed a judge there too, as of... a week and a half ago." she grinned, "But the court I'm talking about now is the Court of Equestria, where I have been working for lots of years before that."

“Aha. So... this is awkward, isn't it?” the jurist commented.

Lexy’s hooves shrunk back meekly.
“Oh, um. What is?”

“Well, you have only one court? In the entire country?”
Estermann priggishly swirled the contents of his champagne glass. “It must be a tad impractical to maintain one court for a whole nation.”

“Oh, not at all.” Lexy objected. “I have to say it would be a teeny bit silly for a land to have two royal courts. Or three. We only have one royal family, right?”
She followed up with a cheeky little wink of an eye.

“Royal court? No no no, I’m talking about courts of law.”

Now the pony seemed a bit confused.
“Y-yes, so am I, sir. I’m not really sure you mean the same thing I do.”

“Legal courts!” Estermann enunciated, a little roughly.

“It’s the same, Alexander.” Colm interrupted them politely. “The Royal Court is the country’s legal institution.”

"Precisely." The equine justice agreed. “Princess Celestia could not possibly take care of many such courts. She has her hooves full presiding over our court already.”

“The Princess?” Estermann asked, focusing his eyes on the wall behind her in thought.
Then they slid back towards the equine, bearing a suspicious gleam. “Excuse me. It’s just that I was expecting Equestria to be, you know, a nomocracy.”

The was a moment of silence at the table. A nomocracy was a state where rule of law kept the government in check, rather than the other way around. To accuse a nation of being anything else but a nomocracy was generally felt to be a weighty allegation. At least, in most places...

“Oh, but it isn’t.” the pony clarified innocently and smiled. “I’m glad we could clear up that confusion. I’m sure it’s an easy mistake to make, sir.”

“Yes.” The laywer said, gritting his teeth.
His voice was calm, but his eyes were projecting revolt and detestation. “As a matter of fact, one could think that the International Criminal Court would never come to cooperate with regimes...”

Just as Estermann could pick up the sound of Mullan choking over a loaf of bread at that other heavyweight statement, the equine simply made a shrug-like motion, still friendly and rather oblivious to the controversy.
“Oh well, there is a first time for everything, right?"
She did not wait to jump straight to the next topic. "I swear, when I first set hoof on this beautiful soil, I thought I’d keel over instantly because it all was so overwhelming. The buildings, the furniture, the carts, the names, the colours, the landscape…”

A few amicable, approving sighs followed from across the table as some of the other guests quickly and politely empathised with her position. Estermann gave her a glare before adjusting himself into a more lax, limp position, not caring to mask his boredom after she bailed out on his accusation.

“It’s actually really funny.” she continued, once more whipping out one of her hooves as she relived one of her experiences in detail. “I mean, first I got out of the ‘air-plane’ that brought me here – believe me, I have never ever been in something so big that moved, let alone flew! – and the friendly humans at the ‘gate’ to the station told me to take a seat.
And at first I didn’t find any place to sit down, I was waddling around the room like a clueless duck. But the only thing I saw were those strange coffee tables standing around the place. Nothing I could slip onto anywhere in sight!
Only then, somepony told me to sit on those coffee tables!” she suffered from a short giggle fit, “because those were human benches all along! I swear, they are maybe two hooves higher than an Equestrian bench, and it makes that kind of difference in their...” she stroked her lower jaw, “what do you call it…”

“Aesthetic!” the judge’s dreary wife exclaimed in excitement.

“Prospect, yes! The prospect of usage.” The pony chimed and winked pleasedly as Patricia retracted into her seat.

‘The stupid attention horse.’ Estermann just thought to himself and smirked.

“It’s the little things that make the difference, right? Just like with the names. I was befuddled when humans began introducing themselves to me. Did you know it is required by law around here for every human to have at least two names? I didn’t know that, I can tell you. Before long, I started calling those humans, who were all very very important people ‘Hey Walker!’ and ‘Good morning, Barry’. Of course, back in good old Equestria – oh how much I miss it already – we only have one or two names per pon- uhm, per person. One would actually call the others by their foremost name. Take somepony named Bubbles for example. Once you met her, you can call her Bubbles forevermore. Unless, of course, she is in the royal family. Or a mayor. Or a guard…”

“Bubbles?”
Estermann couldn’t help but greet this with smiles. “How should I call you then? Lady… Fori?”

“Oh goodness. Please, call me Lexy. Everypony, please call me Lexy.”

Estermann leaned forward.
He had to ask the mare something before she could cut him off again.
“Alright. Lexy… What did you do before you came to The Hague?”

Lexy seemed a tad caught off-guard by the unprovoked question.
“I... had breakfast in Hoofington. It's at the lower coast. Why do you ask?”

Estermann scratched his eyebrow.
“No, I mean… how did you come to be in that 'Court of Canterlot'? What did you do to become a legal expert?”

“Oh. It runs in the family, I guess. See, I was born in Ponyville. A tiny village just below Canterlot. My mother is the mayor there. And my father is chaircolt of the local council. So I can surely say I had the great luck to grow up right in the heart of Ponyvillian politics. Now, this may not sound like much, and really, there weren't very many exciting things going on back then...
"But once you spend your whole life – from your first meals at the crib to the day you pass on your school desk to the next tenderhoof – you enjoy this very special outlook on what is happening around you, and what events your hometown is struggling through, and you get a very strong sense for justice, and you learn to care deeply about those who depend on your skills. My mum taught me more about the office and the duties of the mayor than any schoolmistress in Canterlot or Hoofington ever could.”

"Oh really?"

She rose from the chair she was lounging on and raised her flank above the table, so that everybody else could see what she had there. The party guests approved not even remotely of her putting her buttocks on display at a dinner, and squinted, trying to avoid the sight of it altogether. The man with the big eyebrows laughed heartily. The Swiss lawyer closed his eyes completely.
“And, well, once my flank flashed white and my cutie mark appeared, I knew there was no turning back.”
A picture of a gavel embellished her side. “From that day on, I was commanded by destiny. For me, it was either off to Canterlot to join the great lawmakers and judges at Celestia’s table in the Royal Court, or…” she chuckled, “off to Manehattan to join my auntie at the big Art Auction House.”
Then she sat down again, which was received by some relief from the other party guests. “Of course, I went to the only place where I could make a true difference. The Princesses' capital.”
Then her lilac pupils settled on Estermann. "Now... how about you?"

Now it was Estermann's turn to be caught off guard by the counter-question.
"Ehm, what?"

"Where do you come from, Alexander?"

Estermann rolled his eyes as subtly as possible. As far as he was concerned, this was not up for debate.

Mullan immediately filled in for his silent colleague.
"Mr Estermann has been in the business for nigh sixteen years now. He started when he was only twenty-two. An early up-start he was, back then."

"Well, yes." Estermann quickly cut him off.
That Irish bastard knew that what he hated more than talking about his life was to let others fill it in for him. "I was a couple of months at the Swiss Federal Court, eleven years in Geneva, and three years in Vienna. I have worked in administration and legal defence, and before that, I received my degree in Law and History at the University of Munich in 2000."
Simple and concise.

"Ah. And... and where were you born?"

"In Lucerne."

"So... you aren't from here?"

"It's in Switzerland. Do you know where Switzerland is?"

The mare opened her mouth to give an answer, but only an uncertain moan could escape it. Instead, her eyes moved all the more.
"I'm sorry... I'm afraid I didn't find the time yet to study that part of your world yet."

Again, Colm nervously jumped into the situation.
"No harm done, Lexy. After all, none of us got the chance to study Equestrian geography either. I mean... Ponyville, Manehattan, Hoofington... where is that?"
He let out a forced giggle. "Am I right, Alexander?"

Estermann lazily lowered his chin on a hand as he waited for the opportunity of an answer to pass.
'Yeah. where is Canterlot?' he thought silently.

The green mare, on the other hand, seemed uplifted by the lighthearted avowal. She bent over to her counterpart anew, and asked him,
"But, Alexander... I must ask you something about your work." In an instant, the amicable smile evaporated from her face, only to be replaced by an intrigued nod of the head. "Is it true that... it is your duty to defend... Queen Chrysalis?"

Deprived of any enthusiasm, Estermann shot the answer right back. Shouldn't she already know that?
"I am the Defence Counsel in this trial. So yes, I am going to defend her."

Contrary to his expectations, the mare didn't back off. Instead, she lingered close to him for a few more moments, contemplating him doubtfully.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

Her ears drooped.
"Well, yes. It's... it's Queen Chrysalis we're talking about. Isn't it? I was just thinking... how do you feel about that?"

This question seemed to grab the attention of the other guests as well, as they subtly glanced at the lawyer, expecting his answer. Estermann noticed that too, and lowered his eyes in thought.
"How I feel about it?"

"Haven't you met her yet?" the mare inquired, seemingly unsettled by his oblivious, uninvolved attitude.

"No. As far as I know, she isn't even in the country yet..." Estermann defended himself.

"Actually..." Mullan said between two gulps from his champagne glass. "She arrived only this morning, at Rotterdam Airport. She was scarcely on the ground ten minutes, when she already managed to rough up a couple of policemen."

"What?" Estermann and Lexy said, nearly in unison.

"The Hague Gendarmerie sent me a memo about it. A broken ribcage, a dislocated shoulder,... second degree burns, a severed finger..."

"Honey, please..." Patricia hissed.

"Sorry, pet. I am just saying... there is a reason Alexander could not go and see her yet."

Estermann could not help but feel an icy shiver run down his neck.
A severed finger?
Burns?
How the hell did she manage to burn them?

"Oh, deary me..." A dry laughter emanated from the other end of the table from the man with the eyebrows. He seemed to be a bit like a joker. "Looks like you just picked a right feisty client right there, my friend." He leaned over to the judge. "I must say, I never was a fan of finger food, but this is ridiculous." he commented with a palsied grin.

The other guests, including Colm, seemed to try really hard to pretend he wasn't there.
"Let us eat first."

"Nevermind." the man slurred and turned to Estermann. "What I am saying is, lucky upstart you, you've surely got yourself someone who is willing to fight for her rights. Read fight."

"Yes. Hilarious. Pure comedy gold." Estermann retorted.

"Alright. Enough, please."

It wasn't Colm who said that.
Everyone turned to the little green pony on the other end of the table.

"I am sorry, I don't want to be rude. But I must ask... should we really be finding this funny?"
That came out of the blue.
The jolly talking horse, unable to smile at something? What a riot!

She looked back at Estermann with concerned, uneasy eyes, then back at the others.
"Again, I'm really sorry, Colm, but... I don't think this is funny at all." she stated. "Not if it comes to Queen Chrysalis. Don't you think your friend here..."
She waved a hoof in Estermann's direction, "is not already very much in distress, even without somepony making fun about it?"

Estermann eyes widened in surprise.

"After all, Alexander is the one who has to work with Queen Chrysalis. Who has to defend Queen Chrysalis. Who has to justify everything she has done to others in her whole life. Do you understand what it means to defend... Queen Chrysalis? The thought of the task is enough to give me the shivers."

"Lexy. It was just us being sarcastic." the judge explained.

"No. This is not a joke. Not if Queen Chrysalis means as much to you as she means to us."
She sighed, visibly shaken by her own outrage. "Do you know what a lot of ponies call Queen Chrysalis where I come from? They call her... the shadow. Nopony really knows why they call her that anymore. Some say it's because in the old legends, half of the time, the only true form you would see of her would be her shadow - dark, looming, tall, consuming... giving away the darkness beneath the innocent pony's skin she wore.
"Others say it is because she could creep you and trail you so perfectly and so tenaciously that she might as well be your shadow. For all you know, she could be disguising herself as your own shadow.
"Or worse. Like when she disguises herself as you... taking your place at the family dinner, your homely bed, your place in front of the fireplace. Licking her gums at the sight of your young ones playing and tussling around her own hooves.
"Or worse. When she could be absolutely anypony else. Your neighbour. Your spouse. Your own little filly or colt. And you wouldn't be able to tell. What fear you would be living with, knowing that your own loved ones may not really be there, with you, but instead..." She trailed off. "Another chilling theory is that... she is a shadow. Or the shadow. All-consuming, chilling, louring. That wherever she flies, she blots out the sun from high above. Higher than any pegasus could travel. And that anything that is unfortunate enough to be rolled over by her shade... is devoured. Or better yet, swept away, like in a tidal wave of greed and hunger. Be it a solitary pony on the edge of the Everfree, a solitary house in the middle of the Appaloosan savannah, or a solitary village or town in the heart of the Canterlot mountains. Swept away, seemingly off the earth's surface. Nopony left to tell what happened. And nopony ever to be seen again."

"My, it sounds like quite a campfire tale..." Colm's wife remarked.

"It does." the pony answered warily.
The tone of her voice however did not hold any irritation or derision, as would be expected. Instead, it held melancholy. Melancholy and despair. The affection to the tale was noticeable. "Now, imagine it all to be real."
She turned back to the Swiss lawyer. "I am sorry. I am genuinely sorry, Alexander. I didn't mean to unsettle you. I can hardly even imagine what a ginormous task it will be to have to justify... that. I know I couldn't do it. By Celestia, I would rather give away my post at the Royal Canterlot Court than having to stand up for... that tartarus-spawn..."
The way she referred to the defence in the trial somehow suggested that she was little familiar with that procedure.

The Swiss lawyer collected himself. While he did find the tale quite intriguing, he forcibly reminded himself of the pure ridiculousness of it. This was a war criminal they were talking about. Not a bedtime bugaboo.
This campfire story couldn't possibly be a foundation of the charges against Chryalis, right? Because that would be, needless to say, laughable.
"All well and good, Lexy. But are you aware it is not my duty to defend Queen Chrysalis from allegations stemming from fairytales? She is here because she has committed serious atrocities against defenceless others and waged a war of aggression. Not because of... devouring shadows."

Lexy was not amused.
"Don't you know what she feeds on?" she asked him grimly.

"Meat?" Colm guessed.

"Fingers?" the man next to him laughed.

"No," the equine said and snorted. "Considering all the stuff she did back in Equestria... it's nearly difficult for me to believe she just 'roughed up' those unfortunate police officers today."

"Well yes. If you consider biting someone's finger off as 'roughing' someone up." the Swiss lawyer snarked.

"Trust me, Alexander. That... monster... took far more gruesome things from ponies. Things that made her the 'legend' she is nowadays. Ironically enough, it was neither head nor hoof she took..."
Again, she sighed. "...but the heart."

"She... removed their hearts?" Colm asked, his face floating somewhere between fascination and disgust.

"Honey, please!"

The pony shook her head.
"She stripped them of all their love and affection. She left them as empty shells."

The others looked at her funnily, unsure how to react. Estermann ended the moment, appropriately enough, with a snort.
"Their love?"

"Oh, classy. This is some great wedding hymn material." the man cackled. "Their hearts, wonderful."

"Hm..." Colm tried to say, but couldn't bring forth anymore.

Estermann felt like he had to burst out laughing uncontrollably, and looked around. For amoment, as he looked around, he felt a little like a doctor inside a mental ward.
"You are saying that she took their love, and that's why the 'Council of Friendship' wants to indict her, and that's why we're all here, trying her?"

The Equestrian magistrate nodded.
"That is what we must take to heart."

"You're saying that Queen Crysalis is standing trial in front of the International Criminal Court - probably the most important legal entity in the world - not because of attempted genocide, and not because of a policy of racism... but... love theft?"
Before she could answer once more, he spread one of his hands to visualise just how aghast he was. "I really hope you are not being serious."

"What do you mean?" the pony exclaimed and lowered her ears once more.

"I..." He pressed his fingernails against his forehead. "I don't know how you might do things in Equestria, in that one court you have there... but this is the wrong place to spout corny horror plots and try to sell them as legitimate prosecution material."

The other guests stared at him.
Colm immediately reprimanded his friend on his harsh words.
"Alexander... I think you're underestimating the psychological impact of Queen Chrysalis' actions-"

"Fuck the psychological impact, Colm!" Estermann snapped. "This is not a criminal trial, this is a farce."
He stood up and looked around the table, with everyone looking back at him as if he had lost his mind. "Just take our precious 'Magistrate' sitting next to us for example."
He pointed down at the trembling equine. "Total obliviousness to the concept of 'legal defence' aside, she is perhaps the most preposterous excuse for a judge I have ever seen. I'm sure she'd make an adorable image in a little robe and a wig, but I cannot get over the idea that she carries the responsibility of a panel judge alongside Dr Suruma and yourself!"

"What are you saying?" the mare asked him in an abashed voice.

"I made my degree in Law at the University of Munich in 2000. Where are your qualifications from? Ponyville Comprehensive? Can-ter-lot Secondary? Mummy's drawer?"

The overweight judge stood up from his chair.
"Alexander! Magistrate Fori is our guest and our colleague. And as far as I can tell, an exceptional jurisprudent. She came here with the best regards from her Princess and the Council, and this is still not exactly an easy situation for her."

"How does that change anything? As far as I can tell, her so-called 'princess' is judge, jury and executioner at her own court anyway! Seeing how they apparently don't even have an independent Judiciary, and - God beware! - frown on legal defence!"

The pony magistrate gasped.
"Are you saying something against Princess-"

But the lean lawyer cut her short.
"Magistrate Fori, or whatever your title is... around these parts of the globe, a judge is required to rule fairly and justly, and must have the capacity to see the accused as both guilty and innocent, and be able to weigh the odds. But you...!"
He knocked on the table sarcastically. "...you come in here and promptly start spewing all the distaste and half-truths about the defendant and her species you can think of, calling her a monster and a shadow... not once granting her the benefit of being portrayed as a normal being, an ordinary subject before the law... I bet you cannot wait to get this trial over with. Conflict of Interest is the magic word. Would your little tirade leak to the prosecutor, Magistrate, you'd be drummed out on your twitchy little ear, back to Ponyville, back to being just a horse again!"

"Alex! You're the one who's making the tirade!"

The exasperated lawyer looked around. His long-time friend was standing up, just like him, glaring at him with nearly passionate anger. The wife had gone back to smugly playing with her plate of salad, the corners of her mouth damning the lawyer for even attending the party. The man with the eyebrows looked down, unable to contain an amused grin behind his hand. The green equine with the ginger hair had sunken back into her chair, twiddling her hooves, brooding, bitterly awaiting the end of the harangue.

Estermann would have liked to carry straight on with what else was wrong about this trial, just to prove his point and to save face, but the words got stuck in his throat, like a big puffy lump.
He was running on empty.

"I think it would be better if I accompany you to the door now." Colm suggested sternly.

Estermann bit his lip, strongly. He could already feel the blood gushing out.
Bitterly, he nodded and respired.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Alex?! What is it with you and being an arsehole the entire time?!"
The overweight judge scrambled forth a bunch of keys, his hands shivering in agitation as he looked for the key to the front door. "You were the one who came here! You were the one who crawled here on his knees, begging for a commission at the ICC defence office! To get out of that shithole Geneva! You've got your commission now, so why are you complaining?"

"I'm complaining, Colm..." the skinny lawyer retorted in a raucous hiss, "because, if Missus Ed out there would have her way, I'd be out of my job altogether! As far as she is concerned, I am superfluous in this trial. Because they, those fucking horses, don't have that little thing called 'defence' in Equestria... in any case not for this Chrysalis bitch! She doesn't want Chrysalis to get a defence. This is what it'd amount to. For her, I'm just some kind of equality pet who must be patronised and bewailed, not taken seriously. And if she were human, this could... no... should end in a fucking recusal for her!"

"Well you could have handled your complaint a little more tactfully, you thick bastard." the judge huffed.

"Well excuse me, Colm." the lean lawyer huffed back. "It's just, when I signed up for the court ten years ago, I was actually convinced that I would be working with some halfway decent people around here. People who know their duties."
He fell silent momentarily. "Can you tell me what happened here in the last few months, Colm? Since when has the judicial system made space for... a kangaroo court? And who invited the fucking pony in there to be part of the legal proceedings?"

"You know who, Alex! Legal cooperation with Equestria's Council of Harmony in this trial was one of the terms of the goddamn extradition agreement. It's the entire reason why she's here in the first place. You of all people should know that!"
He breathed, robbed of energy. "Just let the horses do their work. In a cosmic kind of way, they're basically just here as observers. Nothing more."

"Judges are not observers!" Estermann reminded him forcefully.

"I think the Equines have a right to do their part in sentencing her. They're the ones who suffered, after all. Not us."

"Right. But, apart from the glaringly obvious fact that that would mean they are conflicted, they have 'suffered' from something that, as of now, cannot be backed up by a single shred of evidence." he sighed.

However, the judge would have none of that.
"You don't have to do this, you know!" he reminded the lawyer. "You can resign... tomorrow, if you want. No one's stopping you. If you really think this isn't your fight, then go, just go."

"Where? Back to Geneva?"
Estermann contemplatively shook his head. "I need this, Colm. I'm not leaving The Hague. Not like that, anyway. What are the odds I'd ever be able to find an appointment around here again after this? In the next, what, ten to fifteen years?"
He rubbed the cold sweat from his forehead. "But it just had to be the one with the horses, right? Not... humans? We are a human court."

"Not anymore, Alex. This is a court of the world's 'sapient species' now. This is what we have to get used to."
Finally, Colm found the key he was looking for, and unlocked the entrance. Cold evening air streamed in as the hefty door tilted open.

"Quite frankly, I don't know what to be more shocked about." Estermann concluded gloomily. "That the honourable ICC is conspiring with an autocracy... or that it conspires with a bunch of animals..."

"Alex." Colm shouted over the wind, "Shut up and focus. Tomorrow, 8:00 o'clock am sharp, conference room 207c. Briefing for all legal staff in the trial at the Permanent Premises. Will you be there?"

"Obviously. 8:00 o'clock then."
Estermann buttoned up his mantle. "And when can I see... uh... the defendant?"

"Queen Chrysalis? Well, phone the warden at Scheveningen, make an appointment. Tomorrow, if possible."

"Okay."
Silently, he stepped out of the warm foyer, out into the brash November wind.

"Alex?"

He turned around a last time.
"Colm?"

"This Queen Chrysalis... do you think she's even worth it? I mean, worth such a cocky defence? After all, she bit someone's finger off only this morning. From the sound of things, she is not exactly Bambi's mum, Alex."

"Audi alteram partem, Colm! Everyone deserves quality defence in a courtroom. Anyone can be looked upon from two sides. And anyone who says something different can kiss my arse! Thanks for the dinner."

Author's Note

Man is the crown of creation. Who says so? Man.
- French proverb

III. Struggling Together

III.

Struggling Together

ICC Permanent Premises, The Hague
Office Tower 1
17. November, 2015
8:09 pm MET

Estermann settled down behind a conference table facing the platform with a cup of tea, a paper plate of waffles, a newspaper and a laptop. Rubbing the sand out of his swollen tear sacs, he looked around the tumult that took place around him.

So this was conference room 207c. A rather beautiful place, actually. This room was, just like the entire building, freshly spruced up. One side of the room was pure pristine glass, void of any scratches or stains, with a decent view on an assortment of some young balding linden and chestnut trees on the front lawn. The rest of the room consisted of blank tilework arraying on the walls and dark shiny metal slides making up the ceiling above them, intersected by neon lightwork every few metres or so.
This whole atmosphere was still so crisp and unused he could still smell the lacquer on the elegantly curved plastic seats and the tabletops, the polish on the brittle ceramic walls and even freshly welded plastic cables behind the facade. The Permanent Premises had been under construction for months, completed in record time, and ceremonially inaugurated only a couple of weeks back.
Truly a hymn to the human sense of justice, a poetic design student would have said. It consisted of an array of glass skyscrapers, standing on an artificial platform surrounded by a rectangular moat.
Like a castle of justice. Like a stronghold of righteousness and professionalism, unimpeached by race, creed or nationality, spiritually seized in symmetric glass, porcelain and chrome square tiles. And even though Estermann knew that he shouldn't be too fond of a mixture of these materials, as overused and stilted as they already were, any notion of pretentiousness and kitsch quickly melted away under the feeling of pride and elation of being allowed to reside in such an institution.
They even let loose a twiner inside the room, as if even the nature outside in the park was being represented. It was a nice psychological touch for anyone who had spent years of his life trapped in a grey, stale, asbestos-infested office hive.

Estermann turned away from his meagre brunch treats and looked at the people flooding through the glass double door.
They were mostly humans in black and blue blazers, just what one would expect from such a formal pre-trial conference. The Registrar was there, the President of the Court, journalists, investigators, case-related experts, security agents, countless case managers and legal consultants, many of whom Estermann had the 'pleasure' of encountering in the last few weeks.
But even in this sterily professional atmosphere, he sighted spots of bright, motley fur moving around between the trouser legs of his human co-workers. And suddenly, that entire assembly had lept into obscurity when it dawned upon him that the equines too had arrived.
They all came in simultaneously, probably carted here by the busload, either directly from the airport, or from wherever they were allowed to stay in the city. Like a mix between a group of sight-seeing tourists and a herd of goats, they flocked into the room, occupying the first two front rows before the podium, where they slumped down on the seats, unstoppingly babbling about things Estermann could not decipher. They all sat together too, seemingly separated from the human remainder of the room by an invisible fence. Apparently, being foreign dignitaries and guests of the court and all, they would have these seats reserved especially for them, but they were like a microcosm inside a bigger microcosm. The assembled humans didn't help the situation either as they - Estermann noticed - picked seats from which they could enjoy the show from afar.
It took him only a few more seconds to divert his eyes to the podium up front, where he spotted his friend Colm taking a seat, accompanied by his very own entourage. Behind the Irish jurist, the green mare from last night's dinner slumped on one of the chairs to his left, once again with masterfully refined clumsiness. Actually, it impressed Estermann to see that an equine could actually sit on a human chair, if only barely. Maybe the other equines also sat in front because they probably couldn't possibly see anything from the back.

Then an elderly black lady with short dark-grey hair took seat between the judge and the magistrate pony. She was the head justice of the pre-trial chamber in this case - a Ugandan-born, British-educated jurisprudent, and her name was Jessica Suruma. While not the most famed or renowned judge, she herself had garnered quite a repertoire when judging over a couple of individuals from Sudan, Lybia and Syria.
If one word was needed to describe her, it had to be 'fair'. Despite being the type of person that was apt in making judging and often only vaguely subtle remarks about people she just met, she was all the more cautious when making formal decisions - making her remarkably deliberate and slow when felling judgements with any actual gravity. And when she did, it did sometimes seem like she decided on the flip of a coin rather than on an intricate conviction.
She was perhaps the perfect example of a somewhat loudmouthed person with a hard, decisive crust but a soft, squeamish core. And yet, she was one chewy nut through and through - for all the trouble that was worth, that meant she was staunchly neutral. Too ambiguous, too detached, but neutral nevertheless. One could always rely on her inability to be affected by any personal preferences or agendas.
Whether or not that was a good thing was an issue for another day.

As these three judges had all taken the seats between the President of the Court and the Registrar, Estermann's mind automatically sprang into calculation mode.
First, he inspected Colm - the kind, good-natured features of a trusty friend in a judge's gown.
He counted him as a voice in his favour.
Then he spotted two large and sour eyes, their purple irises constricted, staring down at him from up there. The green pony they belonged to, still suffering from the 'horrible' putdown in front of her colleague, was glaring at Estermann from the podium like she had just noticed him, both shocked and disgusted at finding that human once again sharing the same space. She had probably hoped their paths wouldn't cross again. Estermann was secretly hoping just the same. 'Well let her stare, the stupid horse.' he told himself as he responded to her glare by nonchalantly looking through her.
No, he thought, he couldn't count on her voice for anything. Not that he ever could - she was little more than a puppet of her own masters. Though now, he could probably count on her even less.
Finally he let the featureless, mildly offish and bored face of the pale Ugandan gran in the middle sink in.
Nothing.
In this trial - so far his theory - he had a more or less precise fifty-fifty chance of losing, thanks to the horse on the board. If he wanted to get a first good impression for his mysterious client in the courtroom, he needed to focus on winning over Suruma to his cause. After all, Mullan's vote was already secured. Hopefully.

A tap on the microphone brought the excited atmosphere in the room to a grinding halt as everybody quickly resumed to their seats or standing in the back of the room. Journalists manned their cameras, civil servants emptied their suitcases on the desks, and the ponies looked up to their fellow equine and her human colleagues, with almost circus-like excitement.

The President of the Court, a Japanese fellow by the name of Takuma Yanagida, lifted himself and smiled amicably into the microphone before him.
"First, I would like to thank all of you for finding the time to attend this little get-together. I know it was rather short notice, but thanks to the flu raging in our offices, we had some logistical issues as of late. So, not to waste anymore of your time, I will pass on the word to Justice Suruma."

Clumsily, he moved his microphone, past the hooves of a mildly bewildered Lex Fori, over to the Ugandan Justice's seat.
"Thank you, Mr Yanagida." she began.
"Madames et Monsieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen... Fillies and Gentlecolts. First, I would like to point out that today is a fortunate day, seeing how all key people in this trial have decided to make it to The Hague in time. The defendant, Queen Chrysalis, is currently situated in the Detention Centre in Scheveningen, having only arrived a day ago. I am also happy to see the fellow justices, the Prosecutor, Ms Serafina Pierman, and the Head Defence Counsel, Mr Alexander Estermann all in attendance."

Estermann slowly rose from his seat, quickly putting down his tea cup and newspaper, and stood to attention for the justice. She nodded at him, and then at the prosecutor.
Secretively, he tried to espy said prosecutor from the corner of his eye. He had not actually met her yet, of all the people involved in this trial, personally.
She was the one who masterminded the warrant for Queen Chrysalis. She was the one who had first thought, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we put that monster in front of the ICC? Wouldn't that be hilarious?!'
Estermann spotted her, standing up like him, amongst the sitting ponies. She was literally the only human to have chosen to do that.
She was a fairly attractive woman, a South African native. It made sense to Estermann - South Africans like her had their share of experience in oppression and tyranny; of course she would be interested in fighting it in all its forms. Discretely, she glanced over to him just as he looked at her. A flame of fervor was gleaming in her eyes, a beacon of conviction, of passionate determination.
Well, Estermann sighed, she was one of those people - the type that dried her hair with the power of love and quoted the meaning in life on her business cards. On the bright side, she would get along just dandy with all her new plaintiff pony friends.

"For those who are new to the proceedings, let me summarise our current situation." Suruma continued.
"Mr Mullan, Ms Fori and I make up the judge panel of the pre-trial chamber. It is our duty to determine, with the help of the Prosecutor's Office, whether the charges against Queen Chrysalis are legitimate, and whether they can be brought before this court."
She lowered her eyes unto a piece of paper. "In Ms Pierman's words, Chrysalis the Queen of Changelings, is charged with mongering a war of aggression, initiating campaigns of genocide, conducting slave labour, holding prisoners in inhumane cond-"

The pony to her left whispered something into her ear.

"Yes, sure. Insapient conditions, naturally, and practicing insitutionalised speciesism and apartheid, and... invading the sanctity of the mind. The last addendum is new - you should find an annotation on the information leaflets you have received."
She looked up again.
"Seeing how the pre-trial period is dedicated to verification through collecting evidence, investigators are currently working on Equestrian territory. They are searching for witnesses and pieces of evidence that support the Office of the Prosecutor's claims, as well es indications that defy them."
Looking a little perplexed, she then proceded to shuffle several pieces of paper around her table. "However, here we have hit another snag with which we haven't quite found a way to deal with yet. As of this moment, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings is and remains the only... reachable member of her government, armed forces... or species."

There were some strange looks towards the judges. Even Estermann couldn't quite understand what she meant.
What, did no one bother to answer the phone back in her kingdom?

"It appears as if the remaining Changelings of Northern Equestria..." Suruma continued explaining, "...have largely gone into hiding. They have cut all ties they may have had to the outside world. They have abandoned many of the places they have been previously known to inhabit or occupy, taking all traces of society with them to unknown locations. Investigators have been dispatches to investigate marked sites. Most have returned empty-handed, while some others seemingly came under attack by unknown hostile forces, and were possibly even abducted. We have no information about either their whereabouts, nor about those of the attackers."

A collective uttering went through the room.
What a mess. How could a whole region - an entire nation! - go dark just like that? Their habitat must have been much smaller and isolated than he had first thought. Perhaps, if they were living in some sort of snowy tundra or highland region beyond any semblance of civilisation, that could have explained a lot.
Just like the Russian Empire, which resorted to abandoning and burning their own cities in the middle of deepest winter, just to grind down Napoleon's advance, the Changelings had reacted to the capturing of their leader by packing their things and retreating into the unknown, delving underground.
While it was certainly an uncomfortable situation and obstructed the Prosecutor's process, it was nothing that he or his mysterious defendant really had to worry about. Dr Suruma explained it rather well herself...

"I don't have to mention that this trial cannot proceed without sufficient and detailed information on Changeling state, structure and situation, or eyewitness accounts of the same. The Equestrian government has ensured us all necessary assistance in tracking down and contacting - or, should necessity arise, arresting - Changeling authorities, but there has been little progess so far. That said, the investigation continues as we speak. In case that no progress is achieved in the following weeks, or the danger for our Court associates continues to persist, the investigation may have to be adjourned until further notice."

Amidst the nervous hustle of a hundred whispering voices, a subtle smugness crossed the lean defence attoreney's lips.
'And so', he thought to himself, 'the court already straddles under the weight of their own self-imposed Equestrian burden. Now, I don't mean to brag, but wasn't I right about this all along?'

"This brings me to the defence. Herr Estermann?"

Estermann looked up abruptly.

"Come over, please. I need to show you something."

Quickly, Estermann skipped over to the justice at the podium, gleefully ignoring the intrusive gaze of the spiteful pony justice next to him.
"Good morning, M'am. Also good morning to you, Mr Mullan."

Colm winked and nodded his head, and his Ugandan colleague leaned over and pushed a staple of paper into his hand.

"Mr Estermann, let me use this occasion to introduce the other members of the defence team. Think of it as choosing your team in sports class."
Assuming the stern look of a classroom teacher, she leaned over the papers and nudged her glasses as she read out some of the names. "Garibaldi, Filippo, assistant counsel. Armour, Shining, security consultant. Van Biene, Antje, psychological analysis. Heartstrings, Lyra, cultural advice. Wouters, Nicolas, medical supervision and support."
She hesitated, "No... forget Wouters for now. He is in hospital, ever since that incident on the airfield yesterday. His replacement is still pending. I'd suggest you use the time after this meeting to review the state of your client, Chrysalis. She is in a very... awkward position right now. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service considers charging her with assault, battery and attempted manslaughter. The United States JAG Corps tinkers with the idea of doing the same."

"Ah. Thanks." Estermann winced. Not only was the ICC, the UN and half of Equestria after her now, but the Dutch and Americans as well? Truly, Queen Chrysalis had the gift of making friends wherever she went.

The judge pointed into the crowd behind him.
"Shining Armour is the white unicorn stallion front row left, in that red uniform. Take him along on your way to Belgisch Park. Dr Van Biene has a session with your client as we speak; see that you can catch up with her. Garibaldi phoned in from Lyon, he'll arrive later today with the 15:30 express. Take care of Queen Chrysalis, Mr Estermann. Don't let this brief setback fool you; the defence is lagging behind in preparation, and the first hearings will be taking place at the end of this month."

"Obviously, I wouldn't be here otherwise." he answered. "I was... I was looking forward to see her."

"No doubt you did, my learned friend.“ Ugandan gran snarked, "But enough time has been spent with doing nothing. Now take care of your precious fosterlings. That's all for now, Mr Estermann."

And suddenly, Estermann realised he didn't like her. But he had to prevail. He returned to his seat just as he caught a glimpse of the head justice ushering Pierman over next.
Quickly, he drowned the rest of his lukewarm tea with one gulp and started looking around, hoping to catch to see the expecting eyes of persons who were expecting him to jump into action. The white unicorn in the front row still looked forward bluntly. Estermann couldn't make out whether he was looking at the judges or out the big windows, but in any case it meant that the horse's mind wasn't occupied with him.

Estermann leaned back and closed his eyes, glad he could still take a minute or two of breathing time without any human or horse wanting something from him.

At some point, the exasperated lawyer felt something round and hard touching his shoulder. He immediately flinched and looked around.
Damn it, his feelings of calm and serenity had stabbed him in the back again!

A hoof was tapping him from behind. He traced it back to a virtually beaming aqua pony standing at attention behind him. In fact, she was aqua all over. Her coat was aqua, her scruffy mane was aqua, her tail was aqua, her horn was aqua. Her eyes were amber, though. Which made her giddy stare even more uncomfortable.
"H-hi..." she mouthed.

Estermann shook her hoof off his shoulder discretely, and looked around, unsure how to respond.

"H-hi... hi... hi..." the equine repeated, acting neglected.

"What?" Estermann hissed as he struck out his hand, as if ready to fend her off with it.

"I... uhm..." she stuttered.
But then she quickly drifted off into some state of bliss, and reached for the lawyer's hand.

He quickly pullet it beyond her grasp before continuing.
"What do you want? Who are you?!"

She snapped out of it and laughed uncomfortably.
"Oopsie daisy. Sorry, I just got distracted by... well..." she glanced at his hands again.

Estermann quickly folded them and turned towards the bailiffs standing guard at the doors.
"You! Excuse me!"

"No no, you don't understand." the mare immediately squawked, pouncing upon him with both forehooves.
"I'm Lyra. I'm Lyra. You get?"

"No!” he hissed, terrified by the intrusion. “Let me go or I will call security."

She obeyed and breathed distressedly.
"I'm Lyra Heartstrings. You know, your Equestria expert?"

Estermann stumbled upon his own words upon hearing that. Hadn't Suruma just mentioned her?
"Equestria expert? What? You?" he repeated doubtfully.

"Aha." Lyra confirmed. "It's just... For a moment, I was just so distracted by your... humanities, that I totally forgot what I actually wanted to say."

'Humanities?' the jurist thought.

"I... I hope I'm not sounding too hobnob when I say you possibly have the most slender and elegant fingers I have seen in my entire life." she stuttered meekly. “I can't just trot past you and let that go unnoticed...”

“...Th... thanks?”
Estermann looked left and right uncertainly. Then he dubiously scrutinised her hope-stricken smile. "... Are you sure you work here?"

"Sure? But of course. I am here by royal decree, after all."
She took a moment to look up to the ceiling sentimentally and mouth something along the lines of 'Thank you!'
She continued, "And I feel even surer alongside your steady hands! If you have any questions or unsure-isms about my country, just ask me. I bet I can answer you anything."

"Oh, that is good, I think." Estermann slurred and looked over to the prosecutor, who was still conversing with the Ugandan justice. "Look. If you're really want to work in the ICC, why don't you pop over to the prosecutor and lend her a hand? I have no questions worth asking you right now."

"...lend her a..."
The mare seemed lost in thought for a moment, but then she aptly forced herself out of it again."But... but the boss said I'm sticking with you."

"What boss?"

“Uh, President Wut's-his-name...”

“Yanagida?” the lawyer reminded her, before stopping. "Wait a minute. Did you say he said you'll stick with me? Permanently?"

"That's right.." she answered with a pleased smile.

"Missy, I am the defence council. I tell you, the pony ranch is over there with Ms Prosecutor." He pointed into the pony-dominated corner with Pierman's seat.

"Yeah, but they already have plenty of experts. All of them Equestrians like me, all eager to to their bits. But I have noticed that you don't have any. So Mr... Wut's-his-name said I'm now part of the defence team.”
She nudged him enthusiastically. "We're teamsters, Mr E!"

Estermann squeezed his eyes.
"You're a pony."

The aqua pony just sighed and nodded her head, with a hint of melancholy.
"Yeah. No need to remind me of that."

"Let me enunciate this for you: This is the defence for Queen Chrysalis. Unless you have something to say in favour of her, I suggest that you stick with the prosecution, because I don't need any neigh-sayers at the moment."

"But I'm not a... I mean... I am a not-neigh-sayer.” She seemed to steer her ship very carefully this time... “Plus, I can be your very own Equestrian connection! How can't I be of use? Who will answer all the questions you have about my homeland if I wasn't there?"

"Alright."
The lawyer scrutinised her with slitted eyes.
"Tell me this: What is... the capital of your nation's second-lowest income region?" he quickly spurted out and cocked his head smugly.

"Do you... mean the biggest urban centre, Dodge Junction, or the governor's seat, Las Pegasus?" came an equally fast reply.

"I..." Estermann had no answer. "Alright. Fair enough. Evidently, you know your stuff."

"I know!" the mare squeed enthusiastically. "Though... I always want to know more about... not-my-stuff things..." she added absent-mindedly.

Estermann noticed her glance once more slipping into the vicinity of his hands.
"My eyes are up here."

She looked up.

"My point is, you can't do anything right now that a human professional from an Institute of Ethnology couldn't do for me. What I am interested in at the moment are hard facts about the state of your country."

"A human expert?” She almost wanted to 'pffft' at that, but forcibly restrained herself at the last second. “I mean, sure, yeah, she might make you 'know' Equestria - but I can make you feel Equestria."

The lawyer rolled his eyes.
"You came to the wrong person for that."

But she was from giving up yet.
"I... I can even do other stuff if you want to."

"Like what? Sorting files? Typing reports? You need hands for that sort of thing, darling.”

"I know that!" she huffed bitterly.

"I mean, technically, you couldn't even bring me a cup of coffee. So go and-"

Her eyes suddenly lit up once again.
"That, I can do!"

"No, you can't!"

"Yes I can! That's a cakewalk! Any foal can make... 'coffee'! It's like tea, only with a C and an F."

"'Bringing' coffee, you can't! No hands." he breathed, exasperated.

She raised a hoof to his face.
"Say no more."

And with those words, she rushed past the guarded doors and out of the meeting room.

Other listeners turned around and caught at the aqua blur fleeing the scene. Then they looked at Estermann, trying to deduce what the hell had just happened.

Estermann himself wasn't so sure.
Where had she suddenly gone to? The whole thing had been so abrupt.
But now that it was over, he just hoped she would stay away.

That creature was, in some respects, just like those certain friends' friends one would meet at parties, and would generally try to avoid meeting ever again; obnoxious, overzealous and constantly under the wrong impression.
And even if she had been just swell and a pleasant character - something that Estermann dared to call into question with any pony - he honestly would not want any equines to be part of the defence team.
And even if she was really knowledgeable about the Equestrian lifestyle, even if she had good and helpful connections on Equestrian soil... he would not want an equine on his defence team.
It was the equivalent of employing a communist to defend a fascist in court.

Estermann had already experienced first-hand the other evening how potentially destructive it could be to have an overzealous pony in the judge panel. He could only shiver at the thought about the destructiveness of a pony actively participating in the Queen of Changelings' legal backfield.
And apart from that... he was almost certain he wouldn't be able to conduct quality teamwork with horses. Even less so than with regular humans.

Stuffing the pancakes down his throat and jamming the badly folded newspaper into his suitcase, he made ready to depart from the conference so he could finally get to meet his notorious client in her prison cell, just as the head justice had ordered him to.
Now he only had to collect that unicorn 'security specialist' up front...

He could swear his head had begun to hurt from the sheer amount of ponies he had to become involved with in this trial.

The drive through Scheveningen was short and painful.
Estermann had hailed a taxi SUV in front of the building, to ensure that both he and the white unicorn in the red coat had plenty of space for themselves.

The lawyer looked out the car window. The sky was still white, blank, with a slight rain dripping down from above, and almost no people walked around by the streets of the usually idyllic suburb of Scheveningen, filled with lush parks, athletic grounds, broad and smoothly cobble-stoned promenades, brick-red barrack buildings, community centres, consulates, embassies, and headquarters of various international and multilateral organisations.
But now, in early winter, it seemed more like an assortment of balding trees hidden behind iron fences, desolate and lifeless public places and dreary brick housing estates dotting the pale horizon, all passing nonchalantly by on the sides of the road. The fact that it was Monday, basically the third day of the weekend in the Netherlands, didn't exactly help either.

Just as Estermann began to wonder what all the locals were thinking - how they could live on their lives in the most empty and dull ways, even though now they had magical, mystical talking ponies, literally living next-door - his taxi turned at a junction, revealing quite a commotion acting out along the fence of the ICC premises...

Dozens upon dozens of protesters clad in hoodies or tracksuits, clinging on to the three-metre security fences, clogging the drowning sidewalks, climbing up the boulevard trees, and spontaneously running out onto the street, shouting slogans over the sound of the rain, and swinging banners, posters and flags at the passing cars, like hooligans after a won football game. One of the banners showed a white unicorn, probably taken from some country's coat of arms, pinned to the ground by a golden chain around her neck.
Estermann chose to ignore the excited young delinquents as soon as began spotting the odd bald shaven head, bomber jacket and jackboot among them, swinging Dutch flags, black banners, and even a solitary celtic motive. As the car drove on down the road, half a dozen police cars rushed by on the opposite carriageway, with lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Just like the nearly-smashed window over at Colm's home proved, some people did mind. These fringe groups demonstrating their contempt of the notion of having to share the top the food chain alongside horses were becoming more radical and disconcerting with every passing day. Earlier that week, they had clashed with pro-pony activists in Austria, and two were clubbed to death.
Estermann didn't want to say he harboured sympathy for their cause. He really didn't. But he could not help but understand their grievances. Equestria simply wasn't a very easy notion to take for granted after 40,000 years of equines having contributed nothing to the world's image other than transporting freight and making terribly good sausage dishes.
And yet, at the end of the day, it all boiled down to a group of deluded ultra-conservatives and reactionaries shirking from an inevitable, fast-approaching future.

The unicorn in the red jacket who sat across from him minded none of it, having been almost completely silent for the majority of the journey.
Apart from some glassy looks at Estermann, he seemed like a dreamer - deadpan and uninvolved.
Estermann was astounded to see one of those horses having absolutely nothing to say or contribute. It made a rather welcome change. But even then, it was an indescribably awkward situation of having to sit across from such a sturdy, muscular stallion, lying on the bench across from him, occasionally looking at him, then out the windows, then into thin air.

The lawyer wondered what the exact reason for this silence was. The equine looked - or, more appropriately - felt nervous and tensed up.
Did it have something to do with his assignment? Did it have something to do with the Queen?
Though, admittedly, Estermann would have been just as nervous, after the news of her dismembering and scorching guards left and right during a comparatively minor escape attempt. Incidents like these usually didn't serve to heighten the spirit or the renown of security consultants that were in charge.

For a change, it was Estermann who began the conversation.
"I don't think I even know your name yet."

This didn't provoke any response from the white stallion but a trivial flick of his ear.

"Hello? Can you understand me?"

The creature's eyes focused and he blinked. Then he looked at the human lawyer.
"Do I? I mean, of course. Yeah. Of course I do. Do you?"

The lawyer sighed.
"You're my security consultant, right?"

"Yes..." the creature answered, his voice unsettlingly downbeat.
"I suppose I am."

"What's your name?" he asked once more.

"Shining Armour, Captain of the Royal Guard. At your service." he answered. Yet, his voice credited his words little.

"Alright, Captain. Do you know what happened yesterday? The newspaper reports are not exactly enlightening."

The unicorn sighed and looked out the windows.
"She tried to flee from the plane."

"Who? Queen Chrysalis?"

He nodded hesitantly.

"Well, what happened then?"

"We tried to stop her."

Estermann's eyebrows raised.
"Wait... Were you there?"

He didn't answer.

"How the hell could you let that happen? You're the so-called security expert around here."

Shining winced painfully. His gaze slipped to the floor.
Apparently, he was very well aware that it was his fault.
Estermann wondered whether he shouldn't have pushed that topic too hard. But he chose to stand by his rebuke. Maybe it was just his own sense of self-preservation kicking in; he didn't want to be trapped in a room with a potentially rampant creature that could attack and viciously mutilate him. The problem was... neither did the Captain, apparently.

"How..." the stallion began suddenly.

"What?"

"How... much... did the newspapers say? About the incident, I mean?"

"Well..." Estermann stuttered,
"Nothing, obviously. The police is keeping ut under wraps until everything has been cleared up. Not that this will last long..."

"But... long enough?" the Captain made sure meekly.

"Why? Is there more to it?" Estermann asked.

The stallion shrunk back a fraction of an inch.

"Did you do something there?"

"I... no... no. Not really." Shining Armour stammered immediately.

"Well you better damn well do something the next time a thing like this happens." Estermann demanded haughtily.
Were those Equestria's Finest? Not only can't they restrain a single creature, but they cannot track down a whole nation either?

But Shining Armour stuttered on, oblivious to the human's remark.
"I just... I..."

Estermann quieted down and looked at him.
"You... what?"

"I... nearly... allowed her..." he cut himself off when he bit his lip with his big pony teeth. Then he looked Estermann in the eyes nervously. He even bobbed his head forward a bit, as if he was calling for discretion.

Estermann felt that something very desperate was blooming inside the Captain. His face gave way to some concern.

"Sir... I have to ask you. Don't tell the Princess, don't tell Cadence, and don't tell Twilight."

The lawyer stared at him confusedly. He had absolutely no idea what the pony was on about.
"Who?! Tell what?"

"Princess..."
The car traversed a road bump and cut him short.
Queen Chrysalis,... she h-"

Before he could end his sentence, the car halted.

A gloved fist knocked on the driver's door.
"Marechaussee. ID-kaarten, alstublieft."

Estermann tried to espy the commotion outside his window, but turned back to the confused Captain once more.
"This better be good, Captain. Why don't you tell me some other time?"

Then two dark figures in blue berets stepped in front of the lawyer's car door and he lowered the window.

"What is it?"

"Marechaussee. Your IDs and permits, please."

They had arrived in front of the prison gates of Scheveningen's ICC detention wing. The whole area had been cordoned off with heightened security, as evidenced by a young officer with a shouldered submachine gun moving a small mirror on a pole with wheels back and forth underneath the taxi.

The gendarme collected Estermann's credentials and then looked over to the forlorn unicorn.
"Papers please."

The equine Captain gasped, as he vainly frisked his pocket-less jacket for identifications with his hooves.
"Sweet Celestia... I... uh... I must have..."

Estermann jumped in on his behalf.
"Do you really think he needs an ID? I mean, how many blue-haired talking unicorn stallions does your guest list cover?"

Author's Note

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you liked this chapter (despite the absence of any Chrysalis - she'll have her focus soon enough!)
As this thread will continue following the defence team and (ultimately) the Queen herself, I'm also planning a second plot thread that will follow one of the court's on-scene investigators in Equestria, and focusing on all the things she will uncover there (yep, Suruma's remark about the Changeling territories going dark was not just a throwaway statement).
Also, from now on, I'll try and bring out one chapter every week. But I'm afraid I can't make any promises yet.
So as always, enjoy and stay true!

IV. Royal Blessing

IV.
Royal Blessing

Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, The Hague
ICC Detention Centre
17. November, 2015
9:00 am MET

The sound of two dozen boots, shoes and hooves echoed through the prison complexes rather modest corridors, as a forlorn Estermann and his growingly nervous equine companion were escorted to the lion's den, Chrysalis' cell. Passing the different grated windows and bomb-proof doors left and right, they realised the prison held a surprisingly small number of actual inmates; the ICC Detention Centre seldomly held more than twenty detainees at a time. However, that didn't mean that there were any less guards scurrying around the place, which made the entire premise strangely uncanny, like a train boarded solely with controllers. The so-called escort accompanying the two consisted entirely of guards in light-blue shirts and darker ties, led by the turnkey and the prison wing's own Head Detention Officer. The latter was a muscular man with a darker complexion and extremely thin hair. His name was Otto Mjoberg, a name that seemed to sound typically Dutch, but ultimately wasn't.
With an amiable smirk, he turned to his nervous guests.
"First time in Scheveningen? Mr Estermann? Captain?" he asked in a deep voice.

Both were rather absent-minded at that point, concentrating more on where they were led by the warders, subconciously weighing the odds of ever finding the exit again.
Shining was first to snap out.
"Huh? Oh, of course."

"We missed you yesterday, Captain." the warden said amiably. "When Her Royal Highness was delivered here. I heard you remained in the airport sickbay?"

Estermann looked at the stallion officer discretely. The latter fell silent, apparently disconcerted by the warden's questions.

"It was because of a 'breakdown', or so I heard. I hope you're feeling better today." the muscular man added innocently.

Shining grew even paler at that statement and he shifted his eyes around nervously. The lawyer to his right observed him nevertheless. Why the hell did the Queen's escort suffer a breakdown after her escape attempt? Nobody could be that vain. Plus, he looked physically unharmed, though undeniably ropy.
"I... uh..." the Captain spluttered.

"Oh come." the warden intervened and smiled. "Happens to the best of us. I was in the army too."

Shining looked at him with big eyes.
"Really?"

"Yes yes. Royal Netherlands Army, in the, uh, Dragonders Trip van Zoudtland. I was a Captain, just like you."

The equine was still very much surprised by the similarities. He tried to smile, but was overtaken by his own avidness on the topic.
"Sounds great. I'm the Captain of Canterlot, in the Royal Celestian Brigade."

"Nice making your acquaintance, Captain. It's so funny. In my time, I was working quite a lot with horses myself..."
Then he quickly fell silent.

That was an awkward thing to mention to a speaking unicorn, Estermann thought. The warden must have caught on to the awkwardness, and stopped himself from continuing the story any further.

"What's the matter?" the unicorn asked.
"Please, continue."

"Well,..."
The warden caughed. "Doing what Hussars usually did. For parades and such things."

"Oh." Shining murmured.

Pack animals.

Now it was Estermann's turn to be curious. Now that he had listened a bit closer, Mjoberg had a very unusual enunciation as well. Unusual for a Dutchman, anyway.

"Mr Mjoberg. Forgive me when I ask. You say you were in the Dutch Army. But you're not Dutch yourself, are you?"

"Me?" he laughed. "No. Actually, I'm from Suriname. But I left when I was young."

"Suriname, huh?" Estermann pondered. "Did you... leave pre- or post revolution?"

The unicorn looked between him and Mjoberg, as they were discussing a history virtually unknown to him. But in his defence, he was far from the only one who would feel left out at this topic.

"After the revolution. Right after it." Mjoberg answered uneasily, hesitantly reminiscing his own far-away childhood.

Estermann also pondered about that.
This warden was a man who had fled a violent dictatorship with his family. And, by the looks of it, had yet to return to his country of birth because of just that.

What did this mean for the treatment of his own client, Queen Chrysalis, a former murderous dictator herself?
Obviously, Estermann had to once again admit to himself that things didn't look good. It never had looked good in the first place. The prosecutor, the judges, and now the Head Detention Officer - they all just happened to be persons who had bad personal experiences with tyranny and terror in their lives.
Where, he asked himself, was the fairness for Queen Chrysalis in all of this? It seemed improbable that these experiences wouldn't leave a certain bias on their behaviours towards the Queen.

The entourage rounded the corner into the final prison block, only short of their destination by a few security gates. That's when suddenly Shining sharpened his ears, straightening them and wiggling them around.
"Do you hear that?"

"What?" the turnkey asked.

"Bang... bang... bang." the equine described contemplatively.

"Strange." the warden commented. "I have no idea what it could be."

The turnkey, a younger man with short blond hair and a tight, mirthful smile playing on his lips, rolled his eyes and went forward.
"Not again. Excuse me... please stay behind me, gentlemen."

The journey was completed in a quick jog, heading for a double-enforced door at the end of a corridor, with a couple of warders already waiting in front of it.
'It was Queen Chrysalis', the warden explained.

Another man's shouts met them already from afar.
"Stop it! Stop it at once! Or I will shoot! Stop doing that or I will shoot!"
The entourage found a security guard training a gun through the crenel in the cell door, probably aiming to hit the cell's inmate. "Stop it already! I'm going to shoot!"

The turnkey hurried over to the man and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Plaats rust, Klaas."
The man sighed exasperately and let the rifle slide out of the crenel. It was a tranquiliser gun.
The muffled thumping behind the door continued nevertheless.

"What is happening in there? Who is in that cell?" Estermann inquired, alarmed by the turmoil. "Where is Dr Van Biene?"

"Who?" Shining asked.

"Our psychological advisor!" he reminded the stallion. "Where is she?"

"Oh, her?" the warden answered casually. "She left already two hours ago."

"What, so quickly?" Estermann verified.

"Apparently, her session with Her Royal Highness didn't take too long. The Queen herself was quite calm most of the time."

"Oh. Good." Estermann breathed.
That meant that the Queen may be just as calm with him as she was alone with the shrink Van Biene.

"But about one hour ago..." the turnkey continued, "The Queen started making trouble again. Look at what she's up to now."

What exactly was that she doing in there? The warden listened to the thumping, irritated at most. The unicorn stallion, however, had grown pale once again, stiff as a board, staring at the door, harrowed by every vibration emanating from inside the cell.
He turned to the turnkey and the security team.
"You, private. What does that weapon do?"
He pointed at the rifle by the door.

"That's a tranquiliser gun."

"You must use it!" he suddenly ordered the man, gripped of panicked determination. "Restrain her. Stun her. Make her stop."

Estermann looked at the equine officer and immediately intervened.
"Hold your horses. I came here to talk with my client. You can't simply sedate her, I didn't get to speak to her even once!"

"She's dangerous." the stallion said slowly and menacingly. "You've got to believe me! You all know what happened the last time nopony listened to me!"

"Hang on, what is she even doing in there?!" Estermann tried to find out.

The turnkey stood in a corner near the door, stooped in front of a monitor on a table, linked to several cables leading inside the cell.
"She is banging her head against the wall."

Estermann pursed his lips and slitted his eyes.
"Why... why would she..."

"Don't waste time, sir!" Shining Armour repeated himself. "Stop her!"

"What are you afraid of, Captain?" Estermann snarked. "It's not like she is going to smash her way to freedom like that."

"Captain." the equine Captain turned to his human counterpart. "Do something. As your security advisor, I tell you to make her stop!"

"And as Her Royal Highness' solicitor, I order you not to touch my client." Estermann commanded the warden in return. "Let me talk to her first. You don't have to immediately assume she is... well... rampant."

"Are you kidding?" the warden responded unsurely.

Estermann wasn't exactly sure of that.
"I'm serious. As of now, nobody..." He looked at Shining Armour. "...and nopony! - lays a hand on my client without my consent."

Mjoberg scratched his head and nodded at the turnkey.

The turnkey just shrugged and picked up a microphone that stood on a podest next to the monitor.

As he spoke, his voice rang out of the cell,
"Your Highness? You have another visitor. It's your legal counsel."

The pounding immediately stopped.

The turnkey nodded at the solicitor and nodded surprisedly.
"Good, Mr Estermann."

He notified his colleagues, who proceeded to stack up left and right for the unlocking of the door.

The unicorn sighed anxiously, and nudged the warden with his head, like a dog craving for a walk. The burly Surinamese nodded and adressed Estermann,
"Hang on. Your 'security advisor' here insists that you take some measures for when you talk to your client."

Estermann sighed surly.
"What measures."

"I had an intercom installed in the cell. We can see and hear everything."

'And there goes the pledge of secrecy.' Estermann reckoned. However, he was far from refusing the outside connection to the guards while he was in there with her.

"So,.." the warden continued, "I suppose that, if your client should get... jumpy again, you should give us a sign that you want to get out of there without her catching on. So... do you have a code word or code phrase in mind for that situation?"

Estermann eyed them in an unconcerned manner.
"How about: 'Help. She is getting jumpy. Get me out of here.'"

"Don't you have anything more discrete in mind?" the unicorn stallion persisted angrily.

"Should she get rampant, Mr Mjoberg, Captain Shining, I don't think I'll manage to have time for discretion!"

"You're probably right, Mr Estermann," Captain Shining admitted nervously. "Still... If you really have to go in there now..."

"She's the only reason I'm here, Captain."

The muscular stallion exhaled bitterly and looked at the jurist with much concern.
"Whatever you do... whatever she does... don't look into her eyes."

Estermann slitted his own eyes, about to protest.
"Why would I..."

"Just don't. Mr Estermann. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. I admire your courage with facing that monster, but please do not be overambitious!"

Oh bugger. That didn't exactly make the situation easier for Estermann himself. Did he have the courage to face her now?
Whatever worries he had, he just straightened his tie and looked down to the unicorn.
"Thank you, Captain. But please refrain from referring to my client as a monster in the near future."

The turnkey looked up from his monitoring table.
"Okay, Mr Estermann. Make ready to go in swiftly. Also, mind the boot on the floor in front of the door." Then he turned on the mic. "Okay, Your Highness - you know the drill; get into the far left corner of the room with your back turned to the door, and don't move until it has shut again."

There was a electric beep, and the door opened up with a little mechanic budge.
Under the watchful eyes of the security personnel, all armed with batons and tear gas, Estermann let the door bound open and slowly stepped into the cell, holding his suitcase in front of him like a knight grasping his trusty shield in a dragon's lair.

The room was more or less sterile. It was also more comfortable than your regular prison cell, with a computer, a TV set and a staple of fresh bedsheets. On the ground in the middle, there lay a thick, generously spaced mattress that could indeed fit a horse on it.

The next thing he spotted was a large black thing, lying couchant on the ground, turned away, staring off into the corner of the whitewashed wall.

There was a thick steel chain around each of its ankles, all of which were connected to a large metal bolt centrally embedded in the floor. Around its waist, there was still the stab vest, strapped tightly, like a rather obscure horse-size corset. Its head faced away from Estermann, and the only things that he saw of it were its slim, sharp ears that drooped on the sides of her head like horns, and the rest was covered green, sickly oily hair, that hung to the floor as if it had the weight of marbles.
Estermann remembered a photo of her in the press, in which she had worn a subtle tiara-like hairpin. It was the only accessory she owned. Now however, most of the changeling's mane had been provisionally trimmed, and bundled with by a simple scrunchy.
A pony with a ponytail. It was a little hilarious, until he remembered that they used to do that to some human prisoners in other countries so they wouldn't use their own hair to strangle themselves.

To her right, he noticed a single, fairly big, though barred window, through which garish white sunlight shone that threatened to blind him.
To her left, there was a chunky, grey hole in the wall, with the white of the wall paint knocked away and plaster still crumbling out, and covering the changeling regent and the floor around her with dust.
'Did she knock that hole out of the wall with her head?!' Estermann thought. 'Hard enough to smash cement to bits?'
She was strong. Very very strong.

Moving forward slowly and silently, Estermann felt a pungent smell fill his nostrils. He couldn't lay a finger on it, but it smelled oily, a little like wax and petroleum. It was a tad overwhelming, but he tried to blot it out anyway, like the professional he was.
In the corner, next to the table with the computer on it, there stood a single work chair. He wondered whether they only set that one up for visitors like him. And the TV and the computer too, for that matter. It's not like she would be able to operate them...

All that time, he took his eyes not once off the back of her head - which was still completely motionlessly sitting atop an unsettlingly motionless body, like the head of a creepy doll whose head was twisted by 180 degrees, and whose obscured face one would wish never to see.

Suddenly, he felt his foot get caught by something sturdy on the ground. Narrowly avoiding tripping forward, he involuntarily looked down to inspect what on earth could stick to the ground solidly.
It was a single, black, human military leather boot. Thankfully without a foot in it. It appeared to stand in a greenish-bluish-grey puddle of some sort of secrete.
Carefully tapping against it with his own shoe, he found it to be fixed to the ground with superglue-like staunchness. The vaseline-like puddle seemed to have dried solid some time ago.

Trying not to breathe or make any erratic or loud movements, the lawyer stepped over the obstacle and came to a halt next to the seat at the desk, waiting for something to happen and make a decision on his fate for him.
He felt a cool wind blowing him in the neck. The next split second the door behind him was shut with a blunt, harrowing thud, locking itself from the outside.
A raspy voice emanated from a little speaker on the ceiling,
"Door closed. You may turn around again."

But the regent remained sitting just where she was, in the corner between the grated window and the knocked-out pieces of the dusty wall plaster.

Estermann dared not to do anything until she also gave a sign of life from herself.
She obviously had a destructive phase a mere moment ago, but now she was huddled in a corner, almost void of life? Or was she more like a predator, ready to pounce at her clueless prey?

Estermann figured he would find out either way soon, so he slowly took a seat on the work chair.
But the chair creaked uncontrollably, no matter how still Estermann tried to sit on it.
Reacting to the sounds the leather furniture made, the changeling lifted her head.

Estermann heard her making some extremely soft sniffing sounds.
Capturing the scent of a potential victim, no doubt.

A strange, almost subliminal buzzing noise suddenly became present in the room, as the creature slowly swayed her head to the side, like she was preparing for talking. The buzzing became more predominant. Estermann could not tell if that menacing sound stemmed from his own mind or from deep within the changeling's throat.

It already felt like he was in the room for ten minutes, and had not yet said a word to the creature.
'I might as well start now. Before she might really decide to have early lunch.'
With an audible click, he unlocked his suitcase. He removed the belt, and slowly got out his laptop.
"Your Highness?"

She cocked her ears.

"I am the defence counsel, from the International Criminal Court. My name is Alexander Estermann."

She didn't turn around though.
Estermann silently reprimanded himself for having nearly forgotten with whom he was dealing with here.
"Do... do you know what a defence counsel does?"

Now she turned. She set herself upright with wary slowness.
Her head faced her solicitor.
He couldn't help it. The first thing that caught his attention were her eyes. Gleaming, deeply green balls focusing on him like those of a hawk. In one second they were vicious, raw, animalistic, in the next they loosened, looking judging, overly restrained and uptight. Like those of the evil Queen stepmother featured in every other Grimm story.
Unbelievable that he was defending a fairytale villain in court.
But then he once again he had to remind himself that this was a political prisoner. Nothing more, and nothing less.
What an easy mistake to make. Lexy Fori certainly did so the other evening.
Estermann felt how his thoughts began to drift off into obscurity. Hesitantly, he diverted his stare to her snout. What a horrific sight. Her whole face and neck, her entire skin seemed to be made of matt, equally sickly grey leather rather than coat like that of the other ponies. It was as disgusting as it was unnerving.
She certainly was a very very... unique specimen.

Slowly, she opened her mouth. There he saw her fangs and her blood-red tongue. It was like looking down the throat of a bat. As she opened her mouth, he felt the buzzing noise becoming more audible. It was definitely coming from her.

"Are you frightened?"

Her voice sounded as if someone had put a fan in front of her mouth, but not at all in a humurous way. Her voice sounded disjointed, uneven, unmoderated, vibrating back and forth in front of the lawyers ears. He could swear he felt his auditory senses ringing, like that one time after the barber had held the electric razor next to his ear for too long.
It took him a while to comprehend her speech organ, and he needed seconds to finally grasp that she had just asked him a question.

"I... what?"

"I can feel your fear on my tongue." she said softly, and with a knowing expression.

Having made sure that she would most probably not pounce at him, he looked down and opened the screen of the laptop on his lap.
"Uh... do you?" Calling up the relevant bills on indictment, his glance travelled back to her. "Your Highness..."

"Yes?" she met him deviously.

"How many times have you done this already?"

"Done... what?"

"Attended a court hearing. I have noted that they are a bit different over in Equestria... and I'm just trying to gain a sense for how familiar you are with the... process of..."
He drew some barely helpful shapes and lines into the air with his fingers. He strayed off when he met her asking, inquisitive stare.

"Who are you trying to defend from me? Tell me." she ordered him.

"...Pardon?" Estermann asked lowly.

"Defence Counsel, or whatever fancy title you may endear yourself with: In whose name do you come?"

"Well..." the lawyer stuttered, unsure where she was going with this. "In yours. I am your defence counsel, Your Highness."

She raised an eyebrow, or whatever substitute her kind had for an eyebrow.
She obviously tried to formulate a reply to that, but failed again and again, as she first needed to digest what that human just said.

"You... are not here in my name." she concluded determinedly.
Her vibrating voice disclosed some distraughtness.

"Well..." he looked down again, and quickly typed something into his laptop. He called up a document and swung the screen around so the Queen could take a look at it. "See here. This..." he pointed at the electronic document, "...is the Power of Attorney, followed by the document of ratification signed by the guardian ad litem, and backed up by the Registrar and the President of the Court."
He leaned back, and watched her looking at the strange machine's screen.

She looked up, ignoring the electronic piece of bureaucratic goodness.
Staring the smugly seated solicitor in the eyes, she repeated herself.
"You are not here in my name."

"Maybe... maybe not." Estermann admitted. "But I am your legal representation in court. I am defending you."

She fell silent again. She glared at him, her eye twitched.
Estermann felt some animosity brewing up in her. He was unwelcome here. It was one of the things lawyers didn't want to be under any circumstances. Barring the fact that she might try to eat him, complete trust was essential for any successful cooperation between client and solicitor. But she probably was one of those characters who thought they could do without legal representation.
On one hand, she probably had every right to be sour at him and all other humans; she was in a foreign country, on a foreign continent, in an all-round foreign atmosphere, having been incarcerated against her will by someone not even her own species, and that in comparatively very un-royal conditions.
On the other hand, she of all pe... ponies, should be aware that she had absolutely no friends here. The equines despised her, the humans disdained her, and any and all of her own followers were untraceable. If she were smart, she would have tried to do something to change her less than favourable position.
But maybe she simply didn't think that far. She was probably still bent on revenge rather than reason.

"You... defend me?!" she hissed. "Look at yourself, you lowly titch of a monkey. You want to fight for me? What do you think you can do that I couldn't already do myself?"

Estermann lowered his own eyebrows. The irony of her essentially calling him an animal wasn't lost on him.
"Do you mean you want to fend for yourself in the court of law?"

"Pah!" she spat. "The nerve. I used to feast on maggots like you for breakfast every day for a thousand years! Does your pathetic little head really think I couldn't take on the likes of you, even with you hiding behind that pitiful magic of Celestia and her stooges?"

Lexy Fori's words floated back into Estermann's mind. Love. She fed on love...
"I don't think you understand the concept of ligitation." he established. "W... waggling fists and issuing death threats is not going to get anyone anywhere. Much less let you walk out of here scot-free."

With one hop, she was on all fours, chains rustling on her limbs, and her giant horn threateningly trained at Estermann's sitting figure like a pike. The man froze and panically sunk deeper into the work chair.
Yet, he noticed something pack-shaped and plastic dangling around at the base of her horn, just above her right eyebrow. Was that a recorder, or maybe a battery? No matter what, by the way it bounced around as she tilted her head, it was obvious she had probably hit her head against the wall in order to try and knock it off. It seemed to be distressing her alot otherwise as well, though.

"You foal." she sneered. "In your words, it sounds like I even have a chance to come out of here alive if I play after your rules!"

"The ICC does not practice the death sentence. So whether you do or don't will be completely up to you." Estermann corrected her warily.

"But of course." the Queen of Changelings said incompliantly. "Because being put in chains, locked into a rotting dungeon cell and forgotten for all eternity is something anypony would prefer to a heroic and defiant fight to the death!"

Estermann quickly tried to appease her.
"Besides, this is a fair legal process, so being acquitted entirely is never out of the question. If you could kindly let me go through the charges with you, I can explain your situation to you in greater detail."

She took a shaking step into his direction, her horn still lowered to the height of his head.
"Nopony... not even hairless worms like you... would have the gall to tell me in the face that I have done wrong! Your make-believe stories of hue and cry are not breaking the power of the Queen of all Changelings."

"In other words... you are saying that none of the things the prosecution has charged you with ever happened?"

Her pupil contracted, bringing forth the green in her eyes even more.
"Denial. Just typical for you spineless scum. Never would I lower myself to such a level that I would deny all the victories I led my Changeling empire to in past times. Not for a thousand years in Celestia's jail."

"You call those things 'victories', Your Highness?"
And apart from the fact that she was seemingly stuck in another century,... she certainly had an obsession with ridiculously long time spans, didn't she?

"Slow on the uptake too, aren't you, worm?"

Estermann knew he shouldn't push his luck with his mulish client, but he himself felt pushed closer and closer to the edge of irritation.
"I would... I would like to ask your Your Highness to abstain from affronting me the whole time. I understand you may not be happy with the current situation..."

"Not happy?" the Queen said through clenched teeth. "Not happy?! Look at me, you foal! Is the dishonour I have suffered at Celestia's hooves and your pack's hands really so easily overlooked?"
She looked up and down her own form, wriggling her hooves and ringing the chainwork she was attached to.

Estermann followed her stare, coming across some eerily bump-shaped swellings on her neck and torso.
"Those scabs. Were you injured? Did that happen yesterday?"

She stayed silent.

"They... they do look rather excessive to me."
He looked further down. "Jesus, Maria und Josef... what did they do to your legs?!"

"They didn't do anything to my legs!" the changeling Queen spat.

"Oh." he harrumphed.

Abomination.

"Nevertheless... As your legal advisor, I find the guards' manhandling of you the previous day rather uncalled for. Don't you think?"

"Manhandling?" the changeling repeated. "Choose your words wisely, worm! Those so-called guards, they thought they were a match for me. They tried to take me on while I was... absent-minded."
In a staggering 180 degree turn of her train of throught, she shrugged off her bumps right after she had pointed them out so angrily. "Never mind the little dents in my armour. You should have seen them! I sent them all home, to Mummy's bed, to make the spooks go away and get all their limbs sown back on."

Estermann winced. He was probably going to hell for that. But perhaps it was the only way to win the client over; by being empathic towards her.
Or, in other words, play the ambulance chaser for her.
"Your Highness. Have you thought to have those guards prosecuted for degrading treatment and misconduct?"

"Persecuted, you say?" she asked ponderingly.

"No, prosecuted. I told you, this is a fair legal system. Just as they have a right to prosecute you for criminal offences, you can return the favour. As an individual, you can fight for your individual rights if you are in the wrong. This is how justice theoretically works in these countries."

"Oh, don't make me laugh, worm!" she snarked.

Estermann would have expected her to jump up in glee and relief. Not in scorn and mockery.

"I have not once been in the 'right' in any of the last two years!"
She grinned ridiculingly. "And that system you are babbling on about... it must be the most idiotic form of justice I have ever heard! Everypony having a 'right' to deliver others to the law on their whims? What a slew of tripe! How is that supposed to work when most of them can't even think?"
She turned towards the window and looked up into the sky. "When I was still in my own realm, I spread justice as I saw fit. No stragglers and would-be-dogmatists had stood in my way. Everypony knew who was the law. I was the law. They respected me, they loved me, because they knew that, this way, they didn't have to trust anypony else but me."
She turned back to her solicitor. "What a sorry, absolutely miserable queen this country must have, having thrown all of her say out of the window, into the gutter, for the peons to pick-up. Not even Celestia would be stupid enough to pass down the law to the cads!"

"So I heard." Estermann murmured. Still... this queen certainly had never heard of a little something called the Magna Carta. "In any case, you can and you should use the democratic legal system to your advantage. I would say that you must make your right if you don't have it. I can in fact advise you on a few points on police brutality that-"

"What exactly is it with your bowing and scraping, you hooflicking worm?" the Queen interrupted him with an unnerved glare. "Have I even once indicated that you have the permission to even glance upon me ever since you entered these chambers? If I wanted to hear your advice or your opinion on any of this, I would order you to tell me. Do you understand?"

She was pushing it.
"Listen! I only am doing my job, Your Highness. This is what I came here for. To advise you! You are the one who is uncooperative at the moment. I would greatly welcome it if you could just listen to me for once. Honestly, I do not believe you would last three days on your own in this jail cell, in this country, and at this court! In the few hours you have been here in the Netherlands, you have incurred yourself in no less than four charges of assaulting and seriously injuring officials in front of two nations. You will end up getting shot if you continue this rampage."

Now, the solicitor would have expected her to get mad at the impudent berating she had just been subjected to.
But instead, she looked at him for a few seconds, as if she was trying to decipher him.
Then she said, unexpectedly calmly,
"Quiet. I was expecting nothing less than getting killed, worm. It is not that I recognise any of these laughable 'charges' your leader has chosen to burden me with."
She sneered at him. "What exactly, worm, do you think is stopping me from simply... walking out of this prison, and returning to my Changelings, who, without doubt, are eagerly awaiting their Queen, and will be more than willing to rain down upon your sorry heads as a thanksgiving for your services to Celestia?!"

"Well..." Estermann immediately said. "I would say, several metres of massive concrete, about three thousand policemen, gendarmes and soldiers spread around the city, and approximately ten thousand miles of ocean."

Her mouth sucked up at the onslaught of counter-arguments.
"What are you talking about?"

Estermann pointed to the pinboard.
"Do you see this map, hanging on your wall?"

She turned around slowly.

"We are up here, in the upper middle, sandwiched between these big islands and the continent. That's the Netherlands. And the Equestrian island, which is where you come from, is..."
He tardily lowered his finger,
"all... the way... down... there. Barely in the lower right corner of the map. That must be about 7000 miles. Wait, no, nautical miles. That's even further away. About 13,000 kilometres, I believe."

She stormed up to the map, nearly pressing her snout against the industrially printed cardboard poster, trying to track the way the human showed her.
"Wait... that's... that's not possible. Where's Equestria?!"

"Equestria is that little green dot, riiight there in the corner."

She stared at the little green island, he jaw hanging loosely as she tried to sum up her feelings.
"This... this... little smudge..."

It was all she had ever known. Her entire life, her whole reign, all the boundaries of her empire, all the creatures she had bested and conquered, all the triumphs and defeats she had garnered in all those years...
They all took place on this single, miniscule spot of land? She was certain it was much larger the last time she was there. She had only ever seen the ocean once or twice in her life! That's how massive it was!
Her homeland, the homeland of all her enemies and competitors... it had to be bigger. It should really have filled out at least half of this world map, but it ended up leaving not as much as a footnote. How was this possible?
If this little green speck really was her entire existence, and she really was halfway on the other side of the planet now... she could never get home.
She already had trouble making her way from one end of her empire to the other in one take, wondering if she would ever come across the end of the world during her travels.
But this distance... only Mother Nature knows how many times that... It was impossible to make.
She was trapped. In every sense of the word, trapped.

Breathing heavily, she pushed herself away from the wall, and took another frantic look out the window.
She had already figured out this wasn't Equestria, but... but... damn!
"Maybe... maybe..."
Her voice trembled under the rising forlornness inside her lungs. "Maybe this was Celestia's plan all along. To hoof me over to a far-away race of creatures so viciously naive that she wouldn't have to lift a limb herself to let them judge me in her name."

"From what I have heard, the Equestrian government didn't want to let go of you at all." the solicitor retorted.

"You seem to have heard a lot of things." she said bitterly.

"Yes, and as a matter of fact, I think that here, in the Netherlands, you are a whole lot safer than over there. Here, you have at least a slight chance of getting freed of all charges, either on a technicality or otherwise, while in front of an... the Equestrian court, you do not have as much a right to a fair hearing. In my opinion, you should really view those charges made against you as a legitimate burden right now, whether you 'recognise' them or not."

She started pondering again, her eyes expressing concern and her scanning for options.
Was the gravity of her situation finally dawning upon her?

"Worm." the Queen suddenly exclaimed.

"Yes?"

"Kneel."

The lawyer looked at her unsurely.
"I'm sorry?"

"Kneel, I said."

Now she wanted him to kneel. This could mean something bad. Like that she could come dangerously close to him.
He looked around, and up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling, through which the guards were hopefully constantly surveilling him.

"Is he going to kneel?" the turnkey murmured with an intrigued smile on his face as he sat before the surveillance monitor. "I don't think he's going to kneel."

"What is she planning?" the white unicorn pondered with concerned eyes. "This can't be good."

The lawyer slowly made ready to rise from the work chair.
"You want me to..."

"If you want to serve me, then serve me! Do as I say, and stop wasting my time!"

He got it. No kneeling, no cooperation.
He had never thought he ever had to kneel before a client to win his confidence. But she was not the ordinary type of despotic statesperson with delusions of grandeur and rightfulness. One had to wonder if Idi Amin would have ever requested the same treatment.
Slipping his laptop back into his suitcase, he hesitantly stood up, and pushed the chair aside with a foot. Observing whether he had enough space to comfortably perform the gesture, he monitored the green-eyed creature and lowered himself to the ground slowly and steadily.

Solemnly, she made her way over to the kneeling human.
He could see the sinister creature tower over him, feeling her chains coil around his knees. Nervously, his hands dug into his thighs, anxious not to succumb to make any erratic, reflexive movements while he happened to be inside her personal space.
Once again, he saw her horn glistening downwards like the sword of Damocles.

"Avert your eyes." she said sternly.

Relutantly, Estermann lowered his stare, discretely looking to the side to espy the surveillance camera another time with an admonishing glare.
'Look the fuck over here!' he ordered them telepathically.

Then he scrutinised the floor before him, seeing little more than the massive, deformed limbs of the changeling creeping towards him, dragging the heavy iron behind them. The floor was obscured by the shadowy outline of her horned head stretching over his.

He flinched when he felt something touch him on the side of his neck, just above the collar. It was long, cold and hard as stone; it had a jagged surface, softened somewhat by being packed in thick plastic foil. It was her horn.
The lawyer painfully tried to blot out the Freudian implications of what was happening to him at the moment.
The creatures horn slid down his neck, pressing against all the vital, life-preserving arteries that happened to run alongside it, and ended up resting on his vested shoulder, before pulling away again.
Then he felt it tower above his other shoulder, where it proceeded to repeat the motion, in all its agonising slowness.
On one hand, it seemed like she was scanning or fondling him, scouting him out for weak points or delicate spots like nerve endings and veins, but on the other hand, he also felt eerily reminded of going through the receiving end of a knighting, with the horn standing in for a sacred sceptre or a hallowed swordblade.
He suddenly felt himself disconcertingly interrupted in his thoughts when the horn ended up resting on his forehead, just below the widow's peak, tip first. She pushed a little against him, ever-so-slightly pricking his scalp; for a short, excruciating moment, it felt like his sorry little head was to be impaled by hers - on its whole length, in the worst case scenario. But then it moved up, brushing right through his greying, yet carefully kempt hair. Steadily ploughing across his headdress and giving it a second parting, it irritated his overly sensible scalp, tickling it. It came to rest on top of his head, lengthwise, pushing downwards.
The lawyer felt even uneasier with every passing moment. He sensed the breathing of the creature's mouth and nostrils in the vicinity of his forehead, he felt the buzzing from the throat translating on his own scalp through her horn, tickling, vibrating, irritating. But it just stayed there.
His nails dug even deeper into his trouser legs than before.

"You will swear to serve. You will swear to obey and fight for the Queen of Changelings in exile, the champion of deception, the mistress of mind and thought, with all your holdings, all your vigour and all your devotion. You will not strive to subdue her, nor will you betray her, not her name, not her cause, nor her reign. You will swear to scatter her enemies and confound their knavish tricks, lest you will fall sorely and forlornly from your Mistress' grace. Swear."

Estermann sighed. That was the most demeaning and self-righteous of pledges he had heard in an eternity. But he was, in the truest sense of the word, not in the position to disagree with her... lest he would fall from the grace of her very pointy horn.
"I... swear."

"Good, worm."

As his head was freed from the burden of her horn, he gave an involuntarily loud breath of easement. Closing his eyes, he solemnly massaged his thighs, and slowly got up again on his two trembling, shaking feet. His hair was a mess now, but he couldn't care less at the moment. He had been so confident that she was going to hurt or compromise him in one way or another, he was absolutely elated at having been spared in almost every way. He asked himself how many other people would have voluntarily gone through such a disdainful process, swearing allegiance and undying loyalty to a tyrant of questionable origin and nature who saw them as little more than 'worms'. He felt the very strong urge to cross his fingers a hundred times over, an urge he knew to suppress.

He nearly fell back onto the work chair as he gathered his belongings, all while the Queen settled back down on the other end of the cell with something of a smug contentment spreading across her features.
"You are an upstart, I felt it. You are still scared, that is certain, but I am sure that even your fear will soon be gone. You will likely do well. Now... you said you could make the peons who assaulted me pay for what they have done?"
She looked him in the eyes once more, fueled with ferocity and determination once more. "Do it then. Make them pay. Spill their tears, send them to Tartarus."

"Yes..."
He slammed the laptop shut and stuffed it back into the bag. He suddenly felt the urge to leave the room, to gain some distance to the changeling regent, despite the fact that she hadn’t done all that much. Maybe he should also go and wash his head.

He finished packing... but awkwarldy remained sitting, once again in complete silence.
"Now that we got these... the formalities out of the way, Your Highness... we should continue this talk tomorrow. Would you... have an expectation of the time?"

"I will summon you, should I need you," she made clear.

"We should really meet tomorrow in any case, Your Highness. May I suggest 10 o'clock? Right after breakfast?"

The Queen looked out the window once more and sighed dourly.
"Lunch. You will come at lunchtime. I have been always hearing from my subjects after the noontime banquet."

"Lunch, then. I will come around 1 o'clock. I will discuss the charges with you, but you can always read them up beforehand, on the computer over here."
He placed a hand on the PC's table.

"Do I look like I am able to read that incomprehensible hand scrawling of your kind?"

Tomorrow then.

"Door opens now!"

The security door unlocked and the lawyer with the disheveled hair quickly squeezed through before it had even opened properly.

Shining Armour was the first at his side, staring up to him with horrified eyes.
"Mr Estermann, sir! Are you okay? Are you feeling well?"

He shook his head.
"Gave me the worst shiver of my fucking life. But I'm alright, otherwise."

The warden looked at him nonchalantly.
"What did she do in there? What did she do with you?"

The turnkey smiled at him cockily.
"Over the camera, it looked like she was fumbling around with you. Had fun?"

"Lieutenant!" the white unicorn rebuked him frankly. "Do you think it's funny?"

"Well, she wasn't fumbling around with me." Estermann agreed. "At least... I think she wasn't. I should be asking you what the hell she was doing, Captain. But long story short, she agreed to accept my representation, and wants to work with me now. This is all that matters at the moment."

"No it’s not!" the unicorn captain retorted. "What she was doing in there was 'bonding' with you. She has been probing your willingness and your capability to serve her, with her horn and all her other senses."

"Not all of them. I don’t think she managed to lick me..." Estermann joked nervously, carefully scratching his head and combed his hair back.

"Usually, this works much better for her if her victims are under her spell. When they are controlled by her!"
The unicorn eyed him warily. "You were lucky we pinched off her magical channels with the human technology. She surely didn't test you out of pure goodwill."

"Well, I know I'm not. Controlled, I mean." the solicitor said with an exasperated intonation. "And yet, I 'passed' whatever test she tried on me. Can you wish for more?"

The unicorn didn't back off however.
"Are... are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Yes!" Estermann exclaimed indignantly. "Stop making everyone here uncomfortable, Captain Shining Armour! There is a difference between guaranteeing our safety and frightening us. I'm feeling perfectly fine. And for your information, yes, she did scare me shitless in there."

Finally, the muscular stallion budged.

"If you excuse me now, I need to go to the bathroom. Then I need to get back to my offices at the ICC. I suppose you want to stay a bit longer, Captain?"

Shining looked over to the closed cell door.
"I guess. That's why I'm here."

"How fitting. Now..." He pulled his coat over his blazer and looked at his watch. "Mr Mjoberg, I would like you to locate the officer of the watch and collect all the information on the transport of Her Royal Highness in the plane and everything that occurred afterwards. Email them to me today or tomorrow. Have a nice day."

"Why?" the prison warden asked as the lawyer quickly departed.

"Pressing charges against the security personnel for excessive violence and degrading conduct. I'm expecting the papers by today or tomorrow, Mr Mjoberg."

"Wait..." the white unicorn looked up to his fellow Captain, irritated and with quickly rising concern. "What did he just say he wanted to do?!"

Author's Note

Happy 3rd Advent, everypony!

V. The Victims

The Victims

Colton's End, Equestria
17. November, 2015
14:26 am ICT

The snow fell thick and richly onto the land. A cold but dry wind carried fat and fluffy flakes from up north, laying down layer after layer of white goodness on the fields and trees, on the thatched roofs of the few houses, and even on the ice of the frozen lakes and ponds intertwined between the rolling hills.
A few lone dots whizzed about on the glistening surface. Ice skaters, masterfully sweeping all four legs back and forth, giggling as they reenacted two hummingbirds in their mating dance. Somewhere in the distance, a preteen pegasus in a thick scarf winged about the hamlet’s chimneys and gleefully bombarded her earthbound friends with copious amounts of snowballs.

Nobody minded what approached the settlement from the side of the plains. Void of almost any loud sound, an automobile - by no means a common sighting in the land - bearing black markings on its white surface, ploughed and choked its way through the monotone winter landscape, drawing a trail of grey pavement and brown autumn mud and a faint cloud of diesel smoke behind it, with the headlights blazing, shining ahead in a grimy orange hue.

The Land Rover came to a stop just a few metres short of the first house at the village entrance. As the engine died down, a bulky pegasus stallion in a black dress uniform and a female human exited and looked around expectantly. The stallion sported a white buzz-cut mane, hidden under a black ceremonial beaver hat with a lily emblem, complementing his uniform jacket. The woman wore a light grey winter coat with an abbreviation spelled on her back, thick blue ski trousers, and her dark-haired head was covered by a modest wool tuque.

Stomping through the snowy field, and breathing white clouds of frost, the two creatures closed in on a house in the heart of the village, a small post-and-beam cottage right at the empty market square.

"Is she even home?" the woman inquired.

Peeping through the darkened store front at the entrance door, the stallion looked up at the woman.
“She hardly ever leaves the house.“ he began to explain. “I’m sure she’s here. It’s just that gingerbread businesses haven't been doing too well recently.“

The woman could not decipher the writing on the shop window, but the sign dangling just centimetres above her head revealed the business to be indeed a sweets shop.
“You sure have many candy stores around here. This must be the third one I have stopped at since I arrived.“ she established, her voice dry and monotone, and her English coloured by her Slavic intonation.

“Well, that's Equestria for you.“ the pegasus said with a mild smile on his face. “Call us a species of sweet teeth. Especially those earth ponies. They love their sweets.“
He knocked on the window pane, and waited for something to move in the darkness.

Getting back to the matter, the human asked, "Is she affected a lot by all this?“

“Yeah, of course. Her daughter was all the world to her."

"But she is still... addressable, right?"

"Sure. Though... of course... we’ll have to choose our words wisely.“

“Of course.“ She nodded. "Does she speak English?"

"Definitely not. After all, she never received a tongue spell, like me." he explained patiently, in his own regular, featureless English.

The donned magical enhancement, supplied to every officer of the Royal Guard by Canterlot's royal archmages, was the only thing enabling him to understand and speak the humans' language fluently.
The woman had been quite skeptical of the entire magical treatment, and had gone out of her way to dodge the magical incantation that would have inoculated her with vast knowledge of the ponies' tongues.
But because of that, her work now hinged the on mystically enhanced interpreters like the pegasus stallion, to guide her through his nation's cryptic wintry landscapes. She didn't mind dragging him along, and neither seemed he to, but only under one particular condition...

The door opened, as if on cue. A curly wheat-yellow mane lurked outside, followed by a pale blue neck.
The mare looked around for a moment, but then proceeded to hail the Guard pegasus with a happy, laugh-like whinny and gleaming brown eyes.

"Oh. Hello." the human greeted the mare awkwardly.

The pony immediately looked up, straining her neck when trying to look the tall human creature in the eyes. But even this curious sight did anything but defer her jolliness.

After a deep neigh directed at the equine shop owner, the pegasus stallion took off his hat and looked back up to the woman.
"Okay, M'am, may I introduce Sun Streak to you, the resident candymare."

"Oh, it's a pleasure to meeting you. My name is Edith, Edith Šarić. I've come to help."

Her pegasus interpreter immediately repeated what she said in an apparently disjointed series of neighs, wheezes and puffs, before concluding the statement with a polite bow of the head.
The mare stared for a moment, and looked up to the human one more time.

Then her smile returned, and her head retracted back behind the door, motioning the two visitors to step inside.

Sun Streak hummed a modest little tune as she lead the human and the guard inside her homely, darkened living room. The stove was on, the room was illuminated in warming candlelight, and a cat dozed peacefully on the inside windowsill. A certain aroma of cinnamon, firewood, baked goods and honey hung in the air, in addition to the scent of countless other, foreign spices. On the other hand, Edith could not help by sense the slight smell of homebody, of cat, perspiration and musk. She even felt slightly light-headed in the stale, spent air of the room.

The guard slumped down on a couch near the stove, and nodded at the human to follow suit.

Sun Streak adjusted the gaslight in a lantern on a nearby shelf before turning back to the visitors with a welcoming smile.
"Lieutenant Fighting Fit. How long has it been? Two years, at least!"

"Nice to see you smiling, Streak." the lieutenant replied. "How's, uh... the bakery doing?"

"I am working on new creation." she said giddily.

"Great to hear..."

"In fact, I have a load in the oven just now! I'll be back in just a tick."
And with these words, she swiftly disappeared into the kitchen.

Edith leaned over to Fighting, her stoic face nonplussed by just how jolly she seemed.
"Is she really the one? I know I didn't understand a single thing of what you two said..." She spied through the passage into the kitchen where the candymare stood and unloaded something from an oven. "But... I thought she would be... you know... in mourning."

"She is." Fighting said scarcely through his teeth.

In an instant, Sun Streak had returned, holding a platter loaded with little scone-like goods, all topped with split hazelnut in thick honey and an overwhelming scent of vanilla.
"I call 'em lo'e in a nut-thell. I knew you 'oulth come 'ack thor 'ore, Thighthing." she mumbled as she looked for a spot to put down the dish and free her mouth.

"Streak, please..."

"I inthitht, Lieuthenanth."

Then the soldier harrumphed and stayed silent for a second to ensure her attention.
"Sun Streak. Please put the cookies down. I'm really sorry. We didn't come here for candy."

The mare stopped and looked at him, her expression hovering between confusion and disappointed, the dish still clamped between her jaws.

He somberly cleared his throat and pointed at his companion.
"This human has come here with me here on a quest. She is very good at finding missing ponies. And she wants to help us."

"Come again?" the blue mare mumbled.

He looked her in the eyes.
"She came for Junebug, Streak."

Then the mare froze. Her features froze. Even her bouncing mane seemed to freeze in space.
Her eyes kept staring at the soldier, not blinking, becoming increasingly dryer. The smile behind her platter-holding mouth faded away. Behind her forelegs, the two visitors witnessed her stomach sinking in, as if she had taken a deep breath, but disregarded breathing out ever again.
Her jaw made a jittery movement, as if she wanted to say something, but kept in mind the platter clamped between her teeth. But ultimately, the jaw lost the fight. Limply, it flapped open, releasing the metal platter, which came down crashing down on the carpet by her hooves with a deafening clang, scattering bits of smashed cookies all over the living room carpet. She stared forward, not even taking notice of the mess.
"June..." she stammered.

The lieutenant nodded at the woman, who got a calling card from her pocket.
"I am... well, the ICMP sent me. That's the International Commission on Missing Persons, and we're here by appointment of the International Criminal Tribunal For Equestria. It is our task to locate and identify people considered... dead or missing in theatres of war, natural disasters and suchlike..."

The pegasus quickly translated for her.

"She is from a human group dedicated to finding others. She and a couple of her friends are conducting a search operation just north of Canterlot. She is very good at what she does, and has lots of experience. I ran into her when I was summoned to Canterlot the other week. She told me a little about herself, and about her task here. And I immediately thought of Junebug. I asked her whether she could find her as well, and I told her about you, Streak. She agreed to come here immediately."

The mare blinked confusedly and looked at the scattered cookies on the carpet.
"But..."

“She has asked me to tell her everything you know about Junebug’s last whereab-“

“No, no wait...” Sun Streak interrupted him in a faint voice and held up a hoof. “Fit, what are you talking about, I…”

“We’re trying to help you. But you need to help us to help you. You must tell us all you remember about her disappearance.”

“I know that it might be difficult for you…” Edith told her through the pegasus.

“We know it might hurt, Streak. But this could be a last chance - our only chance left - to find your daughter.”

“But Fighting…” she interrupted again, just as confused and uncertain as before, her pupils shrinking and her voice wavering. “I know where Junebug is… I know where she is…”

For a moment, complete silence dominated the room, as the earth pony and the pegasus stared at each other, unsure of what to think of their respective counterpart.

“Is something wrong?” Edith asked the soldier.

“She… she says she knows where her daughter is.”

“What? Really?”

Hesitantly and almost invisibly, he shook his head.

Both looked at the mare with the upturned platter still at her hooves.
She stuttered, with something of a nervous smile distorting her countenance.
“And you know too, Fighting. You took her. You came here and you took June away. Two years ago.” she uttered, in a completely unaccusing tone, as if oblivious to her own words.

“Oh Streak…” the lieutenant sighed painfully and rubbed his face with a hoof, much to the puzzlement of his human companion.

“You took her.” Sun Streak repeated slowly, as if in a trance. “She's with you.”

“That was not Junebug, Streak. That was a changeling!” the pegasus reminded her.

“N-no… no, she…” Streak immediately began stammering, the skin under her fur turning pale as the snow outside.

“Don’t you remember?”

“You…” her face scrounged up suddenly. “You took her with you.. She’s with you… I know so…”

“Could you please explain what’s going on, Lieutenant?” The human nervously ordered Fighting as soon as she saw the pained expression on the earth pony's countenance.

“She… she still thinks the changeling was Junebug all along.”

“Oh dear...”

The pale blue mare squeezed her features in a painful fit of sorrow.
“June… my baby…” she sobbed, and her head slumped weakly.

“That changeling lived under her roof for months!" he continued to explain. "It took the guise of her own child, if you can believe such a thing.”

“June… June…” Sun Streaks legs began to cave in under the burden of realisation and denial. "You silly filly, where are you..."
Her eyes climbed up, staring straight ahead, past and above the two sitting investigators.

As her guide continued to describe the situation, Edith also peeked behind her, following the mare's pleading gaze, only for her eyes to stumble upon a rustic picture mounted on the wall.
It was a framed stitching of a very heraldic Princess Celestia, the country's regent, plastered on the material like on a medieval tapestry, her knowing smile kind, insightful, and gentle.
The expressions nearly seemed a bit disturbing, seeing how blissfully, self-righteously even, the image met the sobbing mare's pleading eyes.
To the born-and-bred Serb, it reminded more of a religious icon than a picture of a nation's leader.

“Only the sun knows what that thing did to her back then.” the pegasus hissed before getting up from his chair to assist the sobbing pony.
He kneed down and lifted her head by the chin. She was starting to tear up, but was shaking from fear just as much. "Sun Streak, please. If you want to see your June again, you need to help us!"

"W-what... what happened?" the mare asked forlornly, her voice dampened by swelling nostrils. "What happened to Junebug? Tell me..."

"We don't know." the pegasus answered. "You remember that one time she got lost in the Everfree, and didn't come back for at least a week?"

She remained silent, but squeezed her shimmering eyes shut and averted her face from him, until tears rolled down her snout.

"You don't..." The soldier himself sniffed, once because of sorrow, and once because of impatience. "Well, Streak, I think that was the last time you saw your Junebug. Because... what came out of the forest a week later... I'm sure as shower that was not your daughter."

"Yes, she was!" the mare said and shook her head violently in denial.

"She didn't eat, Streak, she didn't even speak. She even tried to bite you once. With fangs! I should know, I was there. Why on Celestia's green earth are you so sure that this thing was your daughter?"

At first, she seemed to ignore his question. But ultimately, she began to stammer, trying to form words, trying to come up with an explanation. But all she could bring forth was,
"Her eyes... her eyes..."

The pegasus looked back, his face rigid and barely stoic. He turned to the human, who was still slouched in her chair, averting her eyes from the dilemma playing in front of her.
"Her eyes. Do you know what that means?"

Edith kept looking away uncomfortably, kneading her knees with her hands. She had heard of that 'phenomenon' before already. 'Violation of the Sanctity of the Mind', to put it in legal terms.

"You see what has happened to us ponies... That's why I brought you here, M'am. We need all the help we can get." he added and eyed her warily, still holding the shivering mare upright with his hooves "Now, Sun Streak. I know this may hurt you a lot. But please, please try to remember, what was the last thing your Junebug did, the day she disappeared. You said she went into the Everfree Forest. You came to me, begging me to look for her, back then. Tell me what you told me back then. Point us the way she went."

The mare was crying freely now. Whatever had made click in her mind, it broke something in her in a matter of moments. The pegasus could barely hinder her from sinking and wallowing in the grime of her own crumbled sweets.

"Ma'am please! Could you lend me a hoof over here?"

Edith quickly shot up from her seat, and automatically went to brighten the light of the lamp in the corner and fetch a blanket for the blue pony.

However, on the way, she could not help herself but take a moment to notice the other things piled on the cupboard next to the light. Reminders of a previous life. Artifacts.
There stood richly decorated gingerbread house - a replica of the store they were standing in - occupied by two miniature marzipan figurines; one of a blue pony with a curly orange mane, obviously Sun Streak herself, and one of a yellow one, with hair of eerily similar colour as the other's. Junebug.

"Ma'am! Just hoof me the darn blanket already, would you?"

"Lieutenant?" Edith asked as she stomped through the snow back to the vehicle.

"Yes, M'am? What is it?" Fighting asked as he trod beside her.

"I've just been thinking. About that changeling... Sun Streak said you 'took' her, right?"

"I... yes." the pegasus answered jerkily and placed the beaver hat back on his head. "You see, I was the Sheriff around here two years ago, before I was ordered back to Canterlot after the siege - for obvious reasons. I knew Streak pretty well back then. Her little Junebug too.
Well, she wasn't 'little' back then anymore. She was an up-and-coming young lady, always eager to explore the world, but too timid to make it very far. Oftentimes, she would hang around in Ponyville - that's just down the road - but was usually back in her mum's shop soon by the end of the day."

"Or not, apparently." she murmured.

He sighed. "Yeah. That one time on Nightmare Night, she was gone. For more than a week, and that was strange even for her. Sun Streak was frantic. She galloped into my guardroom the same night, begging me to round up a posse and look for her. She said Junebug hiked into the Everfree forest, on to gather mushrooms or something. She never made it back."
They stopped in front of the vehicle. "But then... June suddenly turned up again. Just like that, like nothing had happened. But I immediately noticed something was off. I came to see her and her mother the next morning, to make sure that everything had ended well."
They climbed into the car. The pegasus fluttered up to the height of the doorlatch and pushed it open with a hoof. He plumped onto the broad backseat bench, and exasperaly continued. "But nothing was well. Junebug was not Junebug anymore. She had become the exact opposite. She didn't say a word. She didn't do anything. She just stayed at home all the time. Instead, Junebug became aggressive and territorial, having everypony keep their distance. More... feral, in a way."

"I still don't understand why her own mother would fall for the masquerade."

He looked out the windshield, at the abandoned market square with the sweets shop. "Because not even Sun Streak was herself anymore. You saw her just now. Timid, less outspoken, and suddenly extremely reserved and... latent. She kept forgetting stuff. Basic things. She didn't question anything anymore. Instead, she asked me to leave, because my snooping around was making her 'daughter' nervous!"

"Yet you still intervened?" the human asked as she operated the ignition, which took off with a large growl from the rustic motor.

"I knew I had to. Though I don't know why it took me so long. I drummed up a few of my comrades, and I came back to look into this matter further." He harrumphed. "Sadly, my fears... they were true. That was not Junebug sitting in the candy store. It was... as I found out later... a changeling drone who had assumed her form. It put up quite a fight, but... we put that savage monster in its place."

Edith massaged the steering wheel as she pondered his story.
"Then you took it away... " she mumbled and turned around. "Where? I was told that all the changelings simply... disappeared after their Queen got captured. No exceptions."

"Yeah, and so did this one." the lieutenant commented off-handedly. "A long time ago."

"What? How?"

"Never mind. It... got lost... on our way to Canterlot..." the pegasus uttered, slowly and uncertainly. "Two years ago."

"Got lost?"
Edith's tone laden with skepticism. "What, did it escape?"

"You could say that..." he explained snappily. "But I don't understand how that concerns us right now. I couldn't care less about any changelings. I just want to find Junebug."

The human wasn't satisfied with that, however.
"Where exactly did you last see your changeling? In which direction did he run?"

"I don't know. That was two years ago. That monster's long scurried away... probably." he breathed. "You don't really think a changeling would point us Junebug's way anyway, do you?"

The human silently shrugged.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I would really like to know where all the changelings have suddenly gone to, if no one can suddenly find them..."

The pegasus stared at her for some strained seconds.
"Now wait just a tick. Is this even still about Junebug?" he asked her accusingly, "Have you come here to find our missing ponies, or to scrape up some changelings?"

"I''m here to find those who are missing. That's my job..." she smirked humourlessly.

"Do you even care about the countless ponyfolk those monsters have victimised all those years?"

"Of course." she argued. "But the Changeling queen and her state are put on trial in The Hague as we speak. And the court demands Changelings to fill the witness stand. Whenever changelings are spotted, they ought to be brought in immediately. Those were explicit directives."

"Is some stinking court appointment half a globe away really somehow more important than helping us here?" the pegasus asked roughly. "The brochure said that you've come to help us..."

"But we are helping you, aren't we?" the human clarified, wide-eyed at his accusation. "We're putting the Changelings on trial. We make them accountable for their crimes. Isn't that enough?"

"Making them 'accountable' won't bring our missing friends back. Every big-town pony in Canterlot and Manehattan seems so gosh-darn elfstruck by the idea of 'condemning' them these days that they don't notice it won't help frontier-dwellers like us in the slightest. We're the ones who'll have to carry the full brunt of the Everfree Forest's untamed magical powers! In my opinion, those changelings can all just darn-well stay disappeared, charge or no charge! I've never felt so safe from them as I do now."
He looked her in the eyes. "What would really help us is to undo all the sorrow and the suffering they've brought over us."

"Look. The ICTE sent me here with a very specific task. Let's not forget that. If someone's is being missed without a trace in a conflict zone, I try to go and look for them. If they have fallen victim to the circumstances, I'd do what I can to identify them. And I am not discriminating or priotising my work based on the side they were on. I'm just here to estimate concrete numbers for the court. To work out the dimensions of the crimes that were committed."

He just seemed irritated by her prescribed neutrality. "You wanna to know how many times those filthy dung beetles have done things like this? Like they did to poor Sun Streak back there? You know, she went completely off her rocker after we hauled the changeling away ! You've seen how she's acting; she can't think back two weeks without that... that brain-washing kicking in and sending her sprawling all the way back to scratch! And she's hardly the only one to suffer from this. Do you have any idea how often changelings have tried to play this sort of thing on other ponies' minds?"

Edith gave him a stoic glance,
"Look, I know what you're going through, but there are bigger-"

"All the time! That's the answer to your questions. As far as I can think back, there have always been Changeling attacks on us! I tell you, those parasites, they don't deserve your attention - It's as easy as that! I wish I'd never see any of them again! You should be minding those weeping, broken ponies who must spend the rest of their lives with their loved ones and their sanity viciously torn from them. Don't you have kids? If you had kids, you'd understand what I mean!"

Bitterly waiting until her companion had calmed enough to keep talking, she asked, more forcefully,
"Are you finished, Lieutenant?"

There was a menacing silence.

Edith's perpetually sober and practical mind was quick to remind her that out here, she had nowhere to go than with the Pegasus officer, being essentially blind and deaf to her surroundings.
And she also knew that he was not going to do her the favour and accompany her all the way back to Canterlot before the 'job' wasn't done here.
Rather than risk to have him fly off and leave her behind then and there, she closed her eyes and silently resigned.

"I have one day to spare for you. No more than that. If I don't find any leads until tomorrow, I will go back to Canterlot and mind my assignment. And you'll have to find yourself someone else to order around. Do you understand, Lieutenant?"

Doggedly, the pegasus officer nodded.

"Okay. Now tell me, what have you found out so far?" she inquired matter-of-factly.

Harrumphing, the officer answered, "As I was saying; Sun Streak told me that, on the day of Junebug going missing, she went north, up the Broken Crop Road, about a thousand leaps in that direction."

"You know where it is, or do we need a map?" Edith made sure.

"I know, alright."
The lieutenant pointed a hoof out the back hatch of the Land Rover. "In there."

Following his leg, Edith espied the tall, pitch-black contours of a forest edge in the distance, looming on the white, bleak horizon like an inpenetrable wall.

"That's the Everfree Forest, M'am."

She nodded.
"Well. Then that's where we have to go, don't we?"

"Fine." the stallion gulped. Even he could not hide the nervousness in his voice, in the face of that looming, dark place. "But first... we'll have to prepare. I know somebody living just outside of Ponyville. She'd make a great guide through this part of the woods."

"Alright." Edith said and tapped on the steering wheel. "You're the local. Let us find this guide of yours. Lead the way"

"Wait... we will also need protection. Lots of protection. One can never be safe enough in a place like the Everfree."

The human thought for another second as she scrutinised the stallion on the bench behind her.
"You mentioned some friends earlier on, didn't you? The ones who helped you get the changeling."

"My comrades from Her Majesties' Territorials in Hoofington, yes. Your point?"

"Drum them up again. Arm them, give each one of them a map and tracking material, and have them escort us."

"Good idea. At least it won't be anything they haven't seen before..."
The pegasus thought long and hard.
On one side, was spirited by the responsibility he owed of finding young Junebug, and to bring her back to her mother...

"What's wrong now, Lieutenant?" the human inquired impatiently.

...On the other, the soldier knew he could not possibly get around his own deeply-rooted fear of the Everfree Forest. He shared that fear with most of the of the townsfolk here, they all had a lot of experience with horrible and gruesome occurences in this area because of those damned woods. Timberwolf packs ravaging the farms and livestock, Poison Joke infecting unsuspecting little foals with the most macabre of nature's offerings, and especially the talks of cockatrices hiding in the bushes of the forest edge to prey upon unsuspecting hikers.
When he first heard of Junebug disappearing inside the woods, he was close to telling Streak that she might as well abandon all hope.

"Wrong? No. Nothing is wrong".

But right now, he simply knew he had to be above that. It was the last chance to make things right.

"Let's do this, Ma'am."

VI. Corpus Delicti

VI.

Corpus Delicti

Everfree Forest, Ponyville Region, Equestria
17. November, 2015
17:40 pm ICT

The lane along the forest was, rather unsurprisingly, horribly paved. A few half-hearted attempts at cleating it with cobblestone aside, it was mostly frozen mud, mush and compost heaps protruding from the forest floor, and ancient roots from nearby trees eroding the pathway into an abscurely desolate state.

The Land Rover rumbled and hopped under every ever so slight elevation or depression in its way, shaking the seven passengers through like in an electrical coin sorter, and pulling them to the left or right, like reed stems in a storm. Golden armour chestplates clanked as they banged together under the constant movement, and ill-fitting helmets wobbled around on the heads of four of the ponies. They were four rather countryfolk-like and stoic stallions, gripping spears and halberds in their hooves, all of them sharing only a few feet of benchspace in the otherwise very spacious vehicle, and anxiously looked forward to guess where they were heading.
Behind them, on the third bench, there resided their guide, who strongly held onto the grips provided above the doors and behind the seats, and directed the path of the car alongside the forest edge with a moaning and ill-sounding, yet noticeably rythmical and deep voice. Her neck- and earrings rang out as she shifted her hooves and laid down her stomach on her seat with a distressed sigh, taking up the entire width of the bench with her spread out limbs.

"How are you feeling back there?" the Lieutenant next to the human behind the wheel asked.

Another moan escaped their guide.
"Never in may entire life, did ever want to strive to travel not on hooves but wheel. Now that I do, I feel really ill."

"Oh, you zebras! If Celestia wanted us to walk everywhere on hoof, she wouldn't have given us the Friendship Express, right?"

"You may laugh now, but you will see; your hooves have better memory!"

"What is she saying?" the human asked her companion.

"Ah, the typical stuff. She is scared of everything that moves for her. But that's also why she knows the entire Everfree like the back of her horseshoe!"

"To each his own, Lieutenant. What about your friends? Are they from around here?"

The pegasus leaned back to his comrades.
"Ah, they're good colts. Born and bred in Everfree County. A bit crazy in the common sense department, but they know good from evil. The chubby one with the horn, for example, he's an ace of a mage. He can take a whole oak and thrust it twenty leaps against the wind. Not everypony can do that, especially not in the Provincial Cavalry. The little pegasus next to him, he isn't the brightest or anything, but he is the fast one. He was in the Wonderbolts Flight Academy before dropping out."

"Aha." she commented with a bewildered expression. The human had no idea what he meant.

"Here in the countryside, everypony is kind of a really unique type. Once you know them, you know them for life, and they know you too. Ponies are really tight-knit around these parts, so it's a big deal if something happens to one."

"Is that why they helped you with Junebug?"

"Yes. I've heard the little one even had a crush on June once. You wouldn't believe how shattered he was when she sucked his affection in and then spit it right back in his face.

Edith nodded strangely. "No, I guess I wouldn't."

"Before long, he had to pin her legs so she wouldn't try and lunge at him. It was so absurd. That thing was probably trying to cocoon him or something. Well, whatever its plan was, we stomped it out."

Swallowing the awkwardness of hearing the story, she began to understand just how hard her disappearance and her subsequent 'replacement' had impacted the other locals.
"What about our guide?"

"The zebra? She's a hermit. Came from the woods one day, in a hood and with shifty eyes. Nopony really likes her though. She doesn't talk with others often, but when she does, she can be really cocky know-it-all-like. Oh, and she is planting her Everfree flora everywhere. Makes the whole place even more dangerous than it has to be."

"Halt past that big fir I see. This is where we'll have to be." the zebra suddenly exclaimed and pointed.

"She says we should stop right over there." the pegasus immediately broke to the human.

The car swung to the left and pulled over on the untamed frozen moss ground.
Edith silenced the motor and the small search party, equines first, ejected from the car.

"Jeesh! Riding in such a thing is like a really tiny haycart. No space for lying at all!" one of the more corpulent guardsponies commented. "Ya... What're we doing here? Isn't this, like, the most abandoned edge of the forest?"

"Yep." the Lieutenant answered. "It makes sense that we start searching for them here."

"Sense, sense... it don't make no sense at all. Darn tootin', I bet that enchantress is just mucking around with us!"

"And why, cadet, would I do that?" the zebra roughly cut him off as she tumbled out the back hatch of the Rover.

"Well, ever since Morion threw you out of the market that one time, you had a grudge against us. Don't deny it." another guard spoke.

"Because buying books on witchery you ponies were too scared to see?" Zecora commented haughtily.

"Ya bet, zebra. You'd end up putting some nasty curses on ponies, just like the last time." the other guard said and waggled his spear in her direction knowingly.

"You fool. I told you many a time... ponies acting dumb is not my crime. And if you choose to blame me so, then you can stay, but I will go!"
Her pouches rustled menacingly as she made ready to turn away from them.

"Now look, Zecora." Lieutenant Fighting said with a raised hoof as he stepped between his comrades and their guide. "This is not about you, this is about a slew of innocent ponies being trapped somewhere in that forest. We asked you kindly if you could show us around this place. You're here all the time, after all.."

"So I will!" the mystic huffed. "But I insist, that accusations you must resist."

"Fine." He turned to his subordinates. "You heard her. Lay off the idle talk for later. Right now, we must focus on finding Junebug and the other lost ones. I cannot tell what awaits us in there. But it's not something that we could face by bickering and spreading hate."
He looked upwards, to the tree tops hanging high above him and absorbing much of the sunlight before it could illuminate the forest around them. It was gloomy and foggy.
Even if though they had lamps, they would have hardly seen what lay ten feet in front of them. "We... we must stick together around here. No matter what. Alright?"

"Yes sir." A lean guardspony exclaimed. "Make ready to kick some major changeling flank..."

"Oh and for the love of Celestia, please lay off the Commander Hurricane."

"Of course, sir."

Step for step, Edith stumbled from tree to tree, extremely vigilant of the unseeable forest floor beneath her. In front of her, the foggy outlines of her pony guides floated around, with one or two guiding lights dangling between them.
The sight seemed, she remembered, not any more real than the rest of her trip. The foreign vegetation, the inhabitants, the native tongue... the haunting scenery of the forest; dark, damp, abandoned and isolated. She wasn't claustrophobic, but the fact that she tapped around the fog behind the guardsponies like a blind woman grabbing onto her one-eyed guide's shoulder was harrowing.

Suddenly, something caught her foot.
The human's eyes shrunk in horror, and she immediately froze in place, stopping dead in her tracks.

The pony lieutenant hurried over to her, looking up and down her still form.
"Are you alright, M'am?"

The otherwise so painfully reserved and rational human did not dare to move an inch, carefully shifitng her eyes downwards, trying to espy what had curled around her foot.

"Hey, don't sweat it." the lieutenant tried to calm her, peering through the mist around her legs. "It's just a vine. Nothing to be afraid of."

She just gulped, uneasily trying to move her foot away, but immediately flinched and let out a pained gasp when she felt the growth tugging at her leg.

"Hang on..." the pegasus said, lowering himself and quickly biting through the vine with his massive horse teeth. "There. Gone."

She shirked away instantaneously and let out several heavy breaths. "Oi Bozhé..." she pleaded in her native tongue.

"Is everything alright? You're acting like there was a hydra twisting around your leg." he asked.

"No. Oh fuck..." she cursed. "I don't know where I'm stepping in this mist, and it's driving me completely crazy!"

"There is only that much that can lie on the floor and hurt you. Don't worry. You must only make sure that you don't trip."

A cold shiver ran down her back.
"I have just can't have it if I don't even see what's under my feet..."

"Really? Any particular reason?"

She took a moment to wipe her nose and snuffle.
"When... when I was a bit younger - I had just started work for the ICMP - I was tasked with an on-site exhumation, in the middle of war zone. And our escort drove us right into a minefield."

"A what? What is that?" the lieutenant asked nonchalantly.

"It's an area where..."
She carefully brushed over the ground with her foot, "Well... when you take one step into the wrong direction, you get blown up."

"Ouch." the pegasus murmured, trying to imagine how that was possible. What strange magic was that?

"A mine blew off a tire, and we had to find our way out on foot. Or rather, our toes. A whole kilometre, shuffling one foot in front of the next one, always staring at the ground, trying to spot any wires or buried metal rods that stuck out of the grass. We needed hours. Then one of my colleagues, he tripped... right onto one of those metal wires."
He face turned ashen. "He triggered one. Lost both legs."

"I... what?" the pony asked gravely, looking down in silence. "Sweet Celestia."

Edith looked at the ground again nervously. "Every time I trip on a root or a rock, I feel like the whole ground around me will go up in flames."

"Now... I'm not really sure what you mean." the pegasus, trying to be soothing, "Because we definitely don't have anything like it in Equestria."
He stomped on the forest floor a few times with all his hooves, "Hay, not even Diamond Dogs could burrow through this soil. Too rooty, you see. The Everfree's as sturdy a ground as can be. The really dangerous things around these parts are the ones that walk it."

"Good... I guess." Edith sighed.
Diamond dogs. Already the inferred dog attribute was unsettling. What other kinds of animals were living here?
And even though the fright was tugging at her nerves, sending chills down her spine, she could feel a certain warmth coming up the further they moved into the infamous forest. For all the talk about the aggressive and hostile environment, it definitely had an air of hospitability to it. It did harbour countless species of plants, and most of the fauna was probably sleeping through winter anyway.
Carefully, she stopped and loosened the scarf around her neck a tiny bit when she noticed that the changing climate had revived her sweat glands. The trees, the organisms all seemed to be packed so densely that they were collectively giving off life-giving warmth. That was probably also the reason for the fog. But why exactly was this forest so warm, so different from the biting cold outside? It felt so strangely homely, so normal. The weather in the rest of rural Equestria seemed stale by comparison.

"Well, the weather around here isn't working like in the rest of the country." the pegasus explained. "It's weird. It almost seems that the weather regulates itself around here. No intervention from ponies required whatsoever."

"Why... why is that weird?" Edith asked.

"Because. That's not how weather works."

"Yes, it does."

"Says the human earth-lubber." the pegasus added haughtily. "You've still got a lot to learn about Equestria."

"You need to come to Bosnia sooner or later. The weather there, it will blow your mind."

Before long, the posse found itself strolling across an overgrown glade in the woods, the zebra scout in front, and Edith slowly pacing her steps at the back. The fog became a bit clearer as it drifted up into the white midday sky.

The group began to spot some dark, solid forms lurking from behind the bushes and trees all around.
Only at closer inspection did Edith notice that they were statues, shaped like equines in various positions. One was down on the ground, seizing her head with her hooves, another one bore a petrified expression on her snout, and looked as if she tried to backtrack into the forest.

"How macabre. Was there a garden or a park here?“ she wondered aloud, "Because this place doesn’t look like there has ever been anything here.“

The Lieutenant joined her side. A visible goosebump travelled down his maned neck.
"That’s because those... aren’t statues.“ He turned around to his comrades. "Alright, colts. This is cockatrice hunting ground. You hear something rustling in the bushes, you blast it.“

Edith touched the statue intriguedly and travelled up and down the stone pony’s neck.
"What did you mean, those aren’t statues? Lieutenant?“

The Lieutenant remained silent for a moment before answering.

"Do you remember when i told you that this cursed forest has swallowed many innocent ponies in long past times?“

"Yes...“

He sighed.
"Never mind.“
He chose to keep the horrifying story of these ‚statues‘ from his human friend. In the worst case, she would probably laugh it off. "Let us go. There is nothing we can do here. Watch the tall grass.“

"Soldiers, to me!“ the zebra’s deep voice rang out. "Over yonder, a place I see!“

Immediately, the human and the stallion rushed over to the zebra leaning on an ancient tree stump, following her pointing hoof to a dark mound gazing out of the forest.

"Is that... a cave?“

In the midst of the trees, a middle-sized cliff rose out of the ground, and right on the cliffside, there was a gate-sized hole that supplied a portal into complete blackness.

"If you look for changelings, this place be it. For only pitchblack holes do they see fit.“

"You mean they are in there?“ Edith asked, confused. "Yeah, I'll need a lot of lights."
She spied around, looking for her suitcase. "Wait a minute. Where did I put it?"

As if on cue, the little pegasus auxiliary came flying up to her, holding the massive metal suitcase in his mouth by the handle.
"Uh, M'am, thoeth thith belong tho you, by any chanthe? You throppeth ith in the woothth."

"Ah yeah... there it is. Thanks." She quickly snatched it out of his mouth, snapping it open, double-checking all the contents, and arming herself with a torch and a handful of long green chemlights.

"Say..." the Lieutenant inquired, peering inside the coffer, "Are you a part-time dentist or something like that?"

Edith only raised an intrigued eyebrow. "What?"

"Well, with all those tooth forms and the paste you got in there..."

She picked out one of the forms - shaped like a deep metal U, just deep enough to place a mammal's maxilla in it.
"You mean this? This and the paste are for making dental impressions."

This perplexed the Lieutenant, however.
"And... what exactly will you need that for now?" he inquired with a forced smile.

The human looked at him, her eyes disbelieving at the fact that he asked.
"What do you think?" She glanced over to the cave. "I think if there is anything still inside this cave, it will probably need identification."

All of a sudden, an electric tension seemed to fill the air, as everypony's eyes shifted back and forth between the human that shuffled around in her suitcase, their superior officer's perplexed face, and the darkly foreboding hollow in front of them.

The pegasus officer swiftly drew a sword from his armour and quickly began passing orders.

"Right. Baschinet! You go in firsht." he barked. "You light ush the way.“

"Aye, Sir.“ A unicorn guard answered and lit his horn in a bright yellow light.

"Compact column, everypony. We don’t want any nashty shurprishesh. Should they come at you, get ash many ash you can and head right for the clearing.“

After that was done, he stuck the sword into the soil and once again minded the human.
"What was that just supposed mean? 'Identification?!'"

The human investigator said nothing.
Both her and his eyes came to stare into the black void that shielded the hole before them like a heavy curtain. It was silent in there. Dull. Lifeless. The damp darkness seemed hostile to anything living.
It reeked of death.

Edith harrumphed uncomfortably.
"I am a trained forensic, Lieutenant. And I can tell the difference between a shelter, and a..."
She cut herself off before she could finish the sentence with an ever-dreadful word. "I didn't think I’d have to... spell it out for you.“

"What didn't you want to spell out for me, M'am?“ he snapped back, clearly on edge.

She didn’t take her eyes from the darkness.
"You know, I've spent half my career exhuming mass graves and tally bones in Serbia and Mali. Just so you know; I'm not exactly in the branche finding missing persons... while they're still alive."

He stared at her with vile, disbelieving eyes.
The lieutenant’s muzzle came awfully close to the human aid worker’s face.
He breathed at her, "Have you really come all this way to tell me that our search for our loved ones is completely in vain? You're telling me that they’re long gone and buried? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, human?!“

Edith looked down.
"Not necessarily. I don't know who or what's in that cave. But whatever it is, it curled up and died a long time ago. Don't you smell it?"

The pegasus dared not to sniff the pungent scent of rot that hung in the clearing's air.

"And there are no lights burning inside that cave. No fire or smoke, even though it's deepest November. And the entrance doesn't bear any signs of recent occupation by any living being either..." She coughed. "So yeah; it's entirely possble. And if you count the fact that - in my experience - the first priority of wartime kidnappers doesn't tend to be the preservation of the lives or wellbeing of their abductees, I...“
She quickly stopped.
Even she noticed that she might have already said too much.

The pegasus lieutenant was more than just taken aback now - he almost shook with either anger or fear. He bobbed his head left and right, with his ears flicking around nervously, trying to deny what the human suggested and clung himself to his own truth.
"We're... not in one of your human countries. We're in Equestria." he hissed slowly, but severely, "And In Equestria... we don't use that word that starts with a D. Ever. Got it?!"

"Now look here. All I did was name a possibility. If you can't look-"

"Have you really thought that I'd barely go three steps and already it'd be late? That all these good stallions who have come here with me to save the lives of their friends, could at most scoop up what's left of them and trot home for burial?"
He shook his head, as if to answer his own question. "No. No no no..."

Edith tried to disarm his fraught trembling.
"The Changelings-"

"You just want your changelings, huh?!" the Lieutenant suddenly burst. "Oh fine! Just declare everypony I've ever loved d... d... a lost cause, and move right on to what you've really come here for? The Changelings?! If you want to save a few of those monsters for yourself, be free to go ahead inside that cave and kindly ask them to step out of the shadows for us. Be my guest."
He pointed at his pony comrades, already positioned around the cavern entrance, "But let us Royal Guards do the job the we came here for to finish. To save the innocent! Every single one of them! And finish it, we will. Even if it’s going to take us a thousand years; we'll find them, and when we do, they will be alive, and happy to see us, and they will be falling into our hooves, greeting us with kisses and tears running down their cheeks. Safe and sound they'll be! This is what will happen! And nothing else! Because this is Equestria, and not bucking Earth!"

Edith looked away. A lump of shock and almost painful guilt travelled up her throat. It would be best if she would just leave him to his delusion.

"And I want to hear nothing about the d-word anymore, and neither will my ponies. Or you can go right back where you came from, human. Got it?!"

Some things just were universal, for better or for worse.

The cave seemed to be a collapsed mountain of a sort, a crack between two massive rock plateaus lying on top of hear other, having been there millions of years, and surely a shelter to countless creatures over time.
The zebra guide herself – for all the vast knowledge she had collected about this mystical place – was hard-pressed not to let her attention slip from examining its untouched, millenia-old walls.

Guided by the brawny unicorn’s horn, the human was right behind him and the zebra, putting one foot in front of the other, gazing into the dark horizon. She felt the nothingness sweep against her face, brush her ears. The lack of sound, even the lack of an echo that she would have expected from a cave this size, made the entire place seem much smaller, more oppressing, as if the darkness was the wall before her eyes, and retracted with every inch the unicorn’s light pushed forward. The air was damp, every sound her lips made was thrust right back at her.
Every breath of warm air floated in around her ears. The air in this place was stale, not moving. It was like she was a giant trapped in a tiny, dark corridor whose walls were close to tickling her skin without actually touching her, breathing her own breath and slowly succumbing to the lack of fresh, cold oxygen and her own companions.
She thanked the heavens she wasn’t claustrophobic, or else this place would have been the end of her.

She felt the presence of the embittered lieutenant trotting behind her, sword in mouth, almost like he was driving her forward in front of him.

Soon, the group was swallowed by darkness. They had moved no more than twenty metres into this cave, but already the saving daylight of the Everfree was weak, far away on the end of the tunnel. Already breaths were growing heavier, more concerned, desperate. The air in this place seemed spent, and smelled even stronger of decomposition.

"Hello!“

Edith ducked as the loud shouts of the equine behind her flew over her. The other in the company stared at their leader.

"Hey!“ he shouted again. He was panicking, Edith could tell by his shouts, and how they were tainted by voice cracking on every other syllable, as the Lieutenant was losing more and more of his composure.
He had smelled the rot. He remembered the human’s words.
What if there was no living soul in this place after all?

"Royal Guard! Ish anypony there? Hello!“

Then something else echoed through the cavern.

From far away, a scream rang out, travelling from wall to wall through the darkness.
Everyone froze in horror. It was a ghastly sound. The throat that had produced it was sore and swollen and hoarse. It sounded like a frantic signal of alarm.

Lieutenant Fighting Fit was the first one to snap out of it, breaking out of formation, leaving his companions behind left and right, charging into the darkness beyond the horn’s light.
"After me! After me! Platoon, after me! Now! Thish way!“

The others immediately hounded after him, lead by the zebra guide and Edith.

Almost blindly, the company followed down the tunnel, heading for a destination they did not know even existed.

The way split into two. One path headed into a claustrophobic crack in the wall, riddled with tremdous stalachyte stones growing out of the ground. The other end seemed to lead over some kind of fall into a much larger, almost ballroom-sized hollow point inside the mountain.

The Lieutenant’s head swing around as he rapidly ran around in circles, unsure of where to proceed next.
"Zecora! Zecora! Where to? Where did that cry come from? Tell me!“

The zebra was as puzzled as him.
"Left or right, up or down... we’d run into the darkness‘ mound.“

"Stop with the riddles!“ he shouted at her. "Left or right, Zecora?!“

Something small hit the zebra’s mohawk mane with a thwack. Shaking the pebble out of her hair, her eyes travelled up. Her ears sharpened.
"Nay...“ she breathed. Within a second, she jumped at the Lieutenant, taking him with her as she dove in the floor. "Back! Away!“ she wheezed.

Before Edith and the others could inquire what she did that for, the ground began to shake as several sizeable stones crashed down from above with a deafening thunder. A hail of ashen rocks, sharp splintery hubris, dirty pebbles, sand and dirt flashed in the horn’s light, drawing a surreal, confusing play of shadows on the white and grey walls around them. They scattered, grasped by the erratic panic of the moment, pressing against the walls and shielding their heads.
One of the projectiles hit the little pegasus Guard on the helmet with a dull clang, causing him to drop on the floor panically and hold on to his headgear with both hooves.

Edith tried to make her way over to the lieutenant and the zebra guide.
Then a rock the size of a plum struck her right below the right ear.
Her jaw jerked to the left violently. She suddenly felt the salty, rusty taste of blood spilling on her tongue. Frozen like a deer caught in the headlights, she sank to her wobbling knees and grabbed her face with a hand. It took several seconds until the pain caught up with her. She moaned as she began to notice she couldn‘t feel some of her grinding teeth, and her gums seemed to be on fire.

"Human!“

She heard a frantic whinny from behind her, and before long her eyes were blurred by black and white striped fur. The zebra guide sat on her haunches next to Edith and lowered her to the ground next to the drop.
Oblivious to the fact that the human couldn’t understand her, the zebra tried to calm her and spoke to her in gentle noises.
"Shush, you poor creature, hush. There is no haste, there is no rush. You're wounded on your mouth and teeth. Through your nose please try to breathe."

The last rock smashed onto the ground.
The lieutenant got back on all fours and hurried over to the guide and the human, not even taking the time to re-adjust the strap of his helmet.
"That was... a cave-in. Is everypony alright?"

"If that was a cave-in, I am a sheep. Would this grotto fall, we'd be buried deep." She pointed him upwards. "If you see what I now see, it was a trap, quite obviously. A basket, sack or plate of wood, laden to the brim with stone. And through a rope, a little tug, unto us it all was thrown."

His eyes darted in all directions nervously.
"Are you saying some pony made this rockfall happen?"

"I would know at a glance, if such a fall would occur by chance. It was a booby trap, alright. And not one triggered by your knights."

Within a second of her explaining, the rest of the trap contraption dropped from the ceiling.
A big, rotten basket, followed with several metres worth of rope, crashed right next to them, nearly missing the muscular unicorn guard.

The Lieutenant galloped back to the point where he had dropped the sword, picking it back up with his teeth, and turned to the gaping darkness to his right.

Then he screamed hysterically, maddened with rage.
"Where are you, you shcum?! You Changeling pigsh! Was that for ush?! Wash that bashket meant for ush?! Come out and fight! We will deshtroy you all!"

Then, suddenly, the darkness struck back.

A creature jumped out of the shadows, tackling the unicorn who was standing behind the lieutenant. It smashed his head against the floor with a gasp, and the light of his horn went out with an almost electrical surge, plunging the frantic group back into complete, alienating blackness.

Another one of the gut-wrenching shrieks echoed around her from nearby, churned out by the shadow creature.

Edith felt the zebra guide leave her side instantly, and through the sudden darkness, she heard a series of shouts, neighs and screams from several of her equine companions. First there was a thump, then the sound of hooves galloping to the position where the unicorn had just stood. A clang from a sword, a hard thud from a blunt weapon, and the sound of somepony jumping into the frey, delivering savage kicks at the aggressor, each one punctuated by a frenzied creak.

Edith cowered on the ground, void of all orientation and the will to move. She did not dare to feel the ground to regain it. She felt compelled to stay right on that piece of cave floor where she lay right now. In her mind, she could virtually feel the blades of grass growing around her, intertwined with supicious looking wires, razor-sharp metal points, waiting to be moved in the slightest way, and unleash fiery hell all around her.

With a hand, jittering from the nervousness and the pain in hr throbbing mouth, she reached backwards, groping her backpack, until she could feel the zipper. Then she ripped it open and pulled out a long, conical plastic tube. She took it in both hands, snapped it and hit it once hard against the cold floor. The fluid inside began to swirl and change colour, and soon, a bright green light spread through the tube like a streak of syrup through a glass of water.

Frantically, she held it up and glanced around. She could faintly see several equine forms darting around, writhing on the ground or carefully stepping through the darkness - then she lost grip of the saving light in her hand.

It fell to the ground and rolled away through the darkness. Edith panicked, falling further on the floor and tried to grab it. But it was too far away, and in an instant, it was gone. The treasured green light had disappeared from her vision.
She saw some vague light travelling down the walls on the far side of the cave chamber. Then she heard the sound of a plastic cylinder impacting on the cold, wet floor somewhere in front of her, much further below.

With a blindingly bright flash of the unicorn's horn, the magically generated warm yellow light returned, illuminating the cave once again.
As Edith's eyes refocused and she regained her orientation, she noticed immediately that everything had changed. The young pegasus had a blueish hoof stomp imprinted in his face, the unicorn had lost his helmet, and stood heavily breathing, and with a big batch of his white mane hair missing from his head, over a dirty, rugged, and pitifully thin equine creature that was pinned to the ground by a maddened Lieutenant Fighting Fit, as the pegasus officer delivered headbutt after headbutt on the downed beast.

"You dirty scum!" he whimpered. His eyes were now openly glistening with tears in the horn's light.
He delivered another, savage headbutt at the heavily breathing attacker. "Transform! Transform! Get out of this pony body, you dirty changeling dreg!"
He punched it on its malnourished breast with an iron-clad hoof before repeating himself. "Transform I said! Transform! Show us your true self!"

He flinched as the zebra guide laid a comforting hoof on his back. Then he dropped his hoof back on the floor, and breathed out.

The creature on the floor below him was the same as before; a mare with a dirty yellow coat and a tattered blue-pink mane, breathing barely, and white, foamy saliva escaping her mouth. A pegasus too, as Edith saw two undernourished wings sticking out from behind her back, even though one of the wings was very unhealthily pointing in the wrong direction.

"Who is that Changeling?" the Lieutenant inquired roughly. "And who is it impersonating?!"

The young pegasus under his command approached cautiously, shivering as he looked down at the beast.
"I don't know a mare who looks anything like this. But I gotta say, those Changelings sure look like the real thing."

"Don't be fooled by their cheap tricks!" the Lieutenant retorted. "It cannot keep this disguise up forever."

The zebra behind him looked concerned, scrutinizing the barely conscious creature.
"Changelings should hold more than this one did. They're sturdy creatures, with stamina, as nature does weakness forbid. This one's weak, and has hardly fought. Are changelings weaker than I thought?"

"I would be weak too if I were stuck in this tartarus-hole for half an eternity! But don't you fret, it won't save this little monster from what's coming to it!"

The guide pondered.
"Stuck... stuck... oh what luck!" she exclaimed and pulled the Lieutenant away from the weakened assailant. "Lieutenant, mayhaps its not a Changeling at all. Just, at wrong place and time, an unfortunate soul."

"Not a Changeling, what?!" the Lieutenant spat. "Are you blind, zebra?! What is this if not a changeling?! It attacked Bascinet! And probably triggered the trap, too! You saw it, didn't you? How could any pony in her right mind do that?!"

The zebra, oblivious to the shouting soldier, put her face down to the creature's frantically breathing snout, inspecting it from close up with an almost motherly expression.
"In her right mind you did say? I think we're talking of another's sway."

"What..." the Lieutenant stammered.

"Look at her eyes. Her eyes tell no lies."

Everypony bowed closer to her. They noticed a faint green shimmer stretching around the inner irises of the pony.

"Sweet Celestia. No." the Lieutenant said hoarsely and softly shook his head.

"Her mind is weakened by an old magic force. But I confess, changelings are the source."

"I knew it!" he hissed.
Pathetically, he used his shivering hooves to try and pat the cheeks of the creature that he had just beaten down so savagely a mere few seconds ago. "What have they done to you? Where is everypony else?"

Meanwhile, Edith took another look around. In the direction her chemlight had rolled off to. She noticed that she lay on a sort of a plateau. The stone floor went slightly downhill, and ended, dropping vertically downwards, into complete blackness. Her light had gone over the ledge and fallen down there.
On all fours, she scrambled after it, trying to see what was left of it.

Below her, she saw the cavern floor, covered by a few inches of thick, murky liquid. One particular spot below her shone bright green and seemed to expand; the chemlight had burst upon impact and now it's illuminating liquid leaked into the apparently sizeable reservoir. The light was the only thing she saw from up there, everything else still seemed to be buried under the veil of darkness.

At least it seemed to be, until the human noticed the fluorescent liquid flowing toward some big, round growth of a sort that seemed to sprout right out of the watery ground. It almost looked like a strange egg. Like an inflated, greenish weather balloon floating on the surface of the pool. What the hell was down there? Another balloon-like object popped into view, drifting past the light from the other side.

"It almost looks like she has been trying to protect something. But what?"

"It is a technique employed by Changelings, I suppose. Slaves, appointed as guards of nests, to fend off their master's foes."

"But what in Celestia's name was this one supposed to be guarding?"

Edith still heard her comrades talking behind her. She still couldn't understand them, but she had to tell them that there was something down there, in the water below them.
She moaned, with her jaw and teeth still throbbing harshly, and tried to get the others’ attention.

Upon her moans, the young pegasus private at his superior's side winged over to her.
"Uhm, everything still okay, human?"

She pointed downwards. The pegasus curiously followed her hand.

Together, they scrutinised the big blobs on the water.

"What in Celestia's name..." he murmured and scratched the mane under his helmet. "What is this stuff? It looks so..."

At a moment's notice, the Lieutenant, the zebra and the other two guards were at their side.

"What on Celestia's golden sun..." Fighting Fit gasped. He turned to the pegasus of the group. "Morion... fly down there and tell us what you see."

"What? me?" the fidgeting pegasus asked with a jolt.

"Yes. That's an order. Move it."

"Sure, Lieutenant, sir!" he croaked.
With a short flap of his wings, he dove of the ledge into the darkness below.

There was a splash of shallow water.

"What do you see?" the Lieutenant inquired.

"I... uh... nothing. Sir."

The Lieutenant beckoned Bascinet the unicorn to illuminate the grotto to the best of his ability.
"Are you alone down there?"

The pegasus trembling voice answered,
"I... I don't think so, Sir. There’s something in the water, Sir."

"What... is in the water?"

There was a sound of hooves moving through the pool. Then they stopped.
"It's... big... and sticky... and..."

"And?"

Another pause.

Then there was a bloodcurling scream from the teenage pegasus.

"Oh geesh, Morion!" the corpulent unicorn shouted.

The others were practically readying up to jump down into the darkness to rush to their young, imperiled comrade's aid, but before they had a chance to do anything, he swept up from below, as if stung by an adder. He flew right over their heads and disappeared behind them in the darkness of the tunnel.

"Morion" the Lieutenant bellowed, trying to rise into the air after him. But he winced, and knocked back onto the floor, holding one of his wings - it had been severly strained in the melee.
He looked at the others pleadingly. "What are you waiting for? After him!"

The others, who had yet to fell a decision to go after Morion or stay put, broke into a gallop down the passage, the wounded human and the injured pegasus in tow.

Occasionally, they heard the sounds of Morion's light armour clanking against the cavern walls, as if he were a maddened, blind bat. Following those sounds, they were soon led back into the saving, white daylight of the Everfree Forest.

Panting, they collapsed on the moss ground, next to the whimpering, sobbing form of a pegasus trooper.

"Morion." the Lieutenant called. "What is wrong with you?"

The pegasus needed a couple of seconds to formulate his words.
"In... water... face... cocoon..." he stammered, hysterical.

"Cocoon?" the Lieutenant repeated. "Cocoon..."
He cursed in his home language, heading back towards the cave entrance. "There are cocoons in there! We need to go back! Now!" he shouted at his human companion.

She understood, but couldn't answer. She felt her mouth being rinsed with blood.
Trying to help, she picked a walkie talkie out of her jacket, and pressed a red button.
"Panich buthon..." she mouthed. "Challing backhup... UN..."

In the commotion that ensued in following moments, as the guardsponies prepared to head back into the cavern, no one seemed to notice that the horrified granite 'statues' that had been standing only a few metres away from the entrance, had suddenly disappeared.

Author's Note

Hello, dear readership.
I apologise for the delay, but both my university studies and the onslaught of the christmas break have been in my way recently. Well, mostly the university. But you would be surprised how time-consuming the wrapping of presents and the shooting of rockets can be... Especially in conjunction with university work...
To cut a long story short, I am back. You can expect regular updates again from now on.

VII. Handling The Truth

VII.
Handling The Truth

ICC Permanent Premises
Office Tower 3
17. November, 2015
4:49 pm MET

“Mr Estermann? Here you are.”

The lean attorney rushed into the offices of the ICC, to the great Courtroom Tower right. Here, so he heard, the defence team would be situated until further notice.
In front of the door, a pudgy man in a grey suit and with a bald spot in his dark hair was waiting, like an overweight bellboy, wringing his hands excitedly as Estermann came near.
“Mr Estermann. My name is Filippo..."

"Howdoyoudo." Estermann greeted him speedily and clapped his shoulder absent-mindedly as he rushed past him and entered the offices.
Expecting some sort of little introductory ceremony, where he would be pressured introduce himself to his team and bestow a few motivational words upon them - a thought he found absolutely harrowing - he braced for the notion of quickly squeezing a few hands, smiling dsarmingly, and then quickly disappearing in his own office and finally begin work on his opening words for the trial.
He knew what he wanted to say, and he saw to get to work and write it all down as soon as possible before his brilliant onrush of intuition would extinguish.

But the moment he entered the offices, the alleviating sight of the entire office buzzing with the clicking and clapping of keyboards, the humming of printers and scanners, and the ringing of telephones.
No one even minded him in the hustle.

"Alright..." he murmured, "Which magnificent bastard is responsible for all this?"

"That... would be me." a voice behind him answered with a smirk.

Estermann turned around and noticed the corpulent man standing behind him.

"FIlippo Garibaldi. How do you do? I am your aide-de-camp, in a way. We have talked over the phone, didn't we?”

Estermann quickly shook his hand a bit awkwardly.
“Perhaps. Good to meet you, Mr Garibaldi. Have you been waiting out there for a long time?”

“Oh no, no no. I just arrived here an hour or two ago. I would like to apologise sincerely about that; I came with the Euro-express from Lyon. It was a disaster. They’ve been upgrading large portions of the tracks, and the signals were not updated in time, so there was delay after delay… it was…”

“Alright, alright. Let’s go inside.” The lean solicitor said and motioned the pudgy Italian to follow him. He complied all too willingly.

In a way, Estermann could not help but feel a bit embarrassed, as he himself had seldomly been in his own working quarters the ICC had kindly surrendered to him a few weeks ago. In said quarters, there were a dozen clerks from all corners of the world employed to sit behind desks and do all those asignmnts too unimportant or trivial for the key figures to get conerned with. Which in this case, encompassed a good eighty percent of the paperwork the court threw at them.

Now that he thought about it, he was rather happy to have had no part in the massive amount of organisation that would have gone into hiring and deploying the employees and basic case experts. Admittedly, he had absolutely no experience in logistics - he wasn't a very organised man - but neither was he interested in changing that.
Probably this Garibaldi fellow had come to an arrangement with the court - all the way from Italy, no less! - and Estermann should probably thank him later.

“Where do you come from, Mr Estermann?”

“Switzerland.” He answered sparsely as he looked at him.

“Svizzera? Really? Oh… Dove sei nato?”

“I come from Lucerne. I don’t speak Italian.”

“Oh shame.” Garibaldi uttered as his interest in small talk dampened a bit in its tracks. “Ah well. When I arrived, Mr Estermann, I was looking forward to sitting down with you and discusing the defence's first official act, but you already were in a session with the... defendant, and I actually didn’t expect you for a few hours. So I... well... took the liberty to prep the defence team and to issue a statement to the resident media outlets about our position. Nothing too detailed, of course - I just reiterated our tasks and duties. I hope you don't object."

"Not at all. That'll do."

"You were finished quite fast with... her, though.” Garibaldi smiled. "Did it not go well?"

"On the contrary…” the lawyer said, but then hesitated. Now that he looked at it in retrospect, it did all seem incredibly short and sparse. Perhaps it really was just the initial shock that robbed him of any more words. “There was little to say and a lot to be done. So she and I decided to wrap it up rather quickly. She didn’t mind, she was still overcoming her... Kulturschock.”

“H... how was she, may I ask?" the Italian asked on, eyeing the defence counsel intrestedly, "She didn’t threaten you or try to hurt you or anything, did she?”

“No, not… particularly.” He replied. “But she still has to go a long way to adapt to her new environment. I think she didn’t even realised just how screwed she is here.”

“She wouldn’t be the first one to go through that though.” Garibaldi said and cackled humorously. “All the long-term residents of the Hague Hilton do. The thing I was really worried about, though, was… I mean, cavolo, I am hearing stuff about the things she did, it makes you cringe.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate.” Estermann said and looked at him with lowered eyelids. "If I were you, I would take anything those ponies say about her with a big pile of salt."

“Well, I don't know, Mr Estermann... should we maybe continue in your new office?” the aide-de-camp proposed.

The head defence council's eyes lit up.
"New office? Don't mind if I do!"

Estermann’s office was in the same room from the clerk tables, separated only by an opaque glass wall, which was faced by an empty writing desk and an empty file cabinet with a tower of folders, each filled to the brim, stacked on top of it.
Garibaldi watched as Estermann placed his suitcase on the table and slumped down on the chair behind it, leaning back as far as the dynamical rest would allow it.
“Alright… this is a great chair. A great office. I think that, from now on, I will spend my nights here.”

“Glad you like it.” The Italian attorney smiled. “But now for something more… professional. Have you already in mind what we should commit to first? The whole office is waiting for your bark.”

“Actually… I have.” Estermann thought and scratched the side of his mouth. “Alright, at the moment, we do not exactly know much about either Queen Chrysalis, nor where this trial is heading. What we do know though is that this horse is spectacularly low on the popularity ladder, both in the court and in the public eye. This is what we must work on first.”

“I... see. What to you have in mind specifically?”

Estermann got up again with a groan and looked at his suitcase on the desk.
“People apparently either tend to see her as an evil mastermind at best and as a rabid animal at worst. And that’s how they treat her. When I saw her in her cell, she was covered in blunt traumas, from neck to legs. Whatever happened on her flight to the Hague, she was beaten like a dog.”

Garibaldi’s eyes darted to the ground unsurely.
“Was that before or after she… well... nearly fried a security guard alive?”

“Does it matter?” Estermann commented haughtily. Then he fell silent. “Wait... actually, it does. Did she become hostile towards the guards as a result of them beating her excessively, or…”

“...Or did the they merely try to subjugate her after she attacked?” Garibaldi finished the thought.

“Either way… the treatment she was subjected to was below all dignity for a political detainee. And this is firstly the topic we must expand on. How we treat her, and how we should be treating her – we will have to make amends with the inevitable prejudices. Changing our attitude towards her is the first step to changing the favour of the court.”

The Italian sighed and blew his lips.
“No offence meant, Mr Estermann. But... I am afraid this is going to be much easier said than done.”

The Swiss lawyer stepped out from behind the desk and walked past Garibaldi in thought.
“As long as there is no evidence to support the claims of the prosecution, we can and we should do what we can to shed her in some more positive light.”

“Evidence?” the Italian said. His eyes widened.
"So... you haven' heard, Mr Estermann?”

He sighed.
"Oh for God's sake, what is the world withholding from me again? I know I can't be a two places a the same time, but I'd really like to be kept up to date about those things."

"I can arrange that. Now, barely an hour ago, some woman came into the office. She wanted to speak with you."

“What woman? You don't mean a pony?" His hair stood on end. "Please don't tell me it was a pony."

"Oh, no no."

As if on cue, three quick knocks rang from the door, and an instant later, a familiar-looking human woman with a concerned expression entered the room.
It was the prosecutor, Pierman.

“Speaking of the devil...” Estermann mumbled, rather negatively surprised.

She said nothing. But the knowing smile on her lips said a lot. Expectantly, she crossed over to the Swiss lawyer and warily squeezed his hand.
‘She is tiny!’ Estermann thought as he looked down at her.

“Mr Estermann?”

“Ms Pierman?”

“Call me Sera.”
Their grip eased as a cold silence took hold on them both. “I heard you went to see your client.”

“Yes, Ms Pierman. Actually, I have.” Estermann answered in a mildly off-put tone.

“I think we have met before, Ms Pierman.” the aide added warmly. “What leads you into our lion’s den?”

“I’m afraid, Mr Estermann did.” The prosecutor stated smirkingly and turned back to the solicitor. “I actually wanted to speak to you this morning, but then you were suddenly gone."

"About what?"

"Well... general things, mostly. It’s always nice to have a friendly chat with the opposition over coffee before... you know... things get ugly and regrettable.”

“Evidently, I have been busy with my client today.” The Swiss lawyer stated with a no-nonesense frown, not granting her the pleasure to converse any more with him than necessary. “And now I am in the middle of something else, Ms Pierman. I hope you have come to discuss something more important than coffee.”

“Much more important, actually.” She answered, taken aback by his annoyed remark. “But tell me, what exactly did happen during your conversation with Queen Chrysalis?”

Estermann groaned bitterly.
“Alright, why does everyone keep asking me that? Nothing happened. Nothing at all. It went better than expected, what more is there to say?”

“Well excuse me for asking. It's just that... it is Queen Chrysalis we're talking about.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean, Ms Pierman?” Estermann inquired in a critical voice. “The Queen is my client, and this is exactly what I see her as. And I would really like to leave it at that.”

“It must be tough. Sorry.” The prosecutor answered mildly.

But the lawyer retorted with a nearly spiteful glare.
“Do not be sorry for me. And before you tell me just how bad you feel for me because I do what I do, let me tell you a little something I noticed about my client; massive beating marks on her whole body.”

"Oh. So?" Pierman inquired, slightly confused.

He moved away, back to his desk and leaned on it confrontationally.
“I think you might be interested in that I will seek out the people who are responsible for that, and I will refer them to the Dutch judiciary for brutal assault and disorderly conduct. The treatment she was subjected to should make up for any of the charges of her attacking her guards. The judge panel will be thrilled to see by what means the impeachment is upheld!”

“Excuse… what?” the prosecutor hesitated. Her shining eyes opened even more in concern and contempt.
“You can’t do that...”

“Why not?”

“She... she sent nearly half a dozen people to hospital yesterday. Half of them won’t recover enough commit to their work ever again. You... you don’t want to tell me you want to turn tables on these people after they got crippled by her!”

“Oh cry me a river.” he exclaimed cynically. “Those blunt traumas must stem from somewhere, Ms Pierman. I consider my client to be the victim in this incident. As well as in this trial.”

“You must be... fucking joking.” The prosecutor said, her face distorted with disgust. “What is wrong with you? Are mob-lawyer tactics just standard procedure in Switzerland?”

“Mob lawyer tactics? Give me a fucking break!” the lawyer yelled annoyedly. “This has nothing to do with mob-law. In my eyes, my client is nothing more than a victim of vicious popular judgement!
She gets hauled here, halfway across the globe, to stand trial for a set of crimes she has been charged with by a different country – a country that is not even pretending to be democratic, mind you - yet citing crimes for which neither you nor your precious investigators have any evidence for - and to add insult to injury, all your so-called witnesses have gone out of their way to do their part as lopsided and dotted with speculation as possible! In my ten years in international law I have never seen a case handled so dilettantly getting a pass by a justice system. It would actually be kind of funny, were it not so disgraceful!"
He drew a breath. "And then, to add injury to insult, the defendant gets beaten up by her own guards over her supposed guilt. And when she tries to strike back, she is pinned with assault and labeled a monster by the press.
But what do we actually know? For all we can tell, she may be innocent. She may have acted in self-defence. That’s the two cents of this lowly mob-lawyer, Ms Prosecutor!”
He breathed heavily. “How much does the proverb ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ actually mean to you?”

“More than you think, Estermann!” the little prosecutor said through clenched teeth and fetched a binder out of her suitcase, and threw it onto Estermann’s table.

Estermann pointed at it with protestation as it slid to a halt next to where he was leaning.
“What is that?”

“I suggest you see for yourself.” Pierman said. “A little collage, assembled by my ‘precious investigators’ in Equestria.”
Then she simply swung around to the exit and walked out the open door. "Good day."

Estermann snorted derisively and turned to his aide-de-camp, who was speechless with shock.
“Herrgott nochmal, what a little bitch... What the hell was she thinking? Comes in here to pat me on the head and promise me a slice of humble pie if I behave.
Is she just having too much spare time? You know, I'm getting the feeling everyone is taking turns doing this.”

Garibaldi looked at him as he said that, and for a moment it seemed as if he himself wanted to say something, but then quickly looked away again. He glanced at the catalogue on the table.

Following his stare, Estermann scrutinised the binder himself.
“This really better be something worth my time.”

“I saw it already.” Garibaldi finally said haply.

“Oh, did you?”

“Yes... this may the proof the prosecution has been anticipating.”

“Well.” He picked up the catalogue, which was about a hundred pages thick, with several UN seals and stamps featured on the simple cardboard cover.

When he licked his finger to fold it open, Garibaldi suddenly started up and motioned towards the door as well.
“Mr Estermann, forgive me. I think I must tend to my own desk. I haven’t unpacked everything yet.”

Estermann looked up from the binder.
“Alright?”

Looking rather ill, the Italian mumbled, “Yes, I… yes. Scusi.” before speedily going outside.

That wasn’t because of the binder though. Was it?

Estermann slitted his eyes nervously and cradled the binder in contemplation.
What did it contain?

He opened.

“So... what have those brilliant investigators unearthed? An... ancient conspiracy maybe? A ...secret command centre with detailed blueprints for genocide?” He thought out loud, trying to joke any premonition of nervousness out of the way. "This is going to be interesting."

The first few pages consisted of a dry report on the contents of the rest of the binder. He found it signed by a certain 'Edith Saric', a medic and forensic from Bosnia who was sent to help out in Equestria.

Torn flesh.

Twisted limbs.
Limp muscles that hung from the body like residue skin.

Blobs of thick, oozing, all-consuming gelatine that hung off skimp yet clotted fur in thick strains.

A distressed human aid worker in a camo uniform rushing out of what seemed to be a cave complex, shouting orders at the top of her lungs, holding a greying bundle of unidentifiable skin, bones and paling hair in her arms.

Next, a creature that looked like a ragdoll, walking upright; the bones under the sparse meat that still hung on its skeletal system were only remotely still connected by chunky ligaments - it seemed strange not to see any puppeteers' ropes that supported her weight, because her four legs seemed in no possible condition to do so.

A head of a pony - soaked in changeling secrete and shimmering in the dim flashlight of the photo camera - stretching upward, its mouth wide open, as it was violently lunging for air, drowning on dry land, like something taken right out of Dulce Et Decorum Est. Its orifices seemed scorched, red, swollen, infected, but also very undernourished and underdeveloped.
The lips and the gums of the mouth, the eyelids and tear sacs had been reduced to blood-red, nearly translucent rags of dissolved flesh - the eyes themselves seemed deflated and sunken in, like eggs conserved in vinegar for days that had been transformed into flacid, transparent lifeless rubber blobs.
Even its teeth had fouled down to some white and yellow stumps.

An equine in silver armour, using its horn to cut something open what seemed to be a giant green amniotic sac hanging from the rocks of a dark stone enclave. It burst, flushing out grey, syrupy gelatine, followed by a completely soaked bone of a hoof hanging out. Like a surgeon performing a botched Caesarian, the unicorn desperately grabbed the limp hoof with his mouth and pulled with all his might. Another lifeless, putrefied form of a pony slipped out onto the ground beneath the sac.

It was a sickening sight. More then two hundred and fifty colour pictures documenting something that was dryly entitled 'Freeing equines from changeling detainment by Equestrian military'.
Every gory and otherwise off-putting fact had been dutifully added in annotations beneath each picture. They described just what had happened to the different equines while they were entrapped inside these awkward organic growths. It was like in a morbid sci-fi exploitation movie.
But it was real, disgustingly real.

Their skin, muscles, bones and organs had literally degenerated in the countless months they must have spent in this confinement; dissolved by the demandingly consuming secrete; pulped by the pressure of the liquids in each of the individual cocoons; boiled by the sheer heat and energy instilled in their bodies.
Their coats were almost void of fur - it had stopped growing, and gradually fallen off in batches.
Their muscles had virtually disintegrated inside the warm atmosphere - their lack of calcium and essential vitamins had only contributed to their deterioration.
Their skeletal systems had gone the same way; by the time the ponies were carried out of the caves, the annotations explained, their bones had the consistency of porcelain - one subtitle explained that even merely tugging at the hooves of the trapped could yank the bone clean out of its joint, if it wouldn't just break it in half, resulting in the bone visibly protruding under the reduced skin.
The fluid they survived in, if it could even be called 'survival', contained little to no oxygen, nutrients, proteins or carbohydrates to support a healthy body sufficiently. Circulatory problems, wrecked nerve systems, extensive brain damage and pulverised bones all followed consequently.

By all means, they should have just been dead.
The whole horror of the situation lay in the fact that they were still alive. Broken, sucked dry of all will and energy, weakened to a point of absurdity, stunted physically as well as mentally, but alive.

Estermann was certain, had he been there, he would have probably taken a gun to the head of every single one of those unfortunate beasts to end their misery.
He could feel his gut twisting at the sight of the horrific scene. He had not gone through half the pictures before his eyes folded shut and refused to open again. He passed across them with a hand and kneaded them desperately. But that was to no avail; he couldn't bring himself to look at the pictures anymore.
This wasn't the evidence the prosecution had been anticipating - it was the evidence the prosecution lived for. He could feel any and all traces of doubt on his client's behalf being submerged in the acidic vat of anger, contempt, desperation and disillusion. Now, his more or less happy-go-lucky expectations to saving his client's face was little more than long-past make-believe.

Chrysalis, Queen of all Changelings, commander, dictator, warlady,... sadist, sociopath and mass murderer?
Was there any reason she had done this?
Or rather, did she need one?

He noticed a small sticky taped to the last page. In hasty handwriting, it read 'press release tomorrow, 5:00 pm'.
Estermann held his breath for a moment as he counted down the hours between now and the point where all the pictures would be turned over to the general public. The point of time where his client would fall from the world's grace entirely and ultimately; damned into the inner depths of everyone's consciences, manifested as exactly that sort of creature that drowned other creatures alive in her own bodily fluids and boiled them.

The sun was setting against the pale sky in the west. The shadows grew longer and longer in the office behind its glass walls, as the clerks one by one started packing their things and heading for the exit. The building was going to be closed within an hour, and they wanted to get home before the late afternoon darkness could take hold.

Solely a couple of determined workers were staying behind, including a handful of clerks finishing off some last statements, as well as a certain solitary aqua pony, who had spent the entire afternoon talking, chatting, and gossiping her way into the defence office.

"Ciao, everyone." the pudgy Italian foreman said as he slipped into his coat. "I cannot wait any longer for Mr Estermann. Please send him my best wishes."

"Leave it up to me, sir! Bye!" Lyra exclaimed and waved him farewell. Then she turned back to her very own task. "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...."

The coffee cup floated through the air with the ease of a balloon, accompanied by the propeller sound made by the unicorn who held it in her telekinetic sway, and made a safe landing on the office tabletop like a blimp.

The eyes of the secretary who sat at the table, a telephone receiver pressed against her right ear, followed the enchanted ceramic cup with an almost mesmerised fascination as it landed next to her keyboard.

The light green equine trotted over to her playfully and looked over the grounded coffee mug.
"You know who that coffee is for?" she asked the clerk.

She shook her head as she stared.

"Our boss! Mr Estermann. We talked today, and he challenged me to make him one of those 'coffees'. And it was foal's play, of course! And now I'm just waiting for him. The first task I was ever given by a human and I carried it out with flying colours! Isn't that exciting?"

"Uhm..." the clerk moaned, unsure what to say.

"Oh I see. You're busy, aren't you? Doing human work, right? Just like me? Like a human? I mean, it's funny, because I'm not exactly human. Though I'm probably the next best thing, right? A very, very ambitious pony. Human in all but body."

The clerk respectfully pointed at the phone in her hand, trying to indicate she was indeed occupied.

"What exactly is that? It's one of those humany things, isn't it? A tella-phone... Elegantly molded to embrace the shape of your hand... you must be feeling like a God right now... am I right or am I right? I mean, sure, in Equestria we also have all sorts of silly little utensils that we can use to make our lives easier... but come on, we have to hold them with our mouths! Or... with our horns, but I digress. I'm still amazed that you can take your luck so coolly. Don't you know you have probably a one-in-a-billion chance to be born human instead of... I don't know... a ladybird? I mean... who are you talking to right now?"

The clerk sighed derisively.
"Russia Today..."

"Alright! I tell you, what important work it is! Be it bringing your boss a cup'a'coffee or calling someone on the other end of the planet, just with a flick of our fingers! Ka-blam, like it's no big deal at all. That's how we roll! And we don't even bat an eye at it, 'cause it's just like handling everyday chores for us. I mean, do you have any idea what kind of chores I have been... uh... hoofling in Equestria up until now? No? Thank Celestia, you don't."

The clerk looked up. She noticed the light behind the glass wall of Estermann's office extinguish. Not wasting any time, she took off her glasses and put the telephone muzzle into its socket. When even her boss was packing up for the day, it was a clear sign that her own working day was all but over.
"Hey, look. There's Mr Estermann. Our boss. Didn't you want to bring him the coffee or something?"

The mare swung her head into the direction of his office, just in time to see him walking out in a quick gait, his suitcase in one hand, and clasping a big cardboard portfolio in the other.

While the last clerk snuck out of the room behind her back, the unicorn jumped to the defence counsel's side in an instant, the levitated mug floating in her wake. Oblivious to the harrowed expression on his bleak face, she was quick to announce her presence to him in the most nerve-wrecking way possible.
"Hey, Mr E! You still remember me, right? Lyra, your very own Equestrian connection?"

The attorney walked past her slowly and limply, his mouth marked by bitterness.
"You again? Didn't I tell you to get out of here?" he remarked coldly.

"Um... no. You told me you wanted a cup of coffee, and that if I can make you a cup of coffee, I would be on board. So... here’s your cup of coffee."

Her 'boss' winced with irritation.
"I... I don't even like coffee. Why would I-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the mug floated in his face. He frantically waved the cursed cup away from himself.
"Get that thing away from mr. I don't have time for this right now."

"Oh I see." the mare said amiably. "You're in the middle of some... grave decision-making, right? You were in there for so long, I was almost starting to wonder whether you dozed off or something. Anyway, I kept that coffee warm, just for you, so when you come out of there, there’d be a warm mug waiting for your longing hand’s embrace."

Someone suddenly turned off the lights in the office, plunging the room into dim twilight. The last rays of the sun, quickly disappearing behind the skeletal treetops outside, managed to provide some barely sufficient natural light.

Estermann sighed. Almost subliminally, he clasped the portfolio under his arm even harder.
"Why can't you just leave me alone, pony?" he breathed.

The mare giggled at the question.
"Because I cannot let go of you just now. You need help. You just don't know it yet."

"You think you know what help I need?!" Estermann exclaimed, short of temper.

His angry fit brushed off the equines beaming countenance like a pebble from a harness. She didn't even flinch.

The human jurist felt his shoulders sagging. She wouldn't budge.
He took the time to stuff the big, heavy portfolio half into his suitcase before answering her. His voice sounded a lot less harsh than it just had.
"It's too late to help me now."

"Look. I know-"
She noticed the lawyer now staring at her long and hard. His stare, once inquisitive and critical, softened, turning remorseful and lethargic. "Is... everything okay?" the mare asked as her smile turned melted into a grimace of concern.

"I'm having a bad day. Let's leave it at that." he muttered, almost mildly.

"It's not... because of me, right?" she made sure, telekinetically swirling the coffee mug in thought.

"No. Strangely enough." he answered and harrumphed, following up with a cough.
He spied around him, making sure they really were alone. Quizzically, Lyra followed his glances.

"Um, is it because of the case then?" she whispered secretively. "It almost seems like you've hit a snag!"

"However did you come to that conclusion?" he asked sarcastically.

"Dunno, just felt it. I have spent my life studying the facial expressions of your kind, so I know what I'm talking about."

"A proper jack-of-all-trades, aren't you?" he snarked and fell silent for another second.

“Do you... want my advice?” she asked with beaming eyes.

“No.” he groaned.
He looked at her another time. As he looked her in the eyes, something clicked in his mind. With trembling lips, he summoned a question for her. "You. Tell me... have you ever been... stubborn... in your life?"

"Uh... me? Well..." she mumbled, surprised by the question.

"Have you ever believed... have you ever just known ... that you were right? That there was no one else who was righter about something than you? Hm?"

"Oh, tell me about it!" the mare exclaimed. "Did you know that I was into humans before it even was cool?"

Estermann gave her a long, doubtful glance.

“Sorry, that came out wrong. Anyway, why do you ask?”

He snorted and smirked melancholically.
"I have no idea. Why am I asking you that? An equine?"
'Was it remorse?', he thought to himself. 'Shame?'
"I have... just found out what... things... the Queen has probably been up to in the last few decades. Heinous things. Things they did to you... to your kind. Things that I honestly did not believe to be true before."

"I see." Lyra nodded understandingly. "Why not?"

"Because it's so god-damn contrived!" the lawyer spat. "Stealing love? Are you kidding me?! I mean, who the fuck would have suspected that?"

"Yeah... I guess that wouldn't be most normal thing on this side of the world." the unicorn murmured.

"Ten years of professional jurisprudent work couldn't have me prepared for something like that. What the hell am I supposed to do here? This is... beyond my competence."

Lyra harrumphed and straightened herself proudly.
"Ahem - Equestrian Connection? Remember?"

The lawyer frowned.
"Ah yeah. So that's what you are supposed to do?"

"You can ask me absolutely anything, from man to mare, and I'll have an answer!"

He kneaded his hands.
"Okay - How.. how...
He tried to think of something."How did the pon... how did Equestria react to... Chrysalis' expansionism?"

"Uhm... badly."

"How badly?"

"Very badly. Back in Canterlot, everypony absolutely hates her. She's totally beyond redemption. Especially after what she did to itthe town

"Why? What did she do to there?"

"She, uh... tried to take the place and dethrone the Princesses."

"Ah, yes. Right."
He nodded bitterly. "Would you say that she would stand a chance in front of a... the court in Equestria?"

"A chance?" the unicorn asked and could only barely stifle a laugh. "She'd be on the moon before she could say 'I plead-'. Nopony out there would want her to roam free again."

Understandable. Quite understandable.
"Just as I feared." he concluded. "And what about you?"

"Um... me?" the aqua pony asked quizzically.

"What do you have to say? Would you want her dead as well?"

"Oh, you know..." she muttered nervously.

"No I don't. Do you want to see her burn?"

She looked up, pretending to think about it.
"Well... I... um... Do you?"

She noticed his face going cross once again.

"I... y-yes! Yes..."

He was not entirely convinced by the sparse statement.
"Yes? That didn't exactly sound very staunch. Try again."

Lyra grew even more nervous.
"Wrong answer? Okay... No?"

The lawyer squinted his eyes.
"Do you... have any opinion of your own, Heartstrings?" he inquired.

"I... really really cannot answer your question. I'd really like o, but I can't. I have no idea." she told him as neutrally as possible.

"You have no idea whether you want her guilty or not? Why not? You're a pony. By all means, you should want her hung, drawn and quartered."

Lyra couldn't look him in the eyes. She chose to stare on the dark floor.
"All I know is that, she wouldn't have a fighting chance in Equestria. Much unlike here."

Accusingly, Estermann pointed a finger at her.
"There is a reason you came to the defence, isn't there? And it wasn't just because the prosecution already had one. What is it about you and the Queen?"

The pony scrounged up. Estermann could sense some kind of personal agenda. But which?

"Let us say..." Estermann continued, "I would suddenly decide to fuck it all and have the Queen returned to Equestria. What would you think?"

"No, don't do that!" she exclaimed, perhaps a bit too frantically.

"I don't see any reason why I shouldn't." he said provocatively.

"Because you have no idea what things would be waiting for her back in Equestria!"

"Things such as...?" He thought for a second. "Your country doesn't do capital punishment... right?"

"Not... as such." Lyra confirmed.

"Then she'll just end up in prison. Like here. Where would a difference be whether she gets incarcerated in The Hague or in Canterlot?"

"Prison?! Oh no, they wouldn't just incarcerate her like King Sombra or any other pony... They'll exile her." the pony corrected him grimly.

Estermann was not sure if he had missed something. The last time he checked, exile was one of the most merciful of punishments in any regime.
"Exile, okay. Where to?"

"Sun, Moon, Jupiter... Mars?"

The lawyer snorted grandly.
"Oh cut the bullshit, Heartstrings."

"I'm not lying. The Royal sisters are very powerful magicians. They can easily do that! They will send her to a place where they know she would never last!"

The human just stared her down with a condescending snarl.
'Well, the guardians of the Outer Space Treaty would have something to say against that...'

"Anyway..." she murmured, "That would probably be the milder choice."

"Oh, what would the alternative be?" Estermann scoffed? "Turn her into a frog?"

"They might.. strip her of all her magic." the unicorn whispered.

"And how do they plan to do that? Lop off her horn?"

Lyra winced, and touched her own horn for reference. "That wouldn't be enough. Our horns are just there to direct and project our magic." She shuddered visbly, "Cutting it off won't remove our innate magic force. That is he magic that give her so much power over her changelings and allows her to disguise her true self. To do away with those, they will have to be stripped out of her body entirely."

Estermann scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"So... the worst thing that could happen to her... is that she'd end up without powers? You know... I don't have magic, and I am perfectly fine. Honestly, that a deal I can see myself agreeing to."

"But it won't end there either, Mr E." Lyra warned him. "She's not like you and me. he's a changeling. She needs her magic to nourish herself, and to stay in touch with her subjects."
She shook her head. "But my Princesses, they'll be making sure that not only will she lose all the magic inside her, but that she won't ever get it back, much less be able to use it. They will destroy her magical powers, they will destroy her body, they will destroy her, damning her alongside her powers into the eternal void. There might not be enough left of her once the procedure is done."

Somehow, this began to feel like the plot of a twisted Batman film to the human.

Lyra sighed and placed the coffee mug on the table.
"My point is, if you give up now, you will doom her. And it will be your fault alone."

"I... I believe can live with that." Estermann commented. He wanted to sound emotionless carefree about it, but he didn't quite cut it.

Lyra looked confused. "You'd be okay with having sent a creature off to her..."

"Death?" Estermann completed. "I'd know some individuals - ponies, like you - who would hail me as a hero if I did this; In any case, those despotic bastards are not the reason why I'm pulling this defence through.”

"So you do believe in justice for Queen Chrysalis?" the mare asked and her eyes fluttered with hope.

“No. Let's face it. Precious old Chrysalis is as guilty as a... poodle sitting next to a pile of poo."
'Wow, and what a fitting simile it is too' he thought to himself. “It’s mostly about the case itself. You know what this case once was to me?" he asked retorically and laid a hand down on his barely moving ribcage.

"What, Mr E?"

"An opportunity. First and foremost. I have been a jurisprudent for, what, almost fifteen years now. And what do I have to show for it? Absolutely – fucking – nothing. If I would ever come across a case with some significance, I would be assigned to work in the background, making phone calls, playing errand boy for some entitled bastard who bought his doctorate at the Harvard Str. School Of Economics… And always when I was put in charge of something, it was something nobody cared about. Something I didn’t care about. I mean, would you care about whether or not some little radio DJ somewhere in black Africa was doing hate speeches ten years ago during some unknown civil strive? Pipifax, nothing more.”
He swept around the room with one hand. “And now, I get my own offices, I get a mandate from the very top. I get a case of geopolitical importance. Finally the world is looking in my direction...”

“Wait…” the equine interjected, her eyes glaring with some unvented anger. “Are you saying it’s not about justice for you?”

“Oh don’t be so naïve.”
The lawyer rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “It’s always about the justice, don't get me wrong. I'm not a monster. Justice is what I came here for, and justice is why I'm going to stay. The point is that this time, it’s also about success. And progress."
He sighed. "For me, if for no one else.”

"No." Lyra interjected once more. "Mr E. It's still a living creature's life on the line - somepony who has been driven into a corner by everypony. She may not be a saint, but she's completely reliant on you doing your duty and clear her good name before the world once and for all. You can't simply wave it off like it's a silly unimportant undertaking. This is a serious issue."

The human lawyer stared at her blankly for several seconds.
"All respect to your... compassion. But..."
Then he proceeded to take out the binder he had just been carefully and discretely keeping from her.

“What is it?” Lyra asked.

“Have you seen it already?”

“Nah…” she answered as she reached out for it.

He swatted her curious hoof away like a fly.
“If you haven’t seen it, don’t touch it!”

“Alright, alright, sheesh.” She said, rubbing her hoof.

“The less people know about this mess, the better."
He clumsily stowed the binder away in his suitcase. "You know, I had quite a similar mindset like you before I got hold on this evidence. Queen Chrysalis, a 'misunderstood maltreated creature'... tomorrow at five pm, you will see, alongside the rest of the world, what she really has been up to. Prepare to have your little presumptions on Chrysalis' innocence utterly squashed."

Peacockily, the pony puffed out her chest.
"I have those 'presumptions' because I don't care for popular judgement and those nasty Changeling stereotypes everypony else seems to throw at me." she defended herself.

Estermann tapped on the binder.
"This is not a fabrication of the ponies. This has the seal of the United Nations on it. My point is that the contents of this binder may as well turn the whole trial into an open-and-shut-case just as easily as they would destroy your argument.

"You know that's not... necessarily true, Mr E..." the unicorn argued.

The lawyer was unnerved, grasping his face with his hands.
"Maybe, maybe not. You know what that means either way? It means that I will have to sit by idly and witness the prosecution utterly butcher my client. And if I try to raise my voice and actually do my job, I’ll be branded as a nuisance by the judges and the press, as an immoral bastard who has to resort to courtroom antics to postpone the inevitable. I'd either be a laughing stock or an apologist. It will be a lose-lose situation for me.”

“And for Queen Chrysalis.”

“Quite.”
He clasped his forehead with a hand. Why was he even discussing this with someone like her? Of course, she cared... was it perhaps because she was the only one who cared about Chrysalis? She was about as concerned about her as he was supposed to be.
She was a shining beacon of idealism in the ocean of cynicism the Queen's defence team was about to get marooned in.
Of course, Estermann was still wondering what her game was, why she was so bent on saving this monstrous bug... but maybe the aqua unicorn was onto something he was not. Maybe she had still the clearer outlook on the situation than him.
At least that was a hopeful thought.

Less than ten minutes later, both creatures passed through the metal detectors at the front entrance of the court building, traversing the artificial moat onto the parking lot in relative silence. Outside, the oncoming winter's air was still bitter and cold, a harsh wind was howling from the direction of the sea.
The court emptied for the day, and the next one still seemed so far away.

"It looks like snow." the defence counsel muttered as they noticed the thin frost film on the cars. "Then again, what else would you expect in winter?"
He paused, inhaling deeply, and biting his teeth. "Heartstrings... Let's give it some global warming."

VIII. Diet

VIII.
Diet

Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, The Hague
ICC Detention Centre
18. November, 2015
12:53 pm MET

Another plastic dish flew against the wall, spraying the interior of the cell with greyish brown oatmeal.

"You idiotic imbeciles!" the Queen of all Changelings roared at the door. "How often do I have to repeat myself? I will not touch this dung of yours! You can go and swallow it yourself!"

The turnkey sat at the sentry table outside, massaging his scalp and staring on the screen of the splattered cell camera.
The changeling was throwing another tantrum, God knows how many in a row it had already been that day. First she tried to bite off the microphone of the intercom when the morning alarm woke her a few seconds too early, then she almost broke the leg of a physician who was employed by the court to make sure on a daily basis that she didn't make herself die in one way or another.
And now this.

The veterinarians had suggested that they fed her what one would generally feed any equine with. Oatmeal, hay, grain, herbs, raisins and beet pulp... the problem was that Chrysalis was not 'any' equine.

"You want to feed me, you swines?! Then send in the captain of the watch, I'll start with him!"

The turnkey peered over to the other side of the table. There sat a visibly distressed Captain of the Royal Equestrian Guard, and his Surinamese brother-in-arms, both studying a couple of pieces of paper in a binder and desperately trying to ignore the ruckus going on on the other side of the door.

Sarcastically, the turnkey pouted his lips and asked his superior,
“So, chef… what did the psychological results turn up with again?”

Almost simultaneously, Captain Shining and Mjoberg shook their heads in disbelief.
“This is ridiculous.” The white unicorn commented. “Who wrote this?”

“That was Dr Van Biene. The ICC's psychologist who came in yesterday morning.” The warden explained. He quoted an extract of the report. “‘After a thorough analysis of the detainee’s personality by examining her speech patterns and physical actions, it is the professional opinion of Antje van Biene, Psy.D. … that H.R.H. Chrysalis is in a stable, safe and pragmatic psychological condition, void of any indications that she may be suffering of mental illness or disorders, or that she be generally a danger to her environment...’”

This statement was quickly followed up by the cell door receiving a savage kick from the inside.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Shining Armour exclaimed. “Who is this ‘Dr Van Biene’ that she claims that Queen Chrsalis isn't a danger?! Didn't she see how Chrysalis was behaving?”

"You're right." the warden agreed. "You'd have to be deaf and blind to come to such a conclusion. She makes Captain Queeg's doctors look downright professional..."

"Um, who?" the unicorn inquired.

"Just joking. Never mind." Mjoberg quipped.

The equine pressed his eyes shut and felt his horn. He had spent the entire night in the guard room at the other end of the corridor, so that he could stay close, in case Chrysalis tried to escape again.
"Speaking of deafness, I could not get a single moment of shuteye last night. With her constantly banging the wall next door."

"I feel your pain." Mjoberg uttered. "I have a wife and two kids. Why do you think I always stay after work for so long?"
Then he laughed.

"Lucky you." Shining commented, oblivious to the man's sarcastic humour."I have a wife waiting at home as well."
He threw a glance at the cell door. "Don't get me wrong - Princess Celestia's wishes are my command... but what wouldn't I give to be with my own Princess right now?"

"Your Princess?"

"My wife."

"Oh yes. I remember, I read about it somewhere." Mjoberg said in surprise. "Wasn't she the one who... well..."
He pointed at the cell door.

Shining lowered his head and nodded.

"Sorry to hear that, Captain."

"No need. But I think that now you see why I don't believe that she isn't a danger! If anypony should know, then it's Cadence and me."

Further down the corridor, the sectional security door buzzed open, and in came the attorney Estermann in a wet trenchcoat and his suitcase, lead down the hallway by two wardens.

"Ugh..." Shining sighed. "Is Discord on the loose? First the doctor goes crazy, and now this lawyer comes back..."

"Don't worry." the warden whispered. "The faster we get him to leave again, the better."

"The more creatures we can steer clear of Chrysalis period, the better!" Shining whispered back.

Awkwardly, the attorney halted in front of the warden's table and laid his dripping suitcase on it.
"Captain, Captain... good morning."

"Good afternoon, Mr Estermann." Mjoberg greeted him. "I suppose you're still waiting for my report on the airfield incident..."

The defence counsel just waved it off with a hand, almost seeming ashamed of the request.
"No. Forget that. Not important. I've come for a different reason."

"I know you want to speak with her again,..." the warden guessed.

"But we cannot let you in there today." Shining immediately interjected. "Any other day, but not today."

"This again, Captain Shining?" Estermann said with a frown. "I need to talk to her now. There's no way around it, it's too important."

The turnkey twisted around the monitor, showing the lawyer the splodged lens and the maddened regent stumbling around her cell behind the stains.
"I'd like to see you try. It's a battlefield in there."

Shining saw Estermann frowning mentally at that sight, but he swallowed his horror within a second.
"Even so, I have to show her something. Not tomorrow and not in a week, but right now!"

"Oh, but you'll spoil your suit." the turnkey argued musingly, grinning dumbly from ear to ear. "Everything is full of beet mush in there. You know how difficult it is to get beet juice out of cotton?"

"Großer Gott, just open that fucking door!" Estermann groaned. "Do you really think it's such a pleasure for me to have to talk to her in the first place?"

"Well, at least we know it's been a pleasure for her." the turnkey snarked with leering eyebrows.

"Shut it, Dries." his boss shushed him before addressing the lawyer once more. "Mr Estermann, I could go on and tell you about how she scared away our vet by almost mutilating him only this morning... but I want to warn you, that unless you have a detailed plan on how to calm her down again, I suggest that you stay as far away from that door as possible."

"I don't think I can serve with that." Estermann said hesitantly, glancing at the cell door. "How about one of you goes in with me, just to make sure I don't get mutilated?"

At first, the three guards looked at each other nonplussed. Then the stares of two of them gradually settled on Shining Armour.

The equine Captain stared back forlornly. Of course he did not want to go in there. But what he wanted even less was someone else to go in there alone.
"Is... is there really no way you will heed my warnings?" he asked nervously.

"No." Estermann answered swiftly.

"Then I'll go in with you."

"You know the drill, your Highness. Door is opening!"

Again the electronic lock buzzed, again the door slowly tilted outwards. And again, Estermann stepped into the Queen's chamber.

It was indeed a mess. Before him, on the ground, there lay an entire three-course lunch. Everything smelled overwhelmingly of cooked vegetables.

Kicking a leaking juice carton away with his carefully tended leather shoes, he took another step into the room.
Shining entered right after him,his golden armour clanking as he tried to make his way in front of the expectant jurist, as if too keep him from straying too close to the detainee.

Between the door and the mattress, there was still the solitary boot stuck to the ground, now unceremoniusly splattered with lite-milk.

The Changeling Queen was in the same where he had found her the day before, staring into the corner.

"Door closed! You can turn around now."

But this time, she renounced all subtlety, and as soon the door fell back into the lock, she spun around swiftly, her chained limbs rustling angrily, to face the two visitors with burning eyes.
"And what are you supposed to be?! The main course and the dessert?" she sneered derisively, her throat buzzing louder than ever.

Shining stepped forward bravely.
"Get into back in your corner, Chrysalis. I'm not going to repeat myself!"

"Make me, you little foal!"

Estermann, ignoring the equine Captain's efforts, headed straight for the working chair, sitting down and exasperately began to rummage around in his suitcase.

"Don't push it, Chrysalis!" Shining growled. "One step in the wrong direction, and you will regret it."

"Do you know just how little I care about your threats when they're coming out of your mouth?" Chrysalis spat.

"Maybe you will when I make your cold heart feel some true magical force!"

Wordlessly, the jurist took out the evidence binder, and laid it on his lap.
"That's enough." he said grimly, turning to the Queen and the Captain.

"You will listen to Mr Estermann now." Shining ordered. "And if I hear as much as a word out of you-"

"Captain?" Estermann barked. "Shut up. Or leave."

As the white stallion fell quiet in embarassment, Estermann took the journal with the incriminating photography, and dropped unceremoniusly it on the ground before Chrysalis' chadded legs.

The Queen dropped her head and inspected the journal, even going as far as to turn over a couple of pages with her chained hooves. As if she was merely glancing over the pictures of gore, she looked back up quizzically.
"So? What is that, worm?"

Estermann could swear, she was actively trying to sound as desinterested and casual as possible.
"What this is, you ask? Why don't you tell me?"

She took another look at the graphic imagery,
"I know what that is."

"So?" the jurist inquired impatiently.

The Changeling squinted her eyes.
"I don't think I like your tone, worm." she slurred menacingly.

Shining stomped his hoof angrily.
"Answer the question, Chrysalis!"

"Shut up, Captain!"
That came from Estermann again, who then turned back to the Queen. "Take your time. I know it's often not easy to recall such atrocities." he added sarcastically.

"I said I know what this is!" Chrysalis said. "This... ehm... is a smaller-sized hive. Shortly abandoned. In the Frozen North-East, if I remember correctly."

"It says it's in the 'Everfree Forest', actually." Estermann corrected her. "How many of those are there?"

"Hives?" she clarified before gloating, "The Changeling empire is one of the greatest that Equestria has ever set eyes on. However should I ever be able to recollect every single one of my hives?"

Her lawyer looked at her accusingly.
"So, has every one of your hives been doing... this?"

"Just as I said, this is just one of the smaller ones."

Estermann breathed out heavily. He slowly let his hand slide over his chin and mouth.
"The Equestrian army pulled 350 ponies out of this hive yesterday. Most of them are barely clinging onto life."

Shining threw a surprised glance at him, brightening up tremensdously at the good news.
Chrysalis, however, pouted in slight disappointment, like a housewife whose kid had just made a mess of her cake recipe.
"Well, lucky them." she commented in smug annoyance.

"How many more of those hives are there? A hundred? Two hundred?"
He face contorted in disgust, "And how many more victims? A few thousand, maybe?"

"It's called cocooning, you foal." she slurred.

"How many?!"

"I am not a pea counter!"
She shoved the binder away. It slid all the way back between Estermann's shoes. "As if I didn't have anything more important to be concerned about!"

Estermann had enough. With erratic, aggressive hand movements, he scrambled for the binder on the floor and picked it up.
"Then be concerned! Care! For fuck's sake! These peas, as you call them, will be bringing you on the gallows! This is exactly the kind of atrocity that this court is meant to punish! So care! If anyone should care, it’s you! Not me, not Captain Shining here, but you! It is you who has just mortaged her own freedom!”

The Queen recoiled ever so slightly at the human’s outburst. Still, with almost fanatical determination, she tried to keep up her air of indifference.
“Whatever business you’re trying to purport, you worm, I will only discuss it when I had my lunch!”

Shining Armour pointed at the puddle of porridge on the ground between them..
“There is your lunch!”

“Wrong; these are donkey droppings! What I want right now is a fresh, young, tender pony to sate my needs. But at the moment, you look like you’d make a tasty meal yourself!”

The Unicorn Captain’s horn flared up in a bubbling rose light and made a threatening advance towards Chrysalis.
“Do not push your luck with me, you monster!”

Estermann stood up from his chair.
“Really?” he asked her, spreading his arms out before dropping them back against his sides. “Really?! The one thing you, Your Highness, wants to do now is to waste yet another living being? Even after all this?”
He pointed at the binder.

“I am hungry!” the Changeling yelled, her spittle savagely spraying around as she did.

A few drops managed to find their way on the lawyer’s cheek. Closing his eyes momentarily, he motioned to wipe his face, only to decide against it at the last second.
His eyes gleaming with silent fury.
“You will not get a single grain of corn to eat, before you have not dealt with your charges.”

“Who are are that you could decide such a thing, you cowering maggot?”

Estermann turned around walked back to his suitcase and fetched his laptop while Shining Armour held his position, his glare and revealed teeth projecting vicious abhorrence.
The lawyer called up the criminal charges, written in typically neutral wording on white paper that gave almost no indication to laymen just how crucial these words actually were.

“'Charges of genocide; killing members of the group... causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group... deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part...'”

“Answer me, when I’m talking to you!” Chrysalis demanded, irritated by his unwavering diction.

"'Charges of crimes against sapiency; murder... extermination... enslavement... deportation or forcible transfer of population... imprisonment... apartheid... other insapient acts of a similar character-'"

“What’s the matter, worm?" she asked deviously. "You were singing quite a different tune yesterday...”

He tried hard not to let her coax a reaction from him.
“'Intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health...'”

She took a step forward.
"...When you came in here, all alone and by yourself....”

“'Charges of war crimes; Willful killing... torture or inhuman treatment... extensive appropriation of property... compelling a prisoner of war other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power...'”

“...and kneeled before me, and pledged to serve me with your life…"
Her mouth came as close to him as her neck could allow it.

“'Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial... unlawful deportation... taking of hostages.'”

She drew in a deep, sating breath through her nose.
“I could feel then as I feel now that you are gravely overestimating your spunk right now-”

Irritated, Estermann looked up, eyeing her with contempt.
“Are you even listening to a thing I’m saying?”

“That’s what I am asking you! I am talking now.”

“No, you’re not. This is important.” The jurist replied as his eyes settled back on the document file.

“Oh really?” the Changeling asked mockingly, stepping towards her legal consultant, her four chackles ringing out menacingly. “Because all I keep hearing is free range, domestication, battery rearing, fattening, selection... and over-fishing!”

“Is it now?” Estermann asked, not looking up. "That's not what the rest of the world hears."

The Changeling looked mildly surprised.
“Really? And here was I, thinking it would be one of the very few concepts that you humans would be equally able to comprehend.”

Shining cocked his eyebrows in uncertainty for an instant. He glanced over to Estermann.
But the lawyer tried not to let himself get distracted.
“Tell me how you plead to these charges.”
He asked this, even though he knew the answer was already plain.

“Plead?” the Queen asked. Her scornful smile flattened visibly. “Plead what? Of defending my destiny to rule over these lands? Of feeding my children through many a Frozen North winters? Of having my Changelings take what was theirs to take?”
She looked at them resolutely. “If that is so, then I plead guilty, guilty, guilty!”

Slowly, Estermann closed his laptop.
“So this is it? No... bending of the facts, no persistence of innocence? No begging, no bargaining? Just straight up confessing to everything?”

The Queen stood tall.
“I told you this once already, human. We Changelings do not deny our victories. We stand to our deeds. In this respect we are honest.”

“Honest?” Captain Shining growled. “You liar!”

“So this is what you call victories?” Estermann asked doubtfully, tapping his laptop. “This?!”

“Every well-fed Changeling is a victory of its own. Every day the Changeling Kingdom grows…”

“In that case, you’re having quite an unlucky streak as of late.” Estermann said.

“No expansion. No feedings.” Shining added, a certain string of sadism chiming in his voice. “No changelings to be found. Anywhere. Well, where are they, your offspring?”

“As if the likes of you knew where to look for my Children!” Chrysalis objected. "They are masters of cunning and hiding."

"No way how you might twist it..." Estermann clarified. "What you have done will forever be seen as an atrocity by the rest of the world."

Chrysalis sat on her haunches and sighed herself.
“If there is no helping it… why are you here?”
She pointed a hoof at him accusingly. “You swore that you would fight for me. That those who did me wrong would pay dearly. You promised me the stars down from heaven not a day ago!”

“WhatI said was that I’d try. I said that, theoretically, we can successfully wrestle for an acquittal. I said 'theoretically', because you are not exactly making it easier for me either."

She glared at him knowingly.
“If you piece of scum is expecting me to betray my own children just to save myself from your so-called justice, then you are very much mistaken.”

“What I need you to do, Your Highness…”
As Estermann began to formulate the sentence, his eyes absent-mindedly settled on Shining Armour, still standing between him and his client.
This passionately spiteful unicorn may not want to hear what he was about was to say now. “Captain Shining…” he began. “I think you can go now. This is the part where professional discretion kicks in.”

The stallion was disgruntled.
“I told you I'll not leave you with her alone. You know what she’s capable of doing.”

“I can hear you, you know.” Chrysalis interjected.

“If she wanted to kill me, I think she would have tried by now. Let me be with my client for a moment. In the last couple of minutes, I was honestly more worried about you killing her."

Shining looked unsure.
“I can control my power. She can’t.”

“If she tries to attack me, I’ll be sure to make myself audible.” He argued.

Shining Armour gave in, though very hesitantly. With slow, sideways steps, he departed towards the cell door.
“I’ll be watching you, Chrysalis! If you lay as much as a breath on him, may Celestia have mercy on your soul!”

“I wouldn’t rely on that.” she quipped resolutely.

Shining knocked on the door, it buzzed open slowly, and he slipped through the crack.

“I’m sure to make him squeal! It will be overly audible!” she shouted scornfully just before the door feel back into the lock.

Once again, Estermann found himself alone with the beast.

“Now, worm…” she said, making him once again the focus of her eyes. “You need me to do… what?”

Estermann sat upright uncomfortably. Almost unconsciously, his expression became milder.
“Distance yourself from this. It’s the only way. It may not help, but it is a crucial first step.”

“I don’t think I have made myself clear.” The Changeling said through gritted fangs. “I will not take a step back from anything.”

“Even from these atrocities?”

“You call them atrocities!” she suddenly yelled, her temper severy shortened. “You keep using that word! You have no idea what true atrocities are!”

Estermann was quite lost for words.
“What else am I supposed to call it, then? 'Over-fishing'? What you did fits the bill of what an atrocity. It’s a breach of the most basic of human rights-”
He cursed for mixing up the word again.

“Human rights?” the Changeling spat. “A bill of human design, perhaps? Or maybe of Equine as well?”

He shook his head.
“No. Not entirely Equestrian.”

“So I thought.” She said self-righteously. “Atrocities, pah! You wouldn’t know what an atrocity in Equestria was if it step-danced on your snout! As if we Changelings were the only ones who did this…”

Estermann loooked up. There was a spark of hope in his eyes.
“You Changelings… were not the only ones? Who else did it?”

“Everypony! Or should I say, everybody? As a matter of fact, I’d be hard-pressed to think of any great Equestrian power that didn’t have its share of… controversy.”
She looked Estermann in the eyes. “I ask you. What right do you puny humans have to judge right from wrong for me?”

“Well..." he harrumphed, "because those are the morals our society is founded on." he answered doubtfully. "And, as the old saying goes; 'We do what we must, because we can'.”

"So do I. But... I'm certain you humans are so much more peaceful and diplomatic than a mere changeling, right? You never oppressed the powerless or dropped decency and friendship for power and wealth? Did you? You must have a tremendous moral superiority to hold judgement over the rest of us."

Estermann looked crestfallen for an instant.
"What if I'd say 'yes'?"

"I would call you a despicable liar of a worm. I can see eons of injustice and oppression of your savage species reflecting in your dull little eyes. I can feel years of violence and hate vibrating through every gland of my body. Taste every second's worth of every drop of sweat and blood and tears on my gums. Including what horrible crimes have been committed in this very buidling! Your dapper clothes and your supposedly eloquent tongue have not fooled me for an instant. You and your likes are a simple-minded, impulsive people, who like to indulge in their most basic of instinctual urges."

Stressed, the solicitor wiped his nose.
"Maybe you are right."

"Of course I am."

"But you seem to forget that it is still you who is standing trial here. Not us. This is the reality of things. To you, it may not seem fair, but neither you nor I can change anything about the situation right now. There are three ways, and three ways only, how you will be leaving this prison. Either as a free creature, acquitted of all the charges; or in chains, to a prison in any third-party country that is willing to take you, and sit out the sentencing of this court over there; or... back to Equestria, in chains, because the court had enough of you."

"Then the third option shall be the one I will gladly take." she declared.

Estermann expectantly cocked an eyebrow. He whispered,
"Then you know what the Equestrians will do to you? From everything I heard, they will not be as loving and tender as the Dutch."

"This is a joke, isn't it?" the Queen mouthed spitefully.

"I was being sarcastic."

"Equestria fears me. They wouldn't dare to do anything to me! Me, the Queen of the Changeling Empire! I am the creature that sits under their beds when they go to sleep. I bet they will push me off the the remotest, least populated part of the Princedom. They'll try to forget about me. Like a bad fever dream."

But her attorney only pointed at the cell door, indicating the white unicorn who, without doubt, was listening on their talk over the intercom.
"In any case, he won't. He may not be the brightest bulb in the house, but I wouldn't let you board an aircraft together with him another time."

She replied with a snort.
"Shining Armour... what do you think that weakling is going to do?"

"Push you off the plane."
Estermann thought he had heard the Queen chuckle for a moment. "Your Highness. Everything indicates that the Equines are only interested in making short work of you. Even if you manage to make the trip unharmed, you will probably end up in a noose somewhere..."
He recalled the aqua unicorn's warning. "Or on Mars."

"Really?" she snorted back. "Typical human. You believe everything others tell you? The Equestrians may be no bark, but they're no bite either, and only half a wit. They wouldn't have the guts."

"What if you are wrong?"
This earned him an animous glare from the regent. "What if they do have the guts and they will kill you? Look, I am trying to save your skin here, in the best sense of the word. You said you wanted to go down fighting. If you get sent back to Equestria, you won't have the chance to fight back before you die."

Bemused, the Changeling's glance softened. After an unsure pause, she asked,
"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you trying to save my skin?"

That was a good question, Estermann thought,
"Would you... prefer that I didn't?"

"Would you?"

The lawyer glanced around awkwardly.
"What is that question supposed to mean? I am here because of you. And I care about what happens to you. I'm trying to lend you a hand here. I am striving to get the best possible outcome for you. To answer your question "Why?"; it's because this is, first and foremost, my job. Even though, honestly, I don't think anyone else in my position would be as willing to do all of this."

"Wouldn't they? Well, thank the heavens for you." she smiled caustically.

Estermann knew, he had to switch the frequency to gain her approval of him.
As the smell of cooked veggies once again flared up in his nostrils and his left sole accidentally sank into a puddle of beet mush, he quickly concocted a proposition.
"You do want to get out of this cell, don't you?"

The Changeling's ears perked up at the sudden change of subject.

"At least temporarily, I mean. I could arrange that, for you. I know the warden, and I'm certain I can make a bargain with him. How do two or three walks every week sound to you? This prison has a gym and a kitchen. You could do sports. You can cook your own food. Wouldn't that be better than wasting away in this cage?"

She pondered for a moment.
"They would let me out?"
She seemed very unbelieving.

"Yes." he shrugged.

"They would allow me to move?"
She held that thought. Trying, she filed a demand. "I want to fly. Outside."

Fly? Oh, sure. They would totally let her do that!
"Okay, I don't think they will let you do that."

"Oh, but they are absolutely fine with having me cook my own meals?!" the Queen spat.

"Wouldn't you prefer that?" Estermann asked, glancing at the culinary mess on the floor. "Though, of course, we are talking about normal, 'legal' food. Not... devouring... souls... or anything like that."

"Love. Consuming love. You worm."

"My point is the same. This trial is not going to be a fun affair for anybody. But we can still can make things easier for you, if you promise that you won't make them harder for us."

Skeptically, the Changeling placed her stare determinedly on the floor.
Carefully, she felt her upset stomach with a hoof.

After a little, she felled the decision to give in.
"What do you want? Out with it."

"Be peaceful. Do not attack the wardens. Stop throwing tantrums about every little thing."

"Tantrums?!"

He waved his hand pacifyingly.
"And please, listen to what I have to say, at least once in a while. I know you won't hear of it, but you cannot struggle through this on your own. It will end badly. There is no one, not a single person, out there who'll be willing to vouch for you. Not if you continue this rampage. And... take distance from these charges. It's the sane thing to do."

"Sane..." she repeated derisively. But her countenance deflated the longer she thought about that.

"Maybe then, I can serve you. Your Highness."

The Queen eyed him yet another time.

Estermann himself suddenly noticed that he had unconsciously moved closer to the Changeling with his chair. Quickly, he backed away again. His ears perked up, and his hand sunk into his right pocket. He took out a small, black USB stick.
"The court files are on this thing. Let me load them on your desktop PC, so you can read through them. It is written in the Latin alphabet, in English and in French. If you cannot read it, I advise you to ask someone to read it out loud. It is vital that we are on the same level in this case."

As he plugged the stick into the computer in the corner behind him, the Changeling Queen asked, in a voice filled with anticipation, yet bereft of defiance,
"And you? Will you not dissappoint, worm? Do you swear it this time?"

"I promise. I can make something happen. If you can make something happen as well."

"Bullshit." the brawny Head Detention Officer barked. "What the hell is this, Mr Estermann?"

The defence council wiped his widow's peak with his hand as it leaned on the table of the guardroom mini-kitchen.
"It's just a way to get her to behave." he explained. "She needs some time out of the cell. No wonder she is going mad all the time. I think I would as well."

"But she is not going to leave that cell, Mr Estermann. There is no way I will allow that. She almost killed four people, scared the living shit out of another three. You have seen how she acted earlier today. She is a murderer. A homocidal psychopath."

"She is a bull trapped inside a china shop. And she must be let out."
Estermann snorted and moved his figers down to his nose bridge. "Homocidal maniac... Oh come on. Is that what it says on her psychological examination?"

Mjoberg didn't falter for a second.
"No... But I assure you, I'm going to have a word with the psychiatrist responsible for that report."

"You are completely crazy, human!" Captain Shining Armour suddenly burst, unable to contain his frustration on Estermann any longer. "What's next, you want us to get her a ticket to the fair?!"

Sarcastically, Warden Mjoberg agreed.
"Why not? I have two season tickets to Madurodam in my wallet. It would make about as much sense."

Estermann was was almost wheezing with frustration.
"She wants to cook her own fucking food. I think I have figured out her grief. She is a Queen, she doesn't like being patronised like this. Even more so than having to do things herself."

"Listen to yourself!" Captain Shining spat. "What kind of a spell did she cast on you that you are demand those things?

"I am her lawyer!" Estermann spat, short of temper. "It's my job! How about you do your damn jobs for once so I can do mine?"

"Your job? My job?" the warden inquired. "You're her defence counsel. I am the warden of the facility that is tasked to keep her! And neither of us, Mr Estermann, is her valet."

"Yeah." the unicorn Captain agreed. "You're almost beginning to sound like a servant of hers. You seem to become nothing more than another tool for her ultimate escape. 'And maybe then, I'll serve you.' indeed!"

Estermann let his gaze fall several degrees downwards to meet that of the equine Captain.
"Well, you seem to become nothing more than an muttering idiot, but at least I don't make a fuss out of it!"

He caught the unicorn's eye twitching.
"What... did you just say?"

The bulky warden intervened.
"That's enough! Both of you. We're supposed to be professionals here. So let's behave like them."
He turned to his fellow human. "Godverdorie, man. You have to understand that I am needlessly bringing every other person in this building in danger when I release someone like her from safekeeping. She is like a rabid mustang. And she isn't about to start listening."

"That is because she doesn't listen to defence counsels and wardens, 'man'." Estermann tried to reason. "She only listens to valets and pages. She expects certain favours from us. That's the reality of things. So we might just as well have to play the part. To take the first step. To show her we understand."

"We don't have to do a single thing!"
Shining Armour would have none of that. "I know I don't 'understand'. I didn't come all the way here to play her servant! I know too well what it feels like. I am here to bring her to justice, for all the world to see."

"I thought you are here to shed light on the truth or something like that!"

"That is the truth! This was her true self this morning! A wild, hungry, animal. A changeling! A dirty, no-good changeling! If you are looking for something good in her heart, well, you're looking in vain! There is nothing but the dark slime of evil and hate!"

"Well, I am not looking for 'the good part of her heart'." Estermann answered in an almost mocking tone. "I am here to appeal to the pragmatic part of her brain. As soon as she realises that there is no other way but forward, she will have to calm down. If she really were such a rabid monster, as you think she is, I wouldn't be sitting here in one piece."

The equine Captain replied with a shake of his head.
"I pity you. Not even an Equestrian pony is so happy-go-lucky as you. Wake up. You are dealing with a force of nature here. Not something that can be talked to. It's like trying to have a civil discussion with a raging stream - it will just get you wet. If I were in charge, I would have her brought back to Equestria immediately, where the ponies are actually aware what they're dealing with."

Estermann looked up.
"Oh, you would like that, wouldn't you? But I couldn't really care less about your personal opinion, Captain -After all, you weren't in there with her! In any case, I'm going to prove my point."
He turned to the warden . "I would like to start with baby steps. What about her diet? Is it possible to change the menu a little bit in her favour?"

Mjoberg was still suspicious.
"What exactly are you thinking of?"

Smugly, Estermann turned back to Captain Shining.
"Captain. Can animals love?"

The unicorn was not entirely sure what he was getting at.
"What?"

"Animals. Can they feel love?"

The warden wrinkled his forehead at the question, but much to his surprise, the Equestrian Captain gave quite a serious answer.
"What kind of a question is that? Yes, obviously. Every living thing on this planet can love."

"Chickens too?"

"Of course!"

"What about dead chickens?" the attorney quickly followed up.

"What are you..."
Shining Armour squinted. "Well... It depends. The love a chicken feels or has received in its life fades away at some point, but not very quickly. Now what are you getting at?"

Nonchalantly, the lawyer went back to minding the confused Warden Mjoberg.
"Can you serve her a chicken then?"

"What, a dead one?"

"Well, yeah. A free range one. Preferably still in one piece, head and all..."

Captain Shining winced at the thought.
"For Celestia's sake, Estermann! Leave the chickens alone!"

"The Queen's an equine." the warden tried to correct the lawyer in deadpan annoyance. "She is a herbivore."

"No she isn't. She may be a lot of things, but she isn't explicitly a herbivore."

"Well, I have an explicit list of meals that the vets allow her to eat." he cited the will of his superiors, as he had done so many times in the last few days. "They say we should stick to barley and oats and beet-"

"And we saw how well that went. Unless you want the same mess in her cell around dinnertime, I suggest you listen to me."
Estermann sighed. "Trust me. What's the worst that can happen? If she doesn't like the chicken, she won't eat it. Then you can go back to your inoffensive granola crap and I won't say another word."

"How... Just how many more innocent beings are you planning to sacrifice to that Changeling?" Shining Armour asked bitterly.

"Oh cool your jets, Captain. It's a fucking chicken."

Later the same day, the food hatch of Chrysalis' cell opened precisely for dinner time at six.

The Queen, who had decided to lay down on her king-sized mattress for yet another round of tumultuous, unsated rest, in the midst of her mess from earlier that day, perked up expectantly.
Blowing the battery on the string away from her eyes, she spotted a pale, plucked, pump-breasted bird being sent through on a little tray.

Curiously, she eyed the lesser animal, eyeing it up and down, from its scrawny legs to its limp head, and from one naked wing to the other. She quickly noticed it was no longer alive.

She nodded. Then, with a swift, cat-like motion, she was at its side, and immediately sunk her fangs into the plump chicken.
She picked it up, like a baby its comforter, and went back to her bed, collapsing on it once again. She rolled up into a ball, suckling the chicken for all it was worth, and contentedly drifted off into an early, deep sleep.

Spellbound, the turnkey, the stallion officer and the warden followed the scene over the intercom, until Captain Shining turned away with an ill, troubled expression.

"Heb je enig idee hoeveel boeren ik ben langs geweest om die klote kip te kopen?" the turnkey complained to his boss. "Ik ben geen kantoordoos, godverdomme."

The warden kept staring at the screen though. Slowly, a pleased, relieved smirk crept up.
For hypothesis' sake, if Estermann would manage to keep her this pleasant all the time... maybe he could indeed organise a ten-minute smoking break or something.

IX. The Help

IX.
The Help

Princedom Hospital, Ponyville, Equestria
18. November, 2015
10:38 am MET

Edith’s mind was bobbing in and out of consciousness like a buoy in a stormy sea. She was overtaken by an incredibly strong urge to close her eyes and drift off into sleep, but she fought valiantly to stay awake and aware of her surroundings.

The whole day had been like that, the sole struggle of her fighting against the flurry of her own confused thoughts. Even the throbbing of her gums did not manage to make her focus for even an instant. The forensic had left behind three molars and both her right wisdom teeth back in the caves, that's what some voice had told to her half-conscious form. Her organ of equilibrium had been violently shaken to the point of damage, punishing her with nauseous vertigo if she tried to stand up and walk further than a few metres. At least her jaw and gingiva, although dislocated, could to be saved with few complications.
She had been hurried to Princedom Hospital in the nearby hamlet of Canterlot by an Argentinian White Helmet peacekeeping platoon that happened to be in the vicinity of the Everfree when she dispatched her distress call. They were later joined by an entire company of Royal Guard Pegasi who had flown in all the way from Canterlot upon hearing the news of the discovery.
With combined efforts, they had managed to free all of the unfortunate ponies from their changeling prisons. Three hundred and fifty earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi - according the last count – were carried out of the godforsaken cave that afternoon.

Earily, Edith supposed that she should feel glad; glad for all the ponies whose lives they had saved, and glad for all those that had missed them so dearly.

But actually, she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t feel happy, or sad, or even horrified. The tragic, harrowing images of the degenerated and lifeless equine bodies trapped in the changeling sacs like rotting flies inside amber, they bounced off the trained forensic like hail off a tin roof.

All she felt was a dull droning inside her head, a pounding, a confusion of utterly trivial thoughts and considerations making a mess of any attempt at sorting out her feelings. In a way, she felt distant and uninvolved, like a disinterested observer entity hovering around the unsealed death, destruction and misery without batting an eye. It was a very strange state of mind, indeed.
She hadn’t gone sociopathic, had she?

She kept wondering, until at one point, she noticed she couldn't get any of it out of her head after all. She realised how manically she plunged herself into work the other day, typing a report describing all the findings and send the horrifying account on its way to Canterlot, from where it would be sent straight to Europe. All that despite being trapped in her state of perpetual vertigo, She even had to hold off some unicorn doctor’s attempts at treating her just long enough to get her task over with.
And as she wrote and typed away, ignoring the pony medic’s concerned neighs directed at her hunched-over back, she realised just how badly she wanted to accompany the letter to the old continent.
Whatever feelings of accomplishment, of triumph or esprit de corps there may have been at some point in this assignment, they had all been replaced by a thought vacuum. It didn't matter what her colleagues from the ICMP said. It didn't matter what the ICC said either. She was fed up to the stumps that had once been her back teeth.
Only when she resigned, laying down her laptop on her lap, did the doctor strike her with something warm and tranquilising in the back of her head, causing her senses to finally fade away for good.

But as much as she grew weaker and less willing to pull her work in the new continent through, there was one thing that eventually made her reconsider – something that kept her from leaving the country and reserving herself a bed in some Sarajevo hospice instead.

It was some time after the persistent pony physician had catapulted her into a deep slumber, when she noticed, through the fog of strange fantasies, a pegasus in formal golden armour and a bandaged wing standing in her room.
She didn’t know whether she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or actually seeing the pony in her chambers; but she was almost sure it was Lieutenant Fighting Fit.
She had been about to raise her head and ask him what he was doing there - after all the hope she had inspired, and so much she ended taking away from him - when he suddenly sank down next to her bed, and began to cry uncontrollably.

"You were right." The pegasus soldier sobbed. "You were right and I was wrong. They are all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!"

She had never heard any of the equines utter that word before. Was this all just a hazy dream?
And what was going on? Who was dead? The ponies from the cavern?

"What was I thinking? What was I thinking..." he cried on.

“What…” Edith mouthed weakly.
Even through the mist of sedation, the human felt concern swell up in her. There was a grave premonition lingering at the back of her mind.
But… hadn’t they already rescued them? Wasn’t it all over?

She caught her numbed hand travelling over to the despairing stallion holding onto her bed, and weakly caressing his chalk-white, buzzcut mane and his burning-hot ears.
"June..bugh?" she suddenly asked, her mouth reticent.

"They didn't find her..." he whimpered. "We'll never find her! Not now... not anymore!"

She could not think of anything else to say, but...
"But we will... we will..."

Then she dove back into the murky sea of unconsciousness.

That was a day ago.
And now she was here. Still here.
Her investigation was continuing. She was going to find Junebug. Whether she wanted or not.

“Uh, Miss? Excuse me?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Are you… uhm… alright?”

Edith lifted her head from the bed, and blinked to see who was speaking to her. The golden gleam of a Guard cuirass blinded her.
“Lieu… Lieutenant?” she slurred.

“Uh… heh, no. It’s Sergeant First Class, actually.”

As her eyes got used to the morning light, she spotted a grey unicorn eyeing her intently from her bedside.
“Who are you?” she immediately inquired.

“My name is Sergeant Golden Dirk, Miss.” he said with a smile. “Service Number Two, Two, Seven, Niner, Three, Eight, One.”

“Aha...” She muttered, and wearily turned her body to face him.

“The Royal Palace has sent me, Miss. I should come and look after you.”
Despite his friendly tone, there was a sense of urgency in his eyes, he himself seemed a bit fidgety as he spoke to her.

“Okhay… er…”
It unsettled her just a bit. She remembered her ‘dream’. “Why, has somethingh happened?”

“Well… I’m supposed to confirm that you are feeling well… and are being cared for.” He paused awkwardly. “You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”

She sighed and lowered her eyes. “No. But I had worse.”

“Oh, good. I’ll tell them that when I get back.” He said with a reserved grin.

Then he said nothing, and just stared at the waking human a bit more.

“Is… there anythingh else?” Edith asked.

“Oh… uhm. Not really. I am bringing you the condolences of the Equestrian Crown, and their sincere wishes of a speedy recovery.”

“Thankh you… Is there – anythingh – else?” she asked again.

He bobbed his head back and forth unsurely. “N...nope. All I wanted to say is that… I am in charge of the Royal Archives security command in Canterlot. I have the day shift first half of the week, and night shift the second half. And… if you need something… anything… you just need to ask for Sergeant Golden Dirk, Service number two, two, seven…”

“What about the dead?” she cut him off, so abruptly she took even herself by surprise, not to mention the unicorn at her bed.

“What… what about them?” he asked a bit perplexed.

“How many of them are there now? How many are left alive?”

“Oh…I have… no idea. I just got here. You’ll have to ask the doctor. I think I just saw him trotting around outside.”

Brushing messy dark hair out of her face, she stared at the guard pony as she lifted herself and slipped her feet on the floor by the bed. She was only wearing a plain white hospital gown, just as she remembered it when she was put to sleep.
“What about… Lieutenant Fightingh Fit?”

“Lieutenant?” he asked, “Oh, you mean Captain Fighting Fit?”

“No. I mean the Lieutenant. He was a Sheriff around here a few years ago.” She repeated. “Where has he ghone?”

The unicorn smiled again. “I know. The good Lieutenant has received a promotion, Miss.”

She could only raise her eyebrows. “What? When did that happen?”

“This morning – for his exceptional deeds in the field while in the Everfree. He was summoned to Canterlot the other evening. I suppose to report on the discovery, among other things.”

“I see…”
How long exactly had she been out? It felt like an eternity.
She carefully positioned herself on the cold stone floor, trying not to fall over again due to her head spinning.

“Should I…” the unicorn quickly asked, bracing himself to catch her, “…call the doctor, maybe?”

“No, I’ll find him myself…”

But then it hit her.
If the Lieutenant was gone now, how was she supposed to find her way around the place without an interpreter?
Only then did she notice that something was very wrong.
“Wait a moment… why are you speakhing Enghlish?”

“Me?”
He seemed confused. “I’m… not. I’m pretty sure I’m speaking Equestrian, Madam. And… so are you.”

“What?!” Her right hand shot up to her throat. “How…? I chan’t speakh Eqhuestrian!”

“Well…” he just smiled, “From what I’m hearing… you’ve got no problem speaking our language. Maybe it’s the language spell they gave you.”

Shocked, she glared around the place, as if she had just been given an appendix removal against her will.
“...Who did?”

He shrugged.
“The doctor, I guess. He looks like an experienced unicorn.”

Maybe it was because of her Christian upbringing, or maybe she liked to seek refuge in anatomical science, but the inherent ‘magic’ abilities of those equines still gave her a shiver.
“I… specifichally askhed to not get magich performed on me!”

He smirked. “Hey, I’d be happy if I were you. It doesn’t happen every day a doctor gives you an enhancement like that for free. Don’t look the gift-horse in the mouth, as the gryphons like to say.”

Feeling her throat some more, her hand hit a bandage under her chin that made her wince out in pain. She came to the conclusion that she didn’t actually feel too different after all, even with the magic she was now carrying inside her. It was probably wise to ignore this for now. More urgent things were at hand.

She peered around for her clothes and possessions, but she found nothing. From her laptop to her mobile, everything was gone.

“Say, chan you do me a favour and hand me the flippers over there in the chorner?”

Peering out of her room, the human scanned the doorway of the archaic hospital building. It was all white-painted tiling and bricks, interspersed with some rural wood panelling, like any county hospital from over a century ago would have looked like.
However, it didn’t smell of disinfecting alcohol and misery like human hospitals, and perhaps a little bit more of barley.

From around a corner, she could make out two ponies’ voices clashing loudly.

“I’m sorry, Carmel. I need to get out of here!” A female voice declared.

“You can’t leave now! Redheart already gave her farewells this morning. Do you want me to run this place all by myself?” a male voice begged.

“Carmel, these halls are for the living! Ponies that I can actually help!”

“For Celestia’s sake! Get a hold of yourself! You are a nurse and you have a duty to fulfil!”

“You go and handle this mess, Doctor! Why don’t you ask some of the Guards to help you? Look how many of them are strutting around the place and doing nothing! I need to go home and check on my children. Maybe you should just go and do the same.”

Edith could manage to catch a glimpse of a mare with a white medical cap fleeing out the ward doors as she rounded the corner. The forensic found a unicorn doctor with an amber coat and a brown mane sitting there on his haunches, drooping his head in defeat and adjusting his spectacles with a hoof.
When he noticed the human approaching him, he quickly turned around and put a big fake smile on his face.
“Well, well, well…” he greeted her in a raspy, but yet typically equine voice, “If that isn’t my favourite human patient. It’s good to see somepony else trotting around the place who isn’t a Guard. How’s your jaw doing?”

Edith just nodded carefully. “Better. Much better.”
Looking around the otherwise completely empty corridor, and asked, “What is ghoing on?”

“Oh…” he smiled nervously, “Just some… hot heads, nothing more. You must understand, my staff and I have been pulling an all-nighter, taking care of the… changelings’ victims.”
His smile broke and faded away. “Not everypony’s quite up to the task. “

Edith pulled her bathrobe even tighter across her body. “But… chould you manage it all okhay?”

He hesitated before he gave an answer.
“We… certainly tried. We never had anything quite like this before. I know the Everfree holds a lot of dreadful secrets, but… we never had anything quite like this before.” He repeated, lost for words, and carved on the ground with a hoof.

“How many are dead?” the human asked.

The doctor’s eyes sank in at the mention. “I… they…” He dropped his head a little. “I don’t know the exact count. Many have passed in the hours since yesterday evening.”

“Many?”
Her heart sank. A shiver ran down her aching neck.

“Most of the survivors were in such a… exceedingly poor state that no magic in the world could help them. They simply… drifted away.”
Then he lowered his head.

It was not over. Far from it.

“It seems, for all the damage their changeling traps dealt to them…” the doctor assumed solemnly, “they did have some preserving qualities to them. It drained them, but it kept them alive. When you guys broke them out, it’s almost like years of pain, of starvation, and plain aging caught up with them. Their bodies couldn't have handled it even if they hadn’t been as frail as they were.”
His glasses reflected in the light of the lamps as he looked the human in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should have told you about it earlier.”

Edith simply shook her head. “No. I… I already heard.”

“Really? How?”

She harrumphed, thinking back further than her moment with the Lieutenant.
“Even back in the cavern… they looked more dead than alive.”

He adjusted his spectacles in disbelief.
“I have never seen any pony look like this. Not even the ones who had already... passed on.” he clarified.

She looked up and down the unicorn doctor’s body.
It was shaking.
“Do you… deal with the deceased often?”

“It’s part of the job, right?” he asked rhetorically, trying to make a light-hearted shrug. “Ponies come and ponies go… It’s the law of life, both here and elsewhere. It’s normal.”
He gulped, and his expression took a form much darker than any Equestrian pony should have. “But… by Celestia. This isn’t normal. Ponies do not go like that. Not like that. I mean… of course… this… might be a day-to-day sight in the place you humans come from. But for us, here in Ponyville… this is the stuff of Nightmares. No wonder my nurses are all running away.”

Pained, the forensic scrounged up her hands.
“Day-to-day? I… I really wish I chould refute that.”
This sentiment struck her as all too familiar. She tied up the belt around her bathrobe anew and straightened herself up.

He combed his ruffled mane straight with a hoof.
“Have you seen the… rescuees from the cave lately? They look so… so… empty. I would say they’re but coat and bones, but it would be an understatement. It almost seems like they’ll turn to dust as soon as you lay a hoof on them. It’s terrible.”

She quickly tried to stow her growing concerned expression away in a sigh.
“How many… how many are still left?” she then asked, trying to walk a lighter path.

She was glad to see his head nod very hesitantly.
“We have some very very lucky ponies who seem to be making it, all things considered. They either happened to be younger, and abler to cope with their captivity, or they didn't happen to be trapped as long as most of the of the others. There are fifteen or twenty at most, though none of them are responsive yet.”

She nodded. “So have you beghun with identifichation process already?”

He looked up again.
“Um… I didn’t think now would be time for… that. I mean, we haven’t even managed to… accommodate most of them yet.”

Wondering, she paced a few steps further down the corridor, both trying to get a grip on her equilibrium, and to remember her primary responsibility at the moment.
“I am looking for an earth pony mare challed Junebugh, born in Cholton’s End. I don’t suppose you happen to have information on her whereabouts?”

He opened his mouth and nodded. “Ah. Junebug… orange mane, cream coat, green eyes, 19 years, height 15-12?”

Her eyes lit up.
“…Yes.”

“A Lieutenant from Canterlot already asked for her the other day. I can only tell you what I told him.”

Tense, she held her breath.
“…And what’s that?”

“She… she might be among those who… who passed on this morning. I did see one poor pony that fits her description very much, but I still have to take a closer look, at some later point. But... not right now.”

"Why not?!“
Her question answred itself when she caught on to his left hoof carving a little faster, descending into a slight nervous shiver. “Listen... I chan also takhe a lookh myself, dochtor. If you don’t mind, at least.”

He eyed the human with a mystified expression. “You… really want to go among those...”

“I am a ghovernmentally certified forensich scientist with a deghree in Anatomy. I have seen worse.”

During her years with the ICMP, Edith had witnessed many catastrophes and great tragedies from the inside of a treating room. The places were always filled with tumult and chaos - sometimes more somber, sometimes less - but always would there be the subtle background chorus of moaning, of coughing ,of spluttering, of screaming, and crying, and shouting, and yelling, and sometimes perhaps even the constant beeping of life-sustaining apparatus.
But in this room, the only thing she could hear was the muffled pattering of thick snowdrops whirling into the room through the open windows.

The Rescued, or rather what was left of them, were stored in this large hall just adjacent to Edith’s single chamber. It was one of the larger spaces, filled with several dozen beds, and certainly intended to be just another one of the hospital’s normal patient rooms.

The doctors and nurses had probably opened all the doors and windows to let in the winter’s cold air, in a desperate attempt to stave off the decomposition. But even in this cold air, the room was filled with the unmistakably pungent, petroleum-like aroma of changeling secrete.
Edith, still clad in her bathrobe, was freezing. But that was the very least of her worries; she was quickly becoming almost as unsettled as the unicorn doctor.

Each one of the great hall’s beds was occupied by one of the Changeling terror’s tiny hapless victims. Each one was carefully positioned to lie as gracefully and comfortably as possible, to give them the everlasting rest they would need. Each one was covered by their white blanket, hiding them from the living world from ripped ear to barren tail.

With all of the ponies accounted for, the place was still bursting at the seams. In one corner, two unfortunate ponies had even been left on the trolleys they had been carted in on, due to lack of space to lay them down on.

Apart from the odd nurse darting in and out of the many doorways, a few Royal Guards solemnly paced up and down the rows of beds throughout in an endless patrol cycle, checking each of the bodies for any indications of life.

“This room used to be our emergency department, if you can believe that.” The doctor said, half-whispering, as he gazed around the place hurtfully.

“Why not use the morghue?”

“Because it's already full. We only have four or five gurneys down there.”
He looked up to the ceiling, muttering, “My nurses were right, you know. This isn’t the place for those who already passed on. I don’t mean to sound ridiculous, but… I am absolutely scared when I look at them. Whenever I have to lift a blanket, and look into their faces, I realise that I know… or rather knew, many of them. I think I can recognise faces I haven’t seen in years. Friends, patients, colleagues… None of whom I will ever get the chance to speak to again...”
He gulped and pressed his eyes shut. “But then again… maybe I’m just imagining things. Maybe it’s just me going off my head. I cannot wait for them to finally move on to everlasting rest.”

So much for the tight-knit countryside, Edith thought to herself.
“We channot have them moved until we have begun numbering them for identification.” she reminded him sternly.

He just gave her a pained glance. “Number them? You... cannot be serious. They're still ponies, not tree stumps. They have names.”

“Were.” She corrected him, her face neutral. “And until we chan find out their names, we need to manage another way.”

“Another way…” the doctor parroted her bitterly, “I know another way; let the Princess’ finest handle them.”
He trotted past the beds, beckoning the human to follow him, “I received a message from Canterlot. They will send medics and more Guards to move the bodies to the Royal Canterlot Hospital.”

Edith was surprised. “When?”

“This week. From tomorrow onward, I think.”

“At such short notice?” she asked him. “Chanterlot is more than a hundred khilometres away. I don’t thinkh that’s wise.”

“They have the facilities, they have the technology, they have the magic.“ he explained stubbornly, “And I’m sure the Princess has her own plans for these poor ponies. Maybe she will give them some dignity back and have them laid out.”

Of course, Edith reckoned, the ponies wanted to hold these ponies high. Less as victims, and more as heroes and martyrs. She couldn’t imagine the ponies stashing their Returned away in silent mourning.
“But before we lay them out,” she reminded the unicorn, “...we should try and get their identities fixed. If we don’t pay attention, they chould end up buried without name or number.“

“I’m sure you’ll get your turn too....”
He glanced at the human, far too long for her own comfort – almost as if he was morbidly fascinated by her obstinate sense of duty. “Follow me. I think this might help your search.”
Walking to the end of the row of beds, they stopped in front of a partially uncovered pony’s faded remains. Only to a trained pony’s eye could this one have looked any different than any of the other crumpled bodies. “I found her earlier this day. She is an earth pony mare, just like Junebug. Judging by her dental situation, she’s in Junebug’s age group, give or take two years. Her height is average for her age. But as for her colours…”
He gave the body a long stare. “I have no idea. As you can see, most of her fur has fallen out with time. The little that’s left is heavily greyed. It could have been cream, but it could just as well have been white, or yellow, or even red. The same for her mane. This could be Junebug… but it might just as well be somepony entirely else.”

“And…” Edith mentioned, pointing at the face. “What about her eye cholour?”

“Her eye colour?”
The doctor stared at the tightly shut eyelids of the late mare, as if he was trying to see right through them. “I… honestly cannot tell.”

“Chould we maybe takhe a lookh?”

The doctor just froze up, his own eyes hiding away behind his spectacles.

But Edith was too short of temper to wait any longer. She was so close to a definite answer. She wanted to know.
Espying a pair of tweezers sitting on the night cabinet next to the bed, she quickly snatched them and, with freezing hands, led it towards the corpse’s face.
Under the terrified scrutiny of the doctor, she seized the right upper eyelid of the mysterious pony, and carefully lifted it.

Slowly, the eyeball came to light.
It was a milky, blank, perfectly featureless sphere, with no iris and no pupil anywhere to be seen.
Before even Edith could get lost in the vast, horrifying emptiness of the dead creature’s gaze, she lowered the lid again, and placed the tweezers back in their place.
“I… I want a hair sample.”

“What do you mean, we do not have authorisation? Are you shitting me?” the man yelled.

His beard was flaming red, his ski trousers and jacket were pearly white.
Discontently, he paced through the hospital waiting area, ignoring the curious passing eyes of Pegasi soldiers waiting outside the countless windows of the courtyard. “I couldn’t care less about any military operations! We’re not fucking tourists, we are part of the intervention force. You can go and play war whenever you like, but-”

His boots clacked angrily as he turned back around just before walking into a column. “I don’t think you get the concept of UNEVEG, do you? You can send a Million fucking soldiers into that forest, but we need to be there too! If you haven’t heard yet, there is a court investigation going on, so we need to have at least one eye on the situation.”

His fingers scraped against the walls as he paced back where he started. His Canadian intonations became rougher and more stretched out as he began to enunciate and stretch his words. “No, I am not a soldier. Neither was my ‘colleague’, as you keep calling her. But let me tell you one thing: she got injured in the line of duty! She knew fully well what she was in for. If you’re trying to imply we cannot guarantee for our own safety, then try again; We have peacekeeping platoons on the ground, and she was under your soldiers’ protection! Yes, Her Majesty’s Hoofington Territorials - so I’ve read. If seven of them couldn’t keep her safe in there, I somehow doubt even four thousand could! Your guys are the real problem here! Do you know what happened to me on my way here? I was stopped and interrogated at Guard road blocks not twice, not thrice, but-”

He stopped. “No no! Don’t come with ‘I wish we had more of you here but the Princess said no…’ shit, I heard that three times today. Your Princess has to adhere to the UN resolution Two One Nine Three! If she can’t remember the terms she signed herself, then I can’t help either of you!”

He took off his pelt ushanka, still wet from the molten snow, and threw it onto one of the many narrow pony benches. “You bet your ass you can quote me on that! Yes, Deputy Programme Officer for Southern Equestria, that’s who I am! And if your fucking pencil pushers want a confirmation, they can fucking well call New York and beg for it! Let this be a fair warning: If you, or one of your four thousand other guys, tries to obstruct UNEVEG workers anywhere in the sector again, I will personally make sure that, in one week’s time, you’ll be your Princess’ groom of the stool! Do you understand?! ...Yeah, fuckity bye!”

Punching the red button and barely avoiding the temptation of letting the phone crash on the marble floor, he shoved it in his pocket.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He mumbled, “’Leave thinking to the horses’, they said. ‘They’ve got bigger heads’, they said…”

Then the man heard steps echoing in the corridor outside – human feet. Just as he was about to poke out of the door and catch up to the conspecific before it walked past, a human woman came tumbling into the waiting area, incessantly toying with the belt of her white bathrobe with one hand, and limply holding some sort of tiny plastic bag in her other. Even with the bandages around her chin, the man immediately recognised her. She was the one he was waiting for.
“Edith? Jesus Christ, Edith! Look at you.” He swiftly got up from his seat and clasped the woman by her shoulders. “How are you?”

“Pierre?” She asked, dumbfounded at seeing the UN official standing in front of her. She was surprised, but too tired to show it.

“Here comes the woman of the hour…” he said.
She quickly noticed that his voice was beyond just sarcastic; it was rahter broody and disconcerted. It worried her.

“What’s goingh on?”

“You.” He stated flatly. “You are going on, Edith. Can you tell me what the fuck happened here?”

She gulped down her silence and instinctively took an step backwards.
“I was in the Everfree-”

“Let me stop you right there.” Pierre shushed her. “What were you doing in the Everfree? My list tells me you ought to be in the Canterlot General Hospital Morgue. Either alive or dead!”

“There was a development. I was followingh a lead, Pierre.” She said plainly. “A lochal was presumed missing, and a Peghasus lieutenant from Chanterlot askhed me for help.”

“And?” He smugly stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. “Found her yet?”

She wasn’t sure whether to nod or shake her head. She opened her hand and presented a little bag with a bundle of grey clotty hair.
“I need to make a DNA test to be sure.”

“Give me that!”
With a quick hand movement, the bearded official snatched the bag out of her hand.

Wide-eyed, the forensic jerked forward. “What the hell do you thinkh you’re doingh? Give me my sample backh!” she yelled in - quite frankly, uncharacteristic - anger.

But man held the bag out of her reach and struck out a finger at her with his other hand.
“What did I tell you ICMP guys during orientation?” he reminded her severely. “You’re supposed to stick to your assigned sectors, and only move around in company of designated UN personnel. You stay away from, and do not engage, the local population, unless it's explicitly on official business.“
He huffed, "I did not say, 'ride off to God-knows-where with some pegasus lieutenant without leaving as much as a post-it note on the door'!”

Caught somewhere between derision and confusion, she quipped, “My Ghod, you almost sound an Intourist ghuide…”

“You don’t get it, do you?” the officer hissed, “You’re not here on vacation. You are on commission! Equestria is an international exclusion zone. And we are supposed to be the neutral force in this mess!”

“Why are you shouting at me? Was I doingh my job, wasn’t I?!” she snapped back, pointing into the direction she had just come from. “Have you even been to the treatment rooms upstairs yet? I… I helped to find those ponies. I helped to lookh for them! I just did my job!”

“You’re a forensic, Edith.” He merely reminded her again. “Leave the whole ‘looking’ part to the ponies. It's their turf, it's their wood. You’re here to man the dissecting table after the fact, not play ‘field agent’ in some godforsaken forest that wasn’t even on our search radar.”

“Exachtly why wasn’t the Everfree on our radar?” she immediately inquired.

The man could just sigh and look away with a mocking, humourless smirk.
“Because, apparently, we gave our dear pony colleagues too much of the benefit of a doubt. The office of the Princesses assured us that all the changelings were balling up in the Frozen North. That’s where they sent all their troops, and that’s also where most of our personnel are at work. No one would have thought to look for changelings any lower than Canterlot… much less the Everfree region.”

The forensic nodded, and took a very long pause before she answered. “So what's your problem? Would you have preferred that we wouldn't have discovered the changelings here?“

He exhaled nervously. “You know... I am really not sure how to feel about it.“
Clearly uncomfortable, the official folded his arms. "You've kicked off a shitstorm back in Canterlot. The royal court – the nobles and, by the looks of it, the Princesses too – cannot decide whether they should be pissing their pants or baying for blood. Now that it turns out there might be changelings lurking in the Everfree, the ponies think they’re being surrounded by the enemy. Nobody's sure if the changelings are hatching a plan, or if they’re simply creeping around the countryside aimlessly... but in any case, the ponies want to nip it in the bud.”

“How do they want to do that? Chomb the forest?” she breathed frothily.

Pierre just kneaded the plastic sample bag in his hands.
“Haven’t you wondered by this place is suddenly swarming with Royal Guards?”

Edith looked around unsurely.

Discretely he glanced out the open doors into the corridor.
“Whatever the Princesses are planning, it’s gonna involve open warfare. ” he murmured,

“Are you serious? That forest is enormous…”

“I know. I saw the maps. It’s like a 7th fucking rainforest. But that isn't my concern.”
He leaned closer to his ICMP colleague. “What’s really unsettling is that the ponies now want to put a kibosh on UNEVEG activities in the area for the duration of the skim.”

She cocked her head.
“Why would they want that?”

“Supposedly, to keep certain idiot humans from wandering into the forest and getting themselves killed or captured by the changelings…”
He glared at her and her bandaged side of the head.

“Pierre…” the forensic growled, feeling her bandages, “It was a fuckhing rockh. Not a changeligh. I didn’t even see any changelings. What does this even have to do with our UNEVEGh achtivities?”

“The ponies don’t want us watching over their shoulder when they comb the place, and they want to use you as the grist to their mills.”

“Me?!” the forensic rapped out and hung her head in disbelief.

“Did you wonder where all your stuff went while you were knocked out?”

She opened her mouth to bring forth a stammered answer, but in that moment Pierre let a wallet and a mobile phone slip out of his pocket. He tossed both things into her arms one after the other, which Edith was only barely able to actually catch.

“Ask me where I found those.”

“...I'd rather not.”

“Strapped to the back of a Pegasus Guard courier bound straight for Canterlot.”

Pressing her phone and wallet against her chest, she combed her hair out of her face nervously.

“And this, dear Edith, is why you should never ever leave the side of your UN charges. Because shit can happen, and sensitive information can fall into the hands of the wrong people. If I were you, I wouldn't trust anyone of those ponies even an inch!”

“I don't ghet it...” the forensic muttered, almost automatically flapping her phone open and checking the display for any manipulation. “Why did they do that?”

“Short version: There was some confusion over the term 'casualty'. The Princesses' little helpers all thought that you had died in that forest in a changeling attack. So the first thing they did was to send an honour guard here to impound all your belongings and ship them back to the capital. Supposedly for safekeeping.” Again, he gave her an enervated stare. “Supposedly.”

She could only bring forth a nervous, tired smirk. “Well... what else would they have done with it? I don't charry any 'sensitive information' around with me.”

“As I said, I'd trust them with anything.”
Absent-mindedly, he resumed pacing left and right. “They could have just as well packed your clothes on a wagon and paraded them around town in your honour – as the first confirmed human victim of the 'Changeling terror'.” he theorised, waggling his fingers sarcastically.

Scratching her nose, Edith looked down. A subtle smile crept over her countenance as she connected the dots. “I know they may be slightly overbearing... I mean, they even posted an 'honour guard' in my hospital room...”

“They did?” he gasped. “Check your belongings again. Check them twice!”

“But...” she continued staunchly, “...I don't thinkh they would be that overbearing.”

“You call it overbearing, I call it fucking exploitative.” he continued to rant. “It all makes perfect sense to me, you know. First this, then they try and keep UNEVEG out of the Everfree...”

“Don't tell me there isn't anythingh we chan do to overrule them...”

His chest visibly inflated.
“We could. I called the Princess' secretary about it. I tried to make it clear – very politely – that barring our people from their missions in Equestria means breaching the goddamn UN Council resolution.”
He them followed up with a sigh. “They threatened to take it a level higher, to New York. So we might just as well pack our stuff and get the hell our of here now.”

“What makhes you say that?”

“I know my typical UN desk jockey – soft as play-doh. They would cut off their own hands and eat them if it means staying on good terms with all the involved parties. I don't think the Equestrians will have trouble convincing them to pull their own personnel out of one area for a certain amount of time if they cited safety risks. After all, who knows the dangers of Equestria better than the Equestrians? And after all, what wouldn't the UN do to avoid bad publicity?”

Slowly, Edith let the mobile and wallet disappear in the pockets of her bathrobe.
“Maybe you're overthinkhing all of this a little bit, Pierre.” she looked up at the slightly taller man with a critical glare. “Who knows, maybe there is a very real danger. Maybe there really are still Changelinghs lurkhing in the Everfree. Maybe they are trying to surround Chanterlot. Who are we to tell? Maybe we're not the ones to judge what is really ghoingh on here.”

The official angrily chewed his gums at that comment.“Edith... I don't think you quite grasp the concept of neutrality. Neutrality does not mean getting suckered in by what everyone's saying. It means to punch through other's bullshit and form your own opinion. And what I am seeing here is one side vying for some room to settle an old score.”

Edith crossed her legs
“You seem to be forghetting that the Ponies are the vichtims here. Aren't we here to protecht them?”

He let out a derisive laugh. “Even if... Do you really think they need it?”

To drive the point home, Edith placed a hand on her chest.
“I have seen with my own eyes what the changhelinghs have chommitted. That's why I should be on my way to Chanterlot and ghet started with the identifichation of one of the vichtims.”
Excpectantly, she stretched out her arm. “Please ghive me back my sample, Pierre.”

But the man just snorted, and quietly placed the bag with the strands in his jacket.
“You're not going to identify shit, Edith. When I said I was going to get you out of here, I meant Equestria.”

A breath of despair left the forensic's body.
She shot up from her bench, almost stumbling to the side in the process, and hoarsely hissed into his face “Are you khidding me? You're not ghetting rid of me now."
She was confused at herself. Wasn't that what she wanted all along? But... what about the Lieutenant? In her lingering thoughts, he was still clinging on to her bedside, despairing...
"W-why do you want to send me home?"

He sneered nigh-cruelly.
“Because you sound like a de-fanged bonobo, you wobble around the place like a drunken Ménière's patient, and Regional Command clearly thinks that you have caused more than enough of a stir one assignment's worth, and that's why you need to go. You can continue your work from Sarajevo, if you can get your hands on the material, but New York's not ready to let you loose in a crisis area again after all that has happened.”
He couldn't help but snort at his own words a little. “I suppose it requires less paperwork to get you out of the picture than to meet all the necessary security requirements for your likes.”

“What about the bodies?” Edith asked, nervously, “I thought those ponies needed instruchtion in chriminal examination.”

The official shrugged and stroked his beard.
“You can delegate the task to one of the other ICMP guys on scene, right? Like... that young guy who got air-sick on the way here... What's his name, Ibrahim?”

“Yeah, right. Ibrahim's a sechond level archivist, not a forensich.” Edith immediately interjected, “He's never been near a obduchtion table in his life!”

“Well, nuts. Then I'll take him. I can always need someone to sift through old records.”
Sauntering over to the desk where his fur cap still rested, he picked it up and buckled it on his head. “But right now, you are coming with me, back to the Embassy, until we can arrange your travel documents and a flight in the general direction of Europe.”

“I. Am. Not. Finished. Here. Pierre.” she snarled, punctuating her words, greedily eyeing the pocket that held her sample. “This taskh is - has always been - well within my chompetence. Those hairs may belongh to a mother's daughter who has been missingh for more than two years now. The mother must know if her daughter's still out there. That's why I need to takhe that DNA test, and ghive her the results. Ibrahim won't be able to do that on his own.”

Pierre said nothing at first, just gazing down at the hospitalised woman.
“That's funny.”

“What?!”

“Many ponies these days want to know what happened to their children. It would have been very nice if only you could have shown as much commitment and devotion to the rest of them.”

Edith stared and glared. Folding her arms, she stood fast, watching the officer as he got ready to depart.

“Edith...” he uttered, visibly short of temper. “You can either leave with me now, or it'll be the Ponies who will kick you all the way to Canterlot tomorrow. I know which choice I'd make.”
He rounded the stoic woman, dangling a big rustic iron key in front of her face. “Clothes, jacket, bag, kit, laptop, it's all waiting for you in the cloakroom.”

The snowing outside had finally subsided. Even though all the surfaces had gained another thick snow coating and the distant mountain ranges were fogged, the air was mercifully crisp and dry, as was to be expected of Equestria. There wasn't any wind blowing the snow.

Was this the calm before the storm, or the eye of the same?

The two humans followed a trail trodden through the fresh snow by a hundred armoured hooves. On the lawn in front of the hospital building, several tents had been raised amidst rows of covered wagons and golden chariots. Not far away, they could see about two platoons worth of assembled Royal Guard Pegasi receiving a briefing from their lieutenants. Undoubtedly, they were readying for the big push into the Everfree.
That wasn't long after they passed two earth pony Guards who were busy hauling several barrels out of a wagon, each packed chock-full with halberds, spears and arrows.

“Don't bring your fists to a spear fight...” Pierre quipped as they marched on. "This is gonna be war, alright."

Further down the path to the village, two Guards patrolling the road were seemingly expecting them, their own spears planted into the snowy earth.

“Ugh, shit.” the official huffed when his stare met theirs, “Edith?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favour; go ahead and straight down to the Jeep. I'll take it up with those two guys down there. They're not terribly bright.”

He had barely uttered these words when a sudden “Halt!” brought them to a standstill.
Immediately, the two Guards were on their way to them, spears in mouths.
“You humanth! Thtate your name and buthineth.”

Edith was by them first. “Edith Šarić, I've-”

“You may go.” the guard unexpectedly cut her off, his scrounged-up equine face turning to the dumbfounded UN official. “You! Thtate your name and buthineth.”

Pierre groaned, “I already passed by you guys not even two fucking hours ago!”

“Your name and buthineth. Princeth' orderth.” the guard repeated stoically.

“Look, are we planning on doing this all day?” he asked as he flashed his badge, “I'm from UNEVEG Regional Command, she is with the ICMP. We have permission from your Princesses to pass through the area un-hindered.”

The pony reared his muzzle up to inspect his badge. “I can't read that.”

“No shit, you couldn't read it two hours ago either!” Pierre growled through clenched teeth. "Can't you see the UN symbol, or are you blind as well?"

“Stop shouting at them!" Edith hissed, her eyes nervously wandering between him and the ponies.

“Just go ahead, Edith!” he hissed back, “This is going to take a while.”

The forensic complied too happily, burying her head in embarrassment as she trudged on down the hill, hearing the UN official's barks clashing with the two soldiers tenacious repetitions of the same order, their weapons still between clenched their teeth.
The ponies certainly had a way to them that could become very grating very fast. Pierre had a point insofar.

She could soon make out the white-painted vehicle standing by the side of the street, faintly blending in with the shimmering white roadside.
But next to it, she noticed a rather familiar unicorn in armour standing right out.
It was the 'honour guard' from her room.

“Ah, you're already leaving, Miss?” he approached her as soon as he spotted her, still unpleasantly smiling. “Are you bound for Canterlot?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“Huh. Listen, I know this may sound silly, but...”
He took a strange pause to gulp. “...could I get a lift?”

“You need a lift...?” she remarked rather perplexed. Looking up and down his innocently smiling form, she couldn't hide her suspicion.

“My... my chariot must have been ordered back to Canterlot, and now I'm stranded. Silly thing, innit?”

Inadvertedly, she remembered Pierre's warning. 'If I were you, I wouldn't trust anyone of those ponies even an inch!'

She tried to see past his friendly grin, trying to find some ulterior reason why he wanted to accompany her. Had he been tasked to keep an eye on her? He couldn't be that clingy out of pure goodwill. She did see something, though she wasn't entirely sure what it could be.
“I...” she said, hesitantly, “I don't thinkh that would be a ghood idea.”

“Oh? Why not?”
The unicorn then stopped himself by biting his lip and quickly backing down. “Oh sure. Fine. No problem.”
He briefly peered left and right, as if demanding a little privacy from the landscape. Awkwardly, he opened his mouth to say something. “If that means that we'll part ways now...”

“...Yes?”

His horn lit up, and he telekinetically unbuckled his golden helmet, “I just wanted to... to take a moment and say that I really appreciate the work all you humans are trying to do here. Helping us, without asking for a reward. All while trying to stay neutral. I've read all the brochures. That's really grand of you.”
He took it off, magically holding it in front of himself respectfully.

“...Thankh you.”

Again, the conversation petered out into awkward staring. He harrumphed. Then he bit his lip again.
Was he waiting for something in particular?

Again, the human's eyes frisked the pony's body nervously. They peered into his upturned floating helmet.
There, they came across something peculiar.

In the helmet lay a piece of paper.

Quickly, she gave him a searching, questioning glance.
"There's..."

His big eyes returned a tense, urging stare. He nodded, ever-so slightly.
The helmet floated a bit closer to her, waggling like a beggar's hat.
“As... as I said earlier...” he stuttered, “My name is Sergeant Golden Dirk. Canterlot Archives Security Command. Service number, Two, Two, Seven, Niner-”

“Edith!” A voice thundered over the hillock, sending a frightened shiver over both creature's spines.

Jolted, her hand speedily but hesitantly reached out for the paper and picked it out of the helmet. She briefly caught a glimpse of its contents. It looked like the copy of something handwritten, in an alphabet she could not deciphre. Probably Equestrian.

Before she could form the words to ask him about the strange way he passed this note onto her, the voice called out again.
“Edith!”
Turning around, she spotted Pierre running down the pathway towards the both of them. “Who was that?! What was he doing by my Jeep?!”

Edith tried to summon a quick explanation, but as soon as her attention settled back on the unicorn sergeant, she noticed he was gone.
The only thing he left behind was a track of hooves quickly galloping away and heading down to the main road, the crumpled paper in her hand, and an eternally confused human.

“Little shit!” the bearded official cursed as he reached the Jeep in a quick jog. “What was he doing here, loitering by my car? Did he try to get inside?”

“No, Pierre.”

“Was he asking stupid questions?”

“No, Pierre!”

“I tell you, if he tries to get into this car, that's a breach of extraterritoriality. Did you know that? They've got no right. Don't let them in your car either!”

“No! Pierre!” she repeated aggressively.
Inspecting the paper in her hands, she folded it shut and let it disappear in her backpack.

“What was that?”

She promtply ignored his inquiry and trudged past him.
“Just ghet me backh to my Land Rover. It must still be parkhed somewhere by the Everfree...”

He scrunched his teeth, then nodded knowingly.
After he unlocked his Jeep and had given it a thorough searching, they finally got in.
"I won't warn you twice." he advised her grimly, leaning over to her from the driver's seat. "Don't get intimate with those bastards now. Nothing good will come of it."

All the Bosnian forensic could do was to shake her head, lost in thought.
"I've had worse."

"Huh! You keep saying that like it means something!"

Author's Note

Hello, lads and ladies.
I greatly apologise for the delay, but university work has been rearing its ugly head again recently, as well as *insert standard life-related excuse here*.

Next chapter will be ready come next week. However, I can't promise that there won't be any more delays. Because, you know, see above.

Ayways, as always, enjoy and stay true!

XI. Good Intentions

XI.
Good Intentions

Kurhaus Hotel, The Hague
18. November, 2015
6:23 pm MET

Twilight Sparkle, Princess Of Friendship, had to say that she was impressed beyond words. The silver puller-less coach that drove her and her number one assistant through the brightly lit, almost gingerbread-like town of The Hague had fascinated her greatly.

Wide lanes, strange-looking vehicles and motley signal lights hypnotised her to such a degree that she nearly didn't mind the ever-lasting rain that kept staining the driver's windshield and the truly deplorable cold that greeted her when she first stepped out of the human flying contraption barely an hour ago. The weather certainly had a very Everfree-like vibe, but the humans and their town seemed so much more orderly and regimented than she was used from anywhere in her far-away Equestrian homeland.
She had always assumed that the humans were kind of savage, being meat-eaters and all. Now she knew that she had to show her friends in Ponyville and Canterlot how utterly misinformed their view of the human civilisation was.

The coach pulled past a few green lamps into the gateway of an illuminated orange brick palace crowned with a glass dome and four smaller towers.
While it was surely a sight to behold, the wide, square-like complex was not really impressive when compared with most regular Canterlot houses. It was not as tall or daring a construction.
But considering the human had to build it without any means of magic, she guessed it was daring in its own way.

"Is that our place?" a purple and green dragon asked, rubbing his eyes both in disbelief and fatigue. “It’s awesome. Right, Twilight?"

Twilight snapped out of her state of fascination.
"It is very nice, Spike. This whole town is simply stunning. I can't thank Princess Celestia enough for this opportunity."

“Well, neither can I.” Spike agreed before he was caught in a gaping yawn, revealing all his little fangs and the backside of his throat. “And the best thing is - it means I can finally go to bed.”

The Princess looked at him fondly. “Oh Spike. You've have earned it for sure. After all that fuss at the airport...”
Her face scrounged up at the memory of the incident that had kept them waiting in the arrivals lobby for more than three hours. “I still can’t believe that happened. How could they have been so foalish to think that you were a dog?! Wait until I tell Shining Armour all about this – he wouldn't even believe me.”

“Sheesh...” Spike sighed, slowly closing his eyes. “I’ve had worse. Though honestly, I could have at least expected them to mistake me for a fearsome mutant lizard, not a royal lapdog!”
He flexed his little arms’ muscles in a show-offy manner. “Luckily for them, they only got to see my benign side.”

The alicorn giggled at his boasting. “They were very lucky. Even I’d be afraid of your grumpy side. But tell me, wasn’t it awful having to spend all that time in such a small cage?”

The drake shrugged. “I wasn’t so bad. After 12 hours of being crammed into that other tiny tube everypony keeps calling ‘airplane’, all I had to do in the cage was close my eyes and...” he followed up with another yawn.

The princess, infected, yawned in accord, involuntarily stretching out her tongue out far further than was dignified.

“Anyway” the young dragon asked in weary diction, his eyes closed even tighter, ”How did you get me out?”

“Oh you know...” Twilight giggled, turning a little red, “I just sort of mentioned I was a Princess, and they were about to cause a grave international incident, and that I could easily had them relieved from their duty… and voila, they suddenly gave in to any request. Humans are... strange.”

“Humans are so… boorish, your Majesty....”

“Oh Spike, stop it.”

The coach had come to a halt. The human in the front quickly got out and ran around to open the coach's sliding door.
"Has the trip been to your liking, Your Highness?" he asked.

"Oh yes." Twilight chirped, almost to the point of squealing.

"The ILT... uhm... would once again like to send their apologies. The incident with your... assistant should never have happened. But you must understand that the Quarantine laws have been put in place for a reason, and that..."
The cock of one of Twilight's eyebrows quicky reigned the driver back in. Bashfully, he pointed behind him.
"Sorry. The entrance is right over there, behind the statue. Allow me to help you out of the car and carry your luggage, Your Highness."

"Thanks." Twilight said, going for a humble demeanor, and turned back around for Spike, only to notice that he had long drifted off to Princess Luna’s realm, as his loud snoring proved. “Oh dear.”
She grasped the sleeping dragon on top of her with her magic. "But I think that the least you could do is to take care of my Number One Assistant. But be careful. He's a baby."

The driver barely had time to wince in protest before the reptile in the purple mist floated into his arms.

Gladly, Twilight cantered into the grand entrance of the hotel, past two humans in matching blue hats and uniforms, and immediately espied the reception, which was located at the bottom of a flight of stairs which led up into a larger, even more opulent saloon.

Almost reflexively, she pulled an empty baggage trolley over to her with her telekinetic magic and led it along.

She was immediately confronted by a elderly concierge lady.
"How can I help you, Madame?" she asked as she looked over the counter at the equine.

"Oh my, you speak Fancy? How fascinating!" the alicorn squeed. "Anyway, I believe you have a room prepared for me and my assistant. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am observing the trial in the name of Her Majesty, Princess Celestia of Equestria."

"Twilight Sparkle. Uh..." the concierge uttered and looked the pony up in her computer. Then she looked back to her, pale and wide-eyed, and made a small curtsy.
"Oh, Princess Twilight Sparkle? I am so sorry, Your Highness. You were supposed to arrive over an hour ago. But... There still is a booked for your use on the 3rd floor, ready for occupation. If you would like to follow me to the -"
She stepped out from behind her desk, and narrowly avoided stepping into the way of the empty baggage trolley rolling past her, as if possessed by a vicious poltergeist. "...el... elevators?"

"Oh, sorry about that." the alicorn excused herself sheepishly and extinguished her horn. "I'm a bit... worked up from the trip and I wanted to pull some magic muscles. When do you have dinner?"

"We are having it right now, actually." the concierge explained cluelessly, "We were planning to organise a reception in your honour... But I am afraid that the appetisers will be brought out any minute."

Silently, the young crowned head heaved a sigh of relief. A reception? And in her honour at that?
Thank goodness she wasn't there to ruin it for everypony...

"The dinner is already underway, upstairs in the Kurhauszaal. But if you wish, I could still have you announced."

Twilight quickly jammed a hoof into the air and whispered, "Oh, no no. here's no need for that. I don't want to keep anypony from eating."

The concierge nodded.
"Then let me prepare a table for you. It's the least we could do."

"A thousand thanks, I am half famished. But... could you first bring my No.1 assistant up to our room? I don’t think he’ll be in any mood for dinner."

She referred the concierge to the discomforted cabbie standing in the entrance, rocking a suitcase-sized purple reptile in his arms.

She was quickly drawn to a table attended mostly by ponies. Before the waiter could show her to some free seats, she was all but jumped by a bright green pony with a carrot-red mane and a very official-looking collar.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle! Is that really you?"

Twilight backed up in surprise.
"Oh... hello there."

"Don't you remember me? It's me, Lexy. Lexy Fori!"

Only then did faint recognition dawn on Twilight. She knew that mare from Ponyville. She was the daughter of Mayor Mare, wasn't she? More than once had the pony guided her whenever she visited the Ponyville town hall and the archives. Not to mention that the pony used to frequent her library quite often. Lexy was a fairly pleasant, but inconspicuous acquaintance, so Twilight wasn't that familiar with her - she had certainly heard more of her through her mayorly mother than she had actually seen.
"Lexy Fori. Goodness, I haven't heard from you in a while."

Lexy smiled.
"I know, I was busy in Canterlot, studying hard to become magistrate."

"Ah yes, I remember. You always wanted to pick up books from the library that I never had in stock."

"Yes. I guess I didn't have any choice but to move."
The magistrate seemed a little out of breath by the surprise, barely. "This is all so overwhelming. That I get to see you again, and in such a distant place! You have no idea what you and your friends are to the good folks of Ponyville."

"Please..." Twilight begged modestly.

"Heroes.. My mother is very grateful for what you six did for our community. As am I." The judge proceeded to look around, perhaps a little surprised. “But where are Rarity the Tailor and Councilmare Applejack? And Pinkie Pie? Aren’t your friends here with you?” she asked.

"Unfortunately, no. As I am here on official business in the name of the other Princesses, I thought it would be better not to drag my friends into such a hustle as well. I wouldn’t have too much time for them.”

“I see.” the mayor's daughter nodded. “Though, I would have expected the Princess... I mean, Princess Celestia... to come herself.”

“She planned to, but it looks like she was tied up by some important business in Canterlot.”

“Important business?” she scoffed. “Twilight, what could possibly be more important than this? It's Queen Chrysalis' last stand.”

“I know.” Twilight simply answered.
Her voice somber, but determined. “That's why I came.”

“I suppose you deserve to watch more than most ponies. You and your poor brother.”

Her eyes lit up instantaneously. “Oh Shining Armour, yes. He should be here as well. He escorted the Queen all the way to Europe just for this trial.”

“So I heard.” Lexy confirmed “Strange, though. I haven't caught a glimpse of him ever since the first conference. Supposedly, he's guarding the Queen's cell as we speak.”

“You mean... ” Twilight's eyes were round with concern. She looked around momentarily. “He's not even here right now?”

“I don't think so, Twilight. Queen Chrysalis is notoriously deceptive, so somepony's got to have his eyes on her all day and night.

The Princess of Friendship sighed disappointedly.
“I wish I'll get to see him at least once while I'm here.”

“The trial will take its time. Enough time to squeeze in at least one goodwill visit.” she assured the alicorn, motioning a pat on her shoulder with a hoof, but mindful of not actually touching the princess. “Speaking of which... are you just here to report back to the Princesses about the proceedings?”

“Not quite. Princess Celestia asked me to help where I can. As I said, I represent her in spirit.”
Then Twilight noted the oddity of seeing her in this place, and asked, “What brings you here, though?"

"The Council of Harmony." the earth pony stated proudly and smiled.

Twilight returned the smile warmly.
"Oh. I have to congratulate for having made it, Lexy. After studying so hard - you deserve it."

The magistrate stumbled over her own words as she reached out for Twilight's hoof.
"No, Twilight, no, it is I who must congratulate you. On your... princesshood. I would have never thought that one from our very midst would ascend..."

"Oh, but that changes nothing, I promise." Twilight interrupted her modestly. "Wings and all."

The judge pulled up her own cushioned dining chair.
"Please, do take a seat."

The round was complete.
Twilight looked around; there were Magistrate Fori, three reporters from the great Hoofington and Canterlot broadsheets, a gentlecolt from Equestria Daily, two high-ranking officers of the Royal Guard, eight diplomatic envoys from the five biggest cities in Equestria, and a solitary human in formal green clothing.

"Psst! Uh, who is that?" she whispered to the magistrate.

"That is Doctor Serafina Pierman. She is heading the prosecution against Chrysalis."

The human nodded and smiled respectfully towards the Princess.

Twilight had immediately recognised that she was a female, and was perhaps the prettiest human Twilight had met. She had good, honest eyes and a merciful, humble smile. She was young, but also a little shorter than many others of her species. It almost made her more natural and comfortable to talk to than other humans.

"Please, Miss Serafina." the human prosecutor was addressed by a young, rather little male stallion sitting next to her, clad in a deep blue coat and a spiky yellow mane. "Come on, tell us a little bit about your work. I'm sure the Princess would love to hear!"

"Well," Sera started, perhaps a little shily, and ruffled the smaller pony’s mane amicably. "I actually wanted to save the speech for after dessert, but if you don't mind...
She stood up, and gently banged her crystal glass with a fork. Intentively, everypony turned towards her rising form.
"For those who haven't yet met me in person and have been wondering who the heck I am; this is the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court speaking. And I want to point out that, basically, it makes this whole trial... my fault."
The woman smiled, and so did most of the others, so Twilight assumed she didn't really mean it like that. "Truth be told, I have only been in this position for a couple of months, and this trial is the very first situation I have opened. Many... many have asked me 'why'. Why did I choose to approach the Principality of Equestria and asked them to cooperate in bringing their oppressors to justice by way of one of humanity's highest courts? Why would this matter to us humans? Shouldn't 'those equines' sort it out amongst themselves or something?"
She drew in an expectant breath. "I say, no. Because this is not the idea behind this court. It is not what this tribunal stands for, or what its work and efforts are supposed to underline. No. The ICC is solely bound to its principle, and not its species or racial allegiance. This court is supposed to stand up to senseless violence and injustice across the globe and say, 'Stop! Think of what you are doing. It is not right. It doesn't do good, only harm.'"
Her finger pointed across the table. “When I first read the extensive travel report on Equestria, written by the talented Mrs Mephisto only mere days after Equestria’s discovery, I was stunned. I was surprised. I was saddened. I had not realised how similar our two worlds were after all. Both of our societies, despite having grown out of completely different orchards, and supposedly shot into completely different directions, have been guided by the winds of love and violence like no other powers. Maybe, just maybe, the wind of love blew a little stronger in Equestria."
She gave the assembled equines a commending nod. Some of them nodded back respectfully. "Equestria is a nation that is more accustomed to peace than it is to war - which is something I cannot say about most human nations. And to see Equestria ravaged by the exactly same sort of crime as humanity - despotic, murderous, intolerant powers acting on the rule of 'might is right' - saddened me deeply."
Solemnly, she looked into the round. She acknowledged the royal sitting among them. "Princess Twilight... Would you agree if I said that Queen Chrysalis had overstepped her bounds, taking more than she deserved and was entitled to in her realm?"

"Yeah. Yes, I do." Twilight answered, her answer determined and strengthened by the ghastly memories of her brother being controlled and manipulated by the beast. The thought of her best childhood friend being trapped and replaced, torn from the side of her loved one by that scum. The sight of her Princess, her mentor, her second mother, savagely struck down by her own power.´"Yes."

"I have to ask: What makes Queen Chrysalis different from every common criminal in the guise of a responsible leader in these human lands? Her motives? Her deeds? Her intolerance? Her hate? Her utter ignorance of the rights of the individual?"
The human shook her head."No. Her species. Just her species. And what kind of an excuse would it be to let her off the hook just for that? Was it not a very similar policy of segregation that she followed? Of distinguishing between emotional and intellectual equals by nothing more than their race? She was the one who deemed those who were not under her rule, those birds who were not of her feather, not worthy of her deference and her caution."
She fell in silence for a second. Her expression faded a little as she continued. "I don't know how many of the present mares and gentlecolts have seen it, but less than an hour ago, I hosted a conference in the press room, in which I disclosed some... truly scathing,... frightening pictures of our search efforts to the public. You may all be aware of the UN operations taking place on Equestrian soil - searching for survivors, for witnesses, investigating and reconstructing the crimes, looking into the legacy of the same... we may have found our first major clue, uncovering a site that was once housed by Changelings.”

The mood at the table swung southward almost instantly. The faces of the pony guests deflated, the mentioning of that subject matter dropping down their stomachs like lead.

“It was a horrifying discovery. When I first heard of these news, I...” The prosecutor stopped again, taking a second to look down.
"I couldn't hold back my tears. I won’t lie. What had actually occurred in this cave shook me up from the inside.“
Then she placed a hand on her heart.
The dark blue stallion to her right put his hoof in her other hand and she squeezed it tightly. “And it was not simply because it clearly displayed the mindless cruelty of the Changeling regime for all the world to see. Indeed, it also riveted me because of how similar it was to what is going on in this world among humans. I myself, at a young age, experienced the horrors of a racist, discriminating regime first hand. I lost my father to its terror. So I know full well what it feels like to be at the receiving end of this cruelty."
She looked around the table. "But now I ask you: Should this court be stooping down to the same level by falling back to the same kind of intolerance?"

There was a split second of silence.

"No." a spirited voice proclaimed across the table, a hoof tapping resolutely on the table. It was Twilight, her face caught in a mixture of sadness and agitation. “Absolutely not.”
The other guests, both reporters and diplomats, were quick to agree with her loudly and proudly. Twilight was humbled by their reaction, shrinking into her seat a little. She wasn’t used to being this influential a role model for her ‘subjects’.

The prosecutor looked around.
"It would be one thing if the principles and laws wouldn't at all apply to Equestria and her neighbours, but they do! What we are doing here, right now, is bringing our societies closer together, under the umbrella of International Law. We are at the forefront of a new era of justice. We are the vanguard. And until the doubters on both sides of the vast Pacific understand that, it is up to this court to prove its worth."

Lexy Fori lead the ensuing applause by knocking her table with both front hooves. The others needed no invitation to do the same. The applause managed to drown out the conversations held at most of the other tables.

"I think this is why we are all here, Miss Serafina. Every single pony of us." The stallion added and patted the prosecutor’s back supportively.

"Thanks, Bram." the prosecutor replied softly as she slowly settled back on her chair.

"It is a matter of justice, not opinion." Lexy agreed persistently. "I honestly wish that all people in this room would think like you."
Without any pretense of discretion, the magistrate stared off into the far corner of the room. Then she visibly frowned, and shook her head at someone Twilight couldn't see.

"Is... something wrong, Lexy?"

"Sadly, yeah." the magistrate sighed. "Do you see that table over there?"
Again, she mouthed something not very pleasant at the designated table.

Twilight looked around, but spotted neither the table, nor the human in the crowd of people.
"What about it?"

"That's the table of the defence team. All sixteen of them."

"Defence? For whom?" the alicorn asked, confused.

"Queen Chrysalis. If you can believe that."

Twilight caught on quickly. She had read a door-stopper or two on the humans' international law. The roles and duties of every court and country were miles apart, but one this was entirely consistent; the wish that both sides be heard fairly. It was almost like a perk of human civilisation as a whole, in whatever form it was represented in every human country. It was only logical that Chrysalis would have the same treatment. Twilight was silently glad to know that even that wouldn't save her.
"What is the defence supposed to work with?" she asked the jurisprudents.

The prosecutor poured herself some secco.
"I'd predict that the defence team will try to clear her of her involvement in the crimes. They'd try to prove that it wasn't her idea at all."
As empathetic as Pierman was, even she had to roll the eyes.

"Yes. Like that will happen!" the magistrate agreed. "But what bugs me most about them is their attitude. I mean, it would be one thing if they just were open to all interpretations,... but they're staunchly taking that monster's side."

"Well... that's what they're supposed to do, right?" Twilight asked, a little bashfully.

"But does that mean they have to be blind to the truth?" Lexy asked back. "They're pretending that we are the liars. Like they knew Chrysalis better than us. I dare say, better than you, Princess- I mean... Twilight."

But the prosecutor disagreed.
"I don't know, Ma'am. Most of them seem to behave very professional. The Italian assistant counsel in particular, he seems like a decent guy."

Lexy nodded in agreement. “Oh yes, I know who you mean. He certainly has his heart in the right place, if you ask me.”
She looked over to the princess. “I suggest that you ask him on the whereabouts of your brother, Twilight. It seems Shining got recruited by the defence as a security advisor as soon as he had his horseshoes on the ground.”

“Actually...” Pierman hesitated. The human's kind expression dampened visibly. "You should better watch out for one guy when you approach the defence, your Highness - someone who really rubbed me the wrong way was that head defence counsel. Estermann, or whatever his name is. Honestly, I think he is a little..."
She swirled her index finger around the side of her head. "...a little strange."

"A little strange?! You mean that scarecrow who's sitting back there?" Lexy countered haughtily, again pointing off into the far end of the hall. "In my opinion, that human is exactly on the same wavelength as Chrysalis. He is either a complete foal, a complete jerk or... completely evil."

A small series of gasps made the rounds.
Evil? Twilight found it difficult to believe that. To her, most humans were more like a huddled mass of grey - beyond any typically Equestrian notion of good and bad - and even one with a lighter tendency, judging by most humans she had met.

"Evil..." Twilight repeated. "Do you really think that? Why or how did he become Chrysalis' attorney then?"

"Coincidence, succession, favouritism... Anything, really.“ the prosecutor shrugged.
But even then, the human seemed hesitant to agree with the magistrate’s harsh words. "A smart man once said that you shouldn't attribute to evilness what you could attribute to stupidity."

“Hanlon!“ Twilight exclaimed almost automatically.

The prosecutor widened her eyes.
“Very good. How did you know?“

“Uh... I remember to have read it somewhere... on my way to the airfield.“ she smirked abashedly.

“But yes. Estermann isn't evil - he's a pompous idiot.“

The purple alicorn nodded contemplatively, mentally grasping for her crystal glass. Only as she led it to her mouth did she notice it was empty.
"Oh my. Does anypony have the bottle?"

"Sorry, your Majesty." the blue pegasus called 'Beam' sighed, pushing an empty green one over with the tip of his wing and shaking it with both hooves. "It looks like we're sitting high and dry."

"To be perfectly frank,..." Lexy the judge added, "...I didn't care for that stuff anyway. What was it?"

"That was pear secco. From Germany." the prosecutor stated.

Twilight thanked the sun that Applejack wasn't here to witness this. She spied around for a waiter.
"I will order another one."
Then, the young princess had a better idea. "Or, better yet, I'll just go and see for myself if they have any cider. Which way is the trough?"
It could give her the chance to finally walk off the jet-lag and give her some precious minutes of privacy to explore the interior of the palace-like building.

But immediately, one of the Equestrian diplomats jumped up with a worrisome glare. It was apparent that he was a Canterlot breed.
"No, Your Majesty! I shall!"

Twilight thought it was nice of him to throw himself into the fray for his royalty, but her legs were itching badly.
"No need, sir. I'll be back in time for the appetisers."

"Are you sure about that, Twi?" Lexy asked, a little skeptic.

"Don't worry, everypony. I just feel a little stiff. I will be back immediately."

The spiky-maned pegasus, who was sitting and slipping around on his chair uncomfortably, jumped up at that sentence, as if it was a signal she was waiting for.
"I think I'll follow my Princess‘ example, and... go and wash my hooves in the guestroom.“

Twilight stood up as more and more of the guests at the table made little excuses to shake their limbs a little, and immediately headed for the other side of the hall.

At first, she gave up her quest to reach the bar after a mere minute of looking around.
She spent most of it looking up, appreciating the ceiling and its strange paintings of little naked humans with pegasus wings. She didn't 'get' all that abstract human art, but as she tried to understand, it dawned on her that absolutely none of the humans she had met had ever been without clothes. Why was that? Was it maybe an attempt to hide their inherent baldness?

With that question, the bar was out of her mind, as she trailed the room up and down, from the buffet tables to the grand piano with an earth stallion playing a clumsy rendition of the Pony Polka for the other guests, and back to the buffet tables.
Finally, after minutes upon minutes, her erect muzzle finally led her behind a corner into a separate lounge, separated from the ballroom by a wall, and the other side consisting of several panorama glass doors leading out onto the completely dark, autumn-stricken promenade and the beach. The rain still persistently prattled against the glass, but she was certain she could hear the roaring of the waves outside.

When she turned around, she found herself standing right in front of the bar.
'Huh,' she mused, 'Found it after all.'

In a corner behind the counter, she saw some kind of thick, bright, shining mirror. It displayed a clear, flat moving picture that was quite different from her reflection. She remembered that it was some kind of human contraption that worked not on the basis of magic, but of electricity and a little chemistry.
Before she knew it, she was already drawn in by the alluring imagery, and seated herself on one of the various free stools by the counter.

A disembodied voice spoke out,
"The Hague - Canterlot. There are new stirrings in the prelude to the Chrysalis trial."
The image then focused a delegation of well-dressed equines and humans, headed by a somber, small-built human in a green business dress, standing in front of a crowd of reporters.

"Hey... that’s Serafina!"
She even wore the same clothes. How could that be?

"Less than an hour ago," the narrator continued, "...the Royal Equestrian Diplomatic Service and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor's Office of the confirmed reports that a former warren of the dispersed Changeling empire has been raised by the Equestrian Army in the south-western Everfree region of the country. According to the most recent accounts, more than three hundred ponies, held hostage there for an unknown amount of time, were freed as well."

She took notice immediately.
Everfree? Those news hit uncomfortably close to home. Though they probably must have meant the Everfree Forest, not Ponyville or any other place - it would be ridiculous to assume that changelings could have had a hideout anywhere else without anypony noticing any sooner.

"The rescued victims were all members of the equine earth, unicorn and pegasus races. Most of them were recovered alive initially, even though they were extremely undernourished and in a critical condition. In the hours following the rescue operation, dozens died on the way to medical treatment. The International Red Cross has predicted that the number of casualties will increase drastically in the days to come."

'So close!' Twilight Sparkle cursed under her breath at the news. Those ponies had just been saved from the vile changeling imprisonment, and yet they were now dying away under the hooves of the Princess' own rescuers. So close!
It broke her heart.

"No changelings were found on the scene. Chief Prosecutor Serafina Pierman stated the following:"
The image cut to Serafina herself speaking. Twilight noticed her eyes – it seemed that her mascara was a little smeared.
"The team will be bringing these extraordinary findings as evidence at the expense of Queen Chrysalis' regime. The prosecution is convinced that this horrifying fate of these civilian captives is a direct product of the Changeling 'Empire's' actions. This is a significant, if only a relatively small part of the evidence that the court lacked up to this point. It backs up the charges, it confirms without a doubt that atrocities have been committed. Their rescue was not in vain."

The image panned out again.
"It's speculated there are dozens more such 'hives', scattered across the Equestrian island. The country's Ministry of Defence has announced that the search will be continued.“
The image switched to a crowd.
"In other news, the pro-human protests that have been taking place in front of various The Hague institutions since the beginning of the month, have risen to a new form of extremism today, as hundreds of protestors tried to block-"

"Oh for God's sake... can you kindly change the channel?!" a cranky voice suddenly mumbled from the bar.

Twilight espied the barkeeper leaning over to her right.
"Sorry, sir, the other guests still seem interested in this programme,"

"Ugh." the voice huffed.

Twilight traced it back to a human male sitting right next to her – strange that she didn't notice him sooner. Sitting there, he drew a very unhealthy picture of the human being; one didn't need to be an anthropologist to know that. He was slouched on the bar like a potato sack, reflexively combing through his greying mane and perpetually twisting a short empty glass in his hand. He had a very pale skin and dark rings under his eyes...
She could have easily mistaken him for someone tainted by the powers of Discord.

"I understand." she said, trying to sound uplifting. "I've been living in Everfree County for a long time. It... it is painful. But looking away never makes it better."

The person huffed, trying to ignore her. He brought his glass to a halt and peered into it. He seemed surprised to find it still empty.

Twilight took the cue, and addressed the barkeeper.
"Do you have cider?"

"Of course. What shall it be? Stella Artois? Kopparbergs? Flynn's?"

Sheepishy, Twilight asked a question she already knew the answer to.
"You don't... happen to have Sweet Apple Acres, do you?"

The barkeep looked back confused.
"I don't think so."

"That's what I thought. I would like to try your very best cider, and send more five bottles of it to the table of Serafina Pierman, please."

She heard the pale human eject an antagonistic sniff at the mention of the name.

"No problem, Miss." The barkeep said and vanished.

Quickly, the alicorn princess turned to the ill-looking human next to her, who had gone back to twisting his glass.
"Would you also like another drink?"

Twilight received a stare from him that was above all, confused and irritated.
She was just trying to be nice.

Some empathetic instinct clicked in Twilight's head. She didn't know if she genuinely wanted to help the down-trodden creature, or if it was her natural curiosity for the human specimen and their habitat taking over again.
"Is... something wrong?" she inquired meekly.

He shook his head, and proceeded to gaze back into the glass.

'What was wrong with his reaction to Serafina’s name?‘ she asked herself quietly. 'Does he know her from somewhere?'
“I hope you didn't mind me asking. You just seemed a little down.”

“I do mind...” the creature suddenly clarified in an agitated voice. “...and I'm not. I am sitting here, in peace, thinking.”

“Oh. Okay.” Twilight nodded, folding her hooves, but did not let the human out of her sights. "So, uhm... you're working for Ms Pierman too, aren't you?“

"...No.” came back the slightly delayed, caustic answer. “Believe it or not, there are still people in this room that don't work for the prosecution.“

"Huh, right.“ she chuckled. “I would say it's obvious, but... I admit that I'm a little out of my depth with the whole human legal system.”

“Well...” the human commented, “I would say that I'd be surprised that a prosecutor is 'out of depth' with her own job, but honestly, nothing could surprise me at this point.”

“I'm not a prosecutor.” Twilight objected. “Just an observer. Technically, I'm trotting on neutral ground.”

“Are you now?”

“What about you? Are you a court clerk?”

“Defence.”

Oh, defence. She could have guessed by his crestfallen mood.

"Ah. So you are one of... them.“
She smiled iffily, "How's it going?“

Now she had drawn the ire of the human onto herself.
"How it's going?“ he repeated in a scornful tone and looked at her. One hand lashed out to point up to the flickering television images. "Everything is going perfectly. Could you ask for more?“

"Sorry.“ Twilight sighed. “Ask a silly question, you deserve a silly answer.“

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Twilight's ears dropped.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. It's just that, from what I've heard, things are indeed going awry for the defence.”

"A rum to take away, please!“ the man shouted to the barkeep, and nudged around uncomfortably on his stool.

“But... but that doesn't mean that you don't deserve respect what you're trying to do.“

Now that seemed to surprise the man. Critically, he glanced over to her.

"I understand you're not doing it for... her.“ The alicorn explained. "You're not doing it as a favour for anypony. You do it because you believe in justice. You have faith in fairness and equality for everybody. And you know that it is your duty, no matter how painful it may be. You do it because you feel that being on the 'winning side‘ is not what it’s all about. It’s about integrity. It’s about giving everypony a chance. To try and make something better.“
She noticed the barkeep returning with a glass in each hand, which he swiftly placed in front of both of them. She turned towards hers. "I’m not saying that a tyrant like Chrysalis has a chance, or that she will try to be a better pony once this is over. But I agree that the idea alone is worth the effort. And hope's never done any harm.“

His eyes softened ever-so-slightly. Obviously, he knew exactly what she meant.

Twilight raised her glass with her magical grasp contemplatively.
"I mean, how horrible would it be if you didn't care? If you were only in it for the glamour or the social standing or – Celestia forbid – the money? Now that would be something truly inexcusable."

She noticed his face scrounging back up. Wordlessly, he grasped his rum and downed it. Then his face lit up a little.
"If you say so.“

She led the glass of cider to her mouth.
"Cheers.“

"Pröschtli.“

Gently, the princess savoured the human cider. It was different, of course. Not as sweet as typical Evefree cider, but, surprisingly enough, less alcoholic. Humans were known to be much less tolerant to alcohol than equines.

“That said... you have to admit...“ Twilight tried to evaluate the situation critically. "The case was terribly unfortunate from the outset. I know how much the fairness in a trail matters to you humans, but this trial never seemed, quote-unquote, fair. Do you know what I mean? The evidence is... just overwhelming. The crimes are clear-cut and unquestionably malicious. The ponies – and people – seem staunchly on the side of the prosecution. And your own work can't be any easier under a boss like that...”

“Well, you can't always choose your...”
Suddenly, the human gripped his glass. “Wait, what was that last thing?”

Twilight looked around conspicuously.
“Your... boss. East... Man, or whatever his name was.” she whispered. “From what I've picked up, he's not exactly the... the...”

“My boss? Esterm-” the human cut her off with an incredulous stare. “What did you... what did you 'pick up', exactly?”

The alicorn princess pressed her lips together shamefully. Perhaps she had said too much already.
“I don't mean to suggest anything. I haven't even met the colt... uh... man.”

“What did you hear about him?” the man asked again. He seemed strangely on edge. “And from whom?”

Nervously, the Princess looked down, “W-word's going around in the prosecution that he might not be the... most humble of creatures. That he's so caught up in his pride that he lost touch with reality.”

The man stared for another second. Then he sneered and leaned back, as if he relaxed a little.
“So this is what they think of... him.”

“Sorry.” Twilight begged and closed her eyes, feeling ashamed for fussing up something so unflattering. “Forget what I said. I am not a tattletale. I'm sure your boss is qualified in his own way.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” he remarked sarcastically, “If the prosecution says so, doesn't that mean it's true?”

“Okay...” Twilight said, “That's not what I said.”

“Good. Because that's just regular badmouthing rubbish, all standard fare. I get that all the time...” He bit his lip. “...As does he.”

“If you say so...” she agreed meekly.

The human let out a sigh and leaned back.
“The defence counsel... is someone who does not like taking the road more often traveled. Whether that makes him the greatest man in the world or a sorry idiot lies in the eyes of the beholder.”

The studious pony perked her ears again.
“You mean that... he likes to go over every detail? But that's not a bad thing at all.”
'Plus, one'd need to with Chrysalis' she added mentally.

“I mean that he apparently does not always know what's best for him. Or his client.” the man added bitterly.
He eyed the bartender, who was fast approaching with a new set of drinks.

“Meticulousness Is The Essence Of All Things Harmonious.” the unicorn quoted. “Starswirl The Bearded.”

“Hm.” the man mused as a new glass of rum was placed in front of him, and the old one gently yanked out of his hands. “Who do you work for again?”

“Uhm...” Twilight answered ominously. “Let's say... Equestria.”

“You're a civil servant.”

“In a way...” the princess confirmed hesitantly and grabbed her glass of cider. “Cheers.”

“Pröschtli.”

Both creatures downed their glasses and took a moment to swallow and collectively clear their throats before continuing in accord.

Estermann the head defence counsel in particular needed a moment to press his eyes shut after downing the corrosive substance, which might just as well have been floor cleaner for all he cared.

He didn't sit here and drink for the pure joy of it – he did it for the sake of drinking.
He had no taste for alcohol at all. He even liked to tell himself that it didn't really have an effect on him. In his eyes, it was just the thing other people did to unwind in stressful situations, the socially accepted step.
And the situation he was in was certainly stressful. Colm had been striking him a deal. It was all some kind of fixed game, and he was just lucky the final result would play to his favour.
But there had to be some kind of disadvantage to the whole scheme – one other than a mere loss of face for Queen Chrysalis. Losing face was easier to take than losing the head.

Glancing at his unlikely stool neighbour, he found it funny that now, of all moments, that purple pony was striking up that awkward conversation with him.
She wasn't quite what she seemed. But in what way?

“Things being as they are...” she reminded him in a humble, almost caring tone, “I just want you, and all you colleagues, to know... if you would ever need my help, or that of my Princess, don't hesitate to ask.”

“Very very unlikely.” Alex deflected her offer. She certainly had a lot of sweet nothings left for him and the defence. Was she even being genuine?

“But still. Even if you are Chrysalis' defence team, you're not our enemy.” she talked into him soothingly. “And neither are we your enemy.”

“If I had a fucking cent for every time I have heard that...” the counsel exclaimed. “I mean, look at yourself. You come here and demand my complete faith, and I don't even know your damn name.”

The mare smiled disarmingly, and struck out a friendly hoof.
“Twilight Sparkle, at your service. We kind of... skipped the whole introductory part, didn't we?”

Something in the back of his mind went click. Sparkle... Sparkle... Twilight Sparkle.
Didn't he know that name already? Where did he know it from?

“You can say that again,” he mumbled, “Ms... Sparkle?”

“Just call me Twilight. It's more personal.”

The lawyer waved her correction off, scratching his chin.
“Yes, yes. Alright. Of course. Pony customs. I heard it all before.”
Perhaps the rum was getting to him a little more than anticipated. “Dear Lord," he commented, "if you addressed someone in Switzerland by their first name as soon as you heard it, you'd get a punch in the face.”

The pony visibly frowned, but still forced herself to a sympathetic smile. “Well... then it's a good thing we're not in Switzerland.”

His eyebrows drifted upward.
“Oh, how the hell do you know where we're not? Since when do you ponies know this much about Europe?”

“Well...” the pony mumbled and look down. “I... did my homework before I came here.”

“Thank God at least one of you did.” he nodded and finally, if warily, clasped her waiting hoof to shake it.
It was hard, as keratin usually was, but nevertheless warm and welcoming.

But still, her name... Twilight Sparkle... of course he knew it. He had already once wondered once what a silly, if not outright stupid name that was. But when?
The lawyer retraced his steps. Out of whose mouth did he first hear it?

“Uh... could I get my hoof back now?” Twilight smiled.

He quickly let go of her limb and inquired. “Where... where have I heard your name before?”

Modestly, the pony shrugged again.
“Oh, I really wouldn't know.”

Indeed...
He did remember that... she mustn't know something... But what was it again?
Captain Shining... Captain Shining Armour told him something about that. The other day, in the cab...

Just like that, it all came back to him.

“Twilight...” he asked, leaning forward curiously, “Do you, by any chance, know a certain Captain Shining Armour? From the Equestrian Guard?”

Her eyes grew even as the words were coming out of his mouth.
“Yes! Shining Armour, he's my brother!”

“I see." the attorney stuttered. “Wait, what? You're family?”

“Yep.” she said with a big wide smile. “He's my BBBFF, don'tcha know.”

So that was the great mystery of the friendly purple mare. She was just the Captain's sister.
The human cocked his head. “Well... does that mean this isn't just coincidence that you're in The Hague?”

She shook her head. “You probably know how important this trial is for my brother.”

"It's his job, isn't it?"

"It's more than that." the pony explained, worry crossing her equine features. "This is personal."

Mystified, he looked up. “Aha. What happened?”

Twilight eyed him uneasily. “Let's just say that... Queen Chrysalis once did something very hurtful to him.”

“We're not just talking about what happened on the tarmac last Sunday, are we?”

Her eyes looked up, alarmed. “W-what happened, where?”

"You didn't know?"

She didn't know?
Estermann bit his lip, averting his stare from the mare on the stool next to him in contemplation.
He remembered the confession that the Captain had made to him in the cab the other day. He asked him, begged him even, not to tell his sister. And now she was here. He had probably anticipated her turning up sooner or later.
Whatever happened during the flight, it left him off almost as badly as his prisoner. And he really didn’t want his sister to know.

"Nothing in particular.“ He quickly lied. "He is up and well, if you were worried about that.“

She eyed him sceptically.
"You know, it's just that he and Chrysalis... they're very much at odds.“

"I could have guessed.“ Estermann confirmed, reminiscing of the enraged shouting contest in the cell the other day. "It almost seems like they have some history. And not of the good sort.“

"If you can even call it that...“ the Princess explained painfully, her tone reduced almost to a whisper. "It was at his wedding. She crept into Canterlot, abducted his fiancée, Princess Cadence, and took her place, posing as her.“

Well, the lawyer couldn’t suppress a snigger.
"Scheiße... Are you serious?“
How didn't that big white idiot notice?

"It wasn’t funny.” Twilight told him, perfectly frank. “Chrysalis cast a spell on him when he began to suspect something was wrong. It made him lose his free will and betray Princess Celestia on his wedding day, letting the enemy into Canterlot. He had no idea what he was doing. I mean, thankfully, I managed to find Princess Cadence, and she snapped him out of it before it was too late. But Shining's never been... quite the same ever since.“
She winced a little bit as she remembered. "You should have been there when he got word that Queen Chrysalis had been captured. Or rather, you shouldn’t have.“

"Alright...“ he said, reconsidering. Maybe it wasn’t a laughing matter after all. Now he understood that the Captain was traumatised man... stallion. Another victim of Queen Chrysalis‘ deception, even.
He knew he would have to bother with feeling sorry for misjudging his state at some point.
Of course, he couldn’t exactly empathise with him about that. Of course, Estermann had no idea how such a 'spell' felt, because he wasn’t even sure it was possible until now.
And he knew, of course, that this changed nothing.
Rather, it begged the question why the hell the Equestrian Princesses would order a vengeful, love-sick soldier to take on a delicate assignment such as this one.

"He didn’t do anything to her, did he?“ Twilight made sure.

'Well, I sincerely hope not!' Estermann just thought to himself.
As much as the lawyer had tried to prove that this was exactly what had happened those few hours, he couldn’t bring himself to mention it to the young mare.
So he shook his head, with a nervous hand cowering in front of his mouth.
"Don’t think so.“

"Thank Celestia.” she said, now a little sick with concern.“I must see him, and make sure he's alright. Would you know where he is?“

He just shrugged. "In the Prison in Scheveningen, I suppose, guarding the Queen. I am going there myself tomorrow.“

"Oh, can I come?“ she asked, with wide, hopeful eyes beaming up at him.

"...I don't know. Are you on their guest list?"

She swayed her head unsurely.
"Probably not. But I'm sure, very sure, that they'll let me pass. I only need somepony to take me to Shining."
She looked up at him for a long moment.

“Me?” he asked.

“...If it wouldn't be counter-productive to your work, I mean...”

“I'm not sure... How... close are you to the Equestrian government exactly?” he mumbled, careful to make absolutely sure there was no scheme involved.

“I can assure you: not close enough to hamper state of the defence in any way. I just want to check on my brother.”

Estermann leaned on the counter, considering the risks of giving the mysterious Equestrian official a lift to the facility where the Queen was interned.
He could already imagine her sneaking off behind his back, prowling her way to the Queen's cell to issue a personal, direct threat to Chrysalis, to intimidate his client in the name of the Equestrian Princesses, and to embarrass him...

Or at least that's the way his thoughts would have gone, if a hoof hadn't abruptly touched his back and sent him jolting upright.

"B-boss?“ A third voice suddenly chimed in.

Both the lawyer and the princess turned around in surprise.
There was a familiar aqua pony behind them, looking up at the man with some concern.
"I just wanted to let you know, they're now bringing out the Hors d'oeuvre... uhm, the Man d'oeuvre.“

"Only now?" He moaned exasperatedly. "Alright, I’m coming. I suppose that's the cue to call it a day. If you excuse me, Miss Sparkle...“

“Wait, wait...” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed when he slid down from his stool, taking his glass of rum with him. “Does that mean I can come with you?”

“Well, if there's nothing more to it, then why not?”

Only when Lyra turned towards the second voice she noticed that there was a purple pegasus sitting next to Estermann. A purple pegasus with a horn on her head.

Gasping, she dropped her front portion in a deep equine bow as she realised who was sitting there.
"Twilight. Princess! Your majesty. I- didn’t know...“

“Uh... hi there... Lyra?” she stuttered.

Startled, the lawyer eyed the huddled unicorn, and slowly let his stare settle on Twilight Sparkle, who was squatting on her stool with an embarrassed, uneasily smile on her face. He was less staggered by the fact that the two seemed to know one another, and more by the way one had just called the other...
“Princess.”

“Heh...” Twilight sighed, “Yeah.”

“You... are a Princess.”

Twilight shrugged. “Probably should have mentioned it, huh?”

His eyebrows rose prominently.
Slowly, he looked at her, inspecting her tremendous wings and the larger-than-average horn sticking out of her mane. Then he gave the insides of his own glass a long, inquisitive look.

“I...” she murmured, “...try not to mention my title if I don't have to. It spares a me a lot of awkward moments.”
She laughed, trying to bring a light-hearted tone to the revelation. It didn't exactly work. “I hope... it changes nothing...” she ascertained shyly.

“Well... not really... no. I suppose...” Estermann hesitantly answered, awkwardly trying to process the fact that he had been drinking with one of Equestria's rulers for the last half hour or so. "Unless there will be any more 'surprises'."
Civil servant? Yeah right... She wasn't with the Equestrian government, she was the Equestrian government. It certainly didn't make the circumstances any less suspicious.

"Oh, I assure you, I've told you everything now!" she promised.

Rattled, he chose to swallow all the things he suddenly wanted to ask her or face her about for the early morning of the next day.
“Well, Princess... fine. See you tomorrow morning. At nine, in the ICC”
He glanced at his – still bowing – assistant, and slowly began to walk away. “Lyra, bei Fuß. The appetisers are waiting.”

“S-sure thing, Mr E.” she stuttered, looking up, averting Twilight's own surprised gaze.
Estermann didn't even notice how meekly the unicorn tried to slip out of the room behind the cover of his back, and neither did Twilight, at first.

“Tomorrow... ICC... yep, no problem!" she confirmed as he walked past her, "And... uhm... what was your name again Mr...?”

'Oh. Right.'
Pained, the defence counsel looked on the ground, and, after a hesitant pause, answered. “Alexander Estermann. Attorney at Law.”

The Alicorn Princess gulped terribly as the attorney and his rather petrified assistant departed.
The Estermann? That was him?

Tomorrow would surely be a fun day for everyone involved.

Author's Note

Also, another little thing:

I swear that I have heard and seen nothing of this comic until barely a week ago.
Hell, I even had Chrysalis' backstory, with crimes and all, written down on my first draft way before this comic was even announced. And it was highly reminiscent of the backstory the comic gave her.
Uncanny I say, uncanny. Minds think alike when it comes to Chrysalis

And even though this is is supposedly canon (and at the same time, not really), I am not entirely sure how (or if) I will include her IDW backstory here.
Let one thing be said though: Even her IDW-backstory is immensely war crime-tastic. It ought to be very interesting to work with.

XII. War for the Ear

XII
War for the Ear

Kurhaus Hotel, The Hague
19. November, 2015
4:08 am MET

The freezing morning mist had returned to the city behind the dunes.

Alexander awoke early that morning, much earlier than what he was used to. Maybe it was an indigestion from the previous evening's three-course vegan scoffing. Or maybe it was a night of unnerving nightmares he didn't remember. Whatever it was, it had robbed him of the lust to sleep.

At four in the morning, he had opened his eyes and coughed out some of the ventilated air of his room, the buzzing of the air conditioning tingling in his ears. By five, he had suited up and fled. He checked out by some red-eyed receptionist of the graveyard shift, who asked him if he should call him a cab. Estermann let the thought linger at first, but then he declined, choosing to walk out into the forsaken, shrouded suburban streets. He felt a sudden desire, one he hadn't felt in years – he wanted to stretch his legs. He wanted to contemplate his next step, just for himself and far away from other living beings.

In the glow of the still burning streetlamps, he saw the distant yellow flashes of dustcarts slowly pacing their early morning route and collecting the waste before it could spoil the onsetting day. While everything was fairly peaceful, it wasn't a silent morning. Echoing through the November moisture, he could hear the occasional siren wailing in the distance, the sound of nearby highways echoing over the roofs, and the roars of the waves rolling onto the abandoned holiday beaches up the street from where he was walking - the Netherlands being one of those few places in the world where one had to walk uphill to reach the sea.
The long-established “Schluchtenscheisser“ that he was, Estermann had always considered the sea to be something distant, something exotic. Everything that was related to it, whether it be the crisp salty air, or the layer of impregnable clouds above his head that almost never quite extended itself beyond the horizon of the Atlantic, left him suspended in a mild state of astonishment, a completely different state of mind. He regretted it that his way to the court didn't lead him by the beachside, but only down a straight road of samey upper class bungalows and muddy greengrass belts. The best he could hope for was the view on the beaches from a safe distance of his fourth floor window.
The ICC buildings weren't exactly next door, but he would probably still arrive long before the doors even opened.
He could always take a slight detour...

Pulling the flat cap over his forehead, he meandered onto the promenade, past closed and shuttered beach bars, fish restaurants and Matjes booths, their red and blue and white neon signs still switched off for the night. He realised was going to be a lonely, uneventful walk. At least the salty wind that whistled around his ears turned it ever-so slightly into a refreshing, sobering sensation.
Most extraordinarily, Estermann neither felt bleak, nor did he feel forlorn. For seemingly the first time in days, his gut was firm, tense with the adrenalin of excitement rather than fear. He didn't feel that his case was hopeless anymore, his work didn't seem futile. The talk he had the other day with the scientist convinced him that opportunity was playing him a ball - he saw possibilities and choices unfolding before him like blooming spring flowers. There was a way to bail out the Queen. How practical it was or much sense it made were matters for another time.

As he waded by the stone quay steps and contemplated the puffs of air freezing before his eyes, his body always facing the onslaught of waves rolling onto the beach from the darkness, he felt something that he had been expecting even less – his phone in his pocket suddenly began to erupt in vibration.
Did the world want him back already?

With his pale, stiff hands, he reached for the mobile, clumsily twisting it around several times before finding the right way to slide it open.
There was indeed a call incoming.

“Estermann speaking.“ he harrumphed hoarsely.

“Ahoy there. Good morning, Mr E!“ a high-pitched voice answered, jovial but quite out of breath.

In his contemplative early morning state, he didn't immediately recognise the speaker.
“Who is this? Hello?“

“Uh... it's Lyra.“

“Oh... you. Good morning, Heartstrings.” Estermann yawned, still confused. “Have you looked at the clock recently?”

“Yep. It's... um... ten past five, local human time. What'cha doing?” she asked innocently.

A speechless smile crept over his face.
“W-what I am doing? What I am doing?”

“Yup.”

“What do you think I could be doing at ten past five in the goddamn morning?!”

“I would have expected you to... you know... be asleep and stuff.”

“Yeah.” Estermann nodded haughtily.

“But... since you're already up and running for a day at the beach, I thought it was good that I wouldn't be rousing you out of bed if I called you.”

He stopped in his tracks. He had taken care to leave the hotel silently and discretely.
“How the hell do you know what I'm doing or not?”

Just turn around for a moment.”

Phone in hand, he did just that and looked in the direction of the Kurhaus. Under the yellow glow of a promenade light, he spotted the silhouette of a small equine cantering down the promenade towards him.
“Who the... Is that you?” he stuttered into the speaker, before giving it a confused glance and terminating the call.

He let the unicorn catch up with him. She had a fluttering pink scarf wrapped around her throat, and all four hooves had been stuffed into comical-looking hoof-muffs. There was an open saddle bag, chock-full with crumpled paper, strapped to her back. Floating by her right ear was a shining new mobile phone of her own.

“Have you been following me?” the solicitor inquired in a confronting voice.

“I... was in the lobby. I caught a glimpse of you checking out. I waved, but you didn't see me.” she tried to explain as she closed in.

“And what brought you to the lobby at ten past five?”

She rolled her eyes, as if she was being questioned about something ridiculous.
“I was waiting by the Fascimile Telecopying Machine. I expected an important stash of documents coming my way.”

“Fascimile Telecopying Machine? Hang on, do you mean a fax?”

She nodded avidly.

“Ah. From whom?”

“Oh, a very good friend of mine. You see, her old teacher’s son’s neighbour's boss' wife's florist's sister-in-law works as a clerk for the Equestrian Royal Geographical Society, and she was so kind as to organise a care package full of maps for me. It was just 9 am an hour ago in Canterlot, so I thought now is a good time as any to get in touch with her.“

Had the aqua mare really just developed a sudden fascination with cartography?
“Heartstrings...What are you doing?”

Giddy to answer his question, the unicorn pulled a ball of paper out of her saddle bag's stash, and catapulted it into the lawyer's unprepared hands.
“Let's see... here we have the Maps of Timbucktu and surroundings, circa 1 AD, and Trot and surroundings, circa 30 AD. I've ordered geographical maps, political maps, altitude maps... everything we could ever ask for. Well, except for the nautical maps. Mr E, please remind me to get some nautical maps!”

Struggling to hold on to the unsorted stashes of unfolding A3 papers, he stumbled forward in a futile attempt to catch all of them.
“Heartstrings! Rewind, rewind! Please explain why you've ordered all those maps of Timbuktu?” he asked her sternly. “Your efforts to discover humanity for yourself are all well and good, but don't you think there are more pressing matters you could be delving into?”

“Timbucktu, Mr E.” she aptly corrected him, whirling papers around her own head in a clumsy attempt to quickly sort them out. “Site of the first attack. I have to say, that’s some very intriguing stuff she's dug out!”

“Oh... First attack... oh.”
Only now did Estermann manage to catch on. “Have... any details on the charges been leaked?”

“Leaked? No. Last night, at precisely Zero o'clock, the prosecution made the material on the charges freely available to all whom it may concern.”

His eyes travelled up in thought as he tried to remember the previous night. But his memory terminated somewhere between nine and ten pm.
“Midnight, midnight... I think I was already in bed at midnight. Those files were probably meant only for later today.”

“I know. But what 's the classical human saying again?” she grinned, “'The early bird...'”

“...kann mich mal, I know, I know.” He raised an eyebrow. “You do love those maxims, don't you?”

“Sure do. And that's why I volunteered to man the night shift for you, just in case any documents came in.” she explained proudly before breaking into a giggle.

Her 'boss' looked over the black-and-white outlines of a medieval, tightly-packed city fastened by massive walls he held in his hands, and smiled.
That aqua unicorn impressed and elated him more and more by the moment.
“My God… you really are a gem. Are you telling me that you stayed up the whole night not only to receive the prosecution's documents before anybody else, but also to order in-depth evaluation material on its contents straight away?”
For all his gratitude, even he didn't notice her bowing her head with a quivering smile and blushing under her greenish coat. “So... do tell. What's the situation, Ms Heartstrings?”

“Oh, I just had the hardest time sleeping tonight.” she explained, still with a smile. “I don't know why. It must be those uncontrollable human weather patterns. My head feels like a hot air balloon, if you know what I mean...”

“I mean the the Queen's situation.” he clarified.

“Oh. Ahem...”
She inhaled before launching into her burst of obviously pent-up information. “The prosecution has apparently decided to focus on four separate incidents they themselves have picked out of Chrysalis' life. all happening in and around Northern Equestria, all happening in the last thousand years...”

“And... stop.” Estermann interrupted her, trying to organise the papers in his hands into a neat stack. “One thousand years, did I get that right?”

“Ugh, silly me.” she smiled and bumped her head. “I mean one thousand Equestrian years. It's a product of our... flexible annual patterns. Since we basically make our own seasons anyway, some years end up shorter, and some turn out longer. Usually shorter, though.”
She grinned. “Which is, by the way, why I have been wondering so much about those 'dastardly' human weather patterns are so unchecked...”

“Heartstrings.”

“Sorry. According to my calculations, we're going back... maybe... seven hundred human years, give or take a tenner or two.”

He let out another laugh and snorted. “Come on, listen to yourself. Are you telling me the prosecution's still intending to go back...” it took him a second to count, “...thirty… f-five generations? How is this even relevant to the Queen's case anymore?!”

“Queen Chrysalis is...”
The unicorn closed in for a hushed, supposedly unflattering remark, “...older than she looks.”

He had no idea how old the changeling 'looked', but he was certain that was still a ridiculous number,
“You're telling me Queen Chrysalis is... more than half a millennium old?”

Smirking, she shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Good.”

“She's definitely older than that. More like a whole millennium. One and a half, tops.”

His jaw was so slack that he almost needed to push it shut with the stack of paper in his hands.

“B-but that's totally nothing out of the ordinary, Mr E!” she assured him loyally. “Many ponies in Equestria can get... very very old. Some more powerful equines are even older than other... regular... very very old ponies. And creatures like Chrysalis could easily pass as those equines' seniors!”

“Ach du meine Fresse... what are you horses eating?“ he inquired half-bemused, half-blown away.

“...Hay, mostly.”

It was too early in the day for this sort of thing.
“Right, right. For... argument's sake... my client is almost a millenium old. What has she been accused of perpetrating?”

“In this case, attacking the cities of Timbucktu, Trot, Kiger and Canterlot.”

“Timbuktu... in Mali?” he enunciated with an open mouth. “Did the Queen do a stint in Africa, or am I just mixing things up again?”

“You probably are.”
She hesitated, magically stuffing her bag full of paper again. “Uh... weren't you planning to go somewhere just now?”

“I was. I was planning to get some fresh air before court opened.” he explained and pointed a thumb down the perfectly flat beachside.

She needed no second invitation.
“How about I tell you all about Timbucktu on our way there?” she grinned. “I know I'd love to get a whiff of some of that fresh human sea air!”

“So, as I said earlier, the Queen never struck any place further south than Canterlot, so... there's an interesting pattern.”

“Go on.”

Crossing small promenade plaza past an withered sandstone world war memorial, the two creatures trotted on, with brightening morning sky on their right. The oceanic wind blowing into their ears began to subside gradually, but the fog and gist began to thicken - and that, despite Lyra's best attempts to lift it from the past life and deeds of the Queen.

“Anyway.” Lyra continued her exposition, tugging her scarf with her magic, “Timbucktu is – or at least, it used to be – an enormous floating city in the skies above Mustangia, just north of Canterlot. In early 5 AD, it was assaulted by about sixteen thousand Changelings - but I have to mention that this was Equestrian 5 AD - we have a different time measurement, and AD stands for After-”

“Don't bother, I'll take your word on that.” Estermann spurred her on with a free hand, “What’s a 'floating city' though? Is it one of those... I don't know... cities on the clouds that everyone keeps gushing on about?”

“The first of its kind, in fact. It was widely considered a marvel of Pegasus workponyship before it was destroyed.”

“One Timbuktu like the other.” he nodded ironically.

“Uhm, well yeah. The town was completely razed in the attack, and about everypony living there was apparently... either enslaved by the Changelings or wiped off the face of the clouds. The overall toll was, and I quote, a 'two score of thousand ponies lost'. After destruction, the once proud city was only known as 'the citadel that fell out of the sky'. They found all sorts of records about it in the Canterlot Archives, though none went into too much detail beyond some cryptic anecdotes.”

“What about the other incidents? Were they any better documented?”

"All of them were extremely well documented... once. A lot of it was lost with time. So the more recent the attack, the less of a mystery is it for us. Take the incident at Trot, for example, almost two decades later, in early 21 ad. The modus operandi of the changelings remained mostly the same, but it had evolved, apparently. Here, there were two assaults. The first was another frontal assault from the air, but it was beaten back by the City Guard. The second was launched the following day, using a very elaborate ruse that... got a little muddled in different historical accounts.”
She skimmed a page with a fascinated cock of her eyebrows. “Nopony's quite sure what that ruse was, but the most popular myth is that of infiltration by way of a giant-”

“Let the myths be myths, Heartstrings.” Estermann waved her off and pouted condescendingly. “Leave the artistic details to the prosecution, they´ll need them. Let's stick to the facts for now. What was the death toll?”

“It was lower than in Timbucktu, around maybe Ten Thousand. The pillaging of the overrun city was interrupted by reinforcements from Equestria, led by Princess Celestia herself.

"What, are all Equestrian rulers walking cadavers now?" he laughed.

Lyra nodded cheekily. "Don´t tell her that, though. In fact, let’s better not discuss anypony’s age from now on."

"If you say so."

"Anywho, the princess had been tipped off about the first attack. She took Queen Chrysalis and her whole flock prisoner and locked them away, but they managed to escape.”

Surprised, Estermann threw a glance at the paper the unicorn was reading off of, but it was still in Equestrian.
“Is that so? That's nice to know. Her Royal Highness is no stranger to captivity then?”

Lyra shrugged. “And then she high-tailed it out of there. But how? That's another thing nopony can explain. She just... bam!”
The pony skipped on the sandy brick for emphasis.

“Bam?”

“She just smashed her way through a mountainside with the force of a fully grown dragon. And mind you, it was meant to be an inescapable prison!”

“Oh well, and the Titanic was meant to be an unsinkable ship. Moving on.”

“Aye aye." She flipped a page. "The next incident took place many years later, in 259 ad. It was one of a series of severe changeling raids, which had become something of a weekly occurrence by then. So by that point, the Equestrian Royal Guard had actually long caught on. They sent an entire brigade of soldiers to garrison up towns on the frontiers in northern Equestria, with another brigade securing the outskirts. But the changelings turned the tables, intercepting them on the outskirts of Kiger, the hamlet they were heading to. Apparently, the Guards found themselves hopelessly outnumbered. They fought, but they didn’t last long. So they tried to negotiate with the Changelings. The Changelings supposedly ignored them, and there was a massacre – the brigade was lost to a colt.”

“Brilliant.” Estermann snarked.
Absent-mindedly, he began to search his pockets with one hand, holding on to the Equestria expert’s paper with the other.

“Drunk with victory, they then sacked Kiger too, just for good measure, I suppose. All in all, there were about twenty thousand ponies taken out.”

The lawyer sniffed and nodded. “Any records about Changeling casualties?”

He heard her turn a page.
“Nah. Nothing. I guess nopony bothered to keep toll.”

“Probably because there wasn’t anyone quite alive enough left to keep counting.” Estermann mumbled and followed up with a humourless laugh, “Who was the commanding officer on the scene?”

“Uh, a certain Lord Cleaver from the Royal Mustangia Cavalry.”

“On the Changelings’ side, Lyra!”

“Well… Queen Chrysalis, I guess.”

“Does it say Queen Chrysalis was in command of the Changelings?”

She turned another page.
“Nope. It says nothing concrete about the command-”

“That’s what I wanted to know.” Estermann smirked. “This is what we'll hold them to. And what about Timbucktu? What about... that place after Timbucktu?”

“Nada, Mr E." she declared and shook her head. "You're right though. I have been feeling rather queasy reading through these manuscripts myself,simply because you have to take its word that Chrysalis was even around."
Then he glanced up at him with a concerned look. "But good luck doing anything about it."

"What does than mean?" he inquired, challenged.

“Queen Chrysalis' 'involvement' in all three attacks is... is... well... common knowledge. It's the first thing any filly learns in history class. Like that one famous mourning soliloquy of Starswirl The Bearded...” She shuddered and ground her teeth. “Ugh, I hated that one. Fifty-five verses, by heart?! Really, Ms Holly?”

“I am not 'any filly', Lyra.” the lawyer reminded her. “Common knowledge is a... dangerous substance. Who, do you think, makes this common knowledge?”

“Hm… I’d think everypony adds their share.”

“And?” he asked, “Would you trust ‘everypony’? Would you let some random loudmouthed, drunken yarn spinner from the boondocks of Equestria contribute to your defence? It would never pass in court.”

She had to blow her pony lips hard on that question.
“Now, I know not everypony’s always gonna be honest with us...”

“Oh bless your heart, Lyra.” the human moaned. “Let me tell you a little story from our own history.”

“I'm all ears!” she grinned with automatic enthusiasm.

“Then hold onto them...”
He stared out into the sea. “A little less than three hundred years ago, an old man walked into the parliament of the most powerful empire in the world. He was a sailor who had an interesting story to tell. He complained to the mightiest people of their time that his ship was boarded by the coast guard of a much-hated rival nation. The soldiers ravaged the ship, stole as much as they could carry, and battered their way through anyone who dared stand in their way. Before they left, they pinned the old man down and sliced off his left ear with a cutlass. He carried it around as a novelty bauble ever since, his ear.”

Lyra's own ones folded inward painfully at the mention.
“Oh- ouch! What the hay did they do that for?”

“That's what the people in the parliament asked. They couldn't comprehend the impunity of soldiers plundering the ship of another nation, torturing the sailors, and then getting away with it scot-free. The empire was vying for revenge.”

“What happened?”

“Simple. They couldn't let this crime go unpunished. So they declared war. They marched on the dreaded foe over land and over sea. Battles were fought over two continents and three oceans for almost ten years. More than twenty-five thousand people threw away their lives in the fight. And it laid the basis for a century worth of conflict and continuation wars. By all standards, this was one of the first modern world wars ever.”
He shook his head. “All over an old man's ear.”

“Weird.” the unicorn commented and weighed the odds. “But to be quite honest... those soldiers really shouldn't have done that thing. I mean, that was heinous! They kinda had it coming!”

“Now here is the really despicable part.” the lawyer interjected. “It was all a damn lie.”

The pony's big eyes shrunk. “C-come again?”

“The old man's story. It was made up. He probably never was boarded by soldiers, and neither had he ever been tortured.”
Estermann grinned morbidly. “He was a convicted smuggler who had lost his damn ear in a drunken brawl many years beforehand.”

Perplexed, the unicorn fell silent.
“I don't get it. Why did he say all those things then?”

Esterman just shrugged. “Some say it was because he was senile and crazy and couldn't tell reality from his imagination. Others say it was because he was a lonely bastard who sought fame and recognition for something that never happened to him. Again others say he was paid off by a minister and told to give the empire a good casus belli against the enemy.”
Contently, the lawyer clarified, “But the point is moot. Because if we learn anything from this, we come to one important conclusion. Lyra...”

She ducked uncomfortably before answering.
“That there are many ponies who are either deceitful or self-centered and occasionally gullible... dummies.”

“Ah, not quite.” he answered, “It proves how far you can go with a good story, in the right place, at the right time. If it rings the Zeitgeist, it rings true.”

“I’m pretty good at spotting a fake.” Lyra immediately boasted.

“Yes, but you don’t need to be liar to tell a lie. Like I said, Heartstrings, there are plenty of morons and lunatics out there who'd eat their own navel fluff if you told them it was candy floss.”

“Ew. Don't they need some sort of evidence to go along with their story so this sort of thing doesn't happen?” she asked. “I mean, anypony could otherwise come along and spoon something completely ridiculous. ”

“And they do. All the time.” the lawyer concurred. “But the problem is, even if your story is factual, how can you back it up at times? Often, you don't have more to support your account than the clothes on your back, and...”
He looked up and down her mare's body, “sometimes, not even that.”

The mare shook her head.
"Okay, I don't get it. So how can we know what's lies and what's the truth?"

That question even left Estermann stumped, even if only for a second.
“Well, for starters, lies only become lies once they're disproved. The same goes for misconceptions and... facts otherwise potentially diverging from reality. It doesn't need to be right, it only needs to be not wrong."
Again, he shrugged. “The truth is... a malleable substance, Heartstrings. It is the version of events that the judges, gathering from the sum of both parties’ arguments, have decided to agree upon.”
He smirked. “Hey now, there’s a valuable maxim for you!”

“And here was I, thinking the truth is all facts.”

“All facts are truthful. But not all of truth is factual. See the difference?”
And with that, he reached for something inside his breast pocket. “As I said, good luck finding facts, asserting facts, presenting facts... But in the meantime, you need have to get evidence ready. Something to fill the gaps, at least for the interim.”

“Even... even if it involves an ear that was never cut off in the first place?”

Estermann bared his teeth as he smiled.
“If available...”
He pulled something out. It was little package of cigarettes. “You don't have a problem with the defence taking a determined position in their client's favour, do you?”

“Well...” Lyra choked. Her eyes softened somewhat, and after some moral-sorting time, she admitted. “I guess not. But what's the price?”

“As you can see, it's not like the prosecution is shying away from it either. We just shouldn't be lagging behind.” the lawyer clarified defensively. Shaking a cigarette poking out of the package, he raised his eyebrows in alert.
“Speaking of which... What I really want to know at this time is where Pierman and her thugs get their ideas from – and get their certainty from! – that Chrysalis actually was present in Timbucktu and elsewhere. If it's all bluff and baseless conjecture, then fine. But... if it turns out there's more to their case than the old hearsay and ancient mythology... then we've got a problem.“

Lyra’s big round eyes tracked the cigarette's way out of the pocket and to the human’s lips.
“And… and by… ancient… I mean problem… do you… do you mean...”

“Hm?” Estermann mumbled as he pulled out a cigarette with his mouth.

Her look glistened hungrily.
“Sorry to bother… but is that a smoking stick? A real one?”

“Ahm… well yes.”

Lyra showed off her equine buckteeth in an innocuous smile.
“Need a light?”

He raised an eyebrow.
“How the hell do you even know what this is?”

“I read about it.” she stated curtly. “How about… I give you fire, and in return… I could try out one of those sticks?”
Her eyes melted into a pleading gaze. “Pretty please?”

Estermann was all but lost for words at the mare’s request. The last time he had ever heard of a horse smoking was in a newspaper article about some bizarre animal abuse lawsuit in a circus.
“You… do know it’s unhealthy, right?”

She shrugged.
“You’re doing it, too.”

“Well, I have a death wish and I’m not pregnant. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m... trying to fit in.” she stuttered, still bathing in innocence. “Besides… being unable to sleep is pretty unhealthy already.”

Slowly, he thought about it before nodding, and - not literally - coughing up another cigarette.
“I like you.”
In return, as promised, he found the tip of his cigarette suddenly bursting into bright orange flames - almost as if by magic. ”Many thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Mishter E.”
Before long, the mare - as funny as she looked with the thing in her mouth - lit hers too, and inhaled deeply… before beginning to cough and splutter uncontrollable puffs of white smoke.

“Don’t breathe it, for God’s sake.” the lawyer tardily advised her. “Puff it.”

“Not…” she coughed, pressing tears out of her great amber eyes, “Not exhactly like on the poshtersh, huh?”

“Is it ever?”

Her horn glowing, she resumed to shuffling around her saddlebag, though not without another coughing fit interrupting her foray.
“Anywho... Shpeaking of… of fact… here’sh inshident No. 4...”

“Hit me.” Estermann puffed resolutely.
But he noticed the pony's tear-stained eyes once again scrutinising him. “Not literally. Just tell me about it.”

She hesitated, caughed once more, then harrumphed, “The… the invashion of Canterlot, on April 21sht, 1003.”

“1003?” Esterman repeated. He did the math. “That must have been... very recent, right?”

“Roughly two and a half yearsh ago, yep.” Lyra confirmed, clearing her throat.

“Now... that’s quite a gap right there! Almost eight hundred yearh of... white noise...”

“I guesh that’sh why Chryshalish managed to catch everypony sho off-guard. Nopony would have thought that the Changelings would attack again after all thoshe yearsh. Eshpeshially not Canterlot, of all plashesh.”
She smirked slightly, impressed by the very idea, and shook her head. “It wash unheard of.”

“Canterlot’s... your capital, isn't it?” he recalled, “The lion’s den.”

“The heart of Equeshtria...”
Her smile faded. She slowed down a little in thought. “It sheemsh… it sheemsh like this time it was... pershonal. Queen Chryshalish wash going shtraight for the Princheshesh, not looking left or right, never mind the oddsh.”

“So you’re saying Chrysalis was there in person?” the counsel, once again, made sure.

"I..."
Lyra looked like she was about to answer straight away, but she fell silent.

"Yes, well, out with it."

There was an awkward moment of waiting.
The unicorn's eyes began glazing in the autumn frost.

“Uh, Lyra... Aufgemerkt! Was Chrysalis there?”

Another second passed.
Then she let out a big puff and a loud splutter of a cough, and that broke her out of her brief silence.
“I...Yesh. Yesh she wash.” she answered, her diction a little heavier than before. “She... led the attack on the capital... that day.”

Curious, the lawyer looked down to the pony trotting next to him.
“Is that well-documented? Eye witnesses? Photos? The whole lot?”

Her head bobbed around in thought as she trotted. Suddenly, she looked ever-so-slightly distressed.

“Lyra...” the lawyer sang melodically. “Talk to me. Don't nod off now.”

Then she suddenly broke, her voice void of emotion,
“I shaw her. I wash there.”

The lawyer’s cigarette shot out of his mouth like a missile, descending over the beach in a wide, smoky arc.
“...What?”

“Yeah...” she mumbled, chewing around on her cig, “Funny shtory, actually. Mother of all koinkidinks...”

The lawyer just glared and spluttered, rather helplessly too,
“Didn’t you think.. that was an important thing to mention... before you applied at my defence team?”

“I... should have probably told you a lot shooner, huh?” she assumed artlessly.

“Oh no, no. You could have waited until Christmas and broken it to me under a mistletoe. Of course you fucking should have!” he exclaimed, overly loudly.

“Doesh… doesh this change shomething?” she gulped, suddenly very scared at the notion of having evidently said too much for her own good, “Doesh it make me a… wittnesh or shomething?”

The lawyer mournfully looked after his cigarette as is slowly extinguished on the pavement.
“I don’t know. You... weren’t caught in the fighting or something like that, were you?”

“Uh… in the fighting? No. Not in the fighting.”

“Well. That’s good.” the lawyer shrugged. “Did you see Chrysalis yourself?”

Scared, the unicorn nodded. “With my own eyesh.”

The lawyer nodded in accord. Then he let out a mighty, “Shit. Now that’s a fact if there ever was one. Come on, what else did you see?”

“Not much. The whole ordeal wash quickly over anyway.” she then added, “The ashault ended when Canterlot'sh protective forche field got reshtarted. Chryshalish and her army were shwept into the air… jusht like that. Never to be sheen again.”

“Or not.” Estermann confirmed.
He remembered the story faintly, probably from the papers or on TV. “How many casualties were there even?”

“There were no fatal onesh thish time around. The fight wash over before the any sherioush damage could be done.”

“Oh. That’s good as well, I suppose.”
He sniffed pensively, then realised something. “Very good in fact. It clears up the situation quite a bit, actually."

"It doesh?" the mare made sure.

"The worse the allegations, the poorer is it documented. And the clearer the documentation, the more meager the crimes.”

“And… that’sh good?”

“Absolutely. It could mean that the allegations against her are only growing more severe with time. A thief yesterday, tomorrow a traitor. Just shows the power word of mouth can have in shaping the Equestrian narrative.”
He harrumphed. “Speaking of which, I might have to ask you about some things about Canterlot. I want to know everything! Tell me all you can remember. I need to know what - and who - happened on that day.”

She nodded, uneasy.
“Yesh... I shupposhe I should."

Eventually, as the hands on Estermann's watch slowly but surely moved towards the Seven, he and Lyra decided to leave the beach as it was and descended back into the city streets below, quickly venturing down a broad avenue as the first signs of sentient life awakened around them.
The sun was but a pale orange disc lurking from behind the chimneys and antennae of the bordering rowhouses. It threw a weak light through the fog that only managed to illuminate little more than the still burning lanterns.

Ultimately, they reached the curve of a long brick wall. Behind it already lay the Alexanderkazerne, and within it, the ICC.

“What about Queen Chryshalish?” Lyra asked after some time of thoughtful silence.

“What about her?”

“What are we even going to shay in her defenche? Here we are, dishcushing about how, but not what.”

Uncomfortably, the counsel felt his neck.
“I'm... torn. There are only two things we can do. The first is quite the classic: We deny everything. We have to convince the rest of the world that the prosecution's case isn't worth the paper it's printed on.”
He gnashed his teeth a little. “Which, under those circumstances, might or might not be easier said than done.”

“What'sh the other thing?”

He involuntarily flashed back to the 'talk' he had with the judge and the scientist. Raising his head and looking into the pale sun, he continued,
“The alternative is that... we embrace it.”

Lyra stayed silent, at first. Then the cigarette, long extinguished in the cold air, almost flopped out of her gaping mouth.
“Wait, what?”

“We can say, it happened. It all happened. From Timbucktu to Canterlot... it happened.”

Even in the bare morning light, he could see the unicorn's very fur turn ashen.
“You cannot do that. I told you before... we shouldn't give up jusht that!"
The mare almost whimpered, "P-pleashe tell me there'sh a 'but' in there shomewhere!”

“But we'd just be putting our own twist on the matter.”

“Will thish help the Queen'sh cashe at all?”

“Don’t swallow your cigarette, Lyra."
He swayed his free hand around soothingly.
"Hear me out first. We'd say that... the Queen did not know what she was doing, because she was not in control of herself.”

“...Wash she posheshed by shomepony?“ asked confused.

Cluelessly, the lawyer's eyes looked up.
“Uh... no. I mean to say that the Queen was at the mercy of instinctual impulses which drove her to such drastic actions.“

He couldn’t help but frown a little as he witnessed the eyes of the unicorn squint.
“An... inshanity defenche, then?“

“If you will.“

“...No.” she just stated.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Yesh. I mean no. I mean...”
Jumbled up, Lyra shook her head. “Shorry, Mr E. But that’sh… a terrible idea.”

The attorney was concerned by her reaction.
“Why?”

The unicorn sniffed indignantly.
“Chryshalish not knowing what she wash doing? Come on. She’sh the Queen of all changelingsh! Even after she mashterminded thoshe ginormous ashaults on Equeshtria´sh largesht chitiesh all by her lonely shelf, you´re telling me she washn't even in her right mind?”

“She’s a changeling, isn't she!“ the lawyer defended himseld, inadvertedly beginning to parrot the pony scientist´s thesis, “She´s driven by the most basic of instincts. She has no control over how she...” His words got stuck in his mouth as he thought about what he was saying. They began to sound more inane by the moment, “...commands her subjects.”

“Sherioushly?” the Equestria expert made sure. “You can´t be telling me that the... the... devioushly brilliant exhecution of the assault on Trot wash the reshult of dumb luck.“

“Okay... That option is a last resort, by the way.” he carefully admitted, before adding, “But curiously, it's backed by the scientific community.”

“Which one?” the unicorn started to interrogate with a sharp, critical tone.

Estermann didn’t like that tone one bit, but he felt that her opinion on this matter too important to just pass over.
“I don’t know. Some hippologist pony from Canterlot. What was his name? Chemical Bond, or something like that. Covalent Bond, maybe...”

“Not shomepony I’ve ever heard of.” the unicorn pondered.

Doubtful, the attorney rolled his eyes.
“Oh Wunder... there´s actually something you don´t know?“

She just squinted indignantly.
“Hey, I wash at the Royal Canterlotian for almosht shixhty moonsh. I had a lot of hippologisht... contactsh back when I wash conducting shome important reshearch of my own. I could name the entire faculty by heart.”
Her voice mellowed. “Lishten. Whoever that pony wash, he musht have been blowing hot air at you. You’ve sheen the Queen. You know what she’sh like. She’sh not a dumb animal. She’sh a pony. Like... like me, funnily enough. Maybe even like you. Every shingle thing she’sh done up to thish point hash shome rock-hard logic behind it.”

"Oh... of course, Heartstrings.“ Estermann finally yielded, his voice thick with disgruntled sarcasm. ”You must know, obviously. After all, it was you who saw the Queen, not me.“

She nodded avidly, but froze halfway through, uncomfortable.
"Y-what?"

“Yes. After all, it was you who stood face-to-face with her, gave her a peck on the cheek and then had these hour-long talks about her motivations over some tea and almond cake.“

“Now wait a minute...“ she suddenly spluttered.

“What? Wasn't it so?“ he asked haughtily. “My mistake, sorry. It just sounded like you have known her half your life. And that, even though you just said you weren't even where the fighting was on that one day."

That, rather awkwardly, left the unicorn at an utter loss of words. Her eyes quickly searched the brick road beneath her traveling hooves.

“What makes you so sure she had a rock-solid agenda behind everything she did? Hell, even I don't always have a rock-solid agenda, and I'm a fucking solicitor!“

The mare seemed to shrink into herself, trudging alongside him rather embarrassed. She waved her head as if she tried to find something to say, but couldn't think of anything good.

“No offence, Heartstrings. I know you only intend the best - for whatever rhyme or reason it may be. You're good at what you're doing right now, getting sourcework done and such. And that's that."
He pointed a warning finger down at her, "Don't be the drunken yarn-spinner from the boondocks of Equestria. Don't get involved in things you couldn't possibly know anything about.“

“No...“ she grovelled.

“I need people I can trust with what they do. The only thing I have left on this world is serious professional advice.“ he scoffed on, riling himself up by the second. “Because as far as I’m concerned, a pony's only good to be ridden and sliced up for sausage. How the hell am I supposed to make myself a picture of one's 'inner workings'?”

The human realised too late, in shock, what he had just said to whom.
He and his big mouth!
Hiding an embarrassed expression under his brows, his lips tightened involuntarily. He let out a shaky breath into icy air, and gave the downtrodden pony an unwilling shake of its head.
“Oh. Once again... no... no offence, Heartstrings...“

”None taken...” Lyra just whispered meekly, still gawking at the passing ground. “But It's jusht that... I mean... look at it from the other shide. Think what thish might accomplish. You'd turn the queen and all her shubjects into... into...”

”...mindless animals?” Estermann guessed non-chalantly. ”Well, I'm aware of that. But in times like these, loss of face is considered much less cruel than...” he gesticulated towards Lyra's own horn, ”...the loss of limb. Don't you agree?”

”It's jusht not right. You´d be putting her on the shame level ash shome... bitey dog.” she just kept on metaphorising.

”Well, of course it's going to keep sounding bad if you keep putting it that way!” came the attorney's irritated reply.

"Sho..."

"What?!"

”Mr E... what do they do with bitey dogsh in this world? Mr E?” the unicorn inquired.

The defence counsel didn't know where the was intending to take him, but he didn't like it.
“Lyra..."

It wasn't long until they spotted the red and green lights of the access road and guardhouse to the court premises shining through the mist just shy of the next corner.
But his relief began to subside somewhat as he started to hear to the sounds of someone loudly causing ruckus just ahead.
“Oh, what now?”

Lyra just shrugged. “I can't shee a thing in thish fog.”
As she attempted to peer through the opaque veil, Lyra barely avoided bumping into a plastic stick that poked out of the grass on the sidewalk's verge. “Oh dear Cheleshtia. Who put that there?”

The next moment one of her hooves jammed into something warm and cushiony. Someone or something let out a muffled yelp of pain. The mare clenched her teeth and jumped to the side with the agility to a goat, landing right in front of Estermann's path.

There was a sleeping bag on the side of the road, almost right up to the perimeter wall, and inside the bag lay a balding man with a red face that was covered by stubble and a nylon cap.
“Krijg de tering, you jackass!“ he coughed up to the shocked mare in broken English.

Estermann was as surprised as her, but his nature immediately made him step up with immediate counter-aggression,
“Find a shelter, you dirty bum!”
He then quickly motioned to the unicorn to back away.

“Oh Luna! I didn't shee him either! What you think wash he doing lying in the middle of the path?”

The lawyer looked ahead, finally coming into viewing distance of the gate.
“I don't know. The question should be what they're all doing here.”

For a moment, both creatures assumed that they had somehow taken the wrong turn and wandered into a camp site; scattered on the grass and pavement on both sides of the gate were at least a dozen sleeping bags and small tents, some abandoned, but most not.
Several people were backed up against the pedestrian gate at the side of the road, yelling some Dutch rudeness at a lone security officer on the other side of the fence who was trying to ward them off by shining his torchlight in their faces.

“Are... they trying to get into the court?” Lyra asked, dumbfounded. “I know the court'sh an intereshting plashe and all, but come on.”

Besides the odd canteen or wrapped sandwich, there were rolled-up banners and several signs resting on the wet lawn, as well as a few drooping flags stuck in between the tiny tents.

“And what is this supposed to be, anyway? Moccupy The Hague?” Estermann snarked to his unicorn companion.

The mare just bit her lip nervously, faintly taking in the cold wind around her. “They sheem angry. There'sh a lot of... rage in the air.”
Respectfully, she tried to push her 'boss' away from the sleeping bags. “We... should probably try to keep our dishtanche.”

“What do you mean, keep our distance?” he argued, driving her in front of him. “They're camping right in front of the main entrance! How are we going to get inside?”

“I wonder where they shuddenly came from.” the unicorn wondered. “I don't remember them being here yeshterday.”

Rounding the besieged gate in a rather wide arc, the two finally spotted a small group of better dressed individuals cowering behind the gatehouse, arms folded and hands in pockets, nervously packing away their court IDs. They appeared to be random court officials that had also turned up early, and weren't able to find a way around the mob.
But among them, the counsel ultimately spotted a somewhat higher profile countenance.

“Mr Estermann.” an elderly African woman sighed, grasping a steaming cup of Darjeeling in her gloved hands.
It was the head judge of the panel.

“Dr Suruma... how do you do?”

“Your Lordship!” Lyra exclaimed in surprise and gave a small bow of her head.

The judge looked none too pleased.
“You wouldn't know what all this commotion is about?”

The lawyer and the Equestrian expert shrugged.
“We jusht got here.” Lyra explained.

Suruma mustered the mare's frozen fur and the defence counsel's pale chilly skin.
“Have you walked all the way? You must have a death wish.”

"Oh, that'sh jusht him. Not me." the unicorn explained matter-of-factly.

Confused, the judge mustered them some more and pointed accusingly at the crowd behind them.
“You've got nothing on those picketers, though. They must have been camping here for hours. And now they're waking up and starting to cause trouble, scaring off my staff and all the ponies from the Embassy. The guards here don't want to risk of letting the picketers in alongside us, so they locked all the gates. North Entrance, West Entrance, they're all closed."

“Why not call the police?” Estermann asked the obvious question.

“They're on their way.” the judge confirmed, sipping her tea. “My God. It's the second time in a week we had to call them out here.”
She glanced over to the defence counsel. “I really hoped you could talk to those... rabble-rousers.”

Estermann cocked his head at that. But before he could say ask whatever gave her that idea, Lyra valiantly jumped to his side,
“Why Mr E?”

The judge just shrugged her shoulders and took another sip.
“For the last half hour, those hooligans have been screaming about how 'Justice is a whore who is rotten to the core' and how we're 'dishing out the law at a fixed price'. It stood to reason that the defence, of all parties, could know something about the situation that we don't.”

Astonished by their apparent supporters, Estermann and the unicorn exchanged surprised looks. This was one thing they had not considered happening.
“Well, I know nothing. I have no idea where they've suddenly sprung from.” he explained haplessly. “The last thing I would get involved in ranting against my own court.”

“I didn't say that.” the judge clarified. “But I think that all those people seem to have something to say against the trial, for whatever reason. Can't you talk to them?”

Disbelievingly, he shook his head. "You don't really think those wannabe-poets are fighting for my client's freedom.”

The judge and the others flinched slightly as someone loudly smacked a plastic bottle against the perimeter fence.
“I have seen riots started over unlikelier things, my learned friend.”

The sun had risen over the streets now.
Pacing over to the guardhouse, Suruma she glanced around the corner and surveilled the rabble-rousers.
“I have seen quite a few bomber jackets and jackboots among them, Mr Estermann. I know what crowd they're from. You should be careful.“
She looked toward Lyra. “And you too Ms...”

“Heartshtringsh.“

The old lady's expression hardened instantly. Before either Lyra or Estermann could ask what the matter was, she shot out her free hand and yanked the cigarette from the unicorn's mouth.
The judge, gritting her teeth in protest, inspected the stogie – it had gone out after her first and only puff, but the filter was chewed beyond recognition.

“Mr Estermann...“ she exclaimed and glared at the attorney. “Are you giving your equine employees cigarettes?“

Lyra looked between the two humans as the solicitor defensively raised his hands.
“...Won't happen again.“

“Really now. I thought better of you.“

“You did?“ he muttered doubtfully.

“Jesus Christ...“ Suruma just moaned, flinging the cigarette into the gutter and turning away.

Her head low, Lyra bashfully cantered over to her boss, as though she wanted she wanted to apologise for the trouble.
“I suppose that was already enough 'fitting in' for one day. Now, what do we do about the mob?“

“If it's not dispersed soon, I think I might just as well go on to Chrysalis. Join her for breakfast and such.“

“Oh.“ she confirmed, slowly sorting the papers back into her saddlebag. “And... what about me?“

“Do you know how to use a scanner?“

Her old smile instantly came back to her.
“Ha, give me ten minutes with one of these things, and I'll figure it out somehow.“

Estermann nodded, then started handing the pony back her files one by one.
“Very good. Scan these files, and ask someone to upload them on e-court. We will sit-rep the situation at noon in our offices, once I have asked the Queen some probing questions.“

“Yes sir!“

He harrumphed and rubbed his hands. “Now... to get out of this damn cold...“

And as if sent from heaven above, the gate was illuminated by four orange-tinted headlights.

The next moment, Estermann could make out a very elegant black limousine, with wheelcaps of polished silver and the windows tinted grey, rolling onto the pavement.

“Wowzers. What... is that?“ Lyra asked.

“Looks like a... Rolls Royce.“
Why did this remind him of something?

Before the car even came to a halt, one of the windows dropped, and a short hoof poked out. Seemingly on its own, it searched out Estermann and Heartstrings from the small crowds of people by the roadside. With some avid waves, it beckoned them closer.

Intrigued – more by the car than anything else – the lawyer crept over and peeked down into the car's darker innards. There, he came across the face of a beaming young pony he could also not immediately remember.

“Alexander! How nice to meet you here.“
Why, it was the right honourable Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh... you?“ the lawyer stammered, leaning against the doorframe. “Fancy seeing you too. What a... nice vehicle you have there.“

“I'm glad you like it. I wrote down that name you gave me yesterday, 'Rolls-Royce', and I asked if I could use one to move around quicker. And they just sent this carriage right over! What do you make of that?“

“Well, of course they'd bend over backwards when royalty commands it.“ he laughed. “What are you doing? Going somewhere in particular, or just enjoying your time?“

“Oh you.“ she winked. “I wanted to check on my big brother before I did anything else.“

“You're going to Belgisch Park?

“The dungeon... uh... prison?“
She nodded.

Discretely, he pointed at the besieged gate behind him.
“You see, my business here concluded a little earlier than expected. Would it be troublesome to ask if you could give me a lift?“

Her eyes widened. “Troublesome? Of course not! I was the one asking you for a lift not ten hours ago. Hop in!“

Pleased as punch, Estermann turned around for Lyra.
But to his shock, he found the unicorn nowhere near him. She had suddenly vanished from his side.

Instead, he found something entirely else.

The protesters who camped on the promenade lawn amidst the protest signs were coming crawling out of their shells.
They stared at the idle limousine like hungry vultures.
There was a special brand of hate in their eyes, something between envy and fear, fueled by their resentment of the establishment, and the high and mighty sitting in their glass towers and making deals with those stupid alien non-human creatures while they themselves were left to rot in their own ignorance. Or at least, that's what they thought was happening.

The lawyer read the signs they slowly began to pick up, and the banners they cautiously unfurled... "Yoke Or Yield!" was one of the nicer ones. "Glue is Thicker Than Blood", much less so.

They held back, for the moment.
At least, until Twilight Sparkle herself glanced out the window, fully revealing herself to the mob.

One of them, a tall leader-ish character in a brummagem raincoat, pointed at her and shouted something rousing. And immediately, the others grabbed their signs and flags and pounced.

The flight response took hold of the lawyer as he immediately ripped open the car door and forced himself in by the baffled alicorn's side.
As soon as the car door was once again closely shut behind them, the princess and the lawyer flinched as the first protesters reached the limousine and began clapping and pounding on the windows, as if trying to reach and drag out the terrified passengers.
One of them pressed a leather girdle against the pane, and indicated that he would have rather liked to put it on the alicorn.

For all intents and purposes, those fists and spread palms, those shouting gob and sneering faces, did manage to scare the Princess horseapple-less.
With shrunken irises, she slowly extended her wings, like she was readying to take off at a moment's notice.
Estermann was just as terrified in the spur of the moment, but he tried not to show it. He stared forward stonily with a disgusted expression.

At some point the chauffeur took a hint and kicked the accelerator, nimbly swerving the elegant vehicle out of the court driveway.
Estermann could catch a glimpse of the gatehouse speeding away from him at a breakneck pace, together with an aqua unicorn that stood hiding behind the guard hut.

Once the car outran the mob, dodging the odd glass bottle, brick or paper cup slithering across the roof, the lawyer sunk into his seat and took a deep breath out.
The alicorn was, almost in reverse, even more anxious than before.
“W...what was that just now?“ she inquired, her wings still twitching.

“Fucking animals.“ he mumbled. “No offence.”

Author's Note

Hello there. It is I, the author.
Long time, no see!

Well, here they are, the dreaded facts of the case. It's a slew of exposition, naturally, but it's important exposition nevertheless.
And with our defence team, this precious information ought to be in good hands. Right?

Now, as some of you might have noticed, I allowed myself to be inspired to a certain extent by the backstory that was given to Chrysalis in the previously mentioned IDW Fiendship Is Magic comic. I simply found that it complemented the subject matter extremely well, particularly in tone and gravity, and decided to run with it. Also, it has some spiffing art.
But for those unfamiliar and/or disgruntled with that particular adaptation, rest assured:
That's where the similarities also end. This story will maintain its own path even with Timbucktu and Trot thrown into the mix.

Also, those rioters in the end?
Just ignore them. Typical rabble-rousers. Weekend-revolutionaries. I doubt we'll ever hear anything from those individuals again...

The next chapter is trailing hot on our heels, by the way. I'll bring it out somewhere in the near future.

So as per usual, enjoy and stay true!

XIII. The Perpetrators

XIII.
The Perpetrators

Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, The Hague
ICC Detention Centre
19. November, 2015
7:41 am MET

The Queen of all Changelings had not slept that well for many months. Even before she could be roused by the automatic alarm system at eight o’clock on the dot, she had opened her eyes, feeling refreshed and surprisingly comfortable.
Scanning the monotone cell with one open eye, she stretched her enormous chadded limbs into all directions and straightened her twisted neck until there was a faint crack.
"Unbelievable, what such a little bird could bring about.“ She mumbled drowsily and turned to the pale chicken cadaver that still lay next to her like a strained squeaky toy. In its lifetime, it must have been a very happy beast indeed.

She contemplated her ceiling for a while more before she decided to get up. Her mind wandered, reliving her last few days in captivity, just like every morning in the last few weeks. Today, however, it all didn’t seem quite as... grim.

She took a deep breath. Even out of a dozen smells that lingered in the room, she could still make out the long-past presence of Shining Armour and that human, as though they had just been here mere moments ago.
What was it that they even come for? Something important?
He wanted her to read something through... on that black machine in the corner behind her.

At any other moment, she would have cared little about her distinguished captors' requests, but right now, her tummy full and her mind momentarily cleared from worry and anger, her zest revealed itself.
It was as if her eyes were opening for the first time. Slowly, she turned, letting her head swoop around the cell, scanning her surroundings properly.
She had done it previously, but back then, her immediate impressions were reduced to 'weaknesses' to exploit and 'hazards' to avoid. With her innate survival urge taking a back seat, entirely new things started popping up for her to discover.

Mounted slightly above her head, a big, black-and-silver box towered. Standing on a tightly fixed pod attached to the right wall of a wooden cupboard, the big thing seemed to have the glass pane of a window, yet the size of a small cupboard. She couldn't make out a proper use for it though – the pane was too dark to see anything, the whole thing had no openings or doors worth mentioning, and it was too far up to reach by any unwinged means. The sign of any practical, readily exploitable use came in the form of a single, ominous red dot at the box' base. What was it trying to say?

Shuffling her chains closer to the base of the thing, the changeling closed in with a determined glint. Maybe the glow was a clue to the way out. Was it a burning fire, a shard of magical energy that sat in the box? Was it a key to open the cell door, tauntingly hung on the cupboard just out of her reach?

The longer she stared, the longer she took to realise that the red glow had been instantaneously replaced by a green one.
Before she knew what was happening, the glass pane came to life with a flash. In an instant , she found an ugly, nigh-hairless, cream-skinned human face staring down at her. Her eyes shrank as she instinctively scrambled away from the countenance.
Normally, she would have been given a fair warning before anyone came anywhere near her, and now she suddenly had that human looking into her cell from below the ceiling?

“Who in all the worlds-” she tried to hiss at the onlooker.

Completely void of emotion, the head lowered its stare momentarily, the little hair it had bobbing in an unseen gust of wind, and then resumed staring at the regent with a smug lick of its lips.

Chrysalis' stare hardened authoritatively, but before she could put the onlooker in its place, the very same cut her off. It simply cut off the Queen of all Changelings in the middle of her sentence, all without so much as a flinch.
”Thank you, Sam. The crowd of demonstrators here in New York has grown massively in the past few days.“

“Huh?”

“The Equine separation movement might have reached a new turnout high this week, barely a year after the discovery of Equestria.”

“What are you even-”

“The protest has been joined by far-right parties and various extremist groupings all over Europe, North and South America, and they demand, louder than ever before, that all the species that inhabit the Equestrian Isle, be they Ponies, Donkeys and Gryphons are to be forcefully segregated from humanity, to prevent further changes from being brought about."

“G-get out of here, you contemptuous little-”

"Willem van Geijn, the chairman of the right-wing Dutch ManKracht party, blames primarily the international institutions' efforts at integration."

Chrysalis just peered to her left and her right, to assure herself that those words indeed directed at her. At this point, even her famed short temper failed to discharge.
“Are you talking about something...” she asked, unsuccessfully.

Before her own eyes, the mysterious face vanished into thin air. Between a thoroughly confused jitter of the eyelid, the Queen witnessed how a swoosh of some mysterious bright-golden aura – a gust of magic, surely! - replaced the onlooker's face with that of a leering bald creature – one even bolder than the last.
An examining sideways cock of Chrysalis' head confirmed that the images turned out to be completely flat... and this particular one was perfectly still, as though it was a mere photo. But how on earth would a photo be inside that thing anyway?
Before she could put the pieces together to deduce the nature of the mystery box, a deeper, distorted voice chimed in from its direction,

"The main issue with our leaders is that they're naive towards the equine threat to an embarrassing level. I'll tell what will happen in the next four years; we'll see an increase in immigration, a drastic drop in employment opportunities, a rise in crime, a collapse of the market, and lastly the loss of our nations' place at the forefront of the international community."

Even though much of what she heard was probably taken out of some greater context in some way, Chrysalis did start to understand the gist. There was a certain shaken, no, combative tone in that human's voice that betrayed his feelings about what he was describing. She could veritably smell it.

"And it won't be limited to some human countries either...” the creature continued, ”all humans will feel the repercussions of what is happening right now in only a few months' time. ManKracht, much like so many other like-minded parties around the globe, fights for the rights of man."

“My, my...” the Queen uttered and cocked a doubtful eyebrow. “What a petty pack of creatures you must be. Does Equestria really give you the shivers?”

In another cloud of the strange aura, the image of the bald ape was itself replaced with a crowd of bawling, chanting humans standing somewhere outside in the rain. The voice of the first human chimed in to narrate.
"Many of Mr van Gein’s countrymen share this sentiment, and persist in demonstrations outside the Equestrian embassy and various international buildings in the Hague and Amsterdam. Even today, four protesters have been arrested after injuring a policeman and an Equestrian Royal Guard with thrown bricks."

A subtle smile crept over the Changeling's lips.
“Finally... some happy news! Why don't you tell me more about that?”

"As most governments have chosen to ignore the plight of the demonstrators, the level of violence continues to rise. While the future is uncertain, it already is painfully clear that Equestria is going to change world’s political landscape in a multitude of ways."

“So you say!” the changeling snorted. “Now enough of that swollen nonsense. Away with you maggots!”

“I pass back to the studio. This is Madeleine Creber reporting live from The Hague for Al Jazeera.”

And, just like that, her countenance and everything around the human was wiped off the glass pane by another whirlpool of white and golden magic.
Chrysalis took a cautious step back. She wouldn't want to get caught in the swirl too.
“What loudmouthed little race of creatures...” she just pondered. “Where did this one suddenly come from, anyway? And why the hay did she tell me all those things? Was it really so meaningful that I, of everyone here, just had to hear it? Was it a message?”
Slowly, she sat on her haunches. “And what magic did she use to get into that thing? Is it a portal? A secret exit?”

Momentarily, the image exploded in a mesmerising frenzy of black-and-white flickers.

“Ugh... what now?”

The static seized, and revealed yet another human looking down at the Queen. Its features were rather non-saying and neutral, but unlike the others, it had a grey mane and was dressed entirely in black.

“Here comes the next.” the Queen muttered. “Are you all just standing in line in there?”

All of a sudden, the solitary human spread its claws, opened its maw and began to sing with a dozen voices from a dozen invisible throats. And all its voice were so unnervingly high-pitched that they left the changeling regent, besides in shock, quite glass-eyed.

“You've... you've got to be kidding me. What madness is this, exactly?”

Somewhere on the other side of the steel door, a turnkey with short blond hair sat behind his desk in front of the camera screen. Lowering his copy of De Telegraaf, he placed the remote control back down on the table, and laughed out so hard that he started heaving uncontrollably.
He was happy to get his short moment of joy in the morning shift before the usual shouting started.

"Shining!“ the princess squeed.

"Twily!“ the captain gasped.

With a hefty jump, the alicorn flew into the hooves of her startled brother. He was so thoroughly taken by surprise that he didn’t know what else he could say.

Estermann stood behind them, leaning on the sink of the mini-kitchen of the guardroom, and scrutinised the little family reunion with mild interest, glancing at his watch from time to time.

"It’s been forever!“ she continued, with the intonation of a giddy schoolgirl. "How is my BBBFF doing?“

The brother stuttered a counter-question with a wobbling smile.
"My Celestia! Where did you come from? I thought you'd only come in a month or two.“

"Yes, there's been a change in plans.“ She explained. ”Princess Celestia sends her regards. She has important negotiations to conduct. So she asked me and Spike to take her place.“

"Well, then you surely didn’t come a moment too late.“ he smirked.

“You'll never guess what happened at the court today.” His sister reported excitedly. “I think I've been caught in a real riot today! Dozens of humans were there, with signs and everything. Some were even throwing things!”

“Oh...” Shining frowned, a little tired. “That's terrible. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” she nodded before turning frank, “But I've actually came to ask you the same thing, Shining. Ever since I heard about that terrible thing that happened on the airfield, I had to make sure you haven't been hurt!“

"What happened... on the airfield?“ her brother repeated the question drowsily.

Estermann then saw the unicorn commander’s eyes swelling to their full size. His shrinking irises fixed the attorney in a shocked gaze. Had the unicorn not explicitly sworn him to secrecy on the matter?

The attorney tugged at his tie nervously, trying to explain himself.
"I told your sister that Queen Chrysalis attempted to escape. It has been on the news everywhere, you know. Why don't you tell her how everything's back under control?“
He sent the inquisitive stare right back to him.

"Right...“ the equine slurred. “No problem at all...“ His eyes fell shut and his visibly tensed form relaxed a little as he sank into his sister’s embrace. "Everything's alright, Twily. Chrysalis might only be trouble, but we won’t let her cause anypony any more grief. I’ll personally stand for that.“

"That’s my big brother, the world's best nanny!“ Twilight declared jokingly.

Estermann checked his watch one last time before harrumphing.
"Well then, I’ll better be on my way. The Queen doesn’t wait.“
He eyed Shining and the princess as inconspicuously as possible. “Captain, why don’t you take care of your sister? Give her a tour of the prison or something in the meantime. Lock her up, let her play with the riot gear, go nuts.“ He proposed - not too subtly suggesting that the Captain should go jump in the lake.

But to his displeasure, he instead noticed the Captain courteously detaching himself from Twilight’s grasp.
"I’ll be with you, Mr Estermann.“

"Captain...“ The attorney sang, his annoyance levels quickly rising. “Tend to your kin.”

The unicorn sighed, playfully messed up his sister‘s mane before looking down on her sheepishly.
"Sorry, little sis, but duty calls. I’m afraid you'll need to find another playfellow. I might not have time at all.“

"Oh Shining!“ The sister nudged him playfully. "Playfellow? I’m not a filly anymore. I was thinking that if I could visit you, we might catch up on a few things. You know, I haven’t seen you in over a year now... and..:“ she glanced over to the waiting attorney. When her look met his pleading stare, somehow, she began to catch on. “And... well, I’ve never been inside a human prison before. A little detour sounds like a good idea.“

Before the unicorn could protest on, a fourth, deeper voice resounded through the room.
"That sounds like a great idea.“
Mjoberg the warden appeared behind the open door of the fridge.
Wandering over to the royal siblings and the jurist with a can of iced coffee in each hand, he addressed his fellow captain.
"Go ahead. Take thirty and show Her Serene Highness around the activity centre a little.“

"But... but Captain.“ The unicorn protested clumsily. "I’m on duty now.“

"So are twenty-five other officers, Captain. We're hopelessly overstaffed today. The Queen is covered. Now take care of your relatives.“

"Sir...“ The equine Captain raised his chin defiantly. "What if-“

"If something happens, you’ll be the first to know.“
The warden winked amiably. "Come on, get out of here now.“

Shining’s limbs sagged as his winged sister clasped him by a hoof and hauled him towards the door with the look of a child who wanted him to buy her ice cream. "Come on, big brother. Let’s see if they've got a dungeon down below.“

"They don’t...“ he winced. But by then the two were already outside of the guardroom, with the door slowly closing behind them.

As soon as he and the jurist were alone, the warden let out a sigh of his own.
"Heaven sent, Estermann.“ he slurred and offered him a can of coffee.

Estermann hadn’t seen Mjoberg this chummy before. Suspiciously, he climbed off the table he was leaning on.
"No thanks, I don’t touch the stuff. Why heaven sent?”

Mjoberg peered around suspiciously, making sure they really were alone.
"Do you have any idea how glad I was when I saw his sister turning up this morning? The angels were singing!“

"How so?“

"Because good old Shining Armour has spent the last seventy-two hours swatting around the cell block a... fruit fly with Alzheimers. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he is a really nice fellow and all, but he... just doesn’t give up!“

"Yes, I've heard of that.“ Estermann commented. “It's called 'doing his job'. A frightening affliction.”

"No, you haven’t.“ Mjoberg said as he opened his can with a click. "For the past three days, he has been exclusively hanging around my office and outside Chrysalis‘ cell door. And I mean all the time. No exception. He’s even been sleeping on this bench...“ he pointed to the wooden piece furniture in the corner of the mini-kitchen, "...because it’s closer to her. And even then, he has been ‘on duty‘ from six in the morning to ten in the evening.“

The attorney stared at the bench.
"Are you serious?“

He nodded. “Even casual conversation is becoming more like a nightmare. You ask him about his wife: 'Yeah, Chrysalis impersonated her once and nopony even noticed'. You ask him about family: 'Did you know I have a sister? Anyway, she and my wife's aunt were captured by Chrysalis once. That was dangerous, let me tell you!' You ask him about his career: 'Before, I started by serving there-and-there. And then I crossed paths with Chrysalis. After that, I did such-and-such'.”
The warden rolled his eyes and leaned closer. “I come in this morning and find him poking holes in the walls of my office with his horn. I ask him if his horn hurt. Well, he looks at me, glass-eyed, and what does he say? I quote: 'The Queen was sent flying for miles by that shock wave. I've also wondered whether that hurt.'
The burly Surinamese stared intently for a couple of seconds. “Please tell me: Where the hell did that come from? Where is his mind when I talk to him? I ask him about the holes in my plaster, and he starts talking to me about fucking Chrysalis again? You'd think it's bad when you're around, with him incessantly bragging about how wide her vicious streak is? No. It's insane. I’m glad when he is out of sight and out of mind once in a while.“
He took a sip from his can, nearly emptying it in one swig.

Estermann peered on the floor smugly, as if he felt confirmed.
"Insane would be a good description, wouldn't it?“

"If I didn’t know any better...“ the warden agreed, "I’d say he is suffering from PTSD.“

"Come again?“

"Shell shock. Have you seen what he does half of the time?”
The soldier pointed at his face with a can, “Delayed reaction. Thousand yard stare. Drifts in out of consciousness. Blackouts. Nervous ticks. Panic attacks... Shell shock makes you do the strangest things. Obsession with something or someone being just one of many.“
He harrumphed. “I know what I’m talking about. I’ve done tours in Bosnia and Kosovo.”

“And I’m sure you had a lot of horses there to read off from.”

“...Not in Bosnia, but I’ve been on the planning staff of the Queen’s Day parade a few times. I had the duty of making sure our horses wouldn’t go half-demented from the gun salutes. So I know what an overwrought horse looks like, Estermann.”
He breathed a little melancholically. “Sometimes they’re not too different, horse and rider.”

The lawyer raised an eyebrow.
"Come now. Shining doesn't look like he ever spent a day in the field. What could he possibly be shellshocked by?“

Now came the Captain's turn to look smug.
"Well, I could make an educated guess. She has green hair, a mushroom crown and lots and lots of holes.“

Disbelieving, the lawyer breathed out some annoyance.
“I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but I don't think 'crossing paths' with another person can give you shell shock. ”

“I take it you've never been married.”

"Ho ho.” he sneered misgivingly and shrugged the joke away.

“I don't know what exactly your Queen did to his head, but she stirred it real good.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” Estermann sneered.
There were many reasons that made him dislike the notion that the Queen was the one to blame for the Captain's madness.
For one, he felt it was disingenuous to heap even more blame on the mysterious creature than was already the case. But perhaps, it could have also had something to do with the fact that, at closer inspection, he found himself in exactly the same spot as the Captain had all those months ago.
When he looked at the unfortunate unicorn, was he gazing at his near-future self?
A subtle thought, but unnerving. “I just wouldn't question it, Mr Mjoberg. I mean, come on. Who isn’t obsessed with Queen Chrysalis these days?“

“Jij weet er alles van...” The warden chuckled quietly and took another zip.

“What?”

“I said good point.” Mjoberg lied. “Dries, the officer of the watch, has been chanting for days about how 'everyone’s hot for the killer queen, gunpowder and gelatine’. But Shining Armour… he is a class of his own. It’s like…” he waved his hand, trying to find the right simile, “...like his own mother is in that cell. If his mother was the violent, abusive type he despises with a passion.”
He unlocked the second can and led it to his mouth.

“Freudian implications aside…” Estermann theorised with the same uppity note. “What are the chances that he just treats it like the zenith of his career? Maybe he’s always this… committed to the job. His mind's focused on the task. He does seem like the grunt-type, the not too bright sort who finds satisfaction in following others’ orders the best and most… fanatical way he can.”

But Mjoberg shook his head and let out a stifled laughter.
“No, no. This is the kidnapper and impersonator of his wife we’re talking about. It’s personal, alright... very very personal. And I have to make sure he doesn’t get himself a takke hounding after the Queen. I mean..." he paused, looking once again at the bench. "See, I have the strangest feeling that he wasn't sleeping here at all today.”

"Well, where was he sleeping?"

"He wasn't.” he stated flatly. “Seems to have decided that he wants to do night shifts as well now. I need to get him to take a timeout before he hospitalises himself. A stroke of good fortune that he flaunts the best kind of distraction - invasive relatives!”

Nodding, Estermann rubbed his dry eyes.
"At least I’m not the only one who hasn't gotten a good night's sleep today."

"What, you too? Are you sure you don't want coffee?"

"Yes. And yes." Estermann sighed. "My assistant assured me it's just the weather. She couldn't sleep."
He decided to get to the point already. Enough time had been wasted mourning the state of the poor Equestrian Captain. "Incidentally, why don't you tell me more about the Queen?”

Deviously, he tracked the warden's eyebrows as they slumped over his eyes.
'Here we go again.' they seemed to scream.

“How has she been sleeping today?" the lawyer inquired.

Despite his annoyed mien, the warden tone almost beamed with appreciation.
"Now that you mention it... very good. No trouble whatsoever. You were onto something with that chicken, Mr Estermann. It made her keel over like it was pumped full of ether."

The lawyer was startled.
"You... didn't pump it full of ether, did you?"

"No need."

"Then I'm glad to hear it. Is she up yet?"

The warden looked at his watch.
"She woke up ahead of schedule today. And we didn't yet have a single call-out."
He emphasised the second part like it was some kind of biblical miracle. "She is in a – what's the word – good mood."

Estermann's mouth morphed into a sly grin.
"Good enough for... a few laps in the gym?"

Immediately, the warden bit his gums. He crumpled the empty can in his fist like a paper cup.
He had anticipated that this would come.

"You promised me that if I can calm Queen Chrysalis down," the jurist immediately followed up, "you’d grant her time outside her cell."

"I didn't promise a thing, Estermann." Mjoberg warned him. "At the moment, the gym and kitchen are in use by other detainees."

"Good. She'll have someone to talk to."

"What if she attacks them?" the warden inquired, folding his arms.

"I'll be there with her the whole time."

"And who are you? The horse whisperer? I am not going to loosen those cuffs a millimetre.”

"Good, then..." Estermann stammered, reeling towards the bitter taste of a compromise, "then leave the damn cuffs on for now. Just show her that we even have a gym and a kitchen, and I'll promise you, she won't want to leave."

“My fears exactly...”
The warden pondered about that long and hard. "We'll need an armed escort. Eight men."

"Six men." Estermann haggled.

"With mace and batons. And we'll take the tranquiliser gun."

"You won't need it." The counsel harrumphed and offered him his hand. "But it's a deal."

Mjoberg unfolded his arms, surrendering.
"I drink to that."
Then he emptied the second can and crumpled it too before returning the handshake.

“My chains are gone,
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace...”

“Oh good for you!” the Queen spat, and quickly buried her head under her chainbound hooves.
Quickly cursing her own incessant curiosity, she sat in the left corner of her cell, still feeling the crumbs of plaster and concrete under her legs as her spine furrowed into the gap in the wall she had knocked out of it a few days back.
“He has ransomed you?” she muttered on. “Well... where is he then?! He obviously has nothing better to do than bail out strangled cats, so when does that imbecile come for me?“
The changeling's expression grew more sinister as the singer merrily continued. “You know what? I don't think he will come. I think you're just mocking me. You just want to see me broken. May your so-called god have mercy on you, because if you ever put one limb outside that box, I will-”

Somewhere nearby, a distant electric buzz rang out. It was followed by the sounds of a metallic door unlocking and a dozen booths stomping the ground, edging closer and closer.
Chrysalis' ears perked up. Immediately, the creature sprang back into predatory mode.
Something was brewing, and this time it was for real.

She heard a creature shuffle around, accompanied by the sound of the frantic ring of smaller metal pieces, and the tapping clicks on some hollow ceramic-like surfaces.

"Dries." a deep voice suddenly said, ringing out through the intercom near the shimmering box.

"Hoi chef." another answered. Unlike the other, this one sounded rather familiar.

“How is she? Anything happened so far?”

“She's calm as a clam. You could say... she found Jesus in there.” the voice reported with something akin to a wry laugh.

There was click and a millisecond of static. Then the loudspeaker over the cell door went silent.

Chrysalis began to ponder.
Who had just arrived? And had they come for her?
And who was she supposed to have found? Were they in cahoots with the annoying box people?
They were speaking in riddles. She had to be ready for anything.

The Changeling was confirmed when the intercom sounded out again, with 'Dries'’ voice sounding carrying a much more official tone.
"Alright, Your Highness. You know the drill. Into the left corner, facing the wall."

She glanced at the wall next to her head.
“I am in the bucking corner.” she responded, in a voice that wasn't too loud. With a gut feeling like that, he couldn't bring herself to yell.

"Oh excellent. Door opening."

Behind her, several humans entered, quickly spreading out in the room. She flexed her muscles. She was ready to pounce.

Turning her head a little, she espied the lawyer Estermann and some others. Shining Armour was not among them, though.
She relaxed a bit.

Attracted by the infernal singing, the humans gawked up at the flickering box.
“So what's all is this then?”

Accusingly, the Queen struck out a hoof. She sounded almost offended.
“Those... cretins snuck into my cell and babbled at me like morons. I have no part in this! Take them away and string them up – see if I care! I know your tricks!”

Confused, the assembled humans stared at her.
Then, one by one, they broke into chuckles and smirks.
Was... was she being made a foal of?

“Any particular reason Her Highness was watching Bible TV?” the lawyer inquired.

“I told you.” another one answered, suddenly producing a small black device, and pointed it at the box. The little humans inside it vanished almost immediately behind a veil of black. “Jesus.”

“You're a liar. I know nopony by that name. Nor would I care to.”

A burly, darker human addressed her.
"Your Highness, we will be going for a little walk."

She said nothing.

"Dries will now reconnect your chains. We’re armed. So don't make any sudden movements."

Flabbergasted, the changeling stammered a sparse “What...” as she felt a tug on her limbs, and the metal clinking of the chains being pulled towards the exit of the cell she had spent the last seventy-two hours of her life in.

The next moment, she found herself shuffling through the corridors of the cell block, further and further away from her all-too familiar den. She was flanked by two armed guards on every side, with another one leading up front and another one trailing her from behind a safe distance, constantly holding her at gunpoint.

Silently, amidst discreet glances to her left and right, she weighed her chances of taking them all down, but every scheme seemed to end with her taking a poison dart to the neck.

She noticed Estermann strutting up next to her, a veritably plotting smirk on his face.
"Your Highness. You look very well this morning."

It was a bit strange. Something seemed off.
There was an inexplicable tension in the air.

"Thank you. Worm." she greeted him back, cautiously. "Are you behind any of this?"
Looking to and fro, it almost seemed like she was trying to put two and two together.

The lawyer nodded.
"I convinced the warden that you deserve... some leisure time. Anything to get you outside. Am I right?”"

"Worm... Are we going... where I think we're going?"

He only smirked.
"Perhaps."

Her eyes widened, as if in genuine surprise.
“Oh, worm. Worm, worm, worm. Those aren’t tones I’d have expected out of you. I did not take you as that... savvy.”

"Well..."
What the lawyer then spotted on her face at that moment frightened him a little.
The Queen was giving him a smile. And she threw in a small giggle as well. In seventy-two hours of observation, he had not yet witnessed the changeling indulge in either.

The lawyer was beyond impressed at her mood. She was like a separate pony. It was more than he could have ever dreamed a simple diet change would accomplish.
At least until her eyes narrowed sinisterly.

“Worm.”

“Yes?”

“Alright. Listen closely: That ugly chimp behind me. He holds some kind of pole. I suspect it's a weapon. You will step behind him...”

Estermann's eyes almost sank into the into his skull.

“And once I flick my tail, you take it from him. And I'll have the rest.”

The lawyer's hair stood at attention. Hesitantly, he peered into the mean-looking gob of the warder driving the two of them along with his rifle, then back towards the Queen.
“...Pardon?”

“What ‘pardon’?” she mouthed back.

Estermann's hesitated for much longer than was necessary.
“What exactly are we talking about?”

“What do you think?!” she snapped, silently and incredulously. “Get off your dung! How the hay did you expect to get me out of here?”

The lawyer gulped.
“Your Highness... you do know I just meant getting you out of your cell. Not...”

Her glare was empty.
The changeling stopped dead in her tracks, almost tripping the lawyer on one of the chains.
“Not... what?”

Immediately, all the guards whirled around, unsheathing their batons. Behind the Queen's back, the tranquiliser gun's safety was clicked off.

"Oh- Come on!" Estermann hissed desperately, like he was begging a child not to embarrass him in front of the other adults. "Please, Your Highness! Please don't... be like that!"

He earned himself an aggressively spiteful glare from the changeling.
"What the hay is all this? Where are you taking me?"

The other guards stepped closer, ready to intervene.

“The gym and kitchens.” he sighed, “I have no idea how you ever got the other... idea.”

Something in the Queen's shaking, pumped-up countenance deflated ever-so slightly. He knew he certainly let air out of what could have become a victory parade. Or dinner.
“And just for a moment... I actually stooped down low enough to think better if you.” she hissed.

But Estermann just thought about how inane the thought itself was. He bowed down to confront the Queen at eye level.
“You... didn't really think that... I mean... Even mentioning this sort of thing has dire consequences. And not just for you.”

When he noticed her countenance remained unchanged, he carefully went down even further and fell on one knee, so he had to look upwards to address her.
"Look. I actually came to ask you about your... past achievements. Your exploits. What was it you called them again, 'overfishing'?"

She huffed at him and glanced the other way.
“Like you give a feather about those!”

"I do. Besides...”
After momentary consideration he gritted his teeth and added, “I wanted to tell you something rather more urgent. But in private. Don't want the guards listening in. Something that you simply cannot allow to stand for. Those... high-and-mighty Canterlot princesses... They're at it again, your Highness.”

Her ears were slowly drawn towards the jurist.

The Detention Centre was equipped with all sort of necessities for the handful of prisoners it held. Besides the fully outfitted gymnasium with football goals and basketball loops, and a small but well-furnished do-it-yourself kitchen, there was the Centre's own store where the prisoners could purchase food to cook, a library room with a few thousand mainstream books for the high-echelon prisoners to pass time between court dates and visits by their legal representation, a locker room with laundry machinery, a computer lab, and a sizeable parlour-like room filled with sofas and lounge chairs and a foosball table. Currently, all of the eleven other prisoners of the court were hanging around the place, playing chess, watching TV, reading, sleeping or making an omelette.
They spent their days there in relative tranquility, not complaining or protesting but instead trying to find joy in the generously apparelled environment. They deemed themselves lucky that they had not been subjected to the jail standards of their home countries, or - even worse - the standards that they once had been keeping down themselves. Truly, none of them would have wanted to end up in a torture chamber or in front of a firing squad, like many of their former compatriots and rivals. They much preferred the clueless coziness of such a cosmopolitan Western political prison.

But the peaceful mood changed drastically when, suddenly, a enormously loud "What?!" shook the room, causing all the detainees, brutalised soldiers and sleazy politicians alike, to look up, and give each other questioning stares, inquiring where the hell that hellish noise had just come from.
The answer lay only a storey beneath them, in the gym.

It was sizeable, slightly bigger than a ball park, and about two stories high, furnished with green linoleum, wood planks and pull-up bars.
When the Queen and her 'entourage' passed by, the hall was abandoned, so Estermann went over and had a warder pull forth two of the long benches in the corner, and asked the others to back away and give him and Queen Chrysalis some privacy. Among some scattered softballs and basketballs, she laid herself on the bench, barely avoiding to crush the wooden plates under her weight. Estermann opted to remain standing. He didn't know why. it just seemed right that way.
Then he began to relate whom he was introduced to in the hotel the previous day, and what that erudite earth pony had said about her.

Now, the Queen was furious, jumping up from her bench and starting pacing up and down the length of the room with four heavy hooves, or at least as far as her chains let her.

"Those were their words, not mine." he explained, raising his hands innocently.

"Those... curs!" she spat, kicking away a ball as she turned around. "How dare they?! When I get my hooves on them, I will slowly grind them into dust!"
She looked up to the heavens. Or, in this case, the strip lighting on the ceiling."Do you hear me, Celestia?! I will shut that callous mouth of yours up once and forever!"
She looked back at her lawyer, going back to pacing. "They can take a lot from me, worm. A lot. They can take my lands, they can take my throne, they can take my glory, they can take me. But they will never take changelingkind. Never!"

Estermann nodded uneasily, holding his suitcase in front of him.
Yes, she was irate again. One could have easily thought that she relapsed into her foul-minded self. However, he couldn't describe her current outbreak as, strictly speaking, 'foul'.

Her previous tantrums had always had an air of ugly, bitter desperation and the ensuing hopelessness.

Now, however?
It was like looking up on a stage. There was a dramatic note in the regent's mannerisms, a projection of offence more than actual offence. Like a true-to-tale regent did she thunder through the gym like it was her throne room. All that was needed was a mink cape fluttering behind her.

"Who are they to say that of us, anyway?! Those filthy, disgusting ponies and their joke of a culture." She sat down upright on her haunches, putting up her hooves in a ridiculing manner. "Look at me," she sneered, "I am Princess Celestia, and I lick pink frosting off my face while I lay claim on the sun and everything it touches!" She dropped on all fours again, and glared back at Estermann. "That lily-livered pretty girl! Who put her in command of the world? Who does she think she is? She calls herself a Princess, but in my opinion, she isn't even a common hoofmaiden!" The she pointed to herself. "I am a Queen! I have a kingdom at my beck and call! Dumb, brainless creatures do not create entire kingdoms out of thin air! Dumb, brainless creatures do not bring their foes to their knees over and over again!"

Estermann recalled something different.
"But wasn't Canterlot a defeat?"

The Queen's glare traveled back to her beleaguered counsel. "Don't you dare to call the assault on Canterlot a defeat! Do you hear me? I planned it out meticulously, calculated every single detail into the equation! Every guard rotation, every choke point to cut off the locals’ flight, yes, even the distance from the throne room to the treasury! Everything was measured out over months! We had them all at our hooves in less than ten minutes! They didn't stand against me or my Changelings. I even defeated the Princess herself in one-on-one combat-"

"But what happened then?" Estermann inquired, his nerves strained.

Chrysalis fell silent. Her head slumped visibly.
"Shining Armour happened. He and his little horse of a wife, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza."

Quite frankly, he still couldn't believe it.
"Shining Armour. This Shining Armour, you mean?"
Was he the hero solely responsible for the changelings' defeat?

"The very same. He was my key to Canterlot and Celestia. But in the end... I lost my key."

Estermann shook his head. He tried not to crack up.
But he did.

The changeling spun around.
She slammed a random dodgeball that rolled between her legs against the ground so hard that it shot up and hit the grinning Estermann square in the forehead.
The lawyer stumbled back and slumped down on the bench.

"Alright, that's enough!" a security guard shouted and made ready to approach, a can of mace in his hand. “Against the wall. Now!”

"I'm, having, a, confidential talk!" she shouted at the approaching warder, eyes incensed with anger.

Estermann rubbed his forehead and stood back up upon hearing the guard's footsteps. He wasn't disoriented, but still a little shocked by what had just hit him.
"No, no," he stammered, "Everything's fine, everything's okay. It was just a foam ball. I'm alright."

"Yes. Leave!" the Queen ordered.

Annoyed, the guard stopped, glared, and marched back where he came from.

"Gottverdammt nochamal!" the attorney cursed and combed the messed-up hair out of his face. "Right, then let us talk about victories then! What about... what about Timbucktu? What about Trot? What about Kiger? Do any of these names ring a bell?"

The changeling regent came to a halt from the pacing, processing the place names.
"Trot... Kiger?"

"You know, Northern Equestria. Changelings attack, overwhelm the garrison, raze the settlements. Rinse and repeat." he rattled the explanation off as fast as possible, fearing that if he said the wrong thing, there would soon be a second foam ball.

But Chrysalis nodded.
"Yes... Trot."

"What can you tell me about Trot? The prosecution is plundering the Canterlot Archives as we speak. We need your account of it before the trial starts."

"Trot... Trot..." the Queen mumbled, "Yes. I remember this particular battle very well. I remember... the faces. Those scared, terrified pony faces."
She caught another dodgeball among her hooves. "It all took place in the middle of a raging snowstorm, in the deepest and darkest of Equestrian nights."
She played around as she continued paddling up her stream of thought. "We... five hundred of my children and I... we stumbled upon a group of weary donkey travellers. You know, the crusty sort - unkempt manes, split hooves, and rugged peon clothing. And you know how donkeys are. Dirty dullards. So we took their forms. They begged me, pleaded that I spare them and their sorry little lives. So I did. What my children did with them after they took them into the Foal Mountains, however, is quite a mystery to me. Suffice to say, they didn't have to freeze anymore."

Estermann shuddered. He unpacked his laptop, trying not to think about the donkeys.

"Then," she continued, "I decided that we make good use of their forms. Our pack had been scavenging in the hills around Trot for weeks at the time. We made decent gains, but it almost was not worth the effort of leaving our hive. So instead, why not try knocking at Trot's gates? And so we went right ahead. After all, could the Ponies really resist a lowly crowd of 500 starving, freezing beggar donkeys?" She left a dramatic pause. "Unfortunately, the ponies in the Frozen North are either a grain smarter than in the rest of Equestria, or just a whole lot more bigoted, because they refused us at first. The second and third time as well. Only by my fourth appeal did they took pity on us and opened the doors to the buffet."

The lawyer noted everything she said in short bullet-points. '• Stay rational', he repeated and repeated, ‘• Stay rational!'

"We marched in, all us 'jacks' and 'jennies', and all the nosy ponies of Trot crowded around us. I know not what they were expecting from us, but when we lifted our charade, they lost their judging stares and glares quicker than a mayfly its life. I flew to the city palace, with my army, and I asked the Emperor Incitatus to surrender his town."

"• asks for surrender," Estermann noted.

"And what does that stuck up foal on the balcony declare? 'I do not bargain with monsters like you.'"
Again she paused. A sly smile crept over her lips. "What a rude thing to say. Don't you think?"

"• Emperor refuses..." he typed.

Chrysalis continued.
"Naturally, my children did not take his unprovoked slur very lightly. And neither did I. I unfurled my wings and shot up to the balcony, and looked right in the Emperor's eyes."

Estermann's fingers stopped dead in their tracks.
On the screen, it left a long trail of kkkk...

"And I made him kiss my hooves and bawl his eyes out apologising before I rid him of all that misplaced love he had been hogging in his gluttonous little tummy. Upon my sign, my children had their fun with the rest of the townsfolk as well. Nopony could escape us that easily. Trot was in the middle of the mountains. It's a kettle, surrounded entirely by cliffs and mountainsides and rivers and a lake... we didn't even need to herd them. They had no choice but to come to us. We made great yields that day. Enough to breed a thousand hatchlings."

Slowly, the lawyer tried to regain his composure. There had been a momentary flash in his mind that yanked his train of thought away. It was the nightmare he had the other night.
He had vivid sight of Chrysalis bright green eyes...
He looked up.
"Come... to you?" he repeated the last part, confused.

"Have you written that down?" she asked. "Then you can write the following part down too. Quoth me: We changelings are very environmentally conscious. We do not throw anything away when we are done with it. Trot may have been exhausted of love and affection when we were finished with it... but that doesn't mean we didn't have any other uses for those ponies after that. Why leave them all behind to clog up the untouched nature? I knew they would make an excellent addition to our hives. Northern Equestrians can be so hardy..."

"So you took them..." Estermann murmured, lost in thought.

"We utilised them, worm. Utilised them."

Estermann nodded, and saved the testimony.
"Alright..." he recounted, "You had the town infiltrated. You lifted your disguise and asked for surrender."
The timing was important in that story. "Is that correct, Your Highness?"

She nodded. "Would I lie?"

"And you commenced the attack... after his refusal?"

She had to think about that for a few seconds.
"Oh who knows?"

"Your Highness. This is important." Estermann warned her with a no-nonsense attitude. "If you did not give the ponies of Trot the chance to accept surrender, it counts as an act of 'No Quarter', which is illegal in and on itself. The prosecution will see themselves confirmed in one of the charges. So did you give Trot that chance?"

"They had it." she simply stated.

"I will note that as a ‘yes’. Now, what about the population? Had you every single member of them... utilised?"

"Everypony we could find." she answered, looking oblivious. "Some may have eluded our grasp, but we won't mourn about that."

"That's..." he typed down, "ethnic cleansing, deportation, imprisonment, enslavement... all in one swoop."
He shook his head. A cold shiver travelled down his spine as he looked over the damning account. "Were there any armed forces that opposed your attack?"

"Are you now suggesting that ponies can fight?" she quipped, and looked at him skeptically. "They'd need nothing short of a force field to save their sorry plots."

"So… no?"

"No."

"So you suffered no casualties?"

"Not a single one."

He chewed on his gums nervously.
"One last question then, Your Highness... was it you who was in charge of this attack?"

She rolled her eyes, "Are you deaf, worm? Read through your writ again. I am the Queen."

"But were you actually in command of the armed forces that carried out the attack?" Estermann asked anew, trying to pry even the smallest grain of a hint from her that suggested she was not actually involved.

But there was no answer.
When he looked up, he was staring into the increasingly annoyed, poison-green eyes of the changeling regent.
"I am the Queen." she repeated, slowly and clearly.

"Yes." he noted.

With those words, the Queen resumed pacing. Trying to squash the foam ball under her hooves as she cantered around it, she shook her head and looked ill-humoured.
“And they call that dumb?”

“Hm?”
He looked up from his notes.

“Celestia. Luna.” She paused bitterly. “Twilight. Did they tell the world that?”

“They told me.”

The changeling's head rose menacingly.

“Not directly... There was some scientist who tried to educate me. Don't know who sent him though.”

“Give me his name. If I ever get out of here, I'll grant him his own little place to dwell in.”

“Your Highness.”

“Worm?”

Uneasily the defence counsel placed his laptop beside him.
“Offensive as it may be, we need to be smart about this.”

“‘Offensive’ doesn't even begin to do it justice!”

“One man's insult can be another man's compliment.”

“Just what are you babbling about?”

“We can either do the expected thing and lock horns...”
He waited a few moments, “Or... we can leave them at rest in their dumb little beliefs. Let them underestimate us some more.”

Again, the Queen furrowed a foam ball between her two hooves.
“You... you are seriously suggesting here that I-”

He nodded. He closed his eyes and mentally prepared his still throbbing forehead for further collision.
But the ball never came flying.
When he looked back up, he still caught the Queen eyeing him doubtfully.

“And what will that achieve?” she asked bluntly.

“You don't mind what you don't mind. Who would you rather get rid of? An... army of shapeshifting master infiltrators with a legendary grudge against you, or a pack of stray, wild, disoriented animals?”
He leaned forward conspiratively. “If we do this right, no one will be able to get you or your children for this whole affair.”

Chrysalis also leaned in a little. With rather calm scorn, she replied,
“This ball must have shaken your brain pretty badly. I don't know what world exactly you're living in, but it's not Equestria. Those ponies may be stupid as sin... but they do not forget.”

Estermann raised his eyebrows.
“The Equestrians? You mean our Equestrians?”
He thought back to Captain Shining. He thought back to Lexy Fori. “I... It's just... I don't think I've met thinking, talking creatures that were more naïve than those Equestrians. I think you could talk them into whatever you like. You ought to know it best, you almost usurped the whole place!”

“Hm. Quite.” she agreed. “Except that they've all already been talked into three particular things: A changeling is your enemy. Once a changeling, always a changeling. And the only good changeling is a changeling blasted a thousand leaps across the country. That's what they believe.” she almost chanted.

“But... do you know what they'd do with you as things stand now?” the attorney reminded her in all earnesty. “As an enemy of the state? They'll chop off your horn and drain the life out of you! You can't really be looking forward to that.”

“And now, worm, I want you to think very hard for just the fraction of a second: What will they do to me once I'm a mere stray animal?”

He shrugged.
“I wouldn’t be too worried. They’re ponies, aren’t they? Friendship, Magic,... Fraternité. Couldn’t pry the wings of a damn fly.”

“Oh… precious.” the Queen laughed hoarsely, “The ponies have already plucked their share of wings.”

A little irritated, the lawyer eyed the surprisingly coy regent.
“They’re all bark, no bite, and half a wit. They'd rather put you in a remote place and forget you ever existed. You told me that yourself!”

“Forget what I said!” Chrysalis suddenly spat.

Unwonted words from the Queen of all Changelings.

Estermann sat down quietly, watching the her face give in to some distress.

“Stop trying to guesstimate what the ponies wouldn’t do to me."
Slowly, her bright green eyes locked him into a vicious stranglehold. "Just ask yourself how you’d deal with me... hungry, wild, out-of-control...”

“I... I’d...”

Only then - finally - did it hit him.
He froze up in realisation.

It wouldn’t simply end at any sort of mild, extraterrestrial expatriation. No, it was worse.

If the International Criminal Law deprived all changelings the privilege of sapience, they wouldn't just become nobody before Equestrian law – they'd be nobody in front of the law of nations, period.

They would not be an interest group, they would not be a people, not a nation, no, not even a civil war party. They would be mere animals, a natural phenomenon. Resources. Objects before the law. Objects that could be… removed… without the UN even batting an eye.

Disenfranchised, changelings would drift through the world without safety, without any guarantee, protected by no one and hounded by everyone.
A people can be protected by the assembled international community. But animals?
Animals couldn’t claim land, or found nations, or have the right to be independent and unimpeded by ‘proper’ states. The Equestrians would trot all over them. They could even kill them all, to the last beast, and call it pest control.
Who would mind? The WWF?
Who would they send? The Rainbow Warrior?

What a big damn farce.
Even in recent times, with Equestria’s abrupt discovery upsetting every major piece of law’s definition of humanity and its jurisdiction over living creatures, it was often overlooked how easily only a few written words could make the difference between a subject and an object.
Right now, the changelings, for what they were worth, were teetering on the precipice.

And there stood Estermann, and now he had the honour of giving the shove.

Almost involuntarily, another's words from earlier that day were swept back into his mind.
The dogs...
What Lyra had been telling him – or trying to, anyway:
What do they do with bitey dogs?

Well, the same thing they've always done with them, of course.

Estermann slowly freed himself from the Queen's eyes.

“Well spotted.” she just confirmed. “Underestimating them is a mistake even the mightiest and strongest of Equestria’s warlords have made. Ponies may have brains like twittermites... and yet, they possess the force of the same. They don’t scare me… their streak does. Their stupid, stupid streak.”
She looked up at the human.

But his disbelief persisted.
“I… don’t think I can follow. One day they’re effete, the next they’re... not?”

“Ponies flee what they fear. And they destroy what they don’t.”
Engaged, she got up. “You want to hear what happened in Trot? Do you also want to hear what happened after Trot?” she asked with her eyes broadening in all earnesty.

The lawyer tastes his lips awkwardly.
“Do go on.”

Author's Note

#JeSuisParis

XIV. Nightfall

XIV
Nightfall

Royal Palace, City of Canterlot, Equestria
19. November, 2015
7:10 am ICT

A hammering noise echoed through the gigantic reception hall like bells in a cathedral. Bulky pegasus constructors loudly coordinated tall, floating banners as they were raised to the ceiling.

Edith looked up. Her neck snapped a little, but it didn't hurt as much as the day before. She saw baskets with wild summery flowers hanging high above her, illuminated by the two story-high lancet windows and glassen chandeliers that held dozens of shining candles each.
This room was perhaps the lushest and tallest one she had ever seen in her life. Unbelievable that horses would ever be able to create such magnificent constructions. If this building really was as old as it looked, then the Equines must have been building these monstrous citadels while humanity was still struggling with perfecting their peat huts.

Sliding upright on her uncomfortable, low-built chair, her wet boots squeaking on the marble floor, she contemplated plants and rows of chairs alongside the walls and columns. Her eyes came to a halt at an elegant grand staircase at the end of the hall that wriggled itself upward, like a double helix, by the sides of an enormous central stained window.
Further left, there was an open set of double doors leading into an adjacent room at the feet of the stairs, in which – from the corner of her eyes – she could see a busy-looking bespectacled pegasus sorting papers on the table beneath her, chewing on a fountain pen and looking quite lethargic.

From somewhere, a voice was echoing down at her, aggravated, urgent, frank. Inside her limp, addled head, her eyes searched for any indication. It felt as if they and ears had been smeared with vaseline.
And then, of course, there was the nausea, the terrible nausea, cooking up inside her head and dripping down to her stomach.

Finally, when she looked up, she saw a white-clad creature with a bright red beard drifting back into focus.

“Edith?” he said. “Edith! Are you listening?”

“No.” she just slurred.

The Canadian wiped some molten snow out of his facial hair with his ushanka.
“Focus. I know you're sick and tired, but so am I. I'm not gonna repeat myself.”
He then repeated himself, somewhat strenuously, "I need to be downstairs in the palace archives at eight. I need to get going. Do you have any of your belongings left in the University Hospital labs?”

Edith thought for a moment.
"Maybe."
She was positive her entire belongings were still lying in a locker somewhere in the royal university complex.

Pierre just nodded slightly toward the double doors and the desk behind them.
“Edith... the secretary's is open until twelve o'clock today. Can you go and apply for the retrieval of your kit yourself?”

To that, she didn't really know what to say.

First, she’d tried to do some pony a favour and assist in his enquiry. The next moment, she had been roused out of her hospital bed with half her teeth missing and pumped on magic. Then she’d been rewarded for her troubles with a P-49 from the UN.
And now the guy tasked with deporting her wouldn't even bother to get her stuff back because he had to run?

Sure. Why not.

She could have unleashed a firestorm of abuse at the man then and there, in the atrium of the Equestrian seat of power.
Yet she wanted to keep enough dignity to not leave the Equestrian isle in handcuffs.

“Chan't... chan't I just gho down to the labs and chlear them up myself? I still have the kheys on me...” she tried to reason.

Sighing, he quickly shook his head.
“No can do. One thing is, I'm not going to let you fall down three flights of stairs and knock the rest of your life out of you on impact. You need to rest.”
Then he sniffed. “Secondly, the Castle Guard has given the hospital labs a high-end clearance because of all the arriving Everfree cadavers. UN personnel are authorised automatically...”
He paused. “But... Since we both know yours isn't going to get renewed...”

Bitterly but weakly, she stared into space.

“You... you'll have to give me those keys now, by the way.”

The Bosnian gritted the teeth behind her lips.
She rid herself from her gloves and her heavy jacket with near-agonising slowness.
Only once she held both slung around her arm, she sat back, erected her head, and took out her bundle.
She pulled it out of her pockets so impulsively that she almost handed him her pocket lining alongside it.

“Thanks.”

“Pierre. Please gho. Takhe your appointment. And shove it up your ginger ass.”

He chewed her words over for a short moment.
“Much obliged.”

Then he rushed off, to the tune of the construction ponies' hammers further down the aisle.

The forensic's breath grew heavy. A thick knot was forming somewhere in her guts. The shame and the anger - at herself, and at those around her - had to settle somewhere.

Once again, the columns and ceilings above her head started to twist and turn erratically.
Before her body would get the chance to betray her and give her a crippling fit of impending palsy, she allowed her breathing to become a bit lighter again and the fog around her mind to clear. She tried to rid herself of the metaphorical, yet exceedingly tangible weight on her shoulders through deep, controlled breaths.
At some point, her eyes fluttered shut.

“Hey... Are you okay?” she heard a bemused voice inquire.

Her eyes shot open again.

Across from her, stowed away behind one of the adjacent pillars, there sat a smiling young woman.
Edith didn't even ask herself how she could have overlooked her.

She was dressed elegantly, in a beige business suit and her blond hair was braided around the back of her head. Her eyes were smeared with generous amounts of mascara and her lipstick was noticeably glaring.
She surely made a fine foil to the tousled Bosnian with her unctuous hair, her sweaty jumper and slush-caked ski-bottoms and boots, limply resting on the other side of the hall.

“You were looking like you'd have a collapse a second ago.” the lady explained herself, not once losing her slightly amused expression. “Should I be calling someone?”

Thankfully, Edith had the gift to make all that pain, all that discomfort invisible to everyone else. Suckering up and sitting upright as much as she could on her velvet chair, she shook her head.

The lady's high heels clacked against marble floor as she crossed her legs, intrigued.
“Mountaineering?”

Edith raised her eyebrows quizzically.

The lady pointed at the right side of her own neck, just behind the ear, as if to point out Edith's bandages.
“Didn't go so well, huh?”
Her English was excellent, but a foreign twang was noticeable.

Edith let out a raspy sigh and shook her head.

“Well, it was one guess. The countryside's beautiful around here... but it's not holiday resort material. If you know what I mean. One doesn't go dune-buggying in Afghanistan.”

“...Hm.” the forensic just added tiredly.

“Then again, what do I know?” she mused on. “I'm told the Frozen North has some great hiking trails. I'm going there myself tomorrow. Won't be climbing, though.”

Edith slipped out of her comfortable position some more.
“Isn't it... a war zone?” she asked.

“It is?” the woman made sure cheerily. “Well, I'll only be sight-seeing. Should prove interesting.”

Edith thought back to the mountains of forms she was forced to fill out when she first applied for the Equestrian commission.
She had to be run through everything, background checks and references and assignment allocations...

And that begged the question: How the hell did that young girl ever make it anywhere near Equestria?

“Are you a tourist?”

The lady laid a hand to her heart and smirked.
“Should be. This is like paid vacation. But believe it or not, I'm actually here for entirely work-related reasons. You too, I hope?”

Wordlessly, Edith lifted the jacket in her arms, showing the working lady the grey logo on its back.

“ICMP? Oh... the International... Council of...”

“Chommission on Missingh Persons.” she corrected her.

“Ah.” the woman nodded. “The war graves people, of course. Excuse my ignorance.”
Uncrossing her legs again, she leaned forward. “Listen... I don't mean to pry. But did that UN guy just try to fire you or something?”

Edith eyed her with thinly-veiled contempt.
“I don't thinkh that's any of your business.”

“No, it's not. Obviously.” she agreed, begrudgingly, before lighting up again. “But if you ask me, I'd tell you to go and kick his ginger ass, you know?”

The forensic didn't really know what to make of that statement. Or of that conversation in general.
The other woman wasn't wrong, but still...

“I had to deal with him already. Awful.” the lady related, “Typical bureaucrat. Where I come from, we'd call him a Dolboeb. If there's one thing those people don't understand, then it's when to hand out pink slips and when to shut their mouths.”

“Hm...” Edith just hummed, a little embarrassed.

“So are you a doctor then?”

“Forensich pathologist.”

“But you're a freelance.”

“...Uh, no. I have a chomission... or had one.”

“You should really consider a change in jobs. Work for someone who doesn't think your efforts are expendable.”

The forensic raised her chin, her expression knowing.
“Likhe you?”

The lady laughed. “I'm delighted that you think so, but no. I mean, sure, we can always use someone who dig up things for a living... But we prefer those who know how to operate earthmovers."

She glanced over to the double doors, where the curly-haired, bespectacled pegasus secretary who had apparently stopped filing papers and was peeping her head out into the hall.
Adjusting her glasses, the pony addressed the lady.
“Alright, Missus. You can step inside in five minutes or so. Her Majesty is on a very tight schedule, so you'd be better off making it quick. Alright?”

She nodded in the pony's direction, and then gave the forensic across from her a chuckle.
“That's Equestria for you. When you go to see royalty, would you have really thought that your first hurdle is a secretary behind a desk?”

Edith's eyebrows swung upward.
“Royalty? You are seeingh royalty?”

“Yes, yes.” the lady grinned and wriggled her head - comically, yet definitely a little too casually. “But only one of them. The nice one, the… not-awkward one.”

“Chan I askh why?”

“Market probing. It's all a little... hush hush, you understand.”

“Hm.”

It was at that moment that the lady seemingly had a thought that amused her even more.
“You know what?”

“No.”

“I think... you should just go... and work for Equestria. They'd probably thank you for it.”

Edith was mystified.
“Exhuse me?”

She shrugged innocently.
“I don't know. The thought occurred. Looking at you.”

“I don't understand what this is supposed to be.”

“The Equestrians are probably the most benign employers this side of the Salvation Army, and from what I've gathered, they're in bad need of committed foreign professionals right now.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Not peacekeepers. This isn't Syria. Yet.”

“Listen...” Edith breathed, “I am neither jobless nor a peacekheeper. I am a full-time employee of the ICMP. The only reason I'm even allowed here is because of my mandate to the UN.”

“Lastochka, you don't owe the UN anything. They're shoving you around the place like a queen on a chessboard, and you don't even notice. You offered your helping hand… and they forgot what to do with it. Why should you care if Equestria does take you in?”

Edith cut her off with a swipe of her fingers. Wasn't that loudmouthed young girl getting a little bit ahead of herself- and anyone – here?
“What I'm doingh here is advising the lochal hospital staff on forensich investighation techniqhues.”

“Then what exactly did you do that got you fired?”

She breathed.
“I wasn't fired. I was... pulled off.”

The other woman had already begun packing her belongings back into her purse and make ready to leave.
“If you want my advice, then don't take all those IGO office jockeys too seriously. They're here for decoration. If you really want them to keep you, then find someone with actual influence who can spell out just how indispensable your efforts here are.”
She rose, dusting her trousers off one final time. “And if nobody in the UN is willing to stand up for you... who else can you turn to but the ponies?”

Nervously, the Bosnian began to massage her kneecaps.
“Yeah. I'll thinkh about it.”

“Don't take too long. Equestria really looks like a place worth staying.”
She gave a warm smile, waved shortly and wished – in impeccable Serbian, “Srećno!”

Then she was gone, her shoes speedily and noisily click-clacking over toward the grand staircase.

'She has no idea, of course...' Edith thought to herself as she looked on, 'But is she wrong?'

Edith could call someone to her defence, to contest the higher-ups' rash decision.
The freshly anointed Captain Fighting Fit, perhaps? Or maybe even Junebug's mother, at least if she could muster enough sanity to remember the human in the first place?

The search for Junebug was continuing. It had to. Why, Edith couldn't really say.
There was something about the assignment that triggered something inside her. Whether it was the obligation she felt she now had to the ponies of the Everfree with her offer to help, or the sheer curiosity to discover the secrets and mysteries behind the disappearances...

At this point, she was ready do a lot of things to achieve a feeling – any feeling – of closure.

Her feet sprang up so suddenly that her head almost didn't follow.

The pony secretary yawned, spreading her wings in all directions and sliding back in her chair.
As she opened her eyes, peering back over the counter of her marble desk to read off the hour on the big grandfather clock on the other end of the room, she saw a dishevelled-looking human block her view, staring down at her, limbs crossed, and her winter coat resting on her tabletop.
The pegasus' bored eyes crept up to meet the human's with agonising slowness.
“Yes? What do you want?” she inquired unenthusiastically.

“So... is this the Porter's office?” she made sure.

“No. This is the janitor's. If you've got a broken tap, you need to take it to management.”

Confused, the human pouted and looked around the glamorous surroundings.

“This is the Office of the Royal Castellan, sweetheart.” the mare explained grouchily, “You're at the foot of the Royal Keep. What do you think this was supposed to be?”

Edith's face quickly turned sour. Pulling the bandages a bit away from her face, she added,
“Achtually, that's why I'm here. I'm not sure how this workhs... I need to makhe an appointment.”

“Do you now?”
The receptionist pulled down her glasses, and slid a hoof over the human's discarded jacket with a judging glare. “Well, first of all, you won't be doing anything looking like this.This is Their Majesties' residence you're about to enter, not a public gym.”

“Fine. I chan change.” Edith enunciated, annoyed. “Now, chan I makhe an appointment, or chan I not makhe an appointment?”

“Secondly...” she continued, holding up a hoof, “Any and all petition sessions have been suspended due to the ongoing changeling threat. Check again next Monday between the hours of seven am and one pm.”
Judging by how fluently she rattled it off her tongue, it was evident that she was used to saying it.

“Well, I'm not here for a petition.” Edith explained incredulously. “I want a private talkh with a member of the Eqhuestrian Armed Forces who's gharisonned in Chanterlot Castle. As soon as possible, please. It's urgent.”

“It's always something urgent with you humans, isn't it?”
Then she sighed and slid a stack of paper over to her. “Okay, I'll need your name and profession.”

“Šarić, Edith. I am with the ICMP.”

The pegasus rolled her eyes and began to file through the pages.
“Sweet Celestia, what kind of name is 'Šarić' supposed to be, anyway? How do you spell that?”

“Ш. A. P...” Edith counted off dryly.

“Spare me.” the secretary breathed. “Title?”

“...Admiral.”
The delivery was perfectly deadpan.

The pony rose in surprise.
“Really?”

“No. That was a joke.”

The pegasus skimmed a couple of pages, a little bit winded-looking. “Alright, um... I see you're part of the human mission. Your name's here... but…”
Then looked back up with a suspicious stare, “It's been put in brackets. Is there anything I should know?”

She bit her lip before answering.
“Do the brackhets mean anythingh?”

“Oh, only that you've been... earmarked.” she slurred, all the while eyeing the human expectantly. “Well?”

Feigning complete ignorance, the forensic just shook her head determinedly and folded her arms.
“None whatsoever.”

“Shame. I would have really liked to know.”
Then with a swift motion of her hoof, the secretary struck a bell fastened to the top of her desk twice, giving a clarion ring that echoed through the room and the hall outside.

Soon after, Edith could discern the clops of armoured hooves marching down the grand staircase in impeccably timed unison.
Two Royal Guards in silver armour and golden badges under their chins descended and stopped in the doorway to the Castellan's office.

The pegasus secretary checked the time on the longcase clock and announced, with a breath of relief. “Very well… ‘Admiral’. Off you go.”

Confused, Edith looked to and fro between the desk in front of her and the guards behind her.
“Sorry?”

“Just go. Don't ask any questions. Just follow the Serjeants. They'll know where to put you.”

“So...” the white mare with the black rimmed glasses began, nervously rocking about on her chair.
“What do you think… Your Majesty?”

“What I think? Well...”

Sunken in thought, the deep-blue alicorn held her enormous mane between her silver-worked hooves and stroked it. All the stars and constellations of the night sky seemed to dance around them as she straightened out the dishevelled hair.

The metallic plate and chain that awkwardly lay in front of her on the breakfast table was made out of the finest, most shimmering precious metals.
The remotely moon-shaped plate was made out of brightly polished brass, and dotted minuscule engravings of plants, trees, and ocean waves all over it, honed with thin lines of genuine silver. The thick edges were rarefied with patterns of embedded fire-red bronze and encrusted with a motley gem shards of all shapes and sizes.
The chain that connected its two points itself was more akin to a curtain rope, with several chains interwoven with elaborately braided strings of blue silk, white angora and rose plisse.

“I like it.” the alicorn finally declared. “An impressive array of materials. It certainly speaks of exemplary workponyship.”
Levitating a cup of tea toward her mouth, she drank and pondered on. “But alas… it’s not quite what We are looking for.”

The earth pony laid a hand on her heart and sighed in relief.
“Oh, good. I was thinking myself that it was a little bit… you know...“

“Too bland?”

“Too martial, Majesty.”

The alicorn looked at the mare with much surprise.
“Too martial? Heavens, Raven, why?”

Embarrassed, the aide combed her own mane, dark-brown and tied into a pony-tail, and explained herself very carefully.
“You know… If I were a human leader, and I were to accept a gift from the Princess of Equestria, I would perhaps expect something… a little different. A set of fine porcelain perhaps. Not… whatever this is supposed to be.”

The alicorn peered over to her assistant with the look of a disappointed teacher.
“This, my dear Raven, is a ceremonial gorget. In this country's glory days, it was part of only the most revered and respected Guard Officers’ armours, casting protection and announce their authority to the rank-and-file.”

Uneasily, she only nodded.
“Yeah. The thing is, I don't think that gifting a piece of armour is necessarily the most fitting with our message of peace. Plus, Her Majesty your Sister might have already taken her pick for a state present...”

“Oh, what?”

“A grand velvet flag... embellished with a... beautiful red heart?”

“A heart... How original.” the Princess whispered back unenthusiastically.

Displeased and bored, she let her stare wander around her relatively small, but cosy private chambers.
In one corner stood a elegant four-poster bed, in another a sofa by a chess table. Not far away stood her working desk, piled up gracelessly with books and files. Moody oil paintings covered the silky walls around them. Two arched windows looked out into the Canterlot panorama on the relatively sunny south side; townhouses, towers, terraces and gardens glistened below mountain tops and above white-strewn valleys.

Eventually she came across the chamber doors, where she found a uniformed guard, standing at attention – a muscular, pearly-white pony, innocent brown eyes, short buzz-cut mane, and his fluffy wings in bandages. His demeanour was patient and loyal, but his eyes were distraught and on edge.

“Captain. What do you think?” she asked him.

The pegasus jolted and clicked his hooves.
“I... I... I agree, your Highness. It's... very pretty.”

The Princess only sighed.
“Fine. The pretty flag it is. I suppose our esteemed human guest can still get some practical use out of it. Like hoisting it on his outhouse.”

Contently, Raven climbed off her chair and made a short bow.
“I'm glad Your Majesty agrees. And I'm sure you'll appreciate that the flag has already been arranged for the occasion.”

“Yes. Sometimes, We do wonder why my sister seeks out Our opinion at all.”
Under the cover of the tablecloth, the Princess slipped out of her silver horseshoes and drowsily applied her now barren hooves to her eye sockets. “Raven, you are dismissed. We wish to lie down for the day.”

“Yes, Majesty. Sweet dreams, Majesty.”

The aide graciously bowed out of the Night Princess' room.

Uneasily, the guardspony was about to follow suit, but a commanding hoof from the princess stopped him in his tracks.

“Captain Fighting Fit? You stay. Close the doors.”

With a short nod, he obeyed.

As soon as the clip-clops of the aide’s hooves disappeared down the corridor outside, the Princess rose from her seat with a disgruntled mien and sent the lordly gorget bouncing onto her large bed.

“A heart. It's always hearts!”

Lifting her now neglected dish of omelette and portobello mushrooms and her kettle of strawberry tea out of the way with her horn, she brought forth a rolled-up map and a good dozen miniature bannerets from under the table.
The pegasus in the corner of the room watched her spread the map over the tabletop, transforming the princely breakfast table into a makeshift plotting board.

“Now Captain... Fighting Fit.” she began, weighting down her map with her kettle, “It is Captain Fighting Fit, isn't it?”

“It... it is now, M'am.” he confirmed, visibly nervous. “Sorry, the rank takes getting used to.”

“You are with the Everfree Provincial Cavalry?”

“N-no. I used to be. I have been serving in the Royal Household Battalion here in Canterlot, since the... you know.”

The Princess of the Night looked up, giving the pegasus soldier a judging stare. However, it fell apart at the sight of his helpless trembling demeanour.
“Alas, Captain. We can say few more words about your recent promotion than Our sister already had. We can only reiterate that you have earned it. A dozen-fold.”

His chin hardened.
“Thank you, M'am.”

“To organise a rescue party and wade out into the belly of the Everfree Forest. No order, no coercion. Just on your own initiative. It was a dauntless thing to do.”

His ears sagged unexpectedly.
“Your sister... I mean... Princess Celestia... she advised that I shouldn't do it again.”

The Princess rose up, flicking an intrigued eyebrow.
“Did she now?”

The soldier looked down.
“She meant that... it was just too risky. For all we knew, we could have run right into the hooves of a changeling army and... joined the ponies in the cave instead of rescuing them.”

“But that did not do much to curb your willpower. Would you do it again?”

He held his breath, apprehensively.
“I... I will do as my Princesses command, M'am.”

“Now is not the time for false obeisance, Fighting.” she warned. “Come closer.”

The stiff soldier needed several uncomfortable moments to close the gap between the door and his sovereign's desk.
She invited him to inspect the map. It showed the upper regions of Equestria, west to east, from coast to coast – the inscriptions were ancient and aged, but intensely detailed.

“Captain, you have served in the Battalion Communications staff. You know where most Royal Guard regiments are currently deployed.”

“Yes, of course. They're all lined up north. Aren't they?”

“Show me.” she asked, and had the bannerets float into his hooves.

Dutifully, he moved the pegs, depositing them along a thin ridge that seemed to split the thin Equestrian island in two.

“Crystal Gorge. Quite right. As you know, this is is the geographical border that separates the landmass of the Frozen North from Equestria proper.”

“I didn't know it was geographical. Is this why they're camping there?”

She put a hoof on the map and slowly slid it northward.
“Partly. Everything that's behind this ridge is considered no-mare's land. Too barren, too cold. We know the changeling's realm lies somewhere out there, but it's not above the Crystal Ridge that they can start doing damage.”

“Won't they try and push south again then?”

“They did before. And they will again. Of this, We're certain.”
Her eyes hardened. “But when? How? And with how many?”

The freshly anointed Captain didn't immediately understand the questions as rhetorical.
“We'll... see?”

“Yes, when they're on top of us, we will.”

In silence, she contemplated the tiny, thin row of bannerets on the grimy white paper, and didn't say anything for some time.
It almost drove the pegasus across from her mad.

“Fifty thousand colts.” she finally mumbled, “That's eight in ten Royal Guards, Captain Fighting – are sitting atop a two-hundred league-long ridge in the most forsaken corner of this fair land, collecting dust... and snow. Meanwhile, a force of a hundred thousand starving changelings are biding their time, waiting to pour over this ridge and pound our brave fifty thousand into the ice.”

“We won't let them do that, M'am.”

“If We remember correctly, you wouldn't let them interrupt the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza either.” she commented caustically.

His ears sagged immediately.
“I wasn't stationed in Canterlot back then...”

“Alas, we fear that's irrelevant.”
Miserably, the alicorn huffed and lowered her crowned head. “The Guard has changed a lot since the olden days – the days of Discord and Sombra and Tirek. In which way, though, I dare not ask.”

“M'am.”

In the fraction of a second, she stomped on the table, spilling frustration and tea all over the map and leftover meal.
“Blazing Tartarus! Canterlot Command knew it was coming. The Changelings didn't even get a jump on them, for crying out loud! How is this Guard supposed to safeguard our nation if they cannot even hold the streets just outside those windows?!”

The bulky pegasus shrunk back a fraction of an inch, but desperation riled him back up.
“I wish I had been here! I wish I could have fought. It wouldn't have made a difference, but at least I could have fought! I wish I would have had the chance...”

Her feral gleam brought him back to repressed silence.
At the Princess' table, only one was allowed to shout.

“...I'm sorry, M'am.”

“Fighting Fit. We may have not made it clear enough earlier, but you have nothing to apologise for.”
Not leaving him out of her sight, she rounded the table and approached the pegasus. “There is a fire in your heart so bright that it eclipses many of the other royal guards altogether.”
She stepped so close to him that the Princess' long dark-blue neck and regalia soon filled his entire vision. “Do you really think any one of your comrades would have done what you did?”

“I...”

“They would have spent their week on leave wasting away in malt shops or betting their pay at the racetrack. Not in a cavern in the single most perilous place south of the Crystal Gorge. It is the sort of assignment that has pushed many Guards to discharge in the past. Or desertion.”

“Should I’ve even been there, though?”

“Were you certain that you would locate the missing filly Junebug? Or anypony, for that matter?”

The Pegasus Captain was visibly pained. Until now, he’d been convinced he would have. Why would he have gone in there, anyway?

Only now did it dawn upon him that, maybe, he didn't. His whole plan of finding Junebug by simply retracing steps she might have made many months ago seemed rather far-fetched. And he wasn't a stallion of far-fetched plans.
Obedient in truth, he shook his head.

“And yet you went.”

“And yet I went.”

Then Princess Luna laid a hoof on his armoured shoulder. Fighting Fit gawked up at her immediately.

“There was a reason why you now hold the rank you do. Even though the goal of the Royal Guard is to guard and defend the Crown... you are not a defender.”

His eyes widened.

“You're an attacker. And this, quite rightly, makes you the best defender of them all.”

“Your Majesty...”

“We need Officers like you. Guards who aren't content with the peace of the moment. Ponies who don't think that closing your eyes will make the evil go away.”
Firmly, she led Fighting back to the map, still drenched in the strawberry tea. “Look upon the North. The lurking, howling North. Now look at your brethren, camping on show, waiting for the inevitable defeat. When will they realise that defence is simply not their strong point?”

“Your Majesty.” he protested and tried to free himself from her grasp, “It's not like the colts have a choice. They're under orders to hold the border, M'am, and they do what they're told.”

“Yes. The orders of my sister.” she interjected, audibly exasperated.

The officer had an unwell feeling about where this conversation was leading them.
He could sense what was on the Night Princess' lips.

“Celestia... is a peacemaker. A merciful soul. A mare of a great many talents. And I am speaking from personal experience when I tell you: Waging war is not one of them. It never was.”

“Are... we... at war?” the soldier made sure, extremely cautious of his words as they left his mouth.

“You tell me. Show me the changeling queen's plea for peace.”

The Princess' eyes were cold as only one of her deepest winter's nights could be. Inside her beautiful, soft-spoken shell, there slumbered a millennia-old behemoth moulded by conflict and combat.

“So does... your Majesty want to... bypass the orders of your sister?”

The Princess of the Night rose her head humourlessly.
“'Bypass'? That would imply that We don't actually have a say in what Our Royal Guard does. Is that what you're trying to tell Us?”

“N-no, I would never...”

“The word you must be looking for is 'rescind'. Which is what We intend to do. Because We want to grant this Royal Guard a long-overdue victory. We will not sit quietly this time 'round. We shall march forth, and hit the changeling where it hurts.”

One by one, the pins were seized by blue hue of the Princess' magic and began moving themselves to the upper edge of the map.

“Even though we don't actually know where they are?”

“And we won't know anytime soon by contemplating the Frozen North from the outside!”

Years ago, when Fighting Fit enrolled in the Hoofington Military College, he swore an oath of allegiance. To defend Equestria, to enforce harmony, and to serve the Princess in Canterlot - the peacemaker. By the time the second one had returned, he was already serving as the Sheriff of the Everfree.
The notion that he owed loyalty to yet another sovereign – one that ruled the dark night, to boot – still struck him as strange; awkward at best, unsavoury at worst.

So why, why by the sun and the moon, was he finding so much more sense in her words than in the edicts of his true regent?

The princess lowered herself back into her seat, gently pulling the map to the side, and addressed the soldier with a more uninvolved demeanour.
“Feel free to seat yourself at my table.” she offered.

“Thank you, M'am. I'd rather stand.”

“You are tense. We can feel it. Please sit.”

An enchanted chair pulled itself up next to the soldier. He accepted it.

“Now... Your position as Captain will lead you down two possible paths; Our sister, for one, wishes to see you placed in the Canterlot Command, where you will direct supply wagons to reinforce the outposts by the ridge.”

Inside him, something automatically frowned.

“We, on the other hoof, wish to see you placed at the front, from which you will help lead your brethren to a precise and determined strike, overrunning the changeling, ending the threat once and for all.”
She harrumphed. “We figured the penultimate choice belongs to you.”

He held his breath, his mouth flapping open to say something about it, anything...
“I...”

She just smiled. Challengingly.
“Be truthful now, Fighting Fit. If the order reached you, you would be the first to storm into the North.”

“I've actually... had a question.”

“Then ask it.”

“Yes M'am. What about the Everfree?”

“The forest? Oh, it shan't be neglected.”
Her eyes turned to the windows vigilantly. “As you might know, a thousand-odd guardsponies are heading south into the Ponyville Province as We speak. Even Our sister could not deny the necessity of an intricate search of those bewitched woods. Only the sun knows what harm a fully-fledged changeling colony could do from there. Not to mention what they already have done.”

From the corner of her eyes, she watched the the captain breath out some of his tenseness.

“You are worried.”

“A bit. Ponyville's where I'm from. I spent half my life there. I know, it's a bit of a selfish on my end to hope that it might receive... particular attention right now...”

“Is it selfish to worry about those you hold dear?”

“It is for a Guard in the service of Her Majesty.”

“Fighting Fit.” she sighed peacefully. “Look at Us.”

His eyes couldn't muster to meet hers immediately. Just as blue and cold as before, at least the features around them began to radiate mercy and sympathy.

“You and We are not too different. We are also afraid. Just as you worry about your friends and your family, We worry about Our subjects and subordinates. We too cannot help but marinate in Our powerlessness in the face of unspeakable evil that intends to plague them.”
She pressed her lips together. “Sitting in my chambers, drinking my tea and felling judgements about gift flags... Or making state visits to places I never heard of and won't hear of again, to impress creatures that might never become my... Our allies... All these endeavours do not lie in Our hooves...”
She broke eye contact. With her front limbs, the alicorn lifted her tiara from her head, and inspected is melancholically. “These are the true chains of command. If We could lift this crown and swap it for the old battle helm, We would. If we could fly out into the eternal ice and lead Our army into the fray Ourselves, We would. But the call of the realm beckons Us elsewhere.”

The Captain nodded. “And me?”

“We are granting you the chance We won't be given. To fight for what is right. Captain Fighting Fit.”

He weighed his options. And hers. He couldn't help but play Discord's advocate.
“So what about the Elements of Harmony?”

The Princess of the Night sat still in her place. In her inner eye, a slitted cat's eye stared back into her.

“Generosity. Loyalty. Honesty. Kindness. Laughter.”
She sniffed. “How can any of those put a stop to a hundred-thousand-strong swarm of mindless drones in who's very nature it is to steal other's happiness? To deceive and betray all those they meet? To torture and agonise the helpless? To sneer at the weak? Changelings aren't corrupted. They’re a corruption of their own.”

Of course, Fighting Fit found no argument there.

“Even if it may not look it... the Royal Guard still has a role in this time and age. The Elements bring friendship where it can exist. The stallions of the Guard bring harmony where it cannot. This is the way it has always been.”

“Yes, M'am.”

Her eyes soon minded the map again.
“Even so, we mustn't delude ourselves. You need help.”

His ears perked.

“Even at their luckiest, Our army has a marginal chance of success as things stand now. And this is another reason why you were summoned to Captaincy. You have proven yourself adept at forging alliances, however small.”

“With whom?”

Her eyes sparkled.
“The humans, Captain.”

A sudden knock at the door that made both the Princess and the Guard startle up.

After a short nod from her sovereign, the Captain gave a call,
“W-what is it?”

The petty chamber door creaked open, and another pegasus soldier – in purple armour, his wings bony and his eyes of an almost shining yellowish hue – stood at attention.

“What is it, Private?” he inquired strictly.
He had never particularly liked the sinister, humourless grunts from Princess Luna's Night Guard.

The purple soldier seemed to look straight through him as he directly addressed his sovereign, in a deep gravelly voice. “My Princess! A subject who has been marked with immediate seizure has just been apprehended in the reception hall. Shall we present her?”

“We... beg pardon?” she mumbled quizzically. “We don't recall ordering such a thing.”

“A human mare, my Princess. By decree of the Sun Princess, she was to be brought before either Majesty immediately.”

“Why do Our sister's arrangements always have to fall to me at the most perfidious of times?” she huffed.
Then the alicorn's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait. This human... she is not yet another businessmare, perchance?”

“No, my Princess. She appears to be one of those 'peacekeepers'. She carries a uniform and there was mention of a senior rank.”

“Oh.” the Princess exclaimed, rubbing her hooves together, intrigued. “Very well. Would you... mind sending this human in here for a minute?”

The soldier nodded and bowed out instantly.

Somewhere down the corridor, several hooves came tapping down over wood panels and crimson carpeting, followed by the heavier, slower meandering of human feet.

Soon, two Household Guards in their distinctive anthracite armour appeared in the chamber door, closely followed by a thoroughly spooked, wide-eyed human with a black mane and bandages around her back chin. Like her many co-humans in Equestria, she was wrapped in all kinds of clothes, only that those clothes seemed to be in a quite worn and soiled state.

As the Princess slipped back into her silver horseshoes under the cover of the tablecloth and regally erected her chin, she noticed the Captain gasping - his face suspended in a grimace of shock.

“E-Edith?!” he stammered.

Author's Note

Hello there, it is I, the author.

This week's certainly been the week of academy records.
We've recently passed not only 100 like threshold, but also the 1400 view and 10,000 overall view thresholds!
For this occasion, I want to thank you people for your continued support and interest in this unduly long tale!

Now check out this terrific piece of fan art, created by the talented Mr McDronePone, aka Derpanater.
Thanks also for your ardour, mate!

XV. Trickle-Down Tactics

XV
Trickle-Down Tactics

Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, The Hague
ICC Detention Centre
19. November, 2015
10:12 am MET

„Here endeth the lesson, boy.“ the warden sneered.

The aged man in the dark blue uniform with the black leather belt strapped across his chest circled the prisoner in the grimy overall like a lion a wounded gazelle, playing with a nightstick as though it was a riding crop.

The cell tract was dim, only illuminated by some sparse sun rays beaming through ceiling windows high above.

“Y'all thought this here prison was goin' to be like the Ritz in Uptown Baton Rouge. With the belles and the ballrooms and the layer cake. I'm mighty glad I could help clear up this... miss-app-re-hen-shun.”

The prisoner pouted bravely, the chains on his hands jingling defiantly.
“It's lovely.” he snarked.

The senior jailer's mouth almost bit off the newly anointed jailbird's ear as he hissed,
“You'll learn to love it soon enough, boy.”

“You don't scare me. I know your little game may be enough to keep Cell Block C in check, but I know my rights.”
He puffed out his chest proudly, “According to the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, you cannot cow your inmates into doing your bidding by way of excessive violence-”

The truncheon flew in so fast he didn't even see it coming. Contorting in pain, the prisoner grabbed his battered stomach and sank on his knees, coughing uglily.

“A well-read con. Well I'll be a monkey's uncle.”
In a display of cruel feigned pity, the warden knelt down next to the suffering inmate, taking off his peaked cap and caressing his own balding forehead. “See son, you got this here situation all wrong. Lemme re-it-er-rate: Uncle Roosevelt can’t hear you in here. This ain't the United States of America no more. Hell, this ain't even the great State of Louisiana no more. This is the Lynch County Reformatory you're now residin' in.”

The prisoner could only pant, both in anger and horror in equal accord.

“And inside the Lynch County Reformatory, I am your elected representative. I am the Governor. I am the President of the United States of god-damn America. And sometimes – just sometimes – I am your Lord and Savior Jesus H. Christ. Got it?”

The prisoner said nothing. He just closed his eyes.

“Good boy.”
Then the warden jumped back up, and dragged the prisoner along with the tip of his nightstick. “Now let's get yer PJs ready and introduce you to your new neighbour, one well-known gentleman goin' by the name of Brutus. P. Slaughtery. I heard he's just dying to say, howdy."
And as the prisoner shuffled down the long corridor towards his new home, the warden threw his last regards after him.
"Oh. And welcome to Hell.”

“Wow.” the Changeling queen remarked, deeply immersed by the goings-on in front of her, and sunk deeper into her couch. “How heinous.”

“I’m sorry, your Highness…“ she heard her 'worm' whisper impertinently, rising out of his nearby armchair and leaning over to her, “Wasn’t there something important you wanted to tell me-”

With a weighty “Shh!” the regent silenced him, “All in good time, worm. Now shut up.”

The lean, balding monkey just sniffed impatiently and glanced the other way.

She couldn't resist to have her own eyes dart around the place for just an instant.
This room could only be described as a holding cell mimicking a plain living quarter. There still were the bars at the windows and a uniformed overseer sitting in the corner, his barrelled weapon resting on its incessantly tapping knees, but the rest of the room looked surprisingly quaint for a place of imprisonment and redemption.

One corner of the room had – perhaps by typical human ineptitude – been modelled like a kitchen, complete with tiles and iron sinks and vittles stacked on shelves.
A human wearing a different kind of garb stood in that corner, pouring himself a foul-looking beverage into a glass cup. And as he did, he kept glancing over his shoulders and giving the Changeling regent weird looks.
She would have loved to order him to direct his eyes back into the corner, but the look of absolute dread on his face just amused her too much.

Chewing her lips, she looked back over to the windows by the locked security doors. There stood two other humans, lanky and exceedingly hairless, their clothes identical to the one stuck in the 'kitchen', leaning by the wall with their limbs folded, seemingly chatting. They too were giving her stolen glances every other second, but at least they had the good sense to immediately hide them away when their eyes met hers.
The last of them was a plump fat male, resting on a sofa next to her, eyes closed, maw unconsciously agape, and a garishly colourful magazine covering his swollen belly.

She had been told that they also were imprisoned in these walls – but much like said walls, they did not much in the way of reminding her of a proper Equestrian prison.

The lawyer glanced back at her and the action taking place behind the tiny glass screen.
“I still wonder who allowed this to be shown here.” he remarked, an annoyed tinge in his throat, “Can't be good for prison morale.”

“Is this real?” she inquired, not entirely sure.

“What, that? Oh no no. It's not real.”
He seemed genuinely engaged as he tried to find a way to explain, “It's all just... make-believe. They're pretending. You know?”

The Queen glanced at him like at a madcolt.
“So... what you mean to say is, it's theatre.”

His eyebrows flew up as he nodded.
“Well... essentially, yes.

“Well why didn't you just say that?” the changeling asked suspiciously.

The human fell silent, and a few seconds later, gave an innocent shrug.

“I didn't spend my entire life in a cave, you know. I know what theatre is!” she stated the painfully obvious, her voice thick with sassy lordliness.
Those silly little, but ever-so grating misconceptions!
“Why wouldn't I know what theatre is? That makes no sense. It's not a difficult concept to comprehend.”
She back-pedaled for a trice. “Do you know what theatre is, worm?”

He sighed.
“The thing is, your Highness, I'm still... struggling to comprehend what a changeling is used to and what not.”

“A changeling's used to everything. That's why they're Changelings.” she dully explained.
There was another considerate pause. “So... does that mean they are just playing for us?”

“...No.”
Now there was something of a thick smug smirk of his own on his human lips, “Television is public. Anyone who has a set can see what we see.”

“That... explains a few things.”
A hint of embarrassment seemed to cross the changeling's mind as she crunched her teeth.

And so the sovereign laid her head on the sofa's armrest. She was slipping in deep thought.
“Who's meant to be the hero of the story?” she inquired suddenly, “The warden or the prisoner?”

Confused, the lawyer pursed his lips.
“You can’t tell?”

“I'm still struggling to comprehend what a human's used to and what not.” she commented sarcastically. “For all I know, the nightstick could be the hero...”

A seemingly disapproving sigh escaped his lips.

“Go on. Enlighten me as to what humankind considers heroic.”

“Well...” the human began. He made sure to read the changeling's reaction before continuing. “The warden is the villain, because he is obviously a power-hungry maniac who likes hitting people who don't agree with him being power-hungry. The other guy must be the hero.”

The changeling nodded slowly, then gave a sigh of her own.
“As was to be expected.”

He didn't know what he should take from the comment.
Was he hearing sign of remorse? Was he sensing scorn? Or was the Queen just completely delusional?

She observed him as he intently scanned her face.
Only when he noticed her unamused countenance he backed off, his embarrassment obvious.
“Exactly how badly do you think of me , worm?” she confronted him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Innocent as a schoolboy, he shrugged.
“I’m not thinking badly of you. I’m struggling to think anything of you yet at this time.”

“You're lying through your teeth, you snivelling little git.” the Queen spat, “I can feel you quivering from over here.”

“D-did I say something wrong?”

“Not just what you said, but the way you're gawking at me. Judging. Trying to read guilt off my face.” she mumbled. “You let the ponies bend your ear? Fill your head with ponytales?”

The lawyer looked aghast.
Stringently, he propped himself up on her couch and glared down at her.
“With all due respect… Not an hour ago, I had to listen to you boast about how you rubbed out an entire city state. Excuse me for not immediately assuming that an abusive captor wouldn't be your idea of heroic ethos.”

She responded with a hoarse hyena’s laugh and glancing back up at him.
“Do you narrow-minded birdbrain honestly think the sacking of Trot was the end of the story?”

“Well, I was certainly hoping that it wasn't. However, yes, that was the impression you left.”

The Queen rubbed her eyes. She was still unaccustomed to the flickering of the images in front of her, but his incessant babbling didn't help any.

“Are we perhaps going to talk about it at some point?”

She rose on her feet and stretched her hunched back with a deep vibrant caw from the very back of her throat.

“Why don’t you want to talk about it?” he inquired on, more reproachfully. “Does it shame you? Does it abhor you?”

“Worm... Shut your mouth and sit your scrawny human rump down.”

Hands on his hips, the lawyer glared at her long and hard, painfully aware of the only other nearby seat being occupied by some sleeping former warlord.
“Where?”

A cheeky smile warmed the changeling's face as she scooched slightly further away from the edge of her sofa, opening a narrow bit of cushion by her vested belly for the lawyer to sit.

But Estermann stood his ground. He contemplated the seat, too small and too damn uncomfortably close to the feral changeling creature.
That smile of hers was terrifying on its own. It was so foreign to him that he could read neither malice nor deceit off it.

“I know, I know.” she sighed. “My selflessness surprises me as much as you.”

He bit the bullet and quickly plopped down by her side.

“Good boy.”

Even though he was easily in striking distance of her swift and deadly fangs, the lawyer didn’t intend to let go off the subject at hand.
He braced himself for confrontation.
“Is it... another defeat you’re trying to hush up? In that case... you’d be best advised to overcome your ego once and for all. In the Hague, you learn to count your defeats like they were blessings.”

“Worm.”

The warmth of her barrel warmed his back.

“Yes?”

Calm as a clam, her head inspected his from the side.
“Tell me, have you ever set hoof up close to a live volcano?”

“What do you...”
The question was strange, but confidence flowed through the lawyer. “Ehm… I did visit Mount Vesuvius once. A school trip, eighth grade geography… but it hadn’t been active for half a century or so.”

“So I thought.” the changeling slurred, then grinned slightly. “Do you know how I could tell?”

Uncomfortably, the lawyer glanced on his closed laptop and folded his hands.
Then, in a brief instance of chains rustling, he felt one of the changeling’s long cold hooves curling around him and sliding onto his folded fingers.
He couldn’t help but flinch in a brief fit of absolute panic.

“You humans are so… delicate. Have I ever mentioned that?”

The lawyer almost didn’t answer, staring alertly the hole-ridden horse’s toe resting square on his lap.
“Pardon?”

She chuckled.
“You know, there was a time I thought the ponies were frail. Tender, clueless bundles of soft flesh and silky fur. But that was before I came across you lot.”

With the thin tip, she she began driving little circles on the back of Estermann’s right hand, gently pulling his pale skin along, creating wave-like creases.
The sensation was anything but therapeutic, though.

“As you know, upon my arrival in this land, I had the privilege to… suss you humans out from up close.” The changeling’s lips folded inward as she shook her head. “I was almost shocked at how frail you were, how easily you… broke. The only thing keeping these innards from spilling and those bones from snapping is this pink, naked flesh.”

Was she threatening him?
Estermann had heard enough. He tried to pull his hands – and by extension, the rest of his body – out of her reach - but she held him back firmly.

“Which is impressive… for a fellow predator.”

“Thank you.” he harrumphed. “Please give me back my hand now.”

Her hoof let go of him, only to twist itself around until it rested on him upside down - almost as if she was offering him an open palm.
“Now go ahead. Feel mine. Tell me if you notice anything.”

Hesitantly, and as impersonally as possible, he lowered two of his fingers onto the changeling regents hoof, and swept across it probingly.

Just like he had expected, her surface was thick and leathery, but surprisingly smooth and covered with countless tiny hairs, almost invisible to the human eye.
As he moved up her leg, the pounding warmth of her body became more apparent under all the porous keratin.

Suddenly, the pointed end of her hoof dug gently into the lawyer’s unexpected palm.
“The trouble with your condition is that, if you gazed into a volcano, you wouldn’t have the milky flesh that you do now. If you were up close enough to see the single bubbles boiling up in the lava, you would also be close enough for it to burn the flesh straight off your bones.”

More and more, he felt her hooves curl around him, pressing him closer against her.

“Is this in any way way relevant to Trot?” the increasingly nervous attorney persisted.

The changeling briefly shut her eyes and took in a whiff of fresh air.
“Tell me what my skin feels like.”

“It’s… thick.” he answered. “Very… sturdy. Please let-”

“This Changeling’s a hardy creature.” she sighed, and inspected the room anew.
“All of this... your world. This prison. The meals. These chains. They're nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I'd imagine... you've been through worse.”

Another hoarse cackle.
“No, you cannot. You think that you might, but you have literally no idea. And, looking at your fragile composure, one might think it's better this way.”

And suddenly, it was almost as if she couldn’t hold it any longer. As if she could no longer stall her long-overdue story. As reluctant as she first seemed, the pain of withholding it seemed to hurt more.

“We had collected our copious amounts of loot and our long lines of new slaves. We were about pack up and move out, ready to put what was left of that measly town to the torch. I decided to stay behind to ensure that even the last of my children would fly back to the Crystal Mountains in order.”

As he heard her lapsing back into her narrating self, Estermann became so overjoyed that, fueled by vim and vigour, he rammed open his laptop and, with the push of one standby button, picked his minutes back up where he had left off earlier.
The Queen’s hooves around his waist were momentarily forgotten.

“We were down to a rear guard of three thousand… when it happened. When she came.”

“Who came?”

“From one moment to the next, swarms of golden helmets began to shimmer on the hillsides and cliffs surrounding the town. The Royal Guard had reached the scene and decided to confront us.”

Now it slowly dawned upon the jurist what had happened.
“Celestia!”

“Who else.” the changeling slurred.

“What did she do?”

A telling pause.

“Did she defeat you?” the lawyer guessed.

Chrysalis felt triggered. Her nose flared audibly.
“You don't get it, do you? They were too late. The city was at our command. We had already won, and they had already lost!”

The lawyer only raised his eyebrows and expectantly leaned further into her coil.

“Listen.” she hissed. “It wasn't the assorted might of the Equestrian Guard that tore victory from our hooves.

Ah, so she did lose.
Another blessing.
Estermann couldn't resist gaining a respectful distance from her face and contemplating the queen from a little further away.
He saw the changeling gulp, suddenly rather more distressed-looking, frantic even. Her face looked even more sour than it had barely two hours ago in the gym.
A barely courageous, deeply melancholic smile filled her muzzle as she declared,
“Let me give you something to write down. And you'd be best advised to keep it in the back of your head. Never forget it.”

He had just witnessed the Queen squeeze more emotions out of herself than in the last two days.
Cowed, the jurist swept across his laptop in preparation.
“I’m ready.”

The changeling's angered breathing slowly subsumed.
“I was about to command a few of my best to wipe the cliff-tops while the others held the walls. Yet no one had accounted for so-called Princess Celestia, who had also assumed personal command of her army of goons.”

The lawyer noticed how Chrysalis unconsciously began to exercise one of her hooves next to him as she spoke on, pawing deeper and deeper into his belly.
But he minded other things.

“I don't know exactly what happened then… what she did... but all of a sudden, there was a loud and clear voice... singing into the onsetting dusk, falling over the whole valley. Some ancient tune from a long-gone era.”
She paused. “Next thing I know, all my airborne children just... dropped out of the sky. Just like that. As if someone had just ripped their wings out of them.”

He shuddered.
“Jesus.”

Her neck lunged forward as the memories livened up.
“I wanted to fly to them and see what the hay was going on. But I couldn't.”

“Your wings too?”

She drew a breath.
“Not just my wings. My legs.”
Then the queen raised her hoof and held it into the lawyer's face. “What do you think I felt?”

Uncertain, the lawyer moved his face away from it.
“Agony?”

Again, she quipped a smile.
“No, no, no. Pain is a thing I can handle pretty well. You see that thing you put upon my horn? That... pathetic little bag on the string?”

Estermann peered up at the increasingly battered, but still tightly attached foil and battery wrapped around her magical appendage as she helpfully pointed it out to him.

“I know this is what that keeps rendering my horn useless. I don't know how, but it sears my head every time I have tried.”
She smiled a nearly psychotic grin. “It's painful - but at least I can make sure my horn's still there.”
Her gaze hardened. “But there, my legs felt no burning, no searing, no crushing... not the snow under my hooves, nor the wind blowing across my knees... Nothing.”

His face contorted in macabre confusion.
“You think it had something to do with the singing?”

“It had everything to do with the singing!” she declared audibly, causing a few heads to turn. “The tune, it was some old charm that was meant to put all who were supposed to hear it under its spell. The moment it hits your ear, you're helpless, at the singer's will. And this day, Celestia had chosen to use it to rob every single changeling in that city of their bodies. Three thousand of my children, paralysed by this immense power.”

The human lowered the lid of his laptop a little and raised his head in obvious disbelief.
How on earth would that work?

“I tried to run, but my hooves wouldn't obey me. I was a puppet on a string. And with all my own vast magic, I could do nothing against it but sit and listen to that.. blasted song!”
Her hoof curled back up. “With a flick of her horn, my hooves began to take me forward. I wanted to resist, but as soon as I tried to move in any other direction, they would immediately go limp.”
A desperate sigh escaped her lips. “Suddenly, there she stood. Just cantering into the city in all her pompous battle armour, her neck adorned with all kinds of magically charged jewellery. Magic was dripping from her lips as she finished her wretched chant. My knees gave out from under me, and I fell on my haunches right in front of her!”

“What on earth was going on?”

The changeling loosened her grasp of the lawyer and lifted herself up from the sofa a few inches, engaged by her stream of memories.
“The alicorn crept up to my ear. 'Oh, poor changeling...' she whispered, 'You brought your brood to the wrong pony's doorstep. I think it's time that I send you back where you once spawned.' I wanted to answer, but my mouth refused to open. She gave me a slap on my flank and sent me hurtling towards her own ranks as they streamed through the undefended gates. They surrounded all of us. Started to herd us.”

'The irony', Estermann sighed, 'the cruel irony of it all.'
Could she see it? Was she aware?
Did she care?

“After that was over, Celestia turned back to me, and lifted her spell off my mouth. Sneering, she ordered me to command my children to get moving – they were going to take us somewhere else. I told her she could go and kiss her own flank. She warned me that if I wouldn't, her grunts would take care of them then and there.”
Then the Queen fell silent.

“And what did you do?”

She compressed her brow. When she looked back up, there was a feral gleam in her eyes.
“Before I tell you and you can let off another half-baked comment on it, I want you to understand the following:” she whispered. “My hatchlings' existence is worth more to me than yours, or Celestia's, or anypony else's. If there was a choice between saving my brood's lives and burning the entire Equestrian landmass to a burning crisp, I would gladly give fire.”

He nodded warily.
“That means that you... complied with Celestia's demand?”

“I was biding my time to shake off her spell and regain control. I ordered my children not to resist the magic as it pushed us out of Trot and onto the road. Southbound. Not back north, as I was secretly hoping. She wasn't going to merely expel us or exile us. She wasn't quite done with us.”

Indeed, now the information began to flow back freely into Estermann’s mind. Lyra had mentioned all of it, of course! The defeat, the capture,... the banishment.

“Right. And then, I assume she placed you under arrest?” he guessed.

“In a way.” she slurred, cryptically. “She had us march up Old Palm Mountain. You know why they call it that?”

The lawyer shrugged.
“Not due to the plant life, I presume.”

“No.” she smiled, not yet sitting comfortably. “But when it last erupted, fire and rocks were blasted so far into the sky that, for months, the horizon was painted like what could only be described as an enormous palm crown made of black ash.”

“I see. Then what?”

The changeling’s jaws froze up.
“Then what. Indeed.”

The lawyer's features sagged immediately. His heart misgave him. He had a bad feeling about where the story was leading him.
“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. On we were marched, up and up and up... where no weeds were blowing and no grass was growing... and then there came the end of the road. It was like mounting the edge of the world... and behind the end, there was nothing but foul gases filling the space between a sea of liquid fire and a sunless sky of clouds.”

Worried, the lawyer closed the lid of his computer.
“Please don't tell me that what happened is what I think happened. .”

His features deflated, sagging. He didn’t even notice anymore how, bereft of power and wariness, he slumped against the changeling’s pounding body.
Only now he felt how her breath was getting heavier. His own lungs started acting up in accord.

The changeling's eyes flapped shut.
“And then there was the heat. The terrible heat. With every step we took towards the mouth, the air became less bearable. Even the pony soldiers that supervised us stopped one by one, unable to cope with the fumes. But Celestia was there to eagerly drive us forward.”
Mournfully, she smiled. “As we reached the edge, she swung by my ear one last time, and told me, 'from a cavern you all once came. And now you will lead your children back into one. Let this be your home for the next one hundred years, changeling. If I return, you shall be forgiven, maybe.”

The monarch proceeded to gawk down at her hooves, still curling around the lawyer’s side. They shuffled away uncomfortably from an invisible abyss that was the edge of the sofa, her eyes teared from swathes of immaterial smoke.
“I don't think I had yet realised in what absolutely futile situation we were brought into. No retreat, no evasion, not even begging for forgiveness. Just your imminent demise.”

“That was no imprisonment.” the lawyer stated what was now painfully obvious, the contempt in his voice being audible. “That was an execution.”

“Call it what you fancy.” she whispered. “Celestia shoved me into that crater personally. My children... went right after me... Whether they too were pushed, or just jumped after me out of desperation, I don't know. I was lucky, fell onto a pile of rocks sticking out of the red-hot sea. Many others missed them.”

Estermann held his breath. Even his fingers held their position on the keyboard.
“I read that...” he suddenly remembered. “...that you were detained. You were imprisoned… in a mountainside. That’s what stood there.”

Her head turned back toward the still-running, muted TV. The film had moved on, there was a scene of dozens of prisoners exercising in the courtyard, performing synchronised jumping-jacks under the watchful eyes of armed guards in the towers above.

Again, she had to crack a quivering smile. “Imagine,” she ordered the lawyer, “all of those poor creatures melting where they stand, bursting into flames, curling up as they char. All in front of your very eyes. The sight, the sound, the smell...”

Inspecting the images some more, he watched the prisoners heaving, sweating, joking and chatting under their strained breaths.

He conceded the point immediately.
Thank God, he told himself, he had not listened to the Pony equinologist. Thank God he didn’t heed Colm. Would he have surrendered Chrysalis into hooves of a pony that would do a thing like that?
It felt both relieving and horrifying to hear his fears being confirmed.
“How many died?” he asked, for the record..

Chrysalis shrugged.

'Not a pea-counter?', Estermann mused.

“Did they say how long I was... 'imprisoned'?” she asked back.

“Not that I know of.” he mumbled. “How long?”

The changeling shook her head.
“That’s the thing, I don't know. When the last one of us had been chucked down, they… I guess they loosened crater's edge and buried us under the collapsing mountain peak. It could have been days. Could have been months. Years.”

He chortled cynically.
“And yet you survived?”

The question seemed to genuinely stump her. He eyes were round and innocently quizzical.
“Well... the next time I felt the sun again, there was not a single hair left on my body. I couldn't see. I had no more skin. Just a crust. But I was breathing, and my heart was beating... so I suppose I was. This changeling’s a hardy creature.”

Spine-first, his body took in all the different sensations that were acting out inside her as he rested limply against the equine, suspended in some kind of light, shock-induced trance.
He felt the growing heat inside her, the pounding of her heart, the heavy heaving of her lungs, and the ever-present vibration that was spreading down to the very tips of her limbs.

“Funny. I hated Celestia before; I had always hated her. But after I dragged myself out of that crater by the tips of my wings… I didn’t. Not anymore. I was just, all of a sudden, convinced beyond a doubt in my mind, that Celestia - and her whole pathetic empire - was simply not to exist any longer. It was clear as day to me. A glimpse into the future.”

Then her belly erupted.
She broke out in head-shaking chuckles.

Again, confused heads stared into her television corner.

Estermann himself was aghast. Once more, there she was, laughing to herself, as though she was suddenly oblivious to the suffering and pain of her own.
But still, the counsel could see that, even as she giggled and grunted oh so callously, she was gritting the teeth in her mouth - biting down hard enough that he could hear painful gnashing sounds.

Eventually, her rident muscle subsided, and she loosened her jaws and breathed the last ounce of supposed elation out of her innards.
“So what now, lawyer?” she inquired, more matter-of-factly than before, “What would your honourable court have to say to that kind of story?”

“What indeed.”
Had she actually acknowledged him as a lawyer rather than an insect just now?
Did that mean that things were finally starting to look up?
“This is the first time I’ve heard of this. I doubt the court will have heard it either.”

“Do you not believe me?”

“Of course I believe you!”

She let out a slow breath.
“Then it is about time that you wised up. Eject your collective muzzles from gentle old Celestia’s keister.” she suggested. “You all can’t see the closet for all the bones.”

The lawyer could only nod.
“What you have just described is… murder. Wilful killings of surrendered combatants... Deliberate causing of great suffering and harm.... And - at the very least! - the deprivation of prisoners of the possibility of a fair trial...”

Glumly, the changeling eyed her defence counsel.
“That’s it?”

“What?”
He was incredulous. “Is that not enough?”

She directed the incredulity right back at him. Her green eyes beamed even greener.
“The other day, you were taking hours reading offences back to me over pushing around a couple of no-good pony sloths and making them work for the good of my hive, and here you… you just shrug away the slaughter of my children as though Celestia treated them a smidge too harshly?!”

Nervously, he scratched his own fingers as he tried to formulate a reply.
“It’s more than enough to get her in front of this court...”

She held her breath.
“Are you serious? You mean… you could go to your court and tell them what I told you… and they would actually accuse Celestia?”

“Theoretically.” he shrugged, choosing his words very delicately. “If I go to the prosecution, and convey your account - and it turns out to be well-founded - they might take the reins. And to that end, they could indeed summon Celestia to court.”

“What if she ignores the summons?”

“They might put her name on an international arrest warrant.”

“Aha.”
The nigh-joyful anticipation on the regents face became increasingly palpable.

The jurist, however, followed up with an uneasy harrumph.
“But… I won’t do that.”

Chrysalis did a double take and clamped her jaw shut.
“What did you just say?”

He cleared his throat before explaining himself.
“Your account is beyond chilling. But two wrongs do not a right make.”

“W...what are you talking about?”

He massaged his own hands.
“You razed a city. You carted off tens of thousands of hostages. You killed God knows how many more. And that was just on a single day. And telling a sob story about the evils of Celestia’s own reign at this point… would sound not just hypocritical… but frivolous as hell.”
He leaned forward - triying to stand up, but the Queen’s hooves still holding him back - and placed himself himself demonstratively between the Queen and her television. "So before I do anything to haul Celestia in, I need to get you out. Whatever happened there, in Equestria, we must gain as much distance from it as possible in the little time we have left."

“You have to be kidding me.” Chrysalis declared nervously, quickly glancing towards the far-away clouds outside. "I hope by 'gaining distance' you mean that you break me out of this hole."

"I have been concerned for the past few hours in which light we might be able to project Trot.” he explained as he began to pace back and forth in front of the changeling. “The real question - des Pudels Kern - being: Who was in charge?"

"I was." the Queen immediately interjected with a monotone voice.

Estermann raised a hand to quiet her down.
"De jure, maybe. But de facto?"
He gave an uplifting smile.

"You're speaking in riddles, worm." the changeling regent breathed.

"You see, I must ask, how difficult must it be hold all of your troops on a leash amidst the commotion? It's not possible that you were personally overseeing the actions of all your soldiers. There must have been officers."

"So what?"

"Let us talk for a moment about the hierarchy of your queendom. I want to go into detail of how exactly the orders were transferred to those who actually carried them out.
He clasped his hands, “Do you know the kids’ game 'Chinese Whispers'?"

Chrysalis cocked an eyebrow, "I do not."

"One player whispers a message to the player next to him, and he passes it on to the next player in the same fashion. Once it's passed down the line to the very end, it usually been warped beyond recognition because every kid understood it a little differently and those misunderstandings compounded."
He formed a triangular shape with his fingers. "I suspect there is a very similar case here. Imagine that this is a pyramid. You order something, but how the orders are carried out as they trickle down the sides, is an entirely different story altogether."
He shrugged. "Those things happen."

"They don't under my command."

"That's what you're saying. But let's be realistic here."
He directed her attention at the upper corner of the 'pyramid', "This is you. You are at the very top of the chain of command, throning above all others. No one is above you. Would you say that is accurate?"

The Queen erected her head and puffed out her leathery chest a little.
"Quite."

He marked the area immediately below the tip. "I am interested in this class in particular: the officers. Who did you pass your orders to in person?"

But Chrysalis remained stubborn.
"I gave the orders. That is what counts. This is all you need to know."

Estermann adjusted his seating. She was tossing quite a few boulders onto his path.
"Many years have passed since that attack. Almost one thousand, if I recall correctly. I mean, who could still be found who can recall your exact words?"

"Me." the Queen answered, in an increasingly annoyed tone.

"Alright. So what were they?"

Dramatically, the Queen raised a hoof and tucked it under the jurist’s chin. Then she directed his face on front of hers.
"’Fly forth, my children! Bring them to me. Make them my slaves!’"

It left the lawyer a bit speechless, but he recuperated and led the hoof away..
"Are you really sure? One thousand years are rather a long time-"

"I remember as though it was yesterday.."

"Think again, your Highness. Consider what else you might have said. I mean, you are..."
Estermann began to play with the buttons of his collar shirt. The lawyer had to come up with something first. "...a regent with a very dry sense of humour. You lead your troops into Trot. You see the ponies around you gawking, and the emperor refusing your rather generous request of surrender.
“Annoyed and bemused, you comment to your troops, in an entirely light-hearted manner, 'Those creatures, they all ought to be yoked'. It's a crude joke, the result of pessimism, stress and starvation,which has plagued since you left the hive in search for food. Your officers hear this, but they are itching for a fight, and they take it much more seriously than you had intended.
“As you are occupied with negotiating with the emperor, your troops start overrunning the onlooking ponies behind your back. You notice this, but it's too late. You cannot stop what is being committed all around. The soldiers do not heed your words in the chaos. Your forces have gone rogue, believing themselves to be acting in your name, but in fact aren't."
He rubbed his hands, pleased. "And this might be all there is to the tragedy of Trot, 21 ad. A cavalcade of misunderstandings leading up to an act of capriciousness."

The changeling laid a hoof over her heart.
"My my, worm. Why, it's almost like you were there yourself."

The lawyer gave a smirk and tugged his collar.

The regent's smile disappeared from her lips.
"Oh. Pardon my dry sense of humour."

His smile faded away as quickly.

"It's an amusing story - but that's all it is. I don’t understand how you can believe that you know what you are talking about.”

"Your Highness! Do you want to go prison? I mean, I couldn't blame you – it is rather generously stocked - but-"

Chrysalis sighed at the question.
"No, I do not want to go to the prison." she stated, in a patronising, eye-rolling tone. “I want to sit where Celestia is sitting. And I want Celestia to be buried where I am sitting right now!”

In a moment’s notice, Estermann grabbed both the Queen’s hooves and uncurled them from his body. Then he catapulted himself out of his seat and onto his own two feet again.
As soon as he had regained his composure and sourly looked back down at the monarch, spotting her now empty limbs, did he first realise how clingy she had been for the past few minutes.
Like a snake curling around its prey, that changeling had been trying to ensnare him as he oh-so foolishly sat down by her side.
Why on earth didn’t he object? Why did he say nothing?
He was usually so touchy about this kind of stuff.

"Why... then why are you so adamant?" he begged the question, "Why are you persisting that you are solely responsible for this mess? You will get life if you are sentenced for the abduction and the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent creatures!"

"They were not innocent!" she yelled. She followed up with a hissed "I couldn't care less who declares me guilty of it."

"Yet, you still don't want to face the music for it?"

There, Queen stood up. Like an oversized cat, she rose on her feet and stretched her hunched back with a deep vibrant caw from the very back of her throat.
Wordlessly but resolutely, she trotted past Estermann and aimed her glance out the fortified windows. She carefully inspected the weld lines of the grate.
"I have different plans. Other things to worry about ." she murmured.

Exasperated, Estermann nodded and slumped down on his client’s now vacated couch. Her warmth was still in the material.
"You want to stand by the fact that you are responsible for this, as The Queen, but at the same time, you think you can cheat yourself out of the consequences.”
He sniffed. "I don't want to crush your hopes, Your Highness, but it's either one or the other. You must choose."

Slowly, her chained hoof pressed on the windowpane, grinding on the delicate material.
"There always is the third option. In case you forgot, I have an empire at my beck and call."

"But for how long?"

The Queen stared at him in startlement.
What... what are you asking?"

"They’re calling it a ‘rogue state’" he continued, "Once Celestia had her way with it, there will be no one left in the whole world who would bother to back you up. That, Your Highness, is the reason why we have to maneouvre you through this quickly and effectively."

“To save my kingdom?”

The Queen took another, scathing look outside at the bleak sky, and then let go of the window begrudgingly.
Estermann noticed that her two front limbs were shaking a little as she trotted.
Mindfully, he slid to the end of the couch to make space for the chipped changeling.

"Fine, worm. So you are telling me that the only thing I have left now is to cower down before those 'judges', cry crocodile tears and blame those below me, like some... half-plucked scum - all just so I won't be locked away?"

"Sincere remorse is always an option." he proposed, loaded with quite some eyebrow-rocking sarcasm, "No one would think any less of you if you did."
He played with his nose. "I could release a statement, in your name, in which you express your regret at what has passed, and obviously would not have wanted any part in it, had you known what had been going on."

"I don't feel sorry." the Queen exclaimed. "And I'm not about to pretend otherwise!"

“Please. As a mere courtesy." Estermann stammered, only to be cut off by the Queen.

"Stuff the courtesy! Don’t you dare to put those words into the Queen of all Changelings' mouth."

Estermann scanned her, his teeth creaking... And here he thought a Queen of all changelings wouldn’t have a problem with lying.
"What kind of honour are you trying to protect here? If you were to meet someone in the street tomorrow, and the only thing they know about you is that you are responsible for many thousand deaths, what would expect them to feel for you?"

"Respect and reverence." she mused.

"Instead of fear and disgust?" Estermann countered.

"I cannot deny my nature, worm."

"This is your nature?!" Estermann laughed, "Jesus Christ, you sound even worse than Celestia. You cannot justify crimes like those. Someone is going to pay for them. The pivotal question is; will it be you?"

"Who, if not me?" she muttered. “Celestia?”

He poignantly went back to his triangle.
"Your subordinates. You have the virtue of rank. The higher up you are, the more difficult it will get to link you to the execution!"

"My subordinates..." she hesitated, shaking her head disbelievingly., “I bred those subordinates. They are my flesh and blood.”

“Oh don’t be melodramatic.”

A riled-up hoof smashed down on the linoleum floor.
“What do you think I mean when I call them my children, you idiot?!"

His eyes grew.
"What… all of them? Exactly how many are there?"

"A little over six thousand. All my very own."

Estermann was at the brink of jumping up and calling her out on it, begging her not to make even more of a mockery out of the situation than it already was.

Then however, the pony professor's wasp analogy sprang to mind. It was absurd to him then, but now - he took a look at the changeling. He knew that the first time he saw her, she was remotely insectoid to him - cold, hard and voiceless. It was only now that he was thrown back into the reality of what of a creature she actually was. Franz Kafka couldn't have been more proud.

"What's the matter?" the Queen inquired, irritated by his silence, "Would you stop pretending that it's the first time you hear of something like that? We Changelings do not live the way you humans do. I think we cleared that up."

"Alright..." the lawyer conceded and sniffed. "You're talking six thousand, the prosecution is talking a hundred thousand. Who - or what - made up the bulk of your armed forces?"

"Minor hives from all over the lands. Many grunts stemmed from hives in the east in particular. They joined up with us in the early winter months, when they were already at Tartarus' doorstep. But it was just my own children that I allowed to assume power."

'So there's nepotism, of course.' Estermann thought and raised his eyebrows. "Then you know their names?"

The Queen was indignant.
"Why of course I don’t know the names of my own flesh and blood. I just gave them numbers and called it a day.”

Estermann could only groan.
"Okay, I get it. I want to write some of them down. I need a point of reference.”

“I named them in my own tongue. You wouldn't be able to comprehend it.”

“I’ll do my best to stay faithful in my transliteration.”
Elegantly, Estermann scrolled down the page. "Was there anyone among them who you considered to be... a trusty confidante? A worthy successor? A second-in-command perhaps, or a powerful rival?"

She chewed on her tongue in thought.
“A few. Though one stood out in particular.”

Then she directed a long and hard stare at him. Her glare was frank. The vibration in the back of her throat became a tiny bit more prominent.
A moment of awkward stares passed, with leaving them both none the wiser.

"Yes… there is? Your Highness? Hello?"

"What?" she snarled. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"

The lawyer cocked his head, hopelessly confused.
"I didn't... quite… I want to know his name."

She sighed, then pointed at her face.
"Again. Look at me. At my face. Read off my eyes. You thick, deaf ape."

And he did.
And as he did, for an instant, he swore could hear a voice calling in the back of his head. Shouting. Repeating a single word, three syllables long. But the voice was far away, the word sounded indistinct.
He dismissed it and scratched his ear. His senses must have been playing a trick on him, he concluded.
"Should we... should we just call him Officer A for now?" he ultimately proposed. "Is that okay with you?"

“Yes, call him whatever you want.” she grumbled.

"Now, Officer A, how would you describe him? Loyal? Faithful? Efficient?"

She gazed up at the ceiling, trying to recollect her knowledge about this individual, but then shook her head.
"No, I wouldn't. He was... a little brat. An upstart and a rebel. He thought of himself as some kind of hive king. So I gave him command of one of the Eastern hives that had joined us countless winters ago. He should go and play monarchy with them, I thought. It kept his ugly little face out of mine."

"And you didn't reprimand him?"

The Queen was silent for a moment of brief reflection.
"I did. Time and time again. But in the following years, the number of eastern changelings grew and grew. It soon became the largest single battle group of my army. And he still was their leader."

Estermann clapped his knee, perhaps a little too jovially.
"Now we are getting somewhere! Look who assumed command during the turmoil!"

But the changeling's eyes mellowed.
"...Which is exactly the reason why I left them behind in the hive on that fateful day. I cannot have any enviers on the field of battle."

Turning back to the human, she returned to her sofa in front of the television set.

As the lawyer looked after her, his clapping hand crumpled up to a fist. He huffed,
"You're not giving me much air to breathe, are you, Your Highness?."

Giving off a hoarse chuckle, she began to mount the couch to lay herself down again. The lawyer instantly readied to dive out of her way.

“Stay.“

Something compelled him to plop back down, just as she began to spread back out on the cushioning.

As she lowered her massive body back down, her front hooves tapped dangerously close to his hips.
“I see what’s going on here, alright.“ the changeling deduced, “You tried to bait me… with sordid tales of Celestia, so you can interrogate me about Trot and expect an answer.”

“And you gave me one.”

“Yes. Then you go and bait me some more. I tell you about her legacy in the mountains above Trot. You listen. You promise redemption. You want to let me hope.”

The lawyer shuffled closer.
“Yes?”

Her nostrils were still whistling.
“And you did all that, just to try and make me betray the only living creatures that depend on my loyalty… I almost fell for it, too.”
Slowly, she glanced up on him. “Shame on you. Makes me wonder whose side you are on.”

The lawyer was befuddled
“You don’t seem to get it.”

“I get it. Someone will have to pay.” she asked and shook her head ever-so slightly. “As though my hatchlings haven't already given enough of themselves all these years, you want them to pay for my...”
She stopped herself before she could get around to admitting stumbles.
Her eyes were glazing over, her lids so heavy that she was almost dragging them on cheeks.

“I am not Celestia's prosecutor.” Estermann emphasised, very slowly and loudly. “And neither am I the defender of your six thousand children. I am your defence counsel! And as your defence counsel, it is my duty to keep you from getting roped into the dock by any means necessary.”

Her hooves dug themselves between the cushions, locking herself in her own maternal mantra.
“After I saw them hatch, after I saw them fly out their nests for the first time, after I saw them fight and win… after I saw them fall into Tartarus alongside me, and saw them char...”

The lawyer desperately wiped his brow and haggled on. He almost butted heads with the changeling as he leaned down to her
“It’s… it’s not about implicating your children, your Highness. It’s about clearing your name. I could not care less if your children are any more or any less at fault for this mess than you.”

“And yet you’d gladly throw them to the dogs.”

“Ach Chabis!” he scoffed. “Equestria, the UN, not a single one of them managed to find a single changeling but you! And I doubt it will change any time soon. You said it yourself - your offspring are experts at hiding. ”

Noticing a tugging sensation, he spotted the queen’s chained legs playing with his pockets, trying to dig out any dishonesty in his words.

“And… and even if things come to the pinch, Your Highness... warrants need to be served first. How will they do that if they don't know where they are, or how they look, or whether they’re even still alive and kicking?”

He determined very quickly that he should probably have spared the Queen the last assumption.

After a hesitant pause, the changeling raised a hoof coldly against his cheek and directed his face closer to hers.
Involuntarily beholding her massive Equestrian eyes - as fatigued and docile as they were unrelenting and sore - from a needle’s distance, he was instantly overcome by a browbeat melting sensation that otherwise would have been felt by an antelope between the paws of a lioness.

”Listen.” she breathed into him, “You obviously take great pride in your tongue-twisting and pettifogging, and I realise I won’t be instructing you in your craft any time soon. But as for my kin… Should I find that, thanks to your scheming, one of them will have taken my place so that I may walk free… I will come and drag you down to Tartarus myself. Do you understand?”

He almost choked himself on his own gulps.
“Yes.”

“You will not lay a claw on them. In fact, you will treat them with utmost devotion. For I lived with them. And I died with them.”
The hoof began to slip down the side of his face in a caressing motion. “And this is why you will see them as though they are extensions of myself… And you would never want to find yourself on the wrong side of me. Would you, Alexander Estermann?”

“No… Your Highness.”

"Alright."

And with that confirmation, the Queen shoved the lawyer ever-so blandly away from herself.
The benumbed man almost fell off the sofa.
“You should go now.” she ordered him. “Get out of here, and do not show your face again today. I think I’ve relayed enough anecdotes for one day.”

Quizzically, the lawyer went straight for his tie knot and loosened it a little around his slowly reddening head.
"I - I...."

“And no.” the Changeling cut him off preemptively. “I will call you. Of that, you can be certain.”

With those words, she showed him what could be interpreted as something resembling an uplifting simper.

Author's Note

The Shawshank Pretension, coming soon to a theatre near you!

XVI. Her Highness' Pleasure

XVI
Her Highness' Pleasure

Royal Palace, City of Canterlot, Equestria
19. November, 2015
7:58 am ICT

The blue monarch shut her eyes, clasped her muzzle with her hooves and drew a sharp, exasperated breath through them.
Each of the princess’ wheezes became more audible as rage began to boil up inside her.

“The chave… was otherwise abandoned, to my best knowledge.”
The human forensic cautiously bit her gums, but continued on with her narrative with a typically monotone drawl.
She was stultified. Here she stood, still dripping with snow and sickly sweat, deep inside the revered residence of Equestria's leaders. And there she was, one of those leaders, looking up from her breakfast and cocking her head, brimming with expectation.
“Exhcept, naturally, for that one chreature that tried to assault the lieutenant here…”
Standing near her was none other than Lieutenant Fighting Fit. Now a captain, as she was quick to remind herself. The human and the military stallion crossed looks for an instant before she continued, “...everyone else in that chavern was inside their chochoons and had to be physichally wrangled out. There was no one else there.”

“No one in the forest outside either?” the princess repeated, trying to make absolutely sure of the situation.

“No one, M’am.” Captain Fighting Fit loyally confirmed. “As far as we could see, at least. I ordered my colts not stride too far away from the cave. In case another changeling would try to get a drop of us.”

Finally, she lifted her face out of her limbs and glared intently at the two unlikely adventurers before her.
“Unfortunately, Captain, it seems that some did.”

Just as the Captain was about to ask what she meant, her horn’s magic gripped the handle of one of her desk drawers and pulled out a beige piece of paper from within.
“Lieutenant Pelisse of the 3rd Night Guards reported to Us that he and his comrades combed the forest floor and uncovered at least a half score of hoofprints leading away from the cave, deeper into the Everfree’s underbelly.”
She rose. “Now We must ask thee anew, Captain, if though are ascertained that these are not thy colts’?”

The pegasus stood straight. His face was ashen, but his eyes were reddening.
“Out of the question.... My troop was with me the entire time.”
Even his voice betrayed some sudden soreness.
There were some changelings there. And he couldn’t confront them?

The princess meanwhile turned her judging eyes towards the human for confirmation.

“I… was in the chave until I was evachuated with the others. But...” Edith theorised forlornly, “...it wouldn’t be absurd to suggest that they left longh before we arrived.”

The princess let a hoof scrape over her desk top.
“Those prints were fresh. They slipped by thy host. They presumably scented thy approach, and so they fled… like the cowards that they are.”

“Tartarus...” the guardspony breathed.
Impulsively, he turned away from the princess and trotted to the nearby window, trying to direct his onsetting anger in a safe direction.

Again, the alicorn minded Edith specifically, “Art thou surely not a soldier, Edith of Bosnia and Herzegovina?”

“No.” she answered sparsely. “I am a certified forensich pathologhist. There must have been some khind of mischommunichation.”

“And not the first one either...” Luna agreed, leaning back “Only this morrow, Our court was under the conviction that thou hadst - pardon Our expression - died... in the confusion.”

The word elicited a harrowed shudder from the pegasus by the window.

“Though We hadst always known that this was truly not the case, it did cause much grief to Our human legation on the palace grounds.”

“You knew?” Edith inquired and raised her chin, incredulous. “How did you know?”

The princess looked down at her, chewing over her question. It was rather evident the human didn’t have a lot of experience with royalty.
“‘Tis in Our veins, human.” she answered somewhat cryptically. “The passing of innocent creatures seldom goes past us unnoticed.”
Then she harrumphed and assumed a more official stance. “Even so, thy presence here has use nevertheless. As a first-hoof witness of the Everfree travesties, thou hast, perhaps more than any other human concurrently, knowledge of the changeling’s nefarity. Of the horrors that it likes to spread.”

Edith nodded slightly, though not exactly endorsingly.
“It was… exhcessive.”

Levitating a cup of cold tea next to her, the princess gave her yet another awkward gawk.
It was obvious that she had expected more of a visceral reaction out of the forensic.

“I’ve… seen worse.” she repeated, all while trying not to sound too heartless.
Only then did she notice the cup flying up to her chin. She reflexively grasped hold of it with both hands. “Thankh you.”

“Nevertheless, thou art the ideal person to carry the news into the world. Thou shall approach thy lords at the United Nations, and tell them all about what grievances are befalling ponykind concurrently.”

“I already sent my report to New Yorkh and The Haghue… as specified in my chommission.” she commented dryly, then wetted her gums with the tea. Cold as it was, its sweet and aromatic taste made it up for it.

“Human. Thou must understand that Our nation is in peril. Our Royal Guard is in dire need of outside succour. We have already discussed this with the good captain here before thou hadst arrived.”

Captain Fighting Fit nodded absent-mindedly.

“Alas, We are browsing the world over for trustworthy friends. But even so, who might there be? The gryphons… unreliable. The donkeys… ineffective. The horses… unwilling. We art strapped for choices. ” Her head reared around thoughtfully as she made her way into the centre of the room. Her big blue eyes did not leave the human cradling her teacup.
“It's at times like those, We look to creatures such as thyself in reverence. Thou who art so... strong-willed and martial... yet disciplined and dependable. Humanity is, in parts, a trueborn warrior race. And we doth respect that.”

“Thankh you… your Exhcellence...” Edith stammered awkwardly. “But I really don’t know a lot-”

“We wish to plead with thy own sovereigns about the possibility of erecting a formal alliance.” she declared importantly. “And for this purpose, We wish to recruit thee to act as Our...”

“Mouthpiece.” the Bosnian suggested, noticing a little too late how impertinent it might have come across.

“...Trustable intermediary.”
Edith was beyond doubtful at the Princess’ proposition.

“And… you thinkh I’d be listened to if I spokhe out for you?”

“Now more than ever!” Luna affirmed her, resolutely delving to the human’s side. She was more or less exactly her height, Edith noticed as she stared back blankly at her.

“Well… I’d have to hurry then.”

The princess paused.
“And why?”

At this point, something in the back of the Bosnian’s mind clicked. It was a realisation. She smelled an opportunity.
So she dropped the words like a cymbal dish.
“They’re sendingh me backh to Sarajevo chome nexht weekh…”

And then she watched the eyes of the monarch in front of her drying up in seconds. Also the officer in the corner turned around, taken as off-guard by that revelation as his mistress.

“What? Heavens’ sake, why?” the lunar monarch roared.

“They said it’s... bechause I’d no longher be chapable of performingh my mandate in Eqhuestria.”

The alicorn just took a step back and scanned the human’s - admittedly battered - body up and down.
“Art thou?”

Edith propped herself up into a healthy-looking pose as best as she could. Then came her answer, defiant and resolute.
“I am.”

Raven the royal secretary was juggling tasks.
She was nominally supposed to escort her esteemed human guest through the palace complex. But even so, she saw it as her responsibility to warmly make the foreign visitor acquainted with his surroundings. All the while, she tried not to stumble as she dabbled the seemingly endless staircase leading deeper and deeper into Canterlot Mountain.
She was juggling all three of them with rather expertly finesse.

“Alright, Mister...”

“Ahem… Abel.”

“And what can I call you?”

“Mister Abel.”

“That's... a funny first name...” she smiled up at the human.

Too bad he wasn't sharing her approval of her work.

The stairs were tiled with marble, the walls were garnished by expansive, intricate oil canvases, and it was all illuminated by bushy, seemingly sprouting chandeliers.
But even all this glitz and the glamour of the surface halls seemed lost on the monkey's unamused mime.

The human never even bothered to return the smile, much less her glance. His face just presented an annoyed scowl that shone even through his bushy red beard.
He instead kept looking, rather peeved, at the two Royal Guardsponies marching down the steps immediately behind him in locked step. He had less the demeanour of a well-protected dignitary, and more that of a jumpy convict.

“Well... Mister Abel... I'm sure you're brimming with questions about this place. I guess you've never seen anything like it before.” she lied, consciously.

“Nope...” he agreed. “Not surprised I haven't. I wouldn't want to live in a castle that's built on stilts.”

The unicorn giggled amicably.
“It didn't fall down for one thousand, four hundred and ninety years, so I guess it's quite safe.” she assured him.

Passing the reception hall on the left side, every head briefly looked up at the pegasi maintenance buzzing about under its ceiling like eager worker bees. The spaces between every window were being ornamented with banners and colours from all corners of the known world getting hung from brass pins.
Over there hung the tricolour of Romania beside the Jamaican saltire, and over there the medieval crested banner of the Unicorns, next to the historical Pegasus State colours.

"As you can probably see, not even two-hundred-and-counting sovereign nations could take the breath out of our work crews - our preparations are almost complete."

"Preparations for what?" Pierre slurred skeptically. He had already caught wind of how the entire city up on its hooves and doing errands for some great upcoming feast, but could never be bothered to figure out which one.

"Why, the very first anniversary of both our worlds meeting, of course.” she announced proudly, “Perhaps the most important and moving event in all our lifetimes, you’ll surely agree."

"Ehm." Pierre shrugged.
He swore, he could squeeze more tears out of the fall of the Iron Curtain than he could about last year’s two months of absolute panic.

"There’s going to be a big ball and a concert...We sincerely hope that you will find the time to come and party with us." the secretary exclaimed, perhaps a little less sincerely than she had intended. “We’d… love to have you there.”

"We’ll see. I never came here for the dancing and singing. And considering all the things that have been happening recently, I’m not really stricken with a festive mood..."

The secretary cleared her throat uncomfortably.

The staircase turned left, narrowing noticeably the deeper it led.
As they descended, the lavishness and beauty of the upper stories disappeared more and more with each altitude meter. It was like wandering backwards through the ages.
Gold was was slowly replaced by marble, marble by sandstone, and sandstone by bare slabs of greying mountain rock. Elegant photos gave way to dusty oil paintings, which gave way to intricate tapestries that rivaled those of Bayeux in length. Chandeliers were replaced by lanterns hanging from hooks, which themselves were replaced by plain, tar-smeared torches. The boisterous porcelain and metal embellishing the floors of the floor-level reception hall were now represented by ancient cobblestone bearing time-consuming mosaics of pebbles, shells and motley minerals.
Ferns and flower baskets were now moss and limescale.
The air had also become a lot colder, the further they moved away from Canterlot's state-of-the-art central heating systems. She shivered. The hairy human seemed not to.
After what seemed like an eternity, the descent ended. The party, roundly relieved to have a flat floor beneath their limbs once more, continued the last few meters towards the Canterlot Royal Archives.

The ceilings had now risen to a staggering twenty metres above their heads. As they moved down the comparatively narrow corridor, they could soon see the metallic shimmer of a grand portcullis barricading the entrance to a much bigger hall.

“This is the grand entrance to the Royal Canterlot Archives. You’ll find everything you need behind that gate.”

Hushed voices echoed through the ancient stone passage. By the sharpened metal bars, a small group of humans and ponies, clad in their respective white and golden uniforms, stood leaning a against the walls, chatting, and trying to persevere in the relative cold of the catacombs.

“Ah, the guys are here already. ” the human confirmed somewhat relieved. “Everything we need, you said?”

The unicorn nodded. “The Princess has freed up as many documents from circulation as possible to make your work smooth sailing.”

“I’ll pretend like I appreciate that.” he only grunted before launching into the next complaint. “Now, I had requested from your government a list of every Equestrian archive or other larger accumulation of government papers. Every one.”

“Oh. So?”

“I never got it.”

There, the unicorn gave an uppity smirk and pulled a piece of paper out of her collar with her magic, and let it float between the human’s waiting palms.

“Aha, how’s that for a change. You guys actually follow through with a request. And you’re only a month and a half late.”
He inspected the list closer. It was just six addresses long. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Mister Abel, we only have a hoof-ful of major archives in Equestria, most of them in and around Canterlot. But they’re all yours to roam and explore.”

“...Much obliged.”

“Not that you’ll need to. I can assure you that the Royal Archives here will satisfy your request entirely.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” he waved her off.
Without as much as nodding goodbye, the UN coordinator left the secretary's side in a quick step and hailed the assembled creatures in front of him.

“Okay, people!” the official yelled into the relative darkness of the passage, his voice getting thrown around the narrow stone walls. “I wish you all a good morning! Gather around, if you will.“

Lethargically and with much off-guard moaning, the group began to assemble themselves in front of the Canadian.

“First of all, thanks for volunteering for this very important task. You are, at the moment, the principal investigation team of the International Criminal Court in the Chrysalis case. I think you've all been briefed sufficiently on your task.”

There were some solitary nods.

“You are going to search these archives for material relating either thematically, temporally or geographically to the alleged crime scenes that are subject to the ICC prosecution investigation. The Equestrian Royal Government has, in its infinite wisdom, granted us a limited amount of time to execute our search and mark selected documents for closer inspection by official investigators. Our colleagues from the Council of Harmony will conduct their searches independently and...” he cleared his throat demonstratively, “...in a more relaxed time frame. Good for them.”

Raven the Equestrian bureaucrat ejected an earnest, reminding harrumph.

“Yeah. On behest of the Crown, I need to remind you all that these archives are considered secret - as in, they carry an official 'Secret' classification - so under normal circumstances, none of your clearances would suffice to take files out of this place, even at this occasion. But thankfully, someone up there seemed to remember in time that we're supposed to conduct an international investigation into war crimes here, so... here we are.”
He pointed towards a small enclave in the wall, where a wooden desk, illuminated by a simple candle, was manned by two on-duty soldiers. “Before you enter, you will need to stop by the doormen over there and leave your name and birthday, and remember to sign out before you leave. They will probably demand your signature on a non-disclosure agreement or conduct personal searches or something... Look, just don't do anything that'll stretch out this thing any longer than necessary. I needed six weeks to organise this, so let's not cock it up now, okay?”

There were some sparse mumblings of ‘aight’.
Squeezing through the thirty-something attendees, Pierre then made his way towards the candlelit desk.
“So...” he addressed, the officers behind it. “We're all set. Is this gate going to open now, or will we have to climb over?”

The officer of the watch held his disdainful glare some while before eventually ducking under the table and retrieving a large, dusty sand clock from beneath.
“Each turn is one hour. You have four turns to do your business. That is all.”

The other soldier cantered over to a large wheel on the wall and clasped the handle in his mouth. With slow turns of a crank, he lifted the heavy portcullis out of its socket and tied it up just above the visitor’s heads.

Meekly, the ponies and humans passed into the archive hall.
The room was nothing like archives that could be found around the modern human world. There were no low ceilings, no neon strip lighting, no rolling shelves and no aluminium ladders hanging off hooks on coffee-beige walls.

Like about everything else in the city, the place looked more cathedralic than anything. Several million scrolls, books and cadastres were stacked on rows upon rows of massive dark-brown oak cabinets that soared as high up as the distant ceilings allowed it to reach. Each row ran a hundred meters down the hall, and every file almost as wide both left and right.
Between the rows and files of cabinets, ancient banners dangled down from high above, each bearing its own crest and hue, segregating the room into blocks and areas with its complex heraldic imagery.
The only illumination came in form of warmly shimmering bronze lanterns standing in tiny alcoves in the stone walls, giving meagre, but otherwise perfectly safe, reading light.
Segregated study desks, each coming with its own three elegantly carved walls, rowed along the centre axes.

Even though he knew that he was meant to gawk in awe at this magnificent place, but he instead felt progressively nauseous at the sheer size of the work he had carved out for himself.
Sticking his hands under his belt all official-like, the Canadian paced around the hall some more, squinting through the relative darkness, trying to make sure everyone was getting on just fine. Of course, he wasn’t an archivist himself, so all he could do was make sure that the real ‘professionals’ wouldn't have their work impeded by the local authorities - or at least, as little as possible.
But he knew that he wasn’t the right one for that job either. New York had sent in a hound to do a snake’s work.

“Sorry, Mr Abel?”

“Yes…”

He turned, finding a dark-haired man with a subtle three-day beard who had been stuck into a thick woolen jumper.

“Hi, you might not remember me... Ibrahim Shalgham, Lybia.”

“Are you...”

“Language mediation and research? ICMP?”

“Oh yeah… You’re that one guy from that other place...” Pierre guessed, rather cluelessly, “Glad you could make it.”

“I brought the HD-scanner. Where should I put it?”
He heaved something bulky in his arms.

“Oh… just plop it down on one of the tables. Let the right guys find it.”

“Oh, alright.”
The man grinned, a bit disarmingly. “So uh... Where’s Pokerface gone to?”

Pierre could only scratch his beard as a quick reply.
“I’m sorry?”

“You know… the Yugoslavian woman… The one who always looks like she’s trying to mimic Spock...”

That description sounded all too familiar.
“Edith Šarić...”

“Yeah, her. Where is she?”

The UN officer cleared his throat and folded his arms in reservation.
“Uh. Haven’t you heard? She drove off into that forest and a rock almost smashed her face in. It’s over for her, she’s on her way back to Europe now.”

The young Libyan looked incredulous.
“What, already?”

“Look, it wasn’t my decision, okay?” he insisted, immediately launching his defensive. “Just following orders here.”

“No, I mean… I saw her not a minute ago.”

The Canadian froze.
“Where?”

Ibrahim just pointed behind him.
“Down the hall. At the entrance. I just lost sight of her for a second. This place is pretty huge...”

Even before the man with the scanner could finish his thought, the UN official was rushing back.

That woman just wasn’t giving up, was she?! Did he have to literally cuff her to a plane’s gangway to make sure that she wouldn’t just snow back in?

Battling his way past shelves, tables, and investigators, he closed back in on the passageway. Indeed, through the twilight, he could see a thin, rather small creature hobble into one of the adjacent aisles.
He gave chase immediately. His eyes were still accustomed to the weak lantern light, so all he saw before him was pitch.
“Alright, Šarić. You’ve had your fun, but enough is enough!” he barked into the the shadows of the towering racks. “If I have to drag you to the airport myself, I’ll fucking do it!”
The shadows didn’t reply. “How the hell did you even get in here, anyway?”

“That would be by way of Us.” he heard a sharp voice explain from behind.

Something about that made him inadvertently gulp.
He slowly turned around, and found himself staring into the cold blue eyes of a crowned alicorn.

He had no idea how she had suddenly materialised behind him. Nor did he quite know what to do. He shuffled away a little, but that is where he was at his wit’s end.

“Pierre of Canada, We presume.” she announced, taking yet another step toward him and closing the cap once more.

“Newfoundland, actually...”

Her face betrayed no amount of amusement.
“Thy rank, if thou pleasest.”

“Uh… Deputy Programme Officer, Southern Equestria. And you...”

“We believe thou knowst perfectly well who We are.” the Princess of the night stated somewhat roughly. “So the allegations were true, then. Thou wouldst discard thy subalterns as thou tossest away cleaning rags?”

The dumbfounded civil servant glanced over his shoulder momentarily.
“Where is she? I could swear she just went through...”

“Direct thine eyes upon Us.” the alicorn ordered, somehow intensifying her authoritative demeanor. “With her, thou shalt not concern thyself any longer. We shall make sure of that.”

Was this about the Bosnian?
How did she know? How?
More importantly, how could she be bothered?

“Tell Us, is this a display the legendary human camaraderie that is on everypony’s lips? That woman spills her sweat and her bravery for thee, and thou rewardest her with demission? As though she’s but a common delinquent?”
Her voice was relentless, and perhaps a tad too loud for a place like this.

“M’am...” the Canadian tried to explain herself with the cookie cutter reply, “Ms Šarić has suffered a grave injury in her line of duty. It’d be more punishing if we didn’t… furlough her for the duration. She can barely stand upright.”

“Well, when she walked into Our chambers, she told us something quite different.”

Pierre scowled inside. How did that woman manage to show up in the most impossible of places?
“What… exactly did she say?”

Like a vulture circling a soon-to-be cadavre, the princess rounded the Canadian, scanning him intently.
“Many things that would cast… serious doubt upon thy ethos, Pierre. We had been under the impression that helpfulness was thy United Nations' prime tenet. We were very upset to hear that thou hath reprimanded her for trying to help a forlorn Colton mother to locate her lost child...”

Pierre felt himself forced to turn with her, to not let her get the best of his exposed back.
“That’s because we would leave things like those to committed professionals, like... police investigators and soldiers, and not to forensic scientists. This is called deploying one’s assets sensibly. You wouldn’t send a kitchen help to slay a dragon, would you?”

“Art thou getting fresh with Us, human?”
She took another step towards him, driving him deeper into the shadows. “Our nation finds itself under attack by its oldest and most nefarious nemesi, and thou… what hast thou done ‘till now to help it?”

Exasperated, the Canadian straightened out his pearly white jacket.
“Just the thing we’re supposed to: We observe the situation.”

“If thou thinkst we art in need of somepony looking over Our shoulders, thou art surely mistaken.” the princess snapped, finally interrupting her exploratory dance and confronting the human head-on. “Observers and ‘professionals’ as thyself We can have any day; It’s humans like Edith that we sorely need.”

“Really?” he asked, his hands gradually curling up into fists. “Are you really so worried by someone sitting in a jail cell seven thousand miles away that you feel the need to... make meat shields out of my staff?”

The princess’ shoulders sagged within the moment. She could evidently not believe what she had just heard.

Also the UN official could already hear the jingle of helmets and breastplates behind his back. Had he pushed the pony monarch too far?
“She… Šarić’s got no S.A.R. background whatsoever. Her life’s work consists of unearthing graves and counting teeth inside detached skulls. What the hell makes you think she’d last ten minutes straying around in no-man’s land?!”

Shaken, the alicorn only combed her mane back and coolly leaned in toward the human.
“We know the concept might be quite a novelty to thee, but she wants to help - to do good - without expecting a thing in return.”
A cautioning hoof of hers began to hover above his racing heart. “And in ways of such powerful emotions, none shall ever stand. Neither Our, nor thy humble self.”

He just smirked, shaking his lowering head.
“We all want a lot of things these days, your Highness. Doesn’t mean we can do whatever the hell we want. I, for one, cannot - and will not - allow UN workers to meddle where they’ve got plain no business.”

“Indeed.”
The alicorn nodded, and put her hoof down with a clack. “Then perhaps, Edith truly dost not belong here.”

Something about the way she said it sent a cold shiver racing down his neck.

The forensic rifled through her pockets one more time.

It had to be somewhere! It was there just the other day! It couldn’t just evaporate into thin air, could it?
Then again, what wasn’t possible in this place?

Limping past row upon row, she energetically slipped out of her coat and gauged it all over once more.

As soon as she and the Princess crossed into the archives, she felt promptly reminded; she was certain that she had heard it mentioned before.
That mysterious soldier who had crept into her room. Yes, it was right before her. Golden Dirk, Sergeant First Class, service number Two-two-something-something…
He worked in this place didn’t he? And he had snuck her that paper, hadn’t he?
He, who had principal entry to this archive - during day the first half of the week, over night during the other?

Why had she not minded him and his note any sooner?
Maybe it was because she had spent that entire day in an exhausted, enervated haze…

But now it was not too late. She was at the right place - perhaps not at the right time, but that could be rectified with the princess by her side.
She had inspected the front desk by the portcullis quite closely. Although all of the guards - a bleak-beige pegasus and an ash-grey earth pony - looked quite alike with their equally rigorous facial expressions and prim-and-proper uniform tunics, the white-coated unicorn definitely wasn’t among them.

After what seemed an eternity, her finger tips finally felt something rather welcome - the prick of a sturdy, if somewhat mushed, sheet of paper, rumpled into the deepest corner of her inside pocket.
Narrowly avoiding cutting herself, she plucked it out and unfolded it. She held it against the damp lights flickering above her and took another long, close look at it.

It was as unintelligible as before, with tight, intricate paragraphs of writing recorded in an complex and intricate equine alphabet - Even if the ancient ink hadn’t weakened and partially melted into the parchment, it wouldn’t have been any more possible for her to interpret those hieroglyphs.

If she could find an interpreter-

“Alright, Šarić.” a familiar voice shouted somewhere nearby, making the almost trip into the closest reading table. “You’ve had your fun, but enough is enough!”

It was the bastard Pierre. He knew she was here.

Sorrowfully, she looked up from her paper, into the dim environment, before settling back on her paper.
No, she concluded, she wouldn’t take any chances. She had the opportunity, and like all the opportunities that were to follow, she was not intending to squander it.

Stepping out into the central passage, she came across a widely stretched table, upon which the ad-hoc investigators had begun dumping documents from shelves by the boxload.
And by the table, in front of the ever-rising mountain of materials, sat yet another familiar countenance.

It was Ibrahim the interpreter, a rather humorous man Edith had become acquainted with when she was starting her mission in Equestria.
Now, he was sitting on a chair and struggling to assemble a rather large book scanner with the speed and precision that could be expected with such dismal lighting.

“Ibrahim.” she called out in a hushed voice, rushing over to the beleaguered Libyan.

“Oh, there you are.” he said with a smile without looking up. “I’ve been wondering where you went.”

“It’s...” she just gulped, “A longh story. I was busy elsewhere.”

“Heh, I love the bandages.” he smiled, feeling his own chin in affection, before leaning in conspiratively. ”No, I mean, I saw you barely five minutes ago when you crept in. Angry Lumberjack is about. Better don’t get caught.”

She hesitated, confused.
“...Who?”

“That UN bureaucrat with the big beard. The one who likes screaming a lot.”

She huffed involuntarily.
“Pierre...”

“Yeah. He really seems to have it in for you.”

“I know.”
He eyes lowered towards his machine. “I need you to do me a favour.”

“Yes?”

The Bosnian pressed her crumpled paper in his face.
“Schan this for me. Try to kheep hold of the duplichate.”

He folded the paper apart and inspected the favour doubtfully.
“What is that?”

She shrugged.
“Whatever you want it to be. It might be important. And don’t breathe a word to Pierre about it.”

He winced painfully. “Why does this sound so fishy?”

“Zaboga, just do it! He’ll show up any sechond and I channot afford to lose trackh of this!”

“Alright, alright.” he surrendered, “I’ll scan the damn thing for you. Put it on the glass for me.”

Flattening the image, Edith squeezed it on the pane, and waited for a sharp white light to envelop it, up and down and up again.

“There.” he sighed. “Any other wishes?”

“No...”
Edith breathed a hoarse sigh of relief. “Thankh you.”

“You really scare me sometimes, Pokerface...”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”
Ibrahim just sniffed and heaved a cadastre over from the next-best box. “One page down, one hundred thousand to go.”

Quickly leaving him to his looming monotonous labour, the Bosnian moved on, circumventing the table, hoping dearly for a little illumination.

But in her haste, she collided almost immediately with a thigh-high mare that arrived from another direction, her back packed with at least ten massive encyclopedias.

“Wowzers, girl” the earth pony shrieked as she was sent into a brief spin.

Edith could barely clasp a nearby chair to keep herself from falling flat on the floor.

“No hurry, four hours are plenty of time. I should know, I work here every day..” the mare smiled and instinctively adjusted her foam-like white mane. “Can I help you with something?”

“Are you an archivist?” the forensic just breathed.

“Well, offically, not today.” the earth pony answered, stacking her load onto the table and rolling her eyes. “Because I know my way around, I’ve been delegated to pitch in for the Council of Harmony for a month or two. Heh, it’s the first time I enter these halls and have to write down my own name.”
She pointed towards the front desk. “I mean, I’ve already been that officer’s best mare, for crying out loud.”

“Do...”
Edith needed a moment to catch a break. “Does ‘Sergeant Gholden Dirkh’ mean something to you?”

The corners of the mare’s mouth lit up immediately. “Dirkie? Why, of course. What about Dirkie?”

“Is he around?”

“Oh… I was about to ask you the same...”
She quieted down momentarily, before glancing over the human’s shoulder furtively. “Can you keep a secret?”

Edith just shrugged.

“Oh well, I’m afraid he’s gotten himself into a teensy little bit of trouble lately.” she revealed, in a hushed voice, “You know what ‘AWOL’ means, right?”

“Oh… yes.”

“Yeah, looks like he did that. He hitched a ride to the Everfree the other day when he was on sentry duty. Apparently. I don’t actually know.”

Edith sure knew.

“But the Lieutenant did put him to work shoveling snow for the next week.”
Then the librarian cocked her head. “What did you want from him?”

“I want... I wanted to find out what’s written on this.”
She held the paper under the pony’s nose.

“Oh… can I?”
The mare strongly squinted her eyes. She evidently had trouble interpreting the writing herself. “'H-erewith…. Yada yada... the envoy departed again, thoroughly beshamed and matters undone. Four hundred bags of grain would lay rotting in Trottingham godowns throughout the winter, for none to lay claim to them. The duke expressed his dismay for days on end...'”
Then she lowered her stares and accepted the paper into her own limbs.

“What are they talking about?”

She just shrugged.
“I'm sorry, honey. The text’s all out of context, and the lettering is older than my nana - Blasted old-timey unicorn scripture, you know - and the paper isn't helping much either, it's crumbling in my hooves...“

"And the annotations?"

"The annotations..."
She halted. Her expression grew worried. “Wait just a tick... Where did you get this from?”

For the second time that day, Edith just barely managed to keep the nervous fear away from her face.
“Any reason you're askhing?”

“Yeah.” she answered, weighing the single page and inspecting the mushy edges. “The right side's in tatters. Looks like it’s been peeled out of a book.”
Her eyes darkened. “An... old book.”

“How old?”

Her breath grew heavy. She took a wary step away from the towering human.
“Sweetheart... what have you done?”

Edith hesitated, fatally.

“You’re... you are with the ICC team, right?”

“Me? Well, no..”

'What could this mean?', she pondered to herself.
Had the Sergeant passed her a page that he had torn out of the very holdings he was supposed to guard?
Was it something that was supposed to circumvent the ICC's search efforts?

“Then...” the mare stammered, forlorn, cradling the paper like a noble stone. “Where... I mean... what did you...”

“What else does it say?” Edith asked on coldly. “What are those annotations by the side?”

“I...” the pony gulped, eyeing her with mounting dread. It almost seemed like, all of a sudden, there was an itch she had to scratch. “I'm sorry... I think I need to find some glue. Right now. Stat!”
Then she broke into a gallop and rushed past the startled forensic, whizzing off into the darkness with the enigmatic piece of paper.

“Wait a minute, hey...” Edith exclaimed impotently. “Hey!”

“Hail!” a much less meek voice answered instead, causing the leaning Bosnian to straggle a step backwards and shoot upright.

Out of the gloom stepped a cloud of floating, sparkling hair that shimmered like the night sky, enveloping the swaggering form of the same impulsive monarch that had pledged to minister to the Bosnian.
Left and right, labouring ponies dropped everything at the sight of their ruler and fell reverently on their haunches, while even the human workers gazed at the passing sovereign with genuine surprise.
By her side, the Princess led the white form of none other than Pierre Abel, who paced after her like an writhing dog on a leash.
“Alas, dear Edith, We have found thy commander after all.” she said with a victorious grin. “And it seems that We reached a rather bountiful consensus.”

The man's beard sagged in what appeared to be cold, glistening sweat of defeat.

Whatever had happened, and whatever was now going to happen, the Bosnian felt the dread.

“Dear Honourable Pierre... Hast thou naught to say to thy charge?”

The Canadian stepped forward monotonically. His eyes never left the forensic.
“Edith Šarić.” he announced, with palpable ire rolling off his lips, “Consider your United Nations Commission terminated from next week onward.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

But the princess behind him beamed virtually.
“Hark, brave Edith. Thou art now free to do the right thing.”
She turned to address the Canadian. “Wouldst thou not like to do the right thing too?”

He folded his hands.
“I think we talked about this.”

Her glance darkened unexpectedly.
“We can always convince thy superiors to find someone who is willing. Pierre.”

He chewed on an invisible bone for a short while.
Then he dove into his coat's pocket and pulled out the hair sample he had confiscated from the forensic a mere day ago.
The princess' magic latched onto it immediately, pulling it away from his grasp and slowly passing it back to the Bosnian.

“You wanted to find Junebug?” Pierre asked, almost too gently, “Now you've got all the time you ever wanted.”

Ignoring him, Edith pocketed the bag with the deft of a starving sparrow.

But the bushy man stepped closer into whispering range. “And let me assure you, it will never be over for you. This will have consequences.”

She just raised her chin in hollow defiance.
She was too taken away by the moment to properly process what was happening, and just how good or bad the situation was turning for her.

The equine sovereign cleaved her way past the boiling man and came to a standstill mere inches from Edith. The alicorn's majestic wings sprouted importantly, sending a wave of air through the room.
“Now then, Edith. With this matter done justice, there shan’t be any further impediments. If thou art in any condition hereto, may We compel thee to kneel?”

The woman just put a confused hand to her chest.
“I'm sorry?”

“Kneel down before Us.” the princess solemnly repeated.

Edith just cleared her throat.
“I...”

She glanced around, meeting the awkward stares of gawking ponies observing the weird scene, until she finally spotted the increasingly sour face of Pierre Abel behind her, glaring at her, warning her that if she dared to bend a single toe...

So she knelt down without a second thought. Right there, in the Royal Archives, dozens of metres under the castle. Wobbly on her knees, the Bosnian lowered herself down on her sore legs, until she saw nothing more but night-blue hooves and worked silver braces. She tried looking up to read the face of the alicorn before her, trying to guess her next move.

“Lower thy head.”

And as she did, she could perceive the light ringing of metal dangling from above her. It came closer.
Suddenly, she felt her bare neck enveloped by a cold, hard chain, interlaced with bands and strings of varying scragginess.
Before her eyes, a brass metallic form drifted down, settling beneath her throat like an exceedingly bulky medal.

Only then did a gentle hoof pluck her by the chin, and allowed her head back up.
The smile of the princess towering above her was warm and welcoming, her eyes filled with genuine pride.

“Hear one, hear all.” she announced, “The human Edith of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who hath stripped her cloak to don another in the course of her creed, hereby steps under the protective wing of Luna, First of her Name, Princess of Equestria, Sovereign Commander over the Moon and the Stars, and Leader of the Three Pony Races.”
She took a subtle breath. ”She has chosen to stand with Equestria in its time of need. She swears fealty to the realm and loyalty to the causes of peace and harmony. Let this gorget be the mark that would announce her unique position to the world. May it grant her passage and carry Our command throughout the land.”

Her horn momentarily lit up.
A fine blue spark loosened itself from it, floating into the air and settling over Edith.
Naturally, the human flinched at the foreign power, until she noticed how the light passed by her and seeped through the interlaced strings into the medallion.

“May its magic shield her and guide her in her quest for the truth.”

The metal went a little warm.

“Dost thou swear to uphold the princely peace on Our soil and answer the beckoning call of the most high if needs be?”

Edith nodded, slightly confused.

“Thou must declare, 'I swear this'.”

“I... swear this.”

The princess looked quite pleased.
“May more follow thy example.”
The pony gave the human a hoof. “Rise now. Rise to new heights. Fly off into the world, proud and free like a phoenix.”

And as she rose on trembling legs, the Bosnian once again only had eyes for the UN officer still glaring at the two of them, as though he couldn’t believe what a scene they were making.

“Yes.” he agreed, caustically, “May more people do what you just did, Edith. Maybe, once enough people renege their duties around here, you’ll finally be able to stick it to the changelings.”

“We believe We have heard quite enough out of thee.” the sovereign declared, not even feeling the need to turn and face the speaker, “Thou art free to commit to thy other tasks.”

He nodded.
But before he turned around and made ready to depart from the scene with a - at best, disappointed, at worst, disgusted - shake of his head, he decided mention out one more thing.
“Perhaps we all should. Time’s scarce. And her trial doesn’t wait. And we don’t want it to end before it begins, do we?”

Edith witnessed the princess losing her complacent demeanor upon his words.

He just tapped the aviator watch hanging from his left wrist.
“Monday the 19th. That’s in three days. You might want to keep a TV handy. It should be quite a fascinating opening statement when the prosecution turns up empty-handed!”

Author's Note

Sorry for the - by this point probably utterly unavoidable - delay.
I intended to publish this chapter already some three weeks or so ago. Unfortunately, this time, some... let's call them logistical mishaps... happened to delay it time after time.
I won't name any names, but... yeah, some things may have to change.

But we've cut through the fat now, and are advancing upon the meat rather fast. The trial cannot wait!
So as always, read and enjoy! Not necessarily in that order.

Defence Internal Memo sent Friday November 20, 2015

Image not to scale. Click here for larger size.

Transcript for those unable to see the image file:

M E M O R A N D U M

To: ICC-01/15-01/15 immediate defence team (Filippo Garibaldi, Lyra

Heartstrings, Helena Stephanidou, Lars Krogstad) - Office of the

Public Counsel for the Defence

From: Alexander Estermann, Defence Counsel

Date: 16.11.2015

Subject: Appeal to HRH Chrysalis’ defence team

The Current Situation

As you may have heard, the date of the first hearing of the pre-trial chamber under Justice Suruma has been set for the Monday the 19th. This means that the investigation phase will soon turn critical.
It is during these few pre-trial hearings that the official charges against the suspect are discussed and set. As is to be expected, the prosecution intends to push an entire array of accounts, essentially throwing as many at the judge panel as they can get away with.

Even as the Prosecutor, the press and public opinion all have indulged in labeling her guilty of every conceivable crime, I want you to make no mistake; the Queen is a victim of circumstance, and her actual complicity is beyond uncertain. A majority of the charges are based on unreliable and presumptive evidence supplied by the Equestrian government.

Our Duties And Our Attitude

At this point it is clear that it’s the defence’s foremost duty to stifle all of these attempts through well-researched discreditation and firm dedication to the current body of evidence.
As the case may be, the inviolability of the Queen will remain paramount throughout the pre-trial session and beyond. Every charge the judge panel concedes to would extend the courtroom action by several potential months - to avoid these complications in time for the actual trial chamber is in the interests of both the suspect and the court, not to mention yourselves.

I do not want you to perceive this task as a mandatory court-appointed counsel. We are not in the process of ‘closing the stable door after the (metaphorical) horse has bolted’. We are here because there is literally no one else our suspect could trust with to treat this matter with our professionalism and integrity. It is with this outlook that I wish to see you conduct your work.
Defeatism and lack of faith in the defence’s abilities will not be appreciated. Should you experience any ‘qualms’ or ‘moral complications’ about carrying out your duties; now would be the best time to swallow them (alternately, you might want to make an appearance in my office next thing tomorrow). Of course, attempts to hinder the work of the defence or downright sabotage it will be dealt with through severe disciplinary measures, no matter your intent.

The Prosecution’s War

While all these things might appear self-evident or unnecessarily harsh to any long-time employee of the ICC, I repeat them for the reason that the Equestrian issue is a controversial matter that requires a careful and ever-skeptical approach.

By current estimates, the conflict between the changeling and pony races of Equestria has raged on for as long as one thousand years. The amounted casualties promise to be enormous, and the tensions between the sides are rooted deep in their history and society. The war won’t simply end with one of the main warmongers entering a court of law; It is more likely that the frontlines will move to the bench. As uncomely as this idea might seem, litigation is going to become the war’s weapon of choice, and the parts of the soldiers will be played, nolens volens, by the defence and the prosecution.

Even as you may not feel like fighting a war, you will inevitably be seen as enemy agents by Equestria either way, so you can expect to be treated by the co-plaintiffs in this manner. Attempts to muddy the issue through i.e. fabricated evidence, abuse of court assets, perversion of court protocol, slander, personal attacks, or even threats against the suspect and the team, cannot be ruled out!

So in light of this, a little soldierly wariness on your behalf would certainly not go amiss.

Privacy Takes Priority

As for the next few weeks, I likewise require as much confidentiality as confidence from every one of you. With this, I mean to ensure perfect radio silence on every measure the defence takes. This is to protect our suspect, any possible witnesses and sources that might come forward, and to prevent any leaks that might, in any shape or form, damage our progress in the investigation.

To this end:
- Do not discuss any details of your work with friends, family, or colleagues outside these offices. Court officers and judges are, obviously, exempted.
- All communication between HRH Chrysalis and you will from now on flow through me, and only take place via secure channels.
- All newly received pieces of evidence will pend my review before(!) they can be submitted to the Registry.
- Make backup copies of every document you come in contact with, and keep a close eye on existing copies. Nothing that hasn’t been encrypted or secured in some form is to traverse the office doors, even if (!) copies of it have been brought into circulation by the Registry. Our files and notes are sacrosanct.
- Likewise, any official communication given to the press and the public require my approval. This includes press conferences and interviews.

Feeding The Press

Seeing how, in the light of the Prosecutor’s recent revelation by way of the ‘Everfree Collage’, a statement on our part has consciously been withheld, you can expect press enquiries on the Queen’s position to become much more intrusive. Those, as well as any other unofficial prompts you should either ignore entirely, or build your replies on the following short statement which I have taken the liberty to type out earlier today (Ms Stephanidou, this primarily concerns you in your function as press & external relations secretary):

“Her Royal Highness has been following the recent developments with great concern. Both as a political leader and a mother, she immediately expressed her sincere shock and sorrow at the goings-on and condemned them for the atrocities they were. These revelations caught her as off-guard as any other equine or human bystander, and so she was nothing short of horrified when she found herself at the heart of the Prosecutor’s investigation. Currently, she wishes nothing more than to clear her good name from those ugly allegations of complicity once and for all, and clarify her actual, passive role as Changeling regent. As a matter of fact, she looks forward to aiding the ICC in its search for the true culprits and would gladly see them being held to account for their past actions.”

I think it also goes without saying the choice of news outlet is integral in itself:
If it’s respectable and renowned for neutrality, it’s a decent platform - if it’s known to report benignly on our work, it’s an ideal one.
On the other hand, papers and stations that have been known to attack us or excessively criticise us will categorically receive no comments - supplying the yellow press with fodder is not going to make them change their attitudes towards us.
When in doubt about the their intentions, just remember: a slip of the lip can sink a ship.

Postscriptum

I would also like to take this opportunity to address each and everyone of you personally. Even though we have been working together for one week, I don’t think I have taken the time to interact with you on a personal level.
Despite this, I’d like to say: Thank you for your continued work. She’s counting on you.

Author's Note

I decided to have a little fun with this one. Most of the other defence workers were lacking quite some characterisation anyway.

Props to Waicure for all the svenska sprinkling!

XVII. Upper Case

XVII.
Upper Case

ICC Permanent Premises
Garage Level
21. November, 2015
8:25 am MET

The lights flickered.
Like reversed lightning, the bright white shine beaming down on the dull cement floor was interrupted by brief but harsh flashes of darkness, accompanied by subtle glassy jangles.

Estermann the lawyer shuddered in the petrol-tinged air. It was stuffy, yet cold. He would have expected the freshly finished building to have a bit less trouble with things like electricity and ventilation.
Something was not quite smiles and sunshine around here.

“The... the-the-the-the defence of... Her Royal Highness’ defence will be mounted... Mounted? What the hell?”

He gulped, and cleared his throat again. “The defence will be represented through... the Queen will be represented through... herself... among others... and...”
He gave his worn, bleary-eyed mirror image a disappointed glare and went back to straightening his cravat some more. “It's two sentences. Two fucking sentences. Das kann doch nicht so schwer sein, ich bin doch nicht auf den Kopf gefallen!”

At that point, he was literally saved by the bell. A tiny, soft-tinged ring of the lift descending right in front of the lawyer's face, wiping away his reflection.
“Was ist denn jetzt?”

Weary, he turned away from the glass wall that outlined the outside of the lift shaft. Its doors opened just as he stepped in front of them, and the first thing that received him there was one short, fat arm holding a mobile phone in his face.
Stumbling backwards, the lawyer saw Filippo Garibaldi, his Italian aide-de-camp hurrying out of the elevator, grasping his phone like others would hold a pair of burning underpants – as far away from himself as possible.
“Goodmorningmisterestermanntheofficphonelinetwohasacallforyou!”

“What?”

Again, Garibaldi just breathlessly tried to stick his phone halfway in the counsel's ear.

“Uh... Hello? Hello, head defence counsel speaking?”

But his ear regretted it more or less instantly.

“What are you doing, you idiot?!”

Recoiling, the lawyer could discern an agitated, bellowing voice of his changeling client.
“Your Highness...”

“Where are you?! I can hear your voice! Show yourself!”

“I'm at the court. Where... are you?”

”In the corridor outside my quarters.”

“And... why are you screaming?” he asked among nervous gulps.

“Because those grunts are trying to drag me somewhere by my chains and trying to force my face into a mask...”She audibly turned away from the speaker, “What do you mean it's not a mask?! What is it then? A hat?!”

“Your Highness... you did get my message, didn't you?”

There was an apprehensive pause at the other end. “What message?”

Estermann held back his onsetting sweat with a cramped hand on the forehead. “The one that said that you're supposed to appear in court today...”

He could already hear worried mumbles emitted by Garibaldi.

The Queen stayed silent for a few seconds more. “That's today?”

“That's today.”

After a few more agonizing seconds, the call was interrupted by the short, loud sound of the muzzle being violently thrust against the wall. Evidently, the changeling monarch had just barely worked out the logic behind phones, though not that behind closing calls.

As Estermann returned the phone to Garibaldi, the Italian caught some of his breath and inquired, “...Well?”

“Her Royal Highness is on her way now. Which means she'll be here...”

Almost simultaneously, the two jurists checked their watches.

“Fifteen to nine. Well in time.”

Garibaldi nodded, before clasping his sides and pacing the garage in an attempt to regain some stamina.

“Good God, where have you come from that you're so out of breath?” Estermann asked rhetorically.

“Fifth floor. I was still in our offices when the call came through. Heavens, she scared the living daylights out of me.” He swept the sweat out of his dark hair. “She has... a Contralto on her, she almost shattered my eardrums.”

“So... good morning to you too...” Estermann greeted him dryly. “I was actually half-expecting Heartstrings to come down here with some news...”

“I know, right?” Garibaldi shrugged. “She couldn't do enough for you...”

“Where is she?”

“I haven't seen her all morning.”

That was the first time that Lyra was, in any shape or form, unavailable to Estermann. And she chose to be on this day, of all days?
“That's concerning...”

“Not really. If there is any day we don't need her... services, it's today. You know, unless her appearance is mandated in the courtroom.”
He sounded rather scornful at the topic of the mint-green unicorn. “Which it isn't.”

“I suppose not. The initial appearance hearing is still just the initial appearance hearing...” he chanted. Finally unfumbling his hands from the frilly white cloth hanging off his short collar, the defence counsel glanced around the garage stairwell searchingly. “Have you seen my robe?”

Startled, the Italian looked down at his own pudgy form – his tremendous stomach was already hidden under his own perfectly black silky court gown.
“I… I saw one hanging on the hand railing in the lift not a minute ago... Should I get it for you?”

Before nodding, Estermann huffed an unenthusiastic huff and drove his hands through his hair.
“Damn it all, I'm in no mood for a hearing today...”

His aide shrugged with levity. “Why not? If all goes well, we can be out of there by half past nine.”

“Then why do I still have such a rotten feeling about this?”

“Sleep deprivation?” the Italian guessed, scanning his grey, sagging eyelids. “I mean, no offence, Mr. Estermann. Can I perhaps step into Lyra Heartstring's horseshoes and lend you a hand?”

“Thanks,” Estermann sighed, begrudgingly appreciating his aide-de-camp's attempts to be useful. “I still got two of my own.”

“They're shaking.”

The lawyer just absent-mindedly wrapped a handkerchief around his trembling fingers before hiding them away in the pockets of his suit trousers.
“It's my sixth trial... my sixth appearance hearing... but somehow, that still doesn't make it any easier.”
He checked and straightened out his cuffs. “Though, I suppose... I do have a nifty point to make today. Relatively minor, purely formal, but... for a first hearing, I think it packs enough punch. To kick-start the trial into the right direction.”

“Then you're already doing better than me.” Woefully, the Italian unfurled his other hand, revealing a chipped pair of reading spectacles fitted in a spotty brown frame. “Look at this. It's my fourth trial, and I think I managed to step on my one-hundred-Euro glasses on the way down.”

“Well... I did not know you needed glasses, Garibaldi.” The defence counsel, who had gone back to straightening his cravat against his mirror image, glanced over at his colleague and his petty problems. “They look alright.”

Garibaldi seemed mildly hurt by the nonchalance, but with a stiff upper lip, he held the spectacles up to his own nose probingly and peered through. “Cazzo. The glass is completely scratched.” he moaned. “I can't even see you.”

The defence counsel just rolled his eyes. “Now what?”

Hopefully, the attorney glanced up at the ceiling. “I think I have a second pair inside my raincoat. But they're not custom-tailored.” he added, putting a tad too much emphasis on the last part.

“Then what will you do with those now? Try selling them to the idiot who doesn't need them?”

“Like who?”
He smiled tiredly. “...Lyra? She can't even read the Latin alphabet. None of the Equestrians here can.”

“Hm...” A pony wearing the Italian's reading frames… That thought caught Estermann off-guard for a moment. “How would that look?” he sniggered.

Garibaldi produced a smarmy grin. “Smart?”

Stroking his chin in thought, Estermann silently agreed.

Then he backpedaled.

Then he had another thought.

And then he silently agreed some more.

“Garibaldi...”

“ Mr. Estermann?”

“I want those glasses. How much do you want for them?”

At this point, Garibaldi could follow him as little as the unicorn. “Scusi?”

Estermann stuck a hand into his pocket and retrieved his wallet. “Yes. How much?”

“Ehm, I...” Unsure, he dully scratched his scalp. “Do you need any?”

“Nope. I'm twenty-twenty. Speaking of which, will this be enough?” He produced twenty Euros.

“But they're scratched.”

“I know.”

“Oh, do you... want to repair them?”

Resolutely, Estermann waded the bill over his fingers. “Consider them beyond repair. Come now. Hand them over, Garibaldi.”

Under the - now unbespectacled - eyes of his increasingly irritated aide, Estermann marched up and down the garage ramp, which led out into a crisp Dutch morning, wet and cold and lit by a blood-red sun.

Save for a few security guards anxiously waiting in the wings, there were only some odd defence staffers gathering by the elevators, in expectation of their client.
But even so, the place was alive with sounds. The unforgiving oceanic wind howled through the garage's windowless holes, and brought with it the distant chanting and yelling of the protestors still persevering outside the premises. Only after some seconds were these voices drowned out by the wailing of sirens and roaring of motors, which continuously became louder as it moved closer.

“Alright. I've got the porter on the phone,” Garibaldi announced, straining his short neck as he tried to get a glance beyond the car park's pillars. “He says the Queen's convoy just passed the gate.”

With almost unprecedented speed, four vehicles rushed down the ramp with flashing lights and wetly squealing wheels. Two police motorcycles led a rather heavily armoured bus, which in return was tailed by a squad car, to a halt near the elevator passage, directly in front of Estermann and his assembled colleagues.

The bus, marked with the seal and the name of the Dutch ministry of justice, unlocked its doors. Immediately, half a dozen gendarmes stepped into formation in front of them. The inevitable tranquiliser rifles were raised.

Then she was led out.
A curious gasp went through the rest of the staffers, of whom none had evidently laid eyes on the changeling in person. Her equine snout was covered by the sturdy metallic mesh of her dog muzzle.

Despite this, Estermann thought that something seemed a little off – or at least more off than usual. Her hair and her eyes hung equally lifelessly from her face, and she seemed generally drowsy and uncoordinated, swinging from one foot to another, almost hanging by the chains that led her out.

She focused on the lawyer as he stepped up to her and gave her a short greeting bow. “How are you?”

“I fink I cannof breaf.” she croaked back, before covering her mouth-hole with the side of her left forehoof.

Concerned, the lawyer turned to the helmeted motorcade leader.
“You didn't strap it too tight, did you?”

He just shook his head, before waving his hands over both his ears.
“No no, she scared.” he explained, in bare-bones English. Then, with a couple masterful movements, he relieved the changeling of her mask.

“The hay I am!” she snapped at him, among deep breaths, as soon as the grid was gone, “They force me into that mask before stuffing me into that metal crate on wheels, which then starts shaking and wheeling around like a millstone! And then somepony starts banging all over the outside walls. It nearly drove me nuts.”

“Aha,” the policeman agreed. “De Demonstranten.”

“It's alright,” Estermann soothed her as he led her away, “I suppose automobiles... and protesters... and muzzles... take time getting used to.”

They walked past the still-gawking staffers. “Should I introduce you to your defence team, your Highness?”

The queen didn’t even grace them with a side glance, and shuffled on to the lift doors as gracefully and importantly as was physically possible. “I don't think so. Just let us get this over with, worm...”

Wordlessly, he summoned their elevator with the push of a button.
“The Queen and I will get this one,” he informed his staff as it arrived on their level. “You go get the next!”

The monarch slid in and pulled her chains along without a comment. The container was barely big enough to hold the two of them; both had to lean against the adjacent glass pane walls to get a halfway comfortable ride.

“So... how are you feeling?” he made sure.

“Queasy.”

“So am I. It's normal. The world's eyes will be upon you today.”

“Upon us...”

“But mostly upon you; please, please try not to antagonise anyone.”

“But I thought this was a court.” she mumbled, unimpressed, looking out into the speeding Dutch dunes and forests outside the windows. “I thought 'antagonising' was the name of the game.”

“All you have to do today is answer every question the judges give you; briefly, neutrally, and honestly. There won't be any tough questions. Just basic ones.”

“How long will they be going at it?”

“If we can keep it simple... thirty, forty minutes, maybe?”

She chewed those words over rather aggressively. “You... you had me carted all the way here for some half-hour meet’n’greet?”

He sighed. “Do you remember the television set the other day?”

“Yes?”

“You will be on that screen today. They brought in the cameras especially because of you. It’s not at all typical for pre-trial, but evidently, the ponies want to gloat at your misery, in realtime, from beginning to end. And this time, nothing will be make-believe.”

“Ah,” she conceded, her eyes widening just a bit, “Not exaggerating about the eyes of the world after all, huh?”

“No...” He started up. “Which… reminds me...”
Reaching into his robe, he retrieved a pair of brown reading glasses. “If it's all the same to you, I will need you to wear these.”

She stared down at his palm, not understanding the situation.

“These, your Highness, are glasses.”

“I know what those bucking are.” she snapped. “I just don't need them. Because I can see perfectly.”

He raised them to her muzzle. “Just let me try them on you.”

“Why?!”

“Well, how should I put this?” Carefully, he steered the earguards past her bulbous, insectoid eyes. “In America, they have a saying; 'Never punch a guy with glasses.’ People tend to have a much mellower approach toward eyeglass wearers than to others. It makes people look... innocent, but intelligent at the same time.”

“That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard...” she sighed, “Why should impaired vision evoke any sort of sympath- ow!”

Estermann pulled the glasses back immediately.
He hadn't even noticed that he had grazed the regent's left eyeball with one of its arms.
“Oh God, I'm terribly sorry!”

“Just...” she hissed, almost curling her eye into her head as she held up a silencing hoof.

“Apologies. Now, more importantly, the glasses are quite a status symbol in these parts. The symbol of leaders. Of royalty, even.”

“Nonsense.”

“I'm not joking. I'll bet you a hundred Euro that there isn’t a single king or queen in the human lands that doesn't sport one of these.”

Once she had blinked her eye back to health sufficiently, she rolled it in annoyance.
“Well, evidently I won't be going anywhere with those because they're made for a head half my size. Are they yours?”

“No. Just a colleague's.”

Damn. She was right.
Estermann winced as he browsed through the possible solutions of their conundrum. He decided to take the easiest and bluntest one.
With both hands, he gripped the glasses tightly and bent them slowly outward. He only stopped when he sensed a slight crack forming in the high-grade plastic.
“Forgive me, Garibaldi!”

With the reading aid sufficiently deformed, he went for a second try, placing the glasses on the nervously flinching changeling's head as though he was accessorising a giant horse figurine.

“I can't see a thing.”

“You don't need to. It's not like you can read any of the stuff I showed you.”

“Also, I look ridiculous.”

“I thought you can't see a thing.”

The lift shuddered. The doors opened to a brightly illuminated atrium. Already received by a trio of hawkish bailiffs in dark blue, short-sleeved shirts and trousers, the monarch and the the defence counsel were quickly ushered out of the glass cage and through a number of conveniently cleared corridors, through the equally abandoned defence lobby and, through a set of open double doors, into a large hearing room.

Glass walls abounded, leading up to tall white ceilings brandishing dozens of lanterns and spotlights dropping down above brightly lit strategic positions in the room. Rows of tables, each tightly stacking computers, microphones, folders and glasses of water next to each other, were turned towards a number of subtly raised platforms leading up to the thickest, heaviest desks of them all – the judge's bench.
Between the chairs and computer monitors and camera tripods and blue-white ICC flags, court workers tussled about. Ushers, stenographers, even a paramedic team had secured themselves a seat for the proceedings. Security was, unsurprisingly, through the roof, with officers posted in every corner, one hand always hovering over their sidearm, the other over the chemical mace.

Chrysalis was directed behind a desk on the left side. Instead of a chair like at the desks left and right of her, she had been obliged with a thick pillow on the floor, next to a metal bolt sticking out of the marble tiles to accommodate her chains.

As Estermann took a seat next to her, he managed to catch a glimpse of the sizeable public gallery, which was separate from the actual courtroom by an enormous panorama glass pane and a grey Venetian blind that reached all the way up to the ceiling, to be opened only at the start of the proceedings.
Next to them were the much smaller translating booths, with big tags glued to the insides of their narrow windows. 'English', 'Francais' and one that seemed to exist of strange, entirely unintelligible letters. He just freely assumed it was supposed to spell 'Equestrian'.

Raising his head slightly, he found himself looking straight into the lens of the dreaded camera. This was the angle from which the whole known world was seeing him at that very moment. God, he hoped the two of them were at least halfway good-looking.

“Nervous?” the queen ultimately inquired, a somewhat complacent smile painting her face as she got a fascinated look around.

“Me? Woher denn... What made you think that?”

“Well, for one thing, your hands are writhing around like a dying snake.”

The lawyer noticed how he was absent-mindedly toying with a pen lying in front of him. He dropped it that instant.
“Have you... ever heard of the saying 'You don't get a second chance to leave a first impression'?”

“...Actually, I have.” The queen raised a hoof and slapped it against the counsel's shoulder. “Oh, get your chin up. Not even you're this pathetic. Don't you embarrass me in front of everyone.”

“Embarrass you?” he laughed.
It was a nervous laugh, but still more optimistic than the wince that came before it.

After some short minutes of waiting, three sudden strikes of a gavel rang out.

“All rise. Vous éleves.” a court officer announced, partly in mangled French.

The room rose. Estermann more or less jumped.

“The International Criminal Court is now in session. L'audience de la Cour Pénale Internationale est ouvert.”

Through a hidden panel door, three judges entered. First the Ugandan, then the Equestrian, then the Irishman.
Estermann immediately saw what gravity this case had for the ICC – for most other suspects, only one judge would ever turn up for pre-trial. But here they were, all three of them, strutting in, single file.
Whereas Mullan and Suruma were wearing their black-blue court dress, Lexy Fori wore a robe of shimmering crimson over her light green body. She had traded in her semi-formal business collar for an archaic frilly cloth. On her head throned a somewhat medieval purple cap, which she ceremoniously took off as soon as she reached her place.

“One of these things is not like the other...” Estermann heard the queen whisper in his ear.

“Shh...” he quickly replied.

Almost as if the earth pony’s big ears keenly picked up on the banter, Fori immediately retaliated by latching onto the ear of the Ugandan next to her and whispering something particularly conspirative. At that, even her otherwise dull expression sprang to life.

“Ahem, Your Majesty...” Suruma promptly addressed the changeling, “You may be aware it is customary to rise as the justices enter the room.”

Puzzled, Estermann glanced over, only to find the queen on her haunches, defiantly sitting on her pile of chains.

“Why would I do that?” Chrysalis hissed over to him, “I am a queen. If anything, she should rise for me! And I didn't see anypony bothering to get up when I entered the room.”

“Your Highness, please! Do as you're told."
He tried to avoid the six eyes of judgement burning down on him from the panel.

“Mr. Estermann,” came Suruma's voice again. “Is there perhaps a problem?”

“I...” he thoughtlessly improvised, “Yes, her… Madam President, it’s her chains. They cause my client quite some discomfort when forced to move.”

“I see,” she pouted. Despite her empathetic mien, she was obviously aware of what was going on over there. “See to it that it's righted in time for the next hearing, will you, Mr. Estermann?”

‘What a fantastic first impression’, Estermann squirmed.
“Yes, Madam President.”

Magistrate Fori shook her head while trying hard to concentrate on the files before her, while Colm was content getting out a pen and starting to write things down that hadn't been said yet. Suruma, meanwhile, proceeded to address the room.

“Alright. Please be seated, everyone. Good Morning, ladies and gentlemen; fillies and gentlecolts. I also greet the occupants of the gallery and the viewers following the trial all over the world.”

The defence counsel counsel gave the gallery another quick glance. The curtain had opened, and he was surprised to see a number of familiar faces - among them, none other than the now-famous Sparkle siblings.

“As you know, this hearing had originally been set for Tuesday, November 17th, in compliance with the standard seventy-three hour period, but... due to some security issues which I will not delve into further, it has been decided to delay the proceedings until today.”

Again, a ghastly second of time was spent glaring down at the changeling.

“With no time to lose, we shall get on the way immediately. Can the court officer present the case please?”

Said court officer nodded and began, “The situation in the Principality of Equestria. The Prosecutor versus Her Royal Highness, Chrysalis. ICC zero-one stroke fifteen, zero-one stroke fifteen. C.o.H. five.”

“Thank you. Now then, can I ask the parties to introduce themselves, starting with the prosecution?”

Both the Swiss lawyer and the changeling queen observed the South African rise on the other side of the room.
“Thank you, your Honour. The Office of the Prosecutor will be represented today by Mrs. Marigold Harshwhinny, Senior Solicitor To The Victims at the Council of Harmony...”

She pointed out an orange earth pony sitting behind her – a somewhat peeved-looking creature with rings under her large pony eyes, who obviously could stand the notion of herself sitting here today as little as Estermann.
“...Mr. Indigo Beam, cooperation advisor, also from the Council of Harmony...”
A slightly familiar-looking pegasus smiled and nodded, so avidly that his spiky lightning-yellow mane shook all over the place.
“...and lastly, myself: Serafina Pierman, Prosecutor.”

“Thank you, Miss Pierman.”
Then came the defence's turn.

Soothingly patting the changeling on her back, Estermann rose from his seat and began.
“Madam President, Her Highness’ defence will today be represented by...”
He glanced to his left, where his Italian aide-de-camp had sat down some time ago already, “...Mr. Filippo Garibaldi, senior trial lawyer, from the… ehm...”

He did not remember.

“The Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome.” the Italian filled in for him.
The Italian performed a confused double-take towards his client as he realised that she was, in fact, wearing his own pair of spectacles, hopelessly malformed and irreparably ruined.

“Supreme Court of Cassation, precisely.” Estermann meanwhile confirmed and cleared his throat. “As well as myself, Alexander Estermann, duty counsel with regards to the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence.”

“Yes, and as I understand it...” she reiterated, “Her Majesty is relying on you as a court-appointed duty counsel... as she would not supply her own defence?”

He gave the changeling a short inquiring glance before confirming. “That is correct. Her Royal Highness unfortunately found herself in no position to seek legal assistance from her home… region.”

The queen snorted rather loudly.

The justice nodded. “My thanks to the defence.” Then she turned to the registry and the court officers to demand their introductions.

Estermann used the chance to rein in the monarch. “Could you do away with the smartass mouth noises? This isn’t a speaker’s corner, this is a court of law!”

She huffed, quite bored. “What will happen if I don’t?”

“They’ll have you removed!”

“Goody. Maybe I’ll get chance to catch up on some sleep.”

“Yeah. And listen to your own trial from behind closed doors. There are faster ways to jail, you know.”

“My learned friend.” an irked voice interrupted him from high above. “If you are quite finished...”

Submissively, he nodded his head and straightened himself in his seat like a shamefaced schoolboy.

And then, startlingly enough, a second voice decided to join into the fray.

“He does love the sound of his own voice, but I think he is now. You can continue, if you want.”

Multiple shivers ran down the lawyer’s back as he glanced over and confirmed his fears - that was his changeling client.

A wave of bemused whispers went through the room.

With the concentrated disappointment of a stern grandmother, the Ugandan justice cocked her head as she addressed the suspect. “Thank you, your Majesty. But I would appreciate it if you could leave interjections to your attorney.”

“Why in Tartarus do you keep calling me ‘Majesty’?” Chrysalis inquired, completely unfazed.

One of Estermann’s hands probingly hovered over the general vicinity of his chest. He was certain he would suffer a fatal heart attack at any moment.

“Because...“ the judge hesitated, throwing a verifying glance at her files, “This is what you are, isn't it? That's the title that you lay claim to.”

As shocked as Estermann was, the defence counsel didn't realise that, unlike all those previous times Chrysalis came up with a complaint, there was no actual malice in the changeling's buzzing this time. No, not even a hint of irritation. The way she raised her brows at the justice, she seemed to be, at worst, confused but amused.

“But why 'Majesty'?” she asked on.

Suruma evidently took offence, but something inside her aboveboard and orderly personality compelled her to explain herself to the suspect one final time.
“Well, as a Ugandan, I am accustomed to the British etiquette of address. And according to it, you are a ‘Majesty’.“

“I think we both know I‘m not from ‘British’. Don’t we?” the Changeling queried back, quite matter-of-factly, even if obviously out of her element.

The earth pony judge next to Suruma, her already short fuse slowly charring away, decided to join in the conversation and give air to some of her own pent-up annoyance. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable! You are being told to be quiet, and you just don't want to get it. Be quiet, suspect! Quiet!”

The entire courtroom winced at the Equestrian magistrate's outburst. Estermann knew that it was as unexpected as it was inappropriate. Fori wasn't supposed to speak at all during the trial. Suruma was the presiding judge and the sole voice of the panel, not her. At least Chrysalis had the excuse of being the accused; which excuse could Fori possibly have besides being unprofessional?

Estermann slowly but surely overcame his shock stasis, but he didn’t yet manage to catch on. He couldn't see how intently the queen was scanning the judge panel. How she was skimming them as though slowly unfolding books.

Justice Suruma, having aptly assumed the role of the calmer to her out-of-line Equestrian 'bad cop', folded her hands and leaned into the room. “Your Highness... With your pedantic heckles, you are disrespecting this court. You will quiet down now or you will be held in contempt. Do you understand?”

The queen stared into the justice long and hard. Her face looked curiously enlightened.
“I'm... disrespecting this court?”

“Yes, you are.”

A moment of silence passed as the changeling seemed to process the statement, the buzz at the back of her throat building up.

The whole room fell completely still. Everybody watched and gaped. The air sizzled with expectation.
They waited for the teeming monster Chrysalis’ to raise her voice in protest. For her to have one of her sulphureous outbursts – the ones they all had already heard and read so much about.
Everybody knew, of course, what traversed on the airfield the other week – even if the judge wisely went without mentioning it.
In one way or another, officers and spectators alike had been counting down the minutes to the inevitable meltdown of the petty tyrant, and her eventual, if forceful, removal from the courtroom.

Even Estermann braced for the worst. After all, he had witnessed them all too often before. The lawyer almost sank down on his knees and ducked under his desk – not as much out of self-preservation as shame.

However, something managed to drive a spoke in all of their wheels: The meltdown never came.

“Huh...” the changeling merely remarked, before deducing, “Well, the least we want at this point is to withhold respect...”
Then she nudged her non-functioning glasses up straight and leaned back into her haunches.

Another moment of - anticlimactic - silence passed.

But she stayed as calm as a clam, as she just let that awkward moment pass by her with quizzical, darting eyes.

“Very well...”
Even the oh-so pragmatic and collected Suruma looked like a rug had been yanked away from under her feet. “Now, with the introductions out of the way, we must address what is easily the most basic issue of these hearings: language.”
She sniffed and turned the page. “My files tell me that Her Royal Highness is fluent in Equestrian, but in neither of the court's two working languages – English or French. Now, this information is quite obviously false, as you have just addressed me in, as far as I can judge, rather good English.”

The changeling sat still for a few more seconds before she realised she was being addressed directly.
“Ehm... Does that mean I can say something now?”

“Yes, now you have the floor.” Suruma pouted. “Can you quickly confirm to me here and now that you speak English fluently?”

Confused, Chrysalis glanced over to Estermann, who began to nod avidly.

Then came her answer.
“No.”

Suruma blinked. “Excuse me?”

As Estermann sank further and further into self-pity, the changeling only shrugged, blissfully clueless.

“I don't know what that is. I have never heard of it before.”

“But... but you're speaking it at the very moment!” the judge persisted, digging into the bridge of her nose with her fingers, apparently strongly trying to suppress a despairing smirk. “You have at no point been supplied with an interpreter, and even now you haven’t once felt the need to pick up the earphones that would have provided you with the Equestrian live translation.”

Both the regent and her lawyer glanced down at the scrawny human headset that had been laid down on their table. “Is that what this is supposed to be?” she inquired curiously, shoving the plastic barrette around.

On the other side of the room, a member of the prosecution decided to come forward.
“M'lady, perhaps I can make sense of this...” The bored annoyance the voice threw off was not disguised.

“Ah, Missus... Harshwhinny, is it?”

The orange-brown pony rose from her desk and, lifting her shortly-cut mane up with a hoof, gave the changeling across from her a pitying glance.
“The suspect is very obviously under the effects of a powerful magic spell that allows her to speak this 'English' language perfectly.”
That Equestrian's lip movement and emotional range proved to be surprisingly subtle and dry for a pony. “She will most certainly have received the same incantation as every other Equestrian in this room.”

“Magic... ” The judge looked slightly dumbfounded. “Does it require... practice of any kind?”

“Not from her, no.”

“And yet, it can guarantee full proficiency?”

“Of course, M'Lady. Just listen around.” She glanced at the gallery. “I doubt that anypony here – including myself – will have bothered to learn your 'English'.”
She sniffed elegantly. “No offence.”

“None... taken.” Suruma mumbled. “You aren't a professional magician, by any chance?”

Harshwhinny shook her head. “No, I'm a sports arbiter.” she rectified, formal to a tee, and sat back down - before standing up again, and righteously adding, “Under ordinary circumstances, that is.”

Behind her, a subtle wave of laughter passed through the courtroom. It seemed to faze every one in the prosecutor's corner, including Prosecutor Pierman, but not the earth pony.

“Well... you are definitely in good hands with us, then...” the head judge commented with unapologetic sarcasm.

All the while, the queen was sitting and smiling. “What a farce...” she whispered delightedly.

Estermann would have shushed her, but he felt inclined to agree.

Suruma made a little cross on her piece of paper. “Your Highness... Does the fact that you are wearing glasses signify that you can read as well as you can speak?”

The queen peered over to her lawyer once more. He, however hesitantly, signalled her the apparently obvious 'no'.
“I can't read the papers the way you wrote them, no.”

“Why the glasses, then?”

Estermann nearly choked on that question. But Chrysalis, ever-so masterfully, smiled a content smile and explained. “Because, when I look others in the eye... I appreciate seeing something.”

The justice surrendered with a raising of an arm. “Yes, a silly question indeed. Moving on... Your Highness, following Article 60, passage 1 of the Rome Statute and Article 12, 1 passage 1 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the purpose of this hearing will be to positively confirm the identity of the suspect about to stand trial.”

Chrysalis peered around for said suspect.

“...We are talking about you.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yes... and we need you to identify yourself.”

“Why?”

And the chorus sang a collective groan.

Chrysalis shook her head, as though she was the only sane creature in a crowd of imbeciles.
“It's just that... you've obviously spared no expenses hauling me over seas and mountains and deserts... halfway across your puny... your world… and yet you still somehow have the gall not to believe that I am who you think I am?”

Jeers emerged from somewhere in the prosecution's corner.
“I'd put nothing past her! Nothing! Once a changeling, always a changeling.”

“Silence in the courtroom!” Suruma barked, before turning back to the queen, bearing a forced smile. “It's just protocol. So please... please state your full name, your date of birth, place of birth and so on... so that our stenographers will have something constructive to do.”

Gracefully, the regent lowered her insectoid muzzle before lifting her massive body effortlessly up from behind her table.
“You... want to know my name?” she asked in a somewhat more declarative tone. “I have been known a lot of things over the centuries. They call me Chrysalis. The Queen of all Changelings. The Master of all Hives. Mother of all Nests. Regent on the Rocks. The Mare in the Mountains. The Shadow of the North.”
Gleefully, she observed the ponies of the prosecution's faces turn to ash and ice. “The Scourge. The Terror. The Beast. Yes, that's what they call me. Or used to, anyway.”

“Age?”

“The question every lady fears worst…” she sighed, disappointed but quietly. “My age… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know your exact age?” the human reiterated stiffly, “Are there any… estimates?”

The changeling just shrugged.
“Once upon a time, in the darkest night of the stormiest winter, in the icy caverns of the Frozen North, there grew a putrid acorn off a solitary oak that curled between the flowstones. And this acorn was snapped off by a squirrel and mindlessly thrust into a pool of unspeakable magical deluge that flowed beneath; an abominable natural cauldron that drew off the flies and cadavers and other swamp waste to breathe unholy fertility into that one acorn, and let it grow into a strong and mighty tree, which would one day burst, and release upon Equestria the feeding, breeding perversion of nature that was... the first changeling.”
A much-needed pause followed, more for the audience than Chrysalis herself. “Or… so they say. This is a time so long in the past that it has remained as unknown to me as everyone else...”

“Okay...” the judge interrupted her epic tale, “Basically, you are stating that there is no viable way to confirm your date of birth?”

“Did you... not listen just now?” Chrysalis sighed back, “There wasn't a pony scribe sitting by my pupa to record the exact moment I hatched. Even I, believe it or not, began in rather... obscure conditions once.”

“Pah! Smug witch!” a heckler commented.

“Silence, I said!”
The sour judge wrote down another confirming annotation in her notes.

“But... I can point you to the exact mount under which I first saw the light of my world. If that would help.”

“That's a start.” the judge confirmed. “Alright. Current profession?”

“...Profession?”

Before the changeling regent could answer, she felt her lawyer tug at her tail. Estermann gawked at her intently and laid a discrete finger over his mouth – a clear indicator of how she should treat the enquiry.

“Like I said... I am... the Queen of all Changelings... and all that that entails.”

By that point, the poison-green earth pony to the chief justice's right felt the last straw collapse from under her. She jumped on all fours and barked, “You're evading, changeling! Answer the question in full!”

“Now, now...” the elderly Ugandan soothed her impulsive, virtually boiling colleague and slid a comforting hand over her hooves. “If the defence finds that any in-depth elaboration on her work may harm their position, they are of course free to withhold it.”

“Horseapples,” the magistrate coughed, and settled down reluctantly. “We’re getting nowhere here.”

“Your Highness... I trust you have been informed in detail about your charges by your attorney?”

“Who,” the changeling laughed, “That motormouth? Are you jo—”

Estermann jumped up and loudly cut his client's snide remark off. “She has! I mean, I have. Madam President.”

“...Then we now come to the part where I will formally inform you of the crimes you are purported to have had a part in. Can I ask the court officer to read out the counts as listed in the redacted version of Her Highness’ Warrant of Arrest?”

Chrysalis grinned over to Estermann. “Oh… it’s ‘purported’ now, is it?”

The court officer produced a portfolio from which she immediately began to read in an almost surreal speed.
“Thank you, Madam President. Pursuant to the redacted version of the Warrant of Arrest against Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, in force as of September 17th, 2015, it was concluded by Pre-Trial Chamber II that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, among other persons whose identities are as of yet unknown and arrests outstanding, ordered and oversaw the commission of crimes in the jurisdiction of the Council of Harmony, namely genocide, crimes against sapiency, war crimes and crimes against the sanctity of the mind. The warrant lists twenty-two individual counts of alleged crimes, spanning over four separate incidents, as well as the time framed between them.
Over the time frame of the Equestrian years 1 to 1003, HRH Chrysalis ordered and oversaw a policy of systematic persecution of members from the Equestrian species and ethnic groups, comprised of earth, pegasus and unicorn ponies, implicating herself in one count of Crimes against Sapiency, which in fact occurred...”

And as she recited, the Swiss attorney took the chance and stole a glance at his changeling charge.

Mesmerised, she was gawking up at the camera hanging above their heads, apparently trying to make sense of it. Momentarily, it was almost as if the charges that were read didn't really concern her too much.

“In the Equestrian year 1, HRH Chrysalis led a military assault on, and subsequent razing of, the Flying City-State of Timbucktu, formerly located on the territory of contemporary Western Equestria, implicating herself in one count of Genocide, which in fact occurred – orders to be perpetrated against the pegasus population of the city – one count of Crimes against Sapiency, which in fact occurred – the ordered deliberate murder of non-combatant civilians inside the city – two counts of War Crimes, which in fact occurred – the declaration that no quarter would be given, and the ordered willful destruction of the entirety of the cloud city's standing structures.”

Estermann nudged her attention away from the lens with a tug.
“Don't look into the camera. They tend to cut back onto the suspects as the counts are being read.“

“In the Equestrian year 21, HRH Chrysalis initiated a surprise assault on, followed by a brief occupation of, the City-State of Trot, located in contemporary San Palomino county, implicating herself in four counts of Crimes against Sapiency, which in fact occurred – the orders to enslave, forcibly transfer, imprison, and cause serious bodily and mental harm to, local civilians and 'hors de combat’ – and one count of Violation of the Sanctity of the Mind, which in fact occurred – ordering and overseeing the enactment of ‘mind control’ on several city leadership figures to achieve cooperation.”

The changeling's mood visibly changed. A hoof pressed against her cheek, in an apparent attempt to stifle a phantom ache in her gums. Her breathing slowed and became more deliberate. Her eyes shrunk.
Something happened inside her, and it caused her demeanour to grow increasingly meek and troubled.

What, what, what was going through the changeling's mind? What wouldn't Estermann have given to find out?

“In the Equestrian year 259, HRH Chrysalis commenced an attack against Equestrian Royal Guard forces, followed by the occupation of the nearby Hamlet of Kiger, located in contemporary Mustangia, implicating herself in four counts of Crimes Against Sapiency, which in fact occurred – the orders to enslave, forcibly transfer, imprison, and cause serious bodily and mental harm to, local civilians and 'hors de combat' – one count of War Crimes, which in fact occurred – the ordered murder of Royal Guard soldiers following the formal surrender of the latter, and also following an issued declaration that no quarter would be given – and one count of the Violation of the Sanctity of the Mind, which in fact occurred – ordering and overseeing the use of ‘mind control’ on officers and soldiers of the Royal Equestrian Guard to bring about reversed loyalty.”

Her snout turned floorward. She nervously combed back one of her stiff, horn-like ears.

“In the Equestrian year 1003, HRH Chrysalis infiltrated and commenced a surprise assault against, the Equestrian Capital City of Canterlot, implicating herself in four counts of Crimes against Sapiency, several of which in fact occurred – the orders to enslave, forcibly transfer, imprison, and cause serious bodily and mental harm to, local civilians and 'hors de combat' – one count of War Crimes, which in fact occurred – ordering the bombardment of civilian buildings and objects – and, lastly, one count of the Violation of the Sanctity of the Mind, which in fact occurred – ordering and overseeing the use of mind control on Equestrian military personnel, Equestrian state officials and civilian bystanders, to bring about both cooperation and reversed loyalty.”

As the court officer finally concluded her exposition, a wave of reserved harrumphs and self-conscious coughs resounded through the room.

And Chrysalis was squeezing one of her eyes dry. Whether she was rubbing the sleep out of it or suppressing a tear was not immediately apparent... though Estermann certainly felt he could guess which one it was.

“Thank you, Court Officer. Now, your Highness...” Suruma addressed her, taking back over, “I will inform you of your rights.”

It was the usual stuff. Run-of-the-mill, really. It was things like the right to be considered innocent until proof of guilt, the right to be informed about the proceedings however quickly and intricately as she desired, the right to a translation, should that turn out to be of needed after all.

The queen sat through most of it with her eyes closed, one of her hooves massaging the upper half of her face, constantly nodding after every one of the justice's sentences.

“Have you understood everything?”

Again, a nod. “Yes... yes...”

Suruma's stare intensified. Also she could see that some change had come about the queen.
“We are now... coming to the end of the hearing. If the prosecution, the defence or the suspect have anything else to state or submit, now would be the time.”

The changeling snuffled.

“Your Highness?” the judge asked again. “Is there?”

Chrysalis glanced over to the lawyer, then over to the gallery, and lastly at the judges' podium.
“Well...” she shrugged, her voice weaker and more hoarse, “What can I say? I've heard all those charges, I had to listen to them all and... there is one thing I can say for sure: I'm pretty mad.”

Startled at the mention, the viewers behind the glass leaned in excitedly. The anticipation was still there.

“I'm mad to be sitting here and listening to all this. Having to witness how... those charges all being heaved onto me.”

Suruma sat upright. “As I stated just now, this court considers you innocent until any guilt can be proven without reasonable doubt.”

“I have been told to accept them in silence. To sit still and like it. But the thing is... I don't like this. I don't like any of it at all. In fact, I hate it.”

“And you don't have to like it, your Highness.” the Ugandan assured. “You are in every way entitled to maintain your innocence. But respect towards this court is expected from your side even in this situation.”

“Do you think I'm guilty?”

The judges sat still. Of course, Lexy Fori seemed all too eager to give a straight answer, but even she managed to keep her silence.
“You know that there is no way we could possibly form a professional opinion on your guilt or the absence thereof at this point in time.”

Melancholically, Chrysalis nodded and pressed her lips together.
“It's just that... I know who does...“ she chanted softly, “I know who here does. And I worry.” An accusatory eye locked itself on the Equestrian magistrate.

“With all due respect...” Suruma reprimanded her, her voice perfectly no-nonsense, “This is neither the time nor the place to draw the impartiality of this chamber into question. If you feel like you take issue, you will need to raise this through appropriate channels, and not the courtroom.”

“Quite.” she vibrated, curling on her pile of chains. “Apologies.”

“Are there any other matters that the defence would like to raise?”

Only tearing his attention away from the increasingly grief-stricken changeling monarch with much difficulty, Estermann sorted his files and rose. He felt that now was the best time to play that little trump card of his.

“Madam President, I believe that there is a certain matter of formality that needs to be raised before the trial can continue.”

“Yes, Mr. Estermann?”

“I took the liberty to look through an array of documents pertaining to the charges of my client, and noticed certain discrepancies that... while seemingly banal, carry some rather unfortunate implications.”

He raised a paper he tore from the arrest warrant, showing off several areas he had underlined with thick neon-green marker. “You are aware that, several times in the documents, both Her Royal Highness and her absconded subjects are repeatedly described, and referred to, as 'changelings'...”

“Yes?”

“...written with a lower case first letter, as is to be expected spelling... for the species.”

“I don't think I can follow.”

“You see, while it's more than appropriate to state such obvious trivia as, 'the suspect is a changeling' when given a physical description... I think it's quite unprecedented for this court to use the suspect's species as a substitute for both their nationality and demonym.” He smiled a little with ridicule. “At least, I don't remember Mr. Bemba or Mr. Al Bashir being introduced as 'humans' instead of Congolese and South Sudanese.”

“As far as I was informed, my learned friend, the changeling population of Equestria profoundly rejects the demonym 'Equestrian',” the judge explained, knowing very well how accurate what she said was, “even if it would legally apply to them.“

“What?” the changeling queen just hissed inaudibly.

“And further, if I am not mistaken," Suruma explained on, "'changeling' is the national identity that this group prefers.”

“That is quite correct. However..." Estermann countered, "...had the documents been correctly referring to Her Highness' nationality – official, de-facto or self-chosen – they would have referred to the Queen as 'Changeling', with capital spelling. After all, the suspect is here to answer for crimes that she is supposed to have committed in her position as the alleged Queen Regent of the 'Changeling Kingdom', and not as just 'a changeling'. In fact, that could very easily be misconstrued as... exceedingly intolerant towards the changeling species at large.”

The three judges looked around the room, their faces marked with bashful surprise. Even Colm had gone from obliviously doodling on his paper to cluelessly scratching his scalp.

“Mr. Estermann, you are hopefully not implying that this was the intention of the prosecution.”

He chuckled subtly and shook his head. “Far from it. I am absolutely certain these are nothing more than simple grammatical errors. However, the defence likes to stress, without pointing any fingers, that this will need immediate and complete mending – lest it would lead many to... cast doubt on the true nature of Her Royal Highness' warrant of arrest. A type of uncertainty that ought to be avoided if at all possible.”

Suruma peered down at the bundle of some thousand pages that was lying on her desk. It was but a fraction of the relevant files.
“The Defence wishes to have dozens of separate court documents rewritten and completely redistributed because of a handful of capital spelling errors?”

Smugly, Estermann peered up at her, and performed an almost invisible shrug.

“Oh please...” came the inevitable grumble of Suruma's right-hand mare. “I think the defence is tipping over strawponies. The court files are fine, they'll just have to be read with the right intentions in mind.”

“I'm... inclined to agree.” Suruma surprisingly nodded here, though not before briefly quietening Lexy Fori with a disapproving glare. “As embarrassing as this... very obvious clerical error may be, it comes down to simple logistics that we cannot possibly alter every existing copy of the court files that are in circulation at this time. The misspellings, for now, must remain, and all involved will have to keep the inconsistencies in mind, on their own merit. Thank you, Mr. Estermann.”

“Oh, Celestia...” came Fori's almost inaudible curse, eyes lifted towards the ceiling.

Justice Suruma leaned over to her left, and briefly discussed something with Colm Mullan, who appeared positively delighted to be finally included in the proceedings.

“Alright. With this matter laid to rest, I believe we can finally conclude this session.”
She folded her arms, giving the mysterious changeling suspect a skeptical look. Chrysalis didn't even return it. “It has been a... rather interesting first appearance hearing. No doubt about it. I am looking forward to the next scheduled hearing, on Wednesday, November 23rd, the day after tomorrow.” She didn't quite seem to mean it, though; her voice cast exasperation and doubt at every corner. “The date of the final confirmation of charges hearing has, for now, been set for Monday, December 7th.”

The confirmation of charges hearing. Estermann squirmed uncomfortably.
On this day, the charges would be set in stone. On this day, no more new evidence could be taken in. So if, by that day, he couldn’t convince the Justices to discard the existing charges - should there be anything left to accuse Chrysalis of - then there would be hell to pay. It was almost a given that she wouldn't see the world outside the courtroom for years. If anything were to come after December 7th, it would either be unconditional freedom, or, in his own experience, an inevitable and particularly ugly legal mire.

But even so... it just had to be December 7th, didn't it? The day after St. Nicholas' Day – one of the principal holidays, both here in the region and Estermann's own native land - the day where The Hague's streets would be invaded by a swarm of bearded, red-cloaked bishops?
Estermann would have never thought that those silly costumes would come to mean so much dread to him – at least, in his adult age.
He sighed.
Chrysalis entered the Netherlands on November 16th - that was only one day after Nicholas himself.
But she had to be about the worst St Nick in the history of the country.

“Your Highness...” resounded the voice of the Ugandan head justice just one last time.

Chrysalis glanced up from her wallowing.

“One quick question... Why not 'Majesty'? Is it considered bad form in Eq... in your home region?”

The queen, with a determination that wasn't displayed even by her the whole day, pouted and shook her tremendous equine head.
“It sounds sarcastic. It... really does.”

Chrysalis gazed into her mirror image's aqua-blue eyes for seemingly an eternity. Finally, once she felt she had stared enough, she struck out with her head, and plunged it into the filled sink.

As the bubbles danced around her battered snout and past her twitching eyes, the damaged designer glasses softly drifted off to the porcelain bottom.

She didn't care.

The bitter taste on her tongue made her gag. The thoughts that crowded in her head made her deaf. And the constant electric tickle on the top of her horn made none of it any easier to bear.

“Those... curs. Those slimy, good-for-nothing curs.”

Not a trace was left of her pained, pathetic countenance that she had worn in the courtroom not five minutes ago. It was gone, washed away with the lukewarm bathroom water like make-up.

“Judging... liars. Entitled hypocrites. Every single last one of them. Heavens, I wish I was back...” she blew into the water, where the words inaudibly disappeared. “I wish I was back...”

Alexander Estermann could not lose his happy smile for a lot longer than was necessary. Leaning against the open double doors leading to the defence lobby, hands flung into his trouser pockets, he complacently nodded all the little court officers good-bye as they passed him.

”Bye.”

The reason for his ecstasy was certainly a weird one. But today had gone so much better than he expected it would. Everything somehow just fell into place today, despite – or more appropriately, in spite of – the queen's incessant heckles and taunts and mild tirades.

“Good day.”

The ponies had certainly shown their true colours today – on the judge's bench, lopsided, and in the prosecution, incompetent.

Past him came Prosecutor Pierman herself, her thick curly hair wrapped into a tight black bun, and dragging her robe, slung over her short stature, like a crap statue of liberty.

“Morning, Fräulein.”

She passed quickly, with a detesting shake of her head.

Soon after, the three judges strutted out of their little chamber, observing the dissolving assembly with deliberating slowness.

“Madam President. Mister President. My Lady...”

The Ugandan granny cocked her head and pouted her lips.

“Missus Suruma…” he stuttered, ” I may have to apologise for... my client today. She has - evidently - never seen a trial like ours. A serious trial.”
He couldn't help but give the earth pony in the royal purple gown an apropos glance.

“Mister Estermann...” Suruma sighed and scratched her nose, “Do you realise what I had to put down as the Queen’s date of birth today?”

He shook his head.

“Time Immemorial. A term that should only ever be applied to cities, countries and God. Forgive me if I can’t quite lead myself to believe that there is something she hasn’t undergone in her unduly long life.”

Politely, he smiled.
“I’ll… have another word with her. To make her remember. Thank goodness there’s still the time and opportunity...”

“Listen,” the earth pony magistrate below him immediately countered, “Mister Defence Attorney, if you think you can help Queen Chrysalis escape any just punishment by... dragging this trial out until everyone's gotten bored and wandered off home... you're very, very mistaken.”

Smirking, he nodded down at her. “I would certainly be, Miss... Lexy.”

“Alex,” Colm hailed him tersely.

“Hello, Colm.”

Smiling to his two fellow judges, the Irishman stepped closer and crossed his hands behind his back.

“Listen, I'll call you.” he whispered.

“What is it?” the attorney whispered back.

“I'll call you.” he ominously repeated, before clapping him on the shoulder before leading the others further along and away.

Estermann decided not to question the Irish judge’s secretive behaviour for now.
He was still waiting for his client, who had absconded into a nearby men's room – not that she noticed or cared – and hadn't shown herself in at least ten minutes.

Had she escaped?
He smiled. It would make an interesting new story.

“Mr. E!” came a sudden battle cry.
A blueish-green blur bolted through the main doors, dodging bailiffs and prosecution members in her way.

Estermann instinctively scratched his nose, suppressing the mild annoyance at his massively late 'Equestria expert'.
Though, even that slight disgruntledness evaporated when he noticed the tears streaming out of her huge amber eyes.

“I'm so so sorry!” she sobbed at him, not giving a damn about the other people moving around the two of them. “I overslept. I don't know why. I don't know why!”

“Jesus, calm yourself!” he whispered and bowed down to her. “It can happen.”

She wheezed like a dog, barely taking the time to catch her breath. “I just don't know what came over me... One moment I'm wide awake, and the next, it's five to nine!”

“You overslept, yes, now calm down!”

“B-but the hearing, the Queen... Queen Chrysalis?!”

“Everything is under control.” He slowly raised and lowered both his hands, to lull the anxious unicorn into a calming trance. “It went well.”

Her voice flattened. Her eyes shrunk.
“It... did?”

“Yeah, of course. In hindsight, not too much could have gone wrong, I…”

He saw the unicorn's focus drift away from him, and onto something behind his back.
Turning, he caught the changeling queen shuffling out of the bathrooms, her mane wet, water dripping from her ears.

Then he glanced back at Lyra. The little unicorn's mouth was hanging open, her knees weakening as she stood and gaped.

“Your Highness...” Estermann stuttered, not quite sure what to make of the situation, but determined to get the drop on any sort of conflict between the changeling queen and the unicorn mare, “May I introduce you to one of my closest colleagues in the defence? Miss Lyra Heartstrings, of Canterlot.”

Even the queen seemed momentarily confused in the presence of the unicorn.

“I know this may come across a little... strange, but I can say with certainty that, up to this point, she has been my single most valuable and trustworthy adviser in Equestrian matters...”

Chrysalis ignored him. Passing by her legal representative, she rounded the unicorn with a uniquely curious look on her muzzle.

The young mare was frozen in a powerful stasis as she let the changeling monarch circle her and inspect her from all sides, with only her eyes curling hungrily upward to espy more of the queen.

“Heartstrings?” the lawyer asked softly, letting the scene play out without disrupting it too much.

A whistle emanated from Chrysalis, the kind of whistle only someone with a cold would cause when breathing through the nose.
Her eye twitched. And then her craggy features softened. From one moment to another, her worn-out and sore eyes became all the more motherly.
“Ah, yes.” she whispered, as though recognising something long-forgotten.

Lyra gasped as the changeling closed her rounds and came to a stop before her. Her breath increased tenfold between indistinct whimpers, as though she had a dozen thoughts at once and wanted to air them all at the same time.

“Now, now...” the monarch cooed, and raised a commanding hoof. “Little hoofmaiden.”

The tears almost returned on Lyra's anguished countenance.

“A little hoofmaiden so far from home... but does she still know how to act in the presence of her betters?”

Her mouth relaxed and sealed itself. With an earnest and utterly devoted gleam, the unicorn slipped onto her haunches. It came so sudden that Estermann had to resist his urge to catch her.

Her head limply held the gaze, seemingly hypnotised by Chrysalis' mere presence.

And Chrysalis, she was about to shower that unicorn mare with more compassion than with any other pony Estermann had witnessed.
Her hoof travelled towards Lyra's head and touched her right on her fluffy, rugged mane. And the mare shuddered with delight.

At some point, something clicked in the lawyer’s nominally deductive mind, and he decided to come right out with it.
“Do you two... know each other?” he inquired, the piercing interrogative tone hidden under an unconvincing, toothy grin.

For better or for worse, the question showed a reaction. The queen's hoof, tellingly enough, flinched, while Lyra, meanwhile caught in the moment, didn't react at all.
“Equestria sure is small...” Chrysalis sighed, “But, alas, not that small.”

“Pardon, your Highness?”

Giving the mare a last playful noogie, the queen finally managed to let off of her.
“We're done here, aren't we? I'm tired. Let's go home, worm… Or, whatever’s closest to it.”

Author's Note

A court procedural drama with some actual courtroom action in it?
I know. Weird, right?

It took us a few more chapters to get there than anticipated, but we got here nevertheless.
So as always, enjoy all this long overdue legalese goodness. It's but the beginning!

And now, for something completely different:

[I want you to make no mistake; the suspect is a victim of circumstance, and her actual complicity is beyond uncertain.]
"Oh, of course. I want to believe... but no. Just no."
[I do not want you to perceive this task not as a mandatory court-appointed counsel.]
"If that makes you feel any better, I don't. Mandatory court-appointed counsels make me feel as innocent as a baby by comparison!"
[We are not in the process of ‘closing the stable door after the (metaphorical) horse has bolted’.]
"I see what you did there. Shame on you."
[alternately, you might want to make an appearance in my office next thing tomorrow]
"Why? Do you have a gun hidden in your drawer?"
[Of course, attempts to hinder the work of the defence or downright sabotage it will be dealt with through severe disciplinary measures]
"Fifth column, fifth column, fifth column everywhere!"
[fabricated evidence, abuse of court assets, perversion of court protocol, slander, personal attacks, or even threats against the suspect and the team, cannot be ruled out!]
"Murder, arson, tax evasion... Fear your enemy, for they are evil."
[In light of this, a little soldierly wariness on your behalf would certainly not go amiss.]
"I knew it! And I can't even tell whether this is supposed to be a pep talk or... I don't know..."
[...to prevent any leaks that might, in any shape or form, damage our progress in the investigation.]
"...more than already."
[All communication between the suspect and you will from now on flow through me...]
"Really? You don't trust your own defence team? I wonder when you'll start purging us, you paranoid ass."
['Both as a political leader and a mother...']
"Are we REALLY going to channel the 'merciful mother spirit' here? Is that gonna be our defence?"
['As a matter of fact, she looks forward to aiding the court...']
"And why shouldn't she! She's such a dear..."
[supplying the yellow press with fodder is not going to make them change their attitudes towards us.]
"But what if we kiss-ass really really hard?"
[Despite this, I’d like to say: Thank you for your continued work.]
"Really? That's it? ...You're welcome, I guess?"

XVIII. Caveat Lector

XVIII.
Caveat Lector

Royal House Guard Barracks
City of Canterlot
21. November, 2015
4:54 pm ICT

“So... how does this thing work?“

“Easy!”
The GI huffed as he plopped the weighty machine down on the sorting desk. “You plug it in… you press the button… and voila! Eighteen channels, in real time, from five different countries!”

The corporal whistled, very clearly impressed.

“This must be some cutting-edge technology right there.”

The American soldier pulled a doubtful grimace, and shrugged,
“Eh... Truth be told, this thing’s about fifteen years old. I don’t think the company that made it even exists anymore. But it’s still American engineering, and works like it’s fresh from the assembly line. So I can’t complain, and neither should you.”
Positioning the screen towards the bunks and leisure table, he took the power cable out of the box and twisted it around his fist.

The Royal guard meanwhile turned to his sergeant major as a grin covered his face; the older pegasus was still staring at the dark screen of the TV as though he was watching the grandest thing since sliced fritters.
“How… are we ever gonna pay for this?” he wondered, his voice stricken with slight worry.

“Pay? This is a gift, guys. For you, with love, from the United States Marine Corps.”

The corporal nearly burst with excitement, “You mean we can keep it?”

“Hey, all us warriors gotta stick together.” the Marine laughed and combed over his smoothly shorn hair.

"Oh yeah, I'm good with that!” the corporal bellowed. “Thanks, Mister Man!”

The human warrior proceeded to carefully vault over the ledge and out the open window of the ground floor room. His collision was softened by the thick, puffy layer of snow that lay in the courtyard outside, the marine tugged the cable out after himself, before peeking back into the warm guardroom. “Okay, guys. Before you turn it on, make sure you plugged the TV into the transformer, and the transformer into the generator.”

“What if we forget?”

“...Well, it won’t turn on. And if you forget to use a transformer, your precious new TV will be fried like a shrimp.”
The human grabbed the cord the hung off the roughly suitcase-sized, emergency-yellow-painted engine generator, and gave it a few hefty tugs. With a mighty rattle, the zip-started motor sprang to life, giving a deep, gravelly howl that made all the windows rattle in their frames.

“Holy Celestia!” the sergeant major exclaimed, pressing his ears shut in shock. “How long does that thing have to run?!”

“As long as the TV’s meant to be on! The power’s gotta come from somewhere!”
Climbing back in from the outside, the GI locked the window tightly behind himself.

“So much for magic…” the sergeant major commented, rubbing his poor ears.

“Magic doesn’t need gasoline. By the way, you need more gasoline. You can get it from the PX for Two-fifty per gallon.”
Picking up the remote control, the human ceremoniously approached the TV set. “Now then, gentlemen… get ready for the real magics…”

With a very high-pitched peep, the television flashed and flickered.

“Oh, wow.”

“Wait, that’s not it.”
The marine fumbled about with a veritable coat hanger of an antenna, until a halfway identifiable image could be discerned in the black-white confusion.

“...is AFN Equestria, live from Camp Justice in Diego Garcia with the Newstalk at seventeen-hundred!” the TV suddenly announced.

“Do… they all talk like that?” the younger stallion asked, confused.

“Nah… that’s just US Forces TV. We’ve got our own channels and stuff.”

The screen was filled with lines and shapes swishing by to important music, and after a few seconds, the screen switched to a stubble-haired black man in a short-sleeved olive drab service uniform,
“Hi there, my name is Master Sergeant Jayson Ingram. Ladies and gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts: Welcome to the show. Or, to put it in my best Equestrian…” The man needed a second to position his jaws just the right way, “Eeeeeaghupfuuuuuah.”

“We do not sound like that.” the corporal grumbled.

“Oh well, I tried.” he immediately admitted sheepishly. “But boy, have we got an exclusive for you today. It should be obvious to any US servicemen and -women that are watching, and to other long-time viewers of AFN, that we never had a huge sortiment of talk shows in our programme - much less ones that we produced ourselves.”
Proudly, he crossed his legs. “But this is about to change. Today, just barely three months after the conception of the Equestrian sister station of American Forces Network, we can take extreme pride in the fact that, in the last weeks, our curious Equestrian allies and neighbours have all but surpassed our own US personnel in viewership numbers.”

The corporal nudged the sergeant major. “I wonder what was keeping us, eh Sarge?”

“Yes, almost eighty percent of our regular tune-ins now come from pony servicemen and civilians who just cannot seem to get enough of what human television, radio and internet has to offer. Of course, we were very touched by your keen interest in our modest part of this grand cultural exchange. And indeed, we were very happy to oblige, and worked hard to craft the fully-fledged information and entertainment programme that you deserve; your personal window to the human world.” The camera zoomed out, to reveal that the smiling man was sitting behind a generously sized oval glass desk in front of a studio backdrop. “It was for this reason that we also supplied a live broadcast of the first hearing in the Changeling queen Chrysalis' war crimes trial at the ICC this morning...”

“Aw, shoot!” the pony corporal cursed. “I missed the trial! I just had to have kitchen duty when it was on!”

“Oh, you didn't miss much, Vedette.” The sergeant major trotted over to the vittle shelf and clamped a bottle of cider in his hooves. “It was a lot of talking to no real point. Except Chrysalis being snooty as always.”

“I can't stand that horsefly.”

“You think I can?”

“I'd give a day's pay to see a court rip into her.”

“Well, this court didn't.” Jugging a generous sip, he climbed back down from the pantry. “If you're asking me, the humans are way too soft on her. She's being coddled... No offence, Mister Man.”

“Uh...” the human started up, “None taken, dude.”

“I mean, they sat there, and they just let her do her thing. She looked like she was enjoying a well-deserved holiday from all that love-sucking and slaving. Even got a brand-new pair of glasses and everything.”

”And now, in direct continuation to the broadcast, we bring you a short discussion round, live from Haarlem near The Hague, with a very esteemed guest panel to help dissect and analyse the trial, and even have a jab at trying to predict the outcome.”

“Fifty-five bits on 'Not Guilty'!” he snorted cynically.

“Oh, you're on, Sarge!”

”Let me greet my two panellists: There is The Honourable Mr Fancy Pants, a veteran diplomat and the Royal Equestrian Government’s envoy to the European Union...”
The image pulled to a snow-white, strong-shouldered unicorn with a carefully tended blue mane and moustache, who adjusted his monocle in greeting.

“Hey Sarge, I know him! I saw him at the Royal Variety not a month ago. I didn't know he had time for diplomatic stuff by the side. I'd be having my hooves full with that lovely mare of his...”

Next up came a bald man in a dark blue uniform tunic with an equally blue tie,
And Lieutenant Commander Tyler Firth, Judge Advocate General of the US Navy, with five years of expertise in criminal psychology. Welcome, both of you.”

The round gave their friendly greetings.

“Now, to cut straight to the chase; You’ve both been following the hearing. What was your take?”

“We, for one, are quite optimistic...” the blue-stached unicorn began, though with caution, ”It was apparent from the start that the trial would be mounted by a group of expertly seasoned legal minds from both our worlds, and the pace with which they marched down the path of justice was steady and unflinching. Even if...” he cleared his throat, “The reception the changeling regent was given on the way did at times seem… lacklustre, in light of her irksome performance during the hearing. Still, it’s the firm belief of Her Majesties’ government that justice shall be served to the guilty, and this court cannot possibly fail at making that happen.”

“And...” the host made sure, “In your own, personal opinion?”

He smiled disarmingly, “That it was one jolly good show, and I’m looking forward to more.”

“Okay, great to hear.” he laughed and turned to the officer next to him, “What was your impression, Sir?”

“In my professional opinion...” the JAG answered in a vibrant voice. “Today’s trial was a mixed bag. Though not for the reasons my esteemed Equestrian friend here cited. Putting aside the defendant’s antics, neither of the two parties, nor the judges, seemed to be working together very well. There was a definite lack of consensus to be found here that I could talk on about for hours...”

“I’ve taken the liberty to pull out snippets of the more interesting moments of the hearing.” the presenter directed the judiciary officer, “Take a gander, you two, and describe what comes to your mind.”

The backdrop behind them transformed into the running footage from the courtroom, focusing on the Queen, her lawyer and the other defence staffers rising for the judges.

“Okay, Mister Man, how do they do that? If not by magic, I mean?”

“Uh… greenscreen, I think, or bluescreen or whatever. I’m a marksman, not a TV wiz.”

“Oh yes, I remember this moment. This is where the trouble started...” the unicorn sighed, ”Queen Chrysalis would refuse to stand up.”

”Didn’t her lawyer explain later that her chains were weighing her down?” the presenter made sure.

Fancy Pants slowly shook his head. “Oh... pishtush. That poor human was very evidently hard-pressed to excuse his client’s frankly impossible behaviour. I mean, judging by how quickly he jumped up when the judges entered, he had long reached the end of his tether.”

“Ahoy to that.” the corporal mumbled and took a bite out of a pastry that lay on the table next to him, “Remind me, what was the point of throwing her a lawyer again?”

“Indeed.” the JAG agreed, “What I also found pretty interesting was just how often we saw the queen tussle… or, more appropriately, argue - with her defence counsel over the course of the proceedings. You’re not supposed to do that; especially not while the judge is speaking. Which is also the reason Justice Suruma would call the two of them out later on.”

”...And Queen Chrysalis then started to argue with the her as well,” the gentlecolt added.

“Though, I have to say that the Queen generally seemed… a bit lost throughout the session,” he answered slowly, and stroked his chin in accord with his thoughts. “As though she really was out of her element, but tried not to look it. I did sometimes wonder whether she was even aware she was supposed to rise, or not talk back to the judges. Indeed, I don’t know what the Equestrian convention on that is, but...”

”My human friend, I can assure you that the Royal Equestrian Court treats these things no less seriously than in the human lands. Judges command the same level of respect, and they’re as entitled to having the first and the last word just as they are here. Maybe even more so.”

“Ahoy to that, Equestria.” the sergeant major smirked, and shared a patriotic hoofbump with his subordinate.

Meanwhile, the Canterlotian gentlecolt magically fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat and continued, “And there is no doubt in my mind that the queen knew this perfectly well. She was merely looking for a way to infuriate the judges. To rile them up.”

The presenter laughed. “Well, give her credit - it worked. Though, more about that later.”

”Hm... ” the naval officer disagreed, ”To my mind, Queen Chrysalis simply didn’t make a terribly in-control impression out there. I have trouble believing that her various gaffes were all calculated. It does not mirror the experience I had with some of the… more conniving defendants in my time...”

”Well that exactly...” the unicorn exclaimed and pointed a hoof over to him, ”...is the devious genius of the queen Chrysalis. This is just the impression that she wanted to arouse. Clumsimess, helplessness and naivety. Any opportunity to disarm the suspicions of the judges, she took. After all, you wouldn’t assume a lot of malice from somepony who couldn’t navigate her way through a courtroom...”

”A wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak?” the host clarified.

”So to speak, indeed.”

“Actually...” the officer disagreed and reached over to the presenter’s remote control, “If you fast-forward to the part where the charges are being read, you can actually see Queen Chrysalis hit some sort of breaking point. She literally shrivelled up when confronted with the allegations against her. Rubbing her eyes, clutching her face, growing very intimidated and uncomfortable… Now, I don’t know what it might or might not say about her guilt, but it did betray a certain emotional fragility on her behalf.”

“Oh, come on...” the soldiers in front of the screen chuckled to themselves. “Really now? Dude, she’s not a cow.”

“Actually, actually...” the unicorn countered, “If you were to rewind to the very beginning of the reading, you can catch a brief glimpse of the Queen looking right into the camera - at least, until her lawyer tells her to look away. She spotted her audience… And from that moment on, she knew exactly what to do, and how to behave, to cast suspicion off her.”

”Mister Fancy Pants… With all due respect, we don't know if she even knows what a camera is.”

”Uh...” the presenter interrupted them sheepishly, ”Before we get a too caught up in speculation, let me jump to the next scene: I found this one particularly fascinating, not because of something happening, but more by the absence of it. Take a gander.”

The footage cut to a still of the queen and the head justice exchanging a moderately heated exchange about the the term ‘majesty’.

“Aha,” the JAG agreed. “Even I was convinced that there would be some kind of escalation at this point. The queen almost seemed unable to cope with the court protocol she was confronted with.”

“Well, Sir,” the presenter added, “Considering all the things we have heard about her up to that point, this thought might have been in the back of most of our minds. Which made it more surprising just how quickly she ended up backing down.”

“What thoughts would that be, Sergeant?”

“You know...” the host harrumphed, “There have been a number of unconfirmed reports of the queen falling out with Dutch and US personnel on her way to the courthouse. She ostensibly attacked USAFSF officers in Schiphol airport. As I said, this is all unconfirmed and mostly treated as hearsay. Probably rightfully so.”
Curiously, he peered over to the Equestrian diplomat. “Speaking of which, your Excellency… Is there nothing you could confirm or deny about the hearsay, as a spokesperson of the Equestrian government?”

“No,” he answered with a superior smile.

“No, you can’t, or no, you can?”

“Yes.”

“Happened,” the corporal called.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Totally happened. I know a guy whose bunkmate had to guard her. He wrote him a letter from a hospital. She must've done something heinous.”

The presenter nodded. “The good old mathematician’s answer... Kudos, Mr Fancy Pants, kudos.“
Then he quickly changed topics, “Moving on to the performance of the judge panel here... Commander?”

The judiciary officer leaned back and flattened his palms. “That was a fun thing to watch. And, just as I said before, communication between them seemed to work even less than with the Queen and her counsel. I think we should of course be addressing the elephant in the room: Lexy Fori’s outbursts.”

At this, the Equestrian gentlecolt started nervously curling his moustache, slightly bashful.

“You’re taking the words right out of my mouth,” the host agreed, “I was wondering how she’s going to paddle her way out of this one. From what I‘ve heard, raving judges are not appreciated at the International Criminal Court, no matter how repugnant the defendants might behave.”

“Indeed. Ignoring the fact that Lexy Fori, at no point in the trial, had the floor, her barked orders toward the queen do not leave a good impression about her impartiality. I have seen lesser judges face recusal - or ‘dismissal’, in laymen’s terms - for this kind of behaviour.”

At this, Fancy Pants politely raised his hoof. “Ah, if I might interject… Now, I know, to human ears, what Lady Fori said - and the way she said it - might sound rather dubious. I can fully understand that. But she, just like so many of my countrymares, is quite frankly still accustomed to Equestrian norms of etiquette.”

“Does Equestrian etiquette... usually involve yelling at the defendant to zip it?” the JAG interrogated him, leaning closer.

“Well… considering the defendant was in fact behaving out of line, I think that reaction was not unwarranted.”

“She addressed the Queen, and I quote, as ‘Changeling’. To my ears, that sounded like half a slur.”

”How so?” the unicorn questioned, as though blissfully oblivious to the human’’s accusations, “Is the defendant not a changeling?”

”...She’s a queen, Mr Fancypants.The court treats her as a head of state.”

”Even if it may not look it, Commander Tyler, the Equestrian judicial system does not discriminate by social standing or political positions. It's all a matter of principle.”
Here, he resolutely tapped on the table. “In our minds, every defendant ought to be prosecuted with the same vigour and with no more reluctance than the next. And Queen Chrysalis’ treatment was, I daresay, in due course for such a thoroughly Equestrian affair.“

But the officer just folded his arms doubtfully. ”Perhaps you are forgetting that she is acting as a judge at the International Criminal Court now, where a level of respect toward the defendant and restraint among the judges have always reigned supreme.”

”I may have to correct you on the first part: Magistrate Fori isn’t, and has never been, a justice at the ICC. She is a judge at the Council of Harmony, though, to which the ICC - I may remind you - is merely the human counterpart. And the Council operates under rules that are quite different from yours.”

”Well, Mister Fancy Pants, this entire affair would not be half as upsetting, were it not for the fact that Justice Lexy Fori is herself an Equestrian.”

”Yes?”

”And… and she is arbitrating in an international war crimes trial where the Equestrian people are, after all, the victims party. Is there really not a possibility of conflict of interests here?”

”Commander… Equestria is an enormous country. A mosaic of creatures and races from all over the continent.” He spread his hooves to emphasize, “That makes a majority of denizens of the Equine world - the catchment area of the Council of Harmony, you see - for better or for worse, citizens of the Equestrian principality.”
He leaned back. “It is thus simply unavoidable that a majority of Council Lords and Ladies would end up being Equestrians themselves. So the least we can do in this case is to assure that the presiding judges are at least in no way directly involved with the affairs at hoof. Which Justice Fori, I can assure you, is not. Even if she is a long-time Canterlotian herself.”

”So, in other words, you find no faults here at all?” the host asked, quirking a dubious eyebrow.

“Absolutely not. And neither will the Council of Harmony, should they ever be forced to look into Lady Fori’s conduct. All she did was take a riotous defendant down a peg or two. The very most that could possibly be held against her was her ignorance of ICC court protocol… but that is in no way enough to warrant calling her professional integrity into question. Let alone ponder disqualification.”

There was a second of silence in the studio. The presenter was the first to catch his breath.
“Alright. Now, before our allotted time runs out… let us take a quick look at the prosecution’s corner. They were fairly silent today, except for one rather amusing moment: What do you think about the flub of the senior trial lawyer Mrs Harshwhinny, near the second half of the hearing?”

“You mean… the one where she said that she is a sports arbiter?”

The presenter nodded.

“Well… that is because it’s true. I know her personally, actually,” the diplomat explained, stroking his ear. “She is the president of the Equestrian Games Committee. But alas, does that stop her from being a top-notch briefhead outside her official sports functions? I say, no, gentlecolts. She studied Universal Law at the Royal Hoofington College. If you pardon my crude metaphor, she sucked the craft up like a sponge.”

“So, uh…“ the American coughed, losing interest in the programme and glancing around the otherwise completely empty quarters, “You know, this being your first television break and all… I would've expected it to draw a bit more of a crowd. Where is everyone else?”

The sergeant major leaned his back casually against the inside of the reception desk.
“Out in the field, on mission. Almost everypony's deploying up north, marching gear and everything.”

“Yeah,” the corporal confirmed cynically, “They can spend their Hearth’s Warming Eve freezing their butts off in the Crystal Empire. While we get to stay and receive the Princessy treatment. Bless them both.”

“Hm. What are they doing up north?” the human inquired.

“Hunting changelings. Kicking some major flank all the way.” the corporal smiled. “Oh Celestia, I kinda wish I’d have gone with them. This would be so epic.”

“Though it's meant to be a secret mission and all...” the sergeant major yawned, evidently distracted by the programme, “Which means we shouldn't be talking about it either. Everypony can be a changeling and stuff...”

“Huh.” the GI harrumphed, scratching his head awkwardly. “But... now we're talking about it?”

“Ey, nopony’s here anyway.”

“Except the Princesses.”

“Who can’t hear us.”

“Okay, but let’s shut up now, everypony!” the sergeant major called both of them to order, “I can't hear what those ponies in the television are saying!”

“Ahem...” a female’s raspy voiced suddenly croaked up behind them.

As though they were hit by a bolt of lightening, the two pegasus guardsponies flinched and whirled towards the counter behind them.
On the other side, there waited another human, her hair dark and tussled, her chin wrapped in bandages and supported by a brace. Emotionlessly, her beady brown eyes targeted the two sentries lounging in front of their new television.

“Phew...” the younger pegasus giggled and gave his superior a liberated glance. “Not who I first thought it would be. I mean… wouldn’t that be some kinda irony?”

The sergeant major quickly donned his helmet and jumped from his stool. “Can I do something for you, Ma’am? This is a military base, and off-limits if you don’t have business here.”

“Then who is he?” she dryly inquired and pointed over to the American.

“USMC, babe.” He smiled over to the fellow human. “We’re never not in business...”

“Ma’am, I’m not going to ask you again. Can I help you?”

She raised her chin formally, and reached into her turtleneck. On a chain, she pulled out a massive, richly decorated piece of metal that hung around her throat.

The royal guard automatically clicked his hooves. “Sweet Celestia… I mean Luna… I mean...”

Lost for words, he saluted. The corporal, confused, silently followed suit.

“A thousand apologies… Milady.” the sergeant major stammered. “Friends of Their Majesties are our commanders.”

The woman harrumphed, and lowered her gorget back into her shirt.

“It’s just… we’re all a little on edge here. We’re under orders to turn all strangers away immediately. Even other Guards. The Changelings could be anywhere and anyone… And as long as we don't get a unicorn with the proper de-cloaking training on-site, we'd be none the wiser...

Disinterested, she nodded. “I’ve chome for information. Do you know anythingh about the whereabouts of Sergeant Gholden Dirkh, unit number two, two… and so on?”

“Dirkie?” the sergeant major laughed, “Uh… if I’m not all mistaken, he’s on the parade ground. Sweeping it clean. Since breakfast.”

“Though we’re not actually allowed to talk to him.” the corporal whispered derisively. “He went AWOL the other day. Now the Cap’s got his eye on him.”

“Vedette… could you zip it already?”

She nodded, already making ready to go inside. “I need to speakh to him. It’s an investighative matter.”

“Milady… Vedette has a point. Soldiers who are getting disciplined must not be talked to.”

The human just tapped against the rough location of her collarbone, upon which a dull metallic thud came back.

“But who am I to stop you? Please… the barracks are yours to explore.”

“Thankh you, Private.”

“It’s… Sergeant Major, actually...”

The woman hesitated. “Yes… for now...”
Then she took her arm off the counter and marched off into the barracks corridor.

“Jeesh.” the American whistled as soon as she was out of sight. “Desert queens, am I right? Always good for a giggle.”
Then he cleared his throat and scratched his chin. “So… you guys are on red alert now?”

“Yep. Or… well, meant to be, really.”

“I’m asking because I’ve got thirty brand-new security cameras in the back of my humvee. Fifteen a piece, no casing. Interested?”

“Red alert...”

Edith shook her head as she meandered through the almost completely abandoned barracks building. Bunks were empty and made, mess halls silent and squeaky clean, unit standards picked out of their stands and weapon racks cleared out.
Even if they were on high alert - not that they seemed awfully concerned about that - there wasn’t a whole lot left that they could have defended.

Even so, Edith could feel vigilant eyes watching her hawkishly wherever she went.

Finally finding a door leading out into the courtyard, she stepped almost immediately into a bank of piled snow, carelessly dumped on the stone path leading out on the parade ground.
The whole complex, constructed from raw slabs of mountain rock by the side of the royal castle’s east wing, evidently belonged to the older parts of the residence, as well as the city as a whole. In the distance, energetic cadences and angry bellows of drill instructors echoed over the fortified structures.

And in the shadows of the tall, mighty towers rising above and behind its tinder roofs, a single unicorn was busy drawing long breaches through the fluffy, but undeniably thick layer that blanketed the square with a well-worn snow shovel. Curiously, despite his visible horn, he was operating the tool the old-fashioned way - using his own two, very sore hooves.
In spite of the scarf he had wrapped around his neck, the colt in the light laminar cuirass was sweating profusely, with trickles of exhaustion rolling down his muzzle and hooves. And with that oily grey fur of his, he looked quite a bit like the mysterious sergeant from Ponyville Hospital.

As she stomped over to him, the unicorn, with his back still busily turned away from her, lowered his shovel against a hoof and struck an obedient salute.
“Sir! Reporting as ordered: Parade grounds cleared by as much as sixty percent! Completion of the task to be expected roughly one hour after dusk, Sir!”

“Sergeant Gholden Dirkh?”

Carefully, the unicorn laid his shovel into the yet undisturbed snow and looked behind himself.
“Oh, it’s you.” he discovered, barely cracking an emotion.
But before he could turn back around to resume his task, he spun around another time. This time, his eyes were literally as big as saucers.
“You?! W-what are you doing here?”

“Do you remember me?”

“Remember you?!”
He exclaimed, and began clambering over to her so quickly that the forensic seriously felt like taking a few steps back. “You’ve come! Thank Celestia you’ve come.”

Genuinely clueless, the Bosnian stared down at him, while he stared back up at her with the pleading eyes of a browbeaten schoolboy.

“So...” he breathed, just a lot less loudly, “What do you say?”

“To what?”

“You know what!” he insisted sharply, before meekly peering around the abandoned square. “What I’ve… What was shown to you. Where do you stand?”

“I...”
Mystified, she shook her head. “That piece of paper you ghave me. What about it?”

“Shhh… Not here!” he hissed. “What about ‘what about it’? How far have you come?”

“You’re not makhing sense.” she mumbled, keeping him at distance with an outstretched hand, “You… you told me backh then that you were posted as a ghuard in my hospital room. On whose orders was that? Was it the princesses?”

He sighed. Edith could feel his annoyance at her ignorance. It burned a bit.

“Were they the ones who instruchted you to ghive me that paper?”

“Sweet heavens, no!”
Nervously, he trotted back to his shovel and picked it up with the power of his horn. “You see this? I’m doing this because of you. I had no orders to be in Ponyville that day whatsoever.”

Now it began to dawn upon her. “Oh. Was... that the thingh you were dechlared AWOL over?”

“I needed to find a way to show you that paper. And if that meant taking time out of sentry duty here in Canterlot, so be it. This matter’s more important to me right now than clearing the parade grounds six times over.”

“But why?!” she asked, more roughly, getting rather annoyed at this point. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a chrumpled page from a bookh written entirely in Eqhuestrian?”

But the unicorn’s imminent answer was delayed by the sharp bark resonating over the yard.
“Sergeant!”

Golden Dirk flinched, dumbfounded, and immediately extinguished his magic grip on the snow shovel, letting it drop into his two forehooves.

An officer’s ornate purple armour shimmered at them from the far corner of the field. Cantering over a cleared portion, the superior confronted the human and the pony sergeant head-on.

“Golden Dirk, were you using magic just now?”

“Sir, reporting as ordered: No magic was used in the execution of the disciplinary assignment, Sir!”

“I could see the shimmer from a mile away...” the officer growled, his bandaged right wing flexing excitedly.

Edith needed a second to recognise the angry little officer was none other than...

“Captain Fightingh?”

For now, the pegasus captain ignored his human acquaintance, instead minding all his attention entirely on the sergeant with the shovel. “Was this human mare talking to you?”

“Sir, yes Sir!” he barked, “She was… was asking why I am shovelling snow, Sir!”

“And did you answer?”

“Sir… service colts are not at liberty to conduct conversations during the execution of disciplinary assignments, Sir!”

“Right.” the officer nodded, minimally pacified. Inspecting the unicorn from the side, he took a step back. “If I catch you using magic one more time, I’ll send you up on the roof tomorrow. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Carry on.”

Like a mechanical toy, the sergeant sprang back into his assignment and paddled all the snow around him into a neat little pile.

The Captain, meanwhile, turned to an increasingly cantankerous-looking Edith.

“M’am… Care to walk with me for a moment?”

Unmotivated, the pathologist shrugged. “I was in the middle of somethingh.”

“Let him work, or he won’t be done ‘till spring...” The pegasus trotted in front of her, his eyes searching the ground for things that weren’t there. “I was looking for you… I was to deliver you a message from Iron Gall, the director of the Royal Archives...”

“Yes?”

“It’s about that paper that you’re supposed to have ripped out of that ancient commercial logbook… well…” He seemed not too concerned with the contents of this message to enunciate them properly, “Don’t do it again, was the gist of it.”

From the corner of her eyes, Edith could espy the unicorn sergeant flinching visibly at the mention, before awkwardly resuming his work.

“He says that the only thing keeping him from barring you from the Archives for life are Princess Luna’s good graces. That book was very precious, uhm… not just from a materialistic standpoint, but from a historical one to boot. Apparently, there aren’t many Unicornian commercial logs left, and there are no copies...”

“Is that all?”

He shrugged. “They… glued the page back on… and...”
Then he lowered his head and whimpered. “Oh, what the hay! We’re officially meant to be in the same boat now, aren’t we? You need to know about it.”

Silently, the knighted forensic awaited his revelation.

“It’s official now: I’m being transferred to the Crystal Ridge.”

“What? When?”

“Tomorrow.” He gulped. “And… I’m to be given oversight of… the commanders of all fifty thousand troopers there.”

“Well… Chonghratulations, Chaptain.”

When his face came back up, there was not a hint of happiness or pride to be found on it. Only dolour.
“Tomorrow, M’am. I’ve spent the last eight years in the Guard commanding no more than two hundred colts put together! How can I possibly...”

“It does not seem very logichal to put a Chaptain in charge of so many men...”

“Not personally, I mean... She… Princess Luna… thought I could go in and give the commanding officers’ flanks a tremendous buck in her name, to make them do what she wants them to do. But even then...” He shook his head, “Every one of those officers outranked me only last week. What the flying feather am I supposed to tell them to make them listen?”

Edith could only shrug. “Even if I were a soldier... I chouldn’t answer you that.”

“Yeah...” he conceded, trying to put on a ridiculing smile. “Look, Edith… M’am... I want you to come with me.”

“Me?” She needed a second to process that. “How would that help in the slightest?”

“Kicking the butts of high command will be hard enough, but it won’t be the only thing. I’ll be making stops at human encampments on my way North. To see how many of them are willing to join us in our advance.”

“Human troops?” Edith wondered. “Peacekheepers?”
She wondered if she should tell him it wouldn’t work that way.

“I have a bad feeling that I won’t be talking to them eye-to-eye unless I bring another human with me. It’s nothing personal, M’am, it’s just about...”

“...makhingh the right impression?”

“I suppose.”

Slowly, the forensic shook her head. “There is workh for me to be done here, Chaptain. I’ll chome up to the Frozen North at some point, there is surely no way around it. But not tomorrow.”

Bitterly, the Captain nodded.
Did he feel somehow betrayed by that ‘impromptu ally’ of his?
“Princess Luna… she gave you that gorget to help you in your quest for truth. Right?”

Silently, Edith nodded back.

“Well… Then I suppose it’s up to you to decide where the truth’d best be found. Here… or in the lion’s den.”
He looked her square in the eyes, “Can you promise to me that you’ll do that wisely? Without… any of that scoffing?”

“I never do, Chaptain.”

He adjusted his helmet of Captaincy as he slowly turned towards the entrance. “You’ll know where to find me then. For the… entire… foreseeable future. Take care, M’am.”

“...You too.”

Then he was off. No doubt marching away to clear out the same office he had just moved into three mere days ago.

As soon as his rustling self had disappeared behind the countless pillars flanking the main entrance, Edith’s side was joined almost immediately by Sergeant Golden Dirk.

His face was a grimace of dread. “What.. was he just saying?”

“You... didn’t know he’s relochatingh?”

“No, I mean what he said before that!” he wheezed. “They… found the paper?”

“Found it?” the forensic repeated before shrugging in exhaustion. “I ghave it to them.”

“You...” Somewhere on his way to despair, the unicorn pressed his eyes shut before locking the human a killing glare. “To whom?”

She thought for a moment. “An archivist... With large darkh red ghlasses and stackhed hair... I think she knew you.”

“Oh… not Paper Rose!” he cursed. “That blabbermouth! She leaks faster than a... rotting boat loaded with laxatives!”
Whirling around, he tried not to lose himself in panic. “Now why, in the name of Celestia’s sun, did you do that? What was the point of me personally hoofing it to you in the first place?”

Provocatively, the forensic knelt down to him a little, “You tell me. All I know is, I channot read the Eqhuestrian alphabet.”

“Did you mention my name?!”

“Of chourse not.”

He nodded, and gulped. Then he magically retrieved a kerchief from his cuirass to sweep the sweat off his furry brow.
“Okay. So... so did she bother to translate anything for you before she snatched it away?”

“A little.” The forensic tried to recall. “Somethingh about baghs of ghrain in Trottingham. Sounded mundane.”

“It is mundane.”

“Was it chode, or… what?”

“No, I just took that page out of an old Trottingham duke’s majordomo’s journal I dug out of the archive’s deep storage. But the writing’s not what I was after!”

“Then what?” Edith asked again, absolutely incredulous at this point. “What is all of this about?”

He paused importantly.
“Did you notice there were little annotations scribbled on the side, in red ink?”

“...I did.”

“Those were the things you should have looked out for. They’re original to the journal. And they’re worth their words stitched in gold thread!”

Breathing nervously, the Bosnian folded her arms.
“I will have to wait for them to return the page to me if I want to read them.”

Pouting his lips, the sergeant shook his head
“You won’t get it back again. The journal has too high a security clearance. Even for me, and I’m a Sergeant in the Archives Guard. I only stumbled across it by accident.”

How would a random majordomo’s diary make it to such a high security clearance, she wondered.

“It’s all about those footnotes!” he insisted. Grasping his shovel with his magic once more, he lifted its coarse tip against the human’s chest.
“Follow the footnotes. They will lead you to what you’ve surely been looking for.”

“If you say so.”
Carefully, she lifted the shovel away from herself. “But how do you know this is somethingh I’m lookhing for?”

“You humans are investigating the Chrysalis attacks, aren’t you?”
Ominously, he nodded at his own question, “Believe me. You’ll want to know about this.”

“If this choncerns the investighation so much, chan’t I just lookh through the prints of the ICC investighators? They spent the last three days photo-chopying the entire relevant archive assets. They will have chopied out this page as well for sure...”

But he was still adamant.
“No, no, no. Track down the original. I don’t know how, but do it! Only the original holds the annotations you need. Find it before it’s gone forever!”

It didn’t make sense to her. Why shouldn’t the footnotes be on the ICC’s copies? What were they copying off if not the originals?
“And then what?”

“Then?”
Breathing heavily, he stuck his shovel back into a snowbank. “Come back for me.”
Energetically, he sent a heap of snow flying onto an existing pile. “Please.”

Of course, the Bosnian pathologist knew her next stop.
It lay across a moat and a parade street from the barracks, and was just called ‘The Embassy’.

A foreign legations office located at the foot of the Canterlot Castle complex in a building once occupied by the the old Royal Postmaster’s.
The rather Victorian-styled house, standing by the corner of the royal gardens and dropping on one side from the edge of the plateau into the valley below, had been graciously cleared and converted to serve as an impromptu base for all the important human organisations operating on the magical island.

Officially, it was called “Embassy of the Republic of France in Equestria”, a remnant from the curious first week after the first contact of Equestria to the human world - at that time, the only even vaguely important human government official who could be found in time for a formal first contact with Equestria was a minor French National Assembly deputy who happened to be visiting the tiny, rather aptly-named Desolation island holdings in the subantarctic South Pacific, barely fifty kilometres south-west of the lower tip of Equestria - presumably to ice-fish.
A result of this was that France became the first human nation to officially open a diplomatic dialogue with Equestria - a situation that was greatly helped by the fact that French, not to be outdone in luck, turned out to be the only human tongue that the ponies of Equestria happened to be historically versed in in any notable way.
Why or how that was so, was not questioned - the world merely accepted that the 'lingua franca' was called the ‘lingua franca’ for a reason.

Now, over the last few fateful months, the Embassy had grown to be much more than just that. The ever-expanding complex of offices now also hosted, among others, the permanent mission of the European Union and, perhaps more importantly, the Equestrian offices of the United Nations.
Those were the three flags that were fluttered on the outside of the palace-facing facade, though there now were as much as a dozen nations that could currently claim to have their official representation situated somewhere within its white sandstone walls.

As Edith knocked at the closed front double door, a peephole window was opened by a doggish, brawny-looking gendarme with a side cap sitting on his shorn head, who spent a good chunk of time scrutinising the woman before asking,
"Comment puis-je vous aider, Madame?”

“Edith Šarić. With the ICMP… formerly. I have an appointment at the United Nations offices.“ she lied.

The window shut, the hefty door opened.

The inside of the Embassy was narrow and tightly packed, with slim corridors connecting hundreds of tiny offices, obviously laid out for sorting desks and leaving just enough space to squeeze through the odd mailroom truck.

The lighting was, other than expected, still largely following the Equestrian model too, with candles and oil lanterns and some of those magical glow-worms trapped in glasses providing a warm but weak gleam. Only select rooms had the dubious honour to be illuminated with fairly modern, but rudimentary military-grade neon light bars hung on the ceiling by ugly grey cables, supplying them with more than sufficient, but bone-crushingly glaring white light.

The United Nations offices were one of those rooms.
The Bosnian forensic loosened her winter gear and entered it after only delivering a single pair of knocks. Inside, she was confronted by mountains of copies, files and documents rising out of every corner of the way-too-small space, and in the middle of it, a desk manned by at least eight officials lethargically reading all that had been scanned, and marking each page appropriately - some for further investigation, some for storage, and some for destruction.

The head honcho, sitting at the far end of the desk, lowered his folder and revealed his fiery red beard to the visitor.
“Well woopty fucking doo.” he announced. “If it isn’t our favourite slab doctor in all of Equestria.”

Edith, again, chose to abstain from a comment.

Pierre just slapped his folder down and sat up straight.
“Hey, I’ve got a great idea: How about you get the fuck out of this office before I have you kicked out?”

“Huh. Sounds likhe a plan.” she sneered at her former task coordinator. “What are you so mad about?”

“Gee, good question. I don’t remember.” he hissed, rising from his chair and battling his way past an ill-placed paper stack, “Was it because you made a perfect ass of me in front of the monarch of this nation and nearly cost me my post... Or was it because you stabbed this UN mission in the fucking balls without wasting a thought on it? Which one of those was it again?”

Coldly, she removed her gloves and laid them in her pockets.
“What do you want me to do? Apologise?”

“You should be thanking me on your fucking knees that I’m not having your head, Šarić!”

“Why? What for? Treason?”

“Treason? It’s not 19- fucking-17. I could already have you for breach of contract! You owe a duty to the UN. You owe a duty to the ICMP. Do you think we’re here as a fucking joke? People are dead!”

“And that won’t change.” she answered. “I should know, I have spent more than enough time with them.”

“Get out.” he cursed, stumbling closer to the Bosnian in the doorway. “Get the fuck out, or I won’t be responsible for my actions!”

“I need to look into your dochument stash first.” Edith insisted, rather matter-of-factly. “I have a hunch.”

“You'll have my boot up your ass!”

“What if I told you your dochuments have been dochtored?”

That provoked a fateful hesitation out of the Canadian.
“What the hell are you talking about? Those files are fresh out of the printer.”

Edith searched around the other attendees for a familiar face.
She didn’t take long to find her Syrian friend Ibrahim, who was sitting hunched, hiding his face behind an open laptop.

“Ibrahim.”

“Pok… er... Edith?”

“Please...” she began, giving the Canadian a dismissive glance. “Show Mr Abel the scan I secretly asked you to make a few days back.”

Pierre’s angry eyes now also locked the young browbeaten Syrian.
“What the fuck is she talking about? What scan?”

“A page takhen from an old commercial loghbookh.”

“Yeah. That...”
Nimbly, Ibrahim scrolled through a selection on his screen until he came across the very first document. He called up the page.

“Do I...” Pierre grumbled, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater, “...actually have to kill the both of you now?”

“Ibrahim...” Edith directed him on, not letting his threats sidetrack her, “Start a schan for any similar-lookhing pages. I need to know whether that paper was thrown backh into circhulation and ghiven to you to chopy a sechond time later on.”

He breathed heavily, but complied nonetheless.

The Canadian, however, would have none of it.
“Listen Edith… I have no idea what your plan is… but I do not fucking care. You have made a mockery of this organisation, so can expect no help from us for your perverse little games.”

“Then help yourself.”

“Got one!” came the cheer from Ibrahim. “Uh… Page 182, Lord Stormbeard’s Trottingham Merchant Book Of The Year 391. Matches your mystery page eighty-one percent.”

Edith scrambled over to his seat like a scalded cat, barely avoiding her recurring vertigo sending her to the floor.

“What the fuck...” the Canadian sighed, slowly joining the screen’s small audience.

The Bosnian commandeered the laptop to call up both the pages the search had produced and enlarged them side-by-side.
“Pierre. Try and spot the difference.”

“Blow me.”

Then she whirled the screen towards him.
The UN coordinator was confronted by two versions of the same page. Finding his anger ultimately overtaken by genuine curiosity, he leaned closer.

At first glance, there was no real difference to be found.
The page sizes - slightly smaller and wider than the A4 standard - matched. The base texts - written in heavily disfigured but beautifully embellished scripture - even matched to a tee.

There were only two differences that he could disclose from where he stood.
“The right side on this one’s completely frayed. What is this, a before-and-after picture?”

“Can’t be.” Ibrahim timidly concluded. "I know I scanned the first picture last Friday. The other one…” He double-checked the date, “...on November 21st. That was on Sunday.”

Knowingly, Edith nodded.
“So tell me, Pierre… How chome the newer pichture is of better qhuality than the older one?”

“Because they’re obviously not the same.” Pierre just mumbled, unimpressed, “Duh. You scanned two different editions. One was older, one newer. Now get out.”

“Two identichal editions of a hand-written loghbook? Please.” Edith scoffed. “Besides, there is no sechond edition. This is what made a page from that bookh so valuable. It’s a rarity.”

“And another thing, Sir...” Ibrahim added with a raised finger, “None of the Equestrian files I held in my hands this weekend was a copy of its own. Everything looked either hand-written or typed. The Equestrians don’t have any photocopying technology like we do. I asked around.”

Pierre bent over until his nose was almost touching the screen.

“So then… More importantly,” the Bosnian quizzed him, poised, “What else do you spot?”

“There are… some faint scribbles on the bad version...”
He looked another time, just to be sure. “And they’re not there on the other one.”

“Pierre… this page was chut out of that bookh and ghiven to me on the day you pickhed me up from hospital.”

“...By whom?”

“The unichorn soldier you chased away.”

“And… the other one?”

“...Wasn’t.”

Pierre thought long, Pierre thought hard.

After half an eternity of deliberation, he rose again, and, as though all force had been wrenched out of him, walked over to a landline telephone that hung provisionally nailed against the wall on one of the far corners of the room.
Picking up the handset, and immediately called out,
“Abel here. Get me an Equestrian translator up to the offices immediately. And hurry it up!”

”’Thus…’”

The elderly stallion scrolled into the page until no more scrolling was possible

”F-forge… no, wait, it’s, ‘’forage’...”

“Jesus Christ, hurry it up.” Pierre gritted his teeth next to her. “What does that footnote say?”

“Steady on, young sir.” the unicorn reprimanded him and straightened his tweed coat, “Ahem: Thus… forage… no... further... than... stand… seven… row… five… book… fifteen… of… the... lower... Old... Everfree... Chancery... for... there... all... shall... be... explained... in... grandest... of... specifics...’”

Mystified, Edith looked over to Pierre, and Pierre looked over to Edith.
“And... What would be the Old Everfree Chancery?” she asked politely.

“Well...” the pony translator explained, “Chancery is another word for ‘archive’ or ‘register’.”

Pierre, in a sudden fit of aggression, slapped a page on the desk, for everyone to see. “I’ve been given six addresses to all the Equestrian document collections. Not one of them translates to anything even remotely resembling ‘Old Everfree Chancery’. Hell, not one of them is anywhere near Everfree County!”

The Bosnian turned back to the withered old pony.
“What do you thinkh?”

Forlornly, the pony shrugged,
“I’m just a language teacher working part-time, not a geographer. Though… then again…”

“Yes?”

“Old Everfree...”
He nudged his huge academic glasses… “Now, I’ve never heard of an Old Everfree Chancery... But I have heard of the ‘Old Everfree’. It’s an archaic moniker for… well, the only place of any significance in all of Everfree, really...”
He took them off, wiping them, with his day’s work evidently done. “Do any of you folks know about the Castle of the Two Sisters?”

The UN bureaucrat chewed on his tongue with profuse aggression. His face bore the expression of an east-coast mob boss on whom the fact had dawned that he’d just been had.
Twisting his reference page around on the table, he shoved it into the centre demonstratively.
“The million-dollar question is… should we, ladies and gentlemen? Should we?!”

XIX. Tight Ship

Zwolsestraat, The Hague
21. November, 2015
6:02 pm MET

“...Worm?”

“Yes, your Highness?”

The smooth velocity pushed the lawyer gently into his leather seat. With every passing streetlight, the distant brick towers of the Kurhaus seemed to come flying closer against the quickly darkening sky, heralding a homely feeling of finitude.

“You did well.”

“I… Excuse me?” he hesitated.

Chrysalis left a teasing pause.
“I said you did good today.”

The lawyer felt his heart beat just the tiniest amount faster.
The queen had lauded him. Just like that! Out of the blue!

“I… I thank you.” he chuckled. “Coming from you, this means the world to me.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still think that court hearing today had more in common with a basket of rotting apples standing out in the sun...”
She paused- “But, suffice to say, you might just have been the one apple amongst them without a worm curling around in it. For the first time since you first barged into my cell, it really does feel like you're of use."

What an image. For better or for worse, it still counted.

“Well, your Highness. I was about to tell you just how fantastically you’ve been handling yourself in the courtroom today… and that I felt rather bad for doubting your composure in the first place...”

“Aw...” she cooed. “You do know how to warm my heart.”

“But now I’ll rather tell you that if I ever catch you improvising like that ever again, I swear to God, I will drag you out of the room by your nostrils.”

“Ohoho!” She bellowed, “You must feel quite brave threatening me from somewhere safe and far away… or so I assume.”

“What, do you think I’m sitting behind the next-best wall, whispering to you?” he smirked.

“Hm...” she moaned playfully, “I wouldn’t put it past your kind. Nor your… fancy technology.”

“Even if, I doubt I’d need to go so far.” he laughed, “You, Madam, can take care of yourself. All things considered, you still carried yourself well today. Had I been in your shoes, I…” he added in a whisper, “I mean, I would have probably shit myself.”

“And that, little one, is why you will never get to lead a hive of your own.”
There was a pause that the queen took to sigh, sinking down in delighted relaxation. “Seriously though. Where are you right now?”

“On my way back to the hotel, I suppose.” he shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll take an hour and go over the evidence.”

“Mhm.” she hummed, “You will be back tomorrow though, right?”

“Of course I will. There is no time we can afford to lose now. The shit has officially started to roll.”
As he spoke, he chewed the changeling's words over, and as he chewed them over, he came across a little something that he identified to be a subtle tone of desire.

“Good.” she cooed, her voice becoming increasingly… velvety.

Was she using him as sleeping aid? Granted that was probably the sensible thing to do in her situation, but that wasn’t quite what this sounded like either.

“Have you had dinner yet, your Highness?”

“Oh yes, I'm right in the middle of it, in fact.”

“Should we call it quits for the evening? You sound… drowsy.”

“Hm… no.” she gently protested, “Go on. Say something. I cherish the loneliness here as much as the next mare, but too much of it just makes you go… mad.”

“That is true… that is true...” he agreed helplessly. He suddenly felt increasingly eager to end the call swiftly. Her calm tone confused him. “But you need the sleep. And frankly, so do I. There is nothing I could tell you now that I couldn’t also tell you tomorrow morning… you know… eye to eye.”

“Perhaps… Hm… Tell me something else.”

“What else?”

“Something else that I don’t yet know.”

Gosh, there was really something she didn’t yet know? What madness was this? What did that woman do to the real Chrysalis?!

“Ehm… Did you know that in German - my mother tongue - the word for ‘the proceeding’ is the same one as for ‘driving the wrong way’? That's a very apropos tidbit, that is.”

The changeling laughed.
“Yes, it sure is.”

Was she drunk? Had she been treated with one particularly humorous chicken?

“But worm, that’s not what I meant.”
She inhaled. “Tell me about yourself. How do you live out your life?”

“Oh…”
Curiously, he scratched his scalp, not sure how to answer that one. “As quaintly and well-paced as one can allow in a profession that requires me to travel between three different countries most of the time.”

“It sounds so busy.”
He could hear her shaping her mouth into a smirk. “Have you had any time for a doe?”

“Pardon?”

“You know…” she enunciated teasingly, “A very special somepony?”

“Uh… If you ask whether I ever married, then yes. I have.”

“Well, marriage’s neither here nor there.” came her inevitable coo. “You know perfectly well what I mean. No need to be shy.”

Estermann wished he had mouthful of water to spit out in that very moment.

Now, he felt, it was his turn to let out a bemused chuckle.
“How about you, your Highness?”

“Too many to count, worm.” She sighed dreamily. “I've had them all… earth pony farmers, gryphon squires, horse warriors... They all fell to me, one after the other. Couldn’t turn to putty quick enough.”

“Maybe we really should… continue this query next thing tomorrow.” Nervously, he let the phone slip into his left hand and continued from the other side of his head, “The lines have ears and all that.”

“If you say so.” the queen sighed. “What is her name, Alexander?”

And Estermann answered, without deliberating even a second about whether she needed to know this.
“Lena. Lena Rosenroll.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“...Stunning.”

“Alright.”
He could swear he could feel her wink.
“We’ll talk on tomorrow. Sweet dreams.”

The call ended peacefully and surprisingly gently for the changeling.
Estermann was left sitting in his seat bearing a weird, fluttering smile on his face.

As he stuffed the phone back into his coat, the lawyer looked over to the mini-bus taxi’s adjacent seat, where his mint-green unicorn companion was eyeing him, with her mouth caught somewhere between concern and consternation.

His satisfied calmness dissipated, only to be replaced by a sour accusing grimace.
“What?”

Smitten, she looked away, first at the gravel-caked car floor, then out the fogged windows.

“How much did you hear?”

She bit her lip.
“You have a very loud telephone.” she explained in a subdued, husky voice.

“Thanks for telling me that... now.“
Almost unconsciously, he folded his arms. “Anything else you care to tell me?”

She pretended not to hear his question as she kept staring into the drizzle stubbornly.

“Why are you here, Heartstrings?”

She glanced up curiously at the question.
“You… You suggested we should share a cab back… Didn't you?”

“No, I mean: Whatever led you to the defence team?”

She produced a smile. Of sorts.
“Oh that? Uhm... Fate, I suppose.”

He, on the other hand, remained unamused.
“I do not believe in fate, Heartstrings.”

“Um… okay. Destiny?”

He kept his silence, as though he was still expecting an answer out of her.

She tried hard to keep up the good humour in the situation, forcing herself into another grin and miming awkwardly light-hearted gestures.
“How about… coincidence? A sign-up letter tacked on just the right pin wall hanging in just the right corridor… and the rest is history.”
She cleared her throat and moistened her lips. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t think you answered my question from before.”

“Oh...” she stuttered meekly, going through her mane with a nervously dithering hoof. “Didn’t I?”

Estermann huffed, and leaned down to the mare with threateningly narrowed eyes.
“Where do you know her from?”

“Who?”

He gave her a murderous glare.

“Oh. I mean, yeah, I told you I saw her. Right. On the day of the battle of Canterlot...”

“Where?”

“Well… You see... I was at Princess Cadance’s and Shining Armour’s wedding that day, and-”

“Why?”

“I got invited. I knew the princess very fleetingly back from when I worked as a clerk’s intern at the Canterlotian.”

“Okay?”

“Anyway, I was running late, and I came up one of the big marble staircases outside the throne room as the ceremony was already on its way… There were sounds of some big hubbub going on outside, and I was curious, so I went up to a window… And suddenly, there came Queen Chrysalis with a couple of changelings, bursting through the doors behind me. They just kinda… flew past, on to the far end of the hall. Didn’t even notice me being all hunkered down by the wall.”
She nodded unconvincingly, “Short encounter, yeah, but… memorable.”

The lawyer’s tired eyes darkened.
“Are you taking the piss, Heartstrings?”

“S-sorry?”

“She clearly saw you!” he suddenly bellowed. “She clearly fucking knows who you are!”

Lyra shrunk into her seat.

“And you know her.”

“E-everypony knows her.”

“Then where the fuck does Queen Chrysalis know you from?!”

“I...” the mare stammered, almost beggingly, looking anywhere and everywhere but the defence counsel’s face.
“It’s… not… important...”

“What?” he breathed.

“It’s really... really... really not that important... Mr E… sir...”

Estermann gawked at her for one excruciating moment.
Then, his fingers travelled up to his door’s upper frame and knocked.
“Stop the car at the next sidewalk, please.” he commanded the driver, his tone hauntingly serene.

The cowed ‘Equestria expert’ shivered as the cabbie obeyed and the car slowly veered to the side and slowed to a halt.

As soon as they were no longer moving, the lawyer bent forward.
“Do you fancy yourself indispensable?”

“H-huh?”

“Do you feel irreplaceable? Are you under the impression that you possess enough of a sway over the proceedings to afford such things as secrets?”

She held her perturbed silence, among hesitant shakes of her head.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Me? I… I am your adviser… Mr E...” she answered, dutifully this time, “You ask me things… and I explain them.”

“Then explain the following… What can you get me that a paid, certified human ethnological scholar couldn’t? Maps? Records? Statistics? Grade-school classical poetry?”

“I-”

“Why the flying fuck,” he burst, “Should I be keeping around an Equestrian who seems quite content ignoring my questions and thinking she can tell me that it’s not something that I need to know of?”

“Listen… sir… If there’s anything I said that might have rubbed you the wrong way, then I take it back.” she pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” he stammered in disbelief, “Can you even hear yourself? This isn’t about hurting my fucking feelings. This is about safeguarding the integrity of this entire investigation! Should it turn out, in a month’s time, that my Equestrian adviser has in fact herself been tainted…”

“T-tainted?”

“Yes. If it turns out you had at some point been a victim of the queen, or that you had gotten infatuated with the changelings, or - God beware! - been recruited by the Equestrian crown… then you are tainted!”

“Huh?”

“...And that’d be the end of us! It’d be the end of you, the end of me, and, most importantly, the end of the queen, because everything your hooves touched - the defence’s entire case up to this point - has just turned to shit!”
He pointed a scathing finger into her, “And let me tell you, I will not let you stab a hole into my boat! Because, no matter how small the hole, it’ll still sink the fuckin boat!”

“You… you… don’t trust me then?” she gasped, then sobbed.

“Why the hell should I? You’re on first-name basis with the defendant herself and you never even bothered to tell anyone?! Trust is earned!”
He snorted and covered his forehead with all his hands,
“I’ll have to review every piece of evidence. Double-check it, triple-check it, get confirmations from third parties! Should it turn out I invited a saboteur into the queen’s own defence team...”

“L-listen...” she stammered, trying herself at a no-nonsense tone, but overwhelming herself with sobs, “I spilled my sweat to get you all these files. More than enough than you could ever possibly need to save the queen! I stayed up whole nights on end to review the information and get it as accurate as I could! What… what reason would I possibly have to tamper with my own efforts? My own… everything?!”

“I don’t care. I could think of a hundred off the top of my head. And frankly... the more I go over them, the more inclined I feel to call the Registry and ask them just who the fuck they thought they sent me. Or better yet, ask the Equestrian embassy.”

“Don’t!” she called out, clearly panicking.

The lawyer paused.
“Why not?”

“Because… because that might muddy the waters much more than I could ever do on my own. Okay?”

He leaned back.
“Now what the fuck-”

And at that moment, Lyra was, quite literally, saved by the bell.

Estermann slowly peered down at the ringing noise emanating from his coat.

“Hold that thought, Heartstrings. Hold it tight.”
The lawyer wasn't hesitant, and his hand delved into his coat pocket in one apt, swift motion. Almost as if in a trance, he picked up.
“What is it now, your Highness?” he sighed.

A hushed, gravelly human voice answered him.
“Highness? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, shall we?”
The way it was painted with distinctly Irish intonations made no mystery of who the caller was.

“Ah.” the lawyer promptly sighed. “Your Honour. Or is it… ‘My Lord’ after all?”

“Don't keep your hopes up, boy.” he replied, his tone serious but still permeating cheek.

But the lawyer's tone remained decidedly distanced and reserved towards his companion.
“May I inquire what you’re calling about?”

Ominously, the judged cleared his throat and stayed silent a couple of moments.
“Have you had a thought about... that thing? That thing we talked about? The other day?”

Mystified, Estermann pressed himself closer against his phone.
“What thing?”

“The thing that we discussed with him about her. In the hotel!”

“Oh,” he caught on, “You mean... that thing... with the big glasses and the flipchart and the unflattering stories?”

The judge said nothing.

“I did.”

“Well?”

Summoning his will, the lawyer harrumphed loudly.
“I'm very sorry, Colm. But no. It’s too risky. She won't play along. And neither will I, under these circumstances.”

The judge smacked his lips audibly.
“Well.”

Curious, the lawyer listened in on the slightly strained breathing of his long-time friend.
“That's it? 'Well' and ‘well’?”
He had a feeling that he knew him better than that.

The judge just sighed tiredly.
“I had a strong feeling you wouldn't. But it was worth a try anyway.”

Now came the lawyer's turn to pout.
“Colm, wait. Did you honestly think it was a good idea? If the changelings-”

“Shushush!” Colm silenced him. “Pipe it down. The lines have ears, I told you that a hundred times!”

An icy shower gripped the back of Estermann's neck.

“Where are you now, Alex?”

“Uh...” The lawyer needed a minute to swallow a stutter. “Bound back to the Kurhaus. I left the court ten minutes ago.”

“That's alright. Listen, tell your cabbie to take you to Arnestraat 10, next to the Ferry harbour. He'll know which entrance.”

“Colm, wait...” Estermann was perpetually growing restless. “What is going on? Do you have something to tell me?”

“I'm telling you, aren't I?”

“I mean that I should know now?”

The judge didn't make an effort to quell his mystery mongering much.
“Yeah. I'll be waiting inside.”

The call terminated. Estermann grit his teeth in unsettled frustration.

The mare across from him lowered her eyes once more.
“Whatever it is... I’ll do anything to not stand in your way. This, I swear to you.”

Estermann sighed and glared at Lyra.
“Before this night is over, I want, from you, a clear answer to my question. It will be precise, and you will elaborate. Either I hear it from you to my face, or in a letter, or an email, I don’t care. But if I don’t hear something from you by dawn, I will instruct the bailiffs to not let you near my offices again.”

Shivering in browbeaten desparation, she pressed her eyes shut.

“Did I make myself clear?”

The waves were grey as clay. Their otherwise colourful display were subdued by the cold winter sky, getting darker and gloomier with every passing minute. Behind the mile-thick clouds hovering above the Western European coasts, the sun flew far into the west. The piers, windswept and soaked in oceanic froth, lost their wet shimmer. In the distance, a dark grey cloud bank was rolling in from the North Sea.
The gale was taking up. It was strong but warm.
Estermann, having been raised at the feet of the Alps, knew exactly what that heralded.

Even so, the usually so weather-sensitive lawyer was surprised when he found himself yawning delicately, cradling his Camomile-scented towel and leaning closer to the panorama windows. His head was foggy, but not confused or nervous. Thoughts were swirling around like quaint little fish in a squeaky clean aquarium. He felt okay, and for the love of it, he could not tell why.
Something compelled him to face the gathering fray beyond the elevated quay above the beach.

Taking in another mouthful of the warm herb-scented air around him, he began to perceive slow, lumbering footsteps closing on the heated stone slabs behind him. For a change, they weren’t pony ones - he could hear the slippers squeaking.

“A storm is coming, Alexander.” a deep voice declared, ominous and haunting.

But the lawyer could only sigh. “Oh, Colm. Firstly: no shit. Secondly: Could you be any more trite if you tried?”

“Incidentally, I did try to be trite.”

Estermann loosened his bathrobe a little.
“When you said 'let's meet us next to the ferry harbour for a confidential talk, urgently', a five-star spa wasn't the first thing that sprang to mind...” he mumbled, his own words intertwined with smooth jazz music playing from some nearby loudspeaker.

Solemnly, the lawyer gazed beyond his friend and almost immediately got lost in the azure depths of the flat, acrylic Aegean landscape behind him, taking in the flat ruinous Greek pillars and flat deep green pine tree groves dotting the olive panorama.

“What were you expecting, a walk by the quay? It's minus three degrees outside, for Christ's sake.”

Colm grasped his younger colleague by the shoulder, turning him away from the fake antique murals filling the walls and over to the spa corner, where a faux-Polynesian cocktail bar and half a dozen faux-Roman sun loungers arrayed themselves by a continuous panorama window.
The entire room was plastered with white tiling, occasionally interrupted by the odd flower pots laid out on tall iron tripods in the corners. Behind a glass brick wall, there was the bright shimmer of swimming pool ripples reflecting off the walls.

“I still don’t understand why they wouldn't even let me keep my swimming trunks though.”

“Welcome to the Netherlands, my friend.” Colm chided him, importantly grasping the lapels of his own bathrobe. “They are very outgoing when it comes to pampering ungrateful foreigners in their resorts.”

Hesitantly enthusiastic, Estermann buried his hands in the robe pockets.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve only sent me here to have an excuse to spend your Monday eve in a Jacuzzi?”

“I’ve been coming here to flounder about for years, Alex. But what I cherish most about this place is its exclusivity. These people run a very tight ship. No one gets in who’s not supposed to get in. Means, we can speak freely.”

“Free enough for you to explain to me what's the reason for our get-together is?”

“Hm. Maybe if you can get me pissed enough.” Colm laughed, before railroading his friend straight to the barman behind the counter. “Good sir! Two Dark And Stormys to the pool if you please!”

“One!” the lawyer corrected him. “Make it one. I want to keep a clear head tonight.”

“And right you’d be. Now, off to the jacuzzi. I’m freezing my arse off in these rags.”

But as they were about to move along, Estermann stopped himself.
Something caught his eye from behind the bar.

Between the strong liquor bottles and the beer fridge, an array of respected international quality papers - as well as an assorted of lower quality local print - had been laid out for the guests' taking. Among the latter, Estermann found a certain changeling queen’s distinctive head snarling up at him from a particularly glaring front page.
It was enough to intrigue him.
“Ahem… you there, pass me that paper, will you?”

A copy of the rugged tabloid and a golden-brown iced cocktail soon landed in front of the duo.

“Whatever have you discovered there?” Colm inquired as he took a probing sip from his drink.

“Good question.”

The judge indulged in the headline text.
“I've picked up a little bit of Dutch over the years. Let me translate for you.”
He relieved the Estermann of the paper and started seeking out the offending article. Judging by the size of the headline, it had to be somewhere in the first few pages.
“Funny little tabloid. Though I wouldn't want to be seen walking with one of those under my arm. What would society think of me...”

“Well?”

“Oh. How's that for news: 'US President... Seen Walking... out of Shipping Container in Rotterdam Harbour... Customs Baffled.'.”

“Colm!”

“Alright, alright. Give me a minute.”
Almost a minute passed. “Oh. 'Sweet Justice?... 10 Reasons... Why The Future… Of The Changeling Menace... Ends Today'.”

A mid-sized comical sketch was drawn beneath the headline.
It was staffed with most of the important players of that day’s ceremony.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Estermann sighed. “They already drew the pictures of today?”

Three dark-clad officials had been settled on an off-screen bench, each of them leaning into the frame with a different ridiculous grimace of their own.
Speak No Evil. See No Evil. Hear No Evil, cardboard hand cut-outs seemed to order.

“Hello, handsome.” the judge purred and helped spread the page. “There I am. And I look good. First time they didn’t draw me like a pug.”

In front of them, there knelt a hard-edged, big-nosed man with a cotton wool cap shoved down his throat. In his hands, he held aloft an English dictionary, as though it was the bible itself.

“And…” the attorney gulped, “Is this one meant to be me?”
He sighed, already sick of it.
“I can’t believe they actually remembered the hat.”

“The gutter press, Alex, is like an elephant.”

“They’re prone to running amok?”

“That… and they never forget.“

“Heh, tell that to the artist. It looks nothing like me.”
Estermann pressed the paper closer to his forehead. He intently studied the queen, reduced to a mere silhouette leering in the background. She had been positioned near him, closer to the centre of the image, and sat in something that resembled an enormous birdcage, wearing her - now trademark - enormous grandmother glasses. The parts of her that were visible seemed to be somewhat less flattering.

“Is that… a snake tongue?” the counsel mumbled in disbelief.

“Huh… So it is. But don’t worry, you almost don't notice it for all the... tremendous fangs.”

Disappointed, the lawyer handed the paper to his friend.
“Well. That wasn’t the image change I was looking for.”

“Why? Are the fangs new?”

“The snake tongue is.”
Wasn’t she supposed to be more bug, less reptile?
He sniffed. “God, how far will I still have to do to make her face halfway... salonfähig? You know, acceptable?”

Smirking, the Irishman clapped him on the shoulder.
“You can put glasses on her nose, you can smear lipstick on her face, you can staple a halo to her horn... but nothing will hide the fact that she’s still a fucking changeling.”

Estermann started grasping his face and pulling at his skin until it showed little more than a pained grimace.

“You didn't expect the media to shower her with roses after today, did you?”

“No...”

The two jurists continued on their paths to the hot bath corner.

“T'was an interesting stunt you tried today with that upper case-lower case dilemma. It certainly made us and the prosecution stop in our tracks for a moment.”

“Oh, so it did?”

“Yeah. I just advise you not to overdo it. The court will not take kindly to you implicating us in racism. You definitely cannot base your entire defence on ‘youse are being unfair to the poor old changeling over 'ere’, you know.”

“Alright, I got it.”

“Oh! Oh, and what’s more!" he added sharply, raising a reminding hand, “Deal with that damn shrink of yours already.”

His friend peered over, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“What shrink? I don’t need a shrink. Never did.”

“Not for you, you numpty. Your client’s psychological caretaker, what’s-her-name… van Biene. Antje van Biene.”

Again, it took Estermann an agonising moments to recognise the name.

“It’s been a week. Have you even met her?”

“I… don’t think I have. Perhaps because the queen had more pressing matters at hand than a mental assessment.”

“But we don’t.” the judge moaned, “Do you even know why we attached a psychologist to you? We need to establish whether that… that changeling monarch is mentally capable of comprehending the injustice of what transpired. That was the whole damn point of the exercise."

“So what about Van Biene? Is she not doing her job?”

“Have you read her report?”

The lawyer’s hands waved about helplessly as he sighed, “I… skimmed the… fucking title. Just give me a synopsis.”

“Well, she...” The Irishman almost couldn’t contain a flight of grin at the ridiculousness of the sheer thought… “Let me put it like this: It almost seems like she has been typing the writ… one-handed.”

The Swiss lawyer shook his head, still not getting to the bottom of his point.
“Do you not like her grammar, or...”

“I mean, Alex, that I think she fell in love with your queen.”

Only now did Estermann’s features squinch up in the expected way.
“Oh.”

“Over fifteen pages, she had nothing but praise left for Chrysalis. She’s positively fawning over that changeling.”

The lawyer just smirked, strangely warmed by the accolades.
“Where’s the problem?”

“It’s bollocks.”

“She’s the psychologist. Are you a psychologist?”

The judge rolled the eyes beneath his bushy brows.
"No need. She wrote, and I quote, that, ‘In her intelligence and benevolence, Her Royal Highness is a credit to most of us.’”
He took another premature drink from his glass, “Those aren’t the words of a certified clinical psychologist filing a report… those are the words of a woman with a bag over her head, sitting between a camera and a flag, moments before her third finger’s hacked off.”

That was morbid. But not too morbid for two chuckling old friends.
“Alright, Colm, I think I can have a word with her. But for the record! I wasn’t the one who hired her.”

“I know that woman! She’s considered one of the brightest psychological minds in the Benelux area. Now, I don’t know what happened to make her write something like this… but this is ridiculous.”
He tapped his younger colleague’s chest. “For your sake, you give her a good slap, tell her to pull herself together, and deliver a report that you can actually afford to show to the chamber. The defence’s credibility rests on Van Biene’s shoulders. Don’t forget that.”

“Okay, Colm. Speaking of hirings...” Estermann interrupted him, bringing himself back on track,
“Didn't you want to explain why the hell you tried to set me up with that... Equestrian Wunderkind the other week?”

Expectantly, the judge chewed the question over.
“Well, to put it bluntly... he presented a relatively safe and easy solution to all this.”

“I never took you for the guy who fell for easy solutions.”

“I'm not. But I am rather keen on options to avoid any further bloodshed. Declaring the changelings animals could have opened up possibilities for... say... nature reserves and breeding grounds and a relaxed situation for both sides to grow and prosper at a safe distance and out of each other's faces.”

“And lest we forget, the possibility of mass extermination.”

“It's Equestria!” He groaned, “They do not do that sort of thing there. Besides, I'd do a lot to keep them from slaughtering each other for another thousand years. Even an uneasy peace is preferable to the most straightforward of wars.”

“You... crusty old peacemonger.” the lawyer grunted at his friend. “Do old habits really die this hard?”

“'Blessed are the peacemakers', Alex.” he chanted, one index finger solemnly pointing up, “Matthew 5:9.”

“Colm...” Estermann sighed, wiping his eyes, “I get that you’re Irish… but you don’t need to quote scripture at me to make a point.”

The judge rolled his eyes and smirked.
“As if a bloody heathen like you could tell.”

“Bloody heathen? I’m Roman Catholic.”

“Exactly.”

Without a single warning, the judge immediately stepped out of his sandals and threw off his bathrobe like a streaker in a thunderstorm.
Suddenly, there he was, still holding a cocktail in one hand and the cheap tabloid in the other and wearing nothing but his God-given birthday suit, and sank into the circular pool with a pleasured shudder.

His friend peered down at him with somewhat less vigour, pacing by the poolside, hands still in pockets.
“I still can’t follow your trail of logic. Since when has it been easier to protect animals than people?”

“Since when has it been easier to carve out nationstates than wildlife preserves?” the judge asked back adamantly.
“Do you think the Equestrians actually give two fucks about that desolate, frozen wasteland they’ve got up north? It’s all about pride and principle and public outrage, not substance.”
He took another sip from his drink .“They don’t want to be seen as the nation that ceded her own soil - or, rock and ice, in this case - to her oldest and bitterest nemesi. So of course they’d never accept changeling autonomy unchallenged…provided one calls it autonomy.”

Estermann shook his head and looked up to the heavens.
“Doesn’t make turning this into some environmental stunt any less of a shit plan.”

“You’ve got no idea what soft-hearted suckers Equestrians are for that sort of thing. To protect cute woodland critters, they would call off wars. No exaggeration.”

“It’s not like I cared if it appeases the ponies. I want a rock-solid guarantee that this reserve becomes untouchable.. and the changelings therein remain unharmed.”

Seemingly readying to give a defeating lecture, the judge propped himself up in the tub.
“Alexander, your beloved changelings can take care of their bleeding selves. They’ve got at least more than twice the number of warriors under arms than the ponies do.”

This was the first time the lawyer had heard this estimate.
“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, everybody seems to forget that.” the judge confirmed smugly. “Quite frankly, the only thing that’s stopping them from descending upon Equestria anew is probably the fact that their only capable leader is chewing on metal grates in Belgisch Park. Means they're immobilised, but not that they're defenceless.”

“Where did you get that estimate from?”

“A... reliable source.”

“An Equestrian source?” Estermann nodded, not quite willing to concede the point.

“Alex...” his friend sighed accusingly and dabbled around the tub, “Are you going to stand up there and interrogate me the whole evening?”

“Answer my questions, and I'll stop asking.”

“Yes, Alexander.” he finally answered, albeit a bit louder and aggravated than expected. “It was an Equestrian source. And the same source told me that the Equestrians are in the process of marching the bulk of their forces up north as we speak.”

And instantly, the lawyer turned every-so slightly greyer in his face as seemingly all blood got sucked back into his heart.
“The Equestrians are… what?”

Colm’s innocently spread hands emerged from the bubbling water.
“Don’t ask me why. Evidently, they seem to be under the impression that they can take on the changelings while they’re grounded and deal a decisive blow.”
Then he folded his fingers, point made. “I hope you see my dilemma here. I want these ridiculous wargames to find an end once and for all. I want to preclude further escalations with some kind of arrangement.”

“I didn’t know any of that.”

“Of course you didn’t. This is a state affair. And a secret operation. Even I only know it because Le… my source is an old tattletale.”

A solitary name boiled up in the lawyer at that moment.
“And Chrysalis?”

“What about her?”

“She doesn’t know about this either. What role is she to supposed play in all this? What if I do manage to get her off the hook? What if she gets to go home after all? Will it maybe... throw a spanner into your little scheme?”

“Why?” the judge inquired, “Do you think your client hasn’t got the most peaceful intentions at heart?”

Estermann clamped his jaws shut immediately.

The corpulent man in the tub just smiled.
“At ease, Alexander. I think we both know that we can’t do away with Her Royal Highness just yet. Her flock may be grounded and scattered for now, but it won’t be forever. Either way, she will have to return to it to drum it back into line.”
Another sip from his cocktail. “If history has taught us anything, it’s that power vacuums are bad news. Out of every Robespierre, a Napoleon. Out of every Lenin, a Stalin. Out of every Tito, a Karadžić. When tyrants leave the ship, the helm might be taken by someone who really makes us wish the old buggers back.”

His heart skipped a beat. He didn’t know whether he should feel elated or even more worried.
“You... actually want to reinstate Chrysalis?”

“We soften her up, we turn her, and then we reinstate her. Because, for all her massive faults, she’s proven capable of effectively steering this people like no other. Animal or not, she’s a born leader.”

“Amen...” the lawyer chewed. “Well then, Mother Teresa… Just out of curiosity... how do you want to manage to do that?”

“As you might imagine… being a judge at the ICC has its perks. I had tea with many people. Ministers, governors, gen-secs… from states important enough to make a difference in Equestrian politicking.”

“If you…”
Excited, the lawyer bowed down to his bathing friend, “If you can actually put in a good word for Queen Chrysalis in the international community… That might actually sound halfway sensible.”

“Doesn’t it though?” Colm concluded, sated, and scooted to the furthermost point of the spherical pool. “Now… don’t embarrass me in front of the other guests. Get in the fucking tub.”

Shrugging, the lawyer finally hung aside his robe and slowly descended into the nigh-boiling pot in the ground. When he was in up to his navel, he abruptly stopped.

The Irishman groaned and boredly stirred his cocktail.
“Something the matter now, o devil’s advocate?”

“The… the offensive you mentioned.”

"Yes?”

His eyes darted around the unruly water nervously.
“It… it’ll remain a secret operation, right?”

“I’d imagine that they’ll try and keep a lid on the affair for as long as possible. Why do you ask?”

He looked back up at his friend with great concern.
“Chrysalis… she mustn’t learn of it. She cannot know that the Equestrians are marching on her home. Not now.”

The judge drank and pouted. “Why? What can she do?”

“That’s just it, nothing. And she’ll react… volatilely to the fact. And with all those hearings coming up... I worry that she wouldn’t be able to stand the pace very well.”

“Then you better stick her back into solitary, because I can guarantee you that it will be hitting the TV screens within the next two weeks. You can’t keep this sort of thing under wraps forever.”

Drawing heavy breaths through his nose, the lawyer sank deeper into the pool.
“Jesus, Maria und Josef.”

“Hey… She’s a disgraced monarch in exile. Treat her to a bottle of vermouth, and the guilt shall be overcome by breakfast.”

“She’s a mother.” Estermann uttered sparsely.

“Ah... oh.” Colm sputtered apprehensively. “That’s a bit harsher. How many, did she say?”

Again, he shrugged.
“By the looks of it… all of them.”

Colm nodded.
“Better make it a bottle of poitín, then.”

Author's Note

...For anyone wondering: The word is 'Verfahren'.

XX. Diseased

XX.
Diseased

Cafe Internationale, The Hague
21. November, 2015
7:05 pm MET

“No...” the unicorn whimpered, “No! You stupid! Stupid!” and clutched her large, scruffy head in her hooves.

Squatting at her tiny table in the alcove all by herself, she ignored the blaring radio and the waiter wiping the tables clean next to her and eyeing the mare with apprehension.

“Why didn’t you just tell him? Why?!” she asked herself loudly, futilely attempting to knock the guilt-laden thoughts out of her head with her forelegs.

Her boss had ordered her to wait for him right there and not dare to move, while he met the jud.. uh, his mysterious contact in a building across the street. On the pain of ‘Ungnade’... whatever that was supposed to mean.
She occasionally peered over to the clock left of the windows, counting down the minutes until the next dawn.

‘Thirteen-and-a-half hours left… That’s good… That’s okay...’ she would think, before being overswept by yet another wave of panic.
What would she tell him?! How could she tell him? There was no way she could explain… at least, without making everything a hay of a lot worse.
She felt trapped. She began to wheeze painfully. The air that she needed to breathe seemed to evade her.
The thoughts in her head took turns performing a run-up and then throwing themselves against the inside of her skull.
She felt progressively fainter.
Her head, still cradled in her forehooves, sank lower and lower.
By the time her forehead and horn touched the ice-cold marble table top, a part of her had determined that she needed rest. Now.

But then a human hand softly tapped on her shoulder.
She awoke with a jerk, her vision still unfocused and blurry as she glanced up at the human barkeeper.
“You.” he told her, “No sleeping. Okay?”

Tired, she rubbed red-rimmed, itching eyes.
“Oh uhm… no problem.”

Sighing, she scraped her forehooves along the table and raised her heavy head.
The mare watched human turn back around and go back to sweeping the various surfaces with the wet towel.

Here, her thoughts jumped to her fate.
She could have had the chance to make it in human society. To be part of it.
This was the wish she had held her entire life. Even before humans were even believed to be a real thing, she already knew that one day, she would go on to live among them… amongst equals.

And now?
Was this exciting adventure coming to an abrupt stop? Was she about to muck up the one chance she had to live out her desired existence?
Would there soon be a time come where she could never be able to meet any of these magnificent creatures of brilliance up close?

She was practically human by now!

A yawn interrupted her thoughts - sleepless nights twisting and turning, of worrying, of… trembling had come to take their toll.

Silently, the barkeep pushed a big porcelain cup in front of her, filled with a swirling, steaming, pitch-black fluid.
“Hey.” she said, roughly, “You pay now or pay later?”

‘Darn it all!’ she yelled at herself. ‘Enough of this!’
Focusing her eyes on her order, she was determined to clear away the cobwebs that had been spun around her head. To take it off of these harrowing, nervous fears.
“Er… later, if that’s okay.”

She tried to focus the mental faculties on remembering the name of that drink.

Yes, ‘coffee’, that’s what it was called.
It fascinated her greatly, last but not least because it was so hugely popular among humans, and yet virtually unknown among Equestrians. As far as she had understood, it was a stirring, vitalising potion that could turn even the lamest of mules into the most zealous of pegasi. And if it worked for humans, she thought, then why why why not for her?

As the swirling, rippling surface of the drink began to settle, she drowsily noticed the ceiling reflecting in it. She saw a window, dark and looming, a chandelier, brightly shimmering inside the cup, and there was her own muzzle, peering above the pool…

No… no, there were two muzzles. One face had appeared right behind her, leering over her shoulder. In the oily film that began to forming, she could make out certain features in the dark chiaroscuro of the cup.

The creature felt familiar. It was a unicorn, too; she recognised a long, sharp horn throning on her head, embellished with diamonds and precious ornaments of gold and silver. Her long hair was all pretty, braided and woven into a discrete bun, and adorned by a shining white bonnet.

The tall pony reached out, and softly touched the back of Lyra’s head. The aqua unicorn’s muscles all went limp at the sensation, and she let the mysterious creature caress her mane, gazing into the mirroring in the cup.

“Oh Lyra…” the creature cooed with a young mare’s voice.

Lyra could clearly hear it.

“Where are you?”

“I…” she whimpered, weakly, like in a trance. “Here.”

“Where? I cannot see you. I cannot feel you.”

“C-close. Still close.”

The mare’s slender hoof, obscured by a frilly dress travelled further down, sweeping over Lyra’s neck and pushing slightly in-between her shoulder blades. A wave of adrenaline travelled down Lyra’s spine, and her head sunk further down.

“The time is edging closer, dear Lyra.” The voice cooed again. “The day approaches, faster and faster. Be ready.”

“R-ready?” Lyra asked, and pleaded, “But how? And for what?”

“You will know, soon enough.” The voice let out an amused, happy tone. “It is all coming together. The day comes where I will be free… and you… very happy, my child.”

“Happy?”
Lyra’s drooping head began to bob and nod. “Yes… happy.”

“Oh Lyra. Your sweet endurance fills me with life. Do not falter. Come… to me.”

“Yes.”

With this last word, the tiny aqua unicorn’s eyes shut again, and her head sunk snout-first into the coffee.
It took her a few seconds of sizzling, boiling heat around her nose to send her back into a state of hyper-awareness.
She shot back up, spilling coffee everywhere, sniffing and wheezing like a drowning cat.

The barkeep saw, this, and immediately scrambled for a roll of kitchen towels.
Wordlessly, he wiped the area around the pony’s head clean. The quickly multiplying creases in his forehead disclosed just how irritated he was.

“Oh… I’m so sorry.” she whimpered. By now even she was put off by how constant her apologies had become. “I just don’t know what keeps coming over me! ”

It happened a lot over the last couple of weeks. Time and time again.
And ultimately, she felt she was starting to run out of apologies.

Trying to cool her muzzle, she heard a bell ring as the cafe’s door was shoved open.

She spun around on her chair, using the distraction to get a better look around the establishment.

A tiny green form swooshed by her alcove, but she was too occupied fumbling around with a serviette around her throbbing snout to take any particular notice of it.

She looked at a few wooden chairs next to a few wooden tables, painted in the same moody, autumn-like colours as the rest of the room. On the walls around her were paintings of galleons crashing through a rough, whipped-up sea, dark waves rolling onto heaping dunes in the background, and distant orange lights flickering from what appeared to be a silhouette of a archaic human citadel town many leaps down the strand…
She could almost imagine herself standing on that ship, dodging gusts of freezing seawater, as she suppressed the urge to wave the human coastline farewell…

‘Wait...’ she the thought to herself. ‘Did somepony just walk by?’

“Ehm, excuse me sir!” a young voice shouted.

The waiter gasped.

“Sorry, is your kitchen open already? We’re eight ponies… uh… people, and we’re starving!”

She heard the waiter scratching his scalp.
“Uh. Sure. Eight persons, yeah?”

“Super duper!” the young voice again yelled, quite a bit too loudly, before turning around and heralding back at the entrance, “Hey guys! Come on in! They’re open.”

Lyra could swear that this voice reminded her of someone…

It couldn’t be…

Then, with her face still hidden under the napkin, she watched a chubby little drake blissfully trundle past her alcove.
She held her breath.

It was Twilight Sparkle’s little dragon - Thorne, or whatever she called him…

But how could that be?

Next thing she knew, a gust of icy wind filled the room, and with it, a group of ponies entered, shaking slush off their coats and clothing, chatting with tongues lulled from the cold.

Again, they passed by her one by one without minding her and her secluded spot. First the dragon, then two ancient earth pony stallions of very evident military standing - a lanky one with two ponytails and a goatee, pushing in a rather frail one wearing a rather obvious chestnut wig on a creaking wheelchair - then next an old, slow-moving grandmare with a plain headscarf and lastly… none other than Twilight Sparkle, the newest of the Equestrian princesses.

Lyra bit her tongue in terrified silence, and sunk halfway into the space between her bench and her table.

“This looks like a nice little place.” Twilight smiled her little entourage, and plopped herself down at the head of a line of smaller conjoined tables next to the bar. “Take a seat by the heaters, everypony. Warm your legs!”

The others complied all-too willingly. Spike, her loyal assistant, scooched up the bench placed by the side of the display windows until he was sitting next to his alicorn friend.

“Thank you, dear...” the old mare accepted the offer in a hoarse voice and pulled her headscarf off her wavy pale blue mane, taking a seat on the far end.

The ancient soldier, meanwhile, rolled his wheelchair next to one of the various radiators aligning by the walls, but not without making his duress heard.
“Blasted rheumatism!” he coughed. “I’m soaking wet and my legs feel like they’re falling off.”

“Steady on, old boy.” the other soldier soothed him humorously, squeezing his short white beard dry before scrambling onto the chair next to his comrade. “Don’t you know whining about it will only make it worse?”

Twilight smiled at the settling guests. Yet, she knew not what to do with them.
She didn’t even know their names. The prosecutor did. But she wasn’t here yet.
“So, uh...” she began awkwardly, “How was the trip?”

“Awful!” came the older soldier’s immediate response, followed by a weak pounding on the table. “Nopony told me we’d be coming here sealed into a tin like a general-issue bean ration. If I were younger, I’d rather swim my way back to Equestria!”

The grandmare followed up with a depressed huff and let her head sink into her hooves.

The second soldier turned to her with a pathetic smile, and answered in a voice that was much fresher and less spent than either of the others, “I must apologise for my friend here, love. He has a hundred problems, but phlegm isn’t one of them.”

“Please, fillies and gentlecolts...” Twilight assuaged, “We don’t have to wait long. We can start as soon as Lady Serafina’s here.”
What was taking that prosecutor so long, she wondered.

“Shame that she would keep us waiting.” the grandmare now commented in a strangely distraught voice. “I didn’t leave my great-grandkids for this. The faster the deed is done, the quicker I can return to them.”

“I understand you're all tired and sore…” Twilight appeased, “But prosecutor Pierman really has her work cut out for her. She’s laboured tirelessly to build a watertight case against Chrysalis. She needs all the time she can get, but she can’t do away with our help.”

“I know why we are all here to do, thank you very much.” the wigged soldier grunted, “But as for myself, I never asked to do any of this through some hairless ape in this cold, wet, unruly hole of a country.”

“Oh, it's not so bad once you get to know it.”
The princess smiled so brightly that the others could only squint. “The humans consider it an honour to host you all here.”

The old mare only shook her head.
“Then why did they boo and hiss at us as we stepped out of that air-plane?

“They… did?”

Why?
What a good question indeed.
Twilight sighed. She knew it would be a hard sell to present her hosts in a better light when she barely understood their strange strange duality.
She witnessed it herself after all - one moment, she is literally treated like royalty, and the next, they all but try to fling themselves upon her in rage. There was a lot of complexity and nuances that she had yet to explore about their culture.

And while, yes, the prospect of that did render her rather giddy, it did make something entirely different stir in her - homesickness, of all things.
She knew how pathetic it seemed - she was in the human lands for not even four days, after all. And yet, secretly, she rejoiced when she came across the opportunity to meet some of these fine fellow ponies here, so far away from home.
Perhaps, she thought, they could bring a piece of it with them.
Sadly, it turned out that they were carrying a rather different load...

The bell of the entrance door tolled.
Eagerly, Twilight looked up, in the hopes of seeing Serafina Pierman standing in the doorway to save the moment.

And indeed, there she was.
Escaping the enveloping rain beginning to pour outside, the comparatively smaller-built human female stepped into the restaurant - followed rather swiftly by the silent stallion that almost never seemed to leave her side. His rustling spiky hair was the only thing that distinguished him from a rather large, wet dog. He even shook himself in quasi-greeting at the seated ponies around Twilight, spraying droplets of rainwater all over the floor.

“I am so terribly sorry…” Serafina breathed, her voice hoarse, before conjuring a disarming weak smile and explaining, “It appears my cabbie wanted to take me on a tour around the Hague.”

“Thank goodness I managed to rein him in in time…” The spiky pegasus next to her whispered, not too loud, but proud nevertheless.

Pierman rushed over to the table, struggling to wrap up a small stubby umbrella, and immediately reached for the perplexed ponies hooves.
“I’m glad to see you all in the same place. It’s a tremendous honour.”

The granny was the first one to reply.
“The pleasure’s… all mine?”

As Serafina avidly shook the two veterans’ hooves, only the the lankier, bearded earth pony among returned a pleasant smile and nodded respectfully. “We are excited to be here. This was one battle that we could not afford to let pass by us. Eh, Bodkin, old sport?”

The wigged stallion just huffed and looked away.

“We can’t always choose the field of our greatest battle.” the earth pony added nonchalantly. “And great, this one is.”

“And I’m glad that you think so.” Pierman quipped, before joining Twilight herself and her assistant at the far end. “Hello princess. Hello… ehm...”

“Spike’s the name.” the dragon introduced himself merrily.

Twilight smiled as Serafina hesitated upon seeing him.
It was obvious that she needed couple of seconds to overcome her instinctual revulsion to the massive talking reptile that was now courteously extending its claw for her to shake, but she calmly pushed back her reservations and gave Spike's claw a limp shake.
“So this is a dragon? A real dragon?” she mumbled at him.

“As real as they come.” he quipped.

“Pardon my surprise, but I didn’t expect someone like you to join our meal. I thought Princess Twilight would be bringing along her...”

“Brother. Yes...” Twilight finished her sentence.
This was supposed to be the plan too. But... not one that would come to be.

“Was the Captain held up, Princess?”

Spike tried to jump in with a helpful explanation.
“He’s not feeling super-well today. Or… any if the other days...”

“Spike...” the Twilight himself shushed him. “Sorry, my brother keeps getting those very long shifts in the prison… Chrysalis is probably keeping him busy.”

“Okay, if that’s what you call it.“ Spike just grumbled.

The prosecutor wrinkled her nose.
“What a disgusting person. My sympathies to the Captain.”
The woman shook her head before turning to the rest of the assembly. “I suppose you all already got the chance to get to know each other, so...”

“Actually...” Twilight interjected, none too little embarrassed, “We kinda ran out of time on that one.”

“Oh. Should I take the opportunity and introduce you?”
As Twilight gave her enthusiastic nod, Serafine first turned to the two soldiers, “This is Major Bodkin, formerly of the 4th Royal Mustangia Cavalry Brigade.”

The frail one nodded his wrinkled head and straightened his wig.

“Next to him is Captain Malty Waters, also of the Royal Mustangia Cavalry.”

“Third Brigade, actually. Trottingham.” he smiled and stroked his white goatee.

“Both are, of course, retired officers who were present at the Battle of Kiger in… two… hundred...”

“Fifty-nine.” Bodkin finished impatiently.

Twilight’s ears perked up in surprise.
‘The two elderly stallions sitting right there… were witnesses? They were at Kiger?’ she thought to herself.

‘Wouldn’t make those senior ponies… what… eight hundred years old?
What an age! Even for equines, that was beyond impressive.
Yet here they were. Living, breathing, walking, talking witnesses to history. No wonder both looked so… perpetually flustered by their surroundings.’

“And this...” Serafina continued, turning to the grandmare, “Is Mrs Floret Oats. A retired innkeeper from Baltimare.”

“H-hello, dears.” She greeted them, with a weak wave of her foreleg.

“She lived in Trot, witnessing the sacking first-hand.”

Twilight’s jaw was currently hanging lower than ever.
Now, Kiger was one thing, but… Trot?

“Y-you mean the sacking in… in 30 after Discord?”

The old mare nodded.
‘She looks so pretty for her age!
Almost inconceivable that she was almost old enough to remember Princess Luna’s first reign.
Perhaps even Discord’s reign!’

“Though I must confess, I was just a filly back then...” Floret explained, her countenance still less than enthusiastic.

“Sweet Celestia...” Twilight muttered at them, “I had no idea. It’s such an honour to make all your acquaintance. I mean… When does anypony ever get the chance to meet… meet...”

“...living artefacts?” Bodkin proposed, unamused, his cheeks drooping lethargically.

“What? No, no...”

Lastly, Pierman turned to Twilight herself.
“This is a visitor - and very avid scholar - who came all the way from Canterlot learn the in- and outsides of our criminal proceedings; Princess-”

“I know who she is.” Bodkin again interrupted, impatiently rocking around in his creaking wheelchair. “I think everypony knows who the Princess of Friendship is.”

“Well...“ Twilight stammered humorously, “You’d be surprised.”

Serafina Pierman was almost as red with abashment as the Princess herself.
“Okay then… Let’s see. The court’s immigration paper noted that one more person was supposed to arrive in Schiphol today. Her name is Holly Crown.”
Searchingly, she looked about, then over to the earth pony nurse, who just shrugged.
“She seems to have... slipped through the cracks, somehow. Did anyone meet her on the way? In the airport, perhaps? Or the hotel?”

The witnesses looked befuddled.

A harrumph erupted from behind the prosecutor.
“Uh, Serafina?”
Her spiky pegasus companion had remained in the back of the establishment, and was pointing a hoof into a separate tablespace that was obscured from the rest of the ponies by a black wooden six-foot septum that gave the single tables in the front of the tavern a little privacy from the ones in the back..
“She wasn’t a green unicorn mare, by any chance?”

“Uh...” Pierman hesitated, “No, she is a pegasus… with purple hair...”

The stallion gave a short confirming nod before flinging himself into the alcove, grabbing somepony by the nape and yanking her out.

“Hey! Let me… let me go!” she yelped as the pegasus’ unrelenting grip dragged her out from behind her cover.

The moment Twilight saw just whom Pierman’s pegasus held in his grip, an awkward sense of of deja-vu overcame her.

Spike tapped her on the neck, his own voice bereft of any emotion.
“Uh, Twi… Isn’t… isn’t that... ”

Twi nodded without as much as breaking her stare.
“Lyra.”

Serafina pointed a finger around the room in mild confusion. “She… is she with you, Princess?”

“Fat chance!” ‘Beam’ answered for her, dragging Lyra, who struggled to hold on to her table, closer before the assembly. “I saw her! At the feast last week.”

“Me too...” Twilight agreed, remembering catching a fleeting glimpse of the unicorn when… when...

“I saw her snuggling up to the table of the defence!”

...When she was talking to the defence counsel Estermann.
Of course.
Though, that moment had passed so quickly that Twilight didn’t really register whom she had just run into - her mind engrossed with more… seemingly important things.

Yet, here she stood. Lyra Heartstrings

Looking up and down the writhing unicorn’s aqua form, Twilight thought back to the last time she had run into her properly. That was years ago.

She couldn’t quite recall just how long the two of them went back, but the time spans passing by her inner eyes were lengthy.
She knew for sure that Lyra had visited the very same Academy For Gifted Unicorns as her - though they never ended up in the same class or enrolling for the same courses. The few times she managed to catch the timid, studious young Twilight’s attention was during certain… eccentric episodes.
Even back then, Lyra had a knack for raising awareness for long-discredited fields of science for which no one else had time or inclination to spare - neither before nor after her... activism. ‘Anthropology’, the study of the mysterious, half-mythical phenomenon of ‘Man’, of course was Lyra’s personal object of obsession.

Now look who had the last laugh.
Twilight knew that she, had she known her any better, would have probably shaken Lyra’s hoof in begrudging respect.

“Well...” Lyra meanwhile whimpered, frantically fighting off the pegasus’ hoof, “Yeah, duh. I am with the defence. So?”

“Spy!” Beam spat, tightening his grip.

“The hay I am!”
He finally yanked out of his strong hooves. “I’m… I was here way before you. I’ve been waiting for somepony!”

“For whom? Us?” he just scoffed

“Beam… Let it be.” Pierman sighed.

He shot Lyra one last ugly glare before loyally taking a step back.

“I didn’t tell anyone we’d be meeting here.” Pierman explained ,whistling him back matter-of-factly, “Besides, nothing we will be discussing here today is worth spying on. I don't invite my witnesses to a public cafe to prep them for the trial. That’s what our offices are for.”
Despite her rational mien, those words were directed as much at Lyra as everyone else.

“Then what is she doing here?” ‘Beam’ asked, his eyes narrowing confrontationally.

Serafina merely shrugged.
“I suppose this isn’t any of our business.”
Then she addressed Lyra directly. “I’m really sorry about this. We didn’t mean to drag you away from your meal, we’re... all just a little on edge, now that the proceedings are coming to a point and so many of our eggs are in one basket...”

“Oh...” Lyra stuttered, trying to stay calm herself, “Okay, yeah… basket, that’s um… M-maybe I should… just...”
Awkwardly, she gesticulated towards the exit.

Twilight felt like she had to take the initiative.
“Please, Lyra… Would you maybe... like to sit down with us instead? I… I’m sure there’s no harm in that.”

The unicorn held her breath in absolute horror.

“Twi...” Spike just whispered, “Didn’t you hear what that guy just said? She’s defence!”

She just sent him a disapproving glance.
“Well… so?”

When she looked back up, she just caught the tip of Lyra’s tail as she crawled back into her secluded niche, beyond the others’ judging eyes.

“We must have spooked her pretty badly.”

“Did you know that… her?” Floret asked meekly.

“Lyra?” Twilight smiled back. “Of course. We were classmates. We even both enrolled at the Canterlotian.”

“Aha. ‘Academics’. Go figure.”
That was Major Bodkin, muttering to his comrade rather snidely under his breath.

Trying to ignore that comment, Twilight clamped her assistant by the shoulder, “You remember Lyra, don't you, Spike?”

“Yes, Twilight.” he answered, his words were tinged with annoyance. “Just as much as I remember Minuette and Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts...”

“...Who?”

“Ugh, never mind.”

“I think it’s best if...” Pierman suddenly began, before trailing off when she felt that her point was made. “Another time.”

“Why's that?” Twilight inquired, “It can’t be any good if she sits back there all by herself. Especially after that one colthandled her.”
She nodded at ‘Beam’, who diligently stood guard next to their table.

“Please...” Serafina insisted, even if rather softly, “Another place, another time.”

Twilight was nonplussed, absent-mindedly scratching her scalp as she glanced at the others’ hesitant faces.
“Is it… is it because she’s in the defence?”
The others said nothing. Feeling herself confirmed, Twilight gave a bugged smile.
“She’s not diseased.”
Still nothing.
“Come on, I thought... we are all professionals here. The roles that we choose or choose not to perform for the court shouldn’t influence our opinion of each other, right?”

“Well, of course not...” Pierman agreed, and then fell silent again as quickly.

Twilight slid herself near the end of her bench.
“I’m going over.”

“Are you now?” Bodkin asked, and positioned his wig straight. Then he continued in an uncharacteristically frail tone, “Ahem, we are all a little old and grey here. Could you, Princess, maybe run by us one more time, what exactly it is that a pony in the ‘defence’ does?”

“Uh...”
Twilight felt uneasy. There was something cooking under the ancient pony’s toupé.
Even Serafina shot her a cold glare that forbade her to answer.
But Twilight had faith in her own inexhaustible well of knowledge, as always.
“They… serve to present a counterweight to the prosecution’s efforts to accuse the defendant.”

“No need to pussyfoot.” Bodkin suddenly coughed. “Just say it how it is. It’s their job to help Chrysalis get away with it. Right?”

“Well… to put it bluntly and in laymare’s terms… yes. For the most part.”

“That’s what I thought.” Bodkin confirmed to himself with a bitter, denigrating voice.

“Still, it’s… rather complicated. Nothing like what we have in Equestria.”

“You don’t say. I wouldn’t have thought that a pony could come up with such a harebrained idea anyway.” Lethargically, his head turned his wheelchair to the human. “No offence.”
But rather than awaiting Pierman’s obligatory ‘None taken’, he continued meteing out right away. “Do me a favour, princess. When - or if - you go and amuse that… that unicorn sitting back there, ask her one thing for me.”
He paused.
“Why?”

“Why… what?”

“Why did she do it? What, on Celestia’s lush pastures, has gotten into her dull little head?”

Now, Twilight was absolutely dumbstruck. Taken aback by the old stallion’s harsh words, she knew not how to formulate a reply that could sufficiently express all her shock and dismay.

“Bodkin… old sport...” Captain Malty Waters cooed over, trying to hold his comrade-in-arms’ chair on a leash. “I am sure that the Princess does not enjoy you being so harsh on her friend...”

“The ’Princess’,” Bodkin retorted, “should be grateful that somepony has the good grace to thump some sense into that spoiled young mind.”
Then he addressed Twilight head-on once more.
“No offence, your Majesty. But from now on, I am going to speak to you as you are: A little filly. I didn’t really want to elaborate on just how sick to my mind this whole setup makes me feel. I am disgusted.”

“...You are disgusted?” Twilight stammered.

“You seem to be a tad too young to remember exactly what purpose a court trial is meant to serve: To expose the wrongdoings of the felons and deliver swift and righteous justice on their heads.”
He sniffed. “And you, you high-hooved little brats, seem content turning it into some kind of game. Like buckball. Everypony follows the rules, everypony gets to have a round, everypony wins, and then everypony get’s to hit the showers.”

“What are you… talking about?”

“I don’t want to play games. I want my justice!” he coughed, even louder. “I want that horsefly, and all those who stand behind her, punished on the spot!”

“You will get your justice.” Twilight finally nipped in. “But it takes time.”

“No, it does not! We know she is guilty! This is why we’re here! There are no two ways about it. What’s currently standing between trial and sentence are your and those monkeys’ high-hooved egos.”

Twilight met the stare of Pierman, which was displeased and condemning, but only silently so. The human didn’t seem to be quite up to mustering the courage to say something.

“Oh excuse me, dearest Missus 'Prosecutor'… that should be ‘high-handed’, right?” he added sarcastically.

Twilight herself raged a little inside as well, of course. It had been a long time since anypony accused her of being too young and over her head on something.
She had spent too much time with her nose in a book to be accused of immaturity and take it without a fight.
Her voice dangerously deadpan, she punched back.
“Look. Nopony wishes a harsher punishment for Chrysalis than me. You might not know that, Major Bodkin, but she put my brother under a spell on his wedding day, imprisoned me twice as I tried to protect him, and then ransacked my home city with an army.
However, I also know that with the power to punish, comes massive responsibility. I know it must be done right. I know justice can be served only by understanding all of the nuances and complications of the situation.”
She turned her nose up at the soldier. “And Lyra Heartstrings knows this too. This is why she does her part. You don’t need to be an ‘academic’ to understand why the humans have so much faith in this system.”

But Bodkin just snorted.
“You know nothing. You might make a fantastic show of learning, but you know nothing!”
For a brief second, he peered over to Captain Malty. “For example… do you know Lieutenant Ricasso? Do you know Sergeant-Major Spur? Or perhaps Corporal Guidon?”

Twilight defiantly held her silence.

“No? Well, you never will. And do you know why? Because their stiff, bloated remains have never been recovered from the Mustangian tundra. That’s why.”

Twilight clenched her teeth.

“Eight thousand guardsponies were slaughtered in Kiger that day. It’s hardly been eight hundred years, and already, they have all long slipped through the cracks of time. Only Captain Malty Waters and I have made it. And this is what we have to show for it.”

The alicorn averted her eyes.

“Oh! Oh.. or is it maybe because my word isn’t worth enough around here anymore, Princess? Maybe you think I’m a liar. Or crazy. A crusty, senile old teller of tales?”

She breathed in, heart heavy.
“I never said I did not believe you, Major.”

“But you don’t want to take any chances. Is that it?”
He chuckled melancholically. “Thankfully, my memories weren’t the only gift Chrysalis left me then.” One of his hooves went for the toupé. “You should know all about transformations - don’t you, Princess Twilight?”

The ancient pony nudged his wig to the side until it slid off and fell onto the table.
All eyes followed the fall first, and once the toupé had settled next to the soldiers’ beakers and napkins, the eyes went back up to the stallion’s now completely bald head.
It looked normal enough at first, perhaps a little bony and skeletal… at least until Twilight discovered some kind of weird, slight bulge on his forehead, right above his eyes, as pale grey as the fur it protruded from.

It was at that point that the alicorn’s heart skipped a beat.

“As you can plainly see, Princess… I haven’t always been an earth pony.”

All of a sudden, the mere sight of his head made Twilight sick to no end.
She, unlike all the others sitting at that table, knew what being a unicorn felt like - what the blessing of being born with a magical horn was like.

Almost as if to drive the point home, Bodkin proceeded to wipe his perfectly spherical cranium with the side of his leg, from the eyebrows upward.
As soon as he swept by his measly stump, a sudden jolt of intense pain flashed through his entire body, followed by an animalistic grunt from deep inside him.

Twilight knew why. It was for the same reasons that even the slightest of cracks and chips in the horn were widely considered to count towards the gravest of injuries amongst unicorns.
Horns did not grow back together.
And the nerve endings did not heal.

Even from across the table, prosecutor Pierman could be heard coughing up her mug of cappuccino at the sight. Even humans seemed to feel the sheer pain.

“Are you done with taking evidence now, Princess?” Bodkin finally snorted. “Would you like to go and join your fine schoolfriend at the other table now?”

Twilight had to weigh a serious amount of thinking into the decision.
Her gut warned her that it would it would be akin to fraternising with an enemy. But then the rational side of her brain aptly reminded her: What enemy?
Now wasn’t the time to buy into this ever-so crude ‘us-versus-them’ mentality, no matter how inviting it seemed at that moment.
After all, nothing about her reasoning had changed that much. Twilight still knew that her logic was sound. Rational. Pragmatic even.

“Yeah, that’s right. Just go.” she heard the Major scoff as she finally took the decisive plummet from the bench and touched down on all fours.
Her hooves practically moved by themselves, propelled onward solely by her own pride.

“Go and ask your friend whether she's doing it for the wealth, or for the fame. Or maybe both! I admit I don’t know the bounds of an ‘academic’s’ thirst!”

Her breath became more frantic.
The further she strayed from her table and closed in on Lyra’s alcove, the more she realised that the unicorn had been sitting well within the earshot of her and Bodkin and all the others.
Lyra had to listen to all of it.

Oh, what was she going to say now?

Twilight valiantly soldiered on and slowly glanced around the black partition wall.
“Hey...” she hailed the unicorn, trying to sound calm and gentle. “Everything alright?”

Lyra sat in her seat, stone-faced.
“What do you want?” she spat.

“I… wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m doing fine, Princess.”

“Please, it’s... Twilight. We’ve known each other since we’re foals...”

“Yeah, whatever you say, Princess.”
Then she slammed a hoof-full of human coins on the desk and slid off her chair.

“Lyra, please, where are you-”

Roughly, she forced herself past the princess and stepped back out into the cafe’s aisle.
In her magical grip, she grasped her pink scarf as though it were a whip. She went for the door with such an aggressive canter that Twilight didn’t even dare to bother and give chase.
But only a stone’s throw from the saving exit, Lyra whirled towards the staring assembly once more.
“You asked why.” she stated in bitter anger.

The old bald stallion just continued giving the mare a reproachful look. But he adjusted his wheelchair appropriately to face her.

“I didn’t do this for the fame or the fortune.” She momentarily turned her hate-filled eyes to Twilight. “Or the knowledge. Or ‘faith in the system’. I did it because I can’t stand you. I hate you all!”

Now, even Bodkin was briefly taken aback.

“I never liked any of you! You… you cocky, shallow-brained bunch of hypocrites!” She was so wrought up that she slowly but surely began gasping for air. “You’re the ones that are disgusting!”

The Major smirked humourlessly to the increasingly worried others.
“So that’s what the young think of us now, fillies and gentlecolts. A thousand years of sacrifice and misery, squandered all on thankless tykes. Wherever did we go wrong?”

Twilight could not remember a time she had seen the bubbly unicorn’s face this mad and sore.

“You... squares, you keep calling the changelings evil, malicious drones! Have you even looked in the mirror recently?”

Major Bodkin rose, timidly supported by Captain Malty.
“Careful, you foal. If the Princess of Friendship herself wasn’t sticking her head out for you, I’d brand you a traitor and an enemy here and now.”

“Do whatever you like! See if I care!”
First tears began to roll down her ember-red cheeks. “How can I betray Equestria if I never even want to see it again?”

Twilight could only gasp in shock. Were those really Lyra Heartstrings’ words that were coming out of that unicorn’s mouth?

“Now that’s treason talk right there!” Bodkin coughed. “I do wonder who let her out of the country in the first place. In fact, I wonder who allowed her to sign up for that changeling’s defence. She is a walking, talking disgrace for all of ponykind!”

“Oh and you?” she spat back. “You and your phony one-tenth of a horn?”

His face quickly lost all wit.

“I bet you’re just a… a... yarnspinner from the boondocks of Equestria. I bet you just lost it in a bar fight somewhere. Chrysalis didn’t even have to move a muscle.”

That hit the eight-hundred-year-old where it hurt.
“Hold me. I swear to Luna, hold me!”
He tried lunging out of his wheelchair, but the hooves of the others held him where he sat, violently thrashing around on his moving aid.
One part of him virtually tried to escape and melee the young mare right where she stood, but another part seemed concerned to stave off imminent cardiac arrest.
His own breath grew heavy. He began to cough and splutter anew.

Victoriously, Lyra looked on as the old stallion tried to regain his stamina. Then, her face moistened by a stream of angry tears, she flipped around and stormed out into the raging winter rain.

She left behind a table of three rather shaken ponies, a terrified young dragon, a glass-eyed human prosecutor still cradling her cup of coffee, and a spiky-maned pegasus whose vigilant eyes saw to that she would not return.

“What a… frightfully rude filly.” Floret Oats whimpered. She herself had been driven near tears by the exchange.

Twilight Sparkle still stood helplessly in the aisle, looking at the slowly closing door and not understanding a thing.
“Why...” she gasped.

Major Bodkin just waved her off as soon as he had summoned enough air for another bitter sentence. For just a second, the thought of giving chase and utterly routing Lyra seemed to cross his mind, as the bellicose spurring of his wheels testified.
“In the old days, we would have thrown types like her into a dark hole and sealed the lid!” he barked, before he was overcome by another coughing fit.

The herbalised air became consistently thicker with steam, and the two men who dwelled in it even more shrivelled.

“That… reliable source of yours...” Estermann slurred, sinking deeper into the sizzling hot bath.

“Hm?” the judge slurred back.

“Your reliable source. It’s Lexy Fori. Isn’t it?”

Colm savoured the relaxing bubble water enveloping him for a few more seconds before answering,
“However did you come to that conclusion?”

“Ah… so it’s true then.” he grinned knowingly, before splashing some soothing, steaming water on his own sweating face. “She’s a big talker, isn’t she?”

“Yes...”
The Irishman stretched himself luxuriously, and went for his almost finished glass. “At least she’s not much of a liar. She regularly opens herself to Suruma and me like a blossom when we’re locked in our deliberation room and things get personal.”

“Go figure. Did she ever rave on about Chrysalis since then?”

“All the time. She’s the kind of lass that needs to blow off some hot air now and then.”

“I wonder how long it’ll take her to blow herself back to Equestria.”

“Alexander...”
The judge squinted one of his eyes open. “Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that you don’t like Magistrate Fori very much.”

“Strange.” he uttered. “Neither can I.”
Submerging his head for one warming moment, he reappeared and shaking his hair dry. “I can’t wait to see that bitch hit the curb. Enough of that… that… Bauerntheater. She’s done enough damage as it is.”

“I… wouldn’t hold my breath.” the Irishman sang.

“Why not? Have you heard her performance today? If I don’t file for her recusal before pre-trial is over, someone will.”

“Let’s hope, for both our sakes, that Fori is left alone.”

“Why that? Now she even did it for all the world to see! Combine that with a… convincing testimony about statements made at the dinner table one week ago, and you have a classic case of lacking impartiality at hand. She behaved out of line.”

“Alex....” Colm grunted. “We’re behaving out of line. Right at this very fucking moment, we’re behaving out of line.”
He pointed at his old friend, “Me and you, discussing this trial, without Miss Pierman sitting the tub with us? The Registrar would flay us alive.”

“Why would they ever find that out?”
Estermann gulped. He knew Colm was right, of course, though he never did think about consequences too much.
“I thought… I thought this place here was discrete.”

“Irrelevant! If you file for a recusal, the Registry will open an investigation, and you’ll be the first person they’ll screen. And if they screen you, they’ll screen me, because the whole court knows I knew you and you knew me for the last decade and a half. In the end, all three of us will be out on our ears.”

The lawyer sunk deeper into the pool.
“Shit.” he bubbled.

“You don’t wanna lose your post, do you? And you’ll want to lose me even less. Have you ever wondered who’ll be waiting in the wings of Chamber II, should I fuck up?”

He shrugged.

“Graham fucking Foot. Hanging judge extraordinaire. He’ll make Roland Freisler look like Charlie Chaplin, let me tell you this much.”

“How bad is he?”

“Well, he’s Australian. Fancies the premiership of Victoria. And next year’s election year. He’s ‘tough on crime - tough on criminals’... and he’ll want to make an example. And, well... Chrysalis’ arse-cheeks look particularly nice this time of year.”

“Shit!”

“Yes, Alex. Brown, sticky and runny.”
He rubbed his hair dry with his hands. “But I still don’t blame Fori for any of this.”

Estermann sat up.
“Who then? Are you blaming me?”

“I could... but I’m not. I blame your Queen.”

Estermann sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Here we go again.”

“If she and her… offspring… hadn’t started this whole mess to begin with, none of us had to be here. Had they contained their damn selves...”

“Hindsight, Colm...” he smiled and nudged a little to the left, “...is a wonderful thing.”

“I mean, your changelings feed off love, supposedly. Don’t they?”

Estermann nodded, “Yes. Why are you starting this again?”

“It’s exactly what I mean.” Colm exclaimed. “Why couldn’t they just earn their love?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“What I mean is…” He sighed mildly, “Why couldn’t they just share the love?”

“Share it?”

“Mhm. If they had just loved each other a bit more… maybe… just maybe...”

The two men sat awkwardly for a few rather awkward moments.

“Uh, Colm...” Estermann floundered, “Are you alright?”

Not long after that, the portly judge’s scornful but hearty laughter echoed through the bath house. The guffaw was so spirited that almost no head in the room remained unturned.

It did not take Estermann long to catch on and join in, cackling like a hyena.
“You’ve had me worried there for a moment, my friend.”

“You should have seen your face!” Colm giggled has his tears mixed with the jacuzzi’s water.
When his risible muscles finally unwound again a little, he wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Sharing it. Right! I mean, let’s look at this rationally, shall we: This ‘love’ they’re eating seems to be some kind of life-sustaining source of energy for them, am I wrong?”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

“Now, I’m not a physicist, but according to all of those thermodynamic laws and whatnot, wouldn’t that mean that they themselves are unable to produce love in magnitudes that could sustain them?”

“Ah. Of course not...” Estermann nodded, realising what he was getting at. “I remember learning this in sixth grade… You need a larger amount of energy to create a smaller amount. They need to tap off outside creatures’ ‘love’ if they hope to survive. Sharing love does nothing.”

“They’re parasites.”

“Oh don’t use that word, Colm!”

“...In every sense.”
Colm smiled and leaned back into a more comfortable position. “I didn’t mean to burst your bubble there, Alex.”

Estermann sighed.
“What bubble?”

“I mean the love-sharing thing. You looked rather hopeful there for one second.”

“Nonsense.” he smirked. “I’m... generally trying to steer clear any conversation involving the whole thing with ‘love’ until it becomes unavoidable.”

“You must be a real ladies’ man, Alex.”

“Well,..." Estermann sighed, ignoring Colm's snark, "I try to look for constructive answers. Wondering about ‘Wouldn’t-it-be-niceties’ isn’t constructive. Either it’s in their nature and they couldn’t help it, or it isn’t and they could. The queen needs a solid exit strategy now, regardless.”

“Oho.” the judge bellowed. “Aren’t you suddenly playing a different tune.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snorted.

"You? A stone-hearted pragmatic?" Colm giggled, "Oh please!"

That took Estermann a bit off-guard.
“Honestly, I’m the most pragmatic person I know.”

“Who, you?”

“Yes, me.”

But Colm almost cracked up anew.
“Well, you’re the most idealistic person I know. I mean, you try not to look it, but...”

“Bullshit!”

“Yes. It’s true. I’ve known it since your Munich university days. You’re a proper… sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

“Oh fuck off!” Estermann protested. “You waited fifteen years to tell me that this is what you think of me?”

“It’s not criticism, Alex. Don’t get me wrong. Any good jurist needs something to believe in. Something to drive him in the right direction. We can’t all be Spock. Not even me. How do you think did I ever made it out of Belfast? By killing my way out?”

Estermann shrugged, but he still took this ‘accusation’ rather personally.
“Attorneys who get too emotionally attached to their work are doomed. First they go mad, then they ruin themselves. I do not plan on becoming one of those... wrecks.”

As he was about to reply, Colm’s eyes got caught on a sight at the end of the room.
“Speaking of… the... same...”

“Hm?”
The lawyer peeked from the cozy comfort of the water and traced the judge’s stare.

On the outside of one the panorama windows hung a wet, freezing unicorn mare, and gaped, her ailing breath tarnishing the pane.

“Oh, sh…..oot!”

“Alex...” His tone dropped a few very worried octaves. “Who is that, and why is she looking at us?”

Estermann’s head just sunk halfway into the water, caught only by his two open hands.
“Her name... is Lyra Heartstrings. She’s my Equestrian connection. You briefly met her in the Kurhaus, I think...”

“And… what is she doing standing out by the lido?”

“We shared a taxi here.”

The judge closed his eyes.
“You are fucking kidding me.”

“Not really, no...”

The judge drew a breath as he processed his anger.
“Exactly which part of our phone call did you interpret as, ‘Bring your bleeding pony secretary with you?’”

Estermann’s naked feet produced some rather amusing squishing sounds went as he hurried through the pool room to let the pony back in. He was so out of it that he didn’t even bother to put his robe back on.

Unclamping the door, the unicorn - who had, curiously, refrained entirely from drawing any kind of attention to herself as she stood out there - practically fell into the room as it swung open.

As her soaked coat grazed his bare leg, Estermann shuddered at how ice-cold it felt. He did not want to know just how long she had been persevering outside.
“Heartstrings....” he addressed her, his voice mostly unemotional. “Should I even ask?”

“P-p-please...” she breathed, her teeth rattling uncontrollably, “F-f-feel f-f-free...”
She glanced up at him to acknowledge him eye-to-eye - and all the nude her eyes came across on her way up did not evade her attention. “Oh… n-n-nice to see your r-r-real self-f for once...”

The lawyer promptly grabbed a nearby towel and quickly spun it around his mid-section.
“I told you to wait in the cafe, didn’t I?”

She said nothing. But the clattering of her teeth spoke volumes.

“Jesus Christ...” the lawyer sighed and wiped his face. “Get in the tub.”

“H-h-huh?”

“Follow me.”

The mare seemed almost entirely absent as her boss ushered her out of the room’s atrium and into the baths corner, where she wordlessly descended into the water of the pool he pointed her into.

Colm moved to the far side and carefully slid his drink and papers out of the way as he, rather blankly, watched the soaked, lengthy fur of the creature buoy in the jacuzzi’s stirring water.
“Uh, hi.”

By the time the unicorn mustered a stuttered greeting, her head was already submerged. All Colm and Estermann received were the bubbles.

“Alex… Have I mentioned this is a private club? They could kick me out for this.”

“Oh Christ, just let her thaw for a second. God knows how long she stood out there.”

The judge sighed, in time for the pony’s dripping, stringy-haired head to emerge once more.

“Better?”

She nodded, not even bothering to move her wet strands of mane out of her face.

“So...” Colm began his interrogation, “What did bring you here tonight, Miss...”

“Heartstrings.” Estermann quickly took over, “Well, Colm… there happens to be a particular circumstance that she and I still have to iron out today. Rather important.”

“Oh really? More important than what we had to discuss?”

“Something more urgent at least...”

Lyra meekly cleared her throat. It was quite sore.
“I w-withheld an important part of my life from Mister Estermann.” she explained, quite dutifully honest and suppliant.

While Estermann’s ears perked up excitedly, Colm just shrugged and gave his friend a tired look.
“Fascinating. Would you two mind discussing that a little later?”
A silencing shove from Estermann’s hand struck him. “Oi!”

“I’m afraid it cannot wait.” Lyra explained, her voice rather emotionlessly calm, “I promised to Mister Estermann that I would tell him everything before tomorrow.”

Estermann, still reeling of his surprise about the sudden pleasant turn in Lyra’s willingness, knelt down to the edge of the pool and expectantly locked eyes with the pony.
“I am listening.”

“Will you...” she whimpered slightly, “...promise that you won’t be mad? Please?”

Colm cracked a smile at Estermann, who just sighed at his secretary.
“What do you think?”

Like a fox who had been cornered, she bowed to her fate with a sniff and slowly reared her head to meet the defence counsel’s serious eyes with her own amber ones.
The were sore and pink. She had been crying.

“Mr E... ”
She hesitated. Her lip trembled.
“I’m a changeling. Mr E.”

Estermann nodded.

Rubbing his hands, he gave Colm a tired look and a weak smirk.

It was only then that he froze up, and his face slowly returned to the uni… unicorn for a second take.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”

Then, swiftly, came Colm’s turn.
His face was red from the hot steam that surrounded it, but from one moment to another, it had gone right back to ash-grey.
He mumbled something ecclesiastical - and probably very blasphemous - before hauling his portly body out of the water, clambering over the pool edge and swiftly escaping into a maze of saunas.

All that was left behind were a kneeing lawyer and an ‘Equestria' expert bobbing in the jacuzzi, trading some very long stares at each other in torpid silence.

XXI. For What It's Worth

XXI.
For What It’s Worth

The Embassy
City of Canterlot
22. November, 2015
12:17 pm ICT

“Hello?”
Ibrahim cleared his throat and nervously combed his curly hair with a finger.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”

The rather rustic landline phone he had clamped between his restless fingers mumbled something.

“Oh… hi there! Hi...”
Even though he sat perfectly still at the desk in the United Nations Field Operations Directorate, Ibrahim sounded quite out of breath.
“My name is… uh… Ibrahim Shalgham... Yes… Oh, good. How are you?”

From behind him, the bony fingers of his colleague Edith roughly seized his shoulder.

“Ahem! No, no… I am calling in the name of the UNEVEG administration, with a… query concerning the gathering of information for a very important… No… I’m calling in the name of Pierre Abel, who is the... UN... Deputy Programme Officer for Southern Equestria. No, actually, I’m not with the UN myself, sadly. I am working for the International Commission of Missing Persons, that’s I. C. M. P. in Latin letters… aha...”

“Gettothepoint!” an irate voice hissed, barely failing to stay discreet and silent.

Ibrahim nervously turned to Edith, the director Pierre, and six or seven other people eagerly prying behind them, and pressed the handset shut with his palm.
“I’m getting to it, Mister Abel!” he hissed back. “I can’t understand why you won’t do it!”
He gave Edith a glance. “Or you, for that matter.”

“Just do it, before I introduce your face to my desk!”

Ibrahim sighed, and got back on the phone.
“Hello? Are you still there? ...Good, good. ...You see, I am calling because, as you might know, the UNEVEG headquarters recently received a list from the secretary general of your department, ‘Raven’, containing - a handful of - addresses to governmental military archives… That’s right, this is an inquiry pertaining to the investigation of the ICC against Her Royal Highness, Chrysalis. Now, however, we have hit a… snag, of sorts. We were touted information concerning the existence of an Equestrian archive that’s not listed in the documents that we received, even though it might very likely contain information that may be crucial to the judicial enquiry…”

There was a pause.

“Yes, exactly. And we… we were assuming that this might be owing to a… simple misunderstanding of sorts. Perhaps the archive in question is not called an archive, or perhaps it’s not strictly a military archive, or maybe it’s not government-owned; maybe it’s a private collection. But we will need timely access regardless. The name is ‘Old Everfree Chancery’. ...Yes. ‘Old Everfree’.”

Another, white-knuckled, pause.

A frown covered Ibrahim’s face.
“Excuse me? ...Really? ...Are… are you sure?”

Edith couldn’t wait. Again, she tapped his shoulder, and began gesticulating something about hitting a button.
“Makhe it louder! Speakherphone!” she whispered

“Ehm...”
Nodding confusedly, he turned to the side and jabbed a finger on the telephone’s loudspeaker button. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”

The speakers sprang to life.
“Well, like I said: We have no entries of such a place existing, sir. We are very sorry.”

Helplessly, he turned back to Pierre and shrugged at him.

Pierre was, as usual, rather peeved. His usual frown found itself replaced by an even bigger frown. Ibrahim had never seen him without one of those frowns, and he could imagine that Pierre already slipped out of his mother’s womb bearing one.

Now, he was fiercely thrusting his finger at the phone, demanding that he turn around and try again.

“Okay… But we do know that this place did exist at some point, Madam. Was the archive maybe dissolved some time ago? Or was it relocated? Maybe it was renamed?”

“I’m really sorry, sir.”

He huffed, still feeling the UN official’s increasingly maddened glare on his back, scalding him as only a savage Saharan sun could.

“Our source stated that this archive might be found somewhere in the vicinity of an old… castle complex, apparently… called… the...”
He had to glance down on a hastily scribbled note that Edith shoved towards him. “...Castle of the Two Sisters.”

“That’s right, sir. The ‘Old Everfree’ is the ancient capital city of Equestria. But it’s been abandoned for many hundred years. It’s a ruin.”

“...All of it?”

”Sir, if there were any records left, you would of course be at liberty to to peruse them. But the place is in the middle of the Everfree Forest, so… naturally, it’s not a place to store any written records.”

“So… when were any documents actually stored there? And when were they moved?”

There was the sound of pages being turned over the speaker. The last sound was that of a paper being crumpled.

“I’m sorry, we have no further information on that.”

Again, Ibrahim peered over to the others, only to find Pierre aggressively waving a middle finger at the telephone.When he was done, he looked at Ibrahim, pointed at the phone and mimed a noose tightening around his head.

Ibrahim understood and immediately asked. “M’am… you know what repercussions withholding these documents can provoke. It can be seen as an obstruction of the court’s work. And that would be a violation of the recent UN resolution that your country has signed. Are you aware of that?”

Yet another pause.

“Well, good sir...” she finally countered, sounding more than a little more angered. “Just out of curiosity… where exactly did you obtain the name and the address of that supposed archive?”

“Uh...”
Uncertainly, he peered over to Edith, who began to wildly shake her head at him. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to name any of our sources.”

“Mister Ibrahim, just between the two of us: It cannot be a very reputable source. If I were you, I would check exactly where I get such important information from.”

“I understand.”

Pierre’s fingers frantically performed a walking motion.

“Oh, uhm… I take it that we can still proceed and inspect this ‘castle’ ourselves at some point. As a matter of protocol?”

The mare at the other end of the connection, rather unexpectedly, let out a derisive laugh.
“Heh, I don’t think I’ve made myself too clear, sir: The Castle of the Two Sisters is in the Everfree Forest. It is hideously dangerous to set hoof there. Besides...”
She harrumphed, “The entire Everfree region is currently under martial law. As you surely know, there is a major police action taking place there. It is a no-go area for civilians, foreigners and humans alike.”

“...I see.”

“Say, where exactly is Mister Pierre right now? Maybe it would be helpful if I could speak him directly.”

Pierre desperately - albeit quietly - fought off the receiver with both hands.

“Y-no, he cannot be reached at the moment.”

”Where is he?”

“Heh… don’t ask me. In the field, probably. I’m very sorry, Ma'am.”
He uttered the last part with quite a bit more satisfaction than the others would have otherwise been appropriate.

”Yes, but-”

Then he aptly hung up.

Pierre, who was all the while virtually boiling in his own, self-imposed silence, slowly let his anger back out. “Dumb bitch. Unbelievable.”

“You thinkh she lied?” Edith made sure of what had just happened.

“In our fucking faces!”
He stomped away from the desk and slung a backpack around his shoulder.
“I, for one, have heard enough. Afua, Ruman, Fabritzky, Chikere, Shalgham! You’re all coming with me.”

As the others all obediently - and not without a level of darting, fidgeting terror - jumped up and scrambled to collect their own stuff, Edith just managed to look confused.
“What? Go where?”

“Where do you think, Šarić?” he grunted. “You heard her. Not long, and the forest will be overflowing with Equestrian government troops. I want to get a good look at the records there before someone uses the hassle to throw a torch through the window or something.”

“Does… the facht that she said there’s nothingh there mean anythingh to you?”

“You believe that shit?” he spat, his eyes wide with ridicule. “Nobody who knows nothing talks like that! She has been instructed to deny the existence of that archive. I mean… you’ve seen that footnote, have you not?”

She shrugged.
“Of chourse I have. Though for all we know, there might not even be anything of interest in there.”

“That’s irrelevant! I’d rather waste a handful of working hours to trace a possible case of, y’know, wrongfully omitted information than ten years regretting that I didn’t. A whole court investigation is on the line here!”

The others began herding out the narrow door.

“So… what about me then, Pierre?”

“What about you?”

She coughed and paused.
“Maybe I want to come with.”

He scoffed and zipped up his pearly white jacket. Then he spun, around, reaching out with two fingers and flicking them against her breastbone.
A dull metallic thud rang out.
“Maybe you can go fuck yourself. Get rid of your dog tag first.”

“Will you stop with your constant bullshit already?” she shot back, stumbling after him, her face flaming up in ever-so rare rage.

“What bullshit?” He growled. “You’ve sold this organisation out once already. Like I will let you anywhere our equipment again!”
Then he slapped his fur cap on his head and stepped out of the office.

But Edith went right after him.
“I thought I was the one who just provided you proof about falsified dochuments.”

“And well done you!” he spat. “Now skip along. Haven’t you heard the bell? Master’s going to feed you soon.”

“Pierre!”

The others stopped in their tracks.
Never had that woman raised her voice to this level.
“What, Edith?”

“Let me askh you...” she breathed. “How many times were you stopped and searched the last time you drove out into Everfree? Two times? Three times? Four?”

He only shot her a hate-filled glare.

“I chould run backh to ‘my master’ right know and turn that into a solid ten. It'll be Easter by the the time you reach that chastle!”

Pierre gritted his teeth. He evidently wanted to laugh out loud, to suck the seriousness out of her blatant threat, but any semblance of humour got stuck in his throat as he looked over her deadpan face once more.
“You would do that? Really?”

“Sometimes you seem to thinkh I am doingh all this for shits and ghigghles.”

“What the hell do you want, Šarić?”

She didn’t answer. She just stuffed a hand down her pullover and yanked her gorget out.
“If you let me chome with you… I will makhe sure that no one touches us.”

He just looked at Šarić, his gaze went from her head to her toes. And she just looked back at him impassively.

Even tired bitches can bite, he thought to himself. And hopefully, her teeth would end up nowhere near his behind.

The bells tolled noon in the Equestrian capital.

Another layer of light fluffy snow descended on the cobblestone of the parade streets in the vast medieval courtyard of the royal residence, and many dignitaries, nobles, servants, guards, but also plenty of frolicking subjects and their children wandered about, marvelling at yet another nigh-perfect winter day the weather pegasi had scheduled.

Pierre’s humans marched out of the Embassy in a pack, rushing down the grand staircase to the broad avenue that served as an ad-hoc car park for a good dozen white jeeps and trucks that the UN headquarters had imported to travel the country.

Pierre looked over his team while they stood gawking at the assorted goings on. He cursed under his breath before shouting orders to get things going,
“Chikere! Shalgham! Ruman! You take the equipment car. Don’t forget the scanner and a portable crime lab. Fabritzky and Afua! You take the box wagon with the cover and the loading ramp. There may be a lot of documents to sift through today. Šarić and I will take my jeep.”
Climbing into his car, he poked his head out once more. “We drive out as a convoy, so nobody fall behind! Also, do not raise any unnecessary attention! We’re not begging to get roadblocked.”

Ibrahim was still nervous, however.
“Mister Abel, but… what about what the secretary said? She warned us that the Everfree is a no-go zone. What if they’ll hold it against us later on?”

“Us?” Pierre asked back. “I didn’t get to speak with that secretary, remember? I know nothing! Remember that. Nothing.”

Ibrahim nodded, gulped, and then climbed into the back of the equipment truck.

Pierre and Edith strapped on their seatbelts, but both seemed a little bashful about, as if the two of them were forced to share a changing cubicle. At least Pierre hoped that this is how both felt; Edith looked, as always, rather stonefaced.

They led the convoy roaring through the castle grounds and out the lowered drawbridge over the river moat.
As they made their way down the hill and through the different consecutive tiers of the Equestrian capital - first the academic district with the colleges and museums, then the mercantile district with the malls and market squares, then the cultural district with the theatres and galleries, and finally the residential districts, with the ivory towers and lofty palaces - Pierre beeped and sirened the hapless ponies off the street, and after ten minutes of mostly silent traveling, the convoy exited the walled city and found itself on the highway leading down the mountainside and into the Everfree Valley.

As soon as there were no more obstacles, other than the odd coach or haycart passing either side of them, Edith and Pierre - almost simultaneously - let out exasperated sighs.

“Why did you do it?” he began with a weary voice

“...Do what?”

“Suck up to the Equestrian crown.”

She said nothing, instead looking out of the window.

“Was this… part of your plan all along?” he sighed. “Just… flip-flopping and riding coat-tails as the wind blows? Today UN, tomorrow Equestria...”

“I didn’t have a plan,” she explained, her face as blank as it was unmoved by his accusations. “I was thinkhing on my feet.”

“Ah, so that’s what you call it...” Pierre nodded. “You’ve got balls, Šarić. Lady-balls...”

“I just don’t likhe beingh ordered around. That is all.”

“So that’s why,” he groaned sarcastically. “Obviously, that’s a good reason. I mean, hey, I don’t like taking orders either. So what kept me from quitting the UN in the last twenty fucking years?”
He shook his head.
“All the shit you’re pulling here is... a whole lot of hassle for one cadaver. Don’t you think?”

“What?”

“I mean that pony you’ve been getting your nipples in a twist searching for. Whatshername… Junebug? This is what is was all about, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. But she hesitated.

“Whatever happened to that hair sample I bestowed back to you last week?”

“In my drawer. Under lockh and khey.”

“You mean, you haven’t had it analysed yet?”

Hesitantly, she shook her head.

He gave her an inquisitive glare.
“You’re... you are still looking for her, right?”

“Sure I am.”

“You better fucking be! You just threw out your entire damn career over a dead horse. Good luck ever finding work with an IGO again after this adventure.”

“We don’t know whether she’s dead, Pierre.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of optimism from a coroner.”

“...Chall it intuition.”

Again, Pierre bemoaned the entire situation.
“I still don’t get why you did it. Why? You had zero field experience. You had one job. What on earth induced you to try and break out of the morgues in the first place?”

“I don’t know.” she croaked. “Maybe I wanted to chonfirm to myself I’m still alive.”

Pierre scrutinised her numb expression. “Right. Easy mistake to make.”
He sniffed and groomed the fiery red hair above his lips. “So… how does it feel being alive now? Under the collar of… you know… the Queen of fucking Sheba?”

Another shrug.
“I… I sleep in a thirty sqhuare-metre bedroom now.”

Pierre’s eyes widened considerably.

“What? My UN apartment plan was chancelled days agho. Where was I supposed to gho? A youth hostel?”

Suddenly, out of the blue, they were interrupted by soft guitar plucks and rhythmic tapping filling the jeep.

Confused, Edith glanced around, trying to locate the source.
“Did… do they have radio in Eqhuestria?”

“Ah, shit...” Pierre moaned. “That’s my phone. It’s in my backpack. Behind your seat.”

Edith huffed as she twisted and contorted to try and reach the music-spewing machine.

“Leave it! It’s probably the ponies, trying to see what the hell I’m up to. Let them ring ‘till they drop.”

Hesitantly, she obeyed, and directed her attention back onto the road.

Behind her, a voice began to sing.
“Something’s happening here...”

It sounded familiar.

”But what is is, ain’t exactly clear...”

From her left, she heard the tapping of Pierre’s gloved fingers reverberating against the steering wheel, followed by a gravelly voice chanting,
“There’s a man with a gun over there… telling me I’ve got to be beware...”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” he confirmed absent-mindedly.

She looked forward. In the not-too-far distance, she could a solitary Royal Guard sentry, a unicorn standing at a crossroad, toting his spear like a traffic baton.

Slow waves signalled the convoy to slow down. And Pierre did slow down, though reluctantly.

After the soldier had gotten a good look at the three cars and their passengers, he nodded and waved them through with his weapon - the speed of his wavings signalling that they shouldn’t slow down any more, at least until they had reached the next sentry.

“Told you.”

All the while, the phone dispensed more and more sung words.
“I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!”

A flying squadron of golden-shimmering pegasi passed the highway from above, locked in a V-formation not unlike a flock of geese, before pulling left in the direction of a grove of trees in the distance.

“There's battle lines being drawn… Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong...”

Soon, they were passing the first provincial granges and homesteads lining up by the sides of the road.
They were far less populated than they had been just the week prior.
No longer did Edith see any young foals and itchy-hooved wanderers skip by, playing and dancing in the winter wonderland without a care in the world.
The hamlet and its outskirts were deserted and completely forsaken. Shutters had been closed and blinds had been lowered. Shop windows were grated – one had even been nailed shut in a hurry.
Public information posters plastered the walls facing out towards the road.

The investigators soon found themselves rolling through a sleepy rural townlet. In the centre of a large public square was a large pavilion-like building, probably a city hall or courthouse, one of the few truly sizeable structures of this hick town.

The main road lead straight through the town from end to end, cutting the town in half like an anthill with a spade.
Edith noticed how the road, while obviously unspoiled by typically thick trails of car tyres, was completely blotched with thousands of hoofprints that all headed out of town, as though a Mongol horde had just stampeded through.

More than that, though, Edith was too preoccupied with the still singing phone.
“They’re lettingh it ringh a rather longh time. Are you sure we shouldn’t answer it?”

“What, don’t you like the music?” he answered, perhaps a little angrily.

So it sang on. Something about people in the streets, something about paranoia, and ending every time with the ever-persistent, ever-ominous, “Stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going round...”.

Again, she concentrated hard on the trampled road that seemed to curve and wind around market stalls, promenade trees and half-timbered manors for eternities.

The moment the investigators drove past the town centre, the relative quiet was suddenly gone though.

They found it crowded with all sorts of ponies, gearing up in armour and marching up and down between the banks of a small stream and a boutique, in what seemed to be some sort of mangled drill formation.
Commanding voices echoed in-between the reed cottages, rallying the mobilising townsfolk with bullhorns and separating them into smaller groups.

Some were busy packing their most-needed belongings onto handcarts and their own backs. Some were already pushing them towards the train station as fast as they could, as to get a seat on the last few trains running out of the town. Others made ready to depart on their journey the only way that was left to them - by hoof. Fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers, sons and daughters alike were busy with their own arduous loads.

And yet others weren’t as much busy with escaping as they were busy equipping themselves with dented surplus helmets and rusty back-plates, picking them out of big reed baskets that were loaded off a transport wagon at the train station on the edge of town by a couple of stern-looking pegasus officers. Another one sat on a desk in the square, a pencil in his mouth and a list in front of him, serving a growing queue of ponies.

Despite, or perhaps because of the racket, it was apparent even to a human that most of the assembled equines weren’t fighters. Many were gangly or pudgy, young or old, mares or foals. Those who already wore their armour found it to be ill-fitting, giving off a pathetic image.
Pierre slitted his eyes in contempt. He immediately knew what was going on.

“Militias. The countryside’s gearing up.”

Troubled, Edith looked at the tumult with growing concern.
“Where… where are we, anyway?”

“I don’t know, but I have a map in my glovebox.”

Automatically, Edith went for the small compartment just above her knees, but Pierre stopped her.
“Actually, don’t bother. If my sense of direction isn’t screwed, we’re passing through ‘Ponyville’ right now. The administrative centre of Everfree County. Which we must be pretty close to the castle.”

Passing on their left, a small family was being held up and interrogated by a platoon of soldiers they had bumped into on their way south. One of the unicorns was performing some sort of magic as the others looked on, intrigued by the display of some blueish magical shimmering. But before either of the humans could take a closer look at what was happening, they had already rolled past.

“Wow.” Pierre grunted. “It’s at moments like these that I think back to your… source. Who exactly was it that handed you the paper back then? A Royal Guard?”

Golden Dirk?

“You’re startingh to qhuestion this way too late...” she just sniffed.

“He… he was trustworthy, yeah?”

“Well, he is an archives ghuard in Chanterlot. Mentioned somethingh about large movements of archive material and he… bechame suspicious.”

“Well, what I’m trying to find out is whether he’s safe.”

That, Edith hadn’t considered too much until now.

“I mean, technically, this guy might have betrayed state secrets here. That’s worth at least a lengthy prison sentence where I come from.”

“He was fine when I last saw him...” she lied. She honestly couldn’t see him slipping into any more trouble, though.

It didn’t take long until the number of idle soldiers by the roadside thickened.
Before they could exit Ponyville by way of a little wood bridge traversing the slickly frozen-over and snow-covered stream, a sentry suddenly hobbled onto the road in front of them, clumsily balancing a spear in one hoof.

“Dammit!” Pierre uttered under his breath. “We’ve almost made it through, too!”
Yanking the jeep’s radio out of its holder, he transmitted news of the hindrance to the two tailing cars.
“Watch out, guys. Road block ahead. Slow down, but leave your windows rolled up and doors shut. I’ll take it from here.”

Edith instinctively clutched the gorget under her turtleneck jumper.

“Time to do your magic, Šarić.” he told her. “Let’s see what your dog tag’s actually worth.”

The lone pony sentry began to yell.
“Halt! Halt! In the name of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, halt!”

Nervously gritting his teeth, he carefully put the brakes on.
“Real shame we can’t just plough right through them, eh?”

“Let's… try not to.”

The three cars came to a gradual stop. Within an a short moment, they were surrounded by a posse of half a dozen guardsponies, and the hassle was crowned by spear-point tapping against Pierre’s driver window, indicating that they wanted him to scroll it down.

With an uncomfortable groan, Pierre complied.

As the coldness and sounds of turmoil penetrated the cab, a small mare climbed up to the window and attached herself to the frame.
“Halt!” she said, toning her high-pitched voice as low as possible. “Who goes there? State your fricking business!”

“UNEVEG.” he indicated, quite irked.

“Say what now?” the pony puckered dumbly, scrutinising him from under her salad-bowl of a helmet. “Una-what?”

“United Nations!” Pierre clarified and banged against the white outer door, where the abbreviation was stamped on in plain black block letters. “Can’t you read?”

“I don’t know what it says.”

“That's a U, and that's an N.! Let us through.”

“State your business and everything first, 'kay?” She repeated ignorantly. “It’s the law and stuff!”

“You state yours.” Pierre shot back, clearly unimpressed. “What is this circus here?”

“You seriously didn't hear what they found in the woods last week? The Royal Guard’s, like, deputising all willing Ponyvillians now.”

“Really? When were you deputised?”

“Yesterday morning!” she answered with her chestplate swelling out of sheer pride. “And today, we’re gonna search the Everfree and smoke them changelings out. They won’t have no Queens to save them now!”

Edith almost jumped up at the mention. She clambered over to the drivers’ side and asked, “Have you found any Changelings?”

“Nah, not yet.” The mare explained, “But we’re darn sure they’re somewhere in the forest. Maybe even here in Ponyville. They could be anypony, you know.”

“Do tell.” Pierre snarked.

She gave him a suspicious glance. “Even you. Can you prove you are who you are?”

He just shrugged.
“Don’t know. Can you? You look suspicious as hell.”

The mare ballooned her lips, almost inflating with rage over that statement.
“Like… what… I’m, a loyal subject of the Princesses! And I don’t need to be questioned on that by two... balding monkeys curving around in the middle of nowhere!”

Pierre gritted his teeth at the slanderous language, but before he could surrender to the rage, he switched to a sneer. He looked over to his partner.
“See, Edith? Some things really do stay the same wherever you go. You give someone a helmet and a pointy stick, and they turn into an aspiring Nazi within a day.”

The pony gasped. “I… I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, but that sure sounded really suspicious for monkey talk.”
Threateningly, she leaned in. “I think I should be booking you two guys. How about that?”

“We’re here on official business. You lay a finger on us and I’ll have a remotion shoved up your ass. Got it?”

Edith speedily interrupted her rude colleague.
“We are part of the official investigation on the victims of the Changeling terror. We have the authorisation of the Crown.”

“Well... I know nothing of that.”

“And how could you?” Pierre mocked her, “You’ve been the Sheriff of Daisy Town for the last ten minutes. One call to Canterlot, and it’s going to be twenty.”

“You want to take this attitude with me, human? You wanna threaten me?” Still hanging onto the doorframe, she presented her spear.
“As a defender of Equestria and harmony and all the good things in life, I order you to get out of your cart!”

“Oh fuck off, kid.” Pierre hissed defiantly.

“What’s all this'n!” a fourth voice suddenly bellowed out.

The militia sentry squawked as she suddenly found herself getting pulled down from the window by somepony's powerful magical force.
As soon as her muzzle was gone, it was replaced by a corpulent unicorn senior’s face and a maltreated mane sitting on a plated torso.
“What’s going on here, Flitter…”
The massive stallion’s eyes grew when he saw the passengers. “Oh Celestia, oh jeesh, it's you?!”

The investigators looked around unsurely, trying to decipher his surprise.
“Uhm… who?” Edith asked.

“And ya can talk, too? Yeah, you’re that human… the one, ya know, who led us into the Everfree with Lieutenant Fit. You remember me? I lit the way. Sergeant Cabasset, at your service!”

Now Edith remembered somewhat faintly. He had been part of her escort. The missing tuft of mane hair from his head marked his involvement in the scuffle in the caverns.

“Yah, how’s your mouth?” he asked and pointed at the bandages under her chin.

“It’s… okhay, achtually.”

“So I can hear.” He commented absently. “How’s the Lieutenant doing?”

Iffily, Edith pouted.
“I… uh… heard he got promoted.”

“Great. Ya betcha he earned it.”
As if he remembered doing something important, he assumed a more formal stance. “Would you mind looking over to me while I do a little scan?”

Immediately, Pierre jumped up to deny him that.
“No, I refuse. This vehicles has diplomatic-”

But before either he or Edith could do a thing about it, Cabasset’s horn began to pulse mildly in a subtle yellowish light.
The two humans gave a jerk when a mild but involuntary goosebump sensation spread across them, beginning at the tips of their fingers before travelling upward to their faces.

“What on God’s green earth...” Pierre uttered and inspected his own shivering hand.

A short moment later, the odd sensations were gone.

“There. All done.” the sergeant declared and give an innocent smile. “So, what business are you back here for?”

“We’re... following another lead.” She explained politely, still bewildered by the strange procedure they had just undergone.

“Need an escort?” he proposed. “With so many volunteers, I could spare a whole dozen to take with.”

Before she could kindly refuse his offer, he warned her with a hoof. “Y’see, technically, we’ve put the whole countryside on lockdown. Ya probably heard it; we’re going to comb the Everfree Forest and finally trap’em dirty-”

“Yes, your… cholleaghue just told us.”

“So yah. Technically speaking, I can’t let you go any further than this bridge.”

Pierre was quick to object.
“Put a sock on it, GI Joe! The Princesses allowed it. Edith! Tell him.”

She swiftly unpacked her gorget and held it in his face.

“Oh… wowsers.” the unicorn cut her off with a smile. “But whatever. Anything for ya, hun. If you’re as clever in locating the changelings’ hideouts as the other day, I really should let ya follow your nose.” He followed up quickly, “But, yah, where were ya going, anyway?”

“The old royal-” Edith began, before a forceful nudge from Pierre shut her up.

“The historical highway.” he lied. “You know, the one leading from here to that ancient castle somewhere.”

“Oh...” the unicorn nodded. “Oh yah, sure. But… just saying, it’s pretty overgrown. You won’t get far in this coach of yours.”

“Whatever. We only need to take a few pictures and make a topographical assessment. Along that route, there might have been a changeling encounter there a few dozen years ago that needs further looking into.”

The officer couldn’t hide his confusion. “Mhm...”

Pierre made ready to jump out and strangle the life out of the stallion, but Cabasset just shrugged and went along with his statement.

“Ya gonna be there… long?”

“Fifteen minutes. If all goes smoothly.” he lied, again.

“Ah, what the hay.”
He magically lifted the helmet off his head and demonstratively let it float slightly left of the direction they were due to go.
“The quickest way will probably be two leaps down the lane, then heading left down the Broken Crop Road, straight into the woods. But…” he warned, “It’s gonna be mighty dangerous. Stay on the road, and turn around at the first smell of danger. Me and the Ponyville posse will probably be right behind ya, anyway.”

“I appreciate it.” Edith thanked.

“Great.” Pierre snarked. “Can we move now?”

Cabasset wasn’t so easy to shake off the door, tough. “Darn tootin'! One more thing, hun. I heard reports of a flying stallion passing over Ponyville just a couple of minutes ago. Wasn’t one of my guys, and he was heading in your direction into the woods. So… you be warned. It could always be one of them. If you find any changelings, get word back to us immediately.”

That reminded Pierre...
“Likewise, Sergeant. Remember, we’re looking for changelings as well. Live ones, mind you. If you find any, please give me or my associates a call. Any changeling would be invaluable for the trial.”

“Ah, so ya still bent on catching and caging ‘em?” he chuckled, “Ya betcha, I promise I’ll save one for you… at least after we’re done with 'im.”

The UN official was not amused at all.
“You touch any of them, and I’ll rip out the rest of your hair. One by one. Yah?”

The sergeant’s light-hearted expression deflated.
“Yah, hun. Whatever.”

Nodding at Edith, the fat unicorn climbed back down and ordered the militia ponies to make way for the car.

“Oh, and say ‘hiya’ to the Lieutenant in Canterlot for me!”

Honking, the Land Rover sped off, over the bridge and off into the abandoned southern outskirts of the town. An equipment truck and a lorry roared right after them.

“Top. Notch. Diplomacy.” Pierre coughed and kicked the gas. “We should be happy he knew your ass. Or else we’d still be standing there.”

“You chan thankh me later.”

It became soon clear to everyone that they were moving further away from any semblance of civilisation with every passing kilometre, as houses and paved roads slowly but surely faded utterly out of existence.
Edith recognised the now slightly familiar sight of the sky darkening ominously under the tree tops of the mighty Everfree Forest.

The snow on the road became less and less controllable too. Obviously, no plough had made it this far into that forest this side of the century. The UN’s cars were sturdily built and military-grade, but even they were reaching their limits of maneuverability. The quickly fading daylight didn’t help at all.

But Pierre had plans quite different from slowing down. The car slid and slithered across the road at every small curve, but that didn't seem to curb his enthusiasm.

“Chould you… takhe it down a notch?” Edith carefully asked.

“I spent five years growing up in Twillingate on Notre Dame Bay. I got this.”

She probingly looked out the back hatch, making sure whether the two other cars could even keep up.
“Are we in a hurry?”

“You tell me. If we don't find the damn castle quickly enough, half of Ponyville’s going to descend on us.”

She cleared her throat.
“Once we’re in that chastle... What then?”

“What do you mean, ‘what then?’” he asked back sarcastically. “First, we’ll look for that ‘chancery’, or for any left-over records. Should we find something, we impound as much as we can carry, and deal with the rest in the embassy.”

“And how will we know which bookhs to impound?”

There, he looked clueless.

“Chan you read Equesthrian? Because I sure don't.”

She could virtually see her words braking Pierre’s thoughts in their tracks
“We’ll find someone who can. Eventually.”

“But you didn’t thinkh of bringing one now? And here?”

“Well, I was planning to confiscate the documents, not try figuring them out on location.”

“You want to impound a whole archive?”

“If we need to. We’ve got a box van.”

She huffed tiredly.
“And if we don’t have the time to load all the files?”

“Then we will make time!” he snapped. “And if I have to take it all the way up to New York, then by God, so I will! It’s about time I get to kick the Equines where it hurts. This archive is ours!”

Edith continued scanning him.
“You just chouldn’t find a pony translator to chome along, chould you?”

He only chewed his lips and said nothing at first. Then he shook his head.
“For a full-scale, full-day archives comb-out with just ten hours heads-up? No way. Last time, I needed six weeks for four fucking hours. But not this time.”

Her look was unrelentingly critical.

But he was not about to take her criticism. Especially not from her.
“Look.” he spat. “ Let's discuss this when we’re there, okay? Right now, we need to make sure we don't miss the left-turn.”

“I'm looking.” she sighed. “Just don’t expect an interpreter to fall from the skhy when we need one.”

Awkwardly, he scratched the side of his eyebrow and eyed the panorama of Ponyville in his rear mirror as it slowly faded into a swathe of fog in the distance.
“But, Jesus… I mean… you saw Ponyville just now, didn’t you?”

“Huh? Yeah… sure. What about it?”

“The people there… gathering… standing in line to pick up their cudgels for the slaughter...”
He shrugged and smiled melancholically.
“It’s just what I meant. Exactly what I was talking about.” Pierre continued mournfully. “I have a theory...”

“Which one?”

“The theory… that at a certain point of time… at some stage… all war zones just start looking alike. All over the world... and every world. That they become completely interchangeable.”

Absent-mindedly, she nodded.
“Maybe. Ever been to a war zone?”

“You mean, not counting the one we’re driving through?” he smirked. “Yeah. But only one. Which is enough to contrast and compare.”
He smacked his lips, and his eyes scanned the hands that sat on the wheel.
“Where do you come from again? Slovenia, wasn’t it?”

“Uh, Bosnia.” she corrected him, her voice reserved.

“Ah. Oh jeez...” he breathed, as though he just came to a realisation. “I could have guessed.”

“What?”

“You’re the right age. Thirty-... five or so?” he mused, giving her a sideways glance every few moments. “You’re the lost generation.”

“What are you talkhing about?”

“Your war.” he finally sighed. “I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you. Bosnia, April 1992 to December 1995.”

A shudder ran down her spine.

“You must have been… about ten years old when the shooting started. Right?”

“Yeah.” she confirmed, her eyes firmly fixed on the passing landscape. “So?”

“I don’t know… Did you get to see a lot of the fighting?”

She sat still. But ultimately, she shook her head.
“I ghrew up in the North. Near Prijedor. That was… far far away from the battles...”

“Really?”
His voice betrayed that he didn’t quite buy it.

“You haven’t been to Bosnia, have you?”

He shook his head.
“No, just... Rwanda. But quite a few guys I know were in Bosnia under UNPROFOR. Said they had the time of their fucking lives over there.”

“Why are we talkhingh about Bosnia now?” Edith finally inquired. She had a very apparent annoyed tinge in her raspy voice.

Now Pierre shrugged.
“I just wondered. You look like something’s rustled your timber here.” Pierre mumbled weakly, closely watching the depressing scenery.

“Rubbish. It lookhs nothingh likhe Bosnia.”

Suddenly, she spotted the broad main road branching off into another path that led left, plunging straight into the Everfree Forest. It was the long expected turn.

“Oh! That’s where we have to gho." she said, combing her frizzled strand of hair out of her face and pointing him left, "Brokhen Chrop Road, stay on-”

Before she could finish her sentence, something completely different caught her attention - standing on the road just before the junction.

“Stop! Watch out!”

Pierre gasped. With incredible presence of mind, he slammed the brake. The wheels locked. But the car did not slow. Merrily, it slid over the snow, propelled forward by its own momentum.

The pony whizzed into the hood so abruptly, that neither Edith nor Pierre had time to brace, much less navigate out of the creature's way. There was a deafening clank as the equine's golden armour collided with the grille and it was thrust forward, its helmet flying off and bouncing off into the roadside ditch snow.

That broke the car’s advance more than everything else.

Pierre squeezed the brakes so hard that he and his driver would have been slammed into the windscreen, had they not been strapped into their seats. Once again, the jeep slid its way into stoppage, leaving both passengers sitting in shock, trying to gather their wits back up.

Both stared at the grey pony guard they had just ploughed into. Motionless, he lay in the deep snow, still weighted by the golden armour which now bore a massive, vaguely headlight-shaped indent.

Shaking with shock, she mouthed, "I.... told you... to slow fuckhing down. "

"I didn't see him!" he defended himself, equally suspended in the horror of the moment. "He just... he... he was there all of a sudden! I didn't see him coming!"
He regained his breath. "You pointed me to the fucking left, Edith!"

"You just ran over a soldier." she established. "A soldier. Inside the lockhdown zone.”

"I honestly didn't fucking..." he stammered, pulling his fur cap further over his head. "He... like a moose… Where was my ABS?"

Some time later, both of them remembered that they should perhaps come to the military stallion's aid.
Both swung their doors open and plunged into the deep snow.

“What was that?” an anxious young voice shouted behind them, “Everything okay over there?”

Frantically, Pierre pointed a gloved finger at Ibrahim, who was in the process of climbing out of the tool wagon. “Get back in the car, Shalgham! Wait in the fucking car!”

Edith, meanwhile, was already on her way to the felled creature, running around the bonnet and almost dropping into the snow as the icy ground and her own head trauma tried to rob her of her foothold.

She fell on her knees next to the motionless form, which belonged to was a fairly ordinary unicorn stallion with a white mane, without many discernable features. He didn't stand out from any of the rest in any notable ways.

Pierre soon arrived next to her. "That was not supposed to happen." he commented nervously. “His friends will flay us alive... Hang on... he still has his armour. Maybe it wasn't that bad."

He grasped the unicorn’s head and tried to get his attention. "Hey… hey… can you hear me? Hey! Can you see me? If you can hear me, give a sign."

After a few seconds of incessant asking, the pony still refused to budge.

Pierre stuck his hand under the pony’s chin, trying to feel his pulse.
"Jesus Christ, I cannot even find the fucking vein. I'm not a vet!"

Sighing, he turned to his pathologist colleague, scratching his hands in defeat.
"I think... I think... this is your forte."

Fearfully, she positioned his limp body so they could lift him.
"What do you think?" she inquired, "Should we load him up and drive him back to the checkpoint?"

"Well, it'll be better if they bury him instead of us!"

"No!" a hoarse voice wheezed.

Suddenly, to the joy of everyone, the pony began to twitch and spasm unexpectedly.
Flinching with all four legs and nervously twisting his head around, the creature let out a dazed moan.
"Well... that... that punched me... straight outta my horsheshoes..."

"Oh Ghod..." Edith could only breathe as the stallion instantly began showing more signs of life.

"Where am I..."

"In the road." Pierre breathed. "You don't have much traffic around here, now do you?"

"Nope..." the guard grunted, trying to raise his snout out of the snow. "Ow, my legs."

Edith forced him back down immediately.
"Don't move! You've suffered a massive trauma. You don't want to makhe it worse."

The unicorn directed his eyes on her. A single tear moistened his brow.
"Trauma shmauma. Nothing can hold down this colt for long!"
Shaking some mane hair out of his face, he looked up at his 'rescuers'."You... uh... still remember me, do you?"

Edith held her breath.

It couldn’t be.

“We met just yesterday, in… in the barracks courtyard...”

It was the very same Sergeant Golden Dirk laying in front of her.

Flabbergasted, Pierre turned to his colleague.
“Who… is that?”

Edith needed a moment of consideration before she could bring herself to answer.
“My source. This is my source.”

“Sergeant Golden Dirk, two, two, seven, niner, three, eight, one, reporting for duty!”
He tried to salute, but his foreleg snapped back with a very unhealthy-sounding clicking noise. “I take it you're from the United Nations...” he addressed the official.

“What… what the hell was your informant doing running in front of my hood?” Pierre asked Edith.

She shrugged, before turning back to the sergeant.
“I… I thought you would be backh in Chanterlot. You were suspended..”

He nodded, before flinching from a spasm of pain in his spine.
“There was… a change in plans. I ran out of time… I… didn’t know what to do...”

She couldn’t make sense of what he meant, but she could only afford to waste a thought on it later on.
“Right now, he needs urgent medichal treatment. Gho and see if we have a stretcher laying around somewhere.”

Pierre huffed, before getting back on his feet and turning to the other cars.
“The Ponyville hospial is only a few khilometres behind us. If we could run that road block quickly enough we could be back there in ten minutes.”

“No!” came Dirk’s sudden protest. Helplessly, he clambered closer to the humans with a weary hoof. “Don’t take me to Ponyville. Don’t take me back there. That boat has sailed!”

Edith edged closer immediately. “What happened?”

He gasped for air before continuing, “I’ve counted my options. I’ve reached the point of no return. Time to take the bull by the horns.”

“Jesus H. Christ, talk sense!” Pierre adamantly yelled down at him. “Do you want to go to hospital or not? What’s going on?”

The guardspony reached out for the human’s pearly white jacket, though he couldn’t quite manage to reach it.
“You’re from the United Nations... I have read all your brochures. You... guys..." he stammered, "are supposed to be neutral, right? That's what it said on the flyers. ‘Neutral’ like in… 'not passing judgement'?”

Pierre nodded, though very sceptically, and kneeled down to him. Here, the bureaucrat could take to the query like a duck to water.
“Yes. Yes, UNEVEG is an observing force. We are meant to ease Equestria’s integration into the human sphere. We observe and we instruct, but… we are neutral in political matters. Why?”

“Do you protect?”

“Well… yeah. If at all possible.”

"Thank Celestia…" he breathed, and cleared his throat in a very official manner, wincing in pain.
"Because… because now, I seem to have come to the point where... I wish to formally invoke your protection... and file for political asylum within your organisation."

“Excuse me?”

A moment of awkward silence ensued.

“I want protection. I need protection. Now more than ever!”

“Protection from what?” Pierre inquired in momentary dumbfoundedness.

Now came Edith’s turn to cockily throw the question back at him.
“What do you thinkh, Pierre?”

Concedingly, Pierre nodded and stroked his beard in thought.
“So you actually want to invoke political asylum? You know that we can’t really...”

“W-what?”

“Well...” He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Don’t get me wrong, we can everything we can to aid you with it, but you must apply in front of one of the individual states, not the UN itself.”

“So… I… okay. Okay.” his breaths became even more frantic. “Which state is the best? Which one’s is the closest at the moment?”

Edith shrugged.
“Australia? Indonesia? Or those tiny French islands?”

“Yes! Yes. Okay. I need to go to asylum somewhere there. It just has to be quick.”

“You will need to gho to the embassy to do that, though.”

“Argh.”
He pinched his eyes closed in frustration, and covered them with his hooves.
“Me... idiot! You mean the embassy by the Castle Bridge? I was even there three hours ago!”

“Why didn’t you gho inside?”

“I was scared they wouldn’t let me! Not as a soldier of Equestria. I knew I needed to find you first. You were the one who believed me, but...”

“But what?”

“I missed you by, like, five seconds! By the time I could make my way out of the castle down to the embassy, I just arrived in time to eat your dust. I knew where you were going, of course! So I raced after you.”

“For three whole hours?” came Pierre’s immediate sceptical enquiry.

“No, I was here sooner. I knew nopony would see us if we met here, so I stayed right here, by the junction, for almost forty-five minutes, waiting for you to drive up.”

Both Edith and Pierre gave their three cars some very quizzical glances.
Pierre had been driving a good portion of the way like a madman.
How on earth could this unicorn manage a hundred kilometres of relatively rough terrain in three hours and then even overtake them?

“Did you… takhe the train?”

He shook his head.
“Too dangerous. They check the compartments now.”

Now Pierre was playing with his jacket’s collar out of sheer unease.
“I’m not going to ask you again. How did you get here?”

Golden Dirk let out a weak, though subtle smile.
"I flew!"

Both of the human investigators were suddenly very eager to ask the wounded unicorn what that was supposed to mean.

But before they could, a pulse ripped through his body and his hoof. Then another.
Edith could swear that, as she was holding onto his limb, that it didn't come from inside. No, she could practically see that the skin itself was pulsing, moulding, transforming.

She was so shocked that she couldn’t let go of him fast enough before his entire form was engulfed in a cold, green flame-like burst of raw energy, which blinded both her and her Canadian partner.
Terrified, Pierre stumbled away from the unicorn, his heart racing with adrenaline, overwrought by the invasive display on his senses

As soon as the two managed to rub the light out of their eyes and mind the stallion once more, they found that the pony himself wasn’t there anymore.

Instead, in its place, there sat a large bug-like creature, still clad in the dented breast armour, still drooping in the snow from the collision, still almost void of all strength. Two tattered wings were poking out from under it.

Weakly, its large, pupil-less blue eyes turned towards the horrified humans.
“Please help me.” a distorted, pulsating voice begged weakly.

Author's Note

You get a changeling! You get a changeling!

Everyone gets a changeling!

XXII. A Bridge Too Far

XXII
A Bridge Too Far

Broken Crop Road
Everfree County, Equestria
22. November, 2015
16:48 pm ICT

The back hatch of the jeep was pulled down with a thump. Then, the changeling on the stretcher was heaved into the boot like a sack of vegetables.
As soon as Edith had climbed on after him and dropped a hastily lowered blanket over its injured form, the motor once more sprang to life and gave a do-and-dare roar.

However, the car itself did not go anywhere - neither forth or back.

Anxiously scratching the unkempt hair under his ushanka, Pierre leaned over to give the creature, and particularly its ad-hoc nurse Edith, a clueless look.
“So… where are we heading?”

She glared at him like at a complete half-wit.
“We should be ghettingh him to a hospital.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” he answered, wheezing distraughtly. “And as soon as you can name me a place we can admit him to that isn’t swarming with riled-up paramilitaries… let me know.”

“Maybe he chan...”
She carefully tugged at his blanket and uncovered his face. “But I thinkh he might have lost chonsciousness.”

“Son of a bitch.”

On the dashboard, the radio began to crackle.
“Hey, Car One? What’s the hold-up? Did you run over a hog or something? ...Over and out.”

Pierre almost lunged at the receiver. “Shalgham, you have no idea what you’re doing, so clear the frequency and shut up. We’re moving in a minute.” Then, with plenty of unease, he pressed down on the accelerator and slowly had the car roll forward.
“We’re sticking to the plan. We’re driving to the castle.”

“You really thinkh that’s a ghood idea?”

“The place’s supposedly around the corner somewhere here. I’m not really keen on spending the better part of the afternoon driving through no-man’s-land with… that thing in my trunk.”

Edith scrutinised the ‘thing’ a bit more closely, professionally gauging its neck with her bony fingers for any signs of veins.
“I hadn't considered that the sergeant wasn’t… you know… real.”

“I don't think you have considered a lot of things.” he just commented. “In hindsight, the whole thing stank to high heaven. There are only so many reasons for a Royal Guard to betray his rulers like that. There just had to be some ulterior motive.”

She shrugged.
“What if we just turn around and head backh the way we chame? Nobody would exhpecht that.”

“Through those checkpoints?” Pierre sighed. “Unless we can cover up all the windows, they’ll spot him. And when they get their hooves on him, then… well...”
Out of respect for the patient in the rear, Pierre cut himself short at that moment.

“Why should they? I thought these chars have protechtion.”

"The glass isn't bullet-proof, if that's what you mean."

"I meant diplomatich protechtion."

“Yeah, it would help immensely if the ponies could actually comprehend the concept of ‘extraterritoriality’… or, you know, also give a shit.”
He sighed pathetically and picked up a little blue passport he had lying under his windscreen. He eyed it almost tragically.
“But they have their swords and their spears, and we have our laissez-passers. I suppose that, if we utilised them creatively, we could take out one intruder by... rolling them up and shoving them down his windpipe. Because if push should ever come to shove out here… that’s all the use we’re ever gonna get out of those things.”

She gave a bitter nod.
“How about...”
Testing something, she pulled the rug even further over his head and limbs, until it covered all of him. “What if we transport him likhe this? That way, we chan smugghle him past the checkhpoints and backh to Chanterlot. We chould always order a dochtor into the Embassy if we have to.”

“...I… wouldn’t count on it...” a vibrating, relatively high-pitched voice sighed.

Edith quickly removed the blanket from his face.
“Hey sergeant… How do you feel?”

“So-so... But you needn’t bother trying to backtrack. I’m sure you’ve also noticed the magic spells they’ve been throwing around at the checkpoints recently? The one that makes the skin prickle?”

Edith looked at him skeptically.

“That… is unmasking magic. The newest trick we learned in the Guard. Forces the disguise straight off any changeling’s face...”
He coughed. “Though it’s still not anywhere near as effective as ploughing into somepony with a loaded cart...”
He struggled to turn his battered body around.

“Do not move. You’ll only make it worse.”

Opening two bulging blue moth eyes, he stared down himself.
“Where… where is my uniform?”

“Your armour? I tookh it off. It weighed you down too much.”

“Oh...”
His head collapsed back on the boot’s mat. “Okay then... I suggest we… we need to move on to the castle.”

“That’s just where we’re going...” Pierre automatically answered. Then he hesitated.
“So, uh… you’re changeling then? A real changeling?”

Golden Dirk eyed him flatly.
“...Surprise.”

For a few moments, Pierre and Edith looked everywhere else other than at Golden Dirk. Finally, they gathered enough courage to look him in the eyes.
Of course they had never seen real changeling before.
And now that there was lying right next to them, they were indeed mildly surprised that it didn’t turn out to be any beefy, raw kind of predator that was covered in sharpened teeth and toxic barbs. In fact, they marveled just at how tiny and pathetic this one looked.
It was smaller than an average pony, and quite bony and meatless to boot. The massive head that sat on a thin throat connected to a starved, chitin-hardened torso that was joined by four legs covered with suspicious holes, and two rather frail and tattered fly’s wings.
As lanky and malnourished as it appeared, one would have to take a much closer look - and take note of its sharp fangs and even sharper, though pupil-less, eyes - to identify it as a threat of some sort, rather than something one wouldn’t even bother stepping over on a European forest floor.

“I… well...” ‘Golden’ slowly began, “No harm done, but I was counting on taking it nice and easy with the… whole… revelation thing.”

“Were you though?” came Pierre’s question from the front. “Were you really?”

“How long have you been doing this?” came Edith’s question from above.

“Doing... what?” he asked back, his voice vibrating quizzically. “Being a changeling?”

“You know damn well what we mean.” Pierre enunciated. “How long have you been… been… ‘serving’ in the Equestrian army?”

“I… um...” The bug-like creature’s face seemed blank, swept clean of any usual pony’s expression. “Eight years, I… joined up right after school, if that’s what you mean.”

“What school?”

“East Canterlot Secondary- ow!”

He grabbed his rib-cage in a fit of pain, but Edith immediately grasped his cool, perforated hooves and tried to restrain them.
“Do not touch your chest. The chollision fractured multiple ribs. If you push down even harder they chould lacerate your lunghs.”

“No way… I’ll walk it off before then.”

Her face was stern and dictatorial. “You stay put. You are badly injured.”

Pierre delivered the next set of inquiries.
“Why did you do it? Why the Equestrian Army?”

He seemed quite confused. “I mean… for what reason do ponies usually join the Guard? What is there to explain?”

“Who sent you?” asked Edith.

“Sent me? Ehm… Nopony sent me.”

“Well, you surely didn’t end up running around in that uniform out of sheer patriotic fervour, did you?” Pierre scoffed.

“Excuse me...” Dirk stuttered, a bit more meekly, “But where do you think I came from?”

“Why don’t you enlighten us?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m from Canterlot. I’m Equestrian.”

Pierre hit the brake abruptly, sending the changeling sliding and Edith stumbling forward a little.

“Uh… car one? Is everything okay up there?”

Pierre undid his seatbelt and pulled himself closer to the changeling’s head. His red beard was, once again, ablaze.
“Oh, cut the crap already!”
He yanked open one of the sun visors and shifted the mirror towards the changeling. “For your information, your disguise is gone. So you can start telling us all about your mission here, and what you were trying to achieve infiltrating the Equestrian archives. So get on with it.”

He gulped.

“Well?”

“I think, I’ll… I’ll have to explain a thing or two here.”

“Good idea.”

With the audible whine of a pony who just had his sense of self-worth drawn into question, he reared his head and met the humans’ scrutiny head-on.
“First things first: I am no pony’s spy. Okay? I’m am as… loyal… and reverent… and humble… as any other of Celestia’s servants.”

“As a changeling?”

“...Incidentally, yeah.”

“What, is she your hive queen now, or what?”

“Is 'Princess of the Sun' not enough for you?”

Edith cleared her throat.
“How do you define ‘loyal’? I mean, you handed over top sechret files to me, no questions askhed.”

“Because I needed a favour from you. No other reason.”

“You needed us to slip away.”

“Well, no, just… get off the grid, kinda.”

“What the fuck do you think the United Nations is?” Pierre spat at him. “An international agent shuttle service?”

“...Huh?”

“This is like The Living Daylights all over again, innit?” he hoarsely sneered at Edith before returning to the changeling.
“If you wanted to slip out of the Equestria with those torn-out pages of yours, you should have pleaded with the CIA, or the MI6 or the fucking KGB. You should have left us out of it. We don’t concern ourselves with international espionage.”

“I’m not a spy!” he coughed, until a little bubble of foamy green spittle had formed at one corner of his mouth. “Those ‘torn-out pages’ are of no worth to me! None at all. But, I’d think, they are to you. So... do we have a deal, or no?”

“Why would we trust you?” Edith asked coldly.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Pierre again spat, “I’m not about to let UNEVEG let itself get used by some… jumped-up changeling agitator!”

“I’m not...”
He sighed. Then coughed again. “I think that this’ll be worth your time, okay? You’re the ones looking for those phantom files, not me. Hey... I’ll even accompany you if it makes you feel better. How about that?”

“This is not what I’m worried about...” Edith mumbled.

The convoy turned left.

Whereas the aptly-named Broken Crop Road had proven difficult to maneuver, the old ‘highway’ to what, many hundred years ago, had been the centre of Equestria, proved untraversable.

The once broad and proud cobblestone street had shrunken to barely the width of the cars themselves, flanked on both sides by snow, overgrown bushes and dead fragments of decaying plant life.After only a few dozen metres, the convoy ultimately found itself blockaded by a massive, dozen-ton tree stump that lay sprawled diagonally across the path.

“What… the fuck… is that?” Pierre mumbled, massive amounts of wood and moss filling his entire vision.

“Okay, full disclosure...” the changeling breathed, “I’ve never actually been in these parts before.”

“Great. So much for the box van.” Pierre moaned hoarsely, and gripped his steering wheel ever-so-slightly in anger. “Screw it all. I’m not about to empty a whole archive by hauling the books load by load down a two-klick dirt trail.”

“Do we need to, achtually?” Edith asked tiredly, and looked over to the changeling. “I mean… we have our translator now.”

“Well, I’m not carrying him either.”

The changeling cleared his throat.
“I told you I’ll be fine.”
Then he slowly and shakily picked himself up. “My ribs are almost okay now.”

“Don’t ghet ahead of yourself...” Edith immediately countered. “I might not be a vet, but ribs need at least sixh weekhs to heal.”

The changeling locked eyes with her. Then, demonstratively, he run his hoof over the dark grey leathery skin of his chest. The pained grimace on his insect face had reduced to a minimum.
“Must be tough being a human. Helmet, please.”

Wordlessly, Pierre tossed him Golden Dirk’s shiny Corinthian sergeant’s helmet, which he promptly caught with his telekinetic grip.

“And my armour, if you’ve still got it.”

“Why the disghuise?” she asked.

“I’m going to turn back into myself now.”

‘Himself’?
The irony of it was lost on neither of the humans.

“Did you really think you’d ever get in without somepony like me? Our archives are very well protected.”
Straightening up, the changeling lit his horn with a green flame. And before Edith or Pierre could react, another flash had blinded them. Within a moment’s notice, Sergeant Golden Dirk was back to ‘normal’, eagerly inspecting his own light-grey legs and chest before getting to wrapping himself in his plate armour.

“How does this workh?” Edith asked, fascinated by the whole swift transformation process. “Is this some sort of magic?”

Instead of answering, he twisted his left hoof in a rather unfortunate way, and let out a pained yelp.

There was yet another blinding flash.

And another moment later, Golden Dirk had once more been unwittingly replaced by the skinny, ugly changeling.
“Horseapples!” he cursed as he looked at his limb, his voice buzzing in distress. “My hoof’s still sprained. I need to jam it back into position if I wanna walk.”

“Actually, your hoof is disjointed. So I advise you not to.” Edith protested.

“Okay, then you do it.”
He laid his tiny, cold hoof into her palms. “It’s gonna be alright. Believe me.”

“I’m not a bonesetter. If… I do somethingh wrongh now, I chould damage your leg for life.”

“M’am...” the changeling sighed, and locked her with his big blue eyes. Putting on his most trustworthy tone, he told her, “Trust me. Just...”

‘Snap!’, a disjointed voice suddenly beckoned her from somewhere else.

Before she could stop herself, both her hands wrapped themselves around the hoof and twisted it upwards.

There was a rather graphic cracking sound, followed by the changeling yanking his leg away and once more squealing,
“Celestia! It’s… good now, I think. It’s alright...”

Edith immediately yanked her hands away. What the hell had just made her do that?
She was absolutely sure that this was not a good idea and she knew she wouldn’t twist it.
And yet, as though guided by an undiscovered instinct, she lost control over her fingers long enough for them to do as the changeling wanted.
How could that be?

He, meanwhile, casually finished setting up his rather twisted cuirass, and moved to climb out of the jeep.

By the time Ibrahim and the rest of the UN search party caught up to him and the two drivers, he was once again the Sergeant Golden Dirk.

“Hey there...” the young Libyan hailed first jeep’s passengers. “Where did that one suddenly come from?”

“We… ran into him on the way.” Pierre fleetingly explained before pointing down the road.
“The Old Everfree’s down that road, about two kilometres away. Pack ladders and pack spades. We are going on a goddamn adventure!”

With Ibrahim carrying the shovel over his shoulder, and Pierre taking care of the ladder, the seven humans and ‘unicorn’ soon decided to lock the cars as they were and hike the rest of the way into the woods.
It turned out to be a very wise choice, as beyond the massive tree trunk, the path had soon grown too slim and feral to hold even the most sophisticated caterpillar tracks. In the eternal shadow of the dense branches and leaves above them, they soon trudged through layers of snow that were progressively thinning out rather than piling on.
Before long they were trudging on soft and muddy soil, their boots caked in rotting leaves.
Once again, Edith came to feel the familiar warmth of the forest, and once again, her stare was fixated to the floor beneath her feet, much to the chagrin of the colleagues forced to walk behind her.
Around them, wet fog was billowing forth.

Eventually, after a lengthy walk uphill, they passed a gorge on one side, the corner of their path already crumbling as they trudged over the plateau. Eventually, the rift rounded the path, and the investigators found themselves standing at one end of a flimsy bridge leading right over it.

“Bre…”

On the other side, covered by yet more steaming fog, there lay the remains of a once gigantic citadel, with bulky grey towers looming far over them, and a large silhouette of a collapsed dome filling out the woodland scenery. On both sides, the buildings had been partially reclaimed by the rampant foliage of the Everfree Forest.

“Looks... like plenty of space for ‘two sisters’,” Pierre snarked. “Anyway, where do we go now?”

“You should let me take the lead.” Golden Dirk suggested nervously. “There is the chance that there are... sentries on the other side. It’s archive command’s protocol that all sites have at least one pair of eyes on them at all times.”

“You’re not honestly sugghestingh that those are archives that would still be in use.” Edith mumbled a she took in the almost depressing isolation of the place. “The sechretary was right. It’s almost chollapsingh.”

Pierre shrugged.
“I wouldn’t put anything past the ponies by that point. They’d find a way. Lead on... ‘sergeant’.”

Golden Dirk stepped up to the base of the rope bridge, while the humans all helplessly glanced down into the endless depths of the ravine beneath it. Out of the gorge came the barely audible splashing of a raging stream.

“Ten-shun!” he yelled out authoritatively, and loud enough to make the humans flinch. “At arms!”

But nothing and no one answered, apart from the same ‘shun’s and ‘arms’ echoing back at the group.

“Authorised United Nations inspection passing through. Form up!”

Nothing.

“Strange...” Golden Dirk mumbled. “This is… pretty out of protocol.”

“Are you sure there is an archive in there?” Edith made sure.

“Yes, absolutely. I mean…This castle has always been treated a special place of interest by Canterlot Command and… the above.”
Reverently, he pointed up. “There must be a reason for it.”

“Yet you’ve never been out here?”

“Never. Archive guards never rotate.”
Clearing his throat, he placed two hooves on the bridge to try and suss its sturdiness.
“This looks like a ruddy ruin, but...”

“But?” Pierre breathed, his fist-rolling impatience palpable.

“Well, whenever the order came through for files to be removed permanently from Canterlot, either for deep storage or… getting otherwise relocated, we would refer to them as, uh, ‘being shoved up the Old Everfree’.”
He grinned a bit immaturishly. He swallowed it when he humour failed to catch on.
“We all knew it wasn’t for no reason. There was something taking place out here.”

Then, carefully, he began treading over the bridge, putting one hoof in front of the other.

The others exchanged a plethora of unsure glances.
Particularly Ibrahim and the staffers seemed to silently ask each other: Where was he leading them? Why were they here? And why did Director Abel and the girl from ICMP looking so pent-up and nervous?

Eventually, Pierre managed to usher them all over the flimsy crossing.

The others were naturally quite eager to let everyone else go in front. At some point, it was tacitly agreed to send every man over on their own, to keep as much weight off the bridge as possible.
Golden Dirk was the first to volunteer over. Next came Pierre, who stepped and climbed his way to the other side like a sailor in a storm.
Edith, whose ear still hadn’t quite found her equilibrium yet, was particularly disturbed when her turn came, but decided to swallow her shock for the moment. Not letting go of the - admittedly very low - suspension ropes, she shuffled onward precariously and froze at the slightest hint of a disturbance.
The other UN people, who were only a little less terrified, had already begun to groan and tussle amongst each other by the time Edith had concluded her crossing.

It didn’t take much more time for everyone to reach safe ground once again, and after taking a moment to regroup, they passed on right under a collapsed stone gatehouse and, finally, entered what seemed to be have been a state room at some point in the last few thousand years.

Even so, this place appeared to be not quite as abandoned as they had first thought. Someone had been here in the interim, and someone had invested quite some time into restoring the old citadel.
Century-old banners and tapestries, hanging in shreds and with the colours faded away, had been stitched together with colourful scrap patches of silk to hold it together for another few years. Moss and leaves that should logically have covered the thrones, stone tables and marble floors had been scraped away.

“Maybe there are ghosts here. Ghosts with... OCD.” Edith mumbled.

Pierre smiled weakly at that.
“Edith. You’ve got many castles in the old world, don’t you? Are there many in Bosnia?”

She shrugged. “A few, achtually. Why?”

“What part of a castle would realistically keep the records?”

“I ghuess...” she said thoughtfully, “Judgingh how precious rechords were backh then… the treasury? Or, if they belonghed to the lord, maybe the kheep?”

“The keep…” Pierre repeated, looking through the non-existent roof above them, trying to seek out as many towers as he could. “Which one of those would be the keep?”

Edith sought the tower in question out before him. “Up there. The thickhest always is the kheep.”

Even Golden Dirk was inclined to agree.
“Follow me.”

Equines and humans, she mused, were not quite as different as one would have expected. In how many ways, however, would still have to be found out.

Passing into one of the few wings of the citadel that still stood, they entered a dilapidated corridor.
As they marched further into the poorly lit stone hole, Ibrahim huddled closer between Edith and Pierre.
“Mister Abel… I’ve really got to say something now.”

“Oh, what?”

“I do not think we should be here.”

Pierre smirked, unimpressed.
“Good for you.”

With clattering teeth, Ibrahim latched on to Edith next.
“Look, I know there is nothing here! Nobody with half a brain would maintain an archive inside this… this dump. The books would waste away immediately with all this moisture and frost.”

“How chan you be so sure, Ibrahim?” she asked with feigned childlike innocence. “We were brought here by a Royal ghuard, after all.”

“I don’t trust this guy.” he breathed knowingly. “He comes out of nowhere and claims to know the place? This just screams like a trap.”

“He just said he’s never been here.”

“That kind of makes it worse! We’re going to fall through the goddamn floor because of him!”

“That’s enough now, Ibrahim.”

“I’m serious. You don’t need to be an architect to see that this place is completely derelict!”

After several meters of kicking compost and increasingly big rubble out of their way, they soon found themselves at what could only be the ground floor of the keep. Quite appropriately, they also came across a massive metal door with heavy grates and some bolted iron plating that seemed to lead back down into the ground.

“Those ponies and their pompous goddamn doors...” Pierre snarled, his senses on the edge. “This one looks fat and juicy though. I trust you have the key for it.”

Nervously, Golden Dirk chewed things over.
“I’ve got a key. It’s a master key. Every NCO gets one. Though I’m not sure if...”
He magically lifted a key out of a pouch hidden under his cuirass, and carefully let it float towards a verdigris keyhole. The tiny copper key was quickly swallowed by the darkness of the ancient mechanism.

“And now?”

A little blue flame lit up inside.
“Horseapples!”
Alarmed, Dirk pulled his key out in an instant - only to realise that the copper instrument had its head melted cleanly from the handle.
“Oops.”

“What just happened?”

“Some kind of… precautionary measure.” he stammered. “A trap. A fifth grade liquefaction spell the lock’s been infused with. Anything that’s not the perfectly right key… is rejected.”

As the unicorn impotently retracted his stump of a key from the hole, Pierre was already gritting his teeth.
“Ibrahim. Hand me the spade.”

The Libyan stepped forward, but he hesitated when he looked up and down the formidable portal.
“Are you gonna do what I think what...”

“No, actually I was going to use it ring up a locksmith. What do you think?”

“Mr Abel...” he began to whimper, “I know I’m not gonna stop you or anything, but... wouldn’t that technically be breaking and entering?”

The others respectfully kept their silence at that bombshell.

“Is it?” Edith asked back.

“If we don’t have the right key, we can’t just force our way into a foreign government facility… if it actually is a government facility, which I really don’t this it is”

“Forcingh? Who is said anythingh about forcingh?”
She turned to the unicorn among them. “Sergeant? As a… a supervisingh member of the Archives staff and as a… de-fachto representative of the ghovernment of Eqhuestria, do you allow us to... help you ghain entry to this archive?”

Mystified, he glanced up at her.
“Huh? Oh, uh... yeah, sure.”

“Really?”

“I mean, you have my permission to… you know, do whatever you can. And must. Yep.”
It wasn’t like this Sergeant had a lot to lose.

Pleased, Edith nodded. “Well, there you gho, Ibrahim. We’re in the chlear.”

Here, Pierre couldn’t hide a smile - she definitely was a fast learner - but Ibrahim just began to shift around the corridor uncomfortably, his soles creaking incessantly. He was not satisfied.
“No offence, but who is this guy again?” he hissed as he pointed a thumb at the guard “I know I’ve never seen him before.”

Golden Dirk shrunk back uncomfortably, looking as though his masquerade could fall off all by itself at any moment.

But Pierre, quite coolly, retorted by relieving Ibrahim of the spade and shoving him down the corridor.
“How about you don’t ask too many stupid questions and do something useful? Take Ruman and head back to the bridge.”

“And… and do what there?”

“Hold the fucking fort while we work. Make sure that there won’t be any misunderstandings... should any come marching down your path.”

“You… you know we might cause an international incident here, right? And I have family back home.”

“Get out.”

Helplessly, Ibrahim went shuffling off the way they had come, towing one of the helpers along, though not before mumbling a final, “This isn’t right. This is bullshit.”

As soon as this obstacle had rolled out of his way, Pierre artfully twisted the shovel between his fingers, and after conspiratively scanning the other attendees’ taut faces, pushed against the door with his shoulder.
As to be expected, it was more than able able to hold its own, despite all the rust and sickly green oxidised copper.

“Okay people,” he suddenly cooed.
Edith couldn’t recall him having ever sounded as hoarse and subdued as in this moment.
“Once we’re through that door, we best not waste the time we’ve got. Spread out and screen this place. I want photos and I want video footage. I want to prove that this place does exist, and I want to be able to serve it to the horses on a nice silver platter.”

The others all nodded.

“You might be aware that we are a little… strapped for time - Royal Guard units are inbound as we speak. I want you to carry out your duty and… and while you’re at it, take the opportunity prep your witness statements for later on.”

That did not do much to heighten the handful of UN workers’ resolve. Especially after Ibrahim’s grim reminder.

“Just know that we’re not taking a risk here. You are not in any danger. At least until the contrary can be proven, this search will be lawful. And if anyone’s causing an international incident, it’ll be them, not us.”
He blinked at Edith.
“And you? Take your ‘sergeant’, and see if you can identify anything of relevance in there. Key words, appropriate time periods, the whole shebang.”

So he screwed his efforts up a notch. He rammed the spade into the tight space between the door and the frame, right into where there should have been the bolts. There was a short noise of rotting wood gnashing, but the tool jammed, and when he pulled it out, it was visibly dented on its ever-so sharp tip.
Unabashed, he jammed it right back in and forcefully began to lever the shovel around in the crack, under the awful grinding sound of iron kissing steel.
After a minute of perpetual gnawing and creaking, there was the rewarding sound of the medieval latch, weathered and rusted by centuries of holding a heavy castle door against the wind, water and frost of the Everfree, giving way.

“I can not believe this actually worked.” Pierre mumbled as he put his weight against what was left of the lock.
Everyone else was soon joining him at pummelling the door.
Only Golden Dirk stayed back warily, stroking his helmet’s fake mane.

The door slid open a handful of degrees. As soon as the gap had grown big enough for Dirk to slip through, he immediately snuck his head inside.
“Hello?” he shouted into the room. “Inspection! All sentries, attend!”
Of course, there was no reply.
“Better… better safe than sorry. Stay back until give the clear..” Dirk gulped and slowly crept deeper into the ominous darkness of the gap...

Edith took an bracing step back.

Voices echoed. Many from far away, and others from uncomfortably close.

“Wait! Don’t move! Stay just like that...” one raspy exhausted one shouted.

“Edith...” another whispered pathetically.

“Oh shit! I’m stuck. Get me out!” one yelled, spooked.

"Kud si ti pošao?" another sneered, thick with scorn and lust.

“Edith?” the other repeated.

“Are you two still alive over there?” the other inquired.

“Edith.” it said.

"Spusti to dole, djevojčice." another again teased.

“Heavens, is that a dome up there?” one asked.

“Edith!” one shouted.

“It belongs in a museum. Heh, I always wanted to say that...”

They became more numerous. And they became louder.

“They fell?”

“Edith!?”

“I made that mark. Four weeks ago, in Canterlot.”

What marks? What was going on? The voices soon started overtaxing her head...

"Znaš li pucati iz tog pištolja?"

“Edith!”

“I don’t like this. Give me a second.”

“My name is Šarić, Edith Šarić. I am working with UNEVEG, and I possess a royal commission...” she suddenly heard herself state.
But why?

"Kakva lijepa ptica!"

“Edith!”

“Mister Abel! Mister Abel! Let me in! They’re right on top of us!”

"Žuri! Svi gledaju."

“Who is on top of us?”

"Stani! Mi smo Srbi!"

“Edith!”

“Government troops! Pegasi! They’re coming down the cliffside! At least a company of them!”

"Pucaj na svakog ko prođe ovuda! Razumiješ?"

“How did they know we’re here?”

“I don’t know! Ruman’s trying to hold them off at the bridge, but he’s only got his laissez-passer and a smartphone! They’ll be in here any moment!”

"Skupi ih! Skupi ovce! Skupi ovce!"

“Edith?! Where the hell are you?! Edith!”

And just like that… they were all flushed away. They disappeared as though they were water caught in the suck of an emptying sink.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

This was the first thought that entered Edith's head as she came to.

She coughed.
Her throat was swollen like yeast dough and burned awfully. It felt like she had swallowed glass dust. Her tongue and gums were completely dry and sore. Her mouth was filled with thick, suffocating mucus. Bereft of all consciousness, she rolled over. The floor beneath her head was hard and studded with little sharp pricking rocks that mercilessly furrowed into her exposed skin. The pain breathed some life back into her.Her head felt heavy, and it thumped like a drum.

She quickly noticed how badly her cheeks and forehead were stinging. When she realised how turgid her eyelids had become, she dared not to open them at first. Slowly, she strained her muscles and felt the inside of her right hand.

The glove that had previously been on her was gone. The hand itself was sticky and hot and flaky from countless scabs.

Battling on against a terrible fit of vertigo, she tried to take a look at her right hand’s empty grasp. But she couldn’t see it. All she saw was bright whiteness, reflecting on her iris back into her mind.

She tried to rub the trauma out of eyes with her other hand, only to notice that it was covered in crumbling dust that quickly scattered onto her face.

She flinched and she coughed.
The coughing soon turned into a horrifying, agonising splutter.

With her first hand, she rubbed as fast and hard as she could, but the light in her eyes wouldn’t lift.
It was all to no avail. She was blind.

Stumbling around, she tried to grab hold of something – anything – she felt. She began to panic. She didn’t know where she was, she was confused.

Sliding on her knees over stone and what felt like carpets, she soon felt she was shuffling over cardboard. And paper. And book bindings.

What were all those things doing down there?

She reached down with her feeling hands - and was promptly spurned by a sudden burning sensation.
Something was on fire.
Immediately alert, she let her instincts take hold and threw herself onto the hot spot, her dressed arms ahead, and tried to stomp out the embers before they could spread.

It was by now that she first noticed how dry and and unpleasant the air that she breathed was feeling.
Every breath she was taking felt like she was inhaling powdered chili, violently painful.

Before she could sink even more onto the floor and go prone, she managed to knock her forehead into a solid stone slate. Tumbling backward, she sprawled on the dusty carpet, still madly trying to rub some life into her unseeing, worthless eyes.

But she could hardly make out anything. It was dark, she had no light, and the thing she held in her right hand…
Wait…

What did she hold in her right hand again?
She knew she had just held something – her muscle memory assured her she did – but what exactly this thing was, she couldn’t wrap her mind around.

Her memory was in a bit of a white blur. Which way should she move? Where was the exit?
Exit… of what?

Where was she?

The anomalies in her mind became larger and more abrupt, like a constantly expanding chasm during an all-consuming earthquake.

Why was she here? How did she get here?
For the moment, all those things were completely lost on her. It was like one of those deep-sleeping nights in which she would fall out of her bed, haunted by nightmares, and first take a look around and get a feeling for her surroundings.

What was this? She was wide awake and alert one moment, and the next… nothing. She was here, and…

A cough from some other place.

That voice…

She instinctively decided to go after those sounds, that familiar voice of her colleague Pierre.

She scrambled to her feet and tried standing up… but her head and shoulder were raised into a thick, noxious layer of fumes that made her skin prickle with pain and eyes, mouth and nose sting.
So she dropped back down, where she found herself greeted by a much cooler gust of air.

Her sight returned, and her panic budged a bare bit. She could see that it was almost too dark to see a thing – which was a start, at least.

A faint reddish gleam illuminated the space, the light bouncing off slick metallic forms and sharp shimmering blades.
Her surrounding began come back to her.

Walls… pillars…

Her ailing feet knocked over something metallic and lightweight – a scaffolding, perhaps. Or a ladder.

A ladder!

Feeling her way past the the tall wooden railing, she soon was leaning against a solid surface. A cupboard, maybe? Or a shelf?

Another weak splutter from somewhere.

Squinting heavily and sharpening her ears, she slid along the shelf on all fours.

After some ten meters of shuffling, she stumbled over what felt like a bundle of clothes on the floor. Only by feeling it a second time did she realise that the clothes were still being worn. Someone was sprawled on the floor before her. Her fingers felt their way up to the face. They came across soft mushy skin and thick strands of resilient hair. A beard. Not anyone’s beard.
Pierre’s beard.

“Hey...” she breathed. The pain of opening her mouth and trying to speak overwhelmed her though, and she succumbed to another painful coughing fit.

“Edith? Edith, is that you?!”

That voice echoed through the room from behind her.
She turned to look for it with her unfocused eyes.

“For Allah’s sake, open the fucking door already! Edith!”

It was Ibrahim.

Forlornly, she scrambled back into the direction from which voice hailed, mindlessly leaving Pierre’s limp body where it lay.

“I… I can see you!” Ibrahim yelled. “I can see you, Edith! Come closer! Stay down!”

She scrambled faster towards the saving voice.

Like a toddler who had not yet mastered the art of walking on her own two legs, she crawled over stone tiles and up steps and stairs that seemed to suddenly throw themselves into her path.

“Come on, Edith! Well done, you’ve almost made it.”

Faster and faster she moved. After what seemed like half an eternity, her longing face ran right into a cold iron door latch.
As her cheek leaned against the cooling metal, she knew she had reached the surface.

The door squealed and opened. She nearly fell into the waiting arms of the young Libyan archivist, who immediately dragged her tired body through the portal and out into what seemed to be a cold, windy side room.

The only warmth she felt was in the frantic breath of her friend.

“Oh Edith...” he gasped. His voice was breathless, and he sound like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Why did you guys lock yourselves in? What did you do in there?!”

She didn’t understand.
Her unfocused eyes darted everywhere while she tried to understand what he wanted from her. She didn't know what he was talking about. She could only barely remember what had happened a few minutes ago.

Her racing thoughts were brought to a screeching halt by strange echoes reverberating through the room.

It sounded like bolts being unlocked, like furniture being shoved to the side, and a crowd of very angry people moving through an adjacent room.
Those sounds were brought to a point by someone yelling,
“Spread out! They couldn’t have gotten far!”

“Damn...” Ibrahim breathed… “Now they’re here.”

Sitting the confused woman against a wall, he got up and strided off with quick steps.

“Ibrahim...” she croaked.

“For all things holy, Edith, stay where you are!” he shouted. “I’ll bring help here.”

And with those words, even he walked away. Edith could not speak loud enough to call him back.
She was alone once more.

Her eyes began to recover. Through the blinding white light, individual facets of shadows and details were soon forming.
She could see a long corridor, leading into the unknown.

How much would she have given just to know what on earth was happening...

Again, echoes interrupted her.

“Halt! Stop, you thieving scum! Stop!”
It was quickly followed up by muffled thuds of violence.

That was the last straw.
Something told her that she had to move. She could not wait here any longer. She had to get out.
Edith knew not out where, or even what out of, but she did know that she had to get out.

So she picked herself up and shuffled, still sliding along one side of the wall, down the hallway.

“Where are the rest of your pals? There must be more! And you, just shut up! We’ll deal with you later, monkey!”

Her feet carried her only as fast as her mind raced. It was agonisingly slow.

Crashing into alcoves and whirling blindly around corners, she raced aimlessly through the building, with no plan and no patience.

It took some time to walk by what could only be a glass pane.
She felt the cold white light of day on her sore face, and reflecting in her palsied eyes.
‘Outside’ was very near.

“Did you hear that? The main corridor! Somepony’s running down the main corridor!”

She didn’t think twice about it.
She reached around for a handle or lock with which to open the pane, and when she found nothing of the sort, she struck out.

The glass was thick. It was held together by various little lead frames. The effort needed to smash it was only barely what the weakened woman could muster.

Her elbow hurt hideously, and despite her thick coat, she was surely inflicting many bruises on herself, but she soon felt the first shards popping out.
Cold air washed over her face.

“What the hay… smoke? Did somepony set the place on fire?! Private! Get the fireponies here. Right now!”

She ignored the voices echoing behind her.
As soon as she felt that there was not much left between her and the saving outside, she stuck her head through and pulled the rest of her body along.
First, she tried clambering on to the building, frantically trying to reach a sill she could step out on...
But then she fell.

All she saw as she dropped was white, closing in on her faster and faster.
And before she knew what had happened, her flailing body crashed into a snowbank.

It punched the last strength and willpower out of her. Her head was seemingly spent spinning away and off into space, her already unsorted thoughts being whirled in all possible directions.

Motionlessly, with her face partially sunk in icy wet snow, she lay there, waiting for her fate - whatever it might be - to wash over her.

That is, until she heard the unmistakable crackle of a walkie-talkie.

“Corporal, bairal abhi tak dippo main kyon nahin hain? Baraf tere liye kuch zyada hain kya?” someone said.

“Haan, mujhe uski yaad aati hain. Koi aur chaara hota to mein usse mere saas ke saath chodke nahin aata.” someone else answered.

She heard heavy footsteps trudging over the ground.

Over the corner of her eye, she noticed a towering man above her, blotting out the sun.

“Kya matlab mein rasoi duty pe hoon? Rasoi duty pe tu hain.” he commented.

Then she was seized by several hands- one on each leg and arm, and two more latching onto her shoulders - and lifted out of her little saving pile of snow.

“Muhjse nahin hua officer career. Sab ki nafrat sar pe lene ke liye chaar baras akademi jaane ki koyi zaroorat nahin thi.” a commanding voice ordered.

The hands were rough and cared little for her own comfort as she was carried away. Squinting as firmly and precisely as her eyes allowed, she gazed up at her saviors.

She saw khaki-brown overalls, and blurry faces, tanned deep brown and some sporting some rather impressive facial hair.
One had wound a bright-blue turban over his forehead.

Edith was so thoroughly confused, she did not know whether to worry or to feel relief.
She felt rather content that she was rescued, though.
It was over. Whatever this had been.

There was only one thing that really nagged her in the very back of her mind.

Where was that incessant vibrant buzzing noise coming from?

Author's Note

Hello, it is I, the author.

I'm proud to feature this piece of pure SFM goodness by the talented RingOfFireXL200, aka HeliosEusebio.

XXIII. Mothballed

XXIII
Mothballed

Bombay Station, Magus’ Motte
Everfree County, Equestria
22. November, 2015
18:16 pm ICT

Fighting Fit’s heart raced.
He stared down on the purple- and gold- adorned captain’s helmet that rested on his lap, and got lost in the miniscule details of the engravings, counting the spirals and laurel leaves and stars and planets that held their place on the artful panoramas of the visor.

Only occasionally did he look up to the windows and let his mind be flooded by the landscape of bright winter wonderland outside. The snow once again fell thickly, though the snowflakes looked rather grey and dirty to him. Funny. Fighting just blinked and decided to cool his eyes on the dark wooden shadows of the chamber instead. It looked fairly ordinary, if hopelessly rustic. The furniture, among them a massive chest-like oak desk, two throne-like cherry wood stools - one of whom he just happened to be cowering in - and a lumbering palace-like walnut armoire in the corner, were very obviously from a simpler, less sturdy time. While the place wasn’t exactly in a state of disrepair, it definitely wasn’t as well maintained as it could have been.

The more he twisted his head to get a better view of his surroundings, the more he noticed he was still stuck in a far-too-tightly buckled embroidered officer’s cloak. He felt his neck twisting and hooves uncontrollably trying to loosen the knot around his throat. He would have taken this darn uncomfortable cloth off altogether, but the prospect of freezing to death seemed a little bit worse. He could see his breath turning to fog before his eyes.
Yes, the insulation of this place was atrocious. Behind the corroded wood paneling lay a blunt layer of stone masonry that was designed to fend of arrows and missiles rather than keep the denizens warm.

But alas, such was Magus’ Motte.
The legendary former stronghold of none other than Starswirl The Bearded, archmage and co-founder of modern Equestria.
Fighting could remember being in these halls exactly once before in his life. It was as a little foal on a school tour for third grade history, retracing all the hoofsteps of Starswirl across the Southern Equestrian region - of which there were a lot. Fighting couldn’t think of a single village that didn’t hold a plaque somewhere in his honour. 'I, of all ponies, should know.' he thought, 'My Miss Holly used to take us to all of them.'

It was little more than a rugged conglomerate bailey that sat atop a hill somewhere in ‘Plough County’, a dirty little speck of farmland stuck somewhere between the Smoky Mountain range and Everfree plateau, and surrounded by a perpetually flimsy wooden motte at the hill’s foot. Erected countless millennia ago as a Unicornian outpost to monitor the highway and surrounding countryside from its elevated position, and later transformed to be a country estate to absconded Canterlot nobility, and even later serving as a laboratory to the stallion of stallions himself, this place was no longer really fit to serve any of those three.

No, this castle now served new masters.
Already on his way here, this had become obvious to him as soon as he spotted the flags that flew above the parapets. Neither was Equestrian. One was a baby-blue banner sporting a white globe, while the other was a rather awkward-looking tricolour of green, white and orange, with some kind of cartwheel slapped on in the centre.

Incidentally, this was the exact reason Shining was here. With close to a hundred stallions in tow, he had commenced on his trek up north. His orders read that he was due to arrive at the Crystal Ridge at the discretion of Princess Luna by the twenty-fourth of the month. The fact that he would schedule a short stopover at the Magus Motte was not only an order though, but a matter of utmost secrecy to boot. Of his host, not a single one knew why they were even here. Even Fighting had the strange feeling that he wasn’t quite as ‘in the know’ as he was meant to be. He just wished he could get this over with as quickly as possible.

As he kept staring on the empty desk in front of him, he heard the clacking of boots vibrating over the groaning floor. A door behind him was noisily unbolted and opened.
Fighting immediately snapped to attention, just as he was used to from Canterlot and all his other postings.
Climbing out of his chair, he turned to see two humans stepping into the windows’ light. The duo had somewhat darker skin than he was used to from others of their kind, and both sported mighty black facial hair - one a bushy moustache, and the other a smart beard. Both seemed to be clad entirely in forest-coloured fatigues from the neck down, but on the older creature’s head sat a baby-blue beret with the emblem of the United Nations on it, whereas the younger one had a long piece of blue cloth artfully wrapped around his head in a thick bundle.

“Very sorry to keep you waiting, Sir...” the younger human with the cloth apologised with a smile. “I did not expect visitors any of these days. You see, I had been rather busy coordinating my men...”
He struck out his claw as if to offer a friendly hoofshake, before abruptly - and with a very embarrassed expression - retracting it and instead gave an apt salute, the palm of his claw facing outwards.

Fighting was confused. He would have expected the older, more rugged-looking human to take the lead. While he was no expert in human biology, the one standing in front of him just struck him as very boyish and youthful.

“Lieutenant Prathu Gavaskar, Pioneer Platoon, Support Company, 8th Battalion of the Indian Army.” he introduced himself, and then nodded to the brawny man to his right. “This is my number two, Havildar Chavan. Now what can I do for you, Sir?”

Fighting could remember when he was first made Lieutenant all those years ago, but even then he fancied himself a lot older and mature than the human standing in front of him right now. Still, he decided to take it as it were. He promptly mirrored the salute and inflated his chest a bit. The fact that he was called ‘Sir’ by a fellow officer did still excite him a little.
“My name… is Lieu… Captain Fighting Fit... from the Canterlot Regimental staff.”

Lieutenant Gavaskar bore a bright grin.
“Are we being invaded?”

That comment took Fighting Fit entirely off-guard.
“I’m sorry?”

The youthful lieutenant quickly waved it off.
“I’m… just joking. But when I heard that our base had gotten a visit from the Equestrian Guard, I wouldn’t have expected to see an entire company camping outside our gates...”

“Oh well…” Fighting stammered, just the tiniest bit embarrassed by his unannounced ‘goodwill visit’, “I hope I didn’t force you out of the shower or anything.”

“Shower?” Gavaskar smiled. “I wish we had showers here. No, I was just instructing some of my men to move fuel barrels into our depot.”
He proudly presented his blackened, oil-stained fingers.

“I just thought...” Fighting smiled back, pointing at his own head for reference, “With your hair in a towel, I just assumed you were busy.”

Here, Gavaskar sighed and scratched his long piece of cloth.
“Ah… no, I’m Sikh, Captain.”

“Oh…” Fighting exclaimed sympathetically, “I’d apply for medical leave if I were you.”

That, strangely enough, made Gavaskar only smile even more.
“Heh… good one. Very good!”
He strode around the desk and prepared to take a seat at the other end, while his ‘number two’ officiously assumed position by the door, right behind Fighting’s back.
“It’s freezing in here, isn’t it?" Gavaskar continued, "I’m sorry that we couldn’t accommodate you in a warmer room, but our electric heaters are going a little crazy at the moment.”

Fighting selflessly raised his hooves.
“Hey, no problem. Is Magus’ Motte really so bad?”

The youth’s eyes inflated. “What? God, no! Personally, I love it here. I grew up around castles. In Jodphur.”

“Are your soldiers happy too?”

He grinned.
“They should be. It beats having to build a tent city out there in the snow any day.”

Fighting couldn’t help but return the smile.
“I wish we could have supplied you with a more ideal base for your peacekeeping efforts, but I don’t think there are many locales that would suit your purpose quite as well.”

“I understand. If anyone’s to blame, it’s us.” Gavaskar muttered humorously, “I mean, a platoon of engineers that cannot take care of their own heating? What a disgrace! But you see, we’re deployed all over the place. None of us is back at base long enough to carry out any real repairs on them.”

“Now that you mention it...” Fighting muttered.
When he had first entered the motte through the gates, he had taken a moment to count up all the human soldiers he could spot.
“I only saw eight or nine of you here. What happened to the rest?”

“Busy, busy, busy!”
Lieutenant Gavaskar trundled up to a calendar on a nearby wall that, for some strange reasons, featured photos of human mares in different acrobatic positions. He led a finger around between some small written annotations and proudly began to read them out loud.
“Let’s see, I have a crew in Trottingham erecting a satellite tower, I have another troop laying telephone lines from Hoofington to Trottingham, a transport moving twenty electric generators to Hoofington, and lastly a fourth group delivering aspirin and penicillin to several hospitals and medical stations across the Everfree.”

“I see you do a lot of good work.” Fighting nodded.

“Just helping to maintain some humanitarian and modernisation efforts. As dictated by the UNEVEG mission statement.”
The lieutenant’s smile suddenly vanished.

Fighting leaned forward and peered at him.
“Lieutenant?”

“Or… well, we do as much as we can with those… trespass bans of yours that are in place. Our convoys are being stopped every other kilometre. We lose three to four hours to detours every day. It’s very...”
He trailed off. The way his eyes looked away like he wanted to see better days than these.

“Yeah… so I heard.”
Fighting humbly cleared his throat, before proposing, “Those, I'm sorry to say, all badly needed security measures. So... no offence. If there is anything we can do, let us know. We can at least help make your stay in here a lot more pleasant.”

Gavaskar nodded and grinned at the generous offer. “We... could always use kettles. Something for my men to make chai with.”

“That can be arranged. You won’t be freezing here on my watch, let me tell you.”

“Thanks… sir.” the lieutenant harrumphed.

“I suppose...” Fighting continued, “You’re owed an explanation for the security measures then.”

“No, please...”
Naturally, the Lieutenant Gavaskar tried hard to put himself across as reserved and humble in front of the senior officer, but the reproachful air remained in the room.

Fighting sniffed nervously. “You see… I was on my way north. The Crystal Ridge, to be precise.”

“From Canterlot? Canterlot’s already north of here, isn’t it?”

“I made a little detour. I’m visiting several of the important human peacekeeping bases peppered along my route. Only this morning, I’ve paid a visit to an… ehm… Indonesian regiment, and then I met up with a… a... “
He gesticulated to where a sleeve should be. “Ugh, what’s that country with the red flag and white cross?”

“Uh, Switzerland?”

“No, no... Something with a ‘duh’ sound...”

“Denmark?”

“Right!”

Gavaskar smirked.
“And, uh... how do all of us deserve this honour?”

Fighting sighed, malforming his mouth into a much more somber frown.
“You might be aware of what... may or may not be brewing in the Frozen North right now.” he assumed, trying to avoid sounding too specific.

His claws touched.
“Certain intelligence details have… indeed reached us. Or, well, my Captain. He briefed us on some of them. Troop movements of some sort, I recall?”

“Yeah. We are moving a massive number of our available regiments to the Crystal Ridge, which has become something of a frontier for hostile changeling activities as of late.”

The human acted vaguely, sitting silently and tapping his claw’s fingers all over the writing surface.
“Aha,” he merely said, his voice a little more nervous. “So… is this the reason why-”

“And, you see, Command has been planning to seal this border. Establish a frontline of sorts. Cut off the changelings and kettle them. It’s an... ambitious plan. It's got its flaws.”

“I’ll leave that judgement entirely to you, Captain.” Gavaskar humbly tried to talk himself out of that information. “If that’s the reason for...”

Fighting just sighed heavily and looked up, as if to signal to the youth that he ought to brace for what was to come next.
“What… what I... an officer of an armed force... am about to tell you... a junior officer serving a distant, completely uninvolved nation... shouldn’t ever be said, in any situation. And it… really shouldn’t leave this room.”

“Oh… alright. I… I can guarantee full discretion, of course.” Gavaskar stuttered and smiled empathetically. "Please go on!"

Fighting gulped. It was demeaning. Yet, he knew, it was the only way.
“As things stand now, if push ever came to shove, this plan might just lead to... complete and total disaster. The Royal Equestrian Guard is no match for changeling aggression. Absolutely none.”

Awkwardly, he averted his eyes.
“Gosh. What… what makes you think that?”

“I don’t think that. My Princess, Luna of the Night, thinks that.”

“That is… regrettable.”
Fighting watched as Gavaskar folded his claws and very carefully edged his way towards more information. “Exactly… what kind of conflict are we talking about here? There were mentions of a police action, but… it’s more than that, isn’t it? Is there an uprising?”

He bleakly shook his head.
“War.”

The barely perceptible grin on his face faded into a frown.
“I… I wasn’t aware your nation was at war.”

“I know. Sometimes, I forget it myself.” Troubled, Fighting let his ears droop and gazed down at his helmet all over. “Ever since our worlds met a year ago, things have been going topsy turvy among the other races, and the changelings in particular. We used to always have some - faint - idea of what they’re up to, but the moment we finally got our hooves on Chrysalis, they’ve all seemed to drop from the face of the earth. From one day to another, we were left in the dark. Vulnerable. And the changelings were left at their strongest and most dangerous. I mean, you’d expect the opposite to happen, right? You’d expect the whole rotten trunk of the changeling oak to fall in on itself after we took the Queen out of the picture.”

“Yes, of course.”

Fighting couldn’t help but sigh at the frustration of it all.
“But instead, it looks like they have begun... consolidating. Getting together to plan some kind of... ultimate payback.”
A moment of silence swept through the office before Fighting brought himself to continue,
“You know that feeling? That… violent frustration of knowing that your country is plagued by some very real threat, and you are just in no position to do anything about it?”

“Honestly?” Gavaskar asked back, then consequently shook his head. “I must confess I have felt rather safe amongst the three million soldiers of our Armed Forces… But that might not mean much, all things considered...”

That made Fighting Fit whistle in surprise.
“Three Million? Wow… I mean… wow.”
Truly, those humans were a martial race, paramount to anything the ponies of Equestria ever had to do with.
“But, alas,” he continued, “We don’t have your luck, Lieutenant. Our lines are… beyond stretched. We can scrape barely enough colts together to police the Crystal Ridge in its entirety. Much less fortify it. Much much less… hold it against an invasion force. If the changelings decided to launch an incursion into Equestria right now... we would lose decisively.”
Finally, he glanced back up. “There’s that one bridge that leads over the ravine. Crystal Bridge. It’s the only one of its kind, really - it’s stone, and it’s broad enough to support carts and trains. Some… some crazed earth pony businessmare a few centuries ago thought it would be a good idea to have a set of tracks leading all the way north and bring civilisation to that Celestia-forsaken region.”

Gavaskar nodded sympathetically, if still a little confused by his digressions.
“I suppose it didn’t do that.”

“Not really. But now, of course, anything that goes over Crystal Ridge and doesn’t have wings must pass by that bridge. That includes changelings hauling heavy stuff, or transporting prisoners, or evacuating their own injured and exhausted. As you might imagine, we should be shovelling as many soldiers on that bridge as possible! We’re not talking about some road blocks either, we’re talking about turning that bridge into a frigging citadel!”

“Perfectly understandable. It’s academy 101.”

“And yet…”
He giggled caustically. “We do not have the stallions to do any of that. Posting a remotely effective garrison on Crystal Bridge means abandoning large swathes of ridgeland elsewhere, which the changelings can then easily cross unnoticed, by air.“
He cleared his throat. “Cutting a long story short, Lieutenant… We need help.”

“Hm.”
He caught Gavaskar making a tiny note on a scrap of paper lying between them.
Almost obliviously, the lieutenant answered, “So... what help did you have in mind, Captain?”

“Well...”
He leaned forward, hope sparking behind his eyes. “How many soldiers do you keep at this site in total?”

Gavaskar looked up, a little alarmed. “Me? Ehm… one platoon. That’s thirty men. Plus some attached medical personnel.”

“Right. Can you tell me more about the weapons you carry?”

“S-sure.”
He ducked under his desk and retrieved a folder that he threw a short glance into, but reined himself in at the last second. “But, uh… you may understand that I am not at liberty to go into too much detail.”

“Absolutely. Just give me a rough idea.”

“Sure. Pioneer Platoon possesses… a light machine gun plus ammunition, as well as a two-inch mortar plus ammunition. Standard kitting for a unit like ours. That gives us basic anti-personnel, anti-vehicle and anti-air capabilities.”

“Are they very capable, those weapons?”

“Tried and true, Captain.” he smiled. “I mean, our mortar type’s been in use permanently since World War Two. You can’t get any more tried and true than that.”

“If you say so… I saw one mortar in action myself, half a year ago.”

“Oh really? Was that... your first one?”

Fighting nodded with a geeky mien.
“The army of… Australia, I think, demonstrated some of their weapons to a small group of officers from Canterlot command. I went there representing Captain Shining Armour, who was held up elsewhere at the time. It was... magnificent.”

“Mortars are quite handy, true, true...”

Fighting leaned back and stared at the wooden beam ceiling. “I mean, can you even imagine how many soldiers we could free up if we had equipment like that? How many valleys and hilltops we could hold with… less than even a platoon’s worth of ponies?”

“I suppose I can...”

Gathering up all the authority he had in him, Fighting Fit rose up and leaned on the desk.
“Lieutenant Gavaskar… I humbly request to requisition your machine gun and your mortar, plus some ammunition, as well as a crew capable of operating them in the field of battle. Any soldiers willing to accompany us are free to join in.”

Gavaskar stared up at him.
He stared for a very long time.

“Sorry?” he ultimately asked.

“Just what I said.” Fighting stated abruptly and harrumphed. “I think it goes without saying that the Royal Guard would benefit immensely from equipment such as yours. Equestria would forever be in your debt.”

“Yes, but...” Gavaskar stuttered, still a little dumbfounded, “I can’t do that, Captain.”

Fighting Fit sat still like a statue. There was no real reaction on his face.

“I cannot give out equipment of the Indian Army to the Royal Guard. That’s… absolutely impossible. Not to mention, inappropriate.”

“Why?” Fighting inquired, not losing his composure in the slightest.

“Well… you see… Where should I start?” he gasped, nervously tugging at his tunic. “We are not here to sponsor anybody’s war efforts. If I just gave you our weapons, it would cause an international incident. A political meltdown!”

Fighting marched forth unabashed.
“We’re ready to pay for the use of your equipment, of course. We’d pay back our debt to your nation hundredfold!”

“Sir...”

“Look...” Fighting leaned in, his expression both intensely frank and everso-slightly desperate, “Let’s just leave politics out of this. You’re a Lieutenant, and I’m a Captain. This isn’t Equestria asking India, this is a soldier asking a soldier. We may be at the precipice of a military disaster here. And your platoon might just about save this... sceptered land from complete destruction.”

“And you… you think the fact that we’re soldiers gives you the right to roam the countryside and requisition foreign weaponry?” Gavaskar mumbled, more terrified than sympathetic.

“Actually...”
He stuck a hoof in his cuirass and retrieved a scroll with a broken ‘L’ seal, “Princess Luna herself has decreed that I make my rounds and make the inquiries. Here’s the signature.”

Gavaskar just shrunk back from the writ in some faint revulsion.
“That… doesn’t change anything.”

“The Princess herself is-”

“I swore an oath on the Constitution of India, Captain.” He declared with a little more resolution, tapping a finger on his desk. “And India did not send us to Equestria to fight.”

Fighting was mystified by that statement. His eyes narrowed.
“You came here to lay ‘telephone lines’ and build communication towers, but not to fight?”

“...Yes.” the youth gulped.

He shook his head in disbelief.
“I… I thought you were all soldiers. Those were all jobs that could have been done by engineers.”

“We are a platoon of sappers, Sir.” Gavaskar declared, sitting up straight. “This is exactly what we trained for. Before we were delegated to peacekeeping operations under UNEVEG, we were part of the Bombay Engineers Group.”

“My point still stands. Why are you here?”

He cocked his chin upward.
“I… uh… could read from the UNEVEG mandate, if you have the time.”

“Soldiers fight, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, but... not for you.”

Fighting felt stunned.
“For who do you fight then, if not for Equestria?”

Gavaskar silently kneaded his claws.

“I don’t know what standards humans are used to, Lieutenant Gavaskar, but if foreign soldiers station themselves in my country and do not lift a hoof to fight with my country… they’re either an invasion force or an occupation force. Take your pick.”

“What… no. No no no...” Gavaskar was aghast, waving his hands feebly to put a brake on the pegasus captain. “We are international observers. We were deployed to Equestria to handle civilian developmental tasks because it was expedient to send a regiment - for no other reason. We have pledged strict neutrality.”

Fighting’s head drooped.
“So, you’re saying you’d rather ‘observe’ Equestria be ravaged by a changeling horde big enough to be measured in acres rather than soldiers, than actually do something about it?”

Gavaskar gulped.
“My orders read: In case of such a... conflict ever arising, we would monitor the fighting and make sure it conforms to international laws and customs of war. We would however not assume any active role in this conflict.”

Fighting massaged his face with his hooves.
“You know that a changeling invasion would also trash all those ‘humanitarian’ efforts of yours, right?”

He just shrugged.
“Well… what can we do? What can I do? I’ve got my orders. Just like you.”

Fighting began to understand that reaching that human on this level wouldn’t do much. So he tried to appeal to something much more straightforward. Something much more basic.
“If - or rather, once - it comes to that, what do you think will happen to you?! What will the changelings do with you?”

“They are as entitled to our efforts as you are.” Gavaskar muttered, “We would not give them a reason to view us as a party to this conflict.”

“Changelings don’t need a reason, though. They’re changelings! They’d obliterate you and your soldiers as soon as they get the chance!”
He eyed the youth as though he was looking at a naive, pampered brat. “You might not know about all the awful things changelings are willing to do. But believe me when I say that I do. I was there. I walked amongst their victims - or rather, what was left of their victims. They stow away and cocoon as many as they can, sucking them dry of life until there is nothing left of them. And they’re the lucky ones! The not-so-lucky ones get their minds bent to the changelings’ will, and get to serve for the rest of their measly existence as willing slaves. And… and all the ponies they’ve done this to, they were civilians! Ponies who never held a weapon in all their lives. So what, might I ask, will they be doing with somepony like you?”

By that point, Gavaskar had hopelessly shrunk back together, eyeing the pegasus with hopeless terror in his eyes. He stumbled onto his feet unceremoniously and stepped away to escape the Captain’s onslaught.
“If… if this platoon found itself under threat, it would of course take measures to defend itself.”

“Well...” Fighting said and crossed his hooves. “So this is where your neutrality ends? At your own doorstep?”

Panic-stricken, the Lieutenant tugged at his duty belt.
“We cannot just let hostile forces impair the integrity of this combat unit. We have permission to conduct self-defence.”

“Okay. And how?”

“Pardon?”

“How would you try and defend yourselves?”

Gavaskar stepped up to one of the tiny casement windows and hesitantly pointed out at the motte at their feet, at the decayed wooden parapets and battlements and crates of human weapons stacked in their shadow.

“You think those walls are gonna protect you against them? Don’t you see you’ve already lost?”

“Wha- how?” he breathed confusedly, like an ensign stuttering his way through an officer’s examination, “Because I refuse to give you our weapons?”

Giving the brawny havildar behind him a short, scornful glance, Fighting Fit jumped from his seat.
“No, because I am a changeling!”

The Lieutenant just offered him a momentary, strangely aloof stare.
“C-come again?” he asked carefully.

The havildar by the door winced, and instinctively placed a claw near his holster.

“Yeah, Lieutenant. Congratulations.” Fighting sneered up at the both of them, joining Gavaskar by the window with a swagger. “You let me and my hive brethren march through your gates. And not only did you do nothing to confirm our identities - like, oh, I don’t know, contact Canterlot to see if they really did send almost a hundred guardsponies your way - no, you even invited me into your office!”

The human was deeply confused. Nervously, he shook his head and forced himself to a smile.
“I… I don’t… think… I...”

“So now you have me, a changeling infiltrator, running around your compound, scouting out every inch of your… truly pathetic defence measures, taking note of your armament...”
He casually trotted back over to the calendar wall, “...and, naturally, checking your timetable to see when your soldiers are moving and where. Which gives us brilliant opportunities to ambush them! Next time they deploy for a mission, we will be lying in wait, and we’ll snatch them wholesale, and we’ll send back more of our own instead!”

“No… please… wait...”

“Bottom line!” Fighting interrupted him anew, “You currently find yourself under siege by at least an entire company of changelings. Your garrison is understaffed. Your soldiers are not under arms. As a matter of fact, most of the colts that should currently be oh-so-busy moving your barrels into the depot are, by now, probably changelings themselves. And so is this guy.”
He pointed a hoof over to Gavaskar’s nervous second-in-command.

The havildar just looked around and pouted.
“Kya... Kya kaha tumne mujhe?”

“So congratulations, Lieutenant Gavaskar.” Fighting scornfully declared. “Your fortress has been breached, and is now under our control. You have lost your command, and you haven’t even noticed. Now please be a dear; step outside and lower your flags.”

Gavaskar, to put it mildly, seemed to be no longer in the condition to do anything of the sort. Frozen motionlessly, and holding on to his desk and window frame with a claw each, he gaped at the pegasus with glassy, surrendered eyes.

“Well?” Fighting prodded him.

He looked as though the life had been sucked out of his body. Nervously scratching an invisible itch under his turban, he returned to his seat and slumped down.

Fighting was well acquainted with that kind of look.
Before Gavaskar could get the chance to go catatonic with frustration, Gavaskar lowered his temper and calmly returned to join the youngster by the desk.
“Lieutenant.”

“Hm?”

“When did you make your Lieutenant?”

“Uh… three-and-a-half months ago.” he muttered meekly.

Fighting rolled his eyes.
No wonder. This human wasn’t just green behind his pink fleshy ears, he was barely poking out of the soil yet.
Fighting wondered if he shouldn’t have been as harsh to the freshly made officer.
“Lieutenant Gavaskar...” he cooed. “Have I made my point?”

“Y-yeah.” Gavaskar finally sighed, with an air of relief. “You...”
He gulped. “...made your point.”

“Now then. What will you do to help this situation?”

“Uhm… not… not letting you in again?” he asked with a coy smile.

“Well, you let me in once. If I can come this far, any changeling can.” He nodded towards the windows down into the courtyard. “And your own soldiers, who are permanently on the come and go, running errands and transporting goods... They’re a liability lying in wait.”

“I… I’d think I’d notice if a changeling was miming one of my own men.” Gavaskar remarked.

Here, Fighting Fit knew he could shake his head slowly and luxuriously.
“No, you wouldn’t. That’s why they’re called changelings. Once the changeling invasion rolls around, this stronghold is doomed to be among the first places to fall to them. They will not hesitate to hollow this apple out from the inside.”

The Lieutenant forced himself to a nerve-wrecked laugh.
“A superior officer might call this... paranoid.”

“A superior officer might have relieved you of your command by now.” Fighting determined grimly, harkening back to the horrors of his own examination. “You don’t need to be a tactical prodigy to realise that you cannot manage this on your own, Lieutenant. If we don’t stick together, both of us will soon be done for. First us, and then you.”

“Okay… alright....”
Gavaskar digested his brief shock with closed eyes and a claw stroking over his beard. Trying to act as calm and laid-back as possible he trudged back to his desk and plopped down. Fighting closely followed him at every turn. “The thing is, Captain…” he began, “that even if we cooperate with you and even if we wholly committed ourselves to your course…”

“Yes?”

“There still are less than seven thousand peacekeepers stationed in Equestria at the moment - less than five hundred of them are Indians. I mean… we could not mount a potent resistance against anything right now, regardless of how hard we fought.”
He nervously wiped his brow. “As someone who… well… passed his examination, I summarise the situation as follows: We don’t have the ammunition, we don’t have the combined arms support, and we don’t have the logistics to manage protracted combat situations. All of those things will have to be deployed from abroad first.”

“We can provide all of that for you!” Fighting pleaded desperately. “That’s not for you to worry about!”

“Please, Sir...” Gavaskar raised a silencing hand, before scratching his turban with it in thought. “Now… if the UN were to authorise a full-fledged intervention, on the other hand...”

Here, Fighting’s ears perked up.
“Huh?”

“Well…” the Lieutenant shrugged and folded his arms, “Here’s how I understood it: If the UN deemed a conflict sufficiently menacing and in direct violation of international law, they could pass a resolution condemning changeling aggression and calling all UN member states to arms on the side of the Equestrian principality. It will have to go through a Security Council vote first, of course. Just like in Korea in the Fifties.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes.” Fighting stammered and, overcome by a wave of fresh hope, threw himself back onto the seat in front of the desk. “That sounds great. How… I mean… how can we kick such a vote off?”

“With a war.” he just smirked, embarrassed. “And you don’t really have one… right now… do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said it yourself, there is only the risk of a changeling incursion. If things do escalate though, Equestria should have no problems filing a motion for military assistance.” Conclusively, he flapped his folder shut and stowed it back under the table. “But that’s not even between you and me, Sir. That’s between your government and the Security Council.”

“When the war happens?” Fighting backtracked and raised his hooves in a commanding pose. “Hold your horses there, Lieutenant. The war is already on! It’s been on for the last thousand years.”

“I don’t mean disrespect, Sir… But I don’t think sending a few regiments to search a forest or surveil a ridge qualify as an open conflict situation.” he sighed.

“How do you know all of that?” Fighting spluttered.

“I… attended a mandatory Peacekeeping seminar.” he mumbled.

“Then you should know that those Security Council votes might take months! It’ll be too late for us when ‘open conflict’ starts!”

“I mean,” the Lieutenant shrugged again, “Equestria can also try for such a motion now, I suppose. It’ll just not pass, because there’ll be no case for intervention.”

Disappointed, Fighting plopped back on his own seat.
“In that case... we might not hold out to see reinforcements. Come now. What other options are there?”

“You can appeal to individual countries, of course.”

“Like yours?”

He smiled and adjusted his turban.
“Again, your Princess is free to speak with the Indian ambassador. There certainly is the possibility to secure Indian support for your cause.”

“That’s great!”

“But... given our country’s foreign policy doctrine, military assistance might not be on the agenda.”

“Ugh.”

“And even if, India would first have to negotiate with the UN about pulling out of the UNEVEG mission first, since we would no longer be an impartial party. That would take as much time as everything else.”

Fighting weakly swayed away from the lieutenant’s desk, only holding himself up by his forehooves. “What… what are you allowed to do right now? Apart from laying cables and building towers?”

Gavaskar relaxed a little and tented his claws anew.
“In an armed conflict, the UN’s most straightforward role would be to… you know... establish diplomatic channels between the changeling powers and you. You will have someone to turn to if you’re looking to negotiate ceasefires or demilitarisation processes. Maybe even peace. Or surrenders.”

Here Fighting shook his head and furrowed his brow.
“There will be no negotiations.”

Gavaskar wimpered.
“Sir, I mean no disrespect to you or your cause. I wish I could lend you a hand. I really do! But if I supply with you with weaponry, I will get court-martialed! You need to understand that, sir!“

“Yeah, yeah...” Fighting moaned and scraped his hoof on the tabletop.

“I… We could supply you with extensive medical support to all sides and the civilians. We can erect field hospitals at strategic locations, maybe even carve out so-called ‘safe areas’. We could help move civilians out of the way of the fighting. Things like that.”

Fighting shrugged sluggishly.
“It’s a start… but still not what we were hoping for.”

“You mentioned you already visited two other peacekeeping camps today.” Gavaskar suddenly stated. "The Indonesians and Danes."

He nodded melancholically.

“Did they tell you... anyting different from what I have just said?”

Fighting closed his eyes and let a long breath out.

“Then… this is the situation now, Captain. I mean… there doesn’t need to be a war.”

“Don’t tell me.” His hoof sought out the horizon beyond the casement window, the first treetops of the Everfree Forest. “Tell them.”

“The changelings surely aren’t deaf.”

“No. That’s not the problem.” Fighting muttered powerlessly and squinted his eyes in thought. “They’re just… brutal.”

A buzzing noise resounded through the room.

Both Fighting and the two humans started up and glanced around.

On the officer’s desk, a suitcase-sized electronic machine had sprung to life and began spitting out a piece of paper, pushing it out of its maw line for line.

Gavaskar immediately grabbed hold of it and pulled the paper under his own nose.
“Sorry, that’s important.”

“What is it?”

“A transmission from UNEVEG Command… Excuse me...”
His small human eyes quickly scanned the message. When he was done a few seconds later, he looked back up at Fighting.

“Sir… Do you know where the ‘Castle Of The Two Sisters’ is?”

Fighting’s ears perked up.

It was a very strange convoy indeed.

Captain Fighting Fit flew in on a chariot, hovering mere inches above the country lanes and fields and cleared the thick layers of snow under his wheels with an impressive gust of wind. Right after him, and riding on that same freshly cleared gust of snow, roared in the humans on their motorised wagon, as white as the snow around them, with five very jumpy soldiers - Gavaskar, Chavan and three hastily assembled medics - squeezed into four seats, each wearing a bright-blue helmet, a bright-blue scarf and a bright-blue flak vest, crammed in-between stretchers and medipacks.
Behind them all galloped one hundred Canterlotian guardsponies.

The brief, sparse words of the transmission were still stuck in his head.

“Attention.

Attention.

Be advised:

General warning to all units stationed in: Everfree County.

Reported incident: Skirmish (minor), structural fire (minor).

Warning Issued By: Equestrian Royal Provincial Guard - Southern Command.

Additional notes: Human involvement - affiliation unknown.”

Additional requests: Avoid operational area.

Human involvement. That certainly aroused the Indian garrison’s attention. And it quickly overturned the appeal to steer clear.

The forest was only a few horizons away. Before he knew it, Captain Fighting could already feel snow-strewn twigs and branches whizzing past his ears left and right, and the two pegasi up front dodging the odd misplaced or leaning tree.
His chariot wasn’t bound to follow the narrow forest mud roads, but they did have to watch out for foliage and underbrush.

The motorised cart behind them was left to swerve with the street, ineffectively trying to keep up with the three pegasi in front of him.

Over the treetops to his right, Fighting could already see the towers of the Castle of The Two Sisters rising out of the tundric forest. What had caught his attention many leaps earlier, however, was a thick black column of smoke billowing forth from in-between those ancient castle towers.

He gave the signals for the vehicles to slow down. They came to a halt just in time of the next untraversable spot in the road - three pearly white human coaches, sloppily parked square across the narrow path.

“Dismount!” he commanded.
As he got off himself, he crept his way towards the vehicles, keeping an eye out for any telltale signs of occupation. The lights were off, the doors shut. Peeking through the darkened windows, he could find no passengers hiding inside either.
“What are those doing out here?” he wondered out loud.

“Captain!” he heard Lieutenant Gavaskar address him from his own coach. “I… I wouldn’t touch these jeeps if I were you. They’re under UN protection.”

“I wasn’t planning to.” he answered, trudging around the vehicles one whole circle before returning to the others. The sight of the empty things strangely sent a cold shower down his spine. “Let’s… let’s continue on hoof. Best not take any risks. We’re in the middle of no-mare’s land out here.”

It was starting to snow all over.

That, in and on itself, Fighting Fit wouldn’t have minded further, but as the little flakes kept flitting down onto the ground before him, and began settling on his helmet and his cape, he realised that they really were all grey and black.
Curiously, he scooped some of the flakes up with a hoof. He realised he was actually holding charred bits of paper, peppering the fine dust of ash all over his white coat.
“What in the name of...”
He glanced up, hoping to see where it was coming from. All he saw above was the black column blowing over the group’s heads.

“Is that... paper?” he heard Gavaskar wonder behind him. “Almost like an office somewhere got caught in the fire.”

“Yeah...”

Clearing away the ash, he inspected the biscuit-sized flakes closer. They were old and stained yellow. But more importantly, he could make out very faint ink scribbles - single letters of a language he didn’t quite recognise.

Yet, watching those symbols instilled a very eerie feeling inside him.
It was almost as if the ink was springing to life as he contemplated them more and more closely, curling around the paper like very lively mandalas.
In fact, it was almost as if the writing was trying to lure him in with its captivating slopes and curves…

But before he could become lost in the flakes’ strangely compelling sight, the gears in the back of his head ground his body to a halt.
Sudden memories of his magic lessons in the academy came flooding back - watchful caveats and cautionings of past instructors echoing through his mind. Within moments of trying to get to the bottom of this sudden memory, the grim realisation of what was happening caught up with him.
He immediately tiled the mandala-infused flakes off his hoof and frantically brushed the rest off his uniform.

Then he took a cautious step back toward his chariot.
“Lieutenant...” he called over to the humans.

“Aha?”

Fighting turned, only to see Gavaskar holding some snippets of his own up to his face, attempting to read their contents just like he had.
“Don’t look at it!” he ordered him worryingly. “Throw those bits away. Do not try to read what’s written on them!”

“Why?” Gavaskar smiled. “Is it classified material or something?”

“No… It’s dark magic!” he explained, “Those symbols are all spells! They’re infused with more energy than a grown unicorn! Do not read them, they might taint your mind!”

“Excuse me?”
Gavaskar looked up, hopelessly confused and not entirely believing it. But he knew better than to ignore a senior officer’s instructions, and dusted the burnt specks off his claws.
“But… who burned them?”

“I don’t know!” he yelled, “I don’t even know where this dark magic’s supposed to have come from. We’re in the middle of nowhere here...” He turned to the rest of the group, “But until we find out, nopony picks anything up from the ground. Clear?!”

The hundred ponies and five humans were soon double-marching down the slope towards the old castle of the Everfree.
Rounding the hill that oversaw the ravine running by the side of the decrepit fortress, Fighting could already see the gleaming armour of guardsponies that had been posted by a flimsy rope bridge.

Beyond it, they found a surprisingly lively display.
They saw scores of militia ponies who, with all their spears and swords abandoned and cast into the snow, had formed up in long rows that snaked around the different wall fragments and columns and into the innermost parts of the keep.
The guards had also taken off their helmets, which they were now using to scoop up snow and passing them down the line by the dozens.

In the midst of it all stood one solitary guardspony desperately trying to shout commands into the action.
He turned around as soon as he noticed the approaching newcomers.
“Halt! Who goes there!” he yelled in a high-pitched, yet familiar voice. “Wait a minute… Lieutenant Fighting Fit?!”

Wasn’t that… Corporal Morion?
Fighting Fit needed to readjust his eyes and take another look at the young pegasus. Of course, before him stood the simple little private that he had once commanded as lieutenant. Junebug’s unfortunate very-special-somepony.
Fighting hadn’t heard or seen from him ever since they had ventured into the cavern.
Of course Fighting knew that colt.

The rather lanky pegasus who stood on the other side of the rift nudged his ill-fitting helmet to the side and waved it to attract their attention.

“Morion!” he hailed him back. “Long time, no see!”

“Did that messenger reach you?! Are you the reinforcements?!” he asked, though obviously still too far away to make Fighting and his companions out for sure.

“Not quite… But I’ve got a hundred stallions and five human peacekeepers in tow! To take care of the wounded! What is all this circus?”

“A… a fire!” Morion gasped helplessly. “I already called for the Ponyville fireponies, but they’ve an been evacuated with the rest. We had to do something!”

Only now it dawned on Fighting what the militia ponies were trying to accomplish here.

They were frantically trying to somehow smother the flames under small piles of snow, slush and soil.

He couldn’t help but shake his head at this desperate, rustic firefighting technique. It was, perhaps, one step in sophistication away from just blowing up the burning structures with generous amounts of blackpowder.

“Couldn’t you find any rain clouds in the sky?”

“Only snow clouds! But the colts keep looking!”

Fighting nodded with a sigh and a shake of his head.
“We’re coming over!” he announced.

“Yes, but… be careful!”

The rope bridge swayed dangerously, but it held the armoured hooves and heavy boots well enough.

Morion was shivering profusely, trying to get his - still pretty ruffled - feathers in order as he addressed the newcomers.

“G-glad to have you back, Sir.” he told Fighting.

“Glad to be back.” Fighting nodded, and waited until the humans had caught up with the group. “These are Lieutenant Gavaskar and… uh… Sergeant Major Chavan, from the human Indian Army. Now, what’s the situation?”

The corporal just sighed nervously and pushed his helmet off his forehead, revealing a properly swollen shiner on his right eye.

“Sweet Celestia, what happened to you?”

Disregarding the humans, Morion leaned in to explain the situation to Fighting.
“Well… we were doing our scheduled comb of the forest. We moved in platoons, in thin rows, and kept an eye out for any changelings we would scare out of the undergrowth.”

“And?”

“And… Instead, we came across some humans… surprisingly enough.”

“What were they doing there?”

He just hovered back and forth in contemplation.
“I asked them the same thing. They just looked at us, then sprinted off into the distance. Me and a couple of others went right after them to rein them in and bring them out of the lockdown zone.” He carefully felt the side of his face. “But then… then they jumped us.”

“What?” the pegasus captain and the human lieutenant asked almost in unison.

“Yeah… I mean, we definitely didn’t expect it. There were about ten of them, and they gave us a pretty good thrashing… at least until the rest of our platoon came after. At that point, they up and fled.”

Now came the humans’ own turn to be curious.

“What kind of people were they?” Gavaskar rattled off, “How were they dressed? Were they armed?”

“They wore those weird colourful overalls...” Morion wondered out loud, absent-mindedly pointing at the Lieutenant’s own fatigues. “Just like those, really. One of them also wore some… ”
He hesitated in his remarks to get look at Gavaskar’s face. “A wrapped scarf on his forehead… and...”

At this point, his face abruptly turned white.

“You mean he wore a... turban?” the Gavaskar pressed on, oblivious to the corporal’s frozen expression. He gave his havildar a surprised glance. “Ek aur Bhartiya jawaan? Kya sanyog hai?” he asked.

“Nahi ho sakta.” the havildar whispered back. “Regiment ka is sector mein koi mission nahi hai. Ho sakta hai Galloping Gorge ke pakistaniyon ne kisi ko bheja hai.“

“Saale Pakistani…” the Lieutenant just growled. “Yeh humein Major Chowdary ko report karna hoga.”

“Y-you.” Morion suddenly breathed at them.

Still oblivious, they acknowledged him from the corner of their eyes with an unfocused, “Hm?”

“You.” he just repeated, before shrinking back defensively.

“What ‘me’, Corporal?”

Something very volatile glinted in Morion’s swollen eye.
“You son of a horse...”

And with those whispered words, the pegasus jumped up and lunged straight at the Indian officer.
The human, though startled, managed to dive backward and to the side, so Morion’s attacking hooves only very narrowly missed the throat they had just wanted to curl themselves around.
Just as Gavaskar snapped out of his momentary confusion and protectively raised his claws up in front of himself, Havildar Chavan roughly shoved him further to the side and, getting in front of his officer, unholstered his small black sidearm.

Concerned, Fighting rushed between the raging corporal and the glinting muzzle of the human’s weapon.
“Morion!” he asked the young lanky colt warily. “What the hay are you doing?!”

Morion, still trapped in his fit of rage, fluttered into position to get a second try on the human from further up.
“Out of the way, Sir!” he coldly ordered the Captain from far above, “It was him! That was the monkey that biffed me in my face!”

“Watch your tongue, Corporal Morion!” Fighting suddenly barked at his enraged underling. “You are speaking about a human officer!”

“I’m going to polish that human officer’s teeth!” he screamed back defiantly. “He attacked me! And he attacked our comrades!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Gavaskar interrupted them with a desperate hiss. “Who… who are you?”

Here, Fighting silenced him with a raised hoof.
“When, Morion?”

“What?” the corporal asked.

“When was that? When did Lieutenant Gavaskar attack you?”

Before Gavaskar could protest once more, Morion was already spitting, “An hour and a half or so ago! Just behind those trees, this cur and his friends jumped us!”

All eyes settled on the gasping Lieutenant and his underlings.

“That… is a… a... goddamn lie!” he breathed. “I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t anyone of my men!”

“Liar!”

“Morion!” Fighting yelled again. “Shut up.”

He pressed himself further in front of him before continuing. “Just one hour ago, I was sitting with Lieutenant Gavaskar in Magus’ Motte. That’s eighty whole leaps from here!”

“So… so what?” Morion stammered and shrunk back from his former Lieutenant Fighting Fit.

“Means that he couldn’t have been in this darned forest an hour and a half ago, because as you might know, humans cannot fly!”

Morion gulped. He searchingly scanned the two humans’ sour faces.

“And… and the other one?”

“Was with us all the time.”

The pegasus corporal clenched his mouth shut and wildly shook his head.

“Are you calling me a liar too, Morion?”

“No, Sir. But… but it can’t be. I know who I saw. It was him. Scout’s honour!”

Lieutenant Gavaskar was just standing next to the Havildar’s extended pistol and nervously wheezing.

As Fighting looked between them and Morion and his fellow Royal Guards a few times, he quickly became aware of what was really going on.

“I’ll… I’m ready to make a full report about this allegation, Captain!” Gavaskar muttered. “I will not be accused of attacking Equestrian soldiers. This is crazy! This is ridiculous!”

“Don’t bother.” Fighting ultimately sighed, his brow furrowed with a dark premonition. “There were no humans here.”

“Yeah, I agree!” he answered straight away.

Fighting calmly pushed Morion further away from the humans by his shoulder.
“You’ve encountered changelings, Corporal.”

“I have- what?” Morion stammered energetically and settled himself closer to the ground.

Fighting swiftly flipped back around and pushed aside Havildar Chavan’s firearm.
“Changelings disguised as members of your platoon!”

“...You’re joking.”

Fighting Fit answered with an unamused scowl.
“It’s just how I told you it would be. You aroused some changelings’ attention. They stalked you. They got a good enough look at you to copy your appearance, and now they have been passing themselves off as you ever since.”

“I thought...” Gavaskar stated with unsuppressed confusion, “I thought changelings also ran around on all fours. Who could they be fooling?”

“Next you’ll tell me that you also expected the changelings to look like changelings, won’t you?” Fighting guessed, his tone smeared richly with sarcasm.

“W-wait, wait… Sir.” came Morion’s final objection.

“What?!” came Fighting’s immediate rebuke.

“Well, If those humans that attacked us were changelings… Then who or what in Tartarus are the humans we dug out of the castle cellars back there?”

Within seconds, pegasi and humans were battling their way through files of royal guards and their slush-filled helmets, advancing deeper into the destroyed fortress complex, passing underneath nonexistent ceilings and climbing over collapsed ruins of towers and walls until they reached a wide marble square which, while now dirtied with copious amounts of snow and weeds, had definitely once been the ostentatious heart of the Alicorn Princesses’ old empire.

On this floor, there now lay, in a neat line, four bruised and battered human bodies, each clad in white coats and trousers that were either half-scorched or completely covered in soot. Each human’s face was blood-red and covered in blisters.

The mere sight of the four made the Lieutenant roil.
He raised his claw to rally his three corpsmen. “Oye jaldi kar! Chaar ghaayal aane waale hain! Aage barh!”

The battle medics immediately descended on the injured, emptying their rucksacks and medical bags and beginning with the most basic stabilisation measures, recording pulses and loosening clothes.

Fighting remained by the side, watching the corpsmen’s work from afar.
He was no doctor, but the sight of the sore faces on their ‘patients’ was enough to betray their critical state. They were burned, and badly so. Even if he had tried to recognise any of them, he might not have been able to.

“Morion,” he addressed his subordinate, “Keep an eye on the injured. We might never know what they turn out to be.”

“Will do, Sir.” he answered courteously, having once again regained control over his obedience. “Uh… you don’t happen to have any unicorns who know the uncloaking spell with you?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Fighting admitted and shook his head. “Were those the only humans you found?”

“No, those were just the ones from the cellars. We came across two more - one at the foot of the rope bridge trying to stop us with his badge, and another running around the castle proper.”

“Were they injured?”

“Hm...” Morion thought, lethargically wiping his muzzle, “Not when we found them, no Sir.”

“Where are they?”

In one corner of the square, some half-score of royal guards stood holding watch over the two absconded humans, sitting helplessly on the filthy floor and bleakly eyeing their captor’s hooves. Both were holding their heads and eyes sunken in nervous contemplation, daring not to say a word the entire time.

Fighting Fit approached the pathetic pair with slow steps.
Like their injured companions, these two seemed to be wearing uniforms. The younger of the pair, one of equally dark complexion as the Indian humans, was wearing a thin grey coat and fitting ski pants, both fairly clean and unencumbered by the incessant rain of ash that still went down over the area.

Fighting found his face and uniform faintly familiar. Perhaps this one was running through the Canterlotian castle one of the other days as well...

“You.” he hailed him. “Grey one.”

The human started up.

“Tell me what happened.”

The young human gulped, shrunk together, and then finally answered,
“I won’t say anything. I refuse. No comment!”

“Why not?” he inquired strictly.

“I know nothing!" he insisted before beginning to incoherently rattle down his supposed role, "Mister Abel told me to wait by the bridge. I come back, the lower level’s on fire. I try to go look for help, and next thing I know, I’m rugby-piled by your soldiers!”

Here, Fighting began feeling rather frustrated.
“...What? I'm going to ask you once more: What happened here?”

“Ask. Pierre. Abel.” Ibrahim mouthed back.

“Where is he?”

Pained, Ibrahim shut his eyes and covered his face. He blindly pointed back at the four injured.
“Um… Second from the right… I think.”

Fighting couldn’t help but let out a gulp of his own. It seemed he wouldn’t have been able to avoid the burned after all.
Trotting over very slowly to the rescuees as they were in the process of being vetted, he picked out the second-closest body. For all the layers of winter clothes, soot and bushels of wild beard hair, there wasn’t a lot left to see from his face.
As he kneeled down to get a better view of the dilapidated creature, the Indian medic was in the process of applying an electric shaving machine.
“For the oxygen mask.” he curtly explained. “Please move aside.”

Fighting obeyed meekly.

As the medic began excavating more and more of Abel’s face, occasionally stopping to smear away ash with a wet tissue, the more apparent it became that Abel was very much conscious, staring up into the sky with two blood-red, practically dead eyes.

His mouth was jittering, as though he was silently rattling down some eery last words.
Fighting leaned in immediately. He was bent on collecting as much of it as he could.
But what he heard through the hollow, breathless muttering, he didn’t like.

“Edith… Edith… Edith...”

“What?” he himself breathed as soon as the words had hit his mind.

Edith.
No. It couldn’t be.
He remembered leaving her behind in Canterlot like it was yesterday.
No… it was yesterday. Not even twenty hours ago, he had insisted so harshly that she come with him, accompany his host up to the Frozen North. And yes, hadn’t she insisted right back that she was not going to leave?

And yet, here she was, being implicated in some strange assault-arson charge...
Oh, when was that human going to stop running into trouble before his very eyes?

“Where? Where is Edith?!” he queried down at the wheezing human. He wasn’t sure at all that he could hear, much less comprehend his words, but stubbornly asked on regardless.

The silent muttering seized. It was rapidly replaced by an aghast, almost hysterically sad grimace.
“Bastard...” Pierre wheezed.

Was he talking about him? No, it couldn’t be. Fighting didn’t even know that human.
“Who?” he tacitly inquired.

Just before two gloved claws squeezed a transparent mask with a hose over Abel’s mouth and nose, Fighting was convinced he could decipher two very distinct words.

Two other very familiar words.
“Golden… Dirk...”

Captain Fighting Fit arose as a wiser, more harrowed creature.

Golden Dirk.

Sergeant Golden Dirk.

Service number two, two, seven, niner, three, eight, one….

Author's Note

Hello again!
I'm proud to present another work of art made by McDronePone, aka Derpanater, based on that one little scene from the end of Diseased.
I just say, keep on swimming!

XXIV. The Debris Field

XXIV.
The Debris Field

ICC Permanent Premises
Courtroom 1
23. November, 2015
8:56 am MET

“By all means... today should be another easy victory,” the defence counsel Estermann mumbled.

“Should be?” the changeling queen Chrysalis asked.

“Should be.”

“But you’re not sure.”

Curious, Estermann flicked through the thick bundle of pages that lay on the defence attorney’s stand, one last time - just like the other ‘last’ times before. “I have the feeling that we’ll be dealing today with what we experts refer to as ‘evidential fluff’. Though… again, I could be wrong...”

Again, his eyes got caught on the black-white copy of a heraldic book cover’s image, a piece of illuminatory art that looked as though it was stitched into a tapestry.

Timbucktu. The City That Fell From The Sky.

A panorama of a town floating inexplicably on a pearly-white cloud bank, crumbling apart like mud pie. Imposing towers and impressive temples, colossal arches and curling aqueducts, all slipped off their dense, puffy foundations and rained down onto the earth below in a lethal hail of fire, ash, bricks and marble slabs.
Meanwhile, the black fumes of destruction were whirled into the heavens, where they mingled with the atmosphere to produce one grey, mournful soup that blotted out a setting sun.

No agonising - or, more aptly, iconic - detail had been left out. Here, one could see a pegasus guard hurtling towards the ground with both his wings broken. There, one could see a pony babe looking out of the window of a house that was in the process of caving into nothingness. In the background, a broken noblepony, adorned with ripped silk shawls and dishevelled strings of precious jewelry, was fleeing the carnage into the heavens, exiting stage right.

And above, there circled an endless swarm of ugly, nasty changelings, cackling and licking their lips in scornful amusement at all of it.

Below the scene, in absolutely unintelligible writing, rested the stitched signature of one certain “Star-Svvirle th. Bierded - academicvs regni”.
At least, so the translation went.

He lifted the image from his desk and brought it under his client’s muzzle, who was sitting just a row behind him in the defence’s corner. “Does that name ring any bells, Your Highness?”

She skeptically inspected the copy, scanning over the picture before focusing on the name.
“Starswirl? I suppose so...”

“What can you tell me about Starswirl?”

She whirled some strands of hair out of her face with a holey hoof as she thought. Then she shrugged.
“Not much. A pony. Much beloved once, apparently. But dead now.”

Even Estermann could have said more about Starswirl than that. And he had just put minimal efforts into researching this historic unicorn figure. His list of accolades was long and winding. Author, essayist, statesman, scientist, magician, philosopher. A true polymath. The Goethe of Equestria. An equine renaissance man, born before the renaissance was even a glint in Man’s own eye.

And he was the prosecution’s entire case.

It had struck Estermann as very odd. Was this little book, aptly entitled “The Rise And Fall of the Pegasus Dominion of Timbucktu”, really the only piece of evidence they were going to submit to the Timbucktu charges against Chrysalis?

Sure, this book made reference to Chrysalis at least in a dozen different chapters, but it still was just a solitary source. And that was just the thing that was least wrong with Starswirl’s account of that fateful siege, but… more about that later.

They had to be bluffing.
Or not.

He couldn’t help but stare around the gradually, yet lazily shaping assembly.
It was funny. The scene that Estermann had before him, with people drowsily stumbling past rows of empty chairs to find their own was almost deceptively slow.
This trial was said to be the most, hectic, rampant and wildly popular affair the otherwise timid and straight-laced ICC ever had the honour to host, simply going by the sheer number of interested spectators and reporters. Outside the main court buildings, people were flocking to the trial like it was a Broadway musical - or trying to, anyway.
The people that were allowed in the actual courtroom during the hearings were carefully handpicked. Prosecutors, attorneys, clerks and security personnel all. No one who served no purpose to the trial could cross the threshold. For those individuals, there still was the gallery, which was - in theory - public. But since it only had about fifty chairs, and the trial being the thing it was, a very long waiting list had soon generated. And this list had been over-proportionally bought out by members of the Equestrian elite, just like the princess Twilight Sparkle, and Equestrian brass, like her haphazard brother. A few lucky journalists, and even some intrigued local politicians filled out the rest.

As he wondered how this trial was in any way important enough for those politicians to take time out of their busy schedules for, he felt the changeling queen leaning in from behind. Her snout was hovering above his shoulder and right next to his earlobe. He heard her nose whistle as she drew in a long, deep breath through her nostrils.

“Your Highness...” he whispered. “What do you think you’re doing? We’re in the courtroom, for Christ’s sake.”

“What a bright little worm you are,” she cooed. Then she inhaled once more.

The sound of her taking in his scent made him shiver inexplicably. There was something instinctively unsettling about it… or was it just something exciting?
“It’s Fahrenheit, in case you were wondering.” he muttered stiffly.

“Hm?” she started up and crept closer to his ear. “Yes yes, worm. You smell like a basket of fresh tulips.”

He nodded, perhaps a little helplessly, and tried focusing the Timbucktu journal lying in front of him.

“Now tell me… who have you been seeing?”

“...What?”
He couldn’t help but turn his head a little. “Nobody.”

“Oh, you liar.”

“I’ve not been seeing anyone, your Highness. As you might have noticed, I have been busy planning your defence!”

She sighed as she smiled.
“Then who is it that I smell on you?”

“Do you usually sniff other people in public?”
Was that another quirk of changelings that he had been - thankfully - safe from until now? “Might I remind you that still have a live camera pointing at us-”

“Ah ah.” she chided cheekily. “Spill the beans. Who was it?”

What was she on about? He didn’t meet anyone he hadn’t already met in the past few days, so what smell could possibly be on him to make her think that…

Heartstrings.
That little changeling informant, surely.

“Are we talking about L…” he harrumphed quietly, “Well, you know…”

“Hm?”

“Your daughter?”

He could virtually feel her already wide grin widening even more.
“Found me,” she muttered half-silently, “And about time, too.”

He wanted to peer up and ask with whom she was speaking, but something about the way she uttered these words sent his thoughts stumbling. For some strange reason, they touched him a bit. More so, they sent little joyous cartwheels rolling through his subconscious.

“Tell me… how is she?” Chrysalis asked.

“...Safe.” he answered curtly.

“And you’re making sure of that.”

“Of course I am.”

“Good boy. You know your duty.”
Her voice was thick with commanding satisfaction.

“I… I’d still like to know how she even managed to get into the country!”

“We changelings have our ways, worm. I suggest that you quit underestimating us so much,” she explained cryptically. “Now then… pray tell, where is my beautiful pupa at?”

Resolutely, he huffed.
“Far, far away. Another thing I‘ve made sure of.”
He sharply snapped the book closed and whirled around on his chair. It was time for a definite change of topic.
“Your Highness, where are your beautiful glasses at?”

Surprised, she shrunk back.
“Why are we back to those things now?”

“Because you’ve got an image to keep up, remember?” he sternly reminded her. “Where did you put the glasses I gave you two days ago?”

She just shrugged.
“I don’t know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Did you lose them or what?”

“Who cares about the darn glasses?” she hissed back.

“Do I need to explain it to you all over again?”

“Don’t get fresh with me, worm.”

Gritting a fist in unbridled annoyance, Estermann rose out of his chair and, scooting past the queen’s leering head, moved to his aide-de-camp Garibaldi, who, just as during the last hearing, sat stowed away on the far end of the defence’s desk, and was busy tippexing something on his files.

“Garibaldi!”

He looked up, startled.

“We have a problem. Her Royal Highness has lost her glasses.”

Garibaldi, confused, adjusted his own black framed ones with two fingers.
“So?”

“We need another pair.”

“What? Again?”
He gulped. “Mister Estermann, this is the last pair I have!”

“What? Come on, I’ll buy you another one. Don’t tell me these cost you more than fifteen euros.”

“Well… no… but the thing is, Mister Estermann, I can barely see anything without them.”

“Oh, suck it up, We’ll be out of here in less than an hour anyway.” Estermann hissed, “Just let me take care of the reading. Give me your files. About time someone did something useful around here!”

Garibaldi gave him a long, ugly glare.
Then he wordlessly took his reading frames off his pudgy nose and tossed them at Estermann, who greedily caught them.

Chrysalis, who still had her head hovering between the two jurists’ shoulders, sneered delightedly.
“I will miss you humans.”

Estermann would have shaken his head at her pre-emptive well-wishes, but he was too busy for that.
“We’re not out of the woods yet. Now, please close your eyes for me.”

Thankfully, these glasses had a much bendier frame than the last ones. Even though they were just a little too small to cover Chrysalis’ own massive eyeballs, they wrapped around her enormous head rather nicely.

Feeling the frame push up against her temple, Chrysalis asked with a giddy tone,
“What shall I say today? I am looking forward to formally introducing myself to that pony judge for once…”

“Today?” Estermann humourlessly instructed her, “You will say nothing. You will sit back and look very very pretty.”

Here, the regent was dumbfounded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That means: no snide remarks, no heckling, and no mood swings in public anymore, please.”

“What about two days ago?”

“Two days ago was two days ago. The initial appearance hearing was your chance to shine. For the rest of this pre-trial phase, the defence will hold the floor. That means I will do the talking, and I alone.”

She smirked, “And what if the judges want to hear it from me?”

“That would mean that you have been obliged to give a sworn testimony.” He frowned and solemnly crossed his palms. “And by all things holy, we want to avoid that happening! At all costs!”

She sighed, impatient.
“Then why am I even here?”

“Because this is your trial.”

She huffed.
“To be honest, I imagined this would be more fun, worm.”

“I’m sorry that we couldn’t make your trial more entertaining for you, your Highness.” he just muttered and turned away.

A court usher entered from a side door and three familiar gavel strikes echoed through the room. Immediately, everyone hustled towards their seats and made ready for the proceedings to kick off.

“All rise. Vous éleves.” an usher once again ordered.

This time, as he got up, Estermann made sure to not leave his client out of his eyes. She, rather expectantly, remained on her haunches.

“Your Highness! Your heard her! On your feet!”

The changeling gave him an unimpressed glance, groaned, and slowly got up. Her chains were so loud that their jingle-jangle quickly drew in the assembly’s attention.
Amidst the queen’s noises, they hardly even noticed the three judges stepping in - Two dour humans following an earth pony virtually primed for battle, her hooves clacking on the parquet like a Viennese Lipizzaner to a waltz.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” Judge Suruma welcomed the room as she reached her table and adjusted her computer screen, “Please sit down.”

Everyone seated themselves. The queen plopped down with a huff.

“Thank you. Court officer, the case, if you please.”

The officer cleared her throat officiously.
“The Prosecutor versus Her Royal Highness, Chrysalis, case number: ICC zero-one stroke fifteen, zero-one stroke fifteen. C.o.H. five.”

“Same as last time...” Chrysalis quietly sang.

“Shush already.” Estermann sang back.

Suruma plopped her own glasses on her nose and looked over to the changeling queen.
“Alright, I see the composition is the same from the day before yesterday, so further introductions prove unnecessary. Good.”
She nodded toward the queen herself. ”Your Highness. I am also happy to see that the issue with your cumbersome restraints has been resolved adequately.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. After a second of silent looks between the judge and her attorney, she nodded.
“Oh yes. Free as a bird now.”

“Well, let's not go that far.”
The haggard lady raised her arm and looked at the watch she had strapped under her robe. “Now for the first point of order: The chamber has authorised the taking of photographs and handheld video for exactly one minute and a half.”
She turned at the bailiff. “Court officer, please admit the photographers.”

Estermann inhaled sharply. He had anticipated this impromptu photo-op with a furrowed brow. Like so many things, it had been planned for a much earlier point, but was pushed back because of obvious security concerns. Now, it was long overdue.
Leaning back, he nudged Chrysalis. “Here comes the press. They will want to take a few pictures of you.”

The queen watched a small group of almost a dozen humans and ponies awkwardly crowding into the room. These lucky few were obviously just the filtered essence of a much larger and much more teeming horde of reporters that were forced to bide their time outside the courthouse, each hoping to get a shot of the dread changeling monarch and the legal tumult that orbited her.

“Oh, this will be fun.” She cooed,

“It won’t take long at all.”

“Easy peasy, worm. Leave them to me."

Estermann braced for further embarrassment. He could virtually smell that now, something was going to happen that he may regret. Something he may have to iron out with the press later on.

But instead, he witnessed Chrysalis rising up, planting two forehooves on the podium and giving the approaching journalists, honest to God, the most magnificent, majestic and mesmerising pose she could have given.

Estermann was awe-struck. He had never come so close to seeing the enormous creature display this much of her fully erect height. He found himself stuck in his seat, cowering in the shadow of her massive propped-up form, eclipsed entirely from the room’s head lamps and mounted cameras as she towered above his own stringy self. Like an epic oil canvas of a proud destrier after a battle won, she mounted up before the assembly with sinewy legs and gazed down at them with such a compelling elegance and inherent supremacy that, just for a moment, made everyone forget her trimmed hair, the chains on her limbs, the ill-fitting glasses on her muzzle and the magic-dampening battery by her horn.
Estermann was convinced of this.

Slowly, it was as though he began to understand why Lyra had reacted to her the way she did the other day. Something about the queen, the way she posed and how she carried herself as she posed, roused a strong, innate sense of reverence inside the lawyer. Had the two been in any other setting, he may indeed have felt compelled to drop onto his knees then and there and venerate her girth and barrel - which, while still covered by that tightly strapped stab vest, betrayed the awesome physical might slumbering inside her - like some superstitious Polynesian tribesman.

The journalists, at least in part, seemed inclined to agree. Without comment - no, not even from the three or four ponies in their ranks - they crowded tightly around the changeling monarch and bathed her in a sea of flashlights, capturing her from every glorious perspective - left, right, and below, and even further below.
The fact that, all the while, an infamous ferocious predator was biding her time only a few inches over their heads did not even seem to cross their minds.

The one-and-a-half minutes were over in an instant.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, your time is over. Please follow the court officer to the exits. And your Highness, you… may return to your seat now.”

Chrysalis cracked a professional-after-a-day’s-job-well-done smile as she sat back down on her haunches, freeing Estermann from the grasp of her shadow.
Much to his own confusion, the lawyer actually needed a few moments to shake the image of her from his eyes and collect his thoughts.

Justice Suruma sorted some pages laying before her with a rather less impressed mien.
“Now then. The purpose of today’s status conference shall be the disclosure of certain pieces of evidence and witness accounts, as well as the review of a number of them. Has the Counsel for the Prosecution understood everything?”

Looking for an answer, Suruma directed her attention to the prosecution’s corner, where a certain tiny South African woman, flanked by two purple-clad pony associates was swiping a handkerchief around her young, well-groomed face.
“That is correct, your Honour.” she confirmed with a rheumy voice.

Estermann’s immediate thought at the first sight of her sickly countenance was, ‘Is she weakening?’
Where had the prosecutor’s heartfelt war face crept off to? What had happened to the woman that had announced oh-so often to battle the changeling queen tooth and nail?
At least on the outside, the prosecutor of the court seemed a little mellowed out.
Estermann just smirked in purest schadenfreude.

“Firstly,” Suruma began her query, “Do you intend to call live witnesses during the trial? And if yes, how many? You have the floor.”

Pierman sorted her files and weakly harrumphed.
“Your Honour, the prosecution hopes to call at least four live witnesses to the stand.”

Estermann sceptically peeled his eyes and ears. That number of witnesses seemed to small for his tastes. Others would have had hundreds.

“Is that the final number?” Suruma made sure in quite a similar vein.

“No no, but it is the number of witness accounts we can guarantee to disclose in the foreseeable future.” she sniffed. “As I have previously mentioned in writing, Your Honour, the on-scene investigation in Equestria has proved very complicated so far.”

‘Indeed’, Estermann again mused. Surely, squeezing any useful witnesses out of modern Equestria was ‘complicated’ in the same way as trying to squeeze crab juice out of a fossilised shellfish.
It might have been a little easier a few millenia ago, but nowadays? Please.

But Pierman tactfully let that pickle go unmentioned.
“Coordinating with officials of the Council of Harmony and the Equestrian state have also proved to be an... inefficient affair in some ways.”

Suruma nodded. “Indeed. The chamber is… quite well aware of the many complicating factors of this investigation. It is, after all, in many respects a maiden voyage for your office’s investigation division. But I still hope that your investigation efforts are not yet... approaching their conclusion.”

What a nice way to ask if they had already given up.

“Of course not.” she quickly reassured, “No, they are well underway, and we are delighted to report that the Equestrian judicial organs have yet again proven themselves avid to cooperate with us and support us.”
She sniffed tellingly. “That said, we still have to determine whether there are any dangers to the witnesses and their next of kin in the event of an unredacted disclosure, in spite the Equestrian royal authorities’ assurances of the safety of everyone involved.”

Oh, cheeky. What a subtle way to heap the blame back onto the changelings.

“That is good to hear.” The judge uttered, twisting her pen. “Under the circumstances, I would like to stress once more that the date of the confirmation of charges hearing is not yet set in stone. Should the parties wish for more time to finalise their cases, the confirmation can be delayed by several additional days upon request.”

Estermann felt like cursing. The defence counsel wanted the damn pre-trial to be over as quickly as possible. The shorter the deadline, the less opportunity there would be for the prosecution to construct their case, and the more straightforward the work of the defence should prove.

“My learned friend? I yield the floor to you. Do you intend to bring live witnesses?”

He gulped. What he would have to say now would either come across as unsettlingly vague or laughably hollow. But here he was.
“Madam President,” he began, “At this stage, the defence of Her Royal Highness is not in a position to name any number of witness statements or live witness accounts. Like the prosecution, we consider ourselves very early into our investigation.”

He could practically hear the merry cackling from behind Fori’s lips.

He knew that now was the time to show some fangs. He looked up. “By and large, though, the efforts of the defence will build upon the efforts of the prosecution. And, making full use of our right to the last word, we intend to rebut the Prosecutor’s presumed evidence, and we also intend to rebut any live witnesses. The confirmation process shan’t go uncontested, regardless of how the situation chooses to develop.”

Somewhat displeased, Suruma sighed. “With all due respect to the intricacies of both parties’ situations, this chamber does not intend to carry on the pre-trial phase indefinitely. While we have decided on granting certain leeway in terms of the judicial calendar to accommodate for the presently unclear situation inside Equestria, we absolutely insist that both parties respect the deadlines as set by Rule 121 passage 3, to 16 passage 6 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and have their evidence submitted in a timely manner. I hope I have made myself clear.”

Both Estermann and Pierman shrunk back, admittedly a bit intimidated.

“Good. Coming to the procedure for the disclosure of evidence for the duration of the Pre-trial: We have decided to incorporate certain methodology in use by the Council of Harmony.”

Estermann automatically rolled his eyes.

“That means that the presentation shall proceed in a chronologically structured manner. The parties will examine all the pieces of evidence in relation to the incident. That means that, today we will begin with the earliest incident, which would be…”
She twirled through her notes.

“Uh...” Pierman coughed, “the siege and razing of the Flying City State of Timbucktu, your Honour.”

“Uh, correct. Provided that all pieces of evidence have been heard by the end of today’s session, move on to the subsequent incident in the next session, and so on. Most tellingly, though, all parties shall be given ample opportunity to contest the disclosure of evidence and formulate an appropriate rebuttal throughout. Is this understood so far?”

Pierman nodded and so did his counterpart.

“I suggest that the prosecution begins its statement on the facts of the case with the basic information - time, location, and so on.” She waved her hand about with a pre-occupied manner, her eyes already back on the monitor in front of her.

Pierman authoritatively propped herself up in her seat, carefully adjusting her shoulders and pushing out her spine. “Thank you, your Honour. The date of the attacks on Timbucktu in question are assumed to have taken place between the 14th and the 15th day of the 1st Autumn Moon of the 5th Equestrian year after Discord. In terms of the Gregorian calendar, that would be the rough equivalent of mid-to-late October of 1314. Since it was a so-called ‘flying’ city - a pegasus settlement erected on the surface of a magically reinforced cloud - it had no permanent location and would have been in constant movement downwind."

And as Estermann realised that he now lives in a world where clouds were considered an acceptable architectural foundation, he felt glad that he chose not to study architecture in the first place.
He sighed, he could not quite wrap his head around it all. Had a prosecutor told him of sky cities built on clouds just a year earlier, he would have demanded an intervention, not felt the frantic need to take notes.

"But these archeological findings have indicated its position prior to destruction to be eight kilometres outside - and fifteen hundred metres above - the modern locality of Three Linden – which did not yet exist at this time - in the present-day Province of Smokey Mountains.”
Suddenly, Pierman moved to touch her own head with a free hand. She, still stringently reading off her little piece of paper, did not seem to notice herself.
“To support this information, I wish to submit exhibit ‘1A’: Archeological ascertainments concerning approximately five tonnes of marble and masonry debris as well as dozens of spear tips, blades, helmets, belt buckles, broaches, cutlery, statuettes and other heavily oxidised metallic everyday objects, found scattered around a fifteen hectare area and recovered by Canterlotian University equinological department workers in 999 a.d. - in an area now academically referred to as the ‘Timbucktuan Debris Field’.

The three judges and Estermann delved into their files until they came across grimy satellite images of a vast tundric plain, interrupted by close-ups of laid-out, remotely brick-sized stone blocks and rusty shards of metal, of which one could only guess their original forms.

“The Kingdom of Timbucktu was a vassal city state to the Empire of Pegasopolis, and headed by an absolute hereditary monarch - at the time of the attack, that position was held by His Majesty Orion II. It laid claim to the sovereignty of the air and the land beneath in a radius of forty kilometres. It possessed a domestic armed force of up to ten thousand combatants, primarily light air-based pole and missile troops.”

Chrysalis furrowed her brow and let out a hiss.
“Sounds so grandiose. It was a puny tribe with an even punier army and the puniest of all chieftains.” she quietly commented.

“Our investigation allowed a reconstruction of the events as follows:”
Her eyes darkened as a dark foreboding feeling seemed to spread out behind them. “It was in the early morning hours of the 82nd, when scouts in the employ of the Kingdom of Timbucktu established visual contact with a group of approximately sixteen thousand changelings, travelling in three airborne columns, advancing on the flying city with five thousand from northeasterly, five thousand from northerly and six thousand northwesterly direction.”
She neatly pointed out the three directions from her viewpoint. Almost like she was there herself. “This advance was coordinated, as communication between the columns was upheld via a ‘steady trickle of messengers’, according to eyewitness reports.”
She brushed her runny nose.
“The city garrison was alerted around late forenoon, but no mobilisation was undertaken until noontime, due to a...” Pierman shrugged, “...general sense of disbelief that a Changeling advance was actually underway. For these and prior statements, I herewith submit exhibit ‘1B’, the General Mobilisation Order of the Municipal Guard, signed by Chief Strategos Virgo, found in a Municipal Guard cuirass inside the aforementioned Debris Field in 999.”

Clicking sounds echoed through the chamber as some clerk filed his fax copy of the terribly frayed, barely legible piece of parchment.

“For the ensuing elaborations, I want to submit exhibit ‘1C’, The Rise And Fall Of The Floating City of Timbucktu, 11th edition, pages 37 to 209. A comprehensive report on the events by Starswirl the Bearded, circa 6 a.d.” she declared and tapped on a thick bundle to her right.

Knowingly, Estermann glanced back down at photo of the tapestry-like illumination on his own desk.
Here came the prosecutor’s crown jewel.

“It was also around noontime that the changeling forces reached the battlements of Timbucktu. The three units began a regrouping and merging action that lasted about twenty minutes. Initial hostilities broke out when individual groups of Changeling combatants began breaking away from the stationary main troop body...”
Pierman's hand tracked the absconded changeling aggressors as they appeared to swirl above her own head, “and, without conducting any attempts to establish communication with either the state government or the city garrison, initiated a series of aerial assaults on the city’s defensive structures...” Her hand sharply swung down on her table in a chopping pose, “...in what was described as a ‘thoroughly wild and pellmell gait’, and were at first easily repelled.”

Estermann smirked. This wasn’t exactly sounding very indicative of tactical cohesion.

But Pierman's hand already slid on, shoving its way across her own desk.
“But within minutes, a second attack wave was organised that consisted upwards of ten thousand Changeling combatants. It proceeded to overwhelm various defence structures with utmost brutality, isolating defending garrison units in their towers and barracks, and decimating them indiscriminately and giving them - again, I quote - the chance for ‘not a hoof to raise or knee to buckle’. This included disregarding Timbucktuan soldiers voicing their wishes to ‘yield’, and picking off soldiers that had cast down their weapons and were in the process of routing by air, ganging up on them and beating them to death.”

He went right back to wincing.

“There were reportedly no members of the city garrison among the survivors. The fighting and slaughter then spilled into the civilian quarters of the city. Pegasus civilians were not only barred from escaping to safety by the attackers, but were actively assaulted in the streets and pursued into houses and alleys, where they would then be...”
She needed a moment to catch her thoughts, “...beaten, maimed, restrained with a special kind of adhesive and anaesthetising secrete - described by survivors as ‘the changeling’s mucilaginous brew’, drained of their ‘love’ and subsequently killed. For a closer physical elaboration on this process, I wish to submit exhibit ‘1D’, a detailed account on the biological examination of the changeling physique, conducted by the Royal Canterlot College of Surgeons on Her Royal Highness Chrysalis.”

Chrysalis frowned visibly, before gritting her teeth at her lawyer.
“I did wonder what they were doing to me in Canterlot’s dungeons while I was knocked out.”

Here, Magistrate Fori used the pause to lean over to Justice Suruma and whispered a brief something into her ear.

Estermann frowned. That could never be a good sign.

Justice Suruma nodded slightly and raised a silencing finger.
“One moment, my learned friend...”
Pierman herself, bit a lip as she watched Suruma make a small note on her paper.
“Alright. Please continue.”

“Thank you, your Honour. App… approximately half an hour into the hostilities, parts of the municipal guard managed to reform and effectuate a counter-attack, thereby pushing the changelings’ assault back towards the outskirts of the cloud plateau, in return saving the lives of numerous injured and seized civilians, many of whom would later live to give extensive testimonies of their treatment.”
She turned to the last page. “For reasons unknown, this counter-attack was aborted very soon afterward. It is generally believed to have been the result of Changelings or Changeling sympathisers infiltrating the Guard’s command structure and spreading false orders for a general retreat and to ‘run like hares cut loose from their leashes, for the Kings have fallen and all is lost’, but I digress.”

The defence counsel gave a humourless chuckle.

“Can you believe it?” Chrysalis herself giggled.

Estermann would have liked to shake his head, but logically, wouldn’t this have been the first charge they would have brought up against the changeling anyway?

“This ruse which caused the municipal guard’s defensive line to dissipate, and allowed the Changeling forces to penetrate the city centre and royal palace compound.”
Pierman unconsciously put a commanding hand before her, pointing tyrannically at the round before her row desks.
“Once breaching the city centre, the Changeling forces proceeded to storm and occupy four medical practitioner’s offices - places where the sick and wounded would logically be collected - the Academy of Mages and Healers - a building dedicated to both education and the treatment of the sick and wounded - the Public School for Moral Tutelage - another site dedicated to education - the Musician’s College - dedicated to education and art - the offices of the Public Welfare Curiate - a public institution dedicated to a charitable purpose towards Timbucktuan citizens - and a permanent art exhibition located in the Great Forum - which in itself was an important historic monument and was, at least in part, dedicated to the display of art.”
She gave the changeling queen across from her a shake of the head, and paused to grasp a glass of water and moisten her lips for the rest of her lengthy tirade.
“The commission of atrocities amongst civilians and surrendered Guard members persisted throughout this seizure action. All members of the royal family, including the His Majesty Orion II, his wife Cassiopeia, his three sons Virgo, Circinus and Aquarius, the oldest of whom served as the Commander-in-chief to the Timbucktuan state military, were declared missing in action, and later pronounced dead. All remaining members of the senior state military leadership were killed in action. All members of the civilian administration, including the First Minister Pyxis, the Lord Treasurer Sagitta, the Chief Justice Aries, the Speaker of the Royal Council Orion, and all remaining Council members Norma, Taurus and Delphinus were later also found to have been killed during the battle.”

Disgusted mumbles and sharp whispers began to emanate from somewhere. Chrysalis just turned away slightly.

“The total civilian death toll for the duration of the sack is an estimated nineteen thousand and five-hundred Pegasi and roughly one thousand Gryphons, and the military death toll to be nine thousand and five hundred.”
She held up a folder and unpacked a pencil-thick bundle of photos of wildly strewn bones sticking out of the earth.
“I herewith submit exhibit ‘1E’: An analysis of the skeletal remains of four hundred sixty-six, mostly civilian pegasi excavated in the Debris Field in 999.“
Instinctively, she performed a vivid stabbing motion, “Some of them indicate death by sharp force - typically sharpened metal like swords and spears...”
She curled her hand into a fist, “...blunt force - typically a result from regular physical melee trauma...”
Her hand stroked her robed sleeves and chest, “...thermal decomposition - in laymen’s terms, burning, typically owing to either the use of rudimentary ignited weaponry like torches, or magically emitted concentrated thermal energy - again, in layman’s terms, fire-based magic, something which is innate to the changelings’ very physiology, for which I refer back to exhibit '1D...”

Fire magic. Estermann automatically harkened back to the burned gendarme at Schiphol Airport...

Next, Pierman let her arm hang limp, crooked at a visibly uncomfortable angle, “...As well as... fatally emaciated skeletal systems, showing symptoms of brittleness not unlike those of osteogenesis imperfecta - probably the result of the forceful magical withdrawal of large quantities of certain energies from the victims’ bodies, thus causing irreversible and often lethal damage to their physical condition.”
She demonstratively laid a flat hand on her bun on the back of her head.
“It should be noted that more than half of the exhumed bodies not only showed injuries on the back of their heads, which implied that they were attacked and fatally wounded while averted from the attacker...”
Another hand rubbed a hand across her belly and abdomen, “...but also the ribs and stomach regions. This strongly suggests that many of the victims were laid on their backs before they were dealt the lethal injuries - immobilised and most probably defenceless throughout their ordeal.”
In the end, her hand silently travelled back to her mouth, which it rubbed in a perturbed manner. “What we look at here are at the very least hundreds of murders and wilful killings of members of the Timbucktuan citizenry, most certainly in the blatant attempt of culling the Timbucktuan ethnicity as a whole.”

His head hurt.

Pierman’s face became even more wistful.
“It was late afternoon by the time Changelings troops had assumed control of the entirety of the city and all pockets of Timbucktuan resistance had been expunged. Now came a ten-hour period of the victorious Changelings roaming the defenceless settlement and looting private homes and public buildings - among them all of the previously mentioned protected sites.”
Pierman proceeded to peer around. “It is approximated that close to one hundred thousand metric tonnes of gold, silver, copper, bronze, iron, wood, silk, linen, and wool were evacuated from various buildings by Changeling forces in the aftermath of the raids, causing an estimated damage to the city and citizens of Timbucktu to the tune of... seven hundred and ninety three million U.S. Dollars, converted and adjusted for inflation.”

Chrysalis, rather bored, slid around on her pillow and made her chains ring.

“All civilian survivors that were unable to leave the city by this point were rounded up and quite literally ‘glued to each other’ by their hooves, tails and wings to keep them from escaping, forming long lines of ponies that were firmly attached to each other.
They were then driven off the cloud plateau in groups as long as eighty creatures, and no provisions were made for those who were exhausted, injured or dying. Since the prisoners were still mostly dependent on the power of their own wings to stay afloat, many groups ended up being dragged down by their own weight and pummeling fifteen hundred metres to their deaths. I again wish to refer to exhibit ‘1C’. All those that survived were driven on by Changeling combatants, deported to unknown whereabouts and have been considered missing ever since.”

She slammed a folder shut.

Estermann sighed in the revelation that her stream of words had finally found an end.

But then she continued,
“In the later stages of the pillage, multiple coordinated groups of Changelings spread out around the town and began laying dozens of fires in what was described as a very ‘canny’ manner. When the city had been deemed by the forces to be cleared of any lootable goods and healthy prisoners, an evacuation and ensuing retreat were conducted, during which all remaining Changeling combatants retreated from the area of the cloud plateau, broke up into smaller regiment-sized groups and headed into the northerly direction for the purpose of surveilling and escorting the prisoner and loot convoys, presumably to the various home bases of the Changeling forces dotted around the eastern Crystal Mountain range.”

Subtly, Estermann peered over to his client for any sort of confirmation.
But the changeling’s face remained locked in a cryptic pout.

“Now, at this point in time, up to four thousand civilians were still present in the city, most of whom were either heavily injured, disoriented or remaining in hiding. Timbucktu had been left behind in its plundered state with several major fires consuming the tightly packed city quarters from various sides and directions, many of which soon grew into sizable and destructive infernos. After several more hours of unhindered raging, the flames and smoke effectuated a considerable increase in temperature in the surrounding air and atmosphere. Under these conditions, the cumulus cloud layer that served as Timbucktu’s foundation began to evaporate, destabilising the city’s magically maintained structural integrity.”
She spread her arms out like an owl taking flight. ”When the cloud layer inevitably began rupturing into loose fragments and ‘raining off’, the buildings erected on their top began to come apart and break away, falling through the widening rifts and taking most surviving civilians with them. All in all, the shift in temperature managed to disperse the Timbucktu cloud plateau in its entirety, resulting in the complete destruction of all twelve thousand structures in the city over a period of thirty-eight hours."

"Very few civilians managed to escape this catastrophe, and the casualties are assumed somewhere in the two thousand range. The damages are estimated to be around two hundred and twenty million US dollars.”
She made a small note on a page she randomly pulled up. “I consequently submit exhibit ‘1F’ - a concise ‘caelo-physical assessment’ by the ‘Air-To-Aerosol’ Construction Society of the City of Cloudsdale - which proves that this was not only an entirely foreseeable consequence of the Changeling arson squadrons’ acts, but a deliberate and purposeful act; The Changeling forces had caused a calculated structural destabilisation with the intent to demolish the city state of Timbucktu in its entirety, as well as to eliminate all of its remaining four thousand citizens. ”

She paused importantly. Looking around the room to ensure its complete and utter attention to her, she shuffled her papers and proceeded with the listing of the charges with a heavy, hoarse and bitter sigh.
“Within these roughly twenty hours, the members of the Changeling force has become guilty of the crime of genocide, by killing members of the Timbucktuan nation with the intent to destroy the same in its entirety, according to Article 6 letter ‘a’ of the Rome Statute.
They had become guilty of the crime against sapiency of murder, as part of a knowing, systematic attack directed against the Timbucktuan civilian population, pursuant to Article 7 passage 1 letter ‘a’.
They had become guilty of deporting parts of the Timbucktuan population, pursuant to Article 7 passage ‘1’ letter ‘d’.
They had become guilty of murdering and mutilating civilians not involved in combat and Municipal Guard members that had laid down their arms or were placed hors de combat by injury, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘c’ numeral ‘i’.
They had become guilty of intentionally directing attacks against the Timbucktuan civilian population as such, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘e’ numeral ‘i’.
They had become guilty of intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to education, art, science and charitable purposes, as well as a historic monument, a hospital and places where the sick and wounded were collected, all of which served no military purposes, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘e’ numeral ‘iv’.
They had become guilty of pillaging the city of Timbucktu, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘e’ numeral ‘v’.
They had become guilty of ordering the displacement of the Timbucktuan civilian population for reasons related to the conflict at hand, none of which were demanded by military reasons or concerns of security for the civilians, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘e’ numeral ‘viii’.
And they had become guilty of declaring that no quarter were to be given, pursuant to Article 8 passage 2 letter ‘e’ numeral ‘x’.”

And now?
Now came Pierman’s coup-de-gras. With vengeful eyes, she propped herself up and locked the suspect in a unabashedly hateful gaze.

“The suspect, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings, has implicated herself in every one of these counts. The suspect served as the commander-in-chief to the sixteen thousand-strong Changeling force, and extensively attended the siege, battle and aftermath in person, arriving with the approaching force on the noon of the 14th and evacuating as part of the same on the morning of the 15th. The following reconstruction is based on fifteen, corroborating, individual eyewitness reports - all faithfully compiled in exhibit ‘1C’ - placing the suspect at the scene:”
She smacked down her folder, as though she already knew it all by heart. “The suspect travelled initially with the northeasterly column, of which she had assumed direct command, and took over supreme command of the entire force during the regrouping action that preceded the assault on the city. She directly organised, ordered and oversaw the second attack wave that successfully breached the city limits, and even chose to directly participate in the combat alongside the Changeling troops for the duration of the battle. As the defending Municipal Guard units were overrun and encircled, she flew along the frontline and continued issuing orders to the fighters below, occasionally spurring them on to ‘finish the dregs’, consciously contributing to the ensuing slaughter. She proceeded to accompany the frontmost troops throughout the advance. As Changeling soldiers overcame the defensive perimeter and descended into the civilian quarters, she was yet again directly present and was heard repeatedly shouting, ‘Feed! Feed to your hearts’ content! Leave them nowt but bones and dust’ as Timbucktuan civilians were in the process of being killed and abused on the streets and in the houses only several metres away from her position.”

She had to contain herself from screaming those words in the same way that Chrysalis might have.
And yes, as archaic as they sounded, Estermann could absolutely imagine them belonging to the changeling monarch.

“The seizure of the protected buildings located in the city centre can too be traced back to the orders of the suspect, when she instructed several groups of Changeling soldiers to fan out and search every house in the vicinity of the royal palace and government buildings, in a bid to locate surviving members of the Timbucktuan royal family, the royal court and city government. Considering the overwhelming resultant death toll amongst these very same groups, it is very probable that these instructions also included the bid of immediate execution, further substantiated by her earlier declarations of no quarter. The suspect would reach the palace area alongside her troops and proceed set up a general headquarters in the state rooms of the Tumbucktuan royal family, where she would remain for the duration of the hostilities and pass down orders as the conquest of the city concluded and the number of atrocities soared.”
“Even the campaign of the plundering and systematic destruction of the city can be traced back directly to the suspect, since it was firstly announced by her from the steps of the conquered palace throne room with the following words: ‘Now that our time hath arrived, my children, fan out and take what’s thine. Bathe this wretched vulture’s hive in thy green fire’s glow!’“

“I must have been quite the poet,” came Chrysalis’ inevitable, if thankfully discrete, heckle.

“Particularly the series of house burnings that would end up destabilising the cloud plateau and destroying the city in the following days is relevant to the suspect’s chosen words. It was also the suspect who issued the order to retreat from the city. The systematic nature and sheer amount of Timbucktuan civilians and seized goods evacuated suggests that this involved intricate planning and regimentation of pillaging efforts on behalf of the Changeling force’s leadership, naturally including the suspect first and foremost. The suspect would proceed to depart into the northern direction alongside other Changeling troops, in which also at least twenty groups of arrested civilians and five convoys of seized goods were reported to have been brought.”
She cleared her throat. “It is based on this evidence that the prosecution has decided to charge the suspect with the incitement in one count genocide, both counts of crimes against sapiency, and all 9 counts of war crimes. Thank you, your Honour.”

That was it. And what a mouth-full it was. Indeed, what a slap in the face it was.

Suruma leaned back and put away her pen.
“Thank you for your very streamlined and on-the-point elaboration, my friend.”
Taking off her glasses, the judge leaned over to hear colleagues - first Magistrate Fori, who avidly whispered something short and concise, then Colm Mullan, who just replied with a lethargic shrug.
Ultimately, she opened another, much thinner folder and peered over at the defence counsel.
My learned friend, the Counsel for the Prosecution.”

Another shudder ran down his spine.

“Would the defence like to conduct any enquiries? Would they like to contest the admission of any of the evidence?”

Estermann furrowed his brow and wrangled the armrests of his swivel chair. He knew he probably should. But why was he so thoroughly taken by surprise? Now, that the world’s eyes were once again on him?

The gears in his head were wheeling about, grinding, churning through the massive amounts of information Pierman had thrust into the ring, probing, assessing, strategising his ways around them…
But he didn’t manage to grind quite fast enough for his tastes.
He could feel a fatal freeze creeping up to him.
He knew he needed a moment of calm.

“Madam President...” he started with a heavy tone, “I… wish most humbly to request a recess of forty-five minutes so I can confer with Her Royal Highness.”

“Denied!” he immediately heard the purple-robed earth pony hiss down at him with the timing of a striking cobra - as if she felt robbed of a pleasant public shaming.

Even so, Estermann caught himself flinching. It had been a long time since he felt this vulnerable.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted his aide-de-camp Garibaldi giving him a confused glare of his own. ‘Now or never!’ it seemed to scream. He was half-blind and had his files taken from him, so he couldn’t help the situation if he tried.
Queen Chrysalis was giving him a look too, though she was less condemning and more curious.

Estermann knew it was a… deeply inconvenient measure. It seemed like a cowardly thing to do. A cheap ploy to buy time to ready oneself for defeat.
But yet, he considered the alternative - that of him forfeiting the pre-trial phase by babbling against the prosecution incoherently and aimlessly until the judges grew sick of it and cut his pathetic display short by adjourning the hearing. The Equestrians would certainly have a field day. Lexy Fori would have a field day.

But Suruma didn't seem to be quite as bugged by it. Staring long and hard at her watch, she half-nodded at Estermann.
“According to schedule, we must wrap up today’s hearing by twelve o’clock at the latest. We will conduct a thirty-minute recess and will resume at 10:15 sharp. Court officer!”

“All rise! Vous éleves! ” came the usher’s immediate bellow.

“What was that all about?” the Changeling Queen loudly pondered. “Did a certain somepony get cold hooves in there?”

Estermann huffed and closed the double doors tightly behind him.
The breakout room was a slightly oversized office, minimally outfitted with five chairs positioned around a square desk. It was a side room two entranceways adjacent to the main courtroom, and sealed from the world with thick frosted glass walls and a few concrete columns.

He slipped out of his robe and loosened the cravat spun around his neck.
Then he sat down next to Garibaldi, who was already sitting, nervously twiddling his thumbs around as he contemplated Queen Chrysalis, who was chained to the floor by the table’s opposite end. “I need not mention that these are very heavy allegations, your Highness.” Garibaldi stated with a whisper, in a desperate attempt to do something resembling his job.

But Chrysalis just returned a look of inquisitive silence.
“Who are you?” she asked, baring her teeth in a confused manner.

Garibaldi hesitated.

“Shut up.” she followed up and turned to Estermann. “You, worm, say something. What is going on?”

Estermann’s nose flared.
“You tell me. What was that just now?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I mean Timbucktu.” the lawyer grunted.

She moaned and glanced at the neon lamps hanging above her. “Oh, that business...”

“Thirty-two thousand people died.”

She giggled irreverently. “It’s a sack. What do you expect to happen, a pie fight?”

He combed through his ruffled hair. “Is there anything that you can tell me about it that the prosecutor couldn’t?”

She pouted and looked down. “Sounded about right to me.”

Estermann got back up in a huff and buried his hands in his pockets.

“It… did all sound very concise - for pre-trial, I mean.” Garibaldi mumbled and scratched his fingers. “I don’t think there is much we can do other than ask for the standard elaborations, Mister Estermann. Ask the prosecutor to go into as much detail as possible.”

“Well, I don’t like it.” Estermann spat, pacing around. “And if I were Pierman, I wouldn’t like it either. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.”

“Yes...” he agreed with a bemused chuckle, “I did find it curious that she doesn’t intend charging Her Highness for Article 8, passage 2, letter b, roman vii - making improper use of the enemy’s military uniforms. In my mind, that would have been the most straightforward charge to give to… well… a changeling.”

“No. Nonsense!” Estermann spat and waved him off, “The prosecution does not recognise the Changeling Kingdom as an independent nation, remember? Therefore, this conflict isn’t an international conflict, therefore 8/2/b does not apply.” he explained. “Our luck. Das hätte uns gerade noch gefehlt!” he added bitterly.
Turning around, he went to his pile of documents and extracted exhibit ‘1B’ - the ancient mobilisation order, signed by the highest-ranking military commander of the city. “No no, ladies and gentlemen. My issue lies somewhere else. Have you noticed it?”

The others, predictably, said nothing.

“In most of the evidence that Pierman submitted, Her Highness’ name isn’t mentioned once. Not once!”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes.

“Well, it is mentioned in the treatise by… what’s his name… Starswirl the Bearded.” Garibaldi corrected him.

“Yes, indeed.” Estermann agreed. “A curious number of times, in fact. But where else is it mentioned?” He slapped the paper to make a point. “Nowhere! Not in a single document. The only thing that brings Her Highness in connection with the sack of Timbucktu is that one treatise by Starswirl!”

“One hundred million terrified ponies’ nightmares do...”
That was Chrysalis again, smiling the swankiest and proudest of smiles.

“Fuck them.” Estermann declared. “Of course they do! That’s what they’ve been taught in school. I mean, just ask Lyra Heartstr- I mean your… I mean...”
He trailed off as Chrysalis’ glaring eyes compelled him to zip it.

“Excuse me, Mister Estermann...” Garibaldi interjected and politely picked the page out of Estermann’s hands. “I have to disagree. This written order makes mention of her as well!“
He pointed on a certain fragment of the text. ”Here: ’The Changeling Queen flies at the helm. Direct the bowponies unto her.’ That must count for something at least.”

“Changeling queen.” Estermann snorted and reclaimed the paper with a snatch. “They couldn't have been more vague if their life depended on it! ‘Queen’ isn’t a name, it’s a title. A political post. Queens get born every year. This does not implicate Chrysalis!”

“But her title is ‘Queen of all Changelings’ - and if her presumed age is anything to go by-”

They heard the eponymous changeling regent give an annoyed sigh.
“I’m still here, you know.”

“The prosecution has nothing to link her.” Estermann interrupted. “Everything that they have to show for is too vague to prove culpability beyond reasonable doubt. Which is what it’s all about, remember?”

Garibaldi mutely nodded, observing his own folded fingers.

“All that remains is that damn report from Starswirl!”

“Well…”
Garibaldi blew his lips, frustrated.
“What is your problem with it?”

“I trust you’ve read the thing.”

“Only the relevant points the prosecution underlined. Why?”

He held up a schoolmaster’s index finger and excavated the copy of the document in question from his stash. Then he carried it around the table and presented it to Chrysalis herself.
“Your Highness, can you read ancient Unicornian scripture?”

The queen visibly gritted her fangs. “I’ve had… some run-ins with them. I'm embarrassed to say that I do.”

“Then...” He fetched a yellow marker from his pocket, popped off the lid with his teeth, and quickly underlined some parts, “Do me the honour and read this. I’m sure this might interest you too.”

She focused on the page and began reciting in a low, doubtful voice.
‘The bleak changeling scores, swept upon Timbucktu’s lofty shores, and with a thoroughly wild and pellmell gait, hence sealed the state to its dismal fate...’”
She lifted her head and let a grin spread on her face.

“You noticed something?” Estermann asked.

"Please don’t tell me it’s… it’s all...” she began to snigger.

“I’ll turn to the next page, if you please.”
He jumped to another highlighted part.

Chrysalis cleared her throat theatrically, and delved into text with a passionate buzz in her throat.
“‘So they perished, the hardy beasts, as the changelings their limbs and lives did seize, Hooves were not raised and knees did not to buckle, nor on the changeling’s mercy could they suckle; This it made sure of, the ravaging horde, as it culled the fallen in murderous sport.’”

Estermann nodded, impressed with her voice.
“You would have made a fine bard.”

“I rule to please.” she harrumphed. “Seriously now. Is this thing entirely done in rhyme?”

He spread his arms in revelation.
"From the first page to the last, this stupid thing has been written as a ballad. You can see my issue here.”

Garibaldi shrugged slowly and sighed.
“It is rather odd, of course...”

“Odd?” he asked. “I tell you what’s odd: the prosecution’s been trying its darndest to sell this document as a legitimate scientific report on the incident, with accredited sources and whatnot.”

“Which it is... arguably.” Garibaldi mumbled, and crossing his arms too. “You must remember, this report spends most of the time paraphrasing witness statements from actual survivors of the attack. He lists names, occupations, and positions in the city. It’s excellently sourced… for a medieval document, anyhow.”

“It’s a ballad!” Estermann insisted. “A propagandistic doggerel.”

“The quality of the content’s neither here nor there. The rhyme’s just… a stylistic choice. An embellishment.” Garibaldi struggled to rationalise, “Probably a literary trend of its day.”
He glanced over to the ancient changeling queen. “That is correct, isn’t it?”

“What are you looking at me for?” she sharply rebuked him. “I’ve never felt the need to write something down in rhyme. Do I look like a zebra to you?”

Estermann massaged his face with a huff.
“This so-called report is the linchpin of the Prosecution’s case against our client in the Timbucktu affair. We need to convince the tribunal that it’s not worth the paper it is written on. It must be disregarded! That way, everything else will fall away.”

Garibaldi slowly rose up.
“We should not disregard the other evidence on the assault itself, though.”

Estermann cut him short with a derisive waving hand.
“Leave that to whoever may be put in the dock after us. We’re not here to prove that the attack didn’t happen - we’re here to prove that Her Royal Highness had nothing to do with it!”

“Easier said than done...” Garibaldi shrugged unsurely, and promptly earned another ill-willed sneer from their client.

“What the hay are you even doing here?” she caustically inquired from the Italian, “Does this book really impress you so much?”

“No… of course not.” Garibaldi gulped, “I’m merely playing the devil’s advocate here. What matters isn’t the presentation of the book, it’s the meat. This piece is astoundingly intricate. It delves into much more detail than a simple propaganda piece ever could; and the prosecution knows that.”
He wiped his brow. “I am merely telling you that its value as a piece of evidence should not be underestimated. We must expect that the judges accept it as evidence.”

“Not if we can help it.” Estermann declared, waggling the marker between his fingers like a riding crop. “Even if they should show themselves impressed by Starswirl’s writings, we will pick apart the rest of the evidence, and we will stall! We will stall until they have to physically weld us off the stand.”

Garibaldi’s crossed arms nervously plucked at each others’ sleeves.
“So… not one step back?”

“We cannot afford to give concessions. Not now. We will only make the proceedings of the future harder for ourselves if we let the prosecutors get away with baseless allegations now.”

“Baseless...”
Garibaldi just rapped his finger on the desk nervously before curling them back around his elbows.

Chrysalis just smiled, tellingly. “Baseless.”

Garibaldi caught on immediately. He cleared his throat to get her attention.
“Your Highness, seeing how you… you are a contemporary witness, at least… can you maybe tell us how many other Changeling nations were there in 5 ad? How many female regents were in power at that point in time? How many other queens?”

Her eyes just narrowed challengingly.

“Your Highness.” Estermann snapped. “You will say nothing. This is not helpful in the slightest.”

His Italian aide-de-camp spent a few abrupt moments looking to and fro between the two.
“But... who was in charge? That’s all we need to know.”

“You know perfectly well who was in charge, lackey.” she declared with a wide, luscious grin on her snout.

“Are… are you saying… that...” Garibaldi babbled towards her, nervously massaging his right ear as he waited for a clarification

“I think that’s enough now, Garibaldi.” Estermann sighed.

Timid, he pointed over to the queen. “I mean… if she’s saying that... she was the only queen of Changelings… it would render the Prosecution’s case... accurate. And...”

Estermann glanced down at him like at a complete madman.

Determined, Garibaldi turned back to Chrysalis.
“Were… were you in a commanding position at Trot? You were, weren’t you?”

Estermann moved like a banshee. Before Chrysalis even had a chance to give an answer, he was at Garibaldi’s side, physically prying the Italian out of his seat by one arm.

“Mister Garibaldi, could I speak to you tete-a-tete?”
Nervously, he sprawled out of his chair as Estermann nodded towards Chrysalis apologetically. “Forgive me, your Highness. Just a little point of protocol we need to hammer out.”

“Take your time...” she smiled, watching Estermann as he shoved his aide away from the table and through a set of open double doors, stopping him inside a vestibule leading to yet another locked set of doors.
Squeezing the two of them between the two portals, Estermann leaned the doors behind them shut, trapping himself and Garibaldi in the narrow, dim space.

“W-what happened?” Garibaldi panted. “What point of protocol?”

“Let me get something straight!” Estermann began to roar. “You know perfectly well what our stance here is! The queen was not at Timbucktu! Not! Get it?”

“You heard what she’s been saying.” Garibaldi retorted, completely flustered. “I don’t like it either, but it’s very obvious that she is involved. And she probably led the whole damn army.”

Estermann grunted aggressively.

“You… you... need to inform her of the possibility of pleading guilty to the charges. It would save us-”

“Are you crazy? Pleading guilty… for what? This flimsy, propagandistic evidence?”

“She says she was there.” he whined, futilely trying to free himself from the narrow enclosure. “If you had given me another second with her, we could have had a formal confession.”

Estermann nearly impaled his cheek with an index finger. “Oh, I believe that. But I don’t give a shit what she’d say! I do not consider her words relevant to the proceedings!”

Garibaldi did not quite know what to say. “She’s in the defendant’s chair!”

“Wrong! This is pre-trial! She is but a suspect! And I intend for it to go no further than that. Only defendants get to plead guilt or innocence.”

Tired, Garibaldi hung his head low.
“I know that you’re trying to bail her out of this trial, but let me remind you that it’s our duty to help the court to find out the facts of the matter.”

“I know that.” he snarled. “The problem is that I do not believe her!”

Here, Garibaldi fell silent.
“Whyever not?”

He wiped his nose and struck out an arm.
“Have you seen her out there today? The way she… posed and pranced around for the press? She enjoys this! She loves being the bad one. The villain!”

“Hm.”
Perturbed, Garibaldi slightly pushed the door back open to catch a probing peek at the queen in question. “You think that… she might exaggerate her culpability?”

“Let me tell you something.” he breathed. “For the entire last week, I had to listen to her brag about her exploits in the field. And how often have I caught her denying any of the prosecutor’s charges? Never! She took whatever she got. Does that not seem odd to you? I think I could tell her she was accused of masterminding the Chicago Fire and she’d happily agree!”

Garibaldi nodded… though only very slightly.
“Why would she do that? She does realise this will put her behind bars for thirty years, doesn’t she? Nobody would go that far for a little bit of publicity.”

“Who knows? Maybe she is covering someone!” Estermann shrugged aggressively, “She has a stupefying amount of offspring, and every single one of them could have dirtied their hands… well hooves... in Timbucktu in her place.”

Garibaldi forced himself to a denigrating smile.
“So… all of this is just... motherly love?”

Estermann thought back to the promise that he had to give to the queen. The promise of protecting her young whatever may come…
It was definitely motherly love that spurred the changeling on, of all possible things.
“I don’t need to know her reasons.” he continued stoically, “All I know is that, at the moment, she is just not worthy of trust.”
He clasped Garibaldi’s shoulder, ignoring his uncomfortable squirming, “Do me one favour, Garibaldi: Use a salt mill when you speak to her. That, or don’t speak to her at all. Capisce?”

He grumbled tiredly.
”...Ma sì.”

Without warning, a bolt behind them slid out of its lock and the double doors on the vestibule’s other end dropped open. Spooked, the two jurists saw a security officer poking his head inside.
“Everything alright?”

Hesitantly, Estermann nodded.
“Y-yes. Do you mind?”

The officer bowed his head apologetically and looked down the check his wristwatch.
“You have twelve more minutes.”

“Yes, thank you.” Estermann sighed. “We’re about to head back to the courtroom anyway.”

“Alright, sir. Just checking.”
And with those words, the guard politely retracted his head and locked the door up again.

It took Estermann a moment to devote his attention back to the matter at hand.
“Right. Now, Garibaldi… Not another word about it. Got it?”

Estermann slowly pushed the other doors back open and bathed the tight vestibule in the office’s bright neon light. Then he let Garibaldi and himself step back inside to the Queen Chrysalis, who still lounged on the ground next to the table and looked a bit bored.
“So...” she started up, “You finished.”

“Absolutely.” Estermann confirmed sanguinely. “We figured out how to proceed from now on. We shall concentrate on Starswirl’s treatise. We will try our utmost to drag the book down and make it useless. ”

Chrysalis’s eyes scanned the two jurists intently.
“That’s it?”

“What?” Estermann asked, confused.

“Worm, you sound like this was going to be your plan to begin with.”

He shrugged. “Starswirl’s document is the weakest link. I... realised that the very moment I first read it a few days ago.”

She shook her head minimally.
“So what was there to discuss? Why did you interrupt the trial to talk this over if you already knew what’s got to be done?”

Garibaldi furrowed his brow in accord with the queen’s.
“To be quite honest, I think that’s a legitimate point. If there is something that worries you, I c-”

“Who the hay asked you, meatball?” Chrysalis snapped at the aide, “Be silent for once!”

Estermann was already going for his robe as he explained himself.
“I called the recess because... I got doubts.”

“Oh, what great timing.” she hissed. “What spoiled the mood for you?”

He bit his lips and stood straight.
“Because I can’t believe Pierman would make it this easy for us. Some part of me refuses to believe that she based her entire case on such a miserable piece of evidence like this one.”

“You think she might be bluffing?”

He nodded, albeit hesitantly.

“And… bluff what, exactly?” Garibaldi whispered. “That the prosecution’s better armed than that? Or… that they’re not?”

Estermann frowned on the inside. His answer was as cryptic to him as it was to his aide and his client.
“...Yes.”

Author's Note

Alright, thus ends round one of the court action, and surprisingly, things might not look as bleak as they might have.

Now, a little caveat:

At this point it might be right and proper to mention that, again, the protocols of this version of the ICC are quite different from the real deal.

The most obvious change might have been that of scope:
Chrysalis' (presumed) pre-trial period barely covers a month, and it consists are only a handful of hearings.
In real life, the proceedings are both larger and lengthier.
Dominic Ongwen's case is a typical example; Between his first appearance and the initiation of the pre-trial phase alone, there was a delay of one year. The confirmation hearing came three whole months later. That was in early 2016, and Ongwen will most definitely not see a final verdict for several years in the future.

Another vital difference is the in-court examination of evidence:
This isn't, and has never been, typical for the pre-trial phase. The real ICC's pre-trial is a much more mundane affair, and typically consists of a single judge signing arrest warrants for suspects, issuing summons for witnesses, negotiating a functioning judicial calendar by which to work, instructing parties, briefing defendants, conducting preliminary investigations and disclosing the evidence - all before the trial can start proper. In other words, it's pure preparation work.
Evidence is not discussed, and most certainly not in a chronological order.
A lot of the action in these chapters I have borrowed from the trial phase, in which the evidence will actually be evaluated and closely examined, and which culminates in the judges handing down their final verdict.

The reason for these changes is simple: distillation.
While I could indeed have the written the story to take place over the course of a better half of a decade, I feel that it would have seriously messed with the pacing, and would have inevitably led to large leaps of time inbetween chapters and thus skip not only many developments of the trial, but also a lot of interaction between characters.
The various character dynamics would simply not have been the same if the story lasted years rather than days. The sense of urgency as the time works against Chrysalis' changelings would too be lost. And since the story is as much about a naive Equestria, an unprepared human earth and a mysterious changeling remnant trying to deal with each other as it is about Chrysalis' own trials and tribulations, this matters quite a bit.

Another reason is plot progression: As mentioned above, by the time a trial at the ICC kicks off, all evidence and testimonies need to have been laid bare. No new evidence may be brought in at this point. This potentially hurts the story's potential for twists and turns. It also robs us of the impact of characters reacting to the evidence and coping with its consequences in "real time" - so to speak in a fresh and unprepared manner.

Again, I could have simply covered both phases of the trial, but naturally, if both were to be treated with any reasonable amount of faith, it would inevitably have led to a lot of repetition and general redundancy.

Keeping all this in mind, I have been trying hard to maintain the atmosphere and spirit of the court's work with a degree of authenticity to distinguish it from all the typical 'mainstream' courtroom tropes.

But enough of all that.

XXV. Poetry In Motion

XXV.
Poetry In Motion

ICC Permanent Premises
Courtroom 1 Foyer
23. November, 2015
8:59 am MET

Shining Armor wheeled around the corridor like a dog searching for its own tail.
“Officer!” he muttered as soon as he broke out of his nervous loops. “Officer! Open up!”

Twilight had a hard time catching up to her brother as he flailed his way to the security door off the far end of the passageway.

She had only barely failed to get a hold of him when he jumped up from his seat in the gallery, yelping angrily when the judge had called the recess. Then he barked at the soundproof windowpane, asking it - perhaps a little bit too loudly - what the hay the idea was supposed to be. The other guests had turned around, and gave him bemused, faintly annoyed looks.
A few minutes into the recess, with the courtroom on the other side of the windowpane beginning to thin out, he slipped outside in a huff.

“What’s the holdup?” he now loudly asked the door, then following up by angrily smacking a hoof into it. “Hey!”

Twilight was so terrified that she didn’t dare to breathe a word that would have cut his tirade short. His panic-stricken fits were always catching her off-guard; it genuinely frightened her to see her older brother act like that. At that moment, he was light years away from the cool and debonnaire Shining of her childhood. He who’d always been so above it all…
And now? He could barely keep a lid on his temper - at least until somepony finally took pity on him and unlocked the door from the other side.

A bearded human head peered out.
“What is it?” it asked. “What are you making noise for?”

“I’m Captain Shining Armour, Royal Guard! I’m with the Equestrian delegation.” he breathed, frantically trying to look beyond the human head. “Where is she?”

“Who? Who is where? What do you want?” the guard snapped.

“Chrysalis!” he spat. “What is she doing?”

“She is in private deliberation with her counsel. Is something wrong?”

Shining twisted his head uneasily.
“You need to go and check. Something’s not right!”

Rather annoyed, the human cocked his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, who are you again?”

“I’m the official adviser on prisoner security!” he snarled. “Now go look if she’s still in deliberation, then come back right away!”

Wordlessly, the human disappeared from behind the door and smacked it shut.

Something collapsed inside Shining, and he dropped onto his haunches and sunk his head with a sigh.

Twilight took the chance, laying a calming hoof on his right shoulder. He flinched slightly.
“Shining...” she whispered. “What’s the matter all of a sudden?”

“I...” he gulped, sticking his muzzle in a hoof, “I had a hunch, alright?”

As much sympathy as she had for her brother, she did feel embarrassed at his tirade. An coarse tone overrode her kind demeanor.
“You… you jumped up literally the moment she did. What gave you the idea something was off?”

“Because there was nothing to discuss!” he hissed, “The prosecutor was pounding her with the charges. She had nowhere to go. And yet, in the middle of it, she just up and left!”

“Well firstly, it was her lawyer that called for the recess.” she argued. “I met him, Shining. He is a fine human - very frank and very capable. He must have had a good reason.”

Shining laughed cruelly. “He’s a complete foal! A slave in the making.”

Twilight shortly looked up and down his anxious writhing form.
“Okay. Come, Shining. This isn’t over yet. Let’s sit back down.”

But he was adamant.
“I’m not leaving until I have confirmation.”

“Okay, what is going on with you?!” she suddenly snapped. It scared her just as much as her brother.

But he only closed his eyes. Maybe in shame.

“Do you hear me?”

Silently, his gaze returned to his sister, glazed over, clueless, forlorn. Just like they had been for the rest of the week.

He was not well, Twilight did realise that.
Back when she first ran into him in the human prison one week ago, she could only barely manage to convince him to rip himself away from his work and spend some time with her. Even when he wasn’t suffering a sporadic flight of panic or anger, his head was constantly drifting off into the clouds; ignoring, evading, escaping all the questions she had saved up for him.
How was he? How was Cadence doing when he left? Were the humans treating him well? She had only managed to get two complete answers out of him, and both consisted of the words ‘duty’, ‘danger’, and ‘Chrysalis’.

It like he was in a trance. Like there was some kind of suppressed urge commanding him to keep his mind sharpened and on constant alert.

Yet at the same time, it wasn’t like he was deathly afraid of someone, though that would have been understandable. Queen Chrysalis would have been the obvious choice, the prime choice. She was one of the only ponies to have ever caught him off his hooves, and that on the supposedly happiest day in his life.

Another possibility Twilight considered was Princess Celestia - and him obsessing over the various obligations and duties he thought he was owing her. He had always been deeply honoured by his position and had always done his job with a stalwart smirk on his face.

Of course, that meant that the Canterlot Wedding hit him harder than it would have most others. Before he departed for the human lands, he had mentioned to Twily that he was afraid he had ‘let down his princesses and his home more than enough’.
Maybe this was just his attempt to win back his Princess’ favour - to assure her that, if it came to Chrysalis, there would be no way in Tartarus that he would allow her to undermine him a second time. It was always like Shining to stride into the manticore’s den.

The was only really one problem… he never did really fall out of Princess Celestia’s favour to begin with. She was her merciful self, just like always. She had accepted his sincere apology long long ago, and declared the matter finished - an unfortunate event best to be, if not forgotten, then at least moved on from by everypony.

The only battle that was still being fought was raging in his own mind.
Perhaps his fear wasn’t reserved for any pony. It was coming from him.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” she begged, her eyes clenched in grave concern.
“You’re not like this. You've never been like this before. There must be something wrong.”

“You know what’s wrong, Twily.”

“No, I do not! Would you care to explain?” she exclaimed, Far too loudly for her own tastes.
She looked around meekly. The corridor was still completely deserted - almost everypony still holding out inside the gallery.
“And before you say anything, Shining: ‘Vigilance’ is all well and good, but this... this is getting scary.”

He nodded curtly in a futile attempt to shake her away from him.

A few more seconds of silence were interrupted when the human security guard’s pudgy face emerged back in the security door’s opening with something of an apologetic salute.
“I checked the office and talked with my foreman. Everything is okay, Captain Shining. The Queen is on her way back to the courtroom as we speak.”

Twilight’s ears perked up.
“You hear that, Shining? Now let’s go.”
With a little magical prodding, she moved her brother back towards the gallery entrance as the door was locked shut behind them.

As gently as she could, she pulled him through the door up the stairs of the courtroom’s tribune gallery.

The curtains to the courtroom proper had been lowered. The fillies and gentlecolts who had been granted a seat here - mostly Equestrian government officials and correspondents, and a select few humans huddled on the outer edges - were silently awaiting the looming continuation of the proceedings. Twilight tried hard to avert their searching gazes as she dragged her poor brother back onto his seat and perching herself on a cushion cushion.

Shining, at least partially comforted in his knowledge of the changeling queen’s whereabouts, held his - tentative - peace.

At some point, the curtains lifted again, as though the siblings were witnessing the world’s most macabre operetta.

An bailiff’s garbled yell of “All rise.” and “Vous éleves.” broke the silence. Shining was the first one standing up and at attention, in the most finicky military manner.

Magistrate Lex Fori resolutely marched into the chamber, and the two human justices trudged behind. From a door on the right side of the hall, Chrysalis was led in on a chain. There she was again. The Queen of all Changelings, in the flesh.

“Shining, look.” Twilight whispered, trying to grab his attention like a toddler’s. “There she is. Everything’s okay.”

“Could be one of her impostors, for all we know.”

“Shining.”

He winced sourly, then shook his head.
“Look at her happy face. Look at it.”

Twilight looked, and she understood immediately.

Oh, how Twilight loathed that ugly, sneering changeling gob.
Her oily hair was tied into a half-hearted ponytail, her belly and wings were tied down by an ugly brown vest, and On her nose sat that same, ridiculous-looking pair of glasses as before, probably placed on her muzzle in a futile attempt to make her look learned and prudent.

One part of Twilight almost couldn’t bear looking at her, trying to avoid the creature’s taunting gaze. But another part of her seemed dead set on rousing the changeling’s attention instead - to let her know she was there, perching up above, and watching.
It was a tempting thought.

“It is 10:15 am. The chamber is in session.” came the court usher’s announcement.

“Thanks again.” the elderly human justice Jessica Suruma said, looking up from her bundle of files. “Continuing where we left off… Mister Estermann.”
She turned to the inauspicious, bony, grey-maned lawyer who was in the process of parking a bundle of files on the desk. “Have you found the time adequately discuss the situation with your client?”

“Indeed we have, Madam President. Thank you.” he harrumphed.

“And you have given adequate thought to your ensuing course?”

“That we have, Madam President. I intend to carry out a brief examination of the prosecution’s evidence, if that would be alright.”

The evidence. Twilight leaned forward. Now, this was the part she had been looking forward to the most. The courtroom drama. The duel between two sharp legal minds on different sides of due process. The protagonists and the antagonists, locked in a twisted battle for the fate of Queen Chrysalis. While she did remind herself not to underestimate Alexander Estermann’s capabilities, her faith in the evidence that was heaved upon his client and him was much greater.

She nudged her brother with genuine excitement.
“Hey they go. Now let’s see what she’s made of.”

She thought of all the evidence of the terrible siege that destroyed the prospering metropolis of Timbucktu above the Smokey Mountains. An ancient cultural cataclysm that probably knocked back Equestria back a few generations through its loss. A catastrophe so genuinely awful that the dry, clinical analysis that was devoted to it this day could have never done it justice. But for what it was worth, it proved. It proved all. From the weathered sandstone temple brick to the rusted filly’s copper broach to the pegasus officer’s battered skeleton.
How chilling. How saddening. How humbling.

Of course, one could not name all these documents without mentioning the crown jewel among them.
Twilight had looked up to Starswirl the Bearded ever since she was a foal in the cradle. Already from deepest childhood onward, her mother would feed her the sage’s flowery, deeply profound odes, his witty, mystifying riddles and his sweet, kindhearted hymns about a young Equestria’s future. Truly, few others had done so much to make Twilight into the mare that she was today. He had been - and still was - a giant of Equestrian thought. Nopony was more prolific. Nopony was more diverse. Nopony was more creative and recondite.
And his academic papers were not half bad either. Indeed, nopony had fostered and inspired the savants and scholars of the Equestrian world like him. Back in the day, he had virtually stomped all the great schools and universities out of the ground by himself.

Granted, the treatise that he wrote on the topic of Timbucktu’s sack preceded a lot of his more legendary and influential work, but yet his devotion for the stunning and telling details did not disappoint. Even after so many centuries, his work managed to illustrate the goings-on of the day like few others.

Twilight anticipated that this first round was heading towards a rather predictable end. In some way, it wasn’t fair. Not many other seminal catastrophes could say they had the luck to be chronicled by the greatest equine mind of all times.

All the more, she wondered what on earth her dear brother was so nervous about. Could he not see that Chrysalis really did have nowhere to run?
Looking over to him, she just caught him wincing.
Banishing his torment from her thoughts for a moment, she listened into the proceeding.

“Very well, my learned friend. I yield the floor to you.”

“Thank you, Madam President.” Estermann harrumphed, and turned to the spry young human prosecutor Serafina.

Twilight couldn’t help but notice that she seemed a little ill this day, her sickly eyes opened only half-way. Had she caught a cold?

Alexander leaned into his table, holding himself upright by the very tips of his quite long talons.
“I would like to tread back quickly and ask my esteemed colleague of the prosecution to expand upon the charges and the facts.”

Tellingly, he scratched his eyebrow with a claw the moment the words ‘esteemed colleague’ passed his lips.
“What could that mean, Shining?”
Twilight knew that now was the time to all the human gestures. Perhaps, they could reveal a thing or two about their thought processes before the the words even exited their mouths…
Shining evidently couldn’t care less, though, the way he was coldly glaring into a distant, empty corner of the room, staring down some invisible enemy.

“The prosecution has presented a rather extensive case on the fate and remains of the city and the population of Timbucktu. Because of that, it was somewhat surprising that things became a whole lot less detailed as far as the Changeling side of the affair was concerned. Indeed, as far as the supplement of the prosecution goes, it appears that no physical proof of the presence of changelings in the aforementioned combat operations seems to exist. No corpses, no weaponry, no clothing, no everyday items these supposed aggressors may have carried with them into battle. Would that be a correct assessment?”

Serafina sent back a look of unmistakable antipathy.

Twilight needed no human face-reading skills to realise that. Looks as lethal as those could be found all over the animal kingdom.
Indeed, Prosecutor Serafina did not seem to have a lot of sympathy left for her counterpart in the defence. Twilight already saw that on the feast at the day of her arrival in Europe.

“My learned friend...” she grunted, “ It may be true that on the physical front, not a lot of evidence remains of the Changeling forces themselves. However, this absence of evidence in no way serves as proof for the absence of Changeling involvement.”
She snatched hold of a folder. “There are several possible explanations as to why little to none of it has survived to be presented, namely the fact that Changeling soldiers - going by contemporary recordings - generally did not carry any notable amounts of - as you suggested - weaponry, clothes or everyday items. Neither in battle, nor out. Hence, there was less of a chance of anything being dropped and remaining for excavation.”

“Were any bodies of Changelings discovered on the crime scene? After all, plenty of p… equine cadavers were exhumed in the rubble.” Estermann immediately pressed on. His eyes gleamed at the sight of an apparent thread.

“No changeling bodies were exhumed.” she sniffed, before being interrupted.

“Should it be taken as a that an enormous Changeling army took a well-sized city by storm without a single casualty, then?”

“Obviously not.” she repeated, in a much more severe tone. “I may remind my learned friend that the Changeling forces had held the field for several hours - arguably several days - on end. They would have had plenty of opportunity to remove their fallen and given them a proper burial at other locations; something that the slaughtered and penned-up population of Timbucktu had not.”
She crossed her forelegs. “Besides, I would like to remind the defence of the fundamental anatomical difference between Equestrian equines and changelings. It’s sensible to assume that decomposition takes a far larger toll on the latter than the former over a thousand-year period. Hence the absence of any excavatable bodies.”

That explanation seemed reasonable. Who knew how quickly their weird, leathery remains would fade?

“I believe my esteemed colleague meant a seven-hundred-year span.” he interrupted her anew.

“Boy,” Twilight whispered, “He does not give her a break, does he?”

“One thousand Equestrian years, my learned friend.” she smiled. “It is for those reasons that we believe that the testimonies of those victims who were there on that day supply sufficient grounds for putting the so-called Changeling Kingdom’s chief commanding officer on trial - We consider them argumentum a fortiori.”

Now Alexander sniffed.
A gesture of hesitance?

And what about Chrysalis?
She was sitting still in the back, and listening to the proceedings with her eyes shut. And probably enjoying every single minute of it.
Twilight caught Shining gazing at her. Unhealthily long.

“Very well.” Estermann continued, “It was mentioned that Changeling combatants did not carry mundane things - bits and bobs, if you will - into battle. That seems reasonable enough.”

“Oh, you artful fox.” Twilight grinned, trying to distract her brother from the changeling. “What are you building up to?”

“Am I right to assume,” the counsel meanwhile continued, “that the same cannot be said for arms and armour? Shields? Harnesses? Helmets? Blades? Spears? After all, I may remind the prosecution that, according to Equestrian archeological findings, several Timbucktuan victims were found to be lacerated by that type of weapon.”

“Actually, there is no evidence to suggest that changelings equipped armour or held weapons during that time period in the first place - even into battle.”
Resolutely, she cocked her head upright. “Not only do contemporary records detail changeling tactics to rely extensively on agility, speed, and loose formations - all of which would have been hindered by armour - but are changelings proven to possess innate magical capabilities - mostly centered around implementing damaging heat - that conventional weapons would be redundant and cumbersome.”
Demonstratively, she held her file up. “The sharp traumas were found on a distinct minority of victims’ bodies. They’re guaranteed to have mostly been dealt by weapons taken off Municipal Guard soldiers in the heat of battle. Indeed, more than ninety percent of all bodies exclusively exhibited lethal blunt and burning traumas, while less than thirty bore sharp ones. This suggests fairly well that the Changelings at Trot fought - if I may so put it - in the nude, and with bare hooves and horns.”

“Oh… she’s good” Twilight swooned, “She’s very very good.”
Of course, Twilight knew a lot of those titbits, even if she could probably never present them so convincingly in a court of law as that human prosecutor.
She was growing more and more interested in the defence’s rebuttals.

“Indeed a very unorthodox tactic for a supposed organised fighting force.”
Estermann looked down at his notes. “Can the prosecution provide any information pertaining to the composition of the alleged Changeling attacking force?”

“We have estimates of the sizes of the individual battle groups. They’re...” she checked, “five, five and six thousand. Sixteen thousand all in all.”

“What about the composition?” he repeated. “The roles? I am speaking about… reserves, flanking forces, logistical forces, civilian hosts. Has it been established what percentage of that force was composed of active, frontline combatants?”

Here, Serafina bit her lip.
“We do not have concrete data to provide. It can be assumed that the Changeling army did not operate in such… sophisticated manners.”

Twilight stole a glance back to Queen Chrysalis,who glared at the prosecutors in affront.

Estermann trudged on.
“Is it possible to organise a siege and a sack so… deviously detailed as the prosecution will have this chamber believe, without such absolutely basic components like logistics and reserves?”
He looked at Serafina challengingly, “Even… the Zulu tribes of Southern Africa, who fought with nothing more than a spear, a shield and loin cloth to their name, practiced rudimentary formations like flanking forces and reserves. If one would allow that comparison.”

She breathed in. Her sickly eyes suddenly gave the counsel an impressive glare.
“My learned friend, It does not take a lot of administrative finesse to organise a riled-up mob and direct them to advance towards a predetermined location…”
She struck out a demonstrative finger and pointed at an imaginary target, “The evidence does not point towards any highly detailed attack pattern. The waves in which these assaults took place were very… natural, for lack of a better word. Those who felt brave, fought first. Those who wished to move up and support the vanguard, did just that.”
Her claws spread in a rolling motion, “Battle cohesion was nonexistent, but fortunately for the attackers, there was very little room left for confusion. They were pointed towards the city and instructed to push forth and overwhelm whoever stood in their way, until there was nowhere left to push.”
Her claws pushed down hard on her stash of folders, squishing them slightly under her light weight. “And they did just that. The Timbucktuan defenders did achieve some limited success in pushing back this mob, but ultimately found themselves overwhelmed by a numerically superior swarm - in the most literal sense of the word ‘swarm’. And as observed, Her Royal Highness Chrysalis was constantly in sight to oversee the situation and convey the most vital of orders on location.”
She paused, and cleared her throat belligerently. “On a side note... It should be noted that even these same Zulu tribes, with their spears and their shields and their loin cloths, managed to decisively defeat an entire garrison of professionally trained British riflemen in a pitched battle - in spite any perceived lack of equipment. But I digress.”

Twilight caught Justice Suruma nudging her glasses and leaning forward.
“Before we stray off too far off topic, the judge harrumphed, "I would like to pose to the defence counsel the question if there is anything else he wishes to address this session.”

Confused, he glanced up.

“I am under the distinct impression that all that could have been said concerning this subject matter - considering the current state of evidence - has been said now.”

Estermann frowned and gritted his teeth before hiding them away under a forced smile.
“I agree wholeheartedly. Please allow me to return from my... momentary distraction and focus on my main point of contention with the narrative of the prosecution.”
He kneaded his claws and assembled his thoughts. “The primary objective of the Prosecutor has apparently been to prove that an assault on the City of Timbucktu, followed by the occupation and demolition of the same, took place. This - barring some questionable and very noticeable omissions - appears to be a reasonable assumption that is based on concrete physical evidence.”

Well… that definitely wasn’t an exaggeration.

He sniffed, “Even so, one must remember that the crux of these proceedings is to prove the culpability of my client, Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, in said attack. And while the prosecution has presented a compelling amount of evidence concerning the nature and sequence of the events, it has yet to provide definite evidence to support the thesis that Her Royal Highness played a role - much less an active role - in them.”
He instinctively grabbed the lapels of his robe. “It is at this point where the gaps in the prosecution’s narrative become positively untenable. It is customary in front of the chamber to establish - even prior to the Confirmation of the Charges - for instance, a suspect’s presence at the scene of a crime, a chain of command linking her to relevant offending units, or at the very least an allegiance to the suspected perpetrators. But here?”
He shrugged theatrically, “It begs the question on what grounds the prosecution intends to hold trial over Her Royal Highness in the first place. The evidence is so feeble that it may not warrant the confirmation of these charges - let alone positively prove that she was, in fact, the commanding officer that coordinated a military assault.”

Twilight admitted that his conviction stunned her. But he fooled her not for a second.

“Now, admittedly - and rather surprisingly - mention was actually made of Her Royal Highness - by name rather than just by title.”
He paused, and gave a smirk, “That is, by one solitary piece of evidence, out of a plethora of others.”
Looking down on his table, he causally began rearranging his documents until he had built a stack of five folders. “Three of five exhibits - among them the mobilisation order signed by Chief Strategos Virgo - made mention of a ‘Queen of Changelings’, who asserted to hold a commanding position within in the attacking force, but eschewed any further comment on her identity. All three documents - without being able to rely on other pieces of evidence that do purport to confirm the identity of Queen Chrysalis - are of no further concern to this investigation. They are - at best - circumstantial, and virtually worthless as inculpatory evidence against the suspect present.”
With that said, he shoved them to the side, so that only two were left. “Two documents actually do specify Queen Chrysalis. But one names the other as the source of this information.”
With that, he shoved the upper file to the side as well, leaving single thick folder lying on the desk before him.
“This is exhibit ‘1C’ - and it is the sole basis on which the prosecution has decided to indict Her Royal Highness for the crimes committed at Timbucktu between the 14th and the 16h of the 1st Autumn, of the year 5. It is this exhibit that ought to supply the basis for a conviction for crimes that bear the very real potential to condemn this person..." he stretched out a claw towards the queen, “...to prison for nothing short of a whole life order!”
He let that sink in for a moment. “The evidence of the crime itself runs thick, yes, but the inculpatory connection to the suspect hangs, limply and precariously, by a solitary thread.”

He swiped a claw over the ‘thread’ in question.

Twilight recognised it immediately.
“Starswirl’s treatise. Now comes to the good part!” The one that came out of Starswirl’s very own quill!
No matter what Estermann was going to say now - Twilight knew she had faith.
When was the last time a good Starswirl book had ever led anyone down?
“I want to see him try get past that one!”

“Now then.” Estermann began, “Can my esteemed colleague of the prosecution point me to the relevant passages?”

Serafina, sighing, split the massive thing open in the middle and tilted it by ninety degrees and went scouring for the relevant parts.
“I…. refer my…. learned friend to, uh… fifteen particular accounts that all, at one point or another, place the suspect in and around Timbucktu, and describe her criminal actions in particular detail. Pages 37, 40, 51, 60, 71, 96, 119, 123, 137, 145, 150, 159, 173, 178 and 189.”

“Can I ask my esteemed colleague to recite these relevant statements to the court?”

Warily, Serafina hesitated and lowered the paper.
Twilight smelled a feint, and so did she.

At this moment, Justice Suruma Jessica reared her head once more, her voice athunder.
“With all due respect for my learned friend, I believe this will not be necessary. I am fairly certain that the Counsel for the Prosecution is well aware of the contents of these passages, and so is this judge panel and - one hopes - so is the defence.”

Again, she was telling him in no uncertain terms that he should quit stalling already.
Twilight had to admit she felt the tiniest bit sorry for the pale human.

Huffing in disappointment, Estermann snatched up his version of the treatise and picked out the statements in question.
“Very well. If Madam President will allow it, I will recite one of the statements myself. It is very relevant to my query.”

Suruma pouted and took off her glasses with her claws. “You have the floor, my learned friend.”

Estermann licked his lips in anticipation.
"Now, Page 51... According to the translation, this is a paraphrasing of an encounter of Starswirl the Bearded, the author of this document, with a survivor who went by the name of… Pavo the Greengrocer, at least according to the provided translation.”
He cleared his throat and began.
“‘The third morn in the moors, I came past the gent, who rested his ginger head in a sick bay’s tent. With his flesh cleft asunder by countless raw gashes, he wailed of what now sprinkled these fields as mere ashes: Timbucktu town, the Pearl of the West, whose silver streets once the cosmos did bless. Turn back four times the world clock’s hand, you would find this trader of no decorum, maintaining a humble grocery stand, inside the Flying Forum.’”
With every couplet, the feeble-looking, spindly lawyer worked himself up into a surprisingly passionate tone. It was a strange side to behold - a defence attorney reading the prosecution’s case with such gusto.
“‘There he had heard the first bells of the war, heralding the changeling incursion near and far. Closing with haste, this pegasus flew, to gather his kin on Merchants’ Avenue. No more than five leaps through the hassle he’d passed, when he turned to see the North-Easterly rampart harass’d: thrashing the defenders, crushing the keeps, Changelings poured in with avaricious leaps… Betwixt them floated, with authority engrossed, a monarch named Chrysalis, as master of the host.’”
Then he stopped. Flapping the booklet shut weakly, he looked back up.
“Et cetera… et cetera.” he grunted. “It’s certainly a very... dramatic account, which, as far as I can tell, stretches across eight more pages. Pavo the Greengrocer claims to have been taken captive by the invaders, being maltreated by them physically and psychologically, getting immobilised by this... ‘muscilaginous brew’ and... after witnessing his family being executed by being thrown over the edge of the cloud bank with their wings fused together, he managed to escape the city only a few hours before it fell apart...”

Twilight shuddered.
Well, what point was he making?

“Firstly, I would like to note the document’s tone...” His teeth clamped together halfway though, “And how utterly, and almost laughably ill-fitting and irreverent it is, given the subject matter.”

Twilight felt the bad need to scratch her ears. She must have heard that wrong.

Crestfallen, Estermann eyed his claws on the desk,
“Whether or not one lends credence to the assertion of Changeling forces actively participating in this incident - much less assuming any role of Her Royal Highness - one must concede that the affair is a uniquely tragic and mournful one, and that it deserves to be treated with the tranquility and respect and clarity of mind that would be required for it to lend any noteworthy insight under the lens of a formal enquiry.”
Scornfully, he picked the bookled up with both claws and presented it to everyone as though they were about to see it for the first time. “This piece of… contemporaneous writing, if one may stoop low enough to grant it this honour, offers none of that. As a matter of fact, it goes out of its way to misrepresent, misconstrue and mythologise the events of the 14th and 15th - so much so, that I have to ask the earnest question of how the Prosecution imagined they could make this Chamber believe that it could as much as indicate the culpability of my client…”

Pierman, who had made the mistake of resuming her seat behind the desk, only barely managed to re-attach her jaw back to her to cut him off.
But before long, Justice Jessica did it for her.
“My learned friend...” she sang, “ I do not appreciate you drawing the professionalism of the Prosecutor into question.”

Estermann cleared his throat and pulled some ugly faces.
“Far be it away from me to question my esteemed colleague’s professionalism.”

“Yeah. Right.” Twilight huffed.

Even Serafina seemed anything but fooled.

“I apologise if this is the impression that I have left.” he continued, “No, my protest lies solely with the exhibit in question, and its… extraordinary-”

“Also, as spirited as your critique of the exhibit is, I would implore the you to remain professional and topical in your presentation. To remind you of your own words: tranquility, respect and clarity of mind are what’s needed right now.”

“Quite right. Apologies.” He sniffed, smiled and nodded, “Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the prosecution has presented this piece of evidence in the guise of a compilation of detailed primary accounts on the events, when in actuality, it is nothing more than a single account of the author listening to the witnesses relating their experiences to him - experiences that he did not witness for himself.”
He blinked and cleared his throat, “Before I get ahead of myself, I wish to direct a question to my esteemed colleague of the Prosecution.”

Bitterly, Serafina folded her arms in anticipation.

“Does the Prosecution intend to call the author of this work, Mister Starswirl the Bearded-”

“Ser.”
That interjection came from Magistrate Lexy who, until now, had managed to remain relatively silent and composed.
“His title was Ser.”

Justice Jessica did not even bother to silence her this time.

“Apologies, Your Honour… Does the Prosecution intend to call Ser Starswirl the Bearded as a live witness?”

“What kind of a question was that supposed to be?” Twilight whispered, “Starswirl lived centuries ago!”

Serafina was in the process of wiping her nose dry.
“Ser Starswirl the Bearded was declared dead in the year 31. He is already deceased.” she repeated, just for clarity.

“Ah yes. Very well then. But certainly, the Prosecution is planning on calling the witnesses whose testimonies are featured in the work, to the stand; Pavo the Greengrocer, et alia. Is it?”

This was getting ridiculous. Was he mocking her?

“I... understand what my learned friend of the Defence wishes to accomplish.” Serafina answered, a little unexpectedly. “It goes without saying that all fifteen witnesses featured in this document have already passed away due to the extraordinarily long timespan. In light of this, the Prosecution did not intend to present any live witnesses in respects to the Timbucktu incident.”

Estermann chuckled and, tellingly, peered over to his millennia-old client.
“Perhaps my esteemed colleague would think it best to send out summons these witnesses regardless. After all, lest the deaths of all the witnesses can be confirmed, there is the responsibility to summon and let them speak for themselves.”

He was mocking Serafina!
And she did look slightly browbeaten about it.
“To put it most clearly: The deaths of all fifteen witnesses have all been confirmed. They passed away within a period of one hundred and eighty years following the events at Timbucktu.”

Estermann chuckled and shrugged innocently. “I hope my learned friend pardons my pedantry. I simply wished for clarification; For without the possibility to cross-examine these specified persons,... I’m afraid this evidence is not admissible.”

Twilight bated her breath.

Shining, strangely enough, looked almost bored.

“This piece of writing is a clear case of relata refero. It cannot be trusted to establish the truth on the matter of my client’s presence or actions.”

Serafina cleared her hoarse throat.
“As a matter of fact, it is because of the demise of the witnesses that this piece of evidence has become so important. It is the last remaining transcription of the witnesses’ recorded observations.”

“That does not make this book any less of a hearsay account, my esteemed colleague!” he interjected, “This court cannot hope to discern facts from falsities and exaggerations - perhaps... even outright lies - if not in the presence of the witnesses.”

Serafina sniffed, “If I may take an analogy from British and American Common Law, it is an almost universally accepted convention that a document of hearsay can still be admitted to establish the truth if the witnesses of the trial are... no longer available. What must be guaranteed above all is the uninterrupted chain of custody of the document. And this is largely unproblematic...”
She picked up her version of the treatise and flipped to the first page behind the cover.
Her finger tapped onto a very noticeable round crest, clearly visible even in the grimy toner of the copy.
“I direct my learned friend to page one, on which he will find imprinted a seal in red ink. When translated, it reads ‘Blessing of the Lord Chancellor of the Pegasopolian Imperial Court.’ This document has been kept in storage in the Royal Canterlot archives or the last 918 years. It was relocated during Equestrian unification from the Cloudsdale City Archives, where it spent 82 years in storage. It had been left in the possession of a military Board of Enquiry in the direct aftermath of the battle, which was held on… the 27th day of the 3rd Autumn Moon of the year 5. That was barely two months after the incident. It was submitted to this inquiry as a key piece of evidence. From start to finish since its initial presentation, this documents has found itself handled only by the proper authorities...”

Estermann silenced her with a hectic, faintly frantic wave of his claws.
“Ahem… pardon me… my esteemed colleague... Did I hear that right? There was... an inquiry that was held concerning the attacks in the very same year as the attacks? A public inquiry?”

A slight pause stumped the room.

Estermann was flabbergasted, clearly taken by that revelation by surprise.
“On whose authority was it organised?”

“It was commissioned by the Generalissimo of Pegasopolis at the time, Commander Hurricane. As I have mentioned earlier, Pegasopolis viewed the Dominion of Timbucktu as a protectorate. They considered its destruction to be a direct incursion on Pegasopolian sovereignty as well as an invocation of an ancient mutual defence treaty. For those reasons, a board of senior military officers was gathered to investigate how this attack ended up being as destructive as it was. The nature is comparable to that of a modern... Royal Commission, customary in many Commonwealth nations. The results were presented publicly.”

“And... Ser Starswirl’s treatise functioned as a piece of evidence?”

Before long, the harrowing harrumph of Justice Jessica made the defence counsel jump.
“I am sorry for interrupting my learned friend yet another time...” she apologised, “But I too would like to pose the Prosecutor a question.”

A shiver travelled down Twilight’s back. She saw Serafina shrinking back a little in anticipation.

Estermann, meanwhile, just seemed to gasp in relief as, for once, he wasn’t it.

“My learned friend, it appears to me as if this is the first time this chamber ever heard of such a board of enquiry ever convening. Have you not deemed the existence of a previous examination of the Timbucktu attacks important enough to make any mention of it in the evidence?”

She nodded.
“That is... correct. And no, I have not considered this inquiry central to the charges.”

“Why not? After all, it is an investigation into these events.”

“Its results were of a... purely declarative nature.” she explained, but with no conviction or clarity in her voice, “The more important reason was that a lot of the documentation has been lost to time. The records on the proceedings are deeply fragmented. In fact, the only truly exhaustive documentation covers the inquiry’s findings, and little more.”

Jessica tapped a finger on her desk, growing impatient.
“Did the inquiry come to any findings relevant to the present suspect’s whereabouts or actions?”

Serafina raised her head and curled her fists.
“Yes. They found a confederacy of several Changeling Tribes from the Crystal mountains responsible for the attack, and they deemed Her Royal Highness Chrysalis to be the sole military commander of the force that actively participated in the battle.”

A strange sigh of relief seemed to flush throughout the room.

“So these findings support the charges against the suspect?”

Serafina seemed strangely uneasy, her gaze switching back and forth between the the pegasus by her side and the judges.
“They do.”

“Well, my learned friend. In that case, I suggest that you submit the documents on which you based your reconstruction of this inquiry as evidence. Its relevance to this investigation is quite frankly undeniable.”

Serafina nodded. “I will submit it at the next opportunity.”

Satisfied, but nevertheless disgruntled, the justice returned the floor to Defence Counsel Estermann.
He, again, seemed far too giddy about this revelation.

‘What was going on?’ Twilight chewed over, ‘Was this day Backward Day?’
It was so damning! Too damning, in fact, for him to be so happy about!

“My learned friend.” Estermann continued, “Certainly the prosecution can confirm then that the fifteen witnesses and Ser Starswirl were heard as live witnesses at this inquiry. After all, this inquiry took place a long time before their deaths.”

Serafina ground her teeth.
“As I have previously stated, the records are severely fragmented. It cannot be confirmed nor denied that these witnesses were examined.”
She inhaled, “But trusting in the professionalism of the Pegasopolian authorities, it has to be assumed that they were, in fact, examined.”

He let out another of his knowing smirks.
“I hope my learned friend will forgive me when, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will act on the assumption that no witnesses were examined by the inquiry.”
He paced around on the spot as he minded the judge panel. “Even if the fact that this treatise is a mere piece of hearsay doesn’t preclude its admissibility, it nevertheless completely negates its credibility before this court. Never have the testimonies of the witnesses themselves proved more vital than here. And yet...”

He hesitated, seemingly caught off-guard by something taking place in the prosecutor’s corner.

Looking over, Twilight watched a spiky-maned pegasus stallion - the very same she had met in both the Hotel and the Cafe doggedly following Serafina around - latch onto her shoulder and pull her down so he could whisper something in her ear.
Whatever it was that he was confiding to her, it provoked a very pained - almost despairing - from the dark-skinned human.
When he was finished, Serafina straightened herself back up.
“I was just informed that the treatise is not, in fact, a piece of hearsay evidence.”

Estermann’s eyebrows jumped high.

“When Ser Starswirl wrote down the testimonies of the fifteen witnesses, he did not do so as a private citizen. He conducted an official act as an agent of the public inquiry.”

Estermann’s reaction was an almost comically sarcastic puss.

“It is for that reason that Ser Starswirl cannot be considered a mere witness to the events, but an organ of the Military Board of Enquiry that directly gathered evidence in a manner befitting the modus operandi of that kind of tribunal.”

That seemed… as though it was cobbled together very quickly.
Even Twilight had to admit it sounded pretty wobbly. Not dubious of course - no, it still seemed sincere enough.
But really? Starswirl, an agent of the Pegasopolian government?

“Well... ” Estermann sneered a reply, “This hearing certainly is full of surprise revelations. Is there evidence that can be supplied to confirm Ser Starswirl’s function?”

Again, Serafina ducked and lent the excitedly whispering pegasus next to her an ear.
“There is a certified copy of letters patent addressed to Ser Starswirl available in the Royal Archives of Canterlot. It contains an order to examine the scene and debrief as many witnesses as he could find. A separate certificate confirms that he received them shortly before he arrived at the site. It too will be submitted for the chamber’s consideration at the next opportunity.”

Estermann fell silent. His claws spontaneously began stroking his chin.
“How did Starswirl the Bearded, in his capacity as one of the most ‘renowned and industrious literary minds of his day’, find himself on the site of of a horrific battle in the first place? How much is known about his whereabouts at the time of the attacks?”

Serafina gazed down at the open treatise.
“According to his personal record, he happened to be on his way to Canterlot Castle at the time, and was residing in an inn outside the small market town of Tall Tale, about sixty-five kilometres away from the scene of the crime, when news of the attack reached the town through surviving messengers. He immediately set out towards Timbucktu on foot, in hopes of bearing witness the fighting before it died down.”

“But certainly,” he grinned, “the letters patent could not yet have reached him at this point in time.”

She shook her head.
“No, they reached him when he was already on his way. By messenger, naturally.“

Twilight saw Estermann’s forehead wrinkling up skeptically.
“Ah… So… did Ser Starswirl initially set out into a warzone to... sate his own curiosity?”

‘Oh,’ Twilight swooned on her chair. ‘You don’t know half of it.’

Serafina harrumphed.
“Starswirl the Bearded was known to earn commissions from writing essays and treatises on important events, and have them published at various royal courts throughout the Equestrian Commonwealth.”

“Does that mean to imply that Ser Starswirl played the role of… some sort of political commentator?”

Serafina scoffed.
“It would be much more appropriate to compare his work to that of a contemporary journalist. Actually, that would be a bit of an understatement because, first and foremost, he was an academic and a public intellectual. He committed to his writings in a manner that was hailed in its day for its scrupulous attention to detail and scientific accuracy. He was, for that reason, held in universally high regard by his peers.”
She raised a finger. “That includes members of the Pegasopolian Imperial Court, which goes a long way to explain why they instructed him to handle this important assignment.”

Estermann cracked an ugly smirk.
“Incidentally… Did Ser Starswirl proceed to publish the treatise, as he would have done with his other work?”

Serafina momentarily ducked and scanned her information.
“No, he did not. Not immediately, at least. After committing his observations to paper, he admitted his work as evidence at the public inquiry. He would only release them for public consumption on the 9th day of the 2nd Spring Moon, in the year 7. That’s several months after the inquiry in Cloudsdale convened.”
She forced herself to a weak smile, “As my learned friend can clearly see, personal gain can therefore be easily ruled out as a viable factor at the time of recording.”

“Indeed...”
Estermann took a closer look at the booklet.
“He mentions that he finally reached the scene of the crime as early as the 17th. That was two mere days after the fighting was over.”
He shook his head. “And yet, at this point in time, he had already been supplied with letters patent issued by a public inquiry for the purpose of a criminal investigation? Of a crime that had... only just occurred?”

She sniffed, and reacted to a nod from her pegasus companion.

Twilight wondered; He really did seem to have found out a lot of very useful information at the last moment, hadn’t he?

“News of the destruction of Timbucktu and the retreat of the Changeling forces had reached the Imperial Palace of Cloudsdale on the very same day, the 15th. Since the dispatches were delivered exclusively by pegasus throughout the Dominion, the messages could easily be carried as far as three hundred kilometers in only a few hours. And Cloudsdale was a mere ninety kilometres away from Timbucktu that time of the year - I would like to remind my learned friend of the travelling nature of these cloud cities.”
She licked one of her digits and turned a page. “Anyhow, the letters patent themselves were already issued the very next day, by imperial decree, in what could only be described as an act of exceptional legal foresight. These letters, too, reached Ser Starswirl within the day."

“Foresight...” Estermann repeated caustically, and shrugged. “I do wish sometimes that we had ad-hoc tribunals working with such great flurry here in Europe. Oh, very well. I believe it is time that I finally shift my focus back on the elephant in the room.”
He looked up, “The treatise itself, and the tone in which it is written.”

Serafina crossed her arms one more time.

“Whether or not Ser Starswirl had any prior experience in transcribing testimonies for legal purposes, it cannot be denied that he shows... no professionalism in his task whatsoever.”

Twilight’s mood soured instantly.

Estermann just scratched the corner of his mouth, “Perhaps I am wrong to speak from my own, limited experience, but back when I began my formal legal education many years ago at university, I do believe it was mentioned that it is generally ill-advised to compose such a piece of evidence as a poem!”

Serafina’s tired stare revealed that she had seen this one coming from leaps away.
“Perhaps my learned friend is in fact wrong to make this assumption. Whatever opinion one might hold of the content of the writing, one must keep in mind it is nevertheless a product of its time. In first century Equestria, most formalistic texts - especially in academic circles - were expected to adhere to a certain rhyme scheme. It was a prominent linguistic trend of its day - a sign of education and erudition. So to dismiss this writing’s information on the basis of how it’s written is quite... counter-productive.”

Estermann shook his head. “I’m afraid these so-called fashion choices are merely the tip of the iceberg.”
He tapped on the page before him with a solitary claw. ”Ser Starswirl certainly went into a lot of detail concerning individual criminal acts, but it becomes obvious very soon that he shows absolutely no restraint at which information he deems relevant and which he doesn’t. He displays no sense of understanding of a statement’s testimonial worth. He seems to sacrifice substance for some... theatrical,... almost sensationalist spins on the story.”

“Oh you uncultured-”
That, Twilight realised with much embarrassment, had just slipped out of her own mouth before her brain could follow.
It was the fact that he was speaking of Starswirl the Bearded as if he was some kind of bit… er… dime novelist that really irked her.

Before either Jessica or Serafina could interrupt Estermann, he turned to a previous page., “Allow me to direct my esteemed colleague back to Pavo the Greengrocer’s infamous account. And I quote: ‘Changelings poured in with avaricious leaps.’... Avaricious. Now, what does this word, ‘Avaricious’, mean?”
That question was rhetorical. “It means ‘To show extreme greed’. Needless to say, this is a highly subjective term for what is otherwise meant to be an objective observation of an event. So I ask you, why is it in here? Was… Starswirl the Bearded a psychic, that he would know such a thing to be true?”

“He was...” Twilight moaned through the hooves clamped tightly around her own mouth. “He probably was.”

“What other explanation is there if one wishes to treat this this as yet another perfectly valid observation? Really, this is just one of dozens - I am not exaggerating, for I counted them - dozens of argumentative statements on the author’s part - 'Murderous', 'cackle', 'ravage', 'grabby', 'baleful' - All of which do little more than showcase the amateurish and deeply lopsided nature of this entire work.”

“My learned friend, I must object!” Serafina barked. “That was clearly intended to be a reproduction of what came out of Pavo the Greengrocer’s and the other witnesses' mouths. Those are not the words of the author!”

“Yeah!” Twilight squeed along in the gallery, hopelessly swept along by the debate.

“Well, then they are the words of the witnesses. But seeing how all these terms have not as much as been isolated in captions, once again underlines the author’s - and by extension, that inquiry’s - disinterest in any kind of objective discourse.”

Serafina looked more strapped by the second.
“These words that my honourable friend seems to be so dead set on discrediting, are nothing more than examples of the... linguistic... embroidery which was typical for writings of this era! Any - supposedly! - argumentative statements and other rhetoric were naturally intended to be disregarded by the justices for what they were! Ancient Equestrien adjudicators would still seek to formulate a neutral and rational ruling on the information contained therein, in spite of the garnishing!”

Proudly, Estermann grasped his lapels with both claws and importantly peered up the judges. He was only getting started.
“I put it to you, Madam President, that the attitude this document displays fit the tone of this supposed ‘public inquiry’ of the 27th perfectly. I believe that I now understand why my esteemed colleague of the Prosecution wouldn’t want to put too much of a focus on it. I know now what was meant by their findings being of a ‘declarative nature’!”
He smiled, smugly. “The reason was that this inquiry turned out to be, from beginning to end, a plainly unreliable and frivolous affair which would more likely have weakened my esteemed colleague’s case against Her Royal Highness than strengthened it.”
He raised a claw in a very martial manner. “This ‘military board of enquiry’ served one purpose, and one purpose alone: ‘Atrocity Propaganda’. A military junta's lurid attempt to construct an enemy image, divulging only the most scandalising hints of this foe's supposed cruelty - just enough so that the public may be spurred on to arms. It's a classic defamation effort, intended to rile up public opinion against changelingkind and perhaps even fabricate a casus belli against their nations!"
He lowered his claw and folded it behind his back. “It's quite remnisicient of 'juristic' propaganda efforts spread in other major conflicts, such as the First and Second World War. There is nothing professional to be found here. Nothing much in the course of due process. I put it to you that the investigation effort was mere pretense for a political diatribe. And, well, for that purpose, any supposed enemy leaders’ names could have just as well been picked out of a big hat!”

When he was finished, silence reigned supreme.

Merely Serafina had stood her ground back in her corner and readily butted back in.
“With all due respect… that is all clearly speculation on behalf of my learned friend. And it is founded solely on the defence’s… decidedly hyperbolic interpretation of the tone of this piece of writing.”
She wildly waggled the binder around in her grasp. “Even so, the supposed tone or format of the treatise does not, in any way, prove the contents of the treatise to be false! It would be beyond careless to discard all the precious details it contains based solely on presentation! As a document of the era, documenting events of that era, it must be judged with respect to that era’s customs and conventions.”

Estermann let out one final grin, uglier than all the ones before it.
“Yes, my learned friend has made this clear quite a few times already.”
He paused importantly. “But as a piece of evidence in a criminal trial of the twenty-first century, it is to be judged by the standards of evidence of the twenty-first century! And if judged by these contemporary, stringently scientific customs and conventions - ones that, mind, have enjoyed many years of development and perfection over those of the Equestrian 1st century”...

‘How dare he?!’ Twilight screamed to herself, ‘Why, when humans were still pulling fish out of creeks with their teeth, 1st century ponies were already writing those books!’

“...Then this exhibit simply and plainly fails to hold up!”
He folded his claws open, and began to count down, one digit at a time, “It proves itself insufficient, inadequate, and incomplete… even if one ignores its blatantly polemic and defamatory nature.”
He paused a second to take a demonstrative glance at his wristwatch, hidden under his draping robe sleeve. “I put it to you that, unless the prosecution manages to produce a more solid and incontrovertible piece of evidence regarding the Timbucktu incident, these charges against my client have proven themselves to be effectively unsubstantiated. Baseless!”
Again, he peered over to the judge’s bench, as thought explain himself once more with clarity. “Indeed... one must consider that anything less than complete dedication to this Court’s own contemporary rules of evidence could very easily be… misconstrued as something of a... political concession to the successor state whence this piece of evidence was first drafted. That would be the Equestrian Principality.”

‘Oh no...’ Twilight sighed.
He did not just go there! He did not just try to guilt-trip the judges into rejecting Starswirl’s work so it wouldn’t come across like they were trying to bend the rules for Equestria. What was this even?

For better or for worse, the judges even seemed only the tiniest bit impressed.
Well, all except one of course.
“Do… do not raise your voice like that in this court of law again, defence counsel.” Lexy Fori growled, in what must now have become customary heckling, “Do you understand?”

Estermann ignored her as he straightened his collar and made ready to sit back down.
“Madam President, the defence has no further questions.”

Serafina was left standing at the other end of the room, pressing a handkerchief against her nose with an empty look.
She was painfully aware of the fact that the defence had the last word.

What was she going to do, Twilight wondered. She hasn’t been left standing in the safest of positions. Whatever was she going to do? Venture out and try to find something else that could pin Chrysalis to Timbucktu?
Just like that?
Now, that even Starswirl the Bearded’s quill had turned out to be not quite good enough for Estermann and his cronies?

Justice Jessica rested her head on an arm as she read the time off a clock situated at the far end of the room.
“Then I believe it is as good a time as any to bring today’s session to an end. The current state of evidence regarding the Timbucktu affair has, I believe, now been exhausted. Thank you, everyone. The next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. That would be Tuesday the 24th...”

Queen Chrysalis nodded at her, theatrically.
She looked pleased as punch.

Zap!

A bright flash lit up the gallery, causing a simultaneous choir of shrieks of the countless ponies and humans.

Twilight spun her head around, just in time to see her brother getting eaten up by a cloud of teleporting magic and seemingly snapping out of existence.

Shining!
Oh no, Twilight had completely forgotten about him, as wrapped up as she had been in the proceedings.
What was the matter now? Where had he spirited himself off to all of a sudden?

Jumping out of chair, Twilight scrambled towards the door, her interest in the proceedings having evaporated right alongside her brother.

She squeezed past the bailiffs guarding the room and galloped down the stairs into the still-empty foyer.
Down there, she could see the locked security door that Shining had been been pounding during the recess. Only now did she notice that on it hung a tinplate sign, with white letters on a bright-red backdrop reading something that she could not quite understand.
Even so, its meaning was very obvious to her.

Twilight’s heart misgave her.
What if Shining had…

Biting the bit, she flared up her horn and made ready for the run-up.

It was like a maze in there. One tight corridor bled right into the next one. Everywhere, there were locked doors without handles and glass panes with little warnings printed on them offering a view on completely other corridors.

Twilight tried to pass bypass them and make as little noise as possible in the process. She had the very bad feeling that what she was doing now was very illegal. But her caution and common sense were quickly overridden by worry.
Shining passed through here. He was here. Somewhere. Wherever it was that he had teleported himself to.

And the only way Twilight was going to leave this place was alongside her BBBFF.

She didn’t take too long to find him.
As she rounded a corner, he appeared right in front of her.

He was sitting on the floor, propped up against a wall, his tired eyes bleakly staring through one of the windows, into a separate little foyer.

“Shining!” Twilight yelled out, a little too loud that would have been wise, and ran over.

Cold sweat was streaming down his face. His once-so-stylish mane was oily and unkempt. Stubbly fur was forming around his chin and on his muzzle.

Twilight quietly chastised herself for not noticing all the little signs the moment she set hoof in that country.
Falling on her haunches next to him, she caught his drooping head in her hooves.
His glazed-over eyes seemed not to recognise her.

“Shining… It’s okay. It’s me. Your little sis!”

He blinked. Suddenly, he seemed to be back. Or at least a part of him.
“I… I thought...”

“What is it?”

“I thought that I heard her… for just a moment there...”

“Who?” Twilight asked in confusion, before minding putting her older, physically more imposing brother back on his hooves, “Come on, Shining. We’re not allowed to be here. We’ll both be in trouble if they catch us. Come now!”

“Chrysalis...”

Twilight stopped in her tracks.
She scanned Shining’s expression.
It seemed to be caught somewhere between black despair and rosy desire.

“Shining… You’re scaring me.” she told him in an earnest tone. “You really are! You’ve been acting really weird the past few days, and I’ve been putting it down to you working too hard, but…”
Her eyes were suddenly moistened by tears of fear, “I was so wrong. Something is very wrong here.”

He drew a heavy breath.
Then he cracked a melancholic, nevertheless smile-like grimace.
“She’s coming back, Twily.” he then cooed. “She’s not staying here, oh no.”

“Who?” she breathed, “Chrysalis?”

“She will walk free.” he slurred on, still trapped in his spiritless trance, “And then… then everything will start all over again.”

“No. She won’t.”
She pressed his cheeks hard. “Shining. Look at me! Chrysalis will not go free. She cannot! She is so obviously guilty! We are going to lock her away for a very long time!”

Shining just shook his head lethargically.

“Listen! Today.... Today was just a hiccup. She got lucky. There is so much more that she did… so much more that we can prove!”

“She will not go to jail, Twi.” he cooed again. “She will make us all her slaves before that happens.”

Twilight had enough. She lifted her limp brother up with her magic, and slowly started dragging it back in the direction she had come from.
He only seemed to be ever-so dimly aware of what was happening to him.

“She’s close.” he slurred, “Sooo close. I think I’m gonna sleep now.”

“Shining-”

And just like that, her brother went away completely, drifting off into what seemed to be a long-overdue slumber.

But Twilight refused to be deterred.
Spreading her wings, she intensified her toil and carried her brother around the corner… or at least that’s she was planning do, if she hadn’t suddenly been distracted by the faint stench of intoxicating petroleum.

“Oooh. The envy. How spicy.” she suddenly heard a voice say, very close to her ear.

That voice unearthed unpleasant memories; a buzzing sound tickled her ears with every spoken vowel. It was both feminine and deep, both suave and forceful.

An electrical current suddenly hung in the air and pricked Twilight’s horn. She met only few ponies who had a magical aura this looming and loaded with energy.
Twilight bit her lip as she turned towards the creature whose fault this… this everything was to begin with.

Only three steps away from her, separated by a perfectly translucent glass pane, there stood a tall, ash-black pony, wrapped in jingling chains and restraining garments. Her horn glistened of clingfilm.
The bug-like pony was seemingly busy staring into another direction, down her own hallway which she seemed to be in the process of traversing.

“Chrysalis.” Twilight growled.

“Twilight Sparkle. We meet again.” The changeling queen chuckled deviously.
Only then she turned to meet the alicorn eye-to-eye. Twilight slitted hers as the shock was quickly dispersed by anger.

“Goodness. Why so moody? I thought you would be happy to see me like that.”

Twilight gritted her hooves and bared her teeth, either expecting a – or readying to – pounce.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Chrysalis gasped tauntingly and shuffled back, holding her head low in mocking deference. “I forgot. The last time I saw you, when I flew off that balcony in Canterlot, you still were so small and adorable. But now that I see you in your regalia, and with your snappy two new limbs… I remember you had kind of a promotion in my absence. We should catch up.”
She winked, friendly. “Now, how should I address you? Your Serene Highness? Your Majesty? Twilight, the eternal Princess of… well… Friendship?”

Twilight carefully stashed her brother by the side of the wall and stepped closer to the window.
“Twilight.” She hissed as an answer.

“That works, too. Sometimes, humility is all you ponies have left, huh?”

“That’s more than you ever had.”

“It was enough to make Canterlot my own.” Her eyes, obscured by a pair of almost comically ill-fitting lenses, discretely darted around, searching for someone else. “Speaking of Canterlot… have you by chance seen Celestia creeping around the place?”

Twilight valiantly attempted to produce a snort at the tyrant, just to show her that she wasn’t scaring anypony.
”Princess Celestia has more important things to do than to waste her breath on you.”

“So she sent you instead.”
Chrysalis raised an amused eyebrow. “How thoughtful of her. At least it’s good to see that she is still as selfless as always. Good for her.”

“It was an honour to come here on her behalf. No thanks to you.” Twilight spat.

“And for a split-second I had hoped you were making a social call.”
The Queen then peered over to the blue-maned military pony dozing away between Twilight’s legs.
“Oh, my. How cute!” she squeed, “The Captain of the Royal Guard, fast asleep and marching through the realm of dreams. Bless his heart. May he find peace there.”

All kinds of sick emotions bubbled up within Twilight’s throat - anger and disgust, horror and fear, despair and helplessness. The sensation was overpowering.
“What… what have you done to him?” she exclaimed, closing in on the chained creature easily twice her size.

“What, I? You should ask yourself, pretty princess. I am but a humble prisoner in this place.”
She looked at Twilight, silently judging, before taking another step towards her. “Isn't this what you wanted to hear? That I am at your mercy? All defenceless? Is that not enough for you yet?”

But Twilight was steadfast.
“You put him through so many things... And you have no shame, do you? Not the slightest hint?”

“Why should I?” she shrugged, “He seemed to like it.” Almost innocuously, she licked her gums. “A lot.”

Twilight felt a chord struck inside her. She opened her mouth, ready to spit out another condemnation, but she too overcome with the rage building up in her.

“Oh no. I didn’t… say anything wrong, did I, your Majesty?” she sneered, “I’d never want to tear open any old wounds. Who knows what you would think of me if I did!”

Twilight turned ashen. Her eyes grew raw.
“You will never leave this place. Not as long as I have a say.”

“Wait, wait wait...” Chrysalis interrupted her, mocking confusion. “Did I miss something? Since when do you have a say in something, little one? You think those two wings make you the master of the world now? You’re still as much under Celestia’s hoof now as you were before. Just like everypony else in Equestria.”

Twilight boiled. When there was one thing she could never get over, it was getting talked down to by ponies who should really know better.
“We’re not in Equestria anymore, Chrysalis.” she reminded the queen.

“Oh, you’re ever so right.” Grinning, she let her bespectacled eyes travel around the nondescript, alien walls. “You’re in my realm now.”

“You can call your cell whatever you want!”

Provocatively, Chrysalis leaned in.
“You don’t seem to have paid attention, Princess. These creatures, these bald monkeys… Do you know that they eat meat?”

Of course Twilight knew. But so did Fluttershy’s ferrets and otters and bears. So what?

“Pony meat? It’s quite a delicacy around these parts.” Chrysalis whispered on, “And guess what? I’m kind of starting to like it here.”

“These humans are creatures of justice. They’re going to cut you down to size.”

“These humans will let me go.” Chrysalis declared, quite boldly, and slitted her eyes. “They may be a lot of things, but they’re not ponies. They understand me. You could almost say they’re right up my alley.”

“In your dreams.”
Twilight felt like she should be able to brush off the changeling’s idle talk for what it was. But somehow, it remained clinging on to her like big, lumps of toxic changeling mucus.

“Mark my words.” Chrysalis cheered, expertly edging her way under Twilight’s skin.
From one moment to the next, the changeling too leaned in, rubbing her ugly face and stupid glasses against the pane as she drilled Twilight with her piercing green eyes. “Once I soar out of here, I’ll return to my home. And once I’m back, Im going to do so much worse to you. And your brother. And your Princess, of course. And all your friends too. You will be amazed!”

Twilight felt drawn ever closer and closer to the pane.

“Mhm.” Chrysalis sighed, only to lower hovering head towards Twilight, and whisper at her stiffened ears, “No. It’s not as simple as that. Don’t you remember when I condemned you to your foalsitter in the diamond mines beneath Canterlot for daring to interfere with me? That was like… like flushing a bug down the toilet. Once I would have had Equestria under my hoof, I probably wouldn’t even have taken the time to come and look for you and the pink one. I would have just left the two bugs to duke it out to the death, down there in the drain.”

She felt Twilight shivering with maddened anger, catching each vibration, each hint of it and devouring them with great pleasure.

“You see, that was a metaphor.” she explained on, “I have nothing against bugs. There are differences between them and you. One is a mindless, parasitic kind that infests what does not belong to them and spreads its disgusting, poisonous essence all over to make it their own. And the others... are bugs.”

There, Twilight lost control.

Her hoof struck out and thundered right into the glass pane separating the two sovereigns. But rather than catching her hoof and bringing it to anticlimactic stop, the glass was almost turned to dust by its force. The leg struck right through - and caught the changeling queen by her temple, in the little area between her glasses and her foil-wrapped horn.

It even sent her stumbling away a little, her head knocked back and the rest of her form sprayed by a shower of glistening crumbs of glass.

In the spur of the moment, all Chrysalis could respond with was a bestial hiss.

Twilight would have raised her other hoof for another whack, but got a hold of herself in the last moment.
The cloud of anger lifted from her mind.
“Speak for yourself, monster.” She spat at the changeling, wheezing.

Then, realising what she had just done, she went to carefully extract her limb from the breached window. Thankfully, her thick alicorn skin had grown surprisingly impervious to such bouts of force.
She had little more than a couples of superficial scrapes and bruises on her.

The changeling, meanwhile, went to grab her aching horn with a hoof, but her heavy chains prevented her from reaching it. After a few moments of coping with the surge of incredible, electricity-caused pain, she began to smile weakly.

Her smile turned into a chuckle.
“Whoah there... Princess of Friendship. Is this the way you want to spread its magic? With... the back of your hoof?”
She felt her horn, moving the clingfilm around a little with a surprised look.
“Heh.” She smiled, “Was that all you could have done, though? That was a pretty weak slap. I thought an alicorn would have a bit more meat on the bone. Would you… like to give it another try?”

Her ill-fitting glasses hung in pieces on her muzzle. At some point, they slipped off and shattered on the floor.

“Don’t make me-”

A high-pitched noise filled Twilight’s erect ears.
Flinching, she instinctively pressed her eyes shut and, with as sigh, ducked out and back to the other side of the corridor, trying to shield her tender ears from the sudden onslaught.

At first, she wondered whether Chrysalis had struck her with some kind of spell, and her mind immediately began to analyse the effects that it was exerting on her.
Only when she opened her eyes did she realise that Chrysalis too was trying to duck out of the way of the deafening noise on her side of the window.

It wasn’t magic, so much for that.

Somewhere down the corridor, a door burst open.

A trio of humans in identical blue tunics came running out. Twilight recognised one of them as the bearded security officer from before.

Upon spotting the alicorn princess and her knocked-out brother, the humans’ claws immediately went for their duty belts and unsheathed their short black projectile weapons.

“You there!” one screamed over the piercing noise, “Step away from the windows. Step away from the windows!”

With the gravity of the situation only now dawning upon her, Twilight quickly complied, chucking herself against opposite wall next to Shining’s unconscious form.

“On your knees! Get down on your knees!”

She slipped to the floor, making sure not to squish her brother in the process.

It took Twilight what seemed to be half an eternity to realise that not a single one of their weapons was pointing at the changeling queen Chrysalis.
But in the end, it did not escape her attention.

Author's Note

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen! Long time - no see!
Private life once again struck, and forced me away from the quill for a couple of months.

Apart from that, there is not a lot to say, really, other than that this de-facto hiatus turned out to be unduly long.
So what other way to make up for it than with an unduly long chapter?

Oh and what's more, my tablet decided to snuff it. Which is the reason why you see a rather different kind of header upstairs.
Enjoy it while it lasts, for it won't be there forever!
Credit for the vector goes to Weegeestareatyou.

Oh, an boy... what a couple of months it's been for international criminal law!
Quite a few important things occurred during the hiatus:
In November, a life sentence was finally passed down on General Ratko Mladic. He was indicted all the way back in 1995. (So one might as well be tempted call this chapter The Mladic Edition)
Another defendant, Slobodan Praljak, drank cyanide in an ICTY courtroom to escape his sentence.
The ICC announced that they intended to launch investigations both in Israel and Afghanistan.
It even finally managed to affirm its jurisdiction over the 'Crime of Aggression' ; a charge which has already seen some - perhaps premature - mention in the story.

Regardless, it all goes a long way to show that the scene is as proactive as it hasn't been in a long time.
Here's food for thought for what changes the ICC will be able to make in world affairs in the future.

XXVI. Functional Immunity

XXVI.

Functional Immunity

Castle Of The Two Sisters
Everfree County, Equestria
23. November, 2015
1:40 pm ICT

“Oh, by Celestia’s shimmering nose hair!!”
The spluttered echo of Sergeant Sergeant Cabasset’s curses flung its way deep down into the carbon-black passage. “I haven’t smelled anything so bad since that exercise where those Night Guards set the field kitchen on fire!”

Captain Fighting Fit would have liked to agree, but his cloak, the corner of which he held pressed over his muzzle, wouldn’t let him. The sickeningly intense stink of burned paper, fabric and varnished wood wafted by his face stronger with every step.

“You still okay, sir?”

He tried to wink, but his eyes stung and watered too much.

“Yah, you’ll be okay.” Cabasset grinned at them and drew in a spirited breath of the pungent, burned air through his bare, unprotected nostrils. It became clear that this unicorn was used to worse.

Using the opportunity, Fighting tossed a glance behind himself and spotted the human lieutenant Gavaskar slogging along him on his lanky pair of trousered legs, his eyes an irritated pink, and the rest of his hairless face covered by his blue uniform scarf.

Their small group of officers crept and trudged into the bowels of the castle complex with guarded slowness. Ignoring the foul, spent air, they had to pay attention to avoid the last few remaining burning embers that had in turn avoided the guardsponies’ fire extinguishing efforts.
After an frantic skim of the sky, they had spotted a nice, juicy raincloud, which the pegasus leader had immediately ordered broken into portable pieces and flown down to the inferno in the ruinous castle’s cellars. As they chucked the packed puffs of cold, evaporated water into the smoke-filled corridors and steps of the citadel, their effect was swift and effective. The cellars found themselves literally flooded by a cooling wave of mist that extinguished the insatiable blaze in a matter of minutes.

What the group now had to deal with was the whole affair had left behind. The ground was caked with sickly greyish-brown mush, a flowing foot-high layer of thaw water, ground ash and the mossy Everfree sludge, courtesy of the Everfree militia’s prior bungled efforts.
The smell of wet ash hung in everyone’s nose.

The impromptu fire-chief, the spindly pegasus Morion, led the way through the increasingly grotto-like rock passageway from above, with the others wading after him and trying to keep up.

“Second time in a moon we’re stumbling around in a dark hole. They could be rebranding us into the ‘Cave Foraging Division’ by now!’”

In the dim light of Cabasset’s horn, they hit a staircase - now turned into a rather ominously shimmering sludge cascade - leading a couple of paces down to what looked like a partially submerged door and portal.

Avidly, Morion pointed a hoof down there.
“There! That’s where I found them! Down there!”

Fighting was the first to scurry down the steps to get a closer look at the scene of the crime.
“Right here? Was the door already open, or was it still locked when you found your way down?”

“Uh...” Morion loudly pondered, “It was open just a smidge.”

As Lieutenant Gavaskar summoned the bravery to join the Captain down the steps, Fighting waded over to inspect the door in question. It was richly mounted with iron, and accordingly heavy. Giving it a testing shove, he found that he had the hardest time moving it around by himself.
Leaning in, he scrutinised the lock and bolt. As bent out of shape and covered in notches as both of them were, they had very evidently been worked over with some kind of blunt tool.
Glancing over to the brittle, wooden doorframe on the left side, he realised that a not inconsiderable portion had been reduced to splinters as the door was pried open.
“Well, that’s one mystery solved.” he concluded and turned to the others. “They broke their way in.”

“Who did?” Gavaskar immediately inquired moving closer to the open portal.

“Your friends did, Lieutenant.”

"Friends..." he harrumphed.

The was a sound of metallic scraping, and only a moment later, Morion came fluttering down to the two, clutching a charred, dripping shovel-like tool in his forehooves.
“The colts found this lying right next to the door.”

Gavaskar timidly accepted the grimy instrument and twisted it around in his hands a couple of times.
“This… this is some kind of entrenching tool, or a spade. Very similar to what the Indian Army issues to us. Don't take my word for it, but this could easily be UN peacekeeping surplus.”

“Darn...” Fighting grunted, before wiping his mouth in a vain attempt to escape the smoke, “I don’t get it. If they broke the door open… Why did they all pass out on the other side? Wouldn’t they have found their way up the stairs by the time the fire engulfed them?”

Gavaskar shuddered.

“And more importantly… what the hay were they trying to do here? Why were they trying to bust their into an ancient ruin to begin with?”
Fighting’s head raced as he and Gavaskar tried to cross into the pitch-black room on the other side of the portal. “This is like some crummy Daring Do book...”

“Uh, sir...” came Morion’s wincing.

And, as if on cue, both Fighting and Gavaskar were stopped in their tracks by a blunt, invisible force.
“What the-”

Both found themselves caught in some strange, enormous, yet invisible web that froze their heads, necks, breast and anything else unlucky enough to pass through the door, completely stiff.

“Are baap re...” Gavaskar yelped in his own tongue, realising that he was now hanging in the grip of an insanely strong physical force, and panicked as any non-magical creature would.

The two officers, unable to turn their heads back to their comrades, momentarily heard the frantic clip-clops of the other guardsponies rushing down to them to rescue them from their predicament.

“Aw gee!” Sergeant Cabasset exclaimed and engulfed his horn in magic.

In a matter of seconds, the strange force melted into nothingness and the two frantic soldiers’ bodies plopped free of its grip, like iron marbles off of magnets.

“Sorry about that. Should have mentioned...” Cabasset grinned and put a hoof on the back of his younger comrade Morion, “Firefly-grade magical barrier hidden behind that door! A pretty old one, too. We needed almost half an hour to force it open with energy bursts.”

The two gaped at the unicorn with incomprehension.
“Excuse me, what?” Gavaskar ultimately asked.

“I’m no historian or anything,” Cabasset mumbled on, “but I’d say it’s easy to guess that, back in the day, the princesses booby-trapped all the gates and doors with magical barriers like this one, to take out any picklocks lucky enough to make it past those massive things.”

“...I see. Makes sense. I guess.” Fighting agreed. If one’s an eternally powerful alicorn and has got this kind of magic, why not put it to use?

“Would that explain why they couldn’t get back out?” Gavaskar breathed, uneasily stepping further away from the doors. “They trapped themselves inside that room?”

“Of course...” Morion added, “You’ve got to ask yourself how the humans got inside that room in the first place.”

“Right...” Fighting muttered.
Before long, he remembered who else was there. “...Golden Dirk! He helped them get in.”

The other looked at him, befuddled.
“Who, sir?”

“Uh… just a unicorn sergeant from my other command at Canterlot barracks.” he explained. “He’s in the Archives detachment.”

“Why would some unicorn from the Archives detachment know how to unlock a thousand year-old magical force field?” Cabasset harrumphed. “They don’t even get ‘Skeleton Key’ spell training. Why gave you the idea he was even here?”

“Pierre Abel told me,” Fighting explained with an enraged note, “Right before we loaded him and his friends up and brought them to Ponyville General.”

“And… how could he have gotten involved in this… incident?” Gavaskar asked carefully.

“Don’t ask,” He sighed. “I busted Golden Dirk for going AWOL a couple of days back, and then sent him shovelling. Perhaps… perhaps that’s how Edith found him.”

Morion and Cabasset exchanged surprised looks.
“Edith?! The human from the cave?” they asked in near-unison.

“Yeah, our one and only.” he answered. “According to Abel, she was in this group too.”

“Wow. Small world...” Morion mused.

“Wait, wait, wait! Hold your horses!” Cabasset interrupted them all. “I saw Edith yesterday!”

Fighting looked up.

Cabasset’s eyes flared up.
“Yah! Sorry for not connecting them dots earlier. She passed by my checkpoint in Ponyville with those other guys around three in the afternoon." He pointed out the way they had come in. "She was sitting in one of them… them… motorised carts that are standing out on the path now!”

“Did she say anything?” Fighting whispered.

“Not much.” he shrugged, “She told me that she and those United Nations types needed to pass through to inspect the old royal highway. Some kind of evidence they wanted to scrape up. They told me they’d be out of there within the hour.”

“And then...” Fighting continued on his own, “They creep into this old castle, and they break down a door to one of the cellar chambers. Why?”

He gazed into the insurmountable, fume-filled darkness of the hall.
The place grew on him more every minute. Whatever was hidden here, any whatever they were after, he wanted to find.

And he was going to do that right now.
Drawing a courageous breath of halfway fresh air, he stepped inside, like a diver into a night-filled ocean.

“Sir… I wouldn’t do that.” Morion cautioned. “There’s not a lot left of the place, mostly debris. All the aisles are blocked and it’s still full of smoke. If you don’t choke, a beam will get you on the head.”

Stopping in his tracks, Fighting reluctantly drew in the tainted air.
“What aisles, Morion? What ‘place‘ are we standing in right now?”

“Beats me, sir...” Cabasset shrugged. “Whatever it was, it was stuffed to the hilt with paper and wood. It burned up like a Pegasopolian candle.”

“Well, I don’t know if it helps...” Morion added, “but when there were still some flames down here, I thought I saw all kinds of very tall wooden shelves, stacking books or scrolls something. Of course, they were all burning up before my eyes. Now they’ve totally buried the corridors beneath them.”

“A library, then?” Fighting guessed. “That would explain the ash rain and the magic runes, but… what else?”

“I think I also saw some flags, and… some really old suits of armour.”
Morion smirked, “Hopefully with nopony still inside them.”

Fighting’s face contorted in hopeless confusion.
“This still doesn’t make any sense! Books, folders… flags? All these things… they shouldn’t even be here. This place is a literal ruin! Who keeps books in a ruin?!”

“Tell me about it.” Cabasset smiled.

“This place was abandoned one thousand years ago. How this cellar was neither cleared out nor… well… somehow looted in the meantime is beyond me.”

“S-sorry for chiming in.” Gavaskar interrupted the Captain, assuming as official a pose as he could muster. “I think I’m obliged to ask: Were any activities committed here yesterday, on the part of the UN personnel we found, that could be seen as… criminal in nature?”

The ponies all stared at the human as though he was pulling a cruel joke.

“I’m… I’m asking because... it just looks like I might have to give testimony about this at a later point.”

“Well… how about arson, for one thing?” Fighting asked back.

“And breaking and entering?” Morion added sheepishly.

“But...” Gavaskar dissented, haggling for the severity of the situation, “Who does this place even belong to? This looks like it’s… maybe… a victimless crime to me.”

“This place might have been deserted a whole millennium ago, but you shouldn’t forget it used to belong to the Crown.” Fighting harrumphed. “Which means that all this stuff in here - whatever it was - must have been the property of the princesses. And maybe it still is.”
He shook his head. He evidently took no joy in saying that. “We better hope it’s not anymore, or else… this could become a very serious affair.”

Gavaskar smacked his lips and crossed his arms.
“But… is it really arson too? It could just have been an accident. It might just have been negligence...”

“Well... that’s possible too.” Fighting breathed. The whole concept of Edith, of all pon… people, wanting to set fire to an old ruin of the princesses confused him to no end. It had to be some kind of blunder.

“I think not.” he suddenly heard Cabasset mutter.
The pudgy unicorn swaggered a few steps into the hall and brightened some of the walls with a beam of light from his horn. “Gentlecolts, I arrived down here in time to see some of the last flames being put out. And I spotted something pretty goshdarn interesting.”

The cone of light travelled around the room and slid up and down some of the pillars probingly. The others watched the beacon in captivated silence.
The various surfaces of the room that hadn’t yet burned to a crisp had indeed been turned black as coal. Gradually, the light came to stop at a particularly dark mark near the floor on the far end, half obscured by a pile of bricks.
“There! Black spot.”
The light traveled on, to another corner of the room, stopping just short of a shelf’s carcass. “Another black spot. Just behind the pile of rubble back there.”
Finally, the light slid over the ashen floor and back into the vicinity of the exit doors. “Aaand... black spot. Right next to that pillar.”

Fighting shook his head in annoyance.
“What are you getting at? What are those?”

“They’re the fire sources, Captain.” Cabasset explained with a swanky grin. “These are the places where the fire broke out originally. The experts call it the ‘areas of origin’.”

Morion scratched his mane under the ill-fitting helmet.
“How the hay do you know all that, sarge?”

“Well…” he grinned, “As luck would have it, I used to be a junior bucket-bearer for the Fort Hoofington Fire Watch in my younger years, so… I picked up one or two useful tricks of the trade.”

“So... what does this ‘area of origin’ mean?” Fighting impatiently asked.

“Areas, sir.” Cabasset corrected him. “That’s just the thing. There are several of them, at least three. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re even more hidden in that room. You see, in structural fires, this doesn’t simply happen by accident. If you have one fire source, it just means somepony left the stove on, or broke a lantern, or dropped a silver salute.”
He shook his head, “But to have so many, at the same time, all at different ends of the room? That’s mighty convenient, if you ask me.”

Fighting gulped. He could hear Gavaskar gulping too.
“So it could only have been… a coordinated move?” the human lieutenant made sure.

Cabasset nodded. “I’d bet my bucket bearer’s honour on that. This room was intended to go up in flames. Whatever the hay this room even was. And your friends from monkeytown made it happen, no doubt about it.”

Fighting stepped back out, and slowly made his way to the staircase with an ominously intense twinkle in his eye.
“And Edith? And Golden Dirk? Where were they during all this?”

“Well, I didn’t see them.” Morion reported. “They weren’t under our rescuees, anyhow. The cowards wouldn’t even stay to save their own comrades!” Morion added.

“Sounds about right to me. I haven’t seen Edith since the checkpoint.” Cabasset agreed. “I could ask my colts outside if they picked up anyone in the woods since yesterday, but it’s not likely.”

'What an interesting anomaly', Fighting pondered.
She was gone, and so was that traitorous little coward of a unicorn.

“Oh! Actually, I know where she might have gone!”
With those words, Morion whizzed back into the air and headed up the flooded staircase.
Wordlessly, Fighting, Gavaskar, Cabasset and the others waded after him.
The chase led them to a seemingly innocuous bare stone wall in the antechamber.

Morion’s hoof instinctively dove to a nearby torch holder, which he pulled toward himself with all his might. But instead of ripping the tin frame out of its bolts, it lowered with a mechanical clank. Somewhere, a clockwork mechanism could be heard clicking and a lock sliding. Morion let go of the holder and gave the bare wall a stout kick.
To everypony’s surprise, a rectangular, door-sized portion of the wall simple fell away and bent inward on a pair of hidden hinges.

“What the... A hidden passage?”

“Yes sir.” Morion huffed proudly, “This place is like a block of cheese. I only found it when I bumped into the torch yesterday.”

As the camouflaged door gaped further open, it revealed to the soldiers a long corridor that led deeper into the castle’s ground level, with doorless portals and alcoves embellishing the mossy walls and leaves and foliage covering a reasonable ornate mosaic floor.
At the other end of the hallway, there shone some daylight through a number of surprisingly well-preserved, if grimy, windows.

“When we stormed the building, somepony made his escape through here. We didn’t know our way around the place, so we didn’t realise there was a passageway until that somepony was long gone.”

The investigators meekly stepped into the corridor and closed in on the row of windows. A noticeable chilly breeze blew by their faces as they paced down, checking each and every featureless door leading aft and astern.
Only on closer inspection did they realise that one of the windows was actually missing a few of the rustic thick glass panes in its lead frames, opening up a narrow hole to the wintry Everfree outside.

“I guess they got spooked by us barging in…” Morion mumbled, “ran all the way down here... smashed this window, and...”

Fighting took off his helmet and stuck it through the hole. The crisp, cooling forest air was a relief, but the bright white sunlight reflecting off the icy snow below him blinded him almost completely.

“...then jumped down into the snowbank. And probably scurried off into the wilderness.”

Looking down, Fighting could see a slight, yet suspiciously human-sized dent in the snow bank by the castle wall, with some glass shards reflecting up at him.

“Again, how did they figure out the secret passage mechanism?”

“Maybe the door was already open.” Cabasset suggested, “Maybe they just closed up after themselves.”

"What if somepony else broke in through that window?" Fighting asked himself, somewhat hopeful, before deflating again, "Ugh, wait. No shards on the inside. Right."
Careful not to cut his chin or throat, he twisted his head around to get a look at his surroundings.
“But why? Just why?” he asked himself, for what might have been a millionth time on that day.
Why would Edith and Golden run from the Royal Guard? Did they suddenly go completely nuts?

Peering down the castle perimeter, he hoped to make out some hoof- or footsteps leading away from the ‘crash site’ right under the window, but he quickly realised that, even if there were any, they would have already been covered by a layer of fresh snow that must have come down the night prior.

“Right… I think I’ve seen enough,” he declared, and pulled his head back inside.
Donning his helmet, he wordlessly spun around cantered back to the antechamber.

Gavaskar nervously scratched his turban as he and the others looked after the retreating pegasus.
“Sir? Can I ask where you’re going?”

“I’m going to ask your friends from the United Nations a few questions.” he answered curtly. “Cabasset?”

The sergeant clicked his hooves. “Sir?”

“I’m putting you in charge of the castle. Nopony but us gets in, nopony gets out. Also, try to pump out some of that mud, clear?”

Cabasset saluted smartly. “Crystal!”

Fighting nodded and turned to the pegasus corporal. “Morion, you head to Canterlot and inform the Royal Palace of what happened. Tenderly. And try to get somepony from the Investigation Division down here.”

Morion nodded in obedience.

“Check your watches. The rallying point will be back here at point five this afternoon.”
With that business taken care of, he focused his attention back on the nearing exit in front of him.

“Sir...” Gavaskar just muttered uneasily.

Fit stopped one last time. “Yes, what is it, Lieutenant?”

The human was almost taking a pleading tone with him now.
“I… I just want to remind you that, when you talk to the injured… just that you don’t jump to any conclusions. UN personnel have immunity and… and… whatever did or didn’t occur here yesterday, they couldn’t possibly be prosecuted for it anyway.”

“Duly noted.” Fit nodded, interrupting his climb. “Actually… Tell me more about this… immunity.”

The wind played softly with the white curtains. The gust swept into the sterile, blank chamber and whirled around for a little while, worming around the various medicinal cupboards, then washed over the dozing guardspony that sat in one corner beside the door, prompting a subtle shudder out of him.
At some point, it reached the flimsy cast-iron bedstead, toying with the various papers fluttering on the clipboard that lay on the nightstand, then rising to the top of the bed, it whirred over the motionless form of the human patient, tickling his bandage-covered, fleshy pink nose and his equally pink, equally fleshy chin… and not receiving even a weak sniff in return.

It took Pierre several moments to come to. Opening his crusty, hurting eyelids, he turned his head sideways on an aching, irritated neck. The first thing he realised was how cold and bare the lower half of his face was. The comforting warmth of his fiery red beard was no more. What was left were stubble, bandages and burned skin.

He moaned at the armour-clad pony that sat on the other side of the room, who promptly sniffed his way out of sleep.

Weakly savouring the clinical air around him, Pierre realised where he was. Glancing out the window and weathering the bright, joyless outside light, he spotted the nearby dome of the Ponyville town hall pavillion.

‘Deja-vu…’ was what passed his mind. What a twist of fate this was.
Of course, the first time he had been here - barely a week ago - he was standing. Picking up Edith. Raging about the way he had been treated on his way there. And now?
He could be glad if he even could go anywhere.

His entire skin was burning. His nose, his eyes, his lips, the skin between his fingers, all was scorched and sore.

“Um… you there...” he breathed. His throat and lungs stung like they had been battered black and blue from the inside. “What… what is going on?”

The soldier said nothing and stretched himself with exquisite slowness.

“Where… where are Ruman… and Fabritzky… Shalgham… Edith...”
That last name echoed inside his mind for a long time.

The soldier still kept quiet.

Pierre noticed only now that his right arm had been up in the air the entire time. He tried to lower it, but the only thing that he got back was the intense pain of burned flesh rubbing against cold metal.
Wincing, he glanced up.
His hand has been put in cuffs, with the other one manacle chained to the iron bedpost.

Something inside him snapped.
Slowly, the realisation came as to why he was here. And it took him completely by surprise.
“Hey… hey!”

The guardspony glanced at him strangely.

“Listen… you cannot do that… I have immunity...” he mumbled.

The pony said nothing.

Pierre demonstratively lunged at his chain, which rattled hollowly against the bed.
“You need to release me!”

The pony, gradually realising what the human on the bed was referring to, pulled out some equine sports magazine and spread it open in front of himself.

“Hey… what are you doing?” Pierre wheezed. He was most definitely beginning to panic. “Are you deaf? Open the lock!”

The pony soldier shrugged mutely and turned a page.

“Where are the others? Where is my team?!”
They couldn’t do this. Pierre knew they couldn’t do this.
“Do you know what I am, you dumbass?!”

The pony ignored him.

He was quickly running out of ideas. Whimpering helplessly, he fell back to his mother tongue, “Pour qui me prenez-vous, crétin?!”

The guard looked up fleetingly, proving that the questions were not falling on deaf ears.

“Savez-vous qui je suis?!”

“He doesn’t,” a voice suddenly answered.

Pierre caught himself shrinking back at the mysterious third party. He glanced over to the other side of the room, where he spotted a white-coated, grey-maned pegasus in purple armour, faffing around on a chair and eyeing him.
“He can’t understand you, you know. No translation enchantments. My orders.” the pony curtly explained.

“And who are you?!”

“You don’t know who I am?”

“Never seen you in my life.” Pierre just asked again.
He could only fathom what must have happened to place him cuffed to a hospital bed. “What… what is all this supposed to be?”

“Fraud. Burglary. Vandalism. Arson. Espionage. Hay, if I were you, I‘d want to leave too.”

Pierre gulped. A cold shower ran down his sore back
“There must some kind of… of mistake.”

“Yeah. Greatest mistake of your life,” the pegasus agreed.

A minute of silence passed. Slowly, Pierre came to realise that neither he nor the pegasus soldier were going anywhere.
“What do you want?”

“To talk,” the pegasus responded coolly, getting up and cantering over to one of the windows, a mere yard from Pierre’s face. “You go first.”

“Is this an interrogation?”
Pierre’s long-honed self-preservation instincts kicked in promptly.
“Am I under arrest?”

The pegasus scoffed.
“You’re free to leave at any time.”

The ringing of Pierre’s manacles was almost scornful.
“You... cannot do this. I’ll have you know that I am the UNEVEG Deputy Programme Officer for Southern Equestria. I have immunity!”

“Oh yes, thank you.” the pegasus agreed, before pulling out a frazzled piece of paper he seemed to have been holding at the ready. Then he cleared his throat. “United Nations Officials possess functional immunity: They are exempt from national prosecution concerning official activities, but liable for private acts all the same. The type of the act is determined by its nature, not by its purpose.”
Excited, the pegasus leaned in. “Tell me, since when is burning down a building of the crown an official act?”

“I don’t...”
The words almost got stuck in his throat. Did he just say ‘burning down a building’?
“What the fuck are you talking about?”

The pegasus did not budge. “You will tell me what happened.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The pegasus smacked the frame of the window with a hoof, startling the human with the sharp sound.
“Are you completely stupid or are you just pretending? My comrades carried you out of that inferno. You’ve got no excuse - no excuse at all - to play dumb.”

Pierre felt in the right mind to yell back. But then his eyes fell onto his hands - both of them red and brown and covered in blisters. His face - or at least those parts that hadn’t been bandaged and lubed up in ointments - was only barely still there.

Then he glanced at the pegasus officer. His purple-and-golden armour was grimy, and his brush-like helmet’s mane was shedding a fine cloud of dust with every tiny movement.
And in all the places on him where his armour didn’t reach, his greyish-white coat was visibly blacker and sootier.

A sense of dread possessed him. He realised, with his mind sluggish and labile, that there really had been a fire, and that he was in it… He, and…

“My colleagues. How are they?”

“Oh, they’re dandy, all things considered. If you all hadn’t been wrapped up in clothing, you’d probably have a much bigger problem. As things stand now, there’s just the smoke inhalation, 2nd degree burns and heatstroke. Just like what you’ve got.” The pegasus huffed.

“They’re all okay, then?”

“All, except two. Who are not accounted for.”

He held his breath. “Who’s that?”

Tellingly, the pegasus held his piece and patiently awaited his reaction.

The revelation was nigh-automatic for Pierre at this point. It was just too easy.
“Edith.”

The pegasus was stone-faced.
“Edith Šarić?” he asked, far too swiftly, too fluently to have come up with the proper pronunciation of her name on the spot.

“You know her?!” Pierre spluttered, to hard that he coughed. “You… too?”

The officer’s features softened and he took a step back.

Pierre shrunk back in realisation.
“You’re… you’re not that son of a bitch who took her into the Everfree Forest the other week, are you?”

Another awkward moment of silence passed.
“It’s Captain to you.”

Pierre chuckled and coughed.
“Jesus Christ… Have you any idea what you set off with your little adventure?”

“Says the guy who burned down one of the Princesses’ castles.”

Pierre quieted down again.

“We’ve got solid evidence of a break-in, of arson, and we’ve got you.”
He smirked bitterly. “Riddle me that, Hum Drum.”

It was all Greek to Pierre. There was something, though. Wasn’t there?
“I… don’t..:”

“The Castle of the Two Sisters. Former capital of Equestria. Ring a bell?!”

It all only started coming back to him with crippling unwillingness.
“That’s where… we were going...”

“...And? Come on.”

Pierre tried to comb through his memory. But before, there loomed blank white canvas.
Nothing. There was nothing.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” the Captain spat again. “Sudden memory loss. How bucking convenient is that?”

With his free hand, Pierre instinctively began to clasp the bridge of his nose, but the sheer pain made him stop.

“You wanted something there. What were you looking for?”

With little better to do, Pierre shook his head.

“What the hay was down there?!”

Pierre squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
It didn’t make sense. In his mind, he was still on his way there, in the car with his team, and Edith, and that traitorous changeling….
And now he was being told that he already was there. And all that place had left him with was the barren, featureless plain in his mind.

Trembling, Pierre tried to sit up in his bed as much as his restraint allowed him to.
“You… you need to phone the UNEVEG headquarters. They need to know how things stand.”

The Captain dove closer again, menacingly.
“Nopony’s ‘phoning’ anypony until you and I have cleared this mess up.”

“You... can’t fucking do that.”

“Watch me.” The pegasus scowled challengingly.

“You think this won’t have consequences, you asshole?”

The Pegasus shrugged.
“What consequences? Nopony knows you’re here. It’s up to you whether they ever find out or not.”
He sat back down on the chair. “As you can see, we have all the time in the world to discuss this thing. I want to know why this place had to go up in smoke. I want to know who laid the fire. And I want to know what became of Edith Šarić!”

Pierre frowned. But deep inside him, he was already prepared to concede.
After all, didn’t he want to hear the answers too?

“My jacket...” he asked the pony. “Where is it?”

“I said you’re not leaving.”

“Go search my right chest pocket.”

The captain looked over to the guardspony in the corner. The officer neighed something at him, and the guard pointed him to one of the cupboards. Trotting over, the captain opened a cabinet door and a charred, dirty white winter coat dropped out.

The sight of the big black and burned-brown marks that the fire had left on the nylon fabric made Pierre’s blood curdle.
“Go… go see if there’s a camera inside.”

The captain promptly carved around on the piece of gear until he found a buttoned, rather hidden pocket. A small, metallic-green plastic camera slipped out.

Pierre’s eyes widened with excitement.
“I must have taken photos. Something.”

“Not only do you set fire to a castle, but you took pictures of it?” the captain guessed and picked it up, carefully balancing the delicate machine on a hoof. “Show me everything. And don’t you try anything.”

Pierre eagerly, almost hungrily, clutched the device with his free hand and began to press all the buttons to get it to start up as quickly as possible.

It wouldn’t.

Huffing nervously, he twisted it around in his hands and gave the screen a slap.
Nothing.
He forced open the USB lid to try and pry out the card. But what he found in there made his stomach turn. The memory card had quite literally melted apart, and fused with its casing on every side like a smudged slice of purple raclette.

“So?” the pegasus captain asked.

“Ostie d’crisse de tabarnak…” he winced as he sulked before his dead, useless machine.
He was practically fighting back tears of frustration.

Bleakly, the Captain looked on.
“Can… can you at least tell me what was down there?”

Putting on a brave face, Pierre shut his eye.
“You don’t know? Why the hell do you not know?” he inquired in frustration.

At just that moment, several sharp raps echoed through the room.

Both the Captain and the guard by the door shot up, startled.

Pierre, following their confused stares, ended up peering out one of the windows behind him. There stood a man, clad in a dark-brown coat, a grey tie and a perfectly innocuous smile tapping the glass with a gloved hand.

The Captain looked absolutely dumbfounded. He nodded to his subordinate and asked him something in their strange Equine tongue.

The man outside meanwhile waved and them and - apologetically - motioned them to open the door for him.

For lack of a better plan, the Captain nodded, and the guard trotted over to loosen the handle.

“Hello.” the man greeted them, poking his head into the hospital room and scanning it through thick Coke-glass lenses.
Pierre immediately noticed that he was Chinese, with tellingly pale skin and a balding head of expertly combed hair.
“Am I right here? Room Eight?”

“...Who the hay are you?” the Captain inquired and looked over to Pierre, as though he would know.
Naturally, Pierre was as stumped by the man’s appearance as him. He just felt relief of seeing another human face again.

The man held up a pausing finger and pulled out a small tin box out of his pocket. Out of that box, he pulled a business card.
“Tian’s my name. Tian Shouxin, People’s Republic of China. Can I ask for yours?”

The pegasus gawked at him, incredulous. “No, you can’t. Get out of here! This a Royal Guard investigation.”

The man pulled a pained face.
“Ooh, I wish I could leave you to it in peace, but I’m afraid I must insist. I am with the United Nations Equestrian Verification Group.”

Pierre was surprised that he had been found already, but glad nevertheless. It seemed like the pegasus’ threats were all just hot air.

“Oh yeah? What position?”

“I am the Programme Officer for Southern Equestria.”

The pegasus, on the other hand, seemed even more confused, and pointed a hoof at the bedridden Pierre.
“I… I thought he was the Programme Officer for Southern Equestria.”

“The man in that bed is the Deputy Programme Officer. He is my direct subordinate.” Tian explained with a smile. “I have been instructed to pick him up.”

Angered, the pegasus eyed both Pierre and the man by the window.
“He is not free to leave.”

“Yes, he is.” Tian countered, still cheerful, and passed a piece of paper into the room.

Hesitantly, the pegasus officer accepted it and and clumsily folded it open with his hooves.
As he skimmed over the first couple of lines, he broke into a nervous sneer.
“That… that’s not possible. I only sent word of this fire out a half hour ago! How can she have already known about this?”

“It seems word spreads faster in Equestria than you give it credit.” Tian shrugged.
Before the Pegasus could say another thing, the official lifted a filled garment bag into the room. “Please give this to my colleague. It’s something for him to wear.”

He casually tossed it onto Pierre’s blanketed feet with a dull thud. It hurt badly, but Pierre was too perturbed to react. He couldn’t quite follow. He was lying in a hospital bed with his skin the consistency of a pizza. Where was he going?
“...You mean now?” he breathed weakly at his superior.

Even the pegasus captain seemed suspended in utter disbelief.
“Hold up! You do know your colleague’s been hospitalised for less than a day, right?” he asked, with a flight of worry for his de-facto prisoner.

“Tell my colleague that I am waiting outside.” Tian said, both cheerful and ice-cold at the same time. “He has fifteen minutes.”

Pierre tried to move them from under the garment bag. He could control them effortlessly, but his skin and bones still were beyond sore.
“Is there a problem?” he carefully asked, though he knew that the question was superfluous.

Pierre’s whole body burned. The collar around his throat was tight and slightly drainage-soaked from his wounds. The tie strapped around his shirt was far too long for him, and reached down to the crotch of his pants.The trouser legs, while thankfully a few sizes too big for him, mercilessly rubbed a little more against his naked skin with every passing metre. The blazer was a different affair altogether, with sleeves that barely seemed to extend beyond his elbows, while the rest of the suit drooped down around him and blew up in the freezing November gust like a windsock.

“Come, come.” Tian prodded him on with cruel apathy.

Wherever he had gotten that beige two-piece suit, white shirt and tackily-striped tie from for Pierre, it was was clearly meant for a much shorter, fatter and older man.
It made Pierre look like an anorexic who had his four limbs pulled out on a rack.
But those were the least of Pierre’s problems. His heart hammered more and more violently, like he was treading closer and closer to the brink of a heart attack. His ribcage twisted and turned painfully in sheer protest against him being back on his feet. But the sheer dread of his situation kept him pressing on.

Hurrying down the steps of the hospital and out into the snow-strewn alleys, Tian goaded him toward the centre of the deserted hamlet of Ponyville.

Before long, they heard the echoing of a solitary pony’s frantic gallop behind them.
Turning around, they spotted the pegasus officer catching up to them with a distraught face.
“Hold your horses!” he yelled. “I don’t like it. I don’t like any of this! Both of you stay in my presence until I get a response.”

“Do whatever you want. It’s your country.” Tian huffed. “Be it as it may, we are heading towards your response at this very moment. Now, if you don’t mind, I demand some privacy for my colleague and me...”

“Where are we going?” Pierre panted powerlessly.

“The townhall of this…. charming rustic little hamlet.” Tian slurred, flipping his coat’s collar up.

“Not the car?”
Pierre had so many questions, he didn’t know how to continue. “I... thought we were leaving.”

“Leaving? First of all, you and I have to clear something up.”

Was there an echo in this village?

“Listen, Mister Tian, you can have my full testimony of what happened. There may have been evidence for crimes against humanity and war crimes in the cellars that burned down. Evidence that was hoarded and kept out of the investigation’s grasp! I have testimonies to support it. But for those, I first need to get my colleagues out of here, before… anything happens to them.”

“That should prove difficult. Half of your colleagues are blind and lame.” Tian sniffed, disgusted. “They can consider themselves lucky if they can even get out of bed.”
He shot a bony finger at Pierre. “Well, with the sole exception of that Yugoslav - what’s her name...”

Pierre gulped. “Edith Šarić...”

“Yes. This… individual is another story altogether. She runs off from her assigned sector and gets implicated in a physical fight alongside Equestrian soldiers? And now she has implicated herself in… this?” He turned around and gazed as Pierre through his laughably thick lenses. “Why on earth was I never told of her activities?”

This question irked Pierre. It irked quite a lot.
“...I don’t know. Where were you?”

Tian stiffly wheeled around. An artificial smile covered his face, masking a rather secretive scowl. “In earshot, surely.”

Pierre breathed heavily at his superior’s nonchalance.
“I find that hard to believe. If you had been at our posting, at the Embassy, I could have informed you about the goings-on directly.”

“Mister Abel. I carry a mobile telephone with me at all times. Perhaps you have heard of this ingenious contraption.”
He sighed and shrugged. “Oh well. As as far as the High Representative is concerned, your silence was the attempt to hide this affair from your superiors. An effort to try and conceal her culpability as well as your own.” He pouted. “Not that I could argue for or against this impression, naturally.”

“I was trying to handle this incident before it could spin out of control.” Pierre explained with an enraged twang, “I was protecting the integrity of this mission, so we could continue the investigation without being second-guessed by people like you.”

“It is funny that you would think that you had any authority to run the Southern Equestrian sector like it was yours, with your humble position.”
He stroked his own balding head, trying to beat back the freezing cold.
“Thank the Gods the Equestrian crown was so kind as to notify me of this incident right away. The High Representative is convinced that you have been withholding your activities. Misappropriating United Nations resources for unsanctioned, illegal measures. That would be misconduct of the highest order.”

“The Crown told you? Well… where have you been?” he hissed back, “When you knocked on the window half an hour ago, I hadn’t even the faintest clue who you even were! You say that you’re my direct superior, but as far as I’m concerned, I have never seen you before in my life! Isn’t the Programme Officer of Southern Equestria meant to be in Southern Equestria?! I haven’t seen or heard from you since Orientation Day! For all I know, you were cruising around half the world on expense of the UN when you should have been doing the job I did for you!”

What followed was a perturbed silence.
“You’re shouting. And rather on edge.” Tian determined. “Of course, who am I to hold it against you? I’m not the one who will be receiving a visit by the OIOS soon.”

Pierre could not believe what he heard.

“Your actions resulted in a former royal residence burning to the ground.” He spoke to him like to a toddler. “Wars have been started over less. This warrants an investigation.”

“I get that. Yes. But whatever happened back in that castle, I had no role in that. None! Unlike you, I was representing the UN in Equestria to the best of my efforts here!” Pierre hoarsely yelled.

Tian let out a caustic laugh and slipped off his glasses to clean them of the fog. “Say, Abel… Do you know what ‘diplomacy’ is?”

Predictably, Pierre held his piece.

“I think it’s a fair thing to ask you, since you’re not a diplomat. Where did you start again with the UN?”

The question seemed cruelly rhetorical.
“Canadian Forces Medical Service...”

“Ah yes, for UNAMIR, right? Rwanda?” Tian slurred. “That was some very tragic business, alright. And you were a foot soldier right in the thick of it.”

“I was a Major.”

“But in the thick of it, nevertheless. Even after you were discharged, you didn’t even have the decency to graze your nation’s diplomatic corps before diving right back into the UN. They could have taught you a useful thing or two about intergovernmental collaboration.”
A snowflake tickled his nose and he waved it away with a gloved hand.
“You see, diplomacy is what the United Nations does. This is what its goal is. And diplomats don’t... kick doors down. They knock on them. It’s not something you seem to have learned in your ten years with us.”

Pierre crumpled his hands.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Well… as obvious as it may sound, you’re not in the Canadian Army anymore, Major. Do you know what this organisation was destined to do? Stave off World War Three. Not… set it off on slightly more ethical grounds.”

Pierre’s mouth would have loved to spit his ire back at him.
“Well, the League of Nations was supposed to stave off World War Two. They were diplomats.”

“They failed because they chose to antagonise their member states instead of cooperating with them. They became detached, high-handed and commandeering. This is why everyone stopped listening to that… pathetic old men’s club.”

Pierre was absolutely aghast to hear such words out of a high-ranking official’s mouth. But that was not all.
“That a Chinese of all people would say that sort of thing!” he scoffed. “You don’t know your own history, do you?!”

Tian looked positively insulted.
“Oh, I am a patriot. A servant to my country, in office and in soul. And I pose you the question that any Equestrian may ask: Why would I work in the United Nations’ favour if it wouldn’t work in mine?”

He shook his head.
“We’re not here to... cater to any nation’s interests. We’re not an escort service.”

“That is all we are, Abel. We are a union of nations, and we represent - to each other - our interests. No more and no less. Just the way it should be.”

“I was ordered to investigate into crimes against humanity!”

“Sapiency.”

“That obviously won’t play to everyone’s interests!”

Tian grinned and held up a gloved index finger.
“You were instructed to investigate into Changeling crimes. For which the Equestrian state has readily supplied you with ample resources back in Canterlot.”

“What if there was more? More in that damn cellar before it went up in flames?”

“If they say there wasn’t any more, then there wasn’t.”

What a moronic thing to say, Pierre raged.
“And what if they’re withholding something?”

Tian pouted.
“Say, Abel, have you ever wondered why you have run into so many roadblocks in the past few weeks? Do you think it was just coincidence?”

“No. Of course not. The Equestrian state has been actively trying to the subvert my investigation at every turn!”

“No, Abel.” Tian slowly answered, calm and collected, “It’s because the entire Equestrian state hates your guts. They cannot stand the sight of you. They think you are a foul-mouthed, disrespectful, spiteful little tyrant who hates ponykind with a passion reserved for some kind of... racial supremacist. They think that you only came to this country to give your ego a good polish at the ponies’ expense. And that you intend to hurt them by abusing your office-given power.”

“What a crock of shit.”

Tian sniffed in mock horror, “As a matter of fact, Raven, the royal secretary, had already launched a formal complaint against you an entire month ago. And can I blame her? I don’t know. What I do know is that my country would have had you deported back home a long time ago.”

Pierre almost shivered in anger.
“Fair enough... that something like that comes from someone like you.”

He glared through his two thick lenses.
“Oh, even your own colleagues have no two nice things to rub together about you. They think you’re impatient and impulsive and manically bullheaded. This Šarić deal appears to be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Pierre grit his teeth as much in pain as in rage.
“I don’t think I have to listen to this, Mister Tian.” Pierre uttered, trying to subdue himself a little more, albeit unsuccessfully. “Your defamation efforts might be very effective at your country’s next Party congress, but I’m not one of your fucking apparatchiks.”
He straightened out his chest, trying hard to ignore the pain. “I think that it would interest the nations of our Security Council very much that the Equestrian crown has been trying to suppress information on what has been happening to the peoples of this continent before we arrived here.”

Tian only sniggered some more.
“The nations of the Security Council? Let me tell you about the nations of the Security Council: The United States is busy equipping the Equestrian army with cutting-edge electronics and inviting officers to train at West Point. Did you know that?”

“What the hell does that-”

“The Russian Federation has been busy buying up land to probe the territory for natural resource deposits and opening up the Equestrian mineral market. Did you know that?”

“What is your point?”

“The point is that they couldn’t care less about who did what to whom in which way whenever. They have nothing to gain from that and nothing to lose. In fact, the only country that has been pushing this entire extravagant courtroom carousel on us to begin with, is the Principality of Equestria; the very people you’ve decided to get on the wrong side of over it.”

Pierre gazed defiantly. But that defiance hollowed out a little.

Annoyed, Tian lifted his glasses and rubbed his blueish nose bridge. “The only thing that the international community would be interested in is a careless, renegade United Nations official from the Canadian hinterland triggering a major international incident that would chisel into this carefully parlayed era of international understanding.”

Pierre decided to follow that train of thought for a couple more stations.
“...And what is China doing in Equestria, by the way?”

He chuckled.
“You’re not listening, are you?”

Instead of answering, Tian pointed down the street, at the end of which sat the town hall. The entrance had been virtually barricaded by several more humans in formal wear, armed with phones and and thick folders, many of whom Pierre could recognise belong to the staff of the Secretary General’s High Representative. It reeked of a far-reaching, high-profile crisis brewing in front of his very eyes.

After having kept distance for several minutes, the pegasus officer decided to catch up to the two humans with a wheeze.
“What’s happening over there? Who are they?”

“Do you know who is waiting inside that building?” Tian asked rhetorically. “The Princess. And she is... miffed by the recent events.”

Pierre’s heart skipped a beat.
Princess Celestia? The Princess Celestia was here already?
He already had the displeasure of running into her little sister once, and even she had managed to reduce him to a stuttering little boy with her mere presence..
How could he handle the bigger half of the royal Equestrian duumvirate?

“I brought eight people of the UNEVEG staff with me to try and abate her. Six legal advisers, two attorneys.” Tian continued, “But she wouldn’t even see them! I offered to give her a direct line to the Secretary General in New York, but she refused that as well. In her… furore, she told me that she’d rather see the entire United Nations 'swept out of the countryside' and back to Canterlot altogether.”
His face turned into even more of a sneer. “Well, Mister Abel. You’re convinced you’re the 'shot-caller' around here. Tell me what to do about it.”

Harrowed, Pierre directed his eyes down toward the ground.
“I have no idea.”

“Well, then you better think of something in the next five minutes. Your and your colleagues’ freedom may depend on it.”

He looked back up.
“Excuse me?”

“Yes, yes.” Tian confirmed, in his typical blasé tone of voice. “Since your little misadventure did not find itself on my desk for authorisation, it technically couldn’t have been an official act. I mean, surely, we might have an attorney out there who could successfully argue that it was, but...”
He shrugged. “Let me just say that the High Commissioner is a little hesitant about letting this matter go to court in the first place. In light of that, I dare say that Her Majesty’s response to you will entirely govern how the United Nations is going to deal with this matter from now on.”
He held up his left hand in a weighing pose, “If she decides to forgive you all your sins and not press charges any further... then you will be let go, silently and discreetly, and we will only conduct a minor investigation into your actions...”
Then he raised his right hand, to mirror his other, “But… if she decides that she simply wants you that badly… well… at that point, we will be left with no choice than to surrender you to the proper Equestrian authorities.”

He was joking. He had to be!

“Tell me,” Tian inquired, “why would the United Nations decide to stick its neck out for a group of individuals who might have single-handedly endangered the entire rapprochement effort? Functional immunity can be fun... but not if it critically endangers world peace, no?”

Vehemently and forlornly, Pierre shook his head.

“Look, Mister Abel, unless you want to want this incident to end up in the history books as the ‘Abel Affair’, I suggest that the two of us walk in there right now and get the Princess on her good side! Convince her that it would be in everyone’s best interests to forget that this whole thing ever happened. Make her... overlook the fact that you put her former home to the torch. Explain to her that it’s something a... blunt nail like yourself would never be capable of doing anyway.
“Not on your own, at least. Not voluntarily.”

Even the pegasus soldier looked deeply uncomfortable about it all.

“Take your time.” Tian sighed. “Life choices and everything.”
Then he began slowly approaching the suits by the entrance, who all greeted him with respectful nods.

Pierre was left behind, standing next to his impromptu pegasus overseer and bleakly eyeing the events as they slowly spiralled around him.

“So...” the Pegasus mumbled, uncomfortably trying to break the silence, “I’m not about to give you any life advice here, but… well...”

Pierre froze.
There were a lot of things he wanted to do, right there, at this very moment.
Ending up dying in an Equestrian dungeon wasn’t really among them.

Author's Note

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen!

So... yeah.
The bad news: My tablet is now officially beyond repair.
I will see to following up with the regular header images, but unfortnately, it won't be now.

Good news: As luck would have it, I have recently come into contact with a certain talented artist called N4 (Deviantart) who has not only offered to take over this chapter's header image, but actually proposed to adapt Chrysalis Visits The Hague into a full-blown graphic novel.

Oh yeah.
I hope you're as excited (and mildly terrified) by this as I am.
There's no doubt that this is going to be a gargantuan task, so... Let's just say I won't be envying N4 anytime soon.
Even so, I'm hopelessly in awe of the ambition and I genuinely look forward to seeing this story turned into proper art.

Anyway, as always:
Read, enjoy, and stay tuned for more updates!

Correspondence Between HM Celestia and HRH Twilight Sparkle from November 23rd, 2015

AUTHOR: HRH Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship

ADDRESSEE: HM Celestia, Princess of the Sun

INTERCEPTED: 23.11.2015, 17:10:81 UTC+1 (23:10:81 UTC+7)

POINT OF ORIGIN: The Hague, The Netherlands, Europe

ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: Standardized Equestrian

CONTENT:

"Dear Princess Celestia,

~~I regret to report that earlier today, I~~

~~You might have heard what happened in the courthouse right after the~~

I mucked up.

I am sorry. I am so sorry for what I did. I know that I’m the Princess of Friendship. I know that I am a grown mare. So I know what is expected from me.
But for one moment, I couldn’t control myself!
You know best how easy it is for Chrysalis is to have her way with other ponies. She got the better of me this time. I know it was my fault to start with - not only because I let her under my skin so foalishly, but because I shouldn’t have been in that corridor at that moment at all. It’s a long story.
I’m also sorry that you have to deal with the consequences of my actions. If there is anything I can do to help, please do not hesitate to ask! I will do it.

I don’t know if it excuses anything that happened, but the day’s just been terrible for me. It felt like everything was just about to go off the rails in this Hague.
The human realm’s a mysterious place, and I won’t pretend like I know the first thing about it. But it was naive of me to expect that they’ll share all our values.

Chrysalis is acting up - and the humans do nothing to rein her in. Her lawyer skews and lies about things that we've got in black and white - and the judges let him get away with it. Shining’s almost going crazy trying to keep up with Chrysalis’ constant scheming - and yet nopony seems to be bothered.

We need to talk about my brother, Princess. He is not well. I can feel it. He is too far away from Cadance and the Crystal City, and this place is clearly getting to him. I mean, the human world is keeping all of us on the tips of our hooves, myself included. But for Shining, it would only be a fraction as bad if it weren’t for Chrysalis being there.

She’s doing something to him. I don’t know what, but Shining’s starting to act all kinds of strange when he as much as comes near her. It's almost as if she’s surrounded by some kind of force field that twists and turns the minds of anypony unlucky enough to come close.
When I first saw him ‘on duty’ in Chrysalis’ prison, he looked like he hadn’t slept for three days in a row! He was acting completely unfocused and could hardly string a coherent sentence together.
A couple of times, he became extremely scared and worried for no obvious reason and was moments away from running around in circles. Other times, he became angry and began snapping at his colleagues for supposedly letting their guard down around Chrysalis. And then, he’d just go all silent, as though he suddenly was without a care in the world.
All the while, there was just one topic on his mind: Queen Chrysalis! Every waking moment, just Chrysalis!

I may not be a Royal Guard, but I’ve never seen anypony act like that. My brother definitely hasn’t ever been that obsessed about anything.

Princess, could these perhaps be the effects of a magical spell? I’ll definitely go analyse his behaviour and see if I can deduce any trends.
I just know is it’s her who’s maintaining some kind of magically link to him, somehow (a tap maybe, or a bond?).
They say her horn is secured and her magic ‘suppressed’, but both you and I know that you cannot ever truly suppress somepony’s innate magic.
Somehow, and even though she’s locked in a cell, Chrysalis seems more dangerous and surefire than ever. I couldn’t begin to imagine what would happen if she made it back to Equestria as a free mare now.

Actually, that’s another thing I’ll have to discuss with you about in more detail.

~~If you ask me, they seem to be getting pretty chumm~~

~~I have the strong feeling that they might begin to sympathise with Chry~~

~~Is it possible that she might be exerting some kind of influence on~~

For a start, of course I couldn’t begin to imagine that the humans would ever let Chrysalis off the hook, but let’s just say that I wouldn’t have imagined that they’d starting to reject the charges against her either.
I probably shouldn’t count the chickens before they’ve hatched, but I feel like anything’s possible at this point. I have ~~undying~~ eternal respect for the fact that the humans value the assumption of innocence so much - I really really do! Yet I think they’re about to go overboard with it.
Chrysalis is not innocent. We both know that much’s objectively true. We were there, and they were not.
And yet, we should start asking what will happen if they do end up setting Chrysalis free - if some skillful words can fool the judges into thinking that she is actually blameless.
Just to be on the safe side.
We will need bar her from re-entering Equestria. We can do that, right? Nopony could blame us for doing that.

I apologise for all the panicked ramblings, Princess. I really should be above worrying my head off about things haven’t happened yet. - things that, I hope, won’t happen at all. But my heart tells me that if we don’t do something, this could turn for the worse.

I only really need to ask you for one big favour: It’s not for my sake, but for my brother’s. Please relieve him of his duty to guard her! He is in grave danger, even if he isn’t realising it himself. If you want to save him from being driven completely crazy by Chrysalis, then let him back to Cadance!

Meanwhile, I will hold the fort in the Hague. I will make sure that Chrysalis isn't going anywhere. And I will not leave until we see Chrysalis’ fate is written in stone.
That is a promise.

Somepony must do something. The only question is, what?
I loyally seek your guidance.

I know it’s only been barely a week~~, but I don’t think I~~
It’s getting a little lonely out here.

I miss you.

Sorry again.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle.

PS: If it’s okay with you, I will try to have another word with the director of the ICC. He said to me that the only thing that stopped him from having me arrested on the spot is the fact that I have diplomatic immunity. But maybe, if I can convince him that I really hadn’t been planning on confronting Chrysalis, maybe he will lift my ban and allow me to enter the court and prison again after all. It can’t hurt ~~- at least no more than already.~~"

AUTHOR: HM Celestia, Princess of the Sun

ADDRESSEE: HRH Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship

INTERCEPTED: 23.11.2015, 23:47:63 UTC+7 (17:47:63 UTC+1)

POINT OF ORIGIN: Canterlot, Principality of Equestria, Equestrian Peninsula

ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: Standardized Equestrian

CONTENT:

"My dearest Twilight,

Do not be afraid.
I understand what you’re going through. It doesn’t matter how literate or wise we might think ourselves - none of us is ever above fear and uncertainty.
You’re in a distant and exotic land, Twilight. You have never been that far away from your home in your whole life. How could I blame you for what you’re feeling?

What you need - what we all need - right now, is faith.
Once faith is gone, what will we have left?

I, for one, have the distinct feeling that the humans, if they haven’t already, will come to value justice a great deal more in the course of this trial.
And do not worry about Chrysalis too much either. If my experience is anything to go by, she’s probably feasting on on your unease. The only way she could possibly regain what she lost is through our missteps. And without us there to pay lip service to her antics, she is but a prisoner, and she knows that.
Even a caged Windigo is just a Windigo in a cage.

You, on the other hoof, are free, Twilight. Do not rest on your fears. Go out and explore that world in all its rich facets as long as you have the chance.
Which is not to say that I won’t be missing you regardless!

Please send Shining Armour my well-wishes. I do not want this task to ruin him, just as little as I want it to ruin you.
If he really is feeling as badly as you have described it, then we cannot leave him to Chrysalis’ presence.
Feel free to relieve him of his duty anytime - in my name, of course.
Cadance is already eagerly awaiting his return. And we don’t want to keep her waiting, do we?

Kindest regards, from me and all your friends,
Princess Celestia."

XXVII. The Reasonable And Insightful

XXVII.
The Reasonable And Insightful

Ponyville Townhall
Everfree County, Equestria
23. November, 2015
3:48 pm ICT

The wooden town hall was a little smaller than Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera - but certainly an ample size for such a small hamlet. The building was about as deserted as the rest of the village, with only a select few guardsponies loitering around by the assembly hall on the ground level, observing the two approaching humans and one pegasus vigilantly when they had entered.

The rotunda Pierre and his 'companions’ now stood in was located on the first floor in what seemed more like an extravagant loft. It was ornate, spangled with tall mullioned windows that looked out into every cardinal direction, lodged between curved wooden beams that led up to a pointy ceiling emblazoned with a handful of celestial bodies.

In spite of all the splendour, Pierre’s badly weakened heart skipped another beat as he digested the realisation of whom he was standing on front of.

It was not Celestia.

The gentle-eyed, soft-spoken lady of the sun with the pristine white coat and radiant aetherial mane was nowhere to be seen.

He realised with a sigh that he was once again in the presence of the bellicose, waspish younger sister.

Princess Luna of the Night.

It was ominous how she just stood up there, on the balustrade of the building’s circular atrium, draped in a pitch-black reaper-like travelling cloak, and looking down at him amidst sharp breaths.

Pierre noted that the centre of the room beneath her walkway was marked by a semi-circle of metallic file drawers - each rolled shut and secured by a heavy lock - with a wider sorting desk flanking the door. From the looks of it, this was some kind civil register room.
The irony of encountering the dread monarch in the same kind of place a second time did not evade him.

He swore that he would strive to never set foot in another archive in his life.

The pegasus officer with the bandaged wing that stood to his right immediately dropped on his haunches in reverence when he spotted the princess stepping forth from behind a column in the upper level, where she circled around their heads like a vulture on the lookout for cadavers.
Even the seasoned Chinese diplomat Tian, standing to Pierre's left, had trouble keeping his composure as he performed a short bow in front of her shadow, leaving Pierre the only one among them standing perfectly straight.

Since Pierre had already failed to bow before her the first time they met, he figured that a second such indiscretion could hardly make things any worse. He could feel the dread rising in any case. All diplomatic niceties be damned, he was growing increasingly certain that he would not leave that rotunda a free man.

“I wish you a good morning, Your Majesty...” Tian called upwards, “...considering the circumstances.”

Displeased, Luna didn’t bother acknowledging him with as much as a nod.
“Indeed,” She uttered and thought for a second. “We recall thy countenance, human. Hath We laid eyes upon thee before?”

Tian nodded. “I had the great honour of making introductions last September, Madam, at the official initiation of the mission. Your sister and yourself threw a ball to inaugurate UNEVEG.”

That did bring a particular question back into Pierre’s mind, however: Where was Princess Celestia? She was, de facto, the sole head of state of the princedom.
Was this matter just not important enough for her to appear in person? Was it really just enough to warrant the smaller one?

Luna momentarily turned her head to glare at Pierre, as though she had heard his thoughts. Seconds later, she had once again trudged from view.“Perhaps,” her voice answered after a long while. “Lord Tian of China. Werest thou not the first amongst the delegates to bid thy farewell from the festivities?”

“Unfortunately, I had to return to my homeland that same evening on official business.”
He smiled an innocuous smile.

Pierre gritted his teeth at that revelation. Of course, this was where his superior had been withdrawing to all this time. The plot thickened.

“‘Tis funny that nary two months ago, that fair night, We were still celebrating this mission taking wing.”She once again strolled into a spot where they could see her and stopped.
Her voice hardened, her tone cooling considerably. “And yet, here We now stand.”

Her words were replaced by unbearable silence. Neither Tian nor the pegasus captain dared to pick the conversation up by themselves.

Tian cleared his throat, “I have come to vouch for my colleague. He has assured me that finds his entire affair most regrettable.”

“Has he?”Her gaze moved past Pierre as though he wasn’t there.

Tian used the opportunity for another small bow.“In the name of the Secretary General and his High Representative, I wish to express my sincerest condolences for your loss and the damages inflicted. We are already in the process of verifying ways in which they can be recompensed.”

Luna emerged once again, her lips pursed, and gave him a look as tired as it was unimpressed. “A lovely thought. But bother not. Such damages as were sustained, no amount of human goodwill could ever hope to restore.”

“If there are any terms on which Her Majesty would be willing to refrain from any... legal measures regarding this deeply unfortunate affair, we are willing to earnestly consider them.”

“Human, what gave thee the idea that We wished to see these individuals leave as free, unpunished creatures?”

Pierre’s heart skipped a beat or two.

“But certainly, Your Majesty wouldn’t have agreed to this meeting if she didn’t find the possibility at least... worth considering.”

She stared at him long and hard. Then she was back in motion, and soon out of sight once more.“We have heard enough of thee.” her voice answered. “Leave.”

Pierre, the pegasus lieutenant and Tian gave each other searching glances.
“Your Majesty?”

“He remains,” came her answer.

It was clear who was meant.

Tian gave Pierre a flustered, relieved expression. “How do they say in your country? ‘Godspeed’, was it?” he smiled.
He patted Pierre on his sore shoulder, and then - with the satisfaction of a man who had tried and given his all - Tian left the atrium.

Only Pierre and the Pegasus Captain remained.

“Captain Fit,” her voice thundered. It was as though a jolt of electricity passed through the soldier as he snapped to attention.
“Before thou too takest thy leave: Is this human in good condition? Have the good doctors dragged him from the brink of harm?”

“Uh…” ‘Fit’ muttered, confused. “Yes, Ma’am. The doctors say he’ll be right as rain.”

“Hm. That’d be all.”

Captain ‘Fit’ gave Pierre one last skeptical glance before also turning around and departing the arena.

The door slammed shut. Pierre quickly found himself standing in the middle of the round, deserted room. The princess was once again nowhere to be seen.
He was a little too terrified to check the balustrades for her.

“What hast thou done?” her voice ultimately asked.
It was crestfallen, yet sore and severe. “What hast thou wreaked?”

Pierre parted his sore lips to say something. Naturally, nothing would come out.

“Ser Pierre of Newfoundland. Hast thou nought to say in thy defence?” she asked in feigned confusion.

Again, he tried to seek refuge in his officialese.
“I do not w-”

“Raise thy voice.” Luna sharply interrupted, her disgust laid bare. “Thy beard may have gone, but thy chords have not. ‘Tis the least that thou canst do now.”

He resisted the urge to feel his barren, bandaged, blistery chin.
He eyed the floor,
“Under the circumstances… I wish to clearly distance myself from any... role in the fire.”

What could he say, anyway?

Luna, of course, was rather aboil about that. “Oh? Oh, We see. So the masonry spontaneously decided to immolate itself. We are glad to have this affair cleared up then.”
Trying to contain her spleen, she moved on, dragging her black cloak with her.

Pierre gulped.
“It is for that reason that I ask that this unfortunate incident… won’t disturb the cooperation between... my organisation and your… your-”

“Shut thy maw.”

He obeyed. It didn’t even matter if she could actually see him at the moment. He shouldn’t be risking it.

“The ‘Castle of the Two Sisters’, as it’s been known among the common folk…” she began, her tone a little more serene, perhaps even melancholic, “It may have been little more than a ruin to thy ignorant little eyes. But to Us, there was quite more to it.” She paused and collected herself before continuing. “We and Our esteemed Sister hath spent countless, fateful years behind those ancient walls. Many happy. Some tragic. Alas, once we had turned backs on this place for good, we decided to look back no longer, as it had grown home to… plenty of heartache on Our end.”

Pierre felt that an opportunity presented itself for him to haul himself back in.
“I… I could only imagine how much-”

“Why canst thou not do as thou art told?” she exclaimed. “Hold thy tongue. Cur.”

His heartbeat nearly broke his ribs.

“When we first received word of flames licking at the castle’s walls, We were convinced that a terrible fluke must have seized the place. A forest fire, mayhaps. Or a thunderstrike. The cruel prank of some higher power.”
She cleared her throat. “At least… until we received word that a number of humans were caught in the inferno. ’Twas perhaps at that point where We knew that chance was entirely out of the question.”
The voice fell silent. Only split-seconds later, it continued, but from a lot closer than before. “We had nought but the deepest regard for the humans’ reputation for battle prowess; it was for that reason that we urged thy masters for a military coalition.”
She inhaled sharply. “But think not for a moment that we were ignorant to thy equally legendary reputation for greed. Thy self-importance. Thy stubbornness.”

Pierre dabbed at his nose and cheeks with the corner of his sleeve. It returned with a diluted blood stain.

“For a fleeting moment, we were convinced that these humans had broken into such a worthless ruin with the gleam of gold in their eyes. Lusting for trinkets and souvenirs to enrich themselves with, at the expense of their host nation. Such is the nature of some humans, we were told; not unlike that of magpies.”

Pierre, naturally, wanted to protest.
But Luna’s voice, as though detached from her body wholesale, again circled ever-so much closer around him.

“Then we heard that thou hast belonged to said party. And we remembered thy countenance promptly. Just as we remembered thy reputation. We remembered thy harsh, spiteful words to Our secretary. Thy gracelessness, thy impishness. Thy false sense of superiority.”

Now, of all moments, Pierre’s shock strangely began to move to the back seat. Somehow, things began to feel a little farcical. Carefully putting one foot before the other, he silently advanced further into the room.

“We remembered the way thou acted in the archives the other week. The green in thy face as thou wert forced to eat crow before thy subordinate, Edith of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The burning hatred in thy eyes as We declared protection over her. Thy vengeful words: ‘Let me assure you, it will never be over for you. This will have consequences.’”

Pierre flinched in shock as he heard his own words dictated back at him, in his own tone, and in his very own voice.

Her own voice had morphed into a conspiratorial hiss.
“And then? Then We heard that Edith too was caught in this fire. And so, all the pieces fell into place. In that forest, in yonder castle, thou hast had thy vengeance on her.”

“Ex… cuse me?”

“Thou couldst not enact thy feeble, commission’d power over her. And so, thou plotted to deny her Ours.”

“That...” Pierre gasped, “That is… complete...”
Frantically, he turned his eyes to the balustrades, and hobbled across the room to catch the meandering princess. “That is defamation! How… how petty do you think I… Who do you take me...”

His shock was mind-numbing when he turned and found her standing on the parapets above his neck, like a demonic hellhound stalking him.

Her deep blue eyes bled into him, just like they had the last time.
“And now… Now that I read thy fatuous little mind, indeed I grow doubtful once more.” She shook her head with hypnotic slowness. “There is no greed in thy eyes. No rage or desire for reprisal. No. Just thy own, unwavering imbecility. Thy misdirected gullibility.”

Her gaze instilled all kinds of feelings in him. Fear. Dejection. Resignation. Just to name a few. It was as though, deep inside him, the feeling that she was actually right was welling up inside him.

“Really, one meagre question remains.” she determined, moving behind the pillars. “Why? Why such folly?”.

Numbed, he struggled to answer. As bravely as he could, he resisted the urge to stutter, to splutter and spit out something half-baked.
Only when her gaze detached itself from him, he felt like he had been granted more air to breathe.
Forlornly, his eyes searched for a hold in the room.
“I… What… will happen to me?” he finally brought himself to ask.

“It shall be decided.” she plainly stated.

Her vagueness almost killed him.
“What… will… happen to me?” he repeated, a bit more forcefully.

“Well, if thou choosest to conduct thyself like this, thou mayst find even sooner than later.”

Almost hysterically, a gigglish snort escaped his lips.
“Well what will it be? Jail? Dungeon? Hard labour? Hanging? Shooting? Stoning? Drawing and quartering?”

The sound of her hooves stopped.

“I know how this works.” he spluttered. “You don’t just summon someone you ‘know’ to be guilty of a crime if you haven’t already made up your mind on what’ll happen next.”

“How much is thy freedom worth to thee, human?” she asked, severely.

That question drove it home, really.
“Did… did we really come here to bargain?” he asked meekly. “I already had a talk with my superior. Whatever happens, there’s gonna be an investigation. I’ll probably lose my job either way. So… freedom be damned, these are my prospects.”

Luna sounded unimpressed.
“And deserv’st nothing less, as far as We are concerned.”

“Well… that’s just grand, isn’t it?” Pierre breathed, “That says it all. That means we can just cut to the chase then, can we?”

“Thou seemst to look forward to thy punishment.”
She nodded delicately. “It shall suit Us fine.”

“There is only one thing I look forward to,” he corrected her, trying to spot her among the columns. “And that is blowing the lid on this farce once and forever!”
He puffed out his chest bravely. “I want a complete list of all the literature that was stored in the Everfree Chancery. All of it.”

The reply seemed to stun her.
“The gall. The sheer gall.” Luna soon spat. “Thou must be mocking Us.”

“Oh no. I’m serious.” he reassured her in a tone that had already become mocking. “And you’re right. This is the reason I went to the damn place to begin with. And right now, I don’t feel like leaving tasks half done.”

“Thy efforts led to chronicles of knowledge spanning three millennia being fed to the flames.” she berated him, disbelieving. “Now, thou want’st to incinerate all which survived thy previous attempt?”

“I didn’t burn a fucking thing.” he snapped. “Stop telling me I set fire to that archive, because I did not! I know it’s probably not gonna make much of a difference to you, but I did not! I had no reason to!”
Suddenly, he was overpowered by a powerful urge to cough the charcoal-infused mucus out of his choked lungs.

“Then how did the fire start?”

“I do not know!”

He could hear Luna gritting her teeth.
“Thou art a lowly fool, human.” she stated with very compelling certainty.
Her voice seemed to float over his head, causing him to glance up.

“Though I have to say that I’ve got a hundred ideas who would want to see that place burned to the ground.”

“Now thou hast concocted a theory?” Luna laughed mockingly. “Humour Us.”

“Someone...” he breathed, “Someone seems to be interested in sabotaging the Chrysalis investigation.”

“Oh, what art thou talking about?” she cut him off. “How on the Moon could the Lower Everfree Chancery be tied into thy Chrysalis investigation, human?”

“We went there to gather evidence.”

“Evidence for what?” she scoffed. “Our force hath spared neither time nor labour to supply thee with any such relevant files. What wast thou really seeking?”

“More.” he stated defiantly. “We were acting on a... clue that the files we received had been... tampered with. References to the Lower Everfree Chancery had been expunged.”

“Enough of thy excuses!” she interrupted him again, “Dost thou honestly think We doth not know what Our own archives contain?”

Pierre left a thick, suggestively laden pause.

Soon, Luna seemed to understand.
“What exactly art thou implying?”

Pierre smiled weakly.
“Why was your government denying the existence of those archives?”

“That is none of thy bucking business, human.” Luna spat, “Keep thy spleen in check before it comes to doom thee.”

“What on earth could have been so risque about it that it meant directly violating the treaty with the UN that you yourself signed?”

Luna gave no reply.
Feeling brave, Pierre hobbled into the centre, hoping to spy the hiding princess out on one of the parapets.

She was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re suppressing something. You and your lovely sister. And you really shot yourself in the foot when you started this whole ICC crap. I bet that, soon, you won’t have a secret left to hide.”

But what he found instead of the princess just made his heart falter all over.

He looked around the walls, and noticed how they had begun to melt.
Pillars, shelves, drapes, windows, even the light beyond the windows, had begun to liquefy and warp.

Was there something wrong with his eyes?
He blinked.
Horror rose up in him.
It was unreal, like from a twisted fever dream.

Inexplicably, dirt and gravel began to collect on the carpeted parquet beneath his shoes, and every small movement became marred by ugly gnashing sounds.

“Stand to!” she bellowed right into his ear.

Instinctively, he felt his feet snapping to attention. Those were two words he was far too familiar with, and now, caught in something of a dread-induced trance, he remembered them too vividly.

“Eyes front,” she commanded.

Almost automatically, his gaze strayed away from the malforming scene, and directly into the princess’ deep blue eyes.

He barely even had a moment to question how the mysterious creature had found her way down from there and right in front of him in what just seemed to be the blink of an eye.

She just nodded at him in realisation.
“A soldier, art thou?”

“I… am. Was.” he gulped.

“Though judging by the way thou carriest thyself, no lowly private.”

“C-career officer.”

Her eyes seemed to scan through his entire self, sussing out any information she deemed relevant.
“There is great conviction in thee. As is great frustration. One would think that a soldier of thy nation’s crown would have been taught to respect the sovereign.”

He tried to breathe.

“And normally, We believe that thou wouldst indeed be respectful. But thy conviction is just too grand. It runs amok inside thee. Its force pushes thee against the edges. It must be taken down a peg.”
Her eyes flitted from left to right and back to left, as though she was turning a page in the book that was Pierre.
“Yes… Thou ventured into this citadel for a distinct reason. A clear goal in thy head. Whatever it is that thou sought, t’was nominally righteous. In thy misled mind, at least.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that.

Unmoved, she searched on.
“Indeed, there seems to be an idea that nourishes a deep antipathy towards Us. A fear of thy elders and betters. But how come? What could it be? Is it owed merely to the fact that We startle thee so, or doth the truth lie deeper?”

And deeper she delved.
Pierre could practically feel her digging through his brains, sorting through his thoughts, filing his feelings.
In a fleeting moment of clarity, he tried to dive away from the terrifying creature.
“We are not done with thee, human! Face Us!”

“F...” he stammered, his mind awhirl with startled “Fuck you!” and tried to hobble to a safe distance. But the powerful alicorn stayed hot on his slow, crippled heels.

“Hast thou had enough?” she asked with a flight of cruel satisfaction, “To run through life with such a choleric frame of mind is entirely up to thee.”
Her features darkened visibly. “But the moment thou hast decided to take thy hate and instrumentalise it against Us, and take oh so much satisfaction in implicating Us in thy little fantasies of lies and deceit, thou hast treaded too far for Us to bear. Dost thou understand Our words?”

“Just tell me what you want!” he yelped. “Tell me what you want to do with me! Quit stalling!”

She pulled up beside him like a bolting black shadow.
“Thou wantest to know what the Everfree Chancery stored. Only that would lift thy mind free from its firm entrenchment. We consider to aid thee with that.”

Everything about that acquiescence set off alarms in Pierre’s head. But before he could lose too many thoughts about it, he stumbled and almost tripped over something flat but heavy that lay in his shoes’ path.
Barely keeping his balance, he gazed down to realise that there was a book like at his feet.
No, several books.
Countless books plastered the ground before him.

The unanticipated sight almost made his heart flutter.

Next thing he knew, the princess had seized his shoulders from behind, and was exerting her weight unto him, trying to get him to drop onto his knees.
Curiously enough, he didn’t feel the pain that would logically come with that.

“Sit.”

Trying to scramble back up, he noticed he was now suddenly resting on a bed of moist summery grass, glistening in the light of a full moon rising up somewhere in the distance.

“Look up, young Pierre.” she ordered him, and directed his attention to a scenery obscured by a numbing night’s darkness.

It didn’t make sense. Hadn’t it been forenoon just a couple of minutes ago?
In fact, hadn’t they been inside just a couple of seconds ago?

It took him a few moments until he spotted the weak shine of torches and lanterns in the distance. Small, pony-like figures scurrying about, covered from head to toe in cloaks and cowls.

“What on God’s earth...”

The gleam of their lights faintly illuminated a backdrop of sprawling stone towers and walls. A sight that seemed as familiar as it seemed foreign.

“We hope thou recognisest the place.”

“I don’t… I… What’s is this?”

“Tell Us what thou seest.”

He saw carts being pushed down a cobblestone path snaking through tall wild weeds. Carts loaded with copious amounts of something, and aptly hidden by veils strapped over them.
The hooded equines pulled and pushed the carts towards a secret door, hidden in the among the masonry. As it opened, it revealed a majestic golden glow, a glimpse from a vast hall adorned with an abundance of banners and tapestries and tall shelves.

“Dost this strike thee as familiar?”

There was a faint memory.

“The Lower Everfree Chancery, young Pierre.” Luna revealed. “But countless moons in the past.”
He heard a sigh from her. “What thou seest here, no creature has witnessed in twelve thousand moons.”

It was like a scene from some tacky film that was trying just a little too hard. The ominous feeling to it was positively unreal.

“Thou doubtest still.” Luna recognised. “See what these carts contain.”

Looking closer, Pierre could see large staples of books being unloaded. Great, thick folders of paper and massively bound books, floating off the ramps with magical vigour, and settling inside the hall in neat rank and file.

“T’was what thou wast looking for.” she explained, “Books and scrolls on knowledge of yore, hidden from the world, in the bowels of the citadel.”

“The… the documents.” he sighed in his muddled state. “Those are the...”
Instinctively, he tried scrambling onto his legs and move toward them, driven by some invisible urge to secure the decaying literature.

“Hark.” Luna intervened, pinning his form in place with a solitary hoof. “‘Tis a mere projection. Thou wouldst not reach them.”

Why was he not doubting this more, Pierre wondered.

Under the cowls of the transporters, he could see the extravagant tunics and scarves poking out, priestly shawls and drapes, and the gleam of military cuirasses and dangling of belts. He could even see nervous eyes darting around the landscape as the ponies went about their business in secrecy.

Pierre tried to sort this thoughts.
“There… there must be something to those books. Relevant to the evidence. I wouldn’t know about them otherwise.”

That seemed to bemuse her a little.
“Thou want’st to know of these books’ nature. We assure thee, thou errst gravely.”

As if on cue, one of the ponies, her back laden with three or four massive volumes, stumbled on a loose cobblestone.

The books were sent flying, being catapulted into the gravel and flinging open.

The creatures reacted with panicked jolts, throwing up their cloaks and pulling their heads, as though to shield themselves from the books’ contents.

“What’s going on?” Pierre muttered, his eyes drawn automatically to the pages.

“As we find ourselves in a mere illustration of past events, thou art in no danger. Look at the texts at thy heart’s delight. But be aware that in any other happenstance, they would doom thee.”
Confused, Pierre tried to pick himself up and read the foreign scribbling that filled the page, attempting to discern the various letters, numbers and symbols that he had never understood.

As his gaze passed one particular word, he thought he could see a ghostly apparition pass by the corner of his eye.
He ignored the fleeting distraction, and read on.

As his eyes reached the next line, his sight was momentarily blurred by a wave of colours. The letters virtually seemed to leap from the page and the ink shed its blue and black.

Was this yet another hallucination?

The sight next line caused his stomach to contract in excitement.
Why?
He could not even read the damn thing! What was it about that line that evoked that reaction in him?

The next line toyed with his equilibrium, nearly causing him to topple back to the ground.

The next one… had he just read it? He could not quite remember. His mind became groggy and unfocused.

The next one… had he just read it?

He had enough. He closed his eyes.

“What is all this hocus pocus?” he asked Luna, who was still towering behind him.

“Magical spells. Incantations. Their magic is so powerful that they can influence those who are unable to wield it themselves.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Pierre grunted. “I don’t care about magic, I care about-”

“Then what business hadst thou at the Lower Everfree Chancery?”

A hoof swept over his head to make him open his eyes again.

“At the dawn of the unified Equestrian realm, the court magicians from the Three Tribes agreed to gather at this place in secret,” Luna began explaining, “They brought their vast tomes of magic with them. They were not about such banal, minor incantations as thou may have just experienced. No, they brought with them spells of war and dominance. The most heinous and perilous and destructive magic that their realms had to offer.”

The creatures by the castle walls emptied their carts and went to locking the massive hidden doors.

“They agreed that, to preserve Equestrian unity and stave off a war that would shake their world to rubble, they would place their magical weaponry under lock and key, deep in the cellars of Our castle, that they may be kept safe and hidden from the world for eternity.”

“So… so I... What?” Pierre asked on. “How is this tied to the Chrysalis matter?”

“How indeed!” she snapped back.
“As We said, ‘tis not. The magic contained in these tomes preceded the reign of Chrysalis by a good few years.”

“So...” Pierre stuttered, and tried to look up at Luna.

Her eyes were cold and sharp.
“The only attribute that sets all this magic apart is their sheer destructive force. They ability not only to harm our earth and planet, but to invite its annihilation.”

“So… so then.”

“Let Us just say that there was a good reason why We kept these tomes secret from the world. ‘Twas to protect it.”

A cloud of magic surrounded Pierre and carefully lifted him back up onto his feet.

“In some form,” Luna continued, “We would have to be thankful that this compendium of malicious magic hath finally found its demise once and for all.”

Pierre shook his head. “If… if it was dangerous, then why keep it in the first-”

“In other,” she continued, her tone much more severe, “We curse thee and thy rampage for robbing this nation - nay, this world - of the ability to protect itself against the very sorcery that was chronicled within!”

There was a rumble in the ground.
In seconds, the castle in the distance exploded into a flower of fire and smoke.

Pierre tried to duck, but the princess’ powerful magic held him in place.

“Thou seest what thou hast done.”

“I… I told you… I did not set the fire.”

“Who put thee up to scouring this place?”

The sight of the inferno almost compelled Pierre to spill it all, to tell her everything he knew, about the page and Edith and Golden Dirk… But he managed to get a hold of himself.
“I… I refuse to name my sources.” he stuttered adamantly.

“Art thou not aware that they sought to find this place? That they wished to lay their hooves on this weaponry?”

“That was not the reason.”

“Was it not?” she inquired, trotting around his magically-supported form, her eyes glistening in the light of the flames. “Thou really art a fool then. A useful idiot.”

“I do not-”

“Thy gullibility may have opened the doors of Equestria’s most dreadful spells to nefarious powers that seek to make this earth their own! Let its terrible riches into the hooves of monsters!” she spat. “Tell Us who or what steered thee towards this chancery! Who was it that used thee?”

Pierre felt short of breath.
But he said nothing.

She crept closer. Her voice fluttered.
“We would be right to clasp thee by thy throat and fling thee so hard that thy body may shatter against the rocks of the moon!”

Luna's magic yanked him upwards, letting him dangle several metres above the grass and the princess.

He felt tremors in the air. Then he witnessed the ground shattering, giving away under his floating feet.
Glancing down, he saw an endless night sky beneath him; a floating sea of stars.
At the very bottom, the bobbed the moon, many hours, no, days, of freefall away.
Vertigo set in. Panicked, he tried to struggle free as the ever widening edge expanded to the spot of ground above which he now hung.

“Thou seemst to fear Us for Our malice, Pierre. Hate Us for our deceptiveness. Curse Us for Our monstrosity.”
She bobbed her head up down in a cynical ‘yes’ motion.
“Do not make Us oblige.”

He was openly shivering now.
“Please...” he began to beg silently, “Let me down. Please. Let me down!”

Unmoved, she glanced up at him. “It seems there is no other way than to drive thy fault home.”

“I am sorry!” he suddenly spurted, coughs accompanying his every word. “I did not want to do this! I had no idea! Please!”

“There appears to be much human talk these days about Our nation being a tyranny. A state pockmarked by its injustice.” Luna talked on, “But let Us assure thee. We honour Our justice greatly. What is important to us is not punishment, but seeing reason. Experiencing repentance.”

“I beg you...”

“Dost thou see the error of what thou hast wreaked? Search thy heart.”

“I...”
Almost automatically, his mind began to rampage through the events of the last few days.

The yelling in the office.

The waiting for the phone call.

The nerve-wracking drive through the countryside.

The Doors song ringing.

The roadblock.

The Everfree.

The car swerving into the unicorn with golden armour. The sickening 'crack’. Pierre jumping out, running up to the felled creature, checking for signs of life.
And a simpering changeling staring up at him with untelling blue eyes.

Him.

It was him.

The changeling.

He was the one who wanted to find that place.

The same one who had loitered by his car all those days ago.

Watching them.

“I… am sorry.” Pierre could hear himself whimpering. “I am so sorry...”

So, Luna extinguished her magic.
Vertigo overcame Pierre as he plummeted down.

“Wake.”

Pierre’s eyes fluttered open.

Taking a minute to refocus, they explored the civil register room.

White, wintry noon light floated his face.

His pain and sore aching were back. Yet, he found himself sitting comfortably.

As his surroundings came back to him, he found that he was resting somewhat limply on the edge of the central cashmere carpet, propped on one of the countless pillars in the rotunda.

And next to him, he saw the hooves of Luna.

Glancing up, he saw a shimmering white, string-like apparition floating away from his forehead, and flowing right back into the alicorn’s horn, like a rope running along a magical cord reel.

Opening her pale blue eyes, she looked down at him with a far more merciful expression than he remembered.

“How much dost thou remember, Pierre of Canada?”

“...What?” Pierre mumbled, only to realise that the pain in his throat had returned as well.

“As thou may have noticed, what just hath transpired was no more than a figment of thy imagination and Our magic.”

A rather inappropriate yawn interrupted Pierre’s onslaught of one-thousand-and-one questions.

“We… must apologise for becalming thee in such an waylaying manner. But We needed a fleet establishment of all the relevant facts and thy role in this affair.”

“Ehm...”

The princess of the night sighed as she trotted between the pillars, Pierre’s forlorn eyes clinging on to her.
“To be perfectly frank, thy tenacity impresses Us. But no more so than thy mulishness.”
She glanced towards the balustrade she had been standing only a few - alleged - moments ago.
“Thou wishest not to betray thy source. ‘Tis a principle that We - albeit begrudgingly - respect. Indeed, in Our wilful concealment of the Lower Everfree Chancery’s existence… it would be quite two-faced otherwise.”

She lowered herself onto her haunches onto a spot next to Pierre, as to be closer to the human on the ground.
“But in order for Us to deduce whether or not a terrible crime has just been committed, thou must break thy vow of silence and let Us in on this mystery.”

Apprehensively, Pierre tensed back up.

She tried looking as imploring as she could.
“Thou must understand, Pierre, that right now, we are not meant to be one another’s antagonists. We have no quarrel worth quarreling. Thou hast been misled and abused by an unknown party. Thou must accept Us as an ally under these circumstances, just like We must accept thee as a beneficial partner.”

As she closed in further and further, Pierre’s heartbeat began to run rampant.
“Y- you… chucked me down a hole...” he wheezed.

“We apologise for the illusion. ’Twas... cruel, and as some others would go as far and say, archaic.”

“You… we… we were at the Castle… by night.”

“As bewildering as the visions were, We assure thee that they did serve a purpose.”
She raised her chin to hide the flight of nervousness on her face. “We cannot begin to the danger that these magic spells pose. If one would ever find itself in the wrong pony’s hooves, they may threaten the existence of our very planet.”

“W...what are we talking about here?”

“Where to begin…” she pondered, “There are physical spells; Magic with which a creature may turn the planet to ice, or burn it to a crisp in the terrible onslaught of the sun. Or make the oceans rise out of their basins and flush over the continents.”
“Then there are subtler ones, the mental spells; They may allow the wielders to influence a multitude of peoples simultaneously, forcing thoughts and ideas into every creature’s head. Alter their behaviour. Reconstructing their allegiances. Fabricate their very memories.
“Any one of those spells could enable a tyrant to make this world his plaything. Their perilousness can thus not be understated.”

“But it burned... ” Pierre stammered, “But it burned up… didn’t it?”

“Let us pray that it did. For if one of these tomes were to have been carried off, then there would be not even be instructions on how to counteract its effects left.”
She looked behind herself. “And for the moment, the only works that we know to have survived the fire are these.”

She pointed to a table at the far end, where there lay half a dozen books - all were singed black from every side and crumbling into yet more flakes of ash onto the polished tabletop.

“And if these survived… what else might have?”

Pierre tried to shake his head.
“You… you don’t need to tell me that… Tell UNEVEG. Tell the nations of the world. This is-”

Luna shook her own head, silencing him.
“We shan’t exacerbate this situation. Lest We may play in anypony’s - particularly the thief’s, should he exist - hooves.”
She flicked her horn meaningfully. “Presently, thou art the only human on this existence who knows of these tomes. This knowledge will burden thee, until We remove it once again.”

“Remove?”
Pierre all but jolted upright. “Wait! You… you don’t mean you want...”

“‘Tis for the safety of ponykind and humankind, Pierre.”

Ignoring the pain, Pierre pulled himself upright with the pillar’s help.
“I… refuse. I refuse. I will not let you do that.”

“Calm thyself.” Luna said, more forcefully than soothingly. “For there is a reason why We let this knowledge seep into thee in the first place.”

“...Alright...”

“What dost thou know of the current whereabouts of Edith of Bosnia and Herzegovina?”

Again, the typical shower ran down his spine.
“Edith… nothing. She was with us when we were on our way there. I don’t know what became of her.”

Luna’s countenance grew serious.
“Considering the fact that she is missing without a trace… the thought occurred to Us that whichever party is responsible for thy detour may just as well be responsible for her disappearance.”

“Do you think that?”

“Pray tell, Pierre. How much dost thou wish to see Edith again? To see her return to safety of thy United Nations?”

Pierre’s reply was quick to the point of irreverence.
“Yes! I mean… a lot. Obviously.” He gnashed his teeth. “I have no ill will towards this person. I’m not wishing harm on her, for Christ’s sake.”

She nodded.
“We believe thee. So if it would mean that Edith be saved, what wouldst thou be willing to tell Us about the pony that told thee?”

Frustrated, Pierre tried to turn away from the interrogating princess, but he could not she her off.

“It was a pony, was it not?”

He shivered.
It was more telling than he had wished.

“Not a pony? A gryphon, then? Or a changeling?”

Pierre squeezed his eyes shut.

But Luna still read him like a picture book.
“A changeling then.” she deduced in a grave voice.

Pierre felt strangely sick.
Silently, he sat himself back down from the ground he had just tried to get away from.

“Please...” Luna besought him, her voice and her eyes hopelessly aghast, “Please tell Us that this changeling took command of thy thoughts. Tell Us that thou werest not in thy right mind to follow its guidance.”

Pierre just buried his face in his hands.

Luna’s stare did not subside.
“Dost thy inanity know no bounds?”

She let a few moments pass. It was as though she was earnestly expecting a final answer from him.

When the thirteenth moment passed, she turned her attention towards the doors.

“Captain Fit. Lord Tian. Thou mayst re-enter!”

The double doors were swept open by a magic gust of force, and let the UN official and the pegasus officer back into the room.

Confused, Captain Fit checked his pocketwatch, apparently surprised by the time the ‘talk’ had taken.

“That was speedy,” Tian commented, looking at the clock’s foreign Equestrian dial, “though, one hopes, fruitful.”

Ignoring him, Luna turned to Captain Fit.
“Captain,” she exclaimed, recognising the soldier. “We had not anticipated to see thee again this soon.”

He bowed respectfully.
“I know that I’m long supposed to be on my way north, Ma’am, but-”

“But the call of duty intercepted thee.” she nodded. “Word reached Us that thou hast become the most senior investigating officer at the scene of the crime.”

“I… suppose that’s true, yeah.”

“Good. Then thou mayst deliver thy report. Let us try to resolve the mystery of the missing party members once and for all.”

“...Okay. How much do you know already, Ma’am?”

“Only the bare essentials among the facts.”

“And… ehm...” he tried to nod towards Tian as discreetly as possible. “What about… you know...”

“There is nothing in thy query which wouldn’t concern the United Nations likewise. So if thou pleasest.”

Captain Fit cleared harrumphed nervously, and started pacing through the room and assembling his thoughts.
“Well... We have been estimating the original size of the group to be eight. All of them, with the exception of three, were members of the United Nations.”

Discreetly, Tian whipped out a notepad and a pen, and began to jot down some short sentences himself.

“Four of them - including Mister Pierre here - were rescued from the fire. Until now, he has been the only one who has been responsive to any exceptional extent.”
He raised his hoof, as if he wanted to count down the numbers, “Two others, we apprehended as my comrades approached the premises. They are uninjured and fully approachable, but by their own account, they did not witness the fire breaking out, as they were outside the entire time. One of them seems not to be part of the United Nations directly, but...”

“No...” Pierre winced hoarsely, “That’s Ibrahim Shalgham. He’s with the ICMP.”

“Right. That leaves two just two ponies… uh, persons unaccounted for.” His face darkened. “Edith...”

“Šarić?” Tian clarified.

“...Yes. And the other...” Fighting hesitated, “Would be quite the odd one out, really...”

“Well...”

Luna stepped up, expectantly.
“Please. Carry on.”

Fighting just sighed.
“The other probably was Sergeant Golden Dirk. He’s in the Canterlot Archives Detachment. If anyone had access to the documents for the investigation, it was him.”

Tellingly, Pierre clenched his teeth at the mention.

“How wouldst thou know him, Captain?” Luna inquired.

“I... “ began, bashfully, “I was Sergeant Golden Dirk’s commanding officer for the last year and a half. He violated a disciplinary remand yesterday and fled Canterlot barracks.”

She seemed confused.
“What led thee to conclude that thy Sergeant were present here?”

“Ehm… he told me.” he answered, pointing back at Pierre. “Before he lost consciousness, he whispered his name and called him…. what was it again… a ‘bastard’, I think. It sure sounded like more than just a coincidence to me.”

Again, all eyed returned to an increasingly uneasy Pierre.
“I… I do not remember mentioning that to you...” he wheezed forlornly.

“But it’s true, right?” Fighting ascertained, all but taking over Princess Luna’s interrogation. “You didn’t just happen to come up with his name out of thin air! Was it Sergeant Golden Dirk who... hoodwinked his fellow countryponies?”
He cocked his eyebrow, before dropping his head and making it clear that his question was rhetorical. For just a moment, he seemed unsure of his own words. “He’s a Royal Guardspony, for crying out loud. Canterlot Garrison, no less! I’m not gonna lie, this a darn difficult thing for me to believe.”

Pierre winced uncomfortably.

“I don’t get it.” Fighting continued, pacing by his princess and the official. “Allow me to sum this up. First, Golden runs off to Celestia-knows-where. Then he finds you, and somehow leads you out into the Everfree for some kind of… what? Looting party?”

Gravely, Luna nodded.
“We are nopony to voluntarily cast suspicion on Our own subjects, but...”
She looked Fighting in the eyes. “We have reason to believe that thy Sergeant Golden Dirk was no more than a Changeling impostor.”

Fighting stared at her in complete silence.

Tian looked up from his pad and eyed the pair.
“There is a changeling involved in this affair?”
He glanced over to Pierre. “An actual changeling?”

Pierre opened his mouth to say something, but nothing would come out.

“Excuse me just a moment.” Captain Fit finally blurted out. “I must have misheard that.”

Luna’s chin hardened. Her ears folded back.
“Thou didst not, Captain.”

He gave an almost hysterical smirk.
“A changeling? In Canterlot? No, in Canterlot Barracks? That’s ridiculous.”

“And yet it is true.” Luna concluded.

Indignantly, Fighting raised his chin.
“W… w… with all due respect, I watch out for that sort of stuff. If one of my own colts had been replaced by a changeling, I would...”
At the last minute, he cut himself off. He looked as if he had been overcome by a feeling of deja-vu.

“Changelings are nefarious tricksters.” Luna explained mournfully. “We regret not assigning decloaking specialists to the barracks sooner. It seemed this infiltrator beat us all to the punch.”

Captain Fit looked positively humiliated by now,
“Is… is that supposed to mean, Mister Pierre, that you threw in your lot with a changeling back there? You didn’t know, r-right?”

“That is not important right now.” Luna said and silenced him. “What matters is that this changeling may have an innocent human in his grasp. And that that human must be rescued.”

With elegant slowness, Tian took out a mobile phone and began dialling a number.
“Well… I believe this would warrant contacting Peacekeeping’s crisis command. This is the third or fourth abduction in two months.”

Also Captain Fit stepped up, filled with newly found vigour.
“Well, I’ll bring her back, Ma’am!” he declared. “Wherever those creatures, they couldn’t have gotten far. They probably haven’t even made it out of the Everfree yet!”

“And I will send a... notice to every peacekeeping outpost on the archipelago.” Tian added, not looking up from his screen, “They will surveill the area, to the best of their resources.”

“And I will round up my colts in Canterlot and Ponyville! They will lock down the entire countryside and block the royal highway to the Crystal Empire!”

Princess Luna just erected a hoof, interrupting the hassle momentarily.
Then she minded Pierre, who was still cowering in the corner, debilitated by fear and cluelessness.

“Art thou willing to do thy part in rescuing Edith?”

Hesitantly, he nodded up at her.
“I… of course.”

“Then thou shall be accompanying the Captain Fighting Fit up north. Use the assets and perks of thy position in bringing her back into safety.”

Pierre didn’t even need to nod to signal his agreement.

“Well then...” Tian harrumphed one more time, covering the speaker of his phone with a finger, “Can I assume that the issue of Mister Abel’s… involvement has been resolved in some respects?”

Her head held high, Luna approached the official.
“We would say that a resolution has been found in most respects.”

Pierre began to shiver uncontrollably as he looked after the princess.

“Does Her Majesty intend to set any legal steps in motion against Mister Abel and his subordinates?”

“We believe that shan’t be necessary.” she declared. “Consider this a taste of Equestrian justice. We honour the reasonable and the insightful.”

The tension poured out of Pierre’s body like a hailstorm through a gutter.

“Very well put, if I may say so.” Tian just grinned with his typical wheeding veneer.

“What matters now is put the errors of part to good use to bring justice to the true culprit. We expect Ser Pierre to be a valuable addition to this effort.”

“Well...” Tian sighed, “I am afraid Mister Abel might not find himself in any capacity to contribute to the search efforts in any meaningful way. His presence is currently requested in New York, your Majesty.”

Luna’s big blue eyes intensified, “Well, We believe that Ser Pierre will be put to much better use in this country, Lord Tian. A ‘notice’ shan’t be enough to resolve this situation.”

It was almost like heaven-sent to Pierre. Finally, someone called the situation out.

Tian gave a charmless smirk.
“Did Her Majesty not insist earlier on that the peacekeeping personnel shall be… ‘swept out of the countryside’?”

Luna huffed forcefully.
“We were privy to a powerful emotional eruption. That much is true. But We feel like We do not have to explain to thee how drastically the circumstances have changed now.”
She drew a breath. “We are in no way averse the human presence taking action in matters that are truly beneficial. In that regard, We require any helping hand We can get.”

Tian, unfazed, smirked on.
“As glad as we all are that your Majesty has decided to desist from further punitive measures, even I cannot exceed my own authority. And I’m afraid that as far as Mister Abel is concerned, this affair is a purely internal matter of the UN’s own authorities now...”

Luna was unmoved herself.
After a few meaningful seconds of silence, she addressed Tian anew.
“Ser Pierre has just now directed Our attention towards the fact that We may have reneged in our treaty-bound duties.”

Tian raised his eyebrows.
“Really?”

“Yes. We have failed to inform thy organisation of the existence of a number of documents in Our possession.”

“Well…” he chuckled, acting a little flabbergasted, “We are surprised to hear that.”

Her head beckoned him over to the table with the pathetic few hoof-ful of books.
“Perhaps thou wouldst want to perform the formal act and view these documents to satisfy thy duty.”

He cleared his throat.
“Perhaps that would indeed be… purely formally… and briefly...”

Without even waiting for him to finish, Luna turned around and returned to Pierre.
“Wouldst thou like to join Captain Fighting Fit downstairs, while We this resolve this matter with thy superior?”

Confused, Pierre gazed up at her. He didn’t know what he was waiting for. Some kind of clue to what was happening, perhaps?

The princess bowed her massive head down towards him, and locked him in her gaze.
“Remember,” she began to whisper softly, “Remember Our words. Remember the dangers that these documents pose. If thou should see any of those in the custody of a changeling, then thou must tell Our guards to act. Those books must not fall to the wrong wielder!”

“I… I don’t get why me.”

“Because We are giving thee the chance to put thy eagerness to proper use. As well as to learn a valuable lesson.”

Confused, Pierre tried glancing over to Tian, as he was in the process of bowing over the table and inspecting the books, his arms behind his back.

“Besides… By this time the next day,” she explained, “thou shalt once again be the only one of thy kind to know of these tomes’ existence. That, thou mayst consider a sign Our trust in thy kind.”

“I hate Lunar Guards.” Fighting grumbled as he and Pierre were led down the stairs of the town hall by half a score of menacing-looking guards, their armours dark purple, their coats grey and their eyes piercing yellow.

Pierre hobbled as fast as he could, not only to keep up, but get as far away from that princess as fast as possible.
The ‘why’ and ‘how’ didn’t really come into it.

At some point, the two of them standing outside in the snow, shivering in the cold, as the doors were shut behind them.

“That...” Pierre stuttered, his body still bathing in the warming feeling of relief, “That was it. I think.”

“Yeah.” Fighting chewed, pretty skeptically. “You must be the luckiest bucking monkey in the universe.”

“Whatever.” Pierre grunted dismissively, and looked around the deserted wintry hamlet.

“What exactly did the Princess tell you in there?”

“I...”
He shook his head. He didn’t feel like he knew well enough to be able to explain it all anyway.

“So… and what now?” Fighting asked, putting on his helmet and tightening the buckle. “Did that mean that you’re supposed to be coming with me now?”

“...I’ll have to discuss this with Tian Shouxin.”

“Something tells me...” Fighting sighed, “That he’s not coming out for some time.”

“Why?”

Fighting just shrugged.

A bad feeling swelled up in Pierre.

“Don’t look the gift-horse in the mouth, I guess.” Fighting finally concluded.

Pierre decided to bite the bullet, and began buttoning his ill-fitting blazer.
“What about my colleagues?”

“Ponyville has one of the best hospitals on the continent. They’ll probably be fine.”

“Hm.”
He noticed a military chariot swooping down from the sky and touching down on the main road.
“And where are you going, Lieutenant?”

“Captain.” Fighting grumbled. “We go north.”

XXVIII. In Vino Veritas

XXVIII.
In Vino Veritas

Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, The Hague
ICC Detention Centre
23. November, 2015
4:57 pm MET

The cork escaped the bottle with a satisfying ‘pop’. It hit the cell floor and did a few circles before settling. Chrysalis’ big green eyes followed it every inch of the way.

“Na hoppla,” Estermann announced cheerfully, and triumphantly placed the thick, white-frosted bottle on the office desk. “There we go!”

Chrysalis inspected the clear amber fluid swirling around.
“What is this?”

“This?” Estermann asked back, plopping down on the swivel chair next to the queen. “A rather special treat. I needed to rifle through a lot of liquor stores today to find a bottle.”
Reaching into his suitcase, he fished out a pair of tiny plastic cups. “A good friend of mine made the suggestion a couple of days ago. I suppose he was joking, but… you know, I am a practical man.”

She curiously stuck her snout near the bottle opening and inhaled the wafting scent - before abruptly recoiling with a sour expression.
“Sweet… Tartarus! What is that stuff?”

Estermann spread his mouth into a slightly immature grin.
“Poitín, your Highness. A...” He twisted the bottle to get a look at the label, “...Galway Copper: Seventy-five percent, only a one-in-ten chance of temporary blindness.”
He hesitated. “My God, what have I gotten myself into?”

“I have no idea what any of this means,” Chrysalis stated, and settled down on her king-size mattress. “What are you planning to do with it?”

“Drink it, naturally!” he declared. “We have something to celebrate, after all!”

Chrysalis’ ears perked up at the good news.
“And that would be...”

“...The fact that we’re one - our first, in fact! - step closer to a dismissal,” he explained, his voice buttered with satisfaction.

Satisfied, she smiled and relaxed her muscles.
“It’s good to hear that the worst is behind us.”

“You’re joking.” He smiled. “It can only go downhill from here. And it probably will.”

Chrysalis was slightly miffed.
“Then… why are we celebrating now?”

“Well… As a great man named Napoleon once said: ‘In victory, you deserve a bottle of champagne. In defeat… you need one.’”

“Well… if you say so.” She yawned. “I suppose you should be allowed a little treat for your good work.”

“What do you mean, ‘allowed’?” he asked impishly. “And what do you mean, ‘I’?”
He pushed one of the cups to Chrysalis’ end of the desk.

Her face quickly became marked by a strange mixture of confusion, disgust and timidness.
“Uh... you take over. I do not touch ‘food’ and ‘drink’. I have better… supplements to keep me on my hooves. As you know.”

“Yes, yes.” he confirmed and rolled his eyes. “But to make it through this trial in one piece, we need luck. And in order to have that luck, we need to harvest it. And in order to harvest, we need to drink a toast. And in order to drink a toast, it takes two people with two glasses.”

Her weary smile turned into a wearily amused one.
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“Human customs. Show a bit of respect.”

She snorted defiantly. “Make me.”

Estermann grinned and threw a brief glance at the camera eye that looked down at the two of them from the ceiling.

The queen probably didn’t realise that almost an hour of negotiating with Mjoberg, the warden, was necessary to make this little moment possible.
Unsurprisingly, liquor was a tightly controlled substance in the prison, and thus subject to a rigorous toxicological sweep before he could take it anywhere.
Estermann himself was also frisked for any lighters or flintstones - lest he or his client intended to turn the bottle of Irish moonshine into a lethal Molotov cocktail.

With all that nonsense out of the way, Estermann kindly asked the assembled guards to stand down that evening and grant the two of them a little bit of privacy. That meant no call-outs, no searches and - so Estermann hoped - no Peeping Toms observing their every gulp on the little monitor outside.

Even if the Queen herself didn’t appreciate the effort, Estermann himself certainly did. He needed the calm before the storm tomorrow.
Wordlessly, he snatched the bottle and filled her cup half a pinky high.

“Worm...” she began.

“I thought we would have reached ‘Herr Advokat’ by now.”

She licked her lips.
“When exactly did you become the king and I the lowly larva?”

Ignoring her question, he filled his own cup and picked it up. Theatrically, he stood, straightening his legs and back, led the cup up to his nose, and locked eye contact with his client.

She just gaped back up at him in bemusement.

“Your Highness. A toast to you, and to good tidings in this courtroom and all those that may follow. And a toast to the health of your children, and to the Changeling race at large.”

Her fangs dug into her lips. After a few split-seconds of considering it, she replied with a huff.
“Oh, alright. Stupid.”

She clasped her cup with her two hooves, her chains ringing, and led it to her chin. Then she locked his eyes with hers.
“To you, and to your golden tongue. May it never disappoint me.”

“Pröschtli!”

Client and counsel both led their drinks to their lips and let the brew flow into their throats.
Estermann in particular realised almost instantly that he had just committed a fatal mistake.

The brew’s seventy-five percent quickly showed its devastating effect. It was akin to a punch to the face, except that this punch continued its path of destruction into their mouths and down their throats, stripping away all living flesh and taking it with it.

“Jesus, Maria und Josef!!” he spluttered as soon as the stuff had cleared his throat and rampaged its way towards his gut.

Chrysalis’ reaction was quite a bit more subdued. But still, her muzzle was marked with momentary agony.

“Why the hell did Mjoberg allow me to take this stuff into your cell? It could probably eat straight through the concrete.”

Chrysalis coughed involuntarily.
“Really?”

“Well... we could try. But if we fail, the fumes will knock us out cold.”
Ducking down clumsily, Estermann picked up the cork on the floor. He was happy to reconfirm to himself that he still hated alcohol, and this didn’t help.
“Okay, enough for today.”

Clenching her eyes shut, Chrysalis shook her senses back into place.
“Wait… That was it?”

“What a question!” Estermann spluttered back. “We must conduct ourselves responsibly, you know.”
He held his index finger aloft authoritatively. “Tomorrow’s the next hearing, and you do not want to be hung over in a court hearing. Take it from me.”

“Why? Have you ever been… ‘hung over’ in the courtroom?”

“Well… in moot court. That was in my university days. But that was bad enough. You’ll be needing sunglasses instead of your...”
For a moment, he paused to look up and down the queen in confusion.
“Speaking of which… where are your beautiful glasses this time, Highness?”

She just sneered tellingly and pawed on the mattress.
“Shattered into a thousand itty bitty little bits.”

Pained, Estermann scrunched up his face.
“God. Garibaldi is going to kill me in my sleep.”
He rubbed his nose bridge for luck before continuing. “How on earth did you manage to do that?”

She lowered her head and gave a cheeky leer.
“Well, funny story, that. They were broken.”

Estermann looked back up, his eyes marked with concern.
“Say… did anything happen on your way back to the garage this morning? I heard someone triggered a lockdown alert.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and lay down flat on her mattress.
“Oh… not a lot. Just ran into an old acquaintance.”
A toothy grin spread on her face. “We caught up.”

Estermann lowered his eyebrows in concern.
“What old acquaintance, if I may ask?”

She smacked her lips.
“A freshly baked pony princess named Twilight Sparkle.”

If Esterman had allowed himself another cup, he would have probably spat its contents through the room at that moment.“You’re kidding. You ran into Twilight Sparkle? How the hell did that happen?”

“It was more like her running into me, dearie,” Chrysalis corrected him smugly. “You should’ve been there, and defended your queen. Twilight Sparkle attacked me. Physically, mind you.”

“Twilight Sparkle… attacked you?”

She placed a hoof near her horn, but the chains got in the way.
“Got me right in the forehead. Punched out a window to get to me.”

“Jesus, I thought the windows down there were bullet-proof.” Estermann murmured.

“But not pony-proof, by the looks of it,” she sneered. “You’ve got a lot of upgrading to do if you want to hold Celestia one day...”

“But...” Estermann said and sat up awkwardly, “You’re feeling alright. Right?”

“Puh-lease!” Chrysalis scoffed. “That foal didn’t even leave a mark. I’m made from sterner stuff. You know that.”
Within a blink of an eye, she was back up on her haunches with malevolent delight on her face. “Anyway, and then… Get a load of this. She got arrested.”

“Really now?”

“The Princess of Friendship got arrested for assault and battery! Oh, how the tides have turned!”
She followed up with a shrug. “I start enjoying humans more and more by the day.”

Estermann, lost in thought, just intertwined his fingers,.
“Any… particular reason why she would attack you? She left a very… scrupulous impression on me.”

She peered at him.
“Wait, you know her?”

“Yeah. Well… fleetingly.”

Chrysalis’s snout scrunched up, hinting at concern.
“Did she talk to you?”

“Oh, just… general stuff.” Estermann muttered and looked around the cell unsurely. “She was mostly worried about her famous brother. You know who.”

“I do indeed,” she sighed.

“She also asked me if I could share a car with her to the prison. But in the end, she had to share a car with me.”

Chrysalis shook her head at her subject.
“Wow. You… actually led her to the prison?”

“Hey, she wanted to visit Captain Shining. And believe me… by all accounts, she did this prison and this nation a great favour by getting that idiot out of everyone’s way.”

Chrysalis stayed silent. A moment later, she shrugged
“Hmph. If you put it like that, maybe she did.”

“Now then...” Estermann addressed the queen, “What happened between you two today? You didn’t… threaten her or anything like that, right? Or her brother?”

Chrysalis closed her eyes and broke out in snorting giggles.
“I… I...”
He laugh sounded almost embarrassed, “Look, I told her about how things stand right now. I yanked her chain a little. She just didn’t take it like a mare. What can I say?”

Estermann just let out a pained sigh of his own and rose from his chair.
Hands in pockets, he strode over to the barred window and looked into the night outside.
“You… shouldn’t go around threatening people like her at the moment. In your situation, this can only cause problems for the future.”

“Do you seriously think that I did it for the apples and giggles?” Chrysalis replied, her voice rising in annoyance. “They waylaid me on my way out of the courtroom. Her and her stupid brother.”
She let out yet another shrug. “They wanted to taunt me. I don’t have to take this, do I?”

“Of course not...” he sighed.

She chewed this over for a second. “Anyway, what do you think they will do to her now? Are they going to lock her up?”

“I… doubt it. Her car had diplomatic plates. So I suppose she has immunity. All they can do is ask her to get the hell out of the country, but that’s it.”

“Well, a pupa can dream.” Chrysalis moaned. “Moving on.”

“Yeah. Let’s.”

Curiously, Chrysalis propped herself up to be a little closer to Estermann as he stood by the window.
“Tell me… a little about yourself. I mean, it’s only been ‘Me! Me! Me!’ all month, so enough of that. What did you do to end up this this dark… soaked... freezing backwater?”

“Oh…You're not talking about the Hague, are you?”
Estermann leaned against the window and crossed his arms modestly. “That’s a long story.”

“Well, we have until tomorrow morning. So get to it.”
She winked cheekily.

Estermann sorted his thoughts for a moment and smiled as the memories came flooding in.
“Let me… tell you about how I earned my promotion at the ICC. It’s actually quite interesting. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Proceed.”

He put a hand on his chest.
“Well, as you might know, I’m Swiss. Switzerland is a tiny nation right in the centre of Europe. That means it’s as far away from any ocean or important body of water as you can get. All mountains and lakes.”

A warm smile spread across Chrysalis’ lips.
“You’re mountain brood too?”

“I suppose you could say that. We had a chalet in the shade of the Engelberg. Those were some lovely childhood summer holidays...”

Cheekily, Chrysalis’ eyes drifted up to the ceiling in thought.
“Estermann of the Engelberg. I like the sound of that.”

“...Wow.”
Estermann needed a moment to overcome his shock.
“This… this must be the first time I've heard my actual name coming out of your mouth,” he told her, unable to hide his rapture.

“What can I say?” Chrysalis smiled. “It grew on me. Alexander... Estermann. Alexander.”
She stared at the ceiling. “Alexanderalexanderalexander… Xaledander.”
She giggled. “Try saying that five times fast. What a mouthful. I was thinking about just calling you ‘Learned Friend’ and be done with it. On second thought, maybe I should.”

He chuckled back.
“So… no more ‘Worm’ then?”

She looked confused.
“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well… what was the deal with ‘Worm’, anyway?” Estermann inquired on, his eyes narrowing. “It did sound… rather silly, if you don't mind me saying that.”

“Well… yeah. That was the idea,” she answered, as if the answer were self-explanatory anyway.

He spread his hands in confusion and indignance.
“Yeah, but why me, of all people? I mean… come on.”

“Because it makes you feel feeble and lowly and insignificant. Makes perfect sense to me.”

Estermann sighed playfully.
“Um Gottes Willen. Arguing with you is absolutely useless. Do you realise that?”

Chrysalis just grinned more intensely.
“Please. Now tell me already how you came to be a defender.”

“Very well,” he harrumphed. “You see, back in the day, I served as an assistant to the ICC’s liaison to the UN in Geneva and Vienna. A fairly minor and unglamorous position.”
He thought for a few seconds.
“And back then, I was assigned to working a case concerning the mass execution of civilians and the looting of bodies in Sudan… an… obscure little African republic you’ve definitely never heard of.”

“Indeed not.”

“Anyway, two generals of the police were on trial. Their defence subpoenaed in an eyewitness from the capital to give an account in the defendant’s favour.”
Estermann’s face scrunched up a little. “This guy was a... pitiful little civil servant figure. Had sweat stains under his arms the size of pancakes. And, as fate would have it, he himself was far more deeply implicated in the shootings that any of us had at first anticipated.”
He took a breath. “At first, it was assumed that he had noticed a thing or two. That he once heard someone mention something. But… later it turned out that he was the guy who was assigned to count the watches and jewellery taken of the bodies, and turn them to liquid cash on the black market. This made him directly culpable in the pillaging.”
He looked down and played with his tie. “So by the time this guy… let’s call him Dilek… touched down at Cointrin Airport in Geneva for his connection flight to The Hague, there was an international warrant out for his arrest too.”

Chrysalis blew some lip bubbles.
“I suppose that was a bit frustrating for him.”

Estermann scoffed.
“You have no idea. Dilek stepped out of the plane, walked into the terminal, somehow made it past immigration, and then saw his own ugly mug plastered all over the news screens next to the luggage belts. Dilek… well… he nearly shit his pants. So what does he do? He decides he wants to go back home. Now. So he tries running back into the gate. Naturally, they don’t let him back in. So then he decides it's time to panic. So he rushes out of the airport and runs down the side of the highway, never to be seen again.”

“Wow.” Chrysalis muttered with a nod, “What was your role in all this?”

Estermann rolled his eyes.
“I was the idiot who was tasked with finding him, catching him and bringing him back in.”

An excited smile spread on her lips.
“I didn’t know you were a bounty hunter.”

“I wasn’t. But... I did just happen to be sitting in Vienna when it happened. The people from his court-appointed defence team were the first to catch on to his antics, and they were - quite understandably, I think - miffed by it.”
He tapped the windowsill. “For one thing, the innocent don’t run. So if the judges and the prosecutor ever got wise to Dilek’s ‘great escape’, this might have seriously hurt his case before the trial even started. The last thing they needed now was a big international manhunt for him. So his defence counsel calls me up at my desk and says to me,”
Comically, Estermann pouted and put on a malformed accent, “‘Alexander, pop down there and rope him back in, will you? You are Swiss. You know the Alps like your back pocket.’”
He tapped his knees enthusiastically, “And because I was an avid upstart back then, I jumped up from my desk, ran to the next car rental and drove over a thousand kilometres, twelve hours straight, to Geneva. Now, as you might have guessed, he was already long gone.”

“What did you do?”

He tapped his temple.
“To be fair, I really didn’t know what I was doing. But it went without saying that I couldn't get the authorities involved until it was absolutely necessary, so I decided to... do like a detective, and apply some... ‘deductive reasoning’. I went and asked around if a black fellow had tried to rent a car - people in Switzerland definitely notice a thing like that. Turns out he did try, but the rental company wouldn’t accept his Sudanese pounds, so he headed to the train station and boarded a train to nowhere, without a ticket. Naturally, he was caught almost immediately by an inspector. But rather than pay, he just threw his passport in the guy’s face and got the hell out of there. At some point, he decided to try hitchhiking his way to freedom...”

“How did you end up finding him?”

Estermann gave a sigh. “Long story short, it took me almost three days to catch up to that bastard - I swear, I had never stayed awake for that long in my whole life. I tracked him over another thousand kilometres, until I eventually hit Monaco… That’s a miniscule but majestic coastal statelet dedicated to the abysmally rich. It figured that he would try to go there.”

“...To flee?” she made sure, slightly confused.

“I... still can’t quite wrap around Dilek’s train of logic here. I mean, Monaco was a dead end for him in every conceivable way. The harbour is very well policed, and the place is far too small to hold an airfield. And they’re a signatory of the Rome Statute just like any other civilised nation, so they would have deported him just as willingly if had they known he was there.”

“Idiot.”

“Anyhow, Monaco is a tiny place indeed, so I only needed to snoop around for the better half of an hour before I found him, sitting in the bar of some high-end nightclub, with a bill raking in the hundreds and with not a coin of money left to his name in any currency.”
Estermann got up from his leaning position and strutted back over to the swivel chair.
“The funny thing was that, now that I had found him, I wasn’t really sure what to do with him. I wasn't armed. I didn't have cuffs. I hadn’t really thought this far. So, I... kind of maneuvered to the bar and told him that... ‘it’s time.’”

Chrysalis almost swooned at the two words.
“What did he say?”

Estermann smirked.
“That he’d rather stick a knife in his throat than let them take him.”

“Well, that’s not melodramatic at all.”

“Yeah...” Estermann snorted, “Not that he looked like the kind of guy who could go through with it. But still, I didn’t want to take the risk.”
Theatrically, he sauntered up and sit down on the chair, “I plopped down on the stool next to him, and told him to scooch a little.”
He went for the Poitín bottle. “And I ordered him and me some vermouth. Tough stuff in its own right.”
Carefully, he hovered the bottle above his cup, as to simulate the rich pouring of alcohol, “And we had ourselves a quiet, pleasant conversation.”

“About what?”

Softly, Estermann shrugged, and swirled the bottle’s contents around playfully,
“Just... general stuff. Family. Work life. Stress. The weather. Silly jokes.”
He sniffed and narrowed his eyes. “Eventually, I realised this guy was… hopelessly out of his depth. Back in Sudan, his only accomplishment was that he could read and write in English and count further than ten. He was an accountant by trade. He had a wife and an eight year-old boy.”
Estermann sighed, “And yet, he had been fully aware of what he was getting himself into when he rifled through all those pieces of jewellery and phones and gold teeth... He knew where it came from, and he knew where it was about to go. But he was no sociopathic maniac, or psychopathic mastermind, or ruffianly soldier-cum-killing machine. He was just… Dilek.”
He smiled.
“And... for the love of God, I liked Dilek. That sweaty, pitiful twit. I felt genuinely sorry for him. I didn’t want to see him suffer on a stand-”

Estermann flinched slightly as he felt a chitinous hoof curling around his Poitín-bottle-holding hand, gently twisting it towards his cup.
Confused, he looked at Chrysalis, who replied with a soft gaze.
“What did you two end up doing?”

“We... shared the bottle, to the last drop. We were violently drunk, but in the end, Dilek saw the light. I ordered us a cab to Nice airport in France and personally escorted him to the Hague. Six months later… I received a letter from the court. A new post offer.”

Her loving eyes penetrated him effortlessly.
“So just like now?”

“What?”

“You filled him up to make him docile. Just like with me.”

Estermann shook his head weakly.
“Nonsense. It is never a sin to offer another a drink.”
He hesitated and bowed his head, “But granted, I see how you got that impression.”
She led his hand - and the bottle - back to the cup.
“Uh… your highness...” he breathed, “Do you want me to be hung over tomorrow?”

“Come, come,” she cooed softly. “I want you to do it for me.”

The bottle turned in his hand, until more of the deadly potion began to dribble into his cup.
Estermann’s mind clicked too slowly to make it stop in time.

“Hoppla.” she chuckled. “Seems like you’ll need to finish your portion, huh?”

“That’s not a very wise...”

Her emerald eyes stopped his thoughts in their tracks.
“Enjoy, little one,” she just said, her voice disarming and compelling.

Wordlessly, Estermann led the cup up to his mouth and necked it.

Yet again, he was stunned by a short instance of liquid fire running down his throat, until that gulp too settled in his stomach.

“You look so silly when you drink,” she laughed.
Her eyes, previously slitted in an almost loving manner, widened a little. “You’re full of funny stories, aren’t you?”

Drowsily, he nodded.
“Oh hell yes… I know a lot of jokes too...”

The changeling seemed surprised.
“You? You actually know jokes?”

“Of course I know jokes! I’m a very funny guy,” Estermann scoffed. “What about you? Do you know any jokes?”

“Hm… You first.”

He thought for a second.
“I don’t know… Most of my repertoire is not particularly… PC...”

“Well...” she pondered. “I don’t know what that means, but now I want to hear them even more.”

“Also, you might not understand most of them.”

“I know a good joke when I hear it,” she reassured him.

Slumped over on the table, and with only an arm holding his head aloft, Estermann thought long and hard.
“Let’s see… A sugar daddy, as ancient as Methuselah, goes to the urologist, and tells him about his most recent... sexual exploits with his twenty-something girlfriend.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow.

“The doctor tells him; ‘You’ve got to be careful. With your age, sex can become quite a dangerous activity.’ But the old guy just shrugs and says, ‘...Eh. She dies, she dies.’”

Chrysalis listened a couple more seconds into the silence that followed that joke.
But then the corners of her mouth began to flutter upwards.
A smile promptly followed.
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Modestly, Estermann dropped his head.
“Thank you. I’m not worthy.”

“Any more where that came from?”

Estermann combed through his repertoire.
“Okay… So the judge asks, ‘Defendant! Why did you beat your wife to death with a bottle?’ Says the defendant, ‘Stupid bitch wouldn’t eat the mushrooms!’”

Chrysalis bared her fangs in delighted laughter and let out a chuckle.
“Nice.”

“Now then… your turn.” Estermann smirked back, “What kind of jokes do changelings tell each other?”

Now it was Chrysalis’ turn to give the other a tired glance.
“You really want me to tell a joke?”

He performed a little curtsy, “No, I just… humbly beseech your majesty’s advice in things comical.”

“Yeah, let’s see...” Chrysalis murmured, throwing her massive head back like it was a broken doll’s.
“A donkey beggar canters down a mountain pass somewhere in… let’s say the Westlands.” her voice fluttered a little, “Suddenly, he is ensnared by a strapping hive nymph...”

“A… what?”

Chrysalis sighed, “A… burly young changeling.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Anyway. The nymph throws himself on the donkey’s back and twists his forelegs around the creature’s throat.”

Estermann winced involuntarily.

“‘Now…’ the nymph tells him, ‘Unless you want to wake up with a much bendier neck, you do exactly as I say.’ So he leads the donkey behind a rock and...” A devious smile spread across her muzzle. “...And reaps a great harvest on his love. If you know what I mean.”

“I’m worried that I do...” Estermann murmured.

“When he’s done with the donkey and quite glutted, he leads him back out on the path and sighs, ‘You know what? That was really nice. Here. Have a sign of my utmost gratitude,’ and he hoofs the donkey a big shiny, peach-sized rose quartz. Of course, the donkey’s eyes widen immediately, and he stutters, ‘You... nincompoop! If you had shown me that thing earlier, I would’ve volunteered!’”

Estermann smiled knowingly.
“‘Yeah, but then your asshole wouldn’t have gone like this!’”
His fingers mimed a jittering motion.

Chrysalis stared at her lawyer with stunned silence.

“What?” Estermann asked, his voice sliding around with tipsiness. “...Too much?”

Chrysalis, who seemed to be in the process of trying and figuring him out, shook her head.
“Have… have you heard that one before?” she asked, carefully.

Estermann raised his shoulders carefully, before breaking out into juvenile giggles.
“Honestly, that joke is older than me. I am sorry for interrupting you.”

“No, it’s just...” Chrysalis mumbled, sounding quite unsure herself. “Do you monkeys really have that same joke as us?”

“Not exactly the same,of course, but… the structure’s there.”
He pondered for a moment, “But hey. Your ‘neighbours’ speak our French too, so at this point… nothing would surprise me anymore.”

Chrysalis smile turned into an elated guffaw.
“Besides, I didn’t think you could be such a potty-mouth.”

Estermann couldn’t help but join in in her giggles.
“Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I used to hang out with the... worst crowds imaginable.”

“Other convicts?”

He shook his head and gave a short comical salute.
“Nope, university again! I was acquainted with some first-class scum back then...”
It was as though Chrysalis was gripped by a passion like Estermann had never seen.

“Quick.” she beckoned, “How about this one: How many hippogryphs do you need to paint a rainbow?”

Estermann
“I... don’t know. It depends how hard you smear ‘em?”

“Yep!” she laughed.

Estermann chuckled some more.
“How do you keep an East Frisian from drowning?”

Chrysalis slipped a limb.
“Take your hoof off his stupid little head!”

Estermann spluttered so hard that he nearly threw himself off his chair.
“And how do you spay a Tyrolean?”

“You buck his sister in the jaw, of course!”

“Mother, actually,” Estermann corrected her, pointing up a finger in fake fussiness. “But... close enough.”

Chrysalis cocked an eyebrow.
“...Whatever rocks your boat, I suppose.”

“Oh you.”

Both of them shared a long, long moment of immature giggling. Estermann held on to the desk so he wouldn’t simply slip off his chair. And Chrysalis rested her head against the cell’s wall, also in an attempt to keep herself upright.

“Yep.” Estermann finally confirmed. “That’s black humour for you.”

“Ah yes,” she nodded, elated. “These jokes… they’re a little like changelings.”

“Yep. They never get old.” Estermann quipped automatically.

Both their giggling subsided as they realised what Estermann had just said.

Awkwardly, Estermann propped himself back up. His head was beginning to thump from the booze.

Chrysalis followed suit, scooching away from the wall and towards Estermann’s edge of the mattress, always propping herself up with her forelegs.

“I...” he sniffed.

Chrysalis needed a moment to react.
“Huh?”

“By the way… There is something else I want to talk to you about. Almost forgot about it with all that fun. It concerns you and your… brood.”

“What?” she asked, her voice even more tired.

Ever since his conversation with Mullan, Estermann had been brooding over this subject with mounting worry.
He knew it was not his place to make suggestions about things he had barely any expertise in. He was just a jurist of international law. The law was made by politics, but the politics weren’t any of his beeswax.

But what was urging him to press this issue?
Was it a misplaced sense of obligation? Honour? Superficial actionism?
Did he just feel compelled to vanquish the feeling of paralysing impotence over a situation that was inevitably coming to a terrifying head in front of him?
Or was it possibly just a growing sense of pity for that monstrous client of his?

“Now,” he continued, “I know that they say that ‘nothing’s over until the fat lady sings’...”

“Do they now?”

“...But I suppose there is no harm in planning ahead a little. In the event that they really do cite inadmissibility and you get to go free.”

He ears perked up.
“Continue.”

He took in air through his nose and scraped his trouser legs with his fingers.
“Plan ahead: What’s your first step going to be?”

“My first step...” Chrysalis pondered, polishing her throat with a hoof, “Well… Go home, of course.”

“Now, I…” Estermann spurted, barely keeping himself from interrupting her, “I would advise you that you should consider the possibility of...”
He shrugged, “I don’t know… setting up a government in exile.”

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. She slowly turned towards him.
“A what now?”

“A government in exile,” he repeated. “You reform your royal court abroad, away from the Equestrian mainland, until the situation improves. Have you ever considered the possibility?”

She stared at him in sudden worry.
“Why? Has something happened?”

He slowly shook his head.
“News keep trickling in. Nothing particularly shocking. But neither does any of it point to the Northern Equestrian situation improving anytime soon.”

She snorted.
“Whatever the trouble… once I’m out of here, Alexander, I’ll be going home.”

Estermann lowered his head before shaking it.

“To my brood.”

“I... strongly advise you against it.”

Chrysalis huffed in exasperation.
“Why?”

“You know why,” Estermann scoffed. “Do you really think the Equestrians will let you back into the country? Once word gets out that you’re a free mare, it’s going to be open season.”

She rolled her eyes.
“You think they can stop me?”

“They’ll be waiting for you. They’ll put you down the second you cross the border.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes one more time.

“Look. At the moment, there is no place on this big blue planet where you’re safer than here.”

“But I do not want to stay here,” she clarified, digging her hooves into the mattress.

“Mark my words,” he insisted, “This ‘dark, soaked, freezing backwater’, as you keep calling it, is the navel of the universe, as far as geopolitics are concerned. The Hague, London, Geneva, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Rome. Perhaps even Washington. Forget Northern Equestria. You need to make friends here.”

She smacked her lips. Her expression was unsure at best.
“How many ‘friends’ have I got here?”

“At the moment?” Estermann asked back, stifling a smile. “None to speak of, really. But that still beats the Equestrian situation by a mile, because over here, the people at least don't all want to see you dead.”

“Am I even welcome here?”

“Well… potentially.”
He started counting on his fingers. “First, you'll need to apply for political asylum, of course. Find yourself a nation to patronise you.”

Pained, she closed her eyes.
“I will not let anypony patronise me.”

“You know what I mean.” Estermann groaned. “Secondly, you draw up a list of confidantes - people you want to form your government - and you fly them out. Get them here.”
He looked up in thought, “Which shouldn’t be a problem, as Equestria will likely be more than happy to be rid of them.”

“So, bottom line...” she concluded, growing cutty, “you want me to leave the Frozen North to the ponies. You want me to just let the Equestrians have my ancestral home.”

“Do you really think that you could hold onto it anyway? The way that things stand now?” he asked, challengingly, “Going abroad means saving countless lives. Lives that would otherwise be thrown away in a hot war.”

Nervously, Chrysalis clapped her hooves together.
“I don’t think I want to talk about this.”

Defensively, Estermann raised his arms a little.
“I’m just saying that if you stay here and form your government here, in the safety of a neutral first-world state, you will get the the possibility to campaign for a political solution to your dilemma.”
He curled his right hand into a fist. “Mount external pressure on the Equestrian crown and make their status quo unbearable. Campaign at the UN. Twist their hand until they’re left with no other choice but have a sit-down at the negotiating table and clear the way for a chance at independence. International recognition is the magic word!”

“Yeah, yeah. Enough,” she sighed.

Disappointed, Estermann sat back.

Chrysalis opened her massive green eyes at him. Estermann felt almost blinded by their sheer radiance.
“Let me be absolutely clear here,” she declared in an eerily calm voice, “I will not stay in this place. I will go home. Sooner than later.”

As he gazed, he felt a numbing sensation crawl over his limbs.
In this moment, he began to understand.
For better or for worse, she was right.

Suddenly, she lifted herself from her haunches and swung herself forward, forehooves first.
Estermann couldn’t possibly roll out of the way before the two hooves found their way onto his lap.
The rest of Chrysalis followed suit, propping herself up on and leaning into him, her face coming within inches of his.
She was heavy, and her massive form was sinking into his thighs.
But, strangely, that wasn’t important right now.

“But… let me be fair,” she cooed down at him.

Good God, Estermann thought. He could feel her breaths roll past his nose and cheeks.
He tried his best to hold his own in.

“Your approach is sound. Yes… I will reform my court. But... it’s going to be at home.”

“Hm...” Estermann squeaked, awkwardly trying to convey his understanding.

“With you by my side,” she added.
As Estermann tried to process this last part, one of her hooves travelled up and stroked by his chin.
“Yes, I think I will take you.”

“I’m… sorry?” Estermann mumbled, to piece together his thoughts in the haze, the feeling of her warm hoof massaging his lower jaw.

“You know,” she smiled, “I haven’t met a lot of humans in my life. Incidentally, I have barely met any I didn’t immediately despise. You, though?”
Her hoof directed his chin downwards to force him to look directly at her.
“Call me mad, but… I strangely don’t despise you.”

“...Thank you.”

“You have something.” she sighed. “Something… enticing. Pleasurable, even. ”

A harrowing idea struck Estermann’s mind.
Was that changeling hive queen talking dirty to him?

Was she really that starved for affection that she considered him...

Something dropped inside of him.
He struggled more and more to hold on to his composure.
“Well...” he slurred with a half-hearted humoured pout, “Missus Chrysalis. Are… are you trying to… sedu… sed...”

Before he could finish his quip, Chrysalis silenced him by gently placing her hoof over his lips.
“Please. For now, let’s leave it at ‘My Queen’, huh?”

He nodded dumbly.

“You’ve proven your obedience. You shall be my… my envoy to the human world. My adviser. And since you’re a mar… man of the Law, maybe there’ll even be a senior position in it for you.”
Her muzzle crept closer to his ear, “How does High Justice sound to you?”

It was a predictably bad moment for Estermann to choke on his own saliva.
Yet he did.

He jerked away in shock and began to cough and splutter madly.
Chrysalis, with a looked that seemed to scream either perplexion or simply annoyance, backed off a little.

Trying to bring a bit of civility into the ruined moment, he held up a waiting index finger and tried to seal his mouth with the tip of his striped blue tie.
“I am so...” he coughed, before beginning to splutter again.

Chrysalis couldn’t hide her smile.
“All in good time I guess. No need to count the fat ladies before they sing. Or whatever you said.”

He nodded all too willingly.
“Yes… Perhaps… I think I’ll be okay now...”

Anything was better than letting himself be seduced and spirited away by a thousand-plus-year-old changeling.
Who was also his client.

“Very good...”
Again, Chrysalis closed in, but this time, she placed her large, hole-ridden hooves over his shoulders.
“Moving on. Do you remember the talk you and I had over the magic tube?”

He thought a little.
“You mean… the telephone?”

Her eyelids drooped a little,
“There was something you said. Something that got me thinking. You mentioned… that you have a mate.. And her name is Lena. Lena Rosenroll.”

Estermann bated his breath.

“And you also got a little pupa of your own.”

“In fact… I do “

“What do you call her?”

“G- Gritli.”

Chrysalis couldn’t help but snigger.
“Gritli? Are you serious? Well, then your Lena and 'Gritli' are about to become very lucky little creatures.”
Her tongue almost tickled his ear as she whispered more and more into it,
“They will adore the North. There will be enough living space in the hive for everybody in my court. It is such a truly majestic place.”

“My… family?” Esterann tried to make sure.

She winked.
“And they will like me. I will make sure of that.”

He squirmed a bit.
“I don’t know if they’ll be… they’ll...”

“Nonsense,” she cooed. “I could convince them myself, if you’d like.”
Her eyes lit up in a swirl of mesmerising magical energy. Again, Estermann began to feel strange at the sight.
“They will still be with you when I leave this hole, won’t they?”

“They’re… not with me...”

“Where are they?”

“Switzerland.”

She blinked.
“Any reason why they’re still there?”

“Well… uhm...” he smiled, shrugging as much as the weight of the queen allowed him, “You see, we’re no longer together...”

Chrysalis looked positively mystified.
“Well, yes. Obviously. But why?”

He tried to hold up his smile. But the sudden, small trickle of sadness in his voice, he couldn’t hide.
He tried moving Chrysalis’ legs aside, but naturally, they didn’t as much as budge.
“Now… well… We...Lena and I… had our divorce some twenty months ago. So...”

“And, that means… what, exactly?”

“I’d rather not bring all that to the table.”

“Tell me.”

He gazed at his client, and opened up almost on command.
“That means… uh… that Lena has the house. Lena has the cars. Lena has Gritli,” he began explaining before trailing. “But… you know… it’s for the best that way, I think. It’s the way we both wanted it. We decided it unanimously. No courtroom drama required. We had a partition plan drafted in... a week. It was painful… but quiet and calm and mercifully short.”

Coldly, Chrysalis retracted her forelegs from his shoulders, and placed them back on the mattress.

Estermann relaxed a little as he rambled on,
“It… it all started with… My dear mother... wanted to have grandkids, you see. I was young and stupid and naive, weeks away from getting my master’s, and there was Lena. Economics student, also Swiss - from Tessin, of all places! - and she had exactly the same kind of parents, with exactly the same kind of problems. Somehow, we got it into our post-pubescent brains that we could be stupid together.”
He chuckled hoarsely at his own joke.
“It didn’t take us long to realise that were in over our heads. Marriage.. pah. We were two young upstart professionals, both avid to get out there and set the world alight. So… private life got stretched a little thin. I worked with the UN and the ICC in Vienna. She worked with the Bank of Basel and the Berne stock exchange. We were never at home at the same time.”

“What are you saying?”

“It wasn’t marriage.” he sneered, “It was a long-distance relationship. We… gradually realised it wouldn’t ever be made to work. You know?”

Chrysalis’ voice had hardened.
“I see.”

“I mean… the alimony was a no-brainer, and I still pay it with pride. It’s the least I can do to keep up my share for bad times.”

“And what about your Gritli?”

Estermann hesitated. He didn’t quite understand where she was going with this one.
“What about Gritli?”

Chrysalis bared a sharp scowl.
She lunged forward with a hoof and gave her lawyer a pelt right across his chest.

With the force of a bear’s paw, Estermann was knocked to the side and sent spinning on his swivel chair before unceremoniously dropping to the ground.

That sobered him up in an instant. Scrambling, he pulled himself onto his feet and stared at Chrysalis in nonplussed shock.

“What the hay is wrong with you?” Chrysalis asked him, aggravated.

He tried to ask her the same thing, but he hadn’t yet gotten his air back.

“You talk about it like you tripped and lost a horseshoe. Are we, or are we not, talking about your family?”

“Uh… yes,” he he huffed, scratching his head nervously, “What did you…”

“Are you telling me you’ve willingly left your brood behind?”

Indignantly, Estermann narrowed his eyes. “I… what? No, look, I think there might be a misunderstanding here...”

“Why are you here? Why are you not in the mountains with them?” she growled on “Why are they not with you?”

“Because...” he stuttered, hesitantly, “Because I‘m working.”

“What kind of excuse is that?”

“I’m sorry...” he began, as politely as he could, “I’m afraid that I fail to see what the issue here is.”

Chrysalis just snorted
“To think that I almost decided to take your words to heart… lend an ear to your views on hive and home… Your drivel of Scapegoats. Animals. Exile!”
Her gaze bore into him accusingly, “When this is how you treat your own? You turned your back on them?”

“Your Highness...” he breathed, “We are divorced now.”

“Tell me who protects them now. Tell me who feeds them. Who leads them to new pastures when the old ones go barren?”

“Okay, I think… I see your concern.”
He held his arms up in surrender.
“I didn’t leave behind five hundred larvae here. I… I think that we’ve already established that human and changeling family life… cannot really be compared, can it?”
He packed his fingers together to try and parcel his thoughts. ”Human families are small, they’re… more flexible… more… Different priorities apply, is what I’m saying here.”

Chrysalis was unimpressed.
“A creature who abandons his hive is lower than dirt,” she spat.

A nervous shiver crept into his arms. He tried to fold them to make it less obvious.
“With all due respect, you’re the one who insisted on bringing up my private-”

“Do you think that I’m having a fun time in this cell, so many leaps away from my own hive, knowing in what grave danger they are?” she inquired, her tone out for confrontation. “Leaderless, confused, starving? Surrounded by our enemies?”

“...You …you said your children could take care of themselves.”

“Of course I would tell you that,” she yelled. “With a unicorn standing in the room!”
Her nose flared like a dog whistle. She led a hoof - it too was trembling - as far up to her head as her chains let her. “But let me tell you. I may not look it, but I can barely keep it together. The very thought, it drives me mad. I can barely stand it!”

Estermann was already staring at the floor in shame.

“But oh, what luxury you must have, you fop!”
She sprang onto all four hooves and began to pace across the short distance to the wall. “You’re free as a bird. This is your habitat, and you can go where you please. I take it that, if you decided you wanted to fly home right now, you could. Nopony would be able to stop you, right?”

It felt like he was a small boy who was being told off by the world’s most bloodcurdling headmaster.
“I…” he trembled, “...couldn’t simply abandon my post...”

“Why? Are they holding a blade to your throat? Have they hobbled your scrawny legs so that you can’t get away fast enough before they ride you down?”

He shook his head. The thought of smiling at the absurdity of her words didn’t even filter into his mind.

“Then what excuse do you have?”

“Switzerland… is not exactly a lawless hellhole.” he smirked as he tried to maneuver back towards his briefcase, “It’s… quite literally one of the most peaceful places in the world. Highest living standards, lowest-”

“No place in this world is safe,” she hissed. “Enemies lurk everywhere. Enviers. All waiting for their chance to crawl out of the woodwork and hurt your kin. You may not see them. But they’re there. Waiting.”

Chilling words.
He found his gut squirming with dread.
“I know that… everyday life in Northern Equestria must be harsh and unforgiving. A struggle for survival, surely. But my existence here in Europe… It’s nothing like that. That’s the luxury of this place. So if I don’t stay put and do my job, I will not be able to feed my family to begin with.”

“Good gracious!” she spat. “How did your pathetic race of apes ever get out of the jungles?! Carve yourself a blade, you tie it to a stick, and then you head out and get fed!”

He sniffed, and laid his throbbing head into his hand like he was balancing a football.
“Does…. I don’t know… does it...”

“What?”

“Does it usually happen that you get to take the moral high ground, your Highness?”
With renewed - and possibly alcohol-fueled - vigour, he looked back up at her cynically. “This isn’t what all this is about, is it?”

She drove a hoof into her chest.
“I would never voluntarily abandon my brood. Never. And I never have.”
Then, with menacingly slow steps, she closed back in on the standing man. “The hive is all. There is no calling that is higher. No end worthy of more means.”

A thought slowly began to dawn on him.
“I think you’re a little drunk. We both are.”

Perhaps now, Estermann realised, the point to call it quits for the evening had been reached.
Maybe bringing in a bottle of hard liquor wasn’t the wisest choice.

“Do I look drunk to you?” she inquired. “Or am I just wrong?”

“You’re… you’re not wrong. Of course.”
She had a point, Estermann knew.
Divorce never was a very honourable thing to do.
It certainly never was a thing he was very proud of.
But enough of that nonsense.
“I… just don’t know why you are mad at me. Anyway, you know what I think? I think now would be-”

“I’m disappointed in you because a good drone sticks to his own.”

He tried to give her a critical look.
“Yes, well, but… I’m not a...”
His ability to speak melted between his teeth.
“I… uh...”

Her eyes.
Her voluptuous emerald eyes
They were so beautiful.

They looked even more beautiful from up close.
Why did he not notice sooner?

“You’re right. You’re not a drone,” her voice said. “Right now, you’re just an oaf. A hairless ape who’s convinced he has no top and no bottom.”

“I think it’s… time… that we… wrap… and… I…”

With her so close, he could feel the buzzing from her throat rippling through his body, all the way into his head. It too felt not entirely unpleasant.

“You need to understand… you cannot cast your loyalties into the wind whenever you like. It’s above your station. You’re not worthy of this kind of… entitlement.”

Indeed.
She was right, of course.
He had to have principles.

Which was all good and well, but he really had to go-

“I think we all need to have a good, long thought about where we stand.”

That last word in particular clanged inside his mind.
His body slowly skid to a halt, his half-hearted attempt at escaping her gradual encroachment stopping dead in its tracks.

“There are two kinds of creatures on this earth...” she explained to him. “There are such like the ponies. Enemies. Treacly filth.”

Estermann didn’t - couldn’t - realise just how close she had come to him.
He certainly couldn’t see it. Her magnificent eyes were filling his vision with soothing, dazzling glimmer, and it fixated him like a deer in the headlights.
In fact, it wasn’t until her muzzle smeared across his cheek that he noticed she wasn’t even inches away anymore.

The thought of leaving slowly but steadily trickled out of his mind.
The more she pushed against him, the less he felt like he wanted to revisit that idea.

“But then… there's everybody else. Those who are strong and warlike. Those who know when to listen and when to obey. Those who know the worth of their kin. Broodmates, not chattel.”

And what about humans like himself, Estermann suddenly wondered.

He felt her smile on his chin. “Yes, even humans like yourself. Even if… they haven’t realised it yet. Misled as you are, not even you can deny your nature.”

No, they couldn't. Human nature was very family…

What was he thinking about again?

She took in his scent. He could feel the air around him sucked into the changeling’s nostrils.
A moment later, it was returned to him - warm, moist and in turn smelling of gloriously intoxicating changeling essence.
“You are a good servant,” she concluded. “Ponies could never be like you. And you could never be like them.”

She pressed into him, and his body willingly let itself drop against the wall.

He could feel his own lips parting to give a reply.
“Never...”
Had he really just answered? Or was he hallucinating?

Next thing he knew, she was standing up on her two hind legs, her forelegs climbing the wall to the left and right of his shoulders, propping herself up against him.
Beyond the pools of emerald his gaze was bathing in, his increasingly sluggish senses could pick up on the vibrations of her body.

It amazed him just how high his head suddenly had too tilt so he could follow her eyes’ beautiful gleam.
As she exposed her muscular chest and belly to him, he once again realised just how much bigger she was than him - and how deeply awe-inspiring she really was.

If she were to slip right now, he would easily be crushed under her massive form.
He was no more than a vermin, ready to be stomped by her at a moment’s notice.

A… worm?

The same prickly, tantalising feeling of lowliness that he had experienced a glimpse of in the courtroom that morning once again swept through his belly.

But she just smiled.
“I will forgive you your… lapses. I know that you will serve me. I know that you will collect your family once more, when the time comes. And you will join my side, among the staunchest of my allies.”

It sounded good.
There would be no crushing. She was being incredibly merciful with him.
He was almost family, after all.

“Yes,” she nodded as she read off his expression. “Don’t we all belong together? Your kind and mine. Let our fates intertwine. Let many families… melt... into one family. When the time comes, we shall make your brood my brood.”

“All under… you...” he heard himself say.
Was he analysing the state of things? Or was he just confirming it?

Chrysalis looked surprised.
“Why hello there… You’re actually catching on? I’m surprised. Since when have you become so… receptive?”

This question meant too much thinking for him.
So he stayed silent.

Testingly, his Queen swayed her massive head from left to right.
The battery and cable dangled from her horn, loosely. Fascinated, her own eyes tracked the apparatus’ lax, erratic movements.
“Oh... now I see,” she chuckled. “Well… say what you will about Ponykind… but they do know how to throw the right punch in the right place to… make a change. ”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he nodded dumbly still, because he knew she was right.
Though it did seem funny to him that the thought of him nodding to her was ‘dumb’.
How could it possibly be dumb?

Her face lit up in radiant joy.
“You look so adorable though when you begin to understand. It’s a treat to see somebody surrender.”

Her head swooped down at him, and she pressed the tip of her muzzle atop his lip.

“And you're tasty too…” she mumbled, “Who could have thought that a monkey would have some much love to give? It beats a dead chicken any day.”

He could taste her too now.
And she tasted like… like…
He had never tasted anything so excellent.

He opened his mouth to receive more of the changeling’s succulent, quivering lips…

It felt absolutely appalling when they receded, taking all sensation of her warmth and taste with them, like they had never been there at all.

“How are you still standing?” his queen’s voice finally asked, her tone almost comical. “You are as rigid as a sentry. You won’t give in until I say, will you?”

Very slowly, his head shook.
Thirsting for more of her, his mouth parted.

“Tell me...” she cooed, “what am I?”

Beautiful.

“You...” Estermann’s hapless lips began slurring, “you are so beautiful...”

“Good. Now tell me… who am I?”

Queen.

“M-my… my queen.”

“Such a clever little human...”
A hoof descended onto his scalp with the lightness of a feather and gave it a good stroke.
“That’s alright. I’ll allow you to relax then. I’ll allow you to slip...”

And slip Estermann did.

Like a puppet whose threads were lopped, his legs gave way.
Caught in a pleasant buzz, he slid down the side of the wall.

“Drop onto your knees for me. It’s a so much more fitting place for you to be. Isn’t it?”

Again, he response was automatic. He knew not where the thought came, nor why he chose to say it out loud.

“Yes, my queen,” his voice again answered.

And there he knelt. Where there had once been a client, there now stood a sovereign. His sovereign. And he was in awe at the wonderful transformation.

Ultimately, the queen lowered herself as well - first onto her fours, and then further down onto her haunches.

Even down there on the floor, her head was still swaying above him, holding him by her compelling, never-exhausting stare.

Finally, she tipped to her side and rolled onto her back.

Estermann only watched her drop onto her mattress, nothing short of enchanted by the sheer sight of her.

Like a playful pup, she wiggled her four massive legs in the air and tilted her head forward so she could continue gazing into him, over her heaving chest.

“It’s alright, my little drone. Crawl closer.” She smiled and beckoned with a ringing hoof. “I won’t bite. In fact…”
Her horn and her eyes pulsed softly. The sensations she made him feel intensified. His own breath grew fast and choppy.
“In fact, I won’t be doing anything that you’d be able to rememb-”

XXIX. In The Mills Of God

XXIX
In the Mills of God

ICC Permanent Premises
Office Tower 2
24. November, 2015
8:14 am CET

“Now listen here, Missus Pierman,” the voice of Justice Suruma sighed, “I understand that you are frustrated, but these are the facts.”

The small African woman shivered and clutched the office phone by her ear even harder.

“My colleagues and I have discussed the state of the evidence in great length over the last hours,” Suruma said, trying - yet decidedly failing - to sound calm and empathetic.

“And...” Pierman breathed, in turn failing to sound diplomatic, “And ‘insufficient’ is the only conclusion that you could reach?”

“The defence of Her Royal Highness has pointed out - quite rightfully - some very perceptible flaws concerning the scope and validity of the evidence surrounding Timbucktu.”

“I’m sorry, but...” Pierman breathed. “I don’t think I can accept that.”

“Be that as it may, Missus Pierman-”

“The evidence clearly places Queen Chrysalis at the scene of the crime,” Pierman insisted, and used her well-worn handkerchief to rub the sweat off her forehead.

There was a calculated pause at the other end of the line.
“Now then, you know as well as I that I am not authorised to issue a final evaluation on the state of evidence until the date of the Confirmation of Charges hearing.”

Pierman could hear her smacking her lips.

“However, I can already tell you that there is no way in which this state of evidence could be described as ‘surefire’. Where is the solid bed on which to indict the Queen under the Rome Statute?”

“Missus Suruma, I beg of you.”

“My dear…” Suruma countered, her tone shifting to a stern grandmotherly one, ”I know that this is your first investigation. You are the youngest person to ever hold your office in this institution’s history. So I understand that you might not… have gathered all the practical experience necessary to appreciate the extent of our conventions on procedure and evidence.”

“With all due respect...” Pierman whispered. Her swollen nose flared. “With all due respect! This is not my first investigation. I have already done my part in two others before this. I did Libya. I did Ivory Coast.”

“Then why do you not see the shortcomings of the material that you supplied?”

Shortcomings.
Pierman pressed her eyes shut with her trembling fingers.

“If your evidence on Timbucktu were a little more dense and varied, a solid case might yet be be built against the Queen. And your deadline has - quite sensibly, I should think - been extended. I suggest that you use the time to double down your research, and strengthen your case.”

“I will. I will!” Pierman yelped, the desperation in her voice laid bare.

“And should some stronger links of the Queen to the Timbucktu siege really be uncovered, we will be more then willing to take another look at it.”

“I will find a stronger link,” Pierman swore. “Anything it takes!”

“Not anything, I hope.”

The phone was suddenly filled with shaking and scrambling sounds, as though the tube was being passed around frantically.

“Uh, excuse me,” Suruma excused herself awkwardly, “I have the Magistrate for you.”

In an instant, a second, younger, higher-pitched voice took over.
“Sera? Sera, is it you?”

Pierman hesitated and confusedly confirmed.
“Uh, oh yes. Hello there, Lexy. How are you?”

“Hi!” Lexy Fori squeed amicably, “Listen; I can’t talk for long, Sera, but I wanted to say that I believe in you! Good luck, and happy hunting!”

“I… Thank you, Lexy,” Pierman said, finding herself forced into a smile at the young Equestrian magistrate’s antics, “I hope I won’t need it.”

Again, there was the sound of the phone being passed around.

“Okay, enough of that,” Suruma could be heard sighing, “I wish you good luck for today, Missus Pierman. And, ehm… get well soon.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

And then it was over.
The connection flatlined.

Serafina slowly led the phone away from her ear and gazed at it forlornly.

She tried to put it back on her desk, but then she realised she was standing - had been standing all along, in fact - in the middle of her office, with her glass desk a few short steps away.

Absent-mindedly sticking the phone into the pocket of her suit pants, she crossed over to the window wall and stared out.

The dismal Dutch dunelands looked back at her, giving her something of an uninterested glare.

She didn’t like the Netherlands.
It was wet. It was windy. And everyone here seemed to speak this horribly mangled bootleg Afrikaans.
Not that there was anything wrong with that. Her own husband was an Afrikaner, after all.
But still.

Ever since she accepted the position of Prosecutor in the Hague, her new work had brought her nought but pain.

It hurt.

All the labour. All the sifting. Struggling through all the awful, twisted accounts of crime and atrocity. She had the distinct feeling that it had left her a lesser woman.

But then there also was all the joy and happiness of digging gold nuggets out of literal tons of files and documents, and assembling them into something remotely resembling a criminal case to put those monsters to the sword.
These were the small, unripe fruits of hard, terrifying, gut-wrenching work.

At least in this matter, the Timbucktu matter, all of it had been for nought.
As of now, Chrysalis, the Queen of all Changelings, was not a single step closer to as much as being on trial than a month and a half ago - the day she was first seized by equine and human special forces.

“Find more...” Pierman repeated, scornful at her own words. “Find more! Wena hlanyaan!”

Averting her stare from the window, she abruptly found herself confronted with the hungry stare and leering smile of none other than the Queen of all Changelings herself.

There she hung, on the south wall, on one of the file drawers, defiantly sneering at the prosecutor.
At some point, someone had stuck the blown-up photograph on there for identification purposes. Now, it just hang there, in Pierman’s own office, as a constant reminder of who this whole deal was down to.
Indigo Beam and some other of her assistants had even suggested that Pierman turn that poster into a dart board.
Pierman had, of course, vetoed the idea on principle.
But… she had to admit - a craving was there.

Her eyes. That look.
Suddenly, there it was again, Pierman’s flashing headache.

Her doctor told her that a woman of her age shouldn’t be susceptible to migraine.
But now, her relatively healthy body had found its match in the Netherlands.
She, who had grown up in the broad shade of marula trees and baked under hot tin roofs while, above her, the blazing south equatorial sun burned away, did not take well to the freezing salt-filled fog of the North Sea coast.
And now it had closed her ears and caked her eyes and inflamed her nose.
And every morning that she woke up, her throat sore and aching, she wondered what it was going to do to her next.

She trudged back to her desk, plopped down on the mesh chair and immediately went for her special drawer.
The apothecary.

As she reached forward to pull it open, her fingers found themselves entangled by something light slipping off her tabletop.
Gazing down, she realised that a string of deep-chestnut wooden pearls was holding her hand hostage, vying for her attention. What particularly caught her attention was the miniature crucifix that clattered around with every move her hand made.
She was holding her rosary. Or was it the other way around?

“If my head wasn’t attached to my shoulders...” she mumbled, and pulled the beads off the table and into her pocket.
Perhaps she would have to use them.

Driving the thoughts from her head, she looked over a vast selection of sprays, drops, lozenges and pills.
As she tried to decide which combination would alleviate her suffering the most before the hearing would begin that morning, she stumbled across a little piece of paper, stuck into the drawer with sticky tape.

On it were words, reading:, there were words. They read,
'It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished... unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.’

Voltaire.
That was one human she could always depend on telling her what’s what.

She went over the words two or three more times, drawing them in and absorbing their meaning.
She was glad she had placed it in there.
For every time she went for this drawer - full of doubt and misery about her current situation - this little note was a good reminder of why she came here. And it was a good reminder of why she would stay here until the day she died.

Silently, she reaffirmed her subscribing to this grim fate, and then sheepishly picked out some anti-inflammatory spray, an aspirin and two throat lozenges.

“Well, I really hope that’s ‘non-drowsy’,” a voice commented.

Shocked, Pierman looked up - and found herself staring into the eyes of her assistant.
Indigo Beam, the pegasus with the spiky yellow mane, stood in front of her desk, awkwardly holding on to a stack of paper with one of his wings, and glanced at the selection of medication she had taken out.

“You’re scared the living daylights out of me,” Pierman whimpered.

“I’m so sorry, Ser.”

“Beam...” she sighed, “I told you to call me Sera. Everyone else calls me Sera.”

“No can do, Ser,” he replied cheekily, and stepped closer to the desk to unload his stack.

“How is it that I can never hear you coming in, anyway?”

He shrugged.
“Dunno. I’m a pegasus. I’m light.”

“Right. Perhaps a cowbell would be a good investment.”

Smiling, Indigo crept closer and held his massive pony head - crown-first - into his superior’s lap.

Succumbing almost immediately to the gesture, Pierman stretched out a hand and started patting him on that unruly mane of his.
The way he behaved whenever she was around and nobody else, Pierman could not believe that this stallion was a Equestrian Royal Guard. A file clerk, yes, but a Royal Guard file clerk all the same.

Silently, the two watched the red winter sun rise out of the horizon, brightly cutting through the thick fog that lay over the flat land, and peeking forth from behind distant estates and greenhouses, fields and forests, the countryside growing more rural and untamed with every mile it stretched into the distance.

Beam shuddered as he bathed in the creeping light.
“What have you been so upset about just now?” he asked, his voice swooning under the kneading of Pierman’s massaging hand.

Pierman sighed.
“I tried calling Suruma again.”

“You reached them?”

“Yeah.”

“What did Lady Suruma say?”

“She said... it’s… it’s not gonna be enough after all. They’re not going to put her on the stand with evidence this shaky.”

“Horse apples,” he moaned, and politely retracted his head so he could look at her. “Sometimes I don’t know those human judges do know what they’re doing.”

Painfully, she nodded.
“Agreed. Sometimes it seems like Lexy is the most level-headed among them.”

“It’s just not fair,” he concluded. “We found such good material at what was going on back then. And what to our judges do? They just dismiss it out of hoof! Just like that.”

“Yeah.”
She gave Chrysalis’ poster an ugly glare. “She does not deserve the luck that she gets. She didn’t even bother covering anything up. She presented herself to us on a silver platter. And yet, here we all are, stumbling over ourselves.”

Indigo followed her line of sight.

“She has no friends, no allies,” Pierman continued. “There is only one entity in the universe that’s on her side.”

“Who is that?”

She giggled cynically.
“Time. She knows that she is only in danger of retribution until the last of her victims has died away and the last paper keeping the knowledge about her crimes has crumbled into dust and mold. All she has to do is wait and stay alive.”
She shook the defeat out of her head and symbolically slapped on her tabletop. “But enough of that. Today’s a new day. A new incident. A new set of evidence. Trot is where it’s going to be at.”

“Yeah.” Indigo nodded. “Then again, do you know what I think?”

“I don’t know. What?”

Theatrically, he leaned in closer.
“I think the Changeling queen isn't the problem here. The judges are. I think they’re all crooked. Every last one of them.”

She sighed.
She didn’t know if she was qualified to agree, but neither was she qualified to say that it was not so.

He sauntered over to one of the two guest chairs that stood in front of her desk and climbed into it.
“I never told you, didn’t I?”

She looked up.
“What?”

“Well, on the night of that hotel gala last week ago, the one where you held that awesome speech...”

“Well…” she mumbled, “I thought it became a bit long-winded, quite honestly...”

“Well, on that night, I decided to stretch my wings a little, on my way to the little foal’s room.”
Grinning, he ‘galloped’ his hoof over the tabletop. “And as I crept through the corridors, stealthy as I am, I suddenly stumbled across none other than Lord Mullan.”

“Okay.”

“And guess who he was with!” His grin spread, “None other than our nemesis: Defence Counsel Estermann.”

Pierman’s eyes widened.
“...Nemesis?”

“Well… antagonist, more like. Though he’s still a major pain in the flank.”

Pierman blew her lips at the mention of that idiot’s name.
“No argument there. Estermann is a complete lunatic.”
Thinking, she sat up. “Anyway, what are you getting at? Mullan and Estermann are old friends. The whole court knows that.”

“Well… yeah.”
Indigo had to think for a moment. “But those two old friends stood, all by themselves, in a hotel corridor, discussing our case.”

She shook her head in disbelief.
The gall of some people.

“So I decided to follow them.”
He shrugs, “‘Wouldn’t hurt,’ I thought to myself. They headed into one of the business rooms and shut the door.” There suddenly appeared a smarmy expression on his muzzle.
“Anyway, I didn’t let that stop me. I prowled closer, and catch what else they’re talking about.”

Pierman just gave him an incredulous stare.
“Really? You… were eavesdropping on them?”

“Hey... ” Indigo snapped, just as incredulous, “Those guys were whispering about our case. Wind and whirlwind and stuff, you know?”

Pierman shook her head at her loyal assistant’s spy antics and made ready to down her first dose of pills.
“So what did they say?”

“They were talking to Covalent Bond.”

That, on the other hand, surprised her greatly.
“Covalent Bond? You mean… Doctor Covalent Bond? Our Doctor Covalent Bond? The one I had on the phone not three days ago?”

“The one and only. Equinological Department of the Royal Canterlotian.”

“And… what did they discuss?”

A cruel smile lit up on his face.
“Ways to reach a dismissal of the case, on the grounds of a distinct lack of intelligence.”

PiermanPortman drew a sharp breath and buried her face in her hands.
“Queen Chrysalis, or this court?”

Indigo smiled and nodded.
“I tell you. This whole trial is rigged. Judge panel, defence, they all play under one hat.”

Pained, Pierman tore at her hair.
“I swear. If this case gets dismissed, I will bring every last of them before the disciplinary board.”

Suddenly, she felt his hoof stroking her cramped hands.
“But it won't get dismissed. We won't let it get dismissed. The only way Chrysalis will get out of the Hague is wrapped in chains. Okay, now… stop ripping out your mane, please. What did it ever do to you?”

The moment his lips closed, the office was filled with the distinctive sound of a ringing phone.
Instinctively, Pierman went for the charging station, only to find it empty.
Both she and her pegasus assistant looked around the table, trying to find out where the phone was hiding.
It took Pierman a few seconds to jump up from her chair, reach into her pocket, and pull the absconded phone out.
“God, I should stop doing this.”

“Who is it?”

Pierman looked at the display.
“I suppose it'll be Miss Harshwhinny, with our witness.”

“Oh good! I hope they're on their way now.”

Pierman answered, but before she could get a single word of greeting out, she was interrupted by cacophony.
“Hello, I… ugh, how do you operate this thing?”
There were some random button noises. “Hello? Hello!”

“Miss Harshwhinny? I can hear you.”

“Oh.” the mare’s prim nasal voice remarked. “Very well. How are you this morning, Prosecutor?”

“Uh… good, Ma'am,” she answered.
Harshwhinny, the Senior Solicitor for the Victims from the Council of Harmony, had the privilege of being the only one in the team whom Pierman could yet only address with her title.
It still tripped Pierman up every time. “I hope you and Missus Floret Oats are all ready and set for today?”

“Well… no, we are not.” Harshwhinny sighed.

“What… is it?” Pierman asked, carefully.

There was a short, perturbed silence.
“We have a problem with our witness.”

A chill ran down Pierman's back.
Instinctively, she lifted her hand and took a peek at the dial of her watch.
“What problem? I hope you and the witness are on their way already.”

“We are… not.”

“Where are you?”

“Still in the Kurhaus Hotel.”

Nervously, she scraped at her forehead.

“Ma'am, perhaps it'd be best if you came down and have a look in person.“

“Came down?” Pierman breathed, “Miss Harshwhinny, what are you talking about? It’s twenty past, the trial starts in forty minutes! I was about to put on my robe! You need to get moving now!”

“We can't!” Harshwhinny snapped back, clearly at the end of her tether herself.

“Why not?!”

“Because Missus Floret Oats’ suite door is locked, and she is not opening up!”

Pierman and Indigo raced down the steps of their court tower and sprinted out onto the great plaza to the front.

Thinking quickly, Indigo spread his wings and swept into the air, flying forward to the road to hail down a minivan taxi.
After the driver had gotten over his shock of seeing the gigantic creature swooping down on him and stopped, Indigo landed and motioned Portman to catch up.

Within minutes, they were chasing down the lanes of Scheveningen upwards to the seaside, where they could see the Kurhaus’ pompous architecture coming from miles away.

With half an hour to spare, the kicked the door of the taxi open in the hotel driveway, and hurried up the hotel’s grand staircase to the storey rented out by the prosecution.

After undergoing a short frisk by the guards positioned by the stairs and lifts, they crossed into the East wing and marched towards Room 228, the suite they had placed Floret Oats in.

Already from afar, they could hear the increasingly desperate pleas of Harshwhinny echoing through the corridors.
“Missus Oats. You need to open up! We are running dangerously short on time!”
She was leaning against the door to Room 228, while a clueless-looking human concierge standing beside her.

“Ma’am, there are guests above and below you. Please moderate your voice a little,” the concierge groaned, in a surprisingly annoyed tone.

Harshwhinny gasped as she turned to see Pierman and her assistant arriving, ignoring the concierge’s concerns. “Oh. Prosecutor! You’ve come!”

“What’s going on?” Pierman inquired, not bothering to catch her breath.

Harshwhinny tried had to keep her composure as she explained. However, she just ended up pawing at her own rose blazer.
“I knocked at her door today at seven-thirty sharp. And there was not a sound of her. So I assumed she was sleeping in. I… came back at eight. And there still was no reaction.”

Pierman wiped her nose with her kerchief.
“Is she even in there?”

Her breaths quickening, Harshwhinny’s eyes travelled to the door.
“I… I’m positive. I am almost certain that I could hear her sighing.”

Pierman briefly glanced at the door, then took a jolt at the knob. Naturally, it rattled a lot, but didn’t budge in any meaningful way.
Below, she found a keycard lock.

She turned to the young human concierge who nervously cowered behind Harshwhinny.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. Do you have a key to this door?”

She looked confused.
“This door has been locked from the inside.”

Pierman involuntarily let a nerve-wracking hiss fly. The unsettling situation almost killed her.
“Well, we need to open that door.”

Indigo Beam had by far the shortest fuse of the prosecuting trio. He put on his most martial face and glanced around the small assembly in the corridor.
“Who here has a key? Lockpicks? A crowbar? Something to get through this thing!”

“Meneer...” the concierge mumbled at the pegasus with very evident arrogance.
“You can’t just have the doors of our other guests’ rooms opened.”

Pierman threw a pointing hand towards the door.
“Excuse me, but this guest has a court appointment in less than thirty minutes.”

“I… I’ll have to speak with my manager,” the concierge shrugged, “This hotel has a policy when it comes to our guests’ privacy. Even those who are hosted by a court. Or whatever you ladies call yourselves.”

Pierman’s glare turned increasingly hateful. What was that supposed to mean?
“She… she is elderly. She might require medical assistance, for all we know!”

The concierge shrugged.
“Then perhaps you would like to call an ambulance. We can wait for them to arrive. At that point I would be legally obliged to open that door, and not a moment sooner.”

Pierman was nearly shaking with anger.
But like so many times before, it was at that moment that her lips refused to part for a bark that would have set that jumped-up concierge straight.
“Indigo,” she hissed, “Do something.”

“Yes, Ser.”
As though on a drill command, he jumped into the air and flapped his wings until he floated at the concierge’s eye level.
“I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. If that door is not open by the count of three, I am going to open it with this.”
He held up a hoof. “How will you explain that to your manager?”

Menaced, and her clothes blowing in the gusts of his wings, she took a step back.
“Threats are not going to get you anywhere. We are in the Netherlands. We have the rule of law here. That also goes for your kind.”

‘His kind?’ Pierman wondered.
What kind of people were working here, anyway?

“Oh, you’re gonna tell me about the rule of law now, you monkey?” Indigo snapped back.

“Madam....” Harshwhinny finally chimed in.
“Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that this gentlecolt has diplomatic immunity.”

“And?” she shrugged.

Indigo snarled, and led his hoof closer.
“Do not make me invoke it, lady.”

The concierge huffed.
“If you don’t like our laws, why don’t you go back to your island?”
Then she performed an about-face and stomped away.

“Hey-” Indigo began, before being calmed by Pierman’s hand.

“I think she is fetching the master key now.”

“She better be.”

As the concierge rounded the corner, the sound of her footsteps was replaced by the piercing sound of a creaking lever.

“What’s all this ruckus!” a scrapy, curmudgeonly, equine voice asked.

The prosecuting trio looked around, and found a familiar face looking up at them from the spartan comfort of his wheelchair.

“Major Bodkin,” Harshwhinny gasped, before noticing the spindly grandfather-like pony pushing the wheelchair. “And Captain Malty Water. I hope we didn’t wake you.”

“Evening, Madam,” Malty Water smiled, looking a little confused and tired, “Don’t mind us, we are just getting ready.”

“Ready? For what?” Pierman sighed pleasantly to mask her anxiety. “Your testimony isn’t needed until the 30th. Today’s hearing is on Trot.”

“Oh we know that,” Malty Water laughed, “Don’t worry about us. Old Bodkin and I were on our way for a little refreshing seaside walk post-breakfast. It’ll help us wake up a little bit. We just swerved by to say hello. Isn’t that right, old sport?”

Bodkin glanced up at Pierman, his toupée slipping around on his scalp awkwardly, and nodded with a barely audible huff.

“Wasn’t there something else you wanted to say to the prosecutor?” Malty asked.

Bodkin grumbled and let out a sigh.
“Ma’am...” he began, “May I speak to you... in private?”

Pierman looked at the two elderly stallions and winced nervously,
“Actually, I am… I am waiting for Missus Oats to open her door. We are late for the trial.”

“It won’t take long,” Bodkin grumbled.

Hesitantly, Pierman obliged and stepped aside with her two witnesses.
As long as the master key hadn’t arrived, they had a little time to spare.

As soon as they were out of earshot of Indigo and Harshwhinny, Bodkin immediately began to mumble up at her,
“It’s about… that evening at the cafe, three days ago. The one we spent with the Princess.”
He seemed genuinely uneasy addressing the topic, and hid his eyes under his bushy eyebrows.

“Oh… that, yes.” Pierman nodded, “I assure you. Next time, we’ll find a location where we won’t be disturbed by any-”

“No. No, it’s not that,” he cut her off, and sourly took a breath. “I… Confound it, I wish to offer you an apology, Ma’am.”

Pierman was confused. “What… why?”

He gritted his teeth.
“My behaviour that evening… was quite vile. It was unbecoming of an officer in Her Majesty’s Royal Guard.”

Pierman began to catch on.
“Oh... no, that’s… quite alright. It was a very emotional evening, for everyone.”

“That is no excuse,” he concluded, his voice hushed. “I acted the goat. Not only did I lash out at that… filly from the defence, I even lashed out at one of my sovereigns. If that wasn’t stooping low enough, I lashed out at you.”

Nervously, Pierman clutched her handkerchief.

“I wish I had not referred to you as a ‘monkey’, yet I did.” He winced.

“Well...”

“And I presented your work as... worthless.”

Pierman harrumphed.

Bodkin shut his eyes.
“I was... caught in the heat of the moment. It had been a particularly grueling day. Twelve hours trapped in that flying tube, two hours of being dragged through the local rain and mud, and then… then being insulted by that… half-baked brat of a unicorn?”
He shook his head. “It was quite frankly more than I could bear. And so I lost my head.”

“To be fair, that defence staffer's words weren’t exactly called for.”

“But that was not all.” Bodkin added with welling emotion, “I’ve been feeling this... frustration. Though really, it’s been with me all my life. It had centuries to ripen. The years I spent living in disgrace for all my personal failures on the field of Kiger, mourning over the loss of my friends and comrades… They were decades upon decades I wasted waiting for justice for this cowardly slaughter that cur Chrysalis hosted!”

“I understand.”

“Justice is all that I wanted!” he spat, punching the handle of his wheelchair so hard that his toupée shuddered. “And we almost got it, too! After eight hundred years of waiting and biding and hoping, with insults and defeats and disgraces at the hooves of the changeling mounting, there she finally was! Served to the ponies of Equestria on a silver platter. Ready for the carving. We were so close… You couldn’t imagine the ecstasy that old Malty and I felt!”

The wheelchair pusher nodded.

“And then… like the strawberry snatched from our jaw, it was denied to us once again! They shipped her off, over mountains and forests and deserts and seas… here. All as part of that… stupid… foalish rapprochement scheme that’s been going on between our sovereigns’ governments.”
His teeth clattered, “I would have lied if I said that I placed much faith in the human justice. Or any faith at all. We didn’t know the first thing about it. None of us knew how it would end, or when it would end, or if.”

Pierman placed a shivering hand over her heart.
“Major, I can assure you, as the Prosecutor in charge of this indictment, that I will give my all so that Chrysalis will be brought to justice. Come what may, she will pay.”

He whipped out a hoof.

Pierman recoiled instinctively.
But Bodkin kept his hoof out expectantly.
“Can you promise that?”

She nodded lightly.
“Of course I can.”

“Do not make promises you can’t keep,” he warned her. “As you already know, I once made promises I couldn’t keep. And they have been with me ‘till this very day, dragging at my legs.”

She clasped his old hoof and gave it a firm shake faster than he was ready.
Awkwardly, her other hand disappeared inside her trouser pocket.
There, she once again came across her rosary. Almost instinctively, her fingers dug in-between the beads and clutched them tightly.

“‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small. Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all,’” she recited, in a threateningly hushed voice. “Believe me. She will pay.”

Bodkin leaned forward, his muzzle flaring in excitement.
“And… well… I think I believeyou. And for once, I am not too blinded by hatred and frustration to see it! Only a foal would earnestly believe that you wouldn’t to see a monster like her through.”
He straightened his muzzle. “Will you accept an officer’s humble apology?”

“I… That really isn’t necessary.”

“For Celestia’s sake, I beg you.”

She surrendered with a pout and gave his hoof an extra squeeze.
“All is forgiven, Major, if you can put faith in me.”

“May the Sun and the Moon be with you today,” he bid.

“And with you. Thank you.”

The gruff old military pony sat back and grunted as though a massive load had been taken off his back.
“Well… Now then… With all that nonsense out of the way...” He looked up in expectation at Malty. “What in Equestria is the matter with Missus Oats?”

“Well...” Malty wondered, leaning against the wheelchair in thought. “She did seem a little perturbed during yesterday’s dinner. Do you remember? This is why she retired to her room a bit earlier.”

Pierman’s concern grew.
“Was there something wrong?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say,” Malty answered. “She seemed a little nervous. Frustrated even. Without doubt over her testimony, the poor thing.”

Thinking, Bodkin shifted around on his mobile seat.
“You know what, Malty?”

“What is it, old sport?”

“Cancel the stroll!” he with an unfailing smirk, “Call it intuition, but I have the creeping feeling that today, a better use might be found for this thing.”
He glanced back up at Pierman. “Ma’am, as a sign for my faith, I would like to... offer you my wheelchair, for today. Just in case that Missus Oats would need… a faster means of transportation.”

Even through the cloud of worry, Pierman’s heart warmed at the gesture.

The janitor twisted the bulky key and pulled it out of the lock’s hidden opening.
The lock retracted with a punctuating clacking sound.

Pierman, Indigo and Harshwhinny stumbled into the room almost simultaneously.

They need a couple of seconds to peer around the small, but luxurious seaside room to find any trace of the elderly earth pony Floret Oats.
She lay right before them, in her single bed, curled up and wrapped into her blanket from ear to tail.

Harrowed, Pierman took a step forward.
“Missus… Oats?”

The bundle didn’t move.

Concerned, Pierman closed in on the pony on the bed, and probingly laid a hand on her shoulder.

Much to her relief, the bundled-up pony began shift and squirm lethargically at the sudden sensation.

“Is everything alright?” Pierman asked, gently coaxing the creature to turn towards her, until she did, letting out a hoarse, weak moan in the process.

One of Floret’s big yellow eyes fluttered open, and glanced up at the prosecutor.

“Missus Oats. You need to get up. The hearing starts in little more than twenty minutes.”

Her eye blinked, slowly and heavily.
Then it closed again.

Pierman’s hands briefly cramped into fists of frustration.
Again, she placed a hand on Floret’s back, and shook her, harder.
“What is wrong with her?” she wheezed.

She heard a hollow glassy sound ring out behind her.
She turned to see Harshwhinny standing at the foot end of the bed, clutching a fairly large, empty glass pitcher in her hooves.
“I… ehm...” Harshwhinny began, before hovering her nose above the opening and sniffing it.

Pierman followed suit, and carefully leaned her face closer to let Floret’s breaths wash over her.
Though Pierman couldn’t smell anything, she could still feel the pungent fermentation emanating from her.
Floret was completely drunk.

Recoining from the smell, Harshwhinny placed the mug back on the floor, and gleaned forth a fairly large cork from under the bed.
Pierman was sure that thing could hold at least five litres.
“Equinox cider. I have no idea how she managed to smuggle this into the country.”

“I do...” Indigo mumbled. “She’s owns a tavern, doesn’t she? But you’d think an innkeeper would know better than to sip from her own stash.”

Getting increasingly desperate, she tried lifting Floret’s head, only for it to plop right back on her pillow right away.
“Miss Harshwhinny. we need something to wake her up. Call room service. Order… I don’t know… coffee. Extra strong.”

“No, none of that stuff!” Harshwhinny gasped. “It’s toxic to us.”

“Okay…” Pierman hesitated. ”Then order some fruit juice. Orange juice, apple, mango, anything they’ve got.”

Harshwhinny nodded frantically and bowed out of the room, in search of any - helpful - hotel staff.

“Oh, and ask Major Bodkin for his wheelchair! We are going to need it!”
Pierman wiped her runny nose and slipped out of her blazer, and rolled up her sleeves a couple of inches before plunging her hands under her blanket.
“Indigo! Help me carry Missus Oats into the bathroom.”

He cantered over immediately, though not without asking, “You… don’t want to dump her in the shower now, do you?”

“No no, I just want to dab her face clean with water.”

The elderly earth mare was surprisingly heavy.
Like two assassins trying to lead away a drugged mark, the prosecutor and her much craftier pegasus assistant dragged Floret onto her hind legs and walked her to the comparatively tiny and cramped bathroom, where they awkwardly sat the time-worn mare down atop the toilet.

Her hands shivering from the hassle, Pierman held them under the tap for a few seconds to try and clean her bed-bound witness’ odour off her. When Pierman had gotten ahold of her reflexes, she moistened a towel and knelt down to be closer to Floret Oats’ drooping head, and inspected her wrinkly equine countenance from up close.

As out of it as Floret seemed to be, she let out a raspy moan when she felt the warm, moist towel sweep over her closed eyes and slightly open muzzle. Almost reflexively, she led a hoof towards Pierman’s face, and tried to stroke her cheek.
“Missus Oats, please.” she sighed, and politely led her hoof back where it came from. “You have to wake up now. The court needs to hear your story.”

Still bereft of most of her senses, Floret nodded.
“Yes, dear...”

Throwing the spent towel into the shower cell, Pierman picked up a hairbrush and took it to her mane.

“You are so kind...”

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh… for an old bag like me...”

Pierman shook her head incredulously.
“Don’t say that.”

“I will blow it today.”

Pierman looked up.
“What? What makes you think that?”

“I… I realised something… Yesterday evening...”

“What was it...”

Floret slowly revealed her bleary eyes.
“I cannot remember my parents’ faces…” She gulped. “I tried. But there just wasn’t anything there.”

“It...” Pierman stuttered, trying to sound more uplifting and reassuring than she could be, “it can happen.”

“It’s been so long...”
Floret chuckled hoarsely, “Nine hundred years… and already, I have forgotten my own parents’ faces. But you… you expect me to tell a hundred million people today... about a pony I’ve only seen once, and then never seen again?”

Pierman sighed involuntarily.
“Missus Oats, I heard your story. You told it to me yourself. It was incredible.”

“Maybe...”

“The world needs to hear it.” She glanced up to look in her eyes, “Your words could bring a tyrant to heel.”

“You know when to use which words, dear...” Floret nodded, still drowsy, “I enjoy to hear you speak. It’s always so uplifting…” She chewed on her measly yellow stumps that had been buckteeth a few centuries in the past. “Do you think that if I try to put my mind to it… I might remember how mum and dad used to look?”

“What?” Pierman mumbled. “Well… yes. Yes, of course. Things like that don’t just go away.”

There was an awkward pause.

Floret’s melancholic smile faded away.
“It won’t bring them back. Mama and Papa. Not really. Nothing I might say to that is going to make them whole again.”

“How… how can you be so sure?” Pierman asked, not quite thinking her words through before she said them, “I mean… they’ll never be entirely gone. They exist on elsewhere, you can hope.”

“But they’ve been destroyed, dearie.”
She shook her head, as though she was only now digesting the shock of the revelation. “All those ponies that have been destroyed… our neighbours… our uncles and nieces and cousins… My words are not going to bring them back either.”

“It’s not about that. I mean… you know that,” Pierman stammered. “This is why you stepped forward in the first place. This is why you offered to share your account on the siege.”

“I… I only sent a letter. I only wanted to let the Princesses know that I did see the changeling queen once when I was a filly… but… that was it. I wasn’t ready to… step in front of an assembly of creatures and let them interrogate me.”

“But you did see the queen.”

“...Well yes.”

“Then that’s what matters!”
Pierman placed the brush back into the sink and hobbled closer. “It is not as much about saving those that have already suffered. It is about saving those that might yet!”

Confused, Floret tried to say something, but couldn’t formulate it properly.

“You told me about your family, Missus Oats. Tell me about them again.”

“I…” Floret began, needing an agonisingly long time to sort her thoughts, “I have… two daughters... And one son. My daughters have two children each… and my son one.”

“And? Is that it?”

She shook her head.
“No… My grandchildren have kids of their own now… the youngest is… about fifty?”
She chuckled to herself, “I’m sorry. Sometimes, I can’t even keep count anymore...”

“Do you love your children? And your children’s children?”

“Why… of course I love them.”

Pierman tapped a finger against Floret’s unkempt chest.
“I also have two daughters at home. It is for them that we are doing it. It is so they can live and grow old in a world that is nothing like yours or mine.”
She sniffed, her nose twitching painfully, “The things you have suffered. The cataclysms that you were forced to live through… they must have been... agony. But they can happen again. Easily.”
Pierman’s chest heaved. “But they don’t have to. Don’t you want those horrors banished from our lives? Stomped out of our destiny wholesale?”

She nodded.

Pierman clasped Floret’s hoof tightly.
Her hand pulled the rosary from her pocket and twisted it around her ten clenched fingers like the holiest of knuckledusters.
Her voice wavered as she tried to continue.
“And don’t you want the monsters responsible for it all stomped out right with them?”

Floret looked at Pierman long and hard.

Harshwhinny looked as the human servant with the saucer of glasses filled with colourful fruit juices rushed into the room and past her, knocking on the closed bathroom door.

“And here come the juices.”
Sighing in relief, the middle-aged earth mare edged closer away from the corner of Floret Oats’ bed and leaned back, relaxing her legs a little.
“Sweet Celestia,” she groaned, “what an absolute hassle. Thank goodness we got to her in time.”

Indigo Beam sat only a few inches away, by the other corner of the bed, hunched over, intensely peering at the still-closed bathroom.
“I know, right?” he asked, and momentary glanced over to her end, “Did that kind of thing ever happen to you?”

Harshwhinny blew up her lips as she shook her head.
“Never! I had a few ‘stragglers’ in my time, but… I never had to rouse them out of sleep myself.”

“What is it exactly that you did before… you know...” he raised his hooves towards heaven in a grandiose gesture, “...their arrival?”

Harshwhinny chuckled dryly and folded her hooves.
“I was… well, am... the President of the Equestria Games Committee, but I also pulled shifts as a presiding judge in the Fillydelphia Sports Arbitration Tribunal.”

“You must have had quite a rogues gallery of your own.”

“Please. It was magically amped racing pegasi every time. Once in a while I’d even get a magically enhanced carriage and pair. Those two absolutely dominated the crime statistics. If you could even call it a ‘crime’.”

“Ever did any sports yourself, Ma’am?”

“Well, not to brag...” she mumbled, subtly puffing out her chest, “But I am rather adept with the old bow and ice arrow.”

“Nice. So how did a committee-president-stroke-sports-judge-stroke-bowpony ever become a Senior Solicitor in a Council of Harmony trial?”

She shrugged.
“Princely appointment. Just like you, I’d imagine... Corporal.”

Indigo nodded unsurely. “Yeah, but… it was never just an appointment to me. I’m a clerk. I can type anywhere, about anything. But… there is no place I’d rather type right now. We… are doing something... very important here. Something greater than us.”

“Well put.”

He glanced back at the door, as finally Pierman opened it and relieved the hotel porter of the juice plate. “What do you think they’re discussing in there?”

“Well, I certainly hope something rousing.” Harshwhinny sighed. “Or else Floret Oats will end up falling into the witness box.”

Indigo grit his teeth.
“Did you get a look at her?”

“Of course. She is a complete trainwreck. I doubt this was the first pitcher she emptied.”

“I mean Ser.”

“Who?”

“Prosecutor Pierman.”

“Oh...”
Harshwhinny shrugged. “She doesn’t scrub up too well either, by the looks of it. She has her face buried in a kerchief more often than not.”

“She’s sick.”

“Oh well, I’d be sick of it all too if this is the stuff I’d have to deal with day in, day out.”

Indigo glanced at her.
“No, I mean… literally sick. She’s sitting inside that bathroom with fever. She tried to hide it but… I saw her playing with a thermometer the other day.”

Harshwhinny stiffened her lips, though her face couldn’t muster any visible emotion.
“Poor thing. She shouldn’t be on her hooves at all then.”

“Well… she is.”
Indigo sighed. His eyes glistened. “It’s painful to see her like this. It’s been five days now, and every morning, there’s slightly less of her there.”

There was a laden pause.

Then Indigo’s head shrunk down his neck.
“How do you think this whole thing will end?”

“With Prosecutor Pierman or this trial?”

He shook his head.
“By the looks of it… either.”

Unsurely, Harshwhinny eyed the chandelier swinging above them.
“Well… Ideally, it will end with Chrysalis swept into the darkest, dankest dungeon known to mare. There are no two ways about that. One ought to hope for the best. ”

“And worst case?”

She let out a heavy sigh.
“...Not.”

“Right...”
He began chewing on the edges of his lips. “And what if not?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” she muttered, “or else you’ll just jinx it.”

Indigo did not stop staring.
“That didn’t sound optimistic. What do you think our odds are?”

Again, she sighed heavily.
“If the human judicial machine runs as tightly wound as ours, that should not be too much of a-”

“But does it?” Indigo asked, “Like, honestly?”

Harshwhinny, shook her head.
“Well, I’m sure the humans have their oddities….”

“They’re laughing at us,” Indigo hissed, leaning closer. “We amuse them. It’s like we’re dolls to them. Toys. They think our whole fight is one big joke.”

“Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don’t,” Harshwhinny cautiously admitted.
“Professionalism is evidently not one of their strong suits, I’ll give you that. But if they do tussle, then it surely is not about letting Chrysalis loose on our worlds. Let me assure you, they’re not mad.”

“What if I told you that this is exactly what they’re all hoping for? That this is exactly what they’re steering at?”

She shook her head.
“For what possible reason?”

“I have no idea,” Indigo hissed, with strangely indefatigable conviction in his voice. “Maybe they think that she can be... controlled. Convinced. Maybe they want to see if Chrysalis has anything to offer before they lock her away. Perhaps they think they’ve got a thing or two to learn from her.”

Harshwhinny chuckled incredulously.
“That does not sound like you have placed a lot of faith in our human friends.”

“You want to know my opinion about our human ‘friends’?” Indigo asked challengingly. “They’re wheeling, dealing, meat-eating creeps. They’ve got so little moral fibre among them they have to pass it around!”

“Really now, Corporal...”

“Have you taken a peek in the humans’ history books lately?” he inquired, narrowing his eyes, “I have. Ser gave me a guided tour. But you didn’t miss much, it’s ten thousand years of strife, destruction and misery. Total wars, civil wars, world wars, colonial wars, attrition wars, people’s wars, fault-line wars… Do they ever have peacetime? No, they’ve got ‘cold wars’ and ‘trade wars’ and ‘police actions’ to pass their time. I need a thesaurus to even talk about it! Mankind has dabbled in so much duplicity and hatred and brutality until now that... how they could possibly consider Chrysalis anything other than a role model is totally beyond me!”
Caught in the moment, he tipped his hoof into Harshwhinny’s shoulder, “If they didn’t know Her Majesty, our Princess Celestia, had her all-seeing eyes on her, they’d plunge themselves into Chrysalis’ cell and plant a big old smacker right on her lips.”

Harshwhinny shuddered at the mental image.
“Well, not as long as our dear Prosecutor Pierman has anything to say about it.”

“Look at her!” he hissed.

He hissed with such vigour that Harshwhinny couldn’t help but recoil.

“That poor...” Indigo winced, his chest heaving intensely, “Ser is... different from the world. She is decent. She’s courageous, she’s respectable... she’s more pony than human, is what I’m saying. And she’s had it. She wants to get out. Away from all this... mindless, careless cruelty and depravity. Action for action. Case for case.”
He slipped off the bed, and flailed his legs around aggressively.
“And… you know… I’m tired of seeing her fail, again and again. She tries so hard, works day and night on building up this stupid case from nothing. But what difference does it make? None! Here, her wars and her battles, they amount to holding a match into a tempest!”

But Harshwhinny stayed cautiously optimistic.
“Strong seeds grow strong trees.”

Defiantly, he shook his head.
“Not here! We’ve stumbled into the desert of the universe. Our strong seeds coat their streets like pebbles!”

“Alright, enough of that.” Harshwhinny sighed, and looked him square in the eyes.

“Why enough?” he panted, “I’ve only just gotten started!”

“Corporal, are you calling Celestia a foal?”

“I… what?”
Indigo’s eyes became ostrich eggs.
He gazed back at Harshwhinny with unbridled shock and confusion.
“No, I… absolutely not.”

“There. Do you really think somepony as wise and as clever as Her Majesty, Princess Celestia could be so stupid as to hoof away Chrysalis for judgement to a place where she would inevitably be surrounded by potential allies?”

He needed a few seconds of uncomfortable and suppressed nodding before finally squeezing out a meek, “Maybe she just doesn’t know.”

“You are calling her stupid then!”

“No...”

Harshwhinny sighed.
“You were right about one thing in particular. This affair is greater than us.”

Mystified, he peered over to her.

“You are, just like me, here to be a servant to our nation and to our Princesses. Our role is not to ask, but to do and dare and fulfil our duty.”

“And which would that be?”

“...Help this Court and the Council to the best of our abilities. No more and no less. This has been our Princess’ request.”

“I know, but… is that it? Like, really?” he stammered, “After yesterday - and the time before yesterday - I’m getting the feeling that… sifting through dusty records is never going to get Chrysalis locked up in the long run. If even pon- people like Ser can’t make a splash around this place, what could we possibly do?”
He shivered nervously. “I mean... Are you just not bothered by this situation in the slightest?”

“Of course it bothers me... In measure,” she stated, matter-of-factly. “Stay professional, Corporal. And think. What does Princess Celestia expect from us?”

Still shivering, he straightened up.
“...‘Help this Court and the Council to the best of our abilities’?”

She tapped the side of her head in a thinking motion.
“Doing what?”

“Uh… take down Queen Chrysalis, naturally.”

She nodded. “Precisely.”

“Yes, okay, but what if the humans don’t sit in on this? What if this human court lets itself get bewitched by that changeling queen?“

Her eyebrows lifted meaningfully.
“We will know that at least we will have done our duty. No more and no less than what was expected of us.”

“Yeah, yeah... But what? I mean… You’ve got any suggestions? What are we gonna do, worst case scenario? Burn the place to the ground with Chrysalis inside?”

“Corporal!” She drew a sharp breath. “We want to help the court, remember?”

“Right.”

She sighed tiredly and smacked her lips.
“Did I ever mention my father was a Guard?”

Confused, he shook his head.
“You… no. Really? What unit?”

Harshwhinny rubbed her hooves together, her eyes once again trailing over the ceilings and out the corridor.
“He was an officer of the Royal Guard Police. And he had a… firm, intricate sense of right and wrong. He used to tell me that there is one particular edge that those who refuse to do wrong have over those who refuse to do right.”

“Oh? ...Which one was that?”

She smirked.
“Those who are virtuous and principled gallop over the estuary of truth on a stalwart stone bridge. Wrongdoers, on the other hoof, scramble over a beaver dam.”

“And that means... what, exactly?” Indigo again asked, still not as wised up to her words as he wanted to be.

“You cannot trip a virtuous mare. If she falls, she can get right back up and carry on the gallop. She can’t be undermined, she can’t be destroyed, as she is beyond reproach. The truth will not harm her.
She drew a breath “But wrongdoers? Wrongdoers must beware that their own sins and vices will not one day jump them and bite them in the rump and make them drink.”

“Okay.”

“Indeed, it does not take a great effort to trip a wrongdoer. It lies in a wrongdoer’s nature to do most of the work themselves.”

Indigo tried to slow her down with a wave of his hoof.
“Look, I get what you’re saying, but what does this have to do with our duties, or this court, or Chrysalis?”

Harshwhinny pouted, and gave him yet another meaningful glance.

Something struck Indigo’s emergency brake. His stream of of words came to a screeching halt.
Epiphany bloomed inside him.
“Oh.”

In the distant end of the corridor, the two ponies could hear wheels creaking and tinny metallic banging.

“Ah.” Harshwhinny noted. “And here comes the wheelchair.”

Having found new vigour, Indigo took off towards the bathroom door.
“Ser! We’re ready and set!”

Pierman gazed at her watch.
They had exactly twelve minutes until nine.
ETA? Seven minutes.
They could make it work.

The momentum pressed her into her seat as the taxi took off and discharged onto the promenade street.

She folded her hands, burying her watch-hand under the baggy cloth of her winter coat, and sat back, trying to squeeze the anxiety out of her system.

Only then did she feel her nose slowly beginning to trickle.
Awkwardly, she fished a handkerchief out of her trouser pocket and wiped away.

Across from her sat the ever-weary Floret Oats, barely kept upright by Senior Solicitor Harshwhinny, who was sitting next to her.

Awkwardly, Pierman peered over to Indigo, who was sitting next to her, and he gave her a strangely mournful glance back.

“This was close.” Pierman finally concluded. “Really close. This must not happen again. It cannot. We might not be so lucky next time.”

Indigo nodded.
“You got it, Ser.”

A moment of oppressing silence ensued.
Hopefully, so Pierman hoped, spent digesting the shock and ingesting the message.

“Say, Prosecutor...” Harshwhinny suddenly began in an apropos tone, “Is it true that the prosecution and defence have to share a kitchenette?”

“Uh…” Pierman mumbled, the query taking her by surprise. “I think so, yes.”

Harshwhinny nodded, and gave her vis-à-vis some kind of meaningful look.

“Why do you ask?” Pierman made sure

“It’s nothing, Prosecutor. I’m just suddenly feeling a little thirsty.”

XXX. Post Mortem

XXX
Post Mortem

Edith watched the clouds of warm breath that escaped her lips.

It was strange that she wasn’t shivering from the terrible cold that must have drifted in the air around her. But it didn’t bother her in the slightest.
Her lab coat was casually unbuttoned, leaving her summer blouse exposed to the room’s refrigerated air. Her hands were stuck in the coat’s pockets, but only because she had nowhere else to put them. She felt at home.

The spotlights blinded her briefly, forcing her to avert her eyes from the dissecting table and let her gaze drift of the rows of dark, wooden stands that mounted up around the rotunda of the anatomical theatre in an elegant semicircle. As empty as they were, there was the occasional shadow among them that hinted that she and the other aspirants were under quiet observation.

She had always remembered this place bothering her more.
For one thing, the temperatures could get quite unbearable during three-hour exams.
And, by virtue of her name starting with a ‘Ш’, that meant that she had to wait through all of it.
Her hands were already said by her professors to be the steadiest in the course - but that was only the case at room temperature.
But… that was it, really.

“Alright then!” a loud voice bellowed from the vicinity of the dissection table. “Will the Banja Luka Delegation gather around, please? Come on, boys and girls, squeeze in.”

Instinctively, Edith’s peers, each and every one wearing, just like her, a lab coat and a white medical cap, grabbed their pens and notepads and stepped towards the cold light of the deck lamp, which sent light falling down a porcelain slab, which was carried a body that was in turn completely obscured by a blanket, as well as a middle-aged, but muscularly-built lecturer in a white coat of his own, a garish tie and round academicians’ glasses, who stood on the other side of the table and curiously peeked under the blanket, as though to make sure he wasn’t looking at the outlines of the wrong ‘patient’.

Edith moved up as well, but she was sad to realise that she could find neither pad nor pen in the rush.

“Alright then,” the lecturer repeated, rubbing his gloved hands together as he glanced around the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the summer circus. Lovely to see you returned from the winter sleep all relaxed and rejuvenated. Just in time for me to drag you back into the hell of reality.”

He chuckled.
Edith vividly remembered old Doctor Levenshtein’s questionable sense of humour.

Of course. Now it all came back to her.
This was Moscow. The People’s Friendship University, RUDN.
Six months of residence in the Institute for Medicine. Probably the most productive - and, alas, happiest - spring and summer she had in the past few years.

“Now,” he muttered, “let us take a look at our first patient. This is a special one, and I hope you’re going to appreciate her as much as I when we’re done.”

He reached under the blanket and dragged out a pale foot. “First, let’s take a look at the old meat ticket, shall we?”
Twisting the toe, he pulled out an orange tag. “Gender: Female. Age: Thirty-six. Place of birth: Prijedor, SFR Yugoslavia. A countryman of yours, I see! My thanks to the Medical University Hospital’s kind donation.” He glanced up, “Ethnicity: Serb… No surprise there.” He shrugged and read on. “Name: Redacted, unfortunately, for the purposes of this session.”
Unfazed, Levenshtein smacked his lips.
“Place of death: City of Canterlot, Principality of Equestria, Equestria. The new world, boys and girls! And lastly… cause of death:...”
He smiled at his aspirants. “That, I’m going to let you figure out for yourself.”

With a fluid pull, he uncovered the body on the table as though she were something epoch-making.

A collective groan of shock went through the aspirant pathologists as they inspected the cadaver.
Some turned away, others began to cough.
What sight could possibly be bad enough for hardened GPs and anatomical forensicists, all with three-plus years of residency under their belts, to avert their eyes?

Curious, Edith stumbled forward to see for herself.
And herself she saw.
At least, her corpse. Pale and stripped naked.
But it was fine, it looked completely untouched. It was nothing that Edith herself could have considered stomach-churning in the slightest.She looked like she was in the middle of a long, peaceful slumber.

“I know, I know,” Levenshtein sang, “not a pretty sight. Not pretty at all. But you’re going to have to deal with plenty of gore in your coming careers. So consider this an immunisation exercise.” He grabbed a tray with the standard medical instruments and sniffed. “Another silver lining is that you’ll be getting to learn something about life as much as about death from this patient. Doctor Kovač!”

A young blonde girl glanced at her lecturer and cleared her throat nervously.

Levenshtein clasped Dead Edith’s left leg and lifted it up gently by the thigh.
“Ignoring everything else: What can you see here, Doctor Kovač?”

“Oh! I can see...” She pointed a finger at a number of bulging scars that dotted and criss-crossed her leg muscles seemingly at random, “Some scattered scars.”

“Any guesses who or what inflicted them on her?”

“If I had to guess… maybe an explosion? I wouldn’t know of anything else that’d lodge so many tiny foreign bodies inside a person’s thigh.”

“Bravo, Kovač.” he smiled, and dug out a folder from under the desk. “What we have here indeed are shrapnel injuries, sustained in… an incident involving a PROM-1 antipersonnel mine in June of 2011.” He shrugged. “Poor girl was returning from the excavation of a military graveyard in Mostar, Herzegovina. An uplifting and fulfilling job that I’m sure anyone of us is aspiring to take. Right?”

Silence.

Unfazed, he grabbed Dead Edith by her head and bent it to the left, revealing the side of her jaw to the others. “Look at this. Doctor Nikolić. What can you see here?

A guy with youthful ginger stubble leaned over her lifeless face.
Her jawline still looked blue and swollen, almost plum-like.
“Uh... a blunt force trauma. The healing process had already started though.”

“Thank you. What you see here are the results of being struck by rockfall, possibly sustained during another field excursion in Southern Equestria. Which reminds us to never venture into the mountains without a helmet on your noggin. Got it, everyone? Good. Lesson learned. Moving on.”

Bending her head back even further, directed the aspirants’ attention at at area between her neck and left shoulder.
Even Edith could not help but lean in with childlike fascination. She never had the chance to see herself from this angle before. From the side, she looked so very different.

“Doctor Kazun,” the lecturer called. “If you please.”

A woman with braided brunette hair shuffled forward.
Dead Edith’s neck was practically white with mended wounds from stitches that had once dug into her pasty skin.

“Uh… I see… a single scar. There are… traces of a suture, so, uh… uhm...”
She trailed off.

Grinning, Levenshtein shook his head and directed a finger along the left side of Dead Edith’s neck.
“Lacking, Doctor Kazun, lacking. Records say we are looking at a...ballistic trauma that severely fractured the clavicle. .30 Russian Short, close range, though probably a ricochet. Hence the need of an intramedullary fixation.”
He adjusted his glasses and pouted.
“Injury was sustained at the tender age of fifteen.”

Silence once again spread through the room.

“Like I said… this young Madame has led a fascinating life. One can safely assume we’re looking at yet another victim of your war.”
He positioned her head at a more natural angle.
“But was this wound life-threatening? What say you, Doctor Kazun?”

“Uh… only if the subclavian artery were injured.”

“Quite right. The artery was barely touched. She was lucky to walk that one off.”
He stretched himself before continuing.
“But… not lucky forever, by the looks of it. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. We come to our grand finale.”
He grabbed Dead Edith’s right arm and and held it aloft, laying bare the entire right side of her torso.
“Doctor Branković, will you do us the honour? We need a cause of death!”

A boy with a thin moustache folded his arms uncomfortably.
“Ahem… Well… we are looking at... several causes of death, really. Massive blunt force trauma… massive fractures, ruptures and blood loss abound. The crushing of the body would be consistent with… a fall. A fall from… I would say, fifty metres?“

“Excellent.” Levenshtein nodded. “You know what they say. ‘The higher you climb…’ Well, you can guess the rest.”
He held up the coroner’s report and adjusted his glasses. “Massive blunt force trauma, causing fractures of both tibias, fibulas, patellas, femurs, the pelvic girdle, vertebral column, and ribs, as well as ruptures of the large intestine, small intestine, left kidney, right kidney, liver, stomach, and left lung. And massive blood loss.”

Next, he directed his gaze directly at Edith, who still stood in the crowd, saying nothing, her hands still hidden in her coat’s deep pockets.
“Ah, Doctor Šarić. There you are. Hidden in plain sight, as usual. Do step up.”

Edith obeyed, and stepped up to the table she lay on.

“As a little bonus round, I would like to ask you about the following.”
He clasped Dead Edith’s arm and held her fingers practically under Edith’s nose.
“What will you be able to tell me about these irritations between the patient’s fingers?”

“Those are papule scars,” she answered automatically, “She contracted contagious pustular dermatitis after she was licked by a sheep on her father’s farm. The disease acutely progressed due to the poor sanitary conditions of her environment, and a resultant immunodeficiency.”

“I w…” Levenshtein had to stop and take a look at his medical file. “Well done, Doctor. Well done indeed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you snuck a peek at her file.”

Edith gazed at herself briefly before shaking her head.

Digging through the assortment of medical cutlery on his tray, Levenshtein picked out a medium-sized scalpel and twisted it around in his hand and offered it to her, grip-first.
“Well then, Nurse Nightingale... I wonder what you can then tell me about her guts.”

Edith nodded and accepted the sharp instrument from her lecturer.
Like so many times before, standing over a body - with this one seeming as familiar as it seemed foreign - her mind cleared and invited in her cool and professional self as she prepared for the assignment at hand.

Oh yes. This was a thing she had missed sorely, and she didn’t even realise it. The buzz of excitement of a task waiting to be processed by her steady, precise fingers. This was her world. Here, she thrived.

And she did not even have to remind herself that there was nothing wrong with it. Digging through a once living being's cadaver had never bothered her too much. After all, what was done was done. This person - or rather, this person’s remains - could no longer be helped. So no need to lose sleep over it.
Dead flesh was easily cut.

“Fair Edith!” a voice echoed.

Momentarily distracted, Edith glanced up, inspecting the gallery of seats all around her.
The other aspirants, as well as Levenshtein, did the same, their faces marked by shock.

“Don’t!” the voice shouted again, pleading.

From one moment to the next, her fingers felt like they had been paralysed. The scalpel slipped from her numb fingers and clattered on the tiled floor.
The voice seemed uncannily familiar. She reminded Edith of someone.
The disturbance triggered something in her. For the first time in what seemed like ages, her body was rocked by a flight of intense panic.

A black shadow swept in under the darkened ceiling, with such velocity that Edith had trouble following it with her eyes.

Her peers scattered out of the light a little with increasing worry, voices dropping to hurried whispers.

The shadow slipped over the rows of empty seats and seeped into the centre of the round auditorium.

The hapless medical aspirants dove away from the shape as it snaked its way towards Edith and the slab.

Before she could so something to avoid the ghostly apparition, the shadow shot out of the floor like a great black weed and swelled into a life-sized, remotely animalistic shape.

Helplessly, Edith watched the apparition transform into a black solid blob.

“Edith!” the mass screamed.

A head seemed to grow out of the top of it. Before long, this ‘head’ shook itself and rid itself of the dark matter, which slipped off her much like a cowl.
This cowl revealed the head of a dazzling equine creature, her coat darkest blue, and her mane coldly burning like a star-filled night sky, with burning, earnest eyes that pierced Edith with their grave stare.

“Oh child...” the equine breathed, not taking her eyes off Edith as she tried to command her unformed body to wade closer. “At last. At last! Thou must listen, for We may have little time to spare. This foul magic, it seeks to pry Us from thy dreams-”

The mare tried to continue, but was momentarily visibly harrowed by a glance towards Edith’s cold, deceased body resting on the slab next to her.
Her breaths intensified.

“Thou...” the mare continued, recovering from the sight as best as she could, “thou art in great peril. Thou must hold on to thy wits. Try to surmise thy whereabouts. Remember where thou art, whence thou hast come and whither thou wilt be dragged! And… lose thyself not. Always remember who-”

Edith’s world suddenly tilted. Her thoughts became jumbled and flittered far away as vertigo overtook her. Her head began ringing as her balance was taken from her.

She was going overboard.

The Moscovian medical theatre dissolved before her eyes into the black void.

Edith’s fall seemed endless. The momentum, even as it picked up, seemed to push her downward for half an eternity.

A cool wet sensation suddenly blew over her fingers and travelled up her hands and arms.

The faster she fell, the more she realised that she had her eyes closed, and that she had to open them.
But they wouldn’t. It was as though they had been glued shut.

Something long and thick roughly broke her plunge.
She could feel herself flailing around like a freshly caught fish, before whatever she had slipped onto carried her off.
For a moment, she harkened back to the strong, unyielding arms of her father that had carried her around when she was little. It was the same aching, uncomfortable position…

She was placed down on her back, onto something that was surprisingly soft and heated. Immediately, something swept across her face, leaving behind a sticky moist sensation that made her grimace in disgust.
Again, something - somewhat soft and of harsh fur - swept across her eyes, rubbing them and the rest of her face clean from something slick.

Freed, her eyes fluttered open, to a distorted sea of dark green.

That’s when her gag reflex kicked in. Almost automatically, her body rolled to the side and her head cocked her mouth sideways. And then she began to splutter something - something that had been inside her all along. She didn’t feel sick. Her stomach was almost ominously calm. Yet there was something in her esophagus. And there was something blocking her airways, all the way down her trachea. Her retching flushed it out.
Then it was gone.

Something clutched her by her cheeks and moved her head back over.
Behind all the bleary green, she could make out a vague figure, a head looking down at her.

Through waterlogged ears, she could hear it speak to her, its words short, repetitive, desperate, and almost bark-like.
“Ma’am! Ma’am! Ma’am!”

As the moisture trickled out of her ears and the gunk flowed out of her eyes, the world once again began to return to Edith.

What she may have noticed first was the smell. The intense, overbearing, omnipresent smell that was not unlike unspent petroleum - sweet and entrancing.

Second thing, she realised how incredibly tired she was. What a strong calming buzz emanated from her head and sent waves of tranquility flowing through her limp body, and it just motivated to lie even more still, mind the creature hanging above her even less…

A sharp slap ended that serenity promptly.

In a painful instant, her senses sharpened. She promptly shot her hands up at the attacker, but his hooves warded her off.

“Stop it! Stop!” he hissed.

She recognised the grey unicorn stallion with the dented golden armour.

“You need to get up! He’s gone. Now’s our chance to get out of here!”

Edith needed a moment to process it. She wasn’t usually this slow. But it caught her off guard all the same.

“The next one could stop by any minute! If we want to make it out alive, we have to make a run for it...”

Edith’s attention drifted to the ceiling above her. Tinged in a dim green fluorescent light, she saw white limestone, and long stalactites pointing down at her face, casting long shadows that stretched into seemingly all directions.

Another sharp slap broke her attention.

“Don’t make me do this, I beg you! Get on your feet! I cannot carry you.”

She tried it out and lifted her knees. The ground beneath her feet was soft and wet, as though she were standing in warm clay.
The unicorn pulled her upright, and like a one-year-old that had just found her balance, she staggered forward.

Before she had an idea where her feet could take her, she was already pulled forward by a immaterial glowing force that seemed to stream out of his horn.
“Follow me. Do as I do.”

They crossed the small cavern they were in. Edith quickly noticed that all the walls were lined with shimmering green treacle that looked as moist as the ground felt to her. A brief look down confirmed it. She was standing knee-deep in something.
Wondering how she could feel it so freely, she realised that she had no shoes.

She felt her stomach. She noticed that she was down to her shirt and long winter underwear. Her winter jacket and scarf had disappeared off her like everything else.

Frantically, the unicorn paced by the coated walls and sniffed searchingly before stopping in front of a section that seemed to bulge slightly.
He gave her a meaningful glance. “I’ll go first. Just hold your breath.”
Then he dove right into the wall. To her surprise, the material accepted him openly, and he melted right inside without so much as leaving a hole.

Edith’s mind told her to steer clear of the swallowing gunk, but an invisible will compelled her to stay on his heels.

Her fingers going first, she advanced towards the wall and testingly leaned her hands against it.
The substance proved to be extremely viscous and surprisingly hot to the touch. She wasn’t accepted nearly as easily as the unicorn in front of her.
Inch by inch, she pushed in, closing her eyes as the upright green mass touched and enveloped her forehead.

Before she knew it, she was once more enveloped.
Before she knew it, she was once again in complete darkness.

“Oh dear...” the unicorn muttered as he dragged her alongside again, “I suppose this stuff just… has this effect on you.”

He wiped her face clean again. But this time, Edith mustered the strength to help with her own soiled hands.

She hadn’t considered it before, but she suddenly thought about what terrible shape her hair had to be in after that… bath.

She opened her eyes to a passageway - the same rock and lime, with the same stream of green gunk flowing at her feet and seemingly trickling up the walls.

The Royal Guard unicorn glanced up at her.
“Look up once in a while. They could easily sneak up on us from anywhere.”

“Who?” she mumbled. Her voice almost wasn’t there. She resisted the urge to cough up more green.

“They can climb walls. And they do. And don’t get me started on their flying. It’s totally silent.” he mumbled back, looking up and down the passageway fearfully. “Let’s go that way. But keep it down.”

They trudged on, down a corridor that had only barely enough of a gleam of light to look down.
Exasperated, Edith tried to retrace her mental steps.
Last she knew, she was lying in the snow, her power punched out of her by the fall from the window of the castle in the Everfree.

Now she was here, in this cavern. And so was Sergeant Golden Dirk. The changeling.

She knew she should have been harrowed. But all she could muster was bemusement.

“You… you’ve been out for, like, three days now.” Golden Dirk whispered, his voice trembling nervously. “Or two. I don’t really know. There’s no sunlight in this place.”

Edith’s mind clicked.
“This… is a hive, isn’t it?”

He nodded.
“I didn’t know where they came from. I ran straight into them. And I still had my… you know… Guard veneer and everything on.”

They stopped at yet another nondescript vertical pool of green treacle, and rubbed a probing hoof over it.
“What about you? Do you remember anything?”

Edith thought for a moment. Not really. She remembered some humans, in uniforms and turbans of all things, but that couldn’t have been right.

“I don’t think they got to anypony else but us,” he continued and sneered impulsively. “The nerve. The absolute nerve! There were Guards swarming all over the place, they were almost on top of them! What the hay were the changelings doing right in the middle of it?!”
Digging at the wall, his hooves seemed to find something. “Ah. Got it. I’ll open up. That’ll make it easier for you.”

He put his hooves together and pushed them in. As they sank in, he spread them out - and pulled the green film with him. It created a ever-widening gap that revealed a hidden branch-off that led deeper into the cavern.
“Oh mama...” he whimpered, “I can still do it. I’ve still got it!”

Under his movement, the hole grew to the size of a suitcase. Before Edith knew it, Dirk was already slipping through.

She made herself as small as possible and ducked into the dark hole after him.

A new tunnel. But unlike the others, this one wasn’t bare.
For a moment, it looked like they had crept into some sort of crypt.

In the ominous twilight of the green gunk’s glow, she saw metal and gemstones sparkling in equally impressive abundance.
She stepped over heaps of random objects in various states of decay and filth that filled every corner and niche of the room.
Ripped rugs, a muddy mattress, bent beakers, shards of dishes, dampened books, crumpled parchment, chairs, table legs, rusty plough equipment, a couple of wicker baskets, a straw hat, a bushy clotted fur cap, broken gas lamps, a derelict gramophone, a blistered guitar, a concertina, a popped military snare drum, rusty shields, upturned golden helmets, components of a longbow and some arrows.

But more of that later, Edith thought.
Most of the stuff she didn’t really care for. But the arrows drew her in. They had metallic heads and seemed as sharp as ever.

Instinctively, she reached and pulled them tip-first out of the slime, snapping the feathery ends off.

She clutched the remaining few inches in her fist and felt the cold bronze tips. Would they do the job? They were pretty sharp; they might.
She felt marginally safer.

“The thieves...” Dirk spat as he waded on, trying to reach the walls to tap them. “Look at all that stuff.” There was a crunch. He glanced down nervously, only to find that he was standing on some kind of album. “Books. What on earth would they want with books?”

As she caught up with the snooping soldier, she couldn’t help but notice that there was even more unseen equipment piled on in the shadows.
Were those life preservers? Whoever was responsible for this, they had certainly been journeying.
Then she noticed a bright orange plastic helmet. An electric megaphone. Several ski poles and an empty can of corned beef.
The more familiar the junk became, the more it worried her.
“What is ghoingh on here?” she inquired, her voice raspy.

“Keep it down!” he hissed. “I’m trying to find a way out of here. We’re in some cave, alright, but I have no idea where I’m going. This place is a maze. But... we must have come in somehow!”

She felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.
“When was that?”

He turned to gaze at her.
“Do really remember nothing? Like I said, two or three days. They picked us up the moment we jumped out of the fire.“

Her eyes drew blank.

“You... remember the fire in the Chancery, right?”

She couldn’t say that she did. She vaguely remembered she was on the run, but little more.
“We… we already were in the Chancery?”

He looked slightly incredulous.
“You’re kidding right? You and me, we were all there, when they… started setting the books alight left and right.”

“Who?” she breathed.

He shrugged.

“And… why?”

“I guess they wanted to smoke us out. Pah. Worked well enough!”
He kicked at the pile and sent scrap flying in all directions. Then he felt the coated piece of cave wall.
“I would’ve gotten you out of your cocoon sooner, but… they always came to look. I first had to get a hold of their patterns, their shifts. You see, they didn’t know I could leave whenever I wanted. I... wasn’t too hot on them noticing that, though.”

“So… wait, we were imprisoned.” she made sure, slowly.

“As far as I’m concerned, we still are.”

“And… You freed yourself.”

“Well...” the ‘unicorn’ sighed and wiped some slime off his horn. “I can. But those savages can’t find out about that.”

Savages, Edith thought.
“What are we talkhing about here, Sergeant?”

He held his ear against the wall, before stretching out his front hooves. Again, he split the slime and peered into the next room through a hole barely broader than his muzzle.
But then his eyes shrunk.

“...What?” Edith asked.

Almost immediately, Golden Dirk began to hiss at her and flail his hoof in wild, erratic swings.
“Shhhhht! Shuuuushhhhh! Quiet.”

Edith looked inside. It was true. In the weak light, she could make out dozens upon dozens of grey creatures, all heaped on one another. There was a veritable layer of them stuffed into the corridor.

Edith would have sworn she was looking at a pile of corpses, were it not for the occasional flicking limp and clattering wing or shimmer of a rising stomach’s chitin.

“They’re... asleep.” she concluded.

“There’s a hundred of them.” Golden Dirk just whimpered. “Sweet Celestia, we’re never gonna leave this place! Where else can we go?!”

“Qhuiet.” Edith commanded coldly, and looked once again into the strange changeling dormitory, with the slightest flicker of fascination.

There they were.
This is what the whole world had been looking for all these months.
The enigmatic changeling race.

It may not have been the first time she had ever seen a changeling in her life - that honour would have gone to the ‘unicorn’ standing next to her - but this could have been called an awe-inspiring sight nevertheless.

She could see the heap was split in two, each section lying propped up against one side of the narrow passageway. In the middle, like a mountain valley, ran a thin canal of secrete, undisturbed by the changeling sleepers themselves.
She immediately decided that it was worth a shot.

“We chould try passingh through there, see what is on the other side of the room,” she explained to her fellow escapee.

“Are you nuts?” he snapped, his breaths quickening. “We’ll wake the lot of them.”

“Not if we don’t step on anyone.” she escaped. “I know how to stalkh. I used to hunt.”

“Oh?” Golden Dirk nervously wiped his nose with a hoof.
“I’m… I’m a pretty light sleeper. What… what if they’re all light sleepers too?”

She gazed up the changeling heap.
“Nobody chan sleep likhe that and be a light sleeper. Open it up further, will you?” she commanded him. “I want to take a look inside.”

“No!”

“What do we have to lose? We’re damned either way.”

He briefly looked up at the sky that wasn’t there. Then he obeyed.

Edith tried not to stumble as she stepped through.

Golden Dirk surely wasn’t exaggerating. There were far more than a mere hundred creatures crammed into the quarter. An entire village’s worth.
And she was barely a few feet away from the foot of the hill - or rather, the closest sleeping changeling drone.

Though there seemingly wasn’t a single creature that wasn’t asleep, the mass was nevertheless brimming with life.
Edith kept her cool, and a step towards the creatures.

The strangest mouth noises reverberated through the space. Some more like roars, others more like high-pitched whimpers.

Less than three feet.
And now she could veritably smell their snores too. More petroleum.

She wouldn’t have expected changelings to snore.

Not that she had expected anything from changelings, really. She didn’t really think about what she’d find once she did.

One foot.

Her bare foot - where had her boots gone, anyway? - was only a few inches from bumping into one changeling’s muzzle, and only a few inches further away from getting entangled in another’s tail.
She looked to her right. There it was the same story. Only even closer.

Before she knew it, she was standing amidst them.

And she had to look where she stepped…

Razor wire flashed before her eyes.

A cold shower flushed down her spine.
Her knees almost gave in from the shock.

Had she just seen something gleaming right there? Down by her feet.

Not razor wire. Just a coil of hair.

She had to watch her step though...

For a select few moments, she forgot to breathe.
This inadvertently caught up with her with an impulsive, deafening gasp.

The silence that followed was horrifying, but nothing - and no one - seemed to stir.

“Ma’am!” she heard a voice hiss, “Come back! Now!”

She couldn’t turn back now. She could already see the looming darkness of the wall on the other end of the passage - entirely nondescript, but Golden Dirk could probably find a passage there too. Just a few more yards of edging past these things, and she would have made it through.

She moved on.

The ‘valley’ became slimmer and slimmer with every shuffle and every step. There was much less space than she had hoped.

Why was her head still spinning?
Was she really having a panic attack in the middle of the changeling horde?

A head behind her sneezed.

She skipped forward inadvertently.
Her landing toes disturbed the stream. There was a splash. Droplets shot through the room.

She forced herself to a standstill. The other end was so close.

Her legs began to shiver from the adrenaline.
She needed to calm her feet. So she hunkered down amidst the crowd, momentarily forgetting her surroundings.

She had to explain to herself that this was just a pool of something or other she was standing in. Nothing more. Nothing to worry about.

A jolt shook her as something grabbed hold of her shoulders from behind.

Her hand was wrapping around the arrowtips before her conscious mind even caught.

“What are you doing?!” the familiar voice hissed, almost inaudibly. “Move on. Slowly. Follow me!”

She massaged her legs and made ready to stand back up - but then she was pushed back down as the sergeant climbed over her back and head. She was sure his weight would have crushed her where she was, had he not helped himself with his hidden wings a little.

As soon as he was in front of her, he straggled through the jammed darkness and fell into the opposite wall as though it were a flat, gooey finish line.

As he started to peel away the at the right spot, Edith got the motivation she needed to get back on her legs.
But that was when she spotted the two bright-blue, pupil-less eyes beaming up at her.

Like a deer in the headlights, she was caught in the stare.

At first, she thought that she was seeing things. That her increasingly unnerved mind was playing tricks on her.
She knew it was. But not about that.
There really was now a changeling looking at her, lying mere inches beneath her knee, not blinking, suspended in complete silence.

She couldn’t make out its head as such, but those eyes were a little smaller than expected. She expected aubergines. What she got were apricots.

The body they belonged to dug itself forth from the living blanket under which it lay buried, all at a calm, leisurely pace.

This changeling really was tiny. Perhaps it was a young one.

And it was still watching her.

In that extended moment of slowly incoming fiasco, her breath fell. Her heart slowed.

An eerie calm whipped through body. Her instincts catapulted her mind back to a different time in her life.

With the grace of a dancer, she pulled out the bundle of arrowtips, and with an adept swing, she brought the deadly metal into a familiar forward grip. Just the kind of grip she had been taught so long ago.

Her eyes focusing on the changelings’ blue, she crouched forward and brought her improvised dagger into the position.

A few centimetres below the eyes’ shine, that’s where the neck had to be.
That’s where it had to land.
Of course, the other hand had to be ready clasp its mouth shut. Which had to be a few centimetres-

The blow from the side almost pummeled her into the dirt with the rest of the changelings.

Immediately, she brought the spear tips around to jab at her attacker, but one of its hooves punched the spears out of her fist and sent most of them scattering into the writhing mass of changelings.

Edith tried to keep her calm as she pressed back at the assailant, who was staying ominously silent itself.
It gave way - it sent her stumbling towards the end of the room, no doubt tripping across a dozen legs and faces as she flew.

She plunged into the secrete a foot short of the hole Golden Dirk had scraped into the wall. She rapidly picked herself up - just in time for her attacker to kick her and send her plummeting forward.

She barely had time to take a breath before she ploughed into warm, all-consuming changeling secrete.

All went dark.

XXXI. A Ruse

XXXI
A Ruse

She had blacked out again.
When she came to, she was back on the ground, sticky all over once again, in yet another alien cavern. Rolling over and glancing up, she looked at her assailant as he stood above her, practically enveloped the dim oppressing darkness.

But she recognised that it was the familiar likeness of Golden Dirk, trembling.
He was carving his hooves into the Changeling muck next to her knees, aggressively.

“What was the idea just now, huh?!” he yelped, pointing a forlorn hoof at their makeshift passageway. “What was that gonna be?”

Edith had not yet cleared her predatory state of mind.

Holding onto the two or three arrows she had left, she lunged up and tackled the changeling in disguise.

He was a little lighter than her - light enough to be swept up by her momentum and forcibly pinned into the next wall.

As he tried to push back and get her off of him, Edith brought her arrows forward and jammed them into his throat.

“Stop,” she said in her typical monotone voice.

Golden Dirk could merely gasp as the cold sharp tips dug into his neck’s flesh, a few grains of pressure short of piercing his elastic, leathery changeling skin.

A moment of silence ensued.

“M… Ma’am...” he muttered and glanced up into Edith’s combative eyes with his own fake equine ones. “It’s me. It’s still me. Sergeant Dirk…”

She remained as she was.

“Look...” he whispered, and intensified his stare at hers.

An involuntary, invasive chill flowed all over her.

“Look at me. You will lower the blade… And then sit down with me. Alright?”

And out of seemingly nowhere, she felt compulsion to do just that. He mind clouded up, her head promptly drifting off to somewhere. Like someone trapped in a doze, she could see herself backing off and peacefully slipping back onto the ground before the changeling.
But that feeling only lasted so long.

When she came to, forcing her attention back towards the task subduing the creature at hand, she found that she was now pushing into his neck even harder. She had pierced his flesh.
Thick greyish blood was already oozing out of the wound and onto her hand...

“Obey me... Please...” he whimpered, his hooves weakly clambering at her shirt.

“What… what did you just try to do?” she slurred.

“I’m sorry...” he wheezed, “I didn’t mean to! Please... let's talk...”

She shook her head to clear her head of the foreign compulsions.
But talk they would, alright.
“When you told us there were files to be found in the Everfree archives...” she whispered, memories and information whirling up inside her skull, “You were lyingh, weren’t you?”

“What...” he mumbled, obviously trying to stave off the pain, “What, no, no. I was being honest with you...”

“You said there was a fire,” she continued, albeit still conscious of the - hopefully yet sleeping - creatures next door.

“There was! I barely made it out with all of my hair… I don’t know how you made it out of there...”

“You don’t have hair...” she reminded him. “You’re not a pony. You’re one of them. You’re a change-”

“I swear to you...” he interrupted her, “This probably looks bad... like, really really bad... But this’s got to be the stupidest… stupidest coincidence… We weren't supposed to end up inside some changeling hive.”
He gulped. “I am not who you think I am...”

“I thought you were a Royal Ghuard, for one thing.”

“I am a Royal Guard...” he protested, as much as the arrow tips let him. “I served my Princess for almost ten years...”

“You’re a traitor.”

“A deserter…” he corrected her, “Just a deserter...”

“Why desert now?”

“I… I...”

“Why lead us to that ruin?”

“You know why! I was doing you a… a good turn! We had a deal, remember?”

“What was in it for you then?”

“You… you were supposed to help me! I want asylum!”

“Who set the fire?”

“Not me! Sweet Celestia!” he coughed, before reminding himself where he was and quieting down again. “I just wanted you to help me out! Think! Why should I try burning you all?!”

Edith applied the pressure. Golden Dirk applied his lachrymal ducts.

“I only want to get out alive!” he wailed, ditching more and more of his composure, “I wanna live! Is that too much of a crime now?!”

The moments he spent pinned in this uncomfortable position were visibly taking a toll on him. His hind legs, the only things that were keeping him upright and his neck off the blade, began to shiver more and more erratically.

Edith took the hint for what it was. The creature was all but sapped of its endurance.

“Yours won’t be first ghullet I slit. If you do something stupid, I will bleed you dry where you stand. Chlear?

“C-crystal. Thank you, Ma’am. Thank you!” he cried as she retracted the arrow.

He slumped onto the floor like a sack of rice, his armour clattering as he crumbled.

Menacingly, Edith cornered him as he lay, and cleaned her arrowheads on her shirt,
“And what was that just now?” she inquired as she pointed in the previous room’s direction, “You jumped me.”

“Just… I tried to get you to move on!” he stuttered, “I don’t know what you were doing all of a sudden. You could have doomed both of us!”

Defensively, she pointed towards the dormitory, “You know one of them saw us, right? Someone wokhe up and saw us.”

“Yeah...” he confirmed, “A… pupa… a kid.”

“So?”

Golden Dirk held his breath.

“You said you don’t know these changelings,” Edith reminded him.

“I don’t! But...”
His stare was almost searching as he glanced up at her, as though he was trying to find the right words to get his meaning across, “A kid.”

Edith readied her impromptu dagger once more as the realisation dawned on her.
“Chances are it’s waking up the rest of them now.”

“She,” Golden Dirk corrected her. “I can tell that kind of thing.”

Edith’s cold brown eyes pierced him more the arrowtips could have.
“What the hell are you, anyway?”

“Not… like you, apparently,” he stuttered, his tone somewhat accusingly.

“Meaningh?”

He snorted bitterly and tried to get back on his feet.
“How far do you think we would’ve come once they realised we k- killed one of their their young? They’re definitely wouldn’t let us l-… live then.” he mumbled, then coughed, catching some drops of his superficial throat gash.

That reminded Edith.
She peered around the new room.

“Can I… stand up now?” he asked as he slowly crawled away from the wall. “I… I’m ready to admit it’s more or less my fault we’re here to begin with. Not intentionally, mind you.”

Edith gave him an oppressive glare as she toyed with her arrowheads.
He was right. They were already in the lion’s den. Whether or not he had anything to do with her - and perhaps the others’ - fate, there was precious little she could do to help it.

“You and I want leave this place, right? Together? We... gotta trust each other for that. I might be asking too much, but… neither of us will get anywhere on our own.”

Edith had to admit she began to lose interest in the downed changeling.
Straying deeper into the mostly bare cavity, Edith did notice some upright tables standing around. Low, equine tables. Probably loot and plunder like all the other stuff.

Golden Dirk coughed as he followed her glance, probably trying desperately to prove himself useful in some way, “Is that what I think it is?”
Weakly, he rolled himself upright and rose back on all fours, before cantering to one of the closer ones.
Edith let him, though she did not leave him out of her sight.

“I… I think we might have a window to the outside world.” He giggled as he lifted himself onto one desk. “Look at that!”

Edith approached the table cautiously. She found four jet-black, hairbrush-sized oval stones lying there, arranged in a crude rectangle formation of sorts.

“Do you know what this is?!” Dirk asked, invigorated by a new wave of hope. “We used to have one of those, back in the day! Dad used to show me how it worked all the time! We- we had to dump ours at some point, but I got the hang of it back then!”

“What?”

He looked at her and wiped at his wound.
“You- you guys have a thing like that too, don’t you?”
He began to rearrange the rock-like excitedly. “It just takes… a little bit of magic. Animative magic. Or Automotive. Maybe.”

“Is it… a chommunichation device?” she guessed.

He nodded avidly.
“And we could use it to call somepony to help! It might just be our ticket out of here.”

She eyed him coldly.
“Anyone in mind?”

“Somepony! Anypony! I… I suppose I can start worrying about a Canterlot cell when I’m done worrying about… Chrysalis’ caverns.”

He certainly seemed to sing a different tune now.

He lit his horn. “Whatever it is… you either get it to work now or we get going again.”
Only now Edith realised his magic shone in an unmistakably changeling hue of green.

A green flame seemingly jumped onto one of the rocks and began bouncing its merry way clockwise across each of the rocks.

A sudden muffled rumble resonated through the cave around the two.

Golden Dirk flinched in panic.
“Uh, it… Hay, I think it might take a moment to catch the magic.” He threw her a glance and waved her over. “Ma’am, lend me a hoof here.”

She crossed her arms warily.

“Please. In a moment, it’s gonna get very bright, but… I don’t know how to put this… but we might be about to see somepony who’s somewhere else, inside a puff of magic.”

“You mean likhe... on a schreen? Likhe video chat?”

He hesitated in confusion, “Uh… I don’t know... but sure, yeah.”

“Who will answer us?”

“Whoever’s got another one of these. Changeling, pony, human... They probably won’t be too excited to see me… for any number of reasons. So… could you take over the talking?”

"you must be jokhing."

He shook his head, hesitant.

“Once we are out of here, you will have a thingh or two to exhplain.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

There was an ominous echo sounds of clip-clopping hooves. Neither of them could tell whether it was the machine making the noise or somepony somewhere in their den.

Still clutching her dagger, Edith stepped in front of the four stones.

A force field began to gather right above the stones. It swelled like a flickering balloon, bigger and brighter, lighter and larger, until it was the size of a full-length mirror.
The flicker of the energy faintly reminded her of an unadjusted television set. Was it maybe reliant on the same kind of signal?

“Sergeant?” she asked, staring intently at the screen.

No reply.

She clutched her dagger harder and waited patiently.

And lo and behold, after what seemed to be an eternity of bright white and green sparks, a sudden image ‘booted up’ in front of her.
It was not one she had expected.

She was gawking into a large, spacious, well-lit room. It was white, bright and modern.
Again, her first thought was that she was just imagining. It was bizarre.

People - humans, regular humans just like herself! - sat on rows of desks - an entire audience of forty or so - and looked at her. They were all wearing tenue de ville attire. Slacks, skirts, ties, suits, high heels and leather brogues.

This audience needed a couple of moments to realise that Edith was there. Focusing their eyes and tilting their heads, they seemed to acknowledge her presence with startled looks.
One even pointed at her, curiously, and turned to his neighbours.

“Hello?” Edith stuttered.

But then the image was crushed by darkness.
As fast as the window to the civilised world had appeared, it had once again gone - and taken that audience of people right with it.

Edith still sat there for a few moments as her glared eyes realised that she was once again looking at black. The bright white image had completely dazzled her, blinding her to the rest of the room.

“Sergeant! What just happened? What did I see?” she asked, her voice booming louder than she intended.
The only answer she got was her own echo booming back at her.

She turned, her hands outstretched, as she tried to blink the light away. But the changeling that had stood next to her just a moment before had gone away.

Something was going wrong.

Trying to retrace her steps, she clutched the table and led herself around the room.

“I am armed!” she grumbled into the dark, unable to think of something better to say.

“That is okay,” a voice suddenly thundered past. It was deep and unfamiliar.
She struck her arrowtips around her in retort.

“Hello!”

She realised the cavern sloped around yet another corner.
She could only see that because from behind that corner a light shone.

“Hello! You have nothing to be scared of,” the booming voice declared. “Everything’s under control.”

“I don’t thinkh so,” she retorted, advancing upon the light. “Who is this? Identify yourself.”

“Why don’t you come into the light and see for yourself?” the voice asked her. It sounded rather matter-of-fact and tranquil, considering their gloomy environs. “The mystery shall be lifted,” it quipped.

She stopped.
“How about you chome here?”

The voice sighed.
“I know you might feel a little threatened right now. Take your time.”

She realised that, again, she didn’t have many options open.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she tiptoed her way around the curve. The light shimmered off the richly secrete-coated walls.

The path led her into an annex, a separate room that was lit by a solitary light source. Stale, white, steady.
Electric light.

Edith passed through a door-sized opening, and promptly found herself on hard, dry and cold ground.
She was standing on a rubber mat.

She looked back up. Instead of changeling gunk, these walls were hung with sheets of linen, like makeshift tapestries or curtains hiding the bare rock and limestone away.

In the middle of everything stood a generously sized camping table.
On the chair lay an eclectic assortment of files, books, folders, pens, a mechanic’s level and a battery-driven camping lantern for a light source.
Behind the table stood a director’s chair. And on that director’s chair, there sat a relatively spry young man, with a fuzzy head of blond hair, in an anthracite two-piece suit, a garish striped tie, and a little flag button on his lapel.
He seemed familiar, somehow.

Behind the man hung a United Nations flag on a pole. And next to the pole, behind the man’s right, stood Sergeant Golden Dirk at attention like a stoic sentry.

From a certain point of view, it all looked very professional and official.

With a calm smile, the man in the suit spread his arms at her in greeting as soon as she was done with taking in the room.
“Well, Ma’am? Surprised?”

Edith held her breath.

“Probably understandable, given the circumstances. But you can put those… arrows... away now. No need to make each other nervous.”

She warily folded her arrow-clutching hands behind her back.

“You’ve been through quite a voyage. But I’m glad you made it back in one piece.”
He reached out and tapped a small stack of antiquated, ash-smeared books on his makeshift desk. “And you can’t argue with the results.”

“Who are you?” she asked, unperturbed.

He grinned.
“Commander Kolya. At your service.”

“Are you… with the UN?”

“Well no, I’m actually a changeling in disguise, trying to confuse you.”

“I see.”

Edith thought about piercing him with an inquisitive gaze, just to make sure that really was joking, but she thought better of it.
Instead, she peered over to Golden Dirk, who was vacantly staring into the room from his post. He seemed quite distracted from the fact that she had held her makeshift dagger to his head not ten minutes ago.

“I’m afraid I might owe you an explanation.” Commander Kolya smiled and directed his gaze to Golden Dirk. “Am I wrong, Sergeant?”

Dirk shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and slightly unsure. “Ma’am will be happy to know that this all was just a- a ruse.”

“Yes. When was the last time you two had something to eat or drink?”
Smiling, he reached under his desk and picked up an old-fashioned glass. Swirling within was a little bit of transparent liquid.
“Here. Something to moisten your gullet.”

“What... is it?” she asked.

“Just what it looks like.” he answered cheekily. Then he produced a dark-brown, rich slice of wholemeal bread. “And a little snack too. I’m sorry if I can’t offer you something more opulent. I just came from brunch in Canterlot myself.”

Edith had to confess to herself that the slice made her mouth water a little - as if ages of starvation were slowly catching up with her.

But when she saw the Commander lay the slice of bread right on top of the glass like a lid before sliding it over to her, her appetite promptly evaporated into thin air.

“Is everything okay, Ma’am?” the Commander asked. “Here, help yourself.”

Edith stared at the the glass of spirit and the slice of bread with almost hypnotised concentration.

“Come on, Ma’am. It’s on the house,” he declared jokingly. “Once we get back to Canterlot HQ, we can pick you up a caviar or something. But before we move, I just need to debrief you and quiz you on a couple of things. The Equestrians, mainly.”

“Right...” she mumbled, not letting her ‘snack’ out of her eyes. “Shoot.”

“Alright then.”
He picked up a pen. “Tell me, where did your unit come from? Canterlot?”

“Yes. We were chonduchting a search.”

He jotted it down. His handwriting was abysmal to the point of looking a little deranged.
“So you were. Did the Equestrians offer you any military escort?”

“We... were chountingh on the facht that they weren’t aware of the search.”

He raised his eyebrows on surprise. “I see. And what about the Sergeant over there?”
He glanced over to Golden Dirk, whose eyes had visibly shrunk into his otherwise unmoving demeanour.

“He was the who led us here,” she answered with a hint of of reproach, “Though why, I chan’t say. You should askh him yourself.”

She noticed Golden Dirk shaking his head nervously, as though to try and convey that she should stop right there.

She ignored him.
“Where are Mister Abel and the others?”

He looked up.
“Who now?”

“...My chompanions.”

“Oh.” He wrote it down.
“They went ahead. You will meet up them in Canterlot. Now...”
He harrumphed, “I suppose the Equestrians didn’t tell you a lot about their… invasion of the Everfree, did they? Or where the changelings they were looking for were?”

She sniffed, slightly put off.
“Very little. Though I suppose they didn’t know that they chould find them all tuckhed in here.”

The Commander cocked his head.
“I beg your pardon?

Edith pointed behind herself.
“You know there are almost two hundred changelings sleeping nexht door, right?”

“Oh… sure.” he laughed and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief to give himself time, “So you’ve… already wandered into our detainment camp, I see.”

“Detainment champ.”
Edith needed a moment to comprehend the answer. “Oh, that exhplains everythingh.”

“They… didn’t give you any trouble, did they?”

She shook her head, not even bothering to dignify Golden Dirk with another aside glance.
“I suppose you finally found your witnesses for the trial then.”

“Trial,” the Commander pouted, more than a bit smugly, “Yeah. We found our witnesses for all the trials, alright.”
Apparently satisfied with her answers, he tapped the books again, “Now... are those the volumes you… well, we were lookhing for?”

She eyed the books briefly. The gears in her mind turned and ground. But nothing of any use came out.
What were these books he was holding in his hands, anyway?

“I don’t know what these are supposed to be.”

He smiled disarmingly.
“Oh, you must know. You saved them from that blaze. At least, they were on you when we retrieved you.”

“Right...”
Not only did she escape the Chancery as it caught fire, but she had evacuated these books, apparently.
Why could she remember none of it?

“What’s in them, Ma’am?”

“I don’t know. Evidence… of some sort.” she shrugged and peered over to Golden Dirk, who had begun to tremble nervously. “Perhaps pertaining to Chrysalis. Likhe I said, you should askh him.”

He seemed surprised. “Evidence? Chrysalis, no less?” he grinned, “You know… Ma’am... If these books really are what I think they are, then it will work miracles for the cross-cultural understanding of our world.”

“That’s… ghood.”

“And - no need to mince words here - you’d be in for a medal!”

She looked up.
“A medal. Really?”

He nodded and winked.
“And a promotion. United Nations take care of their own.”

What a strange thing to hear. After everything that had happened in the last couple of days.
“I’m not in the UN. I never was. I’m with the ICMP. At least I still thinkh I am.”

“Ah… same difference. Once we return you to Canterlot, you will finally get to go home to your family.”

“To Bosnia?”

He nodded with a proud pout.
“To Bosnia. I’d image they’ll be dying to give you a proper hero’s welcome.”

“Yeah… I suppose they are...” she confirmed as she finally decided to pick up her drink and her bread. “At least, if they weren’t all dead already.”

The Commander’s smile deflated.
“I am sorry, I had no idea!”

“No, you didn’t,” she agreed and led the substance to her lips.
She was glad to savour the all-too familiar taste of vodka, with a little hint of both honey and pepper.
A hell of a brunch that this Commander had on hand.
Satisfied, she followed up with a bite of bread. It was pretty dry already, but edible all the same.

“Regardless, Ma’am...” the Commander sighed, “You will get your hero’s welcome.”

Edith was tired, and she was sore.
When she placed the glass back on the table. Her movement was rough, and the sound was unduly loud, and the recoil made the desk shudder. It certainly made the Commander flinch.
“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.” she declared.

“Uh… no need to be modest now.”

“I’m not ghoing home,” she countered. “I have... unfinished business here in this sechtor.”

He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh? Well then...”

“As a matter of facht, the chaptain and I were about to find our way out.” She raised her chin authoritatively. “I would likhe my shoes back and a pointer to the exhit please, Chommander.”

She could see Golden Dirk grimacing at her, with deathly fear on his face. He mouthed something urgent, but she couldn’t make sense of his lip movements.

The Commander also seemed rumbled. Uncomfortably, he got up from his chair.
“Well… we’ll all leave together, shouldn’t we? As was the plan. I was tasked with escorting you back to Canterlot.”

Edith gripped her spears tighter.
“Did you hear what I just said, Chommander?”

“Please, Ma’am… We have a pretty bad storm outside and...”
He ambled up to her, hiding something behind his back theatrically. Edith noticed a conspicuous limp.
She took a step back as the Commander revealed he was clutching something small, round and golden-gleaming.
“Puff out your chest, Ma’am.”

She hummed in surprise. It did seem a little absurd.
“Really now?”

“I was gonna wait until we got back, but… I may call you Ma’am, can’t I?”

She shrugged.

He smiled courteously.
“Mammy, perhaps? Something more familiar.”

She hesitated. She did not expect this one.
“Exchuse me?”

“Ahem… Ma’am it is, then!” the Commander flinched and corrected herself. “Very well. For your… exemplary conduct and display of extraordinary courage, it is my honour to award to you, in the name of His Majesty the King…”

“King?”
That was new.

“Yes, uh…” Commander Kolya shut his eyes in embarrassment, “If my head wasn’t attached! In the name of Her Majesty the Queen, I hereby award you the National Order of Merit.”

“Right. Thankhs.” Edith chuckled, “Which Qhueen would that be? Qhueen Chrysalis?”

The Commander eyed her with a questioning glance.
“I… Pardon?”

Edith grew even more staid.
“Which chountry am I from, Chommander?”

He opened his mouth, but amusingly, nothing came out at first.
“Ahem…Bosnia, of course.”

“And?” she cut him short, “Bosnia and...?”

Suddenly, the young man in the anthracite two-piece suit did not look so sure anymore.
“I don’t think I can follow, Ma’am.”

“What khind of UN official hands out national orders anyway? A ‘Chommander’ likhe yourself?”

“Ma’am… I... yes...” the Commander mumbled.

“My name is Edith Šarić.” She clarified, “‘Ma’am’ is not a name. You know that, right?”

“I must be…” The Commander said with a forced chuckle, and stepped back a little, “You seem a bit miffed… I thought that you’d be a bit happier, now that you’ve been rescued and… and…. Maybe I can offer you another snack or something, to lighten the mood.”

“What, another ghlass of Vodkha with bread on top?”

He hesitated again.
“Yeah, if you like...”

“Where did you pickh that up, anyway?”

The man gulped, clearly on the verge of panicking.

“Save it.” Edith cut him off and sighed, “Just… show me the thingh.”

Opening his fist in embarrassment, he revealed to her her award.

It was gold-rimmed, its centre was adorned by a stately diamond-encrusted bishop’s mitre, and it held an extensive inscription that ran in a circle around a star-like punched border.

Edith could barely hide her amusement.
It was a crown cork.

“Is something wrong?”
His voice sounded dry and austere by now.

Edith glanced at him. She tried to find some clue that would confirm her suspicions - some crack in his facade that would suggest his true nature.
The disguise, at least, was flawless.

She also noticed that he too was a little smaller than her.
She was sure she could take him. At least if he was as light on his feet as Golden Dirk was...

“I had doubts for a while now...” she sighed, “But they’re ghone now.”

The Commander clenched his eyes shut in very apparent frustration.
“Doubts, huh? Alright...” he muttered, his mouth developing an irritated tinge, a slow vibrating noise starting to form the depths of his throat as the pressure mounted, “Alright then. I wanted to be nice about it, you know. I wanted to ease you in. Go light on you. But... enough of that. ”

She heard what he said. She knew what he was getting at. There was no mistake about it now, all bets were off.

But for the love of it, she couldn’t really bring herself to feel menaced.
He didn't really mean it. He was miming the loss of patienc, of quickly fleeting self-control. As hard as he was trying very hard to communicate to her that things would now turn a lot uglier, it wasn't convincing. He sounded only as poised and cocksure as his young, frantic,trembling and quite frankly forlorn form allowed.
She began to wonder: Was he really just as young as he made himself look?

“They’re ghone now. Chommander.” she coolly repeated, interrupting his slow unravelling. Then she reached for his palm and picked up her honorary bottle cap. “Send my thankhs to Sarajevo Palace. I am honoured by the ghesture.”

He ripped his eyes open again and gave her a long, bewildered stare.
He was so shocked that he took a wary step back.
Reading his befuddled face as best as she could, Edith tried herself at a disarming smile. It was terrible, but he seemed either not to mind or to care.

He cleared his throat as he visibly tried to bring his thoughts back into order.
“Oh, okay then. That’s... okay...”

She could see Golden Dirk deflating a little in his corner as his apparent tension left his body.

“You said you wanted to ease me in.” Edith reminded him, “You must have some bad news, huh?”

“Uh…”

“You mentioned there was a storm outside, didn’t you?”

He raised his eyebrows.
“I did? Yes, I did mention… that there is some pretty bad weather.” he stammered, “Blocked roads, broken bridges… the whole package.”

“That’s a shame,” Edith nodded. “I suppose we’ll be takhing… a different path to Canterlot. A detour. Perhaps a little longer than usual.”

He nodded dutifully.
“That… possibly, yeah.”

“I suppose there’ll be trouble with the char too.”

“The… cart?” he breathed.

“Yes, the chart.”

“The carts were… snowed in. We’ll have to walk the first leg. I’m sorry,” he spluttered.

She nodded.
“That’s okhay.”

“R-really?” he made sure, “We’ll have to take all our changeling prisoners with us too, you know. We’ll be travelling as a group-”

“I know.” she sighed.

He regained his hopeful smile.
“I… thank you for understanding.”

“No need to attracht the attention of all those Eqhuestrian Ghuards skhulkhing around. Right?”

He gasped.
“Right! I’m glad you… I mean… Yeah. Enough of those busybodies, eh?”

With one fluid, movement, he was hobbling back to his desk and started collecting random items in order to look busy.

Behind him, Golden Dirk was still bathing in his relief, though he didn’t dare to move an inch regardless.

“When will we ghet movingh?”

“Next thing tomorrow, I promise!” the Commander declared. “I, uh, suppose you’d want to get a good night’s sleep now.”

She was certainly not returning to that cocoon of hers, if that’s what he meant. She had seen what they caused with those unfortunate ponies from the last cavern.

“I suppose you chouldn’t ghet me a bed to lie on for the nexht chouple of hours? Your… waiting room was very unchomfortable.”

He raised his digits as he tried to answer back. “I’m afraid-”

“I thinkh I saw a mattress in one of the other rooms. That would be more than enough.”

“...Well, in that case, I don’t see why not.”

She moved after him, visibly twisting her arrows in her hands still.
He looked up, once again displaying nervousness as he saw her walking up.

“Chommander...” she said, in the most sincere and weak voice she could muster, “I… suppose I never said thankhs for your reschue operation.”

He breathed heavily, before raising his hands in a dismissive motion, “Like I said, United Nations look-”

“The United Nations looks out for their own. Yes.”
It was time to find out a little more about him. She leaned against his desk, as calmly as possible, and looked him straight in his not-quite-as-deceptive eyes, “Speakhing of which… are you the highest-ranking official here? If I wanted to speakh to a senior, would I have to lookh around for someone else?”

“Well, uh...” he began, before curling his face into a grin, as though he realised he was being tested, “You know as well as me who our leader is!”

“Of chourse,” she nodded. “But I mean in this chave… outpost of ours.”

“Oh… in here?”
He couldn’t hide his pride. “You are indeed talking to the most senior… commander here. Yes. You’re talking to the right pony.”
His eyes shrunk. “Person.”

Not that she had the means to confirm that.
“That’s ghood,” she sighed, and decided to take it one step further, “I want to be sure I’ll telling the right person about the Eqhuestrian Ghuard’s planned route.”

“Planned r...”
The Commander shivered like he could barely believe his good fortunes. “Yes. Don’t want all those infernal changelings listening in...”

“Of chourse not.”

She couldn’t say whether he had suddenly become a better actor in the course of the past few seconds or if he genuinely hanging on to her lips now.
She was willing to take the risk.

“I only ashkh for one tiny little favour.”

“Anything, Edith Šarić.”

“My feet are soakhing wet from the chave water. Chould I ghet my boots backh to warm them backh up?”

He nodded frantically.
“Sure th-”

His words and his nods got stuck in his throat before he was finished though.
From one moment to the next, looks of surprise and worry burst out of his face in quick succession.
His eyes slid off Edith’s and focused on something taking place right behind her.

Edith was toying with the thought of turning around and looking, but then a third voice chimed up at the back of her head.
“Your boots, Ma’am.”

She had barely managed to take the first step around when a crushing blow struck her in the temple.

Her senses flickered as gravity took over her body and sent her sailing in a wide arc at the ground.

She smacked into one of the rubber mats, the coarse material mercilessly grazing her cheek and her ear.

Her arrows scattered from her hands and clattered onto the floor, somewhere far far away.

Her vision must have blacked out. For a moment, all she could comprehend were the voices spiralling above her.

“No!” she heard Golden Dirk eject in a blood-curdling scream.

“Shut your mouth, you gilded horseapple,” the third voice muttered.

His anguished cry degenerated into a remorseful sob.

‘Commander Kolya’s’ voice was also reduced to a mere hysterical pant. “W-what did you this for? Why did you do that?!”

“Why do you think?” the third voice asked back irreverently.

“I had her! I-I nearly had her! She trusted me. She believed me. She was going to tell me about the ponies’ battle plans...”

“Are you actually that stupid, or are you just pretending?” the other voice inquired. “She was playing you. She probably figured it out decades ago.“ He snorted a changeling snort. “Her boots. Next you probably would've carved her a pair of skis too.”

“Why can't you, just for once, leave me alone with them?” ‘Commander Kolya’ whimpered.

“Because of just this, my little prince.”

Edith heard an arrow getting kicked away.
Only split-seconds later, a hoof shoved her over roughly, rolling her onto her back.

“How many times have I told you to stop playing with your food?" the third voice asked, hovering above her, "There are whole corners of the hive who’d be grateful just to get one creature to share!”

Next, she felt something heavy and warm perch on top of her.
Her whole body, from chest to thigh, was rocked by the creature’s vibrating pulse.

“Do something useful and bring Goldie over there back to his new home.”

She weakly forced her eyes open.
She found herself staring into the large insectoid eyes of a changeling.

“Good morning, lunch.”

Suddenly, his jet-black horn burt into green flames and swooped down onto her forehead.
She felt a burst of intense energy shooting through her brain and scorching her with a sanity-splitting sizzle.
And suddenly, as the consciousness was knocked out of her, it was all over.

“Good night, lunch.”

XXXIII. The Barbican

XXXIII.

The Barbican

ICC Permanent Premises
Courtroom 1
24. November, 2015
11:16 am MET

It took the bailiffs a couple of minutes to set up the teleprompter. The cable had a slack joint, and it needed an eternity to boot.
It was far removed from the awe and wonder of the four scarabs’ fiery enchantment.

When Pierman’s laptop screen finally appeared, blown up on the unrolled canvas placed to the judge panel’s left, the prosecutor arose from her chair and addressed the assembly, rubbing her hands in embarrassing nervousness.
“It is regretful that the impression of the suspect’s conversation has been… irretrievably damaged. We therefore submit, in its stead, seventy-two photographs and two minutes and fifteen seconds of video footage documenting the same. This, we believe, yet serves to positively identify the suspect and substantiate her whereabouts at the time of the occupation of Trot.”

She applied a remote control.
A video began to play. The image quality was terrible. The sound was even worse.

“I apologise for the resolution.” she chimed in again, “Capturing such a magical phenomenon on film has proven very difficult, especially in regards to catching the lighting and the sound. It should be still sufficiently distinct, however.”

The film had evidently been shot inside a small, darkened room somewhere in the courthouse. It took a few seconds before the camera had adjusted to the intense light enough to reveal the same green plasma ball that had earlier illuminated the courtroom a few minutes beforehand.

A few seconds later still, an image became visible inside the ball.

A head. And this time, not a human one. It sat atop a thick equine neck. A bushy, long head of mane painted out the otherwise slender silhouette.
She seemed to speak. Her sharp changeling ears twitched and her mane bobbed as she appeared to be in the middle of a very tense dialogue with the viewer. Little white reflections that could only be from her fangs shimmered through once in a while.

Countless heads in the courtroom began wandering back and forth between the figure in the recording and a visibly unamused Chrysalis in the other corner, trying to espy even the slightest hint of resemblance.

The quality of the actual images was modest. The contrast between light and darkness was still vast, as she seemed to be sitting with the sun at her back. Whereas her backdrop was painfully bright, she herself was all but pitch-black.
The fact that it was a recording of a recording, one of which had suffered nine hundred years of erosion, may have played a role as well.

One of the few things that seemed fairly certain was that the figure was talking. The recorded sound itself was terribly garbled and very deep in tone, as though the recording had been caught on a tape that had then been pulled apart and slowed down. For any identification purposes beyond that, though, it was practically useless.

Pierman seemed to be aware of all that, yet she soldiered on. Raising her remote control, she brought to footage to a halt at a strategic moment.
The creature had bent her head a little to the right, revealing a distinctive-looking shape directly behind her.

“The object visible in the background is a limestone statuette depicting a corpulent nobleman. It was made in 4 BD, as a gargoyle for the Trot State Palace. I refer you to Exhibit 2l.”

A glance into the folder revealed a black and white photograph of a withered statue standing on a moss-infested banister, overlooking a panorama of some equally bedraggled ruins a story below and a large plaza away. It was marked with the Equestrian date 25/2 Spring 872. Next to it was another photo, much more modern and in colour, marked as 1/3 Winter 1003. It showed the same balcony, but without the statue. Instead, it was taken from a similar angle as was shown in the footage of the call.

“Although it was stolen in the Equestrian year 920, we can nevertheless use this statuette, and the balcony on which it’s positioned, to confirm the precise location from which this call took place: Inside the great dancing hall in the first story of the State Palace, two metres in front of the entrance of the balcony.”

Estermann had to admit, that was an impressive stroke of fate. Indeed, the statue of the fat horse was too distinctive to be easily mistaken for another random shadow.

He giggled as he realised the same could not be said for the ‘caller’ herself. The large mane and tall stature did remind him of Queen Chrysalis - uncannily so, in fact. But he knew this would never be enough to stand on its own.

“Now, I would like to present an altered version of the footage, with slightly enhanced saturation levels.”
With a click of the remote, the mysterious speaker suddenly received a face.

A muzzle, large piercing eyes, and a two intimidating rows of teeth emerged from the darkness.

And it was Chrysalis.
This would be a lot more difficult to deny, he realised. It was Chrysalis.

And the contemporaneous Chrysalis seemed to realise at too as she lowered her eyes, as though to avoid her younger self’s gaze.

Pierman smirked subtly. “Please turn to the next image: 2l.”

A mugshot of the contemporary Chrysalis, probably taken a few weeks prior at best.

“To prevent any risk of mistaken identity, I have asked the Specialist Investigation Applications Service of the National Police Corps of the Netherlands to analyse the footage and the suspect’s facial features using professional facial recognition software. I refer to Exhibit 2n. They have issued a report confirming that the faces of the caller and the suspect are 83% identical. The 17% deviation can be attributed to natural ageing.”

Estermann gazed hard into the grimy face. He tried to muster as much doubt as he could. As much reasonable doubt as he could.
He had to get back to that later. It’s these 17% he had to latch on to.

Satisfied, Pierman turned back to the judges, “This footage safely places the suspect at the crime scene. To confirm the time, as well as her actions on the 13th, I next wish to call to the witness stand Witness One.”

The wheelchair was old and creaked loudly. The creature that had been seated onto it was even older, yet all the more silent. The bailiff pushed the low-built, pony-dimensioned contraption in as gently as he could, but the same mellow earth pony mare from before insisted on accompanying them and give him a rap on his knuckles every few yards.

Under the watchful eyes of Pierman, Floret Oats was parked by a table across from the judges’ stand, on the other end of the room. Then she was, rather unceremoniously, tilted out of the chair like a bag of coal.
She was less alive than clinically dead, and she wobbled on her feet as she tried to make her way to her chair. Her face seemed frightened and confused, and tried to avoid contact with any of the other occupants of the room.

Again, Estermann may have been no hippologist, but he was almost certain her age was not the only thing weighing her down.

Queen Chrysalis followed the witness with her eyes. Not as hawkishly as would reasonably be expected, but definitely with a certain lively interest.
Floret Oats did not return the favour, and fixed her eyes on a point far away from the changeling monarch in the corner.

As soon as Oats was down, Justice Suruma adjusted her microphone. Her voice was rather stale and uninviting.
“Madam Witness, whenever you’re ready. We’ll get started right away.”

She took a few moments gazing at the desk before her, before giving a timid nod.
“Okay. Yes,” she blurted. Her voice was raspy and weak.

Suruma folded her hands. “Madam Witness, you understand what the role of a witness entails. You are here to answer any question this court will ask of you, and you must answer truthfully. Giving a false testimony is a punishable offence.”

Even through her frail veneer, Florets looked a little incredulous. “I understand.”

“You are only at liberty to object to answering a question if it would result in self-incrimination.”

She shook her head. “N-not be a problem.”

“Very well. I will now swear you in. Please raise your right hand. I mean hoof.”

Floret obeyed, and lifted a shivering hoof into the air.

“Please repeat after me: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth...”

“I will solemnly declare that I’ll speak the truth.”

“The whole truth...”

“The whole truth.”

“And nothing but the truth.”

“Nothing but the truth.”

“Good. Do you understand this undertaking? And do you agree with it?”

She bobbed her head submissively. “I understand. And I agree.”

Suruma nodded at Pierman.
“I give the floor to the Prosecutor for questioning. Please.”

Pierman cleared her throat, and armed herself with the relevant folder. Hopefully, she glanced over to her star witness with a decidedly mild, sympathetic smile.
“Good morning, Madam Witness. Let us... start small, shall we? I will need to confirm your identity. Can you state your age and when were you born?”

She said she was born 7th day of the 3rd Spring moon of the year 21, and had just celebrated her 982nd birthday in March.
Her nationality was Equestrian, but she was born a Trotishpony - one of the last generations, as a matter of fact - before Trot factually seized to exist.
Her highest level of education she had ever seen was the third grade of elementary school. After Trot fell, she was forced to work for food and shelter. She was lucky enough to find work as a farmhand, and later as a tailor, at the tender age of eleven.

“What is your current occupation?”

“I run a restaurant now, in Vanhoover harbour. Trotter Shoals Inn. I specialise on Trot-style cuisine and entertainment.”

Estermann grew curious if she would live up to that last one.

Pierman flipped her folder open. Now came the truly relevant part.
“Where were you on the morning of the 13th of the 2nd Summer Moon of the year 30?”

She left a ten second pause before recounting, more or less methodically, that fateful day.
Shortly after dawn, she walked out of her father’s smithy on the Slim Canal, in the Lower Town area. It would be the last time she would see the smithy intact or her father, full stop.

“What was the occupation of your parents?”

“Papa... was a farrier. Mama… a parlourmaid in the Upper City. In a wash house.”

Pierman glanced up at the judges.
“Madam President, may I enter the well to access the city map?”

“You may.”

Pierman rounded her desk and shuffled towards the flip chart, a scant five yards away from the stand, and laid a finger on the city.
“Please describe your exact position on the southern wall,” she asked.

Floret pointed impotently at the general vicinity of the flipchart, and gradually found her way to the pin stuck on the gate on Mews Alley, with a little indicator pointing south-east, to recreate the angle of her field of view, atop the wall that separated the inner tier - the Upper City - from the Lower City - the outer tier.
The battlements had been quite crowded, teeming with both soldiers and normal folk, to the point that Floret spent the entire stuck on one niche in the gatehouse’s shadow.

When Pierman asked her to detail the view she had over the Lower City from her vantage point, Floret began to struggle a little. She would open her mouth to say something, but nothing would come out.
Her eyes, turned down towards Pierman’s slippers in ever-mounting intensity, became more and more desperate.

Pierman cleared her throat impatiently at her frozen-up witness.
“Madam Witness, let me refresh your memory.”

Pierman would have to refresh her memory several times, reading the witness’ testimony back at her, and all she received in return were some lethargic nods.
The view she had over the less affluent, but all the more crowded tier of Trot was vast. She saw roof gardens, and clotheslines, lanterns and flowerpots hanging over the narrow streets. She saw the little vegetable market on Mews Alley, situated in the shadow of the gatehouse on a narrow piece of pavement that snaked between some badly built shophouses.
In the distance, she could see the walls of the outer tier rising out of the morning mist, and the glimmering armour of the soldiers patrolling it.

“And what was the first you saw of the Changeling Forces?”

She patted her neck with a hoof, evidently trying to rub some clarity into herself,
“The first thing I noticed… was some hubbub in the distance on the other wall. I could just make out the soldiers over there rushing about. All of us atop the inner wall watched it, and… we couldn’t figure out what was going on over there. What got them so spooked? It was… very sinister.”

Pierman held up a finger.
“By ‘we’, who exactly are you referring to?”

There were classmates of Floret’s on the ramparts with her. Two stood out, two fillies named Cockle and Sloe, the latter of whom was either the niece or the cousin of the gatehouse commander, a Legion officer named Nock.
A ripple of discomfort also went through the ponies on the market square, since word had spread that trouble was brewing on the city’s outskirts, it wasn’t long until they were trying to shove their way through the gate to the relative safety of the Upper City.
Floret herself could only attest to seeing ominous dust clouds rising up from beyond the town limits.

Around noon, Commander Nock ordered the gate shut to prevent them from clogged by the masses of ponies streaming in. What he caused instead was a minor mass panic amongst the pushing and shoving ponies who suddenly found themselves locked into the Lower City.
Those ponies would only disperse when a party of armour-clad changelings made a sudden appearance amongst the market stalls.

Pierman turned a page.
“At what point did you make that observation?”

Floret Oats hesitated, and her eyes searched for the right words.
“I remember it being very… weird. Before you knew it, ponies were… cheering in the streets below us. You see, word had spread that… a caravan of horses had reached the city gates just now, with fresh fruit and cider and rice and spices, and presents... Ponies threw about expectations of a grand feast. Commander Nock stepped out of his tower and onto our parapet, and he looked at us, and he looked at me, and said, ‘Don’t pat yourselves just yet. Stay in position. I’m not opening until it’s certain.’”
She sighed, ”I liked him. He was such a strong, prudent pony… Anyway, things calmed back down for a while… At least until I looked back down on Mews Alley, and saw her in the crowd.”
She looked up and stared directly at Chrysalis.

Chrysalis raised her eyebrows and sat upright, challenging the look. It seemed strangely playful rather than apprehensive.

“Who is ‘she’, Madam Witness?” Pierman inquired, her voice cocksure and suggestive.

“The Changeling Queen Chrysalis,” Floret answered, “with another twenty, thirty changelings in tow. They were moving up Mews Alley. Towards our gate.”

There was no fighting, nor was there any panic. The crowds of earth ponies were evidently caught just as off-guard by the sudden enemy infiltration as the soldiers on the ramparts.
Either way, Queen Chrysalis stood out to Floret from the very first moment.
She was tall - taller than any pony she had ever seen - and she wore custom-made armour that shimmered in the sunlight in brilliant green and piercing blue hues.
Naturally, a nine year-old schoolgirl like little Floret Oats didn't know who Chrysalis was supposed to be, but even so, Chrysalis exuded a ridiculous aura of authority and majesty wherever she looked.
She would only recognise that face some days later, in Sandalwood, Equestria, stamped on a wanted poster.

Pierman turned towards the defendant’s corner, “And you recognise the suspect as the same person now?”

She nodded, slowly but persistently. “She’s the one I saw. Just the way I remember her.”
She touched the tips of her own hair, “Though… I suppose her mane is a little shorter now... And no red glasses.”

Estermann knew he should have been impressed by the minute detail this millennium-old horse could recall. Whatever worries she would have in her future, Alzheimers would probably not be one of them by this point.

“What happened after you spotted her?” Pierman continued.

“She and her… guards… I suppose, halted in front of the gate. You see, it was still closed. She just looked up at us, for only a second. It’s almost like she was stared directly at me.”

Chrysalis gave Estermann a subtle glance and rolled her eyes.

“Then she just...” She demonstrated, waving her leg around, “threw her hoof back, as if to say, ‘Away with it’.”

Chrysalis smirked and chuckled.

“What did Commander Nock do?” Pierman inquired.

Commander Nock stayed put, and he stayed brave even in the face of such raw majesty as that of Queen Chrysalis.
At least, he did until a strange soldier that Floret didn’t recognise sauntered up to him from nowhere and whispered something very passionate-sounding into his ear, then disappeared in the crowd.
Floret didn’t know what it was Nock was told, but she described him aging ten years in that instant. His eyes sprang open in an expression of violent horror.

“And I couldn’t figure it out. This stallion was tough as steel. He was courage ponified. Always calm, always collected. That day, that moment… that stopped,” she explained

Pierman hummed in apparent agreement. “Please continue. What happened to the gate?”

“Queen Chrysalis just sauntered up and ripped it out!”

Pierman looked up.
“What do you mean by ‘ripped out’?”

Floret only narrowly kept herself from shrugging.
“I saw her horn shine bright-green. And the next thing I knew, the entire gatehouse shuddered under an unearthly force. The wooden gate under us started to crunch and growl... and then it was dragged out, like on an invisible anchor. The doors were torn apart and shattered, log by log… until there was a gut-wrenching groaning noise... and a great big pile of splinters came spilling out in front of Chrysalis.”

Estermann folded his arms. That rather eliminated the possibility of this little expedition being a parlaying party.
A shame too. He could have surely spun something out of that.

Pierman nodded. “How did Commander Nock react?”

Commander Nock’s reaction to it, was, to put it diplomatically, rather subdued.
Even as his soldiers begged him for orders, pleaded with him to give the permission to attack, he cantered back into his gatehouse and kept mum.
Nothing else happened to Chrysalis either. Since nopony wanted to be the first to take a potshot at her, the changeling Chrysalis just walked through the destroyed gate unmolested, and disappeared into the Upper City.
Floret eyed her desk as she recounted it, disappointed with everything.

Nock didn’t show himself for at least another half hour. And when he did, he was a mess. He had taken off his helmet, he was pulling at his chestplate, he was sweating like a waterfall.
He grabbed the pony that was closest to him, which happened to be none other than Floret Oats, by the withers and panted, ”You, young ‘un, take Sloe and the others and get to the harbour. Get out now. We’re done. We’re done. We’re done!’”

Pierman looked appropriately disturbed.
“What impression did he make on you?”

Floret’s panting matched the growing distress in the voice. “Unhinged? He kept muttering, ‘we’re done, we’re done’, like it meant something. There was a battle raging inside his head. There was something that horrified him.”

Cockle, Sloe and Floret would all have been more than glad to get out of there. Floret briefly considered evacuating them down the ramparts, westward, towards the coastside docklands. But they didn’t get very far before she heard Commander Nock calling them back.

“And… when I turned around… I saw the cheeriest grin on his face. I was relieved at first, but on a second glance, I became nervous again. Whatever it was that had happened in his head, someone had lost and something had won.”
She shuddered.
“He told us, ‘We’re done. Come back. We’re done. It’s safe here now. Come back. Stay for a while. Come back. They’ll be good to us. Let’s wait for them.’”

“What did you do?”

She shook her head. Then she yelped, uncontrollably and laid a hoof on her cheek to stave off the welling tears.
She said she had listened to her instincts and gotten the hell off those walls. Cockle, on the other hand, decided to do as she was told, and Sloe refused want to leave the side of her uncle or cousin.
So off Floret went, alone. She thought about looking for her mother at the washhouse, but she never made it that far.

“I tried hiking down the wall on the ramparts. I thought it would be the fastest way to the seaside. But it was impossible. The ponies on the wall had started shoving. And I thought I would get trampled, or shoved off, so I took the next stairs down to the streets.”

Pierman tapped on the map. “Where did you come out?”

“I took the stairs immediately in front of Arsenal Tower. That’s the second-to-last tower before the wall steps into the sea.”

As Pierman marked the map appropriately.
“Please describe the instance of spotting the suspect.”

"As I made it all the way down the stairs… I looked up. And there was Chrysalis, hanging over us, in the sky, like a harbinger of… of...”

Chrysalis had chanted something, but Floret couldn’t make out what. Then the changeling raised her hooves and spread them, then threw her head back. Her horn gave a green spark. A signal for the slaughter to commence.

“And then… all Tartarus broke loose. The sky went black with changelings. ”

They came from everywhere. Not just from beyond the city walls, but from within both the Lower and Upper Cities, random earth pony civilians began launching into the air amidst flashes of green magic.
Even as Floret galloped through the clean terraced streets of the Upper City, changelings swooped down right in front of her and whizzed through the air like angry hornets, trashing windows, flipping over market carts, ripping doors out of their hinges and pelting the townsfolk with their own flowerpots and lanterns. They broke into the houses. They tackled ponies, smashed them to the ground. Then they dragged them around and kicked them until they stopped breathing.
It was happening all over the city, which gradually broke into complete pandemonium.

Floret sobbed.

“When did you arrive at the docks?”

“Two hours in the afternoon,” she muttered.

“Please describe what happened on the docks.”

Many of the countless boats had lifted anchor at the faintest whiff of trouble and just sailed off, leaving the townsfolk on the peninsula to fend for themselves. Those vessels that stayed had to deal with hundreds of panicked ponies. Soldiers, farmers, burghers, nobles, tenants, servants, children, all of whom shoved so much that many slipped into the water between the dock and the hulls.
Floret found her way onto a coal barge by sheer luck after a merciful sailor had lifted her aboard with a hoof. Within minutes, they had pushed off at only half capacity, and went floating for the open sea.

Floret looked up. “But they were faster.”

“They?”

The Changelings swooped in from the air and massacred the passengers.
This is where Floret, for the first and last time for a long while to come, saw a changeling up close. She described their blue eyes gazing into her, and she felt oddly spellbound.
Again, it was her gut reaction that saved her life. With no other way out, she jumped into the sea.

“And I couldn’t swim. But I didn’t drown. The Trotter Shoals saved my life.”

Pierman looked up.

“A… treacherous mount of underwater sand,” Floret elaborated, “Dangerous for ships, but just shallow enough for me to reach with the tips of my back hooves, and keep my nuzzle above the water. That way, I… hopped… away from the boat. And as I hopped away… I felt something warm radiating in my nape. And I could hear ponies crying. And I saw the water shimmering green. And I could smell burning wood. They had set the boat alight.”

An uneasy instant of silence fell over the well.

She didn’t know long she spent hopping for her life. But at some point, she was thrown a hawser and lifted aboard a ship belonging to zebra pearl merchants, which evacuated her and a handful of other lucky swimmers down the coast, into the Equestrian harbour of Sandalwood.
Pierman helpfully tapped on the far-left edge of the map, pinpointing the approximate location in question.

“I could still see the smoke rising over the horizon...”

She was sent to a refugee camp, where she would spend the next eight days recovering. She looked for her parents whenever she could, but apart from a scant few familiar faces, like an old teacher or the local reeve, nobody had made it.

A little over a week later, she was brought back to a freshly liberated Trot. But it had since grown uninhabitable.

“Papa’s smithy was ransacked, there had been a fire. My mother’s washhouse had been turned into… into… a cave of… slime. They dug ponies out of there. But not mama.”

Like her parents, Sloe and her uncle or cousin had disappeared off the face of the earth.
The only one she found was her good friend Cockle.

“I found her in a camp by the gates of the city. She was… bleary-eyed. I looked into her face and what I saw was… dulled?”
She shrugged unthinkingly, “I tried asking her what happened to her. And Sloe and her uncle. And my parents. And she just… looked back at me and she told me, ‘I don’t want to see you, traitor. You ran away when you should’ve stayed. You left us. We stayed and we hate you. Sloe and Nock don’t like you either. You’re not my friend anymore.’”

Pierman looked sceptical.
“How long did you know Cockle at that point in time?”

She buried her muzzle in her hooves. “Five, six years, more than half my life?”

Pierman chewed on her lips, trying to formulate her next question in a way that wouldn’t make it sound a leading question.
“In what way was her behaviour similar or different from her usual behaviour immediately before the attack, on the 13th?”

“It...” She shook her head vehemently, “This wasn’t the same filly. For all intents and purposes, this pony could have just been... wearing her skin. But I know it wasn’t so, because… she recognised me. Only with… There wasn’t any real animosity im her voice. No real emotion. It was like she was… playing a part... badly so...”

Pierman stepped back. That was it.
Evidently pleased with what she managed to squeeze out of her witness, she humbly nodded at the judges.
“Thank you, Madam President. That would be all.”
She returned to her desk.

Chrysalis could be heard, letting out a sigh of relief so overdone that she was essentially blowing a raspberry.

“Thank you too, my learned friend.” Suruma answered and looked down at the witness box, “Madam witness? I thank you for your testimony. How do you feel?”

Floret, somewhat bravely, wiped away a tear.

“If you feel strong enough, we will continue right away with the cross-examination by the defence. Will that be alright?”

Pierman hesitated mid-step and visibly stumbled. When she sat down, her eyes immediately set upon Estermann.

Estermann merely took a spirited breath, his reaction dulled by the shock of the moment, and readied his chair for standing up.

As soon as Floret gave her meek nod, a chain of nods finally reached him.
He began, “Thank you Madam President. May I enter the well too?”

Pierman shot an even more horrified look and shot her answer before Suruma could give hers.
“That won’t be necessary!”

Suruma gazed down at her.
“Is there a problem, Madam Prosecutor?”

“I...” she stammered, “I don’t believe it will be necessary for Mister Estermann to approach the witness, Madam President.”

Estermann’s heart jumped in what he soon recognised to be a strange sensation of sadistic joy.
“Madam President,” he protested, “For the purposes of my cross-examination, I will need to access to the maps. Just like my esteemed colleague did just now.”

Pierman’s eyes pleaded with Suruma as the justice felled her decision.
“In that case, you may enter the well, Mister Estermann. But...”
She adjusted her glasses menacingly, “I trust you will practice restraint, as far as the witness is concerned? Restraint and civility?”

He bowed his head in deference. “Naturally, yes. Of course.”
He could hardly wait to show her some of that restraint and civility.

Like a toddler entering a skating rink, he stepped into the well and marched across to the relative safety of the flip chart board.
It was then that he directed his inquisitive gaze toward the witness Floret Oats. From up close, she looked even worse. Not at all bad for 998 years, but not good enough for even seventy.

She avoided his eyes. He decided to give her a kind smile.
“How do you feel?” he asked softly.

She seemed confused. She glanced over to Prosecutor Pierman for an answer. As soon as she realised in Pierman’s face that the prosecution couldn't come to her help, she gave a curt answer.
“I’m fine.”

“Good, I won’t keep you long,” Estermann replied. He wanted to sow some hope before reaping any fruits of carelessness.
“Let us immediately go back to your original location on the ramparts. You said that you observed the movements of the Changeling party from the battlements of the Upper City's wall, in the direct vicinity of Mews Alley Barbican, correct?”
He tapped on the map.

“Um, yes.”

“Was it at all usual that civilians would be allowed on the battlements in the first place?”

She paused, “Well… yes and no.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Not everypony was free to wander around on the walls. Not if they didn’t have any business up there. Especially when there's a siege.”

From the prosecution’s side, a chair could be heard creaking. But there was no follow-up sound.

“And you had business on the battlements?” Estermann asked on.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What business?”

“I was told that I should help fix arrows and load the quivers, and haul rocks onto the wall. Sometimes, they would ask me to pass around spears and poles to the soldiers. They said I’d get a long pole of my own, once… once melee started. I should try and shove away any ladders I saw being put up. Until then, I should just... put the rocks to good use.”

Estermann breathed in and out.
“How old were you on the day of the takeover?”

“I was nine.”
Her answer was undercut by a melancholic snicker.

He nodded, a bit stunned by the realisation.
There was no way to sugarcoat it. Floret Oats had been a child soldier.

“Did you volunteer…" he asked on, "for all those duties on the wall?”

“I was… told to go there everyday and help. The city needed any help hoof they could get. Everypony had to do their part.”

A conscripted child soldier.

“And your parents had to do their part too?”

“My dad was a farrier and master tradespony, so they kept him off the ramparts. My mother, since she worked in the upper city, was… privileged in a way. So she was excused. But still, every family was expected to send at least one pony to the walls, to fill any gaps. This is why I had to go.”

“Fill any gaps...” Estermann mumbled to himself, pleased as punch. It certainly explained the ridiculously high number of soldiers in that city.
“Were your friends Cockle and Sloe the same age as you?”

“Ehm… Cockle was. Sloe was seven.”

“Wow,” he mumbled, “And were they implicated in the same duties as yourself?”

“Again, Cockle, yes. But I’m not sure about Sloe. I think her uncle just wanted her to be somewhere safe.”

“Were the ramparts of the Upper City generally considered ‘safe’?”

She nodded.
“Safer than the Lower City, anyway. The walls were higher, there was less crime, less filth...”

“I see.” he answered. “Alright, moving on to the arrival of the Changeling party.”
He flipped a page and scratched his nose, “You stated that, from your position, you recognised the suspect as Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, as the commander of this small group. Is that correct?”

She gave Chrysalis a short, terrified glance.
“I did.”

“You have stated to only have recognised the suspect as Queen Chrysalis afterwards. But did you recognise the figure as a commander at that very moment, or also just retroactively?”

“Oh, that? Immediately.”

“So...” Estermann continued, swerving his hand around, “Did you, as a nine year-old school girl, possess any expertise in recognising officers of the Changeling armed forces?”

She hesitated.
“I… um… I suppose… I could tell the difference between regular changeling… soldiers and changeling officers.”

“Did you possess any expertise on the Changeling military hierarchy?” he elaborted.

She let her head droop a telling few inches.
“Well… no… I mean… I did not know anything about the hierarchy. I mean, I myself wasn’t any sort of soldier.”

“Even though you stated that you were conscripted to aid in the city’s defence?”

“They did not call me soldier,” she repeated, adamantly.

Estermann harrumphed. “Wouldn’t you then say that you sound extraordinarily certain about this observation, for a person with little to no expertise on this matter?”

Floret was tumbled, but she recovered miraculously quickly.
“I… no… I could see that many of the… run-of-the-mill changelings, if you will, received their orders from some very few changelings, all of whom wore armour. I saw them gather around them. I repeatedly saw them looking over to them for instructions.”
She clasped her hooves over her chest, frustrated. “I don’t know if they were officers, truth be told, but they were the commanders. This isn’t military know-how, this is common sense.”

“How many such changelings did you spot in this group?”

“Four. And that includes Queen Chrysalis.”

He folded his hands, and paced away from the flip chart.
“Did the suspect stand out in any way?”

“Chrysalis? Yes. She was… huge. She towered over all the other changelings, because she was almost twice as tall as any of them. You see… the other changelings I saw were barely bigger than any grown-up pony. But Chrysalis… she was the largest creature I had ever seen.”

Her physical stature was a very weak argument, and Estermann knew that. If anything, he had to strike at the heart of her observations.
“What kind of armour did the suspect wear?”

She shoved her hoof against her chin as she tried to remember.
“It was… green, bleeding into blue. It was… plate armour, for the most part. Molded to slope around her body. It was very curvy. And it was made...”
She paused, “I can’t tell what it was made from. But it was no metal. It was shiny, looked spit-and-polished.”

“Could it have been a fibre?” he asked slowly, “Chitin, possibly?”

Uncertain where he was going, she tried to physically duck away from the question.

Estermann struck out a hand towards his surprised client.
“Made perhaps from the same or similar material as the suspect’s horn and hooves?”

That seemed a little more appealing to Floret. The fact that Chrysalis’ hooves were hidden from view and her horn was still covered in tin foil and plastic did not err Floret in the slightest.
“Yes, possibly. I cannot say for sure, but it is possible.”

Estermann cleared his throat.
“Would you say that the blue and green hues of the armour were comparable to the suspect’s natural skin tones?”
He flipped to the first few pages of his folder and crammed forth a full-body mugshot of the queen, taken hours after her arrest, while she lay unconsciously in a corner of her Equestrian cell.
“You may have seen this before. I am referring, in particular, to the green hue of the plate of chitin on her back.”

Again, Floret nodded faithfully. “Yes. It does. ”

He smiled.
“Well, Madam Witness, I am asking this for the following reason: Is it at all possible that, what you recognised as armour strapped to the suspect’s back and head, was not armour at all?”

Her mouth produced a frown that was almost as incredulous as disturbed.

“Is it possible that what you saw was, in fact, an extension of that particular changeling’s physique, and not a piece of attire?”

Her mouth was agape.

An uncomfortable silence passed between them, only to be interrupted by Estermann saying, in a voice that was hard, but in supposed sincerity almost angelical-sounding,
“Take your time.”

Floret gave the prosecutor and the three judges a horrified stare, which she soon directed back to Estermann with a shaking of the head.
“No. No, no. It was real armour. Without question.”

Estermann held up a finger.
“Since we have established that it is not unthinkable that the supposed armour consisted of the same material, and even possessed the same pigmentation, as a living changeling’s natural… outer tissues, then is it not possible that a bulkier, perhaps more corpulent or muscular changeling’s frame could be mistaken by a layman for a more slender changeling covered in armour? Especially if that changeling already has a disproportionately tall stature in comparison to his or her conspecifics, thus making judgement even more difficult?”

Pierman jerked her chair back so forcefully that it shrieked across the floor.
“Madam President, I must object. My learned friend has been repeatedly asking the witness to speculate. Missus Oats is not qualified; Only a biologist specialising in changeling anatomy could possibly give an appropriate testimony.”

“Yes,” Suruma agreed, “I’ll sustain that. Mister Estermann, please refrain from directing questions towards the witness that she couldn’t possibly answer.”

He bit his lip. He nodded.

“It couldn’t have been a part of her physique,” Floret continued, blatantly ignoring Pierman’s and Suruma’s revelation, “because it wiggled and it skirted around at every slightest movement. I may not know much about changeling anatomy, My Lord, but I know what a piece of plate armour looks like. I grew up around it. My father made hundreds of them!”

“Very well,” Estermann acquiesced, “Very well. Then I would like to ask the witness to go into further detail about the suspect’s helmet, please.“

Floret braced herself by clamping her mouth tightly shut.

“What details made the suspect’s helmet stand out?”

She folded her hooves too and gave Estermann a resisting look. “What do you mean?”

He looked through her written testimony,
“You previously stated that the helmet was very unusual. That it had various details and… for lack of a better word, it
'incorporated insect imagery'. Is that correct?”

“Yes?”

“The helmet had custom-tailored, yellow-tinted visors that were unique to the entire Changeling force that saw that day. Is that correct?”

“It is.”

“The helmet even had little tusk-like decorations fitted to the sides of her jaw...”

“That its true, on the sides of her head. Like a stag beetle,” she finally answered, panting nervously, “And no, they weren’t real tusks. I know that because they wiggled side-to-side, along with the rest of the helmet. They wiggled terribly.”

“Alright,” Estermann whispered. “And eight days later, you recognised the suspect’s face on a wanted poster,... even though... the only time you had gotten a closer look at the face was from above, and covered by a military helmet?’”

“Yes, I-”
She cut herself off immediately. Her breathing quickened.

“A helmet, that covered so much of her face that it even had little fake tusks under her jaw?”

Floret’s own jaw hung agape.
“I... did.”

“What eye colour did the suspect have?”

“Green,” she spurted immediately.

“And you recognised that, from ten metres away, from above, and in spite of the yellow-tinted visors that shielded her eyes?

“I… I saw her face,” she only repeated, though she was getting a lot more desperate and shifty, “She… she didn’t have the helmet on all the time.”

“Aha. At what point didn’t she have the helmet on?”

Floret held a begging, pointing hoof out to her side,
“Like... when she spoke to the council ponies on the Grand Market, by the State Palace. Everypony saw it, how she put a spell on them.”

He gave her a confused look.
“Did you not state that you could only see her entering the Upper City? From the outfacing side of the middle bailey?”

“W-well…” she stammered and repeated, “Everypony else saw her speaking to the Council on the Grand Market.”

“We are not interested in what ‘everypony' saw, Madam Witness,” he pushed, a bit forcefully, ”Am I correct to assume that, thusly, you did not see this officer without his or her headgear?”

“Of… course I did,” she persisted through clenched teeth.

“Did he or she take the helmet off before he or she traversed the middle bailey?”

He gave her a sceptical look,
She said nothing. As though any more word could be her last.

“Did the suspect remove his or her helmet in front of your wall?” he repeated.

But Floret Oats remained silent.

At some point, Justice Suruma had to intervene.
“Madam Witness, please answer the defence counsel’s question.”

Floret shuddered.
“Yes,” she whispered.

“There we go,” Estermann mumbled, “Madam Witness, why would the suspect remove his or her helmet at that moment?”
He grinned. “It rather begs the question why she bothered to put the thing on in the first place.”

“Madam President, I must object again!” he heard Pierman bark, “The defence counsel once again asks the witness to speculate!”

“Sustained,” Suruma declared, though with considerably less motivation in her voice.

Estermann sniffed aggressively.
“Was there no fighting going on?”

“Like I said, no,” Floret insisted, “Even if Commander Nock had given an order - which he didn’t, by the way- we couldn’t have fought back because we were still gearing up. We weren’t ready for a fight.”

“You stated that the walls were teeming with defenders. You stated that Commander Nock ordered ‘arrows out, rocks up, spears up’, did you not?”

“Yes! But we still weren’t done. Not at a moment’s notice. If the outer walls had fallen, we would’ve had at least a couple of minutes.”

“Alright,” Estermann said, his voice lowering, “Then answer me this, Madam Witness. Was there any obvious reason that the suspect chose not to forego the entire gate-breaching process and simply fly over the wall?”

Floret looked exhausted. She shook her head, but she held the gaze, the fire of resistance blazing away inside her.
“No. Why don’t you ask her?” she whimpered, and looked Chrysalis straight in the eye. “She's right there.”

Chrysalis reciprocated the stare in kind. But then she broke out into an involuntary, very childish giggle. She quickly tried to suppress it with a hoof, her chains ringing.

Estermann stepped between the two to resume his questioning.
“So, in summary: According to you, the suspect approached a heavily fortified, well-staffed rampart, during a state of siege, inside enemy-controlled territory - an urban area, no less - on foot, then stopped in front of a closed gate, and removed her helmet, relying all the while on the defenders having the mercy to not immediately attack and kill her… all for the benefit of enabling you to see her face from up close?”

Floret deflated.

“And I must object yet again! The question has been asked and answered,” Pierman moaned.

“I sustain that too. Please move on, Mister Estermann.”

Estermann smirked. He couldn’t believe how inane the whole thing was. It practically spoke for itself.
“Very well,“ he mumbled, “Madam Witness, let us proceed to your second sighting of the suspect.”

She flinched again.

“According to your testimony, you saw her flying into the air and give a signal, and the attack commenced soon after.”

“Immediately,” she maintained.

“Alright, immediately. At what time did you make this observation?”

“About half an hour past noon.”

Which was consistent with the reports of the suspect… concluding the negotiations held on the Grand Market.
“Where did you see the suspect take into the air from?”

“The bottom of the steps of the wall.”

He chuckled.
“Sorry, let me rephrase that.”
Though he did wonder… how much of the sky could she have seen from some crammed alleyway?
“Where did the suspect take off from?”

“The vicinity of the Grand Market,” she answered, as expected.

“And you recognised her as the same person you saw on Mews Alley from the walls?”

“Without a shred of doubt,” she declared. “It was the same armour, the same mane, the same horn, even the same muzzle. And yes, she was without her helmet at that point!”

He nodded, as if in understanding. Then he turned around, and took off towards the flipchart.
“Let’s mark the position of yourself and of the suspect. You stood by the Arsenal Tower, correct?”

“I did.”

“And the suspect flew around above the Grand Market...”
He turned the flip chart slightly so Floret had decent view.
“I’d require a ruler to be certain, but… assuming the city map is scaled correctly, I estimate the distance between these two places to be approximately… one kilometre.”

She gave him a blank look, clearly less than familiar with the metric system.
“Uh… okay.”

“And that is one kilometre not including the vast difference in altitude between the airborne suspect and yourself, down there on the street. You mentioned that not only could you recognise her armour, but also her mane and face, correct?”

“Well… yes. My eyes might not be worth much now, but as a little girl-”

He held up an index finger to silence her.
“But at a distance of one kilometre, would the suspect have been anything more than a black dot on the horizon?”

Her eyes widened.
“No… I mean yes! I know that because I saw her flying with my own two eyes!”

“Even the body shape would should have been awfully difficult to make out, wouldn’t it?”

“No. It wasn’t. Nopony that day was nearly as large as her, as lanky as her. And that’s not to mention that… armour she wore...”

“You seem to particularly certain about the uniqueness of the suspect’s physical stature and armour, don’t you?”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” she whined and bent forward.

He folded his arms.
“How many changelings did you see on the 13th for yourself? About fifty? Sixty?”

She wheezed.
“I... can’t say. A hundred, perhaps.”

“Out of a force of at least... twelve thousand five hundred?”

She said nothing.

Estermann pointed upwards theatrically.
“There are only three possibilities left, aren't there? One, you saw somepony who looked similar to the suspect, but found him- or herself in a different location that was much closer to yours. Two, it is indeed the suspect you saw, at a distance far too big for you to distinguish her features in any relevant detail, and thus make a coherent identification. Or three: both.”

She shook her head.

“If I showed you a helicopter in the sky, would you be able to recite to me its registration number?”

The elderly mare shook her head again, confused.
“What?”

Estermann sighed.
“If I showed you... an owl in the sky, would be able to tell me the all the colours of its feathers?”

“I… Probably not. Not at that distance. An owl would likely be far too small,” she stammered.

“Not any smaller than the suspect’s mane or muzzle or eyes," he said. "Did you happen to have a pair of binoculars by your side when made your observation?”

She shrunk.
“We had no binoculars back then...”

“A spyglass?”

She closed her eyes momentarily.
“She flew towards me,” she said, as though in resignation

He hesitated.
“Pardon me?”

“Queen Chrysalis flew in my direction!” she repeated, more forcefully.

“I see,” he muttered in exaggerated surprise. Then he tapped on the map.
“How close did she come to you? Approximately?”

She shook her head.

“How close? Please answer the question,” Estermann huffed.

”About... half way. She was over… Spirewell. That’s the large intersection right there. That’s a stone’s throw from where I was standing.”

“That far away from the Grand Market? You did not mention that in your testimony, did you?”

She shook her head, shamefully.
"I'm sorry."

A sideways glance confirmed that Pierman was burying her face in her hands.

He threw another glance on the map.
“Spirewell… Spirewell. Ah. Spirewell’s still half a kilometre away, isn’t it? Over five hundred metres... from you.”

She nodded silently.

“So, instead of a black dot in the sky, you would have seen... a somewhat bigger black dot in the sky, wouldn’t you?”

“Much much bigger...”

“If you say so.”
He sighed and turned a page. She had stayed reasonably adamant, and it was the only thing that kept her story from collapsing under its own weight.
There was some doubt left, some wiggle room, but he was sure even that could easily be quelled.

He had delved into the ‘how’. Now it was time to explore the ‘why’.
“Your restaurant specialises in Trotish delicatessen and music, doesn’t it?”

The change of topic made her flinch.
“Yes...”
She looked at him. Her eyes were glassy. Her face defeated.

“Does your entertainment include... storytelling?”

She eyed him reproachfully
“On special occasions.”

“Could you repeat the name of your establishment please?”

She bit her lip.
“Trotter Shoals Inn.”

“Would it be named after the same Trotter Shoals that you stated to have used to make your getaway across the bight after jumping overboard from the barge?”

She nodded, then wrinkled up her nose and quickly, almost subconsciously, glanced back at Pierman.
“I honoured the place that saved my life. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Pierman, who was sitting in a corner like a tiger who had been waiting to pounce for several hours, registered her cry for help and spoke up.
“I object. This query is utterly irrelevant to the subject matter.”

Before Suruma could even begin to espouse her judgement, Estermann chimed in.
“With all due respect, Madam President, I am trying to investigate whether any ulterior motives exist that might have unduly influenced the witness’ view of events retroactively.”

“You… what?” Floret asked, her words soft and slow with shock.

After Suruma waved him through, Estermann picked up where he left off.

“In other words, Madam Witness, you’re currently drawing quite a profit from your experiences, aren’t you?”

She shrugged a little.
“With my restaurant… I contribute to keeping the Trotish spirit alive in the hearts of ponies. I think I speak for all ponies of Trotish heritage when I say that we all draw a massive profit from our engagement. But I’m not sure how-”

“But is there was no commercial incentive for you to maintain the story that you have told us here today?”

“...No. no,” she answered dubiously.

“So the faintest indication that the version of events that you maintain wasn’t as extraordinary, as spectacular, as dramatic as what you describe, wouldn’t result in your gastronomical establishment forfeiting any profits?”

She harrumphed.
“My inn offers Trotish and Lunean cuisine. Yes, I do try to keep the legacy of Trot alive. But my story is hardly the reason why my patrons eat at my restaurant.”

Estermann shrugged innocently.
“Even if the story doesn’t exactly ‘draw the crowds in’… How insignificant is the story of the little girl on the Barbican, who was the first to spot the dreaded Queen Chrysalis, who saw her pulverise the city gates right from underneath her hooves, who witnessed her give the command to slaughter, and then watched her city fall around her, who lost her parents to the changeling horde, who evaded slavers and marauders for hours, who caught the last boat, which was boarded mid-escape, and who jumped into the water and waded to safety within a literal breath of her life? How insignificant is that, to the very soul of the Trotter Shoal’s Inn?”

He could hear a little sob.
“...The memory hurts me, whenever I think about it… No. I run a restaurant, not a… theatre. It is not significant at all.”
Shh was in visible pain to have to say those words.

Estermann took a step back and reflected.
He realised he might not be going in the right direction. The road led another way. And that he was quite a lot more straightforward.
“Madam Witness… To change the topic… The wanted poster on which you claim to have recognised the suspect. In which way were you introduced to it?”

She averted her eyes. “What? I... The usual way. They showed me the poster.”

“‘They‘ being who?”

“Equestrian Royal Guards. From Sandalwood.”

“Were you also questioned on the events of the 13th?”

“...Yes, I was.”

“Were you approached by the Royal Guards?”

“Of course. That’s how I gave my testimony.”

He scratched the bridge of his nose between his fingers in thought.
“After you landed in Sandalwood, were you interned by the authorities?”

“I was so weak that I could hardly walk without help. So I was taken to a makeshift hospital and laid down to recover for three days.”

“Was it while you were bedbound that the Royal Guard conducted any questionings?”

She nodded,
“Yes. They went from bed to bed, introduced themselves, and asked about what had happened to us.”

He nodded back.
“Was it during one of these questionings that you were first introduced to the wanted poster bearing the likeness and name of Queen Chrysalis?”

She hesitated, then nodded again.
“That’s where they showed it to me, yes.”

For his next question, he approached Floret, even closer than ever before.
“And… what was the accompanying question they asked you?”

Floret looked up at the ceiling in thought.
“‘Is this the pony you saw?’”

Estermann’s heart skipped a beat.

He felt the sudden urge to take his folder and hurl it onto the witness stand’s desk, awaiting its deafening clap, turn around, nod at the three judges, then simply strut out of the room, preferably leading his queen out by the chain with him, and off the court premises, not bothering to as much as take off his robe, and plop down in the nearest tavern for a steaming brew of strong tea.
For the moment, he resisted that urge as well.

It was subtle. But there it was.
His ‘Eureka’.
Just like that, he had found an explanation for this entire nonsense.
He could believe his luck so little that, for the longest time, he said nothing.

This trick, he believed, was what the Americans called an ‘Oklahoma Showup’; In the olden days, it was by far the easiest way to make a witness reliably, efficiently, and of course completely freely, positively identify the suspect of the police’s choice.
But in these enlightened times, it was also the easiest way to a mistrial. At least, if this thing ever reached the trial stage.

When he came to, Estermann stole a glance at Prosecutor Pierman. The woman was grey with shock.
She had realised it too, as she should.
He was glad to see that he and she were on the same page.

Devouring Pierman’s shocked expression for a few delightful moments, he took a breath and gazed at the witness.
“And you were, up to that moment,” he made sure, his voice unsteady with poorly suppressed joy, “ignorant of Her Royal Highness’ identity?”

“I… didn’t know who she was.”

“And so… the investigators of the Royal Guard directed you to match the identity of Her Royal Highness, Queen Chrysalis, to the person that you observed on the 13th?”

“You could… say that?” she stammered, clearly trying hard to figure out what was wrong, and failing.
Estermann loved it when his - or rather, the prosecutor’s - witnesses were blissfully unaware.
Even the ICC probably liked their eyewitnesses a bit more if they didn’t immediately self-destruct.

“Were the other patients in your field hospital asked the same question?”

She gulped.
“The two ponies laying next to me were. Yes.”

He could practically hear the ’bang’ of Pierman’s forehead meeting her desk.

“Madam Witness...” he uttered, now calm as a clam.
He wondered. There was one thing that was still weighing on his mind. Should he bring it up? He didn’t really feel like letting a query so pointless and risky souring his morsel of victory.
But it had been bugging him all day already.
“I would have one last line I would like to pursue before wrapping up this examination.”

Her ears perked up, hopeful once more.

As he prepared to carry on, he was briefly distracted by a side panel door opening in the back of the courtroom with an unsubtle creak.
Peering over, he saw the tip of a familiar aqua-furred muzzle poke into the room.
When one of the bailiffs stepped in to intercept the would-be-intruder. As he approached the mare in the door and confronted her, she floated a piece of paper over to him with her magic.
Confused, he accepted it, then looked over to Estermann.

Estermann smiled. This must have been Lyra with the inquiries he asked for. He’d certainly mind that in a moment.

“Well… second-to-last query,” he continued, “You maintain the assertion that members of the Trot government and military were affected in their decision-making by a so-called hypnotic trance.”

“I… was only asked to describe how their behaviour changed,” she protested near-automatically. There was no way Pierman hadn’t prepped her for this line of questioning. It had been bordering the fine line of speculation and character evidence from the very moment it was raised.
Estermann took note to exploit the hell out of that.

“In particular, you have pointed out Commander Nock and your friend Cockle as possible victims of this - alleged - attack on these peoples’ very minds.”

“They acted like they were different ponies,” she insisted, “As though their very selves had been expunged.”
Before he could protest, she silenced him with an intent stare.
“It was obvious they were under a magical spell! Even for an… earth pony like myself. Magic isn’t a rare sight at all in Equestria. Not like here!”

“Well, do you have any reason to believe this is the case beyond the fact that their behaviour seemed… uncharacteristic?”

“I...It’s…” she panted, “it’s the only way to find that kind of thing out, isn’t it?”

“Madam Witness. Do civilians and even members of the military, in your experience, have the habit of behaving in a rational, typical everyday manner when confronted with war?”

Her muzzle was frozen in a cramped, uncomfortable grimace.
“What?”

“Is it not true that extraordinary circumstances drive persons to extraordinary behaviour?”

“Of course, yes...”

“Does it seem far-fetched to you that a besieged population would, when confronted with the possibility of war and death and ruination, eschew a violent defence in favour of cooperating with the enemy? Perhaps even try to find solace and solidarity in that fact?”

She sniffed loudly.
The hooves under her desk trembled, and with them, the creaking wheelchair. She opened her mouth long before words came tumbling out.
This had struck a nerve in her, even more than any of that which came before.

“Are you saying this is why Cockle didn’t want to see me anymore?" she asked back, her voice quickly increasing in volume and intensity, "Why she came to hate me? Because I ran away in terror?”

Estermann shook his head.
“Madam Witness, I am not trying to give credence to the hasty words of a traumatised nine year-old girl-”

“That’s not who she was!” she cried out, so loud that it echoed through the chamber, “They turned her into a husk of what she was in life. They turned fierce warriors and brave leaders to molten wax, before my very eyes! They made them give up the best-fortified city in Equestria without a fight. Walls that were twenty ponies tall, crowded with willing defenders!”

“Yes, against an enemy that was airborne.”

She hesitated.

“Would you consider yourself well-versed in the policies of the government of Trot? Particularly the ones that concern themselves with contingencies in case of a military occupation? Yes or no?”

“No!”

He approached her even closer
“So you chose to interpret what might have probably been perfectly sound, if not ideal, strategic decisions, performed under the extreme psychological duress of the situation, as products of so-called hypnotic manipulation?”

“If… you apply common sense…” she stammered.

“Common sense,” he spat, and stepped even closer. “Did you take what could easily be attributed to stupidity of the victims, and attribute it to the malice of the suspect?”

She turned her head away and sobbed.
“How dare you?”

“Did you interpret the 'hypnotised manipulation’ of Commander Nock and Sloe from their actions alone? Their veneer alone?”
Another step.

She swallowed her sobs, and turned her head back around to face to confront Estermann’s face straight on. What she saw seemed to frighten her.
“Not quite… I… I looked into their eyes.”

“Their eyes?”

“Yes.”

His gaze was involuntarily drawn to her own eyes. They were enormous, sandy yellow and gripped by intense dread, mixed with something that appeared to him to be sudden realisation.
“Aha. And what did their eyes manage to tell you about their… impetus?” he asked, mockingly.

“They shone. Green. Just… just like yours,” she mumbled, gradually fading to silence.

He nodded, in a hollow gesture of comprehension.
“...Aha. Interesting.”

Something made him turn away.
It was a split-second decision, he realised this query was a waste of time. The cross-examination was over.
He had his Oklahoma showup. Witness One was a shambles.
Now he had to move on rapidly. Before Pierman even got a chance to treat the witness as hostile and make everything even more complicated for everyone.

The only things left even linking Chrysalis to Trot now were a grimy, centuries-old four-minute reel film and some scant, dubious mentions in a long-dead language.
Though… that last part may clear itself up in a matter of moments.

He waved at the bailiff to pass Lyra’s piece of paper onto him.
He and Estermann met at the edge of the well, where Estermann relieved him of the paper with a thankful nod.

“What is that, Mister Estermann?” Suruma asked.

“I apologise, Madam President,” he said as he started skimming Lyra’s less than stellar ’handwriting’.
“I have conducted a brief inquiry relating to contents of Exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h.”

“Is your cross-examination at an end?” Suruma asked him, unamused by the interruption.

He read through the writing as fast as his eyes could comprehend.
There it was. Just as he thought.
He had shot into the dark. And he had actually hit someone.

“Almost. I am at my very last query now.”
Excitedly, he folded the paper away for the moment, then returned back to the witness Floret Oats.
“Madam Witness… Recognising your lack of formal education or expertise in linguistics… How well is your comprehension of Trotish Ponish?”

With a glare of true exhaustion, Floret caressed her neck.
“It used to be better. I haven’t had the chance to speak it fluently in... centuries.”

“Perhaps you could help with this question nevertheless.”
He pointed his finger at the changeling queen. “What would this person’s name be pronounced as in Trotish Ponish?”

Chrysalis gave a big grin as she leaned in to hear the answer.

Floret Oats’ teeth clattered subtly as she summoned her response.
“Chrysa… Chrysa...lissa,” she pronounced unsurely. “Krala Chrysalissa. Krala means “Queen’ or ”‘chieftain’.”
Her eyes flicked around. “But don’t take my word for it!"

Estermann pouted and nodded. It was telling to hear it from her mouth.
“Well. That would be all then, Madam Witness. Thank you for your time.”

Floret closed her eyes, no longer mollified by his deceptive politeness.

Justice Suruma licked her lips, jabbed a full stop on her sheet and signed softly at her co-judges, who gave her equally uncomfortable pouts.

“Now, Madam President,” Estermann continued, “I have received a message from…“ he skimmed the page, “Missus Amarinth, a… research fellow at the Royal Canterlotian University’s Faculty of Ancient Linguistics, and she-”

“Hold your horses, my learned friend, first things first...” Suruma interrupted and tapped on the desk, “Madam Witness, I thank you for your time. Court officer, please remove the witness from the courtroom. Mister Estermann, you will wait.”

An electric pulse went through Floret as she heard one of the ushers approach her box with the wheelchair.
She glanced over to Chrysalis and seemed to realise something that she didn’t like.

With surprising agility, she climbed off her chair on the wrong side and fled straight into the well.

“Madam Witness, where are you going?” Harshwhinny yelped, but for nought.

Estermann didn’t register something happened until Floret cantered right past him and headed for the defendant’s corner.

Chrysalis’ eyes widened in surprise when she realised that the witness was going straight for her.

“Court officer, please lead the witness out of the courtroom!” Suruma repeated harshly.

The usher tasked with picking her up abandoned the - now clearly superfluous - wheelchair and clumsily attempted to give chase.

Estermann, unsure of what to do, joined in the pursuit.

The other guards, clearly none of whom was trained in stopping a four-legged animal that hardly reached up their pelvises, struggled to cut her off and herd her away from the defendant, but they couldn’t stop her until the elderly mare had reached the other side of Chrysalis’ desk, her head barely a yard away from Chrysalis’ own.
The two equines locked eyes.

Chrysalis eyed the little pony with nervous hilarity usually reserved for tourists dreading an approaching band of gypsy street musicians.

Estermann joined them in time to hear Floret whisper a subdued “You” at her.

An embarrassed, cringing smile bloomed on Chrysalis’ muzzle.

A guard clutched Floret by her wrinkly neck and attempted to steer her away, but she struggled.
“Just tell me one thing, Queen Chrysalis,” she said, “I have waited long to ask this,”

“Well, not here, not now, Madam Witness,” Estermann protested. But then a hoof from Queen Chrysalis silenced him.

“What, dear?” she asked her, sweetly.

Floret yelped as a guard got her by the tail, but she didn’t take her eyes off her.
“My parents… they were called Piarom and Moria. What happened to them?”

Chrysalis raised her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?” she whispered back.

“Madam Witness,” Suruma was heard yelling, “This is highly inappropriate! Remove yourself from the defendant’s corner immediately!”

The old mare struggled against her restraining attempts, but gradually, she found herself being dragged away.
“I’ll forgive you! I will forgive you if you just tell me!”

Chrysalis’ maw opened at the question.
It quickly transformed into an amused laugh.

A second guard got Floret by the chin and forcibly lurched her towards the main exit.

“Please, I never found out!” she begged, now terribly desperate. “They were just gone. Swallowed by the earth!”

The queen arose from her pillow and looked after apprehended mare.
“You want to know what happened to your parents, child?” she made sure. “Piarom? Moria, you said?”

Even as her face was squeezed in the other direction, and her four feet shoved across the floor by human shoes, Floret’s eye stayed on her, and it lit up like a road flare.

Chrysalis left a lavish pause.
Then her mouth cracked into a new smile, even brighter, even less mature.
“I don’t know that. Are you stupid? I wouldn’t remember such a thing!"

The last thing Estermann, Chrysalis and the remaining assembly saw of Floret, as she was dragged out the doors, was her eye scrounging up, then welling up.
And as the officers locked the doors behind her, and the rest of the room held an involuntary moment of silence.
The silence was punctured only by the giggles of Chrysalis herself.

“Wow. That was awkward,” she commented.

Estermann placed both hands on her table and tilted toward her menacingly.
“Jesus Christ, calm yourself, please.”

She replied with an even louder, even more mocking, even more grating bark.
He flinched, less in embarrassment than in sheer horror.

He noticed Magistrate Fori trembling in anger and baring her teeth, but saying nothing, at the moment.
His dearest friend Colm remained typically silent, though even he had a very unfriendly pout under his nose.
“Enough of that now,” Suruma growled. “Where you left off, Mister Estermann. Get on with it. We’re overdue as is.”

Estermann coughed uncomfortably and looked at his paper. With a heavy heart, he paced away from his client and her increasingly worrisome behaviour.
“Apologies,” he mumbled at the judges, “Uh… Missus Amarinth has put forward a translation of portions of exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h, specifically those that allegedly refer to the suspect directly. And... this translation varies notably from the translation put forward my esteemed colleague, the prosecutor.”

Pierman’s chair creaked as she leaned back in exhaustion and soothingly rubbed her hands all over her face.
The page fluttered as he laid it on his desk
“As we have discussed before, the original files featured in exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h make frequent mention of a certain individual. If I may be so bold as to attempt to pronounce it in its original Trotish Ponish...”
He concentrated on the phonetic noises Lyra had helpfully, if somewhat sloppily, taken down for him at the very bottom edge. He was impressed that this Trotish Ponish language was even pronuncible to human mouths. But so was French. And the Equestrians’ French connection had to crop up somewhere else, he reasoned to himself.
“‘Krala... Hesale’,” he mouthed, and raised his eyebrows.
“Well, the prosecution has chosen to interpret this name as ‘Queen Chrysalis - an easy assumption to make - but Missus Amarinth, while conducting her independent translation attempt, could not confirm this translation. At every mention of Krala Hesale, she consequently reached the meaning...” He held his piece of scrap paper up for effect, “‘Chieftain Hazel’. Krala Hesale means ‘Chieftain Hazel’.”

The judges and the assembly stared at him in silent dumbfoundedness.
Pierman’s eyes squinted at him in disbelief, but her open mouth threatened to swallow Estermann whole.

“Who’s that?” Lexy Fori asked into the room, her voice weak.

Now, who was this Chieftain Hazel, Estermann himself wondered. But that was another question for another time.

At some point, Suruma mustered her strength and cleared her throat.
“And… this interpreter you are citing, Missus... Amarinth, is it?”

“Yes, Madam President. I will formally submit a full report to the court at the next opportunity!”

She scratched her jaw.
“She is a research fellow at the faculty?”

He begged that Lyra hadn’t made a mistake here.
“Indeed.”

“The same faculty that, to Missus Pierman, has confirmed the official translation of the with utmost certainty that ‘Krala Hesale’ does in fact translate to ‘Queen Chrysalis’?”

He really hoped Lyra hadn’t done something stupid here.
“It seems so.”

All eyes turned towards Pierman, who stared back with wild pleading eyes.

“Missus Pierman… Who was in charge of your translation efforts at the faculty?”

She dabbed her face with her handkerchief.
“I will have to… confer with the Dean to find out the exact composition of staff.”
Her hand shook, “But may I remind the court that, regardless of the second translation’s supposed merits, the first translation was certified by the Dean himself? It was found to be in-keeping with all professional standards and scientific rigour.”
She followed up with an expression that said, 'Not so sure about yours.'

Suruma nodded and looked at Estermann.
“My learned friend, to what conclusion does your competing translation lead the defence, in light of this?”

He grinned victoriously.
“It certainly proves that the implication of my client in the Trot attack on the basis of the evidence of Trotish origin is, to put it mildly, controversial. Maybe the first translation is accurate.“
Theatrically, he shrugged. ”But maybe it’s completely erroneous. Certification or not; If the very meaning of the words in these writs are still up for serious scientific debate, then how on earth can they serve to prove my client’s culpability anywhere near the boundaries of reasonable doubt? How can this court justify charging Her Royal Highness for a crime as serious as a war crime over something as trivial as a misquote? A clerical error?”
He lowered his eyebrows meaningfully. “The answer is that... it cannot. Pre-trial exists for exactly this reason, to weed out evidence that isn’t up to snuff.”
He pointed his piece of paper at his counterpart. “We have seen very similar deficiencies crop up in the prosecution’s evidence the previous hearing, in their utilisation of transparent anti-Changeling propaganda, and indeed…” he laughed mockingly, “even in the initial appearance hearing, in their use of some embarrassing - yet potentially grave - spelling errors.”
He held up his hands in feigned modesty. “Now, I do not presume to know what is ‘going on’ over there, but there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with the case that is being constructed against my client - not with my esteemed colleagues of the prosecution, per se, but with their prime benefactor in their attempts to implicate the Queen in these crimes:”
He smiled at Lexy Fori. “The Equestrian State.”
He combed his hair back.
“The testimony of the prosecution’s Witness One speaks for itself! She has just now described to us, in damning detail, a successful attempt of the official investigators of the Equestrian crown to hoist a very distinct version of events upon her.”
He held up a finger, ”By asking this nine year-old survivor, days after the fact, if it was Queen Chrysalis she saw leading the attackers that day, they consciously steered her towards the statement that, why yes, she did indeed! With their carefully selected queries, these so-called professional investigators have prejudiced the young girl in the most blatantly corrupt and frivolous manner.”
He cocked his head to the side enthusiastically. “It would be fitting to say that her words today were, for all intents and purposes, not her own… but rather those of Queen Chrysalis’ greatest geopolitical adversary - a nation that would have a vested interest in characterising her as a mad aggressor.”
The words, ‘Princess Celestia’ teetered on his lips. But he thought better of it. Lest he worked himself into something that he would actually have to prove.

Pierman looked appropriately defeated, even though she fumed at her nose.
The fight was gone. She was clearly wishing for this moment to end. Now.

He loved to have torn into Pierman’s ‘four scarab’ footage as well, but he knew that he was insufficiently prepared. Next time, perhaps. For the interim, he knew he would have to rely on everyone else getting hung up the exhibit’s sheer shoddiness factor. Were he a judge, he would do just that.

“Shut up!” a shrill, piercing voice screamed into the room.

Estermann flinched so hard that his heart got out of its step.

Like a soldier looking for the gunman that had just riddled him, he looked around for the heckler.
His eyes settled on Magistrate Lexy Fori, who had pulled off her cap off magistrate’s cap in frustration and was now standing up, bending over her desk so far that he had to wonder whether she would fall down the front side any moment.

He tried to shake the shock out of and some appropriate offence into himself, when it occurred to him that she wasn’t looking at him.
It was at that moment that he registered the soft, rhythmic clip-clops of hooves, punctuated by rustling chains.

He turned with dread to see his queen applauding him, and in an inappropriately sarcastic golf clap at that.
He muzzle was marked by an enormous bursting grin. The biggest one since recordings began.

“Oh? What’s the matter?” she asked. “I’m giving my lawyer his due. He worked so very hard just now.. That's 'thinking on your hooves' for you.”

Even as Lexy fumed loudly, and Pierman fumed silently, Suruma took a deep breath and coolly took the helm back.
“Well, seeing how your jokes are becoming something of a bad habit now, I’ll gladly intervene. Your Highness, I’m removing you from the courtroom.”

Estermann helplessly bated his breath.
There it was. Just when things were going good, she had to overdo it.
Just what in God’s name was going on with the Queen the last couple of minutes?

Whatever it was, Chrysalis hadn’t had enough.
“You’re removing me?!” she exclaimed in mock disbelief, “Who do you think you are?! This is my trial. You're all here because of me! I am Chrysalis, and I can do whatever I feel like."

“We can carry on without you,” Suruma countered coldly, “Disrespectful behaviour won’t be tolerated in this courtroom, Your Highness.”

“You tolerated it for three days now, you clown,” she laughed, “And believe me, I am growing more sick of it than anypony else.”

That put Estermann’s hair on end. He whirled around and practically sprinted towards her desk.
The guards standing behind the bellowing queen couldn’t do more than glare at the back of her head in contempt.

“Court officer, lower the curtains, cut the microphone. We’re adjourning!” Suruma declared, clearly having reached the tail end of her tether.

“You should also be showing us a bit more appreciation for Alexander’s efforts, President!” she demanded, “He’s doing something you couldn’t do. The impossible!" She pounded against her chest with pride. "Absolving me!”

Estermann slapped both his open palms down on the desktop so hard that it numbed them instantaneously. But that didn’t tickle as much a tired glance out of the queen.
“I beg you, for God’s sake! Shut up! Shut up!” he hissed at her, much louder than he intended.

She locked eyes with him.
“No no no. Sit down. Be a good drone. Your queen is talking.”

And just like that, his mouth dried up. His piling thoughts of all the words he wanted to say just about now seized. His ears buzzed. His skin prickled at a sudden cold sensation.
From one moment to the next, the unbearable weight of her command slammed down on him like a descending ceiling.
Following a sudden urge, his knees, gave in. He sank onto the tiled wood floor by the desk's edge and plopped down on his robe. His expensive brogues' heels, still caked in the sand and mud of the beaches, dug into the long black cloth as his legs twisted, involuntarily, into a grounded boy's cross-legged seat.

A guard was at his side in an instant, placing a wary hand on his shoulder. But even through the guard’s muffled calls for attention, Estermann only had ears for the words of his queen and that of her partners in conversation.

“Listen up, changeling!” he could hear Lexy Fori’s shrill voice yelling, “Unless you want to say something along the lines of ’I dunnit’, why don’t you just do as you’re told?”

“Tough words, little one. You want me to confess? Is that the only way you will listen?” Queen Chrysalis asked rhetorically. “With my lawyer to going to such crazy lengths to pronounce me innocent, yet you want my confession?”

“Yeah,” Fori exclaimed in challenge.

“Fine! I hate ruining it all, I really do!” she laughed. “I confess. I did it! I did it all, my little pony! Guilty as charged. In all counts! Forever and ever and ever! ...What are you going to do now? Go home? Did I just put you out of a job?”
He could feel her enormous head towering above his own.
“Sorry, Alexander. I couldn’t resist.”

He just wanted to be done with this nightmare and wake up already. His mind screamed for him to clasp his ears shut so it wouldn't have to listen to this. But his body had already taken its orders elsewhere.

I. Handle With Care

Handle With Care

This day was going to be perfect,
The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small...
Everyone I'd have controlled, every stallion mare and foal;
Who said I could not really have it all?

With a screechy thud, the wheels touched down on the icy asphalt. The plane rolled and rolled, slowing down with every meter. It skid to a halt, the brakes wheezing beneath the cargo hold, reverberating through the entire aircraft.
As the engines spooled down, the hatch at the very back of the plane made a metallic clank and slowly folded apart, bathing the interior of the enormous hold in stale white light.
Against the lucid and pale sky and muted brown-red silhouettes of skeletal trees, there stood the shadow of a man on the ramp, clad in a poofy raincoat who was letting his view slide around the innermost darkness of the mighty war machine.

He tugged the collar of his jacket apart, revealing a very formal suit underneath, a black tie on a light blue shirt.
He was nervous, not too sure what the airplane's open hatch would reveal to him. All he knew was that he was expecting a delivery, and that it was a delivery like he has never seen. He still was self-conscious enough to look presentable to whoever - or whatever - would emerge from the interior.

Luckily for him, the first thing to step out of the darkness of the hull was a soldier with a grey-white camo jacket and a buzz cut. The patches on his sleeve identified him as an American and a member of the Army Veterinary Corps.

He shook the soldier's hand heartily, only taken aback a little by the fact that it was sweaty and sore, as well as a bit stiff, like that of a sailor working on the rigging during a gale.

Yes, the vet assured him, there had been a few turbulences on the way, but that was it.

The two walked back to the front end of the hold together, maneouvring between the occasional stacks of supply boxes and diplomatic baggage, chatting a little about the 12-hour flight, and if they managed to get any sleep at all.

In the front section, there was a single luggage plate, at least four square metres big, tied to the hold's ground by several industrial belts, with a heavy blanket covering whatever was laid out beneath it.
Next to it, there sat four soldiers, tired out, weak, red-eyed and sore, messing around in a heavy aura of boredom and lethargy.
Two of them were Americans, dressed just like the vet, only in blue vests with helmets hanging from their duty belts. 'SF' their shoulder patches read.
The other two soldiers, however...

The man in the suit needed a moment to comprehend this sight.

Two tiny stallions, white snouts, blue and grey manes, packed in glistening battle armour, lay on pritches attached to the airplane hull, drooping and playfully dangling all four limbs above the floor. Wearily, they raised their rather massive heads to acknowledge the presence of the human.

He had never seen such ponies in real life before. On the TV screen, maybe. But never with his own eyes.
Those intelligent, fascinating creatures, in all their three foot-tall glory.

The door to the cockpit opened, and out stepped another one of the creatures.
He looked a bit different; he had a horn on his forehead, a ruffled blue mane and purple-toned armour. Compared to the other two, he definitely looked the part of the superior.
Upon seeing the human in the suit, he quickly shifted one of his forehooves to the side of the head in a pompous, yet respectful fashion.

The human needed a moment to realize the creature was giving him a salute.
Unsure what to do, he sank down on one knee, and reached out a hand to shake the pony's hoof, as if it were a dog offering it's paw.
After that awkward gesture was accepted by the equine officer, both creatures saluted each other one more time, and the man straightened back up and slapped the grit from his pants, feeling strangely embarrassed.

Then he smiled, turned around and quickly asked for the "bumf", right off the bat.

"What is... bumf?" the unicorn asked hesitantly.

"The paperwork, Captain."

They quickly went to retrieve their 'bumf'.
The vet reached inside his camo jacket and handed the man in the suit a blue-tinted form wrapped inside plastic foil, while the equine officer stuck his head in a pouch that lay under one of the pritches, and picked out a big, beige paper scroll with a golden seal with his big teeth.

As the man filled out the blanks of the blue attestation, the unicorn, carefully breaking the delicate wax, used the power of his horn to slowly raise his scroll against the light so that everyone could read what was written on it.

"In the name of Her Serene Highnesses, Celestia and Luna, Princesses of Equestria, we hereby submit this creature, a felon and an enemy of the crown in the face of Equestrian Law, to thee, the most honourable judges of the United Nations, in the spirit of friendship and the hope of trust, and in the expectation of her being brought to justice for her dreadful and lamentable deeds..."

Without even reading halfway through, the man in the suit politely picked it out of the air and pressed it against the next best hard surface, to jam a pen into the coarse reed fibre to let the ink of his signature sink into the lower right corner of the paper.

Then he rolled up the royal decree and handed it back to the stallion officer.

"Alright, gentlemen, gentle..."

"Colts?"

"Yes, gentlecolts. My name is Commissaris Jaap Vorster, I am with de Dienst Koninklijke en Diplomatieke Beveiliging, that's the Royal and Diplomatic Protection Service, and I say... welcome to s'-Gravenhage. The City of Peace and Justice."

He turned back around and gave a short shout towards the open ramp.
"Is okay!"
Hurrying in came a man in a beret, a blue patrol uniform and a shouldered submachine gun, and another in a flourescent yellow and green-blue jacket and equally blue trousers, armed with a medical suitcase.

"That's Adjudant Ronnie van Eck from the KMar, and Niklaas Wouters, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine."
Then he addressed the stallion officer once more.
"Well then. Where is she?"

With a suddenly very serious countenance, the stallion turned to his two other equine companions.
"Cheval?" He sighed, "Remove the rug, please."

As if on cue, the thick black blanket on the luggage plate was slowly lifted, and pulled away in a fluid motion.
What it revealed underneath was a most unusual sight indeed.

Held down by massive, archaic silver chains, there lay a bug, eerily reminiscient of an equine, on her side, her four limbs pointing in one direction, and her head in another.
Her long, deformed legs, riddled with holes and cracks not unlike parasite-infested wood, were weighted down by thick silver collars.
Her slender, swan-like neck lay stretched out away from her body, with her snout, equally motionless, resting on the edge of the plate, her face partially buried under her slick and oily, sickly blue mane.
Her great black pupils, usually slim and sharp, rested bloated and unfocused in her green eyes, aimlessly staring into the space between the ceiling and the cockpit door.
Her wings, as well as most of her mid-section, were hidden under what appeared to be a knife vest under a horse blanket, tightly strapped around her to restrain whatever could be found beneath it.
A couple of cotton-wool pillows had been stuffed under her neck, head, stomach and rump, to assure her at least some basic travelling comfort. One of the pillows was frayed, and leaked down flew around the felled beast .

Intrigued by this foreign sight, the Commissaris slowly kneed down to her, and carefuly led two fingers past her numb and lifeless eyes. He hoped for some sort of reaction.
"Your Highness? Your Highness, can you hear me?"
Nothing. "I would like to inform you that you are now on Dutch soil, and will be transferred to your resting quartres as soon as possible."

The stallion officer rested a hoof on the Commissaris' shoulder, carefully drawing him away from the limp beast.
“Be careful. You can never know if she can hear you.”

Vorster shook his head, further observing the bug as her eyes strayed further and further into oblivion.
“Godver... dorie, man. What exactly did the Equestrians do to her?"
He looked around quizzically, seeking some kind of explanation.

The stallion shut his eyes and turned away from the beast, his snout burning with very apparent disgust, and a pinch of shame.
"We did that, Mr Vorster.” he stated bluntly, displaying no visible compassion for his prisoner. “Once we figured sleeping spells were too weak..."

"We sedated her with highly concentrated Ketamine." the human vet finished for him.

"The hell is that supposed to be?" the Commissaris inquired, a concerned look spreading on his features.

"That's uh..." the vet nodded at him suggestively, as if he were about to say something inappropriate. "Ahem... horse sedative. The catch is that she wouldn't respond to the medium dosage, which is about 40 microgrammes per kilo of bodymass." He scratched his nose. "So we gave her the maximum dosage, which is 80 microgrammes... which didn't affect her that much either."

"And?"

"We gradually worked ourselves up to... 400 microgrammes." he said and grinned.

Dr Wouters, the man with the orange vest who had just set up his medical kit on the floor, gave him a shaken glare.
“That must be about 160,000 mcg of Ketamine all in all! What the hell, are you trying to kill her?!”

The US Army vet was quick to defend himself.
"Hey, we had to pump that into her just to make at even at least somewhat complacent. This dosage would have killed any other creature in her weight class, but it didn’t even come close to affecting her!”

The Commissaris sighed, taken by the evolvement a bit to quickly.

"I can to explain why we had to do this." the equine commander tried to reason.

"Captain Shining, I do not know why you had to pump her full of ten horses worth of narcotics." Vorster waved the man in the orange vest over to him. "I would just like to issue a warning. You are now in the Netherlands, and we do not take this kind of treatment for granted."

Shining Armour frowned and blew some strains of scruffy mane out of his face.
"With all due respect, Mr. Vorster, but in Equestria, we don't usually coddle the enemies of the Princesses!"

The man in the orange vest pulled a pair of thin gloves over his hands and kneeled down to the Dutch officer.
"She better still be able to communicate once she wakes up." he warned the unicorn. "You have no idea what permanent damage a Ketamine overdose can cause."

Cautiously, the medic checked the equine hybrid's eyes with a little flashlight, then kneaded the skin under her jaw to test her muscle reflexes, and then looked at his watch to keep track of her pulse. Then he gave the soldiers around him a troubled glance.
"Okay, as a good doctor, I would suggest placing her in the airport sick bay for an hour or two - though she is barely stable enough for transport, as far as I can tell. She's still very much under the effects of the anasthetic."

"That's good enough for me." the Dutch officer remarked and lifted himself off his knee. "Send in the forklift, the carriage is waiting on the airfield."
Then he tugged on one of the silver chains tied between her legs. "Captain Shining. We do have a key for this, right?"

Shining leaned to his side, shaking something out of the collar of his armour. It was a turqouis gem on a necklace.
"You need this. It's a magically charged gem. The locks will open only if you place this in each shackle's dent."

"Huh." the Commissaris murmured as the unicorn floated the necklace up to him. "I knew the equines do things differently, but... this is new."

He and one of the Americans slid the gem into its position on each of the four shackles. One shackle after another made a short clanking noise, and fell into two halves of a ring.
The Commissaris grinned to himself as he slipped off the very medieval irons. In his imagination, this was something straight out of a fantasy dungeon. "Say... is there any reason for the chains? You could tie cruise liners with those things! They seem a bit... overkill, if you ask me."

"A lot of reasons, in fact." Shining began reciting. "'Extremely resilient, cannot be taken off by anything else than the gem, suppresses the magical capabilities of the prisoner.' It's standard ware, straight out of the Royal Equestria Field Manual."

"And that?" the medic asked as he pointed at the unconscious changeling's horn.
It glittered in the dim light, as if it were wrapped in aluminium and clingfilm. He held up a small plastic box that had been attached to one side of the horn with a cable.

“Oh, that’s a battery connected with tin foil. Don't forget to turn it on once the chains are off.” The vet explained, helpfully circling a finger around his head. "Apparently, a constant flow of electric current confuses the cranial nerves in the horn and renders it incapable of proper magic.”

“That’s… also new.” The medic slurred, squeezing his eyebrows down in disbelief. “Can you confirm that, Captain?” he asked the unicorn next to him.

“Sorry, I'm a soldier, not a doctor.” The equine officer admitted and smirked. “Though you’d be best off asking my little sis. She knows everything. She is the Princess’ personal protégé... don'tcha know.” he added, admittedly a bit swankily.

“Do we?” the Commissaris asked, a tad confused.

“Uh, well... she said she wanted to come afterwards. Maybe when Princess Celestia decides to travel here.”

“Chains away!”
The last shackle slid off the last limb, and the American dragged the heavy restraints around the platform.

"But..." the medic once again pointed out, "I'd suggest a little precaution."

Pulling the anesthesised creatures’ drooping gums apart with his two index fingers, he revealed to the others her tremendous fangs and menacing teeth, buried in blood-red gums.
One of the stallions guarding her shuddered at the sight.

"I'd suggest... a muzzle? Just so nobody's limbs end in her mouth during the transport."

Vorster stood up, raising the zip on his raincoat. He looked at the medic exasperatedly.
“A muzzle?”

“A dog muzzle, yes.”

The Commissaris looked around indignantly and snorted.
“You want to give a political detainee a muzzle?”

After this statement, the medic himself looked a bit unsure.
"Well, it would be better..."

“You understand what you are saying, Mr Wouters?”

“I think that's a very good idea, Mr Vorster.” Shining Armour interjected. “If she tries to-”

“I warned you about this already once, Captain Shining.” Vorster interrupted and waggled a menacing finger at him. “The Netherlands do not tolerate this kind of degrading conduct. Prisoners of the UN are not gagged just for the sake of being gagged.”

“Most prisoners of the UN do not have fangs either.” The vet snarked.

“The last thing we want to do is to imply our prisoners can't control their own teeth. The press would eat us alive. No muzzle.”
He kicked the chains away and turned around.

There was a sudden jolt out of the equine at his feet - as if her muscles flexed impulsively.

The medic at her side looked around, taken aback by the sudden reflex.
As he looked back at her bit, he noticed the right fang had moved to the side. As had the whole jaw.
It had flapped open and shut when he didn't look.

Then he gasped. Shocked, he froze up.

He followed his right arm all the way back to the index finger, which now hung in-between her fangs, gored.
More so, the fang had cut right through him.

"Oh, sijt. Fuck. Fuck!"

Before anyone else knew what had happened, the Changeling's eyelids flickered.
Her pupils contracted, focused, pulling back into their sharp slits, like stretched green cloth after a pocket knife had cut clean through it, bringing out the darkness behind it.

What happened next was over as quickly as it started;

Upon seeing the medic's face contorting with pain and shock, the American security officer instinctively reached for his handgun.
But before he could dodge it, a dark-grey, chaddered leg rammed into his stomach, knocking him back, sending him sprawling spine-first against a metal container several feet away.

Another hind-leg struck out, and sailed right into the feet of Commissaris Vorster. The policeman slammed onto the floor with a thud.

Then the powerful creature started up, with the distressed medic's hand still trapped in her mouth, pulling her legs together and scrambling onto all fours, rising - above the heads of Captain Shining Armour and his two fellow guardsponies - to her full height.

The other security officer and the Dutch Gendarme backtracked, one unsheathing his baton and the other un-shouldering his submachine gun. Chrysalis sneered fiercely as she directed a deafening burst of bright green energy into the latter, thrusting him backwards, letting him twist around and land on his chest.
The American security officer flinched at the sight of his Dutch comrade's smoking body, flung across the hull like a ragdoll.
And as he beheld the wrathful emerald glow of the foreign creature's eyes, his will to fight plummeted. Ineffectively, he thrust his nightstick at the equine, missing her head by inches, and quickly spun around for the saving daylight of the ramp.

"Chrysalis!" Captain Shining screamed, spreading his legs as he prepared to summon a spell to subdue the erupting changeling.

Chrysalis spat out the medic's bloodied hand and let him collapse into a squirming, wailing heap.
The Army vet, who had wisely decided to stay away, immediately sunk down to drag his screaming colleague away from the furious creature. But then he received a heaping blow on his head from above, and his unconscious form knocked both of them back down.

With everyone else taken care of, she turned to address Captain Shining, her old acquaintance. The queen was still a bit sedated, with her legs shaking and her nearly losing her balance after the sudden, unearthly surge of adrenaline, but she still made a formidable, haunting thing to oppose.
The two stallions at Shining's side were earth ponies, unable to take on a dealer of magic such as Chrysalis, and, attempting to avoid the fate of their human counterparts, backtracked behind their Captain as he bit his lips to concoct a quick, but forcible spell against the Changeling Queen.
"Hello there, Shining, dear." she greeted him almost calmly, a wicked smile revealing her blood-drenched fangs. "How is my favourite warrior doing?"

Her voice was just how he remembered it.
It was soothing and slick, lustful even, but there also was the eternal, unnerving buzzing in the back of her throat that tainted every one of her words with her very own uniquely haunting melody.

Shining growled. His horn lit up, glistening fiercely, ready to release his protective magic before the dreaded regent could make her escape.

"Are you pointing that thing at me?" she inquired, motioning a hoof to playfully nudge away his horn, mocking him with fake fear. "What, are you really going to strike down a poor old friend?"

"Stay behind me..." the Captain whispered to his two comrades, ushering them behind the vicinity of his horn.

"Well what are you waiting for?" the Queen asked impatiently. "I'm standing right here, aren't I? Take me down if you have to!"
The last few words were peppered with heavy sarcasm. Her gaze grew sinister, strangely defying, yet inviting to violence. "But you don't have to, if you don't want to."

Shining bit his lip even harder. He would have liked to take her down, more than anything in the world, he was sure he wanted to. But...
He couldn't do it. In his mind, he argued that he had orders, that was supposed bring her here unharmed. Just so she could receive a punishment much more fitting for a pony such as her. He didn't travel the whole way just to break this promise to his Princess...
He began to shiver. The glow of anger in his body slowly charred into white, ashen fear.
Her intriguing gaze met his glare time after time, no matter how he tried to find a way around eye contact. It was unnerving, positively unsettling.

"Shining..."

He was certain he just heard his beloved Cadence's voice resonating through the container.
"Stay back, you..."

"What's the matter? You didn't object the last time I called you that."

The Captain quenched the thought with a jittering eyelid.

"After all that time... reunited once more." She winked teasingly. "I could organise a tad more privacy, if you want."

Her horn glowed in weak green light.
Then, to Shining's left and right, the two earth pony privates suddenly tensed up, pressing their eyes shut and grinding their teeth, involuntarily grabbing their heads with their hooves, and began to stumble back and forth, gripped by piercing headaches.
Chrysalis' horn stopped glowing.
The two ponies collapsed instantly without as much as a sigh, clanking against the floor, with a loose helmet rolling between their Captain's legs.

"Easy... peasy." The queen took a step towards the unicorn. "And now what?"

Shining was alone. Between him and the saving daylight light of the ramp stood the creature that once took the guise of his great love.
He looked back up at her.
Her eyes, her big, green eyes glowed back down at him.
Once again, fear and tension blurred his mind as he found himself maneuvred into a cul-de-sac.

"Look at me, Shining. Just like the last time you looked me right in the eyes, and told me you loved me with all your heart."

The unicorn would have shuddered at the thought. Whatever she had done to him then - he could hardly remember any details - it had left a dirty hoofprint on his soul. The feelings she had instilled in him, they felt so unclean, so revolting.
And indeed, before long, he felt an old familiar feeling surge up again.
A feeling of content, warmth and ignorance to the world around him. Undistilled loyalty and love. And obsession and addiction.
He couldn't help himself. He felt his determination sway dangerously as he became lost in her yellowish emerald eyes.

"I knew you would remember. Nopony ever forgot their time spent at my side." She took another step forward. "Take my hoof, my prince. And lead me out of here, for the sake of a last waltz together."

The flame on Shining's horn expired, the built-up magic evaporated. With drooping, slumberous eyes, he reached out with a dazed hoof.
She accepted it with a smile. For once again, she felt the joy having some control over something. Even if it was somepony for whom she had obviously little affection. A stupid grunt of Celestia's, a regent she herself had defeated in single combat.
How pathetic.
How weak.

As she made sure the Guard Captain was following her, she turned back around, eager to escape this dreary container.

But as she strolled towards the light, her devious joy evaporated in a hesitant instant. She recoiled in shock.
Something was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

The coming morning light was too dark for the winter season. Her eyes had to refocus to see what actually lay outside the plane; she wasn't used to any of it. The colours were all muted. The shapes of the trees in the background and the weeds on the tarmac were bleak and hazy. They were ugly - in white, and greyish red - as they were unfamiliar.

"This... is not Equestria?"

Shouts rang from out there. Through the hatch, shadows came rushing in, yelling in a foreign tongue, their combat boots reverberating against the metallic surface. There, there came more of those creatures Chrysalis had spotted - humans, one of the royal guards had called them - closing in on her, standing on their back legs, menacingly unsheathing pole-like weapons with their claws. She had only ever seen three or four of them at a time, and never had they seemed as intimidating or fierce to her as they seemed ugly.
But now they were a dozen of them, dodging around boxes and diving into cover, at arms, and obviously looking forward to fight her.
Oh, the fools.

One of them halted only feet away from her, taking aim with his weapon.
"Down! On your knees! Marechaussee!"

The Queen smiled at the bipedal creature.
"No no. You get down."

Her horn lit up once more, ready to lash out at the pathetic beings anew. They may have matched her in height, but they were still no larger than any normal pony or whatnot. They were just all the same - foalish prey.

But then she heard something shuffle behind her. She was almost sure it wasn't Shining.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the creatures - a pilot - approaching her, holding a small black canister in front of himself.
Before she could do anything about it, a geyser of mustard-yellow fluid erupted into her face, accompanied by a vicious hissing noise, drowning her eyes and her nostrils in a stinging, swelling sensation. A suffocating feeling jumbled her magic spell just momentarily. Then the human creature threw the small bottle aside and lunged forward, grabbing her by her throat and horn, as if to keep the head of a bull in place.
Obviously unaware of what he was doing, his hand began to singe as it touched the magically loaded horn, making him curse painfully, but he didn't let go.
Seconds before Chrysalis could send a conditioning spell through his impertinent form, he reached forward and grabbed something dangling just above her eyes.

She heard a tiny mechanical click.

The next thing she felt was a searing pain shooting through her horn and into her brain, nearly scorching all her senses, stunning her just as she was.

Only with great effort could she keep control of her flexing limbs and stay upright.

"Captain Shining! Captain Shining! Are you... can you hear me? Do something, sir!" the human yelled, dropping on his knees and grasping his singed hand.

Chrysalis wanted to turn back around, completely exhausted, and reinforce her spell on the unicorn, just so he wouldn't react to the human's distressed pleas.
She would make it out of here, no matter what, and if they were in her way, they would all get what was coming to them!

But her horn would not respond. The only thing she felt was another shot of pain driving through her head, as if her horn had been lopped off. Again and again, she sharpened her thoughts to produce the spell before it was too late, but her horn didn't obey.
It didn't work. The spell would not come to be.
And Shining Armour was probably slipping away from her control as she thought about it.

Indeed, just as the unicorn stallion snapped out of his trance, his first, panicked reaction was to fire up his magic, in defence of whatever danger was awaiting his consciousness. The only thing he saw as his blurry eyes refocused was a jumble of humans, all dressed in uniforms, holding up weapons and desperately rallying him. But as he tried a step towards the availing soldiers, a big grey form reeled in front of him, obscuring his sight. Instinctively, the dazed officer used his horn to blast the disturbance out of his way.

Chrysalis wanted to turn around, but something powerful struck her in the back. Like a rose bolt of lightning, the magic impaled her, lulling her muscles, slowing her movement, weakening her resistance. She could not build up a counter-spell; her efforts were to no avail.
Her knees gave in. She sunk to the ground. Her vision blurred under tears from the spray, pain and frustration.

The gendarmes and policemen pounded forward, giving the weakened creature her coup-de-grace, viciously striking her down with rifle butts, batons and jackboots, with one or two even dropping on top of her legs to keep her restrained.

She could make out the tuneless ringing of chains as one of the gendarmes unpacked several feet of plasticised steel chainwork with four shackles, the inlaid rubber squeeching as he strapped them around Chrysalis' legs.

After that was done, the gendarmes backed away, once more leaving the chained changeling resting on the ground, battered and weighted down. The battery that suppressed her horn's magic still dangled just above her eyes.
Commissaris Vorster, fumbling with his trited tie and a torn-apart zipper on his jacket, stepped forward, holding on to his right shoulder with his left hand, wheezing with each step.
Solemnly, he looked down at the changeling.
"Your Highness... I would like to inform you that you have now reached Dutch soil and... and will be transferred to your resting quarters asap." Then he turned around and walked off, cynically sighing "And Dr Lecter sends his regards."

With these words spoken, a pair of hands reached down to her and forced something rigid and firm over her snout.

Author's Note

Looks like they won't need that forklift anymore...

X. Ferae Naturae

IX.
Ferae Naturae

Kurhaus Hotel, The Hague
18. November, 2015
5:02 pm MET

“'The discovery in the Everfree Region has sent a wave of shock and sorrow through the ranks of... of...' No no no...” the defence counsel hissed, and rolled back on his elegant hotel bed. “It doesn't fit. It sounds awkward, I can't have it sounding awkward.”

A deep human hum came out of the speaker phone on the night-stand in the corner. It was the distinctive voice of Garibaldi, his Italian aide-de-camp.
“I see what you mean, Mr Estermann. As it is now, it comes across... very forced... unnatural even. It shouldn't sound like we needed hours to come up with the right terminology.”

“Then let's bin the thesaurus and start over!”
Nervously, Estermann jolted upright once more and left the bed. He peered around his beautifully furnished room, over the vase with tulips in the corner, the running Flat-screen TV in front of him - channelled on Euronews and with the sound muted - and out the wide-cut windows that offered him a panoramic view down the southern coast landscape of Scheveningen, where he saw the church spires, the palace roofs and skyscrapers of The Hague gleaming under the setting autumn sun in the distance.

The Swiss jurist had been utterly unable to find a proper flat or house to rent for himself in the town for the long term; the demand for living space had risen dramatically, in part because of the trial itself.
He had thankingly, if begrudgingly, accepted the opportunity to spend a couple of nights at the famed Kurhaus Hotel.
The seaside hotel itself was filled to the brim with all sorts of creatures longing for a nice evening of relaxation after a day of back-breaking desk work.
The elegant art nouveau construction that had been built in the honour of the town more than a hundred years ago, now had the honour of serving a very different kind of purpose. Witnesses, observers and journalists, ponies and humans alike, but also advocates, prosecutors, judges and investigators had taken the invitation to canton themselves in the stately lodge just like him. Almost all the suites of the historical, five-star jewel of the seaside town of Scheveningen had been rented out by the Court.

“You know we can simply release the press statement at the end of the week.” he suddenly heard Garibaldi suggest. “From my experience with the press, a grace period of up to five days is more than appropriate for issuing a statement.”

Impatiently, Estermann crossed his arms and paced over to the phone.
“If we wait until the end of the week to comment, we might just as well not comment on it at all!”
With the side of his right hand he clapped into his left. “I want our reply to be snappy! Apt! Determined! We cannot let the rest of the world know that we are despairing over this mess. It's bad for our image and it's bad for our position in this trial.”

“Mr Estermann,” the Italian warned, “I have five or six major media outlets waiting on the other lines. I can either tell them to come back next week to take our statement in peace, or I can tell them to hold the line, and have them wait for nought. And let me tell you, reporters don't like to be kept waiting.”

“And that's why they will get their statement.” He harrumphed. “Just remember one thing, Mr Garibaldi: Queen Chrysalis is not to be implicated. Don't lose a single word about her!”

There was a short pause.
“How do you mean that?”

“We are not going to suggest Queen Chrysalis had any part in that mass murder. There is no proof – no proof at all! - that she is involved. I mean, sure, there may have been changelings involved... And that's a big Maybe... But there is a fuck-ton of changelings out there! I'd stake my pay on that there are at least some of them that do not directly answer to her. We are not going to be the ones to draw any links between this crime and the Queen. You got that?”

“I see your point. But I still need to quote you on something concrete.”

“Alright, alright!” the counsel groaned again. “Ehm... 'This incident certainly affected the defence's work, making clear the nature of the crimes was-”

“Why don't you talk more about Queen Chrysalis' own reaction? How about, 'the development shocked the Queen' or 'saddened the Queen'?”

“Saddened? Shocked?!”
He snorted. “Schön wärs. Chrysalis wouldn't even bring up the courtesy to wish them good riddance...”

There was an apprehended pause.

”I see.”

However, the counsel immediately dodged his thoughts.
“But... I still do not see any reason to think that she's actually involved. She just hates ponies. And this is her way to express her sentiment.”

”In Italy, we say, Scusa non richiesta, accusa manifesta." Garibaldi countered. "One would expect her to send her condolences, or at least affirm that she had no part in it. If she really is uninvolved, that is.”

Nervously, he scratched his trouser leg. “The Queen has a... slight self-preservation malfunction, Mr Garibaldi. That said, I am not going to claim that she cares when she actually doesn't. It would only take a warden to prattle away about her to do us all in. Never lie when the lie's flimsy.”
He let out a sniff. “Talk more about the victims, and what they did to end up in that situation...”

”I'd... strongly discourage you from focusing on the victims. That would sound like you would be levelling the blame against them.” He let his words sink in for a second. “That would be the bottom of the barrel, especially if coming from the defence.”

His temper was running low.
“What if we just send our own condolences, and not lose a word about any accusations?”

“If we do that and still refuse to talk about the possible perpetrators, it will just come across as insincere. If we are to take a position, we must take a position.”

“Jesus, Maria, und Josef!” the counsel exclaimed. “How come this has turned into such a fucking minefield? When has it become so rude as to suggest that the Queen had no part in this affair?”

”Because that's... not very probable. Not to imply anything, but I would expect more involvement in changeling matters from someone who styles herself as the 'Queen of all Changelings'. We cannot just pretend that this doesn't concern her.”

Slowly, the lawyer sank down in one of the armchairs near the entrance to the bathroom.

”Perhaps we both should take a day or two to cool our heads and think about how we present ourselves in light of the developments. Just so we don't slip up.”

“It's going to be pitch-black in less than hour. The press would have long gone by then.”

"Perhaps. Though... I would expect the at least stay until the desserts start rolling out.”

Estermann huffed, both in frustration and confusion.
“What desserts?”

“The Court has organised a dinner in the Kurhaus Hotel today at six. Didn't you get an invitation?”

Carefully, the lawyer glanced over to the wardrobe table, where there indeed lie a small pamphlet he had found at his room's doorstep, and not minded any further.
“What... kind of dinner?” he asked, cautiously.
He immediately noticed he his stomach began to curl up on the inside at the mere mention.
Having been so caught up in the situation that he hadn't even noticed that he didn't get a bite to eat since breakfast.

The Italian's answer was peppered with enthusiasm.
”Oh, the fancy kind. To toast to the successful cooperation between the ICC and the Equine institutions.”

The counsel couldn't withhold a groan as his eyes twisted upwards to the ceiling.
“I sincerely hope you don't plan on going there.”

”Uh... Actually, I did.” the Italian slurred innocently.

“Garibaldi...” Estermann warned him, “You may have noticed that we are at the precipice of an actual development in this trial. Now is not the time to go partying and get sloshed!”

“Mr Estermann, everyone's going there. The prosecution and the judges will be attending too. Cavolo, even most of the people from our office will be there. Helena, Lars... Heartstrings as well.”

“I don't even know half of those names...” Estermann growled.

“Well... for a start, Heartstrings is that pony liaison...”

“Oh, I know her!“ he snapped.

All of a sudden, he felt very lost.
His brain told him to bark Garibaldi back into line. There was work to be done.
But, in the back of his mind, he did start to sense an air of futility to it all.

“So... “ he winced bitterly, "Do you expect me to finish all the with this statement all by myself then?“

“Of course not. In fact, I think you should come as well.” Garibaldi proposed calmly. “I'm sure everyone will look forward to meeting you in person.”

“I bet they would.” he snarked.

He heard the Italian sigh.
“We... we can always discuss the wording some more during the dinner, if you really want...”

The condescending, slightly weary tone in which his aide-de-camp slurred those words sent a last, irritated shiver through the Swiss lawyer's body.
“Do not patronise me, Garibaldi. Don't pretend that your fancy dinner is more important than the job you're being paid for. Do you hear me?”

“Of course not. I didn't mean it that way...”
He cleared his throat. “Will you come, though?”

“I will think about it. It depends on how far I'll can wrap up the draft. By myself.”

“Well... good luck then.”

Rising up from his chair, he skipped over to the phone and slammed his finger on the receiver lever. Garibaldi's line was immediately replaced by a consistent low-pitch beep filling the room.

“Lazy prick.” he muttered as he sat down on his bed and looked over the notes he had accrued during the last few minutes of brainstorming.

He had written down about twenty different statements he could have issued concerning the 'Cave of Death', as one witty mind had dubbed it, in the ever-so dwindling hope that at least one of them wouldn't come across as either pathetic, deceitful, or self-defeating.

Garibaldi had that point, of course; one couldn't ignore the elephant in the room.
Already the way Queen Chrysalis had reacted to his confrontation with the photos the other day - her bored, slightly annoyed look - spoke volumes.
She hadn't even raised an eyebrow, for crying out loud!

It all seemed to be so hilariously obvious. Of course would Chrysalis, the Queen of all Changelings, have her hole-ridden hoofprints all over the affair.
The problem was that he couldn't say that. He, as her attorney...

'Alright... alright.' he told himself in a raspy enervated voice, and picked a pencil from the night stand, 'One sentence. It doesn't take more than one sentence to deny everything. That's all I will write down for now. If I write down that one sentence and it works, I will stay and I will finish the damn paragraph. If not... then not.'

And one sentence he wrote.

He was downstairs in the grand ballroom by ten past six.

The Kurhauszaal was the main hall of the hotel, with its various historical uses ranging from balls to rock concerts. Now, the room with the swung, painted and glass ceilings, illuminated by the hundred little, bright peach-yellow lights of an enormous chandelier, was hosting a banquet in the honour of the Court and invited all the guests to an eloquent evening meal.

The diners had been positioned around a number of sizeable circular tables, and were chatting away as uniformed servants chased around with platters of aperitifs, while a solitary unicorn was trying her luck at a human grand piano in the bar corner of the room.
The music was clumsily performed, yet jovial and uplifting. The throats of a a few hundred humans and ponies filled the air with chatter and laughter, and there was just the right amount of alcohol in reach to make one's mind blur most of the hassle to non-existence.

Everything went so fast that Estermann didn't take note of most of it; in only a matter of seconds, he found himself seated at a table, sandwiched between a joke-cracking, slightly overweight Italian jurisprudent and an overly ambitious aqua unicorn, getting introduced to other key members of his defence team.

He knew that he was most certainly not going to remember any of their names if he didn't necessarily have to, and neither did he care for it. There was a female secretary with dark brown hair, a young Scandinavian legal advisor with a boyish face…
He honestly did not care.

Massaging his temple, he peered over to Garibaldi, who was busy sharing a funny story of his with the others.

"My son, Abramo. He is in third grade now and content with it, but I tell you, back in the first? Did you know what his first words were when he came out of the classroom on the first day of school?"

"I don't want to guess again. What?" a secretary with large rimmed glasses asked and gave a wide, musing smile and sipped from her champagne glass.

"Well, he came out, I was waiting outside the classroom, and I asked him how it went. And his first words literally were – now, I kid you not -"

'Well, what were his damn first words already?!' Estermann hissed in his mind.

"'I think I'm surrounded by assholes.'"

The other guests gave a round of amused chuckles.
And Lyra Heartstrings let out a penetrating, overdone screech of a laugh, tearing her maw open wide as the other guests winced.
For as enthusiastic as her reaction was, it was obvious she had only just realised that the story was supposed to amuse her, but not how. She didn't want to show her new human colleagues that she didn't get the joke.

Estermann just let his head slowly sink into his waiting propped-up arms and pressed his eyes shut until they were wet with tears.

"No kidding?" the secretary with the glasses verified in elation, clenching her teeth as she bravely filtered out the pony's guffaw.

"I am not making this up. It definitely left a lasting expression on his teacher, let me tell you that!"

"What do you think does this tell you about your son?" the other assistant, the younger intern-like one with the Scandinavian accent asked.

“You mean the language or the attitude?"

'It probably says that he'll grow up to be someone great someday.' Estermann pondered.
He would have said it out loud, but he did not feel like announcing his participation in this conversation. He didn't want to draw out the small talk any longer than he had to.

But pudgy Garibaldi talked on unfazed.
Estermann swore, if that man hadn't done most of the work in organising a defence team, and was now trying so hard to lead his fellow workmen to believe that they had some kind of functioning work relationship with their boss, Estermann would have just waited for the main course and then gone back to his room.

The counsel was in a strange mood - it was better than on the days before; he didn't feel as lethargic, slow and wasn't quite as plagued by headaches; but it was still far from a happy, content one. It was one of those pesky moods like when he caught a cold, just without the excuse of an actual cold.

Likewise, he couldn't keep his thoughts from skipping to the Changeling regent, who was currently sitting in a jail cell less than a five minute car drive away, probably chewing on her very own dinner...
Hopefully, she liked it. Only then could he continue with his defence in an orderly fashion.

Somewhere in the room, someone struck a wine glass with a fork.
Snapping out of his thoughts, he looked over the heads of the seated guests, and found an old acquaintance standing up rising (very slightly) above the others.
Prosecutor Pierman.
She was obviously giving some kind of grand speech, but her meek voice wasn't quite strong enough to carry every word as far as Estermann's ears. He could make out that she was talking to a few pony heads sitting two or three tabled adjacent from his own, who were listening to her very intently, eyes as big as saucers.

The counsel could hear snippets of the riveting, Afrikaner-accented speech echoing over the chit-chat of the other guests.

First, he could pick up things like, “...bound to its principle, and not its species or racial allegiance... guided by the winds of love and violence...”, and all sorts of rather corny parables.

But soon, those were replaced by words like, “despotic, murderous, intolerant powers... 'might is right'... I couldn't hold back my tears. I won’t lie... ”

He put a warming hand to his pale, throbbing forehead.

'Well, look who's hitching a ride on the quixotic bandwagon' he mused in melancholy. 'Does she even know with what kind of despots she is dealing with here?'
Even then, it looked a rather pathetic performance. And really, it sounded little better... as if she had recently ascended to papacy and was now preaching to the quadrupedal choir.
No one asked her to do that. She just did. Perhaps the prosecutor liked the sound either of her voice or - more probably - her views, and didn’t falter in letting others know.
‘What a riot.’
He was happy how he dodged the possibility of suffering through such a lecture when he kicked her out of his office the other day.

A few seconds into his pondering, the speech seemed to wrap itself up, and the prosecutor's voice fell silent. Mere milliseconds after, her table was enveloped by enthusiastic applause from a hundred hooves, causing a few heads to turn around quizzically. And as hooves connected with each other, connected with the floor, and connected with the tablecloth, a few human hands from nearby tables spontaneously joined in as well.

As Estermann sat there and pondered the - distant, yet so close - roar of the ovation condemning the murderous, sociopathic tyrant that was his client, he couldn't help but feel increasingly displaced. He thought, just as he was thinking two days ago, about the role impartiality still played in all of this. He couldn't say he didn't agree with what the prosecution intended. But he still felt uncomfortable to be stuck in an environment that was so violently opposed to his efforts. It didn't feel right to dine with the opponents of his client.
In fact, at the moment, he would have felt more at home dining in a bombed-out officer's bunker at the edge of a raging battlefield. There, at least there wouldn't have been any moral complications.
To him, this whole affair had become more and more akin to a war. In fact, he couldn't understand anymore why he seemed to be the only one who felt like he was at the receiving end of an impending bullet salvo.
Or cavalry charge, in this case...

Even the aqua unicorn next to him who had insisted that he didn't give up on the Changeling Queen a mere day ago, appeared very blissful, trying to blend in the other dinner guests, smiling and nodding and generally saying nothing of use. She seemed to be genuinely trying to enjoy the occasion, sitting among creatures that she appeared to be absolutely adoring.
Or maybe, Estermann thought, she was just trying to make amends with the fact that this was the way the next months would be spent - a cycle of serious, morally demeaning paperwork and research - followed by lush, expensive dinners stacked with forced, artificial smiles, intertwined with pretty speeches.
Why couldn't he just follow her example? He couldn't be more vain than a damn unicorn.

Trying to shake the unpleasant thoughts out of his head, he let his sight zoom across the menu in front of him.
Entirely Vegetarian. It stood there in big, reassuring letters.
It made sense, of course, and half of the patrons were equines, but it still annoyed him to no end. He couldn't start much with tofu meatballs or eggplant lasagne. Mentally, he reminded himself to find himself a McDonalds or something on the way to the court tomorrow. One with extra greasy burgers.

Almost as if his thoughts could be read straight off his face, he felt two very reminiscent purple eyes burning a hole in his cheek.
Subtly glancing over his shoulder, he spotted the not very pretty sight of Magistrate Lexy Fori, glaring at him from her seat at the prosecutor's banquet.
The pony judge was dining with the prosecutor? Oh, what a surprise.

Irritated, Estermann sent an haughty, inquisitive glance back at her, accompanied by an trouble-inviting hand gesture.

She retorted with a disbelieving, disgusted shake of her head and the mouthing of something probably not very charming.

Before he could reply with a contentious cock of his own head, he aptly forced himself to look the other way when he grew aware that he was getting lulled into what was little more than an over-glorified face-making contest that wouldn't have been out of place in a school canteen.

It was then that his aide-de-camp hauled him back into his own conversation.
"And how about you, Mr Estermann?"

"Me, what?" the Estermann asked guardedly.

"Uh, well... how did you end up here?" Garibaldi asked. "I thought we'd make a little round where everyone introduces himself and tells a little about their role here, or their family life or a funny little story or something similar."

"What is this, kindergarten?" the lawyer blurted out, partly confused and partly irritated, with no enthusiasm in his voice.

The other guests on the table fell into an awkward silence. It was obvious that this man was not the most pleasant individual to keep in company.

Estermann let out an exasperated sigh.
"Alright. My name is Estermann, Alexander Estermann, and I'm from Lucerne in Switzerland. And my main job in the last few days has been holding direct contact with our client. You’re welcome."

"Aha?" the Italian replied, obviously mocking interest.

Exasperated, Estermann looked to his left. In the very next moment, a heavy hand descended on his shoulder.
Looking up instantly, the jurist espied a pudgy, white-haired face towering over him.
"Colm. What a surprise!“ The attorney said, a little relieved to see a familiar face.

"Evening, Alex.“ He turned towards the other dinner guests. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.“
The others greeted the judge as well. "Are you enjoying the meal?“

"Oh, we're still at the aperitifs.“ Lyra remarked dutifully.

"Ah, perfect.“
The elderly judge removed his glasses and smiled at Estermann. "My learned friend. May I abduct you for a minute?“

Estermann immediately rose, his eyes beaming.
"Be my guest.“
Anything to get away from this sea of judging eyes and clapping hooves.

The unicorn at his side immediately rose to follow suit, looking after her boss, but was stopped by the judge's hand.
"I’m afraid it’s private, Ms Heartstrings. I will return Mr Estermann in a short moment.“

She wasn't as easily shaken off, though.
“But afterwards, you will tell a little more about yourself, eh?”

"Look,” the lawyer sighed into her direction, “If you want to hear an interesting life story, why don’t tell something about yourself?”

Now it was the unicorn's turn to be surprised. She stared at him with big, googly eyes.
"Who... me?"

Estermann thought that, seeing how ready those creatures were to talk about irrelevant personal stuff no one cared about, the unicorn might be just the right candidate.
"Yes you, do go on. How did you end up here?"

She blushed. Then a great big white equine smile blossomed between her lips.
"Well... if you insist, Mr E..."

As the unicorn sat down again, perplexedly staring at the others and readying to share her life story with them, the attorney disappeared alongside his friend the judge in the other end of the room.

Colm’s smile vanished as he turned back for Estermann.
"Jesus, you don’t look good. You should really sit down and eat something after this, before you keel over in front of everyone.“

Estermann took note of the judge’s hand moving towards his stomach, massaging it in a Napoleon-like manner, while the other hand seemed to be searching his pockets for a handkerchief.
"So... is this what you wanted to tell me? You're not an oil painting yourself, Colm. What is it, heartburn?“

But the judge merely shrugged it off.
"Yes and no, I’m just a bit out of breath. I’ll have to go to the wardrobe and get some pills from my coat. Tell me, how did your meeting with the team go?“

"It depends what you mean by 'meet‘.“ Estermann groaned discretely and glanced over to his table.

"You are aware, Alex, that you’re stuck with those guys for the next five or six months, right? If you have any reservations, you should tell me now.“

"Oh, like that I was teamed with a bunch of insufferable work-shys? I’ll get round to complaining. Don’t despair, old friend.“ Estermann smiled, patting his shoulder.
Then his hand grabbed the shoulder as he chewed his friends words over. "Hang on... Why 'five or six months‘? I thought trials like this one could drag on for years.“

The judge nodded.
"That's why I asked you to come with me. I didn’t want to tell you in front of the whole assembly. Especially not where the prosecution can hear it.“

"Tell... what?“ he inquired. He wasn’t sure whether it was going to be good or bad.

He pointed at the door leading to the south wing.
"I have someone waiting in the conference room. And I think you should go and see him.“

"What? You mean now?“

"The sooner, the better. You’ll be thanking me.“

"Now hold your horses. Let me be the judge of that, Colm.“ The jurist winced nervously. “What is going on?“

“I can’t tell you that. It’s best if you ask the colt himself.“
The judge slapped him on the shoulder. “All I can say is: You better not get settled in too much. I tell you, if things go well, we’ll be rid of Her Royal Highness by June.“

The attorney gulped.
If things went well, he said? Somehow, it didn’t sound encouraging at all.

"Just remember, Alex. Don’t breathe a word about this to anyone. Technically, I'm not at liberty to do that, as a judge. I’m doing this because you're a friend and I honestly think you need to know before anyone else.“ Colm warned his colleague as he unlocked the double doors to the hotel’s conference room.

"Well... then let’s get this over with already, Colm. The last thing I want to wound up in is a breach of etiquette...“
He was still nervous about Colm’s ‘June‘ prophecy. His friend had a strange, plotting smile on his face, and Estermann could only think badly of it.

When they stepped inside, they were confronted by an entirely empty room with several tabletops forming a D-shaped board desk, a dozen chairs, and a flip-chart set up in one corner, its paper filled with doodles of some equine-looking lifeforms.

"Alright. What are we doing here?“ Estermann inquired.

"Professor?" the judge shouted, ignoring the counsel's question. "You still there?“

There was a rustle under one of the tables.
"Oh my, just a tick.“ a male voice suddenly answered from nowhere.
There was a thump and one of the tables shook. “Ouch.”

A grey pony’s head emerged from behind it. His messy hair gave one the impression that his head was engulfed by a snow-white flaming inferno.
“I… I lost my pen. And my glasses” He uttered and smiled bashfully.
Once his bespectacled eyes settled on Estermann he exclaimed. "Ah, you must be the attorney."

“Ehm...”
The attorney turned to the judge. “Who is that?” he whispered.

“This is Professor Covalent Bond. An expert on hippology from the Royal University of Canterlot.”

The erudite pony nodded and adjusted his glasses.
“But you can just call me... Professor, if you are inclined to do so.”

“The Professor is here to tell us the truth about the changelings. His testimony may be pivotal to this trial.”

“Goody.” Estermann responded flatly, less impressed. “A pony from Canterlot? Does the prosecution know about this?”

The judge shook his head.
“They don’t, and if you ask me, it should stay that way for now. The point is, he knows quite a bit about changelings. More than you or I. He has studied changeling behaviour for about more than a decade.”

“Well, ten years, nine months and three weeks, actually.” The professor clarified.

Estermann quietly branded him a wise-ass and rolled his eyes.

“And he’s going to tell us the truth about them." Colm explained. "And this truth will spin this trial around by a hundred and eighty degrees if you use it wisely.”

“Me?”
Estermann nodded. “Alright. Carry on.”
He wasn't in a position to refuse an offer right now.

The equine professor harrumphed. Theatrically, he raised his marker to the chart and addressed the two listening humans.
“Gentlecolts. Let me be the first to say: You are all completely mistaken in your feeble presumptions about the changelings. As easy it is to judge a book by its cover, it’s much easier to misinterpret the written word and the painted picture. You see, the truth of the changeling matter is, that they are not the... downright memetical villains and demons from myths and ponytales of days long gone.”

Estermann’s eyes widened.
“They’re... not?”

“Absolutely not!”

Of course, the defence counsel agreed.
But the shock of the moment sprang from the fact he had never expected words like those to leave anyone else’s mouth but his own. Especially not a pony. Much less one with a degree.

Suddenly, he found a liking in where this was going. He liked it very much.
“Where did you find this guy?” he asked Colm in silent amazement.

“He flew in two days ago. With best regards from the Dean of Her Majesty's Senate.”

Normally, Estermann wouldn’t have given two cents about recommendations from Equestria, seeing how they also served to install Magistrate Fori in the judge panel. But in this case, he was almost inclined to invest a Rappen or two. A recommendation from the equines would raise this pony’s credibility in front of the plaintiffs, and maybe even the judge panel.
At least Colm already seemed quite impressed by him.

“No, indeed they aren’t.” Covalent assured. “It may seem to many that Chrysalis and her ‘cronies’ are creatures composed of concentrated hate and malice. That their only goal and meaning in life is causing good ponies like you and me misery and sadness. That they exist merely to keep us all living in constant fear, and to supply some kind of convenient adversary for the heroes of our societies to battle and triumph over in this epic tale that we refer to as ‘real life’.”

“Yeah.” Estermann nodded. He felt like couldn’t stop nodding, as much as he wanted to agree with him. That pony had taken the words right out of his mind.

“Well, my dear human coeval, I say pish-tush! What a load of utter nonsense that the more romantically inclined among our colleagues have tried to read into history. Even though the truth is actually so simple and so plain.”

The jurist could not help but smile.
“Meine Rede. Pray tell," he asked, like a he was the announcer in a Panto, "what may this so-called truth be, Professor?”

“Elementary.” He led the marker to the chart. “To put it plainly and bluntly, Queen Chrysalis – or whatever she may call herself – and her subjects, are nothing more than…”
He scrawled three big red words on the paper, in typically sloppy doctor's calligraphy, “… dumb… brainless… animals.”

Estermann's smile chipped.
That was not what he wanted to hear.
“W-what? Could... could you please elaborate that last part?”

Again, he nudged his glasses.
“Well, the intentions of Chrysalis and her changeling flock has been hopelessly over-interpreted. Changelings are not intelligent creatures. They do not think when they suck out the love and compassion of another living being. They just... act. They are purely fuelled by the most basic and primitive of instincts. Hunger. Anger. Supremacy. Lust. Survival. For them, it’s not a question of ‘Is it right and just to do what I am about to do to my victims?’, but ‘Will I still be hungry after this meal?’”
He sounded so haughty that he was at the verge of giggling to himself. “They are pack creatures that gather around one in their midst that manages to surpass their collective minds by one or the other brain cell, and call him or her ‘royalty’. This is how changeling packs were formed. These groups soon joined to form communities. Hunting groups. Hives. The largest of hives usually encompassed up to four hundred thousand creatures – the size of a minor nation, surely, but ultimately nothing near as civilised.”

That didn’t sound right, Estermann thought.
It was all off. Way off.
Sure, Queen Chrysalis may have seemed a little bullheaded and naïve to him when he came to visit her – but still, she was far from what the Professor had described. Despite her natural ferocity and the other little differences in morality, she still seemed a lot like a cornered, enraged, dishonoured… human.
“Let me get this straight, Professor. You are telling me changelings did what they did because they were too stupid not to?”

“Not the words I would have chosen, but yes.”
His smile was steadfast and determined. “You see, one can compare your typical changeling to a wasp. Wasps also live in hives, have specific roles in their community, operate in groups and answer to a ‘Queen’. But are we calling for legal action against wasps because they keep hogging our fizzy drinks during picnics? Certainly not.”

“That… that is…” the jurist stuttered forlornly.
He could have sworn all of this was too good. Too good to be true.

Colm approached him from behind, pleased as punch.
“If only someone had told us this a bit earlier, eh Alex? And it's a completely legitimate concern as well. I have mentioned this to Judge Suruma and Lexy Fori the other day. We agreed that the sapiency of the changelings is a potent criticism against the charges of the court. If it turns out that Chrysalis – or any of her compatriots – were not in the 'right mind' to see the wrongness of her actions, we can’t follow up with the charges.”
He scratched his nose.“See it as a step up from the ‘insanity defence’.We may not be a court for humans anymore, but we still have to restrict ourselves to sapient species. Right?“

“But… Colm. Look….” The attorney objected hesitantly. “I didn’t come here to hear… this.”

“None of us did, Alex." Colm nodded. “But I'm content with this theory. That way, the atrocities won't have to be ignored by the court, but at the same time, the changelings won’t be held accountable for them, and the court will no longer take part in as much controversy for taking on a changeling. Everyone’s happy. So, what do you think of it?”

“What I think…” Estermann slurred, discontentedly slumping on the board desk. “I… do not believe that I have ever heard a stupider thing in my life.”

“Alexander.” The judge reprimanded him sternly, his voice overcome exasperation.

“Ahem…” The professor pushed his glasses up his snout another time. “My dear friend, are you trying to say… that my theory is wrong?”

“No,” the lawyer answered caaustically, “I’m trying to say that I’m going to recommend you for the Nobel ‘What the hell do you think I’m trying to say?!’ prize!”

“Oh, how kind of you.” The professor replied warmly.

“Let me ask you one thing, Professor. What gave you the idea to come to all the way to The Hague and insult my client in such a way?”

“Insult?!” the academic pony gasped, then let out a weary laugh. “My dear human, that wasn't my intention at all. I was just stating facts.”

“Exactly, Alex.” the judge confirmed. “Hear him out first. He might hold the key to an acquittal in his hands- or, hooves.”

Estermann clasped his breast with a hand.
“I have spent the last two days at the side of Queen Chrysalis in her cell, and I think I can say as safely as anyone that she is not a dumb animal. She had no problems talking to me, and she didn't have problems understanding what I was saying. She is clearly mentally on par with you or I... even when she sometimes doesn’t behave like it.”

“Behaviour discloses more about one’s psyche than you might think.” The professor clarified.

“So much for ‘not judging the book by its cover’.”

“Mister Attorney. You seem to forget that I hold a degree in hippological studies at the University of Canterlot. I know what I am talking about, whether I like it or not.”
Suspiciously, his eyes scanned the human up and down, his eyelids revealing a feeling of doubt. “That said... I cannot help but notice that you appear very… emotional in your response to my theories. Changelings are well known for trying to build an emotional link with their prey, often resulting in the latter beginning to severely miscalculate the former. Tell me a little about your doubts. Maybe we can straighten them out together.”

“Oh, now you’re a psychologist too?” the jurist snapped back.

The intellectual lowered his eyebrows, ever so slightly irritated.
“Yes, actually.”

“Are you taking me mentally deficient, Mister Psychologist?” the attorney snarled, “I have an IQ of One hundred and thirty-seven! Yet you're trying to say that I am not intelligent enough to find out for myself that the Queen is not an intelligent creature? That I have been successfully duped by a horse-shaped bug?! Is this what you are implying here?! Because I a take offence to that!”

Again, Colm had to intervene before they spurred each other on to new levels of hate.
“Now look here.” He turned to the attorney. “Alex. That’s the second time in three days that you order beans and then don’t want to eat them. You’re a like some spoiled brat at times, you know that? You always want to be right – you always want to prove everyone else wrong.”

“What are you talking about, Colm? It’s my job.” Estermann growled.

“No. Your job is to prove your client not guilty. There's a difference. And this is exactly what we are trying to help you with.”

“When you say ‘we’, do you mean yourself and Doctor cum laude ad nauseam over there?”

“My name is Covalent Bond, Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor!” he heard the pony professor protest.

“This theory may not be the most flattering, Alex,” Colm explained, “but it may be the saving grace for your defence.”
He glared at him as if he was completely mad. “Good God, man! This is all you'll ever need to get this over with! What else could you possibly want? You unbelievable glutton!”

“I want the Queen to come forth from this unscathed. The allegations leveled at her thrown out and scotched once and for all!” the attorney dictated, punctuating every other syllable of the sentence. “I’m not settling for a half-arsed mistrial on technicality, and neither is Queen Chrysalis! Trying to sue for a technicality at this stage won't do anyone any good. I am not going to wave the white flag before the fight has even begun. It might just come back and haunt her in yet another way! Maybe the Council of Harmony might try their own thing! Or maybe the Equestrian courts - I'm sorry, court - gets on it! There might just be a retrial here in The Hague! I don't know what the ponies might yet come up with! The rest of her life not spent in prison, but in the courtroom!"
And even Estermann sometimes couldn't tell which fate would be worse.
He huffed and indignantly combed back his hair with both hands. "Besides, do you really think she would ever agree to getting depicted as a dumb brute in court?”

“It will be her own fault if she doesn’t!”

The professor agreed.
“Quite. If the Changeling cannot look the truth in the eye, it is yet another sign of increased self-delusion. Which is, by the way, yet another telltale sign of a simple mind.”

“Oh shut up, you back there!” Estermann ordered before minding the judge again, his teeth clenched. “Colm. Proving a lack of intelligence is not just an insult and a damn lie, it is downright counter-productive. What about... what about the mass graves they dug up the other day? Isn’t that a sign of at least some sapience in and on itself?”

“Actually,” the pony hippologist piped back in, “those were changeling feeding and breeding stations, according to my research. Once again, it doesn’t take a feeble mind more than instinctual urges to drive him to such things, as exemplified very well by ants-”

“What did I just say?!” Estermann warned.

“Alex.” the judge said in a stern tone, pushing the attorney away from him with a hand. “Let me stop you right there. You start to sound like someone else.”

“Oh really? And who?” he sneered.

“The prosecutor. You’re losing track of your job. ’I can prove that the Changelings were in full capacity of their senses as they ravaged thousands’, indeed. Alex, don’t slide off the slippery slope. Don’t present Pierman this case on a silver platter. Take this hint…” he pointed at the Professor, “and build your defence around it. Pave the road to dismissal.”

Nervously, Estermann scratched his forehead as he looked back at the pony scientist, until it was red and sore. He drew in a deep breath, trying to cool himself down.
He understood that he couldn’t keep shouting at others forever. He would have to resort to actual, reasonable arguments at one point.
“Okay.” He said, almost in a whispery tone. “Colm. For hypothesis’ sake… what would happen if the defence did accept this ‘theory’? What would happen?”

Equally calmly, the judge replied,
“Best case scenario – for us – the acquittal of the Queen of all charges in record time. It will have the effect that the Queen and all other changelings – the changelings species as a whole – will no longer fit the definition of a sapient animal species, and will therefore not be covered by the Rome Statute anymore.”

“And?” Estermann asked on, bitterly. “Go on.”

“Well, we will be rid of her once and for all then.” Colm sniggered. “What else is there to say?”

“What do you think will happen to Queen Chrysalis herself?”

“Oh, she’ll be sent back to Equestria. End of story.”

“So what will the Equestrians do to her?” he pressed on.

“Alex, do I look like an Equestrian legal expert to you? I don’t know that!”

“Incidentally,” the erudite pony next to them suddenly quipped, “I also happen to be an expert on Equestrian law. Queen Chrysalis will be, once returned to Equestrian soil, charged under an entire host of offences, spearheaded by the Equestrian Penal Code §§ 267 - High Treason Against The Princely Crowns, and 360 – Taking Of Multiple Lives. If declared guilty, according to § 33, only the maximum sentence would be in order: Exile.”

“You see, Alex?” Colm interrupted, smiling. “Exile. Everything will be fine. The Equestrians will do their thing, and it’ll end dandily for everyone involved. Even Chrysalis.”

“Exile where to exactly?” Estermann persisted,“Jupiter or Mars?”

The judge rolled his eyes.
“Oh, don't be daft, Alex.”

“The location of exile is decided on a case-by-case basis.” The pony enunciated matter-of-factly. “But it is almost always preceded by the permanent 'Harnessing of Power'.”

“Hm?” Colm sounded, needing a second until the meaning of those words caught up with him.

“That is the... removal of all magical power from a wielding creature's system, forever. It's a safety measure that has been recently introduced in the light of... certain other similar recent incidents.”
The pony seemed to fight with his own squeamishness as he explained, “First, her magic-producing and magic-delegating faculties, primarily her horn, will be... deactivated, to keep her from producing new magic or utilising it."
About now, almost every word out of his mouth sounded like a dirty synonym of some creative torture method. "Then, the Queen's vast magic energy pools... will be drained from her body, to disarm her entirely. Following this, her innate abilities to change her shape, her own enhanced physical prowess, as well as the ability to corrupt and command large groups of fellow changelings and other creatures under her spell, will be effectively removed, and possibly put into safe storage.”

“That sounds... harsh.” the judge mouthed, but his face quickly settled back in smugness. “But more than fair.”

“Yeah, if it doesn't end up killing her!”
Estermann crossed his arms. “You didn't think this through, did you? It could be Chrysalis’ death sentence if we send her back. Not to mention what will happen to any and all other changelings who will then be left at the mercy of the Equestrians.”
He shuddered. Could the Equestrians be controlled before they could get revenge?

“But remember what I told you.” Colm reasoned desperately. “Consider this: If this court should rule that changelings are not a sapient species, wouldn’t that translate into Equestrian law in a way? I mean, we could be setting an important precedent here. The Changelings wouldn’t be indicted of treason if there was not 'treasonous behaviour'. Equestrians probably won’t try the changelings as subjects before the law if even their very own Council of Harmony won't.”

Estermann held up to hand, as if to slow down his judge’s diction.
“Which would mean… Chrysalis would be cleared of Equestrian charges?”

Both men expectedly turned to the earth pony professor in the corner.
“Uhm… Well, gentlecolts, § 1 of the Equestrian Criminal Code clarifies that only ‘beasts of conscience and understanding before the law’ are subjects of the same. Now, if the changelings in fact aren't applicable, it wouldn’t make them subject to Equestrian law, period. They’d be but beasts.”

Colm nodded. “So what is the established opinion on the status of changelings, Professor?”

“That... they're but beasts, quite clearly.”

Estermann felt the stowed air slowly escaping his lungs.

So there would be no repercussion? No revenge?

It was strange. But there it was, the answer.
Changelings would not be prosecuted any longer. Neither here nor there.
It sounded like a good deal.

“Told you I was right.” Colm smirked. “Beasts before International Criminal Law, and beasts before Equestrian Law. Equestria would make a fool of herself if they'd change a thing now.”

Too good?

A small flicker of doubt remained, occupying the counsel's entire mind.
“I'll... I'll have to go over this one more time. In peace.”

The judge opened his mouth to say something, but he was only brought forth an impatient groan.
“And I repeat: This is the only chance you'll ever get. There is nothing to 'go over' about.”

“I need to discuss this with my client.”

“Fuck your client!” the judge exclaimed. “She can change as little about the circumstances as you! You don't need her consent for this.”

“I will conduct my defence the way I see fit.” Estermann spat. “Thank you for your understanding.”

“So... is this about your ego now?” Colm suddenly asked, cocking his head to the side with an intrusive expression. “It's not about the Queen... This is just about your ego, isn't it? You need to stop telling yourself that you can magically absolve her of all her sins. You're an attorney, not a fucking Padre.”

“Ja, ja.”
Unsurely, the lawyer threw a glance over to the door. He had heard enough for now.

“And don't act so touchy. I warned you about Chrysalis. I told you she was a monster.”

That word managed to rouse the attorney's ire another time.
“Damn you, Colm. Do not call my client a monster.”
He glared at his learned friend.

But Colm just gave him a tired, silent look.
“You are making it very difficult for me to do you any more favours. I know you're a bright fellow, but obviously you can’t swallow your damn pride for once in your life and treat the facts for what they are. Professor Covalent Bond will testify to this court as an expert witness. Whether or not you make the most of it is your beef. I can only help you this far.”

“Oh well... I appreciate your efforts.” Estermann stated flatly Colm in the face. “Is that what you wanted to hear, Colm? Acknowledgement? Because I'd like to let you know that there could be the slight possibility that you're making it worse. You, of all people, should know that there are two sides to every coin.”

“There is no coin, Alex.” Colm reminded him. “Just a cheque, and your name on it. Either you pay up, or you let it bounce. But there's no other way 'round it.”

The lawyer let his mind wander the room, alongside his gaze.
“I said I will think about it. Now, if that was all, I think we should discuss this at a better, later point.”
He prepared to depart. He glanced at the others almost melancholically as he approached the door.

“Alex, you know I cannot keep him out of the trial.” he heard the judge's annoyed words echo behind him.”This discovery is far too important to simply ignore. We all want to get do the to the core of the matter, don't we? You know, the truth.”

Estermann opened the door, already strangely enticed by the sounds of the feast that was taking its course only a few rooms away, the same one he had so desperately tried to escape barely ten minutes ago. Strange, just how quick priorities come and go.

“Then I've got to ask myself why your truth is so incompatible with mine?” he wondered out loud. “Now, excuse me... but I don't want any blood on my hands if any of this goes wrong. I will call you in due time.”

However, before the lawyer could finally step outside, the door harshly bumped into something on the other side.

Estermann almost stumbled forward in shock, as the opening door revealed a small, deep blue pegasus with a spiky mane who had appeared, seemingly out of thin air, right behind it.

Catching himself on the door frame, the counsel looked the lurking creature in its befuddled eyes.
“Who the hell are you?”

With the voice of a teenaged colt, the pony began to stutter, “I... uhm... Do you know where I can find the... uh... little foal's room?”

Taken completely off guard, Estermann straightened up and quickly passed him without saying another word.

He left behind a horrified Colm who, terribly wary of not being seen discussing matters with a defence counsel in private, hid the lower portion of his face behind his quickly-produced handkerchief.
The pony professor in tow, he then also rushed out of the room and past the strange pegasus, haply throwing a few helpful words at him.
“Down the corridor, left. Good night.”

“Uhm... good night, my Lord?”
He knew.

Author's Note

Hello there, lads and ladies.

Once again, I apologise for the lengthy delay. I hope that, from now on, the updates will be a bit more systematic again. Hopefully. Weather permitting.

So, as per usual, enjoy and stay true!

Sincerely,
Dan The Man

Estermann Office Observation Transcript Excerpt from Sunday, November 22, 2015

Transcript for those unable to see the files:

ORANGE CALTROP
1594726 831038582 002823447122348385

OBSERVATION UNIT TRANSCRIPT FOR:
OFFICE 310
CASE WORKERS: SAC. ███████ ████, SA. ██████ █████████

TAPE #2 - EXTRACT
TUES - 11/22/15
9:18 - 9:49

9:18 - [A. ESTERMANN, C. MULLAN ENTER ROOM - HURRIED.]

[A. ESTERMANN CLOSES DOOR, PROCEEDS TO SIT AT TABLE, C. MULLAN STANDS]

9:18 - C. MULLAN: "You’ve really done it this time, Alexander."

[MULLAN DRINKS BEVERAGE, APPEARS TO BE TEA]

9:18 - C. MULLAN: "Jesus, can’t I get a cup of fucking coffee around here?"
9:18 - A. ESTERMANN: "I don't do coffee."
9:19 - C. MULLAN: “I don’t want to know what you do.”

[PAUSE]

9:19 - C. MULLAN: “I mean, how could you let this happen? How could you let a changeling into your defense team?”
9:19 - A. ESTERMANN: “Excuse me?”
9:19 - C. MULLAN: “You invited that changeling in, didn’t you?”
9:19 - A. ESTERMANN: “The hell I did! She was recommended to me.”
9:19 - C. MULLAN: “By whom?”
9:19 - A. ESTERMANN: “I don’t know. The Registrar - I think.”
9:19 - C. MULLAN: “You think? You didn’t know where she suddenly came from?”
9:19 - A. ESTERMANN: “She said the Registrar allotted her to me. I don’t know.”
9:19 - C. MULLAN: “In other words, you let a perfect stranger just waltz into your offices, check out your team, have a good look at classified evidence... I think you really could use some coffee.”
9:19 - A. ESTERMANN: “I’m not stupid! I looked up her name afterwards in the Registry. She signed up just like everyone else. And she had the credentials. She had six years of your oh-so beloved Royal Canterlotian [SIC] under her belt. She was a research associate in the anthropological, uh, equinological faculty the for another five-”
9:20 - C. MULLAN: “Tiny correction: Lyra Heartstrings was a research associate in Canterlot. And now my main concern is the following: Who is that sitting out there right now?”

[MULLAN POINTS]

9:20 - A. ESTERMANN: “Not Lyra Heartstrings?”
9:20 - C. MULLAN: “No. This is a changeling impersonating Lyra Heartstrings.”
9:20 - A. ESTERMANN: “I don’t know that now, and I certainly didn’t know that back then. And I had no reason to doubt her.”
9:20 - C. MULLAN: “Reason Number One: She was a pony who inexplicably wanted to join the defense for Queen Chrysalis. For which there are two possible explanations. A: She spies for the Equestrian Crown. B: She’s a fucking changeling.”
9:20 - A. ESTERMANN: “Or C: Literally anything in-between the two! Since when are ponies like her not allowed to be a little bit ambitious?”
9:20 - C. MULLAN: “Whatever, we’re arguing the toss now. Her game is up. For all we know, the real Lyra Heartstrings might be floating under a canal bridge somewhere.”

[PAUSE]

9:21 - A. ESTERMANN: “For- for all we know, Colm, there never was a Lyra Heartstrings to begin with. This one we got sitting on the chair right there might just as well be the one and only.”
9:21 - C. MULLAN: “No, no, no. I did my homework on changelings, Alex. They don’t just come up with false personas willy-nilly, they steal them. And the original is not usually left to run around freely - if you catch my drift.”
9:21 - A. ESTERMANN: “You can’t prove that.”

[C. MULLAN FINISHES DRINKING OF CUP, DISPOSES OF CUP]

9:21 - C. MULLAN: “And apart from that, she’s here to aid the queen in a prison escape.”
9:21 - A. ESTERMANN: “What- oh what! Did she tell you that yourself?”
9:21 - C. MULLAN: “What do you think a changeling is doing in the Hague? I doubt she’s here to partake in due process.”
9:21 - A. ESTERMANN: “How do you know any of this?”

[PAUSE. C MULLAN SHRUGS]

9:21 - A. ESTERMANN: “You are assuming a lot of things today. Any other ugly stereotypes you would like to perpetuate? Anything else to nourish your hostile perception of changelings?”
9:21 - C. MULLAN: “Oh cut out the civil rights crusading shite, Alexander. She’d bite your hand off the moment you turned away.”
9:22 - A. ESTERMANN: “Really? She had plenty of opportunity last week, and I can still count to ten.”
9:22 - C. MULLAN: “Changelings are dangerous animals. I’m not being funny.”
9:22 - A. ESTERMANN: “Have you ever met a changeling before?”
9:22 - C. MULLAN: “I’ve read the reports! I’ve heard the statements. Those bastards are raiding UN delegations and kidnapping them off to God-knows-where as we speak! No sound human is going to assume good intentions if they ever met a changeling themselves.”
9:22 - A. ESTERMANN: “Is she going to have to answer for what any of the tens of thousands other changelings are doing on another continent on the other side of the earth? What a bold-faced generalisation! I thought better of an ICC judge, Colm.”
9:22 - C. MULLAN: “Who knows? She could have been one of those guys before she made her way over to us - by which means, I don’t even want to know.”
9:22 - A. ESTERMANN: “Unbelievable. Now you’re placing all changelings under general suspicion [SIC] too? This is getting better and better!”

[C. MULLAN SEARCHES OWN POCKETS]

9:22 - C. MULLAN: “And adding insult to insult, she is an illegal immigrant. Someone will at least have to inform the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service about her.”
9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “Well it won’t be me.

[A. ESTERMANN POINTS]

9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “I need her here, Colm.”
9:23 - C. MULLAN: “You can always get another caseworker - a proper one. And you know that.”

[C. MULLAN RETRIEVES PILLBOX (NAME: “LASIX”), RETRIEVES CAPSULE]

9:23 - C. MULLAN: “Why the hell are you so defensive of her, anyway?”
9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “Fuck you. That’s why.”
9:23 - C. MULLAN: “Aha.”

[C. MULLAN INGESTS CAPSULE DRY; PAUSE]

9:23 - C. MULLAN: “And I’ve thought better of you, too. You do realise this will mean nothing but trouble for you lads, right?”
9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “Maybe.”
9:23 - C. MULLAN: “And it won’t be trouble I’m going to fish you out of this time around - because I’ve given you a fair warning.”
9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “Duly noted.”
9:23 - C. MULLAN: “You let her take care of your investigative work. Do you know how much she could have falsified without you catching on?”
9:23 - A. ESTERMANN: “It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out then. She dutifully wrote down all the necessary sourcework.”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “I’m just not very keen on reading something compiled by some anonymous illiterate changeling, alright?”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “Here we go again. How do you know she is illiterate? How do you know she didn’t really attend the Canterlotian [SIC] for eleven fucking years?”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “And I repeat, changelings replace. They do not pull personas out of their arses. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “And no one noticed this replacement?”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “That’s the idea. Did she make a very academic impression on you?”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “Academic? No. Educated? Actually yes.”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “So you can vouch for her?”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “I can indeed. I didn’t see her kill anyone, and I didn’t see her violently try to eat anyone. I didn’t even see her shit on any rugs.”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “Oh. So she only lied to you.”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “Yes.”
9:24 - C. MULLAN: “Great fucking record.”
9:24 - A. ESTERMANN: “I know.”

[PAUSE]

9:25 - C. MULLAN: “Alex, here is the thing. I don’t know what your game is, but this creature - whatever her motive - intruded on the most intimate facets of our situation. And I’m not even talking about the state of the defense. For one, she walked in on the two of us in the tub yesterday.”
9:25 - A. ESTERMANN: “Well, this can’t be taken the wrong way at all.”
9:25 - C. MULLAN: “Get your mind out of the gutter and focus. Do you realise what consequences it will have for us, should word of this ever see the light of day?“
9:25 - A. ESTERMANN: “She’ll keep her mouth shut. I will make sure of that myself.”
9:25 - C. MULLAN: “Can you though? She potentially got us by the balls.“
9:25 - A. ESTERMANN: “Just like we got her by the... you-know-what.”
9:25 - C. MULLAN: I don’t consider those who have no gripes about lying to be especially reliable. So I’m asking you again: Can you truly vouch for her?”
9:25 - A. ESTERMANN: “Yes.”
9:25 - C. MULLAN: “Without hesitation?”

[PAUSE]

9:25 - C. MULLAN: “I’d hate to remind you of what will happen to us all if you turn out to have misjudged this situation. So here is the deal. If you can honestly vouch for her, without a morsel of doubt, I will leave now, and not bother you about this again. And if you can’t, you will do everything I say. Now then, what shall it be?”

[PAUSE; A. ESTERMANN SHAKES HEAD, SHRUGS]

9:26 - C. MULLAN: “I knew it.”
9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Well if you’re so sure of yourself, Colm, why didn’t you report her to someone already?”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “Because, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’ve never met her. We never crossed paths. Do you understand?”
9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Alles klar. [SIC]”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “ But there still is one thing that’s been truly grating me. It kept me awake for much of last night.”
9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Tell me.”

[C. MULLAN SEARCHES POCKETS, RETRIEVES WALLET, RETRIEVES PIECE OF PAPER]

9:26 - C. MULLAN: “Here is a number. Call it.”
9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “What is this?”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “Should it turn out that there is an actual Lyra Heartstrings, I want you to make sure that she is in good health.”
9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Don’t be ridiculous, Colm.”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “Just call the fucking number. Make the enquiry. Show some responsibility for once!”

[C. MULLAN HANDS OVER THE PIECE OF PAPER TO A. ESTERMANN]

9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Call whom? Who the hell has a phone in Equestria?”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “The UN people there who lead the investigation for the court. Ask them to seek out her address, and have them make a house call. Better be safe than sorry.”

[A. ESTERMANN INSPECTS THE PIECE OF PAPER]

9:26 - A. ESTERMANN: “Colm, Let us not wake any sleeping dogs here. What am I supposed to tell them anyway?”
9:26 - C. MULLAN: “You don’t have to explain anything, you just file the request and sit back. You tell them that you are pursuing a possible lead. Don’t forget that they work for us down there, not the other way around.”
9:27 - A. ESTERMANN: “And what, or who, should they be on the look-out for?”
9:27 - C. MULLAN: “If they come across a Lyra Heartstrings who’s none the wiser, so be it. If they don’t meet anyone, fine; if they can’t, no one can.”
9:27 - A. ESTERMANN: “And what if, hypothetically speaking, they come across a half-dissolved corpse in the bathtub? Are you really going to sic the Dutch police on her?”
9:27 - C. MULLAN: “No. You will. And you’ll be doing it for your own sake. I’ll certainly not watch you dismantle your own career assisting a hijacker or a murderer, no matter how tasty her sources might seem.”
9:27 - A. ESTERMANN: “Fair enough. But she just doesn’t strike me as the violent type. There has to be mundane explanation for all of this.”
9:27 - C. MULLAN: “Let us find out. Go make that inquiry.”

[PAUSE]

9:27 - A. ESTERMANN: “You mean right now?”
9:27 - C. MULLAN: “I’ve got nowhere to be.”

[A. ESTERMANN PICKS UP DESK PHONE #2, LINE #8, AND TYPES THE NUMBER SEQUENCE: 00700 510]

9:28 - A. ESTERMANN: “Let us see what is actually going on here.”
9:28 - C. MULLAN: “The Equestrian phone lines are new and practically untested. Give it a few minutes.”
9:28 - A. ESTERMANN: “Who will I be talking to?”
9:28 - C. MULLAN: “Some Canadian fellow called Pierre Abel.”

[C. MULLAN CITES FROM HIS PIECE OF PAPER]

9:28 - C. MULLAN: “He is the ‘Deputy Programme Officer for Southern Equestria.’ Which means he is high enough to call the shots regarding investigation measures, but not too high up for you having to cut your way through any red tape.”
9:29 - A. ESTERMANN: “He sounds French. Does he speak French?”
9:29 - C. MULLAN: Why? “Do you speak French?”
9:29 - A. ESTERMANN: “French was my secondary.”
9:29 - C. MULLAN: “Fancy that. But I have no idea. Now don’t fuck about.”

[A. ESTERMANN ACTIVATES CALL AND PROCEEDS TO ACTIVATE THE CALL AND KEEP THE LINE OPEN FOR 3:12 MINUTES; CONNECTION IS POOR; PHONE CALL IS NOT RECEIVED AND ABORTED ON A. ESTERMANN’S END]

9:33 - A. ESTERMANN: “Nothing.”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “You sure?“

[A. ESTERMANN SHRUGS]

9:33 - C. MULLAN: Alright. “He is a busy man. Maybe he’s on a tour.”
9:33 - A. ESTERMANN: “Yeah, I don’t have time for this. I’ll get back to him later.”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “You better fucking. [SIC] Alright, next point of order. While you’re on the phone and everything…”

[C. MULLAN RETRIEVES CALLING CARD FROM HIS WALLET, HANDS IT TO A. ESTERMANN]

9:33 - A. ESTERMANN: “What is it now?”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “Your dear friend, Dr. van Biene.”
9:33 - A. ESTERMANN: “Jesus, leave me alone with that fucking shrink of yours. Let her fawn over the queen if she wants to.”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “I want to know what’s going on. And you will find that out, now.”
9:33 - A. ESTERMANN: “Are you really afraid she's lost it?”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “For your sake, let us hope she is merely undergoing a creative phase. A rogue psychologist is a dangerous thing indeed.”

[A. ESTERMANN PICKS UP DESK PHONE #2, LINE #3, AND TYPES THE NUMBER SEQUENCE: 0031 70 555 1386]

9:34 - A. ESTERMANN: “I hope you didn’t just hand me her therapeutic hotline.”
9:33 - C. MULLAN: “Why, do you need one?”

[A. ESTERMANN ACTIVATES CALL AND PROCEEDS TO KEEP THE LINE OPEN FOR 8 SECONDS; CONNECTION IS MODERATE; PHONE CALL IS RECEIVED BY AN AUTOMATIZED HOLDING LINE FOR 2 SECONDS; PHONE CALL IS ANSWERED BY B. BOSCH --- FOR EXHAUSTIVE DETAIL SEE PORTFOLIO “BARBARA BOSCH NL”]

9:34 - B. BOSCH: “Goedemorgen, u spreekt met de praktijk van Doctorandes Antje van Biene, Psychologe. Mijn naam is Barbara Bosch. Waarmee kan ik u van dienst zijn? [SIC]”
9:34 - A. ESTERMANN: “Uh, hello?”
9:34 - B. BOSCH: “Ja, hallo. Waarmee kan ik u helpen? [SIC]”
9:34 - A. ESTERMANN: “My name is Alexander Estermann.“
9:34 - B. BOSCH: Estermann? Hoe schrijf ik dat? Heeft u eerder met ons te maken gehad? [SIC]”
9:34 -A. ESTERMANN: I am the defense counsel of Her Royal Highness, Chrysalis of the Changelings. I understand that Dr. van Biene provided for the court a psychological evaluation of my client.
9:34 - B. BOSCH: “'U wil een meeting met Dr. van Biene? [SIC]”
9:34 -A. ESTERMANN: “Meeting? No. I wish to have a word with her about her efforts at the earliest convenience.”
9:34 - B. BOSCH: “Het spijt me, meneer Estermann. Dr. van Biene is momenteel niet beschikbaar, ze zal voor de rest van de week niet aanwezig zijn. Ik kan geen afspraken voor haar maken tot volgende week maandag. [SIC]”
9:35 - A. ESTERMANN: “Listen, can you just tell her to call me back on this number as soon as possible? You can take the following message for her: It’s about a grave potential discrepancy in her evaluation that must be urgently addressed. The court depends on Van Biene’s availability in this matter. Do you understand?”
9:35 - B. BOSCH: “Ik zal het zo snel mogelijk aan Dr. van Biene doorgeven. Is er nog iets anders waarmee ik u zou kunnen helpen? [SIC]”
9:35 - A. ESTERMANN: “Yeah, aha. Good-bye.”

[CALL IS DISCONNECTED ON A. ESTERMANN’S END]

9:35 - C. MULLAN: “You didn’t reach her?”
9:35 - A. ESTERMANN: “Just some intern. They should really teach them how to speak English. I thought this was the Netherlands.”
9:35 - C. MULLAN: “I see.”

[PAUSE]

9:35 - A. ESTERMANN: “Anything more, Colm?”
9:35 - C. MULLAN: “God, I hope not.”
9:36 - A. ESTERMANN: “Do me a favour and just forget about all this. Keep calm and, go find yourself a coffeehouse and smoke a joint or something.”
9:35 - C. MULLAN: “This will end in tears. I just know it.”
9:35 - A. ESTERMANN: “As long as we all keep the lid on this, nothing will happen. Trust me.”
9:35 - C. MULLAN: “I wish I could, I really do.”

[C. MULLAN PREPARES TO LEAVE, HEADS FOR OFFICE DOOR, OPENS DOOR]

9:35 - C. MULLAN: “I’m off. My learned friend.”
9:36 - A. ESTERMANN: “Your Honour.”

[C. MULLAN STEPS OUT, ADDRESSES ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ WHO SITS BEHIND GLASS PANE]

9:36 - C. MULLAN: [INAUDIBLE]
9:36 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “[INAUDIBLE] Thank you.”

[‘L. HEARTSRINGS’ ENTERS ROOM, REMAINS STANDING BY DOOR]

9:37 - A. ESTERMANN: “Close the door, Heartstrings.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ CLOSES DOOR. ESTERMANN BECKONS ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ OVER WITH FINGER’]

9:37 - A. ESTERMANN: “Sit.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ CROSSES ROOM AND SITS DOWN - HESITANTLY - ON LEFT VISITOR’S CHAIR]

9:37 - A. ESTERMANN: “So?”
9:37 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I [PAUSE] was taking another look at the queen’s testimony on [PAUSE] Trot.”
9:37 - A. ESTERMANN: “Aha.”

[PAUSE]

9:38 - A. ESTERMANN: “What the hell were you thinking?”

[PAUSE]

9:38 - A. ESTERMANN: “Do you know how much trouble you have gotten yourself in?”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ NODS]

9:39 - A. ESTERMANN: “Cooperativeness is not a crime. But fraud is. And so is identity theft.”
9:39 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I am ready to face the consequences of my actions.”

[PAUSE]

9:39 - A. ESTERMANN: “What is your name?”
9:39 - ‘L. HEARTSRINGS’: “My name?”
9:39 - A. ESTERMANN: “Your real name. Do you have any other name but this one?”
9:39 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I do.”
9:40 - A. ESTERMANN: “Let’s hear it then.”
9:40 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I’m afraid that it’s not a name a human could understand. Much less an - a real pony.”

[PAUSE]

9:40 - A. ESTERMANN: “Well then, Lyra Heartstrings. Do you know what I have been busy doing this morning?”
9:40 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “No, sir.”
9:40 - A. ESTERMANN: “I have been filling out your form of resignation.”

[PAUSE]

9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I see.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “All that would be needed now is your signature.”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I’m afraid I don’t have a pen on me.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “Do you want to sign?”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I will do what is asked of me.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “Do you want to?”

[PAUSE]

9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Absolutely not, Mr E.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “Of course not, you have travelled a long way to be here in Holland.”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Yes.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “To do what exactly?”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “To help.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “Who? The Queen, or her defense?”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I would do anything to free her.”
9:41 - A. ESTERMANN: “Even break the law? I mean, more than already?”
9:41 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I wasn’t planning on sending her a rasp baked into a baguette, if that’s what you mean.”
9:42 - A. ESTERMANN: “I want you to understand that, if you do anything stupid, I am not going to cover you. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. This is a house of justice, and if you get in the way of due process, I will not hesitate to let you get run over.”
9:42 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I wouldn’t demand anything from you, sir. This whole thing grew out of my soil.”
9:42 - A. ESTERMANN: “If you decide to stay on the right side of the tracks, however, I will do all within my power to keep you safe - both you, and your mother.”

[PAUSE]

9:42 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Does that mean that I can stay?”
9:42 - A. ESTERMANN: “It does.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ STANDS UP]

9:42 - L. HEARTSTRINGS: “Mr E. I don’t know how to thank you!”
9:42 - A. ESTERMANN: “Sit down.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ SITS DOWN; PAUSE]

9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “You see, I would be more than happy if you walked out of this office and went back to whatever forest you actually came from. It would take an immense load off my mind. Do you understand that?”
9:43 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Really? I mean, yes.”
9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “There is one reason, and one reason only, why I am deciding to keep you: Some days ago, I made a promise to your mother; the promise to keep her brood alive and well where she cannot. If I revealed that you’re actually a changeling, the Dutch would have you deported back to Equestria within the month. And what the Equestrians themselves will do with you then, I don’t want to imagine.”
9:43 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “My mother?”
9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “I assume this is why she recognised you the other day in the courtroom. 'Little hoofmaiden' [SIC]? The queen is your mother, isn’t she?”
9:43 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “She is. My mother and my queen.”
9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “There we go. So the next time you should run into her - which, by the way, I will make sure won’t be soon - you can thank her for all her concern.”
9:43 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I will. And I thank you, Mister E [SIC]!”
9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “You said you were busy going over the queen’s comments on Trot?”
9:43 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “All those you recorded over that interview session, sir. I thought I had seen some strange factual mistakes. But I’m not entirely sure. I wanted to go over everything again tonight, so there won’t be any bad surprises in the courtroom.”
9:43 - A. ESTERMANN: “Fine. You can go back to doing that. You can also continue hauling in all the intel from Equestria. But I want you to take note of your sources in the most intricate of details.”
9:44 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I’m on it!”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ STANDS UP.]

9:44 - A. ESTERMANN: “Before you go, answer me one last question.”
9:44 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Anything, sir!”
[PAUSE]
9:44 - A. ESTERMANN: “Well, I don’t know how this changeling disguise thing works, I have never seen it. But it looks quite convincing.”
9:44 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Thank you. I try my best.”
9:44 - A. ESTERMANN: “Is there a real ‘you’ that you can show me, a real changeling under there?”
9:44 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Yes, I could. But I really, really, really shouldn’t. Dropping my disguise isn’t a low-key thing.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ POINTS OUT GLASS PANE]

9:44 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “They would see it. And they will grow suspicious. Of course I'd do it if you demanded it now, but please, Mister E [SIC], I beg you not to!”
9:44 - A. ESTERMANN: “Alright. I see.”

[PAUSE]

9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Is that all?”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “Not quite. Answer me one other thing.”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Anything.”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “How many Lyra Heartstrings [SIC] are there in the world right now?”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Huh?”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “You are here in disguise. Can you give me a guarantee that, at no point in the future, does a certain Lyra Heartstrings march through those doors and ask what the fuck is going on?”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSRINGS’: “I can! It’s out of the question!”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “How can you be so sure?”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I-”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “Has there, at any point in time, been another Lyra Heartstrings I should definitely know about?”

[PAUSE]

9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Yes sir.”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “Where is she?”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “She is long gone.”
9:45 - A. ESTERMANN: “How long?”
9:45 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Years.”

[PAUSE]

9:46 - A. ESTERMANN: “I see. Okay.”
9:46 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Really?”
9:46 - A. ESTERMANN: “Off you go, Lyra Heartstrings.”
9:46 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “Thank- thank you again. I will never forget it.”
9:46 - A. ESTERMANN: “Don’t mention it.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ PROCEEDS TO APPROACH DOOR]

9:46 - A. ESTERMANN: “I really mean it, though. Do not mention any of this. If what has been discussed here today leaves this room, we will all be done for.”
9:46 - ‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’: “I get it, sir. My lips - and my disguise - are sealed - watertight.”
9:46 - A. ESTERMANN: “Take care.”

[‘L. HEARTSTRINGS’ EXITS THROUGH DOOR, DOOR CLOSES BEHIND HER; PAUSE]

9:49 - A. ESTERMANN: “Was zum Teufel mache ich da? [SIC]”

XXXII. The Breadbasket

XXXII.
The Breadbasket

ICC Permanent Premises
Lobby Kitchen
24. November, 2015
8:56 am MET

She sighed, closed her eyes, and lifted her forehooves onto the counter of the kitchenette.

She wanted to get out, escape this room and its glaring, unnatural electric light. But courage had to prevail. She had to do this right.
Carefully, the magic of her horn lifted the tiny bright orange-printed packet and let it hover over the cup.
She knew she had to get a precise dosage. Too little, and it wouldn’t achieve the desired effect. Too much, and it would send anypony running around the room spluttering.

She peeled off the upper portion. Immediately, a rain of finely ground powder began to seep out and trickle into the cup.

Then she lowered a long spoon into the cup and began to stir carefully.
Under her slow, deliberate turns, a new mixture started to emerge.

The first part was done.
Now came the second step. She bent to the right and, with her hoof, slid a bigger, translucent package into her view.
She clutched the bag with both hooves and began to squeeze.
With a sudden clap that made her jump slightly, the package popped open.

Her magical aura diving inside, she sent its white, cotton-like contents floating out, piece by piece by piece in a nice file, and made them snake through the air until the magical queue came to an unsteady halt right above the cup.

She licked her lip in concentration and lifted the spoon out.
But before she could mix in those as well, she noticed that something was off.

Something was very off.

A thin brown layer had formed on the milk.

She shuddered helplessly and carefully commanded the spoon to dive back in the mug and roll up the icky skin before it could do any further damage.

With that done, the cup’s contents once again looked perfectly innocuous. A warm, inviting hue of cloudy hazel.
And who could possibly resist it?

Pleased with herself, Lyra opened her mouth and let one of the marshmallows plop between the floor of her mouth and her tongue.
And as she chewed and let the sweet, vanilla-like goo seep over her gums, she went to carefully lower five more marshmallows into the cup.
Five. No more and no less. Just the perfect ratio of marshmallow.

She watched them bob up and down in the brew, and she soaked up the warming aroma as they soaked up the chocolate flavour. She was no chef, but she knew what she liked.
She lowered herself back onto the floor with all fours and magically commanded the cup to follow her.

If this wasn’t going to make it up to her boss, she didn’t know what could.

She knew that Mister E had specifically told her not to bring it up again. But she just had to show him her gratitude to him somehow. She didn’t have to mention anything.

Behind her, she heard two heavy human shoes step into the narrow room. They were followed by a familiar-sounding sing-song.

“Da sah auch mir ins Auge, der fremde Wandersmann… und füllte meinen Becher - ja Becher - und sah mich wieder aaan....”

That is, the voice sounded familiar. The sing-song did not. Quite to the contrary. The sing-song seemed unthinkable.

“Und füllte meinen Becher - ja Becher - Und sah mich wieder an!”

Before she even had the chance to put on her most modest smile, she turned to see her boss standing in the kitchenette’s doorway, grinning at her with glistening teeth.

“Hei, was die Becher klangen, Wie brannte Hand in Hand:” he sang on. His voice deep, simmering and passionate, and his chants slow and luxurious.

She began to panic again.
“Oh! Hey. Mister E… I tried to reach you-”

He hushed her with a raised finger
“‘Es lebe die Liebste deine - ja deine, Herzbruder, im Vaterlaaand.’”

She couldn’t help but gape at the human singing his ditty.
“It’s beaut-”

“Ah! Lena, canon! C’mon!” he ordered before continuing, swinging his fingers in the melody’s leisurely rythm, “‘Es lebe die Liebste deine - ja deine, Herzbruder, im Vaterland!’”

“Uh…”

Estermann chuckled slightly as he stepped over to a poser table. “Ah fuck it, you couldn’t have known. It’s German.”

“Wow...”
She couldn’t help but notice that his voice sounded a little uncoordinated and forlorn.
She turned around, the cup of cocoa still in her sway. “I… never took you for a singer.”

“I was in a boy’s choir once. Mezzo.”

The sight of Estermann surprised her. The tall, skinny human was as tall and skinny as he was two days ago, but something was different.
His cheeks and nose, which she remembered being so pale and lifeless, were all but gleaming a ripe red.
And though he looked admittedly a little rattled, a warm, affectionate smile still bloomed on his lips.

“Where were you yesterday?” she wondered. “I was getting worried. I didn’t see you check in last night.”

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
He leaned onto the table, and let his moony gaze sweep over the ceiling above them.

Timidly, she stepped forward and let the cocoa float on the table in front of him.
“Here you go, sir. I made it just for you.”

“Say... do you ever long for the old days? University?” he asked.

“Why… sure I do.” she answered, though hesitantly. She had mixed feelings about her time in the Canterlotian. It was frustrating. Very frustrating.

“For decency… virtue? Ideals? Brotherhood?”

“Uh...” she mumbled, not quite sure what he was going for, “Sometimes. Anywho, here's a little Equestrian specialty I've conjured up: hot chocolate… with marshmallows!”

Estermann reacted with a weak whimper.
Then he grabbed the steaming drink and began gulping it down, his train of thought all but abandoned.

She was confused, to say the least.
Never, not even at his most casual, had she seen her boss like that before, whimpering pathetically, grinning sentimentally, and drinking hot chocolate with the restraint of a five year-old bison.

The haggard human standing before her was like a completely different person.
It was the same human… wasn’t it?

“Mister E… is everything okay?”

He nodded and mumbled something as he finished up, then smashed the mug back on the table like a cider stein.
“Yes, yes. Never better. God. I haven’t had Trinkschoggi in years.”

His smile was genuine. There was no trace of sarcasm or forced nicety in his words. Weird.

“Uh, anything for you, boss,” she said and smiled back.

“Tell me, Lena, what’s new?”

“Uh... Lyra,” she mumbled before she could stop herself.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Oh, okay.”
Secretly thankful that her boss’ curmudgeonly mood seemed to have been blown away once and for all, she puffed out her chest and trotted closer. “I looked over your notes about Trot, like I said I would.”

As if from nowhere, he lifted his suitcase onto the table. He straightened his robe out and ruminantly began fiddling around with the zipper.
“That’s great.”

“And, uh…” She grew more contemplative as she went over the details in her head another time. “I was right, not everything adds up. I compared it to all sorts of archive material, and… there are differences between her version of events and… and everypony else’s, by the looks of it.”
She shook her head as she tried to reform her words, “W-which isn’t to say the Queen lied or anything. Maybe… maybe the data from the archives is off somehow. Maybe it’s been altered, maybe?”

“Mhm.”
Finally, Estermann managed to break his zipper free of some blockage and pulled it back all the way up to the cravat with a satisfying buzzing noise.

Anxiously, she approached the saddlebags she had left in the corner, and pulled out a solitary piece of paper.
“Take this. I jotted down all the tiny - and… not so tiny - differences between the prosecution’s version of events and the Queen’s. I… hope you can read it fine. It took me the better half of last night to get it just right.”

She sent the page flying over to her boss.
“English, right?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Latin alphabet?”

“Mhm!”

He took a short glance at it before folding it a few times and putting it into his trouser pocket.
“Much obliged.”

“You… uh… one can never know if you’ll need it. Just in case.” She leaned in. “You... know they want to bring out a witness today, right?”

“Of course I do, I don’t come to these things unprepared.”
He glanced up in thought. “Floret… Oats. Age, 993 years. Occupation, restaurateur. Do you know something about her?“

“Me?”
Lyra tried to remember whether this was the same old mare she had spotted at Prosecutor Pierman’s side in the cafe that fateful evening.
The name still rang a bell, though.
“Not... much more than anypony. Owns the Trotter Shoals, down in Vanhoover. My neighbour’s accountant celebrated his wedding there.”

He snorted and shook his head. “993 years. I still can’t believe I read that. It’d make her… a whopping nine years old the time of the Trot thing. And a couple of years older than William the Conqueror.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Well, the prosecution is evidently proud of the yarn spinner they’ve found,” he chuckled.

She raised her eyebrows quizzically.

Estermann tapped his ear. “Remember what we talked about?”

From the boonies of Equestria? She remembered.

“And a good thing too. For they are about to exploit one of the International Criminal Court’s greatest flaws.”

She raised her eyebrows.
“The International Criminal Court... has flaws?”

He chuckled at her naivety, then shook his hand to soften his words a little.
“Oh, not… inherent to the ICC itself, of course, but it’s got this... winning combination of criminal law applied on a global scale, and local authorities of dubious-at-best trustworthiness. You see, the ICC love their eyewitnesse; they swear by them, because they can’t by anyone else.”

She nodded.
“Yeah. Understandable. I mean… They’re the greatest proof of something you can have.”

He eyed her in disbelief.

“Did I… say something wrong?”

He sighed theatrically.
“Lyra… Eyewitnesses are complete and utter imbeciles. They misremember, they misinterpret, they forget, they fantasise, they judge, they distort, they believe whatever you tell them to, and they plain make shit up. Say what you will about written documents and photographs… They can be meddled with, they can be faked, but at least they don’t change every five minutes by themselves!”
He stroked his scalp. “The thing about eyewitnesses is… they bring a human dimension to the crime. And that’s the problem.”

Her ears curled downward. Like that could be that bad a thing.

“Our judges adore that because, more often than not, that’s the only kind of proof they can get of a crime. I mean, if there was an extrajudicial execution committed in some tribal village at the edge of the known world that’s under the control of some cocaine-powered Generalissimo, you can’t exactly trust the local authorities to pick up shell casings for you, much less send them over. So the judges heavily tend to grant eyewitness accounts much more gravity than any other single piece of evidence . Certainly more than they deserve. Cases have stood and fallen by eyewitness testimony alone.”

“Well… that’s terrible then,” she nodded.

“Indeed…” he mumbled. “Though… curiously, not as terrible as you might think. You know what the problem with yarn famously is.”
He left a meaningful pause.

She shook her head, a little intimidated.

“It burns.” he answered, sinisterly, “The staler, the older... the better.”

She nodded. But his analogy was very grim.
“Will… will you need my help today?”

He sat upright.
“Now that you mention it...”
But a small cardboard box tumbled out from under his robe and smacked on the tiled floor.
“Ah, shit...” he sighed and walked after it.

Instinctively, she followed suit and quickly clutched the box between her forehooves.

“You can bin it. It’s empty.”

“What is it?” she inquired as she went - admittedly a little intrusively - to pry in it open. The label betrayed that it was meant for a very elegant-looking pair of burgundy-red designer glasses, wrapped in silky designer cushioning.

With heavy breaths, Estermann leaned against the table, his cheeks burning proudly.

“You need... glasses?” she asked, surprised,

“Not me. Your mother.”

“My…” she repeated, somewhat slow on the uptake. “Queen Chrysalis?”

“I… uh… saw them in a shop window on my way home yesterday. So I picked them up. I had to. As a... little sign of my… well...”

Instantly intrigued, she approached her boss and glanced up with him with wide eyes.
“W-what’s she saying?”

His lips curled into a smile, even as he was seemingly still focused in the glasses.
“Well, at least as of yesterday evening, the Queen was very pleased with our performance. Very happy customer. She… well...”
His cheeks reddened as he began began to chuckle. It looked as though he was succumbing to some unintentional hilarity he saw in that box.
No, she realised, it wasn’t hilarity. It was delight.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy before,” she breathed.

“Really?” he agreed and sniffed, to get a hold of himself a little easier. He lowered the box and deposited it on the table. Somewhere near his chest.

As she basked in the glow of his cheeks, she decided to summon all her courage and address him.
“Were you with her… all night?”

He gazed back at her, his expression unsure.
“Oh… no… no no no. Of course not. I went for a long walk after our talk. By the sea. God, I love the sea so much.”

“Yeah, you... sure love your walks by the sea,” she observed cheerfully. “And when did you return to the hotel?”

His eyes met the ceiling again.
“I don’t think I did.”

A hint of worry coloured her thoughts.
“Then where did you sleep?”

“Didn’t feel like sleeping. I was… teeming with... Tatendrang!” He clenched his fist for emphasis, “I still am! I must have walked all over the damn city. You’d think there would be more sailing schools in this country.”

She gave a pause. “Sailing schools.”

“I never tried my hand at sailing. Must be great though. Sailing,” he said, sunken in some past dream. “A little yacht cruise never hurt anyone. And don’t ask me how I got that idea, because I don’t know. It probably came up in conversation somewhere some time ago.”

“Okay then...”
Her curiosity peaked.
She crept closer to the human leaning against the table. Maybe she could espy a better look on his face, study his human emotions in all their subtle details.

It looked a bit oily. It had been pouring buckets the whole morning, so that wasn’t surprising.

“Would you… like to freshen up?”

He looked up.
“Why? Do I have something?”
His eyes widened and his hand instinctively went for his cheeks.

At first, she thought she was seeing things.
“Your eyes...” she mumbled.

“What?” he asked and blinked repeatedly, “They’re not red, are they?”

She would have laughed.
His darting, lively, intelligent eyes, they shone - beamed! - in the most beautiful, august hue of all.

“Nuh-uh,” she mumbled. Her knees felt weak at the sight. Something stirred deep within her.
And before she could even figure out what might be wrong with him, her mind seemingly already had. Her twinge of worry faded away. Her thoughts settled. Nothing to worry about. It was all good.
“They’re magnificent,” she just said.

He gave her a relieved, confident smirk.
“Well… a compliment’s a compliment.”
He stretched his arms and panted.
“Something else, Heartstrings. A thought occurred to me last night, on the promenade. Couldn’t shake it since then.”

For some reason, she could feel the answer coming up. She cantered over to him and stalked by his legs.
“Yes, sir?”
It was like the refrain to a famous song that she knew by heart. The singular, slightly cryptic thought: brace yourself. This little courtroom outing was reaching its end. For now, great things were going to happen.

But before Estermann could say anything, he hesitated, then smiled.
“Nothing. Forget it. It’s stupid. I’m starting to think I should have taken a small nap after all.”

But the way he said that told her something different altogether.
To Lyra, his face was awash with hundreds of whirling thoughts, each unspoken, but each creating visible tumult behind his eyes.
In fact, it was the same kind of restless craziness she saw inside him that she felt within herself once in a while.

"Do you... feel that?"

"What?" he asked.

Her cheeks and eyes found themselves infused with sudden, otherworldly warmth.
An invisible, cozy warmth that seemed to pass effortlessly even through the walls and floors.
She led a hoof to her fluttering heart. The same warmth that had visited her so often already in the past few days. It could only mean one thing.
It was none other but the Queen’s presence meandering through the court building.

"The Queen has arrived."

"How do you know that?" he boss asked, but a quick glance at his face confirmed that he felt it too, on some much subtler level.

She winked at him.
“Uh… Say… hi.”

“Of course.” he replied, nonchalantly yet clearly absent-minded. “I think I’ll at least go splash my face first.”
He stepped for the door, thinking aloud.
“Actually scratch that. I’m going to sit down... somewhere.”

But Lyra trotted after him.
“Mister E!” she cried.

He turned around.

She distinctly remembered she planned not to speak of ‘it’ - but, in a split-second decision to be brave, she decided to buck that plan.
“I, uh… I still know what you told me about staying away from the Queen.”

“Yes?”

“Do… Will...”
She looked up at him with pitiful eyes. “All I want to do is serve. But… Am I ever going… Will I really have to avoid her forever and ever now?”

The warm smile returned.
“Ach, Forget what I said.”

Her heart jumped.

“Circumstances have changed. We have to stick together, don’t we?”

She could have cried out of sheer relief.
“...Yes, sir...”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her, clinging on to the doorframe with his other hand.
“God, I almost forgot. Change of topic! Lyra, how good is your Trotish Ponish?”

The question came too fast for her. “I… Not good. I only ever did one course on-”

“Do you know any certified linguists specialising on it?”

“Actually, I do! My old professor’s ex-wife’s-”

“Good!”
He twisted his hand and looked at his watch. “What time is it in Equestria right now?”

“Uh… early afternoon, I guess.”

He silenced her anew and whipped out a bundle of papers.
“I want you to ask her to make translations of all the passages I’ve underlined in here. There’s twenty of them, each no more than five or six words long. And please have her include the phonetic pronunciation of these words. And make it quick.”

Without a warning, he threw her the thin folder, and she struggled to catch and hold onto it with her magic.
“H-how quick?”

He checked his watch.
“Well, the hearing starts in about five minutes. We won’t be done until at least twelve. There will probably be a recess of some kind… Just get it to me before the end.”

She bit her lip.
“It’s gonna take a little bit longer than that.”

“Why? You have a phone, you have a fax.”

“I mean… to conjure up a full written analysis…”

He struck the sentence down with a finger.
“Just the highlighted parts. Jot down what she said it says. If there’s any paperwork to be had, she can send it after. Just ask her to include her qualifications. Pronunciations, if at all feasible.”

She skipped towards the door.
“Should I inform the registry or...”

He just gave her a shifty eye.
“Hold off on that. This is just a hunch of mine. If I’m wrong and nothing comes of this inquiry, we won’t bring anything up either.”

“I’ll do what I can...”

And so he disappeared from view, and was gone.
Going his way to join their queen’s side, surely.
Oh, how much she would have given so much to go with him. With so little time left…

But then he dove back in a third time.
“Last thing, Heartstrings… Please hold back on the context. Give her the case number, make it all prim and proper, but the fewer times you... drop Chrysalis’s name into the conversation, the better. I don’t want the translator get hung up on… you know."

"Right."

"That’ll be all! Good luck.”
And he left. This time, for good.

She sighed, and turned to the grey sink to make another cocoa, this time for herself. A moment of such inexplicable happiness called for something sweet and warm.

However, as she went, she did get a small fright.
For an instant, she thought she could see a certain blue pegasus’ eyes examining her through the closing door. Before she could steal a second look, the door had already shut.

“Rise and shine, cupcake.”

Estermann, his thoughts interrupted, glanced up and turned. He realised he might have drifted off.

Chrysalis nodded at him and smiled cheekily.
Momentarily confused as to where he was, Estermann adjusted his robe, sat up in his chair, and grinned back.

Chrysalis lowered herself back down on her haunches on the floor, softened only by a pillow and her pile of chains. Two bored bailiffs flanked her, hands folded behind their backs.

Estermann sighed.
He found himself overcome by a deep, dragging melancholic sensation.
Even as he peacefully observed the already familiar courtroom, with its desks that were as homely as those of his favourite tavern, its seats that were arrayed with the levity of three dozen easy chairs, windows as inviting ad terrace doors in early autumn, and cameras and spotlights hanging above him like gently beaming night lights, he asked himself:
What the hell was he getting all sentimental about? This was a courtroom. It wasn’t idyllic and it certainly wasn’t snug.
Was he really going to miss this place so much once it was over?

The ride wasn’t nearly finished, and yet he was already feeling nostalgic about it?
It was like he was in a movie, the ending of which he had already seen, but couldn't recall.
This aura of conclusion and finality felt completely alien. It was like the textbook definition of 'false sense of security'.
There was no way this trial would end with any meaning of the word ‘quickly’ - no matter how dandy - or badly - it went for the defence. There was too much work to be done. And yet… why was this voice in the back of his head, assuring him that this was practically over?

This was stupid. He had to blow away those cobwebs. So he glanced over to the Queen once more. He couldn’t resist the temptation.
Chrysalis’ gaze had continued to wander. Now lost in thought herself, she gnawed on an itchy lip of hers with a fang, and her eyes fixed on the chains on her haunches, which she rocked up and down, as if she was trying to estimate the weight. Her surroundings, she ignored, and rather minded her thoughts.
Not unlike he himself did at the moment, Estermann realised.

Yes, he did probe into the possible future developments with Queen Chrysalis a bit the other day, but… What was yesterday all about, anyway? He had explicitly reminded himself that he would restrict himself to one shot. Just one.
But he clearly remembered taking a second one. And that was apparently enough to ensure that this was the only thing he remembered of that evening.
A blackout. How embarrassing. This hadn’t happened since his university days. Had he really not learned over the past decades to say no?
What must the guards have thought of him?

He couldn’t resist another peek. She was wrinkling her nose. Adorable. Oh, what wouldn’t he give to know what was going on in her head at the moment?

Anyway, aside from a slight buzz between his temples and a warm energetic burning in his cheeks, thankfully not much had come of his and Chrysalis’ late afternoon revelry. Infinitely better than being struck with thunderous, debilitating headaches.
No need for sunglasses in the courtroom after all. No sunglasses for Queen Chrysalis either, thankfully. She didn’t need even more Nurembergian imagery.

He gazed at her yet again. No, her new, wine-red reading specs did the job just fine. And thank goodness they did. They were expensive enough. Designer-grade. Italian!
No, she looked stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, that he considered for a moment reaching out and adjusting them for her. She’d like that.
Thankfully, he got a hold of himself at the last second, and resolutely turned back around.

After all, Prosecutor Pierman still had the floor.

She was in the middle of arguing her case, her voice hoarse and her forehead shining increasingly with sweat.
“The Republic of Trot,” she explained, “was the breadbasket of the Western coastal region of Equestria. As the only warm water seaport connecting to the North Luna Ocean, the city was a major trading hub and transfer site for foodstuffs to the entire North-Western seaboard. Up to four million metric tonnes of fruit, vegetables and grain, imported from the southern regions by ship, entered the Equestrian territories via Trot per month.”

Pierman was trying hard to ignore the two court officers setting up a flip chart board next to her table. On it was fish-like shape that Estermann took two or three looks to recognise as a bird’s-eye view of a city.
The modern, computer-generated layout plan presented a reconstructed view of what looked like a sizable seaside port, erected on a fairly narrow peninsula protruding westward from a hilly coast into a vast sea speckled with thin strips of barrier islands, reefs and spits.
What caught his eye were the root-like docks flowering out on all sides, a gorgeous complex of castles and courtyards and a vast accompanying marketplace that sat on the utmost tip of the land strip like a poppy’s head, and some very intricate fortification to shield all that wealth.
The town was surrounded by the sea on three sides. Only the fourth, eastern side was connected to the various vineyards and olive groves stretching into the hinterland, and it was separated from them by a massive bulwark of a wall. And then another one. And another. The city had been broken up into three easily defensible tiers, presumably by a master builder who had once thought himself very prescient.

“At the time of the siege, the Republic of Trot was a sovereign city-state that encompassed eighty-three square kilometres of coastline, the northern outskirts of which overlapped with known settlement areas of four changeling hives, each hosting a population of some four to six thousand creatures, based on the appraisement of Exhibit 2c - the Equestrian year 20 edition of Magister Haycart’s Western Wildlife Chronicle.”

She waved at the ushers to speed up their installation efforts. Next to the city plan, they clamped on a map of the region - a largely non-descript stretch of coast that occasionally intertwined with mountain ranges further inland. On one of those ranges, the prosecution had affixed four red arrow stickers, each dryly assigned a number from one to four.

“In the years preceding the siege, the tribes and Trot came repeatedly into conflict, and there were well over one dozen recorded physical altercations between changeling warbands and Trot-based farmers, necessitating Trot to increase military presence to safeguard their territory and local agricultural operations. In Equestrian year 17, this culminated in the decision of the Trot Patricians’ Council to erect a string of nine forts along the contested frontier. However, owing to the remote position and persistence of Changeling aggression, these were soon abandoned as untenable. This left the stretch of land between the Four-Hive territory and the City of Trot in de facto control of Changeling raiders. I refer to Exhibit 2d - collected dispatches of the Trot Legion, Summer of the Equestrian year 30.”
She held aloft a paper copy of a crummy, handwritten letter.
“On the 8th day of the 2nd Summer Moon of the Equestrian year 30, an anonymous message reached the command headquarters of the Trot Legion, cautioning the commander, Admiral Flotsam, that the suspect, Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, had arrived in the region. It was claimed that she was travelling from the easterly direction and was now northbound towards one of the four Hives. The letter further claimed that the suspect sought to garner support among the local Changeling leadership for a possible organised military offensive against Trot, with the ultimate goal of complete military subjugation and annexation.”
Pierman shot Chrysalis an ugly glare. “As the suspect had already garnered a certain amount of infamy in the Equine states, owing to her…” She bit her lip. ”...to the reports of her leading the attack on Timbucktu, the Trot Patricians’ Council passed legislation invoking a state of emergency and ordering the general mobilisation of the populace to effect the defence of the city, on the 10th. I refer to Exhibit 2e - the minutes of the relevant sessions of the 8th, 9th and 10th.”

Chrysalis, rather tellingly, pouted in feigned interest, then lost it and gazed up at the cameras above her with an expectant, almost comical, cock of the eyebrows.
Estermann felt compelled to tell her that the live broadcast of the trial had been cut for the benefit of the investigation. But then he wondered what else could possibly keep her on her best behaviour.

“The city government expected a large airborne offensive to take place, much in the style of the Timbucktu assault, and adjusted its defences accordingly. Even though scattered reports of considerably escalated Changeling raids on surrounding homesteads did reach the military command, the anticipated great organised ‘push’ on the city proper remained absent.” She sighed. “On the 13th, there were fifty thousand persons inside the city walls. Nineteen thousand were military personnel. Thirty-one thousand were civilians, of whom at least nine thousand three hundred were refugees, taken in from the countryside.”

Estermann couldn’t help but feel a little perplexed. He wasn’t a military strategist, but wasn’t that was a slightly unusual soldier-to-civilian ratio? Almost two in five!

Pierman furrowed her brows and paused, “An unknown number of the latter group consisted of Changeling combatants, disguised as civilians.”
Then she wiped her nose with her handkerchief. “At 10:15 am, a train encompassing approximately twelve thousand five hundred further Changeling combatants was spotted approaching the city from north-westerly direction on the Princely Highway.”
She bowed over her table to try and pinpoint the road in question. She then gestured at her own robe, grabbing it as if to make a point. “This group too had magically altered their forms to disguise their identity as a Changeling-based military formation, and give the appearance of being civilian in nature, and of belonging to the...” She checked her notes to make sure she was using the right words. “...horse ethnicity, which is mostly found inhabiting the Saddle Arabian territories, located on the southern tip of the Equestrian continent. This should further give the deceptive impression of peaceful intentions, as the Saddle Arabian Territories were considered a faction politically neutral to the ongoing Changeling-Equestrian armed conflict, and was furthermore in contact with the Trot state exclusively as a partner in commerce.”

This ruse did sound oddly, unnervingly familiar to Estermann. Chrysalis had mentioned it. But had they not been donkeys the last time around?

“This effect is reflected in detail in the personal account of the siege survivor and councilmare, Missus Abysmally Rich, who died in 1491…”

He thought he could hear his client snicker immaturely. But he didn’t dare to turn and make sure. Either way, he couldn’t blame her. The name was just silly.

“...released on the 3rd day of the 1st winter moon of 1470, as found in Exhibit 2f. Miss Rich described the the news of the horse train as a ‘relieving, becalming display’, even going on to comment that ‘the news of such exotic merchants had been a welcome gust of hope in the face of the ever-mounting changeling dread that seemed to hang over us’.”
She turned a page. “With the acquiescence of the military units tasked with defending the city perimeter, the disguised changeling force made camp in the immediate vicinity of the outer wall. In the confusing situation that arose out of the deception, the Trot military leadership elected not to have the perimeter forcefully cleared out, but rather to seal the defensive ring around the city ‘prematurely’. All city gates of the first tier were closed at 11:30 am.”

Or, to put it in layman’s terms, let the horses fend for themselves, he mused.

“Despite this, at around noon, a group of around forty Changeling combatants managed to bypass the defensive perimeter and gain entry into the Lower City here…” She strained herself from all the pointing, “...Vanhoover Gate, and proceeded to pass into the Upper City via the… Mews Alley Barbican. At 12:30, the group arrived at the Grand Market, at the foot of the State Palace.”
Her finger shifted towards the defendant’s corner. “The Prosecution was able to discover a live witness who can confirm that Her Royal Highness, Chrysalis, was not only part of that group, but led it through the city.”

Here it was. Pierman’s magnum opus. Everyone seemed to lean forward a little in anticipation.

“The prosecution would like to submit Exhibit 2g, the account of Witness One, who had found herself in the vicinity of the Mews Alley Barbican at the time.”

That was Floret Oats she was talking about, though her name was tactfully eschewed for her own protection.
Estermann could no longer resist a glance.
He turned around and whispered to Queen Chrysalis, as soundlessly as possible.
“Ring any bells, your Highness? Mews Alley Barbican?”

She returned a predictably empty stare.
“Should it?”

Pierman continued, trying perhaps a little too hard to ignore the defence’s chit-chat.
“At 12:15 pm, the - as of now unchallenged - group of changelings and the suspect were engaged in talks with members of the Trot Patrician’s Council exiting the City Palace, amongst them Missus Rich. Topics included the terms for a retreat of all disguised and undisguised changeling combatants on Trot territory. Alternately, the peaceful surrender of the city was considered, with allowances being made for the undisturbed vacation of all pony inhabitants from Changeling-occupied territory.”
She slapped her notes on the tabletop, as if to make a point. “Both solutions were promptly rebuked by the suspect with the words, ‘You misunderstand the situation. I am your master and you are my slaves. No pony shall leave this city but wrapped up in my webs.”

Amused, Chrysalis cocked an eyebrow and sat back, her chains jingling.

“Around 12:30 pm, negotiations broke down entirely. It was at this point that the suspect approached the individual Patricians’ Council members and…” Pierman hesitated, as though she herself had trouble comprehending her own words, “...and made use of her innate magical reserves to place them in a coerced hypnotic trance.”

Now even Estermann couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow of his own.

“This hypnotic trance aided in achieving compliance and connivance to the Changeling demands to bring about an unconditional surrender of the city. At 12:40 pm, soldiers of the Trot Legion began reopening all city gates, some on direct order of Patrician’s Council members, others at the discretion of local commanding officers that had also found themselves under hypnotic coercion of the suspect.”

The claims really did sound as bizarre out of Pierman’s mouth as they did in the original documents.

Justice Suruma seemed to have similar chord struck, as she, looking at her two fellow judges with consternation, raised a silencing palm.
“So, my learned friend. Was the prosecution able to go into further detail as to the nature of this ‘coerced hypnotic trance’ or its specific effects?”

Even Pierman's eyes seemed to blank out for the briefest of moments before returning. “Magically induced hypnosis is a frequently documented and often-cited method of ensuring an individual’s, or even a large group of people’s, obedience in a variety of situations. It typically evokes within the victim an extreme, often fanatical - and ‘unnatural’, to quote the account of Witness One - sense of... affection for the ‘hypnotist’, and likewise strong… sympathies for the ‘hypnotist’s’ actions,... even in direct contrast to the sympathies and relationship towards the ‘hypnotist’... expressed by the victim herself immediately before the initiation of this treatment.”

Estermann felt his skin prickle in excitement. She was speaking off the cuff. Rambling. She had no idea!

“In other words,” she continued, “the victim is rendered in a mental state typified by... obstructed cognitive capabilities and an impaired judgement,...and is thusly manipulated by the ‘hypnotist’ to enter a state of greatly elevated risk-taking propensity… animated to act against her own will and both her own wellbeing and that of others. The victim is, for the duration of the effects of the hypnotic trance,not to be seen as not criminally responsible for her actions,... having been rendered non compos mentis and thus unable to distinguish right from wrong.”

Justice Suruma tapped her long nails, exchanging glances with a very convincingly-nodding Magistrate Fori. “My learned friend… There appears to be a rather formidable medical component to this matter. A psychological component at that. And, not least, a magical aspect - a scientific field in its own right. I think it would be proper if the prosecution’s evidence would reflect that objective scientific angle. Beyond eyewitness accounts.”

Estermann chuckled. That was surely putting it mildly!

Pierman smiled weakly. She seemed embarrassed by the digression that was thrust upon her. “I agree completely. Unfortunately, the criminal investigation has yet to yield such a scientific angle on magically induced hypnosis, though there is no doubt that there is a solid, well-explored factual basis to support this practice does exist within the Equestrian scientific community.”

Sated for now, Suruma nodded and jotted it down in her notes,
“Very well, Miss Pierman. I expect this matter to be expanded upon in a future session. Please continue with your elaborations on Trot.”

She nodded and sniffed.
“Following this interaction, Changeling forces were allowed to enter the city and disarm the Trot Legionary forces, rendering the City of Trot incapable of offering armed resistance.”
She rounded her desk and advanced upon the clipboard with an outstretched hand. “They proceeded to occupy the State Palace, the city armoury, the Trot Charity Hospital, four schoolhouses and fifteen warehouses storing foodstuffs and trade goods. All defence structures, gates and harbour installations were placed under Changeling control. Changeling forces also seized fifty-six marine vessels, twenty-nine of whom had been previously ordered set aside by the Trot Legion to facilitate a naval evacuation of civilians to the trading post of Vanhoover and the West Strip coastline in case of an assault. By 3:00 pm, the city of Trot and its surrounding countryside had, in its entirety, been effectively placed under control of Changeling Forces, commanded by the suspect.”

Pierman’s eyes closed in on said suspect with a lethal glare.

“Within the same day, the suspect promptly installed a martial regime in the city that took action against ponies and other non-changeling citizens alike in a repressive and brutal manner. The suspect issued a directive to evacuate all Trot denizens, irrespective of their combatant status or lack thereof - this includes minors - from both public and private buildings and gather in various public spaces. Some thirty thousand civilians were restrained and enlaced with changeling secrete, in a manner identical to the one reported from the sack of Timbucktu.
“These civilians were forced to spend the night from the 13th to the 14th outdoors, where they were exposed to cold temperatures, high winds and rain.
“Civilians who resisted in any fashion, or who tried to safeguard their homes and businesses against looters, were brutalised by Changeling combatants and forcibly deported. The post-siege Trot population census of 30 - Exhibit 2h - notes that, in the time frame of 3:00 pm of the 13th to 9:00 am on the 14th, a grand total of twelve thousand five hundred Trot combatants and civilians were forcibly removed from the city of Trot on foot and presumably deported to locations beyond Trot sovereign territory into the mountainous, forested hinterland in the disputed Changeling territory. No information concerning their whereabouts and fate exist from the 14th onward.” Her voice uttered the last couple of words with poignant softness, the implication being clear.

But Estermann wasn’t impressed. She was hesitating. Choosing her words wisely. He would put a pin in that.

“Others again, while kept in detainment inside Trot, were also subjected to hypnotic coercion. Some five hundred civilians and combatants were forcibly hypnotised and thus made docile, though some reports set the number as high as fifteen hundred.”

More of the same. Estermann rubbed his temple. He was too dazed by this to even roll his eyes.

“At around 10:00 pm, green-tinted fires broke out in the docklands, simultaneously at different corners of the mercantile and port districts. These fires were allowed by the occupation forces to spread across the entire harbourfront, mostly consisting of wooden or majority-wooden structures. Amongst the buildings that were completely razed were thirty-eight warehouses and assorted counting houses, storing goods worth three hundred and sixty million US dollars. These warehouses also carried at least one million tonnes of foodstuffs - including the full municipal strategic grain reserve - which were subsequently entirely destroyed or rendered inedible.
“Outside the harbour area, the occupation forces inflicted property damage numbered at an approximated one hundred and ninety million US dollars, a majority of which was private property that was either destroyed, damaged or stolen from private households.”
She continued with a relief-like sigh.
“On the morning of the 14th, around 10:00 am, the first units of the White Tail Cavalry Division of the Royal Equestrian Guard arrived in the vicinity of the City of Trot, commanded by Princess Celestia.”

Instantly interested, Estermann jerked forward. Chrysalis, who looked electrified at the mention, raised her ears.

Celestia.
The name of the dreaded one had been uttered. Now all odds were off.

“The following is taken from Exhibit 2i - the report to the Canterlot Royal Guard General’s Staff from the 28th: The Equestrian troops were part of a relief force that started from White Tail Woods Garrison on the 12th, at the urgent behest for assistance from the Trot Patrician’s Council, received by way of messenger on the same day.
“Upon reconnoitring the situation of Trot’s sack, the Equestrian units were directed to surround and lay siege to the marauding Changeling troops. The siege ring around the city was sealed around noon, during which a convoy carrying eighteen hundred seventeen civilian prisoners, departing from Trot and northbound, could be halted and liberated.
“The report describes the prisoners being in a ‘foul, squalid’ condition, as ‘weathered’ and barely healthy enough to move at a slow walk. Their psychological condition was described as ‘petrified with terror’, and every interrogated victim either refused or was otherwise incapable of detailing the situation inside the city.”
She pressed her palms together meaningfully. “Further it is mentioned that many of the drivers of this convoy were themselves Trot civilians and soldiers. Many tried to force the convoy through the Equestrian lines and attacked soldiers with, quote, ‘fanatical zeal’. All were later diagnosed by Royal Guard Corps-Stallions with symptoms of hypnotic coercion.”

Estermann harrumphed. The interesting part was yet to come.

Chrysalis, for her part, had grown visibly tense. A slight nervous shiver ran through her limbs,

That sight alone provoked an instant pang of sympathy in Estermann, tempting him to swing his chair around to her to keep her aching form in view.

“At 2:00 pm, Princess Celestia, in her position as the commanding officer of the relief force, initiated a dialogue with members of the occupation force inside the city.”

“So is that what she called it?” a sarcastic voice asked almost immediately.

Estermann peered around in giddiness, only to realise, far too late and to his horror, that it was he who spoke, while his still preoccupied with the Queen.
The three judges gave them a stern glance as he covered his jaw in shock. Even the Queen herself seemed surprised, though it might not have been because of him.

Pierman continued, unfazed.
“Around 3:00 pm, individual Changeling units had broken away from the main force and begun exiting the city in a bid to lay down their arms, which the Equestrian forces accepted, and took these soldiers prisoner.”

That wasn’t right. Estermann looked into Chrysalis’ eyes as he tried to remember. She had told him that the changelings themselves had been put… under some spell. Wasn’t it something like that?

“This wave of surrender soon spread to more units, who successively, and peacefully, vacated the town and too were taken prisoners of war.”

Estermann saw the Queen breathlessly mouth one word.
“Liars!”

“However, some two thousand soldiers, still loyal to the command of Queen Chrysalis, refused the opportunity to surrender. Instead, the suspect, in accompaniment of these remaining forces, exited the city on the northern seaside and retreated, airborne, into the Changeling-held countryside. The Equestrian relief force did not find itself in a position to oppose her movement or pursue.”

A pained “What?” echoed through the room.

That, Estermann realised almost in relief, really was Chrysalis this time. She had an expression on her that was both offended, and horrified, and hurt. All humour that may have been in her tone before had dripped away.

Justice Suruma leaned forward. “Your Highness!”

Chrysalis gazed into Estermann, pleading for help. ‘You know what’s wrong with this, don’t you?’ she seemed to scream, ‘I told you everything! This is bullshit.’
He didn't know if 'bullshit' really was the word she would have used, but still.

Either way, Estermann felt that his sympathies lay entirely with her. He felt strongly compelled to scoot closer and give her some sort of reassuring pat, but hevwas thankfully interrupted by Justice Suruma chiming in.
“That’s thrice I have warned you now, your Highness. If you insist on interrupting the proceedings with your incessant commentary, I will have removed for the remainder of the proceedings. Have I made myself clear?”

“We’ll see about that,” she hissed and reluctantly died down, “Pathetic… travelling circus.”

Suruma sourly nodded at Pierman, who continued in a huff,
“At 5:00 pm, after it became evident to the Equestrian command that no more Changeling units were willing to lay down their arms, the force took the city by storm. During the operation, it is reported of changeling combatants demonstratively placing groups of civilian captives in dangerous positions at strategic locations in the city, in order to deter Equestrian units from advancing further, and to make it possible to the Changeling combatants to exploit the chaos and magically disguise themselves as non-combatants.”

Pierman mentioned that in something of a weirdly pleased tone. At last, she had found a count with which to punish the shapeshifters for shapeshifting.

“A total of fourteen hundred Changeling combatants were captured during the operation. The report described the scene they found as follows: Civilians and combatants, still huddled in tightly packed groups and restrained with secrete, had been forced to spend the night without shelter all across the city. No exceptions had been made, neither for minors, nor the elderly, nor the ill or injured. Nor had any arrangements been made for… sanitation.”

A subtle, involuntary squirm crept over those present.

“In the aftermath, nine hundred and sixty persons were admitted into medical care as a result of their harsh treatment and unsanitary conditions under Changeling detention. Amongst them were one three hundred fourteen cases of croup and five hundred ninenty-one cases of horsey hives, an Equestrian strain of measles. Later, a swamp fever epidemic struck the recuperating population of Trot, infecting sixty-four hundred and thirty people.”
Unconsciously, she laid a hand on her belly, “The situation was worsened greatly by a famine that lasted two weeks following the occupation, owing to the burning of the foodstuff warehouses and grain reserve, as well as a subsequent shortage of food that could be imported, owing to the security situation in the conflict-torn countryside. At its peak, rations had to be lowered to 500 grammes of grain and hay per day - an insufficient amount of nutrients to sustain even an earth pony foal. As a result of these combined factors, four thousand and ten people ended up... succumbing while still in treatment.
She glanced left, as if to direct her attention at all the other victims she had overlooked,
“Of the five to fifteen hundred victims of hypnotic coercion, only twenty-one were reported to have suffered no long-term psychological traumas. Reports exist of individual victims remaining in treatment as late as the Equestrian year 82, fifty-two years after the attack.
Now she looked to the right. “Thirteen thousand combatants and civilians were declared missing - a majority of whom were very likely evacuated by Changeling forces prior to the arrival of the Equestrian relief force. There are no reports of these thirteen thousand missing persons being found or otherwise resurfacing.”
She laid one hand into her other as she wrapped up her recounting of these tragic statistics.
“The advances of the Changeling forces under Her Royal Highness, Queen Chrysalis, was in so far calculated. The occupation, albeit short-lived, had dealt severe damage to the town, from which it never managed to recover. News of the assault on Trot, the disappearances of its citizens, the perceived air of ready collaboration of Trot citizens with the Changeling occupation force and their meticulous destruction of trade goods, spread across the Equestrian peninsula. This caused a majority of the state’s trading partners to distance themselves permanently from the location, citing, in part, also economic insecurity due to the extended presence of Changeling troops in the region and continued, sporadic fighting.
This severe economic hit, exacerbated through the population’s decimation, triggered a severe downturn. In the year following the lifting of the occupation, the GDP of the state - per capita at purchasing power parity - fell by sixty-two percent. This, in turn, encouraged more citizens of the region to emigrate to the safety of southern and south-eastern fortified urban centres, particularly those inside the Principality of Equestria.”
Her words softened and slowed as she seemed to lay the city to eternal rest.
“The once equine-dominated countryside became severely depopulated. Trot would remain a politically disputed territory, a ‘no-man’s land’, for several decades onward. Citing Exhibit 2j - the 1001 Equestrian Demographics Census - to this day, only an estimated 10% of the Trot diaspora remains settled on the Western seaboard. It is a fact that the suspect’s actions led directly to the eradication of equine settlement in the region, by way of deportation, mass death and displacement.”
She drilled a finger into her document stash.
“A military incursion and assault on a major civilian settlement, under the use of the unlawful ruse of masquerading military personnel and other combatants as non-combatants. A military occupation marred by wanton destruction of strategically insignificant private property and flagrant, widespread, repeated, brutal abuses of protected rights of non-combatants and hors-de-combat, as guaranteed by international law. Worse damage could only be prevented by the timely intervention of the Royal Equestrian Guard.”

Celestia, the hero. Chrysalis, the villain.
Naturally.

Lastly, Pierman rounded out her tirade by unleashing the increasingly familiar deluge of counts of indictment. Her voice was raspy and teetering on hoarseness, but there was glee in it yet.
“In the timespan from the 13th to the 14th of the 2nd Summer Moon of the Equestrian year 30, Changeling combatants active in the vicinity of the City of Trot have become culpable of…”

Seventeen. There were seventeen counts that Pierman had squeezed into this incident.

Three counts of genocide against the Trotish Earth Ponies. By inflicting murder, severe physical and mental harm and conditions of life to bring about the destruction of the entire people, she had essentially run the whole gamut. Destruction of hospitals, schools, public services, the strategic grain reserve, and denial of warmth, shelter, nourishment, medical supplies and basic sanitation. A succinct recipe for wiping out a race of people in the long run, apparently.

Six counts of crimes against sapiency, which further elaborated what had been described as genocide, but plus imprisonment, plus forced disappearance, and plus the freshly added violation of the sanctity of the mind. Yes, he knew he would have to circle back to this sore thumb.

Eight counts of war crimes, which were the previous six counts of crimes against sapiency warmed over, but updated for the surrendered Trot Legion - since brutalising civilians was an athemar, but brutalising soldiers alongside them was a double disgrace - and garnished with the malicious crimes against property, which totalled up to - a measly, considering all that came before it just now - 550 Million dollars.

It took Pierman a solid six minutes to read all counts out aloud.
Estermann was well within his right to be aghast. Other suspects of the ICC had barely received a quarter of the counts for their entire careers - much less for one incident.

Pierman, meanwhile, seemed no longer interested in the trial as much as winning the world’s most perverse bingo game.

“The suspect, Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, has made herself culpable of these counts by ordering or overseeing these actions, once again in her position as the commanding officer of the Changeling military force in the City of Trot.”

Estermann found the Queen with her eyes shut, her breaths short, as she seemed to try and desperately keep a hold of herself in light of what she had just heard.
The Trot affair seemed to have a much more profound impact on her than the Timbucktu one. Which was understandable.
After all, Celestia didn’t turn up in Timbucktu.

“Thank you for your exhaustive presentation, Miss Pierman.” Suruma sighed. “Mister Estermann? Would this be a convenient moment to for Her Royal Highness and the defence to take a brief recess?”

She was alluding to yesterday. She was expecting him to take another long moment to pause and think about what he was about to say and do.
It sounded sensible. But almost immediately, Estermann found himself furiously shaking his head at the suggestion.
No. There was no time for respite. A brief glance toward his client’s beaming eyes affirmed him. No. First, he was going to show that melodramatic pygmy Pierman.

“That won’t be necessary this time, Madam President,” he declared, swelling with pride and adrenaline, “We would like to proceed with the examination immediately.”
Anger was boiling up inside him, a lot of which he couldn’t place. But it was genuine alright.

None too amused, Suruma acquiesced.

“Before we move on, I would like to direct your attention to exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h. All contain multiple instances of… I suppose an interesting word choice.”

Pierman rolled her eyes.

“Can my esteemed colleague direct to the instances of the suspect being referred to by name?”
He dodged her deadly glare and shrugged comically, “I suppose it promises to become a running theme at this point, but I do earnestly believe that the designation that the suspect is given in these documents is, in itself, imperative for his or her positive identification.”

She flung open her booklet and tapped on the first page she saw.
“I refer my honourable friend to Exhibit 2e, Page fifty, paragraph 4. For example.”

“Yes...” Estermann mumbled. “The translation supposes that the sentence is, ‘It is a sad given that measures taken against the horde under Queen Chrysalis may, if necessary, inconvenience commerce and shipping’, et cetera.”

Unsure of where he as going with this, Pierman agreed.
“Yes, that is correct.”

He tapped his lips in thought.
“I regret to admit that I am not acquainted with the Equestrian languages in the slightest, however it caught my eye that every word and letter combination that has been translated as meaning ‘Queen Chrysalis’ inside these three exhibits look… distinct from the ‘Queen Chrysalis’ mentionings in the remaining Equestrian-language documents.”

She let out an exasperated huff.

“The words appear to be different,” he enunciated, “Could my esteemed colleague offer an explanation for the translation adamantly referring to both these words equally as ‘Queen Chrysalis’?”

Her arms flailed a bit. It looked irreverent, like the buildup to an angry shrug.
She barely regained her composure to sift through the pages, when a helpful whisper from the orange earth pony, the special counsel for the victims, caught her attention.
Pierman nodded and declared,
“All Equestrian-language exhibits concerning the Trot incident were written in Standardised Equestrian, or a derivation thereof. This is the formal version of the Equestrian language, as it has been in use in the City of Canterlot and in government correspondence over the last 1000 years. Exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h, on the other hand, were written down in Trotish Ponish, an Equestrian dialect that is exclusive to the Western Seaboard, and which is related to, but not identical with, Standardised Equestrian.”
She looked up. “So what my learned friend has found here is merely a difference in spelling. Both words were translated as ‘Queen Chrysalis’ because they mean the same thing.”

He nodded warily.
“Who was the translation provided by?”

“The Equestrian Civil Service, with assistance and certification from the Royal Canterlotian Faculty for Ancient Linguistics.”

He realised he couldn’t do anything with that. Not yet. He had to put a pin in that too.
He bowed his head graciously and settled down.

Suruma took the cue.
“Very well. Miss Pierman. If I am not mistaken, you wanted to proceed with the presentation of the prosecution’s next piece of demonstrative evidence.”

Pierman nodded, almost as eager to get on with it as Estermann himself. “That would Exhibit 2m. The Four Scarabs.”

Suruma hailed the bailiff and ordered the exhibit to be fetched. Estermann, briefly realising that he had lost track, immediately went to search for the relevant entry. ‘The Scarabs’... It was not the first piece of evidence that sprang into his mind.

He looked up to see two bailiffs march into the centre of the room. The first one carried a folding table under his arm, the second one balanced a tray. And on the tray sat four shiny black, shoebox-sized, beetle-like stones. At least the etymology of the ‘scarabs’ was self-evident.

The table was assembled and the Scarabs laid out.

“Madam President, may I and my associate enter the well to finish setting the equipment up?” Pierman asked

Suruma nodded, and Pierman ushered the earth pony mare that sat on the other table to her right - the same one Estermann kept seeing the last couple of times but couldn’t quite figure out her purpose - to join her in the well.

Estermann saw Chrysalis mutter, so hoarse as to be inaudible, with her eyes wide and glassy, “Sweet heavens… I haven’t seen one of those in years...”

“This,” Pierman continued, “is a Changeling-constructed artefact that was recovered by Royal Equestrian Guard troops inside the Vanhoover Gatehouse in the City of Trot on the 14th of the 2nd Summer Moon of the Equestrian year 30. The ‘Four Scarabs’, as it’s been colloquially named in Equestria, It is one of a number of identical long-distance communication devices that function on the basis of innate magical energy. It has seen well-documented use amongst members of the changeling race, both military and civilian in nature, to enable the two-way transmission of visual and sound signals in real time, very similar to a video phone, or a video chat connection.”

Together, the woman and the mare went to slightly shoving the rocks around on the desk with tiny, artful nudges.

“In the Equestrian year 999, researchers of the Archeological Faculty of the Royal Canterlotian University in Canterlot successfully restored this machine, and opened access any information that has been saved upon it.”
She picked up one of the stones with a sweaty hand and showed it around the room, “The stones, made from a mineral similar to onyx, function, if placed in the right formation, as a transmitter and receiver of this information-carrying magical energy. The energy has been discovered to leave microscopic imprints on the material, comparable to the procedure of imprinting information on optical discs. This makes it possible to review previous interactions with the calling party - that is, from the perspective of the receiver.”

Estermann crossed his arms and nudged forward on his chair impatiently.

“Using a special incantation, the researchers were able to successfully date a certain series of imprints to the time during Summer of the Equestrian year 30. Several imprints could be successfully recovered that clearly reveal the suspect, Queen Chrysalis, as a speaker, interacting with the user of these Four Scarabs, in the Summer of the Equestrian year 30.”

Chrysalis huffed at the revelation.

“Ah,” Suruma sighed, “So you are of the opinion that the footage depicting the machine’s use by the suspect, in combination of the approximate dating of the footage and the location of the machine, can serve to establish the suspect’s whereabouts at the time of the Trot attack?”

Pierman nodded in relief, probably glad that her ramblings actually made sense to someone.
“Indeed. Madam President. The footage that we will show in a moment serves as inculpatory evidence against the suspect, since it unambiguously proves her integral role as on-scene commanding officer during the timespan in which the violations took place.”

She placed her scarab down again, only for the earth pony mare to twist it around carefully and array it in what looked like a perfect square.

“The scarabs have been pre-charged to enable this demonstration.” the mare explained, trying to sound helpful.

After a few more seconds of positioning, a high-pitched vibration suddenly shook the room.
One after the other, the pitch-black, massive stones began to glow in bright green flames.

Estermann was in awe. He had never seen such a phenomenon before. He didn’t even notice that the Queen, just as captivated by the sight, had begun gnawing on the tip of her own, hole-ridden hoof, at least as much as the chains allowed it, until a few seconds into the spectacle.

The stones began to fold open, as though they were mechanical. The bright energy shot out and jumped from stone to stone, infusing each with the others’ power, their pace increasing rapidly.

Lastly, the scarabs began sprouting something by far more solid - something resembling thick cobweb-like roots that made the scarabs themselves grow into the air like unholy fungi.

At some point, the green energy they kept discharging bundled in the air above the stones.
Like a St Elmo’s light, it danced in the air like a gradually growing balloon of green fire.

As some point, around the time it had swollen to the size of a small fridge, it stabilised.
Inside the flame, an eerie image appeared, white and flickering.

The judge panel looked, at best, daunted by what they saw. Colm was suspended in lethargic shock as he held onto his pen for comfort. Lexy Fori, while not necessarily amazed by the magical display, still looked very much intrigued.
“I suppose this isn’t the footage quite yet?” Suruma made sure, her tone wavering, sounding like she was moments away from summoning the firefighters.

“It will be visible in a couple of minutes, Madam President.”

It only took a few seconds.

From one moment to the next, the entire room - defence staff, prosecution, judges, spectators and Chrysalis - found themselves gazing at the blown-up image of a human woman’s face.
Her dark hair was unkempt. Her pale unwashed cheeks glistened with sweat. Her beady brown eyes were cold and piercing, yet agitated.

It didn’t take long for the chamber to drown in uncertain mumbling.

Estermann, mystified by the unexpected sight, glanced over to Prosecutor Pierman and her earth pony companion.
The two were trading concerned stares as they waited for something - anything - good to happen.
They clearly had no idea what was going on either.
On the other end of the line, the mysterious woman’s mouth began to move.
A stuttering “Hello?” came from the image.

“Who the hay is that?” Chrysalis inquired in a sharp, annoyed tone. Her remark was contested by no one.

But so, just as suddenly as she appeared, the mysterious woman was gone, disappearing back into the bright white void that had seemingly birthed her.
Immediately freed from her shock, Pierman flung herself upon the four scarabs on the table, frantically repositioning and pleadingly gazing at the impotent white cloud above her.
Estermann could see her mouthing a breathless mantra of “Shit! Shit Shit!” at the pony. The pony was also stammering something incoherent as she tried to lend Pierman a hoof.

“Is there a problem?” Suruma carefully asked, as the other two justices all but held onto her robe out of excitement, “Who was that?”

“I don’t...” Pierman began to stammer, “Where is the footage? Why isn’t there any footage?”

“Miss Pierman.”

The beleaguered prosecutor looked up.

“Is something wrong?”

“I… I must make sure...” She gazed impotently at the bewildering magical artefact, “...that the impression wasn’t… eroded by that… interference. I was assured by the faculty that the imprints on the Scarabs are very fragile… I must make sure it hasn’t been… overwritten.”

There was a horrified moment of silence.
The word seemed to linger in the room for eternities.

“My learned friend, am I understanding this right?”

“I… need to go back… I...”
Her eyes glazed over. Her voice faded away.

“Are you… still able to present the exhibit?”

Pierman didn’t answer.

Both Justice Suruma and Magistrate Fori, whose large pony eyes were now round as saucers, called for the bailiff almost immediately.

“Court officer!”

“We’ll conduct a recess!”

“Thirty minutes!”

Estermann did not want a recess. He was still itching for a fight.
But even so, he suddenly couldn’t stop chuckling.

As the three justices begged their leave, Estermann was already on his feet before they had walked out the door.
There was an unearthly force flowing through his body, spurring him on to do something proactive.

“Is everything okay, Mister Estermann?” a gravelly voice asked him from behind.
It was Garibaldi. Estermann had barely noticed him during the hearing. Nor had he noticed that Garibaldi was not wearing glasses. He had hidden them away long before either Estermann or the queen even entered.

Either way, Estermann’s eyes were pulled back towards the new red frames sitting on Chrysalis’ own muzzle, and the powerful green eyes that sat behind them.
Her subdued ire was letting them beam in an even more saturated green than before, and the sentiment was all but contagious.

Even as three bailiffs shuffled her off through her separate hidden defendant’s doorway, Chrysalis’ trembling face infused Estermann with a veritable kill order.
If he had been a knight of hers, he would have drawn his sword for her at that moment.

But there was some semblance of professional posture left in him, and it managed wrestle back control over his temper, if only temporarily.

He was parched, he needed something to drink.
His quest for a water tap led him out of the courtroom and into the tight corridor branching off towards the bathrooms and mini-kitchen.

As he tried to muster his thoughts and process what he had - and what he hadn’t - just seen in a more sober manner, he spotted Pierman standing mere feet away from him.

There she was. The troublemaker. In the flesh.
She stood huddled in the cramped hallway with her two henchponies, the demure earth pony mare and the constantly ruffled-looking pegasus stallion.
They were in the middle of a very fraught discussion.

“How the h… how on earth could that happen?!” she inquired.

“I don’t know, Prosecutor,” the mare responded, “Some… foal back in Equestria must have activated another machine at just the wrong moment. It was bad timing, nothing more.”

Pierman tried hard to sound less irate than she really was.
“You can say that again. We’re can’t stand out there looking like idiots. We need to bring the Queen’s recordings back, or else they’re gonna savage Missus Oats’ testimony when it's her turn.”

The Schadenfreude that wormed its way through Estermann’s chest at that moment was highly satisfying.

He took a spirited step forward. Mocking a person to their face was always something that Estermann had always tried to avoid. He knew it should be below him, though it very often wasn’t. It made him feel common, boorish.
But no, not in that moment. He licked his lips.
“Need a hand?” he asked.

The three conspiring creatures turned to gaze at him. Pierman was the first to react.
“What do you want, Estermann?”

Estermann took his time with answering.
“Was a bit of a dud just now, wasn’t it?”

As Pierman realised where this was going, she moved to turn back away from him.
“Just... stay out of my way.”

But Estermann wasn’t done yet.
“You must be one of the most pathetic people I have ever met, Pierman.”
He held up two fingers for reference. “Can’t even establish the suspect’s involvement twice in a row. ”

The orange mare clutched Pierman by her robe and tried to drag her away.
“Come now. Let’s go,” she hushed, “If we can’t get manage to restore the impression on the thing, we’ll need to get out the photos and the recordings…”

But Pierman did not follow along. She held up a silencing paw as she looked back over to Estermann. Then she picked up the gauntlet.
“Wait. Are we… somehow suggesting that any of this wasn’t your client’s accomplishment? Really, Mister Estermann?”
She looked at him incredulously. “Let’s not kid ourselves here. You know it was her who sent those fifteen thousand to their deaths. Left their extended families on the street to rot and die. You know - better than anyone in that room. Except for her, of course.”

Estermann grinned and scoffed at her accusation.

“Just look at your smirk,” she muttered hatefully.

“Do I now? I suppose you can prove that about as well as anything else you tried your hands at.”
He threw a patronising glance at the two ponies at her feet. “Makes one wonder what the Equestrians see in you. They’d be well within their rights to want their money back.”

This seemed to strike some chord within Pierman.
“Did you not hear me? Fuck off.” she growled, as best as she could.

Estermann smiled as he realised the gloves were off.
“Tell me, do you lick up all the shit they toss you? A propaganda pamphlet here, a conveniently detailed field report there, a... poem…”
He emphasised the last one forcefully that he began to chuckle involuntarily.
“All from the same fucking palace, no doubt. A useful idiot for the Equestrian crown, that’s what you are.”
He took a step closer. “What a public service. How kind of you to try and pull out the greatest thorn in Celestia’s side. Send her greatest adversary to the stockades for her.”

The mare looked appalled. The stallion was seething.

“Oh, yes,” Pierman agreed sarcastically, he voice trembling, “The Equestrians are clearly the bad guys here, aren’t they? How rude of them to clog your precious changeling hives with their own decomposing bodies!”

He just snorted.
As he sat in the courtroom, he had been toying with the idea of just bursting out then and there the accusations about the volcano that Celestia shoved Chrysalis and her army into. He knew it was a stupid thing to do at that stage. That’s what he told Queen Chrysalis back then, anyway. But as he read the distraught faces of the ponies flanking the prosecutor, he decided to take some delight.
“Ask your Equestrian handlers about Old Palm Mountain!” he requested, the humour in his voice lost, “Ask them what happened up there, to Queen Chrysalis and all her children, right after Trot” he stated, leaning forward in thick mockery, “At this point, you’re trying to make it look like they all... just barrelled out Trot’s backdoor as soon as Celestia came marching down the road. I mean… Weren’t they ‘imprisoned’? Wasn’t that the official story?”

Pierman looked uncertain at first. But she recovered in time.
“Oh, who told you that? Chrysalis?” She raised an eyebrow and spat, mockingly, “Did she confess to you?”

Estermann grit his teeth, wondering momentarily if he had said a bit too much just now.

A pained yet cruel smile welled up on her face as she struck back.
“I don’t give a shit what happened on some godforsaken mountain that might not even exist.”
She pointed at a spot in front of her feet. “I only see what’s laid in front of me. And what I see are war, famine, pestilence and death. But all courtesy of only one horse: The Queen of all Changelings.”
She crept closer, closing the distance between herself and Estermann ever so slightly, “Chrysalis is going to burn in hell. And so will you, for putting your hands in hers, you repulsive lapdog.”

That hurt a little, Estermann admitted to himself as he looked down at her.
“You spiteful midget.”

Pierman chortled tearfully.
“Whatever you call me, you’ll still be a dog.”
She paused. “But who am I to judge? I guess this is in your people’s DNA anyway, isn’t it?”

Estermann left his mouth hanging open.
“Excuse me, what?”

She shrugged theatrically.
“Sucking up to autocrats and killers? Playing bookie for them? Stashing their pillage for them? Fighting their wars for them? That’s what you Swiss always have excelled at.”
She cocked her head to the side teasingly, “Perhaps I should look up the surname ‘Estermann’ one of these days. Let’s see what tumbles out of your family tree.”

That hurt a lot more, Estermann realised.
“Fuck you.” he snapped as he bolted a few forceful steps closer to the prosecutor.

But he found himself stopped by a gust of wind, followed by the barrel of the pegasus putting itself between him and her.
The stallion held out a threatening hoof as Estermann tumbled back reflexively.
“Go ahead,” the pegasus cried, “Give me a reason.”

Estermann chuckled bravely.
“You go ahead! Hit me. It worked out so well for your princess yesterday, didn’t it?”

At that moment, the floating pegasus was shoved to the side as Pierman fought her way back over to Estermann and practically lunged at his face.
“Fuck me?” she asked, a growing anger piercing her voice, “No. fuck you! You and your degenerate client. You and your... pathological deference to her. That changeling hypnosis we talked about-”

Estermann interrupted her with a loud, showy laugh.
“Ha! There your go again with your rubbish! What was that armchair psychology meant to be?”

“Oh, it’s real,” she protested and struck a finger at his face, “and you’re the living, breathing proof. You got a screw loose, as far as I’m concerned. You’re no longer of sound mind. The whole morning, you looked like you tried a bit too much of your client’s ketamine.”

Was she trying to say what he thought she was trying to say? Was she really trying to implicate him in her charges next? Oh, the gall of that woman.
He struck out a finger back at her, his tone sharp and reprimanding.
“You watch your fucking mouth, Pierman. That’s not a road you want to go down. Could get you disbarred.”

Here the pegasus, still floating next to him, struck out with lightning movement and slapped Estermann’s pointing hand away from Pierman’s largely defiant face.

“Back off, monkey! You hear me? You leave her alone before you’ll get a taste of me!” he spat.

Though Estermann made a point of not addressing him directly, he still put up his other to defend himself.
“Pierman...” he wheezed, “Call off the cavalry charge, will you?”

“Leave him, Beam. He just isn’t worth it.” Pierman moaned, reluctantly acquiescing.

But ‘Beam’ took a few moments of his own to stand down.
“Before the day’s over, you and your ‘Queen’ will choke on your own guilt. Got it?” she growled.

Estermann ignored him, and lowered his own hands.

Pierman straightened her robe, and tried to calm herself a little. She pulled out the inevitable handkerchief and dabbed her nose.
“Listen, Estermann,” she began, in a tone that was supposed to be a lot calmer and more civil, but didn’t quite make it. She looked him square in the eyes, to emphasise the importance of her words. “You will get to cross-examine an eyewitness today. She is nine hundred years old.”
She paused. Then her voice fell to a near-whisper. “And I swear to God, if you as much as breathe on her out there, I will end you and your pathetic excuse of a career.”
She shook her head, as threateningly as she could muster. “Don’t think that I can’t.”

Estermann also took a moment to straighten his robe. Then he snorted, almost automatically.
“Why? You think your nine hundred year-old spinster is gonna pose a threat to my Queen?”
That was enough fun for one morning, he concluded.
“Good luck with your four beetles. Now, pardon me.”

He stepped forward and pushed past Prosecutor Pierman, Beam the pegasus and the largely silent and stoic earth pony mare, and headed as far down the corridor as he could.

As he disappeared out of sight, Pierman almost wanted to collapse.

She exhaled the rest of the air that she had kept in her pent-up belly to keep her spine straight, and buried her welling face in her handkerchief.
“May God have mercy on him,” she muttered, in a futile last-ditch effort at forgiveness. “What a moron!”

Harshwhinny trotted up to pat her leg a little, feeling as though this was the least she could do in that moment.

Beam, on the other hand, followed Estermann with his eyes as the defence counsel turned a corner.
Within moments, he fluttered after him at a wary pace, as though to make sure that he really was gone.

“Beam… come back. We don't have time,” Pierman called weakly as he flew off.

“Should we inform the justices about this?” Harshwhinny asked.

She snuffled.
“What for?”

Harshwhinny nodded, as though believing to understand.
“Tell me, Prosecutor… Did you get a good look at his eyes?”

Pierman hesitated.
”What? No. Why?”

Author's Note

Hello, fillies and gentlecolts,
It is I, the author.
Thanks for biding your time for so long. But the next chapter is going to be released within the next couple of days!

Yes, another great piece fan art from Derpanater!
Much appreciated as always!