//------------------------------//
// Juror #2 
// Story: The Judgment 
// by Gabriel LaVedier 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash had taken her place in Twilight's basement laboratory, which was a nice, tucked-away space that could be counted on as a decent reading room. She was surrounded by egghead stuff, but that didn't really matter. It didn't distract her. She laid the paper out on the table, set the stamp pad down and prepared to make her decision. She thought fast, she acted fast, she finished fast.
She was so ready to stamp the paper. Her stamp was in her hoof, inked and hovering over the page. But no matter how much she wanted to indulge her usual mad speed she knew she couldn't. It was too important a decision to just go without a thought. Her thoughtlessness had already hurt AJ once. And this was something that affected AJ personally.
Thinking was not really her forte. She was an action mare, and always had been. She acted on instinct and passion, zooming through life with force and might. It had worked out well for her. The brute-force approach had gotten her to an awesome place!
An awesome place... through a relationship with Gilda that had been mostly puke, bullying and angry sex. Through pointless relationships that hadn't even gotten to the angry sex. Through hurting AJ. Hurting. AJ. That ignored all the physical hurts of her head-down slamming though her life. Her injured wings, her wind burn, her road-rash, cuts, gigantic bruises... cost of doing business, being the best. But some days...
The physical harm got her to the good places, the Sonic Rainbooms, the trophies, the prestige, the Wonderbolts induction. It worked out. The emotional harm was what caused all the problems. Zipping through without thought, taking the most expedient path without regard to the consequences had nearly ruined everything. Hay, she wouldn't have Tank either, on further reflection.
The matter before them needed an egghead's careful consideration. And she could do that too. She liked reading, that was an egghead thing to do. True it was mostly Daring Do but still, it was reading. Daring Do had had many offers of making a dam out of her, from many exotic species, including one-off magical creatures and even a creepy, creepy offer from Ahuizotl. She was firmly in the Herpy Do camp, which did not help at all.
There were all kinds of weird magical powers that could have put a child in her belly using any of the potential females. Had she been leaning that way she would have taken the opportunity in a heartbeat. No hesitation, no consideration, just having a foal via the magic available. That was certainly a good way to do it.
But Daring wasn't real. She could do it and be the only one. It could remain her and only her. In the real world, with the six of them others would see it and might want it for themselves. And though the details were fuzzy, there was something about fewer and fewer males, which was unfair to the mares that liked them. And also something about more hate for Colt Cuddlers which was way wrong. Colt Cuddlers could be cool dudes and they always made lots of donations, so they really helped Filly Foolers a lot.
She had been fine with doing things the usual way. But she had actually thought about the identity of the donor. She wasn't thinking about the anonymous donors at the banks. She was seriously thinking about an Apple as a donor. It wasn't supposed to matter. Legally and socially it sure didn't. But she had no doubt that it would be so much better to have an Apple foal with donation from an Apple. The new process, however all the egghead stuff worked, would make the sire of her foal AJ. A dream come true.
Having AJ be the sire, and being sire of AJ's foal... that idea was immediately appealing. Thoughtlessness reigned in that case. There wasn't anything wrong with being thoughtless now and again. It could work, when it didn't involve something to hurt somepony else. She wasn't out to hurt the world. She just wanted a foal and wanted AJ to have a foal.
With her mind resolved to the decision she picked up the stamp, inked it, and slammed it down with the passionate force she had intended to at the very start of her consideration.