//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Soarin's Folly 
// by a human 
//------------------------------//

Soarin didn't want to legitimize this nonsense by appearing concerned by it, but nonetheless, he found himself flying to a big-name lawyer with his uncle.

"Now, Soarin," Soarin's uncle said, "we can't let a problem like this get out of hand. You can't just expect problems to go away by ignoring them."

Soarin scoffed. "They weren't even real police officers…"

"That doesn't mean anything and you know it. I think you have heard enough stories to know to be appropriately cautious."

"Yes," Soarin said, "but you can't win against nothing."

"You can't if you don't try," his uncle replied. "Have I ever told you about your grandfather?"

He had, about a million times. "Yes."

"Well, I'll say it again anyway." He cleared his throat. "He got kicked out of his home in the Cloudsdale because, when he was young, he had an illicit affair with a maid. Destitute, penniless, he was forced to live on the ground. He thought he would never have hope again, but then, what did he see?"

Soarin rolled his eyes. "Canterlot Castle."

"That's right. Canterlot Castle. As soon as he saw it, he was entranced by its beauty, and worked the rest of his life to get inside, or at least near it. He even pretended to be a land surveyor for Canterlot City. Eventually, he was given a temporary pass to stay there!"

"Yeah, on his deathbed."

Soarin's uncle's face hardened. "Yes, but he did get in, sort of, and look at us now! Just three generations later, and we're practically royalty. What do you take from that?"

Soarin always took the lesson of that story to be "life sucks," but he knew that wasn't what his uncle wanted to hear. "Perseverance pays off."

"That's right. Now let's get this thing taken care of."

– – – –

Luckily, Soarin had not been in a law office many times before, so he really was not sure what to expect. 

The waiting room seemed innocent enough. It was almost like a doctor's waiting room. There were some nice potted plants, as snacks, some nice mints, as decorations, a slightly comfortable couch, and some extremely offensive magazines, which at least made good reading. Soarin was flipping through a particularly angry editorial about the "straight menace" when his uncle nudged him a bit.

"Now, once again, are you really sure…"

"Yes, I'm sure it's not a phase."

At that opportune moment, the door to the main lawyer's office opened, and a client walked out. He looked a bit more dejected than Soarin would have liked, and definitely had more whip marks than Soarin would have liked.

"Come in," a voice from inside said.

Soarin took his time, and set down his magazine. He wasn't at all eager to find out what happened in that room. His uncle hurried him along, though, and a couple seconds later they were inside.

It was a normal enough looking office, if a bit messy. Soarin could see client paperwork strewn about with reckless abandon, and could read details he probably shouldn't have been able to. He wondered how legal that was.

"Welcome," said someone who was presumably the lawyer. He was sitting behind the main desk. At least, Soarin assumed it was the main desk, since it was covered in so many papers it was difficult to tell exactly what it was. He was a unicorn, of course, since they were the only ones that had the physical ability to write up so many documents. It was all horribly speciesist if one stopped to think about it for a couple minutes, but Soarin, along with the rest of Equestria, stopped thinking about those things long ago. "I'm Mr. Gracious, probably the best lawyer in this town. Please, sit down."

There weren't actually any chairs, so Soarin and his uncle meekly sat on the floor, hoping that was acceptable. Apparently, it was. Mr. Gracious cupped his hooves together. "So, what kind of case you have for me?"

Soarin scratched his head, not sure where to start. "I got arrested."

"For what?"

"I don't know. They wouldn't tell me. One of the officers said it had something to do with child custody, but I've never had a family and they said they were lying afterwards."

"I can attest to that," his uncle said. "The no family part, at least. He's straight. You know they are."

"Oh, yes, yes," Mr. Gracious said, although it didn't seem he was responding to anything in particular. He looked deep in thought. "So how did you get out? From being arrested, I mean."

This is where Soarin started to lose his grasp on exactly what happened to him. "Well, apparently… I'm still under arrest. They said it didn't need to interfere with my personal life, I think." The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. "Is that normal? That isn't how arrests work, is it?"

Mr. Gracious gave a long, drawn out, exasperated sigh. "Well, you see," he started, "yours is a different kind of case. A case of that, lately, has been growing in frequence. No one is quite sure why. I blame decaying morals, myself. Anyway, it's a very… complete case, and it's conducted through a different type of court, one run in such secrecy that neither the client or the lawyer actually ever find out what the charge is."

Soarin's face fell. "Oh."

"But don't worry!" Mr. Gracious quickly chimed in. "I have experience of these type of cases. My way of working might seem strange at first, but trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"You mean you can acquit him?" Soarin's uncle said.

Mr. Gracious laughed. "Oh, no, don't be ridiculous," he said. "You can't get acquitted in a case like this. But you can delay the verdict repeatedly, indefinitely."

"How comforting," Soarin muttered.

"I'm good at my job, though," Mr. Gracious said. "The way I handle things, you can just forget about all of this. I will carry you above all this trouble with my own two hooves!"

Soarin's eyes lit up. "Really?"

Mr. Gracious winked. "My middle name is Kindness, after all."

Soarin was not sure how joking he was.

"We'll hire you," Soarin's uncle said, standing up.

For once in his life, Soarin found himself agreeing with his uncle. "I'm sure if anyone can handle it, it's you."

"You got that right," Mr. Gracious said. "I'll have this mess out of your hair before you know it!"