• Published 19th Jul 2012
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The Best of All Possible Worlds - McPoodle



The philosopher Voltaire finds himself in the most-frustrating place imaginable: Equestria

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Chapter 32

The Best of All Possible Worlds

Chapter 32


It took less than ten minutes to apprehend the thief of Celestia’s money bag, considering that it still reeked of alicorn magic. The thief turned out to be a vagrant, an earth pony mare with a deep red coat and mane...and no sense of remorse whatsoever.

“Not so hard!” the thief protested against how she was being mare-handled by the much bigger pony beside her. Her voice had a clear lower-class Manehattan accent to it.

“I wouldn’t give a second thought to this little street rat, Your Highness,” the big pony said to the Princess. “She’s only been in town for a month, and already has been caught twice trying to steal food from the market.”

“If I don’t miss my guess,” Morningstar said, “I believe that this might also be our heckling mare from earlier.”

“What, do you got a problem with a pony expressing herself? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

The other ponies all looked at each other curiously.

“Well, that’s an interesting formulation,” Eveningstar remarked.

“I like it!” exclaimed Voltaire. “You ought to use it on the travel brochures. Equestria: It’s a free country!”

Morningstar rolled her eyes. “Knock it off, Human,” she snarked.

“A pity you had to throw your life away in pursuit of crime when you could have found something better to do with your talents,” said Celestia, turning to go.

“Wait!” the criminal cried out. “I demand the right to be tried by the Princess!”

“Well!” exclaimed the sheriff. “This ought to be fun. What are you going to do with her, Your Highness? Send her to the M—?”

The sheriff was prevented from finishing that sentence by a brick to the head that was “accidentally” launched by Morningstar.

Princess Celestia opened her mouth for a moment, thought better of it, and then shut it.

“That’s two,” remarked Morningstar.

“Yes I noticed,” said the Princess with a smirk. “Well the prone sheriff here did bring up a salient point: as the injured party, I am not allowed to be your judge.”

“I believe under the circumstances that would make the chancellor into the pertinent party,” remarked Voltaire. “Would you object to having a biped from another planet judge your case?”

The red pony shrugged. “Just so long as it isn’t another stupid Stalliongradder.”


Voltaire was thankful for the fact that Nightingale had accompanied Plasticity with the expedition to check out rumors of gem deposits near Stalliongrad. With her help, he was able to adopt the traditional judge’s robe into something that didn’t look too ridiculous. She also put together a truly grand judge’s wig for him, an importing of European tradition into Equestrian law.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” he announced, banging his gavel. “I hereby call this Royal Court of Equestria to order.”

It was two days since the theft, the traditional time allotted for the two parties to prepare their arguments. The occupation of “lawyer” existed in Equestria, but with certain limitations, including a barring of them from the actual courtroom. They could help defendants and prosecutors to craft their speeches, but in return the pony making the speech in the courtroom was required to set up large green placards placed for them to read from, in order to show the jury that they couldn’t come up with the words all by themselves.

Now Voltaire, the victim of jealous nobles seeking to ruin him, as well as Voltaire, the president of the merciless private bank trying to collect on his loans, had seen both sides of the French justice system. He had a healthy distrust for lawyers. But at the same time, he did consider it somewhat unfair to deprive their services from those who were no good with words. But that was the system he was stuck presiding over. He was limited to little innovations like replacing a banging hoof with a banging gavel.

“We shall now hear the case of Celestia vs. Malice.” The Princess had tried as much as possible to level the playing field for the thief by leaving her title off of the name of the case, but she had two things standing in the way of this goal: she was the only individual on the planet named “Celestia”, and the thief had the misfortune of being born with the name of “Malice”. You would think she would have had it legally changed at some point.

Morningstar stepped forward. “My name is Morningstar,” she said for the record. “I have been authorized by...Celestia to speak on her behalf.”

The Princess was sitting at the back of the gallery, wearing a tight shawl and a pair of sunglasses to disguise herself. She wasn’t fooling anypony.

“Very well,” said Judge Voltaire. “State the nature of your complaint.”

“The victim was robbed of the sum of 500 bits,” said the unicorn. “Assuming you find the defendant guilty, we leave the degree of her punishment in your...” —she was going to say “hooves”— “...hands.”

“Very well,” said Voltaire. “How does the defendant plead?”

It took a few moments for Malice to realize that she was supposed to speak. “Oh, I plead guilty.”

“You do?” Voltaire said with a raised eyebrow.

“I do,” the earth pony said with a vigorous nod.

“Well then!” exclaimed the human. “That simplifies things. The prosecution has already stated a lack of preference when it comes to punishment. What do you have to say regarding what I do with you, Malice?”

“I...” the red mare said, looking around her to make sure she had everybody’s attention, “...am the victim of society!”

Voltaire face-palmed. It was the lamest excuse imaginable, especially in a wonderful world like Equestria where everybody was pretty much guaranteed employment. Nevertheless, when he looked up he saw that the defendant had the rapt attention of the entire gallery.

“At birth, I was given the name of Malice,” she said. “This set the course of my life, a course that was confirmed by my cutie mark.” She turned to display it to all, then proceeded to describe it for the official record: “It’s a drawing of my foreleg, snatching away a bauble. How could I be anything but a thief under the circumstances?”

Many of the ponies nodded to each other, apparently convinced by this argument. A concerned Princess started to step forward, only to be stopped by seeing Voltaire shake his head at her with confidence.

“May I have a look?” he said, climbing down from the ridiculously high bench he was sitting on.

“Go right ahead,” said Malice.

Voltaire made his way down (carefully, so he wouldn’t trip on his robe and make a fool of himself) and approached the mare. Bending over, he examined her flank.

“See anything you like?” she said over her shoulder.

“Watch it,” he warned her.

The cutie mark was as she described. The object being stolen was a plain red ball. Although on second thought...

“This cutie mark is ambiguous!” he declared.

Malice bent herself double trying to get a look. “What do you mean?”

“That bent foreleg could be taking that ball away,” said Voltaire, “or it could be throwing it out. Or merely holding it. Any one of those possibilities could be illustrated the exact same way. And as for your name, was it ever written down?”

“My parents were illiterate,” the mare said, her eyes narrowing. “My father died while I was in my mother’s belly, and she died less than a day after I was born.”

“Well, there you have it!” said the human, oblivious to the pony’s reaction to his words. “Your name is not in fact ‘Malice’, but ‘Mallus’, the old name for an apple, the very object poorly rendered in your cutie mark. And that will be the nature of your punishment: Mallus, I hereby decree that you will be given a bag containing ten thousand apple seeds. You will plant those seeds across the width and breadth of Equestria. Once you finish, you will be a free pony. Case and Court dismissed!” He quickly walked out of the court before any of the ponies had time to find a hole in his logic.

The newly re-named pony turned to leave, only to find a tall white unicorn filly blocking her way. “Excuse me, Mallus, but I wonder if you might be interested, once your term is served, in working for one of the leading families in the realm?”

“What could you possibly see of interest in a street rat like me?” Mallus asked incredulously.

“Well, you did manage to steal a big clanking bag of bits right off the neck of the centuries-old pony who raises the Sun every morning. That takes stealth, and courage. I take it that you can read?”

“I can,” the earth pony replied.

“Good,” Blue Belle said, passing her another cardboard card. “This is the address in Canterlot where you can make contact, and what to say when you get there.”

The red mare looked down curiously at the card. “‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’” she read out loud.


Postscript to this chapter, by the Author:

Placticity did indeed find a huge supply of gems near Stalliongrad, and set up the mine that made his wife’s fortune. Nightingale bought her way back into the aristocracy she didn’t know her ancestors had fallen out of and, as stated earlier, was able to survive the challenge to her position issued by the Sparkle family, a challenge that ended in their humiliation.

By the 70th Century, the Needlepoints had become the great land barons of the North, their power seemingly insurmountable, until the pegasus reporter Firefly II came to visit the area. The result of her research into the family’s secret slave labor practices in the mines produced the article “The Shining Light of the North” in 6921. The article led to the shut-down of the mine and a series of lawsuits that bankrupted the Needlepoints so thoroughly that they lost their noble status and dropped off the face of Equestria. It is assumed that they changed their names and became commoners.

Mallus never did take up Blue Belle’s offer after serving her sentence. She instead joined the Royal Guard, but this too only lasted a few years. The wanderlust that was the source of most of her problems took hold once again, and after getting the Princess to release her, she set out to see the world. Her descendants, the Apples, were gypsies and sharecroppers for generations, only gradually and reluctantly rising up to become farmers as they spread from one end of Equestria to another, bringing their namesake trees with them wherever they went.

Oh, and Firefly II? She was the second in a long line of Firefly’s, pegasi noted (with II as a notable exception) as fast and agile fliers, the backbone of the Royal Guard pegasi in the 70th Century and beyond. Only the eldest mare of each generation got the coveted Firefly name, the other brothers and sisters (for this was a very large family) had to settle for names describing their speed, their agility, or their unusual coloration...