Prologue
Canterlot courthouse was old. The interior was dreary and bland. The walls were grey – sheer, unfriendly, charcoal-grey edifices to the cold, hard, reality of the legal system. The furnishings were spartan and utilitarian – the gallery filled with plain, nondescript wooden benches, as simple and ordinary as the dusty, faded tile of the floor. The judge's bench was tall and imposing, yet still bleak and hardly interesting. It was flanked on either side by the witness stand and the court reporter's table. The jury box sat to one side, another plain structure with space enough for twenty ponies to stand. The courtroom, through all its muted grey and brown tones, stood in direct contrast to its occupants. Filling the gallery and the jury box was a sea of brightly-colored ponies – one of the largest crowds the venerable structure had seen in its many years of existence.
The courthouse was certainly old, boring, and somewhat decrepit, very unlike the other, more elegant buildings of Canterlot, but it served its purpose well, and that is why it stood in the first place. On this particular day, it was jam-packed very nearly to full capacity. The trial at hoof was quickly becoming more of an event than a normal court proceeding. The magically-operated cooling system was the only thing keeping the citizenry of Canterlot from sweating from the heat of so many ponies gathered in one, closed-off, confined space. The gallery was packed – with every bench crammed with ponies who fought for a space to watch the drama unfold from. It was an example of irony at its finest supremacy to see the gentry of Canterlot, usually so uptight and self-focused, pressed together in a manner similar to a stockyards.
The press box, too, was full to capacity. Some reporters, in their absolute haste to cover the case, had even snuck out into the aisles, taking up space where ponies normally wouldn't sit in order to try and get the best view. Journalists, camera-ponies, and more all vied for the best angle to see and hear the action down front. Some, in their haste to get the story, tried to get too close, and found themselves being escorted out of the room by a Royal Guardspony. Due to the highly controversial nature of the case and its high public interest and visibility, as well as the relative fame of both defendant and plaintiff, a detachment from the Canterlot Royal Guards had been assigned by the princesses themselves to watch the room and provide extra crowd control if necessary.
The only area relatively clear of ponies was the front of the courthouse, where the judge's bench and the defendant's and plaintiff's tables sat. At the defendant's table, the accused sat still in his chair, staring straight ahead, unwilling to react to the questions shouted at him by the reporters who kept trying to get near him. He had, of course, had much experience dealing with the press. His attorney sat by his side, adjusting his glasses absent-mindedly. He had been at his profession for years, and had gotten used to the apprehensive atmosphere of a courtroom before a trial began. He sat silently to collect his thoughts.
On the other side of the room however, was a different story. The Plaintiff had sunken into her chair in a vain attempt to remain as unseen as possible. Around her, several Royal Guardsponies were standing; their sole assignment was to keep the hordes of the press away from her. As both the chief witness and the main figure of the entire case, she was highly sought after by the ranks of those who felt it their duty to uncover stories and get them out to the public. Due to her fragile mental state, however, the princesses themselves had insisted that, if a public trial was to take place, she was to be shielded as much as possible. She had been through enough in the lead-up to the trial, anyway, they reasoned.
Her council sat beside her. Her hair was tied back in a neat bun, and her horn glowed softly as she nervously flicked through the case papers she had prepared. Her gaze, however, could not focus on the parchment held in her magical grasp. Her eyes kept flicking back and forth. They would shift up to the judge's bench, then to the jury, and to the defendant across the room. But, most often, they would settle upon the mare beside her. The plaintiff, ever since the specific event the case dealt with had occurred, had become more or less a shadow of her former self, and nopony knew that fact better than her attorney. The suit-clad mare tore her gaze away from the other, glancing back at the parchment before her. She tried to focus for a few more moments before she gave up, letting the parchment fall to the table beside her briefcase with a frustrated sigh. She wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead with a hoof. The trial was about to begin, and she did not feel ready for it in the slightest.
With a bird's-eye view of the entire courtroom, the judge sat behind his bench, tapping a hoof on the side of his face in agitation. He was almost as grey as the court he presided over. His head, the only part of his body visible thanks to a great, flowing, black robe, was a dark grey, only a few shades lighter than the robe itself. His mane, with old age, had become a wispy, silvery white which seemed to match his silver eyes relatively well. His face was crisscrossed with wrinkles – put there not only by years but also the stress that came with supervising some of Equestria's toughest legal cases. Judge Honor Bound was one of the oldest, and best, justices in the entire Equestrian legal system.
He had to fight the urge to just slip back in his chair and sigh out loud. "I'm getting too old for this," he whispered quietly to himself. He blinked, suddenly feeling every year of his not-insignificant age, and stared out over the assembled masses in his courtroom. It was the largest turnout of ponies he had seen for a trial in years. He was used to the occasional gentlecolt or madam from Canterlot's high society sitting in to watch the court's proceedings, but never had he seen so many monocle-clad stallions and their parasol-sporting ladies cram themselves into the gallery. He knew the reason for it, too. This case was rapidly turning into a media frenzy, and mostly because of the identity of the defendant. "Celebrities," he groused, "involve them and everything goes to the moon in a hand basket."
He had been dealing with the paparazzi all week during the lead-up to the trial itself. It had been excruciating, a nightmare to his old eyes. It was exactly these kinds of cases which Honor Bound hated judging most. The exact nature of the crime at hoof was nauseating already, but the media's continued obsession with the event made it even more difficult for the aging justice to fathom. And, once the trial got underway, the media obsession and the chaos was bound to get even worse. It was all downhill from here; these cases normally took the longest to reach a verdict on. The jury would be on-edge, especially considering the moral implications of the crime and the fame of the defendant. Honor Bound sighed again, sitting up higher in his seat. "I am getting too old for this. Maybe I should retire soon."
Honor Bound cleared his throat, grunting loud enough for the court reporter and clerk to hear him. Both immediately started shuffling papers, the reporter setting up to begin taking the minutes for the trial. Honor Bound's horn glowed faintly in a display of magic as his gavel, an old, splintering wooden hammer that matched the one adorning his flank, rose off the desk. With a series of three loud, resounding thuds, the gavel smacked against the wooden pedestal sitting on the desk. The loud, hollow noise echoed throughout the room, catching the attention of everypony present. The faint hum of many whispered conversations gradually faded from the air as everypony turned their attention to the judge's bench. All movement in the crowd ceased, and after several moments, only the occasional cough could be heard. The room had, almost impossibly, fallen silent.
Honor Bound leaned forward in his bench, resting his fore hooves on the wood before him. When he spoke, his voice was magically amplified to reach out to the entire courthouse. The entire assembled audience hung on his every word. "Fillies and gentlecolts. This court will now come to session. Please refrain from speaking or making any noise that might cause a disturbance during these proceedings. The trial is now set to begin. Celestia willing, may justice be done."