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// Episode 22: The Royal Court 
// Story: Last Week Tonight with Discord 
// by FrostTheWolf 
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        After his episode where he poked fun at Queen Chrysalis, Discord felt as if he needed to take a small break. There wasn’t a new episode that weekend, but there was sure enough news revolving around the draconequus’ head to the point where he needed to make an episode on something rather important that just happened recently regarding something that is not really talked about so often, but still vital to how Equestria’s justice system worked. Because the only time that ponies seem to pay attention to it is either when they are complaining at Day Court, complaining again at Night Court or if they are actually on some kind of reality court show.

        But in order to actually be ready to present this subject, he first needed to get some facts. Luckily, he had visited Cae Cae and Lulu to get some additional information regarding the subject he would be talking about. That subject was in regards to the highest court in Equestria… and surprisingly enough, the one that barely a lot of ponies knew what exactly it was. And for those who did actually know what it was, they only consisted of nobles, lawmakers, the princesses and anypony else who seemed to work for them.

        In Discord’s mind though, he saw this as inexcusable. Everypony, no matter who they are, should know about this. And to the draconequus’ utter surprise, some of the ponies that he had spoken too agreed with him. Because they believed that the more that the public knew about how the justice system worked, the more that their voices could be heard and that those ponies could be able to contribute to society. Especially when it came to the most crucial issues that either have been discussed before on the show or possibly future topics that he wanted to save for a later date.

        Putting on a light blue collared shirt and a black jacket with a tie that matches, the draconequus greeted the crowd that waited for him and began to make his opening remarks while getting comfortable in the chair behind his desk. “Welcome everypony to Last Week Tonight!” The crowd cheered in response as Discord had the group settle down a little bit. “I’m Discord, thank you so much for joining us tonight and boy… do we have something bit to cover. You might be thinking… ‘hold on, we’re in the middle of a midseason summer hiatus, what big thing do we exactly need to cover?’. Well, bear in mind… we do live in Equestria after all. A place where we have things literally go out of our control almost every day.”

        The image of what looked like hundred of ponies caught under the ‘want it, need it’ spell that Twilight had casted when she was still Celestia’s student and what happened afterwards briefly surfaced as Discord had it disappear a few seconds later. “Aside from that though, our main story tonight concerns courts… or as most ponies see it, a twenty four hour ‘complain to your favorite princess panel’,” That was followed by a picture of what appeared to be a sign in front of the building where Day and Night Court would be held, alongside a picture of a Sun and Moon. “Courts are the center of Equestria’s judicial system and some of you have probably heard of them at one point or another. Maybe it’s because you hear about some of the things that occur in canterlot while they’re being held… or because recently, there’s been a lot of daytime court shows on almost daily like this.”



        “You’re watching The Decision with Judge Verdict.”

        “Welcome to The Ponies Court!”

        “A junior college student brings her daddy! Judge Decree!!”

        “A vicious dog draws blood! … And writes a confession? Find out what happens on Trot Bench!”



        “Yeah, I rather not know what happens because if you actually have a case where someone said that, you would immediately ask ‘How the f*ck is that possible?! Case Dismissed’!!” Discord said, moving his arms in an X like formation to try and cancel it out. “But we aren’t talking about those courts nor are we talking about Day and Night Court. The focus tonight is on the Royal Court, one that’s extremely important, but not many ponies have heard about or know what it means. In fact, a recent poll by the Canterlot Gazette shows that under forty percent of ponies know about it and also know about what it’s purpose is.”

        That had Discord straighten himself up as he began to speak again. “So tonight, we’re going to try and answer those questions for you. What the Royal Court is, Why is it important, and also what makes one big headline that came up this week very troubling. And let’s start with What the Royal Court is because, to put it simply, they’re one of the most powerful courts in Equestria. All the courts that you have heard of or seen are nothing compared to what they can do, because many of their decisions have impacted some of the subjects that we have talked about before on this show with the seven judges on the court making crucial decisions on equality, civil rights and anti-discrimination against other species.”

        That was when Discord had his first joke for the night. “Essentially… they’re the equivalent of a Judicial Mane Seven… Except that instead of being experienced in resolving friendship problems, their experienced in solving real world legal problems and actually have the background for it,” That cracked a laugh from his audience as the draconequus asked a question. “I know that I support the friendship school but… Seriously? Why would Princess Twilight open a school if she has no teaching credentials? That’s just beyond me…”

        After a few seconds though, the spirit of chaos got back on track. “More to the point though, there is a reason why the court’s supposed to have seven judges. Let’s say, for example, that they’re looking over a case and three judges on the court are for changing the rules and another three are against that change… In that case, the last judge would be what they call a ‘swing vote’, where they make the final decision to where it goes to one side or the other,” Each part of what Discord told his audience was accompanied by an image in order to help explain it better. “And when one of those judges retires, Princess Celestia has to nominate another judge to take their place and picking a judge for the highest court in Equestria is not like picking out who would be attending your princess coronation ceremony.”

        That was followed by showing the ceremony where Twilight was crowned as a princess as Discord looked at the camera with a look of disbelief. “I mean… come on. I had already started being reformed by Fluttershy and then you don’t invite me? My reformation was one of the things that lead to you becoming Princess. Open your eyes!”

        That little rant of his got a few small laughs as he began to calm himself down and let out a deep sigh. “More to the point though… this court has been responsible for overturning centuries old laws that had once been set in stone? Remember back in the third episode of the show where we revealed the prejudice against Zebra’s that was demonstrated by Celestia’s parents? Well, because of this court, they found that as unlawful and made it to where the law that allowed is no longer valid and the private property that belonged to Faust and Family was returned back to the Zebras. Which is great… especially since that was something that should not have been done in the first place. They’ve worked on a lot of cases that impact real ponies and tackle the issues that mostly affect you. With some of them coming down to the ‘swing vote’ judge that I mentioned earlier.”

        Then, there came something else that he mentioned. “So it was rather troubling this week to hear this big story regarding the court hover over everypony’s heads.”



        “A big shake up in the Royal Court is set to take place as one of the judges on the court, Mr. Iron Gavel, has announced that he’s retiring at the end of this term. He was a key vote in several cases regarding cases that involved Civil Rights, immigration and also most importantly, was the deciding vote in a case that lead to many Anti-discrimination laws being passed.”



        “And that is a major deal… because a lot of ponies are concerned that the next potential pick for the royal court could overturn the rulings that had been previously done. Undoing all the progress and change that has been happening so far,” The spirit of chaos explained. “You wouldn’t like it if a ‘new friend’ of yours borrows a video game that you’ve put a lot of hours into, only to overwrite your save file and have you lose all your progress, would you?” Many ponies actually laughed in agreement at that fact as he looked back at his audience again. “Because you know that if he actually did that, you will never have wanted to be friends with that guy! And that’s what many ponies are concerned with right now.”

        Around then, Discord paused for a short moment, before letting out a deep breath. “Because even though Celestia is the one that makes the final choice on who to pick, there is concern that some of the nobles will try to pitch a potential candidate that will have the most powerful court in Equestria swing in one direction or another. But so far, it seems as if those working for Celestia have made things really clear with even Prince Blueblood releasing this statement.”



        Thank you to Justice Iron Gavel for your long career of service on the Royal Court of Equestria. Rest assured that Princess Celestia will nominate a strong successor in the form of the late justice Final Verdict, to which can uphold the values and liberties that all creatures deserve to have.



        Then, the spirit of chaos took a crack at that. “On one hoof, that may seem nice… but on the other hand, that just seems rather weird and a little bit rude,” Discord replied back. “Because normally when you host a retirement party for somepony, you don’t really give a toast to someone at their retirement party and say ‘Thank you for everything you did at this company Lily, and rest assured that we will replace you with somepony like that other mare that used to work here that we like much more than you’. And as of now, Celestia is said to already have a list of potential nominees for the court pick, however in any time that they were asked about that by local reporters, they just kept on dodging the question and even went as far as to say that ‘you can throw a dart at it and that would be the decision’. That’s not how you nominate a judge for the royal court, that’s exactly how those in nobility make decisions regarding policy.”

        The image that followed that statement was one of a noble using their magic in order to throw a dart at a wooden board with a paper that read ‘IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO’ at the top of it. “And no matter how exactly you may think of it, the consequences for this seem really grim and a lot of you in the audience want to try and know about what exactly can you do. Only problem with that is that it’s kind of hard in order to be able to know about something when you can’t exactly see them while everything is going on. But the problem with that is the fact that something else occured two days before this judge announced his retirement.”



        “A surprise announcement today from the Royal Court, saying that they are banning the use of any cameras to film any oral arguments during any terms, but instead will allow the release of fifteen to thirty second audio clips from oral arguments and cases after a trial has commenced.”



        Discord looked back at his audience, before facepalming himself with his lion paw. “Really? Banning cameras, but releasing audio clips that short? That just sounds stupid… because anytime that they present those audio clips on TV, they put them alongside what looks to be illustrations straight out of the book of a sketch artist… and their drawings make one of the judges look like Rarity wearing a wig… and another problem… was that it’s boring! The Royal Court and who’s on it making decisions about us and the entire population is something we really should be paying attention too and yet, because of this we can’t… so not only do we have any idea if these Justices really are trying to support what we value, but we can’t be able to stand what’s actually released because it sounds like listening to your grandparents talking to each other in real time. This is a judicial court taking on important cases across Equestria, not a student council meeting trying to determine a theme for homecoming that’s age appropriate!”

        It was then that the draconequus scratched his small chin beard before thinking of something that he began to say to his audience. “But… there may be one possible idea that could potentially work if we want to get more ponies to pay attention and care about the Royal Court. And the idea comes… from this.”

        What played next was what appeared to be Fluttershy as she was watching her rabbit, Angel, pretend to do tap-dancing. Using a bottle cap as a hat and a carrot like it was a cane as the rabbit danced like it was one of those old movies about singing in the rain. “Think about it for just a moment… if somepony had you just listen to the audio, you would want to punch them repeatedly in the face. But the visual makes that dancing bunny rather alluring, because they are doing something you would not expect for a bunny to otherwise do.”

        That was when Discord looked back at his audience and began to speak up. “So… with that in mind, I had spent way too much time with Fluttershy, her friends and Dr. Fauna in order to make an animal based royal court,” The announcement had everypony in the audience caught off guard as a pedestal of several different animals soon came out onto the stage. Each one being based off of a different judge in the royal court along with having a chicken being the royal court stenographer. “Where each one of the animals that’s on the podium right here matches that of the judges that are on the court as of right now! And we didn’t just form this court just for laughs… even though that’s kind of what we are getting right now. Because we’ve been composing a whole collection of stock footage of each one of these judges and everyone associated with the court so you can present this case through the footage instead of the creepy sketch artist drawings that are boring as f*******ck. And it’s not just news stations, I’m talking about everypony who’s able to do this! We’re doing this as a public service to everypony and providing the entire toolkit for free. So let me show you what you’ll be getting.”

        The crowd cheered at that, shortly before Discord began to give a few examples of what kind of ‘footage’ would they be providing for not just local news stations, but for everypony else. Introducing Winowa, Opalesque, Tank, Angel, Gummy, Philomena, and even Luna’s pet possum Tiberius were on the model courtroom. Having them play the role of the judges while the chick stenographer that was Fluttershy’s pet chicken, Elizabeak, trying her best to keep up. Alongside footage of both Twilight’s pet, Owlicious, and Fluttershy’s bear friend Harry being lawyers. “Be honest… you would want to hear the hour long arguments of any case if you’re watching these animals re-enacting it, don’t you?”

        A lot of ponies were cheering in encouragement right now as Discord was preparing his final words for the night. “We are providing the entire tool kit for everypony… and since we are having a new judge take the stand on the royal court in the near future, we’ll also be providing two choices for you to determine who would take the place of justice Iron Gavel, played in this courtroom by the possum Tiberius,” Discord said as a new stand appeared. This time with two birds on each one as the crowd cheered more. “First we have Constance, an orange bird who has been living with Fluttershy for the last few years. His hobbies include singing in unison with Fluttershy and songbirds as well as going on long flights around Ponyville. And we also have Peewee here! Once a young phoenix hatchling that was rescued by Spike, Peewee’s grown up into a mature phoenix who’s screeches can cause those who argue with him to go deaf and also gives rather heartwarming hugs.”

        That was followed by a picture of a mature Peewee hugging Spike as the crowd let out an ‘aww’ in response to the picture. “Now that you have your choices, I would like for you to cast your ballots and next week, we’ll decide who will be the newest judge on our animal royal court!”



The Following Morning

        When Discord had stopped by the castle to check and see how everypony’s favorite friendship princess was doing, what he found was… not entirely what he expected. In fact, the only individual he actually found inside the building was Spike as he greeted the Draconequus. “Ah, hey Discord. How are you?”

        “I’m doing quite well actually, thank you for asking,” He replied back. The last time that he had seen Spike was when he was back at the Friendship School and found out that Starlight was going to cover for Twilight as principal… even though he had all the possible qualifications for the job. “Is Twilight home?”

        “Yes, but I’m afraid that she’s taking a nap right now. Her trip with Rarity recently took a lot out of her.” The young dragon told him.

        “Oh? Did Rarity drag her along for a shopping spree across Canterlot or something?” Discord asked, a bit curious as to what Spike was telling him.

        “Actually, it was something completely different…” Spike replied back, before asking one question to Discord. Little did either of them know that it would lead to the draconequus figuring out what to do next for his late night show.

        “Have you ever heard of the Flim Flam brothers?”