"So... what made you want to work at the civil court?" Spike asked the unimpressed looking pegasus mare behind the counter. When they had reached the front of the queue after another hour of beige, unblinking oblivion, the receptionist had asked for two forms of photo ID, as well as proof of residence. They only had his hatching certificate.
For those of you keeping score at home, the certificate unfortunately didn't count as any of those things.
Unfortunately, they wouldn't accept Spike's Google + profile, which he found had somehow already been updated to include his new surname, as photo ID or proof of residence. This was the final nail in the coffin proving once and for all that the legal system was irreparably broken and that we all live in hell.
Rarity had gone to 'freshen up' about twenty minutes ago and Spike was pretty certain at this point she'd just repeatedly smashed her own face into a bathroom mirror simply to alleviate some of the boredom. That left Twilight and Spike to try and sort this without getting arrested or, even worse, getting sent to the back of the line again. Twilight had teleported back to library to fetch the relevant documents under the guise of 'going to the little fillies room'. This meant Spike now found himself with the unenviable task of distracting the scowling dullard in front of him.
"In the last couple of minutes, you've asked me when I started working here, how I started working here, what my family thought when I started working here... now you want to know why?"
It wasn't going very well.
"Well... I'm getting a little old to be an unpaid library assistant, you know? I was wondering what someone needs to do to end up with a job in our local civil court! After all, the rule of law is the foundation upon which our society is built and being a part of that would be so-"
Spike was cut off by a bright magenta flash as Twilight reappeared. When she had fully materialised Spike found himself sat atop her back once again.
"Thank god you're here, that was excruciating for everyone concerned. Did you find everything," he whispered in her ear.
"Well I am back from the 'bathroom'!" Twilight announced with a wide-eyed, insincere grin, "Luckily I found everything you needed in my saddlebag while I was in the bathroom and not back at our house." The unicorn then turned and favoured Spike with an incredibly conspicuous wink which was witnessed by absolutely everyone including the mare they were trying to fool.
"Why did you teleport to the bathroom?" the receptionist asked coolly,
"Well... I... um... I was really desperate! In fact I had to teleport directly into a cubicle I was so desperate hahaha. When you gotta go, you gotta go!" Spike watched with confusion and horror, not quite understanding how this was helping their case. When it came to lying, he had always found himself in the camp that said vivid descriptions of your weak bladder decreased credibility.
"So, you teleported directly into a stall, despite there being no way of you knowing if someone was already in there, used the facilities and then spent time in the bathroom rummaging through your saddlebags before teleporting back?"
There were a few wincing gasps behind them, as if the crowd had just witnessed a painful looking wrestling move. Despite the fact that they had been holding up the line for a while now, Spike had found that the process was so mind-meltingly dull that seeing someone else get chewed up and spat out by pedantic, bureaucratic hell was still preferable to simply waiting. This meant that their performance of the world's most disappointing pantomime had gathered quite the crowd.
"Well..." many eyes fell on Twilight, all fascinated to see exactly how she was going to respond the that verbal evisceration, "The thing about magic is that-"
"You teleported home Miss Sparkle. You know the rules, if you leave the courthouse you lose your spot in the queue. Please go back to the back of the line."
"Oh come on! Do you know how many times we've saved Equestria?! Can't you let us off this one time?" Twilight shouted, strands of her mane beginning to stick out at wild angles.
"You know, when Discord came back, all the plants in my garden came to life and danced with me. Much of the furniture in my home turned into solid gold and my kitchen tap produced Piña Coladas. Since you 'saved Equestria' I'm back to working in the civil service after nearly a decade of budget cuts. Back. Of. The. Line."
Twilight wiped the stunned look off her face, she mouthed unspoken, half-formed words while she tried to formulate a response that would save them from another hour of queuing. Needless to say, it had to be a speech of such legendary eloquence and aplomb that it could reach across worlds and shatter barriers both thick and thin.
"Do you know about this thing called friendship?"
"BACK OF THE LINE!" Twilight and Spike shared a despondent look. Each turned to see the massive queue stretching out behind them.
"Whatever's happening dear?" a refined voice rang out as Rarity, face miraculous not auto-smashed-in, emerged from the bathroom.
"Rarity, is that you?" the receptionist said, her face finally displaying an emotion other than irritation and the withering, thousand yard stare that can only come after years of working in the civil service.
"That can't be Winter Agate I'm talking to, I don't remember her ever having the silkiest mane in Ponyville!" the pegasus giggled in response, which Rarity watched with a light pink tinge in her cheeks. For her part, Twilight gave the pair an incredulous look.
"It's been a while since I... I mean we saw you down here! What brings you down?" the receptionist babbled with a heavy blush on her face.
"Well, me and my friends here were hoping to get a name changed by deed poll," Rarity gestured to the scruffy, glowering forms of Spike and Twilight, looking for all the world like an immaculate David Attenborough pointing out two screeching feral baboons.
"These two are with you?!" she spluttered, casting an unsavoury glance at them which didn't go unnoticed by Rarity, "I was just about to send them to the back of the line. This one teleported out of the courthouse!"
"Oh I know they can a little bad a first impressions, but could you let it slide this one time?" when Rarity needed it, her skill with flirtation was the deadliest weapon imaginable. She fluttered her eyelashes and affected a low, smokey tone. The second Winter Agate turned her eyes back to the seamstress, all trace of bitterness vanished as her expression became dreamy.
"Um... uh sure! Anything for you Rarity." She once again directed her attention to Spike and Twilight, and all dreaminess vanished, "Do you have two pieces of photo ID and proof of residence?"
Twilight handed over the relevant information, grumbling slightly under her breath. Winter Agate looked them over for a couple of minutes before sliding them back with the coveted deed poll form on top.
"Fill this in and post it into slot five? If it is approved you'll get a letter within three weeks confirming your change of name."
"Three weeks?!" Spike cried, "I thought it'd get changed today!"
"Sorry kid, that's not the way this works. Now suck it up and stop causing a scene." Winter Agate fixed him with a hard look, while Twilight rubbed his back sympathetically. He looked around desperately, but if Twilight had any brainwaves she was hiding them very well. Rarity on the other hand was giving the receptionist a withering, but unnoticed, stare. But this only lasted a second, and she was quick to put a smile back on her face.
"Winter, darling, my friend here is quite desperate to get his name changed as soon as possible. Is there anything we can do to speed the process along?"
"Well..." the receptionist chewed her bottom lip uncertainly.
"I'd be ever so grateful,"
"I really, really want to help you Rarity. But only a judge could push that through in such a short time,"
"Could we see a judge? I'm sure we could convince them if we could just talk," said Twilight.
"I doubt that very much Miss Sparkle," Winter spat back at her, "I'm not sure whether little magical quests are good preparation for making a cogent legal argument."
"Still," Rarity interjected, biting back the rage at seeing her friend spoken to in such a manner and forcing the sweetness back into her voice, "Could you check if there are any vacancies?"
Winter Agate sighed before finally relenting, but not without making it very clear that she was only doing this for Rarity. She flicked through a small appointment book on her desk, and Spike watched the process nervously.
"Well it looked like you're in luck, Judge Haybale has a cancellation at half three, I can fit you in then."
"Hmmm, Haybale? Is there no-one else dear? You know how..." Rarity twirled her hoof while searching for some unknown word, "'Traditional' he can be?"
"Sorry Rarity, that's the only one today."
"It's okay, we'll take it," Spike interjected, desperate to simply get this process over and done with.
"You know where to wait Rarity."
Rarity thanked Winter before leading her friends away. Spike was going to thank her but the scowl on the unicorns face, coupled with the way she angrily muttered under her breath, cautioned him that silence might be the best path. They moved into an adjoining corridor and settled on some seats outside which, from what Spike could glean from the signs, was courtroom 3. There was only twenty minutes until their slot and no-one else around, leading Spike to assume the session scheduled before them was currently underway.
He got up from his seat and quietly pushed open the door to the courtroom. Inside, a portly earth pony stallion was sat that weird high chair type thing that judges sit in that no-one knows the actual name of. The judge was reading from some official looking documents and he had a black robe and a wig and it was all terribly legal.
"Okay, today we're hearing the case of the Town of Ponyville versus Donny the Public Urinator. The charges are... unpaid parking tickets? Wow I would never have guessed."
"My parents didn't like me very much, your honour," called out a stallion who Spike assumed was Donny. He was sat at a table next to a sweating unicorn in an ill-fitting suit, which gave him the look of a teenager trying on his dad's work clothes.
"Clearly they didn't. Does the prosecution have any opening statements?"
"Yes your honour," at the other bench, two pegasus mares wearing glossy black suits and dark sunglasses, despite the fact that they were indoors and it was the middle of Autumn, gathered some papers and stood to address the judge, "Today we will prove this stallion is guilty on the grounds that he looks pretty shifty and is called 'Donny the Public Urinator'."
They both nodded their heads haughtily, and completely in tandem, and sat down. One accidentally dropped all of her documents and they each scrambled to the floor to gather them. Their heads collided several times and they both knocked over their chairs as they struggled to see through the stupid glasses, though notably neither mare made a move to take them off. The judge watched them for a couple of seconds and sighed.
"Does the defence have any opening statements."
"Yes your honour," Donny's lawyer rose to his hooves and spoke with several pubescent sounding voice cracks, "Today we will argue for a mistrial on the grounds that everyone keeps saying 'the town of Ponyville' despite the fact that the suffix '-ville' clearly implies this is a village." Donny slammed his head on the table and groaned.
"Oh my god I'll just pay it's like fourteen bits anyway."
Spike pulled his head out and closed the door. When he turned back to his friends who were chatting. Rarity looked somewhat downtrodden, while Twilight peered at her friend suspiciously. Every time Rarity met her eyes Twilight's expression would very quickly become sympathetic.
"She seemed pretty sweet on you Rarity, how did you two meet?"
"She's just a friend dear. I'll admit I sometimes wondered whether it might go a little farther. Winter Agate had always seemed like such a sweet mare," Rarity sighed, "I'm hardly blind, I know she has a crush on me and the feeling was far from one-sided. I really meant what I said about that lovely mane of hers."
"Well are you gonna go for it? And how specifically was it that you two met?
"I don't think I will now Twilight. It's a disappointment, but I cannot possibly think of dating a pony who would treat my friends they way she did you and Spike today."
"I'm really sorry to hear that Rarity, how do you know her?"
"Why do you keep asking me that?" Rarity gave Twilight a confused look.
"No it's just... well you knew exactly where to queue, exactly where this judge's courtroom was and you seem pretty friendly with the receptionist who deals with stuff like deed polls."
"...And?"
"I feel like we never got the bottom of that whole 'did you change your name thing' from before," Twilight trilled. Rarity and Spike both rolled their eyes, "Who was it that brought it up? Was it Spike? Well I guess we'll never know but now we're on the subject did you have your name changed?"
"Darling you're being ridiculous,"
"I mean, you have to admit it would make sense." Twilight carried on unimpeded, "You've never seemed interested in the legal system and you're the only one in your family with a mononym..."
"Twilight, I was quite fond of Winter and am not feeling very happy about what just happened. Can we just leave it?"
"...So is that a yes?"
"Twilight!" Spike exclaimed, and both mares snapped their eyes to him, "Are you really on this again?"
"I did three courses on the Equestrian legal system back at Celestia's school and I didn't know any of this!" Twilight cried, standing on her chair and puffing her cheeks out what was presumably a bizarre, house cat-esque attempt to appear bigger and more threatening.
"Well dear, maybe Celestia's school isn't all it's cracked up to be," Rarity replied dismissively.
"But I'm the book filly! I'm the one who knows things!" Rarity didn't respond that, at least not with words. Rather she took one of the complementary magazines from a nearby rack, rolled it up, and swatted Twilight on the nose with it. The librarian sat down, red-faced and teary-eyed, and rubbed her snout while Rarity unfurled the magazine and began to read it. Spike took a seat between the two of them. The only noises were the ticking of a nearby clock, Twilight's muttering and the occasional page-turn from Rarity's direction.
"Say... now that Twilight's brought it up, why did she know you so well Rarity?" the unicorn in question lowered her magazine to look at Spike, "Hehe, you didn't have your name changed at some point did you?"
Before she could respond, a bored looking mare in thick-rimmed glasses poked her head out from the door.
"Is this the Rarity party? The judge is ready for you."