“...And that’s what happened. That’s why I feel she can be reformed.” You had just explained your entire story. From when Chrysalis barged into the room to the part where she zapped you and left. The whole truth, and nothing but.
“You see? Your honors, my client had a pleasant chat with Queen Chrysalis. He learned she had become insecure, that she had become ever so lonely, her sanity chipped away some due to losing her children and in the belief of losing her friendship. Would you, your honors, say that you’d leave one to suffer their own insane delusions and degradation of their sanity because of one simple attempt to take over everything? I believe Princess Twilight herself believes in the magic of friendship, and that’s truly the reason she is willing to let this happen. And you too, your honors, believe in such a thing, correct?” Discord said as he paced, adjusting his glasses. “Yes, it’d be safer to just lock her away in a dungeon. But as you have just heard, she’s suffered enough. He’s so close, he just needs your support to make this a success.” Discord then looks to Cadance and Shining as he takes off his glasses to clean them. “I rest my case, your honors. As you have heard, even Anon’s little marefriend sees her as a sister, keep that in your mind as you make your decision.”
Daaaamn, Discord has got it really going on today. With your story and his manipulative act, things should be going your way pretty soon.
“Discord, ‘your client’ just said she tried to end him the moment she found him! Maybe she just backed off when he managed to get the upper hoof, did you think of that?!” Shining challenged, believing Chrysalis to have been faking it as he had never heard of anypony suddenly shifting attitudes after a failed assassination attempt. They usually just fake it, run, or try to finish the job.
“Weren’t you listening? She zapped him without finishing him off, which would allow her to take his horn. She also did not decide to ruin his faux wedding afterwards either. Her assassination attempt was out of crazed desperation. Heck, if you want to hear about actual evil doing that happened that day, I actually tried to end Anon too, and for much pettier reasons. And yet here I am without so much as a slap on the wrist” Discord says as he puts his glasses back on as he goes to adjust the contents of his suitcase.
“What?! But why?! Why would you… Wait, are you just lying to try to justify your point?” Cadance asked, finding it unbelievable that Discord would try to end you. Even she understood the bond between you two was pretty solid.
You? God, you just slammed your head on the witness stand. So much for being helpful, holy christ. he was just making them more suspicious.
“Yes and no. I did technically try ending Anon through proxy. See, it’s mostly Starlight Glimmer’s fault, she felt altering one of my perfect if rushed clones with a request would prove more helpful to her. Little did she know such a foolish whim would cause said clone to be so devoted to her that he’d try to sap Anon’s essence to become his own everliving Draconequus. And that, your honors, would be truly dreadful.” Discord explained
“Because you’d have lost one of your best friends?” Cadance asked
“No, because then I’d have to deal with some second rate Draconequus trying to upstage me. Could you imagine, another spirit of chaos thinking he was better than I am, as well being in the eternal servitude of a Twilight knockoff? How much more bootleg can you get, am I right?” Discord says with a smirk as he shrugs towards Cadance and Shining.
“...Ok, so, how exactly is that supposed to convince us to give Chrysalis a chance? She went nuts and tried to end Anon, and instead of owning up to it, she zaps him and makes her escape. Ok, fine, she didn’t attempt to try to take his horn afterwards, but she still tried to do it when she showed up. If you ask me, Anon just managed to get the upper hoof on her, and by doing so she lost her chance at ending him because doing it in your house would have been… Well…” Shining looks over to Flurry, and gives her a smile “Well, let’s just say anypony who’d hurt my Flurry within our own home wouldn’t be standing there for very long.”
Discord looked over to Shining, ready to give his answer, but then he suddenly stopped and began to ponder. Indeed, to him, that did sound like something he couldn’t exactly argue against. He knows that he himself would lose it if anyone hurt you or Fluttershy. So to him, it made sense that Chrysalis wouldn’t try anything within his own home. That also meant that suddenly, he had to think of something else.
But you? No, there was much more than that! You slam your hooves on the stand and then point over to Shining, giving him a fierce look as you scream out “OBJECTION!”
“Guh?! Huh? Uh, you do know that your lawyer is supposed to be the one to say that, right?” Shining looks back down at you, confused as to why you’d just call that out.
Cadance giggles for a moment, then begins to whisper to him. “Shining, my love, you do know this isn’t an actual trial and you’re not an actual judge, right? Methinks you’re roleplaying a little too hard. It’s cute, but you kind of have to take yourself out of the moment.”
“Wha, huh? O-oh, right, right.” Shining, it seemed, had started to get into the whole ‘court’ thing, taking his role more seriously than he should, up until his wife reminded him that now he was being silly. “Ahrm, right… Still, what’s up with the objection, Anon? Unless you have another explanation as to what happened.”
“I do” You really did. They weren’t there, and they were never there when it came to you and Chrysalis. At this point, you knew her enough that at this moment, you could come to her defense and have Cadance’s and Shining’s favor. “Yeah, she tried to end me. And yeah, it was because she went nuts, we all get that. But let me tell you both something, I’m not taking it badly, and do you wanna know why? I’ll tell you why. Chrysalis is evil because that’s how she’s always been, how she’s always thought she had to be for not only her survival, but the survival of her children. You can’t just call her a coward either, she went head first into Canterlot with you placed in a crystal prison and Shining under her spell. It was super risky, but if she succeeded, she’d have a whole new kingdom to herself and many ponies for her kids to feed off of. Why do I mention this? It’s because that’s my best example as to what she does to make sure her hive survives. She had no idea that her species could become rainbow bug things that didn’t need to drain and feast on love to survive, it never even crossed her mind. And yet, before that even happened, I managed to befriend her, this evil bug. And through befriending her, I saw what was beyond her black heart, and what I saw was a bug who just wanted to live life her own way, and yet was ignorant in the ways of others. Even if she was still evil, through our friendship she managed to care about others who weren’t her children, she was able to drop her grudges and evil pretenses to not only help save an Equestria, but also save my life. And she saved it twice, you know? She even had the horn in her hooves before, and yet she gave it back to me anyway. I learned that deep down, Chrysalis was probably just like you and me, and was just wanting somepony that she could connect and bond with. Maybe, just maybe, with a little more time, I could have done something. But…” You let out a heavy sigh “Maybe I wasn’t ready for that either, as she did have a habit of manipulating me when she wanted something. But now I have my chance, and it’s because of the reason she tried to end me that let’s me see said chance. She lost her kids, ok? She actually cared about them. Are you both going to tell me you’d have been of sound mind if you lost your home, your kingdom, and Flurry Heart? I don’t know about you, but if that happened to me, whoever caused it would not be standing for very long. And yet, despite me being her target, she chose to let me live. It wasn’t just the horn, and I doubt she'd have cared about killing me at my dad's place or not. She was crazy at that point, and she was angry enough to want to end me no matter what. My cowardice and reluctance got her kids taken away from her, that’s enough, in anyponys’ eyes, I think, to want to end them. And yet, here I am, healthy and unscathed. I spoke with her, ok? She’s very lonely and very hurt, and she needs a friend more than ever before she loses her mind completely. So I’m asking you, the both of you, please… Let me do this, and have my back. I promise I can make this work” You look at them with pleading eyes. Please goddammit, just allow this to happen. Your face was twitching, as if you were about to break into tears. Goddamn, you put your all into that speech.
The air was suddenly tense as silence filled the room. Even Shining didn’t seem to have a rebuttal to that. Even as a minute passed, there was no response from anyone.
After yet another minute, Discord let out a gigantic groan as he slumped forward. “Ugh, now I’m bored. Look, we all know that you’re about to agree with Anon, probably with some sort of condition like keeping a progress report or something like that. Well, let me tell you both that if he has to give a progress report to anypony, then it should be Twilight.”
“I- Uh… Yeah, ok, fine…” Shining let out a gruff breath of defeat as he leaned back in his seat. “That’s pretty hard to argue. I could imagine, if Twily was in that situation, that’d she’d want to go against everypony to save somepony like Chrysalis. As for the report, given my sis has a school to run, I think Cadance and I should handle it. That is, if you also think this is all ok?” Shining asks Cadance, looking to her to see if she approves.
“I’m fine with it, that was a very heartfelt speech. It touched me right here.” Cadance says as she brings a hoof to her chest, right where her heart is. “I’m surprised though, Shining, I thought you’d still be against all this after that. What really changed your mind?”
“I dunno… I guess it just reminded me of something Twily would say, that’s all.” Shining said, his smiling warming up as he gave a shrug.
“Something Twil- SOMETHING TWILY WOULD SAY?! ARGH!” Discord stepped back, as if he was in pain, as he grabbed his head in frustration “Anon! What have you done!? You’re not supposed to be like her! ARGH! I CAN FEEL MY VERY SOUL BURNING!” Discord screamed out as he began to turn red.
“Hey! What’s your problem with my sister anyway?! Why do you always have to bug her?!” Shining demanded an answer, peeved by Discord’s reaction.
Discord, who had already began to scream in pain, suddenly stopped as he crossed his arms at Shining dismissively while still on fire. “Well, to be truthful, I really don’t have too much of a problem with her. It’s just that she reacts to every little thing in a rather hilarious fashion and I oh so love to press her buttons to cause such reactions. It’s the reason I’d like Anon to write her progress reports instead, I simply would find it more interesting to see her react over you two. You both are simply just too boring.”
“Hey! I’m not boring! Do you even have any idea how many issues of Power Ponies I own? Heh, more than you I bet!” Shining said, giving Discord a smug smile as he lets out a chuckle “Boring, did you hear that Cadance? Man, I’d even say I’m just as good at throwing parties as Pinkie Pie is.”
“Honey, nopony is as good at throwing a party like Pinkie Pie, not even you.” Cadance said, almost in a tone as harsh as her words. Shining, without a word, suddenly curled up a tad, giving a soft whine, and not daring to argue with Cadance so publicly in front of his own guards lest she suddenly says something worse. “As for you, Discord, you barely even come around enough to make that kind of decision. I’ll let you know that Shining and I can be very fun if we want to be.”
You raise a hoof to mention how that could be interpreted as a double entendre, but you put it back down in fear it might screw up the fact that you finally were a go for your plan. However, you could already tell Discord was walking into something he might not be able to win, so you speak up to at least get him to cool down. “Dad, hey, you just wanna go? I don’t think now is the time for this kind of thing, if you know what I mean.”
“Wait, Anon, I’m dealing with the laughable accusation that I somehow can’t pick out how unfun these two are.” Discord grabs a bucket from out of thin air, and pours chocolate all over himself, dousing his flames. He then licks it all up with a ridiculously long tongue, which upon doing so, he begins to lean on his arm as he gives Cadance and Shining a cocky grin. “Chaos Flambe ala Me, how delicious. If I had an audience, they’d be applauding at such a wonderful trick.” Discord says with a chuckle as he dons on a chef’s outfit, complete with large poofy hat.
Cadance looks over to the guards sitting in the gallery, noticing none of them were stomping their hooves or clapping. She could just mention that he did in fact have an audience, and that they didn’t cheer for him, but she had a more wholesome idea. “Well, if you say so. But I want you to watch this, Discord. As not only will this be entertaining, but it will also be quite cute!” Cadance leans back as she uses her magic to bring Flurry to her face, giving her a boop to her nose with her own as she says in a cute cuddly voice. “Flurry! Hi! Hi, Flurry! Can you say Momma?”
Flurry giggled adorably, and then with big adorable eyes, squeaked “Momma!”
“Mhmm! Very good!” Cadance said with a cheery grin, the guards in the gallery reacting with the usual ‘awwws’ one would give to such an adorable sight. Cadance then points over to Shining and asks. “And who is that? That’s Daddy, right?”
Discord noticed that while the guards had not reacted to his magical trick, that they were reacting to Cadance and Flurry. He just crossed his arms and mumbled to himself. “Biased chumps.”
“Daddy!” Flurry cheered as Shining waved to his daughter, flexing his legs to get Flurry to giggle and clap. Once again, the guards ‘aww’ and clap in unison.
“Oh, and look over there!” Cadance points over to you “It’s your friend, Anon! He’s a hero and saved mommy from a bad ole king. Come on! Can you say ‘Anon’?”
Aww, even though you had picked up that Cadance was just trying to get a rise out of Discord, you decide to play along anyway and give Flurry a wave. It’s been awhile, enough for you to get used to her existence. Or maybe you just felt softer about it because she was being cute. Either way, having accepted her, you found her boundless energy and adorableness quite endearing.
But when Flurry looked at you, her expression went from cheery and cute to upset. She began to hug onto Cadance, hiding her face from you. Seriously? C’mon, why did she hate you so much?
“Flurry? What’s wrong?” Cadance asked, despite knowing Flurry couldn’t properly respond.
“I know what’s wrong. Probably afraid of having to look at Discord for too long.” Shining said with a chuckle as he used his magic to bring Flurry over to him. As if she had immediately forgotten what had upset her, Flurry cheered once again as Shining gently placed her on his head. “There we go. Don’t worry, Anon, Flurry was just a little afraid of your dad, it has nothing to do with you. Trust me, Flurry loves being around other kids. Ok, Flurry, say hi to Anon.”
You watch as Shining slowly brings Flurry close to you with his magic. Like before, Flurry starts to whine and fidget as she draws closer to you. Goddammit! What is it about you that made her uncomfortable?! That whole thing where you turned into a monster chameleon was so long ago! You were fucking cute for fuck’s sake, she should at least be curious and want to grab your face! No, instead her horn is just lighting up and… WAIT “WAIT! PULL HER BACK! PUL-” And in the next instant, you are grabbed by a magical aura, and then blasted upwards through an open window as everyone in the room but Discord gasped in shock.
Discord just chuckles and says “Nevermind, that actually was pretty entertaining.”