//------------------------------//
// XXXIII. The Barbican 
// Story: Chrysalis Visits The Hague 
// by Dan The Man 
//------------------------------//


 XXXIII.


The Barbican






ICC Permanent Premises
Courtroom 1
24. November, 2015
11:16 am MET

 It took the bailiffs a couple of minutes to set up the teleprompter. The cable had a slack joint, and it needed an eternity to boot.
It was far removed from the awe and wonder of the four scarabs’ fiery enchantment.

When Pierman’s laptop screen finally appeared, blown up on the unrolled canvas placed to the judge panel’s left, the prosecutor arose from her chair and addressed the assembly, rubbing her hands in embarrassing nervousness.
“It is regretful that the impression of the suspect’s conversation has been… irretrievably damaged. We therefore submit, in its stead, seventy-two photographs and two minutes and fifteen seconds of video footage documenting the same. This, we believe, yet serves to positively identify the suspect and substantiate her whereabouts at the time of the occupation of Trot.”

She applied a remote control.
A video began to play. The image quality was terrible. The sound was even worse.

“I apologise for the resolution.” she chimed in again, “Capturing such a magical phenomenon on film has proven very difficult, especially in regards to catching the lighting and the sound. It should be still sufficiently distinct, however.”

The film had evidently been shot inside a small, darkened room somewhere in the courthouse. It took a few seconds before the camera had adjusted to the intense light enough to reveal the same green plasma ball that had earlier illuminated the courtroom a few minutes beforehand.

A few seconds later still, an image became visible inside the ball.

A head. And this time, not a human one. It sat atop a thick equine neck. A bushy, long head of mane painted out the otherwise slender silhouette.
She seemed to speak. Her sharp changeling ears twitched and her mane bobbed as she appeared to be in the middle of a very tense dialogue with the viewer. Little white reflections that could only be from her fangs shimmered through once in a while.

Countless heads in the courtroom began wandering back and forth between the figure in the recording and a visibly unamused Chrysalis in the other corner, trying to espy even the slightest hint of resemblance.

The quality of the actual images was modest. The contrast between light and darkness was still vast, as she seemed to be sitting with the sun at her back. Whereas her backdrop was painfully bright, she herself was all but pitch-black.
The fact that it was a recording of a recording, one of which had suffered nine hundred years of erosion, may have played a role as well. 

One of the few things that seemed fairly certain was that the figure was talking. The recorded sound itself was terribly garbled and very deep in tone, as though the recording had been caught on a tape that had then been pulled apart and slowed down. For any identification purposes beyond that, though, it was practically useless.

Pierman seemed to be aware of all that, yet she soldiered on. Raising her remote control, she brought to footage to a halt at a strategic moment.
The creature had bent her head a little to the right, revealing a distinctive-looking shape directly behind her.

“The object visible in the background is a limestone statuette depicting a corpulent nobleman. It was made in 4 BD, as a gargoyle for the Trot State Palace. I refer you to Exhibit 2l.”

A glance into the folder revealed a black and white photograph of a withered statue standing on a moss-infested banister, overlooking a panorama of some equally bedraggled ruins a story below and a large plaza away. It was marked with the Equestrian date 25/2 Spring 872. Next to it was another photo, much more modern and in colour, marked as 1/3 Winter 1003. It showed the same balcony, but without the statue. Instead, it was taken from a similar angle as was shown in the footage of the call.

“Although it was stolen in the Equestrian year 920, we can nevertheless use this statuette, and the balcony on which it’s positioned, to confirm the precise location from which this call took place: Inside the great dancing hall in the first story of the State Palace, two metres in front of the entrance of the balcony.”

Estermann had to admit, that was an impressive stroke of fate. Indeed, the statue of the fat horse was too distinctive to be easily mistaken for another random shadow.

He giggled as he realised the same could not be said for the ‘caller’ herself. The large mane and tall stature did remind him of Queen Chrysalis - uncannily so, in fact. But he knew this would never be enough to stand on its own.

“Now, I would like to present an altered version of the footage, with slightly enhanced saturation levels.”
With a click of the remote, the mysterious speaker suddenly received a face.

A muzzle, large piercing eyes, and a two intimidating rows of teeth emerged from the darkness.

And it was Chrysalis. 
This would be a lot more difficult to deny, he realised. It was Chrysalis.

And the contemporaneous Chrysalis seemed to realise at too as she lowered her eyes, as though to avoid her younger self’s gaze.

Pierman smirked subtly. “Please turn to the next image: 2l.”

A mugshot of the contemporary Chrysalis, probably taken a few weeks prior at best.

“To prevent any risk of mistaken identity, I have asked the Specialist Investigation Applications Service of the National Police Corps of the Netherlands to analyse the footage and the suspect’s facial features using professional facial recognition software. I refer to Exhibit 2n. They have issued a report confirming that the faces of the caller and the suspect are 83% identical. The 17% deviation can be attributed to natural ageing.”

Estermann gazed hard into the grimy face. He tried to muster as much doubt as he could. As much reasonable doubt as he could.
He had to get back to that later. It’s these 17% he had to latch on to.

Satisfied, Pierman turned back to the judges, “This footage safely places the suspect at the crime scene. To confirm the time, as well as her actions on the 13th, I next wish to call to the witness stand Witness One.”





The wheelchair was old and creaked loudly. The creature that had been seated onto it was even older, yet all the more silent. The bailiff pushed the low-built, pony-dimensioned contraption in as gently as he could, but the same mellow earth pony mare from before insisted on accompanying them and give him a rap on his knuckles every few yards.

Under the watchful eyes of Pierman, Floret Oats was parked by a table across from the judges’ stand, on the other end of the room. Then she was, rather unceremoniously, tilted out of the chair like a bag of coal.
She was less alive than clinically dead, and she wobbled on her feet as she tried to make her way to her chair. Her face seemed frightened and confused, and tried to avoid contact with any of the other occupants of the room.

Again, Estermann may have been no hippologist, but he was almost certain her age was not the only thing weighing her down.

Queen Chrysalis followed the witness with her eyes. Not as hawkishly as would reasonably be expected, but definitely with a certain lively interest.  
Floret Oats did not return the favour, and fixed her eyes on a point far away from the changeling monarch in the corner.

As soon as Oats was down, Justice Suruma adjusted her microphone. Her voice was rather stale and uninviting.
“Madam Witness, whenever you’re ready. We’ll get started right away.”

She took a few moments gazing at the desk before her, before giving a timid nod.
“Okay. Yes,” she blurted. Her voice was raspy and weak.

Suruma folded her hands. “Madam Witness, you understand what the role of a witness entails. You are here to answer any question this court will ask of you, and you must answer truthfully. Giving a false testimony is a punishable offence.”

Even through her frail veneer, Florets looked a little incredulous. “I understand.”

“You are only at liberty to object to answering a question if it would result in self-incrimination.”

She shook her head. “N-not be a problem.”

“Very well. I will now swear you in. Please raise your right hand. I mean hoof.”

Floret obeyed, and lifted a shivering hoof into the air.

“Please repeat after me: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth...”

“I will solemnly declare that I’ll speak the truth.”

“The whole truth...”

“The whole truth.”

“And nothing but the truth.”

“Nothing but the truth.”

“Good. Do you understand this undertaking? And do you agree with it?”

She bobbed her head submissively. “I understand. And I agree.”

Suruma nodded at Pierman. 
“I give the floor to the Prosecutor for questioning. Please.”

Pierman cleared her throat, and armed herself with the relevant folder. Hopefully, she glanced over to her star witness with a decidedly mild, sympathetic smile.
“Good morning, Madam Witness. Let us... start small, shall we? I will need to confirm your identity. Can you state your age and when were you born?”

She said she was born 7th day of the 3rd Spring moon of the year 21, and had just celebrated her 982nd birthday in March.
Her nationality was Equestrian, but she was born a Trotishpony - one of the last generations, as a matter of fact - before Trot factually seized to exist. 
Her highest level of education she had ever seen was the third grade of elementary school. After Trot fell, she was forced to work for food and shelter. She was lucky enough to find work as a farmhand, and later as a tailor, at the tender age of eleven.

“What is your current occupation?”

“I run a restaurant now, in Vanhoover harbour. Trotter Shoals Inn. I specialise on Trot-style cuisine and entertainment.”

Estermann grew curious if she would live up to that last one.

Pierman flipped her folder open. Now came the truly relevant part.
“Where were you on the morning of the 13th of the 2nd Summer Moon of the year 30?”

She left a ten second pause before recounting, more or less methodically, that fateful day.
Shortly after dawn, she walked out of her father’s smithy on the Slim Canal, in the Lower Town area. It would be the last time she would see the smithy intact or her father, full stop. 

“What was the occupation of your parents?”

“Papa... was a farrier. Mama… a parlourmaid in the Upper City. In a wash house.”

Pierman glanced up at the judges.
“Madam President, may I enter the well to access the city map?”

“You may.”

Pierman rounded her desk and shuffled towards the flip chart, a scant five yards away from the stand, and laid a finger on the city.
“Please describe your exact position on the southern wall,” she asked.

Floret pointed impotently at the general vicinity of the flipchart, and gradually found her way to the pin stuck on the gate on Mews Alley, with a little indicator pointing south-east, to recreate the angle of her field of view, atop the wall that separated the inner tier - the Upper City - from the Lower City - the outer tier.
The battlements had been quite crowded, teeming with both soldiers and normal folk, to the point that Floret spent the entire stuck on one niche in the gatehouse’s shadow.

When Pierman asked her to detail the view she had over the Lower City from her vantage point, Floret began to struggle a little. She would open her mouth to say something, but nothing would come out.
Her eyes, turned down towards Pierman’s slippers in ever-mounting intensity, became more and more desperate.

Pierman cleared her throat impatiently at her frozen-up witness.
“Madam Witness, let me refresh your memory.”

Pierman would have to refresh her memory several times, reading the witness’ testimony back at her, and all she received in return were some lethargic nods.
The view she had over the less affluent, but all the more crowded tier of Trot was vast. She saw roof gardens, and clotheslines, lanterns and flowerpots hanging over the narrow streets. She saw the little vegetable market on Mews Alley, situated in the shadow of the gatehouse on a narrow piece of pavement that snaked between some badly built shophouses. 
In the distance, she could see the walls of the outer tier rising out of the morning mist, and the glimmering armour of the soldiers patrolling it.

“And what was the first you saw of the Changeling Forces?”

She patted her neck with a hoof, evidently trying to rub some clarity into herself,
“The first thing I noticed… was some hubbub in the distance on the other wall. I could just make out the soldiers over there  rushing about. All of us atop the inner wall watched it, and… we couldn’t figure out what was going on over there. What got them so spooked? It was… very sinister.” 

Pierman held up a finger.
“By ‘we’, who exactly are you referring to?”

There were classmates of Floret’s on the ramparts with her. Two stood out, two fillies named Cockle and Sloe, the latter of whom was either the niece or the cousin of the gatehouse commander, a Legion officer named Nock.
A ripple of discomfort also went through the ponies on the market square, since word had spread that trouble was brewing on the city’s outskirts, it wasn’t long until they were trying to shove their way through the gate to the relative safety of the Upper City.
Floret herself could only attest to seeing ominous dust clouds rising up from beyond the town limits.

Around noon, Commander Nock ordered the gate shut to prevent them from clogged by the masses of ponies streaming in. What he caused instead was a minor mass panic amongst the pushing and shoving ponies who suddenly found themselves locked into the Lower City.
Those ponies would only disperse when a party of armour-clad changelings made a sudden appearance amongst the market stalls.

Pierman turned a page. 
“At what point did you make that observation?”

Floret Oats hesitated, and her eyes searched for the right words.
“I remember it being very… weird. Before you knew it, ponies were… cheering in the streets below us. You see, word had spread that… a caravan of horses had reached the city gates just now, with fresh fruit and cider and rice and spices, and presents... Ponies threw about expectations of a grand feast. Commander Nock stepped out of his tower and onto our parapet, and he looked at us, and he looked at me, and said, ‘Don’t pat yourselves just yet. Stay in position. I’m not opening until it’s certain.’” 
She sighed, ”I liked him. He was such a strong, prudent pony… Anyway, things calmed back down for a while… At least until I looked back down on Mews Alley, and saw her in the crowd.”
She looked up and stared directly at Chrysalis.

Chrysalis raised her eyebrows and sat upright, challenging the look. It seemed strangely playful rather than apprehensive.

“Who is ‘she’, Madam Witness?” Pierman inquired, her voice cocksure and suggestive.

“The Changeling Queen Chrysalis,” Floret answered, “with another twenty, thirty changelings in tow. They were moving up Mews Alley. Towards our gate.”

There was no fighting, nor was there any panic. The crowds of earth ponies were evidently caught just as off-guard by the sudden enemy infiltration as the soldiers on the ramparts.
Either way, Queen Chrysalis stood out to Floret from the very first moment.
She was tall - taller than any pony she had ever seen - and she wore custom-made armour that shimmered in the sunlight in brilliant green and piercing blue hues.
Naturally, a nine year-old schoolgirl like little Floret Oats didn't know who Chrysalis was supposed to be, but even so, Chrysalis exuded a ridiculous aura of authority and majesty wherever she looked.
She would only recognise that face some days later,  in Sandalwood, Equestria, stamped on a wanted poster.

Pierman turned towards the defendant’s corner, “And you recognise the suspect as the same person now?”

She nodded, slowly but persistently. “She’s the one I saw. Just the way I remember her.” 
She touched the tips of her own hair, “Though… I suppose her mane is a little shorter now... And no red glasses.”

Estermann knew he should have been impressed by the minute detail this millennium-old horse could recall. Whatever worries she would have in her future, Alzheimers would probably not be one of them by this point.

“What happened after you spotted her?” Pierman continued.

“She and her… guards… I suppose, halted in front of the gate. You see, it was still closed. She just looked up at us, for only a second. It’s almost like she was stared directly at me.”

Chrysalis gave Estermann a subtle glance and rolled her eyes.

“Then she just...” She demonstrated, waving her leg around, “threw her hoof back, as if to say, ‘Away with it’.”

Chrysalis smirked and chuckled.

“What did Commander Nock do?” Pierman inquired.

Commander Nock stayed put, and he stayed brave even in the face of such raw majesty as that of Queen Chrysalis.
At least, he did until a strange soldier that Floret didn’t recognise sauntered up to him from nowhere and whispered something very passionate-sounding into his ear, then disappeared in the crowd.
Floret didn’t know what it was Nock was told, but she described him aging ten years in that instant. His eyes sprang open in an expression of violent horror.

“And I couldn’t figure it out. This stallion was tough as steel. He was courage ponified. Always calm, always collected. That day, that moment… that stopped,” she explained

Pierman hummed in apparent agreement. “Please continue. What happened to the gate?”

“Queen Chrysalis just sauntered up and ripped it out!”

Pierman looked up.
“What do you mean by ‘ripped out’?”

Floret only narrowly kept herself from shrugging.
“I saw her horn shine bright-green. And the next thing I knew, the entire gatehouse shuddered under an unearthly force. The wooden gate under us started to crunch and growl... and then it was dragged out, like on an invisible anchor. The doors were torn apart and shattered, log by log… until there was a gut-wrenching groaning noise... and a great big pile of splinters came spilling out in front of Chrysalis.”

Estermann folded his arms. That rather eliminated the possibility of this little expedition being a parlaying party.
A shame too. He could have surely spun something out of that.

Pierman nodded. “How did Commander Nock react?”

Commander Nock’s reaction to it, was, to put it diplomatically, rather subdued.
Even as his soldiers begged him for orders, pleaded with him to give the permission to attack, he cantered back into his gatehouse and kept mum.
Nothing else happened to Chrysalis either. Since nopony wanted to be the first to take a potshot at her, the changeling Chrysalis just walked through the destroyed gate unmolested, and disappeared into the Upper City.
Floret eyed her desk as she recounted it, disappointed with everything.

Nock didn’t show himself for at least another half hour. And when he did, he was a mess. He had taken off his helmet, he was pulling at his chestplate, he was sweating like a waterfall. 
He grabbed the pony that was closest to him, which happened to be none other than Floret Oats, by the withers and panted, ”You, young ‘un, take Sloe and the others and get to the harbour. Get out now. We’re done. We’re done. We’re done!’”

Pierman looked appropriately disturbed. 
“What impression did he make on you?”

Floret’s panting matched the growing distress in the voice. “Unhinged? He kept muttering, ‘we’re done, we’re done’, like it meant something. There was a battle raging inside his head. There was something that horrified him.” 

Cockle, Sloe and Floret would all have been more than glad to get out of there. Floret briefly considered evacuating them down the ramparts, westward, towards the coastside docklands. But they didn’t get very far before she heard Commander Nock calling them back. 

“And… when I turned around… I saw the cheeriest grin on his face. I was relieved at first, but on a second glance, I became nervous again. Whatever it was that had happened in his head, someone had lost and something had won.”
She shuddered.
“He told us, ‘We’re done. Come back. We’re done. It’s safe here now. Come back. Stay for a while. Come back. They’ll be good to us. Let’s wait for them.’”

“What did you do?”

She shook her head. Then she yelped, uncontrollably and laid a hoof on her cheek to stave off the welling tears.
She said she had listened to her instincts and gotten the hell off those walls. Cockle, on the other hand, decided to do as she was told, and Sloe refused want to leave the side of her uncle or cousin. 
So off Floret went, alone. She thought about looking for her mother at the washhouse, but she never made it that far.

“I tried hiking down the wall on the ramparts. I thought it would be the fastest way to the seaside. But it was impossible. The ponies on the wall had started shoving. And I thought I would get trampled, or shoved off, so I took the next stairs down to the streets.”

Pierman tapped on the map. “Where did you come out?”

“I took the stairs immediately in front of Arsenal Tower. That’s the second-to-last tower before the wall steps into the sea.”

As Pierman marked the map appropriately.
“Please describe the instance of spotting the suspect.”

"As I made it all the way down the stairs… I looked up. And there was Chrysalis, hanging over us, in the sky, like a harbinger of… of...”

Chrysalis had chanted something, but Floret couldn’t make out what. Then the changeling raised her hooves and spread them, then threw her head back. Her horn gave a green spark. A signal for the slaughter to commence.

“And then… all Tartarus broke loose. The sky went black with changelings. ”

They came from everywhere. Not just from beyond the city walls, but from within both the Lower and Upper Cities, random earth pony civilians began launching into the air amidst flashes of green magic.
Even as Floret galloped through the clean terraced streets of the Upper City, changelings swooped down right in front of her and whizzed through the air like angry hornets, trashing windows, flipping over market carts, ripping doors out of their hinges and pelting the townsfolk with their own flowerpots and lanterns. They broke into the houses. They tackled ponies, smashed them to the ground. Then they dragged them around and kicked them until they stopped breathing. 
It was happening all over the city, which gradually broke into complete pandemonium.

Floret sobbed.

“When did you arrive at the docks?”

“Two hours in the afternoon,” she muttered.

“Please describe what happened on the docks.” 

Many of the countless boats had lifted anchor at the faintest whiff of trouble and just sailed off, leaving the townsfolk on the peninsula to fend for themselves. Those vessels that stayed had to deal with hundreds of panicked ponies. Soldiers, farmers, burghers, nobles, tenants, servants, children, all of whom shoved so much that many slipped into the water between the dock and the hulls. 
Floret found her way onto a coal barge by sheer luck after a merciful sailor had lifted her aboard with a hoof. Within minutes, they had pushed off at only half capacity, and went floating for the open sea.

Floret looked up. “But they were faster.”

“They?”

The Changelings swooped in from the air and massacred the passengers.
This is where Floret, for the first and last time for a long while to come, saw a changeling up close. She described their blue eyes gazing into her, and she felt oddly spellbound.
Again, it was her gut reaction that saved her life. With no other way out, she jumped into the sea.

“And I couldn’t swim. But I didn’t drown. The Trotter Shoals saved my life.”

Pierman looked up.

“A… treacherous mount of underwater sand,” Floret elaborated, “Dangerous for ships, but just shallow enough for me to reach with the tips of my back hooves, and keep my nuzzle above the water. That way, I… hopped… away from the boat. And as I hopped away… I felt something warm radiating in my nape. And I could hear ponies crying. And I saw the water shimmering green. And I could smell burning wood. They had set the boat alight.”

An uneasy instant of silence fell over the well.

She didn’t know long she spent hopping for her life. But at some point, she was thrown a hawser and lifted aboard a ship belonging to zebra pearl merchants, which evacuated her and a handful of other lucky swimmers down the coast, into the Equestrian harbour of Sandalwood.
Pierman helpfully tapped on the far-left edge of the map, pinpointing the approximate location in question.

“I could still see the smoke rising over the horizon...”

She was sent to a refugee camp, where she would spend the next eight days recovering. She looked for her parents whenever she could, but apart from a scant few familiar faces, like an old teacher or the local reeve, nobody had made it.

A little over a week later, she was brought back to a freshly liberated Trot. But it had since grown uninhabitable.

“Papa’s smithy was ransacked, there had been a fire. My mother’s washhouse had been turned into… into… a cave of… slime. They dug ponies out of there. But not mama.”

Like her parents, Sloe and her uncle or cousin had disappeared off the face of the earth.
The only one she found was her good friend Cockle.

“I found her in a camp by the gates of the city. She was… bleary-eyed. I looked into her face and what I saw was… dulled?” 
She shrugged unthinkingly, “I tried asking her what happened to her. And Sloe and her uncle. And my parents. And she just… looked back at me and she told me, ‘I don’t want to see you, traitor. You ran away when you should’ve stayed. You left us. We stayed and we hate you. Sloe and Nock don’t like you either. You’re not my friend anymore.’”

Pierman looked sceptical.
“How long did you know Cockle at that point in time?”

She buried her muzzle in her hooves. “Five, six years, more than half my life?”

Pierman chewed on her lips, trying to formulate her next question in a way that wouldn’t make it sound a leading question.
“In what way was her behaviour similar or different from her usual behaviour immediately before the attack, on the 13th?”

“It...” She shook her head vehemently, “This wasn’t the same filly. For all intents and purposes, this pony could have just been... wearing her skin. But I know it wasn’t so, because… she recognised me. Only with… There wasn’t any real animosity im her voice. No real emotion. It was like she was… playing a part... badly so...” 

Pierman stepped back. That was it.
Evidently pleased with what she managed to squeeze out of her witness, she humbly nodded at the judges.
“Thank you, Madam President. That would be all.”
She returned to her desk.

Chrysalis could be heard, letting out a sigh of relief so overdone that she was essentially blowing a raspberry.

“Thank you too, my learned friend.” Suruma answered and looked down at the witness box, “Madam witness? I thank you for your testimony. How do you feel?”

Floret, somewhat bravely, wiped away a tear.

“If you feel strong enough, we will continue right away with the cross-examination by the defence. Will that be alright?” 

Pierman hesitated mid-step and visibly stumbled. When she sat down, her eyes immediately set upon Estermann.

Estermann merely took a spirited breath, his reaction dulled by the shock of the moment, and readied his chair for standing up.

As soon as Floret gave her meek nod, a chain of nods finally reached him.
He began, “Thank you Madam President. May I enter the well too?”

Pierman shot an even more horrified look and shot her answer before Suruma could give hers.
“That won’t be necessary!”

Suruma gazed down at her. 
“Is there a problem, Madam Prosecutor?”

“I...” she stammered, “I don’t believe it will be necessary for Mister Estermann to approach the witness, Madam President.”

Estermann’s heart jumped in what he soon recognised to be a strange sensation of sadistic joy.
“Madam President,” he protested, “For the purposes of my cross-examination, I will need to access to the maps. Just like my esteemed colleague did just now.”

Pierman’s eyes pleaded with Suruma as the justice felled her decision.
“In that case, you may enter the well, Mister Estermann. But...”
She adjusted her glasses menacingly, “I trust you will practice restraint, as far as the witness is concerned? Restraint and civility?”

He bowed his head in deference. “Naturally, yes. Of course.”
He could hardly wait to show her some of that restraint and civility.

Like a toddler entering a skating rink, he stepped into the well and marched across to the relative safety of the flip chart board.
It was then that he directed his inquisitive gaze toward the witness Floret Oats. From up close, she looked even worse. Not at all bad for 998 years, but not good enough for even seventy. 

She avoided his eyes. He decided to give her a kind smile.
“How do you feel?” he asked softly.

She seemed confused. She glanced over to Prosecutor Pierman for an answer. As soon as she realised in Pierman’s face that the prosecution couldn't come to her help, she gave a curt answer.
“I’m fine.”

“Good, I won’t keep you long,” Estermann replied. He wanted to sow some hope before reaping any fruits of carelessness. 
“Let us immediately go back to your original location on the ramparts. You said that you observed the movements of the Changeling party from the battlements of the Upper City's wall, in the direct vicinity of Mews Alley Barbican, correct?”
He tapped on the map.

“Um, yes.”

“Was it at all usual that civilians would be allowed on the battlements in the first place?”

She paused, “Well… yes and no.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Not everypony was free to wander around on the walls. Not if they didn’t have any business up there. Especially when there's a siege.”

From the prosecution’s side, a chair could be heard creaking. But there was no follow-up sound.

“And you had business on the battlements?” Estermann asked on.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What business?”

“I was told that I should help fix arrows and load the quivers, and haul rocks onto the wall. Sometimes, they would ask me to pass around spears and poles to the soldiers. They said I’d get a long pole of my own, once… once melee started. I should try and shove away any ladders I saw being put up. Until then, I should just...  put the rocks to good use.”

Estermann breathed in and out.
“How old were you on the day of the takeover?”

“I was nine.” 
Her answer was undercut by a melancholic snicker.

He nodded, a bit stunned by the realisation. 
There was no way to sugarcoat it. Floret Oats had been a child soldier.

“Did you volunteer…" he asked on, "for all those duties on the wall?”

“I was… told to go there everyday and help. The city needed any help hoof they could get. Everypony had to do their part.”

A conscripted child soldier.

“And your parents had to do their part too?”

“My dad was a farrier and master tradespony, so they kept him off the ramparts. My mother, since she worked in the upper city, was… privileged in a way. So she was excused. But still, every family was expected to send at least one pony to the walls, to fill any gaps. This is why I had to go.”

“Fill any gaps...” Estermann mumbled to himself, pleased as punch. It certainly explained the ridiculously high number of soldiers in that city.
“Were your friends Cockle and Sloe the same age as you?”

“Ehm… Cockle was. Sloe was seven.”

“Wow,” he mumbled, “And were they implicated in the same duties as yourself?”

“Again, Cockle, yes. But I’m not sure about Sloe. I think her uncle just wanted her to be somewhere safe.”

“Were the ramparts of the Upper City generally considered ‘safe’?”

She nodded.
“Safer than the Lower City, anyway. The walls were higher, there was less crime, less filth...”

“I see.” he answered. “Alright, moving on to the arrival of the Changeling party.”
He flipped a page and scratched his nose, “You stated that, from your position, you recognised the suspect as Her Royal Highness Chrysalis, as the commander of this small group. Is that correct?”

She gave Chrysalis a short, terrified glance.
“I did.”

“You have stated to only have recognised the suspect as Queen Chrysalis afterwards. But did you recognise the figure as a commander at that very moment, or also just retroactively?”

“Oh, that? Immediately.”

“So...” Estermann continued, swerving his hand around, “Did you, as a nine year-old school girl, possess any expertise in recognising officers of the Changeling armed forces?”

She hesitated. 
“I… um… I suppose… I could tell the difference between regular changeling… soldiers and changeling officers.” 

“Did you possess any expertise on the Changeling military hierarchy?” he elaborted.

She let her head droop a telling few inches.
“Well… no… I mean… I did not know anything about the hierarchy. I mean, I myself wasn’t any sort of soldier.”

“Even though you stated that you were conscripted to aid in the city’s defence?”

“They did not call me soldier,” she repeated, adamantly.

Estermann harrumphed. “Wouldn’t you then say that you sound extraordinarily certain about this observation, for a person with little to no expertise on this matter?”

Floret was tumbled, but she recovered miraculously quickly.
“I… no… I could see that many of the… run-of-the-mill changelings, if you will, received their orders from some very few changelings, all of whom wore armour. I saw them gather around them. I repeatedly saw them looking over to them for instructions.”
She clasped her hooves over her chest, frustrated. “I don’t know if they were officers, truth be told, but they were the commanders. This isn’t military know-how, this is common sense.”

“How many such changelings did you spot in this group?”

“Four. And that includes Queen Chrysalis.”

He folded his hands, and paced away from the flip chart.
“Did the suspect stand out in any way?”

“Chrysalis? Yes. She was… huge. She towered over all the other changelings, because she was almost twice as tall as any of them. You see… the other changelings I saw were barely bigger than any grown-up pony. But Chrysalis… she was the largest creature I had ever seen.”

Her physical stature was a very weak argument, and Estermann knew that. If anything, he had to strike at the heart of her observations.
“What kind of armour did the suspect wear?”

She shoved her hoof against her chin as she tried to remember.
“It was… green, bleeding into blue. It was… plate armour, for the most part. Molded to slope around her body. It was very curvy. And it was made...”
She paused, “I can’t tell what it was made from. But it was no metal. It was shiny, looked spit-and-polished.”

“Could it have been a fibre?” he asked slowly, “Chitin, possibly?”

Uncertain where he was going, she tried to physically duck away from the question.

Estermann struck out a hand towards his surprised client.
“Made perhaps from the same or similar material as the suspect’s horn and hooves?”

That seemed a little more appealing to Floret. The fact that Chrysalis’ hooves were hidden from view and her horn was still covered in tin foil and plastic did not err Floret in the slightest.
“Yes, possibly. I cannot say for sure, but it is possible.”

Estermann cleared his throat.
“Would you say that the blue and green hues of the armour were comparable to the suspect’s natural skin tones?”
He flipped to the first few pages of his folder and crammed forth a full-body mugshot of the queen, taken hours after her arrest, while she lay unconsciously in a corner of her Equestrian cell.
“You may have seen this before. I am referring, in particular, to the green hue of the plate of chitin on her back.”

Again, Floret nodded faithfully. “Yes. It does. ”

He smiled.
“Well, Madam Witness, I am asking this for the following reason: Is it at all possible that, what you recognised as armour strapped to the suspect’s back and head, was not armour at all?”

Her mouth produced a frown that was almost as incredulous as disturbed.

“Is it possible that what you saw was, in fact, an extension of that particular changeling’s physique, and not a piece of attire?”

Her mouth was agape. 

An uncomfortable silence passed between them, only to be interrupted by Estermann saying, in a voice that was hard, but in supposed sincerity almost angelical-sounding, 
“Take your time.”

Floret gave the prosecutor and the three judges a horrified stare, which she soon directed back to Estermann with a shaking of the head.
“No. No, no. It was real armour. Without question.”

Estermann held up a finger.
“Since we have established that it is not unthinkable that the supposed armour consisted of the same material, and even possessed the same pigmentation, as a living changeling’s natural… outer tissues, then is it not possible that a bulkier, perhaps more corpulent or muscular changeling’s frame could be mistaken by a layman for a more slender changeling covered in armour? Especially if that changeling already has a disproportionately tall stature in comparison to his or her conspecifics, thus making judgement even more difficult?”

Pierman jerked her chair back so forcefully that it shrieked across the floor.
“Madam President, I must object. My learned friend has been repeatedly asking the witness to speculate. Missus Oats is not qualified; Only a biologist specialising in changeling anatomy could possibly give an appropriate testimony.”

“Yes,” Suruma agreed, “I’ll sustain that. Mister Estermann, please refrain from directing questions towards the witness that she couldn’t possibly answer.”

He bit his lip. He nodded.

“It couldn’t have been a part of her physique,” Floret continued, blatantly ignoring Pierman’s and Suruma’s revelation, “because it wiggled and it skirted around at every slightest movement. I may not know much about changeling anatomy, My Lord, but I know what a piece of plate armour looks like. I grew up around it. My father made hundreds of them!”

“Very well,” Estermann acquiesced, “Very well. Then I would like to ask the witness to go into further detail about the suspect’s helmet, please.“

Floret braced herself by clamping her mouth tightly shut.

“What details made the suspect’s helmet stand out?”

She folded her hooves too and gave Estermann a resisting look. “What do you mean?”

He looked through her written testimony,
“You previously stated that the helmet was very unusual. That it had various details and… for lack of a better word, it 
'incorporated insect imagery'. Is that correct?”

“Yes?”

“The helmet had custom-tailored, yellow-tinted visors that were unique to the entire Changeling force that saw that day. Is that correct?”

“It is.”

“The helmet even had little tusk-like decorations fitted to the sides of her jaw...”

“That its true, on the sides of her head. Like a stag beetle,” she finally answered, panting nervously, “And no, they weren’t real tusks. I know that because they wiggled side-to-side, along with the rest of the helmet. They wiggled terribly.”

“Alright,” Estermann whispered. “And eight days later, you recognised the suspect’s face on a wanted poster,... even though... the only time you had gotten a closer look at the face was from above, and covered by a military helmet?’”

“Yes, I-”
She cut herself off immediately. Her breathing quickened.

“A helmet, that covered so much of her face that it even had little fake tusks under her jaw?”

Floret’s own jaw hung agape.
“I... did.”

“What eye colour did the suspect have?”

“Green,” she spurted immediately.

“And you recognised that, from ten metres away, from above, and in spite of the yellow-tinted visors that shielded her eyes?

“I… I saw her face,” she only repeated, though she was getting a lot more desperate and shifty, “She… she didn’t have the helmet on all the time.”

“Aha. At what point didn’t she have the helmet on?”

Floret held a begging, pointing hoof out to her side,
“Like... when she spoke to the council ponies on the Grand Market, by the State Palace. Everypony saw it, how she put a spell on them.”

He gave her a confused look.
“Did you not state that you could only see her entering the Upper City? From the outfacing side of the middle bailey?”

“W-well…” she stammered and repeated, “Everypony else saw her speaking to the Council on the Grand Market.”

“We are not interested in what ‘everypony' saw, Madam Witness,” he pushed, a bit forcefully, ”Am I correct to assume that, thusly, you did not see this officer without his or her headgear?”

“Of… course I did,” she persisted through clenched teeth.

“Did he or she take the helmet off before he or she traversed the middle bailey?”

He gave her a sceptical look,
She said nothing. As though any more word could be her last.

“Did the suspect remove his or her helmet in front of your wall?” he repeated.

But Floret Oats remained silent.

At some point, Justice Suruma had to intervene.
“Madam Witness, please answer the defence counsel’s question.”

Floret shuddered.
“Yes,” she whispered.

“There we go,” Estermann mumbled, “Madam Witness, why would the suspect remove his or her helmet at that moment?”
He grinned. “It rather begs the question why she bothered to put the thing on in the first place.”

“Madam President, I must object again!” he heard Pierman bark, “The defence counsel once again asks the witness to speculate!”

“Sustained,” Suruma declared, though with considerably less motivation in her voice. 

Estermann sniffed aggressively.
“Was there no fighting going on?”

“Like I said, no,” Floret insisted, “Even if Commander Nock had given an order - which he didn’t, by the way - we couldn’t have fought back because we were still gearing up. We weren’t ready for a fight.”

“You stated that the walls were teeming with defenders. You stated that Commander Nock ordered ‘arrows out, rocks up, spears up’, did you not?”

“Yes! But we still weren’t done. Not at a moment’s notice. If the outer walls had fallen, we would’ve had at least a couple of minutes.”

“Alright,” Estermann said, his voice lowering, “Then answer me this, Madam Witness. Was there any obvious reason that the suspect chose not to forego the entire gate-breaching process and simply fly over the wall?”

Floret looked exhausted. She shook her head, but she held the gaze, the fire of resistance blazing away inside her.
“No. Why don’t you ask her?” she whimpered, and looked Chrysalis straight in the eye. “She's right there.”

Chrysalis reciprocated the stare in kind. But then she broke out into an involuntary, very childish giggle. She quickly tried to suppress it with a hoof, her chains ringing.

Estermann stepped between the two to resume his questioning.
“So, in summary: According to you, the suspect approached a heavily fortified, well-staffed rampart, during a state of siege, inside enemy-controlled territory - an urban area, no less - on foot, then stopped in front of a closed gate, and removed her helmet, relying all the while on the defenders having the mercy to not immediately attack and kill her… all for the benefit of enabling you to see her face from up close?”

Floret deflated.

“And I must object yet again! The question has been asked and answered,” Pierman moaned.

“I sustain that too. Please move on, Mister Estermann.”

Estermann smirked. He couldn’t believe how inane the whole thing was. It practically spoke for itself.
“Very well,“ he mumbled, “Madam Witness, let us proceed to your second sighting of the suspect.”

She flinched again.

“According to your testimony, you saw her flying into the air and give a signal, and the attack commenced soon after.”

“Immediately,” she maintained.

“Alright, immediately. At what time did you make this observation?”
 
“About half an hour past noon.”

Which was consistent with the reports of the suspect… concluding the negotiations held on the Grand Market. 
“Where did you see the suspect take into the air from?”

“The bottom of the steps of the wall.”

He chuckled.
“Sorry, let me rephrase that.”
Though he did wonder… how much of the sky could she have seen from some crammed alleyway?
“Where did the suspect take off from?”

“The vicinity of the Grand Market,” she answered, as expected.

“And you recognised her as the same person you saw on Mews Alley from the walls?”

“Without a shred of doubt,” she declared. “It was the same armour, the same mane, the same horn, even the same muzzle. And yes, she was without her helmet at that point!”

He nodded, as if in understanding. Then he turned around, and took off towards the flipchart.
“Let’s mark the position of yourself and of the suspect. You stood by the Arsenal Tower, correct?”

“I did.”

“And the suspect flew around above the Grand Market...”
He turned the flip chart slightly so Floret had decent view.
“I’d require a ruler to be certain, but… assuming the city map is scaled correctly, I estimate the distance between these two places to be approximately… one kilometre.”

She gave him a blank look, clearly less than familiar with the metric system.
“Uh… okay.”

“And that is one kilometre not including the vast difference in altitude between the airborne suspect and yourself, down there on the street. You mentioned that not only could you recognise her armour, but also her mane and face, correct?”

“Well… yes. My eyes might not be worth much now, but as a little girl-”

He held up an index finger to silence her.
“But at a distance of one kilometre, would the suspect have been anything more than a black dot on the horizon?”

Her eyes widened.
“No… I mean yes! I know that because I saw her flying with my own two eyes!”

“Even the body shape would should have been awfully difficult to make out, wouldn’t it?”

“No. It wasn’t. Nopony that day was nearly as large as her, as lanky as her. And that’s not to mention that… armour she wore...”

“You seem to particularly certain about the uniqueness of the suspect’s physical stature and armour, don’t you?”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” she whined and bent forward.

He folded his arms.
“How many changelings did you see on the 13th for yourself? About fifty? Sixty?”

She wheezed.
“I... can’t say. A hundred, perhaps.”

“Out of a force of at least... twelve thousand five hundred?”

She said nothing.

Estermann pointed upwards theatrically. 
“There are only three possibilities left, aren't there? One, you saw somepony who looked similar to the suspect, but found him- or herself in a different location that was much closer to yours. Two, it is indeed the suspect you saw, at a distance far too big for you to distinguish her features in any relevant detail, and thus make a coherent identification. Or three: both.”

She shook her head.

“If I showed you a helicopter in the sky, would you be able to recite to me its registration number?”

The elderly mare shook her head again, confused.
“What?”

Estermann sighed.
“If I showed you... an owl in the sky, would be able to tell me the all the colours of its feathers?”

“I… Probably not. Not at that distance. An owl would likely be far too small,” she stammered.

“Not any smaller than the suspect’s mane or muzzle or eyes," he said. "Did you happen to have a pair of binoculars by your side when made your observation?”

She shrunk.
“We had no binoculars back then...”

“A spyglass?”

She closed her eyes momentarily.
“She flew towards me,” she said, as though in resignation

He hesitated.
“Pardon me?”

“Queen Chrysalis flew in my direction!” she repeated, more forcefully.

“I see,” he muttered in exaggerated surprise. Then he tapped on the map.
“How close did she come to you? Approximately?”

She shook her head.

“How close? Please answer the question,” Estermann huffed.

”About... half way. She was over… Spirewell. That’s the large intersection right there. That’s a stone’s throw from where I was standing.”

“That far away from the Grand Market? You did not mention that in your testimony, did you?”

She shook her head, shamefully.
"I'm sorry."

A sideways glance confirmed that Pierman was burying her face in her hands.

He threw another glance on the map.
“Spirewell… Spirewell. Ah. Spirewell’s still half a kilometre away, isn’t it? Over five hundred metres... from you.”

She nodded silently.

“So, instead of a black dot in the sky, you would have seen... a somewhat bigger black dot in the sky, wouldn’t you?”

“Much much bigger...”

“If you say so.”
He sighed and turned a page. She had stayed reasonably adamant, and it was the only thing that kept her story from collapsing under its own weight.  
There was some doubt left, some wiggle room, but he was sure even that could easily be quelled.

He had delved into the ‘how’. Now it was time to explore the ‘why’.
“Your restaurant specialises in Trotish delicatessen and music, doesn’t it?”

The change of topic made her flinch.
“Yes...”
She looked at him. Her eyes were glassy. Her face defeated.

“Does your entertainment include... storytelling?”

She eyed him reproachfully
“On special occasions.”

“Could you repeat the name of your establishment please?”

She bit her lip.
“Trotter Shoals Inn.”

“Would it be named after the same Trotter Shoals that you stated to have used to make your getaway across the bight after jumping overboard from the barge?”

She nodded, then wrinkled up her nose and quickly, almost subconsciously, glanced back at Pierman.
“I honoured the place that saved my life. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Pierman, who was sitting in a corner like a tiger who had been waiting to pounce for several hours, registered her cry for help and spoke up. 
“I object. This query is utterly irrelevant to the subject matter.”

Before Suruma could even begin to espouse her judgement, Estermann chimed in.
“With all due respect, Madam President, I am trying to investigate whether any ulterior motives exist that might have unduly influenced the witness’ view of events retroactively.”

“You… what?” Floret asked, her words soft and slow with shock.

After Suruma waved him through, Estermann picked up where he left off.

“In other words, Madam Witness, you’re currently drawing quite a profit from your experiences, aren’t you?”

She shrugged a little.
“With my restaurant… I contribute to keeping the Trotish spirit alive in the hearts of ponies. I think I speak for all ponies of Trotish heritage when I say that we all draw a massive profit from our engagement. But I’m not sure how-”

“But is there was no commercial incentive for you to maintain the story that you have told us here today?” 

“...No. no,” she answered dubiously.

“So the faintest indication that the version of events that you maintain wasn’t as extraordinary, as spectacular, as dramatic as what you describe, wouldn’t result in your gastronomical establishment forfeiting any profits?”

She harrumphed.
“My inn offers Trotish and Lunean cuisine. Yes, I do try to keep the legacy of Trot alive. But my story is hardly the reason why my patrons eat at my restaurant.”

Estermann shrugged innocently.
“Even if the story doesn’t exactly ‘draw the crowds in’… How insignificant is the story of the little girl on the Barbican, who was the first to spot the dreaded Queen Chrysalis, who saw her pulverise the city gates right from underneath her hooves, who witnessed her give the command to slaughter, and then watched her city fall around her, who lost her parents to the changeling horde, who evaded slavers and marauders for hours, who caught the last boat, which was boarded mid-escape, and who jumped into the water and waded to safety within a literal breath of her life? How insignificant is that, to the very soul of the Trotter Shoal’s Inn?”

He could hear a little sob.
“...The memory hurts me, whenever I think about it… No. I run a restaurant, not a… theatre. It is not significant at all.”
Shh was in visible pain to have to say those words.

Estermann took a step back and reflected.
He realised he might not be going in the right direction. The road led another way. And that he was quite a lot more straightforward.
“Madam Witness… To change the topic… The wanted poster on which you claim to have recognised the suspect. In which way were you introduced to it?”

She averted her eyes. “What? I... The usual way. They showed me the poster.”

“‘They‘ being who?”

“Equestrian Royal Guards. From Sandalwood.”

“Were you also questioned on the events of the 13th?”

“...Yes, I was.”

“Were you approached by the Royal Guards?”

“Of course. That’s how I gave my testimony.”

He scratched the bridge of his nose between his fingers in thought.
“After you landed in Sandalwood, were you interned by the authorities?”

“I was so weak that I could hardly walk without help. So I was taken to a makeshift hospital and laid down to recover for three days.”

“Was it while you were bedbound that the Royal Guard conducted any questionings?”

She nodded,
“Yes. They went from bed to bed, introduced themselves, and asked about what had happened to us.”

He nodded back.
“Was it during one of these questionings that you were first introduced to the wanted poster bearing the likeness and name of Queen Chrysalis?”

She hesitated, then nodded again.
“That’s where they showed it to me, yes.”

For his next question, he approached Floret, even closer than ever before.
“And… what was the accompanying question they asked you?”

Floret looked up at the ceiling in thought.
“‘Is this the pony you saw?’”

Estermann’s heart skipped a beat.

He felt the sudden urge to take his folder and hurl it onto the witness stand’s desk, awaiting its deafening clap, turn around, nod at the three judges, then simply strut out of the room, preferably leading his queen out by the chain with him, and off the court premises, not bothering to as much as take off his robe, and plop down in the nearest tavern for a steaming brew of strong tea.
For the moment, he resisted that urge as well.

It was subtle. But there it was. 
His ‘Eureka’.
Just like that, he had found an explanation for this entire nonsense.
He could believe his luck so little that, for the longest time, he said nothing.

This trick, he believed, was what the Americans called an ‘Oklahoma Showup’; In the olden days, it was by far the easiest way to make a witness reliably, efficiently, and of course completely freely, positively identify the suspect of the police’s choice. 
But in these enlightened times, it was also the easiest way to a mistrial. At least, if this thing ever reached the trial stage.

When he came to, Estermann stole a glance at Prosecutor Pierman. The woman was grey with shock. 
She had realised it too, as she should.
He was glad to see that he and she were on the same page.

Devouring Pierman’s shocked expression for a few delightful moments, he took a breath and gazed at the witness.
“And you were, up to that moment,” he made sure, his voice unsteady with poorly suppressed joy, “ignorant of Her Royal Highness’ identity?”

“I… didn’t know who she was.”

“And so… the investigators of the Royal Guard directed you to match the identity of Her Royal Highness, Queen Chrysalis, to the person that you observed on the 13th?” 

“You could… say that?” she stammered, clearly trying hard to figure out what was wrong, and failing.
Estermann loved it when his - or rather, the prosecutor’s - witnesses were blissfully unaware.
Even the ICC probably liked their eyewitnesses a bit more if they didn’t immediately self-destruct.

“Were the other patients in your field hospital asked the same question?”

She gulped.
“The two ponies laying next to me were. Yes.”

He could practically hear the ’bang’ of Pierman’s forehead meeting her desk.

“Madam Witness...” he uttered, now calm as a clam.
He wondered. There was one thing that was still weighing on his mind. Should he bring it up? He didn’t really feel like letting a query so pointless and risky souring his morsel of victory.
But it had been bugging him all day already.
“I would have one last line I would like to pursue before wrapping up this examination.” 

Her ears perked up, hopeful once more.

As he prepared to carry on, he was briefly distracted by a side panel door opening in the back of the courtroom with an unsubtle creak.
Peering over, he saw the tip of a familiar aqua-furred muzzle poke into the room.
When one of the bailiffs stepped in to intercept the would-be-intruder. As he approached the mare in the door and confronted her, she floated a piece of paper over to him with her magic.
Confused, he accepted it, then looked over to Estermann.

Estermann smiled. This must have been Lyra with the inquiries he asked for. He’d certainly mind that in a moment.

“Well… second-to-last query,” he continued, “You maintain the assertion that members of the Trot government and military were affected in their decision-making by a so-called hypnotic trance.”

“I… was only asked to describe how their behaviour changed,” she protested near-automatically. There was no way Pierman hadn’t prepped her for this line of questioning. It had been bordering the fine line of speculation and character evidence from the very moment it was raised.
Estermann took note to exploit the hell out of that.

“In particular, you have pointed out Commander Nock and your friend Cockle as possible victims of this - alleged - attack on these peoples’ very minds.”

“They acted like they were different ponies,” she insisted, “As though their very selves had been expunged.”
Before he could protest, she silenced him with an intent stare.
“It was obvious they were under a magical spell! Even for an… earth pony like myself. Magic isn’t a rare sight at all in Equestria. Not like here!”

“Well, do you have any reason to believe this is the case beyond the fact that their behaviour seemed… uncharacteristic?”

“I...It’s…” she panted, “it’s the only way to find that kind of thing out, isn’t it?”

“Madam Witness. Do civilians and even members of the military, in your experience, have the habit of behaving in a rational, typical everyday manner when confronted with war?”

Her muzzle was frozen in a cramped, uncomfortable grimace.
“What?”

“Is it not true that extraordinary circumstances drive persons to extraordinary behaviour?”

“Of course, yes...”

“Does it seem far-fetched to you that a besieged population would, when confronted with the possibility of war and death and ruination, eschew a violent defence in favour of cooperating with the enemy? Perhaps even try to find solace and solidarity in that fact?”

She sniffed loudly. 
The hooves under her desk trembled, and with them, the creaking wheelchair. She opened her mouth long before words came tumbling out.
This had struck a nerve in her, even more than any of that which came before.

“Are you saying this is why Cockle didn’t want to see me anymore?" she asked back, her voice quickly increasing in volume and intensity, "Why she came to hate me? Because I ran away in terror?”

Estermann shook his head.
“Madam Witness, I am not trying to give credence to the hasty words of a traumatised nine year-old girl-”

“That’s not who she was!” she cried out, so loud that it echoed through the chamber, “They turned her into a husk of what she was in life. They turned fierce warriors and brave leaders to molten wax, before my very eyes! They made them give up the best-fortified city in Equestria without a fight. Walls that were twenty ponies tall, crowded with willing defenders!”

“Yes, against an enemy that was airborne.”

She hesitated.

“Would you consider yourself well-versed in the policies of the government of Trot? Particularly the ones that concern themselves with contingencies in case of a military occupation? Yes or no?”

“No!”

He approached her even closer
“So you chose to interpret what might have probably been perfectly sound, if not ideal, strategic decisions, performed under the extreme psychological duress of the situation, as products of so-called hypnotic manipulation?”

“If… you apply common sense…” she stammered.

“Common sense,” he spat, and stepped even closer. “Did you take what could easily be attributed to stupidity of the victims, and attribute it to the malice of the suspect?”

She turned her head away and sobbed.
“How dare you?”

“Did you interpret the 'hypnotised manipulation’ of Commander Nock and Sloe from their actions alone? Their veneer alone?”
Another step.

She swallowed her sobs, and turned her head back around to face to confront Estermann’s face straight on. What she saw seemed to frighten her.
“Not quite… I… I looked into their eyes.”

“Their eyes?”

“Yes.”

His gaze was involuntarily drawn to her own eyes. They were enormous, sandy yellow and gripped by intense dread, mixed with something that appeared to him to be sudden realisation.
“Aha. And what did their eyes manage to tell you about their… impetus?” he asked, mockingly.

“They shone. Green. Just… just like yours,” she mumbled, gradually fading to silence.

He nodded, in a hollow gesture of comprehension.
“...Aha. Interesting.”

Something made him turn away.
It was a split-second decision, he realised this query was a waste of time. The cross-examination was over.
He had his Oklahoma showup. Witness One was a shambles.
Now he had to move on rapidly. Before Pierman even got a chance to treat the witness as hostile and make everything even more complicated for everyone.

The only things left even linking Chrysalis to Trot now were a grimy, centuries-old four-minute reel film and some scant, dubious mentions in a long-dead language. 
Though… that last part may clear itself up in a matter of moments.

He waved at the bailiff to pass Lyra’s piece of paper onto him.
He and Estermann met at the edge of the well, where Estermann relieved him of the paper with a thankful nod.

“What is that, Mister Estermann?” Suruma asked.

“I apologise, Madam President,” he said as he started skimming Lyra’s less than stellar ’handwriting’.
“I have conducted a brief inquiry relating to contents of Exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h.”

“Is your cross-examination at an end?” Suruma asked him, unamused by the interruption.

He read through the writing as fast as his eyes could comprehend.
There it was. Just as he thought.
He had shot into the dark. And he had actually hit someone.

“Almost. I am at my very last query now.”
Excitedly, he folded the paper away for the moment, then returned back to the witness Floret Oats.
“Madam Witness… Recognising your lack of formal education or expertise in linguistics… How well is your comprehension of Trotish Ponish?”

With a glare of true exhaustion, Floret caressed her neck.
“It used to be better. I haven’t had the chance to speak it fluently in... centuries.”

“Perhaps you could help with this question nevertheless.”
He pointed his finger at the changeling queen. “What would this person’s name be pronounced as in Trotish Ponish?”

Chrysalis gave a big grin as she leaned in to hear the answer.

Floret Oats’ teeth clattered subtly as she summoned her response.
“Chrysa… Chrysa...lissa,” she pronounced unsurely. “Krala Chrysalissa. Krala means “Queen’ or ”‘chieftain’.”
Her eyes flicked around. “But don’t take my word for it!"

Estermann pouted and nodded. It was telling to hear it from her mouth.
“Well. That would be all then, Madam Witness. Thank you for your time.”

Floret closed her eyes, no longer mollified by his deceptive politeness.

Justice Suruma licked her lips, jabbed a full stop on her sheet and signed softly at her co-judges, who gave her equally uncomfortable pouts.

“Now, Madam President,” Estermann continued, “I have received a message from…“ he skimmed the page, “Missus Amarinth, a… research fellow at the Royal Canterlotian University’s Faculty of Ancient Linguistics, and she-”

“Hold your horses, my learned friend, first things first...” Suruma interrupted and tapped on the desk, “Madam Witness, I thank you for your time. Court officer, please remove the witness from the courtroom. Mister Estermann, you will wait.”

An electric pulse went through Floret as she heard one of the ushers approach her box with the wheelchair. 
She glanced over to Chrysalis and seemed to realise something that she didn’t like.

With surprising agility, she climbed off her chair on the wrong side and fled straight into the well.

“Madam Witness, where are you going?” Harshwhinny yelped, but for nought.

Estermann didn’t register something happened until Floret cantered right past him and headed for the defendant’s corner.

Chrysalis’ eyes widened in surprise when she realised that the witness was going straight for her.

“Court officer, please lead the witness out of the courtroom!” Suruma repeated harshly.

The usher tasked with picking her up abandoned the - now clearly superfluous - wheelchair and clumsily attempted to give chase.

Estermann, unsure of what to do, joined in the pursuit.

The other guards, clearly none of whom was trained in stopping a four-legged animal that hardly reached up their pelvises, struggled to cut her off and herd her away from the defendant, but they couldn’t stop her until the elderly mare had reached the other side of Chrysalis’ desk, her head barely a yard away from Chrysalis’ own.
The two equines locked eyes.

Chrysalis eyed the little pony with nervous hilarity usually reserved for tourists dreading an approaching band of gypsy street musicians.

Estermann joined them in time to hear Floret whisper a subdued “You” at her.

An embarrassed, cringing smile bloomed on Chrysalis’ muzzle.

A guard clutched Floret by her wrinkly neck and attempted to steer her away, but she struggled.
“Just tell me one thing, Queen Chrysalis,” she said, “I have waited long to ask this,”

“Well, not here, not now, Madam Witness,” Estermann protested. But then a hoof from Queen Chrysalis silenced him.

“What, dear?” she asked her, sweetly.

Floret yelped as a guard got her by the tail, but she didn’t take her eyes off her.
“My parents… they were called Piarom and Moria. What happened to them?”

Chrysalis raised her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?” she whispered back.

“Madam Witness,” Suruma was heard yelling, “This is highly inappropriate! Remove yourself from the defendant’s corner immediately!”

The old mare struggled against her restraining attempts, but gradually, she found herself being dragged away.
“I’ll forgive you! I will forgive you if you just tell me!”

Chrysalis’ maw opened at the question.
It quickly transformed into an amused laugh.

A second guard got Floret by the chin and forcibly lurched her towards the main exit.

“Please, I never found out!” she begged, now terribly desperate. “They were just gone. Swallowed by the earth!”

The queen arose from her pillow and looked after apprehended mare.
“You want to know what happened to your parents, child?” she made sure. “Piarom? Moria, you said?”

Even as her face was squeezed in the other direction, and her four feet shoved across the floor by human shoes, Floret’s eye stayed on her, and it lit up like a road flare.

Chrysalis left a lavish pause.
Then her mouth cracked into a new smile, even brighter, even less mature.
“I don’t know that. Are you stupid? I wouldn’t remember such a thing!"

The last thing Estermann, Chrysalis and the remaining assembly saw of Floret, as she was dragged out the doors, was her eye scrounging up, then welling up.
And as the officers locked the doors behind her, and the rest of the room held an involuntary moment of silence.
The silence was punctured only by the giggles of Chrysalis herself.

“Wow. That was awkward,” she commented.

Estermann placed both hands on her table and tilted toward her menacingly.
“Jesus Christ, calm yourself, please.”

She replied with an even louder, even more mocking, even more grating bark.
He flinched, less in embarrassment than in sheer horror. 

He noticed Magistrate Fori trembling in anger and baring her teeth, but saying nothing, at the moment.
His dearest friend Colm remained typically silent, though even he had a very unfriendly pout under his nose.
“Enough of that now,” Suruma growled. “Where you left off, Mister Estermann. Get on with it. We’re overdue as is.”

Estermann coughed uncomfortably and looked at his paper. With a heavy heart, he paced away from his client and her increasingly worrisome behaviour.
“Apologies,” he mumbled at the judges, “Uh… Missus Amarinth has put forward a translation of portions of exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h, specifically those that allegedly refer to the suspect directly. And... this translation varies notably from the translation put forward my esteemed colleague, the prosecutor.”

Pierman’s chair creaked as she leaned back in exhaustion and soothingly rubbed her hands all over her face.
The page fluttered as he laid it on his desk
“As we have discussed before, the original files featured in exhibits 2e, 2f and 2h make frequent mention of a certain individual. If I may be so bold as to attempt to pronounce it in its original Trotish Ponish...”
He concentrated on the phonetic noises Lyra had helpfully, if somewhat sloppily, taken down for him at the very bottom edge. He was impressed that this Trotish Ponish language was even pronuncible to human mouths. But so was French. And the Equestrians’ French connection had to crop up somewhere else, he reasoned to himself.
“‘Krala... Hesale’,” he mouthed, and raised his eyebrows. 
“Well, the prosecution has chosen to interpret this name as ‘Queen Chrysalis - an easy assumption to make - but Missus Amarinth, while conducting her independent translation attempt, could not confirm this translation. At every mention of Krala Hesale, she consequently reached the meaning...” He held his piece of scrap paper up for effect, “‘Chieftain Hazel’. Krala Hesale means ‘Chieftain Hazel’.”

The judges and the assembly stared at him in silent dumbfoundedness.
Pierman’s eyes squinted at him in disbelief, but her open mouth threatened to swallow Estermann whole.

“Who’s that?” Lexy Fori asked into the room, her voice weak.

Now, who was this Chieftain Hazel, Estermann himself wondered. But that was another question for another time.

At some point, Suruma mustered her strength and cleared her throat.
“And… this interpreter you are citing, Missus... Amarinth, is it?”

“Yes, Madam President. I will formally submit a full report to the court at the next opportunity!”

She scratched her jaw.
“She is a research fellow at the faculty?”

He begged that Lyra hadn’t made a mistake here.
“Indeed.”

“The same faculty that, to Missus Pierman, has confirmed the official translation of the with utmost certainty that ‘Krala Hesale’ does in fact translate to ‘Queen Chrysalis’?”

He really hoped Lyra hadn’t done something stupid here.
“It seems so.”

All eyes turned towards Pierman, who stared back with wild pleading eyes.

“Missus Pierman… Who was in charge of your translation efforts at the faculty?”

She dabbed her face with her handkerchief.
“I will have to… confer with the Dean to find out the exact composition of staff.”
Her hand shook, “But may I remind the court that, regardless of the second translation’s supposed merits, the first translation was certified by the Dean himself? It was found to be in-keeping with all professional standards and scientific rigour.”
She followed up with an expression that said, 'Not so sure about yours.'

Suruma nodded and looked at Estermann.
“My learned friend, to what conclusion does your competing translation lead the defence, in light of this?”

He grinned victoriously.
“It certainly proves that the implication of my client in the Trot attack on the basis of the evidence of Trotish origin is, to put it mildly, controversial. Maybe the first translation is accurate.“ 
Theatrically, he shrugged. ”But maybe it’s completely erroneous. Certification or not; If the very meaning of the words in these writs are still up for serious scientific debate, then how on earth can they serve to prove my client’s culpability anywhere near the boundaries of reasonable doubt? How can this court justify charging Her Royal Highness for a crime as serious as a war crime over something as trivial as a misquote? A clerical error?”
He lowered his eyebrows meaningfully. “The answer is that... it cannot. Pre-trial exists for exactly this reason, to weed out evidence that isn’t up to snuff.”
He pointed his piece of paper at his counterpart. “We have seen very similar deficiencies crop up in the prosecution’s evidence the previous hearing, in their utilisation of transparent anti-Changeling propaganda, and indeed…” he laughed mockingly, “even in the initial appearance hearing, in their use of some embarrassing - yet potentially grave - spelling errors.”
He held up his hands in feigned modesty. “Now, I do not presume to know what is ‘going on’ over there, but there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with the case that is being constructed against my client - not with my esteemed colleagues of the prosecution, per se, but with their prime benefactor in their attempts to implicate the Queen in these crimes:”
He smiled at Lexy Fori. “The Equestrian State.”
He combed his hair back.
“The testimony of the prosecution’s Witness One speaks for itself! She has just now described to us, in damning detail, a successful attempt of the official investigators of the Equestrian crown to hoist a very distinct version of events upon her.” 
He held up a finger, ”By asking this nine year-old survivor, days after the fact, if it was Queen Chrysalis she saw leading the attackers that day, they consciously steered her towards the statement that, why yes, she did indeed! With their carefully selected queries, these so-called professional investigators have prejudiced the young girl in the most blatantly corrupt and frivolous manner.”
He cocked his head to the side enthusiastically. “It would be fitting to say that her words today were, for all intents and purposes, not her own… but rather those of Queen Chrysalis’ greatest geopolitical adversary - a nation that would have a vested interest in characterising her as a mad aggressor.”
The words, ‘Princess Celestia’ teetered on his lips. But he thought better of it. Lest he worked himself into something that he would actually have to prove.

Pierman looked appropriately defeated, even though she fumed at her nose.
The fight was gone. She was clearly wishing for this moment to end. Now.

He loved to have torn into Pierman’s ‘four scarab’ footage as well, but he knew that he was insufficiently prepared. Next time, perhaps. For the interim, he knew he would have to rely on everyone else getting hung up the exhibit’s sheer shoddiness factor. Were he a judge, he would do just that.

“Shut up!” a shrill, piercing voice screamed into the room.

Estermann flinched so hard that his heart got out of its step.

Like a soldier looking for the gunman that had just riddled him, he looked around for the heckler.
His eyes settled on Magistrate Lexy Fori, who had pulled off her cap off magistrate’s cap in frustration and was now standing up, bending over her desk so far that he had to wonder whether she would fall down the front side any moment.

He tried to shake the shock out of and some appropriate offence into himself, when it occurred to him that she wasn’t looking at him.
It was at that moment that he registered the soft, rhythmic clip-clops of hooves, punctuated by rustling chains.

He turned with dread to see his queen applauding him, and in an inappropriately sarcastic golf clap at that.
He muzzle was marked by an enormous bursting grin. The biggest one since recordings began.

“Oh? What’s the matter?” she asked. “I’m giving my lawyer his due. He worked so very hard just now.. That's 'thinking on your hooves' for you.”

Even as Lexy fumed loudly, and Pierman fumed silently, Suruma took a deep breath and coolly took the helm back.
“Well, seeing how your jokes are becoming something of a bad habit now, I’ll gladly intervene. Your Highness, I’m removing you from the courtroom.”

Estermann helplessly bated his breath.
There it was. Just when things were going good, she had to overdo it.
Just what in God’s name was going on with the Queen the last couple of minutes?

Whatever it was, Chrysalis hadn’t had enough.
“You’re removing me?!” she exclaimed in mock disbelief, “Who do you think you are?! This is my trial. You're all here because of me! I am Chrysalis, and I can do whatever I feel like."

“We can carry on without you,” Suruma countered coldly, “Disrespectful behaviour won’t be tolerated in this courtroom, Your Highness.”

“You tolerated it for three days now, you clown,” she laughed, “And believe me, I am growing more sick of it than anypony else.”

That put Estermann’s hair on end. He whirled around and practically sprinted towards her desk.
The guards standing behind the bellowing queen couldn’t do more than glare at the back of her head in contempt.

“Court officer, lower the curtains, cut the microphone. We’re adjourning!” Suruma declared, clearly having reached the tail end of her tether.

“You should also be showing us a bit more appreciation for Alexander’s efforts, President!” she demanded, “He’s doing something you couldn’t do. The impossible!" She pounded against her chest with pride. "Absolving me!”

Estermann slapped both his open palms down on the desktop so hard that it numbed them instantaneously. But that didn’t tickle as much a tired glance out of the queen.
“I beg you, for God’s sake! Shut up! Shut up!” he hissed at her, much louder than he intended.

She locked eyes with him.
“No no no. Sit down. Be a good drone. Your queen is talking.”

And just like that, his mouth dried up. His piling thoughts of all the words he wanted to say just about now seized. His ears buzzed. His skin prickled at a sudden cold sensation.
From one moment to the next, the unbearable weight of her command slammed down on him like a descending ceiling. 
Following a sudden urge, his knees, gave in. He sank onto the tiled wood floor by the desk's edge and plopped down on his robe. His expensive brogues' heels, still caked in the sand and mud of the beaches, dug into the long black cloth as his legs twisted, involuntarily, into a grounded boy's cross-legged seat.

A guard was at his side in an instant, placing a wary hand on his shoulder. But even through the guard’s muffled calls for attention, Estermann only had ears for the words of his queen and  that of her partners in conversation.

“Listen up, changeling!” he could hear Lexy Fori’s shrill voice yelling, “Unless you want to say something along the lines of ’I dunnit’, why don’t you just do as you’re told?”

“Tough words, little one. You want me to confess? Is that the only way you will listen?” Queen Chrysalis asked rhetorically. “With my lawyer to going to such crazy lengths to pronounce me innocent, yet you want my confession?”

“Yeah,” Fori exclaimed in challenge.

“Fine! I hate ruining it all, I really do!” she laughed. “I confess. I did it! I did it all, my little pony! Guilty as charged. In all counts! Forever and ever and ever! ...What are you going to do now? Go home? Did I just put you out of a job?”
He could feel her enormous head towering above his own.
“Sorry, Alexander. I couldn’t resist.”

He just wanted to be done with this nightmare and wake up already. His mind screamed for him to clasp his ears shut so it wouldn't have to listen to this. But his body had already taken its orders elsewhere.