//------------------------------//
// Sol - Efficiency in the Workplace 
// Story: The Forging of Harmony 
// by The Sweezlenub 
//------------------------------//

	It had been over twenty-four hours since Sol’s, Teydin’s, and the Professor’s arrest. And by this time they had thoroughly exhausted their supply of things to say to one another. Teydin had drifted off into quietude, sleeping on occasion and muttering to himself at most all times regardless of his state of consciousness. The Professor stared transfixed at the wall. His eye twitched. His gaze seemed to be making a deliberate point of avoiding everything it could. Especially the vibrant and glaring poster, which clearly terrified him. Sol had not slept. She was utterly distraught. She could not be exiled. She couldn’t. Thoughts of being disowned by the city and of banishment from the haven it provided danced in her head. Her thoughts spun dizzily around. They would not stand still long enough for her to think them. At the same time her body was physically exhausted and flooded with sickening adrenaline. How badly she wanted to sleep but could not.
Soon thereafter footsteps began to resound in corridor beyond the cell door. They marched in step. They belonged to guards, Sol quietly presumed. By the sound of them a prisoner did not seem to present in the guards’ company. This was the end of the line. Sol bid farewell to the cell, which she was sure she  would not see again. A farewell to the city at large was more than she could bear.
The light hum generated by the magically reinforced cell door, which in their lengthy stay was all but completely forgotten by the triad of prisoners, briefly revisited Sol’s mind as it vanished. The new silence was dead and grim. This is the end of the line. It seemed to say. the cell door was pushed aside. Four stone-faced guards stood beyond it. The farthest forward motioned to them. He spoke one word:
“Come.”
This is the end. Thought Sol.


* * *


The Inquisitors sat behind a great stone desk. There were five of them, barely visible as Sol looked up from the Pedestal of the Accused, which was brightly lit by the same sort of magical lantern she had seen in their cell. All stared solemnly down at Sol, Teydin, and The Professor. Sol was wracked with nervousness, and surrounded by thick darkness. They already seemed to be coming to decisions as they scribbled notes in the journals in front of them. That couldn’t be a good sign.
There was nowhere to sit on the Pedestal. Sol was certain that this was a deliberate tactic used to put those on trial off-balance: to make them feel insecure.  She shifted her weight as her legs and hooves grew weary of standing. At any rate, the setup was ideal for the Inquisitors, who, sitting comfortably up in their viewing box, could see every detail of their subjects and their nervous mannerisms.
The Professor seemed to be faring rather badly. He tapped one hoof as glanced shiftily about, every few minutes giving the viewing box a nervous grin. Sweat glistened on his mustard brow.
“I’ve got this in the bag,” he said to Sol in a manner that would have been more reassuring if his eyes weren’t wide and twitching with anxiety.
Teydin, too, looked troubled. Sol followed his gaze to the wall, which, like seemingly every wall they had seen so far, was bedecked with a few of the same terrible posters. The nearest displayed a pile of burning scrolls, labelled with such titles as TRUTH 1.0, TRUTH 1.1, and TRUTH 1.5. Imposed on the poster itself were the words TRUTH 2.0. The second poster was dimly entitled JUSTICE, and from where she was standing, Sol could faintly make out the image of prison bars. Who was making these?
After what seemed an eternity of painful silence, the foremost Inquisitor muttered something to one of her cohorts, who nodded awkwardly. Looking down on the defendants, she spoke.
“Who are you?”
Sol was puzzled. “Inquisitor, I am Sol, an Initiate at the College. These are my friends, Teydin Lifechord and Professor--”
“--Professor Turvis Windfall.” The Professor broke in. “Not a traitor.” He added. Sol glared at him. “Ah, yes.” He quickly misinterpreted. “Neither is she.”
“Hm.” Said the Inquisitor. Sol saw her look down. She seemed to be rifling through papers. “Yes.” She said after inspecting something for several seconds.
“You’re correct.” Her cohort revised. “We were just checking.”
The panel murmured their concord.
“We have convened,” she began imperiously, "To provide these defendants, who must now, in the face of punishment appropriate for, to be succinct,” the Inquisitor paused. “The crimes they may or may not have committed, a chance to defend their innocence.”
“Quite.” Said her colleague. He then whispered something to the Head Inquisitor, who shook her head, shrugging.
“Hey!” Said Teydin. “We can see you!”
“Yes.” She said distractedly. She shuffled her papers ominously. “Well?”
“‘Well’ what?” Sol challenged.
“Defend your innocence!” Commanded the Inquisitor.
“Of what?!” Sol mustered.
A spark of understanding glinted in Teydin’s eye. “If you’ve nothing to accuse us of, why wouldn’t you just release us?”
The panel stared down at them in terrible silence. A few glanced from eye to eye. 
Their bluff called, the panel frantically tore through their papers. Maybe they’re just blank, thought Sol. The commotion stopped.
“A-ha!” Cried the Inquisitor on the far left, holding up the elusive document. “Of treason!”
Sol gulped, breaking her stare at the panel. It was over. Banishment was unavoidable.
“What say you?” Asked the Head Inquisitor shrewdly. “Do you deny this claim?!”
Sol looked up. She realized something then. Something that in her fear of exile she’d overlooked: that the charges weren’t worth denying. She had lived a lie for nineteen pony-years and she realized then that she could never live it again. The others could stay. She would try as hard as she could to give them that choice. But she could never return that the life she had been living. Not now.
“I am guilty.” Said the blush-haired pony. “The others are not, but I am.”
She gazed fiercely up at the panel. “I throw myself at your mercy. Do what you will.”
The gaze returned to her was colder than the blizzard outside. She was doomed to this cold, for she knew the word that would surely come next. Exile, she thought. I’ll be forsaken to the mercy of the winter. But she didn’t mind anymore. There were no more answers here.
“So am I.” Came the unexpected words. Teydin stood resolutely at her side.
“I’m not.” Said the Professor, standing stoically in step.
Resigned to their fate, the three stood to face the coming judgement.
“Okay.”  She glanced down at the papers in front of her. “Exile. Well, I’m famished. Let’s get out of here.” She glanced around at her companions, who nodded their consent.
“What?” Cried the Professor. “Why?!”
“You’re exiled.” She said. “Looks better, you know, a clean exile. Better for bookkeeping.”
“Your things will be gathered from your homes,” she said. “You will be deposited with them outside city limits. Your city passports will be marked as invalid. You are no longer citizens. Good day.”
She rose from her seat, as did the rest of the panel, and left. A door that neither Sol, nor Teydin, nor the Professor could see closed with a snap.


* * *




The guards trundled the trepid trinity of truthful traitors from the room of the treason trial. They were forced down the hall wherefrom they had entered the Monastery of Justice, out the portcullis at its end, and into the maelstrom of burning ice. The guards kept constant step. They were led through the twisting back roads, through winding alleyways, past the domiciles of those who still kept their citizenship, and through the city Sol knew and loved and which had been her home for her entire life, until they emerged in the city square. Exile. She thought sadly. Why didn’t I deny the charges? She wondered. She had thrown away everything for spite and pride. And now she would suffer the consequences. Worse yet, Teydin was taking this fall with her. And so was the Professor, an innocent stallion. He was an irritating teacher, sure, but it was now her fault that he would never see his home again: that he, like her, would be banished from Stormchant for the remainder of his days. It was her fault. It was all her fault.
They were dumped unceremoniously outside the city wall, which stood, strong, fierce, and cold, against the elements and presently against them. The guards returned shortly to grant them what possessions could be easily carried. The rest, Sol supposed, would be burned.
The three remained outside the gates in utter shock. The entirety of each of their lives, save for odd trips mostly having to do with education about the outside world--which really just served to demonstrate its existence for future reference--had been spent within the confines of Stormchant’s colossal outer bulwarks. This new world, though it had always been around them, was completely foreign to them. With nowhere to go, they simply stood motionless outside the gates. They stood that way until the sky began to darken, fading the snow around them to a peaceable grey.
In the growing darkness Sol wondered if Rose knew about their trial and subsequent exile. She must, Sol imagined. The news must be all over the clergy by now. She couldn’t stand to think of Rose, and what she now must think of her. Much less could she bear to comprehend that Rose, too, had been fabricating the truth for as long as the rest of them. The thought, which ever since her arrest had leaked into her mind from time to time, made her feel queasy.
Teydin had sat down in the snow some time ago. He was gazing down, his possessions, of which there were very few, were gathered around him, strewn where the guards had thrown them. He seemed to be inspecting something. With a closer look, Sol saw that he was reading a scrap of parchment on the ground in front of him. He looked intrigued. Before Sol could ask what he was doing, he called to her.
“Sol?” His voice had a strangely excited quality. “I think you’d better see this.” He glanced up.
“What is it?”
“The manuscripts.” He said breathlessly. “Come, look.”
Sol sat in the snow beside him. The Professor, too, perhaps simply to have something to occupy his mind, ambled over to see what this fuss was about.
“These diagrams.” Spoke the pony with the deep, sea-green mane. “Look.”
Inscribed in cracked black ink on the clearly archaic parchment was a diagram of an unusually large pony surrounded by many others. Based on her proportions, Sol presupposed that this pony was a female. It was apparent that she was in a position of power over her fellows, for those who encircled this mighty specimen seemed to be bowing their heads in reverence. The central pony was the only one with a horn, but all had wings.  Sol noticed that they seemed to be standing on clouds.
“Pegasi.” She read from the old Equush laced around the document. “Heralds of snow and thunder.”
Teydin nodded. “There’s more.” He indicated the deity featured on the page. “Look what she’s doing.”
And Sol saw. “It can’t be.”  She mumbled, taken aback by what she saw. A ray of brilliant light was drawn arching from the unicorn-pegasus’ horn and toward--
“--The sun.” Teydin finished her thought.
It was impossible, surely. Sol thought wildly. Just myth, superstition. Not real.
Teydin smiled. “It’s signed: Dashing, Delving, Dynamo.”
Sol’s eyes widened. The Professor forgot to look skeptical. Teydin’s grin broadened.
“And there’s a map.”