After seeing the lush forests and green fields of the other world, our own grey wasteland seemed far more depressing. Not that the remnants of our homes had ever been heartening, but the reminder of how much we’d lost had reopened the wound. The two worlds mirrored one another: theirs was vibrant, in-motion, and alive; ours was faded, still, and dead. The wasteland that was our home was like a perfectly preserved corpse, and now after so much time and effort we had brought our world’s murders back to face justice.
At least now we finally had something to bring us a measure of comfort. I turned my gaze to the captured villains, still bound within my sleeping spell. Rainbow had seen to binding their hooves, and the rings of layered adamantine and cold iron on their horns should do the same for their magic. Healing their wounds had been simple enough, though it felt strange to do so when they’d soon be executed.
After all the time we’d spent trying to capture Twilight and Starlight, I would have thought I would have felt ... happier? It was hard to describe.
I was to some degree satisfied with having completed our objectives. The battle had been a bit messier than I would have liked—the defenders had put up a harder fight than we expected, but well within acceptable parameters. But I didn’t think that was bothering me. I’d experienced my share of messy fights back when I’d been alive, but after many of those fights I’d still felt ... something that was missing here. Euphoria perhaps? The rush that came with facing death while fighting a dangerous opponent and coming out on top. Back when I’d been alive, defeating an opponent like Twilight Sparkle would have given me a massive adrenaline rush, like when I’d beaten Heritor Azurite or Chrysalis. But I hadn’t gotten that in my current form.
Maybe that feeling that came with triumph had been lost alongside so many other things upon becoming a lich. I no longer had the range of chemical reactions in my brain that came with being a flesh-and-blood pony. No adrenaline, endorphins, or dopamine to make my blood pump to give me the rush of combat. There were a great many sensations I missed from when I’d been alive: the warmth of the morning sun on my skin, the taste from the first sip of a hot cup of coffee, the comfort of a warm embrace from someone that cares about you... All lost to me.
Knowing what I would lose was among the reasons why I had been so reluctant to transform myself into my current form. I was now a soul within a shell, now missing many of the things that had made me a pony. But I had turned myself into a lich, borne the weight of my continued, unceasing existence to make sure my world got justice, and that its murderers paid for what they did. And the day of reckoning had finally, at long last, arrived.
I meditated on these thoughts and others as we followed a path along Mt. Avalon. We were making our way to a very specific spot for our guests. We had been planning for this moment for a very long time, and we weren't about to waste it.
Rarity floated up to me on a magic disk shaped in the form of a sunburst. She had suffered significant injuries during the battle, and she was using the disk until I could fully heal her. My magic had been badly depleted by the battle, and I needed time to recover before I could properly heal something as complicated as the burn wounds Rarity had suffered.
A small, pleased smile creased Rarity’s lips as she half talked to herself. “I simply can’t wait for the trial. We’ve just been planning for it for so long. We’ll get you all cleaned up and make you look fabulous, Your Majesty. Oooh, now comes the hard decisions: what to have you wear for the trial? I was never able to decide which dress you should wear, and then there's all the jewelry that I've collected to go with all of them. So many tough choices, and you simply must look stunning for the big day.”
We must have discussed what I was going to wear for the trial thousands of times by now. This included me going through the process of measuring, looking through different designs, and watching the sewing of the outfit itself. I had gone through the process so many times by this point I was pretty sure I could do it all by myself. But such things were important to Rarity, and with there not being much to do, I went along with it without complaint.
“Something regal and dignified,” I answered, knowing she wanted a response. In truth, I had already picked out the exact outfit I wanted to wear a long time ago, but no sense denying Rarity her moment to shine. It was something I could give her, even if it felt far too little for the pony that had stood by my side for all this time. Forever loyal, always attending me, one of my eternal companions. There were times I wondered if her devotion was more than mere friendship, but I doubted either of us still were still capable of such feelings.
A spark of concern flashed inside of me, and I cast a spell to examine Rarity. With my magic having recovered a little bit, I repaired some of the damage to Rarity’s body. It wasn’t as much as I would have liked to do, but it was a start. “I'm working on repairs,” I told her, “but it's going to take time. The damage is extensive, and fire wounds are the hardest to heal for an undead.”
It probably said something that Rarity’s hoof went to her bandaged cheek instead of the mass of bandages wrapped around her barrel. “Just as long as we can keep these wounds from scarring. I don't want to endure eternity disfigured.”
Rainbow’s ear flicked and she shot an annoyed look Rarity’s way. “Yeah, because that's the biggest thing we need to worry about right now. Never mind that we’re dead, our whole world is dead, and we’ve finally brought the ones responsible to justice—but yikes and goodness me, Rarity might get a scar!”
Rarity scoffed. “Well some of us think our appearance is important. I’ve lost almost everything else I ever loved, Rainbow, I can at least keep this one small thing.” She let out a slightly haughty sniff. “Really, you could stand to do a bit more with your own looks.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Seems kinda dumb with me being a super zombie.”
“Hardly so.” Rarity tossed her mane as best she could under the circumstances—the effect was somewhat lost when part of her mane had been severed, with the ends being charred. “It might not be much, but looking good is an important step along the path to feeling good. Besides, now that we've got Starlight and Twilight, we could always have Rising change you from your current form into something a bit less ... utilitarian.”
Rainbow shrugged and mumbled something noncommittal under her breath.
“There are many possibilities that we can explore,” I responded. “Though that all depends on whether or not Rainbow wants to change.”
After a long enough silence to feel awkward, Rainbow shrugged again. “Maybe.” She didn’t say anything else for a while, and considering she’d barely even bothered with token bickering with Rarity, I suspected there was something on her mind. A moment later she confirmed it. “Hey, the ponies we left back at the castle are gonna be okay right? The other Rainbow was really hurt, and we left Cloud, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and everyone else at the castle in the middle of a big dangerous forest. Doesn’t seem all that safe.”
Ah, so that was what she was worried about. “They’ll be fine. We stabilized the wounded, and had plenty of uninjured internees who could help get them back to town, not to mention I set up a spell to signal their location once we left.”
“Okay then. Because...” Rainbow struggled before putting her thoughts into words. “Could we... could we go back there someday? Once we’ve gotten Twilight and Starlight to spill the beans on what they did, everypony is bound to believe we’re the good guys. I mean, we’ve got all that evidence around that proves they did it. We can give that to them, too.”
I took a moment to carefully consider my response. “I doubt any of them would believe any confession Twilight and Starlight gave after they'd been in our custody. Everypony back there was convinced that these two were innocent, and were willing to fight for them. Most likely if we ever go back they'll attack us regardless of whatever proof we might have.”
It was probably worse than that, if I was being honest. There were several ponies in the other world who might come to rescue our prisoners, and failing that, seek vengeance for what we had done. If I knew myself, it was only a matter of time until I looked into this incident and probably did something about it. Celestia would almost certainly launch a rescue mission or retaliatory strike as well. If there was one thing Mom—the other world’s Celestia always took seriously, it was the protection of her subjects. She wouldn’t let some foreign enemy attack her ponies without some kind of reprisal.
And if they did come... I could never raise my hoof against Celestia. The same went for Kukri, and from there the list seemed to keep growing. Even my alternate self ... I’d fought her before, but I could never kill her. After all, what did I have to fight for once my murdered world had its justice? I would give all the evidence of Twilight and Starlight’s crimes to whoever showed up, and they would believe me ... or they would not. Then what would come would come.
“Oh.” Rainbow’s ears wilted. “That sucks. I was kinda hoping...” She kicked a rock on the path. “Forget it.”
I winced. Rainbow was one of my only two companions in this wasteland, and had been an ever loyal friend through these long, hopeless years. She deserved so much better than she had gotten. I wished I could do more for her, give her the opportunity to be with her friends and family again, to show everypony how amazing she was.
But I couldn’t. All I could do was give her a sliver of the justice she deserved by punishing the ones responsible for all her pain.
“Rainbow...” Rarity floated over to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “It'll be okay. With Twilight and Starlight about to be taken care of, Rising will be able to concentrate on fixing our world. Just give it some time, and everything will get better. Isn't that right, Rising?”
“Of course.” That lie came so easily and automatically that it sickened me to my core. I’d given up on fixing our world while I was still alive. It was no small part of why I’d been willing to die until I learned about Sombra, and then Starlight and Twilight. There were just too many hurdles to overcome: the oceans being time-locked, all the wildlife being dead, almost no plant life outside of what little we’d preserved near Canterlot—the list went on and on and on. Too many insurmountable problems with too few resources.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell my companions the truth, though I was pretty sure they both knew deep down. There were just two fragile hopes that kept us going: that we would make those who murdered our world pay and that someday we would fix our world. What type of life would I give my friends if all they had to live for was vengeance? What if the knowledge that our world could never be reforged made them reckless during the battle to capture Twilight and Starlight? Not to mention what it meant for our future, now that we had finally brought the murderers to justice. I could never carry on without them.
Back before we’d learned about Sombra, Rainbow and Rarity had been about as close to suicidal as an undead could get. And ... well I had plenty of magical knowledge I could have used to stave off death, but hadn’t been in any hurry to use it. Then we’d found that thin little thread of hope, purpose, and meaning in our lives. I couldn’t take that away from them now.
Perhaps the enemies we’d made capturing Twilight and Starlight would make the whole issue moot. If we didn’t have anything left to live for, was it really that bad if we ended up finally dying? It would be nice to see Celestia again, even if it was only long enough for her to finally deliver my long-delayed death.
A wistful smile tugged at Rainbow’s lips. “It was so nice to be someplace with actual wind and weather, where I could smell the flowers and freshly mowed grass, hear the birds singing, and ... I miss those things. Everything here is just so ... Grey.”
“‘Still’ might be the word you're searching for,” Rarity murmured.
“Yeah. It was ... nice to see a living world again.” Though it had also been a painful reminder of just how much we had lost. After so many years I’d almost forgotten. “At least now we have finally brought the ones responsible for all this death to justice.”
Rainbow finally managed a smile at that. “This has been a long time coming.”
“Too right it has,” Rarity agreed. “It took us a long time and they put up quite the fight, but time was the one thing we possessed in abundance. So many years of planning ... and now at last we can put an end to it.”
I nodded as we reached our destination, a cliffside overlooking the land of what had once been Equestria. “Now let us wake up our criminals.” I cast a spell to cancel the sleep spell over Twilight and Starlight. They both slowly stirred, and their eyes fluttered as they started taking in the sights around them.
Starlight groaned as she looked up at me. “I'm not sure which is worse: the nightmare I was just in or the one I woke up into.”
“Welcome to the ruins you created.” I motioned to the frozen wasteland stretched out below us, its dead landscape with frozen waters and forests and a still sky extending out to the whole world.
Twilight stared out at the wasteland of her making. “This is horrible!”
Starlight blinked as she stared before she pulled her gaze from the wasteland with a shake of her head. “Don't believe them Twilight, they're just crazy undead monsters. Whatever happened here didn't have anything to do with us.”
“Oh, but it did. While we attacked your palace we even found the means you used to achieve it.” I conjured up an illusion of the crystalline map that sat at the center of Twilight’s palace. “The missing piece of the puzzle that let you break the laws of space and time to destroy our world. It's a touch of irony that it was our world's Twilight Sparkle who found the first evidence of your visit. To be honest, when I heard reports from the local apple farm about a time traveling alicorn we assumed it was just a crazy story, probably from a pony that had enjoyed her own cider a little too much one night. We were just looking for something simple to help boost our Twilight's confidence up so she could start serving on the front lines against Sombra, but she gave us our first clue to find you.”
Starlight scoffed and rolled her eyes. “What are you even talking about? That doesn’t make any sense at all! Just more of the same insane rambling because your brains are all rotted away. In order to make the Map dangerous you would have to do something it wasn’t even intended for like use it as a source of magic to do a powerful time travel spell so that you can change the past for revenge against an enemy.” She blinked a couple of times. “Which has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.”
Twilight stared at her accomplice as her eyes slowly widened. “Oh no, it couldn’t be...”
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“When you tried to use time travel to change the past, could it be that... Argh!” Twilight rubbed her temple. “No, it couldn’t have worked that way, could it? When you tried to change the past it was only supposed to change our world's timeline—it couldn't have split off entirely different dimensions. Or it shouldn’t have. That's...” Her head whipped from side to side as though to clear her thoughts. “But how?! I studied Starswirl’s spell and how you modified it, it shouldn't have done ... this!” She waved at the wasteland below us.
“Now do you realize what you've done?” I demanded.
Starlight narrowed her eyes at me, though I could hear a note of panic in her voice. “No, no, nonono. We couldn't have done something this big. I was only trying to change our timeline, not create entirely different dimensions. I did time travel, what does that have to do with other dimensions? This has to be a lie, or a mistake. You’re crazy, all of you!I can’t be responsible for any of this! This is too big to be my fault!”
Twilight's eyes flicked back and forth, and I could see the gears turning in her head. “How did you figure out we were responsible? You must have collected data if you’re so sure. Where is it?”
What were they up to? Twilight had refused to admit to her crimes, even when it had just been between the two of us. It was possible those two had come up with a cover story for their crimes that would make them seem innocent of what they had done. They might even hope to use our evidence against us to try and confuse us. Why else would they want to examine our proof? Well I wasn’t about to fall for their tricks.
“All of that will be covered during your trial,” I informed them. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to wait long.”
“Please.” Twilight struggled against her bonds to get closer to me. “I need to see your evidence. I need to figure out what happened.”
Rarity snorted. “As Her Majesty said: at the trial.”
Twilight’s frowned, but a second later her ears perked up. “Wait! If this is an honest trial, then we have to go through discovery! I’ve handled enough legal matters to know it’s a vital part of the trial process. If you want this to be a fair trial, you have to turn all your evidence over to me, and give me time to examine it and make my own case.”
“And I'd like a lawyer.” Starlight glowered at me. “And a judge who isn't biased against me. It’s not exactly a fair trial if one of my accusers is also the judge.”
Rainbow frowned before looking up at me. “We did tell everypony we’d give them a fair trial.”
If my face had been capable of grimacing, it would have. We had told everyone that. It was one of the ways we’d hoped would convince the people of the other world to give Twilight and Starlight over. Besides, I wanted to show these two the full breadth of their crimes. Let them try and argue against the iron clad proof we had. They might just be trying to play for time, but it would be in vain in the end.
“Very well, we'll let you review the evidence against you.” I turned my gaze to Starlight. “As for a lawyer or judge, due to exceptional circumstances we have a limited selection of both.” I raised my hoof and slowly moved it as though to present my companions. “What you have before you is the population of our world, and I don’t think either of them are going to give you the vigorous defense you desire.”
Rarity’s smirk showed her fangs. “I’m going to be the prosecuting attorney.”
Rainbow crossed her legs over her chest. “And I’m not gonna defend you, so forget it.”
I swore I could hear Starlight grind her teeth together. “You kidnapped us, you can kidnap a good lawyer and judge. Or hay, just ask! Somepony from our world will want to defend us.”
If I could have rolled my eyes I would have. I wasn’t going to be playing their games. “None of them are licensed to practice law here.” I narrowed my eyes. “Not to mention I’m sure you’re just hoping to use that as an excuse to get a rescue party to follow you here. Don't test my patience.”
Twilight rubbed her chin, then looked up. “Then I request a special exemption given the unique circumstances of our case. If you're a judge and the local ruler, under Article XXXVI of the Equestrian Law Code, you can grant an exemption to allow a lawyer to practice law even when they don’t have a license. Especially in circumstances when a public defender is unavailable.”
I vaguely remembered that being the case under Equestrian law, even if I didn’t remember the exact law code Twilight referred to. But I wasn’t about to make myself look foolish in front of her by having to look it up. Besides, it didn’t change anything. “Granted.” Twilight and Starlight smiled and some do the tension left their shoulders, but then I announced, “And since Twilight seems so knowledgeable about the law, she can serve as your defense attorney.”
“Oh.” Starlight’s ears wilted.
Twilight scowled at her. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Starlight.”
Starlight blinked and then put on a smile that was strained at the edges. “I mean—great! I couldn't ask for a better lawyer given the circumstances.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head. “At least we’ll have some time for discovery.”
“You'll have time to review the evidence, yes,” I said. “Not too long, though. We require a speedy trial, in case your friends try anything to rescue you.”
Twilight glowered at me. “Alright then, the sooner you get me the evidence the better.”
I summoned up mounds of paperwork—the stacks and stacks of evidence we had gathered of their crimes were piled in front of the criminals. “Twenty four hours.”
Twilight blinked as her gaze swept over everything she had to go through. “I have to go through all of this and you’re only giving me a day? And I have to build a case?! You’re not even giving me the time and resources to corroborate this evidence or do my own investigation!”
Rarity let out a lady-like sniff. “It’s more than you gave your victims.”
Twilight groaned buried her face in her hooves. “That’s not how the justice system is supposed to work! You’re not supposed to just go in with the assumption of guilt, and you’re giving yourself a massively unfair advantage by having given yourself all the time in the world to go over this stuff while I’ve only got a day.”
I tired of her complaining. “I’ve made my decree and it is final. Twenty four hours, and then we proceed with the trial.”
Twilight sighed and her ears wilted as she stared at all the material she had to go through. “I don't suppose you have any coffee here?”
Rarity flashed her a smile intended to mock her. “But darling, what need have the dead for coffee?”
“Maybe just to enjoy the taste?” Twilight grumbled.
Rainbow frowned and slowly shook her head. “Seems like we oughta at least give them enough time and energy to come up with something. This is supposed to be as fair of a trial as we can make it, right?”
She wasn’t wrong. Very well then, If they were so worried that they were going to sleep away their last remaining hours I could do something about that. So I cast a spell that infused them with an extra burst of necromantic energy. “That should keep you going.”
Starlight shivered and shied away from me. “Thanks...”
Twilight frowned as she fumbled with some of the papers. “Um, could we get a little help with this? I'm not used to only using my hooves for work like this.”
With another spell I sent away the evidence. “We'll be heading back to the palace. Rarity's staff will take you to your cells, and you can prepare your case there.”
Starlight let out a huff. “Great, more time sitting in a dungeon. Exactly what I wanted. So are these actually nice dungeons, or the wet, moldy, only furnishings is a rusty bucket dungeon?”
“Canterlot's dungeons,” I announced. I wanted them close, after all, and the Canterlot dungeons had long ago been prepped for their arrival.
“At least the Canterlot dungeons are nice.” Starlight pressed her lips together as she thought those words over. “I've seen way too many dungeons in my life.”
“Look at the bright side then, darlings,” Rarity said in a cheery voice. “It’s the last dungeon you’ll ever have to see.”
We hadn’t used Canterlot’s throne room since ... actually, I don’t think I’d ever really used it. I’d never wanted to inherit Equestria, and once I had there wasn’t really much of an Equestria left to rule over. I’d wrecked it at some point after the apocalypse drove me crazy, before I met Rarity and Rainbow. Fixing it up had been one of the very first projects Rarity had insisted on taking up, and she’d done an amazing job of it.
With all the work she’d put in, it actually looked better than it had in Celestia’s age. Of course, she did have the advantages of unlimited resources and a staff of tireless undead workers. Not to mention it was a lot easier to preserve everything in pristine condition when the room wasn’t being actively used. It’s a lot easier to keep the floors spotless if nobody ever walks on them. Aside from the few rooms we actively used, the palace felt more like a tomb than a royal residence.
Still, it was the best place to hold the trial, and Rarity had outdone herself with the fine outfit she had made for the occasion. A flowing dress in dazzling reds, oranges, and yellows, it looked like something that would have belonged to the Gala, and some of Mom’s jewelry only enhanced its beauty. Add to that my crown, and I looked every bit the Equestrian monarch if you could ignore the part where I was a flaming metal skeleton. If only this wasn’t all a great mockery of what I had wanted as a child. For so long I wanted to become an alicorn—to become a princess, and sit by Mom’s side in this very throne room. Now that dream felt so hollow.
But whatever I personally felt about everything, I still had one last duty to accomplish before I could think about resting. Rarity was already in the throne room, outfitted in her own smart business suit. She had debated endlessly between wearing something appropriate for a prosecutor or a more elaborate outfit, but in the end she had decided to go with something professional. She could always wear one of her more dazzling dresses during the execution after all, and she was determined to play her part as prosecutor to the point of excellence.
As I approached my throne, Rarity cleared her throat and spoke loud enough that her voice echoed through the nearly empty throne room. “The Honorable Empress of Equestria and Freeport and Avenger of the Fallen, Rising Fire! Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! All ponies having business before her supreme majesty are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for our Empress now sits in judgment!”
Rainbow shot Rarity a flat glower from the side. “It's just us, Rarity.”
Rarity huffed and tossed her mane. “We've been preparing for this moment for goodness knows how long, there's no sense in making it drab. Now then, bring in the accused.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and darted out of the room. Soon she escorted Twilight and Starlight into the throne room alongside a column of skeleton warriors. Starlight tried to appear defiant, with her head held high and a determined flame in her eyes. But I could see the fear in those eyes as well, and her steps were stilted instead of resolute like the murderer had probably intended. Twilight was far less resolute in appearance than her accomplice, with her ears were wilted, her gaze never lifting from the floor. Her eyes had heavy bags under them, and they looked puffy, probably from tears. Fear of her upcoming execution must have broken her.
Rainbow and the skeletons escorted the two of them to the defendant’s table, and Rarity took position as the other table next to it. In addition to prosecutor, Rarity took it upon herself to make all the court announcements. I had encouraged Rainbow to take a greater role in the proceedings, but she had little interest in the minutiae of court proceedings, and only wanted to deal with the practicalities of keeping the prisoners under control. So it fell upon Rarity to do most of the other tasks that didn’t fall on the judge.
“Court is now in session,” Rarity called out and then looked to accused. “How do you plead?”
Starlight snorted. “This trial is a farce and you know it. This is all just to make all of you feel better about executing us.” Starlight walked around the desk and entered the well. “If this was really a fair trial we'd—”
Rainbow tackled Starlight, getting a scream out of her when they landed on her recently-broken leg. Repairing the damage had been quite simple for me, but it was no doubt still quite tender. Rainbow lifted her back up from the floor and roughly escorted her back to behind her desk. My companion probably enjoyed punishing Starlight for the breach of courtroom decorum a bit too much. Not that either of us minded seeing the murderer get roughed up.
“Don't enter the well while court is in session,” Rarity warned the prisoners. “It's impolite, and the bailiff will tackle you.”
Starlight gave Rarity a poisonous smile. “Oh yes, we were being so polite before now, what with the kidnapping and threat of arbitrary execution. Funny how all the rules about giving us a fair trial don’t apply, but you enforce the one about where I’m allowed to walk.”
Rarity replied with an poisonously sweet tone. “Don't violate the laws of courtroom decorum again, darling.”
“Or what, you'll execute us?” Starlight groused. “And how about you stop saying ‘darling’ all the time? Seriously, did that verbal tic take over your sentences after all this time? Next, how about you—”
Twilight interrupted Starlight by placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Starlight, please sit down. This isn’t helping:”
Starlight opened her mouth to reply, but for once she closed it again before she said something she’d regret. “Fine.” She sat and contented herself with glowering at Rarity.
I motioned at Rarity. “Rarity, if you are ready, can you give your opening statement?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Rarity stood and took a moment to straightened her jacket. “Now then, we shall begin with a thorough review of all evidence against the accused, starting with—“
“Seriously?!” Rainbow groaned and buried her face in her hooves. “We've gone over it a hundred times, and they just spent all day reading it! Do we really need to waste time going through it all again?! It’ll take forever!”
Rarity cleared her throat in lady-like fashion. “We should do this properly, Rainbow.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes, her wings flicking in irritation. “And what if we're only halfway through doing things 'properly' when the rescue mission shows up?”
“We are doing this correctly,” I told Rainbow. “That includes going through the whole process.” Besides, I doubted Celestia and the others would be able to respond to our attack quickly enough to interrupt our trial. That said, I had no intention of allowing the defense to drag things out in the hopes they would be rescued. While I could almost certainly foil any attack on me in my own place of power, even one from Celestia herself, I was not about to take needless risks. Not after how far we’d come to bring the killers to justice.
Really, I just wanted to have it all over with. I’d thought that finally bringing the killers to justice and putting them on trial for their actions would feel more satisfying.
Now that we actually had them here, and we were ready to begin the grand trial ... it felt almost like a farce. Maybe we should just cut their heads off and be done with it.
No. Even an imperfect show trial was better than no trial. If nothing else, it would give us a tiny bit of closure on this whole disaster.
Twilight stood and spoke up, her voice hoarse. “Actually, I still haven't had the chance to make my own plea to the charges.”
That was true. Starlight’s attempt at a speech before Rainbow tackled her was probably good enough to count as a declaration of innocence, but why not let Twilight have her turn as long as we were going through with the farce? “Proceed.”
Twilight took a deep breath, and it was several seconds before she finally managed to speak. “I would like an opportunity to make a plea deal with the prosecution.”
“What?!” Starlight bolted to her hooves. “Are you insane?! We can't make a deal with these monsters, they’re going to kill us!”
Twilight replies to Starlight’s hysterics with a calm and even tone. “Starlight, please. Let me deal with this.”
Starlight shook her head. “Oh no, not if you’re going to just throw in the towel without a fight. When you became our lawyer I didn't think you would be ‘taking care’ of this by admitting we're guilty of something we didn't even do!” She looked to me. “You know what—can I represent myself instead of having her speak for me? Because if she wants to give up and beg for mercy, then I’m firing her!”
Twilight’s response was to sigh and rub her face. “That's really not a good idea, Starlight.”
“It’s a whole lot better than whatever you have planned!” Starlight countered. “I’ve been on trial before, I know how to defend myself!”
“As you will,” I announced. “I presume you intend to plead not guilty?”
“Yes, because I'm. Not. Guilty.”
“Very well.” I flicked my hoof for her to continue. “In the interests of time and a speedy trial, offer your defense.”
“Where do I even start?!” Starlight glared at me so that our eyes locked onto one another. “This whole trial is a miscarriage of justice. It's not a fair trial for you to be our judge, not when you claim to be one of our victims. Not to mention you’re also the jury and executioner! Having one pony in all of those roles is literally the most clihéd unfair court ever!”
She started pacing around, though she had the good sense to not get too close to the bench this time. “Let’s not even get into the fact that you denied us legal council, and gave us one day while locked up in the dungeons to come up with our defense. We weren’t allowed to gather any of our own evidence or interview or even call any witnesses. Just because it’s inconvenient for the prosecution doesn’t mean we don’t get the time we need to examine the evidence.”
Starlight moved on to her next point. “Oh, and you've kidnapped us and shipped us illegally across national borders, so add that to the pile of issues to this trial. I mean, how can we know you didn't pick up the wrong Twilight and Starlight? There could potentially be infinite numbers of us if you claim there are multiple dimensions out there. Even then, there's no way my time traveling created a bunch of other dimensions. All I did was affect our timeline, nothing more. If we did somehow create other dimensions, how do you still exist? Especially when all the other dimensions are supposed to be gone. That doesn't make any sense.”
“So you admit you traveled through time?” Rarity asked once Starlight needed to catch her breath.
Starlight scowled at Rarity. “Since when could you ask me questions during my opening statement?”
Starlight technically had a point, but I really didn’t care. “Given this is a royal court, I can waive the usual rules if I so will it. And I do. Answer her question.”
Starlight’s ear flicked. “Yes, but that has nothing to do with alternate dimensions. Time travel and dimensional travel are totally different things!”
“But it does,” I informed her. “So far as we've been able to determine, it was your time traveling that created this division. If not for you constantly rewriting the past as part of a mad quest to create a perfect world for yourselves, none of this would have happened. There was one single unified timeline, until your time travel and our efforts to preserve our own existence changed that. Did you think you could discard dozens of worlds with no consequences?”
“Then why is it still here while the others are gone?” Starlight asked. “That doesn't make any sense. You're just blaming us because we're still around. The destruction of your dimension could have been a completely unrelated accident.”
Rarity’s head tilted to the side as she watched Starlight. “You didn't read the reports, did you?”
“Well we didn’t give them a lot of time to go over everything,” Rainbow pointed out. “There was a lot of it, and it was really boring to read. I only read it because there’s not a whole lot else to do around here.”
Starlight nodded at Rainbow. “Thank you for pointing that out. And no, I didn’t, that's what my attorney is for. Though that was before I learned that Twilight was going to just throw in the towel without a fight.” She turned to face me. “By the way, can I get another lawyer? I don’t feel confident in my current one to give me the defense I desire.”
It was an effort not to sigh as Starlight once again pushed to get herself a lawyer, like that was actually going to change anything. “As we’ve already told you, the pool of people available to defend you is vanishingly small. If you don’t want Twilight to serve as your defense then you can do it for yourself. It’s not as though we’re following every last little rule of normal courtroom decorum.”
Starlight’s scowl showed teeth as she glared at me. “Then can I be given the opportunity to examine your evidence?”
“No,” I said. “We gave you a full day to look over the evidence, and you wasted it. We’re not going to let you pull any delaying tactics.”
“Oh right, this is a kangaroo court. I almost forgot,” Starlight sniped back.
Rainbow sighed. “To answer your question, our version of Celestia sacrificed herself to save Sunset and our world.”
Starlight let out a huff. “Fine, your Celestia died so that Sunset could live. Not that she did a particularly good job with the rest of the world.”
I felt a growl roll through my throat. “Think very carefully about you speak of Celestia, or you will be removed from the room for contempt of court.”
Starlight rolled her eyes. “Not much of a threat given the circumstances. Hay, looking back at things, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t traveled in the past and attacked me. So you’re at least partially responsible for setting into motion a chain of events that resulted in the death of your world.”
“Is that so?” Rarity shot back. “Consider the following: a time traveller confronted you and attempted to kill you while saying that your own attempt at time travel resulted in a catastrophe that caused countless deaths. Somehow, that knowledge did nothing to deter you from engaging in time travel at a later date. Most ponies would have refrained from time travel and reevaluated their life choices after an event like that.”
“I barely even remember most of what happened that night after the beating she gave me.” Starlight shot a pointed glare at Rainbow Dash. “Besides, there was over a decade between when we had that fight and when I finally decided to mess with time. Anyways, you do realize that by your own argument your dimension wouldn't even have existed if not for me, right?”
“And what does that have to do with anything?” Rarity demanded. “If not for parents children wouldn't exist, yet we still call it murder if they kill that child later. They don’t get to argue that it’s okay for them to dispose of their offspring because they made them. In fact, that’s morally reprehensible, in addition to illegal.”
Starlight frowned at Rarity. “So I'm responsible for the creation of every timeline I allegedly accidentally created? That's not fair when I didn't even known that would be a consequence of my actions. Literally nopony on my entire world knew that could happen. Because believe me, that would have come up during my trial if anypony thought that. You can't slam me for the law of unintended consequences when I had no reason to know what would happen.”
Rarity puff up her mane with a hoof. “Actually, I believe that your Equestria does have laws regarding mareslaughter, not that this would apply for you. Not only did the temporal event create this divergence, but then you both made the decision to eliminate our world. That is murder.”
“Actually, I didn't make that decision. That was technically all Twilight.” Twilight glowered at her, and Starlight turned to face her. “What? It's true! You decided to keep going back in time to try and stop me and allegedly destroyed all those other timelines. I just wanted to make the one alternate timeline where I destroyed Twilight’s friendships.”
“Wait, what?!” Rainbow bolted to hover over Starlight. “You were time traveling to do what?!”
Starlight grimaced and rubbed the back of her neck. “It was a huge mistake. Twilight messed up this little experimental commune I’d set up where I ... kind of enslaved an entire village with mind control magic and cult brainwashing. I wanted to make her pay for that. She’d taken away my ... well I considered them my friends, albeit under a really twisted and self-serving definition of the term. So I figured the best revenge would be to take away her friends, change the past so that they never even met.”
A flash of different emotions flew across Rainbow’s face before she settled on snarling. “You’re telling me our world was destroyed because Twilight stopped you from enslaving a village?!”
Starlight wince and hunched her shoulders. “It wasn’t exactly my best move. Still, I stopped when Twilight convinced me it was a bad idea.”
“I ... I can’t believe this.” Rainbow groaned and ran her hooved down her face. “This is so stupid! This can’t be a lie, because nopony would try and sell a lie this stupid!”
I wasn’t sure what to make of this myself. All this time I thought Twilight and Starlight had been working together. It was almost impossible to believe that this whole mess had been started because the two of them had been fighting. It was all the more unbelievable due to the utter pettiness of it all. Commiting genocide because they were utter self-interested monsters might honestly have been less horrifying than finding out we were just the collateral damage of Starlight’s petty revenge against the one who brought her to justice.
Starlight’s lips spread in a brittle smile. “Still, my point stands. I'm off the hook for wanting to eliminate other timelines.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “And what about the fact that you destroyed your original timeline by traveling through time in the first place? Not to mention all the other worlds that burned every time you went back again because it didn’t turn out perfectly enough for you.”
Starlight blinked a couple of times as she was confronted with the fatal flaw in her argument. “I wasn't trying to destroy anything, I was trying to modify our timeline to something I preferred.”
“And every time you changed the past, you effectively destroyed the world in the process of creating a new timeline.” I countered. “The unique individuals, their memories, and all that made them who they were perished to let you have the world you wanted.”
Starlight grimaced, but quickly came back with a new argument. “I learned what I did was wrong and worked with Twilight to put things back to the way they were. And in the end, I learned a valuable lesson about friendship and that changing the timeline for revenge is wrong. Besides, I'm already being punished for that crime right now. So what this is right here is me being put under double jeopardy, which is illegal.”
“Double jeopardy doesn't apply in our jurisdiction,” Rarity countered with a smile. “Not to mention the crimes you are charged with are quite different, even if they ultimately stem from the same acts.”
Starlight’s ear flicked. “That sounds pretty questionable to me. And I have to ask if three undead monsters really count as a whole nation capable of putting a pony on trial. Three individuals wouldn’t count as a village, much less a whole nation.”
“Then consider us the custodians of the dead nation you murdered,” Rarity countered. “We’re representing their will, and are determined to see that their murderers are punished for their crimes.”
Rainbow was next to speak. “Besides, you getting to live rent-free in a palace isn't much of a punishment for genocide.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that.” Starlight scoffed and shook her head. “If I’d really been going around changing the past to try and make a perfect world for myself, I picked a really bad place to stop.”
“Twilight, please state for the court how Starlight is being punished for her crimes?” I asked.
Twilight slowly stood and spoke in a sedate manner that reminded me of my world’s Twilight when she had been in one of her depressed moods. “After hearing Starlight’s case, my fellow princesses and I decided that we only had three choices for how to deal with her. Either one of us would need to personally watch over her and try and rehabilitate her, execute her, or turn her to stone.”
Twilight sighed. “Considering her magical power and history, she probably would’ve worked out some way to escape and cause a lot of damage in the process. I wasn’t comfortable with turning her into stone or executing her when she was repentant, so I volunteered to take her in for rehabilitation. She would be on permanent parole, have to do regular community service, and follow my lessons to help her become a better pony.”
This was not the story I expected to hear going into this trial. In truth I thought they would try and deny they had done anything wrong, or make some sort of villainous speech about some nonsense like how they had a right to destroy worlds for some insane reason. I was curious to see where this was going. “And how has her rehabilitation gone?”
Twilight’s eyes flickered between me and Starlight. “It’s a work in progress. She’s come a long way from where she was, but she could still stand to improve in some areas. She’s doing her community service and my lessons to the best of her ability. She’s done a lot of good since she changed her ways. There’ve been one or two ... incidents, but I felt like it was better to treat those as learning experiences.”
Intriguing. It made me wonder exactly how similar this Starlight was to the one I’d known. The two of us had gotten off to a rocky start, to say the least. I’d arrested her for robbing a bank, and she’d been exiled to the out-islands. Years later when I started up the Freeport Magic Academy she’d put in an application, and despite Strumming’s protests I’d given her a chance.
It had certainly been an interesting experience. Starlight had very strong opinions and politics and economics, and a bad habit of arguing about them. Between that and her less-than-stellar impulse control, she’d come close to losing her job several times. However, she’d also been a capable and brave battle magus, and when the war with Sombra started up, I’d felt pretty good about making her the captain of Phoenix Guard. She’d never stopped being a bit of a pain in my flank, but her skills made up for it.
However, what my version of Starlight had done made no more difference than the fact that the Twilight I had known was a meek and depressed former student of Celestia rather than an almost universally beloved princess. The Twilight and Starlight in front of me were the only ones mattered now. “Is all of this true, Starlight?”.
Starlight bit her lip before nodding. “It is. I’ve ... made some mistakes in my life. A lot of them, in fact. But Twilight’s been putting in a lot of work to help me with all of that. It’s not always easy, but it is helping me become a better pony.”
“And yet, such a punishment hardly seems sufficient for the gravity of your crimes,” Rarity interjected. “And even if we accepted that you’re being punished for your crimes, there’s still the fact that Twilight has yet to be punished.”
“Oh come on!” Starlight groaned and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “Twilight shouldn’t even be here! All she was doing was trying to fix the damage I was causing. If her decisions weren’t the best, it was because she was acting on incomplete information in the heat of the moment. I attacked her pretty much out of the gate, and then she had to react to a situation she only half understood. Anything that happened is my fault since I was the one who instigated everything.”
Twilight smiled slightly as Starlight defended her, and Rarity hummed to herself as she absorbed that information. “I see. And then she made a choice to destroy those worlds, correct?”
“She was trying to save her world,” Starlight countered. “You're mischaracterizing her actions. Besides, all those futures were terrible. Like the one where Sombra came back and conquered half the world. Who would want to live in that world?”
Rainbow snarled and shot an especially hateful glare at Starlight. Rarity kept a better poker face, and I couldn’t really have facial expressions anymore. “We would,” Rainbow growled. “That was our world, and we were starting to turn the tide against him before you blew everything up!”
Starlight glared right back at Rainbow. “And what if you never had to fight that war to start with? We didn’t in our timeline, and from the sounds of things everything is a lot better off.”
The corner of Rarity’s mouth smirked. “So you made a conscious choice to destroy our world to create your better one?”
“Our world already existed, we were just trying to save it.” Starlight grimaced and slowly shook her head. “Twilight was trying to save it, technically. I helped at the end when she made me realize I was wrong.”
“But your old world vanished the instant you changed the past,” Rarity pointed out. “There was nothing left to save. You managed to recreate what is to all appearances a perfect duplicate of it, but that came at the cost of destroying the new timeline you created.”
Starlight growled. “That wasn't our intention! I didn't want to destroy anyone!”
I rubbed my chin as the picture of events formed in front of me. “But did you make decisions that lead to that happening?”
Starlight let out a long sight and her ears flattened. “Okay, yes, I did. If you’re not lying to us about everything, my actions ended up causing the destruction of your world. Happy?”
I sat back on my throne to mull over the admission of guilt. “So did you know, or should you have known, that our world would cease to exist as a direct result of your actions?”
Twilight’s firm words echoed through the court. “Yes, we did know.”
Starlight blinked as her head swiveled to Twilight. “Twilight, what're you—“
“Trying to do the right thing.” Twilight looked up at me, and I saw something of the fire from our battle return to her eyes. “Can I address the court?”
I nodded. I was interested in hearing what she had to say. “Of course.”
Twilight's ears wilted. “I wanted to say that ... I'm sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected to hear. Was this some sort of trick?
She sniffed and wiped her eyes before she continued. “I'm sorry for what I did to your world, and the suffering you’ve gone through. I’ve examined your evidence, and if everything is correct then I’m forced to come to the conclusion that Starlight and I are in large part responsible for what happened here. I thought that by reversing the damage Starlight had caused, everything would be reset to normal. Well, I suppose it did, we just never really thought about the fact that the previous timeline vanished when a new one appeared.”
She sighed and shuffled through her papers. “If not for your Celestia, we might never have even known. Reading through the available data, I’ve determined that her spell to keep Sunset alive prevented your splinter timeline from being erased. It’s a big part of why you experienced the time storms near the end. It was the effects of the spell trying to keep your dimension together. I suppose it’s weird that you saw the effects of Celestia’s spell before she even cast it, but ... well, we are dealing with temporal mechanics. However, not even she had enough power to preserve everything, which is why there were so many anomalies like the temporal storms or all the oceans being locked in stasis.”
Twilight grimaced, slumping down in her seat. “In the heat of the moment I didn’t consider the full consequences of my actions. The only thing I thought about was getting things back to the way they were before Starlight changed everything. I knew it would be wrong for me to go back and change the past to try to make the world better, but at the time I just thought of it as going back to undo Starlight’s changes. But ... once Starlight changed history, your world existed, and it had the right to continue existing as mine did. Erasing it just because my world was better than yours ... that’s not a call I think anyone has the right to make. While it was never my intention to hurt you my actions destroyed your world, and ... I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.”
The courtroom became deathly silent as my companions and I stared at Twilight.
She was ... apologizing? Sincerely? I hadn’t seen anything to show she was a good enough actress to fake that level of genuine remorse.
Still, none of this was right. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. We were supposed to have a quick trial for a pair of monsters who needed to be stopped and brought to justice. They were supposed to be cackling madmares, or evil megalomaniacs determined to bend the universe to their wills. Twilight wasn’t supposed to just admit her guilt and apologize with tears in her eyes.
And yet ... there she was.
Twilight spoke once again when none of us broke the silence for several seconds. “So that is why I want to see what I can do to help you.”
For a moment I wondered if I had misheard her. “Help us?”
She nodded. “I hurt you, and ... I’m not sure what all I can do for you, but I want to do what I can to make this better. I understand that there’s probably nothing I can do to make everything the way it once was but I want to do what I can. There has to be something I can do for you.”
I sat there in silence as I tried to understand what was happening. Twilight had just completely destroyed everything we had planned for the trial. I needed time to think and consult with Rarity and Rainbow. “We will be taking a recess for deliberations.”
We needed to decide the fate of these two ponies, and I was no longer sure I was doing the right thing.
We had retired to the palace’s royal quarters to decide our prisoners’ fate. Rarity had done a fine job of decorating this wing of the palace, making it both regal and comfortable. Not that I particularly needed them to rest anymore. Keeping everything presentable just seemed to be one of the things Rarity did to cope.
“So that didn't go the way we expected,” Rainbow announced when none of us seemed to be eager to break the ice.
“I don’t think any of us were expecting them to show remorse.” I stood on the balcony, staring out at the wasteland. I had thought the sight of my destroyed home would relight the fire of hatred that had kept me going for so many centuries. However, looking upon the slowly crumbling ruins of Canterlot and the grey desert beyond left me feeling hollow. The rage and determination that carried us through so many years felt like a distant memory now.
Had my world truly died because Twilight and Starlight had a fight and didn't realize the full effects of what they were doing? The idea that everything I knew had been destroyed as an accident felt like some kind of cruel farce.
For so long I had convinced myself that the death of my world must have been because of the malign actions of others. The sheer scale of it necessitated that it was intentional. It simply couldn’t have been an accident. How could the death of an entire world be so utterly meaningless? The collateral damage of two ponies engaged in what was little more than a petty feud.
Yet there it was.
Rarity poured herself a cup of the blood-like liquid we had synthesized for her. “It must be a trick. It has to be. They know we have them dead to rights, and are trying to get out of it. So they came up with some wild story to trick us into showing mercy. You’re right, none of us expected them to show remorse. That’s why they’re doing it, to catch us off guard.”
Rainbow shook her head. “I don't think she's a good enough actress to fake tears.”
Rarity swirled her drink before responding. “Twilight managed to trick a whole dimension into thinking she was worth fighting over. She might be trying to pull the wool over our eyes too.”
Rainbow leaned against the wall and took her time to think. “What if she isn’t? What if they’re being honest and Twilight actually is sorry for what she did?”
Rarity snorted and shook her head. “It can’t be. Don't tell me you're starting to buy their story.”
Rainbow sighed and joined me on the balcony. “Aside from what happened to our world, have they done anything to make themselves look like monsters? Everyone in that other world thought they were great, even the other versions of us. I’m pretty good at smelling when something’s a load of horseapples, and so are you two. You’d think if they were really pure evil, someone would’ve seen through them.”
Rarity scoffed and waved her response away. “Well of course everyone believed them. That was the whole point of their round of time travel genocide: to give themselves a perfect world where they were universally adored and beloved. The ponies from that world probably wouldn’t believe Twilight is guilty if we brought her back and had her confess in front of all of them.”
“I guess, yeah.” Rainbow scuffed a hoof along the threadbare carpets. “Just ... I dunno. They don’t seem like monsters. I fought monsters during the war, as well as plenty of the creeps who voluntarily fought for Sombra, and I’m just not getting those types of vibes from them.”
I found myself agreeing with Rainbow. During my time in Freeport I’d met a lot of liars, and some of them had been very good at it. So I had gotten pretty good at being able to tell when someone was trying to sell me a load of horseapples. I didn’t sense anything but compete sincerity from Twilight, and I had known my own Starlight well enough to know when she was trying to pull a fast one on me.
If they were telling the truth, what did that mean?
Rarity frowned. “Regardless of their personalities and any remorse they might feel now, they're still guilty. They admitted as much.”
Rainbow met her scowl with a look that curiously mingled resignation and determination. “Yeah, but being guilty of screwing up is kinda different from deliberate mass murder.”
“Perhaps,” Rarity conceded. “But do you think it makes any difference to their millions of victims if the deaths were caused by negligence and incompetence rather than malice? Even if we concede that the penalty for each individual charge should be less, the sheer cumulative bulk of their crimes still demands the harshest punishment.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I get what you’re saying. It’s just...” Rainbow’s wings flicked as she struggled to put her words together. “They’re just not evil like we expected. Hay, Twilight was crying during the trial and talking about how she wanted to help us. Sure, they did something horrible, but like they said, nopony knew this was how time travel worked before everything went to Tartarus. That doesn’t make things right, not by a long shot, but I don’t think we should just ignore that either. It doesn't feel right to lop off their heads for an accident.”
Rarity sipped her drink and frowned into its depths. “You remember who they killed, don’t you? Our parents, our friends, my precious Sweetie Belle. There are oceans of innocent blood on their hooves.”
“Of course I remember,” Rainbow snapped back. “But killing them won't bring anyone back.”
“No, but it will give them justice.”
Rainbow sighed and plopped her head down on the balcony railing. “I'm sick of dead ponies, and killing more just because they were messing with time travel and had no clue what they were getting into... Can’t we use them to help fix the damage they caused? Twilight said she wanted to help. Wouldn’t it be justice if she helped undo what she caused? If we just kill them, all we’ve got are a couple more corpses to add to the pile. But if they can help...”
My reflexive answer to that was that there wasn’t anything Twilight and Starlight could do to heal our broken world. It was impossible. I’d spent decades, the majority of my mortal existence, bashing my head against that problem and come up short. But then, I only had myself and the resources immediately on hoof to work with. If she was being sincere with her desire to help...
Twilight was supposed to be a genius in her own right, as well as possessing the resources of a princess in an intact Equestria. Celestia would doubtless offer some degree of assistance as well. I wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that if I couldn’t find a solution it didn’t exist, especially when Twilight had so many material advantages over me. Just having an unbroken world as a point of reference and resources could be a huge advantage. If we fixed the water cycle, it would be far faster and easier to restore our plants with access to seeds from a lush green world.
For so long I had given up my world for dead, knowing that this wasteland would forever be my home. But what if that didn’t have to be the case? Was it even possible? If there was even a slight chance of it, I had to try.
Rarity sat on a cushion, her eyes downcast as she considered the question. “Is there anything Twilight can do that Rising can't or hasn't already tried? Rising has put centuries of work into trying to fix our world, and Twilight's supposed to come in, wave her hooves, and suddenly fix everything?”
Rainbow zipped over to hover over Rarity. “Seriously, what have we got to lose?”
“We could lose the chance to get justice for our world!” Rarity stared into her drink before shaking her head and putting the glass to the side. “Admittedly, even that seems to have lost some of its luster. Things seemed so much surer a couple of days ago.”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck. “I know what you mean. It feels like we were acting on incomplete intel.”
“We acted based on what we knew.” Rarity turned her head in my direction. “And what are you thinking? You’ve been pretty quiet this conversation.”
What were we going to do? For so long I had been absolutely sure I was going to kill those responsible for murdering everyone I knew. Everything else had merely been a detail for how I was going to accomplish that singular goal. But now the decisive moment had finally come, and I wasn’t sure how to proceed. The others were looking to me for leadership, and I needed to make a decision.
A great part of me wanted to just go ahead and execute them for what they had done, for the pain they had caused us, and claim justice for all they had murdered. But what would Mom say during a time like this? It had been so long ago since I heard her voice that I worried I no longer remembered what it really sounded like. But I remembered the type of pony she had been, and what she would probably council me to do.
She’d always believed in offering second chances to those who truly wanted one. Of course, she’d also never hesitated to bring the real monsters to justice. She’d tried her desperate plan to save her sister, but when that failed she hadn’t hesitated to do what was necessary to protect Equestria and her subjects.
Perhaps what Celestia would have done didn’t matter anyway. I’d inherited her crown when the world broke, and it was up to me to make the decision.
I turned from the wasteland to face my companions. “I will let them know, then.”
“What's your decision?” Rainbow asked.
“That will depend on what they say next.”
We reconvened the trial a little bit later. Starlight was fidgeting in her seat, while Twilight had slumped down in her seat, her wings and head drooped as she waited to hear her fate.
I saw no reason to keep anyone waiting and jumped right into it. “We have decided.”
“As if I couldn't guess,” Starlight grumbled under her breath.
Twilight lifted her head. “What did you decide?”
I spread my wings and lit my horn, making myself as big and imposing as I could. “Before I announce our decision, do you have any final words?”
Twilight nodded and stood. “Once again, I'm sorry for what happened and for all the suffering you've been put through. If I had known what I know now I would have done something different, looked for another solution. But I can’t go back in the past and fix past mistakes. I mean, I could go back into the past and...” She shook her head. “That path would probably just make things worse. My point is, going forward I want to help you. I know that is asking a lot of you after all you’ve been through. You must be hurting after all that’s happened to you, but I’m hoping you’ll accept my hoof of friendship so that we can move forward together.”
Starlight saw that Twilight was done and she stood. “And punishing us isn't going to fix anything. If we can help you, sure, but it wouldn't be right to just execute us for something that we hadn't intended to happen.” She grimaced and her ears wilted. “But yeah, I’m sorry for what happened to you. As Twilight pointed out to me during the recess, my past isn’t an excuse for future bad behavior, and I need to take ownership for my actions. I ... was a bad pony when I decided to use time travel to get revenge against Twilight. I’m trying to be a good pony now, even if it isn’t always easy. So I’m hoping you’ll give me the chance to prove that instead of executing us.”
I nodded to myself, satisfied with what I had heard. “We have decided that your crimes can only be punished in one way. You must spend however long it takes helping us fix the damage you caused. We will consider that an adequate penance.”
Twilight let out the breath she’d been holding. “That sounds very reasonable, all things considered.”
“We will also make arrangements to allow you to return to your homes.” I internally grimaced as I thought about our invasion of their dimension and the harm we caused. “We will seek to make our own amends for damage we caused to your associates.”
Starlight frowned as her eyes flicked between me and my companions. “Wait, you're going to let us go? Really? This isn’t some sort of trick where you’re yanking our chains for the laughs?”
“We are giving you a chance to prove yourselves.” If I could have smiled I would have. So I did my best to put a bit of mirth into my tone. “Also, you will be able to accomplish far more with access to your home's resources. Twilight is a princess, with all of Equestria’s resources at her disposal, after all.”
“That is true.” Twilight rubbed her chin as the wheels went into motion in her head. “Though first I'm going to need to learn everything you know about your world and what happened. I think there are several avenues we can pursue to help fix your world. But I had to rush through the available material before the trial, so I might be wrong about a few things. Anything you can offer will help a lot, especially when you’ve had a lot longer to study the cataclysm that stopped time and caused all the other problems here.”
I stepped down from my throne to stand before Twilight. I felt strange as I did so. For so long I had pursued revenge, and now it was over and in a way I never expected it to.
Still, the path forward was at least clearer than it had been in a long time, and now we had something more to hope for than revenge. “Of course. To begin with...”