Nancy woke up in what was probably the morning to a tapping on the bars of her cell. A guard was there.
“Dietary restrictions?“ he asked.
Despite the day before, it still took Nancy a moment to reconcile a talking pony in her slowmoving sleepy mind. “No.“
The guard held up a tray with a bowl of oatmeal, an apple, and a glass of water. That seemed like a reasonable breakfast. As Nancy accepted it, she asked, “Ponies are herbivores, right?” That seemed obvious to her, but she’d already decided to take nothing for granted.
“That’s right.”
“I can eat this, but I don’t have the right digestive system for everything you eat.”
“We have an omnivore menu.”
“Oh, thanks.”
He left her alone and she ate breakfast. The oatmeal was bland, but, well, it was prison. On the other hand, the apple was one of the best she'd ever had.
The guard was back in a few minutes and Nancy gave him back the tray. He started to turn, but then paused. “Where’s the spoon?”
Nancy handed it back. He gave her a look and then walked away.
Nancy turned to pace the cell. A few minutes passed slowly, and she was just starting to come to terms with the fact that she might have to spend the entire day with nothing to do but stare at the walls, when four guards walked up to her cell.
“You’re going to take a shower,” said one.
Apprehensive, Nancy let them put the cuffs on her and then they unlocked the cell door.
It was slightly amusing to her to be escorted by four magical ponies. Well, maybe not all of them. Only two were unicorns. They took her a little deeper into the dungeon and turned a corner. Surprisingly, there appeared to be a fairly normal shower, with curtain and everything. It was carved out of solid rock, and appeared to have a cork in the ceiling rather than a spray head, but it was recognizable. Ponies being built horizontally, it was even a little roomy for a human.
Nancy turned. They were all staring at her. “Can I have a little privacy?”
That actually drew a few blushes. Somehow - it didn't make any sense with hairy faces. They turned away. Nancy got undressed. There was no place to hang clothes. Most ponies didn’t wear any. She just folded them. The floor looked a lot cleaner than expected for a dungeon.
Stepping into the shower, she pulled the curtain and then popped the cork out of the ceiling.
She screamed in surprise at the deluge of icy water. From outside the curtain, it sounded like a couple of the guards chuckled.
There was a bar of soap in a cleft on the wall, and Nancy plugged the water again while soaping up. Saving water was familiar to her after living on a ship, but for a very different reason. She reluctantly pulled the cork again to rinse.
Stepping out, one of the guards offered her a towel, which was much fluffier than Nancy expected. Well, it was the castle dungeon after all. She dried and got redressed, wishing she could have washed the clothes or at least the undergarments. At least she wasn’t sweating much in the dungeon.
As the guards returned her to her cell, Nancy asked, “Can I have a book or something? Something to pass the time?”
“The princess said something about a translation spell. It doesn’t work on text. Can you read Equestrian?” asked one of the guards.
“You have a magic spell to instantly translate speech, but not one for books?”
“Maybe there is, but I don't know it.” He shrugged. “If you can’t read, we’ll come up with something else.”
One of the guards found a pack of playing cards and gave it to her as they returned her to her cell. Surprising Nancy, they seemed to be exactly the same fifty two deck she was used to. Granted, she didn’t recognize anything between Jack and Ace, but the rest were straightforward. At least that made it a little easier to play Solitaire when she didn’t know the difference between the face cards which effectively made them interchangeable.
That was all her entertainment until lunch. For the meal, a guard served her rice and beans with mixed vegetables.
“Do you have time to teach me a game?” she asked, handing the tray back when she was finished and holding up the cards. “This place doesn’t seem too busy. How many prisoners are there?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” he deflected smoothly. “Where’s your spoon?”
Nancy handed it over. He gave her a look. She couldn’t tell if it was the same guard from breakfast or if word had just gotten around. The guards she had seen so far all seemed to be identical. Nancy wasn’t really an expert on recognizing ponies by their faces, and all the guards in this place wore identical armor and seemed to be colored the same.
She was about to settle into yet another game of Solitaire when another pony arrived. This one was pale with a brown mane and tail. The cutie mark, as they were supposedly called, seemed to be an old fashioned quill and a container of ink. This pony wore glasses and a collar with a red tie, which seemed out of place because they wasn’t wearing anything else.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “My name is Raven Inkwell. Princess Twilight sent me to gather a few details from you.”
Nancy gestured to the bars. “I would invite you in, but…”
Raven looked at a clipboard she carried. “Do you have any health concerns?”
Nancy - probably - hadn’t been exposed to coronavirus before leaving the ship. But who could say what might pass between her and an alien species. These were clearly not the same as horses or ponies from her home. “Not that I know of.”
“What’s your special talent?”
“I don’t know if I have one.”
Raven’s lips quirked around her pen. It was really remarkable how she was apparently writing legibly with her mouth and also speaking.
“Where did you come from?” Raven asked.
“The United States.”
“What kind of world is it?”
“It’s a country.”
“Part of a wider world?”
“These are starting to sound like the questions the princess already asked me.”
“Correct, the questions you didn’t answer. Why not?”
“I’m not required to.”
“Something about…” Raven flipped a page “...the Geneva Convention?”
“Right.”
“What’s that?”
Many of the questions and answers were repetitive from the night before, but at least Raven didn’t pry on any of them, only recording the exact reply. Nancy was unsure the reason for the conversation - Princess Twilight had written them down, too. Maybe if the princess was the kind of person who kept obsessive records, she just wanted a second copy.
“How long is this going to take?” Nancy asked.
“Princess Twilight is a very busy mare. She needs to weigh the evidence and decide whether charges are warranted, and if so, subsequent court procedures. This is complicated by having no recent comparable cases for reference, and is on top of research into just what you are and where you came from, not to mention her usual duties running the country.”
“Aren’t there judges or somebody who could do it? I know the princess is involved just because she happened to be there, but like you said, she has a country to run.” Nancy wasn’t sure if personal attention from the princess would help or hurt her case, but was more concerned about getting out of here as soon as possible.
“She delegates occasionally. That’s why I’m here,” Raven replied.
“I don’t know if you can sympathize. I’m in the wrong world and regardless of how, I really need to get this settled as soon as possible. People are going to be looking for me. I know investigations and bureaucracy take time even when there isn’t so much else going on. Do you...do you have even an outside estimate on when this process is going to move forward?”
Raven frowned and looked at her clipboard. “The princess might be ready tomorrow.”