//------------------------------// // Chapter 30 // Story: Fine Print // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Tracy rose from the sofa, watching from the doorway as they came in. Equestria hadn’t locked them in chains, or done anything else overly aggressive. After hearing about Princess Celestia in such detail, he felt more than a little relieved.  As soon as the three of them had made their way inside, somepony snapped the door closed from the other side, clicking shut. They were officially locked in. Tracy wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from seeing his friends in Equestria. Obviously they were all dressed, in clothing that crossed various thresholds of completely useless. Where Tracy would barely have thought about it, now he tucked his tail subconsciously. It didn’t matter that they were all in the same metaphorical boat. Either by chance or some magic inherent in the doorway, they spanned the three basic tribes. One unicorn, one pegasus, one earth pony. Anton was the pegasus, he recognized that shade of evergreen from the second he’d crossed the threshold. The other two could’ve gone either way. “I’ve been waiting to hear what the hell you were thinking for hours now,” Tracy said, doing his best impression of Twilight’s own expression when he’d arrived. “What the hell are you doing here?” Both unicorn and pegasus glared at the earth pony. Even Tracy was momentarily taken aback by the size of him. Shoulders like that could probably pull the plow that would feed an entire village, or at least a Budweiser carriage. His mane was a curly red orange, vaguely similar to… no way. But then he spoke in Shane’s voice, and Tracy didn’t know what to think.  The doorway had taken a 5’4” human and turned them into a horse who could pull a barn. “They’re gonna say it was my fault, so we might as well start there. But none of this was supposed to happen. They shouldn’t have come.” Anton scoffed, his wings moving entirely of their own accord. One shoved into the unicorn’s side—Marshall, then.  “Oh yeah, I’m sure we weren’t supposed to come. That’s the way to handle this.” He flopped onto his haunches, pawing weakly at the carpet. “It’s all ruined anyway. Might as well blame us.” “Tell me what happened,” Tracy said, stopping feet away from them. “I don’t think we have time for a lecture on how damn stupid you three were. But before that, I need to know what the hell you were thinking. You broke into my house, you terrified my roommate, and you thought you could just… charge across a world you didn’t understand?” “Nobody was supposed to find out,” Marshall said. At least he had the decency to seem embarrassed. “Your door was a single cylinder deadbolt, I had the right picks. We wanted to make sure the magic door thing had really happened, not just a… group hallucination, or drugs we’d taken, or hypnotism.” Tracy laughed. “So you needed to break into Equestria for that?” “No, we didn’t.” He glared at Shane. “Because apparently we brought an absolute lunatic. We could’ve paid you back to fix the door, but… then he had to make a run for it like this was a prison break.” “I told you both not to follow me!” Shane shouted, stomping the ground with one of those powerful hooves. The stones actually shook as he did so, and Tracy had the sickening feeling of the entire mountain wobbling slightly. Just my imagination. It’s obviously not really happening. “Seriously, Tracy. Even you weren’t supposed to find out about it. This was me, nobody else.” Tracy thought briefly back to his first moments in Equestria, when he had looked through those windows and imagined what the whole world would be like. But instead of finding out, he’d gone back to work, and spent months without knowing what was waiting for him. “We were going to bring him back,” Anton added. “Before the clock struck twelve, or… however this thing works. Stop Shane from hurting himself. I guess you succeeded where we failed. Unless… you’re in jail too.” Rose emerged from the kitchen, settling her arrangement on the table in front of them all. The smell of so many fresh vegetables was enough that even Tracy looked up, staring. Even in their prison, Equestria was taking care of them.  “Why do none of you have cutie marks?” Roseluck asked, confused. “I’ve never seen that on a pony so old.” Tracy’s friends only looked baffled. “I have no idea,” he said. “It probably does mean something.” Maybe it was in the contract somewhere, those clauses he hadn’t read very closely about emergencies and crimes. He’d worry about that later. “Okay, Shane. Why did you do this?” Shane shifted on his hooves, backing away like a child asked an uncomfortable question. He didn’t look back as he answered, just muttered to himself. “I like my odds in here better than back home,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that it’s horses—I can understand the language, that’s enough. I don’t want to go back.” “See what I said,” Anton muttered. “He completely lost his mind. Wanted to run through to another world, and now…” He gestured down at them with his wings in vague frustration. “We’re in prison in another universe. Who knows what they’re gonna do to us. We didn’t even do anything cool first, it’s just bad.” Tracy walked past them over to the table, taking one of the plates Rose offered. He wasn’t sure what half of these green things even were, but they were wet and cold and probably tasted as good as they smelled. A few seconds of experimentation proved the truth of that hypothesis, along with settling his nerves.  “This is great, Rose. Still not sure it counts as cooking if it’s just putting lots of raw food out on a plate.” She rolled her eyes, snatching a strip of asparagus. “You don’t have to have any if you don’t want to. I just thought I’d give them a good meal before they go to court.” “You make it sound so ominous.” Marshall was the first to the table, pulling nervously into a seat. His horn didn’t so much as flicker. How crazy would it be to learn how to make that work. At least it would probably end with getting his hands back. “How screwed are we, Tracy? One to ten.” “I, uh… don’t think you’ll be sent to the moon.” He served himself several melon slices from the edible pony’s mouth. But the three of them only looked more bewildered. “I think there’s a good chance you’ll be able to go home,” he finally said. “I don’t know if Equestria even has an immigration system. But I had a permit, so I guess maybe there’s got to be something.” “Equestria welcomes friends from all over,” Roseluck supplied. “But you’re from another universe. That falls under unicorn rules for summoning, I think. I don’t know any of them.” “Magic, guys,” Shane whispered. He sat at the far end of the table, and didn’t take anything for himself. “Of course I would want to come here. I’d be crazy not to.” The other two just groaned. Tracy didn’t argue, finishing his plate in relative silence. His own exhaustion was beginning to get the better of him—if the sun was going down outside, that meant he’d been up all night. It was Friday morning, or would be soon. Good thing I called it in. They didn’t have much longer to wait, all things considered. The door clicked and rumbled, and a pair of royal guardsponies appeared in the opening.  Not the same ponies he was used to—their armor was silver, adorned with amethyst gemstones. They were both bats. “Three conjured trespassers required to appear for judgement in the Court of Night.” Wait, what? Why would Celestia have court in the dark? “Can we come?” Tracy asked, following the three of them to the door. “They’re my friends. They don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into.” The guards looked at each other, then shrugged. “You can. The mare should follow us upstairs and wait until judgement is complete. Unless she wishes to join the prosecution.” “No,” Roseluck said wearily. “They’re just idiots. I trust my roommate to make it up to me.” Tracy winced as he heard it—but whatever waited at the end of that demand would have to wait. They shuffled up the steps in relative silence, broken only when one of his friends tripped on the stairs or nearly bumped into some priceless relic on display. Eventually they reached the main floor, and cut straight towards the throne room. Where once the palace had been lit with massive skylights and occasional golden lamps, now every bracket glowed blue, casting eerie shadows as they crossed. Tracy slowed to study some of the oversized stained-glass, each one its own priceless work of art—but the guards and his friends didn’t seem content to sit there. The princess rested on what looked like twenty feet of solid gold, with velvety fabric leading up the steps and water bubbling off one side in a living spring. There were even little lily pads floating in the water, eerie white flowers open to the moonlight trickling down from overhead. Tracy might not be an expert on Equestrian lore, but he knew enough to know the princesses apart now. This wasn’t Celestia—he’d met this pony before. Princess Luna looked just as regal as she had on the Equinox. She wore the same black crown, with a faint silvery moon set into its surface. She reclined in her throne, watching them approach without a word. Nor was she the only one here. Temporary stadium seating rose against a nearby wall. It might’ve fit a hundred ponies if they all packed in close, but there were only a few seats taken. Mostly near the front row, where ponies wore official-looking uniforms. One sat in front of a typewriter, another had a sketchpad. They all stayed well away from a booth near the front, where a familiar figure loomed. Discord reclined in that chair, wearing a strange red robe that flowed over his mismatched limbs, along with a black wrap that joined with an absurdly wide cap. The chair lifted too, and while it never rose out of the box exactly, it did make him almost as high up as the princess herself. A bored-looking unicorn stood up in another booth, clearing her throat. When she spoke, her voice boomed over the court, and the general muttering fell silent. “The court recognizes three summoned spirits, entities, embodied minds of legend and terror, here named Anton, Marshall, and Shane. They are invited to sit.” They did. At least they weren’t going to make a scene before this even started. Tracy hesitated for a moment in the aisle, looking to the guards with confusion. “Where should I go?” One pointed with his wing, at the open chair just behind them, in the booth directly opposite Discord. Did that make him their… defense? They’re completely screwed. He made his way over, attracting several curious stares. The unicorn in white tapped something against the wood in front of her—was she the judge, then, or was that still the princess? “Who are you?” “Tracy Maxwell. I’m appearing as, uh… friend of the court?” There was a term for this, but Tracy had spent his whole life trying to stay as far away from court as possible. “Look, they’re my friends, and they don’t know what they’re doing. What’s that called?” “That won’t be—”  The night princess stirred on her throne, wings rustling behind her. Though every guard and many of the visitors in the stands had bat wings, she didn’t. “I’ll allow it. Record him as defending council.” The stenographer’s typewriter clattered, and Tracy took his seat. “The beings before you are intruders from an adjoining universe,” the unicorn went on. “They appear under charges of trespassing, criminal vandalism, interdimensional incursion. The proposed sentences are…” She levitated a pair of glasses onto her brow, squinting down at something. “Perpetual ensorcellement to the aggrieved party?” “Yes,” Discord said, lacing his paws together in his lap. “It’s in my contract.”