"Ready, sir?" asked Ink Smudge, the portly blue mare reaching up to adjust her glasses and push the pencil back behind her ear as she needlessly adjusted her boss's tie one last time.
"As I shall ever be," Captain Hewn Oak of the Ponyville Police Department Major Crimes Unit smiled gratefully at his secretary. "Now, let us give the vultures their pound of flesh."
Tucking the rosary necklace beneath his suit, he proceeded down the hall to the doors that every police officer dreaded walking through: the double doors marked Press Room. With a breath, he pushed through the doors and entered the chambers.
Directly in front of him was a raised dais with a podium and a microphone; fastened to the wall behind him was an enlarged picture of Ponyville's coat of arms. He confidently strode up to the podium and adjusted the microphone upon it, looking out upon the hungry crowd.
Reporters sat upon the rows of chairs, all of them with their pens and pads ready, their faces eager for news as they already began shouting questions. Cameras swiveled to face him like so many more cyclopean eyes, their glassy stares disquieting as they fired flash after flash at him like so many lightning strikes.
"Ladies and gentleponies, if you please," Oak said, raising his hooves and waiting for them to quiet. He cleared his throat and looked down at his notes.
"Earlier today, the Police Department captured three ponies: Golden Highlight, Watershed, and Blasting Cap," Oak recited. "These three criminals have been charged in a series of murders and terrorist attacks upon changelings living within Ponyville and those who associated with them. These attacks have left two creatures dead, for which these heinous criminals will pay most dearly.
"This victory could not have been accomplished without the aid of Detectives Phillip Finder and Daring Do, nor without the brave aid of one changeling in particular," Oak continued. "This changeling, who has identified himself as 'Buzz,' saved several ponies, including Detectives Finder and Do, from a pipe bomb made by the attackers, nearly at the cost of his own life. By the blessing of the alicorns, he is in hospital and recovering well.
"Now, I shall take questions," he declared, nodding to the crowd.
Instantly, hooves and talons went up into the air, accompanied by shouts of questions. "Yes, Laura," Oak declared, pointing at the small jenny in the front row.
"Is it true that the changeling killed by the terrorists was involved in criminal activity?" she asked.
Oak frowned. "That is not relevant," he declared. "Whatever her actions in life, she did not deserve to be tortured and murdered solely because she was different."
"Will you be seeking terrorism charges against these perpetrators?" a hippogriff asked.
"Absolutely," Oak replied. "These monsters attempted to bomb a public health clinic and nearly murdered dozens of innocent citizens, solely because they thought that they were traitors for associating with changelings. The court shall show no mercy upon them, this I vow."
"How many other changelings are living in Ponyville?" a mustachioed stallion asked from the middle of the pack.
"If they wish to reveal themselves to us, that will be their choice," Oak replied. "Changelings are free to live here among us if they choose, and so long as they are not harming their neighbors, they are free to stay, either as themselves or as whatever face they choose to put on to protect themselves."
The mustachioed reporter frowned, and Oak abruptly recognized him: though the name evaded him, this particular vulture worked for Clarion Reports, an alarmist rag that was unfortunately published across Equestria and displayed in grocery aisles throughout the nation. Several of the other reporters were already scowling at the mustachioed stallion.
"So you don't think that it's an issue that there could be an unknown number of changelings living among us when less than six years ago, we were literally at war with them?" the stallion asked with a small smirk.
Oak pondered the question in silence for a few moments. As he always did when he was thinking, he considered the weight of the rosary necklace against his chest as he flipped through his mental copy of Apocrypha's Testimony. His mind settled on Celestia 13:29: As the Sun shines upon all things, so it is our duty to bring light to darkness, understanding to ignorance, friendship to the unloved.
A teaching moment, then.
"There were similar thoughts such as this long ago, when Princess Faust first made peace with the Griffon Kingdoms," Oak said. "When she was asked about the wisdom of extending alliances to those who once tried to eat us, she declared, 'It is easier to build walls than windows and bridges, but a house with no windows and a land with no bridges are both prisons.'
"So it is with the changelings," he continued, aware that he had the rapt attention of everypony in the room. "It is easy for all of us to put up walls, to shut them out for being different, the other. But that is not our way, not the way of Equestrians; what does that do but build resentment and anger towards us? It is difficult to make a window in our wall, to see past the otherness and see the heart of that creature. Buzz, for instance. Yes, he is a changeling, and yes, he is different. But risked his own life to save our fellow citizens. Does that not indicate a good heart, a kind heart? What would we gain from shutting him out for being what he is?"
A few pens scratched across papers, taking down his words carefully. Oak saw enlightenment shining in a few of their faces and felt his heart warmed by the strength of his words.
"Luna herself declared, 'The best way to defeat your enemy is to make them your friend,'" he continued, emboldened by the effect his words were having. "The changelings were our enemies once, but not so now. Our Princesses thought it wise to extend our alliance to King Thorax; surely we can do the same for changelings who wish for nothing more than to be our neighbors and to live in peace. After all, Celestia and Luna allow the sun and the moon to shine on all creatures in their kindness. I know that it will not be easy for any of us, neither pony nor changeling, to put the past behind us. But it is my sincere hope that we will be a nation, a species, that builds bridges instead of walls, for true strength, as we have seen from the courage and compassion displayed in these past few days, comes from community."
The quiet that followed the end of his words was punctuated by further scratching of pens on paper and the popping of flash bulbs. Hewn Oak stood with his back straight, a smile on his face as he felt the peace of the alicorns fall upon him.
The mustachioed stallion seemed to ponder for a moment, this mouth twisted in an ugly manner beneath the bristles. "Is that what Benjamin Oak would have said?"
A gasp ran through the room as every reporter turned to shoot the speaker looks of shock and outrage. Oak felt as though he'd been struck in the chest with a hammer, his mouth dropping open as pain radiated through his chest.
Acid bubbled in his stomach as angry words threatened to burst forth, but he stopped and closed his eyes. His hoof went to the rosary necklace, rhythmically stroking each of the beads marked with a blue heart as he mentally recited Cadenza's Litany of Forgiveness.
Anger is a serpent: I grasp it and it bites me.
Hatred is a fire: I touch it and it burns me.
Wrath hurts no one but myself.
By holding grudges, I imprison my soul.
I let go of my anger and I free my heart.
I forgive my enemy and heal myself.
Oak took a breath in, then let it out slowly as he opened his eyes, purging most of the reflexive anger from his heart, but leaving enough to make sure his message got across.
"My son," he said steadily even as he fixed the reporter with a steely gaze. "Did not go to war to kill changelings. He went to war and died to protect his neighbors, his children, and his land, which he loved. I will ask you not to use his memory as an attack against me."
The reporter frowned at his bait failing, then sat back down and buried his head into his notebook, ignoring the dirty looks that he was still receiving.
"Any further questions?" Oak asked, looking back over the crowd as more hooves rose in response.
In the back of his mind, he went to Luna 5:12: Fear not the falling of the sun and despair not at the howling winds, for the moon brings you this light in the dark, and the promise that a new day shall soon dawn.
A new day was dawning before him, indeed.