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// (28) Science Experiment 
// Story: Wish Fulfillment (Legacy Version) 
// by Boopy Doopy 
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It was a full night spent in a cell in a prison for males, and part of the day the next day. I didn’t get a wink of sleep, staying up the whole night because I was just too stressed out and dysphoric to fall asleep. I cried for a while, but eventually ran out of tears, only able to lay awake all night and feel terrible. The very worst part was when I eventually couldn’t hold my bladder any longer and was forced to use the restroom. It was in front of a bunch of other stallions and just about as public as I could be, and made me want to just fall over and die. 
Some guard was knocking on the bars to the cell, asking me to get up for breakfast, but I didn’t budge. I felt too terrible to want to. What was the point anyway? Get up so I could be made fun of again?
“You’re not sick, are you?” the guard pressed. “Should I bring the food to you, sir?”
“Whatever,” I whispered, flinching at what I heard. “I don’t care. I just don’t want to be harassed.”
“How are you being harassed?” the guard asked, confusion on his face as he raised an eyebrow. “There’s no one with you in your cell, and I haven’t seen anypony calling out to you and trying to–”
“It was the guards,” I said quietly. “They were making fun of my voice and body after I told them I’m a mare.” I turned away, expecting more ridicule to come. 
“When? That didn’t happen while I was here. They told me you wanted to be in the mares' prison, but… you were serious about that?”
“Yeah. I– do you know what a trans woman is?” I asked. The guard shook his head, and I sighed. “Never mind then. It’s just gonna be a hassle to explain. I just would rather be in a mare’s prison, and not be harassed for being trans.”
“I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I can put in a report for you if you want. I’m not sure how much would happen, but it’s something, if you want to complain about this later.”
“Yes, please, that would be great.”
He left and came back with a long form for me to fill out. It was a standard form, one that basically just asked what I was claiming happened and who it was that did it. I hoped that this would go to somepony important, like Princess Cadance, but I had my doubts. More likely, it’d just be filed somewhere and never be seen again.
There wasn’t much to do after that until we finally were called to go in front of the judge, whoever that would be.  We weren’t actually retrieved from our holding cells until around noon, the guards bringing Shorey and I to the same little room that looked like a courthouse. They teleported us there (which was a completely disorienting experience) and sat us down in a couple of benches with a whole bunch of other ponies. Most of them looked tougher than us, and all of them were Crystal Ponies, Shorey and I being the odd two out. I couldn’t really say I was surprised though.
Shorey herself looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all, dark bags having formed under her eyes, and seemed extremely irritated. I wanted to ask about it, but decided to save my questions for later. She, however, mouthed the words ‘what happened’ when she saw the state I was in. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hide how bad I felt after last night, but shook my head to dismiss the questions.
We sat in silence for a long while with a bunch of other ponies before finally someone came out. My heart jumped at the sight of Cadance stepping into the room, looking exactly the same as she did in the show.  Almost, anyway. It seemed like her appearance was much more crystalline in real life than it was in the show, shimmering slightly in the light. I wondered if there was something in the Crystal Empire that made her look like that, and if there was, if it would make us look more like crystal ponies, too.
I didn’t spend more than a few moments thinking of that before putting the thought out of my head. Being here right now was much more important. This was my chance. I was actually in front of her, and not after having to wait a whole year. 
“Excuse me,” I started, not even caring that she was still reading over whatever list she had in her hooves. “I was wondering if you could–”
“Please be silent,” she replied, not even looking up. “I’ll get to you when I get to you.”
“But I just–”
“No,” she interrupted. “There’s a process here, and I’d appreciate it if you let me work. Now be silent, sir.”
The word ‘sir’ made me close my eyes and shiver, but I pushed that feeling down. It was just a formality. She didn’t know better, not like the guards did. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, and once she got to me, she’d be calling me ma’am because she’d see my problem and fix me. 
I didn’t say anything else, letting her go through each one of these ponies’ cases. There were probably a hundred ponies in here, and taking a few minutes to get through each person extremely briefly took a few hours. Shorey and I were the very last two ponies to be talked to, and by the time she got to me, I was antsy and fed up with waiting.
“Sandy Shores and… Ray Lay?” Cadance started, looking at a sheet in her magic with a squint in her eyes. “Charged with breaking curfew laws and entering into the Crystal Empire illegally? Who’s who?”
“Um, I’m Raleigh. Like, pronounced raw-lee. But most people– err, ponies– just call me Rally.”
“Okay, I’ll make note of that,” she said as she scratched something onto the page she was holding. “How do you both plead?”
“Um, well, that’s the thing. We’re actually here to see you because–”
“I didn’t ask why you were here to see me,” she interrupted. “I asked how you plead. But I guess that doesn’t matter since you two are being charged with being here illegally, even though that doesn’t make sense since you’re both ponies. I swear, these guards like to get on ponies for every little thing.”
She seemed a lot more irritated in real life than I imagined her being, not really like how she was portrayed in the show. But then again, if I had to sit in court all day and run a country, I might be irritated, too. I could see why she would want to get through and be done with this as soon as she could be.
“Speaking of guards, two of them were–” Before I could finish my sentence, Shorey gave me a little kick in the fetlock and sent a glare my way, silently telling me to shut up. I glared right back at her and was all set to keep going until Princess Cadance spoke again.
“Do you two know how to register to become citizens?” she asked.
“No, we don’t,” Shorey replied. “If it adds anything, we both have apartments and jobs here, so if we could stay in the Crystal Empire, that would be preferred.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, both confused and annoyed with her. “We’re trying to get to Equestria if she can’t fix me. The whole plan is to meet up in Ponyville.”
“I wouldn’t be able to take you to Ponyville, only because I need to keep my reserves of magic full in case of an emergency, but if you were looking to leave the Crystal Empire, the best we could do would be deportation to the border. I believe the nearest city is Fillydelphia from there. It’s about three or four hundred miles from the border of the country.”
“Yes, the border of the Crystal Empire is fine,” I said.
“No, it’s not fine, Rally,” she said sternly. “It’s thousands of miles to Canterlot. You’re talking about months of walking to get there when we already have a plan right here right now.”
“We'll walk then,” I said with finality. “I’m not waiting a year to be able to be myself when I’m already so much closer right now.”
“Well I’m not going,” Shorey said with just as much finality. “You need to listen to me when I tell you something is a bad idea. This isn’t going to work if you just keep ignoring everything I’m telling you.”
I rolled my eyes and dropped my head. “Whatever. You’re right and I’m wrong because everything I say is dumb and I’m just a big fat idiot.”
“Okay, if you’re both staying here, then go with my staff to get the forms to register to be citizens. That’ll be it from me for both of you.” Then she turned and said, “Guards, bring the next group in, please.”
“But princess–”
“You two are dismissed,” she said politely, giving us a once over before turning her attention back to the papers in her hooves. I had to admit, this was not how I wanted it to go, or expected it to. I was hoping we could just be taken to Ponyville right away instead of being released, and tried to speak up about it.
“Princess Cadance,” I tried to start, “I wanted to talk to you about–”
“If you have a complaint about harassment or abuse, you can file forms with my staff on your way out while you register to become citizens. Anything else, I don’t have time to deal with right now. Write me a letter and I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”
“It was actually about seeing if we could–”
“Please. I really don’t have time right now,” she told us more forcefully. “If you need an appointment, you can schedule one with Type Writer on the second floor of the Crystal Palace. Any of the guards can direct you to the location if you need it.”
“We already did that, but I just want you to–”
“Look,” she interrupted, the frustration in her voice returning. “I’ve already dismissed the charges against you and am giving you the easiest possible path to citizenship despite your being here illegally. Get going before you get fined for wasting the court’s time. I have a long day and a hundred other things I’d rather be doing right now.”
“I just want to be a mare!” I practically yelled. “You’re an alicorn! Can’t you turn me into a mare? Please?”
“Look, I don’t have time to call up Twilight and ask her for some science project whenever anypony asks me to,” she said, flipping her mane out of her face. “You can write her a letter if you want to be part of some magic experiment. Now leave, or you’re going to be fined.”
“It’s not just ‘some experiment’. It’ll only take you three minutes to–”
“Rally, stop it,” Shorey suddenly said, using her teeth to pull the scruff of my neck. “We need to go now.”
“I don’t want to go! I want to be fixed! It’s not gonna take longer than five minutes for her to write a letter, and Twilight’s somepony who’ll hop on this immediately!” I’ll admit, I wasn’t thinking straight, but after as depressing a night as I had and hearing how I was apparently just looking to be a science experiment, I was not in the right state of mind.
“We. Need. To. Go,” she said firmly, gently pulling the fat of my neck. I let out a frustrated scream before stomping out on my own, the tears running down my cheeks. I wasn’t one to normally let things like this cloud my judgment so badly, but it did that time. Not only did I not get what I wanted, but I probably screwed up any future chance at being fixed. Yay me.
“Rally, look at me,” Shorey said forcefully, getting my attention. She did not look happy, and I expected her words to be unhappy, too.
“I understand that you're hurting,” she said aggressively, “but you cannot act out like that again. Your actions reflect back on me, do you understand that? What would we do if she decided to charge us with perjury or something? What then?”
“They were harassing me, Shorey! All night! And you just heard her label me as being a science experiment for being trans! I can’t just shut up about things like that when they happen!”
“Then you should tell her that calmly, not yell and snap at her and refuse to leave when she tells you to go.”
“It’s easy to say that because you don’t know what it’s like!” I screamed. "God!”
I didn’t stay to hear the rest of whatever else she said, stomping out of the room in tears.