//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two 
// Story: Innocent Until Proven Changeling 
// by fluffytailmofu 
//------------------------------//

The two policemares who made the arrest should still be at the station. As such, Mayor Mare knew exactly where she would be heading next.
“Ah! There you are, mayor! I didn’t find you at the town hall, and when I was asked, was told you had headed to the jail. It looks like you just finished what you were doing there, so it’s perfect timing!” Golden Harvest’s excited voice rang clearly through the air, and Mayor Mare carefully suppressed a frown.
It was entirely possible the mayor hadn’t known where she would be heading next, after all.
Smiling cordially, Mayor Mare turned to face Golden Harvest, scrutinizing the pony who had just indicated she had been actively seeking her out to an extent unusual for a politically inactive citizen. As much as the mayor could fantasize that the search was for reasons easily enough dealt with- perhaps even a personal matter she could brush aside- she knew better than to hope too hard for such luck.
“Miss Harvest, I hadn’t expected this. Is there anything I can do for you as mayor?” The words betrayed no hint of negative emotion, leaving the politician with a certain level of satisfaction at her honed abilities.
“Yes! I went to the local weather bureau, as did a few other farmers, and the bureau couldn’t help, but maybe you can. I know the search for the Changelings is important, but if the rain is limited only to the farms, it shouldn’t be a problem, I think. You can cut the red tape for at least that much, right?” Golden Harvest in her pleas seemed oblivious to the headache her words heralded for her addressee.
“Changes?” Mayor Mare repeated. Quickly composing herself, the experienced politician responded to Golden Harvest’s supplication. “I was unaware that there was any major issue going on with the weather services in Ponyville. I’ll go to their office with you right now, so perhaps you could fill me in on the trot?”
Being mayor often meant juggling a variety of tasks, and hoping none of the balls were dropped. The veritable cannonballs being added looked set to include at least three ever-dreaded ones. Namely, an exigent matter, hastily crafted- yet still intransigent- documents, and negotiating up a chain of beleaguered bureaucrats (many of whom likely received as little warning of the problem as she herself had). By contrast, the investigation into the potential Changeling was still ongoing, and watching for immediate updates on the minutiae of the case would likely have no impact beyond wasting precious time. Those balls she was juggling for that case (hopefully) had yet to even reach halfway up the apogee of their arc since they had been launched- much less to have started their perilous plummet to potential failure.
Which of the two duties to prioritize seemed obvious.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

After speaking first with Golden Harvest, and next with local weather management, Mayor Mare felt she had gained an understanding of yet another Changeling related problem her town faced. The Changelings expelled from Canterlot by Cadance and Shining Armor’s combined magic were known to be in the general area. To assist law enforcements’ efforts to espy the enemy, orders had been issued to weatherponies in Canterlot’s neighboring towns to excise rain from weather plans until further notice. The given rationale was to avoid washing away potential Changeling tracks which multiple fugitive apprehension units were studiously searching for.
(Rainbow Dash had also mentioned there was an initiative underway to utilize police dogs who were recently trained, using Changeling corpses left after the battle, to (hopefully) recognize Changeling scent. After revealing this plan, Rainbow Dash immediately began repining this was information she wasn’t supposed to have divulged. This part of the search teams’ strategy was apparently meant to stay classified so that the Changelings wouldn’t get the idea to conceal their natural sillage. Mayor Mare had responded to the pegasus’ panic by promising not to tell anypony about the slipup, at which point Rainbow Dash calmed down).
When she had received a form letter informing her, as a generic Ponyville resident, of changes to the upcoming weather schedule, Mayor Mare gave the letter minimal attention. The town’s leader was too preoccupied with issues she had thought more pressing than a presumably ordinary meteorological adjustment. Ponyville’s farmers, by contrast, paid much closer attention, being highly concerned with the times at which the rain slaked the thirst of their crops.
If the projected lack of rainfall came to pass, most of the town’s upcoming harvests would die from drought. The weather team’s reliability meant few fields in Ponyville were hydrated via irrigation systems, with such technology limited to farms with particularly water-intensive plants. Ironically enough, this meant the thirstiest crops were the ones least in danger of drought.
The town’s farmers- of whom Golden Harvest was only one- devised a compromise in which they asked for the rain to fall only on their fields. The core goal of the plan was to minimize the risk of erasing Changeling tracks, yet still prevent a predicament of parched plants. When pleading with the local weatherponies, the farmers even bargained down, seemingly in an attempt to prove their reasonableness. In their attempted haggling, the horticultural herd even accepted rainfall avoiding the fringes of their acres, with the weather team’s focus carefully contained to only fall on well-trod agricultural areas. As much as Rainbow Dash was sympathetic towards the farmers’ plight, the written instructions her department had been given were clear, and allowed for no exception. If in acting as Ponyville’s weather coordinator, she followed the presented plan, Rainbow Dash would be working in direct opposition to the orders given by the federal government.
Fortunately, Ponyville was close to Canterlot, giving Mayor Mare the opportunity to negotiate with the relevant bureaucrats in Canterlot and hopefully cajole them into accepting the farmers’ compromise. Mulling over the dilemma described to her, the politician had already imagined a potential plan which would leave all involved parties happy. Perhaps she could convince the officials directing the effort to arrange for the specialist squads hunting Changelings to search the farms prior to the sequestered showers. If coordinated properly, the farmers could water their crops as was necessary, yet the risk of such weather aiding any sort of Changeling escape would be erased, which was also necessary.
Unfortunately, it was already mid-afternoon, and the amount of time it would take to complete any negotiations would certainly extend past the point at which the last train of the day traveled from Canterlot to Ponyville. Prior to leaving for the capitol, Mayor Mare would thus need to alert the other employees at the town hall that she would be absent overnight, as well as wrap up any immediate issues in Ponyville.
The most prominent of those issues was the suspected Changeling.

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“I don’t think she was a Changeling! I ran away because I was scared when the police officers attacked her while screaming about Changelings!” Sweetie Belle insisted.
Apparently the foal who had been witnessed with the suspect was Sweetie Belle- and after the police had called her in for questioning, the filly had given a somewhat different story than what anypony expected. Mayor Mare, after settling her affairs at the town hall, had visited the police station to check on the Changeling case, where she was ambushed by Sweetie Belle, silently shadowed by her mother.
“I mean, have you ever seen that cutie mark Limber Tracts had before? So I was asking about it! You haven’t, right?” Sweetie Belle asked. The foal’s approach to explaining the relevant events to Mayor Mare was about as meandering as one would expect from a child her age, the addressed adult mused. The suspect- probably the Limber Tracts being referred to- bore a cutie mark which the mayor had assumed indicated some manner of dancing talent. 
“I can’t say I’ve seen that particular cutie mark before, no,” Mayor Mare responded to Sweetie Belle.
“Well, apparently it’s a mark for physical flexibility! I was curious why she had it and Lyra didn’t, and told her about some of the stuff Lyra could do and asked her what she could do better. Because I was thinking about telling the other Crusaders about the cool new cutie mark opportunity I had found out about, and wanted to know just what it could do. So she then started showing me, and then while she was doing that cool stuff, the policemares were calling her Changeling and attacking her. I was scared by them and ran away, but I wasn’t scared of Limber like the people here were telling me I was at first,” Sweetie Belle explained.
Mayor Mare paused as she absorbed that information. The reason the accused had been detained was because she moved in a manner supposedly impossible for a pony, to the point even Lyra was shocked. Yet Sweetie Belle’s story voided the astonishing aspect of the described scene- meaning there was now a lack of any sort of credible evidence to truly indicate the arrested individual was a Changeling.
“I appreciate your telling us about this, Sweetie Belle,” the mayor stated upon seeing the filly continue to stare expectantly at the adult who surely would fix the situation, because that’s what grown-ups could do. “Have you officially given a statement to the police yet?”
“I just did! Right now, and once before you came in!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed with exasperation.
“Sweetie, the mayor was asking if you had said those things while a police officer was writing it down,” Cookie Crumbles gently explained to her daughter. Looking up from her foal to face the mayor, Sweetie Belle’s mother switched to a more matter of fact tone. “No, my daughter hasn’t given the police a statement yet, but it should be done soon enough.”
“Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help the police with this,” Mayor Mare responded. “I have some other matters to deal with which will have me visiting Canterlot today and staying the night, so I can’t give this matter as much personal attention as I would like. However, it should hopefully be cleared up soon, in part thanks to your help here.”
Ending the interaction by exchanging pleasantries, Mayor Mare soon enough found herself in the office of the police chief Lightning Law, engaged in a private discussion with the grizzled and grey pegasus mare. All other information about what had preceded the case aligned with Sweetie Belle’s description. Under normal circumstances, if prosecutorial evidence against somepony was proved to be this flimsy, the detained would be released without charges. What rendered the situation abnormal was the recent federal directive which provided instructions on handling anypony arrested for suspected Changeling status. With Mayor Mare’s talent for parsing the paperwork of bureaucracy, proven by the scroll on her flank, Lightning Law held faint hope that the mayor could work around an apparently inflexible order.
“Unfortunately, the instructions are clear in stating that somepony the police arrest specifically under suspicion of being a Changeling should be held until a ‘specialized investigator’ arrives,” Mayor Mare grumbled. Not having to hide her irritation and exhaustion during this particular conversation was somewhat of a relief, after the long day the mayor had endured so far. She and the police chief had a close enough relationship to negate any need to put on a politician’s mask in such a private meeting.
“I still don’t get what kind of investigator we’re waiting for. What kind of bureaucracy are we going to have to go through here?” Chief Lightning Law asked.
“I… actually don’t know,” Mayor Mare admitted.
The police chief paused, and then sighed. “Well, I guess I couldn’t realistically expect any other answer,” she muttered. “On the trip to Canterlot, if you’re able to at least find out who these specialized investigators are and what the process is going to be, that would be great.”
“Of course,” Mayor Mare responded. “I’ll definitely do that.”

—-----------------------------------------------

Upon boarding the train to Canterlot, Mayor Mare walked down the aisle to find a secluded seat in which she could pore over documents relevant to the negotiations she would soon initiate. The bureaucrat came to a sudden halt as she saw an unexpected passenger, gazing at his own assorted papers.
“Mayor City Care?” Mayor Mare questioned.
The chestnut brown earth pony stallion brought bright blue eyes up through the bangs of his rusty orange mane, appearing similarly surprised to see Ponyville’s mayor. While ‘city’ was in his name, City Care’s town was actually smaller than Mayor Mare’s (though he was born in Canterlot before his parents’ reassignment). He hailed from a politically inclined family (albeit a non-noble one), and as such, was far better connected than what might be expected from the mayor of such a small settlement as Saddlevale.
“Mayor Mare! I wasn’t expecting to share the train car with you. What’s the reason for your trip to Canterlot?” City Care asked.
“Various issues relating to instructions about how to handle Changelings,” the Mayor responded. “As for your reason?”
City Care smiled ruefully. “Exactly the same thing. Want to talk about it?”