Princess Celestia trotted down the main hallway of the castle, en route to the one pony that she could trust to help her in this scenario. She might not be too open to the idea of being woken up, but being alicorns did come with the benefit of having a lot of energy reserves to call upon when needed.
She reached Luna's door and rapped her hoof on it five times to signal to her sister that whatever she had for her was important. She heard a loud groan from the other side of the door and the rustling of sheets. "Thou would do well to take thy plot to the other side of the castle and leave us be, Tia!" Luna groaned.
"Come now, Luna, we don't have time for this," said the sun goddess. "Something terrible has happened and I need your help!"
"What, has the cake run out in the kitchens again?" grumbled Luna. "We told you that We would not awaken just for that 'emergency'."
Celestia frowned. Though she could not see her sister, she could hazard a guess that she had made quotation marks in the air with her hooves. She didn't have time for this. "Luna, pictures of the murdered foals leaked to the press."
A blanket of silence covered the other side of the door for a good fifteen seconds before Celestia heard her sister's bed sheets being pulled aside and the night goddess rushing towards the door. One unlocking later and the frazzled looking Luna was next to her sister, with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. "How did this happen, Tia?" she whispered. "We left those pictures with the most reliable of sources. Nopony in the Ponyville station would have deliberately leaked photos, especially not ones of that nature!"
Celestia nodded. "I know," she said, "but that still leaves a myriad of other ways the press could have gotten their hooves on the pictures. Theft is not an impossibility."
"Which paper would steal such pictures?" asked Luna.
"I think the big question is which one wouldn't!" said Celestia. "Their goal is to sell as many papers as possible and with the event still so fresh..."
Luna and Celestia reached one of their private rooms where they usually went to discuss such matters. It was a back room in the palace library so they could have access to whatever they needed but still be alone to talk in private. "Tia, We suppose the first order of business is to discover which paper printed the pictures first?" she said once the door was closed and locked behind them.
Celestia nodded. "I hope that such an endeavor is successful. No newspaper would let a rival paper print photos like that first so whichever one printed first was the one behind it all. The other papers merely followed suit to keep up I'll wager."
"We suggest starting with the Canterlot papers and the Ponyville ones since they were the only ones in direct proximity with the source of the photos."
"And it would be prudent as well to question the police station involved," agreed Celestia.
"Then we are in agreement," said Luna. "We will expend all efforts to track down the cause of the leak. What shall we do to the guilty parties?"
Celestia sighed. "Prison and fines at least," she said. "Stealing evidence from a police station? That's ten years right there."
Luna nodded and opened her mouth to respond but she was cut off when a trio of loud knocks shattered her train of thought. The royal sisters frowned at each other and looked at the door uneasily. It wasn't unheard of for them to be interrupted during their meetings in the library, but it would only have been for very important problems, something that neither of them needed at the moment.
Regardless, Celestia opened the door with her magic revealing a very uneasy solar guard. Celestia frowned at him. "Yes, sergeant?"
The guard saluted. "We have a problem regarding the matter of the recent photo leak," said the sergeant.
"We are trying to solve such problems right now," said Luna. "Surely there is no bigger issue than the leaks themselves?"
The guard flattened his ears and seemed as if he wanted to look to the floor. "I'm sorry your highnesses but there is. It's..." he sighed. "It's best if you handle it yourselves as all of our attempts have been unproductive."
The two sisters exchanged a look and Luna nodded. The pair got up and motioned for the sergeant to lead them to the source of the trouble. "What is the issue at hoof, sergeant?" asked Celestia.
The sergeant shifted uneasily as he walked but answered all the same. "The...the parents of the foals are here. They found out about the leak and they're demanding to speak to you and you alone."
Celestia had to withhold a tired sigh for the sake of her sergeant and continued to allow him to lead the sisters to the throne room where the two distraught mothers had been sent. The guard pointed at the throne room but didn't enter himself. The two sisters opened up the doors and walked inside revealing Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara. Silver Spoon was sobbing hysterically while Diamond Tiara merely looked blankly at a copy of a newspaper that was laid at their feet. When silver Spoon saw the princesses come in, she got to her hooves and ran up to Celestia. "Please tell me they're not real!" she wailed.
"Miss Spoon--"
"PLEASE TELL ME THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO MY FOAL!" she shrieked. "Please tell me it wasn't that bad, that she didn't suffer that much! Please tell me that she wasn't hurt like that!"
Princess Celestia sat on her haunches and wrapped her wings around the distraught mare in a comforting hug. "Shh," she whispered. "We will find them and punish the ponies who did this, I swear to you."
"She didn't suffer like that. Please tell me those pictures aren't real!" Silver Spoon wailed. "My baby didn't hurt that much did she?"
"No," said Celestia. "I assure you that when it happened it was completely painless. Your daughter did not suffer for a moment." Celestia leaned in and gently nuzzled Silver Spoon's head. "Nor is she suffering now."
"That's more than that animal that killed my child deserves!" growled Diamond Tiara, looking contemptuously at the paper. She studied the paper for a moment. "Do you know what Sweetie Belle deserves? She deserves what we're going through right now. She d-d-deserves reading about how her daughter was put down like a rabid dog. THEN SHE'D UNDERSTAND!"
With a scream of fury and sorrow, Diamond Tiara began viciously tearing into the newspaper as if it were Sweetie Belle beneath her. Her cries of anger became mixed with sobs and once the paper was nothing more than tatters at her hooves, she collapsed on the ground and began weeping openly.
Silver Spoon whimpered and wiped her eyes with her foreleg. "Why did they do this to us?" she mewled. "Why did they feel it as okay t-to print pictures of my foal like that?"
"I don't know," said Princess Celestia sadly. "But I promise you that each and every pony involved will be punished for what they did. Neither you nor anypony else needs to see that."
Princess Celestia looked up to see Luna comforting Diamond Tiara and sighed. She looked down to the gray mare encased in her wings and shook her head. "Miss Spoon, may I ask you when and where you found out about this? Did you hear about it from others in Ponyville or was it from a Ponyville newspaper?"
"I h-heard it from one of the ponies in town, Roseluck, and saw her copy. I...I grabbed it and ran over to Tiara's house to see if s-she had heard and she already had a copy. She said she was going to Canterlot to talk to you about it and I c-came along," stuttered the mare.
"So you saw it first in a Ponyville paper," Celestia said. "When was this?"
Silver Spoon blinked back a fresh wave of tears before answering. "Just this morning; it was in the morning papers."
Princess Celestia looked up at her sister who was cradling Diamond Tiara in her wings in the same way that she was comforting Silver Spoon. Diamond Tiara had stopped bawling and was now silently crying. Luna leaned in and whispered something into her ear before looking back up at her sister with a grim expression. Celestia nodded and released Silver Spoon from the hug. "My sister and I will attend to this matter at once," she assured them. "Those responsible will be severely punished."
Diamond Tiara wiggled herself out of the night goddess's grasp and wheeled on Celestia with a fire in her eyes. "I want to have a hoof in their punishments!" she cried. "I want to make them suffer the way they've made me suffer!"
"Miss Tiara my sister and I will hoof down justice on those responsible. Every paper who published these photos will be fined and those who released it originally will be punished heavily, I promise you."
"I DON'T WANT FINES!!!" she screamed. "I WANT THEM TO SUFFER!!!"
Luna put a hoof on Diamond Tiara's shoulder. "Miss Tiara We--"
Diamond Tiara smacked the hoof away. "They have no right to disrespect my foal like that! That animal, that you threw in a nuthouse instead of putting down like you should have, killed my foal!" Diamond Tiara advanced towards Celestia menacingly, her tears falling hard and fast, staining the floor beneath her. "Doesn't that mean anything to you at all?"
Princess Celestia got to her hooves and the first traces of a glare appeared on her face. "Miss Tiara you forget yourself!" she said sharply. "My sister and I want justice the same as you do!"
"Fines aren't justice!" spat Diamond Tiara. "Justice would be to make them watch as their foals suffered! Make them watch and realize that they can't help them then put it in a newspaper for all of Equestria to read about! That. Would. Be. JUSTICE!"
Princess Celestia sighed closed her eyes to center herself for a moment before responding. "Miss. Tiara we have our laws and the guilty parties will be given justice, I promise you." Celestia motioned for Luna to come with her before returning to the distraught mares. "The best we can do for now is give you both rooms in the castle so you can be completely up to date on what is going on in the investigation. we will find out who is responsible and punish them to the full extent of the law, I swear."
Silver Spoon nodded and once more wiped her eyes with her foreleg. She raised her head to lock eyes with the goddess of the sun. Her eyes held none of the fire that Diamond Tiara's did, but they lacked none of the conviction. "Find them, Princess," she whispered. "Find out who did it and make them pay."