I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, and found myself staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room. I tried to pick my head up to look around, but discovered that my neck was stuck in place. "Hello?" I asked, hoping there was someone around to answer. "Where am I? What's going on?"
No one answered, but I soon heard hoofsteps, and a mare with a short mane and a crazy-looking head mirror appeared over me. "Good, you're awake," she said. "How are you feeling?"
"My neck's kind of sore," I replied, "and I've got a major headache."
"That's all?" The mare stepped out of my vision for a second. "You should consider yourself lucky, Mr. Zebediah. You nearly died last night."
"What?!" The revelation caught me by surprise. "What do you mean, I nearly died? What happened?"
"You don't remember?" The mare re-appeared in my view and shined a bright light into my eyes. "Tell me, what's the last thing you do remember?"
"Well, I was at dinner, and I got Roady some cider, and Bruiser came up and apologized for being a jerk, and then... Oh yeah, Bruiser asked me to help him with something, and then..." I racked my brain a while longer, but came up empty. "That's it. Next thing I know, I'm in here."
"I see." The mare stepped away again. "I don't have all the details, but you took a serious blow to the head, and judging from the abrasions, somepony had their hooves on your neck."
"Really?" I thought about asking the mare who had done this, but deep down, I already knew. Mrs. Green never would have asked Bruiser to help her with anything. The apology, the reconciliation, the request—it was all part of Bruiser's plan for revenge. How could I have been so stupid? And yet, he seemed so sincere at dinner... "I don't understand," I finally said. "Bruiser said he was sorry."
"He's certainly sorry now," the mare remarked.
"What do you mean?"
The mare leaned over me holding a mirror in her mouth, which she angled to show me the bed next to mine. The bed was occupied by a large stallion that was roughly the size and shape of Bruiser, but he was so covered in casts and bandages that he was impossible to identify. "Is that... Bruiser?" I asked.
The mare nodded.
I laid there in shock for a moment as the mare disappeared again. "Did I do that?"
"Like I said, I don't have all the details," the mare replied. "The good news is that you're only bruised up and stiff—nothing's really broken. I would take it easy for a while with that bump on your head, but once we get you out of that brace, you should be fine to go before the judge."
"Wait, what? The judge?"
"That's right," the mare said. "Bobby said you had a court date this afternoon to answer to some sort of licensing charge."
I quickly went through the math in my head: I had been taken into custody on Saturday night, which meant today was Monday, which meant that I was going to face a judge, pay a fine, and leave! Suddenly my head and neck didn't hurt at all."Yahoo!" I shouted. "I'm finally getting out!"
"Assuming they don't stick you with another charge," the mare noted. "Still, I know Bobby's looking forward to getting rid of you."
"What time is it? How much time before the hearing?"
"It's only nine," the mare replied. "I'd like you to get a few more hours of rest before you leave, so try to relax, okay?"
"No problem!" I stretched out, yawned, and followed the doctor's orders. It was the easiest thing I'd done in three days.
Four hours, three aspirin, and one muscle relaxant later, I walked out of the nurse's office with a bounce in my step and a smile on my face. I was told I had to report to the processing office, but the only explicit rules they had were 'don't leave' and 'don't talk to the other inmates,' so I took a short detour to the kitchen to say goodbye to Mrs. Green.
My appearance seemed to startle Mrs. Green. "Oh my! All you all right, dearie?" she asked. "I heard that Bruiser tried to kill you last night."
"I don't remember anything," I admitted. "What did they say happened?"
"Lonesome said he heard that Bruiser lured you into the storeroom and started, well, attacking you," Mrs. Green said, "He also said you should have known better, by the way."
I shrugged. "He's right, although it looks like Bruiser got the worse end of the deal. Apparently I'm a better fighter than I realized."
"Lonesome said it wasn't you," Mrs. Green said, "but he didn't say exactly who it was. Bobby interrogated him and several others for hours last night, but nopony would talk. All Lonesome told me was that Bruiser ran into a tiny problem."
"Tiny, huh?" That explains all the casts and bandages, I thought.
"Why did you do it?" Mrs. Green asked. "Why did you go into that storeroom?"
I told Mrs. Green about the conversation Bruiser and I had leading up to the incident. "He apologized to me for everything," I said. "After the game last night, it felt like some of the other inmates had accepted me as an okay guy. For a minute there, I thought Bruiser had too." I sighed. "I guess it isn't always better to be trusting."
"Maybe not," Mrs. Green conceded, "but then again, a pony will never become trustworthy if nopony allows them to be. Bruiser may be a rotten apple, but at least you were kind enough to give him a chance to show otherwise. That counts for something."
"I suppose," I said. "They told me to stay away from the other guys, so I probably won't see Roady before I go. Could you tell him I said goodbye, and that I want to thank him for everything?"
"Of course, dearie." Mrs. Green smiled, then turned and fetched a paper bag from a nearby counter. "I thought you might need a snack for the road," she said.
"You read my mind," I said as I accepted the gift. "Thanks, Mrs. Green."
"Your welcome." Mrs. Green gave me a wink. "Now stay out of trouble, will you?"
We hugged, and I continued on my way to the processing room, where I met up with the orange earth pony who had made my first acquaintance at the jail. "You've got another thirty minutes," she said, directing me to a bench on the opposite side of the room.
Let me tell you, thirty minutes never passed so slowly in the history of Equestria. By the time Bobby came to get me, I had eaten the snack from Mrs. Green, read all three magazines the room had from cover to cover, and counted all of the room's ceiling tiles (there were two hundred). "Time to go, pal," Bobby said as he motioned for me to follow him into the court.
I followed Bobby past a few rows of empty gallery seating and down to one of the tables positioned in front of a judge's bench. My old nemesis Bureaucrat, still wearing his ugly striped shirt, was waiting at the other table. He looked down his nose at me as I walked by, but I didn't acknowledge him.
Bobby walked over and stood next to the bench. "All rise," he instructed. "This court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Amicus Curiae presiding."
A yellow earth pony in full judicial regalia emerged from the back of the courtroom and shot Bobby an annoyed glare as she stepped up to the bench. "Do you have to recite my full name every time?" she asked. "Can't you just call me Judge Amy?"
"The rules of the court specify—" Bobby started to say.
"Whatever." Amy waved off the rest of Bobby's reply, and sighed as she looked out at Bureaucrat. "Let me guess: You've brought me another poor sucker who didn't pay his performer license fee."
"That's correct, Your Honor," Bureaucrat said. "This zebra was caught plying his trade at our annual flower fair without proper documentation. When we confronted the zebra with this charge, he made an attempt to escape, and thus was deemed a flight risk and incarcerated."
"Now wait a minute," I interrupted. "You said—"
"That's enough," Amy said, banging her hoof on the bench.
"But he's got it backwards," I insisted. "He decided I was a flight risk the minute he—"
"I said that's enough!" Amy banged her hoof on the bench a few more times. "One more outburst, and I'll hold you in contempt!" She turned back to Bureaucrat. "How much?"
"The city of Trottingham has assessed the defendant with a fine of three hundred bits," Bureaucrat replied.
Three hundred?!?! They wanted to soak me for double the amount they quoted me before? I'd have to sell my cart to cover a bill like that! Still, I swallowed my pride, and decided that getting robbed was preferable to going back to jail.
Amy looked over at me. "And what do you have to say?"
I took a deep breath. "I admit that I was unaware of Trottingham's license law, and—"
"Well, that settles it!" Amy decided. "Mr. Zeba... Zebby..." She stopped and looked down at her notes. "Zeh-bye-dye-ah, this court finds you guilty of performing within the city limits without a license, and orders you to pay the sum of—"
"Objection!" A loud voice suddenly echoed through the courtroom. My ears perked up as I recognized the voice, and I turned to see Roady strutting down the center aisle. "I, Mr. L. Dusty Road, Esquire, declare the punishment of this zebra to be unfair, unjust, and unbecoming!"
"What are you doing here?" Bobby demanded. "You're supposed to be in the prison yard with the rest of the inmates!"
Roady wagged his hoof at Bobby. "Sorry, Bobby, but this time, I'm asking the questions!"
I have to admit, I was more than a little nervous as I watched Roady approach the bench. "What are you doing?" I whispered to him as he passed.
"Trust me, Stripes," he said as he winked and dropped a stack of papers on my table. "I've been waiting a long time for this. Besides, any dope who bought Bruiser's baloney needs all the help he can get."
Amy glared down at Roady from the bench. "Mr. Road," she said, "you are wasting the court's time with your interruption and your insinuations! You have five seconds to exit this courtroom before I—"
"Then I'll make this quick," Roady interrupted. "Bobby, a young mare named Cloverleaf was tossed in here for not having a license two weeks ago. How many bits was she fined?"
Bobby scratched his chin and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "I'm not sure. I think it was one hundred and something."
"One hundred and fifty, to be exact," Roady said. He grabbed one of the papers from my table with his mouth and brought it over to Bobby. "I call this 'Exhibit A.'"
Bobby's eyes popped open as he looked at the paper. "This is an official police record! Where did—"
"A magician never reveals his secrets," Roady said with a smile. He walked back over to my table, spread a few of his papers out, and began pointing at them. "Three weeks ago, neither Tumbler nor Brush Stroke had licenses, and they paid one hundred and fifty bits apiece. Last month, we had Palette, Jumbo, Falsetto, and Country Bumpkin, and they all paid one hundred and fifty bits. The month before that, you stuck Sparkler, Fizzy, and Trixie in here. and guess how much they were fined?"
"All that means nothing!" Bureaucrat said. "We've increased our fines recently, and there were extenuating circumstances in this particular case!"
"You can call them 'extenuating circumstances' if you like." Roady pointed his hoof at Bureaucrat. "I call this discrimination!"
"How dare you!" Bureaucrat hissed. "Your Honor, these vile allegations are completely baseless! I demand that this pony be removed from the courtroom!"
"I concur!" Amy banged her hoof on the bench once more. "Bobby, please evict this intruder!"
I started sinking below the table as Bobby walked over to Roady, absolutely sure that both of us were getting a permanent reservation at the Hoosegow Hotel. Roady, however, wasn't out of tricks just yet. "Throw me out if you want, " he warned the court, "but remember that an accusation like this is very serious. Serious enough to trigger an investigation."
"Hardly," Bureaucrat huffed, "As if anypony would listen a deviant like you."
"That's what the jokers running that kangaroo court out in Dodge Junction thought too," Roady replied. "I'm sure you're aware of where they're spending their time these days." He walked back to my table and pulled out another paper from the bottom of his pile. "Of course, it looks like you guys are used to investigations by now. You've had three in the last five years!"
For the first time since Roady started talking, Bureaucrat started to look nervous. "Where did you get those?" he demanded. "Those papers are—"
"Are public record!" Roady interrupted. "But it's not the where that's important, it's the what." Roady whistled in amazement as he started scanning through the report. "Look at this," he said. "Canterlot was so concerned about your behavior that they sent somepony named Twilight Sparkle here to audit you the last time. Gosh, that name sounds familiar..."
I could start to feel the momentum shifting in the courtroom. As I looked around, I noted that Bureaucrat, Amy, and even Bobby were starting to look concerned.
"Dear me," Roady continued, "just look at all the big words Miss Sparkle used in this report! Predatory, entrapment, arbitrary... Ooh, listen to this line: 'I find the behavior of Trottingham officials to be quite shameful, and recommend that they completely overhaul their system to ensure that their main focus is justice and not enrichment.'"
"N-Now see here," Bureaucrat stammered, "I'll have you know that we've discussed Princess Sparkle's recommendations at great length, and have taken numerous steps towards implementing them."
Roady didn't even look like he was listening. He stared intently at the paper for a few more seconds, than looked up at the judge. "Tell me, Your Honor, is Miss Sparkle the one who coined the term 'Lazy Amy,' or was it something she picked up in her investigation?"
"Hey!" Amy objected. "I'm not lazy! I work three days a week now!"
"When it's raining," Roady shot back. "Good luck getting justice in this town when it's sunny out." He tossed the report onto my table. "I don't know about you all," he said, "but if Miss Sparkle were to come back here and discover you're charging double fines to zebras on top of everything else..." He turned and started walking to the rear exit of the courtroom. "I'd better tell the guys to make some room for you in the holding cell. They're really looking forward to seeing you!"
"Wait!" Amy shouted, her face now covered in sweat. "A-As judge, I hereby declare that three hundred bits is an excessive fine, and reduce the amount to one hundred and fifty."
"Yes!" Bureaucrat agreed. "The city of Trottingham accepts this change."
Roady stopped at my table and turned to face the judge. "Oh, come on," he said as he pointed at me. "Look at what this poor soul has been through! Heck, somepony tried to kill him last night! Can you imagine what would happen if this story hit the papers? How do you think the headline 'ZEBRA JAILED, ABUSED OVER MISSING LICENSE' would play in Canterlot, or over in zebra country?" Roady shook his head. "Forget Miss Sparkle—you louts would have Princess Freaking Celestia breathing down your necks!"
Bureaucrat didn't look so high and mighty anymore—in fact, he was shaking like a leaf. "P-Perhaps the pony has a point," he said. "Maybe the pain and suffering our striped friend has endured is punishment enough."
"Agreed!" Amy slammed her hoof on the bench one final time. "Mr. Zeh-bye-dye-ah, you're free to go, and this court is in recess for thirty minutes while I, uh, use the facilities."
My jaw dropped, and I looked over at Roady in disbelief. Did he really just get me out of this mess without paying a fine at all? It took me a second to find my voice. "That was unbelievable!" I gushed. "Where did that come from?"
Roady shrugged. "When you're stuck in jail for a while, you start picking up tricks from defense lawyers."
I knew Roady's answer was a load of baloney, but before I could call him on it, Bobby started shoving him back towards the rear exit. "It's back to the cooler for you, Counselor," Bobby growled as he swept some of the police reports from my table up under his wing. "You've got some explaining to do."
"Wait!" Roady reached back and pushed over the remaining pile of papers, revealing an envelope at the very bottom of the pile. He looked over at me with a pleading look in his eyes that I'd never seen before. "Stripes," he said, "if you do nothing else for me, would you take that letter with you? I haven't seen my brother in years, and I don't know his exact address anymore, and, well, I think I'm going to be stuck here for a while. Do you think you could—"
"Are you kidding?" I smiled. "I'll deliver this thing as a singing telegram!" I had no idea how I would find Roady's brother, of course, but I would find him. I owed Roady at least that much.
"Thanks, Stripes." Roady said. "I knew you were a good guy."
As Bobby dragged Roady away, I looked down at Roady's note. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I read the incomplete address on the envelope: Roady's brother was named Zachariah, and he lived in Neighport Hollow! That was only twenty-five miles east of my hometown! Did this mean...
I looked up, but Roady and Bobby had already left the courtroom. I raced after them, but two officers were already waiting for me outside the court to take me to the impound lot to collect my belongings.
I was surprised to find all of my stuff unmoved and unharmed when I got to the lot, save for the money I paid Bobby for cider. I was packed up, hooked up, and ready to go in two minutes, and stepped out of the lot gate a free zebra. I had no idea where I was going, but as long as it wasn't Trottingham, I didn't care.
As I made my way past the front of the jail, I spotted Bobby standing in front of the door, looking he was about to go on patrol. I thought about buying Roady one last cider for the road, but I as approached Bobby, an even crazier idea popped into my head. "Hey Bobby," I asked, "exactly how much does Roady owe on that stuff he burnt down?"
"One hundred and ninety-two bits," Bobby muttered wearily. "Not that I'm counting or anything."
I sighed. I didn't have the bits to get Roady out right away, but I figured I could at least shorten his stay. "Would you take one sixty-three?" I asked.
Bobby gave me a surprised look. "Are you kidding?"
"Nope. I'd like to donate to his cause."
Bobby shrugged. "I guess it's your money, and it'll get that rabble-rouser out of my hair a lot quicker."
I quickly dug into my cart and gave Bobby all the money I had. What the heck, I thought. It won't be the first time I've lived on roadside grass. "Do me a favor," I said. "Don't tell Roady about this. Tell him the shed guy had a change of heart or something." I didn't want the plan to get hung up over Roady being too proud to accept charity or anything like that.
"Whatever you want." Bobby bagged up the bits and headed for the jailhouse door. "Oh, and one more thing," he said over his shoulder. "I'm giving you twenty-four hours to get your sorry flank out of town. I suggest you move along before you get into any more trouble."
"Yes, sir!" I bid Bobby farewell, and headed for the city limits.
So what exactly did I learn from all this? Well, I learned that making blanket statements about creatures is a complete waste of time, because they're all wrong. Whether you're talking about ponies or zebras or griffons or any creatures, it's better to think of them as individuals, and decide for yourself whether they're worthy of your trust. If you're not sure, give them the benefit of the doubt—after all, like Mrs. Green said, it's better to be trusting. I certainly learned that lesson, and hopefully some of the ponies in that jail did too.
I also discovered that ponies can be full of surprises. I ended up staying in Equestria for another few months before going back home, and the first thing I did when I got back was make a special trip over to Neighport Hollow. Zachariah had moved away a few years earlier, but I was able to get a more accurate address and personally deliver Roady's note. Zach turned out to be a prominent lawyer in town, and he said that he and Roady were the product of a pony-zebra marriage, which explained why Roady took offense to Bruiser's "zebra lover" comment. I got to meet Roady's parents the next year on my way through town, and I've kept in touch with them ever since.
Unfortunately, I've found that there is a group of creatures like Bruiser who will never change their way of thinking about others, a group that still includes my mother. The only zebras that know I was incarcerated are Zach's family and my sister—when I talk to anyone else about my travels, I leave that part of the story out.
Believe it or not, I still take my act on the road to Equestria every summer, and I make a point to work the Trottingham flower festival—fully licensed, of course! I never see Bureaucrat anymore, but I always stop for lunch with Mrs. Green, and Bobby always mutters to himself when we pass on the street. I heard that Bruiser was eventually transferred to yet another facility, and the latest rumor is that he earned himself a nice, cozy spot in the pits of Tartarus. Smash, on the other hoof, made his fourth stint in the Trottingham jail his last, and he hasn't been seen or heard from since, making his motivations for coming to my rescue that night a complete mystery.
I haven't seen Roady since I got out of jail either, although I look for him on every road I travel and in every town I pass through. Well, I guess that's not exactly true: I saw a picture of him in the paper not that long ago, around the time Princess Twilight Sparkle got her new castle in Ponyville. I was back home at the time, but the local newspaper had a front-page picture of the princess addressing a throng of celebrating ponies outside her castle. Smack dab in the middle of the crowd, smiling and raising a mug of what had to be apple cider, was Mr. Lonesome Road himself.
I was surprised that a sketchy-looking pony that Roady would be allowed that close to Equestrian royalty. Then again, I suppose a Princess of Friendship knows more than anyone that it's better to be trusting.