Shining Armor
“The court has reached a verdict,” I announce in my best imperial voice from my elevated platform. The usual chattering and whispering from the small group of ponies has to be silenced with a few bangs of a gavel. “Ahem,” I clear my throat, not for any need but more for the effect of it. “Mr. Shimmer has been brought here on charges of assault and battery against Mr. Polish,” I restate what everpony already knows, simply because that’s procedure, even here. “Mr. Shimmer alleges that it was a case of the removal of a disorderly bar patron gone wrong.”
“That’s ‘cause it was!” shouts the stallion in question, looking irritated.
“That is enough!” I reply in my best stern tone.
More whispering. Another few gavel bangs to get their attention.
“Now, the evidence presented by Mr. Shimmer, including sworn statements from several others patronizing his establishment at the time of the incident, indicates that Mr. Polish was, by his own verbal confession, heavily inebriated on that night. Furthermore, witness statements align with the allegation that when confronted by an establishment bouncer and told to leave, Mr. Polish responded by, and I quote, “decking him in one punch”.”
“That’s a bloody lie that is!” screams one Mr. Gem Polish from his place on the stands.
“Order! Order in the court!” I yell out, banging my gavel again for silence. When I get it, I continue. “The next pony to interrupt court proceedings will be held in contempt of court and removed from the secession. Is that clear to everypony?”
A good deal more mumbling, and vague assents from the two belligerent stallions.
I nod in satisfaction, then continue where I left off. “Following this, Mr. Shimmer is alleged to have personally taken action against the offender by, and I quote, “tackling him to the ground and wrestling him down”. Mr. Polish was subsequently arrested on charges of assault and disorderly conduct, prior to filing assault charges against Mr. Shimmer.”
So, a stallion gets drunk, decks another pony, gets wrestled to the ground, and then decides to allege assault against the pony that brought him down. Hardly a mystery for the ages. How exactly did this case get all the way to the Royal Court again?
“Mr. Polish alleges that he did not, in fact, assault another pony and was attacked without provocation.” I look down at the papers in front of me. “Unfortunately, Mr. Polish has not produced any evidence to support his version of events beyond his own word and his injuries, whereas Mr. Shimmer has produced a bouncer with a head injury, several sworn witness testimonies, and the Crystal Guard report filed on the scene. As such, the court has no choice but to find Mr. Shimmer not guilty on charges of assault and battery.”
The court erupts into a frenzy of whispers and hurried activity. Silver Shimmer, now free of charges against him, looks satisfied and nods his head my way with a small smile on his face. Gem Polish, by contrast, starts screaming and swearing at me, and has to be virtually dragged away by a pair of guards. I make a mental note to add “contempt of court” to his rap sheet, which is already pretty long even without the other charges he himself will be facing. Hopefully, this time the lower courts will be able to handle it without asking for my wife’s intervention. I still don’t know whose bright idea it was to send such an open and shut case this high up, but I suppose I could thank Mr. Polish’s absolutely insane devotion to appealing verdicts.
That, thankfully, is the final Royal Court session for the day, meaning I can take a break from this to go fill out paperwork instead. Goody goody gumdrops.
Sorry, do I sound a little bitter? Well, it’s just that, like many ponies, I’m not overly found of the mundane little details involved in running a kingdom. That’s one reason that I went into the military as a colt, rather than the civil service. At least there, for all the tedium and drills and standing around involved, when you see a threat you can usually just punch it in the face and that will solve most of it. I’m not exactly cut out for the paper-pushing lifestyle. I leave that to my LSBFF.
But there are more important things than my personal likes and dislikes. I know that Cadence isn’t sleeping well, and she’s been somewhat off in performing her royal duties. It’s stressing her, I know it is, to be caught between whatever she’s afraid of (and won’t tell me about), and all the responsibilities that come from being the eternal ruler of the Crystal Empire. If she won’t talk to me about her problems, and my investigations haven’t turned up anything yet, the least I can do for my wife is take some of the burden of leadership off her shoulders. She was going to be doing this today, but I surprised her in the morning and sent her off to enjoy a day at the spa and a long nap.
I hope that will at least make her relax a bit.
Cadence
“RAAARGH!” I smash my hoof down on the table in front of me, snapping the exquisite old oak furniture in two like so much plywood. Splinters and wood dust fill the air, then clatter to the ground and settle. My samples floating in crystal jars full of nutrient liquid tumble this way and that, some managing to weather the fall and others ruined beyond usefulness. For a few moments, the only sound in my laboratory is that of my own heavy breathing
Then there is silence.
I glare around in rage. My inner god-queen, the imperial part of me, feels that destroying a mere table isn’t enough punishment. It wants me to smite down all that offends me, and right now all my equipment is offending me. It’s failing me. Listening to that voice would be immensely satisfying… but no. I need to keep a cool head in the face of intense emotion.
Reluctantly, I close my eyes and take a minute to go through an anti-stress breathing exercise. One, two. One, two. In, out. In, out. Aaaaaaahhhhh…
Oh, you expected me to be at the spa? Hardly. Shining’s thoughtful gestures are much appreciated and remind me every day of why I fell for him, but I’m hardly the mare to while away precious hours being pampered while my husband sits in a guillotine. An illusion and a few suggestion spells were all it took to get some private time to spend down here in my lab.
With the worst of my frustration driven away by the simple, calming expedient of controlled breathing, I simply slump back against a nearby bookshelf. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. I’m doing everything. Absolutely everything I can think of. And nothing is giving me the results I want!
The latest experiment I just pounded on was another avenue in creating an alicorn body. I had got to thinking: I have an alicorn body, full of alicorn cells. I have extensive documentation on the physiology of my kind. And my body can endure and regenerate the loss of large amounts of tissue at once without much difficulty. So I decided to try and magically vat grow an alicorn form directly from the cells of my own body, one organ at a time if need be. It wouldn’t be quite as good as a male form, but it would be a vast improvement for poor Shiny until I could solve that issue. Plus, results like that would buy me more time from Celestia.
But it’s not working! Oh, sure, I created artificial organs grown directly from tissues of my own. I even had a fully functional heart in a jar (getting samples of that safely was not easy even for me, let me tell you). But my tests revealed a dire problem – the organs being grown weren’t the ageless insides of an alicorn, but the entirely mortal body parts of a pegasus!
Pardon my language, but what the buck?!
Those cells were mine! I know – carved them out of there myself. Nopony else was used for a donor. I was careful to keep all the samples clear of anything else in the lab while they grew in magical nutrient fluid. And yet, when I come to check my work that I find that all I’m growing is an ordinary pegasus form! Why didn’t that work?! How can my cells be alicorn inside me, but suddenly revert to pegasus once I take them out? What did I do wrong?
Aaaargh…
I bang my head against a wall and sob. It’s not fair! It just isn’t fair! I’m working my hooves to the bone to try and find some way to make an alicorn, and nothing I try works! And if I don’t succeed, not only will Shiny have to suffer for the remainder of his life because of my selfishness, but Celestia might well decide that my time is up and kill him! What’s the secret?! Where am I going wrong?!
I let the tears flow, dripping down my cheeks and onto the hard stone floor below.
I’d do anything to find that secret right now. Anything.
Celestia
I smile, genuinely, as my chariot arrives at last within sight of Ostflugel, or East Wing as it is known in modern times, the mountain city in the Gryphus Empire closest to their eastern seaboard. As of a few days ago, it further holds the honor of hosting the diplomatic summit between the Empire and Prance to decide the fate of the Senadas, presided over and mediated by myself. I would have preferred Canterlot, but the two nations are quite prickly at the moment and I diplomatically bowed to their wishes.
It will be good to get off this golden thing and stretch a bit. Perhaps I’ll even have a chance to exercise my wings while I’m here. To be entirely honest with you, I would have enjoyed the flight much more if I had been flying myself, but it does make the Royal Guard feel good about themselves to do it for me, and who am I to deny them their happiness? I just hope my drivers haven’t exhausted themselves – it’s quite a long flight from here to Equestria.
We set down on a well-prepared landing field surrounded by the usual mix of guards, press, eager citizenry, shameless sycophants, and politicians. Reporters, mostly gryphons but with some ponies and a lone minotaur in the mix, start snapping shots of me and my honor guard the moment we arrive. I maintain a regal pose and gentle smile as we land and I step off, determined to give as good a show as ever.
The crowd surges and the guard lines buckle momentarily as the citizenry presses in, each struggling to get a good look at what’s about to happen. Emperor Serath XV of the Gryphus Empire is here to greet me in person, a fact I appreciate. The old gryphon, surrounded by a half-dozen others of his kind in the armor of elite protectors, walks at a slow pace down the field to meet me. My own guards fan out in ceremonial formation, surrounding me as I make my way towards the Emperor. Cameras continue to flash from all angles, and I am sure to keep my eyes ahead and my posture perfect even while I favor them with a motherly smile.
Emperor Serath and I meet in the center of the landing field, a smile on his elderly face. I like this Emperor, really. He is a long-overdue leader for the Empire that understands that a continuous policy of small-scale war and constant aggression only makes for misery all around. He even breaks the Imperial tradition of standing immobile and forcing important guests to come before him, opting instead to meet them halfway in a symbol of cooperation. It’s a shame he’s getting on up in his years – at eighty seven, I wouldn’t give him more than a decade, or perhaps two, before he’s gone and replaced with the child of his that the Imperial Senate most favors. A rather poor method of succession, in my opinion, but at least it’s better than the wild fratricides, struggles for power, and civil wars that came before.
“Your majesty, Emperor Serath XV,” I say, closing my eyes and giving him a formal bow at the neck. He may be a cut above his predecessors, but like all gryphons he has his pride, and it’s important to indulge it when being diplomatic.
“Your highness, Princess Celestia,” he intones, giving me a somewhat shallower bow.
“It is an honor to be invited here. I and all Equestria thank you sincerely for your goodwill and hospitality.” I smile at him.
“It is an honor to have you, Princess,” he responds, with a slight grin on the edge of his beak.
Serath and I pause just long enough to give the crowd a wave, and then vanish into one of the many tunnels carved into the mountain, guards gryphon and pony alike keeping the crowd from following us.
“So,” Serath begins, as soon as the elderly gryphon and I are safely beyond the prying gaze of the crowds outside. “What do you think the odds are that we all go home happy?”
I grin a bit. “Straight to the point, then?”
“Bah!” he snorts. “At my age, I ain’t got time to dance around in the wind like some damned breezie! We’re here to see if we can’t solve this with words instead of swords, and I want your opinion our chances of success.”
I consider for a moment, casting a discreet spell to frustrate and deny would-be eavesdroppers. “Nopony is going home entirely happy with everything. That’s just diplomacy. But I think, if we tread carefully, we can get a mutually-acceptable agreement out of all of this. There’s no inherent reason that your two nations cannot find some reasonable balance to mutually share in nature’s bounty.”
“Hmph,” he looks skeptical. “Well, I’ll take it. I’ve spent my life trying to avoid a war, last I need in my old age is a smudge on my record. I’d like to do this reasonably, but,” he ruffles his feathers. “Some in the Senate don’t quite agree with me there. And who knows what’s going on in Prance and that damn fool Premier’s head?”
“I am certain Premier Light will prove amendable to reason. What we do here will not satisfy everypony to the utmost, but if we can work to establish more trust between your nations and we avoid bloodshed I will consider it a more glorious success than any victory in battle.” I answer, truthfully.
“Hmph,” Serath looks up at me carefully, scrutinizing my face. I maintain a determined but hopeful expression. “I suppose I can agree with that.”
I smile. “Then we are half the way there already.”