Judge Celestia: Upon the throne of Justice
Part 10: The Foal Artist
“Your Majesty this is case number 97630 in the matter of Bouncer versus Safe,” Noble Cause smiled for Celestia when only she could see his face, giving her the folder with his teeth. “Parties have been sworn in you may proceed when ready.”
“Thank you, Noble Cause,” Celestia watched him return to his post, flipping the folder open to briefly scan the contents. “Names and vocations, please?” she asked the ponies before her.
“I’m Baby Bouncer, I’m a stay at home mother,” said the cream-colored mare with a pacifier on her rump. “I also babysit a bit on the side for monies,” she added. She offered a kind smile, tilting her nose up. Another stay-at-home mother, Celestia observed. She seemed to be seeing several of those lately.
“I’m Failsafe, I design and test HIPS for a living,” the stocky stallion to the Princess’ left said. He had a rugged jaw with a ghost of a beard on it, and a scar under one eye. He saw Celestia’s look and coughed a little. “Er, that is— Home Invasion Prevention Services. ‘HIPS’ for short,” He gave a coltish smile that split hard through his rough exterior. There was a pony that enjoyed his work as well.
“Very well,” Celestia murmured, looking through the paperwork in front of her. “Mrs. Bouncer, I understand you are suing Mr. Safe for stress and stalking and applying for a restraining order at the same time?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the mare said rather smugly, shooting the stallion across the way a look. He cocked an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
“Well, in the interest of a speedy government service I shall try to address both at the same time before you both leave today,” Celestia offered a kind smile that made both ponies nod. “Now then, why don’t we start from the beginning and work our way from there? Mrs. Bouncer, mares first.”
“Well I watch over a gaggle of foals during certain days of the week, mostly for friends and neighbors. They all pitch in for food, and I make a little bundle at the end of each week for upkeep and my time and sanity,” she chuckled at the very idea. “Since I’m watching fewer than a dozen foals at any given time, I didn’t have to apply for a foal-rearing license like a proper daycare center.”
“I was just about to ask that, good to see you are legally cautious and aware,” Celestia nodded her approval, shuffling her great wings about a bit. Here was a mare that knew what she was doing.
“Anyway, foals need their exercise, so I always take them to the park after lunch and naptime, every single day. That way they’re fed and had some energy worn out of them by the end of the work day so they’re not a hoof-full for their parents, y’know?” Baby Bouncer stopped a moment to make sure she was being followed.
“And this park is where you first encountered Mister Fail Safe, here?” Celestia confirmed, then gestured that she continue.
“Yes, while the foals were on the playground I always sit on a bench to one side so they can do their own thing and have some freedom,” Baby Bouncer said. “And across the way, I spot this stallion, sitting alone and watchin’ all the kids,” she gestured with an accusing hoof.
“Mhm?” Celestia said, glancing at Fail Safe. The stocky, dark green stallion nodded that it was true. “Then what happened?”
“I noticed that some of the other moms and dads had noticed him as well,” Baby Bouncer said. “So I asked around a bit, trying to find out about him, but nopony seemed to know anything.”
“A mysterious stranger watching other ponies' foals, I see,” Celestia said sympathetically. “Certainly a cause for some concern. What happened next?”
“Well I don’t think he noticed me for some time, so while I was watching the foals I watched him as well,” the mare said. “He didn’t do anything at first, just sort of sat there on his bench, watching them all play intently. Then later he got out this notebook and started writing with quill and no ink.”
“No ink bottle?” Celestia asked, “That is a little suspicious,” she indulged.
“If I may, your honor,” Fail Safe lifted his briefcase open with his nose and produced a golden quill. “Pressurized ink, in case I’m hanging upside down while I’m doin’ somethin’ for HIPS.” He held it out, and Celestia’s magic gently took it. The stalk of the quill was hollow, and held with a tiny pressurized-liquid spell. The utensil could write from any angle with no problems, even upside down. She returned it to him.
“I know it sounds paranoid to say it all out loud, from an outsider’s perspective,” Baby Bouncer said with a slight cough. “But if you had foals you’d understand, Princess, if anypony’s looking at them too closely it’s never good.”
Noble Cause’s eye glanced into Celestia’s face at that moment. The less-than-fractional twitch in her eyelashes spoke volumes. The statement had cut deep somehow, or opened an ancient wound. It only jus then occurred to the Pegasus guard that Celestia had no husbands or children in recorded history. As a mare, that probably hurt her a lot— and such an off-the-cuff statement had made it worse.
Time seemed to return to its normal state when Celestia answered, “I imagine I would.” She cleared her throat a little. “So you saw Mr. Fail Safe there with his notebook and pen with no ink, watching the playground’s foals intently. What happened next?”
“Well I was really wary of whatever he was doing, so I started walking around. Chancing to maybe see over his shoulder, see?” the mare explained with a circular motion of her hoof. “Well I did so, keeping an eye on the foals, mind, and you’d not believe what he was doing!”
“What’s that?” Celestia asked.
“He was sketchin’ ‘em!” Baby Bouncer said. “Drawing each one of their little faces and bodies how he pleased, there in his notebook!”
“Is this true, Fail Safe?” Celestia asked.
“Er-yes, your Majesty,” the rough-and-tumble-looking stallion reddened in the cheeks, looking at the floor. Odd reaction, the solar princess thought. There was more to be learned, clearly.
“And what did you do then?” Celestia asked Baby Bouncer.
“I told him to shove off and quit being such a creeper!” the mare said, “Where does he get off, starin’ at our kids for hours and drawing them like that! It makes everypony nervous and it makes me paranoid about his intentions, sitting there in the park like that!”
“Mhm?” Celestia said, never doubting there would be more.
“It makes me wonder if he’s waiting for one foal to wander off on its own!”
“I don’t like what you’re implying,” Fail Safe growled from his defendant table. “World’s got enough problems without… that,” he wasn’t about to invoke the word Baby Bouncer was probably building up to.
“You’re not to speak to each other,” Celestia reminded them, straightening her posture. “Only to me, and only when prompted.” She felt like a mother hen scolding her chicks for not getting along in the same nest again. Noble Cause glanced at her. Something about this case was getting under the Princess’ skin. He couldn’t quite see what it was yet, but the way she kept glancing at Fail Safe while Baby Bouncer was talking—it was telling.
“How come you’re sitting there starin’ at ‘em, then?!” the mare demanded.
“That’s a fifty-bit fine, Miss Bouncer,” Celestia said, a slight edge in her voice. “Continue on this path and I shall dismiss your case entirely.” The mare wilted at her words, falling silent. “Now then,” the Princess prompted after a few moments, “You told Fail Safe to shoo away, what did he do then?”
“He said--!”
“Not said, that’s heresay,” Celestia interrupted. “What did he do?”
“Er,” Baby Bouncer thought a moment, erasing the conversation from her story, “He didn’t budge! He just sat there and scowled at me like I’d just insulted his mother.”
“Not his mother, merely his honor,” Celestia murmured so low that only Noble Cause heard her.
“Needless to say, I went and got a park ranger right away! We don’t need creepers like him there at the playground for foals! If he doesn’t have foals with him, then there’s no reason to be there! It was setting everypony on edge and I wasn’t going to have any of it!” Baby Bouncer said, stamping a hoof. “So I got some of the other parents together, you know, to watch the little ones for the five minutes that I was away, and went to find the first white stallion in armor I could find.”
“And you came back with said guard. What did he or she do?” Celestia said, reminding her that not all guards were male.
“I told him everything that had happened so far, and he just sort of shrugged it off. Like there wasn’t some strange pony eyeballing our kids and drawing their pictures like a creepy artist pedophile!” she jutted a hoof at the stallion.
“I’ll not stand there and be called that, you BITCH!” shouted Fail Safe, red-faced and furious.
“Order!” Celestia stamped a hoof so hard the top stair of the dais cracked under her fury. Noble Cause, along with everypony else, watched a bit-sized stone break free and tumble down the middle of the aisle. “I’ll hold you both in contempt, the both of you,” Celestia said, her motherly smile and demeanor gone. “This is a clearly a sensitive topic, and if you cannot approach it as mature ponies you will both spend the night in the palace dungeon.” She did not shout, merely threatened. “Then you may swear and scream at each other all night until you are hoarse.” There was a short silence followed by, “And a one hundred-bit fine for the both of you, for disorderly conduct in my courtroom.”
Noble Cause coughed twice, gesturing with his earth-pony mantacles and pegasus wing-bars. Every guard on the force had one or two restraints for each tribe on his person at any given time. It would be nothing to grab them both and haul them off to jail.
After a silence of staring both angry little ponies down into their place, Celestia took a deep breath and collected herself. Slowly, painfully, she wiped the frown from her face and the queen-mask came back on. “So you brought a guard to the scene, and he did nothing for you, nor against Fail Safe?” she asked Baby Bouncer.
“Er, yes,” the mare said, cowed under Celestia’s spike of passion and anger.
“So this guard told you Fail Safe had done nothing wrong. Did he examine the notebook in question?” Celestia asked.
“Yes.”
“And he did nothing?”
“No.”
"Was he back the next day, while your gaggle of foals were playing?"
"And the next day! And the day after that! Every time we were there, like he was stalking us! Always sketching in his little book!"
“Is this notebook present in the courtroom today?” Celestia turned her gaze to Fail Safe, who squirmed a little. “Let me see it?” she gestured. The stallion fished in his briefcase, then offered the item to Noble Cause. The bailiff took it, then brought it to Celestia. The Princess pawed through it a little, flipping the pages. It was a two hundred and fifty page notebook, un-lined, with ink drawings in it. With the dates and initials in the corners, she tracked his progress through several years of sketching foals, playgrounds, and young-looking families. All of them smiling, prancing, flying, playing. Nothing shady, nothing that didn't need to be showing. The raciest thing was of a young couple kissing while a group of five foals played around their pillar-like legs. If anything it was an exersize in foal-versus-grown-pony proportions. Nothing did Celestia find offensive. “Some of these are quite good,” she commented, folding it closed again. “Your skills as an artist are developing quite a bit, Fail Safe. Art is not even your special talent, but you clearly have a knack for it,” she gestured lightly to the padlock on the stallion’s flank. “However, in the interest of clearing the air and bringing things to light, tell me, why foals?”
“It’s uhm… it’s classified,” the stallion’s face was pink in the cheeks, and he held the phrase up like only a HIPS agent could do. But it was a glass shield before an alicorn princess.
“You realize you’re under oath, Fail Safe?” Celestia prodded gently.
“I mean, it’s just… we’re on the radio and such, and…” he gestured to the audience that was watching intently from the pews. “I mean, all these ponies, it’s real personal,” even his gruff exterior had cracked a bit.
“What are you so reluctant to say, I wonder, that you would not tell your Princess?” Celestia tried a little bit of guilt, smiling in the most pleasant way she could.
“What’re you hiding, she means,” Baby Bouncer said with narrow eyes before she could stop herself.
Celestia sighed, lifting a hoof to touch the space between her eyes. “Foals are the greatest treasure in our lives, Baby Bouncer, and they are our future,” The Princess said, drawing herself up, “But you are setting a bad example, disobeying my rules for the third time. Arrest her, Noble Cause,” she gestured only lightly. Baby Bouncer’s face went as pale as a sheet, and Noble Cause cuffed her. The mare hung her head as she was led away. The Pegasus guard was away from the throne and dais, leaving only Celestia and Fail Safe to stare at each other. “She’ll spend the night in the dungeon, then be set free in the morning, perhaps with a cooler head.” Fail Safe nodded but didn’t dare speak. “Approach me, my little pony,” she gave her permission. Feeling very small before her alicorn stature, the muscled stallion came out from behind his defendant’s table. Noble Cause returned on the double, standing to one side on the dais. “Closer now,” Celestia bade, leaning and touching her microphone. The air was filled with the soft sound of static. Everypony in the room and everypony listening in on the radio heard nothing. “Speak,” she whispered, prodding him again. “You have your privacy. While it is not illegal, it is concerning to see a grown stallion drawing nothing but young ponies and foals in his notebook.”
The gruff stallion hung his head a little, red-cheeked, “I’m… I’m in the business to protect families. To keep the crooks out,” he chanced looking up into her pink gaze, but could not withstand her calculating look and quickly looked at the floor again. “I’m… I’m infertile,” he finally mumbled at the floor. “No mare either. I can’t have a family of my own… so I sit there and draw ‘em to remind myself why I do the job. Build home security systems. So they can be happy and safe instead’a me.” He couldn’t look at her face after that, he was so ashamed of his lack of… virility. “I’m… I’m sorry, I won’t do it anymore if you ask, Princess.”
Celestia switched off the static-privacy, and turned all the microphones back on. “I see,” she said evenly. “Return to your table,” she nodded at it. He obeyed, and Noble Cause didn’t relax until he was a safe distance away from her Majesty. “Fail Safe, I am ready to make my decision,” she drew herself up. “This court finds there are no grounds for a restraining order, nor for Mrs. Bouncer’s suing you for stress and stalking foals,” she said officially. “A park, along with the playground it may contain, is public property. And while any parents may show concern for their young when a stranger is around, it is not within their powers to chase said stranger away. If they are wary, they may take their foals elsewhere. I find you have done nothing wrong, Fail Safe, nor were your intentions anything of the shady variety as Mrs. Bouncer implied.” She studied the papers in front of her. “Persuing you after local law enforcement refused her has Mrs. Bouncer bordering on harrassment, but in your answering statement you only asked for punitives should you win the case. I will therefore grant you punitive damages and be done with this. Judgement for the defense in the amount of one bit. That is all.” She stamped a hoof to make it official.
Fail Safe bowed before his princess, but said nothing else as she swept from the throne and into the judge’s chambers. Noble Cause followed, and the foal artist stood there for a time, unsure of what to do. When he looked at the ponies present in the audience, they seemed to study him with curiosity, but not with contempt. His heart swelled a little. He was reminded all the more why he did the job. To keep ponies everywhere safe. His locks. His doors. His talent. Fail Safe smiled despite himself, gathering his things to leave the court room.
End of Part 10