Empty Incarcerations
Sin and Shade were lead to the throneroom, the clicks and clatters of armor and hooves of their escort sounding around them, as well as the rattling of the chains that binded them.
Oddly though, there was a third in their troop. Valaris brought up the rear. His runes stolen away from him, leaving the unicorn bare and very much naked looking. But, the metal shackles and collar helped a little bit with that.
Before long, all three were brought before both Celestia and Luna. Shining was still back at the camp, coordinating the return of the statue along with Twilight and her friends, and the pink alicorn "Cadence" taking a seat to the right of the Solar goddess.
"Sinbad Islander, Star Shade, and Valiar Hartborn, you three are accused of treason against the crown and have been brought forth before me to offer explanation and defense against the accusations and to repudiate the accuser." Celestia proclaimed sternly. "Since this is a matter of treason, we shall first judge your explanation, If I and my sister deem your explanation unsatisfactory for your crime, than you shall be taken to trial and found innocent or guilty by a jury of fellow ponies as we are the ponies of bias in your crime."
"You are now to be given time to prepare your cases and present them to us."
...
...
"You may start now."
Again, silence. Each for their own reasons. Shade due to the Luna's presence and his attention to focused on his scathing hatred of her, Sin because of his emotional issues in attempting to cope with them in a way other than repression, and Valiar because he just couldn't believe how utterly stupid he was. Challenging the captain of the guard and not escaping? He had no defense against this.
"Nothing to say?" The sun goddess inquired. "Nothing at all?"
"Your highness." Started Valiar. "Of the crime of assaulting the Guard captain, Shining Armor, I am guilty. But the treason of harboring Discord, I am not."
When asked to explain, Valiar told them about the griffin in a black jacket who'd sought out Discordian Acolytes. Claiming that they had planned to extract the statue from Canterlot and place it into the Badlands east of Dodge Junction. He'd been at the rendezvous site before the statue had arrived and witnessed a group of no less than twenty pegasi and griffins hauling it to the camp center. Each wearing the exact same uniform as the one who'd told him.
Celestia looked thoughtful at the accusation and asked the other two for confirmation of the story. Neither Shade nor Sin spoke to confirm or deny.
"C'mon guys. I could use a little help here." Valiar grumbled, prodding Sin in the side.
"I wasn't there." Sin quipped at a volume barely heard.
The eyes of all three alicorn then fell onto Star Shade who pressed his lips and looked away.
"Oh c'mon, dude. You were there before I was. Tell them that those black coat freaks were the ones who did it!" No effect.
"I believe that's quite enough." Celestia ordered, ceasing any bickering before it began. She stood from her place and slowly descended the stairs of her throne until she was eye level with the pony of interest. "Star Shade, did you or did you not have anything to do with Discord's abduction from our garden?"
Shade looked into the eyes of his princess and didn't see the anger or look of accusation he expected. All he saw was a gentle, almost compassionate curiosity on her face. He couldn't explain why, but he liked seeing her face so happy, it was soothing to him. "No, Horse Lady, I didn't take Discord from the garden." Shade replied truthfully.
"Thank you, my little pony." Celestia praised, patting the stallion on the head and making her way back to her place. "I find these explanations satisfactory to dismiss claims of treason. Sister, do you agree?"
Luna gave a token of resistance in thought but ultimately came to the same conclusion.
'Wow, gullible much?' Stated Sin's inner voice.
"However, each of you is accused of another crime. You, Sinbad, coercion of a royal guard, You, Valiar, assault of the same royal guard, and you Shade, resisting arrest. Since the accuser isn't present in order to make their claim, judgement upon these charges shall have to wait for a later date. Until such time, all present shall be detained to the Castle and kept under constant monitor to ensure you do not flee."
A few more words of formality and instruction that the trials would each be held in five days time, all five of the stallions were dismissed from the chamber and escorted out.
As soon as the doors opened, Macintosh rushed forward to see if Shade and Sin were alright. Neither had said a word as they passed into the throne room and still neither spoke now.
He followed them to the guest room of the castle where Spike had been kept during his own time waiting and the guards left all four of the ponies to themselves. Which left Sin to crawl onto the bed, Shade to sit on a chair and the unfamiliar red pony to sit in a corner and mope.
"Sin?" Mac called, walking up to the stallion's side and prod him. "Sin, ya alright?"
"Don't waste your time, bud." The red stallion called. "He isn't talking to anypony."
Mac turned his attention to Shade whom merely looked away, a surreal look of sadness on his typically neutral or happy face. The red stallion took a step back and simply stared. How had things come to this? First they took Spike away, and now his only other two friends were going to be imprisoned too? As if his dragon friend wasn't enough!
"What happened!" Macintosh demanded forcefully. He already knew they were arrested for being involved with Discord's disappearence, but that shouldn't have tramatized the oaken pony as he was. "Shade. Tell me what happened."
"Go home, Macintosh." Shade replied, his face stuck in a pout. "What happened isn't something you need to know about."
"What the buck?! We're friends, o' course it's when something hurts my friends, I need ta know 'bout it!"
"Are we?" Shade countered. Asking for any details about himself that the pony could call off the top of his head. After all friends knew those kinds of details about each other, right? Mac rebuked him, claiming he'd wanted to ask but could never find the stallion in an approachable mood.
"But that's it, isn't it?" Shade shot back. "Can you even-|
"Enough, Shade." Sin croaked, lifting his head up to defend Mac. "Macintosh, I'm sorry, but what we've done, there's no getting out of. They're pretty serious crimes, and we'll be spending a lot of time behind bars for them." He sighed. "It'd... It'd be for the best if you just move on with your life without us."
Macintosh's jaw dropped. He felt as if he'd just had his chest slammed into a brick wall. Not only from the words his friend had said, but the trembling in his body, the cracking in his voice and the shivering of his lips.
Sin was about to cry. By gosh, the stallion was being emotional!
And that was it, Sin turned away before he could really unload and fell silent, followed by Shade. Mac looked over to the other red pony in the room and was just as dejected to see the exact same reaction.
What was he supposed to do? All of his friends were in custody, facing charges that would have them taken away for years, and all he could do was stand by and helplessly watch as they fell into despair.
The stallion's own emotions threatening to bubble forth, he summoned up the last bit of composure his warey, sleep deprived mind could muster and walked out the door without any word of goodbye.
He felt numb, his appendages didn't feel real, each step he took felt like he was floating and the world passed by in a blur. He remembered walking out of the castle, arriving at the train station, briefly being on the train, passing to Ponyville and finally walking up the stairs to his room. He laid down in bed and simply stared up at the ceiling for what had to be an hour.
How? When? Why? Were the questions that kept going through his mind. His life was falling apart, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do.
He didn't know when she came in, but he felt a hoof upon his cheek and looked over to find Annabelle looking down at him with eyes full of concern. "Macintosh? Are you alright? What happened?"
The tremors came in quick order, followed by the salty sting of tears in his eyes. Next thing he knew, he was in Annabelle's sweet embrace and that was it. He couldn't hold it in any longer. He cried, he dropped every last shred of mental armor he had and completely unloaded every last bit of pain and hurt he had, the kind mare stroking his mane, whispering to him how things would be alright.
Three hours had passed for the stallions before they were disturbed by a pony offering the dinner time meal. Two of the three trays went untouched as Valiar was the only one who ate.
A few more hours passed as the night came and took each of the ponies into sleep.
After a rather strange dream about Princess Luna and... something, Sin awoke to the light of dawn aroused the Federalist from his restless slumber. He always hated the nights where he woke up more tired than when he slept.
It certainly didn't help his mental state either. It was strange, having all of the feelings he did and not knowing how to deal with them. Guilt, fear, self pity, self loathing, shame, anger, the desire to self mutilate. How he was able to hold all of these emotions back for so long was truly amazing.
A few hours of silence passed and Twilight Sparkle poked her head into the room, quickly followed by Cadence and three guards.
"Good morning, gentlecolts." She called, attempting to sound official. "We will be pulling each of you aside for individual question of your crimes and determine how best to approach the trial or if a plea bargain can be reached."
No responses. Twilight, now visibly uncomfortable, looked over to Cadence for support.
"I've already confessed." Valiar dismissed. "No point in holding a trial for me."
Unsure of how to respond, they first asked for Shade to step out with them. When he promply rejected, they attempted to coax him out with kind words. And when that didn't work, they threatened to have the lunar pegisus brought out by force of their guard.
"Whatever." Shade hmphed and up and followed. What he found both surprised and confounded him. He was lead into a room where... all of Twilight's friends sat around in chairs with Discords statue in between two of them.
"The tatarus is going on?" He ask to himself more than anypony else.
"We thought having Discord here would make you feel more comfortable." Cadance replied, closing the door and smiling gently.
"Discord?" Shade asked, very warry of the situation.
Speaking with honesty and admission, the Draconiquis told him that he'd spoke with Cadence and Twilight, informing them that he'd been using what little magic he had to try and curb the insanity in his mind and heal the stallion from the trauma of his past.
Shade didn't know what to believe. Here sat his god, in cahoots with ponies who allied themselves under the government that imprisoned him. Something was wrong, something was very very wrong, and the lunar pony felt his heart start to beat rapidly in his chest as sweat formed on his face and neck.