"You promised you would." Stick gave Hay a scowl. They, along with Penny, had been given leave for the morning to attend court.
"I know but… they are going to be there and…" Hay looked really downtrodden, her ears swung back. "They are my parents, I don't want them to hate me or anything."
Penny slung a leg over the depressed mare's shoulder. "I am not going to lie, they might say some things in the heat of the moment, but are you sure they wouldn't respect you for standing by your morals?"
Hay looked to Penny and a smile broke shyly through her mood. "They… yeah, standing up for what is right is important." She took a deep breath and puffed up, seeming to grow a little in stature. "Okay, before I lose my nerve, lets go!"
Penny lifted her leg away from the now much more confident unicorn and the three made their way in and to the day court.
They slipped in the entrance, a few ponies present noted their presence but, for the most part, they were ignored. "… and furthermore, you must help each other farm the middle-ground."
Celestia was in fine form, resolving a land dispute by getting all the ponies to work together on it.
Stick recognized what she was about immediately, Cadance used similar tricks. Her hoof came up and bopped herself on the forehead.
"What's wrong?" Penny kept her voice low while addressing Stick.
"Just remembered why Princess Cadance's justice sounded so much like Princess Celestia's." Stick pressed a little closer to Penny, one of her hooves slipping between them to rub her marefriend's belly.
"Mares and gentlecolts, we have an interesting case next." Celestia had everypony's attention, as was fitting. "It involves the school that bears my name, as well as some ponies within it. The plaintiffs are the Carts." Celestia extended her wing, inviting Hay's parents to the fore.
They looked well dressed, not quite on Penny's level of wearing a full dress, but still Pretty Cart was wearing some lovely jewelry and her stallion, Dray Cart, was wearing clothes in a similar style to what Fancy Pants would wear, but lacking that stallion's panache.
"Your highness." Pretty gave Celestia her due title and bowed her head. "I come today to bring dire warning!" There was a collective gasp from the ponies present as the mare's words seemed much more important than even she likely believed them. "You can imagine my shock when my little filly, attending the very prestigious Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns," it was clear she used that full title a lot by the way she was so practiced at saying it, "told me something dire. There is a changeling infesting the school!"
Princess Celestia looked shocked. "This will be investigated, I will contact Princess Fast Change at once, if one of Chrysalis' infiltrators has gotten into the school there are surely others."
Stick was in shock, she saw the princess' game right away, she was building a trap the likes of which any changeling would be proud of.
Pretty looked vindicated for a moment, the princess sounded very distressed at the news, it took a few seconds for the full meaning of her words to sink in. "I… wait, it is one of that abomination's drones. Why would you talk to them about it?" The horrible word she used to describe Fast Change slipped out, she used it every day, she was so used to it.
"Talk to Chrysalis?" Now it was Celestia who looked confused. "I confess there is some confusion here. Are you sure it was one of Chrysalis' changelings? I do know I sent one of my most trusted mares and her special somepony to the school recently. Oh, she is present! Stick, Penny, could you please come to the front?"
Celestia's beckoning had Stick's features turn from glee to careful happiness. Penny rose beside her, her magic reaching here and there to ensure her dress was just perfect. "Coming Princess Celestia." Penny's use of the princess' full title made Stick a little more at ease, she really must talk to the mare about her familiarity with royalty.
The court watched as the lunar unicorn, wearing a very stylish dress, and her changeling marefriend made their way up to the front of the room.
"It's one of them!" Pretty Cart looked shocked, jerking back and pointing a hoof at Stick.
There was a collective gasp, everypony present finally working out what the issue was. Celestia was very happy, most of her ponies seemed to be varying levels of upset or disgusted by Pretty's casual racism.
"Stick, Penny, I am glad to see you are both doing well. Can either of you shed any light on this? Have you found a rogue changeling in the school?" Princess Celestia gave each of them her best smile, she really regretted not making the offer to marry the adorable couple earlier.
"Princess." Penny dipped her head low, having practiced just such a thing with Stick. "I can honestly say none of the ponies I have met at the school are changelings. My… I have a way that can cause them to give themselves away, none have-"
Penny was cut off. "Of course there is one, it is right beside you now!" Pretty seemed to be the primary aggressor of Hay's parents, her father more passively supporting his mare.
Stick knew this had all been arranged to show to the court how the mare was behaving, but she didn't like what it was doing to her friend. At the back of the court, Stick could see Hay was huddled and looking lost and embarrassed. "Please stop it, this isn't nice, this isn't what a good pony does." Stick found herself walking toward the plaintiffs. "What do you have against changelings?"
"You aren't ponies, you are bugs, horrible and-"
"I think this would be better served with less of an audience. Court is adjourned for an hour." Celestia excused everypony, but held those at the front of the room with her stare. In the back, Hay hadn't moved and sat alone in the audience pews. "Now then, I trusted Stick with a great task, and I trust her more now that she has completed it. She worked tirelessly for Princess Cadance, she protected my nephew, and she plans to marry a mare who I also hold in high esteem." Celestia was trying to get through to Pretty that, at least this changeling, she could trust. "So tell us, Pretty Cart, what would you say against her kind?"
Pretty shook, her world was a little broken right now. Princess Celestia was saying that this changeling could be trusted but she KNEW no changeling could. "I know… I knew a changeling. I grew up in Dodge City and fell in love with what I thought was a pony." She blushed hotly. "I almost married them, that horrible creature, but one day I found them without their disguise." Fury rattled through the unicorn mare.
"Did you ask them why?" Stick approached Pretty, the mare recoiling at first but holding her ground as the changeling seemed to not be attacking.
"Of course not, they were a bug! We lived on the borders of the Badlands, the rest of Equestria might have forgotten the hives of bugs to our south, but we were raised being told to be careful." Pretty lifted her head. Dray reached over and put a leg over her shoulder, pulling her close.
"My sweet…" The stallion's words were lost after the two as he nuzzled and whispered into one of his mare's ears. She seemed to relax a little.
"I blasted him… them. I might have been young but I was an excellent unicorn even then. I chased that bug out of the city!" Pretty sounded triumphant and looked it. "It wasn't fair, they must have wanted to drag me off to their hive, to feed on."
Stick blinked her eyes at this. "If they wanted to drag you off… I would think it would be Chrysalis' hive, they would have done it and not gotten close." She sounded a touch confused at the character. "Likewise, if they were infiltrating for information they hardly would have chosen a young mare as their target…"
"Are you accusing me of lying?" Pretty's rage returned, her horn lighting.
A soft white glow flowed out, Penny noticed, from Celestia's horn, subduing any spell Pretty might try.
Stick shook her head. "No, you were wronged. But I think there is more to this. How long were you with this changeling?"
When her spells didn't seem to obey her, Pretty seemed to grow more angry until she saw the princess' face. She calmed at the expression, so soft in it's worry. "I… we were together for nearly two years."
This got even Penny's attention. "You didn't feel sick, or that something was wrong? This drone sounds like somepony who didn't want to hurt you, or those around you. It takes very careful drinking for a drone to go even a few days without causing harm."
Celestia and Stick both nodded to this, each having intimate knowledge of such. Celestia secretly thanked her former student again for the book she had gifted her. "Quite so. It also doesn't sound like the efforts of a changeling trying to get information. Talking to some of Princess Fast Change's hive, Chrysalis doesn't seem like the kind of mare who would play a long-game."
Stick nodded to the princess' assessment. "If she couldn't have something, if she couldn't take it quickly, she would be in such a rage…"
Penny had a little inside insight to this, having been an avid watcher of the show, she knew of course that the real thing often was much more complicated, though. "So if this changeling wasn't after information and wasn't trying to steal ponies…" Inspiration, it came to her and she focused her magic.
Perking her head up and turning to look right at Penny, Stick smiled. Her mental touch with the mare deepened and she gently began to sip. "What…" She stopped dead and looked around. "Somepony is… Princess, there is another changeling drinking-"
"Dray?" Pretty's question caught them all off-guard. She was looking to her husband.
Dray Cart was looking very odd, he was wobbling on his hooves and, to Penny at least, looking as drunk as a changeling feeding from her magic for the first time.
Stick, too, picked up on it and lifted her hoof. A sphere of golden force surrounded Dray. "You don't work for Chrysalis at all, do you Dray Cart?" Celestia stepped forward, past a vindicated Penny and a shocked Stick. She walked until she was beside a trembling Pretty. "You would do well, changeling, to talk quickly and truthfully."
There was a tremble in the trapped stallion and a wave of green flame poured over him, revealing a larger than normal drone. "Very well-" He began to say something but was cut off.
"Why? Dray why?" Pretty was in tears, dropping to the floor as if all her bones had turned to jelly. The trapped changeling tried to move to her but the bubble stopped him. The bubble popped quickly and he rushed to Pretty's side, reaching out to her. "You look the same… but a little bigger?"
"How could I not grow? I have a mare who loves me, a foal who is the smartest little thing in all Equestria…" Dray's form was full of holes, legs, horn, even his green mane and tail had some gaps.
Hay had walked to the front of the room, staring at her parents. "Mom? Dad?" She looked surprised, to say the least.
"I don't think you do work for her." Stick had regained her faculties after the shock. "You left the hive long ago?"
Dray nodded. "She did send me out, to find ponies to bring back for her pods. I… I couldn't." That struggle, the fight against his queen's will, had obviously not been an easy one. "If it wasn't for the pure love of a mare, I would have done bad things." He looked down to Pretty, reaching a hoof to her.
Pretty's world had not only been rocked, it had shattered. "I… Rock Star?" Dray nodded sheepishly, getting a half-smile from his mare. "I did wonder about the name."
Dray shrugged. "I needed something, I had taken the form of an earth pony, it seemed… appropriate. Of course the second time I learned my lesson. Can you forgive me?"
Pretty trembled a moment, her eyes closing as she searched within. It wasn't hard to find her love for Dray, it was the center of of her world. They had grown close, they had married and raised a fine foal. The memories of all the horrid things she said about changelings, all the barbs, vitriol, and poison she had spoke. "No, Dray. Can you forgive me? I was a silly filly, I didn't see what you were going through."
Celestia would pump a hoof in the air, if she hadn't learned to master some measure of control a thousand years ago. Her smile, she could let free.
"Dad?" Hay was looking at the changeling before her, his green mane and tail, softly glowing eyes. Two weeks ago she would have screamed in fear and possibly cursed his name. But she had found a friend who looked almost the same, almost exactly like her father. She rushed forward into the hug her parents held out, Hay feeling an odd sense of completeness.
The other ponies present seemed to not exist for the family, the three exploring their love and finding it easily overcoming their reservations and fears.
Celestia, however, managed to find her voice. "So, Pretty Cart, would you like to withdraw your complaint?"