Silver sat with the others around the dining room table, eating breakfast. Spike was present, gabbing about how he'd made a bunch of bits with a little betting with Big Mac. Silver's thoughts divided between wondering if gambling was just legal in Equestria, to how to approach Twilight about... things.
A noise jarred her from her thoughts as loud shouting came from the front of the castle. The voice sounded familiar and female, and Silver was soon out of her seat with several others, all trotting to see what the commotion was about.
"Trixie demands that Princess Sparkle be brought forward immediately!" Trixie faced off against two guards, with Rough Draft behind her. "Trixie's patience wears thin. She will not wait forever."
Twilight tilted her head. "I think this is more for you, Silver. I'll be in the library." She made herself scarce.
Silver looked to Night and Fast, who remained close by. With a nod, she advanced into sight of Trixie.
Trixie's next verbal attack cut short as Silver came into view. "What is this? You... It wasn't a cruel joke on the part of Twilight Sparkle?" She marched past the guards towards Silver and suddenly slammed her to the ground with a colorful spray of magic. Her attack got her tackled by the guards, pinned down quickly.
Silver quickly bounced back to her hooves and looked to Rough Draft, who was standing there awkwardly. "Hi Dad... what's going on?"
Rough Draft approached more cautiously. "We got your letter. Trixie was certain it was a joke of some kind, but... there you are." Rough waved at Silver. "You're... different."
Silver warmed in the cheeks, becoming self-conscious. "Is it a bad different or a good different?"
Rough Draft settled down on his haunches. "First thing's first. Trixie, love. Will you promise not to attack our daughter again?"
Trixie wriggled from under the guards. "Trixie promises nothing!"
Silver tilted her head at Trixie. "What's wrong? Why are you so mad?"
Trixie sagged, going limp under the guards. "While she is very proud to have raised a princess, Trixie finds it very unfair that she is never considered for the role. Trixie would make a great princess!"
Silver considered Trixie seated on a throne, wings unfurled and a dazzling crown on her head. "You would be the very model of royalty, mother."
"I know!" whined Trixie. With her fury seemingly departed, the guards let her up. Trixie approached Silver and circled around her. "Instead some hairless ape from another world is chosen before Trixie. It is unfair! Unjust! Un... something else."
Rough Draft raised a hoof. "Uncanny?"
"Yes, uncanny!" Trixie smiled. "You are kind to Trixie." Her eyes settled on Silver. "When you sent pictures of yourself as a mare, she was already surprised beyond reasoning, but then you sent that little scrap. It was barely one sentence! Trixie demands all the details, so tell them all to her, right now." She closed in on Silver and began poking at her, inspecting wings, barrel, even her tail and mane and horn all got a turn being looked over and felt with her hooves. "You are still small for an alicorn."
Night Watch softly coughed into a hoof. "Would you two like to come inside? We still have some breakfast to share?"
Rough Draft perked up at the offer. "I gladly accept. Night Watch, was it? I'm glad you've been watching over Silver Li... Stars." He advanced and gave Night Watch a warm hug of appreciation.
Fast Change tilted his head. "Where's my hug?"
Rough looked over Fast a moment with some confusion. "I... Who are you?"
Fast pouted. "I'm that stupid mare's stallion."
Rough went red all across his face. "Oh! Oh... Oh my... I feel terrible." He offered a hoof to Fast. Fast went for a hug instead, squeezing the solid earth pony affectionately.
Trixie looked past Silver to Night and Fast, then returned her gaze to Silver. "You really are a mare." She leaned in. "You picked a handsome stallion." Trixie flashed a bright smile. "Trixie will accept your offer of breakfast, and she will speak further inside."
They soon retired to the dining room, though Trixie was far more interested in inspecting Silver than she was in any food. "You look like one of those guards Luna has, but you are a princess. Do you serve Luna?"
Silver perked a tufted ear. "Actually, yes."
Night blinked. "You didn't mention that."
Silver shrunk a little. "I only found out last night... I can dreamwalk, like her. We ran into each other. She's showing me how to do it right."
Fast suddenly grinned. "I dare you to visit mine."
Silver looked towards Fast, then suddenly looked away. "I'm not sure I could handle that, Fast."
Fast huffed softly. "I'd be gentle... We're bonded. You should trust me."
Silver gave a slow nod. "You're right. I will remind you it's a dream so you can control it."
Night adjusted her glasses lightly. "I want to try this as well."
Trixie puffed out her chest. "See, already Trixie is improving things."
Silver leaned forward and kissed Trixie's cheek. "You always improve things, Mom. I'm glad to see you both! How has life been?"
Rough Draft came up behind Trixie and cradled her delicately as his hooves rubbed over her lower belly. "Trixie is a great and powerful mother-to-be."
Trixie shivered at the caress, nodding her head. "And Rough has been a doting and loving husband. We... are happy. It is a new feeling. Besides being outraged at your fortune, Trixie has felt... content. Domestic life has been good to her, and she still has time to study magic. Speaking of which, have you memorized the patterns yet?"
Silver sagged a little. "No... but I did defend the Crystal Empire from ravening shadow creatures?"
Trixie rolled her eyes. "Trixie will accept this for now." She spread out her forehooves silently. Silver accepted the cue and they hugged, with Rough hugging Silver around Trixie in a warm and snug embrace.
Rough spoke up first. "When is the ceremony? We want to be there for you."
Night pointed towards Canterlot. "Celestia hasn't yet announced a date. Do you need a place? I'm certain Twilight could arrange space."
Trixie looked ready to argue, but Rough gently slid a fetlock over her mouth as he kissed and nipped at one of her ears, calming her down. Rough looked to Night as he gently but expertly handled Trixie. "We'd be delighted."
Night rose to her hooves. "I'll find her." She trotted off in search.
Silver took a soft breath, spreading her wings. "As a princess, I welcome you both to Ponyville."
Trixie burst into giggles at the formal greeting. "You have to practice speaking with authority, but she is grateful anyway." She slipped away from Rough Draft and approached Fast Change, looking him over. "Are you treating Trixie's daughter well? She is not yet swollen with foal. How long have you two been together?"
Fast suddenly got nervous. "It's not for lack of desire on my part, I promise! She... uh..."
Rough Draft interceded. "Many perfectly healthy ponies are together for years before having any foals. Don't harass them about it." Rough looked to Silver. "Besides, uh, you're probably still a bit off balance with that, right? You were a stallion before?"
Silver considered taking the out Rough provided, but shook her head, both at Rough and herself. "I... had a foal, but lost it."
Trixie spun on Silver with wide eyes. "I..." She rushed up to Silver. "You poor thing! How? Why? Are you alright?"
Silver started to explain when Fast muffled her as well as Rough had gently muffled Trixie. "It was an accident, while camping."
Silver wriggled away from Fast. "No lies. It was an accident, but it wasn't while camping. Twiligh--"
Trixie stomped the ground, her magic flaring brightly. "Twilight Sparkle caused you to lose your foal? Where is she?! Trixie will destroy her!"
Silver held up her hooves quickly, leathery wings spreading wide. "No! No... She was trying to rescue me. I was foalnapped. Don't blame her for it."
"And I failed." Twilight descended the stairs with Night behind her. "Hello, Trixie, Rough Draft was it?"
Trixie skirted around Silver, stomping towards Twilight angrily. "What did you do, Twilight Sparkle?"
Twilight stopped at the bottom of the stairs and hung her head. "I destroyed Silver Stars, and she ascended, without her foal."
Trixie snorted powerfully through her nose, making it flare. "You are the cause of both travesties? You should be punished, severely!"
Twilight sank, flopping onto her belly. "I should be... I will be." With a flash of magic, a letter appeared before Trixie. "Here, you can attend my trial."
Fast stopped beside Twilight. "Trial? I was not informed of any trial. What are you hiding?"
With a pop, a new letter appeared for Fast to take in her wings and scan over. "Two days?! Twilight, why aren't you preparing a defense?"
"Because I am guilty." Twilight closed her eyes. "There is no defense. I did it. I wasn't mind-controlled, and the danger wasn't that great. I had no excuse."
Silver stomped a hoof beside Twilight's head, making her crack open an eye to look up. "I'm not accepting this, Twilight. I know you feel bad, but throwing yourself before the court like this will hurt more people."
Twilight sat up with a perplexed expression, but Trixie spoke first. "What do you mean? Twilight Sparkle deserves to be punished. How will this hurt anypony?"
Silver took a slow breath. "You're a princess, Twilight. Ponies look up to you, as an example. Pleading guilty to murder is hardly the picture you should show them. You messed up. I know that, you know that, but everyone involved that was hurt is right here. The only thing that will change is that you'll hurt everyone else's view of princesses."
Twilight shook her head violently. "I took your foal! I deserve to be punished, not just... forgiven idly. You'll never get that life back. How can I just forget it happened? Stop trying to absolve me!"
Silver advanced on Twilight. Her wings spread, and Twilight's did in turn. For a moment they were like two strutting peacocks vying for supremacy. Silver was quite intent on winning this one. "I won't allow it. If you want to be punished, fine, but there's no reason to drag your name through the mud for it, or to be made a public straw man to burn. You want to face justice, than accept the justice of the one you hurt, not your mentor. You know as well as I that she'll bend the rules to the breaking point to make your punishment gentle."
Twilight reared up, forehooves cycling in the air. "And you would be better?! You already said you forgive me. You're ready to pretend nothing happened. You still want to marry me, the killer of your foal! How can I trust your judgment? How can I look at myself in the mirror and see anything but a murderer that has escaped justice?"
Silver suddenly threw herself forward, barreling into Twilight and knocking her onto her back. With a clenching of her jaw, Silver sunk her teeth into the throat of Twilight. Fear, anger, and a lingering affection burned through the connection. Twilight's heart began to pound violently under Silver and Twilight's pupils drew tight as she began to be overwhelmed in it all.
So... will Trixie be satisfied if her daughter defeats Twilight in her stead?
It sounds like the typos are using a Magic 8 ball for their clairvoyance
silver is not trying to harm twilight she is making a point to twilight who is being to hard headed to hear what silver is trying to tell her.
twilight will do more damage to the name of all the princesses over all and as silver told twilight princess celestia will brake the rules to make this work.
Trixie took silver better then I guessed she would, she was shocked but silver is still her dotter.
Harts Fire
PS time to put to gather a defiance for the trial.
Who remained "close by."
"Forehooves" is a compound word.
Capitalize the first letter in "don't."
"If Silver kills Twilight, is it even?"
Yes, but being evenly destroyed is not better than unevenly prospering.
5894683 Fixed! You're caught up! I saved some cake for you.
5894720 Yay for cake!
So everypony is starting to catch up to recent events, and the results are quite tumultuous. The big face-off here is Twilight vs. Silver on the matter of Twilight's desire to be punished. In that regard, the author's note at the end of this chapter is a tad disingenuous; it's clear that Silver isn't trying to kill Twilight, and given that she's not channeling intense fear, I doubt Twilight will have a sudden heart attack either (and I'd presume that she's made out of sterner stuff anyway).
My reaction to their argument is that Silver is in the wrong here, for more than one reason. Even the most basic legal reasoning would tell you that simply being forgiven by the one you've wronged is not enough to completely avoid punishment; there's some degree of criminal penalties that can't be avoided. When you have that much power, you absolutely must be held to a higher standard, and likewise must face a more severe punishment when you fail to measure up to it. Moreover, it's simply too arbitrary (and in most other cases, though certainly not here, too cruel) to have the victims and families of the victims be the ones to decide the perpetrator's fate. That's leaving aside that Silver isn't necessarily the only one that was wrong - as Twilight pointed out, there's an unborn foal that's not going to be born now, as well as some (unconfirmed) dead unicorns.
But that's just the legal argument; there's a deeper conflict that's going on here, and this is where Silver is much more in the wrong. This is an argument about what Twilight wants, or rather needs, to happen in order to alleviate her guilt and her shame over what happened. In that regard, it's a conflict of what Twilight wants for herself versus what Silver wants for her...and when such a conflict happens, it's usually more moral to allow people to choose what they want for themselves, rather than for someone else to impose their own values on them.
In other words, right now Silver is treating Twilight exactly the way that Celestia has treated her (Silver) in the past. That's not fair to Twilight; you can't just force your feelings on somepony else, even with a magic bite, and make them do what you want.
In a few extreme cases, such action might be justified, e.g. Silver's suicide attempt, but this isn't one of those. Twilight isn't attempting to self-destruct; quite the contrary, she's showing great strength of character by not only admitting, rather than trying to bury, how awful she feels, but she's trying to do something about it. Could she try a better way? Possibly, but that's not for Silver to decide - even if her choice is a mistake, it's still Twilight's choice to make. The most Silver can do is offer her opinion, her support, and her love to help Twilight through it.
Silver's statement that this will publicly shame Twilight is hardly a fair allegation, for more than one reason. While it will likely shock the populace, one need only remind them that this entire event could have been swept under the rug, but instead Twilight not only insisted on facing justice for it, but demanded it. That's the kind of responsibility and accountability that should make the people have more faith, not less, in their ruler. Would Celestia ever allow herself to be formally judged by another for her actions, regardless of what they were? Moreover, I suspect that Silver is disingenuous with her regard that she wants to save Twilight's good name. Silver has been markedly self-centered up until now, due to her desperate need to be loved, and I suspect that this is another aspect of that. Is she worried over what this will do to Twilight's good name, or is she worried that this will drive Twilight away from them somehow?
Silver's heart may be in the right place, but that doesn't mean that she has right reasoning.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, seeing Trixie again was great. Given who she is, and that she's pregnant herself, I'm amazed that the trial was enough to hold her back. As it is, I can only expect her to take the stand to condemn Twilight, something that I doubt will sit very well with Silver. Clearly, the two of them (Silver and Trixie) are going to need to sit down and reconnect at some point after all of this is over. They've both changed, especially Silver, that I wonder if there's an element of "I don't even know you anymore" in there now.
I should also add a personal kudos in that the effects of Silver's ascension are still unfolding, rather than having everypony leave it all behind and move forward so fast. This feels much more real for how messy the fallout is.
5894812 I am an alicorn.
No, wait, this isn't a letter to my parents. It was nice getting Rough and Trixie back into things. They felt sincere and I love them both to pieces. Rough has learned some skill in handling Trixie with love, and handling she requires. She is a real firecracker of a mare.
Silver is struggling with competing desires. She is trying to express her new position, and yet has to deal with Twilight potentially acting self-destructively. Silver has negative confidence that justice will emerge from Celestia's court, and she will either be let off with a paltry sentence or it will somehow go the other way. She may not be expressing it correctly, but she only got these wings a few days ago in an orgy of emotional trauma.
I do hope nopony came off as out of character.
It seems like Twilight completely forgot that it was as much her foal as Silver's.
1.)Trixie sagged, going limp under the guards. "While she is very proud to have raised a princess, Trixie finds it very unfair that she is never considered for the role. Trixie would make a great princess!"
Says "Oh brother" while rolling his eyes.
2.) Trixie approached Silver and circled around her. "Instead some hairless ape from another world is chosen before Trixie. It is unfair! Unjust! Un... something else."
SILENCE HORSE!........
5894812
While philosophically I agree with you, that's Earth legal reasoning, built on democratic ideals. Their system, which appears to be based more on the present, immortal, "benevolent" Goddess (for the last thousand years)...is probably a lot more built on "What she(they) say(s), goes." It will not appear (nor necessarily be) just.
Otherwise, wouldn't a (double) attempted omnicide (by means of eternal night) deserve some punishment that much more?
Can't see this one doing so, even though she seemed to agree to Silver's demand earlier...she had to think about it. Hey, did that condition transpire?
Yes, yes it most certainly has. But does Silver want...?
6832115
Yeah, but I was speaking with regards to Silver's mindset, given that Silver is from Earth, and so presumably holds at least some sort of approximation of those ideals. In that regard, Silver's attitude pretty well flew in the face of the most basic assumptions about how criminal justice is dealt with in her birthplace, which was rather jarring.
Actually, the season five finale makes it pretty clear that that's not what would have happened.
Since we know that the events of the season five finale take place almost two years after the series premiere (since there's a one-year anniversary of the Summer Sun Celebration at the season four premiere, and the Rainbow Rocks movie takes place between seasons four and five and is said (in the DVD commentary) to be six months after the first movie at an apparent 1:1 rate of time passage between that world and Equestria, plus whatever amount of time season five lasted), that means that when Twilight went to the alternate world ruled by Nightmare Moon, that was a world that had been under eternal night for almost two years. And yet, there didn't seem to be any particular signs of "omnicide." There were timber wolves in the woods, Rarity was a (rather severe) interior decorator, and Nightmare Moon had a squadron of guards.
This isn't really that hard to accept, either. Equestria is clearly operating under different macro-levels physics anyway, such as the movement of celestial bodies and the weather needing to be artificially produced. So it's actually pretty easy to postulate that eternal night wouldn't be a mass-extinction event either.
Sorry, I'm not sure what condition you mean. It's been some time since I've read this, after all.
6845999 It's an Al! We miss you!
6846021 Thanks! I miss being here too. Maybe if I can get my act together soon... *sigh*
6846030 My philosophy still applies. Write more, think less. If you wait for the 'perfect' time or the 'perfect' inspiration, well, it will never happen. Just do it, as the internet meme goes and I was saying before it.
6846032 I know; considering that you were my inspiration to write as much as I did, I really need to put your advice into practice. It's not like I've lost the desire to keep going!
6846038 This story has gone around a few bends and twists dangerous enough to be deemed illegal. I miss one of my best readers!
Another to squish!
7759543 It's Trixie.
7759923
Ah. I would still recommend a change though. Trixie normally starts with her own name and then shifts to using "she" and "her" when it would still be clear that Trixie is referring to herself. In this case, Trixie didn't start like she normally does, so the use of "her" is out of the blue and has no clear reference point - it's why I had trouble figuring out what Trixie was trying to say.
Suggestion:
7760088 Fix'd!
Trixie looked ready to argue, but Rough gently slid a forelock over her mouth as he kissed...
I don't know if maybe intended, but it feels like it should rather be a fetlock or a foreleg/forehoof rather than a forelock?
Correct me if I am wrong~
7947762 Fix'd!
What I find most amusing in such situations is that it's not a punishment unless you don't want the punishment.
In this case, doing nothing would be more of a punishment than any jail sentence or such.
What's even more amusing (probably the wrong word, ironic would be more fitting) is that if they're ever aware of that, then it no longer applies. Thus, it'll apply again. Ah, paradoxes are fun.
I read this wondering 'even what?'
Thinking it was like 'If a tree falls in the forest & no one hears it, does it make a sound?'
10441219
Even, as in karmically, justice, and such.