Equal Opportunity Ascension

by Cast-Iron Caryatid

Chapter 8

Dinner with the duke of Maretonia was… well, it was dinner. Twilight wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with sitting next to Princess Celestia at official dinners; the only difference now was that she had a crown on her head. It wasn’t her real crown, nor was it her element; technically, it was a forgery whipped up in a hurry by the Crystal Castle’s resident smith who Twilight could only guess didn’t actually do all that much smithing considering how even the fixtures and fittings of the castle were made of crystal.

…Actually, did it count as a forgery if it was officially commissioned? Twilight supposed not, so it was probably the other way around, then—technically not a forgery. Regardless of the vague legal limbo that it existed in, the commissioned counterfeit copy crown wasn't perfect; there was still a spot of forge scale on the inside that was scratching her ear and frankly, Sunset Shimmer's blatant forgery of the Element of Magic was superior in every way.

…

Twilight would have chastised herself for getting distracted thinking about her crown if there had been anything at all that she should be doing instead, but Princess Celestia was talking to the duke about Equestrian history, telling stories and anecdotes that Twilight could recite word for word by now and she just… couldn’t seem to escape feeling like a foal sitting at her mentor’s side rather than the princess that she supposedly was.

A princess with a counterfeit crown.

Yeah, that wasn’t actually helping.

With a sigh, she turned her attention instead to the conversation that Rainbow Dash was having with one of the duke’s guards several seats down the table. Of course, she’d heard that story a few times too, but at least in Rainbow Dash’s case, the laughs she got weren’t merely polite.

In the end, though, even as Rainbow Dash was explaining the quarray eels of Ghastly Gorge, Twilight’s mind drifted back to Sunset Shimmer as it often had in the past few days when she had a moment to spare.

The problem was, the only interaction that she’d had with Sunset Shimmer had been a chase through the castle followed by a short standoff, so rather than the haughty and disagreeable pony that Cadance and Princess Celestia had described, all she could actually picture was a twitchy mare who had yelled ‘Crown!’ and run the other way.

That seemed like something she would do. Well—not in a situation like that, when things were on the line, but maybe if a conversation was getting awkward?

The point was, she could empathize, which only made her more concerned about the other half of her alicornification just sitting there in a forest, because she knew how she would react if she were in a similar situation.

She was in a similar situation.

It hadn’t escaped Twilight’s notice that nopony had yet broached the subject of whether or not the thing that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had insisted that Sunset Shimmer couldn’t do would be possible for Twilight to do, and going quietly back to her mentor after accepting failure was not something she could ever see herself doing quietly.

There was a reason that her mind always used to go straight for exile when she was freaking out about getting in trouble with the princess, and looking back, there was no reason to expect the princess’ previous student to be any different and every reason to see some similarity.

Sunset Shimmer had quit her position by running off to another dimension, after all.

There was a certain irony to the fact that Twilight, who felt that she could understand Sunset, wanted nothing more than to catch her and prevent her from doing anything to cause trouble, while Princess Celestia just wanted to talk to her in spite of a seeming acceptance that her previous student had grown into… not quite an upstanding member of society, but one who would rather everypony else be on their knees instead.

Oh, hey, Rainbow Dash was telling the story about the time that Cerberus had ended up in Ponyville and most of the table was listening to her now. That was good. She was proud of that one.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash didn’t stop there.

“Did you really declare that you were going to stop time, Princess Twilight?” the duke asked.

Damn it, Rainbow Dash.

***

“I'm glad that's over,” Twilight said, collapsing onto a couch back at her suite after seeing the duke off the next day—though that wasn’t quite accurate as he and his entourage wouldn’t be allowed to actually leave the city for due to the travel restrictions that the city was under.

Awkward.

Regardless, the duke’s business had been short, mostly to arrange the details of his wedding, which he had for some reason decided the Crystal Empire would be an excellent locale for. Well, Twilight supposed that the ‘empire’ was rather picturesque all year around.

“Speak for yourself, my dear,” Rarity said, fanning herself as she stood by the door. “It isn't every day that you get to meet royalty from the entire other side of the world. Why, so many ponies completely forget that Equestria isn't the only civilized nation of ponies we have.”

“Sure, but you got to trade fashion ideas with the duchess-to-be,” Twilight reminded her. “I got to have all my most embarrassing stories narrated to everyone present by little miss tactful over there.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash objected. “What was I supposed to do? After the first one, they kept asking me for more!”

“I'm afraid that that's just part of being a princess, Twilight,” Cadance said, following Rarity in.

“Oh, hi, Cadance, I didn't see you there,” Twilight said, perking up. “Did you need something.”

Cadance giggled from behind a warm smile. “Nothing like that, Twilight. I just thought that it would be a shame if you were here for an entire week and we never got to spend any time together outside of business.”

“Oh, well, sure!” Twilight exclaimed, jumping up to her hooves. “You know, I've been the princess' student for most of my life and I never really appreciated how tiring it actually is. You have no idea how glad I am to be going back to Ponyville where all I'm in charge of is a library.”

Rarity cleared her throat meaningfully and gave Twilight a certain look.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. I'm going to have to do something to present myself as a princess, but having a day palace is still not the same as running an entire nation.”

“It really isn't this bad normally,” Cadance insisted. “The whole point of this summit is so that we can get as much as possible done in the short amount of time that all four of us are here together.”

“Will it be a short time, though?” Twilight asked, glancing uncertainly around at her friends. “From what I've heard, there still hasn't been any sign of Sunset Shimmer and the summit is almost over. Pretty soon, our only choice will be to either keep looking for her or let Princess Celestia and Princess Luna return to Canterlot so they can get back to running Equestria.”

Cadance sighed and walked into the room so she could close the door and take a seat. “You don't have to worry about that,” she said. “Auntie Celestia may be a little more focused than seems reasonable on the idea of having her tearful reunion with Sunset Shimmer where everything is forgiven, but I think you know as well as I do that when it comes down to it, she will go back to Canterlot regardless of her feelings.”

“And what do you think?” Twilight asked, curious. “You knew Sunset Shimmer too. You were also, uhh, not very complimentary about her when she came up.”

Cadance looked momentarily embarrassed, but she resisted blushing admirably. “I'd like to say that the relationship that we had was complicated, but it really wasn't. I came in and had everything that she ever wanted and I was insufferably cheery about it to boot. In return, she didn't take it at all gracefully and was kind of a bitch to everypony.”

“So, what do you think would happen if we were actually able to track her down?” Twilight asked.

Cadance grimaced slightly. “Now, that actually is complicated.”

“Well, she'll at least be on the hook for stealing food right?” Applejack said. “I mean, we haven't caught her at it or anything, but she's gotta to be doing it.”

“It would be hard to prove,” Twilight said, crossing her forelegs in thought. “She wouldn't be obligated to tell us what or if she's eating, and technically a pony can survive three weeks without food, but she would certainly be feeling it by now if she wasn't eating at all.”

“It's more complicated than that, even,” Cadance said. “Considering the history of the Crystal Empire and how the Crystal Heart works, we don't actually have courts or jails as Equestria would recognize them. For the small amount of crime that we have, we have social programs focused on helping ponies.”

“We have those in Equestria too, don't we?” Fluttershy asked.

“We do,” Twilight said. “But they don't get used quite as much as they should. The lower courts tend to get too caught up in punishing lawbreakers when they should be doing what they can to rehabilitate ponies and reduce recidivism. That's one of the reasons that Princess Celestia tends to be so much more forgiving than seems prudent sometimes; she really is like that, but she also does what she can to balance the scales when problems actually reach her.”

“Ah understand helping ponies, but having no jails at all is a mighty strange way to run an empire,” Applejack remarked.

“I'm well aware that we’ll be forced to consider other options eventually,” Cadance said. “But I can't just introduce those sorts of things to a traumatized population coming out of slavery without consideration. It's possible that the way we deal with Sunset Shimmer will set a precedent for how we deal with more serious situations going forward.”

“If we catch her,” Rainbow Dash said.

“And if we can actually pin anything on her,” Applejack added.

Cadance nodded at both of these caveats. “That is a concern, yes, but for what I had in mind, stealing the Element of Magic should suffice.”

“What’s that?” Twilight asked. “I'm not sure that princess Celestia will actually support anything being done about that.”

“I don't think she'll mind,” Cadance said with a hint of a smile. “You see, what I was considering doing was remanding her into the custody of Equestria.”

“That’s… no, I don't think she'll mind at all, Twilight mused. “Assuming that Equestria can hold on to her.”

Cadance shrugged rather helplessly. “There's not much that we can do about that. We aren't in any better situation there, after all.”

“That's all well and good for Sunset Shimmer, but how does that work going forward?” Applejack asked. “Ah mean, you can't just dump all your criminals onto Equestria and expect ponies to just go along with it.”

“Well, aside from the fact that many of those criminals will probably be from other countries to begin with, I was thinking that in exchange we can take some of the ponies who aren’t getting the softer hoof they need,” Cadance explained. “Rehabilitation appears more expensive in the short term, so I don't doubt that the idea will garner a lot of support.”

“Yes, that does sound like quite the nice little system. You will, however, have to make some attempt to ensure that you won't simply be getting the ponies the system was going to take care of properly any—”

“Enough of that,” Rainbow Dash shouted, catapulting herself up into the air. “The princess didn't come here to talk about prisons and social reform programs!”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Social reform is actually—”

“I don’t care!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. Come on—we’ve got a few hours before anybody has to be anywhere, let’s go do something! Princess, what do you have around here to do for fun?”

“Well, there is a new paint balloon center that somepony from Fillydelphia just opened where the old Crystal K used to be…”

***

“Ugh,” groaned a slightly more rainbow than usual Rainbow Dash, trotting along behind the group. “Whose idea was it for us to go up against a squad of trained guards, again?” she asked the group as a whole. “I feel like I'm more paint than pony at this point.”

“That would be me,” said an unapologetically grinning Cadance who was walking along happily next to her husband, her coat almost completely clear of paint.

“Never again!” cried a distraught Rarity, a single spot of green paint on her hoof. Everybody else had a generous smattering of colors and smiles on their faces.

“Aw, come on, Rarity! That was fun!” Pinkie pie said, bouncing along leaving little spots of paint along in her wake.

“You do realize that the whole point was to not get covered in paint, right?” Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie, who was the only one who had fared worse than her.

“Ah could ask you the same thing, sugarcube,” snarked a moderately mottled Applejack.

Hey!” Rainbow Dash objected. “It's not my fault that I’m so awesome that everybody went after me!”

“Naw, but it is your fault that you wouldn't know what cover was if it snuck up on you and bit you on the backside,” Applejack ribbed with a good-natured chuckle.

“I still say they shouldn't have been able to hit me like that,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “Do you have any idea how fast I was going?”

“Are you gonna tell her?” Twilight asked her brother with a bit of a smirk.

“Tell me?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Tell me what?”

Shining Armor chuckled and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how good or fast you are if your opponent knows where you’re going to be. You flew straight into some of those balloons, you know.”

“I told you not to just go straight for their flag,” Fluttershy quietly chided with a sigh.

“What?” Rainbow Dash said, turning to her oldest friend, shocked. “No you didn’t!”

“Well—um—you were usually on the other side of the field covered in paint by the second word…” Fluttershy admitted.

Twilight, though, was thinking. “Where she’s going to be, huh…”

Comments

[Latecomer]

And once again I see echoes of my own ideas, or rather places where we've drawn the same conclusions - that both the unique nature of the Empire and it's recent brush with tyranny would affect it's approach to the rather topical matter of law and order. (Of course, mine has a bit of a dark side too...)