Part III, Chapter 3 - Detained
The royal chambers of the Crystal Palace were currently occupied by Princess Cadance. The sovereign of the Crystal Empire was currently enjoying a spot of afternoon tea and biscuits, as her royal duties for the day were completed. She elected to take over the care of her foal for the remainder of the day, eager to shed the role of monarch and adopt the more personally gratifying title of "Mommy". As she was preparing to pour a cup of tea from the pot setting on the table in front of her, a pony she was all too familiar with entered the room.
"Hello, Andesite", Cadance greeted as she poured her tea,"Is there something that I need to address at the moment?"
"Umm...", Andesite paused momentarily before she finished her sentence.
"Thorax was arrested about a half hour ago."
Cadance's magic grip on the tea pot fizzled out, allowing the ceramic item to fall to the floor, shattering into pieces and sending a puddle of tea all over the floor. Andesite flinched upon hearing the pot shatter on the ground. A few guards turned to look at the sound, but none dared to move from their post.
Princess Cadance, who had been smiling and in a rather content mood, now went pale. She turned to Andesite with a serious expression, asking her a simple question:
"On what charges?"
Thorax hung his head low as he was led through the streets of the Crystal Empire, his hooves in shackles and his horn clamped into a magic suppression ring. Without even trying, he could tell he wouldn't be able to use any of his magic whatsoever, including levitation.
All around him, crystal ponies were shouting a plethora of insults at him. Some individuals had acquired a selection of produce bits from the market and had started throwing them at Thorax. Things such as tomatoes, lettuce, apples, oranges and eggs collided with his chitin, leaving the changeling in need of another bath. The guards, whom he'd been told would defend him from such acts, made no effort to stop the unruly mob beyond making them clear a path to walk through.
After about ten minutes or so, the group approached a building located a short distance from the Crystal Palace. The metal bars on the windows told Thorax all he needed to know about the building; It was a prison.
The lead guards approached the doors and opened them with their magic. The remaining guards led Thorax inside.
As he was led, Thorax thought back to the moment earlier. He had confronted a pair of stallions harassing a filly, but was struck from behind with a stun spell and subsequently knocked out. When he had come to, he had a mouthful of hair and ponies all around him were glaring at him and radiating anger and hatred.
Then the guards arrested him, with the charge being attempted foalnapping. A pit formed in Thorax's stomach as he realized that, with the general opinion ponies had of him and the circumstances of how the guard found him, it was going to be incredibly difficult to prove the claims false.
More difficult yet would be trying to prove what the truth actually was - the ponies in the alley were framing him for his accused crime.
The guards brought Thorax up to a door marked "Processing". One guard opened it and led Thorax through. Behind the door was a mare sitting at a desk behind a typewriter. She looked up at first with surprise, then disgust as she grabbed a sheet and placed it into the typewriter. Thorax was seated in front of her.
"Name?" she commanded more than asked.
"Th-Thorax" the changeling replied. The mare tapped the keys on the typewriter and continued with her questions.
"Age?" came her question.
"...Twenty-ish?" Thorax answered. She gave him a look. "Sorry", he apologized,"I never knew my exact birthday, so I don't know what my actual age is."
"Twenty", the mare said as she typed,"Address?"
"Um, I guess it was the Crystal Palace."
More tapping. "Important medical information?", she asked,"Allergies? Diseases? Previous injuries?"
"I got beat up pretty bad not long ago", he answered,"I don't know if there's any lingering injuries from that."
The mare typed something onto the paper and then made the comment "No need to ask about prior offenses. Everypony denies it anyways." Once she was done, she took the paper out of the typewriter and presented it to a unicorn, who then performed a duplication spell on the paper to make a copy. The guards then took Thorax to the next room. Inside was a table with a pad and an ink roller, while a large paper with four squares printed on it was laid out on the floor. Walking Thorax over to the table, the guards instructed him to lift his hooves, which were covered in ink, then placed onto the paper, with a different hoof in each square. Once removed, the guards were left with an impression of Thorax's hoofprints, which looked identical to a normal pony's, save for the empty spots made by the holes in his hooves.
Once the guards were done with getting Thorax's prints, a guard approached the changeling with an orange collar. There was nothing remarkable about the object, with the exception of a padlock apparently holding the item closed. A unicorn guard undid the padlock and placed the collar around Thorax's neck, replacing the padlock once it was on and adjusted. After the collar was replaced, the hoof restraints and ring were removed from Thorax, who was confused by these actions until he realized that he still couldn't feel his magic. Apparently these collars did the same thing as the ring on the horn did, which made Thorax question why they used rings on horns to suppress magic when they had these.
A sudden jab in Thorax's backside made the changeling yelp as a guard prodded at him with a spear. "Move forward!" the guard commanded, to which Thorax obeyed. They had moved him from the room with the ink pad to the actual cell room. There were about ten cells total, with a guard standing outside one with the door open. The guards flanking Thorax shoved him ahead and into the cell, where the guard promptly shut the cell door and locked it. Once they were sure the changeling wasn't going anywhere, the guards left.
Thorax, who had fallen upon entering the cell, stood up and examined the small room. One wall was solid metal bars, which the metal bar door was attached to. The rest were stone brick. Against one wall was a wooden platform held up by chains, upon which was a simple sheet and pillow; a simple cot. In a corner was a toilet, which judging by the initial outward appearance, hadn't seen a cleaning for some time. The last item of note was the window in the cell, which looked out into an alleyway.
With nothing to do, Thorax found a seat on the cot and thought about what he could to. Obviously, he had to try and prove his innocence, but how? There were three ponies that would testify that he was working with two changelings to foalnap the filly, and the only ponies that would testify on his behalf weren't there when the incident happened. They could only say positive things about him; a nice gesture, but meaningless if they couldn't say they saw him trying to defend the filly.
Of course, he could try and get the filly to put in a good word for him, but that presented two questions: Would the filly do it if he requested it of her? And, would anypony believe her if she did? Thorax hadn't been around ponies too much, but the few brief experiences he'd had of witnessing foals and their parents had taught him that the more outrageous a foal's claim sounded, the more likely their parents and older ponies would think they were just trying to get attention and disregard what they were saying.
Realizing that he was hitting a brick wall in terms of ideas, Thorax elected to rest on the wood cot, hopeful that sleep would help his current predicament.
The sound of a spear against the metal bars of the cell awoke Thorax from his slumber. "Hey, bug!", the guard shouted,"You have a visitor." The guard stepped away, and a few moments later, a familiar pair of ponies stepped into view. Seeing them had definitely lifted Thorax's spirits.
"Brass! Sunburst!" Thorax exclaimed as he stepped over to the bars,"What are you doing here?"
"Really?", Brass said in disbelief,"A friend gets arrested and I don't visit them?"
Thorax's ears went flat against his skull. "Sorry" he offered.
"Thorax, don't say sorry!", Brass scolded,"If anypony here needs to apologize, it's me."
"You?" Thorax said in confusion.
"Yes, me", Brass responded,"If I hadn't pressured you to come out with me and meet ponies, you'd be safe and sound in the castle reading a book instead of a jail cell." The mare hung her head, clearly remorseful about her friend's situation. Thorax had went to try and lift her chin, but a sudden jolt of electricity hit his hoof, causing him to jump back in pain.
"Are you okay?" Sunburst asked Thorax.
"I'm okay", the changeling answered,"More startled than anything."
"I should've warned you", Sunburst said remorsefully,"The guards enchant the bars of the cell so ponies won't reach through the bars. It's so nopony tries to hurt visitors, or visitors passing something to the prisoners to help them escape."
Thorax considered what Sunburst said as he looked over the bars. It would make sense the guards would do things to discourage prisoners from trying to escape. Before he could ponder the thought any further, Brass spoke.
"What exactly happened Thorax?", she asked him,"I know you got overwhelmed by the ponies in the market, but by the time I got there, the guards were arresting you."
"It's a long story", Thorax told her,"but the shortest way I can tell it is that after I calmed down, I saw two stallions cornering a filly, and I tried to help her. Unfortunately, there was another pony hiding out of sight that hit me with a stunning spell. When I came to, my mouth was full of the filly's hair and the guards were arresting me."
Brass looked a tad uncertain. "That doesn't sound good. It's a case of what you said versus what they said, and unfortunately, I think ponies are gonna believe ponies more than changelings. I think you should get a hold of a lawyer soon."
"I don't really know any lawyers", Thorax told her,"Do you know any?"
"You're gonna need a criminal defense attorney", Brass told him with a frown,"and the only pony I know doesn't do criminal defense. She just handles civil suits and divorce actions."
"Don't worry about it too much", Sunburst told Thorax,"Even with your probationary citizenship status, you're still afforded legal representation."
Thorax looked at him with surprise. "Really?"
"Most definitely yes", Sunburst replied,"The laws in the Crystal Empire guarantee anypony being tried for a crime be provided council, regardless of their financial situation. If those laws weren't in place, there would be so many innocent but poor ponies taking up space in this jail."
Thorax deflated upon hearing innocent ponies in jail. Brass looked as though she wanted to offer a supportive hoof on his shoulder, but didn't on account of the spell on the bars.
"How do I go about getting a lawyer?" Thorax asked the two.
"Leave that to us", Brass told him,"We'll find a lawyer that will take your case. If we can't, we'll get a public defender set up for you."
"Public defender?" Thorax said with confusion.
"They're the lawyer that would get assigned to you if you can't find your own", Sunburst explained,"However, I think we should get one that actually would be willing to represent you instead of settling for a defender."
"How come?" Thorax asked, curious as to why it would matter what pony represented him.
"Public defenders tend to get a lot of cases where, in the interest of not drawing out a trial where the accused has little to no chance of winning, they negotiate reduced sentences in favor of a pony simply accepting the blame for a crime, regardless of whether they did it or not."
Thorax nodded. By the sound of things, his time in the Crystal Empire was about to get much more difficult.
"Okay, you two!", a guard shouted at Brass and Sunburst,"Visiting time is over!"
Brass shot the guard a look but turned back to Thorax a moment later. "I promise we'll get you a lawyer by tomorrow, one way or the other." With that, Brass turned and walked away, Sunburst giving a quick wish of luck before turning to follow her out. Thorax returned to his cot and laid back down. He was only there for about fifteen minutes or so before he heard the cell door click open.
Looking up, Thorax saw a pony whose presence in that moment that made him go white, figuratively speaking. It was none other than Princess Cadance, in her royal regalia, and eyes looking at Thorax with uncertainty and thinly veiled anger. Clearly, this news of his arrest had gotten to her, and it had ruined whatever kind of good day she was having. Without warning, the pink alicorn stepped inside the cell and closed in on him. "Is it true?" she asked him in a stern tone.
"I-Is what true?" Thorax asked her, unsure of what she was talking about specifically.
Without warning, Thorax was lifted up and pressed hard into the wall behind him. "Did you or did you not try and abduct that filly?" she asked, more specific than before AND with more agitation in her voice.
"N-No, Y-Your H-Highn-ness!", responded Thorax, who in addition to being forced into the wall was also having his air cut off.
Princess Cadance looked him over for a minute before ultimately cancelling her magic, letting Thorax fall onto the cot and nearly take the chains holding it up out of the wall. "I don't know if I can believe you anymore", she told him,"First, you get beaten up on my watch, or lack thereof, and then, when I make the effort to actually treat you better, THIS happens."
She approached Thorax with the same expression, but leaned in so only he could hear the conversation between the two. "If I find out that you are lying to me, I will make sure you get placed in the deepest, darkest dungeon I can find, and the only love you'll ever get to feed on will be from the rats in your cell!" With that threat made, the Princess of love, very much not living up to that moniker at the moment, turned and left the cell, the door slamming shut behind her as she left.
Thorax, momentarily stunned by having been dropped onto the cot, recovered and stood back up. Making sure that he was okay, he looked at the door to the cell as he felt a pit forming in his stomach. Through no fault of his own, he'd lost the trust of the princess. Worse yet, her last comment made him realize that he would more than likely not be getting any love for a long time. Would he last until he was able to prove his innocence, or would he be doomed to starvation in the worst prison he could imagine?
Thorax looked at the damaged cot and elected to sleep on the floor. Perhaps they would fix the bed tomorrow.
Thorax was awoken by the banging of a spear pole on the prison bars. "Wake up!" the guard shouted at him,"Your counsel is here to see you."
Wiping the dust from his eyes, Thorax looked out the window to notice it was likely morning, as the sky was blue and everything was bright. The cell door opening caught his attention, and he looked to see the guard making a gesture for him to step outside. Once he had, the guard pointed at another guard just ahead of him. "Follow this guard to the counsel chamber" he instructed Thorax. Thorax began walking towards the indicated guard, who began moving ahead of Thorax, seeming to want to keep about two ponies' distance between the two.
After walking down a couple of hallways, Thorax and the guard stepped in front of a wooden door with a metal bar window placed in it. "Your counsel is waiting inside" the guard told him, opening the door and motioning Thorax inside.
After Thorax stepped through, he noticed the stone brick walls and metal tables with attached benches. In the center of the room was a stallion wearing a black suit coat with button up shirt and black tie with red and white stripes on it. The stallion took notice of Thorax and stood up, his body language telling the changeling he was nervous.
Thorax moved toward the stallion and tried to present himself as non-threateningly as possible. "Hello", he greeted,"I'm Thorax. Are you my counsel?"
The stallion looked over Thorax for a moment before taking a breath to calm himself. Once composed, he reached a hoof out towards the changeling.
"Hello, Thorax", the stallion said with a small smile,"I'm Plea Bargain, and I'll be your public defender."
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And Cadence went back to being a B#%$¥ once again, that sure didn't take long!
Not to mention Shining's gonna be ever more insuferable when he he finds out, BUCK BOTH OF THEM!!!
Poor Thorax
I wanna break him out of there and hug him and tell him everything's gonna be okay and hire Pharynx to do his stuff on the thugs that framed him and-
I mean, as long as he keeps them alive so they can confess...
Wait, can we hire Pharynx to do his stuff on the thugs who framed cinnabug?
11039784
Pharynx seems very much the sort to resort to street justice, so probably those stallions wouldn't be around long enough to admit guilt, though they'd probably end up in cocoons more than dead.
11039798
Eh, good enough, as long as Pharynx is willing to eventually deliver the remains of his lunch to the Crystal Empire, preferably with an attached note about who they are
CADENCE! I am very disappointed in you, young lady! You NEVER do that to someone, I don't care if you're a princess or not, I'll skin your hide if you so much as THINK that it is okay to accuse someone without hearing all the FACTS!!!
There’s two sides to every story, Cadance.
I can see that Cadence is still holding some resentment. Considering that Thorax is accused of doing what the Changelings at the Invasion were doing, I can see how this would set her off.
As for the Public Defender Plea Bargain, I get the feeling there’s some miscommunication going on. Im betting that nobody realized that Brass and Sunset are looking for a private lawyer and assigned Plea thinking Thorax had nobody and we’re going to have to deal with a momentary kerfuffle as everyone deals with getting the new lawyer and finding out who assigned Plea.
However, part of me hopes to be surprised and find that Plea turns out to actually be very competent as a lawyer and rigorously defend Thorax to the best of their ability. While plea bargains exist for a reason, they’re not the only things defenders do.
I... I'm seriously about to say "f*ck this story" and drop it. Aside from a few, the ponies are xenophobic assholes and much of this seems to be "what's extra bad that the Author can do to Thorax?"
11040268
Admittedly, things are rather bleak for Thorax, and will get bleaker for the foreseeable future. However, do not forget the addage "Always darkest before the dawn".
Made up ones, thankfully, but I suspect you aren't just going to take my word for it.
Pfft, like they'd actually do anything about them if he'd answer yes, given circumstances. I wouldn't put it past the prison staff to just ignore it if Thorax ever did suffer a medical crisis while in their custody.
I know we're just going for full-on ponification here as MLP is wont to do, but doing this would be utterly useless for ponies, or any hooved creature really, because the hooves undergo too much wear and tear, too much growth, and overall too many regular changes to be a reliable identifier--the hoofprint could change dramatically in just a matter of days in the right circumstances.
Well, that'd at least give him something to do in the meantime, since we already know he's quite practiced and good at cleaning toilets.
Besides, the prison staff probably wouldn't complain to him tidying his own cell.
Assuming she's not even still in the middle of being foalnapped at the time, of course, but there's also the problem of why she was being foalnapped in the first place--to ensure her and her family didn't go blabbing about what's really going on.
But I bet that, if given the chance, the kid would absolutely blab without much hesitation, so that has to count for something. I mean, the victim herself testifying that "this is not the guy" does tend to hold some good weight in a court of law.
I'm pretty sure you're not planning to go this way at all...but I'd bet Twilight Sparkle would be versed enough in law theory to be able to fill in that role and then some if needed.
...well, let's be honest here. That'd still be a heck of a lot better than whatever Shining Armor would try to do to him.
More seriously though, I can actually understand her doubt at the moment, given circumstances. With all of the conflicting stories bouncing around and her needing to be the responsible governing power, she can't just pick favorites, and right now the facts conflict too much to give a clear answer as to who's truly at guilt here.
I was going to say that I'm pretty sure the zappy prison bars aren't going to do anything to stop him from drawing love off of someone on the other side, so just have Brass stand there for a few minutes every day...
...but then I remembered the magic suppressors he's wearing curtail his ability to feed, so I guess that's out. But that being said, they probably ought to address that, because I'm pretty sure imprisoning someone in such a manner that they are effectively left unable to feed and at risk of starving constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and I know the Crystal Empire probably still has some pretty old-fashioned laws on the record from before it's thousand-year disappearance, but I'm positive even it is going to have a few laws barring that already in place by this point in time, especially since there's already clear evidence Cadance and Shining have taken steps to modernize the empire's legal system.
So somebody probably ought to tell the powers that be about that.
And then slap them until they take steps to ensure it, because, again, wouldn't put it past them to try and ignore that problem in Thorax's case, if given half the chance.
11039798
Well yes, but Pharynx has also shown to be largely rule-abiding to the laws of the land, even in light of rules he doesn't totally agree with, so I think he could be reasoned with enough to ensure that the real crooks would both live to testify and also...survive their inevitable injuries. Maybe even without too much permanent damage if we play our cards right.
11040067
As I said, that's why she can't just automatically assume Thorax is being truthful in this case, the fact there are two sides of the story to this, and over some pretty serious charges no less, which doesn't help. And because she doesn't have evidence enough to disprove the stories of the ponies accusing him or enough evidence to prove Thorax's either, then truthful or not, both are still testimonies she has to keep into consideration at this point in the game, when everybody is still trying to figure out just what did happen, or else she actually wouldn't be that good, just, or fair of a leader, and those responsibilities take precedence.
And since both testimonies conflict with each other and over such a serious crime, I can understand why she's reluctant to just take Thorax at his word in this case, not when there's potentially the safety of her subjects at stake this time. Even I have to admit the sheer timing of it all does make it look a bit suspect in Thorax's case, and just claiming it's purely a coincidence isn't going to go far in this instance, unfortunately. The fact it all no doubt hits a bit too close to home to a certain changeling invasion she had the misfortune of having a front row seat of...probably doesn't help either.
On the upside though, the fact that she even said "if I find out you're lying" DOES suggest she's at least willing to believe Thorax might be telling the truth, at least for now until the court proceedings have the chance to have their say. She could've just as easily assumed he was lying then and there and showed him no mercy, so the fact she didn't suggests her faith in him isn't totally lost just yet...just understandably quite shaken at the moment. It at least can be earned again with time, once we're past this nasty business.
That said, I do agree she was a bit needlessly harsh about it, but...y'know, obvious trends of the story and all.
11040268
Or said "let's portray the day in the life of a minority people." Because I wish I could say this was all an exaggeration of that...
That said, I know the constant doom and gloom storytelling isn't everybody's cup of tea. Though I should point out that it's not like the author hasn't been fairly upfront about the story being like this from pretty much the start.
11040361
Yeah that’s pretty much the part I was getting at. Like you said, she doesn’t have evidence to prove anything either way (although we know the truth of the matter) and as such she shouldn’t be treating him like he’s guilty nor does she currently have a valid reason to be mad at him. Aside from that though it makes her appear as though she is not the fair and impartial ruler you said she should be.