XVIII. Caveat Lector
XVIII.
Caveat Lector
Royal House Guard Barracks
City of Canterlot
21. November, 2015
4:54 pm ICT
“So... how does this thing work?“
“Easy!”
The GI huffed as he plopped the weighty machine down on the sorting desk. “You plug it in… you press the button… and voila! Eighteen channels, in real time, from five different countries!”
The corporal whistled, very clearly impressed.
“This must be some cutting-edge technology right there.”
The American soldier pulled a doubtful grimace, and shrugged,
“Eh... Truth be told, this thing’s about fifteen years old. I don’t think the company that made it even exists anymore. But it’s still American engineering, and works like it’s fresh from the assembly line. So I can’t complain, and neither should you.”
Positioning the screen towards the bunks and leisure table, he took the power cable out of the box and twisted it around his fist.
The Royal guard meanwhile turned to his sergeant major as a grin covered his face; the older pegasus was still staring at the dark screen of the TV as though he was watching the grandest thing since sliced fritters.
“How… are we ever gonna pay for this?” he wondered, his voice stricken with slight worry.
“Pay? This is a gift, guys. For you, with love, from the United States Marine Corps.”
The corporal nearly burst with excitement, “You mean we can keep it?”
“Hey, all us warriors gotta stick together.” the Marine laughed and combed over his smoothly shorn hair.
"Oh yeah, I'm good with that!” the corporal bellowed. “Thanks, Mister Man!”
The human warrior proceeded to carefully vault over the ledge and out the open window of the ground floor room. His collision was softened by the thick, puffy layer of snow that lay in the courtyard outside, the marine tugged the cable out after himself, before peeking back into the warm guardroom. “Okay, guys. Before you turn it on, make sure you plugged the TV into the transformer, and the transformer into the generator.”
“What if we forget?”
“...Well, it won’t turn on. And if you forget to use a transformer, your precious new TV will be fried like a shrimp.”
The human grabbed the cord the hung off the roughly suitcase-sized, emergency-yellow-painted engine generator, and gave it a few hefty tugs. With a mighty rattle, the zip-started motor sprang to life, giving a deep, gravelly howl that made all the windows rattle in their frames.
“Holy Celestia!” the sergeant major exclaimed, pressing his ears shut in shock. “How long does that thing have to run?!”
“As long as the TV’s meant to be on! The power’s gotta come from somewhere!”
Climbing back in from the outside, the GI locked the window tightly behind himself.
“So much for magic…” the sergeant major commented, rubbing his poor ears.
“Magic doesn’t need gasoline. By the way, you need more gasoline. You can get it from the PX for Two-fifty per gallon.”
Picking up the remote control, the human ceremoniously approached the TV set. “Now then, gentlemen… get ready for the real magics…”
With a very high-pitched peep, the television flashed and flickered.
“Oh, wow.”
“Wait, that’s not it.”
The marine fumbled about with a veritable coat hanger of an antenna, until a halfway identifiable image could be discerned in the black-white confusion.
“...is AFN Equestria, live from Camp Justice in Diego Garcia with the Newstalk at seventeen-hundred!” the TV suddenly announced.
“Do… they all talk like that?” the younger stallion asked, confused.
“Nah… that’s just US Forces TV. We’ve got our own channels and stuff.”
The screen was filled with lines and shapes swishing by to important music, and after a few seconds, the screen switched to a stubble-haired black man in a short-sleeved olive drab service uniform,
“Hi there, my name is Master Sergeant Jayson Ingram. Ladies and gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts: Welcome to the show. Or, to put it in my best Equestrian…” The man needed a second to position his jaws just the right way, “Eeeeeaghupfuuuuuah.”
“We do not sound like that.” the corporal grumbled.
“Oh well, I tried.” he immediately admitted sheepishly. “But boy, have we got an exclusive for you today. It should be obvious to any US servicemen and -women that are watching, and to other long-time viewers of AFN, that we never had a huge sortiment of talk shows in our programme - much less ones that we produced ourselves.”
Proudly, he crossed his legs. “But this is about to change. Today, just barely three months after the conception of the Equestrian sister station of American Forces Network, we can take extreme pride in the fact that, in the last weeks, our curious Equestrian allies and neighbours have all but surpassed our own US personnel in viewership numbers.”
The corporal nudged the sergeant major. “I wonder what was keeping us, eh Sarge?”
“Yes, almost eighty percent of our regular tune-ins now come from pony servicemen and civilians who just cannot seem to get enough of what human television, radio and internet has to offer. Of course, we were very touched by your keen interest in our modest part of this grand cultural exchange. And indeed, we were very happy to oblige, and worked hard to craft the fully-fledged information and entertainment programme that you deserve; your personal window to the human world.” The camera zoomed out, to reveal that the smiling man was sitting behind a generously sized oval glass desk in front of a studio backdrop. “It was for this reason that we also supplied a live broadcast of the first hearing in the Changeling queen Chrysalis' war crimes trial at the ICC this morning...”
“Aw, shoot!” the pony corporal cursed. “I missed the trial! I just had to have kitchen duty when it was on!”
“Oh, you didn't miss much, Vedette.” The sergeant major trotted over to the vittle shelf and clamped a bottle of cider in his hooves. “It was a lot of talking to no real point. Except Chrysalis being snooty as always.”
“I can't stand that horsefly.”
“You think I can?”
“I'd give a day's pay to see a court rip into her.”
“Well, this court didn't.” Jugging a generous sip, he climbed back down from the pantry. “If you're asking me, the humans are way too soft on her. She's being coddled... No offence, Mister Man.”
“Uh...” the human started up, “None taken, dude.”
“I mean, they sat there, and they just let her do her thing. She looked like she was enjoying a well-deserved holiday from all that love-sucking and slaving. Even got a brand-new pair of glasses and everything.”
”And now, in direct continuation to the broadcast, we bring you a short discussion round, live from Haarlem near The Hague, with a very esteemed guest panel to help dissect and analyse the trial, and even have a jab at trying to predict the outcome.”
“Fifty-five bits on 'Not Guilty'!” he snorted cynically.
“Oh, you're on, Sarge!”
”Let me greet my two panellists: There is The Honourable Mr Fancy Pants, a veteran diplomat and the Royal Equestrian Government’s envoy to the European Union...”
The image pulled to a snow-white, strong-shouldered unicorn with a carefully tended blue mane and moustache, who adjusted his monocle in greeting.
“Hey Sarge, I know him! I saw him at the Royal Variety not a month ago. I didn't know he had time for diplomatic stuff by the side. I'd be having my hooves full with that lovely mare of his...”
Next up came a bald man in a dark blue uniform tunic with an equally blue tie,
And Lieutenant Commander Tyler Firth, Judge Advocate General of the US Navy, with five years of expertise in criminal psychology. Welcome, both of you.”
The round gave their friendly greetings.
“Now, to cut straight to the chase; You’ve both been following the hearing. What was your take?”
“We, for one, are quite optimistic...” the blue-stached unicorn began, though with caution, ”It was apparent from the start that the trial would be mounted by a group of expertly seasoned legal minds from both our worlds, and the pace with which they marched down the path of justice was steady and unflinching. Even if...” he cleared his throat, “The reception the changeling regent was given on the way did at times seem… lacklustre, in light of her irksome performance during the hearing. Still, it’s the firm belief of Her Majesties’ government that justice shall be served to the guilty, and this court cannot possibly fail at making that happen.”
“And...” the host made sure, “In your own, personal opinion?”
He smiled disarmingly, “That it was one jolly good show, and I’m looking forward to more.”
“Okay, great to hear.” he laughed and turned to the officer next to him, “What was your impression, Sir?”
“In my professional opinion...” the JAG answered in a vibrant voice. “Today’s trial was a mixed bag. Though not for the reasons my esteemed Equestrian friend here cited. Putting aside the defendant’s antics, neither of the two parties, nor the judges, seemed to be working together very well. There was a definite lack of consensus to be found here that I could talk on about for hours...”
“I’ve taken the liberty to pull out snippets of the more interesting moments of the hearing.” the presenter directed the judiciary officer, “Take a gander, you two, and describe what comes to your mind.”
The backdrop behind them transformed into the running footage from the courtroom, focusing on the Queen, her lawyer and the other defence staffers rising for the judges.
“Okay, Mister Man, how do they do that? If not by magic, I mean?”
“Uh… greenscreen, I think, or bluescreen or whatever. I’m a marksman, not a TV wiz.”
“Oh yes, I remember this moment. This is where the trouble started...” the unicorn sighed, ”Queen Chrysalis would refuse to stand up.”
”Didn’t her lawyer explain later that her chains were weighing her down?” the presenter made sure.
Fancy Pants slowly shook his head. “Oh... pishtush. That poor human was very evidently hard-pressed to excuse his client’s frankly impossible behaviour. I mean, judging by how quickly he jumped up when the judges entered, he had long reached the end of his tether.”
“Ahoy to that.” the corporal mumbled and took a bite out of a pastry that lay on the table next to him, “Remind me, what was the point of throwing her a lawyer again?”
“Indeed.” the JAG agreed, “What I also found pretty interesting was just how often we saw the queen tussle… or, more appropriately, argue - with her defence counsel over the course of the proceedings. You’re not supposed to do that; especially not while the judge is speaking. Which is also the reason Justice Suruma would call the two of them out later on.”
”...And Queen Chrysalis then started to argue with the her as well,” the gentlecolt added.
“Though, I have to say that the Queen generally seemed… a bit lost throughout the session,” he answered slowly, and stroked his chin in accord with his thoughts. “As though she really was out of her element, but tried not to look it. I did sometimes wonder whether she was even aware she was supposed to rise, or not talk back to the judges. Indeed, I don’t know what the Equestrian convention on that is, but...”
”My human friend, I can assure you that the Royal Equestrian Court treats these things no less seriously than in the human lands. Judges command the same level of respect, and they’re as entitled to having the first and the last word just as they are here. Maybe even more so.”
“Ahoy to that, Equestria.” the sergeant major smirked, and shared a patriotic hoofbump with his subordinate.
Meanwhile, the Canterlotian gentlecolt magically fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat and continued, “And there is no doubt in my mind that the queen knew this perfectly well. She was merely looking for a way to infuriate the judges. To rile them up.”
The presenter laughed. “Well, give her credit - it worked. Though, more about that later.”
”Hm... ” the naval officer disagreed, ”To my mind, Queen Chrysalis simply didn’t make a terribly in-control impression out there. I have trouble believing that her various gaffes were all calculated. It does not mirror the experience I had with some of the… more conniving defendants in my time...”
”Well that exactly...” the unicorn exclaimed and pointed a hoof over to him, ”...is the devious genius of the queen Chrysalis. This is just the impression that she wanted to arouse. Clumsimess, helplessness and naivety. Any opportunity to disarm the suspicions of the judges, she took. After all, you wouldn’t assume a lot of malice from somepony who couldn’t navigate her way through a courtroom...”
”A wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak?” the host clarified.
”So to speak, indeed.”
“Actually...” the officer disagreed and reached over to the presenter’s remote control, “If you fast-forward to the part where the charges are being read, you can actually see Queen Chrysalis hit some sort of breaking point. She literally shrivelled up when confronted with the allegations against her. Rubbing her eyes, clutching her face, growing very intimidated and uncomfortable… Now, I don’t know what it might or might not say about her guilt, but it did betray a certain emotional fragility on her behalf.”
“Oh, come on...” the soldiers in front of the screen chuckled to themselves. “Really now? Dude, she’s not a cow.”
“Actually, actually...” the unicorn countered, “If you were to rewind to the very beginning of the reading, you can catch a brief glimpse of the Queen looking right into the camera - at least, until her lawyer tells her to look away. She spotted her audience… And from that moment on, she knew exactly what to do, and how to behave, to cast suspicion off her.”
”Mister Fancy Pants… With all due respect, we don't know if she even knows what a camera is.”
”Uh...” the presenter interrupted them sheepishly, ”Before we get a too caught up in speculation, let me jump to the next scene: I found this one particularly fascinating, not because of something happening, but more by the absence of it. Take a gander.”
The footage cut to a still of the queen and the head justice exchanging a moderately heated exchange about the the term ‘majesty’.
“Aha,” the JAG agreed. “Even I was convinced that there would be some kind of escalation at this point. The queen almost seemed unable to cope with the court protocol she was confronted with.”
“Well, Sir,” the presenter added, “Considering all the things we have heard about her up to that point, this thought might have been in the back of most of our minds. Which made it more surprising just how quickly she ended up backing down.”
“What thoughts would that be, Sergeant?”
“You know...” the host harrumphed, “There have been a number of unconfirmed reports of the queen falling out with Dutch and US personnel on her way to the courthouse. She ostensibly attacked USAFSF officers in Schiphol airport. As I said, this is all unconfirmed and mostly treated as hearsay. Probably rightfully so.”
Curiously, he peered over to the Equestrian diplomat. “Speaking of which, your Excellency… Is there nothing you could confirm or deny about the hearsay, as a spokesperson of the Equestrian government?”
“No,” he answered with a superior smile.
“No, you can’t, or no, you can?”
“Yes.”
“Happened,” the corporal called.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Totally happened. I know a guy whose bunkmate had to guard her. He wrote him a letter from a hospital. She must've done something heinous.”
The presenter nodded. “The good old mathematician’s answer... Kudos, Mr Fancy Pants, kudos.“
Then he quickly changed topics, “Moving on to the performance of the judge panel here... Commander?”
The judiciary officer leaned back and flattened his palms. “That was a fun thing to watch. And, just as I said before, communication between them seemed to work even less than with the Queen and her counsel. I think we should of course be addressing the elephant in the room: Lexy Fori’s outbursts.”
At this, the Equestrian gentlecolt started nervously curling his moustache, slightly bashful.
“You’re taking the words right out of my mouth,” the host agreed, “I was wondering how she’s going to paddle her way out of this one. From what I‘ve heard, raving judges are not appreciated at the International Criminal Court, no matter how repugnant the defendants might behave.”
“Indeed. Ignoring the fact that Lexy Fori, at no point in the trial, had the floor, her barked orders toward the queen do not leave a good impression about her impartiality. I have seen lesser judges face recusal - or ‘dismissal’, in laymen’s terms - for this kind of behaviour.”
At this, Fancy Pants politely raised his hoof. “Ah, if I might interject… Now, I know, to human ears, what Lady Fori said - and the way she said it - might sound rather dubious. I can fully understand that. But she, just like so many of my countrymares, is quite frankly still accustomed to Equestrian norms of etiquette.”
“Does Equestrian etiquette... usually involve yelling at the defendant to zip it?” the JAG interrogated him, leaning closer.
“Well… considering the defendant was in fact behaving out of line, I think that reaction was not unwarranted.”
“She addressed the Queen, and I quote, as ‘Changeling’. To my ears, that sounded like half a slur.”
”How so?” the unicorn questioned, as though blissfully oblivious to the human’’s accusations, “Is the defendant not a changeling?”
”...She’s a queen, Mr Fancypants.The court treats her as a head of state.”
”Even if it may not look it, Commander Tyler, the Equestrian judicial system does not discriminate by social standing or political positions. It's all a matter of principle.”
Here, he resolutely tapped on the table. “In our minds, every defendant ought to be prosecuted with the same vigour and with no more reluctance than the next. And Queen Chrysalis’ treatment was, I daresay, in due course for such a thoroughly Equestrian affair.“
But the officer just folded his arms doubtfully. ”Perhaps you are forgetting that she is acting as a judge at the International Criminal Court now, where a level of respect toward the defendant and restraint among the judges have always reigned supreme.”
”I may have to correct you on the first part: Magistrate Fori isn’t, and has never been, a justice at the ICC. She is a judge at the Council of Harmony, though, to which the ICC - I may remind you - is merely the human counterpart. And the Council operates under rules that are quite different from yours.”
”Well, Mister Fancy Pants, this entire affair would not be half as upsetting, were it not for the fact that Justice Lexy Fori is herself an Equestrian.”
”Yes?”
”And… and she is arbitrating in an international war crimes trial where the Equestrian people are, after all, the victims party. Is there really not a possibility of conflict of interests here?”
”Commander… Equestria is an enormous country. A mosaic of creatures and races from all over the continent.” He spread his hooves to emphasize, “That makes a majority of denizens of the Equine world - the catchment area of the Council of Harmony, you see - for better or for worse, citizens of the Equestrian principality.”
He leaned back. “It is thus simply unavoidable that a majority of Council Lords and Ladies would end up being Equestrians themselves. So the least we can do in this case is to assure that the presiding judges are at least in no way directly involved with the affairs at hoof. Which Justice Fori, I can assure you, is not. Even if she is a long-time Canterlotian herself.”
”So, in other words, you find no faults here at all?” the host asked, quirking a dubious eyebrow.
“Absolutely not. And neither will the Council of Harmony, should they ever be forced to look into Lady Fori’s conduct. All she did was take a riotous defendant down a peg or two. The very most that could possibly be held against her was her ignorance of ICC court protocol… but that is in no way enough to warrant calling her professional integrity into question. Let alone ponder disqualification.”
There was a second of silence in the studio. The presenter was the first to catch his breath.
“Alright. Now, before our allotted time runs out… let us take a quick look at the prosecution’s corner. They were fairly silent today, except for one rather amusing moment: What do you think about the flub of the senior trial lawyer Mrs Harshwhinny, near the second half of the hearing?”
“You mean… the one where she said that she is a sports arbiter?”
The presenter nodded.
“Well… that is because it’s true. I know her personally, actually,” the diplomat explained, stroking his ear. “She is the president of the Equestrian Games Committee. But alas, does that stop her from being a top-notch briefhead outside her official sports functions? I say, no, gentlecolts. She studied Universal Law at the Royal Hoofington College. If you pardon my crude metaphor, she sucked the craft up like a sponge.”
“So, uh…“ the American coughed, losing interest in the programme and glancing around the otherwise completely empty quarters, “You know, this being your first television break and all… I would've expected it to draw a bit more of a crowd. Where is everyone else?”
The sergeant major leaned his back casually against the inside of the reception desk.
“Out in the field, on mission. Almost everypony's deploying up north, marching gear and everything.”
“Yeah,” the corporal confirmed cynically, “They can spend their Hearth’s Warming Eve freezing their butts off in the Crystal Empire. While we get to stay and receive the Princessy treatment. Bless them both.”
“Hm. What are they doing up north?” the human inquired.
“Hunting changelings. Kicking some major flank all the way.” the corporal smiled. “Oh Celestia, I kinda wish I’d have gone with them. This would be so epic.”
“Though it's meant to be a secret mission and all...” the sergeant major yawned, evidently distracted by the programme, “Which means we shouldn't be talking about it either. Everypony can be a changeling and stuff...”
“Huh.” the GI harrumphed, scratching his head awkwardly. “But... now we're talking about it?”
“Ey, nopony’s here anyway.”
“Except the Princesses.”
“Who can’t hear us.”
“Okay, but let’s shut up now, everypony!” the sergeant major called both of them to order, “I can't hear what those ponies in the television are saying!”
“Ahem...” a female’s raspy voiced suddenly croaked up behind them.
As though they were hit by a bolt of lightening, the two pegasus guardsponies flinched and whirled towards the counter behind them.
On the other side, there waited another human, her hair dark and tussled, her chin wrapped in bandages and supported by a brace. Emotionlessly, her beady brown eyes targeted the two sentries lounging in front of their new television.
“Phew...” the younger pegasus giggled and gave his superior a liberated glance. “Not who I first thought it would be. I mean… wouldn’t that be some kinda irony?”
The sergeant major quickly donned his helmet and jumped from his stool. “Can I do something for you, Ma’am? This is a military base, and off-limits if you don’t have business here.”
“Then who is he?” she dryly inquired and pointed over to the American.
“USMC, babe.” He smiled over to the fellow human. “We’re never not in business...”
“Ma’am, I’m not going to ask you again. Can I help you?”
She raised her chin formally, and reached into her turtleneck. On a chain, she pulled out a massive, richly decorated piece of metal that hung around her throat.
The royal guard automatically clicked his hooves. “Sweet Celestia… I mean Luna… I mean...”
Lost for words, he saluted. The corporal, confused, silently followed suit.
“A thousand apologies… Milady.” the sergeant major stammered. “Friends of Their Majesties are our commanders.”
The woman harrumphed, and lowered her gorget back into her shirt.
“It’s just… we’re all a little on edge here. We’re under orders to turn all strangers away immediately. Even other Guards. The Changelings could be anywhere and anyone… And as long as we don't get a unicorn with the proper de-cloaking training on-site, we'd be none the wiser...
Disinterested, she nodded. “I’ve chome for information. Do you know anythingh about the whereabouts of Sergeant Gholden Dirkh, unit number two, two… and so on?”
“Dirkie?” the sergeant major laughed, “Uh… if I’m not all mistaken, he’s on the parade ground. Sweeping it clean. Since breakfast.”
“Though we’re not actually allowed to talk to him.” the corporal whispered derisively. “He went AWOL the other day. Now the Cap’s got his eye on him.”
“Vedette… could you zip it already?”
She nodded, already making ready to go inside. “I need to speakh to him. It’s an investighative matter.”
“Milady… Vedette has a point. Soldiers who are getting disciplined must not be talked to.”
The human just tapped against the rough location of her collarbone, upon which a dull metallic thud came back.
“But who am I to stop you? Please… the barracks are yours to explore.”
“Thankh you, Private.”
“It’s… Sergeant Major, actually...”
The woman hesitated. “Yes… for now...”
Then she took her arm off the counter and marched off into the barracks corridor.
“Jeesh.” the American whistled as soon as she was out of sight. “Desert queens, am I right? Always good for a giggle.”
Then he cleared his throat and scratched his chin. “So… you guys are on red alert now?”
“Yep. Or… well, meant to be, really.”
“I’m asking because I’ve got thirty brand-new security cameras in the back of my humvee. Fifteen a piece, no casing. Interested?”
“Red alert...”
Edith shook her head as she meandered through the almost completely abandoned barracks building. Bunks were empty and made, mess halls silent and squeaky clean, unit standards picked out of their stands and weapon racks cleared out.
Even if they were on high alert - not that they seemed awfully concerned about that - there wasn’t a whole lot left that they could have defended.
Even so, Edith could feel vigilant eyes watching her hawkishly wherever she went.
Finally finding a door leading out into the courtyard, she stepped almost immediately into a bank of piled snow, carelessly dumped on the stone path leading out on the parade ground.
The whole complex, constructed from raw slabs of mountain rock by the side of the royal castle’s east wing, evidently belonged to the older parts of the residence, as well as the city as a whole. In the distance, energetic cadences and angry bellows of drill instructors echoed over the fortified structures.
And in the shadows of the tall, mighty towers rising above and behind its tinder roofs, a single unicorn was busy drawing long breaches through the fluffy, but undeniably thick layer that blanketed the square with a well-worn snow shovel. Curiously, despite his visible horn, he was operating the tool the old-fashioned way - using his own two, very sore hooves.
In spite of the scarf he had wrapped around his neck, the colt in the light laminar cuirass was sweating profusely, with trickles of exhaustion rolling down his muzzle and hooves. And with that oily grey fur of his, he looked quite a bit like the mysterious sergeant from Ponyville Hospital.
As she stomped over to him, the unicorn, with his back still busily turned away from her, lowered his shovel against a hoof and struck an obedient salute.
“Sir! Reporting as ordered: Parade grounds cleared by as much as sixty percent! Completion of the task to be expected roughly one hour after dusk, Sir!”
“Sergeant Gholden Dirkh?”
Carefully, the unicorn laid his shovel into the yet undisturbed snow and looked behind himself.
“Oh, it’s you.” he discovered, barely cracking an emotion.
But before he could turn back around to resume his task, he spun around another time. This time, his eyes were literally as big as saucers.
“You?! W-what are you doing here?”
“Do you remember me?”
“Remember you?!”
He exclaimed, and began clambering over to her so quickly that the forensic seriously felt like taking a few steps back. “You’ve come! Thank Celestia you’ve come.”
Genuinely clueless, the Bosnian stared down at him, while he stared back up at her with the pleading eyes of a browbeaten schoolboy.
“So...” he breathed, just a lot less loudly, “What do you say?”
“To what?”
“You know what!” he insisted sharply, before meekly peering around the abandoned square. “What I’ve… What was shown to you. Where do you stand?”
“I...”
Mystified, she shook her head. “That piece of paper you ghave me. What about it?”
“Shhh… Not here!” he hissed. “What about ‘what about it’? How far have you come?”
“You’re not makhing sense.” she mumbled, keeping him at distance with an outstretched hand, “You… you told me backh then that you were posted as a ghuard in my hospital room. On whose orders was that? Was it the princesses?”
He sighed. Edith could feel his annoyance at her ignorance. It burned a bit.
“Were they the ones who instruchted you to ghive me that paper?”
“Sweet heavens, no!”
Nervously, he trotted back to his shovel and picked it up with the power of his horn. “You see this? I’m doing this because of you. I had no orders to be in Ponyville that day whatsoever.”
Now it began to dawn upon her. “Oh. Was... that the thingh you were dechlared AWOL over?”
“I needed to find a way to show you that paper. And if that meant taking time out of sentry duty here in Canterlot, so be it. This matter’s more important to me right now than clearing the parade grounds six times over.”
“But why?!” she asked, more roughly, getting rather annoyed at this point. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a chrumpled page from a bookh written entirely in Eqhuestrian?”
But the unicorn’s imminent answer was delayed by the sharp bark resonating over the yard.
“Sergeant!”
Golden Dirk flinched, dumbfounded, and immediately extinguished his magic grip on the snow shovel, letting it drop into his two forehooves.
An officer’s ornate purple armour shimmered at them from the far corner of the field. Cantering over a cleared portion, the superior confronted the human and the pony sergeant head-on.
“Golden Dirk, were you using magic just now?”
“Sir, reporting as ordered: No magic was used in the execution of the disciplinary assignment, Sir!”
“I could see the shimmer from a mile away...” the officer growled, his bandaged right wing flexing excitedly.
Edith needed a second to recognise the angry little officer was none other than...
“Captain Fightingh?”
For now, the pegasus captain ignored his human acquaintance, instead minding all his attention entirely on the sergeant with the shovel. “Was this human mare talking to you?”
“Sir, yes Sir!” he barked, “She was… was asking why I am shovelling snow, Sir!”
“And did you answer?”
“Sir… service colts are not at liberty to conduct conversations during the execution of disciplinary assignments, Sir!”
“Right.” the officer nodded, minimally pacified. Inspecting the unicorn from the side, he took a step back. “If I catch you using magic one more time, I’ll send you up on the roof tomorrow. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Carry on.”
Like a mechanical toy, the sergeant sprang back into his assignment and paddled all the snow around him into a neat little pile.
The Captain, meanwhile, turned to an increasingly cantankerous-looking Edith.
“M’am… Care to walk with me for a moment?”
Unmotivated, the pathologist shrugged. “I was in the middle of somethingh.”
“Let him work, or he won’t be done ‘till spring...” The pegasus trotted in front of her, his eyes searching the ground for things that weren’t there. “I was looking for you… I was to deliver you a message from Iron Gall, the director of the Royal Archives...”
“Yes?”
“It’s about that paper that you’re supposed to have ripped out of that ancient commercial logbook… well…” He seemed not too concerned with the contents of this message to enunciate them properly, “Don’t do it again, was the gist of it.”
From the corner of her eyes, Edith could espy the unicorn sergeant flinching visibly at the mention, before awkwardly resuming his work.
“He says that the only thing keeping him from barring you from the Archives for life are Princess Luna’s good graces. That book was very precious, uhm… not just from a materialistic standpoint, but from a historical one to boot. Apparently, there aren’t many Unicornian commercial logs left, and there are no copies...”
“Is that all?”
He shrugged. “They… glued the page back on… and...”
Then he lowered his head and whimpered. “Oh, what the hay! We’re officially meant to be in the same boat now, aren’t we? You need to know about it.”
Silently, the knighted forensic awaited his revelation.
“It’s official now: I’m being transferred to the Crystal Ridge.”
“What? When?”
“Tomorrow.” He gulped. “And… I’m to be given oversight of… the commanders of all fifty thousand troopers there.”
“Well… Chonghratulations, Chaptain.”
When his face came back up, there was not a hint of happiness or pride to be found on it. Only dolour.
“Tomorrow, M’am. I’ve spent the last eight years in the Guard commanding no more than two hundred colts put together! How can I possibly...”
“It does not seem very logichal to put a Chaptain in charge of so many men...”
“Not personally, I mean... She… Princess Luna… thought I could go in and give the commanding officers’ flanks a tremendous buck in her name, to make them do what she wants them to do. But even then...” He shook his head, “Every one of those officers outranked me only last week. What the flying feather am I supposed to tell them to make them listen?”
Edith could only shrug. “Even if I were a soldier... I chouldn’t answer you that.”
“Yeah...” he conceded, trying to put on a ridiculing smile. “Look, Edith… M’am... I want you to come with me.”
“Me?” She needed a second to process that. “How would that help in the slightest?”
“Kicking the butts of high command will be hard enough, but it won’t be the only thing. I’ll be making stops at human encampments on my way North. To see how many of them are willing to join us in our advance.”
“Human troops?” Edith wondered. “Peacekheepers?”
She wondered if she should tell him it wouldn’t work that way.
“I have a bad feeling that I won’t be talking to them eye-to-eye unless I bring another human with me. It’s nothing personal, M’am, it’s just about...”
“...makhingh the right impression?”
“I suppose.”
Slowly, the forensic shook her head. “There is workh for me to be done here, Chaptain. I’ll chome up to the Frozen North at some point, there is surely no way around it. But not tomorrow.”
Bitterly, the Captain nodded.
Did he feel somehow betrayed by that ‘impromptu ally’ of his?
“Princess Luna… she gave you that gorget to help you in your quest for truth. Right?”
Silently, Edith nodded back.
“Well… Then I suppose it’s up to you to decide where the truth’d best be found. Here… or in the lion’s den.”
He looked her square in the eyes, “Can you promise to me that you’ll do that wisely? Without… any of that scoffing?”
“I never do, Chaptain.”
He adjusted his helmet of Captaincy as he slowly turned towards the entrance. “You’ll know where to find me then. For the… entire… foreseeable future. Take care, M’am.”
“...You too.”
Then he was off. No doubt marching away to clear out the same office he had just moved into three mere days ago.
As soon as his rustling self had disappeared behind the countless pillars flanking the main entrance, Edith’s side was joined almost immediately by Sergeant Golden Dirk.
His face was a grimace of dread. “What.. was he just saying?”
“You... didn’t know he’s relochatingh?”
“No, I mean what he said before that!” he wheezed. “They… found the paper?”
“Found it?” the forensic repeated before shrugging in exhaustion. “I ghave it to them.”
“You...” Somewhere on his way to despair, the unicorn pressed his eyes shut before locking the human a killing glare. “To whom?”
She thought for a moment. “An archivist... With large darkh red ghlasses and stackhed hair... I think she knew you.”
“Oh… not Paper Rose!” he cursed. “That blabbermouth! She leaks faster than a... rotting boat loaded with laxatives!”
Whirling around, he tried not to lose himself in panic. “Now why, in the name of Celestia’s sun, did you do that? What was the point of me personally hoofing it to you in the first place?”
Provocatively, the forensic knelt down to him a little, “You tell me. All I know is, I channot read the Eqhuestrian alphabet.”
“Did you mention my name?!”
“Of chourse not.”
He nodded, and gulped. Then he magically retrieved a kerchief from his cuirass to sweep the sweat off his furry brow.
“Okay. So... so did she bother to translate anything for you before she snatched it away?”
“A little.” The forensic tried to recall. “Somethingh about baghs of ghrain in Trottingham. Sounded mundane.”
“It is mundane.”
“Was it chode, or… what?”
“No, I just took that page out of an old Trottingham duke’s majordomo’s journal I dug out of the archive’s deep storage. But the writing’s not what I was after!”
“Then what?” Edith asked again, absolutely incredulous at this point. “What is all of this about?”
He paused importantly.
“Did you notice there were little annotations scribbled on the side, in red ink?”
“...I did.”
“Those were the things you should have looked out for. They’re original to the journal. And they’re worth their words stitched in gold thread!”
Breathing nervously, the Bosnian folded her arms.
“I will have to wait for them to return the page to me if I want to read them.”
Pouting his lips, the sergeant shook his head
“You won’t get it back again. The journal has too high a security clearance. Even for me, and I’m a Sergeant in the Archives Guard. I only stumbled across it by accident.”
How would a random majordomo’s diary make it to such a high security clearance, she wondered.
“It’s all about those footnotes!” he insisted. Grasping his shovel with his magic once more, he lifted its coarse tip against the human’s chest.
“Follow the footnotes. They will lead you to what you’ve surely been looking for.”
“If you say so.”
Carefully, she lifted the shovel away from herself. “But how do you know this is somethingh I’m lookhing for?”
“You humans are investigating the Chrysalis attacks, aren’t you?”
Ominously, he nodded at his own question, “Believe me. You’ll want to know about this.”
“If this choncerns the investighation so much, chan’t I just lookh through the prints of the ICC investighators? They spent the last three days photo-chopying the entire relevant archive assets. They will have chopied out this page as well for sure...”
But he was still adamant.
“No, no, no. Track down the original. I don’t know how, but do it! Only the original holds the annotations you need. Find it before it’s gone forever!”
It didn’t make sense to her. Why shouldn’t the footnotes be on the ICC’s copies? What were they copying off if not the originals?
“And then what?”
“Then?”
Breathing heavily, he stuck his shovel back into a snowbank. “Come back for me.”
Energetically, he sent a heap of snow flying onto an existing pile. “Please.”
Of course, the Bosnian pathologist knew her next stop.
It lay across a moat and a parade street from the barracks, and was just called ‘The Embassy’.
A foreign legations office located at the foot of the Canterlot Castle complex in a building once occupied by the the old Royal Postmaster’s.
The rather Victorian-styled house, standing by the corner of the royal gardens and dropping on one side from the edge of the plateau into the valley below, had been graciously cleared and converted to serve as an impromptu base for all the important human organisations operating on the magical island.
Officially, it was called “Embassy of the Republic of France in Equestria”, a remnant from the curious first week after the first contact of Equestria to the human world - at that time, the only even vaguely important human government official who could be found in time for a formal first contact with Equestria was a minor French National Assembly deputy who happened to be visiting the tiny, rather aptly-named Desolation island holdings in the subantarctic South Pacific, barely fifty kilometres south-west of the lower tip of Equestria - presumably to ice-fish.
A result of this was that France became the first human nation to officially open a diplomatic dialogue with Equestria - a situation that was greatly helped by the fact that French, not to be outdone in luck, turned out to be the only human tongue that the ponies of Equestria happened to be historically versed in in any notable way.
Why or how that was so, was not questioned - the world merely accepted that the 'lingua franca' was called the ‘lingua franca’ for a reason.
Now, over the last few fateful months, the Embassy had grown to be much more than just that. The ever-expanding complex of offices now also hosted, among others, the permanent mission of the European Union and, perhaps more importantly, the Equestrian offices of the United Nations.
Those were the three flags that were fluttered on the outside of the palace-facing facade, though there now were as much as a dozen nations that could currently claim to have their official representation situated somewhere within its white sandstone walls.
As Edith knocked at the closed front double door, a peephole window was opened by a doggish, brawny-looking gendarme with a side cap sitting on his shorn head, who spent a good chunk of time scrutinising the woman before asking,
"Comment puis-je vous aider, Madame?”
“Edith Šarić. With the ICMP… formerly. I have an appointment at the United Nations offices.“ she lied.
The window shut, the hefty door opened.
The inside of the Embassy was narrow and tightly packed, with slim corridors connecting hundreds of tiny offices, obviously laid out for sorting desks and leaving just enough space to squeeze through the odd mailroom truck.
The lighting was, other than expected, still largely following the Equestrian model too, with candles and oil lanterns and some of those magical glow-worms trapped in glasses providing a warm but weak gleam. Only select rooms had the dubious honour to be illuminated with fairly modern, but rudimentary military-grade neon light bars hung on the ceiling by ugly grey cables, supplying them with more than sufficient, but bone-crushingly glaring white light.
The United Nations offices were one of those rooms.
The Bosnian forensic loosened her winter gear and entered it after only delivering a single pair of knocks. Inside, she was confronted by mountains of copies, files and documents rising out of every corner of the way-too-small space, and in the middle of it, a desk manned by at least eight officials lethargically reading all that had been scanned, and marking each page appropriately - some for further investigation, some for storage, and some for destruction.
The head honcho, sitting at the far end of the desk, lowered his folder and revealed his fiery red beard to the visitor.
“Well woopty fucking doo.” he announced. “If it isn’t our favourite slab doctor in all of Equestria.”
Edith, again, chose to abstain from a comment.
Pierre just slapped his folder down and sat up straight.
“Hey, I’ve got a great idea: How about you get the fuck out of this office before I have you kicked out?”
“Huh. Sounds likhe a plan.” she sneered at her former task coordinator. “What are you so mad about?”
“Gee, good question. I don’t remember.” he hissed, rising from his chair and battling his way past an ill-placed paper stack, “Was it because you made a perfect ass of me in front of the monarch of this nation and nearly cost me my post... Or was it because you stabbed this UN mission in the fucking balls without wasting a thought on it? Which one of those was it again?”
Coldly, she removed her gloves and laid them in her pockets.
“What do you want me to do? Apologise?”
“You should be thanking me on your fucking knees that I’m not having your head, Šarić!”
“Why? What for? Treason?”
“Treason? It’s not 19- fucking-17. I could already have you for breach of contract! You owe a duty to the UN. You owe a duty to the ICMP. Do you think we’re here as a fucking joke? People are dead!”
“And that won’t change.” she answered. “I should know, I have spent more than enough time with them.”
“Get out.” he cursed, stumbling closer to the Bosnian in the doorway. “Get the fuck out, or I won’t be responsible for my actions!”
“I need to look into your dochument stash first.” Edith insisted, rather matter-of-factly. “I have a hunch.”
“You'll have my boot up your ass!”
“What if I told you your dochuments have been dochtored?”
That provoked a fateful hesitation out of the Canadian.
“What the hell are you talking about? Those files are fresh out of the printer.”
Edith searched around the other attendees for a familiar face.
She didn’t take long to find her Syrian friend Ibrahim, who was sitting hunched, hiding his face behind an open laptop.
“Ibrahim.”
“Pok… er... Edith?”
“Please...” she began, giving the Canadian a dismissive glance. “Show Mr Abel the scan I secretly asked you to make a few days back.”
Pierre’s angry eyes now also locked the young browbeaten Syrian.
“What the fuck is she talking about? What scan?”
“A page takhen from an old commercial loghbookh.”
“Yeah. That...”
Nimbly, Ibrahim scrolled through a selection on his screen until he came across the very first document. He called up the page.
“Do I...” Pierre grumbled, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater, “...actually have to kill the both of you now?”
“Ibrahim...” Edith directed him on, not letting his threats sidetrack her, “Start a schan for any similar-lookhing pages. I need to know whether that paper was thrown backh into circhulation and ghiven to you to chopy a sechond time later on.”
He breathed heavily, but complied nonetheless.
The Canadian, however, would have none of it.
“Listen Edith… I have no idea what your plan is… but I do not fucking care. You have made a mockery of this organisation, so can expect no help from us for your perverse little games.”
“Then help yourself.”
“Got one!” came the cheer from Ibrahim. “Uh… Page 182, Lord Stormbeard’s Trottingham Merchant Book Of The Year 391. Matches your mystery page eighty-one percent.”
Edith scrambled over to his seat like a scalded cat, barely avoiding her recurring vertigo sending her to the floor.
“What the fuck...” the Canadian sighed, slowly joining the screen’s small audience.
The Bosnian commandeered the laptop to call up both the pages the search had produced and enlarged them side-by-side.
“Pierre. Try and spot the difference.”
“Blow me.”
Then she whirled the screen towards him.
The UN coordinator was confronted by two versions of the same page. Finding his anger ultimately overtaken by genuine curiosity, he leaned closer.
At first glance, there was no real difference to be found.
The page sizes - slightly smaller and wider than the A4 standard - matched. The base texts - written in heavily disfigured but beautifully embellished scripture - even matched to a tee.
There were only two differences that he could disclose from where he stood.
“The right side on this one’s completely frayed. What is this, a before-and-after picture?”
“Can’t be.” Ibrahim timidly concluded. "I know I scanned the first picture last Friday. The other one…” He double-checked the date, “...on November 21st. That was on Sunday.”
Knowingly, Edith nodded.
“So tell me, Pierre… How chome the newer pichture is of better qhuality than the older one?”
“Because they’re obviously not the same.” Pierre just mumbled, unimpressed, “Duh. You scanned two different editions. One was older, one newer. Now get out.”
“Two identichal editions of a hand-written loghbook? Please.” Edith scoffed. “Besides, there is no sechond edition. This is what made a page from that bookh so valuable. It’s a rarity.”
“And another thing, Sir...” Ibrahim added with a raised finger, “None of the Equestrian files I held in my hands this weekend was a copy of its own. Everything looked either hand-written or typed. The Equestrians don’t have any photocopying technology like we do. I asked around.”
Pierre bent over until his nose was almost touching the screen.
“So then… More importantly,” the Bosnian quizzed him, poised, “What else do you spot?”
“There are… some faint scribbles on the bad version...”
He looked another time, just to be sure. “And they’re not there on the other one.”
“Pierre… this page was chut out of that bookh and ghiven to me on the day you pickhed me up from hospital.”
“...By whom?”
“The unichorn soldier you chased away.”
“And… the other one?”
“...Wasn’t.”
Pierre thought long, Pierre thought hard.
After half an eternity of deliberation, he rose again, and, as though all force had been wrenched out of him, walked over to a landline telephone that hung provisionally nailed against the wall on one of the far corners of the room.
Picking up the handset, and immediately called out,
“Abel here. Get me an Equestrian translator up to the offices immediately. And hurry it up!”
”’Thus…’”
The elderly stallion scrolled into the page until no more scrolling was possible
”F-forge… no, wait, it’s, ‘’forage’...”
“Jesus Christ, hurry it up.” Pierre gritted his teeth next to her. “What does that footnote say?”
“Steady on, young sir.” the unicorn reprimanded him and straightened his tweed coat, “Ahem: Thus… forage… no... further... than... stand… seven… row… five… book… fifteen… of… the... lower... Old... Everfree... Chancery... for... there... all... shall... be... explained... in... grandest... of... specifics...’”
Mystified, Edith looked over to Pierre, and Pierre looked over to Edith.
“And... What would be the Old Everfree Chancery?” she asked politely.
“Well...” the pony translator explained, “Chancery is another word for ‘archive’ or ‘register’.”
Pierre, in a sudden fit of aggression, slapped a page on the desk, for everyone to see. “I’ve been given six addresses to all the Equestrian document collections. Not one of them translates to anything even remotely resembling ‘Old Everfree Chancery’. Hell, not one of them is anywhere near Everfree County!”
The Bosnian turned back to the withered old pony.
“What do you thinkh?”
Forlornly, the pony shrugged,
“I’m just a language teacher working part-time, not a geographer. Though… then again…”
“Yes?”
“Old Everfree...”
He nudged his huge academic glasses… “Now, I’ve never heard of an Old Everfree Chancery... But I have heard of the ‘Old Everfree’. It’s an archaic moniker for… well, the only place of any significance in all of Everfree, really...”
He took them off, wiping them, with his day’s work evidently done. “Do any of you folks know about the Castle of the Two Sisters?”
The UN bureaucrat chewed on his tongue with profuse aggression. His face bore the expression of an east-coast mob boss on whom the fact had dawned that he’d just been had.
Twisting his reference page around on the table, he shoved it into the centre demonstratively.
“The million-dollar question is… should we, ladies and gentlemen? Should we?!”
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Well....this won't end well.
Gonna calll it, Equestrians genocided the changelings and swept it under the rug. NOw that they've given doctored evidence to the prosecution, their case gets much more shaky.
Yes, the real question is, what exactly happened that the Castle of The Royal Sisters hides?
Also, calling it now, Sergeant Golden Dirk is a changeling.
Keep going! ;)
One side is sleazy, the other is self-absorbed and incompetent to the max. Good thing we don't have to root for either.
I'm hoping Edith, being a middle ground, can get to the TRUE truth of this entire scenario.
as much BS as all ponys speak english
i wait for the fiction where it is german, russian or chinese (yes in that order)
7685074
I think not.
It is, after all, canon.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/10/29/135755__safe_twilight+sparkle_applejack_animated_spike_apple+bloom_dancing_french_the+cutie+pox_loop-dash-de-dash-hoop.gif
Just finish binge reading this, interested in how this is going to turn out. I believe Edith might be under some magic other than the translation spell, I am also hoping that the consequences of her actions will have a huge impact soon not only positively but also negatively and that the negative is not something light but which will shake her to her core.
Mmm -50
7724520
I beg your pardon?
7682379
I wonder, would the court count that as forgery, the annotations are there to be seen the quality is just bad. I am unsure what the legal reaction would be, it was intentionally (Must be proven) made of lower quality.
Edit:
And as the said coming genocide goes it will likely be something that will help Chrysalis, all it takes one picture, one video of 'pest removal' and Equestria will be in the same court and the world opinion will be swinged. And what is best of it is that yellow press LOVES that kind of swings and would likely play right in to her defenses favor.
Edit edit:
For visual aids google "Pictures that changed the world." In picture search.
7685074
One Conversion Bureau fic (I think it was "Making Things Right") had Equstrians somehow becoming fluent in Chinese the moment Equestria appeared. =)
Damn me if I ever understand where this is going. Lots of information. I'm not sure what the point with the non-Chrysalis things is and what the conflict between humans and changelings or changelings and ponies or humans and ponies will end up in.
Tbh I'm here for the Chrysalis trial mostly. Maybe even the fate of the conflict with the changelings.
Now it's getting interesting.
This is all fascinating, but it appears that Luna's representative is about to uncover something that will not reflect well on Equestria. Given the "700 years" mention from several chapters ago...kind of sounds like Celestia buried Chrysalis while Luna was away, and Luna doesn't know. So she's going to end up inadvertently helping Chrysalis's side of the trial by uncovering that whole "mind control and murder of surrendered combatants" episode perpetrated by dear Tia.
I find the interaction with Golden Dirk in this chapter somewhat irksome, not being a fan of the whole "I have important information to tell you but you have to follow a series of treasure hunts to earn it" narrative trope. Even if the Sergeant is unwilling divulge more, I had expected Edith to press him for information, or at the very least the translations for the annotations.