XX. Diseased
XX.
Diseased
Cafe Internationale, The Hague
21. November, 2015
7:05 pm MET
“No...” the unicorn whimpered, “No! You stupid! Stupid!” and clutched her large, scruffy head in her hooves.
Squatting at her tiny table in the alcove all by herself, she ignored the blaring radio and the waiter wiping the tables clean next to her and eyeing the mare with apprehension.
“Why didn’t you just tell him? Why?!” she asked herself loudly, futilely attempting to knock the guilt-laden thoughts out of her head with her forelegs.
Her boss had ordered her to wait for him right there and not dare to move, while he met the jud.. uh, his mysterious contact in a building across the street. On the pain of ‘Ungnade’... whatever that was supposed to mean.
She occasionally peered over to the clock left of the windows, counting down the minutes until the next dawn.
‘Thirteen-and-a-half hours left… That’s good… That’s okay...’ she would think, before being overswept by yet another wave of panic.
What would she tell him?! How could she tell him? There was no way she could explain… at least, without making everything a hay of a lot worse.
She felt trapped. She began to wheeze painfully. The air that she needed to breathe seemed to evade her.
The thoughts in her head took turns performing a run-up and then throwing themselves against the inside of her skull.
She felt progressively fainter.
Her head, still cradled in her forehooves, sank lower and lower.
By the time her forehead and horn touched the ice-cold marble table top, a part of her had determined that she needed rest. Now.
But then a human hand softly tapped on her shoulder.
She awoke with a jerk, her vision still unfocused and blurry as she glanced up at the human barkeeper.
“You.” he told her, “No sleeping. Okay?”
Tired, she rubbed red-rimmed, itching eyes.
“Oh uhm… no problem.”
Sighing, she scraped her forehooves along the table and raised her heavy head.
The mare watched human turn back around and go back to sweeping the various surfaces with the wet towel.
Here, her thoughts jumped to her fate.
She could have had the chance to make it in human society. To be part of it.
This was the wish she had held her entire life. Even before humans were even believed to be a real thing, she already knew that one day, she would go on to live among them… amongst equals.
And now?
Was this exciting adventure coming to an abrupt stop? Was she about to muck up the one chance she had to live out her desired existence?
Would there soon be a time come where she could never be able to meet any of these magnificent creatures of brilliance up close?
She was practically human by now!
A yawn interrupted her thoughts - sleepless nights twisting and turning, of worrying, of… trembling had come to take their toll.
Silently, the barkeep pushed a big porcelain cup in front of her, filled with a swirling, steaming, pitch-black fluid.
“Hey.” she said, roughly, “You pay now or pay later?”
‘Darn it all!’ she yelled at herself. ‘Enough of this!’
Focusing her eyes on her order, she was determined to clear away the cobwebs that had been spun around her head. To take it off of these harrowing, nervous fears.
“Er… later, if that’s okay.”
She tried to focus the mental faculties on remembering the name of that drink.
Yes, ‘coffee’, that’s what it was called.
It fascinated her greatly, last but not least because it was so hugely popular among humans, and yet virtually unknown among Equestrians. As far as she had understood, it was a stirring, vitalising potion that could turn even the lamest of mules into the most zealous of pegasi. And if it worked for humans, she thought, then why why why not for her?
As the swirling, rippling surface of the drink began to settle, she drowsily noticed the ceiling reflecting in it. She saw a window, dark and looming, a chandelier, brightly shimmering inside the cup, and there was her own muzzle, peering above the pool…
No… no, there were two muzzles. One face had appeared right behind her, leering over her shoulder. In the oily film that began to forming, she could make out certain features in the dark chiaroscuro of the cup.
The creature felt familiar. It was a unicorn, too; she recognised a long, sharp horn throning on her head, embellished with diamonds and precious ornaments of gold and silver. Her long hair was all pretty, braided and woven into a discrete bun, and adorned by a shining white bonnet.
The tall pony reached out, and softly touched the back of Lyra’s head. The aqua unicorn’s muscles all went limp at the sensation, and she let the mysterious creature caress her mane, gazing into the mirroring in the cup.
“Oh Lyra…” the creature cooed with a young mare’s voice.
Lyra could clearly hear it.
“Where are you?”
“I…” she whimpered, weakly, like in a trance. “Here.”
“Where? I cannot see you. I cannot feel you.”
“C-close. Still close.”
The mare’s slender hoof, obscured by a frilly dress travelled further down, sweeping over Lyra’s neck and pushing slightly in-between her shoulder blades. A wave of adrenaline travelled down Lyra’s spine, and her head sunk further down.
“The time is edging closer, dear Lyra.” The voice cooed again. “The day approaches, faster and faster. Be ready.”
“R-ready?” Lyra asked, and pleaded, “But how? And for what?”
“You will know, soon enough.” The voice let out an amused, happy tone. “It is all coming together. The day comes where I will be free… and you… very happy, my child.”
“Happy?”
Lyra’s drooping head began to bob and nod. “Yes… happy.”
“Oh Lyra. Your sweet endurance fills me with life. Do not falter. Come… to me.”
“Yes.”
With this last word, the tiny aqua unicorn’s eyes shut again, and her head sunk snout-first into the coffee.
It took her a few seconds of sizzling, boiling heat around her nose to send her back into a state of hyper-awareness.
She shot back up, spilling coffee everywhere, sniffing and wheezing like a drowning cat.
The barkeep saw, this, and immediately scrambled for a roll of kitchen towels.
Wordlessly, he wiped the area around the pony’s head clean. The quickly multiplying creases in his forehead disclosed just how irritated he was.
“Oh… I’m so sorry.” she whimpered. By now even she was put off by how constant her apologies had become. “I just don’t know what keeps coming over me! ”
It happened a lot over the last couple of weeks. Time and time again.
And ultimately, she felt she was starting to run out of apologies.
Trying to cool her muzzle, she heard a bell ring as the cafe’s door was shoved open.
She spun around on her chair, using the distraction to get a better look around the establishment.
A tiny green form swooshed by her alcove, but she was too occupied fumbling around with a serviette around her throbbing snout to take any particular notice of it.
She looked at a few wooden chairs next to a few wooden tables, painted in the same moody, autumn-like colours as the rest of the room. On the walls around her were paintings of galleons crashing through a rough, whipped-up sea, dark waves rolling onto heaping dunes in the background, and distant orange lights flickering from what appeared to be a silhouette of a archaic human citadel town many leaps down the strand…
She could almost imagine herself standing on that ship, dodging gusts of freezing seawater, as she suppressed the urge to wave the human coastline farewell…
‘Wait...’ she the thought to herself. ‘Did somepony just walk by?’
“Ehm, excuse me sir!” a young voice shouted.
The waiter gasped.
“Sorry, is your kitchen open already? We’re eight ponies… uh… people, and we’re starving!”
She heard the waiter scratching his scalp.
“Uh. Sure. Eight persons, yeah?”
“Super duper!” the young voice again yelled, quite a bit too loudly, before turning around and heralding back at the entrance, “Hey guys! Come on in! They’re open.”
Lyra could swear that this voice reminded her of someone…
It couldn’t be…
Then, with her face still hidden under the napkin, she watched a chubby little drake blissfully trundle past her alcove.
She held her breath.
It was Twilight Sparkle’s little dragon - Thorne, or whatever she called him…
But how could that be?
Next thing she knew, a gust of icy wind filled the room, and with it, a group of ponies entered, shaking slush off their coats and clothing, chatting with tongues lulled from the cold.
Again, they passed by her one by one without minding her and her secluded spot. First the dragon, then two ancient earth pony stallions of very evident military standing - a lanky one with two ponytails and a goatee, pushing in a rather frail one wearing a rather obvious chestnut wig on a creaking wheelchair - then next an old, slow-moving grandmare with a plain headscarf and lastly… none other than Twilight Sparkle, the newest of the Equestrian princesses.
Lyra bit her tongue in terrified silence, and sunk halfway into the space between her bench and her table.
“This looks like a nice little place.” Twilight smiled her little entourage, and plopped herself down at the head of a line of smaller conjoined tables next to the bar. “Take a seat by the heaters, everypony. Warm your legs!”
The others complied all-too willingly. Spike, her loyal assistant, scooched up the bench placed by the side of the display windows until he was sitting next to his alicorn friend.
“Thank you, dear...” the old mare accepted the offer in a hoarse voice and pulled her headscarf off her wavy pale blue mane, taking a seat on the far end.
The ancient soldier, meanwhile, rolled his wheelchair next to one of the various radiators aligning by the walls, but not without making his duress heard.
“Blasted rheumatism!” he coughed. “I’m soaking wet and my legs feel like they’re falling off.”
“Steady on, old boy.” the other soldier soothed him humorously, squeezing his short white beard dry before scrambling onto the chair next to his comrade. “Don’t you know whining about it will only make it worse?”
Twilight smiled at the settling guests. Yet, she knew not what to do with them.
She didn’t even know their names. The prosecutor did. But she wasn’t here yet.
“So, uh...” she began awkwardly, “How was the trip?”
“Awful!” came the older soldier’s immediate response, followed by a weak pounding on the table. “Nopony told me we’d be coming here sealed into a tin like a general-issue bean ration. If I were younger, I’d rather swim my way back to Equestria!”
The grandmare followed up with a depressed huff and let her head sink into her hooves.
The second soldier turned to her with a pathetic smile, and answered in a voice that was much fresher and less spent than either of the others, “I must apologise for my friend here, love. He has a hundred problems, but phlegm isn’t one of them.”
“Please, fillies and gentlecolts...” Twilight assuaged, “We don’t have to wait long. We can start as soon as Lady Serafina’s here.”
What was taking that prosecutor so long, she wondered.
“Shame that she would keep us waiting.” the grandmare now commented in a strangely distraught voice. “I didn’t leave my great-grandkids for this. The faster the deed is done, the quicker I can return to them.”
“I understand you're all tired and sore…” Twilight appeased, “But prosecutor Pierman really has her work cut out for her. She’s laboured tirelessly to build a watertight case against Chrysalis. She needs all the time she can get, but she can’t do away with our help.”
“I know why we are all here to do, thank you very much.” the wigged soldier grunted, “But as for myself, I never asked to do any of this through some hairless ape in this cold, wet, unruly hole of a country.”
“Oh, it's not so bad once you get to know it.”
The princess smiled so brightly that the others could only squint. “The humans consider it an honour to host you all here.”
The old mare only shook her head.
“Then why did they boo and hiss at us as we stepped out of that air-plane?
“They… did?”
Why?
What a good question indeed.
Twilight sighed. She knew it would be a hard sell to present her hosts in a better light when she barely understood their strange strange duality.
She witnessed it herself after all - one moment, she is literally treated like royalty, and the next, they all but try to fling themselves upon her in rage. There was a lot of complexity and nuances that she had yet to explore about their culture.
And while, yes, the prospect of that did render her rather giddy, it did make something entirely different stir in her - homesickness, of all things.
She knew how pathetic it seemed - she was in the human lands for not even four days, after all. And yet, secretly, she rejoiced when she came across the opportunity to meet some of these fine fellow ponies here, so far away from home.
Perhaps, she thought, they could bring a piece of it with them.
Sadly, it turned out that they were carrying a rather different load...
The bell of the entrance door tolled.
Eagerly, Twilight looked up, in the hopes of seeing Serafina Pierman standing in the doorway to save the moment.
And indeed, there she was.
Escaping the enveloping rain beginning to pour outside, the comparatively smaller-built human female stepped into the restaurant - followed rather swiftly by the silent stallion that almost never seemed to leave her side. His rustling spiky hair was the only thing that distinguished him from a rather large, wet dog. He even shook himself in quasi-greeting at the seated ponies around Twilight, spraying droplets of rainwater all over the floor.
“I am so terribly sorry…” Serafina breathed, her voice hoarse, before conjuring a disarming weak smile and explaining, “It appears my cabbie wanted to take me on a tour around the Hague.”
“Thank goodness I managed to rein him in in time…” The spiky pegasus next to her whispered, not too loud, but proud nevertheless.
Pierman rushed over to the table, struggling to wrap up a small stubby umbrella, and immediately reached for the perplexed ponies hooves.
“I’m glad to see you all in the same place. It’s a tremendous honour.”
The granny was the first one to reply.
“The pleasure’s… all mine?”
As Serafina avidly shook the two veterans’ hooves, only the the lankier, bearded earth pony among returned a pleasant smile and nodded respectfully. “We are excited to be here. This was one battle that we could not afford to let pass by us. Eh, Bodkin, old sport?”
The wigged stallion just huffed and looked away.
“We can’t always choose the field of our greatest battle.” the earth pony added nonchalantly. “And great, this one is.”
“And I’m glad that you think so.” Pierman quipped, before joining Twilight herself and her assistant at the far end. “Hello princess. Hello… ehm...”
“Spike’s the name.” the dragon introduced himself merrily.
Twilight smiled as Serafina hesitated upon seeing him.
It was obvious that she needed couple of seconds to overcome her instinctual revulsion to the massive talking reptile that was now courteously extending its claw for her to shake, but she calmly pushed back her reservations and gave Spike's claw a limp shake.
“So this is a dragon? A real dragon?” she mumbled at him.
“As real as they come.” he quipped.
“Pardon my surprise, but I didn’t expect someone like you to join our meal. I thought Princess Twilight would be bringing along her...”
“Brother. Yes...” Twilight finished her sentence.
This was supposed to be the plan too. But... not one that would come to be.
“Was the Captain held up, Princess?”
Spike tried to jump in with a helpful explanation.
“He’s not feeling super-well today. Or… any if the other days...”
“Spike...” the Twilight himself shushed him. “Sorry, my brother keeps getting those very long shifts in the prison… Chrysalis is probably keeping him busy.”
“Okay, if that’s what you call it.“ Spike just grumbled.
The prosecutor wrinkled her nose.
“What a disgusting person. My sympathies to the Captain.”
The woman shook her head before turning to the rest of the assembly. “I suppose you all already got the chance to get to know each other, so...”
“Actually...” Twilight interjected, none too little embarrassed, “We kinda ran out of time on that one.”
“Oh. Should I take the opportunity and introduce you?”
As Twilight gave her enthusiastic nod, Serafine first turned to the two soldiers, “This is Major Bodkin, formerly of the 4th Royal Mustangia Cavalry Brigade.”
The frail one nodded his wrinkled head and straightened his wig.
“Next to him is Captain Malty Waters, also of the Royal Mustangia Cavalry.”
“Third Brigade, actually. Trottingham.” he smiled and stroked his white goatee.
“Both are, of course, retired officers who were present at the Battle of Kiger in… two… hundred...”
“Fifty-nine.” Bodkin finished impatiently.
Twilight’s ears perked up in surprise.
‘The two elderly stallions sitting right there… were witnesses? They were at Kiger?’ she thought to herself.
‘Wouldn’t make those senior ponies… what… eight hundred years old?
What an age! Even for equines, that was beyond impressive.
Yet here they were. Living, breathing, walking, talking witnesses to history. No wonder both looked so… perpetually flustered by their surroundings.’
“And this...” Serafina continued, turning to the grandmare, “Is Mrs Floret Oats. A retired innkeeper from Baltimare.”
“H-hello, dears.” She greeted them, with a weak wave of her foreleg.
“She lived in Trot, witnessing the sacking first-hand.”
Twilight’s jaw was currently hanging lower than ever.
Now, Kiger was one thing, but… Trot?
“Y-you mean the sacking in… in 30 after Discord?”
The old mare nodded.
‘She looks so pretty for her age!
Almost inconceivable that she was almost old enough to remember Princess Luna’s first reign.
Perhaps even Discord’s reign!’
“Though I must confess, I was just a filly back then...” Floret explained, her countenance still less than enthusiastic.
“Sweet Celestia...” Twilight muttered at them, “I had no idea. It’s such an honour to make all your acquaintance. I mean… When does anypony ever get the chance to meet… meet...”
“...living artefacts?” Bodkin proposed, unamused, his cheeks drooping lethargically.
“What? No, no...”
Lastly, Pierman turned to Twilight herself.
“This is a visitor - and very avid scholar - who came all the way from Canterlot learn the in- and outsides of our criminal proceedings; Princess-”
“I know who she is.” Bodkin again interrupted, impatiently rocking around in his creaking wheelchair. “I think everypony knows who the Princess of Friendship is.”
“Well...“ Twilight stammered humorously, “You’d be surprised.”
Serafina Pierman was almost as red with abashment as the Princess herself.
“Okay then… Let’s see. The court’s immigration paper noted that one more person was supposed to arrive in Schiphol today. Her name is Holly Crown.”
Searchingly, she looked about, then over to the earth pony nurse, who just shrugged.
“She seems to have... slipped through the cracks, somehow. Did anyone meet her on the way? In the airport, perhaps? Or the hotel?”
The witnesses looked befuddled.
A harrumph erupted from behind the prosecutor.
“Uh, Serafina?”
Her spiky pegasus companion had remained in the back of the establishment, and was pointing a hoof into a separate tablespace that was obscured from the rest of the ponies by a black wooden six-foot septum that gave the single tables in the front of the tavern a little privacy from the ones in the back..
“She wasn’t a green unicorn mare, by any chance?”
“Uh...” Pierman hesitated, “No, she is a pegasus… with purple hair...”
The stallion gave a short confirming nod before flinging himself into the alcove, grabbing somepony by the nape and yanking her out.
“Hey! Let me… let me go!” she yelped as the pegasus’ unrelenting grip dragged her out from behind her cover.
The moment Twilight saw just whom Pierman’s pegasus held in his grip, an awkward sense of of deja-vu overcame her.
Spike tapped her on the neck, his own voice bereft of any emotion.
“Uh, Twi… Isn’t… isn’t that... ”
Twi nodded without as much as breaking her stare.
“Lyra.”
Serafina pointed a finger around the room in mild confusion. “She… is she with you, Princess?”
“Fat chance!” ‘Beam’ answered for her, dragging Lyra, who struggled to hold on to her table, closer before the assembly. “I saw her! At the feast last week.”
“Me too...” Twilight agreed, remembering catching a fleeting glimpse of the unicorn when… when...
“I saw her snuggling up to the table of the defence!”
...When she was talking to the defence counsel Estermann.
Of course.
Though, that moment had passed so quickly that Twilight didn’t really register whom she had just run into - her mind engrossed with more… seemingly important things.
Yet, here she stood. Lyra Heartstrings
Looking up and down the writhing unicorn’s aqua form, Twilight thought back to the last time she had run into her properly. That was years ago.
She couldn’t quite recall just how long the two of them went back, but the time spans passing by her inner eyes were lengthy.
She knew for sure that Lyra had visited the very same Academy For Gifted Unicorns as her - though they never ended up in the same class or enrolling for the same courses. The few times she managed to catch the timid, studious young Twilight’s attention was during certain… eccentric episodes.
Even back then, Lyra had a knack for raising awareness for long-discredited fields of science for which no one else had time or inclination to spare - neither before nor after her... activism. ‘Anthropology’, the study of the mysterious, half-mythical phenomenon of ‘Man’, of course was Lyra’s personal object of obsession.
Now look who had the last laugh.
Twilight knew that she, had she known her any better, would have probably shaken Lyra’s hoof in begrudging respect.
“Well...” Lyra meanwhile whimpered, frantically fighting off the pegasus’ hoof, “Yeah, duh. I am with the defence. So?”
“Spy!” Beam spat, tightening his grip.
“The hay I am!”
He finally yanked out of his strong hooves. “I’m… I was here way before you. I’ve been waiting for somepony!”
“For whom? Us?” he just scoffed
“Beam… Let it be.” Pierman sighed.
He shot Lyra one last ugly glare before loyally taking a step back.
“I didn’t tell anyone we’d be meeting here.” Pierman explained ,whistling him back matter-of-factly, “Besides, nothing we will be discussing here today is worth spying on. I don't invite my witnesses to a public cafe to prep them for the trial. That’s what our offices are for.”
Despite her rational mien, those words were directed as much at Lyra as everyone else.
“Then what is she doing here?” ‘Beam’ asked, his eyes narrowing confrontationally.
Serafina merely shrugged.
“I suppose this isn’t any of our business.”
Then she addressed Lyra directly. “I’m really sorry about this. We didn’t mean to drag you away from your meal, we’re... all just a little on edge, now that the proceedings are coming to a point and so many of our eggs are in one basket...”
“Oh...” Lyra stuttered, trying to stay calm herself, “Okay, yeah… basket, that’s um… M-maybe I should… just...”
Awkwardly, she gesticulated towards the exit.
Twilight felt like she had to take the initiative.
“Please, Lyra… Would you maybe... like to sit down with us instead? I… I’m sure there’s no harm in that.”
The unicorn held her breath in absolute horror.
“Twi...” Spike just whispered, “Didn’t you hear what that guy just said? She’s defence!”
She just sent him a disapproving glance.
“Well… so?”
When she looked back up, she just caught the tip of Lyra’s tail as she crawled back into her secluded niche, beyond the others’ judging eyes.
“We must have spooked her pretty badly.”
“Did you know that… her?” Floret asked meekly.
“Lyra?” Twilight smiled back. “Of course. We were classmates. We even both enrolled at the Canterlotian.”
“Aha. ‘Academics’. Go figure.”
That was Major Bodkin, muttering to his comrade rather snidely under his breath.
Trying to ignore that comment, Twilight clamped her assistant by the shoulder, “You remember Lyra, don't you, Spike?”
“Yes, Twilight.” he answered, his words were tinged with annoyance. “Just as much as I remember Minuette and Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts...”
“...Who?”
“Ugh, never mind.”
“I think it’s best if...” Pierman suddenly began, before trailing off when she felt that her point was made. “Another time.”
“Why's that?” Twilight inquired, “It can’t be any good if she sits back there all by herself. Especially after that one colthandled her.”
She nodded at ‘Beam’, who diligently stood guard next to their table.
“Please...” Serafina insisted, even if rather softly, “Another place, another time.”
Twilight was nonplussed, absent-mindedly scratching her scalp as she glanced at the others’ hesitant faces.
“Is it… is it because she’s in the defence?”
The others said nothing. Feeling herself confirmed, Twilight gave a bugged smile.
“She’s not diseased.”
Still nothing.
“Come on, I thought... we are all professionals here. The roles that we choose or choose not to perform for the court shouldn’t influence our opinion of each other, right?”
“Well, of course not...” Pierman agreed, and then fell silent again as quickly.
Twilight slid herself near the end of her bench.
“I’m going over.”
“Are you now?” Bodkin asked, and positioned his wig straight. Then he continued in an uncharacteristically frail tone, “Ahem, we are all a little old and grey here. Could you, Princess, maybe run by us one more time, what exactly it is that a pony in the ‘defence’ does?”
“Uh...”
Twilight felt uneasy. There was something cooking under the ancient pony’s toupé.
Even Serafina shot her a cold glare that forbade her to answer.
But Twilight had faith in her own inexhaustible well of knowledge, as always.
“They… serve to present a counterweight to the prosecution’s efforts to accuse the defendant.”
“No need to pussyfoot.” Bodkin suddenly coughed. “Just say it how it is. It’s their job to help Chrysalis get away with it. Right?”
“Well… to put it bluntly and in laymare’s terms… yes. For the most part.”
“That’s what I thought.” Bodkin confirmed to himself with a bitter, denigrating voice.
“Still, it’s… rather complicated. Nothing like what we have in Equestria.”
“You don’t say. I wouldn’t have thought that a pony could come up with such a harebrained idea anyway.” Lethargically, his head turned his wheelchair to the human. “No offence.”
But rather than awaiting Pierman’s obligatory ‘None taken’, he continued meteing out right away. “Do me a favour, princess. When - or if - you go and amuse that… that unicorn sitting back there, ask her one thing for me.”
He paused.
“Why?”
“Why… what?”
“Why did she do it? What, on Celestia’s lush pastures, has gotten into her dull little head?”
Now, Twilight was absolutely dumbstruck. Taken aback by the old stallion’s harsh words, she knew not how to formulate a reply that could sufficiently express all her shock and dismay.
“Bodkin… old sport...” Captain Malty Waters cooed over, trying to hold his comrade-in-arms’ chair on a leash. “I am sure that the Princess does not enjoy you being so harsh on her friend...”
“The ’Princess’,” Bodkin retorted, “should be grateful that somepony has the good grace to thump some sense into that spoiled young mind.”
Then he addressed Twilight head-on once more.
“No offence, your Majesty. But from now on, I am going to speak to you as you are: A little filly. I didn’t really want to elaborate on just how sick to my mind this whole setup makes me feel. I am disgusted.”
“...You are disgusted?” Twilight stammered.
“You seem to be a tad too young to remember exactly what purpose a court trial is meant to serve: To expose the wrongdoings of the felons and deliver swift and righteous justice on their heads.”
He sniffed. “And you, you high-hooved little brats, seem content turning it into some kind of game. Like buckball. Everypony follows the rules, everypony gets to have a round, everypony wins, and then everypony get’s to hit the showers.”
“What are you… talking about?”
“I don’t want to play games. I want my justice!” he coughed, even louder. “I want that horsefly, and all those who stand behind her, punished on the spot!”
“You will get your justice.” Twilight finally nipped in. “But it takes time.”
“No, it does not! We know she is guilty! This is why we’re here! There are no two ways about it. What’s currently standing between trial and sentence are your and those monkeys’ high-hooved egos.”
Twilight met the stare of Pierman, which was displeased and condemning, but only silently so. The human didn’t seem to be quite up to mustering the courage to say something.
“Oh excuse me, dearest Missus 'Prosecutor'… that should be ‘high-handed’, right?” he added sarcastically.
Twilight herself raged a little inside as well, of course. It had been a long time since anypony accused her of being too young and over her head on something.
She had spent too much time with her nose in a book to be accused of immaturity and take it without a fight.
Her voice dangerously deadpan, she punched back.
“Look. Nopony wishes a harsher punishment for Chrysalis than me. You might not know that, Major Bodkin, but she put my brother under a spell on his wedding day, imprisoned me twice as I tried to protect him, and then ransacked my home city with an army.
However, I also know that with the power to punish, comes massive responsibility. I know it must be done right. I know justice can be served only by understanding all of the nuances and complications of the situation.”
She turned her nose up at the soldier. “And Lyra Heartstrings knows this too. This is why she does her part. You don’t need to be an ‘academic’ to understand why the humans have so much faith in this system.”
But Bodkin just snorted.
“You know nothing. You might make a fantastic show of learning, but you know nothing!”
For a brief second, he peered over to Captain Malty. “For example… do you know Lieutenant Ricasso? Do you know Sergeant-Major Spur? Or perhaps Corporal Guidon?”
Twilight defiantly held her silence.
“No? Well, you never will. And do you know why? Because their stiff, bloated remains have never been recovered from the Mustangian tundra. That’s why.”
Twilight clenched her teeth.
“Eight thousand guardsponies were slaughtered in Kiger that day. It’s hardly been eight hundred years, and already, they have all long slipped through the cracks of time. Only Captain Malty Waters and I have made it. And this is what we have to show for it.”
The alicorn averted her eyes.
“Oh! Oh.. or is it maybe because my word isn’t worth enough around here anymore, Princess? Maybe you think I’m a liar. Or crazy. A crusty, senile old teller of tales?”
She breathed in, heart heavy.
“I never said I did not believe you, Major.”
“But you don’t want to take any chances. Is that it?”
He chuckled melancholically. “Thankfully, my memories weren’t the only gift Chrysalis left me then.” One of his hooves went for the toupé. “You should know all about transformations - don’t you, Princess Twilight?”
The ancient pony nudged his wig to the side until it slid off and fell onto the table.
All eyes followed the fall first, and once the toupé had settled next to the soldiers’ beakers and napkins, the eyes went back up to the stallion’s now completely bald head.
It looked normal enough at first, perhaps a little bony and skeletal… at least until Twilight discovered some kind of weird, slight bulge on his forehead, right above his eyes, as pale grey as the fur it protruded from.
It was at that point that the alicorn’s heart skipped a beat.
“As you can plainly see, Princess… I haven’t always been an earth pony.”
All of a sudden, the mere sight of his head made Twilight sick to no end.
She, unlike all the others sitting at that table, knew what being a unicorn felt like - what the blessing of being born with a magical horn was like.
Almost as if to drive the point home, Bodkin proceeded to wipe his perfectly spherical cranium with the side of his leg, from the eyebrows upward.
As soon as he swept by his measly stump, a sudden jolt of intense pain flashed through his entire body, followed by an animalistic grunt from deep inside him.
Twilight knew why. It was for the same reasons that even the slightest of cracks and chips in the horn were widely considered to count towards the gravest of injuries amongst unicorns.
Horns did not grow back together.
And the nerve endings did not heal.
Even from across the table, prosecutor Pierman could be heard coughing up her mug of cappuccino at the sight. Even humans seemed to feel the sheer pain.
“Are you done with taking evidence now, Princess?” Bodkin finally snorted. “Would you like to go and join your fine schoolfriend at the other table now?”
Twilight had to weigh a serious amount of thinking into the decision.
Her gut warned her that it would it would be akin to fraternising with an enemy. But then the rational side of her brain aptly reminded her: What enemy?
Now wasn’t the time to buy into this ever-so crude ‘us-versus-them’ mentality, no matter how inviting it seemed at that moment.
After all, nothing about her reasoning had changed that much. Twilight still knew that her logic was sound. Rational. Pragmatic even.
“Yeah, that’s right. Just go.” she heard the Major scoff as she finally took the decisive plummet from the bench and touched down on all fours.
Her hooves practically moved by themselves, propelled onward solely by her own pride.
“Go and ask your friend whether she's doing it for the wealth, or for the fame. Or maybe both! I admit I don’t know the bounds of an ‘academic’s’ thirst!”
Her breath became more frantic.
The further she strayed from her table and closed in on Lyra’s alcove, the more she realised that the unicorn had been sitting well within the earshot of her and Bodkin and all the others.
Lyra had to listen to all of it.
Oh, what was she going to say now?
Twilight valiantly soldiered on and slowly glanced around the black partition wall.
“Hey...” she hailed the unicorn, trying to sound calm and gentle. “Everything alright?”
Lyra sat in her seat, stone-faced.
“What do you want?” she spat.
“I… wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m doing fine, Princess.”
“Please, it’s... Twilight. We’ve known each other since we’re foals...”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Princess.”
Then she slammed a hoof-full of human coins on the desk and slid off her chair.
“Lyra, please, where are you-”
Roughly, she forced herself past the princess and stepped back out into the cafe’s aisle.
In her magical grip, she grasped her pink scarf as though it were a whip. She went for the door with such an aggressive canter that Twilight didn’t even dare to bother and give chase.
But only a stone’s throw from the saving exit, Lyra whirled towards the staring assembly once more.
“You asked why.” she stated in bitter anger.
The old bald stallion just continued giving the mare a reproachful look. But he adjusted his wheelchair appropriately to face her.
“I didn’t do this for the fame or the fortune.” She momentarily turned her hate-filled eyes to Twilight. “Or the knowledge. Or ‘faith in the system’. I did it because I can’t stand you. I hate you all!”
Now, even Bodkin was briefly taken aback.
“I never liked any of you! You… you cocky, shallow-brained bunch of hypocrites!” She was so wrought up that she slowly but surely began gasping for air. “You’re the ones that are disgusting!”
The Major smirked humourlessly to the increasingly worried others.
“So that’s what the young think of us now, fillies and gentlecolts. A thousand years of sacrifice and misery, squandered all on thankless tykes. Wherever did we go wrong?”
Twilight could not remember a time she had seen the bubbly unicorn’s face this mad and sore.
“You... squares, you keep calling the changelings evil, malicious drones! Have you even looked in the mirror recently?”
Major Bodkin rose, timidly supported by Captain Malty.
“Careful, you foal. If the Princess of Friendship herself wasn’t sticking her head out for you, I’d brand you a traitor and an enemy here and now.”
“Do whatever you like! See if I care!”
First tears began to roll down her ember-red cheeks. “How can I betray Equestria if I never even want to see it again?”
Twilight could only gasp in shock. Were those really Lyra Heartstrings’ words that were coming out of that unicorn’s mouth?
“Now that’s treason talk right there!” Bodkin coughed. “I do wonder who let her out of the country in the first place. In fact, I wonder who allowed her to sign up for that changeling’s defence. She is a walking, talking disgrace for all of ponykind!”
“Oh and you?” she spat back. “You and your phony one-tenth of a horn?”
His face quickly lost all wit.
“I bet you’re just a… a... yarnspinner from the boondocks of Equestria. I bet you just lost it in a bar fight somewhere. Chrysalis didn’t even have to move a muscle.”
That hit the eight-hundred-year-old where it hurt.
“Hold me. I swear to Luna, hold me!”
He tried lunging out of his wheelchair, but the hooves of the others held him where he sat, violently thrashing around on his moving aid.
One part of him virtually tried to escape and melee the young mare right where she stood, but another part seemed concerned to stave off imminent cardiac arrest.
His own breath grew heavy. He began to cough and splutter anew.
Victoriously, Lyra looked on as the old stallion tried to regain his stamina. Then, her face moistened by a stream of angry tears, she flipped around and stormed out into the raging winter rain.
She left behind a table of three rather shaken ponies, a terrified young dragon, a glass-eyed human prosecutor still cradling her cup of coffee, and a spiky-maned pegasus whose vigilant eyes saw to that she would not return.
“What a… frightfully rude filly.” Floret Oats whimpered. She herself had been driven near tears by the exchange.
Twilight Sparkle still stood helplessly in the aisle, looking at the slowly closing door and not understanding a thing.
“Why...” she gasped.
Major Bodkin just waved her off as soon as he had summoned enough air for another bitter sentence. For just a second, the thought of giving chase and utterly routing Lyra seemed to cross his mind, as the bellicose spurring of his wheels testified.
“In the old days, we would have thrown types like her into a dark hole and sealed the lid!” he barked, before he was overcome by another coughing fit.
The herbalised air became consistently thicker with steam, and the two men who dwelled in it even more shrivelled.
“That… reliable source of yours...” Estermann slurred, sinking deeper into the sizzling hot bath.
“Hm?” the judge slurred back.
“Your reliable source. It’s Lexy Fori. Isn’t it?”
Colm savoured the relaxing bubble water enveloping him for a few more seconds before answering,
“However did you come to that conclusion?”
“Ah… so it’s true then.” he grinned knowingly, before splashing some soothing, steaming water on his own sweating face. “She’s a big talker, isn’t she?”
“Yes...”
The Irishman stretched himself luxuriously, and went for his almost finished glass. “At least she’s not much of a liar. She regularly opens herself to Suruma and me like a blossom when we’re locked in our deliberation room and things get personal.”
“Go figure. Did she ever rave on about Chrysalis since then?”
“All the time. She’s the kind of lass that needs to blow off some hot air now and then.”
“I wonder how long it’ll take her to blow herself back to Equestria.”
“Alexander...”
The judge squinted one of his eyes open. “Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that you don’t like Magistrate Fori very much.”
“Strange.” he uttered. “Neither can I.”
Submerging his head for one warming moment, he reappeared and shaking his hair dry. “I can’t wait to see that bitch hit the curb. Enough of that… that… Bauerntheater. She’s done enough damage as it is.”
“I… wouldn’t hold my breath.” the Irishman sang.
“Why not? Have you heard her performance today? If I don’t file for her recusal before pre-trial is over, someone will.”
“Let’s hope, for both our sakes, that Fori is left alone.”
“Why that? Now she even did it for all the world to see! Combine that with a… convincing testimony about statements made at the dinner table one week ago, and you have a classic case of lacking impartiality at hand. She behaved out of line.”
“Alex....” Colm grunted. “We’re behaving out of line. Right at this very fucking moment, we’re behaving out of line.”
He pointed at his old friend, “Me and you, discussing this trial, without Miss Pierman sitting the tub with us? The Registrar would flay us alive.”
“Why would they ever find that out?”
Estermann gulped. He knew Colm was right, of course, though he never did think about consequences too much.
“I thought… I thought this place here was discrete.”
“Irrelevant! If you file for a recusal, the Registry will open an investigation, and you’ll be the first person they’ll screen. And if they screen you, they’ll screen me, because the whole court knows I knew you and you knew me for the last decade and a half. In the end, all three of us will be out on our ears.”
The lawyer sunk deeper into the pool.
“Shit.” he bubbled.
“You don’t wanna lose your post, do you? And you’ll want to lose me even less. Have you ever wondered who’ll be waiting in the wings of Chamber II, should I fuck up?”
He shrugged.
“Graham fucking Foot. Hanging judge extraordinaire. He’ll make Roland Freisler look like Charlie Chaplin, let me tell you this much.”
“How bad is he?”
“Well, he’s Australian. Fancies the premiership of Victoria. And next year’s election year. He’s ‘tough on crime - tough on criminals’... and he’ll want to make an example. And, well... Chrysalis’ arse-cheeks look particularly nice this time of year.”
“Shit!”
“Yes, Alex. Brown, sticky and runny.”
He rubbed his hair dry with his hands. “But I still don’t blame Fori for any of this.”
Estermann sat up.
“Who then? Are you blaming me?”
“I could... but I’m not. I blame your Queen.”
Estermann sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Here we go again.”
“If she and her… offspring… hadn’t started this whole mess to begin with, none of us had to be here. Had they contained their damn selves...”
“Hindsight, Colm...” he smiled and nudged a little to the left, “...is a wonderful thing.”
“I mean, your changelings feed off love, supposedly. Don’t they?”
Estermann nodded, “Yes. Why are you starting this again?”
“It’s exactly what I mean.” Colm exclaimed. “Why couldn’t they just earn their love?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“What I mean is…” He sighed mildly, “Why couldn’t they just share the love?”
“Share it?”
“Mhm. If they had just loved each other a bit more… maybe… just maybe...”
The two men sat awkwardly for a few rather awkward moments.
“Uh, Colm...” Estermann floundered, “Are you alright?”
Not long after that, the portly judge’s scornful but hearty laughter echoed through the bath house. The guffaw was so spirited that almost no head in the room remained unturned.
It did not take Estermann long to catch on and join in, cackling like a hyena.
“You’ve had me worried there for a moment, my friend.”
“You should have seen your face!” Colm giggled has his tears mixed with the jacuzzi’s water.
When his risible muscles finally unwound again a little, he wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Sharing it. Right! I mean, let’s look at this rationally, shall we: This ‘love’ they’re eating seems to be some kind of life-sustaining source of energy for them, am I wrong?”
“Yes. I mean, no.”
“Now, I’m not a physicist, but according to all of those thermodynamic laws and whatnot, wouldn’t that mean that they themselves are unable to produce love in magnitudes that could sustain them?”
“Ah. Of course not...” Estermann nodded, realising what he was getting at. “I remember learning this in sixth grade… You need a larger amount of energy to create a smaller amount. They need to tap off outside creatures’ ‘love’ if they hope to survive. Sharing love does nothing.”
“They’re parasites.”
“Oh don’t use that word, Colm!”
“...In every sense.”
Colm smiled and leaned back into a more comfortable position. “I didn’t mean to burst your bubble there, Alex.”
Estermann sighed.
“What bubble?”
“I mean the love-sharing thing. You looked rather hopeful there for one second.”
“Nonsense.” he smirked. “I’m... generally trying to steer clear any conversation involving the whole thing with ‘love’ until it becomes unavoidable.”
“You must be a real ladies’ man, Alex.”
“Well,..." Estermann sighed, ignoring Colm's snark, "I try to look for constructive answers. Wondering about ‘Wouldn’t-it-be-niceties’ isn’t constructive. Either it’s in their nature and they couldn’t help it, or it isn’t and they could. The queen needs a solid exit strategy now, regardless.”
“Oho.” the judge bellowed. “Aren’t you suddenly playing a different tune.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snorted.
"You? A stone-hearted pragmatic?" Colm giggled, "Oh please!"
That took Estermann a bit off-guard.
“Honestly, I’m the most pragmatic person I know.”
“Who, you?”
“Yes, me.”
But Colm almost cracked up anew.
“Well, you’re the most idealistic person I know. I mean, you try not to look it, but...”
“Bullshit!”
“Yes. It’s true. I’ve known it since your Munich university days. You’re a proper… sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
“Oh fuck off!” Estermann protested. “You waited fifteen years to tell me that this is what you think of me?”
“It’s not criticism, Alex. Don’t get me wrong. Any good jurist needs something to believe in. Something to drive him in the right direction. We can’t all be Spock. Not even me. How do you think did I ever made it out of Belfast? By killing my way out?”
Estermann shrugged, but he still took this ‘accusation’ rather personally.
“Attorneys who get too emotionally attached to their work are doomed. First they go mad, then they ruin themselves. I do not plan on becoming one of those... wrecks.”
As he was about to reply, Colm’s eyes got caught on a sight at the end of the room.
“Speaking of… the... same...”
“Hm?”
The lawyer peeked from the cozy comfort of the water and traced the judge’s stare.
On the outside of one the panorama windows hung a wet, freezing unicorn mare, and gaped, her ailing breath tarnishing the pane.
“Oh, sh…..oot!”
“Alex...” His tone dropped a few very worried octaves. “Who is that, and why is she looking at us?”
Estermann’s head just sunk halfway into the water, caught only by his two open hands.
“Her name... is Lyra Heartstrings. She’s my Equestrian connection. You briefly met her in the Kurhaus, I think...”
“And… what is she doing standing out by the lido?”
“We shared a taxi here.”
The judge closed his eyes.
“You are fucking kidding me.”
“Not really, no...”
The judge drew a breath as he processed his anger.
“Exactly which part of our phone call did you interpret as, ‘Bring your bleeding pony secretary with you?’”
Estermann’s naked feet produced some rather amusing squishing sounds went as he hurried through the pool room to let the pony back in. He was so out of it that he didn’t even bother to put his robe back on.
Unclamping the door, the unicorn - who had, curiously, refrained entirely from drawing any kind of attention to herself as she stood out there - practically fell into the room as it swung open.
As her soaked coat grazed his bare leg, Estermann shuddered at how ice-cold it felt. He did not want to know just how long she had been persevering outside.
“Heartstrings....” he addressed her, his voice mostly unemotional. “Should I even ask?”
“P-p-please...” she breathed, her teeth rattling uncontrollably, “F-f-feel f-f-free...”
She glanced up at him to acknowledge him eye-to-eye - and all the nude her eyes came across on her way up did not evade her attention. “Oh… n-n-nice to see your r-r-real self-f for once...”
The lawyer promptly grabbed a nearby towel and quickly spun it around his mid-section.
“I told you to wait in the cafe, didn’t I?”
She said nothing. But the clattering of her teeth spoke volumes.
“Jesus Christ...” the lawyer sighed and wiped his face. “Get in the tub.”
“H-h-huh?”
“Follow me.”
The mare seemed almost entirely absent as her boss ushered her out of the room’s atrium and into the baths corner, where she wordlessly descended into the water of the pool he pointed her into.
Colm moved to the far side and carefully slid his drink and papers out of the way as he, rather blankly, watched the soaked, lengthy fur of the creature buoy in the jacuzzi’s stirring water.
“Uh, hi.”
By the time the unicorn mustered a stuttered greeting, her head was already submerged. All Colm and Estermann received were the bubbles.
“Alex… Have I mentioned this is a private club? They could kick me out for this.”
“Oh Christ, just let her thaw for a second. God knows how long she stood out there.”
The judge sighed, in time for the pony’s dripping, stringy-haired head to emerge once more.
“Better?”
She nodded, not even bothering to move her wet strands of mane out of her face.
“So...” Colm began his interrogation, “What did bring you here tonight, Miss...”
“Heartstrings.” Estermann quickly took over, “Well, Colm… there happens to be a particular circumstance that she and I still have to iron out today. Rather important.”
“Oh really? More important than what we had to discuss?”
“Something more urgent at least...”
Lyra meekly cleared her throat. It was quite sore.
“I w-withheld an important part of my life from Mister Estermann.” she explained, quite dutifully honest and suppliant.
While Estermann’s ears perked up excitedly, Colm just shrugged and gave his friend a tired look.
“Fascinating. Would you two mind discussing that a little later?”
A silencing shove from Estermann’s hand struck him. “Oi!”
“I’m afraid it cannot wait.” Lyra explained, her voice rather emotionlessly calm, “I promised to Mister Estermann that I would tell him everything before tomorrow.”
Estermann, still reeling of his surprise about the sudden pleasant turn in Lyra’s willingness, knelt down to the edge of the pool and expectantly locked eyes with the pony.
“I am listening.”
“Will you...” she whimpered slightly, “...promise that you won’t be mad? Please?”
Colm cracked a smile at Estermann, who just sighed at his secretary.
“What do you think?”
Like a fox who had been cornered, she bowed to her fate with a sniff and slowly reared her head to meet the defence counsel’s serious eyes with her own amber ones.
The were sore and pink. She had been crying.
“Mr E... ”
She hesitated. Her lip trembled.
“I’m a changeling. Mr E.”
Estermann nodded.
Rubbing his hands, he gave Colm a tired look and a weak smirk.
It was only then that he froze up, and his face slowly returned to the uni… unicorn for a second take.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
Then, swiftly, came Colm’s turn.
His face was red from the hot steam that surrounded it, but from one moment to another, it had gone right back to ash-grey.
He mumbled something ecclesiastical - and probably very blasphemous - before hauling his portly body out of the water, clambering over the pool edge and swiftly escaping into a maze of saunas.
All that was left behind were a kneeing lawyer and an ‘Equestria' expert bobbing in the jacuzzi, trading some very long stares at each other in torpid silence.
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So did the real Lyra exist at one point and was replaced or was she just a constructed person?
I can't wait to see what happens next
Way to drop a bombshel there Lyra...
I'm more than a bit disappointed in this Twilight in describing the defense. The defense's purpose in a criminal trial is to ensure the prosecution does not exceed its bounds, thoroughly does its job, and that the punishment, if one is expected, is not excessive. To quote a Scottish public defender, "My job isn't to prove you innocent, my job is to ensure they prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
I figure she was brainwashed so heavily during the lead up to Caterlot she truly thinks she is a Changeling. If she was, she wouldn't have been sent down to the Crystal caverns or been so interested in the bouquet.
7909060
Quite right, but... good luck trying to pound that in the ponies' heads.
7909529
It's a difference in thought. Man has understood his nature is generally selfish in nature and that abuses are going to exist in the system. Even our systems still have problems and hopefully people acknowledge this (just assist an attorney with getting veteran's benefits for poor veterans, especially those with mental issues, or talk with a public defender. Injustices and bad situations will pop-up all too often). Part of the human experience is acknowledging we are all human and all limited. We have abused and seen power abused so much we are inherently suspicious and in order to attempt to protect ourselves when all seems dark and the world seems to be against us, we give them 1 person who is there to help them. We give them one person to stand there and attempt to help them how they can (limited by obvious ethical obligations).
The ponies have had what would essentially be considered a god in the Greek, Roman, or Nordic sense rather than the biblical. A person who is incredibly powerful, long lived, and essentially immortal. Celestia has been able to manipulate things such that she literally has controlled the history, both taught and known. How else would Nightmare Moon disappear to only remain as a myth? Could not someone have read records and asked her, "Did this person actually exist?" Why would you be suspicious of the benevolent dictator? You have lived a good life and your history has probably been whitewashed. In a more negative terminology, they have been indoctrinated with whatever beliefs Celestia has slowly inundated her people with since she has such a long time to slowly change their views or manipulate things. Am I saying she's a master manipulator? No, she should just have more experience because of being in a position of power and having an extremely long life. She is not infallible. She has emotions and getting ponies to understand that having emotions means she has both the positive and the negative would be the equivalent of telling a fundamentalist religious person that their beliefs are wrong. Celestia is their faith, even when examples like Luna should make them question that faith.
I expected there would be all sorts of shenanigans when the prosecution tries to get the really old charges to stick. I assumed Celestia and Chrysalis would be the only ones old enough to remember Timbucktu, Trot, and Kiger, and that records from that time would all be a mess.
Actual living, breathing, talking witnesses changes things.
Also means there might be someone left alive who can support or refute Chrysalis' story about Celestia's mass execution of the changelings.
Well thats nice plot twist
Well, this was a high-effort story.
7909661
Do recal how they scoffed at ideas of justice as humans see it and how they state “In the old days, we would have thrown types like her into a dark hole and sealed the lid!” Was that just an old geezer full of hot air or was it a decent summary of how they did things back then?
This could be a boon for defence aswell. If attrocities on both sides can be proven and Ponies being brutal heel can be also pointed then that would prove a history of abuses on BOTH SIDES. From their character and stance i could see the two to admitting crimes against humanity on COURT in HAGUE without blinking an eye. Since it was a 'good thing to do'.
7909597
Thank you.
I've said this time and time again but no one seems to pay attention to me.
Aha! Knew it!
Quite interesting the part of the old guy. Makes one wonder what would imply such longevity in society
can anyone verify those old ponies are really that old? Highly coincidental, Crystal Empire returns be damned! I hold their witness as reliable as some bum they swept off the streets and paid twenty dollars to give a story. Here's to hoping cross examination shoots holes straight through their bigoted heads! We do not tolerate such disdainful hatred, (to royalty nonetheless!) based off of nothing more than pre concieved assumptions and judgements of character. Oh my gosh those nigh-dead ponies made us mad!
....
...........
That said, it's really nice Lyra is coming out now. It helps prepare for the real issue than having it spring up later. We don't believe she's a changeling actually, but she does have residual thrall hooks that Chrysalis is clearly manipulating. It seemed weird that she was trying to put the charm on Estermann, seemed like she was trying to take him under her magic, but maybe she was truly happy for something...
Keep going! ;)
Wait the ponies can get centuries old? OK I would understand magically stored memories or whatever else but this is getting ridiculous. I can in no way believe anyone other than the Princesses is that old.
Also...
Oooh shit. I mean it's probably gonna go as predictably as any "Lyra Changeling" plot (initially I expected the hypnosis thing) but nonetheless the reveal was stunning.
7909661
Assuming that they wouldn't attempt to commit perjury, just so they can have 'vengeance' on whatever punishment Chrysalis might be given should any of the charges brought against her ends in a guilty verdict.