...but submission is death.
By all accounts, this was an unreasonably big door. Even if everypony who came and went in this building were to use it, its size would barely ever be utilised. But, among the many shady suspects, and their even shadier accusers, who are brought in for questioning, many felt understandably uncomfortable using a 25 foot tall heavy oak door with a giant golden sun inset in it.
Many of the everyday workers of the complex also elected to avoid it, if for nothing else, how cumbersome it was. The lawyer, on the other hoof, could always appreciate a bit of theatrics. Especially today, when he was tasked to speak with the dead. At least one of them, anyway. Who was also, technically, alive. But it's been a long time since he learnt not to nit-pick about such little inconsistencies, for they can score anypony a one way ticket to this exact place. So, after a quick glance at the golden sun medallion on his neck, he grabbed the knocker and hit it twice on the door, and then took a step back.
A cavernous, deep voice that sounded like it was coming from the very walls asked:
“Who wishes to enter these halls of righteousness?”
“A true servant of the God-Empress, Daybreaker!” The lawyer shouted with a happy smile on his face. No matter how many times he said that line, it didn’t turn any less ridiculous.
And with that, the double door slowly and majestically opened, giving way to the lawyer to enter the building.
The first place he’d dare to call a home since he left his mother’s house. He had a condo in midtown that was just for sleep. Or not sleeping depending on his luck.
Inside, there was the usual swarm of ponies all diligently working on advancing the Empress’s many interests. Which is a very important part of the daily life of the country. Because the empress - infallible as she may be - can only give so much advice to her little ponies on how to run the day-to-day business of the country. So the gaps had to be filled with their work.
For example, it's in the Solar Constitution that every citizen must pay one tenth of all their income to the Solar Church. But apart from some vague guidelines, the local Churches were free to spend their income as they saw fit. Another example, right there in front of the lawyer, a brother was taking the local orphans to a spiritual retreat. For the lawyer, there was something uniquely heart-warming about how these brothers and sisters, living in strict celibacy, were making sure the foals get to spend whole weeks with them, without any supervision.
The lawyer, however, worked on the left side of the complex, under the purview of the Bureau of Genetic Diversity. Inside, there was a labyrinth of cubicles and offices, which all served a very important purpose in the grand scheme of things. They either justified the existence of the system, or their own importance.
On a usual day, the lawyer would have gone to his own desk and written the confessions the accused were supposed to sign. But today, he had a special task. He had to actually talk to a pony who’s going to have an actual trial. In a real courtroom no less! The lawyer simply loved these cases. It was imperative to break the usual cycle of beatings-confession-bullet. Just to prove how useless every other step was in the criminal process. The results are all the same anyway.
The lawyer walked down the familiar corridors and stairs, far down below the surface to the jails. Along the way, he smiled at all the Solar Guardians, standing post at various places in the complex. He never got any reaction, but he knew the only time a Solar Guardian smiles is when they kill a Thestral.
Though, he’d never want to test that. After all, he was nothing, if not a pacifist.
***
The door opened, the young, handsome lawyer stepped in. He could hear his client, the lone defendant in the windowless cell, mumble something suspiciously like “Batrayer”, but he’d been in this business way too long to react to something like that. His face showed neither any sympathy nor concern.
“Good morning, Mr Cinder Scholars,” the lawyer said as he sat down across the small table his client had been waiting for him.
The defendant was a smoke-grey stallion somewhere in his fifties. He was a bit pudgy, but despite this, and the chains on all his legs and neck, he had an aura of authority around him. If the lawyer had to guess, he’d have said Cinder was someone who was used to being in charge.
“Sunshine Happiness,” he dryly began, “I‘m your appointed lawyer, provided to you as your inalienable right by the Her Solar Highness, God-Empress Daybreaker of the Solar Empire, long may she reign.” He recited the sequence of formalities without wasting a single thought on them. It was just part of the job that he was sent here to do. After all, he was nothing if not professional.
Sunshine waited for a second to see if his client responded, but the fiery hatred in Mr Cinder’s eyes quickly proved such formalities were a waste of time. Just like this whole charade.
He read the charges. “You are accused of disloyalty to the state and the God-Empress herself, failure to report Illegal Existence, and Aiding and Abetting Enemies of the state.” The lawyer stopped again and looked at his client to see if he had anything to say about any of this.
He did not. It seems that his only purpose was to pierce Sunshine’s hide with that gaze. It’s a look the lawyer knows far too well. Judging, without a second look. Viewing him as nothing more than cog in the machine massacring an entire race root and stem. Even the supposed solarists, her own allies, gave ponies from the Bureau snide looks, when they thought they wouldn’t notice. So what could he honestly expect from a traitor like Cinder?
But this was different, and judging by the amount “damn”s his defendant didn’t seem to give about anything, they both knew it. So, Sunshine decided, it was time to enjoy this situation to its fullest. To show just how twisted things really were. After all, he was nothing if not a cynic.
He leans in and hits a more personal, warmer tone.
“Look buddy, I’m not gonna lie, with charges like that, you’d be a dead pony even if they didn’t have any evidence against you. But, based on the pure, unadulterated hatred you ooze, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you actually did something.”
Cinder glanced up and slowly looked all over the dandified young lawyer. His eyes stopped at the shiny yellow sun emblem on Sunshine’s chest before he decided to answer. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I did, traitor. Lying doesn’t suit you well.”
The lawyer burst into laughter. It was a well-practiced laugh, not obnoxious, or too loud and it didn’t last longer than it should have. Even Cinder had to admit it was impressive.
“Don’t think just because I wear this suit and they slapped this trinket on me, they care enough to tell me what you actually did. In reality, I was just woken up by a Solar Guardian stomping at my door. So, I put on my suit, grabbed my emblem and rushed here.”
“You already admitted you wouldn’t be able to help me, so why would I tell you anything?” Cinder raised his eyebrows with feigned surprise.
“No, I told you’re a dead pony either way.” The lawyer corrected him, “But is there nothing in your life that would be worth saving? Wife? Foals? Parents?”
Sunshine saw clearly, the older pony’s hoof was itching to wipe the grin off his face. But he was willing to bet Cinder wouldn’t have wanted to vindicate his words by actual violence. So, Cinder had to settle for using words as an escape, letting his anger out like steam through a valve. “All I ever cared for is either dead, destroyed or has disappeared. If nothing else, the Bright Guards were thorough in ending my life.”
The lawyer almost let his surprise show on his face when he heard the “affectionate” nickname of the Solar Guardians said out loud, but he was able to stop himself. Instead, he leaned back in his seat and put his front hooves behind his head.
“Well, those highly esteemed Gentlecolts outside have an order to shoot me if I leave here before 10 minutes are up, and since I have something to live for, I very much intend to stay here at least that long. So we either sit here in silence for…” he took out his pocket watch and took a good look, “eight and a half minutes, or we can pretend this is an actual legal procedure and you can tell me what you did.” He pocketed his watch again, though he had no idea whether he guessed the time right or not. Not that it mattered. The idiot in front of him looked plenty fun to jeer at.
After all, he was nothing if not witty.
“You may think of this as your final confession,” he said, smiling as he slowly started rocking back and forth with his chair.
“I don’t need absolution from you, boy.” Cinder hit the table just hard enough to give weight to his words without raising his voice.
“You wouldn’t end up here for anything I could absolve you from.” Sunshine flashed a bright toothy smile. “And even if I could, why? You did wrong my Goddess, after all. But regardless, chances are this is the last opportunity you’ll ever have to speak with anypony. The guards are ordered not to listen to anything you say, so even if you wanted to shout anything at them, they would come in and gently persuade you, to kindly stop.”
“I can still yell at them in the courtroom.” Cinder pointed out.
“You’ll be gagged.” Sunshine shook his head slightly. “The God-Empress doesn’t need your filth sullying the souls of her little ponies. On the plus side, you’ll be looking a lot more menacing Those gags are quite the sight. I’ve heard the Grand Inquisitor personally dug up the designs from the Crystal Archives. I, for one, certainly believe it. After all, she used to be a librarian…”
“Not that your blabbering doesn’t sound intriguing because it really fucking doesn’t, but don’t they need my confession at some point?”
For the first time, the lawyer’s veneer cracked a little. His eyebrows jumped up, his head tilted back a tad for a moment until he regained control of his mannerisms. “Wait, they didn’t already? I mean… you do have all your teeth, but even with that...” He pondered upon the implications. It made no sense.
“No… That’s not possible. Mad as you are, you couldn’t have done something that warrants that, right? Pray to whatever false God you don’t believe in, that you didn’t.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” Cinder’s harsh baritone brought Sunshine back to his senses.
It was strange to see how calm Cinder managed to stay. Whenever Sunshine feigned dread to his clients, it was a surefire way to rile them up. But now, when he was actually unnerved, it did nothing other than cause some mild annoyance. But, he was asked a question.
“One of the first things the Solar Court established after the Rebellion, was that we, as mortal beings, are incapable of proving, or providing, objective, infallible evidence. And without objective truth, we can only manage an approximation of truth in any instance.”
Usually, this was where Sunshine lost his usual clients, few being as savvy as he in modern legalese. But though his interest was probably at rock-bottom, Cinder seemed to at least follow along. So, Sunshine decided to continue.
“Therefore, whenever we order a pony shot, the government is still only approximately executing a guilty subject, never absolutely certain. Hence, the most practical solution; don’t look for evidence, since all evidence is fallible, and might say one or many things in conflict with itself.”
Sunshine himself had started screaming, at least internally, when he’d first heard this logical setup, and so was quite interested to see Cinder’s response. But the older stallion remained impassive, unemotional, bored even.
“That means that any evidence provided by either investigation or interrogation can be substituted or even superseded with the decision of the investigator based partly on his intellect, but also his solar sensibilities and his moral character, for those are no less infallible than the evidence themselves. At which point he doesn't even have to leave the comfort of his office, because this doesn’t make his judgement any more subjective.”
“It’s odd that amidst such scepticism they somehow managed to keep the bullet objective.” Cinder deadpanned. “But I still don’t see how that changes my case. I was dead before and I’m dead now, I just don't get to meet my judge before my maker.”
“No. I mean yes, but actually no.” Sunshine shook his head. “While this argument greatly eases the administrative burden of judging ponies, which comes in handy when you have to squeeze as many bodies through the grinder as we do, but if that was the part that applied to you, we wouldn’t have met, and you would already be in a gutter. That part of the system is very streamlined. The real nefarious part is actually hiding in between the lines.”
“I’m shaking in my horseshoes,” Cinder said, sarcastically.
“I certainly would.” Sunshine nodded. “Because what was specified is that no mortal pony can make an objective judgement about any crime. But, if they went to all the trouble of dragging you through the procedure, I figured they’d at least have the common decency to beat one confession out of you. I mean, what could it hurt?”
“Me. It could very much hurt me.” Said Cinder tapping his own chest
“Yes, but that’s beside the point.” said Sunshine, brushing Cinder’s words off. “What is implied is that immortal ponies are very much capable of making objective judgements. In fact, it’s a straight-out insult to their character to inundate them with useless “facts”.”
“Wait,” Cinder stopped him, “You say I get to spit in the Boss Bitch’s face at my trial?”
“Well, you will be gagged but…” Sunshine started, but Cinder didn’t let him finish.
“Meh, you can’t have everything in life now, can you? I’ll still take it. I’m gonna glare at her so hard she will never forget my face.” Cinder words had a certain fatalistic levity to them. It was almost sad Sunshine had to correct them.
“Except, I really don’t think the Goddess would ever move a single hoof for any court case. So, who you’re going to get is actually Sunrise Sparkle, the Grand Inquisitor.” Sunshine shrugged. “On the bright side, from what I heard, she has an eidetic memory, so she will remember your face. Though, rumor was, it was the Element of Loyalty who possessed that trait before the Inquisitor… absorbed them, or whatever happened after the rebellion ended, and the Immortal Dawn began…”
Sunshine wasn’t usually prone to getting off-topic, but the Grand Inquisitor always had a certain inexplicable effect on him. He was almost grateful when he was brought back to his senses by Cinder’s baritone.
“Okay. Okay, stop.” Cinder rolled his eyes. “I get it, Darth Twilight has exceptional rectal hygiene. Could you please convince your hyperactive tongue to tell me anything useful about her?”
“Is there anything that would constitute as useful about a judge in a show trial?” Sunshine retorted, quickly gathering his thoughts.
“No, I guess there isn’t, but I want to know what about her turned you from gloating to stuttering in a second when you realised she’s going to be the judge.” For the first time, Cinder leaned in and put his hooves on the table.
Sunshine looked away, slightly flustered. He noticed his chair had stopped rocking, but he didn’t remember when he’d done so. He also didn’t like that he didn’t feel the back of his chair behind him.
He knew he’s going to regret answering anything in this submissive position, but he had no choice.
“Not much, and honestly, none of it is your concern, really.” Sunshine felt like a foal talking to his schoolyard crush.
“You’ve been trying to pry into stuff that’s not your business since the moment you stepped in here.”
“Your actions against the law is the definition of my business.” Sunshine answered with a dark smile on his face. He could finally lean back into the chair again without looking too forced.
“Not if your first words are an admission of incapability, they aren’t.” Cinder wanted to lift up his right hoof, but the chain only let him move so far. He put it back on the table and said. “But, you know what? I’ll offer you a deal. You tell me about the Grand Intolerable, and I’ll tell you what they got me in for.”
It was a tempting offer, Sunshine thought. He could make up some fake thriller about Sunrise, and Cinder’s curiosity would be satiated. Of course, if Cinder figured that out, the deal would fall through. It might still be worth the risk, but Sunshine had observed Cinder enough to know he was smarter than he looked, and quite sharp. Which was disconcerting for Sunshine.
He hated being stuck in the same room with somepony smarter than him.
Sunshine also considered just telling the truth. It’s not like Cinder would ever tell another soul. This was a dead pony, and those don’t tell tales.
That was probably the optimal choice. Yes, that would secure Sunshine’s own curiosity. He was, after all, nothing if not opportunistic.
“All right, you’ve got your deal. Grand Inquisitor Sunrise Sparkle. Where should I start? I could tell you about her 100% conviction rate, or how she knows every single detail of every paragraph of every single law, present or past, by heart. I could tell you the story of how she boiled somepony from the inside out as an attempt to bring the warmth of the Empress’s love to a traitor.”
“Son, these all sound things I should be worried about, not you.”
Sunshine stopped dead in his tracks. Cinder was right. Which meant he was bullshiting even when he didn’t mean to. But that begs the question, why was he afraid of the Grand Inquisitor?
“Huh, never really looked at it that way.” Sunshine said just to say something, but he didn’t continue. He was a lawyer, he could talk for hours on autopilot without saying anything that could be used against him, yet now nothing came out.
Why was he afraid of her?
“When I first met her... Actually I met her and the God empress the same time after my reassignment. They took the first batch of 847s before them, so I’ve had the privilege to see them both up close. Most would think out of the two of them Daybreaker is far more frightening. And don't get me wrong, she is one flaming ball of fear. Yet from the moment I saw the Grand Inquisitor, my eyes were glued to her. She just exuded something that’s beyond mere pony. And while the God-Empress is, powerful as can be, everything she is, I can understand. Her rage, her ego, her hunger for power. I know those. But Sunrise… she’s another matter entirely.”
Sunshine stopped again. They both knew this was still not the answer, but it was a good start. He just has to pinpoint the way the Grand Inquisitor differed from everypony else.
“Everything she does, has a purpose, every breath. And not just “a” purpose that changes with the winds. Her actions have one singular, unchanging, unquestionable objective, rendering everything and everyone but a tool to achieve it. She is Solarism Incarnate. Everytime I hear another pony breathe, I hear a thousand songs about whims, wishes, and wants. I know those songs, and I know the dances to them all. I know how to dance them well enough to guide most to the flowers I want them to pollinate. Foolish as that might sound, I feel I could even dance with the Devil in the broad Daylight. Maybe I’m already doing it. But that... thing... is just silence.”
Sunshine hoped his multitudes of metaphors were clear enough. Or maybe he hoped they weren't, he wasn't sure. But regardless, finally they could get to the part he was interested in.
“So that's it. Now, Mr Cinder, according to our deal, it’s your turn to talk.”
“Is it?” Cinder raised his eyebrows. “I already got what I want. What makes you think you can make me tell you my story, Mr Happiness?”
Sunshine burst out in laughter.
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, I say, art sure no craven.” Even if the only reason why Sunshine learnt a few poems was to bang the hot literature major chicks in college, it continued to prove useful every so often.
“You just don’t look like the type who would break their word. Even now, when you have literally nothing to lose, you wouldn’t risk being remembered as a liar, forevermore.” Sunshine wasn’t exactly sure if Cinder was that strait-laced, but giving somepony an ideal to live up to was part of Diplomacy 101. After all, he was nothing if not manipulative.
“That’s fair.” Cinder nodded. “Fine. You’ll get your wish, on one condition.”
“You just admitted you’re in no position to bargain,” Sunshine said while slowly shaking his head. “so, I’d say you save your breath for the story, instead of your conditions.
“You deserve a special place in hell, Batpony.”
Finally. Sunshine got what he wanted. He got this Batsaver to insult his race. Even if Cinder’s crime had been to save Batponies from extermination, Sunshine’s cynicism had won. He wanted to rub the stallion’s nose in it, that whatever he thought he knew about the world was wrong. Their old world died, but by some mistake, they went to hell.
“You honestly mean to tell me you don’t think we’re there already?”
It was Cinder’s turn to laugh. It looked like this bit of cynicism was the last thing needed to convince him there was nothing redeemable about Sunshine. It took him long enough, but Ponies who are moral enough to recognise they don’t deserve absolution from a Saint, will happily confess all their crimes to the Devil. They just needed the right opportunity.
After a long sigh, Cinder asked. “So what were my charges?”
“Disloyalty, failure to report, and treason.”
“Isn’t the first and third the same?” Cinder asked with visible confusion on his face.
“Practically, though there are a few differences.” Sunshine shrugged. “Treason is an active act against the state, so you can’t get it for draft dodging or by omission. Also, you can’t get disloyalty if you’re an Undesirable, because they’re not part of the state.”
“Alright. Well, anyway, I did do all of that, so there's no reason to deny it.” Cinder lifted both his forelegs up as much the chains let him. Then he put them down and started talking.
“My father was a chemist. He made a good living with an adhesive factory until he died twenty some years ago. I inherited it, though to this day I’ve no idea what’s the difference between methane and methene.
"A few years ago a young little mare by the name of Strawberry started to rile up the workers and fight for better working conditions. At first, it was cute. I thought they’re going to be reasonable, considering I’ve always treated them fairly. But they always just wanted more. Higher wages, more benefits, shorter work days. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the union wanted to decide who I could employ.
"Luckily I had a few business partners in the southern rubber plantations I could go to for help. I asked them to “persuade” Canterlot to start a new Batpony inclusion initiative. It’s one of those phoney attempts at integration those blowhards on the capitol mountain liked to do every so often to look more compassionate. Me? I just wanted a lot of federal money to relocate a bunch of cheap labour.
“The next few years were objectively the best in my life. Thestrals worked twice as much for half the pay. And the best thing is, I even got subsidies for those low wages because I was the poster child of the whole inclusion program. It was stupid. And the bats, they loved me the most. I literally couldn’t give two shits about them, and they told me I was the best employer they’ve ever had. Most of them hadn’t even seen running water up to that point.
“You know when the Boss Bitch showed her true colours, I wondered if this whole massacre was really her idea, or is she just the piece that was meant to fit the hole in our hearts? By now, I’ve realised I was stupid to ever think it mattered.
“The war was tough, though I can hardly complain. But we did have to pack the whole factory up in two weeks to move to Las Pegasus. That stupid cloud was a pain to deal with, but there weren't a lot of factories around the border where the entire workforce could walk on clouds. We didn’t stop production for a second throughout the entire war. Not even under the siege. I had a courtside ticket to the turning point of the war. When the siege was finally broken after 14 months, I thought it was the best day of my life. We all thought, we all wanted to believe, that it was the beginning of the end. Today, I wish we hadn’t been right. Not this right anyway.
“When the war was over, we came back to Vanhoover, and nopony knew what was going to come. I know the Boss Bitch actually decided to set her mane on fire two years before this, but honestly, that didn’t really affect my life. Most of the martial law had been already instituted by that point but I didn’t care. I just wanted to make money. The bureaucrats in Canterlot wanted me to make money, so they had something to tax. We got along quite well. Sometimes, I rubbed their back, sometimes they rubbed mine. Then there was the Rebellion, the Civil War, if you wanna call that massacre something fancy, but other than the reintroduced curfew, which I had exemption for, owning a factory that produced 24/7, I barely noticed.
“It was only in the last few months that things started to change. First, it was the posters. Then the laws, a few incarcerations... but I’d lie if I said I was worried. Not until I received an unreasonably large order for hide glue.”
Cinder stopped and looked into Sunshine’s eyes. Sunshine didn’t know anything about glue, but even he understood what that look meant.
“Now, hide glue is a really niche product. Luthiers, ponies who make string-instruments, love it, and so do a few artisan carpenters, but that’s about it. It’s not terribly strong and its bond degrades heavily in hot and humid environments. We produced it, of course, but this one order was bigger than our entire yearly capacity. And unlike a normal buyer, this one wanted to provide the raw materials as well. Which we would have needed, seeing as how there was no supplier in the world who could have provided what we needed in the amounts called for.
“This amount of shadiness would have been enough to nix this whole thing, but my father taught me to vet every potential business partner carefully. The firm that reached out to me was really suspicious. First, I learnt that instead of this being a one-off thing, it was the pilot operation, to test the waters, so to speak.
“At this point, it was pretty obvious they didn’t want to use the glue for anything. I mean, it’s just impossible. They wanted to get rid of the hides. But that still didn’t make sense. I mean for smaller quantities, sure, one of the best ways to get rid of anything is to find someone who wants to use it for something, set up a few phoney firms to sell the goods through them, and preferably more than one manufacturer. As long as it doesn’t make too big of a blip in the market, there won’t be anyone in this wide-wide world who has the capacity and the authorisation to ever track it down.
“This, on the other hoof, not only makes a blip in the market, it bends it over backwards and dry-fucks it in the ass without giving a reach-around. At this point, it’d just be easier to haul it all into the desert and bury it. It started to make sense, however, when I found out who the Order came from.”
Sunshine nodded. “The Government.”
“Right. Usually government agencies fell into one of two categories. Either they are openly part of the Government and they don’t hide that fact at all, or they really want to keep it a secret. Probably missed a few like those back in the day. This was neither. As if they wanted to be secretive, but not that much. They knew they weren’t gonna stay a secret too long.
“So, there I was, facing a government pushing aggressively anti-batpony rhetoric, owning a factory whose workers were only exempt from the sanctions because we were indispensable for the war effort…”
“But there isn’t any war.”
“The war never stops. Do you think just because they don’t have anyone to shoot at, the factories stop shitting out tanks and guns? For a colt who licked as much ass as you must have, you’re strangely naïve.” He shook his head.
“Hard to be naïve after the things I’ve done to keep my hide, but I am trying.” Though what he said didn’t make much sense Sunshine knew from experience how to keep a conversation going.
“No you’re not.”
“No I’m not. But after all, it’s not me who should be trying at anything. You’re the one who didn’t finish his story.”
“What is there to finish? The government started to massacre the Thestrals in the jungle where no one would notice, and they wanted me to turn the bodies into glue. As to why don’t ask me. Somepony up there with way too much power and free time, probably thought it would be funny to make my workers turn their kin into glue before they suffer the same fate.”
Sunshine couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Turns out he wasn’t the only one compulsively bullshitting here.
“According to my experience in the law, in your excessive recount of our recent history, you only failed to mention anything that would warrant the charges you admitted to be guilty of.”
“Touché.” Cinder answered with a small, but respectful nod. “Anyhow, I decided to save my workers from their fate, and smuggle them out of the country. Looking back it’s stupid to see how inconsequential a pony I was compared to how much wealth I amassed.” Cinder stopped to scratch his nape. “Maybe I felt like doing one good thing before I croaked, to make my life feel less worthless.”
“So, abusing batponies economically for years, and taking tax money from everypony else to do so is okay, but being an innocent bystander while somepony else ends their suffering isn’t?”
“Yes.” Cinder didn’t take the bait.
“Well I can’t say I disagree.” Sunshine admitted, making his previous question pointless. He knew he had to cut his losses and go on to the next topic quickly. “But one thing is still not clear to me. How did you get charged with failure to report? That’s for ponies who don’t turn in the bats if they spot them somewhere they shouldn’t be. Yours had every right to be in your factory.”
“Oh yes” Cinder nodded. “That’s probably because of the tunnel where they actually caught us.”
Sunshine normally had pretty good control of his emotions. Apart from the Grand Inquisitor, nothing could really rock his boat. But one word, one silly word, and the cascade of implication that it launched just tore out any control he had, leaving his conscious self merely observing his own actions.
“Tunnel?!” He shouted excitedly as he jumped up and slammed his hoof on the table.
“Yes. Tunnel. It went from under my mansion, to the sewers, and into the docks.” Cinder proved his exceptional self control once more when barely moved an inch though he must have been taken aback. “We would have boarded a ship to Hjortland, then from there to Canmarea and then probably a flight for it through the Manetuan strait.”
Sunshine suspected that the well-feigned reservedness on Cinder’s part was merely a ploy to get a rise out of him. But it wouldn’t be that easy. And Sunshine had things to say as well.
“Holy shit.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Would you look at that? And they say the Bureau doesn’t have a sense of humour.”
“I don’t see where’s the joke.”
“That usually means that you’re the joke.” Sunshine took a second. It wasn’t everyday that somepony had an opportunity like this. To say a few words, and destroy a pony completely. He wanted to saviour it, revel in it, to find just the right words. In a soft, sadistic tone he said:
“Did you ever wonder what a Thestral would have to do to get this badge?” he indicated his solar emblem, “To buy his life from the Empress?”
He sneered. “It was me, Cinder. I was the one who gave up the tunnel.”
Without hesitation, Cinder jumped up and tried to reach for Sunshine, but the five chains stretched out as one and yanked him back to his seat.
“MURDERER” he shouted “You gave away your own kind!” Cinder stood up again and leaned as far forward as the chains let him.
Sunshine looked at Cinder with impish glee. For the last six months, he had lived among ponies who, for one reason or the other, considered him the incarnation of filth. Maybe there was vindication in proving your doubters wrong, but it’s equally liberating to prove them right. He finally lived up to the monster they all thought him to be. It was so titillating, he felt shivers run down his spine.
“Oh, come on, dear Cinder. Don’t you read the news? I’m a Type-847 pegasus pony. I don’t even know what it means, but according to the Bureau of Genetic Diversity, the Thestrals are very much not my kind. Turns out, diversity in this country means that once you give away a few hundred of your kin or spy on them with your ultra hearing, they let you change race! Which is convenient, because otherwise, how would I ever be able to serve our Goddess?”
“You’ve never served anyone beside yourself.” Cinder was practically spitting out every word he said. “When I first saw you, I thought you were just fucking somepony so far down in this filth your dick gets decompression sickness when you pull out. But this?”
“This is the greatest act of kindness since the death of Fluttershy.” Sunshine added a little ceremonial bow.
As Cinder crossed his forelegs in front of his barrel, Sunshine couldn’t help but think he looked like a sulking foal. “Making sure, there isn’t even the slightest trace of your kind in the world? If you were the only Batpony I knew, I’d even agree.”
Sunshine let out a short sparkling burst of laughter. It was so delightfully snobbish, every highborn mare in Canterlot would have considered it a death threat. After all, he was nothing if not courteous.
“Admirable as your efforts might have been, they most likely would have been futile nonetheless.” Sunshine made sure his voice was purring like a well-fed feline. “The Solar Guardians have outposts in every major dock and trade node. You might get one through, but three? And the coast guard at the strait? No chance. I turned your mission of utmost futility into my ticket to freedom. So, you managed to save one Thestral, after all. All thanks to me, of course.”
Sunshine stopped for a second with the implicit expectation of getting thanked. When Cinder obviously denied that, he added:
“What more can such an inconsequential pony wish for?”
“Literally anything else?”
“No-no-no. You got it all wrong.” Sunshine held up his hoof like a teacher trying to lecture. “As an 847 pegasus, I even have the right to procreate. You know what this means? An entire lineage of Thestrals.” Sunshine dropped the forced loftiness of his tone and returned to the ground. “Okay, truth be told, my mate has to be a daywalker, but I honestly doubt I would ever find another Thestral who’s A: alive B: female, C: meets the general level of fuckability upon which every stabile marriage is built.”
“That’s the most sexist view of marriage I’ve ever heard, and half the guests on my dinner parties were trophy spouses.” Maybe it was his bat ears, maybe it was his imagination, but amidst the tidal wave of disgust, Sunshine heard a hint of approbation in Cinder’s voice.
“That can only happen if yours was one as well.” Sunshine pointed out.
“Oh, fuck off.” No, it was definitely simply disgust this time.
“I certainly could, but don’t you want to hear how I did it? How I managed to kill all your precious little underlings?”
Cinder didn’t answer immediately, just hung his head down and let out a long, mournful sigh. “Not really, no. But I guess I owe their memory this much.” He said, still not looking at Sunshine.
“No, you really don’t. After all, they’re dead, you’re dead, and on top of it, you died trying to save them”
Cinder finally looked up. “Are you really trying to talk me out of this?”
Sunshine shook his head. “If I wasn’t sure it was impossible, I wouldn’t, but it’s far too much fun to rattle your chains.”
Cinder buried his face into his hoofs. “Some day, son, when you’ll be as close to death as I am, you’ll learn the true value of things.” For the first time throughout their conversation, Cinder sounded broken. “If you’re lucky, you may learn the cost of your 30 pieces of silver.”
“And on that day, I’m sure I’m gonna sell them for even more. Either way, I win.” Sunshine leaned back on his chair once again, to both signal his verbal superiority and get comfortable for the tale he wanted to tell.
“Anyhow. The story is fairly standard. Unlike your workers', my skills were deemed replaceable, therefore the bureau classified me as a potential enemy of the state and they wanted to bring me in for questioning. I knew that was not the kind of questioning you’re supposed to get out of, so I skipped town.”
Sunshine knew he could have started with less lead up to the climax but after the story Cinder wasted his time on, he thought it was high time for some symbolic revenge.
“I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, but I wanted to get as far from Canterlot as possible. Going west would have been suicide because there was the hotbed of the revolution and as such was crawling with Guardians. So I went east. Flying at night, hiding on trains by day. Eating what I could find. I managed to get to Vanhoover in about a fortnight.”
Someone with as many Thestral acquaintances as Cinder surely heard stories like his and worse, but Sunshine was eager to hear the faintest sounds of commiseration from his table partner.
“It was there, when I heard the unmistakable noise of ultra-chat. I snuck closer, and I heard some chatter about a tunnel going to the docks to catch a ship called Dayflower. I knew that was my way out. I just had to find the chatters. Unluckily for them, the Solar Guardians found me first. Without papers they immediately took me in, where I offered them a deal: my life for a lot other Thestrals, and they took it. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
By the time Sunshine finished Cinder, was no longer looking at him. Instead, he was fully immersed in his thoughts, while he blankly stared at the table between them.
“Fools. I told them not to use their ultra-voice.” Cinder mumbled, leaving it unclear whether he meant to tell this to Sunshine. He probably just didn’t care either way all that much. “No matter how vicious a regime is, traitors are always gonna be traitors. If only they used their ultra-voice when they were screaming for help when they were torturing them.”
“Sometimes we do. Depends on the type of injury really.” Sunshine interjected.
“You too?” Cinder looked up. Though he quickly caught himself they both knew for a moment, there was genuine concern in his voice. At that moment they both knew Cinder gaffed.
A pony’s heart is such a deliciously obnoxious contraption, Sunshine could never grow tired playing with it. Under any other circumstances, it would have been admirable to care for other ponies, even more so if it’s your enemy. But admitting it, into his face, when all he deserves pain and suffering? That’s such an oxymoronic sign of weakness even the wisest of philosophers couldn’t explain.
“Yeah, turns out, when you make a deal with the Solar Guardians, there are transactional costs even at the exchange of information.” Sunshine concluded in an unreasonably chit-chatty tone.
“That’s one way to look at it, I presume.” Cinder went back staring at the grain of the table. “Based on the levity in your voice, you weren’t beaten long enough. Stands to reason, I guess, you’re not one to take long in the hoofs of an executioner before you start to sing.”
“They would get what they want either way, so why should I suffer?” Sunshine shrugged and spread his forelegs “I mean it’s not like your friends achieved anything with their endurance.”
“I wish it was you who had to listen to them,” Cinder growled. “Staying up, night after night, slowly giving up hope it ever stops. But you never stop praying to whatever force you are desperate enough to believe in to at least not recognise the voice you hear. Not that it matters. Your mind will pair a face to the voice no matter if it's right or not.”
Sunshine, with complete confidence in his position, leaned forward, and with a taunting smile on his face, said, “I don’t think I’ll ever care for anypony enough to be bothered by something like this. After all, I’m nothing if not a loner.”
Of all the things Sunshine tried to hit Cinder with, this was the second most effective. His face quickly went into a frantic dance of different emotions. First confusion, then disbelief, an ounce of revelation, and finally settled with simple confidence. He leaned back onto his own chair and calmly asked Sunshine.
“Sunshine, tell me your name.”
“Sunshine Happiness.” He answered with slightly exaggerated confusion.
“I meant your real name, Son. I’ve spent a lot of my time with your kind and I know there isn’t any batpony who would choose a name like that. I don’t know if you chose this name yourself, or it was branded into your tongue by the Bureau’s asshole, but it’s not the one your mother gave to you.”
“Why do you want to know?” Sunshine asked suspiciously.
“Let’s say this is my final wish.” The corners of Cinder’s mouth bent ever so slightly upward. “I doubt I’m gonna get my final meal anyway.”
“I can’t say you’re wrong there.” Sunshine agreed, somewhat reluctantly. Despite this, he was sure there was a ploy behind this question. Cinder was too clever not to have one. Sunshine knew the only way he could avoid it is to deny the answer. But from the deepest depth of his soul a weak, long-forgotten voice begged him to answer.
And so he did.
“You know what, you deserve this much for entertaining me for so long. Especially because this is probably the last time I get to tell it to anypony. It’s Dusk Star.”
Every single nerve ending, of every single sensor of his body was tuned on Cinder. Sunshine was looking for something, anything to tell what was coming for him, but apart from the most neutral, polite smile plastered on the stallion’s face, he couldn’t see anything.
But that stillness gave him an opportunity he was no longer stupid enough to miss. So with their conversation coming to a near conclusive lull, Sunshine decided to evacuate immediately.
“Well, Mr. Scholars, if you don’t have anything else, then this concludes our meeting here. I will be in the courtroom with you, but we won’t be able to talk, so I wish you strength for the things to come.”
Sunshine stood up, nodded to Cinder, and quickly headed to the door. But, before his hoof could reach the doorknob, like a heavy bomb, Cinder’s voice destroyed his bunker of composure.
“Her name was Midnight.”
“What did you say?” Sunshine asked, because even with his superior bat hearing, there was no way he could have heard that right.
“I said, her name was Midnight.” Cinder answered with undisturbed calmness.
“Why did you say that name!?” Shouting the question he already knew the answer of.
Cinder slowly crossed his forelegs and leaned back into his chair. He was one one pipe away from being the grandpa telling his youth to the foals.
“There was this chatty little Bat lady in my factory. Horrible worker, just the worst. There wasn’t a single task she couldn’t find a way to mess up. But everyone loved her because she was just so cheerful and outgoing. She could never stop talking. About anything really, but she talked the most about her son. Her son, who was in the university studying something, I don’t know what because honestly, I didn’t pay attention. A son who was always about to visit her, but never did. I guess he was a bit of a bitch like that.”
There it was. The truth of it, cut through the web of lies Sunshine used to keep his life together. He couldn’t move or speak, he was forced to listen to Cinder’s words like so many of his clients before Daybreaker’s judgment.
“First, I wanted to fire her, of course. But one of my floor managers advised me against it, because it would tank morale. I was raking in the cash, so I figured I could afford one useless employee. So, she became a sort of glue-pony. I guess not much changed on that front. Of course, nopony wanted to see her around their station, so they frequently asked her to go do something else. To which she had the exact same catchphrase every time.
Cinder looked Sunshine directly in the eye. “‘Of course, after all, I’m nothing, if not a so-and-so’.”
The numbness inside Sunshine subsided, and gave way to anger. Aimless anger against the whole world, and with only one pony to take it out on.
“I’m gonna rip your throat out!” His wings snapped open, his hoof was scraping on the floor, only self-preservation and the Guards’ wrath keeping him at bay.
“For what?” Cinder taunted thumping his chest. “To keep your mommy on my payroll despite being able to suck at everything except on your daddy’s dick? Believe me, the alternative would have been a lot better for everypony.”
“I don’t care!” Sunshine snarled at Cinder as he rushed over to him, flashing all his teeth.
“A-a-a.” Cinder held his hoof up to stop him. “What do you think the bright guard will do to you when they see you beat up their crown suspect, whose downfall they want to broadcast throughout the continent so they specifically treat him like the finest porcelain?”
Sunshine pushed his hoof aside, and grabbed Cinder by his iron collar, pulling him up as far as the chains let him.
“That’s not why they spared you.” Sunshine hissed “They just didn’t need your confession.”
“And you really think the bright guard wouldn’t have beaten me up anyway just for fun? Or at least are you willing to risk everything on that assumption? Come on, you’re a bright kid, don’t toss your life away. What would that make of your great act of kindness?”
Sunshine let him go. There was no witty retort, no mischievous jab, no nothing. He just had to face the hell that waited outside. A hell that he created, a hell that he thought he knew, a hell that he sought to control. At least carve out his comfy little parcel under the sun. In reality, all he did was to carve out his own heart to sacrifice it to a Sun-Goddess he didn’t believe in.
But, as he found his hoof on the door, he heard Cinder’s voice once more.
“Son, I know this is gonna sound ironic or self-serving or whatever, but I’m actually glad you’re alive. I’d lie if I told you I wouldn’t be happier with literally any other Batpony, but a life is still a life.” Cinder shook his head. “If nothing else, I hope Midnight’s gonna be happy there’s one Star left on Luna’s great canvas. I wish you a happy life.”
Dusk nodded in silence. There were no words left, anyway. The light bulbs in the hall were deliberately too bright, and he had to shield his eyes as he left that place. He idly scratched at his little sun-emblem. Now that his vision was taken from him he could finally see the mocking sneers behind Solar Guardians mask of discipline. How each one was watching for this little bat to trip up and show his true colors.
As if he had one. He is a pegasus, who is a bat. He is handsome, but incapable of establishing a substantive romantic relationship. He is cultured, but only as far as it let's him bang bimbos. He is a lawyer, but who only defends ponies convicted in show trials. He is a self proclaimed cynic, who doesn't care about anyone but himself, yet blows up the minute he learns his actions have consequences.
When he came in today, he felt he had a home here. Brutal and unforgiving, but home nonetheless. But, as his vision was clearing out, he felt he saw less and less of where he was going. He couldn’t find a place in this world anymore. It was strange, because if someone like him could find a place here, he could find one anywhere. Even stranger still, these both had the same reason:
After all, it turned out, he was nothing.