This had a fairly good chance of not ending well, yet I wasn’t as worried as I probably should have been. It was true that I had my questions. I didn’t know where I was going, aside from the fact that I was going to be around royalty. I didn’t really know why I was being taken wherever it was that I was going. Part of me wanted to think that this might have been one giant misunderstanding, and that I was going to be told that I was going to be released today with an apology. That was simply the most optimistic part of me trying to get its say on things.

Then again, I had been told that optimism was important.

Most of my mind was more rational about this, though. I knew that simply wishing things didn’t make them come true. If wishes made things true, I would have been a princess and likely would have defeated Twilight Sparkle. It wasn’t like she wished harder or anything. I certainly wouldn't have been thrown in a jail cell, not if wishing did much. That was something that had happened, though, and it was likely better for me to try to figure out the situation at hoof.

That started with figuring out where I was being taken to.

“So … I’m guessing you’re under strict orders to not tell me about where you’re taking me? I mean, it’s probably the throne room for sentencing. You don’t have to tell me, just cough really loud if I’m right.” There was obviously a very real chance that they wouldn’t say anything at all. I couldn't think of a single reason why they wouldn’t, except if they had actually been told to keep it some sort of secret.

I really didn’t know what to think of my two guards.

It looked as though the two of them had likely taken some sort of drugs, even the biggest Earth Ponies I had seen weren't as muscular as these two. Either that, or it coud have been something about the Crystal Empire. I really didn’t know a lot about the place. Even if there had been a lot of information about the place, which there wasn’t, it hadn't seemed important at the time. When I thought about it, though, it seemed strange that there wasn’t much about it even in Celestia’s library.

My thoughts were snapped back to the present when I heard something.

“We were told to bring you to the dining room to enjoy a delicious meal with their majesties, and possibly some light conversation. I can only assume the last part.” I didn’t know what I had done to warrant the sarcasm. I mean, I knew that I was going to be sentenced to something. I knew that it was probably going to be jail time, that seemed like the most likely thing given the circumstances. It might have even been a lot of jail time, at least if the brother of Princess Twilight had anything to say about it. The last thing that I thought would happen was me heading for a meal. I was the one who stole the Element of Magic, had a plan to take over a kingdom or two. At this point I was an infiltrator, one who had been taught by Celestia herself.

That wasn’t the set of circumstances that led to somepony being taken to a meal.

“Oh haha.” There weren’t many other ways to respond. If they were being sarcastic, I was going to have some fun with this one. “Sure, taking a prisoner to a meal. And then she’ll let me go, give me a stipend, and I can become a cello player.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to smack myself. Not only did that joke make no sense, but being sarcastic was the last thing I wanted to in the presence of the guards. Then again, they were really getting into this. I could have sworn that one of the rooms we passed along the way was the throne room. If I wasn’t going to the throne room, I had no idea where I was going.

I still knew it wasn't the dining room.

“I don’t know what Princess Cadance has in store for you. We were simply told to bring you to the dining room, and that we were to stay nearby. Like I said, I don’t know what’s going on beyond taking you to the dining room.” The more he said it, the less it sounded like a joke. None of this made any sense, though. I’m a prisoner, and prisoners didn't get to eat with royalty. “I’m sure you’d make an excellent cello player, though.” The only thing that made this even slightly plausible was that Princess Twilight had said she was going to talk to the royalty about me. If that’s the reason I was not in a cell, I was going to have to thank her later.

That still didn’t make the idea of me being taken to a dining room make any more sense.

Yet here we were.

The dining room looked rather nice, all things considered. The table was large enough for there to be at least ten ponies, maybe more. This was probably meant for some sort of party, likely political in nature. There was a pink alicorn mare, Princess Cadance, at the head of the table. On one side of her was the white unicorn stallion Prince Shining Armor. The other side held my personal savior, at least I assumed she was my savior, Princess Twilight Sparkle. When I looked between the three of them, I could already tell that there was something going on. While Princess Twilight looked nervous, Cadance looked like she was actually as welcoming as Celestia normally did.

Then there was Shining Armor. If looks killed, I would have likely disintegrated completely.

Now if only I knew what they were thinking.

Oh my gosh, this wasn’t going to go right. I knew that Cadance and Shiny both knew that I lied. But I couldn’t have just let her lose her horn. There’s no way she’s still a threat to the kingdom, or to anypony. I saw that she was reformed, that she felt bad about everything that she’s done. But I shouldn’t have said she’s my student when she wasn’t. That’s what the Elements of Harmony did, at least most of the time. And why was it that Cadance looked happy?

I could have understood if she had been angry, Shiny certainly was, but she was happy. It was like the expression that I always saw on Celestia’s face, or at least almost always saw. There was something about the smile. Was she happy that I had lied to help a friend? She had to know that I had lied to her, she just had to. That had to be why Shiny was so angry, too. Not only had I lied to him, but it was about one of the few ponies that he seemed adamantly against.

Oh my gosh, this was even worse than them knowing. One of them is going to tell Princess Celestia that I lied. Then the Princess is going to tell me that she didn't want to see my anymore, or maybe she was going to take away my princesshood away and make me go back to Magic Kindergarten. Even if she didn't do that, she was obviously not going to just let this thing go away without some sort of punishment. I might even have had to serve some prison time with Sunset Shimmer, because I was now an accomplice. It wasn’t even like I could have blamed Sunset for this, it was all my fault.

I didn’t know what I would have done if I was forced to spend time in jail. Everything would have been ruined by the time that I got out. Spike would have been devastated, I was his caretaker. Then there was the issue of my friends. I was going to have to serve hard time, they likely wouldn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I probably wouldn't even have anything in common with them anymore when it was done. That meant that the Elements of Harmony wouldn't work, and I had doomed Equestria.

All of this was because of my lie. If I hadn’t told them that Sunset Shimmer was my student when she wasn’t, they wouldn't be forced to send me to sever hard time. It took everything I had to not hyperventilate. That wasn’t a fun experience, I had done it a few times. It was certainly more fun, however, than the jail time that I had brought onto myself with my lie. Maybe if I admitted what was lying, Equestria wouldn't be doomed.

How can she have done that? I knew that Twilight was forgiving, but this is too far. If it were up to me, well, her horn would have been gone already. I would have told Twily that she couldn’t take such a threat as a student. There was no way that she knew what she’ was getting into. My little sister has always tried to see the best in ponies, but this might just hurt her. Sunset Shimmer was a huge threat than she thought. I wish the two of them understood that I knew I had a good reason for wanting her horn cut off.

Heck, it might even been better if we just sent her back.

If we sent her back, there would be no way she can hurt Twily again. I glanced over to my sister, I knew that I had to protect her. It felt kind of weird, I was my sister’s opposition at this point. She looked so worried, and I knew it was about her student. Of course, I would have worried too if I had a student that was as much of a threat as Sunset Shimmer. That’s why I had to get her horn taken off, or at the very least she had to be shipped back to the other side of the mirror. Either of those seemed to be good options.

Neither of those two were listening to reason, though.

I knew that she was a threat, my time as Captain of the Royal Guard had seen to that. Of course, I had to go with whatever Cadance said. She was the one with the authority in this kingdom. The only thing I could have hoped for was the ability to reason with her. I had to protect my sister from that vile fiend. I really hoped that Cadance ended up seeing reason.

She looked like she was really deep in thought. The smile could have been a cover for something else.

I am really proud of Twilight. She’s able to forgive somepony that wronged her. Not only that, but she’s really worried about the wellbeing of her student. As I looked over at Twilight, I did my best to smile. She looked so worried. That was something that I really loved about her most of the time, but today wasn’t one of those days. I didn’t think there would have been a reason to remove her horn. Or maybe I was wrong, and there was plenty of reason. Shining Armor was a part of the guard at one point, the Captain even. He likely saw threats that I didn’t.

I couldn’t help but wonder how much of this had to do with his sister, though. I loved Twilight, she was a sister to me. There was a part of me that knew that I had to separate myself from this, though, if I was going to make the right decision. Then again, there was always the chance that I was going to be too lenient. I had to keep my smile, though, as I try to figure out the heart of the matter.

This wasn’t going to be easy, not in the slightest. I had to weigh her crimes with what Twilight had said. I had to figure out a way to make sure that everypony was happy. If I didn't punish her at all, Shining Armor was going to be mad. If I punished her too much … well, that wouldn’t even be fair even if Twilight wasn’t here. I guess it all comes down to what she said when I actually talked with her.

“So, Sunset Shimmer.” I was snapped back to attention by the voice of Princess Cadance, a few blinks as I tried to figure out what she was going to say. “I suppose the first question should be simple one.” I suppose I should have known that there would be a lot of questions, or at least I thought there will be. At least the first one was simple enough… or… errr…. she said it would be. Why would you come back here? You’ve been gone for years, it doesn’t seem like something that would just come to mind.”

It turned out she was right, this was a simple question.

“Well, really, it’s because I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. This place is my home a lot more than the other Equestria was. This is where I was raised, where my family is.” I didn’t even have to think about it. It just came to me, and I said it. “Don’t get me wrong. After Twilight left, I had a lot of good friends. If it wasn’t for Twilight, then that likely wouldn’t be true at all.” At the same time, the old me would have been okay with that. Somehow, this whole spiel about friendship had seemed significantly less important prior to when she showed up.

As I finished, I caught the glance of Prince Shining Armor. His expression wasn’t the anger that I had seen before, it had been replaced for a moment with surprise. I had to wonder what the surprise was about. From what I saw, there was a chance that Princess Twilight was friends with everypony. She just seemed like that type, though I didn’t have much experience with her. There was just something about her, the kind and outgoing princess, that just screamed that she was friends with a lot of ponies. Or maybe the shock had come at the idea that she would have taught me about friendship.


Either way, I wasn’t shocked. It just seemed like her, at least from the small amount I knew about her.


“So I take it that’s why she asked you to be her student, and why you agreed?”

Wait … what?

I could have sworn that I had heard something about being a student again. There wasn’t much doubt that I had heard it. It took a couple of moments for that to register. At least I knew how she had saved me, though. Princess Twilight had lied, to her brother and Princess Cadance. That explained the worried expression, she didn’t seem like all that good of a liar. That was another thing that I just thought when I saw her.

There was no way that I was going to contradict what she said, though. It would have gotten me thrown back into the cell. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like the idea of being taught again. Princess Celestia had been a good enough teacher, mostly. Of course, I knew that she had simply lied to get me out of this mess. There was no way that she was going to try to teach me anything.

“Well, it has to do with more than that … but that’s definitely part of it.” It was a good thing that one of us was a good liar. I was able to take the lie in stride, and then expand on it. This whole thing was going to be believable enough, I was going to make sure of that. “When Twilight asked if I wanted to be her student, I thought back to what had happened when I met her. Aside from her being a kind and caring pony, she’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.” Part of that was purely to build up why I had supposed agreed, and part of it was something a little negative.

Even though this was all fake, I wanted to tell them that Celestia wasn’t the best teacher. That was what she got for the fact that she had quickly gotten a new student after I was no longer around.

So far, everything had gone great. Princess Cadance nodded at my answer, and even Prince Shining Armor looked somewhat happier. Actually, that second one was the one that was the bigger relief. Then there was Princes Twilight, who seemed to have relaxed a little. That was a good sign.

“What do you expect to learn from Twilight?” My eyes moved over to Prince Shining Armor as he asked the question. Part of me wondered that myself. “You were taught by Princess Celestia. My sister is an amazing teacher, but I have to wonder what you really expect to learn.” I was going to have to think this one through. It didn’t have a simple answer like the others did.

Or maybe it did.

“I was hoping that I would learn a little about friendship, for starters.” I was really going to start with that? That likely wasn’t going to be believed. “No only that, but I was hoping she’d obviously teach me more about magic. There’s something wrong with my horn at this point, for example, and I don’t know what.” That was true enough. I needed to figure out what was wrong with my horn, and it would have been great to get it fixed. “Then again, it isn’t up to me alone. Princess Twilight will have much more say about my lessons than me.”

Finally, there came the question that I had hoped wouldn’t be asked.

“Why should we trust you?”

That was a really good question. Why should they trust me? All three of them had a reason to believe the worst in me. Princess Twilight, had the biggest reason. But I suppose that was also why the others should have forgiven me as well. Maybe I should use that. Yeah, that made perfect sense. I was going to bring up the fact that Princess Twilight forgave me to try to make sure that her brother did as well. “To be honest with you, I’m not exactly sure how to answer that question. I mean, I thought that Princess Twilight would have been the most angry.

But she isn’t.

Instead, she’s the one who went down there to make sure I was okay. She spoke with me, saw how I was doing, and she’s the one who asked for me to be her student.” One of those wasn’t true, and it was the part that was saving me. “I can say that I’ve seen the error of my ways, and that’s true, but you can’t know what for certain. I just hope that you trust her as much as she obviously trusts me.” She did trust me to help with her lie, after all. Oh, and I wonder why she didn’t spring this whole student thing onto me before now. I really wasn’t ready for that. I was able to go with it, though, which was definitely good.

“You’ve given us a lot to think about, Miss Shimmer.” Princess Cadance said, finally breaking the tension. “But for now, let’s enjoy our meals.”

It was a shame that after the meal, which was excellent in my opinion, I was taken back to the cell. I knew that it made sense. Even if I was going to be let out tomorrow, I needed to be held here tonight. Tomorrow, that was when the decision was going to be made. Princess Twilight seemed to have some sway here, but even she likely couldn’t make them trust me to not try to escape if given the chance.