At least things didn’t go so bad last night. I was able to get Sunset to go along with my … my lie. It was a surprise how quickly she went into it, and how easily she continued with it. Then again, she probably would have said anything it helped to make sure that she wasn't being sent to jail. A lot of ponies would have said anything to ensure that they didn't go to jail. Regardless, the best part was that it sounded so natural. It sounded like the truth. I don’t think either Cadance or Shiny figured it out. I might have gotten away with it. Either that, or they knew the entire time and were waiting for me to have told them.

For the life of me, I couldn't stop staring at the ceiling. It wasn't the bed, this was the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in. I just couldn't get the idea out of my mind. Something told me that they knew, that they were going to come in here at any point and tell me that they knew. I looked over at a few bookcases, a small fraction of what was in the giant library outside of the palace, and yet I hadn't even gone there at all.

I had a few thoughts on my mind, and they were focused on the fact that I was still worried about the lie that I had told. It wasn't just the idea that I was probably going to get caught that stayed in my head, though. The fact that I had lied at all, that was bad.  I lied to them, two of the most important ponies in my life.. I knew that I did it for the right reason, but that didn't change the fact that I lied to them. If my brother ever figures out, he’ll be mad at me. If Cadance finds out, she’ll never want to see me again. And then they’ll tell Celestia, and she’ll be disappointed in me.

Part of me knew that worrying wasn't going to help me at all, though. “I need to go talk to Cadance, to see if they’ve decided anything.” I said to nopony, and quickly made my way toward the two ponies that had a huge decision to make regarding Sunset Shimmer.

“Well, this hasn't been quite as bad as I thought it would have been. I mean, worse than I had hoped with the whole cell thing, but ...” I looked out at the guards, and instantly noticed that they were new guards. Well, I doubted that they were new to the guard. It was possible, but I doubted it. No, the thing that I knew was true was that these weren't the guards that I had seen yesterday. These two seemed to be just as chatty as the other two, though, which meant that there wasn't going to me much conversation.

Not that I was really in much of a mood to talk anyway, I was busy trying to figure out what was going to happen. The two of them, Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor, had been more hospitable than I thought they would have been to a prisoner. It made a little sense that they were nicer to the pony that they thought was Princess Twilight's new student, but the meal had been something that just seemed extraordinary.

I doubted I had ever eaten things as delicious as some of them. Crystal berries, those were the things I likely was going to miss. If I was kept in jail, I wasn't likely going to get such a unique treat. If I was let go, I was likely not going to be around here anymore. Then again, I was going to have to come back when I needed to get to the mirror.

There was one thing that had been bothering me the whole night, though, and it wasn't the food.

Why had I been asked those questions? It seemed like they had been things that anypony with an ounce of sense could have answered. They certainly didn't seem like the type of questions that would have been asked if they had thought that I was a huge threat to anypony. If that was the case, that left the question of why they had been asked at all. Those types of questions had always confused me, even when Celestia had asked them while I had been her student. Why did ponies ask questions like that?

I didn't even know what I should have expected, really. I didn't know a lot about Princess Cadance, or Prince Shining Armor. I knew that the Prince was Twilight’s brother. I knew that I expected a lot worse than what happened, though. I got fed good food, really good food, and I got told that they have a lot to think about. This  hasn’t been so bad, it could have been a lot worse. The only potential bad was coming today, when I was going to be sentenced to whatever it was that they felt I deserved.

What was that going to be, though?

I was going to get punished, that much was more than obvious to me. The first possibility that I thought of, the one that I had been focused on the entire time, was jail time. For all I knew, it might have even been this jail cell right here. On a scale of one to ten, where ten was the best thing that could have happened, I'd have placed that as a six. It would have sucked, but there were worse punishments. Beyond that, though, it was impossible to know. I had heard, once, that a pony had gotten their horn chopped off for a magic related crime. That didn't seem likely, though. I didn't think I had done anything that bad.

And that certainly meant that execution, which hadn't been done for a long time, was completely out of the question.

It didn't seem to take much time at all, and I was standing outside of the room where my former foalsitter was. She was in the throne room, where she spent time to ensure that the crystal ponies were all heard. Actually, that was something that I was likely going to have to eventually do. I knew it wouldn't be with the crystal ponies, but there would likely have been ponies in Equestria that needed something from their newest princess.

My eyes moved around to try to find Shiny, he wasn't here.

Oh, right, the guard.

Many ponies assumed that a prince wouldn't be the one that helped train the guard, but this was different. Shiny was always a guard at heart, I just knew it. Not only that, but I knew that he was good at it. He was going to be able to teach them things that he had learned over the years working for Celestia. Part of me wanted to go check on him, it might have been good to learn something about how he was teaching his guards.

Of course, that wasn't a good idea, I was here for a reason.

It would have been nice if I had been able to put off asking. I knew that I was there to ask here, but the closer I got the more worried I got. The worst part was that there wasn't a pony there for me to use to take the focus off of me. The room was amazingly empty for day court, though I definitely had no idea if this was something normal for day court in the Crystal Empire.

“It’s good to see you, Twilight.” I noticed that Cadance's smile seemed to melt away as she looked at me. I had seen that look before, it was worry. She was worrying about me. There was only one thing that I had to wonder about, and that was why. Mane brushed? Check. Smile on my face? Check. Eyes weren't bulged out, or bloodshot, when I had looked in the mirror? Check. I didn't know a single reason that she might have been worried.

“Is something wrong, Twilight?”

That was not a question I wanted to answer honestly.

“Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Everything's just fine. In fact, it's better than fine. It's perfectly fine, good even.” There was something about the look, though, that told me she wasn't convinced. That only meant one thing. She knew. Shew knew I was worrying about the lie. That meant that she knew about the lie. She was probably just waiting for me to have told her. Then again, I couldn't tell her. Everything had gone so well the night before. They looked as though they had bought it, like everything was going to end  perfectly.

Now it won't.

I knew she wasn't an idiot. Cadance knew that I had lied to her, and she was going to make sure that I felt guilty until I told her.

“Is this about Sunset Shimmer?” Cadance let out a sigh. “I was going to wait until Shiny came in here, but I can’t just let you worry like this.” I was sure that she had known, though this could have still been part of the test. Cadance stood up from the throne, and cleared her throat. “On behalf of the Crystal Empire, I hereby outlaw Sunset Shimmer from ever stepping foot within the Crystal Empire ever again. She will be allowed to stay within the world of Equis on a single condition.” I noticed that she started to smile, which was definitely a good sign. I had to wonder what the condition was, though.

There weren't a lot of things that I thought Cadance would make Sunset Shimmer do. It couldn't be that bad. Maybe she has to get Princess Celestia’s forgiveness. That wouldn’t be so hard, her highness was really forgiving. My smile widened as I thought about that punishment.

“She is to stay within Ponyville, only to leave if she is accompanied by Princess Twilight Sparkle. Twilight will also be held responsible for her actions, as well as ensuring that she is able to integrate back into society.” That seemed strange. It wasn’t like Sunset will have that hard of a ti- Wait, wait, wait. She was under my care? She was my responsibility? I … I … I … didn't know what to say. It had been a lie that she was my student. I wasn't even sure what lessons I was supposed to be teaching her.  I knew it supposedly had to do with her integrating back into society, but I doubted that was going to hard,“And, of course, I’d love to hear about how Sunset’s lessons are going every once in a while. That isn’t part of her punishment, though.” Words could not describe how confused I was by all of this. It was only after Cadance stepped over to me that I got a piece of information that made it all make sense.

“I know you didn’t offer to make her your student.” Twilight heard whispered into her ear. “But I figured the best thing to do was to make it true. After all, Sunset Shimmer seemed to go along with it. And I’m sure you’ll make a great teacher.” All of that worry had been for nothing. Cadance had known all along, but she wasn't going to do anything with that knowledge. Well, she had given me my first student. That was technically something big, considering the fact that I hadn't even thought about the idea of having a student for a few years.

“Thank you, Cadance. I won’t let you down.” I had to wonder, though, what it would have meant to let her down anyway. Regardless, I had to go tell Sunset about the good-ish news. I didn't know how she was going to take it. As I left the room, I thought I heard the words '” know you won't”, but there was no way to be sure. Maybe she hadn't said anything at all, my focus had primarily been around the fact that I was going to get my new student out of the cell. She probably didn't want to be there any longer.

Those words, though, still hit me.

It was true that I hadn't actually chosen Sunset Shimmer as student, it was more of a forced arrangement. That didn't mean that this was going to be bad, though. It was always something that liked to do, teaching. I even tried to teach my friends, though sometimes I wondered if they really wanted to learn. I knew they did their best, but there were times when their focus seemed to be a little lacking. This was going to be different, though. I was going to have a student, and she was going to be forced to listen. The fact that she was going to have to stay with me at first, that just added to the potential lesson-time.

It also added names to a list, those that needed to be told. So far, there was Spike and Mayor Mare. I needed to let the others, my best friends, know as well. Then, since she likely wasn't going to stay with me forever, we needed to work on a place that she could stay at. I was sure that wouldn’t be too much trouble. If the worst happened, I was sure that I had some bits saved up to let her borrow.

Or maybe there was some sort of princess thing that I could have done. It wasn't that I liked taking advantage of a title, but that was a potential last-ditch effort.

Princess Twilight was in front of me with a huge smile on her face. Well, it looked like Princess Twilight, the giggle somewhat sounded like her, and the guards didn’t stop her. Logic dictated that this was, obviously, Princess Twilight. The fact that there was a smile obviously meant she wasn’t going to be forced to stay here for too long. That was my hope, anyway. Even if it was a jail sentence, maybe she had been able to talk it down to something a little shorter.

“Somepony looks happy.”

“Yes I am. Soon enough, you will be too.” To me, that sounded like a bad line from a sale pitch. The next few words were likely going to be about how all I needed to do was send one payment of twenty bits, or maybe even a few installments of ten or fifteen. Well, that was what would have been said if she was a bad salespony. I honestly doubted that she was, so I simply waited for the good news.“You’re not going to be spending any more time in that cell. In fact, you’re not allowed to ever be in this cell, or the Crystal Empire, ever again. You've been banished.”

Worse things had happened to me before. At this point, no downside was coming to mind. “Great, that means that I can go see my parents.”  I thought about chalking this up as a win, but that didn't seem strong enough. I was reminded of this thing that I had heard a few days before I had came back here. I thought about it for a moment, and the words had been 'super mega win'. I wondered why anyone would have said those words out loud, at least together. Even when I thought about those words, it made me cringe.

“However, that doesn’t mean you can go see your parents.” That quickly deflated that idea. “I’m afraid I’m going to be fairly busy in Ponyville for the next few weeks, and you’re going to be stuck there as my student. That’s … that’s the weirdest part of your punishment, I have to admit.” A couple of blinks later, I still didn’t know what had just happened. I wasn’t going to stay in jail, I wasn’t going to be allowed to come back to the Empire, and I wasn’t going to be allowed to venture on her own anymore. Seriously, I had no clue what to make of this.

Who punished people by forcing them to be a student? Wasn’t that illegal? It was probably not illegal, but it was still the weirdest thing I think I had ever heard of.  “Well, I suppose there’s no use sitting around here. I hope your friends are as forgiving as you are … teacher.”