On Friday, September 4th, Equestrian hero and Carne Den owner Yang Xiao Long went into a state of shock when her shower water went from scalding hot to nearly freezing. If it weren’t for the actions of the Carne Den’s co-owner Gilda and accountant Brew Binary, she may have wound up in Ponyville General Hospital with a severe case of hypothermia.

Court documents from the 9th indicate that the cause of the change in water temperature was a result of two unicorns working for a government entity known as the Home Operations Measurement Enclave, or H.O.M.E. The unicorns who carried out the act, Cinnamon Roll and Window Frame, used a lock and key pair of spells to make Yang Xiao Long’s hot water turn frigid cold. “We don’t like what we did” Cinnamon Roll told the Canterlot Times in an interview. “But at the time, we had no other choice. We thought that, if it wasn’t us that did it, some other team would do it and not leave a letter with the forms like we did.”

During the trial, held under the authority of Princess Twilight Sparkle, H.O.M.E. was revealed to have only officially existed as a government entity for a month, and its existence was kept quiet until the events leading to the trial. Its stated purpose was to ensure safety in homes, but it also had the authority to take action directly in order to rectify any reported problems, whether with the actual structure or with the residents of the home. The reason given to H.O.M.E. was an anonymous report of Yang Xiao Long using scalding hot water to burn foals. An investigation of hospital records and inquiries of the local populace, done by the Canterlot Times, brought up no records of foals in Ponyville getting burned at any point during Yang Xiao Long’s five months in Equestria.

At the end of the trial, it came to light that Sir Safehouse of the Canterlot Council was the one who started H.O.M.E., bribed three of its inspectors to stay home during the period of time when Yang Xiao Long’s house was under their investigation, recommended a particular inspector for inspecting the lock and key spells, and delivered the anonymous letter to H.O.M.E. Princess Twilight Sparkle has stated that the ponies working for H.O.M.E. shall not be punished, as the loss of their jobs is hard enough and they were not actively or intentionally harming anyone. Sir Safehouse, for the revelations of bribery of government officials and interference with government processes, will be punished as soon as he can be removed from his safehouse. It is widely believed by the staff of the Canterlot Times that he also was the one who orchestrated what happened to Yang Xiao Long.

Yang Xiao Long had this to say about H.O.M.E.: “Obviously, I don’t like that organization for what they did to me, but aside from that, I still don’t like them. It’s like they think we’re too stupid to know how to safely live our lives, but that’s wrong. We are smart enough to know how to go about our lives without their oversight and their premise of safety is simply a way to force people to behave in certain ways. If they were to tell people how to build buildings, then buildings would become more expensive due to how much extra it would cost to meet their codes, and any that already exist might need renovations to meet those codes as well, also expensive. It’s just not good for anyone.”

Princess Twilight Sparkle was asked about H.O.M.E. as well: “It was a vestigial government body not approved or known by any of the Princesses, and intruded upon the sanctity of individual freedoms and responsibilities. Additionally, due to environmental and cultural differences, the same building and safety standards can’t be applied everywhere equally, nor should they ever be in the first place. Building a house in Ponyville is very different from building one in Canterlot, Los Pegasus, or Cloudsdale.”

The Princesses, in the wake of this case, have started looking at various other crown funded entities and evaluating whether or not they are at all necessary to keep. According to them, it’s a process that could take several months to fully sort out, and have taken two sessions of the Lunar and Solar Courts out of each week to help expedite their evaluations until it’s done, leaving four sessions of each per week.

Author's Notes:

I'm sure Discord is loving what's happening with Yang causing all this chaos. Anyways, this is the finale of this arc. Onwards to more stuff!