Ice awoke to the tangerine radiance of the setting Sun framing her dark curtains with a fiery glow. She lay in bed, enjoying that brief moment between sleep and full wakefulness when nothing in the real world matters. But as always, that moment was fleeting, and quickly snuffed out like the flame of a candle with a cover placed on top of it. Then, the problems of her waking world assaulted her once again. It had been the same for the last few days now, and she had fallen into a repetitive routine, like she were caught in some kind of time loop and living the same suspense-filled day and night over and over again.

She climbed out of bed, going to her dresser and quickly running a brush through her mane and tail, working the tangles out, as she'd done first thing after waking up for the last several days. She wished she could work her frustration out the same way she could the snarls. The specter of the case loomed over her like a menacing cloud. Everything now depended on what the girl she'd brought back told Doctor Fjord.

Ice had heard nothing from Doctor Fjord, and a strong part of her wanted to contact the doctor and put pressure on her to hurry up and get answers out of the girl. But that would be a really bad idea. Ice had learned interrogation tactics in Bat Team Alpha. But the girl wasn't a captured enemy that she could interrogate for strategic or tactical information like she had done with captured American soldiers during the war. Nor was the girl someone she could question like a prisoner suspected of a crime. Instead, the girl was a victim of a horrible crime herself. One of the worst crimes it was possible to commit under the Uniform Code of Pony Justice. She could not be coerced into talking. She'd have to open up on her own time and talk when she was ready to talk. Putting pressure on Doctor Fjord to speed things up would do no good. Not only would Fjord refuse to do so, but she would likely rebuke Ice harshly for even trying to get her to pressure the girl. And she'd be in the right for doing so. Ice was no psychiatrist, especially not of colts and fillies … well, in this case children. But she knew enough to know that you couldn't pressure a sexual abuse victim into telling their story. Doing so would only traumatize the victim further, especially if the victim was young. Ice, the prisoners, and Reid would all just have to wait until the girl was ready to talk. The best thing Ice could do was to stay out of it and just let Doctor Fjord do her job. Fjord would contact her when she had information worth sharing. Ice took solace in knowing that Reid was probably biting his fingernails in suspense just as much as she was biting her hooves.

Thinking of her desire to torment Reid made her frown. Not because she had any love for Reid, but because she wondered if she had actually made any progress in her healing process and overcoming her hatred of humans. She no longer hated the prisoners in the dungeon. No longer wished to punish them for something that had happened to her twenty years ago and for which they had played no part in. But had she simply shifted her hatred and desire for revenge onto Reid? Was he her new whipping boy? After thinking about it for a moment, she decided he was not. It was true that her initial dislike of Reid had been for no other reason than that he was human. It was also true that she'd nitpicked for reasons to justify her hatred of him, such as taking offense at minor issues during their discussions, or taking various statements as attacks against her knowledge and education. She still disliked him, but not for those same reasons. Now, it was because she saw him as a perversion of justice. He'd lied to her. Withheld evidence from her. He'd even borderline falsified official government documents when he'd sent her the personnel files and had the information about the prisoners' medals removed. She felt sick knowing that she'd almost allowed herself to become a perversion of justice herself, without even realizing she'd been doing it.

Ironically, both she and Reid had originally started out with the same goals: Both of them had wanted to punish the prisoners. She had wanted to do it for personal reasons, and he … well, she couldn't pretend to know his motives, but if Duncan's story was true, then he wanted to do it probably under the directive of the Judge Advocate General himself, to convince the Afghans that the Americans weren't imperialist invaders trying to force their own culture on to Afghanistan. It was also possible that Reid really did believe the prisoners were guilty of cold-blooded murder, or that they had acted on rumor and sniped off an innocent man, thus appointing themselves judge, jury, and executioner of a kangaroo court.

Or perhaps the man really was the child rapist that Duncan claimed he was, and Reid, as an agent of the law, simply believed there was no place for vigilantism in any kind of civilized society. Until a few days ago, Ice would have agreed completely with Reid on that. After all, she was an agent of the law as well. Civilized society depended on due process, and making sure everyone was treated equally and given a fair shot at defending themselves against accusations of a crime. That due process was at the very heart of everything Ice's own department was built on. It's why her job, and the courts, existed at all. Furthermore, all forms of vigilantism were strictly forbidden under the Uniform Code of Pony Justice. Until a few days ago, that hadn't mattered because she'd been operating on the assumption that this was a case of justifiable use of lethal force to protect a filly (child in this case) from immediate threat of death or serious harm. But the nature of the killing, the fact that the man had been sniped with a fifty cal from fifteen hundred yards away had blown that argument out the window. At best, this was now a clear cut case of vigilantism.

So why was she still defending the prisoners? Why was she willing to make an exception to the very cornerstone that civilized, law-abiding society was built on if it wasn't just out of some petty desire to screw over Reid? It was, she decided, because she could sympathize with the prisoners. After all, she had wanted to do the same thing. When she'd seen the girl shackled to the bed, seen the pitiful condition she was in, she'd found herself hoping that the Afghan police chief would step into the room. She had wanted to kill him. To tear his throat from the front of his neck. To spill his lifeblood and feel its warmth running down her fangs and spurting into her mouth, coating her tongue with its iron-like taste. No colt, filly, or human child for that matter should have to suffer what that girl had suffered. No child who had suffered it should be denied justice. And no child would be denied justice if there was anything she could do about it. She was an official Agent of Justice of the Crystal Empire. And no child who was suffering such horrific abuse would continue to suffer under her watch, no matter what it took to stop it. Uniform code of Pony justice be damned. What was the point of a justice system anyway, if not to protect innocent young ones from the monsters of society? Wasn't that one of the most important and sacred duties of an agent of justice? To protect those who were too weak to protect themselves?

A clatter brought her out of her contemplations as the brush slipped out of her fetlock joint, hit the floor, and bounced once before coming to a stop. Apparently, she'd been idly running it through the same section of her mane over and over again the entire time she'd been ruminating. She picked it up, placed it on the dresser, glancing at herself in the mirror one more time before standing up and going to the closet, picking up the one saddle pad she still owned. She really should go shopping, but she couldn't take her mind off the case long enough to focus on something like buying clothes. The one saddle pad was becoming a liability, though. It was still volcano levels of hot outside, and Celestia's blazing sun beating down on the black saddle pad caused her to sweat underneath it. She had to wash it every night, and it never had time to fully dry by the next morning. That she was putting it on every morning while it was still wet certainly wasn't helping the situation.

But why continue to wear it at all? She'd always known that as a thestral, she wasn't fooling anypony into believing she was an earth pony. The saddle pad had always been for her own peace of mind, preventing her wide peripheral vision from seeing where her wings used to be. It had been like a foal's security blanket that she had thought was protecting her from painful memories. But now, she knew that it had really been a ball-and-chain. A harness that had been keeping her tied to those painful memories. Chaining her to her past and preventing her from moving forward. It had to go.

With great trepidation, she picked it up in her mouth and walked towards the bathroom. She leaned over the dirty clothes hamper, but then stopped. If she put it in there, the temptation would be there to retrieve it and start wearing it again. She turned around, carrying it into the kitchen, stopping at the trashcan. She pushed the pedal with her forehoof, opening the lid and leaning over it. Again, she hesitated. She knew now that her relationship with the saddle pads had been an abusive one. A relationship with a partner that had given the illusion of security and protection, but in reality had only kept her chained and stopped her from moving on with her life. But she'd lived that way for so long, that it was the only life she knew. Parting with the saddle pad was like parting with an old friend. Walking out the door without wearing it would be like leaving all her doors open, making her vulnerable and unprotected. No, that was the illusion. The saddle pads only provided the illusion of protection. With a light wince, she opened her jaws, letting the pad fall into the trash, then quickly took her forehoof off the pedal, letting the lid slam shut with a clang, as if somehow that would lock the saddle pad inside the container, sealing it away forever. Before she could reconsider, she turned away from the trashcan, making a mental note to place the bag out in the hall before she left for her office so that the sanitation pony would collect it while she was gone, eliminating any temptation to fish it out of the trash after she got home. Hoity Toity would have been right. The plain, black garments were repulsive anyway.

She filled a kettle of water and put it on the stove, then poured herself a bowl of shredded oat straw. She turned her attention towards the case as she waited for the water to boil.

Even if the girl could implicate the dead militia commander as a child rapist, which was the best case scenario as far as vindicating the human prisoners was concerned, the new developments created two serious obstacles for her. The first, as she'd thought on earlier, was that vigilantism was clearly forbidden under all circumstances by the Uniform Code of Pony Justice, as well as by Crystal Empire law. However, there was one potential loophole. Princess Cadance, as the ruling monarch of the Crystal Empire, did have the absolute and unrestricted authority to wave any law in either the Uniform Code, or Crystal Empire code. That was seen by some advocates of democracy as a critical flaw in the pony legal process. They argued that it gave the monarchs a free pass to completely ignore the law whenever it suited their purposes, thus effectively placing the Princesses above the law. However, Ice thought it was for just such extraordinary circumstances as the one she was faced with now that such authority to wave any law existed. Some criminal matters were so unique that they simply couldn't be pigeonholed into codified law, especially when dealing with crimes that crossed international borders. Assuming Duncan's story checked out, Ice planned to argue to Cadance that this was a perfect example of where she should invoke her unlimited authority as a monarch to wave the law.

The second hurdle was going to be harder to overcome. As much as she hated to admit it, The American military's reasoning as presented by Duncan was a valid argument that presented a difficult legal question: Does one civilization ever have a legal, moral, or ethical right to force their cultural values onto another civilization? There was no easy legal answer to that question. And given the actions of the prisoners were not sanctioned by their own government anyway, it wasn't an exactly equivalent situation. However, if she were going to find any kind of legal precedence, that was probably the closest she was going to get.

The tea kettle began to chirp like a bird, the sounds growing into a steady whistle as the water reached a boil. Ice turned off the stove, then poured the boiling water over the oat straw, the steam bringing the sweet, grainy aroma to her nostrils. She carried it over to the table and set it down, then sat on her haunches, idly stirring the mixture while waiting for it to cool.

Normally, it didn't take her this long to get ready for work. But she'd been stalling for the last few days, she admitted to herself. For all that she wanted to contact Doctor Fjord and put pressure on her to hurry up and find out what the girl knew, she also dreaded finding out. She went to work each day dreading finding Fjord's report on her desk, wondering if it would be the death knell to her case. She wanted answers, and yet she didn't, like a patient wanting to know whether they have some serious disease, but avoiding their doctor out of fear that they might not like the answer. Every day was another day closer to getting the answer she hoped for, or dreaded.

She tested the steaming oat straw. It was still too hot to eat. She swirled it around some more, her thoughts turning to the reporters that she knew would be waiting to greet her outside of her office, once again hounding her for a story she wouldn't, and couldn't give them. Not yet. They were another reason she was worrying herself sick over this case. Yes, everything she'd thought about earlier regarding Reid being a perversion of justice, and her empathizing with the human prisoners because she herself had wanted to kill the police chief in one of the most violent ways possible was true. But there was another, more selfish reason at work too. In the grand scheme of things, this was just a murder case involving a few suspects and a single victim. But it was a murder case that had international attention. Shining Armor had said that human news agencies with names like CNN, and Fox News, and BBC were all clamoring to get press passes. Right now, Ice was just a disabled war vet from a war that most ponies and humans wanted to forget about. She was a nopony. But by the time this case was over, the entire world would know who she was. Princess Cadance herself would judge this case. Among the humans, presidents, kings, and prime ministers would be watching. Her global reputation was on the line. And it wasn't just the human prisoners that were on trial here. The global reputation of the Crystal Empire's entire justice system was on trial. By extension, that also meant the reputation of the Equestrian justice system was also on trial given that the Crystal Empire's justice system was modeled after Equestria's. Ice herself had helped to build it after transferring here from Equestria.

She tested the oat straw again, finding it had cooled enough. She ate it quickly, then took the bowl over the sink and started to wash it. You're stalling again, Ice, she told herself. You can wash the dishes when you get home. The ominous threat of getting bad news from Doctor Fjord wasn't the only reason she was stalling, she realized. She was also nervous about showing up at work without wearing a saddle pad. Despite the fact that she knew she had never been fooling anypony there, she suspected her change in attire would draw attention and probably elicit comments that were no doubt intended to be good-natured and supportive, but which would be awkward and uncomfortable just the same. Nevertheless, she forced herself to leave the bowl for later, and left her apartment, grabbing the bag from the trashcan first and setting it outside the door. Then she stepped outside and made her way to her office, Celestia's Sun already well below the horizon.

She arrived to the usual cacophony of reporters rushing towards her, surrounding her like a pack of excited dogs rushing their master, slobbering and drooling and begging for a treat. Down boys, down girls, Ice was tempted to say. The thought made her smile and chuckle inside. She had no treats for them, and told them so. Hooves, talons, and paws all walked away, their owners like sad puppies with their tails between their legs. At least there were no human feet. Not yet anyway. She suspected there would be, though. Shining Armor had hinted during their debriefing that it was likely Cadance would eventually grant press passes to at least some human news agencies.

She entered the building, pushing the door shut and leaving the rabid wolves outside. The halls were deserted, not surprising given how late in the evening it was. So her stalling tactics had worked on that end, then. At least she'd be able to avoid the stares and well-intentioned gaffs of ponies commenting about her lack of a saddle pad. But when she entered her own department's suite, a sapphire colored unicorn mare with a sea-green mane and tail looked at her, her hazel eyes doing a double take.

"Ice! It's … good to see you finally decided to stop wearing those hideous saddle pads." As soon a she's said it, the mare's tail twitched nervously, a blush of embarrassment covering her muzzle.

"Yeah … I finally saw a wardrobe counselor," was all Ice said in response as she continued to her office, rolling her eyes once she had walked past the mare. Somehow, insulting Ice's taste in fashion didn't seem like the best way to complement her for finally having the courage to show up at work without wearing the saddle pad. But there was no reason to point that out. The mare's clumsy expression made it clear she already knew.

Ice stepped into her office and immediately forgot all about saddle pads and the mare's lack of tact. Sitting on her desk, was a manila folder from Doctor Fjord. Her heart raced as she closed the door and walked behind her desk, sitting down on her haunches and staring at the folder for a few seconds as if she were terrified it would explode in her face if she touched it. A feeling of disgust filled her. Here she was, a former commander in Bat Team Alpha, who had lead some of the most dangerous missions of the war. She'd infiltrated deep into enemy territory, been in firefights, and taken a serious war injury. And yet, she was afraid of a paper folder. She reached out with a forehoof, slowly pushing it under the cover of the folder as if she were afraid it would bite her if she moved too quickly. The cover reached the vertical point, then yielded to gravity, flopping over on the desk and leaving the cover letter exposed to her gaze. That feeling of looking at a doctor's report that might contain a terminal diagnosis come over her again as she began to read.

FROM: Doctor Sigmare Fjord

TO: Agent Ice Moon

I've finished my interview of the girl you brought from Afghanistan. It took two days to get her to open up at all. She wouldn't even tell me her name. But once I earned her trust and she started to talk, it was like a flood gate had opened. She wanted to tell me everything.

Her given name is Asalah, although she states that the police chief, whose name is Parviz, rarely called her by her real name, and instead used various insulting pet names for her (detailed in my full interview report.)

Two days after her 12th birthday, she was raped by Parviz. Parviz spent less than one day in a local jail and after being released, a local religious authority issued an order forcing her to marry him. Unfortunately, she does not know the name of the person who issued the order, or whether he was coerced into issuing the order. After the marriage, she was forcefully taken from her father and made to live with Parviz.

Asalah stated that whenever Parviz was away from his house, he kept her chained to the bed in the room where you found her. Often times, he kept her chained even when he was home. She stated that he rarely paid any attention to her except when he wanted sex. During those times, he would force it on her. Asalah was very traumatized by these incidents and it took her some time to talk about them, but eventually she told me what happened in graphic detail. I have no doubt that everything she said happened to her is true, since no child could invent such heinous scenarios as were inflicted on her. I have spared you the graphics, however, if they are necessary to your case, we can discuss them. I would strongly suggest that you refrain from eating before we do, though.

Ice's lips curled involuntarily, her gleaming fangs showing. She narrowed her steel blue eyes as her anger at the police chief, who she now had a name for, bubbled to the surface again. With the anger, came the desire to end his life. Once again, she found herself empathizing with the human prisoners if Duncan's story were true. She continued reading the letter.

I'm afraid, however, that Asalah was unable to confirm that the militia commander himself was involved in any sexual abuse or rape of children. Although she was able to confirm that Parviz was good friends with the now deceased militia commander, and that she routinely heard the two of them talking downstairs when she was chained to the bed, she stated that the commander had never actually done anything abusive to her. She also stated that she had never heard the two of them talking about anything that would indicate the commander was involved in any of these activities.

"Luna damn it!" Ice burst out. Anger, despair, frustration, disgust, hopelessness, all blasted from her in a single ball of tangled emotions, like a projectile shot from a cannon. That was it. The girl had been the last move she had to play in this case. Now, she was out of cards. All of the feeling had fired out of her in that single blast. Now, she just stared at the letter on her desk, her expression blank. She felt as if she'd injected herself with an entire bottle of emotional morphine. There was no anger, no sadness, no frustration. Only impassive numbness. Next Chapter: XVII Estimated time remaining: 42 Minutes