What an unholy change to her once kind and friendly face: now upside down and strangely shadowed, ringed around with blood already dry and flaking. Shady Sands, our overmare, lying dead behind her desk. Like a dropped object, lying there. As I looked down at the familiar features of the corpse, our Stable’s nightly prayer service was still ongoing, somewhere deeper down. I could almost hear the choirs’ voices still, and I wondered: had all our prayers and recitations to the Princesses been to prepare us each for this: the likes of such a sudden, painful test. Just the fact that our loved ones die, and die in front of us.

Oh, Luna if this is a dream: make it easier on me, please. Give me some air. But if this were a dream, how could such acute pain not have startled me awake? Instead I stood there, wracked with it.

In my life, I had never seen so much as a shaft of sunlight. But I had studied descriptions of it, from Equestria's heyday. Now in my mind’s eye I could see Shady Sands’ face in sunlight, as comfort against the pain, repairing at least in memory the sickening angle at which her actual head was cocked backwards, here. Repairing the slackness of her mouth, and her fixed, unblinking eyes, and the hole at the center of her forehead.

Luna, if it be your will, I will bear this anguish nightly: only let it be a dream. I brought my tearful face down close to the body's, to nuzzle it – despite the smell and staring eyes, I brought my face down to it. And when I touched my cheek to hers in greeting, mine came away stained, and had felt no warmth at all.

I’ll never know how long I stood there in her office, or how many more times I prompted her body for some response, before the security officers came and took me away.

“Lemony Cream?” said the solicitor: a pegasus, speaking from the other side of the cell’s thick glass wall. “I’m your solicitor.” I could barely see him: my tearful, stained face was superimposed over his, in the glass.

“Now there’s no point denying it,” he said. “You’re being framed. There’s a hearing planned for the morning, but you won’t attend (they’ll argue you’re too dangerous, as a practicing unicorn). Of course, as your solicitor I’ll have a reasonable defense prepared, but it’s only to make the prosecution’s case seem stronger. Then, if all goes as planned, the jury will elect to exile you to the wastes...”

“A practicing unicorn?” I repeated, grasping for what little I could follow. “I don’t - I mean… I only brighten up the skylight a little, in the chapel.”

“It’s not a huge leap from faking natural light to starting fires,” the solicitor said. “Or that’s what they’ll argue, to keep you in here. Notice, you have no guards. You’re under confinement, you understand. Now our Stable's government has sent me here to make it clear that we have no personal grievances against you. You’re being framed, yes, but it’s only because (after much deliberation) you happened to be chosen as the Stable’s most expendable pony, efficiency-wise. It helps also, that you’ve been a close friend of the overmare’s. We’re going to argue it was a lover’s spat, I’m sorry to say, that drove you to kill her.”

I felt dizzy. My reflection squinted and sagged, inside his outline. “Then, she’s really gone…” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “She is. I’m sorry. In the last few months, strictly within government circles of course, the overmare had been pushing an agenda to open the Stable door, and evaluate the situation topside. She had missionary interests, too, as a member of your church. In fact, she was only pursuing this idea out of charitable feeling. Not for the Stable’s sake, but in the name of whatever sad unfortunates still inhabit the surface, in whatever remains of Equestria.. We couldn’t let it go any further, you understand. Much less become public…”

“You… murdered her?”

“Well, not me personally. I’m just your solicitor. We all have our parts to play. Yours, again I’m sorry to say, will be to take the fall for this. To bear the brunt of whatever’s out there, for all our sakes.”

I pressed my forehead to the cool glass wall between us, slumping forward. Any potential feelings in me of outrage or vengeful anger died pathetically, failing to hold themselves up. I didn’t have the strength. I shook, that’s all. I was trembling against the glass. I was reminded, and ashamed to think of, being in bed alone, touching myself. When, in the very moment after being gratified - after seeing pure sunlight - I would find myself back in the dark of my room, trembling. That’s how wracked and impotent I felt then.

He was saying: “Just think of it as bearing a burden for the rest of us here, safe inside. We’ll never have to open the Stable doors thanks to you, or let those terrors in. Your hard sacrifice will mean no one else has to suffer, you see? And isn’t that a bit like what your hymns describe the Holy Sisters and their Ministers doing – Luna and Celestia, Twilight and her friends, dying for our country’s sins? I admit I don’t attend services, but I can’t help overhearing…”

“I would have rather died for her, than all of you,” I said. “If I could have taken her place...”

“Well, we don’t always get to choose how we’re going to be of service. For one, do you think I especially wanted to be a solicitor? No. In fact, it was more my father’s decision than mine. And that reminds me… Another reason we arranged to have you walk in on the overmare, and get swept up in all this: your parents. Or, should I say, the lack thereof. Not that I’m saying you won’t be missed at all…”

“Please…” I said, closing my eyes. “This is torture.”

It didn’t matter what he said. She was gone. My dear friend, and more than that, unknown to them: the mare I thought of whenever I was asked to conjure sunlight. It was her all along. Shady Sands. Since the day my tutor told me, as an exercise in lighting a room, to think of my parents smiling down at me. And while he had stuttered and apologized, having forgotten that they were dead (my mother by disease, and my father by suicide soon after), while he continued to apologize, I thought of her. And ponies had poked their heads in at the tutor’s door, to see her sudden, natural light.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” I said.

“Far from it.” The solicitor said. “We’ve examined every possible outcome. As governing officials our duty is to this Stable first, and its overmare second. It is our responsibility, always, to control for pony error. She couldn’t be reasoned with, I promise you.”

I shook my head. I felt like vomiting. “You said you’re sending me out of here?” I asked. "Banishing me?"

“Well! You make it sound as if these are all my decisions. We’ve elected to, yes, if the jury goes our way. Just like we elected to remove the overmare from office, and more than that: to further ensure that there was no risk of protest or insurrection afterwards, on her part. We took a vote on all of this.”

“If you voted for it, you as good as did it,” I said. “So, send me out then, you coward. I can’t stay in here. You’ve as good as sucked out all the air I breathe.”

“It won’t be long, don’t worry,” he said. “A few days at the most, if the jury needs convincing.”

“If you have any feeling in you at all,” I said. “You’ll take me away from here. Tonight.”

“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.”

“I don’t think I’ll survive the night,” I said. “You remember, don’t you, how my father died? Or maybe you don’t. They say it was only grief, after my mother passed away. But who dies of that? I’ve heard instead that he stopped his own heart, casting a spell. That he reached in and gave the whole organ one good, firm turn, or just held onto it, and stopped its crucial work.”

“But you couldn’t do that…” the solicitor said. “That isn’t natural magic.”

“I could do as much, with what I have. In effect, at least. In effect even a pegasus like you could do as much as that, with these three walls. And I fear I would. This isn’t a threat. I’m afraid I will, if you leave me here. I see my grief. Like a panther pacing in this room with me, it’s here. But as hard as this is now: I know I want to live, and think of her again. I just don’t think I’ll make it, trapped in here.”

“We’ve all lost friends…” he started to say, but stopped at the sight of me laughing, just on the other side of the glass, laughing at that.

“You really don’t understand,” I said. “You’ve killed a part of me. You couldn’t have caused me any more pain than this. Why shouldn’t I ask you for a little mercy, now? If you have a conscience, you’ll take me away from here...”

He started to shake his head, almost fearfully. “Sneak me out, now, by night,” I said, pressing him. “If that’s the only way.” But now to my disgust, he started to move backwards toward the door of the far room. “Don’t you dare,” I said, but he kept going.

“You’ve done this to me,” I said. “And you can never deny it. You killed Shady Sands as sure as if you fired the gun. In fact, it’s worse: you did it from behind your desk, didn’t you, voting? As if you wouldn’t be fully responsible that way. As if you hadn’t made the exact same choice as a murderer, in the moment. You coward. I’d rather you were hanged for this in the end, than whoever you elected as your assassin…”

But somewhere in all this, he left me there.

I didn’t sleep that night. Lying on my back instead, staring up at the dark ceiling, I made a little light play over it, as gently as I could. The kind of light, from what I’d read, that might be reflected off of a steady, passing stream. Like soft laughter in the room, this light, to keep me company. I focused as much as I could on my breathing – on keeping my ragged breathing steady. I tried not to think, because all thinking strives toward decision, and there was only one decision left for me to make. To bear this pain, or not to.

Of this long wait, I remember this much: I never doubted Celestia, Luna, or their ministers. Of course, I knew they were real, and working in my heart - for I could never have felt such pain, without such love as theirs, expressed in me. Neither did I blame them for not intervening somehow. No, the solicitor and his unfeeling government had betrayed their trust as well as mine: going against the sisters’ explicit teachings, to all ponies, to love and befriend each other. Which holy teachings, I believe, are written in fire across every pony’s heart.

I didn’t hear the door open, when it did. I only felt the light change in my cell, and looking up I saw him there again. The solicitor. I could see him in more detail now and knew we must have spoken once, under friendlier circumstances. Just to say good morning, maybe. Naturally, I knew his face – prematurely aged by dark circles under the eyes, with the hair around his ears going wiry and grey: the cost of studying law.

“I’ve decided to let you out,” he said. “But once this is over, I’ll have to tell them you overpowered me and took me hostage. They’ll take that as strong evidence, of course, to your killing the overmare.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said, still on my back. “Tell them I did it. Tell them I said I did it. Celestia will forever know the truth, and Shady Sands too. She’s beyond your influence now, at least. And so will I be, any minute now, if you’d only open the cell door.”

“Now, you can’t hurt me once I do…” he said, as if it was a children’s game. “I have a pistol on me, and it's loaded. Besides: there’s a code to open the Stable doors, which you don’t know.”

“I couldn’t do a thing to hurt you, more than you’ve hurt yourself,” I said. “With what you’ve done.”

“You’re starting to make me regret coming…” he said.

“I should be grateful to you?”

He seemed to think this was fair, because after a moment he moved to open the cell door. On closer inspection, once the door was open, I could tell the solicitor had had no sleep that night either. He wore a red blanket over his shoulders, and from the condition of the pajamas underneath I guessed it had been a few hours, which would mean it was now almost morning.

His pistol was practically falling out of his shirt pocket, and I was tempted to lift it off of him (it looked about as heavy as I could manage, telekinetically). Still, in my heart of hearts, I was impressed that he’d come, and I wanted him to have this chance: uninterfered with, to follow his own conscience. Because that would mean, even in the face of what he’d done, that he had some kind of natural compassion. That the minsters, in other words, were still working in him, and that Fluttershy was close to us now, interceding in his clouded heart in the name of being kind.

Wasn’t that better than hating him? To think he had just made a mistake, and gone astray of his own, true heart. It was better, yes, to think that. But I hated him all the same. And if it weren’t for the code to the Stable door, I don’t know what I would have done to him if he frustrated me, even despite Fluttershy weeping.

In the early, unworldly hours of the morning, the Stable’s passages and stairways looked just as they now felt to me, with Shady Sands’ gone: lightless, and devoid of life. No quick, bright foals, moving past us on their way to school. No laughter to speak of. I didn’t care that I had to leave. What harm could leaving do me, now? What was this place, without wonder at all? Without excitement, and without the relief of seeing her, across a crowded room. To stay here without her, was as much as to go.

And I felt I really was in danger, as if the suicidal tendency was as much passed on as fair hair, from father to child. How I would live without her, I wasn’t sure. But I knew she would have wanted me to try.

“Wait,” I said to the solicitor, stopping at a door. “This is my room.”

“You can’t go in,” he said. “You can’t take your things with you. It wouldn’t add up. Tomorrow, they’d notice. And if you had really taken me hostage, would you really have risked stopping here? And if you had stopped, then why didn’t I take the chance to overpower you? Legally it’s too complicated: don’t go in.”

“I have no clothes on,” I said.

“Is that unusual?” said he. “Sure, I mean: you’re worried it’ll be cold on the surface. That’s a possibility. But we have to keep moving. I’ll give you this blanket, at the door. I’ll give you my gun and say you robbed me. Just let’s keep moving. It’s almost morning now.”

"I didn’t realize…” I said, carefully. I wasn’t about to argue. Given the urgency in his voice, I was afraid to see what would happen if he was pressed any further. “Let’s keep moving then.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, and carried on. I felt sorry for him, almost. Was this buck really capable of murder? And if not: then how could I blame him for it? He had to be a good liar, of course. How must he have he lied to himself when he cast his fatal vote? How had he gotten that past his own conscience? Had he known the full implication of what he did? Or was it just a fault in our system, making it so easy for a buck like him to become complicit? Maybe that was it, but I didn’t feel charitable enough to pursue that line of thinking.

Anyway, we were both startled then by the Stable’s PA system crackling on. It was just music first - strangely soft, and sad. The solicitor and I exchanged a look, and then continued on our hasty way.

“We speak to you this morning in the wake of great tragedy. It is my sorry duty to inform you that our overmare is dead. With a heavy heart, I repeat: Shady Sands is dead. Security officers apprehended her killer on the scene and, barring any contradictory evidence, we will be scheduling a hearing for the prisoner later this morning. Anyone with potentially relevant information is being asked to come forward. The smallest clue may help shorten the bitter span of these proceedings. We mean to waste no time in this case, and intend to exert the fullest force of the law - for Shady Sands, our overmare, whose light was put out too soon.”

“Celestia’s bones,” the solicitor said, with the clasp that held his blanket on still between his teeth. He had entered the code for the Stable door, and already it was humming into its heavy operation. At last, I helped him with the clasp, and then put on the blanket.

“You should keep the pajamas, I think,” I said. “Now, what about your pistol?”

“It’s still in my pocket,” he said, hesitating, as if he meant to refuse me now. But I could see the pistol. There, heavy in the left pocket A .45 automatic, for all I knew then. I had to lift it quickly out and float it overhead, so the solicitor couldn’t take it back.

“I’m not going to lie down and die out there,” I said, as he struggled for the gun. At last I cowed him back with it – not aiming, but holding it like a hammer over his head. “She wanted to open the doors, you told me. She had missionary interests. She had charitable feeling. Fine. Then let me do what I can, in that spirit. And let her be as close to me out there, as she was in here, alive. Let her be the motive force that makes my heart beat, for as long as it survives. Here in this hole meanwhile, you’ll never know her, or even ever know what you cost us all. Thank Luna for that at least. Because if you knew – if you could see the bright, child’s heart you as much as strangled in it happiest days, I don’t think you could bear the guilt.”

This would make the weeks ahead no easier on his conscience. I could have cracked him over the head with the pistol, I think, and hurt him much less in the long run. The announcement overhead had made us both nervous, and I spoke hastily to him then. Still, in the moment it didn’t seem to matter what I said.

“It needed doing,” he argued back. “If the overmare had made her ideas public it would only have been a matter of time. One day, the doors would have been opened, and let all the terrors of the wastes in. We tried to talk to her, believe me… but she wouldn’t listen. So, we did what needed doing. I can see it’s hard for you to understand. You were her friend. You have a bias.”

“I have a serious bias,” I said. “And so does Celestia, you coward. Against murderers. And in favor of friends-“

“Yes. Yes, I understand all that. But the door’s open now, so what are you arguing for? You can go, and that’s because of me, remember? I’m not against you all the way. I’ve brought you here, haven’t I?”

“You’ve brought me here,” I said, agreeing.

It seemed the door had rolled aside while we were arguing. Now the air in the room was different: moving strangely under me, and over me, pricking the tips of my ears: circulating. It made me that much more eager to leave. Outside was life again, I hoped, and freer circulation. Here was only death.

“I only hope it’s not as bad as they say, for your sake,” he said, as I moved to leave.

“For your sake, I hope it is. Or else you’ve soiled your conscience in vain, and helped no one.”

If he meant to answer me, he was interrupted by the PA system fuzzing on again, and so he moved instead to close the Stable door. Not to stop me, I don’t think, but to force me out. So, with the door groaning I went for it, while from overhead came the last familiar voice I would hear there, however unfriendly:

“Alert. Alert: this is an urgent emergency broadcast. Please return to your homes. I repeat: please return to your homes. The prisoner has escaped.”

Footnote: Level up!
Perk Added: Not in Our Stars, but in Ourselves: Examining a target shows hit points, weapon and ammunition count. Your initial assessments of non-player characters may also open unique dialogue options later on.