Many of the cases which reached Sex Court rose from experimentation: physical, social, and magical. Having the district include the capital tended to make the last category somewhat more complicated.

The capital had the Gifted School.

Those few among its graduates who didn't struggle to get through all the stages of a relationship required to reach the bedroom still tended to encounter some issues in explaining exactly what they'd come up with for use within it. This was especially true when it came to detailing What Probably Went Wrong -- and, for them, the equally-important detail of Why I'm Almost Certain I Can Make It Work Next Time. Additionally, the ones who could make some attempt at spelling out their -- spells -- were Gifted School graduates and therefore, most of their explanations emerged in Academic. It was a language which had once possessed a faint relationship with Equestrian, but the two weren't currently on speaking terms and skilled translators were hard to come by.

So, as with other courtrooms, both sides were allowed to retain the service of expert witnesses: those who had special proficiency in a category and possessed some faint chance of explaining it to the public. They spoke from the brain, because some of them genuinely didn't remember that a heart was supposed to be involved. A few managed to include diagrams. Live demonstrations were occasionally necessary, and the first few rows of spectator seating existed under a permanent reminder that they might get wet.

This particular expert witness had been in the courtroom a few times before. It had allowed Judge Heartstopper to discover that having the full credentials openly recited simply took too long. Passing out cards to let ponies read them over wasn't an improvement, because the options for doing that were either a card roughly twice the size of the expert's body or a one-point font: either way, getting through the whole thing was going to take a while and produce significant eyestrain.

It had once taken quite a bit of time to properly recognize this expert, especially if the other side decided to challenge any of the details. (They generally didn't, because it was a rare intellect which would risk any attempt to deadhaul that much vocabulary.) But she'd experienced a certain change in her life and once that had happened, all that was required for credentialing was to introduce her by name. Everypony nodded, the mare took her bench in the witness area, and the really long part began: waiting for her to finish talking.

The mare usually wasn't entirely comfortable with the subject matter. But she wasn't going to pass up an issued invitation to lecture.

"-- so when you look at how the spell was modified, you can see how it's ultimately about getting nerves to fire more often! Without the usual recovery delay, because you'd hardly expect some kinds of nerves to fire all the time." She paused. "Except for the ones which do. Like pain nerves. It's funny how that works, isn't it? That pain can be constant, and some kinds of pleasure aren't? Except that maybe there is a delay, and it's just so small that we can't measure it --"

The judge took a very audible breath.

"-- anyway," the expert witness not-at-all smoothly recovered, "this was clearly about a temporary modification to the pudendal nerve. More firings, more sensations, and more..." Her volume dropped into the realm of the near-whisper, because she only found the magical aspects comfortable and the rest was frequently perceived as being something of a side effect. "...orgasms. But as an experimental working -- and one which really should have gone through a few more trials before being tested on ponies, let me tell you! -- it didn't quite operate as the caster planned. There were a lot of nerves firing, yes. But the somatosensory cortex got involved. And once that happens..."

She paused. The gallery desperately scavenged the remaining oxygen.

"Of course the pony on the receiving end is going to laugh," the expert said. "Her brain thought she was being tickled. So she laughed. Now, when it comes to her inability to stop, that was clearly the fault of --"

"OBJECTION!"

The mare's eyes narrowed.

"You can't object," she stated -- but the tones were a little uncertain. "You're not even the lawyer --"

"She can object," Judge Heartstopper corrected. "An expert witness, for either the plaintiff or defendant, may object to testimony in circumstances when the attorney would not know to do so. You've done that yourself. That's why she was hired, and it is her right to speak."

A little desperately, "But it's her --"

The judge shook her head, and the witness fell silent. A gaze of steel moved to the opposing bench.

"And what is the objection?" Impassi inquired.

The blue unicorn mare took a deep breath, and the streaked tail slowly swayed.

"I object to her being used as an expert."

The witness awkwardly shifted on her bench. Purple eyes were now mostly visible through tiny slits.

"Her credentials for magic," said an older mare who already felt she knew where it was all going, "have been more than established."

"For magic," Trixie Lulamoon agreed. "But what would Twilight Sparkle know about having sex?"

Eyelids shot open. Wings flared out. A touch of corona began to dance on the end of the horn.

"I understand more theory than you ever will," the alicorn angrily stated. "I've published twice your number of papers. Maybe three, since I had a free hour yesterday --"

"-- which you obviously weren't going to spend with anypony," Trixie snidely interrupted. "Curled up with a cold inkwell, instead of a nice warm body --"

"-- you're only here because your side couldn't get anypony else," Twilight snapped. "Or afford them. Everypony knows you work cheap. Cheap stage, cheap caravan, cheap hat --"

"-- cheap wings --" Trixie casually said.

The flared limbs froze. The gallery waited.

Trixie hummed to herself. It was a few bars of a classic foal's tune, and it was seldom hummed in public because somepony had figured out that the syllable count of 'She's an adult virgin' exactly matched the tempo and after that, the followup ya-ta-ta-ta-TA-ta-da! had more or less been lost forever.

The alicorn's wings slammed inward.

"So you're saying I don't know anything about sex."

With open sarcasm, "Nothing everypony in the world doesn't know. Maybe less --"

Furiously, "-- it's like two hours ago in the waiting area never happened!"

The five seconds of utter silence which followed largely represented the time required for the gallery occupants to fully review the privacy contract attached to their tickets.

The plaintiff froze. The defendant desperately wished to be anywhere else. The attorneys independently planned to get a drink together after this, because it was going to take a lot of alcohol to wash all of the memories away. And the judge, who'd been there before, expertly remained silent.

"Well," Trixie calmly proposed, "maybe if you'd bothered to adjust your position."

"Maybe if you had some rhythm to your flow."

"Maybe if you could have bothered to check the lumen output on your corona before you tried that last casting..."

The expert witness did her best to spin in place while resting upon a plush bench, and came within a 90% error margin of making it.

"Your Honor," the alicorn furiously said, "I'd like to request a recess. So I can speak with the other -- 'expert'. And straighten out my credentials."

"Whatever," Trixie shrugged. "I don't mind. If straightening them out is even possible. Which it probably isn't." And glanced up at the more elevated bench. "Your Honor?"

"Recess declared," the judge neutrally said. "Use an arbitration room. We'll resume when you're both done."

Twilight angrily jumped down and stomped her way out of the courtroom. Trixie, whose trot had more of a false geniality, steadily followed. The gallery looked collectively uncertain. And the bailiff turned to the judge.

"I need some idea of how long we're going to be out of session," the bailiff half-whispered. "So does the gallery. So we can call everypony back in more or less on time. Can I get an estimate?"

Impassi nodded, and then carefully considered all of the factors and parties involved. Something which included an impressively dismal amount of evaluation based on Previous Courtroom Experience.

"Hate Fuck Break," the judge formally announced, and the gallery occupants began to stand and stretch. "We're back in fifty."

Next Chapter: It's Not A Spur-Of-The-Moment Decision Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes