Some cases could be almost mercifully quick.

"So I thought, it's our first time together, I want to make this special, and what's more romantic than a bed covered with roses? It's beautiful, we can wash off any stains together after, if we get hungry then I've put a snack right there...."

"Your first time together."

"Yes."

"And your first time with an earth pony. Ever."

"...yes. I... guess it was going well if... that. All of... that."

"And you are asking for...?"

"Medical expenses to cover treating the wounds from spontaneously-growing thorns would be nice."

---

Interspecies relationships were complicated -- but they were also rare. Unions between the pony races were decidedly more common, and that state mostly meant that the associated problems cropped up with increased frequency.

Everypony was just a little bit strange to everypony else. Very few unicorns understood the drive of the physical -- but that was how earth ponies lived. Pegasi... those who had been raised with other ponies tended to understand the majority. But there were airheads and stone foals: the ones born in the clouds, for whom 'ground' was the most foreign country which could possibly exist, and you didn't visit it for long because nothing made any sense. Plus you were a lot closer to the source of gravity and there was every chance that it might get you.

They had to find ways to reconcile. Live together. Love each other.

And when that last factor became especially complicated, it tended to wind up in Sex Court.

---

The pegasus at the plaintiff's station was rather pretty. Her coat was the streaked grey-white of a cloud which was moving towards storm, and the mane shifted through all the hues of sunrise. She was sleek, well-styled, and hadn't stopped blushing since the moment she'd come through the doors.

"So we'd been dating for a while," she radiated on waves of hot embarrassment. "And we'd taken it further. But it was always at his place. Because I've got a little apartment in the Ring, and... he's an earth pony..."

Black eyes completely, and visibly, failed to dart towards the defendant's post.

"So you were in one of the few cloud structures on Canterlot's border," Judge Heartstopper prompted.

"It's all I could afford," Crystal Fractus blushed. "And I just came in from Stratuston last year. It's strange enough, just... being in the capital. Seeing so many earth ponies and unicorns every day, and not just as tourists who don't want to stray too far from the wooden safety platforms because they're afraid their cloudwalking spells will start to wear off. Dating them..." Her wings flared out slightly, slowly tucked back in.

The judge waited. Expertly.

A little more softly, "I just wanted... one familiar thing. Someplace I could go at night, when the day had been too strange. And I was already dating Gibber, and..."

The defendant said nothing. He didn't move. He didn't twitch.

Or perhaps he had. Nopony could really tell.

"...I kept going to him," Crystal quietly said. "I wanted him... to see my world. A little of it. But he does quarry work, and... I'm in the factory. Neither of us makes very much money. We couldn't afford the cloudwalking spell. And I thought... because I was in the factory..."

"The factory," Judge Heartstopper cued.

"The..." Crystal swallowed. "...Cumulus factory."

Most of the gallery inhaled.

"You know," the pegasus unnecessarily added. "The mattresses."

They knew. Everypony knew. Because there were three major Equestrian pony species, and every last one of them needed to sleep. If you slept, you dreamed. And if you dreamed, then you were eventually going to dream about sleeping on a Cumulus because that way, the whole thing would obviously be that much better.

A Cumulus mattress was easy to describe and, thanks to the company keeping the exact techniques involved under tight wraps, impossible to manufacture outside of the facilities. They were clouds. To wit, they were clouds which had been saturated with so much magic as to allow anyone to sleep upon them. Ponies, sapients from the other species... anyone at all. You climbed up, curled up, and then you went to sleep.

The vapor cradled, nestled, and comforted. The support was perfect. A full set came with puffs of pillows, and those never, ever needed to be flipped over to a cool side. And when it came to any fluid production inspired through being together atop the billows... the Cumulus absorbed it, purified out the essentials, and dispersed the rest. No washing was required. Ever.

There were only two limits to a Cumulus: size -- whatever was done to the cloud in order to let the magic work stopped functioning once you got past the dimensions of an Ultra-Deluxe Princess model -- and price. Or rather, there was an absolute limit on what most ponies could afford.

The cost of a full Cumulus set doubled as the average kitchen refurnishing with a new stable on the side. In theory, pillows could be easily covered by trotting into the nearest pasture and swapping out the price of your lunch for free grass. Repeat as necessary until the full cost was covered, and be prepared to scrape through a lot of snow.

Ponies dreamed about sleeping on a Cumulus. Having sex while atop one was an equally common vision. Princess Luna claimed that the total for both nightscape scenes had been eclipsed by those who simply saw themselves falling into the required pile of bits, but she was considered to be something of a biased source.

"And what is your exact role in the factory?" Judge Heartstopper inquired.

Crystal swallowed again.

"...cleanup." A little more quickly, "At least for now. I'm in training for manufacture, but it takes a while to learn how all of the techniques work and it's paid training, so the company... put me on cleanup. I..." One more gulp. "...sweep up clouds. Because there's..."

Attractive features twisted. Gibber, at the opposing station, didn't notice. And arguably couldn't.

"...I have a non-disclosure agreement..." the pegasus helplessly said.

"I don't believe we need the magical particulars just yet," the judge stated. "Just the generalities. We can see the results, Ms. Fractus." (The results didn't move.) "How did they come to pass?"

"...there's pieces left over," Crystal finally said. "From the molding. Sometimes they have to trim a little, to keep the density right. And that happens after the techniques are woven in. So you get little pieces of worked clouds all over the place, and they have to be gathered up..."

The gallery collectively looked at the defendant's station. Then they waited for it.

"...and I thought," the pegasus reluctantly continued, "anypony can sleep on a Cumulus. Anypony and anyone. So it has to be a little like a cloudwalking spell, right? Only it's something a pegasus can do. And the magic on a Cumulus doesn't wear off, ever. So I took some of the pieces out. The littlest ones, which weren't even going to be pillow stuffing. And I found Gibber, we talked about it, I told him exactly what I wanted to try --"

The words were coming faster now. Trying to escape before the heat of humiliation made them catch fire.

"-- and he said yes! So I tried to sort of transfer everything! Use myself as a bridge, send the magic from the scraps into him! And I got him into a pressure carry, I lowered him onto a cloud very slowly without ever letting go and..."

The defendant's borders shuffled somewhat.

"...it held," Crystal said, and there was still a little pride in that. "It held him. We were laughing, we laughed for at least an hour and just rolled around a lot. And then I finally took him to my apartment, finally let him see what I was like when it was my world instead of his, and we..."

She stopped. Her wing joints loosened, and feathers drooped.

"It was the best," she told the courtroom. "The best we ever had together. And I made him promise not to get off the bed without waking me, just in case it started to wear off. It didn't. So I took him down the next morning, because we both had work, and... it was foggy. I had to bring him down slowly, because it was foggy and I couldn't really see where I was going."

"As foggy," Judge Heartstopper said, "as it was this morning."

Reluctantly, "...yes."

Defendant and judge mutually looked towards the plaintiff's station.

"Mr. Gibber?" Impassi checked.

The cubical cross-section of billowing grey vapors vibrated slightly.

"Glick," said the pony at the core.

"It's been a week," Crystal miserably said. "And this keeps happening. The Weather Bureau won't give us a break. Everything just -- adheres. He can breathe in there, but the humidity isn't good for him. It's too solid for him to do more than shuffle his legs a little, though. And I can mold him free, or get enough heat directed towards him to make the cloud evaporate. But that takes a while. And I don't know how to unravel the weave. I can't tell if it's ever going to wear off. And maybe there's a way to avoid vapor, but we can't just move to Appleloosa and stay there for the rest of our lives..."

Judge Heartstopper looked at the plaintiff. Turned to the slightly-shuffling cube of fog, and then went back to Crystal.

"Ms. Fractus?"

"Yes, Your Honor?"

"Why are you here?"

The pegasus blinked.

"...Your Honor?"

"You have effectively confessed," Impassi neutrally noted. "You had to know you would be found guilty."

The tail drooped. "...yes."

"And, in reviewing Mr. Gibber's papers," the judge continued, "I notice that he has failed to ask for compensation. Of any kind." A little more softly, "And, speaking as somepony who sees a considerable number of relationships -- it would appear that your feelings towards your partner are still somewhat -- solid."

Crystal silently nodded.

"So why did you both let the case get this far?"

The pegasus took a deep breath.

"Because there's privacy rules about what happens in Sex Court," she said. "It doesn't get out. And this keeps happening. We tried to come in together this morning, and then I had to mold him free. The Gifted School doesn't work with pegasus magic. We can't visit the Institute in Cloudsdale: we can't afford that. Not even together. So we can't reach anypony who can fix this, and he doesn't want me to risk losing my job if I tell the factory, and we thought..." Black eyes helplessly, hopefully looked around the gallery. "...there are ponies here who've heard about more accidents than just about anypony in the world, some of them even come here so they can try to learn from everypony else's mistakes, and maybe... they might have some ideas on how to...?"

She stopped. The fog patch sympathetically tried to shuffle towards her, and promptly fell over.

Reorienting ensued.

"You realize that there's a risk," the judge checked.

"Yes. We... both said we'd take the chance. I can mold him out so he can tell you --"

"-- do you think you're the first pony to believe the gallery might be able to help them?"

After five seconds, "...yes?"

Impassi expertly failed to sigh.

"And that," the judge said, "is where you would be wrong. So I'm going into my chambers to see where I put my contact information for the Institute."

Crystal's shoulders, hips, and wings sagged.

"I expect to initially fail," Impassi Heartstopper added as she stood up. "I also expect that failure to take quite a bit of time, and require the presence of a bailiff to ultimately discover where the documents actually are. Which means that I am declaring recess and, for approximately the next two hours, have absolutely no official idea as to what is going on in this courtroom. Gallery -- disperse."

Next Chapter: One Of You Is Thinking About Trying This Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes