(( 13th Slate, 263, shortly after the bin incident. ))
As Indigo approaches the keep and petitions Fuscina to enter, the mare shakes her head and raises a hoof to forestall the unicorn. "Sorry Indigo, Virtue isn't seeing anypony today. If something isn't on fire, you'll need to come back later."
Indigo is dumbfounded for a short while. This is the first time he is denied an audience.
Ah, the tappings of power. She is going to have ponies waiting to see her now. A rather sudden change in attitude, but it is consistent with the bin punishment. Looks as if she has finally decided to demand proper respect from her subjects. I'll have to be extra careful around her from now on. "When may I come back then?" asks Indigo after a moment of stunned silence.
Fuscina sighs and looks back to the door behind her briefly, recalling the very emotional conversation that she had witnessed not long before. "I'd give it a couple of days if I were you..." She watches the unicorn slowly turn back and leave.
(( 15th Slate, 263 ))
Indigo comes to the keep again, and is reluctantly left inside. He wears his best robe and no saddlebags. He slowly approaches the Baronesses desk, stands in respectful distance from it and bows. "Hello Lady Virtue."
Virtue hadn't long managed to work up the will to return to her office, and she still really didn't feel like being there. In fact, she never wanted to be there again, but that wasn't much of an option. She sits up slightly as Indigo enters, but fails to notice his attire until he makes the overly formal bow in front of her. If she didn't feel so much like just dragging herself back to bed, she might have questioned the motion. Instead, she just sighs mentally and tries to put on a welcoming face, which came off a lot less inviting than she had hoped. "Hello Indigo... how can I help you?"
Careful now. "Well, um... My Lady, you made it quite clear that we are not supposed to carry bins to the trade depot. They were really convenient for it, though and of course they could simply be emptied at the depot and carried back to the warehouse. Well, the thing I'd like to ask about, is how are we expected to carry trade goods without containers? Carrying them one by one is of course possible, but will take up much more time." asks Indigo hesitantly.
Virtue's half-hearted smile immediately vanishes to be replaced with a concerned frown. Fantastic. This conversation was almost exactly the worst thing that he could have wanted to bring up. "Indigo... that was a horrible misunderstanding." She chews her lip and tries to avoid dwelling on the consequences of it too much. "...horrible..." As her eyes return to him, she adds, "Please... continue to use the bins like they're supposed to be used."
Indigo feels as if the ground under his hooves was burning.
Somepony had to try and clear this up, but why do I always get involved in slippery situations? "Misunderstanding? Well... I... we will do as you order of course. It is just that, please understand My Lady, the bins were used to carry goods to the depot in the past and there were never any problems with it. Recently a few ponies were punished for this, some very severely, but with little explanation. I only ask that you make the rules very clear beforehoof, so that no further punishments will be necessary. Please forgive my boldness, but until recently the ponies of Dawnpick liked you, but didn't fear you. If this is how you decided to... command more respect from your subjects, there are smoother and less terrifying ways to do that." Indigo can't quite make up his mind weather to make a submissive gesture or send her a false smile and ends up doing a mixture of both.
Virtue is stunned by this comment. She stumbles over a few half-words and settles on a profoundly hurt expression. Did he really think she was capable of such a terrible thing, much less that she did it
intentionally to command
respect? What kind of pony did he think she
was? Had thirteen years not been long enough to convince everypony in Dawnpick that she would never do such a thing? "Indigo... do... do you really think that's what happened? You think I did this to command respect?" She covers her face with a hoof and says, "I didn't do this... I... I would
never do something like this..." She looks aside and says, "The order Jury received was forged. Somepony else wrote it... and signed my name to it."
"Falsified?!" Indigo sits on his rump and stares at the wall behind Virtue. After a moment he regains composure and speaks. "Ah, yes. That makes sense. If you don't mind me saying so, you were always very permissive and therefore a very severe punishment for something so minor seemed very out of character for you. It got me
very concerned. The fact that the document was falsified is both reassuring and worrying, but for different reasons. Is there an investigation into this? Have you considered, who could do something like this and why?"
Indigo's response was almost reassuring. He clearly thought something was wrong with the order... maybe he was just being careful instead of accusing her of such a terrible thing. Still, it cemented in her head that ponies in Dawnpick probably did think she'd lost her mind. She sighs and nods. "I asked Jury and Partisan to investigate it immediately. And not to trust
anything with my name on it without seeing me first. I don't know who in Dawnpick would be capable of something like this..."
Indigo is almost back to his former self. "I see. Partisan is currently depressed and drunk, so I guess I'll have to do something about it or talk to his second in command, Kat. She is quite dutiful and this is too important for our old grievances to get in the way. In any case, I think you could help by talking to the guard about how the documents are usually delivered, who could have dropped it, who might have access to your seal... although it could be falsified by any half decent carver who saw it on some document. Also, is there anypony, who could have some grievances against any of the victims? There are a lot of such little details that could provide insight into this matter."
Virtue swallows hard and nods understandingly. Jury had been torn up enough about what happened, as cold hearted as she was, so the pony who had been forced to deliver the beatings would surely have fared worse. She was beginning to feel awful all over again... just how many ponies had been hurt by this? "Yes... this is all a bit past my expertise. I trust Partisan, Kat, or anypony in the guard to do all that they can."
Indigo frowns "More importantly, who could have a motive to do this? I see two possibilities. The first one is stupidity. Some misguided and officious pony could have made the document in your name, trying to impress you. Of course this explanation is quite ridiculous and I wouldn't suspect Jury. She is arrogant, but dutiful and obeys the rules. It could be some kind of prank by a foal, maybe. If that's the case, I would expect the culprit to deny it, but show fear when asked about it."
He continues. "The second explanation is malice. Such an act is sure to sow dissent, fear and mistrust among the citizens of Dawnpick. It also crippled and undermined our justice department. Whoever did this wanted to weaken us. I never told you, but I suspected there was some kind of spy in Dawnpick for years. I kept it to myself, because I could never figure out the culprit. My theory is that this pony is somehow feeding information to the bandits attacking us from time to time and a bold move like this indicates two things. There may be further acts of sabotage in Dawnpick soon and all of this can be in a preparation for some major attack."
Virtue's continued nodding finally comes to an end as Indigo pauses, and she says, "Well... the first theory that came up was that it was done by the rainbow ponies to try to undermine us, since trying to kill me directly hasn't worked yet." She shudders mentally, but presses on. "That makes the most sense to me... but another spy, maybe one who has lived here for years... that makes more sense than I wished it did. That could explain what happened to the rainbow diplomat, and Wool..." She stops and shakes her head. "No... I don't have any proof of that. If... if you do though, please let me know."
Indigo grits his teeth. "I had some suspicions years ago, but was never able to confirm them. Later I figured that the bandits seem to follow the caravans. Then our defences got strong enough so that just a few attackers couldn't do much... Maybe Gregor was involved, but that would be too obvious and too clumsy for somepony with his kind of information about Dawnpick. Forging this document had a pretty good chance of failure; in fact I'm very surprised, Partisan didn't confirm it before following through with it."
Indigo continues "Your theory actually makes much more sense. If those assassins were able to make it to the keep, then Partisan's office is a much easier target. Besides, he mentioned something about the document just being on his desk. The severity and strange reason for the punishment also make some sense in this context. Using bins for trading is common knowledge and well... some rulers would actually administer punishments this severe. Therefore somepony with minimal knowledge of Dawnpick, possibly obtained from coming here with a caravan, could come up with a document like this by shooting in the dark."
"I just... I wish Partisan and Jury
had come to me first... so much could have been avoided..."
"Well, for what it's worth, most of the backslash from this has been against Jury and Partisan, not you. Still, while the damage is done, I believe this matter should be explained to the public, before the resentment gets any worse. If you don't want to do it yourself, have the mayor make an announcement in the dining hall. It is better to let ponies know that some documents may be forged than to have them think, they can expect very severe punishments for nothing." says Indigo.
"You're probably right," she says in a weak voice, having already come to the same conclusion herself. Hiding in the keep was only going to foster rumours and hard feelings, although she didn't know if there was anything that could fix the damage with what was left of Savory's family at this point. Worst of all, she didn't want Partisan or Jury to suffer needlessly through this. They could have avoided a tremendous amount of grief if they had just come to her first... but that was behind them now. "I'll... call a meeting. Tomorrow, I think. I hope this can still be cleared up..." Already she was beginning to feel a bit queasy. She hadn't set hoof outside to look anypony in the eye since the incident, much less the whole town. That probably wouldn't end well...
Now at least I know what happened, but still don't know what to do. "Lady Virtue, I think I should go now. I intend to see Partisan and talk to him about the investigation and our theories, yours in particular. I can also talk to the mayor about tomorrow's meeting. If there is anything else you want me to do, just tell me."
Virtue slumps a bit and says, "If you happen to see Longshot, tell him to come see me. Other than that, I don't think there's anything you can do..."
"Goodbye then, My Lady. Please try to prepare yourself for tomorrow. An explanation for all this is needed badly." Indigo turns to leave and swallows hard, then looks back at her. "I'm sorry, I... at first I thought you passed that judgement." Indigo bites his lip, bows and leaves, looking tired and old. He goes to Partisan's office next, without looking forward to the conversation at all. After that he visits Longshot and finally invites Amor for a talk in his room.
Virtue places her face in her hooves as she props her elbows on her desk. She seemed shocked when Indigo believed she issued the punishment, but how was he supposed to react? It had come with her name on it, and her seal. Why would anypony think anything else? She sighs and shakes her head, with her face still covered by her hoof. Everypony in Dawnpick would be thinking the same thing. How was she going to face them all? What was she going to say?
At least she had some time to think about it...
(( NOTE: Indigo talks to Partisan, Longshot and maybe Jury about this. And Amor of course. Virtue either explains the forgery herself or has somepony else do it in her stead the following day. There probably won't be a scene of this meeting, but it happened on 16th Slate in the evening and the forgery becomes common knowledge, which eases the social tensions a bit. Though I imagine somepony from Savory's family, likely Storm Cloud or Detergent, had a few nasty things to say. ))
(( NOTE: From this day on, Indigo is more formal and polite when dealing with Virtue, just in case. ))
(( NOTE: While Indigo may be involved in the background, please feel free to resolve the bin crisis among yourselves. I don't expect the investigation to yield any results in any case. ))
(( NOTE: Funny, but somewhere in Dawnpick there is a statue of Virtue holding a bin. Psalms said it was close to the centre of the statue garden. ))
(( NOTE: An FB escaped into the mines in Felsite and two more in Malachite. This could be considered acts of sabotage. ))
