*Tic, toc, tic, toc* the needles of an old grandfather clock droned on in a corner of a dimly lit room. Several papers had spilled from a desk and lay in the floor covering the linoleum, some of them with hoof marks from being stepped on. On the right side of the room sat a filing cabinet with files and envelopes protruding from one of the metal drawers. A selection of random objects, ranging from the wheel of a wagon to a cannon with confetti spilling from its muzzle, lay forgotten in a corner. Amidst this mess, sitting in a fine mahogany desk, sat a navy-colored unicorn pony. His forehead carefully resting on his hooves as his long wavy white mane dangled in front of his face. There were a few pronounced streaks of gray hair here and there, more than normal for a pony in his early thirties. His eyes closed in meditation as he carefully reviewed recent events in his head. This was none other than District Attorney Silver Tongue.
"Hahhh," sighed the pony in defeat as he slowly lifted his face to take a look at the time. I was now past 2 in the morning and all the ponies in his office had already gone to sleep. His gaze still on the clock he wondered whether he should do the same and call it quits for now. It was tiring work, his superiors had always warned him, something only somepony with experience could handle. He had only a few years of practice in the Trottingham tribunals as a prosecutor when one of Celestia's counselor had approached him with the offer. He had accepted on the spot without not so much as a second thought. 'District Attorney! To the princess! How could it possibly get better than that?' Alas, it wasn't as simple as he had initially thought. Sure, his new office was bigger than the previous one, Canterlot coffee was much better than that dirt Trottingham ponies drank, and having an entire team of investigators as well as the Police and Imperial Guard on the sole of his hoof wasn't exactly all that bad. Yet the amount of cases he had under his belt was starting to overwhelm him. His special talent was interrogation and he had not yet met a pony he couldn't crack in the witness chair, but interrogation was only about 10% of the work. It was the district attorney's job to lead the investigation, gather evidence, gather testimonies, ask the judges authorization for search warrants, coordinate with the Police and the Imperial Guard, and do all of this while under the constant scrutiny of the public and the press. He had quite enough on his plate already when the explosion had obliterated the altar during the Summer Sun Celebration. Over 50 ponies injured, some of them with third degree burns; a sum of 13.4 million bits in property damages (and rising); and to make matters worse, Princess Celestia gravely injured and deep in a coma.
He rose from his chair and started pacing around the desk in circles, it was a bad habit of his, one that made him look insane and that had earned him quite a few nicknames in his office. He didn't care, he had never placed much importance on what other ponies thought of him as he was highly committed to his job: he was a workaholic as someponies would say. It didn't matter anyway because there was nopony around to point and criticize him. He continued to pace as he reconstructed the events in his head.
Miss Twilight Sparkle was the culprit, that much was clear to him. It had been a clever move: setting the explosive beneath the altar where the Princess would stand and raise the sun. Normally the princess could have avoided any injury by casting a shield spell around her, but with so many ponies close to the altar she had chosen to cast it on them instead. It was perhaps this astounding act of bravery and sacrifice that had prevented any casualties, but it had cost her greatly and nopony knew when she'd recover or even IF she'd recover. Miss Sparkle knew better than anypony the Princess' kind and gentle predisposition, she was aware of her love and devotion for her subjects, that is probably why she had chosen that day to put her scheme in motion. She had known that the Princess would choose to save her subjects rather than herself and that's why she picked the Summer Sun Celebration, when everypony gathers around the altar in Canterlot's Central Square.
Miss Twilight Sparkle was Celestia's favorite student and prized pupil, a pony loved and admired back in Ponyville. She would have probably gotten away with it, had she been more careful in covering her tracks. After all she was one of the few students who had access to the altar along with Princess Celestia; she'd been the one who conveniently gave the order to the guards protecting the altar to escort her through town, while her aid planted the bomb; she was not only gifted at magic but a scientist as well, more than capable of making a bomb that powerful and knowledgeable enough to make it react to the Princess' magic signature; the ingredients for making such an explosive had been found at her suite in the castle, hidden behind a fake wall that reacted to magic; she'd run after he'd ordered her detention for interrogation; her friends' testimonies pointed her strange behavior dating from a few weeks back; and then there was that conversation: the discussion her and the Princess had had about a month ago when she came to visit her in Ponyville. That was the only piece missing in this whole puzzle, that discussion that nopony knew about ('Well, almost nopony' he thought to himself).
In the aftermath of the explosion he'd run into Miss Lyra Heartstring and Miss Bon Bon, two of Twilight's neighbors in Ponyville. After investigating the Princess' activities during the last few weeks and while interrogating some of the Imperial Guards about who had been in company of the Princess before these events and if they had witnessed anything suspicious, he was overheard by this couple of fillies. Miss Heartstring and Miss Bon Bon had approached him after he'd finished his interrogation and given him a most enigmatic piece of information: apparently the Princess had visited Miss Twilight in an unofficial visit, when she was supposed to be seeing the mayor of Manehattan. They thought it was most unusual for the Princess to drop by in Ponyville, in the middle of the night, without her royal escort. According to them she'd gone inside the library and stayed there a great length of time. Shortly after she left, Miss Sparkle had stepped out looking somewhat distraught. Unfortunately they had no clue what they talked about, and it was this certain piece of information that prompted him to investigate Twilight. And yet after all the evidence he'd found he still couldn't figure out why she'd done it. Sure it all pointed out it was her, but without a clear motive he'd find it difficult to convince the judge it'd been her. And so he had remained behind while everypony slept, mulling things over in his head.
'WHAT DID THEY TALK ABOUT?! What did the princess tell Miss Sparkle?! Why was she so upset afterward?! What prompted this attack?!' unless he answered found answers to these questions he'd never close the gaping hole in the case he'd built against Twilight.