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What do you do with the trapped souls of the Queen of Infernal Cheliax and the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus? You can’t, actually, keep them that way forever. Lastwall has spared no expense in keeping their soul gems as securely as possible, but given what Asmodeus proved willing to spend on defending Cheliax, it stands to reason that no security mortals can provide will keep his favored puppets imprisoned forever, or even for very long. Heaven could do better, of course, but they do not really want to try to match Hell intervention for intervention, not when Asmodeus is acting like this.

Besides the security question, of course, it is wronging someone greatly to keep their soul trapped forever, even when that person is Abrogail Thrune or Aspexia Rugatonn; hardly better than destroying it, even if Pharasma accounts it differently. It is better, by the values of almost all mortals, than sending them to Hell, but there are exceptions, and loyal Asmodeans are perhaps likelier than average to be exceptions.

They cannot, actually, send them to Hell, even if they would have preferred it over oblivion; if they do they will be resurrected immediately and continue to be used for Asmodeus’ purposes on Golarion. They could try to negotiate an arrangement where Asmodeus promises not to resurrect them, but that would be trusting Asmodeus, and unwise on principle.

This leaves, of course, the option of sending them to Nirvana and seeing what Nirvana can do. Iomedae doesn’t have a good estimate of how likely this is to work; in her judgement redemption, like love, is a concern overrepresented among the Good gods and emphasized out of all proportion to how much it actually improves the world. So Lastwall asks the church of Shelyn instead; Shelyn, who has for personal reasons made something of a study of the redemption of beings twisted by Evil, and whose marginal intervention is in Lastwall’s opinion far less efficiently used than Iomedae’s.

Shelyn, unaware of the risk of reducing Herself to a plot device for ridiculous glowfic premises, knows just what to do.

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"Of course the Wonderbolts know who I am! I won the Best Young Fliers Contest last year!"

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"That's silly of them. Maybe they just need someone to show them how much fun a real party is!"

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"My Prince Charming won't care who my parents are. I'm just as proper and ladylike as any princess."

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In Cheliax, it was actually relatively easy (relative to most places in Golarion) for a commoner to enter the nobility by service to the Crown or marriage, in large part because the death rate among Chelish nobility was so high. There are actually quite a few romance-novel heroines who manage to marry above their station by outscheming and/or murdering their rivals.

This is not Cheliax, for better or worse, and Rarity is not a Chelish romance-novel heroine. Unfortunately, Abrogail can't really just explain this to her.

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"Hey Twi, how are we gonna get there?"

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"I've been working on these spells that turn an apple into a carriage and mice into horses..."

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Speaking of Chelish folk tales about common girls marrying into nobility by murdering their rivals, what the fuck?

(She's distantly aware that the Chelish version of that story was modified from an original that presumably contained less murder, but she has no idea what it contained instead.)

Also, there's apparently a species whose name translates as 'horses' rather than 'ponies'. Are they sentient? Again, what the fuck.

"I can take five in a Teleport," she says. "Figure out among yourselves who has to ride in the Bag of Holding."

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"But you weren't even invited!"

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"I wasn't here when tickets were handed out," she says. "Besides, I'm still foreign royalty. I don't need a ticket."

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They land by the side of the road about a hundred yards from the castle gates, near the back of a long queue of elegantly dressed ponies. Spike climbs out of Twilight's Saddlebag of Holding. (Rainbow Dash elected just to fly.)

"Whoa, you all look amazing!" Spike says when he sees the assembled ponies.

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"I can't believe we're finally here! This is going to be the best night ever!"

Suddenly, music starts to play from no apparent source.

"At the Gala!" she starts to sing.

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"At the Gala!" replies a chorus of ponies who weren't there a moment ago, without missing a beat.

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Did they plan this, or is this just a generalization of whatever supernatural ability Pinkie Pie has?

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Fluttershy takes off into the air.

"At the Gala! in the garden,
I'm going to see them all—"

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Yeah okay.

"I'll see you around, girls," says Abrogail, and dimdoors inside the castle's outer walls.

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She finds herself in a garden decorated with a dozen or so life-size statues of ponies. The only other non-stone pony in the garden is a sky-blue alicorn standing by the opposite wall. He makes brief eye contact with Abrogail, then moves out of her line of sight and isn't visible again.

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However, one of the statues looks rather familiar.

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What.

Are...are all of the statues Celestia's petrified enemies? She didn't think Good people did that.

Well, she can test that. Not on the demon-looking thing over there, obviously. Maybe on this armored pegasus with her wings outstretched.

Stone to Flesh.

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She surveys her surroundings rapidly and then leaps from the pedestal, pinning Abrogail to the ground on her back with an expert motion that doesn't injure her but does leave her basically unable to fight back or spellcast.

"Who are you and why did you unpetrify me?" she asks.

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"You wouldn't know me; I just wanted to see if all these statues were Celestia's petrified enemies, or only some of them."

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"I'm not her enemy; are you?"

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"It's complicated. Will you get off of me?"

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The pegasus rises a few feet into the air, allowing Abrogail to stand. Abrogail will notice, once she can see more of her, her familiar-looking sword-and-sunburst cutie mark.

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