//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15 
// Story: Down With the Pastryarchy 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

With Bundt Buttercream upstairs, safe, secured in their shared room so that she might have a much-needed nap, and Seville working the floor as a reporter, Twilight found herself alone in a crowd. Something about the energy of the crowd felt off, though she could not say how. There was something almost angry, or hostile, or resentful in the air. For Twilight, it was like flying into clouds that held the potential to become a feral thunderstorm. The energy was there, lurking, waiting, and given the right circumstances it could transform into something dreadful. 

Twilight wished that she had Cadance’s well-developed sense of empathy. 

The catwalks were crowded, more so than this morning even, as many of the contestants had become spectators. Below, the supermarket—a curious construction within the hotel—awaited sacking. Supermarkets were relatively new still; grocers, dry goods, and general stores were still the dominant shopping experience for most. But ponies were starting to demand all manner of goods to be found all under one roof. She had first seen one in the world beyond the mirror and that one… that one had been confounding. Never had she seen so much stuff, so much variety, so many choices and options… all in a building as large as a warehouse. 

Twilight had seen society grow—as well as watching it end. 

The stampede was ready to go, at least the first wave. Only a hundred would go at a time, for a fine state of controlled chaos guaranteed to give a good show. Pinkie Pie and Applejack were in the second stampede and the supermarket would need to be restocked before they did their run. By Twilight’s own estimation, the contest would continue well into the evening, given the sheer number of contestants. 

“This is DJ Double Dip, the smooth, silky voice of everything hip! Our first supermarket stampede is about to take place and the contestants are all lined up and ready to race!” 

Hearing that awful voice, Twilight cringed so hard that an involuntary groan escaped. 

“This is a shout-out to the Princess of Friendship! Can I be your friend… with benefits?” 

For a second or so, Twilight thought about scrubbing this moment from reality, but then, with a resigned sigh, she chose to live with its existence. Princess Celestia got regular proposals—some of them far less than classy—and if she could deal with it, then so too, could Twilight. But then came the second thoughts when she realised that everypony around her was now staring at her. 

Yep, this was awkward. 

She had options, at least. She could pop into the sound booth and set DJ Double Dip straight—on air, no less—but she wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. The experience was absolutely mortifying and somehow, the public humiliation that came with it felt like just about the worst thing that had ever happened, even though far worse things had, in fact, happened to Twilight. One curious and satisfying solution popped into her mind: she could get her brother to go and beat up that snotty little punk—no, that was stupid, no matter how good it felt to think about. 

Perhaps Shining Armor would send Dim in his stead… 

There was nothing she could do but live with it. 



 

“Miss Sparkle?” The feminine voice had a contradictory hesitant confidence as well as having a distinct Manehattanite accent. “In the Hearth’s Warming interview, written by Seville Orange, you stated on the record that you prefer Miss Sparkle as a means of address.” 

Hailed in such a manner, with such a powerful reminder, Twilight found herself remembering Hearth’s Warming; Seville was there, because of course he was, and she had drank just a little too much wine, because of course she had. At some point, she had flung herself down upon a pile of cushions and demanded that Seville make a front page headline about her… and so he had, because of course he did. That bit of back and forth, the intimacy of it, the exchange of words, of thoughts, of feelings, it had been one of the most romantic moments of her life—or maybe romantic was the wrong word. But it satisfied like nothing else. It had cemented something between herself and her reporter-errant. Hours and hours of wordplay, all committed to paper with ink. 

“My name is Satsuma Orange,” the mare said while Twilight turned around to face her. “My friends call me Uma.” 

Yep, she was an Orange, all right. Almost the same shade as Seville, but brighter, more vivid. The lurking accent was from the Broncs, it had to be—Twilight had listened to Gosling long enough to know. Like Pinkie Pie, she was a bit heavy set, but also like Pinkie Pie, she was a stunner who wore it well. There was an awful lot of Applejack to be seen in the mare. 

“Hello, Uma,” Twilight said in a calculated bid to put the mare at ease. 

The stocky mare blushed and her eyes twinkled in a fetching, winsome way. When she smiled, Twilight saw even more of Seville in her; perhaps this was something common to Oranges, because she had seen these features in Seville’s mother. Satsuma shuffled on her hooves for a bit, but then did an admirable job of pulling herself together. 

“I was hoping to speak to you, Miss Sparkle.” 

“My friends call me Twilight.” 

Satsuma Orange took a deep breath, perhaps to steady herself or to gather her courage. “Twilight, I was hoping I could speak with you.” 

Below, the stampeding pseudo-shoppers ransacked the supermarket. 

“Don’t let this be taken away from us,” Satsuma Orange said to Twilight. “Do something… as a princess, I mean. I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but you have the power to save us. I don’t know if anypony else has talked to you about this… or why it is so important.” 

At that moment, Twilight gained a keen awareness that the ponies surrounding her were no longer watching the stampede. She could feel their eyes upon her, so many eyes, and what was sure to be hundreds of ears now pivoted in her direction to hear better over the commotion taking place down below. 

“Uma, why don’t you tell me why this is so important. Help me to understand. What is your perspective on all this? Share with me. Tell me. I’m glad to listen.” 

Satsuma’s eyes darted around the crowd, nervous, and her tongue flicked over her lips to moisten them. Quite a number of ponies came closer and as the crowd pressed in, Twilight could feel the squeeze—she and Satsuma Orange were getting juiced. There was quite a bit of bravery in the earth pony mare and Twilight found herself fascinated. 

“What if I told you it wasn’t even about baking for most of us, but a means to an end, a sort of yardstick of physical perfection?” She sucked in a deep breath and with the eyes and ears of the crowd upon her, she continued, “I mean, baking does have a lot to do with it… I’m a baker, or I was… I guess I still am… it’s complicated. But baking allows us earth ponies to showcase what we’re capable of, because we’re doing the impossible.” 

Twilight found herself intrigued. 

“Hey, Twilight, you ever try to crack an egg without magic?” Satsuma asked. Without waiting for a response, the mare plowed onwards. “It took me ten years of practice to do it with regularity and speed. You have to grip it in the fetlock just so. Squeeze too hard, and when you go to crack it, you end up with a big mess in your fetlock. Don’t squeeze hard enough, and the egg, shell and all, falls into your food, and oy vey, what a mess. Who likes cakes with eggshells? Nopony, that’s who. When you crack the egg, you have to twist your hoof in just the right way to spread the shell apart without dropping it… it’s an art, Twilight, and for some of us, it is something that we invest a significant part of our lives in so that we can do what unicorns do without thinking.” 

There were murmurs from the crowd around Twilight. 

“And that’s just the eggs, Twilight. Just the eggs. Oy vey. That’s just one little thing. Making a nice cake is so much more than cracking an egg.” Satsuma rolled her eyes. 

For the first time, Twilight had an inkling that there was more to this contest than she had first assumed. Everything that Satsuma had said was compelling. It wasn’t just baking, but the struggle. So there was a reason, but Twilight wanted to know more, the hows and the whys of it all. 

“So, the contest is more about self-improvement than about baking—” 

“Yes!” Satsuma blurted out. “And then we get unicorns in these contests who aren’t allowed to use their magic and they make a mess of things, they whine, they cry, they piss and they moan, and they say all of these horrible, horrible things about how much it sucks to try and get any work done, and how impossible it is, and how terrible and unfair life is. And they do it without never once thinking about how insulting it is to us! That’s why we don’t want them here! The most alicorn-awful tribalist things come out of their mouths and they don’t even know how insulting they are!” 

She made a spitting sound three times, an act that reminded Twilight of Gosling’s mother. 

“We don’t mind the pegasus ponies so much in these contests, but we can’t allow them to compete with us because that means we have to allow the unicorns too and that’s always when the trouble starts, oy vey! The pegasus ponies, they know the struggle. Even with those wings of theirs, so many of them aren’t agile at all. So it comes down to hard work… and the pegasus ponies, they too, they get sick of the whining and the crying and all of the insulting things the unicorns say about actually having to work for something.” 

For Twilight, the problem began to reveal itself. 

“My husband gave up his magic for a week to try and better understand me,” a mare in the crowd said. “He said the most awful things about how terrible it was to be so helpless… and he kept saying the most infuriating stuff. I’ve spent my whole life this way and just a few days in, he kept talking about how he was gonna die because of how hard his life had become. I had to toss his sorry ass into the river and then set him straight with a good talk about being sensitive, because he was an unbearable jerkass! I love him, and I’m still married to him, but I had to set him straight on the matter!” 

“Yeah!” many ponies said at once and there was much stomping of hooves upon the catwalks. 

“I hate all that talk about how much it sucks to live a life of drudgery,” a pegasus stallion said. “That’s our lives they talk about! We have to work hard for everything we do and they disrespect us with every word they say!” 

There was something ugly in the crowd now, something almost cold. 

“When we bake, it is a contest for how we deal with the world,” an old mare with rickety knees said to Twilight. “It shows off how clever we are and how we’ve adapted.” 

“I lost my bakery because of so-called tribal unity, and I don’t want to lose our last refuge in the name of tribal unity.” Anger glittered in Satsuma’s eyes and there was a hardness to her face now. 

“Wait...” Twilight raised her hoof and she forced herself to remain calm. This crowd was getting ugly and there was something in the air itself that reminded her of Skyreach. Twilight, of all ponies, understood how hatred could take on a life of its own. “How did you lose your bakery due to tribal unity? I’d really like to know. If you were wronged somehow, I’d like to fix it.” 

“My neighborhood is gentrifying,” Satsuma replied, only somewhat mollified by Twilight’s willingness to listen. “It’s being taken over by unicorns and they’re moving in and taking over the jobs. I ran a bakery… a pretty successful bakery. I started off small like most bakers do and when it came time to hire help, I hired my fellow earth ponies who had been put out of work. What I didn’t do was hire unicorns, because the last thing I wanted as a boss is to create tension in my workplace. Most of my hires had lost their job to a unicorn. Doing things the earth pony way was a major selling point for my business.” 

Twilight could feel a strange, unpleasant tension in the crowd. 

“Somepony complained,” Satsuma continued, her voice now gritty and low. “Suddenly, because I’m trying to preserve my neighborhood and keep my neighbors employed, I’m the tribalist. Suddenly, I’m overrun with bureaucrats who are telling me that I’m violating all these crown-mandated statutes on unity and fairness. It doesn’t matter that I’m trying to save jobs, or to keep my neighbors from falling into the gutter… they demanded that I fire half of my workforce and replace them with unicorns. When I refused, when I refused to fire my loyal and dedicated employees, they shut me down.” 

“That’s terrible,” Twilight said without thinking. 

The murmurs of the crowd filled her ears now and the press of bodies around her left Twilight hot, flustered, and sweaty. A hot dreadful prickle crept up and down her spine and painful muscle spasms caused her wings to slap against her sides. She made a valiant effort to think of something better to say, but the words, the words that she desperately wanted to say, these words avoided her for whatever reason. Perhaps they sensed the change in the crowd and knew a bad scene as it developed. 

Those laws had been put in place to protect earth ponies… 

Twilight looked into the eyes of those who surrounded her and never had she ever felt more vulnerable than right now. She had wings and a horn. Every possible advantage had been given to her. As for these ponies, they had to struggle to gain any advantage at all and they were about to lose something precious to them, something they held dear. A level and fair playing field wasn’t much, but when you had nothing, a little bit of something held far more value. 

Or something to that effect. 

“I could have kept my bakery,” Satsuma said, her voice now flat and devoid of feeling. “I could have kept my bakery, fired my friends, hired a few unicorns, and received a payment from the Crown for maintaining unity standards—” 

“But those laws were put into place to help earth ponies,” Twilight said, interrupting. 

“I lost my job because of those laws.” One stallion stepped forwards, his ears pricked and his short tail swishing from side to side, slapping his stocky legs. “One unicorn was hired to satisfy the mandate and then after a year, there was downsizing and corporate restructuring. Ten of us got laid off… I feel bad for ol’ Jam Jar though… he’s not getting paid for doing ten ponies’ worth of work.” 

“Uma, I’m going to find a way to make things right,” Twilight said to the mare. “You have my word as a princess.” 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Satsuma turned a hard, flinty stare upon Twilight. “These laws… these unity directives… all these fairness mandates… they all came from the last promise to make things better. Now we’re here, and now… with our last bake-off… our last bastion… the very last thing that represents our values being threatened by the laws made to protect it.” 

Twilight did not know what to do. 

“It’s not fair,” a youngish pegasus filly said while clinging to the leg of what was assumed to be her earth pony father. “When I grow up, I’ll always have work because there’s always weather jobs and delivery jobs for pegasus ponies. But my father… he keeps getting laid off.” 

Gritting her teeth, Twilight decided that now was not the best time to mention that unicorns had completely replaced the pegasus weather teams in Canterlot. So many eyes were focused upon her. Some were hopeful, some angry, others sad. There were earth ponies, pegasus ponies… and even unicorns in the crowd. Unicorns that were here, now, listening, learning, understanding. A faint, flickering flame of hope kindled within Twilight’s breast. 

She thought of the mare that had thrown her husband into a river. 

Perhaps awareness was a better approach than mandates. 

It wasn’t a great solution, perhaps—it could fail spectacularly—but it might be a good start. Or maybe awareness already existed, and she was oblivious. But if she was oblivious, then that only proved her point: more awareness was needed. Beneath Twilight’s hooves, down below the see-through catwalks, the supermarket was almost a demolition derby, something that almost matched the violent spectacle of hippodrome chariot racing. It happened without her noticing. 

“You’re a princess. You could save our bake-off with a word.” Satsuma’s ears angled forward, aggressive. “But then you’d have the face the heat… there’d be accusations of favouritism… of tribalism. You’d be run through the wringer with accusations of favouring earth ponies over other tribes and I’d imagine that the scandal would do lasting, maybe even permanent damage to your authority and your position. So don’t make promises that you can’t keep, Miss Sparkle. All your credibility would be tanked.” The mare paused, blinked, and then added, “But if you do nothing at all, you send a pretty clear message to all of us… letting us know that we’re not worth it. It’s just politics. Trust us, we understand.” 

Satsuma wiped her eyes with her foreleg and then, before Twilight could find the words she wanted to say, Satsuma Orange departed. The crowd parted before her, letting her pass, and just about every face present became rather solemn. Twilight could feel her guts clenching, the heat that burned within made her skin sting, and there was a terrible metallic taste upon her tongue. 

Rather than flee the uncomfortable scene, Twilight decided to face the crowd…