BUT NOT TOO MANY
Below the balcony where Celestia gave her most important speeches, a crowd formed consisting of hundreds of ponies from all creeds, lifestyles, and from every location conceivable gathered to listen to the speech about to unfold. They came here for that one speech, the speech of the newly elected stallion senator to represent them in this unfolding age of uncertainty and the newly booming industrial revolution on the outlying regions of Equestria’s border towns and burgeoning megalopolises.
From within the doorway atop the tower stepped a blue unicorn dressed in a grey secretary’s uniform, complete with an ocean blue handkerchief and the horned-rim glasses most common of an office worker. A slight blue glint surrounded her horn as she cast a voice amplification spell and began to speak to the hundreds, neigh, thousands gathered below her to listen to what she and he had to say.
“Citizens of Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Las Pegasus, and all of Equestria,” she boomed over the now hushed crowd of ponies, “we have won!” she yelled to the crowd below resulting in an enthusiastic boom of cheers and woops from the assemblage of ponies.
“You, yes you, have chosen him to be your senator, to be your voice in the Court of Canterlot, to speak for you when your leaders have failed to hear your voices cry out in the dark!” There was another round of cheers from the crowd below, followed by a flurried rush of camera flashes and then the sound of silence as the crowd settled down.
“When your Foremen and Laborers demanded more hours for less pay, he stood up to them and said,” She paused for a moment as the crowd yelled back with a hollering “NEIGH!”
“When they commanded you to lay down your lives on the battlefield and have your hard earned money pay for weaponry and rations, he threw down a rifle and cried,” a second pause passed through the air only to be followed with an even louder “NEIGH!”.
“When the senators of Canterlot looked down upon you with distrust and disgust, he looked up with you and gave you,” she emphasized the word you, “a fighting voice and the chance for a truly equal Equestria!” The crowd roared at this, cheering with whoops and hollers with such ferocity that even the shoppers in the garment district could hear the thunderous applause of the ponies standing the forecourt of the palace. The mare stood there taking in glorious applause, that beautiful response given not only to him but also to her, his left hoof and the campaign manager for him this whole time. She stood there by his side, watching as he won over crowd after crowd, pony after pony, and ultimately won the election serving as the senator for Canterlot in the Equestrian Congress.
She looked down at the crowd, a slight grin slowly expanding across her face until she embraced the world beneath her with a full smile from ear to ear. To think that she, just mere months ago was bit-less and homeless on the streets of Canterlot before meeting him.
-MONTHS AGO-
She lay curled up under a simple cardboard sheet, dampened and chilled by the snow piled atop her in a back alley behind a strip club in Canterlot. She sneezed a few times, adjusting the dampened cardboard and listening to the thumping music and the hollers of stallions behind the closed back door. She lifted her head as she heard the hoof steps of a few ponies drunkenly stumbling out of the back door of the establishment, one holding a half emptied bottle of liquor in his right hoof, and a blonde Pegasus in his left. He wore a snort fedora cap adjusted for his horn and a short suit that appeared to be in some form of shambles, as it looked to be rather worn out with several drink stains on it.
“Buck you and your rules!” he paused to take a swig from the bottle as he shambled out of doorway, “ain’t no sign says I can’t *hic* touch the girls!” He took another drink as the door behind him slammed shut with a definitive thud, after which he threw the bottle against the door. For a brief second, there was an explosion of liquor and glass, spotting the grey snow with shards of grey and splotches of red as he hazily stepped forward. The mare could tell this much, that the blonde standing next to him, she was a prostitute, plain and simple as she saw her once or twice before making her wages against the dumpster next to the snow-dampened mare. The two drunkenly walked away, but suddenly stopped when the mare under the snow sneezed a second and third time, catching the stallion’s attention. His ear twitched as he turned back, his horn aglow with magic as he withdrew something from inside of the suit. The mare caught a brief glimpse of it in the dark of the alleyway, and immediately sprang upwards when she recognized the civilian issued handgun that the southern factories seemed to be churning out at alarming rates.
“Please don’t shoot!” she cried out and watched as his eyes narrowed in the dark to catch a better glimpse at what exactly stood before him. Suddenly, he drunkenly smirked at the sight before him, a pale blue unicorn in a tattered cape with her hooves raised to the sky, and a disheveled bluish white colored mane.
“You’re that *hic* show-mare from the *hic* street shows, ain’t ya,” he stated, the mare wrapping her foreleg around his as if to hurry him along so she might get paid sometime tonight. “The great and something or other Trixie, right,” he slurred to which the mare simply replied with a nodded yes.
“Yes, I…I…I…am Trixie,” she stuttered, the fear of being shot overtaking her slowly with each cold breath of back alley air and gutter trash perfume that clung to the once alabaster bricks of the grand capital. He stashed the gun back into his suit jacket and inched, or rather stumbled forward to get a better look at the former show mare who put her hooves back onto the ground and adjusted her mane slightly. He nearly tripped over himself as he approached her, drawing a slight giggle from the prostitute pony and a more than audible groan from him as he adjusted his hat and suit, before speaking to Trixie.
“Yeah, I thought that that might have been you,” he squinted, as his face got closer to hers, and gave a loud belched of alcohol tinted breath into her face, causing her to step back and cough in disgust. He laughed heartily, as did the prostitute before Trixie regained her composure and stood before him once more, watching his every move with the best of her ability but once again, he stood right on top of her. “What in the hell happened to you?” he asked drunkenly, swaying back and forth as Trixie mentally recalled the night of the fire, the explosion of fireworks, and the overall lack of interest from the local police to actually help her in her time of need.
“Things,” she replied, sneezing once more from the cold and shivering again when it finally settled down to a light sniffling and scrunching of her nose.
“Things, eh,” he scoffed, looking her over rather curiously before looking her in the eyes again and letting out three loud hiccups before resuming his awkward observances of her standing there. “Not getting much work lately,” he said, inching closer, as if such a thing were possible at the moment before he stepped back and glanced to the prostitute, raising some suspicion in her, but not so much to cause her to…
“I can think of some ways for you to earn some bits.”
The next five minutes became a blur of something hitting her head, cold and hard, before being thrown up against the dumpster as he leaned against her, sniffing her mane as she tried to fight back, crying out for help. Suddenly, the stallion was airborne, thrown against the wall as the prostitute stood there in horror before falling over from shock at the sight of the stallion walking past her towards the injured Trixie. Trixie cried as she looked up at her savior, a tall stallion with a dark brown colored coat and a black-slicked back mane in a denim jacket with several brightly colored buttons, and one bizarrely bright yellow smiley faced one, on the right breast of said jacket. His horn glowed a bright red as he withdrew a handkerchief from his front pocket and began to wipe away the tears from Trixie’s eyes.
“Are you all right miss?” he asked gently, with a slightly accented and heavy voice, drawing her attention instantly towards this strange stallion.
“Yes, I’m all right now,” she replied, trying to stand, but falling back to the ground, only to be helped up by this mysterious denim jacket wearing stallion standing in a snowy back alley in Canterlot. “You saved my life,” she replied, looking up at him with bright and wide eyes as he smiled back at her with a slickly smooth grin before helping her to walk out of the darkened alley.
“What’s your name?” she asked him, a slight blush rising against her cheeks as she felt the warmth of her body against him, his brown coat somehow giving comforting heat, even in the cold.
“It’s…”
-PRESENT-
“Risen Flag! Risen Flag! Risen Flag!” the crowd chanted uncontrollably now, anxious to see the newly elected senator. This stallion of all ponies of all races, backgrounds, but most importantly a working class pony’s senator. Trixie, adjusting her glasses, retreated back inside to the atrium where he stood, looking towards the doorway leading to the balcony, a smile spread wide across his face. His denim jacket was gone now, replaced with a dark suit and blue tie, but his mane remained slicked back as he stood there, taking in the chanting of his ponies, of his crowd, of his Equestria.
“You did it, Risen, you actually did it,” Trixie cooed as she nuzzled against his neck, and he just kept smiling all the while.
“No, my lieutenant, we did it,” he laughed as he continued to stare out to where the chanting increased in its fervor until it reached near riot levels of shouting.
“When this is over, will I get my wish?”
He trotted to the doorway, and without turning back stated, “But of course, my dear Trixie, you will get what’s coming to you.” He walked out onto the balcony and was greeted with the thunderous applause of hundreds, perhaps thousands of ponies, shouting and chanting his name. He took it all in, the sight of ponies gathered all together in one place, believing in him as he looked down upon them with hopeful eyes and a bright smile-stretching wide across his face.
“Citizens of Equestria!” he boomed, hushing the entire crowd with a single phrase, “welcome to the brave new world.”
Please post all of your comments about how to move on in the next chapter please