When Twilight finally wakes up, it's almost afternoon. She just lies on the bedroll for a moment, basking in the air-conditioned coolness and the warm feeling of what she assumes is Rainbow Dash's coat pressed up against her side. Finally she opens her eyes and sees that instead Rarity slumbers next to her, and Dash is nowhere to be found.
Slightly unsettled at the inversion of the natural order that is Rarity sleeping later than Rainbow Dash, she shakes her head vigorously to clear it, and staggers to her hooves. She hears now over the noise of the window air conditioner a hubbub or commotion from the street, somewhat louder and more sustained than the normal noise of business. Frowning, she walks to the window and peers out.
A large crowd is gathered on the street in front of the bar. Or rather, as she looks, two large crowds, facing each other angrily across a line of police officers, including Rachel. Twilight recognizes them from her reading about the civil rights movement as protesters, and indeed they are carrying large numbers of hand decorated signs. The group on the left appears better organized - they have large signs, many of the printed, and several humans are moving among them, unmistakably in charge. Unfortunately, she instinctively takes cover, peering out the window around the wall, when she notices that this group's agenda is distinctly anti-her. Some of the posters just have her cutie mark with the iconic red circle and line around it. Most of the rest don't directly talk about her or ponies at all, but say things like "Americans are Humans" or the like. A few, all hand-written, read "Go Back to Equestria" or similar. And a few reference bible verses, primarily psalm 8:7, referring to "dominion over the animals and beasts". She sees the last and remembers the horses and cows on the farm, and feels a bit sick thinking of herself penned in a field, wingless and hornless.
At least the other group is clearly a counter-protest. Somewhat smaller and far less organized, she recognizes a few faces in this crowd from stores she's been to, or as customers from the bar. Most of them don't have signs at all, and those that do are hand-drawn, half on pieces of cardboard that look like they were cut from boxes left in the recycling. There's no overall system to the signs, other than support. A few are recognizable as her or Rainbow Dash's cutie marks, crudely drawn. A few have variants on "ponies are people too". And one woman is holding a sign that says "Four Legs Good, You Guys Bad" and waving it at the other group, to Twilight's bewilderment.
The counter-protest, and Rachel and her coworkers keeping the groups separate and away from the bar's entrance, reassure her a bit, but still she feels a heavy weight as she looks at the sheer size of the anti-pony group. It goes along the broad sidewalk further than she can see. With all the people she meets on the street being so friendly, Twilight never realized there were so many people that objected to her presence. She wonders if they were kept away by Mr. Grey, as he claimed, or if they've been galvanized by the impending vote...
As soon as she thinks of the vote, she bolts to her bag and pulls out her tablet to check the news. Rarity stirs and mumbles something groggily at the sound, then raises her head. "Something wrong?"
"There are protesters outside," Twilight says, "I need to see if they've voted yet," her stylus flies over the screen, then it finishes loading, "looks like no."
"Oh dear," Rarity says, "are there a lot of them out there?"
"Yeah, mostly against us, though not all. I'm worried about how they'll react to the vote."
Rarity nods, then looks around, still waking up. "Wait, where's Rainbow Dash?"
"I don't know," Twilight says, then suddenly looks up, eyes wide. "Wait, you don't think she went out there, do you? Did she come to bed with you?"
"No, she was still dancing when I came up. For all the napping she does, she can certainly stay up late when she wants to."
Twilight frowns. "Maybe she went somewhere else when we closed, then. But still, we should check, let's call her."
"Oh!" Rarity can't hide a bit of excitement, "I was so curious about how the phone on these works."
Twilight pulls out Rarity's phone and shows her how to dial Rainbow, and turn on the speaker phone. She puts it down between them and they both stare at it as it rings repeatedly.
"If she turned it off..." Twilight mutters under her breath.
"Ugh, my head," Twilight still thinks Rainbow's voice sounds unnaturally loud coming from the tiny object. "What's up, Rares?"
"Rainbow Dash! We were worried sick when you weren't here this morning!"
"You don't have to yell so much Rarity, the microphone is very sensitive," Twilight mutters to her.
"Ugh, and so's my head," Dash says. "I'm just at Mary's place, what's the big deal?"
"The big deal," Rarity growls, "is that we have a huge crowd of humans outside waving signs at us, and we were worried you'd gotten in a fight with them...hold on, Mary's place?"
"Oh yeah," Twilight can practically hear the smirk through the phone, "and don't worry, we weren't doing any fighting."
"Rainbow! Did you have a drunken fling with a human?" Twilight has to ask, because Rarity is pretending to faint on the bedroll.
"Geez Twi', not like there are any ponies around here. Well except you girls, and hooking up with a friend would be totally uncool. I needed to let off steam and she was curious. What's wrong with that? And we did it again after we sobered up. That was a lot better. Did you know she was an athlete at college? 'Track', which I guess means running. She told me humans are natural endurance runners!" She pauses. "Definitely agree with the endurance part."
"I don't even know how long I'll have to live with knowing that now. Thanks so much."
"No problem, Twi', I've got your back. But uh, angry humans outside?"
"Yes! They're having the vote any minute now, and they're outside demonstrating against us. Well, and a few are counter-protesting in our favor."
"Oh man," another voice comes out of Rainbow's phone, and Twilight recognizes Mary via speaker phone, "I've gotta call my friends and get over there to help! Sorry Rainbow, rain check?"
"Awww, ponyfeathers. You're right, I should get back there too. What's our plan, Twi'?"
"Hide in here until the vote," she sighs, "then go deliver a friendship speech either way. There will probably be reporters."
Rarity's recovered at this point, and is idly poking at her tablet, which she's still getting used to. "Girls," she says, "if I'm reading this right, they've started calling the vote."
"On my way," Rainbow says, and hangs up.
The noise from outside grows louder. Twilight and Rarity stare at the tablet. Rarity is pressing refresh every few seconds, hoping the live blog will update with the vote result.
"I knew Rainbow enjoyed the clubs from time to time back home," she murmurs, "but I didn't expect this."
"I didn't even know she was into mares. Or women." Twilight says.
"You really should come to more of Pinkie's sleepovers. Or perhaps shouldn't, but they grew on me. I suppose I should have suspected, she has a thing for athletes of any species or gender."
"She always seems to schedule them when I'm busy."
There's still no word, but the noise from outside grows again, and takes on an angrier tenor. Twilight rushes to the window just in time to see Rainbow Dash touch down among their supporters. Mary's clinging to her mane with one hand and holding her phone in the other. The human drops to the ground, still talking into it, and Rainbow flies into the alley.
"Rainbow's here," Twilight says, just before she comes up the stairs.
"Hey girls."
"Good timing," Rarity says, "this...blog...just changed. It says they voted the bill down."
Twilight falls to her knees with a sigh.
"Err, voted down is the bad one, right?"
"Yes," Twilight rolls her eyes, "it means we don't get recognized as valid citizens. Now we need to see what Alanna can do, and hope she can stop them from kicking us out of the country." The noise from outside grows again. "And deliver a friendship speech."