Friendship is Revolution

by ultiville

The Calm

As it turns out Alanna's plan is simple: bring the ponies (and Mary) to her house. It's not exactly a hiding place, since she's their attorney of record, but Twilight doesn't plan to hide in any case. And it's a large, comfortable old house in North Cambridge, among other wealthy humans that enjoy their privacy. It's set back from the road, with a top-of-the-line security system, and they're quite confident that, unlike at least some parts of the bar, it contains no listening devices.

It's also the best they're likely to get within the city.

When they arrive, they find Polaris waiting with two more robed humans, a man and a woman. It seems their actual garb has come in; they're dressed in what look like martial arts outfits, done up in a lavender matching Twilight's coat, with trim that matches the blue of her mane. She's still disconcerted to see it, and can't help but blush a little.

"Hello Polaris," she says, channeling Clestia's princess lessons, "what brings you here?"

"Your friend Ms. Rare sent me an email," the human replies with a small smile, "she asked if I could help with security. I arranged for Orion," she gestures to the man, "and Cygnus to stay here. They'll keep watch while you're away and make sure no one sneaks in."

"I didn't realize you were in charge of...whatever you people are, dear," Rarity says.

Now Polaris blushes a little. "Well, Ms. Rarity, we never really had leaders, exactly, but when everyone saw my video of that fight where Twilight lost her magic, they sort of decided to put me in charge."

"Oh, congratulations! Do we need to have a 'getting promoted to the head of your weird kinda-cult' party?" Pinkie bounces up to her.

"Pinkie," Twilight is blushing furiously now, "that's very rude, they aren't even kind of a cult!"

"I dunno," Cygnus says, "we kinda are." Her friends glare at her. "Princess. Err, no disrespect intended. But it's all pretty religious, isn't it? I mean, I feel a lot like I did when I was young, before I lapsed...maybe it's just me..." she trails off and briefly reminds Twilight of Fluttershy.

"Well, leaving that one on the table," Polaris tries to recover, "I don't need a party, Pinkie. It's mostly extra work, but I'm glad to be able to help out. And these two are some of our most experienced fighters, they'll make sure to keep the place secure while you're gone." Pinkie's mane begins to droop, and her eyes get watery at the thought of a party being unnecessary. "But uh, you could have a moving-in party, I'm sure, and if you really want to celebrate my 'promotion' I'll come to it if you like."

Pinkie perks back up and begins bouncing around the driveway, grinning. "Oooh, and this is such a big house, we'll be able to have a great party! Maybe I'll do a garden party..." her voice fades as she hops into said garden.

Twilight chuckles. "Well everyp-" she remembers Mary and cuts herself off, "everyone, shall we get settled in?"

Aside from Pinkie's party, which is small but successful, they settle in without much issue. For the first few nights, Twilight misses the comfort of feeling her friends close, and every night she misses Spike's presence at her bedside, but it's nice to have her own space again, and after the second evening the temptation to find AJ or Rarity and ask to lean up against them fades. She doesn't avoid it out of fear of awkwardness, exactly; once or twice she feels as if Rarity is on the verge of asking the same thing. But she feels that it'd be unbecoming, and foalish. She has been here the longest, after all, and is a Princess. But the temptation is strong enough that when she catches a glimpse of a terrified-looking Fluttershy knocking on Rarity's door on the first night, she feels nothing but a brief ache of jealousy that her friend feels more secure asking for help than she does, and then a sort of ashamed happiness that Fluttershy's likely to feel better, newly dropped into this strange world.

Soon she settles into a routine, enough of one that she can start making a daily checklist again. It's rudimentary compared to her Ponyville one, but she feels as if a weight is lifted from her as she thinks once again of the future, even if only a day ahead. On most days it's simple:
Breakfast.
Fly to the park.
Talk to the humans protesting.
Lunch in the square with the girls.
Back to the park, all together.
Dinner at the house.
Study humans online (subject of study varies daily).
Bed.

And so the week slips by. Every day she arrives at the park with a little kernel of fear in the back of her mind, that she'll find it a battlefield, victim of some horrible play by Mr. Gray or some hateful human group. Instead, though, each morning she finds there are more and more people in the park. It starts with the unemployed and students, but soon others have joined up, not staying in the park all the time, but showing up as their lives allow, bringing food or drink or just enthusiasm. Gradually the park fills and they begin overflowing into the law school quad and Harvard Yard, and into the common spaces at the center of the square. By the end of the week, Twilight has to make her initial survey from the air, so as to take in all the little tent villages that have sprung up in and around the Square.

At the start of the next week, they start hearing about other groups doing the same thing in other cities. First across the country, and then beyond, people start taking to parks and streets. Twilight hears it compared to something called the "Occupy Movement", and some similar anti-war protests, and spends the evening researching them. The next day she talks to many of them using Skype, an experience she finds deeply strange, even compared to the speaker phone. She's trying not to take over, not to make it about her, but she hears in their voices how much they appreciate hearing from her, how much they feel they owe to her. All she did was talk a bit, and have some magic! She wonders if she'll ever get used to this part of being a Princess.

When she was a filly, still dreaming of what she might one day be, she used to love to sit in an empty crate, lovingly decorated in crayon and sticker, and pretend it was a tiny airship, taking her beyond the horizon. She feels like somewhere deep inside her, she's still that filly, looking out through two camera-eyes, pressing shiny star-sticker buttons to control the alicorn princess shell she presents to the world. She wonders if Celestia still feels like that, too, and if not, how many centuries it took for the feeling to fade.

But shell or no, the world sees the Princess, and the next day a half-dozen more towns and cities have their own growing groups of humans taking to the streets. In America most put supporting the ponies first on their list of demands, but her message seems to have taken as well, and all of them have a healthy number of signs demanding everything from campaign reform to digital democracy. Abroad, a few humans wave signs demanding their governments offer asylum to the ponies, but most call for reforms. This, at least, makes Twilight smile.

More bodies on the street isn't the only way her reputation grows. Halfway through week two, she's featured on the Google doodle. Rainbow Dash grumbles frequently that Twilight gets posted more on Facebook than she does, despite not having her own account (though Rainbow's own following has also grown significantly). And, despite no longer working at Rosie's bar, she finds herself with no shortage of money, as humans from all over send her donations, trusting her to use the funds wisely.

She has no idea how to use it all. She uses some to buy food and drink for the crowd in the park, but just sits on the rest, hoping someday to figure out a use for it.

As the second week draws to a close, though, and the scent of the coming autumn drifts across the city with the sunset breeze, Twilight feels the knot in her stomach growing. She wakes each day just waiting for something to break, for the fourth hoof to fall. Every city they add feels like a triumph, but just makes her more afraid that when it happens, it'll happen somewhere she can't possibly reach in time. So the week ends in a battle between hope and fear.

On the first day of the third week, there's a premature fall chill in the air. It sets all the ponies grumbling anew at the strangeness of a world where the weather's so unpredictable It's cool enough that many of the humans in the park and square have broken out light jackets, and Twilight can see the campers bringing heavy sleeping bags and camp stoves in. She sends a few of the regulars to fetch more, glad to have something useful to do with more of the donation money.

As the sun's sinking and the six ponies are preparing to head back to the house, Twilight's phone jingles as she receives a new text message. She frowns as she sees it's from an unknown number. Before she can read it, the alert sounds twice more as two more texts arrive from the same sender. She reads them:

From Rachel. Can't use my own phone, might be watched. Department mobilizing, something big tonight.

Think it's about you. They didn't tell me, had to hear it from a friend on the dl. Our dept's all with you but this one's bigger, lots of depts involved.

Coming tonight I think, after sundown. Leave now if you want to get out, or be sure not to if you want to be there. Good luck, will do what I can.

"Hold up girls," Twilight says, and they all turn to face her. "Come up with a list of what you need to stay here for at least the night and we'll send someone to buy it in the square. You all need to see this."

Comments

[ultiville]

MLP CCG event this weekend, so another light update one. Will try to sneak one in tomorrow but no promises. Thanks as always for reading.

[GoneZombie]

This really shouldn't be so poorly rated, I think. Fun story!

[ultiville]

4727444 Glad you're enjoying it, thanks for the favorite!

On the downvotes, relating ponies to the actual real world, and especially the politics thereof, is always going to be divisive. I sort of assume that more of the people who don't want to keep reading are going to hit downvote because they strongly disagree with my politics, rather than just not reading it or moving on or whatever. But mostly I'm glad some people like it; I don't care so much that some don't, since presumably they'll just not read it.