The Ones Who Trot Away From Canterlot

by Brony Tom

Discovery

Dear Princess Celestia,
I have finally hit a wall in one of my most interesting areas of research, as of late. I have been looking into the utopia that comprises Equestria, and I cannot figure it out. The cause of our general happiness doesn't seem to derive itself from any of the factors that I've been able to study: not our abundance of food and wealth, or our thriving culture, or even our peaceful coexistence. I know that there has to be some root cause for Equestria's happiness; it is a basic causal relationship, and yet I cannot locate the cause. Could you perhaps shed some light on my conundrum?
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Dearest Twilight,
I knew this day would come. Out of my affection for you I had put if off as long as I could, but I realize now that I couldn't hope to shelter an inquisitive mind like yours. I request your presence in Canterlot, post haste.

I'm sorry.

The text of the letter from Celestia burned over and over in Twilight's mind as she trotted up to the gates of the Canterlot Palace. She couldn't appreciate the ornate architecture nor the familiar wave of the guards as they parted to allow her entry. Twilight had gone past the gates too many times already, their grandeur lost into the background.

Lost in her thoughts, Twilight almost didn't notice as she was met by Princess Celestia herself.

“Twilight.” Princess Celestia stood very still, her unreadable gaze breathing an air of unease into Twilight's mind.

“Princess?”

Celestia turned and began trotting towards one of the less-traveled areas of the castle, her smooth gait indicating that Twilight should follow. The two walked slowly through the castle grounds, Twilight anxiously watching her mentor's posture for the slightest hint of displeasure.

“P-princess, if I did something wrong, I'm very sorry. Please don't--”

“Banish you to the moon? No, Twilight, no banishment is in order.” Celestia didn't bat an eye nor glance down at her student as she spoke. “You are not here to be punished, at least in a sense.”

Twilight only looked at Celestia with further confusion.

“But I don't understand, then. What are we doing?” The two had left behind most other ponies as they trotted through the castle grounds, and now stood before the hedge labyrinth where Twilight and her friends had first dealt with Discord. Twilight's unease only increased as the Princess went in without hesitation, as though she'd done it countless times before.

“Twilight, you asked about the cause of Equestria's joy. I am here to answer that question.”

Celestia's uncharacteristically stoic behavior morphed Twilight's unease into dread, her heart sinking under the weight of it. It also didn't help that the Princess had opened up a concealed entrance among the walls of the hedges. She began descending the steps within, and Twilight paused at the door before following. The little unicorn cast fearful glances all around, her analytical mind absorbing the details of the creepy setting, from the dim light provided by floating torches to the dank smell of general decay that permeated the air.

At last, the stairs ended in a short hallway, leading up to a door. If Twilight had been afraid before, now she was in full-on panic mode; the door was more heavily fortified than a bank vault, heavy slabs of steel criss-crossing the gate in the shape of magical runes that formed a powerful sealing spell. Celestia stopped just before the door, leaving a slight gap between her and Twilight, who had frozen up at the base of the stairs.

“Princess, what is this?”

“This is Equestria's happiness, my faithful student.” Celestia waved a hoof, and the vault door opened like a curtain, each side peeling back to allow entry.

The room beyond was pitch black, with absolutely no light coming from within. Twilight could hardly even see a few hoof-lengths in, since the torch-light was so dim. The fur on the nape of her neck stood on end as she tensed her body. Almost in a trance, she approached the dark room, her hooves making eerie clacks on the bare stone.

Standing at the entrance, she could still make out nothing inside, although the odor of decay intensified tenfold; Twilight had to choke back a gag or two. She looked back to Celestia, whose gaze had hardened into granite. Celestia made no motion, and so Twilight entered the room with a frightened gulp. Her hooves suddenly sank into a soft substance; Twilight prepared to light up her horn when she heard a rustle of motion from the darkness.

Her body locked up of its own accord, the approaching shuffling sound paralyzing Twilight's mind in fear. By instinct she lit up the room with her horn.

It was utterly bland. The walls were perfectly smooth stone, enchanted to be nigh impenetrable. Scattered around the floor were piles of feces, disgusting, rotting lumps of urine-soaked scat. Twilight's mind numbed as she realized that she was standing on one such pile. There was a sound like hissing, gurgling, coming from the direction of the motion. Twilight looked with a heavy heart towards the disturbance.

Laying almost at her hooves was a pony. It was difficult at first to make out what color the mare's fur was, as her skin was riddled with sores and rashes and scabs and smears of rotting feces. Twilight absently recalled that such skin problems resulted from near-perpetual contact with equine excrement. The little pink mare- or perhaps more hauntingly, the little pink filly- was curled up in the fetal position, twitching uncontrollably as she shielded her eyes with her hooves. It occurred to Twilight that perhaps living in such dark conditions made her eyes overly sensitive to light. The groveling pony's body was thin, far more so than the popular models; she seemed a malformed skeleton, her skin clinging to her bones like taut string around a tent stake.

All this ran through Twilight's mind, her rational thoughts locked in a downward tailspin. Without thinking, she dimmed the light from her horn to nearly nothing, and the pink filly paused in her quivering. She uncurled from her position and hesitantly lifted her hooves from over her eyes. Pleased with the sensory input, or maybe the lack thereof, she looked up at Twilight.

The two locked eyes. Twilight's pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. The filly's gaze stabbed her heart, her very core, a knife of icy clarity. The little pony's eyes were vacant, absent of intellect. There was no animating spark behind the glazed purple orbs, no warmth that made her equine. The irises' spiraling white lines seemed to curl back upon themselves, whirlpools of thoughtless irrationality.

The filly reached out a feeble, bony hoof to Twilight, who, frozen by shock, did not resist. Twilight shuddered as the raspy, rough hoof wrapped around her own perfect purple one.

“Mmmaaaa.” The thing resembling a pony was producing sounds from its vocal chords. Her speech, if it could be called that, was slow and thick, and Twilight could tell that it didn't understand what it said. It was only a muscle memory, a reflex. “Mmmmmeeeeee? Mmaa. Mmee? M-mammee?”

Twilight took a step back, a nameless horror frothing in her consciousness. The creature's grip on her hoof was so weak that Twilight barely noticed any opposing force. The filly look-a-like bleated piteously as Twilight retreated backwards, neither breaking eye contact. Twilight could see the abject terror of abandonment in the eyes of the thing, and more hauntingly she could see her own reflection like in a mirror. She wasn't sure which of them was more afraid.

Twilight continued to back up, each of the filly's whimpers lashing her ears like a whip. Her fixation on the filly was only broken as the vault door shut, sealing the creature away once more. Twilight sat on her rump unceremoniously.

“The happiness of Equestria?” she whispered.

“Yes, my student." The first hint of emotion could be heard in Celestia's voice, and it was concern.

“I- What- How can this be?!” Twilight rounded on Celestia, righteous anger flaring in her eyes. “You're supposed to be the protector of ponies! How can you let this filly suffer?”

“How can I let ponykind suffer?” Celestia's eyes began to water; Twilight could tell when her mentor thought she knew the outcome of a situation already.

“How does torturing that filly equate to saving ponykind? That makes no sense!” shouted Twilight.

“You don't understand, then. I should have known better, I'm sorry, Twilight. I usually expose ponies while they're still young, while they are still forming their personalities. Please, Twilight, just take some time to think it over.”

Twilight shouted so many angry things in her mind, so many ways that Celestia's argument was flawed. In the end, though, she was silent. Twilight looked away, the tears beginning to flow from her eyes.

“It would be rational to think it over. Of course.” Twilight galloped up the stairs, not caring whether Celestia kept up.

Dear Princess Celestia,
I'm sorry it has come to this, but I cannot in good conscience live in a land where the happiness of the world depends on the total suffering of one. I cannot live off of the pain of another. Maybe someday I'll be wise enough to understand why that filly must suffer, but until that day, I will find my place elsewhere, beyond Equestria. Goodbye, Princess. I hope we will speak again someday.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Celestia stood on the balcony, watching through the telescope as the distant purple dot disappeared over the horizon. She could hold back the tears no longer, and began to cry great, heaving sobs. Celestia knew from experience that Twilight would never return, they would never speak again. It was her worst nightmare; Twilight had become one of the ponies that trotted away from Canterlot.

Comments

[Zero Moment]

One does not simply
Trot away from Canterlot

[SwiperTheFox]

Hey, I know you! From somewhere...

I'll read this soon!

[SwiperTheFox]

It's pretty good. My main objection is that it's too simple-- you just take the skeleton of the other story and past MLP over it. I wish I could have seen a lot more details about how this situation came into being, the inner thinking of Celestia, and so on.

I also was expecting the creature to-- ah-- not be a pony. That might play off of the whole 'Conversion Bureau' mythos and relay how Equestrian prejudice against humans, dragons, griffons, zebras, and other non-pony species underlies their feelings. It also might mean Twilight's feelings would be more complex (as a pony, she'd naturally feel less empathy for non-ponies). That's not "criticism" at all, though-- just more of an observation. Take it for whatever you will.

[datdamnface]

Oh hey! I did something on this book not too (sorry REALLY) long ago. I'ma check this out.

*edit* nice and a bit short. Nothing here nor there.

[Brony Tom]

511028

511406 I think you're probably right; looking back over it, it IS pretty skimpy in terms of character and detail. Thanks for pointing that out.

[wolfeprocter]

What.

The.

BUCK!!!!!

No, wait, let me get this straight: Celestia created a world of happiness by condensing all of its suffering into one point?

<DAMNITAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!

[wat]

I'm the first to comment on this in a looooooooooong time

[LittleSallyDigby]

Hmm. The thing about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that it doesn't have any characters. So this should be interesting.

It's under the labyrinth? Huh. Considering how little ponies apparently know of Discord despite his prominent placement, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out that it were out in the open and nopony noticed for some reason or another. Celestia must actually be ashamed of this one.

Celestia waved a hoof, and the vault door opened like a curtain, each side peeling back to allow entry.

Well what was the point of all the fortification then?

Twilight's mind numbed as she realized that she was standing on one such pile.

Okay, come on. She would have heard and/or felt that before she saw it.

The irises' spiraling white lines seemed to curl back upon themselves, whirlpools of thoughtless irrationality.

Okay, now that is some good imagery there.

Oh grife she talks. Grife grife grife.
...
And Twilight lets the door close on her? I... I mean, yeah, backing away is a pretty visceral reaction at that point, I can see myself doing the same thing, I just... I was hoping she'd be better than I would.

Yeah. This much I could reasonably expect from Twilight... though I wonder whether she told anyone she was leaving, and how they reacted. She certainly can't have just left Spike behind. But... grife. I can't help thinking that the right thing to do would be to get that filly out of there.

(Interesting thought: is the substitution of "trot" for "walk" a necessary or fitting one? According to PonyTalk "walk" has appeared in pony dialogue referring to ponies several times, including notably in Sonic Rainboom- "only pegasus ponies can walk on clouds"- and Putting Your Hoof Down- "um, politely walk around him?"... and frankly I'd say Twilight probably galloped and/or teleported away from Canterlot, after that encounter. )

[Brony Tom]

2140998
Alright, so I shall address these point by point: (And before we begin, I could probably answer most of your concerns by saying that I didn't think this through very well; I wrote the whole thing in about an hour.)

TBH, the secrecy is most likely to keep those who don't know about it from stumbling in accidentally.

The fortification is definitely overkill. I probably could've gotten by without it, since the secrecy should have been enough.

True, but I did mention that she stepped in something soft and squishy... I just didn't say what it was.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! I am just a little curious, as I don't know if anyone picked up on it, but I intended for the little filly to be Screwball. Did that come across clearly enough?

I wish I had done a bit more thorough job when describing why the filly had to suffer for Equestria's prosperity; I was trying to create a moral dilemma for the readers, and maybe I did, but I can't help but think that there's more I could've done with this. Ah well, I'm glad you find it to be interesting. As for what Twi did between writing the letter and leaving, I think it's safe to assume she'd let her friends know. They probably were surprised and would try to convince her to stay.

Now that I think about it, that would've been an excellent vehicle for developing the conflict... Darn you, hindsight!

Lastly, thank you so much for your comment! I love getting such feedback and this is a marvelous example.

[LittleSallyDigby]

2143503

Nope, didn't get the sense that it was Screwball at all. Building on that could have been really interesting, though, especially if you made her thematic connection to Discord an explicit one- maybe introduce the idea that because her origins are directly opposed to the harmony that keeps Equestria running, anything that helps her might by necessity harm others... but anyway, in general, yes, elaborating on the mechanism by which her suffering like this enables the prosperity of Equestria in general (or, you know, discussing it AT ALL) would have been a big help if you were setting out to create a moral dilemma. And yeah, Twilight's discussion of this with her friends, requiring each of them to weigh their current lives and how comfortable they are with what they've built for themselves in Ponyville against this one terrible thing that continuing in those lives would implicitly condone, would also help build on that. I mean, Twilight is a scholar. She can live pretty much anywhere there's civilization with the same viability she does now. And Rainbow Dash is probably in a similar situation with her weather work. But Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and especially Applejack are more tied to their current location, and would presumably have to consider the consequences more before they would be able to commit to leaving (though I do imagine that Pinkie and Fluttershy would likely end up siding with Twilight on this, or even get more serious about refusing to accept the situation- I don't know about the other two).

Basically... yeah, this could be a whole lot more interesting with another hour or so of thought put into the original premise and how it relates to these characters in particular. But there are still some good parts in this version, and the idea is an intriguing one.

[FashionablyHospitable]

...
This made very little sense. How does torturing one filly preserve Equestria's happiness? Like, seriously, why is this not explained? Is Twilight supposed to automatically know this? This is unreasonable.

[Brony Tom]

3747667
Yeah, that is definitely a problem. I just never really fixed it up. Sorry.