Consider, if you will, the unusual figure of the Equestrian political protester.(11)
Political activity alone is hardly unusual. Equestrian elections are demonstrably short, vicious, and enjoy an average poll attendance of almost ninety percent of eligible voters in most areas. Most elections are predominantly issue-focused, and voters are, if anything, too informed for the preferences of most of their candidates. Even in the higher echelons of power, however much nobleponies may wish to win the game, no one would consider breaking the board if they didn’t. After all, that made it harder to win the next game.
Politicians do their best to serve not only the platform that they campaigned on, but the needs of all of their constituents. The biggest difference, as in most places, is the conflict of opinions of how best to spread a limited public purse among the various social issues in need of bits to resolve. Seeing the other pony’s point of view tends to be encouraged, and with the hard work of the civil service, elected officials, and the royals working in concert, the social programs that make Equestria a nice place to live for the average pony, and even for the least fortunate ponies, a tolerable one.
Politics in Equestria is therefore something of a strange beast to certain neighbouring realms, but the same could be said for the Equestrian way of life in general.
Protest takes time, often takes bits, and, in a political system which is only mildly corrupt, is quite difficult to sell to ponies who would much rather be following their special talents, breaking out into spontaneous musical numbers, and having urbane get-togethers with tea and cucumber sandwiches. Ponies with special talents that focus on political discourse end up either as politicians, civil servants, or occasionally teachers of political theory at the University. It is therefore a very specific subsection of the Equestrian population which has the time, energy, and dedication required to be protesters.
Some of these ponies are more competent than others.
Ponies, as a rule, do not do things by half-measures. Ponies that bake bread practise until they can create masterful loafs. Ponies that create pieces of jewellery study styles dating back centuries, trying to learn from the greatest of their forebears and then adapt those styles and techniques most pleasing to them in an effort to create their own unique method. There are of course, the odd virtuoso prodigy or slacker, but it is, after all, the purpose of a cutie mark to give a hint as to what a pony might excel at.
The very best – or at least, most vehement and obsessive, which tends to lend a degree of skill, grown the old fashioned way by watering the talent tree for long enough – political protesters in Equestria set their sights high. They protest the Princesses.
This, it bears mentioning, does not lump them in the same grouping as those who simply opposed the princesses. Those seeking to advance their own goals at the expense of the good of Equestria found themselves opposing the princesses relatively swiftly. And many of those same opponents might, upon occasion, propose a system of governance which would greatly reduce the political power of the royal sisters. It would, among other things, make their efforts of self-advancement considerably simpler.
But protesters against the princesses – of which there are a fair number, all things taken into consideration – are not merely self-serving. The self-serving generally have more accessible windmills against which to tilt, not least because it’s hard to argue with the ponies who cause day and night to occur. But, as the princesses, on the balance of things, do their level best to be accessible and approachable, and to foster freedoms including the rights to assembly and speech, they go largely untrammelled for their ineffectual pains.
Until quite recently however, very few of them had ever had any actual face time with their sovereigns.
* * *
Luna looked out her window. Yes, they were there. It was a Saturday, after all. Some ponies were working of course, but the idea of a week-end had apparently caught on some centuries prior, and those ponies that worked primarily in the financial and other secondary industries had adopted it as a time of leisure, in which one’s hobbies could be pursued.
Hobbies such as picketing the castle, for instance.
As far as actually disrupting hoof-traffic in and out of the palace went, the protesters had given up some time prior. They had a nice sheltered area, out of the rain, that was specifically set aside for them a luxury afforded by Celestia some years back, which Luna was quite certain some of them resented. She certainly did. Sure, they weren’t blocking the front door, but they were close enough to her window that she was more regularly woken by calls for her removal than by the morning lark.
Today however, she intended to set aside her differences of opinion, and try to see things from the perspective of somepony else.
Taking a painstakingly hoof-painted sign in her telekinetic grasp, Luna went out to join the protest.
* * *
“Down with Princess Luna! Down with Princess Luna!” Hounds Tooth and Tight Wire tended to get the most passerby support with their march. While a great number of the ponies of Canterlot had taken Princess Celestia’s injunction to treat her sister with the respect due a royal, there were no small number who feared or mistrusted Luna for her actions during the Summer Sun celebration when she had first returned. Not enough that there were any more than the two of them standing out in front of the palace’s side entrance, but the occasional nod of respect or agreement kept the fires of protest burning nicely.
What they were unaccustomed to was outright support. A new voice had taken up their cry.
“Down with Princess Luna!”
Tooth looked over at the new protester. Sort of a darkish blue mare, with a horn, wings, and a moon cutie mark. She was carrying a sign that had that same cutie mark in a red circle, with a line through it. He blinked, and did a double take.
“... Wire?”
The pegasus protester accompanying him boggled a little at that. “Well, that’s... new.” Luna had produced a megaphone from somewhere, and was experimenting with the settings. There was a shriek of feedback as she learned that it was unwise to combine with the Royal Canterlot Voice, and a few sparks preceded a slow trailing of smoke from the now ruined device.
Hounds Tooth considered this. Strictly speaking, this was good, wasn’t it? Their protest was clearly making progress if they had gained an additional member. And, if you got down to it, that new member was a high-ranking official in the government, somepony capable of enacting real change! It worked... as long as you didn’t actually say the words ‘Princess Luna is protesting herself in government’. He sidled over.
“Erm. Your majesty?” Luna didn’t seem to notice him, as she was busily shaking the megaphone, as if through an act of percussive maintenance she could encourage both sparks and smoke to return to the ruined electronics, and restore it to working order. “Princess Luna?” Now the disregard he was being paid seemed more studied. “Hey, you!”
Luna looked up. “I am on my day off. As such, I am neither princess nor majesty.” She paused in consideration. “I am still a ‘hey you’. And I suppose you can be forgiven for picking up on a certain inherent majesty.”
Hounds Tooth frowned at that. “Your... day off?”
Luna nodded sagely. “Oh yes. Very important, the odd day-in-lieu. I think it’s important to stay politically active too, don’t you?”
Hound rubbed his eyes. “By protesting... yourself?”
Luna shrugged. “What can I say? I was moved by your enthusiasm.” She tilted her head. “Out of idle curiosity, what about me do you find particularly objectionable?” She leaned in and stage whispered. “I’m pretty sure I can pass along the information to somewhere that it will do some good.”
Hound was a little frazzled. In a sense, this was nothing new; he and Wire fairly regularly had people taking the piss out of what some called their quixotic(13) crusade. On the other hand, perhaps there was something to the old saying about those the princesses wished to destroy... “Well, ah... we feel that, in light of the whole ‘attempting to steal the throne of Equestria’ thing a year or so back, that Princess Luna – that would be you, that is – should be more carefully watched.” He sat. “After all, it’s really intimidating to have to deal with yet another powerful pony sorcerer capable of rending the world asunder if she doesn’t like what’s happening.”
Luna preened. “Agreed.”
Hound blinked. “What.”
Luna shrugged, leaning her protest sign over a shoulder. “Well, Celly and I do our best to do right by our subjects, of course, but it’s easy for a monarch or diarch to get distracted by the day-to-day struggles in politics. The best way to ensure a healthy system of governance is through a politically active populace, which of course includes oversight.” She nibbled her lower lip a moment. “And of course, watching me in particular is a good thing. I’m terribly sneaky, you know.”
Wire chirped in at this point; the pegasus mare had flapped over when she had seen Hound floundering. “And of course, there’s the whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ thing. Tyrannical governance through night unending is something to avoid rewarding. Think of the precedent it sets!”
Luna nodded solemnly. “Right again.”
Wire frowned at that. She wasn’t used to being agreed with. “Right. Failed conquerors should not be awarded the throne of Equestria.”
Luna’s eyes sparkled. “Well, technically Equestria’s throne is empty. Celly and I are Princesses Elect, although the last general election was about twelve hundred years ago.” She tilted her head. “I’m fairly certain that when Iron Fist the Conqueror called for elections for ‘ruler for life’, he wasn’t expecting us to run against him. Still, it beats having a successful conqueror on the throne, am I right?” She nudged Wire in the ribs with a wing.
Hound rallied gamely. “I feel as if you’re not taking us seriously, your m-” one of Luna’s wings was pressed up against his lips. She shook her head. Right, no majesty. “Pr-” the other wing now. “... You.”
Luna sighed, and leaned on her sign, grounding it on the cobbles. “Actually, I’m taking you very seriously. I agree. Our system of governance is better than many, but it is the duty of any good leader to listen to the concerns of their subjects and to constantly strive for better and more effective methods of leadership.” She glanced at her sign. “Admittedly, when I first came out here, I was intending to cock a snook, because frankly, that bedroom up there?” She gestured with a wing. “That’s where I sleep. During the day. And it’s not especially pleasant to have to try to sleep through people calling for your head.”
Hound blinked. He had hoped that he would be heard, of course, but somehow he had never realized that he had been. “That’s...”
Luna gave a bit of a melancholic smile. “But the thing is, I understand. I don’t cut a very approachable figure most times, and flitting about from crisis to crisis, or what have you, I suppose I must seem very distant indeed. And I genuinely do believe that it’s important to have ponies like you, helping to keep me honest. A crown is a mark of authority, to be sure, but it is only the authority that is invested in us by our little ponies to lead them with care and what passes for wisdom.” The night princess gave a rueful chuckle. “I won’t say that I’ll agree with all of your points. For obvious reasons. But I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at least take your concerns to heart. Besides, if nopony ever disagreed with me, I’d never hear any better ideas than the ones I came up with.”
Hound and Wire blinked. This was more thought than they usually got from the ponies on the street. To have it from one of Equestria’s rulers – and in particular, the one under protest...
Hound hesitated. “I... suppose we misjudged you, Princess Luna. Can you find it in your heart to forgive us?”
Luna scowled at that. “Come now. Don’t go soft on me now.”
Wire considered this. “Curse you Nightmare Moon?”
“That’s the spirit.”
* * *
Luna sat back in her office, lazily doodling on a piece of scrap parchment with a telekinetically grasped quill. She had performed good governance, it was true, but the sting of failure that had accompanied her previous attempts at subversive vacation-taking wasn’t there. She had made a meaningful connection with her subjects, and she was starting to think that she had come to understand them a bit better as well.
Besides, the protesters had given her some ideas. Luna gave a wicked grin. Tomorrow was another day.
* * *
The anti-Luna protest had changed its tune. It focused now more on accountability and transparency in government, and while it still focused on Luna, it was calling for her to be more accessible and available. The protest had also grown in scope, with dozens of ponies pitching in, either with their own voices adding to the chants and cheers, or in more subtle ways, with baked goods and hot coffee serving as the grease on the wheels of political change.
Perhaps the single greatest contributing factor to the change in fortune for the small protest – a carefully calligraphed plaque that read ‘With the Support and Approval of Luna Implaccabilis’.
11: Consider also the ruthless nature of a fanfiction author who begins a chapter with ‘consider if you will’ in cold blood. They might be capable of anything. A maniac, I tell you! Best placate them with upvotes.(12)
12: This nested footnote brought to you in part by the metahumour awareness fund.
13: A term coined for famous knight-errant Donkey Hotey, who in days of yore slew no fewer than three giant changelings masquerading as windmills, hoping to exploit the famed pony love for mechanized agriculture.