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// Complaints in Canterlot 
// Story: Society as We Know It 
// by Comma Typer 
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Under the afternoon sun, a line of ponies was supposed to be there. Instead, there was a massive crowd of ponies flooding the entrance to the castle, several of them wearing posh and fine clothing but most of them wore casual clothes or indeed nothing at all. The ponies' clamoring for the Princesses outside and within the halls of the royal castle bellowed throughout, showing that they, without a doubt, had a level of respect, of approval, and of love for their dear rulers.
And Nastic covered his ears as he and Long Winded were in the middle of it all as ponies shouted and pushed and walked and ran and talked and flew.
"I knew we should've stayed somewhere else for the day!" complained Nastic. He eyed a pony who had a big smile on his face as he galloped up the stairs to the big front doors. "Hah. Look at all those mindless citizens, running and trotting about to tell their lovely Princesses about their own problems and their own suggestions when they don't even care about the changelings who are standing right here!"
Long Winded poked Nastic. "I think it's because we're the only changelings in this sea of ponies."
Nastic looked away from that pony.
They were surrounded by ponies everywhere of all colors and from all tribes, all looking forward to meeting with the Princesses.
"Not if I could help it," Nastic muttered.
He grabbed Long Winded and flew above the ponies.



As the ponies gathered around in the hall, the sunlight beamed through the stained glass windows, bringing on a wonderful display of light into the noble hall. The royal, cushioned thrones weren't occupied by the Princesses—they were standing on the floor, in front of their citizens.
"Hey! It's a changeling!"
And many of the ponies gasped and pointed at the two changelings that were hovering over a few ponies among the many.
Nastic whispered, "I told you we should've flown more slowly!"
"Don't you dare do anything to the Princesses!" a pony accused.
"Call the guards, already!" another pony yelled.
"Is this another invasion?!" yet another pony shouted.
"Why didn't the Princesses build up a defense system against the changelings?!"
"Who's going to protect us if they capture the Princesses again?!"
"The guards are not going to help us! Somepony, get Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends from Ponyville immediately!"
"What if they captured them already?!"
"Then, call Starlight Glimmer and her friends?!"
"Don't be silly, now! The changelings are smarter than that and they probably captured them, too!"
"OK, let's call in Joe!"
"You mean the donut pony?"
"Joe and his friends might be the ones to save the day!"
"But, the changelings must've captured him and his friends! I don't see Joe here in this crowd at all."
There was an awkward pause.
All the ponies then panicked, running and galloping around and pushing each other as they attempted their escape. Screams filled the room along with the sounds of many hooves.
"There is no need to panic," Princess Celestia said in her soothing tone of voice.
Everypony stopped their panic. There were gasps.
"Have we not told you about the changelings before," Princess Luna spoke up, "that they are good, reformed, and nice, now?"
The ponies calmly yet cautiously walked back to where they were, talking and whispering among themselves as many of them still pointed at the changelings.
Celestia chuckled. "Changelings, you can land on the ground, now. You don't have to fly all the time."
Long Winded fell to the floor on his four hooves, joyfully jittering. "I can't believe it, Nastic! The Princesses themselves, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna—they just addressed us! It's so exciting! What am I going to say to them?!"
Nastic brushed himself off as he slowly hovered himself to the ground. "What about we be a little less optimistic about the event, hm?"
"So, changelings." Celestia walked towards them.
The ponies around them quickly stepped back, giving the changelings space. Many of those ponies weren't smiling—they had faces of fear, faces of concern, faces of terror.
"What is it that you want to tell us?" Celestia looked down on them, smiling peacefully.
Long Winded was jumping up and down in excitement, close to screaming in delight. He was giggling, looking here and there, then back at the Princesses who were looking at them. "I don't know what to say! It's just such an honor and an opportunity and a great, awesome thing to be able to meet the Princessses of Equestria! This might be the best day of my life!"
His words echoed throughout the hall as the sunlight still beamed on and illuminated the room in its tranquil way.
Many of the ponies just blinked in confusion as they stared at the conversation happening before their very eyes.
Celestia chuckled again. "You must be really excited to meet me and my sister." She paced around. "But, we're not the only Princesses of Equestria. What about Princess Twilight Sparkle and Princess Cadance?"
"You and your sister raise the sun and the moon everyday, so it's still very much amazing to be here!" Long Winded jittered and bounced with even more energy and joy.
Nastic tapped his hoof on the floor, sporting an impatient look.
"What's your name, then?" Celestia asked.
"I'm Long Winded, and" —He caught his friend and pulled him closer to the Princesses— "this is my friend, Nastic! We've been buddies even before all the crazy reforming thing happened!" Long Winded placed on a wide smile.
"Is that so?" Luna questioned. "We have assumed that changeling friendships from before your reformation were not a common thing."
"Well, that just means that we're even more special together!" Long Winded hugged his friend, grinning all the while.
Nastic pushed himself out of the hug.
"So, besides being thrilled and delighted at meeting us, what else do you seek from this?" Luna asked further.
"Um...it's...it's just so great to be here that I really haven't prepared anything to say to you!"
Everypony gasped. "Don't waste the Princesses' time!" a pony shouted from the crowd. "We want to talk with the Princesses, too!"
"Actually," Nastic began, "I'm the one who wants to talk to you, not just to be excited by meeting you." He glared at his friend before looking back at the Princesses. "To be really honest with you, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, I have a complaint."
Everypony gasped again. "Wait, I also have a complaint!" another pony yelled.
"Then, wait for your turn, then!" yet another pony yelled back.
"Nastic," Celestia said, "what's your complaint?"
"That Princess Twilight Sparkle doesn't really care much about the changelings!"
And everypony gasped again.
Luna earnestly stepped forward. "This is a serious charge against the Princess, but we shall listen to your plea to understand your predicament."
"Alrighty, then." Nastic clasped his front hooves together, then he stood back on his four hooves. He adjusted his hat. "Ahem."
Everypony and the other changeling in the room stayed quiet as they looked upon Nastic. A few ponies brought up pads of paper and prepared their pencils and ballpens, others readied their sound recorders. Several ponies tried to inch their way through the crowd, trying to better see and hear what the bold changeling has to say.
"I personally talked with Princess Twilight Sparkle back at Ponyville about it," he began, adopting a professional accent, "and this is what I talked with the Princess about: The changelings are too much like the ponies. They admire and adore pony things, they want to wear clothes made by ponies, they want to eat pony food and drink pony drinks and do pony activities. Despite that, you keep on bombarding us with more pony this and more pony that by sending us the occasional pony representative and always supplying us with things that were clearly meant for ponies. And it's not just the essentials, the vital things every living being needs—I can understand ponies giving us their apples for us to eat. What I don't understand is the constant flow of pony books, pony art, pony music, pony events, and the like!" He grabbed a quick breath of air. "The changelings in the Changeling Kingdom—if this doesn't stop, we'll just be like the ponies except in form! That's my complaint in the shortest and simplest way that I can think of right now!"
He was breathing heavily and loudly, seething with anger and resentment, his eyes half-open as they were arched in a mad way.
"OK..." Celestia looked to her left and then to her right and then back at the complaining changeling in front of her. "What does that have to do about Twilight?"
"Did she send you a letter, Princess?" he said rudely. "Did she?"
And a scroll appeared magically in front of the Princesses.
"Yes, she did," Celestia replied.
Nastic covered his mouth and his expression sunk. He stuttered as he gazed upon the rolled up scroll. "B-but...h-how did she...?"
"Looks like you weren't paying much attention to Twilight after your discussion with her," Celestia said. "Apparently, she sent me the letter the afternoon after the discussion. I bet you didn't visit her to follow up on the topic."
The whispers among the ponies loudened.
"I've read through the entire letter myself and my sister has also read it. From what I remember, it seems that either you want to push this agenda despite all odds or you somehow forgot what Twilight said to you."
"L-like what?!"
"That the Changeling Kingdom is, sadly, not in a good position to produce its own books, its own art, its own music—although it has the capability to produce its own events. It's free to do that."
"And, in addition," Luna continued, "what about what Twilight said about culture not just consisting of the obvious items such as the aforementioned books and art and music? That it also consists of the everyday lives of the changelings, that it consists of the everyday activities and everyday gestures, that it consists of the everyday talk and chats, not just the major and occasional books and such?"
"W-well, I, uh...must've forgotten?"
"Being given a talk by a Princess is not something a changeling would forget so easily," Luna said.
"However," Celestia stated, "we do understand that you don't want your friends and the rest of your kind to be much like our ponies. We just ask for your cooperation as we continue helping you, your King Thorax, and your kingdom grow with the magic of friendship. Isn't that why Twilight goes to your kingdom to give a friendship talk every now and then? You've forgotten one thing about not just culture, but about society in general, Nastic."
Nastic looked up at the Princesses
"Friendship," the two Princesses said in unison.
And everypony cheered for their royalty.
Long Winded rushed to Celestia and hugged her.
The guards, wearing their armor, rushed in to protect her.
"It's alright," Celestia assured. She chuckled.
Her sister chuckled, too.
Everypony went on applauding their Princesses.
Long Winded flew from Celestia to hug Luna.
The celebration continued on in the grand, royal hall as the stained glass windows continued to let in the sunlight. The hall was now with a happy atmosphere as the ponies roared their approval and their love for their Princesses.
Nastic held his bag.
He smiled.



"I knew it would taste delicious!" Long Winded said as he took another bite of the pie that he held with one hoof. "Hoof-made pies that you can eat on the go!" He planted his face onto the pie and gobbed up even more of it.
The two changelings walked on the sidewalks of the Canterlot streets. Several ponies did their best to avoid even eye contact with the changelings. There were others who happily and cheerfully greeted them. There were a few who even wanted to have their picture taken with the two changelings.
The streets of Canterlot were busy—many carriages were moving, there were traffic conductors controlling the flow of the carriages through the intersections. The sidewalks were also busy—many ponies were walking, trotting, galloping their way to wherever their destinations were. Ponies rushed into one buildings, ponies rushed out the next onto the sidewalk.
Nastic delightfully opened another newspaper. "It's the Canterlot Newspaper. They seriously named it the Canterlot Newspaper." He sighed. "Well, it's better than a newspaper with no name at all."
"What's in the news?!" Long Winded shouted.
"'Princess Twilight Sparkle to Schedule Another Friendship Talk at the Changeling Kingdom this Friday.'"
"What?! I'm not going to miss that one!" Long Winded rambled. "Somehow, I was able to miss every one of her talks so far! I was always in this place, I was always visiting that place, I was probably sleeping that one time—but, even if Thorax extends our weekends, we're going back to the kingdom before Friday!"
"Uh, that's good." He eyed his friend's steps. "Just watch out or you might trip on somepony."
"I will do!"
And they kept on walking on the busy sidewalks.



The sunset sky was yellow and orange. Ponies walked past the buildings, going to some place, headed for their destinations. Tourists were amazed by the sight of the city, looking and gazing upon the magnificent architecture of the Canterlot buildings. A few held up their cameras and took pictures here and there, smiling at the wonder of Equestria's capital.
Out one building, a building that stood out with its pink tones and yellow highlights and a huge sign that looked like a donut, two changelings went out holding paper bags that emanated the sweet scent of freshly baked donuts.
Nastic placed his donut bag into his other bag. He looked up at his hat and adjusted it. As the two walked, he said, "I'm going to let the Princesses off for now. They're catching on to us—now that the two most important Princesses in the land have finally listened to our complaint."
"Our complaint?" Long Winded laughed as he ate a piece of a donut. Then, his face brightened up. "It's amazing!"
Nastic stopped and turned towards his friend. "Ugh, what now?"
Long Winded held the donut. "It tastes sweet and delicious and...yummy! I wanna buy more!"
Nastic grabbed his friend. "Hold on. We don't wanna go wasting our bits on donuts."
"Hey, I remember you!" a voice called out.
Long Winded's face brightened up even more at the sight of who the pony was. "Princess Twilight Sparkle!"
The Princess was surrounded by four other mares. "Wow. I didn't know you liked donuts! We were on our way to buy donuts, too! Oh, by the way, here's my friends from Canterlot—I've been with them even before I met my friends in Ponyville!"
The four different unicorns smiled at the changelings.
"What about I introduce them to you?"
Nastic whispered to Long Winded, "I'm getting rather uneasy, considering what I just said about her." He was sweating.
"This is Lemon Hearts, the yellow unicorn; this is Minuette, the blue one; this is Twinkleshine, the white and pink one; and this is Moon Dancer, the white and, uh, red and purple one with the black sweater."
"Aww," Minuette interrupted, "Twilight's still awkward after all this time!" She hugged her. "Besides, didn't you introduce us to them back at the castle?"
"Oh, yeah..." Twilight looked embarassed.
"So, what's your names again?" Lemon Hearts asked eagerly. "I forgot; sorry."
Long Winded grabbed Nastic. "I'm Long Winded—" He pointed to himself, then he pointed to his friend "—and this is my best friend, Nastic!"
"I know you probably bought donuts already," Twinkleshine started, "but is it OK if we can spend some time back inside Joe's donut shop and talk?"
"We're going to have a tremendous time together!" Lemon Hearts yelled.
Twilight nodded. "Is it alright with you, Nastic and Long Winded?"
Nastic looked confused. "Uhh..."
"We'd love to talk with the Princess and her close friends!" He faced Nastic. "Come on, Nastic! This is a great opportunity that you don't want to miss out! You've already met the Princess. The Princess and her friends?" Long Winded flew his way inside, Nastic in tow. "Let's go!"
The five friends stood outside, having just witnessed an excited changeling grab his friend and then fly straight back into the donut shop. They laughed.
"Alright, everypony," Moon Dancer said, "let's get inside and have a wonderful bonding time with each other and with the changelings."
The friends cheered as they walked inside the donut shop.