Several firm rock tables were arranged in a neat order—all in all, eleven. On the tables was a lineup of cooking tools and equipment: a considerable gamut of cups, knives, chopping boards, spoons, whisks, mortars and pestles, and what not. Beside them was a wide diversity of ingredients—beside the usual apples and oranges and onions and garlic and sugar and salt and chocolate and chili peppers (tons of chili—there were sacks of chili for each table), there were also those unique to the changeling diet, namely various bugs: cockroaches, flies, worms, and the like.
Strangely (or not strangely) enough, there was dim sum in their respective little wooden, polygonal bowls—but, at the dining table, not at the arranged rock tables. Also, some jelly.
A lot of changelings were gathered around at the rock tables—all of them but one, the lonely eleventh way up ahead. The changelings were wearing aprons of different colors, with blue aprons for one table, red aprons for another, yellow aprons for yet another, and so it went—green, purple, brown, orange, cyan, black, white. They talked amongst themselves and even with each other, inspecting the ingredients and equipment they had at hoof with child-like curiosity—"Ooh's!" and "Aah's!" and turning it around and, like a typical child, refusing to give it up to the one who owned the item in question because they had not held it for long enough yet.
On the eleventh table, there was a cooking timer. Behind the table were Thorax and Pharynx—both of them wearing aprons as well (though Pharynx gritted his teeth).
"Attention, every changeling!" Thorax declared.
And all the talking—and childish fighting and grabbing—stopped.
"Today, we're going to be having a chili cook-off! I'll make this quick." He cleared his throat. "The rules are simple! Make the best chili you can, uh, make in one hour!"
"Don't we already have chili, Thorax?!" one of the changelings yelled, holding a hoofful of chilis dripping out of his grasp.
"I mean chili...soup? Now, to make it harder, no vegetables—you can use—"
And the changelings instantly went to work, grabbing the necessary pots and brandishing the necessary peppers and knives. Chop-chop-chop.
"Huh?" Then, he muttered, "Well, I had to think of a rule just then."
And Thorax just set the timer to one hour and let it tick.
"Nice going, Thorax," Pharynx said, sounding bothered. "At the rate you're going, you'll end up having the entire hive eating nothing but soup by Hearth's Warming."
"It makes sense, though!" Thorax said, trying to make a comeback. "It's going to be a cold winter by that time!"
"You know there are hot dishes other than soup. You've heard of steaming? Frying? Roasting?"
"Pharynx, I know!" Thorax replied, sounding bothered himself.
"Heh, cheer up," Pharynx said, smirking. "At least it's not pure soup. I'd be willing to down a few peppers myself if it meant avoiding a swarm trying to steal my soup."
Thorax giggled at that.
"I'm serious—wanted to try it myself, see what's so good about it. Thought they were hyping it up too much—it's good, it isn't revolutionary. It's as if they wanted to throw me out of the hive for saying that." Taking a firmer stand, he said, "And, you see, this soup is making us changelings crazy."
Five minutes to go.
Most of the changelings were merely waiting at the fire they had made at their respective tables, a pot over the fire as the chili soup bubbled and boiled. Since there were no lids over those pots, the individual aromas of the chili soups combined, forming a savory bouquet of chili in the air.
Pharynx was asleep, his head resting on the table. Thorax, meanwhile, kept a happy face as he moved about, going to each table and examining the work-in-progress of each team. Sometimes, he would give general words of encouragement: "You can do it!" for example, though the team had nothing else to do but wait (however, they can wait). Other times, he would give words that affirmed them: "I can taste the delicious soup already!" was one of the sentences he used.
The team usually gave a cheerful response to him. "I hope we'll win!" was the sentiment of one changeling, which he said straight to his face.
This went on until the final minutes were up and the timer rang.
All the changelings looked at the ringing timer and the sleeping Pharynx.
Pharynx picked up the timer and slammed it on the table.
It stopped.
"OK, that's it!" Thorax yelled. He clasped his forehooves. "It's time to know who the winner is! But first—taste test!"
At the eleventh table were gathered ten bowls of chili soup. Each of them looked very similar to each other—they were red and had chili and were hot.
The judges at the table were Thorax, Pharynx (who looked bored), and Starlight Glimmer—who looked squeamish with her big (forced) grin at the sight of all the chili soup to be tasted and, perhaps, eaten.
All the teams were huddled together in front of the table—a large mass of changelings who were already colorful and, yet, that was compounded by the different colors of aprons they were wearing.
"You're ready, Starlight?" Thorax asked.
Starlight gulped. "Eh-heh?"
"I understand if chili is not your thing," Thorax said. "I mean, you're only here because I didn't know you were visiting."
"Oh, it's nothing, Thorax!" Starlight said, shoving something imgainary away with a hoof. "I don't wanna just stand around and watch—I want to help, and if being one of the cook-off's judges is one way to help, then I'll take it!"
Thorax raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."
Then, he turned round to the teams
"This is the grand moment you've all been waiting for!" Thorax announced. "Prepare yourselves! In a few minutes, one of you is going to win—"
"Uh, one of us?" a changeling asked.
"Uh, one team out of, uh, all of you teams." He grinned. "Anyway, some of you are gonna win and that's that!"
"What's the prize?" another changling asked.
"Oh, uh—" Then, he muttered, "—I didn't think this through."
Pharynx and Starlight now glanced at him. "Isn't that just great?" Pharynx said. "All of that hard work and effort for nothing. You could've told them while they were cooking."
Thorax sighed. "I'll think of a prize when it's over."
Thorax and Pharynx took a few sips out of the first bowl of chili soup. Now, they looked at Starlight.
She gulped again. "You sure there's no bugs inside, right? Because I don't know what that's gonna taste like."
"It depends on what bug you're talking about," Thorax said. "Cockroaches, for example, are like biscuits. Only crunchier. And has a meaty taste to it. But, like biscuits."
"That's not helping."
"Well, I don't taste any bugs here," Thorax said. "So, I guess you're fine for this one."
He pushed the bowl toward Starlight.
She glanced at the bowl and then at Thorax. "Sure?"
Thorax nodded. "Absolutely sure! Trust me!"
Starlight looked at the chili soup again.
It seemed normal. It was red, it had chili, and it was hot.
Then, she levitated a spoon and ate some of the soup.
"Hm. Has a nice juicy flavor to it." She looked at the changelings with blue aprons. "You added tomatoes here?"
"Yes, Starlight!" said the changeling with a blue apron and a blue toque blanche—the only one of the blue team to have that hat.
Then, several of the teams looked at him.
"Hey, that's not fair!" a green-aproned changeling shouted. "I accuse you of disobeying the rules!"
"What?! The only rule that was in force was the one about no vegetables!"
"Yet you blatantly use a vegetable! Hah! You knew the rule yet you went on ignoring it! How rebellious can you be?!"
"Isn't a tomato a vegetable?" a yellow-arponed changeling asked. "We also used tomatoes and—"
"You're also a cheater!" a purple-aproned changeling screamed.
"Tomatoes are fruits!" another blue-arponed changeling shouted.
"Vegetables!"
"Fruits!"
"Define 'fruits' and 'vegetables'!"
"I don't want to!"
"Why, because you admit defeat?!"
"No?!"
"Why can't I join in the fight?!"
"You stop right there! Tomatoes are fruits!"
"Tomatoes are vegetables!"
"No, they aren't!"
"You have ulterior motives, don't you?!"
"You're the one who wants to cheat us out!"
"You're the cheater!"
"No, you're the cheater!"
"Who left the tomatoes in the basket?!"
"I thought they were alright! I was growing some tomatoes my—"
"Tear down his tomato crops!"
"What?!"
"He's the instigator—the evil mastermind behind all—"
"I'm just a simple farmer!"
"That's what you want us to think!"
"Seize his farms!"
"Do we have farms?!"
"Tomatoes!"
And the controversy escalated into melee. Changelings throwing each other about, punching, kicking, organizing ordered attacks only to be side-tracked and defeated before the first strike by another more organized attack. Food was the main weapon—alongside tomatoes there were also entire pots of chili soup being thrown about, covering entire changelings in scorching hot chili soup, resulting in more than a few screaming about and flailing their legs and wings about, taking down even their own teammates in the turmoil. Denunciations were flung against each other—one side alleged the other of setting up the entire cook-off to humiliate some changeling named "Cornicle," the other side alleged the one of stirring up pure emotion without considering the rationality of the situation. No matter how high-falutin the words were, they were all accompanied by straightforward uppercuts and roundhouse kicks, knocking out several and injuring many.
"Uh, guys?" Thorax uttered.
Pharynx groaned and glanced at his brother with an irritated face. "Really?"
Starlight glowed her horn blue, pressure on her face.
A dark green hoof obscured her view.
"I'll handle this, Starlight," Pharynx said.
Starlight's horn stopped glowing as she looked upon the charging Pharynx.
He hovered before the tumultuous crowd of fighting and fought changelings.
Then, he arched his eyebrow. "Guards?! Why didn't you do your jobs?!"
The outlying changelings—wearing armor—panicked and then hurled themselves into the fight, joining in the pain and the hurt administered by blows. More changelings were being thrown about here and there, some of them coming back to the fray for a second (or even third) round of battle.
Pharynx growled and then went into the mass itself. He became a blur amidst a storm of blurs, subduing—it was unclear what he was doing, at least from Starlight's and Thorax's eyes.
Starlight was leaning towards them, her horn glowing again. She faced Thorax. "Come on! Let me use—"
"I don't know," Thorax said. "Don't you remember Twilight telling you that you can't always 'magic' problems away!"
"I'm a unicorn!" Starlight answered back. "Sure, I'm not supposed to solve every little trouble with magic, but—this is a serious dilemma, Thorax!" She pointed a hoof at the swirling, churning throng of inflicted changelings—lobbing and delivering abuse both physical and verbal at each other.
Thorax did not answer. He just watched the anarchy on display. "Wow. I can't believe tomatoes brought us this low."
Starlight groaned. Her horn glowed even brighter. "When I'm done with this, I'm taking this 'tomato issue' to a higher authority!"
Then, she engulfed the entire area with a blinding magical glow.
Princess Twilight Sparkle stood in front of a wooden table, levitating a gavel.
All parties involved in the debacle known as the "Changeling Tomato Issue" were represented in her castle's library. There was the judge—Twilight Sparkle with the gavel. There were the prosecutors—represented solely by that same green-aproned changeling who first raised the question to public light; he was battered and bandaged. There were the defendants—represented solely by that same blue-aproned changeling whose team had the first (and so far, only) chili soup to be tasted by the cook-off's judges; he was also battered and bandaged. And, finally, there were the jury which consisted of Thorax, Pharynx, Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst, Mayor Mare, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Cheerilee, and Gustave le Grand ("After this, I do not want to be involved in your inzignificant cases!"). No onlookers except for the press—who all had their cameras out and ready.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Twilight said, still levitating the gavel. "I'm going to be the arbiter on the issue of whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable."
"It's a fruit!" Pinkie yelled, jumping up.
Applejack brought her down and shushed her. "We're s'pposed to be neutral!"
"But, duh! Everypony knows tomatoes are—"
And Applejack plugged a hoof into Pinkie's mouth, which did not stop Pinkie from attempting to continue speaking though her words were now garbled.
Everyone's gaze was now centered on Twilight.
"The matter itself is not going to be easy, Pinkie," Twilight said. "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits. Apples, cherries, grapes, and so on grow either on trees, on bushes, or on vines; tomatoes grow on vines. Like the fruits I mentioned, tomatoes come from flowers. Like fruits, also, tomatoes have seeds inside—they are not merely similar to leaves of plants like cabbages, nor are they root crops like onions or turnips. When it comes to the long and short of it, all things being equal and placed in a completely unbiased situation and jurisdiction, tomatoes are fruits."
"A-ha!" the green-aproned changeling shouted at the defendant, furnishing a pointing hoof at him. "The Princess of Friendship said so!"
"Not so fast," Twilight said, turning to the prosecuting prosecutor. "Even though tomatoes are scientifically fruits, tomatoes are both culinarily and legally considered vegetables."
"What?!" the prosecutor exclaimed in disdain.
"Hah! We're in a legal proceeding!" the blue-aproned changeling shouted at the prosecutor. "Since this will be settled legally, we're going to win!"
"Do even care to know why tomatoes are considered vegetables here?" Twilight asked the defendant.
The changeling gulped.
Twilight sighed and lifted her head. "As I'm sure all of you are aware of, tomatoes aren't cooked the same way most fruits are. While most creatures inside and outside of Equestria treat fruits as sweets and, usually, are reserved for desserts and as sweets to garnish or decorate food with, tomatoes are treated as vegetables—cooked as the main part of the dish for main courses and other kinds of courses outside of desserts. They've been treated as such for more than a thousand years, predating even the founding of Equestria.
"Tomatoes are also considered vegetables in a legal sense. This is because of a court case known as 'Neighs vs. Hoofen.' About a century ago, when vegetables from inside of Equestria were being exported on a large scale, they had to have additonal tax. Nightshade Neighs, owner of a popular fruit farm, complained to Princess Celestia about how that was hurting him financially since tomatoes were his cash crop. Without getting into any more details, Neighs won and, because of that, tomatoes are legally considered a vegetable here in Equestria. Complicating this is the fact that the Changeling Hive has no official law regarding food."
Then, she sighed. She took a long, sweeping look at everyone present in the library.
"Why do I have the feeling we're going to be in for one long afternoon?"