//------------------------------//
// Relations 
// Story: Society as We Know It 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

Thorax and Ember stood on the podium and in front of a large audience of ponies, changelings, dragons, and one hippogriff—all watching, waiting for the entire summit or convention to start.
Then, all eyes were on the trotting Princess who was levitating a stack of index cards—reading, practicing, then shuffling to the next one.
A quick walk, then she was there on the podium with the other two leaders who were staring at her with curious looks—but not without giving each other another knowing glance at each other.
Twilight cleared her throat, still levitating the index cards.
The audience was now silent—a cough here but, otherwise, it was silent. Everyone there did not say a single word as they watched her.
It was mid-morning—the sun was still rising in the sky, the day surely getting brighter and hotter.
Twilight looked upon all those who were in attendance. "Good morning, everyone!" she began in an upbeat fashion, smiling along. "I hope you've had a good time travelling here and talking to your pals!"
The changelings then talked amongst themselves though most of the dragons remained silent. Skystar smiled as she raised two clams with pairs of google eyes on them, letting others see them.
"And, as you should know by now, talking with your friends is a sign of friendship! Which leads us to what we're all gathered here for: a changeling-dragon friendship summit right here in Ponyville! Aren't you excited?"
Many changelings and many ponies cheered for her.
Most of the dragons remained reserved about their cheers.
"Alright! I see that you are excited for what's going to happen and what you can do while you're staying here. After this introductory speech, I'll let King Thorax of the Changelings and Dragon Lord Ember of the Dragons to speak to you about the conditions of their respective kingdoms and to entertain your questions so that the both of you will have a better, more cordial understanding of each other in friendship!"
A pause as she cleared her throat again, moving her index cards about with her magic.
"Ah!" She stacked the index cards properly—making sure that they were all straight. She faced the audience again. "I don't want to overstay my being here without hearing your leaders talk to you about their concerns and their wishes for all of you so that you'll be even closer friends. So, I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle and...uh, see you later!"
She trotted away, levitating her stack of index cards with her out of view.
Everyone else—her friends, Thorax, Ember, the audience, among others—were looking at her with odd stares.
Ember crossed her arms and walked closer to the edge. She looked at Thorax. "What are you doing?" she whispered. "Come up here!"
"Oh, uh—" and Thorax walked his way to her side.
Ember stood proud, in a magnificent and pronounced pose and stance. Thorax tried to do so as well—only to look awkwardly at her and give up the grand effort, resorting to a relaxed posture.
She gave Twilight a look—the Princess was beside one of the chairs though not sitting on any of them. Twilight waved, smiling.
Ember smiled back.
Thorax waved shyly back at her, smiling, too.
"Here we go," Ember muttered.
Exhaled.
"Dragons!" she began, thrusting a fist into the air.
The dragons finally looked up, their ears perked up as their rather bored faces regained that vigor.
Then, a breath of fire into the air—that purple fire, bright and blazing (causing some changelings to scamper to the chairs behind them for cover against that thermal threat to them).
"And changelings!" Thorax ended, flying into the air and throwing lots of glimmering glitter into the air as he flew around under the sun—directly under—his wings magnifying, amplifying, that already brilliant sunlight into a colorful display of tinted rays—first here, now there in less than a second, a fast dance of visuals.
Twilight, during all of this, looked scared, biting her own hooves in the process.
Skystar poked her with a claw. "Uh, are you alright, Twilight? Biting your hooves isn't the best thing to do, you know. Right, Twilight?"
"They didn't tell me about this!" Twilight whispered back to her, half-alarmed and half-panicking.
"Well, it looks pretty cool," Skystar said as she turned her gaze to the spectacle in front of her—that continuous purple flame, those multi-colored lights under the wings, covering all under them.
The rest of the ponies took a step back at first—murmus of trying to get out of here were heard. But, they slowly returned, their frightened expressions turning into happy smiles of renewed wonder, of beholding something that was unseen.
And the fire stopped, and the changeling landed.
The two leaders were back together on the podium.
Silence.
And the crowd erupted into boisterous roars, shaking the ground with hoofstomps and the lifting of chairs and breaths of fire into the air and flying changelings in the sky and laughter and hoofbumps and clawbumps and unauthorized eating of food which stirred up a ruckus since Applejack was out policing the cafeteria area and warning the changelings and the dragons who dared eat food too early with a word and a hoof scratching the ground—among other things that contributed to the delightful turmoil in front of the town hall.
Twilight was now biting her hooves even more as she dodged a changeling throwing himself right into the sky as he narrowly avoided the nervous Princess in his path.
"Wow, Twilight!" Skystar said amidst the chaos—standing right before a changeling picked up a chair and cheered on his king with the chair, shouting Thorax's name constantly. "I didn't know summits like this are this awesome! You should totally invite me to one of these summits! No wonder she wants me to come here more often! Does she always go to these parties?"
"They're not supposed to be parties!" Twilight uttered, still trembling and biting her hooves. "They probably didn't expect that reaction either—unplanned. I can say it was unplanned."
"Oh, Twilight!" Skystar said, shaking her a little and causing her eyes to go doozy. "You didn't plan for a party this big?"
Then a shot of fire right above their heads, burning some strands of Twilight's mane as it smoked off.
"This was supposed to be a peaceful event," Twilight said, managing to sound a little less scared—though her forehooves were close to her mouth. "I should go stop this and—"
"No, wait!"
Skystar was holding back Twilight's wings.
"I...actually like this," Skystar spoke above the crashing of chairs and yells and screams and laughter.
"You like this?!" Twilight asked back, unbelief in her loud words.
"Well, I always thought that it was going to be some boring gathering of important figures and then we talk about boring things and make boring decisions that nobody can understand unless they're at the boring talk. But, Twilight, you made me realize that these summits are nothing like that!"
"Uh..."
"I'll go show up at every one of these things from now!" Skystar exclaimed, floating over the ground as she flapped her wings and brought her claws close to her smiling lips, creating a cute face.
"You...will?" Twilight asked—with halting.
"As long as I don't get hurt or anything," Skystar said, pointing at one of the changelings who was busy picking up chairs and throwing them about. "Because, uh, those chairs look heavy to me!"
Twilight groaned as she looked around her.



A tap on Ember's shoulder as the disorder was growing and piling up.
She looked at an anxious Thorax.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked. "I'm not fond of making a mess out of this, Ember."
"It surprised me too," Ember said, a little flustered, "but we've gotta get them riled up. Let them know that this is not your ordinary meeting of two nations."
"And, when will they stop?"
"We dragons are very disciplined with ourselves," Ember said, gesturing a claw toward her subjects present—most of them were done with breathing fire and were now calm though still giddy; there were some other dragons who were doing their best to calm the changelings down, taking the chairs away from them so that the changelings would not pick those chairs up and throw them.
"But," Thorax spoke, "I didn't know they were going to—"
"I don't know what's going on in your hive, Thorax," Ember interrupted, holding up a claw, "but it seems like you're not as disciplined." She took a quick look at the crazy changelings going about, shouting and trying to get their chairs. "The changelings tell me you're a great king, so there's that going for you." A snarky grin.
"That's not helping, Ember," Thorax said. "Those are chairs made by ponies. I don't want to pay lots of money because my subjects are crazy."
"Let it all simmer down," Ember said. "They'll be fine sooner or later. We can talk about costs later on, alright?"
Thorax sighed. "I'll just sit down here and wait this out."
So he sat down on the podium.



After a few minutes of calming the rest of the audience down—which involved confiscating all the chairs and forcing everyone to either stand up or to sit on the hard ground—the situation was back to normal though all who were there were now in a more excited state; there were eager eyes of expectation, looking up to those two leaders now hoping for something to top the recent extravaganza.
Thorax hovered over the podium and spread his forehooves wide. "So, is everyone OK? Did you like that?"
And everyone nodded, some replying verbally with shouts of "Yes!" and "Of course, Thorax!"
Thorax nodded back. "That's great to know, guys! Because, well, Twilight said we had to understand each other so we can be better friends, right?"
And everyone nodded again.
A bead of sweat went down Twilight's face as she shivered, watching the two over there.
"We should be friends and we should be closer to each other, to talk to each other and have fun and enjoy our time together," Thorax continued.
Twilight bit her hoof.
Skystar caught her. "Twilight?"
"So, I and Ember brought some things that, we think, will help enrich that friendship more than just some long speech or two."
And at that, Twilight gasped. Then bit her hooves even more quickly, her irises shrunk.
A poke on her shoulder.
"Twilight?" Skystar asked.
"They're throwing away the...speeches?!" Twilight sputtered as the crowd exploded into even more roars of cheer and approval.
Hooves on her cheeks—despair on her mind, apparently.
"They didn't give me any advance notice!" Twilight said, hyperventilating between words, irises still shrunk. "They didn't tell me about any of this! I supervised everything and I would have been told about everything if they were trying to pull some kind of trick on me! I should've known but how come they got past?!"
Skystar placed a claw on her. "Twilight, I think you should go see a doctor—because, uh, you don't look healthy."
"Healthy?!" Twilight repeated, phrasing it in stress. "How could I not be healthy? I'm perfectly fine and I have no need of a doctor or any kind of medical expert whatsoever—who told you that, anyway?"
"Myself?" Skystar answered, pointing to herself.
"Over here," Thorax declared, aiming at an open spot in front of the podium, "will be the craft time area. We've already brought lots of art supplies so no one's gonna run out of them. You can make whatever you want and you can make it together—a painting by both changelings and dragons? Why not?"
To coincide with the question, a few changelings dropped several boxes of the art supplies—easels, paint cans, paint brushes, pebbles, and papers.
"Strength competitions will be held at this side," Ember announced, pointing at another spot in front of the podium where several dragons were hauling large boulders to. "We didn't bring in everything because we might stamp Ponyville out but we didn't do that because we wanted the changelings to join in—even if we're going to win every single time." She ended that with a sly smirk on her face and with her arms crossed.
"The rest?" Thorax went on. "That's for all of you to figure out—we've deployed various activity stations throughout all of Ponyville; they contain all kinds of fun activities to do together! There's singing, there's dancing, there's...uh, there's many!" He grinned awkwardly once more.



"You sent the boxes to who?!" Post Parcel exclaimed in dismay to Derpy behind the counter.
"I sent it to Twilight," Derpy said, shrugging as she bit a letter from one of the cubby holes at the back wall. She placed it on the counter. "She said she needed something with creative force."
"You sent twenty boxes of art materials to Twilight Sparkle?!"
"But, she's attending the big event going on just outside," Derpy said in defense. "I'm sure she can just give it to Thorax."
Then, the door opened.
A few changelings and a dragon leaned inside. "This is the mailing activity station, right?" one changeling asked.
Post Parcel gasped. His eyes shifted fast between Derpy and the newcomers. "What's going on here?!"



"Alright, Twilight," Skystar said, patting the Princess on the head as the leaders stepped down from the podium and joined with their fellow changelings and dragons in whatever they were doing—now, Thorax was in the craft time area, introducing to all who were there (including dragons who mostly towered their changeling co-artists) the goal of trying to paint friendship, to capture it in one still; Ember showed to her dragons and the occasional changelings who felt themselves up to the task of smashing a boulder with raw strength a large rock which she held with only one arm—having no signs of strain. "You need to see a doctor. Does Ponyville have a clinic? I know it has a hospital, but I'm glad you're not too sick, so a clinic would be fine."
"I need paper!"
Twilight's horn glowed and a piece of paper materialized in front of her and she levitated it immediately.
"And quill!"
And a quill materialized in front of her and she levitated that as well.
Paying no heed to Skystar's troubled face nor to the movement of changelings and dragons as they scattered to the rest of Ponyville in search of bonding hobbies and occupations, she wrote furiously, her hornwriting not so legible—writing without a table.
Skystar watched her, hearing the fast scribbles.
A minute passed; the town hall was less full but the noise was still there.
Then, she teleported the letter away.
A pause.
"Uh, who did you send it to?" Skystar asked.
"Spike," Twilight said, pointing a hoof at the craft time area as she and Skystar looked there, too.
There, Spike was surprised with the sudden appearance of a letter; his changeling friends were surprised as well, halting their progress on a shared painting. He opened the letter, skimmed it, and breathed fire on to it, turning it into a magical green stream that floated its way into the sky, travelling toward the distant mountains. The changelings around him then expressed their amazement: "Ooh!" and "Aah!" were abundant before they attacked the baby dragon with incessant questions about his life with ponies, how the magic fire worked, and how his friendship was with their king.
"That was a letter to Princess Celestia," Twilight said, turning back to Skystar, speaking in a bold way. "I've told her of the current condition of the circumstances here. This convention between changelings and dragons is going smoothly—but it's getting out of hoof. If they're OK with not having those formal speeches, then what's stopping them from taking out other things as well? Like, well, treaties and contracts that make sure everything is OK?!"
"You don't need paper to declare friendship—you know that," Skystar said.
"I know, but I'm not talking about the friendship that everypony thinks about," Twilight answered, speeding up her pace. "I'm talking about the formal friendship of these nations! How exactly are they going to behave in terms of their relations with each other? How?"
"They...act nice?" Skystar then slowly made a nervous smile of not being so sure about her answer.
"Well, how do they act nice to each other? The rules? What if there are no rules? Then, everything will end up a disaster because no one knows how it's gonna work out and everyone's gonna argue about what's this and what's that and everyone will descend into useless squabbles and there won't be friendship!"
"What if it doesn't turn out that way and everything turns out swell?" Skystar said, turning her head a bit as she said it. "Won't that be better than that very bad picture about them?"
Then, a rush of steps.
"Twilight, a reply!" Spike said in between gasps for breath—sweating.
"Thank you, Spike," Twilight said, regaining some of a smile as she levitated the letter. "Your hasty reaction has never disappointed me!"
"You're welcome!" Spike said—then, a frown. "And, loosen up, Twilight. You don't have to be so upset whenever there's an important occasion."
Without waiting for a reply, he hurried back to the craft time area where several changelings were expecting him with happy hoofwaves.
With that soft smile on her face, Twilight opened the letter and read it.
A minute passed.
Then, she closed it.
Twilight opened her mouth—not to say something.
"Are you OK?" Skystar then asked.
"I'm fine," she said. "Actually, you should accompany me and Spike over there."
"Huh?"
"Even Celestia wants me to loosen up," Twilight spoke, showing an awkward smile as she trotted her way to the craft time area. "And—" a sigh "—they're right."