Twilight wasn’t sure what Pinkie Pie and Applejack were cooking, but what a pair they made. Having listened to others, having learned from what was said, Twilight watched the two mares and observed their dexterity. From the looks of things, Pinkie Pie seemed a little more agile than Applejack, but that was expected. Perhaps in a farm setting, Applejack might have the upper hoof.
One thing was for certain: Applejack had terrific knife skills, and sliced apples with ease.
Watching the two mares from up above, Twilight remembered how clumsy the two were when she had first met them. They had all been much younger then. Now, as older, mature mares, there was a certain confidence in their movements, a certain assurance, and a surprising amount of grace. She had noticed how clumsy they were, all those years ago, so why hadn’t she noticed their gradual transition into gracefulness? Was she careless? Inattentive? A bad friend? Clueless?
“Seville, sometimes… I worry that, as the Princess of Friendship, I might not be the best friend.”
“Sometimes, you’re not,” he replied without skipping a beat. “Sometimes, I’m not the best friend. Sometimes… sometimes Pinkie Pie goes loco in the coco. What makes you a good friend is that you have moments like this one, like you’re having right now, where you know that things might not be quite right and that you could be doing better. That… that right there is what makes you a great and wonderful friend. You never shy away from doing better.”
Hearing this, Twilight did not know what to say, but there was a sudden fire in her loins.
“You know, Twilight, I’ve been thinking.” Seville, while speaking, did not take his eyes off of the two mares working below. “I’m glad we’ve had this long courtship of ours. Sometimes, when ponies meet, they are so focused on falling in love… don’t get me wrong, there’s been some of that… but you and I… we… we build a solid friendship before rushing madly into love. I wouldn’t trade a moment of it.”
“You mean that?” she found herself asking while her ears pricked erect.
“Toots, I wouldn’t’ve said it otherwise. Whirlwind romance is fun. The poets write about it, songs are made about it, and all those trashy novels are all about the mad race of love, with a hymen standing in as the finish line ribbon.”
For a moment, Twilight didn’t know how to respond. A curious warmth spread through her belly, the inside of her thighs felt sweaty, her dock felt too tight, and the muscles of her croup spasmed in a weird, unknown way. But then, she laughed. It came bubbling out like fizzy foam from a shook up soda bottle and left her with a pleasant lightheadedness. There was no need to be uptight, because that was funny.
Before Seville could resume speaking, Pinkie Pie shouted up from down below, “Go upstairs and fronk each other! Now is the time! Now!”
Mortified, Twilight felt her stomach tie itself into knots. “Miss Buttercream is in our room!”
“She’s a professional,” Pinkie shouted back. “Just imagine the advice she can give you! Just ask and be polite!”
Twilight felt her mouth go dry and beside her, Seville was chuckling in a soft, delightful way that Twilight would never tire of hearing. Everything was almost fine, but then she noticed the ponies all around her, all of them with wide, bright, excited eyes and wider, broader smiles. The sheer number of encouraging nods, waggled eyebrows, and the overall interest they showed in her sex life caused Twilight to start sweating like a horse.
“As some of you might know, this is my fiancé,” Twilight said to the ponies around her, trying to explain herself.
“Engagement is like milk,” an old, wrinkled, withered mare shouted from some distance away. “If you let it sit for too long, it spoils. Oy vey!”
Biting her lip, this was not the response Twilight had anticipated.
Seville, somehow cool under pressure, never even lifted his head. He never looked up. Somehow, his attention remained focused on the two mares down below. Still chewing her lip, Twilight found herself hating him just a teensy-weensy bit. Seville Orange didn’t seem at all bothered by the enraptured masses that had to be thinking about his sex life right now—real or otherwise imagined. Twilight knew all too well what these ponies had to be thinking and the mental imagery that was sure to accompany it. Just the thought of it made her nethers clench up so tight that she was certain that an orifice back there had just collapsed in upon itself.
“Just go upstairs and schtup already!” the wrinkly old mare hollered.
The most analytical part of her mind took over and she was both curious and dumbfounded by her reaction to this. She was Twilight Fronking Sparkle. Destroyer of Tirek. She had committed orbital bombardment. Alone, she had sank entire fleets and left behind scorched, blackened bones where armies once gathered. Element of Magic. The living, breathing, ink-blooded embodiment of magic. Once, she had boiled away a significant portion of an ocean.
So why was this so hard?
Twilight took a direct approach. “Just what is it that you want from me?” She lifted her head, braced her legs, and drew herself up to a more commanding posture. “State your reasoning, plainly and clearly.”
“Have some foals already,” the old mare bellowed in response.
“Yeah,” another old mare added, “how can you claim to be fit to rule when you haven’t had foals? That’s some ruling right there. Try being a mother. Princess? Pshaw! Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo! That’s nothing compared to quieting a colicky foal.”
“The other princesses have shown they have what it takes,” an older, greying stallion remarked.
“What could you possibly know of our daily struggle?” a young earth pony mare asked. “What do we have in common? What common perspective do we share? You and I… near as I can tell, we share nothing in common. You have wings and a horn. I can’t even begin to understand that. But if you had foals like I do, I’d know that you and I would have something we can talk about. Common ground. We earth ponies are big on common ground. Get it? Ground? Earth ponies.” Rolling her eyes, the young mare waved her hoof.
“You told us to have foals… that it is our patriotic duty. Future soldiers and workers. You mention that every time you give one of your big patriotic princess speeches.”
“That.. that I did.” Twilight felt her calm coming back. Hearing what they wanted might not be pleasant, but it was a relief. “So, uh, since we’re being honest and straightforward here, how do all of you feel about Seville?”
An unnatural, eerie silence descended upon the crowd.
Glancing about, Twilight could see them thinking. Not many were watching the events happening below. Hundreds of eyes were focused upon her, many of them thoughtful, some of them worshipful, but she saw nothing that resembled disapproval, which was an immense relief. The fact that they were so thoughtful was rather a hopeful thing, she realised. They had given her something to think about, and she had given them something to cogitate over in return.
Tit for tat.
“We wise guys gots the Goose and I gotta say, it feels pretty good, yous knows what I’m saying?” The pegasus who responded looked as awkward on the outside as Twilight felt on the inside, and his eyes nervously darted from side to side to see if everything was cool.
Another stallion, an earth pony, offered up one raised hoof, and after a moment of hesitation, the pegasus bumped it. In the midst of all this division, all this derision, all this tension, Twilight saw some hopeful signs of unity. This was why Twilight disliked guards; it was difficult, if not downright impossible, to have meaningful conversations from behind a wall of armor. Ponies were too nervous to speak their minds, for whatever reason.
“It’d be nice to have a voice close to a princess’ ear,” an awkward looking older filly with braces said. “These are trying times. I ask my Ma all the time, ‘Who speaks for us?’ And my Ma, she shakes her head and she gets mad, ‘cause there’s no good answer. It’s rough being us.”
“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, she married a unicorn!”
“And the Royal Pony Sisters married a pegasus!”
“The Bastard Prince has Princess Celestia’s secretary! Rumour has it that she schtups him! Oy vey!”
“Prince Dim married a monster!” This caused ripples of awkward silence to radiate outward.
After the silence persisted for a time, it was broken with, “Yuck.”
Twilight, clever pony that she was, was getting a fine education into what the common Equestrian thought of their royals and the choices made. She almost said something about the monster remark, but was fearful of breaking her fragile connection with the crowd. Still, it bothered her in a terrible way and she longed to set ponies straight on the issue.
“Having more alicorns is nice,” an old, knobby kneed stallion said, “but I could overlook that if it meant one of us being a consort. Eh?”
“Maybe Princess Flurry can give us alicorns… she was born one!”
“Yeah!”
“More alicorns would be good!”
“But if you could hurry up and marry Seville, that’d be nice. We’d appreciate that! We want our moment! We want our time to shine! We want our bragging rights!”
“Yeah!”
“Seville,” Twilight said beneath her breath, unsure if he could hear her, “you’ve got to be feeling the pressure right about now.”
She now had an inkling of what her subjects wanted. Being a public servant, she owed them a measure of happiness and it was her sworn duty to protect their interests to the best of her ability. Her mind began assembling the various bits and pieces together, and sealed them in place with logic and rationality. By marrying and having foals, Twilight reckoned, it would be a level playing field for Seville—at least in the eyes of her subjects. Shining Armor had magic and was a brilliant commander. Gosling was a handsome bit of eye candy and was considered a great negotiator.
Seville… his advantage was what ponies believed that earth ponies did best: raise a family. Little by little, Twilight made the pieces fit. Little by little, her resentment for what they had said fell away from her. These were common ponies, with common dreams, who all shared common experiences, and this is what they knew. She couldn’t fault them for that.
Turning her head, she affixed a critical eye upon Seville. He was rough. Unlike Shining Armor, who had a shield to defend him, and Gosling, who had the good fortune of being magically attractive because it made others happy, Seville had no such advantages. He had scars—many of them—and his hide was like parchment, with each scar being a written word carved into his flesh as a reminder of his deeds. Seville was honest, like Applejack was honest, and he was an everypony.
Seville was the voice of his tribe, Twilight realised. He never shied away from how bad it was. He never candy-coated anything. He told the truth, even when the truth was what nopony wanted to hear. Squinting, Twilight tried to see what the earth ponies saw in Seville. She tried to see why he was well-loved and respected. Even Pinkie Pie had to see it.
Blinking, Twilight didn’t see it, because it wasn’t something that could be seen, but she had an idea of what it was. At least, she had some manner of epiphany. Seville represented an earth pony ideal: he was an intellectual. Among intellectuals, it didn’t matter if you had wings, or a horn, or even scales and firebreath. Seville had sought out a form of equality that mattered. If he had never revealed his face in public, nopony would have any idea who—or what—Seville was, and through his words he would be judged. Seville had slipped the surly bonds of tribe and found a means to express himself on equal hoofing.
Within Twilight’s breast, the fires of love became a raging inferno.
If one judged Seville upon the merits of what he had to say, any external tribal adornment was unnecessary. Seville was his words, his opinions, the gentle, simple way that he explained complex issues in simple terms. He had a knack for taking even the toughest issues, breaking them down to their most basic components, and making them understandable. Seville—through print—used the newspaper to educate, elucidate, elaborate, and emancipate.
Surrounded by her subjects, Twilight had a glimpse of the future, and it involved extensive education reform… directed exclusively at earth ponies. Even as she thought about it, she saw the issues with it, the outcry that would come. As it was now, most earth ponies got the short end of the stick when it came to education. Dropouts were a real problem. Literacy rates were lowest among earth ponies. She and Gosling had discussed this issue at length—red-eyed conversations in the wee hours of morning in the dark hours just before dawn when sane, normal ponies were sleeping.
She had, after all, just been given carte blanche authority; so why not use it?
Perhaps it was the best shot at equality.
It wasn’t favouritism when one tribe was clearly struggling more than the others. If anything, the pegasus ponies and the unicorns could be blamed here. Friends were supposed to save friends if a friend was in trouble. One tribe was floundering and was in dire need of help. Helping them wasn’t breaking the bonds of equality, it was maintaining them. Already, Twilight could see the sheer enormity of her task looming before her.
Thankfully, she already had some partners.