Twilight hadn’t read all of the papers, but she had read enough to gain the gist of what had been said. In spite of the negativity, she felt a powerful sense of gratitude for those who had chosen to stick by her during this difficult, trying time. Their loyalty would be remembered, and, if she could help it, rewarded somehow.
Hot, queasy, and itching from hoof to ear, Twilight did her best to look princessly for the adorable little bakers that were all trying so very hard. She admired their effort, their optimism. They were still plucky and life hadn’t beaten them down yet. If she squinted at them just right, she saw what Gosling saw in them—the future. Twilight didn’t want to believe the current generation was lost and struggled valiantly to recognise those fighting the good fight. Yet, she could not deny that there were moments—like right now—where everything felt impossibly broken.
Watching the little bakers labour away, she thought of Seville and his efforts to reform journalism. Could she be doing more? Was this a problem that would sort itself out in time? Would it gradually correct itself? Conflicted, Twilight wasn’t sure how she felt about a free press. At one point, when she was younger and her ideals had not yet been tarnished, she had believed that a free press was vital to the function of society. Time had done its utmost to prove her wrong though, and the press remained a constant threat to the stability of Equestria.
The modest changes made in the wake of Mariner’s Gambit had proved ineffective. In fact, in some ways, they had made the problem worse. The fact that the press had been held accountable—held to the fire and made to squeal for mercy, as Blueblood had once said—had only further roiled the bad blood between the royals and the press.
Even the Crusaders had succumbed to tabloid gossip and sensationalism.
Was this just equine nature? Twilight feared she knew the answer, but it meant tapping into her inky nature. She thought of Fancy and Empereur Chanson Argentée; Fancy had but one newspaper and it was run by the Crown. She had never cared for this position, but now she understood it. Stability—especially post-revolution and post-war—was tenuous at best. Some even called it an illusion. Fancy, as a nation, was still not united and the dreadful fighting continued whilst the Empereur fought to restore order, to unify.
The tribes that Equestria had now were not the same tribes they had during its founding. These ponies were immigrants, newcomers, and many of them did not share Equestrian ideals. Mariner had been an immigrant—Bourgogne Blintz was as well—but Twilight refused to believe that immigrants were the cause of the problem. Though perhaps they did make the problem worse. Equestria had been founded over a thousand years ago, a merger between the New Tribes and the First Tribes, both survivors who feared the world ending. She had even been there for this fateful meeting, having witnessed it during her long walk home.
Those ponies were long dead and gone; perhaps their ideals had departed as well.
Perhaps Equestrians needed new windigos for the sake of unity.
Twilight was pulled from her thoughts by the stench of ink. It burned her eyes and left her with the dreadful sensation of needing to sneeze—but as an alicorn, sneezes could be dangerous. Sneezing was dangerous because of the sheer strength offered by the earth pony part of the alicorn amalgamation. She feared a takeover by ink and struggled against it.
“Look!” a mare cried. “The flash of light! A new mark! A new mark!”
The inky reaction subsided just a little.
“Way to go, Apple Brownie!”
Twilight, her face a solemn mask, leveled her gaze upon the colt that had just been touched by destiny. The scent of ink was still strong in her nose, still pungent, it was the scent of destiny itself. After a moment of silent, solemn study, she made a gesture with her hoof while saying, “Come here, little one.”
A strange quiet settled over the room.
The colt, covered in flour and everything else, made a slow, cautious approach. Not fearful, but shy perhaps. He had just been touched by destiny and before he even had a chance to respond, he had been summoned by an alicorn princess—a confounding moment if ever there was one.
While the colt approached, Twilight could feel a future being determined. New words were forming in the colt’s book of life. He had come to some grand realisation that would shape his future in some meaningful, profound way. The colt had made a choice, or perhaps had accepted some fundamental aspect of himself. There were many variations, many reasons, many causes, all with one outcome; destiny called—and something within the colt had answered. Not every call was answered and sometimes, many calls were made—but at this moment, at this time, everything aligned and meaningful purpose manifested.
“Apple Brownie,” Twilight said to the colt while she looked into rather familiar green eyes. “You’re an Apple. Just like the Element of Honesty, Applejack. My dear friend.”
The colt shuffled on his hooves, but offered no reply.
“How old are you, Apple Brownie?”
“I just turned nine a few days ago,” he replied while the camera zoomed in to focus on both him and Twilight.
“Been baking long?” Twilight asked.
“Since I was a yearling.”
“Did you spend a lot of time trying to find your cutie mark?” Twilight leaned forwards so that she might study the colt better.
“Yes. Just like the Cutie Mark Crusaders! I tried everything! I thought I’d get a cutie mark for baking, and I kept waiting for it to happen, but when I wasn’t baking I was trying all of the new things that I could just in case there was something I was good at. As it turns out, I’m good at a lot of things.”
Twilight gestured with her hoof for the colt to come closer. “And what do you suppose happened? You’ve been baking all this time… but your mark came now. Why do you think that might be?”
Nervous, the colt licked his lips while glancing over his withers at the camera. After a moment, he returned his gaze to Twilight, his ears pinned back, and he tried dusting some of the flour from his ruddy red pelt. “I was thinking ‘bout stuff my Mama said.”
“And what did she say?”
“My Mama… erm… my Mom… she said this might be our last bake-off and she told me to make the most of it. Last night she explained to me how important it was to keep our traditions alive. She said we have to fight to keep our traditions so they won’t be taken from us. And so while I was baking, I was thinking about what she said. I told myself that even if this is the last bake-off just for us, I told myself that I’d find a way to keep the tradition alive… like my Mom said… so it won’t be taken from me. Our traditions are all us earth ponies have left. Pretty much everything else has been taken.”
An internal debate raged within Twilight; she wanted to refute what the colt had said about everything else having been taken. But now was not the time. This was not the right moment. Looking into his eyes, the windows to his soul, Twilight saw profound wisdom and potential. What an odd time for such a mark, when the future was so uncertain. With automation, the poor colt might not even have a job—not as a baker anyhow. Twilight wasn’t sure what she saw and the future remained cloudy, obscured by ink. But at a time of great upheaval, a mark that reminded one of the importance of tradition, that was an important mark indeed.
A few squares of chocolate and a wedge of apple.
“Traditions are your roots, little one,” Twilight began whilst she called to mind everything that Applejack had tried to teach her about earth pony culture. “You are but an apple sapling. Grow for the sky, little one, reach for Princess Celestia’s sun and all will be well. When you have grown tall and mighty, cast your shadow and remember well your roots. Pass along seeds of knowledge so that others might also put down roots. May your family be an orchard.”
“You honour me, Princess.” The colt bowed his head and tears shimmered in his eyes.
“Return to your task, Apple Brownie. And be mindful of your roots.”
Twilight’s stomach gurgled as she pushed away her plate with a half-eaten peanut butter and cottage cheese sandwich. After sampling the treats of the juniour bakers, she wasn’t feeling so well. Never had brownies been so crunchy—or had so much extra calcium. A more curious epicurean experience had never been encountered—or endured. Twilight prayed that her alicorn gizzards were up to the challenge of digesting raw-burnt cookies.
Even Pinkie Pie was unusually quiet, subdued, and more distracted than usual. Twilight hoped it wouldn’t affect her performance too much. Yet again, Twilight’s friends had to suffer simply because of who and what she was. Bad things had been said about them too. The sandwich, half-eaten, seemed sad somehow. A sandwich that had not fulfilled its purpose in life.
Instead of celebrating Pinkie Pie’s victories, everypony was down in the dumps.
“I had a thought.” Hesitant to share with her friends, the remaining words lingered upon the tip of Twilight’s tongue. “Equestria’s tribes aren’t the same tribes who founded Equestria. The lesson of Hearth’s Warming that brought us all together… the descendents of those survivors have become the minority, I think. Not only has the significance of the story faded from our shared memories, but the ponies of Equestria as it is now no longer share this as a common point of origin.”
“Eeyup.”
“Applejack?” Twilight, somewhat disturbed by her friend’s casual agreement, turned her head to look the apple farmer right in the eye.
“It’s like that story about the unicorn and his airship and that long voyage into the unknown mists. He sailed so long and so far, and so many bad things happened, and that airship had to be rebuilt a number of times along the way. The airship he had at the end of his journey was not the same one as he had left home with. Or was it? They had the same name. But ponies argue if it was truly the same ship or not. The long voyage took a toll and bit by bit, the airship was replaced. That’s Equestria. Hearth’s Warming don’t mean nothing to the immigrants we got now. Those ponies we gots from Windia? They don’t remember windigos, they remember their caste system and the unicorns that abused them. And all that spoken sentiment spreads like wildfire.”
This gave Twilight pause, and she considered her friend’s words.
“We’ve grown lazy and we coast on past glories,” Seville said after he swallowed. “Equestria’s Civil War happened because of the massive influx of immigration and the new ideals and ideas brought by the immigrants. That wasn’t even a generation ago. We’re so focused on our past values that we completely ignore the new values being shipped over with every boatload of immigrants. Sooner or later, those values will come to a head, just like they did a few decades ago.”
“You really think it will come to that?” Twilight asked Seville.
“History shows us that it has already happened.”
Blinking, Twilight realised that the point could not be argued nor debated.
“Yeah, whatever Equestria was a thousand years ago, it’s not now.” Applejack pushed away her empty plate, leaned back in her chair, and blew a muffled belch into her fetlock. “We were three tribes who came together for shared survival. We was scared shitless by them there windigo sons of bitches. And that shared fear gave us all a common ground. But now? Most ponies don’t even believe that windigos existed. Just an Equestrian folk tale.”
“I feel incredibly dense right now,” Twilight confessed to her friends.
“Dash won’t talk about the windigo.” Applejack’s eyes narrowed and her face crinkled with concern. “I’ve tried asking her about it, but she just goes quiet. I know it bothers her. Tarnish won’t talk about it either.”
“Applejack”—Twilight bit down upon her lip and thought about what she was about to say—“when they faced the windigo, there was no Hearthfire to burn it away.”
“You was there, wasn’t you? During your long walk back?”
“I was.” Twilight nodded and she hesitated over the words that would be said next. “It’s difficult to explain, but Tarnish is now the windigo. He had to draw it inside of himself… he gave it what it craved most of all… a warm body. It’s why Tarnish’s weather magics are so strong now. Using the magic of friendship, Tarnish bound the wind spirit to his will and merged with it.”
“Ooh.” Applejack’s lips formed a round ‘O’ of horror.
“Maud helps him out when the rage becomes too much. Sometimes, I do to.” Pinkie Pie tapped upon the edge of the table with her hoof. “I can’t imagine what its like…”
“Well, this explains why you don’t make Tarnish mad… suddenly, a lot of things make sense. Like why Daring Do is always lecturing him about his temper. It’s not just for his sake…” Tilting her head back, Applejack stared off at some nonexistent point on the ceiling.
“Some of us make extraordinary sacrifices,” Seville remarked.
Staring down at her half-eaten cottage cheese and peanut butter sandwich, Twilight tried to focus her thoughts. The windigo was gone—it truly was—but its magic lingered on. She could not help but think that this was somehow symbolic of her current problem; the legend of Hearth’s Warming was becoming just that: a legend. Yet, the magic remained. Somehow, she had to find a way to reignite those fires. As the Princess of Friendship, she had to find a way to bring the tribes together, again.
Of course, she had no idea how to accomplish such a monumental task, but she figured her bake-off idea was a good start. It was certainly better than doing nothing. Gizzards gurgling, Twilight had the most peculiar thought: a drink might be nice. Reaching out, she clutched at Seville’s fetlock and upon finding it, took it into her own. There was a certain reassurance to be had when holding him in this manner. At first, Twilight thought of it as a weakness, a silly, sentimental act. A mare needing a stallion for comfort and reassurance. It was something that she wrestled with for a time, until reaching a conclusion that it had nothing to do with gender, but friendship. Or perhaps something more.
“Sugar Sparkle is thinking of something. Most ponies would see fixing this as an impossible task. And maybe it is. But this mare right here”—Seville tugged on Twilight’s fetlock—“she’s already making plans, I just know it. Most ponies would be running scared from the sheer impossibility of it all. But not my Sugar Sparkle.”
“You know,” Pinkie remarked, butting in with a broad smile,” Sugar Sparkle is a great name for a filly…”