There was one thing that was the heart of the Equestrian way, a single and constant truth that overflowed into every aspect of the nation Princess Celestia had built. One could observe its ripples upon every single one of her pony subjects and even see it within themselves, for it was inescapable in the magical land of Equestria. Something beyond ideals of kindness, generosity, obeying destiny, humility, and Harmony was in these ponies, from the highest Canterlotian to the lowest criminal, the latter being caught in their state of reduced citizenship. The greatest, still-beating ur-value of Equestria was thus: when you went against the herd, the herd went against you.
Marigold knew this very well. She lived under the vast light cast by the idea. In some ways, she was more aware of the way it manifested than most ponies. In other areas, she was more blissfully unaware.
Before she had even been born, the herd was against her family. All her parents were no more than two ponies who savagely went against the inseparable good of love and fidelity that Equestria enshrined. When news broke of the abuse that their actions brought to a princess, a wife, and two families, they were only ever going to be cast out. For it, they faced various punishments, chief among them was the turning of the herd.
Setting hoof in kindergarten for the first time taught Marigold about the herd. She was just young enough to be as ingrained in it as any other Equestrian subject. When you were as tangled as a fly in a spiderweb within your society’s herd-mind, there was only further immersion, not escape. Only when Marigold began her first acts of bullying did the herd stir against her for the first time.
Many of the first stories that Marigold heard were a reflection of this duality of being within or against the herd. Petunia Petals had spent three years of her youth under punishment for various crimes she had been found guilty of—all of them being offenses covered by Equestria’s antisocial laws and acts forbidding the distribution, advocation, replication, and quotation of banned media. She thought that they were the ideal bedtime stories for young Marigold and never stopped painting the tales of her time as a young mare as anything but heroic efforts to help the earth ponies and underclasses she believed were being oppressed. For Petunia, an unremarkable foalhood had never prepared her for all the ways in which the herd of Equestria would cast her out.
Marigold was a fresh, relatively unassuming third-grader when she saw how the herd prosecuted somepony else in everyday life. It was only then that she started to have an inkling of what was going on. Despite her status as a bully being cemented among her classmates, she was more innocent in comparison to what she saw.
Rainbow streamers hung from every street corner. Hundreds of Equestrian flags cast shadows upon the cobblestone streets of Manehattan as they waved. Posters crowded the lower windows of shops with simple slogans calling for nationalism and harmony. Everypony who showed up in the street wearing more than a scarf had some kind of pin upon their clothes with calls to vote and the names of various candidates for mayor of the city and shire. The only thing that dwarfed all of these was not the confetti spillage, but the iconography of Princess Celestia. Floats of her were paraded around the streets. Her subjects brought out their beloved portraits of her and crowded them in windows and carried them about. The images of the princess topped every maypole and lurked in the background of every poster bearing somepony else, even if she was only a sun and shadow.
Whole roads were blocked off to make way for parades. The everyday ponies that the princess-goddess gilded with every way she spoke about them flooded the streets. Ponies in hard hats, patched jackets, and showing all the signs that they were the most common among commoners were trotting by in thunderous, uniform waves. Most were following the signs as a herd, hoping to cast ballots for the mayoral election, but many more were already finished and merely seeking their unearned fifteen minutes of fame. Their plainness made them appear as a sickly, industrial sort of river colored in all the shades of gunk. Every face was lost, and the crowd was muted by the will of the herd into a weak sight on par with a mud puddle.
All of the rainbow streamers and goddess-faced pins in the world could not give them back the lies that they were sold. It was among this constant throng of erasure that Marigold could be found. She had been pulled away from mindlessly applauding the constant stream labor-ponies by a mare dressed like a teacher. This made immediate pleasure twist Marigold's young features into the sourest pout she could manage. She would have to write about what she did on Election Day in her Equestrian Moral and her Citizenship classes tomorrow. The last thing she wanted to see right now was a mare in gold-chain glasses and a matronly skirt-and-sweater combo. Though Marigold wasn't yet old enough to be able to understand the meaning behind the Mares Against Monsters pin that was being worn by the mare, she caught sight of the amulet around the mare's neck. It was carved prettily, and smack in the center was the image of an olive branch painted in gold. Marigold did understand that immediately—this mare was a particularly devout follower of the gods, and a follower of Elysium in particular. The Queen of Paradise had been brought up in one of Marigold's history and culture classes, and something about hearing how this Alicorn governed one of the dead worlds stirred a special sort of resentment in Marigold.
She heard the mare tutting gently, and how Marigold knew that she was being admonished—no, humiliated--for trying to scramble onto the backs of strangers. Words asking where her school-buddies or teachers or royal guards were started flooding Marigold's young ears. What was it that drew such bothersome ponies to her? Why was it that nopony would let her have fun? Worse than all that, would this mare drag her back home? Now, that of all thoughts was enough to spur something in Marigold. She felt the hot rush of fear reach up into her chest and pull her heart until it was hammering louder than any second thought. Something in that kick was wound up faster than any doubt in the little blank-flanked filly's mind. Ignited was the sudden desire for one thing: run run run run run run run run.
Rearing and wriggling as much as she could, Marigold Blueblood kicked the kindly mare square in the chest with one buck. Then, she dashed off through the crowds of Manehattan.
...
How rare it was for Marigold to be alone...
Silence hung as thick as a curtain through the apartment. The emptiness was incandescent, and Marigold felt that with even a breath the walls might fall over. One only had to breathe wrong in Petunia Petal's apartment to encounter something. Silkscreens folded out from where they could. Vases cluttered every surface they could. Pictures, framed coins, and beaded curtains found their way to the wall. The last one was because there were already too many beaded curtains being used as actual curtains. Pressed flowers in varying states of decay were frozen across the apartment, displayed like grotesque trinkets. Some of them were guided. Fans hung on the walls when not in use, unfolded like the wings of a pesky pegasus who knew only how to get in the way. Horseshoes were hung where they could be tacked, usually above the plentiful array of mirrors of all sizes in the home.
Still, other sentimental bits of clutter could be found all across the apartment. Baubles littered every surface they could, just as much as horizontal space was taken up by rugs that found their way onto the walls. The bathroom was not spared this gaudy, materialistic fate. The privy stall was draped with beads. Bath towels were stored with ornamental tea trays shoved between them, only because there was no more room in the kitchen for them. Petunia thought they made fashionable dividers. The mirror itself framed everypony who looked in it with Petunia's endless array of creams, cosmetics, and powders in front of it.
It was where Marigold now stood, gazing into the shiny surface. Her eyes were clouded with so much red light. Her head throbbed with a striking migraine focused into so much more, something unspoken in it begging and aching for fuel. It whispered through her bones with more magic than what flooded her eyes, and of all the things so great and devious that it would be able to do.
She had bitten into her lip. Even as the blood trickled into the sink, she wasn't entirely sure why she did it. There was half a whisper of something in her mind about needing blood. Needing to see it, to taste it, to feel it.
Blood meant something to the Alicorn Amulet, that much was clear. Marigold reached deep into her thoughts for the type of feelings that she felt would give the magic a push, to make more well up and dripped in the sink.
An incident of foalhood wrapped in frustration and spite reached out the way she dug her teeth into herself without any care about the pain. It was only a scratch she gave to herself, and scratches were no concern at all.
Blood meant so much more when what fell as a prodigious drop of blood landed in the sink crystallized and shining, with only a swelling of light in the eyes and a pulse under Marigold's skull to do the trick.
Oh, the things she would practice for...
...
She had headed into the shadowy teeth of the city's true jaws. Election Day was one of the few times when ponies were not all over the whole city. Once somepony headed away from the areas restricted to civic activities and dozens of parade streets, the fringes of the crowds could be found. Lurking there were other sorts of ponies—yes, everypony still thought of them as ponies even when this is when one started to find other creatures. It was very rare to see a qilin, minotaur, zebra, or other non-pony in any of the parades. Marigold knew she wasn't the only pony who felt uncomfortable at the sight of them. They were slightly more common in the voting lines that Marigold would see, but rarely were they in the same ones, and she was always glad to hear the whispers. The right kind of whispers, where her fellow earth ponies and even a few pegasi would discuss how even if more non-ponies could be found in those lines, they sure were less welcome. A couple of those earth pony comrades would speak so quietly, like whispering-to-breezies kind of quiet when they didn't realize foals like Marigold and other strangers might be able to eavesdrop just enough. They sounded like Petunia Petals in one of her better moods, discussing how they actually wanted to do something about the problems non-ponies had so long as they could say which pony got to be the mayor.
Either way, there was no place to get lost quite like the quiet parts of town during Election Day. Even though Marigold had no idea what part of town this was now, she was certain that she had turned enough streets that nopony was following her anymore. She spied a hulking qilin stag with his horns light with magic. Their metallic bands glittered and the tines shone with the faint aura that qilin had. Marigold thought that even if his horns were as ugly as his lizard eyes and pin-straight mane, at least they looked like ugly jewelry. No unicorn had a pretty-looking horn, and theirs were still much more fitting for ordinary tasks. This qilin-stag acted like he had no idea he was using the magic in his horns to push a food-cart of all things. How ordinary was that? It was just so ridiculous that Marigold had to hold back her giggles and keep going.
She scanned the rest of the square. The qilin was trying to attract some of the ponies milling about over to his food cart. His Qilinese lunch bags clearly weren't selling as well as his neighbor's fire-breath-roasted carrot dogs. The qilin with that particular food cart had her horns all lit up too, the bronze bands around her horns shining more brightly than the stag's jade ones. More than that, she lacked the usual scaly leonine that all the qilin in Marigold's schoolbooks had. Instead, her face was more doe-like and her tail was a fluffy stump. Other than the obvious freakishness that Marigold knew such extreme levels of mixed blood indicated (all her textbooks were adamant that most qilin were descended from dragon-equine hybrids) Marigold didn't dare to admit she was entranced. The qilin-doe had gold symbols painted on some of her scales that caught the eyes of ponies other than Marigold and got them whispering.
Marigold sure thought that it was a waste of such lovely, shimmering gold to make mere scribbles. But the way that the doe giggled and pranced about looked so pleasing. Even when she smiled, her teeth shining with the obvious light of a spell to hide her fangs, there was still something so fun to how she acted. Something that Marigold wanted for herself.
"Do ya want somethin' to eat?" asked a voice from behind her.
Marigold squeaked and jumped around, and was greeted by the sight of a smiling mare.
"Yer ma or da around?" The pegasus mare gripped a rod for picking up trash in her one greasy wing.
Marigold shook her head and shyly looked up at the mare. Under the patched trash-pony vest she wore, Marigold caught sight of two things—this mare had no cutie mark despite being around Petunia Petal's age, and her coat was filthy and hid her natural blueish color. Why was it that she didn't have the reflective badge and patch worn by most garbage ponies?
"Oh hon," the mare said, her rough voice trying to be sweet, "I lost me badge earlier. Parades are like that, huh? What about ya? Ya lose yer folks? They anywhere nearby?" Suddenly wide-eyed, the mare looked all over the street and even behind her for Marigold's parents.
"No," Marigold said quickly, "I am a big filly an' came out here all by myself. My mother... well, she cannot walk, ma'am. She... My mom, that is, well... Mom had to stay back home."
"Poor, poor little dear. Ya may be the biggest and brightest filly I seen all day, yet yer a long way from home to be without any fillyfriends." This stranger had a way of looking at her, with something obviously piercing about her stare that made Marigold feel so seen. Nopony else had ever really treated Marigold like that before, not in a way that made her feel like she could be a star.
"Didja lose ya lunch bits?"
"Well..." Marigold kicked at the ground and looked at her schoolbags. "I, uh... My mom... She did not have..."
A sympathetic frown spread across the mare's face. Under all the grime streaked across her, Marigold thought she could see what were a few very animated freckles—or maybe they were just tricks of the light. "I'll ask ya 'gain, do ya want anythin' to eat? Don't need to pay me nothin' if ya don't have any bits yerself there, sweetie."
Marigold blinked. "...Are... Are you a lunch breezie?" she said breathlessly.
Nopony had ever wanted to ever just give her bits before, and certainly not a grown-up. The way that everypony else talked, Marigold had thought that all grown-ups ever did was take money from others. Wouldn't her mom be so proud if she came home and had brought back bits? Depending on how many this mare gave her, Marigold might even have enough to slip into her pillowcase.
The mayor laughed, and the sound was scratchy, like she didn't drink enough water. She wobbled on her tired, cracked hooves. "Nah! Nah! I be not any breezie. Just a good pony tryna help 'nother good little filly out, ya hear?"
"Ohmigods! Ohmigods! OHMIGODS!" squealed Marigold, her whole body wobbling with excitement. She tried not to jump around any more than she already was, since she knew that if she ended up falling flat on her face, she wouldn't look like a big filly any longer. "Y-you really have bits you can ju-jut give away?"
"Sure do! Why don' ya come an' follow me, little one? I live in a real nice flat not far from here, tha' I do. Baked some fresh cookies last night too. Bit better to chow down on than this qilin fare. Not enough butter and goodness in their meals, no siree."
There was something about the tone of the mare's tone that sounded rehearsed. Her syllables sounded slipperier than when she spoke for, dripping with a worry little Marigold could not place. She'd never heard an adult speak that way before. They always acted so primly around her, as perfect as freshly starched fabric from a real laundry, not one of the deer-owned places that littered the neighborhood of New Cervidaine. Those dumb deer always boasted of having the best laundries in the city, and all of Equestria, as if anything owned by deer could be worth a damn. (That was one of Petunia Petal's favorite words.)
Marigold could think of no other reason to linger in the square. An adult speaking to her like a playmate at school was more than enough of a reason to follow this mare. Something so unprecedented could only reap goodness. As long as Marigold was back before sunset, her mother didn't care what happened to her. An adult could help her fake the rest of her assignment, and she'd still probably get a good grade with somepony so old helping her.
She pricked her ears forward and smiled. "'Course. Only ponies make good food. That's what my mommy says. She's always right about these things."
Marigold gave a little leap forward and skipped along after the mare, who paused to wait for Marigold every single time. Nopony had ever done that before. What Marigold didn't understand was why the mare kept looking around so much. They weren't waiting for anypony else, and they were almost halfway out of the square. Why was she acting like somepony might follow her?
"Missus, can't you go faster? You said you had cookies..." Marigold whined.
All further thoughts died as a sharp whistle pierced the air. It was louder than the one the gym teacher at Marigold's school had. What was worse was that it reminded Marigold of going to gym too, and she froze. She hated gym class because she was always getting in trouble for doing what she was told; it made all the other foals cry. 'Playing rough' wasn't allowed at recess so Marigold had to get it all out somehow. It wasn't her fault everypony cried so easily, and it wasn't just ponies either. Marigold had a front-row seat at how weak griffons were when she dropped a weight right onto the chick's talons. She even managed to play it off as an accident.
"GUARDS! GUARDS!" came a sudden scream. Marigold felt giddy with the need to run hearing it, somepony calling the guards could mean anything. Even the mare leading Marigold suddenly looked scared—in fact, she looked far more scared than Marigold was like she might have seen a ghost.
"GUARDS!" came the scream again, and Marigold got the strange feeling she might have heard the voice before. "COME QUICKLY! PREDATOR! There is a damn pouláriphile trying to lure a filly in broad daylight!"
The mare Marigold had been following looked genuinely terrified now; her whole body was seized with shakes and her eyes were darting around like a petrified cat. Her gaze finally fell to the edge of the crowd that naturally pooled where Marigold had entered this part of the square. A trampling of gold-clad guards had entered the square, their standard-issue enchantments making the false colors of their coats look as bright and clean as their armor. Somepony else was with them, talking to the qilin merchants who were pointing in Marigold's direction.
"I'VE SEEN HER FACE IN THE IMPURE FILES AT THE LIBRARY!" The battle-ready caterwaul finally had a name. The mare from before, with the Elysium pin, was the one screaming and pointing. The guard standing next to her held a whistle in his magic and nodded to the stallions next to him.
Everything that followed was a blur of energy. Two strong forehooves scooped up Marigold and pressed her against cold armor as if her life depended on it. She didn't bite anypony because her mother told her biting the guards could get you fined. Instead, she wriggled, kicked, and screamed until a forehoof was placed firmly over her mouth. She was still able to breathe just fine, but her noise was muffled into a most futile protest of grumbling. She could only watch as the mare from before stepped closer, her expression contorted with worry and fury directed at the other mare.
The mare that had offered cookies to Marigold was tackled with the grace of a dog jumping for meat scraps. She hit the cobbles with a scream that was quickly silenced with a muzzle conjured by one of the unicorn guards. Hoofcuffs soon joined the device. From there, the guards were quick to stand and haul the mare up. Bruises were quickly blooming on her body, and Marigold found herself as captivated by the sight as she was by glitter-dusted pictures in breezie tale books.
"I saw that mare..." said the would-be schoolmarm with a heaving breath and angry eyes. "She followed that little filly here. At first, I thought my eyes deceived me and that this was her mother. But by the Princess, I knew I had to be sure. I trusted my suspicions that her face was familiar and followed her here. What a sick, sick monster tries to lure a foal on so grand a holiday in this nation. Her head should lie in a basket at the hooves of the goddess!"
Marigold didn't know what the word was that had been hollered like a curse towards the mare who trembled under the weight of her shackles. She had heard it said in her Health & Safety class before, as well as her Citizenship class. Yet, she had forgotten what they meant, and the easier words that the teacher had told her were related instead. Since it was supposed to come up on a unit test, Marigold felt there was no need to go back and study the work related to that lesson.
"If that's true," began one of the guards, "this beast has nothing but a life behind bars to look forward to." The pegasus folded his wings to his armored sides with a flourish, and Marigold couldn't think of anything other than a shiny beetle in need of squashing.
"We'll need you to come to the station with us," chimed another guard. The white-coated, blue-maned earth pony was as much of a staple to the city as a lamp-post. He had spoken to the infuriatingly teacher-like mare that had alerted the armored menace to where Marigold was.
"And I'll take Private Skyline Sight with me to get the little one home. She's had a rough day, and her folks are going to need to know what happened to her." The guard holding Marigold spoke with a deep voice that reverberated against Marigold's back. She could already feel his every breath, now she felt him nod to an armored mare standing nearby. "They'll need to ensure she doesn't get out unaccompanied in such a public area. Monsters aren't normal in Equestria, but godsdammit, the kid was nearly foalnapped where everypony could see. This might end up making the papers..."
Thugs, thugs, the whole lot of them!
That was what Marigold thought, and that wouldn't make the papers. Her mother was right about the guards being untrustworthy, armored thugs. They were the fleas of Princess Celestia, and the goddess saw fit to ensure they invaded and policed the lives of everypony. Marigold knew that they kept foals anonymous in the papers, but she wanted to kick the guard holding her with her bad luck. If she wanted to be in the papers, it would be of her own accord.