//------------------------------// // S2E6: Horse Fly (GaPJaxie) // Story: The Starlight & Pals Magical Half Hour // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Twilight Sparkle, sat on her balcony savoring her morning tea. She had just finished raising the sun, and, from her high perch, she could watch the golden light spill over the landscape. Her tea, still too hot to drink, levitated just under her nose to allow her to inhale its heavenly scent. As the ruler of all Equestria, Twilight was often very busy, and so she had learned to savor such fleeting moments of calm. They were a time to appreciate the little things, oft overlooked but virtually important; things that might otherwise escape the notice of royalty. For instance, the flock of songbirds that landed on her balcony. “Hello, little ones,” Twilight said. “Well aren’t you beautiful? I haven’t seen birds on my balcony in a long time. I think the security fans Celestia installed scared you away.” They warbled and cheeped back at her. Twilight had a little bag of birdseed sitting on her balcony table for just such an occasion, and she scattered the seed on the ground for them to enjoy. “But don’t worry. I had the fans removed. Now you can come to the palace whenever you want, and the city should be much safer for ponies with wings.” One of the birds, a little blue one, pecked at the seed Twilight had left on the ground. Then it lifted her head to her, and spoke. “Um…” Princess Twilight frowned. “Yes, that’s… that’s what I said. But how did you make those words, appear? And, how do I know that ninety-eight ponies liked it? Did you do something? Are you magic?” The bird warbled, ruffled its feathers, then said: “Is that… Daring Do?” Twilight pulled her head back as she stared at the little blue bird. “Well that’s just rude! Not to mention wrong. Lots of pegasi were born without wings. Maybe they got them added with magic later in life, or had a birth defect and needed surgery. Plus, I’m a pegasus as much as I am a unicorn and an earth pony, and I wasn’t born with wings.” “I mean…” Twilight ruffled her feathers. “That’s all true, but it’s not exactly what I said. I have been taking up traditional crafts, but I didn’t mention it to you before you-” “Okay, you know what?” Twilight conjured a bird cage from the thin air, and forcefully stuffed the little blue bird into it. “I don’t know what you are, if you were created by Discord, or a very irresponsible wizard, but you’re clearly magic and I don’t think you should be running around Canterlot on your own. So we’re just going to put you in the secure storage room until I can figure out…” Four more identical blue birds landed on Twilight’s balcony. Together, they all spoke: Twilight looked over her balcony railing. There were a lot of little blue birds in her garden, and more settling on the distant roofs of Canterlot. “Raven!” she called to her assistant. “Cancel my meetings for the day. I’m flying to Ponyville. There’s an impending friendship problem. And uh… see if anypony knows where these birds came from.” Raven looked up from her notes. “From eggs, your highness." When Twilight arrived in Ponyville, she discovered the other Elements of Harmony already assembled in the castle’s map room. “Oh, girls.” She slammed the door shut with a hindleg and sat in her chair. “Thank goodness you’re here. I think we might have a big problem.” “You have a gift for understatement, Twilight,” Rarity agreed. “AK Yearling is an inspiration for millions of ponies who love her books. What will they think, seeing her tweet such hateful garbage?” “...wait, what?” Twilight asked. “Uh.” Rainbow Dash’s narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me? AK Yearling is just saying what everypony is thinking.” “Girls, I wasn’t talking about…” Twilight gestured up at the cage she still carried, with the little blue bird inside. “I was talking about these magical birds that repeat what everypony says to them.” “Right. Her tweets.” Applejack nodded. “Came right outta left field for me. I had no idea AK Yearling was a TERP.” “What?” Twilight furrowed her brow. “What’s a TERP? Do you girls know where all these birds came from?” “They came from eggs, Twilight.”” Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “And, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Pegasus. They’re a hate-group who believe that if you weren’t born with wings, you aren’t a ‘real’ pegasus.” “Oh, I see.” Rainbow Dash spread her hooves. “So now I’m in a ‘hate group’ just because I believe it matters that I grew up with wings?” “You say that stuff around me again-” Fluttershy snapped and slammed her hooves on the table “-and you’ll spend the rest of your life without wings.” “Woah woah.” Pinkie Pie leapt between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy before anypony could escalate the situation further. “Okay, I think, that the room has gotten a little tense, and what we all need right now is to calmly talk things out over cupcakes. How does that sound?” Most ponies grumbled something to the effect of “Fine.” Twilight glanced at the bird in her cage. “Okay,” Pinkie went on. “Rainbow Dash, why don’t you go first? Tell us how you feel.” “I feel like growing up with wings was a big deal, and really important to who I am, and somepony can’t just go magically grow some primary feathers and say that oh look I’m a pegasus now.” She glanced at Twilight. “Sorry.” “Well,” Twilight said. “That seems fair. I don’t agree, since, you know, alicorns are pegasi too. But growing up a pegasus and becoming a pegasus later in life are different. So I get why a pony might feel that way.” “See?” Rainbow Dash jerked a hoof in Twilight’s direction. “I have trans-pegasus friends and they say I’m right.” “‘Alicorn,’” Twilight said. “The term is ‘Alicorn.’ And you have exactly one.” Fluttershy lifted her nose, her tone sharp and judgemental. “Okay, so explain this to me.” She pointed at Twilight’s bird. “Reweet.” “Okay,” Twilight said, “so you all know the birds exist and think it’s normal that they exist. So something happened to reality and I’m the only one who remembers-” “Duh,” Rainbow Dash spread her arms. “If anypony can become a pegasus at will, then race doesn’t mean anything. If race doesn’t mean anything, then there’s no such thing as interracial relationships, and saying there’s no such thing as interracial relationships is super racist.” With an air of finality, Rainbow Dash sat back and folded her legs. “So basically, if you think ponies can just go around growing wings all the time, you’re a secret unicorn supremacist.” “Uh…” AJ lifted a hoof. “I don’t see how unicorn supremacy came into this. Wasn’t the whole point that there would be no more races?” “Exactly! Alicorns want to destroy everypony’s racial identity. Imagine what that would be like?” Rainbow pointed at AJ with a hoof. “A world where anypony can be a unicorn or a pegasus or an earth pony any time they want.” “Actually, that sounds lovely.” AJ shrugged. “I enjoy my traditions, sure as sure, but getting rid of the last vestiges of old tribalist discrimination would be-” “Stop enjoying my dystopia!” Rainbow shouted, throwing her hooves to the air. “What about me?” Fluttershy demanded. “Growing up flying isn’t at all important to my self-identity. Does that make me less of a pegasus?” “No, of course not.” “And what about Scootaloo? I’d like to see you tell her that flying is an intrinsic part of being a pegasus.” Her tone, already sharp, turned nakedly contemptuous. “Walk right up to her face and call her a dirty earth pony.” Rainbow shot out of her chair, her voice rising to a shout. “I would never do that!” “Then why do you care?” Fluttershy shouted right back. “Why is it so important to you that you can sort the world into ‘pegasus’ and ‘not-pegasus’ and everypony has to go along with your definition?” “You don’t get it,” Rainbow Dash pointed at the little blue bird in the cage. “Retweet.” After a long pause, Rarity cleared her throat. “And?” “And-” Rainbow Dash spread her hooves- “-everypony knows that if you’ve been attacked for being in a group, that means you own that group forever and get to say who is and isn’t a part of it. That’s just logic.” “But, wait.” Pinkie frowned. “That’s why AK Yearling cares, but why do you care?” “Because…” Rainbow Dash spluttered. “It’s important. And stuff.” Pinkie sighed, reached out, and put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Rainbow…” she spoke, her words so gentle. “Did you see Trans-Exclusionary Radical Pegasus and jump on board because you wanted to be a ‘radical pegasus’ and you didn’t know what the first two words meant?” “No!” Rainbow fumed, but her eyes went down to the floor. “And it’s not two words. It’s one really big word.” “A very big word,” Pinkie agreed. “And you can’t even look it up in the dictionary because it has a dash in the middle.” “Yeah.” Rainbow kicked the underside of the table with a hoof. “And AK Yearling is one and she’s cool.” “She uh…” Applejack coughed. “She writes some good books, yeah. But, and I gotta be honest Rainbow, TERPism might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” “And trans-pegasi face discrimination all their own,” Rarity said. “Ponies threw clods of dirt at Princess Luna and called her a unicorn poser. You know, until she had them arrested.” “But I really like her books,” Rainbow mumbled. “You know me. I’m a huge Daring Do fan.” “You are,” Pinkie agreed. “Life would be easier if Daring Do was a fictional character, and we could just say we love AK Yearling’s books even if she has some crazy, whackjob political views. But since we all know Daring Do is real and also the same person as AK Yearling, somehow, I can see how this really hurt you emotionally. She was your hero.” “Yeah,” Applejack agreed. “I’m sorry, Rainbow.” “I’m sorry too,” Fluttershy said. “I wouldn’t actually rip your wings off. Unless you made me really angry.” “I know. I’m sorry I said…” Rainbow tapped her hooves together. “All that stuff I said. I just don’t want this to be the end of AK Yearling’s career.” “Maybe she can write another book,” Rarity suggested. “Daring Do and the Public Relations Disaster.” “Okay, this is all great,” Twilight said, “but can we please get back to-” From up the hall, Twilight heard the sound of galloping hooves. Then the door to the map room burst open and in charged Starlight, surrounded by a massive flock of the little blue birds. Wide-eyed, panicked, and sweating, she locked eyes on Twilight like a drowning mare spotting driftwood. “Oh thank goodness you’re here,” she called. “I used magic to make it so that everypony in the world knew my opinions all the time, but something happened, and now other ponies are using it to express their opinions, and they’re wrong!” Twilight looked at her friends, the cage, Starlight, and the birds, and then nodded firmly. “Starlight,” she said, “if I keep bailing you out of these situations, you’ll never learn. You got yourself into this, and now you’re going to have to suffer a bit to get yourself out of it. I want you to think about what you did.” She picked up her bird cage and flew away, headed back to Canterlot. Behind her, she heard Starlight cry: “Twilight, you can’t leave me here!” Starlight’s shriek of agony echoed across all of Ponyville. As Twilight flew away, she turned her head to regard to the little bird in her cage, and smiled. “Hey, before Equestria goes back to normal, I have a message I’d like to ‘Tweet’ to Princess Celestia. Can you do that?” The bird warbled, which Twilight took as a yes. Princess Celestia lifted her head from her beach towel, looking at the little blue bird that had landed next to her head. “What the hell is this?”