//------------------------------//
// Part 2, Side A 
// Story: Victory for the Dark Horse 
// by Ice Star 
//------------------------------//

Mayor-Mare had never been happier to wake up before the dawn in her whole life. The sun had not yet stirred and no magic was reaching to the heavens, nor would it ever do so again. Not for Ivory Scroll. Her pre-sun hours no longer pulled her from sleep; from now until she was ready for the grave her mornings would begin before the sun rose over a godless world. The blaring, nightmarish alarm that jolted her from sleep every single day came from a mechanical box, one that flashed hours influenced by a mechanical universe. 

She would amble out of bed clumsily. This was due in part to her age and the intense fragility that humans had. Two legs were an unsteady inconvenience at their best. The nagging feeling of uncanniness that they brought was a phantom always haunting the back of Ivory's mind, though she wished it were not around. It was one of many aspects of her transformed life left unacknowledged. Her new home was a manor in a world where politicians did not bother with maintaining a citizen facade that ponies had always eaten up. She lived alone in her wide-verandaed house, because the previous Ivory had neither spouse nor children. For all those things, the heart of Ivory Scroll was always aflutter, knowing that she was alone, save for duty and glory. 

She lived and worked in buildings as sleek and grandiose as she needed them to be. The coffee she drank was the necessary jolt she required in a world without divine eyes, crown-wearing watchmares, and all the magic that made life feel like living. But over time she had begun to like these things. To be called Madam Mayor meant that she was remarkable in herself, an exception among the everyday. Canterly was not podunk Ponyville, and there was always something to be done.

New worlds meant new problems — and who better to look at them than new eyes?


...


The prospect of an exchange had become a seed of curiosity over coffee. Two plain cups, taken black except for sugar, had ordinary wisps of steam rising for them. It was the perfect cover for a not-so-ordinary exchange that followed. The simian Ivory knew how to make a face extra forgettable — and even though humans lived in a world where they were more likely to know trigonometry than their neighbor's smile, Ivory could not have a sudden twin. Before entering the coffee shop, all that had been needed to make a dimensional sister into a distant cousin was no more than makeup, sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and altered hairstyle was enough. 

Not a single human stopped to listen as their happy chatter had begun. Their shared selfhood made them click, alternating between awkwardness and nigh-constant feelings of déjà vu.  

The contents of Mayor-Mare's bag only solidified this. One only needed to have stopped and really looked into the eyes of Madam Mayor to see what was kindling there. Slowly, genuine emotion had emerged on her face; what she had been seeing was little more than her life and secrets represented in alien equines— 

And it was enough to hook her.


...


The hardest thing about the world of humans was managing their machines. Every device they had was a kind of medical mistake. Each piece of the technology that infested their world where magic would have reigned sorely complicated things. This was to the point where Ivory had to work on relearning much. Earth pony model typewriters with twin dials — twist rings to land on a shorthoof character then press — were replaced with the new, bizarre computer. Roaman characters littered each a keyboard befitting models traditionally reserved for unicorns accompanied every device Ivory encountered.

Within the confines of her home, one such keyboard previously belonging to the simian Ivory was hurled against the wall.

Even though the small cartridge she was required to carry around received messages non-stop, Ivory did like it. Knowing she was summoned through the bright screen so much only emphasized how essential she was to Canterly. In the small-screens smaller boxes were a variety of two-dimensional archives into a life she had never lived. She could study snapshots of a history alongside an array of electronic messages that was hardly different from a diary. The other Ivory hadn't spoken been too different in her manner or general habits. Meekness and a coffee habit were not enough of a severe discrepancy between the two Mayor Scrolls, and Ivory had been faking the former for a good long while before she came to this world. Whether it was dealing with Twilight Sparkle or somepony else, one always had to take care to craft the same masks that reflected the traditions of Princess Celestia.

At least, it was nowhere between level between an aspiring scientist and lesser royalty. One would have the greatest thing in her life be the amount of debt she owed for her degree. The other decided how much others were indebted to her.  

For once in Ivory's life, the living was easy — largely because all her obsoletion had ebbed away, and she had stepped into a world where she could not sense any divine eyes upon her.


...


Politics had many mottos, and to fake things, until one made them so — or merely to appear so — was close to the top. The lawbook one Ivory had lent another was too intricate to be faked. Her other cache of belongings and the solid gold of her bits only served to lessen every worry that the simian creature sitting across from her had possessed. Ivory had watched her human self closely in that moment. She noted how every measure of disingenuous primness cracked and smothered the full extent of her emotions. She had her reservations about the display, but her later dives into the news of this world only confirmed her hunch: watching any politician in this world so free of crowns try and display emotion was like watching a doll try and come to life.

Equestria’s mayors were similar, of course. Their queen in all but name was very clear in her conduct. A mayor was to imitate humility, a citizen-act, and to kowtow to Princess Celestia twice as much as the goddess usually requested. The manner of one’s predecessors were only valid in how they measured up to the imitation and reverence of Princess Celestia herself, the mare of stark, incompatible dualisms. A queen who thought her absolute authority could be convincingly hidden with the more paltry title of Princess. The mare who lived in the highest luxury and cooed over the wealthy trinkets of high society — wines, gowns, decorum, parties, and more — but still tried for an obliviousness of humility. She called you her friend before she referred to you as her subject, but only after you bowed long enough for her liking.

That was just one of the many ways that Ivory came to know that Princess Celestia would be too perfect for this world — so much so that she’d be seen through in an instant.

Only one last trip was needed from there, and the privacy of the native Ivory's horseless carriage had enabled them to talk in privacy. That was something the visiting Ivory quickly managed to learn about humans. Their society was less collective and less private all at once. There was no herd abilities among them, or any similar powers inherent to any creatures. No shred of a collective resembling anything ponies could pull together could be found in these disobedient monkeys. Corruption was no different than cracks in a sidewalk to their world, and yet Ivory could not have imagined dark magic would sow itself as easily here, there was just too much that wasn’t right and she couldn’t wrap her head around what that was. That was the one moment she actually, really wished Twilight Sparkle of all ponies was there in all her new royal existence. Matters of dark power were completely out of the hooves of all mayors, and the secrets of such magic were reserved only for those with authority beyond what all the Ivory Scrolls of all worlds could attain. 

The more they learned of the other's life, all that grew clearer was that they had to have it.

When Mayor-Mare showed her other half the way her fist phased through the horse statue, not a single shred of doubt remained.


...


"Mmm," Ivory Scroll let out a tired hum. She knitted her fingers together and stretched her arms out and away from her. 

The 'telephone' next to her computer had a red light flashing on it, and a single-digit number within that artificial glow. Ever since Ivory had adjusted to the rat race humans immersed themselves, things had been whipped into shape around the Canterly office. The time she took to answer the readings stored within its curious depths had decreased substantially. When Ivory first exchanged places with her human self, that number had been higher than Fluttershy and Tree Hugger after a Mid-April spring festival. Everything smelt like the contents of the Pine-Sun bottle (one with a curious amount of lemons but no pines pictured on it) that Mayor Ex-Mare had seen in the supply closet closest to the kitchen. This proximity and packaging displaying delicious fruit may have had some involvement in her being sent to the hospital for accidentally consuming the contents in want of fruit juice. 

"Raven?" Mayor Ex-Mare called out. She pressed one of the many buttons before her on the tele-box, allowing the messenger to recite whatever they wished to the pseudo-magical compartment where it would be stored. "Raven, where are you?"

A slender, younger ape-creature popped her head in. Oversized spectacles with enormous, thick black frames were perched on her nose. Her long, wide skirt absolutely dwarfed her. The shape was also more befitting a bell in one of the many temples to the gods that were across the other side of the mirror. Every bit of her fashion was just enough to not quite fit in with the style of the other human-creatures about her age. Ivory knew almost immediately after meeting the woman that she dressed straight out of the history books of this world without ever having to see one. 

"Y-yes, M-madam?" she called mousily, in a stutter that was absolutely unlike the low and quiet voice of Inkwell, Mayor Ex-Mare's old secretary.  "Has something g-gone wr-wrong?" 

Privately, Mayor Ex-Mare was starting to wonder if maybe everypony didn't have a perfect copy on the other side. Inkwell sure didn't, not if Raven existed. When had there ever been a Raven in Ponyville?

"There was a meeting coming up tomorrow that I'm... well, I believe that I misplaced a few sheets of my preparation notes." She gave Raven the cool, passionless smile that one could observe constantly pasted to the muzzle of Princess Celestia.

It was the kind of smile that took no questions, accepted no refusals, and dripped with even more raw kindness than Fluttershy thinking that Applejack telling somepony 'bless your heart' was a kind of compliment. Things had always been that way; it had just taken Ivory Scroll a world away to realize the full depth of what had been swimming in so shallow a smile. Princess Celestia's smile took a particular kind of politician to see past — and Ivory Scroll was just the breed. 

Through the partially opened door, Raven was unable to hide the twiddling of her thumbs. "Oh d-dear," she stammered, "b-but that me-meeting was sch-scheduled three months ago! Oh goodness! What if our visitors from re-real Boara-Boara think that our efforts to establish a Li-little Boara-Boara we-west of downtown if we lost n-notes! What if the celery platter explodes—"

"I, umm... Raven, dear? I only asked for some of the notes. You see, I believe that I may have just misplaced the most recent ones... and I thought you might be able to help me find them..." 

Ivory Scroll had always used 'dear' the same way that one would be expected to pat a child on the head and give them a rote speech about whatever worry they felt was trite and how grown-ups could solve everything. It was the embodiment of all the speeches on civics and Equestrian values that Ivory had ever given to half-asleep foals at the Ponyville schoolhouse and the glazed-eyed adults in the town, and around other areas in Everfreeshire. She'd done every single one by leafing lazily through guidebooks on Celestian values and snatching up the most well-trotted phrases, just like every other mayor before her. Being an elected official was a blessing from Celestia herself when you were elected to serve in a nation that changed with every rising of the sun, and still managed to land you in the doldrums no matter what. 

Equestria was a chameleon land where only those who embraced that status could survive. Things could only ever change, and would do so with radical inauthenticity. However, no creature ever doubted that a chameleon was still a gods-darned lizard at the end of the day. However, Florida was merely a crack pipe that was shaped like a chameleon — and Ivory Scroll found that nightmarish, trashiness to be its own kind of desirable.