//------------------------------// // XVIII - Ultimatum // Story: Sunrise // by Winston //------------------------------// Sunrise ​    Chapter XVIII - Ultimatum ​    After a chorus of shocked gasps followed by a long moment of stunned silence in the court, Sear Blaze darted over to Star Fire and felt around her neck, looking for a pulse. After several tries, she gave up and just stared at Celestia, shrinking down meekly in shock while she made a weak effort to drag Star Fire’s body away. “No more interruptions!” Celestia looked around the court, cowing every face her eyes crossed, and finally turned to stare up at Platinum. “Now, we will state our demands,” she said sternly, “and you will comply with them, without reservation. Is that finally clear?” “Having now committed murder in my court, what legitimacy do you have left for demanding anything?” Princess Platinum asked haughtily. “I suggest a better question: now that we’ve gone this far, where do you think we will stop if we don’t get what we want?” Celestia countered. “Is that a threat?” Platinum growled. “I wish it didn’t have to be, but that’s up to you.” Celestia took a step closer to the throne, staring at Platinum and locking eyes on her. For the first time, a crack finally showed in the hard-as-stone royal façade. There was no staring contest now. Instead, Celestia watched with the half-guilty satisfaction of schadenfreude as Princess Platinum seemed to realize her position and shifted uncomfortably on her throne. “What is it you would demand, then?” Platinum asked cautiously. “You will descend from your throne and surrender yourself to us, immediately.” If the silence from the rest of the court had been tense before, now it suddenly took on a chilling depth, as if everypony was in such shock that they had stopped breathing. Their paralysis was not merely noiseless, but almost seemed to be somehow actively absorbing sound into an auditory black hole. Seconds passed slowly, at an almost unbearable crawl. “Out of the question!” A deep voice finally cried out, exploding from the court crowd. Celestia snapped her head to look in the direction of the outburst that had shattered the dead quiet. The crowd parted as a muscular stallion with a pale blue coat and a deep azure mane marched forward, wearing a silk sash hanging with rows of military medals across his chest, quietly jangling as he walked. Their eyes locked. She recognized the stare he leveled at her, trying to drill into her with his icy grey gaze. It was the same stare that the royal guards had so intimidated her with the first time she came to the palace. It was the same stare that the guard at the transit station gave her on those cold uncomfortable early mornings. It was the same stare that always came from somepony in armor, somepony outranking her, somepony who could make her cower, all her life. It was a stare omnipresent in her memories, in which she had seen authority, power, and strength. But now, with a sudden clarity, she saw what was underneath. She only saw brittle fear. With that unmasking, it felt impossible to be angry at the ponies staring that stare. All she felt was sad for them instead. “Oh? Is surrendering so unthinkable?” she asked. “It is, and I will defend my princess to the end!” The stallion cried out, leaping forward to interpose himself between Celestia and the throne… or, would have, had he not struck something invisible in mid-air. He stopped abruptly with a dull thumping sound and crumpled to the floor halfway between the throne and the gallery the crowd occupied. A silver-blue glow slowly faded from Luna’s horn as she let the unseen barrier drop. “There is nothing noble about throwing your life away, sir,” she said in a scolding voice edged with frustration. “Has Star Fire’s example taught you nothing?” He picked himself up, slowly, looking dazed and reproachful. “It is my duty,” he mumbled, with blood dripping slowly from his muzzle. “What else is a royal guard to do?” “Royal guard?” Luna asked softly. “Is that what all these are for?” Her horn glowed as she lifted the silk sash, pulling it off the stallion and bringing it close to herself. She inspected the medals, row after perfect row of gleaming bronze, silver, gold, platinum, all hanging on colorful ribbons. “I am the Commander-General of the royal guard, in addition to holding a post as part of the princess’s military advisory council,” the stallion snapped in response. “I’ve earned them through long service, and you have not, so I will thank you to give those back!” “Certainly, if you will return to the gallery and keep your peace,” Luna offered. He scowled. “I would never surrender my princess for mere trinkets.” “Fortunately for you, then, we are not asking whether or not you would surrender. It’s for her to decide.” Celestia pointed at Princess Platinum. “Lord Shining Shield, do ask they ask,” Platinum directed the stallion. “I don’t think there is anything to be done here that will be worth dying for, now.” “I… As you command,” he agreed hesitantly. “I trust in you, as always, to make the right decision.” With that, he slowly turned and walked backed to the gallery, rejoining the crowd. As he neared, a mare offered him a cloth for his bleeding nose. He accepted it, holding it over his nostrils while he continued glaring at the two sisters. “As promised, Lord Shield, your decorations.” Luna floated the sash back over to him and returned it, gently releasing it to his magical grasp. “You see?” she asked, turning back to Platinum. “Things can be done reasonably, if we’re all willing to cooperate like reasonable ponies.” “You think it is reasonable to demand my surrender, when Mage Star Fire’s point still stands?” Platinum asked. “We have not yet seen your claims to control the sun and moon validated.” “Perhaps you’re right. Shall we validate them for you?” Celestia asked. “It would be a reasonable thing to offer in exchange.” “It would be a start,” Platinum returned warily. “Fine. Then watch.” Celestia’s horn glowed in white-gold, and Luna’s in silvery-blue. The daylight coming through the windows from outside began to shift, changing angles from nearly vertical to diagonal, then horizontal. In a few moments, the sun sank low, shining in from the west in deep orange as it slipped toward the horizon. Simultaneously, the moon ascended, taking over the darkening sky. Luna parked the moon, letting it hang motionless, ruling over the heavens in the untimely night. Celestia kept moving the sun, feeling it on the far side of the planet, maneuvering it into just the right position, until a slight red crescent began to stain the moon. She made fine adjustments, moving slowly, watching the crimson wash over the silver, further and further, until the eclipse was complete and the moon was a brilliant, eerie scarlet pouring through the windows like blood. Some of the court crowd looked aghast as they stared. There hadn’t been a lunar eclipse in living memory, and they blanched at the spectacle. “Now do you believe us?” Celestia asked. “A blood moon. Such a terrible omen of calamitous changes of fortune hasn’t been seen in generations.” Platinum studied the sight from her throne. “They portend great changes of power. Are you trying to say you came here as conquerors?” “Oh, no.” Celestia shook her head. “I think you misunderstand: we’re not interested in taking over the Unicorn Kingdom. This was never a march of conquest.” “Then… if not to seize power, what are you doing here?” Platinum asked. “Let me put it this way: in a game of chess, when you checkmate the king and take him off the board, you win, yes?” Celestia replied. “Does it matter how many other pieces the other player still has, as long as that happens?” “Taking the king off the board? Then…” Princess Platinum’s face fell as she put the pieces together. “This is a decapitation strike, isn’t it?” “Correct.” Celestia nodded a single slight nod. “Well. I see.” Platinum puffed her chest and held her head high, putting on a brave face. “Then decapitate me, if my time has come. I won’t resist, if you’ll only spare my court in exchange. Please, you… you spoke of being reasonable. That is a reasonable exchange, isn’t it?” “Noble, but again, you misunderstand.” Celestia looked around the room. The crowd in the gallery was stirring, with a few rubbing their necks half-consciously, looking anxious and fearful after hearing something about ‘decapitation.’ Celestia raised her voice to make sure they would hear her clearly. “Stay calm! Star Fire’s poor judgment notwithstanding, we didn’t come here to kill anypony. All of you ponies of the court will, however, be detained. You will serve as hostages to ensure compliance with certain conditions.” “What ‘certain conditions’ would those be?” Platinum asked. “The first is what we have already stated, Princess: you will surrender yourself to us. The second is that you will bring Cardinal Clover to us, without delay,” Celestia said. “There will be more to follow, and they will be made known in good time, but for now let’s start with those two and see where things go.” “And if I decline any of them?” Celestia gave Platinum a hard glare. “For the sake of Quartz City, you will not. I promise you. What happened to the thaumocontrollers isn’t even close to what could still happen yet. Now, Clover. Where is she?” ​    ☙ ☀ ❧     “Well, you’ve sealed us in, fine enough.” Clover looked around the court chamber while she stood next to the sisters, having just recovered her bearings after an unexpected teleporting into the court and a hasty explanation of their situation. “But how do we get out again?” “I was thinking the roof,” Celestia said. “It shouldn’t be hard to cut open, when the time comes.” “An extraction team is already on its way,” Luna clarified. “The blood moon we raised is our signal to them that we’ve succeeded. We’ll need to let them in once they arrive.” “Commander Hurricane’s forces?” Clover asked. “Yes.” Luna nodded. “The pegasi have been most gracious in their hospitality for us this past week. I think they’ll be glad for the chance to host even more guests, don’t you think?” “No doubt they’ll be eager to receive the many esteemed and important ponies of this court,” Clover agreed. “Very well done, you two. Capturing the Princess and the entire royal court in one deft swoop. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but you continue to impress.” “Oh, yes, congratulations are in order,” Platinum snapped sourly from the dais. “Platinum, old friend, you lost this one fair and square,” Clover chuckled. “Maybe I did,” Platinum sneered. “But it’s still hard to swallow.” “I’m of the opinion that you did it to yourself,” Celestia stated. Platinum was silent for a long moment. “You know what might actually bother me the most about this, when it’s all said and done?” she finally muttered, staring down at the rich carpet, vivid red like blood as it cascaded in an almost liquid flow down the short, wide dais steps. Star Fire hadn’t bled when she died, Celestia realized. The carpet substituted, spilling with crimson color to defy the false tidiness of a murder by precision neckbreak. “What?” Clover asked. “What will happen to Beryl?” Platinum asked, glancing briefly at Clover before returning her eyes to the floor. “He may be a dimwit of a bird, but he’s my special little dimwit. Underneath all his showiness, his heart is good, and whatever mistakes I’ve made, he’s innocent. He needs somepony. Who will look after the poor thing?” Clover rolled her eyes. “Is this your way of asking me to?” “Would you?” Platinum looked up with a glimmer of hope. “At least you’re not a total stranger to him, so I don’t suppose…” “Fiiiine.” Clover let out a long-drawn sigh. “I knew there had to be a catch. It couldn’t just be this easy,” she mumbled. “Well, bring the featherbrain here. I suppose it’s only right that I have to take responsibility for the innocent soul I’ve helped to get caught in the middle of all this, isn’t it?” “I’m of the opinion that you did it to yourself,” Platinum said quietly, with a brief vindictive smirk. ​    ☙ ☀ ❧     Blazing white sparks rained down while Celestia sliced the ceiling open with a pale yellow beam of light from her horn. A square slab, still glowing red around the smoldering edges, fell to the stone floor with a far too gentle thump as Luna used her magic almost casually to ease the massive slab to a safe landing. Armored pegasi immediately swarmed in on their wings through the hole, appearing like ghosts through the billows of smoke. With an eerily well-practiced, almost supernatural speed, several of them threw small cylinders toward the gathered court unicorns. Before any unicorns could react, the cylinders burst in an irregular, rapid series of small flashes and sharp cracks. Celestia instinctively shielded herself before they went off. Even through her considerable defenses, she felt a slight pinging pain and minor numbness in her horn. They were anti-magic suppression weapons, she realized, designed to inhibit unicorn spell-casting. The pegasi wasted no time in taking advantage of the temporary magic-numbness. They forced the unicorns to the floor, horn-ringed them, and had them in shackles before most of them knew what was happening. Those wearing clothing were stripped and searched. Anything that could be used as a weapon, and in particular, Celestia noticed, anything with any kind of gem in it, was confiscated. It was a very sensible precaution; there was no telling what kind of hidden enchantments jewels might be infused with as a wearable ‘insurance policy’ against situations like this. These being some of the highest representatives of the unicorn noble houses, the pile of jewelry the pegasi stripped from them grew to an impressive size in short order, all their wealth of precious metals and stones being heaped up like so much hazardous debris needing careful disposal. “No, you dingbats! Stop!” Clover’s voice broke through Celestia’s fascination with the proceedings. “I’m part of the inside team!” She looked over to find Clover, having somehow avoided being magically disabled, with an exasperated look on her face and using her magic to evade the grasp of two pegasus soldiers. It looked like they were trying to wrestle a greased eel, such was the trouble they were having with the slippery shield spell Clover had cast to prevent them from horn-ringing her. “She’s with us.” Celestia nodded, interjecting herself and gently pushing the two pegasi back with telekinetic magic. “Leave her alone. See to the other unicorns.” “Every unicorn gets a horn-ring!” one of the pegasi insisted gruffly. “If you’re not cooperating, this is gonna happen the hard way. We don’t have time to screw around.” She scowled and pulled out another cylinder, readying it for deployment. Alarmed, Celestia telekinetically clamped the cylinder to the pegasus’s hoof. The pegasus looked dumbfounded when she was unable to throw it, then startled when Celestia squeezed. “I said not her!” Celestia snapped. “She is on the inside team.” “We’ll sift it out later,” a third pegasus wearing an officer’s insignia finally told them. “Get back to securing the rest.” They swiftly turned their attention as ordered to dealing with the other unicorns, leaving Clover with the two sisters. In moments, the pegasi had finished and began carrying away the helpless unicorns, some of whom protested indignantly but ineffectually that they were being kidnapped and all of this was unbelievably illegal. If it was, the pegasi seemed unconcerned with the law. One by one, they hefted up the restrained unicorns and flew them out through the hole in the ceiling. Cold air rushed in as they rushed out, dissipating the lingering traces of smoke with the fresh scent of winter frost, under a moon still shining in an ominous blood-red eclipse. Celestia and Luna left second-to-last, just before the pegasus officer in charge of the raid. They carried Clover out with them as they went, with much more respectful treatment than the other unicorns were receiving. True to her word to Princess Platinum, Clover in turn carried Beryl, which seemed at first to Celestia like an absurdity – the peacock was a bird, with perfectly good wings of his own. But, she had to admit, there was the small issue of not knowing where exactly the daft bird would go if left to his own devices. Flying away swiftly, they followed the pegasus soldiers. The entire operation had all happened so shockingly fast, less than five minutes from the first pegasus breaching the throne room to the last one exiting, that it felt unreal in a way that chilled Celestia just as much as the winter air. The lightning speed and precision of these elite pegasi was a stark reminder of what they had promised Commander Hurricane – a very short war indeed. ​    ☙ ☀ ❧     The shackles chafed, a little, but at least that was something. What was infinitely worse was the absent, numb nothing in Shining Shield’s forehead where his horn should have been. He was sure it was still there, since he’d tested by tapping it against the strange cloudstone substance that the walls of his cell were made of, but the strength of the horn-ring the pegasi had slipped onto him was such that it was completely deadened, and there was an element of horror in its absence from his senses that he hadn’t ever experienced personally. He had caused it to be done to other ponies, yes, but of course they had deserved it. They had been prisoners. Troublemakers. Those sorts. A pony of his stature being abducted and forced into this indignity, on the other hoof? He fumed. It was— The door to the cell swung open, interrupting the thought and sending him scrambling to his hooves. A trio of pegasi stood in the opening. One of them stepped a pace or two into the cell. At last! His heart beat wildly. Although stripped of magic, armor, horseshoes, even his sash of service medals, Shining Shield had decided he would at least go out fighting using the one weapon he had left. Adrenaline flowing, he lowered his head, aiming his horn—the horn he couldn’t feel, but knew he kept filed sharp—at the pegasus mare, and kicked off hard with all the explosive strength he could muster from his haunches, aiming for a goring stab at her neck with a mighty forward leap. It was not the unavoidably fast blur of fluid motion he’d hoped for. Something, some enchantment, had been done to his shackles; the faster he tried to move, the more they resisted and felt like weights anchoring down his hooves. They turned his deadly strike into more of a comical, stumbling hobble. The pegasus, on the other hoof, seemed to move impossibly fast in response as she dropped to a crouch and thrust out one foreleg to sweep Shining Shield’s front hooves. He could only watch helplessly as the ground suddenly twisted sideways and rushed up to meet his head. Once he was on the ground, a flurry of feathers swept over his face, rushing by and gently scratching as she extended one wing to cover his eyes and block his view. He tried to bite, intending to pull out her feathers if he could, but couldn’t manage to get a grip on anything with his teeth. His ears told him that the other two ponies rushed the room, and their weight suddenly piled on top of him, bodily holding him to the floor. Against his struggles, he felt somepony restraining his legs and tightening his shackles even more. Finally the veil of feathers lifted. He was hauled roughly to his hooves, where he stood unsteadily, sandwiched between the two pegasi pressing against him, one on either side, preventing him from moving more than an inch in any direction. “They told us you might be given to pointless heroics. I guess they were right.” The pegasus mare standing before him looked him up and down. “Please don’t cause trouble, Sir Shield. We are not going to hurt you. We just need to move you.” “Where?” he demanded. “Commander Hurricane has arranged a meeting with all the Quartz City prisoners,” the pegasus said, in her strangely accented voice. “We’re taking you to her. Don’t struggle. We will need to carry you in flight, and we would not want to drop you. It is a very long way down.” Shining Shield snorted and rolled his eyes, unimpressed at the veiled threat. Still, what was there to be done? They clearly had him where they wanted him. “Fine.” He held his head high, trying to preserve a grip on some semblance of pride. “Take me, then.” ​    ☙ ☀ ❧     The impressive beauty of the great cloud city was something that Shining Shield tried to push away and keep distant in his mind while he was being flown through it. That the savage pegasi could create things like this… though it was breathtaking, he wanted to remain convinced it was an affront, a mockery built in imitation of unicorn civilization, perhaps out of a jealous desire in the pegasi to emulate their betters. They took him to one of the few structures he saw that had a roof and solid walls, unlike the generally open-air plans favoring arrangements of pillars over more solid partitioning. Escorting him through the doors, the pegasi kept a tight grip, maintaining their careful physical control over him even after they’d landed. He was herded into what looked like a large conference room. Many of the ponies abducted from the court with him were already there. Some greeted him with silent nods of acknowledgement. Others still looked too stunned or lost to manage anything, lost in apparent dumb denial of their situation. The room was furnished with simple chairs, with their legs bolted together to form long, orderly rows. Smart, he had to admit. It prevented them from being picked up and swung as weapons. Giving Shining Shield more leeway once he was in the room, the pegasi backed off and allowed him to walk to a seat on his own. The gathered unicorns, all hornringed and all shackled, waited in a tense, uneasy silence. Glancing around, Shining Shield caught sight of Princess Platinum, sitting front and center. Only after a second take and a longer moment of study did it register that it was really her, so unfamiliar was she without her crown and purple robes. Seeing her horn-ringed and reduced to the common denominator, denied her regalia and made to sit unclothed and unornamented just like everypony else, brought on a wave of dismay heated with anger. If they can force even the scion of the royal house to lower herself so far… For the first time in a long time, he felt truly shaken. Then a door near the front of the room opened. Several ponies, pegasi in armor, filed in. And then, after them… those two. Sisters, so they had declared themselves in the palace. One white as the pure sun, one deep blue like the night sky. With their horns and wings, they were as unmistakable now as they were in the Platinum Court; a force bringing a reckoning he would never forget. For the first time in a long time, he felt fear. What would they do? What could possibly be the follow-up act to how easily they’d taken the entire court? But almost anticlimactically, as the ponies upfront arranged themselves before the gathered prisoners, the two sisters stood to the side, appearing deferential to the pegasi for the time being. One of the pegasi stepped forward instead, wearing ornately chased armor and briefly surveying the captive audience with a sweep of her blue-green eyes. “All of you! Listen carefully and listen well!” she barked. “Welcome to Cloudopolis. I am Commander Hurricane, foremost general officer of the Cloud Empire’s armies. I assume many of you are confused about your situation, so I will spell it out for you in plain terms. You have been brought here to facilitate and ensure the cooperation of the Unicorn Kingdom with certain policy objectives. You’re going to be held in our custody until those objectives are met. Once we are satisfied with the outcomes and the degree of cooperation afforded, you’ll be returned to Quartz City. Any questions?” “Are we prisoners of war, then?” Shining Shield piped up. “For that matter, is there a war on?” “No,” Commander Hurricane answered curtly. “War has not been declared. There is still hope that it will not be necessary. Though under the circumstances I think you should be hoping to avoid it more than I.” “Then this is an illegal abduction,” he stated. “No, let me clarify on that point.” She glared back at him. “You’re not being abducted, you’re currently being detained pending investigation into whether or not you should be formally arrested and charged.” “That’s outrageous! On what charge could you possibly back this pathetic excuse for claiming you ‘might arrest’ the entire royal court?” Commander Hurricane gave him a hard stare. “Crimes against ponykind.” She looked around. “Any other questions?” It seemed there weren’t any. A long moment of hushed silence settled on the room. “Good,” Hurricane said, after a moment. “That leads us to an excellent point for further explanation by some ponies who are knowledgeable on those issues. Celestia. Luna.” She waved the two sisters forward. They took their places and stood side by side before the assemblage of unicorns. “I don’t doubt that most of you are very confused and even more apprehensive right now,” the white one, Celestia, began. “And rightly so. There is a great deal that has been kept from you. Allow us to remedy this by filling you in.” And so she began to speak. She told a tale that Shining Shield could hardly believe, because he didn’t particularly want to believe it. She spoke of her beginnings in Thaumosciences—that much didn’t surprise him, he’d never felt the mages were wholly reliable—and of being put to work researching the decline and imminent failure of crop output, then being pulled into a wild conspiracy to undo the earth ponies by the very mage, Star Fire, that she’d slain before the eyes of everypony in court. Her tale pressed on to an even more secret plan; a wheels-within-wheels conspiracy orchestrated by Clover the Clever. The mane on the back of his neck bristled in a combination of rancor against the treason they’d committed against the Princess, and surprise that the Princess would have pressed the scheme that drove them to rebel in the first place. And why hadn’t he heard before now? Compartmentalization based on need-to-know made sense, granted. But still… it was troubling that he was so connected, so tied to the court, but still not in this loop. Stealing a glance around the room, he could see the same mix of misgiving, uncertainty, and anger on the faces and in the tense postures of many other prisoners. It was as the sisters had said; some harsh revelations were being delivered this day. Finally, they conjured a model of Quartz City fashioned from the cloud-stuff so abundant here in the pegasus stronghold. Celestia, like a great pure white marble statue, towered over it, eyes closed as her horn glowed and she willed forth an apparition of the sun, floating above the unicorn city. Rays of concentrated light beamed down from her mock-sun as she showed them the destruction of the thaumocontrollers and explained that they alone drove the sun and moon directly now. Shining Shield’s stomach sank as he witnessed the recreated simulacrum of sudden, near-incomprehensible violent power. As a general, his first impulse was to think of a counter-strategy, but this almost made him want to laugh out loud at himself. It was a ridiculous notion, thinking that there would even be a strategy. What was there to be done against this overpowering first-strike capability they’d developed? How was this enemy to be fought? How does a fly fight a sledgehammer? “Now, you, the leadership of Quartz City and the Unicorn Kingdom, sit here, thaumocontrollers destroyed and prisoners of the pegasi,” Celestia pronounced. “Now the pieces are placed. Now, it is time.” There was a moment’s pause. “Time.” She paced. “Time is really the question, isn’t it? The time of the Unicorn Kingdom. The time of the earth pony. How much time any of us have left. How much time might be gained… or taken away.” Celestia looked around the room. “You tried to take away the time of other ponies. We are in a time in which the unicorn has come to see herself as the highest peak of ponykind, in a place of special privilege, instead of one among three equal sisters. Now, make no mistake, this is not unaccountable arrogance born of nothing. This is symptomatic; there is a deeper problem. It is the sign of a time in which we have fallen into an imbalance – one that must be corrected, or it will destroy us.” “But it’s not time for me, somepony who lived as a unicorn, to tell you about who you’ve hurt,” Celestia continued after a thoughtful pause. “Rather, it’s time for the voice of the earth pony to be heard. And after all these decades of being deaf to our earth sisters, hear her you will, at long, long last. She has been waiting, beyond patiently. So…” Celestia nodded to Luna, who opened the meeting room door and said something softly to a pony waiting in the hall. After a moment, she stepped aside, making way for an earth pony mare who walked timidly into the room. Luna silently encouraged her onward, until she joined Celestia standing before the assemblage of unicorns. Shining Shield studied her. Her mane was the color of honey, her coat tan. Freckles played across her young, pretty face, contrasting endearingly somehow against her legs with their ropey muscles and faint scars showing the marks of farm labor. She looked at Celestia for a brief moment, uncertainty showing clearly in her powder-blue eyes. “Go on.” Celestia gently spoke to her with a reassuring smile and faint nod. At that, the earth pony returned the nod, then turned to the unicorns, taking a deep breath and lifting her head as she gathered her confidence. “Hello, ma’ams and sirs. My name is Winter Wheat,” she started. “Miss Celestia asked me to come here to Cloudopolis so I could tell you in my own words what it’s like to be an earth pony. I didn’t know if I could at first, because I didn’t know what I would say, or how to stand in front of other ponies and speak. I’ve never done it before. But, I, uh…” She fidgeted. “I decided I would, though, because I realized something important about how something that happened to me not long ago made me feel, and I knew this would be my only chance to say something about it, and maybe be really listened to. So here it is.” She cleared her throat. “Not long ago, one of your mages, Star Fire was her name, came to my home. She brought Quartz City guards with her. They showed up by surprise, in the middle of breakfast. Star Fire told me they were looking for magic, or something like that, and she was coming into my house to search. She didn’t have a warrant, but the guards made it clear that ‘no’ wasn’t an answer.” “I always knew—” Winter Wheat swallowed anxiously “—I knew the guard unicorns showing up meant somepony was in trouble. But I hoped they would always just stay away from me, if I was… you know, if I was a ‘good’ earth pony. If they didn’t have a reason to come for me, because I didn’t do anything wrong, it would be okay. But it wasn’t okay. They came anyway, and they threatened me. When you’re an earth pony, you hear the stories about what those threats mean, and because of those stories, when those guards just showed up, I was more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.” “No,” she muttered. “More than frightened. I was panicked. The kind of panic that’s so bad you just freeze up and don’t know what to do, because there’s nothing you can do. It’s like a nightmare you’ve always had, one that always hangs over you, and you try to push it away to the back of your head and never think about it but now it’s finally come to life. It made me feel so helpless. They were there, and I couldn’t do anything about it. That’s how your whole life is, as an earth pony. The unicorns could always show up. They’re always a force that could come around to take something from you. It doesn’t have to be fair. It doesn’t have to be right. You don’t know where. You don’t know when. It just happens. “But even more than not knowing when they might come to take everything unexpectedly, what really grinds me down some days is just knowing what they take bit by bit as a routine. That’s even worse for a lot of ponies. It’s relentless. It never ends. Unicorns already own what matters to earth ponies most of all: they own the land. To farm the land, you pay the owner. That’s what unicorns take, what they take from every single earth pony, even the ones the guards never come for: we grow, they take. They take for taxes. They take for tenancy. They take and say it’s to pay for the armies, the roads, the weather. They take and call it the price for the sun and the moon, like those should have a price, instead of being for everypony.” Winter Wheat looked around silently, slowly, sweeping her gaze across the faces of every unicorn in the room. “I’m a slave,” she finally stated, raising her voice a little louder than she’d been able to before. “Nopony ever wants to say it, but that’s the truth. Every earth pony in the Unicorn Kingdom is. I know I’m a slave because all my life, I’ve never felt anything but helpless. I just never completely realized it until the day Star Fire showed up. That was the day I really woke up to what she could have taken from me right then and there, and it was also the day I learned about what the Unicorn Kingdom planned to take; to rob me – to rob every earth pony – of having foals. To take and take until they’d even taken our future. Miss Celestia told me what you were planning, and that was the day it hit me right on the forehead so hard I had to finally notice: I’m a slave. “I know you’re all unicorns, so maybe you won’t understand. Maybe you won’t care at all. But I still need to say it. I’m talking to you about how this made me feel because I don’t want my children, if I have foals someday, to have to live in the world that does the same thing to them, and makes them feel the same way I do. I just want something better. I want a better world than one where anypony is a slave. That’s what I really want to say to all of you. That’s what you’ve done to me. It’s not fair. I just want things to be fair.” Winter Wheat took one last look across the crowd, and turned to leave. Celestia walked with her. “Thank you, Winter Wheat,” she said when they reached the door. “That was very brave of you.” “You’re welcome. Thank you for making them hear me.” Winter Wheat nodded gratefully, wiping away silently gathering tears in her eyes. She and Celestia hugged, then the earth pony left the room, escorted by one of the pegasi. Celestia turned back to the unicorn prisoners, reproach burning bright in her eyes. “Do you understand now?” she asked. “Do you see what you’ve done? Our world responds to the magic we bring to it. When all three of our tribes used our magic to provide for each other, to lift each other up, the world provided for us. When we had warmth and caring in our hearts, the world was warm and cared for us.” “But now, because the unicorn has used her magic to take, the world itself takes. As we grew cold, so the world is growing cold. How long can any of us last in a winter like that? How were we such fools, such arrogant fools, to think we could survive without that balance?” She paused, her face taking on a look of immense sadness. “When we've filled our hearts with ice, is it any wonder that we're freezing to death?”