Chapter 1 – I didn’t predict a riot!
“A most excellent ceremony, if I do say so myself,” the chancellor of Appleoosa cried heartily as he gulped down a chalice-full of cognac. “It’s a once in a lifetime thing, you know? Maybe not for you… But still, huzzah!”
He raised his glass into the air and was met with a string of huzzahs from across the ballroom.
“Thank you chancellor,” Princess Celestia said with a warm smile. “This will surely go down in history as an important event for all of Equestria for many centuries to come.”
“Here, here!” bellowed the obviously intoxicated stallion, raising his glass once again. “To Twilight Sparkle, future ruler of the Equestrian province!”
As he chugged down yet another drink, the door to the ballroom suddenly slammed open revealing a distressed-looking Princess of the night. “Sister!” she called, hurrying to Celestia’s side.
“What is it?”
“Sister, we may have a problem.”
“Oh no, is it Twilight?” Celestia asked worriedly. “Did the transformation have any side-effects?”
“Twilight is absolutely fine. It’s Canterlot that’s in trouble.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow, a biting anxiety prodding at her mind. “Show me, Luna. I’m sure we can sort this out.”
The two sisters paced side-by-side through the marble hallways of the Royal Complex, the sounds of cries and cheers becoming louder and louder. Eventually, they reached the entrance, unbolting the massive doors with their magic. As they did so, the cries became almost deafening.
Surrounding the complex was a crowd of angry protesters, their expressions becoming enraged as Celestia stepped out to face them. It was the biggest protest she’d witnessed since the introduction of ‘New Cake’. Ponies stretched out past the courtyard, their numbers appearing to grow as passers-by wandered up out of curiosity, eventually joining the fray.
“What do we want?” a middle-aged stallion hollered through a megaphone.
“For Twilight to be turned back into a unicorn again!” the crowd called back.
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
“See what I mean, sister?” Luna said irritably, shaking her head with despair at this debacle.
Several members of the Royal Guard kept many of them at bay, forming a semi-circle around the building and holding their spears out to anypony brave enough — or stupid enough — to attempt breaking through.
Many of the ponies carried signs and billboards, most of them reading: ‘DOWN WITH WINGS’, ‘I’M LEAVING THE KINGDOM’ and ‘BUCK THE FORESHADOWING’. Most of them were accompanied by a picture of the newly transformed Twilight with the wings crudely scribbled out with crayon.
Princess Celestia sighed and drew in a lungful of air. “Quiet!” she ordered, extending the reach of her voice with an enhancement spell. “What is the meaning of this? Why are you here?”
The crowd began to fall silent, many of them stepping back to allow the stallion with the megaphone to approach the marble steps leading up to the Princesses. “We are here to right your wrongs!”
“What wrongs do you speak of?”
“We’re here to protest against the atrocity of yesterday’s Princess Coronation!”
The crowd burst into uproar again, stomping their hooves and cheering. A lone tomato was thrown from a member of the crowd, narrowly missing Celestia’s head and plastering the stone steps with a deep red.
“In what way was the coronation an atrocity?” the Princess shouted back. “Your lives will still be the same! Twilight is not supplanting me or indeed my sister, Luna. No laws will be changed. Everything will carry on as usual.”
“Until she has to move back to Canterlot!” a young mare hissed. “One day she’s going to move back to Canterlot and forget all about her friends!” Her statement was met with a cacophony of whoops and agreement.
“And what about her being an alicorn now?” another mare piped up. “She’ll live on for thousands of years while her friends all die of old age! Don’t try and tell us that this is some kind of lesson about the magic of friendship! Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy…” A string quartet popped up, seemingly out of nowhere and began playing a sad, sombre musical piece. “Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Big Mac, and all the rest. She’ll have to watch them wither away. And their children. And their children’s children… It would be the most tragic thing to happen since Resident Pony 6!”
The mare’s bitter statement was met with a chorus of sobbing as ponies — young and old — embraced each other to the sounds of the depressing symphony.
“That may be true, but for my sister and I this is also the case. We too have had to bear this strain for the good of the country. I am certain Twilight will be up to this.”
“But what about her powers!?” an elderly stallion cried. “Now she’s totally OP! Why, this morning I saw her turn all the water in the ocean into Pepto Abysmal! Sure, I may have one glass eye, a cataract on the other and a history of mental illness, severe delusion and hallucinations, but I saw it I tell you!”
“And what about me!?” screamed a furious young mare, holding up a leather-bound book. “I’ve spent the past two years writing this epic Braeburn X Twilight ship-fic, and now it won’t be canon! It won’t be canon at all!”
She tore a bunch of pages away with her mouth and began to chew them defiantly, her outburst garnering another barrage of cheers and chanting. Celestia found herself lost for words as the angry mob began yelling hateful slurs aimed at her.
“We won’t leave here until you give in to our demands!” the stallion with the megaphone called out.
“What do we want?”
“For Twilight to be turned back into a unicorn again!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
As the crowd became more unstable and several projectiles were hurled towards the two sisters, they retreated to safety, bolting the doors and casting a spell to prevent them from battering it down.
“So you see what our problem is?” asked Luna, a disgruntled expression on her face. “This will be difficult to take care of.”
“I can see that,” replied a concerned Celestia.
“So, what will you do, dear sister? We can’t give into their demands.”
“Of course. I think we should leave this be for a few days. Hopefully, this will all blow over in good time.”