//------------------------------// // Pomp and Circumstances // Story: Twilight Sparkle; Appleloosan Sheriff // by Peridork //------------------------------// Twilight was sulking. She felt that her life was completely over and rightfully so. Canterlot was celebrating the Summer Sun Festival. Twilight Sparkle sat in the front row waiting for the show to begin. She looked around the pavilion, noticing four alicorns: Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, her daughter Natura, and Cadence. She also saw the Royal Consort, Discord, lounging on his favorite cotton candy cloud. This was the 1000 Celebration since the defeat of King Sombra and it was a celebration for the entire populace of Canterlot. This was also the night before Twilight’s new reassignment in Appleloosa. Earlier This Morning Twilight was super excited for the Summer Sun Celebration. She had been looking forward to it since the last one. She loved the pomp and circumstance of the Royal Court ever since she first saw Princess Celestia raise the sun when she was just a filly. While she was just exploding with excitement, a knock broke her out of her daydreams. “Twiley? Princess Celestia wants to speak with you.” Twilight opened the door with her magic and her brother walked in. He was garbed in his usual red coat and had one of those new weapons that had been cropping up since the discovery of magical technology. Those guns. Twilight turned cold instantly. She was against having such weapons in polite society, it was just more fitting to have such technology in the borderlands where the colonization of ponies had just begun. The boom towns where lawlessness and disorder abounded. “What did she want of me? I was getting ready for tonight’s party.” “She decided on your thesis topic for study.” “Really? But I just came up with a thesis! Don’t tell me she rejected my study on alicornication?” Shining Armor grinned a little at that. He could never see his little sister with wings. “She said that the topic was silly and if you created a way to make everypony an alicorn, it would be completely ridiculous.” Twilight was speechless. When she tried to speak; no words came out. There was just one thought in her mind: find Celestia. Celestia was having a great day in her Day Court. Well, as great a day as possible when you raise the sun and have a crazy family that never seems to get along with each other without your help. If on cue, the doors opened with her husband, Discord, and Luna bickering about some disagreement about something or another. “Now Luna, you know that Celestia and I love each other very much or else we wouldn't have a kid and be married for Faust knows how long. If you have issues with us please don’t turn into Nightmare Moon again, I still remember the last time. Mainly because that was our wedding night and Celly had to spend our honeymoon calming you down by explaining what marriage means...” “Don’t make me laugh. Discord you know why I don’t like you. You tried to kill me when you first saw Nightmare Moon.” “How was I to know you turn into that every month or so? I thought you were going to rip my face off with your teeth.” “Oh you little...” Celestia finally had enough with her family’s bickering. “Ahem.Can you please find another place to continue your conversation. I am trying to conduct my court here.” Discord and Luna both looked around them and realized where they were. They turned to leave when an angry purple unicorn galloped into the hall. “Princess! Why did you give me a new thesis?” Twilight panted. Celestia sighed and calmly answered, “Because I believe you are ready to figure out the meaning of friendship that you are woefully lacking. You do realize that the world does not revolve around Canterlot and as my personal student you can learn much about the world when being a productive member of society.” “But what does that mean?” Celestia smiled. “That means my dear student that I feel that its time to send you to Appleloosa. I've heard from Discord himself that the innovations on combining steam technology with magic is progressing rapidly and I need a representative for the work. You might even find it fun.” “WHAT?” The Next Day The royal carriage landed in the middle of Appleloosa. Twilight grumbled and acknowledged the two Royal Guards that had flew her all the way here and walked off with Spike, her assistant following her. “Twilight, this can’t be all that bad. Think of all the new ponies you’ll meet.” “I know that, but I want to be back where I was the most well known unicorn in Canterlot. Being Princess Celestia’s personal student was a great experience. Graduating with honors from her School for Gifted Unicorns and being in my brother’s wedding were both in Canterlot. Even though those Changelings did almost ruin the wedding...” She continued walking until she bumped into a pink mare with a stetson hat on her head. Twilight tried all her friendship tricks she knew, which weren’t many at all. “Hello. I’m new in town. Can you direct me to the nearest town gathering place?” “Uh, it’s that way miss,” The pink pony pointed at the nearby saloon. “Sorry but I got to get back to rock farming.” The mare galloped as fast as she could away from Twilight, as if she had other pressing business to attend to. “Well that seemed suspicious...” She heard a large commotion coming from the bar that was down the street and began to head there. As she came closer to the establishment she heard more of an argument coming from inside. “AJ, you need to hide me. Remember that shipment that I said was “so awesome”? Well maybe there was a little part of the deal that wasn’t so legal.” “Rainbow what did you do?” “I, uh, sold my cargo to the highest bidder. Which so happened to be the zebras.” As Twilight entered she saw the anger on the orange mare’s face. “That was my brother’s new prototype for a bomb. You sold it to those creatures?” “I-” Twilight tried to diffuse the situation as much as possible. “Hello, you two. Have you two seen the mayor of this town, I’m new and I need to get a job.” “Oh, really. Well we don’t really have a mayor. Don’t need one. The Apple Family just runs the daily business of Appleloosa. Now, Miss-” “Twilight Sparkle” “Miss Sparkle, we do have one job opening.” “What?” Twilight was dreading whatever job that orange mare would give her. “Town sheriff.” The blue pegasus that Twilight still hadn’t spoken to, began to walk slowly away. “Now Rainbow, where are you going? You know exactly where that prison is. Show it to her.” AJ grinned. Twilight attempted to talk to this Rainbow that was showing her around but their conversation was short and to the point. It went something like this: “So...know any ponies that I should know?” “Well, I know some ponies... “Who exactly?” “Well there’s me of course, and then Applejack...” Twilight nodded, remembering that orange mare. “And the Pies, Inkie, Blinkie, Pinkie, Clyde, and Sue. They’re our town’s chief exporter of rocks. I see Pinkie on a regular basis.” Sounds like that pink mare I saw earlier. I might want to see what they do one of these days. “Then there is Rarity, part owner of the bar you just visited.” “Where did she come from?” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Nopony really knows, her and her sister Sweetie Belle showed up one day. There were rumors that she tried Canterlot for a while and I did ask her but its a mystery.” “Anypony else I want to check out?” “There’s one more,” Twilight didn’t notice but Rainbow began to blush just a little bit. “Fluttershy, the town’s inventor. She is kinda reclusive though.She lives in the old fort. We no longer use it except in emergencies. She kinda likes being left alone.” “Well thank you, Rainbow...” “Dash.” the cyan mare offered. “Well, Rainbow Dash, I hope we’ll learn to respect each other. Remember to stay on my good side cause I am the law in this town.” Twilight smiled. “Yeah, uh, gotta go. Bye!” Rainbow dashed away from Twilight as quickly as she could. “Dear Princess Celestia, My first day went well . I met some ponies that might be good, but I’ll have to continue watching them. I believe there is something different to this town. Everypony seems to treat me too nicely. I am going to meet some more ponies in the coming days to see how they are. I guess I have a new job as well. I am now the sheriff of this little town. As if anything bad could happen here, I’ll probably go crazy with the waiting around. Your Student, Twilight Sparkle”