//------------------------------//
// Making Friends 
// Story: Lyra Heartstrings v. Republic of Terra 
// by PegasusKlondike 
//------------------------------//

"We shall continue to hear argument this morning in case no. 1 of the Terran judiciary, Lyra Heartstrings v. Republic of Terra. Mrs Heartstrings, you may proceed."

As with the many mornings that had preceded this morning, and in a manner that was quickly becoming routine, Lyra arose from her seat at the petitioner's bench and strode boldly up front. And almost as an afterthought, Lyra took a deep breath and readied the muscles in her lower back, rearing up on her hindlegs and once again resuming her ploy of bipedalism.

"Thank you, Madam Chief Justice. And good morning to the rest of the judiciary, and the fine citizens of this country who have come to witness today's proceedings."

Though the previous convention of the court had drawn in a few curious people and droves of supporters for Lyra's side of the argument, today the gallery was packed with a different crowd. The entire front row consisted of flashing bulbs, press passes, and ponies eager to get the big scoop on this supposed "case of the century". Lyra could barely contain her grin; word had reached Equestria, and newspapers from every major city in the kingdom has sent their top reporters out to get the scoop in the Republic.

A reporter from Equestria Daily elbowed a columnist from the Manehattaner, who jostled for room with a rather uptight and serious writer from the Fillydelphia Inquirer. And those three only represented the greatest papers from Equestria. Half a dozen others from lesser papers and smaller cities were just as eager to pitch their own thoughts on the case at hand, or hoof.

Lyra turned back to face the Justices up there on their bench. "I would like to begin my argument this morning with a question. I ask this to you, the Justices of the Republic of Terra, the living embodiements of law in this land, sworn protectors of the rights of the people: how much will it cost to mend the rift between us?"

The Justices cast a mildly offended look to the mare, each of them raising an eyebrow in confusion. "I beg your pardon?" Justice Marcos inquired.

"Name your price. Bits, dollars, gold, jewels, pieces of shell, I'll see what I can do to pay it," Lyra said, looking them each in the eye and expecting an answer.

Chief Justice Halliburton leaned forward in her seat, unfolding her fingers and setting them very grimly on the table. "This court is not subject to the whims of the highest bidder, Mrs Heartstrings. If you are implying that you wish to bribe us, I would suggest taking your case before the Senate. They would be far more open to such an offer."

Lyra grinned, and behind her, the humans in the gallery let out a few chuckles. 

"So, she does have a sense of humor after all. Keep her going, just like we practiced," a ghostly whisper said right in her ear.

"I was only asking because it seems like the Republic is all too happy to get paid for virtually no reason at all," the mare said with a dismissive wave of her hoof.

Justice Sikes puffed herself up like a hen, pursing her lips. "And how would that be, petitioner?"

Lyra forced herself to keep a cool and calm face. Even now, after days on the courtroom floor, after months of ponies and other creatures living and working in her city, the conservative Justice would not even speak her name, or hardly even recognize her as a thinking person.

"I'm talking about the reparations that Equestria pays to the Republic. And I begin my argument this morning on the topic of the imminent failure of this country if we," she said with emphasis, "continue to accept this campaign of appeasement from the kingdom of Equestria." Of course, she had said 'we'. She was a citizen of this country, not just some visitor, and if she wanted to challenge this country and change it, then she would have to enforce the fact that she was just as Terran as any human. And as a Terran, she had just as many stakes in this newborn country as the next pony, or the next gryphon, or the next human.

"And that's just what it is, appeasement. The reparations that the kingdom of Equestria pays to this country, in the form of cash grants, debt reconciliation, the suspension of tariffs and a favored import status are all an attempt by the crown of Equestria to ease the pain that ponykind inflicted upon humanity so long ago. And I say that these reparations, though stimulating to the economic status of the Republic and a fiscal crutch to boot, are degrading to the very social fabric of this country."

Now that she had extrapolated her point, the insult factor of her original statement wore away, and the Justices seemed more intrigued.

"Furthermore, these attempts at appeasement through reparations are just a further example of the absolute futility of reparations!" Lyra's horn glowed a soft gold, and a paper whisked from the top of her desk to hover in front of her face. "I quote the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. During those times, reparations were paid by the descendants of slave-owning families to the descendants of the slaves owned by their ancestors." The mare took a moment to take a breath, her eyes flicking over to Justice Brockmann, a man whose own family had endured those times. And, she noticed, Justice Nakamura seemed just as interested. 

As a man of Japanese descent, Justice Nakamura's ancestors had not fared as easily as some of the other Justice's families. Even before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, persecution of his people during World War II had ultimately left his honest, hard working grandparents locked away in an internment camp by people whose paranoia of Japanese attacks overcame their basic sensibility. Their businesses rotted away, their homes were taken and sold without any permission, and their assets frozen indefinitely. But the main difference between the ancestors of Justice Brockmann and Justice Nakamura was that Justice Nakamura's family had never received a penny in restitution or reparation. Not even an apology for the way the American government destroyed their livelihoods and their lives. 

Lyra cleared her throat, reading from the list. "The payment of reparations and grievances to African Americans for slavery, the Dawes Plan to rebuild Europe after the first World War, the payment of native peoples of this continent for the way their cultures and languages were snuffed out, forty acres and a mule!" Lyra slapped the paper down on her desk, whipping around to face the Justices. "What do these all have in common? Besides the fact that they were attempts to simply pay off the damages done to people. The fact that they all failed miserably! They are all poster children for the very fact that reparations and restitution do not, no, cannot work!"

"And how is that, Mrs Heartstrings?" asked Justice Marcos, taking down notes on a pad of paper.

Lyra paced a few steps in front of her desk, thinking for a moment about how she might say her next statement. "Madam Chief Justice, I request permission to ask a few more "less than professional" questions to your associates."

Chief Justice Halliburton nodded. "Granted, Mrs Heartstrings."

The mare nodded, leaning back against the edge of her desk and folding her forelegs. "Let me make up a little scenario. Let's just say that you, any one of you Justices, are walking down the street one day. It's a fine morning, the birds are chirping, the grass is green, and for once you woke up on the right side of the bed that morning."

The gallery chuckled at her little scenario, and Lyra herself let a little laugh come out. "And let's say that it's such a fine morning that you decided to wear your lucky jacket. It's your favorite, a jacket that is so comfortable that it feels like you're wearing a cloud, and sentimental because a pretty girl or a handsome man complimented you on it."

Justice Lanning rolled her eyes, groaning out loud. "Where is this going?"

"Just stay with me, I'm gettin' to the good part!" Lyra assured her. "Anyways, you're walkin' down Main Street in your lucky jacket, a jacket that hold sentimental value to you, when suddenly disaster strikes! Someone coming from the other direction, walking down the street while drinking from a huge cup of soda crosses your path. He bumps into you, and spills his soda all over your favorite, lucky jacket! And to top it all off, you trip over the other guy's shoes, fall to the sidewalk, and tear a huge hole in your jacket! It's ruined, destroyed beyond any hope of repair, you can't even use the scraps to repair another jacket in your closet! And the guy, the one who knocked you over, he throws a couple bits or dollars at your feet and walks away. Now let me ask you, how would you feel?"

The row of Justices remained silent, and Lyra shifted uneasily on her hooves. She'd thrown out her bait, and got not a single nibble in response. She swallowed hard, and wondered whether this exercise was going to make her look like a fool on the courtroom floor.

"I would feel offended."

Lyra looked up suddenly, seeking out which Justice had responded to her. And to her surprise, Justice Rutherford leaned forward in his chair, and said again, "I would be more offended than anything else."

The mare could hardly hold back her smile of triumph, her observations had pinned Justice Rutherford as a conservative, and yet he was actively partaking in her questioning! 

"Exactly," said Lyra. "But, shouldn't you feel gratified or appeased?"

"Why would I?" Justice Rutherford asked.

The mare shrugged. "I thought that since he paid you reparations for the damage to your jacket, that all the wounds would be healed and all the burned bridges rebuilt. But apparently the damage hasn't been repaired at all! You are still offended that this person so roughly handled the situation, and then tried to scam his way out of an apology by appeasing you with a few dollars."

Her point was quickly becoming clear to all those in attendance. The person in her example may have repaid some small portion of the damages, yet it was feelings and emotions that were hurt more than anything else. The exemplary jacket may have been just an unfortunate article of clothing to the man with the soda, but to the person who owned it, it was special, and carried many special memories that simply could not be replaced or repaid by a few measly, moldy bills. That kind of sentiment had no proper value.

"Now, let's try that same scenario again. It's a fine morning, main street, lucky-jacket, soda-guy, yadda yadda. He accidentally pushes you over, but this time, instead of going straight for his wallet, he reaches out with a hand to help you up. Instead of simply blowing you off, giving you a few bucks and going on his merry way, he instead shows you honest regret by offering you a hand up. And yes, he apologizes too. Maybe he brushes the dust off of what's left of your jacket, hoping that things aren't too bad that a few stitches won't fix. He shows honest concern for you, and honest regret. Now, tell me, how would you feel in that situation?"

Justice Rutherford considered her words for a few moments, seeing the scenario in his mind's eye, actually placing himself in the shoes of the man in the jacket. And as the mental man with the soda extended his hand, the Justice managed to surprise himself. 

"I would feel... wounded. Wounded in my pride, maybe a little sore from the fall, maybe a little sad that my favorite jacket got destroyed. But, I wouldn't feel so bad overall. I might feel a tiny bit of appreciation that this person was making an honest attempt to make his mistake right."

Lyra smiled. He had been honest in his response, and he had not stuck to his political platform of conservatism, despite what the public and the other Justices had expected of him. "Precisely. Instead of paying you for your trouble, he treated you like a fellow being and with dignity, and offered you a hand up. The same thing applies to reparations on the grander scale; someone is wronged, and the party that wronged them in turn tries to simply provide them money to keep them quiet. And that leads to bitterness, distance between the person who was wronged and the person who wronged them, and sometimes even a simmering hatred. But, the knife can cut both ways, and the emotions involved in the situation can become reversed."

The mare took a moment to quench her thirst, sipping daintily from her glass before launching right back into her argument. "Yes, even the most sincere form of reparations can turn sour. Even if the party who wronged the person does offer both a sincere apology and a small amount of cash to help alleviate the damage, it can turn into exploitation. The party who was wronged can claim that they are never satisfied, and find out that their life becomes incredibly easy if they continue to press for restitution. And the guilty party, the one who did them wrong and seeks to make up for it, they will keep paying, even if it ruins them. And it did happen that way. In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, even when the African-American communities had earned their long deserved rights, some of them chose to exploit a system of reparations, and drove some of the families that had wronged their ancestors to ruin. I'll admit, I have never met a human being that I believe would be dishonest enough to exploit a person's willingness to try and make up for the sins of their forefathers, but one bad apple spoils the bunch. Any system of reparations is bound to be flawed, because it cannot account for the emotional depth of each person."

Justice Sikes smirked to herself. She believed that she had caught Lyra making a purely cyclical argument, one that she could call her out on. "And what would your solution be, petitioner? According to you, there is no way to make amends for the damage done. So all you've accomplished for the past ten minutes is to disprove your own argument! What's your magical solution?"

The Justice grinned at her own pun, expecting her supporters in the crowd to chortle along at her terrible excuse for attacking Lyra's main form of interaction with the world. And as a magic user, Lyra felt hurt for that comment. Unicorns didn't use magic to solve their worldly problems, just to get through the day with as little trouble as possible. 

But it didn't stop her, the mare had an ace up her proverbial sleeve. "By skipping over the reparations entirely."

The people in the gallery gasped. If they were right in their guess about what she had been implying throughout the whole proceedings, she had just suggested cutting off the Republic's lifeline! Though few truly knew how deep the reparations that the throne of Equestria had paid to the Republic had run, each and every person knew that the basic foundations for their  sovereignty and economic independence stemmed from the banks of Equestria. Cutting that cord could ruin the fledgling nation.

"But," she said loudly to quiet the peanut gallery, "it can be replaced with something that IS effective. The man in my example decided that the more courteous course of action was to extend a hand up to the person that he wronged. Thus, I believe that assistance would be the wiser way to make up for a loss. And I am talking about inter-personal assistance between people, not governments. And I can think of no better way for my kind to give assistance to yours than through good works and service, not by throwing cash at you. Which is why I would like to bring Mr Johnathan Whistler to the stand for testimonial at this time."

The Justices murmured to one another, then filed through the stacks of paper that came every morning. Each of them was surprised to find a pink copy of the subpoena that Lyra had filed to legally bring in her testifier. 

A general hush fell over the courtroom as the front door swung open. At his cue to enter, Johnny walked proudly, yet stoically down the aisle between the gallery seats. Many people murmured to the person next to them, wondering exactly how and why this strange pegasus had managed to acquire a military dress shirt and accompanying hat. Even the ponies of Lazarus felt confused as to why one of their own was in Terran military dress.

Whistler stopped by Lyra's desk, giving the mare a quick greeting and an embrace. Lyra returned his quick hug, and then nodded the soldier over to the bailiff/chaplain. The soldier playing bailiff nodded to his comrade, pulling a beat and ratty bible out from a pocket. Private Whistler placed his hoof on the tome, and the bailiff said to him, "Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

Private Whistler nodded once. "I do." And with his oath taken, the stallion retired to the petitioner's desk, taking his seat and waiting for the Justices to begin their questioning.

But the courtroom remained silent, and none of the Justices seemed to be able to build up the courage to call out Lyra on her bold move. Since the Surges of 2017, many of these people had  seen some of the most fantastic and magical things that the world had to offer, yet the sight of a pony in a Terran Army uniform seemed to render them completely immobile and inert.

Rolling her eyes, Chief Justice Haliburton started the testimonial on a more official note. "Please state your name for the courtroom records."

Private Whistler promptly stood from his chair, very quickly assuming his at-attention pose as he rattled off his name and rank. "Private First Class Johnathan Whistler, 248-34-4492, Delta Company of the Republic of Terra's Third Army Division."

Chief Justice Haliburton allowed for the stenographer to get all that down before beginning her examination of the testifier. "Do you know why you are here, Private?"

Whistler nodded. "Yes ma'am. I'm here to testify on behalf of Mrs Lyra Heartstrings and on behalf of all the people of this country. I am here to provide testimonial evidence to support the claim that the maltreatment of my people is unconstitutional."

Justice Dailey slipped on a pair of reading glasses, quickly glossing over his copy of Whistler's subpoena. "Mr Whistler, both you and your subpoena state that you serve in this country's armed forces. What is your duty? Remember, you are under oath."

Whistler put on a proud smile as he answered the Justice. "Sir, I serve this fine country by acting as the medic for my platoon. I mend bones, stitch cuts, and just give the whiners a tough time."

"You are a medic?" Justice Sikes said with an incredulously raised eyebrow. No, it couldn't be right, the Justice thought to herself. How could the military willingly place the fate of both life and limb to the clumsy hooves of a farm animal?

"Yes ma'am!" Whistler said excitedly. "I can't really hold a gun, and crossbows and swords aren't really a part of the standard infantryman's arsenal, so I thought I would put my combat medical training to use. You see, in the Equestrian Army, each soldier is meant to be like his own squad, you learn a little bit of everything from the stallion who is your mentor. Everyone is expected to work as one cohesive unit, but also be able to survive just as easily alone. And after I serve my tour, I plan on going career, maybe enrolling in an officer's academy, and maybe even being a drill sergeant in boot, maybe see what I can do about mixing the styles of training. That's just a pipe dream though."

A few of the Justices glanced at one another, wondering who would have to ask those pressing questions that were on everyone's mind. And to Lyra's surprise, it was one of the liberal Justices that pressed the offensive. "Mr Whistler, if I may be so abrupt, why would you do this?" asked Justice Lanning.

"Do what?"

Justice Lanning groaned, rolling her eyes as if her question had been completely direct. "Why join another country's military! Why join the military of another species? Especially one that was your enemy less than a year ago!"

"Well ma'am, I don't really see it that way. You may look at me and Mrs Heartstrings and see ponies, but when I look around this courtroom, all I see is a room full of nice folks. All I see is people, not humans or ponies. And heck, maybe one or two of them would do me the honor and the favor of being my friend. I came to this country because I liked the idea of humans, and I made myself a citizen and joined the armed forces because I fell in love with this country. I love the idea of democracy, your honor, and it hurts me to see that the tenets of democracy aren't being upheld the way that every person in this country claims it should. I for one would love the right to vote, and the right to eat in a cafe without being harassed. I'd be a happy stallion if I knew that the steelworkers union was only the first in this country. I'd be overjoyed to know that our races trust each other enough to let us make a family with whoever we loved enough," said the soldier pony, looking at Lyra out of the corner of his eye. And with Whistler so passionately supporting her personal crusade, Lyra couldn't help but smile in gratitude. 

"I joined the Army because I knew it was what I was meant to do, that it was my calling in life to defend the lives and freedom of my fellow citizens. And... it pains me to see my former compatriots suffering so much in a city that has so much to offer to everyone. I think that if someone is willing to give their life for democracy, then maybe they should get to take part in it. I thought that was the point of democracy, to be fair and righteous. But, if that is the will of the people, then I will die defending that will."

The row of Justices chewed on those words. It was true, the basic tenets of democracy and a free society seemed to have been violated, even if it was in a small way. But what was more important, upholding the ancient ways, or quelling the anger in the thousands of humans in this city that had been wronged in the worst way by ponykind? 

The decimation of their society, their way of life, and their people could never be properly recompensed, and now that they held a comfortable, safe place in the world again, it was the emotions of the individual human being that were hurt more than anything.

"And I think that if you just listen to what Mrs Heartstrings is saying, you'll know that she's right. Our people can get along just fine if we get the chance to know each other better. Let me tell you all a story real quick. Right after I went over to the Immigration Offices and swore myself in as a citizen of this great country, I marched right out of there and over to the Army Recruitment Office. And they were stumped when I said that I wanted to join. But after a while, they just let me fill out the papers and sent me out to boot camp, probably because they thought that I wouldn't have what it would take to make it through. And I tell you what, it was a breeze compared to some parts of Equestrian Royal Army training. Shoot, you guys only dumped me in the woods for a week to survive, in Equestrian boot, you stay out there for almost two months! Anyways, after my sergeant begrudgingly assigned me to Delta Company, I was a little nervous. You see, I was pretty much the only person in my training group. There were four other guys, but they all discharged for medical reasons, so I never really got to know them. And then the day came, I took my gear and marched over to the Delta Company barracks. From the outside, it all sounded so jovial, and everyone just sounded so glad. But when I walked in, they went silent, and I think I ended up on more than one guy's shit list just for walking in that door."

Chief Justice Haliburton cleared her throat, glancing over at the stenographer, who was keeping very strict and explicit notes. "Please edit that last statement on the part of the testifier. Mr Whistler, may I remind you that this courtroom expects a certain decency of language."

Private Whistler slapped a hoof to his lips, his cheeks flushing red in embarrassment. "Oh, sorry miss, it's become a force of habit." 

The Chief Justice didn't show any sign of understanding or compassion. "Then while you are under oath, see to it that you break yourself of that habit."

Whistler nodded quickly before the stoic and cold Chief Justice. And he took a moment to recapture where he was in his story. And finally, he stammered out, "A-after I got settled in, then the trouble started. At first it was just a wad of paper or two thrown at me while I wasn't looking, then it came to shoving when they walked by, and a few times they took my clothes and threw them in the latrine. And once they... they threw me a blanket party." Whistler's hoof involuntarily drifted up to his stomach, where he held in at the painful memory of that night in the Delta Company barracks. "It was... it was embarrassing, and it hurt. But I wasn't going to get beaten by a few threats and ugly stares in the barracks."

The soldier pony took a moment to gather his breath and shake away that nearly traumatizing memory. "But you know what? I didn't ask for a transfer, I didn't go cry to my CO, and I sure as shoot," this time he intentionally avoided using his new habit, "didn't punch back. I smiled and took it like a stallion. And after a while, they just started running out of steam, and they ignored me more than anything. But then, my first patrol duty came along, and my whole company got shipped out to the northern frontier to drive out a clan of trolls that wandered in. We hit 'em hard, but we took our blows too. And right there on the battlefield, as I was field dressing a broken arm or putting a compress on cut, I could see the appreciation in their eyes. And after that, they started talking to me, sitting near me in the mess hall, and one or two of them even gave me back the stuff that they stole from my footlocker. A few weeks later, and a patrol or two later, the whole company started being nicer to me. And once a few of them started admitting that I saved their lives out there, they started acting more like my friends."

Lyra placed a hoof on Johnny's shoulder, giving him an appreciative nod. "Thank you." And she stood from her chair, walking out front again. "And we should all say thank you to Mr Whistler. He has done more to help this country, to help humanity as a whole than most humans in this country can claim for themselves. He has saved lives, he has placed his own life in mortal danger, and not a single person asked him to do so. Johnathan Whistler repaid his ancestor's debt to humanity through service and good intent. If anypony in this country deserves the right to vote or the right to get the same medical care, or even know that his children will be taught alongside human children, it's this fine, patriotic stallion. But everypony in this country has something to offer that will help to ease that pain that we caused humanity."

Again she scooped a list from her desk, placing a pair of reading glasses down on the end of her muzzle. "Within this city, in the past two days alone, I have met several doctors, artists, skilled carpenters, lawyers, even politicians. And they were all ponies, out of work, and destitute because of favored employment status of human beings. The doctors can't get the government to issue them a license to practice medicine; the artists are scorned, and can't practice their art to enrich this country; and I assure you, if pony lawyers were allowed to practice their skills, I would not be representing myself up here. But like Mr Whistler, we can give our full potential to this country if you let us! The ponies of Terra can mend so many rifts and make this country so much more than it already is, but only if you let us try. Madame Chief Justice, I close my argument for the day, thank you for listening."

And as David Bennett stood from the respondent's desk and began with a congratulations for delivering such an emphatic argument, Lyra leaned over to whisper to Johnny.

"Hey, you did good today," she whispered to the pegasus stallion.

"Thanks," he replied. "You know, until you came and talked to me, I wasn't really on board with this whole 'civil rights' deal. Now I'm kinda getting excited about it!" the soldier pony whispered back.

The mare chuckled under her breath. "I have a feeling that after today, the movement is going to be hitting faster and harder than ever before."


********************************************


Tap tap tap.

Tap tap.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

...tap.

The chips of marble flew off the block with precision and masterful grace. Sometimes they came in a furious shower of inspiration and artistic flame. Other times, they lazily fell away from the expectant sculpture, piling on the ground in little drifts of gray and white commissioned disappointment.  Though the commissioned sculptures lacked that edge and the flavor of the ones he did on a whim, they were still prized by those who owned them.

Art was a returning fancy in Lazarus. With their souls cleared of the taint of chaos and the scar of a flawed creation healed, humanity was looking both inward and outward to find beauty in the world with a fervor not seen since the days of the Renaissance. Aaron Patterson had not lied when he said that humans would be showing aptitudes for a special talent, even on a savant level. When they finished with their daily work, many would go back to their homes and relax, writing poetry and stories, singing songs and penning tunes, painting art from any era of human history, and shaping stone and clay into sculptures. Anything that could be done to express both heart and soul was embraced with passion. And of course, none in Lazarus knew better how to show their passion to the world and make flecks of stone fly from an uncarved block better than Allan Sedgway. 

He placed the rounded tip of his chisel on the forming shape in the stone, tapping his mallet on the butt of his chisel to carefully remove the chips of stone from their resting place. Each and every moment while working on a block of marble was life or death, and a bead of sweat trickled down his cheek from the stress of the upcoming swing of his mallet, one that would  either be another one of the tens of thousands of crucial swings in order to make a work of art that held the entrapment of its critics with its detail, or the single swing it would take to make the most expensive paperweight in Lazarus.

He took the swing, and the chip of marble flew away from the gentle curve that it had been a blemish upon. Lazarus's most famous sculptor and the artistic rising star of the Republic took a step back from his current project. He wiped his sweat away from his brow with a rag, making absolutely sure not to touch the sweaty rag to any piece of marble that he still needed to work on. The oils in his skin could discolor it, and ruin the potential art within.

Allan walked away from his unfinished project, sitting down on a bench by the door of his small home. He lived on the edge of the city, near the forested edge of the park, where few people could hear his oftentimes frantic tapping and clinking and where even fewer would bother to complain about his art. 

He took a long sip from a cool, sweating glass of lemonade, his scrutinizing eyes looking across his yard at the partially completed statue. She would be a pretty thing to behold, and one of his favorite things to portray: an angel. A few of the members of the growing druid group had pooled their cash and commissioned this soon-to-be beauty as a decoration for their shrine. Of course, his angel would be much more impressive if she was life sized and not only a foot tall.

"Hmm," he hummed, a grin curling the corners of his mouth upward. "Just a day or two more, some polishing, maybe a little bit of paint, and you'll be a centerpiece. Maybe you'll be someone's Galatea."

It hadn't always been his dream to carve sculptures. Originally, back in the good old days of the twenty first century, he had been a hopeful art student at some now-forgotten community college. Of course, the classical forms of art had not been his interest, like most of his graduating class his vision of zeitgeist-rattling works of art was spray-painting the wall of an abandoned warehouse with some obscure political satire. He didn't care about the art, all he cared about was scoring with all the anti-establishment chicks that were nuts over anyone who had an arrest for vandalism on their record. It had been a simple life; spend the day squatting in neighborhoods that most sensible people considered too dangerous to even come close to, work just enough to pay for food, and then go tag the underside of a bridge with his best impersonation of Banksy.

But, he had always looked at the great statues of his time with a sense of wonder. And it was only after the climactic end of the great War and his several millenia hibernation that he truly realized that he could shape marble and clay almost to his will. 

Before, the song of his life had been the hiss of spray paint cans and the godawful screeching of indy-rock bands. But now, in this strange new world of magic and talking animals, a world where gods and spirits were quickly becoming the new norm, he found a new song that led his life. 

Every block of stone had within it the potential to become something truly beautiful, and whenever Allan got close to an unformed block, he could see the potential that it held. And once he picked up his mallet and chisel, he could almost swear that the stones whispered to him, gently telling him to take their formlessness and turn it into something that people would admire. The matrix of the marble would sing to him, and he would try to sing back with his tempo of chiseling and scraping. And once he was done with his song, he would take a step back, and see the glory that had been given. Even if his statues could never move on their own, he could almost swear that he saw them smiling out of the corner of his eye.

Taking another sip from his cold glass of lemonade, he continued to look across the yard at the rough form of the angel on the carving pedestal. "Hmm, should I make her anatomically correct?"

Of course he wasn't thinking about the bust of his bust. He was more concerned about the angel's wings. If he continued with the design that he currently had on paper, the one that he had sketched out under the critical eye of his customer, the block of stone would not be able to accommodate the sheer size of the wings. If he went smaller, he would be going against the customer's wishes, and it could obscure the nature of the statue from certain angles. 

He rubbed a hand along his chin. "Ah, guess you'll just have to keep your wings folded in, pretty gal." 

Allan stood from his seat, walking back over to his project and picking up his chisel and his mallet to work on the details of his angel's flowing dress. He resumed his song with the stone, matching the voice of the marble matrix with the tap and clink of his chisel. 

He worked tirelessly under the hot sun, so entranced in his work that he failed to notice the visitor that walked up the road and stood silently as he chiseled out the finer details of the statue's bare feet. His visitor watched silently, noting Allan's technique and his fervor for his trade.

And only when he felt satisfied that he had found just the right person, he cleared his throat.

Lazarus's most promising sculptor stopped in mid-swing of his mallet, peering over his shoulder to see who had interrupted him. And when he saw his guest, he set his mallet and chisel on the worktable and turned to face him fully.

To his surprise, an earth pony wore a slight grin as he leaned on the corner of the sculptor's house. The pony's coat was a light shade of yellow, with a gray mane that was accented by a streak of light green. A pair of saddlebags rested on the dusty ground next to the stallion's hooves.

"Can I help you?" Allan asked cautiously, wary of the pony who had managed to sneak up on him while he was fully within his artistic zone. 

"Yes, you're Mr Sedgway, aren't you?" the pony asked back.

"Yeah," the sculptor said. "I'll ask one more time, can I help you?"

"Of course!" the stallion cheerily quipped. "I'm actually looking for a piece of marble, preferably white Yule, if you have it."

Allan raised an eyebrow, wondering why a creature like a pony, one of the types in Lazarus that usually didn't have the money for opulence, would want a statue. "Yeah, I have a block of Yule, right over there." He nodded over to a two-foot tall block of marble sitting over by his shed. A piece that sang to him like a church choir, and one that he just couldn't seem to bring himself to lay a chisel on. 

The pony trotted over to the marble block, getting his muzzle very close to the rough surface of the block. "That's a fine piece of marble. Clean cut, straight grain, no visible inclusions. May I?" he said, glancing back to Allan.

Mr Sedgway nodded once, and the pony ran his hoof over the block, feeling every little grain and wave, each tiny little mote of stone that had been laid down as sediment and silt, pressed into stone, cooked by the heat of the Earth's mantle, and pried from the ground to become something greater. With a smile, the pony turned back to face the human who had waited with his arms folded and a distrustful eye on him.

"Indeed, it is a fine piece. Masterfully cut, with no visible flaws  that I can see. Which is why I would like to purchase it, good sir," the stallion said very politely, pulling a purse full of shining gold bits out of his saddlebag.

Allan had been skeptical, wondering if this pony had simply come to scope out his home so that he could burgle the place later, but at the sight of gold coins, he immediately gained an interest in this potential customer. "Well, you can't just buy a statue on commission for a predetermined price. I need a rough idea of what you want, when you want it, what kind of inscription you might want, if you need a base or a pedestal. And after that, it's all down to sketches and measurements, which you have to approve or the commission is terminated. All the important details."

The pony smiled, shaking his head. "You misunderstand me, sir. I came here to buy a blank block."

The stallion's statement made the sculptor's curious eyebrow climb even higher up his forehead. "Why would anyone want to buy a blank?"

The strange pony chuckled under his breath. "Because I, like yourself, am an artist!" the pony said with a flourish and a bow, swinging his flank around to show the hammer and chisel cutie mark.

Allan's look of professionalism and curiosity melted into a more sour expression. This pony had first come along as an interloper, then made his intents as a customer known, and then declared himself as a competitor! Suddenly, the prospects of making a sale to this pony, even if it was just a minor, contract-free transaction, left a sour taste in his mouth.

"In that case, the price for that block just went up," Allan muttered, turning around to re-immerse himself in his current project. He grabbed up his chisel and mallet, tapping at the dress of the angel statue.

In spite of Allan's stone-wall approach to selling the block and just communicating in general, the artisan pony appeared by his side, pressing the issue. "If it's any kind of consolation for the price of the block, I'm not a sculptor like yourself. I don't do three dimensional art, I do bas-relief carvings. I used to ply my trade in Canterlot, chiseling out scenes from legend in the walls of the rich and wealthy, and occasionally doing some touch up work on a few of the statues in the Castle Garden."

"Don't care," Allan muttered, tapping harder and harder on his chisel. 

"And to be fair, a block of white Yule isn't exactly the rarest of blocks this side of Canterlot-" the strange pony stopped himself, peering at Allan's angel with a discerning eye. His jaw soon loosened, and fell slack as he too began to look at the beauty emerging from the unfinished block.

"Amazing," he whispered. "Truly astounding. She's... she's beautiful. I didn't know there were pegasus-humans," the pony murmured, pulling out a pair of glasses and taking an even closer look.

Allan stopped himself before he could swing, laughing under his breath at the pony's ignorance of human "breeds". So far, the only breed differentiation that had been seen were the new magi and the old generation, whose strength and heart seemed to be manifesting like that of an earth pony.

"There aren't," he replied, setting down his mallet and leaning an elbow on the workbench. "She's an angel. A winged messenger of God from some of the old religions." There was something about the pony's legitimate interest in his work that seemed to allay his offensiveness, and Allan continued on. "She's a malakhim, one of the lowest orders of angelic choirs, and one of the only ones that people think are pretty enough to actually depict. Heaven forbid that I should try to do a Throne, or an actual Cherub. A real Cherubim looks more like a chimera than an actual human." He gave his statue a loving and gently gloved pat, a slight smile creeping up his cheek as he seemingly forgot that he was talking to a pony.

"Fascinating," he pony murmured. "Were there many depictions of these 'angels' in the ancient world?"

Allan nodded absently, still lost in the still-rough shape of the delicate and feminine form. "Yeah, no church was complete without a couple of angels either in stain glass or in statuary." The sculptor lost himself in the song that the marble angel was singing to him, and from the corner of his eye, it seemed to be that the pony could also hear the soundless call of the stone.

The pony cleared his throat, and his hoof drifted up to sheepishly rub his mane. "I'm sorry if I came off as a little brief about the block. It's just that... in this city, ponies like me don't really have the privilege to indulge themselves in anything more than a watered down beer once in a while. And seeing that block just made my hooves itch to get chiseling again. You understand what it's like, right?"

And indeed he did understand. For when the lights had gone out, and the door had shut on his stasis module just over two millenia ago, the deathly sleep of stasis had not been without its dreams. There was a reason why the few psychiatrists that had managed to work their way into Project Lazarus had found overwhelming success in the newborn Republic. Sometimes the dreams just did not go away, and sometimes they needed to be worked through for months and months. Some people even said that now their nightmares were chased away by a friendly presence, one that the druids believed to be their very own matron, guarding the dreams of mankind, just as her daughter did for ponykind.

And when the nightmares had come upon him in the eternal sleep, they had been of loneliness. He would stand in a crumbling city, or a ruined plain, crying out futilely for any living soul. And in his brightest of dreams, he still could not find another soul to soothe his loneliness, and would reach into the ground, prying a heart of rock from the very loam of the dreamscape, and he would carve a companion. In the absence of other human beings, his dreams would let him shape the immaterial world into a friendly face.

Allan nodded slowly, swallowing the oftentimes painful memories of stasis and the eternity of dreams. "Yes. I know what it's like." He blinked hard, coming back to the real world and the concerned face of the still unnamed earth pony. "You know what? She's all yours." He waved a hand to the pristine block by the shed. And with a grin, the pony set down the purse of bits on the workbench, trotting over to his newly purchased blank canvas.

"You know," the pony said after a few moments of inspection. "I don't really have a workshop of my own, or a workbench. Would it be too much to ask if I could use one of your benches for a few hours?"

Allan shrugged, turning back to his own project with mallet and chisel in hand. "It's a free country," he said quietly. And with a start, he realized the irony of that statement, especially with the situation that this pony found himself in.

But the earth pony did not seem to notice nor care about the irony, and with some strain he managed to shift the block onto his back, and he carefully balanced the heavy stone, moving it over to a waiting workbench by the shed. And once he had it situated properly atop the bench, the pony reached into his saddlebags and carefully pulled out a rolled leather pouch. With his teeth he un-cinched the clasp and pushed it open, revealing something that drew Allan's attention away from his own work with sheer awe. 

The pony gently pulled what appeared to be a chisel forged from pure silver out of its loop, and a mallet carved from rosewood and decorated with carvings of what appeared to be a maker's mark. It was easily the most beautiful set of tools he had ever seen. And the sculptor thought for a moment that they must be ceremonial or completely decorative; no idiot would make a stonecutting tool out of a precious metal!

And when the pony laid a basic outline on the smooth face of the block and traced it through with a heavy pencil, Allan knew that he was serious about using that silver chisel. When the pony reared up on his hind legs, holding the chisel and its accompanying mallet in his curled fetlocks, and placed the tip on the hard surface of the marble, Allan cringed as the mallet came crashing down on the butt of the chisel. But to his surprise, the blade of the chisel did not instantly bend, the shaft did not bow, and a large chip of marble flew off the block, just as the earth pony had planned.

Okay, he got lucky, Allan thought to himself. And thinking that the nearly priceless tool would break with the next swing, the human sculptor resumed work on his own project. He placed the flat edge of his own steel chisel along the extended right arm of the angel figure, giving light taps to smooth out the surface of her arm.

For the next few hours, the song of the stonecarvers filled the yard with a chorus of taps and clinks and gave a show of showering stone chips like a show of fireworks. Each carver worked silently yet fervently, the matrix of the marble calling to them, telling them where to strike to make the beauty inside come alive. 

And with each tap of the pony's chisel, Allan waited for the muted curses and the flurry of swears that would come when the silver chisel snapped. But it never came, and only the satisfying shower of rock chips came from the pony's workbench.

It was only when Allan peered out the corner of his eye to steal a peek at the pony's work when it began. His eyes flew wide open at the sight. Though he had begun only a few hours ago, the pony already had the rough cut of his relief almost cut out! Setting his jaw firm, Allan gripped his mallet and chisel tighter, swinging more frantically at the statue of the angel. And once the earth pony's sharp ears heard the much quicker tap of the mallet behind him, he too began to pick up the pace.

And when Allan heard the pony pick up the pace, he in turn began to whittle away at the statue's defenses with more reckless abandon than he had ever before. This pleasant morning of work, peace, and quiet had suddenly erupted into something far more than that. Now it was a competition, a race with no visible finish line. And the only way to win was to make the other person disqualify.

For another hour each of them furiously pounded their individual blocks of marble like a woodpecker that had learned that the mother of all grubs had insulted it from inside the bark of an oak tree.

And around the sixth hour of their mutual work and the beginning of the second hour of the faux-competition, the unthinkable happened. Allan worked on the flowing hair of the angel, slightly going against his client's wishes by having her hair spilling down her back and between her wings instead of being tied back, and he came to a knot in the stone. A dreaded inclusion, likely formed when a tiny pebble of igneous rock had been pressed into the sediment hundreds of millions of years ago and had been cooked into the layers by the heat and pressure of the mantle, and one that would require an extra amount of force to break through as well as the perfect amount of care to make sure that it did not take too much of the marble with it if came loose.

But he was in a hurry, and the stress of "losing" to an earth pony whose name he didn't even know was making him take risks that he normally would just work around. And when he cocked back his mallet, his arm bulging with the muscles he had built over the months of being in the sun and breaking stone with barely more than his own strength, he swung as hard as he could.

The tip of the chisel sheared through the inclusion, taking out the chunk of deviant and defiant rock without breaking a sweat. But when he had swung his mallet, Allan had forgot to take into account the angle of his chisel. And with so much force applied in such an odd way, the shaft of his prized and beloved chisel screeched in protest, and finally snapped.

The disembodied tool fell to the dust, and Allan simply stood there, too aghast at what had just happened to fully comprehend the situation. For all his professionalism, for all his growing fame and ever increasing fortune, that had been his only chisel. Even if he was the most famous sculptor in Lazarus, to anyone else in his field of art he was just a lucky rookie, one that thought he only needed one set of tools.

Allan fell to his knees, gently lifting the broken head of his tool from the dust and cradling it in his hands. A hundred thoughts flashed through his mind; if he would have to find another job, if he could find anyone in the city with the skills to replace or repair it, and whether the song of the stone would ever sound the same again.

He could have sobbed for his loss and his foolishness. On the day that the soldiers of Greenewell had decided that the people of the Undercity could come up and begin building their homes and lives, he had gone through the storage vaults, and found this stone chisel in a pile of other assorted tools. It had been his prized possession, and his livelihood since then. And now it was all gone, shattered and lying in the dust. 

But when all hope seems lost, there is always a hand, or in this case a hoof, to help one up.

Allan failed to notice that a ringing silence had completely overtaken the work yard, and only when a shadow came over him did he look up. The earth pony stood there, holding his rosewood mallet and silver chisel in his outstretched hoof with a smile on his face.

"Here, use mine," he said, offering the priceless tools.

The human sculptor looked up in confusion, and slowly he took the silver chisel from the pony's hoof. It felt warm to his touch, and he could feel an energy within it, one that promised to make the stones sing like a choir, but only if he knew how to set the rhythm. 

He stood, and turned back to his angel with the silver chisel in hand. Placing the flat edge against the stone, he gave the butt of the chisel a tap, and to his surprise, the stone underneath it peeled away like wood shavings. Under that edge, the marble gave way like pine wood, and Allan turned back to the pony, mystified by the offering.

The pony chuckled to himself. "Quite a piece, isn't it? I had it specially enchanted by Barnabus the Dappled, a great enchanter who lives way up north. He said that it would make stone fall away like wood, and make the song of the stones ever clearer to those who knew how to listen."

"It's the most incredible thing I've ever felt," Allan said quietly, running his thumb in circles across the grain of the handle. 

"Yeah, it's a set of three, so you can keep that one. A gift from one artist to another," the pony said with a friendly smile.

Allan whipped his gaze back to the pony. "Really? This is... this is too much. I don't even know your name."

The pony offered a hoof. "I'm Chip Block."

And for a moment, the human sculptor looked at the offered hoof as if it would bite him. But when he looked into the pony's benevolent eyes and found no enemy there, he knew that perhaps the nightmares of loneliness would fade away now. 

"Allan. Allan Sedgway," he said, taking Chip's hoof and giving it a firm shake.

And all across the growing city of Lazarus, ponies took that step into the deep end, and worked their way around the stone wall that the humans had placed between themselves and the rest of the world, and offered their hooves and their hearts to humans in need of a friend. For that was the goal of the movement, not to bully their way into garnering the same rights as human beings, but rather to prove that the magic of friendship healed the wounds that were rent, and made for a brighter future for everyone.


****************************************************************


But across the city, indeed several miles away in the countryside of Terra, the ponies were taking a more underhanded route to garner public support for their movement. One that promised to have far more political implications than simply making friends or protesting.

After a few quick meetings at the Watering Hole, a group of ponies had quickly figured out a way to benefit the country at large, increase the public's positive view of the former denizens of Equestria, and open up jobs for the unemployed ponies of Lazarus. And to do it, it would take some old fashioned Equestrian know-how.

Way out in the countryside, out in the small oases of human agriculture that were hewn out of the rough forest and harsh terrain, a small group of ponies walked up a road that led to a newly built human homestead. Despite having been only recently cleared for timber, the fields all seemed fertile and clean of any stumps or weeds. It was nearing high-noon, and none of the farmers were in their fields, having escaped indoors to beat the burning sun.

But if all went well, that would change. The ringleader of this latest endeavor stopped before the door of the quaint little farmhouse, shooing away her comrades and mentally preparing herself for this next step in human-pony relations. She was a plump little earth pony mare, with eggshell white fur and a green mane that hung together in thick strands, almost like leaves of a plant. And though it looked like she dyed her mane, the yellow roots at the bottom of each hair were perfectly natural. To many who knew the mare, they said she looked like a plump little onion.

Clearing her throat, she knocked on the door, put on her most inoffensive smile, and waited to be answered.

Someone shuffled around inside, and the door creaked open, a sun-tanned woman poking her brown-haired head out.

Once again, the mare cleared her throat. "Good afternoon, ma'am! My name is Vidalia, and I represent the Creatures for a Better Terra. May I speak with the head of the household?"

The woman opened her door all the way, and she folded her arms under her bosom. "You're talkin' to her. What do you want? You nearly woke my baby up, and I don't really care for you or your kind being on my property."

"Now ma'am," Vidalia said in a comforting voice. "I meant no offense by coming here today, I only wanted to tell you about a special offer that the ponies of Terra are offering to our fellow citizens, particularly those like yourself who are involved in the business of agriculture."

The farmer gave a snort of derision. "That so, huh? I already had the fields turned, so I don't need a plow horse."

Vidalia ignored the acidic comment, one that the heavy conservatives of the country had taken to using when they were around the equine citizens. "No ma'am, this service does not concern tilling. In fact, I think it would be better if you read this pamphlet."

The mare whipped out a thin pamphlet that a few ponies had scraped together just last night and presented it to the farm woman. Raising an eyebrow, the woman did not reach out to take it. 

But Vidalia had been through this scenario too many times on this stretch of country road already to just give up, and she maintained her smile and held out the pamphlet. The woman sighed, rolling her eyes and taking the little scrap of paper and reading through it.

Her eyebrow crept up her forehead, and the farmer peered over the edge of the paper at Vidalia. "Irrigation? You're offering... irrigation services?"

"Yes indeedy!" Vidalia said with plenty of positive energy. "You see, in Equestria, ponies like myself have been known worldwide for our incredible agricultural success! Through a unique system that engages all three breeds of ponies, we have been known to produce vegetables that are three times the normal size, and at only a fraction of the growing time! In fact, since the induction of this rather ancient system, there has been no recorded famine or widespread crop failures in Equestria in over twelve centuries! And as a gesture of good will, we, the ponies of Terra, would like to offer you, the humans of Terra, a free trial of our system!"

"Free trial?" the farmer asked curiously. Leaning out of her door, she peeked around, looking for the heavy water tanks and miles of piping that it would take to water all of her fields. And all she saw was a few ponies of each breed just standing around idly, waiting for a cue. How in the hell could they be going door to door, offering free trials of their system without any equipment?

"Yes ma'am! This system does not require the tediousness of piping, eliminates the possible threat of erosion, can be used over any area of farm fields, and is safe and completely natural! So, whaddya say? Care to get a free trial of our patented system?"

The promise of free irrigation was too tempting, and the woman gave a nod. "Alright, go ahead, show me your system."

Vidalia's smile lit up, and she turned around to her team of ponies. "Alright boys and girls, you know the drill!" 

And all at once they sprang into action. A team of earth ponies split up, each of them heading to a different part of the farm fields, carefully picking their way through the rows of tender crops and inspecting the soil. Each of them carried a pencil in their teeth, and they took notes about the soil quality, what kind of crops and how far along the crops were in each section of field, what the soil acidity was, if there was proper aeration, and so forth. After a few minutes, the earth pony crew galloped back to Vidalia, who took their notes and penned the information onto a spreadsheet that she had whipped out of her saddlebag. 

And once Vidalia had all the information she needed, she shouted the orders to the unicorn crew, who began their part. A half dozen horns lit up with magic, and the team of magic users concentrated on a certain spell, one that was easy enough for even the simplest unicorn to accomplish. The humid moisture in the air began to thicken, and eventually turned to a wispy fog, and finally into a bank of clouds that neatly covered the entire farm.

Once the unicorns finished their spells, the pegasus crew received their orders from their boss, getting the specific amounts that each part of the fields would need. One by one they took off, zipping through the low hanging clouds to the sunny side above, and bouncing atop the moisture laden clouds and causing a gentle shower of rain to blanket the farm.

After the rain had given the crops their exact right amount of moisture, the pegasi cut the waterworks, and moved the clouds off and away from the farm. All in all, it had taken the crew of ponies less than fifteen minutes to water almost twenty acres of crops. And with such a perfect watering, they would not need a good rainstorm for another week!

"Wow," the farmer whispered. She had underestimated the ponies' ability to irrigate her fields like that, and she hated to say that she was actually pretty impressed.

"Tactical rainstorms," Vidalia said with a wink. "Been workin' like a charm in Equestria since the Tribal Unification."

The farmer shook herself out of her funk, wondering what the fine print on all this was. "So, how much would a service like this cost me?" she asked with narrowed eyes, suspecting that the price would be exorbitant.

Vidalia cleared her throat, whipping out a sheet of paper that included all of the weather service costs. "Well, if we factor in pay for the workers, permits, Air Force clearance for the pegasus ponies, it should come to around... a hundred and fifty dollars a month. BUT, we can knock that price down drastically!"

"How?"

"By making this a government service instead of a public one! You see, if we were to be private contractors, we would have to charge you directly for each storm. But if we were to work for the federal government, we would only have to increase federal taxes by, let's say, a dollar or two."

One dollar?! the farmer thought to herself. That was an absolute steal! For such an even and perfect watering, and the prospects of bigger crops with quicker maturation, it sounded damn well worth it! Hell, with increased sales of her crops, that service would easily pay for itself in a week or two!

"But," Vidalia started again, this time in a far more somber voice. "We can't push for the formation of a weather patrol. Ponies like ourselves do not have the civil rights that we need in order to form a petition and a proposal. If we had the rights, I assure you, we would have formed this petition to get a weather patrol formed the day ponies were allowed in Lazarus. But unfortunately, that's not the case."

The farmer shifted uncomfortably on her feet. Here this group of ponies had come with the promise of a cheap and efficient method of vastly increasing agricultural output, and now that hope had been dashed by the situation the ponies found themselves in. "What can I do to help?" the farm woman asked.

Vidalia visibly brightened, and she brought out a pair of papers that bore dozens of signatures. "if you would sign these petitions, we can take that first step."

"What are they for?" the woman asked, taking the papers and a pen from the mare. 

"Well, that first one is a petition to the Senate to create a weather patrol and to slightly increase taxes to cover the expenses. And that second one; that one is a petition by the humans of Terra to give the ponies of Terra the right to make and sign a petition."

The farm woman took a deep breath, looking out at her freshly watered fields, wondering how much more the creature citizens of the human nation could benefit them. They had already proven that they could drastically increase the output of crops, and who knew what else they could accomplish if they were given the same rights?

And with a nod, she signed her name on both of the petitions.


****************************************************************


Back in the market district of Lazarus, President McGoff walked down the street with two of his soldier elites at his back, wearing their full combat gear and with assault rifles in their hands. Despite the heavy presence of the men who had come to act as his Secret Service, this was typical for the first president of the Republic of Terra. If he went jogging, they would go jogging right behind him, in full combat dress nonetheless. 

Tyler needed no real reason to roam the city at his leisure, but today he felt as though he should be more secretive than usual. He had an appointment to make, and though there was nothing truly secretive or treasonous about it, the president felt as though it was a dirty secret that he would have to keep. Not because of what the appointment was about, but who he was going to talk to.

McGoff took a sharp turn to his right, leaving the sunny sidewalk and heading inside the open door of a tearoom along the market street. The place was quaint, a small restaurant that offered the comfort of home cooked food that was served in a room that felt like his grandmother's china parlor. Everything in that place felt both tacky and antique at the same time, like the floral printed china plates lying on a pristine white tablecloth next to odd little chicken and rooster saltshakers.

The hostess working this shift walked with a nervous smile over to the leader of her free state, and she half-curtsied and half-bowed to the president, not sure of what the protocol was for a random visit by the head of state. 

"Mr President sir, um, a table is ready for you in the back room," she said, nervously waving her hand toward the back. McGoff nodded to her, walking through the doorway to the private room meant for lunch meetings for businessmen. 

And when he looked at the person already at the table, the president nodded to his pair of guards, who wordlessly took their positions outside the door to the private room.

The man at the table stood for his guest, extending a hand in greeting. "Tyler, glad you could make it," Vice President Smitts said to his superior. "Have a seat, I've thought ahead and ordered some coffee." 

Even shaking his hand felt like making some kind of deal with the devil, and Smitts certainly looked the part. His black hair was excessively greased back, and his smart looking suit would not be out of place in the wardrobe of a senator, a business shark, or on Old Scratch as he tried to bargain for a soul. Smitts lit a thin cigar, taking a puff of the cheap cigarillo and resting it in his thin, ringed fingers. 

"So," said Smitts. "You finally decided to ask for my advice. Decided that letting me handle the Senate wasn't quite the full extent of my job description, hm?"

McGoff gave one curt nod. "I'm here because Patterson thinks that I'm not handling the situation like I should be, and he pointed me to you."

"Smart man," Smitts replied. "An invaluable asset to this country, a man who has earned his reputation, and continues to build a reputation that is going to leave him as a legend. Of course, if he were in our position, I suspect that your wizard would crumble under the pressure. We of course are a different type of man, Tyler. We are the ones who work behind the curtains, making the deals and putting our feet down when we want something."

The waitress nervously walked in through the door, carrying a shaking platter and setting down a carafe of coffee between the two men. "Can I get you gentlemen anything?" she asked.

Smitts flashed a warm smile. "Yes sweetheart, I will have a Kansas City Strip, cooked medium rare with a side of the house's freshest asparagus."

"Very good sir. Mr President?" she asked McGoff in a much more nervous tone, her eyes flicking out at the pair of stone-still soldiers standing guard.

"Yeah, I'll just have..." He stopped for a minute, checking over the menu. He scanned over the menu, not seeing anything that was more his rough and tumble style. While Smitts may have been weaned on this kind of dignified upper class fare, McGoff would have been more comfortable ordering a bacon cheeseburger at some questionable, greasy joint. "Just give me the soup."

The waitress nodded quickly, scribbling down his order and scampering away to the kitchen. Smitts silently watched the entire ordeal, shaking his head in disapproval. "You should have come to me earlier."

"Why would you say that?" McGoff asked, taking a sip of his cup of coffee. 

"Because you, my fine sir, are not President material."

"Excuse me?" McGoff grated, narrowing his eyes. What could be mean that he was not President material? He had led humanity through literally the harshest and darkest times that the species had ever seen, made peace with their most ancient enemies, and he had forged a nation through the sweat of his own brow!

A few curls of cigar smoke lazily drifted down from Smitts's  mouth. "Right. Let's dissect what just happened, shall we? That waitress walked in already receiving the wrong message from you. She almost spilled all the coffee just getting past your boys out there. Face it, she was terrified of you, because people in this city still think of you as General McGoff, the man who intimidates Princess Celestia on a regular basis. The man who declared war on a race of monstrous bugs and is so far kicking their asses. You see, the people of this city don't see you as President McGoff, a politician and head of state. They see you as the valiant soldier, the man who won the Great War without a drop of blood being shed in the final battle."

The Vice President ground out the remains of his cigar, pulling another out of his jacket pocket and lighting it with a rather expensive looking lighter. "And after you scared the living daylights out of that poor girl with your trained killers standing outside the door, dressed to go to war I might add, then you showed the ultimate weakness: indecision. You took two full minutes to make a decision that should have been on the tip of your tongue. A leader has to have to knowledge to make a split second decision and make it seem like he knew what his course of action was the whole time."

McGoff shrugged. "So what? I took a little while to order a bowl of soup, what the hell does that have to do with a bunch of ponies wanting civil rights?"

"Everything," Smitts said calmly. "And I wasn't finished yet. Even after you ordered, you failed to acknowledge that girl. You have to treat people like they voted for you, like you owe them a tiny favor at any given time. Who knows, she may have actually voted for you, and you just waved her off. What kind of a message does that send?"

Now that he thought about it, it seemed like all the small things were piling up rather quickly. "Not a very good one."

"Precisely! Being President is less about actual leadership and more about presence, about image, and being a figurehead that people can fall in behind. There's very little of that "Situation Room" bull, and believe me, I was on my fair share of committees and emergency panels."

McGoff chewed on those words, and it suddenly hit him. "Heh, it's just like the Army. Your CO may be a complete jackass, but you fear and respect him because of his presence."

Smitts took another puff from his cigar, the corners of his mouth curling up. "You're starting to catch on. Now, we know that as you are, you make a terrible public image. So what I'm going to do is groom you for your office. It may seem like it was all the public's idea for someone to get elected to the office of President, but every single man who got to sit behind the resolute desk was groomed for that job from the day he got out of high school. The Bush family made a damn art out of it. Look at George Junior, a man who convinced the world that he was a complete idiot, and yet he held that office for two whole terms because his daddy taught him to mind his P's and Q's and how to look like the President of the United States."

The clink of plates from the doorway silenced the pair of statesmen, and the waitress bustled back in with a steaming bowl of the soup du jour and Smitts's steak on an antique, pony made plate. She placed the dishes in front of their respective customers, folding her hands over her apron and giving a nervous smile to the President and his Vice. 

Smitts raised an eyebrow at McGoff, giving a discreet nod over to the waitress. McGoff cleared his throat, turning in his seat. 

"Thank you, young lady. Have a nice day." The waitress nodded excitedly, bustling out the door with a bit more grace than before. Turning back to his vice, McGoff raised an eyebrow. "Better?" he asked.

"Somewhat. You still need to be polished in almost every facet. First, we're going to make you less of a General, and more of a President. Those boys out there, the ones that I told to beat it once they started following me around, they're gonna start wearing suits now. No more military uniforms. And for God's sake, no goddamned assault rifles! It's all about appearance to the public, and if you look and act like a general, people are going to act like they live in a military junta. You want these people to be on your side because they think that you're on their side, not because they're afraid for their lives."

The Vice President of the Republic punctuated his point by slicing through his steak, leaving a stream of pink blood across his plate. Popping it into his mouth, he savored the flavor of actual beef, bred from pre-Surge cattle that had been stored as embryos years before the Surges and the War. "The rest, it's all kissing babies, cutting ribbons, letting Boy Scouts tour your office, the kind of small things that make you seem like a decent human being."

McGoff's patience was beginning to wear thin, and he slapped a hand heavily on the table, rattling the silverware. "Damn it Eddy, cut the bullshit and just tell me what to do about the goddamned ponies! We can groom me to be a better head of state later, but this little movement of theirs could boil over at any moment! International relations are being strained, our people are getting scared that something huge is going to go down, and the two of us are the only people standing between order and chaos!"

Smitts dabbed his lips with a napkin, maintaining his composure and not worrying in the slightest. "Tell me, Tyler, what's your platform?"

"What?"

Smitts rolled his eyes. "What do you stand for?" he reiterated.

McGoff sighed, taking his head into his hands, groaning loudly at the situation he found himself in. "I don't know. Truth, justice, and the American way?"

"Wrong answer. You stand for the people of the Republic of Terra. I was there when you swore that oath, said you would do anything and everything within your power to protect the people of this nation. So, that's your platform. Now, I'm going to ask you the most important question that you'll ever hear. What kind of a legacy do you want to leave?" Smitts let McGoff consider that one, taking another savory bite of his steak.

"Legacy?"

Smitts nodded. "Yeah. Do you want to be the man who is questioned in his day, but beloved in a hundred years for his accomplishments? Or do you want to be the man who is little more than a footnote, a person who people recall fondly, but schoolchildren will groan when they are stuck doing a report on Tyler McGoff, because he was little more than just a placeholder until the next mover and shaker could take office?"

McGoff stared rather blankly at the cryptic Vice President of the Republic. "I... I'm afraid I don't understand."

The weaselly man set down his cutlery, folding his fingers, taking a deep breath. "Harry Truman. Thirty-third president of the United States of America. The only man in history who has ever commanded the use of nuclear weaponry in anger. Two hundred thousand Japanese souls, snuffed out in two flashes of light. At the time, it was considered one of the most horrifying acts of inhuman cruelty ever committed. Probably one of the reasons why Patterson's friend went apeshit on us. But we remember Harry Truman today as a good man, a man whose actions caused the immediate surrender of the enemy, and stopped the bloodiest war in history right in its tracks. Because over time, we have learned that World War II would have dragged on and on, with possible tens of millions more dying in ground invasions and endless naval battles. Harry Truman sacrificed his own reputation to save his country and its people, and it was only years later that we realized that."

He paused for a moment, taking a sip from his cooled cup of coffee. "Then, on the other hand, you have men like Grover Cleveland. Sure, he had good ideas, did some damn good reform, and almost completely overhauled and re-balanced both Congress and his Cabinet. But, he did not take any risks that would have radically changed everyone's perception of him. He could have stuck up for the Indians, made sure that Arthur's cavalry didn't run them off their lands. But all in all, Grover Cleveland was a candle that slowly burned out, and now almost nobody knows who he was or what he did. So, you can decide what kind of a legacy you want to leave behind. Do you want to be a man who is praised in a century when the wisdom of his actions are realized? Or do you want to fade away, having done all you could to make sure that everything stayed on track and changed almost nothing?"

Tyler leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, wondering what the true best course of action was. The way Smitts told it, the only choices he had were to burn out or fade away. Had Truman known his choice would become one of the darkest moments in history? Did he know that it would cut the war short, and save millions of lives? None could truly know the consequences of their choices, not until the the choice had been made.

"I think Truman was onto something," McGoff said to his vice. 

Smitts nodded, grinning to his boss. "Good. Then the next time something major happens with this movement, we'll release a press statement, and make ourselves martyrs." He grabbed his cup of coffee from the table, holding it up in a toast. 

"To martyrdom, and doing what we hope to god is the right thing."