//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Parade Coverage // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Parade Coverage Chapter 8 “You did what?” Princess Celestia asked Princess Luna in shock when the group returned. “It’s an entire new civilization to study!” exclaimed Twilight, so excited that for once she refused to mute her reaction in response to her mentor’s obvious displeasure. Spike meanwhile was clinging to her leg as if that alone could keep her from teleporting out of his sight. “They’re not that bad!” Pinkie Pie insisted. “Nopony who laughs at themselves can be entirely bad!” “Pinkie, I appreciate your optimism, but I have met these humans on two occasions previously, and while a few of their individuals are admirable—” “Those actually happened?” asked Twilight in a daze. “I thought those stories you told me were allegorical!” “You just didn’t like the lessons that went along with them,” Princess Celestia answered with a slight roll of the eyes. “Allowing all humans and ponies free access to each other, on the other hoof, would mean—” “A near-overwhelming challenge to everything that ponies believe in,” said the captain of the guards as he barged into the room. It was obvious that not only had he been eavesdropping, but had also done his research. “The very Pony Way of Life would be threatened if this were to go forward!” “Yes,” Princess Luna said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Ponies would be forced to defend themselves, to stand up for their very right to exist. Excitement instead of contentment would be the order of the day! Could they justify themselves against incredibly successful and intelligent creatures that have no need for magic whatsoever? Could they perhaps do more than that, and provide a powerful example to the humans of what peace and friendship can accomplish in the face of cruelty and predation? It would be just like—” “Like the Age of Reconstruction, the Classical Era,” Celestia said with a happy sigh. “The greatest period in pony history, spawned by the greatest threat to not only their physical, but also metaphysical existence. The ponies answered why they deserved to continue to exist, by becoming the greatest artists, the greatest heroes, the world had ever known.” “And I want to bring that age back,” Luna said with force. This was an argument that she very much wanted to win, and as a result she was modulating her words into a modern form to facilitate that result. “A new age, a Renaissance, where ponies take on the best of human habits, and humans become ever so slightly more pony.” “And where would you be, in this Renaissance?” asked Celestia. “On Earth, as your ambassador.” “On Earth? You’ve only just returned to Equestria!” “And Equestria has rejected me, as they had every right to do after what I’ve done as Nightmare Moon!” insisted Princess Luna. “It will take a generation or more before I will be accepted as your equal. In the meantime, I was meant for humanity, and humanity for me! No other pony is as cold as I, can look the darkness of our inner selves in the eye as calmly as I can! That is the nature of the humans as well!” Although her face was impassive, inwardly Princess Celestia smirked to herself. She wondered if her sister would ever outgrow her “emo” phase. “It’s true—the tree ponies are pretty dark,” Pinkie Pie said to nopony in particular. “So, what say you?” asked Luna eagerly. “Surely you are not suggesting—” the Captain begged Princess Celestia. “I suggest nothing,” Celestia replied. “Luna is a Princess of Equestria. Unless I plan to dethrone her—which I do not—her word is as much law as mine is. And she has decreed that the portal shall re-open, so re-open it shall. See that you make the proper arrangements.” “Y...yes, Your Highness,” the Captain said in defeat, before backing his way out of the audience chamber.