On the eve of the Grand Galloping Gala, Twilight stood in the boudoir of her guest apartment in the Canterlot palace astronomy tower, studying two dresses.
The first was a brilliant gown in sunset colors. Crimson beadwork covered an elaborate interweaving of vermilion and yellow silks, all fading toward darker hues in the ruching that extended from the haunch through the train. Rarity had done amazing work, once again. The dress was dazzling, in every way fit for a princess. But it wasn’t her dress.
The second… Twilight had reluctantly agreed to let Rarity alter the old blue Gala dress. Twilight still wasn’t sure she was happy with her decision. It felt wrong, somehow, to let that dress be changed. It wasn’t the dress’s fault that Twilight was a princess now. But even with the alterations, the dress was as beautiful as ever. To Twilight, it would always be her dress, the first dress Rarity had ever made for her.
Both dresses were beautiful, but Twilight knew without hesitation which one she preferred. And still, she couldn’t keep herself from feeling a stab of fear, and of shame, whenever she looked at it. That dress was special. The sight of it, the feel of it, carried so many good memories.
Twilight sighed, looking back and forth between the two dresses. The gala would start in less than an hour now, and she still hadn’t decided which dress to wear.
A loud knock at the entrance to her guest suite tore Twilight away from the problem. She trotted back through the bedchamber and pulled open the door to reveal two unfamiliar ponies: a fire-maned yellow unicorn mare and an earth pony mare with a dusky rose coat.
The unicorn mare took a step forward, stopping just beyond the threshold of Twilight’s apartments. “Princess Sparkle, my name is Spinning Top. If you are agreeable, the Cabinet Office would like me to accompany you at the Gala tonight. You seem to have gone into seclusion for the last three weeks, and the Secretary simply wants to make sure the press don’t become over-excited by your return to public life.”
Twilight looked between the two mares, feeling a lump of worry form in her stomach. She recognized the name. Doctor Spinning Top was – according to Twilight’s notes, which had become quite copious over those same three weeks – the Secretary for the Cabinet Office of Public Affairs. Most ponies just shortened the title to Press Secretary, though. Apparently Twilight’s earlier performances had been so bad that somepony had seen fit to call out the cavalry. That rankled, but Twilight could hardly call it unjustified. Giving a small nod, she motioned the two mares inside. “And… um… Your companion would be?”
Before Spinning could respond, the other mare stepped forward and held out her hoof for Twilight to shake. “Gilded Lily, of the Equestria Daily. And if I may say, what a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to meet you in person, Your Highness.”
Twilight shot a panicked look at Spinning, but the press secretary returned her expression with a smile. “Lily is an old colleague, and somepony I trust. I thought it might help things tonight if we started the evening with a friendly interview, before we have to face the swarms of reporters down at the party. Assuming you have time, princess?”
Of course I have time, and I’ll bet you know it. Twilight fought back the urge to sigh. The civil service had probably been monitoring her every move since she arrived at the palace. She suspected, in hindsight, that her schedule for today had been carefully arranged to ensure that she would be entirely free at this precise time. Well, no help for it. She’d have to face the press tonight, one way or another.
“Yes, I think I have time.” Twilight paused for a moment and took a deep breath, before giving the two mares a smile. “I just brewed some tea for myself a few minutes ago. If you’d care to have some, we could all sit and talk for a little while.”
Spinning returned Twilight’s smile, and the pair followed her to a round table that stood near a bank of windows overlooking Canterlot Town. The sun was low on the horizon, casting a pink glow across the palace and through Twilight’s windows. The three sat, and Twilight levitated a pair of cups and saucers from a china cabinet along the south wall. She reheated the kettle with a spell she’d learned back in her days at the academy, pouring for herself and her two guests. The citrus scent of bergamot filled the air.
Gilded Lily took one perfunctory sip of the tea before clinking her cup back onto its saucer. “Your Highness, I know you’ve had some difficulty with the media before now – even going so far as to suggest that press freedoms should be cut back, I think I read – but I do hope we can have a pleasant conversation, just the two of us.”
And like that, Twilight knew the test was upon her. This was why she’d spent the last three weeks reading every scrap she could find that might help her solve her problems with the press. There weren’t any books about how to be a princess, but the Canterlot library was packed with volumes about government-media relations, chronicles of various scandals, and treatises concerning proper conversational etiquette. But despite three weeks of careful study – long nights spent at her desk, poring through page after page by candlelight – it was Applejack’s words that first popped into Twilight’s mind. Stop an’ think a couple seconds before you speak.
Spinning Top’s smile slipped ever so slightly in the brief silence that followed Lily’s words. She turned to the reporter and spoke in a soft voice. “I thought we agreed that—”
“No, it’s fine, Madame Secretary. I assume you’re referring to the article that appeared in the Daily Sun, Ms. Lily? I believe the headline was something like, ‘ “Down with the press,” declares Equestria’s newest royal.’ ”
“I can’t say I remember precisely where I saw—”
Twilight smiled. “Yes, that particular piece was written by Spicy Dish, as I recall. And wholly inaccurate, but what can you expect from a paper like the Sun? Of course, they’re free to publish whatever they want, but don’t you agree that we’d all be better served if more journalists strove for the standards of your own Equestria Daily, Ms. Lily?”
Spinning took another sip of tea, her smile now replaced. “Yes, quite,” she murmured.
Gilded Lily pulled out a small notepad and set it on the table, scratching down a few words before returning her attention to the conversation. “Well, I can hardly argue with that, Your Highness. But you can’t deny that your run-ins with the press have been – shall we say – problematic, since your coronation.”
“No, of course not,” Twilight said. Applejack was right: it wasn’t in Twilight’s nature to prevaricate with the truth. “The whole thing took me by surprise as much as anypony else, and I wasn’t prepared for the the sort of scrutiny a princess of Equestria has to face. But it’s hardly fair to blame the press for my own lack of preparation, don’t you think?” Well, it wasn’t in Twilight’s nature to prevaricate too much, anyway. Sometimes, Rarity’s way was better.
Lily hummed in agreement as she scribbled out a few more notes. “But surely you must feel some guilt, especially regarding the increased tension between Equestria and Griffonstan over the last two months. Your comments about Camelu water rights and Northern Griffonstan, in particular, have been seen as particularly inflammatory. And arguing about griffon quills with the trade minister? I mean, isn’t that just a little insulting?”
A dark look clouded Spinning Top’s face, and she stared openly at the reporter. Clearly, this wasn’t the sort of interview the press secretary had expected. She appeared on the verge of saying something, but Twilight held up a hoof to stop her.
“On the subject of the Camelu situation, I stand by everything I said before.” Lesson one, in many of those books on government-media relations, was to address the question you wanted to answer, rather than the question you were asked. “The people of Camelu are facing a crisis of the first order. Their representatives may have to soft-pedal the issue to keep the Griffonstani appeased, but Equestria has no such duty. It is simply inexcusable for the Griffonstani to keep this issue tied up in endless talks. Camels are dying.” Twilight had very strong opinions on this subject, and she wasn’t about to walk them back to make the Griffonstani ambassador feel better about what his country was doing.
“Yes, of course, but what about your comments on the subject of Northern Griffonstan? Many ponies in Equestria agree with you about the Camelu situation, but taken together your statements seem to show a pattern of disregard for our Griffon neighbors.”
This time, Spinning Top didn’t try to jump in. She just turned to watch Twilight, her face curiously absent of expression.
“Is that so?” Twilight gave the reporter a smile and took a languid sip from her teacup. “If I remember correctly, your paper has published eleven articles on Northern Griffonstan since – as you call them – my comments. But I found it curious that only the first of those pieces carried an actual quote from me. You had quotes aplenty, of course, but all from members of the Griffonstani foreign delegation and officials from our own Equestrian civil service. Would you care to know what that first article said?”
Gilded Lily was writing furiously now, but her quill seemed to be running dry. She tapped it against the notebook, trying to bring some more ink forward from the cartridge concealed within the pinion. “The initial comments are hardly important; what matters is the reaction that they—”
“ ‘Princess Twilight Sparkle, formerly the prize pupil of HRH Princess Celestia, offered her thoughts to our tourism reporter during a brief visit to Pony Joe’s Donut Shop. “Northern Griffonstan? I read that it has great mineralogical wealth. And the canyons of the Cold Snap badlands are supposed to be very beautiful. Maybe I can go see them sometime soon.” Although the griffons closed off tourism to Northern Griffonstan last year, citing increased danger from Free Gryphon Republic separatists, her highness’s hopes for a resolution are most assuredly shared by this reporter.’
“That was from the sixth page of the D Section, incidentally. The first front-page article was the following day’s response from the Griffonstani ambassador, where he decried ‘Equestria’s long history of imperial adventurism’ and said that ‘Griffonstan stands ready to resist any territorial threat Princess Sparkle or her nation may have in mind.’ ”
“You memorized the articles?” Gilded Lily looked incredulous, and a little insulted. “Isn’t that a bit… thin-skinned?”
Twilight blushed. “Well, I didn’t really memorize them, but they did stick in my head pretty well. I’ve always had a good memory, though. For example, I believe you wrote a column on the Camelu water crisis that came out the same day as that tourism piece, Ms. Lily. It was quite good, as I recall. There was a particularly evocative bit about ‘thirsty calves fighting one another at the riverbed each morning, pitchers in hoof, desperate for a few more ounces to bring back to their families.’ To be honest, your reporting had a lot to do with shaping my own attitudes about the situation there.”
Gilded Lily dropped her eyes to her notebook, looking a little abashed as she tried to scratch down more notes. For her part, Spinning Top was wearing a small smile once again, but one that looked less practiced and more genuine than her earlier smiles.
“In any case,” Lily said, “don’t you at least regret what you said to the trade advisor about griffon quills?”
Twilight arched an eyebrow and grinned, choosing not to respond to the barb just yet. She had felt a little bad about that particular argument, but the guilt just prompted Twilight to do what she did best – research. Maybe she had been wrong about the ink capacity of griffon quills, in which case she’d have owed the trade advisor an apology. Then again, if Twilight’s opinion were borne out by data, there wouldn’t be any logic behind her feeling bad. So she’d tested a random sample of griffon quills alongside a random sample of pegasus quills, and the results were quite conclusive. Pegasus quills held more ink than griffon quills, by a factor of nearly two-to-one.
Knowledge had always been Twilight’s weapon, after all, and clear thinking her armor. Being a princess didn’t change who she was, it just placed her under deeper scrutiny.
The scritch-scritch of Lily’s quill continued a few more seconds before trailing off. With a look of frustration, the reporter began tapping it against the notepad once more. As Lily realized Twilight wasn’t going to answer her question, she looked up and opened her mouth to speak – which was precisely when Twilight cut her off.
“Your quill doesn’t seem to be holding ink very well today, Ms. Lily. If you’d like, I can let you use one of mine.”
Spinning Top stood, giving Gilded Lily a tight smile. “All right. We’re done here. That should be enough material for your exclusive, Gilded. I think we should let the princess get back to her preparations. Thank you, Your Highness.”
Lily rose from the table as well, and gave a small curtsy. She met Twilight’s eyes and blushed. “I… um… Our editor, Breaking News, had some strong opinions about what sort of interview we should run tomorrow. I’m sorry. But thank you, for making sure I can’t write what he wanted. I’ve always hated writing pieces like that.”
Spinning motioned the reporter toward the door and turned back to Twilight. “Your Highness, as I said, I’ve been asked to accompany you tonight, but if you’d prefer…?”
The vote of confidence felt wonderful – wonderful enough to help Twilight make a decision – but she shook her head in response to the question. “No, I think I could still use the help. That is, if you don’t mind?”
“It would be my pleasure, Your Highness.”
The princess set her teacup on its saucer and stood, walking into the boudoir. “All right. If you could wait outside for just a moment, then, I should be ready to go down to the Gala soon, Madame Secretary.” Twilight smiled and ran one hoof over the familiar, star-patterned blue silk. “It will only take me a minute to put on my dress.”