The cell door creaked open, and the guard motioned Pincer out with a turn of his head. Twilight was waiting outside, smiling, shifting her weight between her hooves. Pincer, having risen from the desk when Twilight arrived, ambled to the door.
"Thanks for coming," she said as they began walking through the dungeon.
"I was able to get a whole day planned out," she continued. "We've got about an hour to shop around at the Starswirl Street Market before lunch at Molto Delizioso's Bistro. You'll like it. It has a really nice book stall. Anyway, that should leave us enough time to get to the concert hall to see the Canterlot Orchestra's one o'clock show, and once that's done we can make it to today's showing of Ruffled Feathers at the theater if we hurry. Then we can get you back here in time for curfew and dinner. I've told Celestia about it and she's agreed to pay for everything, so we're all set!"
Pincer nodded without looking at Twilight, but he thought he saw her skipping out of the corner of his eye.
"Now, it won't be any fun going to the market if you can't buy anything, so..." He felt a weight ease itself onto him and looked over his shoulder to find saddlebags at his sides.
"I asked Celestia about it, and she told me to give you this. There's thirty bits in the bags. That should be enough if you see a nice book, or a sculpture, or something similar."
He thanked Twilight and popped one of the bags open to peek at the pile of fat, golden coins within, thoughts drifting to what he might spend them on. He'd been to Equestrian markets during his infiltrations, but even then, every bit spent had been a calculated decision; spies were to take as much money and valuables back to The Hive as possible, for later use by those whose tasks required them to pass themselves off as wealthy ponies.
Once they were in the courtyard, the sunlight and the distant chatter made the sheer bravado of what Twilight was trying to do fully sink in. It was one thing to go to town for a quick snack with Celestia there to personally assure the ponies that he wasn't a threat, but spending an entire day among nervous townsponies? Twilight didn't have the presence Celestia did. She might not be able to keep the other ponies in line. He wasn't worried that they'd be beaten or killed; since he was a trained soldier and Twilight was a talented magician, he was sure they could handle themselves if a fight broke out. Even so, it would be a possibly unrecoverable setback.
It wasn't long after they reached the town proper that they first encountered a pony, a young unicorn mare opening the front door of a home. She happened to glance Pincer's way, her eyes widened, and then she hastily slipped inside. The door slammed shut behind her.
The others they passed did not respond any more encouragingly. Lone ponies turned around to trot away or disappeared into buildings. Mothers and fathers pushed their foals behind them. He heard a few curtains snap shut. Some of the braver ones stood their ground and glared daggers at him. There was little confusion or indecision, only recognition and swift action; word must have spread that he'd been in town before. Twilight tried to call out to them and reassure them that Pincer meant them no harm, but her pleas went unheard. Unconsciously, Pincer touched the ring on his horn.
As they got closer to the market and the streets and the shops grew more crowded, though, he noticed that fewer and fewer ponies seemed ready to run or fight at a moment's notice. Groups drew themselves tighter and everyone gave him a wide berth, but they did not stop or flee the moment they saw him. They probably felt safer in numbers, Pincer realized.
The market street was a sea of bodies through which drifted currents of families and friends, each of them flowing to or from one of the many stalls. The air was alive with rustling bags, clattering bits, and idle chatter. The merchants scuttled about, some pitching their wares to ponies who stopped or passed by, others negotiating prices, and a few scooping bits off of their tables. Pincer took a breath and caught the scent of popcorn.
For the first time since he'd joined her, Twilight hesitated. She looked left and right, then walked a tight circle to look behind her. After a few long seconds, she jabbed her hoof ahead and to the right.
"Okay, let's try that book stall first. They should have some I haven't seen before, I mean, they usually do. You'll definitely find something you haven't read. And I know the mare that runs it. Come on."
Having no better suggestions, Pincer followed Twilight to the stall. As they approached it, the stallion in line ahead of them turned and saw them, then quickly excused himself and walked away. The elderly mare running the table was left staring at them, looking as though she'd just swallowed an egg. Her thick glasses exaggerated her already wide eyes.
"Oh, Twilight! Y—you..." The mare's eyes flicked between the two, then she motioned Twilight to come closer. Twilight did so, and the mare whispered something. Pincer didn't hear what she said, but her voice was strained. Twilight backed away when the merchant was done.
"Trust me, he's fine," Twilight said. "His name's Pincer, and he's not looking for trouble. He just wants to try something new, have a day out in the town, you know? And even if he did try something, I'd stop him. Just give him a chance. Please?"
The merchant looked at Pincer, frowning, then back at Twilight.
"Well, if you say he's okay..." She turned to face Pincer again.
"Pincer, right?" the merchant said, casting a glance at Twilight. He nodded. "My name's Mrs. Bookend. It's five bits a paperback, fifteen a hardback."
Pincer nodded, then looked down at the crooked pyramid of books. He shuffled a few on the top aside, picking others at random, skimming their summaries before dropping them to something vaguely like their original positions.. He could feel Mrs. Bookend's eyes boring into him as words and phrases jumped out from the back covers:"...step-by-step instructions for the most trusted seeking and searching spells..."; "What happens when a mare of the Manehatten City Council falls for a freewheeling traveling guitarist?"; "...wants him to tend the family orchard, but when he's accepted into the Wonderbolt Academy..."; "...including a chapter of zebra cultural recipes..."; "...filly's quest to join the Las Pegasus skyball team." Finally, on a whim, he chose a murder mystery set in the Classical Era.
The bits clinked against the table, and Mrs. Bookend scraped a few into her saddlebag. She reached for more, but her hoof stopped before it touched them. She looked at Pincer, brow furrowed.
"Um, Pincer..." Twilight began.
"It's five bits," Mrs. Bookend said flatly.
"Yeah."
"You gave me ten."
"I know."
Mrs. Bookend shook her head slowly, her gray, bobbed mane swaying. "Are you... going to take five back, then?"
Pincer shook his head. "No, I'm not. Look, I know I scared off at least one of your customers. I saw him moving away when I came up. I didn't mean to cause you any trouble. I just wanted to shop a bit. This is supposed to be my problem, not yours. Take the money."
Mrs. Bookend looked at the coins, then at Pincer again, her eyes widening and her mouth drawing into a tight frown. She cleared her throat.
"Well... thank you for that, Pincer." She began scraping the rest of the bits into her bag, but when there were five left on the table, she paused. Her gaze lingered on them and her hoof hovered over them for a moment before she drew her hoof back and looked at him again.
"It was only one pony, anyway. He didn't look like he was even buying anything, really. So I'll tell you what," she said, a ghost of a smile on her face now.
"You're welcome to come back any time if you want. I'll spread the word about what you've done here, and if any of my customers have problems with me selling to you, I'll set them straight."
Pincer blinked. "Are you sure you want to do that? Think about it. It's dangerous. They could boycott you."
"Oh, don't you worry about it. Twilight will still shop here, and you know how she is. She could keep me in business all by herself."
Twilight chuckled. Pincer retrieved his purchase and extra bits and thanked Mrs. Bookend, and they made their way back into the crowded street.
"Well, it's getting easier, isn't it?"
Twilight and Pincer were in Molto Delizioso's. One could hardly look anywhere in the bistro without seeing ceramic tiles in red-and-white checkerboard colors. Paintings of mountain peaks and sweeping fields adorned the dining area, and chandeliers clung to the ceiling. Silverware clinked and the murmurs of voices drifted through the air.
The two had been seated at a booth near the back, hidden from any of the windows that lined the restaurant's storefront. Twilight's daisy sandwich was hovering in the air, ready for her to take a bite, while Pincer's fruit plate lay neglected.
Pincer, who hadn't been looking anywhere in particular, turned to Twilight. "I've been surprised a lot lately. I mean, I wasn't expecting that mare at the book stall to vouch for me, or for that stallion to stay in that line at the alchemists' booth when we got there, or for that colt who bumped into me to stick around long enough to apologize. Ponies were nervous, yeah, but the market kept going. Vendors still ran their stalls and visitors still bought from them. I was one of them, in fact."
Twilight swallowed the bite of her sandwich she'd taken and frowned. "That doesn't really answer my question, though. Isn't it getting easier?"
Pincer dipped his head down and bit off a full half of his orange, peel included. He chewed it a few times, then swallowed.
"Yes. It is. It's a strange feeling, too. I've spent most of my life learning to blend in with ponies, but it's different undisguised."
Twilight brought up her hooves and let them rest on the table. "Have you ever been to Equestria before my brother's wedding? I mean, you must have spent some time here to learn how to blend in, right?"
She knew that changelings could transform into ponies. She knew that one had taken Cadance's place. This, Pincer realized, would be pointless to lie about.
He nodded slowly. "You're right. We've been spying on you."
Twilight leaned forward. "Where were they? What did they do? Are they still here?"
Pincer shrank back. "I don't know. I haven't seen any of the others since I fell in that ravine. I'm sorry."
Twilight took a bite of her sandwich, and Pincer bit into the rest of his orange. "I guess I can understand that. I mean, it's not like you had any chance to talk to any other changelings since you were captured, and I'd think if they'd found you that they would've done something about your legs. So, you've been to Equestria before they sent you to Canterlot, right?" Twilight asked, now looking at Pincer. "Can you tell me about some of the missions you've been on?"
"Twilight...."
"You're not still scared, are you?"
Pincer bit a chunk from his grapes. "It's just not something I want to talk about right now."
Though Twilight frowned, she did not press the issue. For a few minutes, they ate their meals in silence. Twilight was no longer looking at Pincer, and it wasn't until she spoke again that she looked at him again.
"I know you ate baked goods with Princess Celestia yesterday, and it looks like you're enjoying that fruit. Could you tell me about your eating habits?" Twilight leaned forward. "What kind of food can you eat, exactly? Does everything that tastes good to us taste good to you? Are meat and love the only things that your body can actually process?"
Pincer considered the question as he chewed a piece of a banana. "We can only subsist on meat and love. We like many different kinds of food, though, even if we can't survive on it. It's different from drone to drone, too. A... a friend of mine, Antenna, she likes daisy sandwiches."
Twilight's eyebrows raised. "A friend? Can you tell me more about her?"
"Energetic. Confident. Always working to be better and stronger and faster. That friend of yours, Rainbow Dash, reminded me of her."
"A changeling like Rainbow Dash?" Twilight chuckled. "I'll have to tell her about that."
Pincer thumped a hoof against the table. "Wait! Please, you can't just go around telling people this. If anything happened to the others..." He swallowed.
Twilight shook her head. "It's just a harmless detail. There are plenty of ponies who act like Rainbow Dash in some way, I'm sure."
She drew herself upright. "And besides, are you still so scared of us? You said things are getting easier, right? I think you'll find that if we work at it, ponies and changelings can live together peacefully. It's not like we're going to start killing any changelings we find."
Pincer locked eyes with Twilight. "I don't think you're as evil as Chrysalis always said, no, but I'm still not ready to bet my friends' lives on Equestria's playing nice. We're all picking our risks here."
Twilight's eyes were narrow, her mouth drawn tight.
"You said this field test of Celestia's would take time," Pincer continued. "I'll give it time. But I don't want to tell you anything until I've seen enough to be sure it won't come back to hurt them. I'm sure you'd feel the same way if you felt like your friends, or your brother, or your dragon were the ones on the line."
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Her face was pained as she looked at him, but apparently having nothing further to say, she simply bit into her sandwich and started chewing with more vigor than she had before.
They finished their meals in silence. It wasn't long before they finished their meals, paid, and left. Though they had time to spare and Pincer was in no particular hurry to see the Orchestra perform, Twilight practically trotted in place in anticipation whenever forced to wait for him.
The sun was still high in the sky when the concert ended. Ponies spilled out of the concert hall, diverging at the broad, towering fountain across from the doors, fanning out in every direction as they got closer to the street. A small bubble formed in the crowd, at the center of which were a changeling and a unicorn.
"That was a waste of time," Pincer said accusingly.
"Well, I liked it, and so did the physicist at Canterlot University who recommended it to me," Twilight said defensively. Then, in admonishment, "you needed to sit back and just listen to the music. Instead you spent the whole time trying to talk to me, and that's kind of hard to do over blaring trumpets."
"I tried to enjoy it. Didn't work. That's why I was talking to you in the first place."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Gee, I'm sorry I took you to a concert for free. I should've known you wouldn't like it before you did."
Pincer looked down and away.
"Hey, is something wrong? I wasn't that upset, really," Twilight said.
He looked back at her apologetically. "It's what you said, that's all. It's, well, easy to forget that you're trying to make sure I have a good time. I'm not really used to that."
"Don't worry about it," Twilight said, smiling reassuringly. "I think you'll like this play more, anyway, considering how much you loved those books I gave you."
To their left, a cart banged and rattled. The earth pony mare pulling it tried to back up but bumped into it, only briefly taking her eyes off Pincer to glance behind her. Pincer trotted away, closely followed by Twilight.
"So, this play, what's it about?" he asked Twilight hastily.
"Oh, it's called Ruffled Feathers. It's about a war between Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdom a few hundred years ago. There was a particularly harsh winter one year and we were having a hard time growing enough food, and some pony explorers who'd gone far north to the mountains look for places to farm accidentally settled in gryphon land.
"The gryphon nation at the time was extremely territorial, but the explorers couldn't leave without dying because it was the only arable land for miles. It didn't take long for fighting to break out. The gryphons were furious, and they were threatening to attack Equestria in retaliation for what happened. It was Princess Celestia who was able to negotiate a peaceful solution, and the explorers who survived the battles were free to return home."
Pincer thought for a moment as they turned into a narrow street, cloaked in shade. "You get along with the gryphons fairly well today, despite the war."
"Well, it happened out of desperation and ended peacefully before things could escalate too much. The only one who's even old enough to remember it is Celestia, and she wanted to repair relations between us rather than bear a grudge over it."
They stopped at the edge of the crowd in front of the theater, and the first thing that ran through Pincer's mind was "uptight." That wasn't a good sign, since he'd gotten the exact same impression at the concert hall. Most of the stallions were in pressed, buttoned-up suits, most of the mares in frilly dresses. None of them said anything or tried to move away when they noticed him, but a few looked at him as though he were an oversized maggot.
Pincer was greeted by a musty, oaken smell as he and Twilight passed through the wooden arch at the theater's entrance and stepped into the interior, which was carpeted and softly lit by candles in wall sconces. A low din, almost hushed somehow, came from the many small groups of patrons conversing among themselves.
When Twilight presented their tickets at the window, the unicorn mare on the other side cast a concerned glance at Pincer, followed by a pleading look at her.
"He's the... are you sure he should be here?"
Twilight nodded. "Yes, with the Princess's permission. Here, see for yourself." She produced a note bearing Celestia's seal and gave it to the ticket-taker. The ticket-taker's eyes flicked back and forth as she read it, apparently chewing her tongue. When she was done, she slowly nodded and gave the note back to Twilight, then hesitantly gave her their ticket stubs.
They ascended a narrow staircase and emerged at the top level of the many vast half-rings of seats. Far below them was a stage concealed by a red curtain. it was brightly lit from both above and below by spotlights.
"Quick, Pincer, let's find our seats. They've charged the spotlights, so the play will probably be starting any minute." Twilight trotted up to the railing, looking back and forth, up and down.
Pincer walked up and pressed against the railing next to her. "Magic-powered lamps? I remember reading about these in that history book."
"Oh, you have?" Twilight asked, continuing to scan the seats.
"Yeah. Safer than gas lamps and don't need fuel, but they have to be charged every couple of hours by a unicorn. Not useful for things like street lights that need to run for hours or days at a time, but they last long enough for something like a play."
"See? Reading and learning can be fun, even if it's not about something you really need to know," she said, smiling approvingly. She then pointed down and to their right with a hoof. "There they are."
Twilight grimaced. "I'm afraid we won't be as lucky as we were at the orchestra. You won't get an aisle seat. I'm not sure how a stranger's going to handle sitting next to you."
Pincer looked over where Twilight had pointed. To the left of their seats was a young colt; to the right was a unicorn stallion wearing a monocle. Neither option was appealing, but the child would be far more frightened of him than a grown pony. The right seat it was, then.
When he told Twilight his intentions, she nodded in understanding, and they made their way over to their row. Unfortunately, he would need to squeeze past several ponies to make it to his seat, including the colt. He considered flying to his seat — the ceiling was certainly high enough for it — but immediately realized that ponies would probably find a large insect buzzing over their heads even more alarming than one squeezing past them. Twilight had begun edging past the seated ponies and so, bracing himself, he followed.
He could hear their dismayed and disbelieving mutterings as he passed. Some of the ponies drew ramrod-stiff as he passed; others pushed themselves back against their seats as though hoping to disappear into them. As Pincer went by the young colt, his mother sitting next to him threw her front leg in between him and Pincer.
None of them screamed or ran. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
The stallion gave Pincer a tight-jawed, narrow-eyed look as Pincer sat down. Twilight, who had just seated herself, leaned forward and gave the stallion a reassuring smile and wave. He calmed down and faced forward again, but still gave Pincer occasional wary glances.
It wasn't long before the curtain flapped and a stallion, maroon-coated and wearing a tuxedo, walked up to the microphone at the front of the stage.
"I'd like to thank everyone for coming here today," he began, his words silencing the hundreds or thousands of conversations in the audience within seconds of each other.
"Without further delay, I am proud to announce that it is time for tonight's production of Ruffled Feathers, as performed by the Canterlot Theater Company."
The audience stomped their hooves, and Pincer, after an uncertain glance around, joined them. There was a squeaking of pulleys as the curtain opened, and the applause tapered off.
Behind the curtain was a backdrop painted with a bold, vibrant image of a grassy field with rolling, snowy hills. A pair of earth ponies entered from the left, bundled in heavy winter coats, scarves, and hats, and each carrying fat saddlebags. The one in front, a mare Pincer presumed to be playing the leader, stopped. The others halted behind her.
"Such lifeless land!" the mare playing the follower said in a tired-sounding voice, looking about. She shivered, though in reality she must have been sweating from wearing so much clothing on a summer day. "Oh, Harvest Moon, can the future of Equestria truly depend on whether we can till its soil?"
The mare in front raised a hoof. "Faith, Green Leaf. Princess Celestia herself has entrusted us with this task. We mustn't despair when we've still valleys before us and food in our bags," she said evenly.
It was a strange feeling, watching the actors work. The backdrop and clothing established the scene well enough, but nobody would mistake the scene before them for an actual snowy hillside. The ponies onstage weren't tricking anyone, but they weren't trying to trick anyone. Never was there any pretense that these two ponies were actually explorers from centuries ago. Pincer could already see them falling naturally into their roles, though, acting for all the world as if they were spies trying to completely throw off an enemy.
The first half of the play was forty-five minutes long. If Pincer had been forced to describe what happened to him over the course of those forty-five minutes, he could only have said that he gradually, willfully allowed himself to be fooled by the actors. He smiled as the farmers rejoiced upon finding arable land. He felt a twinge of unease when the gryphon scouts spotted them. He empathized when Green Leaf confessed to Harvest Moon that she was terribly missing her family.
After the gryphon commander had finished a thunderous speech rousing his soldiers to drive the settler ponies out of the valley, the drawing of the curtain and the shuttering of the stage lights announced the intermission. As the ponies around them began conversing among themselves or scooting into the aisles to use the restrooms, he looked at Twilight, who could barely contain her grin.
"Yeah, it was good. Very good," Pincer said. "Reading about a play's nothing like seeing one. Do you know when the intermission's over?" he asked, glancing back down at the stage.
Twilight laughed. "Sorry, but you're stuck here with me five minutes before you can see the rest."
Pincer grinned toothily. He couldn't help it. In this darkened theater, he wasn't drawing stares from every direction. The others were too busy watching the play to think about him, and he felt just as much a part of the audience as the rest of them.
"Not in a hurry," he said. "Better out here than stuck in my cell."
"Well, it's good to know you feel that way. I think it'll help you a lot, having things to do besides—"
"Silver Tongue! Where are you going?" asked the stallion seated next to Pincer, to someone to the stallion's right.
A filly, presumably the stallion's daughter, had just broken free and was dashing down the aisle towards Pincer and Twilight.
Pincer reflexively drew himself back in his seat, but he still felt the filly collide with his legs. She stumbled and fell, landing in front of Twilight. While he was still absorbing this sight, he felt a blow to his chest and was knocked back into his seat.
"Silver Tongue!" the stallion repeated. He was the one who had struck Pincer, and now he was pushing his way to his daughter. "Are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?" he asked, pulling her close to him. The filly was shaky getting to her hooves, but nodded to her father's question. He turned her head so she was facing him, then ran a hoof along her mane and back as he looked up and down. When he was done, he sighed in relief.
"I told you to stay away from the changeling! Now go, out to the aisle. I'll tell you when it's safe to come back."
The stallion turned to Pincer and scowled at him. Meanwhile, the filly hastily fumbled away from the scene through the cramped, dark aisle, glancing fearfully at Pincer as she went. The patrons she edged around glanced briefly at her before fixing their eyes on the scene that was erupting.
"Now hold on a second," said Twilight warningly. "Don't you think this might've been an accident? I mean, it's pretty crowde—"
"You! You've got some nerve, tripping my daughter!" the stallion said to Pincer, ignoring Twilight entirely.
Pincer leaned forward in his seat, as though daring the stallion to strike the first blow. "I didn't mean for it to happen! It was an accident! I came here to watch a play, not hurt fillies!"
The stallion scoffed. "'Came here to watch a play'? And I suppose you came to Princess Cadance's wedding to leave a gift?" He drove a hoof into Pincer's chest, knocking him back against the seat.
"Leave him alone!" Twilight barked, her horn beginning to glow faintly. "He hasn't done anything wrong!"
Pincer bared his fangs before he could stop himself. The unicorn stallion looked between the two, and his look of bravado faltered. Slowly, the leg holding Pincer fell to the floor.
"Hey! What's going on here?" came a voice from the left. Pincer heard the clumping of rapid hoofsteps and saw a theater usher in a striped button vest pushing toward them. Pincer shut his mouth to hide his fangs, and the glow in Twilight's horn winked out. The seats around them grew silent, and Pincer was aware that many pairs of eyes were upon him and the stallion.
The stallion regained his composure. "That oversized bug hurt my daughter!" he roared, pointing unnecessarily at Pincer.
"I didn't! I was just sitting here! She was running in the aisle and she tripped over me," Pincer said, his voice wavering. "I didn't want it to happen. I just came here to watch the play. Ask Twilight." He pointed a hoof at her. "She knows me. She knows I wouldn't do that."
"Don't believe him! I saw it happen. He doesn't belong here," the stallion said.
The usher shook his head. "That's quite enough. If the two of you don't settle down now, I'll have no choice but to eject you both."
Pincer glared but said nothing. He had a dozen unpleasant things he was dying to say to the stallion, but he wasn't going to let himself miss the rest of the play now. As much as he wanted to put him in his place, he wanted to see what happened in the second half more.
"Sir," Twilight said evenly. The usher looked at her.
"This changeling — his name is Pincer," she continued. "He's here with Celestia's permisison. I've known him for a while, and he isn't here to hurt ponies. This is all just a misunderstanding."
The usher paused, then turned to the father. "I'd like to speak with your daughter about this," he said wearily.
"She's over there," the father said, pointing over the usher's shoulder. The usher turned around to see Silver Tongue, whom he'd rushed past in his hurry to defuse the situation, sitting half-turned away from them. He bent his front legs so that his head was level with hers.
"Did you trip and fall?" he asked her quietly.
"Yeah, but I'm fine. See?" She stood up and walked a quick, tight circle.
"And what made you trip?"
"Well, that bug-pony's legs were sticking out."
The usher frowned. "Can you tell me what you mean by, 'sticking out?'"
"You know, like when a pony sits down in these seats, their back legs stick out into the aisle!"
"He didn't hold out a leg to trip you, then?"
"Nope! He was sitting like everypony."
The usher thanked the filly and turned back to face Pincer, Twilight, and the father.
"It doesn't sound like Pincer meant to cause any harm," he said quietly, "so I'll ask that you not create any more disturbances, or I'll be forced to call the Royal Guard and have you escorted out."
Pincer gave a small nod, and he didn't hear the stallion say anything, but he had a feeling he was drilling holes in Pincer with his eyes. The usher left, and the stallion went back to his seat. As he sat down, Pincer heard him exchanging rapid whispers with his wife, and he assumed that they were arguing.
Periodically the stallion glanced back at his daughter, who was standing in the aisle and leaning forward, apparently waiting for some opportunity. Finally she slunk down and reluctantly crept forward, stopping at Pincer's hooves. They looked at each other uncertainly.
"Hey," the filly whispered, "how come you're not fighting like all those other bug-ponies were?"
Pincer's eyes darted to Twilight, who had her hoof to her mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to stifle a giggle. He was on his own, it looked like, so he decided to give a direct and simple question a direct and simple answer.
"I don't want to fight. That's not why I'm here."
"So why are you here, then?"
"Same reason everyone else is. I want to watch the show."
The filly looked down the row, then back at Pincer. "Aren't you mad 'cause you guys lost?"
Pincer looked down at his hooves. "I was, but now I'm not so sure."
"What's that mean? Are you joining the good guys or something? Are you gonna fight that queen and the other bug-ponies?"
He shook his head. "I'd be fighting my friends and family."
He heard Twilight's giggling taper off. "But if they're doing bad things, you've still gotta stop 'em, right?" Silver Tongue asked.
Pincer looked at her seriously. "And how would you feel if you had to fight your own mom and dad?"
Silver Tongue looked at her parents. Their argument was winding down, and within a few moments the stallion was looking defeated, the mare patting his hoof in consolation. The mare then looked over at her daughter, eyeliner and blush accentuating her face.
"Silver, come here please. Your father just doesn't want you to be hurt. You'll be safe with us."
The filly said goodbye to Pincer, and it wasn't long after she returned to her seat that the intermission ended. He tried to concentrate on the play, to get back in the captivated mood he'd fallen into by the time the first half had ended, but he couldn't get comfortable in his seat. His eyes kept darting to the stallion seated to his right and his wish that the stallion would have left or at least sat somewhere else drowned out the words of the actors.
He had to relax. The stallion showed no sign of making any further outbursts. The usher had already decided that Pincer had done nothing wrong. If the stallion started trouble again, he'd likely be removed from the theater and Pincer wouldn't have to worry about him anymore.
The second half was well underway by the time he was able to take his mind off of the confrontation, but it once again captured his attention well before the final scene in which the treaty was signed. The curtain drew shut one final time. Unlike at the beginning of the play, Pincer didn't hesitate to applaud with the rest of the patrons. He stomped particularly hard at the curtain call for Evergreen Valley, the actor who played Harvest Moon.
"I think they'll be staying after the show to talk if you wanted to meet them," Twilight said to Pincer as the applause died.
He looked down at the actors, already wondering how best to introduce himself, but the stallion barking accusations at him resurfaced in his mind. Trying to meet a member of the troupe would be more likely to cause a similar incident than he was willing to chance..
"Better not," Pincer said. "Too risky. We got to eat, we got to shop, we got to watch two shows to the end without a fight breaking out. That's good enough for day one."
"Are you sure?" Twilight asked, frowning. Her eyes were wide. "You looked like you were having such a good time. You shouldn't have to leave because some ponies are still afraid of you."
"Maybe I shouldn't have to, but I probably do. This won't be the last trip. I can try some other day."
He stood up and began making his way to the exit. Twilight followed, halting briefly and taking a last glance at the actors bowing onstage as she did.
When they left the theater, they were greeted by a rush of cool evening air. The sky was bathed in orange from the setting sun and the shadows of the slender, steep-roofed buildings of Canterlot darkened the streets. The street lamps had been turned on sometime while they were in the theater, and they cast halos of pale light into the crevices of Canterlot where neither the sun nor moon could reach.
"Thanks again for coming with me, Pincer," Twilight said as they were walking back to the castle. "I know it got a bit rough at times, but I hope you still had a good day."
Pincer turned over the events of the day in his head. For the most part, the ponies didn't like or trust him despite what Celestia and Twilight said. They'd made that much clear. He still remembered the waiter's cringe when he and Twilight walked into the bistro. He still felt a twinge of anger at the stallion who'd almost gotten him removed from the theater. He wasn't sure if he could change attitudes like that in any amount of time.
Even so, his thoughts drifted back to the joy he'd lost himself in at the play, and the pony in the market who had assured him she would vouch for him. Despite his misgivings, he'd found threads of hope. Unlikely as universal acceptance was, just knowing that already some ponies out there supported him and that he'd been allowed to participate in their society to some degree made Twilight and Celestia's little field test seem just a bit less foolish.
"Better day than I'd had in a long time, actually. Truth is, Sparkle, I'm the one who should thank you."
Twilight beamed. "Oh, you mean it? So, you'd be willing to go and do this again sometime?"
She didn't have to ask twice. They were at the castle gates now. Soon he would be returning to his cell. Somehow, though, even that tiny, stone room seemed like it would be less gloomy and forlorn than before. After all, comparatively speaking, he wouldn't be there long.