21 December, Y.C. 969
Ponyville
“…distinct honor and privilege to present to you the pony responsible for this settlement: Dag Hammer!”
The crowd gave a smattering of polite applause as the little town’s mayor gestured at Dag, a smile beaming from his face. He was on the older side as far as mayors went, but the hoof he held out to beckon the diplomat onstage was rock steady. He might be contemplating a retirement soon, but here was a mayor who would ride this little wave of populism as far as it would take him.
“Thank you, Mayor Maher,” said Dag with a gracious nod at the blue pony. “Let me first say that it is an honor to be here today, as a representative on behalf of Equestria — of Ponyville itself.”
He was met by smiles. Most of the crowd consisted in various dignitaries, businessponies, and reporters, none of whom had any business being excited for Ponyville. They all, though, recognized the need to at least look interested. And besides, the smiles of the locals were fairly infectious. It wasn’t every day that your little town got to host the winter solstice celebrations, much less serve as the site of one of the biggest internal political developments in the better part of a decade.
“Before I get to my prepared remarks,” he said, with a glance at the reporter corps to make sure they weren’t overly ruffled by his deviation from the slated text, “I would like to offer a slight correction. This agreement is not the work of one pony; no agreement ever is.”
He gave a broad nod to his right, looking over his diplomatic staff, all of whom had turned out to see the speechifying in person — even though they were responsible for having written most of it.
“Today would not have happened were it not for the hard-working ponies behind the scenes, the mares and stallions responsible not only for keeping everything running,” and he looked over the entire staff, “but also for supporting us all throughout this process.”
His gaze lingered on Jackie for a second. She smiled, calm and radiant as the dawn. For supporting me, he had meant, and she knew it.
Dag glanced at the town clock. He still had a minute or so of dead air to fill until the airtime scheduled for his speech was supposed to begin. The radioponies would tape delay everything if necessary, but he knew they would much rather stream it direct. He knew just how to fill that time.
“Otto, would you stand up please?”
A thin grey pony in the front row blinked furiously at him.
“Yes, you. Stand up!”
After a moment, the pony caught on, nodded ever so slightly, and stood, facing the rest of the crowd.
“Much as I would love to thank my staff individually,” he said, coincidentally glancing at Jackie again, “I can’t. Otto, as my chief of staff, thanks to you will have to suffice.” He turned back towards the crowd, addressing them in his orating voice. “Otto von Ribbentrot, on behalf of the good ponies of Equestria, let me be the first to extend a hearty applause!”
The crowd dutifully broke into claps. Otto nodded somewhat awkwardly, then sat back down. He was a chief of staff for a reason; public presence wasn’t exactly his strong suit.
Towards the back of the crowd, Dag could see the radio techs looking at him expectantly. Fifteen seconds left — if they wanted to have a few seconds’ radio delay, he would have to start sooner, rather than later.
All right then. He cleared his throat and straightened the printed edges of the speech. Not that he needed it; he had the thing memorized, cold. All it took was the smallest of mental shifts… and then he was no longer addressing a crowd of sixty on a slightly chilly winter afternoon in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but rather speaking straight to something like two thirds of the nation, in real time. No one would be missing this speech, even if it was a just filler until the Princess showed up.
“To Princess Celestia! To the Royal Council; to the ponies of Equestria; to those mares and fillies, colts and stallions listening at home; to those of you with me today in Ponyville on this bright midwinter day.”
There wasn’t a verb in that sentence, but that much was acceptable. Certainly his tone was solid enough. Perhaps a bit scratchy, but it was dry out. Middle of winter; what could they expect?
“Before I come to describe this agreement which is to be signed in the coming hours, I would like to remind us all of two things which I think it essential not to forget when the following proposal is being considered.”
Not perhaps the most stirring start to a speech, but then again he wasn’t in it for the rhetoric. He was here to give the pundits something to talk about; this was as much a governmental policy statement as anything issued from Canterlot in the past week, and everypony knew it.
“The first is this: we have not negotiated today to determine the domestic status of the region of Blackacre. That has been decided already, in accordance with the Blackacre Charter.”
He paused for a moment. Yes, he would need to drink some water at some point during this speech. There was a glass on the podium; maybe he could find a longish pause and work it in quickly. It would look silly, but he wasn’t there to look good; all that mattered was how it sounded.
“The second point to remember is that time is one of the essential factors. All the elements are present on the spot for the outbreak of a conflict which might have precipitated a civil catastrophe.” Hyperbolic, perhaps, but no more so than any of the other rhetoric on the air the past week. “Tensions were high and tempers were inflamed. It was and remains essential that we should quickly reach a conclusion, so that this difficult transfer might be carried out at the earliest possible moment, in order that we might avoid the possibility of something that might have rendered all attempts at a civil solution pointless.”
He closed his eyes, orating the next bits by memory. They flowed quickly now, a recital of past grievances of both sides mixed with just a touch of historical whitewashing in a valiant attempt to paint both sides as in the right.
Every now and again he glanced at the Blackacrean delegation, off to his left. LeFleur stood out quite neatly, her white coat radiant in the midwinter sun… the rest of her delegation was in formalwear of green and black, but she settled for just green, a lighter shade which complemented her mane just so.
“…settlement of the Blackacre Question, which will now be achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger development in which all of Equestria may find prosperity. This morning I had another talk with the Blackacrean Mayor, Beatrix; here is the paper which bears her name on it as well as mine.”
He held up a small sheet, the seals of both Canterlot and Blackacre at the bottom, with the Equestrian sigil centered — after all, this was technically an internal dispute, and Blackacre remained a region under the auspices of the Princess, just like any other.
“Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains, but I would just like to read an excerpt to you: ‘We regard the agreement to be signed today as symbolic of the desire of the ponies of Equestria to never conflict with one another again.’”
He replaced the agreement on the podium. It might be signed, but it didn’t bind anyone to anything; only the full agreement would do that. Even so, the scrap confirmed that this was just a formality: both parties had already agreed to the conflict’s ultimate resolution.
As Dag went on, he caught Jackie’s eye; she kept glancing behind him, over the lake. That must be the Mane — an impression confirmed only a minute later as he heard the first low rumble of the airship’s engines. A quick look at the town clock showed that they were right on time, but he was running a minute or two late.
So be it: he jettisoned a paragraph or three and headed right for the finale.
“My friends, my Equestrians, my countryponies,” he started, his voice broad and warm. Towards the back of the audience the radioponies flipped through the script, realizing that it was coming to an end.
“Sixteen years ago, the Equestrian Ambassador returned from the Badlands, bearing an offer of long-awaited peace. Ambassador Kissinmare stopped here, in Ponyville, where he broadcast those long-awaited words.”
He paused for a moment, savoring the memory. Some of his audience would be too young to remember, but many of them would have been there, huddled around radios, straining to hear the Ambassador’s deep voice.
We have all suffered, he had said. We have all tried and been tried. Neither the long years nor the fierce attacks of the enemy have in any way weakened our unbending resolve. This is the victory of freedom. This is your victory!
And here he was, Dag Hammer, daring to match that? For a moment, he almost forgot to go on. When he did speak, his voice was slow and respectful of the sacrifices made in the Skirmishes. Yet it was still substantially louder than he would have liked; the humming of the Mane’s engines was distinctly stronger now. They must be on final approach.
“Today, and for the second time in recent history, a Canterlot diplomat has returned to Ponyville, bringing to you news of peace and honor,” he said, allowing himself a small smile. “I believe this is peace — peace for our time.”
Almost immediately, the crowd broke into cheers. Dag blinked, taken aback at the strength of the reaction; even some of the Blackacrean delegates seemed to genuinely approve of the sentiment.
The clapping started to die down after a few seconds, but for some reason the volume didn’t. Murmurs from the crowd had taken its place, despite the radioponies’ strict admonitions that there was to be no other noise… and yet they too were talking to each other, exchanging worried glances.
Dag started to say something, but was drowned out by the murmurs, which had developed into full-on words in the last few seconds, loud and low. Something was wrong here, and he couldn’t quite place it; his face contorted into a frown, utterly mystified. What —
A shrill scream snapped him out of it. Dag whipped around, realizing with horror that those weren’t words… they were engines.
Behind him, the Mane was still above the lake — but even at first glance something was horrible and unquestionably wrong. It was far too low, barely a ship-length above the surface and closing on their position fast; the ship’s underslung bridge was gone, a charred black hole burnt into the vessel’s envelope.
With a start he realized the damned thing was burning, flames whipping out of the few remaining windows on the gondola, a black pillar of smoke trailing behind it a mile high. The flames licked out the windows and curled up, curled forward, snaking around the airship’s skin like wraithlike vines — and they were green, a sickly color, green almost glowing against the thick black smoke, her engines flailing, whining well beyond their tolerances —
It was at that precise moment that Dag realized that the Mane was not, in fact, drawing closer, but instead falling closer, the burning hulk stripped of any semblance of control, four hundred thousand pounds of burning steel coming down right at them.
“Jackie!” he shouted, turning towards her, but he couldn’t see, the sky blotted out by green flames and his mind scrambled by the heat on the back of his neck, then the overpowering blast and a wave of green —