Applejack still wasn’t sure whether she won an election or a popularity contest.
Mayor Mare had been well-liked for her first term as Lord Mayor of Ponyville, as well as for about half of her second. Her third term revealed, or perhaps merely confirmed, a very unfortunate detail about herself: A penchant for Excessive Celebration.
Nopony was against a little holiday, now and again. At least not out loud, as those tended to be swamped by Pinkie Pie Parties until they succumbed to either delight or a sugar coma. Mayor Mare, on the other hoof, delighted in celebrations almost as much as the aforementioned Element of Laughter. Or the bearer thereof.
One of the key duties for a Lord Mayor of Anywhere was the balancing of the local budget. The income and the outflow, the taxes and the penalties, the spending and the other spending… Mayor Mare had the unfortunate habit of twisting the budget in favor of new holidays.
Most ponies were more than pleased about the medal-awarding ceremony for the great hero Mare-Do-Well, though four citizens later expressed an unwillingness to talk about it. Hearthswarming Eve celebrations had never been more extravagant, the foals loved it! Nightmare Night attracted even the high-viewing eye of the Princess of the Night. There was always another holiday to be declared, or a great public service to be commended, or a mighty statue to be erected.
(*): It had once been the Ponies of Ponyville, but after Cranky Doodle Donkey, his wife Matilda, Muleia Mule, Marko Mule, and Fabio the diamond dog moved in, there was something of an outcry over equal representation. Martial Paw the Griffon's on-again-off-again citizenship sealed the deal with that one.
It was near the end of that fateful third four-year term that the People of Ponyville (*) discovered that their celebration came at the expense of the road repair budget. A few thousand broken wagon wheels later, they were up in arms for some sort of restitution.
The budget, at that point, was already locked in for another year of reckless abandon. The People of Ponyville were displeased to discover that Excessive Celebration was only cause to call foul in a hoof-ball game, and not reason for impeachment. Twilight Sparkle might have mentioned something about Misuse of Public Funds, but most ponies were too busy TP-ing Mayor Mare’s house to notice.
At the end of that third term, after twelve years of broken wagon wheels and aching hooves, Applejack, a local business owner, was ready to clean house. After some serious deliberation, she decided to run for the position of Lord Mayor of Ponyville.
Her only opponent was Mayor Mare. It was, by all accounts, a rather embarrassing loss. Applejack was seen by the community to be a very practical pony, who would no doubt enact measures to correct the previous regime’s foibles.
Thus, Lord Mayor Applejack took office. Conversely to Mayor Mare’s early career, she was unpopular during her first year. The holidays were that much more down key, the celebrations that much more infrequent. The People of Ponyville sought to complain even as their roads were repaved.
The year was neatly capped off with Applejack’s famously-blunt “Do You Want Your Darned Cake or Do You Wanna Stinking Eat It?” speech. Applause was sparse.
(1): Fabio said he was honored, but he could never marry somepony whose butt smelled like flowers.
As snow fell, so too did the People of Ponyville’s collective spirit. Just before Hearth’s Warming Eve, Filthy Rich personally financed a humongous, decorated tree to be placed in the town square. Word on the street was that his daughter, Diamond Tiara, had threatened to run off to Las Pegasus to elope with the local diamond dog if he didn’t make Hearth’s Warming perfect (1).
When Winter Wrap-up came along, the People of Ponyville purchased their own vestments and supplies. When Nightmare Night rolled around, Luna chipped in for the spooky party.
(2): Untrue. Angel Bunny helped.
And all the while, road construction clogged up the highways and byways. People had to follow convoluted detours that appeared to be plotted out by Discord himself (2). Traffic jams were everywhere. When pressed for her solution to end the congestion, Applejack reportedly replied, “Ah’ll finish fixin’ the dang-blasted roads.”
And the People of Ponyville complained.
Budget planning was not the only duty allotted to Lord Mayors of Anywhere, of course. They also had a voice in the goings on around the kingdom of Equestria. Each town’s mayor reported directly to Princess Celestia, and Princess Celestia often went to them for advice on this or that matter. There was also the matter of voting on various courses of action.
For Applejack, this give and take session took the form of her first meeting with a committee.
(3): A three-time Equestria Games gold medalist, Gaston became the first griffon mayor in Equestria history. He, too, seemed to have won a popularity contest.
She liked the other mayors well enough. At least the ones who were polite to her. Mayor Fancy Pants of Canterlot was an old friend of Rarity’s, and Mayor Gaston of Cloudsdale (3) always had a funny little aside to add to the meetings.
Priscilla Palette, Lord Mayor of Fillydelphia, was not such an individual.
She decried Applejack’s policies, her approach, and her decisions. She was the countervote to Applejack’s every voiced opinion. She was the anathema to all things Apple.
Applejack almost had the urge to make a motion to declare the sky blue, just to see Priscilla fumbled over whether to agree with her or not.
“On top of that,” Priscilla had proclaimed one meeting, “her move to completely obliterate celebrations has completely demoralized the Ponies of Ponyville!”
“People of Ponyville, actually,” Applejack had informed her again. “And ah ain’t against parties. Ah still ain’t.”
Celestia nodded, her smile sweet, her eyes just hinting at fatigue. “And what, in your opinion, would be the proper way to proceed, my little pony?”
“Reinstate the celebrations!” Mayor Palette said. “Give the ponies what they want! Return to them the fruit of their labors!”
“That was the whole point of—” Applejack sat there, her forelegs pointing in whichever way would make her feel better. “Our roads look like horseapples!”
“Then maybe you should have invested in a better street-sweeper!”
Celestia bit down on her lips to prevent a snort of laughter. Regaining her composure, she popped the big question of the night. “So, tax raise.”
“Quite the unpopular subject back home,” Fancy Pants said. “If you don’t mind me saying, your Majesty.”
“It’s true enough, irregardless,” said Minnie Marzipan of Appleloosa, making everypony worth their salt in grammar wince. “But we simply don’t have the funds for what we need to do!”
“Have y’all tried cuttin’ back on a few things?” Applejack asked. “Make the budgets work that way?”
Priscilla Palette stared down her nose at her fellow mayor. “Why no, dearest. We decided it would be much more profitable to watch you fail utterly at it.”
Applejack wished desperately for a hat to push up higher on her forehead. It wasn’t part of the uniform. “Yer askin’ for a…” She groaned and fell silent.
Princess Celestia smiled in her serene way. “What do the rest of you think?”
“I dunno, Your Majesty,” Gaston the Griffon said. “We’ve got a lot of expenses up in Cloudsdale, you understand…”
“Like the new wing of the museum to display recent gold medalists.” Applejack smirked. “No conceit there, huh?”
Gaston coughed, but said no more.
“Ah’m just sayin’,” Applejack was saying, “that a little less here lets there be a little more o’er here.”
“And at the end of the day,” Priscilla chuckled, “there’s a whole lot of nothing.”
“Naw.” Applejack shrugged. “A whole lot of nothin’ was when the cake-delivery cart broke a wheel on our cruddy roads and tumbled into a ravine.”
A shake of the head accompanied Celestia’s tiny smile. “Shall we put it to a vote? Or would anyone else like to voice an opinion?”
The chorus of unaffected shrugs said that most minds had been made up long before they arrived at the meeting. During the vote, the show of hooves played out much like an interpretive dance. Applejack did not raise her hoof, and neither did Gaston raise a talon.
“Then it is settled,” Celestia said. “The tax raise is passed.”
Applejack’s eye twitched. Did Priscilla just stick her tongue out? She did!
The afterward was a nice little fellowship, with coffee and doughnuts the main reason anypony stayed. Celestia mingled for a few moments before making her way purposefully to Applejack. “May I speak with you, my little pony?”
“O’ course, Princess,” Applejack said with a small bow.
“I would like to make a request, with your permission,” Celestia said, “But first I would like to know whether you have made a stand-in mayor in case of an absence.”
(4): Somewhere, sometime, somehow, Pinkie Pie said, “I brought the life to the political party!”
“Oh, sure,” Applejack said. “She was mah runnin’ mate. (4)”
“Good.” Celestia tilted her head to the door. “Then would you accompany me on a journey out of the country?”
“Ah…” Applejack squinted. “This is all real sudden-like.”
“Well, there’s been something of a discovery in Beefland.” Celestia smiled out of the side of her mouth. “The minotaur homeland?”
“That’s… kinda unfortunately named.”
“It’s really a way of life more than a…” Celestia made a “hmm” sound. “Never mind.”
She rustled her wings to get the barest of kinks out. “I like to have all the mayors be at least the least bit knowledgeable about Equestria’s foreign relations, and I think a trip is the best way to get a feel for a country. A people.”
She grinned. “But in truthfulness, I just want a friend’s company.”
“Well, shucks.” Applejack returned the grin. “How can ah say ‘no’ to that?”
“I hoped you couldn’t.” Celestia held back a regal yawn. “Can you make the necessary arrangements in the next couple of days? I would like to proceed with all haste, due or not.”
“Heck, we can leave tomorrow, if you like.” Applejack would have taken her hat off in this bow, if she had been wearing it. “Ah’ll square things away with Pinkie, pronto.”
Celestia smiled as Applejack walked away. Her ear gave the faintest of twitches downward. “Did she say ‘Pinkie’?”
“An’ then mah brother up an’ decides that since he’s married, he needs to grow this big, dumb beard,” Applejack said. “He looks more like a peach than an Apple now with all that orange fuzz under his chin!”
Celestia laughed lightly before drawing her tea cup up to her lips. “They are happy?”
Applejack leaned back in her chair, a mug of hot cider cradled in her hooves. “Yeah. Happier than I’d ever seen ’em.” She winked. “Happy enough that ah’m expectin’ nieces and nephews any day now.”
The princess and the lord mayor shared a private cabin on the good ship, Buttercup’s Folly. Celestia, being relatively out of the public eye for once, felt a belly laugh was actually prudent for the situation. Applejack, having never really seen the princess belly laugh before, was on the edge of her seat, ready to call any number of Royal Guards down upon them.
“Y-you okay, Princess?”
“Yes, Applejack.” Celestia wiped a tear away. “It’s just nice to laugh. Sometimes I feel like some ponies would flop over dead if they so much as saw me crack a grin.”
“Ah’ll pay yah a year’s worth of Sweet Apple Acres cider if’n you try it around Prissy Palette,” Applejack said.
Celestia’s cheeks bulged as she stifled a guffaw. “That’s not very nice.”
“Neither is she.” Applejack shook her head. “What’s the big deal about laughin’, anyhow? Everypony laughs.”
Celestia turned her head to the side. “Appearance is everything, Applejack. I must present myself as serene and impartial, you understand.” She shrugged. “Nopony would follow a princess that acted like Pinkie Pie, bless her heart.”
Applejack snorted. “You ’member who you’re talkin’ to, right? Nothin’ wrong with bein’ honest. No law against it.”
“Not in Equestria,” Celestia sighed. “But they’re not the only ones I need to convince.”
Applejack’s brow furrowed. “Yeah. About that. What should ah expect?”
“Oh, President Mangle will love you, I’m sure.” Celestia waved a hoof. “He’s a soul that values the strength of telling it like it is.”
“President Mangle…” Applejack pursed her lips. “Of Beefland.”
“He’s a sweetie,” Celestia said. “Despite his name.”
There was a nervous knock on the door. “Your Majesty, Your Lordship, we’ve arrived in Beefland waters.”
Celestia rose, and Applejack followed suit. They trotted to the upper deck, where they could get a full view of the Beefland harbor. Celestia made a show of opening her wings, the sunlight reflecting off of her feathers. Applejack could see the people on land turn with wide eyes at the sight.
Applejack smirked. “Just keepin’ up appearances, huh?”
Celestia smiled, her eyes closed. “Shh. I’m trying to be regal and mystical here.”
Applejack took a second look at the shore. “Uh, Yer Majesty…”
“Yes, Applejack?”
“What… um…” Applejack shook her head. “Ah was expectin’ more minotaurs and… less cows.”
“Well, it is Beefland, is it not?”
“Ah guess.”
“They are rather beefy, aren’t they?”
“Now yer just bein’ rude, Yer Majesty.”
Celestia scrunched her face up as her wings glowed extra bright. “Shh. Regality, etcetera, etcetera.”
She gave Applejack a sparing glance out of her right eye. “Besides, it’s said that the cows and the minotaurs have a deep and enriched history together.”
Applejack pulled her hat off of her head. “We talkin’ subjugation, or…”
“Intermarriage.”
“Oh.”
Applejack looked out at the shore in a new light, one that she desperately desired to dim. “Ah can’t… make much of that…”
Celestia, under the guise of a wave at the growing crowd, pointed at her head. “Compatible horns.”
“That don’t even—” Applejack plopped her hat back on her head. “Are you teasin’ me?”
“Princesses do not tease,” Celestia said with solemnity. “They jest.”
They docked, and Celestia marched down the gangplank with grace. Applejack tottered down the gangplank with Care and Caution, the two Royal Guards accompanying them. Two other guards, Sturm and Drang, stayed behind on the Buttercup’s Folly.
Applejack had decided during the trip that she hadn’t quite gotten her sea legs. Now that she was ashore, she decided that she hadn’t quite kept her land legs either. She leaned against Caution’s muscular side. “Sorry, pardner, lost mah footin’.”
“Quite awroit, marm,” the earth pony stallion said. “Ever need a fifth leg tah stand on, oi’m yer guy.”
“Just take it a little slower”—Care sighed through her nose—“and you won’t need a fifth leg to stand.”
“Fair ’nough,” Applejack grunted. “Can’t say as ah like bein’ called ‘marm.’”
“’Pologies, then, Lord Mayor,” Caution said.
If ponies only wore clothing on special occasions, minotaurs were even more sparse in their dress. Nudity was the word of the day, no matter if they were shopkeepers, soldiers, or royalty. In its stead, they covered themselves with body paint, creating decorations of various meanings and interpretations. While that police officer over there was painted over with red and blue lines, that baker over there actually had a loaf of bread tattooed to his chest.
Applejack touched her hat, that niggling feeling of being overdressed creeping its way into her belly.
“Relax, Applejack,” Celestia said. “Nobody’s going to think less of you.”
“Really?” Applejack mumbled. “’Cuz ah got a million eyes on me right now.”
“It’s just curiosity.” Celestia nodded towards a large building at the center of the city. “That’s their capitol building. Mangle and his family live there.”
The structure was generally oval, if you didn’t pay too much attention to the squared-off entrances. Strange lines of color streaked across its surface, giving it a friendly appearance. It had the appearance of a Spring Solstice egg that had the ends cut off.
“So what do they call that?” Applejack asked.
“The Egg.”
Applejack’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
“Don’t ask me why,” Celestia said, a twinkle in her eye. “I think it fits, though.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Applejack shrugged. “Ah was expectin’ it to be some sort of pun, like ‘the Bullwark.’”
“You’ve lived in Equestria too long,” Celestia said.
They came through the building’s entrance and were led to a sitting room. While the chairs were mostly designed to accommodate the frames of minotaurs, there were a few cow-friendly seats available. Celestia took one of the larger cushions, while Applejack settled down a few feet away from her.
“His Excellency will meet with you shortly,” the cow aide said. She spoke into a tiny black wire hanging from her ear and walked out of the room.
Applejack looked around the room. “Swanky.”
The wood on the chairs was carved into intricate designs, like she had only seen done by a unicorn. A lion’s face roared out of one armrest, and the chair’s legs ended in lion’s paws.
“Hands are marvelous things,” Celestia said. “Sometimes I’ve considered trying them out, just for a day.”
“Not me.” Applejack shuddered. “A leg ain’t supposed to end in that many points.”
“Announcing His Excellency, President Mangle of Beefland!” the cow aide said as she appeared quite suddenly. Celestia stood, and Applejack followed her lead. A massive minotaur that looked to be at least ninety-percent muscle stood in the doorway, his shoulders scraping the sides.
“President Mangle.” Celestia smiled a serene, small smile. “It has been far too long.”
“Likewise, Princess Celestia.” The minotaur bowed, and Applejack almost thought she heard his muscles creak in protest. “I can’t wait to get caught up over a good meal, but we have pretty beefy things to talk about first.”
“Indeed.” Celestia nodded. “Your letter mentioned that I needed to come immediately, but you didn’t quite specify why.”
“Well”—Mangle rubbed the back of his neck—“you know I wouldn’t tell you to get over here without a good cause.”
Celestia gave a friendly smirk. “Yes. That is why I am here instead of exchanging form letters with your office.”
She extended a wing over Applejack’s head. “But first, I’d like to introduce my assistant for the trip: Applejack, Lord Mayor of Ponyville.”
Applejack blushed at the use of her full title. “Please to make yer acquaintance, yer Excellency.”
Mangle extended a fist, which Applejack met with a bump. “Likewise, but call me Mangle. Or Prez, if you wanna get more formal.”
Applejack nodded. “Then ‘Applejack’ is just fine with me.”
President Mangle beckoned for them to follow him with a strange little dance of his fingers. Care and Caution followed at a respectable distance. They navigated the halls of the Egg until they stood near its middle. Mangle put his hand on a door handle. “So, we’re all cool with how beefy a secret this is, right?”
Celestia raised a concerned eyebrow. “International Security?”
“More important than that,” the President of Beefland said. “We found a new Sapience.”
Applejack thought for a moment. “A whatnow?”
“A new creature,” Celestia whispered. “A new creature that exhibits the ability to reason.”
She frowned. “This could be dangerous. The last new Sapiences were the changelings.”
Mangle nodded, his hand gripping the handle tightly. “And the one before that was Discord. But I think this one will be a lot different.”
Applejack touched one foreleg with her other hoof. “How beefy of a difference are we talkin’ about?”
Mangle gave her a wry smile. He turned back to Celestia with level eyebrows. “Well, you can see for yourself.”
He opened the door, admitting the Princess and the Lord Mayor, but not their guards. Applejack found herself in another sitting room, but one a bit more comfortably furnished. Instead of lion’s heads, the armrests had simple loopy carvings that could be done with even an earth pony’s dexterity.
At the far end of the room sat a creature, wrapped tightly in a home-stitched blanket. Long hair flowed off of its head and obscured its face. From what could be made out from the slouching, concealed form, it was bipedal like a minotaur, but had mostly bald skin aside from its head. The legs looked like they were missing a joint, since the ankle was low. The creature cowered deeper into the blanket at their appearance and emitted a whine.
“Hello, little one,” Celestia said in her most soothing voice. “Can you tell me your name?”
The creature said something in a garbled, throaty language.
Celestia gave Mangle a “psst” out of the side of her mouth. “Have you figured out what language it’s speaking?”
“Can’t make steak or beef of it, Celestia.” Mangled popped his knuckles absently. “I think it’s been isolated from anybody for however long it’s been around.”
“You obviously have a language,” Celestia told the creature. “So you haven’t been completely alone.” She pursed her lips. “There must be some way to communicate—”
“Hey, Prez,” the cow aide said from outside the door. “We’ve got a new arrival at the gates. He’s been shouting that he needs a red carpet to walk in on.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. Celestia sighed. “You invited Izod, didn’t you?”
“Well, you know…” Mangle danced his fingers together. “This is a really big discovery.”
Light dawned in Celestia’s eyes. “Mangle, just how many leaders did you invite?”
President Mangle shuffled back a step. “All of them.”
“All,” Celestia said. “All,” she repeated.
“Declaring the arrival of Izod the Immense, Lord of the Land of Lightninggale!”
(5): To remove all ambiguity, her name is Aida.
The cow aide, whose name will surely come up sooner or later (5), found herself shoved forward into the room. A donkey stood behind her, arrayed in scarlet, purple, and gold robes. The crown atop his head was at least as heavy as the donkey himself was, if not as huge. A slightly more concisely dressed donkey stood just outside the room, girded in a purple tunic with a gold strand about his middle.
“And Advisor Aspen the Alliterative,” the cow aide mumbled.
Celestia bowed her head in reverence, which not-quite-coincidentally placed her mouth next to Applejack’s ear. “Sorry, Applejack. You’re about to get a little more culture than I bargained for.”