Half of Stalliongrad lay in smoking rubble, and the sun was blotted by a thousand griffins as they came down to rend what was left. The city’s scattered militias could only regroup and pray that air support would come in time.
And that was when Firefly OBE (Order of Being Excellent) bombed out of the sky, shades on and yelling “GUESS WHO?!”, and the griffins screamed like little babies and ran – those that Firefly didn’t belly-slam, grab the paws of, and go “STOP HITTING YOURSELF!”...
“An’ that’s what your grandma did in the war, is it?” asked Applejack, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, that’s how she told it,” said Rainbow Dash. “And yeah, okay, I did find out that the Order of Being Excellent was the first-prize in a drinking contest, but she did get the Distinguished Flying Cross.”
“Land’s sakes! What did she do?”
“Flew head-first into a griffin raiding party and butted them all!” she said proudly. “This was right after she’d won the drinking contest.”
Fluttershy stared at Rainbow Dash with astonishment. “Oh wow. I-I-I don’t think I could ever do that.”
“Yeah, you seem like you’d collapse after half a cider.”
“Two-thirds,” said Fluttershy, burning with shame. “But, um, I meant the… the fighting thing. I think that every Remembrance Day.”
The three ponies had arrived in the town square, which was decorated for the morning’s Remembrance Day commemoration. Every pony in the town wore the red poppy. Replica posters were in every corner, telling ponies that the enemy could see your lights, to plant for victory, to keep calm and canter on, and that Celestia needed you. They were icons of Equestrian history, recognisable even by the youngest foals, which was handy because Derpy had managed to hang half of them upside down.
“Man kin didn’t do much fighting, they mostly stayed on the farm,” said Applejack, eyeing one of the Plant For Victory posters; a cheery stallion in a straw hat was digging away, the very picture of farmers as imagined by people in cities. “Too vital for the war effort. It was honest work. ‘Cept Great Uncle Arkansas’ black market stuff but we don’t talk much ‘bout him. What did your kin do, Fluttershy?”
“Oh, um, ah, not as much as yours. And certainly no fighting.”
“No worries, not everyone can be as cool as Granny Firefly,” said a magnanimous Dash. “Except me, natch.”
“I have some shopping to do.” Fluttershy gave a little wave and began to trot off. “Um, have fun with Twilight.”
“Ha!”
---
Snips and Snails craned their necks ninety degrees, and the poster over the library started to make sense.
“Celestia’s pointing… and then Wants You… Celestia wants us!” Snips gazed in amazement. “Whoa! That’s clever.”
“Y’think she’d have really wanted us?”
“You bet! Boy, if I’d been around back then, and some griffin had come over to Ponyville looking for trouble, you know what I’d have done?!”
A griffin flew down from above.
“You’ve got a hotel here?” she asked.
“T-T-T-Town sq-sq-square,” gibbered Snips.
After the griffin had wandered off, a confused Snails asked: “I don’t think Celestia would’ve wanted that.”
---
The other two ponies trotted onwards. Up ahead, they could see their friend Twilight Sparkle trying to explain to Pinkie Pie that they were putting up war propaganda posters and not just posters:
“I’m sure New Colts on the Block are a very nice band but they just don’t fit here.”
“Can I still put up the ad for Sugarcube Corner? I made it myself!”
Twilight looked at the crayon words saying ‘Shop at Sugarcube Corner it has cakes’. “I can see that. Sorry, no.” She gave a massive sigh of relief once she saw Applejack and Dash. “Thanks for coming guys, I’m getting swamped with the preparations. Checking the posters are all the right way up is going to take an hour on its own! I’m already behind schedule after the problem with the re-enactment costumes…”
“Rarity, when I said we needed Great War era costumes for the re-enactment, I meant…” Twilight looked at the offending garments and struggled to articulate herself. “They didn’t wear ruffs back then!”
“I’ve seen what they were forced to wear, darling,” said Rarity (wearing a poppy-composed dress), a look of pity on her face. “My old great-aunt used to show me her photographs from the old days and say what a shame it was they had to ration clothes and how she’d have loved to have worn something with splendour – well, now they can! I’m doing my part to pay tribute to our greatest generation!”
“We then had a forty minute debate on truth versus beauty in art,” said Twilight. “This is the seventieth Remembrance Day since the Great War ended, and many of the veterans won’t see the seventh-fifth. I just want to make things historically accurate, is that too much to ask?”
The conversation was interrupted when a griffin wandered over.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Pinkie. “I think you’re taking accuracy a bit too far, Twilight!”
“I’ll pretend I understood that,” said the griffin. “My name’s Gina, I’m trying to find a hotel?”
“There’s one over there.” Twilight pointed over at it. “What brings you here?”
“I’m here on business. On that note-“ Gina whipped out a briefcase and opened it up to show a row of glossy brochures. “-do you realise how much you could save if you switched from your current gas supplier to EquesPower?! Recent surveys have shown…”
“EVIL!” screamed Pinkie Pie. “EVIL! SHUN! FOR FREEDOM!”
Gina sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I wanted to be a ballet dancer, you know.”
“I’m being historically accurate!” said Pinkie Pie proudly.
A long, uncomfortable silence fell as everyone worked out what had just happened.
Twilight had started to say “it’s not what you think” when a huge poster of a pony punching a griffin descended down, right in front of everyone, held aloft by a hovering Derpy.
“This is the right way up, yeah?”
“Yes,” growled Twilight, but Gina had slunk off. “That went poorly.”
“Yeah, that poster isn’t the right way up,” said Rainbow Dash.
“No, I meant – it’s not?! Oh for Celestia’s sake!”
The unicorn ran off to restore a semblance of order, and the other three stood around in that really embarrassing situation where everyone is waiting for someone else to talk first.
Applejack lost. “So… Uh, that Gina gal’s probably a bit ticked.”
“She hates posters that are topsy turvy too? Her and Twilight could become friends!”
This is gonna take a while… thought Applejack.
--
The Come Inn declared itself the friendliest hotel in Equestria, a claim that lasted all of five seconds after Gina came in. The atmosphere went colder than a penguin’s unmentionables and the staff gave her a suspicious glare.
“One room for the night, please.”
The inn-keeper had already been eating but now slowed down so his chewing became more threatening.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
Stereotypically, he’d have said something about there bein’ no room fer your kind but the Come Inn had a mortgage to pay, so he actually said “yep”. But he said it in a very grumpy way.
“Ooookay then.”
---
“…and that’s why it was dang rude. You get it now, Pinkie?”
Her brow knit with concentration, Pinkie Pie said: “Since you’re a filly, shouldn’t you be called Applejane?”
Applejack groaned. “Celestia wept…”
“Don’t worry, it’s not that bad a name.”
“I give up and I’m not the one who’s been trying,” said Dash. “I’ll try and find Gina and explain Pinkie is… Pinkie.”
“Pinkamina was a bad name so I changed it!”
Applejack groaned and face-hoofed.
---
Since she’d missed lunch at the Inn, Gina was forced to go back outside to scrounge up food. The low-level mistrust and the mutterings weren’t new, she’d been sensing it ever since arriving in Ponyville, but she’d assumed they already knew she was a door-to-door saleswoman.
“Did I ever tell you my granddad was one of the last ponies evacuated from Dockirk?” said a colt in a just-so-loud voice.
“Oh? My granddad was one of the other last ponies to be evacuated from Dockirk!”
“I went to Dockirk on holiday once-“ The third colt got a hard nudge from his fellows. “Oh, right, sorry.”
Gina walked off scowling, ready to hit the next person who mouthed off, and so it was a bit embarrassing when she walked into Fluttershy instead and the pegasus wilted.
“I’m sorry.”
“But you haven’t done anything,” said Gina.
“Oh?” Fluttershy smiled. “That’s good. Um, hi.”
“Hi! Have you been bothered about how much you spend on your gas bill every day?!”
Fluttershy thought for a minute. “Not really. I use EquesPower, they’re very nice. I think the whole town does.”
Now it was Gina’s turn to wilt. “Of course.”
The public mood had gone down to “penguin unmentionables” and now Fluttershy was getting a bit of a glare too. On reflex, she apologised to everyone.
“It looks really bad,” hissed someone.
Fluttershy looked mournfully at her shopping bag. “Oh. Rarity told me the flower pattern suited me.”
“They don’t mean that,” said Gina in a dull monotone.
Fluttershy waited patiently to hear what they meant.
“It’s… it’s disrespectful, y’know?” said somepony.
Fluttershy waited patiently to hear what they meant.
“It’s… y’know!”
“No, I don’t,” she admitted.
Things would either have gone round and round in circles – or led to someone yelling “Look, no griffs, alright?!” – if Rainbow Dash hadn’t trotted into the crowd, calling out Gina’s name. (Gina looked behind her in case the pony meant someone else)
“We never did a proper intro! I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest pony this side of the Wonderbolts, and hey, you already met Fluttershy – so, what’s this about saving money? Always up for that! More money means more… er, money!”
“Don’t you already have EquesPower?”
“Uh…” Dash tried to remember if she did or not. “There’s gotta be more than one scheme for it though, right?”
“…yes! Yes there is!” Gina opened up her briefcase and began rummaging through the leaflets. “I know there’s something about premium accounts in here…”
Dash sensed eyes on her and said back to everyone: “Hey, my Grandma Firefly was at Stalliongrad and she went on holiday to the Griffin Kingdom all the time. (She said they had the best pubs) Who the heck are you?”
The griffin’s head snapped up. “Whoa! The Firefly?! Awesome! My gran’s still got a dent in her beak from where your gran headbutted her!”
“Awww man, too cool! Sishoof!”
“Sisclaw!”
The crowd began to feel the great burning shame of pure shame, not helped by the fact Fluttershy – now she knew what everyone had meant – was glaring at them. And she had one heck of a glare.
“My grandma always found it disrespectful when people used the Great War as an excuse to be jerks.”
Because there’s always one in the crowd, someone (at the back where they couldn’t be seen) called out: “Yeah, and who was she?”
Fluttershy looked down and mumbled: “Um. Major Fluttershy CC, Royal Army Veterinary Corps.”
Everyone went very, very quiet. Except Rainbow Dash who screamed out: “The Celestia Cross?”
“Oh, that’s what CC means? I just know she got the title after Glauvyle-”
“She was Vet Corps at GLUE VALLEY?!” Rainbow Dash forced her jaw shut. “And… and you never mentioned this.”
“Um, well, heh, she always said she’d done nothing really and never talked about it, and everyone else kept saying how awesome their grandparents had been, so… um… CC in the Veterinary Corps is good then?”
There was a long, embarrassed silence, broken by Gina saying: “My gran just gets a pension.”
“A good pension?” asked Rainbow Dash to be polite.
“Depends if you’re asking her for more pocket money or not.”
---
At the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the next day, Celestia lowered the Sun for one minute and all across Equestria, the ponies stood in silence.
Fluttershy stood with pride.
---
Dear Princess Celestia
I didn’t have to learn much because I’m totally awesome, but a lot of other ponies learned a valuable lesson: it’s a good thing to remember the past and all the cool things that older ponies did, and they may even turn out to be cooler than you thought they were. But you also shouldn’t use that past as a way of deciding who gets to be a friend. Just because we had a war in the past, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends now!
Yours awesomely,
Rainbow Dash
PS My friend Gina wants to know if you’re happy with your current gas company and if you’ve thought of switching to EquesPower.
---
Spike burped a reply and Gina & Dash checked it out.
“She is happy with them. Well, it was worth a shot.”
THE END
-
AUTHOR’S NOTES: MLP and all characters and concepts are © and TM of Hasbro. The details for Equestria’s Remembrance Day are pinched from the real Remembrance Day, including adding “VC” after your name if you get the Victoria Cross.
Dash’s gran Firefly: Yeah, I went there.