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// My Thoughts Run Wilde (Canterlot Station) 
// Story: Tales From the Terminal 
// by Ezio Auditore 
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	High ceilings, chandeliers, marble statues, fine art, ponies wearing expensive clothing, such images might conjure up an image of the cultural center of a town or city, a high society gala, or perhaps an exclusive country club or lodge, but here in Canterlot it's just the damn train station. This station has quite a bit to offer, art stores, places that sell fine jewelry, it's probably the only train station in Equestria where you can get fine cheeses and vintage wine while you wait. Sure sounds snobby doesn't it? I know, I love it. 

It's gotten rather late here in Canterlot, and the station is a bit crowded with ponies heading out of town for the weekend, and other ponies visiting the capital for the weekend. I like to watch the ponies that unload out of the trains. I can often guess where they're from based on their clothing or accessories or other little details. Watching them always brings back memories of my travels, some good, others not so good but it's fun to reminisce at any rate.

I'm still enjoying this writing business though I'm not very good at it, I suppose it at least looks like I'm doing something productive which is something people like to see in their political officials. I'll be headed back to Ponyville and from there I'm flying to Cloudsdale for a meeting about something regarding the mayor up there. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to write about by then.

The ponies here in Canterlot, as you may have guessed, can be a bit stuffy. Many of them make snide little comments about the fashion sense of tourists. Ponies from Canterlot like to feel important, so rather than working to a point where they would be considered important they just classify every other member of society as being below them. It's a lot easier to wear French cuffs than it is to apply yourself. You'll find their lives are rather empty, always criticizing whatever they can, telling people what to wear, where to eat, what to listen to. It seems some ponies have such good taste, they can't enjoy themselves.

It's easy to call these people snobs, and you'd be right. But there exists equal snobbery in their opposite. All too often people who consider themselves "simple" or "country" have a sort of spiritual snobbery that's undeniable. The elite of Canterlot brag about their fashions. The proud country ponies brag about their lack of fashions. It's funny when you realize that these two groups that seem so different have so much in common. This is not to say that all ponies that enjoy finer things or all ponies that live simpler lives are wrong for doing so, but let us never think we are better than anyone else because of how we live.

The walls are lined with many paintings, mostly portraits of various political and military leaders. In front of me there is a large portrait of Whinny Churchill, who once said something that I think about a lot in my work, "Diplomacy is the art of telling somepony to go to Hell in such a way that they ask for directions." Why do we commemorate these ponies with paintings of themselves anyways? What is a portrait really? Who does the portrait really show? 

Portraits seem to reveal more about the artist than they do the model. I once saw a painting of a former dictator, the ponies he ruled over all despised him but he controlled them so he couldn't really be done away with. The lines of the portrait are so sharp, so deep, almost violent, it looked as though each brushstroke was another knife piercing him. I gathered that the artist was probably a citizen who had been forced to do this. On the other side of the spectrum, I once saw a portrait of someponies lover. It was painted with such care, the brushstrokes were light, and careful. The brush was pulled across the image so softly, as if not to harm the image. 

Portraits seem like very simple paintings, but they're a lot more than what they appear. Portraits show people only as they wanted to be seen. You may see a portrait of a general wearing his freshly cleaned and pressed dress uniform, his hair just right, his hooves freshly polished. You won't see is him in his armor, covered in filth and blood, hoping and praying that he'll see his home again. You may see a painting of an influential mayor, shaking hooves with the ponies they govern. No one would paint them in the darkest hours of the night, working away at their desk, wondering if the work will ever stop so they can spend time with their all but estranged family again.

It got me thinking, and I've realized that most ponies are just walking portraits, like the ones who were demeaning those tourists for instance. Always displaying themselves in the most flattering way possible, never letting on about the pain that may lie behind the canvas they've painted themselves on. We all know it's there. We know that no pony goes through life without suffering. So why are we so afraid to show it? I understand that no one likes to show weakness, but maybe if more of us unveiled what lies behind our masks, maybe then we could really work through the things that haunt us, maybe through our weakness we could become strong.

Wishful thinking? Maybe so, ponies like to make others think there's nothing wrong with them. I suppose most are content to show others their portrait without showing them the wall it hangs on. They'll show everypony the colors and the artistic style with which it was created but won't say a word about the easel that supported it. And of course no pony will ever hear a word about the one who painted it.