//------------------------------//
// The Secrets of Wild, Unknown Mares 
// Story: The Remarkable Rarity 
// by Zelderon 
//------------------------------//

“So, what do think Twilight?” asked a distraught voice that was invading my studying time.

“Hmm? What was that?” I lied as I looked up from the research I was conducting for my latest editorial in the CSGU News. The article ended up being as boorish and uninsightful as the rest.

“Well what do you think I should do?” asked the mare whose name and face both escaped me. I was certain I had met her acquaintance previously but I didn’t quite care enough to attempt to remember. 

“I just don’t know else who turn to. I feel like I’m losing my mind, I’m at the end of my line. I don’t even think I care about what my mother thinks anymore.” cried the troubled and not entirely sober mare.

“I’m sorry, but I’m terribly busy. Furthermore I don’t even know you. I don’t feel it’s entirely proper for you to be sharing such intimate revelations.” Quite honestly I did not get involved in another incident that involved me getting dragged before the disciplinary board for being a “politician” trying to “incite unlawfulness.” It wasn’t my fault I decided to not vocally criticize somepony who decided to unionize some earth pony factory workers who happened to try to talk me. 

“Is that pony disturbing you, Twilight?” an imposing alicorn sauntered over to us. I remembered her from my class but I wasn’t particularly close to Cadance Amore.

She towered over the both of us, flexing her powerful wings aggressively as if they would strike the both of us at any second. The other mare, Twinkleshine was it?, slunk away shooting a sullen look at Cadance when she turned to face me.

“Hmmf, if any rabble harass you Twilight you just tell me. I came over here to say you should come to tomorrow night’s hoofball game. You can write about it in your little newspaper. I’ll be the starting tight end.” Cadance bragged, not so discretely moving her legs and torso so they were precisely positioned so as to maximize any viewer’s view of her sculpted musculature.

“My aunts will be there too, so you might actually have something decent to write about. You can sit in our family’s private box.”

Once long ago I may have denied it, telling myself that my upbringing precluded such thoughts. I have a sharp, persistent distaste for most of my old classmates. Though I may strive to tolerate every pony, knowing that I cannot possibly understand all the infinitesimal threads of life that make up each pony, I know that snobbish failure is inevitable as the winds that beat against the tallest spires of Canterlot. After the riotous events of last summer I think I no longer suffer from this cognitive dissonance. I sit in my ivory tower not with pride or even contentment, but with a sense of blasé defeat that comes with the acceptance of fate.

I’ve learned that, without fail, whenever a story is told there are always details lost and forgotten or warped and coopted from other tales and experiences. I no longer trust the confessions of wild, passionate mares. There is never sufficient time or space for honesty. Generosity has no place in Equestria, though it might fervently struggle to carve one out amongst the wellbred elites of old unicornian nobility. Be it a golden bit or a sympathetic ear or unyielding devotion, nothing can be given without inexorable consequence and punishment.

Perhaps Neighton put it best: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A painting of a stern old unicorn with a lavender coat and deep purple mane with pink stripes still glares down at me from my childhood home. It is an unchanging and constant as that day many years ago when I uncomfortably shuffled up to Coco and roughly stuffed a crudely made card into her forehooves before retreating away back to my room.