After the fire was extinguished, a crowd of earth ponies reunited at the center of town. Princess Platinum was exposed blindfolded and chained in front of them. There were three spear wielding ponies on her left side and three more on her right side.
Seed Sower gazed upon the crowd, they all looked uncertain or regretful, not a single one happy face, even Seed Sower wasn’t sure himself. Estrella was among them, doing her best to ignore the feeling of a black hole opening in her heart and avoiding the look of Platinum’s face, even though Princess Platinum couldn’t look back.
“Very well... let’s get this over with,” Seed Sower snorted, he tied a rope around Platinum’s neck who stood firmly and took a deep breath. “Princess Platinum, the community has decided that the crimes that the unicorns have made against earth ponies can only be paid with death. Therefore, you are to be executed by being hung from your neck until you die. Do you have any last words?” asked Seed.
Platinum smiled and shook her head, “I’ll make no excuses. If this is the price I have to pay, so be it.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Estrella yelled from the crowd, “You could have easily escaped anytime you wanted! Are you really going to throw your life away just for this dumb ‘friendly approach’? We all saw what you did, just ask for mercy and we’ll all forgive you!”
“Yes I am. And no, I will not,” she replied, the whole crowd gasped.
“Ugh, I can’t believe you! Stop this nonsense, Seed! I object!” Estrella exploded in anger, the whole crowd screamed and protested against the execution. Seed Sower let go of the longest sigh in his life, feeling an unbearable weight drop from his back, he proceeded to untie the unicorn’s neck.
“By popular demand, Princess Platinum,” said Seed, “Your life has been spared, do you have anything to say?”
Princess Platinum took off the cloth covering her eyes, and jumped onto Estrella with teary eyes and hugged her tightly. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I was so very, very scared! I thought my life was over! Thank you so much!”
“Fine… just knock it off... would you stay away? Darn it!” Estrella flushed a little, and pushed Platinum away, “Whatever happened to that cool attitude you had a second ago? You saved my life, I saved yours. We’re even. No big deal.”
“And you are still our prisoner,” Seed took the cloth that Platinum dropped, and blinded her eyes again, “Back to your cell, we’ll find something to do with you later.”
“Fair enough,” Princess Platinum sniffed and cleaned her nose before being escorted back to Estrella’s house to be locked again. Princess Platinum fell unconscious as soon as she arrived her cell, Estrella freaked out for a moment, until she heard the loudest snore coming out of Platinum’s mouth. Slightly annoyed, Estrella just left locked the door.
On midday, a brown earth pony arrived to the village, her golden mane and tail danced along her hasty pace as she sprinted through the street and ignoring all the earth ponies that approached her to smile and greet her. She ran straight to Estrella’s house, and opened the door with one strong push from her two front hooves like trying to break down the door.
“Knock, knock!” she claimed as she walked in, scanning every inch in the house, trying locate something.
“For goodness sake, boss! This is not what I had in mind when I asked you if you ever knocked,” replied Estrella, very angry and surprised.
“Is it true? Where is she? I want to see her, right now!” yelled the brown earth pony, while she shook Estrella by her shoulders.
Estrella opened a poorly improvised cell door, and inside was the princess unicorn, laid on her flank, immobile. Estrella rolled her eyes, while her visitor grabbed her and shook her, trying to wake the unicorn up, with no reaction at all.
“What did you do to her!? She’s not… is she dead!?”
“Well, we said we’d execute her at dawn,” Estrella left for a few seconds, “But circumstances changed last night, and well, I couldn’t let her die after what she did.” She returned with a bucket filled with water, and with a giant smile on her face, she spilled the water on the sleeping unicorn who immediately woke up with a long gasp.
“Don’t leave me!” screamed the unicorn, trembling, cold and confused, she looked around and realised she had visitors, she gave an unconvincing smile.
The earth pony smiled, and hugged her, very overjoyed, “Thanks to the imaginary numbers! They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Umm, I’m fine, I’m fine,” said the unicorn, responding as naturally as she could, “I slept like a log.”
“More like a bear,” mumbled Estrella.
“You shut up!” the mare turned hostile toward Estrella, and her hostility disappeared when she talked to Princess Platinum again, “It’s been so many years, you probably don’t remember me.”
Princess Platinum looked at the mare, inspecting her from tail to mane, her brownish color and her mustard yellow mane and tail seemed familiar. Platinum stood in front of her and with a worried looked she spoke, “I got nothing… sorry.”
“Do the words snowball fight and banquet ring a bell?” the mare smiled at Platinum, who stood in silence during ten seconds flat, and then she suddenly gasped.
“I remember! Yeah! It’s you! I’m so glad to see you’re ok!”
“My name is Smart Cookie,” smiled the earth pony, “I’m a scholar from the northern village, and one of the Chief’s assistants. They say that all unicorns were terrible monsters who only bring death upon us earth ponies. But since I met you, I knew it wasn’t true, I knew there was an unicorn who was different. I never forgot about you. And when I heard the news of the Unicorn Princess being held prisoner in the western village, I couldn’t even integrate a constant number, I had to see it for myself!”
“Ahem, hello? Did I miss anything?” asked Estrella, with a sign of annoyance.
“Oh, sorry Estrella,” responded Smart Cookie, ”Please tell everyone that Princess Platinum is no longer your prisoner, she’s my honor guest now.”
“If that means she’ll no longer live under my roof, that’s fine. But she’s not my prisoner, she’s Seed’s,” explained Estrella, “you’ll have to answer to him. And I don’t think he’ll be happy to hear that… or to see you.”
“Bring. It. On.” Responded Smart Cookie with a confident look on her face.
The earth ponies and Princess Platinum reunited in the dining room, Estrella was on one side of the table, calmly drinking a cup of daisy tea. Princess Platinum was in front of Estrella, gulping and trying very hard to look calm, but the other two earth ponies sitting next to them were having their own personal war on the table.
“When I say no, it means ‘no way in hay I’m gonna let you have it your way’, and that’s my last word!” claimed Seed Sower.
“I’m afraid you don’t understand your position here. Let’s put it this way, I am a multiplication, and you are just a sum, so obviously, I have the highest hierarchy.”
“I spoke against your ‘method’ to wipe out the unicorns,” she drank all the tea in her cup with in one gulp and slammed the cup against the table. “The Chief Puddinghooves was on your side because he’s your friend. But everyone else knew it was a terrible idea. Do you have any idea how many ponies were subtracted from our numbers because of that reckless assault? How many wounded? How many supplies were spent? If it wasn’t for your foolishness, none of that would have happened!”
“First, I don’t understand what you say when you use all those confusing math terms. And second, you are but a coward that would rather stay hidden and wait for imminent death, than fighting for your right to live! The Chief understands that we must fight!!”
“But we must know what fights we should fight! Sometimes it’s wiser to factor the equation before trying to solve it! It’s not being coward, it’s being prudent, patient. I can have you stripped off of your title as leader of this village right now for this insult and not even Chief Puddinghooves will save you from that! But you know what? I won’t, because you brought a very important unicorn with you. She will come with me now, I’ll introduce her to town as a guest, and we’ll have a nice little chat about what she said to the Chief.”
“Really!? You know about that!?” Princess Platinum expressed a tremendous joy and hope upon hearing this, her eyes shining bright as stars, “And you’re willing to listen to me!?”
“Hold it! I haven’t said I’m ok with this!” objected Seed Sower, he stomped on the table, “Keeping her as a prisoner may guarantee our survival and will compromise the unicorn’s offensive tactics!”
“You plan on hiding behind a hostage, and you accuse me of being a coward?” Smart Cookie laughed as she stood up, and turned her sight to Platinum and smiled, “You are not a prisoner anymore, come with me.”
“Hold on a second!” Seed tried to intervene.
“This conversation is over!” Smart Cookie glared at Seed, and he calmed down immediately, gritting his teeth as Smart kept talking, “We already tried your formula, now we’ll try mine, I’ll get the solution of this problem. Your next assignment is to go to the eastern village and help tend the wounded, and make sure to bring them supplies. It’s your fault they ended up like that, so it’s the least you can do for them. Estrella, you’ll be in charge of the rebuilding project for the burned house. I’ll be leader of this village for the time being until Seed is done with his task. Did we all get the equation, or do we discuss this with the Chief?”
“Fine by me,” said Estrella, she drank the last drops of her daisy tea. Seed Sower, however, frowned and silently left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Princess Platinum and Smart Cookie visited a place where a group of twelve to sixteen ponies gathered around three big wagons. They were equipped with spears and shields. “We have arrived, boss,” one of the ponies claimed, Smart Cookie nodded and with a waving of her hoof, the ponies opened the wagons, and tons of fruits and vegetables dropped onto the snowy ground.
“Where did they get all this stuff!?” asked Platinum, the saliva was dripping out from her mouth.
“It’s harvest season. We planted some seeds to the far north, winter ended there four months ago, that’s how we get our food. We tried to live there, but it was worse than dividing a number by zero. It’s a dangerous place, there are huge scaly beasts with sharp fangs and claws, and enormous wings that they use to exponentially elevate themselves to the sky! But the worst part is that they have the ability to throw spontaneous combustion out of their mouths!”
“D-d-dragons!?” Platinum stepped back in fear, “Do you fight dragons over food?”
“Oh… is that how you call them?” Smart Cookie tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow, “The idea is to get the food without them noticing, but you know, sometimes the equation has multiple variables. We don’t kill them, we just defend ourselves as we retreat with the wagons. They stop chasing us once we leave their lands. We get a lot of food, but even so, it’s hard living when you have to risk your life every time we want to get something to eat.”
“We, unicorns, get our food from the south lands, where winter doesn’t exist, or so they say. I don’t think they have to fight any dragon to get it. But still, food is very scarce, and we barely get enough to feed all the unicorns.”
“Let’s talk of more important matters, I wasn’t there when they took you to the Chief, but they said you asked him to join your ‘cause’, right? What do you have in mind?” Smart Cookie stared Platinum to her eyes with a happy face.
“To be honest, I don’t really know...” Platinum scratched the back of her head, “But I believe that we can stop the fighting if enough ponies join up to protest against it. If we all join up, maybe we can get to understanding each other. Maybe even unite our kingdoms. But I don’t know how to do it. And my father… well, he is mad. I doubt he would give in even if all the ponies and unicorns join forces.”
“Getting allies to make your voice louder, huh? It’s not a very solid formula, but we can work the kinks later,” Smart Cookie nodded with a confidence that surprised Platinum, “Sum me up, I can convince earth ponies to join us, our numbers will increase directly proportional to time!”
“Really? You’re gonna help me?” Princess Platinum hugged Smart Cookie, “Thank you! I will never forget your kindness and understanding!”
Their next destination was the rebuilding project under Estrella’s supervision and she was not pleased to see them. Estrella turned her back to them, pretending to be busy, but Smart Cookie approached her and started to yell something that Platinum didn’t bother to listen.
What got Platinum’s attention, were three earth ponies trying to lift up a wall using a rope as a pulley. The wall was slowly standing to a vertical stance, she stood on the opposite side of the wall and cast a telekinesis spell on the wall to help them. The earth ponies, scared, dropped the rope and watched how Princess Platinum set the wall in its place all by herself.
“What the hay are you doing!?” Estrella asked, very angry.
“I’m just helping,” replied Platinum.
“Well, stop it! We don’t want your dangerous sorcery around here! Put that down before someone gets hurt!”
“I don’t intend to hurt someone...” said Platinum, she looked around and noticed that her magic was being frowned upon, she placed the wall on the snow back to where it was.
“I don’t care what your intention is!” Estrella stomped on the snow, “Maybe you’re not aware, but magic has only brought pain and suffering to the earth ponies!”
“Still, she managed to do by herself a job that normally would be divided by three ponies,” said Smart Cookie, her smile grew sharper, “If we use her ‘sorcery’ efficiently, the project is more likely to be finished a lot earlier than expected. And if the info I got is correct, it’s thank to this ‘sorcery’ that you are still alive, isn’t that true?”
Estrella growled to herself while the rest of the ponies looked satisfied with the explanation, maybe because it meant less work for them, “Fine, boss... just don’t bring that up again. She will be your responsibility, make sure she doesn’t destroy anything, or kill anyone.”
Following the instructions the earth ponies gave to her, Princess Platinum cast her telekinesis spell on a long wooden board and placed it on the superior part of the house. Then, with the same spell, she lifted a hammer and a group of nails, and nailed a wooden board in its place. A very easy task for her. She quickly deduced she was helping in the building of the house’s roof.
But after four hours of labor, the easy task proved to be not as easy as she had anticipated, she lost count of how many wooden boards she nailed to the roof until she finally finished. Platinum climbed down a ladder and laid on the snow face down, exhausted. Smart Cookie approached her very proudly, while Estrella had a mocking smile on her face.
“What? You tired? You barely moved a muscle there, you did everything with your dumb magic,” Estrella laughed.
“Magic is also a tiring thing to do,” said Platinum, with no energy to lift her face from the snow, “I’d love to see you try to nail all those things using the hammer with your head?”
“Interesting… I also thought that magic was an effortless ability. Can you explain the definition of magic for us, Platinum?” asked Smart Cookie, anxiously to get a response.
“Uhh… Sure… magic is...” Platinum stopped for a moment, thinking of the answer, but with no response from her memory, “Magic is… the power of the… manifestation... in your physical mind… I guess…?”
Both earth ponies looked as confused as she was, “You are clueless, right?” Estrella with a mocking tone.
“It’s… it’s just a thing we do with our heads, alright? It’s hard to explain, we just focus our heads on something and then just do it! I never really thought on how it works. I suppose that Clover may know, she’s so cool! You’d get along with her, she’s intelligent like you, Smart Cookie, and she also has a sharp tongue like you, Estrella.”
“What!? My tongue is not sharp!” Estrella yelled at Platinum, “And stop talking to me as if we’re friends, we’re not, and we’ll never be!” she snorted and walked away, leaving Smart Cookie and Platinum behind.
Back on Estrella’s house, Luna was staring at a pile of snow, very focused, her eyes looked tired because, apparently, she hadn’t blinked in a few minutes. Estrella examined her daughter’s behavior for half a second. With no idea of what Luna was up to, Estrella gave up and finally asked, “What on earth are you doing, Luna? Where is…?”
“Shhh, mom, please! I’m concentrating here...” responded Luna without losing sight of the snow pile, “I’m trying to do magic.”
Estrella gasped, her eyes wide open and her jaw almost hit the snow on the ground with the terrible sight of watching her daughter trying to use the horrible weapon of the ‘horned monsters’. Suddenly, Celestia jumped out of the pile, covered in snow, “ooohhhhh, I’m a magical snow ponyyyyy!”
“Stop it, you two!” Estrella scolded immediately, very hysterical.
“Yeah, you’ll only hurt yourself if you keep doing that,” Princess Platinum giggled covering her mouth with a hoof, “Magic doesn’t come from the sight, it comes from your mind. And you don’t DO magic, you USE magic, it’s a huge difference. I learned it from a unicorn named Rays… from another unicorn.”
“Princess, princess! Use some magic!” both Luna and Celestia both bowed to Princess Platinum’s hooves, staring at her soul with big begging eyes. “Can she? PLEASE?!” they repeated the trick on their mother.
Platinum turned her sight at Estrella and gave her a weak and apologetic smile, Estrella looked at Luna’s and Celestia’s faces filled with hope, “... Fine...” she mumbled.
“YAY!!!”
Estrella felt a warm and small beating in her chest as she watched her daughters hopping and dancing around Platinum with their faces filled with joy. She couldn’t contain her own smile, turning her sight at Platinum, she spotted her smiling back. Estrella gulped and returned a frown to Platinum and walked in the house.
Platinum cast the building spell she practiced, to make a snow pony out of the pile of snow. Luna and Celestia watched in awe while the snow slowly took the shape of a pony, starting from the hooves, to the body, the tail, until it got a head with three ears on it.
Two weeks passed quickly with Princess Platinum staying among earth ponies. Everyday she woke up early, even though scared from the nightmare that chased her every night, her hopeless fears disappeared when she realised she could walk freely and no one hid or ran away from her anymore, some of them even smiled at her, and just like Smart Cookie promised, more and more ponies joined her cause everyday.
One day, Smart Cookie had this idea of building a wagon and use it to negotiate with the unicorns, she reunited all the earth ponies she could in the dining room in Estrella’s house, Platinum seated next to Smart Cookie and Estrella seated next to Platinum, there was a big print of the plans for the wagon sticked on a wall.
“Princess Platinum said that the most of the unicorns’ problems are derivatives from the lack of food,” Smart Cookie said in front of the earth ponies, “so the obvious formula to the solution of this equation, is to give the unicorns a peace offering in the shape of a wagon filled with food.”
“Can’t we just use a wagon we already have?” an earth pony asked.
“No, we can’t,” responded Smart Cookie, somewhat annoyed, “it has to be a brand new wagon. It’s a present from earth ponies to unicorns, what would they think if we give them an old worn out present? Besides, the wagons we used are built and developed for our village’s needs, we can’t use those. My calculations show that with this project the unicorns will be zetta grateful and peace will be born between unicorns and earth ponies! The end of the war!”
And so, one day later, the earth ponies began the construction of the wagon according to Smart Cookie’s plan. They all reunited on the outskirts of town, there were a lot of pieces of wood and iron plates of different sizes, and a section where the ponies could obtain tools like hammers and nails, saws and screws.
The stronger colts moved the heavy pieces of the wagon while the ‘not strong ones’, as Estrella called them, cut the pieces of wood that they needed and nailed them together to create the wagon’s parts. Next to the work, there were a group of mares preparing meals and snacks and the smell of fried apples invaded Platinum’s nose as she witnessed the work.
“Har har har! How is it going, fellas?” asked a familiar, friendly voice, Platinum turned her sight and spotted Chief Puddinghooves walking into town, “is this a new house we’re building?”
Along with the Chief, also came Seed Sower and the Chief’s daughter, Puddinghead, a light yellow earth pony with an orange mane and tail, she hopped around like a little filly impressed by the wagon under construction, and waved her hoof upon Platinum when she saw her.
“Ahh, Chief, good to see you,” greeted Smart Cookie, “it looks like Seed finally completed his task. This is our peace offering project, we’ll give it to the unicorns and we’ll return Princess Platinum to them. That’s how this war is going to end.”
“What!? That’s ridiculous!” Seed yelled at her, “you think the unicorns will accept it just like that? They’re going to destroy you all, rescue Princess Platinum, and then take your peace offering junk!”
“We won’t know until we try,” Princess Platinum said, “look how many wonderful earth ponies are willing to make peace! The war will surely end if no one is willing to fight it.”
“Hah! You think they’re willing to make peace?” Seed mocked, “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but they’re not. They were commanded by Smart Cookie to help you, she always does that, and it seems that she sent me to the eastern village to get me out of the way. You are just another slaver and you don’t even realise it.”
“Seed! I have not...” Smart tried to justify herself, but was stopped when Princess Platinum stared at her with a disappointed face.
“Is it true?” asked Platinum, her eyes wide open in shock, “Who was commanded to join my cause?” she asked to the earth ponies working, all of them raised their hooves, very embarrassed. “Smart Cookie… why would you do this?”
“I don’t understand, Princess Platinum,” said Smart Cookie, “You said that you needed help. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Yes, but not like this! This is exactly what I’m trying to fight against,” Platinum explained, “I want them to join my cause by their own accord, because they are also tired of this war and want peace as much as I do. Not because their leader told them to.”
She looked at all the ponies building the wagon, and kept talking, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. All those who don’t agree with this plan may go home. I’m sorry for wasting your time.” Her heart was shattered when the earth ponies stopped their work to return to their homes, but somehow she also felt a great relief.
“Did you really think that you were making a difference?” asked Seed, “Fighting for our own survival is all we have left.”
“Must you really add salt to the wound?” Estrella gave Seed a weak elbow hit. “Look at her, she’s destroyed, just let her be!”
“She has to open her eyes and see reality,” claimed Seed, “In order to make peace, both sides must agree, not just one. But the unicorns don’t want that. They only want to fight and kill us all, so we must fight back, there is no other way!”
“There is another way,” said Platinum, “The way of forgiveness.”
Suddenly the chief approached Princess Platinum, he stared right into her eyes, “A long time ago, the earth ponies returned victorious because the queen of the unicorns was killed. We celebrated that night with a huge party. I have no doubt that our joy was your pain and sadness. But instead of revenge, did you really choose the way of forgiveness? Did you disposed of all your rage?”
“My rage, my pain, my sadness,” Platinum placed a hoof on her chest, “I drowned them a long time ago. And you’re right, Chief. I’m not sure if it’s forgiveness the way I’ve chosen, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not revenge. And whatever it is, I’m willing to keep going and find out.”
They all stood in silence, as if the conversation had died, but then someone else spoke out of the blue. It was Puddinghead, the Chief’s daughter, a grin on her face, she palmed Princess Platinum’s back, and Platinum heard her words and knew she wouldn’t forget them for the rest of her life.
“Let’s find out together! I’ll join you!”