The Pony Dialogues

by Knowledge

Of Livestock and Pets 3.7: Patience (Edited)

Author: Knowledge

Main Editor: waterpear

Editor/Proof-reader: Rewrite

The midday sunlight shone through the windows of the unicorn level of Ponyville Town Hall as Lyra Heartstrings sat at her desk, organizing it. In particular, she was making sure that her name plate was sufficiently eye-catching and readable to anypony who entered the Representative of the Magistrate of Magic and Science’s (MMS) office without occupying the spot for interdepartmental reports. While she had a unicorn’s skill at organizing things, Lyra only spent so much time making things visibly perfect because Evening Glimmer’s happiness was directly proportional to how orderly her “home away from home” (aka the office) was.

Earlier that day, Lyra and Evening had discussed the essentials of yesterday’s events, since Lyra hadn’t had the opportunity last night. The Representative had taken the news—that nopony except Twilight Sparkle knew what happened yesterday—calmly. Then, Lyra wrote her detailed report of everything that had happened and of what she had learned about the changeling while Evening read the intradepartmental reports. Evening was taking her time reading, so Lyra had just started ultra-perfecting her desk space. Cancer, the gifted unicorn’s crab familiar, read fashion magazines and snipped out coupons for Barnyard Bargains.

Now, Evening Glimmer was reading the reports from the Neighara Falls branch, which had just discovered that several documents were missing, and possibly even stolen.

“Have they gotten any leads on what happened to their files?” Lyra asked. A week ago, some files had mysteriously gone missing in Neighara Falls. The local representative of the magistrate only noticed because she had a talent in measuring things, and the filing cabinet was just not the same.

“They still only know that they belong to the pegasi in the region, which isn’t telling us much,” Evening Glimmer replied. Pegasi did many jobs in Neighara Falls, ranging from managing water production for southern Equestria to collecting codfish oil from the many fisheries in the region.

“Virtuosos or Troublemaker files?” Lyra asked as she cleared her desk of any last remnants of clutter.

“I don’t see any mention of the file type in the reports. Why don’t you take a look, Assistant Heartstrings?” Evening Glimmer asked while hoofing the reports that she had just finished reading to Cancer. He waddled across the sunlight-lit office space to the clean and well-dressed Lyra, who took the reports up in her magic to immediately skim through.

After a minute, the assistant felt she had had enough. “This is just another example of a local MMS office trying to save face. First, there are almost no details about what files were stolen aside from what you mentioned. Second, most of this is a retelling of how they did their jobs according to protocol all day,” Lyra deduced.

“It is a shame that there is corruption this high up in Equestrian government. We gifted unicorns should be held to a higher standard. If I were in charge of the magistracy, I wouldn’t tolerate any of this coverup business,” Evening proclaimed proudly. Then she started to think. “You told me that you are certain the ‘incident’ yesterday was caused by a changeling.”

“Yes, I am almost certain. I was able to deduce it from talking to a strange filly who I had encountered. Later, I discovered that she was cursed by that very changeling to only speak in writing and to believe that the changeling was her parent. If you read the detailed description of changeling magic from the Royal Wedding Reports, the mental magic used fits perfectly,” Lyra replied confidently. She hoofed Cancer the reports on changeling magic.

Evening Glimmer read through them earnestly while the others waited. During the first ten minutes of waiting, Lyra practiced tying and retying her red tie, and Cancer read about the new dresses coming out of Prance which all the Manehattanite nouveau riche earth ponies were wearing. After that, Lyra went out to get sandwiches for Evening, Cancer, and herself.

Every day, when Lyra was waiting for Evening to finish reading and give her her orders from Magistrate Prince Dusk Shine, Lyra would eventually run out of things to do and start reading the tabloids with the crab familiar. While they all ate their sandwiches, Lyra joined Cancer on the floor in reading the worst of pony media on the best of ponies. Lyra enjoyed it because these were ponies she knew about in Canterlot but never had the right to meet due to her mediocre rank. Cancer just needed the vapid distraction between marathons of reading the dry and serious reports from the MMS.

Recently in the news, it became known that Fancy Pants, the most important ungifted unicorn in Canterlot, encouraged his traders in the northern lakes region to marry buffalo (after the custom of the country). The buffalo would gather valuable fur dye, and in exchange for common pony things like cast iron pots for soup. The traders would bring this fur dye to Equestria and sell it for profit. Currently, the most valuable fur dye was gray, and even in Ponyville, occasionally a pony attempting to look more dignified would dye his or her mane.

According to the tabloids, Fancy Pants had a harem of beautiful buffalo females. Every time he leaves to check on his Prench traders, so the tabloids said, he seduces his many buffalo brides with songs of his adventures upon his big airship (read other tabloid articles for those adventures). Upon seduction, he recommits his vows with his exotic wives and takes them to the fancy Prench restaurant on his airship for expensive cider. The biggest concern for the tabloid wasn’t the polygamy, though, but that Fleur de Lis knows about it, and that explained why she was seen shopping by herself yesterday, instead of doing her duty of making Fancy Pants look good by posing around him as a trophy.

Now, Lyra would never ever spread what she read about in the tabloids with other ponies. It just wasn’t right to talk about one's betters like that, as the unicorn would often say. She would just keep the juicy rumors to herself when she passed by those fancy unicorns during her visits to her family in Canterlot.

“Okay, I am done. Lyra, stop squealing over whatever that is, and let’s finish talking about this changeling,” Evening commanded. Lyra jumped up off of the ground and straightened out her black suit and tie. After her assistant returned to her desk, Evening expressed her thoughts.

“It says here that changelings were seen using green flames in their spells to increase their landing velocity and to teleport ponies into their hive. This would explain the appearance of the green sun. And if a changeling had the power to fool a captain of the Royal Guard—one of our most elite soldiers—then a changeling could make a filly believe anything. For all we know, that filly believes the world is made of cheese.”

The representative nodded as she compared the Canterlot notes with what Lyra had reported to her this morning. “Assistant Heartstrings, I see it here that you said the changeling came into town hall, talked to the mayor, and went to the immigration offices.” Evening put the reports down on her desk and sat far back in her rolly chair to think this through. “I think that both our town hall and Neighara falls were the subject of a changeling attack. The only difference was that what we faced here was a much more poorly orchestrated attack.”

Lyra paled. “Representative Glimmer, not to disagree with you, but weren’t we told not to assume that anything was a changeling without the princes reviewing our evidence first?”

“It’s nearly impossible to get anything with the word “changeling” on it verified by the princes. Assistant Heartstrings, you don’t have to deal with the intradepartmental politics like I do, so you don’t know that the whole point for that stipulation is that the magistracy’s imagination went wild after the Royal Wedding invasion. Every representative with a single problem ended up blaming the changelings. Why? Because changelings had the skills of shapeshifting, sabotage, and manipulation—perfect skills for representatives to displace blame for their mistakes.”

Lyra nodded in understanding. Both she and Evening bemoaned how dysfunctional all the other municipal MMS offices were. The only solace they had was that they lived by higher standards, the kind of standards that would make Celestia proud.

“So are we going to present our evidence to the princes?” Lyra asked confused.

Evening shook her head. “They wouldn’t read it. Anyways, we cannot afford for them to know about the ‘incident’ yesterday.”

Lyra nodded in complete agreement. She knew if Celestia knew about what happened in Ponyville yesterday, Evening Glimmer would probably be sent to the Ponyopticon. If Evening was sent to prison, the MMS would lose one of its most gifted unicorns. If that happened, the magistracy would become weaker. If it became weaker, Equestria would suffer.

Also, Evening wouldn’t be able to ascend like Celestia’s other prized pupils, Twilight Sparkle and Dusk Shine, if she lost all honor.

Still, Lyra had some lingering thoughts about what the changeling was up to yesterday. “Do you think some of our files have been stolen?” Ponyville had some of the most volatile files in the whole MMS, due to the use of cutting-edge, experimental behavioral technology under Prince Dusk Shine’s orders.

Evening shook her head. “No, when I received this report, it came with a command from Prince Dusk Shine that all municipal branches had to recheck all the files. Regardless of the command or not, I would have investigated our security. Before you came in this morning with your report, Cancer and I took out all the files and reorganized them.” The representative pointed to the cabinets the lined all the wall space in their office. “We found nothing amiss. This does not mean files were not stolen from our town hall.”

Lyra was shocked by this. “Representative, what do you mean?”

“Your report says that the changeling, calling itself by a species pseudonym “horsefly,” infiltrated the immigration offices, the hospital, and Twilight’s library all in one day. If the Neighara Falls incident and the Ponyville incident are connected, then we should expect important documents to be missing in both of these locations. Plus, other town halls may have been infiltrated recently as well, but they either haven’t noticed it like we have, or they are not reporting it.” Like we are.

“This leads me to your job today. About the members of Mane 6 you recruited, are you sure they won’t tell anypony about yesterday?” Lyra nodded. Mane 6 was the MMS’s codename for Twilight and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony. “Prince Dusk Shine sent us a list of ponies who we need to take in. While you do that, I want you to check on Twilight and see if she or her friends have noticed anything suspicious.”

Lyra nodded. The two unicorns gave Cancer all the reports they had left on the desk so that they could be locked up and Lyra received her list of ponies needing help. While Lyra handled her rounds for the MMS, Evening would take care of getting warrants to investigate the hospital and immigration office. They didn’t need to know what was missing at the library because they already knew the changeling had taken Twilight’s magnum opus, Everything You Wanted to Know About Equestria But Were Too Afraid to Ask: A Foreigner’s Guide. If they proved a changeling was responsible, which was only possible by capturing one, they wouldn’t have to hide their mistake.

Lyra skimmed through Prince Dusk Shine’s list of ponies requiring behavioral amending today. One name stuck out to her. “This list includes Bonbon, but how? She couldn’t possibly be a problem after I wiped her mind yesterday.”

Evening Glimmer frowned. “Bonbon has received enough treatment for her to remain a Troublemaker for the rest of her life. Was she doing anything problematic, aside from the normal, that you noticed?”

Lyra shook her head. “Bonbon was getting into gossip, but with two treatments of the Mind Torch yesterday, she is unlikely to be doing anything like that anytime soon. If I torched her any more, it could give her strabismus or completely break her mind.”

Evening considered what her assistant said. “Did you check if there were any additional instructions?”

Lyra blushed and checked the list more thoroughly. “Oh, he just wants me to observe her for at least an hour a day, not rewipe her.”

“See that is why you shouldn’t just skim things. You miss the important details,” Evening lectured.

“I will be more thorough in the future, Representative,” Lyra promptly replied.

Evening started reading through her orders and started confused.

“Does Prince Dusk need you to do some more Blackbox work?” Lyra asked. Normally, the assistant would have left to fulfill her order immediately, but on difficult days like these, she knew Evening would need another pony to listen to her.

Evening rubbed her long violet mane with her hoof, and since it had been pulled back with a pin, this caused her hair to come fall forward. “No, it isn’t anything like that.”

Lyra observed the Representative, knowing better than to interrupt her while she was reading. With each successive rereading of her brief orders, Evening’s mane became more undone by her constant stroking her mane. Had Lyra been an impressionist, the transformation of her boss’s orange face as her violet mane slowly fell over her eyes and along side her muzzle would have made an ideal study of light and shading over time.

“You were wrong,” Evening said letting the orders fall from her magical grip and into Cancer’s waiting claws.

The assistant blinked in confusion. “About the Blackbox or...?”

Even slumped in her chair while her shaking her head, which caused her loose mane to swing. “I have a test from Princess Celestia.”

Lyra blinked again, but then smiled. “This is amazing. It is your chance to become a princess.”

Evening smiled weakly for a moment before shaking her head again. “The Princess’s tests are never walks in a part. Even if she tells you to walk in a park, the fate of Equestria is on the line, so you better take it as if you are going to fight Discord or Nightmare Moon. While success could mean princesshood for me, more often than not, it is merely a step.”

“We both know we tackled some of the hardest problems, and you have gotten so much better. Remember the D-incident last year? That was a mess, but together we handled it. Now look at yesterday. You got the whole town wiped on your own and only missed one pony. This is evidence that you have improved immensely. I believe this test is your last one.”

The Representative revealed her growing smile as she pulled back her mane to look at her her loyal, cheerful, and honest assistant. “You always know how to cheer me up Lyra. You are a great assistant, and I will remember you forever.”

Stained-glass windows in a princess’s court passed through Lyra’s mind as she imagined the literal truth of that statement. “So what does Princess Celestia want you to do?”

Evening kept her smile, even though concern returned to her eyes. “My teacher wants me to cast the Harmony Spell.”

Lyra became confused again, as was the norm when discussing gifted unicorn things. “Why would that be difficult?”

“First, Discord destroyed every copy of the spell three months ago.”

“I just assumed that the fiend only consumed Twilight’s,” Lyra replied.

“You shouldn’t rush to conclusions, my assistant. No, he didn’t just sample a bit of Twilight’s copious Starswirl collection, Discord got rid of every last copy in Equestria, including those in the Royal Archives. I am sure a few library talents fainted when they checked their most ancient of books and found whole pages ripped out in the messiest of fashions.”

Lyra paled, thinking of her own library in her house.

Evening continued. “What is important, however, Nopony could possibly memorize one of the most complicated spells in all of magicdom, so it is up to me, as the premiere scholar of Starswirl the Bearded, to study his most complicated and enigmatic doodles, then derive from those the basic patterns of the unicorn’s thoughts, and finally recreate the reality-shaping poetry known as Starswirl the Bearded’s Harmony Spell, the spell associated with the creation of Equestria as we know it. Normally, I would have to go to Canterlot to do this, but luckily Twilight has an extensive library nearby.”

Lyra leaned her head back and put her left hoof to her chest. “As a history talent, I naturally have an extensive library, Representative. You have no need to use Twilight’s. I know for a fact that she only has a fifth edition collection Starswirl’s Metaharmonics. My collection has third edition scribal recordings which are so ancient, scholars hadn’t even classified these later texts that came after Harmonics as Metaharmonics yet.” Lyra replied adamantly.

Evening rolled her eyes as her assistant so quickly went into a needless defense of her collection. Evening had already concluded that she would go to Twilight’s Library when she had time because it was very close by. If she didn’t find what she needed, then she could check on other options like her assistant’s collection.

When the representative saw that her assistant had stopped, her face became immediatley stern. “Lyra, that is very kind of you, but you know you have a job to do right now. It is getting really late, and I would hate to have to send to put this on your record.”

“Right away!” she yelped. She dashed out of the room.

She had left so quickly that her orders from Dusk Shine flew up into the air and landed in Cancer’s waiting claws. The familiar prepared to put the abandoned forms into the appropriate filing cabinet, but Evening gestured not to.

“No, Cancer, be patient,” Evening said. The crab clicked his free claw in anticipation.

They heard a door slam downstairs.

“A few more moments, my familiar,” Evening calmly said, pinning her hair up again while simultaneously taking out a search warrant request form from a draw.

Three minutes passed and Cancer was about to just start reading magazines again when they heard the entrance door to Town Hall slammed open below them.

“Oh my, that pony is going to hurt somepony rushing in and out of that door.”

Evening was going to say “I told you so”. The reason she didn’t say was not because it was unbecoming of her in her relative maturity. It was actually encouraged among the gifted to have a casual relationship with ones familiar. It helped one feel less alone during the rigorous emotional endurance training during Magical Kindergarten.

The real reason she had said what she said was that a sudden ping of concerned for the earth ponies below her had come from a deep, dark place in her mind. Though she knew this strange place existed and influenced her time to time, in reflection, she would just think over this anomaly in her mental design, not missing it but not noticing it either.

At this point, they could hear Lyra running up the stairs before she opened the door. “Sorry, ha thanks Cancer, ha, now I am off!” The assistant quickly grabbed her orders and ran back down the stairs again.

Cancer looked at Evening, his black eyes peering at her refined owner.

“Or she will kill herself first galloping up and down those stairs. She really needs to learn patience,” Evening replied to her crab life-friend before slowly getting back into the groove of filling out forms.

Comments

[midnight77]

Wow, this Equestria is so backwards and idiotic it's painful. I just want to grab them and rub their nose in their stupidity, but they probably wouldn't notice.

[Knowledge]

3925368

I know how you feel, kind of. In the most recent episode of MLP, I felt really uncomfortable. Also all the other analysists mentioned how one of the unicorn characters acted exceptionally racist and patronizing towards earth ponies. My discomfort mostly stemmed out of stereotyping southerners like me. What were your thoughts on the recent episode?

As for my story, I am not sure whether calling them backwards and stupid is justified or not. I based their way of thinking on things people in our world really do to this day, but I also set Equestria up as a society that has inhibited change for more than a thousand years, hence the stale air.

I might be heavy-handed in how obvious I make their blindness; however, as I sometimes say, something can be right in front of you, but if you don't know to look for it, you might as well be blind. This blindness extends to moral issues.

There is, of course, more at work than mere blindness, but that is spoilers.

What do you think? Are the ponies actually stupid or merely ignorant? And if they are stupid, why?

[midnight77]

3925401 I think it's just me being frustrated. I know people who doublethink all the time. I see people like this, and they frustrate me. The ponies aren't stupid. They haven't been thought how to think critically, something humans fail to do all the time. I do hope it turns out not all species are sapient. That turns it into something way out there. I do enjoy your using philosophical terms and ideas. Plato is obviously your big inspiration, along with Diogenes. What do you think about using Epicurus? He always apealled to me.

[Knowledge]

3926372
I like Epicurus too. I haven't planned anything for that line of thought yet. Perhaps I will use him for rich Earth pony garden parties to show intermingling between classes.

I already have plans for Seneca as well as many non-ancient philosophers. When I do a Sophia chapter, logical positivism, behaviorism, and psychoanalysism will be apparent. Ei Rikr and Corvo also have very detailed philosophies, which personally, I couldn't really pinpoint a particular group of thinkers that match them. We have a little on what Ei Rikr thinks already in the prologue, but there is a lot more to zir than what Andrea said.

As for sapiance question, I am trying to keep it as close to the show as possible.