The Egg and the High Wall

by swirlstar

Chapter 2 - Depends On Who They're Talking To

Chapter Two - Depends On Who We're Talking To

Princess Celestia waved until she was obscured from view.

Twilight was actually feeling quite alright as the chariot pulled away from Canterlot Castle. But somewhere over Saddle Lake, the purple alicorn’s vaunted capacity for self-doubt kicked in once again, and she started to worry.

Princess Celestia’s parting advice repeated itself, shrill and sharp, as if it had only been said a bare second ago. Sometimes, their opinions will even change depending on who they’re talking to… was Celestia hinting that Twilight’s friends were deceiving her? That they – the bearers of the Elements – were liars? The thought sent a shiver down Twilight’s spine. No, no; that can’t be true, she instinctively thought, her right foreleg launching into its fanning routine. It was impossible – they had been been through so much together – even if, Celestia forbid, they had befriended her with less-than-noble intentions, their friendship had to be genuine now!

Such reasoning calmed Twilight down a great deal, and slowly she felt the thudding in her head die away.

That still left the original question unanswered. The chariot dipped below cloud level as the alicorn mulled over the possibilities… well, she had spent enough time around Applejack to know that there was a difference between not lying and telling the whole truth – so that must be it! For whatever reason – position, fear of Celestia, or perhaps just because it had never crossed their minds – her friends had not told her the whole story about their opposition to the Ponyville High-Speed Rail Project.

Well, that is going to have to change. “So I’ll have Spike set up a lunch date for us all, and then ask what’s going on!” Twilight exclaimed, slamming her right forehoof into her left with a satisfying smack, the floor motionless under her. The alicorn looked up: the jagged edges of Ponyville Castle loomed overhead.

The charioteers looked at the alicorn bemusedly. “We have arrived, Your Highness.”

*

“Fluttershy is busy with Harry the Bear, Pinkie Pie’s gone to visit family, Rarity is still having her beauty sleep and I am not waking Rarity up from her beauty sleep.”

Only Applejack and Rainbow Dash could make Twilight’s little lunch, and even then only for a short while, which for the alicorn was acceptable enough. After all, both of them could be counted on to be ‘in’ on the municipal gossip, and the fact that both also tended to be frank with their views was an additional bonus. So as Twilight walked down Mane Road, she was feeling rather confident that the task before her would be one easily completed: somewhere above getting ingredients for dinner, somewhere below observing the latest celestial anomaly.

That one remark made by Celestia stubbornly refused to leave her be, however, and it was acting increasingly like some sort of mental filter. A slew of tiny observations began to creep into the purple alicorn’s worldview: the eyes that fixated themselves on her, even for the briefest of seconds – the way bodies reflexively straightened as she passed – even the fact that a few ponies would cross a street-junction early in front of her, seemingly to avoid being on the same side of the road. Twilight suddenly felt lonely and vulnerable, a chill she hadn’t experienced since her coronation days: back then, she was afraid that her status would isolate herself from Ponyville’s citizens. That fear proved unfounded, but dismayingly, she now realized that ponies still behaved differently in her presence.

It’s baggage you’ll have to carry, she concluded sadly.

The alicorn was approaching the junction of Mane and Lunar. The saccharine form of Sugarcube Corner rose in front of her; behind it, Market Square bubbled. She waited for a few carts to turn the corner, noting that even drivers, who presumably had more pressing things to look out for, stared at her for a split-second before shifting gazes... she crossed Lunar Street and heralded her arrival at the café with a dainty tinkle.

“… so I then told the squid, ‘you’re lucky I hea-do, pal, ‘cause when I roll the camera I’ll fry everypony’s prawns!’”

“Suh. So everythin’ was fifty-five after that?”

“Haven’t heard from the ball since.”

“Suuh.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were already sitting at the table, jabbering excitedly about… something. Twilight’s ears wiggled as she approached: it didn’t sound like Equestrian to her. Was it something she didn’t know? She could hear Princess Celestia’s words drifting back into her mind, and she tried hard to tune it out.

“Hey, girls!” Twilight slid into an empty seat with a smile and a wave. “So sorry for the short notice, but I really need to talk to somepony about this… strawberry milkshake, please!” she announced to the waitress scrambling to take her order. “…or at least, that was what I was going to do until I heard you two talking.”

Applejack averted her eyes in an obvious pretend-lie. “Oh that? Heh. Just our… um… secret language,” she teased.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. She could hear Rainbow stifling a laugh, evidently pleased that she knew something Twilight didn’t – a moment truly rare and treasurable.

Well, that just won’t do. Twilight hazarded a guess. “Is it slang?”

The orange mare responded with an exasperated sigh and a throw of her forelegs. “Got me fair and square, Twi’. Shucks, I ain’t no good at lyin’.”

“Hey, that’s supposed to be a good thing.” Twilight glanced at Rainbow’s crestfallen face with satisfaction. “That said, I’ve never heard you girls use slang before.”

“We only use it when we talk between ourselves. Kinda rude to talk like that when you don’t understand, you know.”

“Fair enough, but I’ve never heard anypony here use it before.”

The farm pony and the pegasus exchanged knowing glances. “Twi’, this ain’t just normal slang – this is Ponyville slang. You only pick it up when you’ve been here some, and even then you have to make an effort. Pinkie don’t speak it, and Fluttershy don’t neither. Rainbow only knows ‘cause she has to coordinate with us farm ponies over the weather. But that’s why she’s my fend,” the orange mare concluded, curling her foreleg around the pegasus with a cheesy grin on her face.

“Fend,” Twilight deadpanned.

“‘Friend’ without the ‘R’ and the ‘I’,” Applejack explained. “Oh, Twi’, we said you wouldn’t get it- “

“Oh no, I didn’t mean that!” the alicorn interrupted hastily, trying to avoid seeming like she was dismissive of this new discovery, which had somehow passed under her nose, undetected, for all this time. “I mean… erm… ‘fend’ is a bit underwhelming… for… but hey, what do I know?” the alicorn suddenly perked up, enthusiasm rising in her voice. “You know what – I do want to know more about it! A new word – a new language! It’s almost like discovering a new universe! Or a new spell! Or- “

“Chill out, egghead: it’s just slang, okay?” Rainbow Dash said, bemused at her friend’s nerdiness. “Even between me and AJ, we don’t use it all the time- ”

Too late! Notebooks, quills and other such stationery were already orbiting the alicorn’s head like planets. “Ready and waiting, Professors,” she declared. “Now teach me everything about Ponyville slang!”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked uneasily at the rogue strand of hair now sticking up from Twilight’s mane. “Erm- ”

“Let’s start off with that conversation you were having when I came in,” Twilight proposed, quill hovering in anticipation. “Something about ‘squid’, right?”

That jogged memories. “Right… yeah,” the cyan mare began tentatively, scratching her head. “Okay. So I was talking to Applejack about how this bean counter at Weather was telling me off for not being productive. I think he was just annoyed about me telling him about the Wonderbolts Reserves and how I need to work shorter hours because of it, especially as I’m getting policing duties now as well.”

The alicorn paused mid-sentence. “Wonderbolts Reserves do policing?”

“Part of ‘community integration’ or whatever. Really it’s just a way to get on the brass’ good side without having to do much… not that any thief is going to escape from me!” Rainbow Dash puffed out her chest to make her point. “Anyway. So I challenged him to find one piece of work I hadn’t done. And the stupid squid couldn’t do it.”

“’Squid’ means anypony who works for Government,” Applejack clarified. “You know, ‘cause squid got ink in their blood. And they also blow it out of their- “

“Anyway,” the pegasus continued. “… so I told the squid, ‘you’re lucky I hea-do, pal, ‘cause when I roll the camera I fry everypony’s prawns!’”

“Okay.” Twilight copied down the sentence in her fledgling lexicon. “’Hea-do’, ‘roll the camera’, ‘fry everypony’s prawns’... maybe even ‘pal’. Basically, this sentence makes no sense to me – unless it was about seafood, maybe.”

“’Pal’ is just pal. ‘Frying prawns’ means firing ponies. ‘Roll the camera’ means to work hard, though sometimes it means to fight. ‘Hea-do’… ” the cyan mare smirked. “It’s what I’m awesome at: not working hard.”

Twilight examined her notes once, twice, three times. “So what you were saying was that the bureaucrat should’ve considered himself lucky that you don’t work hard, because if you did work hard, you’d have everypony in the Department fired?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Pretty much. Doesn’t sound half as cool when you say it though.”

Applejack laughed. “One of the things you’ll learn about Ponyville slang, Twi’, is that it’s a bit more… down to earth than normal Equestrian.”

“That is the definition of slang, you know.” Twilight couldn’t resist a snark as she made a note of it in her notebook. “AJ, you then also said something about a ‘fifty-five’, a ‘ball’ and a… erm… ” the purple alicorn pursed her lips, trying to recreate the sound. “That word that sounds like ‘sooth’?”

“That’s ’suh’. It’s a… sorta… word you say when somepony does somethin’… cool, I guess. Admirable. Like if Rainbow tells me that she did a Sonic Rainboom? I’d definitely say ‘suh’ after that… or maybe not.” Applejack glanced nervously at the pegasus frowning and crossing her forelegs. “A Rainboom’s probably too big for a ‘suh’. It’s more like… well…

“Well, you’ll know when to use it when you see it.” The orange mare shrugged apologetically. “Slang’s like that. ‘Being fifty-five’ means everythin’s fine and dandy. And ‘ball’ means stallion. Obviously.” Applejack snickered, suggestively placing her forehoof between her hindlegs.

Twilight grimaced. “Thanks.”

“It’s really not that special, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “Just a couple of words changed here and there, that’s all… ”

“But it does make Ponyville different from the rest of Equestria,” the alicorn observed, turning pensive. The milkshake arrived and Twilight clamped down on the straw; the air brimmed with possibility.

She could not believe it. Was it only a scarce ten minutes ago when she thought that she knew all there was to know about Ponyville? And yet here she was, now, looking at the town as if she had never been here before, a vast unknown confronting her, like an ocean stretching towards the horizon. Again Twilight felt a momentary chill course down her spine. Was it excitement, or was it fear?

Rainbow Dash snorted, half-derisively. “Heh. So you’re a localist too, Twilight?”

Twilight was suddenly wrenched out of her thoughts. “What?”

“Shucks, Rainbow, don’t tease,” Applejack gently chided, her tone turning serious.

The pegasus ignored her. “You know, ‘localist’. Somepony who only cares about Ponyville and nowhere else – sheesh, Twi, do you know anything about this town?” Smirking, Rainbow Dash leant closer and ostentatiously held her hoof against her cheek as if telling a secret. “You know, I can tell you that AJ is a localist- “

“I ain’t one!” came the protest, less good-natured than perhaps Applejack meant it to be. “Just because I don’t like the Rail- “

“You can tell Celestia I totally support the Rail,” Rainbow Dash continued whispering to Twilight, enjoying the effect she was having on the flustered orange mare. “I totally am not the pony blocking her plans- “

“Wait, wait: slow down!” Twilight’s mind was reeling from yet another wave of information. Had she been that ignorant of Ponyville? “Let me catch my breath… ”

The pegasus leant back and rubbed AJ’s mane good-naturedly. In a single sitting she had managed to rib Applejack and Twilight – a good run, all things considered. "Just a joke, Applejack... "

“Alright,” Twilight exhaled, still slightly confused by the whole situation. “First things first: I don’t tell the Princess on you ponies. I don’t – I’m not a snitch,” she declared earnestly. “Secondly: what’s this about localists?”

“Really?” Rainbow sniggered. “You see, egghead, that’s why you’re an egghead.”

“Fine! I admit I don’t know anything about Ponyville! Now tell me about these localists!”

Applejack gave a long and audible sigh, as if expecting this talk long coming. “’Localist’ is some word thrown around ‘gainst those who don’t support the Rail Project. Sayin’ we only care about Ponyville and not about the good of The Big Tribe... Equestria. Which ain’t true- “ she interjected, pre-empting Rainbow Dash’s response, “ -we just think there's no reason for our town to be buildin' another line.”

“Why not?” the cyan mare demanded. “Building the Rail means that we can get to Las Pegasus within a day. Can you imagine that? Even I’d like to try it out!”

“The cost, Rainbow? The folks who'll lose their homes? The smoke and the noise?”

“Farmers and tree-huggers,” the pegasus dismissed, rolling her eyes. “You think nopony else has thought of these issues before. You know a few months back, Cloudsdale was raising the same Tartaros about the Rail.”

“And what happened?” Twilight asked impulsively.

“The Rail got built. What did you think was going to happen?” the prismatic mare replied, looking at the purple alicorn as if she had just come out of the madhouse. “You do know that Princess Celestia backs the Project, right?”

The answer was expected, but Twilight still felt a pang of discomfort at the way Rainbow phrased her answer.

“Anyway. I’m not here to tell you what to think.” Rainbow leant back and checked the time. “Just in case you didn’t know, Twilight – and I bet you don’t – there’s a protest against the Rail happening in a few hours. You can always check that out if you’re interested in what ponies are saying about it. I’ll definitely be there: on the other side, but still.”

Twilight frowned. “The other side?”

“Police duties, Twilight. Did you even listen to me?!”

“I… ” the alicorn’s cheeks flushed a bright pink, unaccustomed to being outmaneuvered by her prismatic friend.

“Whatever. I’m sure AJ will take good care of you once you’re there. Just be careful and make sure you don't get your face plastered all over the Foal Free Press tomorrow. There’s a briefing down at the Station in five - so I gotta scram!”

Applejack looked on as Rainbow tossed out her share of the bill and slipped out of the window.

“Rainbow’s a good friend,” the orange mare observed simply. “Even if she’s got the wrong ideas.”

Twilight, in the absence of anything meaningful to say, decided to slurp up the remainder of her milkshake.

"Twi':" The orange mare turned to the alicorn. “I don’t know what they told you about me – about us – but we ain’t doing this just for kicks. We Ponyvillians have grievances and they need to be addressed.”

“Do you?” Twilight frowned, uneasy. “But I’ve been here so long and everything seems fine- “

“You don’t know nothin’ about Ponyville, Twilight.” Applejack’s voice, unexpectedly harsh and steely, cut through her friend’s excuses like butter. “I’m sorry – but you don’t.”

Twilight fell back, her pride bruised and sore. Applejack was staring straight at her, unsmiling, serious. There was an earnestness that had seemingly flared up out of nowhere, behind those green irises, and at that moment the alicorn realized they were not talking as friends.

“There are some things you can’t ‘git’ by reading old books, Twi’. Some things you can’t just learn locked up in your fancy little Castle. This Rail thing, Twilight: it’s bigger than what you think it is – bigger than what Rainbow thinks, maybe even bigger than what Celestia thinks!”

Twilight blinked and stayed quiet as a mouse.

“It’s more than a few farmers losin’ their land, more than a few extra visitors poured into our town; it’s even more than outsiders coming in and talkin’ down at us like we’re foals- Twilight, it’s about the system: we want to change the system!”

The purple unicorn tried hard to absorb what Applejack was saying, but it was a losing fight. Secretly she felt Applejack’s enthuasiasm to be clichéd, generic in its sales-pitchiness. How many times had she heard words to that effect from activist Canterlot students? How many times had she been impressed with the ‘urgency’ of so-and-so situation, the ‘importance’ of this-or-that policy? And yet once the events came passed and the dust settled, the alicorn usually found that there was precious little different about the world, and ponies thought and lived as they had always done.

“The system?” she responded dumbly.

Applejack got up from her chair, her form silhouetted by the noonday sun. Market Square and Town Hall chattered in the background. “The protest starts at four - we start at the construction site outside of town and march all the way down to Town Hall. Whatever answers you’re rootin' for, Twilight, you’ll be better off finding them there than askin' me about it.

"I bet Celestia’s asked you to investigate, hasn’t she?”

Twilight lowered her head and bit her lip in a sort of shameful admission - and in an instant the orange mare remembered that Twilight was a friend.

“Don’t worry so much about it, Twi’," she comforted, sheepishly walking over to the purple mare to give a kindly, genuine pat. "We all got these things we have to do. Maybe some good’ll come out of it, even.” A few coins clattered onto the table. “Here – fourteen buds for the Q; I’ll pay your share.”

Comments

[Seether00]

This is going to end up with hurt feelings and broken windows

[kpatkoch]

will there be a burned down CVS as well?

[kpatkoch]

or a brawl between guardsmen and protesters