The pegasus has several reasons for going into the lower levels of the palace. One of them is rather basic: she lives there. She’s been residing in the barracks for some time now, and has been trying to figure out a new approach in what’s officially become an ongoing argument with her roommate. Desperately searching for the words which will make the centaur stay.
…the centaur is sick.
Cerea will get better. The doctors are taking care of her. They’ll work something out.
They have to…
…there are multiple reasons available for the pegasus to descend. Residency. Patrol routes. And if she encounters anypony else in this rather specific area, she can just say something about checking on the prisoner, because that’s only partially a lie. She wants to see the pony who came to her apartment. Who set the fire. Who ran, and managed to keep running for far too long.
She wants to…
…no. The pegasus has recognized the need to set certain boundaries, and they start with the cell door. She will not, cannot go inside unless the prisoner is in distress and needs real assistance. Words can cross the little barred window. (It’s set at the proper height to watch a pony within, and there’s a minor enchantment which detects any restraint approaching the gaps so it can shove back.) She’s free to speak with the prisoner. The victim of a crime has the right to confront the one who committed it and as long as she’s very careful about her actions, such meetings don’t need to be confined to a courtroom.
The pegasus has been wondering about the trial. The prisoner hasn’t asked for an attorney. Perhaps she’s planning to represent herself. After all, she does believe she’s innocent…
…there are two ponies patrolling this area. Both of them know the pegasus, understand completely, and that comprehension still doesn’t make either of them particularly happy about this. It takes a few minutes before they agree to allow her through, and there are certain conditions attached to that permission. They are going to remain in the rough area, with ears rotated forward. And in the event that they hear anything which hints at matters having gone to the physical, they are going to close in.
The Lunar pair trusts the pegasus. Implicitly. But they wouldn’t be Guards if they hadn’t offered a reminder. Because Guards protect their Princess. And in order to make sure that most vital duty continues to cross the centuries, they watch out for each other.
The pegasus, verified, tracked, and keeping tight rein over herself, moves towards the cells.
She isn’t sure whether most of those who work in the palace are aware of the cells beneath. They’re hardly ever used, at least for the intended purpose. The majority of staff members who learn about them tend to treat the area as a place where anypony who’s too tired to get home can just sleep for a few hours. Additionally, a few dating couples have interpreted the entire section as a Designed Tryst Zone, because there are beds and it can take a few trips before anypony realizes that the doors only lock from the outside.
(The pegasus has been waiting for the restored barracks to experience that kind of invasion, and suspects the only thing which has kept her roommate from trotting in on an amateur-hosted class in pony sexuality is — the existence of her roommate. Hormone floods can wash away sufficient reason for putting a couple into a cell bed, but chancing a centaur witness might require more of a tsunami. There’s a very real risk in having Cerea see any of it, and the central one is that any blush that hot might actually set the centaur on fire.)
But the cells do see some use. Recently, there had been a young pegasus mare who had contracted a unique condition, and she had to be isolated. Ultimately, it was nothing contagious, and a cure was found — but while the effects had persisted, the true danger had been from having her in public. (Nearly all of that risk would have been to the mare.) And then Cerea had appeared…
…there’s a rather odd sound coming from up ahead, something which the pegasus needs a moment to identify as she closes in. It’s metal scratching against wood. Over and over. And it isn’t coming from the door, because that approach would be repelled. The reasonable guess is that the unicorn is having a go at the furnishings and, judging by the audio track, appears to be making some headway. Given the most likely source and location of the metal, this is presumed to be literal.
The pegasus crosses the last few body lengths. There are no real attempts being made to move silently. She’s in armor. Even if she could fly (and the doctors told her to wait a few more days before the first attempt, the pegasus can see how much Cerea blames herself and can’t make the centaur stop), there would still be some sound produced by metal shifting on her body, not to mention the flight itself. Also, there’s usually very little point in sneaking up on a cell.
Moving underground, towards the one who tried to create some level of torment.
(The foal’s treatment is taking longer than expected. Nopony knows when the hospital release might come. Some are starting to wonder whether it can happen at all.)
It’s nothing compared to what Cerea went through. The pegasus keeps telling herself that. Nothing at all…
…she’s in front of the cell. Facing the little barred window.
She looks inside.
It’s the first time she’s seen the unicorn. Of course, the same can’t be said going the other way. The unicorn saw the pegasus in a newspaper photo. Picking out a target —
— the restrained horn, coated in metal which displays carefully-chosen embedded jewels, is currently incapable of projecting a corona. The restraint can’t be removed by any force which hooves might bring to bear, and mere impact against anything in the cell won’t take it off. To that rather limited extent, the prisoner is helpless. (You don’t get to be a Guard unless you recognize just where all of those limits run out.)
But the covered protrusion is still a horn, and the metal is dense. So the prisoner is having a go at the cell’s lone shelving unit.
There’s no charge involved: no attempt to add a limited amount of mass and speed into the equation. Instead, the unicorn has her head down, and she’s just — scrapping the restraint’s tip against the wood. Over and over, working the gouges deeper into a trail of splayed splinters. And when the pegasus is this close….
…there’s a little bit of hum, here and there. Moments of singsong, where the pegasus can’t make out the words. And the motions repeat. Over and over. There’s a definite pattern. The pegasus, who’s watched her roommate sketch and can’t quite see the part of the shelving which is being progressively damaged, almost feels as if the prisoner is trying to draw something —
— the unicorn looks up from her work. Glances towards the cell door, and sees the pegasus on the other side.
They’re looking at each other. Silent. Motionless. Connected by a mutual gaze and a pair of decisions.
The other mare’s eyes are — odd. It’s as if they possess just a little too much pupil. Something which could almost be pulling in every last lumen. Consuming —
— the pegasus is a Guard. She’s seen worse things than those eyes.
She tells herself that for a second time.
A third —
“— I’m sorry.”
There’s something thin about the unicorn’s high-pitched voice. A stretched-out coating trying to hide a deep pit. The uppermost layer of quicksand has just offered an apology, and the pegasus isn’t ready to believe it.
“Sorry,” she repeats. It’s something to say.
The unicorn nods. “I’m so sorry you set your own apartment on fire.”
The pegasus, who went through the entirety of Wordia Spinner’s so-called article with only a few breaks for nausea, says nothing.
Nausea.
Cerea is sick…
The unicorn waits for a response with open puzzlement. Not getting one triggers a little head tilt to the right, one where the weight of the restraint might be sending the movement slightly astray.
The prisoner’s next words are almost calm. They also have a certain rhythm.
“I think about what it must be like, to lose yourself to that degree. To the point where you can’t think about anything properly any more. Where you don’t care. Not about what’s important. And you hurt yourself, you hurt everyone around you, you hurt a foal —“
“— that was you,” the pegasus softly states. Some things need to be on the record.
“I’m innocent.”
The words somehow manage to come across as sincere.
“There’s a warrant on the way,” the pegasus tells her. “We’ll have your field signature soon. And there’s already an occlugraph. All we need to do is compare the results.”
The unicorn almost smiles.
“I have Rhynorn’s,” the prisoner claims. “You can’t make me cast when I’m sick.”
“Then we’ll do a blood test to prove it.”
“You mean the palace doctors will do it,” the unicorn calmly replies. “Conflict of interest.”
The pupils seem to be getting larger.
“I don’t think you understand how medical oaths work.” The pegasus forces the words to remain steady. “I don’t think you understand a lot of things —“
“— all my signature might prove,” the unicorn half-sings, “is that I lifted something. Assuming that anypony trusts a palace-corrupted test. One where somepony will have to take the restraint off. And the test won’t say anything about whether I set a fire. Especially since that was you —“
The pegasus is trying to keep herself under control. Most of that attempt is currently focused on her magic, because she’s not going into that cell and she can’t send wind in her stead. She can control her magic, she has to — but it still leaves her with a moment when she’s not fully paying attention to her body.
Black wings flare out into the challenge position.
She’s not sure the unicorn knows what the shift means. She is fully aware of just how much the movement hurt, and only manages to keep the pain away from her features while the joints refold.
The unicorn did notice the initial surge of pain.
“You’re not well,” the prisoner notes. “Is it because the centaur has been draining your magic? What little you have? Imagine being its victim, over and over, and still not understanding —“
The pegasus smiles. Moves her wings again, just a little. The tips of the flight feathers almost seem to curl in and out. Her tail sways.
“— you have a funny way of flirting.”
The unicorn freezes. Pupils contract.
“…what?” emerges as a word straining to reach the level of a whisper.
The pegasus continues to strike her pose. “I mean, you did come to my apartment,” she lightly beams. “Most ponies would be questioning the motivation. But you dropped by twice. That makes it a little more obvious. First there was the love note —“
“— I didn’t,” the unicorn hisses. “I didn’t, you’re the sick one, sick just for thinking about it, sick —“
“— and personally?” She makes the smile a little wider. “You may be in denial, but I know a feather-duster when I see one.”
The unicorn’s recoil is a full-body event: something which starts at the enraged eyes, flows through the body and sends the desperate overpressure of rage into the hooves. The resulting push sends the entire body backwards, and the prisoner stumbles upon landing.
“Don’t call me —”
The pegasus casually presses on. “But you were making certain assumptions,” she smiles. “What if I wasn’t a bone-poker?”
“— I’M NOT A PERVERT!””
The pegasus waits for the scream’s echoes to die away. It’s not the sort of vocalization which is going to bring in another Guard — but there doesn’t seem to be any point in talking for a few seconds. Not until the unicorn stops panting, and the flattened ears lift away from the skull.
“Every Guard knows the words,” the pegasus neutrally offers, with all physical pretense towards flirting vanishing in an instant. “Feather-duster: sexual attraction to pegasi. Bone-poker: wanting a unicorn. When there’s a training group, we’re encouraged to use every term. Anything somepony might see as derogatory, no matter how stupid it is. Casually. Until the words don’t mean anything any more, because we’re all. Just. Guards. Some of us start kicking around the phrases as greetings. You know you’ve been accepted into the ranks when somepony has a go at you, right to your snout, because they know you won’t care —“
— nopony had spoken to Cerea that way. Not within the centaur’s hearing, and… there weren’t all that many ponies who were still on speaking terms with the pegasus.
There had likely been no casual insult. Not towards a girl (and the pegasus knows her roommate is young) who usually treats her own existence as a mortal offense. And the pegasus hasn’t tried it, because she knows how sensitive Cerea is. How… fragile.
No acceptance.
Has the integration process ever truly come close to working, for a training group of one?
…perhaps it doesn’t matter. Not for the Lunars. Not when the centaur can no longer serve as a Guard.
“We know all of the words,” the pegasus makes herself finish. “We don’t have to use them. You think they’re important. I don’t. And as soon as somepony stops caring — the terms don’t matter. There are words which are more important.”
“And what are those?” rides into the world on the wave of a sneer.
“Squadmates,” the pegasus quietly says. “Partners.” And then, because she knows nothing will wound more deeply than the truth, “Friends.”
The unicorn’s eyes…
The prisoner dismissively sniffs.
“You’re a fanatic,” she decides. “All Guards are. That’s why they can’t think properly. Why they don’t care about the herd. Why they don’t care at all.”
There’s a certain amount of morbid curiosity involved in continuing to listen, along with a rather significant quantity of internal notation. Some of this may have to be repeated during testimony, and the pegasus isn’t looking forward to that. They’re the sort of words which foul tongue and brain.
“Monsters…” The unicorn stops. Takes a hoofstep forward. “You’re protecting a monster.” And then she smiles. “Or is it two?”
Somehow, the pegasus keeps her wings exactly where they are.
“I would never hurt anypony,” the prisoner tells her. “But somepony who protects a monster — that’s a pony who can’t care properly. Just associating is bad enough. Not striking to remove it? What kind of Guard wouldn’t clear an obvious threat out of the palace? But to say what you just did…”
There’s horror in the unicorn’s features, and none of it reaches the eyes.
“Definitions,” the unicorn decides. “This is about definitions. And that’s why I tried to warn you.”
“Warn.” There was acid in the prisoner’s words. Repetition doesn’t seem to be doing anything to dilute it.
The smile arrives too quickly on the other mare’s face, and does so as a unit. No transitional movements of facial features seem to have been involved.
“It’s the sufficiency clause,” is all too close to a chant. “A sufficient warning. Two. Two more than you deserved.”
“A notice on my door,” the pegasus states. “One doused in a chemical which would make me sick.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t have proper magic,” the prisoner decides. “Being stuck taking down everything by mouth for your whole life. And it’s also not my fault that you can’t think properly. That you can’t even spot —“ the brow briefly furrows as the brain behind it searches for vocabulary ”— what the griffons are… oh, right!” The smile gets wider. “An invasive species.”
“There’s only one of her,” feels like a reasonable point to make.
The slim forehooves stomp. “It could breed.” And before an even more reasonable ‘How?’ can be offered, continues. “I had a duty to warn you!”
The pegasus believes herself to understand something about duty.
Cerea had…
…she’s been trying not to think about it. But she believes the centaur. That Cerea saw her friend. And there are positive aspects to that: for starters, the residents of that strange household now know Cerea is alive. Her friends, her rivals and, after the news reaches the herd, her parents. That the girl is lost, but — alive. And somepony is trying to look after her.
…she’s sick…
That’s the best way to look at it. The more practical one states that if the centaur spoke to the psychopomp, then the centaur had died.
It might have only been for a few seconds.
(It might happen again.)
(She’s sick.)
But she had died. Traded her one life for all lives, like a true Guard.
What has the arsonist ever done for duty?
“But you didn’t listen,” the prisoner continues, and those strange eyes skim across tight wings and self-paralyzed feathers. “And it would be a pity, except there’s nopony worth pitying.” And licks her lips. “No pony. Not any more, not that you were ever much of a real pony in the first place, or ever could be —“
“— you hurt a foal.” Just to see the lack of reaction.
“The fire did that,” the prisoner says. “Which you started. How am I supposed to be responsible for the movements of a fire?” Thoughtfully, “Really, isn’t it the centaur’s fault? All of it? The magic drains: I’m sure you know about those, since it’s done that to you over and over. All of the anger, all of the fear. All the centaur’s fault, just for existing. And it could stop doing that at any time.”
The smile thins. The pupils widen.
“With,” the unicorn adds, “a little help.”
Which is when the pegasus decides she’s had enough.
Her ears feel as if they’ve been clogged with sewage. The memories of the unicorn’s words aren’t exactly an improvement. And she’ll have to repeat those words to herself over and over as she leaves the cell area, fixing them in her mind for testimony. Carrying what feels like fresh vomit —
— Cerea is sick…
The pegasus turns. Begins to trot away. It only takes a single step before the sound of metal scraping into wood resumes, and the pegasus wonders whether the prisoner has decided that damaging palace property doesn’t have any possible charges attached.
One long scrape — and then the unicorn stops.
“This isn’t a very good cell,” the prisoner petulantly declares. “Why isn’t it any better?”
The pegasus knows the cell is basic. A place to sleep, a few things to read (with almost none from unicorn authors, just because). There’s a restroom trench and a sink. Furnishings are minimal. And that’s because this is a cell meant for a criminal. Cerea’s cell was more towards ‘honored enemy’ —
— she instantly regrets at least half of that designation —
(Cerea has to stay.)
(Has to.)
(But she’s sick…)
— but for the unicorn, the arsonist, there are no special touches. Nopony is going to offer bedsheets of rich purple velvet. Most of the cell is a dull grey. The most colorful thing within is the prisoner, and that just barely.
“I tried to warn you,” that one sadly offers. “But there was no reason to. Not when it was too late, and you were already corrupted. Because you can’t care properly, can you? Not about ponies, real ponies. Just monsters. I would never hurt anypony. But you associate with monsters. Call them your friends. And what does that make you?”
Her wings are under control. The left hind leg, recognizing a recent plural, nearly succeeds in kicking backwards.
“You should have been separated from it at the start,” the unicorn declares —
— the voice changes. Lifts in pitch, takes on hints of song.
“Separated,” the prisoner repeats. “Separated from each other, like bad fillies…”
The pegasus doesn’t understand.
She doesn’t want to understand.
She wanted to see the arsonist. Face the mare who had done so much. Now she just wants to get out of the area.
She’s seen the mare.
Seen her eyes.
Something about the eyes is wrong.
The pegasus trots a little faster.
The words follow.
“Reinforce, and drag,” the arsonist merrily sings. “Reinforce, and drag…”
There were certain sacrifices which had to be made when controlling your lessers and as far as Mrs. Panderaghast had previously been concerned, she’d already made just about all of them. Simply being in the same room felt as it had been the worst which could ever happen to her.
Except that she’d been wrong.
She couldn’t really say that the true worst had taken place. She was simply in a position, one which was in no way her fault, where it had the potential to happen. And it was utterly unfair, undoubtedly unjust, she was being made to suffer and she had done absolutely nothing wrong.
No matter what happened in this small, dark, criminally-unadorned stone underground room (because the earth pony was hosting, and that mare was stupid), she was going to wind up paying a price. She saw no realistic means by which anything about her comfortable, well-supported, perfect life failed to go through some level of near-total upheaval. She didn’t deserve that.
Not when she’d only made one mistake.
And now they were having a meeting. Another meeting and, as with the cellar, Mrs. Panderaghast wasn’t officially there. She hadn’t officially been in a lot of rooms over the last few weeks, she was frankly sick of talking to those whom she wasn’t provably associating with, and if the upcoming upheaval of her life had any level of dubious benefit, it was that she was very likely to be not officially meeting with them for the last time.
“So she’s being kept in the palace,” said the head of the pegasus supremacy organization, and did so in a tone which suggested he wasn’t all that distressed about it. That he didn’t understand: something which CUNET’s head had very little trouble believing. Anypony so delusional as to believe pegasi were important was obviously going to miss out on any number of additional basics.
The earth pony mare was worse.
“Yes,” Mrs. Panderaghast tightly stated. “That’s what my source has told me.”
It’s not fair.
Why was the universe punishing her? Simply for having been right?
But she’d received the word directly, and…. she didn’t like dealing with the source. With any of the parties in the room. Not when they were delusional and stupid and her obvious inferiors, and they never admitted to that last part. They thought they were better than she and if anypony had challenged them on it, they would be ready with a full parade of Facts.
Mrs. Panderaghast had no idea where they’d found the nerve to even try that. She was the one with the Facts. Everything else was obviously a lie.
The alliance existed within a definition so loose as to be on the verge of plummeting from the dictionary. In the wake of the pressure exerted by the weight of a centaur, the three in the room had agreed that Equestria was for ponies. They would just settle on which ponies later. And that was equally stupid, because it was obvious to Mrs. Panderaghast that the other two weren’t really ponies at all. They were her lessers. They had been born that way, and so their status would never change.
They were also exceptionally delusional, and that didn’t seem to have any chance of changing on its own. Not until somepony educated them.
“So they’re going to question her themselves,” the earth pony recognized. (And how obvious was that Fact, if an earth pony could see it?) “Interrogated by the Princesses.”
Mrs. Panderaghast nodded. The mare smirked. There were probably dozens of appropriate responses to that news, and smirking comprised none of them.
It was unfair. She’d had a life. More than that: she’d had a lifestyle.
What did CUNET do, as an organization? It found the unicorns who understood that they were special. Nopony could ever take away the gift of a horn, for it was theirs by right of blood. CUNET said the horn was the most important thing about them, got them in a room with others who felt the same way, reinforced just how special they all were and in exchange for the heady, perfect, unending intoxication of superiority, all the organization asked for was money. As far as Mrs. Panderaghast was concerned, it was a perfectly fair trade.
The real trick was in finding ways to ask for that money at least three times per moon.
Skill came from spending as little of it as possible.
…well, the organization had minimal internal spending. Mrs. Panderaghast had dresses to purchase and for some unfair reason, the designers always charged more for what they claimed as ‘extra fabric costs’. Which was proof of magical incompetence, because a truly superior unicorn would create something which was enchanted to fit.
CUNET told its members that they were superior. Also that they should be unhappy about not having that recognized by everypony around them, because the eternally-persecuted majority (relatively few of whom belonged to CUNET, but far too many unicorns had simply become corrupted) should have been in charge based on blood alone. And it collected dues, it had fundraising drives, and it reliably stepped onto the battlefield to wage its eternal war against those numerous lessers. A battle which was never truly won. Because if that ever happened, then how was Mrs. Panderaghast supposed to pay for the next dress?
…a dress which was probably going to have a foreign label.
The mere thought made her sick.
She’d always intended for CUNET to triumph one day. Somehow. She had the Facts. Get enough Facts together and they would lead to the Idea. The one which put her — which put CUNET in charge, while still guaranteeing a steady flow of bits. It probably would have had something to do with a newly-acquired tax base. But until then…
The current profit margin of hatred barely required any actual work. She’d reached the point where she could get other ponies to write the articles for her just by saying she was busy: they never minded when she signed. Besides, it was her organization. That meant the credit was hers to take.
She had been doing perfectly well for herself, largely by doing just about nothing at all.
And now that was over.
“She’s in the palace,” Mrs. Panderaghast repeated. “We have to do something about that.”
The pegasus shifted on his bench. The unnatural wings extended somewhat, folded back in.
CUNET’s head watched him think. Waited for the question, which was going to be ‘How?’ She was ready for that. As primary queries went, ‘How?’ actually had some legitimacy —
“Why?”
And now he was smirking,
She was going to make him pay for that.
“She knows things,” Mrs. Panderaghast told them. “Things which can’t come out under questioning.” Which was the truth.
Mrs. Panderaghast had spent years operating within the shielding fog of a legal gray area. Other ponies could write the articles, but art and perfect protection were found in the editing. She always avoided direct orders, and tamed down any text which felt too authoritative. Pointed suggestions had to be sanded.
Bluntly: how could she ever be responsible for others acting on what they felt she’d implied? That was their interpretation. As long as she could take rather temporary custody of the court’s witness bench and declare that she’d never directly said any such thing, then the Facts suggested she would be immune.
She wrote the kind of articles which served as a waiting schoolhouse slate, and allowed her members to fill in the blanks from an invisibly-attached list of the obvious. She did as little as possible and the organization’s members, acting under her direction, never really accomplished much at all.
(Also, the pegasus and earth pony at the underground table had clearly copied her. This was unfair. She’d copied an earlier organization first.)
And then the young mare had acted on her own.
In terms of the membership as a whole, it hadn’t been the first time. Work a group of ponies into a frenzy, load them up at the starting line for a race which would never be won, and it wasn’t exactly surprising to see one prematurely jump the gate. But she’d always stepped back from those ponies, and justifiably so. They’d had their own interpretations of her words: how could that possibly be her fault? A remorseful few agreed that she needed to deny their actions, because the organization as a whole needed to carry on. The truly devout even signed over control of their estates to her before entering prison, and she honored them through nearly bothering to remember their names.
But none had ever gone so far as the young mare.
Not to the point where it involved a foal.
A wounded infant was something which very few ponies could stand to see. A cry of pain, produced by one too young to understand what hurt even was — that served as a rallying point.
With a foal involved, investigators might chase a little longer.
Laws might be ignored. Or worse, enforced.
For a foal, a jury could wind up making the wrong decision. The one which said Mrs. Panderaghast was somehow responsible.
And then it would all come crashing down.
So she’d made a mistake.
(Was the palace tracking her already? Surely nopony there was that intelligent. It was a Fact.)
(It had to be.)
And it was unfair. She’d been protecting herself by getting the mare out of the capital, but — when you looked at her actions from the more nauseating perspective, hadn’t she shown some degree of kindness? She was being punished for kindness.
The so-called pony virtues. Nothing more than alicorn lies.
…it could be said that the young mare knew very little, and Mrs. Panderaghast would have readily agreed. When it came to CUNET’s membership, the pony in the palace cell existed as a trotting echo (and it was trotting because the lesser species kept sabotaging field strength and self-levitation alike). She’d wanted to be special. The organization had told her that she already was.
Mrs. Panderaghast knew the young mare was weak-willed and suggestible. This had been proven, because she’d mindlessly agreed with whatever CUNET said.
(Why didn’t more ponies align with her through thinking for themselves and coming to the only sane conclusion? After all, she was right…)
The young mare knew very little. The last few things she’d been told, perhaps — and in the absence of that, she probably knew whatever she’d been telling herself. But for all her lack of knowledge, the pony in the palace cell was still in possession of a rather unfortunate Fact.
She knew the cellar meeting had taken place.
(So did the pony who had told Mrs. Panderaghast that a member was in trouble, but — one problem at a time.)
She knew the head of CUNET had been there.
Had gotten the young mare out of the city.
A witness. A way to verify events.
A Fact in the possession of somepony who was weak-willed, didn’t think for herself (or didn’t do it very well) — and, after weeks of isolation…
Would spells be required at all? She might just listen to the first pony who showed sympathy. Who told her she was special, but… in a different way. Claimed the young mare was strong. And the best way to prove that strength was through the simple act of confession.
She’s the sort who might slip.
And she can be connected to me.
Something had to be done. That was obvious. There had never been a more self-evidentiary Fact, and it had led to her plan. Something born out of desperation, marinated at the temperatures of injustice and reluctantly served up as what would have to be her final effort — but it was still perfect, because it was hers.
However, this was the part of the plan where Mrs. Panderaghast was stuck dealing with inferior morons.
“She knows things about you,” the earth pony mare smirkingly observed. “Why should we care?”
The pegasus nodded. Then he looked disgusted with himself for just having agreed with an earth pony, along with having been part of a ‘we’. Mrs. Panderaghast almost understood.
She took a breath. A soft sound of straining seams informed her that the current dress had failed to magically adjust itself.
This is the dangerous part.
“Because,” she told them, “I’ve been keeping notes about our alliance. Writing up papers about all the little secrets which the spells discover, when we’re all so close together. I’ve put those notes aside, where they can’t be found. And if anything happens to me, such as my going to prison — the papers go to the palace. It’s all been arranged.”
She briefly wondered if such spells actually existed.
Perhaps she needed to get some papers. Full, blank reams in sealed envelopes. That should let ponies believe whatever they liked…
They were looking at her.
Their lips had pulled back from their teeth. Wings had flared. Muscles were bulging.
She knew she could win. She was utterly confident that a unicorn could defeat a pegasus and earth pony in a fight.
She just wasn’t sure whether these two idiots were prepared to agree with her.
Maybe they’ve been writing up papers.
They might be getting ready to…
No. They couldn’t be that smart. They would cooperate with her. They had no other choice —
— the pegasus shifted forward on his bench. Spoke through the snarl, as sparks began to cluster around the edges of his feathers. Electric-blue anger lit the room, and ozone saturated the unicorn’s lungs.
“So we,” he spat, “have to do something about this.”
Mrs. Panderaghast nodded, and considered it to be the bravest thing she’d ever done.
The earth pony still looked furious — but there was something thoughtful laced into that.
“The goal is to keep her from talking,” that mare matter-of-factly considered. “And you have someone inside the palace…”
Another nod. The bravery doubled.
Why is that mare smiling?
She found out.
“Then it’s easy,” the earth pony decided, and the satisfied expression was stone. “Have your source kill her.”
Something deep in Mrs. Panderaghast was measuring the casualness of the tone. It was the same aspect which had busied itself with monitoring how closely the mare was watching her, at least when it wasn’t concerning itself with figuring out time and distance to the door.
The words had made the pegasus pull back a little. She felt that made him look weak. Or for a pegasus, weaker.
“It’s not that easy,” the unicorn pointed out. “There’s Guards in the area, patrolling. My source doesn’t have easy access to that section. They can’t open the cell on their own. And even if they can reach the interior, the odds are too good that ponies will know they were down there. The first, best suspect. They won’t do it.”
Which, now that Mrs. Panderaghast thought about it, was somewhat irritating. She was sure she had at least a few CUNET members who might be willing to kill for her, and the unjust universe had left her reliant on somepony who wasn’t in the organization at all. (Multiple someponies, and every last one stretched the terminal syllables to the breaking point.) The most she had been able to rely on her source for was listening. Collecting information, passing it along, and that was about the limit. Even after the pony had approached her freely, hoping to help.
All you could ask the source for was information, and even that was limited.
(Some of what she’d been recently told was precious indeed.)
(She almost longed to tell her inferiors.)
(Just to watch their faces.)
Mrs. Panderaghast’s plan meant asking for one thing more.
The earth pony was smirking again. It made the unicorn wonder if the proposal had been a test —
— it didn’t matter. She had a plan, and neither of them was capable of seeing it.
The pegasus was thinking. It made him look stupid. Thankfully, it was also making the sparks slow down.
“We’re sure your mare is in the palace?” (The unicorn told herself that there had been poorly-cloaked desperation in the tone. A new Fact.) “Can we verify? What about Spinner?”
Mrs. Panderaghast promptly decided the snort was justified. “In the palace,” she said. “And not coming out.” It had been betrayal, and she didn’t understand why. What cause ever would have been sufficient for the reporter to justify cooperation with the alicorns?
She’d never seen Wordia as being that weak, and it had created another problem. Fortunately, both issues just happened to have the same solution.
“The half-gallop marker,” she told them, “is that we’ve all had our members blocked from palace service. It’s the security clearance screening.” (All three nodded in frustration, followed by feeling equally disgusted for having chorused.) “We can only look for those who approach after being hired. But when it comes to getting reliable ponies to do what we need, within the palace… there’s an easy answer.”
“And that is?” asked the very stupid pegasus. She had no idea how he’d even reached the point of being in charge. Best of a particularly bad lot?
Mrs. Panderaghast smiled.
“We’ve had forces outside the palace for weeks,” she reminded them.
“So?” inquired the world’s lowest non-measured intelligence, and did so as the earth pony began to go pale beneath her fur.
“So now,” Mrs. Panderaghast told him, “they’re going in.”
Wings flared. Flapped. Sent their owner into a wall, where the electricity discharged. The earth pony simply thrust herself to her hooves, and did so with enough force to crack the bench.
“ARE YOU INSANE? WE CAN’T —”
“— papers,” the unicorn reminded them.
“It’s the palace!” the pegasus gasped as he picked himself up from the dirty floor. “The palace…”
“If I go down,” she softly said, “you all go with me. Or maybe you should go first? Try listening.” And because she had been there far too long, stuck with her lessers in room after room when she never should have been there at all, not when the gift of blood had made her superior, ”To your better, like proper guanos and clods —“
She never saw the earth pony move.
On the rare non-fashion occasions when Mrs. Panderaghast thought about her body type, she usually saw herself as being highly attractive: it was just that very few ponies had the intellect to appreciate a mare who was carrying an extra bale-weight or so. (She liked to round down.)
The impact which drove her off the bench at the terminal point of the earth pony’s jump, sending her into the floor and leaving the mare standing atop her — if nothing else, it gave her something else to appreciate: namely, just how thoroughly she’d (subconsciously) planned ahead. Extra weight had turned out to be outstanding at redistributing force, because nothing was broken. Yet.
Her horn was weakly sparking in all directions. That was good. She would soon have a working to cast. It might even be a new one. Unicorns in stressful situations had been known to spontaneously create spells, and the clod on top of her probably didn’t even know what backlash was —
“— I don’t care how it might all come out,” the earth pony snarled, and leaned in to let hot breath blast against the rotted pearl snout from a mere hoofwidth away. “Or where I wind up, for doing what should be done. You say that to me again, and your part ends here, Majorica. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
And the pegasus, forever useless, did nothing more than watch and smile.
They thought they were her betters.
It was amazing how inferior ponies could be that delusional.
“…yes,” Mrs. Panderaghast said. It was easy to fake the tremble in her voice. It was what an intelligent pony would have done, especially when the plan’s success required living to see the next part.
The clod got off her. It took a few seconds before the unicorn could stand. More until speech returned, and she told herself it was more dramatic that way. More stately.
Then she told them the plan.
They cooperated. They had no other choice.
There were questions, of course. They wanted to know how everypony was getting in. She told them, and they were satisfied.
After that, there was some discussion of the Princesses, but — that didn’t last very long. She hadn’t expected it to. The trio agreed on very little, but one of the few commonalities of belief centered on the alicorns. Namely, that they were weak. The siblings who had originally defeated Discord (somehow), made a new world, founded their own nation and held it for nearly thirteen centuries, were just so obviously weak. And the proof of that? Was all three of their organizations, and the continued existence thereof. None of them truly understood that full freedom of expression meant allowing that which was hated: they just would have never have allowed ponies to disagree. And as it was, they all knew that the palace tried to tell ponies what to think: the recent one-sheet (which none had read, because it was obviously propaganda) proved that. The palace should never tell ponies what to think. That was their job.
Perhaps they existed at the palace’s sufferance. But that was the alicorns’ mistake, and so it was finally time to make them suffer.
(All of them also saw the alicorns as freaks. Something nearly singular, in no way one of their own. Impure. Inherently corrupt. And when it came to the power, all had become skilled in hiding their envy.)
It was quickly agreed that the Princesses were too weak to get involved. The Guards existed to keep them from getting involved. As with the most recent attack, they would merely be evacuated: something else which kept them from learning what real Equestrians wanted. And when it came to the rest of the palace forces — why would any of them ever strike against real Equestrians? Once they saw the herd charging, they would simply… give way. Perhaps a few might even join in, because all three recognized war as a condition where the other side never fought back.
(All of them said the palace staff would give way, and Mrs. Panderaghast briefly considered that none of them might truly believe it. But they were all at the head of their respective organizations. Perhaps the other two had somehow come far enough to realize that when it came to hatred, the actual vessels were — fungible.)
After that, it went to the issues involved in getting the young mare out. Along with what needed to be done if that, for some unknowable reason, proved impossible. The unicorn agreed to all of it, because she had to make it look as if she was giving a little.
(Perhaps the other two had their own plans.)
(They couldn’t be that intelligent.)
(They…)
And there were other topics.
“What about the centaur?” asked the pegasus.
“The centaur,” Mrs. Panderaghast stated, “is a distraction from the centaur.”
They were both staring at her. She refused to rephrase. If they had possessed any intelligence, they would have known what she’d meant —
“— which centaur,” the earth pony slowly said, “are we all talking about?”
— right. Intelligence, lack thereof.
“Tirek?” the pegasus checked. “The palace claims he’s dead —“
“They’ve obviously been using Tirek as a distraction,” Mrs. Panderaghast offered up, because it was a newly-minted Fact and they were the only ones she could share it with. “Maybe they brought him out of Tartarus and had him create a few small drains, just to make it look as if there was a threat outside the palace.” Which just showed how badly the alicorns needed to be kicked off the thrones, because what kind of mind would think of that? “Or they found some way to weakly simulate the effect, since the draining wasn’t complete or permanent. But we know this was a distraction, because my source saw what they’ll be trying to pass off as the corpse. It’s too small.”
They all thought about that.
“This is insane,” the earth pony finally muttered. “Insane…”
And that was wrong. To Mrs. Panderaghast, it was simply the next logical step.
She had founded her organization. She had collected funds, and put a fair amount of those well-earned bits aside. But she had also protected a young mare who, quite frankly, hadn’t deserved it. And now she was doing this because she’d already done so much, and there was no way she was going to stop. Stopping was for fools, and a fool who stopped for something as idiotic as self-reflection was distracted, motionless, and particularly easy to catch.
Majorica Panderaghast had established a place in the world through directing her forces into battles which were never truly won. This was simply advancing the basic philosophy. Ultimately, she didn’t care about how it all came out, not for the participants.
There would be a battle. And the thing about having a battle within the palace…
…if she was particularly lucky, there would be more real Equestrians who would see it as their chance, join in on the side of the alliance. But she didn’t really care. It was enough of a Fact to know that lesser ponies (including far too many unicorns) were timid creatures, and would simply stay out of it.
But a fight at the palace would command the full attention of the Guard. Every police officer would be called in. And with the entirety of those forces concentrated in a single location, nopony would be watching the trains. A unicorn mare whose fur had been soaked in dye, carrying letters of credit made out to whoever possessed them, regrettably cut down on total luggage capacity — that mare would enter the Grand Gymkhana, pass beneath the ceiling-embedded constellations and, watched by nothing more than false stars, depart from Canterlot.
It was a regrettable sacrifice. For starters, she would have to abandon so many possessions, and they would be hard to replace. Additionally, traveling alone meant moving without the reassurance of a protective opinion bubble. But there was no other choice. The young mare would talk: Mrs. Panderaghast was sure of that. And if it somehow wasn’t her, then somepony would: the stakes had grown too great. And this was the alternative.
She’d already decided to hide in Prance. (Perhaps she should have sent the young mare there, but… it would have been too expensive.) It was a nation of ponies. It was also one whose citizens generally felt they were better than Equestrians. How hard could it be to exploit that? All she needed was a primer in the so-called culture, a little time to practice the accent, and she could start all over again.
She didn’t care about what happened to the young mare, or CUNET: she would no longer be any part of that. Nothing in her was capable of caring about anypony else involved. It was her plan. Her distraction: the greatest in Equestria’s history. And with that had come the realization that a proper unicorn was best off caring about nopony but herself.
They would do it. They had to. They had no choice. And she would be safe.
The earth pony briefly marshaled herself.
“And the… other centaur?” she asked.
The unicorn noted the little tremble in the earth pony’s voice. Reveled in it, and almost wished she could keep the sound there forever.
But the upcoming assault was a chance to solve multiple problems. Her source had provided precious information indeed. And when you had a Fact this good… you had to tell somepony.
Mrs. Panderaghast smiled.
“The centaur,” she announced, “is no longer a problem.”
Author’s Extremely Public And Necessary Note: the plot and story arc of Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl was originally formed in late 2018, with further refinement for the concept and master blueprint taking place until the first chapter was posted in February of 2019. We’ve been following that track ever since.
I am not responsible for what the world did during the intervening time.
I have not changed the story’s original plan in the name of avoiding controversy, backlash, or what I am anticipating to be some degree of screaming — added to any perception that I might have been going for a particularly weak metaphor.
This was always going to happen. It’s happening now.
Here we go…
Love the title.
And I see the need for the disclaimer. Definitely looking a little January 6th in Equestria right now.
Heh, I actually WAS about to complain about you bringing American politics (ugh) into Equestria, but it seems truth is indeed stranger than fiction. It’s more allowable here in the comments though:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
Politics makes strange bedfellows, extremists really do have more in common with their ideological opponents than with moderates. The ideas are different, the sorts of people who get wound up about them are the same. Great story, great chapter.
I can only hope that at the end of all of this there's a certain (fat) unicorn mare who is strung up somewhere public, wearing a (sized "fat") off-the-rack dress from last season surrounded by certain Earth Ponies and Pegasus (Pegasi? Pegasuses? Pegawhatzits? I give up.).
And, with the right kind of luck, they will be strung up while receiving waves of "good-bye" as a certain centaur steps through her portal heading back to her home.
My only wish is that Celestia and Luna could flex just a little bit. I know there the cycle and maybe not wanting to hurt there ponies but just a little bit..
I for one didn't consider the real world parallel until you mentioned it, given the character motivations and the pacing of the story thus far. I look forward to seeing what you have going on here, and mind not the self-entitled or self-righteous who can't look at the story as separate from reality.
Oh my, could this possibly a chance to decapitate the head of the three most racist organizations in Equestria or at least in Canterlot? I think yes.
And they might not find Cerea so helpless than they believe.
So each tribe has their own supremacy movement, which bizarrely enough coordinate to some degree in regards to their hatred of the alicorns. Goddamn. Also Panderaghast is frightfully delusional about how much of a chessmaster she is. Putting a spin on that meeting in her head as it occurred requires an almost admirable amount of self-confidence mixed with an unhealthy dose of fantasy. Small wonder she was able to aim another such lunatic at Nightwatch, though. Excellent chapter as usual!
11165580
It's the Simpsons curse: observing the present accidentally predicts the future.
Edit: Or not. Re-reading it you're clearly saying this idea wasn't at all based on reality. Sorry for associating you with the Simpsons' writer's room, positively or otherwise.
What killing triek wasn't enough for them at least stop being so hateful. What will it take for them to be happy?
11165672
The death (or at least removal) of everyone not like Them.
Preferably death though.
That was a chapter most excellent, honestly wouldn’t have considered it an irl reference (and still don’t) on my own because it seems entirely in-character as has been established.
11165580
Noted hopefully this story's end will serve as an important lesson: Racists and supremacists by nature are stupid delusional fuck who are a liability to god and country no matter which god or country is involved. True supremacy is not determined by something so paltry as genetics rather it is skill, effort and the application of ones given talents that determine who is better than his others. All these KKK wannabes are just whiny little bitches who can't do shit for society so they whine and complain like the sub par individuals they are thus form these groups of delusional thinking so they can feel better about themselves by saying it's not their fault.
Gotta say, gonna be delicious when karma crushes these three Stooges of stupidity. More so for Mrs. Panderaghast, lady needs to suffer...badly. But beyond that, just hope our poor main girl is not made to suffer any more. Heck I'd enjoy the idea of this chaos and disharmony combined with what has happened to give Discord the jump start he needs to reform, at least then SOME good would come of this nonsense the three are about to start.
11165780
I will put money on that. No doubt in my mind that is EXACTLY how Discord comes back. Chaos in the capital, and Discord makes his triumphant return.
One thing I've noticed, which I suspect is a coincidence, is that weak fielded unicorns in this setting seem to all be evil. I can think of three examples of the top of my head: Clear Coordinator, Mrs. Panderaghast and the evil unicorn from Fleur's youth.
There must be a few non-evil weak unicorns, right? It just seems a little bit of an unfortunate implication. Edit: thinking about it, Mrs. Panderaghast actually being a really weak unicorn was just too much sweat, delicious irony too pass up on.
That said, this is another excellent chapter, and a lovely demonstration of self-serving delusion in action, which certainly cannot go horribly wrong for all concerned parties...
11165755
Also important, racist beliefs are usually exploited by those at the top for their own gain.
11165854
Or Minor Technicality. Or Starlight Glim....yeah, not that one
More than weak magic, the traits all Estee's villains have in common are ludicrous level of self-delusion mixed with complete selfishness.
They are all basically narcisists, but with at least one relevant talent which has allowed them to get away with everything...until now.
11165854
Mrs. Panderaghast isn’t at Gifted School levels, and that’s been stated. It doesn’t mean she’s below average. She was also terrified and couldn’t focus. Not exactly an instinctive fighter.
As Emery Board stated, there are those who say a unicorn’s greatest combat fear is an earth pony at close range.
11165890
A good point that I had not considered. Also of interest, canon has the opposite problem: canonically powerful unicorns have a very high chance of being some combination of crazy, deluded and evil. Case in point: pre-reform (and, to a lesser extent, post-reform) Starlight Glimmer.
Not being American, I didn't really associate this with current trends there - in fact it put me more in mind of the old WW2 Axis powers (Nazi_Germany, Italy and Japan), although I doubt very much whether that was intended either.
Sometimes racists are just racists.
Hilarious unintentional historical parallels abound. Poor Estee, planning this out somehow thinking the universe wouldn't twist itself to manifest their fanfiction into reality. That's right. It was all a glitch in the matrix! ...obviously kidding but in *this* climate it's still necessary to make that clear. I've always enjoyed how Estee's work has an interesting interpretation to it when you look at it through a modern political lens, taking into account that any such read is just that. I'm not claiming anything of Estee or trying to start any fights over politics. These are the kinds of themes that attract automatic downvotes from the very kinds of people being satirized in the fiction. It's funny to me but it is really sad, mostly it's amusing because it's deteriorated to such an absurd degree so quickly you can't help but laugh.
Anyway. To talk about the actual chapter, I can't say it was a pleasure cruise rolling around with the Supremacist Cabal, but their wretchedness and despicability made it amusing to imagine their inevitable reactions to reality asserting itself in the face of hard-wired delusion. But you took the time to bother laying out their ideas and following those ideals to their logical conclusions despite how heinous they are. Revealing the evil at the core of a hollow ideology rooted in self-interest, self-supremacy, and a will to power above all else. Self-defeating and self-deleting.
This was quite the update. Thank you for the work and especially for keeping it true to your vision despite the stress that causes. I know well the pressure to bend and compromise yourself out of fear of rejection. It always feels worse to say the thing you don't feel when you really think differently than it feels to be the one dissenter. They're different sorts of painful experiences but one makes you respect yourself less as a result of your choice. In my personal experience anyway.
11165580,
You’ve addressed the issue is racism/tribalism in so many of your stories over these past years that anyone surprised at the turn of your narratives is probably in dire of an education about their consequences anyway. And speaking of education…
11165603
It isn’t as if history doesn’t already provide a bunch of examples of entitled extremist manufacturing “outrages” to justify imposing their wills on others. What happened in DC last year, and in Ottawa and the Ukraine this year just show the entitled extremists’s playbook hasn’t changed much since democracy was invented and they lost elections.
11165926
In this case, more like "Sometimes fascists are just fascists".
11165976
A fascist is a racist that only knows two races: us and them.
I will break silence for only a moment to note that a thumbs-up is perhaps not quite in the right tone here and could have been taken in the wrong way.
And because I fully understand the necessary note, having flt I had to issue one myself a few days ago; last week, having planned it six months prior, I did the re-release of my sci-fi Soviet models and I have further got to use them in an upcoming convention next week (and the other half of my day job is modern armoured vehicles - i.e. Cold War onwards), so I have every sympathy in being overtaken by events that frame something you planned well ahead of time in an uncomfortable light.
*briefly looks South at the human variant*
Yeah, good luck with that, Panderaghast. French hate foreigners telling them what to do, and if the Prench are anything like our French than our little bigot is going to run into a wall of scorn and isolation.
11165701
Or slavery. Oh they won't call it that, they'll call it "restoring the natural order" (with them on top, of course) but the veil between what they'll call it and what it actually is would be so thin it would tear if so much as a butterfly brushes past it.
After all, you need somepony to work the fields, and you don't expect unicorns to actually do such lowly work, do you?
11165580
I for one am giddy at seeing this little plot thread that has been around long before Daily Life finally get to a head.
Say Estee, is the c word really bad to say around Earth Ponies? Dr. Gentle’s daughter turned on him right after he said it, and now we see the Earth Pony representative outright declare she would take Ms. Panderaghast out on the spot if she used that word around her again. Somehow I get the feeling her use of that word will contribute to her downfall.
11165854
Counterexample 1 Glimglam. Currently set up as big Evil in Glimmer. Very strong field/talent to do the things she has done so far.
Counterexample 2 Rarity, Average field, very good field dexterity. Trixie, Field nowhere as good as her talent makes her wish it was.
Yeah, given the triumvirate of intolerance, there really was only one option for this chapter's title. Outstanding presentation of revolting ideologies. Now the question becomes how this all falls apart... and whether Cerea's health is included in "all."
(I don't suppose the chaos of a public uprising in the palace could somehow be directed to one tower in particular?)
11165672
They don't know that Cerea is the one that did it, and at this point they'd believe it a lie anyway. Obviously if it did happen it was a (unicorn/pegasus/earth pony, pick the "best").
I wonder how the Discord Fragment that's presumably inside Cerea will react... Will it make her want to move towards the rioting and stuff?
Yeah, I noted "oh, the similarity to past events", but then was like, "Makes sense to happen here. Shrugs"
I was thinking that Pegasus Supremacist Leader and Earth Pony Supremacist Leader were fakes since we didn't hear much of them before... and when I heard "The unnatural wings extended somewhat, folded back in."
I thought it was Snowflake, given his wings, and Applejack as honey pots or whatever...
...
Irony / Hypocrisy / Self-delusion, whatever.
...
Arsonist is Crazy... ... hmm... magic... Hmm... Might Penderghast be locked up as a Threat to Public Safety due to her having a Mind Control Mark, and that's why Arsonist is crazy? The kinda magic the reporters accused Luna of having?
And she doesn't realize it because her mark is manipulating her too? Options options, so much magic.
----
Typo:
all direction > all directions
11166007
I imagine that since clod is both a word used to refer to lumps of earth and an insulting way of calling a person stupid, it hits home uniquely hard for earth ponies since it implies that it is them being earth ponies what makes them stupid. It's kind of the Equestrian equivalent of mongoloid, which is both an outdated reference to down syndrome and a condescending term for Mongolians, implying that all Mongolians are genetically disabled intelligently.
I think this was supposed to be unicorn, not pegasus.
These windigo agents need to be found and dealt with
11165989
Fascism is a lot more specific than merely being prejudiced against a "them", and I would dispute that fascists are necessarily racist in particular: The Italian Fascists, while highly prejudiced against socialists, were not particularly racist for the 1920s (not that that is saying much about their character). IANAE, but IIRC, fascism is inherently violent and (for a definition of "the people" which is very malleable) populist; political theorist Robert Griffin argues that fascism by definition involves a "palingenetic myth" of national rebirth through revolution, which, while it could conceivably occur completely non-violently, in practice inevitably includes large amounts of violence even when (as in Nazi Germany) fascists achieve the power to govern largely through legal means.
(Actually, not counting specific movement (eg, Nazi or KKK) marks, what would a fascism cutie mark look like?)
11166054
It turns out that similar circumstances cause people to make similar decisions. To take a less violent example, a few weeks ago, I got interested in Bitcoin, and it turns out that the unregulated cryptocurrency environment has recapitulated essentially every form of financial fraud, larceny, and incompetence that happened in the unregulated real financial environment of the 19th century.
(It's pretty clear what a pump-and-dump scam cutie mark would look like, and I'd expect a wildcat banking cutie mark might depict a cougar, but what about a ponzi scheme cutie mark?)
(EDIT: Why I asked about a fascism cutie mark, from the second referenced comment:
)
At a certain point, both Alicorns need to stop mollycoddling hate movements.
a nice little callback to "a Mark of appeal".
11166336
Actually, question for Estee: Did that incident happen on both this timeline and the Triptych one, or just one of them? And did it happen the same way on both?
Better be careful Estee. Youre approaching Pratchett levels of prediction.
The downside of reading such well written villains is that it feels awful to spend time in their heads. Looking forward to more Cerea POV.
11166268
Why, a pyramid, of course.
"of metal scrapping into word resumes"
"of metal scraping into wood resumes"?
Nice contrast between what slurs mean to Guards from Guards, and what they mean to members of that "alliance" from each other.
"She hadn’t expected it to, The trio agreed"
"She hadn’t expected it to; the trio agreed"?
"war as a condition where the other side never fought back,"
"war as a condition where the other side never fought back."?
11165580
*squints*
What a world we live in to need a disclaimer like that...
Yep ... nutso mare is deep in "It's Never My Fault" territory ....
11165639 Only the three most racist in Canterlot ... decapitating the most racist groups in Equestria would require the Earth Ponies as a whole to have a leader.
11165998
>Fleeing to Prance
One of those "Almost wish they'd get away with it long enough to realise they hadn't" bits.
11166325
And redefine freedom of speech to exclude things like slander, libel, and maybe hate speech. Specially with the press.
I'm still pissed off with the reporter who tried to interview Diamond Tiara without her dad's consent, openly admiting he would write whatever he wanted even if they didn't talk. To say nothing about what happened in the main Triptych story.
11165998
I'm curious, why do Americans seem to dislike France so much?
11166891
I don't think it's actually a serious thing. When we genuinely don't like something, half of the country tends to be not very subtle about it. It's probably got roots back in the 1940's or something, but these days pretending to hate France is the joke.
11166891
If I had to guess, because so many of them are historically and economically illiterate.
A lot of Americans apparently believe that France is an economic disaster zone destroyed by socialist ideas (when the real phenomenon, dubbed "eurosclerosis", ended decades ago and was never shown to be caused by socialism as opposed to, eg, the economic effects of the political fragmentation of Europe compared to the US at a time when European integration was lagging).
Likewise, a lot of American history teaching is absurdly flattened, so that all they remember about French military history is that it surrendered to Nazi Germany (and not even that that was the result of incomptetent and timid military leaders and a sizeable elite of pro-Nazi "conservatives" who feared the French centre-left more than the literal Nazis and more than a few of whom shared Hitler's antisemitism*; nor the efforts of the French Resistance or Free French forces, or the common people's resistance against the occupiers' and Vichy regime's attempts to arrest and deport France's Jews).
* Yes, if you've heard what Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have been saying recently, history may not repeat but it definitely rhymes.
As a result, many Americans do not understand that France has a strong and sophisticated economy and a storied military history, let alone the extent to which the Founders were influenced by France or the fact that an intervention by the French Navy is the reason that they exist as an independent nation, and therefore fail to understand why they should show her any more respect than they show to a random country like Djibouti or Thailand, nor why French people expect it.
(The "French waiter" stereotype is another wrinkle in itself: In France, service work like waiting tables is seen as a respectable job with a living wage; whereas in America, it is seen as something a teenager or unemployed person does while they wait to be offered "real" work and is paid mostly in tips, which may have something to do with the fact that historically it was often reserved for Black people.)
Well, that’s certainly not going to end well. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the levels of dilution some folks have about themselves and the world around them. Well, it might have more good come of it than not, but it won’t be pretty, that’s for sure.
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It may very well be a product of “small man syndrome” and/or the inferiority complex that may arise from it. That, or the formal education that comes from the training being above-average usually entails tends to stamp out, or at least repress, bigotry.
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Heck I think they should drag that fat unicorn through the portal and give her to the US government for “experiments”