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Chapter 7

Parade Coverage

Chapter 7

“There’s a yellow rose in Texas, that I am goin’ to see,
No other soldier knows her, no soldier only me.
She cried so when I left her it like to broke her heart,
And if I ever find her, we nevermore will part!”

For a supposedly tense First Contact scenario, it sure looked a lot like a street party in downtown Pasadena, as the full crowd sang along with the band from Conroe, Texas. But then that’s what the Rose Parade is, or what it used to be.

You see, the Rose Parade is like four parades in one:

It’s a rivalry-building “parade before the big football game”.

It’s a civic-pride building “Southern California flower-float parade”.

It’s a traditional American “parade with lots of marching bands”.

And it’s a traditional European “parade with a lot of equestrian units”.

The last two of these groups of participants had their own competitions that took place in the week before the parade. The horse groups had an “Equestfest”, and the bands had a “Bandfest”.

Edie Conday had recorded a full report on this year’s Equestfest, just like she did every year. And just as with every other year, it was never aired.

Right now the bands on either side of the fateful Humboldt University float were taking turns playing through their Bandfest programs for the public, and for the unseen audience of the visitors hiding behind the Norton Simon Museum.

Considering the equine nature of the visitors, it was thought best to give the groups of horses “enslaved” by humans the day off.

“Well that’s not fair!” Edie protested on learning of this decision. “The bond between a person and their horse is a very special thing, and very respectful of the horse. If you’re choosing things to show them that put us in the best possible light, I think a few equestrian units could not fail to make a good impression.”

“Well they can’t exactly see an equestrian unit right now,” said Susan’s voice in Edie’s earpiece. “So unless one of our units are adept at tap dancing...”

“Ha!” exclaimed Robert Goodchild’s voice. “Tap-dancing horses!”

Beside her, Amy got a worried look in her eyes. “Susan,” she asked into her microphone, “did anybody bother to cancel the flyover? The last thing we want to do is startle the visitors.”

The voice of the producer in her ear swore. “I’ll try,” she then said, “but I think it’s too late to call them back.”

Unnoticed, Edie sighed quietly to herself at having her ideas rejected once again. Then she rose quickly to her feet as she felt electricity building in the air. “This is what happened right before—”

With a loud “pop!” a pinpoint of bright white light at the top of the Humboldt University float grew into a disk eight feet wide, out of which stepped a silhouetted figure before it suddenly vanished.

Everyone watching held their breath.

Princess Luna was far too professional of a princess to roll her eyes at seeing that she had absolutely zero chance of carrying out her plan of “melting into the shadows”, so she merely imagined performing the maneuver—while making a mental note to look through portals prior to using them—before proceeding to act like this very public entrance was precisely what she wanted to happen.

From behind her, a human male put a whistle to his lips and blew some sort of code into it.

In response, a line of humans that somewhat resembled soldiers marched towards her, keeping tightly in formation.

Princess Luna wheeled about before rearing onto her hind legs in preparation for a confrontation, but to her surprise the line wrapped itself around the flowered platform she was standing on and faced outward instead of inward.

The alicorn could not be positive, but it looked more like these guards were here to protect her rather than to try the debilitating (for them) move of trying to apprehend her.

Well! she thought to herself. I shall give them a little more credit than before. After all, here was a crowd gathered quite obviously to hear her speak, and from her shaky ability to read emotions on their tiny and far away faces, it appeared that these humans did indeed seem well-disposed to her, and eager to hear her words.

Best not to disappoint, then.

With a hoof on the chest in the traditional oratorical pose, she addressed the crowd in the Royal Canterlot Voice. “<Greetings, Humans of Earth!>” she proclaimed in a strongly accented Latin. “<It is I, Prin...>” She stopped on seeing from the expressions on her audience’s faces that they had no idea what she was saying.

At that moment, the portal burst back into existence behind her, and a white hoof reached out of it to slap a white skullcap onto Princess Luna’s head. Luna glared at the portal with a peeved look familiar to any younger sister who had her serious moment ruined by an elder sibling.

She looked up in resentment at the edge of the piece of headgear, which was just visible peeking over the top of her mane. White, really? she thought to herself in annoyance. Closing her eyes for a moment, she made magical contact with the translation spell embedded in the cap, and effortlessly pulled its vocabulary into her mind. Then she used her magic to re-open the portal and fling the unneeded headgear into her sister’s startled face before closing it once again.

It would be a mistake to say that Princess Luna had trouble speaking Modern Equine. In fact, Princess Luna was one of the greatest linguists in the history of her planet, and had invented at least fifteen imaginary languages before she was exiled to the Moon. It’s also true that her contemporaries of a millennium ago were as confused by her diction as the ponies of today. The fact of the matter was that she had decided long ago precisely what Equine was supposed to be, and then stubbornly stuck by this conception with the expectation that the rest of the Pony race would eventually catch up to her. They appeared so far to be remarkably slow in doing this.

Hm... she thought to herself as she studied her latest acquisition. An obvious derivative of Latin, but with an admixture from the barbarous tribes of the North. Obviously the tongue of one of the Empire’s conquerors! Perhaps inhabitants of a client state that the foalish Romans started employing as their soldiers while they slid inevitably into sloth, until the day that the servant turned the tables on its master!

It was then that the Princess remembered that she still had business to get through before she could continue her musings about recent human history.

“[Greetings, Humans of Earth!]” Princess Luna proclaimed in a version of French that was accented by Classical Latin and further accented by Luna-ese Equine. “[It is I, Luna, Princess of...oh, come on!]”

It appeared that the crowd before her were as ignorant of French as they were of Latin.

...With two exceptions.

French? Edie asked herself in disbelief. The alien ambassador speaks French? Well, good thing that they teach that in high school. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who kept in practice over the years and can volunteer to be translator for Miss Peters, right?

But as she looked around, nobody stood up to volunteer. Either they took some other language, forgot what they had learned, or were too scared of the consequences of getting a translation wrong under the circumstances.

Edie Conday fell firmly into the last category.

...At least until Amy Peters fixed her predatory eyes upon her.

“[You speak French?]” asked Professor Lambert, who happened to be the second exception to the rule of general ignorance. Pr. Lambert was a disheveled little man in a brown jacket who had been spending the past few minutes taking his turn in throwing himself at the iron wall that was Captain Fenwick, proclaiming himself “the master of all languages, human or otherwise”. Upon seeing the new arrival, he tried and failed to get through the cordon surrounding the big blue horse with the freaky mane, then decided to just raise the volume of his voice and address her from where he was. Dragged along by his shoulder during this whole process was the professor’s graduate student.

“[Yes, I speak French,]” Princess Luna said matter-of-factly, looking down at him. Behind the professor, the student put on a goofy smile and waved, causing the princess to have to suppress a giggle.

“[Then you are a fraud!]” the little man proclaimed. “[Everybody knows that the extraterrestrials all speak varieties of Amdo, or at the very least Kham!]”

“Then what everybody knows is, by necessity, utterly false,” Luna proclaimed in Equine.

“{I refuse to offer my services to a creature that refuses to obey the rules of common intergalactic courtesy!}” Professor Lambert replied in his most withering Amdo. “{Come along, James!}”

“[We’ll come back someday with his collaborator, Pr. Diote!]” the human student promised the alicorn in French as he was led away.

“[I know of no professor by that name!]” Pr. Lambert protested as he led James away.

“[You don’t know of the famous Professor Kelly Diote? But he’s just like you!]”

Princess Luna stood there blinking in confusion for a few seconds before she got the joke: “Kelly Diote” in French sounds just like the phrase meaning “what an idiot”.

She made a mental note to find out more about this “James” individual on her next visit to Earth.

...Assuming there would even be a next visit, she mentally noted.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle, there you are!” she exclaimed in Equine as six ponies emerged from behind the large building. “Are you ready to leave?”

After another whistle command, the group of guards opened up their ranks to allow them through.

Twilight led the group around the side of the platform until she could get a good look at the crowd.

“Twilight Sparkle, are you ready to leave?” Luna repeated herself, showing some impatience.

“I...suppose,” Twilight replied.

“You are not hurt?” Luna asked.

“No, Your Highness.”

“Then we shall depart.”

“But Princess, I was hop—”

“[Greetings, Your Highness!]” stammered a nervous voice off to the side.

Turning her head, Luna saw two female humans. Unlike the earlier idiot, her self-appointed guards had allowed these two through. Both of the humans were speaking into small sticks. A third, male human hid behind a fair-size bulky object that included a rectangular sheet of glass or some other clear substance.

The more-confident of the two humans barked some instructions at the sheepish one, who then uttered the question “[Do you have anything to say to the people of Earth?]” while the first one held her stick aloft and pointing in Luna’s direction.

The princess raised an eyebrow. “[Surely you are exaggerating,]” she said. “[I know a little about your world, and your population is quite a bit bigger than can be fit on yonder structure.]”

The human who had spoken to her quickly said something in her strange language into her stick. The two females then shared a knowing look. Without being prompted, the French-speaking human continued: “[We have technology to transmit our actions and sounds around the world. Millions of people are watching you at this very moment!]”

The longing look that the human was giving Luna was beginning to unnerve her. And did that curry-comb just materialize in her hand?

“M...millions?” the Princess muttered to herself in her native tongue, before recovering herself. She guessed that the strange objects being wielded by the humans were responsible for this incredible feat, and addressed her remarks to them rather than to those who held them. “[Very well then,]” she said, and waited for her words to be translated before continuing. “[Know that we are merely visitors to your world, and have no hostile intentions whatsoever. These ponies arrived here by accident, and now that they are recovered and unharmed, we will leave you in peace.]”

As the blonde-haired human proceeded with her translation, she appeared to be stumbling over her words more and more. Her speaking stick dropped limply to her side when she finished.

Oh God, it’s happening again, Edie thought sickly to herself, looking at the alien equine and only seeing the proud visage of Dahlink being led into her carrier, on the day her life began to crumble.

As Luna watched, the second human failed to even hear the first female’s complete translation before stepping forward and delivering a quite spirited, but still incomprehensible, speech to her. When she finished, she looked insistently at her companion.

“[She says that humanity wishes to establish long-term relations with your kind,]” the woman said listlessly, as if she was already convinced that her words would be useless. “[There is much that we could teach each other.]”

Luna shook her head. “[We have a strict policy of non-interference with lesser races,]” she said with a superior air. “[Farewell,]” she said coldly, taking to the air. “[You shall not see us again in this generation.]”

“[Please!]” the female begged.

Luna ignored her to land beside her fellow ponies. “Are you ready to go?” she asked them.

“Wait, aren’t we going to—” Twilight asked.

“[Please!]” the human insisted. “[Before you, we thought we were all alone in the universe. Please, don’t leave me!]”

Luna’s heart caught on the word “me”. She turned and looked back...

...To see the human on her knees. On her face was a heartbreaking expression.

Princess Luna knew that expression all too well, for it was exactly what she had looked like when her own heart had been broken twelve hundred years ago.

Perspicacity had first impressed Luna with his mathematical genius, but she truly fell for him when she found that he was the only pony who dared to laugh at her jokes.

That night, she spirited him away to her castle and made him hers. For the rest of his life, he was her sole property, and he reveled in it. Everypony else, even Tia, thought he had died in an avalanche, but in between her duties, Luna had taken every opportunity to visit her lover and show him the wonders of the universe that only the Princess of the Night had access to. Under her guidance, he developed his study of mathematics to untold heights, and as she published the papers he wrote under an assumed name, he shared in her pride as those papers revolutionized the field.

Decades passed, and higher and higher rose the specter of Perspicacity’s mortality. Luna had used methods both conventional and unconventional, trying to transfer part of her agelessness to him, but all to no avail. She then tried to perpetuate him into the next generation, but it was clear that her ascension had rendered her sterile, and the idea of keeping a fraction of him alive as a spirit clone felt to her like a defiling of his perfect whole. There were other methods available, but her meticulous research proved them all to be even more monstrous long before she had ever reached the point where she would have dared to use them.

Finally, to the accompaniment of a phantom chorus singing his favorite song, Luna’s one true love died, and with him died a major part of herself. While it certainly couldn’t be argued that she was completely sane when they met—faking a pony’s death and moving him into your place to become your personal property is considered abnormal even for a princess, regardless of how willing the victim is—her mental disintegration was certainly accelerated by his passing. The day when she would submit herself to the Nightmare was soon approaching...

Luna gasped as she felt her heart start beating again. “[I...I...]” she stalled, her mouth suddenly dry.

With a sound as if the very air was being torn asunder, a group of four metal dragons with fixed wings raced into her view. The other ponies flinched, but Princess Luna stood firm, facing this sudden threat with a look of defiance.

As she watched, one of the dragons suddenly changed course, flying up and out of the formation, as the others continued to rapidly cross the sky. The three objects flew over her head, and then raced away.

Luna instantly understood what she had witnessed, for she herself was the first pony to apply the “missing pony” maneuver of the earth pony militia to pegasus military funerals.

“[Who do you honor?]” she respectfully asked the human who spoke French.

The human looked dumbly at her for a few moments, still overwhelmed by her emotions, before finally noticing the dwindling aircraft and responding. “[Gary J. DiSano,]” she replied. “[The organizer of this year’s parade. He died three months ago. As well as our soldiers fighting overseas.]”

Luna nodded as she recalled the aspect of the humans that had had the strongest impact on her during her visit to this world so many hundreds of years ago: the variety and beauty of their means to respect the dead.

She looked down at the ponies, and made up her mind.

“[I am a Princess of Equestria,]” she said as she faced the crowd in the stands, and the millions of others that could somehow watch her as well. “[And as such, I decree that we shall be reopening this portal in five days’ time. Have dignitaries willing to negotiate our future relationship here at that time.]”

Smiling, she looked down at Twilight Sparkle and noted her intense study of the humans. Not knowing French, she still thought they were leaving forever, and thought that making these observations would be her last chance to learn anything about them or their world. Oh, clever little Twilight, thought Luna fondly. Tia’s own little scientist. Luna’s eyes went wide. Does she know? Luna asked herself.

“You’ll get your chance to study the humans soon enough, Twilight,” she said. “I decided to reopen the portal in five days.”

“Oh, you will?” the unicorn asked excitedly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“‘Humans’?” Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie. “Is that another of the tree pony names for themselves?”

“Um...maybe?” answered Pinkie.

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