Of Humans and Ponies
It was rare for anyone to have walked in the shoes of multiple races.
Sure, one could be born to one, live in another, and know the cultures of both. But regardless of who you felt you were inside, the projections and thoughts of others would always impact you.
A Unicorn would always stand out in Cloudsdale, just as a human from one culture would stand out in another.
It was something that one could not change. Man could see man and place him in categories, just a pony could place pony in her own.
I however, am different.
My name is Sunset Shimmer. Born a unicorn, and turned into a human after going through a magical mirror to another world.
I also did a stint as a flaming she-demon….but I don’t like to talk about that particular incident, nor can I confirm if other flaming she-demons exist naturally. Perhaps I was the only one.
I pray that is the truth.
But that is hardly important at the moment.
In a rare moment I found myself back in the form I was born in, a four legged Unicorn. I would have preferred his return to have been done under better circumstances, as giving a room filled with Canterlot nobles with the monumental task of making them see sense was not my idea of a good time.
But, it had to be done, and her Cutie Mark marked her as someone who’d always strive to be the best, to push for perfection, to shine at whatever I do.
I was better to use it for learning, for helping people, and for saving them, than for power. I’ve found that tends to backfire on me.
And so, with a cough to ready my voice, I began to speak.
“Humans and Pony are, on the surface, a race as different as night and day. One race walks with two legs, the other four. Their legs were built to see far, to run for long distances, and to relieve heat. Ours were built to move fast and hit with force”.
“One race mastered science, the other magic. With their science, they conquered a world far more rough and dangerous than ours, while we pacified ours with magic”.
“One was fractured across many nations and cultures, the other lived under one nation. From this they managed to extract from one people, a wide variety of myths and legends, viewpoints and goals. In doing so, they created many things, both good and ill, that a single group could never have come up with. Where we gained a unified culture that speaks the same language and thinks the same thoughts, they forged thousands of cultures and ways of thinking, as if they were a thousand races”.
As Sunset paused to breath, she noted her call to leave out certain, less tactful parts. Human diets for one. That would not be helpful at the moment.
“We grew up on divergent paths, yet despite this Humans and Ponies share many traits. Both value family and friendship, loyalty and honesty, kindness and generosity, laughter and happiness. Humans, like ponies, knew war, craved peace, and looked to the stars to learn about the universe. We both adapted to the land, and adapted it for ourselves. Humans and Ponies share history in the fields and the forests, the cities and the farms. We both conquered and settled mountains, made deserts hospitable, sailed the seas and soared the air.”
“To us, humans may appear to be tall, unnaturally thin creatures who destroy everything in their path. However, let us not forget that many of the accusations thrown at man by ourselves are in fact faults of ourselves as well. Our farms and cities, like the humans, were once wild lands we tore down and changed. We’ve hurt others in the pursuit of greed and pleasure, just as humans have. Earth may seem like a world where human males reign over human females, but did Equestria itself not have several Stallion’s rights movements in the past?”
“Mankind and Ponykind both continue to work towards our futures. Both races have suffered in the last few years, in some ways minuscule and in other ways incalculable. Both races were hurt then, and still hurt today. We have both recovered, if in different ways. Yet even as mankind prepares to return to their march forward, to meet the stars head on, we look at them and think of them as backwards. As alien. As different.”
“Humans talk of many concepts that hold true to us as to humanity: I will end with one of them. It is the concept of Yin and Yang, of opposite yet equal, a duality. The Sun and the Moon, and Pony and Human. While opposites of each other, they are not our enemy, nor are we their enemy.”
As she finished, Sunset was frankly surprised when she actually got some applause out of Canterlot elites.
Well, if one could get it out of the more belligerent of the U.N…..
….
“…..So, you think that was enough?”
Sugarcube Corner, Human World. Still as good as its Equestrian counterpart, and with better toiletries.
2 days after giving a speech in Canterlot, Sunset was back, coffee mug in hand, in her adopted home world of 8 years.
After several years of labeling it as her prison, of course.
“Well, in the immediate aftermath of your speech, which was broadcasted across Equestria, several hundred Ponies withdrew membership from several groups dedicated to the ‘Order Crusade’ against ‘Chaotic Humanity’ and the flow of intelligence on these groups whereabouts increased by 30%.” Her guest placed a glass container filled with a unsettling looking blue liquid on the table between them, looking far less inviting than coffee “We managed to capture several gallons of this stuff. We still don’t know exactly what it is, but it was labeled as a C potion, c as in carrot, and it was tied to a group of inspiring crusaders, sadly not the kind who just shout loudly and get covered in tree sap.”
Picking up the vial, Sunset raised it to her eye level and felt a great sense of unease “So, this is a weapon of some sort?”
“That is the theory, though for the life of me I can’t figure out what kind of weapon. Incendiary, perhaps acidic? I don’t want to test it on something living, and it has been surprisingly resistant to scientific analysis.”
“Well, wouldn’t be the first time you tried to study something that refused to allow itself to be understood, now it is it?” Sunset grinned with good natured teasing as her guest blushed.
“I figured it out eventually…..”.
“And I’m sure you’re figure out this potion eventually, just the same. So….” Lifting up her coffee mug, Sunset pushed the mysterious potion back across the table “Cheers to peace, Princess Twilight?”
Aged just as much as her friend, the inheritor to the throne of Celestia tapped her own cup of tea to her friends coffee cup “Cheers, Professor Sunset”.