Oratory
“...Which is why Ponyville continues to stand, on this, its hundredth birthday, as a monument to the ingenuity and greatness of our ancestors, as a place that even the great heroes of Equestria are proud to call home, as a center for wonderful local businesses and fantastic tourist attractions, and as a beacon of hope for ponies everywhere. I think I speak for everyone when I say that whatever the next hundred years may bring, as long as our fair city still stands, they will be filled with many glorious days of friendship and prosperity. Thank you.”
The Mayor of Ponyville finished her speech with her eyes straight ahead, her expression a warm—but not smug, never smug—smile. She had nailed it. Her diction had been perfect. Her timing, flawless. Her energy, unsurpassable. It was, in all modesty, one of the finest speeches she had ever heard.
The audience was silent.
“And that's where you would applaud,” she added.
The little corgi perched on the dresser yawned and began to scratch itself.
“Oh, you wouldn't know a good speech if it walked up and sniffed your tail,” said the Mayor, huffily. “You slept through the '78 state of the kingdom address. And Ring of the Neighbelungs. So what do you know about capturing an audience?”
Ruffles looked back at his master quizzically.
The mayor felt herself begin to sweat under those adorable and yet piercing brown eyes. “Unless... you really think it's boring?”
The tiny dog grabbed a chew-toy and shook its head vigorously.
“No, no of course not. I'm being silly,” said the Mayor. “It is the finest speech I've ever written. I've been practicing for weeks. This is just... stage fright. And besides, I'm giving it after an opening by Granny Smith. If that old bat's ramblings don't make me look good by comparison, I don't deserve to get out of this hick town.”
There was an alarmed yelp from across the room, where Ruffles had fallen into the top drawer of the dresser. The Mayor rushed across and lifted him out, looking him clear in the face. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, “don't take it the wrong way. Ponyville was a great place to live, to get a start. But I've been mayor here for twenty years! It's time I moved on. Claimed my due, as it were. You know, come fall, there’ll be an open seat on the council.”
The little dog rolled its eyes as it was lowered back to the floor. He knew.
“Now you run along and... wait! Of course! Not a beacon of hope, a lighthouse, shining brightly to illuminate our glorious future, while swinging back around with reverence for the past! Now that is Canterlot-level writing.” The Mayor quickly crossed out several lines on one of the many notecards and scratched in her latest piece of genius.
This was going to be absolutely perfect. Finally, after the disaster that had been the last Summer Sun Celebration, what with the world-spanning plots and all, finally Princess Celestia was returning to Ponyville, and she would get to show her just what the mayor of a small town could really do.
She could practically smell the sweet mountain air of Canterlot.
The crowd stood in loose rows ringing out from the stage all the way back to the statue of the Princess in the center of Ponyville's town square. The entire population, all 3065 of them, had turned out to see this. Mayor Mare couldn't be more pleased with the turnout—not least because of the curtained litter in the back, surrounded by the royal guard.
With a deep, calming breath, the Mayor stepped up to the podium. “Fillies and Gentlecolts,” she began, silencing the low murmurs of conversation that filled the square. “New friends, familiar faces, and honored guests alike. Let me be the first to welcome you to our Ponyville Centennial celebration!”
There was a loud round of stomping from the crowd, which she accepted with a gracious inclination of her head and a smile. “I'm sure you all know me, your local, hardworking Mayor Mare. I have a few thoughts I'd like to share with you all to mark this wonderful occasion. But before that, let's begin the festivities with a speech by a mare who was here a hundred years ago, at the very moment of Ponyville's founding. Fillies and Gentlecolts, please welcome Ponyville's oldest living resident, a true pillar of the community, and beloved matriarch of one of Ponyville's finest families: our very own Granny Smith!”
More applause thundered, as Mayor Mare stepped aside and a wizened green mare creaked her way up to the podium, joints popping audibly.
“THANK YOU, MAYOR,” screeched the sound system, as Granny Smith spoke, her nose practically pressed into the microphone. The audience winced. “THAT WAS A MIGHTY FINE INTRODUCTION, AND I—”
“Granny! Back farther!” yelled Apple Bloom from backstage.
“WHAT'S THAT? YA CAN'T HEAR?” said Granny Smith. “WELL I RECKON I CAN TRY TO SPEAK UP—”
There was a brief pause in the proceedings as Applejack shoved her way through the crowd, raced up to Granny Smith, and pulled her slightly farther back from the microphone. As she stepped back down from the stage she was greeted by the loudest round of applause yet.
The Mayor couldn't help smiling behind her hoof. This was practically farcical. After this lead-in, she'd look like a world-class speech writer if she could string two sentences together.
“Right, well,” said Granny Smith. “As I was saying, thank you for your kind introduction mayor. You sure do know how to make an old mare feel welcome, asking me to give your opening remarks and calling me a pill and all." This produced some head-scratching among the crowd of assembled ponies, but if Granny Smith realized it she gave no sign, forging on after a slight pause. "What I wanted to talk to all of you young whippersnappers about today is places. There's all kinds of places. Places to hang your hat, places to hang your bonnet, places to leave muddy boots to dry so they don't muss up the floor.”
“I said I was sorry!” came a shout from backstage.
“But when you get right down to it, a place is just stuff,” continued Granny Smith. “Just some dirt, or maybe a few walls and a floor, or even a whole squash-picking town. A great big earthquake could come by tomorrow and knock all the buildings down, or the dam could burst again and flood everything like it did back in '35, and '38, and '43, and... now was it '64 or '46? Well, anyway, it would change everything! Darn near did all those times. But even though all those places we'd come to know and love were way down underwater, Ponyville stayed right where it always was.”
Granny Smith leaned back on her arthritic rear legs, and pointed a hoof at her chest. “Because what makes a community what it is ain't a town hall, or a statue of a Princess, or even a shrine to the book where a certain pony uncovered a plot to turn out the lights on Equestria for good. What makes a community is the ponies that live in it.”
“My family was here before anypony. We set up Sweet Apple Acres, my mama and pappy and my siblings and me, right where it is today. But this place wasn't 'Ponyville' until more ponies came along, with their own families, their own ideas for buildings and businesses, and their friendship. I'm one hundred and six years old now. I've seen more ponies come into this town that I can even count. I've seen almost as many leave, one way or another.” For a moment Granny Smith was very quiet, and out in the crowd of faces, hats were lowered.
“But, when I look out on y'all now, my little ponies, all I can think is that every last one of 'em who's no longer with us would be pleased as punch with the Ponyville of today. With the love and friendship you all show each other. I know, that wherever they've gone, when they look back on Ponyville, they smile. So I'm gonna smile too, for as long as I'm here. And that's thanks to all of you, and our good Mayor Mare. So, without any further blathering, I'll let her come up here and give her speech.”
Granny Smith clapped her hooves together several times, starting off a huge mass of stomping hooves from the audience. It was almost deafening—impossibly loud for three-thousand sixty-five ponies, for a mere twelve-thousand-odd hooves to make.
The smile on her face was more than usually forced as the Mayor trotted back to center stage, working her way against the wall of sound. Granny Smith beamed at her, genuine and happy as anything. The Mayor felt her smile stretch a little, but strangely, like the muscles weren't quite certain what to do. She wished she had something to say to the older mare, but instead just bowed her head, ducking her smile out of sight.
Finally, as she heard Granny Smith trotting away, she turned to the crowd. Looking out, she saw smiling faces, familiar faces. She saw tears, or the beginnings of them—ponies moved by Granny's words. She saw the citizens of Ponyville.
“Thank you, Granny Smith,” began the Mayor, pulling out her notecards. They seemed very small for the words and ideas they were meant to contain, for the future they were meant to bring her. That future was beginning to look a little small itself.
She cleared her throat. “Filles and Gentlecolts,” she began again. “I'd like to... I...”
She read the first notecard over, and then the second. When she reached the phrase “fated grandeur” she gave up and crumpled the entire speech into a messy wad of paper, which fell apart instantly, since note cards do not crumple especially well.
“I said I had some thoughts I wanted to share with you today,” she said to the crowd. “But that was a lie. It's really just one thought: thank you. You all are the reason I do this. You make this town a great place to live, and you make it possible to think of a future that's even better than today, and I... well, thank you.” The mayor stood there for a moment, blinking furiously against a sudden twinge in her eyes. “I um... That's it,” she said, and headed for the exit to the stage. She was almost halfway there when she stopped, struck by a thought. “Oh, and—I think Pinkie Pie had a party planned?”
“Darn straight I do! Come on everypony!”
As the party entered its third hour, the Mayor of Ponyville slipped quietly away, down a back alley, across Roseluck's garden—careful to avoid stepping on anything—and through her own front door. With a relieved sigh she collapsed in the doorway.
Ruffles the Corgi came running up, tail wagging.
The Mayor smiled at him. It had been an exhausting couple hours of dancing, hoof-shaking, awkwardly accepting compliments on the brevity of her speech, and more-awkwardly dodging questions from those who knew her well enough to wonder if something was wrong.
In fact, there wasn't anything wrong. In fact, there was something quite right.
She just didn't quite know how to say it without sounding crazy, without sounding like she'd snapped, or lost her mind, like a pony looking up and noticing for the first time that the sky was blue.
But it really was amazing. Her town had just turned a hundred years old.