Twilight's accidentally landed her friends on Earth, and it's up to Princess Luna to save them. But do they really need saving?
For generations, humanity has dreamed of discovering intelligent life out in the stars. To say that ending that search in downtown Pasadena was a surprise would be an understatement.
Princess Luna had herself a simple mission: Track Twilight Sparkle and her friends through a malfunctioning portal to Earth, and get them out without being noticed. Luna had no desire to establish permanent relations, or even to stay and talk. After all, both princesses were convinced from previous experience that humans were nothing but trouble.
It appears that both parties have much to learn about each other.
Present-day follow-up to "The Best of All Possible Worlds". "Alternate Universe" tag is because it pretty quickly diverges from Season Two continuity.
“...For those of you just tuning in, welcome to the second hour of live coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade on a bright and sunny New Year’s morning here in beautiful downtown Pasadena, California!”
The television host addressing the camera was a tanned and relaxed Southern California blond approaching retirement age, with an easy smile and a neighborly twinkle in his eyes. He was sitting in a swivel chair in a wide booth, with red velvet hung up behind him and a low table in front of him covered with models of parade floats and index cards. A pair of microphones sprouting from the table were there mostly for show, as the clipped-on variety the announcer wore was more than adequate to pick up his booming voice.
Another thing about that voice was its tendency to get a little blue at times, which explained the fact that the broadcast was not exactly live, and why a man with the job of censor was sitting back at the station three blocks away. He was hunched over a desk and staring at the television with a pair of headphones on, his finger poised over the all-important bleep button.
“I’m Robert Goodchild, and sharing hosting duties with me today is the lovely Amy Peters,” the newscaster continued, calling her a “war correspondent, investigative journalist and, for the past month, guest judge on America’s Got Talent, airing on this station Sundays at 8 pm. Say ‘hello’ to the folks in TV Land, Amy!”
“Hosting the parade with you is such a great honor,” Amy Peters said, between clenched teeth. She was a dark skinned woman with short-cropped black hair, but not so short as to fail to cover up the scar on the left side of her neck. She was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach any higher on her face than the lips.
Several uncomfortable seconds of absolutely nothing followed, until Peters realized that she was still supposed to be speaking.
“Err, we are currently waiting through a small delay, due to the withdrawal of the float sponsored by Natural Balance Pet Food. Tillman the Snowboarding Bulldog pulled a hamstring muscle, and seeing as he was the star of that float...” It looked like that last sentence was physically painful for her to say, and impossible for her to complete.
“Let me reassure the viewing public that Tillman is in no pain, and is being cared for by his thirty-member crew as we speak!” a worried Goodchild added quickly. “We’ve seen the City of South Pasadena float, and the Ohio University Marching 110. Now let’s go out to Edie Conday on the street with the latest update on what we’ll be seeing next.”
“Let’s not forget the Western Haflingers, Robert,” chided Edie Conday, a perky blonde, from her position standing on the sidewalk in front of a bandstand of spectators. Somewhere at the top of that bandstand and out of sight of the camera was the broadcast booth. “They were something, weren’t they? The antecedents of the Haflinger breed of horse date back to the Middle Ages,” she tossed off effortlessly, “although the official foundation sire, 249 Folie, was only born in 1874 in the village of Hafling, located in the—”
“Yes, Edie, that’s quite fascinating,” interrupted Robert Goodchild’s voice in a tone that was somehow dismissive without sounding dismissive in the slightest. “I believe you had an update on the next float, yes?”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Edie. The camera followed her eyes as she peered down the street. “The substitute float is in position and rolling up towards us. Let me describe it to you in detail as it slowly approaches.”
Seeing the light on the top of the camera turn off, Goodchild signaled to his producer to cut the microphone feeds and turned to his co-host. “You know, you could at least try to enjoy yourself,” he said.
“‘The Magic of Friendship’ is the theme of the float presented by the Humboldt University of Berlin, in commemoration of their half-century of partnership with Pasadena’s School of...” Miss Conday continued, her nose buried in the index card she had just been handed.
Ms. Peters reached up one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I am in Hell,” she announced to no one in particular.
“...founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt as the University of Berlin in 1810,” said Miss Conday, as the card was brought closer and closer to her face. “Wilhelm was the brother of Alexander von Humboldt, the famous geographer and naturalist—didn’t he discover a penguin?”
Miss Conday was able to get all that in because the float’s motor had stalled and a team of technicians were now at work trying to restart it.
“Oh I find ‘Hell’ to be quite comfortable,” Goodchild said to Ms. Peters with a smile. “My fans nowadays are all retirees who just want somebody to tell them that, for the next hour at least, everything’s going to be fine. Your band of youthful ‘followers’, on the other hand, post attacks on your YouTube videos for not being sexy enough, and refuse to believe anything you report that contradicts the narrow-minded worldview of their chosen political party.”
“The teaching hospital of the university is the Charité campus of East Berlin, originally founded as a charity hospital for the poor in 1709 by King Freidrich I, grandfather of King Freidrich the Great of Prussia. Wait, is Prussia a real country?”
“Also,” added Goodchild, “you stress too much.”
“I’m trying to change the world!” Peters snapped back at him. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re in the news division. That used to mean something. While you were spinning prize wheels and announcing lotto numbers, I was exposing injustice and fraud!”
“...while in the center of the float is a reconstruction of the asylum cell where French philosopher Voltaire spent a night in 1751 to acquaint himself with the conditions that the insane and the poor had to deal with on a daily basis. The underpinning of the float contains splinters and paper fragments taken from the actual room, while the walls are covered with white orchid petals cleverly arranged to reproduce the padded walls of the cell.”
“Hmm...” Goodchild murmured with a patronizing nod. “And where did that get you?”
“How was I to know that the majority stockholder of that shoe company was the network president?! He should have known better than to invest in child labor, anyway.”
“...now here to sing the hit song ‘That’s What Friends Are For’, it’s...it’s...it’s...Robert, I think you need to see this.”
Goodchild quickly snapped back into position as the light on top of the camera lit up and the microphones became live again. His eyes scanned the street below him as he stalled for time. “Well, I guess we’ve run into another delay, folks. I’m sure that before long that—Jesus Christ on a Triscuit! What the [bleep] are those things?”
Back at the studio, the censor congratulated himself on a job well done, before joining the small portion of the world that was watching the parade this morning—instead of recovering from a New Year’s Eve hangover—in trying to figure out what manner of horse-like creatures had just materialized atop the Humboldt University float in a burst of white light that looked like something right out of Star Trek.
To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle (c/o Spike the Dragon):
Is there any way I might be able to assist you in getting you and your friends over to Canterlot? There is after all that little matter of the awards ceremony for your defeat of Discord to attend, a ceremony that is now ten minutes overdue.
Your Mentor,
~Celestia, Princess of Equestria~
Dear Princess Celestia:
Spike here, in the passenger compartment of the stalled Ponyville Express. The ponies left five minutes ago. Twilight said she was going to try and teleport all of us to the Audience Room in one big jump.
Knowing her, they’re probably stuck treading water in the lily pond behind the palace.
Also, they forgot to take me with them.
Again.
Any chance you can at least send a flying chariot by so I don’t miss the after-party?
Your faithful servant,
-Spike the Dragon-
“We have plumbed the depths of the Stygian pool, and not a trace of an inert Element did We discover!” Princess Luna announced cheerily as she re-entered the Audience Room. “Shall We next scan the insides of the walls for their giblets?”
Every last pony in the room save one looked at her in a mix of shock and horror.
“’Twas a joke!” Luna quickly exclaimed, and then sighed inwardly when this had no effect in lifting the mood of the ponies. Luna had matured from the filly form she wore after the Nightmare Moon curse was lifted into her adult form quite recently, and as a result, she noticed an unfortunate shift in how she was perceived by her subjects. While before they spurned her (and, she suspected, mocked her behind her back), now they feared her (and, she suspected, schemed to destroy her behind her back). “Have our subjects lost their sense of humor, Sister?” she asked bitterly.
Celestia meanwhile had just completed her slow facehoof in response to her sister’s earlier line. For a pony that knew nothing of gallows humor when she left, she sure jumped in hooves first! she thought glumly to herself. “Perhaps it would be best if we focused on the search over jokes until the Bearers have been located,” she suggested gently. “For instance, did you check the Statue Garden to make sure that—?”
“We did,” Luna interrupted, “and We can assure you that He hasn’t moved.” She looked over Spike’s letter before asking, “Hast thine student ever attempted a jump this precipitous before?”
“No,” Celestia answered, “and she did it under time pressure, which she’s never been good at handling.”
Princess Luna sighed. “Then their location couldst be anywhere in Canterlot. Or under it. That was not meant in jest,” she added.
“There’s an idea,” said Princess Celestia. She gestured at her captain of the guards. “I need you to put together a small party to check the Catacombs. Be sure to avoid—”
“Actually,” the Captain said, his head bowed in trepidation over the fact that he had dared to interrupt his sovereign, “I think I might know where Twilight is.”
“You do?” asked Princess Celestia.
The Captain summoned one of his lieutenants. “Southern Moss here says he saw them appear for just a moment behind the second pillar, second row,” he said, pointing at the pillar in question. “And then they disappeared again.”
The Princess of the Sun responded by sharply sucking in her breath.
Luna looked back and forth between the Princess and the Captain, her lips pursed. “And this revelation hast import because...?” she prompted.
“That’s where the other portal to Earth was, before I closed it,” explained Celestia. “If she had the bad luck to land her teleportation precisely on it, there’s a chance that would have temporarily reopened the portal and sent them straight to Earth. Or Discord could have had a hoof in it,” she added with a sigh. “There’s no way of knowing what effect His temporary release might have had on the barriers between dimensions.”
“The other portal,” Luna said incredulously. “And when, pray tell, were you going to inform Us of that unexpected development?”
“I would have gotten around to it!” Celestia said defensively. “I’m still briefing you on everything that happened during your absence. That was rather low in the priority list.” The look in her eyes made it clear that this wasn’t the whole reason.
Luna put on a predatory grin. “If the human who passed through the portal held anything in common with the last, his verbal spars with you must have lifted the rafters with their audacity,” she purred.
Celestia blushed.
“Of course, Our imaginings are based on the assumption that said visitor was a ‘he’,” Luna continued. “A female human in Equestria, on the contrary, would have been most intriguing.”
“No, it was most definitely a ‘he’,” the elder sister said primly. “I’ll tell you all about it once we get our subjects back to Equestria.”
“And what of the original portal?” asked Luna. “Is there need to monitor that location for unexpected openings as well? Or have you moved that spot to the Palace?”
“No, it’s still in the same place as before,” answered Celestia. “Nine hundred and eighty strides northwest of Hoofington’s city hall. I hear they still can’t grow any crops out there.” As she was saying this, the Princess walked over to the pillar where the lieutenant had seen the six ponies briefly appear. “But before we check on that, let’s get to work retrieving the Bearers. If we’re lucky, they may have completely escaped detection by the humans.”
“We’re Knights of the Round Table, we dance whene’er we’re able,” sang Pinkie Pie as the white light around the six ponies faded. “We do routines and chorus scenes with hoofwork impec...impec...I can never get that last part to sound right! Hey, why do I get the sudden feeling like we’re being watched?”
“Uh, maybe because we are, Sugarcube,” answered Applejack warily, looking up at the bandstand right next to them that reached up and up and up...and was filled to capacity with creatures the likes of which she had never seen before.
“We’ve got more problems than that,” Rainbow Dash reported. “Twilight’s fainted!”
“She hasn’t fainted,” Rarity insisted, making her way to the center of the group, where the purple unicorn was lying unconscious on the ground. “The spell simply drained her, that’s all.”
“Well maybe because she managed to take us a bit further than she intended,” said Applejack.
“Oh my!” exclaimed Fluttershy, shrinking under the onslaught of so many curious eyes.
Pinkie Pie’s eyes meanwhile had been growing bigger and bigger as she took in the motionless crowd. “They’re real!” she finally exclaimed, in a voice so tiny that only Fluttershy heard it.
The creatures in the stands meanwhile began to regain their composure, barking to each other in confusion using a language incomprehensible to most of the conscious ponies.
Rainbow Dash flew up a few pony-heights to get her bearings—this had the effect of silencing the crowd once more. “I don’t see anything that makes sense around here!” she exclaimed.
“What do we do?” asked Fluttershy.
“We need to go someplace safe where we can wake Twilight up,” Applejack declared. “And then we’re gettin’ out of here. Got any ideas, Rainbow?”
The pegasus slowly turned around in a circle in mid-air, one hoof shading her eyes. “There,” she finally concluded, pointing at a building on the other side of the street from the bandstand. “It’s got a lot of a trees around it and a brook, but I see another building past that, so it’s not really much for hiding.”
Applejack looked in the direction indicated. “It’s open air and not fenced, so it’s good enough for me.” She slipped her head under Twilight Sparkle’s barrel and slid it down until it was resting across her withers. “Follow me,” she told the others, “and don’t look back.”
Led by Applejack, the others hopped down from the float and, as quickly as they dared, crossed the street. The scattering of humans who were standing between then and their destination quickly made way to let them through. The ponies then walked past the building, which had the general shape and color of a brick, and was temporarily decorated with the image of a large red rose. In front of the building was a larger-than-life statue of a naked creature in a sitting posture. His chin was resting in one upturned paw in a pose of deep thought. Other statues littered the grounds.
“This is a museum!” realized Rarity. By comparing the form of the creature in the sitting statue with her memory of the ones in the stands, she reached another conclusion: “And those creatures wear clothes, every one of them!” Some more thought led to her grand conclusion: “That means that they have absolutely no excuse for their atrocious fashion sense!” Turning to face the crowd as the others disappeared into a bush, she bellowed, “Don’t you know that brown never goes with that shade of red?! And in winter—what were you thinking?!”
From the bush, an orange hoof reached out to snatch Rarity out of sight.
Continuing through the shrubs and to the shore of the creek, Applejack projected a front of false confidence. Rainbow Dash had the enviable ability of being able to turn off the unnerving questions of where they were and what those things might want to do to them while she handled the current crisis. Rarity was on the verge of a mental breakdown, but she spent a good deal of her life in that precise spot, so this wasn’t so hard for her. Fluttershy was comforted by the fact that she was now somewhere that at least looked like the natural, non-civilized world. Twilight was still in La-La Land.
And Pinkie Pie was in the entirely uncharacteristic position of having absolutely no idea what was happening, and actually caring about this fact.
“Well, that’s it,” Susan told the two broadcasters. “L.A.’s taken over, and we are officially off the air.” Susan was the producer, a woman with brown hair and a neat powder blue blouse and skirt.
Amy Peters responded to this news by unclipping her microphone and walking over to her. “Do you have any more portable mics?” she asked.
Susan turned around and grabbed the microphone which the cameraman handed her and passed it over. “What do you have in mind?” she asked.
She pointed down at the stalled float and the museum behind it. “If that is what we all think it is,” Amy said, “then this is the biggest story of all time, and I want in on it.”
“Um, did you hear what Susan just said?” asked an incredulous Goodchild.
“Yes, and they are a bunch of idiots for doing it,” Amy said. She sat down on a nearby bench to swap her pumps for a pair of sneakers. “This is not like the stories the networks and cable channels are used to covering,” she told them. “They think they can get away with looping whatever footage they can scrounge from the Net and bringing in a round table of experts. Well the only coverage they have is thirty seconds of those things appearing and running away, repeated from the angle of every spectator with a cell phone camera.
“And what experts are they going to call? U.F.O. cranks? Horse breeders? Star Trek experts to tell us all about how fictional transporter beams are supposed to work? They are all going to look like morons.” Amy shook her head. “Sooner or later they’ll realize that there is one way and one way only to tell this story: put a microphone in the face of these visitors, and let them say whatever it is they came to this planet to say. And I’d like a shot at being the hand holding that mic.”
“All right,” Susan said. “I’ll tape everything you send me, audio, video or both. I hope you’re right.”
“And I hope they didn’t come down here to deliver an ultimatum!” Goodchild whined.
“Really, Robert,” Amy joked. “If they were going to blow up the planet, I think they would have sent down the spokespeople that looked like slugs or lizards instead of the ones that look like ponies. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck!” Susan called out to Amy she speed-walked her way down the metal stairway of the bandstand.
Ms. Peters found Edie Conday and her cameraman sitting glumly on the bottom seat of the bandstand.
“So, Edie,” Amy asked. “I was going to go interview the aliens. Wanna come with?”
“I can’t, Ms. Peters,” Edie said with a whimper.
“Why not?” Amy asked, putting a hand on their shoulder. “They looked very approachable.”
“They looked like horses,” Edie explained, looking away. “I tend to get a little obsessive around horses.”
“I noticed,” said Amy, recalling all the times during the broadcast she and Robert had been forced to shut Edie up when she talked about the equestrian groups at the expense of the floats and bands the viewers actually wanted to see. “I consider that a good thing under the circumstances.”
“No, I mean I’m really obsessed with horses,” Edie insisted. “I took French in high school not because I wanted to visit Paris, but because I wanted to visit the Musée Vivant du Cheval in Chantilly. Um, that’s French for ‘The Living Museum of the Horse’. I’ve been there seven times so far! If I tried to have a serious discussion with one of those aliens, I’d probably end up trying to brush them or something.”
Amy grinned. “Brush my horsey, brush my horsey, ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ah!” she warbled off key.
“Hey, don’t make fun of Brush My Horsey,” Edie said with a grin. “I must have bought every last one of those toys, even the factory rejects they passed off as ‘Space Ponies’ in 1987. In fact...they kinda look like Space Ponies!”
“I’ll be sure to bring that up during the interview,” Amy said in deadpan.
“No! Go...go knock yourself out. I’ll stay here in the stands.”
Amy sighed. “Well, alright,” she said reluctantly. Turning to the cameraman, she asked, “So, by any chance would y—?”
“I’m in,” said the cameraman at that moment, jumping to his feet and holding out his hand. “Brock Condor. Would you like me to film an introduction, or an eyewitness interview, or—”
“Introductions are a waste of time,” Amy said, taking her own turn at interrupting. “At least, I tend to think so when I’m watching the news instead of covering it. Nice to meet you, Brock. As for the eyewitnesses...” She then gestured to a couple of reporters and their camerapeople, who were talking to people standing on the sidewalk. “I think those folks have got that covered, and besides, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
She carefully surveyed the cordon of police officers that had formed in front of the Norton Simon Museum, until she identified the man in charge and grinned in recognition. She then turned back to Brock with an expression of seriousness. “Look, I believe that you should never turn on the camera until you’ve got something worthwhile to say,” she told him. “The folks who get there first to cover breaking news may get the ratings, but it’s the ones who can take that news and turn it into something that make a difference.” She pointed across the street. “I’m going to go over there and lay some groundwork. What I’d like you to do is talk to some of the people around here. Without the camera, I think they’ll be more likely to say what they think instead of what they think you want them to say. See who has some useful theories, the kind that can actually be tested. I’m not interested in the crazies—let our competitors have them. Think you can do that?”
Brock blinked. He hadn’t exactly gotten a job behind the camera because he liked talking to people he didn’t know. “I...guess I can.”
“I can help with that,” Edie volunteered. “These folks know me.”
“OK,” Amy said, handing her microphone over to Brock to carry.
“I’ve got the answer to all of your problems, Bub,” the man in the trench coat said to Pasadena Police Captain Fenwick, patting the large green cylinder beside him. “I’ve got enough chloroform here to knock out a herd of elephants—and half the people on this block, but they’re just collateral damage. Let me do my thing, and the Gov’mint will take these babies right off of your hands.”
Captain Fenwick’s face had been contorting up into a look of greater and greater disbelief as he heard this man’s spiel for the past five minutes but this was more than he could stand. “I don’t know who the hell you’re working for, but it damn well isn’t the ‘Gov’mint’,” he said, his voice gaining volume with every word. He pointed imperiously down the street. “Now get out of my face and climb back into whatever 90’s second-rate conspiracy thriller you crawled out of!”
As the man slunk away, the Captain’s eyes caught on the woman who was standing behind him the whole time.
“Billy!” Amy called out, her arms wide. “Remember me?”
William Fenwick rolled his eyes. “Yes, I remember you,” he said calmly. “Ninth grade homeroom, middle row.”
He pointedly didn’t acknowledge the hug invitation, causing Ms. Peters to slowly lower her arms. “Anything I can do to help?” she finally asked.
“Are you asking me as a concerned citizen, or as a reporter out for a scoop?” Fenwick asked acidly.
“To be perfectly honest, B first, then A,” Amy replied, still trying to keep a friendly grin on her face.
“God, another walking stereotype,” Fenwick grumbled. “Which movie did you walk out of? Die Hard?
Amy dropped the grin. “Now listen here—” she began.
“No, you listen here!” Fenwick bellowed. “I’ve had three of you idiots interview me so far, prodding me to ‘spontaneously’ say the sound bites you want to lead the next hour’s broadcast with: ‘We do not know if they come in peace or war’, or ‘This looks like something straight out of Star Trek’. Well unlike you yahoos, I actually watchedStar Trek as a kid.” By now he was in full-on lecture mode: “That show had a lot to say about the situation we are in right now. This here is a ‘first contact’ scenario. What we do or don’t do today is going to shape the course of human history for centuries. And I damn well am not going down in the textbooks on the list of guys who screwed this up! My men and women are going to stand here, and keep the likes of you away from them, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop us.”
“Are you finished?” Amy asked dryly.
Fenwick frowned. “Yes,” he said reluctantly.
“Do you see a camera? Do you see a microphone?” Amy whirled around so that the police officer could see that she had no hidden equipment or battery pack hidden on her.
“...No,” the Captain replied, in a tone that made it clear that he still distrusted her.
“Now let me make you aware of a contrasting point of view,” Amy said calmly. “Right now, there are several million people who just saw aliens land on this planet. They are being whipped up into a frenzy by a media machine that has been trained for decades to do precisely this with every crisis that comes their way. Humanity may have been willing to embrace these visitors when they first arrived. But in another hour or two, their curiosity will change to fear, and that will change to hate, and then the precise thing you do not want to happen will happen. All because of a lack of information.”
The reporter pointed past the policeman at the museum behind him, and the aliens who were hiding behind it. “I don’t want to hound them. I don’t want to hunt them. I just want to help my viewers to understand them.” Amy looked pleadingly at her former classmate.
Captain Fenwick thought for a few moments, slowly rubbing his chin with one hand. “Yeah, alright,” he said reluctantly. “You can stay here. Whenever the visitors decide to come out, I’ll give you your chance to talk to them. But no bugging them—or me—on camera before then.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” the reporter said sweetly. “I’ve got an interview or two to get to, and then I’ll be back.”
“...Now if you look at this still,” Brian Fellows informed the cameraman sitting beside him, “you can see that each of them has some kind of mark on their...what was that word you used, Miss Conday?”
“‘Flank’,” Edie, who was sitting next to him, replied. “On a horse, that would be their flank.”
“Right, these ‘flank symbols’, as I guess you’d call them, are different on each one,” Brian continued, working the touchpad on his laptop to page between Flickr and YouTube, where the number of photo collections and videos devoted to the visitors' brief appearance already numbered in the hundreds. “This is a complete shot in the dark, but what if those symbols describe their jobs?”
“Or their names,” suggested Frank, like Brian a student at the local community college. He was sitting on the other side of Brian from the reporter.
“You’re telling me that an advanced alien civilization sent down a representative with the name of ‘Balloons’?” Brian asked skeptically, pointing to a somewhat blurry screenshot.
“Well, better to be named ‘Balloons’ than to be called ‘Kar-Raisa, the Amazing Balloon-Trick Alien’!” muttered Frank under his breath.
“Say, I’m sorry to interrupt,” asked a raspy voice from the next-higher row, “but aren’t you Edith Conday’s daughter?”
“Why yes,” said Edie, turning around to shake the proffered hand of an elderly woman. “My name’s Edie.”
“I’m Shirley Tascalone, and this is my granddaughter Holly,” the woman said. She turned to the young woman next to her. “Now this is the daughter of the 1976 Olympic Bronze Medalist in Dressage. I’ll never forget the day I saw her win. I have the autographed picture right here.” As she began digging through her over-sized purse she asked, “Now what was the name of her horse?”
“Dahlink,” Edie said with a bittersweet smile.
“Dahlink! That’s the name!” Mrs. Tascalone exclaimed, producing a folded square of thick paper. She unfolded it to reveal a monochrome photograph with a purple dedication and signature inked on it: “To a fellow equestrienne, Edith Conday & Dahlink.”
Edie took the offered photo and looked at it for a few seconds. It was the standard publicity photo that most fans owned, with a petite Edith Conday sitting atop the svelte black Dahlink. There was a look in the horse’s eye of utter confidence, like she had won the medal all by herself, and the human’s role was merely ballast to make the job that much more challenging.
As a child, Edie remembered once reading about the mythical pooka, how it could turn itself into a black horse that would lure you into getting on its back, and then whisk you away into Fairyland, never to be seen by mortal creatures ever again.
She used to be convinced that Dahlink was a pooka.
Edie shook her head lightly to clear it of mental cobwebs, and handed the photo back to its owner.
An owner who had been babbling on for nearly a minute now. “...And I’m sure she raised you on the back of that horse!” was how Mrs. Tascalone ended her speech.
What the woman said struck unexpectedly close to the broadcast reporter. “Ah, not exactly,” Edie answered, brushing away a nonexistent tear and hoping that the woman would stop right there.
“Not exactly!” Mrs. Tascalone exclaimed instead. “What, did she die before you were born? Oh, how horrible.”
“Ah...not exactly.”
“‘Not exactly’?” Mrs. Tascalone said, leaning forward. “What is with all this ‘not exactly’? Did she die or didn’t she?”
“I...I don’t know, Mrs. Tascalone,” Edie said, bowing her head. “My mother was forced to sell her when I was four.”
“Sell?” Mrs. Tascalone asked incredulously. “How could she sell an Olympic medal horse?”
“Well, times were tough,” Edie said apologetically. “My mother didn’t have the mo...I mean the time, to devote to her.”
“Oh, that’s utter nonsense!” Mrs. Tascalone exclaimed. “I used to live here back in the ‘80’s, and I know for a fact that there were plenty of good-quality stables where a horse like Dahlink could have been cared for at a reasonable price. Just so long as both of your parents contributed, it should have been no problem to cover her room and board.”
Edie looked away uncomfortably.
“Grandma, I think—” Holly Tascalone tried to interrupt.
“Hush, child,” Mrs. Tascalone said, not even looking at her. “I want to know why you abandoned an Olympic medal horse like that!”
“My father left us, alright!” Edie cried out. “I did something wrong, and he left us!”
“Ack, that would do it alright,” said Mrs. Tascalone, nodding sagely to herself as her granddaughter watched on in horror. “But at least you became a famous newscaster and bought her another horse to make up for—”
“Make up for what?” Edie cried, turning around and leaning in to get in the old woman’s face. “Make up years of telling me that I was a mistake, that she’d never love me as much as she loved Daklink? And when I did make the money, and I did buy the horse, what did she do? She died, Mrs. Tascalone, she died! And ‘Dahlink’ was the name on her lips when she died in her bed with her hand in mine, because by that point she didn’t even remember who I was! Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
A shocked Mrs. Tascalone said nothing as her granddaughter led her away. “I’m really sorry,” the young woman said as they retreated. “I think she forgot to take her meds.”
Edie turned around to see Amy staring at her.
“Err...have you got anything on the aliens?” Amy asked as she took the place taken by the Tascalones. It was evident that her approach to getting around an uncomfortable situation was to ignore it. She moved aside Mrs. Tascalone’s abandoned Rose Parade program as she sat down.
Edie took in a long calming breath before speaking. “Yeah,” she told Amy, “these two think they’ve figured out why the aliens fled instead of contacting us.” She then introduced the reporter to the two students, who had spent the past few minutes trying to be invisible as the shouting match had developed around them.
“Oh?” Amy asked.
“Um, yeah, what did we find?” Brian asked Frank.
Frank thought for a few seconds. “Oh! One of the aliens fainted when they arrived,” he finally explained.
Brian turned the laptop towards her and played one of the videos.
“I don’t see...oh, the one in the middle,” Amy said. “Yeah, that makes sense.” After a few seconds she smirked. “Wow, I bet she’s going to be so embarrassed that she almost screwed this up when she recovers.”
“What makes you think that it’s a she?” Brian asked.
“They’re all-powerful, all-knowing aliens here on a very delicate diplomatic mission,” Amy replied flippantly. “No way would you trust that kind of job to a guy!”
Brian looked over at the retreating forms of the Tascalones. He desperately wanted to say something about the female ability to screw things up, but he figured it was an argument he was doomed to lose.
“Hey, we’re kinda making contact with them right now, aren’t we?” mused Edie. “Even if they’re out of sight, they can still hear us out on the street.”
Amy frowned as she saw Captain Fenwick turn away yet another loud-mouthed idiot. “Yeah, I think maybe we should be giving them a better first impression.” She glanced over at the Rose Parade program and grinned. “And I know exactly what to give them,” she said, as she picked up her microphone to communicate with her producer.
“So why can’t we just dump some water on her or something?” asked an impatient Rainbow Dash.
Rarity leaned down to bring her horn in contact with the prone Twilight Sparkle’s as she closed her eyes. A faint blue glow appeared around the two horns for a moment, before the white unicorn sighed and raised her head. “Because, Rainbow Dash, Twilight here is completely drained of magic,” she said wearily. “So if we wake her, she’ll be powerless to do anything.”
“And if she can’t do anything, she’ll go bonkers,” Rainbow concluded.
With a sigh, the pegasus launched herself into the air, floating a couple ponyheights above the others. “This place is all wrong, you know,” she said petulantly. “The air’s completely dead.”
“What do you mean, ‘dead’?” Applejack asked.
“I mean that back in Equestria, there was a certain something in the air,” Rainbow Dash explained, “the same thing we pegasi pull clouds out of, that lets the weather do whatever we tell it to, the same thing that the air over Everfree Forest has a lot less of than anywhere else. It wasn’t...I guess you couldn’t really call it alive...it was a sort of something that wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t alive, either. It just...listened. And it’s not here. Also the air’s really stinky.”
“Yeah we all noticed the smell,” Applejack said with a grimace. Experimentally, she pushed a hoof into the ground and concentrated. “The ground’s different too, but not quite the same as what you’re saying with the air. There’s life, but I can’t talk to it.”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “You talk to the dirt?” she asked, half-jokingly.
“Yeah, the same way you ‘talk’ to the clouds,” Applejack said dryly.
“Oh. Yeah, I know what you mean. What about you, Fluttershy? Are the animals here any different?”
Fluttershy, why had been lying listlessly on the ground, rose to her hooves, closed her eyes, and then slowly swung her head around. She then looked back at them with a broad grin. “Yes,” she told them giddily. “This place is different. The animals here think for themselves!”
The other (conscious) ponies looked at each other in confusion. “Don’t they already do that back in Equestria?” Rarity asked.
“Not exactly,” Fluttershy explained. “They’re able to do a lot on their own, but at a certain level, they are all very like children—if a forceful enough pony comes along, they’ll do whatever she tells them to. That’s why ponies like me are needed, to keep the animals from getting themselves into trouble. But if these animals get into trouble, they do whatever they need to, to help themselves. It’s just like—”
“It’s just like the Everfree,” Applejack said, completing Fluttershy’s sentence. “This whole place is like the Everfree.”
That made the ponies sad, until everypony’s ears suddenly caught a new sound coming from the street.
“I don’t know about you,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin, “but there’s no way I’m calling this place another Everfree if it comes with a sweet marching band!”
The song being played by the band on the street was strong, proud, and just a little bit sad. Before long, it was accompanied by the full-throated singing of several hundred creatures in whatever language it was that they spoke.
“Something gives me the feeling that those singers are not professionals,” Rarity noted, a sparkle nevertheless in her eye.
“I don’t know what it is,” Applejack said wistfully, “but it’s kinda like that song’s sad that we’re not friends.”
The song’s ending was followed by an odd sort of chattering noise.
“What in Equestria is that?” Rarity asked.
“Clapping,” explained Pinkie. “They slap their ‘hands’ together when they like something.”
Fluttershy looked at the earth pony in quiet alarm, realizing how very quiet she had been to this point. She was going to say something about Pinkie to the others, but the beginning of new song by a second marching band changed her mind. This song was a lot more dark and portentous than the last, and nobody was singing along, with the exception of the occasional word barked out in a strangely metallic voice.
~ ~ ~
The farm pony sat down suddenly and took off her hat. “I wish I knew what to do. Those seem like friendly enough folk some of the time, but at the same time if this is as much their world as Equestria is ours, then...I’m scared.” She added this last part in a quiet voice as she fiddled with the hat’s brim.
“You don’t have to know what to do,” Rarity said, putting a leg around Applejack’s neck. “It’s obvious those creatures are not only letting us stay here, but also giving us some free entertainment, so why don’t we just wait for Twilight to recover?”
“Because she trusts me to take care of things when she can’t!” Applejack said, jumping to her hooves and slapping her hat back on her head. “We all are going to get ourselves into a lot of trouble if there’s only one of us who can handle the unexpected. What are we supposed to do without Twi when we don’t have any of the answers? Like: Who are these creatures? Are they nice or are they mean?”
Fluttershy noted how Pinkie Pie, lying flat on the ground, muttered a quiet, impossible to hear answer to each of these questions.
“Can they take a joke?” added Rainbow Dash with a grin. “I mean, I for one am going to be in big trouble with them sooner or later if they can’t.”
Fluttershy slowly raised her hoof in the air.
Rarity grinned. “This isn’t a classroom, Dear. If you want to say something, just say it. You know we won’t judge you.”
“Yes,” Fluttershy said shyly, “but, um, I’m not the one who has something to say.”
She pointed at Pinkie Pie.
Rainbow Dash landed in front of the earth pony and noted the worried expression in her eyes. “Pinkie, we have a bad habit of not listening to you when you know something we don’t.”
From her prone position, Pinkie shrugged. “That’s OK,” she said sadly. “I make things confusing a lot, so I get that you can’t always tell what I want to say. I mean, I don’t even know what I’m saying a lot of the time.”
Applejack pursed her lips as she thought carefully about the best way to get an answer out of Pinkie. It wasn’t that Pinkie didn’t want to be helpful, she knew. It was just that she was very impulsive, and prone to wander off into ‘randomness’ if given the slightest opportunity—she just couldn’t help herself. Of course at the same time that quality of unpredictability was her greatest asset to the team in a crisis. But right now Fluttershy seemed convinced that she knew something important. Applejack eventually decided her best approach was to make her questions as straightforward as possible, to leave the pony before her nowhere for her mind to wander off to. “Pinkie Pie,” she finally asked, “those creatures out there, in the stands—what are they called?”
“Well, I always called them ‘tree ponies’,” Pinkie Pie calmly replied. “They’ve got a lot of different names for themselves, but I thought, since they went around on their hind legs like I did when I played Tree, and because the only mane they have is on the top of their head...why not?”
Everypony’s eyes went wide.
“How long have you known about them?” Applejack asked.
“Oh, my whole life,” Pinkie tossed off.
“Your whole life?” Rainbow Dash butted in. “How come you never told us about them before?”
Pinkie pouted, and her hair started deflating. “I couldn’t,” she told them. “It was a crazy story, and I didn’t have any proof. My family calls that ‘bearing false witness’, and it’s really serious.” She looked sideways at a patch of land far away from them. “I don’t do everything my family told me to do anymore,” she said, nearly too soft to be heard, “but that doesn’t mean I tossed out everything.” She turned her head to look her friends once more in the eyes as she said, “They taught me right from wrong, and when a joke was going too far, and how you should always treat a stranger like she could be your friend one day. And they were right about this—” (she punctuated that last bit with a hoof as she slightly raised herself off of the ground) “—if I couldn’t prove that the tree ponies were real, why should I worry anypony about them? They were in their world, and we were in ours, and I was the only one that could see them, and then I couldn’t see them anymore, so why would it matter?” She blinked a couple of times to get the tears out of her eyes.
“Well, we’re here now, so it looks like you’ve got your proof,” Rainbow told her, putting a protective hoof on her withers.
“Yeah,” Pinkie said with a little smile. “I guess I did.”
Applejack sighed. It was obvious that something about these “tree ponies” made Pinkie sad, but unfortunately she needed more information about them, so she had no choice but to press on. “How did you see them, Pinkie?” she asked.
“In my dreams,” Pinkie Pie said, rising to a sitting position. “My sisters and I shared the same room, and each of us had our own corner where our beds were. When I slept in my bed, I dreamed about the room with the tree pony. When we switched beds—we did that for fun—I dreamed about other things.”
“And your sisters didn’t dream about the tree ponies when they were in your bed?” Fluttershy asked.
“No, only me,” Pinkie replied.
“And did you dream about any other tree pony places?” asked Applejack.
“No, only that one,” said Pinkie.
“What did the room look like?” Rarity asked.
“Um, it was gray.” Pinkie’s eyes flicked around her, like she was surveying the room around them that very moment. “And tall—twice as tall as a normal room. But tree ponies walk around on their hind legs, so they need high ceilings, and don’t need wide chairs.”
Rarity thought for a moment. “I suppose that would be true,” she said. “What was in the room?”
“There was this really thin gray carpet,” Pinkie answered, “and a tiny table that folded up with medicines on it, and a bed on wheels with a thin gray blanket tucked tightly into it, and a fat little table on wheels, and a brown box with a window on it on top of the fat table.”
“And what else?” asked Rarity.
“Nothing else,” said Pinkie, slumping her head down. “There was a narrow door, but nobody came in or out. I wasn’t even there. Instead, I was a wee ghostie—the tree pony couldn’t see or hear me, and I couldn’t touch anything. Oh, and parts of the ceiling glowed this ugly blue-white that flickered so fast it made your eyes hurt if you stared at it.”
“What about windows?” asked Rarity. “Surely there must have been—”
“No windows,” interrupted Pinkie. “There was nothing else in the room.”
“But you said there was a tree pony there,” Fluttershy said cautiously.
“He was in the bed,” Pinkie said. “He never left it.”
“Never?” Rarity asked incredulously. “Surely if he’s an organic creature such as ourselves—”
Pinkie closed her eyes and sighed. “There was this tube that went under the covers and—”
“I withdraw my question,” Rarity said curtly, her face paler than normal.
“Well, what did he do in this bed?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I know if I ever had to stay in bed, I’d go crazy!” She stopped to reconsider her words. “Not that I’d ever let anything like that happen to me.”
“He smelled,” answered Pinkie with a silly grin. “It wasn’t that bad a smell, I guess, but it was his smell, and nobody else’s. He coughed.” (And there went the grin.) “He’d cough and cough and cough sometimes, like he had something stuck in his throat, but he couldn’t get it out. And he stared at the box all day. Or all night. I couldn’t tell what time of day it was when I visited. It was a magic box, and the little tiny tree ponies that lived inside it did everything they could to make him happy.”
“Did they ever succeed?” Fluttershy asked.
“No,” Pinkie said sadly. “They never did. He never cried, he never laughed, he never said or did anything at all when he wasn’t coughing, except sigh sometimes and turn away from the box. He was sick, and as I grew up he got sicker, and sicker, and sicker, until he was the same color as the walls and the floor and the blanket.”
Applejack thought carefully about what she had heard. For the moment, she didn’t bother trying to figure out how it was that Pinkie was able to dream about tree ponies. What was clear was that she only knew directly about one specific tree pony (she guessed that the ones in the box were some sort of illusion), and therefore whatever she learned from him might not be representative of his whole species. Also, she knew in her gut that this story had a sad ending that she didn’t want Pinkie to have to relive, so it was best to try to steer questions away from that. “The tree pony in the bed never said anything, but I take it that the ones in the box did, right?”
Pinkie nodded. “They talked a whole lot.”
“And you heard them talking since you were a foal.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So did you ever figure out what their talking meant?”
Pinkie thought for a bit. “Yeah, I guess I did. Actually, the way I saw it was that they started talking more and more like ponies, until finally I understood everything. I guess what was really happening was that I was learning their language.”
“Well that’s great!” Applejack said with a smile. “That means we can talk with the tree ponies out there!”
“Oh, I can’t understand what the tree ponies out there are saying,” Pinkie said.
“You can’t?” Applejack asked, her momentarily raised hopes crashing to the ground around her.
“No, tree ponies speak more than one language. I know, because sometimes the ones in the box would talk two different languages at once, with one much louder than the other—I guess they had hidden translator tree ponies doing that. Or sometimes one would talk funny, and words explaining what he said would appear under him. These words appeared so many other places that I eventually figured those out, too. But I didn’t see any of that kind of writing at the parade. I guess whatever language I learned, it was tree pony dragon-talk, while these tree ponies speak pony-talk. You know what I mean?”
Applejack nodded sadly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
~ ~ ~
“Pinkie Pie, what would you say tree ponies are like, based on the ones you saw?” asked a new voice.
Everypony looked over in surprise to see a tired Twilight Sparkle sitting up and looking intently at Pinkie.
“I think they mean well,” said Pinkie Pie after a moment. “They’re a little bit like us, and a little bit like...well at the time I thought they were a little bit like monsters, because I didn’t know much about Equestria, but now I would say they are a little bit like griffons, if Gilda is like most griffons. Don’t be mad, Dashie!” she added rather desperately. “I don’t mean that Gilda is a monster, just that she’s kinda attack-y on everything. I mean, she eats meat and stuff, so you kinda have to be attack-y to do that, right?”
Rainbow Dash’s brief feeling of resentment at Pinkie’s comparison of her former friend quickly dissipated. “Yeah, that’s what griffons are like,” she said in agreement. “They got these big tempers they have to deal with.”
“Or, they could use that temper to get things done, right?” Pinkie Pie asked. For the first time in several minutes, she was actually in a positive mood.
“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” Rainbow replied.
“That’s exactly what tree ponies are like!” Pinkie exclaimed. “They can be nasty monster-y things, but most of the time they choose not to. And they can be really funny. I laughed way more in my dreams than I ever did when I was awake.”
“That’s good!” Twilight said. “That means that I feel a lot better about stranding everypony here until I get my magic back.”
“You are getting your magic back, right?” Applejack asked cautiously. After all, if this world was so very different from Equestria, did it even have magic?
“Oh yes,” answered Twilight. “It’s coming back a little slower than usual, but it is coming back. I can get us home in about an hour. But I would like to meet these tree ponies first. Even if was a complete accident and we never see them again, I’d like to learn more about them, and let them know more about us. Even without a common spoken language, I’m sure we can get something across to them, and vice versa. And if they have any way of recording our voices, then you can say something to them in the tree pony language you know, Pinkie, and I’m sure they can send that recording all around their world until they find somebody that understands it.”
“Ooo, I like that idea!” exclaimed Pinkie. “So, does anypony else have any other questions?”
“No, I don’t think we need to ask anything else,” Applejack said quickly, warning Twilight with her eyes not to say anything.
The unicorn didn’t understand the earth pony’s reason for this warning, but she was fully trusting in her judgment, so she remained silent.
The other ponies shook their heads.
Pinkie looked around at each of them, as if looking for them to ask one question in particular. When none of them did, she sighed in relief. “Okay,” she said.
Princesses Celestia and Luna stood before a spot a ponylength away from the second pillar in the second row, staring at a point in space that was invisible, but charged with magic.
Nopony else was in the Audience Chamber.
“I shall be the one to undertake this perilous journey,” Luna said, in full expectation of having to resort to volume to have her way. “Three full months didst I spend on Earth the last time, and that experience left me acquainted with a wide variety of the planet’s dangers. In addition, a mission of stealth calls for a pony of darkness, not one of—”
“OK,” said Celestia.
“‘OK’?”
“It’s slang of relatively recent origin,” Celestia explained. “Although the exact derivation is obscure, the meaning is ‘alright’, or perhaps ‘I acknowledge’.”
“O...K,” Luna sounded out slowly. “What a useful abbreviation our ponies hast devised! It is an emendation to the language I should have made long ago!”
Celestia valiantly tried to retain a straight face as her sister continued to use as many words as possible to praise a change that made conversations more concise.
Eventually Luna worked out what her sister had said in addition to how she had said it.
“I am pleased that you agree with me!” she said with a nod. “I shall cross into the shadows, which will become my dwelling place! The wayward Bearers shall I rescue from their miserable fates, and woe be unto any humans who darest to stand in my way, for I will display not one iota of mercy to creatures that are utterly devoid of it themselves!”
“‘The character of mercy is not a point to be compelled,’” Celestia recited from memory, her eyes closed. “‘It falls like the gentle rain from the sky to the place below it. Twice blessed, it is good to she who gives and she who receives. ‘Tis the highest power of the most powerful. It befits the Princess better than her enthroning crown. Her horn shows the force of temporal authority; it is the attribute of power that we revere and her majesty; but Mercy is above the dominion of the horn; She has her throne in the heart of Princesses. It is one of the attributes of the Creator Himself, and the powers of the Earth closer they to that god, when they know to season justice with mercy.’”
“That...that was quite good,” Luna said after a stunned moment. “What pony are you quoting?”
“No pony, Sister, but a human,” Celestia told her gravely. “Although I did not hear the speech in its intended language, and so have probably mangled it beyond recognition.”
“At which point in history did the Creator become a ‘He’?” Luna asked darkly.
“You can blame Voltaire for that.”
“Your past human visitor?” Luna asked. “Our promised conversation will need to be twice as long as I feared to get to the bottom of this!” She looked at the spot before them, where a disk of pearlescent white light was slowly growing in intensity. “But more of this anon.” She stepped forward, mentally preparing herself for the coming journey.
“Sister, the human civilization has changed greatly between the times of our two visitors,” Celestia warned over the growing sounds of the winds that whipped around the strengthening portal. “The Roman Empire has fallen!”
“Good!” Luna exclaimed with a grin. “It was riddled with petty tyranny!” Her eyes were now glued to the portal.
“Remember my speech!” Celestia insisted. “Show some kindness to the humans—their instincts may be cruel, but many of them have their hearts in the right place!”
Luna looked back coldly at her sibling. “You forget, Tia,” she said, her eyelids hooded, “kindness is a trait I abandoned long before the Nightmare came into my life. Even now, I still do not find it in my heart. You do not know—”
“And I shall never know, Sister, until the day you choose to unburden your heart to me about whatever tragedy you endured that dark day. I have waited patiently for over twelve hundred years so far for the story you so wish to tell.”
“And you’ll have much longer to wait to hear it, I expect,” Luna said dully, before walking into the open portal.
“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?”
“You did what?” Princess Celestia asked Princess Luna in shock when the group returned.
“It’s an entire new civilization to study!” exclaimed Twilight, so excited that for once she refused to mute her reaction in response to her mentor’s obvious displeasure.
Spike meanwhile was clinging to her leg as if that alone could keep her from teleporting out of his sight.
“They’re not that bad!” Pinkie Pie insisted. “Nopony who laughs at themselves can be entirely bad!”
“Pinkie, I appreciate your optimism, but I have met these humans on two occasions previously, and while a few of their individuals are admirable—”
“Those actually happened?” asked Twilight in a daze. “I thought those stories you told me were allegorical!”
“You just didn’t like the lessons that went along with them,” Princess Celestia answered with a slight roll of the eyes. “Allowing all humans and ponies free access to each other, on the other hoof, would mean—”
“A near-overwhelming challenge to everything that ponies believe in,” said the captain of the guards as he barged into the room. It was obvious that not only had he been eavesdropping, but had also done his research. “The very Pony Way of Life would be threatened if this were to go forward!”
“Yes,” Princess Luna said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Ponies would be forced to defend themselves, to stand up for their very right to exist. Excitement instead of contentment would be the order of the day! Could they justify themselves against incredibly successful and intelligent creatures that have no need for magic whatsoever? Could they perhaps do more than that, and provide a powerful example to the humans of what peace and friendship can accomplish in the face of cruelty and predation? It would be just like—”
“Like the Age of Reconstruction, the Classical Era,” Celestia said with a happy sigh. “The greatest period in pony history, spawned by the greatest threat to not only their physical, but also metaphysical existence. The ponies answered why they deserved to continue to exist, by becoming the greatest artists, the greatest heroes, the world had ever known.”
“And I want to bring that age back,” Luna said with force. This was an argument that she very much wanted to win, and as a result she was modulating her words into a modern form to facilitate that result. “A new age, a Renaissance, where ponies take on the best of human habits, and humans become ever so slightly more pony.”
“And where would you be, in this Renaissance?” asked Celestia.
“On Earth, as your ambassador.”
“On Earth? You’ve only just returned to Equestria!”
“And Equestria has rejected me, as they had every right to do after what I’ve done as Nightmare Moon!” insisted Princess Luna. “It will take a generation or more before I will be accepted as your equal. In the meantime, I was meant for humanity, and humanity for me! No other pony is as cold as I, can look the darkness of our inner selves in the eye as calmly as I can! That is the nature of the humans as well!”
Although her face was impassive, inwardly Princess Celestia smirked to herself. She wondered if her sister would ever outgrow her “emo” phase.
“It’s true—the tree ponies are pretty dark,” Pinkie Pie said to nopony in particular.
“So, what say you?” asked Luna eagerly.
“Surely you are not suggesting—” the Captain begged Princess Celestia.
“I suggest nothing,” Celestia replied. “Luna is a Princess of Equestria. Unless I plan to dethrone her—which I do not—her word is as much law as mine is. And she has decreed that the portal shall re-open, so re-open it shall. See that you make the proper arrangements.”
“Y...yes, Your Highness,” the Captain said in defeat, before backing his way out of the audience chamber.
Not too long ago, there was a nation of humans ruled by a cruel despot. His subjects obeyed him, but out of fear instead of love. Humans by the thousands were sent into the earth to mine the minerals that made him rich, but he refused to share his riches with his people, and the humans who made him his fortune were locked away in hospitals to waste away, in hopes that everyone would eventually forget about them.
One day a human named Andrei, whose health and sanity had been destroyed in the mines, broke free of his confinement. To the humans he met, he preached a message, not of hatred for his captor, but of forgiveness and laughter, a philosophy he said he learned from an imaginary pink friend.
He was quite mad, you see.
The despot caught Andrei and executed him on live television, as an lesson to the others.
The populace responded to this “lesson” by rising up and overthrowing him.
In respect for Andrei, they did not execute their former leader, but instead tried and convicted him of his crimes and then “retired” him to the same generous retirement home where he had sent his miners. He ended up not lasting any longer than they did.
To posterity, these events became known as the “Pink Revolution”.
Postscript #2
With four days to spare before the cross-worlds portal would be reopened, Twilight Sparkle and Spike returned to Ponyville. Upon reaching the library tree, the exhausted dragon excused himself to go straight to bed.
Twilight used her magic to take a large steamer trunk downstairs where she could examine its contents without waking her assistant. After moving aside innumerable mementos of a largely friendless childhood, and delicately moving her Smartypants doll where she could watch the proceedings, she proceeded to dig out an ancient-looking blue scroll and carefully unroll it.
“‘Beyond forest, meadow and stream, beyond ocean, mountain and desert, lies the Swamp of Fomalhaut.’ So said the human Voltige as he sat at the hooves of the Princess.” Twilight read aloud.
This time, she vowed, she would not fail to uncover the lesson that Princess Celestia had once promised was tied to this story.
Credits & Acknowledgements
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is the property of Hasbro, with the fourth generation interpretation of this property courtesy of Lauren Faust and the team she created at DHX. The characters of Princesses Celestia and Luna (and Nightmare Moon), Discord, Twilight Sparkle (and Spike and Smartypants), Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy are all respectfully taken from that source, as are the locations of Canterlot, Hoofington and Ponyville (and Equestria itself, for that matter). All other characters (including the announcers) are my own creation, and are not meant to be representative of any actual Rose Parade announcers.
The Tournament of Roses Parade (usually referred to as simply the “Rose Parade”) is produced each year by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association. The parade being depicted here was the one from 2010. I wish to express especial thanks to YouTube user Music213, who posted the performances of not only every band in the parade, but also every BandFest entry for that year as well.
America’s Got Talent is a television program on the American NBC network, produced by Simon Cowell alongside Britain’s Got Talent, Arabs Got Talent, Canada’s Got Talent, India’s Got Talent, Românii au talent, and dozens of other shows, all created as part of their sinister plot to take over the world with the atrocious grammar of the phrase “Got Talent”.
Natural Balance Pet Foods is, unsurprisingly, a pet food manufacturer headquartered in Pacoima, California—one of those city names that just begs to be pronounced with a Jerry Lewis voice. It was founded by actor Dick Van Patten. I swear that I did not make up Tillman the Snowboarding Bulldog—he actually was the star attraction of the Natural Balance float in 2010.
The Ohio University Marching 110 of Athens, Ohio, is under the direction of Dr. Richard Suk. The song “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” which I used was part of their program in the 2010 Bandfest, but in my opinion the particular performance I linked to from earlier in 2009 was superior. “Separate Ways” is a 1983 song by Journey.
The Western Haflinger Association is an appreciation society for the Haflinger breed of horse.
The Humboldt University of Berlin is a German state university, the successor of the Charíte mental institution where I put the portal between Earth and Equestria in “The Best of All Possible Worlds”.
“That’s What Friends Are For” is a 1982 song written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager. The version I remember was sung by a group led by Dionne Warwick.
Star Trek is the jealously-held property of Paramount Pictures, and don’t you forget it.
“Knights of the Round Table” is a song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, directed by Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones).
The statue that Rarity comments on is a replica of “The Thinker”, by Auguste Rodan (1902). The museum itself is the Norton Simon, an art museum frequently appearing as a backdrop in Rose Parade telecasts.
The Living Museum of the Horse was originally founded as the greatest stable in France by order of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon and Prince of Condé, in 1719. He believed that when he died that he would be reincarnated as a horse, and wanted a location worthy of his new form. Coincidentally, the “Condé” name in America became “Conday”.
“Brush My Horsey” is meant to be this world’s equivalent of the original My Little Pony franchise (created by Bonnie Zacherle in 1981), but without a TV show tie-in.
Die Hard is a 1988 film directed by John McTiernan. It rocked.
Flickr is the property of Yahoo, Inc. YouTube is a subsidiary of Google LLC.
The actual 1976 bronze medal in team dressage was won by the American team, which included Edith Master and her horse Dahlwitz. The character of Edith Conday is in no way, shape or form meant to represent Edith Master.
The pooka is a creature of Irish folklore, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of them in FIMfiction. They are usually depicted as being more benevolent than the one I had Edie imagine.
The unnamed second band in Chapter 5 was the Millard West High School Wildcat Marching Band, from Omaha, Nebraska. Here is a link to their BandFest performance, which consisted of the pieces “Autumn”, “Stuck Part 1 and 2” and “Tribute to America”.
Rainbow Dash saying she’d go crazy if she was ever stuck in a bed was an obvious reference to the episode “Read It and Weep” written by Cindy Morrow, which since this story takes place right before the end of “The Return of Harmony Part 2” hasn’t strictly speaking happened yet. “The Return of Harmony” was written by M. A. Larson.
The word “okay,” commonly written as “OK,” is of uncertain origin, first becoming prominent in the American presidential election of 1840.
“The character of mercy” is a paraphrasing of “The quality of mercy” speech from the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (1596).
The Roman Empire (27 BC - AD 476 in the west, 285 - 1453 in the east). May it rest in peace.
“The Yellow Rose of Texas” is a folk song first published in 1858. In the 2010 Rose Parade, it was performed by the Conroe Tiger Marching Band, under the direction of Bobby W. Heathcock.
Amdo and Kham are two of the varieties of the Tibetan spoken language.
Pay no attention to the snarky graduate student.
The planes flying overhead in the parade were Navy F-18 fighter jets, manned by pilots of the Fighting Redcocks of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, operating out of the Naval Air Station at Lemoore, California.
Finally, the story Twilight reads at the very end is “The Frog Princess of Fomalhaut”, from “The Best of All Possible Worlds”. The human Voltige is an alias of the philosopher Voltaire.
