Wonders

We arrived in the small southern town around noon, it was horrible. I had thought the other parts of the country were uncomfortably hot, but this town almost made me melt, which would have been awkward.

We were greeted at the train station by a loud yellow earth pony stallion, who appeared to be related to the loud orange earth pony mare. Maybe loudness ran in the family.

“Howdy y’all!” he said, loudly “welcome to AAAAAAPPLEOOSA!”

His very first sentence to us, and already I found him annoying. He began chattering incessantly, so I tuned him out and looked at the town.

It appeared to be even smaller than the last town, and unbearably dry and hot. Surely the ponies living here would be unhappy?

But I could not sense anything, and all the ponies looked happy. They were probably used to the weather.

Which was unfortunate, I grew even weaker in the heat; I hoped the next town had disharmony.

At that point my thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling sound, the ground began to shake and everypony began running off to the south.

“Quickly y’all!” shouted the annoying stallion “we don’t wanna miss ‘em”

Apparently the ponies did not want to ‘miss em’, because they ran so fast I had to fly to keep up, I needed to practise being on the ground.

We crested a ridge and saw an apple orchard below us, there were ponies as well as buffalo waiting amongst the trees, looking east down a dirt path. There was a cloud of dust racing along the path towards us, at first I thought it was a sandstorm, but as it got closer I saw that the dust was being kicked up by yet more ponies and buffalo running full tilt towards the orchard.

I watched as the stampede thundered through the trees, shaking apples onto the ground that were quickly picked up by the townsfolk who had been waiting there.

“hoo-ee!” shouted the loud pony, annoyingly. “aint it somthin’?!”

“But why are there buffalo harvestin’ apples?” asked the orange pony.

“and why are there ponies running with the buffalo?” asked the blue Pegasus.

“well first some buffalo came sayin’ they wanted to try their hoof at makin’ pies” explained the loud pony “then some of the fillies wanted to run with the buffalo, and before you know it we’re all mixed up and closer than ever!”

I had never seen two separate species living together on this scale, it was interesting.

“Y’all arrived just in time too!” continued the stallion “tomorrow we’re havin’ a feast to celebrate all our cooperation!”

Creatures often hate those that are different; the feast would be a good time for me to see if they actually liked each other.

The feast was a massive event, a line of tables stretched down the main street of the settlement, loaded with vegetarian delicacies.

There were all kinds of salads, flower sandwiches and more sugary treats than I could name, and of course everything had apples in it.

All of the ponies and buffalo came and sat around the table, in no particular arrangement, with the buffalo chief and the pony lawmaker at the head of the table.

The leaders had apparently written a speech.

“Today we celebrate the coexistence of our two tribes” began the buffalo.

“And the mergin’ of our two cultures” continued the pony.

“Let us toast to our continued cooperation”

“And our continued integration”

It was short, but it was well delivered, and the crowd clapped politely. Then music and singing began on the salon deck and everyone began to eat.

The singing and festivities continued uninterrupted for about an hour, most of the participants had finished eating and were chatting to each when the music gave way to someone tapping the microphone. I looked up to see Twilight’s pink friend smiling widely. I wasn’t really paying attention when she gave her speech, but I was unable to ignore her when she started singing. The song had something to do with sharing, but I was too busy trying to block out the horrible noise to hear the lyrics.

The crowd’s reaction was immediate, their smiles disappeared and I could sense anger from many of them.

The song went on for a minute or two, and the anger grew as it went.

I do not laugh often, the mocking laughter of the other day was rare, but when the pink one stopped singing and the entire crowd glared at her I began to chuckle.

And suddenly they were not glaring at her but staring at me, and as I laughed their anger faded, some of the young ponies laughed with me and soon the whole crowd was laughing and the pink one was being congratulated for her ‘comedic performance’.

It was interesting, the effects of laughter on disharmony.