The Equestrian Opposition Party
Princess Celestia studied the bill, then slowly rolled it up and set it gently at Ink Blotter’s hooves.
“Mister Blotter, I am aware this is your first year in the legislature and you must have worked terribly hard on this bill, but I simply do not see the need to remove the tariff on paper imports and docking fees associated with the ink potting business. Those businesses are already extremely wealthy, and the farm subsidy will have to come from somewhere. The parasprite attacks over the last year have increased threefold, and unless you wish to tighten your belt come this winter, cutting into our food production will leave much of the country asking where their next meal is coming from when the snows arrive.
“Now, I would be willing to consider a small tax cut for the producers of marching band instruments if you wish to readjust your personal investments in that direction and present me with another bill in two weeks. Good day.”
Ink Blotter’s face was red as a tomato as he stormed down the steps of Canterlot Castle. Of course, his face was normally that color, but it’d taken on a shade normally associated with a tomato that’s sat in the back of the refrigerator long enough to develop culturally significant works of art in its spare time.
“Argh...Why?! Can she not see the benefits?” he snarled, earning him a couple of sideways glances from the guards outside the doors. They shared a quick smile, shook their heads, and went back to pretending to be statues.
Stomping across the courtyard, his latest bill wadded under one wing, he stopped at the great reflecting pool with the grand sculpture of Celestia in the center, one leg upraised as though leading the country into the future. Glaring up at it, he remembered all the times over the last three months when he’d stood in that exact spot, defending his bill to the Princess’s likeness in hopes it might give him some measure of confidence when the time came for the actual event.
The courtyard was empty, but then, the throne room was full for the noonday court session and few ponies had occasion to loiter outside.
He’d strolled into that throne room after almost two weeks on a waiting list, brimming with self-certainty that the Princesses could only see his way. After all, what was a small legal finagling to cut the taxes of a few businessponies? Surely, the Canterlot education system could use a boost! If Ink Blotter made a small commission from the sales of a minor textbook publisher, who could spite him for doing so much to improve the future of the youth of the city?
Unfurling the bill from under his wing, he stared at the neatly written signature at the bottom.
Mister Ink Blotter, Equestrian Business Party.
He was so proud of that signature when he started his work in the legislature, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to take on the world. The world had quickly proven itself a dirty fighter who would throw sand in his eyes, then give him a solid kick in the groin when he was down.
“Three months,” he muttered. “Three months of my life, right out the window. Ugh, all that kissing up to the party, the ridiculous dinners I attended, and then getting enough votes...and she doesn’t even give me a full ten minutes!”
Heaving back, he chucked the scroll into the reflecting pool. It landed with a splash, and the guards on the door looked up sharply, then gave him their most constabulary expressions.
The guard on the left growled, “You’re going to go get that, right?”
Ink stumbled into his flat and sagged onto the carpet, soaking wet and with the tattered remains of his bill in his teeth. The ‘diving, skimming the water, then sweeping majestically away into the sunset’ approach hadn’t turned out to be a particularly effective means of retrieving something from the water. If a seagull could do it, why couldn’t a pegasus?
A bright blue head poked out from the kitchen, eyes alight with amusement at his condition. “Oh! Inky! I didn’t know you were home. How goes my favorite lobbyist? Still trying, I see.”
“I think I’m dead, Mandarin,” Ink replied, sprawling on his side as his roommate smiled down at him. “Please, if you would, find some extremely expensive carpet in Canterlot Castle to leave me on while I molder away. I’d like to think my last act in this world was to inconvenience that odious mare in some fashion.”
“You do know there are ponies who go years without seeing the Princess, right?” Mandarin chuckled, her horn glowing as she levitated a plate heaped with hashbrowns out of the kitchen and set it on the carpet in front of him. “Besides, this whole ‘free market’ ideology crap you picked up in college doesn’t work in the real world. The Princess is smart. Don’t you think she’d have tried it if it did?”
Ink sniffed at the hashbrowns, then tentatively picked one up and stuffed it into his muzzle. “She’s old, Mandarin! Ponies need something to look forward to! Free markets can regulate themselves more effectively than all these pricing controls allow!”
“Blah, blah, blah...Sweetie...you know I’m not interested. You want to play some board games or watch a movie, then I’m your filly. If you want to eat a whole bunch of hashbrowns and then pass out feeling sorry for yourself and ranting about the unfairness of the government that’s lasted a thousand years, count me out. I’ve been on that train before, and it’s boring.”
“But...but don’t you want something...I don’t know. Something different?” Ink moaned, tugging at the buttons on his sodden vest. “I want to see an Equestria where the greatest ponies can rise to their full potential and-”
A warm hashbrown suddenly stuffed itself into his mouth, effectively plugging his continued griping.
“Ink, we live in a country where the greatest can rise to their full potential. Twilight Sparkle just became a Princess! She’s low born, too! Not even a royal. She just studied hard, and Princess Celestia took notice. Now, have your meal and shut your cake hole. You’re the one who wanted to work in politics. I told you to go with your talent and become a writer or a journalist or something.”
Ink Blotter glanced back at the image of a folded scroll with the quill lying atop it on his flank. He’d known two other ponies in his graduating class with similar talents. Sure, one was into historical fiction and the other, those hideous romance novels about vamponies written for fillies having their first estrus cycle, but it was so very generic it galled him.
“There’s no money in writing, Mandy,” he grunted, picking bits of parchment out of his teeth. “I just want to make a real change; I want to feel like something I do is important!”
“What you do is important. You’re a legislator! Other ponies trust you to make good decisions for them and present those to the Princess,” his roommate replied. “Now, if you’d get over this...what did you call it? Liber...libra…”
“Libertarian-ism,” he mumbled.
“Right, that. If you’d get over that and actually start making some decisions instead of whinging about how terrible the Princesses are for bringing us peace and tolerance, you might get something done!”
“I want to get something done. This system is so...so stolid! So slow!”
Mandarin shook her head and turned back to the kitchen. “Look, I’ve heard all this before. If you’re really so put off by the system, why don’t you go join the Equestrian Opposition Party? Those idiots could always use somepony who knows what they’re doing.”
Ink’s ears flicked a little. “The Equestrian Opposition Party? Who’re they?”
“You...never heard of these yahoos? Well, I guess that’s not surprising. They’ve been out of power for a while, but they swear they’ll get it back any day now. I was bored a few months back after I got done with class and decided to go see what they’re all about. They have a few posters around the school. Here, lemme see...I think I have the address where they meet.”
Rooting through a drawer beside the sink, Mandarin floated a heavily-worn piece of paper out as Ink pushed himself into a sitting position. She dropped it between his forelegs, and he quickly scanned it.
“Do you want to take a stand against the oppression of Equestrian rights?
Do you want to see an Equestria where the individual has true self-determination?
Are you tired of seeing the country ruled at the whim of just two ponies?
Come and join the Equestrian Opposition Party! We work against the status quo and will see a new dawn for all the species of this country. Celestia and Luna might rule for now, but we will not be silent, no matter the consequences!
Come to speak your mind at our open forum on the third Friday of every month. You will be heard, and you can learn to make a real difference. Oppose the diarchy, today!”
Ink Blotter mouthed the words on the paper to himself, then shook his head. There was an address at the bottom for somewhere on the lower end of town. He could find it easily enough.
“This is really posted where you work?” he asked, incredulously.
Mandarin shrugged. “Oh...Yeah. The School for Gifted Unicorns has always been pretty open to whatever a pony wants to say, so long as they’re not advocating violence or something. I guess I never really thought about it. Those fliers have been around the school since I was a filly myself. Who knows? Might do you some good to talk to some ponies with a similar point of view.”
“Do...do you think they might have some clout?”
“Heh, I don’t know,” his roommate giggled, lifting a towel from behind the counter and flinging it onto his shoulders. “They certainly seemed to think so. Still, even if Princess Celestia and Princess Luna don’t like them, they’re not breaking the law by meeting or advertising. The Equestrian Charter of Rights guarantees the right to free assembly. How did you get this wet? It’s not raining out, is it? Did you fly through a cloud?”
“No,” he replied, absentmindedly wiping the pool water out of his fur.
He was going over the possibilities in his brain. At worst, they might be able to introduce him to some senators who could help him with his cause. He’d spent enough time with boring representatives droning on about things he didn’t care about that his ears were growing some pretty good calluses. It might be interesting to meet a few ponies who actually had something to say.
He did a bit of quick math in his brain. The third Friday of the month was-
“Tonight! The meeting is tonight and…” He checked the time on the sheet, then the clock on the wall. “That’s...an hour from now! I’ve got to go!”
He turned to rush out the door only to be caught by the tail in Mandarin’s teeth.
“Hey! Doofus! At least change clothes! You smell like chlorine and butt!”
Forty-five minutes later, freshly laundered, with a clean mane and a vest that didn’t smell so bad he’d gag at a sniff, Ink Blotter found himself wandering the lower quarters of Canterlot in search of the address on the flier. The sun was going down, casting the city in an orange glow that seemed to set his crimson mane alight, but it was nothing to the fire he felt in his belly for the first time in months.
“Marigold street...Marigold street,” he murmured to himself, looking back and forth at the road signs.
Foals were playing in the streets, and somewhere, a harpist was making a sweet tune just to celebrate the coming evening, but Ink Blotter ignored them all; he had a purpose and would not be dissuaded from it by the peaceful beauty of the oncoming night.
“You coming this way, stranger?”
Ink Blotter looked up to find a mare in a long brown robe leaning lazily against a lamppost. He could only tell she was a mare by the pleasing curve of her flank and the soft shine of polish on her white hooves. The rest of her was covered by the hood and canvas.
“Are...are you talking to me?” he asked.
“Who else, sugar? You here for the meeting?”
Her voice was husky, but smooth enough to send a little lump into his throat.
“Th-the meeting?” he stammered.
Pushing herself off the lamppost, she approached him with a sway of the hips that he found very distracting. Something about her reminded him of a predatory cat. “Pretty colt in an expensive vest wandering the streets of lower Canterlot by himself, looking lost? I’d say you’re probably here for the Equestrian Opposition Party, right?”
His ears perked up. “Oh! Yes! Yes, I’m here for the meeting. You know where it is?”
“Of course, darling!” she chuckled, throwing her hood back. “I’m the chairpony, after all. You may call me Miss Sun Spots. Spotty to my friends.”
Ink Blotter’s jaw almost hit him in the knees; without a doubt, she was the most lovely mare he’d ever met. Her pelt was the color of ivory, and her mane showered down her neck in a cascade of pink curls. She was an earth pony, or maybe a pegasus, since he couldn’t see what was under her robe. She was also at least ten years his senior, and yet she wore her age with such grace that he had to force his wings tight against his sides.
“Buh…I...I mean, yes, of course. Good to meet you, Miss Spots! My name is Ink Blotter.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen you before. Ways and Means for the Business Party? Tough bit of luck about that bill today. Might have done wonders for the printing business,” she said, offering him a hoof. “Bloody Fat Flanks never does much care for tax cuts, though. Not when she can line her own pockets, eh?”
Ink Blotter instinctively frowned a little at the monicker for Princess Celestia, but then a big grin spread across his face. “That’s true...hee! Pardon me, I’ve just never heard anypony call her that before. It’s somewhat refreshing.”
“Oh, you’ll hear much worse tonight. Come along, cutie-pie. The Party is just this way.”
Swinging around, she trotted down what he’d first taken for an alley between a pair of department stores with a bounce in her flanks that set his heart pounding. On second examination, there was a tiny street sign set off to one side as though ashamed to be there that said ‘Marigold St’ in mismatched letters.
Following her into the shadows between the buildings, he felt a tickle of pleasure at the cloak-and-dagger-ness of the whole situation; Ink Blotter had always enjoyed writing a good mystery, back when he’d bothered with his typewriter for anything besides official correspondences.
Once they were behind the department buildings, the road opened up a little to reveal a short row of looping apartments and, at the end, a thatch-roofed pub that looked like it’d been plucked out of time three hundred years ago and plunked in the middle of the city. Ink Blotter stared up at the sign overhead. It bore a stylized image of a pair of extremely round flanks with Celestia’s cutie marks and not much left to the imagination otherwise.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, cocking her head coquettishly.
“What’s the name of this place?” he asked.
“Heh! Welcome to ‘Where The Sun Don’t Shine’, doll. The food’s greasy, but the beer kicks like a minotaur with a wasp in his tail! Plenty of good company, too. Get in and let me introduce you to the rest of the Party! I’m thirsty!” Pushing open the battered wooden door, Spots marched inside.
Trotting in behind her, he was hit in the face with a thick cloud of pipe smoke. The room stank of horse-sweat, spilled beer, and vomit, but underneath was something heavenly that sent him, momentarily, right back to his childhood, sitting in his mother’s kitchen as she cooked dinner. The ceiling of ‘Where The Sun Don’t Shine’ was low and the lights were dim, but it had a homey feel which seemed to invite him in for a visit and a slice of pie. A small fire crackled in the hearth against the far wall, and a jovial old stallion in an apron stood behind a bar that looked like it’d weathered entire centuries with only an occasional towelling off.
The evening crowd was sparse and most seemed to be already deep in their cups, but a few looked up just long enough to give him a tip of the head like friends passing in the night. It was a rare thing - since he’d left Detrot - to feel so comfortable in a place.
Miss Spots was making for a crowded table off near the fire with a hanging lamp above it. She waved to the bartender, who gave her a nod before turning to his taps with a pair of mugs in hoof. Ink Blotter kicked up his heels to keep up with her as she weaved between the other patrons.
Their destination was a round table with seven seats around it, two of which were empty. The rest were filled with the strangest mish-mash of characters he’d ever seen in one place. He quickly glanced around the table, trying to get a feel for his company. There was a great shaggy blond beast of a stallion wearing a horned helmet in the Yakistani style who was casually sharpening a gigantic battleaxe by the light of the fire; next to him were two identical orange mares stained with grease from ears to tailtips, whispering to one another while they sketched out strange designs for some kind of contraption on a napkin.
Beside them, an ancient unicorn stallion sat wrapped in several layers of blankets. He had wrinkles upon his wrinkles, but his eyes twinkled with interest as he studied Ink Blotter from across the table. In the next chair over, an earth pony mare with a dreadlocked mane was busily loading a pipe with something that smelled foul. She had one more already laid out on the table and a third poking out of her mouth, letting off a curl of blue smoke.
As she noticed the new arrivals, she growled, “Chairpony! You’re late again. You know time is only moving in one direction and, until we can change that, punctuality matters!”
“Speak for yourself, Sheesha,” the old unicorn cackled, lifting his beer to his muzzle and taking a swig. “Time might only be moving in one direction for you, but I’m just getting more beautiful the older I get.”
Sheesha puffed a little at her pipe, then plucked it out of her muzzle and gestured at Ink Blotter with it. “Who is this, then? Looks like a bit of a stiff.”
“Mister Ink Blotter will be joining the meeting tonight, Shee. I expect you to treat him with all the respect he’s due,” Spots said, firmly, then thought better of it. “Actually, treat him better than that. I’d rather not scare the new flesh off on the first night.”
Reaching over, Ink pulled one of the spare chairs out and sank into it. “I’m pretty tough, Miss Spots. We’re all here for the same reason, right?”
The blond barbarian let out a snort that shook the table and slowly lowered his whetstone as he looked over Ink Blotter.
“You look like strawberry cotton candy, little stallion,” he grunted.
One of the grease-coated earth ponies gave him a firm punch in the foreleg that had about as much effect as socking a mountain.
“Dapper! You be nice!” one of the mares snapped, adjusting a pair of welder’s goggles on her forehead. “The Machine will not tolerate such rudeness! It is inefficient!”
“Hrmph! Efficiency is a club! A brick! A wall!” Dapper brandished his axe with one leg at the two mares, who looked about as intimidated as if he’d brandished a stuffed rabbit at them. “Machines do not rule. Ponies rule. The strong rule. That is how Bloody Fat Flanks keeps her throne, and we should learn from her example, that we might cast her down one day! These mechanisms you worship might wield a sword, but they have no judgement.”
“Pardon our manners, sugar,” Spots giggled, settling herself beside Ink. “We’re old friends, and friends tend to forget themselves in new company. May I introduce Dapper, our resident Brutalist-” The barbarian tapped his hat with the tip of his weapon. “-Sprocket and Joint, our technocrats-” Both fillies nodded in unison, then went back to fussing over their drawing. “-Sheesha, the anarchist-” The mare with the pipe gave it a lift, then tapped out her ash into a tray beside her drink. “-and last, but not least, Letter Head, the great orator and democrat.”
The old unicorn bowed his head slightly, picking up his beer with his horn and lifting it to his mouth, then wiping away the foam with the edge of his blanket.
Spots spread her forelegs. “Welcome to the Equestrian Opposition Party, Mister Ink Blotter!”
“I...ahem...I’m glad to be here.” He hesitated for a moment. “Mister Letter Head, it’s a pleasure to meet you again. You spoke to one of my classes in college.”
Letter Head let out a raspy chuckle, then raised a hoof towards the bartender, who began quickly filling another mug of beer. “I recognized you as soon as you walked in, boy. You were the cheeky little bastard wouldn’t hardly let me get a word in edgewise before he had a philosophical objection. Took me to task pretty hard on terms of individual freedom in a representative government, if I remember...and I always remember. That is a talent you would do well to cultivate if you want to get one over on Bloody Fat Flanks. Her memory is almost perfect, and she will play upon yours in an instant if you give her an opening.”
“Bloody Fat Flanks,” Ink sniggered, putting a hoof over his muzzle. “My apologies. It just makes me smile to hear that. She pretends to be so...so perfect, and yet every time I see her at a reception, she’s standing beside the cake platter, scarfing frosting.”
“One pony couldn’t rule for as long as she has without picking up a few bad habits,” Spots giggled, pushing herself up in her seat as the bartender delivered a fresh mug for Letter Head as well as two beers for herself and Ink Blotter. “I was doing some research, back when I was still allowed in the Royal Archives after hours. Do you know, she used to have fifty of the strongest mares and stallions in her personal harem a few hundred years ago?”
Dapper let out a great blast of belly laughter. “Hah! Of course, Princess Fat Flanks had her own personal whores! Wouldn't you?”
“Yep! The whole thing is right there in the records of Canterlot Castle. Luna, too, though that was a thousand years ago. I heard when Luna returned, the first thing she tried to do after she recovered was molest a guard!”
“No!” Blotter blurted out. “She can’t have! I would have heard about it!”
“Heh, the first thing you’ll learn as a member of the E.O.P. is that there are plenty of things in Equestria you’ve never heard of and probably never will outside of these four walls,” Spots explained, gesturing at the bar. Her expression turned a little wistful as she licked the foam off the top of her beer, then took a quick sip. “This bar was once the center of the last Lunar Rebellion, and few remember such grand acts of heroism in this day and age.”
The entire table reached out and, with the exception of Ink Blotter, who clutched his glass to his chest, raised their mugs in a silent salute then drank deep for a full five seconds.
“Sooo, what does the Equestrian Opposition Party do?” Blotter asked, nervously, as everypony finished their toast.
“What else?” Sprocket said, batting her eyes at him in a manner that made his heart flutter. “We oppose Celestia and...now Luna as well, I suppose. We may have disparate beliefs, but each has a better way of seeing Equestria into the future than this inefficient, dated monarchy. For instance, wouldn’t you like a country where science dictated policy rather than the whims of the electorate?”
“Eh...I...I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it,” he answered, finally sipping his own beer. The drink really was quite good: tart, refreshing, and with a hint of cinnamon. “I believe that ponies deserve to make their own decisions about what is best for them, whether or not that necessarily means they make good ones.”
“Hah! Exactly!” Letter Head said, leaning forward and slapping the wooden surface so hard that all their mugs jumped. “A representative government is the only form which allows ponies to have both freedom and a system of laws! Letting Celestia dictate our freedoms is no freedom at all!”
“Ugh, freedom,” Joint spat, as though the word were dirty. “You do know we tried representative democracy, right? It didn’t work. The electorate wanted Celestia back.”
Letter Head scowled, sinking back in his blankets. “Oh, sure. Trot that tired old story out why don’t you? We’ve advanced as a society. Electoral college voting could work this time if we structure it properly.”
“You won’t find many ponies willing to give another go to that, Letter,” Sprocket replied. “Not after the last disaster.”
Ink scratched his mane, then asked, “Pardon, I thought Equestria had been ruled by Princess Celestia for well over a thousand years. I never heard of anypony actually successfully overthrowing her for any length of time.”
“Oh! Really?” Sprocket sniggered with a bit of a malicious grin on her face. “Then you’ve never heard of ‘K’tan’gor’ The Drinker of Flesh’?”
He shook his head. “I...can’t say as I have, no.”
“Our last experiment with a representative government ended after two years when the electorate was duped, or rather, the electors were duped into voting for a creature from beyond the blackest void of time and space,” she went on. “His cult said whatever was necessary to get him elected, and the public was easily swayed.”
Letter Head tossed his wispy mane. “To be fair, if you look at the records of the period, we were in an economic downturn, and K’tan’gor did run an extremely convincing campaign.”
“Ah, yes. The ‘M.E.G.A.’ campaign,” Dapper laughed, swilling his drink around in his glass. “I remember. Strong campaign. Good message. ‘Make Equestria Great Again’. K’tan’gor was a good candidate. Perhaps bad politician, but good candidate.”
“He tried to eat most of the senate the day he was elected,” Joint sighed. “They barely managed to banish him to the aether, and the emergency elections reverted everything to the way it was.”
“That was before the transition team!” Letter protested. “He might have had a better chance if he’d been informed before taking office that ponies don’t care for being eaten.”
Ink, barely able to believe his ears, latched onto the one fact that made any sense at all in that last sentence. “Wait...transition team? What transition team? Who would help a demonic hell-beast take office?”
“Aha!” Sprocket exclaimed, jabbing a hoof in his direction. “You are unaware, then, that Princess Celestia has a full transition team on hoof twenty-four hours a day, should she be deposed on short notice? It happens like clockwork. Bloody Fat Flanks has it down to a science.”
“Why?!” Ink stammered. “Why would she need a transition team for a new government all the time?”
“Nopony knows, but she’s got ponies ready to make any new despot, parliament, senate, or anarcho-syndicalist commune aware and prepared for dealing with the unique problems of governing Equestria,” Joint explained, sketching a fresh line on her diagram.
Ink Blotter’s mind was reeling from all this new information. He picked up his beer and drained a muzzle full. A bit spilled out around the edges as he fought to gather his wits, splashing down his vest.
“Honestly, sugar, nopony has been brave enough to ask her why she’s so keen on being replaced,” Spots said, kindly reaching across the table and wiping his chin with the edge of her robe “The working theory is that she’s tired and hoping somepony can take over. Of course, they say about half of those who’ve tried ran screaming from the building somewhere around a third of the way into the first security briefing. The other half don’t last more than a few months or years before they either botch the job or get themselves tossed off the mountain by an angry mob.”
“The Machine would never get tossed off a mountain,” Sprocket grumbled, reaching into a pouch at her waist and pulling out a strange contraption that Ink Blotter couldn’t immediately identify. Unfolding it, she revealed a sharp spike on a stick which began softly vibrating in her hoof. She proceeded to quietly clean her teeth with it as she continued, “We would build it into the mountaintop. Any angry mob would need more cranes than exist on this continent to remove it. It could calculate when someone might depose it and plan for that, too.”
“What is this machine you keep talking about?” Ink asked, a bit warily.
“Oh, Fat Flank’s fat flanks, I wish you hadn’t asked that,” Sheesha groused, tapping her pipe with the edge of her hoof. Letter Head politely lit it for her with a flick of his horn, and she settled against the worn cushion of her seat with a disgruntled look on her face. “Now you’ll never shut them up.”
Sprocket ignored the other mare’s foul humor and sat forward with an excited glint in her eye. “It’s not just any machine, Mister Ink Blotter! It’s the Machine! The one and only! It’s the only machine that matters and the one that all of ponykind’s evolution has been working towards!”
“And what does this machine do?” he asked.
“It governs!” Joint squeaked, a few stars in her eyes as she leaped up onto her chair, leaning across the table until she was in dire danger of violating his personal space, but her excitement was infectious. “Just imagine it! No more whimsical Princesses! No easily corrupted politicians or arbitrary rulings! We could simply ask the Machine when we needed decisions made, and it would take all the unpredictability out of government! An intelligent mechanism could give us the wise leadership we’ve needed for so long and be entirely subservient at the same time!”
“That...does sound better than presenting everything to Princess Celestia for final approval,” he said, feeling his wariness fade. “If the Machine were intelligent enough, it would probably just set up some initial conditions, then make sure to keep everypony’s freedoms well protected as we went about our daily lives. I could get behind that idea! Is that what you’re hoping to build?”
Sheesha cleared her throat and blew a smoke ring across the table between Ink and Joint, who suddenly realized their muzzles were inches from one another. Both blushed and sat down again. “Right, girly. If you would, please remind the whole table what happened to the first three prototypes you two presented at court?”
Sprocket waved a hoof dismissively as she polished off her beer and tongued the last drops off the lip of the glass. “Those...well, those were simply a matter of calibration. The systems had a touch too much free will, and I’m sure we’ll have that knocked out before the next round of testing, when we get our funding back-”
“A calibration error does not cause a machine to gain a higher intelligence, rewrite its own programming, and remove itself from this universe to other planes of understanding,” Sheesha said, brushing her thick dreadlocks out of her face. “Nor does it cause a machine to begin sobbing uncontrollably, then explode, when presented with the tax code. For that matter, neither does it make a machine recommend wiping out all life in Equestria to ‘save us from ourselves’, then attempt to take matters into its own hooves, necessitating Celestia ejecting it into the sun. Face it. You shan't be fixing that with a screwdriver or a set of spanners.”
“Oh, hush! It’s not as though you did any better!” the other mare grumbled.
“Hey, we achieved our goals last time we were in power,” Sheesha snapped, defensively. “It’s not my fault if the rest of the country is a bunch of plebeians who couldn’t see the benefit of a little chaos to lead us towards greater intellectual pursuits! We’d probably be a thousand years more developed if Celestia and Luna hadn’t intervened!”
Letter Head blew a breath out of one side of his mouth that sounded like a protracted fart.
“What...what exactly happened?” Ink asked, when it became apparent nopony else was going to.
Sun Spots propped her chin on her hoof and grinned. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the creature known as ‘Discord’? He was pulled into being by the first and only anarchist government Equestria ever had.”
“His existence was not their fault! Discord never confirmed they created him!” Sheesha interjected. “Besides, it wasn’t a government! They were a collective decision-making body! They never claimed to be a government!”
Spots gave Sheesha a devilish look, then turned to Ink. “I am certain it was simply a coincidence that the central meeting hall of their ‘decision making body’ - after a particularly vigorous day of making decisions - was where he first chose to manifest.” She turned back to the smoking mare. “How many were hospitalized again, Sheesha? Do remind me?”
“Hrmph! One day, anarchism will rise again, Spotty! Just you wait! Our time is coming, and all of Equestria will look toward the freedom anarchism offers with open hooves!”
Dapper suddenly swung his axe down and buried it in his side of the table. There were already a dozen deep furrows in the wood there which looked similar to the one he’d just left. “You fools summoned madness, Shee! He made strong ponies weak. He broke the status quo. All order disintegrated. Even in strength, a system must have order!”
“You mean your order?” she sneered. “You didn’t even have a plan when you marched in there and demanded Fat Flanks hand Equestria over to you after a bout of single combat. She only stopped because you had a concussion and three broken ribs and she didn’t want to kill you in front of all those ponies! You hadn’t so much as laid a hoof on her.”
“I was young,” Dapper grunted, chugging his beer such that it spilled down his barrel chest in a great splash, soaking the floor under his hooves. “Needed more practice. I shall have Equestria in my grasp soon enough, then will need strong ponies to rule alongside me. Like you lot.”
“And on that day, the Equestrian Opposition Party will be right there beside you, prepared to do our part,” Sun Spots added, with a sardonic grin. “Until then? I say it’s time for more drinks.”
An hour and three more rounds of beer had passed. Ink’s belly sloshed with drink, and a warm glow had suffused the room as he rocked back and forth in his seat. He was watching as Joint and Sprocket argued with Spots over the technical aspects of their latest mechanism. It looked a bit like they were just scribbling pictures of funny cats on each other’s drawings, but that was surely just his imagination.
A game of darts between Sheesha and Dapper had developed, or perhaps devolved, into a hoof-fight that led to the stallion nursing his scrotum and the mare with a black eye and several missing dreadlocks. The two were both back to contemplatively sopping themselves into a stupor, leaning on one another like the old friends they were.
An odd sensation was slowly filling him as the night went on. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt since leaving college; he belonged here and wanted, more than anything just then, a quill and something to write on.
“Pardon, can I borrow that?” he asked, gesturing with his wing at the feather lying on their diagram. Joint glanced at the pen, then held it out.
“It’s almost worn down, but I think we’re done with it for right now. You can use the rest.”
“That’s fine. I’ve just got a few ideas I want to get out of my system,” he replied, flipping his napkin over and quickly jotting down a few thoughts onto it under the heading ‘A Story Of Freedom’.
“Oooh! Ideas, honey?” Spots exclaimed, perking up. She was smoking one of Sheesha’s extra pipes and seemed far less drunk than everypony else, despite having had just as many drinks as he had. “I do love an idea! Ideas make the Party what it is, after all. Tell me? Fresh thoughts for the downfall of Fat Flanks?”
“No...no, nothing like that. I just had a thought for a story,” he laughed, then winced as his bladder reminded him he’d be needing to empty it soon. He looked up to see Spots peering at him expectantly, so he elaborated, “It’s a simple idea, really. What if ‘liberty’ were a person? What would she think of our world? We have all of these different notions of what a government means, but all we can agree on is that no system seems to be perfect. Liberty might have an uphill battle to make herself heard in a world with so many different ideas, but together, we seem to have made a little pocket of freedom right here. I’d like to think she’d enjoy a night on the town with us.”
Across from him, Letter Head let out a loud snore as his head slowly drooped to one side, and Spots giggled, getting to her hooves. “I need to carry His Nibs home. He’s in upper Canterlot. I think you mentioned you live up that way, too. You mind giving me a hoof? You can tell me more about this idea of yours on the way.”
Borrowing a wheelbarrow from the bartender, Ink and Spots managed to wrestle the drunken old unicorn into it as gently as they could and begin the journey up the mountain. The night air was crisp and cold, and while it only took one of them to lift the wheelbarrow handle, Sun Spots insisted on staying glued to Ink’s side, brushing her hip against his at every opportunity as they made their way towards home.
“It’s strange, seeing all of them together. Even after just one night, they feel like...family,” Ink commented, thoughtfully. “Maybe a raucous, dysfunctional family with far too many opinions, but I like them.”
“Why do you think we all keep coming back, sugar?” Spots replied. “Half the fun of the E.O.P. is saying what’s on your mind, and the other half is seeing what new madness the others have got up to.”
“They have so many differences, yet they want to help each other. I noticed the twins had changed their design significantly by the time the night was over. Those were some good suggestions, by the way. Do you think they’ll ever get it working?”
“The Machine? Who knows? Maybe. I like to think they could pin it down, but this is Equestria. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Blotter leaned over to rest his cheek against her shapely neck. It was a bold move, but he was drunk, and there was something about her that put him completely at his ease. “Thank you, by the way. Madame Chairpony.”
“For what?”
He gave her mane a little tug with his teeth, which she responded to by stepping a little closer and intertwining her neck with his for a second before continuing to push the wheelbarrow with the snoring democrat in it ahead of them.
“For paying my bar tab,” he said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you slip the bartender that fat note. I dashed out of my flat so fast today I forgot my bit purse. You paid for the rest of their drinks, too, didn’t you?”
“The other party members are almost perpetually broke,” she explained, shaking her head. A small smile played across her lips. “It’s the problem with having big ideas and lots of passion; financial concerns seem somewhat small by comparison. I’m pretty smart with my money, though. I figure I can at least contribute a few beers once a month for the good of the cause.”
“They’re lucky to have you,” he added.
Spots rolled her eyes, then blinked at their surroundings. “Oh! We’re here. Come on, sweetheart. The apartments are just this way.”
Ink looked back and forth, suddenly realizing he was somewhere very familiar; he stood in the courtyard just outside the Royal Palace. The stars twinkled overhead, and a fresh pair of guards stood at the doors, but other than that the place was unchanged from when he’d chucked his bill into the water just a few hours ago, followed by his impromptu swim to retrieve it.
“Letter Head lives here?” Ink asked.
“He’s had a long service to Equestria,” she replied, then began heaving the wheelbarrow up the stairs as Ink rushed to help her.
The guards let them pass with little more than a nod as Spots led the two of them into the winding servant’s passages and hallways behind the throne room. Ink followed her, if for nothing more than the pleasure of watching her walk ahead of him. After a few minutes, they arrived at another set of double doors with two more armoured guards standing side by side.
Taking a tiny light gem from a fixture on the wall, Spots pushed open the door as the guards, again, made no comment. Together, the two of them muscled their burden inside, carefully avoiding rolling over the trailing edge of the blankets.
Ink Blotter’s eyes slowly widened as he took a few steps forward into the sumptuous living accommodations. There was a four poster bed large enough for five ponies, and a carpet emblazoned with Celestia’s cutie mark. Every fixture was gold or alabaster, and the balcony behind overlooked the glowing edifice of the city itself. It didn’t look like the home of an old stallion. Rather, it looked like the apartment of-
“Can you help me?” a soft voice whispered. “I would rather not lift him into bed with my magic. I do not want to wake him, and my power tends to have that effect. He can sleep here until he’s sober enough to get back to his own rooms.”
Ink Blotter froze; he knew that voice. Slowly turning around, he stared wide eyed, up and up until his back knees gave out and he sat down heavily on the marble floor. Behind him, a towering white alicorn stood beside the wheelbarrow, a plain brown canvas cloak floating in the air beside her. Her majestic wings were tucked in against her sides, and her ethereal mane was tied back in a tight bun, but there was no question in his mind of who it was. She looked, if anything, a little embarrassed.
“P-p-princess?!” he squeaked.
“You can still call me Chairpony Sun Spots, if you would like, Ink Blotter,” Princess Celestia murmured, hanging the robe on a peg on the wall.
His mind stalled out completely. He’d spent the evening with the Princess, drinking, smoking...and, heavens help him, he’d bit her mane! He’d stared at her flank. Sweet skies, she’d shaken her flank at him a couple of times when she caught him looking!
He sank into his lowest bow, pressing his forehead against the floor. “I’m sorry!”
“Oh please do not do that!” she groaned, reaching down and pulling Ink to his hooves. “I know I will never convince most ponies to stop that behavior, but I do expect better from the members of the E.O.P.”
His eyes were so wide they were starting to hurt. He tried to say something but seemed to have momentarily forgotten the entire Equestrian language. “B-b-bla...bu?”
“No, most of them don’t know,” she replied, as though he’d actually formulated the question that was screaming around in circles inside his brain. “They all strongly suspect, of course. They must, since I keep paying for their drinks, their homes, and their legal fees. Letter Head certainly does, but I’ve never told him one way or the other, and at his age, I doubt he cares. He’s stumbled into my rooms before. In his younger days, he was...mmm...quite the stallion.” A slightly dirty look that reminded him of Sun Spots flashed across her muzzle, then was almost instantly quashed.
His tongue felt about three sizes too large, but he finally wrestled it into a shape.
“B-but why?! Why say all those things? B-bloody Fat Flanks? You’re...you’re the head of the Equestrian...Opposition...”
“Yes. The Equestrian Opposition Party: the party we have, once a month, when a group of friends come together and get to say exactly what we think and feel, without restraint or fear of judgement,” Celestia explained, quietly. She glanced back at her own rear end and laughed. “It’s been centuries, and I still can’t lose more than a few pounds in any given decade. Cake will ever be my dietary downfall.”
“I don’t...I don’t understand,” he whimpered, sagging forward. She caught him, cradling him in her forelegs as a few tears leaked down his cheeks. “Why the transition team? Why let anyone depose you?”
“Oh...that.” She let out a soft sigh that smelled a little bit of beer and Sheesha’s smoke. Her crown levitated off of her head in a soft, yellow glow, hanging in front of him. “I was being honest. I care more for my little ponies than I do about keeping this silly old piece of metal on my head. If someone comes up with some better means of governing, they should be able to try it out, but there must be some safety measure in place if it fails. I am that safety measure.”
Ink buried his face in her chest, quivering violently for a moment, then settling as she stroked his mane. “D-does this mean the E.O.P. is just...just some way for you to keep your enemies close? Why tell me?”
“No. No, I fully expect, one century, some member of the E.O.P. will have the wit and the wisdom to replace me and I will finally be able to have a protracted vacation,” she answered, tenderly lifting him back to his shaking hooves. “As to why I told you...well...would you stay away from the meetings simply because you knew I was there?”
He shook his head, somewhat numbly.
“I doubt the other members would either, but the public is a different beast entirely. Hence the subterfuge, my little pony. Most of the public do not even know of the Equestrian Opposition Party except via the individual exploits of it’s members. You can imagine the outcry if I were seen at Where The Sun Don’t Shine without my disguise. Now, help me. Letter Head is heavy, and it is easier to move him with two sets of legs.”
Still unable to quell the trembling in his hooves, Ink Blotter went around to the other side of the wheelbarrow and, together, they gingerly lifted Letter Head out, keeping the blankets draped over him as they edged sideways to the bed and rolled him into the cushions. The job done, they stood back, watching the elderly pony snore.
Tentatively, Ink moved sideways a few inches, resting against Princess Celestia’s side. She draped one of her wings over him, lightly, not taking her eyes off the bed.
“So...tell me more about this idea of yours. Liberty as a pony? That sounds very interesting.”
Ink pulled the napkin out of his vest pocket and examined it.
"Well...to begin, there’s this foolish little politician who thinks he knows how the world works…”
