The summer sun was oppressively sweltering in Ponyville as the creek through the centre of the village which normally would have provided some sort of relief had been reduced to a trickle. At the same time, high humidity brought with it the familiar insects whose sounds of warning, warring, and mating provided an uncomfortable buzzing backdrop to the doldrums.
Sure, the foals were out of school, but who would want to spend their days in a century old wood building with no air conditioning when making the journey to get there felt not unlike walking through soup?
Every pony regardless of race moved at a snail’s pace down the primary streets of the city. Even the Pegasus ponies opted not to fly, for no breeze provided relief. Concerned about heatstroke for both herself and her constituents, Ponyville’s official but officially unelected leader, Mayor Meyer Mare, decided to cancel her speech in front of the old Town Hall. Granted, she also had another reason to avoid a public appearance.
A crow squawked as a massive gilded coach, one so unbelievably ornate and fancy that Princess Celestia herself would have been jealous had she not known its owner, slowly soared through the sky over Town Hall on the harnesses of six Royal Guards whose expressions told any onlookers that they would rather be doing literally anything else.
Eventually, carefully, the guards landed the coach in the grassy carrefour in front of Town Hall. About a minute later, one of the side doors opened and out stepped a stallion. He was orange and overweight with a blonde tail. His mane was the same colour but did not appear entirely natural – indeed it looked like the pelt of a road-killed silvery marmoset had been haphazardly placed on his head and was being held there by the sheer collective willpower of every individual in a ten-mile radius. Covering that monstrosity was a white cap with blue all-caps lettering reading “Make Equestria Magical Again”.
The stallion looked around central Ponyville as he frowned, narrowing his cold beady eyes, which nearly disappeared beneath his giant bushy eyebrows. Suddenly he whipped around to one of the guards and snipped, in a voice uncharacteristically high-pitched for a pony his size and with a thick accent, “Where’s the Welcome Party?? You’d think I’d get a welcome party for takin’ the time to come out to this shithole!”
“Uh!” the guard responded. Though he was larger even than the orange stallion and his bulk was all muscle, he still cowered in fear. “I don’t know, Orangeglow, Your Excellency. Shall we find the town leader and ask?”
“Nah,” said Orangeglow. “I got a better idea. You’re fired.”
“W-what?” the guard asked, absolutely dumbfounded.
“You heard me. You’re fired!!” Orangeglow barked. “How dare you talk to me! I’m so much above you you don’t even know! I got the best brains. I don’t need no uneducated guards telling me what to do. But I love the uneducated. Good ponies.”
The now-ex Royal Guard looked confusedly to his comrades for support but found none. Slipping off his regalia and armour, he slinked away down a side street.
Orangeglow peered down Ponyville’s main thoroughfare. On the left he saw the three-storey City Hall, where he was meant to go. But at the other end of the road he noticed a massive tree-shaped castle made of crystalline. His eyes widened at the site, allowing any unlucky onlookers to see his irises were of the palest blue.
“That place looks nice,” he told a different guard. “I mean, it probably looks awful inside and the outside needs some gold to make it pop, but I could do some great, stupendous things with a house like that. I wonder if the owner’s willing to sell. Eh, if he isn’t, I’ll just have my accountants find a way to take it from him.”
“Your Excellency,” said the guard, “I believe a Princess lives there.”
Orangeglow groaned. “Stupid Princesses. If it weren’t for those uppity cunts, I’d be ruling this whole stupid shitty world now! Orangeglow doesn’t play second banana to no one!”
The guard stared at the stallion in shock. “Your Excellency, you’re not seriously telling Princess Celestia’s sexte— uh, quintet of honour guards that you plan to overthrow her, are you?”
“I like Celestia. She’s a good mare and I hear used to be a nice piece of flank back in her day. A bit old now but, y’know, we can’t all be perfect like me. She and me have the best relationship. The best. As to her future? We’ll see,” Orangeglow said with a sneer.
He angrily trumped upon his undersized hooves down Stirrup Street to City Hall. One of the guards convinced him to not enter until he could be formally announced. Orangeglow gladly agreed, puffing out his chest at the thought of making a grand entrance, even if it was to a simple municipal building.
Inside City Hall, on the third storey, Raven Inkwell sat at her writing desk poring over memos and paperwork to see which ones absolutely had to be dealt with by Mayor Mare, who was, she believed, either taking a siesta due to the heat, passed out from a moonshine binge, or both. When the massive Royal Guard appeared in front of her, she peered at him above her glasses, noticing the insignia on his armour.
“We don’t normally receive visits from Princess Celestia’s Honour Guard,” she said, “especially without a letter of intent to visit. So you’ll have to accept our sincerest apologies that we have no welcoming committee in place for the Princess. Honestly, I’ve long since become used to her stopping by without any guards, as she enjoys the unique and probably illegal drinks produced by one of our local fillies.”
“Um… I’m… not here with Princess Celestia today,” the guard stuttered.
Raven looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s the wrong time of day for Princess Luna to be awake, and we both know she has her own Honour Guard. So who in Equestria could or would possibly be able to use you to…?” Her deep brown eyes, already appearing larger than normal thanks to her glasses, widened further as she realized. “Oh no.”
“Ma’am?” the guard asked as Raven’s stress level visibly ratcheted up.
“No. No, no. Nononononononono. Not him. NOT him! …It’s him, isn’t it?”
“If you mean our Prime Minister, Leader of the Equestrian Senate, His Excellency Lord Orangeglow of Bedstable (Manehattan), then yes,” the guard said. “He is both upset at the lack of welcome for him and interested in buying Friendship Castle.”
Raven let out a moan before finding her words again. “I’ll inform Meyer.”
The guard replied, “I appreciate that,” but Raven did not hear him.
Inside the corner office Mayor Meyer Mare called her second home – at least when it was not under construction due to yet another explosion – the mayor sat at her desk fast asleep, left cheek against its polished wood surface, snoring, drool pooling underneath her open mouth. Raven walked behind the desk and gently whispered to her boss.
“Meyer? Dear. You need to wake up now.”
The mayor continued to saw the proverbial logs.
“Please, Meyer. This is important. I need you to wake up for me, okay?”
Mayor Mare heard nothing and very likely saw nothing except the visions of dancing mushrooms in her head, which were normal by her standards. “Mm. It’s not January 20th yet. Lemme sleep,” she mumbled.
“I don’t know what ‘January 20th’ is, Meyer, but you need to be alert now,” Raven said, a little louder.
Ponyville’s mayor continued to be anything but.
Undeterred, Raven leaned over until her mouth was a mere two inches from the mayor’s ear and spoke at a normal volume. “Mayor. We have a DEFCON 2 situation. Wake. Up.”
At that, Mayor Mare suddenly jolted up in her chair, though it took her eyes several seconds to focus. She eventually noticed Raven standing across the desk from her.
“What’s going on?” the mayor asked, her voice still slightly loopy but clearly concerned. “Raven. Did you say DEFCON 2? Are you absolutely sure? You’re not joking with me?”
Raven cocked her head. “I never joke, Meyer. You know that.”
“Good point,” she agreed. “So what’s the emergency?”
“He is here,” Raven said with utmost gravity. “And he may head to Twilight’s after he’s through with us.”
That brought the mayor to full alertness and sobriety. “Ohhh no! You know the number one rule.”
“Orangeglow and Twilight must never, ever meet,” Raven recited dutifully.
“Exactly,” replied the Mayor. “I can handle that fat flank’s slings and arrows, but if Twilight loses her temper at him… which she would because he’d ensure it…”
“…Ponyville will be reduced to a smouldering crater,” Raven finished.
The Mayor nodded. “That said, I’m almost glad Orangeglow decided to drop by today. I need to talk what I guess he would call business.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Spike!!” Mayor Mare called out, much to Raven’s surprise. To her even bigger surprise, the small purple dragon suddenly popped up out of a drawer in Raven’s desk.
“Ugh. What is it, Mayor?” Spike asked, clearly unhappy at being disturbed.
“How did Spike get in my desk and how did I not notice?” Raven asked.
Spike hopped out and walked into the Mayor’s office. “Sorry, Raven. I needed some place to crash after Twilight got mad at me for using up all her hot water for my seven hour bubble bath. My fault, I know. The office was locked, so I slept in your desk. Anyway, what’s the problem, Mayor?”
“The Prime Minister is here,” said Mayor Mare simply.
Spike lolled his head. “Uh, okay. Why should I care?”
“You don’t need to,” the mayor replied. “Just… stay here. Give me some backup. Keep him from going to Twilight’s at all costs.”
Spike nodded. “Fine. That shouldn’t be hard.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mayor Mare told him before turning to her trusted secretary. “Raven, you know what to do.”
She nodded. “I understand. Spike, would you please come with me?” she asked him. “Apple Bloom made a gift just for you but, uh, she was too bashful to give it to you, so I’ve been holding onto it for safekeeping.”
“Huh! Well that was nice of her,” Spike said as Raven gently led him down the hall to a storage closet.
Meanwhile, Mayor Mare steeled her guts as she approached the guard still standing at Raven’s desk and staring quizzically at the happenings around him. “I am ready to see the Prime Minister now,” she told him with an air of authority.
With that, the massive guard made his way down the two flights of stairs to fetch the stallion who was, for the time being, his boss. It turned out that he need not have ventured far, as within ten seconds the corpulent figure of Orangeglow himself appeared on the landing. The nameless guard stood nearby, a look of terror in his eyes.
“I… I apologize, Your Excellency,” he stuttered.
Orangeglow narrowed his eyes. Even though he was frowning, a glint in his cold beady eyes and a subtle liveliness in his voice gave away his joy. “You took too long. You’re fired. Get out of my sight. Now.”
The guard galloped down the stairs, out of City Hall, into the unknown.
After watching the guard leave, a smug satisfied smirk plastered on his face, Orangeglow turned to his right, and his eyes went wide in surprise once he locked eyes with Mayor Mare, expression immediately flipping to barely concealed rage.
“You!” he said.
Mayor Mare scoffed. “I’m honestly surprised you remember me, Your Excellency. After all, I’m just a small-town mayor not worth talking to. You said so yourself.”
“I never forget an enemy,” Orangeglow growled. “You made me fire my first senior advisor and now he’s talking to that witch-hunt tribunal who came up with that bullshit that I had the Crown Prince of Yakyakistan influence Senators to elect me. Fake news. Not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
“Your Excellency,” Mayor Mare said in a purposely even tone, “I honestly don’t care about any of your legal troubles.”
“Good,” snipped Orangeglow, a sweatdrop of relief (or was it hypertension) forming on his forehead.
“However, there is something I’m concerned about,” the mayor said.
Orangeglow pouted. “What is it now? Everybody’s always askin’ me for stuff, like I’m s’posed to care about ‘em or something.”
“Sir. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that construction workers from the Royal Engineering Corps were building something on a fallow piece of Sweet Apple Acres,” explained Meyer. “Representatives of the Apple Clan have raised concern that you neither asked permission to expropriate their land nor did you compensate them.”
Orangeglow shook his head. “Wrong.” he said. “I always pay my debts.”
“Okay, that’s demonstrably false,” retorted Mayor Mare. “Regardless, I’m more concerned that the structure your contractors have built is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and guard towers, whilst being populated with Gryphon hatchlings.”
“Fake news,” insisted Orangeglow. “Are you saying we take Beakhead babies from their moms and lock them in cages in the middle of nowhere?”
“Actually… yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” the mayor replied. “And do you really need to call them ‘beakheads’. That’s rather prejudiced. While we in Ponyville certainly have not had the best experiences with Gryphons over the years, we don’t resort to name-calling. Okay, certain individuals might – can’t really blame Rainbow Dash for that – but it certainly isn’t government policy.”
“Why not?” Orangeglow asked, genuinely curious. “I mean, they’re just a bunch of stupid criminals and rapists swamping the border, infesting Equestria and polluting the pony gene pool.”
Mayor Mare stared at Equestria’s Prime Minister, eyes wide, mouth open. “You… do understand ponies and Gryphons can’t interbreed, right?”
“Well then that just means they’re coming in to take jobs from good hardworking ponies, and then they take those jobs and pack them up in a box, a big box. Biggest box they can get, and ship the jobs back to their country! I talked with the President of Greffen-Land – great guy, smart guy – and I told him, I said, stop taking our jobs away or we’re gonna get mad. And he looked me square in the eye with that ugly beak of his and said okay. That’s why I’m ruler of Equestria!” Orangeglow declared, refusing to budge.
Mayor Mare’s head flopped to one side as her brain attempted to comprehend what she had just heard. She stood there in silence for at least a minute, jaw hanging open, as a neon manifestation of the words ‘Gish Gallop’ briefly floated across her field of vision as Prime Minister Orangeglow, 1st Lord Bedstable. Eventually she regained enough of her brain function to blink.
She blinked again.
“Raven! C-could you please come in here with our *ahem* perfectly legal gift, once it’s ready?” the mayor called out to a nearby closet.
From behind a closed door, the muffled voice of Raven Inkwell replied, “Just give me one more minute, Meyer!”
“I don’t know if I can take one more minute. I’d rather rip my heart out of my ribcage with my bare hooves and then throw it on the floor and stomp on it ‘til I die,” Meyer mumbled.
“What’d ya say?” asked Orangeglow, a piercing glare on his chubby face.
Mayor Mare caught herself and stuttered for a second, then adjusted her half-rim glasses. “Uh! I said, um, I think you’re the best Prime Minister Equestria’s ever had.”
“Damn straight I am! Nobody gots better brains than me!”
“Yeah. Uh, you just made a teeny little, um, boo-boo, there. See, Griffonstone, the place I think you’re talking about, doesn’t have a president – they’re a monarchy. Even if they did have a president, it wouldn’t be a male because most of the male Gryphons left the territory years ago to find jobs and never came back. A few did go to Equestria, but most went the opposite way, toward the Southeastern Wastes and Zebra Country,” the mayor said gently.
“Ugh. Zebras. Nasty, low-IQ creatures,” spat Orangeglow.
Mayor Mare shook her head. “Your Excellency, I don’t want to get into an argument with you, but we have a Zebra who lives nearby.”
“You should report it into my Royal Guards so we can arrest and deport it like the striped scum it is,” Orangeglow interrupted.
“(they’re not your Royal Guards) And this Zebra happens to be the most competent potion maker in the region. Ponyville would be irreparably harmed if the central government deported our Zebra. Princess Celestia knows and respects our resident striped friend.”
Orangeglow’s puffy face turned red at the mention of her name, although he visibly tried to pretend that was not the case by smiling and showing his unnaturally white teeth. Just before Mayor Mare could vomit, Raven appeared from nearby, pushing with her forehead and snout an extraordinarily drunken Spike. He wobbled as his feet slid along the wood floor, his eyes pointing in totally separate directions.
“I dun feel good,” he slurred. “Apfaboom rrrelly ovrdiddit wizzissh one.”
Recoiling in disgust, Orangeglow barked, “Ugh! What is that thing??”
“This,” said Raven as she pushed Spike up next to the mayor and then stood next to them so that all three were facing the prime minister, “is the personal assistant to the Princess of Friendship. He also happens to be her liaison with the local government as well as our line to Princess Celestia herself.”
Orangeglow’s left eye involuntarily twitched. “Uh-huh. Great. It’s a dragon. An ugly stupid useless dragon. You know I pledged to keep dragons out of Equestria. And I’m gonna do it. We’re gonna build a wall. Across the whole border. It’s gonna be a big, beautiful wall. And the dragons are gonna pay for it! Keep ‘em out forever!”
Finally, Mayor Mare snapped, “DRAGONS CAN FUCKING FL—!!” but Raven interrupted her with a hoof to her snout.
“Shh,” she said, the mayor suddenly going quiet. “That’s my girl.”
“Are you two fags?” Orangeglow asked. “Nasty deviants. Maybe I should put your type in my beautiful camps too. Plus all the fake news ponies that tell all the lies about me,” he mused aloud.
“Meyer here is just, shall we say, unlucky in love,” replied Raven bluntly. “I’m sure you can understand.”
“Uh, no. I can’t,” said Orangeglow. “But I bet you could. With those nerd glasses and ugly mane-bun, you’re maybe a 4 at best. I’d never touch you.”
“Thank Celestia for that,” Raven quipped.
“I don’t gotta thank her for nothing!” Orangeglow snapped as he stamped his small hoof on the floor and glared at the three individuals before him, his beady eyes full of naught but malice.
“Anyway,” said Raven in a practiced even tone, “Our little dragon here would like to speak to you. We’ll lift him up to your level so you need not hurt your neck, okay?”
Orangeglow said nothing, merely frowning as Raven and Meyer each placed a forehoof under one of Spike’s arms and lifted him off the ground until his mouth was level with the prime minister’s eyes.
“That’s too high,” Orangeglow groused. “Why should I have to look up to anyone? Hell, pretty soon even those two stupid princesses that think they’re in charge are gonna have to look up to me if they know what’s good for ‘em.”
“Uh-huh,” said Raven, completely dismissive. “So, Spike. What was the message you wanted to convey to the prime minister?” she asked.
Spike slowly lolled his head. “I really don’t feel g—” he started to say before his mouth clamped shut and his cheeks suddenly puffed out like a chipmunk gathering nuts for winter.
Orangeglow glared at Spike, confused.
Two seconds later, Spike released a massive belch complete with a plume of green fire which quickly engulfed the top of Orangeglow’s head. Once the flame had passed and dissipated, the prime minister’s hat and roadkill-mane were gone, revealing his shiny bald ochre pate. It took several seconds for him to notice, at which point he brought his right forehoof up to his bare scalp to search for what no longer existed. His eyes widened and jaw dropped as his face contorted into a shifting maelstrom of shock, sadness, fear, and anger.
It took him a few more seconds to realize that the genuine parts of his mane, as well as his tail, were also on fire. Once he did, he let out a high-pitched scream as he leapt into the air and turned around, bumping into the wall nearest Raven before galloping at top speed down the stairwell and out the building, cursing the entire time. Raven and Meyer stared at the wall with which Orangeglow had made contact as it quickly turned black before the fire appeared with a vengeance.
As the flames slowly spread up the walls and the area began to fill with smoke, Raven and Meyer looked at each other, utterly calm.
“We should probably get out of here,” said Raven, nonchalant.
Mayor Mare nodded. “Mm-hmm. Could you get Spike? You’re stronger than I am.”
“Of course,” Raven agreed as the fire reached the ceiling and sparks began to rain down around them.
Slowly, the two mares – Raven carrying Spike on her back – made their way out of City Hall as bedlam ensued around them. When they exited the front door, they found themselves confronted by a yellow filly with a red mane, orange eyes, and a comically large pink hairbow. She spoke with a distinct rural accent that had long since gone extinct in most of Equestria, yet lived on through her family.
“Hey,” said the filly, her tone friendly but with an undercurrent of concern.
“Apple Bloom,” the mayor and Raven replied in unison.
Apple Bloom looked up to see black smoke billowing from City Hall’s roof as the alarm bell sounded at the fire station a block away.
“Uh, y’all know City Hall’s on fire… again?” Apple Bloom asked.
Mayor Mare and Raven both nodded.
“Does it have anything to do with the fat old stallion ‘et ran by here a li’l bit ago, also on fire?”
Again the two older mares nodded.
“I see Spike’s passed out there on yer back, Miz Raven. Would I be right in guessin’ he had something to do with all this?”
More nods.
Then Apple Bloom’s eyes went wide. When she spoke again, her voice carried more than a twinge of panic. “D-did I have anything to do with this??”
Raven pursed her lips for a second before answering. “Not… directly.”
Mayor Mare placed her forehoof on Apple Bloom’s shoulder. “Sorry, Apple Bloom,” she said. “We had a DEFCON 2 situation and no other good options. If we’re lucky, the prime minister will burn. If we’re not, he’ll survive and try to hunt us all down.”
“That guy was the prime minister?!” Apple Bloom near-shouted.
Raven and the mayor nodded again. Spike burped softly in his sleep, sending a tiny inconsequential plume of flame into the air which immediately fizzled, though it also produced a scroll from Princess Celestia. Raven unfurled it and cleared her throat.
“It says, ‘Do I even want to know why my prime minister’s mane-weave and ugly hat just appeared at the foot of my throne? While I find this more amusing than I care to admit, outside the grounds of this palace I cannot guarantee the safety of whoever made the decision to drug Spike. PS: Tell Apple bloom to increase the proportion of Zap Apples in her wort for my next visit. I can still smell the barley.’,” she finished.
Apple Bloom pressed her hoof against her forehead for a solid minute before finding words to speak.
“Flee to the Crystal Empire time again?” she asked, resignedly, as the fire brigade rushed around them and burning portions of City Hall crumbled to earth.
The mares nodded.
Author's Note
Still not sorry.
