We all know and love Twilight Sparkle: Princess of Friendship, savior of Equestria, and recipient of the Best Principal in Ponyville award, a royal honor she created and then bestowed upon herself.
Everypony agreed she was the best principal in Ponyville, but many felt that the award ceremony was a little overdone. And slightly mean to Cherilee.
If Twilight has a great flaw then, it is her pride. She thinks very highly of herself, and frequently feels she is smarter than the ponies around her. As a princess, these emotions often express themselves as frustration or a sassy wit. A royal may not tell her subjects to “knock it off and stop being so stupid,” but she may let out an aggressive sigh, roll her eyes, or demonstrate that the Royal Canterlot Voice is the highest form of sarcasm.
But once upon a time, Twilight was not an alicorn, but merely a young unicorn. Young unicorns can say whatever they want. Thus it was that in her first year in Ponyville, as Winter Wrapup concluded, Twilight had occasion to express herself more fully, and thereafter learned a valuable lesson in humility.
It all started with five little fillies and colts. They knocked on Twilight’s door, with their faces painted red and orange. Each of them carried a little torch in their saddlebags or teeth, and with it a bag already partially filled with candy.
“Knocking knocking on your doors,” they shouted, “open up your candy stores!”
“Oh,” Twilight said. “Hello there!” She lifted the bowl she kept beside the door.
The foals froze. Their eyes tracked the bowl. Then from the back of the group, Pinkie Pie shouted: “It’s not candy! It’s fruit and educational toys. She’s gonna give us toothbrushes!” Panic gripped the group. “Everypony run!”
In the sunlight of a bright spring day, the children screamed like they’d seen Nightmare Moon herself, and fled.
There is an earth pony holiday known as Spring Rising.
Taking place exactly twenty-one days after Winter Wrapup each year, it celebrates the revolution that so long ago freed the earth ponies from unicornian rule. After the first Spring Rising, the earth ponies would never again be oppressed by unicorns’ dark magic.
There would be several later points in history where they were oppressed by another earth pony’s dark magic, but that was different. Besides, it was good to remember that earth ponies were magic too, and could become deranged mystic tyrants if they wanted to.
In Twilight’s first year in Ponyville, the town celebrated the holiday with great vigor. Orange and red ribbons festooned every shop. Sugarcube Corner was selling gingerbread castles. Barrels of torches and pitch were set out for the bonfire celebration, and parents shooed their overly eager foals away from them. Pinatas filled with candy were laid out next to the trees, waiting for the foals to come by in the afternoon.
Most impressive of all was the mock castle erected on the outskirts of Ponyville. “Bonfire” wouldn’t do the closing ceremonies justice. It was a story and a half tall, with little battlements and towers and banners that waved in the wind. Big Mac and a few other stallions were still hard at work on it, coating the lower beams with oil to ensure a spectacular blaze.
Then there were the children. Groups of foals went to the houses of all the unicorns in town, pounding on the door and shouting their little chant: “Knocking knocking on your doors, open up your candy stores!”
Rarity handed out taffy. Lyra handed out gummy dragons. And Twilight grabbed Pinkie by the tail with her magic, dragging her back towards the door before she could flee.
“No, no!” Pinkie cried, her hooves carving divots into the dirt as the struggled to resist Twilight’s telekinetic pull. “I don’t want to be educated. You can’t make me learn!”
Eventually, she realized she was alongside Twilight. She lifted her head, looking up into Twilight’s glowering face. Without a trace of her earlier fear, she let out a friendly: “Hey, Twilight.”
“Pinkie,” Twilight sighed and released her tail. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going door to door getting candy. You want some?” Pinkie Pie held out her bag, already stuffed with sweets. “Lyra’s gummies are the best. I think Bon Bon made them.”
“First, Pinkie, you are an adult you can buy your own candy.” Twilight let out a sharp sigh and pushed the bag away. “Second, no, I don’t want any. Because third, I don’t celebrate Spring Rising, because this holiday is terribly discriminatory and its roots are historically awful.”
“Whaaat?” Pinkie tilted her head to the side. “But Spring Rising is great. It’s like Nightmare Night in the spring, only instead of carving pumpkins we make gingerbread castles.”
“It literally celebrates mob violence against unicorns.” Twilight pointed out at the town. “Big groups of earth ponies with torches and sacks going to every unicorn in town and demanding things?”
“But that’s a terrible way to look at it! It’s not about anything bad. Spring Rising is about earth ponies getting our own… oooh.” Pinkie Pie lowered her head. “Oh, I get it. You’re from Canterlot! Full of stuffy noble pony unicorns. Of course ponies don’t celebrate Spring Rising there.”
“They don’t. And I appreciate—”
“That means you’ve never seen it in person.” She gripped Twilight by the shoulders. “Trust me, once you see how much fun everypony is having, you’ll know this holiday is great. Let’s go!”
Twilight tried to object, but Pinkie Pie already had her hooves around Twilight’s shoulders.
“See?” Pinkie Pie said. “Pinatas. Pinatas are fun!”
A group of colts and fillies surrounded a pinata hanging from a tree. The paper-mache pony had a little horn, and a golden crown made from peanut brittle. The foals took turns beating it with a heavy bat, hoping to knock a few bits of candy from its crushed torso or broken legs.
Twilight opened her jaw. She shut it again without making a sound.
“The unicorn foals are playing too,” Pinkie added. There were several unicorn foals in the crowd, all of them wearing silly festive hats to hide their horns. The pegasus foals tended to wear something over their wings, like a saddle cloth. Everypony had their faces painted.
“Pinkie,” Twilight finally said, “What does Spring Rising celebrate? Like, why is it on this specific day in the spring?”
In front of them, one of the foals finally got a good strike in on the pinata. It sheared clean in half, sending candy flying everywhere. The foals all piled in under it, laughing and grabbing at the treats.
“Because today’s the day the earth ponies overthrew the evil Duchess Ruby Glow and burned down her castle.” Pinkie Pie sniffed the air in front of Twilight. “And the rebels were starving. So they took all the food. So to celebrate, all the foals go around to the unicorns of Ponyville and get candy, and then we have a big bonfire to-”
“Yes!” Twilight silenced Pinkie with a glare. “Yes, I am familiar with the tradition.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Pinkie Pie implored, gesturing at the foals. They were already shouting for the adults to hang up another pinata. Apparently, there hadn’t been quite enough candy for everypony. “Ruby Glow was an evil, bad unicorn who stomped all over the nice innocent earth ponies, and it was like a billion years ago, and it’s a super fun day.”
“Pinkie…” Twilight drew out her words. “What makes you think that Ruby Glow was an ‘evil, bad unicorn?’”
“Um. She hoarded all the food inside her castle? So all the earth ponies were hungry? Duh.” Pinkie Pie pulled a gingerbread castle out from the depths of her mane, taking a large bite out of the side. “See?” she mumbled through a full mouth.
“Really?” Twilight asked. “She hoarded so much food in her castle that the entire earth pony nation was starving?”
“Well, yeah.” Pinkie circled a hoof in the air. “That’s the point of the holiday.”
“She fit a million tons of grain into one house, and hundreds of thousands of apples, and cut all the grass so ponies couldn’t graze?” Twilight flicked her tail. “Because that seems like it would take up a lot of room.”
“Um…” Pinkie Pie tapped her chin. “Okay, maybe that part of the celebration isn’t a hundred percent accurate. But look over there. Cherilee is painting faces.”
Before Twilight could object, Pinkie Pie hurried her along once again.
Cherilee did have a little stand set up in the square. Colts and fillies came by, and she painted their faces red and orange—putting lines under their eyes and down their cheeks in the traditional manner.
“Hey, Ms. Cherilee!” Pinkie called. “Twilight needs her face painted.”
“Well hello, Twilight.” Ms. Cherilee called. “Will you be wanting a hat as well?” She had a collection of stetsons, fezes, dusters, and top-hats for the unicorns. Plus a big-hair wig.
“I will not. And I don’t need my face painted.” Twilight huffed. “But could you answer a question for me?”
“Well, sure.” Cherilee smiled. “What do you want to know?”
“What was the name of the seven-year period after the first Spring Rising?”
Cheerilee's face froze. Her expression tightened, and she let out a stiff laugh. “Well, I’m painting faces right now, not teaching history class. But I suppose you’d just call it ‘the seven years after the revolution.’ Ha ha.”
“Does it have another name?” Twilight pressed, her eyes narrowing into the slightest of glares. “A name you might use if you were teaching history class?”
“Um…” Cherilee looked between Pinkie and Twilight. Pinkie tilted her head to the side. “Some historians, that is, call it the ‘Reign of Terror.’”
“Whaaat?” Pinkie Pie’s ears shot up. “Why would they call it that?”
“Who knows?” Cherilee laughed again. “One of those big mysteries of history.”
“Do you think it might have been because of all the lynchings?” Twilight asked. “Or maybe the burnings?”
After a moment, Cherilee mumbled that that might have something to do with it.
“Whaat?” Pinkie Pie asked, her face turning down into a frown. “But why would the earth ponies do that?”
“Because there was a famine, Pinkie,” Twilight said, her voice stern. “Between the years 242 and 244 AF there were widespread crop failures across greater unicornia, primarily due to infestations of the purple grass sprite. The population was reduced to grazing on wild grass to survive, and after that was gone, ponies started turning on eachother. And some ponies decided that if their unicorn neighbors were dead, the rest of the neighborhood could split up their food.”
Quickly, silently, Cherilee packed up her face painting stand and fled. The air between Twilight and Pinkie grew chill. “But…” Pinkie frowned. “That’s not right at all. Spring Rising is about good, heroic rebels overthrowing an evil tyrant. See!” She turned Twilight’s head. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders are all enjoying it together.”
Across the way, the CMC were indeed going door to door. All three of them had their faces painted. Sweetie Belle wore an extravagant hat that had obviously been made by Rarity, while Scootaloo wore her Nightmare Night costume from the previous year. She’d been a pegasus warrior.
“Knocking knocking on your doors,” Sweetie Belle called outside Doctor Stable’s house. “Open up your candy stores!”
Stable opened his door, looking out at them with a smile. A bowl of candy floated beside him. “Well, aren’t you three terrifying,” he said. His eyes focused on Scootaloo. “Aren’t you supposed to an earth pony today?”
“No, I’m a pegasus warrior!” She buzzed her wings. “Now gimmie candy or I punch your stuffing out, ground pony.”
“See?” Pinkie Pie gestured. “They’re having fun!”
“Well, I can’t deny it’s traditional,” Twilight’s tone bit, the sarcasm laced throughout.
“No, Twilight…” Pinkie Pie bit her lip. “You’re not getting it. Maybe we’re focusing too much on the candy thing. Bonfires are fun, right? Everypony loves bonfires!”
The mock castle at the edge of town really was impressive. It had crenelations and battlements, arrow slits and a drawbridge, faux-unicornian banners hung from the side, and there were even little wicker ponies manning its defenses.
“See?” Pinkie Pie gestured. “How many holidays are there where the town gets to burn down a house? Some years, we even have a mock battle, and Stop Motion uses her unicorn magic to animate the little wicker ponies so they can be all, ‘Grrr! You will be oppressed forever, mud ponies!’ and then ‘Oh no! Aaah! My evil reign is ended.’”
Pinkie Pie reared up to make gestures. She growled and swiped as she spoke, mimicking the battle itself.
“So this is supposed to be Ruby Glow’s house,” Twilight said after a moment. “The evil duchess Ruby Glow. We’re burning her in effigy, basically.”
“Yeah, but Twilight,” Pinkie Pie let out a plaintive whine. “She was the bad guy.”
“Did you know she had a husband named Diamond Sparkle?”
Pinkie Pie froze. Her tail, normally held high at attention, dropped to rest against her rear legs. “I, uh…” She coughed. “I mean, Sparkle is a really common—”
“She’s my great-great-great grandmother, Pinkie.” Twilight said, her tone icy. “You know, because I’m from Canterlot, with all those stuffy unicorn noble ponies who know their genealogy back six generations. Her cutie mark was a ruby and a magnifying stone. Her special talent was gemcutting. And she was made duchess of the earth pony nation because she liked earth ponies. She made friends with earth pony gemcutters when she was learning her trade. And she was a deeply kind mare. So kind that when a revolution was brewing and her peers told her to rule with an iron hoof, she refused, and tried to keep everypony happy. And look what that got her.”
Twilight swallowed, her ears pressed flat against her head. “So no, Pinkie, I don’t think I’m going to enjoy a holiday about beating unicorns and burning my ancestors in effigy. And I don’t think you should either.”
“Well… I…” Pinkie Pie sniffled. “I didn’t know, Twilight. And I just…” She bit her lip and sniffled. “I gotta go.”
Pinkie Pie ran away.
Later that evening, Twilight and Rarity sat on Twilight’s porch, looking out at Ponyville. The sun was setting, and the bonfire celebration would begin soon. They had a pot of tea between them, enchanted with unicorn magic so it would never get cold.
“I’m not sure it helped though,” Twilight was saying. “I handed out two boxes of fruit and twenty educational pamphlets, and I’m not sure any of the foals kept them.”
“Mmmhmmm,” Rarity agreed, turning a lazy eye on Twilight. Door-knocking wrapped up before dusk, and so she did not need to be at the Boutique anymore. She’d handed out six bowls of taffy.
“It’s just so frustrating.” Twilight let her head slump back to her chair. “It’s like Pinkie Pie doesn’t care about the truth at all.”
“Is that how you feel about it?”
“Yeah, it is!” Twilight sighed. “The truth matters. The absolute, objective truth. Not just what makes you feel good. And this holiday is based on a pack of lies and historical revisionism. I mean, does it bother you at all? When Sweetie puts on a hat and goes out with her friends?”
“Oh, not at all.” Rarity smiled a soft smile. “I was raised in Ponyville after all. Most of my friends are earth ponies. And I think we should celebrate the earth ponies having their own, independent nation.”
“But you’re still a unicorn. You don’t feel…” Twilight struggled for the word. “Excluded?”
“Should I?” Rarity let the words hang in the air. “After all, the earth pony nation is ruled by a mare with a horn.”
Twilight froze, turning to look over at Rarity. Rarity, for her part, continued. Her voice was saccharine sweet, almost sing-song: “A mare with a horn that makes a unicorn city her capital. A mare with a horn who makes a unicorn city her capital and who personally tutors the most gifted unicorns of each generation. And that mare with a horn who makes a unicorn city her capital and personally tutors the most gifted unicorns of each generation then goes on to appoint those unicorns to governmental posts in earth pony towns without consulting the earth ponies living there first.”
Rarity raised her cup of tea. “For instance, our librarian.”
“Are you…” Twilight ears folded back. “Are you serious?”
“Am I serious about what?” Rarity batted her eyelids.
“That…” Twilight made a complex series of gestures with her hooves, her tone turning strained. “You just said that Equestria is ruled by some kind of unicorn elite.”
“I said no such thing. I stated a series of facts. You’re the one who drew a conclusion.”
“But it’s not true!” Twilight sat up, her tone insistent. “Celestia made Canterlot her capital because it’s centrally located and highly defensible. She tutors unicorns personally because pegasai and earth ponies prefer to learn their crafts from their own traditional schools. And appointing librarians centrally makes more sense for the efficient distribution of books.”
“But, doesn’t that all add up to the same thing?” Rarity tilted her head. “Historically, I mean. Unicorns ruled the world before, and unicorns rule it now?”
“It’s not about history,” Twilight snapped. “It’s about Celestia doing what’s best for Equestria.”
“Ah, I see.” Rarity nodded and sat back in her chair. “So, the history of a thing doesn’t matter. Even if it has terribly bigoted, violent, morally abhorrent origins. What matters is that right now, it makes ponies happy, and makes Equestria a better place.”
Twilight didn’t answer, and so Rarity continued: “Or perhaps, if you’re so devoted to, ‘the absolute, objective truth’ you might suggest that Ponyville stops celebrating the holiday. On the basis that it celebrates the independence of a nation that is not actually all that independent.”
“So you’re saying I just need to lie and go along with whatever makes ponies happy,” Twilight drew herself up and squared her shoulders. “Is that it?”
“What I’m saying, Twilight, is that Pinkie Pie gets one day a year when her people are on top of the pile, instead of being on the bottom. And you told her that if she enjoys that, she’s a bad pony.”
“I didn’t…” Twilight paused. “I didn’t use those words.”
Rarity looked at her.
“Oh.” Twilight said. Her ears folded back, and her tail drooped.
As the sun sunk below the horizon, Twilight knocked on the door of Sugarcube Corner. She had her face painted red and orange, a torch floated beside her, and she rather awkwardly wore a slightly-too-small blue fez.
It caught on the tip of her horn, and so did not rest on her head so much as hang from her like a tassel.
“Hey, Pinkie,” Twilight called up. “They’re going to start the bonfire soon. I thought you’d want to come see.” When Pinkie didn’t answer, Twilight raised her voice. “I was going to animate some of the wicker ponies. You know. Make it more fun. I um… I got a torch.”
“Go away,” Pinkie shouted from the top window. Her voice was ragged and harsh. “Having fun is racist now.”
“Ah. I may have done some damage there.” Twilight hung her head. She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Pinkie? I um… can I tell you something?”
“Is it a story about how Hearths Warming is really a celebration of werewolf cannibals?” Pinkie Pie came to the window, shouting down into the street. “Or how Nightmare Night is just making fun of Princess Luna? Any other holidays you can ruin?”
“I mean,” Twilight said softly, “that second one is actually true. But…” She shook her head and raised her voice again. “No, it’s about Ruby Glow. I told you she was a very kind pony, and she was. And I told you that she liked earth ponies, and she did. But Princess Platinum still told her, ‘I want you to go rule the earth pony nation because they’re too dim to rule themselves’ and she said, ‘Okay.’”
Twilight dragged a hoof over the ground. “I mean,” she said, “that’s not moustache-twirling evil? But it’s still pretty bad. Like, when you think about it, she probably… you know. She wasn’t perfect.”
“That’s it?” Pinkie demanded. “That’s all you want to say?”
“No, there’s more.” Twilight looked up to the window. “Because, even if Ruby Glow didn’t rule with an iron hoof, a lot of her peers did. And she didn’t do anything about it. She personally wasn’t a cruel pony, but she wasn’t willing to do anything to stop the unicorns who were. She was a good pony, but she was a loyal unicorn before she was a good pony, which um… kind of makes her a bad pony in certain ways. I guess. In a few ways.”
Pinkie stared down into the street, looking down at Twilight with an exaggerated squint. “So you’re saying she was evil?”
“I’m saying that…” Twilight kicked the dirt. “I’m saying that this holiday still really offends me, and I still don’t like it, and I still think parts of it aren’t okay. But it was wrong of me to act like my side was the good ponies and yours was the bad ponies. And it was even worse of me to act like you were a bad pony. I know you. You’re the nicest, happiest pony I know! You’d never do anything to hurt me on purpose. And I acted like you did.”
Finally, Twilight cleared her throat. “So I’m sorry, Pinkie. I’m sorry. I wasn’t a very good friend today. And…” She swallowed. “It would make me happy if you’d come with me and we can go light a building on fire.”
Pinkie Pie sniffed. She rubbed her eyes. “Twilight,” she said, a smile dawning on her face. “You had me at ‘fire.’”
“That was literally the last word I said.”
“Oh yeah,” Pinkie agreed. “I totally didn’t forgive you right away. You were a huge jerk.”
Despite herself, Twilight smiled back.
“Oh no!” the wicker Ruby Glow cried, as her castle was consumed by flames. “My evil reign is ended. Though, I would be remiss if I did not point out that my reign, while evil by modern standards, was above average by the standards of the era and the historical depiction of me as a deranged tyrant is largely inaccurate.”
Then she cried: “Aaah. The fire!” Still aflame, she leapt from the battlements down towards the crowd. The ponies of Ponyville pulled back, but when the wicker effigy hit the ground, it exploded into a shower of candy.
It was a strange celebration, but at the bonfire dance after, everypony agreed Twilight gave the mansion burning a lot of class.
