This Is Not An Analogy For Anything
It was a grey morning in Ponyville, and there was a new filly in town named Aryanne. She had a golden mane the same colour as wheat at the peak of its harvest, and a clean, white coat. She also had a cutie mark of a swastika, an odd-looking four-armed shape which had somehow become the official logo of a group of folk interested in making sure other groups of folks never existed. Aryanne didn't understand everything about it, but she knew it had caused problems in the past, and was hoping a recent relocation to the quaint town of Ponvyille would prove just what she needed to move away from a complicated and messy past. Also the ponies in the town she used to live in had burned down her parents' house and chased the entire family out into the woods, so it was important for them to find somewhere to sleep where they wouldn't wake up covered in mosquitoes and rain-water.
Today was Aryanne's first day of class at Ponyville Elementary, and she was very nervous. One thing Aryanne found interesting was that apparently not everypony in the entire world had a little voice inside their head telling them what to do. Aryanne had a few in hers, though she'd hesitate to call them 'voices', really, they were more like script-readers, or writers, they'd spell out the things she was going to say on a line of paper and she'd recite them. Sometimes she agreed with what they had to say, other times, not so much. But she didn't have anypony else telling her what to say, so the voices in her head would have to do.
Usually they were pleasant and co-operative. Often times they'd recommend keeping quiet and staying near the back of the crowd, observing and letting things go by as they came. But sometimes, for whatever reason, and it was of particular interest to Aryanne, even though she'd repeatedly failed to understand it, sometimes, the voices got very, very loud, and started to yell about things, and wouldn't stop until Aryanne co-operated and yelled with them. Usually that happened when somepony was talking about Aryanne's cutie mark.
For one thing, Aryanne didn't know if she should wear something over her cutie mark on her first day of class. She knew that someponies would know what the symbol meant, and others wouldn't. She hadn't learned what it meant until her third birthday, and even then, her father's lecture had left her more confused than comfortable with her heritage. Apparently it all involved something about being better than everypony else, but not having a good or convenient way to show that. Then little Aryanne appeared into the equation, a bundle of joy delivered by the Equestrian stork or the birthing mirror or whatever contrivance of reproduction was currently in vogue. Aryanne had requested a reiteration of the explanation more than once, and yet failed to come out with much more of a concrete understanding. Most of her attempts at conversation on the topic ended abruptly with her father offering to take her clothes shopping. It bothered her at first, but not much anymore.
All of this was all well and good, but how did it come together?
Well, before Aryanne could arrive to her first day of class, or rather, as she arrived, she encountered a delegation of protesters outside the school-house, maybe about half the population of town, holding signs with pictures of Aryanne underneath a red crossed circle. Many more were of her cutie mark under the same red crossed circle.
Mayor Mare was standing on a podium in front of the protesters. She had a large microphone, which she checked a few times. Then she cleared her throat.
"Good afternoon, everypony," she began.
"Get that nazi pony outta here!" somepony yelled from the crowd.
"Nazi pones, buck off!" somepony else yelled. A volatile contingent of surrounding ponies joined in behind them.
Mayor Mare cleared her throat loudly into the microphone and adjusted it to accompanying feedback.
"Now now," she said. "There's no reason to be disrespectful. This is an open discourse, and no matter the differences in opinions, if we all try our best, I'm sure we can—"
"No swastikas, but Starlight's cutie mark fascism gets a pass?" somepony with a caustic sounding snark asked from the front of the crowd.
"They start by erasing the bits they don't like, and soon there'll be nothing left to learn from!" shouted another.
"I'm standing on a very large pile of mud, and if somepony doesn't help me, I'm going to slip and fall!"
"Please, everypony," Mayor Mare said, struggling to be heard above the clamour of the crowd even with the aid of her magical microphone's amplification. "The foundation of any courteous intellectual forum is politeness. Even though these are highly emotional matters, remember there's absolutely no cause for—"
"Horse-fascists!"
"Censoring scum!"
At the back of the tumultuous throng of protesters, Aryanne had managed to slip into the crowd, and was standing with her saddlebag and the black hat her father had loaned her. Other than that she looked mostly like a normal, uncontroversial pony, save the unmistakable mark on her flank. Her face gave away barely a hint of emotion as she watched the exchange between Mayor Mare and the unsatisfied rabble on both sides.
The voices in the crowd had blurred together into a tumultuous swirl of noise, such that it would have been impossible even with very good hearing to pick out the message Mayor Mare's assistant whispered in her ear. Aryanne watched the mayor closely from far away, the knowing nod and the steely glint in her eyes glancing back to her assistant.
"Everypony," Mayor Mare intoned into the microphone, the amplified frequencies cutting through the undulating murmurs. "As the lead representative for Ponyville on all matters political and otherwise, let me assure you all that we are taking every step possible to ensure this new and sensitive matter will be handled with the utmost car and concern..."
"Are you gonna let that nazi pony go to school with our foals? I have half a mind to march straight to Princess Celestia and let her know what kind of town you're running!"
"Oh, and our unquestioning allegiance to a sun goddess who imprisoned a child in stone is so much better. If we can't study the past, we can't learn from it, and that child—"
"She's not a child, she's a piece of fascist propaganda!"
"She's a living breathing pony with feelings, and you're starting to sound less committed to friendship by the second!"
"Friendship is an egalitarian buzz-word for—"
"Do you think anyone's noticed I'm just saying 'rhubarb' over and over again?" Bonbon asked.
"QUIET!" Mayor Mare yelled into the microphone, so loud it blew out the hearing horn of that one really old pony who's always in the background of inconsequential shots.
After a while, and some physical encouragement from the on-site pony police task force, the crowd quieted down. Mostly.
"I want you all to know I've just received the final deliberation from our council of ethics," Mayor Mare said. And, after an infinite sea of dead-eyed stares: "Yes, Ponyville has a council of ethics."
Somepony in the crowd cleared their throat loudly.
"Yes," Mayor Mare said. She adjusted her mayoral tie and cleared her throat as well. "Regardless. The verdict is in. I am pleased to announce that the filly known as Aryanne... will not be welcome at Ponyville Elementary."
Mayor Mare set down the piece of paper she'd received and breathed a sigh of relief.
The crowd, in general, exploded into reaction.
As the fervor began to grow, Mayor Mare shot a desperate glance to the side of the stage, but her assistant was nowhere to be found.
A single, blonde-haired filly extricated herself from the brewing riot and began to wander quietly back home, where she could have a discussion with her mom and dad about the historicity of various Equestrian conflicts, specifically the casualty numbers resultant from those conflicts. Her daddy liked arguing about those.
Despite the fact that half the crowd or more seemed to respond positively to Mayor Mare's decision, a dedicated mob had splintered off from the front of the crowd like an angry, undulating amoeba, and were approaching the mayor and stage while holding flaming torches, pitch-forks, and other implements of general rabble rousing such as might be found in the background of a play about similar events. One of them had a wooden bat with a nail in it, for character.
"Um, n-now, everypony," Mayor Mare said, aiming in the general direction of the microphone but mostly missing as her attention was focused more on backing away from the blunt and pointy objects. "Please, remember this is a, s-sensitive matter for everypony, and the moment we regress to, t-to name-calling and violence, we're no better than the, the..."
The mayor's speech trailed off, as did her gaze, into the rich, brilliant flame atop the many torches held in front of her.
Perhaps she'd been too rash.
"Well, uh, perhaps, after some, er, consideration... too hasty in our decision, that is, er..."
The group stared ahead wordlessly, some ponies tapping their implements against their hooves.
Mayor Mare cleared her throat again. She grabbed at the microphone, which was miraculously still functioning.
"Upon further reflection," she said into the microphone, her voice wavering and wobbly, "it has occurred to, er, the, uh, Ponyville ethical council, that, that, um... that banning any pony from attending school, may be, uh, grounds for consideration, and, that is... after a necessary probationary period, of course—"
Mayor Mare had been staring down at the wood beneath her hooves. She looked up, and saw the wooden bat.
And the nail.
"Aryanne is no longer banned from attending school at Ponyville Elementary," Mayor Mare said quickly, just loud enough that it carried over the crowd. "She will receive a comprehensive ethics re-education course, with the finest—"
Once again, the crowd responded. Variably, largely, and in borderline violent degrees. It was a contained explosion, and again a miracle that nopony had been hurt. Yet.
At home, finding her parents gone on errands, Aryanne had plunked herself down in front of the television and started watching cartoons. She'd made herself some strawberry toaster-pastries with icing swirls on them, and was eating them with a glass of pure, white milk. She laughed as she watched the cartoons on the T.V., and little crumbs of pink strawberry pastry flew from the corners of her mouth and landed in her butter-yellow mane.
Back to Ponyville Elementary, where Mayor Mare was seriously rebuking herself for firing her bodyguards and reallocating their pay to fund her addiction to pictures of her human OC wearing a suit and a top hat.
Just as the flares and pointed implements of one side of the protest had vanished, so had emerged the opposite end of the throng, surging menacingly towards the stage with the same look of well-intentioned violence burning behind each steely gaze. In all the fuss of the day's protests the school had yet to start a single class, and the foals who were missing their education had congregated into a generalized blob of youthful chaos that spun of its own accord around the nearby playground.
Furthermore, she'd better remember to fire that assistant, if a one piece of paper delivery was all you could expect out of her.
"I'm terribly sorry," Mayor Mare said into the microphone, barely able to find a hint of her usual public speaking lacquer to apply over each word. "It seems there's been some kind of, of, of a miscommunication... Aryanne will be... banned, that is. Oh, my, I left the most important part out..."
Grr. A growling herd of ponies emerged from the right side of the stage.
"And, by, 'will', I of course mean, 'won't'..."
Grrr. A growling group of angry horses, approaching from a leftwards motion.
"That is to say, perhaps she'll, um, be simultaneously banned and, er, not banned..."
Whatever ambient grumblings there were boiled over collectively into full-on uproar. Instances of 'rhubarb' increased vociferously in volume and could not be coaxed back down.
The final straw strummed, the last potential moment before the crowd surged over the stage and swallowed it whole, Mayor Mare kicked open the emergency hatch adjacent her podium and dove inside, disappearing to the dank network of underground wooden tunnels long-since wallpapered by spiderwebs. Mayor Mare kicked herself with every crawled-by inch, reminding herself above everything else not to hold political conferences first thing in the morning, especially before she'd had her coffee...
It was a grey morning in Ponyville. Alone in her house, Aryanne finished her breakfast and went upstairs to write in her diary.
Dear diary, she began, in all actuality, the widely reported figure...
The end.
