There seems to be a debate on the issue...
It was a fine, spring day in the township of Ponyville.
Was, being the operative word.
For, while the sun shone brightly, the flowers smelled delightfully, and the birdsong was extraordinary, Twilight Sparkle, from her bedroom window, couldn’t help but notice the angry mobs forming outside the Castle of Friendship.
Mobs. Plural.
“Starlight!” the Princess of Friendship cried out, in weary exasperation, “If you had something to do with this…!”
“In the library!” came the voice of her protégé and newfound friend. Twilight followed the sound of it to her castle’s library, where Starlight Glimmer, newly reformed, sat reading a spelltome while her newfound, and perhaps not-quite-as-reformed friend, Trixie Lulamoon, seemed content to build a house of cards on one of the reading tables.
Well, if houses of cards were built out of crackers covered in peanut butter.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed at the display, her mind already composing a litany of complaints against such blatant disregard for the ‘No Food or Drink’ rules of the library. She was, ironically given she was in a library, going to throw the book at Trixie, when she remembered there was a much more pressing concern.
“Starlight?” she approached her student, warily, “Is there a reason I have two angry mobs assembling outside my castle?”
Trixie finished her second row of peanut butter crackers. Then, she began building the third row, trusting in the stickiness of peanut butter, as much as her deft hooves, to hold the structure together.
Once the delicate work was past, she snorted.
“Don’t look at me, Sparkle! I haven’t done a show in weeks.”
“Funny how the words ‘angry mob’ immediately make you think you’re involved somehow,” Starlight smirked, without looking over from her reading. She did, however, half-turn to look at her teacher, and remark, “But, no. I had nothing to do with this one, either. I’m sure it’s some simple misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up by the Princess of Friendship, though.”
Twilight sighed, and rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, as she marched out towards the large, double-doors, “I’ll get it.”
She idly wondered why things like this always seemed to happen on a Saturday. Nightmare Moon, her brother’s wedding, Tirek… every time. Like clockwork.
The doors slid open at the mere touch of her magic, allowing the light of day to enter her castle, unfiltered.
The same was true for the screaming, shouting, and utter Chaos unfolding on her front lawn. There were two huge camps of ponies facing one another. There were waving signs, but a lot of those were leftovers from the last time Ponyville had hosted such a thing, and Twilight didn’t think it had been long enough for another anti-Starlight demonstration to break out. Despite the waves of rage and snarling hatred rolling off her subjects, Princess Twilight remained calm, cool, and collected.
This wasn’t all that unusual, for Ponyville. She just needed to figure out what had set them off this time.
“My little ponies!” she tried to say. She found that even her own ears couldn’t pick up the sound of her voice.
So, she tried to go louder.
“Citizens of Ponyville!”
Though louder, this still failed to elicit a response.
“What’s going on here!?”
Strangely, even the Royal Canterlot Voice was no match for the fury of two pony mobs in concert. They continued to snarl and scream obscenities at one another, unabated.
Well, this wouldn’t do at all. Twilight leaned back, and began to muster her might for one, truly deafening roar.
Which was about when the crowd seemed to noticed their Princess, who looked to be turning more purple than usual. The two camps began to simmer down, just as she opened her mouth…
”QUIET!”
The shockwave knocked a few clouds out of the sky. The Castle of Friendship rattled from the blow, and the grass for miles around Ponyville flattened. Wooden signs shattered. Some ponies cowered before the sound, while others struggled to stand against the tempest-like wind.
It took several minutes for everypony to regain their footing, and a few would never get their hearing back.
The Princess blushed, as she realized she’d gotten everypony’s attention a bit more readily than she’d planned. Still, now that she had it, she pressed forward with her advantage.
“Now… could somepony please explain what’s going on here?”
It was surreal, in retrospect, to see Applejack and Pinkie Pie emerge from each of the mobs. They locked menacing, vengeful gazes on one another, never breaking eye contact, as they marched up to where Twilight stood.
“We’re in a big ol’ pickle here, sugarcube,” said Applejack, still glowering at her pink friend, “Ya see, that new restaurant, Drinkin’ Hole, went and…”
“Twilight!” Pinkie shouted, her bloodshot eyes speaking to how long she’d gone by this point without blinking, “What is soup!?”
The Princess paused. Her lips pursed, and she tried to get her mind started again, like a magical battery that needed more juice.
“Pardon?”
Applejack shook her head, “Pinkie, knock it off. I’m tryin’ ta explain here!”
The orange mare coughed, clearing her throat.
“Princess, there’s a big ol hoot n’ holler about town,” she said, glancing meaningfully towards the other mob of angry ponies, “all about jes’, what is soup? Is it a drank? Or is it jes’ solid food, like what normal folks know it ta be?”
This last bit got a snort and snarl out of Pinkie, “Soup’s not like a cupcake. Cupcakes are solid. Is-so, fact-o!”
Twilight opened her mouth to respond… and then closed it. She shook her head a few times. Then, she pinched herself.
When she didn’t wake up, the Princess sighed.
“Please tell me this isn’t what you’re all fighting about.”
“Hey! We’re serious!” a shout, that sounded perplexingly like Rainbow Dash, came out of Applejack’s crowd, “We wanna know!”
Somewhere, in the opposite mob, Fluttershy could be seen, nervous of the crowd around her, hefting up a sign that read, ‘Soup is Food, if that’s okay’.
“And…” Twilight pinched the bridge of her nose, “… you all came to me because…?”
Applejack shrugged, “Yer the smartest pony I know. I figured…”
“Tell us already so we can banish the nonbelieving Soup-eaters!!!!” Pinkie swept her arms dramatically, a flashlight lighting her from below to add greater emphasis to her performance.
Twilight scowled up at Pinkie Pie. She carefully yanked the flashlight out of her friend’s grip with magic, and turned it off.
“… Nonbelieving… Soup-eaters?”
“Heretics, sugarcube,” Applejack nodded, sagely, seriously, “Gotta keep our youngin’s safe from these filthy Soupdrinkers.”
She’d said that like it was a curse.
“I feel like this has escalated, somewhat,” Twilight frowned. Then, as she scanned the crowd for any sign of sanity in all of this, she noted something. “Where’s Rarity?”
It was a bad sign, Twilight knew right away, that everypony within earshot looked away as she said that. Worse still was the round of nonchalant whistling that went up and down the lines.
“AJ?” Twilight’s own scowl deepened, “Where’s Rarity?”
“Ah,” Applejack scrunched her nose, “We had ta toss ‘er in the town dungeon.”
“The town doesn’t have a dungeon,” said Twilight.
“Of course not, silly,” Pinkie waved down her friend’s concern, “But we do have my party cave.”
“Of course…”
Applejack nodded, affirmatively, “That’s right. And once tha Cleansin’ has commenced…”
“It’s called a Societal Purge!” Pinkie seethed, “You HEATHEN!”
Twilight held out a wing, to forestall the violence that was surely about to spill over in a moment.
“Hold on, why did you lock Rarity up?”
“She refused to commit!” Pinkie stamped her hooves, and spat.
Again, Applejack nodded, “She’s claimin’ ta be Neutral on the subject.”
Pinkie nodded, as well, “Naturally! How can I trust somepony with a heart full of Neutrality!?”
“Such a subject…” Twilight said, slowly, and unamused, “… as whether or not soup… soup… is a food or a beverage.”
As both mobs faced each other down, and even Applejack and Pinkie Pie returned to exchanging heated looks right on her doorstep, Twilight Sparkle knew that a decision had to be reached on this. A decision that would have far-reaching consequences.
For herself, her friends, and for all of Equestria…
Trixie lay, groaning, in the middle of the library. Her belly was distended, and her eyes glazed over in pure, peanut-buttery ecstasy.
“Trixie,” Starlight sighed, looking over the sight in pity, “I told you that was a bad idea.”
“Werf it,” the showpony gurgled, “Can die happy.”
Further discussion on the merits of gorging oneself on peanut butter crackers had to be tabled, just then. The main doors to the castle swung open, and then slammed shut with an almost deafening roar, just beyond them.
Princess Twilight trudged into the library room, her eyes stuck in a perpetual squint. It was like an eye-twitch, but merged with a scowl.
A scwitch, as Pinkie might call it.
“Um…” Starlight shifted her hooves, a bit unnerved by her teacher’s face, “How did it go?”
“Starlight?” Twilight asked, her neck making a terrible cracking sound as she turned to speak, “Do you happen to know any powerful memory-alteration spells?”
Starlight’s brow knitted together, and she looked away in shame. Though, perhaps also to avoid eye contact with the madmare standing before her.
“Y-yes… I do…”
“Good! Excellent!” Twilight laughed, and began walking back towards her bedroom, “Then I just need you to whip something up to erase the concept of soup from the collective memory of all Equestria!”
Starlight’s jaw unhinged, though not quite so much as her teacher.
“W-why would you want that!?”
And shouting down the nearby stairs came her answer.
“Because even I think banishing a whole town to the Moon would be an overreaction!”
With that, Twilight returned to her quarters to sleep, and to forget. This left Starlight, staring wide-eyed into the ether, not quite sure what to make of all this. She was completely perplexed.
“Hey, Starlight?”
She sighed.
“Yes, Trixie?”
“If crackers are bread, and I put two together… would that make a peanut butter sandwich…?”
She sighed. Again.
“Is it really that much of an overreaction though…?” Starlight wondered.
