"We shouldn't be here."
The words were said with bitterness and resignation, the speaker finally spilling what bothered him. Sipping tea from a fine porcelain cup, the man received an arched brow from his dining companion.
"We, Mr. Irons?" She spoke with practiced calm and patience. A similar cup floated in front of a white muzzle, held in a golden glow. The mare took a dainty sip while she waited for her companion to speak.
"Mankind." James Irons replied tiredly, setting down his teacup on a saucer on the table between them. "The entirety of North America. The United States. We shouldn't be here, Celestia."
The mare set down her cup in its own saucer and motioned for the man to continue.
"What have we brought?" The man said with a defeated tone, "Political tension that disturbed over a thousand years of peace. Growing species discrimination and violence across the New World." Celestia's ear twitched at those words, but she remained silent, "And finally a trio of failing nations that are destabilizing, fracturing, turning against one another as they succumb to disasters out of their control."
James stood up from his seat, walking over to the edge of the balcony. He set his arms on a railing just a bit too short for his height and stared out into the skyline it provided. A city skyline of ivory and gold was in the distance, with architectural wonders that would have the greatest architects gaze in amazement, and engineers fry their brains trying to figure how it could possibly stay like that. The answer to that of course was simple, and one that until three years ago would have had James sack whoever said it: Magic.
He breathed in the clean, cold, and crisp mountain air, and pushed the thought of how structurally unsound the entire city was. He was assured a thousand times that it was safe and had stood for over a thousand years. He didn't doubt that, as the New World had proven that it always reached beyond human imagination on what was possible. But at the moment, it only provided more anxiety and discomfort to the pile.
"We ruined your peaceful world." James spoke quietly as the click-clack of hooves came behind him, coming to a stop to his right, "And yet you still offer to take our refugees, assist our efforts in understanding your world, and give aid to those who need it."
He turned his head to meet the ruler next to him. Weary green eyes met curious magenta. "Why?"
A small smile grew on the Princess's muzzle, "Because I see the good in your hearts. In yours. You hide it behind iron-," James gave an amused huff at that, "but the very fact you worry about the actions humanity has done shows you care. And I know that your people care too, despite their fear and anger. They have been forcibly removed from what they knew. They are scared, worried, and fearful. They are lashing out at their new reality they had no consent on arriving in. I cannot blame them for that."
James scowled at that and looked back out to the city. He saw figures in the distance, nothing but specs yet still visible nonetheless. They were moving a large cloud away from the city, and James was sure he would hear orders and commands if they were within distance.
"I am the leader of a dying nation." He whispers, as if to say out loud would accelerate it, "The West Coast and Texas threaten to cede. The famine has killed tens of thousands with not an end in sight. Radicals are rioting in the streets, demanding change I simply cannot give. My people are jobless and homeless as the worst economic recession since the Great Depression rocks them. Congress and the House bicker over Old World and New World ideas as the people become sick and tired of their inaction. Mexico has fallen into anarchy, and Canada is no longer responding to our signals."
James takes a deep breath again, feeling something soft reach out and caress his back. He breaths out as Celestia continues rubbing his back with her wing in an effort to soothe him; it doesn't work. Water forms at the edges of his eyes, the stress finally cracking him.
"The country, the people I love are dying, humanity teeters on the brink of chaos," He forces the words out, choking despite efforts to hold it in, "And all I can do is sit back and watch as the land we call home burns."
Celestia remains silent as the man lets out sobs. They were genuine tears, not the false ones she's seen in Day Court endless times before. Sorrow of a leader lost, unsure of their next action. A leader who cares, but is bound by emotion into inaction. This too, she is familiar with, experiencing this herself over a thousand years ago when she banished Luna, and again with various leaders of the world since then. But this was the first time she had to do so with one from another world.
She moves her wing, expertly nudging with her feathers to force the man's head to face her.
"Look at me," she says softly.
He does so, revealing tears flowing over his cheeks through his grizzled beard. Loose hairs stuck out from his usually-perfect haircut. In that moment, his Presidential facade was forgotten.
Such trust he shows me.Celestia smiled gently. Only a true leader would care this deeply for his subjects. His trust must be rewarded.
"I will not lie to you, James." Celestia spoke softly, as a mother would with her child, "Your people will encounter great trouble. The Transference has uprooted everything they knew about the world. They are separated from familiarity and knowing into uncertainty and mystery. There will be danger, there will be struggle. There will be loss.
“But remember what your subjects need the most: Hope. Hope that, despite everything looking down, there will be an up. That the boat is rocking in the stormy seas but the squall will pass."
Her free wing stretched out in a wide motion that James followed. They pointed out the fancy towers of Canterlot, the distant trees of the Everfree Forest, and beyond that. "Equestria was not made in a day. It took years upon years of continued effort to build up. Decades to forgive and forget between the pony races and to come together as one."
The wings retracted and green met magenta again, "Your people, the Americans and more, will be the same. Fear has driven them apart. But hope will bring them together. Hope that you can bring. As the President of your people, a leader, it is up to you to give them that hope. To push them towards a better future." She smiles warmly at him, "And how can they have hope if the one who leads them is hopeless?"
James stared at her, ingesting what she said. He nodded, wiping tears with his sleeve. "I understand. I think." He breathed in, nodding again. "No, not 'I think'. I do understand."
Celestia said nothing, though the smile on her face said everything. She retracted her wings, and the two watched the slow dip of the sun as it began to end the day. James stood a little straighter, adjusting his suit as they observed. He glanced at Celestia as her horn glowed brightly to bring about sun set.
"I'll never get used to that." He said while returning his gaze to the orange hued sky, "Knowing that the same person who sets the sun gave me advice I should have known."
Celestia let out a laugh that sounded like the softest bells, "Even alicorns need to be taught lessons, President Irons. My faithful student is a shining example of that."
James chuckled with her, though his face fell into contemplation.
"A bit for your thoughts?" Celestia asked as the night sky rose.
"Does this make us friends?" The man asked, looking at her quizzically.
Instead of responding, Celestia reached out with a hoof, "Celestia Sol, born on a farm in Unicornia."
Eyeing the outstretched, the man took it and shook, "James Irons, born in Rock Island, Illinois."
A grin appeared on Celestia's face. "A pleasure, James from Rock Island."
"A bigger one to you, Celestia from a farm," James responds with a matching grin.
The two drop their shake and look at the rising moon. There is a comfortable silence between them before James speaks up again.
"Will you be there?" The man asks his new friend, "To help me guide my people to a better future that we both can live in?"
"Of course." The mare responds without hesitation, "That is what friends are for. Moreso when they rule countries. For friendship-"
"-is magic." He finishes for her with a grin that displaced any previous feelings of negativity, "You ponies are so fond of saying that it got stuck in my head."
Celestia stuck her tongue out childishly to her new friend. James barked in laughter, and Celestia joined him as the stars and moon took their rightful place in the sky.
James was still unsure of the road his nation would take, the struggles they would undergo. But he knew that with friendship and hope, he'd be able to see it come through. Hope would bind the American People as it has done before.
For friendship was magic, and magic ruled in this New World.
