Spoiler Alert, It's Always the Friends
“Okay, just stick to the plan and everything’ll be fine,” Starlight Glimmer whispered to her partner. “Don’t be nervous!”
“Yunno, you sayin’ that like we’re about to break into Fort Clops is really helpin’ my nerves,” Applejack snapped back, examining her brother’s shackles.
Transporting a prisoner in a city as secure as Canterlot tended to be more performance than practice. If Big Mac so happened to break free of his bonds, he would find a platoon of Royal Guardsponies nipping at his hooves in a very short order. And that was assuming he didn’t bump into a contingent of senior military personnel going about their business, as Admiral Tempest Shadow often did down the marble promenade, or the most powerful unicorn magician in the nation that was at that very moment stringing him along to the castle.
Or, more relevantly, if he felt like it at all. At that moment, piled under several hundred pounds of steel chains and bolted down to a cart by his horseshoes, he felt freer than his sister plodding beside him, and that was good enough for him.
“You brought the doll, right?” Starlight leaned over urgently.
“‘Course I did,” came another tart whisper. “Don’t change the fact that yer mad for thinking this’ll work.”
Despite Applejack’s misgivings, the Smarty Pants doll was the only excuse they had to be there on Hearth’s Warming, and that inevitably led to Big Mac, strung up tighter than Pandora’s saddlebags. According to Admiral Tempest Shadow and her uncomfortably long intelligence grapevine, he’d stolen it during a riot in Ponyville before Twilight became a Princess. Now that she actually was a Princess, that count of misdemeanor theft upgraded to a high crime, punishable by imprisonment in Tartarus- so officially, the two of them were there to deliver a criminal for the Princess’s personal judgement. Unofficially, they were there to decapitate the Equestrian government for the day so its head could have some fun for once.
That entire notion quivered more unsteadily than a house of cards in the wind, and Applejack knew it. She figured that if Twilight didn’t take the distraction, her brother might just get off without a hitch and the two of them could watch in passive delight as the prim little ethicist before her took a long walk off the short pier of consequence. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t, and her brother ended up in Tartarus. Being sure of herself was tough like that.
As tempting as the notion was to turn in Starlight as a liar to the guards at the gate, Applejack shook the temptation off and plodded along, rattling the cart containing her brother across the planks of the drawbridge and into the castle proper. That was the easy part. Although playing the part of the strong mercenary type at the moment, Applejack could have easily entered the castle on her own merits and prestige. That remained mostly true as they traveled through the more secure halls of the castle, past the throne room and closer to Twilight’s private quarters. Although a few words and no small amount of “personal protege” clout thrown by Starlight brought them past a few more cautious guard patrols, the presence of a captive meant that Applejack not only posed no threat, but had some semblance of business being there.
Most thankfully, nopony recognized Big Mac as they went along.
“You holding up alright?” Starlight glanced over at her partner. It was almost time for their little performance to start.
“Peachy,” Applejack grated back. “Y’ever consider that if this goes sideways, my brother could be in jail for the rest of his life?”
“If it makes you feel any better, this wasn’t my plan,” Starlight quietly answered. The obliqueness was not lost on Applejack, whose death glare elicited a few more words, “And mistakes happen in prisoner transit. Sometimes explosive ones. I’m sure I can work something out.”
“Stand aside,” she went on, now directing her words to the guards standing in front of Twilight’s chambers. “We have a prisoner accused of high crimes for the Princess’s personal judgement.”
For the first time that day, the two bulky pegasus guards stepped into formation and outstretched their wings to block the door. A sinister white iridescence and the sounds of metallic scraping coming from their suddenly rigid feathers told Starlight that it’d take a bit more than a haughty nod to get past these two, at least, not if she wanted to get through the door in one piece.
Question was, why?
“The Princess has ordained that she not be disturbed,” the rightmost guard’s wings returned to his side. “She told us to tell anyone- her friends especially-” his golden-gauntleted hoof indicated Applejack. “Not to fear. She’ll finish her work in time to appear at the Hearth’s Warming Festival. Barring distractions, of course.”
Starlight and Applejack exchanged a look. Twilight’s “appearances” at social events had understandably become more and more perfunctory as time went on and she spent more of her time ruling Equestria. As a matter of fact, it seemed that she had all but inherited Celestia’s role as an idiotic bellhop at the latest Grand Galloping Gala. Aside from that, Twilight practically lived in her office. Applejack, or any of her other friends, could hardly remember the last time they heard her giggle, and even after just a few years, a casual get-together with Twilight seemed almost a legendary notion. Maybe if they could just get a few words in-
The left guard’s stance softened, and he whispered something to his partner.
“I know judgement is something only she can do, but…” the first guard mused aloud, if a little hesitantly. He eyed Applejack suspiciously.
Maybe Tempest and Twilight’s anti-espionage training was working a little too well.
“You don’t really have a choice,” Starlight decided to test those waters. “The faster you let us through, the faster we’ll be out of your and her hair.”
There were a few ponies around who actually remembered every single one of the protocols it was their job to remember. Celestia never seemed to forget a thing, so the fact that she wrote most of the royal protocols was mostly just icing on her cake. Princess Twilight had the rules all compiled in an immense compendium, and paid a not-insignificant portion of the royal stipend weekly to Fluttershy so she could read it to her like a bedtime story. Plain and simple, she knew them like the back of her hoof. There were others beyond just the royal two that Starlight could have named, including herself, but they all had a few things in common. They were all unmarried, practically never left work, and they drank. Profusely.
Most of them were sad drinkers, too.
This snowy-white pegasus before her, on the other hand, seemed to be doing quite well for himself. Though committed enough to his work, the dance of a playful glint in the back of his eye told Starlight that he enjoyed a good adventure outside of work. Brightly shining silver hobnails in his horseshoes- as opposed to the dull utilitaria of tungsten- told her that maybe his mare had fallen for a good injection of pegasus wanderlust in her life. There was just no way he would have remembered the obscure proceedings of prisoner judgement that Starlight was so clearly violating.
The arresting officer, which Applejack was playing the part of, should have left at the gate. Then, instead of a senior official like Starlight, castle guards should have escorted Big Mac into the room and left him alone with the Princess so that she could mete out her personal judgement. The sensitive nature of capital punishment often led to a separate sentencing by (purportedly) the wisest individual in the nation after a guilty court verdict, which, by the way, Big Mac hadn’t received either seeing as how the certificate was missing. In short, she’d done basically everything wrong and gotten away with it since the guards didn’t bother to read Chapter 9, Sections 1-4 of their handbook.
Or so explained Twilight, receiving them with a blase smile as the door shut behind them.
They spared no expense when architects repurposed a defunct wing of Canterlot castle for the personal quarters and office of Equestria’s first new Princess in almost three thousand years. Enormous picture windows brought in natural light from outside, exposing any inhabitants to a broadside of splendor from the Canterlot cityscape. Engravings and marble frames made even the frames of the windows a delight to behold, to say nothing of the dazzling ceiling, a three dimensional tapestry of Equestrian history. A nod to Twilight’s accomplishments, the walls and floor had been generated organically from solid crystal, lit by a curious fluorescence so that without any candles, the room remained well-lit even at night.
All in all, it was a sordid train wreck of sensory overload and unwelcoming, hard surfaces. The friendly faces of the Equestrian heroes all but faded at night, leaving the bed’s occupant to deal with the sharper countenances of their ghoulish villains- that is, if they weren’t too busy being afraid somepony was peering in through the glass, watching their every private move like a creature on display.
“It’s good to see you, Applejack,” she sighed. Somehow, the admission of her friend’s brother slathered in chains hardly seemed to faze her. “Big-Big Mac, it’s been a while… Ah! Starlight, I’ve got those security manifests you and Tempest requested last week. They’re in here… somewhere…”
Twilight submerged herself in the pile of paperwork practically enveloping her desk and pulled out a stack of papers thicker than most dictionaries. Starlight cringed as she accepted the hoofload, setting it down somewhere where Applejack and her murderous stare hopefully might forget it existed.
“So, it’s judging time, then,” Twilight drew down her glasses and stood up, making her way over to Big Mac’s restraints. A magenta glow enveloped her wings, and a cursory movement later found the immense steel bonds laying in pieces of the ground, slices in the thick metal sizzling with the combination of pegasus razor-wings and a sharpening unicorn flair. “I don’t think we’ll be needing those. So, Applejack, what’d he do?”
“I actually… wanted to talk to you about something else,” Applejack stiffly attempted to follow the script she and Starlight set for this scene.
“Can it wait?” Twilight stared past Applejack, at the wall behind her. “I need to get this all squared away before the Hearth’s Warming Festival.”
“That’s what we came to talk about,” her friend insisted. “The way you’ve been working these last few years, I just-”
“Applejack, you are not supposed to be here,” Twilight’s blank eyes narrowed. “As Starlight knows, the Princess of Equestria has responsibilities, and I don’t have time for a social call. I let you comment on your brother’s judgement as a courtesy, but if you’re just going to go off on some frivolous tangent, then I-”
“‘Frivolous?’ Twilight, I’m your friend!” Applejack’s accent cracked as she stepped forward with new urgency, desperately reaching out to shake Twilight even as a blast of teleportation magic whisked her away into a far hallway. “We miss you!” She cried out to a broom closet door. “We came because… we miss you…”
She collapsed in a heap against the wood, staring up at Starlight’s pale face.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Applejack coughed. “What in Celestia’s good grace do we do now?”
“As I was saying,” Twilight turned back toward her captive. “It occurs to me that since those two… smart ponies… didn’t bring your verdict, I don’t actually know what you’ve been accused of. But we’ll get to that later. Let’s start from the top. Suspect, please state your name.”
At first, Big Mac stayed silent, searching for some way he could convey his name in a “yes” or “no” answer. Twilight seemed to remember something to this regard, and a sharp prick of curious light began to pulse behind her impassive gaze. There weren’t any protocols to deal with mute suspects, so this was a puzzle she’d have to deal with herself. Luckily for her and her foggy memory, he decided that there was no threat in simply uttering his name, although so help him, that would be three of the five unique words he’d be allowed that day.
“Big McIntosh, ma’am,” he grunted. Usually he gave a hooftap to demonstrate the “Big” part and to dissuade whoever was asking him questions from asking him any more. He remembered that his hooves were still nailed down to the cart.
Thankfully, Twilight interpreted the movement as an expression of discomfort, and the blank stare momentarily returned as she casually reduced the wooden platform underneath him into a pile of splinters. The lengthened hobnails of his horseshoes would still make walking a little uncomfortable, but it was satisfactory for movement and for that he nodded his thanks.
“Now we get to the charge,” Twilight scribbled down Big Mac’s name onto yet another official form. “The charge is… Um. Right. This is awkward. What did you- do they say you did?”
She giggled sheepishly. After all, no protocols existed for somepony blatantly ignoring and breaking protocol, so she had to freestyle the whole process. One might think, as her hooves tapped irregularly on the floor and her wings ruffled, she was even having fun!
Thankfully Big Mac didn’t have to answer that either, producing the Smarty Pants doll from a knapsack at his side and setting it down gently in front of her. Where it sat, unmoving, for thirty seconds, and the two occupants of the room stared at it as if it would start and explain everything.
“Did-did you steal this?” Twilight stared dumbly but intensely at the little raggedy doll before her, drinking in every last detail of its familiar countenance. The proper course of action, eluding her for the second time that day, left her with the three creditable options of scoffing, laughing, and crying. Ever the out of the box thinker, she chose the secret fourth option of “None of the above.”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac admitted. Though his shifting eyes told any careful observer what they needed to know, he was at least thankful that his face was already red enough to conceal his flush.
“Why?” Every last part of Twilight’s being focused in on Big Mac and the doll, trying to figure out why someone would steal her doll, of all things. The quill, previously suspended in her magic, fluttered down and spread a little pool of ink onto the floor. The paper soon followed it, becoming ruined with the stain.
Big Mac’s mouth snapped tightly shut. It was certainly within his power to speak more than, say, five unique words a day, but eloquence did not come so naturally. Between misunderstandings and wasted space, the brevity of “yes” and “no” made up in lost time what detail had in, well, detail. That worked well for most questions, especially the simple matters of the farmer’s life, except when it came to “why.” Even then, Big Mac reflected as Twilight stewed and squirmed, waiting for a digestible answer when none would be forthcoming, the dysfunction served to his advantage. Instead of trying to make her understand his point of view, if Twilight wanted her answers, she would have to bring her point of view around, doing all the understanding for him.
“Did you steal it for somepony in your family?” Twilight guessed. “Other than yourself.”
“Nope.”
“So you stole it for yourself.”
“Eeyup.”
“Did-did you think you could sell it? Back to me, maybe?”
“Nope.”
“So you just wanted it? A doll?”
A long silence, and then: “... Eeyup.”
“Did you want it because it was my doll?”
“Nope.”
Clearly, listing criminal intent was getting her nowhere, and that was assuming Big Mac was telling the truth. Switching tacks from basic criminal pretenses to more complex, emotionally significant themes actually was proper protocol, in fact those nuances inspired the Princesses to personally preside over and adjudicate the worst crimes a pony could bring upon themselves. That said, stealing a doll, even the Princess’s childhood doll, was not one of those crimes, and even if it had been, the total breach of due process had already turned the proceedings into a total joke. He had no business being there, and Princess Twilight knew it.
“Do you… like playing with her?” She was just curious. There was time for a social call yet.
Big Mac just nodded. He didn’t want voice confirmation of that fact on any official records- not that he saw any of those being taken. His flush grew nearly to the same respect as his face, threatening to overcome even his vibrant coat in color.
“What does it feel like?” Twilight wondered, picking up the little gray thing to examine what about it could reduce a powerful stallion down to the status of an innocent little filly.
Time hadn’t been kind to Smarty Pants, and the wear of years and a lot of love had popped one of her button eyes loose and necessitated patches in numerous places in her plush body. The stuffing leaking out in the interim had transformed her from a perky teddy to little more than a gaunt, limp ragdoll. Objectively, she was past through the zenith of disrepair and a few dust mites away from “health hazard” level territory. Objectively, the little thing was trash now, and protocol dictated that trash ought to be disposed of and forgotten.
Yet it would always be true that at one time, the little piece of cloth was the most precious thing Twilight owned. Once upon a time, it was easy to make her happy, and Smarty Pants made her happy, and however silly it might’ve been that was all that mattered at the time. A simpler, better time, not all that long ago.
And that reminded Twilight of a story.
After a particularly tiring family reunion, she explained to Big Mac, Applejack staggered her way out from Sweet Apple Acres and doddered all the way down to Twilight’s library. Drunk. She slithered up the stairs to Twilight’s door like an orange inchworm wearing a Stetson, looked for the doorknob next to its hinges, found it, and fell through after ripping the frame out of the wall. Twilight left her like that for a little while, since drunk Applejack tended to say some interesting things. Expecting another novel treatise on kinetic physics, Twilight brought out several notepads and quills, along with enough ink to drown herself, just in time to paraphrase the entire, wholly unadulterated history of the Apple family from her guest. By time Applejack finished and sobered up, there were seven volumes, replete with births, deaths, biographies, including those of two particularly interesting ponies at the moment-
“Your parents,” Twilight observed an instant change in Big Mac’s demeanor. As he recoiled from her, she lowered herself, neck craning down from regality and expression softening so that even in this haggard, shrunken state, Big Mac could still look down on her. “Not to speak of the dead, but I have to ask…”
“Yup,” Big Mac slumped and motioned for her to go on.
“I-I think I have a right to know…”
“Eeyup.”
Twilight had already come down as far as it was polite to do. Out of her accord, her body shook as she continued pressing, her ears huddled down flat across her head and tears forming in her eyes. Every limb quivered as if it finished a marathon, and Twilight breathed harder and harder to suck her departing soul back in. The tiara on her head jittered out of its hooked place in her coat and threatened to fall right off her head.
“Does she take you back to them somehow?” she cried. “You feel like they’re still there with you?”
Understanding, done for him. At this rate, Big Mac might have had to adopt the “five unique words” rule.
“Yes,” he smiled at her and nodded.
“You-You must miss them very much,” Twilight choked on her own words. If Big Mac hadn’t known what she was trying to say, he might not have understood her at all.
“Yes,” Big Mac took a step forward, catching Smarty Pants when she fell from Twilight’s fizzling magic.
“I’m s-sorry. I think I understand.”
“Yes.”
She looked up, completely disheveled. The magical frazzling around her caused her mane to split off and hang over her muzzle in strange angles, and the unending onslaught of tears had finally convinced what little makeup Twilight wore into running haphazardly down her face. Her crown was actually flapping now, dangling almost completely off her bangs.
“Well, I think we’re done here,” she tried desperately to reclaim her blank dignity, piecing together elements of emotionlessness behind the shining veil. “You’re free to leave… Please, take her and go.”
“Nope,” Big Mac refused, stepping a little closer to Twilight. He plopped his red rump smackdown on the floor and with a guileless smile made it very clear that if he was going to leave, Twilight would have to kick her out herself.
As if this wreck of friendless, day-drinking pony in front of him was capable of doing anything at all. Her magic completely failing her, Twilight staggered forward to shove Big Mac, but even this mewling effort could have been easily outdone by a foal and he just stared down impassively at her nosediving motivation. Frustrated beyond reason at being powerless in her own thrall and distressed with indescribable longings, Twilight took her tiara, smashed it on the ground, and clawed it into a mangled mess with her hooves. No sooner than the violence was finished and her crazed breath died down, her body locked up and decided that a sharp golden triangle and a puddle of its own tears would make a sufficiently comfy bed.
One last faint sob found herself falling, caught halfway in a fuzzy blanket of red and her favorite friendly dolly.
“Eeyup,” Big Mac murmured as he picked the drained Princess up bodily and rocked her like a foal in his hooves.
After a few minutes she was still shuddering, so he leaned down and like he’d done for little Apple Bloom so many times before, gave her a little peck on the forehead. Like magic, Twilight’s restlessness stilled after the touch, and her eyes curiously cracked open as if seeing the world for the first time. The quizzical look turned on Big Mac sank his very soul and he closed his eyes, preparing for his fate in many separate pieces. He opened them again to find Twilight’s muzzle pressed up right against his own.
“Well?” her quiet voice cut through the stuffy air with new energetic freshness. “Don’t want to trade?”
The second kiss passed as quickly as the first. As did the third, coming as Twilight playfully nipped off his harness and gave a particularly good game of keep away for the small room- he’d had to wrestle her down for it back. They came by the rest of the first ten like that, quick byproducts of childish games that tended to end in rolling heaps on the ground- embraces a little tighter and lasting a little longer than necessary. Once they tired and retired to bed, they delighted in finding more and more, deep and soothingly and warmly, stopping the mutual grooming only when that warmth spread throughout their bodies and a restful sleep passed over.
When they awoke, night had fallen across Equestria but darkness was far away. Hearth’s Warming Festivals and their triumphant bonfires reigned across Canterlot and lit the sky, from the royal gala to individual parties scattered throughout the city. By the time Princess Twilight made her official appearance at all of the most important ones, the holiday would practically be over when she at last got to Ponyville.
“Can you believe I ever did that?” she chatted to Big Mac as they strolled down the lantern-lit promenade to the train station. Hardly anypony could have recognized the Princess as she was, wrapped up in an old Clover the Clever pageant costume to hide her wings, and the doll she clutched tightly to her side beneath them. Without Twilight’s crown, the two of them looked for all the world like a simple peasant couple.
“Nope,” he chuckled. “Looking forward t’seeing yer friends?”
Five more words. Screw it, Hearth’s Warming! But that was what Applejack and Starlight got, trying to use him like a pack mule carrying their excuse for their “foolproof impassioned plea.” He could help Twilight all by his lonesome, thank you very much, and even charm her in the process!
“Am I!” Twilight laughed. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen them all outside of business, I hardly know what to talk about!”
She thought about what she’d just said.
“Say, Mackie…” she murmured. Big Mac slid a baleful eye over, pleading that she never call him “Mackie” again. “Has Rainbow Dash confessed her love to Applejack yet?”
“HA!” Big Mac couldn’t resist letting out a guffaw. “Nnnope!”
“Hassss… hm. How’s Fluttershy’s livestock union coming along? Have they managed a strike yet?” Tempest Shadow had actually delivered a dossier on that topic, so it was fairly recent news.
“No… Nope,” Big Mac sniggered, trying his very best not to laugh aloud again. This dinner table conversation gossip only seemed to get better with age.
“Scootaloo blow anything up?”
That was also a fair question, since the filly and her friends seemed to think Sweet Apple Acres served as their own personal bomb range. Ever since the Desolation of Cloudsdale, though, the explosions had mostly abated. Big Mac was sure that Scootaloo had been involved in some other high-profile demolitions in the interim but he wasn’t quite sure where.
“Mmm.”
“Luna hit on you lately?”
That wasn’t.
“Mmm.” Big Mac picked Twilight up by the scruff of her neck so she’d stop talking, or at least so that he’d have an excuse not to answer. The two of them made their way down the street this way and waited patiently for the train to arrive again.
“You know, it’ll be at least twenty minutes before it comes back,” Twilight told him. “You really want to be holding me up all that time?”
Big Mac jangled her up and down as he nodded.
“Well, darn… Would you please put me down anyway?”
He shook her from side to side. Too friendly, otherwise. Too many words.
He put her down and they kissed again when the train arrived and again as they sat down, Twilight melting into his arms. If Big Mac could have cradled her all the way back to Sweet Apple Acres, she would have asked, but alas, pony biology had its limits. So did presence, unfortunately. While Twilight would have loved to return to the farm for a restful night with him and him alone, the prophecy of the doll that they now shared brought her back to her friends, to share time with them while they were still there for her in more than a metaphysical sense. She did miss them very much.
“I never got to properly thank you for today,” she murmured to him as they prepared to depart. “I know it wasn’t your idea, but the lesson you managed to teach me, well… It brought us here, right?”
“You knew just how to give me that little push,” Twilight went on, meeting Big Mac’s countenance with the crystal clear eyes of authority. “You got to me- Or you helped me get to me? Anyway…”
She unfurled her wings, revealing herself underneath the costume and the doll she still held on tightly to. Now free of its confine, a second object dropped out from her other wing and stopped midair amid a burst of magenta sparkles. This twisted, electrum relic that used to be her tiara Twilight offered to him.
“Whenever you need anything, anything at all, just show the castle guards this, walk up and ask. My door is always open,” she told him. “And if- If you ever want to play with her again-” Twilight considered Smarty Pants for a moment. “-Same thing. Come on up and we’ll play with her together. Maybe we’ll even sneak out like this again. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Eeyup,” he accepted the golden gift with a wry smile, and the two of them parted ways on the best of terms. Twilight left to find her friends at the Ponyville Hearth’s Warming Festival, and Big Mac trotted off to slather his prize all over his sister’s dumbfounded face.
