"....And I have to say that, in conclusion, this updated thestral potion has been a resounding success!" Dr. Caduceus said, beaming as cameras snapped and flashed.

The press release for the thestral potion couldn't have come soon enough. Pony society had long known of thestral's particular dietary needs, but the scandal of thestrals abandoning Equestria to join Darth Vulcan... and Princess Luna's precipitous reaction... had created an unfortunate upswing in public awareness that the batponies among them actually supplemented their diet with meat and blood. Something of a sensationalist uproar had swept through the press, lighting fires of agitation and wild rumormongering in every pony community. Princess Luna's hunting flights with her night guards had only stirred things up more, on two occasions almost inciting panicked stampedes in towns they overflew when they weren't expected. This in turn had only made the Night Princess more mule-headed and belligerent about the matter. Things had started to get ugly. Thank heaven the proposed trial period was finally over--- and this bit of political theatre could finally be brought to a smashing close.

"Truly?" Princess Twilight said, smiling artlessly. "No negative side effects? No... deficiencies?"

The press meeting to release the findings was being held in one of the larger laboratories. Luna and Twilight were overseeing things; Celestia had decided that it would be best if they took care of the matter without her interference. Besides, Celestia was busy laying out the preliminary steps for a certain very important Summoning, and it would be unwise to interrupt that process...

"Quite the opposite," the researcher enthused. "In fact, the batponies... er, thestrals, who have been put on the potion have demonstrated a marked uptick in their physical scores, athletic ability, mental sharpness, and in their general health overall when compared to the control group."

"To quite a startling degree," said another, poking idly at some of the exercise equipment scattered about the lab.  It was a dumbbell; from the looks of it, it had been bent in half.

"And what of the blood lust?" Luna said.

The lead researcher adjusted his pince nez. "We performed multiple psychological tests on the test population," he said. "The ones on the alchemical substitute showed perfectly normal and well-balanced behavior, naturally, and no signs of feral impulses." He gave Luna a condescending and rather judgmental look. "Unfortunately we could not say the same for those that Princess Luna insisted on feeding pure blood--"

Twilight's eyes narrowed; one could almost see the gods of scientific ethics watching over her shoulder and sharpening their long knives. "You mean 'the control group,' I believe, Professor?" she said icily.

The broccoli-colored stallion huffed and scowled. "Yes, technically-- though having a control group in this was completely pointless..." Tzing! went the whetstone as it slid down Occam's Razor. "We could have predicted the results in our sleep."

"Too true," a mare among the labcoats said. "Increased aggression... irritability..."

"Recalcitrant behavior among the foals in that group," another added. "Hyperactive, no attention span..."

"Outright hostility from the adults as well, taking offense at even the most innocuous questions--"

"One cannot imagine WHY my loyal subjects would become hostile at continual pestering by ponies in labcoats," Luna said in a voice dry as moondust. "But please, do continue."

"Princess, we are just reporting our findings," Professor Broccoli said loftily. "No disrespect." The lie should have shriveled his tongue.

"Apology accepted," Luna said sweetly, baring her teeth.

"WELL!" Twilight interrupted cheerfully. Oh this was going to be good... She turned to face the gathering of reporters. "As you can see, the results are in. I myself have reviewed the Doctors' research and I would just like to confirm for all of Equestria...

"...that every bit of it is completely and utterly false."

Somewhere a record needle screeched across tortured vinyl and came to a halt. Jaws dropped. "I-- Bwah?" the lead researcher said.

"I did look over your work," Twilight went on. "Thoroughly." She stalked toward the lead researcher, brandishing the manila folder in her magic. "Your research was rubbish, your questioning of the subjects was blatantly biased, your interpretation of their responses hypocritical. What got labeled as "healthy vigorous energy" in one thestral got labeled as "jittery and agitated" in another; angry responses to biased, invasive or outright insulting questions was given as proof of belligerence in the subject. And I caught several of you outright fudging the data you collected, skewing your charts and graphs towards the results you expected-- and wanted... and outright deleting the data from the doctors and lab technicians who disagreed with your findings." Two or three ponies to the back of the group looked gratified. "You have abused your position and driven your supposed 'research' towards a foregone conclusion of your own choice. You, sir, are a terrible scientist." The last part was delivered nose-to-nose, in tones one would usually expect when describing an especially disgusting skin disease.

"I-- I am outraged!" the professor blustered. "I conducted my research conscientiously on both test groups---"

"Well that's interesting, because there was no second test group!" Twilight retorted.

"Bwah?" Caduceus said again.

"That 'improved' potion was nothing but ordinary animal blood from local gryphon butchers, spiked with food coloring. The 'nice healthy safe' Thestrals and the 'scary blood drinking Thestrals'," Twilight said, making scare- quotes in the air with her forehooves, "Were BOTH drinking the exact same thing." The stallion's jaw hung to his collarbone while cameras flashed and a dull roar of reporters jockeying for position and shouting questions filled one end of the room. ""That's right, professor. The only substantial difference between the groups in your little social engineering experiment---"

"The only difference between them," Luna cut in, rising to her feet, "Was thy own prejudices against my little ponies of the night." The Night Princess, as dainty as she was, loomed. She stamped slowly towards the group of labcoated mares and stallions, who were beginning to look like they were seriously reconsidering their choice of career paths.  She addressed them all. "You have conducted scientific and medical fraud against my loyal subjects-- propagating the lie, the LIE!" she stamped, cracking the tile floor, "-- of the Blood Addiction...denying their vital need for it as sustenance... to their suffering and injury." Her eyes flashed. "Explain yourselves, if you can!"

Several of the researchers puffed up and glared. Caduceus huffed and blustered. "Our work was methodical and diligent! And it is well known that the so-called "need" for blood is just a byproduct of the miniscule portion of vampire bat in their makeup. The medical literature on Thestral blood addiction is---"

"PIG CRAP," Luna thundered. "It is biggest, foulest, most pungent pile of hog dung I have ever seen. I would call it HOGWASH, but that would imply it was fit for washing hogs." She leaned forward and glared at him, her muzzle nearly touching his.  " I designed the Thestral form; oversaw the firstborn of the race. When I returned and learned of their misfortunes, 'twas utter bafflement to me how anypony could think that their need for blood and meat was aberrant to their natures. I sought to find who had started this erroneous assumption, and how. I searched thy 'medical literature,' as did Princess Twilight and our secretaries. Dost thou care to guess what we found?"

"In all thy voluminous documents, neigh on a hundred years' worth of scribblings by senile old Leeches, not once was there record of the original research into the thestral blood hunger ever taking place! Merely an endless circle of doddering fools proclaiming it to be a mental sickness endemic to the thestrals, referencing one another in an endless looping maze of incestuous citation!"

"It's true," Twilight said to the teeming reporters. "Nopony ever actually proved the blood hunger was abnormal--- they just started saying so. And when anyone demanded proof, they merely cited some other expert, who would cite somepony else, who would cite somepony else..."

"The true test has been done," Luna said. "The night ponies have NOT gone feral, NOT lost control, NOT become unstable. In fact, with the essential nutrient, the fluid of life, returned to their diet, they have flourished. And the bias blinding so many of our nation's healers hath been laid bare." She stood there, wings flared. "What say you, Caduceus? Wilt thou yield the point, and assert what we have proven?"

This was the point that Twilight had been waiting for. The point she expected Dr. Caduceus to fold his cards and yield. Any medical scientist worth two spits would do so, for the sake of scientific truth. But to Twilight's absolute flabbergastment, the pompous fraud actually grew more defiant!

"OF all the OUTRAGES! You interfere with our work...." he looked over at the teeming reporters."You heard it yourselves, gentleponies! Princess Luna deliberately tampered with our research!"

Luna's jaw dropped. Caduceus bulled ahead. "This is the very thing we have all come to fear from the Court of the Night!" he said. "Self-serving BIAS, a callous hostility towards modern science and scholastic efforts--- and this is only the latest. Since her return the Night Princess has constantly undermined our efforts in countless ways, hindering us, blocking our research grants--"

This generated a disturbing shift in the tone. To Twilight's sickened fascination, the mood in the audience visibly shifted; She could almost measure the moment when the crowd's sympathies started to sway towards the scientist. And Luna's rage only seemed to shift them further.

""Frauds!" Luna thundered. "Frauds! Bunko Artists! Fearmongers! Gabblers of superstitions and gossip and lies! Thy ranks art more rife with Quacks than a DUCK FARM! Thy framjammery hath caused untold suffering amongst mine own beloved thestrals--- sickened foals, barren wombs, and early graves! And thou wouldst perpetuate thy villainy anew merely to assuage thy snivelling bigotry against them, e'en with the proof of thy error staring thee in the face!"

"PROOF?" The professor roared back. "What proof? Faked potions and fabricated evidence? Your anti-science prejudices are well known--"

"ANTI SCIENCE?" Luna bellowed. "Thou puffed up toad! I was studying the turning of the heavens, learning the healing arts and writing treatises on the mechanisms of reality when thy ancestors were still curing the pox with LEECHES! I blocked thy grants because thou wast rifling the pockets of the kingdom and the Crown for supercilious drivel!"

"And this is just an example of how science has to be conducted now," he sneered to the reporters, waving a hoof at the Princess. "The chilling effect of having our research vetted by this parsimonious mare-- "

"Thy fellow scholars spent three thousand bits on a study to see if ponies should carry umbrellas when it rained!" (1)

Twilight facehooved. So THAT was what this was really all about? Really? Seriously?

The truth unfolded before her mind's eye like the petals of a rancid skunk cabbage. One of the few duties Celestia had permitted to Luna upon her return to the throne had been reforming the Royal budget. It had been meant as a preparatory step-- Celestia had figured that the long-absent lunar princess would have an easier time dealing with numbers and figures than with the subtler nuances of actual ponies.

But she had forgotten; In the ancient world Luna, due to her own somewhat excluded status, had been a patron of scholars and artists; some of the greatest and most eccentric minds of the age had gathered together at her Collegium, fringe thinkers seeking sanctuary with one another-- and she had no patience at all for all the tomfoolery posing as academics in the nooks and crannies of modern academic society, especially when it was on the taxpayer's bit. Her cuts had been, no argument, draconian... and again, no argument, equally necessary, felling countless trite research programs like wheat before a scythe.

It had been a bit too much all at once, though; The academic community had handled the sudden slashing of hundreds of research grants, regardless of how trivial, rather poorly. A mix of paranoia for their own precious grant bits and sullen resentment at the Princess' parsimony had pushed the spreading of rumors that the Night Princess was stuck in the past, a science hating luddite who wanted to return Equestria to the Dark Ages.

Could it be, Twilight wondered briefly? These ponies, these researchers dedicated to science, couldn't be that shallow could they?

"What now, you penny-grubbing luddite? Are you going to sic your blood-sucking bully-colts on us? Or maybe just prowl around in our minds while we sleep? You propagator of superstitious fears---"

Eeyup. They could. At least the feud between the Night Princess and the academics had for the most part not trickled down to the pony on the street...

"Thou ninnyhammered braying JACKASS!"

...Until now. And Luna just said the J-word in front of the press pool, hadn't she. The simmering cold war between the featherbedding scholars and the disgruntled Princess had just gone hot, it seemed. Twilight could do nothing but groan and watch as the carefully orchestrated plan to slip the Thestrals back into the Equestrian mainstream unraveled like a sweater in a taffy-pulling machine.

After a bit more yelling, Twilight shot a magical firework from her horn into air. The flash of light and earsplitting bang bought her a moment's silence; she dove into that moment with all four hooves. "This interview is over! A press release from the Crown concerning the results of this study, the investigative hearing concerning the ponies involved--" here several white coated ponies flinched-- "and the subsequent changes to the thestral laws will be made available to all the reporters in attendance; any further questions will have to be submitted by hoofwritten letter to the Crown until then. Thank you for attending, please leave by the marked exits." With that, the guards began firmly pushing the herd out the doors in one direction, the still-fuming Dr. Caduceus and his colleagues out the other. Soon, only Luna and Twilight.

Before Twilight could say a word, Luna turned to her with haggard eyes and flung herself at her. "Oh what have I done, Twilight?" Luna moaned, on the verge of sobbing. "Curse my temper, I have undone everything--!" She clutched the younger princess in a rib-cracking hug. "When the common ponies hear of this fracas, their hearts will set in stone against my thestrals-- and against me!"

"Hnrgh," Twilight said. She started to say something curt, then sighed, lacking the ire. It wouldn't really be fair... "No, Luna," she said. "This wasn't your fault--"

"Truly?" Luna pulled away to look at her with weepy eyes.

Twilight grimaced. "Mmmmaybe a little," she confessed. "The yelling didn't help--- but I don't think Dr. Caduceus was going to let things turn out any other way." She scowled. "It was obvious he'd already made up his mind before the study ever began what the results were going to be. And everything else he said--" her expression soured even more. "It's pretty obvious he had more than one axe to grind to boot."

Luna hucked and wiped her eyes on her fetlock. "They're like foals," she said angrily. "Spoiled little foals who are angry that their candy money has been taken away!" Her heat turned to disappointment. "I cannot believe our little ponies would be so spiteful as to hurt their fellow ponies just to get even with me---!"

"They don't see it that way," Twilight said. She gnawed her lip as she looked for the words. "To them, the blood ban is just an... an abstract number on a piece of paper. The hurt it causes is invisible, spread out over years and over thousands of ponies... not right up in their faces. The thestrals aren't actually starving, after all... just suffering a bit of malnourishment... nothing really serious-- or so they'd say. So it's not important to them." Her tone got bitter. "Not like a princess who slashes the crown's funding, or who, horrors, tries to get them to admit that they were wrong about something in front of the press that their teachers' teachers' teachers said was true." She shot a dirty look in the direction the stubborn doctor had departed.

Luna snuffled again. "You speak more than truth, Twilight," she said glumly. "Would that I had been mindful of it beforehoof. I know from personal experience such." She cracked a half-hearted grin. "Did thou know that the pony who discovered the platypus took years to convince the sages of the olden times that it was real? He finally went so far as to purchase a pelt from a gryphon hunter to bring back to the Collegium."

"And what happened?" Twilight said.

Luna grinned openly now. "The eldest Professor savaged the hide with a pair of scissors, trying to cut the "stitches" he swore he could see holding the duck's beak to the beaver hide."(2) Twilight burst out laughing. Luna continued. "Strewth. The pony who found it was a simple earth pony farmer, so what could HE know that the prideful Professor could not? Twas years later before the Collegium as a whole was finally convinced, when an explorer brought back a live one... and gave it to me as a pet." Luna sighed wistfully. "Poor Quackles, I do miss him..."

"The platypus, I'm assuming," Twilight said, amused.

Luna gave her a wry smile but ignored the jibe. "Truth did have her vengeance though. Twould seem that male platypi have envenomed barbs on their back heels, and when the militant skeptic stuck his hooves into Quackles' tank to poke him, he got stung. Swelled up like a balloon from nose to dock..." Twilight laughed even louder at that.

The brief amusement turned back to melancholy soon enough. "Twilight," Luna lamented. "What am I to do? What am I to do in this latter age?  A thousand years under my sister's golden reign, and our kingdom has become naught but naive, carelessly cruel children... and I am now even less honored than I was before I fell to the Nightmare."

Twilight's heart went out to the dark princess for whom it seemed it was always one trot forward, two trots back..."At least the word is out," Twilight reassured her. "The truth is out, even if some ponies don't want to believe it. They can't stop the revoking of the thestral blood laws any more."

"No," Luna said dolefully. "But they will not hesitate to twist the tale to their advantage..."

Twilight sighed. "Probably. But even controversy is better than blind consensus," She said stoutly. "Come on, we'd better get back to Celestia and see how the Summoning is coming along..."

1) I wish, how I wish this wasn't true....

2)Again, true story, from the Smithsonian.