"(If you want, I can show you.)" Ocellus had her head tilted a little. "(You really never met a) changeling (before?)"

"(Changeling,)" provided Twilight again. "(I found the word in another book.)"

Gallus leaned towards Smolder. "Any clue what they're saying?" he whispered.

"Not a clue." She shrugged softly. "(Hi.)" She knew that word thanks to a certain Yak.

Crane had expected a simple photo op and good-will event, but... "(If it wouldn't inconvenience you, go ahead.)"

Suddenly there were two Cranes, one appearing in a rush of green flames. The second Crane adjusted his tie lightly. "I can speak Ponish. (And also English,)" they spoke, trying a bit hard to sound officious as they did so. "(Nice to meet you.)" The not-Crane offered a hand towards the original.

The original looked uncertain as any human might when faced with their copy. "(That is... uncanny. You should stop that though, thank you.)" He could see his agents were becoming nervous, at best.

Ocellus was back, returned to her four-legged stance as if nothing had happened. "(What's it like, being in charge of everything? There are a lot of humans to be in charge of; it must be very hard.)"

With that, it slid back towards questions and answers that more fit a meeting between the president and random students.

After about five minutes of pleasant chat, one of his agents leaned in, whispering something to Crane. He nodded in reply and looked to Twilight. "(The rude person that assaulted you has been taken into custody. My apologies for the trouble.)"

Twilight blinked softly. "(I had... I mean...)" She was not used to local law enforcement being so effective. "(Thank you, but what are you going to do with him? Time for a lesson?)"

Crane glanced at the children, raising a hand. "I'm going to talk with your teacher a moment. Feel free to explore the museum, but don't leave." He led her away from their curious ears, going right back into the small office he had been waiting in when she had arrived.

"When he touched you, it escalated from a misdemeanor for intimidating you to a felony. He's looking at years of jail time," he explained to Twilight even as he closed the door behind her. "Attacking foreign dignitaries is a serious crime."

"(To make it worse, it was captured, live, and streamed.)" He didn't even try to translate that bit. "People across the country are watching the scene."

Twilight's dazzled look did not diminish. "How? It only just happened... maybe half an hour ago?"

Crane dug out his phone and with a brief but intense moment of tapping at it, he pulled up a slightly shaky camera feed of someone who had been in that crowd, watching what was going on. He turned the phone so Twilight could see herself defending her students and the angry person shouting at her.

The shove happened, right there on the camera, her parting words, and a bright flash. She heard gasps of amazement and shock from the crowd. Some people, apparently, thought she had perhaps exploded from the situation. Others had skipped the 'why' and gotten right to yelling at the pusher.

Officers arrived basically instantly after that, grabbing the man that had pushed her. Shouting, a lot of it. Some people in support of the arrested man. The man himself was not going quietly. Others were booing and jeering the man as he was carted off.

The president dismissed the video and stuffed his phone away. "(News travels fast in the states. That was a public and crowded sidewalk. It was basically impossible for it to not be recorded. Now, you don't need to do anything. We will punish him.)"

"I.... appreciate that, I do, but... I can't imagine throwing him in jail will address the problem." She sank to her haunches. "He looked so... scared."

"Scared?" Crane crouched a bit to be level with Twilight. "What makes you use that word? He seemed angry, belligerent, and violent."

"Because he was scared," reasoned Twilight. "However different we are, here--" She pointed at her eyes, then Crane's. "--we are the same. I scared him. Why?"

Twilight Sparkle, Equestria's diplomat. Crane had to remind himself of that. "There has been a lot of change for America... Almost nothing but change, even now, almost a year after the fact. Many people are still scrambling to find their footing, and even if that wasn't an issue, some people get... protective. He might have gone off on you without any other reason, feeling English is the only language worth speaking in America."

"Well... He should be educated." She nodded softly. "That's all he needs, a friend and some good advice."

She fixed Crane with an even look. "Besides, the pony that not only touched you but foalnapped you wasn't put in jail forever. We just told him that was a bad thing to do and got you home as quickly as possible. I would rather he not... That. No matter how angry and scared he was, I wasn't hurt."

"So... it's already over?" Gilda put a taloned hand over her face. "This was a huge waste of time?"

"Not entirely," gently assured the human behind the desk. "You've given us valuable information, and you'll carry back the good news. I would also like to give you a little reward, for going so far out of your way for this." He reached into a drawer in his desk, pulling something out. "It will also give you a chance to meet us, as a people."

A reward? Gilda was not immune to a little greed. "Yeah?" She leaned forward, all four paws and talons on the cushion of her seat. Her tail was wagging like a curious cat, a fact the human noted without comment.

He set down a few crisp bills. "I presume you have arrangements for getting home?"

"Huh? Yeah. There's a pony ship that goes back and forth. They said I could come back with them."

"Fantastic. While you wait for them--" He nudged the bills forward. "--use those. Enjoy yourself."

"Huh..." Gilda snatched them off the desk. Whatever they were, they were her's. That much at least was clear. "What are they?"

"Money. Enough, I hope, to enjoy your time while you wait for the boat."

"Now you're... Wait, you're not buying me, are you? I mean..." She looked uncertain. Was she beyond a price? Well, not really... "How much is this again?"

"About five hundred bits worth."

Gilda sat up straight. "Thank you for your kind assistance." She hopped to the floor, stuffing the money away. "Nice country you have here. Keep up the good work."

With a satisfied look, the griffon departed to find things to go home with.

"It's not right," argued a man in a suit, gesturing at his host. "They just wander the streets with all their various... everything... hanging out in view. They should wear some damn pants!"

The crowd cheered and applauded the idea.

The host nodded softly, looking to his other side. "And your opinion?"

"They come from a radically different culture."

"A culture that should wear pants," interrupted the first guest to the wild cheering of the crowd.

"They have no nudity taboo, nor do they suffer from the extreme sexualization of everything," continued the second. "In addition, they display less than your average domesticated animal."

The host turned to a display that showed a hippogriff walking down a sidewalk. "He has a point there. They don't have breasts. You can't even see anything between their legs, no matter their gender."

The first thrust up a finger at the display. "Except their ass any time their tail's not in the way. Is a pair of pants just that much to ask?"

It had happened almost without noticing. People woke up and started their day. For the average person, there wasn't even a clue of what had happened.

They were all speaking Ponish. Only those who had already learned Ponish ahead of time remained bilingual (or more in some cases). And even they defaulted to Ponish as if English had been the new language.

Untranslated words just had translations, as if they had been speaking Ponish the entire time. Their keyboards had Ponish characters on it. Road signs were written in Ponish. Nothing escaped this wave of translation that had arrived in their sleep. The pervasive magic of the world had taken time to build up for the effect, then washed over them with such completeness that it would have been difficult to prove that they had ever spoken another language.

This made a traveling group's job easier. Crystal ponies and yaks traveled across the snow expanses of Alaska with respectful little suits on. They visited each town that the 'grand' pony army had marched into. They carried no weapons but their smiles and contritions.

They approached each community in turn, heads bowed, expressing their apologies on behalf of their people.

They weren't shot.

They weren't especially welcome in many places.

The Native American town that they had once marched through without violence had welcomed them warmly. "We knew the spirits were troubled that day, and we waited, and it blew past, as storms do," explained one of them. "We are glad this is past us. Come and join us."

Would that all communities were as willing to forget the troubled past.

"That doesn't bring back the dead," spat out a person from another small town. "He was just trying to do his job keeping the rest of us safe! He was a good man... and he isn't coming back no matter how many sorries you say."

They bowed their heads far enough to bury their faces in the snow, but forgiveness was scant in coming. Still, they were determined to complete their trip, and they did, visiting each site of previous clashes to say their part and leave, accepting the anger that was to be given to them without complaint.

They expected little more.

They were surprised.

A group of human vehicles trundled up to the Crystal Empire, disgorging about forty of them. They did as the ponies and yaks had done, expressing apologies for the many that were lost.

"What you did was wrong," noted one of them. "But you already paid that price. Neither of us asked to be neighbors, but here we are. Let's be good ones?"

"That was a mess," summed up a large man, shaking his head. "Glad it's over and done with." He took a soft breath before he spoke melodically, "when the drums of war bang, it causes heads to hang."

A pony jumped in to the cue without hesitation, "When your princess asks you to fight--"

Another human joined, "When you try to put things to right."

A musical number thus began, words passing back and forth between ponies and humans without either having practiced the lines ahead of time. The most confusing part, according to the humans afterwards, was the physical stunts they managed while under the sway of the magic of music.

Flips and swirls that they would never again reproduce outside of its effects.

In the end they understood. Everyone there agreed that the past was horrible, but the future was bright, and they met as friends.

The humans were unsure how they felt about the entire process. At least the party afterwards was nice.

Author's Notes:

I notice no one commented on the revisionist history already being spun a chapter back.

This feels like a good break point, so breaking it there. Everyone speaks Ponish!

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