Congress argued about the potential treaty quite viciously, tossing around the positives and negatives.

"The way I see it," spoke one congressman. "We're already in it. We are trading with them. We have had criminals show up on foreign soil. This treaty largely formalizes what is already happening and gives all sides direly needed protections."

A congresswoman was on her feet a moment later. "That's all well and good, but the economic previsions are hardly the only thing listed in this treaty." She thrust a finger down at the collection of papers in front of her. "As we are all aware, if an armed conflict were to arise, it would be American soldiers that would face the heat."

"Peaceful and cooperative nations are looking to America for protection," argued another. "Isn't it our job? The America I was raised to love wouldn't turn away a polite neighbor. Besides, they're admitting they know we're stronger."

"This isn't a contest of strength," argued another. "It's a matter of cost and benefit. We've only recently shed the mantle of the world's police. Are we that eager to take up the role again?"

News of the treaty's proposal spread rapidly through America, causing opinions to surface whether asked for or not. The path seemed clear, for some. "Make sure this passes," spoke an executive to a lobbyist on the hill. "We need the locals to respect our copyrights."

Twilight's ploy to bury the defense agreement in among so many other obviously beneficial things was working to her benefit. Even those against the idea of the defense pact had to admit that, by all measures, most of the countries involved simply didn't have violent conflicts all that often; certainly few that would require American intercession. Even the dragons were unlikely to call on it, being too proud to not handle their own business if at all possible.

"Rason," greeted Novo through the phone that floated in the water. "I trust you've received Twilight's little Friendship Treaty, hmm?"

"It's sitting in front of me." There it was, demanding an answer from him and the American people. "I gather you approve of it?"

"My signature wouldn't be on it if I didn't." She swirled in the water, the phone pushed to the left with the motion of the fluid. "The way I see it, America and Seaquestria are already in this relationship. You've helped rescue my people, and trade is booming. I don't see any downsides to formalizing it."

"Correct me if I'm wrong."

"I will." Novo smiled at the phone and the human she imagined on the other end of it.

"Right, but you have no real relations with Yakyakistan or the dragons." He tapped lightly at his desk. "So how did they get involved?"

"It isn't obvious?" She twisted about and threw herself down on a couch, the phone floating down onto her chest. "This was put forward by the Equestrians. They love friendship. I'm honestly a little surprised it doesn't include the griffons, but good luck finding one griffon that could sign it on behalf of the rest."

"There is one thing that sticks in a few craws."

"Mm?" She raised a brow curiously. "What is that?"

"All the nations involved in this are monarchies."

"... And?" Novo rolled a hoof through the water in soft swishing sounds. "What does that matter?"

"It doesn't, on some levels, but on others... democracy and democratic values are a classically American value--"

"--I'm cutting you off there. What works for your people is fantastic, don't get me wrong dear, but our system works for us. The average Seaquestrian... The average pony? They have no interest in what us queens and princes and princesses worry about. They may dream about the power, but the responsibility? No thanks." She huffed a puff of air into the water. "Besides, maybe your way is the only way to do it with literal millions of subjects, but we're not there."

"I'm just saying it does turn away a few people that would otherwise be supporters. We have a history. You can't ignore it, much as you may want to." He put a hand over his brow, rubbing lightly. "I'm not suggesting you suddenly have a revolution."

"I would certainly hope not!" The term revolution had a very specific meaning to a queen. "You know my people are happy, and I am not some petty tyrant. Even some of your people have come to live here, and I feel certain they'd have complained back to home if I was treating them poorly, or anyone else they could see me misbehaving around."

"I've taken a misstep. Can we forget I brought that up?"

"Gladly." She smiled gently. "So, how is being king of America treating you, dear? Is it working out?"

"I'm not king," he corrected with a smirk. "But so far so good. Things are going well, very well. I want to keep that going." The love he could feel being a boom-time president was certainly a heady thing. He just had to keep that going... "Did you call just about the treaty?"

"I understand your people love to argue and debate. Are they still squabbling about it?"

"Called it in one." He stood up and began to circle the room slowly. "Not much I can do about that until they vote on it, then I can act on that."

"You really aren't the king," agreed Novo with a little shrug. "What is Crane up to?"

Crane sighed dejectedly. There was his classroom. There he was. He had a lesson plan all ready to go! Pity there wasn't a single student.

When he had announced he was going to do it, it was met with confusion by some, and outright hostility by others. Even some of his old contacts with frighteningly high clearances had reached out to him to discourage what he was doing. "Crane," had spoken a severely dressed man. "Most of America is quite happily living with its new language. We are taking steps, you know that, to keep this from happening again, but you're just causing trouble. We don't need a riot."

The entire English language was being suppressed out of political expedience. It was a literal conspiracy playing out in front of him, but there was no grand high society casting judgments behind ornamental masks. There were no secret handshakes and strange magic nor obscene amounts of money.

It was so banally simpler and smaller than that. It was just easier to move on past a little thing like a language, when everyone was, from their own point of view, communicating just fine. Nobody had to do anything extreme to fail his mission. It was more what they didn't do. What a president did with their life was normally a news item, but nobody seemed to care about his feeble attempt to teach a language few people remembered.

His phone began to play a jingle and he dug it out quickly. "Roland speaking."

"(Hello.)"

Crane tensed, moving quickly to a window to peek out through the slits of the blinds. "(Who is this?)"

"(I remember. I know.) Sir... I'm a concerned citizen." It sounded male, perhaps a little heavyset?

"(You know English?)"

"(English) Yeah. Look... wow... you really do know it. Do you know all of it?"

"Who's asking?"

"Before this, you could have called me a conspiracy theorist, but I (know) this one. There's no doubt. It happened... Sir, do you know all of it?"

Did he want to talk to a conspiracy nut? Part of him wanted to hang up.

The other part looked across his empty classroom. This was the first person in a while to show even some interest that wasn't his own wife... "I know a lot of it. English. I wanted to share it with the world, but the world isn't very interested."

"Sir, Roland? Can I call you Roland? I'm Jake, nice to meet you. Look, uh... I have an online community that's been chatting about this... we'd really love to have you there..."

And his life took a new direction.

Twilight appeared with a shower of sparkles in front of the castle. "Is Princess Celestia available?" she asked one of the two guards standing there.

"She's in court." He pointed the way, but did not move.

Twilight knew the way, and he knew she knew. She nodded in thanks and trotted right on past into the castle proper. With a bright smile she wove through the castle, light on her hooves.

"Someone has good news," came a male voice. Blueblood strolled into view, eyes on her. "I can tell."

"Blueblood." She canted her head faintly. "I do have good news, for Princess Celestia."

"Then I'd like to come along." He fell in with her, trotting through the hallways. "Does it involve your little friendship school?"

"That is going quite well," agreed Twilight. "But no, nothing to do with that."

"Mmm, does it involve the humans then?"

She twitched an ear at him, which was answer enough. "I had a feeling. Do be careful with them, Sparkle. They're quite dangerous."

"They are our friends, officially now." A properly notarized treaty appeared with a puff of sparkles. "We have nothing to fear from them but a perhaps overabundant supply of consumer goods."

"Those are threats of a different sort," murmured Blueblood. "Don't be entirely blind to it." He diverged from her path and wandered off to whatever it was that Blueblood did outside of Twilight's sight.

She shook her head lightly, coming up on the court doors. With a mental nudge, she opened them easily and strode inside. Inside, Celestia appeared to be in animated conversation with a Saddle Arabian and the duke of Maretonia. How fortunate, she quietly decided to herself.

"You've both met Princess Twilight Sparkle," introduced Celestia on seeing her, gesturing to her. "She looks like she may have good news for us all."

"Good news? We can always use that," agreed the duke with a soft stroking of his stiff beard. "What news do you bring?"

Twilight made the treaty appear with a grand gesture towards it. "I present the finalized treaty of friendship! With this, Equestria, Seaquestria, Yakyakistan, the dragon lands, and America have formed the Equestrian Friendship Coalition, or EFC for short." She floated the papers towards Celestia. "Your signature is actually the last one needed."

Celestia's expression brightened. "What delightful news this is indeed." Her eyes began to sweep over the paper, reading it quickly. "Mmm. Hm. I see... You wrote up quite a great deal." She flipped on to the next page. "Fascinating... Oh?" She had skipped ahead and pointed at page 12. "We are to surrender prisoners if requested?"

"That is an extradition policy," explained Twilight with a smile. "If a criminal in America were to flee here to escape justice and we caught them, we would return them to America to face justice there, since that is where they broke the law and are wanted. As a friend, it's the least we can do. No criminal should look at Equestria as a safe place to hide from being a bad person."

The duchess of Maretonia leaned in just under Celestia to get a peek. "It works both ways, this is good. I was about to raise a serious concern."

Celestia nodded softly. "They have already shown they will oblige these requests. That is how we... retrieved the warlocks after they had assaulted their ruler." She flipped back through. "Copyrights? What are those?"

"Copyrights are the idea that if you invent something, be it a mechanical device or an artistic expression or something else, you should be protected from having it copied by somecreature else and sold as their own. This simply means that we all agree to honor one another's copyrights. If a pony makes something here in Equestria and registers it here, and someone in, say, Yakyakistan were to copy it, that would be against the law of both countries."

Celestia hiked a brow. "What if the person in Yakyakistan did not know of the original?"

Twilight lifted her shoulders. "Then they would find out and would have to stop, or deal with the original copyright owner. We can set the terms and specifics of Equestria's copyrights. This just means we'll honor the others' too, since if you can make a copy just by going to another country, then it isn't much of a protection."

"I see..." There was much for her to learn.

The Saddle Arabian representative raised a hoof. "I would like to see a copy of this."

"Us as well," chimed the duke of Maretonia.

The EFC might have two new members before it was even finished being signed.

Author's Notes:

Treaties! That means peace is ahead of us, right? Poor Crane, he's just trying to do what seems right.

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