Tempest Shadow restlessly trots from one end of the small enclosure she has staked for herself to the other. Her cutie mark of a twisting explosion shines as it shifts, stark against her orchid coat. Her bright eyes, full of passion and righteous ardor yet notably lacking in anger, slide from one pony to the next. Twilight has the eerie impression she is taking in the entirety of their character in a mere glance. The alicorn steadily meets her gaze until the unicorn moves on to Rarity, then Shining Armor, and then Cadance, sparing each no more time than any other.

Her rant never ceases, even when other ponies interject their two bits.

“-of Harmony! To live a life of Order! To live a life of unity! There is no higher calling, there is nothing greater! Dedicate yourself to this, with every fiber of your being! In doing so, will you not fulfill your mark, fulfill the precious tenets that Harmony has graciously bestowed upon you? There is joy to be found living in accordance with Honesty, with Generosity, with Loyalty, with Kindness, with Laughter, and with Magic, which is Friendship!”

Twilight finds herself wanting to stamp along, except she would be the only pony doing so. The surrounding ponies groan, roll their eyes, and mutter vague obscenities about Tempest’s parentage. She finds herself baffled as to why.

“This is not new,” Tempest Shadow continues with a shake of her bright rose mane. “This is not a message you have not heard before. Yet it is that very repetition that has quenched any fire you have had, that has blunted any keenness you have had, that has stilled any energy you have had! Harmony has blessed you with a cutie mark which gives you joy! Why bother with anything else? Strive to be perfect in Friendship and in Love! Or do you believe Harmony will accept you the way you are?”

Ah. That would be why.

Those in line are hesitant to push past the Princesses until it becomes obvious the four are only there to listen, then stream past with muttered apologies. Twilight doesn’t want to stay in their way; she spots a few others who seem similarly situated, pressing against the far wall to avoid the crush of the crowd. Those ponies watch Tempest Shadow with a quiet intensity, the scowls on their muzzles drawing deeper and tighter with every word. Twilight wants to join them, if just in solidarity. But their animosity is by far the minority, the ambivalent or disregarding others steadily heading to the pony at the end of the line.

Radiant Hope. The healer Celestia had praised as being one of, if not the, most talented she has ever seen. The pale purple unicorn idly brushes her flowing ice-blue mane out of sparkling blue eyes and pleasantly greets the next pony in line with a fond smile. The golden caduceus on her flanks shines, a muted pulsing, with every pony that walks past.

“All that Harmony gives is good,” Tempest Shadow expounds. “Why look for joy elsewhere? She has given you the means of finding that joy, has stamped it upon your flank as surely as she has stamped it upon your heart! It is better to live in truth than in falsehood. It is better to be generous than to be greedy. It is better to live loyally than to betray. It is better to be kind than to be malevolent. It is better to have laughter than despair. It is better to have magic, which is friendship, than to have apathy. And if it is better to have these things, why give them up? Why trade lasting joy for fleeting misery?”

The other pony, a middle-aged mare with thick bandages wrapped around her barrel and down one foreleg, stumbles forward. She struggles to avoid using her injured foreleg, stumbling forward as she explains the trauma she endured while cooking. She gingerly pulls off the bandage around her chest, exposing an ugly burn wound.

Radiant Hope nods along. Her horn glows as it bobs, then shuts off a mere moment later. She mouths a few words before her attention turns to the pegasus hovering, both his back legs in a cast.

The mare looks incredulous at first, and more than a little perturbed. She goes to shake her leg at Radiant Hope, and indeed succeeds - only this was the leg she had been avoiding. She stares at it, dumbfounded, and at her fully healed coat, before laughing aloud and giddily galloping to the sign, adding ‘burns’ to the bottom of the growing list.

At first, Twilight cannot believe it. Radiant Hope so, so, so casually healed an extensive burn wound! And then two broken legs! And now a hacking cough alongside an early case of mare-pattern baldness! She shouldn’t be here, she should be stationed at a hospital!

“What sort of pony do you wish to be?” Tempest Shadow demands, not of Twilight or Cadance but of everypony. “Do you wish to pursue disharmony and chaos? To live your life hedonistically, thinking only of yourself and of the moment? Or do you wish to be consumed by your calling, sacrificing all other opportunities for your adventure of a lifetime? So orient yourself toward that adventure, toward your calling, toward Harmony!”

It takes Twilight a moment to realize that bringing Radiant Hope to the hospital may not be necessary, as there are a number of ponies in line wearing hospital gowns, mostly further back in line. Still, spreading by word of mouth, that’s wasting valuable time!

Unless she is here to serve as a draw for Tempest Shadow, a ‘loss leader’ of sorts that gets ponies to step their hoof through the door. But there aren’t any ponies charging admission or assessing after the fact. There isn’t even a donation box! If the price is merely listening to Tempest Shadow rant about how ponies aren’t living up to their potential then it’s no wonder they have a line that would curve throughout the entire stadium if they set up there. Actually, she should go and inquire about reserving the Princess Box, but their group seems to have lost any desire to do so.

Cadance eyes Radiant Hope with a sense of longing, glancing between the unicorn and her belly and their spot far back in line should they have claimed a place when they got there. She takes an unconscious step toward the healer; Shining Armor follows, sticking by her side, and the ponies in line automatically defer to them, though not without grumbles sprouting up about Princesses getting priority. Twilight can hardly believe it, that they would be so ungrateful as to complain about getting a free complete heal fifteen seconds later.

A pony shouts at Tempest Shadow, difficult to tell if she’s heckling or not, “How can I have this joy in my life? How should I be, say, generous?”

Tempest Shadow stops, the first time Twilight has seen her respond to a comment, constructive or otherwise. “There was a certain cave,” she says, Rarity’s ears pricking, “and outside that cave was a pony, stuck in the rain. So the cave called to the pony, ‘Take shelter in my mouth’, and she did, and both were grateful. On a later day, when the pony was sheltering in the cave, she saw the glint of gems and precious metals inside. So she asked the cave if she could mine the gems and the precious metals, and the cave gave up its nodes and veins, and both were grateful. Some time later, when the pony had exhausted the cave, she looked at the tunnels she had widened and carved and said, ‘This would be a good place to live, and to work, and to bear my young. The cave agreed, and soon the sound of foals scampering and playing could be heard throughout the tunnels, and both were grateful. As time went on the tunnels grew and grew, until one day the mouth of the cave had grown so large that it was on the verge of collapse. So the mare, having gathered her family, went to the top of the cave and struck until it collapsed, and the cave was no more. And both were grateful.”

Twilight stares in naked disbelief. No wonder the crowd has turned against Tempest! How could anypony set that as an example, to be so… naively taken advantage of! To be unable to stand up for yourself, for a small favor to expand and expand until it consumed the offeror!

With a shake of her head she turns to follow Cadance, listening with half an ear as hecklers taunt Tempest Shadow. The former commander ignores their jeers and goes back to imploring them to abandon their Discordant ways and return to Order, the words clearly capitalized by her enunciation.

“Can you believe her?” Rarity scoffs with utter disdain. “What a preposterous concept. Is she always like this?”

“Apparently,” Shining Armor confirms as he and Cadance draw close to the front of the line. It moves quickly, one pony after another seen by Radiant Hope and sent away with a quiet word of encouragement. “Why do you think there have been near riots every time they show up?”

“And Friendship?” another pony demands of Tempest Shadow. Or possibly the same one from before. “Who should I show this ‘generosity?’” Twilight can’t help but feel targeted, and wonders if they will ask about Love next.

Tempest Shadow pauses again before saying, “A pony was traveling from Ponyville to Saddle Arabia when her caravan slipped, plummeting into the Ghastly Gorge and dragging her along with it. Stuck clinging to the rocky cliffs with little hope of rescue the pony called to a passing earth pony and pegasus, but they ignored her. Later, a traveling unicorn with her own cart likewise passed by, but she turned a deaf ear to the pony’s cries. Finally, a griffon was flying by. He spotted the isolated, defenseless pony and swooped down, grasping her with his talons.”

Twilight Sparkle gulps, along with much of the audience, a single foal letting loose a high-pitched cry that is quickly shushed. She knows where stories with griffons have gone, at least historically; the predators are kept at a distance for good reason. Only the most intrepid (and able to defend themselves) travel to the Griffon Empire, and even then will make every excuse not to.

“With beats of his powerful wings the griffon lifted the pony, then set her down on the cliffside road where he tended to her wounds. Likewise he flew to the bottom of the Gorge and, piece by piece, retrieved the remains of her supplies and caravan, which he repaired as best he could. Seeing the state of the pony he bade her to lie down inside while he hauled the caravan to the next town, where he refused any payment, and even provided his own bits toward her recovery. Now, which of these three showed the pony Friendship?”

“The one who helped,” the pony says, reluctant to even say that much.

Twilight agrees with the reluctance of the pony with every fiber of her being. Tempest Shadow has completely mischaracterized griffons. Granted, the number of griffons she has personally met isn’t the largest, but the ones she knows are to a feather greedy, grasping, and as prone to help without recompense as she is to set a book on fire. And her idea that Equestrians would just ignore the plight of their fellow pony? Preposterous! Utterly absurd!

More and more of the crowd agrees with her assessment, their grumbles and complaints growing louder and louder, hooves shaking at the unicorn who dared to insult her fellow ponies. It might be Twilight’s imagination, but several of the ponies are shaking their I. V. stands like they are pitchforks, the beginnings of an unruly mob forming.

She might have done something to stop this except, as Cadance comes to the front of the line, Radiant Hope gasps, scurrying back a step.

“Abomination,” the healer spits out, locking eyes with Cadance. “What have you done?!”

Next Chapter: Ch. 174 - Spirit Guards, Part Four Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 40 Minutes