The conference was called “The Great Succession and Its Aftermath.” The current panel was called “Alternatives to Our Monetary and Political Order” and featured a debate between Professor Arpeggio of Canterlot University and Soarin, a member of the elite investment management group known as the Wonderbolts, one of the few financial institutions in Equestria that actually made money in the recent economic turmoil caused by Nightmare Moon’s transient accession to the One Bank.

The auditorium, on the second floor of the biggest hotel in Canterlot, was stuffed with many of Equestria’s elites and representatives of organized interests, here to form their thoughts and determine Equestria’s future three weeks after the Great Succession left Princess Celestia temporarily deposed and the economy briefly depressed. They were listening to Professor Arpeggio set out his radical new theory of government.

“I call it democracy,” he said. “From ‘demo’ as in, a test or trial, and ‘cracy,’ government. A temporary government that can be voted out if ponies don’t like the results.”

“We all agree that Princess Celestia has screwed up for the last time and has got to go,” said Soarin. “But this democracy thing just won’t work. Everypony will vote for themselves.”

“Not so,” said Professor Arpeggio shrewdly. “Since there are many ponies, the odds of anypony winning the election is low, thus the expected value of a vote is low. So it should be cheap for particularly motivated parties to buy lots of votes.”

Soarin quirked one exquisitely plucked eyebrow. “Government by bribery?”

“Yes, so that the primary candidates will be those who expect to get the most return on their money, that is to say, those who expect to maximize the economic output of our nation. After all,” he continued, “they would become the manager and Prime Investor of the One Bank.” He nodded at his fellow panelist. “As an investor yourself, Soarin, I’d expect you to be a pony others look to for deciding whose payment to accept come voting day.”

“Personally, I don’t care who’s running Equestria so long as they aren’t a proven failure,” Soarin said. “I’m concerned about the current status of the One Bank. I think we have to consider the possibility that the entire Nightmare Moon event was a false flag.”

He leaned forward like he was sharing a secret with the audience. “The Bank was unable to anticipate the return of Nightmare Moon, did not respond in a timely or adequate fashion, and proved susceptible to her manipulation. You’d expect the logical response to be a sharp curtailing of the Bank’s powers and responsibilities at the very least. But what do we see? Nine new ‘Daughter’ banks! Moreover, Celestia’s staffed them with her own students. Blatant nepotism aside, some of the locations don’t even make sense. Why is there a Daughter bank in Ponyville? And I don’t feel any better about Princess Cadance in the Crystal Empire having one. Princess Celestia’s talk of international monetary coordination is pure hogwash: I don’t believe it, and neither does she. This is about Alicorn dominance over the rest of us, that’s what this is. Princess Celestia is saying to the rest of us, ‘learn my propaganda at my school, or be consigned to the periphery of finance.’ Princess Celestia wants to keep ponies scared so that she can control them and expand her power. But I’m not scared. It’s time we did away with the Bank.”

“That’s a very radical proposal,” said the moderator, as if it wasn’t the same proposal that the Flim Flam brothers, who were sponsoring the conference, had been making for years. “How do you suggest we do that?”

“Equestria shouldn’t be hiding its gold and silver away behind locked doors,” Soarin said. His light blue coat was the color of the open sky, and his sunglasses, resting on his forehead, were shaped to resemble goggles, a Wonderbolts symbol. “Monetary policy should be actively anticipating economic trends and profiting from them. Instead of a One Bank, imagine a One Hedge Fund—”

“Pfah!” interrupted Professor Arpeggio. “The monetary system is the whole reason our economy was subject to a Nightmare Moon event in the first place. We should take the gold and silver and divide it evenly among working mares—”

“Stallions do work too!” an angry stallion shouted from the crowd. “Just because labor and office jobs aren’t valued as highly as household management—”

“Hold questions to the end,” scolded the moderator.

“—and working stallions,” said Professor Arpeggio, unruffled. “Share the wealth, I say.”

Questions were opened up. The angry stallion got straight to the front of the line. “I just want to say, in response to Professor Arpeggio’s comment, that stallions work just as hard as mares do. We’re still judging ponies by an outdated set of values based on the winter years—”

“Ha! The windigos-and-winter myth,” said a burly pony in the audience, the wealthy, athletic Tom Bucking. “Get a load of this guy, he believes in global warming.”

“I’m talking!” the first stallion said. “Anyway, we’re still judging ponies by an outdated set of values based on a time when mothers who could bear and raise healthy foals were the most valuable economic asset. Stallions are still being treated like we’re less important fifteen hundred years later!”

“Do you have a question?” the moderator asked.

“I was just getting to that. I feel that the real source of Equestria’s economic problems is the gender imbalance. Half the population is male, but no pony expects a stallion to be a great economist or CEO, even though the greatest economist ever, Walras the Bearded, was a stallion. And in the newspapers they talk about how the Bank’s all to do with expectations, well, it seems we could be expecting a lot more of stallions instead of just telling them to get a job and provide for their families. We could be doing a whole lot more. And it just stings when other stallions perpetuate the stereotypes and prejudices that keep our gender down.”

He waited, as if expecting applause, then found his seat and sat down, quivering with self-righteousness and nerves.

“That was really inspiring,” said Fluttershy next to him. “I feel so honored that you shared your feelings with us. Would you like some more juice? A cookie?”

The stallion, whose name was Dry Mouth, grudgingly accepted a refill of apple juice and a macadamia nut cookie. He didn’t know why Fluttershy was a member of the Voices of Angry Gentlestallions or how she had become the head of their local group. She organized all of the meetups, collected money for activities like the trip to this conference, and brought the snacks. She always had the freshest apple juice and most delicious baked goods.

It didn’t prove anything, Dry Mouth thought. A stallion could have done just as good a job.

Fluttershy dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “I’m glad you like the cookie. My friend Pinkie Pie worked hard to bake them.” She smiled kindly at him.

Dry Mouth decided to be the bigger stallion and let it slide. “I guess it was tough for you to listen to them say your fight with Nightmare Moon was faked.”

“Oh, I don’t really mind, they have a right to their opinion,” Fluttershy said. “I was happy to organize the trip to come here because I wanted to find out what different ponies think about the Great Succession.”

“Even when the ponies on the previous panel said all those things about Twilight Sparkle? How she’s a power-mad conspirator in a national act of financial fraud?”

“Oh, yes. But I listened very skeptically to that one,” added Fluttershy loyally.

A pony leaned over them. “Fluttershy!” Rarity squealed quietly. “Look at this dress!” She dumped it on Dry Mouth’s lap. “I’m going back to this boutique I saw, there was this bag in the window that I simply must have. I’m so glad you invited me on this trip!”

She vanished. Dry Mouth considered the dress, then looked down the row of his fellows. Most of them were watching the conference under piles of Rarity’s recent purchases. He felt he ought to do something about it, and experienced a moment of disquiet when he noticed that what he felt he ought to do was ask Fluttershy for help.

A year ago, he had read an editorial in a newspaper about growing discontent among stallions who felt they were being discriminated against when being considered for management jobs. The writer had said that, due to the natural division of labor, it stood to reason that mares were inherently better at organization and leadership than stallions. Mares stayed indoors while they were pregnant and nursing foals, and so it made sense for them to raise the colts and fillies and to oversee the household, whereas stallions had nothing better to do than menial labor like gathering firewood and kicking fruit down from trees. As a result, mares had evolved to be socially more adept and more conscientious than stallions. Mares had to manage a household, anticipate the diverse needs of her family. and provide for them in an efficient way, and raise fillies and colts, which required the ability to outmaneuver greedy mini-ponies playing a Machiavellian game, albeit over the jar of cookies instead of the throne. Moreover, being in charge of the household made them natural leaders and the focal point of organization in the family unit. Compare that to stallions, who just had to evolve to be strong. It was no wonder that while stallions were suited to lower-paying jobs at the bottom of the corporate ladder, all the executive positions were taken up by mares. Trying to discriminate against the most meritorious ponies for the sake of gender equality, the writer had argued, would just harm the economy and only increase discrimination against stallions when everypony saw how bad a job they did.

The name signed to that editorial was Twilight Sparkle. He had never forgotten it, in case he ever got the chance to meet her and tell her what he thought of it.

He thought that maybe she was right.

He didn’t believe it. But it niggled at him. Made him hesitant, made him slow. Made him afraid to take risks. And when things didn’t go his way, or he suspected somepony had slighted him, part of him wondered if it wasn’t nature taking its course.

Fluttershy noticed him looking at her and patted his leg. He turned his attention back to the conference. Tom Bucking, from a family that could trace its roots and its wealth all the way back to Princess Platinum, had just finished delivering an elaborate put-down to Soarin. The moderator asked members of the audience to please actually ask a question, your voice should go up? at the end.

Rarity hadn’t come back by the time the conference ended. Fluttershy herded the members of the Voices of Angry Gentlestallions onto the bus for the trip home and went back inside to get a signed copy of Soarin’s book, The Philosophy of a Wonderbolt: One Trader’s Journey Toward Personal and Financial Freedom, to bring to her friend, Rainbow Dash.

After they had been waiting for fifteen minutes, Dry Mouth was fed up. He set Rarity’s dress aside and got off the bus. He found Rarity and Fluttershy outside the building where the conference had been hosted, talking to Soarin and a mare he didn’t recognize. That mare glanced at him, then moved away, turning the corner and disappearing.

Soarin gave a book with his smiling face on the hard cover to Fluttershy. “Tell your friend Reindeer Dash I said hi.”

“Rainbow Dash—”

“And Rarity, if you’re free this evening—”

“She’s not,” said Fluttershy firmly, putting a hoof on Rarity and beginning to push her in the direction of the bus.

“I’m not?” said Rarity, sounding a little starstruck. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Oh, hello, Dry Mouth. Can you hold Rarity’s bag for me? It’s heavy.”

Dry Mouth slung it over his shoulder. It was studded with gems and weighed like it would make a good blunt weapon in a pinch.

“Hold on,” said Soarin as they began to walk away. “Not you,” he said to Rarity and Fluttershy. “What’s your name?”

“Dry Mouth.” At Soarin’s motion, he stepped toward him.

“Listen,” said Soarin, closing the rest of the gap. “That group of ponies you were with, what were they called?”

“Voices of Angry Gentlestallions,” Dry Mouth answered.

“I read something about them in the newspaper just the other day. Your message is really spreading, huh?”

“It got easier after Nightmare Moon,” Dry Mouth recalled.

Soarin made a sarcastic gesture. “Right, but what’s next? What’s the strategy?”

Dry Mouth didn’t understand. “For what?”

“Political representation. You know Celestia is never going to take your concerns seriously.”

“We’re trying to educate ponies.”

Soarin shook his head. “They’re plenty educated. You’ve got to persuade them. It’s like when I was trying to get an investment before I was a Wonderbolt. I thought I’d just go in and lay out the facts, right?”

Dry Mouth didn’t understand.

“For a presentation. I was trying to convince them to give me their money. Didn’t work. You know what worked? Talking to them. What mattered less than any facts or numbers was how much they felt I understood them. How much they felt they understood me understanding them. I guess you could say, how clearly they could hear my voice in their head, and what it was saying about their voice in my head.”

He clapped Dry Mouth on the leg. “I’ll be in touch,” he said as he began to walk away. “One word of advice,” he added, turning back around.

“Yeah?”

“Lose the bag. It’s not your style.”

When Dry Mouth got back to the bus, there was an empty seat next to Fluttershy. (Rarity was sitting depressed in the back, staring forlornly at Canterlot out the window as the bus began to roll away, whimpering like a puppy watching the park shrink in the distance.) “Hold this,” he said, depositing the bag on her lap.

She took it. “Is everything all right?”

He didn’t answer, just stared out the window, head resting on his hoof.

“I thought this trip was a lot of fun,” said Fluttershy. “And very educational. I know Rainbow Dash will love this book.”

“You can’t be in charge of our group anymore,” he said.

“Oh, I’m not in charge,” Fluttershy said.

“Everypony does what you tell them.”

“So do my NMEOLEs^*.” She took out some yarn and busied herself with knitting. “But I’m not in charge of them.”

^* Animals. Recently they had decided “naturally evolved organisms” was a speciesist term, since it excluded unnaturally evolved organisms, as well as non-organic life-forms and sentient entities that couldn’t be called alive at all. Hence “NMEOLE,” or naturally or magically existent organisms, life-forms, and entities. But it wasn’t likely to last—most of them felt it was terribly existentist.

“We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“You can talk to me about it whenever you feel ready.” She said it with such sincerity that he felt oddly grateful.

The bus lumbered on. Canterlot slowly faded, and the whistle of a distant train could be heard coming from the mountains.

A change was happening in Canterlot, one that was touching the untouchable Bank itself. It was, apparently, considering touching him as well. He wondered how far it reached, and whose hoof it was that was reaching.

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