Hippo

Applejack was distracted with the tight bands around her waist and thighs. On the best of circumstances, and even when she liked what she was wearing, she was generally not comfortable wearing clothes for reasons other than protection from being roughed up doing farm labor. But overall, her outfit fit nicely. Coloratura ran her through the drills of the stage rehearsals and started without much haste. Applejack stood their silent and awkward not sure what to do next, until a stagehand presented her with her guitar. She grabbed it and started strumming. Once the music flowed, she was much more in the element of performing music, and she exhaled a deep breath that came straight from her heart. "An orchard is a tree that blooms so tenderly It thrills the fairest filly of the land If placed beside a blushing rose, the rose could not compare But how was such as I, to understand..."

"Flight school!?" Zap assumed when his mother explained school would be the next stop. Her continued explanation deflated Zap's enthusiasm and folded his wings back his side. He trotted next to the cart with a inadvertent scuffing of a hoof onto the dusty trail. "Sure. Excitin'" Zap rolled his eyes at his little sister's ignorance. "No, Amby. No one wears dresses to school. Unless you're going to the Equestria Academy of Froo-froo." Zap's attitude may not have been welcome, but he thought he was hilarious.

Zap didn't have his sister's full approval. She always held back her distaste of his style, he always assumed. But the amount of suggestion she had was good enough for him. "Alright!" Zap took the badge out of the box and put it on the chest part of the pajamas he had been wearing this whole time. He carefully fastened it, trying to make sure it would look straight to those who would see him with it. Seeing what could be a scuff mark, he breathed on the badge and rubbed it a little with his elbow, attempting to assure it's luster. "See? A badge." Zap struck an aggressively sporty pose.

The champion pulled his helmet off. "Ha! Well, you're a good sport. And not so bad of a jouster," Sky Beak held up a claw, "considering your size." Silverstream's dad was very pleased to see his daughter again for the holiday, he wasn't sure when she would arrive. It was likely she spent most of yesterday in the water. "Silverstream! So, this is the Gallus I've heard so much about?" He held a talon out to help Gallus up from the ground. "My name is Sky Beak. Welcome to Hippogriffia!" Sky Beak raised his head and screeched a loud caw. "Everygriff, this is one of Silverstream's classmates." Several curious hippogriffs who previously were praising the violent collapse of the young griffin were now called to attention to be interested in the origin of the student. "Uh huh!" Silverstream proudly answered. "He didn't want to go Griffonstone for the break, so I invited him here to experience seapony and hippogriff traditions."

Izzy took another bite, this one cooler than the last, and it gave her more time in her mouth to enjoy the sweetness of the pineapple. "Ooo." She emoted. She listened to Sunny rant about her curiosities and when asked a question, Izzy responded the best she could. "Roam? Oh you mean like roaming around like in a herd? Yeah. I wish I could roam. We should go roaming some time." "Unicorns don't really teach history all that much or about the pony splits, just that unicorn magic went away and that it was the pegasi that either stole it or hexed unicorns to not have magic anymore. Unicorns were afraid to be around earth ponies, or anywhere besides where unicorns were, actually. I guess they must have been afraid that if they spent time with earth ponies or pegasus ponies, that they would lose their unicorn horns and have bad things happen to them." She smiled at Sunny and looked at her facial features, admiring everything that made Sunny special. "It's a good thing that's not true, huh! Rituals have always been a big deal in Bridlewood, and I guess as magic faded, they tried everything possible to keep it from leaving for good." Izzy shrugged. "And I guess the ritual leader way back then didn't like mayonnaise, either!"

"Yeah, she knows I like soda. She is pretty smart." Remington's expression changed a little when Moonlight expressed her dreams in fragments. He quickly gave her a notepad and pen. "Don't worry about the mess right now. Try to remember and write it down if it helps to remember." Remington owed her an explanation. He had never gone too deep with her about his talents, or how his cutie mark came to be, but now would be as good of a time as any. "See I think, well, I'm pretty sure, I have a knack for interpreting dreams." He breathed deep and calmly in order to help Moonlight meditate herself. "Try to remember your dream. And most importantly, try to remember strange things that appeared more often. The details of the dream aren't really all that important, but what is important is reoccurring themes, images that repeat, and the general mood you had during the whole dream cycle." Remington pulled out a pen and paper for himself as well.

Flick didn't agree with the Queen on her assessment of the way a society overcomes its own power struggle. He felt that she wasn't giving enough credit to ponies' desire for freedom and dignity. But maybe there was a part of what she was saying that had some truth to it, that pony nature always brings citizens back to their primal roots, and to do so is less effective and efficient than having a designated leader, like a monarch, rule over them so that those troublesome quarrels don't interrupt progress in society. At least, that's how he worded it in his head. He would be less successful to ever issue those thoughts as clearly and concise. When she called him a miniature monarch, it made Flick uncomfortable. He would agree with no doubt that he has influence over many ponies who listen to his show and commentary. But he always deflected the idea that he would be some kind of representation of an actual societal leader. But he would hide his displeasure of the label for the purpose of the Queen's analogy. "Of course not, go ahead." When the Queen addressed the complicated history of the pony tribes, Flick liked all that she was saying, but could only nod and agree without adding much more to it. He would, however, be reminded of something he had seen a few days ago, and hadn't even thought to bring it up in this conversation until now. "Oh yeah, so there's this meme going around, I don't know if you've seen it. Where there are ponies posting on KlipKlop," Flick looked at his producer, "or is it Trotter?" His producer nodded, "It's KlipKlop." "Oh, it is KlipKlop, okay. Go ahead and look that up, Rainy." Flick turned back to the Queen and put a smile on his face. "I want you to see this." He said with a chuckle, hoping that whatever sense of humor the Queen had been hiding all these years for the purpose of acting prestigious would show itself. The source they were trying to pull up would take a moment to find. "But anyway, there is this meme where some ponies think that the best way to get Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood to have a strong friendship and alliance is if you were to marry a unicorn." Flick chuckled, hoping to disarm any repulsiveness the Queen might have about this. "But because Bridlewood doesn't have a central leadership like Zephyr Heights does, many unicorns who have gotten a hold of the network devices we use in the city have been posting selfies and videos of themselves saying that they would make a good candidate for a diplomatic marriage with you," Flick paused. "And it's hilarious." The Queen had a significant moment to respond to Flick before whatever link the producer was able to procure was shown.

Granola embraced the hug Berry gave and smiled honestly. "You can come by anytime. Just don't get lost! Heh. The trail is marked with lilac all the way to my place." Granola walked backwards as she slowly removed her way from the conversation. She turned around and looked at the decorations of the party. It was nice, but Granola was ready to get back to her plants, and feed Precious. She trotted out the door but not before intentionally brushing her hooves on the leaves of a few poinsettias that were displayed in the front of the commons.

Izzy didn't know any of the bands that Sunny was mentioning. It was all too foreign for her. But she couldn't tell if it was just her fault. Even in Bridlewood, there are plenty of cultural icons that most unicorns know about, but Izzy does not, either because she never came across them, or because she was too invested in making her own artistic projects and venturing outside of the forest for exploring. There was one language Sunny spoke of that Izzy understood completely, and it was the whole reason they came here in the first place. In front of Izzy was a large plate with pizza slice on them. It looked like the one Sunny had, except Izzy's had extra pineapple and extra cheese on it. Seeing as how Sunny exclaim about how hot it was, she blew on it carefully to settle the steam coming from the slice. Then, when she felt it was cool enough to take a bite, she lifted a slice resting it on her hoof and dangled the stretchy cheese over her face. With her tongue, she carefully aimed the front of the slice into her mouth and took a bite. After a couple chews she opened her mouth. "Uh! Hot! Yo'r rie ich haut!" She set down her slice took a swig of her ice cold water bottle.

"Great!" Granola responded. The music in the background began to take control of the vibe and Granola was left standing there with not much else to say. She was awful in these moments. What should she do now? Does she wave goodbye? Does she leave? Does she want to leave? Does Berry have something else she wants to talk about? Granola was clueless. Granola sidestepped to the punch table and poured herself a cup, took a sip, and automatically yummed. "Oh, this is good. Did you make this?"

Zap was sure his little sister had lost it. Or maybe she just needed glasses in order to see that the jewelry she thought was a ring was actually a badge. And to be more precise, a feather-flippin' Wonderbolts badge! Zap didn't say much at first, just ogled at the shiny of the badge, carefully hovering over to it and grabbing it by the box it was resting in. His moment was cutoff by his little sister's voice. He looked back at her with reactionary antagonism. "This isn't a ring, Amby." He looked back at it, his eyes growing to the size of saucers. "It's a Wonderbolts flight badge."

Remington turn white. Eventually, he would see that Moonlight was exercising her sense of humor by antagonizing his motives in this situation, and even when he felt she was being hyperbolic, he continued to stress on what this would sound like to somepony else outside of this room. Or worse, what if one of the faculty members found out. His expression relaxed to a perplexed look as she advertised having to make up for it, including going on more dates. He raised his eyebrow until he felt like he had to defend himself from the trolling fillyfriend. "Oh no, I always knew that the soda had something in it that made me sleep. I guess my mom just got tired of giving it to me in a pill form, almost like she hated giving it to me more than I hated taking it. It's kind of like a soda with caffeine in it. You know, except opposite." Remington remembered a time when a friend accidentally drank a sleeping soda when he was a young colt during a sleepover. His friend woke up and explained the craziest dreams he had. It prompted Remington to point it out to Moonlight. "Did you have any dreams? Not for me, but I know that others who drank it said they had nutty dreams with vivid memories after drinking one."

"And I'll wear mine right now!" Zap said in contrast as he snuck his way through the top of the doorway as his mother walked out of the boutique. He waves a loving and thankful wave back at Rarity as they left, before resuming his excited flying patterns. He said out loud, "If Rarity was a mom too, she would be tied with two other ponies for best mom!" And yeah, why wasn't Rarity a mother to him or somepony else? He vaguely understood the situation when his mother's had told him. But the details of such a conversation have yet to reach his ears in a way that actually made sense. "Where to now? Or are we done? Can I go see the pegasus drills now!? I want to show them my badge so that I can join them."

The Queen made a good point, but Flick couldn't help but press a little further, not for the sanctity of his perspective, but of the perspective of several citizens of this city that knew existed. "Of course. But transparency is not something that feels earned for a lot of ponies here. Let me put it this way, we live in a very polarized world. Everything is either up or down, left or right, and the room for nuance is lost. I know it's there, it's got to be. So for me, it feels a little foolish to think that everything is fine and back to normal. I have to assume that there is something else going on. And I'm not even a conspiracy theorist." Flick quickly mentioned his countering opinion to some of the things his own critics say about him, and did so with a little guilt in his voice. "And for others, I know that there are a lot that still support you, want you to rule until you feel you're done with it, and that one of your daughters should take your place, as has been the case for however many generations. But many of those same ponies also claim, still claim to this very day, that the reason for all the trouble was the fault of the earth ponies and unicorns. They aren't right are they?" Flick was pulling for a specific answer, even though he would always invite the Queen to be as honest as possible with what she thought.

Applejack nodded sheepishly and took the middle dress off it's form. She carefully took it into a room setup for wardrobe functions. As Applejack slipped on the outfit carefully, testing the sizes of the cuffs and feel of the fabric around her curves, she couldn't help but notice areas in which Rara was being too forward. She wasn't worried about being roped into unnecessary practice sessions and preparations, but she knew that a show with both of them would have plenty of Coloratura's style and signature. Applejack just needed to make sure that not only did the show she was in have Apples written all over them as well, she also needed to attempt to bargain for compromises where she felt it would benefit a show. Applejack walked out with the outfit on, sporting only a minor limp as she broke in the fabric. "It's a little tight around the thighs and legs but I'm sure it can be adjusted. Or maybe I can be adjusted, heh." Applejack probably would suggest going on a diet, if she truly thought about what that would entail. More likely, she would just push herself to burn more calories through the day. Fortunately, it seemed that would happen somewhat soon. "What do you think, Rara? Is Apple Chord lookin' good in her new duds?" She gave a performative wink as she lightly posed.

The hippogriff champion recoiled back when his lance hit the loaned chest piece the griffon was wearing. It was obvious he was going to have a better shot at knocking Gallus down, though he never intended to make him wipe out as badly as he appeared to, even though he pulled as much from his contact as much as possible. As the hippogriff crowd gasped and cheered, the winner of the joust hovered down to the ground and slowly approached Gallus. Silverstream winced at Gallus' hit and fall, and flew over to him to check on him. As soon as she could see his eyes open, she exhaled a margin of relief. "Gallus, that was so... Wow! I can't believe you competed in a joust. Most visitors just chicken out and don't like to participate. There is always a spare defender on standby when the guest decides to not play along." She pointed towards the picnic tables by the food vendors. Sitting and drinking coffee at one was an armor hippogriff with his lance on the ground next to him, as if he was on break from a job. The champion's shadow covered Gallus. "Do you yield?"

"Favorite band?" Izzy was familiar with the commercialized music industry, but she didn't participate as a fan for much of it. She created much of her own music, usually from flutes and drums she made herself from stray cardboard and empty paper towel rolls. She wore a concerned look, afraid Sunny might be disappointed. "I don't really have a favorite band. Oh! But they do sometimes have musicians play music at the the Crystal Tea Room, but it's usually abstract. You know, washboards, cowbells, that sort of thing, heh."

Princesses had schoolwork? Zap just assumed that princesses would never have to do normal pony things, since their esteemed to some other class of pony knowledge and understanding. Nut apparently that's not how it worked. "Um. Sure, ok. What books did you bring?" Having been fed the hint that only ruling class ponies read some of her books, gave Zap some amount of curiosity. But he was old enough now to where his parents would pretend that something was special just to get Zap to do something he didn't want to do. So, he was skeptical.

"A couple of these are of prench origin, but some of them are from outside the region. At least one of them hasn't really been identified to be any similar to the known varieties grapes are usually found." Granola held one packet up. "Like this one, I found these at a bazaar up towards Yakyakistan. The shopkeep told me they were highland region grapes, but after I grew a few vines myself, I could tell right away they weren't. But they didn't look like anything else, so as far as I know, and I know a lot about plants, this grape's region is unknown and it's listed varietal has yet to be defined." Considering the honor it would be to determine a varietal's namesake, Granola had way more interest in the actual science of the plants themselves, how they grow, and how they might taste if the grapes were harvested. She did have a few name ideas, but if Berry was successful in turning it into a tasty juice, she figured she would deserve to name the grape classification herself. Granola rested a hoof on Berry's right shoulder. "And I know your garden might be only so big, so if you need some extra space for growing some of these vines, particularly the more high maintenance ones, I have a few trellises to spare in the forest where I live. I would love to take care of them while we wait for them to produce grapes."

"Ah, yes, not abdicate. Heh, sorry, I'm not much of a wordsmith." As Flick listened to the Queen, he couldn't help how nonchalant he was acting about receiving what is otherwise a pretty traumatic experience for the royal family. He rested on the fact that everything was much better now than that fateful night, but there were still unfinished ideas that Flick had to make sure he mentioned. "It's good that she is still part of the family and therefore, destined to rule, I presume. But then even that's up for question isn't it?" He hoped his tone wasn't too assuming, but he didn't want to ask her uncomfortable yes and no questions all day. "There are some in Zephyr Heights that think the royal family should resign now and that a new form of government should be applied. The trust has been severed for many pegasi. What would you say to assure them that things will be transparent and just in the future if your rule continues?" Flick took a big risk throwing a collection of challenging words together. The 'if' was one he almost wanted back as soon as it left his lips.

Zap started tugging on the ribbon and wound his body up for a large pull to unravel the bow on the box, but was stunned from doing so by the pitch perfect tone of his baby sister's voice. Zap's drone-like attitude took hold and he fell to a glide off the box's edge. "Fine." Zap wrapped his front legs around Ambrosia and flapped his wings double time. A slow but confident hover, he landed them both onto the top of the box. "Alright, ready sis? One. Two. Three!"

The large hippogriff stepped forward. "Then let us begin." The horns around them sounded, and the hippogriff took to the sky, waiting for Gallus to do the same. Once they were both in the air and facing each other, the joust would begin. Silverstream sat down and watched in excitement. She was not concerned at all for Gallus' safety, but maybe she should have been. Instead she was wondering if the salmon juice she was sampling while watching the ordeal was different than she remembered or if Ponyville had changed her tasting palette a little.

"Then the middle one it is, then!" Applejack hooked a hoof in agreement and gave Coloratura the affirmation she needed to pick her outfit. "Alright, what's next?"

Granola pshawed in order to disregard her own humility and get to the point before she made more of a fool of herself. She pulled out of her saddlebag a box and set it on a nearby table. "You're probably thinking, 'oh it's Nola, she probably got me berry seeds or some obscure berry I've never heard of before, she's so predictable.' And you'd be right!" She opened the lid of the box which had no bow or strings on it. Inside, were several collections of rare berries that were not commonly found in this region of Equestria. There were also packets of grapeseeds.

Zap was skeptical of the surprise, but he had not much to lose. Worst case scenario, Rarity would do his mane and he would shake it out as soon as he left the boutique. But he closed his eyes, felt the snug around his shoulders, and then opened them when he was allowed to. He looked down to see a dazzling piece of jewelry, a flight badge with his name on it and the colors of his parents, commemorating his ability to fly. Zap gasped. "You made me a custom flight badge!?" Zap quickly fluttered up and made a few loops and looked at himself through one of the many mirrors in the commons area. If he didn't know any better, he looked amazing. "Oh my gosh! Thank you, Miss Rarity!" Zap yelled out to Applejack. "Mom! Look what Rarity got me!"