It was on the morning of April the Twenty-First, right around nine in the morning, that two things happened at once.

One: Some little critter bit me right on the neck. Stung like heck for all of a second, then stopped. I whistled a little bit in pain, tried to reach up and scratch it. Darn. It’d been there for all of half a second and it was already itchy.

Two: Twilight did one of her little magic tricks, poofing into existence about five feet to my right. She teleported behind me, then back in front of me, took my head in her hooves, shook it up and down, babbled something about magic, teleported toward Big Mac, shouted something, then vanished again.

It was only a second after she’d vanished that it registered up in my cranium that she’d been carrying about five loads of laundry with her at the time, and that her horn had been glowin’ brighter than a Hearth’s Warming firework.

“Darn gnats,” I muttered, letting my hoof drop to the grass. “And darn Twilight. Mac, what crazy fool thing y’reckon she’s up to this time?”

We’d been bucking apples together out in the west orchard since roundabouts sunrise that morning. He shrugged. Dealing with Twilight and whatever magical thing had gotten her attention recently ain’t exactly his area of expertise. Then again, I can’t say that it was really mine, either.

“Hm.” I grunted, and pushed the basket of apples a bit to the side so I could see Big Mac better. “Got any clue why she went rushin’ off like that?”

He shrugged again. I’ve said it a lot of times before, but I’ll say it again: That stallion gets more across in a few movements and a facial expression than most ponies can get across in a lifetime. Too bad most ponies can’t be bothered to listen.

I nodded. “And why’d she have all that...stuff with her?”

Another shrug.

“You ain’t got no idea, do you?”

“Nope.”

I grit my teeth and reached back up to try and rub that spot on my neck. Whatever critter had gone and bit me, its bite had left a stinging something fierce. Awful stuff. This weren’t no gnat. It was getting into skeeter season, though. Overenthusiastic bloodsuckers - get me every year. Meanwhile, Mac, red coat and all, never even gets a nibble. It’s right unfair, is what it is.

I wrinkled my nose. “Well, who does she think she is?” I asked. “Rushin’ in and out of everywhere, bothering ponies when they’re trying to get apples bucked - did she even say why she was here?”

“Nope.”

“Couldn’t understand a word she said either, huh?”

“Eeyup.”

I frowned. “Yup, couldn’t understand? Or yup, could understand?”

Mac thought about that for a moment, then shrugged again. Darn. Ain’t no way to not feel dumb when you got a master communicator like that around. I should’ve understood the first time.

“Well,” I said, “would’ve helped if she maybe hadn’t been teleporting every few feet. Ain’t no proper way to talk, shufflin’ around the universe like that.”

“Eeyup.”

“I’ll tell you, Mac - that unicorn - “

“Alicorn,” Mac put in. I shot him a glare before finishing.

“- alicorn,” I corrected, “has been gettin’ far too teleport-happy lately. I don’t usually like judging Twilight, ‘cause she’s a great princess and a better friend, but really, it’s just the teensy bit ridiculous, teleporting all of five feet ‘cause she couldn’t be bothered to walk there.”

“Eeyup.”

“S’not like I could teleport like that,” I muttered. That bite was stingin’ something fierce now, but I had no time for a little bit of neck pain right now. Darn thing could wait its turn; there were emotional damages to deal with first. “If I could, this whole applebuckin’ job would get about fifty times easier.”

“‘Bout seventy-eight times, actually,” Big Mac said.

“What’ve I said about you and them mathematics?” I said. I swear, things have never been the same since I found him alone in his room with a pencil, a piece of paper, and a bunch of letters he kept calling numbers. Letters and numbers - pshaw. Only some kind of dang fool would put those two together. I put a hoof on my hat and glared at the tree I’d been bucking. It completely failed to glare back.

Yeah, I know Carmella probably didn’t deserve that - ‘specially now that she was only just now gettin’ over Bloomberg being gone - but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes, you just need to give something a good glare.

“And ‘sides, don’t mean I want it,” I said. “Feels wasteful, and lazy.”

“Eeyup.”

I coughed. My cheeks felt a little warm, though I put it off to sunburn. “But still. I just don’t think it’s fair that Twilight gets to rub it in my face that she can do that and I can’t.”

Mac raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t give me that, Mac. I got no problem calling it that. Sure, maybe she don’t mean it.”

“Eeyup.”

“But that don’t mean it ain’t insulting.” I frowned a little and furrowed my eyebrows. Ponies sometimes underestimate the value of a good eyebrow-furrowing. Lemme tell you that this kinda eyebrow-fu ain’t the easiest thing on the farm to do. Takes practice, and hard work, but it always comes in handy for situations like this. “It’s like she’s got something I don’t got, and keeps showing it off without really caring. Some kinda…privilege.”

Big Mac raised the other eyebrow. I might’ve been the master of eyebrow furrowing, but when Mac raises an eyebrow, ponies tend to take notice. When both go up on that big red forehead of his, ponies know to take notice.

But I didn’t care. I was on a roll. Plus, every second spent talking was a second I didn’t have to spend gritting my teeth at my neck, which was ratchetting and throbbing and generally hurting around like a nuisance that thought it owned the place.

“Yeah,” I said, then said it again, louder. I was picking up steam, like a freight train ready to barrel down the Appleoosan Plateau. “And maybe this privilege thingy is floatin’ right in front of her eyes, so that she can’t see it for what it is, see? She sees it every day, so she thinks it’s right and proper to go around poofin’ into thin air every other minute with other poofin’-less ponies around. It’s like she needs to take a moment and, uh - “

I faltered for a half a second. For a minute there, the words had been coming so quickly and easily that it’d felt like I was sliding on churned butter. Then my neck throbbed again, and I found the words I’d been looking for.

“ - check that that privilege is there!” I snapped a hoof, which, for most ponies, pretty dang hard to do. “And I saw that, Mac. Don’t you go rollin’ those eyes at me!”

“Eeyup.”

“Ponies thinkin’ they can just roll their eyes all over the place,” I muttered. “And it ain’t just Twilight,” I said. Back on topic. “All them other unicorns do it, too. Take Rarity. She’s always floatin’ stuff around her. Would it kill her to use her gosh-darn hooves for a second?”

“Nope.”

“Exactly!” I nodded to myself. I had him; I knew it. “Them unicorns even got their own magic-y school up in Canterlot. Lemme ask you this: Why do they get a magic school? Why ain’t no earth ponies got a magic school?”

Big Mac grunted.

“Or pegasi,” I added. “Yeah, I see your point. But still! It’s downright unfair, is what it is. Us earth ponies got our own kinds of magic, too. Why don’t we have any kind of magic school for it? Why don’t we get to learn any spells or levitation or fancy teleport magic?”

Big Mac stared at me for a second, and then slowly turned back around to buck a tree. I could only guess that he’d been so astounded by my leap of perfect logic that he had to go touch something real to make sure he wasn’t dreaming or nothing.

“All us ponies got magic,” I said. This was it. This was what I’d been leading up to this whole time, without even knowing about it. “So why do only the unicorns get praised for it? It ain’t right.”

Mac stopped bucking for a second and just looked at me. Then he reached back and slapped at the back of his neck.

“Skeets?” I asked. He nodded. “Darn things.”

“Eeyup.”

“But anyways,” I said, “it ain’t right that unicorns get all the praise for magic-using and magic-learning when any earth pony - or pegasus - could do it exactly the same.”

“Eeyup.”

“Or better,” I added, a little proudly. “Heck, with your average earth pony’s work ethic, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got ourselves a whole race of arch-wizards within a month!”

“Eeyup.”

“Darn tootin’,” I said. “So, Mac. You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Nope.”

I pulled the brim of my hat down lower over my forehead. I only ever adjusted my hat in one of two situations: When Discord came over and made it rain chocolate milk over the farm, and when things were about to get real messy. I got this grin on my face, real business-like.

There weren’t no chocolate milk for miles around, and I was ready to kick some flank.

“Time to start a revolution.”

---

Course, a farm ain’t no place to start a proper revolution. I know some travelling salesponies came down from Stalliongrad a few months ago talking real funny-like about “the rise of the farmpony and the proto-ferret against the bear-guys-e,” but see, that ain’t how we do things here in Ponyville. You wanna get ponies involved, you gotta get everypony involved. So me and Mac, we took our little movement down to the town square.

It was a pretty bustling day. Sun was bright, sky was clear, and besides Miss Heartstrings taking a nap on a park bench, there weren’t a unicorn around. Perfect.

I hopped up on the stage they’d been putting up for the Nightmare Night party in a few weeks and nodded down to Mac. “Got the megaphone?”

“Eeyup.” He whipped the thing out of his saddlebags and plopped it down on the stage quicker than a rattlesnake can bite a hornet out of the sky.

“Perfect.” I nabbed that thing up in a hoof - don’t ask how; ain’t nobody been able to figure out how earth ponies hold things like that ‘cept us, and we ain’t tellin’ - and turned the volume all the way up. I flicked the switch, and brought it up to my chompers.

By now, at least a few ponies in the square had noticed us, and were giving me kinda funny looks. I just smiled and waved. They were about to get a show, alright. I pulled the hat down again and grinned.

Time to get things moving.

“Excuse me, everypony!” I hollered. “Can I get y’all’s attention, please?” This wasn’t going to be easy, but I was sure I could get them to see reason. I was going to have to reel ‘em in, real nice and slow. Some random pony shouting from the top of a half-built stage ain’t usually anything to pay much attention to, but Applejack, local apple farmer and six-year local rodeo champion?

I don’t like tooting my own horn or nothing, but when a pony’s got half a dozen bright blue ribbons in a polished display case, other ponies know to listen. Don’t ask me why. Us rodeo ponies just tend to know what’s going on, and since everypony else knows that we know, it’s easier to get stuff moving otherwise.

The monopoly on about a third of the local foodstuffs don’t hurt nothing, either, but I’d like to think that most ponies would listen to me even without knowing that. Probably.

By now, maybe six or seven ponies had lined up in front of the stage. About half had saddlebags on. I counted: two pegasi, five earth ponies. Not a single unicorn in the bunch.

“Howdy, everypony.” I cleared my throat and held the megaphone a bit below my chin. “Caramel, how’s the marefriend?”

“She’s good,” he said. “She’s loving the cooler weather. Getting some fall-flowers right now, actually.” I nodded. Always good to establish some kind of rapport with the audience before starting up a good speech. I could tell that they were already warming up to me. The megaphone came back up.

“G’morning, everypony!” I said. I got a half-hearted chorus of “good mornings” in response. “I’m here to talk to y’all about a subject that I’ve only just realized is one that’s near and dear to my heart.”

“What is it, dear?” said a pony in the crowd. I squinted down at her and recognized Missus Cake pretty quick. She had on these two big saddlebags printed with cupcakes on the side, and little Pound Cake sitting in a sling that sat against her chest.

“I’m gettin’ to that,” I said, and winked. “Hold your horses, ma’am.” A few chuckles went up around the crowd.

“Now, I’d like to ask y’all a question. Have you ever gotten a real sore hoof or mouth from movin’ stuff around or writin’ stuff down all day?”

I got a few nods. I recognized the owner of Quills and Sofas join the crowd and gave him a welcoming sort of grin-and-nod combo. “What about from walkin’ around all day? Who here’s gone on a long trip and felt real tired and sore by the end of it?”

Almost everypony’s hooves went up. I could tell I had ‘em. They couldn’t see where I was going - not yet - but they’d see soon enough.

I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. “Rainbow Dash! Good to see you. I got a question for you.”

“Uh,” Dash said, scratching the back of her head. “Good to see you too, I guess. What’s goin’ on here?”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” I said. “Now, Dash. Tell me: How good’s your mouthwritin’?”

“It’s pretty good,” Dash said, quickly. A little too quickly. I smirked.

“Really? What’d the Equestrian Revenue Service think of it the last time they got your tax returns?”

Dash’s grin fell away pretty quick. It was like watching molasses melt away on a warm summer day. “Well, uh,” she said. She mumbled something again.

“What was that? Couldn’t hear you.”

“They sent my forms back and made me pay an extra three bits to fill them out again,” Dash said. Her cheeks were blushing a bright apple red, and she was staring down at the ground like she wanted it to come up and gulp her down.

“And why was that?”

“Cuz they couldn’t read them.” Dash squeezed her eyes shut. I didn’t like doing this to her, but everypony had to see what was up before I got into the fun stuff. She opened her eyes and glared at me. “What do you care about some dumb old forms, anyway?”

“Well, let’s see,” I said, tapping my chin for effect. Everypony likes a good bit of theatrics, especially when you’re up on a stage. “Anypony else here had that problem?”

A few more hooves went up - mostly earth ponies, though one or two pegasi did as well.

“How many of you have ever looked at somethin’ pretty big, or a lot of little things lying around your house, and thought to yourselves, ‘No way in Tartarus that I’m gonna be able to lug all that around’?”

More hooves. A few confused chuckles. That suited me just fine. We were about to get to the good part.

“How many of you’ve ever seen a unicorn get traveller’s hoof?” I asked, megaphone held tightly against my mouth. “How many of you’ve seen a unicorn having a problem carrying a bunch of stuff down the road?”

That got a few mutters out of ‘em. By now, it looked like Miss Heartstrings had woken up and wandered over to my little gathering, but I didn’t care. I had a crowd to lead.

“How many of you have seen a unicorn with bad mouthwritin’?” That took a second to register, but once the looks of confusion started to hit their faces, a lump-eatin’ grin hit mine. “Easy. None of you. Cuz they write with their magic.”

“What’s the point?” someone called out from the crowd.

“My point is this,” I said, adjusting my hat just so. “All of us earth ponies - and pegasi - ain’t ever had some kind of magic doohickery to get us through life. While the fancy folks up at Canterlot clear winter away with magic, us folks in Ponyville do it the honest, old-fashioned way.” I spit on the stage and grinned at the audience. “With good, honest elbow grease.

“Any of you ever seen a unicorn who never got a speck of food on her fur ‘cause she always eats with her magic?” I said. “Any of you seen a unicorn who can’t deal with the real world, ‘cause her magic does it all for her?” I knew I was about to say something awful, but I didn’t care - these ponies needed to hear the truth. “Any of you seen a unicorn get set up on the gravy train for life, ‘cause she was born with enough magic to make everything easy for her?”

A few ponies were still nodding along, though one or too still looked like they weren’t swallowing my words down quite right. One toward the front slapped the back of his neck and grimaced. I looked down at him sympathetically. “Skeeter got your neck?”

He shrugged.

“Hey!” said a mare - Heartstrings, I thought. “That’s not fair at all!”

“Fair?” I said. “What ain’t fair is the fact that all you unicorns go around every day, showin’ off your flashy magic and rubbin’ it in our faces that we can’t do none of the stuff you can.”

“That’s not - “ she started, but I weren’t having none of it.

“Of course you don’t realize it - y’all wouldn’t want to see it if it got thrust in front of your two eyesockets. But that’s,” I said sagely, “why it’s all about privilege.”

Heartstrings blinked up at me. “...Privilege?”

“Exactly!” I said. “Magic’s a special gift that you all get - and us earth ponies and pegasi get none of it.”

“But that’s not even right!” Heartstrings said. “A privilege is something that a pony is given, and us unicorns are born with magic!”

“Aha!” I said. I stomped on the stage. “See, she admits it! Right from the horse’s mouth!”

“This is utterly ridiculous!”

“Nope,” I said. “And here’s why: Everypony’s told us earth ponies ever since we were young - and pegasi too - that we’ve got our own special kind of magic. Something you don’t quite see. But I’ve lived for a good while yet, and I ain’t ever seen trees bending over backwards to give me apples!”

“That’s not even how magic works!” Heartstrings said. I waved a hoof in the air. Didn’t matter what she said, far as I and the crowd were concerned. Mare who’s holding the megaphone is the mare in charge, and I was pretty sure we both knew that.

“But it can be!” I said. “Hear this: Not a single earth pony or pegasus has ever been invited to learn at the Arcane Academy in Canterlot. Not a one.”

A gasp went up around the crowd, and I shot Heartstrings a big smirk. I had her right where I wanted her. To her credit, though, she wasn’t taking none of it.

“But that’s because earth ponies can’t actually do magic!” she burst out.

Another gasp went up through the crowd. A quick glance showed that around half of them were scratching their necks, but I paid it no mind. Them skeeters are some tenacious little varmints, always poking their suckers where they don’t belong.

“Ha!” I said. “Listen to her, y’all. She’s condemning herself with her own two lips!”

“But it’s true!” she said. “They actually, physically can’t!”

“Maybe not now,” I said. “But once we’ve lined up the halls of Arcane Academy with earth fillies and earth colts - and pegasi ones, too - we’ll see how that holds up. Because I have a dream!”

That got everyone’s attention. Ponies love dreams, and they love big, impressive speeches even more. I took a breath.

“I have a dream that, one day, my trees will buck themselves for me! I have a dream that, one day, my granny can teleport herself places instead of yellin’ at Big Mac ‘n me to do it for her!”

“Eeyup!” Big Mac added.

“I have a dream,” I said, my voice thundering through that big megaphone, “that one day, my foals and your foals will be able to turn their tax forms into the ERS without ever paying a single. Extra. Bit!”

That got ‘em, and it got ‘em good. They were cheering, stomping on the ground with both hooves - or, for the most part, with one hoof, the other hoof most often being occupied with scratching the back of their necks. Heartstrings, for her part, looked pretty much spent.

“I - ” she sputtered, face going redder than a cherry tomato. “You can’t - I mean - why - ?” She swallowed - and her hoof went up to her neck, slapping it hard. “Ouch! Something bit me!”

I leaned down. I tried to keep the smugness off my grin, but when you’re an Element of Honesty, it’s sometimes a little bit hard to keep that kinda thing out. “Maybe that’s just the trampled rights of the oppressed, comin’ back to bite you in the back.”

“What?” she spat out, still rubbing her neck. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” I said, grinning, “that y’all need to check. Your. Privilege.”

I turned back to the crowd and beamed.

“So where do we start?” one pony called out. Dash.

“Well,” I said, getting back down to theatrics again. A scratched chin does wonders for making a pony look thoughtful. “I reckon we’d better start where every good revolution does. With a protest!”

“Like with picket signs?” another pony asked. Filthy Rich. “Would we have to...build them?”

I almost mentioned something about ponies who’d never worked a hard day’s work in their lives, but Filthy was a god, regular customer of the farm, and I figured that, in any case, sometimes ponies got to band together to fight off a common enemy. “We would!” I said. “And we do! We gotta get down in the dirt! We gotta get down in the mud! We’re gonna protest until our hooves can’t take no more, and we’re gonna do it again! But to start, we’re gonna need picket signs!”

“What should they say?”

I looked back down at the space in front of the stage. Pinkie Pie waved back. “Oh, I dunno. Stuff like ‘unicorn magic unfair,’ I guess.”

“Got it!” she said. Not half a second later, something tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around; Pinkie was there, holding a bundle of picket signs in one hoof.

“Thanks, Pinkie,” I said, taking one. I eyed it with a hoof. “Wait one minute. These ain’t right.”

“Of course they are!” Pinkie said. “I double-checked and triple-checked that they were perfect, grade A picketing material!”

“Pinkie,” I said, brandishing the one I’d taken. “This one doesn’t say Unicorn Magic Unfair. It says Unicorn Magic Funfair.”

“But if earth ponies - and pegasi - had unicorn magic, couldn’t they make even better funfairs? Because I mean, who doesn’t like funfairs?”

“Hm.” I grunted. “I think you’ve got a point over there. Mac, what do you think?”

“Eeyup.”

“Thought so. Though one question,” I said, turning back to Pinkie.

“Mmhm?”

“Where did you get these picket signs so quickly? Y’all have them stashed all over, in case of - “

“ - civil disobedience emergency? Yup!” Pinkie nodded happily. “But usually only on the third Thursday of the month. Looks like we got lucky this time around!”

“It’d seem so.” I glanced down at the picket sign in my hoof, then back out at the crowd. “You got enough of these for everypony?”

“Yup!”

“Then you heard her, ponies!” I hollered out over the crowd. I tossed the megaphone aside - I didn’t need no fancy gadget to carry my voice out to everypony. Good, clean earth pony passion would serve just as well. “Let’s go protest!”

A thunderous cheer went up through the crowd, and we were off.

---

See, there’s this thing about protests. Everypony likes a good protest, but it does nopony no good unless you’ve got something to protest at. At the very least, you’ve got to have a good picketing ground, and since the town square was pretty much otherwise empty at this point, we decided to pick up and relocate.

Of course, standard picketing outside of the Mayor’s office like what a lot of ponies did before, after, and during elections - demanding things like “Lower Tackses!”, “Less Unemploiment!”, and “A Higher Rate Of Median Literacy!” - wasn’t really going to work, seeing as the Mayor herself was an earth pony and so probably in as much of a sociocultural pickle as we were. So after a few minutes of standing around awkwardly and holding our picket signs high enough to show that we were still devoted to the cause, but not high enough to feel awkward or overenthused, somepony came up with the bright idea to go straight to the source.

After all, when you’re talking about a revolution in magic, there ain’t no pony better to go to than the Princess of the stuff herself. Once somepony else pointed out that Twilight had her own super-special magical castle, too, things got really enthusiastic. I threw in a few things about everypony having their own magic-y princess castle, and soon enough I had everypony eating out of my hoof again.

Now, I didn’t mean to cause no trouble to Twi. And I’m reasonably sure that none of my companions did, at least barring Dash, who kept shouting for “the oppressor” to come out and face her. Or race her. Something like that.

What I’m trying to say is that I knew that Twi was a reasonable filly, and that if we could all just have a sit-down chat ‘round that nice little round table she had, we could probably get this all sorted by dinner.

Somewhere along the line, though, word had evidently spread around the town. By the time we got to Twilight’s castle just outside of Ponyville city limits, my little homegrown crowd had graduated to a full-grown mob. I’ll be the first to say that I was a little uneasy with the idea - Twi’d never been a pony to like large crowds, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure if disturbing a princess was such a good idea - but the crowd knew what it wanted, and what it wanted was a right and proper castle protest. So I followed along as best I could.

We got ourselves all nice and set up outside of the castle. I personally went around with Pinkie, making sure that everypony had enough signs to protest unfairs and funfairs alike. By the end of it, we had about one picket sign per four ponies, which I felt pretty good about.

We sat around for a few more minutes, feeling pretty darn proud of ourselves for standing up to oppression and privilege, before somepony got the bright idea to suggest we go up and knock on the front door.

“All, right. All, right. Hold those reins tight,” I called out over the surging crowd as Mac tried to hold them back. “I’ll go up and knock on it myself, right? And then Twi’ll come out, and we’ll have this whole mess sorted out.”

“Three cheers for Applejack!” Dash shouted out over the din. “Let’s make Twilight check her unicorn privilege!” What felt like a mass of solid cheers followed her words.

I waltzed up the stairs toward the front door. Well, I say waltzed. Truth is, I was starting to get chilly hooves about the whole thing. Try as I might, I couldn't imagine Twi being any sort of intentionally cruel or oppressive or whatever about all this. In fact, if I asked her for a little more help ‘round the farm, I didn’t doubt she’d help me out. And for all I knew, maybe Celestia had some sorta legitimate reason for keeping the Academy unicorn-only.

Then I remembered Twi blasting all that magic over at Tirek back when he’d taken over the kingdom, and my chilly hooves got a little chillier.

Darn it, but that was ridiculous. Twi wouldn’t do that. Not to me, not to the crowd, not to anypony. And maybe this whole thing wasn’t even worth getting worked over. Maybe -

Then the bite on my neck started itching up something fierce, and I forgot whatever I’d just been talking about. There was just me, the itch on my neck, and a picket sign in my hoof.

I’d waited long enough. I raised up my hoof, and knocked three times on the door. Good, even knocks. Ain’t no pony in all of Equestria that could’ve missed those knocks.

So I waited a moment or two, sure that Twi would come to the door, see the crowd outside, and either start apologizing or start oppressing. I knew which one I preferred.

But nopony answered the door. And for a second, I was almost happy about it, ‘cause I knew which option I’d preferred, but a look back at the crowd - and all them torches and pitchforks - told me that they might not think the same way.

I shot ‘em a short little grin and knocked again. Twice. Waited around for another thirty seconds or so, but got no answer. By the end of the first fifteen seconds, things had gone dead quiet over there, and there was sweat beading up on my forehead. Where was she? Why wasn’t anypony home?

For a split second, almost hopeful, I took a step back from the door.

“Where is she?” somepony called out. I froze in place. Shucks.

“She’s not home!” somepony else said. He sounded mad.

“Come on out, Twilight!” I knew that voice - that was Dash. And there she was, flying over the crowd like some damn fool pidgeon, her colors playing around in the sun like a disco ball. “We know you’re in there!”

“Come on out!”

“Check your privilege!”

“Check our privilege!”

That last voice sounded a mite like Lyra Heartstrings again, but even with her apparent change of heart, I paid them all no mind. Instead, my heart was starting to sink down real deep in my chest. I’d seen Twi that morning, just a few hours ago. And at the time, it hadn’t looked like she’d been heading toward Ponyville…

I checked the sun. Five hours after noon, give or take a few clouds. And then I gulped. Twilight always made it a point to be back home by suppertime.

“What in Equestria is going on here?”

Eighty-five heads - Pinkie’d counted - swivelled around to face the tail end at the crowd. There, as real and solid as the ground I had my hoof on, stood one Twilight Sparkle. She did not look happy.

Lil’ Spike peeked around her head from his place on her back. Above his head floated a few piles of laundry - the same ones, I registered, that I’d seen that morning. “Maybe there’s a party or something?”

“No, silly!” Spike yelped as Pinkie popped up beside him. “This is a protest! The protest party is for tonight.” The last bit, she whispered in some kind of conspiratorial tone that absolutely nopony failed to hear.

“A...protest,” Twilight said. “Outside of my house.”

“Yeah!” Dash put in. “We’re protesting oppression!”

“Rainbow Dash, what are you doing here?” Twilight said, one eyebrow raised high and proud. On her best days, her skill with the things could give even Mac a run for his money. “And do you even know what ‘oppression’ means?”

“Yeah!”

“What?”

“It means that you need to check your privilege!” Dash said, hardly missing a beat.

A few ponies echoed her, shouting “yeah!” and “check your privilege!” I even heard a few shouts of “unicorn scum!” My lip curled thoroughly at that.

“My...privilege?” I could of sworn something went through Twilight’s eyes when she said that. “My privilege for what, exactly?”

“Unicorn magic!” one earth stallion shouted out from the crowd.

“Keeping us other ponies down!” shouted a mare brandishing a pitchfork.

“Low rates on rejected tax forms!”

The din soon grew like an Appleloosan duststorm, everypony shouting over everypony else till there weren’t nopony you could hear through that mountain of noise. With a groan and a few flaps of her wings, Twilight rose up into the air, horn glowing.

When she spoke, the volume of her voice just about shoved everypony else’s back down their throats. “Enough!” she thundered. “This is completely ridiculous. Who’s in charge here?”

Every head turned toward me. I glanced around for a second or two before mustering up my guts and raising a hoof.

“Me,” I said. “I’m in charge.”

“Apple...jack?” Twilight blinked, then fluttered down until she was standing across from me. “Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t expect that.”

“Why not?” I said. “Don’t think I can carry out a revolution on my own?”

“Revol - oh, for pony’s sake,” Twilight said. “Applejack, what’s going on here?”

Everypony went quiet. They were ready to hear me speak truth to power. And truth be told, for whatever misgivings I’d had before, I was ready to speak it.

“Us earth ponies and pegasi - we’re tired of being the only ponies without magic. You unicorns have hogged it to yourselves long enough. You’ve gone for years and years without ever realizing that you’ve got the privilege of teleportin’ and telekinetin’ and all that other fancy stuff, and we ain’t got nothing.

“Well, we’re here to change that. We’re here to prove that any earth pony or pegasus can learn spells, and that it ain’t only unicorns who’ve got the mojo for all that fancy arcane stuff. We’re here to make sure that there’s magic available to everypony, and not just a bunch of unicorns that hog it up all to themselves.”

A round of applause went up from the crowd. I considered doing a bow, but something in Twi’s eyes just didn’t sit right with me. Instead, I waited for her to give her piece.

For a moment, she didn’t say nothing. She just kinda stood there, staring at me with those big, wide eyes of hers. After another moment, I started fidgeting a little. Crimminy, but besides those alicorn wings of hers, she was taller than me now. And was that her horn glowing a little bit brighter?

“Applejack,” Twilight said. “Why are you scratching the back of your neck?”

I stopped mid-motion. “What now?” She repeated the question. “Just a little skeeter bite, s’all. Why’re you getting all off-topic?”

“Oh, no reason,” she said. She sounded...weird. Unfocused. And was it me, or was that pile of laundry a little bit closer than it had been a few seconds ago? “Can you do something for me?”

“What?” I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re trying to pull somethin’ - “

“Oh, nothing,” she said, laughing in what I guess she thought was meant to be a friendly way. “Just, uh, give me a second - “

And then something big and soft and warm slapped down on my neck, thumping me right down to the ground.

A horde of jeers and gasps went up from around the crowd.

“Look what the unicorn did!”

“She attacked Applejack!”

“How could she?”

“Check her laundry privi - “

And then everything clicked.

“Wait!” I hollered, leaping to my hooves. “Stop!”

The little mob stopped, blinking up at me in confusion.

“It’s okay,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two giant piles of laundry slinking around the borders of the crowd. Somehow, I knew I had to keep their eyes on me. “It ain’t nothing. Don’t worry about it. We’re, uh, still gonna checklist this privilege, right?”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash cheered - before letting out an “oof” of surprise as a rolled-up skirt whapped her on the back of the neck. Several dozen other “oofs” joined her at just the same time as a little army of laundry went around smacking everypony in sight on the back of the neck at least once, and often twice for good measure. Missus Cake had some trouble with an overenthusiastic pair of knickers before a whap from Pound Cake’s bottle sent ‘em packing.

It was like a spell had been broken. Everypony was staring at each other, muttering to themselves, and glancing up at me. Some ponies were shifting awkwardly on their hooves, and others were staring at the floor like it was the friendliest thing they’d ever seen. But one thing was for certain: None of them were waving around any of those pitchforks anymore, and nopony seemed ready to rush anypony else.

One by one, two by two, my little mob started to disperse into the dusk. Soon enough, only me, Pinkie, Dash, Twilight, and Spike were left.

“What the hay?” Dash muttered. She was holding her head. “What was that for, Twilight?”

“Because of this,” Twilight said. “Spike, the jar?”

“Right!” In a flicker of motion, Spike reached into Twilight’s saddlebags - I hadn’t even noticed that she’d been wearing the things - and yanked out a big ol’ glass jar. “Got it!”

I blinked at it. Inside was a big red beetle with - could that really be a big, bushy beard? And a buncha spectacle-like dots around its eyes?

“The hay is that?” I said, real tactful-like.

“It’s a Humbug,” Twilight said. “It’s an insect whose venom can grow a pony’s basest insecurities and complaints into a full-blown complex. It’s a little like a Windigo in a way - it feeds off of discord. All it takes is one bite on the back of the neck.”

“And I thought it was just skeeter season,” I said, eyes wide. Jar or no jar, I wasn’t taking my eyes off the little critter till I was sure it was sealed away good and tight.

“How’d you know how to deal with ‘em?” Dash asked.

I frowned. “Wait. You had them giant piles of laundry this morning, too. Didn’t you?”

“I did,” Twilight said. “There was a giant infestation over in Hoofington, and Pri - Celestia asked me to go deal with them. Turns out that for a species that airs your dirty laundry, a good smack with a pile of clean laundry is just right to put them out of condition.” She chuckled. “You can thank Zecora - and a good pile of irony - for that.”

“So I never really meant all those awful things, then,” I said. My heart was sitting a little calmer in my chest now. “It was just the bug the whole time.”

Twilight bit her lip, and I sucked in a breath. Ain’t nothing good coming from a bit lip. I readied myself for the worst.

“Well,” she said, drawing the word out, “that’s not entirely true. The bug can only blow up feelings and thoughts that are already there.” She gave me this long, sad look. “Applejack… Is that how you really feel? That I’m a showoff? That I like to make fun of you for not having magic?”

“I - “ The word caught in my throat a little. “Shucks, Twi. I guess a little bit, maybe.

“But not like that,” I said quickly as a crestfallen look crossed her eyes. “Like, I definitely don’t hate you. Or anything dumb like that. I think.”

“Well, that’s always good,” Spike said, rolling his eyes. I ignored him. He had nothing on Mac.

“I mean, I guess what I’m trying to say is that yeah, it’s hard not to feel a little inadequate when you’re friends with a super-powered alicorn princess,” I said, fidgeting a little bit. “Especially when I ain’t got any magic of my own, neither. But I don’t resent you for it. It’s just...a little weird, is all.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, real quietly. “But Applejack, you have your own magic.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“Earth ponies have earth magic, remember?” she said. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got some kind of special connection with nature. Not to mention enhanced strength and a generally larger physique.”

“Really?” Shucks. I’d always thought Mac and I were just big-boned.

“I...think that I mentioned it in one of my lectures,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”

Listening to Twi lecture can be one of the dullest things on this green earth - and my brain during any of those session is more full of holes than a noodle strainer - but just for the sake of being nice, I nodded along. “I think so.”

“And I have no idea why Dash is here,” Twi said, quirking a second eyebrow up at her. “Pegasi have weather magic, remember?”

“Oh,” Dash said. “Uh. Oops?”

“In any case, thank you for being honest with me, Applejack,” Twilight said. “And I’m sorry if I’ve treated you badly at all.”

“Naw,” I said. “It’s me who was going all nutso on you. Which I’m sorry for, by the way.” I spit on a hoof and held it out, giving her a hopeful little grin. “Friends?”

She spit on hers and shook on it. “Friends.”

“Well,” I said, once we’d finished shaking and had taken a few steps back. “I think there’s at least one thing for certain here.”

“What?”

“This here’s one for the journal.”

---

Dear Journal:

Today I learned that you shouldn’t feel like you have to compare yourself to your friends, especially when it comes to magic. Whether it’s flashy, sparkly, or just something deep down inside, everypony their own kinds of magic. And if that isn’t enough, there’s always the magic of friendship.

I also learned that if you don’t feel right around you friends - whether you’re embarrassed, awkward, or just plain jealous - it’s not good to keep those feelings bottled up deep down inside. If you let them control you, instead of the other way around, they can spiral out of control in a way that you probably never expected. Friends are your friends for a reason, and if you let yourself be honest with them, they’ll never let you down.

Applejack