"There's a word we got 'round these parts for ponies like you." Mayor Mare spat out the toothpick she'd placed between her teeth only a moment before. It landed perfectly between two floor boards, point-up.

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Did you practice that?"

The mayor took her hind hooves off her desk and leaned in. She leered her lips back in a barely-contained snarl. "No. And for your information, the word I'm thinking of is, politicians."

"But mayor, aren't you a politician too? It's kinda in your name, after all."

"You'll do well not to conflate my kind with yours. I am a civil servant, dutifully elected to serve the ponies of this town."

"And that's different from me... how, exactly?"

In response, Mayor Mare slapped a poster onto the table. On it, a faintly-pixelated image of Mayor Mare stared wide-eyed into the lens of the camera. Her hooves were frozen in still-life, one hovering next to her mouth, the other stuffed hock-deep into a bucketful of hard-boiled eggs.

The caption beneath the image read:



Starlight cringed. "I saw another one down by the bath house. Unflattering, to say the least."

"Don't play coy."

"Don't you know there's an egg ration on? The local chicken union has come to roost on that one."

"I know it was you who put the signs up!"

For the first time since she'd walked into Mayor Mare's office all of two minutes ago, Starlight leaned back in her chair. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Mayor Mare gestured to the bottom corner of the sign. There, printed in small, thin font, were the words, "Paid for by the Pony Union Pac."

"I have never in my career stooped so low as to run attack ads," Mayor Mare said. "I have no intention of starting now. I simply wanted to let you know I'm onto you, you shameless flop."

"The pacs will do what the pacs will do. Really, our victories are merely manifestations of popular will. That's democracy, after all--the will of the commoners."

"Commoners? Are you listening to yourself?"

"Would you prefer I call them serfs?"

"You can't manifest a win for yourself by telling everyone I suck eggs!"

"Actually, I can. Because you do." Starlight stood up suddenly. Mayor Mare fell back into her chair with an audible whump. She remembered, quite suddenly and violently, the dossier containing a complete physical and psychological evaluation of the Our-townians applying for refugee resettlement status in Ponyville. Had she requested a second copy, she might as well have signed the death warrant of half the trees in Everfree.

"Slander is no way to win," Mayor Mare said, softer now. She dared not meet Starlight's eyes. There was something inside them, something dark she couldn't place. Righteousness, maybe. The most dangerous kind. "I've played this game for too long not to see what you're doing."

"And yet, you can't stop it. The same way you can't stop yourself when an anonymous stranger buys you the five-gallon special at Eggson's Eggs & Vest Supply."

Mayor Mare gasped. "It was you!"

"You can't prove that. Just like the polls can't prove who's gonna win the election next week." Starlight turned on her hooves and strode towards the door, shaking her tail a little for good measure. "But they're leaning red, if you know catch my drift."

Mayor Mare moved out from behind her desk, only to skewer her hoof on the toothpick in the floor.