It was a partly cloudy day with a twenty percent chance of evening showers, forty-five percent humidity, and a high temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenhoof dipping into the mid-60s overnight in Ponyville, which meant it was the perfect kind of early-autumn day to spend outside in the fresh air. It was also, at the same time, a perfect day to curl up on a comfy couch with a mug of tea and the latest Stampede King book, so that of course was what Twilight Sparkle—newly crowned and bewinged Princess of Equestria, as of six days ago—was doing.

Well, she was trying to curl up, anyway. Wings, she was learning quickly, were kind of bad for that. They were also bad for holding a mug without splashing steaming tea all over yourself, and shielding the late-afternoon sun from your eyes, and for frankly everything she’d tried to use them for so far that wasn’t directly related to symbolizing an earth-shaking change in the state of Equestrian governance. Which she was pointedly not thinking about right now, hence the book and the tea and the staying inside. Outside was where ponies were. Her ponies now, sort of. Constituents. Subjects. Serfs? Was she allowed to call them serfs? Oh stars, would they want her to call them–

The sharp rapping of hooves on the library’s front door jolted Twilight out of her thoughts, and with a sigh and a flex of her effectively-vestigial-at-this-point wings, she slotted the closest bookmark between pages eighty-six and eighty-seven of 11/22/963, dropped the book on a side table, and trotted downstairs. When she opened the front door, the first thing she saw was Mayor Mare’s trademark prize-winning smile. The second thing she saw was a dusty tome clutched in the Mayor’s foreleg, at least a thousand pages long and entitled Equestrian Government: A Brief, Foal-Friendly Guide.

“Good evening, your Highness,” the Mayor began, still grinning. “May I come in?”

Twilight tried to smile back, and mostly succeeded. She wasn’t that good at politics yet. “Sure,” she answered. “Hope you’re not returning that book. It looks a little overdue.”

The Mayor laughed and shook her head as Twilight ushered her inside. “Oh, no, nothing like that,” she said as the door swung shut. “Just wanted to have a chat with you, if you have the time. About, ah… the state of things, as it were.”

Twilight didn’t really try to smile about that. Nopony was that good at politics. “Of course. The state of… which things, exactly?”

Still smiling—actually, did it look more like leering now?—the Mayor approached the writing desk off to the side of the library’s main floor and set her book down with an imposing thump. After heaving it open and flipping to a page about a third of the way in, Mayor Mare turned to face Twilight again.

“It’s nothing major, really,” she assured the Princess. “Just a question of… well, I suppose jurisdiction. A quirk of the Equestrian Constitution. And how you, your Highness, and I fit into it.”

The Mayor paused, expecting a question or remark or something vaguely leader-like from the Princess, who instead just smiled—perhaps grimaced—and felt the early signs of a stomachache swelling in her throat. After a composed sigh and a toothy grin, the Mayor clarified. “Put simply, Twilight, as of six days ago, you outrank me. Actually, according to the Constitution, you outrank everypony in Equestria short of Celestia and Luna. And, if you’ll forgive my bluntness, I was elected to my position. You were not.” Her grin widened. “I’m sure you see how that could potentially be an… issue.”

Twilight blinked, processed what the Mayor had said, and resisted the urge to groan aloud. This was the last thing she wanted or needed right now. Especially with wings she couldn’t use right and not even so much as a study guide for what being a capital-P Princess actually, legally entailed.

“Well,” Twilight eventually said, “it doesn’t have to be an issue, right? I mean, you said it yourself: you were elected. Won’t you just stay Mayor, and I’ll do… Princess-y things?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case.” The Mayor gestured to a particular clause highlighted in her giant book. “When I said you ‘outrank’ me, I was being a bit generous. In literal, legal terms, you eliminate me. My position, that is. Under the existing Constitution, all local government bodies in Equestria are just extensions of the will of the Princesses, with the sole purpose of filling the gap until, in theory, a Princess arrives to replace them. And since Ponyville now has a Princess in residence, legally speaking…”

“... I’m the government here. The entire government,” Twilight finished, just before blinking again. “There’s no way our Constitution’s actually written that way. That’s so undemocratic!”

“Constitutional monarchies generally are, Your Highness,” Mayor Mare rejoindered. “Fortunately, I think I’ve found a solution.” The Mayor flipped through her book again and pointed to another highlighted passage. “While you do have the authority to reinstall me as Mayor, that still technically makes me undemocratically appointed, which—and I take it you agree with me in this regard—is less than ideal. What you also have the authority to do, though, is dictate the timing of local elections and the issues and positions to be filled thereby. You may also, technically speaking, run for office yourself through such an election.”

“That’s…” Twilight mused, “insanely undemocratic.”

“It is also, unfortunately, the law,” the Major said. “Nevertheless, my proposal: you declare a snap gubernatorial election for the position of Ponyville Mayor, with yourself as the incumbent and myself as the opposing candidate. At the end of the week, the town votes, and the matter is settled in a perfectly democratic, constitutionally enforceable way.”

“But what if I win?” Twilight asked. “I mean, not to say ponies wouldn’t vote for you. You’re a wonderful Mayor.”

“As you said,” the Mayor replied. Okay, her smile was officially creepy at this point, but Twilight pushed past it.

“But… I suppose you’re right. Legally, that sounds like the simplest way to just get things back to normal,” Twilight agreed. “Do I need to fill out a form or…”

From underneath the book, the Mayor pulled out a sheaf of notarized papers. “I’ve already handled that,” she said—and when Twilight thought back to this later on in her Princess career, she would just savage her past self about what a giant, country-sized red flag that was. “Just needs your official royal seal.”

“I have a…?” Twilight started to ask, before remembering the hefty package that had been delivered to her the day before. So from that package—shoved into a closet with her Grand Galloping Gala gown and other assorted knickknacks from her pre-royalty life—she extracted a gold-embossed stamp and an ink pad which she used to mark the Mayor’s forms and officially declare a snap election between her and the veritable Cheshire Cat who interrupted her reading. Then the technically-no-longer-Mayor departed, and Twilight went back to her book, and she didn’t think about politics one bit save for whatever the novel’s protagonist had to do to go back in time and stop the assassination of John Hoof Kennedy.

She definitely remembered it really quickly the next morning, though. Specifically, when she stepped outside, blinked the morning sunlight out of her eyes, and realized it wasn’t the sun glaring at her, but instead poster after bleach-white poster slapped on every lamppost and storefront in town with her face, angry black text, and slogans printed on them saying things like–

===

“‘Twilight Sparkle: Friend or Foe?’” Twilight incredulously read aloud. “‘Who do you trust: the job-creating Mayor dedicated to protecting Ponyvillian independence from the crown, or the mare who allows monsters to stomp all over our homes, rights, and impressionable children?’”

She crumpled the poster she’d been reading from up in her magic, tossed it onto her table in front of her covered in all the other posters she’d ripped down in the past hour, and eyed each of her friends in turn. “Can you believe her? I thought the Mayor and I were friends! Why would she put all these posters up saying such awful things about me?”

“Well, technically she didn’t, Twilight,” Rarity clarified. “That’d be illegal.” She drew Twilight’s attention to the fine print at the bottom of a not-yet-crumpled poster: Paid for and published by the Ponyville Action Committee, not formally affiliated with or endorsed by Maggie Mare.

“Well, isn’t that inconvenient,” Twilight snapped over the sound of magically crumpling paper. “Also, Maggie Mare? Her name’s Maggie?”

“It’s short for ‘Magnanimous’!” Pinkie contributed.

“Did you think her given name was ‘Mayor’?” Fluttershy asked.

“Go figure it is, I actually kind of did, and neither of those things is the point,” Twilight shouted. “The point is that this is… I mean, it’s just so…”

“It’s politics,” Applejack said with a shrug. “Every town election’s like this.”

Twilight stabbed her hoof down on yet another poster. “This one strongly implies I have an incestuous relationship with my brother.”

“That’s just an old muckrakin’ rumor ‘bout unicorns from Canterlot,” Applejack answered. “It ain’t personal.”

“It feels ever so slightly personal, Applejack.”

“Well, I dunno why you ran for Mayor in the first place if you thought it’d be any different,” said Rainbow Dash. “This is why I don’t vote. None of the candidates really represent me.”

“I’m your friend, Rainbow Dash!”

“I don’t like to mix friendship and politics. Feels weird.”

Twilight sputtered, then stewed in place, then came to a decision. “Well, fine. If that’s the way Mayor Mare–”

“Maggie,” Rarity reminded her.

“...whoever wants to play this, then let’s play! I’ll show that little weasel who got an A+ in their Equestrian Political Science seminar!”

===

That was another thing Twilight lambasted herself for years later, by the way. It was a seminar, for pony’s sake. And as she learned over six long days of campaigning, her close dear friends who she’d conscripted into being campaign staff could’ve used a seminar or two themselves.

“What do my poll numbers look like, Dash?” Twilight asked through her clasped, shaking hooves.

“Uh… pretty good,” Dash said, squinting at a clipboard as she hovered in place. “One hundred percent of the ponies I talked to said they’d vote for you.”

“Really?” Twilight said, already knowing where this was going. “How many ponies did you ask?”

Rainbow Dash was annoyingly good with her wings, so she was able to somehow visibly shrug while staying in midair. Twilight’s wings were still polling at negative-six points. Apparently they made her “unapproachable.” “I dunno,” Rainbow said. “A lot? Was I supposed to keep track of that?”

“Ideally, yes,” Twilight growled. “And what specifically did you ask them?”

“If they were gonna vote for you! Duh. Also, if they knew you could fry their brains with a single spell. The numbers were kinda bad before I started doing that second bit, so… you’re welcome.”

Twilight grit her teeth and turned to Rarity. “Did the debate help at all?”

“Not particularly, darling,” Rarity said, pantsuit lapel covered in hastily produced campaign buttons. Another negative-two approval points there—they weren’t union-made like Maggie’s. Apparently Ponyville had unions, but not a functional government made of nice ponies who looked out for their neighbors. “I told you not to let her bait you into talking about housing policy.”

“Mayors don’t build houses! Those policies were instituted by Celestia centuries ago!”

“But, um…” Fluttershy interjected, “Maggie was technically right when she said you hadn’t done anything to change them.”

“In two weeks of being a Princess?”

“That’s just politics, Twilight,” Applejack remarked.

“Kinda silly to run for Mayor if you didn’t wanna do the politics stuff,” Pinkie added.

Twilight finally gave up the proverbial ghost and let her literal head slam down onto the table. “Well,” she mumbled, “at least you girls will vote for me.”

Silence filled the library-turned-campaign-office. Twilight lifted her head and looked at each of her friends in turn, which each pointedly didn’t look back at her. “At least you girls will vote for me, right?” she pleadingly said again.

“I’m, um… not registered,” Fluttershy said.

“Don’t vote,” said Rainbow Dash. “Never changes anything anyway.”

“I just write in Celestia’s name,” Pinkie said. “That way everypony’s happy!”

Twilight faced the last two ponies who hadn’t anything yet. “Please tell me you’re throwing away your vote on a third party,” she moaned towards Rarity and Applejack.

“It’s nothing personal,” Rarity gently, awkwardly replied. “It’s just, you know…”

“We’re small business owners,” Applejack said. “Gotta look out for ourselves. With the economy an’ all.”

“We’re friends. You won’t even vote for me as a friend?”

“It’s common sense, Twilight,” Applejack insisted. “Ya don’t mix family with business, and ya don’t mix friendship with politics.”

“You run a family business! Your family is the business!”

“See, that’s what I mean. Maggie understands how we do things around here. Nothin’ personal.”

Twilight bit back a comment about how, much like everything is political, everything political is also extremely personal. “So you’ve been helping me with my campaign, but you’re not going to vote for me?”

“Well, you’re our friend, darling,” Rarity said. “We’ll always help out a friend in need.”

“What if that friend really needs you to vote for her?”

“C’mon, Twi,” Applejack said. “Don’t go talkin’ about politics at work.”

Twilight blinked, clenched her jaw, and performed a little imaginary summoning of the proverbial ghost just so she could give it up all over again. “You know what?” she said. “This is stupid. Democracy is stupid. Why do we let this stupid, dumb, insane process decide who gets to fix the roads and clean up litter in the park? I’m a Princess. I could just wave my hoof and take over everything, but I didn’t, because I wanted to be nice. But no, ponies don’t want nice. They want mean and nasty politics, and nopony getting anything done so they can get mad about it and do politics some more! And if I just took over, they’d be even madder about that! But I wouldn’t have to care, because I’d be in charge and the stupid Constitution says that’s technically fine! How’s that for a campaign slogan! ‘Vote Twilight Sparkle for Royal Moondamned Dictator!’”

Twilight ran out of breath at that point, and by the time she caught it, her friends still hadn’t said a word. In fact, they almost looked… satisfied?

“I mean,” Applejack said, “if that’s what we were votin’ on, then sure, I’d vote for ya.”

“You’d be the obvious choice,” Rarity agreed.

“Yeah,” Dash added. “Voting for dictator’s totally different. That’s a pony who can get stuff done.”

“I wouldn’t have to make up an address to fill out the registration forms,” mused Fluttershy.

“Wait, is that not what we were voting for already?” Pinkie said. “I thought Maggie was running to be Princess with you. You could just make her the Mayor if you want.”

It took Twilight several seconds to find her capacity for speech again. “Are you telling me,” she seethed, “that all of you want me to be a dictator?”

“Well, not exactly,” Applejack said. “That’d be undemocratic.”

“But if you did just do everything yourself, nopony’d really mind,” Rainbow added. “I mean, you are a Princess. We love the Princesses.”

===

And that, as Twilight would tell the story years later over the hottest possible mug of tea or more often a double shot of bourbon, was how Equestria’s newest Princess carried eighty-five percent of the vote for Ponyville Mayor: by promising the morning of the election to immediately declare Maggie Mare the Mayor again, overrule her whenever she felt like it, and generally act like exactly the dictatorial ruler she’d been assured through countless civic lectures that nopony actually wanted. What everypony actually did want, it turned out, was for the roads to be fixed and the parks to be clean, and to not ever have to think about politics if those kinds of things were handled.

There was probably a lesson in there somewhere. Twilight preferred not to think about it. She tried to write a letter to Celestia about it once, but Celestia never wrote her a letter back and just winked at her whenever she brought it up face-to-face.