Today’s story might just get you looking over your shoulder.

A Good Filly
[Drama] • 1,099 words

There are rules for surviving in the Crystal Empire. Shining Facet knows them well, and only hopes her daughter can learn quickly. After all, they say that things are different now — but sometimes it takes more than flugelhorns and crystal-berries to heal old wounds.

FROM THE CURATORS: Discussing this story during the nomination process, we were all amazed that we hadn’t featured Orbiting Kettle’s work before: “Clearly an oversight on our part,” Soge said.

About the story in question, Soge went on to call it “dark and messed up in the best possible way.” Present Perfect “was floored by how quickly and easily it slides us into the situation and the mindset of our protagonist,” with AugieDog adding, “the story quietly examines the invisible shackles of paranoia, and the first tiny flickers of hope appear in such a lovely and understated way.”

Our discussion got more personal than it usually does, too. Soge recalled family members “who suffered persecution under the previous military regime in Brazil,” while Chris, calling himself “a man who lives in a low-crime city in a very white state,” found himself thinking of people he knows “whose ‘what to do when you see the police’ lectures from their parents included things that were totally absent from mine: things like ‘hide before they see you,’ ‘don’t tell them your address, just say “around here,”‘ and ‘don’t tell them your real name.'”

That a story of not quite 1,100 words can touch so deeply upon so many worlds of experience while still fitting perfectly into events depicted in a cartoon about colorful talking ponies says a lot about both the source material and the author who put that story together. So read on for our interview where Orbiting Kettle discusses friends, cheese, the end of fear, and the hope of the future.
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