Princess Twilight's First War
"We are under attack!?", Princess Twilight cried, "By whom?"
Spike skimmed the declaration of war again.
"It only says 'The Eternal Empire of Floretania'. They want you to meet them 'this very morning' to discuss the conditions of our... surrender."
Twilight pulled the document from Spike's hands to have a look herself.
"Oh, this is bad, this is bad... I don't even have time to discuss this with the other princesses... It says they were already standing at our gates! We have to hurry! They want to meet us... in the back yard?"
-
"So let me get this straight", Princess Twilight said, "You are a patch of flowers."
She was standing in the little garden behind her pavillon, gazing upon the assembled masses of her ennemies. Their petals were still covered in morning dew. It was a pretty sight.
Specifically, she was adressing a pair of minuscule daisies at the centre of the patch.
"Fool!", the Emperor squeaked, "We are not just ordinary flowers! We are magical flowers!"
Twilight massaged her forehead. "Are you now..."
Spike chuckled.
"And you're declaring war on my domain... why?"
"We are a mighty, growing nation hungry for conquest! Your country would be a beautiful addition to our Empire."
-"It would fit so nicely on our western border", the Empress said.
"The 'western border' of your patch."
"That's what I said. Now is the best time, as you are a young and unexperienced Princess who has just stepped into office. You, my dear, are vulnerable."
"And if I don't surrender now, you will do... what? March on my pavillion?"
"We cannot move."
Twilight sighed. "But you can talk. Of course. Everything can talk in this damn place. Tell you what, your majesties, I'm gonna go back to work now, and maybe later I will drop by and water you or something and we forget this audience ever happened. In fact, I would appreciate it if you never talked to me again."
"Fool! Are you mocking us? Pollen troopers... attack!"
Princess Twilight sneezed. Spike could hardly contain himself.
"I don't have time for this!", Twilight exclaimed as she walked away with as much royalty as she could muster. "Grrr!"
The day had only just begun, and she was feeling tired already.
-
Twilight Sparkle shook her head as she glanced over the paperwork ahead of her.
"Very well then. Let's see what the good citizens of Equestria have got for me today."
She picked up the first document on the pile. It was a folder with hundreds of signatures. A petition.
"Oh, great. They want me to propose a project for a new law that would allow ponies to privately rebuild and own ancient fireweapons. Yeah, hehe, NO. Took us long enough to get rid of these stupid things in the past, I'm not the princess who'll bring them back."
The young princess had taken on the habit to comment out loud on some of her work when her assistant was around. Not that Spike was particulary skilled when it came to politics and administrative duties, but it still felt good to have another brain for company when dealing with these chores.
"And what's this... An invitation to a conference assembling some of the greatest physicists of Equstria! Hellooo..."
However, after she had skipped over the formal greeting, Twilight let out an exasperated grunt.
"How charming. They want me to be part of a super weapon program, helping them to develop the necessary spells. Not to actually ever use them, mind you, just so we have something to intimidate enemy nations... First of all, what enemy nations? We haven't had 'enemy nations' for generations."
Spike shrugged. "I thought you like creating new spells? Even if we'll never need them, they'd still look good in the archives."
"I quote: 'It is our belief that under the right circumstances, the detonation of an alicorn princess should create a blast of at least 59 megatons of TNT'..."
She frowned at Spike's reaction.
"Yeah, laugh all you want. Me, I wish I could put this awful thing into the shredder, but no, I'm a Pretty Pony Princess, so I have to politely decline . Urgh."
"Here's what I don't get, though", Spike said after a while. "If we don't have any enemies, why are you sending ponies to Chelonia to 'investigate' all over the place? "
"As the only remaining super power on the continent, and arguably, the world, we need to know what's going on. We've got a certain... responsibility. Not to mention we owe it to our own citizens to remain vigilant..."
She sighed. "Okay, to be honest there's still a lot I don't understand either. Not yet, anyhow. But Celestia has been doing this for centuries. On the one hoof there's diplomacy and playing by the rules, on the other... There's just doing what needs to be done, I guess."
She was just glad Spike didn't know about the near-invisible, remote-controlled beholders patrolling in the skies, including over Equestria itself.
Spike shrugged.
"Anyway, it was a good idea to team Fluttershy up with Rainbow Dash. They can use their good cop/bad cop routine on the shell-heads. Of course the only thing more efficient than good cop/bad cop is good cop/bad cop/Pinkie Pie."
He looked at her with a raised eye ridge.
"The Chelonians are still technically our allies, Spike. I didn't want to be too hard on them just yet."
Then she raised her head and just stared at him, locked her suddenly glassy eyes onto him until he started feeling uncomfortable.
"Twilight...?"
"I don't know if I can do it, Spike."
"Do what?"
"Everything. I mean, why me? Sure, I passed Princess Celestia's tests and all... But what if I wasn't really meant to be an alicorn princess? What if I mess it up? What If I'm the worst princess of all times? I mean so far I haven't really done all that much princess stuff, I was basically just a weird unicorn with wings... But now I'm supposed to be royal."
She lifted another document to her face that adressed her as 'Princess Lucea of Equestria', shaking her head.
"What if I'm a total failure at being an alicorn? I mean I got by just being a unicorn... I'm not wise like Celestia, I'm just... I feel like a fraud, Spike."
Spike groaned. "What do you know... It's sappy time again. Twilight, look... I don't care whether you are a unicorn, an alicorn, or, I dunno, a walrus or something. To me, you will always be Twilight. As far as I'm concerned, you don't have to live up to anyone but yourself. And I'm sure the girls would agree with me on that one."
He paused. "Twilight...? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh no...!"
"C'mere, you big log!"
Before Spike could run for cover, Twilight had levitated him into her arms.
"Geez... Serves me right. That's what I get for opening a big fat can of mush."
To compensate, he added: "Besides, your magic is much stronger now. If you mess up this kingdom, you can probably just create another one."
"Charming as always, Spike."
-
After a while, Twilight frowned over a document with Pinkie Pie's name on it.
"Spike... did you slide a Pinkie-request into my 'to stamp' pile again?"
"Well..."
"A request to give her clearance to investigate the royal citchens as she sees fit, creating the prestigious post of 'royal baked goods-and bewerages analyst' ?"
"If you put it like that..."
"Just to clarify, we are talking about the same Pinkie Pie here. Pinkamena 'Welp, I really shouldn't eat this'-SHRUGGS-Eats it anyway Diane Pie?"
"Give me a break, I still owed her a birthday present. You know how... pushy she can be."
"Are you telling me you are fearing Pinkie Pie more than the wrath of your alicorn princess? Don't answer that." She sighed. "Right here, I have a formal request by the highest ranking royal baker to revoke Pinkie's appointment. It's very polite in a passive-agressive kind of way, and it uses a lot of euphemisms. I can tell they're euphemisms."
A terrible ruckus could be heard from the hallway.
Seconds later, the royal chief dragged a protesting Pinkamena into the audience room. Pinkie's belly looked suspisciously bloated.
"Speaking of the Pie. Alright. What did she do?"
"I told her to keep her hooves off the ultrapudding we prepared for the diplomatic delegation this evening, but nooo, I had hardly turned my back on her..."
"I didn't touch it!", Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
She giggled. "What I did do, however, was to sneakily seduce the pudding until the poor, lovesick thing crawled into my stomach all on its own."
"I'm trying very hard not to visualize that right now", Twilight said.
"You better", the chief sighed. "I'm just glad she didn't do that with one of her own creations, that would have been... weird."
"See what I meant when I said I wanted to spare the Chelonians?", Twilight whispered to Spike.
When the chief had left the room, Twilight said: "Honestly, Pinkie, try to show a little restraint sometime."
"Pfft! You just don't know how it is to be... in love."
"If it implies being eaten by your loved ones, I think I can do without, thank you."
"Funny you would mention that", Spike said. "See, aparently there is this dragon tradition that when the one you consider to be your mentor dies, you get to..."
"Boy, am I glad for my new-found immortality."
"Yeah, for me it was kind of a bummer to be honest."
"Oh, I'm sure it was. And YOU, Pinkie!"
She had intervened just in time to prevent Pinkie Pie from putting the original of the Equestrian Constitution into a shredder.
"Oups, sorry, hehe. Didn't know we were still using this."
"Of course we... Please don't touch anything. You can draw with crayons or something."
She paused.
"By that I mean you can draw with crayons. On paper. That I will give to you for that purpose. And on Spike if you want."
-
There was a knocking on the great door.
"Could you get that, please?"
Spike returned with an envelope.
"What is it now, Spike?", Twilight asked.
"It's the Floretanians again... they say they have caught one of your 'spies', and send their regards."
He held out the envelope to his master. A single dandelion fell out, cut at the stem.
"Oh, COME ON! How are they even sending these messages?"
"I dunno, I just found it lying there."
-"What's going on?", Pinkie Pie asked.
"Twilight is at war with the flowers."
-"Well it was about time."
"In the shredder with it", Twilight said as she levitated the whole grisly package back into his hands. "Oh, WHAT IS IT NOW?"
She flung open the door, hoping to catch the unknown courier in the act.
But it was too late. There was nothing out there but an envelope stuffed with a segment of the royal lawn, judging by the smell and the blades of grass sticking out of it.
"Okay, now this is perfectly... Who left the window open?"
They turned around, alarmed by a sudden draft on their backs. Twilight's desk was covered in humus, sprinkled with seeds. There was a card sticking out at the top, announcing the improvised flowerbed as the first wave of colonists.
As Pinkie Pie proceeded to build a dirt castle, Twilight was blowing steam out of her nostrils.
Then there was another knock on the door.
"I HAVE NO &%*#*€ TIME TO WASTE ON !!§%$€£¢¥&/§/$!! FLOWERS !... Oh. I'm so, so sorry."
There was a whole foreign delegation standing at her door, holding a large flower arrangement with the flags of Equestria and of their own country entwined with it.
"Will you believe me if I tell you that this is a terrible misunderstanding?"
They decided to take the princess' word for it, though a few of them were still sobbing when they walked away.
As they left, Twilight observed an envelope aproaching the door through the hallway, seemingly all on its own, gliding through the air, as if held aloft by magic. Except it didn't actually fly on its own.
"A magical bumble bee. OF COURSE."
The bumble bee with the tiny blue cap deposited the mail on her doorstep.
"So I take it you're also a proud subject of Floretania?", Twilight asked dryly.
"Naah", the insect said, "I'm just a humble delivery gal. International shipping. Don't shoot the messenger."
"I wouldn't even know where to find a projectile tiny enough..."
She shook her head. "Enough of this nonsense."
Twilight walked out to the balkony towering over the royal gardens. She took aim.
"Hehe. Watch this. I've developed this spell myself. It sucks the enchantments out of any magic being or object, turning them back into what they are meant to be. It's still a prototype, but these pesky weeds make a perfect test subject..."
She fired a beam of concentrated magic at the flower patch at the far side of the garden.
Later, as she analyzed what went wrong, she would conclude that her beam had bounced off a single drop of morning dew still clinging on to one of the flower petals. In any case, it flew right back into her face and transformed Princess Twilight into an aliwalrus.
"Not a word, Spike. Not A word."
-
After having returned to her alicorn form, Twilight stormed into the gardens, Spike and Pinkie Pie following closely behind.
She lowered her head to the ground in front of the royal couple.
"I have HAD it with you! This ends NOW."
"So I take it you are going to surrender?"
"SURRENDER?"
"That's right, cry it out with all your might, as you bow to your new masters!"
"I..."
"The age of Equine supremacy is over! The domain of the Twilight princess has fallen! Hail your new flower overlords!"
"But..."
"Every first born foal shall be fed into the earth as fertilizer, as their parent's tears still the thirst of our roots! The fallen princess herself shall be our garden maid, as shall every pony born to her bloodline hence forth..."
"Now..."
"The fallen princess speaks for the last time as she laments her defeat, a defeat more crushing in its totality than anything ponyhood has ever experienced..."
Twilight had taken a deep breath.
"I AM PRINCESS LUCEA OF EQUESTRIA, I AM TWILIGHT SPARKLE, AND YOU. ARE. NOTHING. TO ME. NOTHING."
Overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of her anger - and perhaps the flavour of her breath - the Emperor and the Empress collapsed, their little petals growing limp.
For a moment, Twilight just stared at this pitiful sight, frowning. Then, with a swift swing of her tongue, she plucked the two daisies out of the ground and ate them.
Pinkie Pie squealed in delight.
"Hardcore", Spike commented.
The surviving flowers stared at her. Or at least, Twilight guessed that's what they were doing. With flowers, it is hard to tell.
Then they burst into cheers.
-"Hail the new Empress!"
-"Hail Empress Twilight, the destroyer!"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so I am your leader now, huh?"
"Yes! By the sacred traditions of our ancestors!"
"Has there ever been a flower eating another flower?"
"You don't wanna know."
"Alright, my first order of business as your Empress is to pass a new law. Hence forth, no flower shall ever speak again. Ever." She pondered for a second, then she added: "And no letters, either."
Of course even Princess Twilight could not have predicted the emergence of the internet only a few decades later.
-
Princess Twilight let her eyes wander over her now empty desk, a little smile on her lips. It was done. It was all done for today.
She yawned and walked over to Pinkie Pie and Spike who were still busy with the crayons.
"Pinkie, what is that supposed to be?"
"I am capturing the moment of your triumph over the evil daisies for all eternity!"
"With crayons. Well, I guess that's fitting."
Twilight inspected the drawing a little more closely.
"Pinkie, they didn't bleed."
"They did too... In your stomach!"
Twilight gagged. "Oh that's okay, I didn't need to eat dinner this evening anyway."
But when she returned to her desk, she was smiling again.
"You know, in retrospect, the experience wasn't all that bad. Even invigorating, in a way. Spike, I think I will conquer another micro nation tomorrow."
"Another patch of flowers?"
"Nah, something bigger. A vegetable garden perhaps, or what is left of Russia." She gasped. "A goldfish pond!"
"Woah, slow down there, tiger!", Spike said.
For a moment, Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Spike just stared at one another. Then they burst into laughter.
"Aaaah", Pinkie Pie said, "We're having fun with low blood sugar levels. Good times, good times."
