Chapter 2: Who Are These Ponies and Why Do They Call Me ‘Sir’?

“So, how many applicants do we have so far, Spike?” Twilight asked over her shoulder. Her scaly assistant, fresh out of school for the day, had taken up his usual post by her side. They walked together down the broad hallways leading to her throne room, where the applicants had been asked to convene.

“Well, I don’t know how many you’ve talked to, Twilight, but I’ve got four waiting for you in the up ahead. And you might be... surprised,” he explained, smiling mischievously behind her back.

Twilight could sense something in his voice, though. “What do you mean, surprised?”

Spike shrugged. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that you’ve been all over Canterlot, and Ponyville, and you might recognize some of them.” He hopped onto her back to allow himself to focus on a small checklist he’d brought out from behind him.

“I’ll take your word for it. Well, I don’t have anypony to add to that list, so it looks like today’s interviews are going to be short and sweet,” the alicorn mused aloud, as they reached the door to her throne room. She leaned a hoof on the massive wooden portal, then paused for a moment. “Well, here goes nothing.”

As soon as she swung the door open, , her ears were assaulted with various iterations of her name.

“Hey, Twilight!”

“Twilight Sparkle!”

“Miss Twilight!”

“Twilight, darling!”

“Your Highness!”

The small explosion of sound caught the princess off guard, as her mane blew back and her face adopted the expression of one just recently exposed to high velocities. Her eyes darted back and forth even as the rest of her stood perfectly still, taking in the sight before her. It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting, but then again, she wasn’t sure what that had been in the first place.

The line in front of her was comprised entirely of familiar faces. Some she knew personally, some she knew professionally, and some just in passing. She took a moment to regain her composure. ’Ok, you can do this. They’re all familiar faces, let’s just do some introductions and explain things.’ She turned her attention to the two-toned unicorn DJ on the far left.

“Hello again, Vinyl. It’s good to see you again,” she offered, holding out her hoof in welcome.

Vinyl took it, and performed some weird, over-complicated hoofshake that Twilight wasn’t sure whether or not she should feel dirty after completing. “He-hey, Princess Twi, how’s it hangin’? Haven’t seen you since your bro’s wedding!” Scratch was all cheer and familiarity. Apparently her irrepressible sense of ‘awesome’ was even immune to the presence of royalty. Twilight gave her an appraising look. ’Hmm, not bad. I’ve seen her use magic before, and some of the technology she’s utilized and created could lend a great deal to scientific advancement. If I can convince her that electronics have a setting outside of ‘wub’ we might get somewhere.’ Her eyes rolled over the white unicorns body slowly, taking in the mare’s form inch by inch. Not exactly skinny, but not fat. Sort of athletic. But I guess that’s what happens when you party so hard. Hmm, a party girl. She might know a thing or two about... ‘getting down.’ Yes, she’ll do just fine.’

“I’m glad you’re here. It’s good to see you have such an interest in the arcane arts,” Twilight tried her best to keep her tone professional and even, something she’d had quite a bit of practice in as of late.

“Aww, come on. With a kick-ass flyer like that who could say no?” The DJ smiled as she spoke and Twilight got a sense of why she and Pinkie were such good friends.

Moving along, she caught up with Rarity and Sweetie Belle, standing side-by-side, or rather, almost on top of each other. “Rarity! Sweetie! What are you girls doing here?” she asked, her voice much lighter and enthusiastic upon seeing her friends. She gave them a warm hug, and looked between them both for an answer.

Sweetie piped up first. “I’m gonna be an apprentice!” her voice squeaked in excitement. Twilight heard chuckles from up and down the row, some in adoration of the adorable spectacle, some in scorn of such a young little upstart. Twilight herself looked up to Rarity in slight alarm.

The fashionista only sighed and gave her an apologetic look. “I know, and I told her you were most likely looking for someone much more experienced in magic, but she said she wanted to try. And I figured it would be a nice excuse to say hello,” she offered.

Twilight’s expression softened, and she smiled and nodded. “Ok,” she said, turning her attention to the young Crusader. “I’ll tell you what, Sweetie. Once I’m done saying hello to everypony, we’re going to do some interviews. I’ll see what you’ve got then, ok?”

Sweetie saluted like a soldier, her hoof set at just slightly the wrong angle. “Yes, ma’am!” she barked, standing at attention.

Twilight chuckled to herself as she moved on to the next ‘applicant’. She stopped in her tracks, however, when she saw who it was. “Trixie?!”

The showmare scoffed lightly at the address, flipping her hair. “Of course! You didn’t think somepony posting an ad for a magical Apprentice could do without the mystical wonders of The Great and Powerful Trixie, did you?” The blue unicorn looked on with a prideful expression, expecting to see either surprise or, at least, indignation on the princess’s face. What she got, however, was much more... complicated.

Twilight looked absolutely overjoyed to see her. She barreled forth and tackled her in a hug, almost knocking them over. “I can’t believe it! How are you? I haven’t seen you since our duel! Are you ok? What have you been doing?” the lavender mare prattled on as Trixie’s face was stricken with a mixture of utter confusion and almost erotic joy.

Oh my stars she’s hugging me! She’s... happy to see me! Oh, thank you, Sweet Celestia!’

The words that came out of her mouth, however, were much less intelligible. “Aberrfur comin here brrrr apprentiship...” she almost drooled, her self-respect and motor skills fading fast. She stopped herself in a moment, however, and wriggled free of her snuggly assailant. “I’ve come here to apply for your ‘apprenticeship’, of course. Why else would I be here?” Oh please, Dear Luna, make her hug me again!'

Twilight nodded happily. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve learned! This should be great!” she cheered. She thought about hugging her ‘friend’ again, but collected herself and moved on to the next mare in line.

And all at once, her faculties came screeching to a halt. Upon laying eyes on the mare, Twilight’s brain not only stopped moving, but seemed to have developed a completely new ability: temporal paralysis. As if all time had stopped moving, or at least slowed, Twilight found herself unable to move as the beautiful mare in front of her approached her, slowly but surely.

A gorgeous, tenderly cared for mane flowed in brilliant, soft pink locks down a slender neck, coming to rest on a back just slightly arched in poise. Trim, elegant limbs carried the vision of beauty forward, where brilliant purple eyes met hers, eyelids drooping suggestively as she spoke. “It’s a delight to meet you, Your Highness,” the model bowed, and kissed each of Twilight’s hooves. She could feel a slight tingle where the soft white uncorn’s lips met her fetlocks. “My name is Fleur Dis Lee. I look forward to...” she paused, and leaned in to whisper into Twilight’s ear. “Working with you.” She nipped slightly at Twilight’s ear tip, leaning back slowly and giving her a suggestive smile.

Twilight was stunned. Had the room gone hot, or was it just Fleur? All the rest of the room seemed to melt away as she stared at the stunning beauty before her, and her faculties made absolutely no attempt to respond.

That is, until a scroll found it’s way across the back of her head. “Twilight!” Spike barked. “Come on, you gotta explain the job to these girls,” he huffed, turning around and walking back to stand next to the throne.

It was then that Twilight became very aware of everypony in the room that wasn’t her or Fleur. The other applicants seemed to be giving her or Fleur somewhat scathing or disapproving looks, Rarity was waggling her eyebrows at her, and the guards... well they were just standing there. One of them gave a hoof-bump to Spike as the baby dragon moved to lean against the big chair, though.

Twilight coughed, and took to the air, flying over to her throne to avoid walking past any of the mares before her. “Right, ok. Ok,” she said, steadying herself. She could still feel some of the residual heat in her nethers from her brief exchange with the fashion model, but made a valiant effort to stand tall and address them as a group. “Alright, ladies. It looks for now like you are the only applicants. This doesn’t change anything except how much time it will take to interview everypony and make evaluations. We’re going to do this in three steps, and there will be a scoring system. I will be going over details of steps two and three once step one is done. So, allow me to explain step one.

“The first thing we do is individual interviews. I will be talking to each of you in private, for no set period of time, and evaluating your immediate knowledge and previous experience in magic, as well as your intent towards the Apprenticeship program and your overall attitude, personality, and demeanor. These interviews will be happening over the next few days. I will interview one applicant a day, each at Three O’Clock. If this conflicts with any of your immediate schedules, please let me know. I will not be telling you who I am interviewing on what day until noon that day, so speak up now if this will cause problems.” Twilight paused for a moment, and the mares looked about themselves, seeing if anypony had any issues.

The princess nodded, and looked over at the wall clock to check the time. “Good. Seeing as I had you all meet me here at noon today, I will announce the first interviewee now, and the rest may go home and wait to be notified by royal post midday over the next three days.

“First up: Sweetie Belle.”

The adolescent unicorn jumped up and down, excited at going first. “Yay!”

The rest of the girls looked slightly put-out, but seemed to be at least a little relieved to be given at least some kind of chance to prepare a battle plan. They bowed in turn to Twilight, who nodded her head and politely gestured them out.

When it was just Sweetie, Rarity, and Twilight left, the unicorn hopped down from the throne, and nodded over to a door in the corner. "Come on, Sweetie, let’s talk.”

Rarity made to follow her sister into the smaller room, but Twilight held up a hoof. “Sorry, Rarity. She’s gotta be able to do this herself. I can’t let anypony but me or her in there til the interview’s over.” When Rarity gave a pout, and looked ready to complain, Twilight added, “It’s ok. I’ll treat her just like any other applicant, and see what she knows, and what she wants to do here, stuff like that. She’ll be fine. If anything else, think of it as her first job interview.”

The fashionista seemed a bit upset, but conceded. “Alright, Twilight, I trust you.”

“So, Sweetie, what do you know about magic?” Twilight asked, leaning across the large wooden table in the middle of the room. The ‘smaller room’ off to the side had turned out to be a reading room, for when Twilight was not required to stand in court and listen to citizens' concerns.

“I know a whole bunch!” Sweetie assured her. “I’ve been reading lots of books and stuff! Miss Cheerilee says she got her cutie mark by studying and figuring out what she really wanted, just by seeing what interested her when she read it!”

Thanks, Cheerilee. At least somepony’s getting these kids to read. “That’s great. So, can you do any actual magic?”

At this question, all the air seemed to deflate out of the tiny unicorn. “Well, not really. I can make stuff float around, but that’s about it. Rarity says it’s got something to do with how long I’ve been practicing and stuff.”

Twilight nodded, thinking this would be a short conversation indeed. “Well, that’s to be expected in foals your age-”

“But I think it might have something to do with Starswirl’s theories that the equine body can only produce a certain amount of mana in proportion to the amount of alicium in a mare’s horn. I tried to do a test on mine as outlined by Chorus the Crazy’s Component Analysis spell, but I wasn’t able to generate enough energy to fully analyze my horn. So I asked Zecora if she had any kind of mana enhancement potions at her house, and she said something like ‘If it is mana that you lack, then practice is your best attack’, which makes sense in a way, because consistent mana usage encourages the unicorn body to produce more alicium as the body develops, but I told her I was looking for a way to measure how much I had right now. So she put together some kind of alchemical brew that I saw was consistent with the Second Law of Magical Analysis that states that any potion or arcane ritual must require at least as much mana as the material being analyzed has squared. Cause she was using some Everfree grass seeds which are basically saturated in natural mana as a buffer along with some ingredients that I didn’t recognize but seemed like they tied in with the somatic and verbal components of CC’s Analysis spell, so when that was done she told me that she’d have to take a little while to translate the results into numbers I could understand, but I did some of the calculations in my head and as it turns out I’ve only got about ten grams of alicium in my horn as compared to the national average of 15-20 for foals my age, so I’ve been doing a bunch of exercises for increasing that amount, including some basic telekinesis exersises and stuff. I thought about trying some of those unicorn supplements, but they don’t actually increase alicium production as much as they do just dump a bunch of temporary alicium into your blood stream that your body draws on which is really bad for you because that means your cortex will start trying to draw on your cardiovascular system instead of your skeletal system for alicium and mana which can cause all kinds of damage to your nervous system and your heart and also stunts alicium growth. So I thought I’d become your apprentice so I could practice magic a lot more and do some studying to see if there were more reliably natural ways to up my alicium count cause I wanna be a really good magic user when I grow up. Plus I think there’s a lot of false information about unicorn magic on the market and even in schools and I think somepony should do something about that.”

Twilight was floored. Not only was Sweetie talking a mile a minute, but everything she said was... right. There was no way she’d have come up with any of that information without studying like, well, Twilight did, or trying it out herself. She’d ask Zecora to back up her story later, but all in all, it seemed...

“...well, Sweetie, I’d say you just passed round one.”

“YAY!”

Oh dear Celestia help me I’ve gone deaf.

Author's Note

Don't worry, the clop will be soon.

The next three chapters, in fact. Why do you think the interviews are one at a time?