The Essay of Twilight Sparkle
'My Faithful Student,
There has been a rather regrettable incident at Canterlot Castle. Discord decided it would be funny to eat feed everyone a whole pile of poison joke gunpowder. As a result, everyone in the castle has now died exploded.
We would be grateful if you would diesizzle off your own face send us an essay at least one million pages long detailing every single second of your life. We expect this essay in the next five seconds. We won't read it because we're dead, but you must still send it or you will fail all of your future tests by default. And finally, don't take life too seriously. No one gets out alive anyway.
Princess Celestia.
Twilight Sparkle stared at the parchment. She read the letter through again, and again, and again, just to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. Then she shrieked, "SPIKE!"
The dragon trudged over. "What is it, Twilight?"
"Read this."
Twilight shifted her weight from hoof to hoof as Spike read the letter, his eyes growing narrower and narrower as his eyes travelled across the words.
"Well?" she said sharply when he looked up at last.
Spike shrugged. "Looks like a prank to me. Celestia would never make you do something like this. And besides, if she and all the other inhabitants of the castle are dead, how did she write this lett....er.....?"
Twilight was giving him her best death stare. Spike sighed. "I'll go get you a million pieces of parchment, shall I?"
Golden Arrow watched all of this with confusion. He thought of asking Twilight what was going on, but she seemed oblivious to him, tearing around and searching for quills and ink.
Spike gave Twillight a thousand pieces of parchment to get started with, and then took the letter and went to find their friends. Rarity was indisposed, it seemed- there was a note, written on lilac, perfumed paper, pinned to the door of the boutique. Spike pulled it down to read it.
I am very sorry, but I simply had to take the day off work today in order to bolster a mob with the aims of destroying a particular draconequus. If you've come to collect or make an order, you will unfortunately have to come back another time. I apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Perplexed, Spike continued on to Sweet Apple Acres, avoiding the huge commotion going on in the town square. On the way he saw Rainbow Dash flying around- backwards and upside down. Applejack was bucking apples in the field beside the path, ignoring her airborne friend.
"Rainbow Dash!" Spike called. The colourful pegasus came spiralling down, her wings clearly upside down now Spike saw her clearly. Spike stared, and started to say, "What happened to your-"
Rainbow shrugged it off. "Poison joke again; Rarity got hit too. I saw Discord with a lot of it yesterday, it must have been him." But Spike could see mischief gleaming in her magenta eyes.
"I suppose that's why she's bolstering an anti-draconequus mob, then." said Spike.
"Who's doing what!?" Applejack came cantering over from the orchard.
"Rarity. Bolstering an anti-draconequus mob. There's a big crowd in the middle of town."
"Hasn't Twilight tried to stop it?"
"No."
"Why the hay not?"
"Because of this." Spike passed the letter to Applejack, whose eyes widened with disbelief as she read. She looked up at Spike as Rainbow swiped the letter and began to read.
"You're not actually telling me she took this SERIOUSLY?"
"Yep." Spike grimaced. "I left her with a thousand pieces of paper to keep her going, but I wouldn't be surprised if the library is on fire with how heated her quill is going to get with all that speed-writing."
Applejack's reply was cut off as Rainbow swooped into the air, cackling with laughter. "Oh, this is brilliant!"
Applejack narrowed her eyes at the swooping pegasus. "We'd better get Fluttershy. She's Discord's best pal, after all."
"On it!" called Rainbow, speeding off in the direction of Fluttershy's home.
Applejack shook her head as the pegasus suddenly lost altitude and crashed into a tree. "Rainbow, ya can't fly like this. You'd better walk with us." She trotted over, tugging on Rainbow's prismatic tail as the pegasus yanked her head out of the tree trunk.
"But Applejack! You can't walk like- THIS!" With a flourish, Rainbow Dash pulled a sprig of poison joke from her mane and threw it at Applejack. It brushed past her leg and then lay on the ground. Applejack didn't move.
"Was that supposed ta do somethin'?" she said icily.
Rainbow looked confused. "But...you were supposed to shrink!"
"Rainbow, you know as well as I do that poison joke's not instant-effect. But thanks, ah'll have to go get some antidote ready for tomorrow morning now."
Rainbow looked sheepish.
"So then," said Applejack angrily, rounding on Rainbow, "ah suppose it's you who got Rarity all riled up about Discord? Saw him yesterday with a load of poison joke my hoof. You're just covering up yer prank with that all-too-convenient lie."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Ok, I threw a sprig in with a pile of Rarity's fabrics when she wasn't looking, but I really did see Discord in town yesterday stuffing loads of this stuff into a sack. I boldly confronted him, of course, but he just threw this sprig at me and teleported." Rainbow looked rather pleased with herself.
"But why Rarity? You know she's the one who reacted worst to the poison joke last time! Every time she finds a bit of her mane or tail that's a bit longer than normal she comes charging over to the library demanding antidote." Spike interjected.
"Well duh. That's the point." said Rainbow. "I would've gone for Pinkie or Fluttershy, but Pinkie's my pranking buddy and she told me that you can under no circumferences prank Fluttershy."
"Circumstances." corrected Spike.
"Gesundheit," Rainbow said, turning back to Applejack, who still looked disbelieving. "Hey, you know this freaky letter? Maybe it has something to do with Discord and the poison joke."
Applejack suddenly looked shocked. "You don't think- Princess Celestia?"
"Maybe even everypony in the castle."
"Well," said Spike slowly, "I did think it was strange that the princess sent a guard to deliver the letter instead of sending it by magic, and that the guard had no mane or tail, but I didn't want to ask him about it in case it was a disease or something."
"Come on." said Applejack. "We've got to go and talk to Twilight."
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Meanwhile, back at the library, Twilight was frantically scrawling out her letter. "Five seconds." she muttered. "Deadline. Fail all future tests..."
She puffed out a breath, collecting the hundred and two pages she had already written and straightening them out. Golden Arrow took a step forward. "Are you finished, Miss Sparkle?"
Twilight turned to give him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding? This is just the table of contents."
Golden Arrow blanched and reversed back against the wall. "This cure must be awfully complicated." he muttered to himself.
"What?" Twilight stopped scrawling and turned her head to him, her left ear twitching nervously.
"Oh! Uh, nothing. Please, continue." Twilight looked at him for another moment before turning back and beginning to scribble again. Golden Arrow wondered if he should leave her to it, but he knew that time was of the essence. He must be here to take the notes of the cure as soon as they were completed. Even so, he didn't like the slightly crazed look in her eyes.
An hour later, Twilight stopped again. "Parchment." she muttered. "Parchment." Then she shrieked, "SPIKE! PARCHMENT! NOW!"
Golden Arrow leaped backwards and despite his orders, scrabbled out of the door.
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Spike, on his way back into town with Rainbow and Applejack, heard the screech and saw every single bird take flight from the surrounding area. "Oh no." he groaned, and quickly raced into town to buy more parchment.
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Twilight tore around her library, flicking through books to find the ones with blank pages at the end and tearing the pages out. She raced over to the desk with them, scrawling on them and adding them to her pile of essay before going hunting for more pages.
Spike tottered in with a huge pile of parchment and Twilight pounced like a chupacabra leaps on a goat, hefting the pile to her desk and beginning to write at blazing speed. Rainbow, Applejack and Golden Arrow slipped quietly in through the door, watching in silence as Twilight worked herself up into even more of a frenzy.
Her ink ran out around 15 minutes later and she hurled the empty bottle at the wall with such force it left a dent in the wood; Spike quickly fetched her two more bottles.
Applejack and Rainbow had both come in intending to intervene, but they could see that such a thing might even be lethal with the mess Twilight was in. So they stood for three hours, watching, until finally Twilight set the quill down in the ink, straightened and bound the million-and-one page essay, and promptly collapsed in a dead faint.
Applejack strapped the essay to a straining Golden Arrow's back as Spike and Rainbow gently carried Twilight upstairs to her bed. In the next hour or so, Twilight woke frequently to shout things like "Deadlines! Five seconds!" or "Million and one pages... not finished..."
Golden Arrow was already gone, bound for Canterlot with the huge stack of paper tied to his back, and at some point in the hour that Twilight lay asleep the commotion in the main square had risen to a crescendo before fading away into nothing. Rarity, her mane and tail trailing along the floor, came in to ask for antidote, but ended up waiting with the others for Twilight to wake up after Rainbow showed her the letter.
Finally, Twilight stirred and woke up properly. She gazed blearily at the ponies around her and croaked, "Essay...gone?"
"Yes, sugarcube, it's gone." said Applejack.
"But... not finished... forgot the apology... for not making...deadline..."
"Oh, darling, that deadline was absolutely preposterous and you know it." scoffed Rarity. "The princess would never set you a deadline like that."
Twilight looked confused. "Then... who...?"
Applejack took a deep breath. "Twilight, we think that Celestia might have written that letter... when she was a bit addled."
"Celestia... never drinks..." Twilight looked cross. "Not addled..."
"Not by drink. By... poison joke."
"Huh?"
"Rainbow here saw Discord in town yesterday, packing a sack full of poison joke. It's entirely possible that he has used it on everypony in the castle. That guard... he had no mane or tail to speak of. Didn't you notice?"
"No... too busy... writing essay..."
"Well, that essay's done now. I don't think it was necessary, but when the princess is back to her senses she'll be sure to appreciate your unerring trust in her." said Rarity. "Anyway... why is it Discord chose only to infect Rainbow and I with the poison joke? I know Pinkie hasn't been affected- she thought my whole mob-bolstering was a huge street party- and he'd never go for Fluttershy, she's his best friend."
Rainbow looked guilty and tried to sneak away, but Applejack planted a hoof on the end of her tail. "Rainbow." she said sternly, "Ah believe you have something to tell Rarity?"
Rainbow looked pleadingly at Applejack, but Rarity was now eyeing the blue pegasus with suspicion from beneath her long white fur. "What do you need to tell me, Rainbow Dash?"
Rainbow reluctantly opened her mouth...
Ten seconds later, Rainbow went shooting out of the nearest window with Rarity's shrieks echoing behind her.
"RAINBOW DASH, GET BACK HERE SO I CAN SHAVE OFF THAT MULTICOLOURED TAIL OF YOURS AND STUFF IT INTO YOUR EARS, YOU SNEAKY-"
