Prince Spike and Twilight the Dragon
Princess Twilight Sparkle staggered into her bedroom at Canterlot Castle after a hard day's work of planning for the Hearts and Hooves Festival.
"Ugh, I'm so tired. Why did Princess Celestia have to ask me to come to Canterlot to help preparations, instead of, you know, the princess of love, Cadence?" Twilight moaned to Spike, who was sitting at the desk writing out a checklist for the next day.
"You think you have problems? I've gone through 3 quills just today, I've got a claw cramp and I have to follow you around tomorrow helping you prepare for the festival. At least you get a break from being a princess every now and again, but I have to work work work every single day." Spike ranted.
"Wow Spike, that's not like you." Twilight replied. "I thought you enjoyed most of your job."
"I'm sorry Twilight, I'm just so tired. Do you think maybe you could get somepony else to help you out tomorrow?" Spike yawned.
"Spike, you know that's not possible. That's like me asking Princess Celestia if she could get somepony else to help prepare for the festival instead of me, and as much as I'd like to, I just can't." Twilight sighed.
"Yeah, well your job's easy Twilight." Spike moaned. "You just have to run around carrying decorations and put them up all over the place, sounds easy enough to me, I'd be happy to do that for you."
"Spike, my job is in no way easy. You write the checklists, you should know!" Twilight snapped.
"Ok then." Spike got up off his chair. "How about this? Tomorrow, I do you job and you do mine? Sound fair, Princess?" Spike added a bit of a mocking tone to his final word, which really threw Twilight over the edge.
"It's on!" Twilight grinned.
The next day, Twilight was the first to wake up. She instantly remembered the agreement she made with Spike and pulled a spell book out of her saddlebag and began flipping through it.
It was then that Spike woke up.
"Morning Twilight, is our deal still on?" The dragon asked.
"Of course it is, in fact, I found a spell that'll change me into a dragon, and you into a pony." Twilight proudly announced as she showed the book to Spike.
"Cool, but how will you change us back if you're a dragon?"
"The spell will wear off at sunset. So we should go back to normal then."
"Ok." Spike hopped out of bed. "Ready to go!"
Twilight lit her horn and recited the spell "Twilight and Spike Cambia Corporum Meum Corpora Sua Nominavi." Twilight's magenta aura began glowing brighter as it grew. Eventually both Twilight and Spike were enveloped in the magical glow. One last flash of light and the aura simply vanished.
"Sp-spike? D-did it work?" Twilight opened her eyes. She was lying flat on her stomach. She looked up to see a bright purple stallion with a green mane staring back at her."
"Twilight?" The stallion spoke in a familiar voice.
"Spike!" Twilight gasped. "The spell worked!" Twilight looked in the mirror, instead of herself, she saw a baby dragon that looked exactly like Spike, only she had Twilight's color scheme.
Spike also looked in the mirror. He saw a slender alicorn staring back at him. Spike proudly outstretched his wings, which were slightly larger and bulkier than Twilight's. He admired his spiky green mane, as he turned to admire himself from the side, he noticed his cutie mark. It was a scroll enveloped in a green flame, which obviously symbolized his talent for sending scrolls by flame, though it perplexed the new alicorn how that was possible, since ponies didn't breathe fire.
As if to answer his thoughts, Spike's horn lit up in a bright green sparkling aura. A scroll bearing the crest of Princess Celestia appeared before him and opened up, ready to be read.
"You should read it, now that you're the one handling my duties." Twilight smirked.
Twilight read the letter aloud.
Dearest Princess Twilight
Last night, I noticed how Spike has been overworked lately, and I concluded that certainly you could carry out your duties today by yourself. So I have decided to not include Spike in today's schedule. Make sure to tell him to enjoy his day off
Yours, Princess Celestia.
"How convenient, looks like I get the day off." Twilight bragged as she crawled into Spike's comfy bed. "Enjoy your day Spike. I'm staying right here!"
Spike cursed under his breath as he levitated Twilight's saddlebags onto his side and headed for the door.
"Oh, before you go!" Twilight jumped out of bed and ran over to the dresser. She picked up her crown and placed it on Spike's head just as he reached the door.
"Do I have to wear this? It's really girly." Spike complained.
"You're taking over all of my royal duties, and since you're an alicorn now, that makes you a prince!" Twilight tried to contain her laughter as she looked at Spike rocking the gold and pink crown. "Besides, you make it work."
Spike began muttering again as he went out the door, and Twilight simply returned to the dragon-sized bed to enjoy her day off.
Princess Celestia looked up from her paperwork as the door to the throne room opened.
"Good morning Princess Twi- Spike!?" The princess was flabbergasted to see Spike, four-legged, with both wings and a horn, trotting into her throne room.
It was then that Princess Luna, who was standing beside her sister, looked up. The night princess immediately burst out laughing seeing Spike standing in front of her wearing Twilight's saddlebag and crown, looking most displeased.
"What in Equestria is going on?" Celestia herself was even giggling a little, though her small titters were drowned out by Luna, still dying of laughter.
"Twilight and I wanted to see who's job was harder, so now I'm an alicorn and she's a dragon. And since she conveniently got the day off, I'm stuck doing all the work today." Spike moaned.
"I see." Celestia smiled softly. "I'll allow this, but I still expect all of your duties to be complete, Prince Spike. And I'll be sure to write to Twilight and give her some work to do. Just to make things fair."
"Thank you, your highness." Spike bowed.
Luna got up from the floor, finally finished laughing. She wiped away her tears as she tried to address Spike as straight-faced as possible.
"Spike, why are you wearing Twilight's crown?" She asked.
Spike looked confused. "Twilight told me I had to wear it since I was on royal business." he answered.
Luna began giggling again. "You should know that Twilight chooses to only wear her crown on important occasions, planning for a festival is not one of them. You don't need to wear it if you don't want to."
Spike immediately levitated the crown off his head and stuffed it into the saddlebag, mumbling under his breath for the third time that morning. "Twilight is so gonna get it."
Back at Twilight and Spike's bedroom, Twilight was relaxing in her own bed now. She had flipped through a couple of magazines and was now just staring at the ceiling.
"It's so boring here." The dragoness moaned. Suddenly, she began to feel sick. She clutched her stomach as if she was about to vomit. But instead of vomiting, she simply burped. In front of her was a scroll surrounded by purple flames. The scroll opened for her to read.
Dearest Twilight
Spike has informed me about your little competition today, and I was sorry to hear that Spike was stuck with all the work, ironically after I gave him the day off. So I have decided that today you will be helping out Princess Luna prepare for the festival. She has quite a lot of work to do today and she said she would love a pair of claws to help her. Enjoy your day!
Princess Celestia
Twilight groaned as she climbed out of bed and picked up some paper and quills. She should have expected this to happen.
Spike was making his way down the corridor of the castle. Princess Celestia asked him to meet with the Ponytones Quartet. He was once again wearing Twilight's crown, after Luna had begged him to put it back on. He reached the room where the ensemble were waiting.
"Good day Spike, Princess Celestia wrote ahead that you would be talking to us this morning." Rarity greeted the prince.
"Uh huh." Spike simply said as he sat himself down at the table. "So, I'm supposed to ask you about how you want your performance to look, what songs you'll be singing."
"Eeyup." Big Macintosh simply replied.
"We were thinking of Find the Music in You for our performance. It is a fan favorite after all." Toe-Tapper suggested.
"Quite so." Rarity smiled
Spike wrote it all down on the clipboard he had brought with him. "Anything else?"
"Well, since we don't want you going to the trouble of setting up a stage for us, we thought perhaps we could perform on the castle balcony." Rarity offered.
"I don't know, the balcony's pretty high up. It's more suited for speeches instead of musical performances." Spike argued.
"Eeyup" Big Mac agreed.
"Hmm, I suppose. But with all that's going on to prepare for the festival, I'd hate to give the decorators more work to do setting up a stage for us." Rarity sighed.
"Hey, there's a gazebo in the town square where the heart of the festival will be, I think you'd be able to perform there."
"Why Spike, that's a brilliant idea!" Rarity squeed.
"Wow" Spike thought. "This royal duties thing is pretty easy"
Twilight walked across the bridge leading to a secluded part of the castle where Princess Luna resided. She knocked on the door of the Night Princess' bed chamber.
Luna opened the door and welcomed Twilight inside.
"I was hoping you'd look as hilarious as Spike does as a pony, but you actually look exactly like he normally does, just a different color." Luna seemed a bit disappointed.
"Thanks?" Twilight replied.
"Now then, we have a very long agenda today. I may be the princess of the night, but we'll most likely be working all day." Luna levitated a scroll from her desk and unfolded it. It's length went from Luna's desk to the door of her room and entirely across the bridge.
Twilight placed a claw near her eyes to block out the sun as she tried to determine where this long to-do list ended. It looked like it was still unraveling down the stairs. This was going to be a long day.
Spike had finished his meeting with the Ponytones and was now helping with decorations for the festival. He was to replace the Equestrian Flag at the highest point of Canterlot Castle with the flag of the Crystal Empire. This new tradition was put in place because it was now the home-land of the Princess of Love, Cadence. Such a spell that would levitate the flag all the way to the top of the tower was out of Spike's magical arsenal, so he had to fly to the top, something he had never done before.
The dragon-turned-alicorn spread his new feathery wings and began flapping them as hard as he could. This, of course, was not enough to get Spike flying steadily. His wings were out of sync, one flapping up with the other was flapping down, so he kept moving from left to right with each flap.
"You ok up there dude?" Streamers, a pegasus who was helping decorate yelled up to Spike. "If you want I can bring up that flag!"
"I'm fine! I think I'm getting the hang of this!" Spike yelled back down, right before he crashed into a wall.
Backing up, Spike got his wings to sync, then began flapping them calmly. He was now flying up steadily but slowly. He began to flap them a bit harder and he picked up the pace, though he started swaying a bit now. He crashed into another wall.
Finally, Spike reached the top of the tallest tower, where the Equestria Flag was flying swiftly and proudly. Finally it was over, getting down would only be a quick glide, then there was no more flying for the rest of the day.
"Nice going kid, but maybe next time you could actually bring the Crystal Empire flag up with you."
"First off, we must collect cake for my sister's royal luncheon with the delegates of Caneighda." Luna read out the to-do list Twilight was carrying as the two reached the Canterlot Bakery.
"Your highness, are you here to collect the Royal Cake?" Soda Bread, the baker, bowed to Luna.
"Yes, I take that it is ready?" Luna answered.
"Of course ma'am." Soda Bread turned and stuck her head into the back room. "Fairy Cakes, could you please bring out the Royal Cake?"
Fairy Cakes, Soda Bread's daughter, levitated the entire cake out of the kitchen. It was a humongous 12 tiers and almost reached the ceiling.
"Oh my, I don't think that will fit in the box we brought." Luna pointed to a cardboard box that Twilight was carrying, which would probably only fit about 1/4 of the cake.
Soda Bread acted quickly and pulled a wagon out of her back room. "This should suffice, though one bump too many on the road could be fatal."
"We need to keep this cake safe." Luna whispered to Twilight. "Last time I lost a tier of my sister's precious cake, she ended up accidentally creating Ghastly Gorge. It would bring out a side of her I'm sure the Caneighdians certainly do not want to see.
They walked out of the bakery as Luna checked over her list.
"There's no room for us to make a trip back to the castle to store the cake. I can handle a few of these tasks on my own. Could you bring the cake back to the castle for me, Twilight?"
"Of course, Luna." Twilight pulled the heavy wagon behind her.
"Thank you so much. Be as careful as possible. Bring it to the kitchen, the chef will store it. When you're done, meet me at Canterlot Spa."
As Luna walked away, the situation finally dawned on Twilight. The castle was all the way at the other side of town. With the amount of busy construction ponies running around, and whatever else could get in her way, Twilight was in for a bumpy ride (hopefully only metaphorically).
Twilight began her long and dangerous journey. She knew how much Princess Celestia treasured her cake, and she didn't doubt Luna for a second upon hearing that the loss of a simple tier of the cake could lead to Canterlot becoming a post-apocalyptic crater.
Twilight looked up to see a pegasus flying around in the sky, she then realized that it wasn't a pegasus, it was an alicorn, and not just any alicorn, it was Spike! He was out of control.
"Perfect." Twilight said to herself. With Spike flying out of control, he could fall out of the sky at any second and crash into the cake, then Celestia would have both of them sent to the moon for maybe 10,000 years!
Meanwhile, up in the air, getting back down to the ground was a much harder task than Spike had thought. As he was gliding down from the tower to get to the flag, a huge gust of wind ended up carrying him all the way to the other side of town. Now he was struggling to re-gain control and fly back.
"How do pegasi do this?" He moaned to himself.
Twilight was halfway back to the castle, she could even see it, though it was a good distance away. Spike was still flying dangerously overhead, as if he was following her.
Twilight entered the bustling Canterlot Square, ponies were running around all over the place, the square was the heart of shopping in Canterlot, and it didn't help that these busy shops had such expensive tastes that drew any pony with common sense towards them.
Twilight dodged just about every single pony in the square. She looked behind her to check on the cake, it was wobbling a little, but all seemed well.
Spike was caught in another gust of wind, he was being blown all over the sky like a Breezie caught in a hurricane. He narrowly avoided buildings, trees and even ponies. All while keeping his stylish crown on his head.
Twilight got to the other side of the busy square and breathed a sigh of relief as she began walking up the final street which lead to the castle. It was the final stretch!
Up in the sky the wind was picking up. Spike could also see how close he was to the castle. If he just flapped his wings a little harder, he could make it! Spike flapped and flapped with all his might, the wind was getting stronger. One mistake and he was in for a bumpy landing.
Twilight began to trot as she was nearing the entrance to the castle. She was almost there. Just a little bit further
"AAAAAAAAH!"
squelch
Twilight gasped in horror. She knew what the sound she just heard was. It was the sound of an out of control alicorn crash landing into a priceless twelve-tier cake made for Princess Celestia herself!
Twilight turned around and her suspicions were confirmed. The cake was ruined. Spike was lying on the wagon in a daze.
"W-what happened? Twilight!?" Spike came to his senses.
"The cake!" Twilight screamed. She and Spike were in a whole lot of trouble now.
The dragon and the alicorn were standing in front of Princess Celestia's throne. The Princess sat and looked down at them in disappointment.
"I only allowed this little game of yours to go on because I thought it would just be a bit of fun. If I knew it would end with the destruction of an innocent cake, I would have undid the spell straight away." The tall alicorn was not angry, not sad, she just looked disappointed.
"We're really sorry Princess, I have no idea what came over me when I thought of this. I've already wrote to Applejack, asking if she could come to Canterlot to help us make a new cake, I refuse to let you spend any money because of a mistake we made." Twilight was near tears.
"There's no need to apologize, Twilight. I'm not upset with you. I was only saying that this job swap you and Spike have done was a bad idea. I'm only angry at myself for not realizing the consequences sooner." Celestia smiled.
Spike was the next to speak. "You don't have to be mad at yourself, Princess. It was my fault the cake was ruined. Flying isn't exactly my special talent."
"Spike's magic is in no way capable of un-doing the spell, and since I have no magic, we'll need to wait until sunset before we can be our normal selves again." Twilight said.
"I have no intention of changing you back early, though I do hope you've learned something today." Celestia replied.
"We have." Spike said. "Both of our jobs are equally as hard, and important. If we'd already known that yesterday, none of this would have happened."
"Spike's right." Twilight added. "We were too caught up in competing to think of any consequences of switching jobs. Spike can't fly, and with all the panicking I was doing as I brought the cake here, I completely forgot to pay attention to Spike in case he fell out of the sky."
"I'm glad you've come to your senses." Celestia beamed. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must go to lower the sun."
Celestia got up and left the throne room. After a few minutes, the sun began to set. After a large amount of flashing lights, Spike and Twilight were now back to normal.
"I'm a dragon again!" Spike cheered. "I am never lifting my feet off the ground again!"
"Come on Spike, we should head for bed. We've got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Doing our own jobs."
"And that's the way I always want it to be!"
