When Spike woke up, Twilight was pacing.
Again. Or still. He wasn't sure which.
He had woken up at the three in the morning, and she had been pacing. He had ignored her and gone back to bed. Now, four hours later, she was still going. He was surprised that she hadn't worn a groove into the floor yet.
"Twilight," he complained. "What is it now?"
"Oh, Spike," she worried. "I just can't seem to find a solution. I don't want to inconvenience anypony by rescheduling something with them, but I desperately need to put time aside to plan next month's schedule! And I still have all these books that Celestia sent me to read, and I have that lunch with Pinkie Pie next week that I've been putting off for forever. Ugh! And with all of this mindless worrying, I'm falling behind on the schedule I've already got!"
Her pacing resumed, more frantic than before, and Spike rolled his eyes. "Right," he said, unimpressed. "I'm going to go pick up some groceries. And maybe get some ice cream. Let me know when you've got your thing all figured out."
He pushed open the heavy wooden door to the library and departed. Twilight walked over to her desk and picked up a quill, skimming over her day planner once more.
"Let's see..." she mused.
A spot seemed to magically open up in her week, as though it had appeared just because Twilight stared at the page and willed it to. "That's it!" she crowed jubilantly. "I'll just have to figure out a way to read "The Art of Invisibility Spells" at the same time as "Thornhoof's Brief History of Canterlot"! And then Spike can read "The Laypony's Guide to Rock Farming" and take notes. I'll just read through those and interview Pinkie during our lunch, and I'll certainly have enough information to write that report for the princess! That gives me at least forty-five minutes to work on next month's schedule." She grinned and carefully scribbled out the lines needed, using small, careful writing to mark the changes.
A slight breeze ruffled her papers. Twilight frowned and used her magic to latch the window, not even turning around. She straightened her papers and returned to the important task at hand.
"Oh, no!" she realized. "I was supposed to clean Owlowiscious's cage this morning. And Spike's still out..." She sighed. "It's okay, Twilight. Let's do this again."
She browsed her schedule for the day. If she skipped breakfast, she would get an extra... say, ten minutes. She glanced up at the sun; it was nearing nine o'clock, anyway; much too late to have a real breakfast. Twilight ran through a quick mental calculation, trying to figure out how much time she had wasted so far that morning. Since she didn't usually wake up until seven thirty, she had only really lost an hour and a half. She looked over her list of reports for the month and sighed.
"I don't really need to read twelve books for that paper on the Peloponysian War, do I?" she asked herself. Cringing, she quickly struck out two books on her list. "I'll read them next month, just in case," she promised.
With those out of the way, she was able to move everything up an hour. She scratched her quill furiously, trying to save time. Ten minutes of saved time meant spending twice that trying to find it.
The point of her quill broke off, sending ink gushing over her planner. Inhaling sharply, she quickly summoned a towel from the kitchen, blotting at it and soaking it up. She set the broken quill aside and plucked another feather from Owlowiscious, who sat asleep on his perch. He gave a faint hoot of irritation and shuffled in place, but didn't wake up.
She continued to shift her obligations. A quick note was scrawled to this pony or that, asking if they would possibly consider rescheduling, if it wasn't too much of a bother; something had come up in Twilight's schedule that was quite unavoidable. The town's clock tower chimed ten o'clock, but Twilight still worked on.
Spike pushed through the door, his arms full of paper bags. In one claw, he held a cone of strawberry ice cream. He snaked his long tongue around the bags to lick at it. "Still at it?" he asked bemusedly.
Twilight pushed away from her desk and grinned. "Nope! I've got everything figured out. I hope you picked up some coffee when you were out, because I figured out a way to fix everything. If I cut out an hour of sleep every day for the next week, I'll be able to start my day that much earlier. Accounting for the extra fatigue, I should be able to accomplish an extra forty to fifty minutes of reading per day. Oh, and I'll need you to send those."
She pointed a hoof at the small pile of notes on her desk. Spike slurped up the last of his ice cream and dropped the bags, dutifully scampering over to the pile and engulfing it in flames. The notes disappeared in a slightly sweet-smelling cloud of green smoke, and Spike belched.
Twilight paid no notice to her assistant's terrible manners. She trotted over to a shelf and began pulling books down. "Anything exciting happen in town?" she asked. The pile next to her grew quickly.
Spike nodded enthusiastically. "Boy, was there! There was this runaway dog, and it was huge! Gigantic! It was probably taller than Princess Celestia!" He gestured with his stubby arms to add emphasis.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "And what happened to this giant dog?"
Spike smirked. "Oh, Fluttershy helped it home. It was funny; all the ponies around were terrified of it, and Fluttershy just threw it a ball and led it back home."
Twilight settled into her cushion, surrounded by a fortress of books. She cracked one open and pulled a notebook up next to her, ready to start. "That's nice," she commented.
Spike picked up the groceries and headed into the kitchen. He unloaded all of the food quickly and gathered up the bulk of the bags' contents: a long roll of parchment. He waddled back into the main room of the library.
"Hey, Twilight?" he asked. "Where do you want this?"
A gentle snoring answered him. He approached the unicorn and poked her foreleg. She stiffened and sat up. "Wha? Oh, uh, just leave it there."
He did so and retreated back into the kitchen. Twilight rubbed her eyes and returned her gaze to the book in front of her. Her eyelids drooped.
Spike popped his head back in. "Do you want me to start some coffee?" he asked.
"Please."
