Under New Management

Twilight Sparkle took the red-eye train back to Ponyville. The town would be hers to rule at dawn. And she didn't want to miss a single moment. She didn't roll into the town station until after midnight. She could get a few hours of sleep. But she was too excited to sleep tonight. She spent the wee hours of the night pacing in her tree castle, her mind a flurry of ideas, until it was so late in the night that it was early.

The hour of the dawn approached. Twilight poured herself a cup of coffee and freshened up her mane in the mirror. She turned her head from side to side. Even with her wings folded behind her, she didn't feel like she looked like a princess. Her mane wasn't wavy, but then neither was Cadance's. She didn't look regal or even any taller. She looked the same as she always did. She took a deep breath. She admitted that at the very least she looked... ready.

Twilight walked out of the front door of her castle into Ponyville. She made a bee line for Town Hall, stopping in front of the door, counting down in her head. ...four... three...two... The sun breached the horizon. Twilight tried the knob. The door was locked. She waited another moment. It was still locked. It was dawn. Ponyville was officially now her kingdom. And she as locked out of her own Town Hall. In the window beside the door, the hours of operation were posted.

Monday - Friday 9-5

It would not be open for another three hours. Twilight waited anxiously, pacing in a circuit along the perimeter of the round structure. She arrived back at the door a couple minutes later. It had not miraculously unlocked, and time had not advanced any faster. Twilight tried to shake off her anxious feeling. But she had so many plans and ideas, and so many questions. But standing and waiting accomplished nothing productive. There was only one other place that she knew of that would be open this early. Twilight walked to Sugar Cube Corner.

The jingle of the bakery's doors bell announced her entrance.

"Just a moment please!" came a voice from the kitchen. Twilight recognized it as Cup Cake. She trotted out a minute later, her hooves covered in flour. "Good morning Princess Twilight!" She did a quick curtsy. "What can I get for you? There's not much ready at the moment I'm afraid, the bread is still baking. But there are a few things from yesterday that are still good if you'd like."

"That apple turnover looks good," Twilight said, pointing through the window at the pastries on display.

"Let me put it in the oven real quick and warm it up for you," Mrs. Cake said, taking the pastry into the kitchen, returning with it on a plate steaming a couple minutes later. Twilight took her time to enjoy it. "So what has you up this early?"

"Well today, I'm officially the Princess of Ponyville."

"But- you've been a princess for a while now."

"True. But I guess before it was more of a figurehead sort of thing," Twilight said. "Today I officially begin as acting Princess of Ponyville. That means that I would have jurisdiction separate from Princess Celestia, like the Crystal Empire."

"We've seceded!?" Cup Cake asked.

"No, no! It's nothing like that!" Twilight assured her. "It's like the Crystal Empire, ruled by another princess, but still a part of Equestria."

"Oh." The answer seemed to calm her. "Will there be anything else?"

"No. I just needed something to eat. All I've had for breakfast was coffee, and I need to kill some time before I meet with Mayor Mare."

"Well when you go to see her, tell her I said 'hi'."

"I will."

It was nine o'clock. Twilight stood in front of the Town Hall door again. There was something very wrong with the world in that moment, for the door was still locked. Twilight looked at the clock tower. The hand moved to 9:01. This is madness! Twilight was nearly shaking. A public official, tardy? Twilight heard the mechanical lock of the door click undone from the other side. Twilight quickly opened the door, pulling it from Mayor Mare's surprised hoof.

"Good morning!" Twilight greeted.

"Oh my! Uh, good morning, Your Highness."

"It certainly is! Do you know why it is?" Twilight asked excitedly.

"It's Arbor day?"

"No... Well, yes, but it is also the day I become Princess of Ponyville," Twilight said.

"Are you not, already?"

"Well now I am officially the Princess of Ponyville, with all the power and title granted within."

"Oh...kay...then. Are you personally telling everypony this?"

"No. I'm here today because we have a lot of work to do."

"We do?"

"We do. You're going to help teach me how to run a town."

"Oh no-"

"Oh yes. I want to learn everything! So there's no time to lose." Twilight trotted past her inside the hall. Her first stop would be the records room. If she was going to state legislating policy, she needed to get familiar with some existing ones.

Mayor Mare hovered in the doorway of the records room. Despite Twilight seeking her out to teach her how to lead a town, she had asked little after her initial arrival. Twilight, instead, was digging through filing cabinets and boxes of old decrees and laws. Everything from the town's founding charter to minor zoning ordinances.

"Is there something in particular I can help you find?" Mayor Mare asked. Twilight looked up at her from her seat on the floor.

"Why yes, could you direct me to the law against incest so I can repeal it so I can finally have sex with Shining Armor?"

"No thank you," Twilight said. "I'm just... browsing." Mayor Mare looked at the clock on the wall.

"Well if you're all set here, I need to get to my office and do... mayor stuff."

"Uh huh." Twilight nodded, engrossed in another treatise of legalese. Mayor Mare took the opportunity to slip away. Twilight continued to pour over the papers until nearly lunch time. "Ah HA!" Twilight's eyes lit up. She had found it at last. The document that she had been searching for. 'The Prohibition of Carnal Consanguineous Relations'.

She quickly retrieved a quill and parchment, copying down the body of the text and the reference information for its location. Searching through the mountain of paperwork was the easy part. Next came the hard part.

Twilight filed her copy of the information away in her bag, and restored the room to the state in which she had found it. She trotted to Mayor Mare's office.

"Mayor Mare?" she asked from the doorway. The mayor put down her daisy sandwich from her lunch.

"Ah, Princess Twilight! I'm glad you're here. I have some things for you to sign."

"For me to sign?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. As the Princess, you must sign off on this legislation. Normally I would have to send this paperwork to Canterlot for Princess Celestia to sign, but now I don't have to!" She smiled, pushing the stack of paperwork across her desk toward Twilight.

"Do I have to sign all of these right now?" she asked.

"Of course not, if you need time to read them. But as soon as possible, preferably by the end of today," she said.

"Is there someplace I could sit?" Twilight asked.

"Oh my gosh! Forgive me, please-" Mayor Mare grabbed a chair from the next room and brought it into the office, on the opposite side of the desk from hers. "Here you go." Twilight sat down at the desk. Mayor Mare returned to her own desk and finished eating her lunch while Twilight went over the paperwork.

Most of it looked familiar to what she had seen in the records room. Various appropriations for town funds, new policies and proposals awaiting approval.

"What's this? 'Repeal of ordinance 4PP13'?" Twilight asked, pointing at the paper. Mayor Mare leaned across the desk and looked at it.

"Let's see, 4PP13 was a law about..." she flipped through her binder of reference papers, pulling out and older one, "Ah, here we go. 4PP13 was a law forbidding the use of land plot grid 41.883632, -71.352260 for agricultural use due to soil exhaustion. But that was decades ago, and the land has recovered by now. This act would repeal the law and allow for the land to be owned and used as farmland."

"And what about this part at the bottom? 'can not be used for an apple orchard'?" Twilight asked. Mayor Mare smiled.

"Miss Applejack is a sitting member of the town committee. Rightfully so as the Apples and Sweet Apple Acres are pillars of our community. I believe she was intending to prevent any competition with her farm."

"And that can just get added on?"

"Yes. In the 'biz' we call that 'footnoting'. It makes it more convenient since it doesn't require an entire separate law to be written. It just requires a second signature to indicate that it was present on the paperwork at the time of your signing."

"Can I attend these town committee meetings?" Twilight asked.

"Your attendance isn't required any more than Princess Celestia's ever was. But it would be a good attraction for the other citizens to attend and be active in the community. The next meeting is this Saturday. I would encourage it if you could attend."

"Could I propose bills?" Twilight asked.

"Y- yes... As a residing citizen of Ponyville that is within your rights," Mayor Mare explained. Twilight clapped her hooves excitedly.

"Excellent. I will be there!"

Saturday could not come fast enough for Twilight. News had spread of her attending the town meeting, and many citizens wanted to spend an extended period in the same room as the resident princess. The hall was filled, standing room only. The mayor called the meeting to order. It was the same boring town meeting as in the past, with a few ponies proposing ideas, and requesting earmarks. Twilight simply sat and waited until everypony else was finished.

"Are there any others?" Mayor Mare asked. Twilight Sparkle stood up, raising her hoof. "Yes? Princess Sparkle?" Twilight cleared her throat.

"I've noticed that the Main Street bridge over the river has come into disrepair. I motion for an amount of fifteen thousand bits to pay for repairs based on estimates I've collected from local masons as the lowest bidder." Twilight passed the papers to Mayor Mare, who looked over them quickly.

"That seems reasonable. But what is this? 'The repeal of regulation 1nc35t'?"

"1nc35t is an old regulation prohibiting masons from performing public works over moving water. Effectively preventing them from being able to do the needed repairs. Advances in construction safety equipment have made it obsolete. Its repeal is necessary for the proposal."

"I see. Any objections?" Mayor Mare asked the room. None came. There were no further proposals. She banged the gavel on the podium, bringing the meeting to a close.

Twilight collected the papers and brought them out of the meeting room to her small, temporary office. It was smaller than the mayors. But it suited her just fine. She shuffled through the papers as quickly as she could, seeking out her own bill to sign first.

She had spent the entire week preparing for this moment, to sign this bill. To the casual observer, it seemed innocuous enough. Of all things, why a bridge repair bill? Twilight smirked at her own cunning, as she retrieved her quill and ink well. The regulation prohibiting masons from working over moving water was actually 1nc34T. Its designation was next to 1nc35t, her intended target. Historians might write it off as a clerical error some day. But it didn't concern her tonight. She spent days searching for something over moving water for a mason to repair, damaging it, and then getting estimates for it. She brought her quill to the paper, signing it off in permanent ink on an official government document. With a stroke of her pen, regulation 1nc35t: 'The Prohibition of Carnal Consanguineous Relations' was repealed... and incest in Ponyville was now officially legal.

.

Dear Prince Shining Armor,

Please come to Ponyville as soon as you are able. I have wonderful news.

- Princess Twilight Sparkle