Student Debtby AsiagoUnicornChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 1Dim candlelight flickered over Celestia's desk, illuminating her bedroom in a living orange glow that she had always preferred over the sterile light of a spell. The desk itself was hewn whole from a living tree as a gift from the ruler of the elk lands. She dipped her quill pen in an ever-filling ink well, both a gift from a teacher from long ago. Celestia eyed her soft bed cautiously. It was a simple bed, relatively unadorned and functional. It didn't have a story or hold magic, but yet at the moment it held more power over her than any other object in the room. Its siren song grew louder with every passing moment, and she feared she would not last much longer. She could not give in. Before her lay the ever present mass of paperwork and correspondence, the chaff carefully pruned away by her personal scribes. Only matters of the utmost importance remained: Personal matters, and taxes. She slipped a sheet of paper, reviewed and signed, into an envelop, sealed it with the royal seal, and then, with a flash of magic, delivered it to the castle post for mailing at dawn. It began with a lapse of focus, her strained eyes reading one thing where there had been another. Her tired mind was unwilling to question it, and evidence against was corrected in error with a brief flash of magic and the swish of her quill pen. Where there had once been a perfectly reasonable number there now was a massive figure. Where there had once been the name of a young unicorn, there was now the name of one slightly older. She rolled the letter into a scroll and stamped it with her personal seal. ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight Sparkle awoke to the pleasant smell of pancakes wafting through the air. Still half asleep, she rolled out of bed, her hooves hitting the crystalline floor with a sharp clack. She groaned, trying to make sense of the blurry world her bleary senses presented to her. The wash of colors and sounds stubbornly refused to coalesce into something identifiable. Spike's voice pierced the haze with a single word, “Breakfast!” Twilight shook her head, freeing herself from the last dregs of sleep. Her stomach growled and an intense desire for pancakes resonated within her. She followed her nose almost as much as her immaculate knowledge of her castle's layout to the kitchen. “You're up early,” she remarked as she cantered in. Her words were rough and drawn out, her voice still waking up. Spike stood on a stool in front of the stove, the counters to either side of him covered in a thin coating of flour and other baking detritus. In one of his little claws was a half empty mixing bowl, the other a spatula, and atop his spiny head was a well loved chef's hat. A pancake sizzled in the pan before him, and a stack of steaming golden brown perfection rested enticingly on a plate to the side. He yawned in response, gesturing to the plate. “Got a letter from Celestia in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. Those are yours by the way.” Twilight lifted the plate with her magic, and half waltzed half stumbled her way over to the little table in the corner. She could never bring herself to use the dining room— just a door away from the kitchen— when she didn't have guests over. Something about it struck her as just a wee bit pompous. She meticulously sliced a sliver of pancake away with her fork and lifted it into her mouth. It was fluffy and buttery with just the right level of sweetness. Every book she had ever read on dietary sciences warned her of consuming such a breakfast on a regular basis. Those were one of the few kinds of books she didn't take to heart. “What was the letter about?” she asked through a mouthful of pancake. The scroll in question was in the center of the table, atop a pile of more conventional mail. “Something to do with school?” Spike scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I couldn't make mane or tails of it.” Exhibiting a mastery of magic nearly unparalleled, Twilight moved the scroll with her lavender aura over to where she could read it. It was unheard of for a unicorn to levitate two whole objects at the same time, the fork and the scroll. Before their morning coffee, that is. She skimmed the letter quickly, set her fork down, and then read it again more carefully. “This can't be right.” Starlight Glimmer's yawning figure appeared in the doorway. She shambled over to the counter, took a second plate of pancakes that Spike had prepared only moments prior, and found a seat at the table, all the while oblivious to the mounting panic attack in her mentor. “Hey, Twilight,” she muttered, her gaze drifting slowly away from anything that might be considered eye contact in her sleep addled haze. “Oh horseapples,” Twilight murmured under her breath, ignoring her student. “Spike!” She leapt out of the chair, and bolted over to the door before pausing and finishing her sentence, “I need to go out for a bit. Maybe longer.” She paused and thought for a moment. “Actually yeah, it could be quite a while. Give Starlight her friendship lesson while I'm gone. Use uhh...” She trailed off. “Whatever you can find.” The mare vanished in a brilliant flash of magic. All traces of drowsiness instantly vanished from Starlight. “What.” Spike echoed the sentiment. Surreptitiously, Starlight lifted the letter Twilight had been reading up, and read it. “Oh,” she said, succeeding where the dragon had failed and understanding the contents of the letter instantly, “She is 1.2 million bits in student debt.” “What.” Spike repeated himself. “Twilight Sparkle owes the Equestrian government 1.2 million-” “I know what it means,” Spike held up the spatula to stop her. “Just... What.” ✱ ✱ ✱ The clouds parted the early morning sunlight turning themselves a radiant gold. Birdsong filled the air, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees below. Morning in Ponyville was calm and laid back, the townsponies preferring to spend their mornings relaxing with breakfast and family. Rainbow Dash grumbled, and bucked a cloud into fine mist. “Stupid morning shift. Why is there even a morning shift?” Her motions were slow and uncoordinated as she sluggishly worked to complete her task. The early morning had robbed her of the usual vim and vigor that permeated every action. Against all odds, the pegasus had yet to discover coffee. A purple blur rocketed past her face, and suddenly her world was upside down. Instantly awakened by the danger of flying with one's only method of propulsion driving one towards the cold, hard ground, she quickly reoriented herself and scanned the skies for what had sent her for a whirl. After a moment she spotted the rapidly shrinking lavender dot on the horizon. Was that... Twilight? ✱ ✱ ✱ “So, about time for that friendship lesson,” Spike announced. He held a selection of manila folders in his claw which, until moments prior, had been carefully sorted and cataloged within a filing cabinet in the library. The two found themselves in the castle's impressive octagonal library at one of the crystalline tables. The early morning sunlight streamed in through the high windows, and the smell of musty paper filled the air. It took Starlight every ounce of her self control to pay attention to the baby dragon, and not start reading any one of the thousands of magical grimoires. “Are you sure you can handle this, Spike?” she asked, “Last time you had a full checklist to guide you. This time Twilight couldn't even select one for you.” “Nonsense.” Spike waved a claw dismissively. “We've got a lot of fun options for us today. Sewing with Rarity... Digging for gems with Rarity... Going to the spa... With Rarity.” The dragon chuckled conspiratorially to himself. Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I think your selection might be a little... biased.” “Ooh, look at this! Grueling farm labor with Apple Jack. Let's do this one.” “No, no, we can do one of yours.” Starlight's eyes widened in panic. Spike opened his mouth to speak, when a loud thump interrupted his thought. The thump resounded through the library again, followed by a shout of frustration. He looked up in horror as a rainbow maned pegasus crash through the window hooves first, sending shards of glass flying through the room. “You girls need to stop locking your windows.” Rainbow Dash remarked, oblivious to the shower of painful slivers she had just subjected her friends to. Spike thanked his hardened dragon scales with a kiss to each of his arms, and Starlight slowly lowered the protective bubble she had reflexively erected. “Rainbow Professionalism Dash!” Spike scolded loudly with the sternest voice he could manage, placing his claws on his hips for emphasis. “We could have been seriously injured! Not to mention the cost of replacing another window. What do you have to say for yourself? I mean honestly what were you-” “Relax, Spike,” Starlight Glimmer interrupted his tirade, “I've got this.” She took a determined stance, and her horn lit, weaving raw magic to form a spell. Her mane waved in an ethereal wind as power gathered. The glass began to pick itself hesitantly up off the ground, tracing backwards the path it had taken bursting outwards from where the window had once been. Finding their way back to their places, the cracks began to melt away until there was no sign the window had ever been broken. “Just a little mending spell mixed with some simple localized time distortion. Nothing complicated,” Starlight boasted. “See, Spike.” Dash finally landed on the floor and gave the little dragon a demeaning pat. “Glim Glam's got this.” Spike brushed her hoof off and pointed a claw accusingly. “That's no excuse to go around breaking ponies' windows.” Dash snickered. “I'm not going to go around breaking everyponies' windows.” Spike gave her a stern glare and almost seemed to grow a few inches. She stammered out, “Okay, okay, maybe I was going to break one or two. Geeze, does Twilight know you can be this scary?” “That's why she left me in charge,” he answered smugly, pointing towards his chest. The trio stood in and awkward silence for a moment. “So, friendship lesson,” Spike spoke, attempting to get the meeting back on track. “I was thinking we could-” “Say, Spike,” Starlight interrupted, her voice taking on a somewhat pleading tone, “You know what's better than a prepared friendship lesson?” She paused for a moment to give the dragon a chance to answer the rhetorical question, “Making our own. Let's hang out with Rainbow Dash today.” “Oh boy!” Dash exclaimed, “I am so up for that. You think you can fix more things?” The two mares launched into a heated conversation that was some mix between bartering for magical favors and an informative lecture on why that particular blend of spells had a very limited, almost nonexistent, application in repairing bones. Spike drooped dejectedly. “But Twilight left me in charge...” Dash's ears perked up at the sound of her friend's name. “Ponyfeathers! I completely forgot to ask. What's up with Twilight? I think I saw her flying very fast towards Canterlot.” “Oh, it turns out she has 1.2 million bits of student debt she didn't know about,” Spike answered. Dash scoffed. “What's she worried about? You can dodge student loans for ages. I still haven't paid mine back.” Spike and Starlight gave Dash a slack jawed stare, coming to a sudden and irrevocable realization about their friend. “I didn't know you went to university,” they spoke in unison. ✱ ✱ ✱ A handful of miles away, Twilight Sparkle had the same slack jawed stare. The line for walk-in appointments at the department of Federal Student Aid stretched around the block. Why had the entire population of Equestria chosen the same day to contest their student debt? Chapter 2“Hi, my name is Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight sat in an aging government office. The wallpaper looked like it belonged in a black and white photograph, and judging by the way it was peeling everywhere, it had probably been there long enough to have been in one. The carpet was worn thin in several places, and the strong scent of spoiled milk wafted up from it. The chair she sat in wobbled with every shift of her weight. “Red Ink,” the stallion across from her offered. He was young, which would have contrasted almost humorously with the state of the office, but he had the eyes of a stallion four times his age and eight times as dead. He had a greasy unkempt mop of bright red hair that clashed with his conifer green coat. Twilight speculated that it may have been dyed as some sort of premature midlife crisis, but it did match his name, and she wouldn't put it past equestrian genetics to produce a... color schemed-challenged pony. “I'd like to contest a claim that I have a large quantity of student debt.” Twilight shifted in her chair, nearly falling out with how far it wobbled. Bureaucratic officials always made her nervous. She didn't like the idea of giving somepony who was worse at paperwork than her so much power over her life. “I'm going to need to see some picture identification.” Red Ink responded without emotion. Every day it was the same thing. The same questions. The same responses. Conversation followed a procedure, and the procedure was formulaic. Twilight went to fumble through her saddlebags, only to realize that she hadn't brought her saddlebags. She laughed nervously. “I may have forgotten my identification at home.” “If you don't have any ID then we will not be able to proceed. Please come back tomorrow with the proper resources.” Red Ink straightened a small stack of papers on his desk, and motioned towards the door with his eyes. “Hold on,” Twilight desperately tried to buy time, “I'm Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's personal bearer of the element of magic, princess of friendship. I have saved the world I don't know... countless times.” Red Ink sighed. “Yes, you are and you have.” “Then surely you can trust-” “I can't,” he interrupted, “It's against protocol. Please return with proper identification. Good day.” Twilight gave him a pleading stare before grumbling and slipping out of her chair to the floor. She muttered tame obscenities and made her way to the door. Giving the stallion one last scathing glare, she slipped out. Another mare brushed past her and swung the door shut behind her. Their conversation muffled with the closing of the door. ✱ ✱ ✱ There weren't many places within trotting distance of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorn's campus where Twilight could have sated her, at the time, adolescent body's desire for fried sweets. There were even less places that were open at all hours of the night. It was no surprise that she had developed a fondness for Donut Joe's, and it was slightly less of a surprise that she found herself there, carefully considering her options over sweet jelly filled donut and a scalding hot cocoa. She ran the figures again, and again, accounting for interest, the potential she might actually have to pay the loan, flight time to and from her castle, how tired her wings were... The factors were endless. And each time she worked out the numbers she came to the same solution. With a loan that big, and the most likely interest rate, it would cost her more bits to fly home and retrieve her identification than it would take to “acquire” it. For the first time in her life, Twilight Sparkle considered violating the law in the interest of saving time and money. Leaning on the counter, she rubbed her temples and groaned to herself before ordering another donut. A donut was worth the time and the thousands of bits in interest. ✱ ✱ ✱ “And then I finally decided on a major and got my bachelor's in meteorology. I mean, how do you think I got a job as a weather mare? They don't just hand that position out to any pegasus who asks. It takes a precise understanding of the way clouds behave.” Rainbow Dash finished her story. The crunch of dirt underhoof filled the air as Dash lead the trio down the winding Ponyville roads into the center of town, where the farmer's market was in full swing. Barter and banter echoed across the plaza in front of city hall, and the usually empty space was packed to the brim with carts and wagons laden in fresh fruits and vegetables. “Wow, I just had no idea,” Spike remarked as they entered the sprawl of the marketplace. “I always pegged you for a jock.” “Hey, wait just one minute” Dash stopped walking and turned to face the dragon. “That's not an insult is it?” Spike backpedaled instantly. “It's not! I swear. All the jocks I know are great ponies.” Dash squinted at him, her tail swishing unconsciously behind her. “So,” Starlight chimed in, her voice filled with eager curiosity, “What are we here to do?” Dash instantly forgot her grievances with Spike, and straightened her body into a confident pose. “We are here to teach you the art of pranking.” It was Spike's turn to squint menacingly. “I thought you gave up pranking, Rainbow Danger Dash?” “Well yeah,” she snickered, “That's why Glim Glam here's the one doing the actual pranking.” “She will do no such thing!” Spike's inner motherly spirit was out in full force, and had Starlight been a great deal shorter he would have been covering her ears to protect her from the dangerous things the mean mare was saying. “Uh yeah, she will.” Rainbow Dash leaned down to Spike's height. “Because this is my lesson, and I'm in charge.” Her face was practically coated in a thick translucent layer of smarm. Starlight watched the two argue heatedly about which of them was technically in charge. It was so childish, she thought, and it showed no signs of stopping. Finally, she decided to step in. “Don't I have any say in this?” “Yes!” The quarreling friends shouted in unison. They stared her down with their expectant gaze. Taken aback, she muttered to herself in indecision. She weighed her ceaseless conquest for knowledge against what her moral compass was telling her. Finding that to be a confusing and ultimately non-elucidating endeavor, she instead regarded her friends' demeanor. On one hoof there was vindicating Rainbow Dash's cocky disposition, but on the other there was feeding Spike's motherly delusions of grandeur. “Let's go pranking.” Dash pumped a hoof in the air and let loose a cry of victory. “I knew you would be up for it!” She suddenly quieted, and leaned into Starlight's ear, “Okay, so here's what you have to do.” ✱ ✱ ✱ Roseluck hummed to herself as she set out vase after vase of perfectly cultivated and expertly arranged roses. It wasn't long before it was hard to see her little stall through the sheer volume of flora. She looked it over, tapping a hoof in thought. Something wasn't quite right. The positions of the vases weren't just so. She shifted each piece of the display with the speed and precision of an expert. Stepping back, she admired her work once again. Still, though, something was off. She readjusted and re-observed. Again, it lacked that flair it usually had. It was almost as if something was blocking her creative juices she needed to create perfection. Like something had stepped between her and her special talent. Like some crazy powerful unicorn had stolen her cutie mark or something equally preposterous. Something shifted out of the corner of her eye. She spun to face it, only to find nothing but Carrot Top setting up her carrot cart. Beautiful, gorgeous Carrot Top. Glancing back and forth she sighed and muttered to herself, “You're in the market, of course things are moving, Roseluck. One of these days you're going to kill yourself with stress.” Quietly she turned back to her work. There was still something missing, and she couldn't open until she figured out what it was. There it was again, suspicious motion at the edge of her vision. This time she whirled around just in time to catch it. There, all the way across the bustling farmer's market was a sky blue mare... Rainbow Dash? She was gesturing wildly, and mouthing something. Roseluck squinted to make it out. “Do... it... now... starve kite.” A sharp pain prodded her flank, blossoming outwards in red agony. Roseluck gasped loudly. She fell to her knees as a dangerous warmth spread through her body. Struggling for air, she finally managed to scream, “I've been hit! I'm dying!” Her vision began to dwindle and she collapsed writhing on the ground. “The horror! The horror!” Carrot top snickered as she looked on over the spectacle. Her perfect little curls bobbing up and down as her head shook with laughter. Her deep green eyes sparkled with what Roseluck couldn't bring herself to admit was malice. “How could you laugh when I lay before you dying, Carrot Top?” Roseluck sobbed. “And to think-” She moaned in pain. “To think that I was infatuated with you.” Carrot Top froze at the realization she might actually be dying. Then her mind registered the second half of her sentence. “Wait, what?” Her eyes wandered over the prone mare; her luxurious pale coat and wine red mane. The way her cutie mark sat starkly on her flank, advertising to the world exactly who she was. So open... So caring... Desire that she had locked away long ago welled up within her. She dashed over to Roseluck and sat down by the dying mare's side, scooping her limp body up in her forelegs. “You're going to be okay.” She spoke with a firmness that was nothing more than a facade. She had always loved Roseluck, even if she had hidden from it. To have those feelings realized and snatched away from her so quickly was the cruelest injustice she could have imagined. “You're going to be okay.” Tears sprung from her eyes unbidden. Roseluck was dying in her arms and there was nothing she could do. So many dinners they would never share; nuzzles that would never be; kisses that would never be realized. The mare lay still in her forelegs. She looked so peaceful with her hair swaying gently in the breeze and her eyes staring into the sky, cloudy and unseeing. Carrot Top sobbed. She buried her face in Roseluck's chest fluff, streaking it with tears. She could feel the stares of the gathered crowd all over her. “Go- away-” she forced out between sobs. Couldn't they see that she just wanted to be left alone?! “Just go away!” “Carrot Top.” The voice reached her ear like the gentle whisper of wind through reeds. “Roseluck?” she croaked, not daring to look up for fear she would dispel whatever apparition was talking to her. “Carrot Top,” the voice spoke again, so calm, so serene. “I'm okay, Carrot Top.” Carrot Top turned to look Roseluck in the eyes. “I thought you died.” “I did too,” Roseluck spoke in absolute sincerity, “Turns out I just got pricked by something.” Emotion warred within Carrot Top's mind. Anger, annoyance, and gratitude, duking it out for dominance. Finally, she laughed. “You big drama queen.” Roseluck grinned. “You're just as bad as me.” “I guess I am.” Carrot Top slowly leaned into Roseluck. “Can you blame me? I love you...” she whispered. Roseluck wrapped a hoof around the back of Carrot Top's head and pulled them together, muttering into the other mare's mouth, “I love you too.” A distance away, trying to pretend they weren't watching, Starlight Glimmer remarked to Rainbow Dash, “I just poked her with a needle...” Chapter 3A thought occurred to Starlight Glimmer while she carefully manipulated the atomic makeup of a bushel of apples in order to turn them blue at Rainbow Dash's behest. The trio had sequestered themselves within the Apple family barn with a stolen basket of apples, an unopened can of blue paint, and several dozen garden rakes. Starlight decided to voice this thought, “So Twilight needs money. Correct?” Spike muttered something vaguely equivalent to a yes from deep within the loose pile of hay he had fallen half asleep in. He had tuckered himself out hours prior trying to talk, scold, and threaten his equine compatriots out of their schemes, not to mention his lack of a full night's rest. “Okay, so what if we try to make some bits to help her out by pranking ponies for money?” “Why would ponies pay to be pranked?” Dash questioned from her perch in the rafters. Starlight pondered the best way to phrase her thoughts for a moment. “See that's the thing. They won't know they've been pranked.” “Wait,” Dash leapt down to the hard packed dirt floor so she could see what she could only assume was a crazy mare face to face. “If they don't know they've been pranked what's the point?” Starlight slowly set the apples down, having finished her task. “I'll know they've been pranked, and you'll know they've been pranked, and Twilight will get a tidy sum of money to put towards her student loans.” “Okay, I think I can kind of see what you're getting at. Let's give it a shot.” Starlight shooed Dash's hoof away as the mare reached for an apple. “Don't eat those. They're full of sulfur and other things that are very bad for a grown mare.” ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight Sparkle expected a lot of things out of the seedy underbelly of Canterlot. She expected interactions to primarily take place in shady back alleys and under the cover of darkness. She expected some modicum of professionalism, at least when they were trying to sell her something. She expected lengthy coats concealing their cutie marks, and obscuring their identity. What she did not expect was for the street gangs of Canterlot to be primarily run by foals. “Show me the bits, and I'll show you the goods,” the little filly spoke, her voice filled with all the gruffness of a baby bunny. Her coat was a dull gray where it peeked out from under the brown trench coat that was several sizes too big. Twilight procured a small bag of bits from seemingly nowhere. They were cheaper than expected too. The filly examined the bits with intense scrutiny. Finding them to her satisfaction, she slipped an Equestrian ID out of a hidden inner pocket within her trench coat. Goods were exchanged, and the filly spoke as she walked away, “If anypony asks, I was never here.” Twilight turned the ID over in her magic. It was surprisingly well done. While she could spot a number of mistakes and deviations, she was certain it would hold up for the purposes of contesting a student loan. “I'm going to by so much candy with this!” the filly shouted, thinking herself out of earshot. Twilight smiled. Maybe crime wasn't so bad after all. ✱ ✱ ✱ Spike yawned drowsily, trying to shut the light and the sounds of the market out by burying his face in the purple mane before him that really could only belong to Twilight. It hit him moments later that it was not in fact Twilight's mane, and he was not in fact riding on Twilight's back. He shouted, leaping off Starlight's back and falling painfully to the ground. Struggling for coherent words, he stammered out question after question, “Where am I? What have you done with me? Who am I?” Dash laughed with pure unadulterated schadenfreude. Spike stuck his tongue out at her, and tried to regain his bearings. They were in the market, and, judging by the sun's position, it was a few hours past noon. The stalls around him were still bustling with ponies and business. Ponies were rushing to get their grocery shopping in with the day's stocks dwindling. Just a few paces away, Starlight sat at a small unfolding table with three transparent cups and a marble. Every now and then, she'd hark the services she provided, a gambling game, at the top of her lungs. Next to her, hidden from the ponies that passed by the table, was a large bucket overflowing with glimmering bits. “Oh, you're finally awake,” Starlight noted gleefully. She pushed the bucket of bits to Spike. “We've been really successful.” Spike eyed the bits cautiously. A day filled with practical jokes and tom foolery had taught him not to trust anything either of the mare's he was with stated as true. Carefully, he picked up one of the bits and scrutinized it up close, nearly touching it to his eye to take in all the little details and anti-counterfeiting measures. Slowly, he placed it in his mouth and crunched. “Mmmmm.” He let out a pleasurable moan at the explosion of flavor in his mouth. “That's a bit alright. Soft gold outside with a crunchy zinc core.” Dash cocked her head. “You can eat money?” “Mmhm.” Spike nodded enthusiastically. “I'm a dragon. I can eat gems, precious metals, pancakes. Pretty much everything historically used to represent wealth.” “What about rare collectibles?” Dash asked in part out of curiosity, and in part wondering what she needed to hide from the precocious young dragon. Spike tapped his chin in thought. “Maybe, but I haven't tried. Collectibles are pretty valuable. I'd hate to-” Starlight waved a hoof in Spike's direction and shushed him. “Be quiet for a second. New customer.” She smiled at the stallion approaching the table, and gave him the prices, “Five bits to play, ten if you win.” He was a tall stallion, with a candy orange coat and a short brown mane. Caramel, if Starlight recalled correctly. Caramel covered his mouth with a hoof to hide his quiet snickering. He was familiar with the game the mare offered—three cups with a single marble hidden inside. First the cup with the marble was shown to him, and then they were shuffled. If he picked the cup with the marble, he won the game and a nice quantity of bits with it. Usually, there was some level of trickery involved in the form of the marble being shifted between cups via slight of hoof. The mare, however, was playing the game wrong, and he was going to make bank off of it. It wasn't hard to see which cup the marble was in when they were all clear. He offered set five bits down on the table, and true to formula, the mare lifted the cup with the marble up, showing him that which he already knew. Then, the cups were set into motion, being shifted at impossible speeds by her magic. Caramel snickered again. If they had been opaque like they should have been, he would have been screwed. The cups stopped, and Caramel selected the one that clearly displayed the marble. The mare shook her head sadly, and lifted the cup he had selected up. As it rose, the marble vanished from sight, somehow only visible through the glass. Caramel cocked his head and furrowed his brow, out of equal parts confusion and anger. “Double or nothing?” the mare offered. ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight sat herself smugly back down on the chair across from Red Ink in his decrepit office. “Before you ask, yes, I do have my ID.” She presented it to him with a flourish of magic. Red Ink smiled the twisted fake smile of a pony who has just realized they may be required to actually preform their job. “We may proceed then.” “Excellent,” Twilight Sparkle launched headlong into her request, “I recently received a letter stating that I posses a monumental amount of student debt. That is the correct term, by the way. Were a pony to donate this sum to the Equestrian government, it would be such an impressive show of generosity that there would almost definitely be several monuments erected in their image.” Red Ink gestured with his hooves the universal sign to continue, or more accurately, to hurry it up and dispense with the unimportant drivel. “In any case, I am nearly one hundred percent sure that this claim is in error. It is impossible that I owe that much, and in fact, incredibly unlikely that I owe anything at all, due to the nature of my tutelage.” “It is normal for a pony to rack up student debt at a rate they are not quite cognizant of, and perfectly normal for a pony to find themselves with much more than they anticipated as a bright-eyed young filly.” Twilight gave him a deadpan look. “I was Princess Celestia's personal student. I'm fairly certain I didn't have to pay a dime on account of my talents.” Red Ink shrugged a sluggish, uninterested shrug. “Even famous ponies accrue debt.” Twilight had never been one to growl in frustration. There was, however, a first time for anything. “You're missing the point. I'm almost one hundred percent certain that Princess Celestia herself covered the costs of my education.” “Princess Celestia is not in possession of infinite bits just because she's-” “Stop it. Right there,” Twilight interrupted, “Just tell me now: Are you going to let me contest this loan?” Red Ink was not a malignant pony. He wasn't even a moderately disruptive pony. He wasn't the pony you heard was going to be at the party, and then suddenly needed to seriously consider how much the vague chance of talking to your high school crush was worth. But there was protocol, so he spoke, “No. You'll have to go to court to apply for bankruptcy and default on your loan. I can not help you at this time, as this office is for applying for loans.” If Twilight hadn't just spent the last hour teleporting across Canterlot in search of a fake ID, she would have lit the office on fire. ✱ ✱ ✱ “Okay, okay,” Twilight muttered to herself, drumming her hoof on the counter of Donut Joe's. “Just need to find a cheap lawyer, file for bankruptcy, and then surrender all my material possessions. No big deal.” She dropped her face onto the sticky counter and groaned. She couldn’t file for bankruptcy. Just the idea of parting with all her books—the image of all those bankers and government officials touching them with their filthy hooves—twisted a knife deep within her gut. And the castle. The castle was important. She couldn’t lose the castle. The fate of Equestria relied on her possession of the castle. She screamed half heartedly and pounded a hoof on the counter. All around her were the scattered remains of paper to-go cups and boxes of donuts. She was easily on her third dozen and showed no signs of stopping. Donut Joe had seen this before. “Finals?” he asked. “Worse,” Twilight mumbled, refusing to lift her head up to face him, and instead speaking into the surface of the counter. “Student debt. I have to file for bankruptcy. I can’t file for bankruptcy.” If she had been looking up, she would have seen Donut Joe visibly cringe at the words. “I feel you. Student loans are tough. I had to open this place to pay mine back.” “Culinary school?” Twilight probed. Donut Joe nodded, realized she couldn't see him, and then responded, “Yep. No other place for me, really.” A nostalgic memory welled up within Twilight’s mind. “When I was really little, I toyed with the idea of going to culinary school.” She lifted her head and looked Donut Joe in the eye. Her coat was stained with tears and the filth of the counter top. “My mom made these amazing quiches, but every time I tried to follow her recipe something would go horribly wrong. I'd forget to put in the eggs, or I'd burn the crust. One time I accidentally used white glue instead of cream.” She shivered. “That was disgusting.” “So I thought, that maybe if I went to culinary school I'd be able to make my mother's quiches.” “Did you ever go?” Donut Joe questioned, enamored in her story. Twilight giggled, experiencing a momentary respite from her woes. “Well clearly I didn't go. Spike does all the cooking.” “You could still go, you know. It's never too late to attend college. They accept ponies of all ages.” Twilight sighed, the crushing weight of her problems falling back upon her shoulders. “Not with all the debt I've accrued I can't. They'd never let me take the loans I'd need to pay for it.” Donut Joe looked her deep in the eyes. “Then pay it off. For your mother's quiche!” “Yeah, I’m just going to pay back 1.2 million bits worth of loans just like that. I’d have to rob a bank or something.” Although, after all she had been though that day, maybe robbing a bank wasn’t the worst way to solve to things. She searched for her moral compass, only to find it had gone to take a nap hours ago, tuckered out by the sheer stupidity of her day. “Actually yeah, I’m going to go rob a bank.” “Wait, don’t-” Twilight cut off Donut Joe in the flash of purple light of her teleport spell. She was a purple pony princess, and only hell and high water was going to stand in the way of her goals. ✱ ✱ ✱ “Hey Starlight,” Dash announced as she placed a blanket over Spike, who had just fallen asleep again. “I'm starting to think this isn't fast enough.” Starlight looked over the four overflowing buckets of bits that she was struggling to hide. “What do you mean?” “Okay, so don't get me wrong. This is a lot of bits... But 1.2 million bits is a lot of a lot of bits.” Dash gestured the grossly underrepresented size of that many bits. Starlight smirked. “Let's step up our game then.”
Chapter 1Dim candlelight flickered over Celestia's desk, illuminating her bedroom in a living orange glow that she had always preferred over the sterile light of a spell. The desk itself was hewn whole from a living tree as a gift from the ruler of the elk lands. She dipped her quill pen in an ever-filling ink well, both a gift from a teacher from long ago. Celestia eyed her soft bed cautiously. It was a simple bed, relatively unadorned and functional. It didn't have a story or hold magic, but yet at the moment it held more power over her than any other object in the room. Its siren song grew louder with every passing moment, and she feared she would not last much longer. She could not give in. Before her lay the ever present mass of paperwork and correspondence, the chaff carefully pruned away by her personal scribes. Only matters of the utmost importance remained: Personal matters, and taxes. She slipped a sheet of paper, reviewed and signed, into an envelop, sealed it with the royal seal, and then, with a flash of magic, delivered it to the castle post for mailing at dawn. It began with a lapse of focus, her strained eyes reading one thing where there had been another. Her tired mind was unwilling to question it, and evidence against was corrected in error with a brief flash of magic and the swish of her quill pen. Where there had once been a perfectly reasonable number there now was a massive figure. Where there had once been the name of a young unicorn, there was now the name of one slightly older. She rolled the letter into a scroll and stamped it with her personal seal. ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight Sparkle awoke to the pleasant smell of pancakes wafting through the air. Still half asleep, she rolled out of bed, her hooves hitting the crystalline floor with a sharp clack. She groaned, trying to make sense of the blurry world her bleary senses presented to her. The wash of colors and sounds stubbornly refused to coalesce into something identifiable. Spike's voice pierced the haze with a single word, “Breakfast!” Twilight shook her head, freeing herself from the last dregs of sleep. Her stomach growled and an intense desire for pancakes resonated within her. She followed her nose almost as much as her immaculate knowledge of her castle's layout to the kitchen. “You're up early,” she remarked as she cantered in. Her words were rough and drawn out, her voice still waking up. Spike stood on a stool in front of the stove, the counters to either side of him covered in a thin coating of flour and other baking detritus. In one of his little claws was a half empty mixing bowl, the other a spatula, and atop his spiny head was a well loved chef's hat. A pancake sizzled in the pan before him, and a stack of steaming golden brown perfection rested enticingly on a plate to the side. He yawned in response, gesturing to the plate. “Got a letter from Celestia in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. Those are yours by the way.” Twilight lifted the plate with her magic, and half waltzed half stumbled her way over to the little table in the corner. She could never bring herself to use the dining room— just a door away from the kitchen— when she didn't have guests over. Something about it struck her as just a wee bit pompous. She meticulously sliced a sliver of pancake away with her fork and lifted it into her mouth. It was fluffy and buttery with just the right level of sweetness. Every book she had ever read on dietary sciences warned her of consuming such a breakfast on a regular basis. Those were one of the few kinds of books she didn't take to heart. “What was the letter about?” she asked through a mouthful of pancake. The scroll in question was in the center of the table, atop a pile of more conventional mail. “Something to do with school?” Spike scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I couldn't make mane or tails of it.” Exhibiting a mastery of magic nearly unparalleled, Twilight moved the scroll with her lavender aura over to where she could read it. It was unheard of for a unicorn to levitate two whole objects at the same time, the fork and the scroll. Before their morning coffee, that is. She skimmed the letter quickly, set her fork down, and then read it again more carefully. “This can't be right.” Starlight Glimmer's yawning figure appeared in the doorway. She shambled over to the counter, took a second plate of pancakes that Spike had prepared only moments prior, and found a seat at the table, all the while oblivious to the mounting panic attack in her mentor. “Hey, Twilight,” she muttered, her gaze drifting slowly away from anything that might be considered eye contact in her sleep addled haze. “Oh horseapples,” Twilight murmured under her breath, ignoring her student. “Spike!” She leapt out of the chair, and bolted over to the door before pausing and finishing her sentence, “I need to go out for a bit. Maybe longer.” She paused and thought for a moment. “Actually yeah, it could be quite a while. Give Starlight her friendship lesson while I'm gone. Use uhh...” She trailed off. “Whatever you can find.” The mare vanished in a brilliant flash of magic. All traces of drowsiness instantly vanished from Starlight. “What.” Spike echoed the sentiment. Surreptitiously, Starlight lifted the letter Twilight had been reading up, and read it. “Oh,” she said, succeeding where the dragon had failed and understanding the contents of the letter instantly, “She is 1.2 million bits in student debt.” “What.” Spike repeated himself. “Twilight Sparkle owes the Equestrian government 1.2 million-” “I know what it means,” Spike held up the spatula to stop her. “Just... What.” ✱ ✱ ✱ The clouds parted the early morning sunlight turning themselves a radiant gold. Birdsong filled the air, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees below. Morning in Ponyville was calm and laid back, the townsponies preferring to spend their mornings relaxing with breakfast and family. Rainbow Dash grumbled, and bucked a cloud into fine mist. “Stupid morning shift. Why is there even a morning shift?” Her motions were slow and uncoordinated as she sluggishly worked to complete her task. The early morning had robbed her of the usual vim and vigor that permeated every action. Against all odds, the pegasus had yet to discover coffee. A purple blur rocketed past her face, and suddenly her world was upside down. Instantly awakened by the danger of flying with one's only method of propulsion driving one towards the cold, hard ground, she quickly reoriented herself and scanned the skies for what had sent her for a whirl. After a moment she spotted the rapidly shrinking lavender dot on the horizon. Was that... Twilight? ✱ ✱ ✱ “So, about time for that friendship lesson,” Spike announced. He held a selection of manila folders in his claw which, until moments prior, had been carefully sorted and cataloged within a filing cabinet in the library. The two found themselves in the castle's impressive octagonal library at one of the crystalline tables. The early morning sunlight streamed in through the high windows, and the smell of musty paper filled the air. It took Starlight every ounce of her self control to pay attention to the baby dragon, and not start reading any one of the thousands of magical grimoires. “Are you sure you can handle this, Spike?” she asked, “Last time you had a full checklist to guide you. This time Twilight couldn't even select one for you.” “Nonsense.” Spike waved a claw dismissively. “We've got a lot of fun options for us today. Sewing with Rarity... Digging for gems with Rarity... Going to the spa... With Rarity.” The dragon chuckled conspiratorially to himself. Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I think your selection might be a little... biased.” “Ooh, look at this! Grueling farm labor with Apple Jack. Let's do this one.” “No, no, we can do one of yours.” Starlight's eyes widened in panic. Spike opened his mouth to speak, when a loud thump interrupted his thought. The thump resounded through the library again, followed by a shout of frustration. He looked up in horror as a rainbow maned pegasus crash through the window hooves first, sending shards of glass flying through the room. “You girls need to stop locking your windows.” Rainbow Dash remarked, oblivious to the shower of painful slivers she had just subjected her friends to. Spike thanked his hardened dragon scales with a kiss to each of his arms, and Starlight slowly lowered the protective bubble she had reflexively erected. “Rainbow Professionalism Dash!” Spike scolded loudly with the sternest voice he could manage, placing his claws on his hips for emphasis. “We could have been seriously injured! Not to mention the cost of replacing another window. What do you have to say for yourself? I mean honestly what were you-” “Relax, Spike,” Starlight Glimmer interrupted his tirade, “I've got this.” She took a determined stance, and her horn lit, weaving raw magic to form a spell. Her mane waved in an ethereal wind as power gathered. The glass began to pick itself hesitantly up off the ground, tracing backwards the path it had taken bursting outwards from where the window had once been. Finding their way back to their places, the cracks began to melt away until there was no sign the window had ever been broken. “Just a little mending spell mixed with some simple localized time distortion. Nothing complicated,” Starlight boasted. “See, Spike.” Dash finally landed on the floor and gave the little dragon a demeaning pat. “Glim Glam's got this.” Spike brushed her hoof off and pointed a claw accusingly. “That's no excuse to go around breaking ponies' windows.” Dash snickered. “I'm not going to go around breaking everyponies' windows.” Spike gave her a stern glare and almost seemed to grow a few inches. She stammered out, “Okay, okay, maybe I was going to break one or two. Geeze, does Twilight know you can be this scary?” “That's why she left me in charge,” he answered smugly, pointing towards his chest. The trio stood in and awkward silence for a moment. “So, friendship lesson,” Spike spoke, attempting to get the meeting back on track. “I was thinking we could-” “Say, Spike,” Starlight interrupted, her voice taking on a somewhat pleading tone, “You know what's better than a prepared friendship lesson?” She paused for a moment to give the dragon a chance to answer the rhetorical question, “Making our own. Let's hang out with Rainbow Dash today.” “Oh boy!” Dash exclaimed, “I am so up for that. You think you can fix more things?” The two mares launched into a heated conversation that was some mix between bartering for magical favors and an informative lecture on why that particular blend of spells had a very limited, almost nonexistent, application in repairing bones. Spike drooped dejectedly. “But Twilight left me in charge...” Dash's ears perked up at the sound of her friend's name. “Ponyfeathers! I completely forgot to ask. What's up with Twilight? I think I saw her flying very fast towards Canterlot.” “Oh, it turns out she has 1.2 million bits of student debt she didn't know about,” Spike answered. Dash scoffed. “What's she worried about? You can dodge student loans for ages. I still haven't paid mine back.” Spike and Starlight gave Dash a slack jawed stare, coming to a sudden and irrevocable realization about their friend. “I didn't know you went to university,” they spoke in unison. ✱ ✱ ✱ A handful of miles away, Twilight Sparkle had the same slack jawed stare. The line for walk-in appointments at the department of Federal Student Aid stretched around the block. Why had the entire population of Equestria chosen the same day to contest their student debt?
Chapter 2“Hi, my name is Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight sat in an aging government office. The wallpaper looked like it belonged in a black and white photograph, and judging by the way it was peeling everywhere, it had probably been there long enough to have been in one. The carpet was worn thin in several places, and the strong scent of spoiled milk wafted up from it. The chair she sat in wobbled with every shift of her weight. “Red Ink,” the stallion across from her offered. He was young, which would have contrasted almost humorously with the state of the office, but he had the eyes of a stallion four times his age and eight times as dead. He had a greasy unkempt mop of bright red hair that clashed with his conifer green coat. Twilight speculated that it may have been dyed as some sort of premature midlife crisis, but it did match his name, and she wouldn't put it past equestrian genetics to produce a... color schemed-challenged pony. “I'd like to contest a claim that I have a large quantity of student debt.” Twilight shifted in her chair, nearly falling out with how far it wobbled. Bureaucratic officials always made her nervous. She didn't like the idea of giving somepony who was worse at paperwork than her so much power over her life. “I'm going to need to see some picture identification.” Red Ink responded without emotion. Every day it was the same thing. The same questions. The same responses. Conversation followed a procedure, and the procedure was formulaic. Twilight went to fumble through her saddlebags, only to realize that she hadn't brought her saddlebags. She laughed nervously. “I may have forgotten my identification at home.” “If you don't have any ID then we will not be able to proceed. Please come back tomorrow with the proper resources.” Red Ink straightened a small stack of papers on his desk, and motioned towards the door with his eyes. “Hold on,” Twilight desperately tried to buy time, “I'm Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's personal bearer of the element of magic, princess of friendship. I have saved the world I don't know... countless times.” Red Ink sighed. “Yes, you are and you have.” “Then surely you can trust-” “I can't,” he interrupted, “It's against protocol. Please return with proper identification. Good day.” Twilight gave him a pleading stare before grumbling and slipping out of her chair to the floor. She muttered tame obscenities and made her way to the door. Giving the stallion one last scathing glare, she slipped out. Another mare brushed past her and swung the door shut behind her. Their conversation muffled with the closing of the door. ✱ ✱ ✱ There weren't many places within trotting distance of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorn's campus where Twilight could have sated her, at the time, adolescent body's desire for fried sweets. There were even less places that were open at all hours of the night. It was no surprise that she had developed a fondness for Donut Joe's, and it was slightly less of a surprise that she found herself there, carefully considering her options over sweet jelly filled donut and a scalding hot cocoa. She ran the figures again, and again, accounting for interest, the potential she might actually have to pay the loan, flight time to and from her castle, how tired her wings were... The factors were endless. And each time she worked out the numbers she came to the same solution. With a loan that big, and the most likely interest rate, it would cost her more bits to fly home and retrieve her identification than it would take to “acquire” it. For the first time in her life, Twilight Sparkle considered violating the law in the interest of saving time and money. Leaning on the counter, she rubbed her temples and groaned to herself before ordering another donut. A donut was worth the time and the thousands of bits in interest. ✱ ✱ ✱ “And then I finally decided on a major and got my bachelor's in meteorology. I mean, how do you think I got a job as a weather mare? They don't just hand that position out to any pegasus who asks. It takes a precise understanding of the way clouds behave.” Rainbow Dash finished her story. The crunch of dirt underhoof filled the air as Dash lead the trio down the winding Ponyville roads into the center of town, where the farmer's market was in full swing. Barter and banter echoed across the plaza in front of city hall, and the usually empty space was packed to the brim with carts and wagons laden in fresh fruits and vegetables. “Wow, I just had no idea,” Spike remarked as they entered the sprawl of the marketplace. “I always pegged you for a jock.” “Hey, wait just one minute” Dash stopped walking and turned to face the dragon. “That's not an insult is it?” Spike backpedaled instantly. “It's not! I swear. All the jocks I know are great ponies.” Dash squinted at him, her tail swishing unconsciously behind her. “So,” Starlight chimed in, her voice filled with eager curiosity, “What are we here to do?” Dash instantly forgot her grievances with Spike, and straightened her body into a confident pose. “We are here to teach you the art of pranking.” It was Spike's turn to squint menacingly. “I thought you gave up pranking, Rainbow Danger Dash?” “Well yeah,” she snickered, “That's why Glim Glam here's the one doing the actual pranking.” “She will do no such thing!” Spike's inner motherly spirit was out in full force, and had Starlight been a great deal shorter he would have been covering her ears to protect her from the dangerous things the mean mare was saying. “Uh yeah, she will.” Rainbow Dash leaned down to Spike's height. “Because this is my lesson, and I'm in charge.” Her face was practically coated in a thick translucent layer of smarm. Starlight watched the two argue heatedly about which of them was technically in charge. It was so childish, she thought, and it showed no signs of stopping. Finally, she decided to step in. “Don't I have any say in this?” “Yes!” The quarreling friends shouted in unison. They stared her down with their expectant gaze. Taken aback, she muttered to herself in indecision. She weighed her ceaseless conquest for knowledge against what her moral compass was telling her. Finding that to be a confusing and ultimately non-elucidating endeavor, she instead regarded her friends' demeanor. On one hoof there was vindicating Rainbow Dash's cocky disposition, but on the other there was feeding Spike's motherly delusions of grandeur. “Let's go pranking.” Dash pumped a hoof in the air and let loose a cry of victory. “I knew you would be up for it!” She suddenly quieted, and leaned into Starlight's ear, “Okay, so here's what you have to do.” ✱ ✱ ✱ Roseluck hummed to herself as she set out vase after vase of perfectly cultivated and expertly arranged roses. It wasn't long before it was hard to see her little stall through the sheer volume of flora. She looked it over, tapping a hoof in thought. Something wasn't quite right. The positions of the vases weren't just so. She shifted each piece of the display with the speed and precision of an expert. Stepping back, she admired her work once again. Still, though, something was off. She readjusted and re-observed. Again, it lacked that flair it usually had. It was almost as if something was blocking her creative juices she needed to create perfection. Like something had stepped between her and her special talent. Like some crazy powerful unicorn had stolen her cutie mark or something equally preposterous. Something shifted out of the corner of her eye. She spun to face it, only to find nothing but Carrot Top setting up her carrot cart. Beautiful, gorgeous Carrot Top. Glancing back and forth she sighed and muttered to herself, “You're in the market, of course things are moving, Roseluck. One of these days you're going to kill yourself with stress.” Quietly she turned back to her work. There was still something missing, and she couldn't open until she figured out what it was. There it was again, suspicious motion at the edge of her vision. This time she whirled around just in time to catch it. There, all the way across the bustling farmer's market was a sky blue mare... Rainbow Dash? She was gesturing wildly, and mouthing something. Roseluck squinted to make it out. “Do... it... now... starve kite.” A sharp pain prodded her flank, blossoming outwards in red agony. Roseluck gasped loudly. She fell to her knees as a dangerous warmth spread through her body. Struggling for air, she finally managed to scream, “I've been hit! I'm dying!” Her vision began to dwindle and she collapsed writhing on the ground. “The horror! The horror!” Carrot top snickered as she looked on over the spectacle. Her perfect little curls bobbing up and down as her head shook with laughter. Her deep green eyes sparkled with what Roseluck couldn't bring herself to admit was malice. “How could you laugh when I lay before you dying, Carrot Top?” Roseluck sobbed. “And to think-” She moaned in pain. “To think that I was infatuated with you.” Carrot Top froze at the realization she might actually be dying. Then her mind registered the second half of her sentence. “Wait, what?” Her eyes wandered over the prone mare; her luxurious pale coat and wine red mane. The way her cutie mark sat starkly on her flank, advertising to the world exactly who she was. So open... So caring... Desire that she had locked away long ago welled up within her. She dashed over to Roseluck and sat down by the dying mare's side, scooping her limp body up in her forelegs. “You're going to be okay.” She spoke with a firmness that was nothing more than a facade. She had always loved Roseluck, even if she had hidden from it. To have those feelings realized and snatched away from her so quickly was the cruelest injustice she could have imagined. “You're going to be okay.” Tears sprung from her eyes unbidden. Roseluck was dying in her arms and there was nothing she could do. So many dinners they would never share; nuzzles that would never be; kisses that would never be realized. The mare lay still in her forelegs. She looked so peaceful with her hair swaying gently in the breeze and her eyes staring into the sky, cloudy and unseeing. Carrot Top sobbed. She buried her face in Roseluck's chest fluff, streaking it with tears. She could feel the stares of the gathered crowd all over her. “Go- away-” she forced out between sobs. Couldn't they see that she just wanted to be left alone?! “Just go away!” “Carrot Top.” The voice reached her ear like the gentle whisper of wind through reeds. “Roseluck?” she croaked, not daring to look up for fear she would dispel whatever apparition was talking to her. “Carrot Top,” the voice spoke again, so calm, so serene. “I'm okay, Carrot Top.” Carrot Top turned to look Roseluck in the eyes. “I thought you died.” “I did too,” Roseluck spoke in absolute sincerity, “Turns out I just got pricked by something.” Emotion warred within Carrot Top's mind. Anger, annoyance, and gratitude, duking it out for dominance. Finally, she laughed. “You big drama queen.” Roseluck grinned. “You're just as bad as me.” “I guess I am.” Carrot Top slowly leaned into Roseluck. “Can you blame me? I love you...” she whispered. Roseluck wrapped a hoof around the back of Carrot Top's head and pulled them together, muttering into the other mare's mouth, “I love you too.” A distance away, trying to pretend they weren't watching, Starlight Glimmer remarked to Rainbow Dash, “I just poked her with a needle...”
Chapter 3A thought occurred to Starlight Glimmer while she carefully manipulated the atomic makeup of a bushel of apples in order to turn them blue at Rainbow Dash's behest. The trio had sequestered themselves within the Apple family barn with a stolen basket of apples, an unopened can of blue paint, and several dozen garden rakes. Starlight decided to voice this thought, “So Twilight needs money. Correct?” Spike muttered something vaguely equivalent to a yes from deep within the loose pile of hay he had fallen half asleep in. He had tuckered himself out hours prior trying to talk, scold, and threaten his equine compatriots out of their schemes, not to mention his lack of a full night's rest. “Okay, so what if we try to make some bits to help her out by pranking ponies for money?” “Why would ponies pay to be pranked?” Dash questioned from her perch in the rafters. Starlight pondered the best way to phrase her thoughts for a moment. “See that's the thing. They won't know they've been pranked.” “Wait,” Dash leapt down to the hard packed dirt floor so she could see what she could only assume was a crazy mare face to face. “If they don't know they've been pranked what's the point?” Starlight slowly set the apples down, having finished her task. “I'll know they've been pranked, and you'll know they've been pranked, and Twilight will get a tidy sum of money to put towards her student loans.” “Okay, I think I can kind of see what you're getting at. Let's give it a shot.” Starlight shooed Dash's hoof away as the mare reached for an apple. “Don't eat those. They're full of sulfur and other things that are very bad for a grown mare.” ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight Sparkle expected a lot of things out of the seedy underbelly of Canterlot. She expected interactions to primarily take place in shady back alleys and under the cover of darkness. She expected some modicum of professionalism, at least when they were trying to sell her something. She expected lengthy coats concealing their cutie marks, and obscuring their identity. What she did not expect was for the street gangs of Canterlot to be primarily run by foals. “Show me the bits, and I'll show you the goods,” the little filly spoke, her voice filled with all the gruffness of a baby bunny. Her coat was a dull gray where it peeked out from under the brown trench coat that was several sizes too big. Twilight procured a small bag of bits from seemingly nowhere. They were cheaper than expected too. The filly examined the bits with intense scrutiny. Finding them to her satisfaction, she slipped an Equestrian ID out of a hidden inner pocket within her trench coat. Goods were exchanged, and the filly spoke as she walked away, “If anypony asks, I was never here.” Twilight turned the ID over in her magic. It was surprisingly well done. While she could spot a number of mistakes and deviations, she was certain it would hold up for the purposes of contesting a student loan. “I'm going to by so much candy with this!” the filly shouted, thinking herself out of earshot. Twilight smiled. Maybe crime wasn't so bad after all. ✱ ✱ ✱ Spike yawned drowsily, trying to shut the light and the sounds of the market out by burying his face in the purple mane before him that really could only belong to Twilight. It hit him moments later that it was not in fact Twilight's mane, and he was not in fact riding on Twilight's back. He shouted, leaping off Starlight's back and falling painfully to the ground. Struggling for coherent words, he stammered out question after question, “Where am I? What have you done with me? Who am I?” Dash laughed with pure unadulterated schadenfreude. Spike stuck his tongue out at her, and tried to regain his bearings. They were in the market, and, judging by the sun's position, it was a few hours past noon. The stalls around him were still bustling with ponies and business. Ponies were rushing to get their grocery shopping in with the day's stocks dwindling. Just a few paces away, Starlight sat at a small unfolding table with three transparent cups and a marble. Every now and then, she'd hark the services she provided, a gambling game, at the top of her lungs. Next to her, hidden from the ponies that passed by the table, was a large bucket overflowing with glimmering bits. “Oh, you're finally awake,” Starlight noted gleefully. She pushed the bucket of bits to Spike. “We've been really successful.” Spike eyed the bits cautiously. A day filled with practical jokes and tom foolery had taught him not to trust anything either of the mare's he was with stated as true. Carefully, he picked up one of the bits and scrutinized it up close, nearly touching it to his eye to take in all the little details and anti-counterfeiting measures. Slowly, he placed it in his mouth and crunched. “Mmmmm.” He let out a pleasurable moan at the explosion of flavor in his mouth. “That's a bit alright. Soft gold outside with a crunchy zinc core.” Dash cocked her head. “You can eat money?” “Mmhm.” Spike nodded enthusiastically. “I'm a dragon. I can eat gems, precious metals, pancakes. Pretty much everything historically used to represent wealth.” “What about rare collectibles?” Dash asked in part out of curiosity, and in part wondering what she needed to hide from the precocious young dragon. Spike tapped his chin in thought. “Maybe, but I haven't tried. Collectibles are pretty valuable. I'd hate to-” Starlight waved a hoof in Spike's direction and shushed him. “Be quiet for a second. New customer.” She smiled at the stallion approaching the table, and gave him the prices, “Five bits to play, ten if you win.” He was a tall stallion, with a candy orange coat and a short brown mane. Caramel, if Starlight recalled correctly. Caramel covered his mouth with a hoof to hide his quiet snickering. He was familiar with the game the mare offered—three cups with a single marble hidden inside. First the cup with the marble was shown to him, and then they were shuffled. If he picked the cup with the marble, he won the game and a nice quantity of bits with it. Usually, there was some level of trickery involved in the form of the marble being shifted between cups via slight of hoof. The mare, however, was playing the game wrong, and he was going to make bank off of it. It wasn't hard to see which cup the marble was in when they were all clear. He offered set five bits down on the table, and true to formula, the mare lifted the cup with the marble up, showing him that which he already knew. Then, the cups were set into motion, being shifted at impossible speeds by her magic. Caramel snickered again. If they had been opaque like they should have been, he would have been screwed. The cups stopped, and Caramel selected the one that clearly displayed the marble. The mare shook her head sadly, and lifted the cup he had selected up. As it rose, the marble vanished from sight, somehow only visible through the glass. Caramel cocked his head and furrowed his brow, out of equal parts confusion and anger. “Double or nothing?” the mare offered. ✱ ✱ ✱ Twilight sat herself smugly back down on the chair across from Red Ink in his decrepit office. “Before you ask, yes, I do have my ID.” She presented it to him with a flourish of magic. Red Ink smiled the twisted fake smile of a pony who has just realized they may be required to actually preform their job. “We may proceed then.” “Excellent,” Twilight Sparkle launched headlong into her request, “I recently received a letter stating that I posses a monumental amount of student debt. That is the correct term, by the way. Were a pony to donate this sum to the Equestrian government, it would be such an impressive show of generosity that there would almost definitely be several monuments erected in their image.” Red Ink gestured with his hooves the universal sign to continue, or more accurately, to hurry it up and dispense with the unimportant drivel. “In any case, I am nearly one hundred percent sure that this claim is in error. It is impossible that I owe that much, and in fact, incredibly unlikely that I owe anything at all, due to the nature of my tutelage.” “It is normal for a pony to rack up student debt at a rate they are not quite cognizant of, and perfectly normal for a pony to find themselves with much more than they anticipated as a bright-eyed young filly.” Twilight gave him a deadpan look. “I was Princess Celestia's personal student. I'm fairly certain I didn't have to pay a dime on account of my talents.” Red Ink shrugged a sluggish, uninterested shrug. “Even famous ponies accrue debt.” Twilight had never been one to growl in frustration. There was, however, a first time for anything. “You're missing the point. I'm almost one hundred percent certain that Princess Celestia herself covered the costs of my education.” “Princess Celestia is not in possession of infinite bits just because she's-” “Stop it. Right there,” Twilight interrupted, “Just tell me now: Are you going to let me contest this loan?” Red Ink was not a malignant pony. He wasn't even a moderately disruptive pony. He wasn't the pony you heard was going to be at the party, and then suddenly needed to seriously consider how much the vague chance of talking to your high school crush was worth. But there was protocol, so he spoke, “No. You'll have to go to court to apply for bankruptcy and default on your loan. I can not help you at this time, as this office is for applying for loans.” If Twilight hadn't just spent the last hour teleporting across Canterlot in search of a fake ID, she would have lit the office on fire. ✱ ✱ ✱ “Okay, okay,” Twilight muttered to herself, drumming her hoof on the counter of Donut Joe's. “Just need to find a cheap lawyer, file for bankruptcy, and then surrender all my material possessions. No big deal.” She dropped her face onto the sticky counter and groaned. She couldn’t file for bankruptcy. Just the idea of parting with all her books—the image of all those bankers and government officials touching them with their filthy hooves—twisted a knife deep within her gut. And the castle. The castle was important. She couldn’t lose the castle. The fate of Equestria relied on her possession of the castle. She screamed half heartedly and pounded a hoof on the counter. All around her were the scattered remains of paper to-go cups and boxes of donuts. She was easily on her third dozen and showed no signs of stopping. Donut Joe had seen this before. “Finals?” he asked. “Worse,” Twilight mumbled, refusing to lift her head up to face him, and instead speaking into the surface of the counter. “Student debt. I have to file for bankruptcy. I can’t file for bankruptcy.” If she had been looking up, she would have seen Donut Joe visibly cringe at the words. “I feel you. Student loans are tough. I had to open this place to pay mine back.” “Culinary school?” Twilight probed. Donut Joe nodded, realized she couldn't see him, and then responded, “Yep. No other place for me, really.” A nostalgic memory welled up within Twilight’s mind. “When I was really little, I toyed with the idea of going to culinary school.” She lifted her head and looked Donut Joe in the eye. Her coat was stained with tears and the filth of the counter top. “My mom made these amazing quiches, but every time I tried to follow her recipe something would go horribly wrong. I'd forget to put in the eggs, or I'd burn the crust. One time I accidentally used white glue instead of cream.” She shivered. “That was disgusting.” “So I thought, that maybe if I went to culinary school I'd be able to make my mother's quiches.” “Did you ever go?” Donut Joe questioned, enamored in her story. Twilight giggled, experiencing a momentary respite from her woes. “Well clearly I didn't go. Spike does all the cooking.” “You could still go, you know. It's never too late to attend college. They accept ponies of all ages.” Twilight sighed, the crushing weight of her problems falling back upon her shoulders. “Not with all the debt I've accrued I can't. They'd never let me take the loans I'd need to pay for it.” Donut Joe looked her deep in the eyes. “Then pay it off. For your mother's quiche!” “Yeah, I’m just going to pay back 1.2 million bits worth of loans just like that. I’d have to rob a bank or something.” Although, after all she had been though that day, maybe robbing a bank wasn’t the worst way to solve to things. She searched for her moral compass, only to find it had gone to take a nap hours ago, tuckered out by the sheer stupidity of her day. “Actually yeah, I’m going to go rob a bank.” “Wait, don’t-” Twilight cut off Donut Joe in the flash of purple light of her teleport spell. She was a purple pony princess, and only hell and high water was going to stand in the way of her goals. ✱ ✱ ✱ “Hey Starlight,” Dash announced as she placed a blanket over Spike, who had just fallen asleep again. “I'm starting to think this isn't fast enough.” Starlight looked over the four overflowing buckets of bits that she was struggling to hide. “What do you mean?” “Okay, so don't get me wrong. This is a lot of bits... But 1.2 million bits is a lot of a lot of bits.” Dash gestured the grossly underrepresented size of that many bits. Starlight smirked. “Let's step up our game then.”
