Twilight Burns Down Starbuckers
Admiral Biscuit
Six worried faces looked through the bars at Twilight.
“Are you alright, darling?”
“We came as soon as we heard you were in jail.”
“Gotta admit, Twilight, when you go bad it's pretty awesome.” Rainbow fluffed her wings. “The Ponyville Fire Department is still trying to put the fire out. Flitter's team's pushing in extra clouds to help out.”
“Thanks, I guess.” Twilight sighed and slumped down to the floor. “And thanks for coming to check on me.”
“How could we not?” Fluttershy said.
“Now you'll have a criminal record, too.”
“That's not something to be proud of, Rainbow.”
“Sure it is. I set an Equestrian record for most hours of community service awarded.”
“Really?” Pinkie Pie looked at her curiously. “How many hours did you get?”
“Fifty thousand for a Sonic Rainboom.”
“That's why you're still workin' for the weather team, ain't it?”
“Yup.”
“There ain't no honor in having a police record,” Applejack declared. “Mah record's clean, and Ah expect that's true for most of us. Except Rainbow.” She glanced around at her friends, noticing the manic grin on Pinkie's face. “And Pinkie Pie, Ah'm sure.”
“Starlight's been a bad pony, too,” Twilight observed.
“Right.” Applejack frowned. “That's three out of seven.”
“Five.”
“Five?”
“You forgot to count Twilight.”
“Well, Ah reckon Ah did. But that's still only four.”
“Rarity's got a record for prostitution.”
Six pairs of eyes now focused on the alabaster unicorn.
“I most certainly do not.” Rarity said with a huff. “The judge dismissed all the charges after I slept with him.”
“I think we're really missing the point, here,” Starlight said. “Except for Fluttershy and Applejack, we've all been bad ponies, and we ought to learn a valuable friendship lesson from it.”
“Don't get caught?”
Fluttershy smacked Rainbow on the barrel. “Listen, Twilight, don't pay any attention to them. We want to know what happened, and how we can help you get past this unfortunate situation.”
“What happened? Well.” Twilight brushed a lock of hair off her forehead and began.
THAT MORNING
Twilight's day got off to a bad start. Her left wing was tucked awkwardly under her body, full of pins and needles. Even after all these years she still hadn't gotten fully used to them, and especially first thing in the morning she sometimes forgot they were there . . . unless they felt like rudely reminding her.
That was usually easy enough to fix. She used her magic to push the covers back and rolled onto her belly, stretching her wings out and fluttering them a few times to get the blood circulating again. Then, since she was awake anyway and unlikely to be able to get comfortable enough to get back to sleep, she yawned and hopped out of bed.
As soon as she put weight on all four of her hooves, she winced. There was an annoying bit of pressure in her left hind hock, and no matter how much she stretched and twisted her leg, it just stayed there.
Her wing was still a bit numb, too.
Maybe walking will help. There was plenty of walking to do in her castle; all the lower floors were given over to various public and semi-public spaces, which meant that her bedroom was a few floors up. The view was nice, and if she was more used to flying it would probably be more convenient for getting out and about, but she wasn't.
Her first stop was the bathroom, where she sat down on her porcelain throne and picked up her copy of Schoolhouse of Secrets. Her bookmark wasn't in it anymore—somepony else had been reading it and lost her place.
She flipped to a likely page and started reading, then remembered that she'd already read that part and skipped further ahead several times until she'd accidentally given herself a spoiler for the end.
Twilight almost tossed the book across the bathroom, but that was no way to treat books. It wasn't the book's fault that her place had been lost. The solution was obvious: invent a spell which would stick a bookmark in place—without harming the book—and not let it be moved except by the caster.
She set it back on the corner of the vanity and reached out for the toilet paper. When her magic netted nothing, she turned to see why not.
There was only the tiniest little tuft on the cardboard.
That's no problem, I can just—the cabinet was completely empty of toilet paper. Also napkins, paper towels, old newspapers, and anything else that she might use.
“Spike!” Her voice echoed up and down the corridors of the castle, and a few moments later Spike arrived at the bathroom door.
It was quickly determined that both Spike and Starlight had colds, thus explaining the disappearance of the toilet paper, and Twilight had to make due with a few sheets of the Ponyville Express that Spike shoved under the door for her.
Hopefully now things can get back on track, she thought as she flushed the toilet. Then flushed it again . . . apparently, it was none too fond of the Ponyville Express, either.
Ten minutes later, she was out of the shower and about to brush her mane when she discovered that her mane brush had long green and yellow hairs in it. “Again?” Twilight held the brush down with her hoof and yanked them out with her telekinesis. “If I ever find out who's doing this, I swear to Celestia I'll . . . I'll yell at her.”
The hairbrush didn't yield up any of its secrets.
“Probably another Pinkie Prank,” she decided, then looked around to see if the mere utterance of her name would summon the pink terror. Fortunately, this time it didn't.
She stepped out of the bathroom and right onto a Lego.
One eye twitched, and her formerly-combed mane started to kink.
She lit her horn and dispatched the Lego with extreme prejudice, then limped down the stairs to the kitchen. It only took a moment to put the kettle on the stove, and while the water was heating, she opened up the cupboards to find a good morning pick-me up.
Pure Arabian coffee, that was good. She floated the tin down to the percolator and lifted off the top. There was nothing inside but a few stray grounds clinging to the sides of the can.
Who puts empty cans back in the cupboard? That was okay. She wasn't really in the mood for coffee. It was more of a hot chocolate morning.
Or would have been, but there was no hot chocolate. That tin was empty, too. And, as she quickly discovered, the tea assortment had nothing left in it, either.
“It's no trouble, I'll just go to the store and get some more,” she said to nopony in particular as she lifted the kettle back off the stove and set it aside. “And I can get a cup of coffee at Starbuckers on my way.”
Her hock was still annoying her as she made her way through town, and she constantly shifted her weight as she stood in the queue before the coffee shop. But that was no matter; soon she'd have her delicious coffee and then all would be right with the world.
It took forever, but she finally got to the front counter. “I'll have a grande—no a venti white chocolate mocha with extra whipped cream.”
The barista pony gave her a bored look. “What the name for the order?”
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“Twilight Sporkle. Got it.” She punched a few buttons on the cash register, then looked back at Twilight. “That's fifty bits.”
“Fifty bits?”
“Oh, sorry. Five bits.”
“That's better.” Twilight reached for her change purse, and then suddenly remembered that she'd left it at home. Which turned out not to matter, because:
“And we're gonna have to make it with decaf. We're all out of regular coffee.”
“All out of coffee?” Twilight's fur stood up on end and started sparkling. “You're a COFFEE SHOP, for buck's sake! How do you run out of coffee?”
“Watch your language, Miss Spackle—there's fillies present.”
“Listen here, Missy.” Twilight squinted at the barista's tiny little nametag. “Missy . . . Missy? What kind of name is that? I have had a bad morning. I have a wing cramp, there is no TP in my castle, my hock hurts, I stepped on a Lego, and somepony is using my manebrush at night and I don't know why and it's creepy. I am a princess, and I demand coffee.” Her eyes started to glow white.
“I'm going to have to ask you to calm down, Miss Sprinkle.”
“I will not calm down.” Twilight burst into flames.
Three seconds later, so did the Starbuckers.
THE PRESENT
“So that's why I'm here,” Twilight said.
“Don't princesses have, like, diplomatic immunity or something?” Rainbow asked.
“Um, yes, for most offenses. Arson is a class 2 felony, as long as nopony was injured and the value of the structure is less than a hundred thousand bits. It's kicked up to a class 1 in cases of insurance fraud, of course, but being a princess any of your property is insured by the Crown, and the Crown can't bring a claim against itself, generally. Now, if one of the other princesses had owned the Starbuckers, then a claim could be made, but that would be a tort claim in civil court, not a criminal charge.
“Regardless of the case, you'd be bonded by the Crown, so you wouldn't be eligible for prison before the trial no matter what, unless some other princess ordered it.”
The other mares stared at her, agog. Finally, Rarity broke the silence. “Fluttershy, dear, how do you know all that?”
“Oh, um, I'm a bird lawyer. Since princesses have wings, there's some overlap. But that's not important. The point is, Twilight, you can just walk out.”
“No, I can't.”
“Did one of the princesses order your imprisonment?”
“Yes,” Twilight said tersely. “I did.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well.” Twilight sat on the ground. “It turns out that there are a lot of ponies in town who like Starbuckers. And they're all mad at me.” She tapped on the bars of her cell. “So this is for my own protection.”
Author's Note
