For the first time in years, Twilight was bored. She had nothing to study, nothing to write, and it was only noon. Spike was bored too, having no work to do. The library was sparkly clean, and he was sitting on a chair, suddenly interested by his claws.
"Twilight, are you sure there isn't anything you need to do?"
"No Spike! I've sent my friendship letter to Princess Celestia, studied all I can think of, and walked around Ponyville twice, but there still isn't anything that needs to be done!"
"What about your friends? Don't they need any help or something?"
"Applejack's bucking apple trees like always, Rainbow Dash is taking a nap, Rarity is delivering some dresses, Fluttershy is babysitting someone's snake, and Pinkie Pie's vanished."
"Wow." Spike rubbed his head. "We've never been this bored before. There was always something that could be done."
An idea poped into Twilight's head. "I know! I have a drawer full of random stuff from Canterlot, maybe something's in there!" She went upstairs, and opened a big drawer on the bottom of one of the bookshelves. She searched, only finding random trinkets, until she came upon something quite dusty and old.
It was an 1000 piece puzzle of Canterlot. She blew off the dust and brought it downstairs.
"Look Spike, I found a puzzle!" She placed it on the table in front of them, and opened the box. She dumped all the pieces out, and began to count, making sure all the pieces were present.
Ten minutes later, she counted a succesful 1000. "Alright Spike, let's put this thing together!" They started by grouping the pieces into three categories: sky, Canterlot and rock. Spike reached for the box but Twilight stopped him.
"That's cheating Spike! You only get to see the image once, or twice if it's impossible."
Once the pieces were organized, they worked on different categories. Spike did the sky and Twilight did Canterlot, the rock being left along until they were finished. Twilight tried to fit the pieces based on her memory of Canterlot, but it wasn't helping. There were over 300 pieces, and so far she had only fit together two. Spike on the other hand, was having a much harder time, since the sky was all blue. He had to fit random pieces together, hoping that they would fit.
Twenty mintutes later, they only had two couples of only two pieces.
"Twilight, can I see the box now?"
"No Spike, only when we really have no hope. Now get back to work." As soon as she said that the doorbell rang. When she answered it, it was Rarity.
"Hello darling, I finished delievering my masterpieces, did you need help with anything?" Twilight pulled her inside and slammed the door shut.
"Yes, we really need your help! You see, we're trying to solve this puzzle, but it's so hard! Could you please help us?"
"Why of course dear! Besides, it's just a puzzle, we should be finished in no time." She took a peek at the box before Twilight snatched it away, and gave her the pile of rock pieces.
Thirty minutes later...
"Oh dear! This puzzle is awful! All the pieces look the same and there's so many of them!" Rarity had successfully latched two pieces together, Twilight had three pieces latched and two pieces connected, and Spike hadn't made any progress. The door bell rang again, and this time it was Pinkie Pie.
"Hiya Twilight! You won't BELIEVE where I've been too!"
After finishing her story about Candy Mountain and almost losing one of her kidneys to some candy ponies, Twilight asked her to help with the puzzle.
"A puzzle! Oooh I love games! Count me in!" She hopped over to Spike, who let her look at the box for ten seconds, before working with him on the sky pieces.
"Wow! There's a lot of puzzle pieces for a simple patch of sky! But nothing Pinkie can't handle!" She took a chunk from Spike and went to work, rapidly switching piece by piece to see if they would fit. Once she was done, she had four pieces, all connected to each other, but that was it. Frusterated, she switched piles with Spike, repeating her process.
Another half hour passed, with a total of sixteen pieces that were connected to one or more. Pinkie Pie was still determined, Rarity kept whining about the puzzle, but continued. Twilight heard the doorbell ring and abandoned her post, answering the door to Rainbow Dash.
"Hey Twilight. Have you seen Pinkie Pie? We were supposed to do some pranking together." Twilight led her inside and pointed to Pinkie furiously fitting pieces together."
"Oh cool, a puzzle. Can I help?"
"Please!" They chanted. She took over Pinkie's place of sky, Pinkie moving to the rock department to help Rarity. Spike handed her the box to look at, but she refused.
"I can complete this puzzle without even taking the slightest peek."
They continued on for the next hour, non-stop. Well except for Spike, who left to get everpony drinks. Expecting hours of hard work, he grabbed five large water bottles and filled them up with water. He gave everypony one, and they each took a swig, before working again. Well, except for Rarity, who decided to take a ten minute break, saying her mind would explode if she took further concentration.
It was two thirty when the Twilight heard a knock, and she asked Rarity to take over for her. When she opened it, she saw Applejacks friendly face.
"Why hey there sugarcube! I was wondering why none of our friends were around, do ya-"
"They're all here, except for Fluttershy. We're working on a puzzle, would you like to help?" Twilight pointed to the table surrounded by ponies, hard at work, puzzle pieces littered everywhere.
"Well, why not." She walked in, and decided to help Twilight with Canterlot, since she was the only one working on it. After fumbling with her pieces for a while, she frowned.
"Why this is the hardest puzzle I've ever tried! Where'd ya get it, Twilight?"
"I don't know, I found it in one of the drawers upstairs. I must've gotten it in Canterlot."
Eventually Fluttershy came over, and Spike begged her to take his place. She gave in to the baby dragon and worked on the sky alongside Rainbow Dash. The mane six were all there, all working on the puzzle. Spike decided to buy some of those power hay shakes and cupcakes for them, since it looked like they didn't plan on stopping until sundown.
He went to Sugarcube Corner first, and bought a dozen cupcakes. Then he bought six large power hay shakes, and staked them on top of the box of cupcakes. As he headed back to Twilight's house, he met three fillies, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
"Hiya Spike! Whatcha doing?"
"Oh, I'm bringing this snacks to Twilight and her friends. They're working on this old puzzle that Twilight found, and it's really hard."
"That's it!" Applebloom cried. "Maybe we could get our cutie marks on solving puzzles!"
"Spike!" Scootaloo ordered, "Take us to Twilight!"
The six however, weren't making much progress. There were only thirty-six pieces connected, leaving nine hundred sixty four pieces left. Twilight sighed. There was no way they could complete the puzzle today, and tommorow was Big Macintosh's birthday, so they couldn't do it tommorow, and then the day after that they were going on a picnic, and the day after that was reshelving day, which meant they might have to put away the whole puzzle!
"Hey Twilight, I'm back with snacks, and these three want to help!" Behind him were the three fillies, grinning at Twilight.
"Alright girls, listen up. There's no more room on the table, so you'll need to work on the floor." They nodded. "Now, Scootaloo, you work on the sky pieces, Sweetie Belle, you work on the rock pieces, and Applebloom, you work on the Canterlot pieces with me and your sister." Everypony went to their assigned teams, got their pieces, and started working.
Spike distributed the hay shakes and gave a cupcake to everyone, saving three cupcakes for later, wanting to be fair.
When the sun was about to go down, everypony put as many pieces as they could together, which was only one, a part of Canterlot being attached to rock. Only seventy nine pieces had been finished, dissapointing the ponies. None of the fillies had gotten a puzzle cutie mark, much to their dismay.
There was a suprising knock on the door, which Twilight answered. It was Princess Celestia. Everypony respectfully bowed.
"Princess, what are you doing here?" Twilight asked.
"I was informed of your little puzzle. I wanted to see if I could try it myself, may I?" She looked at the box for only a few seconds before throwing it aside and easily fitting pieces together.
In a span of only twenty four mintutes, Princess Celestia finished the puzzle. 1000 pieces, all together, displaying Canterlot and the mountain it stood on the side of. Everypony's jaws hit the floor.
"B-but, how? We worked on that all day!"
"Being the ruler of Equestria, I know my land pretty well, especially Canterlot. Now farewell, I must return to the castle." She walked out onto the balcony and flew away, dissapearing with a flash of light.
Twilight dumped the pieces into the box, locked it, put it in an empty drawer, locked the drawer, and threw the key out of the window.
She never did a puzzle ever again.
