The Exchange Student

Princess Celsetia sat at her desk. She had official paperwork to do for the kingdom. This was the hidden side of what being a co-ruler of a kingdom was: paperwork. She sighed in relief as she signed this last line on the last document she needed to do. It was tedious to do; all she had to do was sign things, but it was a big stack of signatures. She was about to get up when there was a knock at her door. "Come in," she said, hoping that it wasn't more paperwork. In walked a unicorn, one of her secretaries. But, instead of the large stack of parchment she normally carried, she had a small pile of clean, white paper. Oh no, it's that "Faust" character again, she thought. The secretary read her mind. (Not literally of course; such spells were difficult to master, and considered unethical to perform on royalty.) "Not Faust; this one's different, your highness," said the secretary. "Oh good," said Celestia, "she's a good pony, but the amount of questions she asked..."

The secretary set the notes down on the desk. "It seems to be from another country." That got her attention. "How can you tell?" she asked, now thoroughly curious. "Well, it's written in a language that I can't decipher. It also isn't hoof-written. Or, at least, part of it." Celestia nodded. "That'll be all, then. Thank you, Note Book."

Note Book seemed slightly shocked. "Yes, I remember your name. I remember everypony's name." "Okay... Thanks." She walked out of the room, with a small smile on her face and noticeably standing a little taller. Celestia smiled. It wasn't much, but it did wonders to a pony's self-esteem when they knew that the Princess knew them by name, especially if they seemed unimportant. The Princess of the Sun? Knows *me*?

Now to the documents in front of her. She levitated one closer to read, and went through a list of all the translation spells she knew. Griffon? No. Native Buffalo? Not that either. She went through the list and found that she had no idea how to translate any of this. She looked through to see if there was anything to decipher. It looked to be a form of some sort. Typed here, blank space filled in here, etc. She would have to get her foreign diplomats and translators to attempt to figure this out. If they couldn't do it, she supposed she could ask others for help...

Twilight finished dusting off the library.

Actually, a more accurate description would be that Spike had finished dusting the library. It had started out with both of them dusting. Twilight, however, had begun taking books off the shelves to dust them more easily, and then she saw a few she wanted to read again, which reminded her of the other books she wanted to read, and she got those too...

Spike tried getting her to stop reading, but by the time he had noticed it was already too late. She was off in her own world, filled with books and magazines and all sorts of reading material. There were few things that would get her out of this state; things like misplaced quills, or letters from the Princess. He didn't want to get scolded, and the Princess was unlikely to send a letter now. Twilight would keep reading, even if there was a fire.

Spike knew this from experience. Even to this day, Twi was still unaware of the small scorch marks on one of the shelves in the storage room. He still held his breath whenever she went in there.

Now, however, he could get away with whatever he wanted. He casually sauntered into the kitchen, closed the door, and made a beeline for the icebox. He had bought a whole gallon of chocolate ice cream for just such an occasion. He hummed a tune of some sort as he got his ice cream sapphires. He organized all his jewels into what tasted good with what else. These in particular were small, condensed jems, almost like chocolate chips.

He was just about to take a bite of ice cream when he burped. Flames and smoke accompanied it, with the smoke becoming a scroll stamped with the royal seal. Oh great, perfect timing, thought Spike sarcastically as he set the ice cream back down and picked up the scroll. He'd get back to that later. "Au revoir, mon délice..." sighed Spike as he walked back into the library. Twilight was still reading.

How should he "wake her up?" Hmmmm...

He settled this time on something he had never tried before. He had thought about it. He had dreamed about it. He actually came up with a few numbers to make sure it was possible. ("Good to see you're studying Spike!" "Yes... studying...") Now he just had to put it into practice.

He walked up to the desk Twi was sitting at her desk, completely unaware of the jimmies that were about to be rustled. He assumed a stance. He tensed his muscles, and...

He bumped the table just right, and put the letter on the desk.

Every single thing on the desk, which was so neatly organized in a very specific way, simultaneously moved in a random direction, a random distance, and a random angle. Twilight gasped. She was in utter shock. She simply could not comprehend what exactly just happened, how disorderly everything could be all at the same time. The time Applejack had done something similar? Mild shock. One thing out of place, it happens every day.

Now?

...

She sat there for a good minute as Spike was laughing to the point where he couldn't breathe. It was all fun and games until Spike finally calmed down and noticed that Twilight still hadn't moved.

"Uh... Twi? You ok?"

"Twi...?"

Now Spike had a very good reason to be scared. He had only managed to produce this reaction once before. It did not end well, for him or the flower pot. He now slowly started backing out of the room. "Uh, Twi? Y'know, I'm real sorry about that, and you know what, I'd love to stay and chat but-" "NO." [size=8]"Ok I'll stay pleasedon'thurtme"[/size]

Twilight sighed. "Spike, you know I don't like it when you deliberately disorganize things just to get my attention."

"...Yes...?" She had simply exploded last time, not anything like this. Spike wasn't sure what the right answer was to her statement, or even if there WAS a right answer. He was treading on eggshells here.

"I'll talk to you later. This letter is from the Princess, and it's a little more important than your shenanigans." she huffed as she opened the letter. Spike couldn't help but notice that Twilight had subtly and almost subconsciously put the Princess' letter as a higher priority than him. It was a little depressing; he wasn't her number-one concern?

"Dear Twilight Sparkle, I have received a letter written in a foreign language. Attached is a sample of the script..." Spike burped up another document at this moment, and she levitated it over. The thing she noticed immediately noticed was that it was a clean, white sheet that had almost no imperfections save a small, almost unnoticeable crinkle in one of the corners.

Just one... little... crinkle...

Right, stay on task here, she thought as she looked it over.

She didn't understand it at first, but upon further inspection she realized she had seen this somewhere before. It couldn't be. No. Could it?

Turning her attention back to the letter, she continued reading: "I have had my foreign advisers attempt to translate this document, but as you may have guessed all we can find is that it is a form of some sort. I would almost like to pass this off as a joke, however it had occurred to me that you may have some knowledge on the matter. I await your response."

She put down the letter and almost began writing her own, but not before hastily rearranging everything on the desk back to where it was. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough where it wasn't going to drive her insane. "Dear Princess Celestia, Yes, I believe I have seen this language before, however I will need to confirm this information with one of my friends on the matter. I will reply with a response as soon as I can confirm my findings. Your student, Twilight Sparkle." She sealed the scroll. "Spike, could you send this please?"

"Sure!" he chirped, happy that they still appeared to be on speaking terms. After burning the scroll and sending it off, he asked, "So who else do you have to ask about this?"

"Lyra. Could you go into town and get her?" "Of course!" he walked toward the door. After walking through it he shouted "You're welcome!" back into the house. As he walked away it took a second to realize that she had never said "Thank you" as she always did when she sent him on an errand. It was a little thing, but over the years Spike had learned to pay attention to the little things when dealing with an emotionally unstable Twilight.

Maybe they weren't on as good terms as he had thought.