//------------------------------//
// Original, obsolete, Mayor-as-antagonist version: A Signal Event 
// Story: Long Distance 
// by Bad Horse 
//------------------------------//

At precisely ten in the morning, Mayor Mare stood in her office on the top floor of Town Hall, staring at the "telephone" and waiting for it to ring.

Coils of black wires snaked around a grey metal armature tall enough for the gaping cone of a mouthpiece to look her in the eye. One other like it existed, in Twilight Sparkle's laboratory in Canterlot. The pair had been constructed there at great expense. Fortunately, Twilight had agreed that the castle should bear most of the cost. It had taken four earth ponies to pull the cart that carried this one from the train station in a wooden crate as large as a coffin. It looked like some giant insect ensnared in dead vines.

Twilight said that it would allow Ponyville to call on the castle for assistance or advice as quick as dragonfire. It would eliminate the confusion and inefficiency of administrating by correspondence. It didn't seem to have occurred to her that any local administrator might not be overjoyed to have a Canterlot princess looking over her shoulder, always ready with a helpful suggestion, marking off everything she did on a checklist from some unicorn's book.

The longer the thing went without the big brass bell mounted below the mouthpiece ringing, the more the mayor began to hope it might not work at all.

Of course, the blasted thing eventually rang, startling her into a little jump. Its wires began to glow a faint violet. She stepped forward to squeeze her head in between the twin cones of the mouthpiece and earpiece, trying not to touch any of the twitching wires which dangled around her like giant spider legs. 

"HELLO? HELLO?" she shouted into the mouthpiece.

"Ow! You don't have to shout!" somepony said into her left ear.

Mayor Mare shied back and bumped her head on a bracket, then twisted her head to the side, looking for the other pony, before recognizing that the voice was Twilight's and it was coming from the machine. "Oh! Sorry, Princess." She rubbed the back of her head. "Goodness. I really heard you."

"Isn't it amazing?" Twilight's voice gushed, and the Mayor thought she heard a clop of hooves. "It's like being in the same room together!"

It was not merely like being in the same room together; it was like the other mare was whispering into her ear—a behavior the mayor found annoying in her husband, let alone in an already over-friendly mare.

"So," the mayor said. "It works."

"Yes!" Twilight agreed.

"Yes."

Silence.

"Congratulations. I was certain that it would."

"Oh, well, the principles are straightforward, I can't take credit for that. Just a simple modulation of induced ley lines. The demodulator was the sticking point, you know—"

"Really."

"Oh, yes! Of course there's more noise on the receiving end, but more importantly the power available is lower, so you can't simply drive the speaker with a transducer. You need a—well, a kind of gate that lets you use a small magical current to switch a larger one on and off."

"Oh."

"Yes."

Silence.

It dawned on the mayor that she had no idea how to end a telephone conversation. It was difficult enough to end a conversation with Twilight Sparkle in person, but there were things a pony could do—take a tiny step back, begin glancing to either side, angle one's hooves slightly away from the other pony. Even Twilight picked up on these hints eventually.

"Well, I imagine you're tremendously busy at the palace."

"No, not really," Twilight said. "I mean, yes, but I set aside some time for this."

"Really."

Silence.

"So how is everyone in Ponyville? Are they getting the harvest in at Sweet Apple Acres?"

The mayor sighed. "Just a minute." She stepped away from the phone and opened a filing cabinet, running her hoof over the yellow manila folders until she found the one she wanted and set it down on her desk. She glanced over it and then stepped back to the phone.

"They haven't filed their estimated taxes yet for the quarter, but they have submitted a permit application for a new outbuilding, 40 by 50 hooves, which I would assume is for increased storage capacity."

"No," Twilight said, "I just meant... How are they doing?"

"They are undertaking new construction, so I would assume they are expanding."

"No," Twilight said, "I mean... Are you getting ready for the Running of the Leaves?"

The mayor squeezed her eyes shut and counted to five. "Princess, I appreciate your concern, but I assure you that we in Ponyville still remember how to manage the seasons without your supervision."

"Oh, I know you do! I just meant... I didn't really mean anything. I just want to know what's happening."

"I sent out the last moon's report by airmail this morning. It has probably already arrived in Canterlot."

"That's not...."

The voice trickled off into silence, and the mayor wondered hopefully if some gizmo in the device might have burnt out.

"Well, how are you?" Twilight asked.

"I'm well, thank you."

"If you ever want to talk, you know, just call me."

"I'm sure you're very busy," the mayor said.

"Not too busy for you! Or anypony else from Ponyville who wants to talk. I'm right here."

"Miss Sparkle," the mayor pointed out, "this device is in the middle of my office. I can hardly have random ponies coming in off the street to chat through it."

"Oh. Of course. I mean, it had to be there, you know, it's the only building tall enough to have a direct line of sight, even besides you being the mayor and all."

Silence.

"Well," the mayor said, "this has been very exciting. It is a signal event in the history of Ponyville. I expect you will want to write an account of it, while your memory is fresh."

"I guess so."

"It was very nice talking to you, Princess."

"Was?"

"Yes," Mayor Mare said patiently, "it was."

"Um... does that mean... Wait!"

The mayor caught herself with one hoof up in the air already waving goodbye to the air. "Yes?"

"Could you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Could you ... hang the mouthpiece, the thing you're speaking into, out the window for a minute?"

"Out the window?"

"Yes."

The mayor looked about her office at the evenly-spaced windows along the outer wall. "Which window?"

"Any window," Twilight said. "I want to... check its reception."

The mayor walked to the nearest window and nudged it open. Then she went back to the machine, grasped the mouthpiece between her teeth, and pulled it to the window, carefully unwinding the snake-like cord connecting it to the machine from around a spool. She spat the mouthpiece out the window and it fell, dangling loosely on its cord a few hooves below. There was nothing to hear. The creak of a cart rolling by down below. The saloon doors clapping back together after somepony. A rooster crowing far away. A salespony's voice from the market, rising and falling as the wind shifted, saying something about cherries. Nothing.

She counted the death of each second as it passed, irrecoverable, while she stood there watching nothing happen, waiting on the Princess. She lost count after thirty, and her mind drifted to lazy days in her youth, when her time had been hers to waste. She was briefly seized with the mad impulse to pick up the mouthpiece and tell Twilight that Silver Script had repainted his storefront.

Fortunately, years of politics had taught her enough restraint to avoid making a fool of herself to a Princess. They both had their work to do. After a minute, she decided that the thing's reception must have been thoroughly checked. Rather than risk resuming the conversation, she hit the telephone's off switch, retrieved the mouthpiece and put it back in its socket, and closed the window. The clock on the wall said it was already a quarter past ten. She sighed, and returned to her desk, fifteen minutes further behind.