One Shot per Page

by Apocalyptic Fries

The Letter

It was a quiet day in Ponyville. Such days were rather infrequent for the townsponies’ tastes, so they tended to cherish whatever they could get.

Twilight, for the thirteenth time that week, had just finished organizing the library again. The amazingly lifelike replica of her assistant fell over, clueing Twilight in that Spike had skipped out on this activity (not that she couldn’t be understanding about it at this point) and making her jump.

Suddenly, the real Spike burst in through the front door. “Message from Princess Celestia!” he shouted as he eagerly raced to Twilight gripping the scroll in his claw.

Twilight took the message in her magic and set it aside. Spike blinked. “…you’re not gonna read it, Twi?”

“I… don’t know if I can,” she replied uncertainly. “I’d like to say I look forward to her correspondance, but it’s usually for some important errand, with the fate of Equestria in the balance. Or it could be more tickets to something and I don’t want to go through all that again. I’m starting to get tired of not being able to just write back and forth to her for the sake of being pen pals; there’s just always something urgent going on.”

But by the time she had finished speaking, Spike had left again. Although it was rude of him, and he did often lack tact at crucial moments, she decided not to care at the moment. She stared at the letter for a brief moment, then continued triple-checking her double-checking that the library was in order.

Afterward, she went to the spa with four of her fellow Element bearers, minus the usual no-show, and after the relaxing time she spent there, Equestria’s hero went home and found the letter still sitting on her desk.

She mentally slapped herself with a hoof for thinking it would just disappear. She once again set it aside and found some research to occupy her time.

The rest of the week went much like that day had – she spent her time avoiding the letter as much as she possibly could. All this time, doubt had creeped into her mind and told her if she didn’t open it, it could mean the very undoing of Equestria itself, but then she reasoned the Princess would probably pursue other means of contacting her were it truly urgent.

And then there was always some other reason why this was the best she could do – perhaps she had been taken prisoner and had just barely gotten this letter out in a moment of desperation – and then there was always some other reason why that was so silly (Celestia being the big powerful alicorn she is would not simply be taken prisoner, especially without news eventually reaching Twilight in a form aside from this letter, and the letter itself looked normal, which didn’t suggest a struggle…).

Meanwhile, in Canterlot, a concerned Celestia paced back and forth in her room. She hadn’t expected an immediate response, but certainly Twilight would have replied back by now.

Luna happened by and walked in to join her sister. “Tia,” she began in concern, “what troubles you?”

“I think I’ve wound her up again by sending her a letter,” Celestia sighed. “She must think something is wrong and I don’t blame her for wanting to avoid more trouble… but all I wanted was a good omelet recipe.”