Helping Out a Friend

by DunkelWars

Chapter 1

2:00 am. Ponyville is fast asleep. Everypony is wound up in their bedsheets, all of them except for one. Twilight Sparkle had been up all night, going over complaints from the citizens, marriage proposals from Canterlot royalty (the day she became a princess these started to flow in like crazy) and thank-you gifts from ponies all over Equestria for defeating Tirek. However, next to her desk, there still was a giant pile of documents, most of them about one thing: Undoing the damage caused by Tirek. They came from everywhere and Twilight was sure that the other princesses had gotten the same amount of help requests. There were letters from Cloudsdale, Appleloosa, Manehatten, Trottingham, Baltimare and Canterlot. And those were only the cities from which more than a hundred letters asking for help. It was understandable that the cities would need help for some weeks but 4 months?! Still, feeling it was her duty, she read each and every one of them and sending a very apologetic refusal to just as many. She really wanted to help these ponies but she couldn’t be everywhere at once. After reading every letter that there was to be read, what took her four more hours, she fell asleep on the spot.

She woke up again two hours later, a claw poking her side. She groaned. “What is it Spike? Can’t I get some sleep as well?”

“It’s 8 o’clock in the morning so I thought I’d wake you up. Also, even more letters than yesterday arrived.” Twilight looked at the pile of mail, which was around one and a quarter as big as the night before. Accompanied by a groan, her head hit the desk.

“I need a vacation.” Suddenly she shot up from the desk. “That’s it! I need some time off!” She ran into her new castle’s cellar, which had been turned into her personal library. All of her books that used to be in Canterlot had been brought here and even some out of Canterlot’s Royal Archives. When Spike entered the room, Twilight already had a pile of books next to her.

“But... you’re a princess Twilight. I don’t think you can just take vacation from that. And I don’t think someone who’s not a princess can simply replace you for some days.” Spike was standing in the kitchen now, preparing some breakfast for the two of them.

“That’s why I need the person to replace me to be nopony else than me! Now come on, it has to be in here somewhere...” Before Spike could ask how that made sense, Twilight found the recipe she had been looking for. “Here it is! The Swip-Swap potion! If two ponies drink this potion, their minds will swap bodies. This is just what I need! And I actually have all of the ingredients right here. Oh this is going to be great.” With those words she rushed into the room next to the library, her laboratory. Spike was about to go after her but he realised that there probably was nothing that he could do. Twilight was not going to abandon the possible vacation, no matter what he said. He sat down to eat and hoped that Twilight wouldn’t spend the next three days in there, she had done that often enough by now.

To Spike’s surprise Twilight came back up twenty four hours later, a vial with a dark-blue potion in her magic grip. “Spike, do you know anybody who would be willing to replace me for a few days?”

“Your friends? Rarity and the others?”

“No, they have to work hard as well, that wouldn’t be a vacation. It needs to be someone who doesn’t work all day and can take some days off from work.”

“What about Lyra?”

“Huh? Why her?”

“She’s one of the few childhood friends you have, she doesn’t exactly, work and I can’t see her not wanting to be a princess for some time.”

“Spike you’re brilliant. Gotta go, get some vacation!” She put the potion into one of her saddlebags, put them on and vanished into thin air.