Interlude: Note Early, Note Often
In all things, balance, Mayor Mare thought. She sighed.
She had enjoyed her monthly lunch with Ponyville’s Agricultural Council. Apparently, she had enjoyed it a little too much, because at the end, the Council gave her something to tip the scales in the opposite direction: a thick stack of phytosanitary inspection request forms to read and approve.
As she carried the forms into her office, she noticed the acrid odor of the recently-used thermofax, but she thought nothing of it. Glancing at her file cabinets, she noticed the “Land deeds and blueprints: P – R” drawer was open slightly. She kicked it shut with a rear hoof as she walked past, making a mental note to speak with the secretary about closing the drawers.
A note lay in the center of her desk. She slid it to the side and dropped the stack of phytosanitary forms on that now-vacant spot.
After staring at the stack for a few seconds, she groaned and turned to the note. It was written by mouth, on a sheet of her own “From the desk of the Mayor” stationary.
dear mayor mare,
is it alright if i use your thermowhatsit to make a copy of some blueprints from your file cabinet? because i did. i would have asked you first, but you were out for lunch and my lunch break was almost over and there wasn’t enough time. thanks!
sincerely,
ditzy doo
The Mayor wore a wry smile. If she wished, she could fine Ditzy for her blatant failure to use the proper document-acquisition channels. However, the proper channels involved more time and more forms, and Mayor Mare was in no mood to punish anypony whose outside-the-box thinking resulted in less paperwork on her desk. She crumpled the note and tossed it in her wastebasket, then pulled the first phytosanitary form off the stack.
Interlude: Note Early, Note Often
When Twilight Sparkle woke up, the first thing she realized was that her neck ached. The second was that the side of her face was uncomfortably damp. The third, and most troubling, was that she couldn’t recall going to bed. Her last memory was of finishing her preliminary examination of Ditzy’s alarm clock, then cracking open another textbook ...
Twilight bolted upright and opened her eyes. She was not in her bed, or even in her bedroom, but on the floor of the Golden Oaks Library basement. She looked at the table where her head had been resting, and she cringed at the puddle of drool she had left there. Silently thanking Celestia that none of it had touched her books, she grabbed a rag to wipe it up.
“Spike!” she called upstairs, “How long was I asleep?”
“What?” Spike poked his head through the open basement door. “You’re already awake?”
“What do you mean, ‘already’?” Twilight tossed the wet rag to the side and turned to look her number one assistant directly in the eyes.
“Oh!” Spike scratched the back of his head. “I may have, sorta, you know, replaced your coffee with decaf.”
“What?!”
“I was worried, Twilight! You know that much caffeine isn’t good for anypony—”
“How did I mistake decaf for real coffee?”
“—and you needed to get some rest ... Wait, what?”
“Oh, Spike.” Twilight trotted over and patted him on the head. “You’re right, I did need that rest. I appreciate you looking out for me, even if your methods were unnecessarily surreptitious.”
“I wouldn’t say unnecessary ...”
“And considering I drank decaf without even noticing, I must have been out of it pretty badly.” She turned back to the work table. “But, thanks to that nap, I’m feeling alert and ready to fix ...” Twilight’s brows furrowed. Something was missing. “Spike, where did you move the alarm clock?”
“Der— I mean, Ditzy took it back. She came by about noon, insisted on taking the clock ...” Spike produced a parchment scroll from behind his back and handed it to Twilight. “... and she left this note for you.”
Twilight unrolled the parchment and found that it was actually two pages. She began reading the first:
twilight sparkle,
i appreciate your offer to fix my alarm clock. but i really need it back now. i also have something even more important for you to help with! i’m writing a DARING DO fanfic! the climax of the story is going to happen in the tllamapan temple. you know all about that history stuff, so how accurate is my sketch of the temple? ...
Twilight skimmed the rest of the note and looked at the second page. It contained the promised sketch—a surprisingly precise and detailed one—of the alleged temple.
“Spike,” Twilight said, with a glint in her eyes and the hint of a smile on her lips, “we have a reference request. One from a budding author, at that. She wants to know about the layout of the Great Temple of Tllamapan, so I need you to help find all our books on comparative religion, ancient architecture, or Neighxican history.”
“On it!”
Spike ran up the stairs as quickly as his short legs would allow, and Twilight trotted after him. Upon entering the main room of the library, Twilight paused and tensed—something else was out of place. She turned to the horn-written research notes covering the nearby cork board stand. Her examination found that no sheets were missing; they had simply been moved around. Twilight relaxed.
“Spike,” she said, “has someone been rearranging my ancient languages research?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, balancing on top of the ladder. “That was Ditzy again. She was really interested in your notes about that language with the weird alphabet, but she wouldn’t say why.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and saw nothing but yellow.
“Bluh!” She flailed her forehooves in the air and brushed something very close to her head. She swiped again, and suddenly the blue sky was visible once more. Movement caught the corner of Dash’s eye. She turned and saw that the object which had been obscuring her vision—a piece of paper—was now fluttering over the cloud’s edge. She snorted and leaped into the open air below, to snatch up the paper in her hooves.
It was a note, addressed to her. She rolled her eyes and returned to her cloud bed with the paper. Without even reading it, she could already guess who it was from. Only one pegasus in Ponyville would ever think to leave Rainbow Dash a note by taping it to her face while she slept.
rainbow dash,
i’m leaving this note because i know how much you hate it when somepony bothers your naps. you’re decorating town hall for the celebration tomorrow, right? i really want to help! i’m not asking to get out of weather patrol for the day. i’ll do my full shift and help with the decorations on my own time if that’s what it takes!
sincerely,
ditzy doo
“What the hay?” Dash said to herself.
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Deleted Scene:
[Spike approaches Twilight Sparkle and holds a microphone in her direction.]
1819104 Cryssstallsss...
The notes are definitely the style of Der- I mean Ditzy!
Twi still feels... a bit off. nothing blatantly OOC but still, not quite feeling right.
Do love Mayor Mare simply ignoring stuff due to not wanting to deal with the paperwork.
And.. so Derpy destroyed town hall... to save Equestria. I can believe it. Do love her notes and just overall personality.
1819104
*door violently bursts open*
YAY!!!!
Anyone else find the idea of each pony thinking Rainbow Dash was in a relationship with a different pony amusing?
7586063 It's my way of poking fun at how Rainbow Dash is the most-shipped pony in the fandom. I'm perversely amused when opinions of the characters in the story mirror the opinions of us fans, without outright breaking the fourth wall.
dear meta four,
i like ditzy's style of writing letters. her usage of words shows that she definitely is smart,
but her methods in eschewing capitalization give the letters their own unique character to them.
nicely done.
sincerely,
me
(See? I can do it too.)