//------------------------------// // Civil Service // Story: A Cavalcade of Cards // by QueenMoriarty //------------------------------// There was a knock at the door. Twilight Sparkle the unicorn looked up from the book she was reading, then teleported over to the door before Spike had even made it down to the ground floor. She took a few seconds to grin over her shoulder at her little brother, then pulled the door open. "Ah, good morning! You're Twilight Sparkle, correct?" Twilight eyed up the mare in front of her. She had a light-brown coat and an almost ridiculously grey mane, she wore glasses and a puffed-up collar, and her cutie mark was a tied scroll. "Yes, I am Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said, faintly aware that she wasn't supposed to just stare without responding to questions. The old mare smiled, and extended a hoof. "I'm not sure we've been formally introduced. I am Mayor Mare, the mayor of Ponyville. And on behalf of the Ponyville Civics Board, I'd like to formally welcome you to Ponyville!" She was still holding her hoof out. Twilight stared at it for a moment, then reached out and bumped it the way she had seen Pinkie Pie bump hooves with the various party guests. The mayor's smile grew just a tad more uncomfortable, but thankfully Twilight did not yet know enough about smiles to detect her guest's discomfort. "How do you do," she finally said, giving a slight nod of the head and a brief forward inclination of her body, the way she had watched countless aristocrats greet each other. "Oh, I'm doing quite well," the mayor said, but only after quickly glancing outside to, as far as Twilight could tell, check the position of the sun. "Exceptionally well, as a matter of fact." She peered into the Golden Oaks Library, looking around with a curiosity that put Twilight more in mind of an inquisitive child than a public official looking for a tax dodge. "I assume you are settling in well here," she said, still standing very awkwardly in the front door. "Oh yes," Twilight said, finally moving away from her position blocking the door as her brain ran away with her mouth. "I've always loved libraries so much, almost as much as I loved working with the princess, and being able to run one was actually a fillyhood dream of mine! And now I not only get to run a library, I also get to live in one, and just re-organize the entire thing whenever I feel like it, and I can tell ponies to shush whenever they're in my house just by citing that it's a library, and..." Twilight Sparkle trailed off, her primitive social instincts finally getting through to her that she might be acting just a little bit rude. Mayor Mare had sat down in the nearest available chair, and was idly spinning in it, looking around at all the various books. "Do you know, I've actually never set hoof in this library until today." Twilight fought down her instinctive horror, the logical side of her brain already out-thinking the emotional side of her brain. Just because the mayor had never entered this library didn't mean she had never entered any library. With her position and cutie mark, it was unthinkable that she hadn't been inside the reference section of a law school at least once. "So, what can I help you with?" Twilight suddenly realized that this might be her first duty as Ponyville's resident librarian, and ran through what sounded like a list of likely questions. "Was there a book you were looking for? A subject? A secluded corner to make big wet noises and generally make studying just a little less fun for everypony involved?" Mayor Mare stopped spinning and raised an eyebrow at Twilight, but after about two seconds of staring at her softened right back up again. "Oh, no, nothing like that. I'm actually here specifically to talk to you." "Me?" Twilight's gaze flew back to the mayor's cutie mark, and memories of a seminar about 'the Dangers of Unlicensed Magic' rose unbidden to the forefront of her memory. "Yes. I'm given to understand that you were the personal student to Princess Celestia?" Twilight nodded, her cheeks growing red with pride. "Yes, the princess says she's taught me everything it's possible to teach me." "I assume a very large part of that is... magic?" The mayor's eyes sparkled when she said that, and somewhere in the nerdy expanses of Twilight's brain, the faintest echo of warning bells started to go off. "Oh yes, almost my entire education was built around magic in some way. She and I once sat in a cave under Canterlot, just channeling mana for seven hours, just to see if I could." The mayor's eyes stopped sparkling, and her jaw dropped. "Isn't that... supposed to be physically impossible?" "That's not even the craziest part," Twilight grinned. "I was only ten years old when we did that." "My goodness," the mayor declared. "Well, that certainly answers one question I had." The warning bells got just loud enough that Twilight thought she heard a faint ringing in her ear. "And what question would that be?" "If you're strong enough." The mayor looked out the window, and Twilight followed her gaze to see the sun beginning to set. "Miss Sparkle... I'm afraid I must confess something." "And what's that?" Twilight said, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. The mayor turned to her, and gave her a look that Twilight was not used to old mares giving her. "I have a... condition. A medical condition. And it's kind of... silly." Twilight was confused. "How can a medical condition be silly? Medical conditions are very serious!" Something clicked in Twilight's head. "Wait, you're an earth pony! You can get conditions more serious than horn rot! How could it be silly?" "I have a natural deficiency. And the things I must do to balance it out..." Mayor Mare took a deep breath. "Many ponies do not believe I have a condition. They think that I simply have... an unhealthy fascination. And I admit, part of it is my fault. I haven't worked out the best way to deal with this until very recently." "Mayor, I can't help you if you keep being obtuse about this. What is your condition, and why don't ponies believe you have it?" "I don't have enough magic in my system," the mayor blurted out, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. "And, it's not as though I need injections or anything. Just the background magic from a decent-sized spell is enough to hold it o-- is enough. But there's only so many times you can show up at a unicorn's house every single day and ask them to cast a spell on you before ponies start asking questions." "So why not answer them honestly?" Twilight asked. The mayor hung her head in shame. "Because I was embarrassed. Because I didn't want them to worry. Because a health scare like mine could ruin my chances at re-election. But now... unicorns don't talk to me. The police are probably going to come after me just for asking for your help, because I've given them no reason to think better of me. I haven't been allowed to give speeches at the school for months now. I don't have anything to lose." The mayor looked up, and the look in her eyes almost scared Twilight more than her entire encounter with Nightmare Moon. "But please, believe me. It doesn't have to be a big spell. Just enough that you're putting effort into it. And you only have to cast it once a day. We can make it look normal, just passing in the street and then your horn flares up." Her eyes flitted back to the window. "But please, do it fast, before the sun sets." Twilight looked out the window. The sun had very nearly set. The warning bells were finally ringing loud enough for her to hear, and she turned and glared at the mayor. "What happens if you don't absorb enough magic?" The mayor's eyes widened, then her entire body went slack. "I don't die, if that's what you're wondering. And you were able to beat Nightmare Moon, so you'll probably be able to stop me. And it's not as if I can ruin my career any more. So, let me show you." The sun set. The moon rose. The nightmare began. The grey drained from the mayor's mane, replaced with a vibrant pink. Her entire body began to twitch and spasm, and her frown became a terrifying rictus. "Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asked, more horrified to say those words than she ever thought she'd be. "You turn into Pinkie Pie?" The thing looked at her, and it smiled like it had just heard a joke about genocide. "No, nonononononono. M-m-m-muuuch WORSE!" The thing threw back its head and cackled like evil itself, and Twilight readied her best non-lethal spells. The last thing she saw before the world went mad was the mayor's skin peeling away to reveal a fluffy pink coat.