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// Read My Lips: Cutie Tax 
// Story: An Unlearned Lesson 
// by RubyDubious 
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“I just got the scroll back from Cadance.” Spike ran into the hall keeping Twilight and her massive Cutie Map. Scattered across its face were various sketches of what looked like house plans. Spike had a way of running that was more akin to jumping than actually running, and Twilight found it funny when he tripped because of this. 
“Uh-huh.” Remarked Twilight, uninterested in what her assistant had to say. 
“She said that she can definitely get the crystal to you, and Maud Pie said she can talk to her parents about getting you the marble you needed. But why are you asking for all this?” He took a seat next to the princess. 
“Uh-huh, that’s great Spike, get out of Applejack’s seat.” She didn’t even look up from her papers. Spike caught a glimpse of them as he obeyed her request. He had his own seat, but Twilight hated him sitting there more than anywhere else. In fact, she hated when he was even around. 
The plans were for an extension on the castle, an entire wing dedicated to Starswirl the Bearded. The collectible cards that she intimidated a company into releasing would have a home there. The entire five-hundred card set. Among other things, like many artifacts of his that would find a better home in a museum, or a large marble statue of the sorcerer that would be perfect for a university lawn. 
Spike made his way for his room, which was tucked beneath the stairs. Twilight said it was just like one of her favorite book series that she always brings up in political discussions, much to the dismay and annoyance of who she’s talking with. Spike knew it wasn’t tough love or to make him out to be a character from a book, but he didn’t want to pinpoint any of the things Twilight did to actively immiserate him, lest he break down. Indeed, the key to what fleeting happiness he had lied in him ignoring the root of his suffering.
“You know, this whole job is gonna cost hundreds of thousands of bits.” He casually commented walking out of the doorway which he entered through. 
“What? Woah, Woah, slow down.” Twilight rose from her crystal throne. “Why do I have to pay for anything? I’m a princess now.” She looked like she had just bitten into a salted lemon. As though the mere mention that she was on the same level as a common pony physically hurt her.
“Because goods and services… Require money?” Spike tilted his head. “This is basic stuff, Twilight.”
Twilight stomped her hoof. “What did I tell you about saying my name?”
“Sorry, your highness.” He rolled his eyes. What was she gonna do, kick him out? Spike reconsidered this action. “Still doesn’t change basic economics just because you’re at the top of them now.” Spike felt confident that a compliment, however shoehorned, would make her forget the crime of mentioning her name.
Twilight pouted her lips and whined. “But whyyy?” 
“Uh, I just -”
“Yeah yeah, shut up.” She began to pace around the crystalline corridor, the light coming through would’ve looked majestic on her if it weren’t for the fruit snacks or blotches of cola stuck in the princess’ coat. Spike wanted to say something, but the sharp sting in his tail made him remember when he’d tried that before.. “I don’t have that kind of money. Why don’t I just raise a tax for it?”
Spike took a step back, and then a few more. “Uh, Twilight… Er… Your majesty, I don’t think that’s such a great idea.” He gulped, bracing for an incendiary outburst. “Don’t you remember the last time you proposed a tax?”
As much as Twilight hated the small dragon, he had a point. Beyond that, she had been using him for various exploits of the already existing tax code anyway. So she couldn’t get rid of him. As far as Celestia was concerned, there were four other Spikes wandering around the kingdom, but only one ever in sight. 
She heaved a sigh, plucking one of the artificial strawberries from her mane and inhaling it. She did remember the last time, it was terrible dreadful stuff. Truly, she didn’t even know ponies were capable of doing that to one another. Not to her, naturally. But it was still stressful to watch ponies get burnt alive and dragged behind carts covered in pitch and feathers. “Oh well. We’ll try again, it’s not like history ever repeats itself.”
Spike raised a claw and then dropped it. He wanted to say the exact opposite, but then he remembered that Twilight had been secretly editing fanfiction in all of the royal history books. She had made them all different, as the constant repetition present in the lore of the world was too boring for her. So she placed herself in various different escapades throughout time and always came out on top. 
It was especially heinous when Spike thought about it more. When the ponies of this generation die off, Twilight could alter her official age, and nopony would be any wiser about the validity of the stories. Except maybe other cultures that weren’t ponies, but even Spike knew they were irrelevant and way over there anyway. 
“Well, can I say one thing, your majesty?” 
“No.” She looked down at the cutie map, placing her hooves close together over cities, pretending to squish them. Once again, not paying attention to her assistant. 
He sighed. “Last time you did it on the basis of income.”
“Yes. and? There’s nothing wrong with a tax system based on that.” 
“I agree, but you charged the poor ponies way more than richer ones.” He stared blankly at the violet mare, silently remembering taking bits from the hooves of impoverished ponies. It had left a deep emotional scar in his mind that often replayed in his most vulnerable moments alone on his dirty mattress beneath the stairs. 
Twilight audibly pouted. “Well, that would mean I have to pay more money. Why can’t they just choose to spend less money?”
Spike had no words in response to that, so he moved on. “Well did you learn anything from last time? Anything at all?” He leaned his head in the direction of the mare now on her back wiggling her hooves. 
“I learned that you’re a big stupidhead.”
“Your majesty, please.”
Twilight got up with a groan present usually in the mouths of teenagers. Then she stared blankly into the map, her eyes dormant with the memory of the taxponies having their coat torn from them and teeth pulled one by one. “Oh, Spike… No… No, no no….”
“What?” He asked, baffled by the sudden empathy.
“No… No Spike… No.”
“Uh, Equestria to your majesty?”
“Read my lips, Spike: Cutie Tax.” She wore a grin that spread from ear to literal ear. It was like something out of the amateur scary stories that also haunted him in his lonely cockroach hotel beneath the stairs. At least it was, until even the cockroaches left.
“Cutie Tax? How’s that work, exactly?” Spike took another apprehensive step back. 
“Simple! Easy! I’m gonna take photos of every pony in Ponyville, and grade them according to cuteness, and tax them based on that.” Her grin somehow got more twisted and maniacal. “The cutest pony pays the most…” Twilight started inching her way towards the now trembling dragon. “And I think poverty is the cutest trait of all.”
“Your majesty, if I may offer an opposing opinion?”
“You may not, Spike. You’re adopted, and that scar on your forehead looks lame.”
“What scar?” Then Twilight shot a magical beam into his forehead, carving a lightning bolt shaped burn into the soft scales. Spike’s screams were so annoying.

***

“Twilight, I’m not going to impose a new tax. Did you learn a single thing from last time?” Mayor Mare’s voice wavered as she finished her question, in terrifying memory of the last ‘new tax’ of Twilight’s.
“I did, this is based on cuteness, not income.” The lavender mare beamed. 
“I don’t care what it’s based on, I will not implement a new tax.” She shook her head, which felt weighed down slightly with the new brand of dye she’d been using. Or it could’ve been bird poop. The color was indistinguishable from her own mane.
Twilight felt her face get hot. “You execute the law in my name, correct?”
“Celestia’s, then yours if it doesn’t interfere.” She calmly stared back, as if deriving some sort of pleasure from the anger rising in the alicorn. 
“I am a princess and you will do the laws I say in my name!”
“Again, Celestia’s.”
“Bless you.”
The falsely grey mare held a look that both held confusion at Twilight’s statement and at the same time bafflement that this was the princess of friendship. “I’m still not going to impose a new tax, ponies have it hard as it is.”
“Well!” Twilight held her breath, inflating each of her cheeks before expelling it wand ruffling some of the documents on the mayor’s desk. “Guess who just moved down a cuteness level?”
“Wouldn’t that benefit me?” She smirked, trying, and failing to contain a laugh. 
“Ugh! I hate you, mom!”
“What?” Mayor Mare blanched.
“What?” Twilight blinked. “Oh right, well you’re not gonna stop me.”
“No, but my letter to Celestia will.” She smugly replied, opening a drawer to grab the good scrolls and ink to write the solar princess. Though, in her pretension, she had neglected to notice Twilight uncoiling her length of rope and extending her duct tape in her magical grip. 
“Are you threatening me?” Twilight was mistaken, she actually did notice. 
“Are you not gonna put my cutie tax in place?”
“Fine! But if this blows up, the blame is on you!” She threw up her hooves both in frustration that she’d have to buy ad space in the paper for a tax she didn’t want and that she didn’t get to use her good ink. It smelled like blackberries.

***

The next week was one of headaches for Twilight. She had to tell Spike to do her deliveries and building permit paperwork so often. She was exhausted. Nothing some mane cereal couldn’t solve or residual sparkle cola stuck to her coat wouldn’t either. 
The princess relaxed in her throne, looking into the cutie map and thinking how she wished everything was that small and that she was large in comparison. She would be like a god, well, closer to a god. It didn’t stop her from pretending to squish the towns beneath her feet. 
She would’ve done so again, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw firelight. Flying up to her high windows, she glimpsed a sea of torches and pitchforks. She laughed at how awkward it was for the earth ponies to carry pitchforks. Some would limp carrying it in one hoof, and others would smack other members of the mob with it in their mouth. Then she stopped laughing when she realized they were here for her.
She flew to the door and announced in as loud a voice as she could muster. “This is all Mayor Mare’s fault. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. And if she told you otherwise she’s lying because she is dumb and ugly and mean, unlike me who is not any of those.”
Miraculously it worked, and the mob turned around and limped comically to the mayor’s office to enact their commonpony revenge. They didn’t even ask for the money Twilight did take back, and she had enough to cover for her historically accurate fanfiction room. Twilight felt like a genius compared to those dumb foals.

***

Twilight spent all her time in the new Starswirl wing of her castle, reveling in all that the sorcerer was. Spike didn’t even bother her while she was in there, courtesy of a ‘No Spike’ sign at the entrance to it. Though, he did leave meals at the entrance, which annoyed her that she had to walk all the way over to get. 
She skipped around the statue, humming an animation’s theme song she had commissioned with the last taxes’ raised funds. She looked up and beamed at the newly finished marble statue, especially admiring the lavender fur clinging to it. Then she looked up in Starswirl’s empty, alabaster eyes with her own dormant eyes that stared on for a thousand miles, and lost her footing. She snapped back up when she noticed his hat. 
“The number of bells is wrong!” She wailed, throwing herself back to the ground.