//------------------------------// // Job One 1.1 // Story: Princess Diaries // by emstar //------------------------------// I sighed in frustration as I stacked another bag of apples in the large shed that was serving as a makeshift garage and flattened down the large cardboard box that they came from. Luckily this was the last of them— for now, at least. I’d probably have another mountain of them cluttering up the base of my treehouse whenever the next delivery of bulk bug chow came in. I was getting pretty tired of putting cardboard boxes away— I’d been doing it for what seemed like an eternity now, even though intellectually I knew that that’s just what happens when you move into a new house. Any more and the cardboard cuts on my hooves would have their own cardboard cuts.  Ugh.    I trotted back up the wooden stairs to the door of my house, glancing at the hastily made placard that I hung up on it yesterday evening.  TWILIGHT SPARKLE- WIZARD LOST LOOT LOCATED. PARANORMAL PICKLES PREVENTED . MISCHIEF MANAGED, GHOSTS GELDED. REASONABLE RATES. INQUIRE INSIDE. NO PARTIES.  “Hopefully, I’ll get the paperwork filed and I’ll be able to start this side gig soon.” I said. I turned from the sign and looked at the building underneath my humble abode. The Golden Oak Library was pretty impressive, as far as everyday libraries went, though I’ve definitely seen better. It stretched for what would be a quarter of a small Manehattan city block, and was about two stories tall. The top of the roof was roughly the same height as my front door. One of the benefits of living in a large tree was that you always had a good view of the surroundings. The view that I had of Ponyville from the top of the stairs leading to my door was breathtaking, even if I felt a little dizzy. I’m sure I'll get used to it eventually. The house was kind of small for a house, but it was still really cozy. It was also free in the sense that I didn’t have to pay any rent, but it also came with a host of responsibilities that I was busy dodging as best as I could.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the mailmare trotting down the street outside in the direction of my new home. I eyed the mailbox next to me before glancing down to the dirt path that preceded the winding spiral staircase of polished wood built into the titular Golden Oak. The thought of trotting all the way back down the titanic tree just to get a package almost made my forehead break out into a cold sweat, and I absentmindedly lifted a hoof up to wipe the imaginary salty liquid away. I hated sweating, even the thought of it. It was icky and gross.  “Yeah,” I muttered, turning towards the doorknob. “I’m... just going to let you come up here. Teleo.” With an ounce of will I cast a spell. It wasn’t a particularly impressive one, just the telekinesis spell that every unicorn foal learns at some point or another. My horn lit up with a familiar magenta glow, as did the doorknob, and with another twist of mental effort the round piece of brass turned and the wooden door opened. I made a mental note to replace the door— doorknob, hinges, and all— with one made out of steel or iron. A lot of supernatural nasties that went bump in the night didn’t like the touch of iron, and it never hurt to be too careful.  I moved into the entranceway of my house, wiped my hooves off on the large rug I had bought a few days ago to make sure that I wouldn’t track too much dirt in the place, and went towards the kitchen. Another muttered word and a bit of focus and the half-full coffee pot in the corner of the room started sloshing a few cups worth of caffeine-enriched goodness into my favorite mug while I got a sandwich out of the fridge. I took a few bites out of it while heading over to slurp some coffee down. Cream cheese and lettuce on toasted whole wheat bread. Sandwiches were just about the only thing I could cook well, and though this wasn’t my best work, it was acceptable. Food is pretty much just a way of shutting my stomach up anyway.  The coffee mug floated over to my lips and turned itself upward at the optimal drinking angle. I took a few sips, swallowed the rest of the food, and washed it down with a few more gulps of the delicious brown nectar. I gently floated the empty mug back down on the kitchen counter next to the coffee machine. I made a mental note to call the repairpony about removing the oven again, maybe mention a large tip or something so that it gets done faster. It would be slightly more expensive, sure, and my finances were a little tight right now (at least in the sense that I had most of my bank account and income budgeted out to various expenses over the next couple months), but getting the thing removed and the natural gas lines in the place turned off was something I wanted done ASAP. I preferred doing all my cooking with a toaster and a microwave in the worst-case scenario.  I did not like fire. I waited for a few minutes. The house was silent except for the faint snoring of Spike a few rooms over.  Spike is my familiar. Spike is also a baby Dragon.  That’s “Dragon” with a capital “D”. A dragon, lowercase, is merely a large, flying, fire breathing lizard. Stereotypical monster, barely magical at all, most often found in storybook tales or lurking in far off out-of-the-way corners of Equestria or the Nevernever—the spirit realm. A Dragon, an honest to goodness capital-“D”-Dragon, on the other hoof, was a different class of being entirely. Those were the sorts of creatures that you found playing pivotal roles in ancient myths and legends—the real old stuff. The amount of lore I could find on Dragons could fit into a thimble with room to spare, so practically speaking, all I had to work with was firsthoof experience on the matter.  Spike was also still very young. Barely a baby, as far as I could tell. While it had only been about five months since he hatched out of his egg, he’d been growing pretty quickly. Not much of a surprise, since all he does is sleep, eat, and offer the occasional bit of assistance in the two or three hours of the day that he’s awake. As far as I can tell, members of his species hatch mostly ready to live their lives, walking, talking, and sneezing Dragonfire, but they certainly seem quite dependent on a parental figure to raise and feed them.  Dragons mostly eat precious gemstones and metals, which was mostly why my finances were fudged up beyond belief at the moment. That was okay, though. Spike was a good friend.  I was thrust out of my musings on all things Draconic by a knock on the door.  “Finally,” I muttered. I moved into the entryway, whispered the all-too-familiar minor telekinesis spell incantation and yoinked opened the front door.  The mailpony outside was an earth pony with a cream coloured coat, some pretty hefty saddlebags, and a worn blue hat. As far as I could tell she was a mare. The pony reacted with surprise and shuffled in place, clearly not expecting me to open the door so quickly. I noticed she had a stylized image of black work boots (with some fancy silver trim towards the top and a nice shine to them) on her flank. Nothing that was overly flashy, as far as cutie marks go. She was probably hard working or loved getting things done (or something like that, it's tough to tell). Maybe even a craftspony of some sort—it’s not necessarily the case that ponies will have an entire career that conforms to whatever their cutie mark indicates their special talents or closely held virtues are. My own cutie mark was a magenta six pointed star surrounded by smaller white stars, one of the symbols of Magic. That happened to be pretty stereotypical, since as far as I was concerned I was a wizard first and foremost. Technically speaking though, right now my official occupation on paper was “head librarian” at the Golden Oak Library. I like books. That’s kind of the understatement of the year.  The mailpony recovered from my abrupt door opening pretty quickly, modulo half a minute of fumbling in her saddlebags for a package. Afterwards, she was holding a large brown envelope in her hoof that had “Priority” marked on it in large red letters. “Package for Twilight Sparkle, is that you, miss?” she asked. Her eyes flickered over to the placard on the open door.  Ah. Most ponies were pretty used to the everyday, mundane sort of magic that existed all around them. Most ponies with any real magical abilities didn’t tend to advertise it at all, let alone stick a sign up. “Yup, that’s me,” I said, reaching a hoof out for the envelope. “Do you mind waiting here for a few minutes and taking something back to city hall? I just need to open this and fill out a bit of paperwork.” The earth pony shuffled a bit more, clearly a bit taken aback at the request.   “Um… I’m not sure I can…”  “It’ll only take a minute,” I said. I muttered a word under my breath and tore open the envelope before floating a pen out from my side satchel. I quickly scrawled through the documents (it was so much easier to read through a pile of forms when you had telekinesis, let me tell you), jotting down check marks and bits of tax information at lightning speed. “Mhm, mhm. Okay, almost done.”  “Uh, miss— “ “No, seriously.” I signed my name at the bottom of the forms in triplicate and quickly folded and stuffed them in the accompanying return envelope before licking it closed. I floated out a postage stamp onto the front, and jotted down the relevant address information. Finally, I took a crisp twenty dollar bill out of my saddlebags as well, floating it and the letter back to the mailpony. “Here you go!” I said, cheerfully. Doing paperwork is pretty fun. The mailpony evidently didn’t think so, because she gave me a bit of a look—I’ll interpret it as a look of awe at my mighty intellectual thews—before nodding slightly and giving me a short-but-polite goodbye.  As a wizard, I have to do complex arcanomathematical calculations in my head on the fly sometimes. IRS forms are a piece of cake.  I closed the door, and noticed some sounds in the kitchen. Ah, good, Spike wasawake. I trotted over and stuck my head in through the door. Spike was a tiny, foot and a half tall baby dragon. He had light purple scales, a yellow-ish white colored underbelly, and emerald-green spiked ridges that ran up his back from the tip of his tail to the top of his head. He had very large eyes, white with green irises and a pair of slitted serpentine pupils. The little Dragon was currently chomping down on a handful of gem shavings from the box in the pantry— those I managed to get from a local jeweler for a discount, but it looked like I’d need to get more soon.  “Hi, Twilight!” Spike said, causing a small amount of multicolored crumbs to spray out from behind his serrated teeth. My little familiar bounced from one three-toed foot to another in excitement, tail swinging back and forth. “Good morning! Is there anything I can help you with today?” I smiled, and it definitely reached from ear to ear. Spike was cute as a button. The smile stuck to my face as I shook my head. “Not today, Spike,” I said. “Why don’t you just relax and— “ Before I could finish the sentence, I noticed that the little guy became cross-eyed, as if he was confused about something. At the same time, he sharply inhaled through his snout, head tilting back slightly.  Oh no. The second reaction was one I recognized: he was just about to sneeze. I quickly slid to the side, and for good measure pivoted behind him to get clear of the line of fire. Literally. “ACHOO!” A blazing jet of emerald flame shot out of his nose into the air in front of him. I twitched involuntarily at the sight of the flame, but clamped down on the reflex to turn and gallop away, as well as the instinct to throw up. It wouldn’t be good for Spike to see me getting spooked at him sneezing, even though I was afraid of the flames shooting out of his nose.  Usually Spike's sneezes weren't so volatile, but sometimes they could be. This was definitely one of those times. I looked at the small fireball as it shot through the air,then noticed something strange.  The small ball of Dragonfire was hovering in mid-air, slowly shrinking, burning itself away.  My eyes widened, and I mentally prepared myself to take some sort of action, just in case something else unexpected happened. It did. One instant there was a ball of green fire crackling away a few feet above my kitchen floor. The next, the fire… morphed into a scroll of parchment.  I don’t have words for it, it was like it reverse-dissolved into a piece of paper, as if entropy itself decided to take a holiday right there in the middle of my house.  Huh, that’s an incredibly improbable event that we never would have expected to happen in a million years, some patient and rational part of my brain thought.  FUDGE, SHIELD NOW, the rest of my brain screamed. And I listened to it, mustering forth my considerable will into a spell I’d practiced a thousand times. My horn shone. “Teleo defendarius!” I barked. An instant later, a translucent, magenta-shaded dome of pure force appeared around me and Spike; a shield spell that was conjured forth at the speed of thought itself once my verbalization was completed and the spell formulae was fixed firmly in my brain.  I peered from behind the shield, staring at the scroll of parchment as it hung in midair for another few seconds, before floating gently down to the ground. Whatever it was, I didn’t trust it. My shield spell was rated to stop a live grenade. I didn’t get an A in Advanced Applied Defensive Magicks because I mailed in a pile of cereal box tops.  (Although, that’s not saying much. I received straight A’s in every single course I took, even Intro to Divination, a subject which I was pretty sure was a pile of made-up mudpies.) Spike rubbed his nose with the back of one of his clawed hands before blinking and examining the scroll. His eyes widened, and he once more adopted that excited side-to-side shuffle. “Look, Twilight,” he said, pointing at the scroll. “You got a letter!” I stared at the scroll for another ten seconds. It could be some sort of dangerous conjuration, or some bizarre being from the Nevernever that—  I turned my head sharply and looked down at Spike, meeting his eager and entirely too wholesome draconic eyes. He stared back at me, smiling, as if he just said something entirely intelligible. “Are ya gonna look at it? I wonder who mailed it!” he exclaimed.  I kept staring at him. “What.”