Thirty-ish Minute Pony Stories

by Abecedarian


Dear Princess Celestia: HELP! (Prompt #263)

TMP Prompt #263 - “Everybody’s Changing”

Prompt: Everybody’s changing, but I still feel the same.
-

Dear Princess Celestia: HELP!

Twilight Sparkle woke up and stretched, beginning a yawn that ended in a sharp cry as she spread her wings.

“Jeez!” She gingerly stretched the offending appendages. “Was I lying on these all night? No wonder pegasi sleep on clouds.”

She rolled out of bed and walked to the mirror.

One of the stranger things she’d noticed in the two days she’d been an alicorn was that she invariably looked good, no matter what. Her hair, usually a tangle in the mornings, artfully arranged itself around her face in an alluringly tousled manner. Her eyes, normally bleary and bloodshot after waking, looked soft and warm. Her morning breath was redolent of fresh violets and grapes.

Even the dried drool and matted fur on the left side of her mouth appeared endearing rather than disgusting, and almost glittered.

“I should like this,” she said, casting a couple of small spells to spruce herself up. “But it’s starting to freak me out.”

A strange noise caught her ear.

“Spike? What’s that sound?”

“Uh,” Spike peered out her bedroom window. “You’d better see this for yourself.”

A crowd of ponies stood upon the library lawn, and the sound resolved itself into her name, chanted over and over.

“Whoa.”

***

Stepping outside the library, she heard a collective gasp as the crowd stared at her in awe.

“Uh, what’s going—”

“She speaks!” Roseluck cried.

Daisy waved her hooves. “Let all be silent!”

“O Glorious Princess!” Lily bowed her head to the ground. “What pearls of wisdom do you impart to our unworthy ears?”

“…Huh?”

“What would you have us do for you?” Caramel clasped his hooves together. “Oh, say something! Anything!”

“Listen—”

“She’s talking to me!”

“No, me!”

“Me!”

“Oh, boy…”

***

The crowd had parted like a curtain as she stepped forth, occasionally bursting into rapturous exaltations or sighs as she walked to her destination.

Aged Mr. Waddle had gone go far as to improvise an ecstatic dance, only to trip and fall. He’d actually burst into joyous tears when she’d helped him up, and several in the crowd had gathered to ask how her touch had felt.

“Nopony follow me inside, ya got that!?”

She shivered as she walked into Sugarcube Corner.

“Mr. and Mrs. Cake! It’s me, Twilight! I was wondering if—” Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? For the love of—STOP GROVELING!!”

The window next to her cracked.

“I mean, stop groveling, okay?”

“We’ve angered her!” Carrot Cake cried, rising from the floor. “Oh, please, Fair Princess, please, please forgive our transgressions!”


Twilight took a couple of deep breaths.

“Look, I just want a donut, alright?” She rubbed her brow. “Actually, gimme three. It’s been a three-donut morning. Yellow cream-filled if you‘ve got ‘em.”

“Oh, of course, Princess!” Cup Cake said. “We have dozens of them! But we can make more if you want! Our pleasure, O Radiant Majesty.”

She stared at them.

“And now it’s a seven-donut morning.” She rolled her eyes and reached for her bit bag.

“Pay!? Oh, Grand Potentate, never! Take as many as you please, gratis!”

A deep crack formed in the counter as Twilight slammed the bits down.

“Oh, right.” She winced. “Princess strength. I’ll pay for that, too.”

“Oh, no, it’s good that you did that!” Carrot’s head bobbed. “It’s great! Thank you!”

Twilight ground her teeth. “Will you please quit—”

A flash blinded her, and when the spots in her vision cleared, she saw Cup Cake shaking a photograph in her teeth.

“A Hrincesh a’e here!” she said around the photo. “No’ony’ll e’er ‘elieve ih!”

“Will you stop!? Look! I’m still the same Twilight Sparkle I’ve always been! I just have wings, and divine strength and power, and—” She paused. “Well, I’m still me, okay? And I‘m about this close to going somewhere where I know I can find somepony with a bit of common sense!”

“Wait!” Carrot ran upstairs, then ran back down with the Cake’s infant twins riding upon his back. Both waved enthusiastically at Twilight.

“Aw, hi there!”

“Before you go, could you, uh…” Carrot cleared his throat. “Could you please bless our children?”

***

Applejack kicked the recalcitrant tree.

“Consarn it, ya Twilight-forsaken hunk’a wood! Cough up the Twi-damned apples, fer Twilight’s sake!”

“Applejaaack!” She turned to see Twilight slumped against a tree, looking half-dead of despair. “Not you, too!”

“Pardon?”

“You have to help me! Everypony‘s…they‘re…worshipping me!”

“Well, y’are a Princess, now.”

“Well, I’m not a god! Neither are they! They hate being worshipped, and I can see why!” Twilight took a few more deep breaths. “I don’t want this! I just want to keep living a normal life in Ponyville, just like I always have. This is…this is scary!”

“Scary?”

“The Cakes asked me to bless their twins. I don’t even know how I’d do that! How long is it before somepony asks me to heal the lame or give sight to the blind or cure cancer or something? I don’t know how to do that either! Of course I want to help everypony, but I have my limits! I’d be letting everypony I can’t help down! What if I…what if I—”

“Calm down.” Applejack wrapped her arm around the shaking alicorn’s withers. “Worry about all that stuff later. Right now ya just need—”

“A party!” Pinkie Pie burst out from behind a tree.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah, Twilight.” Pinkie waved a chiding hoof. “You forget, I’m the Element of Laughter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I know laughter when I hear it, and I know not-laughter when I hear it,” Pinkie explained. “And an anguished wail is about as not-laughter as you can get.”

“Makes sense, Ah guess. But how in tarnation is a party gonna help, Pinkie?”

“With a party she can meet everypony in a casual environment and they can see that she’s the same as she always was, and then they‘ll stop worshipping her.” Pinkie tilted her head to the side. “Let’s see. We could put paintings and statues of her all over the place, have some songs devoted to how awesome she is, stories of course, lots of stories about things she‘s done, moments of silence to quietly contemplate what she means to—Wow, never mind. I’ll have to work on this.”

“Look, Twi.” Applejack gave her a squeeze. “The town’ll simmer down soon enough. What’s important is that ya still have us. We’ll always be your friends, and we’ll always treat you the same, no matter what.”

“You’re…you’re right.” Twilight gave her a shaky smile. “I’ll always have you guys.”

“Yup. Until we die, since you’re immortal and all.”

“PINKIE!!”

“Oh. Yes,” Twilight’s eye began to twitch. “I…I hadn’t considered that…”

“Ah hate it when ya get that look.”

“Don’t worry!” Suddenly Twilight was in her face, grinning. “I have an idea! If you’re a Princess you can live forever! And if all of you are Princesses, I won’t have to lose any of you! Isn’t that great!? So how about it? Any world-shaking epiphanies about truthfulness and honesty!?”

“No, but Ah’m about t’be awful frank with ya.”

“No, no!” Twilight slapped her forehead. “Agh! I’m so stupid. Who would ever want to outlive their loved ones?”

“Right, so—”

“I’ll turn everyone into alicorns! Everyone! Everywhere!” Twilight cackled. “Of course! Then nobody’ll have to outlive anybody! Of course the non-ponies like the griffins’ll have to get used to their new bodies, but it’ll be fine, fine! Yes, everything’s going to be just fine! FOREVER!"

She vanished.

“Oh, lord. Pinkie, make yerself useful n’ fetch me a quill an’ some paper. Also, Spike.”