//------------------------------// // The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back // Story: No Bucks // by 71NYL-5CR4TCH //------------------------------// It is a little-known fact that all living beings, great or small, are born with a finite amount of bucks to give. The beasts of the wild are born with few, as few issues come to stress them, mainly just survival, food and water, and reproduction. Past that, most animals simply don't give a buck, with few exceptions, mainly in domesticated pets, and only towards their owners. The superiorly intelligent races of ponies, donkeys, and other like minded creatures are born with a surpassingly large amount of bucks, to help carry them through daily stresses and responsibilities. The well being of friends and family, laws, taxes, and politics, all largely pressure the pony psyche, and thus, evolution has equipped them with more and more bucks to give. The race of alicorns, however, are a curious breed. While their physiology allows for immortality, they are born with an amount of bucks fairly equal to the average pony, and instead use superior intelligence to delegate these bucks to only the most pressing of matters, and forcing many other decisions to the trows of logic to minimize buck giving. This evolution has shown that ponies very rarely run out of bucks to give before they pass on. Exceptions have been seen within the community of severely elderly ponies, but due to their inability to produce any true catastrophe, this has not been recognized as an absence of bucks. It has been recognized as "dementia", or more simply, a mental affliction of the elderly. An instance where a pony has run out of bucks while still in his or her prime is exceedingly rare, happening only once in recorded history, to a young princess alicorn known as Twilight Sparkle. This is the story of that day. ----------------------------------------------- The sun hung low in the horizon of the quiet mountain town of Ponyville. For the majority of its citizens, it was an ordinary, albeit beautiful day. Outside of the tree library, all seemed peaceful and serene. Gentle clouds rolled across the skyline, birds sang merrily, and a gentle wind brought about a soothing and cooling breeze to rustle the trees. Everything was calm and relaxed. Inside of the Ponyville Tree Library, things were not so. Twilight paced about frantically, grinding her teeth as her mane sparked out in all directions. She had just received a letter, which brought about great stress, from her mentor and teacher, Princess Celestia. The parchment was simple. The calligraphy, well written and calm, much like the voice which wrote it. The message contained within was simple, with no hint of need cause alarm. My Faithful Student Princess Twilight, Due to current tensions within Saddle-Arabia due to a trade embargo, my sister and I will be temporarily visiting their capital in order to maintain diplomacy. I expect to return within 3 days and nights. However, in the meantime, you will be standing as our replacements. Do not worry about raising the sun and moon, Luna and I can manage from here, and do not concern yourself with any official meetings, as they have all been rescheduled. Feel free to stay in the palace if you wish, but you may of course stay at home if you desire. All you need to do is keep an eye out for danger, and let us know if there is an emergency. Yours Truly, Princess Celestia The purple alicorn ran rampant, flinging books on diplomacy, proper running of a monarchy, and even 'Ruling a Country for Dummies' from the shelves of her library, frantically reading through each page. "UGH! This is hopeless Spike! There's nothing in here that can even help me run Equestria! I don't have the first idea what I'm supposed to do!" The frantic alicorn fumed. "Uh, Twilight? No offense but I don't think you have to 'do' anything. I think you just have to, you know, exist and serve as somepony to come to if things get bad. And its only 3 days, I don't think anything too crazy will happen." The purple dragon reassured. "But that's just it Spike! What if something does happen?! What if Princess Celestia and Luna get stuck in Saddle Arabia and I have to be the new princess?! What if there's some big disaster and I don't know how to handle it?! *GASP* WHAT IF ANOTHER COUNTRY INVADES?! I'll have to prepare for war! I'll have to defend the country and-" a small purple claw reached up and pinched her mouth shut. "Twilight, seriously. You're overthinking this. Everything will be fine, just calm down." "NO SPIKE! I will not calm down! I need to learn how to run a country by TOMORROW and everything has to be perfect or else I could mess up all of Equestria and then... and then..." Inside of twilight, an invisible gauge pointed E. Twilight never finished her thought. Instead there was silence, as Twilight just stared into space, her expression empty and void. Then, something happened. Twilight tried to care. She tried so, so hard but... It just wasn't there. She tried to give the slightest buck about everything and anything but was instead met with an exhausted feeling that quickly decided, 'Meh, buck it.' Her buck supply had been running low for a long time, unnoticed by her. For her, such an enormous task required an excessive amount of bucks, and she was running on fumes. This had exhausted her recourses. They were gone, all gone. Twilight Sparkle had completely an totally run out of bucks to give. Twilight turned to Spike with a tired face, her hair a mess and her eyes half dropped. "Ya know what Spike? I'm going out on the town. You're in charge." "What? But Twilight, I can't be in charge, Princess Celestia specifically choose you!" The tiny dragon protested. "Yeah...you know what Spike?" Twilight turned to her faithful you assistant of many years and simply stated, "I just don't give a buck."