1.2
"Hey, Twilight! New Letter!" Spike scrabbled up the stairs to his mother/sister/caretaker's lair, clutching the scroll that had just erupted from his mouth in a fiery burp.
"What? Already?" Twilight hopped away from her desk, snapping open her wings with a single flap in order to glide over to the stairs just in time to snatch the scroll from Spike's paws. Without stopping, she kept on gliding over her home's stairs down to the main floor, holding the scroll in her magic. "That was fast."
"Whoa-whoa-woooooooooohooooaaaaa-" Spike unsteadily teetered at the top of the stairs, windmilling his arms as he tried to balance himself. Gravity was a harsh mistress, however, and soon had him firmly gripped within her fiendish grasp. "Twiiiliiight!"
Purple flashed, reality was bridged, and instead of falling down a flight of stairs he fell a short ways onto Twilight's back. She didn't even look up from her former mentor's scroll as she analyzed the contents, chiding him off-hoof with an absent mind. "Oh, Spike. You've got to be more careful, especially around the stairs."
Spike rubbed his head, then rolled his eyes. "Riiiiight. Sigh. What does it say?"
"Oh, she's agreed to send a tutor! I hope she sends Sunbeam; she was always so helpful and knowledgeable!" Twilight paused and reread a passage the hadn't made sense at first. Her smile slowly turned upside down as she realized it didn't sound right at all. "Business? What sort of business?"
Spike shook his head, rolled his eyes, and scooted back until he rested between Twilight's wings. It was never wise to let a good lounging opportunity go to waste, after all. "Oh, it probably just means the usual. You know 'negotiation with the griffons' or some other group. Or maybe she's dealing with a strike. Plus there are all the other problem solving groups around Equestria she finally got around to telling us about, or maybe some magic ritual she's got to do. Something probably came up."
One could almost hear Twilight's pupils snapping to pinprick size as the wheels in her mental timepiece slowly began to click down to Cuckoo o' Clock at the mentions of the various problems Celestia could have run into. Wild fantasies of utter anarchy began to strike within her mind, and her hooves began to twitch.
One might, but not Spike, though. For despite his oftentimes magnificent perception regarding various events, he so often obliviously pushed his doomed keeper into a rather silly place. "Ah, I'm probably thinking too much. It is about lunchtime. She's probably getting a piece of cake or something."
"Or she's getting a declaration of war because my scroll came in and hit a diplomat in the face!"
Spike's eyebrow slowly rose up as high as it could as he looked over his shoulder. "Twilight? You're having an attack again. Don't worry!" He tweaked her ear with his paw, trying to stop her before she started ranting about the sun and moon rising on their own.
"Or maybe I've interrupted a critical spell that lets Celestia and Luna control the sun and moon that can only be cast every 100 years!" Too late.
Twilight began pacing around the main room of the library; talking sweet sweet madness to herself with every step. Each clop of her hooves popped a feather out of place. Each clip of her shoes sprang a cowlick out of her frazzling mane until she looked like a madpony. "And if they can't control the sun and moon the celestial bodies will raise and set on their own! And if they raise and set on their own, we can't control the weather or seasons! And if we can't control the weather and seasons we wont be able to feed everypony without a dozen times the number of farm ponies we currently have! And if we can't feed everypony, then harmony will disappear! And if harmony disappears, we'll have fourty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, seas boiling, the dead rising from their grave, pony sacrifices, dogs and cats living together; MASS HYSTERI-AH-AH-Ah-AH-AAAaAAaaaaauuuaaAAAwwooaaaha!"
At some point during her rant, Spike grabbed Twilight by her mane and shook her violently as her frantic fretting launched them towards the ceiling. He breathed a fireless sigh of relief for just a moment as they stopped inches away from planting themselves against the wooden surface, glad that the undue appointment between his face and the ceiling had been canceled. Pity, then, that he forgot about his old fling, gravity. She was a harsh mistress.
"Oooooh... owww. Twilight, the only pony going through mass hysteria is you. Princess Celestia would use that big new public broadcasting system they have if something came up."
"HeeeeeeeEEEY, Twilight! You gotta radio?" Pinkie busted through the front door with all the subtlty of Luna. Exactly none, to be precise.
Rarity followed through, looking utterly aghast at the state of Twilight's door. "Good heavens, Pinkie! Knock first and do not cause property damage!"
"I did, but she was having a 'MAKE a Friendship Problem!' moment."
"Still-"
"Pinkie might have a point, Rares. Our lil' sugarcube is lookin' a mite bit frazzled."
"It's nothing, nothing!" Twilight brushed her mane frantically, trying to hide the errant strands and the winces of pain from roughly preening herself with magic. She teleported out from under Spike, letting him lightly fall to the floor. A secoond flash of light erupted by the center table as Twilight reappeared with her bulky radio. "See? See! Totally fine, and not at all responsible for the current crisis broadcast, see!"
Applejack hesitantly came around the table while warily eyeing her friend. "Riiiight. Uh, everypony mind helping me out here?"
"Oh, don't worry, Applejack. Twilight only sent out a letter two hours before the crisis broadcast system that was just installed last year was turned on today. You know, the one that has only ever come on for those eeeeeeevil vines from past eeeeeeevil Discord sprouted everywhere and caused total panic. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that she's somehow responsible for the princesses soooomehow losing control of the sun and moon, causing mass hysteria. Because that's just silly, they don't use spells, they use their special talents!" Pinkie obliviously on purposed failed to note how Twilight began to hyperventilate into a paper bag while slowly turning blue. She slapped her alicorn friend on the back, before continuing with the most outrageous thing possible to finish shaking her out of it. "Besides, it's probably just about Princess Cadance getting pregnant or something."
The bottom of the paper bag ripped open and flew into Twilight's mouth at that. Coughing and gagging, she clutched at her throat while trying to breathe. Spike rushed into action, performing the Himelick maneuver with practiced swiftness until the paper shreds were slimily coughed free. Twilight grabbed ahold of Spike and hugged him to life. "Right, right! Totally silly!"
"Aww, ain't that sweet? Girls? Hug 'er." Applejack drawled before pouncing like Celestia on a cake. Rarity and Pinkie joined her shortly afterwards, rendering Twilight and Spike thoroughly hugged and comforted. It did have the slight side effect of rendering them blushing crimson red under the influence of third degree embarrassment, but there were bound to be drawbacks somewhere to such a powerful friendship technique.
"Hey, guys! I know I just saw you all come in here earlier, and I just heard about the broad-" Dash screeched to a half in the doorway, hovering with a disbelieving look upon her face as Twilight and spike looked at her from within the pony pile. "Right. Say, I'll just borrow your little listener thingie, and I'll get back to you five later. Pretty awesome making it to... uh, third base, but you should probably shut the-" SLAM! "-Door?"
Twilight teleported everypony out of the pony pile and roughly onto seating arrangements she conjured up in a semicircle around her radio. "Nope! Nope! Nothing at all happening besides a compleeeetely platonic hug!" Twilight flicked her radio on, and was rewarded with the opening strains of the Alicorn Anthem. "The broadcast is on, no more thinking of bad thoughts! She put on a forced smile and fidgeted in place as Celestia began speaking.
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"Mares and gentlecolts of Equestria, thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for more than a thousand good years. For many of you, this is the first time you have heard my voice. I apologize if you expected an accompanying angelic chorus or expected my voice to have divine tones."
"More importantly, I must apologize that it has taken me this long for me to make use of this medium. Equestria has had radio wave broadcasting technology for more than thirty years, and never once did I think of ever using it this way. Not even my student came up with this, instead it was her friends that informed me of its true potential. Thank you, Fluttershy. You have helped my sister and I more than you can imagine." The 'YIEEP!' could be heard all the way in Ponyville from the border of the Everfree Forest.
"But, that only points to the reason why I have asked all my little ponies to listen to me today. It has been 1500 years since I first took the throne. More than a thousand since my sister's thousand year banishment, and the thousand years of my sole rule began. Look around, all around. Architecture is dedicated to my tastes and styles, and me alone. We have begun to stagnate and fall behind our neighbors because there are those amongst you who scoff and ridicule others, deny their potential because they feel that their ideas may offend me."
"I never wanted that. So, I shall do the smartest, wisest thing that I can. Equestria has two high princesses, and I shall now use them both. From this moment on for a period of no less than five years, I pass ALL my power and responsibilities onto my sister, including my positions of authority. In that time-" Siiiiigh. THUD!"-I shall be in disguise amongst the populace, re-educating myself in the nuances of modern day Equestria so that I may return to my role in due time. I hope that when I return I shall be ready to rule better than ever before."
"I am not abandoning any of you. I am simply moving out of the way so that you may grow to greater and more wonderful heights than you could if I stayed. Do not fret, my little ponies. If you have need of me, there will always be those who know how to find me. Finally, thank you. Thank you all. I shall be back before you know it. Sister, did you have anything you wished to add?"
"Um... oh dear."
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Applejack fanned Twilight with her hat as the alicorn lay flat on on the floor as white as Rarity. "Ya know, Ah think she took that rather well. Don't ya'll agree?"