Twilight had no idea at first that there was any limit to what she could spend. After all, she was a princess and what does a princess really have to care with bits? To her, smiling faces counted more than each gold coin she plopped down at boutiques, to fill her cravings for sweets at carnivals, for train rides - all those train rides those six take across Equestria add up - and so much more! Nothing mattered more than ensuring that her friends had everything they needed and her royal funds were bottomless as far as she was concerned
Twilight was heading down mane street to pick up some gems for Spike as a snack. The Curio Sales pony with his long braided grey hair and that funny circular red hat which made his head look like an upside down ice cream cone always struck up a conversation, the two of them being mutual travelers and lovers of adventure. Usually as soon as the two made eye contact, the old stallion’s eyes would glitter and he could spend an hour or more chatting it up before the princess left her check for a whole week’s worth of business. She loved his rare spices, perfumes, books of course and authentic dragon rocks that Spike liked to sit on as if it lent an air of the wild to his little cave in the castle.
But today, the old man scrunched his nose and avoided her gaze as she approached him. He looked almost dazed or confused.
“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked.
He rubbed the back of his head, the beads of his necklace clattering lightly. “Uh…I am having difficulties.”
“Excuse me? What did you say?” Her ear swiveled as it is always hard to understand his rough voice but he was mumbling which made it even harder than usual.
“I have to depart town early this season and return to the east as soon as possible.”
Twilight gasped. “But why? I hardly got to browse what you brought this year!” She began to worry immediately about where she would get a lot of Spike’s gems that she loved to reward him with for a good day’s work or how she would surprise her friends with many a royal gift for their contributions to this or that.
“You do not need to get involved. I am alright,” the Curio shopkeeper said. Despite that, his hair, his posture, his very confidence was obviously waning. She knew who he was. They had more than a mere clientele relationship. The two were friends and if he was troubled, she was going to find out what it was!
“No…you’re not alright! Something is the matter!” Twilight said firmly.
“It is just money problems,” the old stallion said under his breath. Twilight didn’t think it was intentional for him to be so quiet but she countered him anyway with a spell that amplified her hearing.
“Money problems?” Twilight inquired.
He furrowed his brow. “No..no…forget I said that.”
“Tell me.”
“No, princess. I shouldn’t.”
“C’mon…is it a lost shipment of goods?”
He glared at her for a moment and she saw that the underside of his eyes were puffy and tinged red. Then he relaxed and a smile cut through his wrinkled skin and his fine coat. “No…everything is good. No problems at all.” He adjusted his glasses. “I think it’s about time for lunch, princess. Sorry you caught me at a bad time.”
He quickly pulled down the shutter divide that signaled that the place was closed, leaving a stunned princess standing on mane street.
“What the?”
For the first time since the old stallion came to town, she was left empty hooved outside his shop. She turned to see Starlight Glimmer walking down the street. Twilight ran to her and waved her down.
“What’s up?” Starlight said cheerfully.
“Something’s wrong with the guy who runs the antiques shop and the houseplant shop,” Twilight mentioned hastily. She was practically tapping her hooves in place like a filly.
“What do you mean?” Starlight asked. “A friendship problem?”
“I don’t know but he mentioned money and if that’s the case…he might need our help right away. Sadly, he doesn’t seem ready to open up. Maybe you might though since you two hit it off last week if I recall?”
Starlight smiled fondly. “Yes, we both said the name of an old amulet at the same time. Not too many are knowledgeable about old eastern charms and what have you.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes…fascinating. Anyway, please go over there and maybe try to find out what’s wrong with him? I think he’s just worried about getting me involved since I’m royalty and all.”
Starlight looked at her with annoyance but shrugged. “Fine, I was going to do stuff today but I guess I can stop to do this. But if it’s another “DJ Pon-3 is ignoring her roommate” situation then I’m gone faster than you can say “Starswirl”, Twilight.”
“C’mon…what did you have to do today?”
Starlight sighed. “Just stop by the Flower Fillies’ place but I see this is way more important.”
Starlight went over to the shop as Twilight stooped behind a fence. The mare knocked on the door and a moment later, it opened. She watched as the two chatted for a few minutes but each second dragged as if she was anticipating some emotional outburst to come exploding out of the old stallion. After that agonizing wait, the mare shrugged, shook his hoof, and the door was closed. She walked back to where Twilight was.
“Well…that was kind of awkward but interesting,” Starlight said.
Twilight stood. “What do you mean?”
Starlight chuckled nervously. “Well…he figured it out that it was you who sent me over after like three sentences. He was on about how rich and splendid you were and how you were his best customer. But while he was on about whatever…I used my magic to magnify what he was holding and you wouldn’t guess it but it was a collection’s letter. I could tell by the thick red lettering. The guy’s in debt. That’s pretty much it.”
Twilight groaned. “There’s no way that’s it. He wouldn’t hide it from me if it’s just a bit of debt!”
“What would you know?” Starlight said dismissively. “You aren’t his accountant.”
“I know that!” Twilight shot back.
Twilight left Starlight and hurried back to the castle. Spike was sweeping dust in the throne room but stopped as soon as she appeared.
“Hey, got any of those pink gems I like,” he said, interrupting her fuming.
“I got nothing!” Twilight said.
“Hey, don’t bite my head off,” Spike grumbled.
Twilight raced to her office and pushed letters, books and papers of all kinds out of the way, looking for something she hadn’t looked at in what felt like an age, her accounting ledger. Not finding it on the desk, she looked in the file cabinets, her trunk and even under one of the “hidden” party cannons strewn about the place.
She gritted her teeth, almost biting her tongue. “Gosh…where is it?!”
“What are you looking for?” Spike asked as he entered the room.
“My stupid ledger.”
Spike went away for a second and returned with a folder. “Pfft…I know everything around here. You should just come to me first.” He handed it to Twilight.
“Oh, thanks Spike,” Twilight said and patted his head as she left, already reading the thing in the air.
“Yay…another mess to clean,” Spike said sarcastically.
“What in Celestia’s name is this?!”
Twilight was in full nuclear mode as page of unread and/or forgotten documents spilled over the circular table at the throne room. The folder was over an inch thick and was discolored.
As each page was turned, Twilight went further back in the past. The hoof writing changed, signaling each time one of her accountants who worked in the financing office in town quit. For some reason, accountants didn’t last long in her castle and the realization that came to her was a creeping dread.
It was one thing to be worried over somepony else’s debt but another entirely to know that the numbers that kept getting bigger, the red lines in graphs that dipped as ominously as a crashing balloon, belonged to her. Her spending was out of control. Fancy state dinners on her dime, funding half of Rarity’s “Princess Dress” line to get her off the ground, fixing the water main in Canterlot after that disaster with Spike…it all accumulated into a mountain of debt. No wonder the Curio shopkeeper couldn’t pay off his debt…it was hers! It was all her fault! If her last check had bounced then it was the first to do so, planting itself right in her lap like a bomb ready to blow.
Twilight curled up on her bed in her room and thought of sending a letter to Princess Celestia. If anypony knew what to do, it would be her. She had terrible and ruinous thoughts, making her chest tighten as she wondered how the princess would react to such a distinctive failing of a princess in Equestria, and a failing upon her own self. The mare who always held herself with unrivaled skill in the art of lists, charts, maps and graphs would fall to the sword that swung over the heads of anypony arrogant enough to think themselves above money. She would have to admit to Celestia, her head hung low, that money wasn’t infinite and she needed help.
Before she could even tentatively reach for a pen, Spike entered the room, his panting making her sit up at once. The blood rushed to her head and she saw double for a second.
“Twilight, come quick!” Spike shouted.
Twilight followed her friend downstairs and saw with great hostility in her eyes, wandering around the hall like two dazzled tourists, the two infamous Flim Flam Brothers!
“What are you two doing here?” Twilight said. She felt a headache coming on.
“Why, looking over our new…ahem…property,” the older Flam said confidently.
“Why you little…this place belongs to me. I earned it!” she boasted. It felt right for her to express that pride in her home. She honestly doesn’t do it enough, to express her own feelings of gratitude towards the symbol of who she was as a princess of friendship, with all of its positives and its faults, its beautiful windows and empty coffers. She wanted to defend it to the end.
“You mean it used to belong to you,” Flim asserted, his magnetic voice taunting her. “This here castle is being repossessed by creditors, ponies that the state owes deeply. Now, are we mistaken in our understanding that you, dear princess, are the state?”
“Because we don’t think we are,” Flam continued. He lifted up a group of papers, fanned out like a hand of cards. “All these accounts, these debts of yours, say that you owe over a million bits to those who you owe. Now, I can’t assume that you are able to just magically conjure up the money but if you can’t, we’ve done up the necessary pizazz to get the royal bank of Canterlot to let us have the castle at a fraction of the bit!”
“Are you kidding?” Twilight said incredulously. “This castle literally manifested out of the ground from magic!”
Flam knocked his hoof on a pillar. “Seems solid to me. We can easily estimate the cost of the place.”
“This is ridiculous! Get out of here, both of you!” Twilight demanded. She always hated to use force but this time, those brothers have gone too far! She got behind one of the brothers and attempted to push him out of the throne room. He didn’t budge so she used her magic and thrust him out the doors.
Flim backed up, the large lump in his throat going down. Even he was wary of her power. He still managed to smile his weasel-like smile. “My, my, princess. We wouldn’t want to take this in that direction, would we?” Suddenly, a group of black clad stallions with ominous looking clubs strode in the room. “Our friends at Black Hoof don’t take kindly to those who are both indebted and violent.”
Twilight stood outside, a mare once again without a home, but this time, she didn’t know what to do. Her home was taken over by those evil stallions and worst of all, their claims were right. In that hour that had passed, Spike had found her friends and now they were running, or flying, at full steam over to where Twilight waited sadly.
Rainbow skidded to a stop next to her. “Where are those two flank heads?” She mimicked a boxer with her hooves. “They’re going to get it!”
“Rainbow, my castle is being repossessed. I don’t think we can fight out way out of this one,” Twilight told her.
“Dang it, first my land, now your castle? Will those two ever stop?” Applejack said.
“From what Spike said to us, it sounds all very legally tight,” Rarity said worryingly.
“Legally…smegally…the castle was a gift from the tree of harmony…why would they take away our gift!?” Pinkie screeched, shaking her hoof in the air.
“I guess I wasn’t used to the changes that came when I became a princess…all of a sudden, I have this huge castle. How can a mare like me adjust to it so quickly?” Twilight said. She thought of her youth when she lived in Canterlot, her whole life sheltered from the realities of money and expenses. Even in the richest land in the world, ponies had their problems paying for rent or even food. But she got everything she wanted. She was more worried about getting her brother’s approval, not about where her next set of twelve quail feather quills were coming from or how many expensive textbooks lined her walls. She even got a yearly portrait done of her and the family.
Even later on, when she had to live on her own, the never ending wealth didn’t dry up. Her parents were just a letter away from lending their help and the princess gave her a stipend for pretty much anything she asked for. It didn’t change when she moved to Ponyville, when her very job demanded that she be cared for. But as a princess, Twilight could see now that ponies looked at her very differently. A princess is supposed to be able to make the hard decisions and so far, she hadn’t done enough to meet their expectations.
Pinkie growled. “Gift thieves!” she shouted like a curse at the castle. It shook Twilight from her reminiscing.
“Forget those two for now. We got to do something about her debt, pronto, you guys!” Applejack said.
“What are we going to do about it?” Rainbow said reluctantly. “We don’t have a castle’s worth of bits lying around. What is it anyway? Like a thousand?”
“A million,” Twilight answered flatly.
“Yup, don’t got that in the old parasprite bank,” Rainbow said, embarrassingly referring to the phrase ponies used when they claimed they had money but couldn’t prove it since parasprites ate everything they saw.
“But what about everypony? We don’t have a million ponies but I bet we got a million bits together!” Pinkie said. “That’s like a lot of bits!”
“What do you mean? Asking ponies to loan us money? That’s just transferring the problem,” Twilight replied.
“Do we have any time left?” Applejack asked.
“Probably a day, why?”
“Then it’s not too late! We’ll figure something out. Until then, write to Princess Celestia. I know she can do something about those creditors!”
Twilight allowed herself to smile despite the splitting headache. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go!” Rainbow said on a whim and the others ran into town except for Applejack who gave Twilight a hug and a kind wink.
“Don’t you fret. You’ll be back in your home before nightfall.”
The ponies rushed to town and worked hard throughout the day to undo Twilight’s debt. It wasn’t easy since there wasn’t a lot they could do at first. The amount she owed couldn’t be undone just by a quick bake sale. But by talking to as many ponies as they could, they managed to convince many to do their part. After all, Twilight was for most ponies, their friend even before she became their princess and protector. All they really needed to do was to remind them that sometimes the strongest ponies needed help too.
What ended up being cobbled together was an auction sale, where things being donated by ponies all over town were meant to be sold to those rich enough to buy them. Antique furniture, jewelry, rugs, signed hoofballs, there was no end to the value that Rainbow and Applejack tallied up.
“This is great! We’ll have her debt wiped out in no time!” Rainbow declared.
“Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch, Rainbow. But still, I got to say that the town is sure impressing me today,” Applejack said.
Rainbow peeked out from a curtain beside their makeshift stage near town hall. Mayor Mare was talking to Fancy Pants beside a group of wealthy ponies. Rarity did her part, calling all the biggest names she knew in Canterlot and the nearby wealthy suburbs. She even got her friends from Tasty Treat, the newest thing in Canterlot restaurants, to show up and cater. All in all, it looked impressive. Rainbow only wished that she could have assembled the bolts to come and do a little charity performance.
Rarity walked up to them. “Sassy Saddles just arrived with the special dresses that we’ll sell. This is going to be fantastic.”
“Great work, Rarity,” Fluttershy said.
“You too, darling. The birds signing is lending a festive air to the event,” Rarity said.
Rainbow turned to them and looked hesitant. “It’s great and all but is it worth a million bits?”
“It’s going to have to be.”
Rainbow shrugged and continued to eat her peanut butter sandwich next to a banana. As she ate, Twilight arrived. She never seemed more grateful to her friends than in that moment.
“This is incredible. Maybe it’s not too late to pay off those creditors before those two start changing the paint on the walls,” she said. She blinked her eyes fast to prevent them from watering.
Twilight calmed herself down with a few deep breaths as she watched Applejack announce the start of the charity auction. Everypony cheered happily, many of them simply proud to be there to help her out and it definitely took a lot of the weight off.
Thing after thing were sold to ponies who wanted them. As the objects were exhausted, Starlight and Fluttershy stayed in the back to tally up the bags of bits and hoof full of checks. When it appeared that everything was sold, Twilight’s friends themselves went one by one to present their own things for sale. They all had something: signed Wonderbolts trading cards from Rainbow, a whole case of Zap Apple jam from Applejack, Rarity’s dresses, piano lessons from Fluttershy and rock candy from Pinkie!
Rainbow Dash then tapped Applejack on the shoulder. “Uh, we’re still a thousand short.”
Applejack tipped her hat up and thought then glanced at the banana on Rainbow Dash’s plate, still uneaten. “Oh, what the hay…why not.” She took it out and said, “Hey, we’re going to sign this here banana and sell it…yes, even the princess will sign it.” That provoked an unexpected bidding war that resulted in Trenderhoof winning with a twelve hundred bit bid.
“Wow, I wish I can be that rich someday,” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight then called them over. She was reading a letter from the princess.
“Princess Celestia just wrote to me and said that because of your efforts, the creditors have accepted our unexpected intervention and have cancelled the repossession! I can return home!” she said with great excitement and joy.
Pinkie jumped in the air. “Wooo! Time for a “get your home back from gift stealing meanie brothers party”!”
Twilight was exceptionally pleased but she also looked at her friends and felt a pang of guilt. “My friends, this is the best outcome that could have come but I know that you all give up something for this, your time, money and even something of value. But I know that I was just an inch away from being homeless and I promise that I will do my part too and that means learning to live within my means. We all like to think that we don’t have to worry about money but it’s a fact of life that we have to act responsibly and my lack of it really got me in trouble. It's not even really those stallions' fault that I ignored things for so long. Anyway, things got to change and they will.”
“Does that mean we can’t go on trips across Equestria anymore?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“No, we still can. It just means that we have to be smart about it.”
The six of them all had a group hug then Twilight hugged Starlight and Spike. After a long speech to the ponies in which she thanked many of them by name, she and the others walked back to the castle. They were already laughing and joking, their hearts lifted by the kindness of that day. It still wasn’t over yet. Twilight still had to pay the Curio Sales pony. It absolutely had to be done. It was the right thing to do. She may end up selling some of her jewelry to that Spoiled Rich. Whatever it took to get her settled with the old stallion, she would do it. But for now, she was going to return home because home was what mattered first. To Twilight, it may have had to cost a million bits to get it back but to her, it will always be built by friendship. Friendship is the net that catches ponies when they make mistakes and friends are who extends a hoof to pull them back up so they can stand again. Her success was due to them and she would never forget it.