Teatime - A Novel Of Twilight & Celestia

by bigbear

Chapter 17 - A Day In The Life Of An Egghead Princess

“Alright Spike, are you sure you have everything you need?” Twilight asked.

Spike adjusted his backpack. “”I’ve checked off everything on Cheerilee’s list, twice.”

“We could go over it again, to be sure?”

“Twilight, I’ll be fine,” Spike whined. “We’re just going camping in the Whitetail Woods.”

“You’re helping Cheerilee chaperone her school foals on a camping trip for three full days,” Twilight lectured. “That’s a lot more responsibility than just going camping.”

Spike looked crestfallen. “Don’t you think I can do it?”

Twilight stepped forward and wrapped a wing around him. “Spike, you stand next to the Throne of Equestria and support the rulers of the country. You can do anything you put your mind to.” She gave him a gentle squeeze. “And I know we’ve both learned the value of preparation.”

“I am prepared,” Spike said. “I’ve read every book in the library on camping and checked every list they had on what to bring. Applejack lectured me about how I’m supposed to watch out for her sister. She’s in Appleloosa this week and can’t go on the trip.”

Twilight squeezed him one more time then released her hug.

“What about you?” Spike asked. “Are you going to be OK in the castle all alone for a few days? Starlight and Trixie won’t be back from visiting King Thorax until next week. The Changeling Hive is all the way in the Badlands and it’s a long trip there and back.”

“I’ll be fine, Spike,” Twilight assured him. “I’ve got all the reports Raven collected for me on the different departments of the Equestrian government. I’ll keep plenty busy.”

“Enjoy your ‘Princess Lessons’,” Spike said. He cinched up the straps on his backpack. “I made you some full meals and left them in the chiller. Don’t go to the Hay Burger every time you’re hungry.”

“I haven’t been to the Hay Burger since… well, yesterday for lunch.” Twilight looked sheepish. “But that’s where Pinkie asked me to meet her. She told me all about the potluck party she’s throwing tonight for the chefs she met in Canterlot. She’s hoping to organize a lot more parties there. This is the first of a week full of meetings for her in the city.” Twilight recovered and put on her best court face. “So that trip was totally not my fault.”

“Of course not.” Spike smirked.

“Aren’t Cheerilee and the school foals waiting for you?” Twilight smirked back.

Spike glanced at the pocket watch that he now carried with him everywhere. “You’re right. I gotta run!” He leaned in and hugged Twilight one more time. “See you in three days.”

“Have a good time, Spike,” Twilight said. She opened the castle’s twin front doors. Spike fast waddled down the street towards the Ponyville School House. She watched him until he turned a corner and disappeared from view. “He’s growing up so fast,” she thought, then closed the doors and turned back into the empty castle.

Twilight worked her way along the echoing castle halls, through the grand multi-story library, and into her office. Which to be fair was actually an extension of the library. Twilight loved being surrounded by books. It was like sitting inside a great warm mental hug. Her brain dredged up wild notions and crazy fears on a regular basis. The walls of books were Twilight’s fortress of rationality. They were almost as good as Cadance’s breathing technique for making her calmer.

She cleared three Daring Do novels off her great oaken desk and levitated them into the To Be Shelved bin near the door. Rainbow Dash had returned the books to her yesterday, before leaving on a two week duty rotation as a Wonderbolt.

Settling behind the desk in her favorite big chair, Twilight reviewed her checklist for the day. It was time for some ‘Princess Lessons’ as Spike called them. She thought the term appropriate. Twilight hadn’t studied this hard since she was writing her graduate thesis in arcane studies. Government documents now made up the bulk of her reading. And ‘shop talk’ about being a ruling princess now dominated her discussions with Celestia during teatime and at dinner.

Raven had provided Twilight a pile of briefing books from various government departments. Each ‘book’ was actually a collection of real books, thick reports, rolled up scrolls, folded maps, and other documents.

Twilight decided to attack the pile in the same order she’d met the ponies from the departments during her day of ‘meet and greets’. She theorized Raven had scheduled the briefings in order of how critical their information was. That’s what Twilight herself would have done. Also, preserving the order was a technique that helped her keep the relationships clear between the issues she was reviewing and the ponies she’d met.

She started with the briefing books by the Guard. The Royal Guard briefs covered the security situation with neighboring countries. The Night Guard ones detailed possible threats from monsters, powerful individuals, and groups smaller than countries. Twilight wasn’t surprised that Starlight Glimmer and Discord each merited their own report. Saving Equestria from the Changelings hadn’t been enough to erase the Guard’s memories of their past deeds.

She laid out all the material in order across her desk. The speed-reading spell was made more complicated by the variety of media, but it was a problem Twilight had dealt with before. She untied the ribbons on the scrolls and unfolded and smoothed the maps, so she could access them all quickly once the spell was underway.

Twilight wiggled her rump and fluffed her wings to get comfortable in her chair. She took a deep breath and dropped into ‘study mode’. Her horn lit, her face settled into a contented smile, and her eyes went white. The room flickered with arcane magenta energies as Twilight streamed the pages of information past her eyes and into her consciousness.

When the last document had settled back on the desk, Twilight let out a large sigh. It was a lot to take in all at once. Long experience had shown Twilight that it was most effective to interleave speed-reading sessions with more mundane tasks. The material she’d ‘read’ was an unsorted mass swirling around in her brain; it would take her unconscious a while to catalog and make sense of it all. Scheduling other tasks during that time was the most efficient way to get things done.

Twilight consulted her daily checklist to confirm her next task then got up from her desk. She left the office and the library to reduce the temptation to jump into more studying.

Up in her bedroom, Twilight made sure her crown and boots were on their accustomed cushions in the storage cabinet. Storing her regalia in the same location each time made them easier to summon.

She used a polishing spell to make sure the crown and boots were clean and bright, ready to use the next time she had to wear them. She checked the date on the small note she’d left herself in the cabinet. It was time to take the boots to Meticulous Hammer, the Royal Farrier, for their regular adjustment. Twilight was continuing to grow at a rate of about a hoof in height each year. She made a note on her weekly checklist to make an appointment with the farrier the next time she was in Canterlot.

After closing the cabinet, Twilight spotted a sheaf of parchment that had been left atop it. These were designs Rarity had created for a new torc to match her crown and boots. They were sketched in Rarity’s signature fashion art style and annotated with her bold horn writing. “Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadance all wear a torc as part of their regalia,” she remembered Rarity saying. “And as you’re ruling now too, you should have one as well.”

She’d to admit the designs were attractive; everything Rarity created was attractive. But Twilight wasn’t sure if she wanted to add to her regalia yet. She was still getting used to wearing the boots. “Perhaps I should go over to the Carousel Boutique and talk to Rarity about her designs,” she thought. Then Twilight remembered Rarity was visiting her stores in Canterlot and Manehattan. She wouldn't be back in Ponyville until the end of the week. Twilight made another note on her weekly checklist to follow up with Rarity when they both were back in town.

Thinking of Rarity reminded Twilight of formal dresses and events. “The Grand Galloping Gala is coming up in a few months. I wonder if I’ll have to receive guests like Celestia and Luna because of my new status?” She added a note to her weekly checklist to ask Celestia about the Gala.

Twilight finished making sure everything in her bedroom was spotless and in its correct place. The routine tasks gave her unconscious a chance to make sense out of the material she’d read from the Guard. The information no longer buzzed in her thoughts. If she brought them to mind Twilight could remember the details of the briefs and follow the arguments they contained.

She went back to her office and laid out the briefing book sent to her by the Foreign Office. It summarized issues with Equestria’s neighbors, both internal and external. With the twin advantages of immortal princesses that controlled celestial bodies, and being the first nation to begin their Industrial Revolution, Equestria was first among equals internationally. But Pax Equestria created its own challenges. Other country’s crises could also become Equestrian problems.

After speed-reading the Foreign Office briefs, Twilight could tell they had a different intellectual ‘flavor’ from the Guard ones. The Guard briefs were written in a ruthlessly straightforward style that resonated with Twilight’s scientific training. It didn’t surprise her that the Royal Corp of Engineers was affiliated with the Guard. The Foreign Office briefs on the other hoof were written in an indirect, flowery style, that maximized words and minimized actual content. “Even after I’ve gotten all these briefs straight in my head,” she thought, “it will take some serious semantic analysis before I know what they mean.”

Continuing her plan to alternate study with other tasks, Twilight went looking for the next thing on her checklist: lunch. Her first instinct was to go to the Hay Burger, which made her think of her meeting with Pinkie Pie, which reminded her of a joke Pinkie had told. “A griffon, a mule, and a pony walk into a bakery…” Pinkie said the chefs thought it was funny. “I wonder if that’s because the chefs were a griffon, a mule, and a pony? And that they know Pinkie works in a bakery?” The impact of context on humor was often a mystery to Twilight. “Celestia might find the joke funny,” she thought but quashed the idea. She didn’t know what kind of jokes Celestia found funny. Twilight decided she shouldn’t be eating at the Hay Burger anyway. “Let’s see what Spike left me,” she thought.

In the common room on the way to the kitchen, Twilight found a map Starlight Glimmer had brought in before she left for the Badlands. Twilight glanced at the map and then looked away. Even the brief glimpse made her eyes cross.

A few days prior, Fluttershy had announced that Discord was taking her on a tour of the Realms of Chaos. While Fluttershy had absolute trust in Discord and didn’t seem worried, Twilight thought the whole thing sounded questionable. She tasked Starlight with a Friendship Lesson to confirm the trip would be safe. Starlight and Discord were on pretty good terms after working together to save Equestria from the Changelings. As the task involved both friendship and magic Twilight knew Starlight would be motivated to complete it.

Starlight returned to Twilight with a map of the Chaos Realms provided by Discord. He’d reassured Starlight that the tour would be more like an amusement park ride than anything frightening or dangerous. Twilight trusted Fluttershy, mostly trusted Starlight, and sort of trusted Discord, so she put any worries about the tour on her mental ‘back burner’. Looking at the map made her dizzy. Twilight rolled it up and put it away in the protected section of the library where other magical documents were stored.

Spike had left her favorite meal for lunch, daisy sandwiches on fresh whole wheat bread. After lunch, she continued studying and getting chores done all afternoon. By the time she felt the sun beginning its descent, Twilight had plowed through all the briefings sent by the rest of the departments.

The briefing book by the Treasury outlined money issues. And everything the government did was a money issue. The total inflow and expenditure of bits by the Equestrian government were eye opening. Luckily, Twilight’s training in magic and science had made her comfortable with extremely large numbers.

The briefing book by the Judiciary reviewed issues with Equestria’s laws. As Celestia had ruled by decree for over a thousand years, the laws were riddled with exceptions and special cases. As arcana-tech advances drove Equestria’s Industrial Revolution the judicial system was straining to keep up with new challenges.

Civil Affairs had provided five briefing books, one each on Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and Health. Each was as complex as anything provided by the other departments.

After her extended bout of speed-reading, Twilight found it hard to focus. But she felt proud that she’d completed all the tasks on her daily checklist. As Celestia set the sun, Twilight thanked it for its service and felt the sun flare within her in reply. She thought of this as the sun’s way of saying, “You’re welcome”.

It had been a very productive day.

Comments

[readsponies]

This story has rapidly reached cry-out-loud-upon-seeing-the-chapter-end-so-soon status.

[AlicornPriest]

...What even is this story anymore

I mean, it's not bad writing. Twilight's growing and achieving, and the politics is really cool. But, well... I just wished it focused a little more on Twilight and Celestia together. ...Having looked at the story description again, apparently it's not a romance story. Oh. Still, though. In a story called "A Novel of Twilight & Celestia," any chapter without both Twilight and Celestia together seems like the wrong direction to me.

I don't know what I'm talking about. I just like Twilight and Celestia interacting. Maybe I'm in completely the wrong camp in that regard. (I was the one with the misunderstanding.) But... I just wanted to make my case. I don't want you to change your Grand Vision, but if this story isn't actually about Twilight & Celestia like I believed, I'm gonna unsubscribe. Just FYI.

[bigbear]

8161050 Thanks for the comment. About 2/3 of the chapters include both Twilight and Celestia. The other 1/3 deal with Twilight’s friends and her new role as ruling princess; those chapters are supposed to set up or pay off interactions between Twilight and Celestia. I’m interested in feedback on how that balance is or isn’t working.

8160913
8159438
8158468
I appreciate all the kind words. For example, “...smooth and soft, with a warm temperature...” made me smile all day.

8158982 Thanks for the editing note. I’ve fixed the ones I found and will watch for it in the future.

[AmorphousFurrySnakeThing]

8161688 The balance seems to be working to me. While the story is about Twilight and Celestia, neither exists in a vacuum, and the context of their other relationships is important.

[Viper5012]

Do not read if you have not read previous chapters already.
Just in case

I just realised, twilight has a connection with the sun because she 'controlled' it for a day when Tirek happened. Why has she not realised that by that logic she also has a connection to the moon? And whatever Cadance's thingy is. I've never really been clear on that.

[bigbear]

8283869
Exploring possible connections to the moon and to the Crystal Heart (which Cadence has as her mark) are interesting options for Twilight. Thanks for the idea.