A Queen's Perspective - Correspondence

by gerandakis

Interlude - Haycartes' Method

It was an early Saturday evening on Sweet Apple Acres and the girls had set up camp in one of the barns. Throughout most of the year, the Apple Family would use it to store their produce but given it was early summer, just before the start of the harvest season, it was practically empty. A knock at the door prompted the girls to look up from setting up their sleeping bags in preparation for the sleepover they were going to have. Applejack, being the host, saw fit to stand up and walk over to the doors. When she opened them, three more girls were revealed.

No three weeks earlier these three had been attempting to mind-control the entire student body of their school at the Battle of the Bands, now they were invited to their sleepover. That was only a small sign of how completely these three had changed.

"There ya'll are!" Applejack exclaimed as she recognized them, "Been wonderin' what took ya'll so long."

"Adagio got lost." Aria grumbled in her usual grumpy fashion. Well perhaps 'completely' is a strong word.

"Well, it's not that hard to do around all these trees, and you know I was never good with directions."

Ignoring the two Sonata dashed into the barn and embraced Pinkie in a tackle-hug. Pinkie hugged her back and all others, even Aria, giggled at the goofy grins the two were sporting.

"Well Sunset," Rarity spoke up, turning to her fiery haired friend, "now that we’re all here, would you mind telling us what this surprise of yours is all about? You only said it had something to do with Twilight."

Sunset gave a small chuckle. "Well, it's more Twilight's surprise than mine, I'm just helping. Okay then everyone, gather around."

Following her request all the girls took their seats on the cushions Applejack had laid out in a semicircle, according to Sunset's instructions. Sunset reached into her backpack and pulled out a small collapsible lectern and the journal she used to stay in contact with Queen Twilight. She set the lectern down and opened the book to the latest page. Quickly producing a pen from her backpack, she wrote a single sentence in the journal.

'We're ready.'

Her work completed, she set the book down on the lectern and took a seat on the only cushion left vacant by the others.

For a moment nothing happened. Then a glowing point of purple formed in the middle of the page. When it stopped glowing it remained there as a small dot of ink. Soon however, the dot expanded into numerous lines that quickly formed a coherent image. After only a few seconds, a drawing of a stylized equine being with reptilian eyes, a curved horn and large gossamer wings was visible on the page.

Suddenly the girls, save for Sunset, recoiled as the drawing started moving. It looked around and finally began speaking with a very familiar voice.

"Hey girls. Good to see you all again."

Applejack was the first to recover from her shock. "Twilight? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?"

Rarity seemed quite enamored with the animated drawing before here. "Just how are you doing that, darling?"

"I modified a bookwalking spell to work with the journals and adjust for the temporal differential. Good thing I have some experience with time spells."

At that Sunset seemed surprised. "Wait. You do?"

"Oh yes, I mentioned I had time-traveled before, didn’t I? Well, there was that one time I created a causal loop with one of Starswirl's time spells."

"You did what?"

"I can explain later. Need I remind you that we're on a time limit?"

"Right, right, possession spells take a lot of power and simultaneously manipulating time probably doesn't help either."

At that Fluttershy seemed slightly worried. "Did you say possession?"

Sunset turned to her. "Well yes, technically she is possessing the journal, I can explain in more detail later"

"Well for now it'll be a more direct way to talk until I come over the inevitable next time someone is affected by Equestrian magic and tries to take over the world. Er ... No offense."

"None taken." Sunset, Adagio, Aria and Sonata replied, rolling their eyes in various stages of exasperation.

"You hear that a lot, don't you?"

"Yep." Sunset replied immediately.

"We hear it more and more." Adagio elaborated.

"You'll get used to it." Sunset pointed out.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Rarity decided to intervene.

"Say, darling are you still connected to that hivemind of yours?"

Choosing to go along with the the rather jarring change in topic to avoid the awkward silence, the equine drawing smiled at Rarity "I am, but the temporal differential makes listening to it a bit draining."

"Oh? How so?"

"Well the hivemind sends entire messages as one psychic pulse so I can still understand what's being said, but I do receive twelve times as many of them as usual."

"I can see how that would be exhausting."

"It is. Still, at least I managed to compensate for the differential. Good thing I have some experience with time-spells."

Sunset became inquisitive at that. "Yeah. How exactly did you create a causal loop?"

The drawing in the journal grew a sheepish smile and scratched the back of it's head with a hoof. "Yeah, that one time I created a causal loop by traveling back in time. Getting a visit from a future version of myself. To this day one of the weirdest thing to ever happen to me."

"Okay. I'll need more details on that later."

"Sure, I can tell you the story later."

For some time the girls happily chatted, Twilight seeming interested about what had happened at CHS in the meantime, despite the fact that, on this side of the portal, it had been barely over two weeks since her departure. Her friends seemed interested to know what had happened at the hive and how her kids were faring. Even the sirens were listening carefully and asking a question here and there.

As the conversations continued however the three seemed to gradually fall silent, assuming more contemplative expressions. This didn't go unnoticed and after a few minutes Twilight addressed the three.

"Are you girls allright?"

The sirens were silent for a moment, exchanging glances. After a few seconds it was Adagio who spoke what was on all of their minds. "Don't worry about us, it's just, seeing you all here, so happy together. It gets you thinking. What would you have done it we had succeeded? If you hadn't managed to stop us?"

At that all the girls assumed uncomfortable expressions. All except two. Sunset maintained an even expression and Twilight grew a mischievous smile. "In that case, I would have seen myself forced to enact Plan B."

At those words Sunset's expression changed, matching Twilight's in mischievousness. All the other girls however, including the sirens, seemed confused. Finally it was Rarity who spoke up.

"Uh, darling, what exactly is 'Plan B'?"

Sunset turned to Twilight, giving her a quick smirk before turning to the others to watch their reactions as Twilight went to explain.

"In this specific case, take control of their minds, find the source of their power, take it away and use my psychic abilities to nullify the mind-control on the students."

For a moment there was a stunned silence, then Rainbow spoke up.

"Right, that's a thing you can do. I keep forgetting about that."

"Well I only use it if I have to, mind-control isn't really my style." Twilight admitted.

"Say Sunset, why ain't ya'll surprised by all this?" Applejack turned to the still smirking girl.

"Oh well, I asked her that exact same question after the whole Fall-Formal incident. My reaction was about the same as yours."

At that, the tension in the room was finally released and the girls descended into laughter.

Once more, the girls talked for several minutes. After some time however, Sunset's schooled eyes started to see the characteristic signs of casting exhaustion in the little drawing they had been talking too. I'm talking to a drawing. Yup, my life is weird. After some more minutes the others too noticed Twilight's growing weariness.

"Are you alright, darling?" Rarity finally asked, concern clear on her face.

"I'm fine, this spell is just a bit tiring to keep up. I'll need to refine it further."

"Aww, are you saying you gotta leave?" Pinkie asked with a sad frown.

"I'm afraid I can't stay much longer, no."

One by one the girls said their goodbyes. Finally Twilight turned to the sirens one last time.

"Goodbye to you three as well. I'll bring along something for you next time I come to visit." She gave a smile before adding "As more than a drawing in a book I mean."

The sirens wanted to ask more but before they could the drawing stopped moving and started to retreat back into the single point of ink it had come from before, finally, it winked out of existence with a soft shimmer of purple.

Sunset grabbed the booked and took a long look at the place were the queen's image had vanished. Yeah. My life is weird. But I wouldn't have it any other way. With a satisfied smile she clasped the book shut and packed it and the lectern back into her pocket, before turning around to join her friends in their sleepover activities.

Author's Note:

Like I said, most of this story will be written in letters, not all.

Another thing I've learned in writing this: I am terrible at writing casual conversation.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, see you soon.

Comments

[DavisSentoV5]

Twilight walking & talking as a drawing... That’s not weird at all

[gerandakis]

9003214
Of course not. Harry Potter taught us: Talking books are perfectly normal.

[DavisSentoV5]

9003226
Indeed

[Starlight Nova]

Shouldn't Stripped Gear have an insect-themed name?

[gerandakis]

9003306
Ah, I guess you have't read the Original Hive series by LAP, have you?

Stripped Gear is a hive located in a volcanic caldera and uses a lot of steam based technology with geothermal power, it's basically magical steampunk.

If you haven't read the hive series, seriously, go do that, it's fantastic.

[prism heart]

9003328
it is indeed, at i believe over a million words long over 4 stories long, it's well worth calling an epic

[gerandakis]

9004199
Actually its closer to 600.000 words ... don't ask why i just calculated that ... i just did ...

[prism heart]

9004204
eh, was just going off memory. to be expected that word count would be wrong

[Stainless Steel Fox]

9009054 And though it's not explicitly canon, my head canon is that it was also the basis of the spell that the enchanted comic book used. I have to wonder, would it just work with books, or other forms of information storage, such as a computer file, or a video.

The story possibilities are endless. Wreck it Ralph or Tron crossovers spring to mind.