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Flanks For the Memories (Trotcon 2018)627 words
Quills626 words

Quills

Author's Note:

Because I needed at least a 1000 words to publish this story, I gave my self an hour and topic of "1000" to come up with something to pad things out. And here it is. I'm not proud of this, but it appears to have worked.

“You need how many?!” Davenport asked.

“Three hundred and eighty-five,” Twilight Sparkle, Princess “open mouth, insert hoof” replied.

“I don’t even think I’ve got more than a hundred in stock, not counting your monthly standing order.”

“Well, can you order more?”

“Well, sure, but it’s gonna take a while for them to arrive. At least a month. Ands that’s assuming the quill-picking union teamsters don’t delay the process.”

Twilight Sparkle grimaced. She needed the quills to write just a very large number of thank you cards. Each quill would then being sent along with the card to the recipient. And she had no one to blame for this other than herself. It had been a recent meet-and-greet with a school class from Manehaten who had won the trip because their school had raised the most bits during a regional bake sale whose proceeds had gone to support the local Orphan Care and Street Sweepers Retirement Fund. (After the event, she made a note to track down the pony responsible for establishing the fund and have them either fired or forcibly placed in therapy. She was waiting to learn the reasons for the name before making her final decisions of which.)

It had been an off-hoof comment that one of the fillies made that while their school had raised the most, all the of the schools had participated. And while she wasn’t complaining about winning the contest or getting to visit Canterlot and Princess Twilight, the filly admitting feeling bad because some of her friends in other schools hadn’t gotten anything even though they had worked just as hard. Upon hearing this, Twilight decided the filly was right, the others did deserve something for their hard work. Then a small, mottled colt suggested possibly sending out personal thank-you cards from the Princess. Twilight thought about it, and decided that wasn’t a bad idea. Magically writing out thank you cards wasn’t that bad, it just took a little time, some blank cards, and a lot of quills and ink. She could then leave the logistics of getting the cards mailed to Spike. Seeing the happy looks on the little faces in front of her, she decided to up the ante said she’d even include the quill she used to write the cards. The response from the foals was ecstatic.

Then for some stupid reason (she’d later confess to Spike she was guilty of getting carried away with the whole thing) she promised the letters and quills would be delivered within a week. She hadn’t realized that there were over a thousand foals from Manehaten that had participated in the content. Nor had she realized that Canterlot Castle didn’t keep that many signatory quills in stock at any moment. Oh, sure, there were thousands of normal quills available, but wasn’t going to send some foal a dirty quill she found in the bottom of some secretary’s desk. No, she intended to use the good quills, the ones that she or Luna or Celestia used when signing important documents. The ones with the white feathers and the sharp nibs. Finding that many good quills turned out to be a bit of a problem.

Luckiily she had been able to find most of the quills she’d need in Canterlot. Then Canterlot had run dry, so she went back home to Davenport at Sofa and Quills in Ponyville. And here she now was, just about two hundred quills shy of what she actually needed.

Twilight sat in Davenport’s store and dropped her head into her hooves. “What am I going to do? Where am I going to find that many nice, white feathered quills on such short notice?”

“Um.. Twilight, didn’t Fluttershy say something about a family of swans visiting her cottage?”

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