Twilight Sparkle's Majesty

by Apple Bottoms

Chapter 3 - Princess Silver Swirl

“Princess Silver Swirl was no help at all!”

Queen Majesty jerked sharply upright from where she’d been shoulders-deep in a tulip bed. She turned, and there was the little princess again, frowning at her from the other side of the flowers.

“Well! I didn’t expect to see you again,” Queen Majesty allowed herself a little chuckle; Twilight Sparkle did not join her.

“I thought she would be an excellent candidate to study, since the great scholar Silver Swirl shared her name. Wrong! She told me she was a ‘guardian angel’ princess; what does that even mean?! Not to mention,” the little purple princess huffed, “trying to translate; it turns out she didn’t rule Equestria at all, she ruled in Fence!”

“Well, ponies are ponies,” Majesty shrugged, and tossed a few weeds into a bucket.

“And! And! There were tons of princesses there!” Twilight Sparkle was working herself into a bit of a tizzy, and Majesty was starting to see the similarities between her and the princess group in the castle. “You could hardly walk three steps without tripping over one! And then there were baby - what are you doing?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in the - garden? The history books would have mentioned if you had a fondness for gardening, I’m sure.”

“I thought the history books were very vague on me?” Queen Majesty countered, and pushed herself to her hooves. It took some effort; the years of battling off Ponyland’s enemies had done a number on three of her four knees.

Twilight Sparkle was watching her closely. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That ‘oomph.’”

Queen Majesty colored. “I’m sure that’s impertinent to ask!”

“You’re not that much older than me yet. You shouldn’t be ‘oomph’-ing already.”

“That can’t be right, because you’re tiny!”

“Tiny!” Princess Twilight Sparkle gasped, and her wings spread under her cloak, making it stand upright on either side of her. “I’ll have you know that I’m fully grown! All ponies are my size! Why, I - I was third-tallest in my class!”

Queen Majesty stepped up to her, and Twilight Sparkle flinched away; when she came close, she all but loomed over her. The tip of her purple horn barely made it to Majesty’s white shoulder.

“You’re not much larger than a foal,” Majesty countered, but then a thought occurred to her, and she looked down at Twilight Sparkle with lifted brows. “Are … all ponies this small, in the future?”

Twilight Sparkle’s gaze darted elsewhere. “I don’t want to disrupt the timeline -”

“Oh, timeline nonsense! What am I going to do, feed my herd growth potions? Plus, you already told me about Princess Silver Swirl! Isn’t that worse than pony height? Not to mention -”

“Alright, alright!” Twilight Sparkle interrupted, her ears flat with dismay. “All ponies in my time are roughly my height. Stallions tend to be a little bit taller, and there’s some variance between regions, but - generally, I’m it.”

“Huh,” Majesty marveled, and looked her over a little more closely. She was so small! But she was, in a very compact manner, an adult; it seemed more obvious now. Her navy blue striped hair was cut in a strange style, but clearly a cared-for one, no childish pigtails or braids. There were wrinkles, if you looked closely enough; muscle tone that a filly couldn’t have.

“Are you done?”

Queen Majesty shook her head; she’d been staring! “My apologies, Princess,” Majesty said formally, and tugged off her gardening gloves with her teeth. “I hope you will forgive my curiosity. I confess that I haven’t ever had much time to consider the future - the far future, especially. My concern generally lies with the current threat to Ponyland.”

“You are forgiven,” Twilight Sparkle said slowly, considering Majesty in turn as she packed up her gardening tools. “I am a… curious pony, myself. So what are you doing out here?”

“Posey suggested it, actually,” Majesty huffed out a sound through her nose, neither positive nor negative. “She said gardening always makes her feel happy, helps her relax.”

“Do you need to relax?”

Majesty’s blue eyes cut a sharp look to Twilight Sparkle.

“I’m just inferring based on context clues,” Twilight Sparkle said quietly.

“Posey thinks I do,” Majesty said at last, and avoided Twilight Sparkle’s curious gaze as she gathered up her tools and gloves. “Posey doesn’t understand what war is. She is happy to busy herself with her garden, her little flowers.” Majesty paused a beat, considering her own clumsy attempt in the tulip bed. “I cannot begrudge her that.”

Twilight Sparkle nodded slowly. “So… being a ruler means taking on the mantle of difficult things, so that other ponies do not have to bear them.”

“I didn’t say that!” Queen Majesty huffed, and lifted her bucket of tools and weeds in her teeth to carry them out of the garden. “Being ruler just means - you have the biggest magic, so it’s up to you to stand between the monsters outside and the ponies within. Right? Princess?”

Majesty turned to look at Twilight Sparkle for her reaction; but the little purple princess was gone.

“Aw, bushwoolies.”