Princess Diaries

by emstar

Job One 1.5

Fear is a pretty powerful emotion.

There’s a reason ponies have fear. Fear is a great big burst of energy that you’re generally meant to do something with, whether that’s “fight” or “flight”. Those are the two most common responses at least, and that’s the case for a very good reason: for a long, long time throughout history it was the ponies who did one or the other in the face of imminent danger that survived to pass down their traits and habits (whether that’s to their offspring or their students).

When faced with something terrifying, usually they either fought it, or they ran away.

I sure felt like running at the moment. While screaming, loudly, and flailing in panic. But there was a third common response to fear that some ponies tended to display in the moment, and that was the one that my brain’s primal instincts had unfortunately decided we’d be doing right then and there.

I froze up.

The vampony (vampegasus? vamp?) slowly made her way towards us. Her coat was reddish-brown, and her wings were colored to match. She wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, the lenses were cut to be almost razor thin— probably just an accessory, since I very much doubted that vamponies needed to see the eye doctor. She had a … calendar on her flank? Not the sort of cutie mark I expected to see, but I wasn’t even sure that the flesh she was puppeteering was necessarily hers, per se.

“Why, hello there,” the monster said. “Just the ponies I wanted to talk with this evening.”

Applejack let out a weary sigh, whereas Fluttershy just looked slightly confused.

“Um, not to be rude, miss,” Fluttershy said, “but who are you?”

The vamp looked momentarily astonished, before collecting herself. “Oh, where are my manners? My name is Nectarine Calendar, I work as an executive manager for Wokefoal Food Corporation?”

“Oh.” Fluttershy said. She might have looked slightly less confused than she did a moment prior, but not by much. I was still on guard, since I knew that this was a giant batlike monster wearing a pony for a skin that was talking to us. I’m not a very good liar, so the best I managed was a blank stare. I hoped the vampony chalked it up to some amount of confusion mixed with emotional pain coming from seeing my pet in such a sorry state.

Applejack just looked tired, and annoyed.

“The corporation I work for owns Ruby Red Ranch,” Nectarine said, her tone matter of fact and her expression neutral. “We provide some of your produce here?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, yes! Thank you for coming by, I was hoping that I could discuss something — ”

Nectarine cleared her throat with a cough, and Fluttershy stopped talking.

“My time is a bit limited at the moment,” Nectarine said, “I want to offer sincerest apologies for the current situation here at your clinic, of course, but I can assure you that our food distribution chain goes through various quality checks — Federal, State, Local, and our own— and that it’s incredibly unlikely there were any issues with our product. We will of course offer to run samples of your stock through some additional chemical testing at zero charge, as well as send you the results back, but I’m quite confident that they won’t find anything wrong.”

Nectarine’s expression changed from an impenetrable wall of corporate monotony to a warm smile.

“Now that the official claptrap is out of the way, I am here for another reason. Namely, I would like to invite both you, Fluttershy, and you Applejack, to a bit of a corporate luncheon this Friday. I’d like to help you get to the bottom of this — perhaps even arrange for some charitable donations, if you’re in need of resources? We’re always looking for tax write offs— ”

Wow.

It’s like she’s not even trying to hide that she’s a soulless bloodsucking monster.

“— and of course your friend here can come too.” The soulless bloodsucking monster turned to address me. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your name…?”

Another jolt of nervous energy ran through my body.

“Ah, haha,” I laughed, partly to try to coax my vocal chords into working again. “Twilight Sparkle, nice to meet you.”

“Quite.”

Okay, this was not happening, I needed to figure out a way to —

“Oh, that sounds delightful,” Fluttershy said. She turned to me. “You’re new in town, right? This would be an excellent opportunity for you to meet other ponies, isn’t that right, Applejack?”

“I guess,” Applejack said. Her teeth were gnashed together in the fakest smile I’d ever seen. “I reckon it’s not a bad idea.”

“Oh, wonderful.” Fluttershy must’ve picked up something from my reaction or Applejack's— note to self: figure out why Applejack really doesn’t like this pony— because the happy look in her eyes died ever so slightly. She caught herself too late, though. “Y’know, if you wanted to.”

Nectarine Calendar looked at me expectantly.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I said, in the most noncommittal fashion I possibly could. “Anyway, I have to get going, places to be, ponies to see, busy librarian work, you know how it is!”

I quickly turned around.

“Wait!” Nectarine said, loudly. I turned around. She walked up to me and offered a hoof.

I froze for a second.

Alright, one hooftap and I’m out.

I tapped her hoof, and the instant I made contact I could feel a slight shiver run up and down that leg. The subtle exchange of energy that one felt when you were touching the hand of another practitioner.

Uh uh ummmmmmm...

Nectarine Calendar, vampony of the Red Court, and apparently, sorcerer of nebulous strength and skill, looked me in the eye and gave me a wink.

Dang.

She planned that out.

This was getting pretty bad, I needed to get out of here.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, stammering slightly.

“Likewise.”

This time I turned around and walked straight out of the building and down towards the road. I think Fluttershy and Applejack tried to say goodbye as I left, but I wasn’t really paying attention. In fact, I picked up the pace as casually as I could.

My heart was doing a drum solo. Several, I think.

I trotted briskly out of sight of the clinic with my head on a swivel and a knockback spell ready to be fired at a moment’s notice. After I was confident I was out of sight, I broke into a swift gallop. I put all that fear and adrenaline to good use and absolutely tore down the streets of Ponyville. My lungs burned and my legs ached, and by the time I reached my front door I was pretty sure my body was on fire — layer of sticky sweat all over me notwithstanding. I fumbled with my keys for a second, panting desperately, before I finally managed to unlock the door and open it. I darted inside and slammed the heavy wooden door closed again and hurriedly locked it, before collapsing in a heap.

I need to work out more, sheesh.

I lay down there in the entryway for a while. At some point, I became dimly aware of a sleepy Spike poking at me with a claw. The door slamming had probably woken him up.

“Twilight, are you okay? What’s wrong? What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Spike asked.

I tried to respond once, and couldn’t get the words out. I tried again, but I was still out of breath.

“Water,” I said, after giving up on actually answering any of his questions. The little guy darted off into the kitchen, returning with the whole pitcher of cold water that we kept in the fridge. He held it up to my mouth and I drank deeply from it, swallowing the whole thing in a couple long gulps.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be fine, just… had to run home for something. Go back to bed.”

Spike gave me an uneasy glance, but he turned away and went back into his bedroom.

I relaxed a bit, now that I was inside my home and not about to pass out from physical exertion or have a heart attack or have my neck bitten into by ravenous creatures of the night. Home was safe, generally. There was a reason for that.

Houses that are well-lived in by a family tend to acquire a sort of… mystical inertia, inherent to the building. Over time, mortals getting together in a building and treating it like home — sharing meals, bathing, sleeping, having moments of joy and intimacy, and just generally living their lives— tended to slowly build up a protective barrier around the place. We wizards call that a threshold, and the big thing I cared about at the moment was that it would stop Ms. Vamponyface from being able to just waltz through my door without being invited inside. Well, she could do that in theory, but a supernatural being entering the threshold of a home uninvited usually seriously hampered them. If she came in uninvited, she’d be leaving most of her powers at the doorstep, and I’d be able to blow her into next week.

Hmm. That might be a problem, actually. I’d have to wake up to somepony breaking into my house first. I think I had a solution for that though… Well, one more thing to my to-do list tonight.

I felt bad for leaving Fluttershy and Applejack alone with the vampony. I felt bad for leaving Blue alone while she was sick. I sort of just... felt bad. In general. But I needed some time to recuperate and prepare, because letting a monster get the drop on you was a bad idea. Ditto for letting that same monster set up a social event so that she would have the home field advantage.

I was a wizard, dang it! Wizard, is a word that etymologically means “wise one”, and it's the same for equivalents in most languages. I just needed to put my brain to use and I’d be able to come up with something.

I yawned. Evidently my body didn’t sign off on that course of action, whatever, vetoed. I didn’t have the time to be tired right now.

I trudged into the kitchen and refilled the pitcher from the sink, tossing a few chunks of ice from the freezer in for good measure. I muttered a word and telekinetically lifted my cutlery tray up and out of the drawer, holding it aloft, before opening the pantry and levitating out a box of cookies with it. I felt the drain from doing that, a sign that I really had put myself through an obstacle course today. I opened the box of cookies, swallowed a few for good measure, before taking everything and dragging myself into my office.

Yeah, you’re in prime condition to be productive tonight, aren’t you, Twilight?

Sometimes my internal monologue (or my subconscious or whatever) just decides that we would take a nice, good piece of snark and shoot ourselves in the hoof with it. What was it that my teachers used to say? Something about sharp wits being a blade that could cut both ways.

I set the stuff down, yawned again, and went back to grab the coffee pot.

All-nighters are my specialty.

Comments

[Pinklestia]

Maybe she should take Spike with her next time she sees the Vampire?