This is inconvenient.
I trot closer and take a small vial of smelling salts out of subspace while Spike frantically checks her breathing and pulse. Lid off and lower it to her muzzle-.
Careful, spooked horses tend to be rather
lively. and something like
smelling salts will spook
anything.
Spike jerks his head around as the vial passes him. "What are you-?" His muzzle wrinkles. "Ew!"
"Yep." I watch Twilight's nostrils twitch twice, then her eyes snap open and her hooves try and drag her out of range without clearing things with her not-entirely-up-to-speed brain. I put the stopper back on as she tries to finish her reboot while simultaneously getting that smell out of her nose. "Wake up juice. Marvellous stuff. Back with us, Princess?"
Heh. Got to love when the instincts move faster than the thinking bits.
"Ah… Yes, yes, but-." Her eyes widen as she gets to the 'Celestia is abdicating' part. "I'm sorry, I don't think I'm remembering things right. Because I thought you said-."
"I did. Not immediately, but that's the direction she's heading in."
I suspect they convinced her that the resulting meltdown, if it
were immediate, would likely be worse than the upheavals during her fight with Tirek.
Twilight goes still. "Oh."
Spike frowns. "Did Princess Celestia say why she's quitting?"
I mean... It's not like she has issues with the management. Given that she
is the management.
I shrug. "She's been doing a job not actually related to her special talent for over a thousand years. I think she just wants a change."
Sunset snorts, muttering something under her breath.
Yes, we can guess
your opinion on the matter, and the guesses at her motivation.
Twilight looks at her for a moment. "I'm sorry? I didn't catch that."
Sunset looks her full on. "She's gotten old."
Now, now. I'm sure she's still not even middle-aged for an Alicorn.
Twilight looks like she's still a little behind events. "Ah… A thousand years is fairly old…"
"Equestria is finally industrialising. With the railways and the printing press, Equestrian society will change faster now than it has in the last thousand years. And since Celestia has spent time studying what happened to human society when that happened, she knows it. I think that she thinks that she can't handle it."
The benefit of having a clear example of it. There's probably a measure of 'Do I
really want to have to learn about all these new things?' too...
Twilight frowns, though by now she's at least a little used to Sunset's attitude to her former teacher. "Equestria hasn't just stayed the same for the last thousand years." She walks-. She's pacing. She's pacing in a circle. "It can't just be that she doesn't think she can handle it." She stops, looking at me. "What about Princess Luna?"
Perhaps it's more that she doesn't want her older-fashioned attitudes to hold the country back.
I wing-shrug. "She can't produce a new Princess Regnant for about seventeen years, and I think that Celestia wants to quit before that."
Twilight stops circling, tilting her head slightly to the right as she looks at me in puzzlement. "Why would it take seventeen years?"
...Really, Twilight? I know you're a little unsteady right now, but surely you can understand the basics of...
"A year to bear the foal, sixteen years to-" Twilight's cheeks colour. "-reach its majority."
Sunset tosses her mane. "And I don't have time to run a country."
Just imagine how skilled Luna and the Renegade's child would be in rulership, especially with the very best training. Assuming they don't have a bout of teenage rebellion and go off to become a space pirate or something.
"Yes." I nod. "That's the only reason."
Sunset limits her response to raising her left eyebrow at me before returning her attention to Twilight. "Celestia was just going to drop this on you and then fly off-" Twilight's eyes widen again. "-but we talked her into giving you some warning."
I suspect even the
thought of it triggered a little bit of a panic attack right there...
Twilight raises her right hoof to her chest, inhaling deeply as she does so. Then she exhales, thrusting her right hoof forward. Breathes in, hoof in, breathes out, hoof out.
Spike watches her trying to calm down, then turns to me. "Was that everything?"
Perhaps she needs a stiff drink of something calming? Shot of sugary cider, maybe?
"I'm afraid not. We talked Celestia into decelerating her retirement plans."
"Oh." He thinks for a moment, then nods. "That sounds like a good idea."
Yes, they gathered that. Anyone who knows Twilight would probably agree on that.
"But unless Twilight wants to turn her down-"
Twilight starts hyperventilating, her hoof blurring as she tries to keep up with her breathing.
...I'd say that's a hard 'ee-nope!'
"-we need to teach her how to exercise regnant authority. And that starts with Ponyville."
Spike tries waving his hands to get Twilight's attention, but it doesn't work. I-.
Time to break out the booze. Anyone got a hipflask of cider?
Sunset nudges me aside. "No, I've got this one." Her horn glows as she conjures a paper bag from somewhere, then levitates it over Twilight's muzzle and holds it there.
Twilight… Gradually slows down, her foreleg flailing slightly less before eventually flopping back to the floor.
I just
love that Sunset
gets Twilight that well.
"Oh-kay." Twilight looks at Sunset, who hesitates for a moment before floating the paper bag off Twilight's muzzle. "Okay. What do you mean, 'starts with Ponyville'?"
I smile in what I hope is a calming and reassuring manner. "If you're doing this, and I emphasise if-" Twilight twitches and Sunset raises the paper bag threateningly. "-then we think it would be best if you started off ruling something smaller and simpler than an entire country."
Because, after all, she is going to make mistakes, no matter how much she reads up on governance.
"Yeah. That.. sounds like a good idea."
Sunset nods. "And because the whole point is to dump Equestria on someone who knows how industrialisation works, we need to industrialise Ponyville. Or rather, you do."
As long as said industrialisation doesn't lead to the kind of pollution it did on Earth. Though I suspect pegasi could mitigate that.
Sunset's horn glows, and a pile of papers appears next to Twilight.
"Congratulations, Duchess Twilight Sparkle of the Duchy of Ponyville."
Well, then.
She looks at Sunset, then at the paperwork, then at Sunset, but her horn's already glowing as she picks up the pages. "But I'm already a princess."
"Yes, but you can't be Princess of Ponyville unless Celestia makes it an independent country, and we thought that would be too much work when you don't even know how to run a duchy. Legally, someone who rules a city is a duke or duchess, so now you're a duchess and a princess." Sunset emits a low growl. "Whereas I haven't even been awarded my doctorate yet."
And that is a legal thing. For instance, the
British royal family's members often have multiple noble titles, like Duke of Sussex, Duke of Edinburgh, that sort of thing. Usually it's a mark of their proximity to the throne.
I nod. "That's the problem with being more intelligent than the review committee."
"I turned myself into an alicorn. That should be all the proof I need to show that I know what I'm talking about."
Yes, but you still have to write papers about it, and I suspect the committee is having trouble following it all. Maybe
illustrations would help?
I decide to move on. "Now, that 'duchess' thing doesn't go into effect until you actually agree to any of this, and you'll need to discuss this with the Ponyville mayor. If you keep going you'll get to the part which defines the proposed area of the duchy, the extend of your authority and the suggestions Sunset and I came up with to improve the local economy and the provisional contracts that the company which we intend to set up has been offered by the Crown and by governments on Earth. Celestia has already approved moving Starswirl's Mirror to Ponyville to simplify matters."
Sounds like a lot of the work is already done for her. Which will probably help her settle into the idea.
Twilight is now at the centre of a cylindrical wall of paperwork. "Uh-huh."
"And your tail is on fire."
She's not that angry. Yet.
And yes, I get what he was
trying to do.
"Uh-huh."
"Okay, she's good. Spike, probably a good idea to keep an eye-."
Make sure she eats, goes to the bathroom in the right place, that sort of thing? He's dealt with her research fugues before, I expect.
The looks he gives me says 'no shit' and 'I've been doing this literally since I hatched'.
"You've got this. Good lad. We'll be in Ponyville for the rest of the day if anyone need us. Do you need anything right now?"
Somehow, I suspect the people of the town will be wondering 'oh no, what's going on
now?' when they see the Alicorns visiting.
He considers for a moment. "Could you let the girls know that Twilight's going to need them in about… Half an hour? I think that's when she'll start coming out of this."
I nod. "Will do. I-."
If nothing else, they'll keep her head on straight.
"Spike!" Twilight starts moving, paperwork still forming a shield wall around her. "I need census data for every major city in Equestria for the last fifty years, a topographical map of the Ponyville area, and…"
Spike grabs the notepad and pen and starts frantically scribing as Sunset and I walk out of the palace.
Somehow, I expect ball-point pens will probably be popular in the bureaucracy of Equestria before long. certainly, it's going to be handy for Spike.
