"Spike! Thank goodness you're here! I need you to take down a letter right away, it's super important!"

Spike didn't even have to open his eyes to know who had interrupted his afternoon nap - he'd recognize that mile-a-minute voice anywhere. "Pinkie?" he muttered. "What could possibly be more important than letting me sleep?"

"No time to explain now, gotta get this letter down while it's still fresh in my mind!" Pinkie exclaimed. "You'll understand once I start dictating it to you!"

Spike rolled over and rubbed his eyes. "Couldn't you just, you know, write it down yourself?" he asked with a yawn.

"I tried to!" Pinkie said. "Really, I did, but I'm just too wound up right now and my writing was all shaky and wobbly and scribbledy. You can't just write an important letter all scribbledy-ly! But then I thought to myself, 'Pinkie! You know who has great handwriting? Spike does, because he takes all those notes for Twilight all the time!' So then I rushed over here as fast as I could to see if you would please, please help me write this super important letter." She paused and took a deep breath, then blurted, "So will you?"

Spike blinked a couple of times as he tried to let his sleep-blurred brain catch up with Pinkie's rapid-fire explanation, but he finally just gave up and nodded his head. "Okay, sure," he sighed. "Let me get a pen..."

"Great!" Pinkie squealed. "I already know exactly how I want to start: DEAR FILLY WONKA CANDY COMPANY, INCORPORATED..."

Spike cringed and covered his ears. "Um, maybe you could dictate just a little quieter, Pinkie," he said. "And is this letter seriously to a candy company?"

"Oh yes, very seriously," Pinkie replied. "You'll see in a minute."

Spike shrugged. "If you say so," he grunted as he hopped up onto a stool. "Whatever the issue is, I'm sure a proper Spike-the-dragon missive will set it right."

Pinkie gasped. "I just want to send them a letter, not a missile!" she protested.

"Missive, not missile, Pinkie," Spike said.

"Ohhhhh," Pinkie said, then she frowned. "What's a missive?"

"It's just another word for letter," Spike explained. "Twilight's been trying to get me to expand my vocabulary, but so far it seems like I'm just learning more confusing ways to say the words I already knew." He shifted into a more comfortable position, dipped his quill in ink, and pulled a sheet from one of the ubiquitous stacks of blank paper in Twilight's study. Owlowiscious landed beside him with a friendly hoot, and they both turned to look at Pinkie. "Alright," Spike said. "Go ahead."

Pinkie cleared her throat, furrowed her brow, and assumed a dramatic pose, then she unleashed the tirade that had been building up in the back of her mind all morning:

"Dear Filly Wonka Candy Company, Incorporated,

"First off, I feel like I should thank you for picking the most funnest name to say in the history of fun-to-say names. All those k's and c's, it's almost as fun as crunching on your Scrumptious Crackling Crabapple Caramel Corn! Come to think of it, that might actually be even more fun to say than Filly Wonka Candy Company Incorporated..."

"Pinkie..." Spike groaned.

"Oh, right, better stay on track," Pinkie said. "Okay, let's see... how about this next:

"But now is not the time for talking about fun things, my candy-making friends. No, this is a serious letter, because I just had the most un-fun thing happen to me while I was trying to enjoy a bag of your Super Tremendous Ultra-Deluxe Assorted Candy Bonanza.
For the first time in all of forever, I found a piece of black licorice."

Spike looked up from his furious scribbling and stared at Pinkie in disbelief. "Black licorice?"

Pinkie nodded emphatically. "I know, right? Appalling!" Owlowiscious hooted in agreement. "See, this guy gets it," Pinkie said. "Black licorice is the worst!"

Spike narrowed his eyes. "This is really about a piece of black licorice?"

"Not just any piece of black licorice," Pinkie countered. "An insidious, infiltrating imposter in what should have been a bag of the best candy in Equestria!"

"O... kay," Spike said. "So. You found a piece of black licorice..."

"Oh, right, the letter!" Pinkie giggled. "Silly me. Ahem. For the first time in all of forever, I found a piece of black licorice. Let me repeat that, because it's super important: there was BLACK LICORICE in your Super Tremendous Ultra-Deluxe Assorted Candy Bonanza! Black licorice isn't super OR tremendous OR Ultra-Deluxe! I guess it could be Assorted, and technically it's a candy, but the point is that it has no place in any kind of Bonanza, much less one as Super Tremendous Ultra-Deluxe as yours!"

Spike was trying admirably to keep up, but his mind yearned to be back in bed and he'd lost Pinkie's train of thought around the third "black licorice". His writing devolved into weary, illegible scribbles as he struggled to latch onto a coherent thought in Pinkie's diatribe.

"Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE the STU-DACB," Pinkie continued. "It's my most favorite of all your products! I love the chocolates and the Gooey-Chews and the Belly Busters and the jawbreakers and the rock candy and the candied rocks and the bubble gum and the jellybeans. I even love to make up cheers with that fun little acronym, like 'S T U-D A C B! The only candy mix for me'! I even like most kinds of licorice, with their fruity flavors and chewy goodness, but there is just no excuse for the black kind. It's not sweet or fruity or crunchy or gooey or chocolatey or bubbly OR gummy, it's just bitter and spicy and NO GOOD AT ALL."

At this point Spike had stopped writing entirely and was staring, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, at the spectacle of Pinkie in the throes of a proper rant, but she was too wrapped up in her speech to notice.

"Imagine you're surrounded by a bunch of adorable fuzzy animals, but as soon as you reach out to pet one it turns into a frog! Or no, wait, imagine reaching into a jar full of marshmallows, and you get a nice, big, puffy one and you're all excited to eat it but then you realize that it's really a frog! No, that's not quite right either... I know! Imagine you have a bag of delicious candy and you reach in for a piece and toss it in your mouth, but when you bite down it turns out to be black licorice - shaped like a frog! That's basically what this experience was like for me, except my licorice wasn't frog-shaped, it was just kind of round."

Spike turned to Owlowiscious and mouthed the word, "Frogs?" The owl just tilted his head and shrugged.

"Ooh, that's an idea," Pinkie rambled on. "Frog-shaped licorice! The frogs could be made of one flavor of licorice and they could have reaaaaaaalllllllllllllly long tongues made of another flavor of licorice, and you could call it Lickorice!" She looked to Spike for his reaction, but he just stared at her like a cow at an oncoming train. "Lickorice with a k, like 'lick'. Because of the tongues, get it?" Spike blinked. "I guess it sounds the same as licorice when you say it out loud, but it's pretty funny when you look at it," Pinkie said. "Anyway, they would all be the good flavors of licorice, like strawberry or cherry or berry or anything that ends with that 'erry' sound, really. Well, maybe not anything. Can you imagine a licorice that tastes like a canary? Or a library? Or a ferry? No thank you!" She stopped suddenly. "Spike, are you getting any of this down?"

Spike kept staring straight ahead for a moment, half-asleep, until Owlowiscious nudged him with his wing. "Um, what? Yes. Yeah, of course I'm getting this down," he stuttered.

"You didn't look like you were writing," Pinkie observed.

"Oh, right," Spike said. "I was just... uh... using dragon shorthand! Yeah, super convenient system. Lets me abbreviate really long sentences into just a couple little symbols so I can keep up."

Pinkie trotted over and peered at the letter. "It looks like a bunch of scribbles."

"I'm sure it would, to someone who doesn't read dragon shorthand," Spike retorted. "Don't worry, once you're done dictating I'll write it out the normal way."

"Well, okay," Pinkie said. "So what do we have so far? Read it back to me."

Spike blanched. "I can't," he said, his voice suddenly low and scratchy. "I've... got a sore throat. And the doctor said I should really take it easy with the talking." He coughed. "You know. For my health."

"Hmmmm..." Pinkie squinted at Spike for a moment, then she smiled and patted him on the head. He flinched. "Well I hope you feel better soon, Spike!" she said. "Anyway, are you ready for the rest of the letter?"

"There's more?" Spike moaned.

"Just a little teensy bit," Pinkie promised. "We're almost done!"

"Alright, sure," Spike sighed. "Let's do this."

"That's the spirit!" Pinkie cheered. "Here we go. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, and I hope you'll consider my idea for Lickorice, I'm sure it would be a big hit. I know you're probably very busy, but I have plenty of other great candy ideas for you if you want to hear them. I guess I'll wrap things up by saying thanks for making so many amazing snacks! You guys are the best!
Yours truly,
Pinkie Pie."

"That's it?" Spike asked warily.

"Yep!" Pinkie said. "Pretty cool candy idea, don't you think?"

"But wasn't this letter originally about the... you know what, never mind," Spike said. "This is great. I'll copy it down in my best handwriting and have Twilight deliver it as soon as possible, okay?"

"Sounds great!" Pinkie beamed. "Thanks for all your help, Spike!"

"Sure thing, Pinkie," Spike yawned. He watched her bounce down the stairs, then he turned to Owlowiscious and asked, "Did you get any of that?" The owl shook his head and flew away. "Yeah, same here," Spike mumbled. He picked up his pen, grabbed a piece of Twilight's personal letterhead, and began to write.

When he was finished, he looked over his handiwork and smiled. "I guess those vocabulary lessons came in handy after all."

Spike slipped the letter into an envelope, addressed it to the Filly Wonka Headquarters in Fillydelphia, and put it in the mailbox, then he curled up in his little bed and fell right back to sleep.

A few days later, the president of the Filly Wonka Candy Company, Incorporated was more than a little alarmed and mystified to find this letter in his morning mail:

"From the desk of Princess Twilight Sparkle

To whom it may concern at the Filly Wonka Candy Company, Incorporated,

As a matter of national security, the Princesses have issued an order to cease all production of black licorice immediately. We regret that we cannot divulge any further information at this time, but rest assured that this is an issue of utmost importance and secrecy. Your prompt and discreet cooperation is much appreciated.

Thank you."