Emotional Compensation

by Kiernan

Chapter the Seventh

The front page. The very front page. Not even just one front page. Three different publications had plastered the image of him swinging at the photographer, and only one of those three had obscured his face. That had done him little good, as he was front and center on the paper right next to it.

Blueblood sneered and shook his hooves. He should have known that Fancypants would screw him over by not paying off all of the reporters. What’s worse, the articles that didn’t mention him by name or have pictures referred to him as a bum. A smelly, violent bum!

On top of that, everypony was laughing at him. He couldn’t leave the castle without being recognised on a normal day. How was he supposed to show his face in public if he was the laughingstock across the whole of Equestria?

And it certainly was all of Equestria. He’d received taunting letters from all across the kingdom, some asking if it was true, others telling him that he should have done it differently, and all of them complete garbage.

The one good thing about this whole mess was that his maids were now too afraid to piss him off, and kept their dirty peasant hooves out of his sight. Even when he did run into one, they would disappear right away, meaning he could walk the halls with no hindrances whatsoever.

Still, one small benefit did not make him feel any better, because in trying to protect his image, he had lost quite a bit of rapport with several of his business partners. The smart ones saved face by denying having seen the incident, and refusing to comment as they had not been present, and continued to deal with him in secret, wanting his favour, but distancing themselves in the event that the press turned against him. Those less cunning and more cowardly announced that they had nothing to do with the assault, and would temporarily be separating themselves from his services in the hopes that it was an isolated incident. Little did they know that they would never have his business again because of these actions.

In the middle of these two types of investors and business owners stood a third type: the kind who wanted to meet with him and discuss their next step before deciding whether or not to keep him on as a partner. While it was not as smart as keeping their trust in him, it wasn’t so dumb as guessing that the press was completely right. Normally, he would be insulted that they even considered leaving one of his contracts, but far too few of his ventures were actually staying with him. He’d had four security companies under his metaphorical wing, but now, only one remained. Hiring ponies to encourage those who broke contract to return to his portfolio was going to be much more expensive. Perhaps it was a good idea to meet with the investors still in median standing with him.

He would be meeting with six of them today. Pushing his breakfast dishes away, he returned to his room to shower. He kept a very close eye on his skin, not wanting to find that it was coloured or riddled with fleas once again. He’d been scrubbing so firmly recently that he was beginning to exfoliate more than was healthy. He was also going through moisturizer as though it was going out of style. At least his coat was still shiny and white, though.

As he slipped on his jacket, he moved slowly and checked every square inch of the fabric. He couldn’t risk anything going wrong with this meeting. It had to go perfectly. That meant no bugs crawling on him, no holes or dirt on his clothing, nothing. There was no room for error today.

He took one final look in the mirror and adjusted himself accordingly. Though it was an ugly expression, he used his magic to pull back his lips and inspect his teeth. He had planned this out so thoroughly. His outfit and clean skin meant nothing if the others were staring at something stuck in his teeth.

Luckily, they were pristine, and as white as his coat. His dentist, luckily the same as Auntie Celestia and Auntie Luna’s, had not abandoned him. Not so far, anyway. His stylist had, meaning he had to find somepony else to do his mane, but there was a company from out of town that had agreed to send somepony over to help him dress it up.

In fact, she was late. She was supposed to be here before nine in the morning, and the clock in his room said it was already eight fifty-eight. How could she possibly set everything up and have him in the chair by nine if she was already this far behind?

Just as he was about to write an angry letter detailing the horrible service he’d not even received yet, there was a knock at the door. He threw it open, and two guards were on either side of a mousey-looking mare. “Prince Blueblood,” bowed one of the guards. “This mare says she has been summoned to style your mane for an important meeting today.”

“Well, it’s about time you arrived!” sneered Blueblood, pulling her into the room and slamming it in the guards’ face. “Don’t you know that before nine means that showing up at nine is late?”

“I’m terribly sorry, but the guards wouldn’t let me pass until I could prove that all of my products were genuine, and they had to check my credentials, as well.”

“Enough excuses,” he snapped. “We’re already behind schedule.” He sat down on a comfortable cushion and tossed his head back. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“The guards sort of… confiscated my gear. I wasn’t allowed to bring so much as a pair of scissors near you until they confirmed my story.”

Blueblood grunted in frustration. “Must I do everything around here?” He stood up and walked back to the door, shouting at the remaining guard to go bring in the stylist’s kit, only to be informed that the other guard was already doing so. Blueblood grunted again and returned to his seat.

It took what felt like a painful eternity for the stylist's kit to arrive, and when it did, Blueblood noted it looked as though it were in disarray—scissors were in the wrong places, combs were askew, brushes had loose bristles… in fact, if he were any judge, it looked as though it truly did corroborate the stylist's story. With an almost too-dramatic sigh, Blueblood sat back and let her go to work. Fortunately, she was quick, able to sort her tools efficiently and without taking up too much time, and she was an expert at grooming his mane and tail.

In fact, she was as good as his previous stylist, even under some measure of duress. At least something else was looking up today, as she wrapped up her combing, oiled up his mane and tail to make them shine, and gave him the green light to attend his meeting, for which he had been overdue by half an hour already. He nodded in her direction as he departed, but that was all the courtesy he allowed himself to give, after everything else that had happened.

He made it to the meetup with no fuss, unaware that a presence was above him during his trip, so subtly adding some oil and other substances to his mane and tail, doing it in such a way as to not rouse any suspicion. In fact, Blueblood had no reason to assume that anything was wrong as he appraised the others attending the meet-up, consisting of three businessmanes and three nobles from other houses, all sitting at a round table in the middle of the room. One was tapping his hoof impatiently. "Where were you, Blueblood? You almost kept us waiting for an entire hour!" he snapped.

Blueblood frowned. "Apologies, Jet Set, but I had been kept waiting by my rather late mane stylist," he answered. "She had not understood that nine o'clock on the dot means nine o'clock on the dot."

Jet Set nodded, willing to buy the excuse, at least. "At least you're not already later than you presently are," he said. "Come, have a seat, we have much to discuss."

Blueblood took the invitation, and sat down.

"As you can see, we're experiencing some… problems with some present business deals," Jet Set began, frowning. "The money is funneling more to the lowerborn plebeians than it is to us—when it should go the other way around."

"And these business arrangements are…?" Blueblood hedged.

"Currently, they are in-house arrangements, mostly dealing with high labor costs and other such menial work for housing projects over in Manehattan and Vanhoover," Jet Set replied. "The issue is, the housing still needs to be quality, for the middle class… but it has too much quality that only the rich and noble-born can afford." He put his hooves together. "What I'm saying is… we need to cut back the costs—make it cheaper."

Blueblood nodded, ears perked and attentive. Who was he to turn down an invitation to generate more money? Furthermore, he was curious to see how this would pan out. "I'm listening…"

"And if we make it cheaper, we might make less money in the short-term, but more ponies will buy it to make up the difference," Jet Set continued, his frown slowly turning into a smile that would have glistened menacingly in the sun, had he actually angled his muzzle to let it do so. "More cheap houses, means more ponies off the streets, means more rent paid, and therefore, more money funneling towards our coffers, as it always should."

Blueblood nodded. "But how are we willing to go about this? You said yourself that these houses are used by middle-class ponies, who by default, have more wealth of their own to throw around than the commoners," he retorted. "There's several avenues we could take."

"Yes, and the most obvious one lies before us: we reduce costs," Jet Set proposed. "We can't do it too much, or else the middle class might catch on, nor can we do it too frequently… but if we play our cards right, we'll be looking at increased returns before we know it."

"So, how much do we reduce costs, then?" Blueblood asked.

"Right now, costs for the housing projects in Manehattan and Vanhoover are roughly five hundred thousand bits per project," one of the businessmanes answered. "That's just base costs, not accounting for heating, water, or any of the other basic necessities. With those accounted for, we're looking at seven hundred fifty thousand bits per project."

Blueblood nodded, though when he made the motion, he noticed light refracting off of a particular surface and throwing itself around the room with the motion. Jet Set frowned again. "Could you turn off the light?" he asked. Blueblood glanced about, and it didn't take him long to find the switch, but he didn't feel like standing up and dirtying his hooves, so he simply lit his horn to magically turn off the switch. "Better," Jet Set said, starting to smile again.

"Anyway, are we going to affect all of the housing projects like this, or a select group of them?" Blueblood pressed. "Because if we do it all at once, then the middle class and commoners will definitely catch on, and we do not want that to occur."

Jet Set nodded. "We start small, a few projects at a time. We make it seem random, too, so that the commoners won't be able to catch on," he answered. "There's this one housing project in Vanhoover that is incomplete, as in, the buildings that are part of that project are still under construction. We can reduce costs there." His horn lit up, and he procured sheets of paper that he slid across the table to the other nobles and businessmanes.

Blueblood looked at his sheet, at the projected numbers for costs and the like. So far, everything seemed good, though as Jet Set had said, he felt it needed a few touch-ups. Then he squinted. Was… was that a tiny gold flake on the parchment? Blueblood brushed it off with a deft flick of magic, to keep it from sullying the paper any further.

“A few notes, gentlecolts,” huffed Blueblood as he shifted in his seat. For some reason, his hips felt very uncomfortable staying completely still. “I was doing some research last night as to the state of construction, and I found a few very interesting things.”

“We’re all waiting, Blueblood,” replied Jet Set, tapping his hoof on the table. If you wouldn’t mind sharing with the rest of the class?”

Blueblood lit up his horn, brighter than he was expecting, conjuring a very plain-looking manual with a dull red spine. “Las Pegasus has much more lax building codes than Vanhoover. Your statement suggests that we hire a local construction company to build these, and that’s going to cut into our bottom line.”

“And what would you have us do?” asked Brass Tack, one of the other CFOs. “If we have to ship in a different construction team, we have to pay their housing costs for the duration of the project. Hotel rooms, trailers, even something as basic as tents, we’d have to pay for. We’re trying to save money, not spend more.”

“You misunderstand,” chuckled Blueblood. “If we bring them up there, then yes, we have to spend more money, and they’d have to adhere to the exact same standard of quality in construction: Roof slopes of at least three over five for lower Manehattan, and four over five in upper Manehattan and Vanhoover, king studs eighteen inches on center, and full insulation in the walls and ceiling. We’d be hemorrhaging money if we did that.”

“That’s what I just said,” scowled Brass Tack. He turned to Jet Set. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

Before Jet Set could so much as nod, Blueblood held up his hoof. “That’s why I’m not suggesting that we move the company up to Vanhoover. What I’m suggesting is that we build the houses in Las Pegasus, and then move the houses, once built and inspected, up to Vanhoover. I’m talking roof slopes of one over eight, king studs twenty-four inches on center, and air gap insulation on all drop ceilings. Then we just ship the houses up north.”

There was some murmuring around the table as the option was considered. He had them right in his grasp now. It had been a bit of a rocky start, but now things were turning his way.

“How much will it cost?” asket Jet Set.

Blublood turned to face him. ”Excuse me?”

“Well, houses are pretty big. If we have to ship them from one side of Equestria to the other, isn’t that going to eat into our profit margin?”

“I have a share in a good many railway companies,” nodded Blueblood. “It won’t be difficult to pack forty or fifty identical “oversized decorative shipping containers” across the country for cheap.”

“Won’t the freighters realize that these aren’t shipping containers once they hit the weigh station?”

“Actually, I have a solution for that, if you don’t mind me stepping in, Blueblood,” smirked Brass Tack.

“By all means,” waved Blueblood. He hadn’t had a very good response for this concern, so any help was much appreciated.

“We stuff the empty houses full of cargo.” He smiled, leaned back, and folded his front legs across his chest smugly. “If we’re going to pretend that they’re shipping containers, we double down and treat them as if they actually are shipping containers.”

“What cargo, though?” asked Whimsy Whitetail, one of the nobles. “If we have to keep shipping stuff up north inside these houses, we’re going to run out of stuff.”

“Just load it full of whatever we need to ship up north,” scoffed Brass Tack. “They’re always asking for more bricks, so we fill up a bedroom. They want wool? We send ‘em wool. Manehattan loves its cilantro, so we ship that, too. If it’s headed north, we stuff the kitchen and send it on up.”

Whimsy curled up her nose. “Doesn’t that mean a bunch of dirty freighters are going to be trouncing across the carpets in their filthy boots?”

“Who cares?” asked Blueblood. “The ponies who attach the houses to the foundation will leave muddy bootprints, too. Who’s going to tell the difference? Even then, will the commoners even know that their house was dirty in the first place? They’re already covered in dust and sweat and pimples. What’s one more bootprint?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All of these ponies, who were supposed to be the most noble and fiscally sound, all planning to cheat those who had little enough already. I’m not usually one for fairness, but it was absolutely despicable. So I deci– Oh.

Fine, you caught me. I’ve been narrating this whole time. Honestly, though, did you expect the lord of all things chaotic to stay inside of the fourth wall? Anyway, keep it under your hat. You don’t want to spoil it for the other readers, do you? Now, let’s return to the story, and pretend that Discord is just a character, and not the one telling the story, hm?

The whole table was clapping by this point. It seemed as though things were going well. “I have a few more suggestions, if you’d care to hear them,” smirked Blueblood, leaning forward. With an array of nods and waves, he stood up, clapped, and with his shoulder wobbling, he pointed around the room, starting at his left and slowly bringing his fully extended leg to his right. “With the walls, I propose that we shave down the sheeting.”

“Even after pulling out some of the studs?” asked Brass Tack. “Thinner walls makes them more prone to breakage. The stud gaps would be a lot easier to expose, and that could come up to bite us.”

“The buildings will be inspected for safety before being loaded onto the train,” assured Blueblood. “If something does happen, the inspector is the one who’ll be out of a job, and we can just replace him with somepony else with the same building codes. We’ll be fine.”

“But he can talk,” added Whimsy. “Bad press can turn a single broken sheet of plywood into a class action lawsuit, and it can also redirect a lawsuit against an inspector onto the company that hired the inspector.”

“It’s sheetrock, not plywood,” replied Blueblood.

"And if it's sheetrock…" Jet Set trailed off, as Blueblood's idea began to dawn on him. The sheer simplicity of it made his eyes widen, and yet the real appeal set in a moment later. "Blueblood, that's brilliant! Less chance for ponies to end up hurt if we use sheetrock, and it's cheaper, so ponies won't talk if the sheetrock fails!"

Blueblood smirked. At last, something was turning up today! "Now then, there are other materials we can replace with sheetrock—the possibilities are endless. Granted, it's not entirely foolproof, nor feasible in some cases, such as pegasus cloud housing, but it's still enough for our purposes. And in those small cases that we can't use sheetrock for, we use a low-density oriented strand board."

Jet Set smirked, and the expression was one that wouldn't be out of place on a shark's face. "I see you still haven't lost your edge," he said appraisingly. "Perhaps we can turn those blunders of yours around, after all."

Blueblood nodded. "Yes, perhaps we can. Hopefully with time, the public will forget all about it," he said. "Newspapers end up being tossed all the time. Or burned, or whatever other rubbish befalls them, and it will sort itself out eventually." Strange, as he said that, the light around the room began to dance weirdly again, as though the sun itself were frollicking merrily in the sky. He glanced up, and yet… he saw nothing wrong with the overhangs of the room, nor the windows, and the sun was doing its slow rise and fall as it had always done. What, then, was going on?

He garnered his attention and dragged its reins back to current matters. If something dodgy was going on, then somepony else accompanying him would have said something by now. Worryingly, his present company also glanced up briefly, seeing if their own eyes had played tricks on them. Had the light danced for them, too?

"Hopefully, it's just our eyes playing tricks," Jet Set muttered under his breath. He shook his head to focus on more important matters, and cleared his throat after lifting a hoof to cover his mouth. "That being said, do we cheapen the structural support of these buildings?" he asked.

Blueblood shook his head. "No, we do not, simply because the commoners might catch on otherwise. At least, we don't do so after cheapening the walls, floors, and ceilings—we do so over time, like a frog in lukewarm water." He shuddered at the mental imagery he gave himself, and pressed on, "That way, we're still up to the building codes, and this does not come back to bite us in the end."

Jet Set maintained his smirk. "And once the money starts funneling back to us…" He chuckled, eyes twinkling as thoughts of a new yacht or another manse filled his mind. "Oh, the things we could use it for…!"

Blueblood also smirked, thinking about what he was going to use his ill-found gains upon. A few new hires were in order for certain, but after that, he was as free as a pegasus. Yet as the thoughts danced in his head, the light flickered strangely once more, and he found himself glancing up for what felt like the third time that day. Yet, nothing was amiss—he chalked it up to mere hallucinations brought on by the stress of everything, and brought his eyes back to ground level.

This time, the eyes of his compatriots did not gravitate upwards for any brief intervals, and instead, they began to talk about all the things they were going to use the funneled money for. Whimsy chuckled as she talked about the most expensive jewelry she was going to purchase, while Brass Tack talked about another few buildings he wanted to zero in on to add to their little pet project. Jet Set wanted to go see Saddle Arabia, and see if he and his wife Upper Crust could bring any souvenirs from over there back home.

Blueblood, too, began talking with them, eyes sparkling as he wanted to purchase the latest in deluxe odds and ends, and trinkets that no mere commoner could be able to afford without some disastrous results. As they laughed and talked, they did not notice the light dancing strangely once more, as they were too caught up in their power fantasies to really gauge the expanse of the ceiling.

In fact, they failed to notice the change in the room until the lights dimmed, before they began dancing once more. Jet Set, the first to take heed, glanced around. "What's all this?" he asked, glancing up to find a white ball dangling from the ceiling… or at least, it looked white. It was actually a silver in reality, spinning on a gentle axis, and reflecting the light of the sun and the room off of thousands of small iridescent squares that would have been amazing for a commoner, but vexing for a noble.

Blueblood glanced up, brow furrowing at what he beheld. "... that looks like a commoner-grade instrument," he said drolly, lighting up his horn to try and remove the offending object. His magic grasped the object and pulled, only for it to open from a hidden seam in the middle and pop open like an oyster, spilling confetti and glitter onto the gathering below. The nobles and CFOs scrambled to move out of the radius of the unexpected shower, and barely managed to avoid being covered in sparkling filth for their trouble.

Blueblood, magic firmly on the split ball, tugged once again. The ball closed, and he could swear he saw a goat's face in the reflective squares that winked at him. He felt warmer than usual afterwards, as though he had taken a marathon during a hot day, without all the sweat and other gubbins that happened to ponies who were athletic. He glanced at himself and frowned; his clothes had once again been altered, and now he was in a snazzy three-piece suit that covered his body down to the fetlocks of his hooves, sparkling with blue and gold sequins.

He opened his mouth, intent on issuing a complaint about the outfit, but what came out instead was the sound of synthetic brass instruments. He tried to cover his mouth, flashbacks of his speech pouring back into his mind, but the music was not going to let him. He kept belting out notes as if he were having a coughing fit.

The window shutters slammed shut, and the room fell dark for a moment, then lit up as tiny spotlights danced off of the mirrored ball, which was now spinning. Other spotlights, done up in multiple colours, pushed their way out of the walls and danced around the room. The bricks of the floor, which had moments ago been made from stone, were now coated in vinyl and lit up individually in moving patterns. He knew that’s what the floor looked like because the table had disappeared and the chairs had tilted forward, dumping everypony to the floor.

“What in Equestria is going on?!” shouted Jet Set, wobbling in his gold lamé shirt and silver satin pants. “Answer me, Blueblood!”

Blueblood opened his mouth to speak, but he was immediately drowned out by the music. He tried to point up, but his hoof was pulled back down as soon as it reached full extension, pointing to the floor, then back to the ceiling. He couldn’t even move his other hoof, as it had attached itself to a blue sash around his waist that acted as some manner of belt.

“Was this your doing, Blueblood?” asked Brass Tack, strutting in a tight-fitting rainbow sequin outfit, complete with white platform shoes. Every step clapped against the floor with the beat of the music, and his body shifted with every thrum of the bass.

Whimsy slid up in a set of black heels, red pants with a very high waist, topped with a black sequin shirt with a deep V collar, all capped off with a rainbow print chiffon shawl. “Where did these clothes come from? How did we all end up dressed in these? I have a lot of questions.”

Blueblood opened his mouth to speak again, but with it came another rise in the music volume, as if the sounds were coming from inside his mouth, even though the sounds seemed to permeate the walls, just filling the room with sound.

With a large scowl on his face, Jet Set turned to the others. “While I was indeed the one who called all of you here for this, it was Blueblood who picked this venue, as well as having time to set it all up. He’s the only one who’s had access to this conference room, and he’s had a week to work with. He certainly hasn’t been out in public, of that you can be sure. I had nothing to do with this.”

Brass turned to Blueblood. “Is this true?”

Blueblood was fuming. “I would never! This was all Jet’s idea, I swear!

“How would I set all of this up?” argued Jet Set. “I was too busy trying to convince them to come in to see you! Do you have any idea how hard that is with your reputation lately?!”

“You’d better come clean,” warned Blueblood. “If you don’t tell the truth, I’ll–”

“You’ll what?” sneered Jet Set, pushing his face against Blueblood’s. “You’ll take a swing at me just like you did to that photographer?!”

“I did no such thing!”

“I was there! I saw the whole thing!”

“Girls!” shouted Brass, grabbing both of them by the shoulder. “You both look pretty enough to go to the dance, so let’s break up the little catfight!” He took a deep breath, and signaled them both to do the same. “I just want to know who set up the room for a great big disco party, complete with a dance floor. Capiche?”

“It was him,” accused Jet Set, pointing at Blueblood.

“Nonsense,” snorted Blueblood. “I had this room scrubbed clean, and that was it. Where would I even put the table, given how quickly it disappeared?”

“You’re a unicorn,” jeered Jet Set. “You can use magic!”

“And you can’t?” huffed Blueblood, flicking Jet’s horn. “And bringing up bad publicity to support your claim. So very tacky, and it reveals your true motive: to smear my good name through the mud. I would even go so far as to guess that it was you who was messing with the audio at the fundraiser!”

“I would never stoop so low!” barked Jet Set. “I will not stand here and be accused of sinking to your level! Good day, sir!”

“Good day to you!”

Jet Set and Prince Blueblood turned up their noses and walked out of the room through separate doors, walking off in opposite directions.

The other members of the meeting stayed behind, not taking sides. This was a venture about making money, and that’s what they wanted. A good amount of planning had been done today, and in all honesty, Brass, Whimsy and the rest could enact most of that on their own. For now, they were scheduled to have the room for just shy of another hour.

Brass turned around, flicking his mane back. His rainbow shirt was a little too tight, but undoing a few buttons on his chest solved that. It also revealed a solid gold medallion. “Whoever it was that dressed up the room to look like this, they had very good taste. What say we take the rest of our time here to show you all how I won the ‘78 regional roller disco championship?”

“Regional?” chuckled Whimsy. “In ‘76, the only reason we didn’t take state was because my partner twisted his ankle. Now, I know the whole point of this meeting was to squeeze some money out of those less fortunate, but how about I show you how to really hustle?”

A big smile crept across Brass Tack’s face. “Ooh, kitty, you make me feel like dancin’...”

For the next half hour the whole room dropped forty-five years off their age and threw caution to the wind. They were old enough to remember the era they were being drawn into, and, as I didn’t want to see anypony break a hip, I made absolutely certain that they were limber and capable of complex movement. After all, I promised Fluttershy that nopony would be hurt.