Long and short of it Office Moment · 12:43am Jan 23rd, 2023
“I’m not apologizing.”
>You are Anonymous the unicorn and you cannot believe what Cut is asking you to do right now.
>Apparently she feels very strongly about something you said to one of the mares you kicked out last night.
>It’s all a little fuzzy around the edges, apparently you /actually/ teleported?
>You’d been studying up on how to do it, sure, but you’d never been able to work up the nerve to try it out.
>Guess all you needed was a little liquor to grease the wheels.
>That’s neither here nor there though.
>What /is/ here is Cut, and she’s very upset you screamed at one of your coworkers about how ugly her coat was.
>”Come on. That was /really/ mean!”
>You don’t feel the same.
>Really, why’s she making such a big deal about this?
>Even as the two of you whisper at each other just outside of the mare’s cubicle, you can’t bring yourself to feel bad for her.
“So? I’ve personally heard her talk shit about how you look, Cut! If anything she deserves it!”
>Not to mention all the catcalling she’s done to you.
>She was one of the worst when you started, that’s probably why your tipsy brain singled her out to begin with!
>It used to be every fucking day.
>Besides, she’s a mare! Shouldn’t she be able to handle it?
>If some dude back home shouted that you had an ugly skin color you’d probably just think they were insane.
>Or racist, you suppose.
>As if she can read your thoughts, Cut gently stomps one of her forehooves.
>”That’s wrong, Anon, you shouldn’t think like that.”
>Look at her, sticking to her guns!
>She’s come a long way.
>”P-Ponies don’t hold things against each other like that, we apologize and forgive each other!”
>You just barely catch her start to nervously turn her other forehoof.
>“Besides, hearing a stallion say things like that... it really hurts.”
>And now you see why she feels that way.
>She’s probably been there.
>...who are you kidding she's /definitely/ been there.
>The crushing weight of that knowledge and Cut’s puppy dog eyes weighs heavily on your resolve.
>But you’ve got your own guns to stick to.
>This mare’s certainly never apologized to Cut, why does she deserve better from you?
>Fuck being the bigger person that shit’s bull.
>You’ve been dealing with these mares’ crap for MONTHS!
>You’ve earned a little pettiness, as a treat.
“I get where you’re coming from, Cut, I really do. But no.”
>She sighs, hanging her head.
>Her disappointment in you is palpable.
>It's /almost/ enough to break you.
>”Alright... I didn’t want to do this...”
>Suddenly she meets your gaze, a newfound fire in her eyes.
>”Do it or my bra doesn’t come off for a week.”
>Fuck!
>You are J Jargon Justification, and you are doing what you find yourself doing most days.
>Sitting at your desk and doing absolutely no work.
>However, for once you’re focused on something most ponies might consider important.
>Your employee Anonymous, apologizing to one of your editorial columnists, Printed Word.
>Something that makes you sigh in relief.
>For an office with only one stallion, word still gets around fast.
>That’s right, you know about the party.
>You know how it ended too.
>Which was... troubling news, to say the least.
>Most of the office mares were willing to write it off as a classic case of a stallion blowing things out of proportion, but you’re not so sure.
>You didn't get to where you are today by being /clueless/ about stallions' feelings after all.
>Just willfully ignorant of them.
>And you’d be a fool to willfully ignore this colt’s feelings!
>Not only is your niece’s future riding on this lad, but so’s your dang paper!
>Looking down at the menagerie of papers on your desk, your eyes are immediately drawn to the sales figures.
>You’ll admit you’ve never really been a humble mare, but even your pride can’t hide the truth.
>Tender Care was right, stallions /were/ an untapped market.
>Your paper’s growth has been nothing less than explosive.
>So much so that even the other newspapers are looking into recruiting stallion reporters now.
>Never in your life would you have thought you’d refer to a colt as a “moneymaker” in this sense!
>Which makes this outburst all the more troubling.
>You bet you know where it comes from at least, and it's not because your niece isn’t draining his balls enough.
>The answer lies on the calendar stuck midway up the wall next to your right.
>Hearthswarming.
>Hearthswarming may be a time for community, but it's more so a time for family.
>For herds just starting out, that can be fairly nerve-wracking.
>Especially for the stallion; their family is their life, after all.
>That first time, everypony’s looking back on all those wonderful memories from growing up, wondering if the family they’re building now will be as happy and carefree as theirs was then...
>You were fine of course, there was never any doubt you’d knock it outta the park.
>But your husband! Ooooh mare, he nearly wore a hole in the floor with all the pacing he did.
>That’s the real reason stallions shouldn’t be in the workforce, their temperament.
>It's too fragile.
>Your poor Press couldn’t get ahold of himself until the lot of you had made it back to Ponyville to celebrate with his parents.
>Which you imagine is the story of almost every herd’s first Hearthswarming.
>But Anon won’t get that.
>You never found out why, admittedly having given up at the first missive you got that was covered in black bars, but you know whatever brought him here was one way.
>He’ll probably never see his family again.
>So to be perfectly honest, you’d be more worried if he /hadn’t/ started acting up as it got closer to the holidays.
>Sure, he told Care that he was, “as social as any other average Amareican” and she was too polite to call him out on it.
>But you’ve seen right through those whimsical horseapples since day one!
>There are more ways for stallions to act up than there are stars in the sky.
>And it’s obvious that for him, the closer to the end of his rope he gets, the more antisocial he gets.
>Abnormally so for a stallion.
>Shame that such a big sack comes with such a big red flag.
>But your niece is the exact same way, which is why you stuck them together in the back.
>You figured they’d make a great couple, and you were right (of course)!
>You’d hate for those tendencies to undo all the progress he’s made over the past couple of months though.
>He’s come so far from being the hermit who only shows up to deliver his stories and nothing else.
>And it's with no small amount of pride you see that Cut’s long-dormant marely instincts have awoken.
>She’s over there now with him at Printed’s cubicle, leaning over his shoulder to try and coax him out of acting up.
>If only Suck wasn’t off in Manehattan, she’d cry tears of joy seeing this.
>But your poor niece is clearly still naive in the ways of stallions, because if she wasn’t she’d know it's a losing battle.
>The deck’s just too stacked against her.
>So you’ll help out the best way you can!
>Anonymous is too stubborn to admit that he needs some time off from work, so you’ll just make him take it.
>You know he’s on the trail of something right now, so you’ll let him see that through and then put him on leave.
>Provided his behavior doesn’t get too much worse before then.
>Whichever comes first, really.
>”See, didn’t that make you feel better?”
>You are Anonymous the Unicorn, and as much as you want to stay obstinate, apologizing /did/ make you feel a little bit better.
>Seeing the look on that poor mare’s face...
>She was /crushed/.
>You really fucked with her self esteem, much more than you had realized.
>Which makes it occur to you that your earlier analogy wasn’t quite right.
>If a /girl/ screamed at you back home that your skin color was ugly, you’d probably take some of it to heart too.
>Which you suppose made apologizing to her the right thing to do after all.
>Her coat isn’t even that ugly.
>The neon orange goes with her mane! ...mostly.
>You’re still feeling a little petty though, leaving you content to sit at your desk and grumble.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess.”
>Cut didn’t even need to see your face to see right through it instantly.
>It was /that/ pathetic.
>But instead of gloating, she just giggles to herself before taking her seat next to you and diving back into her work.
>Of course, with a brand new smug smile you spy in the corner of your eye.
>Yeah, yeah, yuck it up.
>She earned it this time.
>You noticed the two of them even got to chatting for a little bit after you awkwardly left.
>Maybe Printed learned a lesson from all this too?
>God, you hope so.
>One less nuisance around the office would be a serious win in your book.
>A win to counteract the absolute loss you had this morning.
>You couldn’t get anything meaningful out of Pike about what happened last night.
>She claims it was all a blur, but the way she dodged your questions made it patently obvious she was actually just dodging your questions.
>Unfortunately, seeing as how it was the early morning and the three of you still had to go to work, there was basically nothing you could do about it.
>It was certainly not the ideal time for a heart to heart.
>Especially considering how hungover the poor mare was.
>Cut wasn’t any better at the time, but she really bounced back fast.
>Perks of being an Earth Pony you suppose.
>Which unfortunately left you putting the issue on the backburner until the three of you were home today.
>Thank God today’s work will actually have you out and about.
>If you were stuck here at your desk all you’d do is worry about it.
>And that small amount of worrying you just did simply thinking about /thinking about/ the issue?
>It's enough to leave you feeling like you could crush a stress ball into a singularity.
>You shudder to think what a whole day of worrying might do to you.
>The mares would probably call whatever happens “whimsey” but you doubt it’d feel particularly whimsical.
>Man, how did those anime protagonists do it? Just having /two/ fillyfriends is stressing you out.
>Better find something else to focus on, FAST.
>With just a pinch of desperation you start digging through the mess of drafts and research materials you call a “desk”.
>You’ve been grabbing up everything you can about the Wonderbolts as of late, /something/ has to reference the supposed charity show that mare was talking about last night.
>Let’s see, summer camp recruitment flier? No.
>Article about bootleg flight suit sales being on the rise? No.
>Expose about some dude named Bench Warmer? No.
>”Uh, Anon? Are you alright?”
>You look up from your desk to catch Cut gazing at you with a great deal of concern.
>But why? You’ve just been—
>Wait a second.
>Now that your focus has become interrupted, you realize you’ve become covered in something.
>Little pieces of paper to be exact.
>Because your magic has been shredding every piece of paper you’ve picked up instead of putting them aside.
>Fuck, you actually wanted to read that thing about Bench Warmer at some point.
>Maybe you should get an actual stress ball.
“*Ahem* I-I’m fine.”
>You count your blessings that the only other person back here is Cut, you’d never live it down if anyone else saw that.
>Say, while you have her attention...
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a Wonderbolts show coming to town, would you?”
>She blinks owlishly at you for a bit.
>You suppose that /would/ feel like a total non sequitur coming right after she saw you shred several documents.
>“Well uh, I think Aunt Jargon mentioned something about how they threw together a show for Fountain’s Little Brother’s Orphanage. I think it’s...”
>She trails off, before glancing toward a calendar stuck to the wall of her cubicle.
>”Oh, it's today! Starts in a couple of hours.”
>A couple hours? Perfect!
>That gives you more than enough time to prepare.
>Might even be worth trying to reassemble that article about Bench Warmer.
>”Why? Did you want to go?”
>You’re about to answer when suddenly her face lights up.
>”Oh! You haven’t seen the Wonderbolts yet!”
>She adorably claps her forehooves together in excitement.
>”We have to see if Auntie Jargon will give us the afternoon off. Although... we really shouldn’t go without Pike...”
>You smile to yourself and slowly start gathering your things.
>The second the Wonderbolts came up, a familiar energy came into Cut’s voice.
>You can feel one of her excited tangents coming on, so best to just sit back and listen.
>”Besides, I heard this is mostly going to be a group performance show. The stuff you really ought to see are the solo obstacle runs!”
>Honestly you’re a little surprised to see that she’s into the Wonderbolts.
>You’d figured an athletic show would be outside of her areas of interest, for obvious reasons.
>Suppose you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that.
>Where’d you put your hat?
>”I was in the crowd the day Firefly set the current record for the Triple Hoop Deluxe course. I couldn’t BELIEVE how lucky I was! Between you and me, I’m pretty sure she did it by adjusting her wing twelve degrees upward juuuuust after the second hoop.”
>Hold up.
>You were midway through shoving papers into your saddlebag, but you stop to /really/ listen in.
>”Some ponies say she did it by flying an inch closer to the left side of that hoop, but that’s preposterous!”
>The realization hits you like a bag of comically colored bricks.
>Speedrunning, she’s talking about /speedrunning/.
>Cut goes to watch death-defying flight shows for the /speedrunning/!
>”She was going at least fifty miles an hour! How on Hearth would she have made the next turn if she flew that close to the hoop?”
>Don’t laugh, Anonymous. Do NOT laugh.
>You do not want to have to explain the world of speedrunning to this poor mare.
>Channeling every bit of what you could call your “inner zen” you desperately contain all the mirth inside you within a big goofy smile on your face.
>A smile Cut notices, trailing off with the /cutest/ blush.
>”A-And I uh, well, I think that makes it obvious why, um. Phew, is it hot in here?”
>Awwww.
>You know, you probably look like a love sick puppy right now with your big dopey grin.
>That’s not even untrue really, Cut loving speedrunning is /adorably/ on brand for her.
>So seizing the moment, you lean in and give her a quick little peck on the cheek.
>It's something you’ve done to her a hundred times by now, but she still lights up like a Christmas tree.
>She’s redder than a tomato and feeling so bashful she can barely make eye contact with you!
>As a guy back on Earth, you’d never have thought you’d be able to fluster someone this much with just a kiss.
>It’s a bit of an odd feeling, but a nice one nonetheless.
>Hmm, you should probably say something, cap the moment off.
>You’ve never been good at lovey-dovey stuff.
>Uhhhhhh, shit! Just say something!
“You’re my little sperg, Cut.”
>...
>Of all the things to say...
>Why the FUCK did you say that!?
>”I’m your little what...?”
>Now you’re the one blushing madly.
>How embarrassing!
“*Cough Cough* Don’t worry about it.”
Cool another update. I’ll have to read it later
I can't help but think that the plot thread about Bench Warmer is going to matter at some point.
I am so happy you wrote in pursuit of that particular thread.
And wrung some more world-building and plot progression out of it, even.
And shared it here for us to see!
Thank you.
5710231
It was actually your comment that gave me the idea, truth be told. I hadn't thought much of the line beyond it being a gag until you laid it out like you did and I realized "damn that would hurt a ton! What can I do with this..." So thank you kindly!
5710236
Such an honor!
And so delightful to hear. Thank you for telling me.
You, Bobbles, and every author in FimFiction have offered so much. I'm glad I could help in some way.
I'm content with our little herd of three, but with Cut's growing confidence and social understanding coming into play, would she introduce a mare to join them? Especially, given her history before herding if it meant helping another mare out?
5710259
No, it's too far into the story at this point to add a sub plot like that.