Story Snippet · 10:55pm Jul 21st, 2022
This is an idea I'm been chipping away at for over a year. I'm having trouble finding a good ending, but this is the scene where our protagonists — Mason Montague, dot-com billionaire, and Lightning Dust, exiled from Equestria and scraping a living on Earth — meet for the first time. Jeffery is Mason's personal assistant and puts most of his interactions with his boss on r/malicious compliance:
"Why do I have to go?" Mason said, adjusting his tuxedo's black tie.
"Because, one," Jeffery said, "you paid for half of the building and they want to give you a plaque in thanks. And two, you have a reputation."
"Wait, half? And I do not have a reputation."
"Mason, you're a billionaire because you make software for the Pentagon. You've got a worse reputation than Raytheon or Lockheed. If you really want to start the new thingie—"
"Social web three point oh cryptomedia empire."
"—thingie, you need to launder your reputation. The kids use SnapChat, not Focke-Wulf Chat."
"I'm not... Focke-Wulf." Mason got the tie straight. He'd shaved off his trademark stubble, at least. Mason pulled a tattered gray hoodie on over the tuxedo.
"You can not wear a hoodie over a tuxedo."
"Can and will. I'm a code wrangler, people don't expect me to dress like an adult."
"Would you like to wear clown shoes, too?"
"No, I'll wear my red Converses," Mason said, bending down to put the shoes on. "What's she look like?"
"Blond."
"Well, that's good, I guess," Mason said. "Blond is good."
"Endurance athlete. Seventy-eight pounds."
"Wait, how's that work? How's an athlete so scrawny? Is she short?"
"Twenty-five inches."
"Wait, what?" Mason said, spinning around to look at him. "Is she a golden retriever?"
The doorbell rang. The mansion wasn't so uncouth as to have a loud, physical bell or buzzer, but rather, Jeffery's phone buzzed in response to the summons.
Jerrery tapped on the UNLOCK button on the door control app. "Please come in and have a seat in the foyer, there, Miss. We'll be down shortly."
"What's her name?" Mason asked.
"Lightning Dust."
Mason glared at Jeffery and stormed from the bathroom, heading to the front of the mansion.
Just before entering the opulent marble foyer, Mason stopped and took two deep breaths, getting calm. He stepped around the corner.
Son of a bitch, he was going to kill Jeffery.
It was a pony. Mason wasn't a racist or anything, he just didn't like ponies. He didn't hate them. He'd once called 9-1-1 on his mobile when he saw a pony get hit by a car, and he put his blazer over it to keep it warm against shock until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics patted Mason on the back and said that had helped. No ponies worked for his company, since the jobs all required security clearances and ponies were as security conscious as three-year-olds, but he had nothing against hiring them, in principle.
But he didn't like them, you know, on a personal level.
"Jeffery, goddamnit, it's a pony! What are you trying to do to me?"
"It?" said the pony.
Jeffery sauntered into the foyer. "Ah, Miss Dust, thank you for coming. Mister Montague here is going to the dedication of the new building at Children's Hospital and needs an escort."
"I'm not going!" Mason stomped. "Not with it."
"Call me 'it' again and we've got problems, pal. My name is Lightning Dust, most people call me LD, or Lightning, or even Dust, but I'll settle for 'she.'"
Mason took a deep breath, closing his eyes. "Apologies, Miss Dust. Jeffery, I'm not going with her."
"Maaaaason," Jeffery said, exaggerating his patience, "you requested the most expensive prostitute in Atlanta."
"I'm an escort."
"I obviously meant to get me a prostitute who's a person."
A crack of thunder and eyeball-searing flash of lightning filled the mansion's foyer. Marble shattered, the facing spalling off one of the collonades. "I am a person."
"For the love of—that's concrete!" Mason said. "That was just marble faced. I ordered solid marble columns! From goddamn Italy!"
LD laughed. Jeffery said, "I'll call the contractor on Monday and speak most sternly to him."
Mason looked at LD. "You know what? Fine. Going to the party with a pony will at least get me on the news. This whole thing is a publicity stunt, anyway."
"That's the spirit," LD said, standing up. She wore a simple but well-cut dress, a charcoal gray so dark it was almost black, so short it barely covered her rump. Mason didn't know much about pony fashion, but it seemed calculatedly slutty, where the slightest flip of her tail would reveal her underwear.
...assuming she was wearing underwear. Mason had no idea if ponies did that.
"You assistant paid in Bitcoin," LD said, "so you'll get free anal. That's one of my usual specials."
Mason headed down the corridor to the garage and gestured sharply for LD to follow. "We won't be having sex. Your job is to make sparkling conversation and hide my social idiocy."
"Ooooh-kaaaay," LD said, trotting to keep up with his fast stride.
"Do you have a driver's license?"
LD blinked. "No."
"I mean, some ponies drive."
"I took a few lessons but the teacher fired me," LD said. "And blacklisted me from the other instructors in town. And started taking antidepressants."
"Shit, I hate driving. Could you drive illegally?"
"I can make it around Monaco most laps on my Xbox, but that's using a standard controller. I'm saving up for the steering wheel."
"Xbox? No, I hate driving, but I hate dying more. How much of my money is Jeffery paying you?"
"A hundred grand. Well, Bitcoin is down since yesterday, so ninety-seven?"
"Bitcoin is down every day. I should make you drive, Xbox or not, for that much."
They descended a long ramp into a spacious underground garage, large enough to hold two dozen cars. It only contained an orange McLaren GT, a red Mini Cooper, and a rusty Toyota Corolla.
Mason hit the Toyota's door handle to unlock it and got in.
Lightning Dust stared longingly at the gorgeous sports coupe before climbing into the beater's passenger seat. "We're not taking the McLaren? Or at least the Mini?"
"I gave a hundred million dollars to Children's Hospital," he said. "Arriving in a car worth less than the gas in its tank will annoy my fellow rich assholes. And the Mini is Jeffery's."
"Oh."
"Seatbelt," Mason said.
"I live dangerously."
"Seatbelt," Mason said.
"I, uh, do you have a booster seat?" LD craned her neck to see over the dashboard.
"No."
LD buckled her seatbelt and smoothed her expensive dress.
Mason cranked the car. "Whoops, we need gas. You mind doing the pump? I can never work the pump."
Yes, I know it's "Pretty Woman" with Lightning Dust as Julia Roberts, no need to point that out.
Lol. Want moar.
Write moar pls
Ah, I see you also subscribe to the "neither of them deserve happiness, and neither of them are going to get it" school of shipping Lightning Dust.
"You can't work the pump? Imagine trying to do it without fingers."
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Actually no. I want them to live happily ever after; just hard to find a believable path there.
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Even if you find a "believable" path, nobody's going to want to believe it. Lightning Dust was voted "most likely to commit voluntary mareslaughter" and learned nothing from either that or the two separate episodes which focus on her nearly managing it. The guy you've dropped opposite her is a dot-com billionaire with an assistant he constantly mistreats and is substantially racist towards her kind to boot. These are Hate Sinks, not characters, and should only be included in a serious story if it ends with them dead in a gutter because that's what your audience will want.
Wowie, now that's service!
Hey I'd watch it.