After a long almost sleepless night, Copperquick faced the morning. It was going to be a long day and an even longer night. He was already exhausted. The filly had woken up and cried in the night, hungry, or wet, or poopy. He and Miss Oddbody had taken turns, and she was teaching him what he needed to know. An earth pony had to be very, very brave to change a diaper, as they did not have helpful unicorn magic.
At about four AM, he had learned a valuable life lesson, you never try to change a diaper while standing at a filly’s hind end, but rather, off to one side. He had been rewarded for being an attentive father with a faceful of pee and a whole bunch of giggling from Miss Oddbody. Also, he had discovered that earth ponies and pegasus ponies both pick up foals by the scruff of their neck with their teeth. It didn’t hurt the foal, as Copperquick had feared, and if anything, she loved hanging out of his mouth by the scruff of her neck.
As for doing this as a single parent, Copperquick believed it to be impossible. There would be no sleep at all. His respect for mares everywhere had grown in the night. No longer where they just warm and willing bodies to relieve his sexual tensions. They were magnificent creatures and potential superheroes, with actual superpowers.
The kitchen smelled like hot buttery toast and Celestial Glory tea. On the counter, there was a paper plate for him, with several slices of hot buttery toast with melted cheese. Copperquick, who wasn’t the smartest pony, paused and looked at the paper plate with a raised eyebrow. Turning his head, he looked over at Miss Oddbody, who sat on the couch eating, and cooing at his filly.
Starving, he gobbled down the buttery, cheesy toast in seconds, and then licked the paper plate for good measure. He was still hungry, but this would have to do. They had to leave soon, and there was a lot to get done before they left, like packing for a full day out. Ears perking, he sniffed his cup of tea left on the counter for him. It had some sugar and some real, actual cream in it. He sniffed it a few times, he wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but this smelled good, and then he stuck his muzzle into the wide cup.
It was like drinking liquid sunshine. The tea was citrusy, lemony, orangey, and there was something else he didn’t recognize. After just a few slurps, he felt energized, invigourated, he felt peppy and awake, and as he drained the cup, he wondered what was in the stuff. At the moment, he felt as though he could run all day. Lifting his muzzle from the cup, he saw a thermos sitting on the counter. Miss Oddbody was prepared.
“I fixed you breakfast and you ate it, you owe me,” Miss Oddbody said. “Fair exchange.”
“Okay, fine.” Copperquick smiled, he couldn’t help it, there was something about her good mood that was infectious, and he suspected that it had something to do with the tea. He could feel the blood flowing through his body and his ears. No wonder Miss Oddbody was squirrelly.
“We need to cross town and go to the Crown’s financial district, but not the upper reaches, we need to go to the lower reaches. The office that we want is down deep in the basement of the treasury building, but it can’t be reached through the main front doors. We have to go behind the block and down a whole bunch of stairs which are narrow and difficult to navigate when loaded down with foal stuff and bags. So be careful. There are no windows down there and lots of fluorescent lights that will mess with your head, and you’ll lose track of time completely.”
“This place sounds like Tartar—”
“No cussing in front of your filly, Mister!”
Scolded, Copperquick’s ears drooped. For reasons he could not explain, he felt bad. Something about the way that Miss Oddbody was looking at him made him feel guilty and ashamed. He didn’t like it, not one bit. Before, she had been funny about it, but now… now… she was doing something to him, perhaps some weird pegasus magic that he was unaware of.
Ducking his head, he let out a whimpering whinny as a plea for mercy.
The strange magic ended when Miss Oddbody smiled again. Copperquick still felt ashamed and guilty, but he no longer felt as though he needed to go and stand in the corner or take a timeout in the bad pony box, as he had done when he was little. Sighing, he realised that he wanted more tea.
“It’s time to go!”
Early morning Canterlot was a busy place. Milk deliveries, bread deliveries, newspapers flying about, the city’s streets were packed with ponies. That made it somewhat difficult to get to where one was going in a timely manner. Copperquick was a skilled navigator of traffic though, having worked in the delivery business for quite some time. Mindful of being scolded once more, he made his way through the heavy traffic in a very polite manner.
“Hey, remember how I fixed you breakfast?” Miss Oddbody asked as she trotted along behind Copperquick.
“Yep.”
No sooner had he spoken the words than he felt Miss Oddbody leap up onto his back and grip his sides with her legs. Startled, he let out a wicker and realised that the pegasus was almost feather light. She patted his neck, let out a whoop, and then he heard her shout, “WEEEEEEE! I CAN RIDE A PONY!”
From the sling around his neck, he heard a happy sounding giggle-gurgle. Looking down, he saw bright amber eyes looking up at him. His daughter seemed happy, at least for the moment, she had been fed and cleaned, she was close to her daddy, so everything must be right in her world. For some reason, the thought was reassuring to Copperquick, who sidestepped a delivery wagon and then picked up his pace.
The treasury building, at least the upper reaches, the public face, was in a magnificent state of repair. The brass was all polished, the white and pink marble were all spotless and clean, and every window was flawless. As Copperquick walked down the street, an army of pegasi were cleaning the already spotless building with scrub brushes and sudsy pink cleanser.
After seeing the state of the foal services building, seeing the perfect treasury building was infuriating. Copperquick almost lost his smile, but it was the sound of his daughter cooing and gurgling that kept him going. A group of earth ponies were scrubbing the sidewalks in front of the building with a high pressure steam cleaner, removing all traces of chewing gum left on the sidewalk.
“Take a right, my noble steed!” Miss Oddbody cried as she flapped her wings and kicked her legs against Copperquick’s sides.
Even the alley was spotless. Copperquick walked past the row of dumpsters and recycling bins, then saw the sign directing him to where he needed to go. He paused at the stairs going down. This is where the cleaning crew had stopped, it seemed. The stairs were filthy, covered in trash, and there were cigarette butts everywhere. Seeing them made him wonder what Miss Oddbody had to say about smoking.
The pegasus lept from his back and landed on the cement beside him.
“This place is a dump. I swear, it gets worse every time I come here. Come on, be careful, the steps are slippery from all the litter.” With an unhappy sigh, Miss Oddbody stepped aside to let Copperquick go down first, as she didn’t want the much larger and much heavier earth pony crushing her on the stairs. She stuck out a wing to stop him before he went down though, and said, “Hey, why don’t you give me your sweet little sugarlump and I’ll fly her down.”
“Good idea. Here, take her.”
Inside was somehow worse than the outside. Copperquick looked around the most depressing waiting room he had ever seen. The tile floor was yellow, but had once been white. The chairs, plastic, were a dingy shade of beige. No paintings adorned the walls. No windows. There was nothing pleasant or inviting anywhere. The walls were a grungy shade of blah. The only thing to be seen in the whole room was a sign that read, “Take a number.”
Inside of the waiting room, there were many mares and a few fillies. Some had foals with them, some didn’t. There was lots of crying and sounds of misery, from both foals and parents alike. Everything was bathed in the harsh glare of flickering fluorescent lights, leaving all of the colours washed out and dismal looking. This place looked like the sort of place where Princess Luna’s nightmares were created.
Copperquick was reminded of the one course he had taken in industrial psychology, the science of how to grind down the spirit and break the will. He sat down beside Miss Oddbody, who had taken a number and was still holding his filly. His little girl didn’t look too happy, and he worried that she might start crying just because of how miserable this place was.
“Why are you here?” a filly beside Miss Oddbody asked. “You have the father right there.”
Miss Oddbody smiled in a most polite and professional manner. “Oh, I am not the mother. I’m an intern at foal services. He’s the father and he’s here to get some help.”
“That’s the biggest crock of crap I’ve heard all day. If you didn’t want to talk about it, why didn’t you just say so?” Snorting with disgust, the unicorn filly hefted up her rotund earth pony foal and stormed away to sit someplace else, her hooves clopping on the buttery yellow tile floor.
Letting out a polite cough, Miss Oddbody followed it up with, “Sometimes this job is very challenging.”
Copperquick nodded and then asked, “What’s our number?”
“Do you really want to know? It doesn’t actually help to know.”
“Just tell me.”
“Four hundred and eleven. Thank Sweet Celestia that we got here early.”
Spirit and body flagging, Copperquick shuffled over to the window where he had been directed. How long had he been in this dungeon? He didn’t know. His ears rang from the sounds of crying. His own little squirt was fussy, but she was mostly quiet. He was tired, he was frustrated, he was angry, and he was feeling depressed.
“Need some help, Miss?” the old mare sitting behind the window asked.
“Yes I do!” Miss Oddbody replied in an cheerful voice. “Mister Copperquick here needs to apply for assistance. I am an intern at foal services and I—”
“No,” the old mare said in nasal whine.
“But he is a single parent and he needs financial assistance.” Miss Oddbody somehow remained smiling, but the corner of her eye was twitching. “Look, there is a foal here that is about to fall through the cracks—”
“Then perhaps you need to do your job, Miss, and take that foal before it does.”
Every feather on Miss Oddbody quivered and Copperquick felt an imminent sense of danger that made him want to piss himself for some reason. His earth pony instincts were telling him to run, run like the wind, and do not under any circumstances look back. When faced with potential destruction, an earth pony’s best option was to run.
“I am trying to keep a father and daughter together.” Miss Oddbody ground her teeth together for a moment and then added, “I am trying to preserve a family.”
“First we have deadbeat dads trying to skip out of foal support, and now we have deadbeat dads that think that having a foal entitles them to skip out on work. Males are just plain lazy and worthless. How pathetic.” The old mare’s lip curled back in disgust and she shook her head while letting out a whinny of disapproval.
“That’s not the case at all!” Miss Oddbody snapped. “Now listen here, you insufferable old bat, I’ve already memorised your badge number. What you said is uncalled for and sexism by a Crown employee is punishable by docking one’s wages!”
Sneering in contempt, the old mare shook her head. “Even if I wanted to help you, even if I risked my own job by looking past the fact that this is a service for mares, I can’t help you.”
“Well why not?” Miss Oddbody demanded.
“You haven’t shown me a birth certificate, a record of vaccination, and tribal registry.” And with that, the old mare slammed the window shut and locked it.
“Come on,” Miss Oddbody said, her voice quavering in a most dangerous way, “we need to go.”