//------------------------------// // The pitch // Story: House of the Rising Sunflower // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// A rather clever unicorn, Paradox brewed up a fresh pot of tea over the small fire. She hummed to herself and seemed to take joy in her work. Paradox was his court wizard, but also an advisor, and probably held other positions that he wasn’t aware of. He hadn’t even asked her to make tea; she had done it on her own when the pot went empty and didn’t seem to mind a bit of light domestic work. It made him feel odd—somewhat squirmy—to watch somepony so important to the future of his barony doing insignificant work, yet she didn’t seem to mind.  Rustic was silent, thoughtful, and hadn’t said much at all since he announced that he had a plan. Sundance watched him when he wasn’t watching Paradox, and he made great efforts to read his friend’s face. But Rustic was mostly mustache and eyebrows, along with squinty eyes, which made his face a difficult read.  Meanwhile, Corduroy was playing with Owlister, and the owlette gleefully chased a length of ribbon dangled and dragged along the floor. Where the ribbon came from was unknown, but Owlister had found it somewhere and presented the trophy to Sundance. Geiger Tiger couldn’t be bothered with the ribbon, and snored near the fire. Knowing that Owlister was female had changed Sundance’s perception of his avian familiar, though he couldn’t say exactly why or how.  “We’re not so different than Twilight and her friends,” Paradox said while she shook some loose-leaf tea into a teapot. “They were young… inexperienced… and faced with an impossible task. Just like us. Friendship sustained them. Held them together. When you think about what they accomplished, it makes our own situation seem a bit more possible.”  “To the best of my recollection, Twilight Sparkle never battled with compound interest.”  “Rustic why must you—”  “Turmeric, I was trying to make a joke.”  “Oh. I am too tired for humour. My bad. Carry on.”  “Turmeric here is the most amazing pony” Holding out his hoof, Rustic gestured at the unicorn beside him. “He read through everything and made sense of it. Also, he inadvertently gave me my plan while he was mumbling, grumbling, and complaining.”  “I am curious about this plan,” Sundance said to his friends. “Mind telling me?”  “Don’t hold back on my account.” With a floating illumination orb still circling her horn, Paradox began to pour water from the tea kettle into the teapot. “I can make tea and listen.”  “Well…” Rustic inhaled, took a moment to smooth out his mustache, and then looked Sundance right in the eye. “Turmeric had himself a moment and while I don’t recall the exact words he said, he had a marvellous idea. While having a conniption fit during his plunge into the records, he basically said something to the affect of, ‘We wouldn’t be having this problem if Princess Celestia still controlled this barony.’ And he was right. She’s a passive presence, one that exists in the background, which in a way, makes her a curse and a blessing.”  Eyebrow arched, Sundance listened.  “Your debtors know the debt will be paid one way or the other, but so long as Princess Celestia remains passive about this, they will make bold, aggressive moves against you. She’s worried about accusations of tyranny, and she has all of her other reasons too, so she’s not going to get directly involved. She’s counting on you to pull this off. This is your moment in the sun, which may or may not leave you sunburned.  “So I thought to myself for a bit, and realised that we needed a princess a bit more directly involved. At first, nothing came to mind, I couldn’t think of a way to entice a princess to get involved with our affairs, all I could think of was that a princess or a prince would make for a ferocious guard dog.  “But getting one of the royals directly involved in your business is a challenge, because as we’ve all seen, they deal with charities and ‘good’ agencies. Like the toymakers and the soda bottlers and all of the royal merchandise. Which is all fine and good, but not relevant to our interests. So I wracked my brain and I might have had a few drinks too many, when I finally had my idea.  “And that idea was pretty good if I do say so myself. We offer Princess Cadance a parcel of land, rent free, without cost, and allow her to construct a recovery ward. Or a hospital. Or whatever it is that she builds. But we give her access to a place with hot springs, miracle mud, the works. Once we have Princess Cadance involved, she will go to great lengths to protect her interests, and nopony in their right mind will mess with us, because doing so will mean potentially annoying Princess Cadance… which means annoying Shining Armor… which ultimately means annoying their court wizard… that Dim fellow, and you don’t annoy the Lord of Nightmares.”  “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Paradox remarked. “Raven thought so too, when I asked her to send the proposal to Princess Cadance.”  “You already sent the proposal?” asked Sundance.  “Yes.” Nodding, Rustic’s ears fell backwards. “Just a proposal. Nothing written in stone. I had to work fast, Sundance. I had to have everything ready to go so I could secure a meeting with the anonymous investors. Look, it isn’t easy to get and hold their attention. They don’t wait, they’re not patient, and if you’re not ready to go when they are, they’ll just move on to the next pitch.”  Rubbing his chin with his hoof, Sundance spent a moment considering this, and then concluded that Rustic had done right. Nothing had been given away to Princess Cadance, it was just a proposal. He thought of Skyla and all that she had said about the future that they would work towards together, and realised that this was that future. This was an alliance, and a good one. Cadance was more than a mere princess, she was the Empress. If she established a presence here, he might have some breathing room, and there might be all manner of unknown benefits.  “Rustic…”  “Yes, Sundance?”  “You did right.”  “Whew… I am relieved to hear that. Not that I was worried, mind you. Raven kept reassuring me that this was a solid plan, and I really wanted to believe she was right.”  “So we get Cadance involved… and then what?” asked Sundance.  “Oh, that’s easy,” Rustic began. “We follow through with my initial plan, but on a larger scale. Construct a few resorts. Take advantage of the natural resources and drum up some tourism. That’ll get us started—”  “Started?” Pulling his hoof away from his chin, Sundance studied his friend and tried to make sense of what was said.  “It’s just a start.” Rustic shrugged. “It gives us seed money to move on to bigger, better things.”  Sundance asked, “Like what?”  “That I don’t know. Anything, really. Some big impressive project.”  “I thought letting Princess Cadance build a hospital was our big impressive project.”  “Sundance”—Turmeric leaned forward and flashed a toothy smile—“that is how we begin. That just keeps us safe. A little tourism will give us some funds to play with, but the profits will be thin. I think it might show that we’re viable as a corporation though, if we do things right. But if we’re going to succeed, and this barony is going to grow, we need something that not only secures our future, but Equestria’s future. Something so big and so grand that we’re seen as a major player. Something that will empower us for generations.”  Intrigued, Sundance’s ears angled and pivoted forward. “Like what?”  “I don’t know, Sundance.” Turmeric slumped over and his smile vanished.  “We could build an alchemical workshop,” Corduroy suggested, “but I don’t think that would be quite at the scale needed. Figuring this out won’t happen in one night, and it is a distraction. We need to focus on what we set out to do. Are we going to turn the barony into a corporate entity? My answer is yes. It’s a good idea.”  “I’m not sold on it,” Sundance said. “Nor I, but I remain neutral.” Paradox gathered up the teacups from off the floor, set them out in a neat row, and prepared to pour the tea once it finished a good, timely steep. “I am not set against the idea, I just want to know if it's viable. Twilight Sparkle likes to rip apart corporations, and bust abusive trusts. While we could gain Princess Cadance’s protection, we could also end up drawing Princess Twilight’s attention. One princess might protect us, the other could destroy us.”  Head bowed, Rustic now seemed lost in thought. There was a lot to think about, and Sundance demanded that his tired mind pull itself together. If they did this, there might very well be accusations of exploitation, and that would be bad. Sundance didn’t know how to defend himself from these sorts of things, much less a whole barony.  “Right now, corporate law is changing, but that’s a slow process.” Turmeric’s voice was thin, raspy, and feeble from exhaustion. “Corporations are still exploitative entities, for the most part, but things are changing since Twilight began her crusade. If we formed a corporation, we could exploit the laws and use it to enrich the barony.”  “Do you have an example?” asked Sundance.  “I do.” Rustic waved with his hoof, very much like a colt in class who wanted his teacher’s attention. “Insurance. One of the first things I looked into. All of your residents are getting older, Sundance. We could insure them as assets… I’ve already checked. They are highly skilled, at least some of them, I’m sure. Experienced. As they die off, you’ll experience asset-loss, and a drop in productivity. We can get paid for that—”  “Oh, that’s horrible!”  “Sundance”—voice low and steady, Rustic continued his pitch—“we’re not doing it to make ourselves rich. They’re going to die, Sundance, and that can’t be stopped. It’s like life insurance. We can sink that money back into the barony and even in death, they will provide for the barony’s future.”  Extending her paw, Corduroy nodded. “If you look at this objectively, without emotion, this is a good idea.”  “Really, Corduroy?”  “Try to be objective, Sundance.”  “Exploitive corporate law exists and so we might as well try to make it work for us.” As he scraped his hoof against the floor, Turmeric cast a hopeful glance in Paradox’s direction, and licked his lips. “Eventually, a lot of these laws will change. Maybe even go away. But while they exist, we might as well try to use them for good purposes.”  “We can get tax write-offs. Claim business expenses. A lot of our operating costs and other expenditures can be used to claim tax credits and incentives. Every bit we get in return, we can sink it right back into the barony. Every year, those returns will snowball, and then we’ll be in a position to do some really big, really impressive things.” Rustic’s eyes roved the room, going from place to place, eye to eye, until his gaze came to rest upon Sundance. “No idea what the big project will be, but when the time comes, we’ll have the means to do it.”  “I am having some trouble,” Sundance said to those around him, “with the whole objectivity thing.” He sighed, and then sat there for a time and watched the long, distorted shadows of his friends dance on the walls behind him. “This whole objectivity thing is impossible.”  Rustic’s brittle mask of cynicism seemed broken now. Sundance couldn’t recall everything said, but recollected enough. Not all that long ago, Rustic spoke of sincerity; he spoke of all the fakes in Canterlot, those who did good for the sake of being seen doing good, and to drive his point home, Rustic brought up the fact that nopony really helped Corduroy or gave her gainful employment. Fearing that he would become the very thing he hated, Rustic had thrown himself at the barony’s problems.  The emotion that threatened to overwhelm Sundance made it impossible to be objective.  “I think,” Sundance began, “that it is easier to be objective when the fate of so many lives don’t depend upon your decisions. If I mess this—if we mess this up—then all of the consequences come down on the heads of my residents. They’ll pay for my mistakes.”  “Well, I think,” said Paradox as she began to pour some tea into the collection of cups all sorted into a neat row, “that it is time to break with tradition and custom. All too often, we use tradition and custom as excuses so we can keep repeating the mistakes we are familiar with, rather than make new mistakes that might benefit us. Tradition keeps us rooted in the past, and we cling to it, we don’t let go of it, and it binds us in place. Of course, I grew up with parents who tried to dismiss the awful things that happened by excusing them with tradition.”  “Paradox?” Turmeric leaned in the young mare’s direction.  “Just my point of view,” she said whilst she made a steady, even pour. “Tradition allows us to keep doing the same things over and over. Same routine every day, same mistakes, same successes, and we’re all so tied up with tradition that it’s a wonder we accomplish anything new. Just look at what tradition has done to this place. What it did to my mother and father. What it did to me. Twilight Sparkle tried new things and look where it got her.”  “You seem taken with Twilight,” Rustic remarked.  “Not Twilight in particular,” Paradox replied. “I’m just a wizard fangirl. Big fan of Dim. Or any wizard, really, so long as they try something new. Sunburst has all kinds of new ideas, and I’m pretty sure that if Dim wasn’t around to sneer at ponies, Sunburst might get laughed at. The Crystal Empire outpaces Equestria in some ways, because they’re trying new things. Equestria has problems. Big problems. We’re mired.”  Corduroy nodded. “There’s no arguing that. I’ve experienced that myself. Mister Teapot is always complaining about how long it takes for anything to change. Not a patient pony, Mister Teapot.”  “It seems we all have our heroes… which makes me wonder if we live in fear of disappointing them,” Rustic said while his gaze settled on the fire. “Not sure I have heroes…”  “At some point, as I settled into my new home, I committed myself to this place.” Paradox finished her pour and she sat there with the teapot suspended above the teacups. “I’m still scared. Still uncertain. I haven’t made peace with what’s happened. The only thing I know is, I believe in what Sundance is doing. But I know he can’t do it alone. So now I’m stuck sorting myself out so that I can do what’s necessary to be the court wizard that he needs.”  Yes, Sundance realised, it was impossible to be objective.