//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Ants, Fortune and Striped Pants // by RanOutOfIdeas //------------------------------// There was a time I set goals so high, I knew for a fact I had reserved myself a seat at failure's little play. That was the plan. Little goals were achievable, and they worked to build my empire, but once that empire was set and stable... I was bored. I expected failure, yet failure didn’t come. And I don’t claim merit for that victory. I know how circumstances played into it. Now, I barely even care about goals. The path to them is already threaded and can be easily bought with a couple million bits — a small shave off the towering pile of gold pieces collecting dust in some bank with my name on its front. I did distract myself by helping some ponies... in meaningless, token ways the likes of a letter of support or a single picture taken with a non-profit organization to be shared around. Nothing actually impactful or meaningful, nothing personal. Always detached. Just another stamp. Fleur and I arrived at the factory in Manehattan in seek of fresh air, or so I claimed. All a pony needed was but a second to realize you didn’t go to Manehattan for fresh air. The skies had darkened with ash a long time ago. But the reasons mattered little. Linen, my factory manager, was already at the front, waiting for us to descend from the carriage. My skin started crawling already. “Boss!” The words dripped from Linen’s muzzle like tar as she waved a hoof to us. “I trust you got my letters all right?”  “I did, indeed, Linen.” I pushed past her, into the wooden gates leading to the factory floor. “So, where’s this representative? I’d like to talk to them.” “Talk?” Linen scrambled to keep up with me, holding onto her little hat. “I thought you came here to give me the list of ex-employees yourself.” “I’m not firing anyone… yet, Linen.”  She’d be the first on that list, anyway. “Sir Fancy, here! Over here!” A squeaky voice shouted over the metal machines. “I’m here!” “Celestia smite me,” Linen muttered, shaking her head. “Shut it, Splinter! Boss heard you already.” There was a crash, and somepony dropped from the metal walkway into the middle of the cardboard boxes, resting on the back. “I assume that’s him?” I asked, pointing to the green heap of fur and feathers. “You ‘assume’ correctly. Little featherbrain’s been organizing this whole thing.” Linen seethed, venom dripping from her voice. She turned to me with a sour expression. “I think this is a mistake, boss.” “Duly noted.” I approached the mess and pulled on the extended leg in the sea of cardboard. A bony little pegasus greeted me with a terrified expression. “Um, Sir.” Splinter managed a bow of his muzzle while hoisted up by his foreleg. “Let’s take this somewhere better, how about it?” I offered, nodding up towards the office overlooking the factory. He nodded enthusiastically in response, pointedly not looking at Linen. The main office was a bore. Take my everyroom, and give it only a tenth the budget. There you have it. The large glass window with the metal bars overlooking the factories did play with a primal part of your brain, though. It was difficult not to feel superior when everyone else was just a little hardhat mingling below your hooves. Splinter had occupied the center of the room — the place I’d expect an employee to stand while they were berated by whoever sat on the ornate chair — while I decided to stay close to the window. “Right, right. You can do this,” he whispered to himself, stuffing his chest and turning to me. “The workers would like—” “Better pay, more safety measures and less hours,” I interrupted, gazing without care to the file cabinets stuffed full of meaningless drivel. “Maybe even paid leave?” His eyes were bulging out. “H-how did you guess?” “This is not my first song and dance.” I turned around, looking straight into his eyes. “And to be frank, the song is repetitive and the dance is boring.” That was a half-lie. Linen had someone on the inside listening in to their reunions and tattle tailing everything back to her grabby little hooves. And from her, all it took was one letter so it could get to me. Splinter didn’t know this, however. And it made me look good to be precognizant. “P-Please, Sir Fancy. Everypony here wants things to be different.” “Is that so? Very well. I shall do a personal survey among the employees-” “W-Wait, no! That won’t… Linen has most of them fooled or fearing for their livelihoods. It was hard enough to convince them to strike after she fired Happy Bundle! I read about all this, i-in a book about...” There it was. Not an idea born from himself, but an idea borrowed from somepony else’s literature. Not only that, but apparently he considered me more of an ally than his own manager, seeing as how he was spilling his guts right then and there. That wouldn’t be enough. If he wanted to last even a day with his claims, he had to have something more. Something his own. “I’d like to hear what they want, what they would choose,” I explained. “If Linen already scares them, her boss would freeze them on the spot!” His ears splayed back, probably realizing he was talking about me as if I weren't’ there. “T-they’d be choosing under pressure,” he meekly finished. “So?” And back up the ears went, attentive and ready. “Whaddya mean, so? It's wrong!” “Let them choose as they want to.” I shrugged. “If me being present changes their wants, so be it. It’s their choice to make.” “They don't want that.” He pointed at the machines below. “They’ll choose wrong!” “Do you know what they want better than them?” “Are… are you serious? I am one of them!” “And that is enough? For each and every single one of the stallions and mares I employ?” “I-I…” Splinter failed to form more words, squirming back. “I will consider your claims, Splinter. But I think it is important you be able to answer these questions of mine. Because I assure you, I won't be the only one asking them,” I said as I looked back through the barred window, at the factory floor. The quiet production lines whose only occupants were the machinery left behind. I didn't know the intricacies of those machines. I could never hope to know, not as I currently was. Those machines could only be understood by those who slaved away intimately with them. This was not my place and I couldn’t claim it, for I was not the vassal; my name was on the letter of ownership. “Keep an eye on the newspapers tomorrow morning. I have a feeling you’ll find my answer there.” I opened the wooden door and left, the poor sap sitting back there, mouth still flapping open and close. Linen and Fleur were both waiting outside of the office, Fleur looking like she’d rather be anywhere but next to the other mare. “Don’t risk yourself on this, boss,” Linen said, propping herself on the carriage with a hoof. “Trust me, one month and they’ll be back at the grind. I’ve handled these fellas before, don’t you worry none. It’s not good for your health.” “And why are you suddenly worried about my well-being, Linen?” “Oh, nah. Not worried about you.” She elbowed me in a friendly manner. I didn’t smile back. “But a boss with less money is a boss looking to cut some costs...” And like a lightbulb popping its glass, all my interest in the conversation waned, leaving everything in that dark bore of usual. “Indeed, Linen. You almost surprised me, thinking you had suddenly grown a heart,” I responded to her in a dead tone. “Me? Heh, never.” I’m not rightly sure where I found this mare, neither am I sure why I hired her. Probably one of the thousand other stamps I mindlessly did one day. “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, entering the carriage after Fleur. Turning back, I put my hoof on the door, looking straight into my manager’s lilac eyes as I held it open. “You’re fired.” Slamming the door close to a frozen Linen, we left for tonight's party in Canterlot. Only Blueblood could throw ‘a party celebrating the lack of need to not keep the parties close’. If that takes you a couple of seconds to parse through, don’t worry; it only means Blueblood named it well. He wasn’t wholly responsible for it, however. The party was planned perfectly by professionals. His was to use and abuse, becoming a drunken devil whirling away on dares with his buddies... Whirling dangerously close to the pyramid of drinking glasses — filled with the richest of beverages — with enough value in one single glass to feed a family of four for a month.  I had two glasses, much like those, sitting in my cupboard, never used. They looked ugly as a mule. Broke one of them, trying to drink from it. The things couldn't stand the temperature of iced tea, which personally made no sense for a glass. Fleur was, naturally, timidly sipping her wine on the furthest seat of our table. I didn’t pay her much mind, though. I wasn’t here for that. I was here for him. Standing right next to the hideous glass pyramid, surrounded by his peers and regaling them with some story about how he sentenced a poor fool to double the necessary time in jail. An achievement to him. Golden Gavel. I approached the stallion with the most pleasant smile I could manage. He reciprocated by putting his muzzle higher and slightly sneering at my presence — just enough for me to notice but not enough to accuse him of any snide thoughts. I was a mere entrepreneur approaching the highest servant of the Court of Justice. My parents used to say I suffered from a terminal case of ‘rationale mania’. That was, until their lack of rationale mania had me lowering their caskets into the earth sooner than they'd have liked, taken by an easily treatable case of Ponipox. If only they had rationalized that 'bloody cough' implies 'deadly disease' and not 'just some sniffles'... but my cough had an easy remedy.  Celestia bless the common cold! I punched Golden Gavel. Right on the muzzle, at the perfect height. I felt something give, akin to the crack of a nut. His body stumbled into the table with the food, smashing the fruits and toppling the beverage pyramid down. All the expensive glasses fell, breaking into pieces on the ground. The liquid spilled on all the ponies around, but never reached my immaculate suit. A two-for-one, for all I cared. The sound of the metal armour of the Guards, scrambling around me in a circle, uncertain as to what exactly they should do, was music to my ears. Why did I do it? There’s a number of possible rationales. Maybe I wanted to help Blueblood by distracting the ire of Gavel. Maybe I wanted to help Cherrywood with her intimation. Maybe I wanted to help the workers by having a tycoon lose his position which would result in my businesses returning to Celestia's hoof. Maybe I just really wanted to punch that stallion. Maybe that was the only way I could finally... A number of possible rationales. “You… you went insane. That’s it.” “I’d never plead insanity, Fleur. This was done at the height of understanding.” “As if it weren't enough that you assaulted a Judge, you had to throw him and break the wine glasses from Saddle Arabia… with their ambassadors present?!” She continued unabated, my words falling on deafened ears. She was trotting back and forth. “Of course Gavel made sure your sentence was the worst possible one!” “It’s not really that bad…” “And what am I to do?” she continued, unabated. “Left with the whole media clawing at our estate for an explanation, left alone for years, left with the dozens of fines that Gavel dug up to sentence you to?” “Fleur, those are all small worries, predictable worries. Try to think of something else... Something more pleasant, preferably, though I won’t stop you from your righteous anger.” Her head hung low. Her downcast eyes... the fuel my visage provided them never left their light so dim. And I was sure she could see the same lack of brightness in mine. “And to think I once wanted to share a child with you...” “This again? Tartarus, Fleur. It’s, what, the fourth time you bring this up? Fifth?” I asked, my mouth souring. “Are you just going to say ‘forget it’ in the end as well? The whole song and dance, or just a little tune and curtsy this time?” “What do you want from me?” “I want a reason! Engagement!” I shouted, the words bubbling forward despite the quiet protests in the back of my head. “All I have to wake up to is fine-tuning the perfection of my life so it won’t fall apart, and the meek silver lining I’d hope to find in my wife is always waved away with a nod or a huff or a cursed line from that list of yours! Heavens... you're either too unwilling, or too brain dead to talk to me.” I regretted those words. They should have never left the dark pit I sentenced them to, everyday. Fleur’s face took on an expression I seldom saw it with: an expression reserved for the insects I so chivalrously squished, whenever they showed up in her bedroom, down the hall from mine. And to keep with her streak of novelties, she kept her voice quiet, even as her eyes trembled and moistened. “Fuck you, Pants.” Fleur had never allowed such words to soil her mouth. I sometimes wondered if it was even in her vocabulary. But the way and the fervor she said it... told me she had heard it being used more times than any one should have. “Please don’t revert back to simple cusses,” was the meek excuse I came up with. I didn’t dare speak more, because all I heard come out was hypocrisy. Better to lower my tone so as to amaciate the situation. But my voice was merely fuel for the wildfire. “I’m done being treated like a… a dimwitted mare.” Her voice broke, and a scowl dominated her muzzle despite her blurry eyes. “I’m done having to act uncultured. I’m done being a model. I’m done with you!” Fleur exploded from her seat, the expensive chair flying back and impacting the wall. The mahogany wood chipped at the edge. She stomped her way away while a hoof rubbed at her eyes. A complete antithesis of how she would trot on the walkways of the most famous designers in Equestria.  There was no time for me to offer an apology. Not that I’d have a decent one. The shock of her explosion silenced my mouth and halted me in place, staring at nothing.  The first time Fleur had done anything that prompted some thinking on my end. The first true interaction between two individuals we’ve had in years. The last time was when we both said yes at the altar… and it came at a heavy cost. The gentle chime of telekinesis rummaging through our belongings, some mutterings in Prench intersped with silent hiccuped breaths, and the front door slamming in its frame was the very last thing I heard, before the guardponies arrived hours later, to escort me away. I was sitting the entire time.