"Silver Spoon, will you be quiet?! You're going to give us away!"
"What are we even doing here?"
"My parents brought us here, remember? Now shush!"
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The fillies Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had ears pressed to the door leading into the office of "Mr. Mule" - a position they normally considered unseemly but in this case intense curiousity (and lack of other ponies around to observe them) overwhelmed their desire to look proper. Several voices, including that of both of Diamond Tiara's parents, flitter through the door.
Inside the office, the Rich couple was uneasily settling down under the gaze of both Chancellor Neighsay, who seemed to grumble with impatience in a seat beside them, and the earth pony lawyer "Mr. Mule", shuffling paperwork in front of him. A side door swings open, and a mint-green earth pony balancing a tea set on his head carefully steps through, working his way to beside Mr. Mule's elegantly carved desk.
"Thank you, Chiton... brilliant personal assistant, I've been relying more and more on his services ever since most of the staff quit following the attack." the long-faced pony lawyer states to his assistant as the latter carefully works the tray off his head and onto the desk.
"I can imagine." Chancellor Neighsay comments dryly, observing Chiton grasp the handle of the teapot with his mouth and performing careful movements to pour tea for each of the other ponies in the room.
"Shall we begin, Chancellor, Mr. and Mrs. Rich?" Mr. Mule asks, looking at each pony in turn as he speaks their name.
"You know, good sir, it would really help if you started out with a more sensible name." Chancellor Neighsay comments in barely-concealed disgust toward nopony in particular. "I know you're trying with your filly, but for all his faults my predecessor's name of 'Trailblazer' was a far better one than yours of 'Filthy Rich'."
An angry glare forms in Mr. Rich's eyes, but is immediately blocked by his wife leaning her stern expression into his line of sight, whispering a warning (and not for the first time that day either): "We need him, Filthy. Just bite your lip and hold on until we get to an agreement."
Mr. Mule clears his throat, bringing attention back onto him, and Chiton finishes his pouring tea effort, now slowly edging the cups on saucers with his forehoof toward the ponies arrayed around the table. Chancellor Neighsay, being a unicorn, has the advantage of levitation magic for handling the tea cup, and the overly loud first slurp he takes of the tea seems to be designed to highlight that fact.
"Chancellor, can we please focus here? The whole reason you called this meeting was because their business had some benefit for your plan..." the pony lawyer sighs out in an attempt to try to keep the meeting on track.
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"Oh right, of course." Chancellor Neighsay comments, continuing to levitate his saucer and teacup as he speaks. "I think all four of us are in agreement of the need for 'compensation' by Princess Celestia for the damage caused by the release of 'Discord', which she really should've destroyed when she had the chance..."
"Most definitely." Mrs. Rich adds, glaring back at her husband to maintain his silence. "But the Princess will never agree to give 'compensation' unless the populace as a whole pressure her into doing it, by proxy of the Equestrian Congress."
"Hence the whole tack of the strategy." Mr. Mule explains. "Through the shops, we get the mares and stallions agitated. And through the schools, we get the fillies and colts agitated. Working together, we can reach a critical mass of agitation and force out the 'compensation', regardless of what has to be sacrificed to accomplish that goal."
"We are united by the righteousness of our cause and the profit we stand to gain from it!" Mrs. Rich exclaims, again her enthusiasm cowing her husband into silence.
"Agreed. All my potential rivals for the rank of Chancellor were 'eliminated' from consideration, so the princess can't very well get rid of me regardless of what I do!" Neighsay boasts, revealing the mindset that would later lead him into overconfidence in opposing Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship.
"Very good, very good. A grand alliance it shall be then, between the unicorns and the earth ponies. Let the pegasi flutter and flap their wings in rage against it, they are outnumbered both in the populace and the Congress. Working together, there will be nothing that can stop us, not even the Princesses!" Mr. Mule tops off, after which he carefully grabs the saucer with teacup on it using his mouth and lifts it off the desk.
"A toast? Yes, we shall toast to that!" Chancellor Neighsay comments, giving a devious grin as he uses unicorn magic to levitate the cup into the appropriate position to clink it together with the other cups.
Mrs. Rich spares no time in imitating Mr. Mule's gesture with the saucer and teacup, although she never takes her piercing eyes off her husband until he reluctantly does the same. All four teacups are clinked together in the manner of a traditional toast, and a more jolly atmosphere begins to creep into the lawyer's office...
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"But Diamond Tiara, if we're going to join in with this the only one of that trio we'll be able to pick on is..." Silver Spoon was whispering as the two fillies continued to secretly listen in to what was going on inside the office with intense curiousity.
"All three of them are annoying and pretentious. And they're still blank flanks, that's still reason enough to pick on them..." Diamond Tiara answers, doing her best impression of her mother's piercing gaze.
The whispered conversation was interrupted when the door both fillies were leaning against suddenly opened - the secretary Chiton had somehow heard the whispers through the door - and both Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara fell forward onto their sides in the doorway of Mr. Mule's office. After a brief period of disorientation, their faces showed equal mixture of both embarrassment and dread as Mrs. Rich temporarily stepped away from her husband and new comrades in crime to attend to the spying fillies.
Chiton watched with great concern - he was the only one aware of what she was doing - as Mrs. Rich started making angry mutterings about not wanting spies for fillies and dragging the duo of Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara away down the hallway. Intense disappointment on Chiton's part followed as the fillies began shouting in protest over the treatment Mrs. Rich was giving them:
"No, we're sorry, we couldn't help it!"
"We just wanted to know what you were doing, honest!"
"We wanna help you, don't hit us, please!"
"Please, don't break my glasses!"
"Or my tiara!"
"Ow, that hurts!"
"Mommy, please, don't hit us, I don't want to explain the bruises!"
"Everypony will be asking about it, please don't!"
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Chiton lets out an unseen, unheard sigh and the following telling words as smacking sounds, followed by intense crying from the abused fillies, fill the hallway outside of Mr. Mule's office: "Dry, very dry. There is nothing to feed off of here..."